A Speckled Bird Part 28

Some moments pa.s.sed, and while he knelt, his crucifix pressed against his breast, he felt a cold hand laid on his bowed head and a faint effort to pat it. In the wonderful blue eyes a new light had dawned.

"My darling Nona, will you forgive me? You cannot speak, but, oh, try--try to press my hand! Have pity on me!"

He had risen, and her hand was clasped in his, as he stooped over her.

Feebly the icy fingers contracted in his palm.

"Vernon, I have forgiven everything. I could have spoken after the second day, but I was not ready. I wanted to be sure this was the end.

So much to count over. Vernon, I was too--too--hard--on you--but----"

Breath failed her, and she gasped painfully.

"My wife, my darling wife! Tell me you are not afraid now."

She looked steadily into his eyes, and after a little while there came, brokenly, an echo as of a voice drifting away into immeasurable wastes.

"I go to my long sleep--no bad dreams. Too tired--to be afraid----"

A moment pa.s.sed, while she struggled for breath, and over her face stole a smile.

"If it--is--something--else--better, my baby will be--there--my--baby----"

He felt a tremor in her fingers, as with a long, low sigh the frozen lips closed, but the calm, brave gaze did not waver.

At last, after long years, it was his privilege to hold her to his heart and kiss down the stiffening lids that veiled forever the smiling pansy eyes.

CHAPTER XVII

For political rancor time is not an emollient panacea. Sectional hatred bites hard on memory, as acid into copper, and the perspective of years of absence failed to alter in any degree the rough angles, ugly scars, and deep shadows that characterized the people's portrait of Judge Kent.

Impotence to correct intensifies public sense of wrong, and compulsory submission to injury borne silently garners bitterness which in actual strife would effervesce. Only those who lived in the Southern seaboard and Gulf States during the long, stinging years that followed the surrender at Appomattox can understand why the names of Grant and Sherman stirred little enmity, when compared with the unfathomable execration and contempt aroused by the civil Federal vultures that settled like a cloud over State, county, and munic.i.p.al treasuries. The battening of this horde soon reduced Southern finances and credit to a grewsome skeleton. In that stifling Ragnarok, family estates feudal in extent were seized as "abandoned lands" and parcelled out to freedman, who had been enticed to abandon them in order to succeed their masters in ownership. "Patriots are paupers now," was the grim proverb current among Confederates, and the very few who showed conditions bordering on comfort were, in public estimation, required to "stand and deliver" an explanation of the fortuitous circ.u.mstances that saved them from the general ruin.

Judge Kent's judicial career had been disastrous to the interests of many throughout the State, and among the legions who improved their fortunes by coming south to "reconstruct and to dispense justice," he was especially detested by the citizens of Y----. To Eglah, his insistence upon returning to Nutwood was explicable solely on the hypothesis that speculative reverses had demanded the sale of his own property and swallowed the result; hence his resources were exhausted.

Recollection of slights, insinuations, invectives, and jeers that had imbittered her childhood did not lend beckoning glamour to the home-coming; and without the powerful protection of Mrs. Maurice's presence she suspected she was making a social plunge with no net spread to succor. Deliberately and systematically she planned the gradual renovation and, to a limited degree, the refurnishing of the beautiful old house where it now seemed her future must be spent. A new close carriage and stylish trap were shipped in advance, and Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l went down to superintend preparations for occupancy of Nutwood, leaving Judge Kent and his daughter to follow a week later.

Old Aaron was stooping badly and stiff with rheumatism, but refused to relax his grasp on the butler's reins; Celie maintained her iron sway in the kitchen; her two daughters were eager to discharge the duties of housemaids, and Oliver, hopelessly bed-ridden, claimed that his son had the best right to succeed him as coachman.

When, on the morning after her arrival, Eglah entered the cedar-panelled dining-room, and seated herself at the head of the table, where glittered the tall, silver coffee urn with Dirce and her beast in bold relief, she almost expected to see her grandmother's face reflected there as in days gone by, and involuntarily looked over her shoulder with a telepathic impression that behind her chair stood the stately, old, crepe-coifed dame disputing usurpation. Judge Kent drained his second cup of creamless tea, held up the thin, fluted china to examine the twisted signature of the manufacturer, listened to its protest as he carefully thumped it, and pushed it aside.

"Eglah, I do not like the room where I slept last night, and I wish a change made to-day."

"Why, father? I selected the handsomest room in the house for you. That has always been considered the best--set apart as the guest-chamber."

"Well, as I am not a guest, I have no desire to appropriate the perquisites. I prefer the room opening into the library."

"Not my grandfather's room--not where grandmother h.o.a.rded sacred--" She paused, and the silver fruit knife, with which she peeled a peach, clanged sharply as it fell.

"Exactly. I mean the museum of rebel relics. I wish them removed at once, and my own things unpacked and arranged there."

"Father, it was grandmother's expressed wish to keep that----"

"It is rather late to evoke sentiment in her behalf. She left nothing undone to hamper, annoy, and inconvenience us, and----"

"Father! _De mortuis--!_ Although I am her grandchild under protest on her part, she gave me her estate, and the one room she loved ought to be reserved just as she wished."

As she leaned to the right of the urn, to look squarely at her father, her face was close to Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l, who noted its pallor and an ominous curve in the thin lips. Judge Kent beat a m.u.f.fled tattoo with the p.r.o.ngs of his fork on the handle of a spoon lying near. He smiled, eyed her fixedly, and inclined his head in dismissal.

"It is not a question for discussion, but a simply imperative matter of obedience to instructions. I must have the change made at once, and if extra help is needed Aaron will see immediately that it is secured."

From the bowl of flowers in the middle of the table he selected a sprig of ruby stock-gilly, inhaled its fragrance, fastened it in his coat, and strolled out on the front colonnade.

Over the girl's white face flowed a deep, dull red, and for a moment her slender hands covered it. Then she touched the bell at her left, and smiled bravely at the butler who answered it.

"Uncle Aaron, put a pitcher of tea on the ice, so that whenever father needs it I can have it cold. Tell Ma'm Celie I have not had such a good breakfast since I wore short skirts and my hair down my back. Her coffee was perfect, the waffles and beaten biscuit the very best I ever tasted, and the brain croquettes could not be improved."

"Yes, Missie, she thought she would please you. She don't forget how you loved waffles and honey when you used to wear bibs and set in your high chair."

Having invested all in a teraph of fine gold, its votary sees with vague uneasiness a gradual dimness blur the sheen, and when, under friction, the gilt surface melts away and only corroding bra.s.s remains, the shock is severe. However slow the transformation, the final disillusion is not softened.

Standing in the memorial room, with her arms resting on the mantel shelf, Eglah looked up at the frank, n.o.ble patrician face of General Maurice, until an unsuspected undercurrent of pride and tenderness suddenly surged at the thought that his blood ran in her veins. Whatever ills might overtake her, no bar sinister could ever mar, no breath of blame could cloud the l.u.s.tre of this side of her family shield. Studying the portrait above her, and that of her lovely young mother on the opposite wall, she began for the first time to take possession of her Maurice birthright, conscious that here her pride could never drag anchor. The room that from her nursery days had always been Marcia's remained unoccupied after her death, and to this apartment Eglah and Eliza removed every cherished object Mrs. Maurice had stored in her husband's old study, arranging pictures, books, furniture as she had left them. No word of comment pa.s.sed the locked lips of either woman, but, when all had been adjusted, Eglah fastened the door and handed the key to Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l.

"You know she preferred 'Grand Dukes' and Cape jasmines, so we will keep some in front of the portrait, and once a week we must see that no dust collects here."

In the future, stretching before the young mistress of Nutwood gleamed two goals--friendly, social recognition of her father, and the compilation and publication of a volume containing a sketch of his career, written by herself, selected speeches delivered in Congress, and certain judicial decisions relative to Confederate property, individual and corporation, which had tarred him heavily throughout the State, where they were promulgated. To the attainment of these aims she purposed to devote her energies, believing that the accomplishment of the biographical scheme would inevitably remove the barrier of estrangement that had shut her from her father's confidence.

After a week spent in looking over Nutwood, visiting Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l's home and inspecting the condition of gin houses, mills, fences, and cabins on the plantations, the appointed day arrived when Mr. Whitfield came with books and a large tin box to give a detailed account of his stewardship.

Eglah noticed that while he held and pressed her fingers cordially, he merely bowed, and seemed not to see Judge Kent's proffered hand. After the interview she understood, when Eliza told her that during the period _habeas corpus_ was suspended by Federal authority the husband of Mr.

Whitfield's only sister had been imprisoned for "treasonable language"

by the desire and co-operation of Judge Kent, and that distress of mind and anxiety on her husband's account had precipitated the death of the wife before his release from jail.

Thin, wiry, grizzled, keenly alert, the lawyer's light-blue eyes dwelt chiefly on the girl's face, save when her father asked a question or a fuller explanation of some statement. Now and then Judge Kent, watchful but studiedly debonair and suave, glanced over a paper, and once he challenged the accuracy of a computation of interest, which on revision proved correct. They were grouped around an oval table in the library, an open tin box in the centre, flanked by two ledgers and piles of papers, and Eglah sat close to Mr. Whitfield's right, while her father took his place immediately opposite her.

She leaned a little forward, her arms crossed on the mahogany, and looked up steadily at the lawyer, but when he offered a paper for examination she smiled and shook her head.

"You must perceive the farcical futility of talking business to such an inexperienced girl," said Judge Kent, stretching out his hand to take a bundle of stock certificates his daughter had motioned away.

"Really you surprise me, because, from all we have heard of her college training, I was prepared to find Marcia's child an expert."

"Father knows I can calculate interest, and that I understand bookkeeping, but he would be ashamed of me if I suspected or hunted for errors in the accounts of a friend who for so many years has kindly guarded my financial interests."

The lawyer patted her hand and smiled.