At Last Part 14

The doctor arrested her hand when she would have covered the face.

"He must have been a fine-looking fellow in his day!" he said, more to himself than to her. "But he has lived fast, burned himself up alive with liquor."

"I didn't call n.o.body, sir, to help me, 'cause n.o.body couldn't do no good, and I was afeared of wakin' the gentlemen and ladies, a trottin'

up and downstairs," continued Phillis, bent upon exculpating herself from all blame in the affair, and mistaking his momentary pensiveness for displeasure.

"You were quite right, old lady! All the doctors and medicines in the world could not have pulled him through after the drink and the snow had had their way with him for so many hours--poor devil! Well! I'll go back to bed now, and finish my morning nap."

He was at the threshold when he bethought himself of a final injunction.

"You had better keep an eye upon these things, Aunty!" pointing to the coat and other garments she had ranged upon chairs to dry in front of the fire. "There will be a coroner's inquest, I suppose, and there may be papers in his pockets which will tell who he was and where he belonged. When you are through in here, lock the door and take out the key--and if you can help it, don't let a whisper of this get abroad before breakfast. It will spoil the ladies' appet.i.tes. If anybody asks how he is, say 'a little better.' He can't be worse off than he was in life, let him be where he may."

"Yes, sir," answered Phillis, in meek obedience. "But I don't think he was the kind his folks would care to keep track on, nor the sort that carries valeyble papers 'round with 'em."

"I reckon you are not far out of the way there!" laughed the doctor, subduedly, lest the echo in the empty hall might reach the sleepers on the second floor, and he ran lightly down the garret steps.

The inquest sat that afternoon. It was a leisure season with planters, and a jury was easily collected by special messengers--twelve jolly neighbors, who were not averse to the prospect of a gla.s.s of Mrs.

Sutton's famous egg-nogg, and a social smoke around the fire in the great dining-room, even though these were prefaced by ten minutes'

solemn discussion over the remains of the nameless wayfarer.

His shirt was marked with some illegible characters, done in faded ink, which four of the jury spelled out as "James Knowlton," three others made up into "Jonas Lamson," and the remaining five declined deciphering at all. Upon one sock were the letters "R. M." upon the fellow, "G. B."

With these unavailable exceptions, there was literally no clue to his name, profession, or residence, to be gathered from his person or apparel. The intelligent jury brought in a unanimous verdict--"Name unknown. Died from the effects of drink and exposure;" the foreman pulled the sheet again over the blank, chalky face, and the shivering dozen wound their way to the warmer regions, where the expected confection awaited them.

Their decorous carousal was at its height, and the ladies, one and all, had sought their respective rooms to recuperate their wearied energies by a loll, if not a siesta, that they might be in trim for the evening's enjoyment (Christmas lasted a whole week at Ridgeley) when four strapping field hands, barefooted, that their tramp might not break the epicurean slumbers, brought down from the desolate upper chamber a rough pine coffin, manufactured and screwed tight by the plantation carpenter, and after halting a minute in the back porch to pull on their boots, took their way across the lawn and fields to the servants' burial-place.

This was in a pine grove, two furlongs or more from the garden fence, forming the lower enclosure of the mansion grounds. The intervening dell was knee-deep in drifted snow, the hillside bare in spots, and ridged high in others, where the wind-currents had swirled from base to summit.

The pa.s.sage was a toilsome one, and the stalwart bearers halted several times to shift their light burden before they laid it down upon the mound of mixed snow and red clay at the mouth of the grave. Half-a-dozen others were waiting there to a.s.sist in the interment, and at the head of the pit stood a white-headed negro, shaking with palsy and cold--the colored chaplain of the region, who, more out of custom and superst.i.tion than a sense of religious responsibility--least of all motives, through respect for the dead--had braved the inclement weather to say a prayer over the wanderer's last home.

The storm had abated at noon, and the snow no longer fell, but there had been no sunshine through all the gloomy day, and the clouds were now mustering thickly again to battle, while the rising gale in the pine-tops was hoa.r.s.e and wrathful. Far as the eye could reach were untrodden fields of snow; gently-rolling hills, studded with shrubs and tinged in patches by russet bristles of broom-straw; the river swollen into blackness between the white banks, and the dark horizon of forest seeming to uphold the gray firmament. To the right of the spectator, who stood on the eminence occupied by the cemetery, lay Ridgeley, with its environing outhouses, crowning the most ambitious height of the chain, the smoke from its chimneys and those of the village of cabins beating laboriously upward, to be borne down at last by the lowering ma.s.s of chilled vapor.

The coffin was deposited in its place with scant show of reverence, and without removing their hats, the bystanders leaned on their spades, and looked to the preacher for the ceremony that was to authorize them to hurry through with their distasteful task. That the gloom of the hour and scene, and the utter forlornness of all the accompaniments of what was meant for Christian burial, had stamped themselves upon the mind and heart of the unlettered slave, was evident from the brief sentences he quavered out--joining his withered hands and raising his bleared eyes toward the threatening heavens:

"Lord! what is man, that thou art mindful of him! For that which befalleth man befalleth beasts--even one thing befalleth them. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth? Man cometh in with vanity and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness. The dead know not anything, for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy is now perished, neither have they a portion for ever in anything that is done under the sun.

"Lord! teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Oh, spare ME, that I may recover strength, ere I go hence and be no more!

"In the name of the FATHER, SON, and HOLY GHOST--dust to dust, and ashes to ashes! Amen!"

"By the way, Mr. Aylett, the poor wretch up-stairs should be buried at the expense of the county," remarked the coroner, before taking leave of Ridgeley and the egg-nogg bowl. "I will take the poor-house on my way home, and tell the overseer to send a coffin and a cart over in the morning. You don't care to have the corpse in the house longer than necessary, I take it? The sooner he is in the Potter's Field, the more agreeable for you and everybody else."

Mr. Aylett pointed through the back window at the winding path across the fields.

A short line of black dots was seen coming along it, in the direction of the house. As they neared it they were discovered to be men, each with a hoe or shovel upon his shoulder.

"The deed is done!" said the master, smiling. "My good fellows there have spared the county the expense, and the overseer the trouble of this little matter. As for the Potter's Field, a place in my servants'

burying-ground is quite as respectable, and more convenient in this weather."

The jurors were grouped about the fire in the baronial hall, b.u.t.toning up overcoats and splatterdashes, and drawing on their riding-gloves, all having come on horseback. In the midst of the general beprais.e.m.e.nt of their host's gentlemanly and liberal conduct, Mrs. Aylett swam down the staircase, resplendent in silver-gray satin, pearl necklace and bracelets, orange flowers and camelias in her hair--semi-bridal attire, that became her as nothing else ever had done.

"My dear madam," said the foreman of the inquest--a courtly disciple of the old school of manner, and phraseology--as the august body of freeholders parted to either side to leave her a pa.s.sage-way to the fireplace--"your husband is a happy man, and his wife should be a happy woman in having won the affection of such a model of chivalry"--stating succinctly the late proof the "model" had offered to an admiring world of his chivalric principles.

The delicate hand stole to its resting-place upon her lord's arm, as the lady answered, her ingenuous eyes suffused with the emotion that gave but the more sweetness to her smile.

"I AM a happy woman, Mr. Nelson! I think there is not a prouder or more blessed wife in all the land than I am this evening."

Laugh, jest, and dance ruled the fleeting hours in the halls of the old country-house that night, and the presiding genius of the revel was still the beautiful hostess--never more beautiful, never so winning before. No one noticed that, by her orders, or her husband's, the window through which she had beheld the goblin visage was closely curtained.

Or, this may have been an accidental disposition of the drapery, since no trace of her momentary alarm remained in her countenance or demeanor.

In the kitchen a double allowance of toddy was served out, by their master's orders, to the men who had taken part in the interment on the hill-top. And, in their noisy talk over their potations the vagrant was scarcely mentioned.

Only the pines, hoa.r.s.er in their sough, by reason of the falling snow that clogged their boughs, chanted a requiem above the rough hillock at their feet.

"Man cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name is covered with darkness!"

CHAPTER X. -- ROSA.

"THAT is a new appearance."

"Who can she be?"

"Unique--is she not?" were queries bandied from one to another of the various parties of guests scattered through the extensive parlors of the most fashionable of Washington hotels, at the entrance of a company of five or six late arrivals. All the persons composing it were well dressed, and had the carriage of people of means and breeding. Beyond this there was nothing noteworthy about any of them, excepting the youngest of the three ladies of what seemed to be a family group. When they stopped for consultation upon their plans for this, their first evening in the capital, directly beneath the central chandelier of the largest drawing-room, she stood, unintentionally, perhaps, upon the outside of the little circle, and not exerting herself to feign interest in the parley, sought amus.e.m.e.nt in a keen, but polite survey of the a.s.sembly, apparently in no wise disconcerted at the volley of glances she encountered in return.

If she were always in the same looks she wore just now, she must have been pretty well inured to batteries of admiration by this date in her sunny life. She was below the medium of woman's stature, round and pliant in form and limbs; in complexion dark as a gypsy but with a clear skin that let the rise and fall of the blood beneath be marked as distinctly as in that of the fairest blonde. Her eyes were brown or black, it was hard to say which, so changeful were their lights and shades; and her other features, however uncla.s.sic in mould, if criticised separately, taken as a whole, formed a picture of surpa.s.sing fascination. If her eyes and cleft chin meant mischief, her mouth engaged to make amends by smiles and seductive words, more sweet than honey, because their flavor would never clog upon him who tasted thereof. Her attire was striking--it would have been bizarre upon any other lady in the room, but it enhanced the small stranger's beauty.

A black robe--India silk or silk grenadine, or some other light and l.u.s.trous material--was bespangled with b.u.t.terflies, gilded, green, and crimson, the many folds of the skirt flowing to the carpet in a train designed to add to apparent height, and, in front, allowing an enchanting glimpse of a tiny slipper, high in the instep, and tapering prettily toward the toe. In her hair were glints of a curiously-wrought chain, wound under and among the bandeaux; on her wrists, plump and dimpled as a baby's, more chain-work of the like precious metal, ending in tinkling fringe that swung, glittering, to and fro, with the restless motion of the elfin hands, she never ceased to clasp and chafe and fret one with the other, while she thus stood and awaited the decision of her companions. But instead of detracting from the charm of her appearance, the seemingly unconscious gesture only heightened it. It was the overflow of the exuberant vitality that throbbed redly in her cheeks, flashed in her eye, and made buoyant her step.

"What an artless sprite it is!" said one old gentleman, who had stared at her from the instant of her entrance, in mute enjoyment, to the great amus.e.m.e.nt of his more knowing nephews.

"All but the artless!" rejoined one of the sophisticated youngsters.

"She is gotten up too well for that. Ten to one she is an experienced stager, who calculates to a nicety the capabilities of every twist of her silky hair and twinkle of an eyelash. Hallo! that IS gushing--nicely done, if it isn't almost equal to the genuine thing, in fact."

The ambiguous compliment was provoked by a change of scene and a new actor, that opened other optics than his lazy ones to their extremest extent. A gentleman had come in alone and quietly--a tall, manly personage, whose serious countenance had just time to soften into a smile of recognition before the black-robed fairy flew up to him--both hands extended--her face one glad sunbeam of surprise and welcome.

"YOU here!" she exclaimed, in a low, thrilling tone, shedding into his the unclouded rays of her glorious eyes, while one of her hands lingered in his friendly hold. "This is almost too good to be true! When did you come? How long are you going to stay? and what did you come for? Yours is the only familiar physiognomy I have beheld since our arrival, and my eyes were becoming ravenous for a sight of remembered things. Which reminds me"--coloring bewitchingly, with an odd mixture of mirth and chagrin in smile and voice--"that I have been getting up quite a little show on my own account, forgetful of les regles, and I suppose the horrified lookers-on think of les moeurs. May I atone for my inadvertence by presenting you, in good and regular form, to my somewhat shocked, but very respectable, relatives? Did you know that I was in Congress this year--that is, Mr. Mason, my aunt's husband, is an Honorable, and I am here with them?"

The gentleman gave her his arm, and they strolled leisurely in the direction of the party she had deserted so unceremoniously.

"I did not know it, but I am glad to learn that you are to make a long visit to the city. I have business that may detain me here for a week--perhaps a fort-night," was his answer to the first question she suffered him thus to honor.

Then the introduction to Mr. and Mrs. Mason, their married daughter, Mrs. Cunningham, and her husband, was performed. The Member's wife was a portly, good-natured Virginia matron, whose ruling desire to make all about her comfortable as herself, sometimes led to contretemps that were trying to the subjects of her kindness, and would have been distressing to her, had she ever, by any chance, guessed what she had done.

She opened the social game now, by saying, agreeably: "Your name is not a strange one to us, Mr. Chilton. We have often heard you spoken of in the most affectionate terms by our friends, but not near neighbors, the Ayletts, of Ridgeley,----county. Is it long since you met or heard from them?"

"Some months, madam. I hope they were in their usual health when you last saw them?"

Receiving her affirmative reply with a courteous bow, and the a.s.surance that he was "happy to hear it," Mr. Chilton turned to Rosa, and engaged her in conversation upon divers popular topics of the day, all of which she was careful should conduct them in the opposite direction from Ridgeley, and his affectionate intimates, the Ayletts. He appreciated and was grateful for her tact and delicacy. Her unaffected pleasure at meeting him had been as pleasant as it was unlooked-for, aware as he was, from Mabel's letter immediately preceding the rapture of their engagement, that Rosa must have been staying with her when it occurred.