Lewis Rand Part 12

"I shall practise. A man's life is larger than a few acres, a house, and slaves. But first I must put Greenwood in order, and I must--" He did not finish the sentence, but sat looking about the blue room. "The old moon clock! I used to listen to it in the night and dream of twenty thousand things, and never once of what I dream of now! What a strange young savage is a boy!" He gathered the written sheets together. "You will want to look these over? I shall be very glad to see that they reach Mr. Mocket safely, or to serve you in any way. Just now I am very idle, and I will be your secretary every day with pleasure." He rose.

"And now you must rest, or we will have a rating from Dr. Gilmer. Is there any message I may take for you?"

"My devotion and my thanks to the ladies of the house," replied Rand--"to Mrs. Churchill and Miss Dandridge and to Miss Churchill. For these"--he put his hand upon the papers--"I shall look them over, and Joab will take them to Charlottesville to Mocket. I cannot sufficiently thank you for your aid and for your kindness."

Cary went, and Rand lay back upon his pillows, weary enough, though with a smile upon his lips. He valued Cary's visit, valued the opinion of his fellow lawyer and fellow thinker. He valued praise from almost any source, though this was a hidden thirst. Where he loved, there he valued good opinion most; but also he strongly desired that his enemies should think highly of him. To be justly feared was one thing, to be contemned quite another. Apparently Ludwell Cary neither feared nor contemned. As, a few days before on the Justice's Bench, Rand had wondered if he were going to hate Cary, so now, lying in the quiet blue room, weakened by pain and loss of blood, softened by exquisite kindness, and touched by approbation, he wondered if he were going to like Cary. Something of the old charm, the old appeal, the old recognition, with no mean envy, of a golden nature moving in harmonious circ.u.mstance, stirred in Lewis Rand's breast. He sighed and lay still, his eyes upon the pansies on the table beside his bed. The moon clock ticked; the sunshine entered softly through the veil of poplar leaves; upon the bough that brushed the window, a cicada shrilled of the approaching summer. Rand put out his uninjured arm and took a pansy from the bowl. The little face, brave and friendly, looked at him from the white counterpane where he laid it. He studied it for a while, touching it gently, with the thought in his mind that Jacqueline might have gathered the pansies, and then he left it there, took up his papers, and turned to the argument which must hang Fitch.

CHAPTER VIII

CARY AND JACQUELINE

At supper table that evening at Fontenoy, Ludwell Cary said something complimentary to the prisoner in the blue room. Fairfax Cary fired up.

"You are too easy, Ludwell! Lewis Rand, I warn you, is a dangerous man!

Serve him once, and you serve him once too often!--begging your pardon, Colonel Churchill!"

"We could hardly have left him, you know," reasoned his host good-naturedly, "on the roadside, and d.i.c.k Wood's the nearest house! And once within a man's doors, every attention, of course, must be shown.

But, as you say, he is a dangerous fellow."

"Dangerous fiddlesticks!" growled Major Churchill from the other side of the table, where he sat at Jacqueline's right hand. "I would have as soon called old Gideon Rand dangerous! Like father, like son. You may be sure that this fellow's spirit rolls tobacco. Maybe now and then it breaks a colt.

"Dangerous' implies power to be dangerous," said Cary, "and conversely power to be humane. A turn, and all the strength of the man may flow toward good."

"A fool and his doctrine!" snapped Major Edward. "I do not expect grapes from thistles, or a silk purse from a sow's ear."

"Tut, tut, Ned! The man who carries this county may be a d.a.m.ned Republican, but he is not a fool," p.r.o.nounced Colonel d.i.c.k. "Jacqueline, my dear, another cup of coffee."

"If we were all as good as gold," said Unity pensively, "and as wise as--as Socrates, and wore black c.o.c.kades, and cared only for the Washington March, and hated Buonaparte, and the Devil, how tiresome life would be!--Myself, I like variety and the Ma.r.s.eillaise!"

"Then you differ from the other rogues only in liking the Rogue's March," said Uncle Edward. "Jacqueline, more sugar!"

The younger Cary rushed to Miss Dandridge's defence. "Well, sir, in itself the Ma.r.s.eillaise is a very n.o.ble air. It is better than Jefferson's March!"

"Oh, a very good air to go to the gallows by!" snapped Uncle Edward.

"Jacqueline, some cream!"

"Well, well," said his brother amicably, from the head of the table, "we must care for a man when he's wounded at our door, friend or foe, Federalist or d.a.m.ned Republican. n.o.blesse oblige. I was glad enough the night my mare Nelly threw me, coming home from Maria Erskine's wedding, to hear Bob Carter's voice behind me! And if Gideon Rand was a surly old heathen, he broke colts well, and he rolled tobacco well. We'll treat his son like a Christian."

"And he'll repay you like a Turk!" broke out Major Edward. "I tell you it is bred in the bone--"

"Mr. Rand is our guest," said Jacqueline, in a clear voice, from her place behind the coffee urn. Her hands made a little noise amid the rosebud china. "Mr. Cary, may I not pour you another cup?--Caleb, Mr.

Cary's cup.--Bring more waffles, Scipio."

"The work at Greenwood is nearly finished, sir," remarked Ludwell Cary, addressing his host. "I rode over this afternoon, and the men a.s.sure me that the house will soon be habitable. Fair and I have no excuse for staying longer."

"Then stay without excuse," answered Colonel d.i.c.k heartily. "Fontenoy will miss you--eh, Unity, eh, Jacqueline?"

"It will indeed," said Jacqueline, with a smile; and Unity, "Will I have time to order a black scarf from Baltimore? Will you leave us mourning rings?"

"If Miss Dandridge would accept another fashion of ring!" cried Fairfax Cary, and all at table laughed. Scipio took away the rosebud china, and laid the purple dessert service for the strawberries and floating island and Betty Custis cake. Caleb placed the decanters of claret and Madeira, and the Fontenoy men began to talk of horse-racing, of Mustapha, Nonpareil, York, and Victor.

Jacqueline and Unity, leaving the gentlemen at their wine, came out into the broad hall and stood at the front door looking out at the coloured clouds above the hills. They supped early at Fontenoy, and the evening was yet rosy.

"He is going to speak to-night," said Unity, with conviction. "It is written in his eye."

"If you mean Mr. Cary--"

"Whom else should I mean? What are you going to say to him, Jacqueline?

I want you to say Yes, and I want you to say No."

"Don't, Unity--"

"If you say Yes, you will have Greenwood and the most charming husband in the world, and be envied of every girl in the county; and if you say No, I'll have you still--"

"I shall say No."

"What ails you, Jacqueline? I could swear that you're in love, and yet I don't believe you are in love with Ludwell Cary!--though I am sure you ought to be. It's not Mr. Lee, nor Mr. Page, nor Jack Martin, nor--you're never in love with Fairfax Cary?"

Jacqueline laughed, "How absurd, Unity!--though may be some day I shall love him as a cousin!"

Unity regarded her with a puzzled gathering of black brows. "There's no one else that by any stretch of imagination I can believe you in love with--unless it's Mr. Pincornet!"

"Oh, now you certainly have it!" cried Jacqueline, with another tremulous laugh. She released herself from her cousin's arm. "I am going to tell Deb good-night. And Unity--I don't want Mr. Cary to speak to-night, nor to-morrow night, nor any other night! I'll stay at Fontenoy--I'll stay at Fontenoy and care for Aunt Nancy and Deb and Uncle d.i.c.k and Uncle Edward. I'll dance at your wedding, Unity, but you'll not dance at mine!"

She was gone. Unity sat down upon the porch steps and began to name upon her fingers the eligible young men of three counties. In her anxiety to account for Jacqueline's pallor and the dark beneath her eyes, she went far afield, but she met with no success. "It's not one of them!" she sighed at last. "And yet, she's changed--"

Jacqueline went slowly upstairs, a slender figure in white, touching with her hand the polished bal.u.s.trade. When she reached the long and wide upper hall, she pa.s.sed steadily along it, but she turned her eyes upon a door at the far end, the door of the blue room. Arrived in her own cool and fragrant chamber, she found Deb already asleep in the small bed, her yellow hair spread upon the pillow, her gown open at the throat, a rag doll in the hollow of her arm. Upon the floor, with her head against the bed, sat Miranda, as fast asleep as her mistress. At Jacqueline's touch she awoke, smiled widely, and was on her feet with a spring. "Yaas, Miss Jacqueline, I done put Miss Deb to bed. Mammy Chloe say dat n.i.g.g.ah Joab don' know nothin' 'bout er broken ahm, an' she too busy in de blue room. Yaas'm, I done mek Miss Deb wash her face an' say her prayers. Kin I go now?"

Alone, Jacqueline stood for a minute beside the sleeping child, then bent and kissed Deb's brown neck. Moving to a window, she sat down before it, resting her arm upon the sill and her head upon her arm.

Outside the window grew a giant fir tree, shading the room, and giving it at times an aspect too cold and northern. But Jacqueline loved the tree, and loved and fed the birds that in winter perched upon the dark boughs. Now, between the needles, the eastern sky looked blue and cold.

Jacqueline, sitting idle, felt her eyes fill with slow tears. They did not fall. She was not lacking in self-control, and she told herself that of late she had wept too often. She sat very still, her head bowed upon her listless arm, while the moments pa.s.sed, bearing with them pictures seen through unshed tears. She was living over the days of the Three-Notched Road, and she beheld each shifting scene by the light of a pa.s.sion that she believed to be unreasonable, unnatural, secret, and without hope. Her uncle's voice came to her from the hall below.

"Jacqueline, Jacqueline!" She arose, bathed her eyes, and went downstairs.

It was the custom of the family to gather after supper upon the great white pillared porch, and to sit through the twilight. The men smoked slowly and reflectively, the women sat with folded hands, watching the last glow upon the hills, and the brightening of the evening star; dreamily listening to the choir of frogs, the faint tinkle of cowbells, the bleating of folded lambs, and the continual rustle of the poplar leaves.

Jacqueline took her seat beside Unity. Colonel Churchill, in his especial chair, was smoking like a benevolent volcano; at a small table Major Edward was playing Patience. On the broad porch steps below Jacqueline and Unity half sat, half lay, the two Carys. The fireflies were beginning to show, and out of the distance came a plaintive _Whip-poor-will--Whip-poor-will!_

"I shall have," said Ludwell Cary, "the vines at Greenwood trained like these. There could be no better way."

"Is the drawing-room finished?" asked Unity.

"Almost finished. The paper came to-day from Baltimore. The ground is silver, and there are garlands of roses and a host of piping shepherds."

"Oh, lovely!" cried Unity. "But no shepherdesses?"

"Yes, in among the roses. It is quite Arcadian. When will the princesses come to see the shepherdesses?"