Lewis Rand Part 19

"She's coming--she's coming?" whispered Vinie, and Adam, "Why, of course, of course, little partridge. Now don't you cry--you'll be walking up Saint Margaret's aisle yourself some day!"

The bell ceased to ring. Lewis Rand came from the vestry and stood beside the chancel rail. A sound at the door, a universal turning as though the wind bent every flower in a garden--and Jacqueline Churchill came up the aisle between the coloured lines. Her hand was upon the arm of her father's schoolmate; Unity and Deb followed her. Rand met her at the altar, and the old clergyman who had baptized her married them. It was over, from the "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together," to the "Until Death shall them part!" Lewis and Jacqueline Rand wrote their names in the register, then turned to receive the congratulations of those who crowded around them, to smile, and say the expected thing.

Rand stooped and kissed Deb, wrung Mrs. Selden's hand, then held out his own to Unity with something of appeal in his gesture and his eyes. Miss Dandridge promptly laid her hand in his, and looked at him with her frank and brilliant gaze. "Now that we are cousins," she said, "I do not find you a monster at all. Make her happy, and one day we'll all be friends." "I will--I will!" answered Rand, with emotion, pressed her hand warmly, and was claimed by others of his wedding guests.

Jacqueline, too, had clung at first to Unity and Deb and Cousin Jane Selden, but now she also turned from the old life to the new, and greeted with a smiling face the people of her husband's party. Many, of course, she knew; only a difference of opinion stood between them and the Churchills; but others were strangers to her--strangers and curious.

She felt it in the touch of their hands, in the stare of their eyes, and her heart was vaguely troubled. She saw her old dancing master, tiptoeing on the edge of the throng, and her smile brought Mr.

Pincornet, his green velvet and powdered wig, to her side. He put his hand to his heart and bowed as to a princess.

"Ha! Mr. Pincornet," exclaimed Rand, "I remember our night at Monticello.

Now I have a teacher who will be with me always!--Jacqueline, I want you to speak to my old friend, Adam Gaudylock."

"Ah, I know Mr. Gaudylock," answered Jacqueline, and gave the hunter both her hands. "We all know and admire and want to be friends with Adam Gaudylock!"

The picture that she made in her youth and beauty and bridal raiment was a dazzling one. Adam looked at her so fully and so long that she blushed a little. She could not read the thought behind his blue eyes. "You shall be my Queen if you like," he said at last, and Jacqueline laughed, thinking his speech the woodsman's attempt to say a pretty thing.

Rand drew forward with determination a small brown figure. "Jacqueline, this is another good friend of mine--Miss Lavinia Mocket, the sister of my law partner.--Vinie, Vinie, you _are_ shyer than a partridge! You shan't scuttle away until you have spoken to my wife!"

"Yeth, thir," said Vinie, her hand in Jacqueline's. "I wish you well, ma'am."

Rand and Adam laughed. Jacqueline, with a sudden soft kindliness for the small flushed face and startled eyes, bent her flower-crowned head and kissed Vinie. "Oh!" breathed Vinie. "Yeth, yeth, Mith Jacqueline, I thertainly wish you well!"

"Where's Tom?" asked Rand. "Tom should be here--" but Vinie had slipped from the ring about the bride. Adam followed; Mr. Pincornet had already faded away. More important folk claimed the attention of the newly wedded pair, and Mr. Mocket had not yet appeared when at last the gathering, bound for the wedding feast at Mrs. Selden's, deserted the interior of the church and flowed out under the portico and down the steps to the churchyard and the coaches waiting in the road. Lewis and Jacqueline Rand came down the path between the midsummer flowers. They were at the gate when the sight and sound of a horse coming at a gallop along the road drew from Rand an exclamation. "Tom Mocket--and his horse in a lather! There's news of some kind--"

It was so evident, when the horse and rider came to a stop before the church gate, that there was news of some kind, that the wedding guests, gentle and simple, left all talk and all employment to crowd the gra.s.sy s.p.a.ce between the gate and the road and to demand enlightenment.

Mocket's horse was spent, and Mocket's face was fiery red and eager. He gasped, and wiped his face with a great flowered handkerchief. "What is it, man?" cried a dozen voices.

Mocket rose in his stirrups and looked the a.s.semblage over. "We're all Republicans--hip, hip, hurrah! Eh, Lewis Rand, I've brought you a wedding gift! The stage had just come in--I got the news at the Eagle!

Hip, hip--"

"Tom," said Rand at his bridle rein, "you've been drinking. Steady, man.

Now, what's the matter?"

"A wedding gift! a wedding gift!" repeated Tom, taken with his own conceit. "And I never was soberer, gentlemen, never 'pon honour! Hip, hip, hurrah! we're all good Republicans--but you'll never guess the news!--The Creole's dead!"

"No!" cried Rand.

There arose an uproar of excited voices. "Yes, yes, it's true!" shouted Mocket. "The stage brought it. He was challenged by Aaron Burr. They met at a place named Weehawken. Burr's first shot ended it.--Sandy'll trouble us no more!"

"It's rumour--"

"No, no, it's gospel truth! There's a messenger from the President, and letters from all quarters. He's dead, and Burr's in hiding! Gad! We'll have a rouse at the Eagle to-night! Blue lights for a.s.sumption and Funding and the Sedition Bill and Taxes and Standing Armies and the British Alliance--

"Oh, Alexander, King of Macedon, Where is your namesake, Andy Hamilton?

"In a hotter place, I hope, than Saint Kitts!"

"Hush!" said Rand. "Don't be ranting like a Mohawk! When a man's dead, it's time to let him rest."

He turned to the excited throng, and as he did so, he was aware that Jacqueline was standing white and frozen, and that Unity was trying to take her hand. He felt for her an infinite tenderness, and he promised himself to give Tom Mocket an old-time rating for at least one ill-advised expression. Such wedding gifts were not for Jacqueline. But as for the news--Rand felt his cheek grow hot and his eyes glow. In all the history of the country this was the decade in which political animosity, pure and simple, went its greatest length. Each party thought of the struggle as a battlefield; the Federalist strength was already broken, and now if the leader was down, it was not in fighting and Republican nature to restrain the wild cheer for the rout that must follow. Rand was a fighter too, and a captain of fighters, and the hundred whirling thoughts, the hundred chances, the sense of victory, and the savage joy in a foe's defeat--all the feeling that swelled his heart left him unabashed. But he thought of Jacqueline, and he tried to choose his words. There would be now, he knew, no wedding feast at Mrs.

Selden's. Randolphs, Carrs, Coles, Carters, Dabneys, Gordons, Meriwethers, and Minors--all would wish to hurry away. Plantation, office, or tavern, there would be letters waiting, journals to read, men to meet, committees, clamour, and debate. Of the ruder sort who had crowded to the church, many were already on the point of departure, mounting their horses, preparing for a race to the nearest tavern and newspaper. "Gentlemen," exclaimed Rand, "if it's true news--if we have indeed to deplore General Hamilton's death--"

"'Deplore!'" cried Mocket.

"'Deplore!'" echoed bluntly a Republican of prominence. "Don't let's be hypocrites, Mr. Rand. We'll leave the Federalists to 'deplore'--"

"Oh, I'll deplore him with pleasure!" cried a third. "It won't hurt to drop a tear--but for all that it's the greatest news since 1800!"

"Hip, hip, hurrah!"

"Weehawken! where's Weehawken? What's Burr in hiding for? Can't a gentleman fight a duel? Let him come down here, and we'll give him a triumph!"

"'Deplore!'"--

"I chose my word badly," said Rand, with the good-nature that always disarmed; "I shall not weep over my enemy, I only mean that I would not ign.o.bly exult. Of course, sir, it is great news--the very greatest! And all here will now want the leisure of the day."

"Tell them, Lewis, that I'll excuse them," said Cousin Jane Selden. "We won't have a feast on the day of a funeral."

A little later, deep in the embrace of the old Selden coach, husband and wife began their journey to the house on the Three-Notched Road. In the minutes that followed the disposal of their wedding guests it had been settled that they would not return to Mrs. Selden's--it was best to go home instead. Cousin Jane would take Deb; Unity must return at once to Fontenoy. Hamilton and Edward Churchill had served together on Washington's staff; of late years they had seldom met, but the friendship remained. Unity knew, but would not speak of it, that Uncle Edward had finished, only the night before, a long letter to his old comrade-at-arms. With the exception of Deb, all the little party were aware that Jacqueline Rand's chances for forgiveness from her uncles were measurably slighter for this day's tidings. She seemed dazed, pale as her gown, but very quiet. She held Deb in her arms, and kissed Unity and Cousin Jane Selden. Her husband lifted her into the coach, wrung the others' hands, and followed her. "Good-bye, Lewis," said Mrs. Selden at the door. "I'll send a bowl of arrack to your men, and I'll ride over to-morrow to see Jacqueline. Good-bye, children, and G.o.d bless you both!"

The coach and four took the dusty road. A turn, and Saint Margaret's was hidden, another, and they were in a wood of beech and maple. The heat of the day was broken, and a wind was blowing. Rand took Jacqueline's hands, unclasped and chafed them. "So cold!" he said. "Why could we not have heard this news to-morrow!"

She shuddered strongly. "The n.o.ble--the great--" her voice broke.

"Is it so you think of him?" he asked. "Well--I, too, will call him n.o.ble and great--to-day.

"No more for him the warmth of the bright sun; Nor blows upon his brow the wind of night!

"He's gone--and we all shall go. But this is our wedding day. Let us forget--let us forget all else but that!"

"I grieve for the country," she said.

He kissed her hand. "Poor country! But her Sons die every day. She is like Nature--she takes no heed. Let us, too, forget!"

"Oh, his poor wife--"

Rand drew her to him. "Will you mourn for me when I am dead?"

"No," she answered. "We will die together.--Oh, Lewis, Lewis, Lewis!"

"You promised that you would be happy," he said, and kissed her. "You promised you would not let Fontenoy and the things of Fontenoy stand like a spectre between us. Forget this, too. Everywhere there is dying.

But it is our wedding day--and I love you madly--and life and the kingdoms of life lie before us! If you are not happy, how can I be so?"

"But I am!" she cried, and showed him a glowing face. "I am happier than the happiest!"

The wood thinned into glades where the shadows of beech and maple were beginning to be long upon the gra.s.s; then, in the afternoon light, the coach entered open country, fields of ox-eyed daisies, and tall pine trees standing singly.

"I never came this far," said Jacqueline. "I never saw the house."