Lewis Rand Part 30

At Greenwood there was but one light burning. He saw it half a mile from the house, lost it, then caught it again, crowning like a star the low hilltop. Bending from the saddle, he opened the gate, pa.s.sed through, and rode on beneath the oaks to the house door. The light shone from the library. When a negro had taken his horse, the younger Cary entered to find his brother sitting before a ma.s.s of books and papers, wine on the table, and a favourite dog asleep upon the hearth. "You are late," said the elder, looking up with a smile. "Fontenoy, of course?"

"Fontenoy, of course. Ludwell, I've won!"

The elder brother pushed back his chair, rose, and, going to the younger, put both hands upon his shoulders. "Fair. I'm glad! I told you that you would. She's the loveliest black-eyed lady--and as for you, you deserve your fortune! _Monsieur mon frere_, I make you my congratulations!"

"What a blaze of light you've got in here! All the way home my horse's hoofs were saying, _Unity Cary--Unity Cary_."

Ludwell laughed. "You're drunk with joy. The room is not brightly lit.

Sit down and tell me all about it."

"'Twas underneath the catalpa tree. We quarrelled--"

"As usual."

"Page had been there, reading aloud,--reading Elosa to Abelard."

"Oh!"

"We quarrelled. I said good-bye forever, and walked away. She came after me over the gra.s.s. Ludwell, to hold the woman that you love in your arms, close, close--"

"I can guess 'twas bliss. And then?"

"Heaven still--only quieter. We went back to the bench under the catalpa."

"Happy tree! And I never thought it a poetic growth--the flowers are so sticky! Now Unity shall plant one at Greenwood."

"'Unity'! Isn't it sweet to say just 'Unity'?"

The other laughed again. "I think you are a very satisfactory lover! And when's the marriage, Fair?"

"Not for a whole year--she won't marry me for a whole year to come!"

"Why, that's too long," said the elder kindly. "What reason?"

"Time to say farewell. Once she's married, she will never see Unity Dandridge again!"

Both laughed, but there was much tenderness in their laughter. "Oh, she's individual!" said Ludwell. "Even when you add the Cary, she'll be Unity Dandridge still. A year! Perhaps she may relent."

"I've given my word not to ask her."

"Ah!--well, a year's not so long, Fair. She's a lovely witch--she'll charm the hours away. This time next year how gay we'll make the old house!"

The younger paced the room. "I can't go to bed.

Michaelmas--Christmas--St. Valentine's--Easter--the Fourth--then August again. Twelve months!"

"You'll ride to Fontenoy in the morning."

"That's true--and you'll ride with me. The last thing that she said was that I was to bring you. Ludwell, I want to say that not even Unity, though I love her so much, could ever make me love you an iota the less.

You know that, don't you?"

"Yes, I know, Fair," said the other from the great chair. "We are friends as well as brothers. I'm as glad for your happiness as if it were my own, and I'll ride with you to Fontenoy to kiss my new sister.

You've both chosen wisely, and it's a great day for Greenwood! Stop that striding here and there like an ecstatic lion! Sit down and tell me all about it again. The wine's good, and I'll light more candles. There!"

"You're the best fellow in the world, Ludwell," said the younger gratefully. "She had on a gown with little flowers all over a yellowy ground, and there was a curl that came down on her white neck--and when I had gone away forever and then felt her hand upon my arm, it was like a sword-stroke opening Paradise. It isn't really late, is it? I could talk till dawn!"

CHAPTER XVIII

THE GREEN DOOR

The coach of Mrs. Jane Selden entered Charlottesville at nine in the morning, and did not turn homeward again until the afternoon stood at four. The intermediate hours were diligently used by the small and withered lady in plum-coloured silk and straw bonnet, scarf of striped, apple-green gauze, and turkey-feather fan. She came to town but once in three months, and made of each visit a field day. Every store was called at, for buying must be done for herself and her plantation to last until Christmas-tide. Lutestring, calico, chintz and prunella, linsey and osnaburg; gilt-edged paper, sticks of wax, and fine black ink; drugs of sorts, bohea, spice, and china were bought and bestowed in brown paper parcels in corners of a vehicle ample as Cinderella's pumpkin coach, while Jamaica sugar and Java coffee, old rum, mola.s.ses, salt and vinegar, hardware, kitchen things, needs of the quarter, and all heavy matters were left to be called for by her wagon next day. Shopping over, she took dinner with an ancient friend, and afterwards called upon the doctor and the minister. The post-office came next in order, and then the blacksmith, for one of her four sleepy coach horses had cast a shoe.

The fault remedied, she looked at her watch. "Half-past three. Stop at the green door, Gabriel."

Coach and four made a wide turn, swung drowsily down the main street, and drew up before a one-story brick building with a green door and a black lettered sign above, "Lewis Rand, Attorney-at-Law."

Mrs. Selden, putting her head out of the window, directed a small negro, lounging near, to raise the knocker below the sign; but before she could be obeyed, the door opened and Rand himself came quickly down the steps.

"Come, come!" he said; "I knew it was your day in town, and I was wondering if you were going by without a word."

"Don't I always stop? A habit is a habit. We are all miserable sinners, and the world can't get on without lawyers. I want to ask you how I'm to keep old Tom Carfax off my land. There is no one with you?"

"No one. Mocket has ridden over to North Garden, and I've just dismissed a deputation from Milton." As he spoke, he opened the coach door and a.s.sisted his old friend to alight.

Together they went into the office, which was a cool little place, with a climbing rose at the windows, a bare floor, and a dim fragrance of law-books. The shade was grateful after the August heat and glare. Mrs.

Selden, seated in a capacious wooden chair, wielded her turkey fan and looked about her at the crowded book-shelves, the ma.s.s of papers held down on desk and deal table by pieces of iron ore, the land maps on the wall, the corner ledger and high stool, the cupboard whose opened door disclosed bottles and gla.s.ses, and the blush roses just without the two small windows. "I like the law," she remarked. "There's a deal of villainy in it, no doubt, but that's a complaint to which all ways of making a living are liable. Even a shoemaker may be a villain. How does it feel to be a great lawyer, Lewis?"

He smiled. "Am I a great one?"

"You should know best, but it's what men call you. What was your deputation from Milton? About the governorship?"

"Yes."

"What did you say?"

"I thanked them for the honour they did me, and told them that I had declined the nomination."

"You have declined it! Why?"

He smiled again. "You used to preach contentment when I was a boy and you heard me rage out against my father. Well--shall I not rest content with being a great lawyer?"

His old neighbour regarded him keenly above her turkey-feather fan.

"Lewis Rand, Lewis Rand," she said at last, "I wish I knew your end."

He laughed. "Do you mean my aim in life, or my last hour?"

"The one," said his visitor sharply, "will be according to the other. We all wander through a wood into some curious place at last. You're the kind of person one thinks of as coming into a stranger place than common. Have you heard the news about Unity Dandridge and Fairfax Cary?"