Lewis Rand Part 35

"Roselands and the Richmond house might be a mask, He refused the nomination for Governor."

Ludwell Cary started violently. "I had forgotten that! You have it, Fair. He would do that--he would refuse the nomination. Lewis Rand, Lewis Rand!"

"Have you any proof that he is conspiring with Burr?"

"None that I could advance--none. I have an inward certainty, that is all. Nor can I--nor can I, Fair, even speak of such a suspicion. You see that?"

"Yes, I see that."

"I repented last winter of having written that letter signed 'Aurelius.'

I _knew_ nothing, and it seemed beneath me to have made that guesswork public. That he was my enemy should have made me careful, but I was under strong feeling, and I wrote. He has neither forgotten nor forgiven. Denounce him now as a conspirator against his party and his country? That is impossible. Impossible from lack of proof, and impossible to me were proofs as thick as blackberries! But if I can help it, he shall not leave Virginia."

"Is it your opinion that he would take her with him?"

"Yes, it is."

"Would she go?"

Cary rose, moved to the window, and stood there a moment in silence.

When, presently, he came back to the table, his face was pale, but lifted, controlled, and quiet. There was a saying in the county,--"The high look of the Carys." He wore it now, the high look of the Carys.

"Yes, Fair, she would go with him."

There was a silence, then the younger spoke. "She is at Fontenoy. Mrs.

Churchill may linger long, and her niece is always with her. Rand could not take his wife away."

"It's a check to his plans, no doubt," said the other wearily.

"He's frowning over it now. He'll wait as long as may be. He would sin, but he would not sin meanly. In his conception of himself a greatness, even in transgression, must clothe all that he does. He'll wait, gravely and decently, even though to wait is his heavy risk." He made a gesture with his hand. "Do I not know him, know him well? Sometimes I think that for three years I've had no other study!"

"You should have let me challenge him that first election day," said Fairfax Cary gloomily. "If we had met and I had put a bullet through him, then all this coil would have been spared. What do you propose to do now?"

"At the moment I am going to Fontenoy."

"I would speak, I think, to Major Edward."

"Yes: that was in my mind. If there is any right, it lies with the men of her family. Fair, on the nineteenth of February I was at Lewis Rand's!"

"Ah!" exclaimed his brother.

"I was admitted, as I have since come to see, by mistake, and against orders. I found her alone in her drawing-room, and we sat by the dying fire and we talked of this very thing, this very plot, this very Aaron Burr--yes, and of the part a stronger than Burr might play in the West and in Mexico! She told me that her husband was busy that night--excused him because he was engaged with a client from the country. A client from the country! and I, who would have taken her word against an angel's, I sat there and wondered why she was distrait and pale! She was pale because there was danger, she was absent because she was contriving how she might soonest rid the house of one who was not wanted there that night! She was dressed in gauze and gems; she had supped with Aaron Burr--"

"I see--I see!"

"When at last I perceived, though I could not guess the reason, that she wished to be alone, I bade her good-night, and she watched me--oh, carefully!--through the hall and past the other doors and out of the house. I came home through the starlight and over the snow to the Eagle.

I found you there by the fire, and you told me that Aaron Burr was in Richmond. Then, then, Fair, I _knew_. I knew with whom Lewis Rand was engaged, I knew who was the client from the country! The next morning I made my inquiries. Burr had gone at dawn, m.u.f.fled and secret and swift--one man to see him off. That man, I learned to-day, was Adam Gaudylock. He, too, was at Rand's the night before. A triumvirate, was it not? Well, she knew, she knew--and women, too, have dreamed of crowns!"

He rose. "I'm going to ride to Fontenoy. You can bear me witness that I've kept away since her return. Now I shall keep away no longer. I will speak to Major Edward. Her family may draw a circle out of which she may not step."

"There's been," said the other, "no true reconciliation. She's only at Fontenoy because the Churchills could not refuse a dying woman. They speak to her as to a stranger to whom, as gentlemen, they must needs be courteous. And she's proud, too. Unity says they are far apart."

"I know. But though the Churchill men are stubborn, they are Virginians and they are patriots. This touches their honour and the honour of their house. If Rand plots at all, he's plotting treason. How much does she know, how little does she not know? G.o.d knows, not I! But they may make a circle she cannot overstep--no, not for all the magician's piping!" He rested his forehead upon his clasped hands. "Fair, Fair, she was my Destiny! Why did he come like a shape of night, with the power of night?

And now he draws her, too, into the shadow. He's treading a road beset--and they are one flesh; she travels with him. Oh, despair!"

"Have out a warrant against him."

"What proofs? and what disgrace if proved! No, Fair, no."

"Then let me challenge him."

The other smiled. "Should it come to that, I will be the challenger! I am your senior there. Don't forget it, Fair." He rose from the table.

"Do you remember that first day we rode to Fontenoy when I came home from England? The place was all in sunshine, all fine gold. She was standing on the porch beside Major Edward; she lifted her hand and shaded her eyes with a fan--there was a flower in her hair. Three years!

I am worn with those three years." For a moment he rested his hand on the other's shoulder. "Fair, Fair, you know happy love--may you never know unhappy love! I am going now to Fontenoy. Is there a message for Unity?"

CHAPTER XXI

THE CEDAR WOOD

Jacqueline closed the door of her aunt's chamber softly behind her, pa.s.sed through the Fontenoy hall, and came out upon the wide porch.

There, in the peace of the September afternoon, she found Unity alone with the Lay of the Last Minstrel. "Aunt Nancy is asleep," she said. "I left Mammy Chloe beside her. Unity, I think she's better."

"So the doctor said this morning."

"I think she's beginning to remember. She looks strangely at me."

"If she does remember, she'll want you still!"

Jacqueline shook her head. "I think not. How lovely it is, this afternoon! The asters are all in bloom in the garden, and the gum tree is turning red." She threw a gauze scarf over her head. "I am going down to the old gate by the narrow road."

"I wish," said Unity, "that I had the ordering of the universe for just one hour! Then Christians would become Christian, and you wouldn't have to meet your husband outside the gates of home."

The other laughed a little. "Oh, Unity, Christians won't be Christian, and even as it is, 'tis sweet to be at home! Until you go away to Greenwood, you'll not know how dear was Fontenoy! To hear the poplars rustling and to smell the box again--Is it not strange that I should have a light heart when they look so cold upon me?"

"I have hopes of Uncle d.i.c.k, but Uncle Edward"--Unity shook her head. "I don't understand Uncle Edward."

"I do," answered Jacqueline, "and I love him most. I'll go now and leave you to the Last Minstrel. Does Fairfax Cary come to-night?"

"He may--"

Jacqueline laughed. "'He may.' Yes, indeed, I think he may! Oh, Unity, smell the roses, and look at the light upon the mountains! Good-bye! I'm for Lewis now."

She pa.s.sed down the steps and through the garden toward the cedar wood which led to the old gate on the narrow road. Unity heard her singing as she went. The voice died in the distance. A door opened, Uncle Edward's step was heard in the hall, and his voice, harsh and strange, came out to his niece upon the porch: "Unity, I want you in the library a moment."

Jacqueline kept her tryst with Rand under the great oak that stood without the old gate, on land that was not the Churchills'. It was their custom to walk a little way into the wood that lay hard by, but this afternoon the narrow road, gra.s.s-grown and seldom used, was all their own. They sat upon the wayside, beneath the tree, and Selim grazed beside them. There was her full report of all that concerned them both, and there was what he chose to tell her. They talked of Fontenoy, and then of Roselands--talked freely and with clasped hands. Her head rested on his shoulder; they sat in deep accord, bathed by the golden light of the afternoon; sometimes they were silent for minutes at a time, while the light grew fairer on the hills. When an hour had pa.s.sed they rose and kissed, and he watched her across the road and through the gate into the circle of Fontenoy. She turned, and waited to see him mount Selim and ride away. He spoke from the saddle, "At the same hour to-morrow,"

and she answered, "The same hour." Her hands were clasped upon the top-most bar of the gate. He wheeled Selim, crossed the road, half swung himself from the saddle, and pressed his lips upon them. "Come home soon!" he said, and she answered, "Soon."