The Bondwoman Part 21

"No, you are not," he agreed. "Sad, isn't it?"

Then they both laughed. She was elated, bubbling over with delight, at meeting some one in Loringwood who actually laughed.

"Gertrude's note last night never told us she had company, and I had gloomy forebodings of Uncle Matthew and Uncle Matthew's doctor, to whom I would not dare speak a word, and the relief of finding real people here is a treat, so please don't mind if I'm silly."

"I shan't--when you are," he agreed, magnanimously. "But pray enlighten me as to why you will be unable to exchange words with the medical stranger? He's no worse a fellow than myself."

"Of _course_ not," she said, with so much fervor that her listener's smile was clearly a compromise with laughter. "But a doctor from Paris! Our old Doctor Allison is pompous and domineering enough, and he never was out of the state, but this one from Europe, he is sure to oppress me with his wonderful knowledge. Indeed, I don't know who he will find to talk to here, now, except Judge Clarkson. The judge _will_ be scholarly enough for him."

"And does he, also, oppress you with his professional knowledge?"

Evilena's laugh rang out clear as a bird's note.

"The Judge? Never! Why I just love him. He is the dearest, best--"

"I see. He's an angel entirely, and no mere mortal from Paris is to be mentioned in the same breath."

"Well, he is everything charming," she insisted. "You would be sure to like him."

"I wish I could be as sure you might change your mind and like the new-comer from Paris."

"Do you? Oh, well, then, I'll certainly try. What is he like, nice?"

"I really can't remember ever having heard any one say so," confessed the stranger, smiling at her.

"Well," and Evilena regarded him with wide, astonished eyes, "no one else likes him, yet you hoped I would. Why, I don't see how--"

The soft quick beat of horse hoofs on the white sh.e.l.led road interrupted her, or gave opportunity for interrupting herself.

"I hope it's Gertrude. Oh, it _is_! You dear old darling."

She flounced down the steps, followed by the man, who was becoming a puzzle. He gave his hand to Miss Loring, who accepted that a.s.sistance from the horse block, and then he stepped aside that the embrace feminine might have no obstacle in its path.

"My dear little girl," and the mistress of Loringwood kissed her guest with decided fondness. "How good of you to come at once--and Mrs.

Nesbitt, too? I'm sorry you had to wait even a little while for a welcome, but I just had to ride over to the quarters, and then to the far fields. Thank you, doctor, for playing host."

"_Doctor_?" gasped Evilena, gripping Miss Loring's arm. There was a moment of hesitation on the part of all three, when she said, reproachfully, looking at the smiling stranger, "Then it was you all the time?"

"Was there no one here to introduce you?" asked Miss Loring, looking from one to the other. "This is Dr. Delavan, dear, and this, doctor, is Kenneth's sister."

"Thanks. I recognized her at once, and I trust you will forgive me for not introducing myself sooner, mademoiselle, but--well, we had so many other more interesting things to speak of."

Evilena glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, and with her arm about Gertrude walked in silence up the steps. She wanted time to think over what awful things she had said to him, not an easy thing to do, for Evilena said too many things to remember them all.

Margeret was in the hall. Evilena wondered by what occult messages she learned when any one ascended those front steps. She took Miss Loring's riding hat and gloves.

"Mistress Nesbitt is just resting," she said, in those soft even tones. "She left word to call her soon as you got back--she'd come down."

"I'll go up and see her," decided Miss Loring. "Will you excuse us, doctor? And Margeret, have Chloe get us a bit of lunch. We are all a little tired, and it is a long time till supper."

"I have some all ready, Miss Gertrude. Was only waiting till you got back."

"Oh, very well. In five minutes we will be down."

Then, with her arm about Evilena, Miss Loring ascended the wide stairway, where several portraits of vanished Lorings hung, none of them resembling her own face particularly.

She was what the Countess Biron had likened her to when the photograph was shown--a white lily, slender, blonde, with the peculiar and attractive combination of hazel eyes and hair of childish flaxen color. Her features were well formed and a trifle small for her height. She had the manner of a woman perfectly sure of herself, her position and her own importance.

Her voice was very sweet. Sometimes there were high, clear tones in it. Delaven had admired those bell-like intonations until now, when he heard her exchange words with Margeret. All at once the mellow, contralto tones of the serving woman made the voice of the lovely mistress sound metallic--precious metal, to be sure, nothing less than silver. But in contrast was the melody, entirely human, soft, harmonious, alluring as a poet's dream of the tropics.

CHAPTER XII.

"How that child is petted on, Gideon," and Mrs. Nesbitt looked up from her work, the knitting of socks, to be worn by unknown boys in gray.

Even the material for them was growing scarce, and she prided herself on always managing, someway, to keep her knitting needles busy. At present she was using a coa.r.s.e linen or tow thread, over which she lamented because of its harshness.

Miss Loring, who appeared very domestic, with a stack of household linen beside her, glanced up, with a smile.

"Rather fortunate, isn't it, considering--" an arch of the brows and a significant expression were allowed to finish her meaning. Mrs.

Nesbitt pursed up her lips and shook her head.

"I really and truly wonder sometimes, Gertrude, if it's going on like this always. Ten years if it's a day since he commenced paying court there, and what she allows to do, at least is more than I can guess."

"Marry him, no doubt," suggested Gertrude, inspecting a sheet carefully, and then proceeding to tear it in widths designated by Dr.

Delaven for hospital bandages. "She certainly esteems him very highly."

"Oh, esteem!" and Mrs. Nesbitt's tone was dubious.

"Well, people don't think much of getting married these days, where there is fighting and mourning everywhere."

The older lady gave her a quick glance over the tow yarn rack, but the fair face was very serene, and without a trace of personal feeling on the subject.

"Yes, that's so," she admitted, "but I used to think they were only waiting till Kenneth came of age, or until he graduated. But my! I didn't see it make a spec of difference. They danced together at the party given for him, and smiled, careless as you please, and now the dancing is ended, they keep on friendly and smiling, and I'm downright puzzled to know what they do mean."

"Maybe no more than those two, who are only amusing themselves," said Gertrude, with a glance towards the lawn where Evilena and Delaven were fencing with long stalks of a wild lily they had brought from the swamps, and when Evilena was vanquished by the foe her comforter was a white-haired gentleman, inclined to portliness, and with much more than an inclination to courtliness, whom Evilena called "My Judge."

It was two weeks after the descent of Aunt Sajane and Evilena upon Loringwood. The former, after a long consultation with Dr. Delaven, had returned to her own home, near the McVeigh plantation, and putting her household in order for a more prolonged visit than at first intended, she had come back to be near Gertrude in case--

None of them had put into words to each other their thought as to Matthew Loring's condition, but all understood the seriousness of it, and Gertrude, of course, must not be left alone.

Dr. Delaven had meant only to accompany the invalid home, consult with their local physician, and take his departure after a visit to Mrs.

McVeigh, and possibly a sight of their new battlefield beside Kenneth, if his command was not too far away.

Kenneth McVeigh was Col. McVeigh now, to the great delight of the sister, who loved men who could fight. On his return from Paris he had, at his own request, and to the dismay of his family, been sent to the frontier. At the secession of his state he was possessed of a captaincy, which he resigned, returned home, and in six weeks tendered a regiment, fully equipped at his own expense, to the Confederate government. His offer had been accepted and himself made a colonel.

His regiment had already seen one year of hard service, were veterans, with a colonel of twenty-five--a colonel who had been carried home wounded unto death, the surgeons said, from the defeat of Fort Donaldson. He had belied their prophecies of death, however, and while not yet equal to the rigors of camp life, he had accepted a commission abroad of decided importance to his government, and became one of the committee to deal with certain English sympathizers who were fitting out vessels for the Confederate navy.