The Bondwoman Part 30

"Come, let us compromise," suggested her guest, "if Madame Caron sounds too new and strange in your ears, I have another name, Judithe; it may be more easily remembered."

"In Europe and England," she continued, "where there are so many royal paupers, t.i.tles do not always mean what they are supposed to. I have seen a Russian prince who was a hostler, an English lord who was an attendant in a gambling house, and an Italian count porter on a railway. Over here, where t.i.tles are rare, they make one conspicuous; I perceived that in New Orleans. I have no desire to be especially conspicuous. I only want to enjoy myself."

"You can't help people noticing you a great deal, with or without a t.i.tle," and Mrs. McVeigh smiled at her understandingly. "You cannot hope to escape being distinguished, but you shall be whatever you like at the Terrace."

They walked arm in arm the length of the veranda, chatting lightly of Parisian days and people until ten o'clock sounded from the tall clock in the library. Mrs. McVeigh counted the strokes and exclaimed at the lateness.

"I certainly am a poor enough hostess to weary you the first evening with chatter instead of sending you to rest, after such a drive," she said, in self accusation. "But you are such a temptation--Judithe."

They both laughed at her slight hesitation over the first attempt at the name.

"Never mind; you will get used to it in time," promised the Marquise, "I am glad you call me 'Judithe.'"

Then they said good night; she acknowledged she did feel sleepy--a little--though she had forgotten it until the clock struck.

Mrs. McVeigh left her at the door and went on down the hall to her own apartment--a little regretful lest Judithe should be over wearied by the journey and the evening's gossip.

But she really looked a very alert, wide-awake young lady as she divested herself of the dark green travelling dress and slipped into the luxurious lounging robe Mademoiselle Louise held ready.

Her brows were bent in a frown of perplexity very different from the gay smile with which she had parted from her hostess. She glanced at her attendant and read there anxiety, even distress.

"Courage, Louise," she said, cheerily; "all is not lost that's in danger. Horrors! What a long face! Look at yourself in the mirror. I have not seen such a mournful countenance since the taking of New Orleans."

"And it was not your mirror showed a mournful countenance that day, Marquise," returned the other. "I am glad some one can laugh; but for me, I feel more like crying, and that's the truth. Heavens! How long that time seemed until you came."

"I know," and the glance of her mistress was very kind. "I could feel that you were walking the floor and waiting, but it was not possible to get away sooner. Get the other brush, child; there are wrinkles in my head as well as my hair this evening; you must help me to smooth them."

But the maid was not to be comforted by even that suggestion, though she brushed the wavy, dusky mane with loving hands--one could not but read tenderness in every touch she gave the shining tresses. But her sighs were frequent for all that.

"Me of help?" she said, hopelessly. "I tell you true, Marquise, I am no use to anybody, I'm that nervous. I was afraid of this journey all the time. I told you so before you left Mobile; you only laughed at my superst.i.tious fears, and now, even before we reach the place, you see what happened."

"I see," a.s.serted the Marquise, smiling at her, teasingly, "but then the reasons you gave were ridiculous, Louise; you had dreams, and a coffin in a teacup. Come, come; it is not so bad as you fear, despite the prophetic tea grounds; there is always a way out if you look for paths; so we will look."

"It is all well for you, Marquise, to scoff at the omens; you are too learned to believe in them; but it is in our blood, perhaps, and it's no use us fighting against presentiments, for they're stronger than we are. I had no heart to get ready for the journey--not a bit. We are cut off from the world, and even suppose you could accomplish anything here, it will be more difficult than in the cities, and the danger so much greater."

"Then the excitement will provide an attraction, child, and the late weeks have really been very dull."

The hair dressing ceased because the maid could not manipulate the brush and express sufficient surprise at the same time.

"Heavens, Madame! What then would you call lively if this has been dull? I'm patriotic enough--or revengeful enough, perhaps--for any human sort of work; but you fairly frighten me sometimes the way you dash into things, and laughing at it all the time as if it was only a joke to you, just as you are doing this minute. You are harder than iron in some things and yet you look so delicately lovely--so like a beautiful flower--that every one loves you, and--"

"Every one? Oh, Louise, child, do you fancy, then, that you are the whole world?"

The maid lifted the hand of the mistress and touched it to her cheek.

"I don't only love you, I worship you," she murmured. "You took me when I was nothing, you trusted me, you taught me, you made a new woman of me. I wouldn't ever mind slavery if I was your slave."

"There, there, Louise;" and she laid her hand gently on the head of the girl who had sunk on the floor beside her. "We are all slaves, more or less, to something in this world. Our hearts arrange that without appeal to the law-makers."

"All but yours," said the maid, looking up at her fondly and half questioningly, "I don't believe your heart is allowed to arrange anything for you. Your head does it all; that is why I say you are hard as iron in some things. I don't honestly believe your heart is even in this cause you take such risks for. You think it over, decide it is wrong, and deliberately outstrip every one else in your endeavor to right it. That is all because you are very learned and very superior to the emotions of most people;" and she touched the hand of the Marquise caressingly. "That is how I have thought it all out; for I see that the motives others are moved by never touch you; the others--even the high officials--do not understand you, or only one did."

Her listener had drifted from attention to the soft caressing tones of the one time Parisian figurante, whose devotion was so apparent and whose nature required a certain amount of demonstration. The Marquise had, from the first, comprehended her wonderfully well, and knew that back of those feminine, almost childish cravings for expression, there lived an affectionate nature too long debarred from worthy objects, and now absolutely adoring the one she deemed her benefactress; all the more adoring because of the courage and daring, that to her had a fascinating touch of masculinity about it; no woman less masterful, nor less beautiful, could have held the pretty Kora so completely. The dramatic side of her nature was appealed to by the luxurious surroundings of the Marquise, and the delightful uncertainty, as each day's curtain of dawn was lifted, whether she was to see comedy or tragedy enacted before the night fell. She had been audience to both, many times, since the Marquise had been her mistress.

Just now the mistress was in some perplexed quandary of her own, and gave little heed to the flattering opinions of the maid, and only aroused to the last remark at which she turned with questioning eyes, not entirely approving:

"Whom do you mean?" she asked, with a trifle of constraint, and the maid sighed as she selected a ribbon to bind the braid she had finished.

"No one you would remember, Marquise," she said, shaking her head; "the trouble is you remember none of them, though you make it impossible that they should forget you. Many of those fine gallants of Orleans I was jealous of and glad to see go; but this one, truly now, he seemed to me well worth keeping."

"Had he a name?" asked the Marquise, removing some rings, and yawning slightly.

"He had," said the girl, who was unfolding a night robe and shaking the wrinkles from the very Parisian confection of lawn and lace and tiny pink ribbons accenting neck and wrist. When she walked one perceived a slight halt in her step--a reminder of the injury through which her career in Paris had been brought to an end. "He had, my Marquise. I mean the Federal officer, Monroe--Captain Jack, the men called him. Of all the Orleans gentlemen he was the only one I thought fit for a mate for you--the only one I was sorry to see you send away."

"Send? What an imaginative romancer you are! He went where his duty called him, no doubt. I do not remember that I was responsible. And your choice of him shows you are at least not worldly in your selections, for he was a reckless sort of ranger, I believe, with his sword and his a.s.surance as chief belongings."

"You forget, Marquise, his courage."

"Oh, that!" and Judithe made a little gesture of dismissal; "it is nothing in a man, all men should have courage. But, to change the subject, which of the two men have most interest for us tonight, Captain Jack or Dr. Delaven? The latter, I fancy. While you have been chattering I have been making plans."

The maid ceased her movements about the room in the preparations for the night, and, drawing a low stool closer, listened with all attention.

"Since you are afraid here and too much oppressed by your presentiments to be useful"--she accompanied this derogatory statement with an amused smile--"I conclude it best for you to return to the sea-board at once--before Dr. Delaven and the rest pay their duty visit here.

"I had hoped the change in your appearance would place you beyond danger of recognition, and so it would with any one who had not known you personally. Madame McVeigh has been vaguely impressed with your resemblance to Monsieur Dumaresque's picture. But the impression of Dr. Delaven would probably be less vague--his remembrance of you not having been entirely the memory of a canvas."

"That is quite true," agreed the other, with a regretful sigh. "I have spoken with him many times. He came with--with his friend Trouvelot to see me when I was injured. It was he who told me the physicians were propping me up with falsehoods, and taking my money for curing a lameness they knew was incurable. Yes, he was my good friend in that.

He would surely remember me," and she looked troubled.

"So I supposed; and with rumors abroad of an unknown in the heart of the South, who is a secret agent for the Federals, it is as well not to meet any one who could suggest that the name you use is an a.s.sumed one, it might interfere with your usefulness even more than your dismal presentiments," and she arched her brows quizzically at the maid, who sighed forlornly over the complications suggested. "So, you must leave at once."

"Leave, alone--without you?" and the girl's agitation was very apparent. "Madame, I beg you to find some reason for going with me, or for following at once. I could send a dispatch from Savannah, you could make some excuse! You, oh, Marquise! if I leave you here alone I would be in despair; I would fear I should never, never see you again!"

"Nonsense, child! There is absolutely no ground for your fears. If you should meet trouble in any way you have only to send me word and I will be with you. But your imaginary terrors you must yourself subdue.

Come, now, be reasonable. You must go back--it is decided. Take note of all landmarks as we did in coming; if messengers are needed it is much better that you inform yourself of all approaches here. Wait for the yacht at Savannah. Buy anything needed for its refurnishing, and see that a certain amount of repairing is done there while you wait further orders. I shall probably have it brought to Beaufort, later, which would be most convenient if I should desire to give my good friends here a little salt water excursion. So, you perceive, it is all very natural, and it is all decided."

"Heavens, Marquise, how fast you move! I had only got so far I was afraid to remain, and afraid to excite wonder by leaving; and while I lament, you arrange a campaign."

"Exactly; so you see how easily it is all to be done, and how little use your fears."

"I am so much more contented that I will see everything as you wish," promised the girl, brightly. "Savannah, after all, is not very far, and Beaufort is nearer still. But after all, you must own, my presentiments were not all wrong, Marquise. It really was unlucky--this journey."

"We have heretofore had only good fortune; why should we complain because of a few obstacles now?" asked her mistress. "To become a diplomat one needs to be first a philosopher, and prepared at all times for the worst."

"I could be more of a philosopher myself over these complications,"

agreed the girl, smiling, "if I were a foreigner of rank seeking amus.e.m.e.nt and adventure. But the troubles of all this country have come so close home to the people of my race that we fear even to think what the worst might be."

The Marquise held up an admonishing finger and glanced towards the door.