The Bondwoman Part 43

"Yes."

"Are you sorry?"

"No; are you?"

"N--no."

And when Delaven went to look for Evilena to tell her they were to have lunch on the lawn (Mrs. McVeigh had installed him as master of ceremonies for the day), he found her in the coziest, shadiest nook on the veranda, entertaining a sample copy of the enemy, and a.s.suring him that the grey uniforms would be so much more becoming than the blue.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Noon. Colonel McVeigh had been at the Terrace already a half day, and no sign had come from Pierson--no message of any sort. Judithe called Pluto and asked if the mail did not leave soon for down the river, and suggested that when he took it to the office he would ask the man in charge to look carefully lest any letters should have been forgotten from the night before.

"Yes'm, mail go 'bout two hours now," and he looked up at the clock.

"I go right down ask 'bout any letters done been fo'got. But I don'

reckon any mail to go today; folks all too busy to write lettahs."

"No; I--I--I will have a letter to go," and she turned toward the desk. "How soon will you start?"

"Hour from now," said Pluto, "that will catch mail all right;" and with that she must be content. At any other time she would have sent him at once without the excuse of a letter to be mailed. Those easy-going folk who handled the mail might easily have overlooked some message--a delay of twenty-four hours would mean nothing in their sleepy lives. But today she was unmistakably nervous--all the more reason for exceeding care.

She had begun the letter when Colonel McVeigh came for her to go to lunch; she endeavored to make an excuse--she was not at all hungry, really, it appeared but an hour since the breakfast; but perceiving that if she remained he would remain also, she arose, saying she would join their little festival on the lawn long enough for a cup of tea, she had a letter to get ready for the mail within an hour.

She managed to seat herself where she could view the road to the south, but not a horseman or footman turned in at the Terrace gate.

She felt the eyes of Monroe on her; also the eyes of Gertrude Loring.

How much did they know or suspect? She was feverishly gay, though penetrated by the feeling that the suspended sword hung above her.

Pierson's non-appearance might mean many things appalling--and Louise!

All these chaotic thoughts surging through her, and ever beside her the voice of Kenneth McVeigh, not the voice alone, but the eyes, at times appealing, at times dominant, as he met her gaze, and forbade that she be indifferent.

"Why should you starve yourself as well as me?" he asked, softly, when she declined the dishes brought to her, and made pretense of drinking the cup of tea he offered.

"You--starving?" and the slight arching of the dark brows added to the note of question.

"Yes, for a word of hope."

"Really? and what word do you covet?"

"The one telling me if the Countess Biron's gossip was the only reason you sent me away."

Mrs. McVeigh looked over at the two, well satisfied that Kenneth was giving attention to her most distinguished guest. Gertrude Loring looked across to the couple on the rustic seat and felt, without hearing, what the tenor of the conversation was. Kenneth McVeigh was wooing a woman who looked at him with slumbrous magnetic eyes and laughed at him. Gertrude envied her the wooing, but hated her for the laughter. All her life Kenneth McVeigh had been her ideal, but to this finished coquette of France he was only the man of the moment, who contributed to her love of power, her amus.e.m.e.nt. For the girl, who was his friend, read clearly the critical, half contemptuous gleams, alternating at times the graciousness of Madame Caron's dark eyes. She glanced at Monroe, and guessed that he was no more pleased than herself at the tete-a-tete there, and that he was quite as watchful.

And the cause of it all met Colonel McVeigh's question with a glance, half alluring, half forbidding, as she sipped the tea and put aside the cup.

"How persistent you are," she murmured. "If you adopt the same methods in warfare I do not wonder at your rapid promotions. But I shan't encourage it a moment longer; you have other guests, and I have a letter to write."

She crossed to Mrs. McVeigh, murmured a few words of excuse, exchanged a smile with Evilena, who declared her a deserter from their ranks, and then moved up the steps to the veranda and pa.s.sed through the open window into the library, pausing for a little backward glance ere she entered; and the people on the lawn who raised their gla.s.ses to her, did not guess that she looked over their heads, scanning the road for the expected messenger.

Looking at the clock she seated herself, picked up the pen, and then halted, holding her hand out and noting the trembling of it.

"Oh, you fool! You _woman_!" she said, through her closed teeth.

She commenced one letter, blotted it in her nervous impatience, turned it aside and commenced another, when Captain Monroe appeared at the window with a gla.s.s of wine in his hand.

"Why this desertion from the ranks?" he asked, jestingly, yet with purpose back of the jest. She recognized, but ignored it.

"That you might be detailed for special duty, perhaps, Captain Jack,"

she replied, without looking around.

"I have to look up stragglers," and he crossed to the desk where she sat. "I even brought you a forgotten portion of your lunch."

She looked up at that, saw the gla.s.s, and shook her head; "No, no wine for me."

"But it would be almost treasonable to refuse this," he insisted. "In the first place it is native Carolina wine we are asked to take; and in the second, it is a toast our bear of the swamps--Mr. Loring--has proposed, 'our President.' I evaded my share by being cup-bearer to you." He offered the gla.s.s and looked at her, meaningly, "Will you drink?"

"Only when you drink with me," she said, and smiled at the grim look touching his face for an instant.

"To the President of the Southern Confederacy?" he asked.

"No!--to _our_ President!"

She took the gla.s.s, touched the wine to her lips, and offered the remainder to him, just as Colonel McVeigh entered from the lawn. He heard Captain Monroe say, "With all my heart!" as he emptied the gla.s.s. The scene had such a sentimental tinge that he felt a swift flash of jealousy, and realized that Monroe was a decidedly attractive fellow in his own cool, masterful way.

"Ah! a tryst at mid-day?" he remarked, with a.s.sumed lightness.

"No; only a parley with the enemy," she said, and he pa.s.sed out into the hall, picking up his hat from the table, where he had tossed it when he entered in the morning.

Monroe walked up to the window and back again. She heard him stop beside her, but did not look up.

"I have almost decided to take your advice, and remain only one night instead of two," he said, at last. "I can't approve what you are doing here. I can't help you, and I can't stay by and be witness to the enchantment which, for some reason, you are weaving around McVeigh."

"Enchantment?"

"Well, I can't find a better word just now. I can't warn him; so I will leave in the morning."

"I really think it would be better," she said, looking up at him frankly. "Of all the American men I have met I value your friendship most; yes, it is quite true!" as he uttered a slight exclamation.

"But there are times when even our good angels hamper us, and just now I am better, much better, alone."

"If I could help you--"

"You could not," she said hastily. "Even without the barrier of the parole, you could not. But I cannot talk. I am nervous, not myself today. You saw how clumsy I was when I brought the letter to show?--and after all did not get to show it. Well, I have been like that all day. I have grown fearful of everything--distrustful of every glance. Did you observe the watchfulness of Miss Loring on the lawn?

Still, what does it matter?"

She leaned her head on her hands for a few moments. He stood and looked at her somberly, not speaking. When she turned towards him again it was to ask in a very different tone if he would touch the bell--it was time for Pluto to start with the mail. When he entered she found that a necessary address book had been left in her own apartments.