The Bondwoman Part 54

She glanced at him in playful reproach, a gay irresponsible specimen of femininity, who would ignore a man's treason because he chanced to be a charming partner in the dance.

"My very first request! So, Monsieur, this is how you mean to love, honor and obey me?"

He laughed and caught the uplifted forefinger with which she admonished him.

"I shall be madly jealous in another minute," he declared, with mock ferocity; "you have been my wife two full hours and half of that precious time you have wasted pleading the cause of a possible rival, for he actually did look at you with more than a pa.s.sing admiration, Judithe, it was a case of witchery at first sight; but for all that I refuse to allow him to be a skeleton at our feast this morning. There comes Phil Masterson for me, I must go; but remember, this is not a day for considerations of wars and retribution; it is a day for love."

"I shall remember," she said, quietly, and walked to the window looking out on the swaying limbs of the great trees; they were being swept by gusts of wind, driving threatening clouds from which the trio had ridden in haste lest a rain storm be back of their shadows. The storm Monroe had prophesied the night before had delayed and grumbled on the way, but it was coming for all that, and she welcomed the coming. A storm would probably delay that guard for which McVeigh had sent, and even the delay of a few hours might mean safety for Captain Monroe; otherwise, she--

She had learned all about the adventures of the papers, and had made her plans. Some time during that day or evening there would be a raid made on the Terrace by Federals in Confederate uniform. They would probably be thought by the inmates a party of daring foragers, and would visit the smoke houses, and confiscate the contents of the pantry. Incidentally they would carry Colonel McVeigh and Captain Masterson back to the coast as prisoners, if the required papers were not found, otherwise nothing of person or property would be molested by them; and they would, of course, free Captain Monroe, but force him, also, to go with them until within Federal lines and safety.

She had planned it all out, and knew it would not be difficult. The coast was not far away, a group of men in Confederate uniform could ride across the country to the Salkahatchie, at that point, un.o.bserved. The fortifications on the river had men coming and going, though not thoroughly manned, and just now the upper one had no men stationed there, which accounted for the fact that Colonel McVeigh had to send farther for extra men. He could not spare his own orderlies, and Masterson's had not yet returned from following Pierson. Unless the raiders should meet with a detachment of bona-fide Confederates there was not one chance in fifty of them being suspected if they came by the back roads she had mapped out and suggested; and if they reached the Terrace before the Confederate guard, Monroe would be freed.

She had not known there was that hope when she wrote the note consenting to the marriage. She heard they had sent down to the fort for some men and supposed it was the first fort on the river--merely an hour's ride away. It was not until they were in the saddle that she learned it would be an all day's journey to the fort and back, and that the colored carrier had just started.

She knew that if it were a possible thing some message would be sent to her by the Federals as to the hour she might expect them, but if it were not possible--well--

She chafed under the uncertainty, and watched the storm approaching over the far level lands of the east. Blue black clouds rolled now where the sun had shot brief red glances on rising. Somewhere there under those heavy shadows the men she waited for were riding to her through the pine woods and over the swamp lands; if she had been a praying woman she would have prayed that they ride faster--no music so longed for as the jingle of their accoutrements!

She avoided the rest and retired to her own room on the plea of fatigue. Colonel McVeigh was engaged with his mother and Judge Clarkson on some affairs of the plantation, so very much had to be crowded into his few hours at home. Money had to be raised, property had to be sold, and the salable properties were growing so few in those days.

Masterson was waiting impatiently for the Colonel, whom he had only seen for the most brief exchange of words that morning. It was now noon. He had important news to communicate before that guard arrived for Monroe; it might entail surprising disclosures, and the minutes seemed like hours to him, while Judge Clarkson leisurely presented one paper after another for Kenneth's perusal and signature, and Mrs.

McVeigh listened and asked advice.

Judithe descended the stairs, radiant in a gown of fluffy yellow stuff, with girdle of old topaz and a fillet of the same in quaint dull settings. The storm had grown terrific--the heavy clouds trailing to the earth and the lightning flashes lit up dusky corners. Evilena had proposed darkening the windows entirely, lighting the lamps to dispel the gloom, and dressing in their prettiest to drive away forgetfulness of the tragedy of the elements; it was Kenneth's last day at home; they must be gay though the heavens fell.

Thus it was that the sitting room and dining room presented the unusual mid-day spectacle of jewels glittering in the lamplight, for Gertrude also humored Evilena's whim to the extent of a dainty dress of softest sky blue silk, half covered with the finest work of delicate lace; she wore a pretty brooch and bracelet of turquoise, and was a charming picture of blonde beauty, a veritable white lily of a woman. Dr. Delaven, noting the well-bred grace, the gentle, una.s.suming air so truly refined and patrician, figuratively took off his hat to the Colonel, who, between two such alluring examples of femininity, two women of such widely different types as the Parisian and the Carolinian, had even been able to make a choice. For he could see what every one but Kenneth could see plainly, that while Miss Loring was gracious and interested in her other men friends, he remained, as ever, her one hero, apart from, and above all others, and if Judithe de Caron had not appeared upon the scene--

Gertrude looked even lovelier than she had the night before at the party. Her cheeks had a color unusual, and her eyes were bright with hope, expectation, or some unspoken cause for happiness; it sounded in the tones of her voice and shone in the happy curves of her lips as she smiled.

"Look at yourself in the gla.s.s, Gertrude," said Evilena, dragging her to the long mirror in the sitting room, "you are always lovely, dear, but today you are entrancingly beautiful."

"Today I am entrancingly happy," returned Miss Loring, looking in the mirror, but seeing in it not herself, but Judithe, who was crossing the hall, and who looked like a Spanish picture in her gleam of yellow tissues and topazes.

"Wasn't it clever of me to think of lighting the lamps?" asked Evilena in frank self-laudation, "just listen how that rain beats; and did you see the hail? Well, it fell, lots of it, while we were dressing; that's what makes the air so cool. I hope it will storm all the rain down at once and then give us a clear day tomorrow, when Kenneth has to go away."

"It would be awful for any one to be out in a storm like this,"

remarked the other as the crash of thunder shook the house; "what about Captain Monroe having to go through it?"

"Caroline said the guard has just got here, so I suppose he will have to go no matter what the weather is. Well, I suppose he'd just as soon be killed by the storm as to be shot for a spy. Only think of it--a guest of ours to be taken away as a spy!"

"It is dreadful," a.s.sented Gertrude, and then looking at Judithe, she added, "I hope you were not made nervous by the shot and excitement last night; I a.s.sure you we do not usually have such finales to our parties."

"I am not naturally timid, thank you," returned Judithe, with a careless smile, all the more careless that she felt the blue eyes were regarding her with unusual watchfulness; "one must expect all those inconveniences in war times, especially when people are located on the border land, and I hear it is really but a short ride to the coast, where your enemies have their war vessels for blockade. Did I understand you to say the military men have come for your friend, the Federal Captain? What a pity! He danced so well!"

And with the careless smile still on her lips, she pa.s.sed them and crossed the hall to the library.

Evilena shook her head and sighed. "_I_ am just broken hearted over his arrest," she acknowledged, "but it is because--well, it is _not_ merely because he was a good dancer! Gertrude, I--I did something horrid this morning, I just _could_ not eat my breakfast without showing my sympathy in some way. You know those last cookies I baked?

Well, I had some of those sent over with his breakfast."

"Poor fellow!" and Delaven shook his head sadly over the fate of Monroe. Evilena eyed him suspiciously; but his face was all innocence and sympathy.

"It is terrible," she a.s.sented; "poor mama just wept this morning when we heard of it; of course, if he really proves to be a spy, we should not care what happened to him; but mama thinks of his mother, and of his dead brother, and--well, we both prayed for him this morning; it was all we could do. Kenneth says no one must go near him, and of course Kenneth knows what is best; but we are both hoping with all our hearts that he had nothing to do with that spy; funny, isn't it, that we are praying and crying on account of a man who, after all, is a real Yankee?"

"Faith, I'd turn Yankee myself for the same sweet sympathy," declared Delaven, and received only a reproachful glance for his frivolity.

Judithe crossed the hall to the library, the indifferent smile still on her lips, her movements graceful and unhurried; under the curious eyes of Gertrude Loring she would show no special interest in the man under discussion, or the guard just arrived, but for all that the arrival of the guard determined her course. All her courage was needed to face the inevitable; the inevitable had arrived, and she was not a coward.

She looked at the wedding ring on her finger; it had been the wedding ring of the dowager long ago, and she had given it to Kenneth McVeigh that morning for the ceremony.

"Maman would approve if she knew all," she a.s.sured herself, and now she touched the ring to remind her of many things, and to blot out the remembrance of others, for instance, the avowal of love under the arbor in the dusk of the night before!

"But _that_ was last night," she thought, grimly; "the darkness made me impressionable, the situation made of me a nervous fool, who said the thing she felt and had no right to feel. It is no longer night, and I am no longer a fool! Do not let me forget, little ring, why I allowed you to be placed there. I am going to tell him now, and I shall need you and--Maman."

So she pa.s.sed into the library; there could be no further delay, since the guard had arrived; Monroe should not be sacrificed.

She closed the door after her and looked around. A man was in the large arm chair by the table, but it was not Colonel McVeigh. It was Matthew Loring, whose man Ben was closing a refractory banging shutter, and drawing curtains over the windows, while Pluto brought in a lighted lamp for the table, and both of them listened stoically to Loring's grumbling.

For a wonder he approved of the innovation of lamps and closed shutters. He had, in fact, come from his own room because of the fury of the storm. He growled that the noise of it annoyed him, but would not have acknowledged the truth, that the force of it appalled him, and that he shrank from being alone while the lightning threw threats in every direction, and the crashes of thunder shook the house.

"No, Kenneth isn't here," he answered, grumpily. "They told me he was, but the n.i.g.g.e.r lied."

"Mahsa Kenneth jest gone up to his own room, Madame Caron," said Pluto, quietly. "Mist'ess, she went, too, an' Judge Clarkson."

"Humph! Clarkson has got him pinned down at last, has he?" and there was a note of satisfaction in his tone. "I was beginning to think that between this fracas with the spy, and his galloping around the country, he would have no time left for business. I should not think you'd consider it worth while to go pleasure-riding such a morning as this."

"Oh, yes; it was quite worth while," she answered, serenely; "the storm did not break until our return. You are waiting for Colonel McVeigh? So am I, and in the meantime I am at your service, willing to be entertained."

"I am too much upset to entertain any one today," he declared, fretfully; "that trouble last night spoiled my rest. I knew the woman Margeret lied when she came back and said it was only an accident. I'm nervous as a cat today. The doctors forbid me every form of excitement, yet they quarter a Yankee spy in the room over mine, and commence shooting affairs in the middle of the night. It's--it's outrageous!"

He fell back in the chair, exhausted by his indignation. Judithe took the fan from Pluto's hand and waved it gently above the dark, vindictive face. His eyes were closed and as she surveyed the cynical countenance a sudden determination came to her. If she _should_ leave for Savannah in the morning, why not let Matthew Loring hear, first, of the plans for Loringwood's future? She knew how to hurt Kenneth McVeigh; she meant to see if there was any way of hurting this trafficker in humanity, this aristocratic panderer to horrid vices.

"You may go, Pluto," she said, kindly. "I will ring if you are needed."

Both the colored men went out, closing the door after them, and she brought a ha.s.sock and placed it beside his chair, and seated herself, after taking a book from the shelf and opening it without glancing at the t.i.tle or pages.

"Since you refuse to be entertainer, Monsieur Loring, you must submit to being entertained," she said, pleasantly; "shall I sing to you, read to you, or tell you a story?"

Her direct and persistent graciousness made him straighten up in his chair and regard her, inquiringly; there was a curious mocking tone in her voice as she spoke, but the voice itself was forgotten as he looked in her face.

The light from the lamp was shining full on her face, and the face was closer to him than it had ever been before. If she designed to dazzle him by thus arranging a living picture for his benefit she certainly succeeded. He had never really seen her until now, and he caught his breath sharply and was conscious that one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen in his life was looking at him with a strange smile touching her perfect mouth, and a strange haunting resemblance to some one once known, shining in her dark eyes.

"What sort of stories do you prefer--love stories?" she continued, as he did not speak--only stared at her; "or, since we have had a real adventure in the house last night, possibly you would be interested in the intrigue back of that--would you?"

"Do you mean," he asked, eagerly, "that you could give me some new facts concerning the spy--Monroe?"

"Yes, I really think I could," she said, amiably, "as there happen to be several things you have not been well informed upon."

"I know it!" he said, tapping the arm of the chair, impatiently, "they never tell me half what is going on, now!--as if I was a child! and when I ask the cursed n.i.g.g.e.rs, they lie so. Well, well, go on; tell me the latest news about this Yankee--Monroe."