The Man in Lonely Land Part 12

For half a moment longer Laine stared at the paper in his hand, then, with the cigar, it fell to the floor, and he lifted his head as if for breath. Something had snapped, something that had been tense and tight, and his throat seemed closing. Presently his face dropped in his arms. What a fool he had been! He had let the prattle of a child torture and torment him and keep him silent, and now she was gone. After a while he raised his head and wiped his hands, which were moist; and, as he saw the writing on the letter beside him, his heart gave a click so queer that he looked around to see if the door was shut. Quickly he opened the envelope and tried to read: he couldn't see; the words ran into each other, and, going over to a side light, he held the paper close to it.

DEAR MR. LAINE,--Ours is a very old-fashioned, country Christmas, but we will be glad to have you spend it with us if you have not made other arrangements. Uncle Bushrod and I will be at the wharf Wednesday to meet the boat from Fredericksburg, and if you are on it we will bring you home with us, and if not we will be sorry, so come if you can. One or two other friends are coming that day, but most of our guests are here. All the trains from the North stop at Fredericksburg, and the boat that goes down the river leaves any time after 2 P.M., the hour of leaving depending upon the amount of freight, the convenience of the pa.s.sengers, and the readiness of the captain. As there's a boat only three times a week you can't get here in time for Christmas unless you make the Tuesday boat which should reach Brooke Bank, that's our landing, by ten o'clock Wednesday morning. Do come if you can.

Sincerely, CLAUDIA KEITH.

"If I can! If I can!" With a sudden movement of his hand the letter was put in one pocket, his watch taken out of another, and the b.u.t.ton under the light pressed violently. It was eight-forty-five. The last train for Washington left at twelve-thirty, and a local from there reached Fredericksburg at nine-twenty-four the next morning.

He knew the schedules well. "I have three hours and forty-five minutes," he said, under his breath. "I'd make it if there were but the forty-five minutes--if there were but ten."

And then it was that Moses, coming in answer to the bell, concluded that his master was not himself. He had left him a few minutes before, unapproachable in his silence, unappreciative of his efforts to please and provide, and now he was giving so many orders at once, calling for this and for that, pulling out clothes and pushing them back, that Moses, who hated to be hurried as only his race can hate, stood helpless, knowing only that something had happened, something he did not understand.

"Did you say your riding-clothes, sir?" he asked, holding a dress-shirt in his hand. "Or did you say--"

"I don't know what I said." Laine knocked over a box of handkerchiefs and threw a white vest on the bed. "Where are my shaving things? I told you I didn't want a trunk. Take the durned thing away. I'll break my neck over it! Where is that English bag--the big one? Get it, will you, and put in my riding-clothes, evening clothes, and one other suit; put in the things I need.

You've packed it often enough. Call up Jerdone's private number, and tell him I want all the flowers he's got. Get a move on you, Moses.

If you're paralyzed tell me; if not--"

"No, sir. I ain't paralyzed. I just demoralized. Suddenness always did upset me. At dinner you look like you just as lief be dead as livin', and now--"

"You or I will be dead if I miss that twelve-thirty train. Have you called the cab?"

"No, sir. I ain't called no cab. You ain't never call the word cab.

You mean--" Moses's hands dropped limply at his side. "You mean you're goin' away for Christmas?"

"That's what I mean!" Laine's voice was exultant, revealing, and he coughed to hide its ring. "By the way, Moses, why don't you go home for Christmas? Didn't you tell me once you came from Virginia? What part?"

"Palmyra, sir. In Fluvanna County, that's where I come from. Excuse me, but I bound to set down. Go _home_? Me go _home_? I couldn't git there and back not to save my life for lessen than twenty-five dollars, and till I git that farm paid for what I been buyin' to go back to and die on I can't go nowhere. That I can't."

Laine looked up from the collection of collars, cravats, and cuffs he was sorting. "Is it the money that's keeping you back, or is it you don't want to go?"

"Don't want to go!" The palms of Moses's hands came together, opened, and came back. "Yesterday I near 'bout bus' open with wantin' to go. My mother she's near 'bout eighty, and she got Miss Lizzie to write me and beg me to come for this here Christmas. Miss Lizzie is old Major Pleasants's youngest old-maid daughter. He's got three of 'em. He was my mother's marster, old Major Pleasants was, and he sold me the land my mother's livin' on now. He didn't charge nothin' much for it, but I had to have a house built, and buy some pigs and some furniture and git a cow, and I bought two of them street-car mules what was in Richmond when they put the 'lectric cars on down there. 'T'was the first city in the United States to have 'em, Richmond was. They thought them mules was wore out, but there ain't no friskier ones in the county than they is, I tell you now. I ain't been home for four years--"

"And your mother is eighty?"

"Yes, sir, that's what they tell me, though she say she don't know herself 'ceptin' she had four chillern which was good size when the war broke out. I belong to the second crop. My mother done had nineteen chillern, the triflinest, good-for-nothin'est lot the Lord ever let live on this earth, if I do say it, and ain't a one of 'em what does a thing for her, savin' 'tis me and Eliza--Eliza she's my sister and lives with her."

"And you'd like to spend Christmas with your mother, you say?"

In the years of his service Moses had never before mentioned family matters, but, having started, he was not likely to stop, and Laine was forced to interrupt,

"Yes, sir. This Christmas I would. Some other Christmases I wouldn't, 'count of a yaller girl what lived on the next place. It was in the summer-time, the last time I was home, and, she bein' a likely-lookin' girl, I seen right much of her every now and then, and I just talk along and tell her 'bout New York and what a grand, lonely place it was, and how my heart got hongry for my own people, and--things like that, you know, but I didn't mean nothin' serious or have any matrimony ideas, and first thing I know she done had me engaged to her. She chase me near 'bout to death, that girl did, but Miss Lizzie say she gone away now and I can come in peace."

Laine took out his pocket-book, put some notes in an envelope, and handed it to Moses. "This is for your ticket and to get some things to take to your mother," he said. "Be back by the thirtieth, and hurry and call that cab for the twelve-thirty train. I've some letters to write before I leave, and there's no time to lose. Tell Caddie I want to see her, and don't forget about that Reilley family, and see that everything gets to them in good shape--a good dinner and all the bundles and plenty for the stockings. Tell Caddie I'm waiting."

Later on, in the library, Laine sealed his last letter and put it on the pile Moses was to mail in the morning. Perhaps he had been a little rash this Christmas. Well, suppose he had. The boys in the office had done well through the year and ought to be told so. By itself a check was a pretty cold thing, and the words he had written to each had been honestly meant. And Miss b.u.t.ton, his stenographer, needed a little trip. Ten days at Atlantic City with her mother would pull her up. She had been looking badly lately--worried about her mother, Weeks had told him. Pity she was so homely. It was pretty unfair the way women had to work at both ends of the line.

Weeks, too, could get his wife that fur coat he'd been wanting her to have for three years. What an honest old duck Weeks was!--and who would ever believe him as full of sentiment as a boy of twenty? He had overheard him talking to Miss Dutton about the coat that morning.

Fifteen years Weeks had been his secretary, but to-night was the first time he had ever told him in actual words of his appreciation of his faithful service. "I wouldn't want a million if it didn't have some love with it," Claudia had said to him, and before his half-closed eyes she seemed to stand in front of him.

"They are her gifts," he said. "I was blind, and she has made me see."

XVII

A VISIT TO VIRGINIA

Not until he was settled in the car did Laine let himself take in the meaning of the journey he was taking. The past few hours had been too hurried to think; but as he sat in the smoking-compartment thought was no longer to be held in abeyance, and he yielded to it with no effort at restraint.

Sleep was impossible. The train, due at Washington at seven-twelve, would there have to be changed to a local for Fredericksburg, but the early rising was no hardship. To sit up all night would have been none. Each turn of the wheel was taking him nearer and nearer, and to listen to them was strange joy. Only that morning he had wished Christmas was over, had indeed counted the days before business could again absorb, and now every hour would be priceless, every moment to be held back hungrily.

One by one, the days in which he had seen Claudia pa.s.sed in review before him. The turn of her head, the light on her hair, the poise of her body on her horse, bits of gay talk, the few long quiet ones, the look of eyes unafraid of life, light laughter, and sometimes quick frown and quicker speech, and, clearest of all, the evening in which she had told him the story, with Channing in her arms and Dorothea in his. There had been few waking moments in which it had not repeated itself to him, and in his dreams the scene would change and the home would be theirs--his home and hers--and she would be telling him again what life should mean.

He had long known the name of the land in which he lived. It was, indeed, a Lonely Land; but that it was of his own choosing he had not understood, nor had he cared to think all people were his people.

There was much that he must know. He needed help, needed it infinitely. If she would give it-- A man, reeling slightly, came in the compartment, and, getting up, Laine went out quickly. For a few moments he stood in the vestibule and let the air from a partly open door blow over him, then, with a glance at the stars, turned and came inside.

At Fredericksburg the next morning Laine turned to the negro hackman, who, with Chesterfieldian bows, was hovering over his baggage and boxes, and made inquiries of the boat, the time of leaving, of a hotel, of what there was to see during the hours of waiting; and before he understood how it happened he found himself and his paraphernalia in the shabby old hack and was told he would be taken to the boat at once. He had never been to Virginia, had never seen a specimen of human nature such as now flourished a whip in one hand and with the other waved a battered and bruised silk hat toward the muddy street that led from the station to the town above, and with puzzled eyes he looked at the one before him.

"Yas, suh! I knows jes' exactly what 'tis you want to be doin', suh.

You jes' set yourself right back in the carridge and I'll take you and the baggige right down to the boat and put 'em in for you, and then me and you'll go round and see this heah town. I reckon you ain't never been to this place before. Is you all right now, suh?"

The once shiny hat was put on the back of the grizzled gray head, a worn and torn robe was tucked around Laine's knees, and before answer could be made the driver was on the box, the whip was cracked, and two sleepy old horses began the slight incline of the long street out of which they presently turned to go to the wharf and the boat tied loosely to it.

Half an hour later, bags and boxes having been stored in a state-room, a hasty survey of the boat made, and a few words exchanged with a blue-coated man of friendly manners concerning the hour of departure, Laine again got in the old ramshackle hack and for two hours was shown the honors and glories of the little town which had hitherto been but a name and forever after was to be a smiling memory. Snow and slush covered its sidewalks, mud was deep in the middle of the streets, but the air went to the head with its stinging freshness, the sun shone brilliantly, and in the faces of the people was happy content.

Reins dropped loosely in his lap, Beauregarde, the driver, sat sideways on the box and emitted information in terms of his own; and Laine looked and listened in silent joy to statements made and the manner of their making.

"Yas, suh, this heah town am second only in historic con-se-quence to Williamsburg, suh, though folks don't know it till they come and find it out from me. I been a-drivin' this heah hack and a-studyin' of history for more'n forty years, and I ain't hardly scratch the skin of what done happen heah before a Yankee man was ever thought of.

They didn't use to have no Yankees 'fore the war, but they done propogate themselves so all over the land that they clean got possession of 'most all of it. They's worse than them little English sparrows, they tell me. Ma.r.s.e George Washington he used to walk these streets on his way to school. He had to cross the river from Ferry Farm over yonder"--the whip was waved vaguely in the air--"and he wore long trousers till he got to be a man. Young folks didn't use to show their legs in those days, suh, jes' gentlemen. That place we're comin' to is Swan Tavern, and if it could talk it could tell things that big men said, that it could. This heah house is where Mis' Mary, the mother of Ma.r.s.e George Washington, used to live when she got too old to boss the farm. Some society owns it what was originated to preserve our Virginia iniquities, and they done put up a monument to her that's the onliest one ever put up to a woman for being the mother of a man. They was bus head people, the Washingtons was, but so was a lot of others who didn't do nothin' to prove it, and so is now forgot, and quality folks in them days was so thick there warn't enough other kind to do 'em reverence. Governor Spottswood and his Horse-Shoe gentlemen took dinner once in this heah town, and President James Monroe used to live heah. I'm a-goin' to show you his home and his office, presently, and the house where Ma.r.s.e Paul Jones used to live in. I reckon you done heard tell of Ma.r.s.e John Paul Jones, ain't you?"

Laine admitted having heard of him, but historic personages did not interest as much as present-day ones. The occupants of certain quaint and charming old houses, with servants' quarters in the rear and flower-filled gardens in the front, the rose-bushes of which were now bent and burdened with snow, appealed, as the other places of famous a.s.sociations failed to do, and he wondered in which of them Claudia's relatives lived.

At Marye's Heights Beauregarde waxed eloquent. Half of what he said was unheard, however, and as Laine's eyes swept the famous battle-fields his forehead wrinkled in fine folds. Could they have been settled in any other way--those questions which had torn a nation's heart from its bosom? Would the spilling of blood be forever necessary? He ordered Beauregarde to drive to the hotel.

There was just time for lunch, and then the boat which would take him down the river to where Claudia would be waiting.

As the boat swung off from the wharf and slowly made its way down the narrow river, curving like a horse-shoe around its ice-bound banks, Laine, standing in the bow, scanned the scene closely, and wondered if it were but yesterday that he had been in the rush and stir of city life. Straight up from the water the bluff rose boldly. Rays of pale sunlight sent threads of rainbow colors on the snow which covered it, and through the crystal-coated trees, here and there, a stately mansion could be seen overlooking the river. Skimming the water, a sea-gull would now and then dip and splash and rise again in the clear, cold air, and, save for the throb of the engine, there was no sound.

Until the sun had set and darkness made farther scanning of banks and bluff and winding river impossible, Laine walked the deck, hands in pockets, and thought of the morrow and the days ahead. The boat would tie up for the night at Pratt's Wharf and was due at ten the next morning at Brooke Bank if there was no unusual delay. Suddenly he remembered she had said other friends would be on the boat. Most of the pa.s.sengers were obviously returning home from a shopping trip to the city, package-laden and bundle-burdened, but two city men he had noticed and then forgotten in the thought of other things. Who were they? He opened the door of the stuffy little cabin and went in. Five minutes later he was at the supper-table and next to the two men who were talking in undertones of former Christmases at Elmwood. They were young, good-looking, and of Claudia's world. He got up and again went out.

XVIII

ELMWOOD

For some time Laine had seen Claudia. Walking up and down the little wharf at the end of the long bridge, railless and narrow, which ran far out into the river, her hands in her m.u.f.f, the collar of her fur coat turned up, her face unprotected by the brown veil which tied down securely the close-fitting hat, he had seen her a long way off, and as she waved her hand in greeting he lifted his hat and waved it in return.

A few minutes later he was shaking hands with her, with her uncle, with his two fellow-pa.s.sengers, with a number of other people, and everybody was talking at once. Those on the wharf were calling out to those on the boat, and those on the boat were making inquiries of, or sending messages by those on the wharf, and not until Laine's hands were again shaken well by Claudia's uncle as the Ess.e.x drew off, did he understand just who was his host.