The Valiants of Virginia Part 18

Shirley, overexcited as she still was, felt the sobs returning. These, however, did not last long and in a moment she found herself smiling again. Though she had hurt him, she had saved him, too! When she whispered this over to herself it still thrilled and startled her. She folded the paper and hastened on under the cherry-trees.

Emmaline, the negro maid was waiting anxiously on the porch. She was thin to spareness, with a face as brown as a tobacco leaf, restless black eyes and wool neatly pinned and set off by an amber comb.

"Honey," called Emmaline, "I'se been feahin' fo' yo' wid all that lightnin' r'arin' eroun'. Do yo' remembah when yo' useter run up en jump plumb down in th' middle of yore feddah-baid en covah up dat little gol'

haid, en I useter tell yo' th' noise was th' Good Man rollin' eroun' his rain-barr'l?" She laughed noiselessly, holding both hands to her thin sides. "Yo' grow'd up now so yo' ain' skeered o' nothin' this side th'

Bad Place! Yo' got th' jess'mine? Give 'em to Em'line. She'll fix 'em all nice, jes' how Mis' Judith like."

"All right, Emmaline," replied Shirley. "And I'll go and dress. Has mother missed me?"

"No'm. She ain' lef' huh room this whole blessed day. Now yo' barth's all ready--all 'cep'n th' hot watah, en I sen' Ranston with that th'

fus' thing. Yo' hurry en peel them wet close off yo'se'f, or yo' have one o' them digested chills."

Her young mistress flown and the hot water despatched, the negro woman spread a cloth on the floor and began to cut and dress the long stalks of the flowers. This done she fetched bowls and vases, and set the pearly-white clumps here and there--on the dining-room sideboard, the hall mantel and the desk of the living-room--till the delicate fragrance filled the house, quite vanquishing the rose-scent from the arbors.

When all was done, she stood in the doorway with arms akimbo, turning about to survey her handiwork. "Mis' Judith be pleas' with that," she said, nodding her woolly head with vigor. "Wondah why she want them sprangly things! All th' res' o' th' time roses, but 'bout onct a yeah seems like she jes' got to have them jess'mine en nothin' else."

She swept up the scattered twigs and leaves, and going into the dining-room, began to lay the table for dinner. This room was square and low, with a carved console and straight-backed chairs thinly cushioned in faded blue to match the china. The olive-gray walls were brightened with the soft dull gold of an old mirror and picture frames from which dim faces looked placidly down. The crumbling splendor of the storm-racked sunset fell through old-fashioned leaded window-panes, tinging the white Capodimonte figures on the mantelpiece.

As the trim colored woman moved lightly about in the growing dusk, with the low click of gla.s.s and m.u.f.fled clash of silver, the light _tat-tat_ of a cane sounded, and she ran to the hall, where Mrs. Dandridge was descending the stairway, one slim white hand holding the banister, under the edge of a white silk shawl which drooped its heavy fringes to her daintily-shod feet. On the lower step she halted, looking smilingly about at the blossoming bowls.

"_Don'_ they smell up th' whole house?" said Emmaline. "I knowed yo' be pleas', Mis' Judith. Now put yo' han' on mah shouldah en I'll take yo'

to yo' big cha'h."

They crossed the hall, the dusky form bending to the fragile pressure of the fingers. "Now heah's yo' cha'h. Ranston he made up a little fiah jes' to take th' damp out, en th' big lamp's lit, en Miss Shirley'll be down right quick."

A moment later, in fact, Shirley descended the stair, in a filmy gown of India-muslin, with a narrow belting of gold, against whose flowing sleeves her bare arms showed with a flushed pinkness the hue of the pale coral beads about her neck. The damp newspaper was in her hand.

At her step her mother turned her head: she was listening intently to voices that came from the garden--a child's shrill treble opposing Ranston's stentorian grumble.

"Listen, Shirley. What's that Rickey is telling Ranston?"

"Don' yo' come heah wid yo' no-count play-actin'. Cyan' fool Ranston wid no sich snek-story, neidah. Ain' no moc'sin at Dam'ry Co'ot, en nebbah _was_!"

"There was, too!" insisted Rickey. "One bit him and Miss Shirley found him and sent Uncle Jefferson for Doctor Southall and it saved his life!

So there! Doctor Southall told Mrs. Mason. And he isn't a man who's just come to fix it up, either; he's the really truly man that owns it!"

"Who on earth is that child talking about?"

Shirley put her arm around her mother and kissed her. Her heart was beating quickly. "The owner has come to Damory Court. He--"

The small book Mrs. Dandridge held fell to the floor. "The owner! What owner?"

"Mr. Valiant--Mr. John Valiant. The son of the man who abandoned it so long ago." As she picked up the fallen volume and put it into her mother's hands, Shirley was startled by the whiteness of her face.

"Dearest!" she cried. "You are ill. You shouldn't have come down."

"No. It's nothing. I've been shut up all day. Go and open the other window."

Shirley threw it wide. "Can I get your salts?" she asked anxiously.

Her mother shook her head. "No," she said almost sharply. "There's nothing whatever the matter with me. Only my nerves aren't what they used to be, I suppose--and snakes always _did_ get on them. Now, give me the gist of it first. I can wait for the rest. There's a tenant at Damory Court. And his name's John--Valiant. And he was bitten by a moccasin. When?"

"This afternoon."

Mrs. Dandridge's voice shook. "Will he--will he recover?"

"Oh, yes."

"Beyond any question?"

"The doctor says so."

"And you found him, Shirley--_you_?"

"I was there when it happened." She had crouched down on the rug in her favorite posture, her coppery hair against her mother's knee, catching strange reddish over-tones like molten metal, from the shaded lamp. Mrs.

Dandridge fingered her cane nervously. Then she dropped her hand on the girl's head.

"Now," she said, "tell me _all_ about it."

CHAPTER XXII

THE ANNIVERSARY

The story was not a long one, though it omitted nothing: the morning fox-hunt and the identification of the new arrival at Damory Court as the owner of yesterday's stalled motor; the afternoon raid on the jessamine, the conversation with John Valiant in the woods.

Mrs. Dandridge, gazing into the fire, listened without comment, but more than once Shirley saw her hands clasp themselves together and thought, too, that she seemed strangely pale. The swift and tragic sequel to that meeting was the hardest to tell, and as she ended she put up her hand to her shoulder, holding it hard. "It was horrible!" she said. Yet now she did not shudder. Strangely enough, the sense of loathing which had been surging over her at recurrent intervals ever since that hour in the wood, had vanished utterly!

She read the newspaper article aloud and her mother listened with an expression that puzzled her. When she finished, both were silent for a moment, then she asked, "You must have known his father, dearest; didn't you?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Dandridge after a pause. "I--knew his father."

Shirley said no more, and facing each other in the candle-glow, across the spotless damask, they talked, as with common consent, of other things. She thought she had never seen her mother more brilliant. An odd excitement was flooding her cheek with red and she chatted and laughed as she had not done for years. Even Ranston rolled his eyes in appreciation, later confiding to Emmaline in the kitchen that "Mis'

Judith cert'n'y chipper ez er squ'rl dis evenin'. Reck'n she be breckin'

dat cane ovah some o' ouah haids yit! What yo' spos'n she say 'bout dem aryplanes? She 'clah she tickle tuh deff ter ride in one--yas'm. Say et soun' lak er thrash'n-machine en look lak er debble-fish but she don'

keer. When _she_ ride, she want tuh zip--yas she did! Dat's jes' whut Mis' Judith say."

But after dinner the gaiety and effervescence faded quickly and Mrs.

Dandridge went early to her room. She mounted the stair with her arm thrown about Shirley's pliant waist. At the window, where the bal.u.s.trade turned, she paused to peer into the night. The air outside was moist and heavy with rose-scent.

"How alive they seem, Shirley," she said, "--the roses. But the jessamine deserves its little hour." At her door she kissed her, looking at her with a strange smile. "How curious," she said, as if to herself, "that it should have happened, to-day!"

The reading-lamp had been lighted on her table. She drew a slim gold chain from the bosom of her dress and held to the light a little locket-brooch it carried. It was of black enamel, with a tiny laurel-wreath of pearls on one side encircling a single diamond. The other side was of crystal and covered a baby's russet-colored curl. In her fingers it opened and disclosed a miniature at which she looked closely for a moment.

As she snapped the halves shut, her eye fell on the open page of a book that lay on the table in the circle of radiance. It was _Lucile_: