The Valiants of Virginia Part 34

"What a sad life his father had!" pursued Katharine dreamily. "You know all about the duel, of course?"

Shirley shrank imperceptibly now. The subject touched Valiant so closely it seemed almost as if it belonged to him and to her alone--not a thing to be flippantly touched on. "Yes," she said somewhat slowly, "every one here knows of it."

"No doubt it has been almost forgotten," the other continued, "but John's coming must naturally have revamped the old story. What was it about--the quarrel? A love-affair?"

"I--I don't think it is known."

But reluctant coldness did not deter the questioner. "Who was it said there was a petticoat back of every ancient war?" quoted Katharine, lightly. "I fancy it's the same with the duello. But how strange that n.o.body _knows_. Some of the older ones must, don't you think?"

"It's so long ago," murmured Shirley. "I suppose some could tell if they would."

"Major Bristow, perhaps," conjectured Katharine thoughtfully.

"He was one of the seconds," admitted Shirley unhappily. "But by common consent that side of it wasn't talked of at the time. Men in Virginia have old-fashioned ideas about women...."

"Ah, it's _fine_ of them!" paeaned Katharine. "I can imagine the men who knew about that dreadful affair, in their Southern chivalry, drawing a cordon of silence about the name of that girl with her broken heart!

For if she loved one of the two, it must have been Sa.s.soon--not Valiant, else he would have stayed. How terrible to see one's lover killed in such a way.... It was quickly ended for him, but the poor woman was left to bear it all the years! She may be living yet, here maybe, some one whom everybody knows. I suppose I am imaginative," she added, "but I can't help wondering about her. I fancy she would never wholly get over it, never be able to forget him, though she tried."

Shirley made some reply that was lost in the whirring wheels. The other's words seemed almost an echo of what she herself had been thinking.

"Maybe she married after a while, too. A woman must make a life for herself, you know. If she lives here, it will be sad for her, this opening of the old wound by John's coming.... And looking so like his father--"

Katharine paused. There was a kind of exhilaration in this subtle baiting. Determined as she was that Shirley should guess at the truth before that ride ended, bludgeon-wielding was not to her taste. She preferred the keen needle-point that injected its poison before the thrust was even felt. She waited, wondering just how much it would be necessary for her to say.

Shirley stirred uneasily, and in the glimpsing light her face looked troubled. Katharine's voice had touched pathos, and in spite of her distaste of the subject, Shirley had been entering into the feeling of that supposit.i.tious woman. There had come to her, like a touch of eery clairvoyance, the suggestion the other had meant to convey of her actual existence; and this was sharpened by the sudden recollection that Valiant had himself told her of the resemblance that Katharine recalled.

The judge, on the front seat, was telling a low-toned story over his shoulder for the delectation of Nancy and Betty, but Shirley was not listening. Her whole mind was full of what Katharine had been saying.

She was picturing to herself this woman, her secret hidden all these years, hearing of John Valiant's coming to Damory Court, learning of this likeness, shrinking from sight of it, dreading the painful memory it must thrust upon her.

"Suppose"--Katharine's voice was dreamy--"that she and John met suddenly, without warning. What would she do? Would she say anything?

Perhaps she would faint...."

Shirley started violently. Her hands, as they drew her cloak uncertainly about her, began to tremble, as if with cold. Something fell from them to the bottom of the surrey.

Through her chiffon veil Katharine noted this with a slow smile. It had been easier than she had thought. She said no more, and the carriage rolled on, to the accompaniment of giggles over the judge's peroration.

As it neared the Rosewood lane she leaned toward Shirley.

"You have dropped your fan," said she "--and your gloves, too.... I might have reached them for you. Why, we are there already. How short the drive has seemed!"

"Don't drive up the lane, Lige," said Shirley, and her voice seemed sharp and strange even to herself. "The wheels would wake mother."

Katharine bade her good-by with careful sweetness, as the judge bundled her down in his strong friendly arms.

"No," she told him, "don't come with me. It's not a bit necessary.

Emmaline will be waiting for me."

He climbed into her vacant place as the girls called their good nights.

"We'll all sleep late enough in the morning, I reckon," he said with a laugh, "but it's been a great success!"

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

WHAT THE CAPE JESSAMINES KNEW

Emmaline was crouched in a chair in the hall, a rug thrown over her knees, in open-mouthed slumber. She started up at the touch of Shirley's hand, yawning widely.

"I 'clare t' goodness," she muttered, "I was jes' fixin' t' go t'

sleep!" The lamp on the table was low and she turned up the wick, then threw up her arms like ramrods, in delight.

"Lor', honey," she said in a rapturous whisper, "I reck'n they all say yo' was th' _purties'_ queen on earth, when th' vict'ry man set that crown, with th' di'mon's as big as scaley-barks, on that little gol'

haid! But yo' pale, honey-chile. Yo' dance yo'se'f mos' ter death, I reck'n."

"I--I'm so tired, Emmaline. Take the crown. It's heavy."

The negro woman untangled the glittering points from the meshing hair with careful fingers. "Po' li'l chickydee-dee!" she said lovingly.

"Reck'n she flop all th' feddahs outer her wings. Gimme that ol' tin crown--I like ter lam' it out th' winder! Come on, now; we go up-stairs soft so's not ter 'sturb Mis' Judith."

In the silvery-blue bedroom, she deftly unfastened the hooks of the heavy satin gown and coaxed her mistress to lie on the sofa while she unpinned the ma.s.ses of waving hair till they lay in a rich surge over the cushion. Then she brought a brush and crouching down beside her, began with long gentle strokes to smooth out the silken threads, talking to her the while in a soft crooning monotone.

"I jes' know Mis' Judith wish she well ernuf ter see her chile bein'

queens en things 'mongst all th' othah qual'ty! When they want er _queen_ they jes' gotter come fo' her little girl. Talk 'bout th'

stars--she 'way above _them_! Ranston he say Mistah Valiant 'bout th'

bestes' dancer in th' world; say th' papers up in New York think th' sun rise en set in his heels. 'Spec' ter-night he dance er little with th'

othahs jes' ter be p'lite, till he git back ter th' one he put th' crown on. So-o-o tired she is! But Em'line gwine ter bresh away all th'

achiness--en she got yo' baid all turned _down_ fo' yo'--en yo' pretty little night-dress all _ready_--en yo' gwineter _sleep_--en _sleep_--till yo' kyan sleep no mo' _nohow_!"

Under these ministrations Shirley lay languid and speechless, her eyes closed. The fear that had stricken her heart by turns seemed a cold hand pressing upon its beating and an algid vapor rising stealthily over it.

But her hands were hot and her eyelids burned. Finally she roused herself.

"Thank you, Emmaline," she said in a tired voice, "good night now; I'm going to sleep, and you must go to bed, too."

But alone in the warm wan dark, Shirley lay staring open-eyed at the ceiling. Slowly the terror was seizing upon her, the dread, noiseless and intangible, folding her in the shadow of its numbing wings. Was her mother the one over whom that old duel had been fought? Was it she whose love had been wrecked in that long-ago tragedy that all at once seemed so horribly near and real? Was that the explanation of her fainting? She remembered the cape jessamines. Was the date of that duel--of the death of Sa.s.soon--the anniversary her mother kept?

She sat up in bed, trembling. Then she rose, and opening the door with caution, crept down the stair, sliding her hot hand before her along the cool polished banister. Only a subdued glimmer came through the curtained windows, stealing in with the ever-present scent of the arbors. It was so still she thought she could hear the very heart of the dark beating. As she pa.s.sed through the lower hall, a hound on the porch, scenting her, stirred, thumped his tail on the flooring, and whined. Groping her way to the dining-room, she lighted a candle and pa.s.sed through a corridor into a low-ceilinged chamber employed as a general receptacle--a glorified garret, as Mrs. Dandridge dubbed it.

It showed a strange a.s.semblage! A row of chests, stored with winter clothing, gave forth a clean pungent smell of cedar, and at one side stood an antique spinet and a worn set of horsehair furniture. Sofa and chairs were piled with excrescences in the shape of old engravings in carved ebony frames, ancient sc.r.a.p-books and what-not, and on a table stood a rounded gla.s.s case with a flat base--the sort in which an older generation had been wont to display to awestruck admiration its terrifying concoctions of wax fruit.

Shirley had turned her miserable eyes on a book-shelf along one wall.

The volumes it contained had been her father's, and among them stood a row of tomes taller than their fellows--the bound numbers of a county newspaper, beginning before the war. The back of each was stamped with the year. She was deciphering these faded imprints. "Thirty years ago,"

she whispered; "yes, here it is."

She set down the candle and dragged out one of the huge leather-backs.

Staggering under the weight, she rested its edge on the table and began feverishly to turn the pages, her eye on the date-line. She stopped presently with a quick breath--she had reached May 15th. The year was that of the duel: the date was the day following the jessamine anniversary. Fearfully her eye overran the columns.

Then suddenly she put her open hand on the page as though to blot out the words, every trace of color stricken from cheek and brow. But the line seemed to glow up through the very flesh: "_Died, May 14th; Edward Sa.s.soon, in his twenty-sixth year_."

The book slipped to the floor with a crash that echoed through the room.