The Valiants of Virginia Part 9

He returned to the outer hall to find that the negro had carried in his trunk, and he bade him place it, with the portmanteau, in the room he had just left. Dusk was falling. The air was full of a faint far chirr of night insects, like an elfin serenade, and here and there among the trees pulsed the greenish-yellow spark of a firefly.

"Uncle Jefferson," said Valiant abruptly, "have you a family?"

"No, _suh_. Jes' me en mah ol' 'ooman."

"Can she cook?"

"Cook!" The genial t.i.tter again captured his dusky escort. "When she got de _fixens_, Ah reck'n she de beaten'es cook in dis heah county."

"How much do you earn, driving that hack?"

Uncle Jefferson ruminated. "Well, suh, 'pens on de weddah. Mighty lucky sometimes dis yeah ef Ah kin pay de groc'ry man."

"How would you both like to live here with me for a while? She could cook and you could take care of me."

Uncle Jefferson's eyes seemed to turn inward with mingled surprise and introspection. He shifted from one foot to the other, swallowed difficultly several times, and said, "Ah ain' nebbah seed yo' befo', suh."

"Well, I haven't seen you either, have I?"

"Dat's de trufe, suh, 'deed et is! Hyuh, hyuh! Whut Ah means ter say is dat de ol' 'ooman kain' cook no fancy didoes like what dey eats up Norf. She kin jes' cook de Ferginey style."

"That sounds good to me," quoth Valiant. "I'll risk it. Now as to wages--"

"Ah ain' specticulous as ter de wages," said Uncle Jefferson. "Ah knows er gemman when Ah sees one. 'Sides, ter-day's Friday en et's baid luck. Ah sho' is troubled in mah min' wheddah we-all kin suit yo' perpensities, but Ah reck'n we kin take er try ef _yo'_ kin."

"Then it's a bargain," responded Valiant with alacrity. "Can you come at once?"

"Yas, suh, me en Daph gwineter come ovah fus' thing in de mawnin'. Whut yo'-all gwineter do fo' yo' suppah?"

"I'll get along," Valiant a.s.sured him cheerfully. "Here is five dollars.

You can buy some food and things to cook with, and bring them with you.

Do you think there's a stove in the kitchen?"

"Ah reck'n," replied Uncle Jefferson. "En ef dar _ain'_ Daph kin cook er Chris'mus dinnah wid fo' stones en er tin skillet. Yas, _suh_!"

He trudged away into the shadows, but presently, as the new master of Damory Court stood in the gloomy hall, he heard the shambling step again behind him. "Ah done neglectuated ter ax yo' name, suh. Ah did, fo' er fac'."

"My name is Valiant. John Valiant."

Uncle Jefferson's eyes turned upward and rolled out of orbit. "Mah Lawd!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed soundlessly. And with his wide lips still framed about the last word, he backed out of the doorway and disappeared.

CHAPTER XII

THE CASE OF MOROCCO LEATHER

Alone in the ebbing twilight, John Valiant found his hamper, spread a napkin on the broad stone steps and took out a gla.s.s, a spoon and part of a loaf of bread. The thermos flask was filled with milk. It was not a splendid banquet, yet he ate it with as great content as the bulldog at his feet gnawed his share of the crust. He broke his bread into the milk as he had not done since he was a child, and ate the luscious pulp with a keen relish bred of the long outdoor day. When the last drop was gone he brushed up the very crumbs from the cloth, laughing to himself as he did so. It had been a long time since he remembered being so hungry!

It was almost dark when the meal was done and, depleted hamper in hand, he reentered the empty echoing house. He went into the library, lighted the great bra.s.s lamp from the motor and began to rummage. The drawers of the dining-room sideboard yielded nothing; on a shelf of the butler's pantry, however, was a tin box which proved to be half full of wax candles, perfectly preserved.

"The very thing!" he said triumphantly. Carrying them back, he fixed several in the gla.s.s-candlesticks and set them, lighted, all about the somber room till the soft glow flooded its every corner. "There," he said, "that is as it should be. No big blatant search-light here! And no glare of modern electricity would suit that old wainscoting, either." He looked up at the painting on the wall; it seemed as if the sneer had smoothed out, the hard cruel eye softened. "You needn't be afraid," he said, nodding. "I understand."

He dragged the leather settee to the porch and by the light of the motor-lamp dusted it thoroughly, and wheeling it back, set it under the portrait. He washed the gla.s.s from which he had dined and filled it at the cup of the garden fountain, put into it the rose from his hat and set it on the reading-stand. The small china dog caught his eye and he picked it up casually. The head came off in his hands. It had been a bon-bon box and was empty save for a narrow strip of yellowed paper, on which were written some meaningless figures: 17-28-94-0. He pondered this a moment, then thrust it into one of the empty pigeonholes of the desk. On the latter stood an old-fashioned leaf-calendar; the date it exposed was May 14th. Curiously enough the same date would recur to-morrow. The page bore a quotation: "Every man carries his fate on a riband about his neck." The line had been quoted in his father's letter. May 14th!--how much that date and that motto may have meant for him!

He put the calendar back, filled his pipe and sat down facing the open bow-window. The dark was mysteriously lifting, the air filling with a soft silver-gray translucence that touched the wild growth as with a fairy gossamer. Presently, from between the still elms, the new sickle moon climbed into view. From the garden came a plaintive bird-cry, long-drawn and wavering and then, from farther away, the triple mellow whistle of a whippoorwill.

The place was alive now with bird-notes, and he listened with a new delight. He thought suddenly, with a kind of impatient wonder, that never in his life had he sat perfectly alone in a solitude and listened to the voices of the night. The only out-of-doors he knew had been comprised in motor-whirls on frequented highroads, seash.o.r.e, or mountain months where bridge and dancing were forever on the cards, or else such up-to-date "camping" as was indulged in at the Fargos' "shack" on the St. Lawrence. He sat now with his senses alert to a new world that his sophisticated eye and ear had never known. Something new was entering into him that seemed the spirit of the place; the blessing of the tall silver poplars outside, the musical scented gardens and the moonlight laid like a placid benediction over all.

He rose to push the shutter wider and in the movement his elbow sent a shallow case of morocco leather that had lain on the desk crashing to the floor. It opened and a heavy metallic object rolled almost to his feet. He saw at a glance that it was an old-fashioned rusted dueling-pistol.

The box had originally held two pistols. He shuddered as he stooped to pick up the weapon, and with the crawling repugnance mingled a panging anger and humiliation. From his very babyhood it had always been so--that unconquerable aversion to the touch of a firearm. There had been moments in his youth when this unreasoning shrinking had filled him with a blind fury, had driven him to strange self-tests of courage. He had never been able to overcome it. He had always had a natural distaste for the taking of life; hunting was an unthinkable sport to him, and he regarded the l.u.s.ty pursuit of small feathered or furry things for pleasure with a mingled wonder and contempt. But a.n.a.lyzation had told him that his peculiar abhorrence was no mere outgrowth of this. It lay far deeper. He had rarely, of recent years, met the test. Now, as he stood in these unaccustomed surroundings, with the cold touch of the metal the old shuddering held him, and the sweat broke in beads on his forehead. Setting his teeth hard, he crossed the room, slipped the box with its pistol between the volumes of the bookcase, and returned to his seat.

The bulldog, aroused from a nap, thrust a warm muzzle between his knees.

"It's uncanny, Chum!" he said, as his hand caressed the velvety head.

"Why should the touch of that fool thing chill my spine and make my flesh tiptoe over my bones? Is it a mere peculiarity of temperament?

Some men hate cats'-eyes. Some can't abide sitting on plush. I knew a chap once who couldn't see milk poured from a pitcher without getting goose-flesh. People are born that way, but there must be a cause. Why should I hate a pistol? Do you suppose I was shot in one of my previous existences?"

For a long while he sat there, his pipe dead, his eyes on the moonlighted out-of-doors. The eery feeling that had gripped him had gone as quickly as it had come. At last he rose, stretching himself with a great boyish yawn, put out all save one of the candles and taking a bath-robe, sandals and a huge fuzzy towel from the steamer-trunk, stripped leisurely. He donned the bath-robe and sandals and went out through the window to the garden and down to where lay the little lake ruffling silverly under the moon. On its brink he stopped, and tossing back his head, tried to imitate one of the bird-calls but was unsuccessful. With a rueful laugh he threw off the bath-robe and stood an instant glistening, poised in the moonlight like a marble faun, before he dove, straight down out of sight.

Five minutes later he pulled himself up over the edge, his flesh tingling with the chill of the water, and drew the robe about his cool white shoulders. Then he thrust his feet into his sandals and sped quickly back. He rubbed himself to a glow, and blowing out the remaining candle, stretched himself luxuriously between the warm blankets on the couch. The dog sniffed inquiringly at his hand, then leaped up and snuggled down close to his feet.

The soft flooding moonlight sent its radiance into the gloomy room, touching lovingly its dark carven furniture and bringing into sharp relief the lithe contour of the figure under the fleecy coverlid, the crisp damp hair, the expressive face, and the wide-open dreamy eyes.

John Valiant's thoughts had fled a thousand miles away, to the tall girl who all his life had seemed to stand out from his world, aloof and unsurpa.s.sed--Katharine Fargo. He tried to picture her, a perfect chatelaine, graceful and gracious as a tall, white, splendid lily, in this dead house that seemed still to throb with living pa.s.sions. But the picture subtly eluded him and he stirred uneasily under the blanket.

After a time his hand stretched out to the reading-stand and drew the gla.s.s with its vivid blossom nearer, till, in his nostrils, its musky odor mingled with the dew-wet scent of the honeysuckle from the garden.

At last his eyes closed. "Every man carries his fate ... on a riband about his neck," he muttered drowsily, and then, "Roses ... red roses...."

And so he fell asleep.

CHAPTER XIII

THE HUNT

He awoke to a musical twittering and chirping, to find the sun pouring into the dusty room in a very glory. He rolled from the blanket and stood upright, filling his lungs with a long deep breath of satisfaction. He felt singularly light-hearted and alive. The bulldog came bounding through the window, dirty from the weeds, and flung himself upon his master in a canine rapture.

"Get out!" quoth the latter, laughing. "Stop licking my feet! How the d.i.c.kens do you suppose I'm to get into my clothes with your ridiculous antics going on? Down, I say!"

He began to dress rapidly. "Listen to those birds, Chum!" he said.

"There's an ornithological political convention going on out there. Wish I knew what they were chinning about--they're so mightily in earnest.

See them splashing in that fountain? If you had any self-respect you'd be taking a bath yourself. You need it! Hark!" He broke off and listened. "Who's that singing?"