Throckmorton Part 4

They made their way through the dancers, Jacqueline alternately pale and red with excitement, and the general bowing right and left, until they entered the small, old-fashioned drawing-room. Mrs. Sherrard, in a plain black silk, but with a diamond comb in her white hair and a general air of superbness, was delighted to see Judith. It was a victory over Jane Temple. She detained her for a moment to whisper: "My dear, I am dreadfully afraid I shall make a failure in trying to get George Throckmorton accepted here. The girls, who most of them never saw so fine a man before, will hardly have a word to say to him; the men are a little better, but it isn't a p.r.o.nounced success by any means. I have been longing for you to come. You have so much more sense than any of the young people I know, I thought you would be a little less freezing to him."

At this a warmer color surged into Judith's cheeks. She could not remember ever to have seen a man who impressed her so instantly as Throckmorton. With her clear, feminine instinct, she had seen at the first glance what manner of man he was. As Mrs. Sherrard spoke to her, she turned and saw him standing by the fireplace, talking with Edmund Morford. Throckmorton could not have desired a better foil than the young clergyman, with his faultless red and white skin, his curling dark hair, his mouth full of perfect teeth, and his character as a clerical dandy written all over him. Throckmorton, whose good looks were purely masculine and characteristic, looked even more manly and soldierly by contrast. Both men caught sight of Judith at the same moment. Morford was thrown into a perfect flutter. He wondered if Judith had put on that square-necked, short-sleeved black gown to do him a mischief.

Throckmorton, obeying a look from Mrs. Sherrard, came forward and was formally introduced. Judith offered her hand, after the Virginia custom, which Throckmorton bowed over.

"Mrs. Temple did not present me to you on Sunday," he said, with a smile and a slight flush; "but I guessed very readily who you were."

Judith, too, colored.

"Poor mother, you must not take her too hardly. You know how good she is, but--but she is very determined; she moves slowly."

"Yes," replied Throckmorton, with his easy, man-of-the-world manner; "but I am afraid there are others as unyielding as Mrs. Temple, and not half so kindly--for she is a dear soul! It seemed to me the carrying out of a sort of dream to come back to Millenbeck. My boy Jack--that young fellow yonder--looks rather old to be my son, don't you think?"

"Y-e-s," answered Judith, with provoking dubiousness and a wicked little smile.

"Oh, you are really too bad! I am very tired of explaining to people that Jack is nothing like as old as he looks. Well, the boy, although brought up at army posts, rather wanted to be a Virginian, and to own the old place; you know that sort of thing always crops out in a Virginian."

"Yes," smiled Judith; "I see how it crops out in _you_. You are immensely proud of being a Throckmorton, and you would rather own Millenbeck, if it were tumbling down about your ears, than the finest place in the world anywhere else."

"Now, Mrs. Beverley," said Throckmorton, determinedly, "I can't have my weaknesses picked out in this prompt and savage manner. I own I am a fool about Millenbeck, but I'd have sworn that n.o.body but myself knew it. I've got a year's leave, and I've come down here with Sweeney, an old ex-sergeant of mine, who has owned me for several years, and my old horse Tartar, that is turned out to gra.s.s; and if I like it as well as I expect, I may resign"--Throckmorton was always talking about resigning, as Mrs. Sherrard was about making her will, without the slightest idea of doing it--"and turn myself out to gra.s.s like Tartar. But my reception hasn't been--a--exactly--cordial--or--"

"I am sorry you have been disappointed," said Judith, gently; "but it seems to me that we are all in a dreadful sort of transition state now.

We are holding on desperately to our old moorings, although they are slipping away; but I suppose we shall have to face a new existence some time."

"I think I understand the feeling here--even that dead wall of prejudice that meets me. One look around Severn church, last Sunday, would have told me that those people had gone through with some frightful crisis. I thought, perhaps being one of their own county people originally might soften them toward me, but I believe that makes me blacker than ever."

Judith could not deny it.

Throckmorton, who was worldly wise, read Judith at a glance, besides having learned her history since first seeing her. He saw that she was under a fixed restraint, and that a word would frighten her into the deepest reserve. He treated her, therefore, as if she had been a Sister of Charity. Judith, who made up for her lack of knowledge of the world by rapid perceptions and natural talents, had seen more quickly than Throckmorton. Here was a man the like of whom she had not often met.

Throckmorton knew perfectly well the solitary lives these country women led, and he had often wondered at the singular fort.i.tude they showed. He set himself to work to find out what chiefly interested this young woman, who showed such remarkable constancy to her dead husband, but who gave indications to his practiced eye of secretly loving life and its concerns very much. He had heard about her pretty boy. At this Judith colored with pleasure and became positively talkative. Her boy was the sweetest boy--she would like never to have him out of her sight. Major Throckmorton, with a sardonic grin, confided to Judith that he would frequently be highly gratified at having _his_ son out of his sight, because Jack made the women think he, the major, was a Methuselah, and covertly made much game of him, for which he would like to kick Jack, but couldn't.

Judith laughed merrily at this--a laugh so clear and rippling, and yet so rare, that the sound of it startled her. Was Mrs. Beverley fond of reading? Mrs. Beverley was very fond of reading, but there was nothing newer in the array of books at Barn Elms than 1840. Major Throckmorton would be only too happy to supply her with books. He had had a few boxes full sent down to Millenbeck. At this Judith blushed, but accepted, without reflecting how Major Throckmorton was to send books to a house where he was not permitted to visit.

She also protested that she had read nothing at all scarcely; but Throckmorton came to find out that, for want of the every-day modern literature, she was perfectly at home in the English cla.s.sics, and knew her Scott and Thackeray like a lesson well learned. He began to find this gentle intelligence and cordiality amazingly pleasant after the cold shyness of the girls and the unmistakable keep-your-distance air of the older women. They sat together so long that Mr. Morford began to scowl, and think that Mrs. Beverley, after all, was rather a frivolous person, and with every moment Judith became brighter, gayer, more her natural charming self.

Meanwhile Jack Throckmorton had carried Jacqueline off for a quadrille, and was getting on famously. First they remarked on the similarity of their names, which seemed a fateful coincidence, and Jacqueline complained that the servants and some other people, too, often shortened her liquid three syllables with "Jacky," but she hated it. Jack, who had a sweet, gay voice, and was an inveterate joker, which Jacqueline was not, amused both her and himself extremely.

"Will you look at the major?" he whispered. "Gone on the pretty widow--I beg your pardon," he added, turning very red.

"You needn't apologize," calmly remarked Jacqueline. "Judith _is_ a pretty widow, and the best and kindest sister in the world, besides. It is all mamma. Mamma loved my brother better than anything, and wants us all to think about him as much as she does."

Jack, rather embarra.s.sed by these family confidences, parried them with some confidences of his own.

"I shall have to go over soon and break the major up. You see, there isn't but twenty-two years' difference between us, and the major is a great toast among the girls still, which is repugnant to my filial feelings."

Jacqueline listened gravely and in good faith.

"So, when I see him pleased with a girl, I generally sneak up on the other side, and manage to get my share of the girl's attention, and call the major 'father' every two minutes. A man hates to be interfered with that way, particularly by his own son, which doesn't often happen. The major has got a cast in one eye, and, whenever he is in a rage, he gets downright cross-eyed. Sometimes I work him up so, his eyes don't get straight for a fortnight."

"But doesn't he get very mad with you?" asked Jacqueline in a shocked voice.

"Of course he does," chuckled Jack; "and that's where the fun comes in.

But, you see, he can't say anything; it is beneath his dignity; but his temper blazes up, although he doesn't say a word. Sometimes, when I've run him off two or three times close together, he hardly speaks to me for a week--not that he cares about the girl particularly, but he hates to be balked."

"What a nice sort of a son you must be!"

Jack laughed his frank, boyish laugh.

"Why, the major and I are the greatest chums in the world. I would do anything for him. And if he ever presents me with a step-mother, I'll do the handsome thing--go to the wedding, and all that. And he's a fascinating old fellow, too--just takes the girls off their feet."

When the dance was over, Jack brought Jacqueline back to Judith, who still sat with Throckmorton. Jacqueline's eyes were shining with childish delight, and she arched her thin white neck restlessly from side to side.

"I have had such a nice dance!" she cried, breathlessly.

Judith, smiling, said, "Major Throckmorton, this is my little sister Jacqueline."

Throckmorton, having once fixed his eyes on Jacqueline, seemed unable to take them off, as on that Sunday he had first seen her in Severn church. Delilah, who noticed in her primitive way the wonderful power of attraction that Jacqueline had, used to say, "Miss Jacky she allus cotches de beaux." She certainly "cotched" Throckmorton's attention from the first. Something in this slim, unformed, provincial girl was suddenly captivating to him. His genuine but sane admiration for Judith seemed tame beside it. Jacqueline, however, only saw a rather striking man, well on toward old age, in her infantile eyes, and wished herself back with Jack, when Major Throckmorton took her for a little promenade.

Morford then made up to Judith, but found her singularly cold and unresponsive, and her eyes and smile were quite far away, over Morford's head, as it were. The truth is, the Rev. Edmund Morford was a considerable let-down from George Throckmorton; and, in Judith's starved and pinched existence, it was something to meet a man of Throckmorton's caliber. So in place of the charming sweetness Morford had learned to expect from Judith, he received a cold douche of listlessness and indifference. All the rest of the evening people noticed that Judith, who had a good deal of smoldering vivacity under her quietness, was remarkably cold and silent and rather bored, and they supposed it was because of her aversion to anything like gayety. In truth, Judith had realized rather more startlingly than usual the bareness and colorlessness of her life.

Mrs. Sherrard's effort was a strong one, but, as she said, it was scarcely a success. General Temple ostentatiously sought out Throckmorton, and tasted the delights of a discussion regarding the trans-Alpine campaigns of Hannibal, in which Throckmorton was a modest listener, and the general a most fiery, earnest, and learned expounder--a past grand-master of military science. But, on shaking Throckmorton's hand at saying good-night, with solemn but genuine effusiveness, he said not one word about calling at Millenbeck.

Throckmorton went home feeling rather bitter toward all his county people, except his stanch friend Mrs. Sherrard; Judith, so gentle, clever, and well-read; and that fascinating child, Jacqueline.

CHAPTER IV.

For a week after the party Jacqueline lived in a kind of dream. She could do nothing but talk of the party. The whole current of her life had been disturbed. Since this one taste of excitement there was no satisfying her. The daily routine was going down to a solemn breakfast, and then getting through the forenoon as best she might, with her flowers, and her pets among the ducks and chickens, and romping with the little Beverley--for this unfortunate Jacqueline had no regular employments--and then the still more solemn three o'clock dinner, after which she practiced fitfully on the wheezy piano in the dark drawing-room; then a country walk with Judith, if the day was fine, coming back in time to watch the creeping on of the twilight before the sitting-room fire. This was the happiest time of the day to Jacqueline.

She would sit flat on the rug, clasping her knees, and gazing into the fire until her mother would say, with a smile:

"What do you see in the fire, Jacky?"

"Oh, endless things--a beautiful young man, and a new piano, and a diamond comb like Mrs. Sherrard's, and--Oh, I can't tell you!"

"Miss Jacky she see evils, I know she do," solemnly announced Simon Peter. "When folks sits fo' de fire studyin' 'bout nuttin' 'tall, de evils an' de sperrits dat's 'broad come sneakin' up ahine an' show 'em things in de fire."

General Temple, a few days after the party, fell a victim to a seductive pudding prepared by Delilah, and was immediately invalided with the gout. Dr. Wortley was sent for, and at once demanded to know what devilment Delilah had been up to in the way of puddings and such, and soon found out the true state of the case. A wordy war ensued between Dr. Wortley and Delilah, and the doctor renewed the threat he had been making at intervals for twenty-five years.

"Temple," he screeched, "you may take your choice between that old ignoramus and me--between ignorance and science!"

"Ef ole ma.r.s.e was ter steal six leetle sweet 'taters an' put 'em in he pocket," began Delilah, undauntedly.

"Why don't you advise him to steal a wheelbarrowful instead of a pocketful?" retorted the doctor.

"Kase he doan 'quire but six, an' he got ter _steal_ 'em, fur ter make de conjurin' wuk. Den ev'y day he th'ow 'way a 'tater, an' when he th'ow de 'tater 'way he th'ow de gout 'way, too. De hy'ars from a black cat's tail is mighty good, too--"

"Temple, how do you put up with this sort of thing being uttered in your hearing?" snapped the doctor.