Book 2. A Rainy Season - Chapter 6

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_ BOOK II. A RAINY SEASON
CHAPTER VI

"I have learned all they can teach me here," wrote Eugenia from school on her eighteenth birthday, "so I'll be home to-morrow."

"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the general, holding the letter above his cakes and coffee. "The child's mad--clean mad! We must put a stop to it."

"Write her to stay where she is," said Miss Chris decisively.

"I'll write her, the young puss!" returned the general angrily. "Giving herself airs at her age, is she? Why, she's just left her bottle!"

"What else does she say, Tom?" inquired his sister as she passed him the maple syrup.

The letter fluttered helplessly in the general's hand. "I can't stay away any longer from my dear, bad-tempered, old dad," he read in a breaking voice; then he added hesitatingly, "I don't reckon she's right about knowing enough, eh, Chris?"

"Certainly not," responded Miss Chris severely. "The child's as headstrong as a colt. Get that letter off in time for the train, and I'll let Sampson carry it to town."

The general finished his breakfast and went to the old secretary in the library to write his letter. When he had given it to Sampson he came back to Miss Chris, who was washing the teacups in the pantry.

"I s'pose we might as well get her room ready," he suggested. "She may come, anyway, you know."

Miss Chris looked up with a laugh from the delicate saucer she was wiping.

"I know it," she admitted; "and I'll see to her room. But your letter was positive, I hope?"

"Y-e-s," answered the general lamely, and he returned to the Richmond papers with an eager flush in his face.

The next day when Eugenia reached Kingsborough she found the dilapidated carriage awaiting her, with Sampson upon the driver's seat. With an impetuous flutter she threw her arms about the necks of the old horses. "Why, you dear things!" she cried; then she held out her hand to Sampson. "I'm glad to see you, Sampson," she said. "But why didn't papa come to meet me?"

Her animated eyes glanced joyously from side to side and her lips were brimming with the delight of homecoming.

Sampson turned the wheel for her as she got into the carriage, and gave her the linen lap-robe.

"You sho is growed, Miss Eugeny," he observed, and then in reply to her question, "Marse Tom hev got pow'ful stiff-jinted recentelly. Hit seems like he'd ruther sot right still den ease hisse'f outer his cheer. Sence Ole Miss Grissel done drop down dead uv er political stroke, he ain' step 'roun' mo'n he bleeged ter."

The carriage jolted through Kingsborough, and Eugenia bowed smilingly to her acquaintances. Once she stopped to shake hands with the rector and again to kiss Sally Burwell, who flew into her arms.

"Why, Eugie! you--you beauty!" she cried. Eugenia laughed delightedly, her black eyes glowing.

"Am I good-looking?" she asked. "I'm so glad. But I'll never be as pretty as you, you dear, sweet thing. I'm too big."

They laughed and kissed again, and Eugenia stepped from the carriage to greet the judge, who was passing.

"This is a sight for sore eyes, my dear," said the judge, his fine old face wreathed in smiles. Then, as his gaze ran over her full, straight figure, "they make fine women these days," he added. "You're as tall as your father--though you're your mother's child. Yes, I can see Amelia Tucker in your eyes."

"Thank you--thank you," said the girl in a throaty voice. There was a glow, a warmth, a fervour in her face which harmonised the chill black and white of her colouring. Her expression was as a lamp to illumine the mask of her features.

"I couldn't stay away," she went on breathlessly. "I love Kingsborough better than the whole world."

"And Kingsborough loves you," returned the judge. "Yes, it is a good old town and well worth dying in, after all."

He assisted Eugenia into the carriage, shook hands again, and the lumbering old vehicle jogged on its way. In a moment another halt was called, and Mrs. Webb came from her gate to give the girl welcome.

"This is a surprise," she said as she kissed her. "I dined at Battle Hall last week, and they didn't tell me you were coming."

"They didn't know it," laughed Eugenia. "I come like a bolt from the blue."

Mrs. Webb smiled coldly. She was just as the girl had known her in childhood--only the high black pompadour was now white. She still wore her stiff black silk gown, fastened at the throat by a Confederate button set in a brooch.

"You are like yourself and no one else," said Eugenia simply. "But tell me of Dudley--where is he?"

Mrs. Webb's face softened slightly.

"His practice is in Richmond now," she answered. "You know he studied law and took great honours at college. But his ambitions, I fear, are political. I don't like politics. They aren't for honest men."

Eugenia did not smile. She merely nodded assent and, saying good-bye pleasantly, jolted out of Kingsborough into the Old Stage Road.

"When did Mrs. Webb dine at home, Sampson?" she asked suddenly after a long silence.

"Hit wa'n' onc't en it wa'n' twice," said Sampson thoughtfully. "Mo' like hit wuz tree times. She done been dar monst'ous often dis yer winter, an' de mo' she come de mo' 'ristocratical she 'pear ter git. Dar wa'n' no placin' her, nohow. We done sot 'er by Ole Mis' Grissel w'en she wuz 'live, an' we done sot 'er by Miss Chris, an' we done sot 'er by Marse Tom hisse'f, an', fo' de Lawd, I ain' never seen 'er congeal yit."

But Eugenia was seeking other information. "Is Uncle Ish well? And Aunt Verbeny, and the dogs? and did you bury Jim in the graveyard?"

"Dey's all well," replied Sampson, flicking at a horsefly on the sorrel's back, "an' Jim, he's well en buried. Marse Tom sot up er boa'd des' like you tell 'im."

A little later they turned into the cedar avenue, and Eugenia could see the large white pillars of the porch.

"There they are!" she cried excitedly, and before the carriage stopped she was up the narrow walk and in the general's arms.

"Well, daughter! daughter!" said the general. His eyes were watery, and when Eugenia fell upon Miss Chris, he blew his nose loudly with a nervous wave of his silk handkerchief.

"I was obliged to come," explained Eugenia. "When I got your letter saying I might, I was so happy."

"Tom!" murmured Miss Chris reproachfully, but her eyes were shining and she laid an affectionate hand on her brother's arm.

The general blushed like a boy.

"I told her if she'd fully made up her mind to come, I'd--I'd let her," he stammered shamefacedly.

"Oh, I was coming anyway!" announced Eugenia cheerfully as she was clasped upon the bosom of Aunt Verbeny.

"Ain't you des' yo' ma all over?" cried Aunt Verbeny enthusiastically. "Is you ever see anybody so w'ite en' so' black in de same breff 'cep'n Miss Meeley? Can't I see her now same ez 'twuz yestiddy, stannin' right dar in dis yer hall en' sayin', 'You b'longs ter me, Verbeny, en' I'se gwine ter take cyar you de bes' I kin.'"

Aunt Verbeny fixed her eyes upon the general and he quailed.

"Don't I take care of you, Aunt Verbeny?" he asked appealingly; but Eugenia, having greeted the remaining servants, drew him with her into the dining-room. When he sat down at last to the heavily laden table, he seemed to have grown twenty years younger. As Eugenia hung over him with domineering devotion, the irritable expression faded from his face and he grew almost jovial. When she weakened his coffee, he protested delightedly, and when she refused to allow him his nightly dole of preserved quinces, he stormed with rapture. "She wants to starve me, the tyrant," he declared. "She'll take the very bread from my mouth next."

Then his enthusiasm overcame him.

"That's the finest girl in the world, Chris! God bless her, her heart's as warm as her eyes. Why, she'd damn herself to do a kindness."

Miss Chris appeared to remonstrate.

"I am surprised, Tom," she said disapprovingly, though why she was surprised or what she was surprised at the general never knew.

When Eugenia went upstairs that night, she blew out her candle and undressed by the full light of the moon as it shone through the giant sycamore. Outside, the lawn lay like a sheet unrolled, rent by sharp black shadows. All the dear, familiar objects were draped by the darkness as by a curtain; the body of the sycamore assumed a spectral pallor, and the small rockery near by was as mysterious as a tomb. From the dusk beneath the window the fragrance of the mimosa tree floated into the room.

Eugenia, in her long, white nightgown, fell upon her bed and slept.

The next day she went the rounds of the farm. "I'm coming back to take you for exercise," she remarked to the general as she stood before him in her sunbonnet.

The general, who was placidly smoking, groaned in protest.

"Then you'll kill me, Eugie," he urged. "Exercise doesn't suit me. I'm too heavy."

"You'll get lighter," returned Eugenia reassuringly. "You don't move about half enough, but I'll make you."

The general groaned again, and Miss Chris, pink and fresh in her linen sacque, came out upon the porch.

"Bless the child!" she exclaimed. "Where on earth did she lay hands on that bonnet? Don't stay out too long in the sun, Eugie, or you'll burn black."

The general caught at the straw.

"I wish you'd tell her she ought to sit in the house, Chris. She wants to drag me--me out in that heat." But Eugenia drew the sunbonnet over her dark head and disappeared across the lawn.

* * * * *

Having inspected the farmyard and the stables, she crossed the ragged field to the negro cabins, where she was received with hilarity.

"Ain't I al'ays tell you she uz de fines' lady in delan'?" demanded Delphy of the retreating Moses. "Ain't I al'ays tell you dar wa'n't her match in dese yer parts or outer dem? I ax you, ain't I?"

"Dat's so," admitted Moses meekly.

"Where's Betsey?" inquired Eugenia, twirling her sunbonnet. "Aunt Verbeny told me the baby died. I am so sorry."

"De Lawd He give, en' de Lawd He teck," returned Delphy piously, "en' He done been moughty open-handed dis long time. He done give er plum sight mo'n He done teck, en' it ain' no use'n sayin' He ain'."

"So the others are well?" ventured Eugenia, and as a bow-legged crawler emerged from beneath the doorstep she added: "Is that the youngest?"

Delphy snorted.

"Dat ar brat, Miss Euginney? He ain' Betsey's, nohow. He's Rindy's Lije, en' he's de mos' out'n out pesterer sence Mose wuz born."

"Rindy!" exclaimed Eugenia in surprise, lightly touching the small black body with her foot. "Why, I didn't know Rindy was married. She's working at the house now."

Delphy seized the child and held him at arm's length while she applied a sounding box. "Go 'way f'om yer, honey," she said. "Rindy ain' mah'ed. He's des' an accident. Shet yo' mouth, you imp er darkness, fo' I shet hit fur you."

"Don't hurt him, Delphy," pleaded the girl. "Rindy ought to be ashamed of herself, but it isn't his fault. I'm going to send him some clothes. He looks fat enough, anyhow."

"He's fitten ter bus'," retorted Delphy sternly.

"He don't do nuttin' fur his livin' but eat all day, en' den when night come he don't do nuttin' but holler kaze de time ter leave off eatin' done come. He ain' no mo' use'n a weazel."

Eugenia promised to befriend the baby, and left with Delphy's pessimism ringing in her ears. "He ain' wuth yo' shoestring, he ain'," called the woman after her.

The girl was as popular among the negroes as she had been as a small tomboy in pinafores. Her impulsive generosity and, above all, her cordial kindness, had not abated with years. She was as ready to serve as be served, her heart was as open as her hand; and the shrewd, childish race received her as a benignant providence. Her sweetness of disposition became a proverb. "As sunshiny ez Miss Euginny," said Aunt Verbeny of a clear day--and the general raised her wages.

During the early summer Bernard came home on a vacation. For several years he had held a position in a bank in Lynchburg, and his visits to Kingsborough took place at uncertain intervals. He was a slight, insignificant young fellow, with complacent eyes and a beautiful, girlish mouth. His temper was quicker than Eugenia's, and he was in continual friction with the general, who had grown absent-minded and irritable. He not only forgot his own opinions as soon as he expressed them, but, what is still more annoying, he was apt to offer them as some one's else in the course of a few hours.

"That young Burr's a scamp," he remarked one morning at breakfast, "a regular scamp. Here he's setting up as a lawyer under George Bassett's eye, when I happen to know that Jerry Pollard wouldn't have him in his store if you paid him."

"My dear Tom," breathed the placid voice of Miss Chris, "I'm quite sure you're mistaken. Why, Judge Bassett--"

"Mistaken!" persisted the general angrily. "Am I the man to make a statement without authority? I tell you he's a scamp, ma'am--a regular scamp! If you please to doubt my word--"

"That's rather rough on a chap, isn't it?" put in Bernard indifferently. "He isn't a gentleman, but I shouldn't call him a scamp."

"Why should you call him anything, sir?" demanded the general. "It's no business of yours, is it? If I choose to call him a--"

"Now, father," said Eugenia, and at her decisive tones the general broke off and turned upon her round, inquiring eyes. "Now, father, you don't mean one word that you're saying, and you know it." And she proceeded to butter his cakes.

The general was suppressed, and after breakfast he got into the carriage beside his daughter and drove slowly into town. When he returned to dinner he met Miss Chris with triumphant eyes.

"By the way, Chris, you were mistaken this morning about that Burr boy. He's quite a decent person. I don't see how you got it into your head there was something wrong about him."

"I'm glad to hear it," responded Miss Chris good-humouredly. She had never uttered a harsh word about anybody in her life, but she was a long-suffering woman, and she philosophically accepted the accusation.

Twenty-four hours later the general had a passage at arms with Bernard.

"You can watch the threshing this morning, my boy," he remarked as he sat down to breakfast. "You won't go in to town, I suppose?"

Bernard shook his head.

"I thought of riding in for the mail," he answered; "there's a letter I'm looking for."

The general flushed and put out a preliminary feeler. "How are you going?" he inquired; "not on one of my horses, I hope?"

Eugenia shook her head at Bernard, but he went on recklessly:

"Why, yes, I thought I'd take the gray mare."

The general shook his head until his flabby face grew purple.

"The gray mare!" he thundered. "You mean to take out my gray mare, do you? Well, I'd like to see you, sir. Not a step does the gray mare stir--not a step, sir."

"Oh, all right," agreed Bernard so quietly that the general's rage increased. "Keep her in the stables, for all I care." And, having finished his breakfast, he bowed to Miss Chris and left the table.

But an hour later, as he passed through the hall, he found the general waiting. "Aren't you ready?" he asked irascibly. "Are you going to waste the whole morning? Why aren't you in town?"

Bernard's temper was well enough as long as there was no reason it should be better; but he couldn't stand his father, and he knew it.

"I'm not going," he returned sullenly.

"Not going!" cried the general hotly, "not going after all the fuss you've raised? What do you mean by changing your mind every minute?"

Bernard took his hat from the old mahogany rack. "I've nothing to ride," he replied irritably, "and I don't choose to walk--that's what I mean."

But his answer only exasperated his hovering parent.

"Damme, sir, do you want to make me lose my temper?" he demanded. "Isn't the stable full of horses? Where's the gray mare, I'd like to know, sir?"

"Eugie!" called Bernard angrily, "come here." And as the girl appeared he made a break from the house. He possessed an abiding faith in the endurance of Eugenia's clannish soul that was proof against even the suggestion that it might succumb. His father was unquestionably trying, but Eugie was unquestionably strong, and she loved her people with a passion which he felt to be romantically unsurpassable. Yes, Eugie was the hope of the family, after all.

As for the girl, she put her arm about the general and drew him to his chair. He was failing rapidly; this she saw and suffered at seeing. There were wrinkles crossing and recrossing his hanging cheeks, and swollen bluish pockets beneath his eyes. When he moved he carried his great weight uneasily. During the day she hung over him with multiplied caresses; as he sat upon the porch in the afternoon she read to him from the Bible and Shakespeare, the only books his library contained.

"After God and Shakespeare, what was left for any man to write?" the general had once demanded of the judge.

Now he asked the question of Eugenia, and she smiled and was silent. Her eyes passed from the porch to the lawn and the walk and the immemorial gloom of the great cedars. Sunshine lay over all the warm, sleepy land, and sunshine lay across her white dress and across the senile droop of the general's mouth.

"For He maketh sore, and bindeth up," read the girl slowly. "He woundeth and His hands make whole."

"He shall deliver thee in six troubles;--yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee."

"In famine He shall redeem thee from death: and in war from the power of the sword."

She stopped suddenly and looked up, for the general's eyes were full of tears. _

Read next: Book 3. When Fields Lie Fallow: Chapter 1

Read previous: Book 2. A Rainy Season: Chapter 5

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