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_ Despite Virginia's endeavour to efface herself for her guests, she shone
unrivalled at the party, and Dan, who had held her hand for an ecstatic
moment under the mistletoe, felt, as he rode home in the moonlight
afterwards, that his head was fairly on fire with her beauty. She had been
sweetly candid and flatteringly impartial. He could not honestly assert
that she had danced with him oftener than with Morson, or a dozen others,
but he had a pleasant feeling that even when she shook her head and said,
"I cannot," her soft eyes added for her, "though I really wish to." There
was something almost pitiable, he told himself in the complacency with
which that self-satisfied ass Morson would come and take her from him. As
if he hadn't sense enough to discover that it was merely because she was
his hostess that she went with him at all. But some men would never
understand women, though they lived to be a thousand, and got rejected once
a day.
Out in the moonlight, with the Governor's wine singing in his blood, he
found that his emotions had a way of tripping lightly off his tongue. There
were hot words with Diggs, who hinted that Virginia was not the beauty of
the century, and threats of blows with Morson, who too boldly affirmed that
she was. In the end Champe rode between them, and sent Prince Rupert on his
way with a touch of the whip.
"For heaven's sake, keep your twaddle to yourselves!" he exclaimed
impatiently, "or take my advice, and make for the nearest duck pond. You've
both gone over your depth in the Governor's Madeira, and I advise you to
keep quiet until you've had your heads in a basin of ice water. There, get
out of my road, Morson. I can't sit here freezing all night."
"Do you dare to imply that I am drunk, sir?" demanded Morson, in a fury.
"Bear witness, gentlemen, that the insult was unprovoked."
"Oh, insult be damned!" retorted Champe. "If you shake your fist at me
again, I'll pitch you head over heels into that snowdrift."
"Pitch whom, sir?" roared Morson, riding at the wall, when Diggs caught his
bridle and roughly dragged him back.
"Come, now, don't make a beast of yourself," he implored.
"Who's a beast?" was promptly put by Morson; but leaving it unanswered,
Diggs wheeled his horse about and started up the turnpike. "You've let Beau
get out of sight," he said. "We'd better catch up with him," and he set off
at a gallop.
Dan, who had ridden on at Champe's first words, did not even turn his head
when the three came abreast with him. The moonlight was in his eyes, and
the vision of Virginia floated before him at his saddle bow. He let the
reins fall loosely on Prince Rupert's neck, and as the hoofs rang on the
frozen road, thrust his hands for warmth into his coat. In another dress,
with his dark hair blown backward in the wind, he might have been a
cavalier fresh from the service of his lady or his king, or riding
carelessly to his death for the sake of the drunken young Pretender.
But he was only following his dreams, and they hovered round Virginia,
catching their rosy glamour from her dress. In the cold night air he saw
her walking demurely through the lancers, her skirt held up above her satin
shoes, her coral necklace glowing deeper pink against her slim white
throat. Mistletoe and holly hung over her, and the light of the candles
shone brighter where her radiant figure passed. He caught the soft flash of
her shy brown eyes, he heard her gentle voice speaking trivial things with
profound tenderness. His hand still burned from the light pressure of her
finger tips. Oh, his day had come, he told himself, and he was furiously in
love at last.
As for going back to college, the very idea was absurd. At twenty years it
was quite time for him to settle down and keep open house like other men.
Virginia, in rose pink, flitted up the crooked stair and across the white
panels of the parlor, and with a leap, his heart went after her. He saw
Great-aunt Emmeline lean down from her faded canvas as if to toss her apple
at the young girl's feet. Ah, poor old beauty, hanging in a gilded frame,
what was her century of dust to a bit of living flesh that had bright eyes
and was coloured like a flower?
When he was safely married he would have his wife's portrait hung upon the
opposite wall, only he rather thought he should have the dogs in and let
her be Diana, with a spear instead of an apple in her hand. Two beauties in
one family--that was something to be proud of even in Virginia.
It was at this romantic point that Champe shattered his visions by shooting
a jest at him about the "love sick swain."
"Oh, be off, and let a fellow think, won't you?" he retorted angrily.
"Do you hear him call it thinking?" jeered Diggs, from the other side.
"He doesn't call it mooning, oh, no," scoffed Champe.
"Oh, there's nothing half so sweet in life," sang Morson, striking an
attitude that almost threw him off his horse.
"Shut up, Morson," commanded Diggs, "you ought to be thankful if you had
enough sense left to moon with."
"Sense, who wants sense?" inquired Morson, on the point of tears. "I have
heart, sir."
"Then keep it bottled up," rejoined Champe, coolly, as they turned into the
drive at Chericoke.
In Dan's room they found Big Abel stretched before the fire asleep; and as
the young men came in, he sat up and rubbed his eyes.
"Hi! young Marsters, hit's ter-morrow!" he exclaimed.
"To-morrow! I wish it were to-morrow," responded Dan, cheerfully. "The fire
makes my head spin like a top. Here, come and pull off my coat, Big Abel,
or I'll have to go to bed with my clothes on."
Big Abel pulled off the coat and brushed it carefully; then he held out his
hand for Champe's.
"I hope dis yer coat ain' gwine lose hit's set 'fo' hit gits ter me," he
muttered as he hung them up. "Seems like you don' teck no cyar yo' clothes,
nohow, Marse Dan. I'se de wuss dress somebody dis yer side er de po' w'ite
trash. Wat's de use er bein' de quality ef'n you ain' got de close?"
"Stop grumbling, you fool you," returned Dan, with his lordly air. "If it's
my second best evening suit you're after, you may take it; but I tell you
now, it's the last thing you're going to get out of me till summer."
Big Abel took down the second best suit of clothes and examined them with
an interest they had never inspired before. "I d'clar you sutney does set
hard," he remarked after a moment, and added, tentatively, "I dunno whar de
shuts gwine come f'om."
"Not from me," replied Dan, airily; "and now get out of here, for I'm going
to sleep."
But when he threw himself upon his bed it was to toss with feverish
rose-coloured dreams until the daybreak.
His blood was still warm when he came down to breakfast; but he met his
grandfather's genial jests with a boyish attempt at counter-buff.
"Oh, you needn't twit me, sir," he said with an embarrassed laugh; "to wear
the heart upon the sleeve is hereditary with us, you know."
"Keep clear of the daws, my son, and it does no harm," responded the Major.
"There's nothing so becoming to a gentleman as a fine heart well worn, eh,
Molly?"
He carefully spread the butter upon his cakes, for his day of love-making
was over, and his eye could hold its twinkle while he watched Dan fidget in
his seat.
Mrs. Lightfoot promptly took up the challenge. "For my part I prefer one
under a buttoned coat," she replied briskly; "but be careful, Mr.
Lightfoot, or you will put notions into the boys' heads. They are at the
age when a man has a fancy a day and gets over it before he knows it."
"They are at the age when I had my fancy for you, Molly," gallantly
retorted the Major, "and I seem to be carrying it with me to my grave."
"It would be a dull wit that would go roving from Aunt Molly," said Champe,
affectionately; "but there aren't many of her kind in the world."
"I never found but one like her," admitted the Major, "and I've seen a good
deal in my day, sir."
The old lady listened with a smile, though she spoke in a severe voice.
"You mustn't let them teach you how to flatter, Mr. Morson," she said
warningly, as she filled the Major's second cup of coffee--"Cupid, Mr.
Morson will have a partridge."
"The man who sits at your table will never question your supremacy, dear
madam," returned Jack Morson, as he helped himself to a bird. "There is
little merit in devotion to such bounty."
"Shall I kick him, grandma?" demanded Dan. "He means that we love you
because you feed us, the sly scamp."
Mrs. Lightfoot shook her head reprovingly. "Oh, I understand you, Mr.
Morson," she said amiably, "and a compliment to my housekeeping never goes
amiss. If a woman has any talent, it will come out upon her table."
"You're right, Molly, you're right," agreed the Major, heartily. "I've
always held that there was nothing in a man who couldn't make a speech or
in a woman who couldn't set a table."
Dan stirred restlessly in his chair, and at the first movement of Mrs.
Lightfoot he rose and went out into the hall. An hour later he ordered
Prince Rupert and started joyously to Uplands.
As he rode through the frosted air he pictured to himself a dozen different
ways in which it was possible that he might meet Virginia. Would she be
upon the portico or in the parlour? Was she still in pink or would she wear
the red gown of yesterday? When she gave him her hand would she smile as
she had smiled last night? or would she stand demurely grave with down
dropped lashes?
The truth was that she did none of the things he had half expected of her.
She was sitting before a log fire, surrounded by a group of Harrisons and
Powells, who had been prevailed upon to spend the night, and when he
entered she gave him a sleepy little nod from the corner of a rosewood
sofa. As she lay back in the firelight she was like a drowsy kitten that
had just awakened from a nap. Though less radiant, her beauty was more
appealing, and as she stared at him with her large eyes blinking, he wanted
to stoop down and rock her off to sleep. He regarded her calmly this
morning, for, with all his tenderness, she did not fire his brain, and the
glory of the vision had passed away. Half angrily he asked himself if he
were in love with a pink dress and nothing more?
An hour afterward he came noisily into the library at Chericoke and aroused
the Major from his Horace by stamping distractedly about the room.
"Oh, it's all up with me, sir," he began despondently. "I might as well go
out and hang myself. I don't know what I want and yet I'm going mad because
I can't get it."
"Come, come," said the Major, soothingly. "I've been through it myself,
sir, and since your grandmother's out of earshot, I'd as well confess that
I've been through it more than once. Cheer up, cheer up, you aren't the
first to dare the venture--_Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona_, you know."
His assurance was hardly as comforting as he had intended it to be. "Oh, I
dare say, there've been fools enough before me," returned Dan, impatiently,
as he flung himself out of the room.
He grew still more impatient when the day came for him to return to
college; and as they started out on horseback, with Zeke and Big Abel
riding behind their masters, he declared irritably that the whole system of
education was a nuisance, and that he "wished the ark had gone down with
all the ancient languages on board."
"There would still be law," suggested Morson, pleasantly. "So cheer up,
Beau, there's something left for you to learn."
Then, as they passed Uplands, they turned, with a single impulse, and
cantered up the broad drive to the portico. Betty and Virginia were in the
library; and as they heard the horses, they came running to the window and
threw it open.
"So you will come back in the summer--all of you," said Virginia,
hopefully, and as she leaned out a white camellia fell from her bosom to
the snow beneath. In an instant Jack Morson was off his horse and the
flower was in his hand. "We'll bring back all that we take away," he
answered gallantly, his fair boyish face as red as Virginia's.
Dan could have kicked him for the words, but he merely said savagely, "Have
you left your pocket handkerchief?" and turned Prince Rupert toward the
road. When he looked back from beneath the silver poplars, the girls were
still standing at the open window, the cold wind flushing their cheeks and
blowing the brown hair and the red together.
Virginia was the first to turn away. "Come in, you'll take cold," she said,
going to the fire. "Peggy Harrison never goes out when the wind blows, you
know, she says it's dreadful for the complexion. Once when she had to come
back from town on a March day, she told me she wore six green veils. I
wonder if that's the way she keeps her lovely colour?"
"Well, I wouldn't be Peggy Harrison," returned Betty, gayly, and she added
in the same tone, "so Mr. Morson got your camellia, after all, didn't he?"
"Oh, he begged so hard with his eyes," answered Virginia. "He had seen me
give Dan a white rose on Christmas Eve, you know, and he said it wasn't
fair to be so unfair."
"You gave Dan a white rose?" repeated Betty, slowly. Her face was pale, but
she was smiling brightly.
Virginia's soft little laugh pealed out. "And it was your rose, too,
darling," she said, nestling to Betty like a child. "You dropped it on the
stair and I picked it up. I was just going to take it to you because it
looked so lovely in your hair, when Dan came along and he would have it,
whether or no. But you don't mind, do you, just a little bit of white
rosebud?" She put up her hand and stroked her sister's cheek. "Men are so
silly, aren't they?" she added with a sigh.
For a moment Betty looked down upon the brown head on her bosom; then she
stooped and kissed Virginia's brow. "Oh, no, I don't mind, dear," she
answered, "and women are very silly, too, sometimes."
She loosened Virginia's arms and went slowly upstairs to her bedroom, where
Petunia was replenishing the fire. "You may go down, Petunia," she said as
she entered. "I am going to put my things to rights, and I don't want you
to bother me--go straight downstairs."
"Is you gwine in yo' chist er draws?" inquired Petunia, pausing upon the
threshold.
"Yes, I'm going into my chest of drawers, but you're not," retorted Betty,
sharply; and when Petunia had gone out and closed the door after her, she
pulled out her things and began to straighten rapidly, rolling up her
ribbons with shaking fingers, and carefully folding her clothes into
compact squares. Ever since her childhood she had always begun to work at
her chest of drawers when any sudden shock unnerved her. After a great
happiness she took up her trowel and dug among the flowers of the garden;
but when her heart was heavy within her, she shut her door and put her
clothes to rights.
Now, as she worked rapidly, the tears welled slowly to her lashes, but she
brushed them angrily away, and rolled up a sky-blue sash. She had worn the
sash at Chericoke on Christmas Eve, and as she looked at it, she felt, with
the keenness of pain, a thrill of her old girlish happiness. The figure of
Dan, as he stood upon the threshold with the powdering of snow upon his
hair, rose suddenly to her eyes, and she flinched before the careless
humour of his smile. It was her own fault, she told herself a little
bitterly, and because it was her own fault she could bear it as she should
have borne the joy. There was nothing to cry over, nothing even to regret;
she knew now that she loved him, and she was glad--glad even of this. If
the bitterness in her heart was but the taste of knowledge, she would not
let it go; she would keep both the knowledge and the bitterness.
In the next room Mammy Riah was rocking back and forth upon the hearth,
crooning to herself while she carded a lapful of wool. Her cracked old
voice, still with its plaintive sweetness, came faintly to the girl who
leaned her cheek upon the sky-blue sash and listened, half against her
will:--
"Oh, we'll all be done wid trouble, by en bye, little chillun,
We'll all be done wid trouble, by en bye.
Oh, we'll set en chatter wid de angels, by en bye, little chillun,
We'll set en chatter wid de angels, by en bye."
The door opened and Virginia came softly into the room, and stopped short
at the sight of Betty.
"Why, your things were perfectly straight, Betty," she exclaimed in
surprise. "I declare, you'll be a real old maid."
"Perhaps I shall," replied Betty, indifferently; "but if I am, I'm going to
be a tidy one."
"I never heard of one who wasn't," remarked Virginia, and added, "you've
put all your ribbons into the wrong drawer."
"I like a change," said Betty, folding up a muslin skirt.
"Oh, we'll slip en slide on de golden streets, by en bye,
little chillun,
We'll slip en slide on de golden streets, by en bye,"
sang Mammy Riah, in the adjoining room.
"Aunt Lydia found six red pinks in bloom in her window garden," observed
Virginia, cheerfully. "Why, where are you going, Betty?"
"Just for a walk," answered Betty, as she put on her bonnet and cloak. "I'm
not afraid of the cold, you know, and I'm so tired sitting still," and she
added, as she fastened her fur tippet, "I shan't be long, dear."
She opened the door, and Mammy Riah's voice followed her across the hall
and down the broad staircase:--
"Oh, we'll ride on de milk w'ite ponies, by en bye, little chillun,
We'll ride on de milk w'ite ponies, by en bye."
At the foot of the stair she called the dogs, and they came bounding
through the hall and leaped upon her as she crossed the portico. Then, as
she went down the drive and up the desolate turnpike, they ran ahead of her
with short, joyous barks.
The snow had melted and frozen again, and the long road was like a gray
river winding between leafless trees. The gaunt crows were still flying
back and forth over the meadows, but she did not have corn for them to-day.
Had she been happy, she would not have forgotten them; but the pain in her
breast made her selfish even about the crows.
With the dogs leaping round her, she pressed bravely against the wind,
flying breathlessly from the struggle at her heart. There was nothing to
cry over, she told herself again, nothing even to regret. It was her own
fault, and because it was her own fault she could bear it quietly as she
should have borne the joy.
She had reached the spot where he had lifted her upon the wall, and leaning
against the rough stones she looked southward to where the swelling meadows
dipped into the projecting line of hills. He was before her then, as he
always would be, and shrinking back, she put up her hand to shut out the
memory of his eyes. She could have hated that shallow gayety, she told
herself, but for the tenderness that lay beneath it--since jest as he might
at his own scars, when had he ever made mirth of another's? Had she not
seen him fight the battles of free Levi? and when Aunt Rhody's cabin was in
flames did he not bring out one of the negro babies in his coat? That
dare-devil courage which had first caught her girlish fancy, thrilled her
even to-day as the proof of an ennobling purpose. She remembered that he
had gone whistling into the burning cabin, and coming out again had coolly
taken up the broken air; and to her this inherent recklessness was clothed
with the sublimity of her own ideals.
The cold wind had stiffened her limbs, and she ran back into the road and
walked on rapidly. Beyond the whitened foldings of the mountains a deep red
glow was burning in the west, and she wanted to hold out her hands to it
for warmth. Her next thought was that a winter sunset soon died out, and as
she turned quickly to go homeward, she saw that she was before Aunt
Ailsey's cabin, and that the little window was yellow from the light
within.
Aunt Ailsey had been dead for years, but the free negro Levi had moved into
her hut, and as Betty looked up she saw him standing beneath the blasted
oak, with a bundle of brushwood upon his shoulder. He was an honest-eyed,
grizzled-haired old negro, who wrung his meagre living from a blacksmith's
trade, bearing alike the scornful pity of his white neighbours and the
withering contempt of his black ones. For twenty years he had moved from
spot to spot along the turnpike, and he had lived in the dignity of
loneliness since the day upon which his master had won for himself the
freedom of Eternity, leaving to his servant Levi the labour of his own
hands.
As the girl spoke to him he answered timidly, fingering the edge of his
ragged coat.
Yes, he had managed to keep warm through the winter, and he had worn the
red flannel that she had given him.
"And your rheumatism?" asked Betty, kindly.
He replied that it had been growing worse of late, and with a sympathetic
word the girl was passing by when some newer pathos in his solitary figure
stayed her feet, and she called back quickly, "Uncle Levi, were you ever
married?"
"Dar, now," cried Uncle Levi, halting in the path while a gleam of the
wistful humour of his race leaped to his eyes. "Dar, now, is you ever hyern
de likes er dat? Mah'ed! Cose I'se mah'ed. I'se mah'ed quick'en Marse
Bolling. Ain't you never hyern tell er Sarindy?"
"Sarindy?" repeated the girl, questioningly.
"Lawd, Lawd, Sarindy wuz a moughty likely nigger," said Uncle Levi,
proudly; "she warn' nuttin' but a fiel' han', but she 'uz a moughty
likely nigger."
"And did she die?" asked Betty, in a whisper.
Uncle Levi rubbed his hands together, and shifted the brushwood upon his
shoulder.
"Who say Sarindy dead?" he demanded sternly, and added with a chuckle, "she
warn' nuttin' but a fiel' han', young miss, en I 'uz Marse Bolling's body
sarvent, so w'en dey sot me loose, dey des sol' Sarindy up de river. Lawd,
Lawd, she warn' nuttin' but a fiel' han', but she 'uz pow'ful likely."
He went chuckling up the path, and Betty, with a glance at the fading
sunset, started briskly homeward. As she walked she was asking herself, in
a wonder greater than her own love or grief, if Uncle Levi really thought
it funny that they sold Sarindy up the river. _
Read next: BOOK SECOND - YOUNG BLOOD: Chapter V - The Major loses his Temper
Read previous: BOOK SECOND - YOUNG BLOOD: Chapter III - Dan and Betty
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