Part 7

She drew a paper from the folds of her dress. "Hyar 'tis!" she exclaimed, handling the envelope lovingly. "I cyarnt read, but I'd know dis writin', anywhars; 'tis straight up an' down, an' clear an' hones'!"

Lawson seized it quickly. The envelope was directed to Mr. Robert Holloway. He gave a smothered exclamation. The writing was clear and decided, the postmark, "Keswick." The glance he flashed Susan was scathing, but she stood innocently attentive; her manner might have deceived a man of her own State; it did deceive Lawson with his western ignorance of her race.

"She don't write much, Miss Frances don't." Susan had no word to say of the daily message over the telephone, and Lawson himself never thought of that way of communication.

"She allus was mighty kerles 'bout writin'."

"And she's there, as near as that?"

Susan nodded. "Dat's whar she was when she writ, but she 's visitin' 'roun', an' we nebber did know jes' whar she was; but dat's all right."

Lawson hurried into the library. The daily paper of the town lay on the table; he turned the pages to the railroad schedule, Susan eyeing him watchfully from the door.

His morning lecture was important, he could not cut it. There were no trains he could make down and back in the afternoon; he would drive. His mind full of the determination he came out in the hall. He did not even notice Susan, eagerly expectant, as she stood there, of another bill to add to her hoard. His eyes were fixed on the carved newel post where Frances' trembling hand had lain when last he had seen her. Could the distrustful old darkey have read his heart she might have forgiven him and befriended him, for at that moment it held nothing but strong, intense love for the girl she herself idolized, and the resolve to see her, to make his peace with her, to overcome whatever barrier, ghostly or real, had risen between them. He was not a whit afraid of any rival. The only effect such declaration had had was to crystallize his dreaming to decision for action, and to fairly madden his impatient nature that was held in leash, action being impossible.

He was the first in the dining-hall that noon. While the sun was still overhead, he was driving behind his bays out of town, over the dusky bridge where the rafters were draped with cobwebs, fold upon fold and dusty and gray,--and where the Rapidan ran deep and yellow far underneath, up the long winding hill from whose top he might see the rolling hills, the house-tops and spires of the far-stretching town, and circling peaks, and, there to the right, the crest of Monticello. But he never turned his head. He saw his horses and the hard red clay road, perfect in this season as a stretch of asphalt; hills closed about him, as he sped on, or opened showing valley and mountain, bare washed hillsides vividly red, or fresh-plowed fields, or pale green shoots of wheat over fields of brick-dust hue, or sere pasture lands, or stubble fields. Beyond the care for his driving he saw nothing but a vision of a drooping face, the rose-red of confusion flushing it, downcast eyes and tremulous mouth. He dreamed of it, but it was something more than dreaming, it was dreaming translated to resolve. He saw nothing ever that he wanted, without reaching out strong hands for its possession. He was doubly resolved, doubly strong for this, according to the intensity of his desire.

At the village of Keswick, where the road crossed the railway, he stopped for information, and, having gotten it, rode on. Soon he was off the main road and driving along a way which led through thick woods with many branching roads right and left. His directions were confused. Far down in the forest he paused before one of the branchings, wondering if this were the way, and in the silence he heard wheels and waited. The tread of the team was slow. He could hear the creaking of the wheels, the joltings of a farm wagon and a boy's voice, fresh and clear, urging on the horses. Over and above it all was the low resonant song of the pines and of the bare branches of the forest trees, and the sound of dead leaves rustling in the wind; and for a moment the young man's mood was in sympathy with the mood of nature, sad and solemn, there in the heart of the woods in the hush of a November day. Then the wagon came in sight.

"Hello!" he called out cheerily, "is this the way to Mr. Carroll's?"

"Yes!" cried the boy, "drive straight ahead until you get to the big pine tree; there are right many turns and wood roads in there; you'd better let me go first."

"Going this way?"

The boy nodded. Lawson pulled out of the road and the boy drove abreast of him. He had a wagon-load of dead branches he had been gathering up through the woods. He reined in to say, "Mr. Carroll is my father."

Lawson looked his friendly interest.

"I've been getting wood for the kitchen stove; it burns better than the green wood," the boy volunteered by way of conversation as he drove ahead.

Suddenly Lawson called to him, "Your cousin is staying with you?"

The boy standing on the board in front of the wagon, the reins in his hands, looked back, "Who?" he called.

"Miss Holloway!" shouted Lawson.

"She was; she's gone; went this morning."

For one moment Lawson sat speechless. He saw the dark vistas of the wood, the desolate road, the bare trees and whirling leaves and thin undergrowth. Then he felt he must speak, "When, did you say?" dully.

"This morning!"

"Did she expect to go?"

"Oh, yes! Whoa! whoa!" the horses hurrying for stable and supper, now that they were set on the homeward way, were starting off. "Come on!"

"I don't believe I will," called Lawson after him, striving to collect himself and not to seem the fool he felt himself to be. "I was going down the country," he called, "and I thought I would stop and see her. I'll go on," he bawled after the fast disappearing wagon, "as she's not there."

It was a half hour later that, drawing rein in the deserted road--he had been too proud and too stingingly hurt to turn short on his way--the dusk of night settling over the country, an indescribable air of dreariness with it, he suddenly remembered he had not asked where she was gone.

She was not at home, he was sure of that, when he began to reason it out, and he would not ask that wretched old negro again, he was sure of that, also; though Susan, when he glimpsed her, was innocently friendly. He would find out and he would wait. Meanwhile he settled down to grim work at law and at football; practice was heavy again and the Thanksgiving game was booked for Richmond. The University men would play against the North Carolina boys from Wake-Forest.

He heard nothing but the games talked of everywhere. A special train was to take the team and their friends down. The Beauty was going and many other young women of the neighborhood. He learned it was one of the events, social as well as athletic, of the year. Theatre parties were being formed by those who would stay a day or two of the holidays there; plans for sightseeing and drives and visits were being made; and Lawson, in the current whether he wished it or not, heard yet no word of Frances. Still the house looked blank and empty, still he saw the professor coming and going with little company save the tall, fair young fellow Susan had named to him.

Finally, coming along the corridor one day as he passed the professor's house, Mr. Holloway hurried out.

The impulse was irresistible. Lawson doffed his cap, held out his hand. The professor paused on his doorstep.

Lawson talked hurriedly of the weather, of college affairs; finally for very desperate fear that the professor would go and his chance be lost, he blurted "Miss Frances is away?"

"Yes!"

"You must miss her very much."

Her father smiled a little sadly, "I am not used to doing without her," he said whimsically.

"Where is she?" Lawson could hear the heavy throb of his heart when the question had been put.

"In Richmond," the professor answered, as if it were quite a question without special interest to any one. "Good-day!" he added as he looked at his watch, "I'm due! Come and see me, some time!"

The professor had been touched by the anxious air of the man and set it down to diffidence. He wished the students would not show that awe of him. None of them knew how friendly he would like to be; but he was studying, working, reading, dreaming, all the while. He dwelt in a world of abstractions and carried the atmosphere with him. It was an alien atmosphere and kept him apart.

"Richmond!" said the young man to himself. "Richmond!" he could have shouted. His boot heels rang it in the pavement, his pulses throbbed it. "Richmond," and they were going there to-morrow. He rushed to his room, threw down his books, and began singing:--

"Gayly the Troubadour touched his guitar As he was hastening home from the war, Singing in search of thee fain would I roam, Lady love, lady love--"

"Hello! What's the matter with you?" called some one through the door he had forgotten to close tightly, "it's time for practice."

"I'm getting ready; come in and wait."

The man entered. They had not been receiving many invitations to Lawson's rooms lately.

"What's the matter with you?" he repeated as he leaned against the mantel. "Good news?"

"Sure!" cried Lawson, slipping his sweater over his head.

The young fellow leaning against the mantel, though he was clad in full toggery of padded trousers and sweater and socks showing the University colors gaudily, was yet no comparison for Lawson, and they both knew it. Lawson was far and away the best-looking man on the eleven. The very garb served to show his fine physique and animal beauty, and with this look of flushed pleasure and full life--

"Come on," growled the visitor; "you've primped enough!"

"Primped! You saw me, didn't you?"

"Well, you've got your clothes on; come on!"

Lawson ran his arm through his visitor's arm and they went singing across the quadrangle--

"Hark 'twas the Troubadour, breathing her name: Under the battlement softly he came; Singing 'from Palestine, hither I come; Lady love, lady love, welcome me home.'"

XII

As the train rocked down the mountain-side next day, past tobacco-fields stripped bare, and orchards where no red fruit shone, and fields now brown and sere, and as it sped over the low country, Lawson had one thought. He would see, when the train pulled into Richmond, somewhere in the throng about the station Frances' bright face and serene shining eyes. She would be there with those of the city who came to welcome them. The travellers laughed and jested, sang and cheered and yelled, Lawson with them, his heart light as a boy's; but all of this outward atmosphere was like a dream to him,--the reality was the vision he saw of a girl's face. He was first out of the coach. His eager eyes searched the crowd. In all the press was not one face he knew. He was half resentful when he was hurried away, and glum and silent in the midst of the joyful hubbub around him.

Then he pulled himself together; she was out on the grounds, of course. When the game began, his inattention and wretched play fairly lost the day, until the wrath of the captain called and kept him to the work in hand. He stayed the night in Richmond, went to the play, loitered about the shopping streets next day, and saw only strangers or those who had come down from the mountains with them.

Late that afternoon, tired, disgusted, self-scornful, he took a train for home. When he passed the professor's house he saw a beam of light shine out on the quadrangle on a spot where no gleam had shone for many a night.

He walked deliberately out on the sward and looked up. He cared not who saw him or who chaffed him, and a University man has to order his life with care if he wishes it not to become a burden to him. Fortunately it was late, and there were no men about corridor or campus. He stood watching; it might be the old negress there for all he knew.

The curtains were pulled aside, the casement opening on the balcony was flung open, and a tall supple figure stood outlined sharply against the flood of light behind her. His heart seemed pulsing in his throat and choking him. Then Frances stepped lightly out on the porch and began to unfasten the heavy shutters from the clasps holding them back to the brick wall.

He walked quickly across till he stood under the balcony's edge; the vine climbing the pillar was bare, its dry branches rustling in the night wind.

"Frances!" he called softly.

There was no answer, and he heard a light footstep across the porch and a rattling at the other shutter.

"Miss Holloway!" he called distinctly.

"Who is there? Where--"

The voice called again; she leaned over the railing and saw a tall figure below looming in the star-lit dusk. "Who is it?" she asked, a quick catch in her breath.

"Do you not know me?" reproachfully.

"Mr. Lawson?" the voice was low and full, and the intonation gracefully easy, with the old ring of cheer in it. Hard riding, hard thinking, hot scorning, and firm resolving had made many changes in Frances; best of all it had restored her old manner of gay ease.

"Where have you been?" questioned the voice below.

"Ever so many places."

"When did you come back?" If there was any tender reproach in the voice, the young woman up there did not heed it.

"Yesterday."

Yesterday! when he was searching for her, longing for her,--and she was here. "Why didn't you stay for the game?"

"I couldn't; I am expecting some friends from Richmond. I had to come home and see that Susan had the house in order."

There was a second's silence. The young man below stood motionless: "I want to see you," he said firmly.

"Can't you? What a pity it's so dark!"

"To-morrow?"

"I shall not have a minute's time."

"Soon?" he insisted.

"Of course!" as if it were a matter of no consequence whatever.

"I shall expect to," and then there was silence again.

"I am glad you won!" called the girl. "Good night!"

"Oh, yes, we won!" he said, a trifle bitterly, as he strode away.

Frances leaned faintly against the rail. It was over, the moment she had dreaded unspeakably, and she was in her rightful place again. She knew it; she blessed the night whose darkness had given her assurance. She blessed the unexpected meeting when there was no time for awkward confusion. She tapped her finger-tips on the rail and smiled to herself as she stood there, but the icy touch of the frost already forming roused her to a sense of the cold and chill. She hurried in, locked the shutters and then went running down the stairs.

"Father," she said with a happy laugh, "father, I am so glad to be at home." She leaned over his chair and put her arms about his neck.

"Are you?" there was a sparkle of joy in the professor's dark eyes; "so am I!" He slipped his arm about her and pulled her down on the arm of the chair. "You mustn't run away again; I don't know what to do without you; you must never run away again, too far!"

Lawson, though he was not given to poetical comparisons, was remembering with keen pain the first hour when he stood beneath the balcony and Frances had talked with him. It was morning then, it was night now; the sunlight was in the sky, only the cold stars now; she had come down to him blithely that warm, bright day when the world was a flood of sunshine and color; he had gone alone now, and it was cold and dark, and the color had drifted from the outside world and the joy from his heart.

XIII

About five o'clock the next day, Lawson, from sheer restlessness, was one of a crowd of University men waiting on the platform of the station in the ravine for the trains from the west and south already due; chaffing, singing, laughing, guying, cheering, they were waiting, according to the daily custom of a holiday hour, for whatever fun the arriving coaches might furnish.

The electric arcs swung white light up and down the station, the smoke of a sidetracked freight hung low and heavy in the valley, the teams of the afternoon drivers were rattling across the high bridge, their occupants looking with laughing interest on the scene below. Suddenly with shriek and roar the Southern train was in.

"Vir--gin--i--a."

"Vir--gin--i--a."

"Rah--rah--rah!"

The men gave a great yell. A young girl in one of the coaches flung up a window and looked out.

"Rah--rah--rah!"

The young girl snapped down the window. Another face, curious and likewise pretty, showed at the pane. The young men were wildly enthusiastic.

"Vir--gin--i--a."

"Vir--gin--i--a--" The yell drowned all other sounds, and Lawson was astonished to see, as it ended, Frances springing from her trap a few yards away and hastening forward. The conductor waited gallantly at the steps of one of the coaches, the porter came down another flight, laden with bundles, and at the door, their cheeks showing red with suppressed fun and excitement behind their veils, appeared the two pretty young women.

"Vir--gin--i--a--." The yell died away as the men saw the professor's daughter greeting the arrivals with laughing welcome. They fell to guying each other mercilessly. But Lawson, standing not far away, came at once to Frances' assistance.

"Let me help you!" He reached for some of the bundles.

"Oh, thank you! Mr. Lawson, these are my Richmond friends, Miss Rowan, Mr. Lawson! Miss Martin!"

The young women held out their gloved hands and Lawson welcomed them impressively. He assisted them into the trap with careful gallantry, the strangers, both of them, in the back seat, the packages stored at their feet. Frances was subduing the antics of Starlight, who after standing quietly when there was need, took occasion to seem shocked at the engine now that his driver was in place and he felt the touch of the reins on his bit, and to stand protestingly on his hind feet and paw the air.

The strangers were frightened. "Can you manage him, Frances?" cried one.

"Oh, let me get out!" the other pleaded.

"We'll come up on the street car!" Miss Rowan declared, white with fear.

"Sit still!" commanded Frances, shortly. "Come down, Starlight! behave yourself!" she reached for the whip.

"Don't strike him! There's no telling what he would do!" begged the visitors. Lawson, near, stalwart and interested, seemed a godsend.

"Do come with us!" pleaded Elizabeth Martin, who in all emergencies turned to the nearest man.

"There's no need," he began. Starlight had all fours on solid earth once more.

"Jump in!" laughed Frances, nodding to the empty seat; she pulled Starlight around, waited a second for Lawson to get in, and then came down sharply on Starlight's flank with the whip. The horse made a plunge, straight for the platform, the men scattered right and left, and Starlight went snorting up the winding road to the street above.

"Let Mr. Lawson drive!" besought Miss Martin.

Frances looked laughingly at the young man beside her. That other opportunity and this were all she could have wished to put them on a commonplace footing. The old position and power and knowledge to hold her own, were all she wished for. Lawson looking into the clear, gray eyes felt a thrill of gratitude for the fortune which had befriended him.

Still, her answer may have held some hidden meaning for him, for he flushed a little when he heard it. "I prefer to hold my own reins myself," she said carelessly; "you know I never would stand much managing."

Lawson turned to talk to the young women behind him; so, he could watch furtively Frances' face and her cheek where the rose hue flickered, the white in the midst of it.

The streets were filled with the afternoon crowd, students in groups or alone, young women, older women, children; fancy turnouts and farmers' wagons, high carts, and heavy low ones filled with cordwood, young women in short skirts and heavy boots, young women in all the finery of new fall clothes and furs, loitering by the houses set flush upon the street, or by box-hedged gardens, the houses far back, or by smooth lawns.

The crowd was dense, but through it Frances glimpsed Edward Montague. He had seen her a minute earlier and was watching her wistfully, with a keen pang at his heart that now when he had seen her first for so long a time, she should be one of a gay party with that handsome young fellow at her side. She drew rein, soon as she saw him, and Edward hurried out to her.

"So glad to see you, Mr. Montague!" She leaned and gave him her hand. "Let me introduce you!" She named the young women. "You know Mr. Lawson?"

"Happy to have that pleasure!" said Lawson stiffly, remembering Susan's words.

"You must come and see us!" with a backward glance to her guests.

"I shall. I have just been out to your house."

"You have?"

"I met your father at the post-office; he told me you were home!"

"And forgot I was going to the station?"

"He did not mention it, but," quickly as if in defence of his absent friend, "I left him waiting for you at home."

"We will hurry then; good-by!"

"Good-by!" He did not add that the professor had insisted on his return, and that he had accepted, but he carried with him a happy consciousness of the fact.

Frances had the same cordial invitation for Lawson, when they parted. She knew well that the young city women visiting the University in the middle of the term expected a good time, and a good time chiefly along one line. So while the professor was welcoming them in the hall, she lingered on the doorstep.

"You must help me make them enjoy their visit," she said, knowing she could not ask a better aide.

"I will, I shall be delighted!" answered Lawson fervidly.

"And bring your friends!"

"I shall bring them this evening."

"I wonder--Elizabeth, Mary, are you very tired?" she called through the open door.

"Not a bit!" they chorussed.

"Very well--this evening!" She gave him her hand. He stood a little to the side of the step and they were out of sight through the half-opened door. He held her hand closely and looked straight in her eyes, questioningly, compellingly, but Frances looked back calmly and carelessly, and wrenched herself free. "Good-by!" she called from the door.

Lawson went on to his room and threw himself moodily into the chair before the fire. It was smouldering. He punched it viciously and banged the blower over it.

"Beastliest way of heating a fellow's room I ever saw!" he grumbled, "I vow I'll freeze before mid-winter!"

He slipped into his smoking-jacket, turned on the glare of the light, pulled table and Morris chair before the fire, and sat down, book in hand, to some pretence of study, but other cases than legal thronged his mind. He flung the note-book on the table, wrenched off the blower, and then, with a half sigh of content at the blazing coals in the grate, he sank back in his chair. He watched the flicker of the flames in the chimney's mouth; yellow and white and red and violet, the tongues of burning gas flared up the rough, black chimney's mouth, and the coals below glowed red and redder. But Lawson, looking at them dreamingly, was seeing the way he must go, and was growing stronger in his determination.

He would win her, yes! He had begun merely as a diversion from the study he sometimes liked and sometimes disliked, sometimes dreamed to win fame through and sometimes was intolerantly impatient of, counting, in a bitter moment, nothing worth effort.

He had begun, too, by draping traditions about Frances, every one of which, she had freed herself from; and he had ended by unquestioning acceptance of the fact that this woman, puzzling beyond his ken, was the one thing of the hour he desired.