Chapter 10

“Then I should never see my views in print, Major,” he added, smiling; and a moment afterward, disregarding Mrs. Ambler's warning gestures, he plunged headlong into a discussion of political conditions.

As he talked the Major sat trembling in his chair, his stern face flushing from red to purple, and the heavy veins upon his forehead standing out like cords. “Vote for Douglas, sir!” he cried at last. “Vote for the biggest traitor that has gone scot free since Arnold! Why, I'd sooner go over to the arch-fiend himself and vote for Seward.”

“I'm not sure that you won't go farther and fare worse,” replied the Governor, gravely. “You know me for a loyal Whig, sir, but I tell you frankly, that I believe Douglas to be the man to save the South. Cast him off, and you cast off your remaining hope.”

“Tush, tush!” retorted the Major, hotly. “I tell you I wouldn't vote to have Douglas President of Perdition, sir. Don't talk to me about your loyalty, Peyton Ambler, you're mad--you're all mad! I honestly believe that I am the only sane man in the state.”

The Governor had risen from his chair and was walking nervously about the room. His eyes were dim, and his face was pallid with emotion.

“My God, sir, don't you see where you are drifting?” he cried, stretching out an appealing hand to the angry old gentleman in the easy chair.

“Drifting! Pooh, pooh!” protested the Major, “at least I am not drifting into a nest of traitors, sir.”

And with his wrath hot within he rose to take his leave, very red and stormy, but retaining the presence of mind to assure Mrs. Ambler that the glimpse of her fireside would send him rejoicing upon his way.

Such burning topics went like strong wine to his head, and like strong wine left a craving which always carried him back to them in the end. He would quarrel with the Governor, and make his peace, and at the next meeting quarrel, without peace-making, again.

“Don't, oh, please don't talk horrid politics, papa,” Betty would implore, when she saw the nose of his dapple mare turn into the drive between the silver poplars.

“I'll not, daughter, I give you my word I'll not,” the Governor would answer, and for a time the conversation would jog easily along the well worn roads of county changes and by the green graves of many a long dead jovial neighbour. While the red logs spluttered on the hearth, they would sip their glasses of Madeira and amicably weigh the dust of “my friend Dick Wythe--a fine fellow, in spite of his little weakness.”

But in the end the live question would rear its head and come hissing from among the quiet graves; and Dick Wythe, who loved his fight, or Plaintain Dudley, in his ruffled shirt, would fall back suddenly to make way for the wrangling figures of the slaveholder and the abolitionist.

“I can't help it, Betty, I can't help it,” the Governor would declare, when he came back from following the old gentleman to the drive; “did you see Mr. Yancey step out of Dick Wythe's dry bones to-day? Poor Dick, an honest fellow who loved no man's quarrel but his own; it's too bad, I declare it's too bad.” And the next day he would send Betty over to Chericoke to stroke down the Major's temper. “Slippery are the paths of the peacemaker,” the girl laughed one morning, when she had ridden home after an hour of persuasion. “I go on tip-toe because of your indiscretions, papa. You really must learn to control yourself, the Major says.”

“Control myself!” repeated the Governor, laughing, though he looked a little vexed. “If I hadn't the control of a stoic, daughter, to say nothing of the patience of Job, do you think I'd be able to listen calmly to his tirades? Why, he wants to pull the Government to pieces for his pleasure,” then he pinched her cheek and added, smiling, “Oh, you sly puss, why don't you play your pranks upon one of your own age?”

Through the long winter many visits were exchanged between Uplands and Chericoke, and once, on a mild February morning, Mrs. Lightfoot drove over in her old coach, with her knitting and her handmaid Mitty, to spend the day. She took Betty back with her, and the girl stayed a week in the queer old house, where the elm boughs tapped upon her window as she slept, and the shadows on the crooked staircase frightened her when she went up and down at night. It seemed to her that the presence of Jane Lightfoot still haunted the home that she had left. When the snow fell on the roof and the wind beat against the panes, she would open her door and look out into the long dim halls, as if she half expected to see a girlish figure in a muslin gown steal softly to the stair.

Dan was less with her in that stormy week than was the memory of his mother; even Great-aunt Emmeline, whose motto was written on the ivied glass, grew faint beside the outcast daughter of whom but one pale miniature remained. Before Betty went back to Uplands she had grown to know Jane Lightfoot as she knew herself.

When the spring came she took up her trowel and followed Aunt Lydia into the garden. On bright mornings the two would work side by side among the flowers, kneeling in a row with the small darkies who came to their assistance. Peter, the gardener, would watch them lazily, as he leaned upon his hoe, and mutter beneath his breath, “Dat dut wuz dut, en de dut er de flow'r baids warn' no better'n de dut er de co'n fiel'.”

Betty would laugh and shake her head as she planted her square of pansies. She was working feverishly to overcome her longing for the sight of Dan, and her growing dread of his return.

But at last on a sunny morning, when the lilacs made a lane of purple to the road, the Major drove over with the news that “the boys would not be back again till autumn. They'll go abroad for the summer,” he added proudly. “It's time they were seeing something of the world, you know. I've always said that a man should see the world before thirty, if he wants to stay at home after forty,” then he smiled down on Virginia, and pinched her cheek. “It won't hurt Dan, my dear,” he said cheerfully. “Let him get a glimpse of artificial flowers, that he may learn the value of our own beauties.”

“Of Great-aunt Emmeline, you mean, sir,” replied Virginia, laughing.

“Oh, yes, my child,” chuckled the Major. “Let him learn the value of Great-aunt Emmeline, by all means.”

When the old gentleman had gone, Betty went into the garden, where the grass was powdered with small spring flowers, and gathered a bunch of white violets for her mother. Aunt Lydia was walking slowly up and down in the mild sunshine, and her long black shadow passed over the girl as she knelt in the narrow grass-grown path. A slender spray of syringa drooped down upon her head, and the warm wind was sweet with the heavy perfume of the lilacs. On the whitewashed fence a catbird was calling over the meadow, and another answered from the little bricked-up graveyard, where the gate was opened only when a fresh grave was to be hollowed out amid the periwinkle.

As Betty knelt there, something in the warm wind, the heavy perfume, or the old lady's flitting shadow touched her with a sudden melancholy, and while the tears lay upon her lashes, she started quickly to her feet and looked about her. But a great peace was in the air, and around her she saw only the garden wrapped in sunshine, the small spring flowers in bloom, and Aunt Lydia moving up and down in the box-bordered walk.

VI

THE MEETING IN THE TURNPIKE

On a late September afternoon Dan rode leisurely homeward along the turnpike. He had reached New York some days before, but instead of hurrying on with Champe, he had sent a careless apology to his expectant grandparents while he waited over to look up a missing trunk.

“Oh, what difference does a day make?” he had urged in reply to Champe's remonstrances, “and after going all the way to Paris, I can't afford to lose my clothes, you know. I'm not a Leander, my boy, and there's no Hero awaiting me. You can't expect a fellow to sacrifice the proprieties for his grandmother.”

“Well, I'm going, that's all,” rejoined Champe, and Dan heartily responded, “God be with you,” as he shook his hand.

Now, as he rode slowly up the turnpike on a hired horse, he was beginning to regret, with an impatient self-reproach, the three tiresome days he had stolen from his grandfather's delight. It was characteristic of him at the age of twenty-one that he began to regret what appeared to be a pleasure only after it had proved to be a disappointment. Had the New York days been gay instead of dull, it is probable that he would have ridden home with an easy conscience and a lordly belief that there was something generous in the spirit of his coming back at all.

A damp wind was blowing straight along the turnpike, and the autumn fields, brilliant with golden-rod and sumach, stretched under a sky which had clouded over so suddenly that the last rays of sun were still shining upon the mountains.

He had left Uplands a mile behind, throwing, as he passed, a wistful glance between the silver poplars. A pink dress had fluttered for an instant beyond the Doric columns, and he had wondered idly if it meant Virginia, and if she were still the pretty little simpleton of six months ago. At the thought of her he threw back his head and whistled gayly into the threatening sky, so gayly that a bluebird flying across the road hovered round him in the air. The joy of living possessed him at the moment, a mere physical delight in the circulation of his blood, in the healthy beating of his pulses. Old things which he had half forgotten appealed to him suddenly with all the force of fresh impressions. The beauty of the September fields, the long curve in the white road where the tuft of cedars grew, the falling valley which went down between the hills, stood out for him as if bathed in a new and tender light. The youth in him was looking through his eyes.

And the thought of Virginia went merrily with his mood. What a pretty little simpleton she was, by George, and what a dull world this would be were it not for the pretty simpletons in pink dresses! Why, in that case one might as well sit in a library and read Horace and wear red flannel. One might as well--a drop of rain fell in his face and he lowered his head. When he did so he saw that Betty was coming along the turnpike, and that she wore a dress of blue dimity.

In a flash of light his first wonder was that he should ever have preferred pink to blue; his second that a girl in a dimity gown and a white chip bonnet should be fleeing from a storm along the turnpike. As he jumped from his horse he faced her a little anxiously.

“There's a hard shower coming, and you'll be wet,” he said.

“And my bonnet!” cried Betty, breathlessly. She untied the blue strings and swung them over her arm. There was a flush in her cheeks, and as he drew nearer she fell back quickly.

“You--you came so suddenly,” she stammered.

He laughed aloud. “Doesn't the Prince always come suddenly?” he asked. “You are like the wandering princess in the fairy tale--all in blue upon a lonely road; but this isn't just the place for loitering, you know. Come up behind me and I'll carry you to shelter in Aunt Ailsey's cabin; it isn't the first time I've run away, with you, remember.” He lifted her upon the horse, and started at a gallop up the turnpike. “I'm afraid the steed doesn't take the romantic view,” he went on lightly. “There, get up, Barebones, the lady doesn't want to wet her bonnet. Lean against me, Betty, and I'll try to shelter you.”

But the rain was in their faces, and Betty shut her eyes to keep out the hard bright drops. As she clung with both hands to his arm, her wet cheek was hidden against his coat, and the blue ribbons on her breast were blown round them in the wind. It was as if one of her dreams had awakened from sleep and come boldly out into the daylight; and because it was like a dream she trembled and was half ashamed of its reality.

“Here we are!” he exclaimed, in a moment, as he turned the horse round the blasted tree into the little path amid the vegetables. “If you are soaked through, we might as well go on; but if you're half dry, build a fire and get warm.” He put her down upon the square stone before the doorway, and slipping the reins over the branch of a young willow tree, followed her into the cabin. “Why, you're hardly damp,” he said, with his hand on her arm. “I got the worst of it.”

He crossed over to the great open fireplace, and kneeling upon the hearth raked a hollow in the old ashes; then he kindled a blaze from a pile of lightwood knots, and stood up brushing his hands together. “Sit down and get warm,” he said hospitably. “If I may take upon myself to do the duties of free Levi's castle, I should even invite you to make yourself at home.” With a laugh he glanced about the bare little room,--at the uncovered rafters, the rough log walls, and the empty cupboard with its swinging doors. In one corner there was a pallet hidden by a ragged patchwork quilt, and facing it a small pine table upon which stood an ash-cake ready for the embers.

The laughter was still in his eyes when he looked at Betty. “Now where's the sense of going walking in the rain?” he demanded.

“I didn't,” replied Betty, quickly. “It was clear when I started, and the clouds came up before I knew it. I had been across the fields to the woods, and I was coming home along the turnpike.” She loosened her hair, and kneeling upon the smooth stones, dried it before the flames. As she shook the curling ends a sparkling shower of rain drops was scattered over Dan.

“Well, I don't see much sense in that,” he returned slowly, with his gaze upon her.

She laughed and held out her moist hands to the fire. “Well, there was more than you see,” she responded pleasantly, and added, while she smiled at him with narrowed eyes, “dear me, you've grown so much older.”

“And you've grown so much prettier,” he retorted boldly.

A flush crossed her face, and her look grew a little wistful. “The rain has bewitched you,” she said.

“You may call me a fool if you like,” he pursued, as if she had not spoken, “but I did not know until to-day that you had the most beautiful hair in the world. Why, it is always sunshine about you.” He put out his hand to touch a loose curl that hung upon her shoulder, then drew it quickly back. “I don't suppose I might,” he asked humbly.

Betty gathered up her hair with shaking hands, which gleamed white in the firelight, and carelessly twisted it about her head.

“It is not nearly so pretty as Virginia's,” she said in a low voice.

“Virginia's? Oh, nonsense!” he exclaimed, and walked rapidly up and down the room.

Beyond the open door the rain fell heavily; he heard it beating softly on the roof and dripping down upon the smooth square stone before the threshold. A red maple leaf was washed in from the path and lay a wet bit of colour upon the floor. “I wonder where old man Levi is?” he said suddenly.

“In the rain, I'm afraid,” Betty answered, “and he has rheumatism, too; he was laid up for three months last winter.”

She spoke quietly, but she was conscious of a quiver from head to foot, as if a strong wind had swept over her. Through the doorway she saw the young willow tree trembling in the storm and felt curiously akin to it.

Dan came slowly back to the hearth, and leaning against the crumbling mortar of the chimney, looked thoughtfully down upon her. “Do you know what I thought of when I saw you with your hair down, Betty?”

She shook her head, smiling.

“I don't suppose I'd thought of it for years,” he went on quickly; “but when you took your hair down, and looked up at me so small and white, it all came back to me as if it were yesterday. I remembered the night I first came along this road--God-forsaken little chap that I was--and saw you standing out there in your nightgown--with your little cold bare feet. The moonlight was full upon you, and I thought you were a ghost. At first I wanted to run away; but you spoke, and I stood still and listened. I remember what it was, Betty.--'Mr. Devil, I'm going in,' you said. Did you take me for the devil, I wonder?”

She smiled up at him, and he saw her kind eyes fill with tears. The wavering smile only deepened the peculiar tenderness of her look.

“I had been sitting in the briers for an hour,” he resumed, after a moment; “it was a day and night since I had eaten a bit of bread, and I had been digging up sassafras roots with my bare fingers. I remember that I rooted at one for nearly an hour, and found that it was sumach, after all. Then I got up and went on again, and there you were standing in the moonlight--” He broke off, hesitated an instant, and added with the gallant indiscretion of youth, “By George, that ought to have made a man of me!”

“And you are a man,” said Betty.

“A man!” he appeared to snap his fingers at the thought. “I am a weather-vane, a leaf in the wind, a--an ass. I haven't known my own mind ten minutes during the last two years, and the only thing I've ever gone honestly about is my own pleasure. Oh, yes, I have the courage of my inclinations, I admit.”

“But I don't understand--what does it mean?--I don't understand,” faltered Betty, vaguely troubled by his mood.

“Mean? Why, it means that I've been ruined, and it's too late to mend me. I'm no better than a pampered poodle dog. It means that I've gotten everything I wanted, until I begin to fancy there's nothing under heaven I can't get.” Then, in one of his quick changes of temper, his face cleared with a burst of honest laughter.

She grew merry instantly, and as she smiled up at him, he saw her eyes like rays of hazel light between her lashes. “Has the black crow gone?” she asked. “Do you know when I have a gray day Mammy calls it the black crow flying by. As long as his shadow is over you, there's always a gloom at the brain, she says. Has he quite gone by?”

“Oh, he flew by quickly,” he answered, laughing, “he didn't even stay to flap his wings.” Then he became suddenly grave. “I wonder what kind of a man you'll fall in love with, Betty?” he said abruptly.

She drew back startled, and her eyes reminded him of those of a frightened wild thing he had come upon in the spring woods one day. As she shrank from him in her dim blue dress, her hair fell from its coil and lay like a gold bar across her bosom, which fluttered softly with her quickened breath.

“I? Why, how can I tell?” she asked.

“He'll not be black and ugly, I dare say?”

She shook her head, regaining her composure.

“Oh, no, fair and beautiful,” she answered.

“Ah, as unlike me as day from night?”

“As day from night,” she echoed, and went on after a moment, her girlish visions shining in her eyes:--

“He will be a man, at least,” she said slowly, “a man with a faith to fight for--to live for--to make him noble. He may be a beggar by the roadside, but he will be a beggar with dreams. He will be forever travelling to some great end--some clear purpose.” The last words came so faintly that he bent nearer to hear. A deep flush swept to her forehead, and she turned from him to the fire. These were things that she had hidden even from Virginia.

But as he looked steadily down upon her, something of her own pure fervour was in his face. Her vivid beauty rose like a flame to his eyes, and for a single instant it seemed to him that he had never looked upon a woman until to-day.

“So you would sit with him in the dust of the roadside?” he asked, smiling.

“But the dust is beautiful when the sun shines on it,” answered the girl; “and on wet days we should go into the pine woods, and on fair ones rest in the open meadows; and we should sing with the robins, and make friends with the little foxes.”

He laughed softly. “Ah, Betty, Betty, I know you now for a dreamer of dreams. With all your pudding-mixing and your potato-planting you are moon-mad like the rest of us.”

She made a disdainful little gesture. “Why, I never planted a potato in my life.”

“Don't scoff, dear lady,” he returned warningly; “too great literalness is the sin of womankind, you know.”

“But I don't care in the least for vegetable-growing,” she persisted seriously.

The humour twinkled in his eyes. “Thriftless woman, would you prefer to beg?”

“When the Major rode by,” laughed Betty; “but when I heard you coming, I'd lie hidden among the briers, and I'd scatter signs for other gypsies that read, 'Beware the Montjoy.'”

His face darkened and he frowned. “So it's the Montjoy you're afraid of,” he rejoined gloomily. “I'm not all Lightfoot, though I'm apt to forget it; the Montjoy blood is there, all the same, and it isn't good blood.”

“Your blood is good,” said Betty, warmly.

He laughed again and met her eyes with a look of whimsical tenderness. “Make me your beggar, Betty,” he prayed, smiling.

“You a beggar!” She shook a scornful head. “I can shut my eyes and see your fortune, sir, and it doesn't lie upon the roadside. I see a well-fed country gentleman who rises late to breakfast and storms when the birds are overdone, who drinks his two cups of coffee and eats syrup upon his cakes--”

“O pleasant prophetess!” he threw in.

“I look and see him riding over the rich fields in the early morning, watching from horseback the planting and the growing and the ripening of the corn. He has a dozen servants to fetch the whip he drops, and a dozen others to hold his bridle when he pleases to dismount; the dogs leap round him in the drive, and he brushes away the one that licks his face. I see him grow stout and red-faced as he reads a dull Latin volume beside his bottle of old port--there's your fortune, sir, the silver, if you please.” She finished in a whining voice, and rose to drop a courtesy.

“On my word, you're a witch, Betty,” he exclaimed, laughing, “a regular witch on a broomstick.”

“Does the likeness flatter you? Shall I touch it up a bit? Just a dash more of red in the face?”

“Well, I reckon it's true as prophecy ever was,” he said easily. “It isn't likely that I'll ever be a beggar, despite your kindly wishes for my soul's welfare; and, on the whole, I think I'd rather not. When all's said and done, I'd rather own my servants and my cultivated acres, and come down late to hot cakes than sit in the dust by the roadside and eat sour grapes. It may not be so good for the soul, but it's vastly more comfortable; and I'm not sure that a fat soul in a lean body is the best of life, Betty.”

“At least it doesn't give one gout,” retorted Betty, mercilessly, adding as she went to the door: “but the rain is holding up, and I must be going. I'll borrow your horse, if you please, Dan.” She tied on her flattened bonnet, and with her foot on the threshold, stood looking across the wet fields, where each spear of grass pieced a string of shining rain drops. Over the mountains the clouds tossed in broken masses, and loose streamers of vapour drifted down into the lower foldings of the hills. The cool smell of the moist road came to her on the wind.

Dan unfastened the reins from the young willow, and led the horse to the stone at the entrance. Then he threw his coat over the dampened saddle and lifted Betty upon it. “Pooh! I'm as tough as a pine knot.” He scoffed at her protests. “There, sit steady; I'd better hold you on, I suppose.”

Slipping the reins loosely over his arm, he laid his hand upon the blue folds of her skirt. “If you feel yourself going, just catch my shoulder,” he added; “and now we're off.”

They left the little path and went slowly down the turnpike, under the dripping trees. Across the fields a bird was singing after the storm, and the notes were as fresh as the smell of the rain-washed earth. A fuller splendour seemed to have deepened suddenly upon the meadows, and the golden-rod ran in streams of fire across the landscape.

“Everything looks so changed,” said Betty, wistfully; “are you sure that we are still in the same world, Dan?”