Chapter 9

“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.

V

THE MAJOR LOSES HIS TEMPER

When Betty reached home the dark had fallen, and as she entered the house she heard the crackling of fresh logs from the library, and saw her mother sitting alone in the firelight, which flickered softly on her pearl-gray silk and ruffles of delicate lace.

She was humming in a low voice one of the old Scotch ballads the Governor loved, and as she rocked gently in her rosewood chair, her shadow flitted to and fro upon the floor. One loose bell sleeve hung over the carved arm of the rocker, and the fingers of her long white hand, so fragile that it was like a flower, played silently upon the polished wood.

As the girl entered she looked up quickly. “You haven't been wandering off by yourself again?” she asked reproachfully.

“Oh, it is quite safe, mamma,” replied Betty, impatiently. “I didn't meet a soul except free Levi.”

“Your father wouldn't like it, my dear,” returned Mrs. Ambler, in the tone in which she might have said, “it is forbidden in the Scriptures,” and she added after a moment, “but where is Petunia? You might, at least, take Petunia with you.”

“Petunia is such a chatterbox,” said Betty, tossing her wraps upon a chair, “and if she sees a cricket in the road she shrieks, 'Gawd er live, Miss Betty,' and jumps on the other side of me. No, I can't stand Petunia.”

She sat down upon an ottoman at her mother's feet, and rested her chin in her clasped hands.

“But did you never go walking in your life, mamma?” she questioned.

Mrs. Ambler looked a little startled. “Never alone, my dear,” she replied with dignity. “Why, I shouldn't have thought of such a thing. There was a path to a little arbour in the glen at my old home, I remember,--I think it was at least a quarter of a mile away,--and I sometimes strolled there with your father; but there were a good many briers about, so I usually preferred to stay on the lawn.”

Her voice was clear and sweet, but it had none of the humour which gave piquancy to Betty's. It might soothe, caress, even reprimand, but it could never jest; for life to Mrs. Ambler was soft, yet serious, like a continued prayer to a pleasant and tender Deity.

“I'm sure I don't see how you stood it,” said Betty, sympathetically.

“Oh, I rode, my dear,” returned her mother. “I used to ride very often with your father or--or one of the others. I had a brown mare named Zephyr.”

“And you never wanted to be alone, never for a single instant?”

“Alone?” repeated Mrs. Ambler, wonderingly, “why, of course I read my Bible and meditated an hour every morning. In my youth it would have been considered very unladylike not to do it, and I'm sure there's no better way of beginning the day than with a chapter in the Bible and a little meditation. I wish you would try it, Betty.” Her eyes were upon her daughter, and she added in an unchanged voice, “Don't you think you might manage to make your hair lie smoother, dear? It's very pretty, I know; but the way it curls about your face is just a bit untidy, isn't it?”

Then, as the Governor came in from his day in town, she turned eagerly to hear the news of his latest speech.

“Oh, I've had a great day, Julia,” began the Governor; but as he stooped to kiss her, she gave a little cry of alarm. “Why, you're frozen through!” she exclaimed. “Betty, stir the fire, and make your father sit down by the fender. Shall I mix you a toddy, Mr. Ambler?”

“Tut, tut!” protested the Governor, laughing, “a touch of the wind is good for the blood, my dear.”

There was a light track of snow where he had crossed the room, and as he rested his foot upon the brass knob of the fender, the ice clinging to his riding-boot melted and ran down upon the hearth.

“Oh, I've had a great day,” he repeated heartily, holding his plump white hands to the flames. “It was worth the trip to test the spirit of Virginia; and it's sound, Julia, as sound as steel. Why, when I said in my speech--you'll remember the place, my dear--that if it came to a choice between slavery and the Union, we'd ship the negroes back to Africa, and hold on to the flag, I was applauded to the echo, and it would have done you good to hear the cheers.”

“I knew it would be so, Mr. Ambler,” returned his wife, with conviction. “Even if they thought otherwise I was sure your speech would convince them. Dr. Crump was talking to me only yesterday, and he said that he had heard both Mr. Yancey and Mr. Douglas, and that neither of them--”

“I know, my love, I know,” interposed the Governor, waving his hand. “I have myself heard the good doctor commit the same error of judgment. But, remember, it is easy to convince a man who already thinks as you do; and since the Major has gone over to the Democrats, the doctor has grown Whiggish, you know.”

Mrs. Ambler flushed. “I'm sure I don't see why you should deny that you have a talent for oratory,” she said gravely. “I have sometimes thought it was why I fell in love with you, you made such a beautiful speech the first day I met you at the tournament in Leicesterburg. Fred Dulany crowned me, you remember; and in your speech you brought in so many lovely things about flowers and women.”

“Ah, Julia, Julia,” sighed the Governor, “so the sins of my youth are rising to confound me,” and he added quickly to Betty, “Isn't that some one coming up the drive, daughter?”

Betty ran to the window and drew back the damask curtains. “It's the Major, papa,” she said, nodding to the old gentleman through the glass, “and he does look so cold. Go out and bring him in, and don't--please don't talk horrid politics to-night.”

“I'll not, daughter, on my word, I'll not,” declared the Governor, and he wore the warning as a breastplate when he went out to meet his guest.

The Major, in his tight black broadcloth, entered, with his blandest smile, and bowed over Mrs. Ambler's hand.

“I saw your firelight as I was passing, dear madam,” he began, “and I couldn't go on without a glimpse of you, though I knew that Molly was waiting for me at the end of three cold miles.”

He put his arm about Betty and drew her to him.

“You must borrow some of your sister's blushes, my child,” he said; “it isn't right to grow pale at your age. I don't like to see it,” and then, as Virginia came shyly in, he held out his other hand, and accused her of stealing his boy's heart away from him. “But we old folks must give place to the young,” he continued cheerfully; “it's nature, and it's human nature, too.”

“It will be a dull day when you give place to any one else, Major,” returned the Governor, politely.

“And a far off one I trust,” added Mrs. Ambler, with her plaintive smile.

“Well, maybe so,” responded the Major, settling himself in an easy chair beside the fire. “Any way, you can't blame an old man for fighting for his own, as my friend Harry Smith put it when he lost his leg in the War of 1812. 'By God, it belongs to me,' he roared to the surgeon, 'and if it comes off, I'll take it off myself, sir.' It took six men to hold him, and when it was over all he said was, 'Well, gentlemen, you mustn't blame a man for fighting for his own.' Ah, he was a sad scamp, was Harry, a sad scamp. He used to say that he didn't know whether he preferred a battle or a dinner, but he reckoned a battle was better for the blood. And to think that he died in his bed at last like any Christian.”

“That reminds me of Dick Wythe, who never needed any tonic but a fight,” returned the Governor, thoughtfully. “You remember Dick, don't you, Major?--a hard drinker, poor fellow, but handsome enough to have stepped out of Homer. I've been sitting by him at the post-office on a spring day, and seen him get up and slap a passer-by on the face as coolly as he'd take his toddy. Of course the man would slap back again, and when it was over Dick would make his politest bow, and say pleasantly, 'Thank you, sir, I felt a touch of the gout.' He told me once that if it was only a twinge, he chose a man of his own size; but if it was a positive wrench, he struck out at the biggest he could find.”

The Major leaned back, laughing. “That was Dick, sir, that was Dick!” he exclaimed, “and it was his father before him. Why, I've had my own blows with Taylor Wythe in his day, and never a hard word afterward, never a word.” Then his face clouded. “I saw Dick's brother Tom in town this morning,” he added. “A sneaking fellow, who hasn't the spirit in his whole body that was in his father's little finger. Why, what do you suppose he had the impudence to tell me, sir? Some one had asked him, he said, what he should do if Virginia went to war, and he had answered that he'd stay at home and build an asylum for the fools that brought it on.” He turned his indignant face upon Mrs. Ambler, and she put in a modest word of sympathy.

“You mustn't judge Tom by his jests, sir,” rejoined the Governor, persuasively. “His wit takes with the town folks, you know, and I hear that he's becoming famous as a post-office orator.”

“There it is, sir, there it is,” retorted the Major. “I've always said that the post-offices were the ruin of this country--and that proves my words. Why, if there were no post-offices, there'd be fewer newspapers; and if there were fewer newspapers, there wouldn't be the _Richmond Whig_.”

The Governor's glance wandered to his writing table.