Chapter 20

"YOU ARE--MYSELF!"

And then in my wickedness I began to commit a desecration on the memory of my beautiful and honored Grandmamma Carruthers. I walked to that glass case in which reposed that gown of the beautiful flowered silk and took it therefrom and laid it upon a chair above the soiled riding breeches of corduroy I had so lately discarded. I opened the carved wooden box on the table underneath and took from it the silver slippers and the stockings of silk, also the lace fan and the silver band for the hair. Thereupon I walked to my mirror and commenced to make a toilet of great care but of a great rapidity.

My first action was to take down that lovelock and with the oil of roses to lay it in its accustomed place upon my cheek, which burned with a beautiful rose of shame and at the same moment with some other emotion that I did not understand; which emotion also made my eyes as bright as the night stars out in that Camp Heaven. The silver band held closely the rest of my mop and gave it the appearance of the very close coiffure which is the fashion of this day, and one very sweet young rose I put into it just above the curl with an effect of great and wicked beauty.

The coiffure having been accomplished, the rest of the toilet, from the slippers of the cloth of silver to the edge of fine old lace, now the color of rich cream, that rested upon the arch of my bare white breast was only a matter of a few moments, and then I stood away from my mirror and beheld myself therein.

"You are as beautiful as you are wicked, Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, but you go to your death in a manner befitting a _grande dame_ of your ancient house of France, whose daughters once showed the rabble how to approach a guillotine, costumed in magnificence. Descend for that cold knife to your heart!" And so speaking, I picked up my fan and made my way through the hall to the halfway of the wide steps. At that point a commotion occurred.

"Lordee! It's the old lady come to ha'nt!" exclaimed my good Bonbon and with a groan he fled into the darkness in the back regions of the house.

And it happened that his loud cry brought a response which came to me before I was quite in readiness for it. As I reached the last step of the wide staircase, under the bright light I raised my eyes, and behold, the Gouverneur Faulkner to whom I had descended for the purpose of mortal combat, stood before me!

And was it that cruel and wicked and cold Gouverneur Faulkner who was to scourge me and keep me in the house of my Uncle, the General Robert, for a dishonor? It was not. Before me stood a tall man who was of a great paleness and a terrible fatigue also, covered with the dust of a long, hard ride, with eyes that were full of a fear, who stood and looked at me with not one word of any kind.

Suddenly I bowed my head and stretched out my bare arms, the one of which bore the red scar from the wound suffered for him, and thus suppliant I waited to receive the reproaches that were due to me.

And for a long minute I waited and then again for another long period of time and no word came to me. Then I raised my head!

For all women now in the world who have the love of a man in their hearts, and for those unborn who will come into that possession, I pray that they may be given the opportunity to plant in the hearts of those men of their desire the seed of a fine loyalty and service and comradeship, and that they may some day look into his eyes and see that seed slowly expand into a great white flower of mate love, as I beheld bloom for me in the eyes of my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner. Long we stood there and looked into the soul of each other and let the flower grow, drinking from our hearts and the veins of our bodies until at last it was fully open; and then I went with a love cry into his arms held out to me, and pressed the heart of my soft woman's body close against his own.

"I think my heart has always known, though my mind's eyes were blind. God, if I had lost you into that hell of war, you daredevil!" he whispered and I tasted the salt of his tears on my lips.

"I am a lie," I whispered back to him.

"You are--myself," he laughed through a sob, and then, while with his large warm hand he held my throat as a person does the stem of a flower, he pressed his lips into mine until they reached to the heart within me. In a moment with my hands I held him back from me.

"I must go, my beloved, even as I have said," I cried to him. "I cannot stay to my dishonor and to the rage and unhappiness my Uncle, the General Robert, will experience when he discovers that a girl has cheated him in his great affection and generosity to her.

"It _is_ going to be hard on the General to have his grandmother come to life on his hands like this," laughed my Gouverneur Faulkner, bending and placing upon the creamy lace of my Grandmamma a kiss which was warm to my heart through the beflowered silk.

"Let me die in those trenches so that he will never know," I pleaded.

"No, sweetheart, that would be too easy. You are going to stay right here and face the old Forty-Two Centimeter," he made a reply to my pleading request as he bent and laid his cheek upon the lovelock. "That curl ought to have opened my eyes when I sat and watched you open yours day before yesterday morning," was the remark he added to his cruel command that I stay and face my very dreadful and so very much beloved Uncle, the General Robert.

"I am afraid," I answered as I clung to him with a trembling.

"Yes, I know you are afraid of him--or anything," laughed my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner with a shake of my bare shoulders under his strong hands. "But perhaps these papers I have in my pocket from Captain Lasselles, who is at the Mansion getting rid of dust, will help you out after the first explosion, which you will have to stand in a very few minutes from now, if that hall clock is correct and I know the General's habits as I think I do."

"Oh, let me ascend and get once again into my trousers!" I exclaimed as I sought to leave the arms that again held me close.

"Never," said my Gouverneur Faulkner after another kiss upon the lace on my breast. "You'll just wear this ball gown until you can get some dimity, Madam, and don't you ever even mention to me--"

But just here an interruption arrived, and I sprang from the arms of my Gouverneur Faulkner only in time to avoid being discovered therein. My beloved Uncle, the General Robert, entered the door in a great hurry, with that much frightened Bonbon following close at his heels.

"What's all this that fool nigger phoned about ghosts walking and--" Then he stood very still in the spot upon which his feet were placed and regarded me as I turned from the arms of my Gouverneur Faulkner and faced him.

"My God, Governor, what has happened to my boy?" he asked, and his fine old face was of a great whiteness and trembling. "Sam says he's dead and the ghost--" and then came another pause in which all of the persons present held for a long minute their breath.

Did I make excuses and explanations and pleadings to my beloved Uncle, the General Robert, in such suffering over the death of that Robert? I did not. I opened my strong young arms wide and took him into them with a tenderness of such great force that it would of a necessity go into his very heart.

"I am a wicked girl who has come to you in lies as a boy, my Uncle Robert, but I have a love that is so great for you that I will be in death if you do not accept of it from me," I said as I pressed my cheek in its tears against his.

And for still another long minute all of the persons present waited again and I forced to remain in my throat a sob, while my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner laid one of his hands on the shoulder of my Uncle, the General Robert.

And then did come that explosion!

"You young limb of Satan, you! I could shake the life out of you if I didn't prefer a live girl to a dead boy. I knew just such a thing as this would happen to me in my old age for a long life of cussedness. And what's more, I'll wager I'll never be able to give a great husky thing like you away. You cost as much to feed as a man. Who'd want you?"

But even as he stormed at me I felt his strong old arms cease from their tremblings and clasp me with a very rough tenderness.

"I do, General," said my Gouverneur Faulkner as he attempted to take me from that very rough embrace of my Uncle, the General Robert. "I'll take her off your hands."

"No, sir, I never ask personal favors of my friends," answered my Uncle, the General Robert, as he held me away from the arms of the Gouverneur Faulkner with a very great determination.

"General Carruthers," then said my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner as he drew his beautiful body to all the height that was possible to him, and looked into the eyes of my beloved Uncle Robert with his own, which are stars of the dawn, so that all of his heart and soul and honor shone therefrom in a radiance, "the Marquise of Grez and Bye went a three days' journey into the wilds of the Harpeth mountains with me to rescue my honor and for the welfare of this great State and of France. And because we thought not of ourselves but of the welfare of Harpeth and of France, and did but what was necessary as two comrades, God has revealed to us his gift of gifts--love. As you see, she is returned to you radiant and unharmed. Have I your consent to try to win her hand in marriage?"

For no more than a long minute my Uncle, the General Robert, gazed straight into the eyes of my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner, and then a very beautiful smile did break from under those white swords crossed above his lips, as he spoke with a great urgency:

"Would you like to take the baggage along with you to-night, Governor? Don't leave her here. I don't want a woman about my house. I can wake up the county court clerk for a license," he said with a fine twinkling of the eye.

"Oh, but all friends must forgive me my deception; and then must not a courtship of great decorum be made from my Gouverneur Faulkner for the hand of the lady whom he would make his wife?" I asked with an uncertainty as I looked from my Uncle, the General Robert, to my Gouverneur Faulkner.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I think the Marquise is right and under the circumstances I'll have to make a very public courtship, which out of consideration for you I'll make as ardent and rapid as possible. Only we three know the wonderful truth and we'll keep it to ourselves." And as he spoke that great Gouverneur Faulkner bent and laid a kiss of great ceremony upon the hand of Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye.

"Very well, sir, I'll keep her for a few days and have her fitted out in a lot of folderols for you, but only for a short period, mind you. A very short period!" answered my Uncle, the General Robert, with a smile that showed much delight in me. I flew to him and gave to him an embrace with my arms and also laid my cheek against his.

"I am for always your most humble and obedient girl, my Uncle Robert," I whispered to him.

"Humble and obedient--no woman would know those words if she met them in her own drawing-room," he answered to me with a great scorn but he also gave to me a shake that was of a seeming great fierceness, but that I knew to be a caress.

And into that caress came also another interruption of great hurry. My Buzz entered the door with a rapidity and this exclamation:

"What's the trouble, General? I just got your phone and--" Then he too stood in a great and sudden stillness, regarding me as I stood from the shelter of the arms of my Uncle, the General Robert, and looked into his eyes of great fright.

"My Buzz," I said to him softly.

"Great heavens!" he exclaimed, with terror in his eyes as he backed away from me. "I haven't had but one glass of draft beer, General."

"It's all right, Buzz," answered my very wise Gouverneur Faulkner, in a voice of great soothing. "This is just--just Robert in a--a--"

"Not much Bobby, that," answered my Buzz as he backed farther towards the door. "I think I'll step outside in the cool air. I haven't felt well all day. I--" and with which remark my good Buzz turned himself into the arms of the lovely Mademoiselle Sue entering the door.

"I'm tired of waiting out there in that car, Buzz, and--" And again came an awful pause of terror. But is it not that women have a wit that is very much more rapid than is that of men? I think it is so.

"You know, I thought Bobby was a queer kind of man and he is a perfectly lovely girl," she said as she came towards me with a laugh and her lovely arms outstretched. "I read about two French girls who got into Germany in German uniforms, just last night in a magazine. You are some kind of a French spy about those dreadful mules, aren't you, Bobby dear?" And as she asked that question of me, my lovely Sue gave to me a kiss upon my lips that I valued with a great gratitude.

"Please make it that my Buzz also understands," I pleaded to her within her arms.

"Brace up, Buzz, and be nice to Bobby, even if he is a girl. Just when did you begin not to like girls, I'd like to know?" questioned my Sue of him with a great emphasis.

"You see why it is that I cannot go into that business of timber with you and be married to--" I made a commencement to say to him.

"That will do, L'Aiglon," interrupted my Buzz with a great haste and a glance in the direction of lovely Sue. "Forget it! It is an awful shame, for you were one nice youngster and--"

"Be a sport, Buzz, and forgive her and--love her again," said my Gouverneur Faulkner with a laugh. "That is, as much as Miss Susan will--" But at this point my Uncle, the General Robert, caused an interruption in the conversation.

"What are you doing here, sir, when I left you to watch the side-steps of that French popinjay and the Whitworth woman? Did you hear what all that powwow was about at her tea fight this afternoon?" he demanded of fine Buzz, with a great anxiety. "There's been hell to pay, since you left, Governor, and I think this French scoundrel and Jeff's gang are preparing to put through some sort of a private steal if you jump the track on them."

"Madam Pat has got 'em all up at the Club, plotting in a corner at the little dinner dance we got up when his High-and-Mightiness refused the rural expedition, as soon as they heard you were not to go, Governor," said my Buzz with a great anxiety in his face. "I'd like to see anybody put out Mrs. Pat's light when she is once lit."

"It's all right, Buzz, and don't worry. Something has arrived to stop it all. It's up at the Mansion now and is man-sized," answered my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner with a great soothing.

And after that remark there were many very long explanations that made a beginning about the crooked back of the wee Pierre, which, in a letter come to my Uncle, the General Robert, that day, was declared by that great Doctor Burns to be of a certainty straight within the year, and that ended in the library where my Uncle, the General Robert, and my Gouverneur Faulkner, with good Buzz, read and read yet again the papers that my great Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, had signed for an honest delivery of the many mules to France. I do not know all that my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner said to my Uncle, the General Robert, for I remained in the hall with my Sue in a discussion about the telling without offense of the departure of Robert Carruthers to my Belle and other loved ones. And to us soon returned my Buzz of great curiosity.

"There is no humbleness that I will not perform for their forgiveness, my Buzz and my Sue," I said to them. "Seek that they grant it to me."

"Oh, it will be so exciting and up-to-date with its spy and war flavor that everybody will forgive you. You are a lovely darling and they'll all be glad you are a girl--all the boys especially," said to me my Sue, with a defiance at my Buzz.

"Sure, Bobbyette, I'll see that you're no wall-flower," he made answer to her in the person of me, with a return of that defiance. "Come on, Susan, let me take you home. Good night, old top--no, I mean _belle Marquise_" and it was a very funny thing to see that Buzz with a great awkwardness, bend and kiss my hand at a laugh from my Sue as they left me.

It was not for many moments that I stood alone in the hall after the departure of my Sue and my Buzz, before there entered my beloved Uncle, the General Robert, and also my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner, who came to stand, one upon the one side of me and one upon the other.

"Sure you wouldn't like to take her along with you to-night, Governor?" again asked my Uncle, the General Robert, with a great fierceness but also a twinkling of the eye.

"Only as far as your garden for a few minutes, General," answered my Gouverneur Faulkner with that laugh of a boy I had remarked once before up in those mountains of Old Harpeth, and he took my hand in his as if to lead me through one of the tall windows out into the fragrant night.

"All right, take her and don't return her until you have to," remarked my Uncle, the General Robert, as he handed me in the direction of my Gouverneur Faulkner and immediately took his departure up the stairs.

And it was under the light of the old moon, in the garden of those _grande dames_ Carruthers, that Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, who is the last of their line, walked with the great gentleman who was and is her lover. Is it that those beautiful dead Grandmammas each planted her flowers in her own great happiness so that they would give forth a very tender perfume in which to enfold the wooings of their daughters then not come into the world? I think it is so, and I was thus enwrapped in their fragrance as I was in the arms of that great Gouverneur Faulkner.

"Now I am a truth that I do love you," I made answer to a question that was pressed upon my lips.

"His woman is God's gift of truth to a man," were the words that were heard by those listening flowers and Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, who from a world at war had come home.