Part 19

"I have a right to do that," he said to himself. "Now that I know what her attitude has been it is not only my privilege but my duty to deal directly with her, to tell her what I have learned, to tell her of the misapprehension I have labored under, to renew my suit and to learn from her lips what her present feeling is. I know that, already, but it will be reassuring to have her tell me of it. God bless that Boston girl and her New England conscience and her courage! For it required courage of a high order to do what she did. Not many people would have dared do it."

So thinking he rode into the house grounds at The Oaks while the last glow of daylight was fading out of the sunset side of the sky.

Seeing a young negro, he dismounted and tossed the rein to the boy, saying:

"Don't stable him; just walk him back and forth till he cools down and then hitch him somewhere handy; I shall ride again presently."

Walking rapidly up the path he stepped upon the porch, and there met Margaret face to face for the first time since he had gaily bidden her adieu at midsummer.

"Margaret!" he exclaimed.

"Boyd!" she answered, and a moment later he had taken her in his arms and caressed her fervently.

"You have come at last!" she said as she withdrew herself from his embrace.

"At last?" he asked in answer. "It was only two hours ago that I learned that I might come at all. I was twenty miles away then, and I am here now, here to claim fulfilment of the most glorious promise a woman ever made to a man--here to claim you, Margaret."

"I know," she answered, as they sank into porch chairs. "Don't let us waste time in explanations, now that they are so utterly unnecessary. Just let us be happy."

The conversation thus begun lasted until near supper time. It is not necessary to report it for the information of any who have been lovers, and as for the rest, they would never understand.

Just before the late supper time Westover suddenly awakened to his duty.

"I must see your father," he said. "Without his permission I have no right to consider myself a guest in his house."

Margaret, knowing her father's perplexed eagerness to see Westover and be reconciled with him, smiled as she answered:

"I'll send for Father."

She did so, and presently the old Colonel came limping into the porch. As he approached, Margaret slipped into the house, leaving the two men alone.

They greeted each other with a cordiality that rendered all explanations and apologies needless, but Colonel Conway insisted upon explaining and apologizing.

"I've been a coward, Boyd! I've been an abject coward."

"I don't know any other man living who would dare say that, Colonel."

"Perhaps not. No, I suppose not. Still it is true, and I'm profoundly ashamed of it."

"Now my dear Colonel Conway," interjected Westover, "let us not talk of that. This is the happiest hour of my life and, I hope, of Margaret's. Let us not spoil it by discussing disagreeable things which are completely past and gone."

"But there are some things that I must explain, Boyd, and you must listen to me. I ought to have gone to you in Richmond at the time of your trouble. I didn't, because I was forbidden to do so by an authority which I was cowardly enough to yield to. Margaret--great woman that she is--told me then I was a coward, and she was right. When you came back to Wanalah my purpose was to go to you at once, but the same authority forbade, giving me a sufficient reason in the fact that you had written no line to Margaret. I know better now, but only within the past few days. Under that mistaken belief I refused to join in your nomination. A few days ago a catastrophe here revealed the truth to both Margaret and me. She appealed to me to do what my sense of honor might suggest. That meant that I should go to you at once, grasp your hand, tell you of the misapprehension and of the facts that removed it, and ask your pardon. No, don't interrupt. You are generously disposed to spare me, but I shall not consent to be spared. My first impulse was to do what Margaret expected of me. But an appeal was made to me to spare another--the culprit in the case--and I weakly yielded to it. I compromised with my conscience and my honor. I wrote to Dr. Farnsworth the letter you have doubtless seen, and I did no more. It was all cowardice, and I am heartily ashamed of it. Will you forgive me, Boyd?"

"Colonel Conway," answered Boyd with intense earnestness, "no man with a cowardly nerve in his body could ever have made the manly self-accusing apology you have offered to me. You grievously wrong yourself. It was not cowardice that restrained you, but a tender and generous consideration for a helpless person who was entitled to every protection you could give her. Now let us talk no more of this! Let us never refer to it! Let it be a dead thing of a dead past--a thing done with, forgotten, banished forever from our minds!"

"You are very generous," answered the now feeble old man. "But that is not a thing to be wondered at. You are Westover of Wanalah, and for nearly two hundred years that name has stood for all there is of gentle, generous and courageous manhood. You'll stay to supper of course?"

"No, Colonel. I have much to do to-night. I must ride at once--as soon as I shall have said 'good night' to Margaret."

It took a considerable time for the saying of that good night.

"I'll be over here at ten o'clock to-morrow morning, Margaret," he said, "and we'll go for a ride. I'll have a servant bring over a young filly I have in my stables, that you'll be delighted to ride. She's spirited, but as gentle as a zephyr--that's what I've named her--'Zephyr'--and her paces are perfect. She's to be yours from this time forth. I personally educated her for you last summer, before--before the trouble came."

"But to-morrow is Sunday; aren't we to go to church?"

"No. We are going to Wanalah, so that you may look over the place and see what alterations are needed. I must tell you, Margaret, that an investment,--very wise or very lucky, I don't know which,--made by my father in my name, has suddenly borne fruit, making me, Jack Towns says--and he has charge of the business--three times over the richest man in Virginia. The wealth is of no consequence in itself, but I mention it so that in deciding what shall be done at Wanalah you need have no fear of expense before your eyes."

"But church is at Round Hill, to-morrow, almost under our noses. If we don't attend, what will people say?"

"Hang 'people.' We are 'people' now. We're happy and we're going to stay happy. And after all what can they say? They'll say that Boyd Westover and Margaret Conway are very much in love with each other, and we don't care to contradict that, do we?"

"I do not," she answered.

"Neither do I. So let them say on. They'll wonder when it is to be, and I'm wondering about that myself now. When is it to be, Margaret?"

"I don't know. Of course I must have time to make a trousseau."

"What for?" he asked. "Hang the trousseau, or make it after we're married. What's the difference? You've plenty of clothes, and you're charming in any of them."

"But Boyd, dear,--"

"But Margaret dear," he interrupted, "you see our marriage was to have occurred in the late summer or early fall. It has already been unreasonably delayed. It is nonsense to delay it further. Think a little, and think quick, and name a day."

"If you must have it so, I suppose it must be so. You are the Master now. And besides--"

She did not finish her sentence till he challenged it, saying:

"Besides what, Margaret?"

"I was only thinking," she answered, "that I can't persuade Millicent to stay much longer, and I do want her to be my first bridesmaid. You see, Boyd, it isn't only that I'm very fond of her--I am _very grateful to her_."

"So am I," he answered with emphasis, but neither the one nor the other said aught of the occasion for gratitude. They both understood. But he eagerly grasped at the helping hand:

"Then you _must_ name a very early day, or she will have flitted."

"Let me see," she said; "the election will occur one week from next Tuesday; that is ten days hence. Our wedding shall occur on the day after you are elected Senator."

"But suppose I should not be elected?"

"In that case the day will come round just the same," she said; "but you will be elected. I have Dr. Farnsworth's positive assurance that you will be elected by the largest majority any candidate ever received in this district, and Dr. Farnsworth is a man who deals exclusively in facts, never in conjectures."

"Then you have concerned yourself about my election?"

"How could it be otherwise? As I told you in the long ago, Boyd, I am not a woman who loves lightly or lightly forgets."

"I know," he answered. "Your father is taking his supper alone. Go to him at once. I'll mount and away."

XXXVII

THE OLD CLOCK TICKS AGAIN

"It's a rambling old place," Westover said, as he and Margaret strolled through the vast spaces of the Wanalah rooms with their highly polished white ash floors, their wealth of stoutly built, time darkened furniture, their ancient, oaken wainscots and their hospitably spacious fireplaces. "I suppose a modern judgment would say tear it down and build anew--"

"Then the modern judgment shall have no welcome when I am mistress here. Tear down Wanalah, with its walls of thick masonry, its generously large rooms, and its memories? Only a vandal would do that. I'll tell you, Boyd, there is only one change I'd like you to make here."

"I'll make it. What is it?"

"There's a beautiful old standing clock in the dining room that has never ticked since I have known Wanalah. Won't you have somebody put new works into it and set it going again?"

"Yes," he answered, "but it shall not run until you and I return from our wedding trip and you enter the house as its mistress. We'll go to it together then and set it going, to mark time in a new era at Wanalah."

"You are very good and thoughtful and tender, Boyd. I suppose you are a trifle romantic also, but I shall certainly not quarrel with that, now or ever."

"Speaking of our wedding trip, Margaret," he said eagerly, "what is it to be? We can go anywhere you like and everywhere you like and for as long as you like."

"Am I really free to choose?" she asked, looking into his eyes.

"Yes, really and absolutely."

"What I would like best, then, would be to go up to that place of yours in the high mountains. It was there that you suffered most on my account; I want you to rejoice and be happy there, Boyd, by way of recompense."

"But it's rough living up there, Margaret; perhaps you'd find it----"

"I'd find it delightful. How could it be otherwise, with just you and me there?"

"It shall be so then. Nothing could delight me more. I'll get Theonidas to carry my things back up there at once. They are still at Judy's. And we'll take along with us whatever baggage you want."

"That will be very little. It is the air, the sunshine, the rain, the freedom and _you_, Boyd, that I want. And besides, you know you have forbidden me to have a trousseau. I'll be a wood nymph or a water witch or something of that sort, and such beings do not bother with baggage, I suppose."

During the next week, Westover was speaking day and night, all over the district. He really cared nothing for the office he was running for, but it was his temperament to do his mightiest to win in any contest in which he had a part, and in this case he had the additional impulse to gratify Margaret by securing the biggest majority possible for his election.

Meanwhile, in his enthusiasm, Colonel Conway forgot all about his gout, and busied himself in the fulfilment of the promise he had long ago given, to fill The Oaks at the wedding time with the most brilliant company the country could furnish, and to have feasting there of a kind that might make the occasion memorable. He even made a journey to Washington and fairly forced his old commander in the Mexican War, General Scott, to be a guest, honored and honoring the occasion.

Judy Peters was also an honored guest. When Westover learned at last what part she had borne in his nomination and in his campaign, he rode all the way up to her place to persuade her to come. And when the time arrived, he sent the Wanalah carriage to fetch her. She appeared at the ceremony, in a gown more gaudily gorgeous than any that had been seen in that region since "the time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary."

Colonel Conway devoted his particular attention to her. Among other special courtesies he shared with her a bottle of precious old Madeira--too precious, as he told her, to be "wasted on a lot of young fellows whose palates are not educated up to it."

She drank the wine with relish, and after the third thimbleful glass she gave judgment.

"It's better 'n apple jack, but in the matter o' taste, 'tain't quite up to peach an' honey, is it now, Bob?"

Since his boyhood nobody had ever ventured to address Colonel Conway as "Bob," but as it came from Judy's barbaric and privileged lips, he rather liked it.

The wedding was held in the early morning because Boyd Westover had explained, without a hint of whither they were bound, that he and Margaret had a long journey to make before nightfall.

The wedding morn was on the day following the election, and the returns were all in. Carley Farnsworth summarized them to the company by announcing that Westover was elected by the vote of more than three-fourths and nearly four-fifths of the citizens of the district.

Then he added:

"And Sam Butler, Democrat, is elected to the House of Delegates, chiefly by the mountain vote, which seems to have been pretty nearly solid for him."

Judy Peters beamed upon Colonel Conway, and ventured the remark:

"'Tain't no use a-votin', Colonel, ef you don't stick together an' vote to 'lect. That's our way up in the mountings."

"Ah, Judy," the Colonel replied, "I'm afraid you're a sad sinner. I'm afraid you manipulated that vote."

"I ain't close acquainted with that big word o' your'n, Bob, but I was purty nigh right in my jedgment as to how this here 'lection was a goin' to come out. Say, Bob, what d'you think that there comb-cut rooster William Wilberforce Webb thinks of hisself by now? I wonder ef he'll unload some o' that name?"

Westover and his bride left as soon as the ceremony was over, but Colonel Conway kept the festivities going all day, and there was a dance at night.

The occasion was rich in opportunities for Jack Towns, and, with the alert energy which was characteristic of him, he made the most of them. When, two days later, he left for Boston as Millicent's escort, there was no room for doubt in anybody's mind as to the outcome of his visit to the blue hills of Milton.

It was a month later, and winter had begun, when Westover and Margaret--just entering the house--went to the clock and set it going. She said something--no matter what. He said nothing, but gathering her head to his breast, he caressed her. Words seemed superfluous.

THE END.

The Potter and the Clay

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End of Project Gutenberg's Westover of Wanalah, by George Cary Eggleston