CHAPTER II
If Kate's ancestors had wasted any part of their substance in too lavish a hospitality, after the manner of the spendthrift whose extravagances were recounted in the preceding chapter, there was nothing to indicate it in the home of their descendants. No loose shutters, crumbling chimneys, or blistered woodwork defaced the Seymour mansion:—the touch of the restorer was too apparent. No sooner did a shutter sag or a hinge give way than away it went to the carpenter or the blacksmith; no sooner did a banister wabble, or a table crack, or an andiron lose a leg, than up came somebody with a kit, or a bag, or a box of tools, and they were as good as new before you could wink your eye. Indeed, so great was the desire to keep things up that it was only necessary (so a wag said) to scratch a match on old Seymour's front door to have its panels repainted the next morning.
And then its seclusion:—while its neighbors—the Temple mansion among them—had been placed boldly out to the full building line where they could see and be seen, the Seymours, with that spirit of aloofness which had marked the family for generations, had set their dwelling back ten paces, thrown up a hedge of sweet-smelling box to screen the inmates from the gaze of passers-by, planted three or four big trees as protection for the upper windows, and, to insure still greater privacy, had put up a swinging wooden gate, kept shut by a ball and chain, its clang announcing the entrance of each and every visitor.
And this same spirit was manifest the moment you stepped into the wide hall, glanced at the old family portraits marching steadily, one after another, up the side of the spacious stairs (revarnished every other year)—entered the great drawing-room hung with yellow satin and decorated with quaint mirrors, and took a scat in one of the all-embracing arm-chairs, there to await the arrival of either the master of the house or his charming daughter.
If it were the master to whom you wished to pay your respects, one glance at the Honorable Howard Douglass Seymour would have convinced you that he was precisely the kind of man who should have had charge of so well-ordered a home: so well brushed was he—so clean-shaven—so immaculately upholstered—the two points of his collar pinching his cheeks at the same precise angle; his faultless black stock fitting to perfection, the lapels of his high-rolled coat matching exactly. And then the correct parting of the thin gray hair and the two little gray brush-tails of lovelocks that were combed in front of his ears, there to become a part of the two little dabs of gray whiskers that stretched from his temples to his bleached cheekbones. Yes—a most carefully preserved, prim, and well-ordered person was Kate's father.
As to the great man's career, apart from his service in the legislature, which won him his title, there was no other act of his life which marked him apart from his fellows. Suffice it to say that he was born a gentleman without a penny to his name; that he married Kate's mother when she was twenty and he forty (and here is another story, and a sad one)—she the belle of her time—and sole heir to the estate of her grandfather, Captain Hugh Barkeley, the rich ship-owner—and that the alliance had made him a gentleman of unlimited leisure, she, at her death, having left all her property to her daughter Kate, with the Honorable Prim as custodian.
And this trust, to his credit be it said—for Seymour was of Scotch descent, a point in his favor with old Captain Barkeley, who was Scotch on his mother's side, and, therefore, somewhat canny—was most religiously kept, he living within his ample means—or Kate's, which was the same thing—discharging the duties of father, citizen, and friend, with the regularity of a clock—so many hours with his daughter, so many hours at his club, so many hours at his office; the intermediate minutes being given over to resting, dressing, breakfasting, dining, sleeping, and no doubt praying; the precise moment that marked the beginning and ending of each task having been fixed years in advance by this most exemplary, highly respectable, and utterly colorless old gentleman of sixty.
That this dry shell of a man could be the father of our spontaneous lovely Kate was one of the things that none of the younger people around Kennedy Square could understand—but then few of them had known her beautiful mother with her proud step and flashing eyes.
But it is not the punctilious, methodical Prim whom St. George wishes to see to-night; nor does he go through any of the formalities customary to the house. There is no waiting until old Ben, the family butler in snuff-colored coat and silver buttons, shuffles upstairs or into the library, or wherever the inmates were to be found, there to announce “Massa George Temple.” Nor did he send in his card, or wait until his knock was answered. He simply swung back the gate until the old chain and ball, shocked at his familiarity, rattled itself into a rage, strode past the neatly trimmed, fragrant box, pushed open the door—no front door was ever locked in the daytime in Kennedy Square, and few at night—and halting at the bottom step, called up the silent stairs in a voice that was a joyous greeting in itself:
“Kate, you darling! come down as quick as your dear little feet will carry you! It's Uncle George, do you hear?—or shall I come up and bring you down in my arms, you bunch of roses? It won't be the first time.” The first time was when she was a year old.
“Oh!—is that you, Uncle George? Yes,—just as soon as I do up my back hair.” The voice came from the top of the stairs—a lark's voice singing down from high up. “Father's out and—”
“Yes—I know he's out; I met him on his way to the club. Hurry now—I've got the best news in the world for you.”
“Yes—in a minute.”
He knew her minutes, and how long they could be, and in his impatience roamed about the wide hall examining the old English engravings and colored prints decorating the panels until he heard her step overhead and looking up watched her cross the upper hall, her well-poised, aristocratic head high in air, her full, well-rounded, blossoming body imaged in the loose embroidered scarf wound about her sloping shoulders. Soon he caught the wealth of her blue-black hair in whose folds her negro mammy had pinned a rose that matched the brilliancy of her cheeks, two stray curls wandering over her neck; her broad forehead, with clearly marked eyebrows, arching black lashes shading lustrous, slumbering eyes; and as she drew nearer, her warm red lips, exquisite teeth, and delicate chin, and last, the little feet that played hide and seek beneath her quilted petticoat: a tall, dark, full-blooded, handsome girl of eighteen with an air of command and distinction tempered by a certain sweet dignity and delicious coquetry—a woman to be loved even when she ruled and to be reverenced even when she trifled.
She had reached the floor now, and the two arm in arm, he patting her hand, she laughing beside him, had entered the small library followed by the old butler bringing another big candelabra newly lighted.
“It's so good of you to come,” she cried, her face alight with the joy of seeing him—“and you look so happy and well—your trip down the bay has done you a world of good. Ben says the ducks you sent father are the best we have had this winter. Now tell me, dear Uncle George”—she had him in one of the deep arm-chairs by this time, with a cushion behind his shoulders—“I am dying to hear all about it.”
“Don't you 'dear Uncle George' me until you've heard what I've got to say.”
“But you said you had the best news in the world for me,” she laughed, looking at him from under her lashes.
“So I have.”
“What is it?”
“Harry.”
The girl's face clouded and her lips quivered. Then she sat bolt upright.
“I won't hear a word about him. He's broken his promise to me and I will never trust him again. If I thought you'd come to talk about Harry, I wouldn't have come down.”
St. George lay back in his chair, shrugged his shoulders, stole a look at her from beneath his bushy eyebrows, and said with an assumed dignity, a smile playing about his lips:
“All right, off goes his head—exit the scoundrel. Much as I could do to keep him out of Jones Falls this morning, but of course now it's all over we can let Spitfire break his neck. That's the way a gentleman should die of love—and not be fished out of a dirty stream with his clothes all bespattered with mud.”
“But he won't die for love. He doesn't know what love means or he wouldn't behave as he does. Do you know what really happened, Uncle George?” Her brown eyes were flashing, her cheeks aflame with her indignation.
“Oh, I know exactly what happened. Harry told me with the tears running down his cheeks. It was dreadful—INEXCUSABLE—BARBAROUS! I've been that way myself—tumbled half-way down these same stairs before you were born and had to be put to bed, which accounts for the miserable scapegrace I am to-day.” His face was in a broad smile, but his voice never wavered.
Kate looked at him and put out her hand. “You never did—I won't believe a word of it.”
“Ask your father, my dear. He helped carry me upstairs, and Ben pulled off my boots. Oh, it was most disgraceful! I'm just beginning to live it down,” and he reached over and patted the girl's cheek, his hearty laugh ringing through the room.
Kate was smiling now—her Uncle George was always irresistible when he was like this.
“But Harry isn't you,” she pouted.
“ISN'T ME!—why I was ten times worse! He's only twenty-one and I was twenty-five. He's got four years the better of me in which to reform.”
“He'll NEVER be like you—you never broke a promise in your life. He gave me his word of honor he would never get—yes—I'm just going to say it—drunk—again: yes—that's the very word—DRUNK! I don't care—I won't have it! I won't have anything to do with anybody who breaks his promise, and who can't keep sober. My father was never so in his life, and Harry shall never come near me again if he—”
“Hold on!—HOLD ON! Oh, what an unforgiving minx! You Seymours are all like tinder boxes—your mother was just like you and so was—”
“Well, not father,” she bridled, with a toss of her head.
St. George smiled queerly—Prim was one of his jokes. “Your father, my dear Kate, has the milk of human kindness in his veins, not red fighting blood. That makes a whole lot of difference. Now listen to me:—you love Harry—”
“No! I DESPISE him! I told him so!” She had risen from her seat and had moved to the mantel, where she stood looking into the fire, her back toward him.
“Don't you interrupt me, you blessed girl—just you listen to Uncle George for a minute. You DO love Harry—you can't help it—nobody can. If you had seen him this morning you would have thrown your arms around him in a minute—I came near doing it myself. Of course he's wild, reckless, and hot-headed like all the Rutters and does no end of foolish things, but you wouldn't love him if he was different. He's just like Spitfire—never keeps still a minute—restless, pawing the ground, or all four feet in the air—then away she goes! You can't reason with her—you don't wish to; you get impatient when she chafes at the bit because you are determined she shall keep still, but if you wanted her to go like the wind and she couldn't, you'd be more dissatisfied than ever. The pawing and chafing is of no matter; it is her temperament that counts. So it is with Harry. He wouldn't be the lovable, dashing, high-spirited young fellow he is if he didn't kick over the traces once in a while and break everything to pieces—his promises among them. And it isn't his fault—it's the Spanish and Dutch blood in his veins—the blood of that old hidalgo and his Dutch ancestor, De Ruyter—that crops out once in a while. Harry would be a pirate and sweep the Spanish main if he had lived in those days, instead of being a gentleman who values nothing in life so much as the woman he loves.”
He had been speaking to her back all this time, the girl never moving, the outlines of her graceful body in silhouette against the blaze.
“Then why doesn't he prove it?” she sighed. She liked old hidalgos and had no aversion to pirates if they were manly and brave about their work.
“He does—and he lives up to his standard except in this one failing for which I am truly sorry. Abominable I grant you—but there are many things which are worse.”
“I can't think of anything worse,” she echoed with a deep sigh, walking slowly toward him and regaining her chair, all her anger gone, only the pain in her heart left. “I don't want Harry to be like the others, and he can't live their lives if he's going to be my husband. I want him to be different,—to be big and fine and strong,—like the men who have made the world better for their having lived in it—that old De Ruyter, for instance, that his father is always bragging about—not a weak, foolish boy whom everybody can turn around their fingers. Some of my girl friends don't mind what the young men do, or how often they break their word to them so that they are sure of their love. I do, and I won't have it, and I have told Harry so over and over again. It's such a cowardly thing—not to be man enough to stand up and say 'No—I won't drink with you!' That's why I say I can't think of his doing anything worse.”
St. George fixed his eyes upon her. He had thought he knew the girl's heart, but this was a revelation to him. Perhaps her sorrow, like that of her mother, was making a well-rounded woman of her.
“Oh, I can think of a dozen things worse,” he rejoined with some positiveness. “Harry might lie; Harry might be a coward; Harry might stand by and hear a friend defamed; Harry might be discourteous to a woman, or allow another man to be—a thing he'd rather die than permit. None of these things could he be or do. I'd shut my door in his face if he did any one of them, and so should you. And then he is so penitent when he has done anything wrong. 'It was my fault—I would rather hang myself than lose Kate. I haven't slept a wink, Uncle George.' And he was so handsome when he came in this morning—his big black eyes flashing, his cheeks like two roses—so straight and strong, and so graceful and wholesome and lovable. I wouldn't care, if I were you, if he did slip once in a while—not any more than I would if Spitfire stumbled. And then again”—here he moved his chair close to her own so he could get his hand on hers the easier—“if Spitfire does stumble, there is the bridle to pull her up, but for this she might break her neck. That's where you come in, Kate. Harry's in your hands—has been since the hour he loved you. Don't let him go headlong to the devil—and he will if you turn him loose without a bridle.”
“I can't do him any good—he won't mind anything I say. And what dependence can I place on him after this?” her voice sank to a tone of helpless tenderness. “It isn't his being drunk altogether; he will outgrow that, perhaps, as you say you did, and be man enough to say no next time; but it's because he broke his promise to me. That he will never outgrow! Oh, it's wicked!—wicked for him to treat me so. I have never done anything he didn't want me to do! and he has no right to—Oh, Uncle George, it's—”
St. George leaned nearer and covered her limp fingers with his own tender grasp.
“Try him once more, Kate. Let me send him to you. It will be all over in a minute and you will be so happy—both of you! Nothing like making up—it really pays for the pain of a quarrel.”
The outside door shut gently and there was a slight movement in the hall behind them, but neither of them noticed it. Kate sat with her head up, her mind at work, her eyes watching the firelight. It was her future she was looking into. She had positive, fixed ideas of what her station in life as a married woman should be;—not what her own or Harry's birth and position could bring her. With that will-o'-the-wisp she had no sympathy. Her grandfather in his early days had been a plain, seafaring man even if his ancestry did go back to the time of James I, and her mother had been a lady, and that too without the admixture of a single drop of the blood of any Kennedy Square aristocrat. That Harry was well born and well bred was as it should be, but there was something more;—the man himself. That was why she hesitated. Yes—it WOULD “all be over in a minute,” just as Uncle George said, but when would the next break come? And then again there was her mother's life with all the misery that a broken promise had caused her. Uncle George was not the only young gallant who had been put to bed in her grandfather's house. Her mother had loved too—just as much as she loved Harry—loved with her whole soul—until grandpa Barkeley put his foot down.
St. George waited in silence as he read her mind. Breaches between most of the boys and girls were easily patched up—a hearty cry, an outstretched hand—“I am so sorry,” and they were in each other's arms. Not so with Kate. Her reason, as well as her heart, had to be satisfied. This was one of the things that made her different from all the other girls about her, and this too was what had given her first place in the affections and respect of all who knew her. Her heart he saw was uppermost to-night, but reason still lurked in the background.
“What do you think made him do it again?” she murmured at last in a voice barely audible, her fingers tightening in his palm. “He knows how I suffer and he knows too WHY I suffer. Oh, Uncle George!—won't you please talk to him! I love him so, and I can't marry him if he's like this. I can't!—I CAN'T!”
A restrained smile played over St. George's face. The tide was setting his way.
“It won't do a bit of good,” he said calmly, smothering his joy. “I've talked to him until I'm tired, and the longer I talk the more wild he is to see you. Now it's your turn and there's no time to lose. I'll have him here in five minutes,” and he glanced at the clock. She raised her hand in alarm:
“I don't want him yet. You must see him first—you must—”
“No, I won't see him first, and I'm not going to wait a minute. Talk to him yourself; put your arms around him and tell him everything you have told me—now—to-night. I'm going for him,” and he sprang to his feet.
“No!—you must not! You SHALL not!” she cried, clutching nervously at his arm, but he was out of the room before she could stop him.
In the silent hall, hat in hand, his whole body tense with expectancy, stood Harry. He had killed time by walking up and down the long strip of carpet between the front door and the staircase, measuring his nervous steps to the length of the pattern, his mind distracted by his fears for the outcome—his heart thumping away at his throat, a dull fright gripping him when he thought of losing her altogether.
St. George's quick step, followed by his firm clutch of the inside knob, awoke him to consciousness. He sprang forward to catch his first word.
“Can I go in?” he stammered.
St. George grabbed him by the shoulder, wheeled him around, and faced him.
“Yes, you reprobate, and when you get in go down on your knees and beg her pardon, and if I ever catch you causing her another heartache I'll break your damned neck!—do you hear?”
With the shutting of the swinging gate the wily old diplomat regained his normal good-humored poise, his face beaming, his whole body tingling at his success. He knew what was going on behind the closed curtains, and just how contrite and humble the boy would be, and how Kate would scold and draw herself up—proud duchess that she was—and how Harry would swear by the nine gods, and an extra one if need be—and then there would come a long, long silence, broken by meaningless, half-spoken words—and then another silence—so deep and absorbing that a full choir of angels might have started an anthem above their heads and neither of them would have heard a word or note.
And so he kept on his way, picking his steps between the moist places in the path to avoid soiling his freshly varnished boots; tightening the lower button of his snug-fitting plum-colored coat as a bracing to his waist-line; throwing open the collar of his overcoat the wider to give his shoulders the more room—very happy—very well satisfied with himself, with the world, and with everybody who lived in it.
CHAPTER III
Moorlands was ablaze!
From the great entrance gate flanked by moss-stained brick posts capped with stone balls, along the avenue of oaks to the wide portico leading to the great hall and spacious rooms, there flared one continuous burst of light. On either side of the oak-bordered driveway, between the tree-trunks, crackled torches of pine knots, the glow of their curling flames bringing into high relief the black faces of innumerable field-hands from the Rutter and neighboring plantations, lined up on either side of the gravel road—teeth and eyeballs flashing white against the blackness of the night. Under the porches hung festoons of lanterns of every conceivable form and color, while inside the wide baronial hall, and in the great drawing-room with the apartments beyond, the light of countless candles, clustered together in silver candelabras, shed a soft glow over the groups of waiting guests.
To-night Colonel Talbot Rutter of Moorlands, direct descendant of the house of De Ruyter, with an ancestry dating back to the Spanish Invasion, was to bid official welcome to a daughter of the house of Seymour, equally distinguished by flood and field in the service of its king. These two—God be thanked—loved each other, and now that the young heir to Moorlands was to bring home his affianced bride, soon to become his wedded wife, no honor could be too great, no expense too lavish, no welcome too joyful.
Moreover, that this young princess of the blood might be accorded all the honors due her birth, lineage, and rank, the colonel's own coach-and-four, with two postilions and old Matthew on the box—twenty years in the service—his whip tied with forget-me-nots, the horses' ears streaming with white ribbons—each flank as smooth as satin and each panel bright as a mirror—had been trundled off to Kennedy Square, there to receive the fairest of all her daughters, together with such other members of her royal suite—including His Supreme Excellency the Honorable Prim—not forgetting, of course, Kate's old black mammy, Henny, who was as much a part of the fair lady's belongings when she went afield as her ostrich-plume fan, her white gloves, or the wee slippers that covered her enchanting feet.
Every detail of harness, wheel, and brake—even the horn itself—had passed under the colonel's personal supervision; Matthew on the box straight as a hitching-post and bursting with pride, reins gathered, whip balanced, the leaders steady and the wheel horses in line. Then the word had been given, and away they had swept round the circle and so on down the long driveway to the outer gate and Kennedy Square. Ten miles an hour were the colonel's orders and ten miles an hour must Matthew make, including the loading and unloading of his fair passenger and her companions, or there would be the devil to pay on his return.
And the inside of the house offered no less a welcome. Drawn up in the wide hall, under the direct command of old Alec, the head butler, were the house servants;—mulatto maids in caps, snuff-colored second butlers in livery, jet-black mammies in new bandannas and white aprons—all in a flutter of excitement, and each one determined to get the first glimpse of Marse Harry's young lady, no matter at what risk.
Alec himself was a joy to look upon—eyeballs and teeth gleaming, his face one wide, encircling smile. Marse Harry was the apple of his eye, and had been ever since the day of his birth. He had carried him on his back when a boy; had taught him to fish and hunt and to ride to hounds; had nursed him when he fell ill at the University in his college days, and would gladly have laid down his life for him had any such necessity arisen. To-night, in honor of the occasion, he was rigged out in a new bottle-green coat with shiny brass buttons, white waistcoat, white gloves three sizes too big for him, and a huge white cravat flaring out almost to the tips of his ears. Nothing was too good for Alec—so his mistress thought—and for the best of reasons. Not only was he the ideal servant of the old school, but he was the pivot on which the whole establishment moved. If a particular brand or vintage was needed, or a key was missing, or did a hair trunk, or a pair of spurs, or last week's Miscellany, go astray—or even were his mistress's spectacles mislaid—Alec could put his hand upon each and every item in so short a space of time that the loser was convinced the old man had hidden them on purpose, to enjoy their refinding. Moorlands without old Alec would hive been a wheel without a hub.
As a distinct feature of all these preparations—and this was the best part of the programme—Harry was to meet Kate at the outer gate supported by half a dozen of his young friends and hers—Dr. Teackle, Mark Gilbert, Langdon Willits, and one or two others—while Mrs. Rutter, Mrs. Cheston, Mrs. Richard Horn, and a bevy of younger women and girls were to welcome her with open arms the moment her dainty feet cleared the coach's step. This was the way princesses of the blood had been welcomed from time immemorial to palaces and castles high, and this was the way their beloved Kate was to make entry into the home of her lord.
Soon the flash of the coach lamps was seen outside the far gate. Then there came the wind of a horn—a rollicking, rolling, gladsome sound, and in the wink of an eyelid every one was out on the portico straining their eyes, listening eagerly. A joyous shout now went up from the negroes lining the fences; from the groups about the steps and along the driveway.
“Here she comes!”
The leaders with a swing pranced into view as they cleared the gate posts. There came a moment's halt at the end of the driveway; a postilion vaulted down, threw wide the coach door and a young man sprang in. It was Harry!... Snap!! Crack!! Toot—toot!!—and they were off again, heading straight for the waiting group. Another prolonged, winding note—louder—nearer—one of triumph this time!—a galloping, circling dash toward the porch crowded with guests—the reining in of panting leaders—the sudden gathering up of the wheel horses, back on their haunches—the coach door flung wide and out stepped Kate—Harry's hand in hers, her old mammy behind, her father last of all.
“Oh, such a lovely drive! and it was so kind of you, dear colonel, to send for me! Oh, it was splendid! And Matthew galloped most all the way.” She had come as a royal princess, but she was still our Kate. “And you are all out here to meet me!” Here she kissed Harry's mother—“and you too, Uncle George—and Sue—Oh, how fine you all look!”—and with a curtsy and a joyous laugh and a hand-clasp here and there, she bent her head and stepped into the wide hall under the blaze of the clustered candles.
It was then that they caught their breaths, for no such vision of beauty had ever before stood in the wide hall of Moorlands, her eyes shining like two stars above the rosy hue of her cheek; her skin like a shell, her throat and neck a lily in color and curves. And her poise; her gladsomeness; her joy at being alive and at finding everybody else alive; the way she moved and laughed and bent her pretty head; the ripples of gay laughter and the low-pitched tone of the warm greetings that fell from her lips!
No wonder Harry was bursting with pride; no wonder Langdon Willits heaved a deep sigh when he caught the glance that Kate flashed at Harry and went out on the porch to get a breath of fresh air; no wonder St. George's heart throbbed as he watched them both and thought how near all this happiness had come to being wrecked; no wonder the servants tumbled over each other in their eagerness to get a view of her face and gown, and no wonder, too, that the proud, old colonel who ruled his house with a rod of iron, determined for the first time in his life to lay down the sceptre and give Kate and Harry full sway to do whatever popped into their two silly heads.
And our young Lochinvar was fully her match in bearing, dress, and manners,—every inch a prince and every inch a Rutter,—and with such grace of movement as he stepped beside her, that even punctilious, outspoken old Mrs. Cheston—who had forgiven him his escapade, and who was always laughing at what she called the pump-handle shakes of some of the underdone aristocrats about her, had to whisper to the nearest guest—“Watch Harry, my dear, if you would see how a thoroughbred manages his legs and arms when he wishes to do honor to a woman. Admirable!—charming! No young man of my time ever did better.” And Mrs. Cheston knew, for she had hobnobbed with kings and queens, her husband having represented his government at the Court of St. James—which fact, however, never prevented her from calling a spade a spade; nor was she ever very particular as to what the spade unearthed.
Yes—a very gallant and handsome young man was our prince as he handed Kate up the stairs on her way to the dressing-room, and looked it in his pearl-gray coat with buttons of silver, fluffy white silk scarf, high dog-eared collar, ivory-white waistcoat, and tight-fitting trousers of nankeen yellow, held close to the pumps with invisible straps. And a very gallant and handsome young fellow he felt himself to be on this night of his triumph, and so thought Kate—in fact she had fallen in love with him over again—and so too did every one of the young girls who crowded about them, as well as the dominating, erect aristocrat of a father, and the anxious gentle mother, who worshipped the ground on which he walked.
Kate had noted every expression that crossed his face, absorbing him in one comprehensive glance as he stood in the full blaze of the candles, her gaze lingering on his mouth and laughing eyes and the soft sheen of his brown hair, its curved-in ends brushing the high velvet collar of his coat—and so on down his shapely body to his shapely feet. Never had she seen him so adorable—and he was all her own, and for life!
As for our dear St. George Temple, who had never taken his eyes off them, he thought they were the goodliest pair the stars ever shone upon, and this his happiest night. There would be no more stumbling after this. Kate had the bridle well in hand now; all she needed was a clear road, and that was ahead of both horse and rider.
“Makes your blood jump in your veins, just to look at them, doesn't it, Talbot?” cried St. George to Harry's father when Kate disappeared—laying his hand as he spoke on the shoulder of the man with whom he had grown up from a boy. “Is there anything so good as the love of a good woman?—the wise old prophet places her beyond the price of rubies.”
“Only one thing, St. George—the love of a good man—one like yourself, you dear old fellow. And why the devil you haven't found that out years ago is more than I can understand. Here you are my age, and you might have had a Kate and Harry of your own by this time, and yet you live a stupid old—”
“No, I won't hear you talk so, colonel!” cried a bride of a year. “Uncle George is never stupid, and he couldn't be old. What would all these young girls do—what would I have done” (another love affair with St. George as healer and mender!)—“what would anybody have done without him? Come, Miss Lavinia—do you hear the colonel abusing Uncle George because he isn't married? Speak up for him—it's wicked of you, colonel, to talk so.”
Miss Lavinia Clendenning, who was one of St. George's very own, in spite of her forty-odd years, threw back her head until the feathers in her slightly gray hair shook defiantly:
“No—I won't say a word for him, Sue. I've given him up forever. He's a disgrace to everybody who knows him.”
“Oh, you renegade!” exclaimed St. George in mock alarm.
“Yes,—a positive disgrace! He'll never marry anybody, Sue, until he marries me. I've begged him on my knees until I'm tired, to name the day, and he won't! Just like all you shiftless Marylanders, sir—never know when to make up your minds.”
“But you threw me over, Lavinia, and broke my heart,” laughed Temple with a low bow, his palms flattened against his waistcoat in assumed humility.
“When?”
“Oh, twenty years ago.”
“Oh, my goodness gracious! Of course I threw you over then;—you were just a baby in arms and I was old enough to be your mother—but now it's different. I'm dying to get married and nobody wants me. If you were a Virginian instead of a doubting Marylander, you would have asked me a hundred times and kept on asking until I gave in. Now it's too late. I always intended to give in, but you were so stupid you couldn't or wouldn't understand.”
“It's never too late to mend, Lavinia,” he prayed with hands extended.
“It's too late to mend you, St. George! You are cracked all over, and as for me—I'm ready to fall to pieces any minute. I'm all tied up now with corset laces and stays and goodness knows what else. No—I'm done with you.”
While this merry badinage was going on, the young people crowding the closer so as not to lose a word, or making room for the constant stream of fresh arrivals on their way toward the dressing-rooms above, their eyes now and then searching the top of the stairs in the hope of getting the first glimpse of Kate, our heroine was receiving the final touches from her old black mammy. It took many minutes. The curl must be adjusted, the full skirts pulled out or shaken loose, the rare jewels arranged before she was dismissed with—“Dah, honey chile, now go-long. Ain't nary one on 'em ain't pizen hongry for ye—any mos' on 'em 'll drown derselves 'fo' mawnin' becos dey can't git ye.”
She is ready now, Harry beside her, her lace scarf embroidered with pink rosebuds floating from her lovely shoulders, her satin skirt held firmly in both hands that she might step the freer, her dainty silk stockings with the ribbons crossed about her ankles showing below its edge.
But it was the colonel who took possession of her when she reached the floor of the great hall, and not her father nor her lover.
“No, Harry—stand aside, sir. Out with you! Kate goes in with me! Seymour, please give your arm to Mrs. Rutter.” And with the manner of a courtier leading a princess into the presence of her sovereign, the Lord of Moorlands swept our Lady of Kennedy Square into the brilliant drawing-room crowded with guests.
It was a great ball and it was a great ballroom—in spaciousness, color, and appointments. No one had ever dreamed of its possibilities before, although everybody knew it was the largest in the county. The gentle hostess, with old Alec as head of the pulling-out-and-moving-off department, had wrought the change. All the chairs, tables, sofas, and screens, little and big, had either been spirited away or pushed back against the wall for tired dancers. Over the wide floor was stretched a linen crash; from the ceiling and bracketed against the white walls, relieved here and there by long silken curtains of gold-yellow, blazed clusters of candles, looking for all the world like so many bursting sky-rockets, while at one end, behind a mass of flowering plants, sat a quartette of musicians, led by an old darky with a cotton-batting head, who had come all the way from Philadelphia a-purpose.
Nor had the inner man been forgotten: bowls of hot apple toddy steamed away in the dining-room; bowls of eggnog frothed away in the library; ladlings of punch, and the contents of several old cut-glass decanters, flanked by companies of pipe-stem glasses, were being served in the dressing-rooms; while relays of hot terrapin, canvas-back duck, sizzling hot; olio, cold joints; together with every conceivable treatment and condition of oysters—in scallop shells, on silver platters and in wooden plates—raw, roasted, fried, broiled, baked, and stewed—everything in fact that could carry out the colonel's watchword, “Eat, drink, and be merry,” were within the beck and call of each and every guest.
And there were to be no interludes of hunger and thirst if the host could help it. No dull pauses nor recesses, but one continued round, lasting until midnight, at which hour the final banquet in the dining-room was to be served, and the great surprise of the evening reached—the formal announcement of Harry and Kate's engagement, followed by the opening of the celebrated bottle of the Jefferson 1800 Monticello Madeira, recorked at our young hero's birth.
And it goes without saying that there were no interludes. The fun began at once, a long line of merry talk and laughter following the wake of the procession, led by the host and Kate, the colonel signalling at last to the cotton-batting with the goggle spectacles, who at once struck up a polka and away they all went, Harry and Kate in the lead, the whole room in a whirl.
This over and the dancers out of breath, Goggles announced a quadrille—the colonel and St. George helping to form the sets. Then followed the schottische, then another polka until everybody was tired out, and then with one accord the young couples rushed from the hot room, hazy with the dust of lint from the linen crash, and stampeded for the cool wide stairs that led from the great hall. For while in summer the shadows on some vine-covered porch swallowed the lovers, in winter the stairs were generally the trysting-place—and the top step the one most sought—because there was nobody behind to see. This was the roost for which Kate and Harry scampered, and there they intended to sit until the music struck up again.
“Oh, Kate, you precious darling, how lovely you look!” burst out Harry for the hundredth time when she had nestled down beside him—“and what a wonderful gown! I never saw that one before, did I?”
“No—you never have,” she panted, her breath gone from her dance and the dash for the staircase. “It's my dear mother's dress, and her scarf too. I had very little done to it—only the skirt made wider. Isn't it soft and rich? Grandpa used to bring these satins from China.”
“And the pearls—are they the ones you told me about?” He was adjusting them to her throat as he spoke—somehow he could not keep his hands from her.
“Yes—mother's jewels. Father got them out of his strong-box for me this morning. He wanted me to wear them to-night. He says I can have them all now. She must have been very beautiful, Harry—and just think, dear—she was only a few years older than I am when she died. Sometimes when I wear her things and get to thinking about her, and remember how young and beautiful she was and how unhappy her life, it seems as if I must be unhappy myself—somehow as if it were not right to have all this happiness when she had none.” There was a note of infinite pathos in her voice—a note one always heard when she spoke of her mother. Had Harry looked deeper into her eyes he might have found the edges of two tears trembling on their lids.
“She never was as beautiful as you, my darling—nobody ever was—nobody ever could be!” he cried, ignoring all allusion to her mother. Nothing else counted with the young fellow to-night—all he knew and cared for was that Kate was his very own, and that all the world would soon know it.
“That's because you love me, Harry. You have only to look at her portrait in father's room to see how exquisite she was. I can never be like her—never so gracious, so patient, no matter how hard I try.”
He put his fingers on her lips: “I won't have you say it. I won't let anybody say it. I could hardly speak when I saw you in the full light of the hall. It was so dark in the coach I didn't know how you looked, and I didn't care; I was so glad to get hold of you. But when your cloak slipped from your shoulders and you—Oh!—you darling Kate!” His eye caught the round of her throat and the taper of her lovely arm—“I am going to kiss you right here—I will—I don't care who—”
She threw up her hands with a little laugh. She liked him the better for daring, although she was afraid to yield.
“No—NO—Harry! They will see us—don't—you mustn't!”
“Mustn't what! I tell you, Kate, I am going to kiss you—I don't care what you say or who sees me. It's been a year since I kissed you in the coach—forty years—now, you precious Kate, what difference does it make? I will, I tell you—no—don't turn your head away.”
She was struggling feebly, her elbow across her face as a shield, meaning all the time to raise her lips to his, when her eyes fell on the figure of a young man making his way toward them. Instantly her back straightened.
“There's Langdon Willits at the bottom of the stairs talking to Mark Gilbert,” she whispered in dismay. “See—he is coming up. I wonder what he wants.”
Harry gathered himself together and his face clouded. “I wish he was at the bottom of the sea. I don't like Willits—I never did. Neither does Uncle George. Besides, he's in love with you, and he always has been.”
“What nonsense, Harry,” she answered, opening her fan and waving it slowly. She knew her lover was right—knew more indeed than her lover could ever know: she had used all the arts of which she was mistress to keep Willits from proposing.
“But he IS in love with you,” Harry insisted stiffly. “Won't he be fighting mad, though, when he hears father announce our engagement at supper?” Then some tone in her voice recalled that night on the sofa when she still held out against his pleading, and with it came the thought that while she could be persuaded she could never be driven. Instantly his voice changed to its most coaxing tones: “You won't dance with him, will you, Kate darling? I can't bear to see you in anybody else's arms but my own.”
Her hand grasped his wrist with a certain meaning in the pressure.
“Now don't be a goose, Harry. I must be polite to everybody, especially to-night—and you wouldn't have me otherwise.”
“Yes, but not to him.”
“But what difference does it make? You are too sensible not to understand, and I am too happy, anyway, to want to be rude to anybody. And then you should never be jealous of Langdon Willits.”
“Well, then, not a round dance, please, Kate.” He dare not oppose her further. “I couldn't stand a round dance. I won't have his arm touch you, my darling.” And he bent his cheek close to hers.
She looked at him from under her shadowed lids as she had looked at St. George when she greeted him at the foot of the stairs; a gleam of coquetry, of allurement, of joy shining through her glances like delicate antennae searching to feel where her power lay. Should she venture, as her Uncle George had suggested, to take the reins in her own hands and guide this restive, mettlesome thoroughbred, or should she surrender to him? Then a certain mischievous coquetry possessed her. With a light, bubbling laugh she drew her cheek away.
“Yes, any kind of a dance that he or anybody else wants that I can give him,” she burst out with a coquettish twist of her head, her eyes brimming with fun.
“But I'm on your card for every single dance,” he demanded, his eyes again flashing. “Look at it—I filled it up myself,” and he held up his own bit of paste-board so she could read the list. “I tell you I won't have his arm around you!”
“Well, then, he sha'n't touch even the tips of my fingers, you dreadful Mr. Bluebeard.” She had surrendered now. He was never so compelling as when determined to have his own way. Again her whole manner changed; she was once more the sweetheart: “Don't let us bother about cards, my darling, or dances, or anything. Let us talk of how lovely it is to be together again. Don't you think so, Harry?” and she snuggled the closer to his arm, her soft cheek against his coat.
Before Harry could answer, young Willits, who had been edging his way up the stairs two steps at a time, avoiding the skirts of the girls, reaching over the knees of the men as he clung to the hand-rail, stood on the step below them.
“It's my next dance, Miss Kate, isn't it?” he asked eagerly, scanning her face—wondering why she looked so happy.
“What is it to be, Mr. Willits?” she rejoined in perfunctory tones, glancing at her own blank card hanging to her wrist: he was the last man in the world she wanted to see at this moment.
“The schottische, I think—yes, the schottische,” he replied nervously, noticing her lack of warmth and not understanding the cause.
“Oh, I'm all out of breath—if you don't mind,” she continued evasively; “we'll wait for the next one.” She dared not invite him to sit down, knowing it would make Harry furious—and then again she couldn't stand one discordant note to-night—she was too blissfully happy.
“But the next one is mine,” exclaimed Harry suddenly, examining his own dancing-card. He had not shifted his position a hair's breadth, nor did he intend to—although he had been outwardly polite to the intruder.
“Yes—they'd all be yours, Harry, if you had your way,” this in a thin, dry tone—“but you mustn't forget that Miss Kate's free, white, and twenty-one, and can do as she pleases.”
Harry's lips straightened. He did not like Willits's manner and he was somewhat shocked at his expression; it seemed to smack more of the cabin than of the boudoir—especially the boudoir of a princess like his precious Kate. He noticed, too, that the young man's face was flushed and his utterance unusually rapid, and he knew what had caused it.
“They will be just what Miss Seymour wants them to be, Willits.” The words came in hard, gritting tones through half-closed lips, and the tightening of his throat muscles. This phase of the Rutter blood was dangerous.
Kate was startled. Harry must not lose his self-control. There must be no misunderstandings on this the happiest night of her life.
“Yes,” she said sweetly, with a gracious bend of her head—“but I do want to dance with Mr. Willits, only I don't know which one to give him.”
“Then give me the Virginia reel, Miss Kate, the one that comes just before supper, and we can go all in together—you too, Harry,” Willits insisted eagerly. “See, Miss Kate—your card is still empty,” and he turned toward her the face of the one hanging to her wrist.
“No, never the reel, Kate, that is mine!” burst out Harry determinedly, as a final dismissal to Willits. He lowered his voice, and in a beseeching tone said—“Father's set his heart on our dancing the reel together—please don't give him the reel!”
Kate, intent on restoring harmony, arched her neck coyly, and said in her most bewitching tones—the notes of a robin after a shower: “Well, I can't tell yet, Mr. Willits, but you shall have one or the other; just leave it to me—either the reel or the schottische. We will talk it over when I come down.”
“Then it's the reel, Miss Kate, is it not?” he cried, ignoring Harry completely, backing away as he retraced his steps, a look of triumph on his face.
She shook her head at him, but she did not answer. She wanted to get rid of him as quickly as possible. Willits had spoiled everything. She was so happy before he came, and Harry was so adorable. She wished now she had not drawn away her cheek when he tried to kiss her.
“Don't be angry, Harry, dear,” she pleaded coaxingly, determined to get her lover back once more. “He didn't mean anything—he only wanted to be polite.”
“He didn't want to be polite,” the angry lover retorted. “He meant to force himself in between us; that is what he meant, and he's always at it, every chance he gets. He tried it at Mrs. Cheston's the other night until I put a stop to it, but there's one thing certain—he'll stop it when our engagement is announced after supper or I'll know the reason why.”
Kate caught her breath. A new disturbing thought entered her mind. It was at Mrs. Cheston's that both Willits and Harry had misbehaved themselves, and it was Harry's part in the sequel which she had forgiven. The least said about that night the better.
“But he is your guest, Harry,” she urged at last, still determined to divert his thoughts from Willits and the loss of the dance—“OUR guest,” she went on—“so is everybody else here to-night, and we must do what everybody wants us to, not be selfish about it. Now, my darling—you couldn't be impolite to anybody—don't you know you couldn't? Mrs. Cheston calls you 'My Lord Chesterfield'—I heard her say so to-night.”
“Yes, I know, Kate”—he softened—“that's what father said about my being polite to him—but all the same I didn't want Willits invited, and it's only because father insisted that he's here. Of course, I'm going to be just as polite to him as I can, but even father would feel differently about him if he had heard what he said to you a minute ago.”
“What did he say?” She knew, but she loved to hear him defend her. This, too, was a way out—in a minute he would be her old Harry again.
“I won't even repeat it,” he answered doggedly.
“You mean about my being twenty-one? That was rather ungallant, wasn't it?”
Again that long look from under her eyelids—he would have succumbed at once could he have seen it.
“No, the other part of it. That's not the way to speak to a lady. That's what I dislike him for. He never was born a gentleman. He isn't a gentleman and never can be a gentleman.”
Kate drew herself up—the unreasonableness of the objection jarred upon her. He had touched one of her tender spots—pride of birth was something she detested.
“Don't talk nonsense, Harry,” she replied in a slightly impatient voice. Moods changed with our Kate as unexpectedly as April showers. “What difference should it make to you or anybody else whether Langdon Willits's grandmother was a countess or a country girl, so she was honest and a lady?” Her head went up with a toss as she spoke, for this was one of Kate's pet theories.
“But he's not of my class, Kate, and he shouldn't be here. I told father so.”
“Then make him one,” she answered stoutly, “if only for to-night, by being extra polite and courteous to him and never letting him feel that he is outside of what you call 'your class.' I like Mr. Willits, and have always liked him. He is invariably polite to me, and he can be very kind and sympathetic at times. Listen! they are calling us, and there goes the music—come along, darling—it's a schottische and we'll dance it together.”
Harry sprang up, slipped his arm around Kate's waist, lifted her to her feet, held her close, and kissed her squarely on the mouth.
“There, you darling! and another one—two—three! Oh, you precious! What do I care about Willits or any other red-headed lower county man that ever lived? He can have fifty grandmothers if he pleases and I won't say a word—kiss me—kiss me again. Quick now or we'll lose the dance,” and, utterly oblivious as to whether any one had seen them or not, the two raced down the wide stairs.