CHAPTER VI
The wounded man lay on a lounge in the office room, which was dimly lighted by the dying glow of the outside torches and an oil lamp hurriedly brought in. No one was present except St. George, Harry, the doctor, and a negro woman who had brought in some pillows and hot water. All that could be done for him had been done; he was unconscious and his life hung by a thread. Harry, now that the mysterious thing called his “honor” had been satisfied, was helping Teackle wash the wound prior to an attempt to probe for the ball.
The boy was crying quietly—the tears streaming unbidden down his cheeks—it was his first experience at this sort of thing. He had been brought up to know that some day it might come and that he must then face it, but he had never before realized the horror of what might follow. And yet he had not reached the stage of regret; he was sorry for the wounded man and for his suffering, but he was not sorry for his own share in causing it. He had only done his duty, and but for a stroke of good luck he and Willits might have exchanged places. Uncle George had expressed his feelings exactly when he said that only a bit of cold lead could settle some insults, and what insult could have been greater than the one for which he had shot Willits? What was a gentleman to do? Go around meeting his antagonist every day?—the two ignoring each other? Or was he to turn stable boy, and pound him with his fists?—or, more ridiculous still, have him bound over to keep the peace, or bring an action for—Bah!—for what?—Yes—for what? Willits hadn't struck him, or wounded him, or robbed him. It had been his life or Willits's. No—there was no other way—couldn't be any other way. Willits knew it when he tore up Kate's card—knew what would follow. There was no deception—nothing underhand. And he had got precisely what he deserved, sorry as he felt for his sufferings.
Then Kate's face rose before him—haunted him. Why hadn't she seen it this way? Why had she refused to look at him—refused to answer him—driven him away from her side, in fact?—he who had risked his life to save her from insult! Why wouldn't she allow him to even touch her hand? Why did she treat Willits—drunken vulgarian as he was—differently from the way she had treated him? She had broken off her engagement with him because he was drunk at Mrs. Cheston's ball, where nobody had been hurt but himself, and here she was sympathizing with another drunken man who had not only outraged all sense of decency toward her, but had jeopardized the life of her affianced husband who defended her against his insults; none of which would have happened had the man been sober. All this staggered him.
More astounding still was her indifference. She had not even asked if he had escaped unhurt, but had concentrated all her interest upon the man who had insulted her. As to his own father's wrath—that he had expected. It was his way to break out, and this he knew would continue until he realized the enormity of the insult to Kate and heard how he and St. George had tried to ward off the catastrophe. Then he would not only change his opinion, but would commend him for his courage.
Outside the sick-room such guests as could be trusted were gathered together in the colonel's den, where they talked in whispers. All agreed that the ladies and the older men must be sent home as soon as possible, and in complete ignorance of what had occurred. If Willits lived—of which there was little hope—his home would be at the colonel's until he fully recovered, the colonel having declared that neither expense nor care would be spared to hasten his recovery. If he died, the body would be sent to his father's house later on.
With this object in view the dance was adroitly shortened, the supper hurried through, and within an hour after midnight the last carriage and carryall of those kept in ignorance of the duel had departed, the only change in the programme being the non-opening of the rare old bottle of Madeira and the announcement of Harry's and Kate's engagement—an omission which provoked little comment, as it had been known to but few.
Kate remained. She had tottered upstairs holding on to the hand-rail and had thrown herself on a bed in the room leading out of the dressing-room, where she lay in her mud-stained dress, the silken petticoat torn and bedraggled in her leap from the window. She was weeping bitterly, her old black mammy sitting beside her trying to comfort her as best she could.
With the departure of the last guest—Mr. Seymour among them; the colonel doing the honors; standing bare-headed on the porch, his face all smiles as he bade them good-by—the head of the house of Rutter turned quickly on his heel, passed down the corridor, made his way along the long narrow hall, and entered his office, where the wounded man lay. Harry, the negro woman, and Dr. Teackle alone were with him.
“Is there any change?” he asked in a perfectly even voice. Every vestige of the set smile of the host had left his face. Harry he did not even notice.
“Not much—he is still alive,” replied the doctor.
“Have you found the ball?”
“No—I have not looked for it—I will presently.”
The colonel moved out a chair and sat down beside the dying man, his eyes fixed on the lifeless face. Some wave of feeling must have swept through him, for after a half-stifled sigh, he said in a low voice, as if to himself:
“This will be a fine story to tell his father, won't it?—and here too—under my roof. My God!—was there ever anything more disgraceful!” He paused for a moment, his eyes still on the sufferer, and then went on—this time to the doctor—“His living so long gives me some hope—am I right, Teackle?”
The doctor nodded, but he made no audible reply. He had bent closer to the man's chest and was at the moment listening intently to the labored breathing, which seemed to have increased.
Harry edged nearer to the patient, his eyes seeking for some move of life. All his anger had faded. Willits, his face ablaze with drink and rage, his eyes flashing, his strident voice ringing out—even Kate's shocked, dazed face, no longer filled his mind. It was the suffering man—trembling on the verge of eternity, shot to death by his own ball—that appealed to him. And then the suddenness of it all—less than an hour had passed since this tall, robust young fellow stood before him on the stairs, hanging upon every word that fell from Kate's lips—and here he lay weltering in his own blood.
Suddenly his father's hopeful word to the doctor sounded in his ears. Suppose, after all, Willits SHOULD get well! Then Kate would understand and forgive him! As this thought developed in his mind his spirits rose. He scanned the sufferer the more intently, straining his neck, persuading himself that a slight twitching had crossed the dying man's face. Almost instantaneously the doctor rose to his feet.
“Quick, Harry!—hand me that brandy! It's just as I hoped—the ball has ploughed outside the skull—the brain is untouched. It was the shock that stunned him. Leave the room everybody—you too, colonel—he'll come to in a minute and must not be excited.”
Harry sprang from his chair, a great surge of thankfulness rising in his heart, caught up the decanter, filled a glass and pressed it to the sufferer's lips. The colonel sat silent and unmoved. He had seen too many wounded men revive and then die to be unduly excited. That Willets still breathed was the only feature of his case that gave him any hope.
Harry shot an inquiring glance at his father, and receiving only a cold stare in return, hurried from the room, his steps growing lighter as he ran. Kate must hear the good news and with the least possible delay. He would not send a message—he would go himself; then he could explain and relieve her mind. She would listen to his pleading. It was natural she should have been shocked. He himself had been moved to sympathy by the sufferer's condition—how much more dreadful, then, must have been the sight of the wounded man lying there among the flower-pots to a woman nurtured so carefully and one so sensitive in spirit! But it was all over—Willits would live—there would be a reconciliation—everything would be forgiven and everything forgotten.
All these thoughts crowded close in his mind as he rushed up the stairs two steps at a time to where his sweetheart lay moaning out her heart. He tapped lightly and her old black mammy opened the door on a crack.
“It's Marse Harry, mistis,” she called back over her shoulder—“shall I let him come in?”
“No!—no!—I don't want to see him; I don't want to see anybody—my heart is broken!” came the reply in half-stifled sobs.
Harry, held at bay, rested his forehead against the edge of the door so his voice could reach her the better.
“But Willits isn't going to die, Kate dear. I have just left him; it's only a scalp wound. Dr. Teackle says he's all right. The shock stunned him into unconsciousness.”
“Oh, I don't care what Dr. Teackle says! It's you, Harry!—You! You never once thought of me—Oh, why did you do it?”
“I did think of you, Kate! I never thought of anything else—I am not thinking of anything else now.”
“Oh, to think you tried to murder him! You, Harry—whom I loved so!” she sobbed.
“It was for you, Kate! You heard what he said—you saw it all. It was for you—for nobody else—for you, my darling! Let me come in—let me hold you close to me and tell you.”
“No!—NO—NO! My heart is broken! Come to me, mammy!”
The door shut gently and left him on the outside, dazed at the outcry, his heart throbbing with tenderness and an intense, almost ungovernable impulse to force his way into the room, take her in his arms, and comfort her.
The closed door brought him to his senses. To-morrow, after all, would be better, he confessed to himself humbly. Nothing more could be done to-night. Yes—to-morrow he would tell her all. He turned to descend the stairs and ran almost into Alec's arms. The old man was trembling with excitement and seemed hardly able to control himself. He had come in search of him, and had waited patiently at Kate's door for the outcome of the interview, every word of which he had overheard.
“Marse Talbot done sont me fer ye, Marse Harry,” he said in a low voice; “he wants ye in his li'l' room. Don't ye take no notice what de young mistis says; she ain't griebin' fer dat man. Dat Willits blood ain't no 'count, nohow; dey's po' white trash, dey is—eve'ybody knows dat. Let Miss Kate cry herse'f out; dat's de on'y help now. Mammy Henny'll look arter her till de mawnin'”—to none of which did Harry make answer.
When they reached the bottom step leading to the long hall the old man stopped and laid his hand on his young master's shoulder. His voice was barely audible and two tears stood in his eyes.
“Don't you take no notice ob what happens to-night, son,” he whispered. “'Member ye kin count on ol' Alec. Ain't neber gwineter be nothin' come 'twixt me an' you, son. I ain't neber gwineter git tired lovin' ye—you won't fergit dat, will ye?”
“No, Alec, but Mr. Willits will recover. Dr. Teackle has just said so.”
“Oh, dat ain't it, son—it's you, Marse Harry. Don't let 'em down ye—stand up an' fight 'em back.”
Harry patted the old servant tenderly on the arm to calm his fears. His words had made but little impression on him. If he had heard them at all he certainly did not grasp their import. What he was wanted for he could not surmise—nor did he much care. Now that Kate had refused to see him he almost wished that Willits's bullet had found its target.
“Where did you say my father was, Alec?” he asked in a listless voice.
“In his li'l' room, son; dey's all in dar, Marse George Temple, Mister Gilbert—dem two gemmans who stood up wid Mister Willits—dey's all dar. Don't mind what dey say, honey—jes' you fall back on ol' Alec. I dassent go in; maybe I'll be yere in de pantry so ye kin git hold o' me. I'se mos' crazy, Marse Harry—let me git hold oh yo' hand once mo', son. Oh, my Gawd!—dey sha'n't do nothin' to ye!”
The boy took the old man's hand in his, patted it gently and resumed his walk. The least said the better when Alec felt like this. It was Kate's voice that pierced his ears—Kate's sobs that wrenched his heart: “You never thought of me!” Nothing else counted.
Harry turned the handle of the door and stepped boldly in, his head erect, his eyes searching the room. It was filled with gentlemen, some sitting, some standing; not only those who had taken part in the duel, but three or four others who were in possession of the secret that lay heavy on everybody's mind.
He looked about him: most of the candles had burned low in the socket; some had gone out. The few that still flickered cast a dim, ghostly light. The remains of the night's revel lay on the larger table and the serving tables:—a half empty silver dish of terrapin, caked over with cold grease; portion of a ham with the bone showing; empty and partly filled glasses and china cups from which the toddies and eggnog had been drunk. The smell of rum and lemons intermingled with the smoke of snuffed-out candle wicks greeted his nostrils—a smell he remembered for years and always with a shudder.
There had evidently been a heated discussion, for his father was walking up and down the room, his face flushed, his black eyes blazing with suppressed anger, his plum-colored coat unbuttoned as if to give him more breathing space, his silk scarf slightly awry. St. George Temple must have been the cause of his wrath, for the latter's voice was reverberating through the room as Harry stepped in.
“I tell you, Talbot, you shall not—you DARE not!” St. George was exclaiming, his voice rising in the intensity of his indignation. His face was set, his eyes blazing; all his muscles taut. He stood like an avenging knight guarding some pathway. Harry looked on in amazement—he had never seen his uncle like this before.
The colonel wheeled about suddenly and raised his clenched hand. He seemed to be nervously unstrung and for a moment to have lost his self-control.
“Stop, St. George!” he thundered. “Stop instantly! Not another word, do you hear me? Don't strain a friendship that has lasted from boyhood or I may forget myself as you have done. No man can tell me what I shall or shall not do when my honor is at stake. Never before has a Rutter disgraced himself and his blood. I am done with him, I tell you!”
“But the man will get well!” hissed St. George, striding forward and confronting him. “Teackle has just said so—you heard him; we all heard him!”
“That makes no difference; that does not relieve my son.”
Rutter had now become aware of Harry's presence. So had the others, who turned their heads in the boy's direction, but no one spoke. They had not the lifelong friendship that made St. George immune, and few of them would have dared to disagree with Talbot Rutter in anything.
“And now, sir”—here the colonel made a step towards where Harry stood, the words falling as drops of water fall on a bared head—“I have sent for you to tell you just what I have told these gentlemen. I have informed them openly because I do not wish either my sense of honor or my motives to be misunderstood. Your performances to-night have been so dastardly and so ill-bred as to make it impossible for me ever to live under the same roof with you again.” Harry started and his lips parted as if to speak, but he made no sound. “You have disgraced your blood and violated every law of hospitality. Mr. Willits should have been as safe here as you would have been under his father's roof. If he misbehaved himself you could have ordered his carriage and settled the affair next day, as any gentleman of your standing would have done. I have sent for a conveyance to take you wherever you may wish to go.” Then, turning to St. George, “I must ask you, Temple, to fill my place and see that these gentlemen get their proper carriages, as I must join Mrs. Rutter, who has sent for me. Good-night,” and he strode from the room.
Harry stared blankly into the faces of the men about him: first at St. George and then at the others—one after another—as if trying to read what was passing in their minds. No one spoke or moved. His father's intentions had evidently been discussed before the boy's arrival and the final denunciation had, therefore, been received with less of the deadening effect than it had produced on himself. Nor was it a surprise to old Alec, who despite his fears had followed Harry noiselessly into the room, and who had also overheard the colonel's previous outbreak as to his intended disposition of his young master.
St. George, who during the outburst had stood leaning against the mantel, his eyes riveted on Harry, broke the silence.
“That, gentlemen,” he exclaimed, straightening to his feet, one hand held high above his head, “is the most idiotic and unjust utterance that ever fell from Talbot Rutter's lips! and one he will regret to his dying day. This boy you all know—most of you have known him from childhood, and you know him, as I do, to be the embodiment of all that is brave and truthful. He is just of age—without knowledge of the world, his engagement to Kate Seymour, as some of you are aware, was to be made known to-night. Willits was drunk or he would not have acted as he did. I saw it coming and tried to stop him. That he was drunk was Rutter's own fault, with his damned notions of drowning everybody in drink every minute of the day and night. I saw the whole affair and heard the insult, and it was wholly unprovoked. Harry did just what was right, and if he hadn't I'd either have made Willits apologize or I would have shot him myself the moment the affair could have been arranged, no matter where we were. I know perfectly well”—here he swept his eyes around—“that there is not a man in this room who does not feel as I do about Rutter's treatment of this boy, and so I shall not comment further upon it.” He dropped his clenched hand and turned to Harry, his voice still clear and distinct but with a note of tenderness through it. “And now, that pronunciamentos are in order, my boy, here is one which has less of the Bombastes Furioso in it than the one you have just listened to—but it's a damned sight more humane and a damned sight more fatherly, and it is this:—hereafter you belong to me—you are my son, my comrade, and, if I ever have a dollar to give to any one, my heir. And now one thing more, and I don't want any one of you gentlemen within sound of my voice ever to forget it: When hereafter any one of you reckon with Harry you will please remember that you reckon with me.”
He turned suddenly. “Excuse me one moment, gentlemen, and I will then see that you get your several carriages. Alec!—where's Alec?”
The old darky stepped out of the shadow. “I'm yere, sah.”
“Alec, go and tell Matthew to bring my gig to the front porch—and be sure you see that your young master's heavy driving-coat is put inside. Mr. Harry spends the night with me.”
CHAPTER VII
The secrecy enjoined upon everybody conversant with the happenings at Moorlands did not last many hours. At the club, across dinner tables, at tea, on the street, and in the libraries of Kennedy Square, each detail was gone over, each motive discussed. None of the facts were exaggerated, nor was the gravity of the situation lightly dismissed. Duels were not so common as to blunt the sensibilities. On the contrary, they had begun to be generally deplored and condemned, a fact largely due to the bitterness resulting from a famous encounter which had taken place a year or so before between young Mr. Cocheran, the son of a rich landowner, and Mr. May—the circumstances being somewhat similar, the misunderstanding having arisen at a ball in Washington over a reigning belle, during which Mr. May had thrown his card in Cocheran's face. In this instance all the requirements of the code were complied with. The duel was fought in an open space behind Nelson's Hotel, near the Capitol, Mr. Cocheran arriving at half-past five in the morning in a magnificent coach drawn by four white horses, his antagonist reaching the grounds in an ordinary conveyance, the seconds and the two surgeons on horseback. Both fired simultaneously, with the result that May escaped unhurt, while Cocheran was shot through the head and instantly killed.
Public opinion, indeed, around Kennedy Square, was, if the truth be told, undergoing many and serious changes. For not only the duel but some other of the traditional customs dear to the old regime were falling into disrepute—especially the open sideboards, synonymous with the lavish hospitality of the best houses. While most of the older heads, brought up on the finer and rarer wines, knew to a glass the limit of their endurance, the younger bloods were constantly losing control of themselves, a fact which was causing the greatest anxiety among the mothers of Kennedy Square.
This growing antipathy had been hastened and solidified by another tragedy quite as widely discussed as the Cocheran and May duel—more so, in fact, since this particular victim of too many toddies had been the heir of one of the oldest residents about Kennedy Square—a brilliant young surgeon, self-exiled because of his habits, who had been thrown from his horse on the Indian frontier—an Iowa town, really—shattering his leg and making its amputation necessary. There being but one other man in the rough camp who had ever seen a knife used—and he but a student—the wounded surgeon had directed the amputation himself, even to the tying of the arteries and the bandages and splints. Only then did he collapse. The hero—and he was a hero to every one who knew of his coolness and pluck, in spite of his recognized weakness—had returned to his father's house on Kennedy Square on crutches, there to consult some specialists, the leg still troubling him. As the cripple's bedroom was at the top of the first flight of stairs, the steps of which—it being summer—were covered with China matting, he was obliged to drag himself up its incline whenever he was in want of something he must fetch himself. One of these necessities was a certain squat bottle like those which had graced the old sideboards. Half a dozen times a day would he adjust his crutches, their steel points preventing his slipping, and mount the stairs to his room, one step at a time.
Some months after, when the matting was taken up, the mother took her youngest boy—he was then fifteen—to the steps:
“Do you see the dents of your brother's crutches?—count them. Every one was a nail in his coffin.” They were—for the invalid died that winter.
These marked changes in public opinion, imperceptible as they had been at first, were gradually paving the way, it may be said, for the dawn of that new order of things which only the wiser and more farsighted men—men like Richard Horn—were able to discern. While many of the old regime were willing to admit that the patriarchal life, with the negro as the worker and the master as the spender, had seen its best days, but few of them, at the period of these chronicles, realized that the genius of Morse, Hoe, and McCormick, and a dozen others, whose inventions were just beginning to be criticised, and often condemned, were really the chief factors in the making of a new and greater democracy: that the cog, the drill, the grate-bar, and the flying shuttle would ere long supplant the hoe and the scythe; and that when the full flood of this new era was reached their old-time standards of family pride, reckless hospitality, and even their old-fashioned courtesy would well-nigh be swept into space. The storm raised over this and the preceding duel had they but known it, was but a notch in the tide-gauge of this flood.
“I understand, St. George, that you could have stopped that disgraceful affair the other night if you had raised your hand,” Judge Pancoast had blurted out in an angry tone at the club the week following. “I did raise it, judge,” replied St. George, calmly drawing off his gloves.
“They don't say so—they say you stood by and encouraged it.”
“Quite true,” he answered in his dryest voice. “When I raised my hand it was to drop my handkerchief. They fired as it fell.”
“And a barbarous and altogether foolish piece of business, Temple. There is no justification for that sort of thing, and if Rutter wasn't a feudal king up in his own county there would be trouble over it. It's God's mercy the poor fellow wasn't killed. Fine beginning, isn't it, for a happy married life?”
“Better not have any wife at all, judge, than wed a woman whose good name you are afraid to defend with your life. There are some of us who can stand anything but that, and Harry is built along the same lines. A fine, noble, young fellow—did just right and has my entire confidence and my love. Think it over, judge,” and he strolled into the card-room, picked up the morning paper, and buried his face in its columns, his teeth set, his face aflame with suppressed disgust at the kind of blood running in the judge's veins.
The colonel's treatment of his son also came in for heated discussion. Mrs. Cheston was particularly outspoken. Such quixotic action on the ground of safeguarding the rights of a young drunkard like Willits, who didn't know when he had had enough, might very well do for a self-appointed autocrat like Rutter, she maintained, but some equally respectable people would have him know that they disagreed with him.
“Just like Talbot Rutter,” she exclaimed in her outspoken, decided way—“no sense of proportion. High-tempered, obstinate as a mule, and a hundred years—yes, five hundred years behind his time. And he—could have stopped it all too if he had listened to me. Did you ever hear anything so stupid as his turning Harry—the sweetest boy who ever lived—out of doors, and in a pouring rain, for doing what he would have done himself! Oh, this is too ridiculous—too farcical. Why, you can't conceive of the absurdity of it all—nobody can! Gilbert was there and told me every word of it. You would have thought he was a grand duke or a pasha punishing a slave—and the funniest thing about it is that he believes he is a pasha. Oh—I have no patience with such contemptible family pride, and that's what is at the bottom of it.”
Some of the back county aristocrats, on the other hand—men who lived by themselves, who took their cue from Alexander Hamilton, Lee, and Webb, and believed in the code as the only means of arbitrating a difficulty of any kind between gentlemen—stoutly defended the Lord of Moorlands.
“Rutter did perfectly right to chuck the young whelp out of doors. Outrageous, sir—never is done—nothing less than murder. Ought to be prosecuted for challenging a man under his own roof—and at night too. No toss-up for position, no seconds except a parcel of boys. Vulgar, sir—infernally vulgar, sir. I haven't the honor of Colonel Rutter's acquaintance—but if I had I'd tell him so—served the brat right—damn him!”
Richard Horn was equally emphatic, but in a far different way. Indeed he could hardly restrain himself when discussing it.
“I can think of nothing my young boy Oliver would or could do when he grows up,” he exclaimed fiercely—his eyes flashing, “which would shut him out of his home and his dear mother's care. The duel is a relic of barbarism and should be no longer tolerated; it is mob law, really, and indefensible, with two persons defying the statutes instead of a thousand. But Rutter is the last man in the world to take the stand he has, and I sincerely regret his action. There are many bitter days ahead of him.”
Nor were the present conditions, aspirations, and future welfare of the two combatants, and of the lovely girl over whom they had quarrelled, neglected by the gossipers. No day passed without an extended discussion of their affairs. Bearers of fresh news were eagerly welcomed both to toddy and tea tables.
Old Morris Murdoch, who knew Willits's father intimately, being a strong Clay man himself, arrived at one of these functions with the astounding information that Willits had called on Miss Seymour, wearing his hat in her presence to conceal his much-beplastered head. That he had then and there not only made her a most humble apology for his ill-tempered outbreak, which he explained was due entirely to a combination of egg-and-brandy, with a dash of apple-toddy thrown in, but had declared upon his honor as a gentleman that he would never again touch the flowing bowl. Whereupon—(and this excited still greater astonishment)—the delighted young lady had not only expressed her sympathy for his misfortunes, but had blamed herself for what had occurred!
Tom Tilghman, a famous cross-country rider, who had ridden in post haste from his country seat near Moorlands to tell the tale—as could be seen from his boots, which were still covered with mud—boldly asserted of his own knowledge that the wounded man, instead of seeking his native shore, as was generally believed, would betake himself to the Red Sulphur Springs (where Kate always spent the summer)—accompanied by three saddle horses, two servants, some extra bandages, and his devoted sister, there to regain what was left of his health and strength. At which Judge Pancoast had retorted—and with some heat—that Willits might take a dozen saddle horses and an equal number of sisters, and a bale of bandages if he were so minded, to the Springs, or any other place, but he would save time and money if he stayed at home and looked after his addled head, as no woman of Miss Seymour's blood and breeding could possibly marry a man whose family escutcheon needed polishing as badly as did his manners. That the fact—the plain, bold fact—and here the judge's voice rose to a high pitch—was that Willits was boiling drunk until Harry's challenge sobered him, and that Kate hated drunkenness as much as did Harry's mother and the other women who had started out to revolutionize society.
What that young lady herself thought of it all not even the best-posted gossip in the club dared to venture an opinion. Moreover, such was the respect and reverence in which she was held, and so great was the sympathy felt for her situation, that she was seldom referred to in connection with Harry or the affair except with a sigh, followed by a “Too bad, isn't it?—enough to break your heart,” and such like expressions.
What the Honorable Prim thought of it all was apparent the next day at the club when he sputtered out with:
“Here's a nice mess for a man of my position to find himself in! Do you know that I am now pointed out as the prospective father-in-law of a young jackanapes who goes about with a glass of grog in one hand and a pistol in the other. I am not accustomed to having my name bandied about and I won't have it—I live a life of great simplicity, minding my own business, and I want everybody else to mind theirs. The whole affair is most contemptible and ridiculous and smacks of the tin-armor age. Willits should have been led quietly out of the room and put to bed and young Rutter should have been reprimanded publicly by his father. Disgraceful on a night like that when my daughter's name was on everybody's lips.”
After which outburst he had shut himself up in his house, where, so he told one of his intimates, he intended to remain until he left for the Red Sulphur Springs, which he would do several weeks earlier than was his custom—a piece of news which not only confirmed Tom Tilghman's gossip, but lifted several eyebrows in astonishment and set one or two loose tongues to wagging.
Out at Moorlands, the point of view varied as the aftermath of the tragedy developed, the colonel alone pursuing his daily life without comment, although deep down in his heart a very maelstrom was boiling and seething.
Mrs. Rutter, as fate would have it, on hearing that Kate was too ill to go back to town, had gone the next morning to her bedside, where she learned for the first time not only of the duel—which greatly shocked her, leaving her at first perfectly limp and helpless—but of Harry's expulsion from his father's house—(Alec owned the private wire)—a piece of news which at first terrified and then keyed her up as tight as an overstrung violin. Like many another Southern woman, she might shrink from a cut on a child's finger and only regain her mental poise by a liberal application of smelling salts, but once touch that boy of hers—the child she had nourished and lived for—and all the rage of the she-wolf fighting for her cub was aroused. What took place behind the closed doors of her bedroom when she faced the colonel and flamed out, no one but themselves knew. That the colonel was dumfounded—never having seen her in any such state of mind—goes without saying. That he was proud of her and liked her the better for it, is also true—nothing delighted him so much as courage;—but nothing of all this, impressive as it was, either weakened or altered his resolve.
Nor did he change front to his friends and acquaintances: his honorable name, he maintained, had been trailed in the mud; his boasted hospitality betrayed; his house turned into a common shamble. That his own son was the culprit made the pain and mortification the greater, but it did not lessen his responsibility to his blood. Had not Foscari, to save his honor, in the days of the great republic, condemned his own son Jacopo to exile and death? Had not Virginius slain his daughter? Should he not protect his own honor as well? Furthermore, was not the young man's father a gentleman of standing—a prominent man in the State—a friend not only of his own friend, Henry Clay, but of the governor as well? He, of course, would not have Harry marry into the family had there been a marriageable daughter, but that was no reason why Mr. Willits's only son should not be treated with every consideration. He, Talbot Rutter, was alone responsible for the honor of his house. When your right hand offends you cut it off. His right hand HAD offended him, and he HAD cut it off. Away, then, with the spinning of fine phrases!
And so he let the hornets buzz—and they did swarm and buzz and sting. As long as his wrath lasted he was proof against their assaults—in fact their attacks only confirmed him in his position. It was when all this ceased, for few continued to remonstrate with him after they had heard his final: “I decline to discuss it with you, madame,” or the more significant: “How dare you, sir, refer to my private affairs without my permission?”—it was, I say, when all this ceased, and when neither his wife, who after her first savage outbreak had purposely held her peace, nor any of the servants—not even old Alec, who went about with streaming eyes and a great lump in his throat—dared renew their entreaties for Marse Harry's return, that he began to reflect on his course.
Soon the great silences overawed him—periods of loneliness when he sat confronting his soul, his conscience on the bench as judge; his affections a special attorney:—silences of the night, in which he would listen for the strong, quick, manly footstep and the closing of the door in the corridor beyond:—silences of the dawn, when no clatter of hoofs followed by a cheery call rang out for some one to take Spitfire:—silences of the breakfast table, when he drank his coffee alone, Alec tip-toeing about like a lost spirit. Sometimes his heart would triumph and he begin to think out ways and means by which the past could be effaced. Then again the flag of his pride would be raised aloft so that he and all the people could see, and the old hard look would once more settle in his face, the lips straighten and the thin fingers tighten. No—NO! No assassins for him—no vulgar brawlers—and it was at best a vulgar brawl—and this too within the confines of Moorlands, where, for five generations, only gentlemen had been bred!
And yet, product as he was of a regime that worshipped no ideals but its own; hide-bound by the traditions of his ancestry; holding in secret disdain men and women who could not boast of equal wealth and lineage; dictatorial, uncontradictable; stickler for obsolete forms and ceremonies—there still lay deep under the crust of his pride the heart of a father, and, by his standards, the soul of a gentleman.
What this renegade son of his thought of it all; this disturber of his father's sleeping and waking hours, was far easier to discover. Dazed as Harry had been at the parental verdict and heart-broken as he still was over the dire results, he could not, though he tried, see what else he could have done. His father, he argued to himself, had shot and killed a man when he was but little older than himself, and for an offence much less grave than Willits's insult to Kate: he had frequently boasted of it, showing him the big brass button that had deflected the bullet and saved his life. So had his Uncle George, five years before—not a dead man that time, but a lame one—who was still limping around the club and very good friends the two, so far as he knew. Why then blame HIM? As for the law of hospitality being violated, that was but one of the idiosyncrasies of his father, who was daft on hospitality. How could Willits be his guest when he was his enemy? St. George had begged the wounded man to apologize; if he had done so he would have extended his hand and taken him to Kate, who, upon a second apology, would have extended her hand, and the incident would have been closed. It was Willits's stubbornness and bad breeding, then, that had caused the catastrophe—not his own bullet.
Besides no real harm had been done—that is, nothing very serious. Willits had gained strength rapidly—so much so that he had sat up the third day. Moreover, he had the next morning been carried to one of the downstairs bedrooms, where, he understood, Kate had sent her black mammy for news of him, and where, later on, he had been visited by both Mrs. Rutter and Kate—a most extraordinary condescension on the young girl's part, and one for which Willits should be profoundly grateful all the days of his life.
Nor had Willits's people made any complaint; nor, so far as he could ascertain, had any one connected with either the town or county government started an investigation. It was outside the precincts of Kennedy Square, and, therefore, the town prosecuting attorney (who had heard every detail at the Chesapeake from St. George) had not been called upon to act, and it was well known that no minion of the law in and about Moorlands would ever dare face the Lord of the Manor in any official capacity.
Why, then, had he been so severely punished?
CHAPTER VIII
While all this talk filled the air it is worthy of comment that after his denunciation of Pancoast's views at the club, St. George never again discussed the duel and its outcome. His mind was filled with more important things:—one in particular—a burning desire to bring the lovers together, no matter at what cost nor how great the barriers. He had not, despite his silence, altered a hair-line of the opinion he had held on the night he ordered the gig, fastened Harry's heavy coat around the young man's shoulders, and started back with him through the rain to his house on Kennedy Square; nor did he intend to. This, summed up, meant that the colonel was a tyrant, Willits a vulgarian, and Harry a hot-headed young knight, who, having been forced into a position where he could neither breathe nor move, had gallantly fought his way out.
The one problem that gave him serious trouble was the selection of the precise moment when he should make a strategic move on Kate's heart; lesser problems were his manner of approaching her and the excuses he would offer for Harry's behavior. These not only kept him awake at night, but pursued him like an avenging spirit when he sought the quiet paths of the old square, the dogs at his heels. The greatest of all barriers, he felt assured, would be Kate herself. He had seen enough of her in that last interview, when his tender pleading had restored the harmonies between herself and Harry, to know that she was no longer the child whose sweetness he loved, or the girl whose beauty he was proud of—but the woman whose judgment he must satisfy. Nor could he see that any immediate change in her mental attitude was likely to occur. Some time had now passed since Harry's arrival at his house, and every day the boy had begged for admission at Kate's door, only to be denied by Ben, the old butler. His mother, who had visited her exiled son almost daily, had then called on her, bearing two important pieces of news—one being that after hours of pleading Harry had consented to return to Moorlands and beg his father's pardon, provided that irate gentleman should send for him, and the other the recounting of a message of condolence and sympathy which Willits had sent Harry from his sick-bed, in which he admitted that he had been greatly to blame. (An admission which fairly bubbled out of him when he learned that Harry had assisted Teackle in dressing his wound.)
And yet with all this pressure the young girl had held her own. To every one outside the Rutter clan she had insisted that she was sorry for Harry, but that she could never marry a man whose temper she could not trust. She never put this into words in answering the well-meant inquiries of such girl friends as Nellie Murdoch, Sue Dorsey, and the others; then her eyes would only fill with tears as she begged them not to question her further. Nor had she said as much to her father, who on one occasion had asked her the plump question—“Do you still intend to marry that hot-head?”—to which she had returned the equally positive answer—“No, I never shall!” She reserved her full meaning for St. George when he should again entreat her—as she knew he would at the first opportunity—to forget the past and begin the old life once more.
At the end of the second week St. George had made up his mind as to his course; and at the end of the third the old diplomat, who had dared defeat before, boldly mounted the Seymour steps. He would appeal to Harry's love for her, and all would be well. He had done so before, picturing the misery the boy was suffering, and he would try it again. If he could only reach her heart through the armor of her reserve she would yield.
She answered his cheery call up the stairway in person, greeting him silently, but with arms extended, leading him to a seat beside her, where she buried her face in her hands and burst into tears.
“Harry has tried to see you every day, Kate,” he began, patting her shoulders lovingly in the effort to calm her. “I found him under your window the other night; he walks the streets by the hour, then he comes home exhausted, throws himself on his bed, and lies awake till daylight.”
The girl raised her head and looked at him for a moment. She knew what he had come for—she knew, too, how sorry he felt for her—for Harry—for everybody who had suffered because of this horror.
“Uncle George,” she answered, choking back her tears, speaking slowly, weighing each word—“you've known me from a little girl—ever since my dear mother died. You have been a big brother to me many, many times and I love you for it. If I were determined to do anything that would hurt me, and you found it out in time, you would come and tell me so, wouldn't you?”
St. George nodded his head in answer, but he did not interrupt. Her heart was being slowly unrolled before him, and he would wait until it was all bare.
“Now,” she continued, “the case is reversed, and you want me to do something which I know will hurt me.”
“But you love him, Kate?”
“Yes—that is the worst part of it all,” she answered with a stifled sob—“yes, I love him.” She lifted herself higher on the cushions and put her beautiful arms above her head, her eyes looking into space as if she was trying to solve the problem of what her present resolve would mean to both herself and Harry.
St. George began again: “And you remember how—”
She turned impatiently and dropped one hand until it rested on his own. He thought he had never seen her look so lovely and never so unhappy. Then she said in pleading tones—her eyes blinded by half-restrained tears:
“Don't ask me to REMEMBER, dear Uncle George—help me to forget! You can do no kinder thing for both of us.”
“But think of your whole future happiness, Kate—think how important it is to you—to Harry—to everybody—that you should not shut him out of your life.”
“I have thought! God knows I have thought until sometimes I think I shall go mad. He first breaks his promise about drinking and I forgive him; then he yields to a sudden impulse and behaves like a mad-man and you ask me to forgive him again. He never once thinks of me, nor of my humiliation!” Her lips were quivering, but her voice rang clear.
“He thinks of nothing else BUT you,” he pleaded. “Let your heart work—don't throw him into the street as his father has done. He loves you so.”
“I—throw HIM in the street! He has thrown ME—mortified me before everybody—behaved like a—No,—I can't—I won't discuss it!”
“May I—”
“No—not another word. I love you too much to let this come between us. Let us talk of something else—anything—ANYTHING.”
The whole chart of her heart had been unrolled. Her head and not her heart was dominant. He felt, moreover, that no argument of his would be of any use. Time might work out the solution, but this he could not hasten. Nor, if the truth be told, did he blame her. It was, from the girl's point of view, most unfortunate, of course, that the two calamities of Harry's drunkenness and the duel had come so close together. Perhaps—and for the first time in his life he weakened before her tears—perhaps if he had thrown the case of pistols out of the window, sent one man to his father and the other back to Kennedy Square, it might all have been different—but then again, could this have been done, and if it had been, would not all have to be done over again the next day? At last he asked hopelessly:
“Have you no message for Harry?”
“None,” she answered resolutely.
“And you will not see him?”
“No—we can never heal wounds by keeping them open.” This came calmly, and as if she had made up her mind, and in so determined a tone that he saw it meant an end to the interview.
He rose from his seat and without another word turned toward the door. She gained her feet slowly, as if the very movement caused her pain; put her arms around his neck, kissed him on the cheek, followed him to the door, waved her hand to him as she watched him pick his way across the square, and threw herself on her lounge in an agony of tears.
That night St. George and Harry sat by the smouldering wood fire; the early spring days were warm and joyous, but the nights were still cool. The boy sat hunched up in his chair, his face drawn into lines from the anxiety of the past week; his mind absorbed in the story that St. George had brought from the Seymour house. As in all ardent temperaments, these differences with Kate, which had started as a spark, had now developed into a conflagration which was burning out his heart. His love for Kate was not a part of his life—it was ALL of his life. He was ready now for any sacrifice, no matter how humiliating. He would go down on his knees to his father if she wished it. He would beg Willits's pardon—he would abase himself in any way St. George should suggest. He had done what he thought was right, and he would do it over again under like circumstances, but he would grovel at Kate's feet and kiss the ground she stepped on if she required it of him.
St. George, who had sat quiet, examining closely the backs of his finely modelled hands as if to find some solution of the difficulty written in their delicate articulated curves, heard his outburst in silence. Now and then he would call to Todd, who was never out of reach of his voice—no matter what the hour—to replenish the fire or snuff the candles, but he answered only in nods and monosyllables to Harry. One suggestion only of the heart-broken lover seemed to promise any result, and that was his making it up with his father as his mother had suggested. This wall being broken down, and Willits no longer an invalid, perhaps Kate would see matters in a different and more favorable light.
“But suppose father doesn't send for me, Uncle George, what will I do then?”
“Well, he is your father, Harry.”
“And you think then I had better go home and have it out with him?”
St. George hesitated. He himself would have seen Rutter in Hades before he would have apologized to him. In fact his anger choked him so every time he thought of the brutal and disgraceful scene he had witnessed when the boy had been ordered from his home, that he could hardly get his breath. But then Kate was not his sweetheart, much as he loved her.
“I don't know, Harry. I am not his son,” he answered in an undecided way. Then something the boy's mother had said rose in his mind: “Didn't your mother say that your father's loneliness without you was having its effect?—and wasn't her advice to wait until he should send for you?”
“Yes—that was about it.”
“Well, your mother would know best. Put that question to her next time she comes in—I'm not competent to answer it. And now let us go to bed—you are tired out, and so am I.”