CHAPTER VI. SILAS WHIPPLE
The trouble with many narratives is that they tell too much. Stephen's interview with his mother was a quiet affair, and not historic. Miss Crane's boarding-house is not an interesting place, and the tempest in that teapot is better imagined than described. Out of consideration for Mr. Stephen Brice, we shall skip likewise a most affecting scene at Mr. Canter's second-hand furniture store.
That afternoon Stephen came again to the dirty flight of steps which led to Judge Whipple's office. He paused a moment to gather courage, and then, gripping the rail, he ascended. The ascent required courage now, certainly. He halted again before the door at the top. But even as he stood there came to him, in low, rich tones, the notes of a German song. He entered And Mr. Richter rose in shirt-sleeves from his desk to greet him, all smiling.
“Ach, my friend!” said he, “but you are late. The Judge has been awaiting you.”
“Has he?” inquired Stephen, with ill-concealed anxiety.
The big young German patted him on the shoulder.
Suddenly a voice roared from out the open transom of the private office, like a cyclone through a gap.
“Mr. Richter!”
“Sir!”
“Who is that?”
“Mr. Brice, sir.”
“Then why in thunder doesn't he come in?”
Mr. Richter opened the private door, and in Stephen walked. The door closed again, and there he was in the dragon's dens face to face with the dragon, who was staring him through and through. The first objects that caught Stephen's attention were the grizzly gray eye brows, which seemed as so much brush to mark the fire of the deep-set battery of the eyes. And that battery, when in action, must have been truly terrible.
The Judge was shaven, save for a shaggy fringe of gray beard around his chin, and the size of his nose was apparent even in the full face.
Stephen felt that no part of him escaped the search of Mr. Whipple's glance. But it was no code or course of conduct that kept him silent. Nor was it fear entirely.
“So you are Appleton Brice's son,” said the Judge, at last. His tone was not quite so gruff as it might have been.
“Yes, sir,” said Stephen.
“Humph!” said the Judge, with a look that scarcely expressed approval. “I guess you've been patted on the back too much by your father's friends.” He leaned back in his wooden chair. “How I used to detest people who patted boys on the back and said with a smirk, 'I know your father.' I never had a father whom people could say that about. But, sir,” cried the Judge, bringing down his fist on the litter of papers that covered his desk, “I made up my mind that one day people should know me. That was my spur. And you'll start fair here, Mr. Brice. They won't know your father here—”
If Stephen thought the Judge brutal, he did not say so. He glanced around the little room,—at the bed in the corner, in which the Judge slept, and which during the day did not escape the flood of books and papers; at the washstand, with a roll of legal cap beside the pitcher.
“I guess you think this town pretty crude after Boston, Mr. Brice,” Mr. Whipple continued. “From time immemorial it has been the pleasant habit of old communities to be shocked at newer settlements, built by their own countrymen. Are you shocked, sir?”
Stephen flushed. Fortunately the Judge did not give him time to answer.
“Why didn't your mother let me know that she was coming?”
“She didn't wish to put you to any trouble, sir.”
“Wasn't I a good friend of your father's? Didn't I ask you to come here and go into my office?”
“But there was a chance, Mr. Whipple—”
“A chance of what?”
“That you would not like me. And there is still a chance of it,” added Stephen, smiling.
For a second it looked as if the Judge might smile, too. He rubbed his nose with a fearful violence.
“Mr. Richter tells me you were looking for a bank,” said he, presently.
Stephen quaked.
“Yes, sir, I was, but—”
But Mr. Whipple merely picked up the 'Counterfeit Bank Note Detector'.
“Beware of Western State Currency as you would the devil,” said he. “That's one thing we don't equal the East in—yet. And so you want to become a lawyer?”
“I intend to become a lawyer, sir.”
“And so you shall, sir,” cried the Judge, bringing down his yellow fist upon the 'Bank Note Detector'. “I'll make you a lawyer, sir. But my methods ain't Harvard methods, sir.”
“I am ready to do anything, Mr. Whipple.”
The Judge merely grunted. He scratched among his papers, and produced some legal cap and a bunch of notes.
“Go out there,” he said, “and take off your coat and copy this brief. Mr. Richter will help you to-day. And tell your mother I shall do myself the honor to call upon her this evening.”
Stephen did as he was told, without a word. But Mr. Richter was not in the outer office when he returned to it. He tried to compose himself to write, although the recollection of each act of the morning hung like a cloud over the back of his head. Therefore the first sheet of legal cap was spoiled utterly. But Stephen had a deep sense of failure. He had gone through the ground glass door with the firm intention of making a clean breast of the ownership of Hester. Now, as he sat still, the trouble grew upon him. He started a new sheet, and ruined that: Once he got as far as his feet, and sat down again. But at length he had quieted to the extent of deciphering ten lines of Mr. Whipple's handwriting when the creak of a door shattered his nerves completely.
He glanced up from his work to behold—none other than Colonel Comyn Carvel.
Glancing at Mr. Richter's chair, and seeing it empty, the Colonel's eye roved about the room until it found Stephen. There it remained, and the Colonel remained in the middle of the floor, his soft hat on the back of his head, one hand planted firmly on the gold head of his stick, and the other tugging at his goatee, pulling down his chin to the quizzical angle.
“Whoopee!” he cried.
The effect of this was to make one perspire freely. Stephen perspired. And as there seemed no logical answer, he made none.
Suddenly Mr. Carvel turned, shaking with a laughter he could not control, and strode into the private office the door slammed behind him. Mr. Brice's impulse was flight. But he controlled himself.
First of all there was an eloquent silence. Then a ripple of guffaws. Then the scratch-scratch of a quill pen, and finally the Judge's voice.
“Carvel, what the devil's the matter with you, sir?”
A squall of guffaws blew through the transom, and the Colonel was heard slapping his knee.
“Judge Whipple,” said he, his voice vibrating from suppressed explosions, “I am happy to see that you have overcome some of your ridiculous prejudices, sir.”
“What prejudices, sir?” the Judge was heard to shout.
“Toward slavery, Judge,” said Mr. Carvel, seeming to recover his gravity. “You are a broader man than I thought, sir.”
An unintelligible gurgle came from the Judge. Then he said.
“Carvel, haven't you and I quarrelled enough on that subject?”
“You didn't happen to attend the nigger auction this morning when you were at the court?” asked the Colonel, blandly.
“Colonel,” said the Judge, “I've warned you a hundred times against the stuff you lay out on your counter for customers.”
“You weren't at the auction, then,” continued the Colonel, undisturbed. “You missed it, sir. You missed seeing this young man you've just employed buy the prettiest quadroon wench I ever set eyes on.”
Now indeed was poor Stephen on his feet. But whether to fly in at the one entrance or out at the other, he was undecided.
“Colonel,” said Mr. Whipple, “is that true?”
“Sir!” “MR. BRICE!”
It did not seem to Stephen as if he was walking when he went toward the ground glass door. He opened it. There was Colonel Carvel seated on the bed, his goatee in his hand. And there was the Judge leaning forward from his hips, straight as a ramrod. Fire was darting from beneath his bushy eyebrows. “Mr. Brice,” said he, “there is one question I always ask of those whom I employ. I omitted it in your case because I have known your father and your grandfather before you. What is your opinion, sir, on the subject of holding human beings in bondage?”
The answer was immediate,—likewise simple.
“I do not believe in it, Mr. Whipple.”
The Judge shot out of his chair like a long jack-in-the box, and towered to his full height.
“Mr. Brice, did you, or did you not, buy a woman at auction to-day?”
“I did, sir.”
Mr. Whipple literally staggered. But Stephen caught a glimpse of the Colonel's hand slipping from his chin cover his mouth.
“Good God, sir!” cried the Judge, and he sat down heavily. “You say that you are an Abolitionist?”
“No, sir, I do not say that. But it does not need an Abolitionist to condemn what I saw this morning.”
“Are you a slave-owner, sir?” said Mr. Whipple.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then get your coat and hat and leave my office, Mr. Brice.”
Stephen's coat was on his arm. He slipped it on, and turned to go. He was, if the truth were told, more amused than angry. It was Colonel Carvel's voice that stopped him.
“Hold on, Judge,” he drawled, “I reckon you haven't got all the packing out of that case.”
Mr. Whipple locked at him in a sort of stupefaction. Then he glanced at Stephen.
“Come back here, sir,” he cried. “I'll give you hearing. No man shall say that I am not just.”
Stephen looked gratefully at the Colonel.
“I did not expect one, sir,” he said..
“And you don't deserve one, sir,” cried the Judge.
“I think I do,” replied Stephen, quietly.
The Judge suppressed something.
“What did you do with this person?” he demanded
“I took her to Miss Crane's boarding-house,” said Stephen.
It was the Colonel's turn to explode. The guffaw which came from hire drowned every other sound.
“Good God!” said the Judge, helplessly. Again he looked at the Colonel, and this time something very like mirth shivered his lean frame. “And what do you intend to do with her?” he asked in strange tones.
“To give her freedom, sir, as soon as I can find somebody to go on her bond.”
Again silence. Mr. Whipple rubbed his nose with more than customary violence, and looked very hard at Mr. Carvel, whose face was inscrutable. It was a solemn moment.
“Mr. Brice,” said the Judge, at length, “take off your coat, sir I will go her bond.”
It was Stephen's turn to be taken aback. He stood regarding the Judge curiously, wondering what manner of man he was. He did not know that this question had puzzled many before him.
“Thank you, sir,” he said.
His hand was on the knob of the door, when Mr. Whipple called him back abruptly. His voice had lost some of its gruffness.
“What were your father's ideas about slavery, Mr. Brice?”
The young man thought a moment, as if seeking to be exact.
“I suppose he would have put slavery among the necessary evils, sir,” he said, at length. “But he never could bear to have the liberator mentioned in his presence. He was not at all in sympathy with Phillips, or Parker, or Summer. And such was the general feeling among his friends.”
“Then,” said the Judge, “contrary to popular opinion in the West and South, Boston is not all Abolition.”
Stephen smiled.
“The conservative classes are not at all Abolitionists, sir.”
“The conservative classes!” growled the Judge, “the conservative classes! I am tired of hearing about the conservative classes. Why not come out with it, sir, and say the moneyed classes, who would rather see souls held in bondage than risk their worldly goods in an attempt to liberate them?”
Stephen flushed. It was not at all clear to him then how he was to get along with Judge Whipple. But he kept his temper.
“I am sure that you do them an injustice, sir,” he said, with more feeling them he had yet shown. “I am not speaking of the rich alone, and I think that if you knew Boston you would not say that the conservative class there is wholly composed of wealthy people. Many of may father's friends were by no means wealthy. And I know that if he had been poor he would have held the same views.”
Stephen did not mark the quick look of approval which Colonel Carvel gave him. Judge Whipple merely rubbed his nose.
“Well, sir,” he said, “what were his views, then?”
“My father regarded slaves as property, sir. And conservative people” (Stephen stuck to the word) “respect property the world over. My father's argument was this: If men are deprived by violence of one kind of property which they hold under the law, all other kinds of property will be endangered. The result will be anarchy. Furthermore, he recognized that the economic conditions in the South make slavery necessary to prosperity. And he regarded the covenant made between the states of the two sections as sacred.”
There was a brief silence, during which the uncompromising expression of the Judge did not change.
“And do you, sir?” he demanded.
“I am not sure, sir, after what I saw yesterday. I—I must have time to see more of it.”
“Good Lord,” said Colonel Carvel, “if the conservative people of the North act this way when they see a slave sale, what will the Abolitionists do? Whipple,” he added slowly, but with conviction, “this means war.”
Then the Colonel got to his feet, and bowed to Stephen with ceremony.
“Whatever you believe, sir,” he said, “permit me to shake your hand. You are a brave man, sir. And although my own belief is that the black race is held in subjection by a divine decree, I can admire what you have done, Mr. Brice. It was a noble act, sir,—a right noble act. And I have more respect for the people of Boston, now, sir, than I ever had before, sir.”
Having delivered himself of this somewhat dubious compliment (which he meant well), the Colonel departed.
Judge Whipple said nothing.
CHAPTER VII. CALLERS
If the Brices had created an excitement upon their arrival, it was as nothing to the mad delirium which raged at Miss Crane's boarding-house. during the second afternoon of their stay. Twenty times was Miss Crane on the point of requesting Mrs. Brice to leave, and twenty times, by the advice of Mrs. Abner Deed, she desisted. The culmination came when the news leaked out that Mr. Stephen Brice had bought the young woman in order to give her freedom. Like those who have done noble acts since the world began, Stephen that night was both a hero and a fool. The cream from which heroes is made is very apt to turn.
“Phew!” cried Stephen, when they had reached their room after tea, “wasn't that meal a fearful experience? Let's find a hovel, mother, and go and live in it. We can't stand it here any longer.”
“Not if you persist in your career of reforming an Institution, my son,” answered the widow, smiling.
“It was beastly hard luck,” said he, “that I should have been shouldered with that experience the first day. But I have tried to think it over calmly since, and I can see nothing else to have done.” He paused in his pacing up and down, a smile struggling with his serious look. “It was quite a hot-headed business for one of the staid Brices, wasn't it?”
“The family has never been called impetuous,” replied his mother. “It must be the Western air.”
He began his pacing again. His mother had not said one word about the money. Neither had he. Once more he stopped before her.
“We are at least a year nearer the poor-house,” he said; “you haven't scolded me for that. I should feel so much better if you would.”
“Oh, Stephen, don't say that!” she exclaimed. “God has given me no greater happiness in this life than the sight of the gratitude of that poor creature, Nancy. I shall never forget the old woman's joy at the sight of her daughter. It made a palace out of that dingy furniture shop. Hand me my handkerchief, dear.”
Stephen noticed with a pang that the lace of it was frayed and torn at the corner.
There was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” said Mrs. Brice, hastily putting the handkerchief down.
Hester stood on the threshold, and old Nancy beside her.
“Evenin', Mis' Brice. De good Lawd bless you, lady, an' Miste' Brice,” said the old negress.
“Well, Nancy?”
Nancy pressed into the room. “Mis' Brice!”
“Yes?”
“Ain' you gwineter' low Hester an' me to wuk fo' you?”
“Indeed I should be glad to, Nancy. But we are boarding.”
“Yassm, yassm,” said Nancy, and relapsed into awkward silence. Then again, “Mis' Brice!”
“Yes, Nancy?”
“Ef you 'lows us t' come heah an' straighten out you' close, an' mend 'em—you dunno how happy you mek me an' Hester—des to do dat much, Mis' Brice.”
The note of appeal was irresistible. Mrs. Brice rose and unlocked the trunks.
“You may unpack them, Nancy,” she said.
With what alacrity did the old woman take off her black bonnet and shawl! “Whaffor you stannin' dere, Hester?” she cried.
“Hester is tired,” said Mrs. Brice, compassionately, and tears came to her eyes again at the thought of what they had both been through that day.
“Tired!” said Nancy, holding up her hands. “No'm, she ain' tired. She des kinder stupefied by you' goodness, Mis' Brice.”
A scene was saved by the appearance of Miss Crane's hired girl.
“Mr. and Mrs. Cluyme, in the parlor, mum,” she said.
If Mr. Jacob Cluyme sniffed a little as he was ushered into Miss Crane's best parlor, it was perhaps because of she stuffy dampness of that room. Mr. Cluyme was one of those persons the effusiveness of whose greeting does not tally with the limpness of their grasp. He was attempting, when Stephen appeared, to get a little heat into his hands by rubbing them, as a man who kindles a stick of wood for a visitor. The gentleman had red chop-whiskers,—to continue to put his worst side foremost, which demanded a ruddy face. He welcomed Stephen to St. Louis with neighborly effusion; while his wife, a round little woman, bubbled over to Mrs. Brice.
“My dear sir,” said Mr. Cluyme, “I used often to go to Boston in the forties. In fact—ahem—I may claim to be a New Englander. Alas, no, I never met your father. But when I heard of the sad circumstances of his death, I felt as if I had lost a personal friend. His probity, sir, and his religious principles were an honor to the Athens of America. I have listened to my friend, Mr. Atterbury,—Mr. Samuel Atterbury,—eulogize him by the hour.”
Stephen was surprised.
“Why, yes,” said he, “Mr. Atterbury was a friend.”
“Of course,” said Mr. Cluyme, “I knew it. Four years ago, the last business trip I made to Boston, I met Atterbury on the street. Absence makes no difference to some men, sir, nor the West, for that matter. They never change. Atterbury nearly took me in his arms. 'My dear fellow,' he cried, 'how long are you to be in town?' I was going the next day. 'Sorry I can't ask you to dinner,' says he, but step into the Tremont House and have a bite.'—Wasn't that like Atterbury?”
Stephen thought it was. But Mr. Cluyme was evidently expecting no answer.
“Well,” said he, “what I was going to say was that we heard you were in town; 'Friends of Samuel Atterbury, my dear,' I said to my wife. We are neighbors, Mr. Brace. You must know the girls. You must come to supper. We live very plainly, sir, very simply. I am afraid that you will miss the luxury of the East, and some of the refinement, Stephen. I hope I may call you so, my boy. We have a few cultured citizens, Stephen, but all are not so. I miss the atmosphere. I seemed to live again when I got to Boston. But business, sir,—the making of money is a sordid occupation. You will come to supper?”
“I scarcely think that my mother will go out,” said Stephen.
“Oh, be friends! It will cheer her. Not a dinner-party, my boy, only a plain, comfortable meal, with plenty to eat. Of course she will. Of course she will. Not a Boston social function, you understand. Boston, Stephen, I have always looked upon as the centre of the universe. Our universe, I mean. America for Americans is a motto of mine. Oh, no,” he added quickly, “I don't mean a Know Nothing. Religious freedom, my boy, is part of our great Constitution. By the way, Stephen—Atterbury always had such a respect for your father's opinions—”
“My father was not an Abolitionist, sir,” said Stephen, smiling.
“Quite right, quite right,” said Mr. Cluyme.
“But I am not sure, since I have come here, that I have not some sympathy and respect for the Abolitionists.”
Mr. Cluyme gave a perceptible start. He glanced at the heavy hangings on the windows and then out of the open door into the hall. For a space his wife's chatter to Mrs. Brace, on Boston fashions, filled the room.
“My dear Stephen,” said the gentleman, dropping his voice, “that is all very well in Boston. But take a little advice from one who is old enough to counsel you. You are young, and you must learn to temper yourself to the tone of the place which you have made your home. St. Louis is full of excellent people, but they are not precisely Abolitionists. We are gathering, it is true, a small party who are for gradual emancipation. But our New England population here is small yet compared to the Southerners. And they are very violent, sir.”
Stephen could not resist saying, “Judge Whipple does not seem to have tempered himself, sir.”
“Silas Whipple is a fanatic, sir,” cried Mr. Cluyme.
“His hand is against every man's. He denounces Douglas on the slightest excuse, and would go to Washington when Congress opens to fight with Stephens and Toombs and Davis. But what good does it do him? He might have been in the Senate, or on the Supreme Bench, had he not stirred up so much hatred. And yet I can't help liking Whipple. Do you know him?”
A resounding ring of the door-bell cut off Stephen's reply, and Mrs. Cluyme's small talk to Mrs. Brice. In the hall rumbled a familiar voice, and in stalked none other than Judge Whipple himself. Without noticing the other occupants of the parlor he strode up to Mrs. Brice, looked at her for an instant from under the grizzled brows, and held out his large hand.
“Pray, ma'am,” he said, “what have you done with your slave?”
Mrs. Cluyme emitted a muffled shriek, like that of a person frightened in a dream. Her husband grasped the curved back of his chair. But Stephen smiled. And his mother smiled a little, too.
“Are you Mr. Whipple?” she asked.
“I am, madam,” was the reply.
“My slave is upstairs, I believe, unpacking my trunks,” said Mrs. Brice.
Mr. and Mrs. Cluyme exchanged a glance of consternation. Then Mrs. Cluyme sat down again, rather heavily, as though her legs had refused to hold her.
“Well, well, ma'am!” The Judge looked again at Mrs. Brice, and a gleam of mirth lighted the severity of his face. He was plainly pleased with her—this serene lady in black, whose voice had the sweet ring of women who are well born and whose manner was so self-contained. To speak truth, the Judge was prepared to dislike her. He had never laid eyes upon her, and as he walked hither from his house he seemed to foresee a helpless little woman who, once he had called, would fling her Boston pride to the winds and dump her woes upon him. He looked again, and decidedly approved of Mrs. Brice, and was unaware that his glance embarrassed her.
“Mr. Whipple,” she said,—“do you know Mr. and Mrs. Cluyme?”
The Judge looked behind him abruptly, nodded ferociously at Mr. Cluyme, and took the hand that fluttered out to him from Mrs. Cluyme.
“Know the Judge!” exclaimed that lady, “I reckon we do. And my Belle is so fond of him. She thinks there is no one equal to Mr. Whipple. Judge, you must come round to a family supper. Belle will surpass herself.”
“Umph!” said the Judge, “I think I like Edith best of your girls, ma'am.”
“Edith is a good daughter, if I do say it myself,” said Mrs. Cluyme. “I have tried to do right by my children.” She was still greatly flustered, and curiosity about the matter of the slave burned upon her face. Neither the Judge nor Mrs. Brice were people one could catechise. Stephen, scanning the Judge, was wondering how far he regarded the matter as a joke.
“Well, madam,” said Mr. Whipple, as he seated himself on the other end of the horsehair sofa, “I'll warrant when you left Boston that you did not expect to own a slave the day after you arrived in St. Louis.”
“But I do not own her,” said Mrs. Brice. “It is my son who owns her.”
This was too much for Mr. Cluyme.
“What!” he cried to Stephen. “You own a slave? You, a mere boy, have bought a negress?”
“And what is more, sir, I approve of it,” the Judge put in, severely. “I am going to take the young man into my office.”
Mr. Cluyme gradually retired into the back of his chair, looking at Mr. Whipple as though he expected him to touch a match to the window curtains. But Mr. Cluyme was elastic.
“Pardon me, Judge,” said he, “but I trust that I may be allowed to congratulate you upon the abandonment of principles which I have considered a clog to your career. They did you honor, sir, but they were Quixotic. I, sir, am for saving our glorious Union at any cost. And we have no right to deprive our brethren of their property of their very means of livelihood.”
The Judge grinned diabolically. Mrs. Cluyme was as yet too stunned to speak. Only Stephen's mother sniffed gunpowder in the air.
“This, Mr. Cluyme,” said the Judge, mildly, “is an age of shifting winds. It was not long ago,” he added reflectively, “when you and I met in the Planters' House, and you declared that every drop of Northern blood spilled in Kansas was in a holy cause. Do you remember it, sir?”
Mr. Cluyme and Mr. Cluyme's wife alone knew whether he trembled.
“And I repeat that, sir,” he cried, with far too much zeal. “I repeat it here and now. And yet I was for the Omnibus Bill, and I am with Mr. Douglas in his local sovereignty. I am willing to bury my abhorrence of a relic of barbarism, for the sake of union and peace.”
“Well, sir, I am not,” retorted the Judge, like lightning. He rubbed the red spat on his nose, and pointed a bony finger at Mr. Cluyme. Many a criminal had grovelled before that finger. “I, too, am for the Union. And the Union will never be safe until the greatest crime of modern times is wiped out in blood. Mind what I say, Mr. Cluyme, in blood, sir,” he thundered.
Poor Mrs. Cluyme gasped.
“But the slave, sir? Did I not understand you to approve of Mr. Brice's ownership?”
“As I never approved of any other. Good night, sir. Good night, madam.” But to Mrs. Brice he crossed over and took her hand. It has been further claimed that he bowed. This is not certain.
“Good night, madam,” he said. “I shall call again to pay my respects when you are not occupied.”
Volume 2.
CHAPTER VIII. BELLEGARDE
Miss Virginia Carvel came down the steps in her riding-habit. And Ned, who had been waiting in the street with the horses, obsequiously held his hand while his young mistress leaped into Vixen's saddle. Leaving the darkey to follow upon black Calhoun, she cantered off up the street, greatly to the admiration of the neighbor. They threw open their windows to wave at her, but Virginia pressed her lips and stared straight ahead. She was going out to see the Russell girls at their father's country place on Bellefontaine Road, especially to proclaim her detestation for a certain young Yankee upstart. She had unbosomed herself to Anne Brinsmade and timid Eugenie Renault the day before.
It was Indian summer, the gold and purple season of the year. Frost had come and gone. Wasps were buzzing confusedly about the eaves again, marvelling at the balmy air, and the two Misses Russell, Puss and Emily, were seated within the wide doorway at needlework when Virginia dismounted at the horseblock.
“Oh, Jinny, I'm so glad to see you,” said Miss Russell. “Here's Elise Saint Simon from New Orleans. You must stay all day and to-night.”
“I can't, Puss,” said Virginia, submitting impatiently to Miss Russell's warm embrace. She was disappointed at finding the stranger. “I only came—to say that I am going to have a birthday party in a few weeks. You must be sure to come, and bring your guest.”
Virginia took her bridle from Ned, and Miss Russell's hospitable face fell.
“You're not going?” she said.
“To Bellegarde for dinner,” answered Virginia.
“But it's only ten o'clock,” said Puss. “And, Jinny?”
“Yes.”
“There's a new young man in town, and they do say his appearance is very striking—not exactly handsome, you know, but strong-looking.”
“He's horrid!” said Virginia. “He's a Yankee.”
“How do you know?” demanded Puss and Emily in chorus.
“And he's no gentleman,” said Virginia.
“But how do you know, Jinny?”
“He's an upstart.”
“Oh. But he belongs to a very good Boston family, they say.”
“There are no good Boston families,” replied Virginia, with conviction, as she separated her reins. “He has proved that. Who ever heard of a good Yankee family?”
“What has he done to you, Virginia?” asked Puss, who had brains.
Virginia glanced at the guest. But her grievance was too hot within her for suppression.
“Do you remember Mr. Benbow's Hester, girls? The one I always said I wanted. She was sold at auction yesterday. Pa and I were passing the Court House, with Clarence, when she was put up for sale. We crossed the street to see what was going on, and there was your strong-looking Yankee standing at the edge of the crowd. I am quite sure that he saw me as plainly as I see you, Puss Russell.”
“How could he help it?” said Puss, slyly.
Virginia took no notice of the remark.
“He heard me ask Pa to buy her. He heard Clarence say that he would bid her in for me. I know he did. And yet he goes in and outbids Clarence, and buys her himself. Do you think any gentleman would do that, Puss Russell?”
“He bought her himself!” cried the astonished Miss Russell. “Why I thought that all Bostonians were Abolitionists.”
“Then he set her free,” said Miss Carvel, contemptuously, “Judge Whipple went on her bond to-day.”
“Oh, I'm just crazy to see him now,” said Miss Russell.
“Ask him to your party, Virginia,” she added mischievously.
“Do you think I would have him in my house?” cried Virginia.
Miss Russell was likewise courageous—“I don't see why not. You have Judge Whipple every Sunday dinner, and he's an Abolitionist.”
Virginia drew herself up.
“Judge Whipple has never insulted me,” she said, with dignity.
Puss gave way to laughter. Whereupon, despite her protests and prayers for forgiveness, Virginia took to her mare again and galloped off. They saw her turn northward on the Bellefontaine Road.
Presently the woodland hid from her sight the noble river shining far below, and Virginia pulled Vixen between the gateposts which marked the entrance to her aunt's place, Bellegarde. Half a mile through the cool forest, the black dirt of the driveway flying from Vixen's hoofs, and there was the Colfax house on the edge of the gentle slope; and beyond it the orchard, and the blue grapes withering on the vines,—and beyond that fields and fields of yellow stubble. The silver smoke of a steamboat hung in wisps above the water. A young negro was busily washing the broad veranda, but he stopped and straightened at sight of the young horsewoman.
“Sambo, where's your mistress?”
“Clar t' goodness, Miss Jinny, she was heah leetle while ago.”
“Yo' git atter Miss Lilly, yo' good-fo'-nuthin' niggah,” said Ned, warmly. “Ain't yo' be'n raised better'n to stan' theh wif yo'mouf open?”
Sambo was taking the hint, when Miss Virginia called him back.
“Where's Mr. Clarence?
“Young Masr? I'll fotch him, Miss Jinny. He jes come home f'um seein' that thar trottin' hose he's gwine to race nex' week.”
Ned, who had tied Calhoun and was holding his mistress's bridle, sniffed. He had been Colonel Carvel's jockey in his younger days.
“Shucks!” he said contemptuously. “I hoped to die befo' the day a gemman'd own er trottah, Jinny. On'y runnin' hosses is fit fo' gemmen.”
“Ned,” said Virginia, “I shall be eighteen in two weeks and a young lady. On that day you must call me Miss Jinny.”
Ned's face showed both astonishment and inquiry.
“Jinny, ain't I nussed you always? Ain't I come upstairs to quiet you when yo' mammy ain't had no power ovah yo'? Ain't I cooked fo' yo', and ain't I followed you everywheres since I quit ridin' yo' pa's bosses to vict'ry? Ain't I one of de fambly? An' yit yo' ax me to call yo' Miss Jinny?”
“Then you've had privileges enough,” Virginia answered. “One week from to-morrow you are to say 'Miss Jinny.'”
“I'se tell you what, Jinny,” he answered mischievously, with an emphasis on the word, “I'se call you Miss Jinny ef you'll call me Mistah Johnson. Mistah Johnson. You aint gwinter forget? Mistah Johnson.”
“I'll remember,” she said. “Ned,” she demanded suddenly, “would you like to be free?”
The negro started.
“Why you ax me dat, Jinny?”
“Mr. Benbow's Hester is free,” she said.
“Who done freed her?”
Miss Virginia flushed. “A detestable young Yankee, who has come out here to meddle with what doesn't concern him. I wanted Hester, Ned. And you should have married her, if you behaved yourself.”
Ned laughed uneasily.
“I reckon I'se too ol' fo' Heste'.” And added with privileged impudence, “There ain't no cause why I can't marry her now.”
Virginia suddenly leaped to the ground without his assistance.
“That's enough, Ned,” she said, and started toward the house.
“Jinny! Miss Jinny!” The call was plaintive.
“Well, what?”
“Miss Jinny, I seed that than young gemman. Lan' sakes, he ain' look like er Yankee.”
“Ned,” said Virginia, sternly, “do you want to go back to cooking?”
He quailed. “Oh, no'm—Lan' sakes, no'm. I didn't mean nuthin'.”
She turned, frowned, and bit her lip. Around the corner of the veranda she ran into her cousin. He, too, was booted and spurred. He reached out, boyishly, to catch her in his arms. But she drew back from his grasp.
“Why, Jinny,” he cried, “what's the matter?”
“Nothing, Max.” She often called him so, his middle name being Maxwell. “But you have no right to do that.”
“To do what?” said Clarence, making a face.
“You know,” answered Virginia, curtly. “Where's Aunt Lillian?”
“Why haven't I the right?” he asked, ignoring the inquiry.
“Because you have not, unless I choose. And I don't choose.”
“Are you angry with me still? It wasn't my fault. Uncle Comyn made me come away. You should have had the girl, Jinny, if it took my fortune.”
“You have been drinking this morning, Max,” said Virginia.
“Only a julep or so,” he replied apologetically. “I rode over to the race track to see the new trotter. I've called him Halcyon, Jinny,” he continued, with enthusiasm. “And he'll win the handicap sure.”
She sat down on the veranda steps, with her knees crossed and her chin resting on her hands. The air was heavy with the perfume of the grapes and the smell of late flowers from the sunken garden near by. A blue haze hung over the Illinois shore.
“Max, you promised me you wouldn't drink so much.”
“And I haven't been, Jinny, 'pon my word,” he replied. “But I met old Sparks at the Tavern, and he started to talk about the horses, and—and he insisted.”
“And you hadn't the strength of character,” she said, scornfully, “to refuse.”
“Pshaw, Jinny, a gentleman must be a gentleman. I'm no Yankee.”
For a space Virginia answered nothing. Then she said, without changing her position:
“If you were, you might be worth something.”
“Virginia!”
She did not reply, but sat gazing toward the water. He began to pace the veranda, fiercely.
“Look here, Jinny,” he cried, pausing in front of her. “There are some things you can't say to me, even in jest.”
Virginia rose, flicked her riding-whip, and started down the steps.
“Don't be a fool, Max,” she said.
He followed her, bewildered. She skirted the garden, passed the orchard, and finally reached a summer house perched on a knoll at the edge of the wood. Then she seated herself on a bench, silently. He took a place on the opposite side, with his feet stretched out, dejectedly.
“I'm tired trying to please you,” he said. “I have been a fool. You don't care that for me. It was all right when I was younger, when there was no one else to take you riding, and jump off the barn for your amusement, Miss. Now you have Tom Catherwood and Jack Brinsmade and the Russell boys running after you, it's different. I reckon I'll go to Kansas. There are Yankees to shoot in Kansas.”
He did not see her smile as he sat staring at his feet.
“Max,” said she, all at once, “why don't you settle down to something? Why don't you work?”
Young Mr. Colfax's arm swept around in a circle.
“There are twelve hundred acres to look after here, and a few niggers. That's enough for a gentleman.”
“Pooh!” exclaimed his cousin, “this isn't a cotton plantation. Aunt Lillian doesn't farm for money. If she did, you would have to check your extravagances mighty quick, sir.”
“I look after Pompey's reports, I do as much work as my ancestors,” answered Clarence, hotly.
“Ah, that is the trouble,” said Virginia.
“What do you mean?” her cousin demanded.
“We have been gentlemen too long,” said Virginia.
The boy straightened up and rose. The pride and wilfulness of generations was indeed in his handsome face. And something else went with it. Around the mouth a grave tinge of indulgence.
“What has your life been?” she went on, speaking rapidly. “A mixture of gamecocks and ponies and race horses and billiards, and idleness at the Virginia Springs, and fighting with other boys. What do you know? You wouldn't go to college. You wouldn't study law. You can't write a decent letter. You don't know anything about the history of your country. What can you do—?”
“I can ride and fight,” he said. “I can go to New Orleans to-morrow to join Walker's Nicaragua expedition. We've got to beat the Yankees,—they'll have Kansas away from us before we know it.”
Virginia's eye flashed appreciation.
“Do you remember, Jinny,” he cried, “one day long ago when those Dutch ruffians were teasing you and Anne on the road, and Bert Russell and Jack and I came along? We whipped 'em, Jinny. And my eye was closed. And you were bathing it here, and one of my buttons was gone. And you counted the rest.”
“Rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief, doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief,” she recited, laughing. She crossed over and sat beside him, and her tone changed. “Max, can't you understand? It isn't that. Max, if you would only work at something. That is why the Yankees beat us. If you would learn to weld iron, or to build bridges, or railroads. Or if you would learn business, and go to work in Pa's store.”
“You do not care for me as I am?”
“I knew that you did not understand,” she answered passionately. “It is because I care for you that I wish to make you great. You care too much for a good time, for horses, Max. You love the South, but you think too little how she is to be saved. If war is to come, we shall want men like that Captain Robert Lee who was here. A man who can turn the forces of the earth to his own purposes.”
For a moment Clarence was moodily silent.
“I have always intended to go into politics, after Pa's example,” he said at length.
“Then—” began Virginia, and paused.
“Then—?” he said.
“Then—you must study law.”
He gave her the one keen look. And she met it, with her lips tightly pressed together. Then he smiled.
“Virginia, you will never forgive that Yankee, Brice.”
“I shall never forgive any Yankee,” she retorted quickly. “But we are not talking about him. I am thinking of the South, and of you.”
He stooped toward her face, but she avoided him and went back to the bench.
“Why not?” he said.
“You must prove first that you are a man,” she said.
For years he remembered the scene. The vineyard, the yellow stubble; and the river rushing on and on with tranquil power, and the slow panting of the steamboat. A doe ran out of the forest, and paused, her head raised, not twenty feet away.
“And then you will marry me, Jinny?” he asked finally.
“Before you may hope to control another, we shall see whether you can control yourself, sir.”
“But it has all been arranged,” he exclaimed, “since we played here together years ago!”
“No one shall arrange that for me,” replied Virginia promptly. “And I should think that you would wish to have some of the credit for yourself.”
“Jinny!”
Again she avoided him by leaping the low railing. The doe fled into the forest, whistling fearfully. Virginia waved her hand to him and started toward the house. At the corner of the porch she ran into her aunt Mrs. Colfax was a beautiful woman. Beautiful when Addison Colfax married her in Kentucky at nineteen, beautiful still at three and forty. This, I am aware, is a bald statement. “Prove it,” you say. “We do not believe it. It was told you by some old beau who lives upon the memory of the past.”
Ladies, a score of different daguerrotypes of Lillian Colfax are in existence. And whatever may be said of portraits, daguerrotypes do not flatter. All the town admitted that she was beautiful. All the town knew that she was the daughter of old Judge Colfax's overseer at Halcyondale. If she had not been beautiful, Addison Colfax would not have run away with her. That is certain. He left her a rich widow at five and twenty, mistress of the country place he had bought on the Bellefontaine Road, near St. Louis. And when Mrs. Colfax was not dancing off to the Virginia watering-places, Bellegarde was a gay house.
“Jinny,” exclaimed her aunt, “how you scared me! What on earth is the matter?”
“Nothing,” said Virginia
“She refused to kiss me,” put in Clarence, half in play, half in resentment.
Mrs. Colfax laughed musically. She put one of her white hands on each of her niece's cheeks, kissed her, and then gazed into her face until Virginia reddened.
“Law, Jinny, you're quite pretty,” said her aunt
“I hadn't realized it—but you must take care of your complexion. You're horribly sunburned, and you let your hair blow all over your face. It's barbarous not to wear a mask when you ride. Your Pa doesn't look after you properly. I would ask you to stay to the dance to-night if your skin were only white, instead of red. You're old enough to know better, Virginia. Mr. Vance was to have driven out for dinner. Have you seen him, Clarence?”
“No, mother.”
“He is so amusing,” Mrs. Colfax continued, “and he generally brings candy. I shall die of the blues before supper.” She sat down with a grand air at the head of the table, while Alfred took the lid from the silver soup-tureen in front of her. “Jinny, can't you say something bright? Do I have to listen to Clarence's horse talk for another hour? Tell me some gossip. Will you have some gumbo soup?”
“Why do you listen to Clarence's horse talk?” said Virginia. “Why don't you make him go to work!”
“Mercy!” said Mrs. Colfax, laughing, “what could he do?”
“That's just it,” said Virginia. “He hasn't a serious interest in life.”
Clarence looked sullen. And his mother, as usual, took his side.
“What put that into your head, Jinny,” she said. “He has the place here to look after, a very gentlemanly occupation. That's what they do in Virginia.”
“Yes,” said Virginia, scornfully, “we're all gentlemen in the South. What do we know about business and developing the resources of the country? Not THAT.”
“You make my head ache, my dear,” was her aunt's reply. “Where did you get all this?”
“You ask me because I am a girl,” said Virginia. “You believe that women were made to look at, and to play with,—not to think. But if we are going to get ahead of the Yankees, we shall have to think. It was all very well to be a gentleman in the days of my great-grandfather. But now we have railroads and steamboats. And who builds them? The Yankees. We of the South think of our ancestors, and drift deeper and deeper into debt. We know how to fight, and we know how to command. But we have been ruined by—” here she glanced at the retreating form of Alfred, and lowered her voice, “by niggers.”
Mrs. Colfax's gaze rested languidly on her niece's faces which glowed with indignation.
“You get this terrible habit of argument from Comyn,” she said. “He ought to send you to boarding-school. How mean of Mr. Vance not to come! You've been talking with that old reprobate Whipple. Why does Comyn put up with him?”
“He isn't an old reprobate,” said Virginia, warmly.
“You really ought to go to school,” said her aunt. “Don't be eccentric. It isn't fashionable. I suppose you wish Clarence to go into a factory.”
“If I were a man,” said Virginia, “and going into a factory would teach me how to make a locomotive or a cotton press, or to build a bridge, I should go into a factory. We shall never beat the Yankees until we meet them on their own ground.”
“There is Mr. Vance now,” said Mrs. Colfax, and added fervently, “Thank the Lord!”