CHAPTER XIII. AT MR. BRINSMADE'S GATE
The eastern side of the Brinsmade house is almost wholly taken up by the big drawing-room where Anne gave her fancy-dress ball. From the windows might be seen, through the trees in the grounds, the Father of Waters below. But the room is gloomy now, that once was gay, and a heavy coat of soot is spread on the porch at the back, where the apple blossoms still fall thinly in the spring. The huge black town has coiled about the place the garden still struggles on, but the giants of the forest are dying and dead. Bellefontaine Road itself, once the drive of fashion, is no more. Trucks and cars crowd the streets which follow its once rural windings, and gone forever are those comely wooded hills and green pastures,—save in the memory of those who have been spared to dream.
Still the old house stands, begrimed but stately, rebuking the sordid life around it. Still come into it the Brinsmades to marriage and to death. Five and sixty years are gone since Mr. Calvin Brinsmade took his bride there. They sat on the porch in the morning light, harking to the whistle of the quail in the corn, and watching the frightened deer scamper across the open. Do you see the bride in her high-waisted gown, and Mr. Calvin in his stock and his blue tail-coat and brass buttons?
Old people will tell you of the royal hospitality then, of the famous men and women who promenaded under those chandeliers, and sat down to the game-laden table. In 1835 General Atkinson and his officers thought nothing of the twenty miles from Jefferson Barracks below, nor of dancing all night with the Louisville belles, who were Mrs. Brinsmade's guests. Thither came Miss Todd of Kentucky, long before she thought of taking for a husband that rude man of the people, Abraham Lincoln. Foreigners of distinction fell in love with the place, with its open-hearted master and mistress, and wrote of it in their journals. Would that many of our countrymen, who think of the West as rough, might have known the quality of the Brinsmades and their neighbors!
An era of charity, of golden simplicity, was passing on that October night of Anne Brinsmade's ball. Those who made merry there were soon to be driven and scattered before the winds of war; to die at Wilson's Creek, or Shiloh, or to be spared for heroes of the Wilderness. Some were to eke out a life of widowhood in poverty. All were to live soberly, chastened by what they had seen. A fear knocked at Colonel Carvel's heart as he stood watching the bright figures.
“Brinsmade,” he said, “do you remember this room in May, '46?”
Mr. Brinsmade, startled, turned upon him quickly.
“Why, Colonel, you have read my very thoughts,” he said. “Some of those who were here then are—are still in Mexico.”
“And some who came home, Brinsmade, blamed God because they had not fallen,” said the Colonel.
“Hush, Comyn, His will be done,” he answered; “He has left a daughter to comfort you.”
Unconsciously their eyes sought Virginia. In her gown of faded primrose and blue with its quaint stays and short sleeves, she seemed to have caught the very air of the decorous century to which it belonged. She was standing against one of the pilasters at the side of the room, laughing demurely at the antics of Becky Sharp and Sir John Falstaff,—Miss Puss Russell and Mr. Jack Brinsmade, respectively.
Mr. Tennyson's “Idylls” having appeared but the year before, Anne was dressed as Elaine, a part which suited her very well. It was strange indeed to see her waltzing with Daniel Boone (Mr. Clarence Colfax) in his Indian buckskins. Eugenie went as Marie Antoinette. Tall Maude Catherwood was most imposing as Rebecca; and her brother George made a towering Friar Tuck, Even little fifteen-year-old Spencer Catherwood, the contradiction of the family, was there. He went as the lieutenant Napoleon, walking about with his hands behind his back and his brows thoughtfully contracted.
The Indian summer night was mild. It was at tine very height of the festivities that Dorothy Carvel and Mr. Daniel Boone were making their way together to the porch when the giant gate-keeper of Kenilworth Castle came stalking up the steps out of the darkness, brandishing his club in their faces. Dorothy screamed, and even the doughty Daniel gave back a step.
“Tom Catherwood! How dare you? You frightened me nearly to death.”
“I'm sorry, Jinny, indeed I am,” said the giant, repentant, and holding her hand in his.
“Where have you been?” demanded Virginia, a little mollified. “What makes you so late?”
“I've been to a Lincoln meeting,” said honest Tom; “where I heard a very fine speech from a friend of yours.”
Virginia tossed her head.
“You might have been better employed,” said she, and added, with dignity, “I have no friends who speak at Black Republican meetings.”
“How about Judge Whipple?” said Tom.
She stopped. “Did you mean the Judge?” she asked, over her shoulder.
“No,” said Tom, “I meant—”
He got no further. Virginia slipped her arm through Clarence's, and they went off together to the end of the veranda. Poor Tom! He passed on into the gay drawing-room, but the zest had been taken out of his antics for that night.
“Whom did he mean, Jinny?” said Clarence, when they were on the seat under the vines.
“He meant that Yankee, Stephen Brice,” answered Virginia, languidly. “I am so tired of hearing about him.”
“So am I,” said Clarence, with a fervor by no means false. “By George, I think he will make a Black Republican out of Tom, if he keeps on. Puss and Jack have been talking about him all summer, until I am out of patience. I reckon he has brains. But suppose he has addressed fifty Lincoln meetings, as they say, is that any reason for making much of him? I should not have him at Bellegarde. I am surprised that Mr. Russell allows him in his house. I can see why Anne likes him.”
“Why?”
“He is on the Brinsmade charity list.”
“He is not on their charity list, nor on any other,” said Virginia, quickly. “Stephen Brice is the last person who would submit to charity.”
“And you are the last person who I supposed would stand up for him,” cried her cousin, surprised and nettled.
There was an instant's silence.
“I want to be fair, Max,” she said quietly. “Pa offered them our Glencoe House last summer at a low price, and they insisted on paying what Mr. Edwards gave five years ago,—or nothing. You know that I detest a Yankee as much as you do,” she continued, indignation growing in her voice. “I did not come out here with you to be insulted.”
With her hand on the rail, she made as if to rise. Clarence was perforce mollified.
“Don't go, Jinny,” he said beseechingly. “I didn't mean to make you angry—”
“I can't see why you should always be dragging in this Mr. Brice,” she said, almost tearfully. (It will not do to pause now and inquire into Virginia's logic.) “I came out to hear what you had to tell me.”
“Jinny, I have been made second lieutenant of Company A.”
“Oh, Max, I am so glad! I am so proud of you!”
“I suppose that you have heard the result of the October elections, Jinny.”
“Pa said something about them to-night,” she answered; “why?”
“It looks now as if there were a chance of the Republicans winning,” he answered. But it was elation that caught his voice, not gloom.
“You mean that this white trash Lincoln may be President?” she exclaimed, seizing his arm.
“Never!” he cried. “The South will not submit to that until every man who can bear arms is shot down.” He paused. The strains of a waltz mingled with talk and laughter floated out of the open window. His voice dropped to a low intensity. “We are getting ready in Company A,” he said; “the traitors will be dropped. We are getting ready to fight for Missouri and for the South.”
The girl felt his excitement, his exaltation.
“And if you were not, Max, I should disown you,” she whispered.
He leaned forward until his face was close to hers.
“And now?” he said.
“I am ready to work, to starve, to go to prison, to help—”
He sank back heavily into the corner.
“Is that all, Jinny?”
“All?” she repeated. “Oh, if a woman could only do more!”
“And is there nothing—for me?”
Virginia straightened.
“Are you doing this for a reward?” she demanded.
“No,” he answered passionately. “You know that I am not. Do you remember when you told me that I was good for nothing, that I lacked purpose?”
“Yes, Max.”
“I have thought it over since,” he went on rapidly; “you were right. I cannot work—it is not in me. But I have always felt that I could make a name for myself—for you—in the army. I am sure that I could command a regiment. And now the time is coming.”
She did not answer him, but absently twisted the fringe of his buckskins in her fingers.
“Ever since I have known what love is I have loved you, Jinny. It was so when we climbed the cherry trees at Bellegarde. And you loved me then—I know you did. You loved me when I went East to school at the Military Institute. But it has not been the same of late,” he faltered. “Something has happened. I felt it first on that day you rode out to Bellegarde when you said that my life was of no use. Jinny, I don't ask much. I am content to prove myself. War is coming, and we shall have to free ourselves from Yankee insolence. It is what we have both wished for. When I am a general, will you marry me?”
For a wavering instant she might have thrown herself into his outstretched arms. Why not, and have done with sickening doubts? Perhaps her hesitation hung on the very boyishness of his proposal. Perhaps the revelation that she did not then fathom was that he had not developed since those childish days. But even while she held back, came the beat of hoofs on the gravel below them, and one of the Bellegarde servants rode into the light pouring through the open door. He called for his master.
Clarence muttered his dismay as he followed his cousin to the steps.
“What is it?” asked Virginia, alarmed.
“Nothing; I forgot to sign the deed to the Elleardsville property, and Worington wants it to-night.” Cutting short Sambo's explanations, Clarence vaulted on the horse. Virginia was at his stirrup. Leaning over in the saddle, he whispered: “I'll be back in a quarter of an hour Will you wait?”
“Yes,” she said, so that he barely heard.
“Here?”
She nodded.
He was away at a gallop, leaving Virginia standing bareheaded to the night, alone. A spring of pity, of affection for Clarence suddenly welled up within her. There came again something of her old admiration for a boy, impetuous and lovable, who had tormented and defended her with the same hand.
Patriotism, stronger in Virginia than many of us now can conceive, was on Clarence's side. Ambition was strong in her likewise. Now was she all afire with the thought that she, a woman, might by a single word give the South a leader. That word would steady him, for there was no question of her influence. She trembled at the reckless lengths he might go in his dejection, and a memory returned to her of a day at Glencoe, before he had gone off to school, when she had refused to drive with him. Colonel Carvel had been away from home. She had pretended not to care. In spite of Ned's beseechings Clarence had ridden off on a wild thoroughbred colt and had left her to an afternoon of agony. Vividly she recalled his home-coming in the twilight, his coat torn and muddy, a bleeding cut on his forehead, and the colt quivering tame.
In those days she had thought of herself unreservedly as meant for him. Dash and courage and generosity had been the beacon lights on her horizon. But now? Were there not other qualities? Yes, and Clarence should have these, too. She would put them into him. She also had been at fault, and perhaps it was because of her wavering loyalty to him that he had not gained them.
Her name spoken within the hall startled Virginia from her reverie, and she began to walk rapidly down the winding drive. A fragment of the air to which they were dancing brought her to a stop. It was the Jenny Lind waltz. And with it came clear and persistent the image she had sought to shut out and failed. As if to escape it now, she fairly ran all the way to the light at the entrance and hid in the magnolias clustered beside the gateway. It was her cousin's name she whispered over and over to herself as she waited, vibrant with a strange excitement. It was as though the very elements might thwart her wail. Clarence would be delayed, or they would miss her at the house, and search. It seemed an eternity before she heard the muffled thud of a horse cantering in the clay road.
Virginia stood out in the light fairly between the gate posts. Too late she saw the horse rear as the rider flew back in his seat, for she had seized the bridle. The beams from the lamp fell upon a Revolutionary horseman, with cooked hat and sword and high riding-boots. For her his profile was in silhouette, and the bold nose and chin belonged to but one man she knew. He was Stephen Brice. She gave a cry of astonishment and dropped the rein in dismay. Hot shame was surging in her face. Her impulse was to fly, nor could she tell what force that stayed her feet.
As for Stephen, he stood high in his stirrups and stared down at the girl. She was standing full in the light,—her lashes fallen, her face crimson. But no sound of surprise escaped him because it was she, nor did he wonder at her gown of a gone-by century. Her words came first, and they were low. She did not address him by name.
“I—I thought that you were my cousin,” she said. “What must you think of me!”
Stephen was calm.
“I expected it,” he answered.
She gave a step backward, and raised her frightened eyes to his.
“You expected it?” she faltered.
“I can't say why,” he said quickly, “but it seems to me as if this had happened before. I know that I am talking nonsense—”
Virginia was trembling now. And her answer was not of her own choosing.
“It has happened before,” she cried. “But where? And when?”
“It may have been in a dream,” he answered her, “that I saw you as you stand there by my bridle. I even know the gown you wear.”
She put her hand to her forehead. Had it been a dream? And what mystery was it that sent him here this night of all nights? She could not even have said that it was her own voice making reply.
“And I—I have seen you, with the sword, and the powdered hair, and the blue coat and the buff waistcoat. It is a buff waistcoat like that my great-grandfather wears in his pictures.”
“It is a buff waistcoat,” he said, all sense of strangeness gone.
The roses she held dropped on the gravel, and she put out her hand against his horse's flank. In an instant he had leaped from his saddle, and his arm was holding her. She did not resist, marvelling rather at his own steadiness, nor did she then resent a tenderness in his voice.
“I hope you will forgive me—Virginia,” he said. “I should not have mentioned this. And yet I could not help it.”
She looked up at him rather wildly.
“It was I who stopped you,” she said; “I was waiting for—”
“For whom?”
The interruption brought remembrance.
“For my cousin, Mr. Colfax,” she answered, in another tone. And as she spoke she drew away from him, up the driveway. But she had scarcely taken five steps whey she turned again, her face burning defiance. “They told me you were not coming,” she said almost fiercely. “Why did you come?”
It was a mad joy that Stephen felt.
“You did not wish me to come?” he demanded.
“Oh, why do you ask that?” she cried. “You know I would not have been here had I thought you were coming. Anne promised me that you would not come.”
What would she not have given for those words back again
Stephen took astride toward her, and to the girl that stride betokened a thousand things that went to the man's character. Within its compass the comparison in her mind was all complete. He was master of himself when he spoke.
“You dislike me, Miss Carvel,” he said steadily. “I do not blame you. Nor do I flatter myself that it is only because you believe one thing, and I another. But I assure you that it is my misfortune rather than my fault that I have not pleased you,—that I have met you only to anger you.”
He paused, for she did not seem to hear him. She was gazing at the distant lights moving on the river. Had he come one step farther?—but he did not. Presently she knew that he was speaking again, in the same measured tone.
“Had Miss Brinsmade told me that my presence here would cause you annoyance, I should have stayed away. I hope that you will think nothing of the—the mistake at the gate. You may be sure that I shall not mention it. Good night, Miss Carvel.”
He lifted his hat, mounted his horse, and was gone. She had not even known that he could ride—that was strangely the first thought. The second discovered herself intent upon the rhythm of his canter as it died southward upon the road. There was shame in this, mingled with a thankfulness that he would not meet Clarence. She hurried a few steps toward the house, and stopped again. What should she say to Clarence now? What could she say to him?
But Clarence was not in her head. Ringing there was her talk with Stephen Brice, as though it were still rapidly going on. His questions and her replies—over and over again. Each trivial incident of an encounter real and yet unreal! His transformation in the uniform, which had seemed so natural. Though she strove to make it so, nothing of all this was unbearable now, nor the remembrance of the firm torch of his arm about her nor yet again his calling her by her name.
Absently she took her way again up the drive, now pausing, now going on, forgetful. First it was alarm she felt when her cousin leaped down at her side,—then dread.
“I thought I should never get back,” he cried breathlessly, as he threw his reins to Sambo. “I ought not to have asked you to wait outside. Did it seem long, Jinny?”
She answered something, There was a seat near by under the trees. To lead her to it he seized her hand, but it was limp and cold, and a sudden fear came into his voice.
“Jinny!”
“Yes.”
She resisted, and he dropped her fingers. She remembered long how he stood in the scattered light from the bright windows, a tall, black figure of dismay. She felt the yearning in his eyes. But her own response, warm half an hour since, was lifeless.
“Jinny,” he said, “what is the matter?”
“Nothing, Max. Only I was very foolish to say I would wait for you.”
“Then—then you won't marry me?”
“Oh, Max,” she cried, “it is no time to talk of that now. I feel to-night as if something dreadful were to happen.”
“Do you mean war?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”
“But war is what we want,” he cried, “what we have prayed for, what we have both been longing for to-night, Jinny. War alone will give us our rights—”
He stopped short. Virginia had bowed her head an her hands, and he saw her shoulders shaken by a sob. Clarence bent over her in bewilderment and anxiety.
“You are not well, Jinny,” he said.
“I am not well,” she answered. “Take me into the house.”
But when they went in at the door, he saw that her eyes were dry.
Those were the days when a dozen young ladies were in the habit of staying all night after a dance in the country; of long whispered talks (nay, not always whispered) until early morning. And of late breakfasts. Miss Russell had not been the only one who remarked Virginia's long absence with her cousin; but Puss found her friend in one of those moods which even she dared not disturb. Accordingly Miss Russell stayed all night with Anne.
And the two spent most of the dark hours remaining in unprofitable discussion as to whether Virginia were at last engaged to her cousin, and in vain queried over another unsolved mystery. This mystery was taken up at the breakfast table the next morning, when Miss Carvel surprised Mrs. Brinsmade and the male household by appearing at half-past seven.
“Why, Jinny,” cried Mr. Brinsmade, “what does this mean? I always thought that young ladies did not get up after a ball until noon.”
Virginia smiled a little nervously.
“I am going to ask you to take me to town when you go, Mr. Brinsmade.”
“Why, certainly, my dear,” he said. “But I under stood that your aunt was to send for you this afternoon from Bellegarde.”
Virginia shook her head. “There is something I wish to do in town.”
“I'll drive her in, Pa,” said Jack. “You're too old. Will you go with me, Jinny?”
“Of course, Jack.”
“But you must eat some breakfast, Jinny,” said Mrs Brinsmade, glancing anxiously at the girl.
Mr. Brinsmade put down his newspaper.
“Where was Stephen Brice last night, Jack?” he asked. “I understood Anne to say that he had spoke; of coming late.”
“Why, sir,” said Jack, “that's what we can't make out. Tom Catherwood, who is always doing queer things, you know, went to a Black Republican meeting last night, and met Stephen there. They came out in Tom's buggy to the Russells', and Tom got into his clothes first and rode over. Stephen was to have followed on Puss Russell's horse. But he never got here. At least I can find no one who saw him. Did you, Jinny?”
But Virginia did not raise her eyes from her plate. A miraculous intervention came through Mrs. Brinsmade.
“There might have been an accident, Jack,” said that lady, with concern. “Send Nicodemus over to Mrs. Russell's at once to inquire. You know that Mr. Brice is a Northerner, and may not be able to ride.”
Jack laughed.
“He rides like a dragoon, mother,” said he. “I don't know where he picked it up.”
“The reason I mentioned him,” said Mr. Brinsmade, lifting the blanket sheet and adjusting his spectacles, “was because his name caught my eye in this paper. His speech last night at the Library Hall is one of the few sensible Republican speeches I have read. I think it very remarkable for a man as young as he.” Mr. Brinsmade began to read: “'While waiting for the speaker of the evening, who was half an hour late, Mr. Tiefel rose in the audience and called loudly for Mr. Brice. Many citizens in the hall were astonished at the cheering which followed the mention of this name. Mr. Brice is a young lawyer with a quiet manner and a determined face, who has sacrificed much to the Party's cause this summer. He was introduced by Judge Whipple, in whose office he is. He had hardly begun to speak before he had the ear of everyone in the house. Mr. Brice's personality is prepossessing, his words are spoken sharply, and he has a singular emphasis at times which seems to drive his arguments into the minds of his hearers. We venture to say that if party orators here and elsewhere were as logical and temperate as Mr. Brice; if, like him, they appealed to reason rather than to passion, those bitter and lamentable differences which threaten our country's peace might be amicably adjusted.' Let me read what he said.”
But he was interrupted by the rising of Virginia. A high color was on the girl's face as she said:
“Please excuse me, Mrs. Brinsmade, I must go and get ready.”
“But you've eaten nothing, my dear.”
Virginia did not reply. She was already on the stairs.
“You ought not have read that, Pa,” Mr. Jack remonstrated; “you know that she detests Yankees.”
CHAPTER XIV. THE BREACH BECOMES TOO WIDE ABRAHAM LINCOLN!
At the foot of Breed's Hill in Charlestown an American had been born into the world, by the might of whose genius that fateful name was sped to the uttermost parts of the nation. Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States. And the moan of the storm gathering in the South grew suddenly loud and louder.
Stephen Brice read the news in the black headlines and laid down the newspaper, a sense of the miraculous upon him. There again was the angled, low-celled room of the country tavern, reeking with food and lamps and perspiration; for a central figure the man of surpassing homeliness,—coatless, tieless, and vestless,—telling a story in the vernacular. He reflected that it might well seem strange yea, and intolerable—to many that this comedian of the country store, this crude lawyer and politician, should inherit the seat dignified by Washington and the Adamses.
And yet Stephen believed. For to him had been vouchsafed the glimpse beyond.
That was a dark winter that followed, the darkest in our history. Gloom and despondency came fast upon the heels of Republican exultation. Men rose early for tidings from Charleston, the storm centre. The Union was cracking here and there. Would it crumble in pieces before Abraham Lincoln got to Washington?
One smoky morning early in December Stephen arrived late at the office to find Richter sitting idle on his stool, concern graven on his face.
“The Judge has had no breakfast, Stephen,” he whispered. “Listen! Shadrach tells me he has been doing that since six this morning, when he got his newspaper.”
Stephen listened, and he heard the Judge pacing and pacing in his room. Presently the door was flung open, And they saw Mr. Whipple standing in the threshold, stern and dishevelled. Astonishment did not pause here. He came out and sat down in Stephen's chair, striking the newspaper in his hand, and they feared at first that his Mind had wandered.
“Propitiate!” he cried, “propitiate, propitiate, and again propitiate. How long, O Lord?” Suddenly he turned upon Stephen, who was frightened. But now his voice was natural, and he thrust the paper into the young man's lap. “Have you read the President's message to Congress, sir? God help me that I am spared to call that wobbling Buchanan President. Read it. Read it, sir. You have a legal brain. Perhaps you can tell me why, if a man admits that it is wrong for a state to abandon this Union, he cannot call upon Congress for men and money to bring her back. No, this weakling lets Floyd stock the Southern arsenals. He pays tribute to Barbary. He is for bribing them not to be angry. Take Cuba from Spain, says he, and steal the rest of Mexico that the maw of slavery may be filled, and the demon propitiated.”
They dared not answer him. And so he went back into his room, shutting the door. That day no clients saw him, even those poor ones dependent on his charity whom had never before denied. Richter and Stephen took counsel together, and sent Shadrach out for his dinner.
Three weeks passed. There arrived a sparkling Sunday, brought down the valley of the Missouri from the frozen northwest. The Saturday had been soggy and warm.
Thursday had seen South Carolina leave that Union into which she was born, amid prayers and the ringing of bells. Tuesday was to be Christmas day. A young lady, who had listened to a solemn sermon of Dr. Posthelwaite's, slipped out of Church before the prayers were ended, and hurried into that deserted portion of the town about the Court House where on week days business held its sway.
She stopped once at the bottom of the grimy flight of steps leading to Judge Whipple's office. At the top she paused again, and for a short space stood alert, her glance resting on the little table in the corner, on top of which a few thumbed law books lay neatly piled. Once she made a hesitating step in this direction. Then, as if by a resolution quickly taken, she turned her back and softly opened the door of the Judge's room. He was sitting upright in his chair. A book was open in his lap, but it did not seem to Virginia that he was reading it.
“Uncle Silas,” she said, “aren't you coming to dinner any more?”
He looked up swiftly from under his shaggy brows. The book fell to the floor.
“Uncle Silas,” said Virginia, bravely, “I came to get you to-day.”
Never before had she known him to turn away from man or woman, but now Judge Whipple drew his handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose violently. A woman's intuition told her that locked tight in his heart was what he longed to say, and could not. The shiny black overcoat he wore was on the bed. Virginia picked it up and held it out to him, an appeal in her eyes.
He got into it. Then she handed him his hat. Many people walking home from church that morning marvelled as they saw these two on Locust Street together, the young girl supporting the elderly man over the slippery places at the crossings. For neighbor had begun to look coldly upon neighbor.
Colonel Carvel beheld them from his armchair by the sitting-room window, and leaned forward with a start. His lips moved as he closed his Bible reverently and marked his place. At the foot of the stairs he surprised Jackson by waving him aside, for the Colonel himself flung open the door and held out his hand to his friend. The Judge released Virginia's arm, and his own trembled as he gave it.
“Silas,” said the Colonel, “Silas, we've missed you.”
Virginia stood by, smiling, but her breath came deeply. Had she done right? Could any good come of it all? Judge Whipple did not go in at the door—He stood uncompromisingly planted on the threshold, his head flung back, and actual fierceness in his stare.
“Do you guess we can keep off the subject, Comyn?” he demanded.
Even Mr. Carvel, so used to the Judge's ways, was a bit taken aback by this question. It set him tugging at his goatee, and his voice was not quite steady as he answered:
“God knows, Silas. We are human, and we can only try.”
Then Mr. Whipple marched in. It lacked a quarter of an hour of dinner,—a crucial period to tax the resources of any woman. Virginia led the talk, but oh, the pathetic lameness of it. Her own mind was wandering when it should not, and recollections she had tried to strangle had sprung up once more. Only that morning in church she had lived over again the scene by Mr. Brinsmade's gate, and it was then that a wayward but resistless impulse to go to the Judge's office had seized her. The thought of the old man lonely and bitter in his room decided her. On her knees she prayed that she might save the bond between him and her father. For the Colonel had been morose on Sundays, and had taken to reading the Bible, a custom he had not had since she was a child.
In the dining-room Jackson, bowing and smiling, pulled out the Judge's chair, and got his customary curt nod as a reward. Virginia carved.
“Oh, Uncle Silas,” she cried, “I am so glad that we have a wild turkey. And you shall have your side-bone.” The girl carved deftly, feverishly, talking the while, aided by that most kind and accomplished of hosts, her father. In the corner the dreaded skeleton of the subject grinned sardonically. Were they going to be able to keep it off? There was to be no help from Judge Whipple, who sat in grim silence. A man who feels his soul burning is not given to small talk. Virginia alone had ever possessed the power to make him forget.
“Uncle Silas, I am sure there are some things about our trip that we never told you. How we saw Napoleon and his beautiful Empress driving in the Bois, and how Eugenie smiled and bowed at the people. I never saw such enthusiasm in my life. And oh, I learned such a lot of French history. All about Francis the First, and Pa took me to see his chateaus along the Loire. Very few tourists go there. You really ought to have gone with us.”
Take care, Virginia!
“I had other work to do, Jinny,” said the Judge.
Virginia rattled on.
“I told you that we stayed with a real lord in England, didn't I?” said she. “He wasn't half as nice as the Prince. But he had a beautiful house in Surrey, all windows, which was built in Elizabeth's time. They called the architecture Tudor, didn't they, Pa?”
“Yes, dear,” said the Colonel, smiling.
“The Countess was nice to me,” continued the girl, “and took me to garden parties. But Lord Jermyn was always talking politics.”
The Colonel was stroking his goatee.
“Tell Silas about the house, Jinny—Jackson, help the Judge again.”
“No,” said Virginia, drawing a breath. “I'm going to tell him about that queer club where my great-grand-father used to bet with Charles Fox. We saw a great many places where Richard Carvel had been in England. That was before the Revolution. Uncle Daniel read me some of his memoirs when we were at Calvert House. I know that you would be interested in them, Uncle Silas. He sailed under Paul Jones.”
“And fought for his country and for his flag, Virginia,” said the Judge, who had scarcely spoken until then. “No, I could not bear to read them now, when those who should love that country are leaving it in passion.”
There was a heavy silence. Virginia did not dare to look at her father. But the Colonel said, gently:
“Not in passion, Silas, but in sorrow.”
The Judge tightened his lips. But the effort was beyond him, and the flood within him broke loose.
“Colonel Carvel,” he cried, “South Carolina is mad—She is departing in sin, in order that a fiendish practice may be perpetuated. If her people stopped to think they would know that slavery cannot exist except by means of this Union. But let this milksop of a President do his worst. We have chosen a man who has the strength to say, 'You shall not go!'”
It was an awful moment. The saving grace of it was that respect and love for her father filled Virginia's heart. In his just anger Colonel Carvel remembered that he was the host, and strove to think only of his affection for his old friend.
“To invade a sovereign state, sir, is a crime against the sacred spirit of this government,” he said.
“There is no such thing as a sovereign state, sir,” exclaimed the Judge, hotly. “I am an American, and not a Missourian.”
“When the time comes, sir,” said the Colonel, with dignity, “Missouri will join with her sister sovereign states against oppression.”
“Missouri will not secede, sir.”
“Why not, sir!” demanded the Colonel.
“Because, sir, when the worst comes, the Soothing Syrup men will rally for the Union. And there are enough loyal people here to keep her straight.”
“Dutchmen, sir! Hessians? Foreign Republican hirelings, sir,” exclaimed the Colonel, standing up. “We shall drive them like sheep if they oppose us. You are drilling them now that they may murder your own blood when you think the time is ripe.”
The Colonel did not hear Virginia leave the room, so softly had she gone, He made a grand figure of a man as he stood up, straight and tall, those gray eyes a-kindle at last. But the fire died as quickly as it had flared. Pity had come and quenched it,—pity that an unselfish life of suffering and loneliness should be crowned with these. The Colonel longed then to clasp his friend in his arms. Quarrels they had had by the hundred, never yet a misunderstanding. God had given to Silas Whipple a nature stern and harsh that repelled all save the charitable few whose gift it was to see below the surface, and Colonel Carvel had been the chief of them. But now the Judge's vision was clouded.
Steadying himself by his chair, he had risen glaring, the loose skin twitching on his sallow face. He began firmly but his voice shook ere he had finished.
“Colonel Carvel,” said he, “I expect that the day has come when you go your way and I go mine. It will be better if—we do not meet again, sir.”
And so he turned from the man whose friendship had stayed him for the score of years he had battled with his enemies, from that house which had been for so long his only home. For the last time Jackson came forward to help him with his coat. The Judge did not see him, nor did he see the tearful face of a young girl leaning over the banisters above. Ice was on the stones. And Mr. Whipple, blinded by a moisture strange to his eyes, clung to the iron railing as he felt his way down the steps. Before he reached the bottom a stronger arm had seize his own, and was helping him.
The Judge brushed his eyes with his sleeve, and turned a defiant face upon Captain Elijah Brent—then his voice broke. His anger was suddenly gone, and his thought had flown back to the Colonel's thousand charities.
“Lige,” he said, “Lige, it has come.”
In answer the Captain pressed the Judge's hand, nodding vigorously to hide his rising emotion. There was a pause.
“And you, Lige?” said Mr. Whipple, presently.
“My God!” cried the Captain, “I wish I knew.”
“Lige,” said the Judge, gravely, “you're too good a man to be for Soothing Syrup.”
The Captain choked.
“You're too smart to be fooled, Lige,” he said, with a note near to pleading. “The time has come when you Bell people and the Douglas people have got to decide. Never in my life did I know it to do good to dodge a question. We've got to be white or black, Lige. Nobody's got much use for the grays. And don't let yourself be fooled with Constitutional Union Meetings, and compromises. The time is almost here, Lige, when it will take a rascal to steer a middle course.”
Captain Lige listened, and he shifted from one foot to the other, and rubbed his hands, which were red. Some odd trick of the mind had put into his head two people—Eliphalet Hopper and Jacob Cluyme. Was he like them?
“Lige, you've got to decide. Do you love your country, sir? Can you look on while our own states defy us, and not lift a hand? Can you sit still while the Governor and all the secessionists in this state are plotting to take Missouri, too, out of the Union? The militia is riddled with rebels, and the rest are forming companies of minute men.”
“And you Black Republicans,” the Captain cried “have organized your Dutch Wideawakes, and are arming them to resist Americans born.”
“They are Americans by our Constitution, sir, which the South pretends to revere,” cried the Judge. “And they are showing themselves better Americans than many who have been on the soil for generations.”
“My sympathies are with the South,” said the Captain, doggedly, “and my love is for the South.”
“And your conscience?” said the Judge.
There was no answer. Both men raised their eyes to the house of him whose loving hospitality had been a light in the lives of both. When at last the Captain spoke, his voice was rent with feeling.
“Judge,” he began, “when I was a poor young man on the old 'Vicksburg', second officer under old Stetson, Colonel Carvel used to take me up to his house on Fourth Street to dinner. And he gave me the clothes on my back, so that I might not be ashamed before the fashion which came there. He treated me like a son, sir. One day the sheriff sold the Vicksburg. You remember it. That left me high and dry in the mud. Who bought her, sir? Colonel Carvel. And he says to me, 'Lige, you're captain now, the youngest captain on the river. And she's your boat. You can pay me principal and interest when you get ready.'
“Judge Whipple, I never had any other home than right in, this house. I never had any other pleasure than bringing Jinny presents, and tryin' to show 'em gratitude. He took me into his house and cared for me at a time when I wanted to go to the devil along with the stevedores when I was a wanderer he kept me out of the streets, and out of temptation. Judge, I'd a heap rather go down and jump off the stern of my boat than step in here and tell him I'd fight for the North.”
The Judge steadied himself on his hickory stick and walked off without a word. For a while Captain Lige stood staring after him. Then he slowly climbed the steps and disappeared.