A VALIANT OF VIRGINIA
For a long time John Valiant sat motionless, the opened letter in his
hand, staring at nothing. He had the sensation, spiritually, of a
traveler awakened with a rude shock amid wholly unfamiliar surroundings.
He had passed through so many conflicting states of emotion that
afternoon and evening that he felt numb.
He was trying to remember--to put two and two together. His father had
been Southern-born; yes, he had known that. But he had known nothing
whatever of his father's early days, or of his forebears; since he had
been old enough to wonder about such things, he had had no one to ask
questions of. There had been no private papers or letters left for his
adult perusal. It had been borne upon him very early that his father's
life had not been a happy one. He had seldom laughed, and his hair had
been streaked with gray, yet when he died he had been but ten years
older than the son was now.
Phrases of the letter ran through his mind: "_Sometime, perhaps, you
will know why you are John Valiant of New York instead of John Valiant
of Damory Court.... I can not tell you myself._" There was some tragedy,
then, that had blighted the place, some "melancholy story," as the
clipping put it.
He bent over the deed spread out upon the table, following with his
finger the long line of transfers: "'To John Valyante,'" he muttered;
"what odd spelling! 'Robert Valyant'--without the 'e.' Here, in 1730,
the 'y' begins to be 'i.'" There was something strenuous and appealing
in the long line of dates. "Valiant. Always a Valiant. How they held on
to it! There's never a break."
A curious pride, new-born and self-conscious, was dawning in him. He was
descended from ancestors who had been no weaklings. A Valiant had
settled on those acres under a royal governor, before the old frontier
fighting was over and the Indians had sullenly retired to the westward.
The sons of those who had braved sea and savages had bowed their strong
bodies and their stronger hearts to raze the forests and turn the
primeval jungles into golden plantations. Except as regarded his father,
Valiant had never known ancestral pride before. He had been proud of
his strong and healthy frame, of his ability to ride like a dragoon,
unconsciously, perhaps, a little proud of his wealth. But pride in the
larger sense, reverence for the past based upon a respect for ancient
lineage, he had never known until this moment.
Where was his facetious concept of Virginia now? He remembered his
characterization of it with a wincing half-humorous mortification--a
slender needle-prick of shame. The empty pretensions, subsisting on
the vanished glories of the past, had suddenly acquired character and
meaning. He himself was a Virginian.
There below him stretched the great canoned city, its avenues roaring
with nightly gaiety, its roadways bright with the beams of shuttling
motors, its theaters and cafes brilliant with women in throbbing hues
and men in black and white, and its "Great White Way" blazing with
incandescents, interminable and alluring--an apotheosis of fevered
movement and hectic color. He knew suddenly that he was sick of it
all: its jostle and glitter, its mad race after bubbles, its hideous
under-surface contrasts of wealth and squalor, its lukewarm friendships
and false standards which he had been so bitterly unlearning. He knew
that, for all his self-pity, he was at heart full of a tired longing for
wide uncrowded nature, for green breezy interludes and a sky of
untainted sunlight or peaceful stars.
There stole into his mood an eery suggestion of intention. Why should
the date assigned for that deed's delivery have been the very day on
which he had elected poverty? Here was a foreordination as pointed as
the index-finger of a guide-post. "'Every man carries his fate,'" he
repeated, "'on a riband about his neck.' Chum, do you believe in fate?"
For answer the bulldog, cocking an alert eye on his master, discontinued
his occupation--a conscientious if unsuccessful mastication of the
flattish packet that had fallen from the folded deed--and with much
solicitous tail-wagging, brought the sodden thing in his mouth and put
it into the outstretched hand.
His master unrolled the pulpy wad and extricated the object it had
enclosed--an old-fashioned iron door-key.
* * * * *
After a time Valiant thrust the key into his pocket, and rising, went to
a trunk that lay against the wall. Searching in a portfolio, he took out
a small old-fashioned photograph, much battered and soiled. It had been
cut from a larger group and the name of the photographer had been erased
from the back. He set it upright on the desk, and bending forward,
looked long at the face it disclosed. It was the only picture he had
ever possessed of his father.
He turned and looked into the glass above the dresser. The features
were the same, eyes, brow, lips, and strong waving hair. But for its
time-stains the photograph might have been one of himself, taken
yesterday.
For an hour he sat in the bright light thinking, the pictured face
propped on the desk before him, the dog snuggled against his knee.