A VIRGINIAN RUNNYMEDE
"June in Virginia is something to remember."
To-day the master of Damory Court deemed this a true saying. For the air
was like wine, and the drifting white wings of cloud, piled above the
amethystine ramparts of the far Blue Ridge, looked down upon a violet
world bound in green and silver.
In his bedroom Valiant stood looking into the depths of an ancient
wardrobe. Presently he took from a hook a suit of white flannel in which
he arrayed himself. Over his soft shirt he knotted a pale gray scarf.
The modish white suit and the rolling Panama threw out in fine contrast
the keen sun-tanned face and dark brown eyes.
In the hall below he looked about him with satisfaction. For the last
three days he had labored tirelessly to fit the place for the evening's
event. The parlor now showed walls rimmed with straight-back chairs and
the grand piano--long ago put in order--had been relegated to the
library. That instinct for the artistic, which had made him a last
resort in the vexing problems of club entertainments, had aided him in
the Court's adornment. Thick branches of holly, axed from the hollows
by Uncle Jefferson, lined the balustrade of the stairway, the burnished
green of ivy leaves was twined with the prisms of the chandelier in the
big yellow-hung parlor, and bands of twisted laurel were festooned along
the upper walls. The massed green was a setting for a prodigal use of
flowers. Everywhere wild blossoms showed their spreading clusters, and
he had searched every corner of the estate, even climbing the ragged
forest slope, to the tawdry edge of Hell's Half-Acre, to plunder each
covert of its hidden blooms.
He had intended at first to use only the wild flowers, but that morning
Ranston had arrived from Rosewood with a load of red roses that had made
him gasp with delight. Now these painted the whole a splendid riotous
crimson. They stood banked in windows and fireplaces. Great clumps
nodded from shadowed corners and a veritable bower of them waited for
the musicians at the end of the hall. Through the whole house wreathed
the sweet rose-scent, mingled with the frailer fragrance of the
wildings. John Valiant drew a single great red beauty from its brethren
and fastened it in his button-hole.
Out in the kitchens Cassandra's egg-beating clattered like a watchman's
rattle, while Aunt Daphne put the finishing touches to an array of
lighter edibles destined to grace the long table on the rear porch, now
walled in with snow-white muslin and hung with candle-lusters. Under the
trees Uncle Jefferson was even then experimenting with various punch
compounds, and a delicious aroma of vanilla came to Valiant's nostrils
together with Aunt Daphne's wrathful voice:
"Heah, yo' Greenie Simms! Whah yo' gwine?"
"Ain' gwine nowhah. Ah's done been whah Ah's gwine."
"Yo' set down dat o'ange er Ah'll smack yo' bardaciously ovah! Ef yo'
_steals_, what gwineter become ob yo' _soul_?"
"Don' know nuffin' 'bout mah soul," responded the ebony materialist.
"But Ah knows Ah got er body, 'cause Ah buttons et up e'vy day, en Ah
lakes et plump."
"Yo' go back en wuk fo' yo' quahtah yankin' on dat ar ice-cream
freezah," decreed Aunt Daphne exasperatedly, "er yo' don' git er _smell_
ter-night. Yo' heah dat!"
The threat proved efficacious, for Greenie, muttering sullenly that she
"didn' nebbah feel no sky-lark in de ebenin'," returned to her labors.
* * * * *
The Red Road, as Valiant's car passed, was dotted with straggling
pedestrians: humble country folk who trudged along the grassy foot-path
with no sullen regard for the swift cars and comfortable carriages that
left them behind; sturdy barefooted children who called shrilly after
him, and happy-go-lucky negro youths clad in their best with Sunday
shoes dangling over their shoulders, slouching regardlessly in the
dust--all bound for the same Mecca, which presently rose before him, a
gateway of painted canvas proclaiming the field to which it opened
Runnymede.
This was a spacious level meadow into which debouched the ravine on
whose rim he had stood with Shirley on that unforgettable day. But its
stake-and-ridered fence enclosed now no mere stretch of ill-kept sward.
Busy scythes, rollers and grass-cutters from the Country Club had
smoothed and shaven a rectangle in its center till it lay like a carpet
of crushed green velvet, set in an expanse of life-everlasting and pale
budding goldenrod.
He halted his car at the end of the field and snapped a leash in the
bulldog's collar. "I hate to do it, old man," he said apologetically to
Chum's reproachful look, "but I've got to. There are to be some stunts,
and in such occasions you're apt to be convinced you're the main one of
the contestants, which might cause a mix-up. Never mind; I'll anchor you
where you won't miss anything."
With the excited dog tugging before him, he threaded his way through the
press with keen exhilaration. This was not a crowd like that of a city;
rather it resembled the old-homestead day of some unbelievably populous
family, at reunion with its servants and retainers. All its members
knew one another and the air was musical with badinage. Now and then
his gloved hand touched his cap at a salutation. He was conscious of
swift bird-like glances from pretty girls. Here was none of the rigid
straight-ahead gaze or vacant stare of the city boulevard; the eyes that
looked at him, frankly curious and inquiring, were full of easy open
comradeship. There was about both men and women an air of being at the
same time more ceremonious and more casual than those he had known. Some
of the girls wore gowns and hats that might that morning have issued
from the Rue de la Paix; others were habited in cheap materials. But
about the latter hung no benumbing self-consciousness. All bore
themselves alike. And all seemed to possess musical voices, graceful
movements and a sense of quiet dignity. He was beginning to realize that
there might really exist straitened circumstances, even actual poverty,
which yet created no sort of social difference.
Opposite the canvas-covered grand stand sat twelve small mushroom tents,
each with a staff and tiny flag. Midway lines of flaxen ropes stretched
between rows of slender peeled saplings from whose tops floated fanged
streamers of vivid bunting. A pavilion of purple cloth, open at the
sides, awaited the committee, and near the center, a negro band was
disposed on camp-stools, the brass of the waiting instruments winking
in the sunlight. The stand was a confused glow of color, of light gauzy
dresses, of young girls in pastel muslins with flowers in their belts,
picturesque hats and slender articulate hands darting in vivacious
gestures like white swallows--the gentry from the "big houses." About
the square babbled and palpitated the crowd of the farm-wagon and
carry-all; and at the lower end, jostling, laughing and skylarking
beyond the barrier, a picturesque block of negroes, picked out by
flashing white teeth, red bandannas folded above wrinkled countenances
and garish knots of ribbon flaunting above the pert yellow faces of a
younger mulatto race.
The light athletic figure, towed by the white bulldog, drew many
glances. Valiant's eyes, however, as they swept the seats, were
looking for but one, and at first vainly. He felt a quick pang of
disappointment. Perhaps she would not come! Perhaps her mother was still
ill. Perhaps--but then suddenly his heart beat high, for he saw her in
the lower tier, with a group of young people. He could not have told
what she wore, save that it was of soft Murillo blue with a hat whose
down-curved brim was wound with a shaded plume of the same tint. Her
mother was not with her. She was not looking his way as he passed--her
arms at the moment being held out in an adorable gesture toward a little
child in a smiling matron's lap--and but a single glance was vouchsafed
him before the major seized upon him and bore him to the purple
pavilion, for he was one of the committee.
But for this distraction, he might have seen, entering the stand with
the Chalmers just as the band struck up a delirious whirl of _Dixie_,
the two strangers whom the doctor had observed an hour before as they
whirled by the Merryweather Mason house behind the judge's grays. Silas
Fargo might have passed in any gathering for the unobtrusive city man.
Katharine was noticeable anywhere, and to-day her tall willowy figure in
its champagne-color lingerie gown and hat garnished with bronze and gold
thistles, setting in relief her ivory statuesque face, drew a wave of
whispered comment which left a sibilant wake behind them. The party
made a picturesque group as they now disposed themselves, Katharine's
colorless loveliness contrasting with the eager sparkle of pretty Nancy
Chalmers and the gipsy-like beauty of Betty Page.
"You call it a tournament, don't you?" asked Katharine of the judge.
"Yes," he replied. "It's a kind of contest in which twelve riders
compete for the privilege of naming a Queen of Beauty. There's a ball
to-night, at which the lucky lady is crowned. Those little tents are
where the noble knights don their shining armor. See, there go their
caparisoned chargers."
A file of negroes was approaching the tents, each leading a horse whose
saddle and bridle were decorated with fringes of various hues. In the
center of the roped lists, directly in front of the stand, others were
planting upright in the ground a tall pole from whose top projected a
horizontal arm like a slender gallows. From this was suspended a cord at
whose end swung a tiny object that whirled and glittered in the sun.
The judge explained. "On the end of the cord is a silver ring, at which
the knights tilt with lances. Twelve rings are used. The pike-points are
made to fit them, and the knight who carries off the greatest number of
the twelve is the victor. The whole thing is a custom as ancient as
Virginia--a relic, of course, of the old jousting of the feudal ages.
The ring is supposed to represent the device on the boss of the shield,
at which the lance-thrust was aimed."
"How interesting!" exclaimed Katharine, and turning, swept the stand
with her lorgnette. "I suppose all the county's F. F. V's. are here,"
she said laughingly to Nancy Chalmers. "I've often wondered, by the way,
what became of the Second Families of Virginia."
"Oh, they've mostly emigrated North," answered Nancy. "The ones that are
left are all ancient. There are families here that don't admit they ever
began at all."
Silas Fargo shook his stooped shoulders with laughter. "Up North," he
said genially, "we've got regular factories that turn out ready-made
family-trees for anybody who wants to roost in one."
Betty Page turned her piquant brown face toward him reflectively. "Ah
do think you No'therners are wonderful," she said in her languorous
Carolinian, "at being just what you want to be! Ah met a No'thern
gyrl once at White Sulphur Springs who said such clever things, and
Ah asked her, 'How did you ever learn to talk like you do?' What do
you reckon the gyrl said? She said she had to be clever because
her nose was so big. She tried wearing tricky little hats and a
follow-me-in-the-twilight expression, but it made her seem ridiculous,
so she finally thought of brains and epigrams, and took to reading
Bernard Shaw and Walter Pater, and it worked fine. She said trouble
suited her profile, and she'd discovered people looked twice at sad
eyes, so she'd cultivated a pensive look for yeahs. Ah think that was
mighty bright! Down South we're too lazy to work over ourselves that
way."
* * * * *
And now over the fluttering stand and the crowd about the barriers, a
stir was discernible. Katharine looked again at the field. "Who is that
splendid big old man giving directions? The one who looks like a lion.
He's coming this way now."
"That's Major Montague Bristow," said the judge. "He's been master of
the heralds for years. The tournament could hardly happen without the
major."
"I'm sure I'd like him," she answered. "What a lovely girl he is talking
to!"
It was Shirley who had beckoned the major from the lists. She was
leaning over the railing. "Why has Ridgeley Pendleton left?" she asked
in a low voice. "Isn't he one of the twelve?"
"He was. But he's ill. He wasn't feeling up to it when he came, but
he didn't give up till half an hour ago. We'll have to get along with
eleven knights."
She made an exclamation of dismay. "Poor Ridge! And what a pity! There
have never been less than the full number. It will spoil the royal
quadrille to-night, too. Why doesn't the committee choose some one in
his place?"
"Too late. Besides, he would have no costume."
"Surely that's not so important as filling the Round Table?"
"It's too bad. But I'm afraid it can't be helped."
She bent still closer. "Listen. Why not ask Mr. Valiant? He is our host
to-night. I'm sure he'd be glad to help out, even without the costume."
"Egad!" he said, pulling his imperial. "None of us had thought of him.
He could ride Pendleton's mount, of course." He reflected a moment.
"I'll do it. It's exactly the right thing. You're a clever girl,
Shirley."
He hastily crossed the field, while she leaned back, her eyes on the
flanneled figure--long since recognized--under the purple pavilion. She
saw the committee put their heads together and hurriedly enter.
In the moment's wait, Shirley's gloved fingers clasped and unclasped
somewhat nervously. The riders had been chosen long before John
Valiant's coming. If a saddle, however, was perforce to be vacant, what
more appropriate than that he should fill it? The thought had come to
her instantly, bred of an underlying regret, which she had all along
cherished, that he was not to take part. But beneath this was a deeper
passionate wish that she did not attempt to analyze, to see him assume
his place with others long habituated to that closed circle--a place
rightfully his by reason of birth and name--and to lighten the gloomy
shadow, that must rest on his thoughts of his father, with warmer
sunnier things. She heaved a secret sigh of satisfaction as the
white-clad figure rose in acquiescence.
The major returned to the grand stand and held up his hand for silence.
"Our gracious Liege," he proclaimed, in his big vibrant voice, "Queen of
Beauty yet unknown, Lords, Knights and Esquires, Fair Dames and gentles
all! Whereas divers noble persons have enterprized and taken upon them
to hold jousts royal and tourney, you are hereby acquainted that the
lists of Runnymede are about to open for that achievement of arms and
grand and noble tournament for which they have so long been famed. But
an hour since one of our noble knights, pricking hither to tilt for his
lady, was beset by a grievous malady. However, lest our jousting lack
the royal number, a new champion hath at this last hour been found to
fill the Table Round, who of his courtesy doth consent to ride without
armor."
A buzz ran over the assemblage. "It must be Pendleton who has
defaulted," said Judge Chalmers. "I heard this morning he was sick.
Who's the substitute knight, I wonder?"
At the moment a single mounted herald before the tents blew a long blast
on a silver horn. Their flaps parted and eleven knights issued to mount
their steeds and draw into line behind him. They were brilliantly decked
in fleshlings with slashed doublets and plumed chapeaus, and short
jeweled cloaks drooped from their shoulders. Pages handed each a long
lance which was held perpendicular, the butt resting on the right
stirrup.
"Why," cried Katharine, "it's like a bit out of the medieval pageant at
Earl's Court! Where do you get the costumes?"
"Some we make," Judge Chalmers answered, "but a few are the real
thing--so old they have to be patched up anew each year. The ancient
lances have disappeared. The pikes we use now were found in '61, hidden
ready for the negro insurrection, when John Brown should give the
signal."
Under the pavilion, just for the fraction of a second, Valiant
hesitated. Then he turned swiftly to the twelfth tent. Its flag-staff
bore a long streamer of deep blood-red. He snatched this from its place,
flung it about his waist and knotted it sash-wise. He drew the rose from
his lapel and thrust it through the band of his Panama, leaped to the
saddle of the horse the major had beckoned, and with a quick thrust of
his heel, swung to the end of the stamping line.
The field and grand stand had seen the quick decision, with its instant
action, and as the hoofs thudded over the turf, a wave of hand-clapping
ran across the seats like a silver rain. "Neatly done, upon my word!"
said the judge, delighted. "What a daring idea! Who is it? Is it--bless
my soul, it is!"
Katharine Fargo had dropped her lorgnette with an exclamation. She stood
up, her wide eyes fixed on that figure in pure white, with the blood-red
cordon flaunting across his horse's flanks and the single crimson
blossom glowing in his hat.
"The White Knight!" she breathed. "Who is he?"
Judge Chalmers looked round in sudden illumination. "I forgot that you
would be likely to know him," he said. "That is Mr. John Valiant of
Damory Court."