I AM TREATED TO A SURPRISE
The rain was falling dismally as the coach in which I had made the
journey rolled up the drive to Riverview, and I caught but a glimpse of
the house as I was rushed up the steps and into the wide hall. A lady
dressed in a loose green gown was seated in an easy-chair before the open
fire, and she did not rise as I entered, doubtless because her lap was
full of knitting.
"Gracious, how wet the child is!" she cried, looking me over critically.
"Take him to his room, Sally, and see that he has a bath and change of
clothing. I'm sure he needs both."
I turned away without a word and followed the negro maid. Of course the
lady thought me a surly boor, but my heart was burning, for I had hoped
for a different welcome. As I passed along the hall and up the broad
staircase, the thought came to me that all of this would one day be mine,
should I choose to claim it, and then, with crimson cheeks, I put the
thought from me, as unworthy of my mother's son.
But my room looked very warm and cheerful even on this chilly day, and
from the window I could see broad fields of new-planted tobacco, and
beyond them the yellow road and then the river. I stood long looking out
at it and wondering what my life here had in store. Half an hour later,
word came from my grandfather that he wished to see me, and the same maid
led me down the stairs and to his study, I stumbling along beside her
with a madly beating heart. As I crossed the lower hall, I heard a burst
of childish laughter, and saw a boy and girl, both younger than myself,
playing near the chair where the lady sat. I looked at them with
interest, but the sight of me seemed to freeze the laughter on their
faces, and they gazed with staring eyes until I turned the corner and was
out of sight. But I had little time to wonder at this astonishing
behavior, for in a moment I was in my grandfather's office.
He was seated at a great table, and had apparently been going over some
accounts, for the board in front of him was littered with books and
papers. I saw, even beneath the disguise of his red face and white hair,
his strong resemblance to my father, and my heart went out to him on the
instant. For I had loved my father, despite the wild behavior which
marred his later clays. Indeed, I always think of him during that time as
suffering with a grievous malady, of which he could not rid himself, and
which ate his heart out all the faster because he saw how great was the
anguish it caused the woman he loved. That it was some such disease I am
quite certain, so different was his naturally strong and sunny
disposition.
My grandfather gazed at me some moments without speaking, as I stood
there, longing to throw myself into his arms, and all the misery of the
years that followed might never have been, had I buried my pride and
followed the dictates of my heart. But I waited for him to speak, and the
moment passed.
"So this is Tom's boy," he said at last. "My God, how like he is!"
He fell silent for a moment,--silenced, no doubt, by bitter memories.
"You wonder, perhaps," he said in a sterner tone, "why I have sent for
you; but I could do no less. The letter from your pastor which announced
the deaths of your father and your mother brought me the tidings also
that your mother's fortune had been diced away down to the last penny,
and that even the negroes must be sold to satisfy the claims against it.
However undutiful your father may have been, I could not permit his son
to become a charge upon the poor funds."
I felt my cheeks flushing, but I judged it best to choke back the words
which trembled on my lips.
"I can read your thought," said my grandfather quickly. "You are
thinking that the heir of Riverview could hardly be called a pauper. Do
not forget that your father forfeited his claim to the estate by his
ungentlemanly conduct."
"I shall not forget it," I burst out. "My father made sure that I should
never forget it. I shall never claim the estate. And my father's conduct
was never ungentlemanly."
"As you will," said my grandfather scornfully. "I am not apt at
mincing words. I told him one thing many years ago which I should have
thought he would remember, and which I now repeat to you. I told him
that a gentleman ceased to be a gentleman when once he gambled beyond
his means."
I waited to hear no more, but with crimson cheeks and head in air, I
turned on my heel and started for the door.
"Damn my stars, sir!" he roared. "Wait to hear me out."
But I would not wait. After a moment's struggle with the latch, I had the
door open and marched straight to my room. Once inside, I bolted the
door, and throwing myself on the floor, sobbed myself to sleep.
What need to detail further? There were a hundred such scenes between us
in the four years that followed, and as I look back upon them now, I
realize that through it all I, too, showed my full share of Stewart
obstinacy and temper. I more than suspect that my grandfather in his most
violent outbursts was inwardly trembling with tenderness for me, as was I
for him, and that a single gentle word, spoken at the right time, would
have brought us into each other's arms. And I realize too late that it
was for me, and not for him, to speak that word. It was only when I saw
him lying in his bed, stricken with paralysis, bereft of the power of
speech or movement, that I knew how great my love for him had been. His
eyes, as they met mine on that last day, had in them infinite tenderness
and pleading, and my heart melted as I bent and kissed his lips. He
struggled to speak, and the sweat broke from his forehead at the effort,
but what he would have said I can only guess, for he died that night,
without the iron bands which held him fast loosening for an instant. Yet
I love to fancy that his last words, could he have spoken them, would
have been words of love and forgiveness, for my father as well as for
myself, and such, I am sure, they would have been. With him there passed
away the only one at Riverview whom I had grown to love.
And now a word about the others among whom I passed the second period of
my boyhood. My father's younger brother, James, had married seven or
eight years before a lady whose estate adjoined Riverview,--Mrs.
Constance Randolph, a widow some years older than himself. She had one
child living, a daughter, Dorothy, who, at the time I came to Riverview,
was a girl of nine, and a year after her second marriage she bore a son,
who was named James, much against the wishes of his mother. She would
have called him Thomas, a name which had for five generations been that
of the head of the house. But this my grandfather would by no means
allow, and so the child was christened after his father. I think that
ever since the day she had entered the Stewart family, my aunt had
thought me a spectre across her path, for she was an ambitious woman and
wished the whole estate for her son,--in which I do not greatly blame
her. But she had brooded over her fear until it had become a phantom
which haunted her unceasingly, and she had come to deem me a kind of
monster, who stood between her boy and his inheritance. Her second
husband died three years after their marriage,--he was drowned one day in
January while crossing the river on the ice, which gave way under
him,--and after that she became the mistress of Riverview in earnest,
ruling my grandfather with a rod of iron, for though bold enough with
men, and especially with the men of his own family, he would succumb in a
moment to a woman's shrewish temper.
Only twice had he revolted against her rule. The first time was when she
had announced her intention of naming her boy Thomas, as I have already
mentioned. The second was when he decided to summon me to Riverview. This
she had opposed with all her might, but he had persisted, and finally
ended the argument by putting her from the room,--doubtless with great
inward trepidation. So I came to be a phantom in the flesh, and do not
wonder that she hated me, so sour will the human heart become which
broods forever on its selfishness. Her children she kept from me as from
the plague, and during the years preceding my grandfather's death, I had
almost no communication with them. He required, however, that every
respect be shown me, placed me on his right at table,--how often have I
looked up from my plate to find his eyes upon me,--selected half a dozen
negroes to be my especial servants, engaged the Rev. James Scott, pastor
of the Quantico church, as my tutor, and even ordered for me an elaborate
wardrobe from his factor in London.
Mr. Scott was a man of parts, and under him I gained some knowledge of
Latin, Greek, and mathematics. Certainly I made more progress than I
should have done under different circumstances, for finding myself
without companions or other occupation, I applied myself to my books for
want of something better. My grandfather possessed above a hundred
volumes, and when he saw how my bent lay, he ordered others for me, so
that his library came to be one of the largest on the Northern Neck,
though but indifferently selected. Absorbed in these books, I managed to
forget the disorder of my circumstances.
The remainder of my time I spent in riding along the river road on the
mare my grandfather had given me, or wandering over the estate and in and
out among the negro cabins. To the negroes I was always "Mas' Tom," and I
am proud to remember that I made many friends among them, treating them
always with justice and sometimes with mercy, as, indeed, I try yet to
do. Once I came suddenly upon old Gump, the major-domo of the house
servants, preparing to give a little pickaninny a thrashing, and I
stopped to ask what he had done.
"He's done been stealing Mas' Tom," answered Gump. "Ain' goin' t' hab no
t'iefs roun' dis yere house, not if I knows it."
"What did he steal, uncle?" I asked.
"Dis yere whip," said Gump, and he held up an old riding-whip of mine.
I looked at it and hesitated for a moment. Was it worth beating a child
for? The little beady eyes were gazing at me in an agony of supplication.
"Gump," I said, "don't beat him. That's all right. I want him to have
the whip."
Gump stared at me in astonishment.
"What, Mas' Tom," he exclaimed, "you mean dat you gib him de whip?"
"Yes," I said, "I give him the whip, Gump," and luckily the old man could
not distinguish between the past and present tenses of the verb, so that
I was spared a lie. The little thief ran away with the whip in his hand,
and it was long before the incident was recalled to me.
So I returned again to my books, and to the silent but no less active
antagonism toward my aunt. Yet, I would not paint her treatment of me in
too gloomy colors. Doubtless I gave her much just cause for offense, for
I had grown into a surly and quick-tempered boy, with raw places ever
open to her touch. That she loved her children I know well, and her love
for them was at the bottom of her dislike for me. I have learned long
since that there is no heart wholly bad and selfish.
While my grandfather yet lived, I think she had some hope that something
would happen to make me an outcast utterly, but after his death this hope
vanished, and she sent for me one morning to come to her. I found her
seated in the selfsame chair in which I had first seen him, and the
table was still littered with papers and accounts.
"Good-morning, Thomas," she said politely enough, as I entered, and, as I
returned her greeting, motioned me to a chair. She seemed to hesitate at
a beginning, and in the moment of silence that followed, I saw that her
face was growing thinner, and that her hair was streaked with gray.
"I have sent for you, Thomas," she said at last, "to find out what your
intention is with regard to this estate. You know, of course, that your
father forfeited it voluntarily, and that you have no moral claim to it.
Still, the law might sustain your claim, should you choose to assert it."
"I shall not choose to assert it," I answered coldly, and as I spoke, her
face was suffused with sudden joy. "I promised my father never to claim
it,--never to take it unless it were offered to me openly and
freely,--and I intend to keep my promise."
For a moment her emotion prevented her replying, and she pressed one hand
against her breast as though to still the beating of her heart.
"Very well," she said at last. "Your resolution does credit to your
honor, and I will see that you do not regret it. I will undertake the
management of both estates until my son becomes of age. You shall have an
ample allowance. Let me see; how old are you?"
"I am fifteen years old," I answered.
"And have about sounded the depths of Master Scott's learning, I
suppose?" she asked, smiling, the first smile, I think, she had
ever given me.
"He was saying only yesterday that I should soon have to seek
another tutor."
"'T is as I thought. Well, what say you to a course at William and Mary?"
She smiled again as she saw how my cheeks flushed.
"I should like it above all things," I answered earnestly, and, indeed, I
had often thought of it with longing, so lonely was my life at Riverview.
"It shall be done," she said. "The year opens in a fortnight's time, and
you must be there at the beginning."
I thanked her and left the room, and ran to my tutor, who had arrived
some time before, to acquaint him with my good fortune. He was no less
pleased than I, and forthwith wrote me a letter to Dr. Thomas Dawson,
president of the college, commending me to his good offices. So, in due
course, I rode away from Riverview, not regretting it, nor, I dare say,
regretted. In truth, I had no reason to love the place, nor had any
within it reason to love me.
Of my life at college, little need be said. Indeed, I have small reason
to be proud of it, for, reacting against earlier years, perhaps, I
cultivated the Apollo room at the Raleigh rather than my books, and
toasted the leaden bust of Sir Walter more times than I care to remember.
Yet I never forgot that I was a gentleman, thank God! And previous years
of study brought me through with some little honor despite my present
carelessness. I had a liberal allowance, and elected to spend my
vacations at Williamsburg or at Norfolk, or coasting up the Chesapeake as
far as Baltimore, and did not once return to Riverview, where I knew I
should get cold welcome. In fact, I was left to do pretty much as I
pleased, my aunt being greatly occupied with the care of the estate, and
doubtless happy to be rid of me so easily. So I entered my eighteenth
year, and the time of my graduation was at hand. And it was then that the
great event happened which changed my whole life by giving me something
to live for.
It was the custom for the first class, the year of its graduation, to
attend the second of the grand assemblies given by the governor while the
House of Burgesses was in session, and we had been looking forward to the
event with no small anticipation. Many of us, myself among the number,
had ordered suits from London for the occasion, and I thought that I
looked uncommon well as I arrayed myself that night before the glass.
Such is the vanity of youth, for I have since been assured many times by
one who saw me that I was a very ordinary looking fellow. Half a dozen of
us, the better to gather courage, went down Duke of Gloucester Street arm
in arm toward the governor's palace with its great lantern alight to
honor the occasion, and mounted the steps together,--our trifling over
our toilets had made us late,--and as we entered the high doorway, did
our best to look as though a great assembly was an every-day event to us.
A moment later, I saw a sight which took my breath away.
It was only a girl of seventeen--but such a girl! Can I describe her as I
close my eyes and see her again before me? No, I cannot trust my pen, nor
would any such description do her justice; for her charm lay not in
beauty only, but in a certain rare, sweet girlishness, which seemed to
form a nimbus round her. Yet was her beauty worth remarking, too; and I
have loved to think that, while others saw that only, I, looking with
more perceptive eyes, saw more truly to her heart. I did not reason all
this out at the first; I only stood and stared at her amazed, until some
one knocking against me brought me to my senses. There were a dozen men
about her, and one of these I saw with delight was Dr. Price, our
registrar at the college, a benign old man, who could deny me nothing. I
waited with scarce concealed impatience until he turned away from the
group, and then I was at his side in an instant.
"Dr. Price," I whispered eagerly, "will you do me the favor of presenting
me to that young lady?"
"Why, bless my soul!" he exclaimed, looking at me over his glasses in
astonishment, "you seem quite excited. Which young lady?"
"The one you have just left," I answered breathlessly.
He looked at me quizzically for a moment, and laughed to himself as
though I had uttered a joke.
"Why, certainly," he said. "Come with me."
I could have kissed his hand in my gratitude, as he turned back toward
the group. I followed a pace behind, and felt that my hands were
trembling. The group opened a little as we approached, and in a moment we
were before her.
"Miss Randolph," said Dr. Price, "here is a young gentleman who has just
begged of me the favor of an introduction. Permit me to present Mr.
Thomas Stewart."
"Why, 'pon my word," cried that young lady, "'t is cousin Tom!" and as I
stood gaping at her like a fool, in helpless bewilderment, she came to me
and gave me her hand with the prettiest grace in the world.