They followed the right hand path, which seemed to be more used than
its fellow. The servants' quarters were disclosed at the far end of the
lot.
Before the tidiest of them, an old negro was sitting on a stool,
dreaming in the sun. At Croyden's appearance, he got up hastily, and
came forward--gray-haired, and bent.
"Survent, seh!" he said, with the remains of what once must have been a
wonderfully graceful bow, and taking in the stranger's attire with a
single glance. "I'se ole Mose. Cun'l Duval's boy--seh, an' I looks
arfter de place, now. De Cun'l he's daid, yo knows, seh. What can I do
fur yo, seh?"
"I'm Mr. Croyden," said Geoffrey.
"Yass, seh! yass, seh!" the darky answered, inquiringly.
It was evident the name conveyed no meaning to him.
"I'm the new owner, you know--since Colonel Duval died," Croyden
explained.
"Hi! yo is!" old Mose exclaimed, with another bow. "Well, praise de
Lawd! I sees yo befo' I dies. So yo's de new marster, is yo? I'm
pow'ful glad yo's come, seh! pow'ful glad. What mout yo name be, seh?"
"Croyden!" replied Geoffrey. "Now, Moses, will you open the house and
let me in?"
"Yo seen Marster Dick?" asked the darky.
"You mean the agent? No! Why do you ask?"
"Coz why, seh--I'm beggin' yo pa'den, seh, but Marster Dick sez, sez
he, 'Don' nuvver lets no buddy in de house, widout a writin' from me.'
I ain' doubtin' yo, seh, 'deed I ain', but I ruther hed de writin'."
"You're perfectly right," Croyden answered. "Here, boy!--do you know
Mr. Dick? Well, go down and tell him that Mr. Croyden is at Clarendon,
and ask him to come out at once. Or, stay, I'll give you a note to
him."
He took a card from his pocketbook, wrote a few lines on it, and gave
it to the negro.
"Yass, seh! Yass, seh!" said the porter, and, dropping the grip where
he stood, he vanished.
Old Mose dusted the stool with his sleeve, and proffered it.
"Set down, seh!" with another bow. "Josh won' be long."
Croyden shook his head.
"I'll lie here," he answered, stretching himself out on the grass. "You
were Colonel Duval's body-servant, you say."
"Yass, seh! from de time I wuz so 'igh. I don' 'member when I warn' he
body-survent. I follows 'im all th'oo de war, seh, an' I wus wid 'im
when he died." Tears were in the darky's eyes. "Hit's purty nigh time
ole Mose gwine too."
"And when he died, you stayed and looked after the old place. That was
the right thing to do," said Croyden. "Didn't Colonel Duval have any
children?"
"No, seh. De Cun'l nuvver married, cuz Miss Penelope----"
He caught himself. "I toles yo 'bout hit some time, seh, mebbe!" he
ended cautiously--talking about family matters with strangers was not
to be considered.
"I should like to hear some time," said Croyden, not seeming to notice
the darky's reticence. "When did the Colonel die?"
"Eight years ago cum corn plantin' time, seh. He jes' wen' right off
quick like, when de mis'ry hit 'im in de chist--numonya, de doctors
call'd it. De Cun'l guv de place to a No'thern gent'man, whar was he
'ticular frien', and I done stay on an' look arfter hit. He nuvver been
heah. Hi! listen to dis nigger! yo's de gent'mans, mebbe."
"I am his son," said Croyden, amused.
"An' yo owns Cla'endon, now, seh? What yo goin' to do wid it?"
"I'm going to live here. Don't you want to look after me?"
"Goin' to live heah!--yo means it, seh?" the darky asked, in great
amazement.
Croyden nodded. "Provided you will stay with me--and if you can find me
a cook. Who cooks your meals?"
"Lawd, seh! find yo a cook. Didn' Jos'phine cook fur de Cun'l all he
life--Jos'phine, she my wife, seh--she jest gone nex' do', 'bout
some'n." He got up--"I calls her, seh."
Croyden stopped him.
"Never mind," he said; "she will be back, presently, and there is ample
time. Any one live in these other cabins?"
"No, seh! we's all wha' left. De udder niggers done gone 'way, sence de
Cun'l died, coz deah war nothin' fur dem to do no mo', an' no buddy to
pays dem.--Dyar is Jos'phine, now, sir, she be hear torectly. An' heah
comes Marster Dick, hisself."
Croyden arose and went toward the front of the house to meet him.
The agent was an elderly man; he wore a black broadcloth suit, shiny at
the elbows and shoulder blades, a stiff white shirt, a wide roomy
collar, bound around by a black string tie, and a broad-brimmed
drab-felt hat. His greeting was as to one he had known all his life.
"How do you do, Mr. Croyden!" he exclaimed. "I'm delighted to make your
acquaintance, sir." He drew out a key and opened the front door.
"Welcome to Clarendon, sir, welcome! Let us hope you will like it
enough to spend a little time here, occasionally."
"I'm sure I too hope so," returned Croyden; "for I am thinking of
making it my home."
"Good! Good! It's an ideal place!" exclaimed the agent. "It's
convenient to Baltimore; and Philadelphia, and New York, and Washington
aren't very far away. Exactly what the city people who can afford it,
are doing now,--making their homes in the country. Hampton's a town,
but it's country to you, sir, when compared to Northumberland--open the
shutters, Mose, so we can see.... This is the library, with the
dining-room behind it, sir--and on the other side of the hall is the
drawing-room. Open it, Mose, we will be over there presently. You see,
sir, it is just as Colonel Duval left it. Your father gave instructions
that nothing should be changed. He was a great friend of the Colonel,
was he not, sir?"
"I believe he was," said Croyden. "They met at the White Sulphur, where
both spent their summers--many years before the Colonel died."
"There, hangs the Colonel's sword--he carried it through the war,
sir--and his pistols--and his silk-sash, and here, in the corner, is
one of his regimental guidons--and here his portrait in
uniform--handsome man, wasn't he? And as gallant and good as he was
handsome. Maryland lost a brave son, when he died, sir."
"He looks the soldier," Croyden remarked.
"And he was one, sir--none better rode behind Jeb Stuart--and never far
behind, sir, never far behind!"
"He was in the cavalry?"
"Yes, sir. Seventh Maryland Cavalry--he commanded it during the last
two years of the war--went in a lieutenant and came out its colonel. A
fine record, sir, a fine record! Pity it is, he had none to leave it
to!--he was the last of his line, you know, the last of the line--not
even a distant cousin to inherit."
Croyden looked up at the tall, slender man in Confederate gray, with
clean-cut aristocratic features, wavy hair, and long, drooping
mustache. What a figure he must have been at the head of his command,
or leading a charge across the level, while the guns of the Federals
belched smoke, and flame and leaden death.
"They offered him a brigade," the agent was saying, "but he declined
it, preferring to remain with his regiment."
"What did he do when the war was over?" Croyden asked.
"Came home, sir, and resumed his law practice. Like his great leader,
he accepted the decision as final. He didn't spend the balance of his
life living in the past."
"And why did he never marry? Surely, such a man" (with a wave of his
hand toward the portrait) "could have picked almost where he chose!"
"No one ever just knew, sir--it had to do with Miss Borden,--the sister
of Major Borden, sir, who lives on the next place. They were
sweethearts once, but something or somebody came between them--and
thereafter, the Colonel never seemed to think of love. Perhaps, old
Mose knows it, and if he comes to like you, sir, he may tell you the
story. You understand, sir, that Colonel Duval is Mose's old master,
and that every one stands or falls, in his opinion, according as they
measure up to him. I hope you intend to keep him, sir--he has been a
faithful caretaker, and there is still good service in him--and his
wife was the Colonel's cook, so she must have been competent. She would
never cook for anyone, after he died. She thought she belonged to
Clarendon, sort of went with the place, you understand. Just stayed and
helped Mose take care of it. She doubtless will resume charge of the
kitchen again, without a word. It's the way of the old negroes, sir.
The young ones are pretty worthless--they've got impudent, and
independent and won't work, except when they're out of money. Excuse
me, I ramble on----"
"I'm much interested," said Croyden; "as I expect to live here, I must
learn the ways of the people."
"Well, let Mose boss the niggers for you, at first; he understands
them, he'll make them stand around. Come over to the drawing-room, sir,
I want you to see the furniture, and the family portraits.... There,
sir, is a set of twelve genuine Hepplewhite chairs--no doubt about it,
for the invoice is among the Colonel's papers. I don't know much about
such things, but a man was through here, about a year ago, and, would
you believe it, when he saw the original invoice and looked at the
chairs, he offered me two thousand dollars for them. Of course, as I
had been directed by your father to keep everything as the Colonel had
it, I just laughed at him. You see, sir, they have the three feathers,
and are beautifully carved, otherwise. And, here, is a lowboy, with the
shell and the fluted columns, and the cabriole legs, carved on the
knees, and the claw and ball feet. He offered two hundred dollars for
it. And this sofa, with the lion's claw and the eagle's wing, he wanted
to buy it, too. In fact, sir, he wanted to buy about everything in the
house--including the portraits. There are two by Peale and one by
Stuart--here are the Peales, sir--the lady in white, and the young
officer in Continental uniform; and this is the Stuart--the gentleman
in knee breeches and velvet coat. I think he is the same as the one in
uniform, only later in life. They are the Colonel's grandparents, sir:
Major Daniel Duval, of the Tenth Maryland Line, and his wife; she was a
Miss Paca--you know the family, of course, sir. The Major's commission,
sir, hangs in the hall, between the Colonel's own and his father's--he
was an officer in the Mexican war, sir. It was a fighting family, sir,
a fighting family--and a gentle one as well. 'The bravest are the
tenderest, the loving are the daring.'"
There was enough of the South Carolinian of the Lowlands in Croyden,
to appreciate the Past and to honor it. He might not know much
concerning Hepplewhite nor the beauty of his lines and carving, and he
might be wofully ignorant of his own ancestors, having been bred in a
State far removed from their nativity, for he had never given a thought
to the old things, whether of furniture or of forebears--they were of
the inanimate; his world had to do only with the living and what was
incidental to it. The Eternal Now was the Fetich and the God of
Northumberland, all it knew and all it lived for--and he, with every
one else, had worshipped at its shrine.
It was different here, it seemed! and the spirit of his long dead
mother, with her heritage of aristocratic lineage, called to him,
stirring him strangely, and his appreciation, that was sleeping and not
dead, came slowly back to life. The men in buff-and-blue, in
small-clothes, in gray, the old commissions, the savour of the past
that clung around them, were working their due. For no man of culture
and refinement--nay, indeed, if he have but their veneer--can stand in
the presence of an honorable past, of ancestors distinguished and
respected, whether they be his or another's, and be unmoved.
"And you say there are none to inherit all these things?" Croyden
exclaimed. "Didn't the original Duval leave children?"
The agent shook his head. "There was but one son to each generation,
sir--and with the Colonel there was none."
"Then, having succeeded to them by right of purchase, and with no
better right outstanding, it falls to me to see that they are not
shamed by the new owner. Their portraits shall remain undisturbed
either by collectors or by myself. Moreover, I'll look up my own
ancestors. I've got some, down in South Carolina and up in
Massachusetts, and if their portraits be in existence, I'll add
reproductions to keep the Duvals company. Ancestors by inheritance and
ancestors by purchase. The two of them ought to keep me straight, don't
you think?" he said, with a smile.