shares myself. But O, if faith could right here an' now be changed into
sight, then would this day be as golden in my hopes faw Suez an' her
three counties as it already is faw my private self in memory o' past
joys."
The speaker was sinking into his chair when Garnet asked with a smile
that everyone but the pastor understood, "Why, how's that Brother Tombs;
is this day something more than usual to you?"
"Brother Garnet, if I've hinted that it is, it's mo' than I started out
to do, but I'm tempted, seein' so many friends in one bunch so, to jest
ask yo'-all's congratulations on"--the eyes glistened with moisture--"the
golden anniversary o' my weddin' day."
The walls rang with applause, men crowded laughingly around the Parson
to shake his hand, and in ten minutes the room was silent and the
company gone, "every man to his tent," as the happy Parson said, each
one as ready for his noontide meal as it was for him.
L.
THE JAMBOREE
The social event of that midday was not the large family dinner where
Mother Tombs sat between Hamlet and Lazarus, and Father Tombs between
their wives; where Sister March was in the prettiest good humor
conceivable and the puns were of the sort that need to be italicized,
and the anecdotes were family heirlooms, and the mirth was as
spontaneous as the wit was scarce, and not one bad conscience was hidden
beneath it all. The true social event of that hour was the repast given
by John March to Mr. Fair in Swanee Hotel, at which General Halliday,
Captain Champion, and Dr. Coffin were on John's left, Ravenel sat at the
foot of the board, and at John's right were Fair, in the place of honor,
then Garnet, and then Shotwell in the seat appointed for Gamble, who had
suddenly found he couldn't possibly stay.
Here were no mothers' quotations of their children's accidental wit, nor
husbands' and wives' betrayals of silly sweetnesses of long-gone
courtships and honeymoons. Passing from encomiums upon Parson Tombs's
powers to the subject of eloquence in general, the allusions were mainly
to Edmund Burke, John C. Calhoun, Sargent S. Prentiss, and Lorenzo Dow.
The examples of epigram were drawn from the times of Addison, those of
poetic wisdom from Pope, of witty jest from Douglas Jerrold and Sidney
Smith, of satire from Randolph of Roanoke. John March told, very
successfully, how a certain great poet of the eighteenth century
retorted impromptu upon a certain great lord in a double-rhymed and
triple-punned repartee. Champion and Shotwell, in happy alternation,
recited two or three incredible nonsense speeches attributed to early
local celebrities, and Garnet and Halliday gave the unpublished inside
histories of three or four hitherto inexplicable facts, or seeming
facts, in the personal or political relations of Marshall, Jackson,
Webster, and Clay. Burns and Byron were there in spirit, and John could
have recited one of his mother's poems if anyone had asked for it.
As for Ravenel and Fair, they had their parts and performed them
harmoniously with the rest, so that John could see that he himself and
everyone else were genuinely interesting to those two and that they were
growingly interesting to each other. Both possessed the art of provoking
the others to talk; they furnished the seed of conversation and were its
gardeners, while the rest of the company bore its fruits and flowers.
Ravenel seemed always to keep others talking for his diversion, Fair for
his information.
John pointed this out to Miss Garnet that evening, at the Parson's
golden wedding, and noticed that she listened to him with a perfectly
beautiful eagerness.
"It's because I talked about Fair," he said to himself as he left
her--"Aha! there they go off together, now."
The scene of this movement was that large house and grounds, the "Usher
home place," just beyond the ruined bridge where Cornelius had once seen
ghosts. A pretty sight it was to come out on the veranda, as John did,
and see the double line of parti-colored transparencies meandering
through the dark grove to the gate and the lane beyond. Shotwell met
him.
"Hello, March, looking for Fair? He's just passed through that inside
door with Miss Garnet."
"I know it--I'm not looking for anyone--in particular."
Out here on the veranda it was too cool for ladies; John heard only male
voices and saw only the red ends of cigars; so, although he was not--of
course he wasn't!--looking for anyone--in particular--he went back into
the crowded house and buzzing rooms.
"Hunt'n' faw yo' maw, John?" asked Deacon Sexton as he leaned on his old
friend Mattox; "she's----"
"Why, I'm not hunting for anybody," laughed March; "do I look like I
was?"
He turned away toward a group that stood and sat about Parson Tombs.
"I never suspicioned a thing," the elated pastor was saying for the
third or fourth time. "I never suspicioned the first thing till Motheh
Tombs and I got into ow gate comin' home fum the Graveses! All of a
sudden there we _ware_ under a perfec' demonstration o' pine an' ceda'
boughs an' wreaths an' arborvitae faschoons! Evm then I never suspicioned
but what that was all until Miss Fannie an' Miss Barb come in an' begin
banterin' not only Motheh Tombs but _me_, if you'll believe it, to lie
down an' rest a while befo' we came roun' here to suppeh! Still I
'llowed to myself, s'I, it's jest a few old frien's they've gotten
togetheh. But when I see the grove all lightened up with those Chinee
lanterns, I laughed, an' s'I to motheh, s'I, 'I don't know what it is,
but whatev' it is, it's the biggest thing of its kind we've eveh treed
in the fifty years that's brought us to this golden hour!' An' with that
po' motheh, she just had to let go all ho-holts; heh--heh cup run oveh.
"You wouldn't think so now, to see heh sett'n' oveh there smilin' like a
basket o' chips, an' that little baag o' gold dollahs asleep in heh lap,
would you? But that smile ain't change' the least iota these fifty
years. What a sweet an' happy thought it was o' John March, tellin' the
girls to put the amount in fifty pieces, one for each year. But he's
always been that original. Worthy son of a worthy motheh! Why, here he
is! Howdy, John? I'm so proud to see Sisteh March here to-night; she
told me at dinneh that she 'llowed to go back to Widewood this evenin'."
"I see in the papeh she 'llowed to go this mawnin'," said Clay Mattox.
John showed apologetic amusement. "That's my fault, I reckon, I
understood mother to say she couldn't stay this evening."
A finger was laid on his shoulder. It was Shotwell again. "John, Miss
Fannie Halliday wants Jeff-Jack. Do you know where he is?"
"No! Where is Miss Fannie?"
Shotwell lifted his hand again, with a soothing smile. "Don't remove yo'
shirt; Ellen is saafe, fo' that thaynk Heavm, an' hopes ah faw the
Douglas givm."
March flung himself away, but Shotwell turned him again by a
supplicating call and manly, repentant air. "Law, John, don't mind my
plaay, old man; I'm just about as sick as you ah. Here! I'll tell you
where she is, an' then I'll tell you what let's do! You go hunt
Jeff-Jack an' I'll staay with heh till you fetch him!"
"That would be nice," cheerfully laughed John.
In the next room he came upon Fannie standing in a group of Rosemont and
Montrose youths and damsels. They promptly drew away.
"John," she said, "I want to ask a favor of you, may I?"
"You can ask any favor in the world of me, Miss Fannie, except one."
"Why, what's that?" risked Fannie.
"The one you've just sent Shotwell to do." He smiled with playful
gallantry, yet felt at once that he had said too much.
Fannie put on a gayety intended for their furtive observers, as she
murmured, "Don't look so! A dozen people are watching you with their
ears in their eyes." Then, in a fuller voice--"I want you to get Parson
Tombs away from that crowd in yonder. He's excited and overtaxing his
strength."
"Then may I come back and spend a few minutes--no more--with you--alone?
This is the last chance I'll ever have, Miss Fannie--I--I simply must!"
"John, if you simply must, why, then, you simply--mustn't. You'll have
the whole room trying to guess what you're saying."
"They've no right to guess!"
"We've no right to set them guessing, John." She saw the truth strike
and felt that unlucky impulse of compassion which so often makes a
woman's mercy so unmercifully ill-timed. "Oh!" she called as he was
leaving.
He came back with a foolish hope in his face. She spoke softly.
"Everybody says there's a new John March. Tell me it's so; won't you?"
"I"--his countenance fell--"I thought there was, but--I--I don't know."
He went on his errand. Champion met him and fixed him with a broad grin.
"I know what's the matter with you, March."
"O pooh! you think so, eh? Well, you never made a greater mistake! I'm
simply tired. I'm fairly aching with fatigue, and I suppose my face
shows it."
"Yes. Well, that's all I meant. Anybody can see by your face you're in a
perfect agony of fatigue. You don't conceal it as well as Shotwell
does."
"Shotwell!" laughed John. "He's got about as much agony to conceal as a
wash-bench with a broken leg. O, I'll conceal mine if anybody'll tell me
how."
Champion closed his lips but laughed audibly, in his stomach. "Well,
then, get that face off of you. You look like a boy that'd lost all his
money at a bogus snake-show."
* * * * *
When Fair came up to Barbara, she was almost as glad to see him as John
supposed, and brought her every wit and grace to bear for his retention,
with a promptness that satisfied even her father, viewing them from a
distance.
"Miss Garnet, I heard a man, just now, call this very pleasant affair a
jamboree. What constitutes a jamboree?"
"Why, Mr. Fair," said Barbara, in her most captivating drawl, "that's
slang!"
"Yes, I didn't doubt. I hope you're not guilty of never using slang, are
you?"
"O no, sir, but I never use it where I can't wear a shawl over my head.
Still, I say a great many things that are much worse than slang."
"Miss Garnet, you say things that are as good as the best slang I ever
heard."
"Ah!--that's encouraging. Did you ever hear the Misses Kinsington's
rule: Never let your slang show a lack of wit or poverty of words! They
say it's a sure cure for the slang habit. But if you really need to
know, Mr. Fair, what constitutes a jamboree, I can go and ask Uncle
Leviticus for you; that is, if you'll take me to him. He's our butler
to-night, and he's one of the old slave house-servants that you said
you'd like to talk with."
"But I want to talk with you, just now; definitions can wait."
"O you shall; there's every facility for talking there, and it's not so
crowded."
The consumption of refreshments had been early and swift, and they found
the room appropriated to it almost empty. Two or three snug nooks in it
were occupied by one couple each. Leviticus was majestically
superintending the coming and going of three or four maid-servants. Just
as he gathered himself up to define a jamboree, Virginia happened in and
stood with a coffee-cup half wiped, eying him with quizzical
approbation.
"A jamboree? You want to know what constitutes a jamboree? Well--What
you want, Fudjinia?"
"Go on, seh, go on. Don't let me amba'as you. I wants jess on'y my civil
rights. Go on, seh." She set her arms akimbo.
"A jamboree!" repeated Leviticus, giving himself a yet more benevolent
dignity. "Well, you know, Miss Barb, to ev'ything they is a season, an'
a time to ev'y puppose. A wedd'n' is a wedd'n', a infare is a infare, a
Chris'mus dinneh is a Chris'mus dinneh! But now, when you come to a
jamboree--a jam--Fudjinia"--he smiled an affectionate persuasion--"we
ain't been appi'nted the chiefs o' this evenin's transactions to stan'
idlin' round, is we?"
"Go on, seh, go on."
"Well, you know, Mr. Fair, when we South'enehs speak of a jamboree, a
jamboree is any getherin' wherein the objec' o' the getherin' is the
puppose fo' which they come togetheh, an' the joy and the jumble ah
equal if not superiah to each otheh."
Virginia brought up a grunt from very far down, which might have been
either admiration or amusement. "Umph! dat is a jamboree, faw a fac'! I
wond' ef he git dat fum de books aw ef he pick it out'n his own
lahnin'?"
"Miss Garnet," said Fair, "there are wheels within wheels. I am having a
jamboree of my own."
LI.
BUSINESS
"This," replied Barbara, "has been a bright day for our whole town." And
then, more pensively, "They say you could have made it brighter."
Whereat the young man lowered his voice. "Miss Garnet, I had hoped I
could."
"And I had hoped you would."
"Miss Garnet, honestly, I'm glad I did not know it at the meeting. It
was hard enough to disappoint Mr. March; but to know that I was failing
to meet a hope of yours--"
Presently he added:
"Your hope implied a certain belief in me. Have I diminished that?"
"Why-y, no-o, Mr. Fair, you've rather aug-men-ted it."
He brightened almost playfully. "Miss Garnet, you give me more pleasure
than I can quietly confess."
"Why, I didn't intend to do that."
"To be trusted by you is a glad honor."
"Well, I do trust you, Mr. Fair. I'm trusting you now--to trust me--that
I really want to talk--man-talk. As a rule," continued Barbara, putting
away her playfulness, "when a young lady wants to talk pure business,
she'd better talk with her father, don't you think so?"
"As a rule, yes. And, as a rule, I make no doubt that's what you would
do."
Barbara's reply was meditative. "One reason why I want to talk about
this business at all this evening is also a strong reason why I don't
talk about it to pop-a."
"I see; he's almost as fascinated with it as Mr. March is."
"It means so very much to the college, Mr. Fair, and you know he's
always been over eyes and ears in love with it; it's his life." She
paused and then serenely seized the strategic point at which she had
hours before decided to begin this momentous invasion. "Mr. Fair, why,
do you reckon, Mr. Ravenel has consented to act as commissioner?"
Fair laughed. "You mean is it trust or distrust?"
"Yes, sir; which do you reckon it is?"
He laughed again. "I'm not good at reckoning."
"You can guess," she said archly.
"Yes, we can both do that. Miss Garnet, I don't believe your _father_ is
actuated by distrust; he believes in the scheme. You, I take it, do not,
and you are solicitous for him. Do I not guess rightly?"
"I don't think I'm more solicitous than a daughter should be. Pop-a has
only me, you know. Didn't you believe in Mr. March's plan at one time,
sir?"
"I believed thoroughly, as I do still, in Mr. March. I also had, and
still have, some belief in his plan; but"--confidentially--"I have no
belief in----"
"Certain persons," said Barbara so slowly and absently that Fair smiled
again as he said yes. They sat in silence for some time. Then Barbara
said, meditatively, "If even Mr. March could only be made to see that
certain persons ought not to have part in his enterprise--but you can't
tell him that. I didn't see it so until now. It would seem like pique."
"Or a counter scheme," said Fair. "Would you wish him told?"
"You admit I have a right to a daughter's solicitude?"
"Surely!" Fair pondered a moment. "Miss Garnet, if the opportunity
offers, I am more than willing you should say to Mr. March----"
"I rarely meet him, but still----"
"That I expressed to you my conviction that unless he gets rid of----"
"Certain----" said Barbara.
"Persons," said Fair, "his scheme will end in loss to his friends and in
ruin to him."
"And would that be"--Barbara rose dreamily--"a real service to pop-a?"
Fair gave his arm. "I think it the best you can render; only, your
father----" He began to smile, but she lifted a glance as utterly
without fear as without hardihood and said:
"I understand. He must never know it's been done."
"That's more than I meant," he replied, as Fannie Halliday came up. The
two girls went for their wraps.
"March?" said Ravenel, as he and Fair waited to escort them home. "O,
no, he left some time ago with his mother."
On the way to the Halliday cottage Fair said to Barbara:
"I'm glad of the talk we've had."
"You can afford to be so, Mr. Fair. It showed your generosity against
the background of my selfishness."
"Selfishness? Surely it isn't selfish to show a daughter's care and
affection for a father."
By her hand on his arm he felt her shrink at the last word. "I love my
father, yes. But you're making mistakes about me. Let's talk about Miss
Fannie; she'll only be Miss Fannie about two weeks longer. You ought to
stay to see her married, Mr. Fair."
"And you are to be bridesmaid! But I _must_ go to-morrow. I wish my
father and mother could reach here in time on their way home from New
Orleans, but when they get this far your bridal party will have been two
days married and gone."
Barbara mused a moment. "You know, this plan for me to give a year to
study in the North has been as much mine as pop-a's; but pop-a's
entirely responsible for putting me into your father's and mother's care
on the journey. I've been in a state of alarm ever since."
"Really, that's wrong! You're going to be a source of great pleasure to
them. And you'll like them, too, very much. They are interesting in many
ways and good in all, and as travelers they are perfect."
"You give me new courage, Mr. Fair. But"--she spoke more playfully--"I'm
afraid of New England, yet. There's a sort of motherly quality in our
climate that I can't expect to find there. Won't the snow be still on
the ground?"
"Very likely; the higher mountain tops, at least, will be quite
covered."
"Well, I'm glad that doesn't mean what I once thought it did. I thought
the snow in New England covered the mountain tops the same way the
waters covered them in the Deluge."
Fair looked down into his companion's face under the leafy moonlight and
halted in a quick glow of inspiration. "When first you see New England,
Miss Garnet, nature will have been lying for four months in white,
sacramental silence. But presently you will detect a growing change----"
"A stealing out of captivity?"
"Yes!--each step a little quicker than the one behind it----" So he went
on for a full minute in praise of the New England spring.
Barbara listened with the delight all girls have for flowers of speech
plucked for themselves.
"You know," she responded, as they moved on again, "it doesn't come easy
for us Southerners to think of your country as being beautiful; but we
notice that nearly all the landscapes in our books are made in 'barren
New England,' and we have a pri-vate cu-ri-os-i-ty to know how you all
in-vent them."
"If New England should not charm you, Miss Garnet,"--Fair hurried his
words as they drew near Ravenel and Fannie waiting at the cottage
gate--"my disappointment would last me all my life."
"Why, so it would me," said Barbara, "but I do not expect it. Well,
Fannie, Mr. Fair has at last been decoyed into praising his native land.
Think of----" She hushed.
A strong footstep approached, and John March came out of the gloom of
the trees, saluting buoyantly. Ravenel reached sidewise for his hand and
detained him.
"I took my mother away early," said March. "She can't bear a crowd long.
I was feeling so fatigued, myself, I thought a brisk walk might help me.
You still think you must go to-morrow, Mr. Fair? I go North, myself, in
about a week."
The two girls expressed surprise.
"For the land company?" quickly prompted Fannie.
"Yes, principally. I'll take my mother's poems along and give them to
some good publisher. O no-o, it's not exactly a sudden decision; its
taken me all day to make it. My mother--O--no, she seems almost resigned
to my going, but it's hard to tell about my mother, Miss Garnet; she has
a wonderful control of her feelings."
LII.
DARKNESS AND DOUBT
The paragraph in the _Courier_ which purported to tell the movements of
Mrs. March silently left its readers to guess those of her son. Two men
whose abiding-places lay in different directions away from Suez had no
sooner made their two guesses than they proceeded to act upon them
without knowledge of, or reference to, the other.
About an hour after dark on the night of the golden wedding both these
men were riding, one northward, the other southward, toward each other
on the Widewood road. Widewood house was between them. Both moved with a
wary slowness and looked and listened intently, constantly, and in every
direction.
When one had ridden within a hundred yards or so of the Widewood house
and the other was not much farther away, the rider coming up from the
southward stopped, heard the tread of the horse approaching in front,
and in hasty trepidation turned his own animal a few steps aside in the
forest. He would have made them more but for the tell-tale crackle of
dead branches strewed underfoot by the March winds. He sat for a long
time very quiet, peering and hearkening. But the other had heard, or at
least thought he had heard, the crackle of dead branches, and was taking
the same precautions.
The advantage, however, was with the rider from the south, who knew,
while the other only feared, there was something ahead it were better to
see than be seen by. About the same time the one concluded his ears
might have deceived him, the other had divined exactly what had
happened. Thereupon the shrewder man tied his horse and stole
noiselessly to a point from whose dense shade he could see a short piece
of the road and the house standing out in the moonlight.
The only two front windows in it that had shades were in Mrs. March's
bed-chamber. The room was brightly lighted and the shades drawn down.
The rest of the house was quite dark. The man hiding so near these signs
noted them, but drew no hasty conclusions. He hoped to consider them
later, but his first need was to know who, or, at least where, the
person was whom he had heard upon the road.
Though already well hidden he crouched behind a log, and upon the piece
of road and every shadowy cover of possible approach threw forward an
alert scrutiny supported by the whole force of his shrewdest
conjectures. The sounds and silences that belong to the night in field
and forest were far and near. Across the moon a mottled cloud floated
with the slowness of a sleeping fish, a second, third, and fourth as
slowly followed, the shadow of a dead tree crawled over a white stone
and left it in the light; but the enigma remained an enigma still. It
might be that the object of conjecture had fled in the belief that the
conjecturer was none other than Widewood's master. But, in that same
belief, who could say he might not be lying in ambush within close
gunshot of the horse to which the conjecturer dared not now return? In
those hills a man would sometimes lie whole days in ambush for a
neighbor, and one need not be a coward to shudder at the chance of being
assassinated by mistake. To wait on was safest, but it was very tedious.
Yet soon enough, and near and sudden enough, seemed the appearance of
the man waited for, when at length, without a warning sound, he issued
from the bushy shadow of a fence into the bright door-yard. In his
person he was not formidable. He was of less than medium stature,
lightly built, and apparently neither sinewy nor agile. But in his grasp
was something long and slender, much concealed by his own shadow, but
showing now a glint of bright metal and now its dark cylindrical end;
something that held the eye of the one who watched him from out the
shadow. Neither the features nor yet the complexion of the one he
watched were discernible, but the eyes were evidently on a third window
of the lighted room not at its front, but on a side invisible to the
watcher. This person rose from his log and moved as speedily as he could
in silence and shadow until he came round in sight of this window and
behind the other figure. Then he saw what had so tardily emboldened the
figure to come forward out of hiding. This window also had a shade, the
shade was lowered, and on it the unseen lamp perfectly outlined the form
of a third person. Without a mutter or the slightest gesture of passion,
the man under the window raised the thing in his grasp as high as his
shoulder, lowered it again and glanced around. He seemed to tremble. The
man at his back did not move; his gaze, too, was now fastened, with
liveliest manifestations of interest, on the window-shade and the moving
image that darkened it.