movement which he had twice left unfinished, the one behind, now clearly
discerning his intention, stole one step forward, and then a second, as
if to spring upon him before he could complete the action. But he was
not quick enough. The black and glistening thing rose once more to the
level of its owner's shoulder, and the next instant on the still night
air quivered the plaintive wail of--a flute.
At mortal risks both conjectured and unconjectured, it was an instrument
of music, not of murder, which Mr. Dinwiddie Pettigrew was aiming
sidewise.
LIII.
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT
Yet the pulse of the man behind him, who did not recognize him, began to
quicken with anger. Almost at the flute's first note the image on the
window-shade started and hearkened. A moment later it expanded to
grotesque proportions, the room swiftly grew dark, and in another minute
the window of a smaller one behind it shone dimly as with the flame of a
lamp turned low. The flutist fluted on. From the melody it appeared that
the musician had at some date not indicated, and under some
unaccountable influence, dreamt that he dwelt in marble halls with
vassals and serfs at his side. The man at his back had come as near as
the darkness would cover him, but there had stopped.
Presently the music ceased, but another sound, sweeter than all music,
kissed, as it were, the serenader's ear. It was the wary lifting of a
window-sash. He ran forward into the narrow shade of the house itself,
and lost to the restraints of reason, carried away on transports of
love, without hope of any reply, whispered, "Daphne!"
And a tender whisper came back--"Wait a minute."
"You'll come down?" he whisperously asked; but the window closed on his
words, the dim light vanished, and all was still.
He was watching, on his left, the batten shutters of the sitting-room,
when a small, unnoticed door near the dark, rear corner of the house
clicked and then faintly creaked. Mr. Pettigrew became one tremolo of
ecstasy. He glided to the spot, not imagining even then that he was to
be granted more than a moment's interview through an inch or two of
opening, when what was his joy to see the door swiftly spread wide
inward by a dim figure that extended her arms in gracious invitation.
"O love!" was all his passion could murmur as they clasped in the
blessed dark, while she, not waiting to hear word or voice, rubbed half
the rice powder and rouge from her lips and cheeks to his and cried,
"O you sweet, speckle', yalleh niggeh liah, you tol' me you on'y play de
fife in de similitude o' ligislation!"
As Dinwiddie silently but violently recoiled Daphne Jane half stifled a
scream, sprang through a stair door, shot the bolt and rushed upstairs.
At the same instant he heard behind him a key slipped from its lock. He
glanced back in affright, and trembling on legs too limp to lift, dimly
saw the outer door swing to. As the darkness changed to blackness he
heard the key re-enter its lock and turn on the outside. The pirate was
a prisoner.
Daphne Jane, locking everything as she fled, whirled into her mistress's
room and out of her mistress's clothes. Though quaking with apprehension
so that she could scarcely button her own things on again, she was
filled with the joy of adventure and a revel of vanity and mirth. The
moment she could complete her change of dress and whisk her borrowed
fineries back into their places she stole to a window over the door by
which she had let the serenader in, softly opened it, and was alarmed
afresh to hear two voices.
The words of the one in the room were quite indistinguishable, but those
from the other on the outside, though uttered in a half whisper, were
clear enough.
"No, seh, I ain't dead-sho' who you is, but I has ezamine yo' hoss, an'
whilce I wouldn' swear you ah Mr. Pettigrew, thass the premonition I
espec' to espress to my frien' Mr. March, lessn you tell me now, an'
tell me true, who you ah.
"Yass, seh, I thought so. Yass, seh. No, seh, I know they ain't a minute
to lose, but still I think the time ain't quite so pow'ful pressin' to
me like what it is to you; I thought jess now I hyeard buggy-wheels, but
mebbe I didn't.
"Yass, seh, I _does_ think I has cause, if not to be mad, leas'wise to
be ve'y much paained. You fus' kiss the young lady I destine faw my
sultana, an' now you offeh me a briibe! Well, thass how I unde'stood it,
seh.
"Seh? No, seh! that wouldn't be high tone'! But I tell you what I will
do, seh. I'll let you out an' take yo' place an' make the young lady
think her on'y mistake was a-thinkin' she was mistakened.
"Seh? Yass, I'm jess that se'f-sacrificin'. I'm gen'ous as the whistlin'
win'. An' I'll neveh whisp' a breath o' all this shaameful procedu'e evm
to my dear frien' March, ef so be that--an' so long as--yo'
gratichude--seh?
"O nothin'. I wus jess a-listenin' ef that soun' was buggy wheels, but I
know that don't make no diff'ence to you, yo' courage is so vas'. I'm
the bravess o' the brave, myseff, an' yit jess to think o' takin' yo'
place fills me as full o' cole shivehs as a pup und' a pump.
"Seh? O I say I'll neveh whisp' it so long as yo' gratichude continue to
evince itseff fresh an' lively at the rate of evm on'y a few dollahs per
month as a sawt o' friendship's offerin'.
"Seh? I cayn't he'p it, seh; thass the ve'y bes' I can do; no otheh
co'se would be hon'able."
The listening maid heard the door unlock and open and beheld liberty
bartered for captivity with love for boot, and Mr. Pettigrew speed like
a phantom across the moonlight and vanish in the woods. Before she could
leave the window a sound of galloping hoofs told at last the coming of
John March. Cornelius had barely time to scamper out into the night when
the master of Widewood came trotting around the corner of the house and
thence off to the stable, never to know of the farce which made Mr.
Pettigrew thereafter the tool of Leggett, and which might even more
easily have been a tragedy with the mountain people for actors and
himself its victim.
LIV.
AN UNEXPECTED PLEASURE
Ravenel and Fannie were married in church on an afternoon. The
bridesmaids were Barbara and a very pretty cousin of Fannie's from
Pulaski City, who would have been prettier yet had she not been
revel-worn. The crowded company was dotted with notables; Garnet and
Gamble took excellent care of the governor. But the bride's father was
the finest figure of all.
"Old Halliday looks grand!" said Gamble.
"I'm glad he does," kindly responded Garnet; "it would be a pity for him
to be disappointed in himself on such an occasion."
Parson Tombs kissed the bride, who, in a certain wildness of grateful
surprise, gave him his kiss back again with a hug. When Ravenel's
sister, from Flatrock, said:
"Well, Colonel Ravenel, aren't you going to kiss me?" he gracefully did
so, as if pleased to be reminded of something he might have forgotten.
And then he kissed the aged widow with whom he had lived so long. Her
cottage, said rumor, was not to be sold, after all, to make room for the
new brick stores. No, the Salters' house had been bought for that
purpose--it was ready to tumble down, anyhow--and on Miss Mary's
marriage, soon to be, Miss Martha and her mother would take the Halliday
cottage, the General keeping a room or two, but getting his meals at the
hotel.
"It's a way of living I've always liked!" he said, tossing his gray
curls.
The bridal pair, everybody understood, were to leave Suez on the
Launcelot Halliday, and turn northward by rail in the morning on an
unfamiliar route.
John March chose not to see the wedding. He remained in Pulaski City,
where for three days he had been very busy in the lobbies of the
Capitol, and was hoping to take the train for the north that evening.
Between the trifling of one and the dickering of another, he was delayed
to the last moment; but then he flung himself into a shabby hack, paid
double fare for a pretence of double speed, and at the ticket window had
to be called back to get his pocketbook. The lighted train was moving
out into the night as a porter jerked him and his valise on to the rear
platform.
He stood there a moment alone silently watching the lamps of the town
sink away and vanish. His thought was all of Fannie. She was Fannie
Ravenel now. Fate had laughed at him. He calculated that the pair must
about this time be rising from supper on the boat.
"Happy bridegroom!--and happy bride!"
As the dark landscape perpetually spun away from him he began with an
inexperienced traveler's self-consciousness to think of the strangeness
of his own situation; but very soon Fannie's image came before him again
in a feverish mingling of gratitude and resentment. Had she not made his
life? But for her he might yet be teaching school in the hills of
Sandstone. No doubt he would have outgrown such work; but when? how
soon? how tardily? how fatally late? She had lured and fooled him; but
she had lured and fooled him into a largeness of purpose, a breadth of
being, which without her might never have come to him.
"I cannot be with her, I must not go near her; but I am here!" he
exclaimed, catching a certain elation from his unaccustomed speed. "The
prospect may be desert, but it's wide; it's wide!"
She had been good _for_ him, he mused, not to him. She had been wiser
than she meant; certainly she had not been kind. She was not
cold-hearted. His welfare was dear to her. And yet she had
cold-heartedly amused herself with him. She was light-minded. There! The
truth was out! Just what he meant by it was not so clear; but there it
was, half comforting him, half excusing her; she was light-minded! Well,
she was Fannie Ravenel now. "Happy Fannie Ravenel!" He said it with a
tempered bitterness and went in.
It was the sleeping-car he was on. Two steps brought him to the open
entrance of its smoking-room--they were enough. With drooping eyelids
its sole occupant was vacantly smiling at the failure of his little
finger to push the ash from a cold cigar.
"Jeff-Ja'!" exclaimed March, "O my Lord!"
The bridegroom looked up with a smart exaggeration of his usual cynicism
and said, "J--(h-h)--Johnnie, this 's 'n un'spec'--'spected pleasure!"
"I thought you were aboard the----" faltered John, and stood dumb,
gnawing his lip and burning with emotions.
"John, o' frien', take a chair." The speaker waved a hand in tipsy
graciousness. "What made you think I was aboard--I look like one?
Wha'--(h-h)--kind o' board--sideboard? S' down, John, make 'seff at
home. Happm have cars all t' ourselves. Mr. March, this 's ufforshnate,
ain't it? Don't y' sink so? One o' my p'culiar 'tacks. Come on 'tirely
since leavin' Suez. Have--(h-h)--seat. My dear frien', I know what
you're thinkin' 'bout. You're won'rin' where bride is an' feel del'cacy
'bout askin'. She's in state-room oth' end the car, locked in. She's not
'zactly locked in, but I'm locked out. Mrs. Ravenel is--(h-h)--annoyed
at this, Mr. March; ve'y mush annoyed."
He put on a frown. "John, 'll you do me a--(h-h)--favor?"
"I'm afraid I can't, Ravenel. I've a good notion to get off at the next
station."
"Tha's jus' what I's goin' t' ash you t' do. I'll stan' 'spence, John.
You shan't lose anything."
"O no, if I get off I'll stand the expense myself. You've lost enough
already, Jeff-Jack."
"No, sir; _I'll_ stan' 'spence. I can be gen'rous you are. Or 'f you'll
stay 'n' take care Mrs. Ravenel I'll--(h-h)--get off m'seff!"
John shook his head, took up his bag and returned to the rear platform.
The train had stopped and was off again, when the porter came looking
everywhere, the rear platform included.
"Whah dat gemman what get on at P'laski City?"
Ravenel waved his cigar.
"He's out in back garden pickin' flowers! Porter--you--f--ond o'
flowers? 'F you want to go an' pick some I'll--(h-h)--take care car for
you. Porter!--here!--I--(h-h)--don't want to be misleading. Mr. March's
simply stepped out s--see 'f he can find a f--four-leaf clover."
LV.
HOME-SICKNESS ALLEVIATED
On the second morning after the wedding and next trip of this train, the
sleeping-car was nearly half filled with passengers by the time it was a
night's run from Pulaski City. To let the porter put their two sections
in order, a party of three, the last except one to come out of the
berths, had to look around twice for a good place in which to sit
together. They were regarded with interest.
"High-steppers," remarked a very large-eared commercial traveler to
another.
"The girl's beautiful," replied the other, remembering that he was
freshly shaved and was not bad-looking himself.
"Yes," said the first, "but the other two are better than that; they're
comfortable. They're done raising children and ain't had any bad luck
with 'em, and they've got lots of tin. If that ain't earthly bliss I'll
bet you!"
"They're gett'n' lots of entertainment out of that daughter, seems
like."
"Reason why, she's not their daughter."
"How d'you know she's not?"
"I mustn't tell--breach o' confidence. Guess."
"O I guess you're guessing. George! she's--what makes you think she's
not their daughter?"
"O nothin', only I'm a man of discernment, and besides I just now heard
'em call her Miss Garnet."
Their attention was diverted by the porter saying at the only section
still curtained, "Breakfus' at next stop, seh. No, seh, it's yo' on'y
chaynce till dinneh, seh. Seh? No, seh, not till one o'clock dis
afternoon, seh."
"Is that gentleman sick?" asked the younger commercial man, wishing Miss
Garnet to know what a high-bred voice and tender heart he had.
"Who? numb' elevm? Humph! he ain't too sick to be cross. Say he ain't
sleep none fo' two nights. But he's gitt'n' up now."
The solicitous traveler secured a seat at table opposite Miss Garnet and
put more majestic gentility into his breakfasting than he had ever done
before. Once he pushed the sugar most courteously to the lady she was
with, and once, with polished deference, he was asking the gentleman if
he could reach the butter, when a tardy comer was shown in and given the
chair next him. As this person, a young man as stalwart as he was
handsome, was about to sit down, he started with surprise and exclaimed
to Miss Garnet,
"Why! You've begun----Why, are we on the same train?"
And she grew visibly prettier as she replied smilingly,
"You must be Number Eleven, are you not?"
Coming out of the place the young lady's admirer heard her introduce
Number Eleven to "Mr. and Mrs. Fair," and Mr. Fair, looking highly
pleased, say,
"I don't think I ever should have recognized you!"
Something kept the train, and as he was joined by his large-eared
friend--who had breakfasted at the sandwich counter--he said,
"See that young fellow talking to Mr. Fair? That's the famous John
Marsh, owner of the Widewood lands. He's one of the richest young men in
Dixie. Whenever he wants cash all he's got to do is to go out and cut a
few more telegraph-poles--O laugh if you feel like it, but I heard Miss
Garnet tell her friends so just now, and I'll bet my head on anything
that girl says." The firm believer relighted his cigar, adding
digressively, "I've just discovered she's a sister-in-law"--puff,
puff--"of my old friend, General Halliday"--puff, puff--"president of
Rosemont College. Well, away we go."
The train swept on, the smoking-room filled. The drummer with the large
ears let his companion introduce "Mr. Marsh" to him, and was presently
so pleased with the easy, open, and thoroughly informed way in which
this wealthy young man discussed cigars and horses that he put aside his
own reserve, told a risky story, and manfully complimented the cleanness
of the one with which Mr. March followed suit.
A traveling man's life, he further said, was a rough one and got a
fellow into bad ways. There wasn't a blank bit of real good excuse for
it, but it was so.
No, there wasn't! responded his fellow-craftsman. For his part he liked
to go to church once in a while and wasn't ashamed to say so. His mother
was a good Baptist. Some men objected to the renting of pews, but, in
church or out of it, he didn't see why a rich man shouldn't have what he
was willing to pay for, as well as a poor man. Whereupon a smoker,
hitherto silent, said, with an oratorical gesture,
"Lift up your heads, O ye gates, the rich and the poor meet together,
yet the Lord is the maker of them all!"
March left them deep in theology. He found Mr. and Mrs. Fair half hid in
newspapers, and Miss Garnet with a volume of poems.
"How beautiful the country is," she said as she made room for him at her
side. "I can neither write my diary nor read my book."
"Do you notice," replied he, "that the spring here is away behind ours?"
"Yes, sir. By night, I suppose, we'll be where it's hardly spring at all
yet."
"We'll be out of Dixie," said John, looking far away.
"Now, Mr. March," responded Barbara, with a smile of sweetest
resentment, "you're ag-grav-a-ting my nos-tal-gia!"
To the younger commercial traveler her accents sounded like the wavelets
on a beach!
"Why, I declare, Miss Garnet, I don't want to do that. If you'll help me
cure mine I'll do all you'll let me do to cure yours."
Barbara was pensive. "I think mine must be worse than yours; I don't
want it cu-ured."
"Well, I didn't mean cured, either; I only meant solaced."
"But, Mr. March, I--why, my home-sickness is for all Dixie. I always
knew I loved it, but I never knew how much till now."
"Miss Garnet!" softly exclaimed John with such a serious brightness of
pure fellowship that Barbara dropped her gaze to her book.
"Isn't it right?" she asked, playfully.
"Right? If it isn't then I'm wrong from centre to circumference!"
"Why, I'm glad it's so com-pre-hen-sive-ly cor-rect."
The commercial traveler hid his smile.
"It's about all I learned at Montrose," she continued. "But, Mr. March,
what is it in the South we Southerners love so? Mr. Fair asked me this
morning and when I couldn't explain he laughed. Of course I didn't
confess my hu-mil-i-a-tion; I intimated that it was simply something a
North-ern-er can't un-der-stand. Wasn't that right?"
"Certainly! They _can't_ understand it! They seem to think the South we
love is a certain region and everything and everybody within its
borders."
"I have a mighty dim idea where its Northern border is sit-u-a-ted."
"Why, so we all have! Our South isn't a matter of boundaries, or skies,
or landscapes. Don't you and I find it all here now, simply because
we've both got the true feeling--the one heart-beat for it?"
Barbara's only answer was a stronger heart-beat.
"It's not," resumed March, "a South of climate, like a Yankee's Florida.
It's a certain ungeographical South-within-the-South--as portable and
intangible as--as----"
"As our souls in our bodies," interposed Barbara.
"You've said it exactly! It's a sort o' something--social, civil,
political, economic----"
"Romantic?"
"Yes, romantic! Something that makes----"
"'No land like Dixie in all the wide world over!'"
"Good!" cried John. "Good! O, my mother's expressed that beautifully in
a lyric of hers where she says though every endearing charm should fade
away like a fairy gift our love would still entwine itself around the
dear ruin--verdantly--I oughtn't to try to quote it. Doesn't her style
remind you of some of the British poets? Aha! I knew you'd say so! Your
father's noticed it. He says she ought to study Moore!"
Barbara looked startled, colored, and then was impassive again, all in
an instant and so prettily, that John gave her his heartiest admiration
even while chafed with new doubts of Garnet's genuineness.
The commercial man went back to the smoking-room to mention casually
that Mrs. March was a poetess.
"There's mighty little," John began, but the din of a passing freight
train compelled him to repeat much louder--"There's mighty little poetry
that can beat Tom Moore's!"
Barbara showed herself so mystified and embarrassed that March was sure
she had not heard him correctly. He reiterated his words, and she
understood and smiled broadly, but merely explained, apologetically,
that she had thought he had said there was mighty little pastry could
beat his mother's.
John laughed so heartily that Mrs. Fair looked back at Barbara with gay
approval, and life seemed to him for the moment to have less
battle-smoke and more sunshine; but by and by when he thought Barbara's
attention was entirely on the landscape, she saw him unconsciously shake
his head and heave a sigh.
LVI.
CONCERNING SECOND LOVE
When the train stopped at a station they talked of the book in her hand,
and by the time it started on they were reading poems from the volume to
each other. The roar of the wheels did not drown her low, searching
tones; by bending close John could hear quite comfortably. Between
readings they discussed those truths of the heart on which the poems
touched. Later, though they still read aloud, they often looked on the
page together.
In the middle of one poem they turned the book face downward to consider
a question. Did Miss Garnet believe--Mr. March offered to admit that
among the small elect who are really capable of a divine passion there
may be some with whom a second love is a genuine and beautiful
possibility--yet it passed his comprehension--he had never seen two
dawns in one day--but did Miss Garnet believe such a second love could
ever have the depth and fervor of the first?
Yes, she replied with slow care, she did--in a man's case at least. To
every deep soul she did believe it was appointed to love once--yes--with
a greater joy and pain than ever before or after, but she hardly thought
this was first love. It was almost sure to be first love in a woman, for
a woman, she said, can't afford to let herself love until she knows she
is loved, and so her first love--when it really is love, and not a mere
consent to be loved----
"Which is frequently all it is," said John.
"Yes. But when it is a real love--it's fearfully sure and strong
_because_ it has to be slow. I believe when such a love as that leaves a
woman's heart, it is likely to leave it hope-less-ly strand-ed."
"And you think it's different with a man?"
"Why, I hope it's sometimes different with a woman; but I believe, Mr.
March, that with a man the chances are better. A man who simply must
love, and love with his whole soul----"
"Then you believe there are such?"
"Yes, there must be, or God wouldn't create some of the women he makes."
"True!" said John, very gallantly.
"But don't you think, Mr. March, a man of that sort is apt to love
prematurely and very faultily? His best fruit doesn't fall first.
Haven't you observed that a man's first love is just what a woman finds
it hardest to take in earnest?"
"Yes, I have observed that! And still--are you too cynical to believe
that there are men to whom first love is everything and second love
impossible?"
"No," said Barbara, with true resentment, "I'm not too cynical. But--"
she looked her prettiest--"still I don't believe it."
John turned on her a hard glance which instantly softened. It is a
singular fact that the length and droop of a girl's eyelashes have great
weight in an argument.
"And yet," she resumed, but paused for John to wave away the train-boy
with his books.
"And yet what?" asked March, ever so kindly.
"And yet, that first love is everything, is what every woman would like
every man to believe, until he learns better." Her steadfast gaze and
slow smile made John laugh. He was about to give a railing answer when
the brakeman announced twenty minutes for dinner.
"What! It can't----" he looked at his watch. "Why, would you have
imagined?"
O yes; her only surprise--a mild one--was that he didn't know it.
At table she sat three seats away, with her Northern friends between;
and when they were again roaring over streams, and through hills and
valleys, and the commercial travelers, whose number had increased to
four, were discussing aerial navigation, and March cut short his
after-dinner smoke and came back to resume his conversation, he found
Miss Garnet talking to the Fairs, and not to be moved by the fact--which
he felt it the merest courtesy to state--that the best views were on the
other side of the car.
Thereupon he went to the car's far end and wrote a short letter to his
mother, who had exacted the pledge of one a day, which she did not
promise to answer.