gave Mr. March time for a very dignified yes. "When she sat up in her
pillows half an hour ago, with her breakfast, so delicate and tempting,
lying before her forgotten, and she looking _so_ frail and yet _so_
pretty, with that look in her eyes as if she had been seeing ghosts all
night, she seemed to me as though she'd just finished one life and begun
another. How long has she had that look, Mr. March? I noticed it the
morning she arrived, though it wasn't anything like so plain as it is
now. But it only makes her more interesting and poetical. If I were a
man--hmph!--I'd wish I were Colonel Ravenel, that's all! No, I don't
know that I should, either; but if I were not, I'm afraid I should give
him trouble." John thought she watched him an instant there, but--
"Mr. March," she went on, "I wish you could hear the beautiful, tender,
winning way in which she boasts of her husband. She's as proud of him
for going and leaving her as she is of you for staying! Fact is, _I_
can't tell which of you she's proudest of." She gave her listener a
fascinated smile, with which he showed himself at such a loss to know
what to do that she liked him still better than before.
"Mrs. Ravenel asked me to tell you how grateful she is. But she
also----"
A bell-boy interrupted with two telegrams, both addressed to Fannie.
"She also what?" asked John, mantling.
"Mr. March, do you suppose either of these is bad news?"
"No, ma'am, one's probably from Suez to say the black girl's coming, and
the other's from her husband; but if it were not good news, he was to
send it to me."
She took the telegrams in and was soon with him again. "Oh, Mr. March,
they're just as you said! Mrs. Ravenel says tell you she's better--which
is true--and to thank you once more, but to say that she can't any
longer--" the little musician poured upon him her most loving
beams--"let you make the sacrifice you're----"
John solemnly smiled. "Why, she hasn't _been_ letting me. She never
asked me to stay and she needn't ask me to go. I gave my word to _him_,
and I shall keep it--to myself." His manner grew more playful. "That's
what you'd do, wouldn't you, if you were a man?"
But at that moment his hearer was not fancying herself a man; she was
only wishing she were a younger woman. A gleam of the wish may have got
into her look as she gave him her hand at parting, for somehow he began
to have a sort of honey-sickness against femmine interests and plainly
felt his land company's business crowding upon his conscience.
LXIV.
JUDICIOUS JOHANNA
One thing that gives play for sentiment concerning a three hours'
belated railway train is the unapologetic majesty with which at last it
rolls into a terminal station.
There had been rain-storms and freshets down in Dixie, and a subdued
anxiety showed itself on Johanna's face as she stepped down from the
crowded platform; but she shone with glad astonishment when she found
John March taking her forgotten satchel from her hands and her checks
from the express messenger.
A great many people looked at them, once for curiosity and again for
pleasure; for she was almost as flattering a representative of her class
as he of his, and in meeting each other they seemed happy enough to have
been twins. The hotel's conveyance was an old-fashioned stage-coach, but
very new and blue. It made her dumb with delight to see the owner-like
serenity with which Mr. March passed her into it and by and by out of it
into the gorgeous hotel. But to double the dose of some drugs reverses
their effect, and her supper, served in the ladies' ordinary and by a
white man-servant, actually brought her to herself. As she began to
eat--blissfully, for only a yard or so away sat Mr. March smilingly
holding back a hundred inquiries--she managed, herself, to ask a
question or two. She grew pensive when told of Miss Fannie's sickness
and of the bridegroom's being compelled to go to Washington, but revived
in reporting favorably upon the health of Mrs. March, whom, she said,
she had seen at a fair given by both the Suez churches to raise money to
repair the graveyard fence--"on account o' de hawgs breakin' in so
awfm."
"And you say everybody was there, eh?" indolently responded John, as he
resharpened his lead-pencil. "Even including Professor Pettigrew?"
"No, seh, I observe he not 'mongs' de comp'ny, 'caze yo' maw's Jane, she
call my notice to dat."
"I wonder how my mother likes Jane. Do you know?"
Johanna showed a pretty embarrassment. "Jane say yo' maw like her. She
say yo' maw like her 'caze she always done tole yo' maw ev'thing what
happm when yo' maw not at home. Seh? Oh, no, seh," the speaker's
bashfulness increased, "'tis on'y Jane say dat; same time she call my
notice to de absence o' Pufesso' Pedigree--yass, seh."
John gave himself a heartier manner. "I reckon, Johanna, you'd be rather
amazed to hear that I traveled nearly all the way from Pulaski City with
yo' young missie and stayed at the same hotel here with her and her
friends a whole Saturday and Sunday, wouldn't you?"
Johanna's modest smile glittered across her face as she slowly replied,
"No-o, seh, I cayn't 'zac'ly fine myseff ama-aze', 'caze Miss Barb done
wrote about it in her letteh."
"Psheh!" said John, playing incredulous, "you ain't got air letter from
Miss Barb."
The girl was flattered to ecstasy. "Yass, seh, I is," she said; but her
soft laugh meant also that something in the way he faltered on the dear
nickname made her heart leap.
"Now, Johanna," murmured John, looking more roguishly than he knew from
under his long lashes, "you' a-foolin' me. If you had a letter you'd be
monst'ous proud to show it. All you've got is a line or two saying,
'Send me my shawl,' or something o' that sort."
Johanna glanced up with injured surprise and then tittered, "Miss Barb
wear a shawl--fo' de Lawd's sa-ake! Why, Mr. March, evm you knows
betteh'n dat, seh." Her glow of happiness stayed while she drew forth a
letter and laid it by her cup of coffee.
"Oh!"--the sceptic tossed his head--"seein's believin'; but I can't see
so far off."
Johanna could hardly speak for grinning. "Dass heh letteh, seh, writ de
ve'y same night what she tell you good-by."
"She wrote it"--John's heart came into his mouth--"that same night?"
"Dass what it saay, seh. D'ain't nothin' so ve'y private in it; ef yo'
anteress encline you to read it, why----"
"Thank you," said the convert as his long arm took the prize.
There were three full sheets of it. He found himself mentioned again and
again, but covertly drew his breath through his clenched teeth to see
how necessary he had made himself to every page of her narrative and how
utterly he was left out when not so needed. "She'll not get the same
chance again," he thought as he finished.
"Johanna, have you--never mind, I was----" And he began to read it
again.
Sitting thus absorbed, he was to the meek-minded girl before him as
strong and fine a masculine nature as she had ever knowingly come near.
But his intelligence was only masculine at last--a young man's
intelligence. She kept her eyes in her plate; yet she had no trouble to
see, perfectly, that her confidence was not ill-advised--a confidence
that between the letter's lines he would totally fail to read what she
had read.
One thing was disappointing. As often as read to her, the letter had
seemed to sparkle and overflow with sweet humor and exquisite wit to
that degree that she had to smother her laughter from beginning to end.
Mr. March was finishing it a second time and had not smiled. Twice or
thrice he had almost frowned. Yet as he pushed its open pages across the
table he said ever so pleasantly,
"That's a mighty nice letter, Johanna; who's going to answer it for
you?"
"Hit done answ'ed, seh. I ans' it same night it come. My fatheh writ de
answeh; yass, seh, Unc' Leviticus."
"Oh, yes. Well, you couldn't 'a' chosen better--Oh! Miss Barb says
here"--Mr. March gathered up the sheets again--"'write me all you hear
about the land company.' That's just so's to know how her father gets
on, I reckon, ain't it?" He became so occupied with the letter that the
girl did not have to reply. He was again reading it through. This time
he repeatedly smiled, and as he folded it and gave it up he said once
more,
"Yes, it's a nice letter. Does Miss Barb know where to mail the next one
to you?"
"I ain't had no chaynce to sen' her word, seh."
"Why, that's a pity! You ought to do that at once, Johanna, and let her
know you've got here safe and well--if only for her sake! I'll do it for
you to-night, if you'd like me to."
Johanna thankfully assented.
Mr. March did not ponder, this time, as to what the opening phrase of
the letter should be; and as he sealed the "hurried note" he did so with
the air of a man who is confident he has made no mistake. It began,
"Dear Miss Barb."
LXV.
THE ENEMY IN THE REAR
A new week came in with animating spring weather. On Monday Fannie sat
up, and on Tuesday, when John called, her own smile surprised him at the
door, while Johanna's reflected it in the background.
He felt himself taken at a disadvantage. His unready replies to her
lively promptings turned aimlessly here and there; his thoughts could
neither lead nor follow them. The wine of her pretty dissembling went to
his head; while the signs of chastening in her fair face joined
strangely with her sprightliness in an obscure pathetic harmony that
moved his heartstrings as he had felt youthfully sure they were never to
be moved again. His late anger against Ravenel came back, and with it,
to his surprise, the old tenderness for her, warmed by the anger and
without the bitterness of its old chagrin. He found himself reminded of
his letters to Johanna's distant mistress, but instantly decided that
the two matters had nothing to do with each other, and gave himself rich
comfort in this visible and only half specious fulfilment of his youth's
long dream. The daily protection and care of this girl, her welcome,
winsome gayeties and thanks, were his, his! with no one near to claim a
division of shares and only honor to keep account with. His words were
stumbling over these unconfessed distractions when she startled him by
saying,
"I've telegraphed Jeff-Jack that I can travel."
His response was half-resentful. "Did the doctor say you might?"
She gave her tone a shade of mimicry. "Yes, sir, the doctor said I
might." But she changed it to add, "You'll soon be free, John; it's a
matter of only two or three hours." Her playfulness faded into a smile
of gratefulest affection. Johanna, who was passing into the next room,
could not see it, but she easily guessed it by the slight disconcertion
which showed through the smile he gave back.
He dropped his eyes pensively. "To be free isn't everything."
"It is for you just now, John, mighty nearly. You've got a great work
before you, and----"
"Oh, yes, so I've heard." He laughed apologetically and rose to go.
"You don't need to be reminded as badly as you used to," said Fannie,
retaining his hand and looking into his face with open admiration.
"You'll start East to-day, won't you?"
"That depends."
"Now, John, it doesn't do any such thing. It mustn't!"
"I'll let you know later," said John, freeing his grasp. The pressure of
her little hand had got into his pulse. He hurried away.
"She's right," he pondered, as he walked down the populous street, beset
by a vague discomfort, "it mustn't depend. Besides, she's pretty sure
not to stay here. It wouldn't be Jeff-Jack's way to come back; he'll
wire to her to come to him at once. Reckon I'll decide now to go on that
Washington express this evening. I can't afford to let my movements
depend on F-Fannie's--hem! Heaven knows I've taxed the company's
patience enough already."
He told the regretful clerks at his hotel that this was his farewell day
with them, and tried to feel that he had thus burned the last bridge
between himself and indiscretion. He only succeeded in feeling as you
and I--and Garnet--used to feel when we had told our purpose to others
and fibbed to ourselves about the motive. But Garnet had got far beyond
that, understand.
So Vice-President March went to the day's activities paying parting
calls from one private office to another in the interest of Widewood's
industrial colonization. He bought his railroad ticket--returnable in
case any unforeseen----
"Oh, that's all right, President March: yes, sir; good-day, sir."
At his hotel shortly after noon he found a note. He guessed at its
contents. "She takes the same train I do." He forced himself to frown at
the amusing yet agreeable accident. But his guess was faulty; the note
read:
"I return immediately to Suez, where Jeff-Jack will arrive by the end of
the week."
And thereupon John had another feeling known to us all--the dull shame
with which we find that fate has defrauded us for our own good. However,
he hurried to Fannie and put himself into her service with a gay
imperiousness delightful to both and apparently amusing to the busy
Johanna. By and by the music-teacher helped also, making Fannie keep her
rocking-chair, and, as Mr. March came and went, dropped little
melodious, regretful things to him privately about his own departure.
Once she said that nothing gave her so much happiness as answering
pleasant letters; but John only wondered why women so often talk
obviously without any aim whatever!
"Well," at length he said to Fannie, "I'll go now and get myself off.
Your train starts from the same station mine does; I'll say good-by
there."
He packed his valise and hand-bag, and had given them to the porter,
when he received a letter.
"My George!" was his dismayed whisper to himself, "a duelist couldn't
be prompter." He walked to the door, gazing at the superscription.
"It feels like my letter sent back. Ah, well! that's just what it
ought to be. Confound the women, all; I wonder how it feels for a
man just to mind his own business and let them"--he rent the
envelope--"mind--theirs!"
He read the missive as he rode to the station. It wasn't very long, and
it did seem to him a bit too formal; and yet it was so gravely sweet
that he had to smooth the happiness off his face repeatedly, and finally
stole a private laugh behind the hand that twisted his small mustache,
as he fondly sighed.
"Doggone your considerate little soul, you're just a hundred ton nicer
and better than your father or anybody else is ever going to deserve!"
But he read on:
"For you remember, do you not? that I was free to speak of yours and
papa's ambitions and plans for Widewood? And so I enclose a page or two
of a letter just received from our Johanna at home, because it states
things about Colonel Proudfit's new construction company which Cornelius
seems to have told your mother's black girl, Jane. They may be pure
inventions; but if so, they must be his, not hers, although I should
never have thought he would be so reckless as to tell such things to
such a person----" Etc.
John unfolded the fragments of Johanna's letter with a condescending
smile which began to fade before he had read five lines. A chill ran
down his back, and then an angry flush mounted to his brow.
There is a kind of man--Mr. Leggett was such a one, Samson was
another--who will tell his own most valuable or dangerous secrets to any
woman on whose conquest he is bent, if she only knows how to bid for
them. And there are "Delijahs" who will break any confidence and risk
any fortune, nay, their own lives, to show a rival she has been
eclipsed. There are also women, even girls, who are of such pure eyes
they cannot discern obliquity anywhere. And there are others just as
pure--the lily's own heart isn't purer--who, nevertheless--but why waste
time or type. In short, Johanna first, and then Barbara, had seen how
easily Daphne Jane's tittle-tattle might be serious news to John March;
which it certainly was if the dark cloud on his face was a true sign.
He found Fannie on her train and well cared for by Johanna and the
music-teacher. In the silence which promptly followed his greeting,
these two moved aside and Fannie murmured eagerly,
"What on earth's the matter?--Yes, there is, John; something's wrong;
what is it? I saw you slip a letter into your pocket at the door. What
does it mean?"
"Why, Fannie--it means I've got to go straight back to Suez."
She made a rapturous gesture. "And you're going on this train?" she
whispered.
"No."
"Now, why not? John, you're foolish!--or else you think I am. You
mustn't! You must go on this train. John, I--I want you to." She smiled
up at his troubled gaze.
"Johanna," he said, and beckoned the maid a step aside. "Miss Barb has
sent me that part of your letter to her that tells about the
construction company."
"Yaas, seh," murmured Johanna. Her heart throbbed.
"You say, there, that Cornelius says its officers are mere tools in the
power of men who have put them there; that Gamble's behind Crickwater,
Bulger's behind Mattox, and he, Leggett, is behind Pettigrew--yes--don't
interrupt, there isn't time--and that Colonel Proudfit got the money to
buy stock enough to elect himself president, by persuading his wife to
mortgage everything she has got. Yes; but you don't tell who Cornelius
says is behind Colonel Proudfit. Didn't he say?"
"Please, seh, Mr. March, ef Majo'----"
"That's all, Johanna, I'm much obliged to you. It may be, you know, that
there isn't a word of truth in the whole thing; but in any case you'll
never--No, that's right." He turned to Fannie. "I must change my ticket
and check; I'm going with you."
LXVI.
WARM HEARTS, HOT WORDS, COOL FRIENDS
About that same hour the next day John stepped off the train at Suez and
turned to let Fannie down; but a pair of uplifted arms came between the
two, and Launcelot Halliday, with the back of his velvet coat close to
the young man's face, said, "I'll take care of my daughter, John; you
can look after any business of your own that may need you."
"Why, Pop!" exclaimed Fannie. The color flushed up to her brows. John
gazed at him in haughty silence.
"Come on, Johanna," said the old General, heartily. "Good-by, John. When
can I see you in your office?"
"Whenever I'm there, and not too busy!" replied March as he strode away.
"We'll go to the old house for to-night, Johanna," said Fannie, and did
not speak again until she began to draw off her gloves in her father's
parlor. Her face was white, her dark eyes wide; but her voice was slow
and kind.
"Yes, Johanna, go along to my room. I'll be there directly." She shut
the door and folded her gloves, smiling like a swordsman rolling up his
sleeves.
"Pop, I've owed you a-many an explanation that I've never paid. You
never owed me one in your life till now; but"--her eyes flashed--"you
owe it this time to the roots of your hair."
"Fan, that's a mighty poor beginning for the explanation I expect from
you."
His tone was one of forbearance, but before he could finish she was as
red as a flower. "I belong to my husband! When I've anything to explain
I'll explain to him."
"Fannie Halliday----"
"Ravenel, if you please, sir."
He smiled severely. "Have a chair, Mrs. Ravenel. Fan, you're married to
a man who never asks an explanation."
The two gazed upon each other in silence. His accustomed belief in her
and her ardent love for him were already stealing back into their
hearts. Nevertheless----
"O, sir!" she exclaimed, "tell me something I don't know! Yes! But I'm
married to a man who waits for things to explain themselves."
"Or till they're past all explanation, Fan."
"Yes, sir; yes! But more! I'm married to a man who knows that nothing
can explain conduct but conduct. That's the kind of explanation you
still owe me, Pop, till you pay it to John March."
"Well, then," he replied with new warmth, "I'll owe it a long time. If
he ever again shows his carelessness of conventional----"
Fannie laid a pale hand on her father's arm. "It wasn't his. He showed
carefulness enough; I overruled it. It was his duty to come, Pop; and I
had let him neglect duty for me long enough."
The General started. "Why, Fan." But when he looked into her sad eyes
his soul melted. She smiled with her face close to his.
"Pop, you never meddled in my affairs before. Don't you reckon I'll
manage this one all right."
"Why, yes, Fan. I was only anxious about you because----"
"Never mind your becauses, dear. Just say you'll make it all right with
John."
"Go to bed, Fannie; go to bed; John and I will take care of ourselves."
When the General reached his office the next day the forenoon was well
advanced. He was still there when at midday John March entered.
"John, howdy? Have a chair."
"Thank you, sir." But the young man continued to stand.
"Oh, take a seat, John; you can get up again if what I say doesn't suit
you."
The speaker came from his desk, took a chair and pushed another to his
visitor.
"John, I had a short talk with Fannie last night, and a long one again
this morning. If my manner to you last evening impugned your motives, I
owe you an apology."
"That's all I want to hear, General," said John, accepting the old
soldier's hand.
"Yes, my boy; but it's not all I want to say. Fannie tells me you've
been taking some business risks, so to speak, for her sake." John
scowled. "Now, John, when she asked you to come home on her train she
knew that was to her a social risk, and she took it for your sake in
return. Not improper? I don't say it was. It was worse than improper,
John; it was romantic! The gay half of Suez will never forget it, and
the grim half will never forgive it! Oh, it was quite proper and
praiseworthy if Pussie and Susie would just not misconstrue it, as they
certainly will. Only a few months ago, you know, you were making it
almost public that you would still maintain your highly poetical line of
conduct and sentiment toward Fan after she should be married."
"General Halliday, I----"
"Let me finish, John. We didn't run you out of town, did we?"
March smiled a strong sarcasm and shook his head. The General went on.
"No, sir, we took you good-naturedly and trusted to your sober second
thought. Well, Fan's scarcely ten days married, Jeff-Jack's a thousand
miles away, and here you come full of good intentions, hell's pavement,
you know--O John, the more I think of it the more amazed I am at all
three of you. I don't blame Jeff-Jack for leaving Fan as he did----"
"'As he did'! By George! General Halliday, that's all I do blame him
for!"
"Why, do you mean--But never mind; that's probably none of my business;
I don't see how you could ever think it was any of yours. Oh, now,
please keep your seat! No, at least, I don't blame him merely for
leaving her; a politician's a soldier; he can't stop to comfort the
sick. But he should have declined your offer to stay with her, in
_italics_, John, and sent for me!"
"Sent for--Oh, imagine him! Besides, General Halliday, Jeff-Jack knew my
offer was to myself; not to him at all, sir! But he saw another
thing--about me--as plainly as I did; yes, plainer!"
"I could do that myself, John. What was it--this time?"
"He saw my sober second thought had come!"
"H--, I wish I had his eyes! Did he say so? Wha'd he say?"
"He said what wasn't true."
The old warrior smiled satirically. "What was it?"
"'Ever mind what it was! I'm talked out."
"My dear fellow, so am I! John, honestly, I thank you for the--pardon
me--the unusual patience with which you've taken my hard words." The
speaker gripped his hearer's knee. "And you really think you've finished
your first great campaign of mistakes--eh?"
"Yes!" They rose, laughing. "Yes, and I've every reason to hope it's my
last." The General proposed drinks, but John hadn't time, and they only
swapped cigars.
"I hear you leave us again this evening," said the General.
"No; they'd like me to go, but I'm--I'm very tired and anyhow----"
"You're wha-at? Tired! Why, John--O no, you don't mean tired, you mean
insa-ane! Why, sir, that's going straight back on everything you've been
saying! John, we're not going to stand this." The General grew red.
"Whom do you mean by 'we,' General?" Both men were forgetting to smoke.
"Everybody, sir! everybody in Suez with whom you have any relations?
Why, look at it yourself! For a week running you neglect your own
interests and your company's business to do--what? Just what you'd do if
you were still under an infatuation which you've openly confessed for
years!"