“‘A felon’s blow,’ indeed! O, la, you horrid thing!”
Charlotte Ware, alone in the living-room, rocked violently back and
forth a few times, apparently as an outlet for her indignation, then
turned her flushed cheeks and snapping eyes again upon the New York
“Tribune” in her hands. She stayed her rocking for a moment, absorbed
in the article which had aroused her anger, but presently broke out
again:
“‘The symbol of the South is the bludgeon!’ Oh, you wretch!”
She struck the page with her fist, but went on reading again until she
came to some sentiment which gave a still deeper prod to her anger.
Then springing to her feet, she crushed the journal into a ball,
whipped off her slipper and began to spank vigorously the offending
news. The paper flew from her hands and the kitten, which had tumbled
from her lap, whisked after it. She pursued and sent it across the room
with another blow, ran after it and beat it again, exclaiming, “There!
That’s what you deserve!”
“Charlotte, what are you doing?” It was her father’s voice at the
door, and without looking up she answered, between her whacks at the
tattered paper:
“It’s that old meeting in New York about Sumner and I’m giving that
horrid Beecher person’s speech what it deserves, and I wish it was him!”
“Bravo, Miss Charlotte!” came quick response in a strange masculine
voice, followed by a hearty laugh and two or three little handclaps.
She wheeled, her slipper in her hand, and saw a young man beside her
father in the doorway, a good-looking young man, broad-shouldered and
erect of stature. It flashed upon her that this must be Mr. Jefferson
Delavan. Under cover of picking up the kitten she adroitly slipped on
her shoe. As she came forward, blushing and confused, trying to cover
her embarrassment with an extra tilting of her hoopskirt and a pouting,
defiant little smile, she seemed to Delavan to be little more than a
spoiled, amusing child, so sweet and dainty to look at that to indulge
her would be a pleasure.
Mrs. Ware was delighted by Delavan’s coming, and would listen to no
other arrangement than that he should stay with them, at least over
night. When she heard this Charlotte considered whether or not she
should deny herself the excitement of attending the meeting that night.
She had already accepted the escort of a young admirer whose sentiments
were as vehemently pro-slavery as her own, and he had confided to
her that something interesting was likely to happen. Perhaps it would
be just as interesting to stay at home and prevent Mr. Delavan from
showing Rhoda too much attention. But there would be opportunity for
that afterward, and the meeting would be only that evening. So she
decided not to send word to her escort that she had changed her mind.
When she came downstairs ready to go, her father, meeting her in the
hall, said, with more gravity than he was accustomed to use toward her:
“I hope, Charlotte, you won’t let that young Saunders forget who you
are.”
“Don’t you worry, father,” she responded assuringly. “I won’t let him
hiss you, anyway.”
With much inward regret Dr. Ware gave up his plan of taking Rhoda to
the meeting with him. She and her mother sat on the veranda with their
guest and Mrs. Ware told them anecdotes about her own and his mother’s
girlhood and of the intimacy which had caused the young women to be
known among all their acquaintance as “the two alter egos.” “And after
awhile,” said Mrs. Ware, in happy reminiscence, “they always called one
of us ‘alter’ and the other ‘ego,’ without making any distinction as to
which was which.”
In the days of that friendship they had had their miniatures painted,
each for the other, and Delavan had brought, from his dead mother’s
possessions, that of Mrs. Ware.
“I thought you might like to have it again, Mrs. Ware, madam,” he said,
in his slightly ceremonious manner, “either for yourself, as a memento
of your girlhood, or to give to Miss Rhoda.”
Rhoda bent over it with eager, tender interest. “Oh, mother!” she
exclaimed, “does this really look as you did then? How you have
changed!” And, indeed, in her matronly figure, short and plump, there
was little suggestion of the trim and graceful outlines of the young
girl in the picture. The brown hair had grown quite gray, the bright
color had faded from the face, and the dainty contour of cheek, chin
and throat had been despoiled by the quarter-century which had since
passed over her head. But although the years had stolen her beauty they
had left in its place a worthy gift. For motherliness informed her
features, her look was tender, and the grace of gentleness controlled
her manner.
Delavan was at Rhoda’s elbow, looking at the miniature with her, and
now and then stealing a glance from the portrait to the girl’s face.
“You needn’t do that, Jeff,” Mrs. Ware smiled at him, “for you can’t
find the least resemblance to me in Rhoda’s features. She’s like her
father in looks and disposition and everything,” and her eyes rested
fondly upon her first-born.
“But how much it is like Charlotte!” Rhoda insisted, and pointed out
the likeness in mouth and chin, nose and brow, in expression and in
coloring.
Moved to tender retrospection by the memories that came crowding upon
her, she told them about her courtship and marriage. “It was at White
Sulphur Springs that I first met your father, Rhoda,” she said, “and
from the very start he never seemed to have eyes for anybody but me.
He was from the North, you know, from Providence, and he was taking a
horseback trip through the South for his health. He had letters to the
Colbys, good friends of ours who were there too, and so I soon met him.
Ah, what happy times we used to have at White Sulphur!” and she went
on to tell of rides and dances and flirtations in which they heard the
names of gay young gallants, known to them now as men of prominence in
Washington or capital cities in the South.
“But father--what became of him?” reminded Rhoda.
“Oh, he was always wherever I was, as long as he stayed at the
Springs, that summer. Afterwards he was with the Colbys, who owned
the next plantation to ours, tutoring their boys. That was such a gay
winter--something going on all the time--dear me!” She broke off into
a happy little laugh and the spirit of that long dead time flared up
again in the instinctive coquetry with which she tossed her head, moved
in her chair and flourished her fan. Delavan looked at her and smiled,
thinking of the Amos M. Ware of those days and wondering what would be
his account of that winter. Rhoda’s eyes noted the movement and the
expression and she thought, “That’s just like Charlotte!”
“My people did not want me to marry him,” Mrs. Ware went on, “because
he was a northerner. But one day he came to take me to ride--two such
splendid black horses they were, and how they could travel! Well,
we went, for I always had my own way, and such a wild ride we had!
We galloped and galloped, and I was very gay, as I always was, but
your father, Rhoda, looked so serious and strange that I was a little
frightened inside of me, though I wouldn’t have let him know it for
the world. I suppose that made me--a little--worse than usual, and he
didn’t say anything, but just made the horses go faster and faster, and
after a while he rode close beside me and seized my arm and said-- O,
never mind what he said!”--her voice trembled and almost broke and it
was a moment before she went on. “Well, the end of it was that we ran
away and were married. Of course my people were very angry about it,
but they forgave me, as I knew they would, though they never did quite
forgive him. He took me away at once to New York, where he wanted to
study medicine, and I never lived in the South again.”
Rhoda listened with a little tremor in her nerves and her heart
beating faster. Vividly the vision came before her--the pretty, gay
young woman with her wilful coquetries and the masterful young man
urging their horses faster and faster--and they were her father and
mother! How strange it seemed to think of them under the stress of such
a wild, compelling love. That, then, was what love was like--for its
sake her mother had dared the anger of her people, and had given up
them and their love and her home and all her early associations which
had meant to her such great happiness. The moon was swimming upward
through a sea-like expanse of dim blue sky and casting its spell of
beauty over the flower-decked yard, the solemn tree shapes guarding
the street and the glimpses of river beyond. Fireflies were weaving
patterns of light down among the shrubbery and behind it the white
palings of the fence gleamed, unreal as the walls of a dream palace. Up
from the rose-laden bushes, on the softly stirring air, came waves of
fragrance.
Mrs. Ware was going on with a story about Delavan’s mother and herself
and Rhoda heard her mention her “old mammy”! Instantly the girl’s
thought flashed to what her father had told her a little while before,
and the tears came to her eyes at the realizing sense of how his love
had shielded for his wife her memories and her pleasure in them. This,
then, was what love was like--but suddenly imagination drove thought
away and again she saw the vision of those two young lovers galloping
faster and faster, while love plied whip and spur. Then without warning
her mind played a trick upon her and there flashed across it a memory
of her own--of children playing pirates, herself and the other girls
princesses in short dresses and pantalettes, and the man now sitting
beside her, a long-legged boy, bearing down upon their palace, singling
her out and bearing her away to his treasure cave.
They strolled down into the yard, but Mrs. Ware did not like the dew
on the grass and went back to the veranda. Rhoda and Delavan idled on
through the moonlight.
“Do you know what I’ve just been thinking of?” he questioned.
“No. How could I? But--” she plucked a red rose and held it toward him,
her upper lip lifting in a smile that sent a brightness over her face,
“a flower for your thoughts!”
He took it, pressed it to his lips and fastened it in his buttonhole.
They were passing a great bed of white petunias, gleaming like ghost
flowers in the moonlight and sending forth sweet odors that filled the
air all round about.
“I was thinking,” he began, and to Rhoda the sweetness of their
fragrance seemed suddenly to be translated into his tones and to be
coursing through her own veins. Never again was she to be able to sense
the odor of petunias without darting memory of how he pressed her rose
to his lips and said, “I was thinking of that evening when we played
pirates. Do you remember?”
They had come to the entrance of the grape arbor, at the western side
of the yard. It was dark with the heavy foliage of the vines, and Rhoda
hesitated an instant as she glanced at the shadows within, checkered
here and there with gleams of light, and gave a faint exclamation
at his words. A dim prescience, barely realized, crossed her
consciousness, as of something, some destiny, waiting for her within
those shadows. A broad band of moonlight, shining through the entrance,
lay across the seat.
“You startled me, a little,” she said, sitting down in the white glow,
“because--it’s very curious--I thought of that evening myself, just
now!”
“You did? What a coincidence! Then you must remember how hard I had
to work to beat Lloyd Corey, the other pirate, to your palace, and
how I chose you out of all the princesses and carried you off? Do you
remember? Lloyd and I had a duel about you, with cornstalks, that
evening, after you girls went in, and I won, and after that he had to
let me pick you out every time--do you remember--Rhoda--that I did
always choose you? The very first day that you came, Harry Morehead and
Lloyd and I talked over you and all the other girls that were there,
comparing you and saying which we thought we would like best, and
I told them that I liked Rhoda Ware the best of them all and that I
was going to marry her some day. That was just boy’s talk, of course,
but--Rhoda--Rhoda Ware--we are man and woman now, and I love you, and
I--still mean to marry you, if you will have me--will you?”
He had been standing before her, bending low, speaking in quick,
soft tones, in which she felt a passionate masterfulness that set
her own pulses throbbing. Somewhere in the back of her mind she
had a dim memory of her father seizing her mother by the arm and
galloping--galloping-- Unconsciously she moved to one side and
nervously swept her wide skirts from the bench. He sat down beside her,
and as the moonlight fell full upon her figure he saw that her bosom
was heaving and her hands trembling.
“Have you--not been--too hasty?” she asked, in a troubled voice. “We
know so little of each other!”
“I know I love you and want you for my wife. I knew that when we were
together on the boat, and in Cincinnati, and I know it now more surely
even than I did then. But if you are not so sure of yourself, if you
want to know more about me, I will wait for your answer. But you won’t
deny me at once--you won’t send me away for good, now, will you, Rhoda?”
He bent toward her, his masterfulness all gone, face and voice full
of pleading. She gave him one swift, smiling glance, bright in the
moonlight, and whispered, “No, not now--let us wait a little.”
He seized her hand. It was cold and trembling. She let him hold it
for a moment in both of his. “Rhoda, Rhoda, you love me a little!” he
exclaimed, as he felt it fluttering within his palms.
“Perhaps, a little--I don’t know,” she hesitated. From down the hill
came the sound of voices. “They are coming home,” she went on in
steadier tones. “Let us go back to the house.”
The fact had not yet presented itself to Rhoda Ware’s remembrance
that Jefferson Delavan was a slaveholder. She knew that he owned a
plantation which he worked with slave labor, but her thoughts had been
filled by his personality alone, without reference to his surroundings
or conditions. And during the evening his presence and her mother’s
reminiscences had swept all her thoughts and emotions away from the
immediate present and the outer world. For the time being it was
quite outside her consciousness that he had any connection with the
institution of slavery.
As for Delavan, he did not know anything about Dr. Ware’s sentiments
on that burning question. The subject had not been mentioned during
their conversations on the boat and since his arrival in the afternoon
he had seen but little of his host. Mrs. Ware, with her delight at his
coming and her talk about his mother and their girlhood days, and
Rhoda’s presence, had engrossed his attention. Moreover, Charlotte’s
performance, upon which he and Dr. Ware had unexpectedly come, had been
misleading to whatever thought he had given to the matter. And that
young lady was about to make deeper the impression.
Seated on the veranda steps she lamented her mistake in going to the
meeting. “There was no fun at all,” she declared. “It was as orderly
and quiet as a funeral. I wish it had been old Sumner’s funeral! And
how they did talk about ‘Bully Brooks’!” She caught up the kitten,
which at the sound of her voice had come purring against her skirts,
and exclaimed:
“Prince of Walesy, you’ve got to have your name changed! You’re going
to be ‘Bully Brooks’ after this! Because he’s the best man out!”
“Good for you, Miss Charlotte! You’re a girl after my own heart!”
Delavan heartily approved. They were alone on the veranda, Dr. Ware
having hurried to his office, where a patient was waiting. At that
moment Mrs. Ware and Rhoda returned, with cool drinks, and the talk
turned to other subjects. But Delavan had gained a distinct impression
that Dr. Ware’s family was pro-slavery in sentiment.
Later in the evening, when Rhoda went into her sister’s bedroom to say
good-night, she found Charlotte sitting before a mirror with their
mother’s miniature, carefully comparing it with her own reflection.
“Come here, Rhoda,” she said, “and see how much this looks like me!”
Rhoda bent over her shoulder. The girl had arranged her hair like that
in the picture, and the resemblance was striking. “I know,” said Rhoda.
“I noticed it at once, but your hair this way makes it plainer. You
must look very much like mother did when she was your age--when they
were married.”
Charlotte cast a glance back into the other’s face. “Yes,” she said, “I
must be the image of her. That’s why father loves me so much more than
he does you.”
Rhoda turned sharply away. “Sister! He doesn’t! We are both his
daughters, and he loves us both.”
“Of course he does,” Charlotte replied calmly. “But he loves me a great
deal more than he does you.”
And in her secret heart Rhoda knew that her sister spoke the truth.