Within a few days Throckmorton and Jack Throckmorton--the traitor and
the traitor's son--had arrived at Millenbeck.
Jacqueline could talk of nothing but the dawning splendors of the place.
Delilah, who had an appetite for the marvelous scarcely inferior to
Jacqueline's, kept her on the rack with curiosity.
"Dey done put Bruskins carpets all over de house," she retailed solemnly
into Jacqueline's greedy ears, "an' velvet sofys an' cheers, an' de
lookin'-glasses from de garret ter de cellar. An' dey got a white man
name' Sweeney--mighty po' white trash, Simon Peter say--dat is a white
nigger, an' he talk mighty cu'rus. Simon Peter he meet him in de road,
an' dis heah Mis' Sweeney he ax him ef dey was any Orrish gentmans 'bout
here. Simon Peter he say he never heerd o' no sich things ez Orrish
gentmans, an' Mis' Sweeney he lif' up he stick, an' Simon Peter he took
ter he heels an' Mis' Sweeney arter him, an' Simon Peter 'low ef he
hadn't run down in de swamp, Mis' Sweeney would er kilt him, sho'! An'
he doan' min' blackin' de boots at Millenbeck an' milk de cows, an' den
he dress up fine an' wait on de table--an' he a white man, too! He done
tell some folks he wuz a soldier an' fit, an' he gwine ev'ywhar Marse
George Throckmorton go, ef it twuz hell itself. Things is monst'ous fine
at Millenbeck--_dat_ dey is--an' all fur dem two menfolks. Seem like God
A'mighty done give all de good times ter de menfolks an' all de hard
times ter de womenfolks."
"Is that so, mammy?" asked Jacqueline, dolefully, who was simple of
soul, and disposed to believe everything Delilah told her.
"Dat 'tis, chile, ez sho'--ez sho' ez God's truf. De menfolks jes' lives
fur ter be frustratin' an' owdacious ter de po' womenfolks, what byar de
burdens. I tell Simon Peter so ev'y day; but dat nigger he doan' worrit
much 'bout what de po' womenfolks has got ter orndure. Men is mighty
po', vain, weak creetures--_I_ tell Simon Peter dat too ev'y day."
"Dat you does," piously responded Simon Peter.
The windows to Judith's room possessed a strange fascination in those
days for Jacqueline, because they looked straight out to Millenbeck.
There she stood for hours, dreaming, speculating, thinking out aloud.
"Just think, Judith; there is a great big hall there that mamma says has
a splendid dancing-floor!"
"Jacky, stop thinking about Millenbeck and the dancing-floor. It doesn't
concern you, and you know that mother will never let you speak to
either of the Throckmortons," answered Judith.
"Yes, I know it," said Jacqueline, disconsolately. "The more's the pity.
Papa is dying to be friends with them when they come; but, of course,
mamma won't let him."
Jacqueline's voice was usually high-pitched, rapid, and musical, but
whenever she meant to be saucy she brought it down to great meekness
and modesty.
"Major Throckmorton, you know, is a widower. I don't believe in grieving
forever, like mamma. Suppose, now, Judith, _you_ should--"
But Judith, whose indulgence to Jacqueline rarely failed, now rose up
with a pale face.
"Jacqueline, you forget yourself."
Usually one rebuke of the sort was enough for Jacqueline, but this time
it was not. She came and clasped Judith around the waist, and held her
tight, looking into her eyes with a sort of timid boldness.
"Just let me say one thing. Mamma is sacrificing all of us--you and me
and papa--to--to Beverley--"
"Hush, Jacqueline!"
"No, I won't hush. Judith, how long was it from the time you first met
Beverley until you married him?"
"Two months."
"And how much of that time were you together?"
"Two--weeks," answered Judith, falteringly.
"And then you married him, and you had hardly any honeymoon, didn't
you?"
"A very short one."
"And Beverley went away, and never came back."
There was a short silence. Jacqueline was nerving herself to say what
had been burning upon her lips for long.
"Then--then, Judith, he was so little _in_ your life--he was so little
_of_ your life."
"But, Jacqueline, when one loves, it makes no difference whether it is a
month or a year."
"Yes, when one loves; but, Judith, did you love Beverley _that_ way?"
Judith stood quite still and pale. The thought was then put in words
that had haunted her. She no longer thought of answering Jacqueline, but
of answering herself. Was it, indeed, because she was so young, so
entirely alone in the world, and, in truth, had known so little of the
man she married, that it became difficult for her to recall even his
features; that she felt something like a pang of conscience when Mrs.
Temple spoke his name; that this perpetual kindness to his father and
his mother seemed a sort of reparation? Jacqueline, seeing the change
in Judith's face, went softly out of the room. Judith stood where
Jacqueline had left her. Presently the door opened, and little Beverley
came in, and made a dash for his mother. Judith seized him in her arms,
and knelt down before him, and for the thousandth time tried to find
a trace of his father in his face. But there was none. His eyes, his
mouth, his expression, were all hers. Even the little bronze rings of
hair that escaped from under her widow's cap were faithfully reproduced
on the child's baby forehead. This strong resemblance to his mother was
a thorn in Mrs. Temple's side. She would have had the boy his father's
image. She would have had him grave and given to serious, thoughtful
games, and to hanging about older people, such as her Beverley had been;
but this merry youngster was always laughing when he was not crying, and
was noisy and troublesome, as most healthy young animals are. Yet she
adored him.
The boy soon got tired of his mother's arms around him, and
uncomfortable under her tender, searching gaze.
"I want to go to my mammy," he lisped.
Judith rose and led him by the hand down-stairs to Delilah. The child
ran to his mammy with a shout of delight. His mother sometimes awed his
baby soul with her gravity, when he had been naughty. Often he could not
get what he wanted by crying for it, and got smart slaps upon his plump
little palms when he cried. But with Delilah there was none of this.
Delilah represented a beneficent Providence to him, which permitted
naughtiness, and had no limit to jam and buttermilk.
The Throckmortons had at last come, but had kept very close to
Millenbeck for a week or two after their arrival in the county; but on
one still, sunny September Sunday at Severn church, just as the Rev.
Edmund Morford appeared out of the little robing-room, after having
surveyed himself carefully in the mite of a looking-glass, and satisfied
himself that his adornment was in keeping with his beauty, two gentlemen
came in quietly at a side door, and took their seats in the first vacant
pew. They looked more like an elder and a younger brother than father
and son. Both had the same square-shouldered, well-knit figures, not
over middle height--the same contour of face, the same dark eyes. But it
was a type which was at its best in maturity. Major Throckmorton was
much the handsomer man of the two, although, as Judith Temple said some
time after, when called upon to describe him, that handsome scarcely
applied to him--he was rather distinguished than actually handsome--and
she blushed unnecessarily as she said it. His hair and mustache were
quite iron-gray, and he had the unmistakable look and carriage of a
military man. The pew they took near the door was against the wall of
the church, and in effect facing the Temple pew, where sat all the
family from Barn Elms, including little Beverley, who looked a picture
of childish misery, compelled to be preternaturally good, until sleep
overcame him, and his yellow mop of hair fell over against his mother.
Young Throckmorton, whose eyes were full of a sort of gay curiosity, let
his gaze wander furtively over the congregation, and in two minutes knew
every pretty face in the church. The two prettiest were unquestionably
in the Temple pew. Without boldness or obtrusiveness, he managed to keep
every glance and every motion in that pew in sight; and Jacqueline, by
something like psychic force, knew it, and conveyed to him the idea that
no glance of his escaped her. Nevertheless, she was very devout, and the
only look she gave him was over the top of her prayer-book. Judith,
with her large, clear gaze fixed on the clergyman, was in her way as
conscious as Jacqueline. But Throckmorton saw nothing and nobody for a
time, except that he was back again in Severn church after thirty years.
How well he remembered it all!--the little dark gallery to the right of
the pulpit, where in the old times Mrs. Temple and Mrs. Sherrard had
sat, and sung the old, old hymns, their sweet, untrained voices rising
into the dark, cobwebbed, resonant roof--voices as natural as that of
the sweet, shy singing birds that twittered under the eaves of the old
church, and built their nests safely and peacefully in the solemn yews
and weeping-willows of the burying-ground close by. The September
sunlight, as it sifted through the windows on the heads of the kneeling
people--even the droning of the honey-bees outside, and the occasional
incursion of a buzzing marauder through the windows--made him feel as if
he were in a dream. It was not the recollection of a happy boyhood that
had brought him back to Millenbeck. He remembered his grandfather as an
old curmudgeon, the terror of his negroes and dependents, wasteful, a
high liver, and a hard drinker; and himself a lonely boy, with neither
mother nor sister, nor any sort of kindness to brighten his boyish soul,
except those good women, Mrs. Temple and Mrs. Sherrard. Deep down in his
being was that Anglo-Saxon love of the soil--the desire to return whence
he came. He knew much of the world, and doubted if the experiment of
returning to Millenbeck would succeed, but he at least determined to try
it. He had no very serious notion of abandoning his profession, which he
loved, while he grumbled at it, but he had had this project of a year's
leave, to be spent at Millenbeck, in his mind for a long, long time, and
he wanted Jack to own the place. Himself the most unassuming of men, he
cherished, unknown to those who knew him best, a strong desire that his
name should be kept up in Virginia where it had been known so long.
With scarcely a word on the subject spoken between father and son, Jack
had the same drift of sentiment. Both had inherited from dead and gone
generations a clinging to old things, old forms, that made itself felt
in the strenuous modern life, and even a sturdy family pride that native
good sense concealed.
The Rev. Edmund Morford, along with his unfortunate excess of good
looks, inherited a rich, strong voice, in which he rolled out the
liturgy with great elocutionary effect. He saw the two strangers in the
congregation, and at once divined who they were, and determined to give
them a sermon that would show them what stuff parsons were made of in
Virginia. He was much struck by the scrupulousness with which Major
Throckmorton went through the service, which the Rev. Edmund attributed
partly to his own telling way of rendering it. But in truth,
Throckmorton neither saw nor heard the Rev. Edmund. He went through the
forms with a certain military precision that very often passed for
strict attention, as in this case, but he was still under the spell of
the bygone time. Mr. Morford gave out a hymn, and the congregation rose,
Throckmorton standing up straight like a soldier at attention. After a
little pause, a voice rose. It was so sweet, so pure, that Throckmorton
involuntarily turned toward the singer. It was Judith Temple, her clear
profile well marked against her black veil, which also brought out
the deep tints of her eyes and hair, and the warm paleness of her
complexion. She sang quite composedly and unaffectedly, a few women's
voices, Mrs. Temple's among the rest, joining in timidly, but her full
soprano carried the simple air. Her head was slightly thrown back as she
sang, and apparently she knew the words of the hymn by heart, as she did
not once refer to the book held open before her.
There is something peculiarly touching in female voices unaccompanied.
Throckmorton thought so as he came out of his waking dream and glanced
about him. In an instant he took in the pathetic story of war and ruin
and loss that was written all over the assembled people. Many of the
women were in mourning, and the men had a jaded, haggard, hopeless look.
They had all been through with four years of harrowing, and they showed
it. In the Temple pew Mrs. Temple and Judith were in the deepest
mourning, and General Temple wore around his hat the black band that
Mrs. Temple would never let him take off.
Throckmorton's eye rested for a moment in approval on Judith, and then
on Jacqueline, but he looked at Jacqueline the longest.
Then, after the hymn, Mr. Morford began his sermon. It was electrifying
in a great many unexpected ways. Throckmorton, who knew something about
most things, saw through Morford's shallow Hebraism, and inwardly
scoffed at the cheerful insufficiency with which the most abstruse
biblical problems were attacked. Morford's candor, confidence, and
perfect good faith tickled Throckmorton; he felt like smiling once or
twice, but, on looking around, he saw that everybody, except those who
were asleep, took Morford at his own valuation; except the young woman
with the widow's veil about her clear-cut face, whose eyes, fixed
attentively on Mr. Morford, had something quizzical in their expression.
Throckmorton at once divined a sense of humor in that grave young widow
that was conspicuously lacking in Jacqueline, who listened, bored but
awed, to the preacher's sounding periods.
The sermon was long and loud, and there was another hymn, sung in the
simple and touching way that went to Throckmorton's heart, and then a
dramatic benediction, after the Rev. Edmund had announced that the next
Sunday, "in the morning, the Lord will be with us, and in the evening
the bishop. I need not urge you, beloved brethren, to be prepared for
the bishop."
Then the congregation streamed out for their weekly gossip in the
churchyard. Throckmorton and Jack went out, too. No one spoke to them,
nor did they speak to any one. As a matter of fact, there were not half
a dozen people there that Throckmorton would have recognized; but he
was perfectly well known to everybody in the church, who, but for the
uniform he had worn, would have greeted him cordially and generously,
recalling themselves to him. But now they all held coldly and
determinedly aloof. Throckmorton, who was slow to imagine offense, did
not all at once take it in. But he would not lose a moment in speaking
to Mrs. Temple, one of the few persons he recognized, and the one most
endeared to him in his early recollections. The Temples, possibly to
avoid him, had made straight for the iron gate of the churchyard, and
stood outside the wall, waiting for the tumble-down carriage.
Throckmorton quickened his pace, and went up to Mrs. Temple, carrying
his hat in his hand.
"Mrs. Temple, have you forgotten George Throckmorton?" he asked in his
pleasant voice.
Mrs. Temple turned to him with a somber look on her gentle face.
"No, I have not forgotten you, George Throckmorton. But you and I are
widely apart. Between us is a great gulf, and war and sorrow."
A deep flush dyed Throckmorton's dark face. He was not prepared for
this, but he could not all at once give up this friendship, the memory
of which had lasted through all the years since his boyhood.
"The war is over," he said; "we can't be forever at war."
"It is enough for _you_ to say," she replied. "You have your son. Where
is mine?"
"As well call me to account for the death of Abel. Dear Mrs. Temple,
haven't you any recollection of the time when you were almost the only
friend I had? I have few enough left, God knows."
Here General Temple came to the front. In his heart he was anxious to
be friends with Throckmorton, and did not despair of obtaining Mrs.
Temple's permission eventually. He held out his hand solemnly to
Throckmorton.
"_I_ can shake hands with you, George Throckmorton," he said, and
then, turning to Mrs. Temple, "for the sake of what is past, my love,
let us be friends with George Throckmorton."
Throckmorton, who in his life had met with few rebuffs, was cruelly
wounded. In all those years he had cherished an ideal of womanly and
motherly tenderness in Mrs. Temple, and she was the one person in his
native county on whose friendship he counted. He looked down, indignant
and abashed, and in the next moment looked up boldly and encountered
Judith's soft, expressive eyes fixed on him so sympathetically that he
involuntarily held out his hand, saying:
"You, at least, will shake hands with me."
Judith, who strove hard to bring her high spirit down to Mrs. Temple's
yoke, did not always succeed. She held out her hand impulsively. The
spectacle of this manly man, rebuffed with Mrs. Temple's strange power,
touched her.
"And this," continued Throckmorton, out of whose face the dull red had
not yet vanished, turning to Jacqueline, "must be a little one that I
have not before seen.--Mrs. Temple, I can't force you to accept my
friendship, but I want to assure you that nothing--nothing can ever make
me forget your early kindness to me."
Mrs. Temple opened her lips once or twice before words came. Then she
spoke.
"George Throckmorton, you think perhaps that, being a soldier, you know
what war is. You do not. I, who sat at home and prayed and wept for four
long years, for my husband and my son, and to whom only one came back,
when I had sent forth two--_I_ know what it is. But God has willed it
all. We must forgive. Here is my hand--and show me your son."
Throckmorton, whose knowledge of Mrs. Temple was intimate, despite that
long stretch of years, knew what even this small compromise had cost
her. He motioned to Jack, who was surveying the scene, surprised and
rather angry, from a little distance. The young fellow came up, and Mrs.
Temple looked at him very hard, a film gathering in her eyes.
"I am glad you have such a son. Such was our son."
The carriage was now drawn up, and General Temple looked agonizingly at
Mrs. Temple. He wanted her to invite Throckmorton to Barn Elms, but
Mrs. Temple said not one word. Throckmorton, in perfect silence, helped
the ladies into the carriage. He did not know whether to be gratified
that Mrs. Temple had conceded so much, or mortified that she had
conceded so little.
Jacqueline in the carriage gave him a friendly little nod. Judith leaned
forward and bowed distinctly and politely. General Temple, holding his
hat stiffly against his breast, remarked in his most grandiose manner:
"As two men who have fought on opposing sides--as two generous enemies,
my dear Throckmorton--I offer you my hand. I did my best against you in
my humble way"--General Temple never did anything in a humble way in his
life, and devoutly believed that the exploits of Temple's Brigade had
materially influenced the result--"but, following the example of our
immortal chieftain, Robert Lee, I say again, here is my hand."
A twinkle came into Throckmorton's eye. This was the same Beverley
Temple of twenty-five years ago, only a little more magniloquent than
ever and a little more under Mrs. Temple's thumb. Throckmorton,
repressing a smile, shook hands cordially.
"Neither of us has any apologies to make, general," he said. "I think
that ugly business is over for good. I feel more friendly toward my own
unfortunate people now than ever before. Good-by."
The general then made a stately ascent into the carriage, banged the
door, and rattled off.
Short as the scene had been, it made a deep impression upon Judith
Temple. Throckmorton's dignity--the tender sentiment that he had
cherished for his early friends--struck her forcibly. The very tones of
his voice, his soldierly carriage, his dark, indomitable eye, were so
impressed upon her imagination that, had she never seen him again, she
would never have forgotten him. It was an instant and powerful
attraction that had made her hold out her hand and smile at him.
Throckmorton, without trying the experiment of hunting up any more old
friends, turned to walk home. It was a good four-mile stretch, and
usually he stepped out at a smart gait that put Jack to his trumps to
keep up with. But to-day he sauntered along so slowly, through the woods
and fields with his hat over his eyes and his hands behind him, that
Jack lost patience and struck off ahead, leaving Throckmorton alone,
much to his relief.
Throckmorton wanted to think it all over. In his heart there was not
one grain of resentment toward Mrs. Temple. He thought he understood
the workings of her strong but simple nature perfectly well, and he
did not doubt the ultimate goodness of her heart. And General
Temple--Throckmorton had heard something of the general's magnificent
incapacity during the war--the bare idea of General Temple as a
commander made him laugh. How sweet were Mrs. Beverley's eyes, and how
demure she looked when she dropped them at some particularly solemn
absurdity of the clergyman, as if she were afraid somebody would see
the tell-tale gleam in them! The little girl, though, was the most
fascinating creature he had seen for long. How strangely and how
pitifully altered was the congregation of Severn church from the merry
prosperous country gentry he remembered so long ago! And how quiet, how
still was life there! All his usual every-day life was shut out from
him. Within the circle of that perfect repose nothing disquieting could
come. He stopped in the country lane and listened. Nothing broke the
solemn calm except the droning of the locusts in the September noon.
Warm as it was, there was a hint of autumn in the atmosphere.
Occasionally the clarion cry of a hawk circling in the blue air pierced
the silence.
"This, then, is peace," said Throckmorton to himself, and thought of the
year of idleness and repose before him. "Nothing ever happens here," he
continued, thinking. "Even the tragedy of the war was at a distance. As
Mrs. Temple says, the men went forth, and those that came back will go
forth no more."
Then he began to think over the way in which the people had completely
ignored him in the churchyard, where they stopped and gossiped with each
other, eying him askance. He knew perfectly well the estimate they put
upon him. He could have supplied the very word--"traitor." This made him
feel a sort of bitterness, which he consoled with the reflection--
"Most men of principle have to suffer for those principles at some time
or other."
By this time he was at his own grounds, and Sweeney's honest Irish face,
glowing with indignation, was watching out for him.
"Be the powers," snorted Sweeney to the black cook, "the murtherin'
rebels took no more notice of the major than if he'd been an ould
hat--an' he's a rale gintleman, fit ter dine with the Prisident, as he
often has, an' all the g'yurls has been tryin' to hook him fur twinty
years, bless their hearts, an' the major as hard as a stone to the dear
things, every wan of 'em!"