Within a week or two after, one afternoon Mrs. Kitty Sherrard made her
appearance at Barn Elms, with a great project in hand. She meant to give
a party.
Party-giving was Mrs. Sherrard's idiosyncrasy. According to the usual
system in Virginia, during the lifetime of the late Mr. Sherrard, there
was much frolicking, dancing, and hilarity at Turkey Thicket, the
Sherrard place, and a corresponding narrowness of income and general
behindhandedness. But since Mr. Sherrard's death Mrs. Sherrard, along
with the unvarying and sublime confidence in her husband, dead or alive,
that characterizes Virginia women, had yet entirely abandoned Mr.
Sherrard's methods. The mortgage on Turkey Thicket had been paid off,
the whole place farmed on common-sense principles, and the debts
declared inevitable by Mr. Sherrard carefully avoided. As a matter of
fact, the only people in the county who paid their taxes promptly were
the widows, who nevertheless continually lamented that they were
deprived of the great industry, foresight, and business capacity of
their defunct lords and masters. Mrs. Sherrard gave as many parties in
Mr. Sherrard's lifetime as she did after his death; but, since that
melancholy event, the parties were paid for, not charged on account.
When this startling information about the coming festivity was imparted,
Jacqueline, who was sitting in her own low chair by the fire, gave a
little jump.
"And," said Mrs. Sherrard, who was a courageous person, "I'll tell you
what I am giving it for. It is to get the county people to meet George
Throckmorton. Not a human being in the county has called on him, except
Edmund Morford, and I fairly drove him to it. He began some of his
long-winded explanations. 'Aunt Kitty,' he said, 'what am I, even though
I be a minister of the gospel, that I should set myself up against the
spirit of the community, which is against recognizing Throckmorton?'
'What are you, indeed, my dear boy,' I answered. 'I'm not urging you to
go, because it's a matter of the slightest consequence what you do or
what you don't, but merely for your own sake, because it is illiberal
and unchristian of you not to go.' Now, Edmund is a good soul, for all
his nonsense."
Mrs. Temple was horrified at this way of speaking of the young rector.
"And I've intimated to him that I'm about to make my will--I haven't the
slightest notion of doing it for the next twenty years--but the mere
hint always brings Edmund to terms, and so he went over to Millenbeck to
call. He came back perfectly delighted. The house is charming,
Throckmorton is a prince of hospitality, and I don't suppose poor Edmund
ever was treated with so much consideration by a man of sense in his
life before." Mrs. Temple groaned, but Mrs. Sherrard kept on, cutting
her eye at Judith, who was the only person at Barn Elms that knew a joke
when she saw it. Judith bent over her work, laughing. "I met
Throckmorton in the road next day. 'So you dragooned the parson into
calling on the Philistine,' he said. Of course I tried to deny it, after
a fashion; but Throckmorton won't be humbugged--can't be, in fact--and I
had to own up. 'You can't say Edmund's not a gentleman,' said I, 'and he
is the most good-natured poor soul; and if he had broken his nose, or
got cross-eyed in early youth, he really would have cut quite a
respectable figure in the world.' 'That's true,' answered George,
laughing, and looking so like he did long years ago, 'but you'll admit,
Mrs. Sherrard, that he is too infernally handsome for his own good.'
'Decidedly,' said I."
"Katharine Sherrard," solemnly began Mrs. Temple, who habitually called
Mrs. Sherrard Kitty, except at weddings and funerals, and upon occasions
like the present, when her feelings were wrought up, "the way you talk
about Edmund Morford is a grief and a sorrow to me. He is a clergyman of
our church, and it is not becoming for women to deride the men of their
own blood. Men must rule, Katharine Sherrard. It is so ordered by the
divine law."
"Jane Temple," answered Mrs. Sherrard, "you may add by the human law,
too; but some women--"
"Set both at naught," answered Mrs. Temple, piously and sweetly.
"They do, indeed," fervently responded Mrs. Sherrard, having in view
General Temple's complete subjugation. "But now about the party. The
general must come, of course. I wish I could persuade you."
"I have not been to a party since before the war, and now I shall never
go to another one."
"But Judith and Jacqueline will come."
At this a deep flush rose in Judith's face.
"I don't go to parties, Mrs. Sherrard."
"I know; but you must come to this one."
Mrs. Temple set her lips and said nothing, but Jacqueline, who sometimes
asserted herself at unlooked-for times, spoke up:
"If Judith doesn't go, I--I--sha'n't go."
"You hear that?" asked Mrs. Sherrard, delighted at Jacqueline's spirit.
"Stick to it, child; there is no reason why Judith shouldn't come."
Here General Temple entered and greeted Mrs. Sherrard elaborately. Mrs.
Sherrard immediately set to work on the general. She knew perfectly well
that he could do no more in the case than Simon Peter could, but she
poured her fire into him, thinking a stray shot might hit Mrs. Temple.
Judith remained quite silent. She was too sincere of soul to say she did
not want to go; and yet going to parties was quite out of that life of
true widowhood she had laid down for herself; and life was intolerably
dull. She loved gayety and brightness, and her whole life was clothed
with somberness. She was full of ideas, and loved books, and nobody in
the house ever read a line except General Temple, and his reading was
confined to the science of war, for which he would certainly never have
any use. She was full of quick turns of repartee, that, when she
indulged them, almost frightened Mrs. Temple, who had the average
woman's incapacity for humor. Mrs. Sherrard and herself were great
friends--and friends were not too plentiful with Mrs. Sherrard, whose
tongue was a two-edged sword. Nevertheless, Mrs. Temple and Mrs.
Sherrard had been intimate all their lives, and Mrs. Sherrard was one of
the few persons who ever took liberties with Mrs. Temple. Mrs. Sherrard
was clear-sighted, and she knew what nobody else did--how starved and
blighted was Judith's life by that stern repression to which she had set
herself; and she had known Beverley Temple, too, and sometimes said to
herself: "Perhaps it is better for Judith as it is, for Beverley, brave
and handsome as he was, yet was a dreadfully ordinary fellow. Luckily,
she was hustled into marrying him so quickly, and she was so young, she
didn't find it out; but if he had lived--"
Mrs. Sherrard departed, impressing upon General Temple that she should
certainly expect to see him at the party, with Judith and Jacqueline.
Simon Peter in the kitchen reported the state of affairs to Delilah, who
remarked:
"Miss Kitty She'ard, she know Miss Judy cyan go twell ole mistis say so.
Ole marse, he got a heap o' flourishes an' he talk mighty big, but
mistis she doan' flourish none; she jes' go 'long quiet like, an' has
her way."
"Dat's so," answered Simon Peter, rubbing his woolly head with an air of
conviction. "Mistis su't'ny is de wheel-hoss in dis heah team."
"An' ain' de womenfolks allus de wheel-hosses? Ole marse he set up an'
he talk 'bout de weather an' de craps, an' he specks de 'lection gwine
discomfuse things, an' he read de paper an' he know more 'n de paper do,
an' he read de Bible an' he know more 'n de Bible do, an' all de time he
ain' got de sperrit uv a chicken."
"De womenfolks kin mos' in gen'ally git dey way," cautiously answered
Simon Peter.
"Yes, dey kin; an' dey is gwine ter, 'long as menfolks is so triflin'
an' owdacious as dey is."
Jacqueline developed a strange obstinacy about the party. She declared
she was dying to go, but she never wavered from her determination not to
go without Judith.
"But your sister does not wish to go, Jacqueline," her mother said to
this.
"But I want her to go, mamma. You can't imagine how I _long_ to go to
this party. It is so very, very dull at Barn Elms--and I have my new
white frock."
"Judith has no frock."
"Oh, yes she has. She has that long black dress, in which she looks so
nice, and she is so clever at sewing she could cut it open at the neck
and turn up the sleeves at the elbow."
Mrs. Temple said nothing more. Jacqueline went about, eager-eyed, but
silent, and possessed of but one idea--the party. A day or two after
this she said bitterly to her mother, when Judith was out of the room:
"Mamma, I know why you are willing to disappoint me about this party. It
is because you love your dead child better than your living one."
Mrs. Temple turned a little pale. The thrust went home, as some of
Jacqueline's thrusts did.
"And if I don't go, I will cry and cry--I will cry that night so loud
in my room that papa will come in, and you know how it vexes him to have
me cry; and it will break my heart--I know it will."
Mrs. Temple went about all day with Jacqueline's words ringing in her
ears. That night, after Jacqueline was in bed, her mother went into the
room. It was a large, old-fashioned room, and Jacqueline's little white
figure, as she sat up in bed, was almost lost in the huge four-poster,
with dimity curtains and valance. The fire still smoldered, and the
spindle-shanked dressing-table, with the glass set in its mahogany
frame, cast unearthly shadows on the floor in the half-light. Mrs.
Temple sat down by the bed. Something like remorse came into the
mother's heart. This child was the least loved by both father and
mother. Jacqueline began at once, in her sweet, nervous voice:
"Mamma, I have been thinking about the party."
"So have I, child."
"And may we go?"
Mrs. Temple paused before she spoke.
"Yes, you and Judith may go," she said presently in a stern voice--ah!
the sternness of these gentle women!
Jacqueline held out her arms fondly to her mother, but Mrs. Temple could
not be magnanimous in defeat. She went out, softly closing the door
behind her, without giving Jacqueline her good-night kiss, but
Jacqueline called after her in a voice tremulous with gratitude and
delight, "Dear, sweet mamma!"
The moment she heard the "charmber-do'," as the negroes called it, shut
down-stairs, Jacqueline slipped out of bed and flew across the dark
passage into Judith's room to tell the wonderful news. Judith was
sitting before the fire, holding her sleeping child in her arms. The boy
had waked and had clung to his mother until she lifted him out of his
little bed. He had gone to sleep directly, but Judith held him close; he
was so little, so babyish, yet so soft and warm and clinging.
"We are going to the party, Judith," said Jacqueline, excitedly,
kneeling down by her.
"Are we?" answered Judith. A gleam came into her eyes very like
Jacqueline's.
"And--and--" continued Jacqueline with a sly, half-laughing glance, "we
will meet Major Throckmorton again."
"Go to bed, Jacqueline," replied Judith in the soft, composed voice that
invariably crushed Jacqueline.
Next morning General Temple showed the most unqualified delight at Mrs.
Temple's capitulation. He considered it becoming, though, to make some
slight protest against going to the party. He thought, perhaps, with his
tendency to gout, it would scarcely be prudent to expose himself to the
night air, and--er--to Kitty Sherrard's chicken salad; and, besides, he
really was not justified in postponing the drawings of some maps to
illustrate the position of Temple's Brigade at the battle of
Chancellorsville; for, like all other dilettanti, General Temple's work
was always of present importance and admitted of no delay whatever.
Mrs. Temple did not smile at this, but treated it with great
seriousness.
"Quite true, my dear; but now that I have promised Jacqueline, I can not
disappoint her. You must go for her sake."
"Rather let me say, my dear Jane, that I go for your sake--your wishes,
my love, being of paramount importance."
For a henpecked man, it was impossible to be more imposing or agreeable
than General Temple. So on the night of the party he was promptly on
hand, at eight o'clock, in his old-fashioned evening coat, the tails
lined with white satin, and wearing a pair of large, white kid gloves.
Jacqueline and Judith soon appeared. Jacqueline, in her new white frock,
looked her prettiest, albeit it showed her youthful thinness and all her
half-grown angles. Judith's beauty was of a sort that could stand the
simplicity of her black gown that revealed her white neck, and, for the
first time since her widowhood, she wore no cap over her red-brown hair.
Delilah and Simon Peter yah-yahed and ki-yied over both of them.
"Dem little foots o' Miss Jacky's in de silk stockin's ain' no bigger
'n little Beverley's, hardly, and Miss Judy she look like de Queen o'
Sheba," delightedly remarked Delilah.
Judith could scarcely meet Mrs. Temple's eyes. She felt inexplicably
guilty. Mrs. Temple examined them critically, though, and the general
was loftily complimentary.
"And, Delilah," said Judith, gathering up her gloves nervously, "be sure
and look after Beverley. He has never been left alone in his life
before."
"I will look after Beverley, Judith," said Mrs. Temple, and Judith
blushed faintly at something in the tone.
All the way, going along the country road in the moonlight, Judith could
feel Jacqueline's little feet moving restlessly with excitement. As they
drove up to the house, and caught glimpses through the open hall-door of
the dancers and heard the sound of music, Jacqueline began to bob up and
down with childish delight.
Like most Virginia country-houses, Turkey Thicket had an immense
entrance hall, which was not heated and was of no earthly use the best
part of the year, and for which all the rooms around it were
unnecessarily cramped. Mrs. Sherrard's hall was of more use to her than
most people's, owing to her party-giving proclivities, and was brightly
lighted up for dancing. As Judith came down the broad stairs on General
Temple's arm, a kind of thrill of surprise went around among the guests.
Nobody expected to see her. Many of them had never seen her except in
her widow's veil and cap. Judith, remembering this, could not restrain a
blushing consciousness that made her not less handsome; and, besides,
her good looks were always full of surprises. One never knew whether she
would be simply pale and pretty, or whether she would blaze out into a
sudden and captivating beauty.
They made their way through the dancers, Jacqueline alternately pale and
red with excitement, and the general bowing right and left, until they
entered the small, old-fashioned drawing-room. Mrs. Sherrard, in a plain
black silk, but with a diamond comb in her white hair and a general air
of superbness, was delighted to see Judith. It was a victory over Jane
Temple. She detained her for a moment to whisper: "My dear, I am
dreadfully afraid I shall make a failure in trying to get George
Throckmorton accepted here. The girls, who most of them never saw so
fine a man before, will hardly have a word to say to him; the men are a
little better, but it isn't a pronounced success by any means. I have
been longing for you to come. You have so much more sense than any of
the young people I know, I thought you would be a little less freezing
to him."
At this a warmer color surged into Judith's cheeks. She could not
remember ever to have seen a man who impressed her so instantly as
Throckmorton. With her clear, feminine instinct, she had seen at the
first glance what manner of man he was. As Mrs. Sherrard spoke to her,
she turned and saw him standing by the fireplace, talking with Edmund
Morford. Throckmorton could not have desired a better foil than the
young clergyman, with his faultless red and white skin, his curling dark
hair, his mouth full of perfect teeth, and his character as a clerical
dandy written all over him. Throckmorton, whose good looks were purely
masculine and characteristic, looked even more manly and soldierly by
contrast. Both men caught sight of Judith at the same moment. Morford
was thrown into a perfect flutter. He wondered if Judith had put on that
square-necked, short-sleeved black gown to do him a mischief.
Throckmorton, obeying a look from Mrs. Sherrard, came forward and was
formally introduced. Judith offered her hand, after the Virginia custom,
which Throckmorton bowed over.
"Mrs. Temple did not present me to you on Sunday," he said, with a smile
and a slight flush; "but I guessed very readily who you were."
Judith, too, colored.
"Poor mother, you must not take her too hardly. You know how good she
is, but--but she is very determined; she moves slowly."
"Yes," replied Throckmorton, with his easy, man-of-the-world manner;
"but I am afraid there are others as unyielding as Mrs. Temple, and not
half so kindly--for she is a dear soul! It seemed to me the carrying out
of a sort of dream to come back to Millenbeck. My boy Jack--that young
fellow yonder--looks rather old to be my son, don't you think?"
"Y-e-s," answered Judith, with provoking dubiousness and a wicked little
smile.
"Oh, you are really too bad! I am very tired of explaining to people
that Jack is nothing like as old as he looks. Well, the boy, although
brought up at army posts, rather wanted to be a Virginian, and to own
the old place; you know that sort of thing always crops out in a
Virginian."
"Yes," smiled Judith; "I see how it crops out in _you_. You are
immensely proud of being a Throckmorton, and you would rather own
Millenbeck, if it were tumbling down about your ears, than the finest
place in the world anywhere else."
"Now, Mrs. Beverley," said Throckmorton, determinedly, "I can't have my
weaknesses picked out in this prompt and savage manner. I own I am a
fool about Millenbeck, but I'd have sworn that nobody but myself knew
it. I've got a year's leave, and I've come down here with Sweeney, an
old ex-sergeant of mine, who has owned me for several years, and my old
horse Tartar, that is turned out to grass; and if I like it as well as I
expect, I may resign"--Throckmorton was always talking about resigning,
as Mrs. Sherrard was about making her will, without the slightest idea
of doing it--"and turn myself out to grass like Tartar. But my reception
hasn't been--a--exactly--cordial--or--"
"I am sorry you have been disappointed," said Judith, gently; "but it
seems to me that we are all in a dreadful sort of transition state now.
We are holding on desperately to our old moorings, although they are
slipping away; but I suppose we shall have to face a new existence some
time."
"I think I understand the feeling here--even that dead wall of prejudice
that meets me. One look around Severn church, last Sunday, would have
told me that those people had gone through with some frightful crisis. I
thought, perhaps being one of their own county people originally might
soften them toward me, but I believe that makes me blacker than ever."
Judith could not deny it.
Throckmorton, who was worldly wise, read Judith at a glance, besides
having learned her history since first seeing her. He saw that she was
under a fixed restraint, and that a word would frighten her into the
deepest reserve. He treated her, therefore, as if she had been a Sister
of Charity. Judith, who made up for her lack of knowledge of the world
by rapid perceptions and natural talents, had seen more quickly than
Throckmorton. Here was a man the like of whom she had not often met.
Throckmorton knew perfectly well the solitary lives these country women
led, and he had often wondered at the singular fortitude they showed. He
set himself to work to find out what chiefly interested this young
woman, who showed such remarkable constancy to her dead husband, but who
gave indications to his practiced eye of secretly loving life and its
concerns very much. He had heard about her pretty boy. At this Judith
colored with pleasure and became positively talkative. Her boy was the
sweetest boy--she would like never to have him out of her sight. Major
Throckmorton, with a sardonic grin, confided to Judith that he would
frequently be highly gratified at having _his_ son out of his sight,
because Jack made the women think he, the major, was a Methuselah, and
covertly made much game of him, for which he would like to kick Jack,
but couldn't.
Judith laughed merrily at this--a laugh so clear and rippling, and yet
so rare, that the sound of it startled her. Was Mrs. Beverley fond of
reading? Mrs. Beverley was very fond of reading, but there was nothing
newer in the array of books at Barn Elms than 1840. Major Throckmorton
would be only too happy to supply her with books. He had had a few boxes
full sent down to Millenbeck. At this Judith blushed, but accepted,
without reflecting how Major Throckmorton was to send books to a house
where he was not permitted to visit.
She also protested that she had read nothing at all scarcely; but
Throckmorton came to find out that, for want of the every-day modern
literature, she was perfectly at home in the English classics, and knew
her Scott and Thackeray like a lesson well learned. He began to find
this gentle intelligence and cordiality amazingly pleasant after the
cold shyness of the girls and the unmistakable keep-your-distance air of
the older women. They sat together so long that Mr. Morford began to
scowl, and think that Mrs. Beverley, after all, was rather a frivolous
person, and with every moment Judith became brighter, gayer, more her
natural charming self.
Meanwhile Jack Throckmorton had carried Jacqueline off for a quadrille,
and was getting on famously. First they remarked on the similarity of
their names, which seemed a fateful coincidence, and Jacqueline
complained that the servants and some other people, too, often shortened
her liquid three syllables with "Jacky," but she hated it. Jack, who had
a sweet, gay voice, and was an inveterate joker, which Jacqueline was
not, amused both her and himself extremely.
"Will you look at the major?" he whispered. "Gone on the pretty widow--I
beg your pardon," he added, turning very red.
"You needn't apologize," calmly remarked Jacqueline. "Judith _is_ a
pretty widow, and the best and kindest sister in the world, besides. It
is all mamma. Mamma loved my brother better than anything, and wants us
all to think about him as much as she does."
Jack, rather embarrassed by these family confidences, parried them with
some confidences of his own.
"I shall have to go over soon and break the major up. You see, there
isn't but twenty-two years' difference between us, and the major is a
great toast among the girls still, which is repugnant to my filial
feelings."
Jacqueline listened gravely and in good faith.
"So, when I see him pleased with a girl, I generally sneak up on the
other side, and manage to get my share of the girl's attention, and call
the major 'father' every two minutes. A man hates to be interfered with
that way, particularly by his own son, which doesn't often happen. The
major has got a cast in one eye, and, whenever he is in a rage, he gets
downright cross-eyed. Sometimes I work him up so, his eyes don't get
straight for a fortnight."
"But doesn't he get very mad with you?" asked Jacqueline in a shocked
voice.
"Of course he does," chuckled Jack; "and that's where the fun comes in.
But, you see, he can't say anything; it is beneath his dignity; but his
temper blazes up, although he doesn't say a word. Sometimes, when I've
run him off two or three times close together, he hardly speaks to me
for a week--not that he cares about the girl particularly, but he hates
to be balked."
"What a nice sort of a son you must be!"
Jack laughed his frank, boyish laugh.
"Why, the major and I are the greatest chums in the world. I would do
anything for him. And if he ever presents me with a step-mother, I'll do
the handsome thing--go to the wedding, and all that. And he's a
fascinating old fellow, too--just takes the girls off their feet."
When the dance was over, Jack brought Jacqueline back to Judith, who
still sat with Throckmorton. Jacqueline's eyes were shining with
childish delight, and she arched her thin white neck restlessly from
side to side.
"I have had such a nice dance!" she cried, breathlessly.
Judith, smiling, said, "Major Throckmorton, this is my little sister
Jacqueline."
Throckmorton, having once fixed his eyes on Jacqueline, seemed unable
to take them off, as on that Sunday he had first seen her in Severn
church. Delilah, who noticed in her primitive way the wonderful power of
attraction that Jacqueline had, used to say, "Miss Jacky she allus
cotches de beaux." She certainly "cotched" Throckmorton's attention from
the first. Something in this slim, unformed, provincial girl was
suddenly captivating to him. His genuine but sane admiration for Judith
seemed tame beside it. Jacqueline, however, only saw a rather striking
man, well on toward old age, in her infantile eyes, and wished herself
back with Jack, when Major Throckmorton took her for a little promenade.
Morford then made up to Judith, but found her singularly cold and
unresponsive, and her eyes and smile were quite far away, over Morford's
head, as it were. The truth is, the Rev. Edmund Morford was a
considerable let-down from George Throckmorton; and, in Judith's starved
and pinched existence, it was something to meet a man of Throckmorton's
caliber. So in place of the charming sweetness Morford had learned to
expect from Judith, he received a cold douche of listlessness and
indifference. All the rest of the evening people noticed that Judith,
who had a good deal of smoldering vivacity under her quietness, was
remarkably cold and silent and rather bored, and they supposed it was
because of her aversion to anything like gayety. In truth, Judith had
realized rather more startlingly than usual the bareness and
colorlessness of her life.
Mrs. Sherrard's effort was a strong one, but, as she said, it was
scarcely a success. General Temple ostentatiously sought out
Throckmorton, and tasted the delights of a discussion regarding the
trans-Alpine campaigns of Hannibal, in which Throckmorton was a modest
listener, and the general a most fiery, earnest, and learned
expounder--a past grand-master of military science. But, on shaking
Throckmorton's hand at saying good-night, with solemn but genuine
effusiveness, he said not one word about calling at Millenbeck.
Throckmorton went home feeling rather bitter toward all his county
people, except his stanch friend Mrs. Sherrard; Judith, so gentle,
clever, and well-read; and that fascinating child, Jacqueline.