A day or two after this, however, came a snow, deep and lasting, more
like a midwinter snow in New England than a December flurry in lower
Virginia. For four weeks the sun scarcely shone, and the earth was
wrapped in white. The roads were impassable, the river-steamers stopped
running, and the mails were delayed for days at a time. The country
people were much cut off from each other. Mrs. Temple missed four
successive Sundays at church--a thing she had never done in her life
before. Nobody could get to Barn Elms except the Throckmortons and
Freke, but they came often in the evenings. Throckmorton saw what was
before him with Jacqueline, yet held back, as engineers put down the
brakes on a wild engine on a down grade--it does not, however,
materially alter the result. He sometimes thought, with a sense of the
grotesqueness of human affairs, how strange it was that things had not
arranged themselves so that Jack had not been Jacqueline's victim, and
himself Judith's. For Jack was undeniably fond of Jacqueline, and so far
did not in the slightest degree suspect his father's infatuation, as
Throckmorton frankly and bitterly acknowledged it to be. As for Judith,
Nature leaves no true woman unarmed for suffering like hers. Even
Jacqueline, who was sharp-eyed, only noticed that Judith at this time
was, if anything, a little sweeter and kinder than before--even a little
more gay. Little Beverley found his mother better company than usual,
and more ready for a romp than ever before. The child, whom she had
thought everything to her before, became now more passionately dear to
her. Alone with him, she would take him in her arms and hold him close
to her; she felt an actual softening of the pain at her heart when the
child's curly head rested over it. Then she would talk to him in a way
the child only half understood, as he gazed at her with grave, mystified
eyes, and, while laughing at his childish wonder, she would almost
smother him with kisses. Judith was positively becoming merry. In her
voice was a ring, in her eyes a light that was different from that calm,
untroubled composure that had once marked her. Her manner to
Throckmorton was perfect; the same gentle gayety, the same graceful
dignity. She did not avoid him; pain wrung no such concession from
Judith Temple. But Judith's invincible cheerfulness was strangely
antagonized by Jacqueline. Jacqueline, who talked to her own heart in a
very primitive, open fashion, was vexed at the notion that, in order to
be mistress of Millenbeck, she would have to marry Throckmorton. How
much nicer, thought Jacqueline, with great simplicity, if it were Jack
who gave her those looks, those words, who had pressed that kiss upon
her hand! Throckmorton was too old, and had too much sense; Jacqueline
made no secret in acknowledging that mature men of sense bored and
restrained her. It was very hard, she thought, disconsolately. Ever
since that dinner at Millenbeck, Barn Elms had appeared shabbier and
sorrier than ever before. Although Mrs. Temple continued to have five
kinds of bread for breakfast, and had invited a regiment of poor
relations to spend the coming summer with her, under the Virginia
delusion that it costs nothing to harbor a garrison for an indefinite
time, things were certainly going very badly at Barn Elms; a condition
of affairs, though, to which General Temple was perfectly accustomed,
and who knew no other way of paying Peter than by robbing Paul. The old
carriage went all to pieces just about that time, and there was no money
to buy another one. As for a new piano, that was an impossible dream;
and there were two splendid new pianos at Millenbeck, and not a soul to
touch them! And Jacqueline wanted a new frock, and endless other things,
which were distinctly out of the question, and the only way to get them,
that she could see, was to encourage Throckmorton's attentions and be
mistress of Millenbeck. All this was not lost on Freke, who, with his
eyes open, began to play with Jacqueline, and like Throckmorton got his
wings scorched. The girl certainly had a power of compelling love. Had
Judith ever relented toward Freke, Jacqueline would have had cause for
jealousy if she loved him. But, in truth, as it came to pass, Freke cast
as much of a spell upon Jacqueline as she did upon him. If Freke owned
Millenbeck, instead of that wretched old Wareham, that actually was not
as good as Barn Elms! So Jacqueline fretted to herself.
The loneliness of those cold, snowy days was killing to Jacqueline. The
long afternoons when she sat by the drawing-room fire and dreamed
dreams, were almost intolerable to her. When she heard Beverley's
shouts, as Judith romped with him in the cold hall, and hid from him in
the dusk until the child set up a baby cry, it was the only living
cheerful noise about the house. Judith would come to her and say, "Now,
Jacky, for a walk in the hall!" Jacqueline would answer fretfully:
"What do I want to walk for?"
"Because it is better than sitting still."
Judith would take her by the waist and run her up and down the long,
dusky hall. It was so cold they shivered at first, and the rattling of
the great windows let icy gusts of air in upon them; and sometimes the
moon would glare in at them in a ghastly way. Presently they would hear
Simon Peter bringing in wood for the night by the back way, shaking the
snow off his feet, and announcing to Delilah: "I tell you what, ole
'oman, 'tis everlastin' cole an' gwine ter keep so, fer I seed de hosses
in de stable kickin' de lef' hine-foots; an' dat's sho' an' suttin sign
o' freezin'."
"You better kick dat lef' hine-foot o' yourn, an' stop studyin' 'bout de
hosses, fo' mistis come arter you! Ez long ez ole marse holler at you,
you doan' min'; but jes' let mistis in dat sof' voice say right fine,
'Simon Peter!' I lay you jes' hop," was Delilah's wifely reply.
General Temple, confined to the house by the weather, drew military maps
with great precision, and worked hard upon his History of Temple's
Brigade. The fact that he knew much more about the Duke of Marlborough's
campaigns, or Prince Eugene's, or anybody's, in fact, than he did about
any he had been directly engaged in, in no wise set him back. Mrs.
Temple, who thought the general a prodigy of military science, was
rejoiced that he had something to divert him through the long wintry
days, when Barn Elms was as completely shut in from even the little
neighborhood world as if it were in the depths of a Russian forest. Jack
Throckmorton, who after a while began to see that the major was
certainly singed, as he expressed it to himself, did not carry out his
usual tactics of making his vicinity too hot for his father, but when he
wished to see Jacqueline went over in the mornings. If the weather was
tolerable, they were pretty sure to find their way to the ice-pond.
Jack, carrying on his arm a little wooden chair, and putting Jacqueline
in it, would push it over the ice before him as he sped along on skates.
Then Jacqueline's fresh, young laugh would ring out shrilly--then she
was happy. Sometimes Judith and Throckmorton, smiling, would watch them.
Jack liked Mrs. Beverley immensely, but he confided to Jacqueline that
he was a little afraid of her--just as Jacqueline candidly admitted she
was in awe of Major Throckmorton. Throckmorton, watching this childish
boy and girl fun, would sometimes laugh inwardly and grimly at himself.
How true was it, as Mrs. Sherrard had said, that Jacqueline would make a
good playmate for Jack! And then he would turn to Judith, and try to
persuade himself of her sweetness and truth. But love comes not by
persuasion.
Jack had been giving Jacqueline glowing accounts of the sleigh-rides he
had had in the Northwest. Jacqueline was crazy for a sleigh-ride, but
there was no such thing as a sleigh in the county. One evening, after
tea, as Jacqueline sat dolefully clasping her knees and looking in the
fire, and Judith, with hands locked in her lap, was doing the same; Mrs.
Temple knitting placidly by the lamp, while General Temple held forth
on certain blunders he had discovered in the Retreat of the Ten
Thousand--a strange tinkling sound was heard far--far away--almost as if
it were in another world! Jacqueline sat perfectly still and gazed into
Judith's eyes. Judith got up and went into the hall. A great patch of
moonlight shone through the uncurtained window, and outside it was
almost as light as day. The limbs and trunks of the great live-oaks
looked preternaturally dark against the white earth and the blue-black,
star-lit sky. Suddenly Simon Peter's head appeared cautiously around the
corner of the house, and in a minute or two he came up the back way and
planted himself at Judith's elbow.
"Gord A'mighty, Miss Judy, what dat ar'? What dem bells ringin' fur? I
'spect de evils is 'broad. I done see two Jack-my-lanterns dis heah
night."
Judith fixed her eyes on the long, straight lane bordered with solemn
cedars; she saw a dark object moving along, and heard the sharp click of
horses' shoes on the frozen snow.
"It's somebody coming," she said, and in a moment, she cried out
joyfully:
"O Jacky, come--come! it's a sleigh--I see Jack Throckmorton
driving--Major Throckmorton is there--and there are four seats!"
Jacqueline jumped up and ran out. She had never seen a sleigh in her
life, and there it was turning into the drive before the house. Jack had
the reins, and the major's two thoroughbreds were flying along at a
rattling pace, and the bells were jingling loudly and merrily.
Jacqueline almost danced with delight. By the time the sleigh drew up at
the door, Simon Peter was there to take the reins, and Throckmorton and
Jack jumped out and came up the steps. The general and Mrs. Temple were
also roused to come out and meet them. As the hall-door swung open, a
blast of arctic air entered. Throckmorton's dark eyes looked black under
his seal-skin cap. Jack plunged into business at once.
"Now, Mrs. Temple, you must let me take Miss Jacqueline for a spin
to-night; never saw better sleighing in my life. The major's along, and
you know he is as steady as old Time"--the major at heart did not relish
this--"and, if Mrs. Beverley will go, it will be awfully jolly."
Mrs. Temple began some mild protest: it was too cold, or too late, or
something; but for once Jacqueline did not hear her, and bounded off
up-stairs for her wraps. Even Judith, usually so calm, was a little
carried away by the prospect.
"Come, mother, Major Throckmorton and I will take care of them."
Mrs. Temple yielded.
"I will take care of Beverley while you are gone," she said, and Judith
blushed. Was she forgetting the child?
In five minutes both of them were ready. Judith had pressed her soft
cheeks to Beverley's as she leaned over the sleeping child. Surely
nobody could say she was a forgetful mother.
The sleigh was Jack's. He had sent away and bought it, and it had
arrived that evening. Jacqueline sat on the front seat with him, her
face glowing with smiles on the clear, cold night, as he wrapped the fur
robes around her. Throckmorton did the same for Judith. For once she had
left off her widow's veil, and for once she forgot that secret pain and
determined to be happy. Jack touched up the horses, and off they flew.
As for Jacqueline and himself, their pleasure was of that youthful,
effervescing sort that never comes after twenty-five; but Throckmorton
and Judith began to feel some of the exhilaration and excitement.
Throckmorton had lately heard Mrs. Sherrard's views about Judith's
marriage, and it had made him feel a very great pity for her.
"Where are we going?" cried Jacqueline, as they dashed along.
"Anywhere--nowhere--to Turkey Thicket!" replied Jack, lightly touching
the flying horses with his whip.
"We will frighten Mrs. Sherrard to death!" said Judith, from the back
seat, burying her face in her muff.
It was not a time to think about anybody else, though. The five miles
to Turkey Thicket sped away like lightning. When they dashed through the
gate and drew up before the house, half a dozen darkies were there
gaping; and Mrs. Sherrard, with a shawl thrown over her head, was
standing in the doorway, and standing behind her was Freke.
As they all got out, laughing, huddling, and slipping up the stone
steps, Mrs. Sherrard greeted them with her characteristic cordiality,
demanding that they should take off their wraps before they were half up
the steps. She gave Throckmorton a comical look, and whispered to him as
he shook hands with her: "Out with the Sister of Charity, hey? Or is it
the child Jacky?" Throckmorton laughed rather uneasily. He had never got
over that remark of Mrs. Sherrard's about Jacqueline being a playmate
for Jack.
They all went trooping into the dining-room, where a huge fire blazed.
Mrs. Sherrard called up her factotum, a venerable negro woman, Delilah's
double, and in ten minutes they were sitting around the table laughing
and eating and drinking. The colored factotum had brought out a large
yellow bowl, a big, flat, blue dish, and a rusty bottle. Eggs and milk
followed.
"Egg-nog," whispered Jack to Jacqueline.
So it was. Freke broke up the eggs, and Mrs. Sherrard, with a great
carving-knife, beat up the whites, while she talked and occasionally
flourished the knife uncomfortably near Freke's nose. Throckmorton
poured in the rum and brandy with such liberality that Judith with great
firmness took both bottles away from him. The egg-nog was a capital
brew. Then Freke produced his violin, and saying, "Hang your Brahms and
Beethovens!" dashed into waltzes of Strauss and Waldteufel that made the
very air vibrate with joy and gayety and rhythm. Jack seized Jacqueline,
and, opening the door, they flew out into the half-lighted hall and spun
around delightedly. As Freke's superb bow-arm flashed back and forth,
and the torrent of melody poured out of the violin, his eyes flashed,
too. He did not mean to play always for Jacqueline to dance.
Judith, standing at the door, watched the two young figures whirling
merrily around in the half-light to the resounding waltz-music. She was
altogether taken by surprise when Throckmorton came up to her, and said,
half laughing and half embarrassed:
"My dancing days are over, but that waltz is charming."
Judith did not quite take in what he meant, but without a word he
clasped her waist, and she was gliding off with him. Throckmorton would
have scorned the characterization of a "dancing man," but nevertheless
he danced well, and Judith moved like a breeze. She went around the big
hall once--twice--before the idea that it was inconceivably wicked of
her to dance with Throckmorton came to her; not, indeed, until she saw
Freke's wide mouth expanded into a smile that was infuriating. And then,
what would Mrs. Temple say to her dancing at all?
"Oh, pray, stop!" she cried, blushing furiously. "I can't dance any
more; I ought never to have begun. I haven't danced for--for years."
Throckmorton stopped at once, with pity in his eyes. He suspected the
sort of angelic dragooning to which she was subject from his dear Mrs.
Temple.
"Why shouldn't you dance?" he said. "I see you like it. Come, let's try
it again. I'm a little rusty, perhaps, but we got on famously just now."
But Judith would not try it again.
Freke now meant to have his innings.
"Do you know this is Twelfth-night--the night for telling fortunes?" he
said, laying down his violin.--"Come, Jacky, let me take you out of
doors and show you the moon and tell yours."
"In this snow!" screamed Mrs. Sherrard; but by that time Freke had
thrown a shawl over Jacqueline's head, and had dragged her out of the
room, and the hall-door banged loudly after them.
Outside, in the cold, white moonlight and the snow, Freke pointed to the
moon.
"Now make your wish," he said; "but don't wish for Millenbeck."
Jacqueline's face could turn no redder than it was, but she looked at
Freke, and answered on impulse, as she always did:
"Millenbeck is finer than Barn Elms--"
"Or Wareham," responded Freke, fixing her attention with a stare out of
his bold eyes. "See here, Jacqueline, I know how it is. You think you
will be able to put up with Throckmorton for the sake of Millenbeck. My
dear, he is old--"
"He is only forty-four," answered Jacqueline, defiantly.
"And you are only twenty-one. You would be happier even at Wareham with
me, than at Millenbeck with Throckmorton."
"I couldn't be happy in a five-roomed house," quite truthfully said
Jacqueline.
"Yes, you could. I could make you forget whether it had five or ten
rooms."
At this, he put two fingers under her chin, and, tilting up her rosy
face, kissed her on the mouth. "Come!" cried Freke, after a little
while, remembering how time was flying, which Jacqueline had evidently
forgotten, and making for the steps; but Jacqueline stopped him with a
scared face.
"Aren't you married, Freke?" she asked.
"Not a bit of it," answered Freke, stoutly. "Don't you believe all the
old women's tales you hear about me, Jacky. I'm no more married than you
are this minute. I have been, I admit, but I slipped my head out of the
noose some time ago. Do you believe me?"
"Yes," answered Jacqueline, who could believe anything, "if--if--people
can really be divorced."
They had not been gone ten minutes, when they returned, yet Freke saw a
danger-signal flying in Judith's cheeks. She did not mean to have any
more of this. Mrs. Sherrard, who had become an active partisan of
Freke's, asked, as soon as they came in:
"What wish did you make, Jacky?"
Jacqueline started. She had made no wish at all.
"Freke ran me out of the house so fast," she began complainingly, "I was
perfectly out of breath."
"And of course couldn't make a wish," said Jack Throckmorton, laughing.
"I wished for everything," replied Jacqueline.
Presently they were driving home through the still, frosty night. Judith
felt a complete reaction from the ghost of merriment that had possessed
her in going that road before. Even Throckmorton noticed the change. She
laughed and talked gayly, but her speaking eyes told another story.
Throckmorton could not but smile, and yet felt sorry, too, when
Jacqueline, fancying herself unheard, whispered to Judith:
"I won't tell mamma about the waltz."
But Jacqueline was absent-minded too. When they had got home and had
gone up-stairs, instead of Jacqueline following Judith to her room, as
she usually did when she had anything on her mind, she went straight to
her own room, and, locking the door, began to walk up and down, her
hands behind her back. How strange, fascinating, overpowering was Freke,
after all! Was a divorced man really a married man? Divorces were
dreadful things, she had always known--but--suppose, in some other world
than that about the Severn neighborhood, it should be considered a
venial thing? Jacqueline became so much interested in these puzzling
reflections that she unconsciously abandoned the cat-like tread which
she had adopted for fear of waking her mother, and stepped out in her
own brisk way up and down the big room. Mrs. Temple, hearing this,
quietly opened her own chamber-door beneath. That was enough. The walk
stopped as if by magic, and in ten minutes Jacqueline was in bed.