Rupert De Willoughby was lying upon the grass in the garden under the
shade of a tree. The "office" had been stifling hot, and there had been
even less to suggest any hope of possible professional business than the
blankness of most days held. There never was any business, but at rare
intervals someone dropped in and asked him a question or so, his answers
to which, by the exercise of imagination, might be regarded as coming
under the head of "advice." His clients had no money, however--nobody had
any money; and his affairs were assuming a rather desperate aspect.
He had come home through the hot streets with his straw hat pushed back,
the moist rings of his black hair lying on a forehead lined with a rather
dark frown. He went into the garden and threw himself on the grass in the
shade. He could be physically at ease there, at least. The old garden had
always been a pleasure to him, and on a hot summer day it was full of
sweet scents and sounds he was fond of. At this time there were tangles
of honeysuckle and bushes heavy with mock-orange; an arbour near him was
covered by a multiflora rose, weighted with masses of its small, delicate
blossoms; within a few feet of it a bed of mignonette grew, and the
sun-warmed breathing of all these fragrant things was a luxurious
accompaniment to the booming of the bees, blundering and buzzing in and
out of their flowers, and the summer languid notes of the stray birds
which lit on the branches and called to each other among the thick
leaves.
At twenty-three a man may be very young. Rupert was both young and old.
His silent resentment of the shadow which he felt had always rested upon
him, had become a morbid thing. It had led him to seclude himself from
the gay little Delisleville world and cut himself off from young
friendships. After his mother--who had understood his temperament and his
resentment--had died, nobody cared very much for him. The youth of
Delisleville was picturesque, pleasure-loving, and inconsequent. It had
little parties at which it danced; it had little clubs which were vaguely
musical or literary; and it had an ingenuous belief in the talents and
graces displayed at these gatherings. The feminine members of these
societies were sometimes wonderfully lovely. They were very young, and
had soft eyes and soft Southern voices, and were the owners of the
tiniest arched feet and the slenderest little, supple waists in the
world. Until they were married--which usually happened very early--they
were always being made love to and knew that this was what God had made
them for--that they should dance a great deal, that they should have many
flowers and bonbons laid at their small feet, that beautiful youths with
sentimental tenor voices should serenade them with guitars on moonlight
nights, which last charming thing led them to congratulate themselves on
having been born in the South, as such romantic incidents were not a
feature of life in New York and Boston. The masculine members were
usually lithe and slim, and often of graceful height; they frequently
possessed their share of good looks, danced and rode well, and could sing
love songs. As it was the portion of their fair companions to be made
love to, it was theirs to make love. They often wrote verses, and they
also were given to arched insteps and eyes with very perceptible fringes.
For some singular reason, it seems that Southern blood tends to express
itself in fine eyes and lashes.
But with this simply emotional and happy youth young De Willoughby had
not amalgamated. Once he had gone to a dance, and his father the Colonel
had appeared upon the scene as a spectator in a state of exaggeratedly
graceful intoxication. He was in the condition when he was extremely
gallant and paid flowery compliments to each pair of bright eyes he
chanced to find himself near.
When he first caught sight of him, Rupert was waltzing with a lovely
little creature who was a Vanuxem and was not unlike the Delia Tom De
Willoughby had fallen hopelessly in love with. When he saw his father a
flash of scarlet shot over the boy's face, and, passing, left him looking
very black and white. His brow drew down into its frown, and he began to
dance with less spirit. When the waltz was at an end, he led his partner
to her seat and stood a moment silently before her, glancing under his
black lashes at the Colonel, who had begun to quote Thomas Moore and was
declaiming "The Young May Moon" to a pretty creature with a rather
alarmed look in her uplifted eyes. It was the first dance at which she
had appeared since she had left school.
Suddenly Rupert turned to his partner. He made her a bow; he was a
graceful young fellow.
"Thank you, Miss Vanuxem. Thank you for the dance. Good-night. I am going
home."
"Are you?" exclaimed little Miss Vanuxem. "But it is so early, Mr. De
Willoughby."
"I have stayed just ten minutes too long now," said Rupert. "Thank you
again, Miss Vanuxem. Good-night."
He walked across the room to Colonel De Willoughby.
"I am going home," he said, in a low, fierce voice; "you had better come
with me."
"No sush thing," answered the Colonel, gaily. "On'y just come. Don't go
to roosh with shickens. Just quoting Tom Moore to Miss Baxter.
Bes' of all ways to lengthen our days
Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear."
The little beauty, who had turned with relieved delight to take the arm
of a new partner, looked at her poetic admirer apologetically.
"Mr. Gaines has come for me, Colonel De Willoughby," she said; "I am
engaged to him for this dance." And she slipped away clinging almost
tenderly to the arm of her enraptured escort, who felt himself suddenly
transformed into something like a hero.
"Colonel De Willoughby is so flattering," she said; "and he has such a
queer way of paying compliments. I'm almost frightened of him."
"I will see that he does not speak to you again," said her partner, with
an air of magnificent courage. "He should not have been allowed to come
in. You, of course, could not understand, but--the men who are here will
protect the ladies who are their guests."
Rupert gave his father a long look and turned on his heel. He went home,
and the next time the Terpsichorean Society invited him to a dance he
declined to go.
"Nice fellow I am to go to such places," he said to himself. "Liable to
bring a drunken lunatic down upon them at any minute. No, the devil take
it all, I'm going to stay at home!"
He stayed at home, and gradually dropped out of the young, glowing,
innocently frivolous and happy world altogether, and it carried on its
festivities perfectly well without him. The selfishness of lovely youth
is a guileless, joyous thing, and pathetic inasmuch as maturity realises
the undue retribution which befalls it as it learns of life.
When poverty and loneliness fell upon him, the boy had no youthful
ameliorations, even though he was so touchingly young. Occasionally some
old friend of his grandfather's encountered him somewhere and gave him
rather florid good advice; some kindly matron, perhaps, asked him to come
and see her; but there was no one in the place who could do anything
practical. Delisleville had never been a practical place, and now its day
seemed utterly over. Its gentlemanly pretence at business had received
blows too heavy to recover from until times had lapsed; in some of the
streets tiny tufts of grass began to show themselves between the stones.
As he had walked back in the heat, Rupert had observed these tiny tufts
of green with a new sense of their meaning. He was thinking of them as he
lay upon the grass, the warm scent of the mock-orange blossoms and roses,
mingled with honeysuckle in the air, the booming of the bees among the
multiflora blooms was in his ears.
"What can I do?" he said to himself. "There is nothing to be done here.
There never was much, and now there is nothing. I can't loaf about and
starve. I won't beg from people, and if I would, I haven't a relation
left who isn't a beggar himself--and there are few enough of them left."
He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a well-worn greenback. He
straightened out its creases cautiously and looked at it.
"I've got two dollars," he said, "and no prospect of getting any more.
Even Matt can't make two dollars last long."
The latch of the side gate clicked and the gate opened. Presently Uncle
Matt appeared round the rose-bushes. He had his market basket on his arm
and wore a thoughtful countenance.
"Uncle Matt!" Rupert called out to him. "I wish you would come here."
Notwithstanding his darkling moods, he was in a subtle way singularly
like Delia Vanuxem. He needed love and tenderness, and he was boy enough
yet to be unhappy and desolate through lack of them, though without quite
knowing why. He knew Uncle Matt loved him, and the affectionate care the
old man surrounded him with was like a warm robe wrapped about a creature
suffering from chill. He had not analyzed his feeling himself; he only
knew that he liked to hear his footsteps as he pottered about the house,
and when he was at his dreariest, he was glad to see him come in, and to
talk a little to him.
Uncle Matt came towards him briskly. He set his basket down and took off
his hat.
"Marse Rupert," he said, "dis hyer's a pow'fle scorcher of a mawnin'. Dem
young lawyers as shets up dey office an' comes home to lie in de grass in
de shade, dey is follerin' up dey perfession in de profitablest
way--what'll be likely to bring 'em de mos' clients, 'cause, sho's yo'
bawn, dere's sunstroke an' 'cussion or de brain just lopin' roun' dis
town--en a little hot brick office ain't no place for a young man what
got any dispect fur his next birfday. Dat's so."
"I haven't much respect for mine," said Rupert; "I've had twenty-two too
many--just twenty-two."
"'Scusin' me sayin' it, sah, but dat ain't no way ter talk. A man boun'
to have some dispect for his birfday--he _boun'_ to! Birfdays gotter be
took keer on. Whar's a man when he runs out of 'em?"
"He'd better run out of them before he runs out of everything else," said
Rupert. "Matt, I've just made two dollars this month."
He looked at the old man with a restless appeal in his big, deer-like
eyes.
"I'm very sorry, Matt," he said, "I'm terribly sorry, but you know--we
can't go on."
Uncle Matthew looked down at the grass with a reflective air.
"Marse Rupert, did you never heah nothin' 'bout your Uncle Marse Thomas
De Willoughby?"
Rupert was silent a moment before he answered, but it was not because he
required time to search his memory.
"Yes," he said, and then was silent again. He had heard of poor Tom of
the big heart from his mother, and there had been that in her soft speech
of him which had made the great, tender creature very real. Even in his
childhood his mother had been his passion, as he had been hers. Neither
of them had had others to share their affection, and they were by nature
creatures born to love. His first memory had been of looking up into the
soft darkness of the tender eyes which were always brooding over him. He
had been little more than a baby when he had somehow known that they were
very sorrowful, and had realised that he loved them more because of their
sorrow. He had been little older when he found out the reason of their
sadness, and from that time he had fallen into the habit of watching
them, and knowing their every look. He always remembered the look they
wore when she spoke of Tom De Willoughby, and it had been a very touching
one.
"Yes," he said to Uncle Matt, "I have heard of him."
"Dar was a time, a long way back, Marse Rupert--'fore you was
borned--when I seemed to year a good deal 'bout Marse Thomas. Dat was
when he went away in dat curi's fashion. Nobody knowed _whar_ he went,
an' nobody knowed quite _why_. It wus jes' afore ye' maw an' paw wus
married. Some said him an' de Jedge qua'lled 'cause Marse Thomas he said
he warn't gwine ter be no medical student, an' _some_ said he was in love
with some young lady dat wouldn't 'cept of him."
"Did they?" said Rupert.
"Dat dey did," Matt said; "an' a lot moah. But ev'rybody think it mighty
strange him a-gwine, an' no one never huntin' him up afterwards. Seemed
most like dey didn't keer nothin' 'bout him."
"They didn't, damn them!" said Rupert, with sudden passion. "And he was
worth the whole lot."
"Dat what make I say what I gwine ter," said Matt, with some eagerness.
"What I heerd about Marse Thomas make me think he must be er mighty fine
gen'leman, an' one what'd be a good fren' to anyone. An' dishyer ve'y
mawnin' I heerd sump'n mo' about him."
Rupert raised himself upon his elbow.
"About Uncle Tom!" he exclaimed. "You have heard something about Uncle
Tom to-day?"
"I foun' out whar he went, Marse Rupert," said Matt, much roused. "I
foun' out whar he _is_ dishyer ve'y instep. He's in Hamlin County,
keepin' sto' an' post-office at Talbot's Cross-roads; an', frum what I
heah, Marse Tom De Willoughby de mos' pop'larist gen'leman an' mos'
looked up ter in de county."
"Who--who did you hear it from?" demanded Rupert.
Uncle Matt put his foot upon a rustic seat near and leaned forward,
resting his elbow on his knee and making impressive gestures with his
yellow-palmed old hand.
"It was dishyer claimin' dat brung it about," he said; "dishyer claimin'
an' 'demnification what's been a-settin' pow'fle heavy on my min' fur
long 'nuff. Soon's I yeerd tell on it, Marse Rupert, it set me ter
steddyin'. I been a-watchin' out an' axin' questions fur weeks, an' when
I fin' out----"
"But what has that to do with Uncle Tom?" cried Rupert.
"A heap, Marse Rupert. Him an' you de onliest heirs to de De Willoughby
estate; an' ef a little hoosier what's los' a yoke er oxen kin come down
on de Guv'ment for 'demnification, why can't de heirs of a gen'leman dat
los' what wus gwine ter be de biggest fortune in de South'n States.
What's come er dem gold mines, Marse Rupert, dat wus gwine ter make yo'
grandpa a millionaire--whar is dey? What de Yankees done with dem gol'
mines?"
"They weren't gold mines, Uncle Matt," said Rupert; "they were coal
mines; and the Yankees didn't carry them away. They only smashed up the
machinery and ruined things generally."
But he laid back upon the grass again with his hands clasped behind his
head and his brow drawn down thoughtfully.
"Coal mines _er_ gol' mines," said Uncle Matt. "Guv'ment gotter 'demnify
ef things er managed right; en dat what make me think er Marse Thomas De
Willoughby when dat little Stamps feller said somep'n dat soun' like his
name. 'Now dar's D'Willerby,' he ses, 'big Tom D'Willerby,' en I jest
jumped on him. 'Did you say De Willoughby, sah?' I ses, an' from dat I
foun' out de rest."
"I should like to see him," said Rupert; "I always thought I should like
to know where he was--if he was alive."
"Why doan' you go an' see him, den?" said Matt. "Jest take yo' foot in
yo' han' an' start out. Hamlin County ain't fur, Marse Rupert, an' de
Cross-roads Pos'-office mighty easy to fin'; and when you fin' it an' yo'
uncle settin' in de do', you jest talk ter him 'bout dem gol' mines an'
dat claimin' business an' ax his devise 'bout 'em. An' ef yer doan' fin'
yo'se'f marchin' on ter Wash'n'ton city an' a-talkin' to de Pres'dent an'
de Senators, de whole kit an' bilin' of 'em, Marse Thomas ain't de
buz'ness gen'l'man what I believe he is."
Rupert lay still and looked straight before him, apparently at a bluebird
balanced on a twig, but it was not the bird he was thinking of.
"You'se young, Marse Rupert, an' it 'ud be purty dang'rous for a
onexperienced young gen'l'man ter lan' down in de midst er all dem
onprinciple' Yankees with a claim to hundreds of thousan's of dollars.
Marse Thomas, he's a settled, stiddy gen'l'man, en, frum what I hears, I
guess he's got a mighty 'stablished-lookin' 'pearance."
"I should like to see him," Rupert reflected aloud. "I should like to see
him."