Virginia sat late at her work. Or rather, she sat before the desk
which contained her work and fought the battle which is as old as our
conception of a woman’s duty. She had that day listened to words of love
from a man whom her heart rose up to answer—she, betrothed to Parke
Winchester. Hasn’t a woman a right to change her mind? Ah, but Parke—his
salvation as well as his happiness was in her hands! Had he not told her
so a hundred times? Was he not drinking hard, and going straight to the
dogs when she was coaxed into this secret pact with him? If she let him
go, if she pushed him away from her, would he not fall lower? Could she
ever forgive herself?
Then, she was uneasy about Fair; her young brother was evidently finding
companions who did him no good. Twice he had come home of late so much
under the influence of drink that she was put to the utmost of her powers
to keep the matter from her father. She had no mother, she and Fair were
the only children. In her desperation she had gone to Winchester; he
would know, he would understand. She remembered the feverish eagerness
with which he had answered her.
“You know, of course, Virginia, that I haven’t touched a drop since you
promised to marry me. I can’t bear the thought of the stuff now. But I’ll
hang around some of the places where it’s sold and catch up with Fair. I
can help him. I can save him for you, Virginia, honey, because I’ve been
there myself.”
Now, if she broke her word to Winchester she was losing more than her
lover, for he had added fiercely, “But if you cast me off, if you
break with me, I’ll go straight to the devil. You’ve got that on your
conscience, little woman. I’ll go, and I’ll take Fair with me if I can.
You’ve got the souls of two men in your keeping, for if you were my
wife—as long as you have promised to be my wife—I’d as soon think of
stealing a Bible from a church as taking a drink of whisky.”
Then came the thought of the other man, whom she could really love—the
man who would save his own soul and not ask the sacrifice of a woman’s
happiness for his salvation. Yet, she reasoned, it was a marvelous thing
that her influence should have kept her betrothed from even the desire
for drink. She half wished for a moment that influence were not so great.
Then she reproved herself, sighed and pushed the heavy, dark hair from
off her forehead. A vagrant, scuffling sound from the hallway outside
kept intruding upon her consciousness. Finally the little intermittent
noise secured her attention, and then she thought a dog or a cat must
have been left inside when the house was closed for the night. She
stepped to the door, to be met by a shambling, bowing old figure, and
Uncle Vete’s deprecating, apologetic face.
“I hates ter ’sturb you, li’l Mis,” he protested. “I hates might’ly ter
’sturb you; but dey’s trouble out to my house—I spect you knows ’bout it,
honey.”
Virginia drew back, took up her lamp and motioned the old man to follow
her downstairs to the dining room. “Don’t wake father, if it’s about
Fairfax,” she cautioned. “It would only hurt his feelings, and make a bad
matter worse.”
“Yas, baby chile, dat des’ what Vete was fearin’.” They stole softly
to the dining room, and stood there confronted in the lamplight, the
tall girl in her white dress, and the wizened little old negro in his
comically ill-fitting broadcloth, hat in hand.
“You see ’t ’uz dishyer way: Marse Fair, he come out ter my place dis
mawnin’—you know, Mis’, he train wid a feller what allers come out dar
when he git ter spreein’. I uzzen’ dar. ’Ouldn’t ’a’ been no trouble ef
I’d a’ been dar. Unk’ Vete can manage de bofe of ’em, tell dey git too
bad.”
“Who was with my brother?” inquired the girl sharply.
The little old black man stole a side-long look at his interlocutrice. He
was a slave, born on the Sevier plantation, body servant to her father,
General Sevier, in whose discarded wear he now stood; and loyalty to the
name warred in him with that freemasonry which keeps the male silent
about the shortcomings of another male, when speaking to the woman who
most needs to be warned of them.
“Dey dest one feller lef’ wid Marse Fair,” he mumbled. “Dey wuz a whole
passel o’ boys dis mawnin’. But dem yutheh boys tuk an’ went home, whiles
dey could walk. An’ I cain’t git Marse Fair to move.”
“Well, Uncle Vete, I’ll put on my things and go with you,” said Virginia,
with sudden resolution. “I can manage Fair.” Returning, hat in hand, she
had the curiosity to inquire, “How did you get in, Uncle Vete?”
“W’y, yo’ cook lady hyer, she a sisteh in de ‘Ban’ o’ High and Glor’ous
Wardens,’ an’ I b’longs to de same division; an’ she lef’ me in, honey;
she lef’ me in.”
“Did you drive?”
“I come ’long er’ ol’ Belzybug an’ de cyart.”
“And Beelzebub has made two trips to-day,” added Virginia. “He must be
tired. Put him in the barn, Uncle Vete, and we’ll get a street hack as we
go down past Summer Avenue.”
“An’ have ol’ Marse askin’ quisti’ns ’bout dat mule in de mawnin’? No,
ma’am. No, li’l lady. I got a frien’, down de road hyer a piece, what
keep a wagon yawd. I gwine leave dat mule dah, Miss Ginnie.”
The streets were quite deserted; it was near twelve o’clock. Virginia was
glad that she met no one, though the little old black man bobbing after
her was as efficient an escort and protector as she could have had. The
street hack of the small Southern city is most commonly a vehicle of the
family carriage style; probably many of them have descended from the
estate of domestic privacy. One found, its sleeping driver wakened, his
gaunt horse prodded into action, Virginia leaned forward, and began to
ask Uncle Vete further questions in a carefully lowered tone, as he sat
beside the driver.
“Is he worse than before?”
“’Bout de same, honey, des ’bout de same. I is saw ’um mo’ ’rageous; an’
ergin, I is saw ’um less ’rageous. ’Bout so an’ so, honey. Des ’bout so
an’ so, Miss Ginnie, chile.”
“You say there’s some one with him; are they inside the house?”
Uncle Vete grinned, and twisted in his seat. “Yas, honey,” he admitted,
finally. “Dey bofe inside de house, an’ de fambly, dey on de outside. Dat
whut mek me come fer you dis time er night.”
“Do you mean that they turned you out?”
“Yas, honey. I foun’ Cindy an’ de chillen all turn’t out an’ blockaded,
an’ young Marse a shootin’ th’oo de do’ ef anybody speak ter ’im.”
Virginia leaned back in silence. The crazy old vehicle creaked and
rattled over the rough road. Its one sorry horse made slow progress.
Fairfax Sevier, less than two years older than his sister, Virginia, was
a handsome, brilliant, lovable young fellow, endeared to her by the same
qualities and the same odd unexpected little lapses and weak spots which
endlessly charmed and perplexed her in her father.
The general was a peculiarly high-minded, honorable man, with all in his
character that makes for good citizenship. He had brought through a youth
which was not without its little scattered patches of wild oats, and a
famously dare-devil military career during the Civil War, an unpollutable
vein of childlike innocency. It was not that he failed to see evil, or to
know it and understand it. But he saw and knew these things as a child
does, intelligent, but unsoiled.
His most marked characteristic was a determined disposition to meddle
with the affairs of no human creature, to refuse authority, because it
implied responsibility; to let—as he felicitously phrased it—every fellow
go to the devil his own gait.
This trait made him, among his children, always more a brother than
a parent, and was most amusingly displayed during their infancy and
childhood. He would stand aloof from a small offender who was weltering
defiantly in infantile crime. Bending his handsome head, he would look
from his very considerable height down to the little sinner before him,
and addressing it in the most confidential tone of perfect equality,
remark:
“You’re making a pretty mess of things there; now, aren’t you? Think you
want to bust that, do you? Do you know, you’re going to be mighty sorry
when you get done this business? And like enough your mother’ll spank
you, too.”
When, as had occurred twice of late, Fair was led to participate in wild
sprees, this was scarcely the father to whom an appeal for assistance or
the exercise of salutary authority would be addressed. Virginia could
hear him saying, with a flash of those big dark eyes, “Well, well,
Ginnie, I can’t keep him in a glass case, just because he happens to be
my son. Let him see the folly of it. Let him find out whether he wants
to be a drunkard or not. Every man must do that for himself. Your
conclusion—or mine—that he doesn’t want to do this sort of thing, isn’t
valid. It could not be incorporated into his character. He must be free
to make some selection of his own.”
Arrived at the cabin, a belated, waning moon showed them the little hut,
dark and silent. “I boun’ y’ Marse Fair done break dat lamp. Hit ’uz
burnin’, time I lef’,” muttered the old man.
The sound of their wheels brought a dusky, straggling group to the gate.
The nucleus of this group was Uncle Vete’s last wife, a round-faced
young mulatto woman, with a baby in her arms. About her churned and
bobbed a tribe of various sizes, part of them clinging to her skirts and
whimpering sleepily.
Cindy was a cheerful soul, with a giggle ready to burst forth upon the
slightest provocation, or no provocation at all. Virginia glanced in
distress at the baby. “Oh, Cindy,” she cried, “poor little thing! Why,
it’s too bad for you to be out here in the night air with that young
child.”
“He ain’t des’ so overly turrible young, Miss Fa’ginny,” returned Cindy
with her comfortable chuckle. “De big chillen mo’ skeerter dan whut he
is.”
Virginia, full of indignation, sprang from the carriage. “Tek keer,
honey!” cautioned Uncle Vete, as she hurried through the yard. “Dey’s
th’ee o’ my youngest sleepin’ dah un’neath dat ’simmon tree.”
Avoiding the slumberers beneath the persimmon, Virginia made directly for
the door.
“Hol’ on! Hol’ on! My precious chile! Yo’ gwine get yo’se’f shot!” urged
Vete. Cindy screamed, and all the children who were awake began to wail
in concert.
Like a sensible girl, Virginia stood aside from the panels, back where
the heavy logs protected her. (“An’ one dem shots might sail th’oo de
chinkin’ des’ easy ez not!” Cindy whimpered.) She struck on the door and
cried, “Fair—Fairfax! Open this door!”
The answer came in the form of a bullet.
[Illustration:
“Buddy,” she said, huskily, “Buddy, dear, I brought a hack out for you.”
]
At the report, Cindy uttered a yell so efficient and comprehensive that
Virginia supposed her no less than mortally wounded. The children, even
those lying so soundly asleep on the ground that they had not been
wakened when Virginia stepped almost upon them, rose up and fled to their
mother’s wide-spread, sheltering arms, like a brood of alarmed chickens
fleeing from a hawk.
“Eph’um! Bandoline! Baxter! Pearline! Commodory? Whey is you-all—whey is
you-all? Oh, Lawdy! _Lawdy!_ I is got mo’ child’en dan dis! I _knows_ I’s
got mo’ child’en dan whut dis is! Young Marse done kill some on ’em!”
rose Cindy’s excited shriek.
There came a second shot, before Virginia rapped again, crying angrily,
“It is I, Virginia. Put up your pistol and open the door!”
After a very long silence within the hut. “I ’spects dey done napped
off,” mildly suggested Uncle Vete. Virginia was preparing to knock again,
when a little gust of wind arising, the door swung silently open, showing
that it had been unbarred for some time.
Virginia stepped into the room, carrying one of the carriage lamps and
unheeding Uncle Vete’s caution to “Go easy, honey, an’ holler ’fo’ you
git inside, so dey know who comin’.”
Fair’s companion lay sprawled upon the gay patchwork quilt of Cindy’s
best bed. He was, or pretended to be, sleeping heavily. The hack driver
would have to be called if he was to be roused and gotten into the
vehicle.
At the table, his head among half-filled and empty glasses, and the wreck
of a poker game, sat Fairfax Sevier. Virginia went with averted eyes past
the bed to her brother, and shook him by the shoulder.
“Buddy,” she said huskily, “Buddy, dear, I brought a hack out for you.
Can you walk to it?”
“Who’s goin’—take care—Parke? Parke’s been drinkin’,” explained poor
Fair, with something like a whimper.
Virginia turned to the bed; and contempt fell cool upon her suffering. A
face in drunken slumber is not calculated to command respect, even to win
much sympathy.
The girl took the shock like the daughter of warriors that she was. “Does
Parke Winchester drink now?” she inquired, finally, of the negro.
Again Vete stole that quick, side-long glance at her. “I ain’t never
knowed de time Marse Parke quit,” he returned finally. “He might fool de
white folks ’bout hit, but he ain’t take dat trouble wid de niggers. Him
an’ Marse Fair been at my house mo’ dan onct lately.”
Parke, then, had not only never given up his drinking; he had been
actually initiating Fairfax Sevier into the great and inglorious guild of
topers, while he deceived the sister with promises that he would find who
it was Fair drank with and look after the boy.
She was free; but not yet could her heart rise to the knowledge. The
bowed, boyish figure before her, the degradation of that sleeper upon the
negro’s poor bed—these left her very pitiful. “He’ll be quiet and behave
himself now, Uncle Vete.” she said; “I’ll take Fair with me—we can’t move
him,” indicating Winchester. “Let him sleep.”
“O, yassum, yassum. He be all right in de mawnin’. He been all right
ternight, ef I could jest er got hol’ ’er ’im. Dishyer negoshulatin’ wid
’er man th’oo er do’, an’ him er doin’ his talkin’ wid er gun, hit’s
unsartin kin’ er wuyck.”
Still in a daze Virginia picked up a pistol from the floor, turned the
cylinder to see that it was unloaded, and dropped it into the pocket of
Parke’s light overcoat.
At the action, Fair showed his first consciousness of her presence
“You’ll get yourself shot one—these days, Virginia,” he muttered, half
irritably, half penitently. “—’dvise you—let such things ’lone.” And one
could not have said whether he meant, by this, her present handling of
the firearm itself, her former reckless demand that he open the door, or
her presence on such a scene.
Uncle Vete assured Virginia that he would look after Parke for the night,
and would see that he reached home in the morning. She gently declined
the old man’s offer to return to town with her, and promised to send
Beelzebub out by Sam, Cindy’s eldest, who was acting as house-boy at the
Sevier home. The drive in the night air, and Virginia’s presence somewhat
sobered her brother. “Does dad know?” he asked, as they neared home.
“I didn’t wake him,” responded Virginia.
Fair turned, as he lay with his head against her shoulder. He was
beginning to be deathly sick—the end of all Fair’s essays at drinking.
“You’re a good girl, Virginia. Mighty good girl. I reckon you’ll get your
reward in heaven.”
But, driving home under the stars, freed from a self-imposed bond, warned
that she might in future protect this well-beloved sinner whose head lay
on her breast, ready now to accept the love of the man she loved, with no
shadow on her conscience—Virginia felt that she had her reward here, now
and in this world.