THE FLAG OF VICTORY.
It was true that the victories did go far toward healing dissensions.
While the indignation against England had run high, there was a bitter
opposition in some quarters to every act of the administration. There
was jarring in the Cabinet as well as outside. The larger cities had
never cordially approved of the Capital at Washington. They had had
rejoicing over successes, and now it was the turn of the newer city.
Mrs. Madison's drawing room always presented a gay and beautiful
aspect. Many strangers came to the city. Washington Irving paid a
second visit, and was most graciously received and became a great
favorite. Society took on a finer aspect. Poets appeared, mostly
patriotic ones; and though to-day we may smile over them, their
sincerity moved the hearts of their readers and won applause, inspired
enthusiasm.
Jaqueline Mason had taken another ramble around the room when she saw
Roger Carrington talking to her sister. The band played a grand march,
and everybody fell into line, as this seemed to befit the occasion.
Then some of the guests began to disperse, as the President, who looked
very weary, and his smiling, affable wife, with so many more years of
youth on her side, set the example.
Carrington loitered with the Collaston party, debating whether he
should meet Jaqueline. It would break the ice, perhaps. Patty had
been so cordial. She had taken on so many pretty married airs that
were charming. She talked about her house and her lovely baby, how
Annis had grown, and how sweet it was of her to be content without her
mother, and how sad it was about Charles. Louis joined them, full of
enthusiasm. And at last Jaqueline and her escort came up.
"We thought we should have to go home without you," Patty said gayly.
"Come; it is late. The carriage has been here waiting ever so long."
Jaqueline bowed to her old lover. Major Day, in his military trappings,
was quite an imposing figure, and how beautiful she was! She had been
a pretty young girl when he first met her; she was young still, in
that early dawn of womanhood before the bud had quite unfolded. Had he
expected to see her faded and worn in this brief period?
They all wished each other good-night.
Why did he not "ask Jaqueline to love him again"? He was not as sure
as Annis had been. And now everything was different. Patty was already
quite a figure in society, and Jaqueline could have her choice of
lovers, husbands.
Annis longed to tell over her little episode of the meeting, but there
seemed no time. Jaqueline was always going out and having company.
Louis teased Annis when he saw her.
"Two conquests in one night for a little girl!" he exclaimed. "Oh, I
saw you dancing with the young midshipman, and then on high parade with
Mr. Carrington, who looked grave and grand, as if he was escorting
about a lady of high degree. I am afraid Madame Badeau will make a
woman of you too fast. Do you not think it would be better to send her
over to the convent to steady her, Patty?"
"Oh, I don't want to be shut up! I should run away. And I like the
girls so much. The convent looks dreary. And they can walk only in that
high-walled garden. I want the whole big outside world."
Louis laughed and pinched her cheek.
If Mr. Carrington wouldn't come and ask Jaqueline again, no one could
do anything. Annis sighed in her tender heart, and felt that it was
better not to retail the confidence.
Mrs. Madison's dinners were quite the events of the winter, and her
levees were delightful entertainments. All parties began to harmonize
more warmly; perhaps it was the gracious tact and affability of
the hostess. The _National Intelligencer_ espoused the cause of
the Madisons enthusiastically, and congratulated the nation on his
re-election. Roger Carrington began to haunt the entertainments he had
so long shunned, or at the utmost merely devoted a few moments to them.
Of course he met Jaqueline, who was simply indifferent, a much harder
condition to overcome than if she had shown hauteur or resentment. And,
then--in a worldly point of view she could do better.
For Washington, in a certain way, was prospering in spite of the war
and privations. There was a feeling of permanence, as if the Capital
really would be great some day. Houses were springing up, streets
lengthening out, mudholes being filled up, pavements placed, and every
year a little was added to the home of the nation.
The time ran gayly around. The winter had seemed unusually brief. March
came in again, and with it the second inauguration of James Madison,
when the Capitol grounds were thronged as never before. The President
was paler and thinner, and though it had been a triumph for his party,
he sighed often for the quiet and rest of Montpellier.
Mrs. Madison, in rose-colored satin and ermine, looked "every inch a
queen," said the papers of the day. And happier than some of the queens
off or on European thrones, even if she had carried a great burden the
last two years. And the ladies of the republican court certainly were
not lacking in beauty or grace. The foreign ministers and their wives,
in all their brave array, hardly excelled them; and the army and navy
were in force.
Annis went to the levee. It was quite a crush, but a pleasure to the
child to see the brilliant throng. Louis was her escort, and he was
proud of her refined and lady-like manners. The French grace in her
nature had been assiduously cultivated by the woman who still thought
there was no place like France.
"We will go home early," Patty said. "Jaqueline is to stay and help
entertain. She's getting to be such a grand lady that I suppose she
will be marrying a senator or a secretary next, and perhaps be Mrs.
President herself. She and Mrs. Seaton are hand and glove." Mrs. Seaton
was the pretty wife of the editor of the _National Intelligencer_. "But
I am tired, and the doctor will be out all night, so we will get some
beauty sleep."
She sent the servant for the carriage. One of the guests escorted them
through the spacious hall and out on the portico. A merry party were
coming up, and Annis, turning aside for them, slipped, landing in a
little heap on the stone pavement. Patty uttered a cry.
A gentleman at the foot of the steps picked her up before Patty or Mr.
Fenton could reach her.
"Oh, Mr. Carrington!" cried Patty; and now the other guests ran down to
see what injury they had done, quite alarmed at the incident.
Annis drew a long sigh and flung her arms about her rescuer's neck,
quite ignorant who it might be, but still frightened.
"No, I do not think I am hurt," in a shaken voice.
"Take her to the carriage, please," entreated Patty. "And, Mr. Fenton,
do not mention it to my sister nor my brother, if you see them.
Good-night, and thanks."
Mr. Carrington carried her to the edge of the walk and then put her
down.
"I feel shaky," she began, with a tremulous laugh. "But I am quite sure
I have not broken any bones."
Patty stepped in first. Mr. Carrington assisted Annis, and then studied
the pale face.
"Do you not think I had better accompany you?" he asked solicitously.
"But you were just going in to pay your respects to Mrs. Madison----"
declared Patty.
"I shall have four years more to do it in," he returned. "Where is the
doctor? Yes, I had better be sure of your safety."
"He is out on business. Really, he is getting to be quite hard-worked.
And if you would not mind. I should take it as a favor. Then we can see
if Annis is really injured."
He sprang in, and the coachman closed the door.
"It was very funny to take that flying leap, as if I were a bird," and
Annis could not forbear laughing. "What did I look like, dropping at
your feet? I was so bundled up that I couldn't save myself. There is a
bump swelling up on my forehead."
"Lucky if there is nothing worse," responded Patty.
Annis was carried up the steps and deposited on the drawing-room sofa.
Patty took off her wraps, and made her stand up and try all her limbs.
She began to feel quite natural and over her fright. There was a lump
on her forehead, but her hood had protected the skin.
"I am delighted to think it is no worse," the gentleman said.
"And it is a pity to have disturbed you. But the doctor being out, I
felt nervous; and a friend is so good at such a time. I am sure we are
much indebted for your kindness."
Annis put out her hand and clasped his. "I am glad it was you," she
said with simple thankfulness.
Then they talked of Charles. He had been put in a plaster jacket.
Dr. Collaston was quite sure the best was being done, but it would be
spring before he could be brought home.
Patty was very cordial at the parting, and invited him to call.
"And see what happens to me next," said Annis.
"You may be sure I shall want to know."
He did not go back to the levee. Jaqueline was there, being admired
and flattered. Now and then he heard complimentary things said about
her, and young men sent her verses, quite an ordinary event at that
time. She had forgotten, and he remembered only too well. Annis must
have been wrong, yet he had hugged the child's innocent prattle to his
heart. He knew now he had not ceased to love her, yet he had thought in
his pride that if she could love Ralston he would not stand in the way.
His jealousy had been of the larger, finer type.
With all these opportunities she had accepted no lover. Her attractions
were of a more refined kind than when she had made her first plunge
into gayety. Was there something----No, he hardly dared believe it. He
had been imperious and arbitrary.
He had not the courage to go the next day and inquire after Annis. He
knew it was a polite duty. He walked down past Madame Badeau's little
gray house when school was being dismissed. There was no Annis among
the girls. What if she had been injured more than they thought! He
would stop and inquire at the office. There were several men talking
eagerly with the doctor, so he strolled around the corner. Yes, that
was Jaqueline sitting with her face turned from the window, chatting
to someone. The proud poise of the head, the shining dark curls just
shadowing her white neck, the pink ear like a pearly sea shell, and
then her slim white hand held up in some gesticulation, and the smile
that made a dainty dimple. No, he would not interrupt her; so he walked
on. If she had turned her head--but she did not.
He was very busy the next day. When he left the office a carriage full
of young girls passed him. Some of them nodded; he was not quite sure
whether _she_ did or not. Now was his opportunity.
The day had been rather raw, with a fitful sunshine, but now it was
clouding over. He walked briskly, and held his head erect, although he
felt rather cowardly at heart. Why should he not put his fate to the
touch, like a man, or dismiss her from his mind? He sauntered up the
stoop and touched the knocker lightly--so lightly, indeed, that Julius,
amid the clatter of Dinah's pots and pans, did not hear it.
The carriage stopped. It was rather dusky now, and a tree hid the
figure at the door until Jaqueline was coming up the steps. His heart
beat furiously. He turned, and they faced each other.
Her hat, with the great bow on the top, was tied under her chin with
rose-colored ribbons. A satin collar edged with swan's down stood up
around her throat and almost touched the pink cheeks. The great soft,
dark eyes glanced out in surprise--they could flame in anger too, he
knew that.
He had thought more than once how gradually he would lead up to that
old time, and learn if she still loved him. And she had resolved upon
a becoming humility on his part. He should admit that he had misjudged
her, that he had been selfish, arbitrary, suspicious, jealous, and--oh,
how many faults she had counted upon her white fingers!
"Jaqueline," he said almost under his breath--"Jaqueline!"--and it
seemed as if his voice had never been so sweet, a fragrant shower
falling on a long-parched heart. He was trying to find her hand; did it
come out of the great muff quite as broad as her slim figure, all soft
and warm, to be pressed to his lips?
"Are you very angry still?" she inquired in the dearest, most
beseeching tone.
"Angry?" He had forgotten all about it. He had been fatuous, senseless,
to think of such a thing!
"Because--" in a fascinating cadence of pardon.
"I have not had a happy moment." His voice was husky with emotion,
with the love that he had told himself a hundred times was dead, and a
hundred times had disbelieved.
"I had given you up. Not that I had ceased--to care. And that night
of the ball, when the flags came, I was quite sure you loved me no
longer."
"I shall love you always. I was mad, foolish, jealous----"
"And I did flirt. Oh, I was such a vain little thing then! I am better
now. I do not think it so fine to have a host of men making love to
you. Only you were wrong about----"
"Ralston? Yes."
"But you must know, he _did_ ask me to marry him. I do not think it was
for love."
"I am glad it was not. I told him he owed you an offer of marriage."
"But he did not. There had never been any foolish softness between us.
A Virginian girl may flirt, but she doesn't give away the sweetness
that only a lover is entitled to. And what if I _had_ loved him?"
"If you had loved him I should have wished you Godspeed, after a while."
"But you couldn't have done it at first?"
"No, I couldn't." The hearty tone was convincing.
It was quite dark now. He put his arm about her and drew her nearer,
nearer, and ceased to kiss her hand.
"Oh, my darling; here I am keeping you out in the cold! Are you almost
frozen? And I came to hear about Annis. I have been wondering if I
should ever meet you where I could say a word----"
"Annis is your very good friend. So was Charles. And papa was fearfully
angry at my folly. They were all on your side."
"And now you are on my side?"
"Yes," with a soft, happy little laugh.
Then he knocked again. This time Julius heard, and answered.
Annis was sitting on the floor, playing with the baby, who was laughing
and cooing.
"I thought you wouldn't come--ever!" she said vehemently. "I had
a headache yesterday, and Patty wouldn't let me go to school, but
the doctor said it didn't amount to anything. It was funny, though.
Jaqueline, where did you find him?"
"On the stoop," and Jaqueline gave a queer little laugh. How soft
and shining her eyes were, and her cheeks were like pink roses just
in bloom. Annis felt something mysterious stirring in the air. Then
Jaqueline ran away.
"Did you ask her?" Annis raised her clear eyes with a sweet, solemn
light.
"Yes. Annis, you are to be my little sister."
"I shall grow big, more's the pity," she said sententiously. "And I
hate to be big!"
He laughed at that.
The doctor had taken his wife over to Arlington, for he disliked to
ride alone except when he was in great haste; and just as Dinah had
begun to fume about supper they came in. Mr. Carrington had a warm
welcome from them, and they all laughed over Annis' mishap. But when
Jaqueline entered the story was told, as love stories always are; and
they kept Roger to tea. No one came, for a cold, drizzling rain set in,
and he had Jaqueline to himself.
"Still, she might have done a great deal better," said Dr. Collaston.
"Jaqueline ought to go to some foreign court as the wife of a minister,
she is so elegant. Or the wife of a secretary of state."
He had his desire years afterward, when Jaqueline and her husband went
to the French court. Napoleon had been swept away by the hand of fate,
and royalty sat on the throne.
Roger said they must go over and tell his mother the joyful news.
Ralph's wife was a sweet home body, and she had a thriving son that
was his great-grandmother's pride. But the mother's heart was strongly
centered in her firstborn, and she had suffered keenly in his sorrows,
though they had never talked them over. They had been too deep, too
sacred.
"Only love him, my dear," she said to Jaqueline. "There are some
people who think you can love a person too much; but when they have
gone beyond your ken you are most glad of the times you gave them
overflowing measure." The young girl knew then she was forgiven.
Jaqueline was not less a favorite in society because she was an engaged
young lady, but she was more circumspect; and certainly now Roger had
nothing to complain of. Only life seemed too short ever to make up the
lost months.
Annis was as happy as the lovers themselves. She was very companionable
and never in the way. There was a curious ingrained delicacy about her.
Dr. Collaston declared he was jealous. He and little Bessy ought to
outweigh the regard for Mr. Carrington.
"But I knew him first. It's the longest friendship," glancing up archly.
"I have taken you to my heart and home--doesn't that count? And Mr.
Carrington has no home."
Annis was not prepared for that argument. She could not seem ungrateful.
Spring came on apace. What a lovely season it was! Beautiful wild
flowers sprang up at the roadsides, the trees and shrubbery put on
infinite tints of green. The river, really majestic then, making a
broad lake after its confluence with the eastern branch; the marshy
shores, dotted with curious aquatic plants that had leave to grow
undisturbed and bloom in countless varieties, if not so beautiful;
the heights of Arlington, with the massive pines, hemlocks, and oaks,
and flowering trees that shook great branches of bloom out on the air
like flocks of flying birds, and filled every nook and corner with
fragrance. And as the season advanced the apricot, pear, and peach
came out, some of them still in a comparatively wild state, finer as to
bloom than fruit.
There lay pretty Alexandria, with the leisurely aspect all towns wore
at that day. Great cultivated fields stretched out as far as the eye
could see. Diversified reaches in hill and woodland broke the surface
into a series of beguiling pictures, as if one could wander on for ever
and ever.
And then, at the bend of the river, Mount Vernon in its peaceful
silence; a place for pilgrimages even at that time, and destined, like
Arlington, to become more famous as the years rolled on. But while
the former was shrouded in reverent quiet, Arlington was the scene of
many a gay gathering. If Mrs. Madison sometimes wearied of the whirl
of pleasure so different from her Quaker girlhood and early married
life, the ease with which she laid down the trappings and ceremonies
of state and adapted herself to the retirement of Montpellier showed
that she had not been wedded to the glitter and adulation, and that the
ease and comfort of country life were not distasteful to her. While
not a strongly intellectual woman, nor the mother of heroes, there
is something exquisitely touching in her devotion to her husband's
mother in her old age, and then to her husband through the years of
invalidism. It seems a fitting end to a well-used life that in her last
years she should come back to the dear friends of middle-life, still
ready to pay her homage, and to the new city that had run through one
brief career, to be as great a favorite as ever.
And now, when balls and assemblies began to pall on the
pleasure-seekers,--and one wonders, in the stress of the
war, how so much money could have been spent on pleasure and
fine-dressing,--excursions up the Potomac to the falls, so beautiful at
that time, were greatly in vogue. Carriages and equestrians thronged
the road, followed by great clumsy covered wagons and a regiment of
slaves, who built fires and cooked viands that were best hot, or made
delicious drinks, hot and cold.
About fifteen miles above were the Great Falls. In the early season,
when spring freshets gathered strength and power in the mountain range
of the Alleghanies, the river swelled by the affluents in its course,
and bursting through the Blue Mountains at Harper's Ferry, swept onward
with resistless force until it came to this natural gorge, where it
fell over a declivity of some thirty to forty feet. Indeed, this was
one of the great natural curiosities of the time, and foreigners made
the pilgrimage with perhaps as much admiration as Niagara elicits from
more jaded senses.
Nearer the City, and convenient for an afternoon drive, were the
Cascades, some five or six miles above Georgetown--a series of rushing
streams divided by rocks, tumbling, leaping, quivering in the sunshine,
and sending out showers of spray full of iridescent gleams and bits
of rainbows that danced around like fays in gorgeous robes. Here merry
parties laughed and chatted, ate, and drank each other's healths, and
tripped lightly to the inspiriting music of black fiddlers, who threw
their very souls as well as their swaying bodies into the gay tunes.
Others, lovers most frequently, rambled about in the shady dells and
exchanged vows--gave promises that were much oftener kept than broken,
to their credit be it said. Though at that time there was much merry
badinage and keen encounters of wits. Reading was not so greatly
in vogue; women spent no time at clubs or over learned essays. "A
new-fashioned skirt of emerald-green sarcenet faced with flutings of
white satin with pipings of green, and a fine white mull tunic trimmed
with fringes of British silk, with green satin half-boots and long
white gloves stitched with green," filled many souls with envy at one
of the assemblies, says an old journal.
Patterns were borrowed, and poor maids sometimes were at their wits'
ends to copy them. Most households had two or three women who were
deft with the needle, and who were kept pretty busy attending to their
mistresses' wardrobes. Occasionally a happy blunder brought in a new
style. Privateers sometimes captured cargoes of finery and smuggled
them into some unguarded port, and already manufacturers were beginning
to copy foreign goods with tolerable success.
As for the living, there was an abundance of everything in the more
southern provinces. Fruits of all kinds seemed to grow spontaneously,
crops were simply magnificent, poultry, game, fish, and oysters were
used without stint. They were wise, these people who had not drifted
to the bleak New England shores, where the living was wrested from the
soil and consciences were not yet sufficiently free to unite happiness
with goodness.