Virginia danced with the Prince, “by Special Appointment,” at the ball
that evening. So did her aunt, Mrs. Addison Colfax. So likewise was Miss
Belle Cluyme among those honored and approved. But Virginia wore the
most beautiful of her Paris gowns, and seemed a princess to one watching
from the gallery. Stephen was sure that his Royal Highness made that
particular dance longer than the others. It was decidedly longer than
the one he had with Miss Cluyme, although that young lady had declared
she was in heaven.
Alas, that princes cannot abide with us forever! His Royal Highness bade
farewell to St. Louis, and presently that same 'City of Alton' which
bore him northward came back again in like royal state, and this time it
was in honor of a Democrat potentate. He is an old friend now, Senator
and Judge and Presidential Candidate,--Stephen Arnold Douglas,--father
of the doctrine of Local Sovereignty, which he has come to preach. So
goes the world. We are no sooner rid of one hero than we are ready for
another.
Blow, you bandsmen on the hurricane deck, let the shores echo with your
national airs! Let the gay bunting wave in the river breeze! Uniforms
flash upon the guards, for no campaign is complete without the military.
Here are brave companies of the Douglas Guards, the Hickory Sprouts, and
the Little Giants to do honor to the person of their hero. Cannon are
booming as he steps into his open carriage that evening on the levee,
where the piles of river freight are covered with people. Transparencies
are dodging in the darkness. A fresh band strikes up “Hail Columbia,”
and the four horses prance away, followed closely by the “Independent
Broom Rangers.” “The shouts for Douglas,” remarked a keen observer who
was present, “must have penetrated Abraham's bosom at Springfield.”
Mr. Jacob Cluyme, who had been a Bell and Everett man until that day,
was not the only person of prominence converted. After the speech he
assured the Judge that he was now undergoing the greatest pleasure of
his life in meeting the popular orator, the true representative man of
the Great West, the matured statesman, and the able advocate of national
principles. And although Mr. Douglas looked as if he had heard something
of the kind before, he pressed Mr. Cluyme's hand warmly.
So was the author of Popular Sovereignty, “the great Bulwark of American
Independence,” escorted to the Court House steps, past houses of his
stanch supporters; which were illuminated in his honor. Stephen,
wedged among the people, remarked that the Judge had lost none of his
self-confidence since that day at Freeport. Who, seeing the Democratic
candidate smiling and bowing to the audience that blocked the wide
square, would guess that the Question troubled him at all, or that he
missed the votes of the solid South? How gravely the Judge listened to
the eulogy of the prominent citizen, who reminded him that his work was
not yet finished, and that he still was harnessed to the cause of the
people! And how happy was the choice of that word harnessed!
The Judge had heard (so he said) with deep emotion the remarks of the
chairman. Then followed one of those masterful speeches which wove a
spell about those who listened,--which, like the most popular of novels,
moved to laughter and to tears, to anger and to pity. Mr. Brice and
Mr Richter were not the only Black Republicans who were depressed that
night. And they trudged homeward with the wild enthusiasm still ringing
in their ears, heavy with the thought that the long, hot campaign of
their own Wide-Awakes might be in vain.
They had a grim reproof from Judge Whipple in the morning.
“So you too, gentlemen, took opium last night,” was all he said.
The dreaded possibility of Mr. Lincoln's election did not interfere with
the gayeties. The week after the Fair Mr. Clarence Colfax gave a great
dance at Bellegarde, in honor of his cousin, Virginia, to which Mr.
Stephen Brice was not invited. A majority of Company A was there.
Virginia would have liked to have had them in uniform.
It was at this time that Anne Brinsmade took the notion of having a ball
in costume. Virginia, on hearing the news, rode over from Bellegarde,
and flinging her reins to Nicodemus ran up to Anne's little
dressing-room.
“Whom have you invited, Anne?” she demanded.
Anne ran over the long list of their acquaintance, but there was one
name she omitted.
“Are you sure that that is all?” asked Virginia, searchingly, when she
had finished.
Anne looked mystified.
“I have invited Stephen Brice, Jinny,” she said. “But!--”
“But!” cried Virginia. “I knew it. Am I to be confronted with that
Yankee everywhere I go? It is always 'Stephen Brice', and he is ushered
in with a but.”
Anne was quite overcome by this outburst. She had dignity, however, and
plenty of it. And she was a loyal friend.
“You have no right to criticise my guests, Virginia.”
Virginia, seated on the arm of a chair, tapped her foot on the floor.
“Why couldn't things remain as they were?” she said. “We were so happy
before these Yankees came. And they are not content in trying to deprive
us of our rights. They must spoil our pleasure, too.”
“Stephen Brice is a gentleman,” answered Anne. “He spoils no one's
pleasure, and goes no place that he is not asked.”
“He has not behaved according to my idea of a gentleman, the few
times that I have been unfortunate enough to encounter him,” Virginia
retorted.
“You are the only one who says so, then.” Here the feminine got the
better of Anne's prudence, and she added. “I saw you waltz with him
once, Jinny Carvel, and I am sure you never enjoyed a dance as much in
your life.”
Virginia blushed purple.
“Anne Brinsmade!” she cried. “You may have your ball, and your Yankees,
all of them you want. But I shan't come. How I wish I had never seen
that horrid Stephen Brice! Then you would never have insulted me.”
Virginia rose and snatched her riding-whip. This was too much for Anne.
She threw her arms around her friend without more ado.
“Don't quarrel with me, Jinny,” she said tearfully. “I couldn't bear it.
He--Mr. Brice is not coming, I am sure.”
Virginia disengaged herself.
“He is not coming?”
“No,” said Anne. “You asked me if he was invited. And I was going on to
tell you that he could not come.”
She stopped, and stared at Virginia in bewilderment. That young lady,
instead of beaming, had turned her back. She stood flicking her whip at
the window, gazing out over the trees, down the slope to the river. Miss
Russell might have interpreted these things. Simple Anne!
“Why isn't he coming?” said Virginia, at last.
“Because he is to be one of the speakers at a big meeting that night.
Have you seen him since you got home, Jinny? He is thinner than he
was. We are much worried about him, because he has worked so hard this
summer.”
“A Black Republican meeting!” exclaimed Virginia, scornfully ignoring
the rest of what was said. “Then I'll come, Anne dear,” she cried,
tripping the length of the room. “I'll come as Titania. Who will you
be?”
She cantered off down the drive and out of the gate, leaving a very
puzzled young woman watching her from the window. But when Virginia
reached the forest at the bend of the road, she pulled her horse down to
a walk.
She bethought herself of the gown which her Uncle Daniel had sent her
from Calvert House, and of the pearls. And she determined to go as her
great-grandmother, Dorothy Carvel.
Shades of romance! How many readers will smile before the rest of this
true incident is told?
What had happened was this. Miss Anne Brinsmade had driven to town in
her mother's Jenny Lind a day or two before, and had stopped (as she
often did) to pay a call on Mrs. Brice. This lady, as may be guessed,
was not given to discussion of her husband's ancestors, nor of her
own. But on the walls of the little dining-room hung a Copley and two
Stuarts. One of the Stuarts was a full length of an officer in the buff
and blue of the Continental Army. And it was this picture which caught
Anne's eye that day.
“How like Stephen!” she exclaimed. And added. “Only the face is much
older. Who is it, Mrs. Brice?”
“Colonel Wilton Brice, Stephen's grandfather. There is a marked
look about all the Brices. He was only twenty years of age when the
Revolution began. That picture was painted much later in life, after
Stuart came back to America, when the Colonel was nearly forty. He had
kept his uniform, and his wife persuaded him to be painted in it.”
“If Stephen would only come as Colonel Wilton Brice!” she cried. “Do you
think he would, Mrs. Brice?”
Mrs. Brice laughed, and shook her head.
“I am afraid not, Anne,” she said. “I have a part of the uniform
upstairs, but I could never induce him even to try it on.”
As she drove from shop to shop that day, Anne reflected that it
certainly would not be like Stephen to wear his grandfather's uniform to
a ball. But she meant to ask him, at any rate. And she had driven home
immediately to write her invitations. It was with keen disappointment
that she read his note of regret.
However, on the very day of the ball, Anne chanced to be in town again,
and caught sight of Stephen pushing his way among the people on Fourth
Street. She waved her hand to him, and called to Nicodemus to pull up at
the sidewalk.
“We are all so sorry that you are not coming,” said she, impulsively.
And there she stopped short. For Anne was a sincere person, and
remembered Virginia. “That is, I am so sorry,” she added, a little
hastily. “Stephen, I saw the portrait of your grandfather, and I wanted
you to come in his costume.”
Stephen, smiling down on her, said nothing. And poor Anne, in her fear
that he had perceived the shade in her meaning, made another unfortunate
remark.
“If you were not a--a Republican--” she said.
“A Black Republican,” he answered, and laughed at her discomfiture.
“What then?”
Anne was very red.
“I only meant that if you were not a Republican, there would be no
meeting to address that night.”
“It does not make any difference to you what my politics are, does it?”
he asked, a little earnestly.
“Oh, Stephen!” she exclaimed, in gentle reproof.
“Some people have discarded me,” he said, striving to smile.
She wondered whether he meant Virginia, and whether he cared. Still
further embarrassed, she said something which she regretted immediately.
“Couldn't you contrive to come?”
He considered.
“I will come, after the meeting, if it is not too late,” he said at
length. “But you must not tell any one.”
He lifted his hat, and hurried on, leaving Anne in a quandary. She
wanted him. But what was she to say to Virginia? Virginia was coming on
the condition that he was not to be there. And Anne was scrupulous.
Stephen, too, was almost instantly sorry that he had promised. The
little costumer's shop (the only one in the city at that time) had been
ransacked for the occasion, and nothing was left to fit him. But when he
reached home there was a strong smell of camphor in his mother's room.
Colonel Brice's cocked hat and sword and spurs lay on the bed, and
presently Hester brought in the blue coat and buff waistcoat from the
kitchen, where she had been pressing them. Stephen must needs yield to
his mother's persuasions and try them on--they were more than a passable
fit. But there were the breeches and cavalry boots to be thought of, and
the ruffled shirt and the powdered wig. So before tea he hurried down
to the costumer's again, not quite sure that he was not making a fool
of himself, and yet at last sufficiently entered into the spirit of the
thing. The coat was mended and freshened. And when after tea he dressed
in the character, his appearance was so striking that his mother could
not refrain from some little admiration. As for Hester, she was in
transports. Stephen was human, and young. But still the frivolity of
it all troubled him. He had inherited from Colonel Wilton Brice, the
Puritan, other things beside clothes. And he felt in his heart as he
walked soberly to the hall that this was no time for fancy dress balls.
All intention of going was banished by the time his turn had come to
speak.
But mark how certain matters are beyond us. Not caring to sit out the
meeting on the platform, he made his way down the side of the crowded
hall, and ran into (of all people) big Tom Catherwood. As the Southern
Rights politics of the Catherwood family were a matter of note in the
city, Stephen did not attempt to conceal his astonishment. Tom himself
was visibly embarrassed. He congratulated Stephen on his speech, and
volunteered the news that he had come in a spirit of fairness to hear
what the intelligent leaders of the Republican party, such as Judge
Whipple, had to say. After that he fidgeted. But the sight of him
started in Stephen a train of thought that closed his ears for once
to the Judge's words. He had had before a huge liking for Tom. Now he
admired him, for it was no light courage that took one of his position
there. And Stephen remembered that Tom was not risking merely the
displeasure of his family and his friends, but likewise something of
greater value than, either. From childhood Tom had been the devoted
slave of Virginia Carvel, with as little chance of marrying her as a man
ever had. And now he was endangering even that little alliance.
And so Stephen began to think of Virginia, and to wonder what she would
wear at Anne's party; and to speculate how she would have treated him if
had gone. To speak truth, this last matter had no little weight in his
decision to stay away. But we had best leave motives to those whose
business and equipment it is to weigh to a grain. Since that agonizing
moment when her eyes had met his own among the curiously vulgar at the
Fair, Stephen's fear of meeting Virginia had grown to the proportions of
a terror. And yet there she was in his mind, to take possession of it on
the slightest occasion.
When Judge Whipple had finished, Tom rose. He awoke Mr. Brice from a
trance.
“Stephen,” said he, “of course you're going to the Brinsmade's.”
Stephen shook his head.
“Why not?” said Tom, in surprise. “Haven't you a costume?”
“Yes,” he answered dubiously.
“Why, then, you've got to come with me,” says Tom, heartily. “It isn't
too late, and they'll want you. I've a buggy, and I'm going to the
Russells' to change my clothes. Come along!”
Steven went.