MONTICELLO
The house, a low frame one, stood back from the road, in a tangle of
old, old flowering shrubs. Rand drew rein before the broken gate, and a
young woman in a linsey gown rose from the porch step and came down the
narrow path toward him. She carried an earthenware pitcher and cup.
"It's water just from the well," she said, "fresh and cool. Won't you
have some?"
"Yes, I will," answered Rand. "Vinie, why don't you mend that gate?"
"I don't know, thir," said Vinie. "Tom's always going to."
Rand laughed. "Don't call me 'thir'! Vinie, I'm elected."
Vinie set down her pitcher beside a clump of white phlox and wiped her
hands on the skirt of her linsey dress. "Are you going away to
Richmond?" she asked.
"Not until October. When I do I'll go see the little old house you used
to live in, Vinie!"
"It's torn down," remarked Vinie soberly. "Here's Tom now, and--and--"
"Adam Gaudylock. Don't you remember Adam?"
The hunter and Tom Mocket came up together. "We beat them! we beat them,
hey, Lewis!" grinned the scamp; and Gaudylock cried, "Why, if here isn't
the little partridge again! Don't you want to see what I've got in my
pouch?"
"Yeth, thir," said Vinie.
Rand and his lieutenant talked together in a low voice, Mocket leaning
against black Selim's neck, Rand stooping a little, and with
earnestness laying down the law of the case. They talked for ten
minutes, and then Rand gathered up the reins, asked for another cup of
water, and with a friendly "Good-bye, Vinie!" rode off toward
Monticello, Adam Gaudylock going with him.
Brother and sister watched the riders down the road until the gathering
dark and the shadow of the trees by the creek hid them from sight. "Just
wait long enough and we'll see what we see," quoth Tom. "Lewis Rand's
going to be a great man!"
"How great?" asked Vinie. "Not as great as Mr. Jefferson?"
"I don't know," the scamp answered sturdily. "He might be. One thing's
certain, anyhow; he's not built like Mr. Madison or Mr. Monroe. He'll
not be content to travel the President's road always. He'll have a road
all his own." The scamp's imagination, not usually lively, bestirred
itself under the influence of the day, of wine, and the still audible
sound of horses' hoofs. "By George, Vinie! it will be a Roman road,
hard, paved, and fit for triumphs! He thinks it won't, but he's
mistaken. He doesn't see himself!"
Vinie took the pitcher from beneath the white phlox. "It's getting dark.
Tom, aren't we ever going to have that gate mended?--He's going away to
Richmond in October."
The successful candidate and Adam Gaudylock, followed by Joab on a great
bay horse, crossed Moore's Creek, and took the Monticello road. A red
light yet burned in the west, but the trees were dark along the way, and
the hollows filled with shadow. The dew was falling, the evening dank
and charged with perfume.
"I asked you to come with me," said Rand, "because I wanted to talk to
some one out of the old life. Mocket's out of the old life too, he and
Vinie. But--" he laughed. "They're afraid of me. Vinie calls me 'thir.'"
"Well, I'm not afraid of you," Adam said placidly. "No one at home at
Monticello?"
"No, but Burwell keeps a room in readiness. I am often there on errands
for Mr. Jefferson. Well, how go matters west of the mountains?"
"Christmas I spent at Louisville," answered Gaudylock, "and then went
down the river to New Orleans. The city's like a hive before swarming.
There are more boats at its wharves than buds on yonder Judas tree. And
back from the river the cotton's blooming now."
"Ah!" said Rand, "I should like to see that land! When you have done a
thing, Adam, a thing that you have striven with all your might to do,
does it at once seem to you a small thing to have done? It does to
me--tasteless, soulless, and poor, not worth a man's while. Where lies
the land of satisfaction?"
"No," answered Adam, "I don't look at things that way. But then I'm not
ambitious. Last year, in New Orleans, I watched a man gaming. He won a
handful of French crowns. 'Ha!' says he, 'they glittered, but they do
not glitter now! Again!'--and this time he won doubloons. 'We'll double
these,' says he, and so they did, and he won. 'This is a small matter,'
he said. We'll play for double-eagles,' and so they did, and he won.
'Haven't you a tract of sugar-canes?' says he. 'Money's naugh. Let us
play for land!' and he won the sugar-canes. 'That girl, that red-lipped
Jeanne of thine, that black eye in the Street of Flowers--I'll play for
her! Deal the cards!' But he never won the girl, and he lost the
sugar-canes and the gold."
"A man walks forward, or he walks backward. There's no standing still
in this world or the next. Where were you after New Orleans, before you
turned homeward?"
"At Mr. Blennerhassett's island in the Ohio. And that's a pleasant place
and a pleasant gentleman--"
"Listen!"
"Aye," answered the other; "I heard it some moments back. Some one is
fiddling beyond that tulip tree."
They were now ascending the mountain, moving between great trees, fanned
by a cooler wind than had blown in the valley. The road turned, showing
them a bit of roadside grass, a giant tulip tree, and a vision of a moon
just rising in the east. Upon a log, beneath the tree, appeared the dim
brocade and the curled wig of M. Achille Pincornet, resting in the
twilight and solacing his soul with the air of "Madelon Friquet." Around
him sparkled the fireflies, and above were the thousand gold cups of the
tulip tree. His bow achieved a long tremolo; he lowered the violin from
his chin, stood up, and greeted the travellers.
"That was a pretty air, Mr. Pincornet," said Rand. "Why are you on the
Monticello road? Your next dancing class is at Fontenoy."
"And how did you know that, sir?" demanded the Frenchman in his high,
thin voice. As he spoke, he restored his fiddle to its case with great
care, then as carefully brushed all leaf and mould from his faded silken
clothes.
"I know--I know," replied Rand. He regarded the figure in dusty finery
with a certain envy of any one who was going to Fontenoy, even as
dancing master, even as a man no longer young. Mr. Pincornet looked, in
the twilight, very pinched, very grey, very hungry. "Come on with me to
Monticello," said the young man. "Burwell will give us supper, and find
us a couple of bottles to boot."
"Sir," answered the Frenchman stiffly, but with an inner vision of
Monticello cheer, "I would not vote for you--"
Rand laughed. "I bear no malice, Mr. Pincornet. Opinion's but opinion.
I'll cut no traveller's throat because he likes another road than mine!
Come, come! Fish from the river, cakes and coffee, Mr. Pincornet--and
afterwards wine on the terrace!"
The road climbed on. Between the stems of the tall trees, feathered with
the green of mid-spring, the dogwood displayed its stars, and the fringe
tree rose like a fountain. Everywhere was the sound of wind in the
leaves. When the riders and the dancing master, who was afoot, reached
the crest of the little mountain, shaven and planed by the hand of man
into a fair plateau, the moon was shining brightly. In the silver light,
across the dim lawns, classically simple, grave, and fair, rose the
house that Jefferson had built. The gate clanged behind the party from
Charlottesville, a dog barked, a light flared, voices of negroes were
heard, and hurrying feet from the house quarter. Upon the lawn to the
right and left of the mansion were two toy houses, tiny brick offices
used by Jefferson for various matters. The door of one of these now
opened, and Mr. Bacon, the overseer, hastening across the wet grass,
greeted Rand and Gaudylock as they dismounted before the white portico.
"Evening, evening, Mr. Rand! I knew you'd be coming up, so I hurried on
afore ye. Cæsar and Joab, you take the horses round! Glad to see you,
Adam; you too, Mr. Pincornet! Well, Mr. Rand, you spoiled the Egyptians
this day! I never saw a finer election! Me and Mr. Fagg were talking of
you. 'His father was a fighter before him,' says Mr. Fagg, says he, 'and
he's a fighter, too, damn him!' says he, 'and we'll send him higher yet.
Damn the Federalists!' says he. 'He's a taller man than Ludwell Cary!'"
"I'm a mighty hungry man, Mr. Bacon," said Rand. "And so is Adam, and so
is Mr. Pincornet! You'll take supper with us, I hope? We'll make Adam
Gaudylock tell us stories of Louisiana."
"Thank'ee, Mr. Rand, I will. Your room's all ready, sir, and Burwell
shall bring you a julep. I reckon you're pretty tired. Lord! I'd rather
clear a mountain side and then plough it, than to have to sit there all
day on that there Justice's Bench and listen to them Federalists!
They're a lot! And that Fairfax Cary--he's a chip of the old block, he
surely is! He'd have gone through fire to-day to see his brother win.
This way, gentlemen! Sally'll have supper ready in a jiffy. I smell the
coffee now. Well, well, Mr. Rand! to think of the way you used to trudge
up here all weathers, snow or storm or hot sun, just for a book--and now
you come riding in on Selim, elected to Richmond, over the heads of the
Carys! Life's queer, ain't it? We'll hear of you at Fontenoy next!"
Rand smiled. "Life's not so queer as that, Mr. Bacon. I wish you
might--" he broke off.
"Might what?" asked Bacon.
"Hear of me at Fontenoy," answered Rand, and entered the wide hall as
one who was at home there. "I'll go bathe my face and hands," he said,
and turned into the passage that led to the bedrooms.
A tall clock struck the hour, a bell rang cheerfully, and Burwell flung
open the dining-room door. Rand, entering a moment later, found the
overseer, the hunter, and the dancing master awaiting him. With a nod
and a "Ha, Burwell!" for the old servant, he took his place at the
table, and he took it like a prince, throwing his tall, vigorous figure
into the armchair which marked the head of the board, seating himself
before the other and older men. In the wave of his hand toward the
three remaining places there was a condescension not the less remarkable
that it was entirely unconscious. The life within him was moving with
great rapidity. It was becoming increasingly natural for him to act,
simply, without thought, as his inner man bade. What yesterday was
uneasiness, and to-day seemed assurance, was apt by to-morrow to attain
convincingness. It was not that he appeared to value himself too highly.
Instead, he made no attempt at valuation; he went his way like wind or
wave. He took the armchair at the head of the Monticello table with the
simplicity of a child, and the bearing of a general who sups with his
officers after a victorious field.
The unfolding of the petal was not missed by his companions. Adam
Gaudylock, with a glance, half shrewd and half affectionate, for the man
whom he had known from boyhood, sank into the opposite seat with a light
and happy laugh. It mattered little to Adam where he sat in life,
provided that it was before a window. The overseer, a worthy, plain man,
had a thought of old Gideon Rand, but, remembering in time Mr.
Jefferson's high opinion of the man now occupying his chair, sat down
and unfolded his damask napkin with great care. Mr. Pincornet, indeed,
raised his eyebrows and made a backward movement from the table, but at
that moment a mulatto boy appeared with a plate of waffles. The light
from the wax candles burned, too, in certain crimson decanters. "Sit
down, sit down, Mr. Pincornet!" said Rand, and the dancing master took
the remaining place.
An hour later Rand pushed back his heavy chair and rose from the table,
ending the meal with as little ceremony as he had used in beginning it.
"I shall go write to Mr. Jefferson," he announced, as the four passed
into the hall. "You, Adam, what will you do?"
"First I'll smoke and then I'll sleep," said Adam. The moonlight
streamed in upon them through the open hall door. "I'll smoke outside.
That's a southern moon.
"Kiss me, kiss me, flower o' night!
Madelon!
'Ware the voices, 'ware the light!
Madelon!
"Will you smoke with me, Mr. Bacon? I'd like to try the Monticello leaf."
"I have to go to the quarters for a bit," answered the overseer.
"There's sickness there. I'll join you later, Mr. Gaudylock."
He went whistling away. Adam sat down upon the broad steps whitened by
the moon, filled his pipe, struck a spark from his flint and steel, and
was presently enveloped in fragrant smoke. The dancing-master,
hesitating somewhat disconsolately in the hall, at last went also into
the moonlight, where he walked slowly up and down upon the terrace, his
thin, beruffled hands clasped behind his old brocaded coat. What with
the moonlight and the ancient riches of his apparel, and a certain lost
and straying air, he had the seeming of a phantom from some faint,
bewigged, perfumed, and painted past.
Lewis Rand paused for a moment before the door, and looked out upon the
splendid night, then turned and passed into the library, where he called
for candles, and, sitting down at a desk, began to write. His letter was
to the President of the United States, and it was written freely and
boldly. "'Twas thus they did--'twas so I did. We won, and I am glad;
they lost, and that also is to my liking. As the party owes its victory
to your name and your power, so I owe my personal victory to your
ancient and continued kindness. May my name be abhorred if ever I forget
it! The Federalists mustered strongly. Mr. Ludwell Cary is extremely
'well born,' and that younger brother of his is--I know not why, he
troubles me. There is a breath of the future about him, and it breathes
cold. Well! I have fought and I have won. 'Let the blast of the desert
come: I shall be renowned in my day!' To-night, you see, I quote Ossian.
The moon is flooding the terrace. Were you here in your loved home, we
would talk together. Adam Gaudylock is with me. Lately he was in
Louisiana, and then with a Mr. Blennerhassett upon the Ohio. General
Wilkinson is at New Orleans. The Spaniards are leaving, the French well
affected. The mighty tide of our people has topped the mountains and is
descending into those plains of the Mississippi made ours by your
prophetic vision and your seizure of occasion. The First Consul is a
madman! He has sold to us an Empire! Empire! Emperor--Emperor of the
West! The sound is stately. You laugh. We are citizens of a republic.
Well! I am content. I aspire no higher. I am not Buonaparte. Your lilies
are budding beneath the windows; the sweet williams are all in bloom. I
have little news for you of town or country--Mrs. Randolph, doubtless,
sends you all. Work goes on upon the church. For me, I worship in the
fields with the other beasts of burden or of prey. The wheat looks well,
and there will be this year a great yield of apples. Major Churchill's
Mustapha won at Winchester. Colonel Churchill has cleared a large tract
of woods behind Fontenoy and will use it for tobacco. I rode by his
plant bed the other day, and the leaf is prime. I am a judge of tobacco.
They are bitter, the Fontenoy men. Mr. Ludwell Cary will, I suppose,
remain in the county. He is altering and refurnishing Greenwood. I
suppose that he will marry. The rains have been frequent this spring,
the roads heavy and the rivers turbid. The stream is much swollen by my
house on the Three-Notched Road. We hear that the feeling grows between
General Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Should the occasion arise, pray commend
me to the latter, whose acquaintance I had the honour to make last year
when I visited New York. There, if you please, is a spirit restless and
audacious! The mill on the Rockfish is grinding this spring. The murder
case of which I wrote you will be tried next court day. One Fitch killed
one Thomas Dole in North Garden; knocked at his door one night, called
him out, and shot him down. Dole had thwarted Fitch in some project or
other. I am retained by the State, and I mean to hang Fitch. Adam
Gaudylock says there is a region of the Mississippi where the cotton
grows taller than a man's head. We may find our gold of Ophir in that
plant. To-night I am a victor. I salute you, so much oftener than I a
victor! But victory is a mirage: this that I thought so fair is but a
piece of the desert; the _magnum bonum_ shines, looms, and beckons still
ahead! Had I been defeated, I believe I should have been in better
spirits. Now to the papers which you desired me to read and comment
upon: I find--"
The quill travelled on, conveying to sheet after sheet the opinion upon
certain vexed questions of a very able lawyer. The analysis was keen,
the reasoning just, the judgment final, the advice sound. The years
since that determinative hour in the Richmond book-shop had been well
harvested. The paper when he had finished it would have pleased the
ideal jurist.
He wrote until the clock struck ten; then folded, sealed, and
superscribed his letter, pushed back the heavy hair from his forehead,
and rose from the desk. The long windows opened upon the terrace, and
through them came the moonbeams and the fragrance of the April
night--music too, for Mr. Pincornet was playing the violin. The young
man extinguished the candles, and stepped into the silvery world
without the room. Adam Gaudylock had disappeared, and the overseer was
gone to bed. Lights were out in the quarters; the house was as still and
white as a mansion in a fairy tale. Mr. Pincornet was no skilled
musician, but the air he played was old and sweet, and it served the
hour. Below their mountain-top lay the misty valleys; to the east the
moon-flooded plains; to the west the far line of the Blue Ridge. The
night was cloudless.
Rand stood with his hands upon the balustrade, then walked down the
terrace and paused before the dancing master. "Before he hurt his hand
Mr. Jefferson played the violin beautifully," he said. "When I was
younger, in the days when I tried to do everything that he did, I tried
to learn it too. But I have no music in me."
"It is a solace," answered Mr. Pincornet. "I learned long ago, in the
South."
"I like the harp," announced Rand abruptly.
"It is a becoming instrument to a woman," replied Mr. Pincornet, and in
a somewhat ghostly fashion became vivacious. "Ah, a rounded arm, a white
hand, the rise and fall of a bosom behind the gold wires--and the notes
like water dropping, sweet, sweet! Ah, I, too, like the harp!"
"I have never heard it but twice," said Rand, and turned again to the
balustrade. Below him lay the vast and shadowy landscape. Here and there
showed a light--a pale earth-star shining from grey hill or vale. Rand
looked toward Fontenoy, and he looked wistfully. Behind him the violin
was telling of the springtime; from the garden came the smell of the
syringas; the young man's desire was toward a woman. "Is she playing her
harp to-night? is she playing to Ludwell Cary?"
"Belle saison de ma jeunesse--
Beaux jours du printemps!"
sang the violin. A shot sounded near the house. Adam Gaudylock emerged
from the shadow of the locust trees and crossed the moonlit lawn below
the terrace. "I've shot that night-hawk. He'll maraud no more," he said,
and passed on toward his quarter for the night.
Rand made a motion as if to follow, then checked himself. It was late,
and it had been a day of strife, but his iron frame felt no fatigue and
his mood was one of sombre exaltation. What was the use of going to bed,
of wasting the moonlit hours? He turned to the Frenchman. "Play me," he
commanded, "a conquering air! Play me the Marseillaise!"
Mr. Pincornet started violently. Down came the fiddle from his chin, the
bow in his beruffled hand cut the air with a gesture of angry
repudiation. When he was excited he forgot his English, and he now swore
volubly in French; then, recovering himself, stepped back a pace, and
regarded with high dudgeon his host of the night. "Sir," he cried,
"before I became a dancing master I was a French gentleman! I served the
King. I will teach you to dance, but--Morbleu!--I will not play you the
Marseillaise!"
"I beg your pardon," said Rand. "I forgot that you could not be a
Republican. Well, play me a fine Royalist air."
"Are you so indifferent?" asked the dancing master, not without a faded
scorn. "Royalist or Republican--either air?"
"Indifferent?" repeated Rand. "I don't know that I am indifferent.
Open-minded, perhaps,--though I don't know that that is calling it
rightly. The airs the angels sing, and the thundering march of the
damned through hell--why should I not listen to them both? I don't
believe in hell, nor much in angels, save one, but I like the argument.
Mr. Pincornet, I don't want to sleep. Suppose--suppose you teach me a
minuet?"
He laughed as he spoke, but he spoke in earnest. "Knowledge! I want all
kinds of knowledge. I know law, and I know what to do with a jury, and I
know tobacco--worse luck!--but I don't know the little things, the
little gracious things that--that make a man liked. If I were a
Federalist, and if I didn't know so much about tobacco, I would go, Mr.
Pincornet, to your dancing class at Fontenoy!" He laughed again. "I
can't do that, can I? The Churchills would all draw their swords. Come!
I have little time and few chances to acquire that which I have longed
for always,--the grace of life. Teach me how to enter a drawing-room;
how to--how to dance with a lady!"
His tone, imperious when he demanded the Marseillaise, was now genial,
softened to a mellow persuasiveness. Mr. Pincornet shrugged his
shoulders. He had been offended, but he was not unmagnanimous, and he
had a high sense of the importance of his art. He had seen in France
what came of uncultivated law-givers. If a man wanted knowledge, far be
it from Achille de Pincornet to withhold his handful! "You cannot learn
in a night," he said, "but I will show you the steps."
"I can manage a country dance, a reel or Congo," said Rand simply. "I
want to know politer things."
They left the terrace, went into the drawing-room, and lit the candles.
The floor, rubbed each morning until it shone, gave back the
heart-shaped flames. The slight furniture they pushed aside. The dancing
master tucked his violin under his chin, drew the bow across the
strings, and began the lesson.
The candles burned clear, strains of the _minuet de la cour_ rose and
fell in the ample room, the member from Albemarle and Mr. Pincornet
stepped, bent, and postured with the gravity of Indian sachems. The one
moved through the minuet in top-boots and riding-coat, the other taught
in what had been a red brocade. Rand, though tall and largely built,
moved with the step and carriage, light and lithe, of one who has used
the woods; the Frenchman had the suppleness of his profession and of an
ancient courtier. Now they bowed one to the other, now each to an
imaginary lady. Mr. Pincornet issued directions in the tone of a general
ordering a charge, his pupil obeyed implicitly. In the silent house,
raised high on a mountain-top above a sleeping world, in the lit room
with many open windows, through which poured the fragrance of spring,
they practised until midnight the _minuet de la cour._ The hour struck;
they gravely ceased to dance, and after five minutes spent in mutual
compliments, closed the long windows and put out the superfluous lights,
then said good-night, and, bedroom candle in hand, repaired each to his
own chamber. Rand had risen at dawn, and his day had been a battlefield,
but before he lay down in the dimity-hung, four-post bed he sat long at
the window of his small, white, quiet room. The moon shone brightly; the
air was soft and sweet. In the distance a lamb bleated, then all was
still again. The young man rested his chin on his hand, and studied the
highest stars. That day a milestone had been passed. He saw his road
stretching far, far before him, and he saw certain fellow travellers,
but the companion whom his heart cried for he could not see.
"Her way and mine are far apart--are far apart. I had better marry Vinie
Mocket." He spoke half aloud and with bitterness, looking from the
window toward Fontenoy. Suddenly the water smarted in his eyes, and he
stretched out his arms. "Oh, pardon, love!" he whispered, "I love but
you--and I'll love you to the end!" His fancy dwelt on Fontenoy. It was
for him enchanted land, the sleeping palace, strongly hedged. "But I am
not the appointed man," he thought. "I am a pauper, and no prince. It is
Ludwell Cary that goes in and out."