RAND COMES TO FONTENOY
"I never dance but by candlelight," remarked Unity. "A Congo in the heat
of the afternoon, a jig before sunset,--la! I had rather plough by
moonlight. As well be a grasshopper in a daisy field! Elegance by
waxlight becomes rusticity in the sunshine,--and of all things I would
not be rustic! Oh, Mr. Cary, I've caught my gown in this rosebush!"
Mr. Fairfax Cary knelt to release the muslin prisoner. "Rusticity
becomes you so that if I were a king, you should dance with me the
livelong day. But I'll not grumble if only you'll dance with me as soon
as the candles are lit! Last night you were all for that booby, Ned
Hunter!"
"He's no booby," said Miss Dandridge. "He is bashful--though, indeed, I
think he is only bashful in company! We sat on the porch, and he told me
the long history of his life."
"Confound his impudence--"
"Oh, it was interesting as--as the Mysteries of Udolpho! You are a long
time over that briar, Mr. Cary. There! thank you! Listen to Mr.
Pincornet's fiddle. Scrape, scrape, scrape! The children are dancing,
and Jacqueline is helping them. Jacqueline is always helping some one.
But Mr. Pincornet thinks it is because she is in love with him. He is
sorry for her because he rather prefers me. I am in love with him too.
So is Molly Carter, so is Anne Page, and so will be little Deb as soon
as she is old enough. He is fifty, and French, and a dancing master, and
he wears an old, old, lace cravat and a powdered wig! When are we going
back to the house, Mr. Cary?"
"Let us walk a little farther!" pleaded the gentleman. "It is cool and
pleasant, with no fuss, and no Ned Hunter, with the history of his life,
confound him! Other men have histories as well as he! Your gown looks so
pretty against the leaves. Let us walk down to the lower gate."
Unity pursed her red lips, and considered the distance with velvety
black eyes. "I have on my dancing shoes,--but perhaps you will help me
across the brook!"
"I will," declared Fairfax Cary, and, when the brook was reached, was as
good as his word.
"I shall tell Uncle Dick to put safer stepping-stones," quoth Miss
Dandridge, with heightened colour. "How thick the mint grows here! We
are at the gate, Mr. Cary."
"Let us walk to the bend of the road! The wild honeysuckle is in bloom
there; I noticed it riding to Charlottesville the other morning. It is
just the colour of your gown."
"Then it must be beautiful," said Miss Dandridge, "for this
rose-coloured muslin came from London. Ah, you looked so angry and so
beaten on Wednesday, when you came back from Charlottesville!"
"I was not angry, and I was not beaten."
"Fie! You mean that your brother was."
"I mean nothing of the kind!" cried the younger Cary hotly. "My brother,
at the importunity of his friends, and for the good of the county,
consented to stand against this pet of Jefferson's, this--this _vaurien_
Lewis Rand. Some one had to stand. He knew what the result would be.
'Twas but a skirmish--just a seat in a tri-colour Republican House of
Delegates! My faith! the honour's not great. But wait awhile, Miss
Dandridge! The real battle's not yet. Beaten! Rands, Miss Dandridge,
don't beat Carys!"
"La, so warm!" exclaimed Unity. "I have never seen a man love a brother
so!"
"Ludwell Cary is worthy of any man's love--or any woman's either!"
"The pair of you ought to be put in the wax-works, and labelled 'The
Loving Brothers.' When you marry, there'll be no love left for your
wife."
"Just you try and see."
"The man whom I marry," said Miss Dandridge, "must have no thought but
for me. He must swoon if I frown, laugh if I smile, weep if I sigh, be
altogether desperate if I look another way. I am like Falkland in The
Rivals. Heigho! this is the bend of the road, Mr. Cary."
"I am altogether desperate when you look another way. When you looked at
Ned Hunter last night, I wanted to blow his brains out. He hasn't any,
but I should like to try."
"Then you would have been hanged for murder," remarked Miss Dandridge.
"Think how terrible that would be for us all!--Did you know that Mr.
Hunter once dined with General Washington?"
"You are a royal coquette. See, there is the honeysuckle! If I gather it
for you, will you wear one spray to-night?"
"It is a very stiff flower," said Unity thoughtfully, "and I have an
idea that Mr. Hunter will bring me violets. But--I will see if I can
find a place for one small spray."
She sat down upon a fallen tree, took her round chin into her hand, and
studied the point of her morocco shoe, while her cavalier, not without
detriment to his pumps and silk stockings, scrambled up the red bank to
the rosy flowers.
The honeysuckles did not grow upon the main road, but upon a rough and
narrow cross-country track, little used except by horsemen pressed for
time. Now, clear through the still afternoon, a sound of hoofs gave
warning that riders were coming down the steep and dangerous hill
beyond the turn. Unity looked up with interest, and Fairfax Cary paused
with his hand upon a coral bough. Suddenly there was a change in the
beat, then a frightened shout, and a sound of rolling stones and a wild
clatter of hoofs. Unity sprang to her feet; Cary came down the bank at a
run, tossed her his armful of blossoms, and was in the middle of the
road in time to seize by the bridle the riderless horse which came
plunging around the bend.
Fairfax Cary was strong, the black horse not quite mad with terror, and
the man mastered the brute. "Whose is he?" he asked. "If you will hold
him--he is quite quiet now--I will go see."
A negro came panting around the turn. "Gawd-a-moughty, marster! did you
cotch dat horse? You, Selim, I's gwine lam' you, I's gwine teach you er
lesson--dancin' roun' on yo' two foots 'cause you sees er scrap of
paper! R'arin' an' pitchin' an' flingin' white folks on er heap of
stones! I'll larn you! Yo' marster was a-dreamin', or you'd never
th'owed him! You jes wait twel I git you home! Marse Fairfax Cary, dis
debbil done th'owed my marster, an' he lyin' by de roadside, an' I don'
know whether he live or daid!"
"I know you now," exclaimed the younger Cary. "You're Mr. Lewis Rand's
servant. Hadn't you better stay here, Miss Dandridge, until I see what
really is the matter? Here, boy, stop chattering your teeth! Your
master's not killed. Was it at the top of the hill?"
"Halfway down, Marse Fairfax, whar de footpath goes down through de
papaw bushes. Joab'll show you."
"I'm coming too," said Miss Dandridge. "I'll lead Selim."
Without more ado the four rounded the bend of the road and began to
climb the hill. Halfway up, as Joab had stated, they found their man. He
lay beside the papaw bushes, among the loose stones, and he lay very
still. One arm was doubled under him. His head was thrown back, and his
brown hair was matted with blood.
"Oh!" cried Unity pitifully, and went down upon her knees beside the
unfortunate.
Cary examined the cut in the head. "Well, he's not dead, but he's had a
pretty fall! What's to be done? Joab--"
"Joab," commanded Miss Dandridge, "ride straight to Fontenoy and tell
Colonel Dick to send Big Jim and a couple of men with the old
litter!--and then ride to Charlottesville and bring Dr. Gilmer--"
"Are you going to take him to Fontenoy?" asked the younger Cary.
"Why not?" flashed Miss Dandridge. "Would you leave him to bleed to
death by the roadside? 'My enemy's dog--' and so forth. Hurry, Joab!"
The negro mounted his horse that had been grazing by the papaw bushes,
and was off at a gallop, leaving Unity and Cary with the luckless rider.
Cary brought water from the brook that brawled at the foot of the steep
hillside, and Unity wet the brow and lips of the unconscious man, but he
had given no sign of life when the relief party arrived from Fontenoy.
This consisted of four stout negroes bearing the litter, and of Colonel
Dick Churchill and Mr. Ned Hunter.
"Tut, tut!" cried Colonel Dick. "What's this? what's this? Damn this
place! My mare Nelly threw me here thirty years ago!--I was coming home
from a wedding. Senseless and cut across the head!--and I don't like the
way that arm's bent.--Ned Hunter, you take Big Jim's corner of the
litter for a minute. Now, Big Jim, you lift Mr. Rand.--So! we'll have
him at Fontenoy in a jiffy, and in bed in the blue room. Run ahead,
Unity, and tell Jacqueline and Mammy Chloe to make ready. His boy's
gone for Gilmer. Easy now, men! Yes, 'twas at this very spot my mare
Nelly threw me!--it was Maria Erskine's wedding."
The sun was low in the heavens when the good Samaritans and the
unconscious man arrived at the foot of the wide, white-pillared Fontenoy
porch. The arrival had many witnesses; for on hearing of the accident
the large party assembled for the dancing class had at once dropped all
employment and flocked to various coigns of vantage. A bevy of young
girls looked from one parlour window, and another framed Mr. Pincornet's
face and wig and flowered coat. In the hall and on the porch the elders
gathered, while on the broad porch steps young men in holiday dress
waited to see if they might be of help. Around the corner of the house
peered the house negroes, pleasurably excited by any catastrophe and any
procession, even that of a wounded man borne on a litter.
The cortège arrived. In the midst of much ejaculation, and accompanied
by a fire of directions from Colonel Dick, Lewis Rand was borne up the
steps and across the porch into the cool, wide hail. Here the litter was
met by Jacqueline Churchill. She came down the shadowy staircase in a
white gown, with a salver and a glass in her hand. "The room is ready,
Uncle Dick," she said, in a steady voice. "The blue room. Aunt Nancy
says you must make him take this cordial. I have lint and bandages all
ready. This way, Big Jim. Mind the wall!"
She turned and preceded the men up the stair, along a hallway and into a
pleasant chamber hung with blue and white. "Turn down the sheet, Mammy
Chloe," she directed a negro woman standing beside the bed. "Quick!
quick! he is bleeding so."
Rand was laid upon the bed, and as the men drew their arms from beneath
him, he moved his head, and his lips parted. A moment later he opened
his eyes. Colonel Dick heaved a sigh of relief. "He'll do now! Gilmer
shall come and bleed him, and he'll be out again before you can say Jack
Robinson! I'll have that place in the road mended to-morrow. Yes, yes,
Mr. Rand, you've had an accident. Lie still! you're with friends. Hey,
what did you say?"
Rand had said nothing articulate. His eyes were upon Jacqueline,
standing at the foot of the bed. The room was in the western wing of the
house, and where she stood she was bathed in the light of the sinking
sun. It made her brown hair golden and like a nimbus. Rand made a
straying motion with his hand. "I did not believe in heaven," he
muttered. "If I have erred--"
"Lie still, lie still!" said Jacqueline. In a moment she turned, left
the room, and went downstairs. "He is better," she told her cousin
Unity, who with Fairfax Cary was waiting in the lower hall; then went on
to the library, opened the door, and closed it softly behind her.
The room was dim, and she thought it vacant. There was an old leather
chair which she loved, which had always stood beside the glass doors
that gave upon the sunset, in whose worn depths she had, as a child,
told herself fairy tales, and found escape from childish woes. She went
straight to it now, sank into its old arms, and pressed her cheek
against the cool leather. She closed her eyes, and sat very still, and
tried to ease the throbbing of her heart. Some one coughed, and she
looked up to find her Uncle Edward regarding her from his own favourite
chair.
"I did not know you were there," she exclaimed. "I thought the room was
empty. What are you reading?"
"A Treatise on Hospitality," answered Major Churchill, with great
dryness. "I suppose Dick is making posset in his best racing cup? How is
the interesting patient?"
Jacqueline coloured. "Uncle Dick--"
"Uncle Dick," interrupted the Major, "is the best of fellows, but he is
not perspicacious. I am, and I say again, why the deuce did this damned
Republican get himself thrown at our very gates? In my day a horse might
act a little gaily, but a man kept his seat!"
Jacqueline coloured more deeply. "It was that bad place on the hill
road. I do not suppose that Mr. Rand is a poor horseman."
"Who said that he was?" demanded the Major testily. "A poor horseman! He
and his old wolf of a father used to break all the colts for twenty
miles round! That place in the road! Pshaw! I've ridden by that place in
the road for forty years, but I never had the indecency to be brought on
a litter into a gentleman's house who was not of my way of thinking! And
every man and woman on the place--barring poor Nancy--out to receive
him! I am not at home among fools, so I came here--though the Lord knows
there's many a fool to be found in a library!--Well, are any bones
broken?"
"Dr. Gilmer will tell us--oh, he looked like death!"
"Who?--William Gilmer?" demanded Uncle Edward with asperity. "Your
pronoun 'he' stands for your antecedent 'Gilmer.' But what's the English
tongue when we have a Jacobin in the house! Women like strange animals,
and they are vastly fond of pitying. But you were always a home body,
Jacqueline, and left Unity to run after the sea lions and learned pigs!
And now you sit there as white as your gown!"
Jacqueline smiled. "Perhaps I am of those who pity. I hear a horse upon
the road! It may be Dr. Gilmer!" and up she started.
"The horse has gone by," said Uncle Edward. "Gilmer cannot possibly be
here for an hour. Sit down, child, and don't waste your pity. The Rands
are used to hard knocks. I've seen old Gideon in the ring, black and
blue and blind with blood, demanding proof that he was beaten. The
gentleman upstairs will take care of himself. Bah!--Where is Ludwell
Cary this afternoon?"
"He rode, I think, to Charlottesville."
"You think! Don't you know?--What woman was ever straightforward!"
Major Churchill opened his book, looked at it, and tossed it aside; took
The Virginia Federalist from the table, and for perhaps sixty seconds
appeared absorbed in its contents, then with a loud "Pshaw!" threw it
down, and rising walked to a bookcase. "I am reading Swift," he said,
and brought a calf-bound volume to the window. "There was a man who knew
hatred and the _risus sardonicus_! Listen to this, Jacqueline."
Major Churchill read well, and it was his habit to read aloud to
Jacqueline, whose habit it was to listen. Now she sat before the window,
in the old leather chair, her slender face and form in profile, and her
eyes upon the sunset sky. It was her accustomed attitude, and Uncle
Edward read on with growing satisfaction, finding that he was upon a
passage which gave Democracy its due. He turned a page, then another,
glanced from the book, and discovered that his niece was not attending.
"Jacqueline!"
Jacqueline withdrew her eyes from the fading gold, and, turning in her
chair, faced her uncle with a faint smile. She loved him dearly, and he
loved her, and they had not many secrets from each other. Now she looked
at him with a wavering light upon her face, shook her head as if in
answer to some dim question of her own, and broke into silent weeping.
"Bless my soul!" cried Uncle Edward, and started up in alarm. He had a
contemptuous horror of women's tears; but Jacqueline was different,
Jacqueline was not like other women. He could not remember having seen
Jacqueline cry since she was a child, and the sight troubled him
immensely. She wept as though she were used to weeping. He crossed to
the chair by the window and touched her bowed head with his wrinkled
hand. "What is it, child?" he asked. "Tell Uncle Edward."
But Jacqueline, it appeared, had nothing to tell. After a little she
wiped her eyes, and brokenly laughed at herself; and then, a sound
coming through the window, she started to her feet. "That is Dr. Gilmer!
I hear his horse at the gate. Joab must have met him upon the road!"
"Joab?"
"Mr. Rand's servant."
"You appear," said the Major, "to know a deal more than I do about Mr.
Rand. Where did you learn so much?"
Jacqueline, halfway to the door, turned upon him her candid eyes. "Don't
you remember?" she answered, "the month that I spent, summer before
last, at Cousin Jane Selden's, on the Three-Notched Road? I saw Mr. Rand
very often that summer. Cousin Jane liked him, and he was welcome at her
house. And when I used to stay there as a child I saw him then, and--and
was sorry for him. Don't you remember? I told you at the time."
"No, I don't remember," replied Uncle Edward grimly. "I have other
things to think of than the Rands. There should have been no
association--though I am surprised at nothing which goes on beneath Jane
Selden's roof. Jane Selden has a most erratic mind.--Don't sympathize
too much, Jacqueline, with that damned young Republican upstairs! He's
an enemy." The Major walked to the window. "It is Gilmer, sure enough,
and--ah, it is Ludwell Cary with him, riding Prince Rupert. Come look,
Jacqueline!"
Receiving no answer, he turned to find that his niece had vanished and
he was alone in the library. Presently he heard from the hail, through
the half-open door, the doctor's voice and Ludwell Cary's expressions of
concern, Jacqueline's low replies, a confusion of other voices, and
finally, from the head of the stairs, Colonel Dick's hearty "Come up,
Gilmer, come up! D'ye remember that damned place in the hill road where
my mare Nelly threw me, coming home at dawn from Maria Erskine's
wedding?"
Steps and voices died away. The evening shadows lengthened, and filled
the library where Uncle Edward sat, propping his lean old chin upon his
lean old hand, and staring at a dim old clock in the corner, as if it
could tell him more than the time of day. He heard Mr. Pincornet's
fiddle from the long parlour in the other wing. Since the doctor was
come, the younger part of the gathering at Fontenoy had cheerfully
returned to its business. The dancing class was not long neglected.
Uncle Edward disliked France, disliked even monarchical and émigré
France. And he disliked all music but Jacqueline's singing, and disliked
the fiddle because Thomas Jefferson played it. He half rose to shut the
door and so keep out Mr. Pincornet's Minuet from Ariadne, but reflected
that the door would also keep out the doctor's descending voice and
final dicta delivered at the stair-foot. Uncle Edward was as curious as
a woman, and the door remained ajar. He tried to read, but the words
conveyed no meaning to his mind, which became more and more frowningly
intent upon the fact of Jacqueline's weeping. What had the child to weep
for? He determined to send to Richmond to-morrow for a certain watch
which he had in his mind,--plain gold with J.C. upon it in pearls. He
reflected with satisfaction that Cary as well as Churchill began with a
C.
The glass door led by a flight of steps down to the flower garden. Deb
came up the steps and into the library. "Kiss me good-night, Uncle
Edward. It's mos' seven o'clock. I've had my supper at the Quarter with
Aunt Daphne. The scarlet beans over her door are in bloom, and Uncle
Mingo told me about the rabbit and the fox. Miranda is going to put me
to bed because Mammy Chloe is busy in the blue room with the doctor and
the man whose horse threw him."
Uncle Edward put his one arm around the child and drew her close to his
chair. Deb touched with her brown fingers the sleeve that was pinned
across his coat. "Does your arm that is buried at Yorktown hurt you
to-day, Uncle Edward? Tell me a story about General Washington."
"No; you tell me a story."
Deb considered. "I'll tell you a story about the man upstairs in the
blue room."
"What do you know about the man in the blue room?"
"Jacqueline told me. She knows," answered Deb. "I am going to begin now,
Uncle Edward."
"I am listening," said the Major.
"Once upon a time there lived on the Three-Notched Road a boy, a poor
boy. He lived in a log house that was not so good as an overseer's
house, and there were pine trees all around it, and wild flowers, but no
other kinds of flowers. And in the trees there were owls, and in the
bushes there were whip-poor-wills, and sometimes a mockingbird, but no
other kinds of birds, and at night the fireflies were all about. And
outside the pine trees, all around the house, the tobacco grew and grew.
It grew so broad and high that the children might have played I-spy in
it,--only there weren't any children. There was only the boy, and he
hated tobacco. He was poor, and his father was a hard man. He had no
time to play or to learn--he worked all day in the fields like a hand.
He had to work like the men at the lower Quarter, like Domingo and Cato
and Indian Jim. He worked all the time. I never saw the sun get up, but
he saw it every day. In the long afternoons when it was hot, and we make
the rooms cool and dark, and rest with a book, he was working, working
like a friendless slave. And at night, when the moon rises, and we sit
and watch it, and wonder, and remember all the battles that were ever
won and lost, and all the songs that ever were sung, he could only
stumble to his own poor corner, and sleep, and sleep, with a hot and
heavy heart, and the blisters on his poor, poor hands!"
Major Churchill sank back in his chair and stared at his niece. "Good
God, child! whose words are you using?"
"Jacqueline's," answered Deb, staring in her turn. "Jacqueline told it
to me just that way, one hot night when I could not sleep, and there was
heat lightning, and she took me in her lap and we sat by the window. Are
you tired, Uncle Edward? Does your arm hurt? Suppose I finish the story
to-morrow?"
"No, I'm not tired," said Uncle Edward. "Finish it now."
"The boy," went on Deb, using now her own and now Jacqueline's
remembered words,--"the boy did not want to work all his life long in
the tobacco-fields, working from morning to night, with his hands, at
the thing he hated. He wanted books, he wanted to learn, and to work
with his mind in the world beyond the Three-Notched Road. The older he
grew the more he wanted it. And Jacqueline said that the mind finds a
way, and that the boy got books together, and he studied hard. You see,
Jacqueline knows, for when she was a little girl, she used to stay
sometimes with Cousin Jane Selden on the Three-Notched Road. And Cousin
Jane Selden's farm was next to where the boy lived. There was just a
little stream between them. There were no children at Cousin Jane
Selden's, and Jacqueline was lonely. And she used to sit under the apple
tree on the bank of the little stream and send chip boats down it, just
as Miranda and I do. Only she didn't have Miranda, and she was all by
herself. And she could see the boy working on the other side of the
stream, and there wasn't any shade in the tobacco-field, and Jacqueline
was so sorry for him. And one day he came down to the stream for water
and they talked to each other. And Jacqueline told Cousin Jane Selden,
and Cousin Jane Selden did not mind. She said she was sorry for the boy,
and that she had given his father a piece of her mind,--only he wouldn't
take it. So Jacqueline used to see the boy often and often, for she
always played under the apple tree by the stream, and he had a little
time to rest every day at noon, and he would come down to the shade on
his side of the stream, and Jacqueline told him all about Fontenoy. And
he told Jacqueline what he was going to do when he was a man, and he
asked her if she had ever read Cæsar, and she had not, and he told her
all about it. And Jacqueline told him fairy tales, but he said they were
not true, and that a harp could not sing by itself, nor a hen lay golden
eggs, nor a beanstalk grow a mile. He said he did not like lies,--which
wasn't very polite. He was older, you see, than Jacqueline, ever so much
older. But she knew how to dance, and she was taking music lessons, and
so she seemed older, and he liked Jacqueline very much. What is the
matter, Uncle Edward?"
"Nothing. Go on, child."
"Then the summer was over, and Jacqueline came back to Fontenoy. But the
next summer, when she went to Cousin Jane Selden's, there was the boy
working in the tobacco on the other side of the stream. And Jacqueline
called to him from under the apple tree. And then the month that she was
to stay with Cousin Jane Selden went by, and she came back to Fontenoy.
And the next summer she didn't go to the Three-Notched Road, but one day
the boy came to Fontenoy."
"Ah!" said the Major.
"The boy's father sent him to pay some money that he owed to Uncle Dick.
Jacqueline says his father was an honest man, though he was so unkind.
And Uncle Dick sent for Jacqueline and said, 'Jacqueline, this is young
Lewis Rand. Take him and show him the garden while I write this
receipt!' So Jacqueline and the boy went into the flower garden, and she
showed him the roses and the peacock and the sundial. And then he went
away, and she didn't see him any more for years and years, not till she
was grown, and everything was changed. And--and that is the end of the
story. But the boy's name was Lewis Rand, and the man's name, up in the
blue room, is Mr. Lewis Rand, and I heard Mr. Fairfax Cary say that
Lewis Rand was the Devil,--but Jacqueline wouldn't have liked the Devil,
would she, Uncle Edward?"
"No, child, no, no!" exclaimed Uncle Edward, with violence. He rose so
suddenly from his chair, and he looked so grim and grey, that Deb was
almost frightened.
"Didn't you like the story, Uncle Edward? I did like it so much when
Jacqueline told it to me--only she would never tell it to me again."
"Yes, yes, I liked it, honey. Don't I like all your stories? But I don't
like Mr. Rand."
"Will he stay always upstairs in the blue room?"
"The Lord forbid!" cried Major Churchill.
The door opened wide, and Mr. Ned Hunter put in an important face. "Are
you there, Major? Here's the devil to pay. Rand's arm is broken and his
ankle wrenched and his head cut open! The doctor says he mustn't be
moved for at least a fortnight. I thought you'd like to know." He was
gone to spread the news.
Major Churchill stood still for a moment, then turned to the table,
placed with deliberation a marker between the leaves of Swift, took up
the volume, and restored it to its proper shelf.
"It is getting dark--I must go to bed," said Deb. "Uncle Edward, who
pays the devil?"
"His hosts, child," answered Uncle Edward, looking very grim and very
old.