A MARRIAGE AT SAINT MARGARET'S
"Yes," said Unity. "That is just what the Argus says. 'On Thursday M.
Jérôme Buonaparte, the younger brother of the First Consul, passed
through Annapolis with his bride--lately the lively and agreeable Miss
Elizabeth Patterson of Baltimore. M. Buonaparte's Secretary and
Physician followed in a chaise, and the valets and _femmes-de-chambre_
in a coach. The First Consul's brother wore--' I protest I don't care
what the First Consul's brother wore! The Argus is not gallant. If you
were the First Consul's brother--"
"The Argus should describe the bride's dress, not mine," said Fairfax
Cary. "How lovely you would look, in that gown you have on, in a
curricle drawn by grey horses! What is the stuff--roses and silver?"
"Heigho!" sighed Unity. "'Tis a bridesmaid's gown. I am out with men. I
shall never wear a bride's gown."
"Don't jest--"
"Jest! I never felt less like jesting! I laugh to keep from crying. Here
is the coach."
The great Fontenoy coach with the Churchill arms on the panel drew up
before the porch. It was drawn by four horses, and driven by old Philip
in a wig and nosegay. Mingo was behind, and Phyllis's Jim and a little
darky ran alongside to open the door and let down the steps. "All alone
in that!" exclaimed Cary. "I shall ride with you as far as the old road
to Greenwood. Don't say no! I'll hold your flowers."
Unity looked down upon the roses in her arms. "They should all be
white," she said. "I feel as though I were going to see them bury
Jacqueline." Her voice broke, but she bit her lip, forced back the
tears, and tried to laugh. "I'm not. I'm going to her wedding--and
people know their own business best--and she may be as happy as the day
is long! He is fascinating,--he is dreadfully fascinating,--and we have
no right to say he is not good--and everybody knows he is going to be
great! Why shouldn't she be happy?"
"I don't know," answered Cary. "But I know she won't be."
"You say that," cried Unity, turning on him, "because you are a
Federalist! Well, women are neither Federalists nor Republicans! They
have no party and no soul of their own! They are just what the person
they love is--"
"That's not so," said Cary.
"Oh, I know it's not so!" agreed Miss Dandridge, with impatience. "It's
just one of those things that are said! But it remains that Jacqueline
must be happy. I'll break my heart if she's not! And as long as I live,
I'll say that Uncle Dick and Uncle Edward are to blame--"
"Where are they?"
"Oh, Uncle Dick is in the long field watching the threshing, and Uncle
Edward is in the library reading Swift! And Aunt Nancy has ordered black
scarfs to be put above the pictures of Uncle Henry and of Great-Aunt
Jacqueline that Jacqueline's named for. Oh, oh!"
"And Deb?" asked the young man gently.
"Deb is at Cousin Jane Selden's. She has been there with Jacqueline a
week--she and Miranda. Oh, I know--Uncle Dick is a just man! He does
what he thinks is the just thing. Deb shall go visit her sister--every
now and then! And all that Uncle Henry left Jacqueline goes with
her--there are slaves and furniture and plate, and she has money, too.
The Rands don't usually marry so well--There! I, too, am bitter! But
Uncle Dick swears that he will never see Jacqueline again--and all the
Churchills keep their word. Oh, family quarrels! Deb's coming back to
Fontenoy to-morrow--poor little chick! Aunt Nancy's got to have those
mourning scarfs taken away before she comes!"
Miss Dandridge descended the porch steps to the waiting coach. The
younger Cary handed her in with great care of her flowers and gauzy
draperies, and great reluctance in relinquishing her hand. "I may come
too?" he asked, "just as far as the old Greenwood road? I hate to see
you go alone."
"Oh, yes, yes!" answered Miss Dandridge absently, and, sinking into a
corner, regarded through the window the July morning. "Those black
scarfs hurt me," she said, and the July morning grew misty. "It's not
death to marry the man one loves!"
The coach rolled down the drive to the gate, and out upon the sunny
road. The dust rose in clouds, whitening the elder, the stickweed, and
the blackberry bushes. The locusts shrilled in the parching trees. The
sky was cloudless and intensely blue, marked only by the slow circling
of a buzzard far above the pine-tops. There were many pines, and the
heat drew out their fragrance, sharp and strong. The moss that thatched
the red banks was burned, and all the ferns were shrivelling up.
Everywhere butterflies fluttered, lizards basked in the sun, and the
stridulation of innumerable insects vexed the ear. The way was long, and
the coach lumbered heavily through the July weather. "I do not want to
talk," sighed Unity. "My heart is too heavy."
"My own is not light," said Cary grimly. "I am sorry for my brother."
"We are all sorry for your brother," Unity answered gently, and then
would speak no more, but sat in her silver and roses, looking out into
the heat and light. The Greenwood road was reached in silence. Cary put
his head out of the window and called to old Philip. The coach came
slowly to a stop before a five-barred gate. Mingo opened the door, and
the young man got out. "Unless you think I might go with you as far as
the church--" he suggested, with his hand on the door. Unity shook her
head. "You can't do that, you know! Besides, I am going first to Cousin
Jane Selden's. Good-bye. Oh, it is going to be a happy marriage--it must
be happy!"
"What is going to make it happy?" demanded Cary gloomily. "It's a match
against nature! When I think of your cousin in that old whitewashed
house, and every night Gideon Rand's ghost making tobacco around it! I
am glad that Ludwell has gone to Richmond. He looks like a ghost
himself."
"Oh, the world!" sighed Unity. "Tell Philip, please, to drive on."
"I'll ride over to Fontenoy to-morrow," said Fairfax Cary. "'Twill do
you good to talk it over."
The coach went heavily on through the dust of the Three-Notched Road.
The locusts shrilled, the pines gave no shade, in the angle of the snake
fences pokeberry and sumach drooped their dusty leaves. The light air in
the pine-tops sounded like the murmur of a distant sea, too far off for
coolness. Unity sighed with the oppression of it all. The flowers were
withering in her lap. After a long hour the road turned, discovering
yellow wheat-fields and shady orchards, the gleam of a shrunken stream
and a brick house embowered in wistaria. Around the horse-block and in
the shade of a great willow were standing a coach or two, a chaise, and
several saddle-horses. "All of them Republican," commented Unity.
At the door she was met by Cousin Jane Selden herself, a thin and dark
old lady with shrewd eyes and a determined chin. "I'm glad to see you,
Unity, though I should have been more glad to see Richard and Edward
Churchill! 'Woe to a stiff-necked generation!' says the Bible. Well! you
are fine enough, child, and I honour you for it! There are a few people
in the parlour--just those who go to church with us. The clock has
struck, and we'll start in half an hour. Jacqueline is in her room, and
when she doesn't look like an angel she looks like her mother. You had
best go upstairs. Mammy Chloe dressed her."
Unity mounted the dark, polished stairs to an upper hall where stood a
tall clock and a spindle-legged table with a vast jar of pot-pourri. A
door opened, framing Jacqueline, dressed in white, and wearing her
mother's wedding veil. "I knew your step," she said. "Oh, Unity, you are
good to come!"
In the bedroom they embraced. "Wild horses couldn't have kept me from
coming!" declared Unity with resolute gaiety. "Whichever married first,
the other was to be bridesmaid!--we arranged that somewhere in the dark
ages! Oh, Jacqueline, you are like a princess in a picture-book!"
"And Uncle Dick and Uncle Edward?" asked Jacqueline, in a low voice.
"Well, the Churchills are obstinate folk, as we all know!" answered
Unity cheerfully. "But I think time will help. They can't go on hating
forever. Uncle Dick is in the fields, and Uncle Edward is in the library
reading. There, there, honey!"
Mammy Chloe bore down upon them from the other end of the room. "Miss
Unity, don' you mek my chile cry on her weddin' mahnin'! Hit ain't
lucky to cry befo' de ring's on!"
"I'm not crying, Mammy," said Jacqueline. "I wish that I could cry. It
is you, Unity, that are like a princess in your rose and silver, with
your dear red lips, and your dear black eyes! Isn't she lovely, Mammy?"
She came close to her cousin and pinned a small brooch in the misty
folds above the white bosom. "This is my gift--it is mother's pearl
brooch. Oh, Unity, don't think too ill of me!"
"Think ill!" cried Unity, with spirit. "I think only good of you. I
think you are doing perfectly right! I'll wear your pearl always--you
were always like a pearl to me!"
"Even pearls have a speck at heart," said Jacqueline. "And there's
nothing perfectly right--or perfectly wrong. But most things cannot be
helped. Some day, perhaps, at home--at Fontenoy--they will think of the
time when they were young--and in love." She turned and took up her
gloves from the dressing-table. "I have had a letter from Ludwell Cary,"
she said, then spoke over her shoulder with sudden lire. "He is the only
one of all I know, the only one of all my people, who has been generous
enough, and just enough, to praise the man I marry!"
"Oh, Jacqueline!" cried Unity, "I will praise him to the skies, if only
he will make you happy! Does not every one say that he has a great
future? and surely he deserves all credit for rising as he has done--and
he is most able--"
"And _good_," said Jacqueline proudly. "Don't praise him any more,
Unity." She put her hands on her cousin's shoulders and kissed her
lightly on the forehead. "Now and then, my dear, will you come to see me
on the Three-Notched Road? I shall have Deb one week out of six."
"I shall come," answered Unity. "Where is Deb?"
"She is asleep. She cried herself to sleep."
"Chillern cry jes' fer nothin' at all," put in Mammy Chloe. "Don' you
worry, honey! Miss Deb's all right. I's gwine wake her now, an' wash her
face, an' slip on her li'l white dress. She's gwine be jes' ez peart an'
ez happy! My Lawd! Miss Deb jes' gainin' a brother!"
"Jacqueline," came Cousin Jane Selden's voice at the door. "It is almost
time."
The coach of the day was an ark in capacity, and woman's dress as
sheathlike as a candle flame. Jacqueline, Unity, Deb, Cousin Jane
Selden, and a burly genial gentleman of wide family connections and
Republican tenets travelled to church in the same vehicle and were not
crowded. The coach was Cousin Jane Selden's; the gentleman was of some
remote kinship, and had been Henry Churchill's schoolmate, and he was
going to give Jacqueline away. He talked to Cousin Jane Selden about the
possibilities of olive culture, and he showed Deb a golden turnip of a
watch with jingling seals. Jacqueline and Unity sat in silence,
Jacqueline's arm around Deb. Behind their coach came the small party
gathered at Mrs. Selden's. The church was three miles down the road. It
was now afternoon, and the heat lay like a veil upon wood and field and
the foot-hills of the Blue Ridge. The dust rose behind the carriage,
then sank upon and further whitened the milkweed and the love vine and
the papaw bushes. The blaze of light, the incessant shrilling of the
locusts, the shadeless pines, the drouth, the long, dusty road--all
made, thought Unity, a dry and fierce monotony that seared the eyes and
weighed upon the soul. She wondered of what Jacqueline was thinking.
The Church of Saint Margaret looked forth with a small, white-pillared
face, from a grove of oaks. It had a flowery churchyard, and around it a
white paling, keeping in the dead, and keeping out all roaming cattle.
There was a small cracked bell, and the swallows forever circled above
the eaves and in and out of the belfry. Without the yard, beneath the
oaks, were a horserack and a shed for carriages. To-day there were
horses at the rack and tied beneath the trees; coaches, chaises, and
curricles, not a few, beneath the shed and scattered through the oak
grove. The church within was all rustle and colour. Saint Margaret's had
rarely seen such a gathering, or such a wholly amicable one, for to-day
all the pews were of one party. The wedding was one to draw the curious,
the resolutely Republican, the kindred and friends of Jefferson,--who,
it was known, had sent the bride a valuable present and a long
letter,--the interested in Rand, the inimical, for party and other
reasons, to the Churchills and the Carys. The county knew that Miss
Churchill might have had Greenwood. The knowledge added piquancy to the
already piquant fact that she had chosen the house on the Three-Notched
Road. Colonel Churchill and Major Edward, the county knew, would not
come to the wedding; neither, of course, would the two Carys; neither,
it appeared, would any other Federalist. The rustling pews looked to all
four corners and saw only folk of one watchword. True, under the gallery
was to be seen Mr. Pincornet, fadedly gorgeous in an old green velvet,
but to this English stock Mr. Pincornet might give what word he chose;
he remained a French dancing master. The rustling pews nodded and smiled
to each other, waiting to see Jacqueline Churchill come up the aisle in
bridal lace. Under the gallery, not far from Mr. Pincornet, sat Adam
Gaudylock, easy and tawny, dressed as usual in his fringed
hunting-frock, with his coonskin cap in his hand, and his gun at his
feet. Beside him sat Vinie Mocket, dressed in her best. Vinie's eyes
were downcast, and her hands clasped in her lap. She wondered--poor
little partridge!--why she was there, why she had been so foolish as to
let Mr Adam persuade her into coming Vinie was afraid she was going to
cry. Yet not for worlds would she have left Saint Margaret's; she
wanted, with painful curiosity, to see the figure in bridal lace She
wondered where Tom was Tom was to have joined Mr. Adam and herself an
hour ago The bell began to ring, and all the gathering rustled loudly.
"She's coming--she's coming?" whispered Vinie, and Adam, "Why, of
course, of course, little partridge. Now don't you cry--you'll be
walking up Saint Margaret's aisle yourself some day!"
The bell ceased to ring. Lewis Rand came from the vestry and stood
beside the chancel rail. A sound at the door, a universal turning as
though the wind bent every flower in a garden--and Jacqueline Churchill
came up the aisle between the coloured lines. Her hand was upon the arm
of her father's schoolmate; Unity and Deb followed her. Rand met her at
the altar, and the old clergyman who had baptized her married them. It
was over, from the "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together," to
the "Until Death shall them part!" Lewis and Jacqueline Rand wrote their
names in the register, then turned to receive the congratulations of
those who crowded around them, to smile, and say the expected thing.
Rand stooped and kissed Deb, wrung Mrs. Selden's hand, then held out his
own to Unity with something of appeal in his gesture and his eyes. Miss
Dandridge promptly laid her hand in his, and looked at him with her
frank and brilliant gaze. "Now that we are cousins," she said, "I do not
find you a monster at all. Make her happy, and one day we'll all be
friends." "I will--I will!" answered Rand, with emotion, pressed her
hand warmly, and was claimed by others of his wedding guests.
Jacqueline, too, had clung at first to Unity and Deb and Cousin Jane
Selden, but now she also turned from the old life to the new, and
greeted with a smiling face the people of her husband's party. Many, of
course, she knew; only a difference of opinion stood between them and
the Churchills; but others were strangers to her--strangers and curious.
She felt it in the touch of their hands, in the stare of their eyes, and
her heart was vaguely troubled. She saw her old dancing master,
tiptoeing on the edge of the throng, and her smile brought Mr.
Pincornet, his green velvet and powdered wig, to her side. He put his
hand to his heart and bowed as to a princess.
"Ha! Mr. Pincornet," exclaimed Rand, "I remember our night at Monticello.
Now I have a teacher who will be with me always!--Jacqueline, I want you
to speak to my old friend, Adam Gaudylock."
"Ah, I know Mr. Gaudylock," answered Jacqueline, and gave the hunter
both her hands. "We all know and admire and want to be friends with Adam
Gaudylock!"
The picture that she made in her youth and beauty and bridal raiment was
a dazzling one. Adam looked at her so fully and so long that she blushed
a little. She could not read the thought behind his blue eyes. "You
shall be my Queen if you like," he said at last, and Jacqueline laughed,
thinking his speech the woodsman's attempt to say a pretty thing.
Rand drew forward with determination a small brown figure. "Jacqueline,
this is another good friend of mine--Miss Lavinia Mocket, the sister of
my law partner.--Vinie, Vinie, you _are_ shyer than a partridge! You
shan't scuttle away until you have spoken to my wife!"
"Yeth, thir," said Vinie, her hand in Jacqueline's. "I wish you well,
ma'am."
Rand and Adam laughed. Jacqueline, with a sudden soft kindliness for
the small flushed face and startled eyes, bent her flower-crowned head
and kissed Vinie. "Oh!" breathed Vinie. "Yeth, yeth, Mith Jacqueline, I
thertainly wish you well!"
"Where's Tom?" asked Rand. "Tom should be here--" but Vinie had slipped
from the ring about the bride. Adam followed; Mr. Pincornet had already
faded away. More important folk claimed the attention of the newly
wedded pair, and Mr. Mocket had not yet appeared when at last the
gathering, bound for the wedding feast at Mrs. Selden's, deserted the
interior of the church and flowed out under the portico and down the
steps to the churchyard and the coaches waiting in the road. Lewis and
Jacqueline Rand came down the path between the midsummer flowers. They
were at the gate when the sight and sound of a horse coming at a gallop
along the road drew from Rand an exclamation. "Tom Mocket--and his horse
in a lather! There's news of some kind--"
It was so evident, when the horse and rider came to a stop before the
church gate, that there was news of some kind, that the wedding guests,
gentle and simple, left all talk and all employment to crowd the grassy
space between the gate and the road and to demand enlightenment.
Mocket's horse was spent, and Mocket's face was fiery red and eager. He
gasped, and wiped his face with a great flowered handkerchief. "What is
it, man?" cried a dozen voices.
Mocket rose in his stirrups and looked the assemblage over. "We're all
Republicans--hip, hip, hurrah! Eh, Lewis Rand, I've brought you a
wedding gift! The stage had just come in--I got the news at the Eagle!
Hip, hip--"
"Tom," said Rand at his bridle rein, "you've been drinking. Steady, man.
Now, what's the matter?"
"A wedding gift! a wedding gift!" repeated Tom, taken with his own
conceit. "And I never was soberer, gentlemen, never 'pon honour! Hip,
hip, hurrah! we're all good Republicans--but you'll never guess the
news!--The Creole's dead!"
"No!" cried Rand.
There arose an uproar of excited voices. "Yes, yes, it's true!" shouted
Mocket. "The stage brought it. He was challenged by Aaron Burr. They met
at a place named Weehawken. Burr's first shot ended it.--Sandy'll
trouble us no more!"
"It's rumour--"
"No, no, it's gospel truth! There's a messenger from the President, and
letters from all quarters. He's dead, and Burr's in hiding! Gad! We'll
have a rouse at the Eagle to-night! Blue lights for Assumption and
Funding and the Sedition Bill and Taxes and Standing Armies and the
British Alliance--
"Oh, Alexander, King of Macedon,
Where is your namesake, Andy Hamilton?
"In a hotter place, I hope, than Saint Kitts!"
"Hush!" said Rand. "Don't be ranting like a Mohawk! When a man's dead,
it's time to let him rest."
He turned to the excited throng, and as he did so, he was aware that
Jacqueline was standing white and frozen, and that Unity was trying to
take her hand. He felt for her an infinite tenderness, and he promised
himself to give Tom Mocket an old-time rating for at least one
ill-advised expression. Such wedding gifts were not for Jacqueline. But
as for the news--Rand felt his cheek grow hot and his eyes glow. In all
the history of the country this was the decade in which political
animosity, pure and simple, went its greatest length. Each party thought
of the struggle as a battlefield; the Federalist strength was already
broken, and now if the leader was down, it was not in fighting and
Republican nature to restrain the wild cheer for the rout that must
follow. Rand was a fighter too, and a captain of fighters, and the
hundred whirling thoughts, the hundred chances, the sense of victory,
and the savage joy in a foe's defeat--all the feeling that swelled his
heart left him unabashed. But he thought of Jacqueline, and he tried to
choose his words. There would be now, he knew, no wedding feast at Mrs.
Selden's. Randolphs, Carrs, Coles, Carters, Dabneys, Gordons,
Meriwethers, and Minors--all would wish to hurry away. Plantation,
office, or tavern, there would be letters waiting, journals to read, men
to meet, committees, clamour, and debate. Of the ruder sort who had
crowded to the church, many were already on the point of departure,
mounting their horses, preparing for a race to the nearest tavern and
newspaper. "Gentlemen," exclaimed Rand, "if it's true news--if we have
indeed to deplore General Hamilton's death--"
"'Deplore!'" cried Mocket.
"'Deplore!'" echoed bluntly a Republican of prominence. "Don't let's be
hypocrites, Mr. Rand. We'll leave the Federalists to 'deplore'--"
"Oh, I'll deplore him with pleasure!" cried a third. "It won't hurt to
drop a tear--but for all that it's the greatest news since 1800!"
"Hip, hip, hurrah!"
"Weehawken! where's Weehawken? What's Burr in hiding for? Can't a
gentleman fight a duel? Let him come down here, and we'll give him a
triumph!"
"'Deplore!'"--
"I chose my word badly," said Rand, with the good-nature that always
disarmed; "I shall not weep over my enemy, I only mean that I would not
ignobly exult. Of course, sir, it is great news--the very greatest! And
all here will now want the leisure of the day."
"Tell them, Lewis, that I'll excuse them," said Cousin Jane Selden. "We
won't have a feast on the day of a funeral."
* * * * *
A little later, deep in the embrace of the old Selden coach, husband and
wife began their journey to the house on the Three-Notched Road. In the
minutes that followed the disposal of their wedding guests it had been
settled that they would not return to Mrs. Selden's--it was best to go
home instead. Cousin Jane would take Deb; Unity must return at once to
Fontenoy. Hamilton and Edward Churchill had served together on
Washington's staff; of late years they had seldom met, but the
friendship remained. Unity knew, but would not speak of it, that Uncle
Edward had finished, only the night before, a long letter to his old
comrade-at-arms. With the exception of Deb, all the little party were
aware that Jacqueline Rand's chances for forgiveness from her uncles
were measurably slighter for this day's tidings. She seemed dazed, pale
as her gown, but very quiet. She held Deb in her arms, and kissed Unity
and Cousin Jane Selden. Her husband lifted her into the coach, wrung the
others' hands, and followed her. "Good-bye, Lewis," said Mrs. Selden at
the door. "I'll send a bowl of arrack to your men, and I'll ride over
to-morrow to see Jacqueline. Good-bye, children, and God bless you
both!"
The coach and four took the dusty road. A turn, and Saint Margaret's was
hidden, another, and they were in a wood of beech and maple. The heat of
the day was broken, and a wind was blowing. Rand took Jacqueline's
hands, unclasped and chafed them. "So cold!" he said. "Why could we not
have heard this news to-morrow!"
She shuddered strongly. "The noble--the great--" her voice broke.
"Is it so you think of him?" he asked. "Well--I, too, will call him
noble and great--to-day.
"No more for him the warmth of the bright sun;
Nor blows upon his brow the wind of night!
"He's gone--and we all shall go. But this is our wedding day. Let us
forget--let us forget all else but that!"
"I grieve for the country," she said.
He kissed her hand. "Poor country! But her Sons die every day. She is
like Nature--she takes no heed. Let us, too, forget!"
"Oh, his poor wife--"
Rand drew her to him. "Will you mourn for me when I am dead?"
"No," she answered. "We will die together.--Oh, Lewis, Lewis, Lewis!"
"You promised that you would be happy," he said, and kissed her. "You
promised you would not let Fontenoy and the things of Fontenoy stand
like a spectre between us. Forget this, too. Everywhere there is dying.
But it is our wedding day--and I love you madly--and life and the
kingdoms of life lie before us! If you are not happy, how can I be so?"
"But I am!" she cried, and showed him a glowing face. "I am happier than
the happiest!"
The wood thinned into glades where the shadows of beech and maple were
beginning to be long upon the grass; then, in the afternoon light, the
coach entered open country, fields of ox-eyed daisies, and tall pine
trees standing singly.
"I never came this far," said Jacqueline. "I never saw the house."
"It is there where the smoke rises beyond that tobacco-field," answered
Rand. "All the tobacco shall be changed into wheat."
They came in sight of the house,--a long storey-and-a-half structure of
logs, with two small porches and a great earthen chimney. Pine trees
gave a scanty shade. House and outbuildings and fencing had all been
freshly whitewashed; over the porches flourished morning-glory and
Madeira vines, and the little yard was bright with hollyhock and
larkspur. Jacqueline put her hand in her husband's. Rand bent and kissed
it with something in touch and manner formal and chivalrous. "It is a
poor house for you. Very soon I shall build you a better."
"I want no better," she answered. "Have you not lived here all these
years?"
"Adam called you Queen. You should have a palace--"
"If I am Queen, then you must be a King. I think it is a lovely palace.
What is that tree by the gate--all feathery pink?"
"A mimosa. Mr. Jefferson gave it to me. It is like you--it does not
belong on the Three-Notched Road. It should stand in a palace garden
with dim alleys, fountains, and orange groves." He ended in a deeper
tone, "Why not? One day we may plant a mimosa in such a garden, and
smile and say, 'Do you remember the tree--do you remember our wedding
day?' Who knows--who knows?"
"You shall stay in that palace all alone," said Jacqueline. "I like this
one best."
The house stood back from the road in its clump of pines. The coach
stopped, and Rand and Jacqueline, descending, crossed a strip of short
grass tufted with fennel and velvet mullein to the gate beneath the
mimosa, entered the gay little yard, and moved up the path to the larger
of the two porches. They were at home. On the porch to welcome them
they found the white man who worked on shares and oversaw the farm, Joab
and three other slaves of Rand's, Mammy Chloe, Hannah, and the negro men
who belonged to Jacqueline. These gave a noisy greeting. Rand put money
into the hands of the slaves and sent them away happy to the tumble-down
quarter behind the house. The white man took his leave, and Mammy Chloe
and Hannah retired to the kitchen, where supper was in preparation. Rand
and Jacqueline entered together the clean, bare rooms.
Later, when Hannah's supper had been praised and barely touched, the two
came again to the porch, and presently, hand in hand, moved down the
steps, and over the dry summer grass to the mimosa at the gate. Here
they turned, and in the gathering dusk looked back at the house, the
sleeping pines, and all the shadowy surrounding landscape.
"Hear the frogs in the marsh!" said Rand. "They are excited to-night.
They know I have brought a princess home."
"Listen to the cow-bells," she said. "I love to hear them, faint and far
like that. I love to think of you, a little barefoot boy, bringing home
the cows--and never, never dreaming once of me!"
"When could that have been?" he asked. "I have always dreamed of
you--even when 'twas pain to dream!--There is the first whip-poor-will.
_Whip-poor-will!_ Once it had the loneliest sound! The moon is growing
brighter. The dark has come."
"I love you, Lewis."
"Darling, darling! Listen! that is the night horn. The lights are out in
the quarter. Do you hear the stream--our stream--hurrying past the apple
tree? It is hurrying to the sea--the great sea. We've put out to sea
together--you and I, just you and I!"
"Just you and I!" she echoed. "Oh, bliss to be together!"
"Let us go," he whispered. "Let us go back to the house," and with his
arm around her, they moved up the path between the flowers that had
closed with the night.