COMPANY TO SUPPER
Jacqueline arranged the flowers, cut from her window stand, in the
porcelain vase, and set the vase with care in the centre of the polished
table. All was in order, from the heavy damask napkins and the Chelsea
plates to the silver candlesticks and the old cut-glass. She turned her
graceful head, and called to her husband, whose step she heard in the
adjoining room. He came, and, standing beside her, surveyed the mahogany
field. "Is there anything lacking?" she asked.
He turned and kissed her. "Only that you should be happy!" he said.
"If I am not," she answered, "he will never find it out! But when I see
him, I shall hear that fatal shot!"
"He will make you quite forget it. All women like him."
"Then I shall be the exception. General Hamilton was Uncle Edward's
friend. At Fontenoy they'll call it insult that I have talked with this
man!"
"They will not know," Rand replied. "It was an honest duel fought nigh
two years ago. Forget--forget! There's so much one must forget. Besides,
others are forgiving. There is not now the old enmity between him and
the Federalists." "No?" said Jacqueline. "Why is that?"
"I cannot tell you, but old differences are being smoothed over. It is
rather the Republicans who are out with him."
"I know that he is no friend to Mr. Jefferson."
"No, he is no friend to Mr. Jefferson. The room looks well, sweetheart.
But some day you shall have a much grander one, all light and
splendour, and larger flowers than these--"
His wife rested her head against his shoulder. "I don't want it, Lewis.
It is only you who care for magnificence. Sometimes I wonder that you
should so care."
"It is my mother in me," he answered. "She cared--poor soul. But I don't
want magnificence for myself. I want it for you--"
"You must not want it for me," cried Jacqueline, with wistful passion.
"I am happy here, and I am happy at Roselands--but I was happiest of all
in the house on the Three-Notched Road!"
There was a moment's silence, then Rand spoke slowly. "I was not born
for content. I am urged on--and on--and I cannot always tell right from
wrong. There is a darkness within me--I wish it were light instead!" He
laughed. "But if wishes were horses, beggars might ride!--And you've cut
all your pretty bright flowers! After supper, before we begin our talk,
you must sing to him. They say his daughter is an accomplished and
beautiful woman. But you--you are Beauty, Jacqueline!"
The knocker sounded. "That is he," exclaimed Rand, and went into the
hail to welcome his guest. Jacqueline returned to the drawing-room, and
waited there before the fire. She was dressed in white, with bare neck
and arms and her mother's amethysts around her throat. In a moment the
two men entered. "This is my wife, Colonel Burr," said Rand.
Jacqueline curtsied. A small, slight, black-eyed, and smiling gentleman
bowed low, and with much grace of manner took and kissed her hand. "Mr.
Rand, now I understand the pride in your voice! Madam, I wish my
daughter Theodosia were with me. She is my pride, and when I say that
you two would be friends, I pay you both a compliment!"
"I have heard much of her," answered Jacqueline, "and nothing but good.
My husband tells me that you have been in the South--and in Virginia we
are welcoming you with a snowstorm!"
"The cold is all outside," said Colonel Burr. "Permit me--"
He handed his hostess to the green-striped sofa, and seated himself
beside her with a sigh of appreciation for the warmth and soft light of
the pleasant room, and the presence of woman. "Your harp!" he exclaimed.
"I should have brought a sheaf of Spanish songs such as the ladies sing
to the guitar in New Orleans!--My dear sir, your fair wife and my
Theodosia must one day sing together, walk hand in hand together, in
that richer, sweeter land! They shall use the mantilla and wield the
fan. Crowns are too heavy--they shall wear black lace!"
He spoke with not unpleasant brusqueness, a military manner tempered
with gallantry, and he looked at Rand with quick black eyes. "Yes, they
must meet," said Rand simply. He spoke composedly, but he had
nevertheless a moment's vision of Jacqueline, away from the snow and the
storm, walking in beauty through the gardens of a far country. He saw
her with a circlet of gold upon her head, a circlet of Mexican gold.
Crowns were heavy, but men--ay, and women, too!--fought for them. Hers
should be light and fanciful upon her head. She should wear black lace
if she chose,--though always he liked her best in white, in her kingdom,
in the kingdom he was going to help Aaron Burr establish.--No! in the
kingdom Aaron Burr should help Lewis Rand establish! His dream broke. He
was not sure that he meant to come to an understanding with Burr. It
depended--it depended. But still he saw Jacqueline in trailing robes,
with the gold circlet on her head.
Joab at the door announced supper, and the three went into the
dining-room, where the red geraniums glowed between the candles.
Jacqueline took her place behind the coffee-urn, and Joab waited.
The meal went pleasantly on. Colonel Burr was accomplished in
conversation, now supple and insinuating as a courtier, now direct,
forceful, even plain, as became an old soldier of the Revolution, always
agreeable, and always with a fine air of sincerity. The daughter of
Henry Churchill did not lack wit, charm, and proper fire, and the
Virginia hostess never showed her private feelings to a guest. She
watched over the stranger's comfort with soft care, and met his talk
with graceful readiness. He spoke to her of her family: of her
grandfather, whose name had been widely known, of her father, whose
praises he had heard sung, of Major Churchill, whom he had met in
Philadelphia in General Washington's time. He spoke of her kinsmen with
an admiration which went far toward including their opinions. Jacqueline
marvelled. Surely this gentleman was a Democrat-Republican, lately the
Vice-President of that party's electing. It was not two years since he
had slain General Hamilton; and now, in a quiet, refined voice, he was
talking of Federalists and Federal ways with all the familiarity,
sympathy, and ease of one born in the fold and contented with his lot.
She wondered if he had quarrelled with his party, and while he was
talking she was proudly thinking, "The Federalists will not have
him--no, not if he went on his knees to them!" And then she thought, "He
is a man without a country."
Rand sat somewhat silent and distrait, his mind occupied in building,
building, now laying the timbers this way and now that; but presently,
upon his guest's referring to him some point for elucidation, he entered
the conversation, and thenceforth, though he spoke not a great deal, his
personality dominated it. The acute intelligence opposite him took
faint alarm. "I am bargaining for a supporter," Burr told himself, "not
for a rival," and became if possible more deferentially courteous than
before. The talk went smoothly on, from Virginia politics to the
triumphal march of Napoleon through Europe; from England and the death
of Pitt to the Spanish intrigues, and so back to questions of the West;
and to references, which Jacqueline did not understand, to the Spanish
Minister, Casa Yrujo, to the English Mr. Merry, and to Messieurs Sauvé,
Derbigny, and Jean Noël Destréhan of New Orleans.
Joab took away the Chelsea plates and dishes, brushed the mahogany, and
placed before his master squat decanters of sherry and Madeira. The
flowing talk took a warmer tone, and began to sing with the music of the
South and the golden West; to be charged with Spanish, French, and
Indian names, with the odour of strange flowers, the roll of the
Mississippi, and the flashing of coloured wings. It was the two men now
who spoke. Jacqueline, leaning back in her chair, half listened to the
talk of the Territory of Orleans, the Perdido, and the road to Mexico,
half dreamed of what they might be doing at Fontenoy this snowy night.
The knocker sounded. "That is Adam Gaudylock," exclaimed Rand. "Joab,
show Mr. Gaudylock in."
Jacqueline rose, and Colonel Burr sprang to open the door for her. "We
may sit late, Jacqueline," said Rand, and their guest, "Madam, I will
make court to you in a court some day!"
Gaudylock's voice floated in from the hall: "Is a little man with
him?--a black-eyed man?" She passed into the drawing-room, and, pressing
her brow against the window-pane, looked out into the night. The snow
had ceased to fall, and the moon was struggling with the breaking
clouds. The door opened to admit her husband, who came for a moment to
her side. "It is not snowing now," he said. "A visitor will hardly knock
on such a night. If by chance one should come, say that I am engaged
with a client, make my excuses, and as soon as possible get rid of him.
On no account--on no account, Jacqueline, would I have it known that
Aaron Burr is here to-night. This is important. I will keep the doors
shut, and we will not speak loudly." He turned to go, then hesitated.
"On second thoughts, I will tell Joab to excuse us both at the door. For
you--do not sit up, dear heart! It will be late before our business is
done."
He was gone. Jacqueline went back to the fire and, sitting down beneath
the high mantel, opened the fifth volume of Clarissa Harlowe. She read
for a while, then closed the book, and with her chin in her hand fell to
studying the ruddy hollows and the dropping coals. Perhaps half an hour
passed. The door opened, and she looked up from her picture in the deep
hollows to see Ludwell Cary smiling down upon her and holding out his
hand. "Perhaps I should have drifted past with the snow," he said, "but
the light in the window drew me, and I heard to-day from Fontenoy. Mr.
Rand, I know, is at home."
"Yes," answered Jacqueline, rising, "but he is much engaged to-night
with--with a friend. Did Joab not tell you?"
"Mammy Chloe let me in. I did not see Joab. I am sorry--"
He hesitated. There came a blast of wind that rattled the boughs of the
maple outside the window. The fire leaped and the shadows danced in the
corners of the room. Jacqueline knew that it was cold outside--her
visitor's coat was wet with snow. Sitting there before the fire she had
been lonely, and her heart was hungry for news from home.
"May I stay a few minutes?" asked Cary. "I will read you what Major
Edward says of Fontenoy."
She was far from dreaming how little Rand would wish this visitor to
know of his affairs that night. Her knowledge extended no further than
the fact that for some reason Colonel Burr did not wish it known that he
was in Richmond. She listened, but the walls were thick, and she heard
no sound from the distant dining-room. Cary would know only what she
told him, and in a few minutes he would be gone. "I should like to hear
the letter," she said, and motioned to the armchair beside the hearth.
He took it, and she seated herself opposite him, upon an old,
embroidered tabouret. Between them the fire of hickory logs burned
softly; without the curtained windows the maple branches, moved by the
wind, struck at intervals against the eaves. Jacqueline faced the door.
It was her intention, should she hear steps, to rise and speak to Lewis
in the hail without.
The letter which Cary drew from his breast pocket was from Major
Churchill. That he did not read it all was due to his correspondent's
choice of subjects and great plainness of speech; but he read what the
Major had to say of Fontenoy, of the winter weather and the ailing
slaves, of Mustapha, of county deaths and marriages, of the books he had
been reading, and the men to whom he wrote. Major Edward's strain was
ironic, fine, and very humanly lonely. Jacqueline's eyes filled with
tears, and all the flames of the fire ran together like shaken jewels.
"Almost all the rest," said Cary, "has to do with politics. I will not
read you what he has to say of us slight, younger men and the puny times
in which we live. But this will interest you--this is of general
import."
He turned the page and read: "I have to-day a letter from G. Morris with
the latest mischief from the North. Aaron Burr is going West, but with,
I warrant you, no thought of the setting sun. The Ancient Iniquity in
Washington smiles with thin lips and pronounces that all men and Aaron
Burr are unambitious, unselfish, and peace-loving--but none the less, he
looks askance at the serpent's windings. The friends of Burr are not the
friends of Jefferson. There are Federalists--'tis said they increase in
numbers--who do not wish the former ill; myself I am not of them.
Colonel Burr _desired_ that duel; he lay in wait for the affront which
should be his opportunity; he murdered Hamilton. He risked his own
life--very true, the majority of murderers do the same. The one who does
not is a dastard in addition--_voila tout!_
"Burr quits the East, and all men know that the West, like Israel of
old, is weary of an Idea and would like to have a King. If the world
revolves this way much longer, the Man of the People will not be asked
to write the next Declaration of Independence, and the country west of
the Ohio will be celebrating not the Fourth of July but an eighteenth
Prairial. Aaron Burr and his confederates intend an Empire. 'Tis said
there are five hundred men in his confidence here in the East, and that
the chief of these wait but for a signal from him or from
Wilkinson--whereupon they'll follow him and he'll make them dukes and
princes.
"Like Macbeth, he has done his murder and is on his way to be crowned at
Scone. He has not a wife, but he has a daughter ambitious as himself.
She has a son. He sees his line secured. He has suborned other murderers
and made traitors of honest men--and our Laputa philosopher at
Washington smiles and says there is nothing amiss!
"May I be gathered soon out of this cap-and-bells democracy to some
Walhalla where I may find Hamilton and General Washington and be at
peace! This world is growing wearisome to me.
"G. Morris speaks of the bulk of his news as report merely, but I'll
stake my head the report is true."
Cary ceased to read. Jacqueline sat motionless, and in the silence of
the room they heard the wind outside and the tapping of the maple
branches.
"If I were Mr. Jefferson," said Cary presently, "I would arrest Colonel
Burr this side of the Ohio. He has been West too often; he is in the
East now, and I would see to it that he remained here. But Mr. Jefferson
will temporize, and Burr will make his dash for a throne. Well! he is
neither Cæsar nor Buonaparte; he is only Aaron Burr. He is the
adventurer, not the Emperor. The danger is that in all the motley he is
enlisting there may be a Buonaparte. Then farewell to this poor schemer
and any delusions he may yet nourish as to a peaceful, federated West!
War and brazen clamour and the yelling eagles of a conqueror!"
He spoke with conviction, but now, as though to lighten his own mood, he
laughed. "All this may not be so," he said. "It may be but a dream of
our over-peaceful night."
Jacqueline rose, motioned him with a smile to keep his seat, and, moving
to an escritoire standing near the door, wrote a line upon a sheet of
paper, then rang the bell and when Joab appeared, put the paper into his
hand. "Give this to your master," she said, and came back to Cary beside
the fire. She smiled, but he saw with concern that she was very pale,
and that the amethysts were trembling at her throat. "I should not have
read you this letter," he exclaimed. "It is over-caustic, over-bitter.
Do not let it trouble you. You have grown pale!"
She bent over the fire as if she were cold. "It is nothing. Yes, I was
troubled--I am always troubled when I think of Fontenoy. But it is over
now--and indeed I wanted to hear Uncle Edward's letter." She
straightened herself and turned to him a smiling face. "And now tell me
of yourself! You are looking worn. Men work too hard in Richmond. Oh,
for the Albemarle air! The snow will be white to-morrow on my fir tree,
and Deb will have to throw crumbs for the birds. I have learned a new
song. When next you come, I will sing it to you."
"Will you not," asked Cary,--"will you not sing it to me now?"
She shook her head. "Not now. How the branches strike against the roof
to-night!"
As she spoke she moved restlessly, and Cary saw the amethysts stir
again. A thought flashed through his mind. It had to do with Lewis Rand,
of whom he often thought, sometimes with melancholy envy, sometimes with
strong dislike, sometimes with unwilling admiration, and always with
painful curiosity. Now, the substance of Major Churchill's letter
strongly in mind, with senses rendered more acute and emotions
heightened as they always were in the presence of the woman he had not
ceased to love, troubled, too, by something in her demeanor, intangibly
different from her usual frank welcome, he suddenly and vividly recalled
a much-applauded speech that Rand had made three days before in a public
gathering. It had included a noteworthy display of minute information of
western conditions, extending to the physical features of the country
and to every degree of its complex population. One sentence among many
had caught Cary's attention, had perplexed him, and had remained in his
memory to be considered afterwards, closely and thoughtfully. There was
one possible meaning--
Cary crumpled the letter in his hand. Rand's speech perplexed him no
longer. That was it--that was it! His breath came quickly. He had
builded better--he had builded better than he knew, when he wrote that
paper signed "Aurelius"!
With fingers that were not quite steady he smoothed and refolded Major
Churchill's letter He was saying to himself, "What does she know She
grew pale Thou suspicious fool! That was for thought of home He will
have told her nothing--nothing! Her soul is clear."
He pocketed his letter and, rising, spoke to her with a chivalrous
gentleness "I will go now Do not let the thought of Fontenoy distress
you Do you remember the snow man we made there once, wreathing his head
with holly? But I'll tell you a strange thing,--even on such a night as
this, I always see Fontenoy bathed in summer weather!"
"Yes, yes," she answered "I, too. Oh, home!"
He held out his hand "You'll give my compliments to Mr. Rand?"
"Yes," she said. "He is busy to-night with a client from the country. He
works too hard."
"Take him soon to Roselands and tie him there. Sing him To Althea and
make him forget." He bent and kissed her hand. "Good-night--good-night!"
"Good-night," she answered, and moved with him to the door. Standing
there, she watched him through the hail and out of the house, then
turned and, going to the window, pressed her brow against the pane and
watched him down the street. The night had cleared; there was a high
wind and many stars.
In Rand's dining-room the three men sat late over the wine and the
questions that had brought them together, but at last the conference was
somewhat stormily over. Burr and Adam Gaudylock left the house together,
the hunter volunteering to guide the stranger to his inn. It was
midnight, and Colonel Burr did not see his hostess. He sent her courtly
messages, and he pressed Rand's hand somewhat too closely, then with his
most admirable military air and frankest smile, thrust his arm through
Gaudylock's and marched away. Rand closed the door, put down the candle
that he held, and turned into the drawing-room.
Before the dying fire he found Jacqueline in her white gown, the
amethysts about her throat, and her scarf of silver gauze fallen from
her hand upon the floor. In her young face and form there should have
been no hint, no fleeting breath of tragedy, but to-night there was that
hint and that breath. The fire over which she bent and brooded seemed to
leave her cold. The room was no longer brightly lighted, and she
appeared mournfully a part of the hovering shadows. Her spirit had power
to step forth and clothe the flesh. Almost always she looked the thing
she felt. Now, in the half light, bent above the fading coals, she
looked old. Her husband, with his hand upon the mantel-shelf, gazed down
upon her. "It was wise of you to send me that note. Burr and I might
have walked in here, or we might have spoken loudly. I heard Cary when
he went out. How did you manage?"
"He asked for you. I told him that you were engaged with a client from
the country. Oh, Lewis!"
Rand stooped and kissed her. "It was the best thing you could say. I
would not have had him guess our visitor to-night. You are trembling
like a leaf!"
"The best that I could say!--I don't know that. I feel like a leaf in
the wind! I did not understand--but I was afraid for you. It is done,
but I prefer to tell the truth!"
"I prefer it for you," said Rand. "To-night was mere unluckiness. And he
suspected nothing?"
"He went without knowing who was in the dining-room. Lewis, what is
there to suspect?"
He stood looking down upon her with a glow in his dark eyes and an
unwonted red in his cheek. "Suspect? There is nothing to suspect. But to
expect--there might be expectations, my Queen!"
"As long as you live you are my King" she said. "To-night I am afraid
for my King. I do not like Colonel Burr!"
"I am sorry for that. He is said to be a favourite with women."
"Lewis!" she cried, "what does he want with you? Tell me!"
So appealing was her voice, so urgent the touch of her hand, that with a
start Rand awoke from his visions to the fact of her emotion. His eye
was hawklike, and his intuition unfailing. "What did Ludwell Cary say to
you?" he demanded.
She took her scarf from the floor, wound her hands in it, and clasped
them tightly before her. "When I told him,--Mammy Chloe let him
in,--when I told him that you were busy with your client, he thought no
more of it. And then we talked of Fontenoy, and he read me a letter from
Uncle Edward. Much of the letter was about Colonel Burr, and--and
suspicions that were aroused. Uncle Edward called him a traitor and a
maker of traitors. That is an ugly name, is it not? Ludwell Cary did not
think the rumour false. He said that if he were Mr. Jefferson, he would
arrest Colonel Burr. He, also, called him traitor. I can tell you what
he said. He said, 'But Mr. Jefferson will temporize, and Burr will make
his dash for a throne. Well! he is neither Cæsar nor Buonaparte; he is
only Aaron Burr. The danger is that in all the motley he is enlisting
there may be a Buonaparte. Then farewell to this poor schemer and any
delusions he may yet nourish as to a peaceful, federated West! War and
brazen clamour and the yelling eagles of a conqueror!' That is what he
said."
There was a silence, then Rand spoke in a curious voice, "Saul among the
prophets! In the future, let us have less of Ludwell Cary."
"Lewis, why did Colonel Burr come here to-night?"
Rand turned from the fire and began to pace the room, head bent and hand
at mouth, thinking rapidly. His wife raised her hands, still wrapped in
the silver scarf, to her heart, and waited. As he passed for the third
time the tall harp, he drew his hand heavily across the strings. The
room vibrated to the sound. Rand came back to the hearth, took the
armchair in which Cary had sat, and drew it closer to the glowing
embers. "Come," he said. "Come, Jacqueline, let us look at the pictures
in the fire."
She knelt beside him on the braided rug. "Show me true pictures! Home in
Virginia, and honourable life, and noble service, and my King a King
indeed, and this Colonel Burr gone like a shadow and an ugly
dream!--that is the picture I want to see."
For a moment there was silence before the white ash and the dying heart
of the wood, then Rand with the tongs squared a flaky bed and drew from
top to bottom a jagged line. "This," he said, "is the great artery; this
is the Mississippi River." He drew another line. "Here to the southwest
is Mexico, and that is a country for great dreams. There the plantain
and the orange grow and there are silver and gold--and the warm gulf is
on this side, and the South Sea far, far away, and down here is South
America. The Aztecs lived in Mexico, and Cortez conquered them. He
burned his ships so that he and his Spaniards might not retreat. Here is
the land west of the Mississippi, unknown and far away. There are grassy
plains that seem to roll into the sun, and there are great herds of
game, and warlike Indians, and beyond the range of any vision there are
vast mountains white with snow. Gold, too, may be there. It is a country
enormous, grandiose, rich, and silent,--a desert waiting dumbly for the
strong man's tread." He turned a little and drew another line. "To this
side, away, away to the east, here where you and I are sitting,
watching, watching, here are the Old Thirteen,--the Thirteen that the
English took from the Indians, that the children of the English took
from England. It is the law of us all, Jacqueline, the law of the Three
Kingdoms: the battle is to the strong and the race to the swift. The Old
Thirteen are stable; let them rest! Together they make a great country,
and they will be greater yet But here is the Ohio--la belle Rivière, the
Frenchmen call it. And beyond and below the Ohio, through all the
gigantic valley of a river so great that it seems a fable, south to New
Orleans, and westward to the undiscovered lies the country that is to
be! And Napoleon, in order that he may brandish over England one
thunderbolt the more, sells it for a song!--and we buy it for a
song--and not one man in fifty guesses that we have bought the song of
the future! The man who bought it knows its value--but Mr. Jefferson
cares only for Done lays. He'll not have the Phrygian. He dreams of
cotton and olives, of flocks and herds, rock salt and peaceful mines,
and the manors of the Golden Age,--all gathered, tended, worked,
administered by farmers, school-teachers, and philosophers! The
ploughshare (improved) and the pruning-hook, a pulpit for Dr. Priestley,
and a statue of Tom Paine, a glass house where the study of the mastodon
may lead to a knowledge of man, slavery abolished, and war abhorred, the
lion and the lamb to lie down together and Rousseau to come true--all
the old mirage--perfectibility in plain sight! That is his dream, and it
is a noble one. There is no room in it for the wicked man. In the mean
time he proposes to govern this land of milk and honey, this
bought-and-paid-for Paradise, very much as an eastern Despot might
govern a conquered province. The inconsistencies of man must disconcert
even the Thinker up in the skies. Well--it happens that the West and
this great new city of ours, there at the mouth of the river, with her
levees and her ships, her merchants, priests, and lawyers, do not want
government by a satrap. They want an Imperial City and a Cæsar of their
own. Throughout the length and breadth of this vast territory there is
deep dissatisfaction--within and without, for Spain is yet arrogant upon
its borders. The Floridas--Mexico--fret and fever everywhere! It is so
before all changes, Jacqueline. The very wind sighs uneasily. Then one
comes, bolder than the rest, sees and takes his advantage. So empires
and great names are made."
"So good names are lost!" she cried. "It is not thus that you spoke one
October evening on our way from Albemarle!"
Rand dropped the iron from his hand. "That was a year and a half ago,
and all things move with rapidity. A man's mind changes. That
evening!--I was in Utopia. And yet, if we reigned,--if we two reigned,
Jacqueline,--we might reign like that. We might make a kingdom wise and
great."
"And Mr. Jefferson, and all that you owe to him? And your letter to him
every month with all the public news?"
"That was before this winter," he answered. "We have almost ceased to
write. I am not like James Madison or James Monroe. I cannot follow
always. Mr. Jefferson is a great man--but it is hungry dwelling in the
shadow of another."
"Better dwell in the shadow forever," cried Jacqueline, with passion,
"than to reign with faithlessness in the sun!"
"I am not faithless--"
"So Benedict Arnold thought! Oh, Lewis!"
"You speak," said Rand slowly, "too much like the Churchills and the
Carys."
In the silence that followed, Jacqueline rose and stood over against
him, the scarf trailing from her hand and the amethysts rising and
falling with her laboured breathing. He glanced at her and then went
on: "Burr leaves Richmond to-morrow. He does not go West till summer,
and all his schemes may come to naught. What he does or does not do will
depend on many things, chiefly on whether or not we go to war with
Spain. I am not going West with him--not yet. I have let him talk. I
have brought him and Adam Gaudylock together; I have put a little money
in this land purchase of his upon the Washita, and I have given him some
advice. That is all there is of rebellion, treason, and sedition,--all
the cock-a-hoop story! Ludwell Cary may keep his own breath to cool his
own porridge. And you, Jacqueline, you who married me, you have not a
soul to be frighted with big words! You and I shall walk side by side."
"Shall we?" she said. "That will depend. I'll not walk with you over the
dead--dead faith, dead hope, dead honour!"
"I shall not ask you to," he answered. "You are not yourself. You are
using words without thought. It is the cold, the lateness, and this
dying fire--Ludwell Cary's arrogance as well. Dead faith, hope,
honour!--is this your trust, your faith?"
"Lewis, Lewis!"
He rose, crossed the shadowy space between them, and took her hands.
"Don't fear--don't fear! We two will always love. Jacqueline, there is
that within me that will not rest, that cries for power, and that
overrides obstacles! See what I have overridden since the days beneath
the apple tree! I am not idly dreaming. Conditions such as exist to-day
will not arise again. Upon this continent it is the time of times for
the bold--the wisely bold. This that beckons is no mirage in the West;
it is palpable fact. Say that I follow Burr--follow! overtake and pass
him! He has a tarnished name and fifty years,--a supple rapier but a
shrunken arm. He's daring; but I can be that and more. He plans; I can
achieve. I am no dreamer and no braggart when I say that in the West I
can play the Corsican. What can I do here? Become, perhaps, Governor of
Virginia; wait until Mr. Jefferson is dead, and Mr. Madison is dead, and
Mr. Monroe is dead, and then, if the world is yet Republican, become
President? The governorship I do not want; the presidency is but a
chance, and half a lifetime off! But this--this, Jacqueline, is real and
at hand. Say that I go, say that I gain a throne where you and I may sit
and rule, wise and great and sovereign, holding kingdoms for our
children--"
"Oh!" exclaimed Jacqueline.
Rand drew her to him. "Don't fear--don't fear! The child will come--we
want him so!"
"Promise me," she cried,--"promise me that you will see Colonel Burr no
more, write to him no more! Promise me that you will put all this away,
forever, forever! Oh, Lewis, give me your word!"
"I will do nothing rash," he said. "We will go back to Roselands,--we
will watch and wait awhile. Burr himself does not go West until the
summer. Ere then I will persuade you. That first July evening, under the
mimosa at the gate, even then this thing was vaguely, vaguely in my
mind."
"Was it?" she cried. "Oh me, oh me!"
"You are wearied," he said, "chilled and trembling. I wish that Ludwell
Cary had aired his views elsewhere to-night! Put it all from your mind
and come to rest--"
"Lewis, if ever you loved me--if ever you said that you would give me
proof--"
"You know that I love you."
"Then, as I gave up friends and home for you, give up this thing for me!
No, no, I'll not cease to beg"--She slipped from his arm to her knees.
"Lewis, Lewis, this is not the road--this is not the way to freedom,
goodness, happiness Promise me! Oh, Lewis, if ever you loved me, promise
me!"
From Rand's house on Shockoe Hill Ludwell Cary walked quickly homeward
to the Eagle, where he and his brother lodged. As he walked he thought
at first, hotly and bitterly enough, of Lewis Rand and painfully of
himself, but at length the solemnity of the white night and the high
glitter of the stars made him impatient of his own mood. He looked at
the stars, and at the ivory and black of the tall trees, and his mind
calmed itself and turned to think of Jacqueline.
In the Eagle's best bedroom, before a blazing fire and a bottle of port,
he found Fairfax Cary deep in a winged chair and a volume of Fielding.
"Well, Fair?" he said, with his arm upon the mantel-shelf and his booted
foot upon the fender.
The younger Cary closed his book and hospitably poured wine for his
brother. "Were you at the Amblers'?" he asked. "It's a night for one's
own fireside. I went to the Mayos', but the fair Maria is out of town.
On the way I stopped at Bowler's Tavern to see his man about that filly
we were talking of, and I had a glass with old Bowler himself. He let
out a piece of news. Who d'ye think is in town and under Bowler's
roof?--Aaron Burr!"
There was a silence, then Cary said quietly, "Aren't you mistaken,
Fair?"
"Not in the least," answered the other. "He came in a sloop from
Baltimore yesterday. It is not known that he's in town; he does not want
it known. He's keeping quiet,--perhaps he has another duel on his
conscience. I don't believe old Bowler knew he had let the cat out. Burr
leaves to-morrow. He was out visiting to-night."
"How do you know that?" Cary demanded, with sudden sharpness.
"Bowler's best bedroom in darkness--no special preparations for
supper--Burr's man idling in the kitchen--mine host taking no cake to
speak low,--in short, the wedding guest was roaming. I wonder where he
was!"
The elder Cary raised and drained the glass of wine. He knew where Aaron
Burr had supped and passed the evening, and a coldness that was not of
the night crept upon him. As for Lewis Rand, he cared not what he did
nor why he did it, but for Jacqueline Churchill. This had been the
client from the country! All the time she was keeping it secret that
Burr was there. She had turned pale. No wonder!--the faithful wife!
"Take care, that glass is thin--you'll break it!" warned the younger
Cary, but the glass had snapped in the elder's fingers.
"Pshaw!" said Cary; "too frail for use! I'm off to bed, Fair. That bill
comes up to-morrow, and it means a bitter fight. Good-night,--and I say,
Fair, hold your tongue about Aaron Burr. Good-night!"
In his room he put out the candle, parted the window curtains, and
looked upon Orion, icily splendid in the midnight sky. "What is there
that is steadfast?" he thought. "Does she love him so?" He stood for a
long time looking out into the night. He thought of that evening at
Fontenoy when he had come in from the sultry and thunderous air and had
found Rand seated in the drawing-room and Jacqueline at her harp,
singing To Althea,--
"Minds innocent and quiet take
That for a hermitage."
The words and the vision of Fontenoy that night were yet with him when
at last he turned from the window and threw himself upon the bed, where
he finally fell asleep with his arm flung up and across his eyes.