MAJOR EDWARD
Rand rose from the supper-table and led the way into the dim,
high-ceilinged room that served him as study and library. "Bring the
candles," he said over his shoulder, and Tom Mocket obediently took up
the heavy candelabra. With the clustered lights illuminating freckled
face and sandy hair, he followed his chief. "Don't you want me to start
the fire?" he asked. "These October nights are mortal cold."
"Yes," answered Rand. "Put a light to it and make the room bright. Fire
is like a woman's presence."
As he spoke, he walked to the windows and drew the curtains, then took
from his desk a number of papers and began to lay them in an orderly row
upon the table in the middle of the room. "Mrs. Churchill is quite out
of danger. My wife returns to Roselands to-morrow."
"That's fortunate," quoth Mocket, on his knees before the great
fireplace. "You always did cut things mighty close, Lewis, and I must
say you are cutting this one close! Adam, he goes along from day to day
laughing and singing, with a face as smooth as an egg, but I'll warrant
he's watching the sun, the clock, and the hourglass!"
"I know--I know," said Rand. "The sun is travelling, and the clock is
striking, and the sands are running. This was a cursed check, this
illness at Fontenoy. But for it I should be now upon the Ohio." He left
the table and began to pace the room, his hands clasped behind him. "Two
weeks from here to this island--then eight weeks for that twelve
hundred miles of river, and to gather men from New Madrid and Baton
Rouge and Bayou Pierre. October, November, December. Say New Orleans by
the New Year. There will be some seizing there,--the banks, the
shipping. If the army joins us, all will be well. But there, Tom, there!
there is the 'if' in this project!"
"But you are sure of General Wilkinson!"
Rand paused to take a letter from his pocket. "Burr is. I have this
to-day from him in cipher. Listen!" He unfolded the paper, brought it
into the firelight, and began to read in a clear, low voice. "Burr has
written to Wilkinson in substance as follows: Funds are obtained and
operations commenced. The eastern detachment will rendezvous on the Ohio
the first of November. Everything internal and external favours our
views. The naval protection of England is secured. Final orders are
given to my friends and followers. It will be a host of choice spirits.
Burr proceeds westward never to return. With him go his daughter and
grandson. Our project, my dear friend, is brought to a point so long
desired. Burr guarantees the result with his life and honour, with the
lives and honour and fortune of hundreds, the best blood of our country.
Burr's plan of operation is to move down rapidly from the falls on the
fifteenth of November, with the first five hundred or one thousand men,
in light boats, now constructing for that purpose, to be at Natchez
between the fifth and fifteenth of December, there to meet Wilkinson,
there to determine whether it will be expedient in the first instance to
seize on, or pass by, Baton Rouge. The people of the country to which we
are going are prepared to receive us; their agents, now with Burr, say
that if we will protect their religion, and will not subject them to a
foreign power, then in three weeks all will be settled. The gods invite
us to glory and fortune; it remains to be seen whether we deserve the
boon.'"
Rand ceased to read and refolded the paper. "So Colonel Burr, with more
to the same effect. If he writes thus to General Wilkinson, he is
undoubtedly very sure of that gentleman and of the army which he
commands. I am not of as confident a temper, and I am sure of no one
save Lewis Rand."
The other blew the flames beneath the pine knots. "There's Gaudylock."
"I except Gaudylock."
Tom rose from the brick hearth and dusted his knees. "And there's me."
Rand smiled down upon his old lieutenant. "Ah, yes, there's you,
Tom,--you and Vinie! Well, if we are fortunate, you shall come to me in
the spring. By then we'll know if we are conquerors and founders of
empire, or if we're simply to be hanged as traitors. If the fairer lot
is ours, you shall have your island, my good old Panza!"
"And if it's the other?" demanded Tom, with a wry face.
Rand gave his characteristic short laugh. "It shall not be the other.
The hemp is not planted that shall trouble us. There are no more
astrologers now that we are grown wise,--and still a man trusts in his
star! I trust in mine. Well, next week you'll open the office as usual,
and to all that come you'll state that I've gone, between courts, to
look at a purchase of land in Wood County. I'll bring that forgery case
to an end day after to-morrow, and by Monday Adam and I will be out of
Albemarle."
Mocket drew a long breath. "Monday! That's soon, but the sooner, I
reckon, the better. Sometimes just any delay is fatal. For all his
singing, I know that Adam is anxious--and he's weatherwise, is Adam!
There's something in the air. The papers have begun to talk, and
everywhere you turn there's the same damned curiosity about Aaron Burr
and New Orleans and Mexico and the Washita lands! Moreover, when a
man's as quiet as Mr. Jefferson is just now, I suspect that man. Best to
get quite out of reach of a countermine. You've gone too far not to go a
deal farther."
"Just so," agreed the other. "Many and many a league farther. Now, this
paper of directions. I'll go over it carefully with you, and then I'll
burn it. First, as to Roselands, the stock, and the servants. Joab and
Isham go with us, starting on horseback an hour behind the chaise."
"You take no maid for Mrs. Rand?"
"It cannot be managed. When we reach this island, I can doubtless
purchase a woman from Mr. Blennerhassett."
"Mrs. Rand does not know yet, does she, Lewis?"
"She does not know. She will not know until we are over the mountains
and return is impossible." He turned from the fire, walked the room
again, and spoke on as to himself. "When I tell her, there will be my
first battle, and the one battle that I dread! But I'll win it,--I'll
win because I _must_ win. She will suffer at first, but I will make her
forget,--I will love her so that I will make her forget. If all goes
well and greatness is in our horoscope, she shall yet be friends with
the crown upon her brow! Yes, and gracious friends with all that she has
left behind, and with her Virginian kindred! When all's won, and all's
at peace, and the clash and marvel an old tale, then shall her sister
and her cousin visit her."
He paused at the fireplace and stirred the logs with his foot. "But
that's a vision of the morrow. Between now and then, and here and there,
it never fails that there's an ambushed road." He stood a moment,
staring at the leaping flames, then returned to the table. "Back to
business, Tom! When Roselands is sold--"
"Do you know," suggested Tom, "I've been thinking that, now he is going
to be married, a purchaser might be found in Fairfax Cary."
"Fairfax Cary!" exclaimed the other, and drummed upon the table. "No;
they will not want it, those two. Poor old Tom! your intuitions are not
very fine, are they?"
"Well, I just thought he might," said the underling. "But he may live on
at Greenwood with Ludwell Cary."
Rand struck his foot against the floor. "Don't let us speak that name
to-night! I am weary of it. It haunts me like a bell--_Ludwell Cary!
Ludwell Cary!_ And why it should haunt me, and why the thought of him
always, for one moment, palsies my will and my arm, I know no more than
you! When I shake the dust of this county from my feet, it shall go hard
but I will shake this obsession from my soul! Somewhere, when this world
was but a fiery cloud, all the particles of our being were whirled into
collision. Well, enough of that! Whoever purchases Roselands, it will
not be a Cary. What's the matter now?"
"There's a horse coming up the drive."
Rand dropped the paper in his hand and sat listening. "Unlucky! I wanted
no visitor to-night. It may be but a messenger. Ring the bell, will you,
for Joab."
The horse came on and stopped before the great doorstone. There was the
sound of some one dismounting, Joab speaking, and then the voice of the
horseman. Rand started violently. "Are we awake?" he said, rising. "That
is Major Churchill's voice."
Joab appeared at the door. "Marse Lewis, Marse Edward Churchill say kin
he trouble you fer a few minutes' conversation? He say he lak ter see
you alone--"
"One moment, Joab," said the master, gathering the papers from the table
as he spoke. "Tom, you'll go back to the dining-room and wait for me
there. No; not by that door--there's no use in his meeting you. What
imaginable thing has brought him here?" He replaced the papers in a
drawer, closed and locked it, looked up to see that Mocket was gone, and
spoke to the negro. "Show Major Churchill in here."
The Major entered, dry, withered, his empty sleeve pinned to the front
of his riding-coat. "Mr. Rand, good-evening. Ha, a cheerful fire against
a frosty night! I come in out of the cold to a blaze like that, sir, and
straightway, by a trick of the mind that never fails, I am back at
Valley Forge!"
Rand looked at him keenly. "Permit me to hope, sir, that there is
nothing wrong at Fontenoy? My wife is well?"
"Fontenoy is much as usual, sir," answered his visitor, "and my niece is
very well. It is natural that my appearance here should cause surprise."
Rand pushed forward a great chair. "Yes, I am surprised," he said, with
a smile. "Very much surprised. But since you bring no bad news, I am
also glad. Won't you sit, sir? You are welcome to Roselands."
Major Edward took the edge of the chair, and held out his long, thin
fingers to the blaze. "Yes; Valley Forge," he repeated, with his dry
deliberation. "Valley Forge--and starving soldiers moaning through the
icy night! Washington rarely slept; he sat there in his tent, planning,
planning, in the cold, by the dim light. There was a war--and there were
brave men--and there was a patriot soul!"
"I learn from Jacqueline that Colonel Churchill and you too, sir, have
shown her for some days past much kindness, tenderness, and
consideration. She has been made happy thereby."
"My niece has never been other than dear to me, sir," said the Major,
and still warmed his hand. "I believe, Mr. Rand, that your father fought
bravely in the war?"
"He did his part, sir. He was a scout with General Campbell and, I have
heard, fought like a berserker at King's Mountain."
"If he did his part," the Major replied, "he did well, and is to be
reckoned among the _patres patriæ_. It is a good inheritance to derive
from a patriot father."
"So I have read, sir," said Rand dryly.
There was a silence while the flames leaped and roared. The Major broke
it. "You would take me, would you not, Mr. Rand, to be a man of my
word?"
"I should, sir."
"It has been my reputation. The last time that I spoke to you--"
Rand smiled gravely. "That was two years and a half ago, and your speech
was to the effect that never should you speak to me again. Well! opinion
and will have their mutations. Men of their word, Major Churchill, know
better than most how little worth are the words of men. However you come
here to-night, pray believe that you are welcome, and that I would
gladly be friends."
Major Edward drew a long breath, pushed back his chair somewhat from the
warmth of the fire, and from under shaggy brows regarded his
nephew-in-law with the eyes of an old eagle, sombre and fierce. "Be so
good, then, as to conceive that I come with an olive branch."
"It is difficult," said Rand, after a pause and with a smile, "to
conceive that, but if it be true, sir, then hail to the olive! This feud
was not of my seeking." He leaned forward from his chair and held out
his hand. "Ever since the days of the blue room and that deep draught of
Fontenoy kindness, a light has dwelt for me over the place. Will you not
shake hands, sir?"
The other made an irresolute movement, then drew back. "Let us wait a
little," he exclaimed harshly. "Perhaps I will, sir, in the end,
perhaps I will! It is in the hope that eventually we will strike hands
that I sit here. But such signs of amity come with better grace at the
battle's end--" He paused and glared at the fire.
"There is, then, to be a battle?"
The Major swung around from the red light of the logs. "Mr. Rand, we--my
brother Dick and I--propose a lasting peace between the two houses,
between Fontenoy and Roselands. My brother Henry, sir, the father of--of
your wife, sir, was as near to us in love as in blood, and the honour,
safety, and peace of mind of his daughter are very much our concern! You
will say that by perseverance in this long estrangement we have ignored
the last of these. Perhaps, sir, perhaps! Old men are obstinate, and
their wounds do not heal like those of youth. Enough of that! We--my
brother Dick and I--are prepared to let bygones be bygones. We have
cudgelled our brains--I mean, we have talked matters over. We are
prepared, Mr. Rand, to meet you halfway--"
"Thank you," said Rand. "On what specific proposition?"
Major Edward rose, took a short turn in the room, and came back to his
chair. "Mr. Rand, in the matter of the nomination for Governor, is it
too late to recall your refusal? I think not, sir. Your party has named
no other candidate. As a Federalist, I know, sir, but little of that
party's inner working, but I am told that you would sweep the state. Far
be it from me to say that I wish to see a Democrat-Republican Governor
of Virginia! I do not. But since the gentleman for whom I myself, sir,
shall vote, is undoubtedly destined to defeat, we--my brother Dick and
I--consider that that post may as well be filled by you, sir, as by any
other of your Jacobinical party. No one doubts your ability--you are
diabolically able! But, sir, I would bury this arm where a damned
cutthroat barber surgeon buried the other before I would cry on to such
a post any man who did not enter the race with heart and hands washed
clean of all but honour, plain intents, and loyalty! In the past he may
have been tempted--he may have listened to the charmer, charming never
so wisely--there is in man an iron capacity for going wrong. He may have
done this, planned that--I know not; we all err. It is not too late; he
may yet put behind him all this--"
"I do not think that I understand," said Rand. "All what, sir?"
The Major faced around from the fire with a jerk. "All this. I am
explicit, sir. All this."
"Ah!" answered Rand. "I am dull, I suppose. All this. Well, sir?"
"I should," continued the Major, with emphasis, "regard the acceptance
of the nomination as proof positive of the laying aside of all
conflicting ideas, uneasy dreams, and fallacious reasoning, of all
intents and purposes that might war with a sober and honourable
discharge of exalted public duties. They are exalted, sir, and they may
be so highly discharged, so ably and so loftily, as to infinitely
dignify the office that has already great traditions. A Governor of
Virginia may be the theme, sir, of many a far distant panegyric--"
Again he rose and stalked across the room, then, returning to the
hearth, stood before Rand, his high, thin features somewhat flushed and
his deep old eyes alight. "Mr. Rand, it would be idle to deny to you
that I have had for you both dislike and mistrust. You may, if you
choose, even strengthen these terms and say that I have regarded you
with hatred and contempt. I am a man of strong feelings, sir, and you
outraged them--you outraged them! Well, I am prepared to bury all that.
Become a great Governor of Virginia, serve your land truly, according
to the lights vouchsafed to a Republican, and, though we may not vote
for you, sir, yet we--my brother Dick and I--we will watch your career
with interest--yes, damn me, sir! with interest, pride, and affection!"
He broke off to stare moodily into the fire and, with his foot, to
thrust farther in a burning log.
"An olive branch!" exclaimed Rand, smiling. "This is a whole grove of
olives! I am sorry about the governorship--"
"I have made enquiries," interrupted the other harshly. "You have but to
signify your change of mind to your committee, and your name is up. The
governorship--the governorship is not all! It is but a step from
Richmond to Washington. There's field enough for even a towering
ambition." He looked around him. "And Roselands. This place has always
had a charm. In the old days it was famed for hospitality--for
hospitality and for the beauty of its women."
"In neither respect, sir, has it lost its reputation."
Major Edward made a gesture of acquiescence. "I dare say not, sir, I
dare say not. I am told that Republicans flock here. And Jacqueline is a
beautiful woman. Well, sir, why should not pilgrimages be made to
Roselands as to Monticello? You have begun to improve it. Continue, and
make the place a Garden of Eden, a Farm of Cincinnatus, a--a--what you
will! Dick thinks that you may not be in funds to plant and build as you
desire. If that is so, sir, either he or I might with ease accommodate
you--" He paused.
"I take your offer as it is meant," said Rand, "and thank you both. But
my affairs are in order, and I am not straitened for money."
The Major made a courteous gesture. "It was but a supposition. Well, Mr.
Rand, why not? Why not make the picture real that we are painting?
Eminent in public affairs--eminent in the law--ay, there, sir, I will
praise you unreservedly. You are a great lawyer--worshipped by your
party and in the line of succession to its highest gift, fixed in your
state and county and happy in your home, rounding out your life with all
that makes life worthy to be lived,--
"Honour, love, obedience, troops of friends.
"Is not the picture fair enough, sir? There is in it no mirage, no Fata
Morgana, no marsh fire. You are a man of great abilities, with ample
power to direct those inner forces to outward ends that shall truly gild
your name. Truly, sir, not falsely. Gold, not pinchbeck. Clear glory of
duty highly done, not a cloudy fame whose wings are drenched with blood
and tears. Come, sir, come--make an old man happy!" He dragged his chair
nearer to Rand and held out his hand.
"I cannot accept the nomination for Governor, sir," said Rand. "There
are various considerations which put it out of the question. I cannot go
into these with you. You must take it from me that it is impossible."
The Major drew back. "That is final, sir?"
"That is final."
There was a silence. Rand sat, chin in hand, thoughtfully regarding his
visitor. Major Churchill, erect, rigid, grey, and arid, stared before
him as though indeed he saw only snowy plains, fallen men, and a forlorn
hope. At last he spoke in a dry and difficult voice. "You persevere in
your intention of returning to Richmond and to your house on Shockoe
Hill in November?"
"It is my plan, sir, to go to Richmond in November."
"Immediately upon your return from over the mountains?"
Rand shot a glance at his interlocutor. "Immediately."
"These lands that you are going to see, sir--they are not as far as the
Washita?"
"No; they are not as far as the Washita." Rand sat upright and let his
hand fall heavily upon the arm of his chair. "That is a curious
question, Major Churchill."
"Do you find it so?" asked the Major grimly. "_I_ should, were it asked
of me--so damned strange a question that it would not pass without
challenge! But then, I am not declining governorships nor travelling
West."
Rand rose from his chair. "Major Churchill"--He stopped short, bit his
lip, and walked away to the window. There he drew the curtain slightly
aside and stood with brow pressed against a pane, gazing out into the
frosty darkness. A half moon just lifted the wide landscape out of
shadow, and from the interlacing boughs of trees the coloured leaves
were falling. Rand looked at the distant mountains, but the eye of his
mind travelled farther yet and saw all the country beyond, all the land
of the To Be, all the giant valley of the Mississippi, all the rolling,
endless plains, all Mexico with snowy peaks and mines of gold. The
apparition did not come dazzlingly. He was no visionary. He weighed and
measured and reckoned carefully with his host. But there, beyond the
mountains, lay no small part of the habitable world,--and the race of
conquerors had not died with Alexander or Cæsar, Cortez or Pizarro!
Witness Marengo and Austerlitz and that throne at Fontainebleau! He
dropped the curtain from his hand and turned to the firelit room and to
the tense grey figure on the hearth. "Major Churchill, if, softened by
Jacqueline's presence there at Fontenoy, you came to-night to Roselands
with the simple purpose of making friends with the man she loves, then,
sir, that man would be a heartless churl indeed if he were not touched
and gratified, and did not accept with eagerness such an overture. But,
sir, but! There is more, I think, in your visit to-night than meets the
eye. You demand that I shall become my party's candidate for the
governorship. I answer it is not now possible. You insist that I shall
busy myself with improvements here at Roselands, and to that end you
offer to reinforce my purse. I answer that Roselands does very well, and
that I am not in need of money. You preach to me patriotism and refer to
General Washington; you speak poetically of gold _versus_ pinchbeck, and
true glory _versus_ fame with drenched wings; you ask me certain
questions in a voice that has hardly the ring of friendship--and last
but not least you wish to know if a parcel of land that I have bought
over the mountains is situate upon the Washita! The Washita, Major
Churchill, is on the far side of the Mississippi, in Spanish Territory.
May I ask, sir, before I withdraw my welcome to Roselands, by what right
you are entitled to put such a question to me, and what is, indeed, the
purport of your visit here to-night?"
Major Edward Churchill rose, stark and grey, with narrowed eyes and
deliberating, pointing hand. "You are a villain, sir; yes, sir, a
damned, skilled, heart-breaking villain! Bold! yes, you are bold--bold
as others of your tribe of whom the mythologies tell! Arrogant as
Lucifer, you are more wretched than the slave in your fields! You might
have been upon the side of light; you have chosen darkness. It will
swallow you up, and I, for one, shall say, 'The night hath its own.' You
have chosen wrongly where you might have chosen rightly, and you have
not done so in blind passion but in cold blood, fully and freely, under
whatever monstrous light it is by which you think you walk! I have
warned you of the gulf, and I have warned in vain. So be it! But do not
think, sir, do not think that you will be allowed to drag with you, down
into the darkness, the woman whom you have married! I wish that my niece
had died before she saw your face! Do you know what she thinks you, sir?
She thinks you a lover so devoted that at her pleading you put forever
from you a gilded lure; a gentleman so absolutely of your word that for
her to doubt it would be the blackest treason; a statesman and a patriot
who will yet nobly serve Virginia and the country! God knows what she
doesn't think you--the misguided child! She's happy to-night, at
Fontenoy, because she's coming home to you to-morrow. That I should have
lived to say such a thing of Henry Churchill's daughter! When I rode
away to-night, she was singing." He burst into spasmodic and grating
laughter. "It was that song of Lovelace's! By God, sir, she must have
had you in mind.
"I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more.
"Yes, by God, she was thinking of you! Ha ha, ha ha!"
"You are an old man," said Rand. "It is well for you that you are. I
wish to know who is responsible for these conjectures, suspicions,
charges--whatever term you choose, sir, for all are alike indifferent to
me--which brought you here to-night? Who, sir, is the principal in this
affair? You are an old man, and you are my wife's kinsman; doubly are
you behind cover; but who, who, Major Churchill, set you on to speak of
towering ambition and blood-drenched wings and broken vows and deceived
innocence, and all the rest of this night's farrago? Who, I say--who?"
"Ask on, sir," answered the Major grimly. "There is no law against
asking, as there is none to compel an answer. Sir, I am about to remove
myself from a house that I shall not trouble again, and I have but three
words to say before I bid you good-night. I warn you not to proceed with
your Luciferian schemes, whatever they may be, sir, whatever they may
be! I warn you that it is ill travelling over the mountains at this
season of the year, and I solemnly protest to you that my niece shall
not travel with you!"
"And who," asked Rand calmly,--"and who will prevent that?"
"Sir," answered the other, "a grain of sand or a blade of grass, if
rightly placed." He shook his long forefinger at the younger man. "You
have been fortunate for a long turn in the game, Lewis Rand, and you
have grown to think the revolving earth but a pin-wheel for your
turning. You will awake some day, and since there is that in you which
charity might call perverted greatness, I think that you will suffer
when you awake. In which hope, sir, I take my leave. Mr. Rand, I have
the honour to bid you a very good-night."
The master of Roselands rang the bell. "Good-night, Major Churchill. I
am sorry that we part no better friends, and I regret that you will not
tell me what gatherer up of rumour and discoverer of mares' nests was at
the pains to procure me the honour of this visit. I might hazard a
guess--but no matter. Joab, Major Churchill's horse. Good-night, sir."
He bowed formally. Major Churchill stood for a moment looking straight
before him with a somewhat glassy stare, then, "Good-night, Mr. Rand,"
he said, in a voice like a wind through November reeds, made a bow as
low and as studied as that with which he had once honoured Rand in the
Fontenoy drawing-room, turned with martial precision, and stalked from
the room.
Lewis Rand stood long upon the hearth, staring down into the fire. He
heard Major Edward's horse go down the drive and out upon the highroad
with a swiftness that spoke of a rider in a passion. The sound of hoofs
died away, and he still stood looking into the red hollows, but at last
with a short and angry laugh he turned away and opened the door which
led to the dining-room. "Are you still there, Tom? Come in, man! The
accusing angel has gone."
Tom appeared, and the two went back to the great table in the centre of
the room. Rand unlocked the drawer and took out the papers in the
perusal of which they had been interrupted. Mocket snuffed the candles
and tossed another log of hickory upon the fire. "It falls in with what
Gaudylock suspected," said Rand's measured voice behind him, "and it all
dates back to the nineteenth of February. When he left the house that
night, he must have known--"
"Of whom are you talking?" asked Tom at the fire. "Major Edward?"
"No, not Major Edward. And now he is using his knowledge. She told me
to-day that he was often at Fontenoy. Too often, too often, Ludwell
Cary!"
"Now, after stopping my mouth, you have spoken his name yourself!"
remarked Tom. "You and he are over against each other in that case
to-morrow, aren't you?"
"In every case we are over against each other," said the other abruptly.
"And we shall be so until Judgment Day. Come, man, come! we have all
these to go through with before cockcrow."