admiration and greatly tenderer sentiment than he had believed himself
capable of feeling toward any woman since Margaret had been lost to him.
"She is certainly charming," he said to himself; then correcting his
thought he said, "No, that is not the word; it is commonplace,
conventional, cheap, and nothing commonplace, conventional or cheap can
describe Millicent Danvers. She is all woman--that's it, and I can't
imagine anything better as belonging to this world or the next. She is
honest, truthful, genuine, but those are ordinary virtues, and her
virtues are not confined to the ordinary. She is sympathetic with all
things that are essentially right and of good report. Still, that is
not the secret of her charm, for many women--perhaps most women--are
all that. She has high ideals and she is loyal to them. She's the sort
of woman Jephtha's daughter is supposed to have been, and at the same
time she has all the qualities that make the story of Ruth the greatest
masterpiece of all literature. Heroism is hers, and gentleness not
less. She is a Joan of Arc and she is the most trusting child that was
ever gently dandled on one's knee. I have it! She has faith; she
believes; she trusts, and in her belief she dares and honors daring.
Heroism is to her an object of worship; devotion a divine inspiration;
truth an inborn characteristic. It is just as I said before--she is all
woman, and in all God's work he created nothing else so good or so
great as that."
As he reached this point in his meditations he was passing the outer
gates of The Oaks plantation, and suddenly his thought reverted to
Margaret.
"She, too, is a woman of that type," he reflected. "I do not understand
her silence, but I should be unworthy of any woman's love if I doubted
her truth. I will not doubt her. I will let no other take her place in
my heart so long as I live. She is all that Millicent Danvers is, and
to me she is more and always must be. She is the woman who gave me love
for love, and even in an estrangement that can now never be undone, I
cannot forget the troth we plighted before Fate interposed to spoil my
life. I shall not attend the dance at Dr. Carver's."
XXV
THE GREAT RENUNCIATION
The drizzling rain that had marred the day had ceased during the
afternoon. The late October sun had set in a golden glory while yet
Westover lingered by the side of Millicent Danvers in the porch of the
Magister homestead. The evening that followed was irresistibly tempting
to lovers of the out of doors.
Two men sat in converse in the porch at Wanalah.
Two women sat in converse in the porch at The Oaks.
The two men were Boyd Westover and Jack Towns.
The two women were Margaret Conway and Millicent Danvers.
The conversations in the two porches were utterly unlike in substance,
in tone and in effect. Nevertheless they were not unrelated--in part at
least.
Jack Towns had come to give an account of his stewardship, but
Westover, with his habitual indifference to petty details, insisted
upon it that the report should be broadly general.
"When a man has arranged a matter," he said, "involving nine seven
times over, I like him to say sixty-three at the outset, instead of
seven times nine. I hate to multiply and divide and add and subtract."
"Why the deuce are you doing it, then?" demanded Jack.
"As how?"
"Why by making the wholly needless and utterly idle computation that
seven times nine is sixty-three. Why didn't you just say you liked
totals rather than the factors producing them?"
"I suppose it is because I never studied law and therefore haven't a
well ordered mind."
"And I don't suppose anything of the sort. I suppose it's because your
mind is fascinated with some other subject--and by the way she really
is charming--so that it wearies you to think of anything else. Perhaps
you'll feel otherwise when you hear what I have to tell you. Are you
ready to listen?"
"Yes, certainly. Go on."
"Very well then. That father of yours was never so wise in all his life
as when he bought all that mining land up in the Rocky Mountains. I
don't know and I can't even guess how he found out the value of what he
was buying."
"Perhaps he didn't," said Boyd. "May be he was simply coppering on the
ace and taking the chances."
"I had thought of that. It's the most probable solution. However that
may be, he managed to buy Golconda and Ophir and California and
Australia and the mint and the assay office all in one when he
disbursed a few thousand dollars for about the most desolate spot on
earth, a place where you not only can't raise a potato but can't even
boil one because of the altitude. It takes half an hour up there to
produce a soft-boiled egg. You can boil water in two minutes, and as it
boils it is so cool you can bathe in it half a minute later. I have
some counterfeit continental currency in a cabinet at my house, and
upon my word, if anybody had offered me all the land your father bought
for you up there in exchange for one of those old and doubly
discredited shin-plasters, I wouldn't have made the trade."
"Then the whole thing--"
"Nothing of the kind. I didn't say that or suggest it. I've put your
land and mining rights into a new company that already has machinery
and management and technical skill and brains established there. The
stock of that company will pay heaven only knows how many hundred per
cent. per annum in the way of dividends, and thirty-nine per cent. of
it is yours. By way of boot, as horse traders call it, I brought away
nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars in sight drafts on New York and
Boston. I tried hard to force them to make it a million just for the
name of the thing, but I couldn't because they are men of affairs with
no sense of the picturesque. And after all--"
"What on earth am I to do with all that money?" asked Boyd in a tone of
distressed perplexity.
"Oh, you'll manage that easily enough after you get used to having it.
And if you don't want to bother yourself about it, you needn't. I've
already invested it for you, acting under my blanket power of attorney,
so that the interest is all you'll have to look out for."
"What have you done with it, Jack?"
"In view of the disturbed condition of politics in this country and the
rumors of possible war, I have had something more than half of it sent
to the Barings in London to be invested in British consols and French
rentes. The rest is invested in Virginia sixes and other good, interest
paying bonds, and is in the vaults of August Belmont & Co. in New York.
By way of providing you with pocket money, I've placed twenty-five
thousand dollars to your credit in the Farmers' Bank of Virginia.
There. There isn't a seven times nine problem in that whole story for
you to wrestle with. You've got only your sixty-three to consider, and
when you grow quite sane again you can go over the detailed statements
that I shall leave with you. Now tell me, what does it mean--Colonel
Conway's attitude I refer to of course."
"Frankly, I don't know."
"Tell me all you do know, and perhaps I can figure out the rest. You
see it doesn't appall me to have a seven to multiply by a nine."
"As I said before, I don't know. Colonel Conway's attitude is a puzzle
to me. Either he thinks I've done something to offend, or he doesn't.
If he thinks so, it isn't conceivable that he should sulk. It is his
habit in such cases to make an open issue of the matter. He's a
fighter, you know, and not a moody, secretive hater. If he doesn't
think I have done anything that should offend him, I cannot understand
why he does not call upon me, and especially I don't understand why he
avoided meeting me by staying away from the Court House to-day, where I
happen to know he had important business. I shall challenge his
attitude pretty soon and force some sort of explanation."
"Yes, and by way of preparation for that, you are falling in love with
the girl from Boston. That will complicate matters charmingly. Really,
Boyd, for a man of brains, education, culture and all that, you now and
then make the most elaborately embroidered idiot of yourself I ever
knew."
"But I'm not in love with Miss Danvers; I never saw her until to-day."
"I quite understand that. Nevertheless after you have met her three or
four times more, you'll make the mistake of thinking yourself in love
with her, and you'll court her and she will accept you--for she's
positively daffy about you, as I easily found out after you left this
evening. Then you'll awake to the fact that after all a man's
affections are not so easily transferred as shares of stock are. You've
never told me so, but I know, nevertheless, that the one love of your
life is for Margaret Conway, and if you permit yourself to attempt a
transfer of that passion, you'll repent it in sackcloth and ashes so
long as you live. No, don't interrupt me. I'm in desperate earnest, and
I'm going to say my say out, even if it results in your ordering my
horse and bidding me be gone from Wanalah forever. Now listen to me. I
once had a case of quarrelling heirs to deal with. If they had been
left to their own devices, the whole estate they were fighting for
would have been dissipated in chancery proceedings. I went to each of
them separately and compelled each to tell me his side of the story. I
found that the whole trouble lay in a lot of mutual misunderstandings,
as most quarrels do. I multiplied seven by nine and found it made
sixty-three, and after a little I got all of them to accept sixty-three
as the product of the factors. In other words, I settled the whole
affair, merely by finding out both sides of the facts.
"Now in this case of yours, I am satisfied that the entire trouble
arises from a mutual misunderstanding. I insist that you shall tell me
all the facts as you understand them. I shall find means of discovering
just what the facts are as the other side understands them. It is
impertinent in an extreme degree for me to inquire into the matter at
all. But in the practice of the law it is my function and duty to be
impertinent. Go on, then, and tell me the facts as you understand them."
When Jack began his speech, Westover foresaw what was coming, and was
resentfully determined to permit no trespass of such sort upon his
privacy. But before Jack had finished, the old dream of life and love,
with Margaret for its saint and sovereign, had revived in his mind.
What if, after all, Jack Towns should be able to unravel the mystery of
Margaret's silence and open a way for him? In that moment all the love
he had cherished for Margaret surged back upon his soul in an
overwhelming flood that made all other women objects of courteous but
complete indifference. He saw clearly that no woman on earth could ever
take the place in his heart that this one woman had made her own. He
could not even conjecture how the result could be brought about, but
the very dream of it so far fascinated him that he was ready to put
aside all reserve and respond in perfect candor to Jack Towns's
impertinence.
"I hardly know how to tell the story, Jack," he responded, "but I'll
tell it somehow, if you'll give me time. Margaret and I were brought up
together. Never mind that; it is unimportant. The time came when I
loved her and she loved me, and we told each other so. With her
father's enthusiastic consent we became engaged, and it was planned
that the marriage should take place during the late summer--as soon as
I should get the affairs of Wanalah adjusted. With that in view I went
to Richmond. You know what happened there. I wrote to Margaret many
times. I got no word of reply. I hoped for her sympathy; I had silence
instead. I expected Colonel Conway to come to my side during my
trouble, and to lend me at least the encouragement of belief in me. He
neither came nor sent a line of sympathy in support of my courage. Even
the death of my mother--the cruellest blow that fate had ever dealt
me--brought no word or line from him or from Margaret. When my name was
cleared of stigma by the confession of the real culprit, I came back
here to Wanalah with the avowed purpose of making necessary
preparations for my sojourn in the mountains. In point of fact, as I
know now--my purpose was to open the way for some communication between
Wanalah and The Oaks. No such communication came. Colonel Conway did
not call upon me, and Margaret sent me no line. Since then Colonel
Conway has emphasized his disapproval of me in other ways, as you are
aware."
"Yes, well? You believe yourself possessed of ordinary common sense, I
suppose?" asked Jack Towns in the tone he was in the habit of using
when cross examining a witness whom he intended to discomfit.
"Yes, of course."
"Are you acquainted with Margaret Conway?"
"Why, of course you know--"
"I know nothing. I'm trying to find out. Answer the question. Are you
acquainted with Margaret Conway?"
"Yes. I've known her ever since she was born."
"Is she the sort of woman who would or could do what she appears to
have done in this case? Is it conceivable that she has left you in a
crisis like that which you have gone through, without a word of reply
to letters received from you? Is it probable? Is it even possible? Is
it thinkable?"
"Apparently--"
"Oh, hang 'apparently.' Apparently the sun circles round the earth, but
we know better. Apparently the moon is made of green cheese, but it
isn't. Apparently you are a crass idiot, but in the ultimate analysis
you are nothing of the kind. Now answer my question: Is it probable or
even conceivably possible that under the circumstances of your trouble
in Richmond, Margaret Conway, pledged as she was to be your wife, and
possessed as she is of an exalted conception of womanly truth and
honor, and saturated as she is with the courage of a proud race, the
courage that does duty and dares consequences--is it conceivably
possible that she has under such circumstances sat still and left
unanswered letters received from you in your travail?"
"It seems unaccountable--" began Boyd, and his companion interrupted
him:
"Nobody has asked you to account for that which could not have
happened. I am asking you to search your own soul and say whether or
not this thing can be true. If anybody should tell me that Boyd
Westover had set up a counterfeiting plant in one of his barns and was
busily 'shoving the queer,' would you expect me to go bothering about
how such a thing could have come about? Would you not expect rather
that I should give the story the lie without further ado? This is a
like case. If you know Margaret Conway, you know she has not been
guilty of this stupendous wrong. You have no right to go on acting as
if she had been."
"You are right of course," Boyd replied, "so far at least as the
principle is concerned. But how do you account for the facts?"
"It isn't my business to account for the facts. I know and you know
that under the circumstances which arose in this case, Margaret Conway
_did not leave unanswered any letter she received from you_. Either she
did not receive your letters, or you did not receive her replies, or,
more probably, both things happened."
"But how could that be? I--"
"I don't know. I'm not the proper person to ask. I'm going up to bed
now, if you don't mind. I've said all I had in mind to say."
The conversation in the other porch was not like this, and yet in its
way it was not unlike it.
"I hope you enjoyed yourself at the Magisters' to-day, Millicent," said
Margaret as the two seated themselves in the porch. "I'm sorry I
couldn't be with you, but you see old Judy was very low, and I really
had to stay with her."
"Of course. Only it's all an astonishment to me--I mean the way in
which you look after negroes who are ill."
"Why, of course we must do that--"
"Yes, I understand now, but I didn't. I thought you treated them as so
many cattle. Of course I knew you looked after your own maids and other
personal serving women, but I thought field negroes--"
"I know, dear. The whole system, is bad and I wish we were rid of it.
But people up North always imagine that its worst possibilities are the
daily facts, and we naturally resent that. We aren't angels by any
means, but at least we are human beings. Never mind that now. Tell me
about the dinner and the company."
"Well, I didn't see much of the company. The Judge and Mr. Towns, and
the Judge's wife and the Commonwealth's Attorney talked hotly about law
things that I didn't at all understand, so I talked mainly with Mr.
Boyd Westover. Margaret, I'd like to spend my whole life listening to
him talk. You see he's so big and strong, and yet so gentle and
chivalric. He makes you feel that you ought to think yourself worth
while, because he respects you so, and is so deferential to you. Why,
even my poor little thinkings seemed to me of some account because of
the way in which he listened to me and treated my utterances. I tell
you, Margaret, he is the most perfect type of the gentleman I ever saw
or dreamed of."
The night was starlit, but there was no moon as yet, for it was far
past the full, and the porch was dark. Margaret Conway was grateful for
the shadow. It hid her countenance and prevented self-revelation of a
kind that must have filled her soul with humiliation and shame. It gave
her time in which to recover her self-control. Presently she forced
herself to say:
"Mr. Westover is certainly a good example of our best type of
gentleman. You'll like him more as you become better acquainted with
him, and fortunately you'll meet him again almost immediately. He's
sure to be at the dance at Dr. Carver's over at Fighting Creek."
"Yes, he's to speak over there. Oh, Margaret, I wonder if I might hear
his speech? Do they let women attend? You see he is so big and brave
and manly and _so_ handsome. He's sure to make a speech worth listening
to. Do you think I might get a chance to hear it?"
"Yes, dear, certainly," responded Margaret in a voice that in spite of
her had something of hardness in it. "I will arrange that. You'll sit
in a carriage on the outskirts of the crowd, and you can hear every
word, unless--"
"Unless what, Margaret?"
"Oh, I was only thinking out loud. You see your carriage will be
surrounded by half a dozen young men, all in love with you, all madly
jealous, and all eager to win and hold your attention. If you can
suppress them, you'll hear the whole speech."
"Tell me, Margaret, have you known him a long time?"
"Yes, all my life."
"I see," she answered. What she had in her mind was that the intimacy
between these two was perhaps too close and too familiar to permit a
softer feeling to grow up between them. "Otherwise," she reflected,
"they would have been lovers of course. How could either of them help
that?"
But she gave no utterance to the thought. She only subconsciously
rejoiced that matters were as she supposed them to be.
"I don't think I can be with you over at Fighting Creek, Millicent,"
said Margaret after she had mastered herself and formed a plan.
"But why not? I shall not go if you can't," answered the girl with
emphasis.
"Oh, yes, you will. I wish you to be there. You'll meet everybody in
this whole region who is worth meeting. I wouldn't have you miss that
on any account. Besides, I should get up a very unlovely reputation for
selfishness, if I suffered you to miss such a festivity merely because
I can't enjoy it with you."
"But why can't you, Margaret?"
"There are several reasons. For one thing my father is laid up with an
attack of the gout, you know. That's why he turned back after he had
started to Court to-day. He doesn't seem to be suffering much, but gout
is treacherous, and I must be within call of him. Then again there are
two or three cases of fever at the far quarters."
Then, as if fearing to have the sufficiency of her excuses too closely
questioned, she hurriedly added:
"I've planned it all beautifully, Millicent. I'll send you over to
Fighting Creek in The Oaks carriage. My maid shall go with you as
escort, and I'll send for Carter Barksdale to go on horseback as your
gallant outrider. You see Carter is only seventeen years of age, and he
reads Byron and Shelley and Scott till he's saturated with romance.
He's perfectly charming, and you'll enjoy his escort all the more
because he's just old enough to fall madly in love with you at first
sight, and just young enough to be afraid to tell you so. He's a
Virginia type that I want you to meet. That sort of boy is at his best
when he's seventeen and takes himself so seriously that he shrinks from
the open declaration of the fancies he mistakes for passions. He will
revel in a silent, unspoken, unrequited love for one as far removed
from his approach as the northern star, 'of whose true, fixed, and
resting quality' he will quote, 'there is no fellow in the firmament.'
Of course, after he has thoroughly enjoyed the unspeakable wretchedness
of a blighted passion, he will fall in love with the next young woman
several years older than himself who comes in his way, and have the
romance all over again."
"Margaret," said Millicent seriously and tenderly, "you are not happy
to-night. You are cynical. Something has disturbed you. Don't you feel
that you can tell me what it is and let me share your sorrow as freely
as you let me share your more joyful moods?"
Margaret Conway was too inherently truthful to protest that she had no
cause of unhappiness when she had. But, with an instinctive flinching
from self-revelation, which every sensitive soul experiences at such a
time, she carefully framed her speech for purposes of avoidance.
"I don't think I'm cynical, Millicent. I don't feel so. I meant only to
be amusing in talking of something that always amuses me. It has always
seemed to me funny that young men should be so desperately afraid of us
young women even when we are trembling in holy awe of them. I've seen
so much of that sort of thing. Sometimes it becomes tragical and spoils
lives that do not deserve to be spoiled. I knew one case in which it
was saved from doing that only by the impertinent interference of a
very peculiar young woman."
"Oh, it's a story," exclaimed Millicent, "and a love story at that.
Tell it please."
"It isn't much of a story, but I'll tell it. I had a governess whom I
loved dearly and with reason. She taught me all I know, and--"
"She must have been a woman of wonderful acquirements then."
"She was and is, but such culture as I possess is not an adequate
indication of her learning or of her capacity to teach. I owe her all I
ever learned; I owe to my own indifference all the defects in my
education."
There was something in Margaret's tone as she said this, that attracted
Millicent's attention.
"She is certainly cynical, self-accusative, unsatisfied," she
reflected. "She isn't happy, and it behooves you, Millicent Danvers, to
find out the cause and remedy the condition if you can."
Without uttering that thought, she said:
"You aren't telling me the love story, Margaret, and I'm eager to hear
that before I let Carter Barksdale fall in love with me. You see I'm
young and wholly inexperienced, and I naturally want to learn how such
things are conducted."
Margaret laughed lowly, as she thought: "A girl like you doesn't need
lessons in the conduct of love affairs. To such as you, love,--like 'to
write and read, comes by nature.'"
Then she resumed her story: