than anybody has ever told me. My woman's instinct has instructed me.
It may be in error as to details, but I am right as to the essentials,
and in such a case it is the essentials alone that need be considered.
I'll tell you the story of the situation as I understand it. You are
not a woman to love lightly, or lightly to forget."
Margaret well nigh fell from her horse as she heard her own
passionately uttered words thus repeated in merely explanatory fashion,
but in a moment she realized that this was purely a coincidence.
Millicent had chosen the words for herself; she could not have heard
them as a quotation.
"There may be many fancies to a woman like you, but there can be only
one passionate, self-giving, all-surrendering love. It is commonly said
that there is no such thing as self-sacrificing loyalty or friendship
between women--that while we may heroically sacrifice ourselves for the
love of a man we never sacrifice that love in loyalty to a woman. It is
a slander on our sex. I accepted it as true until very recently; indeed
I saw many things to confirm it. I know better now."
She paused for a considerable time, but Margaret did not prompt her to
go on. Perhaps she foresaw what was coming, and at any rate she saw
clearly that there was struggle and disturbance in Millicent's mind.
After awhile the girl resumed:
"The one love of your life, Margaret, is for Mr. Boyd Westover. It
began long before you knew it and it will last as long as you live. Now
I am going to make a shameful confession," she added. Then she broke
into a gallop, but when the horses resumed a moderate pace she did not
make the confession. Perhaps she shrank from it. Perhaps she deemed it
unnecessary. Perhaps she thought its making might tend rather to
complicate than to simplify the problems in hand. However that may be,
she made no further reference to the matter, but took up her parable
where she had laid it down.
"Something, I don't know what--yes, I do, but I don't know why--has
come between you and Mr. Boyd Westover. I am not blind, and I think I
am not stupid. There were unopened letters there from him to you, and
other unopened letters from you to him. Without asking anybody any
questions I know that for some reason somebody has sought to cut off
communication between him and you. I see clearly that that purpose has
been accomplished, and I see that as a consequence he has been thinking
you fickle and treacherous, as women so often are, and you have been
thinking him disloyal and dishonorable."
"No, no, no," interrupted Margaret. "I have never accused him of
disloyalty or dishonor, even in my wildest moments of perplexity and
distress. I have never for one moment doubted his honor. It is only
that I have been unable to conjecture why he left me in silence, when
in fact he was writing great, manly, loving letters to me every day.
Oh, Millicent, it was cruel, and I can never forgive--"
She did not need mention the name.
"You haven't read Mr. Westover's unopened letters," suggested Millicent.
"No, I have no right now. They were written in the past, when he loved
and trusted me. He might not wish me to read them now. He might not
feel in the same way toward me now that he did then."
"That's stuff and nonsense, I think, Margaret. I really do. If I were
you I should read the letters carefully. Then I should sit down and
write to Mr. Boyd Westover, enclosing the letters you wrote to him at
that time and explaining how all the trouble had come about."
"That would never, never do. It would be throwing myself like a
cast-off garment at his feet. It would be asking him to renew relations
that he may have been glad to forget."
"You say that, Margaret, but you don't believe it. Neither do I."
"I think, Millicent, you don't understand our conventionalities down
here. It would be impossible for any Virginia girl, under such
circumstances, to take the initiative in reopening relations. That is
the prerogative of the gentleman in the case."
"But when the gentleman doesn't know the facts, and the woman does,
what then?"
"That makes no possible difference."
"You are right on one point, Margaret. I do not understand your
conventions, nor do I in the least sympathize with them. They are shams
and falsities, as all conventionalities are, and they are cruel beyond
measure. They decree that where a mistake has been made and the woman
discovers it, she must let wreck and ruin overwhelm two lives--her own
and that of the man she loves--rather than send to him a simple and
easy explanation of the mistake that has made the trouble. No, I do not
understand such conventions. What are you going to do?"
"I'll place the whole thing in my father's hands, and he shall do what
he will with it."
"And as to the one who has wrought all this mischief?"
"My relations with my Aunt Betsy will be changed. Come! We must hurry
back to the house. I want my father to know what has happened."
They trotted on for a space, when suddenly Millicent reined in her
horse and Margaret stopped in company, for Millicent had come to a
complete halt in the roadway. For a moment the two confronted each
other without a word, for Millicent, sitting on her horse with
compressed lips and set jaw, did not at first explain herself. After a
while she said:
"I cannot sit idly by and see two glorious young lives wrecked when a
next to nothing would save both. I am a Yankee, of Boston, but so was
Paul Revere. Let me have those letters. Ask me no questions, but let me
ride as Paul Revere did!"
For a moment Margaret hesitated. The temptation was very great, but she
put it aside.
"That would never do, Millicent," she said. "I understand your loving
loyalty and I am grateful for it, but that would never do. To Mr.
Westover you would be my emissary, no matter what you might say. It
would be the same as if I went to him myself."
"Is your decision final, or may I argue the matter?" Millicent asked.
"It is final," Margaret answered, and not another word was spoken
during the remainder of the homeward journey.
XXX
WHAT HAD HAPPENED AT THE OAKS
That little jaunt on horseback that Margaret, with her friend, took by
way of steadying her nerves, was perhaps a mistake. If she had gone to
her father at once, while "Aunt Betsy" was making herself comfortable
in bed, the impulsive old gentleman would have been off on a journey to
Wanalah within five minutes, and his intent to explain and make
reparation would have accomplished its purpose instantly.
But Margaret went riding instead, and no sooner did "Aunt Betsy" learn
of the fact than she made a quick recovery from her illness, and almost
before the two young women were out of sight of the house, "Aunt
Betsy," tearful and in every other way appealing, was closeted with
Colonel Conway. She thus gained the distinct advantage of being first
on the ground. Her tears and her agitation appealed strongly to the
protective instinct of the chivalric old soldier. She told him in her
own way what had happened, diverting his attention from her own
misconduct by lamentations and copious weepings and protestations that
in all she had done she had sought only to protect the honor and
dignity of the family and to prevent Margaret--"an unformed girl"--from
compromising herself in her ignorance of the world.
It would be too much to say that she convinced her brother of the
righteousness of her conduct. Tampering with letters--even without
reading them--was to him a point of special sensitiveness, and there
were other matters involved which he could in no wise reconcile with
his conceptions of honorable conduct. But he recognized the weakness of
women as a palliation of misconduct, and his sister's tearful appeals
to him for the protection of her dignity affected him in the tenderest
part of his nature.
He was profoundly displeased with her, but she was his sister,
nevertheless, and he was her natural protector. It was his duty and his
desire to spare her, so far as might be possible, but he felt also the
obligation to censure and correct her.
"You have done a gravely improper thing, Betsy," he said, with
sternness and tenderness struggling for mastery in his tone. "Indeed
what you have done is unpardonable, inexcusable,--except that as a
woman you did not know the enormity of your act."
"That is the main point, Robert," she interrupted, "and I beg you to
bear it in mind. All I did was done with good intentions. I am
naturally solicitous for the honor of our family, and I--"
"And you did a dishonorable thing in that behalf," he said with
severity in his tone. "In your desire to protect the family name you
did a thing that would forever subject it to shame, if it should become
known."
"That is it, Robert. It mustn't become known. I depend upon you, as the
head of the family, to prevent that. Blame me as severely as you will,
but don't expose me, don't subject me to criticism and scorn! Oh,
Robert, I beg you to protect me!"
"I'll protect you of course," he replied, "but you have made it
difficult and exceedingly embarrassing for me to do so. I have my own
conscience to reckon with. You have made me do things, in ignorance of
the facts--I may as well be frank and say you have deliberately
deceived me into the doing of wrongs for which I know not how to atone
or even apologize. If you were not my sister, if you were not under my
protection, if I could be indifferent to your feelings--my course would
be simple and easy. A frank, manly statement of the facts would
exonerate me. As it is--"
"As it is, Robert, you cannot subject your sister to humiliation. You
_must_ protect me from shame. You must take pains that what has
happened shall never be known outside this house!"
It was at this stage of the conversation that Margaret entered. "Aunt
Betsy," confident that she had secured herself, said:
"I will leave you to talk with your father, Margaret, if you desire."
"No," the young woman answered; "I prefer that you should remain. I, at
least, have nothing to conceal, and I do not seek, as you do, to get my
father's ear in private. Besides, I have some things to say to you, and
I prefer to say them in my father's presence. I am mistress of The
Oaks. Hitherto, out of a respect which you have not justified, I have
permitted you to exercise certain functions that belong to me. I shall
do so no longer. I have given directions that hereafter I will make up
the outgoing mail bag and open the incoming one."
"But, my dear child--"
"I am not a child, Aunt Betsy. You have made some grievous mistakes in
forgetfulness of that fact. It shall not be forgotten again while I
remain mistress of this plantation. What was it you were going to say,
Aunt Betsy? I beg pardon for interrupting, but it seemed necessary."
"I was going to ask what the servants will think."
"I do not know what they will think, Aunt Betsy."
"On that point I must appeal to your father," "Aunt Betsy" replied.
"On that point it is _very dangerous for you to appeal_," answered the
younger woman, still preserving an extraordinary calm that was at once
astonishing and alarming to her aunt, but speaking with a degree of
emphasis that suggested something behind the words.
"What do you mean? Explain yourself," said "Aunt Betsy," in that
authoritative tone which she had all her life employed in addressing
her niece.
"I will explain if you wish," Margaret answered; "but I'd rather spare
you the explanation."
"I insist upon knowing what you mean," the elder woman unwisely replied.
"Very well, then; you shall hear. In addition to the wrong you have
done me, wrecking my life and placing me in a grievously false
position; in addition to the wrong you have done to another, you have
been guilty of the crime of robbing the United States mails, Aunt
Betsy, and as the minimum penalty of that crime is a long term in
prison, I do not think it wise of you to suggest appeals in this case.
It will be better, I think, to accept my decision as final."
[Illustration: "It will be better, I think, to accept my decision as
final." _Page 365_.]
The old lady rose in wrath, alarm, indignation and all the other
emotions of an exciting sort, and demanded to know what her niece meant
by such an accusation of infamy. At the same time Colonel Conway
exclaimed:
"Oh, daughter, daughter, you do not mean what you say. Take it back!
You are excited. You are beside yourself!"
"I am not in the least excited," the young woman answered. "I did not
wish or intend to mention that aspect of the matter, but Aunt Betsy
insisted upon it. I have no desire to emphasize it or to insist upon
it, if only my authority as mistress at The Oaks is properly
recognized. As your daughter, Father, I am entitled to that dignity
which you yourself have been fond of insisting upon; and as your
daughter I intend to exercise the authority and maintain the dignity of
that position so long as you permit me to hold it. When you cease to
permit that, I shall leave The Oaks and go to my own plantation of Tye,
which my mother left me. You must remember that I am a grown woman of
twenty-one, and that I am not a dependent upon anybody."
"Now, daughter," interrupted Colonel Conway with affection, "you are
talking nonsense. You know that you are mistress of The Oaks, and--"
"That is quite all I am insisting upon. As mistress of The Oaks I do
not intend to have my authority questioned or my affairs interfered
with by anybody. I'm sorry I have this occasion to assert myself, but
the circumstances are not of my making."
"But what do you mean, you--you--you ill-regulated girl,--in charging
me with a crime?" almost shrieked the elder woman as she confronted her
niece in an attitude that suggested a desire to shake her. "What do you
mean? What do you mean?"
"You'd better let that phase of the affair drop, Aunt Betsy," answered
the girl with a calm that additionally exasperated her aunt.
"No, I will not let it drop. You have uttered an accusation that I
cannot and will not let pass. You must say what you meant by it."
"I will say it if you insist," answered Margaret, still preserving her
exasperating calm.
"I do insist. I will not rest under such an accusation. Go on! Tell me
what you meant."
"I will," said Margaret. "You remember that five years ago an attempt
was made to open our mail bag in some political interest. Father
appealed to the Government for its protection, and from that day to
this it has gone back and forth under a United States mail lock. In
tampering with its contents--in abstracting from it letters addressed
to me, you--I don't like to put the matter into plain words. Let me say
instead that you violated the law which renders the United States mail
sacred. I'm sorry I have had to call your attention to such a matter,
but you forced the necessity upon me."
By this time it was necessary to summon maids and get "Aunt Betsy" back
to bed again,--genuinely ill this time.
It was not until she was made as comfortable as circumstances
permitted, that Colonel Conway and his daughter returned to the library
and resumed their conversation.
"Now, daughter," said the old soldier, "I am ready to do anything to
right this wrong--anything, of course, that will not compromise your
aunt."
"Father," responded the girl with a world of tenderness in her voice,
"you ought not to have anything to do in the matter. It is Aunt Betsy
who has wrought all the mischief. She has deceived you; she has
deceived me; she has deceived Mr. Westover. It should be her duty, not
yours, to undo the wrong she has done."
"But, my dear daughter, how can she? She is a woman."
"I know that, Father, and I know our Virginian view of such things. But
it is all wrong. You men of Virginia have granted to us women a license
that ought not to be. If one of us utters a slander, you hold
yourselves responsible for it even unto death. If one of us lies--it
isn't a ladylike term, I know, but it is what I mean--if one of us lies
you hold yourselves bound to maintain the lie and answer for it, even
at the pistol's point. You Virginia gentlemen insist upon only one
point of honor for women. So long as we observe that, we may lie and
cheat and slander at will and you sustain us in it. It is all wrong. If
a woman does mischief, she should herself atone for it. In this case it
is Aunt Betsy who has wrought the wrong and it is Aunt Betsy who should
undo it."
"But how can she, dear?"
"By going to Mr. Westover, or writing to him, and saying frankly: 'I
robbed the post bag of your letters to Margaret and her letters to
you.' That is what a brave man would do. Why should not a brave woman
do the same?"
"But, daughter, your aunt is a lady and excessively sensitive."
"She forgot to be a lady when she did this infamous thing, and her
sensitiveness is mainly a pretence assumed to play upon your chivalry
and to deceive you and others. If she were honest in mind, a real,
genuine, conscientious sensitiveness would prompt her to make precisely
the reparation I have suggested. As she is utterly dishonest and
dishonorable instead, I quite understand that no force, moral or
physical, could ever compel her to an act of reparation like that."
"My dear, you are very hard upon your poor old aunt."
"Not at all, Father. Truth is as much an obligation of women as of men.
So is courage of the moral sort. But it is idle to expect that after
generations in which you gentlemen of Virginia have excused us from all
obligations except that of chastity. You have assumed our protection,
and you have met that obligation bravely; but--well, I have thought
much on that subject, and what I have thought is of no consequence.
What are you going to do by way of righting the wrong Aunt Betsy has
done, as you excuse her from the obligation of herself righting it?"
"I'll do anything you suggest--anything that will not compromise your
aunt. You see I must protect her."
"I understand. The one who has wrought the wrong must be spared the
consequences. The victims of it must bear them. I have nothing whatever
to suggest, Father."
And with that she advanced, kissed him tenderly, said:
"Poor, dear old Dad!" and quietly left the room.
Then it was that Colonel Conway set himself to satisfy his daughter's
conscience and his own by writing a letter to Boyd Westover. Then it
was that, after repeated failures, he compromised with his conscience
by writing to Dr. Carley Farnsworth instead.
Then it was that under Dr. Carley Farnsworth's instructions Millicent
Danvers sent Colonel Conway and Margaret to bed.
"Aunt Betsy" was already sleeping the sleep of one who feels that she
has adroitly escaped uncomfortable consequences.
XXXI
A SUNSET INTERVIEW
The days were growing short, and so when Jack Towns approached The Oaks
that afternoon, the sun was setting and Millicent was watching it from
a little hilltop just beyond the orchard and perhaps half a mile from
the house.
Jack came upon her there and was fascinated with the picture she
presented. With her head bare and her hair in some disorder as a result
of facing the west wind too fearlessly, she wore upon her shoulders a
voluminous mass of fleecy knitted work known in those days as a
"nubia," or, by those who preferred good English to very bad dog-Latin,
a "cloud." As he approached from the east he saw her figure silhouetted
against the glowing western sky, and the grace of it fascinated him. It
was like a great picture--suggesting one of Turner's interpretations of
Venice, with an absorbing human interest added to the glow and glory of
it.
For to Jack Towns the girl who turned to greet him as he rode up was a
very absorbing human interest indeed. The hour he had passed in
converse with her on the day before, had left him with a glamor upon
him which even his jaunty indifference to permanent impressions could
not dismiss. He had been moved to make this special visit to The Oaks
by an irresistible desire to see more of a young woman whose
superiority of mind and character was strongly impressed upon him, and
whose very peculiarities--mainly due to differences of environment and
education--were strangely appealing to his imagination.
Upon approaching her there upon the little, sun illumined hilltop, he
dismounted, and, with bridle rein over his arm, joined her in
admiration of the glowing sunset.
[Illustration: He dismounted, and, with his bridle rein over his arm,
joined her.--_Page 373_.]
After the first greetings were over she said:
"Do you know, Mr. Towns, I think that is where your chivalry comes
from?" And as she said it, she waved her hand toward the horizon with
its gold and purple, intermingled with pinks and blues and exquisite
greens that the dyer's art has never matched.
"I mean," she added without waiting to be asked for an explanation,
"that you Virginians are inspired with gentleness and chivalry by the
quality of the climate in which you live, and that your sunsets give
color to your imaginings of courage, optimism, and high endeavor."
"I doff my hat in acknowledgement of the double compliment," he said,
"to our climate and to our manhood. But surely fine sunsets are not our
exclusive possession. You must have such at the North?"
"Sometimes--not often. They are so rare indeed that we make note of
them and recall them afterwards as pleasant memories."
"But isn't that because you live in a large city where the vapors of
industry cloud the sky and shut out nature's displays?"
"I do not live in a large city, Mr. Towns, except for the two or three
worst months of the year, and not always even then. I live on the 'blue
hills of Milton.' My father has a country place there, and since he has
grown old enough to relax a little in his business enterprises, we live
there almost all the year round. So you see I know our climate quite
irrespective of the factory chimneys and their fumes. The sunset is
dying out. I don't like to see the death of beauty or grandeur or glory
of any kind. Let's turn our faces toward the house."
As they turned Jack Towns in his own mind formulated his impressions in
this wise:
"Here is a young woman who can think for herself and without any regard
whatever for the conventions of thought; she is inspired with an
appreciation of truth and beauty, which is only another way of saying
that she is a poet in her soul--thank God she is not a poet in the
magazines, for that would be dreadful. She has common sense, too, in an
uncommon abundance. Jack Towns, you are falling in love in a way you
never dreamed of before, and the fact doesn't alarm you in the least."
As his meditations kept him silent for a longer time than is usual when
youth and beauty walk together in the gloaming, Millicent was the first
to speak.
"I wish you could know our 'blue hills of Milton.' They have some
attractions of their own."
"They certainly have," he answered. "I know them--at least in a small
way."
"Why, how did that come about?" she asked in surprise. "I understood
you to say you were never in Boston but once."
"'And that same is thrue for you,' as my Irish office attendant would
say. I was never in Boston until a few weeks ago, when I went thither
to arrange some financial affairs for a client of mine"--he did not
mention Westover's name. "I had some negotiations with a banking firm
there, and the head of the establishment was exceedingly courteous to
me. He took me to his country place to spend the Sunday. By a curious
coincidence, his surname is the same as yours--Danvers. He's the head
of the banking house of Danvers, Appleton and Wentworth. I wonder if by
any chance he's a relative of yours. At any rate he deserves to be. For
a more courtly gentleman I have never met. He's the sort of educated,
refined, polished, considerate person that only three States in this
Union produce, so far as I have been able to observe."
"Which are the three States, please,--that is to say, if you are free
to designate them?"
"Massachusetts, Virginia, and South Carolina. Mind, I don't say that
such gentlemen are not found in other States. It is only that those of
them whom I have personally met have happened to be sons of one or
other of the three States mentioned."
"I suppose there is a reason for that," answered Millicent.
"What is it?" he inquired in answer.
"They are the three oldest commonwealths," she answered, "and the three
most conservative. You have a saying here in Virginia--a true saying, I
think--that 'it takes three generations to make a gentleman.' The three
States you have named have lived their own lives for a good many more
than three generations, and so they have had time to make gentlemen.
Still--"
She did not continue her sentence, till Towns urged her to do so. Then
she said: