BIRTHDAY TOKENS.
The next morning ushered in Miss Jessie Floyd's birthday anniversary.
The emancipated housemaid, ancient Sally, had given Lance timely warning
of this occasion, and he had taken the precaution to send to New York
for a present which he thought might be acceptable.
The question as to what sort of a gift he should select had been a hard
one to decide. If the truth must be told, he had allowed himself the
inappropriate but impassioned notion that he would like to give her a
ring; inappropriate because he had not yet succeeded in effecting those
preliminaries which justify a young man in giving a ring to a young
woman; though, except for that, it was exactly what would best have
conveyed his sentiments. Just why an ornament for a lady's hand should
have this potent significance, when it is her ear that receives the
lover's confession, was not perfectly clear to him; yet it was plain
that there was no insurmountable objection to his offering Miss Jessie a
pair of ear-drops. He therefore ordered some pearl ones, hoping to
please her. To please himself, he ordered a ring. But the little packet
which lay beside her plate at the breakfast-table, that morning,
contained only the ear-drops. The ring was securely locked in Lance's
private consciousness and his trunk.
Perhaps in order to appease his own self-reproaches for cherishing this
jewelled secret, but also to prevent any embarrassment in Jessie's
receiving a costly trifle from him, Lance thought it best to let Colonel
Floyd know of his intention beforehand. He did so, late in the evening,
after returning from his solitary expedition.
"I hope this will be quite agreeable to you, sir," he ventured, with
becoming deference, when he had explained.
The colonel remembered that he himself had once been young, and probably
found it easy to gauge the effort it cost his youthful friend to
maintain this deference in a case where he was positive that he had an
inalienable right to do as he pleased.
"My dear Lance," he replied, "neither my daughter nor myself can need
any outward token to assure us of the kindly feeling you entertain
toward us. That is the only reason why I might regret that you have
decided to offer one. A simple congratulation or good wishes would have
been enough, I assure you; but I appreciate your thoughtfulness, and
Jessie, I am sure, will be delighted."
"Thank you, colonel. Then it is all right," said Lance, decisively,
feeling as if he had just snapped the cover tight over the pearls and
rescued them from loss.
They were sitting in the room which the colonel, with innocent grandeur,
called his library, surrounded with a few editions of English and Latin
classics, flanked by rows of obsolete works largely relating to
politics; and they were engaged in the unscholarly pastime of sipping
whiskey and water. It may be that the beverage had softened the colonel
into a pensive mood.
"Speaking of congratulations," he said, "these anniversaries begin to
make me think that my Jessie perhaps hasn't got so much to be
congratulated for."
"I think she has a great deal," said his guest, with some fervor. "More
than I have, at any rate. She still has her father--" his listener
smiled sedately--"she has her old home, and--and herself!"
Lance had not known in advance that he was going to wind up with those
words, and was himself rather astonished at them.
The colonel braced his neck and looked at the young man somewhat
narrowly for an instant; after which he subsided, and observed,
good-humoredly: "That is saying a good deal, too. What I had in mind,
however, was the changed condition of everything here--the melancholy
changes that have come since the war. When Fairleigh Park, sir, embraced
five hundred acres instead of twelve, and when I had a hundred good
niggers, it was a very different matter. Why, sir, even in this poor
house there was hardly a stick or a rag left on my return from the
field. My books"--here the colonel waved his arm with proprietary pride
at the faded volumes on his shelves--"my books fortunately had been
removed to Wilmington, where my wife and daughter were in the care of
friends; but a foraging party of the Northern soldiery came here, sir,
in my absence, and, though there wasn't a soul opposed them, they broke
the mirrors, chopped my piano into kindling, stabbed and maimed the
pictures on the walls, and tore the hangings into shreds. Yes, sir, that
was the noble revenge they took upon me for daring to fight in defence
of my native land. Ah, I must not recall those things," he added,
recovering himself. "Thank God, we are a united country once more, and I
don't regret my share of the loss. But I was also thinking, sir, of
Jessie's mother."
The veteran leaned his head on his hand, unable to speak further. There
was a quivering of the muscles in his good old, honest, disciplinarian
face, that touched Lance's heart.
"I can understand what a loss that has been to you," he said,
gently--"and to Miss Jessie."
The colonel raised his head again, and looked with determination at the
opposite wall, mustering his self-control.
Lance resumed, with some hesitation, but impelled to speak at this
precise moment, though he had not contemplated doing so. "I--I have
reflected a great deal about Miss Jessie," he said.
Colonel Floyd's attention was prompt and watchful at once. He regarded
the speaker with mingled friendliness and jealousy. "You are very good,
my friend," said he.
The younger man smiled involuntarily. "I see no great merit in my
thinking of her. I can't help it."
His host hemmed, and gave evidence, by his restless manner, of being ill
at ease. "I don't know that I fully understand you," he began, moved by
a conviction that he did understand with the greatest distinctness.
"Well," said Lance, "I suppose it ought to be very easy to explain
myself; but I find it extremely difficult. I have thought about Miss
Jessie--I wish it were possible to add in any way to her happiness."
The colonel rose. "Pray say nothing more," he begged, not unkindly, but
with some reserve.
"I will say nothing, if you prefer, beyond this: that her welfare and
her future cannot possibly be of greater moment to you than to me."
Lance looked at the colonel squarely until he had finished, and then he
dropped his eyes. There was no mistaking the purport of his tone, which
went farther than his words.
"My dear fellow," said the colonel, stretching out his hand, "from what
I have seen of you I like you; I may say, I esteem you. If you have
anything to say which concerns Jessie more than it does me, tell it to
her."
The other accepted his hand, and pressed it. They stood thus for a
moment, before parting for the night, and Lance saw that the old soldier
approved of him. A strange feeling also came over him, that his host and
he met not so much on the basis of a possible father-and-son
relationship as on that of brotherhood. There was a community in their
love for Jessie; each felt the depth of the other's devotion to her,
different though it was from his own; and to Lance this mutual trust was
of good omen.
Before the breakfast-hour they met again in the pleasant dining-room.
The colonel was mixing a mint-julep by an open window which gave upon
the garden.
"I'm not feeling quite well," he said, "and so concluded to tone myself
up a little. It's a great thing to have a Virginian's grave in your
garden."
"Virginian's grave" was the facetious term, as Lance had learned,
applied to a bed of mint; in allusion to the theory that where a
Virginia gentleman is buried the plant essential to his favorite
beverage in life will spring up and multiply.
He laughingly declined to share in the refreshment, and the two said
little to each other. Their talk of the night before lingered with them
in the form of a slight constraint, mixed with suspense.
But Jessie put all this to flight, when she slipped into the room fresh
as the morning sunbeams. She was quick to notice the white packet on the
table.
"Oh, how lovely of you, pa," she exclaimed as she opened it, "to take so
much trouble! Why, they're exquisite!"
She held the case up admiringly.
The colonel glanced over at their guest, a slight smile wrinkling his
bronzed cheeks with fine lines like those in old engravings; and there
was a trace of guiltiness in his look, as if he and Lance had been
fellow conspirators.
"Don't thank me, my dear," he said. "It's Mr. Lance who was lovely."
"Oh!" cried Jessie. She fastened her eyes on Lance, with a sort of
reproach; and his heart sank.
"They're beautiful, though," she continued. "Thank you _so_ much, Mr.
Lance. Then you didn't get anything for me, pa? Well, I shall have a
kiss, anyway." And she ran toward him.
The old man's gray mustache appeared to revive, as he received the
salute and gave one in return. "Look under your plate, child," he said,
"and you'll find something, will do to give you a treat when we go up to
the races at Newbern."
Jessie trotted back to her place, and the treasure under the plate
proved to be a gold eagle. Another demonstration of filial fondness
ensued, and they all sat down in a good humor; albeit Lance suffered a
feeling of unenviable exclusion.
But in a moment or two Jessie jumped up again, and, with the earrings in
her hand, went to the glass to put them on. She faced around brightly
from her reflected image there, to thank Lance again. "I never _dreamed_
of getting anything so nice," she said, frankly.
And Lance told himself that he, on the contrary, had many times dreamed
of some creature as captivating as she was, but had never quite expected
to find the realization. He wondered how, in this solitude and with no
one to set her the example, she could have grown up into such charming
womanliness.
The doors of Fairleigh Manor, excepting in the most inclement weather,
stood always open--a symbol of the owner's frank and hospitable heart.
And now when the breakfast was over and Jessie had betaken herself with
the two gentlemen to the little morning-room across the hall, a train of
darkies--men and women--presented itself at the entrance, bringing good
wishes and simple gifts to their young mistress. First of all came old
Sally, who folded the fair maiden in her faithful arms and covered her
forehead and neck with kisses. Lance, with his abstract theories of
equality and his concrete prejudices, which made equality impossible,
was rather amazed at this proceeding. He did not relish the spectacle of
the black face in such close proximity to the white one. Involuntarily
he turned toward the colonel, expecting to find in him some support for
his own displeasure; but there was a kindly light in the colonel's eye,
and he looked on with approval as the servants approached, one after
another, to give greeting in their several ways--the women with less
effusion than was permitted to Sally, and the men with awkward bows or
friendly grins that attested their speechless affection. Those who
shared in this demonstration were elderly servants who had once been
slaves, though they were accompanied by a few younger ones--their
children, born in freedom. They all brought flowers and leaves; the
fragrant yellow jessamine being a favorite form of tribute, alternating
with festoons of the trailing vines found in Elbow Crook Swamp, baskets
adorned with gray moss, and little ornaments of woven straw.
The colonel's face grew radiant and tender as he watched them. "Faithful
creatures!" he said, in undertone to Lance. "Most of my people stayed by
me when the fight was over. I told them they were free to go where they
liked, that they didn't belong to me any more, and I couldn't tell
whether I could give them work--much less support them. But they
wouldn't go. They clung round me; and little by little we all got on our
feet again. They said: 'You's been a good massa to us, and we ain't
gwine to leave you now yore in trouble, Massa Cunnel.' And so we built
up, together, what small prosperity there is here now. I had fed and
clothed them, Lance, and spent many thousand dollars in buying them, but
they did not forget everything, as many white people do. I little
thought it would be my old slaves who would help me out in the hour of
need--I to whom _they_ had always looked for help. But so it was. My
God, it has been worth all the cost and the suffering! We are more human
than we were."
The veteran planter was deeply affected; and, as he spoke, a mist seemed
to clear away from the young man's mind, and he beheld the simple
ceremony that was taking place, in a transfigured light.
Here, close to his eyes, was an act in the endless changes and
developments through which humanity is forever passing: the lifting up,
the pulling down, the growth of new types and phases, the subsidence of
old forms of life, accompanied by the survival of certain among their
features.
One of the negroes, bolder than the rest, after wishing Jessie happiness
all her days, said he knew it wasn't right to ask her for anything now,
but if she "would only give him a little book to read in." ... The book
was instantly forthcoming. Jessie went to her secretary, and took one
from the slender row of volumes on its upper shelf. But at this Sally
came forward again.
"Why, missy," she said softly, in Jessie's ear, where Lance's pearl was
trembling, "ole Scip ain't no 'count. He war on'y coachman, you know,
befo'. He didn't nevah b'long to _you_ and the missus. But I come from
_yo'_ side de house, yo' know I does; and now yo' dun gone give him
suffin', why I'd kin' o' like dat ar pink frock what you mos' got fru
wearin'. 'Tain't good nuff for yo', nohow, missy, and ole Sally she'd be
mighty glad on't, ef you don' want it no mo'."
So Jessie laughed, and sent Sally up-stairs to get the garment of her
desire; and from that moment on the reception was metamorphosed into an
exchange of gifts.
The darkies brought in their vines and clusters, and laid them on the
table or draped them with primitive art about the room, until it became
a sort of bower, verdant and perfumed with their offerings; and Jessie
sat there like an unaffected little queen, distributing tokens to this
and that adherent. She knew their humble demands were not prompted by
greed, but that they simply loved the old custom of receiving something
from their mistress, and could not give it up even though times were so
greatly changed.
Lance had now fully entered into the spirit of the scene, and the fancy
struck him that it was a repetition of the old story of savages on the
New World shores worshipping the first white person who came among them.
What if these negroes had been the aborigines, and his Jessie--or Miss
Jessie, rather--had been that Gertrude Wylde whom tradition told of,
receiving their homage? The idle query of imagination, thus propounded,
brought up to him with renewed force the vision, still unexplained,
which had crossed his path on the sea-shore.