Not until he was settled in the car did Laine let himself take in the
meaning of the journey he was taking. The past few hours had been
too hurried to think; but as he sat in the smoking-compartment
thought was no longer to be held in abeyance, and he yielded to it
with no effort at restraint.
Sleep was impossible. The train, due at Washington at seven-twelve,
would there have to be changed to a local for Fredericksburg, but the
early rising was no hardship. To sit up all night would have been
none. Each turn of the wheel was taking him nearer and nearer, and
to listen to them was strange joy. Only that morning he had wished
Christmas was over, had indeed counted the days before business could
again absorb, and now every hour would be priceless, every moment to
be held back hungrily.
One by one, the days in which he had seen Claudia passed in review
before him. The turn of her head, the light on her hair, the poise
of her body on her horse, bits of gay talk, the few long quiet ones,
the look of eyes unafraid of life, light laughter, and sometimes
quick frown and quicker speech, and, clearest of all, the evening in
which she had told him the story, with Channing in her arms and
Dorothea in his. There had been few waking moments in which it had
not repeated itself to him, and in his dreams the scene would change
and the home would be theirs--his home and hers--and she would be
telling him again what life should mean.
He had long known the name of the land in which he lived. It was,
indeed, a Lonely Land; but that it was of his own choosing he had not
understood, nor had he cared to think all people were his people.
There was much that he must know. He needed help, needed it
infinitely. If she would give it-- A man, reeling slightly, came in
the compartment, and, getting up, Laine went out quickly. For a few
moments he stood in the vestibule and let the air from a partly open
door blow over him, then, with a glance at the stars, turned and came
inside.
At Fredericksburg the next morning Laine turned to the negro hackman,
who, with Chesterfieldian bows, was hovering over his baggage and
boxes, and made inquiries of the boat, the time of leaving, of a
hotel, of what there was to see during the hours of waiting; and
before he understood how it happened he found himself and his
paraphernalia in the shabby old hack and was told he would be taken
to the boat at once. He had never been to Virginia, had never seen a
specimen of human nature such as now flourished a whip in one hand
and with the other waved a battered and bruised silk hat toward the
muddy street that led from the station to the town above, and with
puzzled eyes he looked at the one before him.
"Yas, suh! I knows jes' exactly what 'tis you want to be doin', suh.
You jes' set yourself right back in the carridge and I'll take you
and the baggige right down to the boat and put 'em in for you, and
then me and you'll go round and see this heah town. I reckon you
ain't never been to this place before. Is you all right now, suh?"
The once shiny hat was put on the back of the grizzled gray head, a
worn and torn robe was tucked around Laine's knees, and before answer
could be made the driver was on the box, the whip was cracked, and
two sleepy old horses began the slight incline of the long street out
of which they presently turned to go to the wharf and the boat tied
loosely to it.
Half an hour later, bags and boxes having been stored in a
state-room, a hasty survey of the boat made, and a few words
exchanged with a blue-coated man of friendly manners concerning the
hour of departure, Laine again got in the old ramshackle hack and for
two hours was shown the honors and glories of the little town which
had hitherto been but a name and forever after was to be a smiling
memory. Snow and slush covered its sidewalks, mud was deep in the
middle of the streets, but the air went to the head with its stinging
freshness, the sun shone brilliantly, and in the faces of the people
was happy content.
Reins dropped loosely in his lap, Beauregarde, the driver, sat
sideways on the box and emitted information in terms of his own; and
Laine looked and listened in silent joy to statements made and the
manner of their making.
"Yas, suh, this heah town am second only in historic con-se-quence to
Williamsburg, suh, though folks don't know it till they come and find
it out from me. I been a-drivin' this heah hack and a-studyin' of
history for more'n forty years, and I ain't hardly scratch the skin
of what done happen heah before a Yankee man was ever thought of.
They didn't use to have no Yankees 'fore the war, but they done
propogate themselves so all over the land that they clean got
possession of 'most all of it. They's worse than them little English
sparrows, they tell me. Marse George Washington he used to walk
these streets on his way to school. He had to cross the river from
Ferry Farm over yonder"--the whip was waved vaguely in the air--"and
he wore long trousers till he got to be a man. Young folks didn't
use to show their legs in those days, suh, jes' gentlemen. That
place we're comin' to is Swan Tavern, and if it could talk it could
tell things that big men said, that it could. This heah house is
where Mis' Mary, the mother of Marse George Washington, used to live
when she got too old to boss the farm. Some society owns it what was
originated to preserve our Virginia iniquities, and they done put up
a monument to her that's the onliest one ever put up to a woman for
being the mother of a man. They was bus head people, the Washingtons
was, but so was a lot of others who didn't do nothin' to prove it,
and so is now forgot, and quality folks in them days was so thick
there warn't enough other kind to do 'em reverence. Governor
Spottswood and his Horse-Shoe gentlemen took dinner once in this heah
town, and President James Monroe used to live heah. I'm a-goin' to
show you his home and his office, presently, and the house where
Marse Paul Jones used to live in. I reckon you done heard tell of
Marse John Paul Jones, ain't you?"
Laine admitted having heard of him, but historic personages did not
interest as much as present-day ones. The occupants of certain
quaint and charming old houses, with servants' quarters in the rear
and flower-filled gardens in the front, the rose-bushes of which were
now bent and burdened with snow, appealed, as the other places of
famous associations failed to do, and he wondered in which of them
Claudia's relatives lived.
At Marye's Heights Beauregarde waxed eloquent. Half of what he said
was unheard, however, and as Laine's eyes swept the famous
battle-fields his forehead wrinkled in fine folds. Could they have
been settled in any other way--those questions which had torn a
nation's heart from its bosom? Would the spilling of blood be
forever necessary? He ordered Beauregarde to drive to the hotel.
There was just time for lunch, and then the boat which would take him
down the river to where Claudia would be waiting.
As the boat swung off from the wharf and slowly made its way down the
narrow river, curving like a horse-shoe around its ice-bound banks,
Laine, standing in the bow, scanned the scene closely, and wondered
if it were but yesterday that he had been in the rush and stir of
city life. Straight up from the water the bluff rose boldly. Rays
of pale sunlight sent threads of rainbow colors on the snow which
covered it, and through the crystal-coated trees, here and there, a
stately mansion could be seen overlooking the river. Skimming the
water, a sea-gull would now and then dip and splash and rise again in
the clear, cold air, and, save for the throb of the engine, there was
no sound.
Until the sun had set and darkness made farther scanning of banks and
bluff and winding river impossible, Laine walked the deck, hands in
pockets, and thought of the morrow and the days ahead. The boat
would tie up for the night at Pratt's Wharf and was due at ten the
next morning at Brooke Bank if there was no unusual delay. Suddenly
he remembered she had said other friends would be on the boat. Most
of the passengers were obviously returning home from a shopping trip
to the city, package-laden and bundle-burdened, but two city men he
had noticed and then forgotten in the thought of other things. Who
were they? He opened the door of the stuffy little cabin and went
in. Five minutes later he was at the supper-table and next to the
two men who were talking in undertones of former Christmases at
Elmwood. They were young, good-looking, and of Claudia's world. He
got up and again went out.