ANGELA
The study by that time was dark, and Angela, who had learned not to
disturb Lyddon in his reveries, came softly and seated herself without
speaking at the table in the middle of the room. Neither did Lyddon
speak, but he recognized in himself the feeling of subtle pleasure
which Angela’s nearness always gave him. It was as if the fragrance
of spring had been wafted toward him, something silent, intangible,
but deliciously sweet. He could catch from the corner in which he sat
the outline of her slender, supple figure in a pearl-gray gown, her
graceful head leaning upon her clasped hands.
The two sat silent in the dusky twilight of the firelit room for ten
minutes. Then Angela with a peculiar, noiseless grace moved to the
fireplace and, thrusting a wisp of paper into the bed of coals, lighted
the two candles in tall, brass candlesticks which sat upon the study
table and opening a book before her began to read. She had naturally
a good omnivorous appetite for books, an appetite which Lyddon had
sedulously cultivated. At that moment she was demurely studying a
page of Adam Smith which happened to be the book before her. The two
candles only half-illumined the low-ceiled, shadow-haunted room and
appeared like two glowing disks amidst the gloom, but their yellow
light fell full upon Angela. Lyddon, who never wearied of examining
her, concluded it was doubtful whether she would ever be classed as a
beauty. She was too thin, too slight, too immature as yet to be called
beautiful or anything approaching it, but one day she might have much
beauty. Her features were charming, though irregular, and her coloring,
generally pale, was sometimes vivid. Her hair, of a rich bronze with
glints of gold in it, was beautiful and abundant; and her dark lashes
and delicately arched eyebrows were extremely pretty. But except those
and her exquisite grace of movement and sweetness of voice, neither
Lyddon nor anyone else could exactly tabulate her beauty. Her eyes were
not large, but were full of expression and continually changing color.
When she was pleased they were bright and light; when she was angry or
thoughtful they became almost black.
The book remained open before her, but she was not turning the leaves,
and Lyddon, knowing quite well of what she was thinking, said,
presently: “I wonder what makes them so late?” Angela, knowing that
he meant Neville and Richard Tremaine, turned her head toward him and
answered quickly in the sweetest voice imaginable:
“They will be here soon; I feel it all over me. I always know in
advance when I am to be happy and also when I am to be wretched.”
Lyddon smiled. What did this girl of nineteen know of the wretchedness
of which she spoke so glibly?
“Uncle Tremaine and Aunt Sophia thought that Neville wouldn’t be able
to come at all,” Angela kept on, “but I knew he would, even if it were
only for a very little time.”
“Perhaps you wrote and urged him to come,” suggested Lyddon. “You know
that is the way some people receive an answer to their prayers--by
working like Trojans for the thing themselves.”
“Oh, I wrote him often enough,” answered Angela laughing. “Christmas
wouldn’t be Christmas without Neville. I recollect four perfectly
dreadful Christmases when he was at West Point and couldn’t come home.
I was so miserable then, I remember.”
“So do I remember,” answered Lyddon. “I remember that you made a great
outcry about your misery, but you laughed and were as merry as any
child I ever saw on Christmas day, and danced in the evening until Mrs.
Tremaine sent you to bed.”
“Oh, yes, of course, I danced! I can’t help that. When the music is
playing it runs through my veins and makes me dance in spite of myself.”
“Now that Neville is a soldier you can’t expect him to be home every
Christmas.”
“Yes, I know there will be dreadful Christmas times without him----”
“And you will do as you did when you were a little girl, cry and lament
and then enjoy yourself very much. That is, until the war begins.”
“Oh, that won’t make any difference,” replied Angela easily and
adopting the tone of her elders; “the war won’t last long and we shall
be victorious, of course, and there will be comings and goings and
great happenings all the time. Anything is better than this life of
deadly dullness. Neville and Richard will both be officers. Neville,
I suppose, will be a general at twenty-six or seven as the young
lieutenants and captains became in the time of the French Revolution.”
“‘O sancta simplicitas!’ as Mephistopheles says. So they may, my
little girl, and there will be a great many things in this war, if it
comes, very like the French Revolution. But you remember there were
lieutenants who went away and never came back any more at all.”
“O Mr. Lyddon, nobody says such dreadful things except yourself.”
“I know it. War is a merry jest to these people in Virginia. The notion
will be spoiled soon enough; meanwhile, dream your dream of victory. It
is a fine dream, as Marshal Saxe said.”
“At least, let us dream while Neville is here. He will only be here at
Harrowby three days, think of that!”
“And in those three days there will scarcely be a quiet minute
after to-night. Let me see. To-morrow being Christmas day, there
will be a hullabaloo from daylight until midnight; next morning the
hunting party, dinner at Greenhill; a dance in the evening; each day
festivities; and Neville leaves at daylight on Saturday morning.”
“But, then, there will be three mornings when I shall see Neville’s
shoes outside of his door. Oh, what a comfort that will be! And I
shall hear him swearing at Peter, and Richard swearing at Neville for
swearing at Peter, because Richard says that as Peter is his boy nobody
except himself shall swear at him. And Neville will waltz with me in
the hall while Aunt Sophia plays the ‘Evening Star Waltz.’ You remember
he taught me to waltz by that tune. And when Richard makes fun of me,
Neville will say, ‘Never mind, Angela, Richard is a scoundrel and I
will punch his head for him.’ And when Archie will come after me to
find his things for him and to take my watch away because his own is
broken, Neville will say, ‘Go away, you brat, hunt for your own things
instead of asking Angela; and let her watch alone.’ Oh, I always have a
friend when Neville is here! There he is now--I hear the wheels on the
gravel.”
Before Lyddon could turn in his chair Angela had sped swiftly out of
the room. Lyddon rose and went to the small uncurtained window which
looked out upon the front of the house toward the highroad. An open
trap was coming rapidly around the gravel drive, the horses snorting in
the keen night air. Already a dozen negroes were running out, and the
heavy doors of the hall leading upon the pillared portico were open and
Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine were standing on the threshold, while Archie
rushed down the steps. As Richard Tremaine pulled up the horses with a
sharp turn, Neville sprang to the ground, the negroes already greeting
him with “Howdy, Marse Neville, howdy, suh.” Neville, straight,
soldierly, and keen-eyed, threw a rapid glance around as if looking
for some one. He ran up the steps and was within reach of his mother
when Angela slipped into his arms. He kissed her frankly and openly as
a brother might, then let her go and the next moment held his mother
close to his heart. Her head barely reached his shoulder. She was small
to be the mother of such stalwart sons. Then Neville grasped both of
his father’s hands while Archie claimed a boy’s privilege and kissed
him on the cheek. The Tremaines were a demonstrative family; they loved
each other well and were not ashamed to show it. Neville next found
himself in the embrace of his mammy, Aunt Tulip, inky black, the size
and shape of a hogshead, wearing a white apron of vast circumference,
and a big plaid handkerchief wound round about her head.
“‘Bres de lam’,” shouted Aunt Tulip. “I done got my chile home agin.
The Lord done heah my pra’r.” Here Mammy Tulip was rudely interrupted
by Hector.
“You heish your mouf,” he remarked. “Gord A’mighty, he didn’ sen’
Marse Neville hom’ cuz you bawls out ‘Amen, bres de Lord,’ ev’y night
at pra’r time. Marse Neville, I hopes I sees you well, suh, an’ in de
enjoyment ob your profession, suh.”
“Thank you, Hector,” answered Neville, shaking hands cordially with
him. “Of course, I haven’t enjoyed such advantages in my profession
as you did, campaigning in Mexico, but I’m doing pretty well just the
same.”
Then all trooped into the hall, where Lyddon was found.
“How do you do, Mr. Lyddon,” cried Neville. “It is pleasant to see you
once more. I hope you will keep on teaching these two brats, Angela and
Archie, for the next ten years.”
Angela, who had drawn a little away from Neville, smiled with the
superiority of nineteen at being classed as a brat. And then Lyddon
watched one of the sights always amusing and unintelligible to him--all
the negroes crowding around Neville asking him innumerable questions
and being questioned in return while his father and mother, his
brothers and Angela withdrew into the background until these children
of another race had made their greetings. By the time the negroes were
through, Richard had come in, and the family group was assembled around
the great hall fire. Lyddon compared the two elder brothers, who were
singularly alike in figure and carriage, both men of medium height
and size, well made, sinewy, and graceful. They were, however, quite
unlike in feature, Richard resembling Colonel Tremaine, while Neville
had the darker coloring and more irregular features of his mother. But
each had what Lyddon called a fighting eye. Their minds were as unlike
as their features, yet in character they resembled each other as in
figure. Richard had a softness of manner and subtlety of speech which
differentiated him strongly from Neville, who was taciturn and spoke
with soldierly plainness.
Home-coming at Christmas time when there are no yawning gaps in the
circle, no vacant places at the board, no empty chairs round the
fire is full of joy, and Lyddon thought he had never in his life
seen more of family peace and love than the roof of Harrowby that
night sheltered. Mrs. Tremaine sat on the old-fashioned sofa close to
the hall fire with Neville’s arm around her. She patted him on the
shoulder, speaking meanwhile to Richard and Archie.
“Dear sons, I love you as much as this one, but you I have all the year
round while he I have for only three days.” When Mrs. Tremaine said
that all her sons were equally dear to her she uttered an unconscious
falsehood. Neville, her firstborn, had ever been her favorite, if a
favorite can be known where all were so much loved. And between Neville
and his father also existed a peculiar bond in Colonel Tremaine’s
fondness for military life and his attachment to old friends and
comrades who were known only to Neville. The father and son talked
animatedly of army life and military matters in which neither Richard
nor Archie could bear any part. To Colonel Tremaine, Neville’s visits
home were a special delight in this respect, and the two exchanged
stories, theories, and reminiscences to which the others listened with
sympathy, but in silence. When supper was announced, all gathered
around the old mahogany table in the large dining room. There was
enough to feed a regiment and all specially provided for Neville. Jim
Henry forced upon him mountains of batter cakes cooked to a turn, while
Tasso handed him oysters done in four different ways. Hector whispered
in Neville’s ear recommendations of everything on the table. Neville
was indeed lord and master of the feast. All talked to him at once
except Angela, who looked at him with wide sparkling eyes of pleasure
and suddenly electrified everybody by asking in a voice pitched high
so as to be heard over the others, “Neville, are you engaged to be
married?”
“Good God, no,” replied Neville with the utmost sincerity, at which
Tasso suddenly burst into a guffaw and retired to the pantry to indulge.
“You don’t think he would tell you if he was,” remarked Archie, with
the cool assumption of sixteen. “Girls do ask such foolish questions.”
“I shall select my successor,” said Mrs. Tremaine, smiling placidly.
“She shall be a Virginia girl of good lineage and she must know how
to make mango pickle. In every other respect, my son, you may please
yourself.”
“Now, I, as a good father,” cried Colonel Tremaine, beaming and pulling
up his high collar, “shall welcome my son’s wife even if she be a
Mexican señorita. Women, my dearest Sophie, are invariably jealous of
each other, even you. That you are the most judicious of your sex, I
have shown by leaving my estate absolutely to you in the event of my
death. Nevertheless, I would be inclined to doubt your judgment when it
comes to selecting wives for our sons.” Colonel Tremaine’s heart, like
his thread cambric ruffles, was perpetually rushing out of his bosom
and no matter how generous Mrs. Tremaine might be, the colonel had to
be more generous still.
Lyddon looked, listened, and quietly relished this all-embracing family
affection. It was something so new to him. In England, the law of
primogeniture set a ban upon it. He knew something of the antagonism
between the incumbent and the heir, of the niggardliness toward
younger sons and daughters, and the inconvenience of a large jointure
upon an estate. But here everything was different. Like the patriarchs
of old all shared alike.
After supper they went back to the hall where, according to the custom
established when Angela was a little girl, Mrs. Tremaine played the
piano in the drawing-room while out in the hall Angela and Archie
danced polkas, waltzes, and schottisches. Colonel Tremaine and his
two elder sons with Lyddon, sitting around the fire, listened to the
quiet music and watched Angela’s willowy figure as she floated around
the hall with Archie, who, short and stocky, yet danced beautifully.
Outside on the back porch could be heard the shuffling of feet. It was
Jim Henry with Lucy Anne, whose business was to keep the flies off of
“ole Missus,” as Mrs. Tremaine was called, in the summer, and to bring
the eggs in from the chicken houses in the winter, and Mirandy, whose
sole occupation was to hunt for “ole Marse’s” specks, and Sally, whose
business no one exactly knew, were disporting themselves in the dance.
Presently Neville turned and asked, “Have you two children learned to
dance the French two-step?”
Angela and Archie had never heard of it before, but immediately Angela
seized Neville and, dragging him from his comfortable corner on the
old sofa, obliged him to teach her the new dance. In two minutes
she had acquired it; her sense of rhythm was perfect, and for ten
minutes she and Neville danced around the hall together. He was a good
dancer, doing his steps with military precision, but nothing like
so exquisitely graceful as the red-haired Archie. Lyddon, who had
been accustomed to seeing Angela skipping about the hall with Archie,
realized that she was now a woman grown and almost as tall as Neville,
but among them all she was yet treated as a child, and when she begged
Neville for a second dance he tweaked her ear and told her to go and
dance with Archie; he himself was too old to dance with children.
At half past nine, according to invariable custom, the whole family,
including the house servants, assembled in the library for family
prayers. This, like all the other rooms in the new part, was spacious
and high-ceiled. It was lined with those books which no gentleman’s
library should be without: solemn sets of library books with undimmed
gilt lettering and which were only taken from their library shelves to
be dusted. All the books which were ever read were in the shabby old
study across the corridor. Everything at Harrowby was done in a certain
fixed and unvarying manner. The candles used at prayers were always
of wax, in tall silver candlesticks, which were placed with the great
open Bible on a round mahogany table in the middle of the room. The
family sat ranged about in chairs, the servants standing, Hector behind
Colonel Tremaine and Mammy Tulip behind Archie, who as a small boy had
required watching at “pra’r time.” Colonel Tremaine read in a deep
sonorous voice the Gospel, and Mrs. Tremaine made a prayer short and
conventional, but with sometimes a phrase or two added that stirred the
heart. To-night she thanked God for all their blessings adding, “and
last of all for having our children Neville, Richard, Archibald, and
Angela about us in health and well-being.”
Angela Vaughn had ever been included as a child of Harrowby since as
a wailing infant she had first been held in Mrs. Tremaine’s arms. She
was no blood relationship to them and had no fortune, but she had never
felt the want of either love or money.
After prayers, it was bedtime for Mrs. Tremaine and Angela. The girl
kissed Colonel Tremaine good night to which he responded, “Good night,
my daughter, and God keep you.” Latterly, in the dignity of her
nineteen years, she had acquired the habit of putting up her cheek to
be kissed by Richard and Archie instead of placing her arms about their
necks as she did with Colonel Tremaine. When she held her smooth, pale
cheek toward Neville, he brushed his dark mustache over it, and Lyddon
saw something which amazed him--a deep red color showed suddenly under
Neville’s tan and sunburn. Richard saw it, too; nothing escaped his
vigilant eye.
Another Harrowby custom was that after the ladies had retired Lyddon
with his pupils would repair to their own habitat, the old study,
where they read and smoked until the small hours. Colonel Tremaine
took that time for writing his diary, a voluminous record of seedtime
and harvest, colts and calves, and all the minutiæ of a landed estate,
together with moral reflections and sage observations on the weather,
and long excerpts from Pope’s “Iliad” and Wordsworth’s “Excursion.”
He therefore bade his sons and Lyddon good night, who began their
symposium in the study. Little had been said about the great impending
struggle in those first hours of Neville’s home-coming. Once or twice
during Colonel Tremaine’s inquiries about his old friends in the army,
he had said of certain Southern officers, “I suppose they will resign
their commissions when their States secede,” to which Neville had
replied calmly, “I suppose so, sir, or it is generally understood that
such will be the case.”
Lyddon, Neville, and Richard, once in the study with a roaring fire
going and with pipes and cigars, began to enjoy those evening hours
which are to men the cream of the day. Archie by virtue of his sixteen
years was good-humoredly allowed in the company of his elders, but
strictly forbidden to touch either pipe or cigar, cigarettes being
unknown in that time and place. Finding the conversation beyond his
years, Archie soon grew tired and marched off to bed. Lyddon had never
acquired the American habit of cocking his feet up over his head, but
stretching his legs out toward the ruddy blaze, he began to speak of
the impending conflict in terms which were perfectly familiar to both
his listeners.
“The doom of slavery is sounded,” he said. “All the forces of
civilization are arrayed against it. Up to 1830 the problem of slavery
was manageable; the South let the golden moment pass and after 1830
the problem became unmanageable. So the South shut its eyes and passed
within the gates of sleep. You know that island in the Euxine Sea whose
inhabitants never dream--well, the South has done nothing but dream for
the last thirty years. Meanwhile the genie of slavery has got out of
the box. Rivers of blood will be shed in settling this question because
everything of value in the life of a nation has its blood price. But
the emancipation of the negroes really means your emancipation, my dear
fellows, and that of your children.”
Richard combated this with all the brilliant sophistries of the school
of Calhoun which lost nothing in the handling. Richard was a born
reasoner, and Lyddon always admired his masterly presentation of the
case of the South. He frankly admitted that the South must return to
the teachings of the fathers and some day abolish slavery, but never
under the pressure of threats and fanaticism from the North and from
Great Britain. As for defeat in battle, Richard could not grasp this
idea at all. This caused Lyddon to smile.
“Your unmixed Anglo-Saxon blood makes it impossible for you to imagine
defeat, and like all men and women of your race you prove to be bad
losers. You will appeal to the arbitrament of the sword, but you will
never abide by it. After the South has been drenched in blood will come
the great problem of reorganization and the birth of a national life
which slavery has stifled. Now you are all Virginians or Georgians or
Louisianians, but the day will come when you will all be Americans.”
Neville sat and smoked in silence except for an occasional word full of
pith and sense interjected in the conversation. It had always been like
this. Neville was the listener, even as a boy, while Lyddon and Richard
delighted in the attrition of minds. Their talk usually ranged far
afield, but to-night they spoke of nothing except the coming conflict,
and matters referring to it.
“By the way,” said Richard, “I had a letter this afternoon from Philip
Isabey in New Orleans. He returned from Paris months earlier than he
expected because he foresees war, and the first news that reached him
was of the secession of South Carolina. I have always looked forward
to having you, Mr. Lyddon, know Isabey. He writes that he is already
taking steps toward raising a battery of artillery, just the branch of
the service which I shall join when the war breaks out. Isabey is a man
born for success at whatever he undertakes as you well know by all I
have told you of him.”
Ever since Richard’s college days Isabey had been a part of Richard’s
life. Many plans had been made for Isabey to visit Harrowby, but so
far accident had prevented any of the family from knowing him except
Neville, who had readily adopted his brother’s friend as his own during
their brief periods of intercourse. After Richard’s graduation from the
University of Virginia, of which Isabey was also an alumnus, they had
spent two years together in Europe and the tie between them had thus
become more closely knit. Lyddon had profound confidence in Richard’s
judgment of men and was willing to believe that Isabey was all he was
represented to be. It was plain that Isabey was as distinctively French
in blood and training as Richard Tremaine was Anglo-Saxon. Isabey was
a young man of fortune and, like Richard, contemplated entering public
life. His letters, which Richard read aloud with pride, were full
of sound sense, acute observation of men and things, and illuminated
with French wit. There was a daguerreotype of him hanging in Richard’s
room, representing him as a dark, slender young man, rather handsome,
and unmistakably thoroughbred. There were, besides, half a dozen pen
and pencil sketches of him illustrating some of the gay scenes through
which he had lived with Richard in the Latin quarter. Each, while in
Paris, had a handsome allowance which permitted him to enter the best
society, to which each had the right of entrance. But it being contrary
to the traditions of the Latin quarter that students should always
have money to pay their bills, Richard and Isabey managed to squander
their respective allowances in plenty of time to know the conventional
delights of impecuniosity before their next checks arrived. The stories
of their student days were infinitely diverting, and so linked were
the two that Isabey’s personality actually seemed to have a place at
Harrowby. Between war and politics, it was one o’clock in the morning
before Neville, rising, said: “The fire is out and so are the cigars. I
have been traveling for two days, so I shall go to bed. Good night.”
He went out of the room and Lyddon watching him was struck, as he often
was, at the resemblance in the air and figure of the two brothers,
while their faces and voices were so dissimilar that they gave no
indication of a blood relationship.
As Neville closed the door behind him, Richard turning to Lyddon said
significantly, “Neville will not resign from the army when the war
breaks out.”
Lyddon remained silent for five minutes and then replied, “That is the
most tragic thing I have heard for a long time.”
“Yes,” said Richard. “It will break my father’s heart and my mother’s,
too.”
“Has Neville told you that he didn’t mean to resign?” asked Lyddon.
“Not in so many words, but on our way here this afternoon he made me
understand it. You know we have always understood each other perfectly
without going into details.”
“Yes, I have never seen two men with a better understanding than you
and your brother. And it seems never to have been interrupted.”
“Well, we don’t need to thresh things out, Neville and I. He was always
rather a silent fellow and a word from him means a good deal. I am
quite certain he feels that this is perhaps his last visit to Harrowby
and also he knows that whoever may turn against him, I shall not, but I
shall be probably the only one who will not.”
“Except Angela,” said Lyddon coolly. “I always thought that Neville’s
fondness for Angela would develop into a strong passion as soon as she
was grown and I saw it to-night with my own eyes, but nobody else did,
unless it be yourself.”
“I saw it. Neville’s face turned red when he kissed Angela on the
cheek and Neville is not given to blushing. However, I am by no means
certain that Angela will stand by him. She is like most of our Southern
women--a creature outwardly all impulse, inwardly of the most fixed
and determined character. It is a chance whether love or patriotism
will win the day.”
“Yes, it depends upon whether she falls in love with Neville or not.
Come, the fire is out, let us go. It is already Christmas day.”