A KNOCK ON THE WINDOW
By the time the girls had arrived at the May house once more they had
reached the conclusion that Harriot should speak to her mother about
Mrs. Hendon’s death. Mrs. May could then determine whether she wanted to
tell April or not.
“Of course, if she learns about it,” Harriot said thoughtfully, “it’ll
spoil April’s good time at the party to-night, though you would never
guess it. She’d just be gayer than ever. But mother will know what’s
best to do about that.”
Dorothea agreed that this was the wisest procedure and kept her own
thoughts on the matter to herself. She had no wish to complicate an
already delicate situation.
“But the news from England won’t help to make the party a very gay one,
I’m afraid,” she remarked a little later.
“Oh, don’t notice Corinne’s foolishness; we wouldn’t let any one think
we cared about _that_,” Harriot replied scornfully. “If it is true that
England won’t recognize us any more, we can’t help it; but we won’t stop
fighting. We’ll fight all the harder. We aren’t going to sit down and
cry over it.”
Dorothea, having grown up among people who took particular note of the
more serious happenings in the world, had an adequate idea of the
seriousness of this decision of the land of her birth. She did not
believe that Harriot had any comprehension of how great a difference it
would make to the Confederacy to have the British Government withhold
all help and sympathy from the Southern cause. She appreciated that
while the English people might still, and probably did, retain the same
views upon the rights and wrongs of this war in America, and no doubt
would continue to wish the South to win, that would not help rebel ships
to refit in English ports—and where else was the South to go to
replenish her fast disappearing resources?
“It _must_ make a difference,” Dorothea thought. “We shall have a pretty
doleful party, in spite of what Harriot says.” But she let her cousin
talk on about the prospective gayety uncontradicted.
“Of course,” said Harriot, “it won’t be anything like our parties were
before this war began, but we’ll have a good time all the same and you
needn’t worry about partners.”
Dorothea had heard a great deal about entertainments since her arrival
the day before and it had set her wondering. There had been continual
talk of dances to come, and references to balls at this or that place,
until she had realized that nearly every night was an occasion for some
sort of gayety that continued in spite of the fact that the country was
suffering from want of food and clothing and that the brave fellows with
whom the beautiful girls danced might lose their lives in battle the
next day. She had not begun to think seriously over this phase of her
new life, but after this news from England she expected some sign of a
depressed spirit and would not have been surprised to find the evening’s
plans abandoned.
The May household did not dress till after supper, which, in
consequence, was a rather scrambled affair. The men had returned as
usual, and there was the customary banter among them as they sat about
the long table. In the center of this whirl was April, the leader in all
the laughter, and Dorothea looked at her wonderingly, thinking of Lee
Hendon. Could this bright girl keep up so courageous a spirit, knowing
that her lover was suffering? Dorothea could scarcely believe it. Either
her cousin did not care for Lee Hendon as was reported, or else she had
met him and had given him the consolation he stood so much in need of,
if he could be judged from the glimpse she had had of him through the
window.
But on her way upstairs to dress she caught sight of April’s face when
her cousin was off her guard, and it wore a look of misery. Dorothea
went straight to her room, assailed with new doubts, finding now no
explanation that would satisfy against this evidence of a hidden sorrow.
Lucy was on her knees before the fire, setting slippers and silk
stockings to warm. The pretty colored girl was vastly proud of her new
young lady’s magnificent possessions. At the moment, however, she had a
grievance.
“Missy, honey,” she began complainingly, “when yoh comes in, cain’t yoh
ring for Lucy, please, to take youh hat and sacque?”
“But I don’t always need you, Lucy,” Dorothea replied with a smile.
“’Deed, missy, yoh needs me more’n yoh knows of,” the girl went on.
“When I comes up here what does I find? Youh hat on the baid!”
“I thought I could put it away later,” Dorothea said, not at all
understanding Lucy’s complaint.
“’Deed, missy, ’at’s what Lucy’s for—to put away youh pretties,” the
girl replied, evidently still more distressed. “Don’t yoh know yoh must
never put youh hat on the baid?”
“I don’t think it will hurt the bed,” Dorothea laughed back.
“I ain’t thinking of the baid, Missy,” Lucy explained. “It’s you,
you’self, what’s gwine to have a big disappointment if you-all puts youh
hat on the baid. Don’t ever forget that, missy, and please ring for Lucy
nex’ time,”
“All right, Lucy,” Dorothea answered mock-seriously. “Next time I’ll put
my hat on the floor if I don’t ring for you.”
“Thank yoh, missy, I sho’ will be grateful,” answered Lucy so earnestly
that Dorothea looked at her, surprised at her tone.
“Do you really believe in luck, Lucy?” Dorothea asked idly, as the girl
was brushing her hair.
“Does I believes in luck!” exclaimed Lucy. She held up her hands in
amazement. “Does I believes in luck? No’m, I don’t believes in it, I
knows it! Didn’t I see the new moon over my right shoulder and nex’ day
didn’t Ole Miss send me for to take care of yoh?”
“I’m not sure that was luck, Lucy,” Dorothea could not help saying. “At
any rate, I can’t see what the moon had to do with it.”
“The moon’s got a lot to do with luck, baby!” Lucy insisted. “Yoh kills
a hog when the moon’s dwindlin’ and the meat’s gwine to dwine away to
’mos’ nothin’ when yoh puts it in the pot. Now nobody won’t say a
rabbit’s foot off ’en a rabbit what was shot runnin’ ’cross a man’s
grave of a Friday in the dark of the moon ain’t boun’ to be lucky. ’Cept
’tis foh that one thing, Friday’s a mighty unlucky day. You don’t want
to start nothin’ on a Friday, honey.”
“I’ll try to remember,” said Dorothea, much amused, but keeping a sober
face. “What else mustn’t I do, Lucy?”
“Well, missy, thehe’s lots o’ things it ain’t ’zackly good to do,” the
girl, launched on a favorite subject, went on, brushing vigorously the
while. “Yoh mustn’t get out of the wrong side of the baid in the
mornin’. An’ if yoh puts on a stockin’ wrong side out yoh mus’ wear it
awhile befoh yoh change it—but then, you’he boun’ to change it befoh
eleven o’clock, less ’en yoh wants somethin’ bad to happen.”
“If that’s all, I’ll try to remember,” Dorothea answered lightly.
“Land sakes! Is that all, says you?” Lucy cried. “No’m, they’s heaps and
heaps more, but I’ll tell ’em to yoh as they comes along. Yoh sho’ly
would forget some of ’em if I told all of ’em to oncet.”
Her hair finished, Dorothea held out a foot for a satin slipper.
“Lef’ foot first, missy,” Lucy said pleadingly. “It’s luckier that a way
somehow.”
So it went on till Dorothea was dressed, but she was in no hurry to go
down till the music told her the dancing had begun, and seated herself
near the candle. Taking up a book, she accidentally brushed the paper
knife off the table.
“That means a gem’man’ comin’ to see yoh,” Lucy remarked as she picked
it up.
“We’ll not bother over him till he’s here,” Dorothea replied with a
laugh. “You needn’t wait, Lucy. I’ll not need you again.”
“I’ll be on the landin’, missy, to shake out youh ruffles an’ spread
youh ribbons befoh yoh go down staihs. But they’s somethin’ on my mind,
honey, I wants to ask yoh about.”
“What is it?” Dorothea asked. “You don’t have to be afraid of me, do
you?”
“I isn’t ’zackly afeared,” Lucy explained. “I knows I ain’t stylish, lak
Merry, but I’ve been a house gal wearin’ shoes fouh years now.”
She interrupted herself, a new thought striking her.
“Please, missy, what is it mannehs foh Lucy to call you? Ol’ Miss is Ol’
Miss and Lil’ Miss is Lil’ Miss, and Miss Harriot is Miss Harry, but foh
a fac’ I don’t know what yoh is, and I been a studyin’ about it a heap.”
“I’m Miss Dorothea, I suppose,” Dorothea suggested.
Lucy shook her head.
“That’s a high bo’n quality name,” she replied doubtfully, “but they
ain’t none of us can say it lak it should be said. I laid awake half the
night a-practicin’ and a-practicin’, an’ I ain’t got up the courage yet.
It’s too much granjure for my tongue, I reckon.”
“What would you like to call me?” Dorothea questioned. “I should like
you to call me whatever you please.”
Lucy heaved a great sigh of relief.
“Then I’ll say Miss Dee, honey,” she announced, “jes’ lak I’d knowed yoh
f’om a baby.”
She stopped and Dorothea expected her to go away, but she still
lingered.
“Is there something more, Lucy?” she asked.
“Yes’m, Miss Dee, there is,” the girl confessed with marked hesitation,
but in a moment it came out with a rush. “Miss Dee, is you-all some sort
of a Yankee?”
“No, not any kind,” Dorothea answered with a smile. “My mother was your
Old Miss’s sister, but my father is a Scot and we live in England, or at
least we have always called England our home.”
Lucy was evidently disappointed.
“Then you can’t tell me what the Yankees is gwine to do with we-all when
we’s free,” she murmured half to herself.
Dorothea shook her head.
“The North has first to win the war, Lucy,” she answered. “If they do,
you will have to take care of yourselves and earn your own livings like
white people, I suppose.”
“An’ how’s we-all gwine to do that without any white-folks learnin’?”
demanded the girl.
“Oh, you could do it by taking care of some one as you do of me,”
Dorothea explained.
Lucy’s eyes widened.
“Do they pay real money up No’th just for brushin’ hair and foldin’ up
youh pretties?” she asked excitedly. “An’ could I be free too? But I
guess you must mean Confedrit money, Miss Dee. You don’t know there’s a
sayin’ that a whole bahrel full of it won’t pay foh the bunghole.”
“My father pays a maid at home to take care of me,” Dorothea pointed
out, with a laugh. “But I don’t think she’s any better off than you
are.”
“That’s what Merry’s always a-sayin’,” Lucy agreed.
“I would be quite satisfied if I were you,” said Dorothea. “You are as
comfortable now as you are ever likely to be.”
“Yes’m, that’s what I think—but what’s I gwine to do if some of ’em
meddlin’ Yankees come along and set me free? That’s what I’m askin’
yoh.”
Lucy was still grumbling to herself as she moved out of the room.
Dorothea watched her go, realizing another of the problems of the South
for the first time, and getting a hint of the state of mind of the
slaves, who had so vague an idea of what their future was to be.
She sat for a moment, but the flapping of the curtain in front of the
window annoyed her and, going to it, she closed the sash so that the
wind might not blow in. Then she went back to her book by the table and
tried to read.
She had scarcely turned a page, however, when she was startled by three
short raps upon the window pane and, turning toward it, she saw a hand
reaching up from below ready to tap again.
For an instant Dorothea’s heart jumped with apprehension, and then she
thought of Lee Hendon and all fear left her. She ran to the window and,
lifting it again, leaned out. As she expected, the dark form of a man
cowered on the gallery roof below the window ledge.
A pale face looked up at her in the darkness.
Lucy’s prophecy as a result of the falling knife had come true. Here
indeed was a stranger come to see her.
“Water!” came a croaking sound from the figure. “Water!”
Dorothea ran back to the stand and poured out a glassful, carrying it to
the window. The up-stretched hand grasped it, and the man gulped the
contents.
“More,” he muttered hoarsely and again she filled the glass.
“Have you any food?” the man questioned after he had drunk the second
measure.
Dorothea shook her head. Then her face brightened.
“Yes, I have, too,” she whispered. “I’ve some chocolate. It’s a part of
the French soldier’s rations, so I fancy it won’t hurt you. I’ll get it
for you.”
The man consumed what she gave him ravenously and showed an immediate
improvement in his condition.
“Food puts life into a man,” he said. “I’ve had nothing to eat since
yesterday, and only a little parched corn then. Now, young lady, how am
I to get away from here?”
“Really I don’t know,” Dorothea answered hesitatingly. “After all, isn’t
that your own affair?”
“They told me I should find some one to help me at this house,” he
answered. “When I saw your hand as you opened the window just now I knew
where to ask. I’ve been lying here since the hounds chased me yesterday
evening.”
“Then you’re not Lee Hendon,” Dorothea whispered half to herself. “Oh,”
she went on a little louder, “are you escaping from the prison?”
“Yes,” the man answered. “Didn’t you know that? They told me I could
expect help here. You must be the one. I saw the band on your wrist.”
His voice was weak and faint in the darkness as he crouched against the
wall, and it came up to her only in jerks as if it was difficult for him
to speak.
Dorothea started, here was prompt confirmation of Hal’s story. Evidently
there was a “Red String” in the house somewhere, but who could it be?
The place was full almost to overflowing with Confederate sympathizers,
among whom were many Rebel officers. Yet the man must be saved, even if
she had to do it herself.
“Wait a moment,” she whispered into the darkness. “You shall be helped
to freedom if it is possible.”