Lewis Rand. Mary Johnston

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СКАЧАТЬ Treatise on Hospitality," answered Major Churchill, with great dryness. "I suppose Dick is making posset in his best racing cup? How is the interesting patient?"

      Jacqueline coloured. "Uncle Dick—"

      "Uncle Dick," interrupted the Major, "is the best of fellows, but he is not perspicacious. I am, and I say again, why the deuce did this damned Republican get himself thrown at our very gates? In my day a horse might act a little gaily, but a man kept his seat!"

      Jacqueline coloured more deeply. "It was that bad place on the hill road. I do not suppose that Mr. Rand is a poor horseman."

      "Who said that he was?" demanded the Major testily. "A poor horseman! He and his old wolf of a father used to break all the colts for twenty miles round! That place in the road! Pshaw! I've ridden by that place in the road for forty years, but I never had the indecency to be brought on a litter into a gentleman's house who was not of my way of thinking! And every man and woman on the place—barring poor Nancy—out to receive him! I am not at home among fools, so I came here—though the Lord knows there's many a fool to be found in a library!—Well, are any bones broken?"

      "Dr. Gilmer will tell us—oh, he looked like death!"

      "Who?—William Gilmer?" demanded Uncle Edward with asperity. "Your pronoun 'he' stands for your antecedent 'Gilmer.' But what's the English tongue when we have a Jacobin in the house! Women like strange animals, and they are vastly fond of pitying. But you were always a home body, Jacqueline, and left Unity to run after the sea lions and learned pigs! And now you sit there as white as your gown!"

      Jacqueline smiled. "Perhaps I am of those who pity. I hear a horse upon the road! It may be Dr. Gilmer!" and up she started.

      "The horse has gone by," said Uncle Edward. "Gilmer cannot possibly be here for an hour. Sit down, child, and don't waste your pity. The Rands are used to hard knocks. I've seen old Gideon in the ring, black and blue and blind with blood, demanding proof that he was beaten. The gentleman upstairs will take care of himself. Bah!—Where is Ludwell Cary this afternoon?"

      "He rode, I think, to Charlottesville."

      "You think! Don't you know?—What woman was ever straightforward!"

      Major Churchill opened his book, looked at it, and tossed it aside; took The Virginia Federalist from the table, and for perhaps sixty seconds appeared absorbed in its contents, then with a loud "Pshaw!" threw it down, and rising walked to a bookcase. "I am reading Swift," he said, and brought a calf-bound volume to the window. "There was a man who knew hatred and the risus sardonicus! Listen to this, Jacqueline."

      Major Churchill read well, and it was his habit to read aloud to Jacqueline, whose habit it was to listen. Now she sat before the window, in the old leather chair, her slender face and form in profile, and her eyes upon the sunset sky. It was her accustomed attitude, and Uncle Edward read on with growing satisfaction, finding that he was upon a passage which gave Democracy its due. He turned a page, then another, glanced from the book, and discovered that his niece was not attending. "Jacqueline!"

      Jacqueline withdrew her eyes from the fading gold, and, turning in her chair, faced her uncle with a faint smile. She loved him dearly, and he loved her, and they had not many secrets from each other. Now she looked at him with a wavering light upon her face, shook her head as if in answer to some dim question of her own, and broke into silent weeping.

      "Bless my soul!" cried Uncle Edward, and started up in alarm. He had a contemptuous horror of women's tears; but Jacqueline was different, Jacqueline was not like other women. He could not remember having seen Jacqueline cry since she was a child, and the sight troubled him immensely. She wept as though she were used to weeping. He crossed to the chair by the window and touched her bowed head with his wrinkled hand. "What is it, child?" he asked. "Tell Uncle Edward."

      But Jacqueline, it appeared, had nothing to tell. After a little she wiped her eyes, and brokenly laughed at herself; and then, a sound coming through the window, she started to her feet. "That is Dr. Gilmer! I hear his horse at the gate. Joab must have met him upon the road!"

      "Joab?"

      "Mr. Rand's servant."

      "You appear," said the Major, "to know a deal more than I do about Mr. Rand. Where did you learn so much?"

      Jacqueline, halfway to the door, turned upon him her candid eyes. "Don't you remember?" she answered, "the month that I spent, summer before last, at Cousin Jane Selden's, on the Three-Notched Road? I saw Mr. Rand very often that summer. Cousin Jane liked him, and he was welcome at her house. And when I used to stay there as a child I saw him then, and—and was sorry for him. Don't you remember? I told you at the time."

      "No, I don't remember," replied Uncle Edward grimly. "I have other things to think of than the Rands. There should have been no association—though I am surprised at nothing which goes on beneath Jane Selden's roof. Jane Selden has a most erratic mind.—Don't sympathize too much, Jacqueline, with that damned young Republican upstairs! He's an enemy." The Major walked to the window. "It is Gilmer, sure enough, and—ah, it is Ludwell Cary with him, riding Prince Rupert. Come look, Jacqueline!"

      Receiving no answer, he turned to find that his niece had vanished and he was alone in the library. Presently he heard from the hail, through the half-open door, the doctor's voice and Ludwell Cary's expressions of concern, Jacqueline's low replies, a confusion of other voices, and finally, from the head of the stairs, Colonel Dick's hearty "Come up, Gilmer, come up! D'ye remember that damned place in the hill road where my mare Nelly threw me, coming home at dawn from Maria Erskine's wedding?"

      Steps and voices died away. The evening shadows lengthened, and filled the library where Uncle Edward sat, propping his lean old chin upon his lean old hand, and staring at a dim old clock in the corner, as if it could tell him more than the time of day. He heard Mr. Pincornet's fiddle from the long parlour in the other wing. Since the doctor was come, the younger part of the gathering at Fontenoy had cheerfully returned to its business. The dancing class was not long neglected. Uncle Edward disliked France, disliked even monarchical and émigré France. And he disliked all music but Jacqueline's singing, and disliked the fiddle because Thomas Jefferson played it. He half rose to shut the door and so keep out Mr. Pincornet's Minuet from Ariadne, but reflected that the door would also keep out the doctor's descending voice and final dicta delivered at the stair-foot. Uncle Edward was as curious as a woman, and the door remained ajar. He tried to read, but the words conveyed no meaning to his mind, which became more and more frowningly intent upon the fact of Jacqueline's weeping. What had the child to weep for? He determined to send to Richmond to-morrow for a certain watch which he had in his mind—plain gold with J.C. upon it in pearls. He reflected with satisfaction that Cary as well as Churchill began with a C.

      The glass door led by a flight of steps down to the flower garden. Deb came up the steps and into the library. "Kiss me good-night, Uncle Edward. It's mos' seven o'clock. I've had my supper at the Quarter with Aunt Daphne. The scarlet beans over her door are in bloom, and Uncle Mingo told me about the rabbit and the fox. Miranda is going to put me to bed because Mammy Chloe is busy in the blue room with the doctor and the man whose horse threw him."

      Uncle Edward put his one arm around the child and drew her close to his chair. Deb touched with her brown fingers the sleeve that was pinned across his coat. "Does your arm that is buried at Yorktown hurt you to-day, Uncle Edward? Tell me a story about General Washington."

      "No; you tell me a story."

      Deb considered. "I'll tell you a story about the man upstairs in the blue room."

      "What СКАЧАТЬ