_ CHAPTER XVII
Pluto half carried the old man back to Loringwood, while the other darkies continued their 'possum hunt. Nelse said very little after his avowal of the "sign" and its relation to his lease of life. He had a nervous chill by the time they reached the house and Pluto almost repented of his fiction. Finally he compromised with his conscience by promising himself to own the truth if the frightened old fellow became worse.
But nothing more alarming resulted than his decision to return at once to his own cabin, and the further statement that he desired some one be despatched at once for "that gal Cynthy," which was done according to his orders.
The women folk--old Chloe at their head--decided Uncle Nelse must be in some dangerous condition when he sent the command for Cynthia, whom he had divorced fifty years before. The rumors reached Dr. Delaven, who made a visit to Nelse in the cabin where he was installed temporarily, waiting for the boatmen who were delegated to row him home, he himself declining to assist in navigation or any other thing requiring physical exertion.
He was convinced his days were numbered, his earthly labors over, and he showed abject terror when Margeret entered with a glass of bitters Mrs. Nesbitt had prepared with the idea that the old man had caught a chill in his endeavor to follow the dogs on the oppossum hunt.
"I told you all how it would be when I heard of him going," she asserted, with all a prophet's satisfaction in a prophecy verified. "Pluto had to just about tote him home--following the dogs at his age, the idea!"
But for all her disgust at his frivolity she sent the bitters, and Delaven could not comprehend his shrinking from the cup-bearer.
"Come--come, now! You're not at all sick, my man; what in the wide world are you shamming for? Is it for the dram? Sure, you could have that without all this commotion."
"I done had a vision, Mahs Doctor," he said, with impressive solemnity. "My time gwine come, I tell you." He said no more until Margeret left the room, when he pointed after her with nervous intensity. "It's that there woman I seen--the ghost o' that woman what ain't dead--the ghost o' her when she was young an' han'some--that's what I seen in the McVeigh carriage this night, plain as I see yo' face this minute. But no such
live woman wa' in that carriage, sah. Pluto, he couldn't see but two, an'
I saw three plain as I could see one. Sure as yo' bawn it's a death sign, Mahs Doctor; my time done come."
"Tut, tut!--such palaver. That would be the queerest way, entirely, to read the sign. Now, I should say it was Margeret the warning was for; why should the likeness of her come to hint of your death?"
Nelse did not reply at once. He was deep in thought--a nervous, fidgety season of thought--from which he finally emerged with a theory evidently not of comfort to himself.
"I done been talken' too much," he whispered. "I talk on an' on today; I clar fo'got yo' a plum stranger to we all. I tell all sorts o' family things what maybe Mahs Duke not want tole. I talked 'bout that gal Retta most, so he done sent a ghost what look like Retta fo' a sign. Till day I die I gwine keep my mouth shut 'bout Mahs Duke's folks, I tell yo', an' I gwine straight home out o' way o' temptations."
So oppressed was he with the idea of Mahs Duke's displeasure that he determined to do penance if need be, and commenced by refusing a coin Delaven offered him.
"No, sah; I don' dar take it," he said, solemnly, "an' I glad to give yo' back that othar dollar to please Mahs Duke, only I done turned it into a houn' dog what Ben sold me, and Chloe--she Ben's mammy--she got it from him, a'ready, an' paid it out fo' a pair candlesticks she been grudgen' ole M'ria a long time back, so I don' see how I evah gwine get it. But I ain't taken' no mo' chances, an' I ain't a risken' no mo' ghost signs. Jest as much obliged to yo' all," and he sighed regretfully, as Delaven repocketed the coin; "but I know when I got enough o' ghosts."
Pluto had grace enough to be a trifle uneasy at the intense despondency caused by his fiction in what he considered a good cause. The garrulity of old Nelse was verging on childishness. Pluto was convinced that despite the old man's wonderful memory of details in the past, he was entirely irresponsible as to his accounts of the present, and he did not intend that the McVeigh family or any of their visitors should be the subject of his unreliable gossip. Pride of family was by no means restricted to the whites. Revolutionary as Pluto's sentiments were regarding slavery, his self esteem was enhanced by the fact that since he was a bondman it was, at any rate, to a first-class family--regular quality folks, whose honor he would defend under any circumstances, whether bond or free.
His clumsily veiled queries about the probable result of Uncle Nelse's attack aroused the suspicions of Delaven that the party of hunters had found themselves hampered by the presence of their aged visitor, who was desirous of testing the ability of his new purchase, the hound dog, and that they had resorted to some ghost trick to get rid of him.
He could not surmise how the shade of Margeret had been made do duty for the occasion, her subdued, serious manner giving the denial to any practical joke escapades.
But the news Pluto brought of Mrs. McVeigh's homecoming dwarfed all such episodes as a scared nigger who refused to go into details as to the scare, and in his own words was "boun' an' sot" to keep his mouth shut in future about anything in the past which he ever had known and seen, or anything in his brief earthly future which he might know or see. He even begged Delaven to forget immediately the numerous bits of history he, Nelse, had repeated of the Loring family, and Delaven comforted him by declaring that all he could remember that minute was the horse race and he would put that out of his mind at once if necessary.
Nelse was not sure it was necessary to forget
that, because it didn't in any way reflect discredit on the family, and he didn't in reason see why his Mahs Duke should object to that story unless it was on account of the high-flier lady from Philadelphia what Mahs Duke won away from Mr. Jackson without any sort of trouble at all, and if Mahs Duke was hovering around in the library when Miss Evilena and Mahs Doctor listened to that story, Mahs Duke ought to know in his heart, if he had any sort of memory at all, that he, Nelse, had not told half what he might have told about that Northern filly and Mahs Duke. And taking it all in all Nelse didn't see any reason why Delaven need put that out of his remembrance--especially as it was mighty good running for two-year-olds.
Evilena had peeped in for a moment to say good-bye to their dusky Homer. But the call was very brief. All her thoughts were filled with the folks at the Terrace, and dawn in the morning had been decided on for the ten-mile row home, so anxious was she to greet her mother, and so lively was her interest in the wonderful foreigner whom Dr. Delaven had described as "Beauty's self."
That lady had in the meantime arrived at the Terrace, partaken of a substantial supper, and retired to her own apartments, leaving behind her an impression on the colored folks of the household that the foreign guest was no one less than some latter day queen of Sheba. Never before had their eyes beheld a mistress who owned white servants, and the maid servant herself, so fine she wore silk stockings and a delaine dress, had her meals in her own room and was so grand she wouldn't even talk like folks, but only spoke in French, except when she wanted something special, at which time she would condescend to talk "United States" to the extent of a word or two. All this superiority in the maid--whom they were instructed to call "Miss"--reflected added glory on the mistress, who, at the supper table, had been heard say she preferred laying aside a title while in America, and to be known simply as Madame Caron; and laughingly confessed to Mrs. McVeigh that the American Republic was in a fair way to win her from the French Empire, all of which was told at once in the kitchen, where they were more convinced than ever that royalty had descended upon them. This fact did not tend to increase their usefulness in any capacity; they were so overcome by the grandeur and the importance of each duty assigned to them that the wheels of domestic machinery at the Terrace that evening were fairly clogged by the eagerness and the trepidation of the workers. They figuratively--and sometimes literally--fell over each other to anticipate any call which might assure them entrance to the wonderful presence, and were almost frightened dumb when they got there.
Mrs. McVeigh apologized for them and amused her guest with the reason:
"They have actually never seen a white servant in their lives, and are eaten up with curiosity over the very superior maid of yours, her intelligence places her so high above their ideas of servitors."
"Yes, she is intelligent," agreed the Marquise, "and much more than her intelligence, I value her adaptability. As my housekeeper she was simply perfect, but when my maid grew ill and I was about to travel, behold! the dignity of the housekeeper was laid aside, and with a bewitching maid's cap and apron, and smile, she applied for the vacant position and got it, of course."
"It was stupid of me not to offer you a maid," said Mrs. McVeigh, regretfully; "I did not understand. But I could not, of course, have given you any one so perfect as your Louise; she is a treasure."
"I shall probably have to get along with some one less perfect in the future," said the other, ruefully. "She was to have had my yacht refurnished and some repairs made while I was here, and now that I am safely located, may send her back to attend to it. She is worth any two men I could employ for such supervision, in fact, I trust many such things to her."
"Pray let her remain long enough to gain a pleasant impression of plantation life," suggested Mrs. McVeigh, as they rose from the table. "I fancied she was depressed by the monotony of the swamp lands, or else made nervous by the group of black men around the carriage there at Loringwood; they did look formidable, perhaps, to a stranger at night, but are really the most kindly creatures."
Judithe de Caron had walked to the windows opening on the veranda and was looking out across the lawn, light almost as day under the high moon, a really lovely view, though both houses and grounds were on a more modest scale than those of Loringwood. They lacked the grandeur suggested by the century-old cedars she had observed along the Loring drive. The Terrace was much more modern and, possibly, so much more comfortable. It had in a superlative degree the delightful atmosphere of home, and although the stranger had been within its gates so short a time, she was conscious of the wonder if in all her varied experience she had ever been in so real a home before.
"How still it all is," remarked Mrs. McVeigh, joining her. "Tomorrow, when my little girl gets back, it will be less so; come out on the veranda and I can show you a glimpse of the river; you see, our place is built on a natural terrace sloping to the Salkahatchie. It gives us a very good view."
"Charming! I can see that even in the night time."
"Three miles down the river is the Clarkson place; they are most pleasant friends, and Miss Loring's place, The Pines, joins the Terrace grounds, so we are not so isolated as might appear at first; and fortunately for us our plantation is a favorite gathering place for all of them."
"I can quite believe that. I have been here two--three hours, perhaps, and I know already why your friends would be only too happy to come. You make them a home from the moment they enter your door."
"You could not say anything more pleasing to my vanity, Marquise," said her hostess, laughingly, and then checked herself at sight of an upraised finger. "Oh, I forgot--I do persist in the Marquise."
"Come, let us compromise," suggested her guest, "if Madame Caron sounds too new and strange in your ears, I have another name, Judithe; it may be more easily remembered."
"In Europe and England," she continued, "where there are so many royal paupers, titles do not always mean what they are supposed to. I have seen a Russian prince who was a hostler, an English lord who was an attendant in a gambling house, and an Italian count porter on a railway. Over here, where titles are rare, they make one conspicuous; I perceived that in New Orleans. I have no desire to be especially conspicuous. I only want to enjoy myself."
"You can't help people noticing you a great deal, with or without a title," and Mrs. McVeigh smiled at her understandingly. "You cannot hope to escape being distinguished, but you shall be whatever you like at the Terrace."
They walked arm in arm the length of the veranda, chatting lightly of Parisian days and people until ten o'clock sounded from the tall clock in the library. Mrs. McVeigh counted the strokes and exclaimed at the lateness.
"I certainly am a poor enough hostess to weary you the first evening with chatter instead of sending you to rest, after such a drive," she said, in self accusation. "But you are such a temptation--Judithe."
They both laughed at her slight hesitation over the first attempt at the name.
"Never mind; you will get used to it in time," promised the Marquise, "I am glad you call me 'Judithe.'"
Then they said good night; she acknowledged she did feel sleepy--a little--though she had forgotten it until the clock struck.
Mrs. McVeigh left her at the door and went on down the hall to her own apartment--a little regretful lest Judithe should be over wearied by the journey and the evening's gossip.
But she really looked a very alert, wide-awake young lady as she divested herself of the dark green travelling dress and slipped into the luxurious lounging robe Mademoiselle Louise held ready.
Her brows were bent in a frown of perplexity very different from the gay smile with which she had parted from her hostess. She glanced at her attendant and read there anxiety, even distress.
"Courage, Louise," she said, cheerily; "all is not lost that's in danger. Horrors! What a long face! Look at yourself in the mirror. I have not seen such a mournful countenance since the taking of New Orleans."
"And it was not your mirror showed a mournful countenance that day, Marquise," returned the other. "I am glad some one can laugh; but for me, I feel more like crying, and that's the truth. Heavens! How long that time seemed until you came."
"I know," and the glance of her mistress was very kind. "I could feel that you were walking the floor and waiting, but it was not possible to get away sooner. Get the other brush, child; there are wrinkles in my head as well as my hair this evening; you must help me to smooth them."
But the maid was not to be comforted by even that suggestion, though she brushed the wavy, dusky mane with loving hands--one could not but read tenderness in every touch she gave the shining tresses. But her sighs were frequent for all that.
"Me of help?" she said, hopelessly. "I tell you true, Marquise, I am no use to anybody, I'm that nervous. I was afraid of this journey all the time. I told you so before you left Mobile; you only laughed at my superstitious fears, and now, even before we reach the place, you see what happened."
"I see," asserted the Marquise, smiling at her, teasingly, "but then the reasons you gave were ridiculous, Louise; you had dreams, and a coffin in a teacup. Come, come; it is not so bad as you fear, despite the prophetic tea grounds; there is always a way out if you look for paths; so we will look."
"It is all well for you, Marquise, to scoff at the omens; you are too learned to believe in them; but it is in our blood, perhaps, and it's no use us fighting against presentiments, for they're stronger than we are. I had no heart to get ready for the journey--not a bit. We are cut off from the world, and even suppose you could accomplish anything here, it will be more difficult than in the cities, and the danger so much greater."
"Then the excitement will provide an attraction, child, and the late weeks have really been very dull."
The hair dressing ceased because the maid could not manipulate the brush and express sufficient surprise at the same time.
"Heavens, Madame! What then would you call lively if this has been dull? I'm patriotic enough--or revengeful enough, perhaps--for any human sort of work; but you fairly frighten me sometimes the way you dash into things, and laughing at it all the time as if it was only a joke to you, just as you are doing this minute. You are harder than iron in some things and yet you look so delicately lovely--so like a beautiful flower--that every one loves you, and--"
"Every one? Oh, Louise, child, do you fancy, then, that you are the whole world?"
The maid lifted the hand of the mistress and touched it to her cheek.
"I don't only love you, I worship you," she murmured. "You took me when I was nothing, you trusted me, you taught me, you made a new woman of me. I wouldn't ever mind slavery if I was your slave."
"There, there, Louise;" and she laid her hand gently on the head of the girl who had sunk on the floor beside her. "We are all slaves, more or less, to something in this world. Our hearts arrange that without appeal to the law-makers."
"All but yours," said the maid, looking up at her fondly and half questioningly, "I don't believe your heart is allowed to arrange anything for you. Your head does it all; that is why I say you are hard as iron in some things. I don't honestly believe your heart is even in this cause you take such risks for. You think it over, decide it is wrong, and deliberately outstrip every one else in your endeavor to right it. That is all because you are very learned and very superior to the emotions of most people;" and she touched the hand of the Marquise caressingly. "That is how I have thought it all out; for I see that the motives others are moved by never touch you; the others--even the high officials--do not understand you, or only one did."
Her listener had drifted from attention to the soft caressing tones of the one time Parisian figurante, whose devotion was so apparent and whose nature required a certain amount of demonstration. The Marquise had, from the first, comprehended her wonderfully well, and knew that back of those feminine, almost childish cravings for expression, there lived an affectionate nature too long debarred from worthy objects, and now absolutely adoring the one she deemed her benefactress; all the more adoring because of the courage and daring, that to her had a fascinating touch of masculinity about it; no woman less masterful, nor less beautiful, could have held the pretty Kora so completely. The dramatic side of her nature was appealed to by the luxurious surroundings of the Marquise, and the delightful uncertainty, as each day's curtain of dawn was lifted, whether she was to see comedy or tragedy enacted before the night fell. She had been audience to both, many times, since the Marquise had been her mistress.
Just now the mistress was in some perplexed quandary of her own, and gave little heed to the flattering opinions of the maid, and only aroused to the last remark at which she turned with questioning eyes, not entirely approving:
"Whom do you mean?" she asked, with a trifle of constraint, and the maid sighed as she selected a ribbon to bind the braid she had finished.
"No one you would remember, Marquise," she said, shaking her head; "the trouble is you remember none of them, though you make it impossible that they should forget you. Many of those fine gallants of Orleans I was jealous of and glad to see go; but this one, truly now, he seemed to me well worth keeping."
"Had he a name?" asked the Marquise, removing some rings, and yawning slightly.
"He had," said the girl, who was unfolding a night robe and shaking the wrinkles from the very Parisian confection of lawn and lace and tiny pink ribbons accenting neck and wrist. When she walked one perceived a slight halt in her step--a reminder of the injury through which her career in Paris had been brought to an end. "He had, my Marquise. I mean the Federal officer, Monroe--Captain Jack, the men called him. Of all the Orleans gentlemen he was the only one I thought fit for a mate for you--the only one I was sorry to see you send away."
"Send? What an imaginative romancer you are! He went where his duty called him, no doubt. I do not remember that I was responsible. And your choice of him shows you are at least not worldly in your selections, for he was a reckless sort of ranger, I believe, with his sword and his assurance as chief belongings."
"You forget, Marquise, his courage."
"Oh, that!" and Judithe made a little gesture of dismissal; "it is nothing in a man, all men should have courage. But, to change the subject, which of the two men have most interest for us tonight, Captain Jack or Dr. Delaven? The latter, I fancy. While you have been chattering I have been making plans."
The maid ceased her movements about the room in the preparations for the night, and, drawing a low stool closer, listened with all attention.
"Since you are afraid here and too much oppressed by your presentiments to be useful"--she accompanied this derogatory statement with an amused smile--"I conclude it best for you to return to the sea-board at once--before Dr. Delaven and the rest pay their duty visit here.
"I had hoped the change in your appearance would place you beyond danger of recognition, and so it would with any one who had not known you personally. Madame McVeigh has been vaguely impressed with your resemblance to Monsieur Dumaresque's picture. But the impression of Dr. Delaven would probably be less vague--his remembrance of you not having been entirely the memory of a canvas."
"That is quite true," agreed the other, with a regretful sigh. "I have spoken with him many times. He came with--with his friend Trouvelot to see me when I was injured. It was he who told me the physicians were propping me up with falsehoods, and taking my money for curing a lameness they knew was incurable. Yes, he was my good friend in that. He would surely remember me," and she looked troubled.
"So I supposed; and with rumors abroad of an unknown in the heart of the South, who is a secret agent for the Federals, it is as well not to meet any one who could suggest that the name you use is an assumed one, it might interfere with your usefulness even more than your dismal presentiments," and she arched her brows quizzically at the maid, who sighed forlornly over the complications suggested. "So, you must leave at once."
"Leave, alone--without you?" and the girl's agitation was very apparent. "Madame, I beg you to find some reason for going with me, or for following at once. I could send a dispatch from Savannah, you could make some excuse! You, oh, Marquise! if I leave you here alone I would be in despair; I would fear I should never, never see you again!"
"Nonsense, child! There is absolutely no ground for your fears. If you should meet trouble in any way you have only to send me word and I will be with you. But your imaginary terrors you must yourself subdue. Come, now, be reasonable. You must go back--it is decided. Take note of all landmarks as we did in coming; if messengers are needed it is much better that you inform yourself of all approaches here. Wait for the yacht at Savannah. Buy anything needed for its refurnishing, and see that a certain amount of repairing is done there while you wait further orders. I shall probably have it brought to Beaufort, later, which would be most convenient if I should desire to give my good friends here a little salt water excursion. So, you perceive, it is all very natural, and it is all decided."
"Heavens, Marquise, how fast you move! I had only got so far I was afraid to remain, and afraid to excite wonder by leaving; and while I lament, you arrange a campaign."
"Exactly; so you see how easily it is all to be done, and how little use your fears."
"I am so much more contented that I will see everything as you wish," promised the girl, brightly. "Savannah, after all, is not very far, and Beaufort is nearer still. But after all, you must own, my presentiments were not all wrong, Marquise. It really was unlucky--this journey."
"We have heretofore had only good fortune; why should we complain because of a few obstacles now?" asked her mistress. "To become a diplomat one needs to be first a philosopher, and prepared at all times for the worst."
"I could be more of a philosopher myself over these complications," agreed the girl, smiling, "if I were a foreigner of rank seeking amusement and adventure. But the troubles of all this country have come so close home to the people of my race that we fear even to think what the worst might be."
The Marquise held up an admonishing finger and glanced towards the door.
"Of course no one hears, but it is best never to allow yourself the habit of referring to family or personal affairs. Even though we speak a language not generally understood in this country, do not--even to me--speak of your race. I know all, understand it all, without words; and, for the people we have met, they do not doubt you are a San Domingo Creole. You must be careful lest they think differently."
"You are right; what a fool I am! My tongue ever runs ahead of my wit. Marquise, sometimes I laugh when I remember how capable I thought myself on leaving Paris, what great things I was to do--I!" and she shrugged her plump shoulders in self derision. "Why, I should have been discovered a dozen times had I depended on my own wit. I am a good enough orderly, but only under a capable general," and she made a smiling courtesy to the Marquise.
"Chatterbox! If I am the general of your distinguished selection, I shall issue an order at once for your immediate retirement."
"Oh, Marquise!"
"To bed," concluded her mistress, gayly, "go; I shall not need you. I have work to do."
The girl first unlaced the dark boots and substituted a pair of soft pink slippers, and touched her cheek to the slender foot.
"I shall envy the maid who does even that for you when I am gone," she said, softly. "Now, good rest to you, my general, and pleasant dreams."
"Thanks; but my dreams are never formidable nor important," was the teasing reply as the maid vanished. The careless smile gave way to a quick sigh of relief as the door closed. She arose and walked back and forth across the room with nervous, rapid steps, her hands clasped back of her head and the wide sleeves of the robe slipped back, showing the perfect arms. She seemed a trifle taller than when in Paris that first springtime, and the open robe revealed a figure statuesque, perfect as a sculptor's ideal, yet without the statue's coldness; for the uncovered throat and bosom held delicious dimples where the robe fell apart and was swept aside by her restless movements.
But her own appearance was evidently far from her thoughts at that moment. Several of Mrs. McVeigh's very affectionate words and glances had recurred to her and brought her a momentary restlessness. It was utterly absurd that it should be so, especially when she had encouraged the fondness, and meant to continue doing so. But she had not counted on being susceptible to the same feeling for Kenneth McVeigh's mother--yet she had come very near it, and felt it necessary to lay down the limits as to just how far she would allow such a fondness to lead her.
And the fact that she was in the home of her one-time lover gave rise to other complex fancies. How would they meet if chance should send him there during her stay? He had had time for many more such boyish fancies since those days, and back of them all was the home sweetheart she heard spoken of so often--Gertrude Loring.
How very, very long ago it seemed since the meetings at Fontainbleau; what an impulsive fool she had been, and how childish it all seemed now!
But Judithe de Caron told herself she was not the sort of person to allow memories of bygone sentiment to interfere for long with practical affairs. She drew up a chair to the little stand by the window and plunged into the work she had spoken of, and for an hour her pen moved rapidly over the paper until page after page was laid aside.
But after the last bit of memoranda was completed she leaned back, looking out into the blue mists of the night--across his lands luxuriant in all the beauty of summer time and moonlight, the fields over which he had ridden, the trees under which he had walked, with, perhaps, an occasional angry thought of her--never dreaming that she, also, would walk there some day.
"But to think that I
am actually here--here above all!" she murmured softly. "Maman, once I said I would be Judithe indeed to that man if he was ever delivered into my hands. Yet, when he came I ran away from him--ran away because I was afraid of him! But now--"
Her beautiful eyes half closed in a smile not mirthful, and the sentence was left unfinished. _