Chapter 6
They went, one by one, each with his bow or her curtsy. Mammy paused a moment to deliver her p.r.o.nunciamento. "Don' you fret, marster! I ain'
gwine let er soul _tech_ one er my chillern!" Julius followed her.
"Dat's so, marster! An' Gawd Ermoughty knows I'se gwine always prohibit jes' de same care ob de fambly an' de silver!"
When they were gone came the leave-taking of the guests, of all who were not to sleep that night at Greenwood. Maury Stafford was to stay, and Mr. Corbin Wood. Of those going Cousin William was the only one of years; the others were all young,--young men, young women on the edge of an unthought-of experience, on the brink of a bitter, tempestuous, wintry sea. They did not see it so; there was danger, of course, but they thought of splendour and heroism, of trumpet calls and waving banners. They were much excited; the young girls half frightened, the men wild to be at home, with plans for volunteering. "Good-bye, and good-bye, and good-bye again! and when it's all over--it will be over in three months, will it not, sir?--we'll finish the 'Virginia Reel!'"
The large, old coach and the saddle horses were brought around. They drove or rode away, through the April night, by the forsythia and the flowering almond, between the towering oaks, over the bridge with a hollow sound. Those left behind upon the Greenwood porch, cl.u.s.tered at the top of the steps, between the white pillars, stood in silence until the noise of departure had died away. Warwick Cary, his arm around Molly, his hand in Judith's, Unity's cheek resting against his shoulder, then spoke. "It is the last merry-making, poor children! Well--'Time and tide run through the longest day!'" He disengaged himself, kissed each of his daughters, and turned toward the lighted hall. "There are papers in the library which I must go over to-night. Edward, you had best come with me."
Father and son left the porch. Miss Lucy, too, went indoors, called Julius, and began to give directions. Ready and energetic, she never wasted time in wonder at events. The event once squarely met, she struck immediately into the course it demanded, cheerfully, without repining, and with as little attention as possible to forebodings. Her voice died away toward the back of the house. The moon was s.h.i.+ning, and the lawn lay chequered beneath the trees. Corbin Wood, who had been standing in a brown study, began to descend the steps. "I'll take a little walk, Judith, my dear," he said, "and think it over! I'll let myself in." He was gone walking rapidly, not toward the big gate and the road, but across to the fields, a little stream, and a strip that had been left of primeval forest. Unity and Molly, moving back to the doorstep, sat there whispering together in the light from the hall.
Judith and Richard were left almost alone, Judith leaning against a white pillar, Cleave standing a step or two below her.
"You have been in Richmond?" she said. "Molly had a letter from Miriam--"
"Yes, I went to find, if possible, rifled muskets for my company. I did not do as well as I had hoped--the supply is dreadfully small--but I secured a few. Two thirds of us will have to manage, until we can do better, with the smoothbore and even with the old flintlock. I have seen a breech-loader made in the North. I wish to G.o.d we had it!"
"You are going back to Botetourt?"
"As soon as it is dawn. The company will at once offer its services to the governor. Every moment now is important."
"At dawn.... You will be its captain?"
"I suppose so. We will hold immediately an election of officers--and that's as pernicious a method of officering companies and regiments as can be imagined! 'They are volunteers, offering all--they can be trusted to choose their leaders.' I don't perceive the sequence."
"I think that you will make a good captain."
He smiled. "Why, then, the clumsy thing will work for once! I'll try to be a good captain.--The clock is striking. I do not know when nor how I shall see Greenwood again. Judith, you'll wish me well?"
"Will I wish you well, Richard? Yes, I will wish you well. Do not go at dawn."
He looked at her. "Do you ask me to wait?"
"Yes, I ask you. Wait till--till later in the morning. It is so sad to say good-bye."
"I will wait then." The light from the hall lay unbroken on the doorstep. Molly and Unity had disappeared. A little in yellow lamplight, chiefly in silver moonlight the porch lay deserted and quiet before the murmuring oaks, above the fair downward sweep of gra.s.s and flowers. "It is long," said Cleave, "since I have
"Yes."
He came nearer. "Judith, was it so hard to forgive--that tournament? You had both crowns, after all."
"I do not know," said Judith, "what you mean."
"Do you remember--do you remember last Christmas when, going to Lauderdale, I pa.s.sed you on your way to Silver Hill?"
"Yes, I remember."
"I was on my way to Lauderdale, not to see Fauquier, but to see you. I wished to ask you a question--I wished to make certain. And then you pa.s.sed me going to Silver Hill, and I said, 'It is certainly so.' I have believed it to be so. I believe it now. And yet I ask you to-night--Judith--"
"You ask me what?" said Judith. "Here is Mr. Stafford."
Maury Stafford came into the silver s.p.a.ce before the house, glanced upward, and mounted the steps. "I walked as far as the gate with Breckinridge. He tells me, Mr. Cleave, that he is of your Company of Volunteers."
"Yes."
"I shall turn my face toward the sea to-morrow. Heigho! War is folly at the best. And you?--"
"I leave Greenwood in the morning."
The other, leaning against a pillar, drew toward him a branch of climbing rose. The light from the hall struck against him. He always achieved the looking as though he had stepped from out a master-canvas.
To-night this was strongly so. "In the morning! You waste no time.
Unfortunately I cannot get away for another twenty-four hours." He let the rose bough go and turned to Judith. His voice when he spoke to her became at once low and musical. There was light enough to see the flush in his cheek, the ardour in his eye. "'Unfortunately!' What a word to use in leaving Greenwood! No! For me most fortunately I must wait another four and twenty hours."
"Greenwood," said Judith, "will be lonely without old friends." As she spoke, she moved toward the house door. In pa.s.sing a great porch chair her dress caught on the twisted wood. Both men started forward, but Stafford was much the nearer to her. Released, she thanked him with grave kindness, went on to the doorway, and there turned, standing a moment in her drapery of dim blue, in the two lights. She had about her a long scarf of black lace, and now she drew it closer, holding it beneath her chin with a hand slender, fine, and strong. "Good-night,"
she said. "It is not long to morning, now. Good-night, Mr. Stafford.
Good-night, Richard."
The "good-night" that Stafford breathed after her needed no commentary.
It was that of the lover confessed. Cleave, from his side of the porch, looked across and thought, "I will be a fool no longer. She was merely kind to me--a kindness she could afford. 'Do not go till morning--_dear cousin_!'" There was a silence on the Greenwood porch, a white-pillared rose-embowered s.p.a.ce, paced ere this by lovers and rivals. It was broken by Mr. Corbin Wood, returning from the fields and mounting the moonlit steps. "I have thought it out," he said. "I am going as chaplain." He touched Stafford, of whom he was fond, on the shoulder. "It's the sweetest night, and as I came along I loved every leaf of the trees and every blade of gra.s.s. It's home, it's fatherland, it's sacred soil, it's mother, dear Virginia--"
He broke off, said good-night, and entered the house.
The younger men prepared to follow. "The next time that we meet," said Stafford, "may be in the thunder of the fight. I have an idea that I'll know it if you're there. I'll look out for you."
"And I for you," said Cleave. Each had spoken with entire courtesy and a marked lack of amity. There was a moment's pause, a feeling as of the edge of things. Cleave, not tall, but strongly made, with his thick dark hair, his tanned, clean shaven, squarely cut face, stood very straight, in earnest and formidable. The other, leaning against the pillar, was the fairer to look at, and certainly not without his own strength. The one thought, "I will know," and the other thought, "I believe you to be my foe of foes. If I can make you leave this place early, without speaking to her, I will do it."
Cleave turned squarely. "You have reason to regret leaving Greenwood--"
Stafford straightened himself against the pillar, studied for a moment the seal ring which he wore, then spoke with deliberation. "Yes. It is hard to quit Paradise for even such a tourney as we have before us. Ah well! when one comes riding back the welcome will be the sweeter!"
They went indoors. Later, alone in a pleasant bedroom, the man who had put a face upon matters which the facts did not justify, opened wide the window and looked out upon moon-flooded hill and vale. "Do I despise myself?" he thought. "If it was false to-night I may yet make it truth to-morrow. All's fair in love and war, and G.o.d knows my all is in this war! Judith! Judith! Judith! look my way, not his!" He stared into the night, moodily enough. His room was at the side of the house. Below lay a slope of flower garden, then a meadow, a little stream, and beyond, a low hilltop crowned by the old Greenwood burying-ground. "Why not sleep?... Love is war--the underlying, the primeval, the immemorial....
All the same, Maury Stafford--"
In her room upon the other side of the house, Judith had found the candles burning on the dressing-table. She blew them out, parted the window curtains of flowered dimity, and curling herself on the window-seat, became a part of the April night. Crouching there in the scented air, beneath the large, mild stars, she tried to think of Virginia and the coming war, but at the end of every avenue she came upon a morning hour. Perhaps it would be in the flower garden, perhaps in the summer-house, perhaps in the plantation woods where the windflower and the Judas tree were in bloom. Her heart was hopeful. So lifted and swept was the world to-night, so ready for great things, that her great thing also ought to happen, her rose of happiness ought to bloom. "After to-morrow," she said to herself, "I will think of Virginia, and I'll begin to help."
Toward daybreak, lying in the large four-post bed beneath the white ta.s.selled canopy, she fell asleep. The sun was an hour high when she awoke. Hagar, the girl who waited upon her, came in and flung wide the shutters. "Dar's er mockin' bird singin' mighty neah dish-yer window!
Reckon he gwine mek er nes' in de honeysuckle."
"I meant to wake up very early," said Judith. "Is any one downstairs yet, Hagar?--No, not that dress. The one with the little flowers."
"Dar ain' n.o.body down yit," said Hagar. "Ma.r.s.e Richard Cleave, he done come down early, 'way 'bout daybreak. He got one of de stable-men ter saddle he horse an' he done rode er way. Easter, she come in de house jes' ez he wuz leaving en he done tol' her ter tell marster dat he'd done been thinkin' ez how dar wuz so much ter do dat he'd better mek an early start, en he lef' good-bye fer de fambly. Easter, she ax him won't he wait 'twel the ladies come down, en he say No. 'Twuz better fer him ter go now. En he went. Dar ain' n.o.body else come down less'n hits Ma.r.s.e Maury Stafford.--Miss Judith, honey, yo' ain' got enny mo' blood in yo'
face than dat ar counterpane! I gwine git yo' er cup er coffee!"
CHAPTER V
THUNDER RUN
Allan Gold, teaching the school on Thunder Run, lodged at the tollgate halfway down the mountain. His parents were dead, his brothers moved away. The mountain girls were pretty and fain, and matches were early made. Allan made none; he taught with conscientiousness thirty tow-headed youngsters, read what books he could get, and worked in the tollgate keeper's small, bright garden. He had a pa.s.sion for flowers. He loved, too, to sit with his pipe upon the rude porch of the toll-house, fanned by the marvellous mountain air, and look down over ridges of chestnut and oak to the mighty valley below, and across to the far blue wall of the Alleghenies.