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Throckmorton: A Novel

by Molly Elliot Seawell · English · Gutenberg #36829 · 438,370 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Throckmorton: A Novel

Author: Molly Elliot Seawell


        
Release date: July 24, 2011 [eBook #36829]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROCKMORTON: A NOVEL ***




Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net









 THROCKMORTON

 A NOVEL

 BY

 MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL

 GROSSET & DUNLAP
 Publishers ::  :: New York




 COPYRIGHT, 1890
 BY D. APPLETON & CO.

 COPYRIGHT, 1909
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY




THROCKMORTON.




CHAPTER I.


In a lowland Virginia neighborhood, strangely cut off from the rest of
the world geographically, and wrapped in a profound and charming
stillness, a little universe exists. It has its oracles of law,
medicine, and divinity; its wars and alliances. Free from that outward
contact which makes an intolerable sameness among people, its types
develop quaintly. There is peace, and elbow-room for everybody's
peculiarities.

Such was the Severn neighborhood--called so from Severn church. Every
brick in this old pile had been brought from green England two hundred
years before. It seemed as if, in those early days, nothing made with
hands should be without picturesqueness; and so this ancient church,
paid for in hogsheads of black tobacco, which was also the currency in
which the hard-riding, hard-drinking parsons took their dues, was peaked
and gabled most beautifully. The bricks, mellowed by two centuries, had
become a rich, dull red, upon which, year after year, in the enchanted
Southern summers and the fitful Southern winters, mosses and gray
lichens laid their clinging fingers. It was set far back from the broad,
white road, and gnarled live-oaks and silver beeches and the melancholy
weeping-willows grew about the churchyard. Their roots had pushed, with
gentle persistence, through the crumbling brick wall that surrounded it,
where most of the tombstones rested peacefully upon the ground as they
chanced to fall. Within the church itself, modern low-backed pews had
supplanted the ancient square boxes during an outbreak of philistinism
in the fifties. At the same time, a wooden flooring had been laid over
the flat stones in the aisles, under which dead and gone vicars--for the
parish had a vicar in colonial days--slept quietly. The interior was
darkened by the branches of the trees that pressed against the wall and
peered curiously through the small, clear panes of the oblong windows;
and over all the singular, unbroken peace and silence of the region
brooded.

The country round about was fruitful and tame, the slightly rolling
landscape becoming as flat as Holland toward the rich river-bottoms. The
rivers were really estuaries, making in from the salt ocean bays, and as
briny as the sea itself. Next the church was the parsonage land, still
known as the Glebe, although glebes and tithes had been dead these
hundred years. The Glebe house, which was originally plain and
old-fashioned, had been smartened up by the rector, the Rev. Edmund
Morford, until it looked like an old country-woman masquerading in a
ballet costume; but the Rev. Edmund thought it beautiful, and only
watched his chance to lay sacrilegious hands on the old church and to
plaster it all over with ecclesiastical knickknacks of various sorts.

The Rev. Mr. Morford had come into the world handicapped by the most
remarkable personal beauty, and extreme fluency of tongue. Otherwise, he
was an honest and conscientious man. But he belonged to that common
class among ecclesiastics who know all about the unknowable, and have
accurately measured the unfathomable. On Sundays, when he got up in
the venerable pulpit at Severn, looking so amazingly handsome in his
snow-white surplice, he dived into the everlasting mysteries with a
cocksureness that was appalling or delightful according to the view one
took of it. In the tabernacle of his soul, which was quite empty of
guile and malice, three devils had taken up their abode: one was the
conviction of his own beauty, another was the conviction of his own
cleverness, and still another was the suspicion that every woman who
looked at him wanted to marry him. Mr. Morford reasoned thus:

     I. That all women want to get married.
     II. That an Edmund Morford is not to be picked up every day.
     III. That eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

On Sundays he scarcely dared look toward the pew where General and Mrs.
Temple sat, with their beautiful widowed daughter-in-law, Mrs. Beverley
Temple, on one side of them, and Jacqueline Temple, as lovely in her
small, kittenish way, on the other, for fear that one or the other of
these young women would fall hopelessly in love with him. Mrs. Beverley,
as the young widow was called, to distinguish her from the elder Mrs.
Temple, had the fatal charm for the Rev. Edmund that all things feared
and admired have. He believed in his heart of hearts that widows were
made for his undoing, and that the good old Hindoo custom of burning
them up alive was the only really safe disposition to make of them. The
charm of Judith Temple's piquant face and soft, shy eyes was somewhat
neutralized by a grim suspicion lodged in Mr. Morford's mind that she
was unnecessarily clever. The Rev. Edmund had a wholesome awe of clever
women, especially if they had a knack of humor, and was very much afraid
of them. Judith had a sedate way of replying to Morford's resounding
platitudes that sometimes created a laugh, and when he laboriously
unwound the meaning, he was apt to find the germ of a joke; and Judith
was so grave--her eyes were so sweetly serious when she was laying traps
to catch the Rev. Edmund's sluggish wits. But Judith herself thought of
no man whatever, and had learned to regard the sparkle of her
unquenchable humor almost as a sin. However, having got a bad name for
cleverness, neither the most sincere modesty nor the deepest courtesy
availed her in keeping it quiet. Morford, in his simple soul, thought a
clever woman could do anything; and suppose Judith should cast her eyes
on--at this the Rev. Edmund would turn pale in the midst of his sermon
when he caught Judith's gray eyes fixed soberly on him. Soberness--and
particularly Judith's soberness--was deceitful.

Barn Elms, the Temple place, was near to the Glebe and to Severn church.
The house was rambling and shabby, and had been patched and pieced, with
an utter disregard of architectural proportion that resulted in a
curious and unexpected picturesqueness. A room was put on here, and a
porch was clapped up there, just as the fancy of each successive Temple
had dictated. It was partly of brick and partly of stone. Around it
stood in tall ranks the solemn, black-leaved poplars, and great
locust-trees grew so close to the house that on windy nights the sound
of their giant arms beating the shingled roof awoke superstitious fears
in the negroes, who declared it to be the "sperrits" of dead and gone
Temples struggling to get in through the chimneys. There was a step up
or a step down in every room in the house, and draughts enough in the
unnecessary halls and passages to turn a windmill. There was, of
course, that queer mixture of shabbiness and luxury about the old place
and the mode of living that is characteristic of Virginia. Mrs. Temple
had piles and piles of linen sheets laid away with the leaves of damask
roses between them in the old cedar chests, but half the rooms and all
the stairs and passages were uncarpeted. It required the services of an
able-bodied negro to keep these floors polished--but polished they were,
like a looking-glass. The instrument used in this process was called a
"dry-rubbin' bresh" by the manipulators, and might well have been used
in Palestine during the days of Herod the tetrarch, being merely a block
of wood covered with a sheepskin, well matted with wax and turpentine.
At unearthly hours, in cold winter mornings and gray summer dawns, the
monotonous echo of this "bresh" going up and down the hall-floors was
the earliest sound in the Barn Elms house. There was a full service of
silver plate displayed upon a huge and rickety mahogany sideboard, but
there was a lack of teaspoons. Mrs. Temple had every day a dinner fit
for a king, but General Temple was invariably behindhand with his taxes.
The general's first purchase after the war was a pair of splendid
Kentucky horses to pull the old carriage bought when Mrs. Temple was a
bride, and which was so moth-eaten and worm-eaten and rust-eaten that
when it started out it was a wonder that it ever came back again. The
kitchen was a hundred yards from the house in one direction, and the
well, with its old-fashioned bucket and sweep, was a hundred yards off
in another direction. The ice-house and stables were completely out of
sight; while the negro houses, annually whitewashed a glaring white,
were rather too near. But none of these things annoyed General and Mrs.
Temple, who would have stared in gentle surprise at the hint that
anything at Barn Elms could be improved.

General Temple, six feet tall, as straight as an Indian, with a rich,
commanding voice and a lofty stride, stood for the shadow of domestic
authority; while Mrs. Temple, a gentle, affectionate, soft-spoken,
devoted, and obstinate woman, who barely reached to the general's elbow,
was the actual substance. From the day of their marriage he had never
questioned her decision upon any subject whatever, although an elaborate
fiction of marital authority was maintained between them and devoutly
believed in by both. Mrs. Temple always consulted the general
punctiliously--when she had made up her mind--and General Temple, after
a ponderous pretense of thinking it over, would say in his fine,
sonorous voice: "My dear Jane, the conviction of your extremely sound
judgment, formed from my experience of you during thirty years of
married life, inclines me to the opinion that your suggestion is
admirable. You have my permission, my love"--a permission Mrs. Temple
never failed to accept with wifely gratitude, and, like the general,
really thought it amounted to something. This status is extremely common
in Virginia, where, as a rule, the men have a magnificent but imaginary
empire, and the women conduct the serious business of life.

Brave, chivalrous, generous, loving God and revering woman, General
Temple was as near a monster of perfection as could be imagined, except
when he had the gout. Then he became transformed into a full-blown
demon. From the most optimistic form of Episcopal faith, he lapsed into
the darkest Calvinism as soon as he felt the first twinge of his malady,
and by the time he was a prisoner in the "charmber," as the bedroom of
the mistress of the family is called in Virginia, he believed that the
whole world was created to be damned. Never had General Temple been
known under the most violent provocation to use profane language; but
under the baleful influence of gout and superheated religion combined,
he always swore like a pirate. His womenkind, who quietly bullied him
during the best part of the year, found him a person to be feared when
he began to have doubts about freewill and election. To this an
exception must be made in favor of Mrs. Temple and of Delilah, the
household factotum, who was no more afraid of General Temple than Mrs.
Temple was. She it was who was mainly responsible for these carnivals
of gout by feeding the patient on fried oysters and plum-pudding when
Dr. Wortley prescribed gruel and tapioca. Delilah was one of the
unterrified, and used these spells to preach boldly at General Temple
the doctrines of the "Foot-washin' Baptisses," a large and influential
colored sect to which she belonged.

"Ole marse," Delilah would begin, argumentatively, "if you wuz ter jine
de Foot-washers--"

"Jane! Jane!" General Temple would shout.--"Come here, my love. If you
don't get rid of this infernal old fool, who wants absolutely to dragoon
me out of my religion, I'll be damned if I--God forgive me for
swearing--and you, my dear--"

Sometimes these theological discussions had been known to end by
Delilah's flying out of the room, with the general's boot-jack whizzing
after her. At Mrs. Temple's appearance, though, the emeute would be
instantly quelled. Delilah was also actively at war with Dr. Wortley, as
the black mammies and the doctors invariably were, and during the visits
of the doctor, who was a peppery little man, it was no infrequent thing
to hear his shrill falsetto, the general's loud basso, and Delilah's
emphatic treble all combined in an angry three-cornered discussion
carried on at the top of their lungs.

Like mistress, like maid. As Mrs. Temple ruled the general, Delilah
ruled Simon Peter, her husband, who since the war was butler, coachman,
gardener, and man-of-all-work at Barn Elms. Mrs. Temple, however, ruled
with circumlocution as well as circumspection, and had not words
sufficient to condemn women who attempt to govern their husbands. But
Delilah had no such scruples, and frequently treated Simon Peter to
remarks like these:

"Menfolks is mighty consequenchical. Dey strut 'bout, an' dey cusses an'
damns, an' de womenfolks do all de thinkin' an' de wukkin'. How long you
think ole marse keep dis heah plantation if it warn't fur mistis?"

"Look a heah, 'oman," Simon Peter would retaliate, when intolerably
goaded, "Paul de 'postle say--"

"What anybody keer fur Paul de 'postle? Womenfolks ain' got no use fur
dat ole bachelor. Men is cornvenient fur ter tote water, an' I ain' seen
nuttin' else much dey is good fur."

Simon Peter's entire absence of style partly accounted for the low
opinion of his abilities entertained by his better half. He was slouchy
and sheep-faced, and, when he appeared upon great occasions in one of
General Temple's cast-off coats, the tails dragged the ground, while
the sleeves had to be turned back nearly to the elbow. Delilah, on the
contrary, was as tall as a grenadier, and had an air of command second
only to General Temple himself and much more genuine. She was addicted
to loud, linsey-woolsey plaids, and on her head was an immaculately
white "handkercher" knotted into a turban that would have done credit
to the Osmanlis.

The war had given General Temple the opportunity of his lifetime. He
"tendered his sword to his State," as he expressed it, immediately
organized Temple's Brigade, and thereafter won a reputation as the
bravest and most incompetent commander of his day. His ideas of a
brigade commander were admirably suited to the middle ages. He would
have been great with Richard Coeur de Lion at the siege of Ascalon,
but of modern warfare the general was as innocent as a babe. It was
commonly reported that, the first time he led his brigade into action,
he did not find it again for three days. His men called him Pop, and
always cheered him vociferously, but pointedly declined to follow him
wherever he should lead, which was invariably where he oughtn't to have
been. He had innumerable horses shot under him, but, by a succession of
miracles, escaped wounds or capture. It was a serious mortification to
the general that he should have come out of the war with both arms and
both legs; and it was marvelous, considering that he put himself in
direct line of fire upon every possible occasion, and galloped furiously
about, waving his sword whenever he was in a particularly ticklish
place.

Since the war General Temple had found congenial employment in studying
the art of war as exemplified in books, and in writing a History of
Temple's Brigade. As he knew less about it than any man in it, his
undertaking was a considerable one, especially as he had to give a
personal sketch, with pedigree and anecdotes, of every member of the
brigade. He had started out to complete this great work in three
volumes, but it looked as if ten would be nearer the mark. As regards
the theory of war, General Temple soon became an expert, and knew by
heart every campaign of importance from those of Hannibal, the one-eyed
son of Hamilcar, down to Appomattox. A good deal of the money that would
have paid his taxes went into the general's military library, which
was a source of endless pride to him, and which caused the History of
Temple's Brigade to be, in some sort, a history of all wars, ancient
and modern.

The pride and satisfaction this literary work of his gave the general's
honest heart can not be described. He read passages of it aloud to Mrs.
Temple and Judith and Jacqueline in the solemn evenings in the old
country-house, his resonant voice echoing through the old-fashioned,
low-pitched drawing-room. Mrs. Temple listened sedately and admiringly,
and thanked Heaven for having given her this prodigy of valor and
learning. Nor, after hearing the History of Temple's Brigade all the
evening, was she wearied when, at two o'clock in the morning, General
Temple would have a wakeful period, and striding up and down the
bedroom floor, wrapped in a big blanket over his dressing-gown,
declaimed and dissected all the campaigns of the war, from Big Bethel to
Appomattox. Mrs. Temple, sitting up in bed, with the most placid air in
the world, would listen, and thank and admire and love more than ever
this hero, whom she had wrapped around her finger for the last thirty
years. O blessed ignorance--O happy blindness of women! which gracious
boon God has not withheld from any of the sex. But there was something
else that made General Temple's long-winded war stories so deeply,
tragically interesting to Mrs. Temple. There had been a son--the husband
of the handsome daughter-in-law--Mrs. Temple could not yet speak his
name without a sob in her voice. That was what she had given to the
great fight. When the news of his death came, General Temple, who had
never before dreamed of helping Mrs. Temple's stronger nature, had
ridden night and day to be with her at that supreme moment, knowing that
the blow would crush her if it did not kill her. She came out of the
furnace alive but unforgetting. She would not herself forget Beverley,
nor would she allow anybody else to forget him. She remembered his
anniversaries, she cherished his belongings; she, this tender,
excellent, self-sacrificing woman, sacrificed, as far as she could,
herself and everybody else to the memory of the dead and gone Beverley.
As fast as one crape band on the general's hat wore out, she herself,
with trembling hands, sewed another one on. As for herself, she would
have thought it sacrilege to have worn anything but the deepest black;
and Judith, after four years of widowhood, wore, whether willingly or
unwillingly, the severest widow's garb. Jacqueline alone had been
suffered, out of consideration for her youth and the general's pleading,
to put on colors. The girl, who was beautiful and simple, but quite
different from other girls, in her heart cherished a hatred against this
memory of the dead, that had made her youth so sad, so encompassed with
death. Jacqueline loved life and feared death; and whenever her mother
began to speak of Beverley, which she did a dozen times a day,
Jacqueline's shoulders would twitch impatiently. She longed to say:
"What is he to us? He is dead--and we live. Why can't he be allowed to
rest in peace, like other dead people?" Jacqueline was far from
heartless; she loved her sister-in-law twice as well as she had ever
loved her handsome silent brother, whose death made no gap in her life,
but had ruthlessly barred out all brightness from it. Jacqueline, in
her soul, longed for luxury and comfort. All the discrepancies and
deficiencies at Barn Elms were actually painful to her, although she had
been used to them all her life. She wanted a new piano instead of the
wheezy old machine in the drawing-room. She wanted a thousand things,
and, to make her dissatisfaction with Barn Elms more complete, not a
quarter of a mile away, across a short stretch of feathery pine-trees,
on a knoll, stood a really great house, Millenbeck by name. To
Jacqueline's inexperienced eyes, the large square brick house, with its
stone balustrade around the roof, its broad porch, with marble steps
that shone whitely through the trees around it, was quite palatial. And
nobody at all lived there. It was the family place of the Throckmortons.
The last Throckmorton in the county was dead and gone; but there was
another--grandson to the last--a certain Major George Throckmorton, who,
although Virginian born and bred, had remained in the regular army all
through the war, and was still in it. This George Throckmorton had spent
his boyhood at Millenbeck with his grandfather, who was evil tempered
and morose, and thoroughly wicked in every way. The old man had gone to
his account during the war, and since then his creditors had been
fighting over his assets, which consisted of Millenbeck alone. Major
Throckmorton had money, and it had been whispered about that, whenever
Millenbeck was sold, this army Throckmorton would buy it. But it was
freely predicted that he would never dare show his face in his native
county after his turpitude during the war in fighting against his State,
and he was commonly alluded to as a traitor. Nevertheless, at Severn
church, one Sunday, it was said that this Throckmorton had bought
Millenbeck, and would shortly make his appearance there.

General and Mrs. Temple, as they sat on opposite sides of the fireplace
at Barn Elms, discussing the matter with the profound gravity that the
advent of a new neighbor in the country requires, to say nothing of the
sensation of having a traitor at one's doors, came nearer disagreeing
than usual. The night was cool, although it was early in September, and
a little fire sparkled cheerfully upon the brass andirons on the hearth
in the low-pitched, comfortable, shabby drawing-room. Mrs. Temple,
clicking her knitting-needles placidly, with her soft eyes fixed on the
fire, went over the enormity of those to whom Beverley's death was due.
To her, the gentlest and at the same time the sternest of women, the war
took on a personal aspect that would have been ludicrous had it not been
pathetic. Ah! what was that boy that Beverley had left, what was Judith
the young widow, or even Jacqueline, to that lost son? Nothing, nothing!
Mrs. Temple, still gazing at the fire, saw in her mind, as she saw every
hour of the day and many of the night, the dead man lying stark and
cold; and, as if in answer to her thoughts, General Temple spoke, laying
down his volume of Jomini:

"My love, what will you do--ahem! what would you recommend me to do
regarding George Throckmorton when he arrives? Speak frankly, my dear,
and do not be timid about giving me your opinion."

A curious kind of resentment shone in Mrs. Temple's face.

"It is not for a woman to guide her husband; but _we_ at least can not
forget what the war has cost us."

General Temple sighed. He had heard that Throckmorton had got a year's
leave and would probably spend it at Millenbeck. How fascinating did the
prospect appear of a real military man with whom he could discuss plans
of campaign, and flank movements, and reconnaissances, and all the
_technique_ of war in which his soul delighted! For, although Dr.
Wortley had become a great military critic, as everybody was in those
days, he had never smelt powder, and was a very inferior antagonist for
a brigadier-general, who had been in sixteen pitched battles without
understanding the first thing about any of them.

Jacqueline, who sat in her own little chair, with her feet on a
footstool, and her elbows on her knees, began in an injured voice:

"And the house is going to be perfectly grand. Mrs. Sherrard told me
about it to-day. A whole parcel of people"--Jacqueline was a provincial,
although an amazingly pretty one--"a whole parcel of people came by the
boat--workmen and servants, and most splendid furniture, carpets, and
pictures, and cabinets, and all sorts of elegant things--just for those
two men--for there is a young man, too--Jack is his name."

"Yes," said Mrs. Temple, meditatively, as she still clicked her
knitting-needles together with a pleasant musical sound, "the boy must
be about twenty-two. George Throckmorton I well remember was married at
twenty-one to a pretty slip of a girl, so I've heard, who lived a very
little while. He can't be more than forty-four now. He is the last man I
ever supposed would ever turn traitor. He was the finest lad--I remember
him so well when he was a handsome black-eyed boy; and when we were
first married--don't you recollect, my dear?"

General Temple rose gallantly, and, taking Mrs. Temple's hand in his,
kissed it.

"Can you ask me, my love, if I remember anything connected with that
most interesting period of my life?" he asked.

Neither the handsome Judith nor little Jacqueline were at all
discomposed by this elderly love-making, to which they were perfectly
accustomed. A slight blush came into Mrs. Temple's refined, middle-aged
face. It was worth while to coddle a man, and take all the labor of
thinking and acting off his shoulders, for the sake of this delightful
sentiment. Like his courage, General Temple's sentiment was high-flown
but genuine.

"I was about to say," resumed Mrs. Temple, when the general had
returned to his chair, "that when I came to Barn Elms a bride, George
Throckmorton was much here. You did not notice him, my love, as I
did--but I felt sorry for the boy; old George Throckmorton certainly was
a most godless person. The boy's life would have been quite wretched, I
think, in spite of his grandfather's liberality to him, but for the few
people in the neighborhood like Kitty Sherrard and myself, who tried to
comfort him. He would come over in the morning and stay all day,
following me about the house and garden, trying to amuse Beverley, who
was a mere baby."

Mrs. Temple never spoke the name of her dead son without a strange
little pause before it.

"And, my dear," answered the general, making another feeble effort, "can
you not now embrace the scriptural injunction?"

"The Scripture says," responded sternly this otherwise gentle and
Christian soul, "that there is a time to love and a time to hate."

All this time, Judith, the young widow, had not said a word. She was
slight and girlish-looking. Her straight dark brows were drawn with a
single line, and in her eyes were gleams of mirth, of intelligence, of a
love of life and its pleasures, that habitual restraint could not wholly
subdue. When she rose, or when she sat down, or when she walked about,
or when she arched her white neck, there was a singular grace, of which
she was totally unconscious. Something about her suggested both love and
modesty. But Fate, that had used her as if she were a creature without a
soul, had married her to Beverley Temple--and within two months she was
a widow. The shock, the horror of it, the willingness to idealize the
dead man, had made her quietly assume the part of one who is done with
this world. And Nature struggles vainly with Fate. Judith, in her black
gown, and a widow's cap over her chestnut hair, with her pretty air of
wisdom and experience, fancied she had sounded the whole gamut of human
love, grief, loss, and joy. Neither Millenbeck, nor anything but
Beverley's child and his father and mother and sister, mattered anything
to her, she thought.

Jacqueline, however, looked rebellious, but said nothing. Like her
father, she was under the rule of this soft-voiced mother. But it
was certainly very hard, thought Jacqueline, bitterly, that with
Millenbeck beautifully fitted up, with a delightful young man like Jack
Throckmorton--for Jacqueline had already endowed him with all the graces
and virtues--and a not old man, a soldier too, should be right at their
doors, and she never to have a glimpse of Millenbeck, nor a chance for
walks and drives with them. Jacqueline sighed profoundly, and looked
despairingly at Judith, who was the stay, the prop, the comforter of
this undisciplined young creature.




CHAPTER II.


Within a few days Throckmorton and Jack Throckmorton--the traitor and
the traitor's son--had arrived at Millenbeck.

Jacqueline could talk of nothing but the dawning splendors of the place.
Delilah, who had an appetite for the marvelous scarcely inferior to
Jacqueline's, kept her on the rack with curiosity.

"Dey done put Bruskins carpets all over de house," she retailed solemnly
into Jacqueline's greedy ears, "an' velvet sofys an' cheers, an' de
lookin'-glasses from de garret ter de cellar. An' dey got a white man
name' Sweeney--mighty po' white trash, Simon Peter say--dat is a white
nigger, an' he talk mighty cu'rus. Simon Peter he meet him in de road,
an' dis heah Mis' Sweeney he ax him ef dey was any Orrish gentmans 'bout
here. Simon Peter he say he never heerd o' no sich things ez Orrish
gentmans, an' Mis' Sweeney he lif' up he stick, an' Simon Peter he took
ter he heels an' Mis' Sweeney arter him, an' Simon Peter 'low ef he
hadn't run down in de swamp, Mis' Sweeney would er kilt him, sho'! An'
he doan' min' blackin' de boots at Millenbeck an' milk de cows, an' den
he dress up fine an' wait on de table--an' he a white man, too! He done
tell some folks he wuz a soldier an' fit, an' he gwine ev'ywhar Marse
George Throckmorton go, ef it twuz hell itself. Things is monst'ous fine
at Millenbeck--_dat_ dey is--an' all fur dem two menfolks. Seem like God
A'mighty done give all de good times ter de menfolks an' all de hard
times ter de womenfolks."

"Is that so, mammy?" asked Jacqueline, dolefully, who was simple of
soul, and disposed to believe everything Delilah told her.

"Dat 'tis, chile, ez sho'--ez sho' ez God's truf. De menfolks jes' lives
fur ter be frustratin' an' owdacious ter de po' womenfolks, what byar de
burdens. I tell Simon Peter so ev'y day; but dat nigger he doan' worrit
much 'bout what de po' womenfolks has got ter orndure. Men is mighty
po', vain, weak creetures--_I_ tell Simon Peter dat too ev'y day."

"Dat you does," piously responded Simon Peter.

The windows to Judith's room possessed a strange fascination in those
days for Jacqueline, because they looked straight out to Millenbeck.
There she stood for hours, dreaming, speculating, thinking out aloud.

"Just think, Judith; there is a great big hall there that mamma says has
a splendid dancing-floor!"

"Jacky, stop thinking about Millenbeck and the dancing-floor. It doesn't
concern you, and you know that mother will never let you speak to
either of the Throckmortons," answered Judith.

"Yes, I know it," said Jacqueline, disconsolately. "The more's the pity.
Papa is dying to be friends with them when they come; but, of course,
mamma won't let him."

Jacqueline's voice was usually high-pitched, rapid, and musical, but
whenever she meant to be saucy she brought it down to great meekness
and modesty.

"Major Throckmorton, you know, is a widower. I don't believe in grieving
forever, like mamma. Suppose, now, Judith, _you_ should--"

But Judith, whose indulgence to Jacqueline rarely failed, now rose up
with a pale face.

"Jacqueline, you forget yourself."

Usually one rebuke of the sort was enough for Jacqueline, but this time
it was not. She came and clasped Judith around the waist, and held her
tight, looking into her eyes with a sort of timid boldness.

"Just let me say one thing. Mamma is sacrificing all of us--you and me
and papa--to--to Beverley--"

"Hush, Jacqueline!"

"No, I won't hush. Judith, how long was it from the time you first met
Beverley until you married him?"

"Two months."

"And how much of that time were you together?"

"Two--weeks," answered Judith, falteringly.

"And then you married him, and you had hardly any honeymoon, didn't
you?"

"A very short one."

"And Beverley went away, and never came back."

There was a short silence. Jacqueline was nerving herself to say what
had been burning upon her lips for long.

"Then--then, Judith, he was so little _in_ your life--he was so little
_of_ your life."

"But, Jacqueline, when one loves, it makes no difference whether it is a
month or a year."

"Yes, when one loves; but, Judith, did you love Beverley _that_ way?"

Judith stood quite still and pale. The thought was then put in words
that had haunted her. She no longer thought of answering Jacqueline, but
of answering herself. Was it, indeed, because she was so young, so
entirely alone in the world, and, in truth, had known so little of the
man she married, that it became difficult for her to recall even his
features; that she felt something like a pang of conscience when Mrs.
Temple spoke his name; that this perpetual kindness to his father and
his mother seemed a sort of reparation? Jacqueline, seeing the change
in Judith's face, went softly out of the room. Judith stood where
Jacqueline had left her. Presently the door opened, and little Beverley
came in, and made a dash for his mother. Judith seized him in her arms,
and knelt down before him, and for the thousandth time tried to find
a trace of his father in his face. But there was none. His eyes, his
mouth, his expression, were all hers. Even the little bronze rings of
hair that escaped from under her widow's cap were faithfully reproduced
on the child's baby forehead. This strong resemblance to his mother was
a thorn in Mrs. Temple's side. She would have had the boy his father's
image. She would have had him grave and given to serious, thoughtful
games, and to hanging about older people, such as her Beverley had been;
but this merry youngster was always laughing when he was not crying, and
was noisy and troublesome, as most healthy young animals are. Yet she
adored him.

The boy soon got tired of his mother's arms around him, and
uncomfortable under her tender, searching gaze.

"I want to go to my mammy," he lisped.

Judith rose and led him by the hand down-stairs to Delilah. The child
ran to his mammy with a shout of delight. His mother sometimes awed his
baby soul with her gravity, when he had been naughty. Often he could not
get what he wanted by crying for it, and got smart slaps upon his plump
little palms when he cried. But with Delilah there was none of this.
Delilah represented a beneficent Providence to him, which permitted
naughtiness, and had no limit to jam and buttermilk.

The Throckmortons had at last come, but had kept very close to
Millenbeck for a week or two after their arrival in the county; but on
one still, sunny September Sunday at Severn church, just as the Rev.
Edmund Morford appeared out of the little robing-room, after having
surveyed himself carefully in the mite of a looking-glass, and satisfied
himself that his adornment was in keeping with his beauty, two gentlemen
came in quietly at a side door, and took their seats in the first vacant
pew. They looked more like an elder and a younger brother than father
and son. Both had the same square-shouldered, well-knit figures, not
over middle height--the same contour of face, the same dark eyes. But it
was a type which was at its best in maturity. Major Throckmorton was
much the handsomer man of the two, although, as Judith Temple said some
time after, when called upon to describe him, that handsome scarcely
applied to him--he was rather distinguished than actually handsome--and
she blushed unnecessarily as she said it. His hair and mustache were
quite iron-gray, and he had the unmistakable look and carriage of a
military man. The pew they took near the door was against the wall of
the church, and in effect facing the Temple pew, where sat all the
family from Barn Elms, including little Beverley, who looked a picture
of childish misery, compelled to be preternaturally good, until sleep
overcame him, and his yellow mop of hair fell over against his mother.
Young Throckmorton, whose eyes were full of a sort of gay curiosity, let
his gaze wander furtively over the congregation, and in two minutes knew
every pretty face in the church. The two prettiest were unquestionably
in the Temple pew. Without boldness or obtrusiveness, he managed to keep
every glance and every motion in that pew in sight; and Jacqueline, by
something like psychic force, knew it, and conveyed to him the idea that
no glance of his escaped her. Nevertheless, she was very devout, and the
only look she gave him was over the top of her prayer-book. Judith,
with her large, clear gaze fixed on the clergyman, was in her way as
conscious as Jacqueline. But Throckmorton saw nothing and nobody for a
time, except that he was back again in Severn church after thirty years.
How well he remembered it all!--the little dark gallery to the right of
the pulpit, where in the old times Mrs. Temple and Mrs. Sherrard had
sat, and sung the old, old hymns, their sweet, untrained voices rising
into the dark, cobwebbed, resonant roof--voices as natural as that of
the sweet, shy singing birds that twittered under the eaves of the old
church, and built their nests safely and peacefully in the solemn yews
and weeping-willows of the burying-ground close by. The September
sunlight, as it sifted through the windows on the heads of the kneeling
people--even the droning of the honey-bees outside, and the occasional
incursion of a buzzing marauder through the windows--made him feel as if
he were in a dream. It was not the recollection of a happy boyhood that
had brought him back to Millenbeck. He remembered his grandfather as an
old curmudgeon, the terror of his negroes and dependents, wasteful, a
high liver, and a hard drinker; and himself a lonely boy, with neither
mother nor sister, nor any sort of kindness to brighten his boyish soul,
except those good women, Mrs. Temple and Mrs. Sherrard. Deep down in his
being was that Anglo-Saxon love of the soil--the desire to return whence
he came. He knew much of the world, and doubted if the experiment of
returning to Millenbeck would succeed, but he at least determined to try
it. He had no very serious notion of abandoning his profession, which he
loved, while he grumbled at it, but he had had this project of a year's
leave, to be spent at Millenbeck, in his mind for a long, long time, and
he wanted Jack to own the place. Himself the most unassuming of men, he
cherished, unknown to those who knew him best, a strong desire that his
name should be kept up in Virginia where it had been known so long.
With scarcely a word on the subject spoken between father and son, Jack
had the same drift of sentiment. Both had inherited from dead and gone
generations a clinging to old things, old forms, that made itself felt
in the strenuous modern life, and even a sturdy family pride that native
good sense concealed.

The Rev. Edmund Morford, along with his unfortunate excess of good
looks, inherited a rich, strong voice, in which he rolled out the
liturgy with great elocutionary effect. He saw the two strangers in the
congregation, and at once divined who they were, and determined to give
them a sermon that would show them what stuff parsons were made of in
Virginia. He was much struck by the scrupulousness with which Major
Throckmorton went through the service, which the Rev. Edmund attributed
partly to his own telling way of rendering it. But in truth,
Throckmorton neither saw nor heard the Rev. Edmund. He went through the
forms with a certain military precision that very often passed for
strict attention, as in this case, but he was still under the spell of
the bygone time. Mr. Morford gave out a hymn, and the congregation rose,
Throckmorton standing up straight like a soldier at attention. After a
little pause, a voice rose. It was so sweet, so pure, that Throckmorton
involuntarily turned toward the singer. It was Judith Temple, her clear
profile well marked against her black veil, which also brought out
the deep tints of her eyes and hair, and the warm paleness of her
complexion. She sang quite composedly and unaffectedly, a few women's
voices, Mrs. Temple's among the rest, joining in timidly, but her full
soprano carried the simple air. Her head was slightly thrown back as she
sang, and apparently she knew the words of the hymn by heart, as she did
not once refer to the book held open before her.

There is something peculiarly touching in female voices unaccompanied.
Throckmorton thought so as he came out of his waking dream and glanced
about him. In an instant he took in the pathetic story of war and ruin
and loss that was written all over the assembled people. Many of the
women were in mourning, and the men had a jaded, haggard, hopeless look.
They had all been through with four years of harrowing, and they showed
it. In the Temple pew Mrs. Temple and Judith were in the deepest
mourning, and General Temple wore around his hat the black band that
Mrs. Temple would never let him take off.

Throckmorton's eye rested for a moment in approval on Judith, and then
on Jacqueline, but he looked at Jacqueline the longest.

Then, after the hymn, Mr. Morford began his sermon. It was electrifying
in a great many unexpected ways. Throckmorton, who knew something about
most things, saw through Morford's shallow Hebraism, and inwardly
scoffed at the cheerful insufficiency with which the most abstruse
biblical problems were attacked. Morford's candor, confidence, and
perfect good faith tickled Throckmorton; he felt like smiling once or
twice, but, on looking around, he saw that everybody, except those who
were asleep, took Morford at his own valuation; except the young woman
with the widow's veil about her clear-cut face, whose eyes, fixed
attentively on Mr. Morford, had something quizzical in their expression.
Throckmorton at once divined a sense of humor in that grave young widow
that was conspicuously lacking in Jacqueline, who listened, bored but
awed, to the preacher's sounding periods.

The sermon was long and loud, and there was another hymn, sung in the
simple and touching way that went to Throckmorton's heart, and then a
dramatic benediction, after the Rev. Edmund had announced that the next
Sunday, "in the morning, the Lord will be with us, and in the evening
the bishop. I need not urge you, beloved brethren, to be prepared for
the bishop."

Then the congregation streamed out for their weekly gossip in the
churchyard. Throckmorton and Jack went out, too. No one spoke to them,
nor did they speak to any one. As a matter of fact, there were not half
a dozen people there that Throckmorton would have recognized; but he
was perfectly well known to everybody in the church, who, but for the
uniform he had worn, would have greeted him cordially and generously,
recalling themselves to him. But now they all held coldly and
determinedly aloof. Throckmorton, who was slow to imagine offense, did
not all at once take it in. But he would not lose a moment in speaking
to Mrs. Temple, one of the few persons he recognized, and the one most
endeared to him in his early recollections. The Temples, possibly to
avoid him, had made straight for the iron gate of the churchyard, and
stood outside the wall, waiting for the tumble-down carriage.
Throckmorton quickened his pace, and went up to Mrs. Temple, carrying
his hat in his hand.

"Mrs. Temple, have you forgotten George Throckmorton?" he asked in his
pleasant voice.

Mrs. Temple turned to him with a somber look on her gentle face.

"No, I have not forgotten you, George Throckmorton. But you and I are
widely apart. Between us is a great gulf, and war and sorrow."

A deep flush dyed Throckmorton's dark face. He was not prepared for
this, but he could not all at once give up this friendship, the memory
of which had lasted through all the years since his boyhood.

"The war is over," he said; "we can't be forever at war."

"It is enough for _you_ to say," she replied. "You have your son. Where
is mine?"

"As well call me to account for the death of Abel. Dear Mrs. Temple,
haven't you any recollection of the time when you were almost the only
friend I had? I have few enough left, God knows."

Here General Temple came to the front. In his heart he was anxious to
be friends with Throckmorton, and did not despair of obtaining Mrs.
Temple's permission eventually. He held out his hand solemnly to
Throckmorton.

"_I_ can shake hands with you, George Throckmorton," he said, and
then, turning to Mrs. Temple, "for the sake of what is past, my love,
let us be friends with George Throckmorton."

Throckmorton, who in his life had met with few rebuffs, was cruelly
wounded. In all those years he had cherished an ideal of womanly and
motherly tenderness in Mrs. Temple, and she was the one person in his
native county on whose friendship he counted. He looked down, indignant
and abashed, and in the next moment looked up boldly and encountered
Judith's soft, expressive eyes fixed on him so sympathetically that he
involuntarily held out his hand, saying:

"You, at least, will shake hands with me."

Judith, who strove hard to bring her high spirit down to Mrs. Temple's
yoke, did not always succeed. She held out her hand impulsively. The
spectacle of this manly man, rebuffed with Mrs. Temple's strange power,
touched her.

"And this," continued Throckmorton, out of whose face the dull red had
not yet vanished, turning to Jacqueline, "must be a little one that I
have not before seen.--Mrs. Temple, I can't force you to accept my
friendship, but I want to assure you that nothing--nothing can ever make
me forget your early kindness to me."

Mrs. Temple opened her lips once or twice before words came. Then she
spoke.

"George Throckmorton, you think perhaps that, being a soldier, you know
what war is. You do not. I, who sat at home and prayed and wept for four
long years, for my husband and my son, and to whom only one came back,
when I had sent forth two--_I_ know what it is. But God has willed it
all. We must forgive. Here is my hand--and show me your son."

Throckmorton, whose knowledge of Mrs. Temple was intimate, despite that
long stretch of years, knew what even this small compromise had cost
her. He motioned to Jack, who was surveying the scene, surprised and
rather angry, from a little distance. The young fellow came up, and Mrs.
Temple looked at him very hard, a film gathering in her eyes.

"I am glad you have such a son. Such was our son."

The carriage was now drawn up, and General Temple looked agonizingly at
Mrs. Temple. He wanted her to invite Throckmorton to Barn Elms, but
Mrs. Temple said not one word. Throckmorton, in perfect silence, helped
the ladies into the carriage. He did not know whether to be gratified
that Mrs. Temple had conceded so much, or mortified that she had
conceded so little.

Jacqueline in the carriage gave him a friendly little nod. Judith leaned
forward and bowed distinctly and politely. General Temple, holding his
hat stiffly against his breast, remarked in his most grandiose manner:
"As two men who have fought on opposing sides--as two generous enemies,
my dear Throckmorton--I offer you my hand. I did my best against you in
my humble way"--General Temple never did anything in a humble way in his
life, and devoutly believed that the exploits of Temple's Brigade had
materially influenced the result--"but, following the example of our
immortal chieftain, Robert Lee, I say again, here is my hand."

A twinkle came into Throckmorton's eye. This was the same Beverley
Temple of twenty-five years ago, only a little more magniloquent than
ever and a little more under Mrs. Temple's thumb. Throckmorton,
repressing a smile, shook hands cordially.

"Neither of us has any apologies to make, general," he said. "I think
that ugly business is over for good. I feel more friendly toward my own
unfortunate people now than ever before. Good-by."

The general then made a stately ascent into the carriage, banged the
door, and rattled off.

Short as the scene had been, it made a deep impression upon Judith
Temple. Throckmorton's dignity--the tender sentiment that he had
cherished for his early friends--struck her forcibly. The very tones of
his voice, his soldierly carriage, his dark, indomitable eye, were so
impressed upon her imagination that, had she never seen him again, she
would never have forgotten him. It was an instant and powerful
attraction that had made her hold out her hand and smile at him.

Throckmorton, without trying the experiment of hunting up any more old
friends, turned to walk home. It was a good four-mile stretch, and
usually he stepped out at a smart gait that put Jack to his trumps to
keep up with. But to-day he sauntered along so slowly, through the woods
and fields with his hat over his eyes and his hands behind him, that
Jack lost patience and struck off ahead, leaving Throckmorton alone,
much to his relief.

Throckmorton wanted to think it all over. In his heart there was not
one grain of resentment toward Mrs. Temple. He thought he understood
the workings of her strong but simple nature perfectly well, and he
did not doubt the ultimate goodness of her heart. And General
Temple--Throckmorton had heard something of the general's magnificent
incapacity during the war--the bare idea of General Temple as a
commander made him laugh. How sweet were Mrs. Beverley's eyes, and how
demure she looked when she dropped them at some particularly solemn
absurdity of the clergyman, as if she were afraid somebody would see
the tell-tale gleam in them! The little girl, though, was the most
fascinating creature he had seen for long. How strangely and how
pitifully altered was the congregation of Severn church from the merry
prosperous country gentry he remembered so long ago! And how quiet, how
still was life there! All his usual every-day life was shut out from
him. Within the circle of that perfect repose nothing disquieting could
come. He stopped in the country lane and listened. Nothing broke the
solemn calm except the droning of the locusts in the September noon.
Warm as it was, there was a hint of autumn in the atmosphere.
Occasionally the clarion cry of a hawk circling in the blue air pierced
the silence.

"This, then, is peace," said Throckmorton to himself, and thought of the
year of idleness and repose before him. "Nothing ever happens here," he
continued, thinking. "Even the tragedy of the war was at a distance. As
Mrs. Temple says, the men went forth, and those that came back will go
forth no more."

Then he began to think over the way in which the people had completely
ignored him in the churchyard, where they stopped and gossiped with each
other, eying him askance. He knew perfectly well the estimate they put
upon him. He could have supplied the very word--"traitor." This made him
feel a sort of bitterness, which he consoled with the reflection--

"Most men of principle have to suffer for those principles at some time
or other."

By this time he was at his own grounds, and Sweeney's honest Irish face,
glowing with indignation, was watching out for him.

"Be the powers," snorted Sweeney to the black cook, "the murtherin'
rebels took no more notice of the major than if he'd been an ould
hat--an' he's a rale gintleman, fit ter dine with the Prisident, as he
often has, an' all the g'yurls has been tryin' to hook him fur twinty
years, bless their hearts, an' the major as hard as a stone to the dear
things, every wan of 'em!"




CHAPTER III.


Within a week or two after, one afternoon Mrs. Kitty Sherrard made her
appearance at Barn Elms, with a great project in hand. She meant to give
a party.

Party-giving was Mrs. Sherrard's idiosyncrasy. According to the usual
system in Virginia, during the lifetime of the late Mr. Sherrard, there
was much frolicking, dancing, and hilarity at Turkey Thicket, the
Sherrard place, and a corresponding narrowness of income and general
behindhandedness. But since Mr. Sherrard's death Mrs. Sherrard, along
with the unvarying and sublime confidence in her husband, dead or alive,
that characterizes Virginia women, had yet entirely abandoned Mr.
Sherrard's methods. The mortgage on Turkey Thicket had been paid off,
the whole place farmed on common-sense principles, and the debts
declared inevitable by Mr. Sherrard carefully avoided. As a matter of
fact, the only people in the county who paid their taxes promptly were
the widows, who nevertheless continually lamented that they were
deprived of the great industry, foresight, and business capacity of
their defunct lords and masters. Mrs. Sherrard gave as many parties in
Mr. Sherrard's lifetime as she did after his death; but, since that
melancholy event, the parties were paid for, not charged on account.

When this startling information about the coming festivity was imparted,
Jacqueline, who was sitting in her own low chair by the fire, gave a
little jump.

"And," said Mrs. Sherrard, who was a courageous person, "I'll tell you
what I am giving it for. It is to get the county people to meet George
Throckmorton. Not a human being in the county has called on him, except
Edmund Morford, and I fairly drove him to it. He began some of his
long-winded explanations. 'Aunt Kitty,' he said, 'what am I, even though
I be a minister of the gospel, that I should set myself up against the
spirit of the community, which is against recognizing Throckmorton?'
'What are you, indeed, my dear boy,' I answered. 'I'm not urging you to
go, because it's a matter of the slightest consequence what you do or
what you don't, but merely for your own sake, because it is illiberal
and unchristian of you not to go.' Now, Edmund is a good soul, for all
his nonsense."

Mrs. Temple was horrified at this way of speaking of the young rector.

"And I've intimated to him that I'm about to make my will--I haven't the
slightest notion of doing it for the next twenty years--but the mere
hint always brings Edmund to terms, and so he went over to Millenbeck to
call. He came back perfectly delighted. The house is charming,
Throckmorton is a prince of hospitality, and I don't suppose poor Edmund
ever was treated with so much consideration by a man of sense in his
life before." Mrs. Temple groaned, but Mrs. Sherrard kept on, cutting
her eye at Judith, who was the only person at Barn Elms that knew a joke
when she saw it. Judith bent over her work, laughing. "I met
Throckmorton in the road next day. 'So you dragooned the parson into
calling on the Philistine,' he said. Of course I tried to deny it, after
a fashion; but Throckmorton won't be humbugged--can't be, in fact--and I
had to own up. 'You can't say Edmund's not a gentleman,' said I, 'and he
is the most good-natured poor soul; and if he had broken his nose, or
got cross-eyed in early youth, he really would have cut quite a
respectable figure in the world.' 'That's true,' answered George,
laughing, and looking so like he did long years ago, 'but you'll admit,
Mrs. Sherrard, that he is too infernally handsome for his own good.'
'Decidedly,' said I."

"Katharine Sherrard," solemnly began Mrs. Temple, who habitually called
Mrs. Sherrard Kitty, except at weddings and funerals, and upon occasions
like the present, when her feelings were wrought up, "the way you talk
about Edmund Morford is a grief and a sorrow to me. He is a clergyman of
our church, and it is not becoming for women to deride the men of their
own blood. Men must rule, Katharine Sherrard. It is so ordered by the
divine law."

"Jane Temple," answered Mrs. Sherrard, "you may add by the human law,
too; but some women--"

"Set both at naught," answered Mrs. Temple, piously and sweetly.

"They do, indeed," fervently responded Mrs. Sherrard, having in view
General Temple's complete subjugation. "But now about the party. The
general must come, of course. I wish I could persuade you."

"I have not been to a party since before the war, and now I shall never
go to another one."

"But Judith and Jacqueline will come."

At this a deep flush rose in Judith's face.

"I don't go to parties, Mrs. Sherrard."

"I know; but you must come to this one."

Mrs. Temple set her lips and said nothing, but Jacqueline, who sometimes
asserted herself at unlooked-for times, spoke up:

"If Judith doesn't go, I--I--sha'n't go."

"You hear that?" asked Mrs. Sherrard, delighted at Jacqueline's spirit.
"Stick to it, child; there is no reason why Judith shouldn't come."

Here General Temple entered and greeted Mrs. Sherrard elaborately. Mrs.
Sherrard immediately set to work on the general. She knew perfectly well
that he could do no more in the case than Simon Peter could, but she
poured her fire into him, thinking a stray shot might hit Mrs. Temple.
Judith remained quite silent. She was too sincere of soul to say she did
not want to go; and yet going to parties was quite out of that life of
true widowhood she had laid down for herself; and life was intolerably
dull. She loved gayety and brightness, and her whole life was clothed
with somberness. She was full of ideas, and loved books, and nobody in
the house ever read a line except General Temple, and his reading was
confined to the science of war, for which he would certainly never have
any use. She was full of quick turns of repartee, that, when she
indulged them, almost frightened Mrs. Temple, who had the average
woman's incapacity for humor. Mrs. Sherrard and herself were great
friends--and friends were not too plentiful with Mrs. Sherrard, whose
tongue was a two-edged sword. Nevertheless, Mrs. Temple and Mrs.
Sherrard had been intimate all their lives, and Mrs. Sherrard was one of
the few persons who ever took liberties with Mrs. Temple. Mrs. Sherrard
was clear-sighted, and she knew what nobody else did--how starved and
blighted was Judith's life by that stern repression to which she had set
herself; and she had known Beverley Temple, too, and sometimes said to
herself: "Perhaps it is better for Judith as it is, for Beverley, brave
and handsome as he was, yet was a dreadfully ordinary fellow. Luckily,
she was hustled into marrying him so quickly, and she was so young, she
didn't find it out; but if he had lived--"

Mrs. Sherrard departed, impressing upon General Temple that she should
certainly expect to see him at the party, with Judith and Jacqueline.
Simon Peter in the kitchen reported the state of affairs to Delilah, who
remarked:

"Miss Kitty She'ard, she know Miss Judy cyan go twell ole mistis say so.
Ole marse, he got a heap o' flourishes an' he talk mighty big, but
mistis she doan' flourish none; she jes' go 'long quiet like, an' has
her way."

"Dat's so," answered Simon Peter, rubbing his woolly head with an air of
conviction. "Mistis su't'ny is de wheel-hoss in dis heah team."

"An' ain' de womenfolks allus de wheel-hosses? Ole marse he set up an'
he talk 'bout de weather an' de craps, an' he specks de 'lection gwine
discomfuse things, an' he read de paper an' he know more 'n de paper do,
an' he read de Bible an' he know more 'n de Bible do, an' all de time he
ain' got de sperrit uv a chicken."

"De womenfolks kin mos' in gen'ally git dey way," cautiously answered
Simon Peter.

"Yes, dey kin; an' dey is gwine ter, 'long as menfolks is so triflin'
an' owdacious as dey is."

Jacqueline developed a strange obstinacy about the party. She declared
she was dying to go, but she never wavered from her determination not to
go without Judith.

"But your sister does not wish to go, Jacqueline," her mother said to
this.

"But I want her to go, mamma. You can't imagine how I _long_ to go to
this party. It is so very, very dull at Barn Elms--and I have my new
white frock."

"Judith has no frock."

"Oh, yes she has. She has that long black dress, in which she looks so
nice, and she is so clever at sewing she could cut it open at the neck
and turn up the sleeves at the elbow."

Mrs. Temple said nothing more. Jacqueline went about, eager-eyed, but
silent, and possessed of but one idea--the party. A day or two after
this she said bitterly to her mother, when Judith was out of the room:

"Mamma, I know why you are willing to disappoint me about this party. It
is because you love your dead child better than your living one."

Mrs. Temple turned a little pale. The thrust went home, as some of
Jacqueline's thrusts did.

"And if I don't go, I will cry and cry--I will cry that night so loud
in my room that papa will come in, and you know how it vexes him to have
me cry; and it will break my heart--I know it will."

Mrs. Temple went about all day with Jacqueline's words ringing in her
ears. That night, after Jacqueline was in bed, her mother went into the
room. It was a large, old-fashioned room, and Jacqueline's little white
figure, as she sat up in bed, was almost lost in the huge four-poster,
with dimity curtains and valance. The fire still smoldered, and the
spindle-shanked dressing-table, with the glass set in its mahogany
frame, cast unearthly shadows on the floor in the half-light. Mrs.
Temple sat down by the bed. Something like remorse came into the
mother's heart. This child was the least loved by both father and
mother. Jacqueline began at once, in her sweet, nervous voice:

"Mamma, I have been thinking about the party."

"So have I, child."

"And may we go?"

Mrs. Temple paused before she spoke.

"Yes, you and Judith may go," she said presently in a stern voice--ah!
the sternness of these gentle women!

Jacqueline held out her arms fondly to her mother, but Mrs. Temple could
not be magnanimous in defeat. She went out, softly closing the door
behind her, without giving Jacqueline her good-night kiss, but
Jacqueline called after her in a voice tremulous with gratitude and
delight, "Dear, sweet mamma!"

The moment she heard the "charmber-do'," as the negroes called it, shut
down-stairs, Jacqueline slipped out of bed and flew across the dark
passage into Judith's room to tell the wonderful news. Judith was
sitting before the fire, holding her sleeping child in her arms. The boy
had waked and had clung to his mother until she lifted him out of his
little bed. He had gone to sleep directly, but Judith held him close; he
was so little, so babyish, yet so soft and warm and clinging.

"We are going to the party, Judith," said Jacqueline, excitedly,
kneeling down by her.

"Are we?" answered Judith. A gleam came into her eyes very like
Jacqueline's.

"And--and--" continued Jacqueline with a sly, half-laughing glance, "we
will meet Major Throckmorton again."

"Go to bed, Jacqueline," replied Judith in the soft, composed voice that
invariably crushed Jacqueline.

Next morning General Temple showed the most unqualified delight at Mrs.
Temple's capitulation. He considered it becoming, though, to make some
slight protest against going to the party. He thought, perhaps, with his
tendency to gout, it would scarcely be prudent to expose himself to the
night air, and--er--to Kitty Sherrard's chicken salad; and, besides, he
really was not justified in postponing the drawings of some maps to
illustrate the position of Temple's Brigade at the battle of
Chancellorsville; for, like all other dilettanti, General Temple's work
was always of present importance and admitted of no delay whatever.

Mrs. Temple did not smile at this, but treated it with great
seriousness.

"Quite true, my dear; but now that I have promised Jacqueline, I can not
disappoint her. You must go for her sake."

"Rather let me say, my dear Jane, that I go for your sake--your wishes,
my love, being of paramount importance."

For a henpecked man, it was impossible to be more imposing or agreeable
than General Temple. So on the night of the party he was promptly on
hand, at eight o'clock, in his old-fashioned evening coat, the tails
lined with white satin, and wearing a pair of large, white kid gloves.

Jacqueline and Judith soon appeared. Jacqueline, in her new white frock,
looked her prettiest, albeit it showed her youthful thinness and all her
half-grown angles. Judith's beauty was of a sort that could stand the
simplicity of her black gown that revealed her white neck, and, for the
first time since her widowhood, she wore no cap over her red-brown hair.
Delilah and Simon Peter yah-yahed and ki-yied over both of them.

"Dem little foots o' Miss Jacky's in de silk stockin's ain' no bigger
'n little Beverley's, hardly, and Miss Judy she look like de Queen o'
Sheba," delightedly remarked Delilah.

Judith could scarcely meet Mrs. Temple's eyes. She felt inexplicably
guilty. Mrs. Temple examined them critically, though, and the general
was loftily complimentary.

"And, Delilah," said Judith, gathering up her gloves nervously, "be sure
and look after Beverley. He has never been left alone in his life
before."

"I will look after Beverley, Judith," said Mrs. Temple, and Judith
blushed faintly at something in the tone.

All the way, going along the country road in the moonlight, Judith could
feel Jacqueline's little feet moving restlessly with excitement. As they
drove up to the house, and caught glimpses through the open hall-door of
the dancers and heard the sound of music, Jacqueline began to bob up and
down with childish delight.

Like most Virginia country-houses, Turkey Thicket had an immense
entrance hall, which was not heated and was of no earthly use the best
part of the year, and for which all the rooms around it were
unnecessarily cramped. Mrs. Sherrard's hall was of more use to her than
most people's, owing to her party-giving proclivities, and was brightly
lighted up for dancing. As Judith came down the broad stairs on General
Temple's arm, a kind of thrill of surprise went around among the guests.
Nobody expected to see her. Many of them had never seen her except in
her widow's veil and cap. Judith, remembering this, could not restrain a
blushing consciousness that made her not less handsome; and, besides,
her good looks were always full of surprises. One never knew whether she
would be simply pale and pretty, or whether she would blaze out into a
sudden and captivating beauty.

They made their way through the dancers, Jacqueline alternately pale and
red with excitement, and the general bowing right and left, until they
entered the small, old-fashioned drawing-room. Mrs. Sherrard, in a plain
black silk, but with a diamond comb in her white hair and a general air
of superbness, was delighted to see Judith. It was a victory over Jane
Temple. She detained her for a moment to whisper: "My dear, I am
dreadfully afraid I shall make a failure in trying to get George
Throckmorton accepted here. The girls, who most of them never saw so
fine a man before, will hardly have a word to say to him; the men are a
little better, but it isn't a pronounced success by any means. I have
been longing for you to come. You have so much more sense than any of
the young people I know, I thought you would be a little less freezing
to him."

At this a warmer color surged into Judith's cheeks. She could not
remember ever to have seen a man who impressed her so instantly as
Throckmorton. With her clear, feminine instinct, she had seen at the
first glance what manner of man he was. As Mrs. Sherrard spoke to her,
she turned and saw him standing by the fireplace, talking with Edmund
Morford. Throckmorton could not have desired a better foil than the
young clergyman, with his faultless red and white skin, his curling dark
hair, his mouth full of perfect teeth, and his character as a clerical
dandy written all over him. Throckmorton, whose good looks were purely
masculine and characteristic, looked even more manly and soldierly by
contrast. Both men caught sight of Judith at the same moment. Morford
was thrown into a perfect flutter. He wondered if Judith had put on that
square-necked, short-sleeved black gown to do him a mischief.
Throckmorton, obeying a look from Mrs. Sherrard, came forward and was
formally introduced. Judith offered her hand, after the Virginia custom,
which Throckmorton bowed over.

"Mrs. Temple did not present me to you on Sunday," he said, with a smile
and a slight flush; "but I guessed very readily who you were."

Judith, too, colored.

"Poor mother, you must not take her too hardly. You know how good she
is, but--but she is very determined; she moves slowly."

"Yes," replied Throckmorton, with his easy, man-of-the-world manner;
"but I am afraid there are others as unyielding as Mrs. Temple, and not
half so kindly--for she is a dear soul! It seemed to me the carrying out
of a sort of dream to come back to Millenbeck. My boy Jack--that young
fellow yonder--looks rather old to be my son, don't you think?"

"Y-e-s," answered Judith, with provoking dubiousness and a wicked little
smile.

"Oh, you are really too bad! I am very tired of explaining to people
that Jack is nothing like as old as he looks. Well, the boy, although
brought up at army posts, rather wanted to be a Virginian, and to own
the old place; you know that sort of thing always crops out in a
Virginian."

"Yes," smiled Judith; "I see how it crops out in _you_. You are
immensely proud of being a Throckmorton, and you would rather own
Millenbeck, if it were tumbling down about your ears, than the finest
place in the world anywhere else."

"Now, Mrs. Beverley," said Throckmorton, determinedly, "I can't have my
weaknesses picked out in this prompt and savage manner. I own I am a
fool about Millenbeck, but I'd have sworn that nobody but myself knew
it. I've got a year's leave, and I've come down here with Sweeney, an
old ex-sergeant of mine, who has owned me for several years, and my old
horse Tartar, that is turned out to grass; and if I like it as well as I
expect, I may resign"--Throckmorton was always talking about resigning,
as Mrs. Sherrard was about making her will, without the slightest idea
of doing it--"and turn myself out to grass like Tartar. But my reception
hasn't been--a--exactly--cordial--or--"

"I am sorry you have been disappointed," said Judith, gently; "but it
seems to me that we are all in a dreadful sort of transition state now.
We are holding on desperately to our old moorings, although they are
slipping away; but I suppose we shall have to face a new existence some
time."

"I think I understand the feeling here--even that dead wall of prejudice
that meets me. One look around Severn church, last Sunday, would have
told me that those people had gone through with some frightful crisis. I
thought, perhaps being one of their own county people originally might
soften them toward me, but I believe that makes me blacker than ever."

Judith could not deny it.

Throckmorton, who was worldly wise, read Judith at a glance, besides
having learned her history since first seeing her. He saw that she was
under a fixed restraint, and that a word would frighten her into the
deepest reserve. He treated her, therefore, as if she had been a Sister
of Charity. Judith, who made up for her lack of knowledge of the world
by rapid perceptions and natural talents, had seen more quickly than
Throckmorton. Here was a man the like of whom she had not often met.
Throckmorton knew perfectly well the solitary lives these country women
led, and he had often wondered at the singular fortitude they showed. He
set himself to work to find out what chiefly interested this young
woman, who showed such remarkable constancy to her dead husband, but who
gave indications to his practiced eye of secretly loving life and its
concerns very much. He had heard about her pretty boy. At this Judith
colored with pleasure and became positively talkative. Her boy was the
sweetest boy--she would like never to have him out of her sight. Major
Throckmorton, with a sardonic grin, confided to Judith that he would
frequently be highly gratified at having _his_ son out of his sight,
because Jack made the women think he, the major, was a Methuselah, and
covertly made much game of him, for which he would like to kick Jack,
but couldn't.

Judith laughed merrily at this--a laugh so clear and rippling, and yet
so rare, that the sound of it startled her. Was Mrs. Beverley fond of
reading? Mrs. Beverley was very fond of reading, but there was nothing
newer in the array of books at Barn Elms than 1840. Major Throckmorton
would be only too happy to supply her with books. He had had a few boxes
full sent down to Millenbeck. At this Judith blushed, but accepted,
without reflecting how Major Throckmorton was to send books to a house
where he was not permitted to visit.

She also protested that she had read nothing at all scarcely; but
Throckmorton came to find out that, for want of the every-day modern
literature, she was perfectly at home in the English classics, and knew
her Scott and Thackeray like a lesson well learned. He began to find
this gentle intelligence and cordiality amazingly pleasant after the
cold shyness of the girls and the unmistakable keep-your-distance air of
the older women. They sat together so long that Mr. Morford began to
scowl, and think that Mrs. Beverley, after all, was rather a frivolous
person, and with every moment Judith became brighter, gayer, more her
natural charming self.

Meanwhile Jack Throckmorton had carried Jacqueline off for a quadrille,
and was getting on famously. First they remarked on the similarity of
their names, which seemed a fateful coincidence, and Jacqueline
complained that the servants and some other people, too, often shortened
her liquid three syllables with "Jacky," but she hated it. Jack, who had
a sweet, gay voice, and was an inveterate joker, which Jacqueline was
not, amused both her and himself extremely.

"Will you look at the major?" he whispered. "Gone on the pretty widow--I
beg your pardon," he added, turning very red.

"You needn't apologize," calmly remarked Jacqueline. "Judith _is_ a
pretty widow, and the best and kindest sister in the world, besides. It
is all mamma. Mamma loved my brother better than anything, and wants us
all to think about him as much as she does."

Jack, rather embarrassed by these family confidences, parried them with
some confidences of his own.

"I shall have to go over soon and break the major up. You see, there
isn't but twenty-two years' difference between us, and the major is a
great toast among the girls still, which is repugnant to my filial
feelings."

Jacqueline listened gravely and in good faith.

"So, when I see him pleased with a girl, I generally sneak up on the
other side, and manage to get my share of the girl's attention, and call
the major 'father' every two minutes. A man hates to be interfered with
that way, particularly by his own son, which doesn't often happen. The
major has got a cast in one eye, and, whenever he is in a rage, he gets
downright cross-eyed. Sometimes I work him up so, his eyes don't get
straight for a fortnight."

"But doesn't he get very mad with you?" asked Jacqueline in a shocked
voice.

"Of course he does," chuckled Jack; "and that's where the fun comes in.
But, you see, he can't say anything; it is beneath his dignity; but his
temper blazes up, although he doesn't say a word. Sometimes, when I've
run him off two or three times close together, he hardly speaks to me
for a week--not that he cares about the girl particularly, but he hates
to be balked."

"What a nice sort of a son you must be!"

Jack laughed his frank, boyish laugh.

"Why, the major and I are the greatest chums in the world. I would do
anything for him. And if he ever presents me with a step-mother, I'll do
the handsome thing--go to the wedding, and all that. And he's a
fascinating old fellow, too--just takes the girls off their feet."

When the dance was over, Jack brought Jacqueline back to Judith, who
still sat with Throckmorton. Jacqueline's eyes were shining with
childish delight, and she arched her thin white neck restlessly from
side to side.

"I have had such a nice dance!" she cried, breathlessly.

Judith, smiling, said, "Major Throckmorton, this is my little sister
Jacqueline."

Throckmorton, having once fixed his eyes on Jacqueline, seemed unable
to take them off, as on that Sunday he had first seen her in Severn
church. Delilah, who noticed in her primitive way the wonderful power of
attraction that Jacqueline had, used to say, "Miss Jacky she allus
cotches de beaux." She certainly "cotched" Throckmorton's attention from
the first. Something in this slim, unformed, provincial girl was
suddenly captivating to him. His genuine but sane admiration for Judith
seemed tame beside it. Jacqueline, however, only saw a rather striking
man, well on toward old age, in her infantile eyes, and wished herself
back with Jack, when Major Throckmorton took her for a little promenade.
Morford then made up to Judith, but found her singularly cold and
unresponsive, and her eyes and smile were quite far away, over Morford's
head, as it were. The truth is, the Rev. Edmund Morford was a
considerable let-down from George Throckmorton; and, in Judith's starved
and pinched existence, it was something to meet a man of Throckmorton's
caliber. So in place of the charming sweetness Morford had learned to
expect from Judith, he received a cold douche of listlessness and
indifference. All the rest of the evening people noticed that Judith,
who had a good deal of smoldering vivacity under her quietness, was
remarkably cold and silent and rather bored, and they supposed it was
because of her aversion to anything like gayety. In truth, Judith had
realized rather more startlingly than usual the bareness and
colorlessness of her life.

Mrs. Sherrard's effort was a strong one, but, as she said, it was
scarcely a success. General Temple ostentatiously sought out
Throckmorton, and tasted the delights of a discussion regarding the
trans-Alpine campaigns of Hannibal, in which Throckmorton was a modest
listener, and the general a most fiery, earnest, and learned
expounder--a past grand-master of military science. But, on shaking
Throckmorton's hand at saying good-night, with solemn but genuine
effusiveness, he said not one word about calling at Millenbeck.
Throckmorton went home feeling rather bitter toward all his county
people, except his stanch friend Mrs. Sherrard; Judith, so gentle,
clever, and well-read; and that fascinating child, Jacqueline.




CHAPTER IV.


For a week after the party Jacqueline lived in a kind of dream. She
could do nothing but talk of the party. The whole current of her life
had been disturbed. Since this one taste of excitement there was no
satisfying her. The daily routine was going down to a solemn breakfast,
and then getting through the forenoon as best she might, with her
flowers, and her pets among the ducks and chickens, and romping with the
little Beverley--for this unfortunate Jacqueline had no regular
employments--and then the still more solemn three o'clock dinner, after
which she practiced fitfully on the wheezy piano in the dark
drawing-room; then a country walk with Judith, if the day was fine,
coming back in time to watch the creeping on of the twilight before the
sitting-room fire. This was the happiest time of the day to Jacqueline.
She would sit flat on the rug, clasping her knees, and gazing into the
fire until her mother would say, with a smile:

"What do you see in the fire, Jacky?"

"Oh, endless things--a beautiful young man, and a new piano, and a
diamond comb like Mrs. Sherrard's, and--Oh, I can't tell you!"

"Miss Jacky she see evils, I know she do," solemnly announced Simon
Peter. "When folks sits fo' de fire studyin' 'bout nuttin' 'tall, de
evils an' de sperrits dat's 'broad come sneakin' up ahine an' show 'em
things in de fire."

General Temple, a few days after the party, fell a victim to a seductive
pudding prepared by Delilah, and was immediately invalided with the
gout. Dr. Wortley was sent for, and at once demanded to know what
devilment Delilah had been up to in the way of puddings and such, and
soon found out the true state of the case. A wordy war ensued between
Dr. Wortley and Delilah, and the doctor renewed the threat he had been
making at intervals for twenty-five years.

"Temple," he screeched, "you may take your choice between that old
ignoramus and me--between ignorance and science!"

"Ef ole marse was ter steal six leetle sweet 'taters an' put 'em in he
pocket," began Delilah, undauntedly.

"Why don't you advise him to steal a wheelbarrowful instead of a
pocketful?" retorted the doctor.

"Kase he doan 'quire but six, an' he got ter _steal_ 'em, fur ter make
de conjurin' wuk. Den ev'y day he th'ow 'way a 'tater, an' when he th'ow
de 'tater 'way he th'ow de gout 'way, too. De hy'ars from a black cat's
tail is mighty good, too--"

"Temple, how do you put up with this sort of thing being uttered in your
hearing?" snapped the doctor.

General Temple looked rather sheepish. He had never actually tried
stealing six potatoes, or testing the virtue in hairs from a black cat's
tail, as a relief from gout, but he had not been above a course of tansy
tea, and decoctions of jimson-weed, and other of Delilah's remedies that
scientifically were on a par with the black cat's tail. But, being
racked with pain, he took refuge in pessimism and profanity.

"Excuse me, Wortley, but all medicine is a damned humbug!--I
mean--er--an empirical science. What is written is written. The Great
First Cause, that decrees from the hour of our birth every act of our
lives, has decreed that I should suffer great pain, anguish, and
discomfort from this hereditary disease."

"Marse, ef you wuz ter repent an' be saved--"

"Hold your infernal tongue!"

"An' jine de Foot-washers--"

"Damn the Foot-washers!" howled the general.

"Plague on it!" snarled Dr. Wortley, whirling round with his back to the
fire. "If you've got as far as predestination, you're in for a six
weeks' spell. I can cure the gout, but I'll be shot if I can do anything
when it's complicated with religion and black cats' tails and a
constant diet like a Christmas dinner!"

In the midst of the discussion, the doctor's shrill voice rising high
over Delilah's, who, with arms akimbo and a defiant air, only awaited
Dr. Wortley's departure to get in her innings with the patient, Mrs.
Temple, serene and sweet, came in and quelled the insurrection. Delilah
at once subsided, Dr. Wortley began to laugh, and the general directed
that Mrs. Temple's chair be put next to his.

"As your presence, my love, makes me forget my most unhappy foot," he
said.

Mrs. Temple's adherence to either Delilah or Dr. Wortley would have
caused victory to perch upon that side; but Mrs. Temple, like the
general, had more faith in Delilah than she was willing to own up to.
So, between Delilah's feeding him high all the time, while the doctor
only saw him once or twice a week, General Temple bade fair to remain an
invalid for a considerable time. The attack of gout, though, just at
that time, had its consolatory aspects. General Temple really wished to
call at Millenbeck, but Mrs. Temple showed no sign of yielding. For the
present, however, there could be no notion of his stirring out of doors.
As long as the gout lasted there was a good excuse. But General Temple
worried over it.

"My love," he said one night, while Mrs. Temple and Jacqueline and
Judith sat around the table in his room, where they had assembled to
make his evening less dull, "I am troubled in my mind regarding George
Throckmorton. It unquestionably seems heathenish for us to have one so
intimately connected with our early married life--that truly blissful
period--within a stone's throw of us, and then to deny him the sacred
rites of hospitality."

Jacqueline gave a half glance at Judith which was full of meaning, and
Judith could not for her life keep a slight blush from rising in her
cheek.

Mrs. Temple said nothing, but looked hard at the fire, sighing
profoundly. She had made herself some sort of a vague revengeful
promise, that no man wearing a blue uniform should ever darken her
doors. She had yielded first one thing, then another, of that scrupulous
and daily mourning and remembrance she had promised herself, for
Beverley--but this--

The pause was long. Mrs. Temple, looking at General Temple, was touched
by something in his expression--a longing, a patient, but genuine
desire. Occasionally she indulged him, as she sometimes relaxed a little
the discipline over Jacqueline in her childish days. She put her hand
over her eyes and waited a moment as if she were praying. Then she said
in broken voice, "Do what seems best to you, my husband."

General Temple took her hand.

"But, my own, I do not wish to coerce you. No matter what I think is our
duty in the case, if it does not satisfy you, it shall not be done. I
would rather anything befell Throckmorton, than you, my beloved Jane,
should be grieved or troubled."

Mrs. Temple received this sort of thing as she always did, with a shy
pleasure like a girl.

"I have said it, my dear, and you know I do not easily recede. Like you,
this thing has been upon me ever since Throckmorton's return. I have
felt it every day harder to maintain my attitude. Now, for your sake, I
will abandon it. Have Throckmorton when you like. I will invite him over
to tea on Sunday evening."

General Temple fairly beamed. When Mrs. Temple gave in to him, which was
not oftener than once a year, she gave in thoroughly.

"Thank you, my wife. It certainly seems unnatural that Millenbeck and
Barn Elms should be estranged. It shall be so no longer, please God. And
that George Throckmorton is a high-toned gentleman"--General Temple
paused a little before saying this, hunting for a term magniloquent
enough for the occasion--"no one, I think, will deny."

This was early in the week. The very next afternoon, Jacqueline finding
time more than usually hard to kill, went up into the garret and began
rummaging over the remains of Mrs. Temple's wedding finery of thirty
years before. She dived down into a capacious chest, and brought forth
two or three faded silk dresses, the bridal bonnet and veil, yellowed
from age; and, among other antiques, a huge muff almost as big as
Jacqueline herself. This suddenly put the notion of a walk into her
head. Judith was engaged in reading Napier's History of the Peninsular
Wars to General Temple, and Jacqueline had only herself for company. So,
carrying her huge muff in which she plunged her arms up to her elbows,
she started off. It was a raw autumn afternoon. The leaves had not yet
all fallen, although the ground was dank with them, and the peculiar
stillness of a lonely and lowland country was upon the monotonous
landscape. The entire absence of sounds is a characteristic of that sort
of country, and it makes a gloomy day more gloomy. Jacqueline, tripping
along very fast, did not find it cheerful. She would go as far as the
gate of the lane that led into the main road, and then turn back. This
lane was also the entrance to Millenbeck, and Jacqueline had some sort
of a faint expectation that she might run across Jack Throckmorton. She
looked longingly toward Millenbeck, visible at intervals through the
straggling fringe of pines. What an infinity of pleasure could be had,
if her mother only came round thoroughly regarding the Throckmortons!
What rides and dances she could have with Jack, and Judith could talk to
the major! "What a dull life Judith must lead!" she thought, stepping
lightly along. It was true, Judith liked to read; but Jacqueline, who
frankly confessed she could not read a novel through from cover to
cover, hardly appreciated reading as a resource. Jacqueline's
imagination, with this superstructure to build upon, went ardently to
work, and in a few minutes had installed Judith as mistress of
Millenbeck, and herself as the young lady of the establishment. To do
Jacqueline justice, she longed for Judith's happiness, who, she
sometimes bitterly felt, was her only friend. Just as she had arranged
this scheme to her satisfaction, she looked up, and saw, not twenty feet
ahead of her, Major Throckmorton coming out of the underbrush at the
side of the lane. A big slouch hat half concealed his face. His usual
trim and natty dress, with that unmistakable "military cut," was
exchanged for a shooting suit of corduroy, much stained, and otherwise
the worse for wear. His stylish and immaculate hat was replaced by the
flapping felt, and his gun and game-bag proclaimed his day's employment.
Yet Jacqueline thought she had never seen him look so handsome, and in
some way she was not half so much afraid of him in his shooting-togs as
in his perfectly fitting evening clothes. Jacqueline's face turned a
rosy red. As for Throckmorton, he too felt a thrill of pleasure. This
pretty child, as he called her, had been in his mind rather constantly
since he saw her at the party. He quickened his pace, and took his hat
off while still some distance away.

"Any more parties in prospect?" he asked, smiling, as he took her little
hand in his.

"No, I don't suppose there will be. Delicious parties like that don't
happen very often," answered Jacqueline, quite seriously, and not in the
least understanding Throckmorton's smile as she said this. "And--and
young Mr. Throckmorton--oh, how I enjoyed dancing with him!"

The major did not smile at this. To have "young Mr. Throckmorton" thrust
at him by a charming young girl was not particularly pleasing.

"Jack is a very jolly young fellow," he replied, shortly. "We are great
friends, Jack and I."

Jacqueline had turned around, and they were now walking together toward
Barn Elms.

"I--I should think," said Jacqueline, giving him one of her half-glances
from under the dark fringe of her eyelashes--"that J--Jack would be
afraid of you."

Throckmorton laughed aloud.

"Why should he be afraid of me?"

"Oh, I don't know. Everybody is afraid of one's father," replied
Jacqueline, candidly.

"Jack and I entertain sentiments of mutual respect," laughed
Throckmorton again. "The only fault I find with him is that he is unduly
filial sometimes. For example, when I am enjoying the society of a
charming young lady he thinks too young for me, he behaves as if I were
his great-grandfather instead of his father. Jack has a good deal of
Satan in him."

Jacqueline did not always follow Throckmorton's remarks, but she noticed
he had a rich voice, and he was the straightest, most soldierly-looking
man she ever saw in her life. Throckmorton slung his game-bag around and
held it open.

"Do you like robins?" he said. "They are delicious broiled on
toast"--and he took out a bird by the legs and showed it to her.

Jacqueline stood perfectly still. Her eyes dilated and her breath came
quickly. She took the bird out of his hand. It had long stopped
bleeding, and its little cold head, with half-closed eyes, fell over
piteously. Jacqueline took out her handkerchief and wrapped the poor
robin in it.

"Oh, the poor bird!" she said, and suddenly two large tears ran down her
cheeks.

Throckmorton stood surprised, touched, delighted, and almost ashamed. He
had been a sportsman all his life, and could see no harm in knocking
over a few birds in the season; but the picture of this tender-hearted
child, that could not see a dead bird without weeping, struck him as
beautifully feminine. But what could he say? If he was a bloodthirsty
brute to shoot a robin, what must all the slaughter of birds he had
been guilty of in his lifetime make him? He could only say, half
shamefacedly and half laughing "My dear little friend, you wouldn't have
men as squeamish as women, would you?"

But to this Jacqueline only responded by pressing the poor bird's cold
breast to her cheek.

Throckmorton, however, with an air of gentle authority, took the bird
from her and put it back in the bag.

"If you cry for such things as this, you will have a hard time in life,"
he said.

Jacqueline's face did not clear up at once.

"I want you to do something for me--to promise me something," she said,
gravely.

"What is it?" asked Throckmorton. Jacqueline had laid her charm upon him
in the last ten minutes, but he did not forget his caution entirely.

"It is," said Jacqueline, punctuating her words with tender, appealing
glances, "that you won't kill any more robins--never, never, as long as
you live."

Throckmorton refrained from smiling, as he felt inclined, but it was
plainly no laughing matter to Jacqueline. And if he gave the
promise--nobody knew the absurdity of it more than Throckmorton--suppose
Jack heard of it, what endless fun would he poke at his father on the
sly! Nevertheless, Throckmorton, calling himself an old fool, made the
promise.

Jacqueline, flushed with triumph, now conceived a bold design. She
would--that is, if her courage held out--tell him that her mother had at
last come round. This delightful information she proceeded to impart.

"Do you know," she said, smiling and showing her little even white
teeth, "that mamma has at last agreed to--to let us have something to do
with you and Jack?"

"Has she, indeed?" replied Throckmorton, with rather a grim smile.

"Yes," continued Jacqueline, with much seriousness. "Occasionally she
gives papa a little treat. You know she always liked you, and papa has
been dying to call to see you. But mamma can't forget the war and
Beverley. At last, though--she's been thinking about it ever since that
first day at church--she concluded to give in--and--and--you're to be
asked to tea next Sunday evening!"

The way this was told was not particularly flattering to Throckmorton,
but he was sincerely grateful and attached to Mrs. Temple, and he knew
and pitied the state of feeling that had caused her to intrench herself
in her prejudices. She must indeed remember those old days when she was
willing to do what Throckmorton suspected she had promised herself never
to do. "I want to be friends with Mrs. Temple--that's plain enough," he
said, "and if she asks me I shall certainly come."

"Do you know," said Jacqueline, after a pause, in a very confidential
voice, "I sometimes wish--now this is a secret, remember--that papa and
mamma would forget Beverley a little--and think--of Judith and me? They
seem to expect Judith to wear black all the time, and never to smile or
to laugh or to sing, as if Beverley could know. I don't believe the dead
in their graves know or care anything about us."

She was on delicate ground, but, her tongue being unloosed,
Throckmorton's attempt to check her was a complete failure.

"Judith, you know," she continued, cutting in on Throckmorton's awkward
remonstrance, "only knew Beverley a little while. Her father and mother
were dead, and papa was her guardian. She came to Barn Elms to live
after she left school, and Beverley came home from the war, and they
were married right away--almost as soon as they were acquainted. It was
so sudden because Beverley's leave was up, and Delilah says that
Beverley knew he was going to be killed soon. She says he dreamed it, or
something. Do you believe in dreams?"

"No, and you mustn't believe all Delilah tells you."

"Anyhow, he went away, and he never came back. That broke papa and
mamma's hearts. And you know--little Beverley--Judith's child--is like
her--and not a bit like Beverley, and mamma talks sometimes as if it was
a crime on the child's part. She says to everybody, 'Don't you think
the child is like his father?' and nobody answers her quite truthfully,
and she knows it."

Throckmorton hardly knew how to receive these family confidences, but he
could not but admire the color coming and going in Jacqueline's cheeks,
and the fitful light that burned in her eyes as she talked.

"And Judith--I do love Judith. It seems hard--now this is another
secret--that she should never have any more pleasure in this world. And
she is so bright and clever. She understands the most wonderful books.
And there's something--I can't help telling you this."

"Perhaps you had better not tell me," said Throckmorton in a warning
voice.

"But I can't help it, you are so--so sympathetic: I don't believe Judith
cared for Beverley much."

Jacqueline drew off to see the effect of this on Throckmorton. She did
not at all suspect him of any interest in Judith; but this family
tragedy, that had stalked beside her nearly all her life, she thought
was of immense importance, and she wanted to see how it affected
Throckmorton. In fact, it only embarrassed him. He said, rather briefly:

"Mrs. Beverley is very handsome--very charming."

"She's the best sister in the world," exclaimed Jacqueline. "Some people
think that sisters-in-law can't love each other. Sometimes I would
throw myself in the river if it wasn't for Judith."

"Why should such a tender little thing as you want to throw herself in
the river?" he asked; and if Jack had heard the tone in which this was
spoken, he would, no doubt, have found food for ungodly mirth in it.

"You don't know what sorrows I have," responded Jacqueline, gravely. And
then they were almost at the gate of Barn Elms, and Throckmorton bade
her good-by, and tramped back home, while Jacqueline scudded into the
house to confide the wonderful adventures of the afternoon to Judith.

In a day or two a note from General Temple came, inviting Throckmorton
and Jack to tea at Barn Elms the following Sunday evening. It was rather
a letter than a note, General Temple spreading himself--his honest soul
loved a rhetorical flourish--and containing many references to their
early association. Throckmorton accepted, in a reply in which he told,
much more glibly than his tongue could, the grateful affection he had
cherished from his neglected and unhappy boyhood toward the whole family
at Barn Elms. On the Sunday evening, therefore, Throckmorton, with Jack,
presented himself, and was effusively received by the general and Simon
Peter, who were not unlike in their overpowering courtesy to guests.
Judith was cordial and dignified, and Jacqueline full of a shy delight.
No doubt they would be invited to Millenbeck, and she would see with her
own eyes the Bruskins carpets and other royal splendors Delilah was
never weary of recounting.

General Temple was able to be down in the drawing-room, but Mrs. Temple
was not present. Delilah, however, soon put her head in the door, and,
crossing her hands under a huge white apron she wore, brought a message.

"Mistis, she say, won't Marse George please ter come in de charmber."

Throckmorton at once followed her. The "charmber" at Barn Elms was a
sort of star chamber, and utterances within its precincts were usually
of a solemn character. As Throckmorton entered, Mrs. Temple rose from
the big rush-bottomed chair in which she sat. Throckmorton remembered
the room perfectly, in all the years since he had been in it--the dimity
curtains, the high-post mahogany bed, the shining brass fender and
andirons, the tall candlesticks on the high wooden mantel. He
remembered, with a queer, boyish feeling, sundry moral discourses gently
administered to him in that room on certain occasions when he had been
caught in the act of fishing on Sunday, or poking a broomstick up the
chimney to dislodge the sooty swallows that built their nests there in
the summer-time, and other instances of juvenile turpitude. And he well
recollected once, when Mrs. Temple was ill, he had hung about the
place, a picture of boyish misery; and when at last he was admitted into
the room where she lay, white and feeble, on the broad, old-fashioned
lounge, how happy, how glad, how honored he had felt. He went forward
eagerly and raised Mrs. Temple's hand to his lips.

"George Throckmorton, this is nearer forgiveness than I ever expected
to come," she said.

"Dear Mrs. Temple, don't let us talk about forgiveness. Let us
only remember that we are friends of more than thirty years'
standing--because I can't remember the time when I was a boy that I
didn't love you."

"And I loved you, too--next to my own Beverley. I sent for you here that
I might tell you my trouble as you used to tell me yours so long ago.
Often you have sat on that little cricket over there and told me of your
grandfather's cruel ways to you--he was a godless man, George."

"He was indeed," fervently assented Throckmorton.

"And now I want to tell you of _my_ sorrows, George."

Throckmorton listened patiently while she went over all of Beverley's
life. She told it with a touching simplicity. Throckmorton well saw how
that still stern unforgiveness might rankle in her gentle but immovable
mind. Then he told her of his marriage--something he had never in all
his life spoken of to any one in that manner; but the force of sweet and
early habit was upon him--he could talk to Mrs. Temple about the young
creature so much loved and so long dead. Mrs. Temple, who knew what such
revealing meant from a man of Throckmorton's strong and self-contained
nature, was completely won by this. An hour afterward, when they came
into the drawing-room, and found Jack and Jacqueline in a perfect gale
of merriment, with Judith looking smilingly on, Mrs. Temple laid her
hand on Throckmorton's shoulder, and said to General Temple, with sweet
gravity, "He is the same George Throckmorton."

Judith was leaning a little forward in her chair, with her arm around
her child. The boy was a beautiful, manly fellow, and gazed at
Throckmorton with friendly, serious eyes. Throckmorton, whose heart was
tender toward all children, smiled at him. Beverley at this marched
forward and climbed upon Throckmorton's knee, his little white frock,
heavy with embroidery worked by Judith's patient fingers, spreading all
around him. The boy immediately launched into conversation, eying
Throckmorton boldly, although his eyes usually had the shy expression of
his mother's. He wanted to know if Throckmorton had a gun, and could he
beat the drum; also, if he could ride a horse. Sometimes grandfather
would take him up and let him ride as far as the gate. Throckmorton
answered all these questions satisfactorily, and then told about a pony
he had at Millenbeck--a pony that had been Jack's, when Jack was no
bigger than Beverley, and that was now too old and slow for any but a
very little boy. While Throckmorton talked to the child, Judith listened
with a smiling look in her eyes. Throckmorton could not but be struck by
the pretty picture the young mother and her child made. He saw the
resemblance between them at once, and when he told of a tragic adventure
Jack had with the pony, falling through a bridge, both pairs of large,
soft eyes grew wide with grave amazement. Unconsciously Judith assumed
the child's expression. Beverley seemed determined to monopolize his new
acquaintance, but presently Judith with a little air of authority sent
him off with Delilah. Beverley paused at the door to say:

"You come again and bring the pony."

Presently they went into the dining-room, and the old-fashioned tea was
served. There was enough to feed a regiment, and all of the best kind,
but nothing approaching vulgar display. Mrs. Temple put Throckmorton at
her right, and every time she spoke to Jack she called him George.
Throckmorton had forgotten nothing of the old days, and he not only
began to feel young himself, but he made General and Mrs. Temple feel
that time had turned backward. Jacqueline, on the opposite side of the
table, smiled at him and talked a little. In her heart she could not
quite make out Throckmorton. He had arrived at an age that seemed to her
almost venerable; yet he quite ignored the fact that he ought to be old,
and certainly was not old, nor could anybody say that he was young.
Jack's boyish fun she understood well enough, but Throckmorton's shrewd
humor, his confident, experienced way of looking at things, was rather
beyond her. And as the case had been, whenever Throckmorton saw her, he
had to exercise a certain restraint, lest everybody should see how
strangely and completely she magnetized him. If anybody had asked him to
compare Judith and Jacqueline, he would have given Judith the palm in
everything--even in beauty; but Jacqueline's young prettiness in some
way caught his fancy more than Judith's deeper and more significant
beauty.

But Judith had her charm too for him. She captivated his judgment as
Jacqueline captivated some inner sense to which he could give no name.
Judith's talk was seasoned with liveliness, and Throckmorton, who
possessed a dry and penetrating humor of his own, could always count on
a responsive sparkle in Judith's eye.

When they returned to the drawing-room, Mrs. Temple said:

"Judith, my dear, sing us some of your sweet hymns."

Judith sat down to the piano and in her clear and bell-like soprano sang
some old-fashioned hymns, so sweetly and unaffectedly that Throckmorton
thought it was like angels singing. The sound of the simple music, the
soft light of fire and lamp, the atmosphere of love and courtesy that
seemed to breathe over the quaint circle, had a fascination for him. It
was the poetry of domestic life. He had often dreamed of what "home"
might be, but he had never known it, for that brief married life of his
had been too short, too flickering; they were boy and girl lovers, and,
before the new life had had time to crystallize, he was left alone. But
here he saw the sweet privacy of home, the repose, the family nest, safe
and warm. He sighed a little. Money could not buy it, else he would have
had it at Millenbeck, comfortable handsome country-house that it was.
But here, at this shabby old Barn Elms, it was in perfection, in all its
naturalness and simplicity. After all, women were necessary to make a
home; even money, with a Sweeney as presiding genius, couldn't do it.

It was late when they left. Mrs. Temple's parting was as solemn as her
greeting:

"I have done that which I never expected to do, and all because in my
heart I can't but love you, George Throckmorton!"

Throckmorton's keen pleasure showed in his dark eyes.

"I always knew, if you would only listen to that dear, kind heart of
yours, you would forgive the Yankees," he laughed.




CHAPTER V.


Miracles usually happen in cycles. They unquestionably did in the Severn
neighborhood. Before the hurricane of talk over Throckmorton's arrival,
Jack's audacity, and Sweeney's brogue had fairly reached a crisis, a
letter came one day to General Temple, from his nephew, Temple Freke,
announcing his intention of paying a visit to his dear uncle and aunt at
Barn Elms.

General Temple handed the letter to Mrs. Temple with a sort of groan.

"This is he--I mean, my love, this is most discomposing."

At this Mrs. Temple shook her head in a manner expressing perfect
despair. The problem whether Throckmorton should be admitted within the
doors of Barn Elms was a mere nothing compared with this. Both of them
firmly believed in a personal devil; and Temple Freke, with his
extravagance, his vices, his unprincipled behavior, stood for Satan
himself. This Freke was very unlike the conservative, home-keeping type
of a gentleman that prevailed in Virginia. He was born and brought up
in Louisiana, and was fifteen years old when, by the death of his
father, General Temple became his guardian, and he was brought to Barn
Elms to lead the staid Beverley into all sorts of scrapes, and to
torment General Temple's honest soul almost to madness. The elder Freke,
perhaps, knowing the boy's disposition, had made General Temple's
guardianship to extend until Temple Freke's twenty-fifth birthday.

Of the horrors of that guardianship, nobody but the kind and
simple-hearted general could tell--of Freke's extravagance, of his
gambling and betting and drinking, and one frightful scene, when Freke,
with a loaded pistol in his hand, swore that, unless a certain debt of
honor was paid, he would kill himself on the spot; and General Temple,
who was not easily frightened, promptly paid it, with the conviction
that the young fellow was quite capable of carrying out the threat.
Immediately after this, General Temple shipped him off to Europe, but
apparently it made bad worse. For six whole years was General Temple
commanding, entreating, praying, and wheedling to get Freke back to
Virginia. It was true, he might have cut off supplies, but Freke made no
bones of saying that, if he couldn't get his own money, he would
contrive to get somebody else's; so the poor general, with groans and
moans, would cash Freke's drafts on him as long as money could be
screwed out of the Louisiana sugar plantations to do it with.

But, as Mrs. Temple often said, Freke was unquestionably a gentleman; he
was mild-mannered to a degree, and his very impertinences were brought
out with a diffidence that frequently hoodwinked General Temple. He was
not nearly so handsome as Beverley, being much shorter and sandy-haired,
in contrast with Beverley's blonde beauty; but Mrs. Temple always
felt in the old days, with a little pang of jealousy, that this
ordinary-looking boy, with his exquisite manners--not the least affected
or effeminate, but simply the perfection of personal bearing--could put
Beverley at a disadvantage. The two had little in common, and had never
met after their school-days, when General Temple, in the innocence of
his heart, had sent Freke abroad, to reform, until the very time of
Beverley's death. Freke, whose courage was as flawless in its way as
General Temple's, had come home during the war and enlisted in the
Southern army. A strange fate had placed him close to Beverley when he
was killed. He had held Beverley's dying hand, and to him were intrusted
the last messages to the mother and the young wife, who waited and
prayed at Barn Elms. Nothing on earth but this could have brought Mrs.
Temple to tolerate Freke at all, after the sensational career which
had begun with the pistol scene. Moreover, to increase the abnormal
conditions about this unregenerate being, as the Temples considered
him, he was perfectly irresistible. How it was, General Temple gloomily
declared, he didn't know, but Freke had the most extraordinary way of
insinuating himself into the good graces of both men and women--not
by any affectation of goodness, for there was a frankness about his
wickedness that was peculiarly appalling to General Temple. Freke was no
handsomer as a man than as a boy; he had been steadily making ducks and
drakes of his fortune since he was twenty-five; yet, somehow, Freke
always seemed to have a plenty of friends, solely by the charm of his
personality. The most serious escapade that had come to General Temple's
knowledge since Freke was of age was his running away with a Cuban girl
in New Orleans, and afterward getting a divorce by some hocus-pocus, and
thereafter, with serene confidence, he bore himself as an unmarried man.
Now, divorce was practically unknown in that old part of Virginia, and
the Temples regarded it as in the category with murder and arson; so
that this final iniquity of Freke's would have quite put him beyond the
pale, but for those hours he spent kneeling on the ground with the dying
Beverley.

General Temple had a sort of Arab hospitality that would not have
begrudged itself to the Evil One himself, and to tell Freke that he was
not welcome under the roof of Barn Elms, where his grandfather and his
grandfather's father had lived, was an enormity of which he was not
capable. And Mrs. Temple was no manner of use to him in the case. In
vain he tried to shuffle the decision off on her. Mrs. Temple would
not accept it. Like the general, she sighed and groaned, and turned it
over in her mind; but always came back that picture of Beverley lying
bleeding and dying, and Freke risking his life to stay by him. So at
last, after a week of mutual misery, one night, in the privacy of the
"charmber," Mrs. Temple, watching the general stalking up and down
during one of his fits of midnight restlessness, said, tremulously:

"My love, we must let Freke come. We can not refuse it--for--for
Beverley's sake."

So the next morning a letter was dispatched to Freke, written by General
Temple with considerably less cordiality than usual, and very feeble
rhetorically, expressing the pleasure his uncle and aunt felt at the
prospect of a visit from their nephew.

The next day, as soon as the direful news of his coming was made known
to Jacqueline, she rushed off, as she always did, to give Judith the
startling information.

Judith heard it with a strange feeling of repulsion, which she at first
imagined was that infinite disapproval she felt for Freke; but, if he
came, all of that terrible story about Beverley would have to be told
over. Judith had not yet come to a clear understanding of herself, but
she had begun to shrink from that dwelling on Beverley which seemed to
give Mrs. Temple such exquisite comfort.

"Everything that looked at Freke fell in love with him," announced
Jacqueline. "Of course, he is as handsome as a dream--something like Mr.
Morford, I dare say."

There were two or three faded photographs of him at Barn Elms, and none
of them gave the idea of great beauty; but photographs in those days
were not very artistic reproductions.

Judith laughed a little uneasily.

"I wish he wern't coming, Jacky," she said. "He is too--too startling a
person for quiet people like ourselves. There is one comfort, though: he
will soon get tired of us."

Within a week or two came a very well-expressed letter from Freke,
thanking his uncle and aunt for their hospitable invitation, and saying
that on a certain day he would land from the river steamer at Oak Point.
Jacqueline was immensely taken with the letter, which was written on
paper the like of which she had never seen before, and was sealed with a
crest.

Two immense trunks arrived in advance of the expected visitor. Mrs.
Sherrard happened to be at Barn Elms when the luggage appeared. Mrs.
Temple's face expressed her misery.

"Jane, you have my sympathy. A more unmitigated scamp than Freke doesn't
live," was Mrs. Sherrard's remark.

"Kitty," feebly protested Mrs. Temple, "he is my husband's nephew."

"The more's the pity."

As a rule, the reputation of incalculable wickedness hurts nobody, in
the opinion of the very young. The more Mrs. Temple preached and warned,
holding on to that one saving clause, Freke's devotion to Beverley in
his dying hours, the more attractive he seemed to Jacqueline. At last
one afternoon, when the carriage returned from Oak Point Landing with
the much-talked-of Freke, Jacqueline, who had been curling her hair and
prinking all day for the visitor, came down into the drawing-room, and
the expression of acute disappointment on her face said loudly:

"Is this all?"

For Freke was neither surpassingly handsome nor any of the superlative
things Jacqueline had fondly imagined him to be. He was not even as
handsome as Throckmorton, and Jacqueline thought him no beauty. Freke
was under middle height, and his hair was as sandy as of old, and not
too abundant. His features were ordinary; and Jacqueline, not being a
physiognomist, did not take in the piercing expression, the firmness and
intelligence that redeemed them from commonplaceness. He did look
unmistakably the gentleman, Jacqueline grudgingly admitted. _This_ the
adorable, the irresistible, the--But Jacqueline was too disgusted to
continue.

Freke, who read Jacqueline like an open book, and suspected the advance
impression she had received, could hardly keep from laughing out aloud
at the girl's air and manner. He talked a little to her, somewhat more
to Judith, but chiefly to Mrs. Temple.

It was late in the afternoon when he had arrived, and tea was soon
announced. Directly it was over, Mrs. Temple marshaled a solemn
procession into "the charmber" to hear Freke's description of Beverley's
last hours. She went first with Judith, followed by Freke and General
Temple. Mrs. Temple had tried to get Jacqueline to come, too, but
Jacqueline, who had a horror of weeping and tragedies, begged off; and
Mrs. Temple, who really attached but little importance to the girl at
any time, did not press the point. The door of the room remained closed
for two hours. Jacqueline, who had got tired of Delilah's company and
the cat's, went up-stairs early, but not to bed. She waited until she
heard Judith's door open, and then went and knocked timidly at the door.

"Come in," said Judith, in an unfamiliar voice. Judith was sitting
before her dressing-table, and had already begun to unbraid her long,
rich hair. But her eyes were fixed with a hard, staring gaze on her own
image in the glass. The mother had wept at Freke's recital; the widow
had remained pale, tearless, and turning over in her troubled mind the
immaturity, the transitoriness of that first girlish love-affair that
had resulted, as so few first loves do, in a sudden marriage--a quick
widowhood. And she had a terrifying sense that she had betrayed herself
to Freke. There was one particular point in the narrative, when he
described how the dead man had got his death-wound. Beverley had run
across a small body of Federal cavalrymen, himself with only an advance
guard, and, _a la_ General Temple, had immediately dashed at them, as if
a cavalry scrimmage would affect one iota the great fight that was
impending the next day. Beverley himself had engaged in a hand-to-hand
tussle with a Federal officer--both of them had rolled off their horses,
and the struggle between them was more like Indian warfare than
civilized warfare--and Freke described, with cruel particularity, how
the two men fought in the underbrush, and crushed the wild rose and
hawthorn bushes, each one trying vainly to draw his pistol--and at last
a shot rang out, and Beverley turned over on his face with a wild shriek
and a death-wound. The Federal officer had got his arm entangled in his
bridle-reins, and Freke thought every moment the excited horse would
trample the wounded man to death; and then, a squad of Confederates
coming up, the Federals had made off, the officer mounting his horse and
getting out of the way with nothing worse than a few bruises. All the
time he was telling this he was eying Judith, who did not shed a single
tear. Mrs. Temple wept torrents, and even so did General Temple. For
poor Judith, whose reading of Freke was not less keen than his reading
of her, it was misery enough to feel that, after all, her widowhood was
not very real, and that the mourning, the entire giving up of the world,
the devotion to Beverley's parents, was, in some sort, a reparation; but
that it should escape her--for Judith with the eagerness to make amends,
of a generous nature, had readily adopted Mrs. Temple's view--that it
was a crime not to mourn for Beverley.

Jacqueline slipped down on her knees beside Judith, and, nodding her
head, gravely said:

"Mamma didn't get _me_ into the room. Ah, Judy, dear, why won't they let
us forget him--"

"Jacqueline!" cried Judith, turning a pale, shocked face on her.

"I say," persisted Jacqueline, who had one of her sudden fits of
courage, "why do they trouble us to remember him? I hardly knew him; he
was always off at college, and then in the war; why won't they let us
mourn decently for him? And then--and then--everybody wants to forget
griefs. I do."

Judith rose and shook her off impatiently. "I wish Temple Freke had
never come here," she said.

"I do, too," answered Jacqueline, getting up. "I am afraid of him. O
Judith, what two poor creatures are we!"

"I know I am," suddenly cried Judith, breaking into a storm of tears. "I
know there is no peace for me anywhere!--" Judith stopped as suddenly as
she had begun. How could she put it in words, the ghastliness of this
perpetual reminder of that which in her heart she longed to forget--this
feeling that had been growing on her for so long, that she ought to feel
more remorse for marrying Beverley Temple than grief at losing him--that
all this solemn mourning for him was like those state funerals, where
there is a great service, a catafalque, a coffin, mourners--everything
except a corpse? And to her candid soul how wicked, heartless, and
unnatural it seemed! Jacqueline's eyes, so full of meaning and fixed on
her, troubled her. She got up after a minute and walked over to the
window. The red glow of the fire and the dim candle-light did not
prevent her from seeing clearly into the moonlight night. She drew the
old-fashioned white curtains apart and looked out. The somber trees
loomed large and black, but up on the hill, a quarter of a mile away,
the light from Millenbeck gleamed cheerfully. From two windows on the
lower floor and two on the upper, as well as the great fan- and
side-lights of the hall-door, a ruddy glare streamed steadily. Presently
Jacqueline came and stood by Judith, timidly.

"Do you know," she said, "it seems queer that three strangers should
come into our lonely lives--in this quiet life here? And the one I
like--the one I like best--is Jack Throckmorton. I can't talk to the
others."

Judith, who had got back a little of her composure, smiled at this.

"You talked away fast enough with Major Throckmorton."

"Oh, yes, but I didn't feel at home with him. Jack and I understand each
other. I know what he means when he talks to me. I don't always
understand Major Throckmorton. Judith, is my cousin Freke a very wicked
man?"

"So people say," replied Judith in a subdued voice, which had not
altogether overcome its agitation.

"He isn't handsome enough to be very--very attractive," said Jacqueline
after a pause.

But the rule of contrary seemed to suddenly prevail at Barn Elms then.
Within a week everybody in the house had succumbed more or less to
Freke's charm. General Temple found him invaluable in the preparation of
the History of Temple's Brigade; and Freke, who had a store of military
knowledge among his great fund of general information, easily persuaded
the general that he was a military historian of the first order. When
the general began his evening harangues, Freke always had an example pat
of a certain occasion when Prince Eugene, or the Duke of Marlborough, or
some equally distinguished leader had successfully pursued General
Temple's tactics. All this General Temple laboriously transcribed in his
manuscript. Judith, who very much doubted whether Freke were not making
it up as he went along, had her suspicions confirmed when Freke would
occasionally turn his expressive face on her and actually wink with
appreciation of the general's simplicity. Judith was indignant, but she
could not help laughing at Freke's genuine humor. Mrs. Temple showed her
regard for the returned prodigal by taking him into the "charmber" one
day and reasoning in a motherly way upon Freke's duty to return to his
wife. Judith was astounded after a while to hear Mrs. Temple's gentle
but intense laughter making itself heard outside the room. Freke, with
the most good-natured manner in the world, sitting in the rush-bottomed
chair, with one foot over his knee, began to tell Mrs. Temple some of
his marital experiences with his Julia. Mrs. Temple at first put on her
severest frown and fairly groaned aloud at his declaration that he
didn't know whether he was married or not in Virginia, as his divorce
was got in one of the Northwestern States; but, divorce or no divorce,
he wouldn't tempt Fate again in another matrimonial venture even with a
creature as beautiful as Helen, as wise as Portia, and with a million in
her own right. Then he began to tell of the adventures between Julia and
himself which had led to their separation, winding up with a description
of their final scene, when Julia threw a dish at him and he in turn
threw a bucket of ice-water over Julia. Before this, though, Mrs.
Temple's laughter had been heard. Freke issued from the room the picture
of innocence, and at peace with himself and all the world. Mrs. Temple,
on the contrary, was an image of guilt. Never had she before in her life
been beguiled from a moral lecture into unseemly laughter--and laughter
on such a subject! Mrs. Temple's conscience rose up and fought her, and
she began to think that all her moral foundation was tottering.

Surprises were the order of the day. One night, just after family
prayers, when the gout, and the doubt whether anybody at all was to be
saved, had caused General Temple to make a more pessimistic, vociferous,
and grewsome prayer than usual, in which he called the Deity to account
for so grievously afflicting the Temple family, Freke, whom Judith had
caught smiling in the midst of General Temple's most telling periods,
quietly announced that he had that day bought Wareham, a place within
two miles of Barn Elms.

It was not much of a place, being at most about three hundred acres,
with a small, untenanted house on it--and property went for a song,
anyhow, in that part of the world--but, nevertheless, the news was
paralyzing to General and Mrs. Temple. Judith, who was developing a
certain dislike and distrust of Freke that grew daily, could hardly
forbear laughing at the mute horror of General and Mrs. Temple over this
unlooked-for news. Freke went on to say that a very little would make
the place habitable for him, and he liked the fishing and shooting to be
had--especially the shooting, as the birds had had four years' rest
during the war. Then he said good-night pleasantly, and went off to bed.

"This is the dev--I mean this is most unfortunate, my love," remarked
General Temple, dismally, to Mrs. Temple, at two o'clock in the morning
following this, as he paraded up and down the "charmber," declaiming
against Freke's iniquities.

Next day, Mrs. Sherrard came over, and the direful news was communicated
to her by Mrs. Temple, with a very long face. Mrs. Sherrard's eyes
danced.

"Now you'll know what it is to have a nephew that one would like to be
entirely unlike what he is. That's my trouble with Edmund Morford. You
know, I hate a humbug--and Edmund is a good soul, but a dreadful
humbug."

"Katharine!" exclaimed Mrs. Temple. "A minister of the gospel--"

"Go along, Jane Temple! You have no eyes in your head where ministers of
the gospel are concerned. Edmund is perfectly harmless--that's one
comfort."

"I wish I could say the same of Temple Freke," Mrs. Temple rejoined,
dolefully.

It would be a week or two yet before Freke could take possession of
Wareham. Some beds and tables and sheets and towels had to be procured,
and meanwhile he stayed on at Barn Elms. It would not have taken a very
astute person to see what the charm was. It was Judith.

When the knowledge first came to these two people--to Judith, that
Freke's eyes followed her continually; that, as if by some power beyond
his will, his chair was always next hers, his ear always alert to catch
her lightest word--to Freke, that this young country-woman, with her
spirited, expressive face, her untutored singing--for music was one of
his weak points, or strong ones, as the case might be--her gentle
sarcasm when he essayed a little sentiment, pretty and tender enough to
please a woman who knew twice as much as she; that at first sight,
without an effort, she had conquered his bold spirit--it is hard to say
which was the most vexed and disgusted. Judith found it easy enough to
play the inconsolable widow where a man who aroused a positive
antagonism like Freke was concerned, and denounced him in her own mind
as a wretch for daring to fall in love with her. And Freke--after New
York women and Creole women, French, Spanish, Russian, English, and
Italian women--to have been loved and petted, and virtually made free of
women's hearts; that this unsophisticated Virginia girl, who had never
seen six men in her life, should simply take him off his feet, and that,
without knowing it--was simply infuriating. In the privacy of his
bedroom, as he smoked his last cigar before turning in, he swore at
himself with a self-deprecation that was thoroughly genuine. What did he
want to marry again for, anyway? Hadn't he had all he wanted of that
pastime? And, of course, being a divorced man, Judith would see him
chopped into little pieces before she would marry him--and then the
staggering thought that, even if he were not divorced, the odds were
against her marrying him at all--it was altogether maddening. But he did
not lose his head completely. Judith's indifference--nay, dislike--saved
to him his discretion. But had she warmed to him for one little
moment--Freke, in thinking over this sweet impossibility, lay back in
his chair and watched the smoke curling upward, and was lost in a
delicious reverie--when suddenly, the utter preposterousness of it came
to him, and he threw the cigar into the fire with a savage energy that
nearly wrenched his arm off. No, the little devil--for he was not choice
of epithets in regard to this woman--would throw him away with as
little conscience and remorse as he threw that cigar away! Like all men
of many love-affairs, he regarded love-making as an aesthetic amusement;
and while it was absolutely necessary for its perfection that the woman
should be desperately in earnest--for Freke did not mind a tragic tinge
being given to the matter--it was nonsense for a man to permit himself
to be drawn into heroics--and yet--but for the indifference of this
girl, who was always half laughing at him--he would not answer for any
folly he might commit.

Then there was Jacqueline. She exactly suited him as a victim to his
charms, sardonically expressing it to himself. She, too, was not
particularly impressed with him as yet, but that was due to her
ignorance. He could easily enlighten her, and she would be led like a
slave by him; he could make her believe anything. So, in default of
Judith, he might as well amuse himself with Jacqueline; and, by
resolutely concealing his gigantic folly, he would in the end overcome
it. But he felt like a man who, having a head to stand champagne and
brandy and absinthe and every other intoxication, comes across something
that looks as harmless as water, but which sets his brain on fire and
makes him a madman.

The general and Mrs. Temple saw nothing; a man might have made love to
Judith and have run away with her under their very noses before they
would have realized that it was possible for any man to dare falling in
love with Beverley's widow; and if Jacqueline's eyes saw anything, she
kept it wisely to herself.

Freke certainly added a new and picturesque element to their lives; even
Judith could not deny that, although she habitually denied Freke the
possession of any of the graces as well as the virtues. But that Freke
was a wonderful, a gifted, a fascinating talker, she was forced to
admit. His conversation was quite different from Throckmorton's manly
plainness of speech, who, with more brains than Freke, had not them as
readily soluble in talk. Judith was acute enough to see the difference
between the two men--one the man of conversation, and the other the man
of action. Throckmorton knew many things, and one thing surpassingly
well--his profession. Freke excelled in conversation; what he knew was
imposing, but what he could do was not. However, he had not only
traveled, but he had observed as well as read. He never made himself the
hero of his own stories; and there was a sparkle in his eyes, an
animation that gave a deeper tone to his voice, and Judith, in her dull
and colorless life, could not but feel the charm of it. Nevertheless, it
was not all charm. Judith felt as strongly as ever the incongruity of
Freke with his surroundings.

So, some days more passed. Judith found that in finesse she was no
match for Freke. Indifferent to him as she might be, he could always
place himself where he wanted--he managed to have a great deal more of
her society than she would willingly have given him; but she reasoned
shrewdly with herself--women being naturally clever in these things: "He
will soon give it up. The game is not worth the candle." And so it
proved; for in a little while he began to shadow Jacqueline, and
Jacqueline succumbed like a bird to the charmer. If Freke was present,
Jacqueline, who was wont to be impatient when not noticed, would sit
quite quietly by her sister-in-law's side, sewing demurely, or walk
beside her gravely, not opening her mouth but listening intently, as her
changing color showed. One day, when Jacqueline went into the gloomy,
darkened drawing-room to play, Freke followed her. Jacqueline sat down,
and began some short familiar piece, but she could not render it. She
missed notes, became confused, and finally gave up and left the piano in
mortification.

"It is because you are here," she said to Freke, with a child's
resentment.

"Is it, little girl?" he asked.

He was sitting quite at the other end of the room and did not come near
her, but something in his tone made Jacqueline halt, and brought the
ever-ready blood into her cheeks. Freke, after a moment, rose and
sauntered toward her. As he came up to her he took a stray lock of hair
that had escaped, in curly perversity, from the comb; and, just as he
stood with it in his fingers, the door opened and Simon Peter announced:

"Walk right in, Marse George. Mistis, she countin' de tuckeys in de
coop, but Miss Judy, she be 'long pres'n'y. Hi! Here Miss Jacky!"

Throckmorton walked in. His eye, which was as quick as a hawk's, caught
the whole thing in an instant, and a sort of jealousy sprang into life.
Of course, he did not display the smallest symptom of it. He shook hands
pleasantly with Jacqueline, and also with Freke, whom he had met several
times. With his easy, worldly judgment, he by no means ranked Freke as
the chief of sinners, but, without regarding him as a model citizen,
found him extremely good company, which Freke certainly was. Jacqueline
looked painfully embarrassed, but Freke's coolness was simply
indomitable. The two men made conversation naturally enough, while
Jacqueline, awkwardly silent, sat and twisted the unlucky lock of hair
in her fingers until a diversion was created by Judith's entrance, with
little Beverley clinging to her skirts. A faint, girlish blush came into
Judith's face when she met Throckmorton; and for his part he felt always
the charm, the refinement, the sprightliness, more piquant because
subdued, that exhaled like a perfume wherever Judith was. Beverley made
for Throckmorton, and, before his mother could interpose a warning
hand, was perched on the arm of Throckmorton's chair, whence both of
them defied her. Jacqueline made but one remark. She asked Throckmorton,
timidly:

"How is young Mr. Throckmorton?"

At which the major scowled, but responded carelessly that Jack was all
right, as far as he knew.

_Young_ Mr. Throckmorton! and from those lovely lips!

Presently there was a grinding of wheels, and a commotion at the front
door.

"Mrs. Sherrard, I know!" said Judith. "She always begins her salutations
at the gate."

Sounds were distinguishable.

"Mistis be mighty glad ter see you an' Marse Edmun'. She down at de
fattenin'-coop countin' de tuckeys, kase we didn't have no luck wid de
tuckey-aigs lars' season, an' de wuffless hen-tuckeys--"

So much for Simon Peter, when Delilah's voice broke in:

"Miss Kitty, 'twan' de hen-tuckeys 'tall. Ef de gobblers wuz ter take
turns, like de pigeons, a-settin' on de aigs--"

"I allus did think dem he-pigeons look like de foolishest critters _I_
ever see a-settin' on de nes' while de she-pigeons hoppin' roun' de
groun' 'stid o' mindin' dey business--"

"You are right, Simon Peter," answered Mrs. Sherrard, still invisible.
"I wonder that Delilah hasn't profited by Mrs. Temple's example. You've
got visitors. Whose hat is this?"

"Marse George Throckmorton's an' Marse Temple Freke's. I gwi' tell
mistis you here. Marse c'yarn leave de charmber yet, he gout so bad."

Mrs. Sherrard marched in, followed by Edmund Morford. She wore her most
commanding and hostile air. She had pooh-poohed Mrs. Temple's dread of
Freke, but she meant to give him to understand that his goings on, and
particularly his matrimonial difficulties, were perfectly well known in
the Severn neighborhood, and properly reprobated. So she shook hands all
around, followed by the Rev. Edmund, who never trusted himself at Barn
Elms, with those two pretty young women, alone and unprotected.

"I understand you have bought Wareham," remarked Mrs. Sherrard, tartly,
to Freke.

"I have," answered Freke, very mildly.

"You'll repent it."

"Not if you make yourself as agreeable as you ought," answered Freke.

The impudence of this tickled Mrs. Sherrard.

"I hear you are an entertaining fellow," she said. "Come and talk to
me."

Just then Mrs. Temple entered, but Mrs. Sherrard kept fast hold of
Freke. In half an hour he had won her over. Judith, responding with an
intelligent glance to a rather cynical smile on Throckmorton's part, saw
it. Not satisfied with winning Mrs. Sherrard over, Freke applied himself
to Morford, and that excellent but guileless person fell an instant
victim to Freke's tact and power. Mrs. Sherrard was so pleased with her
morning's visit, that she invited them all over to Turkey Thicket to
spend the following Thursday evening.




CHAPTER VI.


In the few days that followed, Judith saw more plainly that Freke was
deliberately casting his spell over Jacqueline, and, from the soft and
seductive flattery he had tried on her, Judith, at first, he exchanged
something like sarcasm. He would discuss constancy before her, Judith
meanwhile keeping her seat resolutely, but she could not prevent the
tell-tale color from rising into her face. But when, as Freke generally
did, he surmised that all the so-called constancy in this world wasn't
exactly what it purported to be, she grew pale beneath his gaze. He
watched her intently whenever she was with Throckmorton, and the mere
consciousness of being watched embarrassed while it angered her. Freke,
whose perceptions were of the quickest, saw far into the future, and
often repeated in his own mind the old, old truth that all the passions
of human nature--love, hope, despair, jealousy, and revenge--could be
found within the quietest and most peaceful circle.

The very next evening after Mrs. Sherrard's visit, Freke appeared in the
dusky drawing-room, where Jacqueline sat crouched over the fire, and
Judith, with her child in her arms, sang him quaint Mother Goose
melodies. When Freke came within the fire's red circle of light, Judith
observed that he had a violin and bow under his arm. Jacqueline jumped
up delightedly.

"Oh, oh! do you know any music?"

"I can fiddle a little," answered Freke, smiling.

He settled himself, and, in the midst of the deep silence of twilight in
the country, began a concerto of Brahms. The first movement, an
_allegro_, he played with a dainty, soft trippingness that was fit for
fairies dancing by moonlight. The next, a _scherzo_, was full of tender
suggestiveness--a dream told in music. The third movement was deeper,
more tragic, full of sorrow and wailing. As Freke drew the bow across
the G-string, he would bring out tones as deep as the 'cello, while
suddenly the sharp cry of the treble would cut into the somber depths of
the basso like the shriek of a soul in torment. A melody like a
wandering spirit appeared out of the deep harmonies, and lost, yet ever
found, would make itself heard with a sweet insistence, only to be
swallowed up in a tempest of sound, like a bird lost in a storm. And
presently there was an abatement, then a calm, and the music died,
literally, amid the twilight dusk and gloom.

As Freke, with strange eyes, and his bow suspended, tremblingly, as if
waiting for the spirit to return, ceased, there was a perfect silence.
Jacqueline, who had never heard anything like it in her life, and who,
all unknown to herself, was singularly susceptible to music, gazed at
Freke as the magician who had made her dream dreams, and after a while
cried out:

"Why do you play like that? I never heard anybody play so before."

In answer, Freke again smiled, and played a wild Hungarian dance, fit
for the dancing of bacchantes, so full of barbaric clash and rhythm,
that Jacqueline suddenly sprang up and began to dance around the chairs
and tables. Freke half turned to glance at her; he retarded the time,
and softened the tones, when Jacqueline, too, danced slowly and
dreamily--until presently, with a storm and a rush of music,
_fortissimo_ and _prestissimo_, and a resounding blare of chords that
sounded like the shouts of a victorious army, he stopped and lay back in
his chair, still smiling.

But, although Judith had twice Jacqueline's knowledge of music, with all
her feeling for it, Freke was piqued to see that she did not for a
moment confound his music with his personality. She seemed to take a
malicious pleasure in complimenting him glibly, which is the last snub
to an artist. Freke was so vexed by her indifference, that he began to
play cats mewing and dogs barking, on his fiddle, to frighten little
Beverley, who looked at him with wide, scared eyes.

"Never mind, my darling," cried Judith, laughing. "Be a brave little
boy--only girls are scared at such things."

Beverley, thus exhorted, summoned up his courage and proposed to get
grandfather's sword to defend himself. Judith's laughter, the defiant
light in her eyes, the passionate kiss she gave the boy as a reward for
his bravery, annoyed Freke. His vanity as an artist, however, was
consoled by hearing Simon Peter's voice, in an awed and solemn whisper
from the door, through which his woolly head was just visible in the
surrounding darkness:

"I 'clar' ter God, dat fiddle is got evils in it. I hear some on 'em
hollerin' an' cryin' fur ter git out, an' some on 'em larfin' an'
jumpin'. Marse Temple, dem is spirits in dat fiddle. I knows it."

"They are, indeed; and, if I go down to the grave-yard at midnight and
play, all the dead and gone Temples will rise out of their graves and
dance around in their grave-clothes. Do you hear that?" said Freke,
gravely.

"Lord God A'mighty!" yelled Simon Peter, "I gwi' sleep wid a sifter" (a
sieve) "over my hade ev'y night arter dis. Sifters keeps away de evils,
kase dey slips th'u de holes." And, sure enough, a sieve was hung up
over Simon Peter's bed that very night, with a rabbit's foot as an
additional safeguard, and a bunch of peacock's feathers over the
fireplace was ruthlessly thrown into the fire to propitiate "de evils."

When Thursday evening came, General Temple was high and dry with the
gout, and Mrs. Temple, of course, could not leave him alone to fight it
out with Delilah.

"Ole marse, you gwi' keep on havin' de gout twell you w'yar a ole h'yar
foot in yo' pocket. I done tole you so, an' I ain' feerd ter keep on
tellin' you so," was Delilah's Job-like advice.

"That's true," snapped the general. "Gad, if I had had a thousand men in
my brigade as little 'feerd' as you, I'll be damned if I ever would have
surrendered at Appomattox! God forgive me for swearing."

"I hope and pray He will, my darling husband," responded Mrs. Temple,
with calm piety.

Jacqueline was in a fever of delight, as she always was when there was
any prospect of going from home. She danced up and down, romped with
little Beverley, and, hugging him, told him in a laughing whisper that
she would see "somebody" at Turkey Thicket, and "somebody had beautiful
black eyes, and was only twenty-two years old."

Judith, too, felt that pleasurable excitement of which she began to be
less and less ashamed. A few words dropped meaningly by Throckmorton,
full of that sound sense which distinguished him, made her look
differently at life. His philosophy was not Mrs. Temple's. He reminded
Judith that we should accept peace and tranquillity thankfully, and that
it was no sin to be happy; and everything that Throckmorton said
commended itself to Judith. For the first time in her narrow and
secluded life she enjoyed with him the pleasure of being as clever as
she wanted to be. He was no timid soul, like Edmund Morford, to fear a
rival in a woman. It never occurred to Throckmorton to feel jealous of
any woman's wit. One of his greatest charms to Judith was that he was
not in the least afraid of her. Her quick feminine humor, her natural
acuteness, her knack of pretty expression in speech and writing,
appeared in their true light, as mere accomplishments, contrasted with
Throckmorton's firm and masculine mind. The conviction of his mental
grasp, his will-power, all that goes to make a man fitted to command a
woman, had in it a subtile attraction for Judith, like the spell that
beauty casts over a man. He was the only man in all her surroundings
whose calm superiority over her was perfectly plain to her. It was only
necessary for him to express an opinion, that Judith did not at once see
its force. She sometimes differed courteously with him; but it began
soon to be a perilous pleasure to her to find that usually Throckmorton
was infinitely wiser, more liberal, more just than herself.

When the Thursday evening came, only Judith, Jacqueline, and Freke were
to go. It had turned bitterly cold. Simon Peter, sitting in solitary
magnificence on the box, handled the ribbons over the Kentucky horses,
who dashed along so briskly that the carriage, which was in the last
stage of "befo' the war" decrepitude, threatened to tumble to pieces and
drop them all in the road.

Going along, Jacqueline sat back in the carriage, very quiet and silent.
Freke, with his back to the horses, talked to Judith. Occasionally in
the darkness, by a passing gleam, he could see Jacqueline's eyes
shining.

"What do you think of Major Throckmorton," he asked Judith.

Although not versed in knowledge of the world, Judith was not devoid of
self-possession. The question, though, embarrassed her a little.

"I--I--think he is most interesting, kind--and--"

"Military men are, as a rule, rather narrow, don't you think?"

"I never saw enough to judge. I should think they ought to be the other
way."

"Every time I see Throckmorton, the consciousness comes to me that I
have seen him before--seen him under some tragical and unusual
circumstances. If I didn't know that those who have good consciences,
like myself, should be above superstition, I should say that in some
previous state of being I had known him; however, I am too strictly
orthodox in my beliefs to tolerate such notions. But some time or
other--perhaps to-night--I intend to find out from Throckmorton himself
if we haven't had the pleasure of meeting in another cycle or state of
being. There is, by the way, an ineffable impudence in Throckmorton
returning to this county now."

Judith suspected that Freke's peroration was made with the intention of
provoking a reply.

They were driving along an open piece of the road, and it was
comparatively light in the carriage, although there was no moon. Freke
glancing up to see the cause of Judith's silence, caught the gleam of
her white teeth in a broad smile. She was laughing at him. It certainly
was delicious to hear Temple Freke commenting on anybody's having
impudence in returning to the county. Freke, who hated to be laughed at,
promised himself he would be avenged. "I'll make you wince, my lady!" he
thought to himself. Presently, though, Judith said, in a tone with a
sharpness in it, like one who has been wounded:

"I can't imagine anybody applying the word impudence to Major
Throckmorton. He is very reserved--very dignified."

"Throckmorton, I see, has an advocate.--And little Cousin Jacky, what do
you think of the other Jacky--Jacky Throckmorton?"

"I think he's perfectly delightful," assented Jacqueline, after a pause.

Freke said no more about the Throckmortons. The women were evidently
against him there; and soon they were driving up to the door at Turkey
Thicket, and going up the hall stairs to take off their wraps, very much
as on that last evening, when Mrs. Sherrard took occasion to
rehabilitate Throckmorton in the good graces of the county people, as
she was now trying to do with Freke.

When Judith and Jacqueline came down the stairs, Freke met them at the
foot. Jacqueline had pleaded hard to wear a white dress, but Mrs. Temple
was inexorable. She might catch cold; consequently, she wore a little
prim, Quakerish gown of gray. Judith, as usual, was stately in black.

Throckmorton was standing on the rug before the drawing-room fire,
talking gravely with Mrs. Sherrard. Edmund Morford was there and Dr.
Wortley, who, with Jack Throckmorton, constituted the company. Mrs.
Sherrard drew Judith into the conversation that she had been carrying on
with Throckmorton. He said to Judith:

"I will continue what I was saying--but I assure you it is something I
could speak of to but few people. It is this absolute barring out on the
part of the county people toward me. Not a soul except Mrs. Sherrard and
Mrs. Temple has asked me to break bread. I thought I knew Virginians--I
thought them the kindest, easiest, least angular people in the world;
but, upon my soul, anything like this cold and deliberate ostracism I
never witnessed! Why, half the county is related to me--and I've been to
school with every man in it--and yet, I am a pariah!"

"You don't look at it from their point of view," replied Mrs. Sherrard,
with more patience than was her wont. "Think how these people have
suffered. You see yourself, never was there such ruin wrought, and then
remember that you are associated with that ruin. Can't you fancy the
dull and silent resentment, the cold anger, with which they must regard
all--"

"Blasted Yankees?" cheerfully remarked Throckmorton, recovering his
spirits a little.

"But you know," said Mrs. Sherrard, whose ideas on some subjects were
rudimentary, but speaking kindly though positively, "you mustn't wear
your uniform down here."

Throckmorton laughed rather harshly.

"As I'm not going to be married or buried, I can't see what chance I
would have to wear it. But what you say disposes me to put on my
full-dress uniform, with sword and chapeau, and wear it to church on
Sunday."

Then Mrs. Sherrard went off after her latest passion, Temple Freke, and
left Judith and Throckmorton standing together.

"I think _I_ understand you," said Judith, with her pretty air of
diffidence. "But, as you know, the people here have one principle
which stands for honor, and you have another. You have got power
and--and--victory out of _your_ principle, and we have got nothing
but ruin and defeat and wretchedness out of _our_ principle. How can
you hold us to a strict account?"

"I do not--God knows I do not!--but I want a little human kindness. I
get it from a few. Dr. Wortley, who was my tutor at my grandfather's,
and has licked me a hundred times--and Morford, and the families at
Turkey Thicket and Barn Elms--but none of them, I think," continued
Throckmorton, looking into Judith's eyes with admiration, "exactly
understand how _I_ feel as well as you. What kept me in the army was, as
you say, a principle of honor. It was like a knife in me, every Southern
officer who resigned. I respected them, because I knew, as only the
naval and military men knew, that they were giving up not only their
future and their children's future, for what they thought right, but
that they knew the overwhelming odds against them. I don't believe any
one of them really expected success--they knew too much--it was a
sacrifice most disinterested. I could not go with them; but I had to
face as much obloquy among my people by staying in the army as they
had to face in going out. But I swear I never gave one thought to the
advantage to me of staying where I was! I stayed because I could not, as
a man of honor, do otherwise, I thought my own people would recognize
this--that by this time the bitterness would be over."

"Never mind," said Judith, with a heavenly smile, "it will come--it will
come."

A little later, Mrs. Sherrard whispered to Throckmorton:

"Are not my two beauties from Barn Elms sweet creatures?"

"Very," answered Throckmorton, a dark flush showing under his tan and
sunburn. "Little Jacqueline is a charming creature."

"Oh, pooh! Jacqueline. You mean Judith."

"Mrs. Beverley is most dignified, charming, and interesting; but little
Miss Jacky--"

"I should think she would be a nice playmate for your Jack," remarked
Mrs. Sherrard.

Throckmorton looked awkward, not to say foolish. Had he forgotten his
forty-four years, his iron-gray hair, all the scars of life? Jacqueline
and Jack were inseparable from the start, and their two heads were close
together on the deep, old-fashioned sofa, at that very moment.

"The major stole a march on me the other day, going over to Barn Elms,"
remarked Jack, confidentially. "However, I'll get even with him yet."

"Oh, how can you talk so about your own father?"

"Why shouldn't I talk so about my own father?"

"Because it's not right."

"Look here, Miss Jacky. Nobody thinks as much of the major as I do--he's
the kindest, noblest, gamest chap alive--but you see, I'm a man, and
he's a man. When he got married at twenty-one, he took the risk of
having a son in the field before he was ready to quit himself."

"Do you--do you remember your mother?" asked Jacqueline, in a low voice.

"No," answered Jack, fixing his dark eyes seriously on Jacqueline. "I
have a miniature of her that my father gave me when I was twenty-one. He
keeps her picture in his room, and on the anniversary of her death he
spends the day alone. Once in a great while he has talked to me about
her."

Jacqueline glanced at Throckmorton with a new interest. He was still
talking to Judith. The pleased look on the major's face aroused the
mischievous devil in Jack. In five minutes Jacqueline, to her disgust
and disappointment, found herself talking to Dr. Wortley, while Jack had
established himself on the other side of Judith. Neither Throckmorton
nor Judith was pleased to see him.

"You ought to hear my father tell about some of his campaigns 'way back
in the fifties," remarked Jack. "It's a good while ago, but the major
isn't sensitive about his age like some men."

Perhaps the major was not, but Jack's observation was received in grim
silence.

"I am sure Major Throckmorton can tell us a great many interesting
things," answered Judith, smiling involuntarily--"particularly to us who
lead such quiet lives, and who know so little. I sometimes wonder how I
shall ever be able to bring up my boy; I have so few ideas, and they
seem to be all rusting away."

"I thought you were a great reader," said Throckmorton.

"I like to read, but--"

"My father is a Trojan of a reader," continued Jack, "and his eyesight
is really wonderful."

At this the major, with the cast in his eye very obvious, rose and
walked over to where Jacqueline was sitting. Jack had accomplished his
object, and ran his father out of the field. But Judith felt a sense of
bitter disappointment. However, with the sweetness of her nature, she
overcame her resentful feelings toward Jack, and, in spite of his boyish
disposition to make people uncomfortable, really began to like him.

Throckmorton, though, was not ill pleased on the whole. It was by an
effort that he had kept away from Jacqueline until then. But, after
talking with her awhile, he was not quite so well satisfied. Her
childishness was pretty, and the acuteness of her remarks sometimes
surprised him, but there was nothing to her--she talked and thought
about herself. Throckmorton tried once or twice to get her into the
channel of rational conversation, but Jacqueline rebelled. She
acknowledged with a pretty smile that she hated books, and that she was
poor company for herself. Throckmorton felt a tinge of pity for her.
What would become of her twenty years hence--so pretty, so charming, so
inconsequent?

Freke had in the mean time completed his conquest of Mrs. Sherrard.
Presently he went to the piano and trolled out songs in a rich barytone,
playing his own accompaniments. This musical gift was a revelation to
Mrs. Sherrard. It was not comparable, though, to his violin-playing.
Nevertheless, it was enough to turn Jacqueline's head a little. Freke
sang a sentimental song, with a tender refrain, and every time he sang
this refrain he cast a glance at Jacqueline.

Gradually the blood mounted to her face, until, when he stopped, she was
as rosy as the morning. Then Freke sat down by her, and after that
Jacqueline had no eyes for anybody else--not even Jack.

Throckmorton saw it, with a strong disgust for Freke, and with that same
strange pang of jealousy he had felt before. Judith's angry disapproval
burned within her, but she made no attempt to circumvent Freke until,
looking around after a while, she missed him and Jacqueline both.

Judith, watching her opportunity, slipped out into the hall, and there
found the culprits. Jacqueline made a little futile effort to pretend
that they were looking at some prints by the light of a solitary
kerosene-lamp; but Freke, who at least had no pretence about him, held
on boldly to Jacqueline's hand, until she wrenched it away.

"Jacqueline, dear," said Judith, trying to speak naturally, "it is cold
out here; come in!"

"I'm not cold," answered Jacqueline after a pause.

"But it is not polite to run away like this," urged Judith, casting an
angry look at Freke, who, with folded arms, was whistling softly.

"I can't help that, Judith," answered Jacqueline, pettishly. "Why do you
want me in that stiff drawing-room with old Dr. Wortley and Mrs.
Sherrard, and--"

"But Jacqueline, _I_ want you!"

There was no mistaking that tone.

"Go along, Jacky," said Freke, with cheerful submission. "You'll be
liable to catch some dreadful moral complaint if you breathe the same
atmosphere with me too long. I am a sinner of high degree, I am."

Jacqueline turned and sullenly followed Judith back, while Freke,
smiling and unruffled, walked by her side. And then supper was served,
but Jacqueline was perfectly distrait and could not keep her eyes off
Freke, who was the life and soul of the party. The supper was after the
Virginia order--very good--and so profuse it could not all be got on the
table.

On the drive home there was perfect silence. Freke made one or two
observations to Judith, but her cold silence convinced him that it was
useless. He was not afraid of her, but he saw no good in pretending to
placate her. When they reached Barn Elms and were standing in the cold
hall, Judith said to Jacqueline:

"Go on. I shall be up in a moment."

"I'll wait for you," replied Jacqueline, doggedly.

"You may wait, but I wish to speak to Freke privately. I shall take him
into the drawing-room."

At this, Jacqueline went slowly and unwillingly up the stairs.

Judith picked up the lamp and went into the dark drawing-room. The fire
still smoldered dimly in the great fireplace. Freke took up the tongs
and made a vigorous attack on the fire, and in two minutes the flames
were leaping around the brass firedogs. Then he settled himself
comfortably in the corner of the sofa.

Judith, although her determination was made, yet felt timid, and her
heart beat.

"What excuse can you give," she asked in an unsteady voice, "for your
behavior with that child to-night?"

"None whatever," answered Freke, coolly. "I am not bound to justify
myself to you, nor do I admit there was anything to be excused."

"You are right in saying you are not bound to justify yourself to me,"
said Judith; "but can you justify yourself to her father and mother? You
see how she is. You know what they--what we all--think of you. You are a
married man, remember."

"Am I?" asked Freke, laughing. "By Jove, I wish I knew whether I was or
not!"

"What right have you to fill Jacqueline's head with dreams and notions?
The child was well enough until you came. Why can't you go away and
leave her in peace?"

Freke smiled at this. "I don't feel like going away," he said, "and
particularly now that I see you wish me to go. I have rather different
plans in view now that I have bought property here. It doesn't look well
for a man to be cast off by his relations; and I intend to have, if I
can, the backing of the Temples."

"But how long, think you, could you stay, if the child's mother knew of
your behavior to-night?"

"That I don't know. But I wish to stay, Madam Judith; and, since you are
so prudish, I will promise you not look at Jacqueline again. Will that
satisfy you?"

"I will first see how you keep your promise. But I warn you, Freke, if
you remain here much longer, I shall use all the influence in my power
to get you out of this house. You are no advantage to the child. It
would be better for her if you went away and never came back."

Freke had been sitting all this time, while Judith, standing up, pale
and disdainful, spoke to him. But now he rose.

"Now," he said with sudden seriousness, "since you have expressed that
hospitable intention concerning me, let me tell you something--something
very interesting, that I have suspected for some time, but only found
out to-night. You remember I told you of that death-struggle of
Beverley's with an officer--how they rolled over and over and fought."

"Yes--yes--"

"And how the officer's horse, held by the bridle, I thought every moment
would trample--"

"Yes--yes--yes!" cried Judith.

"Well," said Freke, coming up close to her, "Throckmorton was that
officer!"

Freke had meant to give her one fierce pang; it was a delicious thing to
him to strike her through Throckmorton; but he was quite unprepared for
the result, for Judith, although young and strong, after standing for a
moment gazing at Freke with wild eyes, swayed and without a sound
dropped to the floor in a dead faint.

Freke, cursing his own folly, ran to her and called loudly. His voice
echoed through the midnight silence of the house. It brought Mrs.
Temple, frightened and half dressed, into the room, followed by Delilah,
struggling into her petticoats, and Simon Peter, scratching his wool and
but half awake.

Freke had raised Judith on his arm. Something strange, like pity, of
which he knew but little, came to him as he looked at her pallid face.

"You git 'way, Marse Temple," said Delilah, with authority. "Me an'
mistis kin manage dis heah.--Hi, Miss Judy! Open yo' eyes, honey, an'
tell what de matter wid you."

Mrs. Temple, who never lost her head in emergencies, in five minutes had
Judith in a fair way of coming to herself. Freke said truthfully that he
never was so surprised in his life as when Judith fell over. Mrs. Temple
could not account for it either, and proposed to leave the solution to
Dr. Wortley when he should be sent for in the morning. In a few minutes
more Judith came to and sat up. Almost her first conscious glance fell
on Freke. She gazed at him steadily, and in an instant the conviction
that what he had said was mere wanton cruelty came to her. Freke himself
avoided her glance uneasily.

"Honey, tell yo' ole mammy wh'yar hu'ts you," pleaded Delilah, anxious
to take charge of the case in advance of Dr. Wortley.

"Nowhere at all. I only want to get to bed.--Mother, I hope father
wasn't waked."

"My dear, nothing short of an explosion would wake him."

Mrs. Temple wisely refrained from tormenting Judith with questions. Her
fainting-fit was certainly unaccountable, but Mrs. Temple remembered
once or twice in her own early days when she had done the same thing. So
she merely gave Judith some brandy-and-water, and in a few minutes, with
Delilah's help, got her on the old-fashioned sofa.

While Mrs. Temple and Delilah were stirring about the room, shutting up
for the night and raking the fire down, Freke came up to Judith. Revenge
was familiar to him, but not revenge on women, and remorse was
altogether new to him.

"What I told you," he began, awkwardly, "the facts in the case--"

"Say no more about it; I don't believe you!" answered Judith in a low
voice, but scornful beyond description.

Freke's rage blazed up under that tone.

"You don't believe me? Then I'll make Throckmorton tell you himself. I
can find it out from him without his suspecting it, and I'll make him
tell you how he killed your husband."

Judith drew back and gave him a look that was equivalent to a slap in
the face. Just then Mrs. Temple and Delilah went out into the hall to
make fast the door.

"Well, then, if by any accident you have told me the truth, it was the
fortune of war--"

"Yes, but the hand that killed your husband! Ah! do you think I don't
see it all--all--all--not only what has happened, but what is happening
now?"

Judith rose slowly from her sofa, forgetting her weakness. At that
moment Freke thought he had never seen her look so handsome. Her eyes,
usually a soft, dark gray, were black with indignation; her cheeks
burned; she looked capable of killing him where he stood. She opened
her lips once or twice to speak, but no sound came. She had no words to
express what she felt at that moment. Freke felt a sensation of triumph.
At last he had brought this proud spirit to book; and Throckmorton--at
least if she scorned himself, Freke--she was forever out of
Throckmorton's reach. There was a gulf between them now that nothing on
earth could bridge over. He stood in a calm and easy attitude, his face
only less expressive than Judith's. Nobody who saw Freke then could say,
as Mrs. Temple sometimes had said, "What is there so interesting in
Freke's face?" It was full of power and passion.

It seemed an age to each as they stood there, but it was really only a
few moments. Mrs. Temple and Delilah came back. Judith nodded to Freke,
and walked off, disdaining Delilah's arm. She felt pride in showing him
her strength and composure. She even glanced back at him, and gave him a
smile from her pale lips.

"You have a spirit like a man!" he cried after her, involuntarily. Mrs.
Temple thought he meant because Judith had rallied so quickly from her
fainting-fit.

"Rather a spirit like a woman!" answered Judith, in a loud, clear voice,
as she went up the stairs.

It was some little time before she could get rid of Mrs. Temple and
Delilah. But presently the door was locked, and she was alone.

Some power beyond her will drew her steps to the window that looked
toward Millenbeck. The moon had gone down, and a few clouds scurried
across the pale immensity of the sky, whipped by the winds of night.
There was enough of the ghastly half-light to distinguish the dark
masses of the trees and even the outline of the Millenbeck house. From
the window which she knew well enough belonged to Throckmorton's own den
the cheerful light still streamed. He was sitting there, reading and
smoking, no doubt. She could imagine exactly how he looked. His face,
when he was silent, was rather stern, which made the charm of his smile
and his words more captivating by contrast. And what horror she ought to
feel of this man!--for, in spite of that first involuntary protest that
she did not believe Freke, the heart-breaking conviction came to her
every moment that he was telling the truth. But did she feel horror and
hatred of Throckmorton? Ah! no. And when she tried to think of Beverley,
the feeling that he was dead; that he would trouble her no more; that he
was forever gone out of her life, filled her with something that was
frightfully like joy.

But when she remembered that an open grave lay between her and
Throckmorton, it was not something like anguish she felt--it was anguish
itself. Here was a man she might have loved--a man infinitely worthy of
love--this much she acknowledged to herself; and yet Fate had married
her to a man she never could have loved. For at that moment she saw as
by a flash of lightning the falseness of her marriage and her widowhood.
She dared not think any longer; she could only throw herself on her
bed, and try and stifle among the pillows her sobs and cries. And,
remembering Beverley and Throckmorton and Freke, and his words to her
that night, this gentle and soft-hearted creature sounded all the depths
of grief, love, shame, hatred. She tried to pray, but her prayers--if
prayers they could be called--were mere outcries against the inexorable
and unpitying God. "Dear Lord, what have I done to thee that I should
suffer so?"

The night wore on, the candles burned out, the fire was a mere red glow
of embers. Anguish and despair, like other passions, spend themselves.
Judith had ceased to weep, and lay on her bed with a sort of icy torpor
upon her. Little Beverley, who rarely stirred in his sleep, waked up and
called for his mother; but even the child's voice had no power to move
her. The little boy, finding himself unnoticed, crawled out of his
small bed and came to his mother's side. The sound of his baby voice,
the touch of his little warm, moist hands, awakened something like
remorse in her. She tried to help him up on the bed, but her arms
fell helplessly--she, this strong young woman, was as weak as a child
with the conflict of emotions. The boy, however--a sturdy little
fellow--climbed up alone and nestled to her. She covered him up and held
him close to her, and kissed him coldly once or twice. "My child, he
killed your father," she said to him, thinking of Throckmorton, and that
perhaps, for the child's sake, she might arouse some feeble spark of
regret for the father--some dutiful hatred of Throckmorton. But she
could do neither the one nor the other.

At last, as a wet, miserable, gloomy dawn approached, she fell into a
wretched sleep. Judith's unexpected fainting-fit was a very good excuse
for her keeping her room for a day or two--a merciful provision for her,
as, along with other new experiences, she found for the first time that
her soul was stronger than her body, and that grief had made her ill.
She expected, in all those wretched hours that she lay in her darkened
room, that every time the door opened it would be Mrs. Temple coming
with a ghastly face to tell her the dreadful thing that Freke knew; and
the mere apprehension made her heart stand still. She, this candid and
sincere woman, rehearsed to herself the very words and tones that she
would express a grief and horror she did not feel. But when several days
passed, and the explosion did not come, she concluded that Freke, for
his own reasons, meant to keep it to himself.

For Freke's part, he had no intention of telling anybody except
Judith. He had no mind to bring about the storm that would follow his
revelation. He meant to show Judith that gulf between Throckmorton and
herself, and that was all. He would have been unfeignedly sorry had the
hospitable doors of Millenbeck been no longer open to him.

When Judith came down-stairs, he felt a great curiosity to know how she
would meet him. He himself was perfectly easy and natural in his manner
to her; and she, to his enforced admiration, was equally self-possessed
with him, although she could not always control the expression of her
eyes. "What a Spartan she is!" thought Freke to himself. "She could die
of grief and chagrin with a smile on her lips, and with her voice as
smooth and musical as the velvet wind of summer."




CHAPTER VII.


The autumn crept on. Freke had gone to Wareham, to Judith's delight, but
she found that she had rejoiced too soon, for he was at Barn Elms nearly
every day. The still, silent enmity between Judith and himself showed
itself, on her part, by a certain fine scorn--an almost imperceptible
raising of her narrow brows, that was infuriating to Freke. Still, he
could not shake her self-possession. She even listened to his talk, and
to his captivating violin-playing, with a cool and critical pleasure.
When, as often happened, his step was heard in the hall at twilight, and
he would walk into the drawing-room or the dining-room, as if Barn Elms
were his home, with his violin in his hand--for he kept one at Barn
Elms--and seating himself would begin to play in his masterly way,
Judith would listen as closely as Jacqueline. But the spell was merely
the spell of the music. She could listen to the celestial thrilling of
the strings, the soft lamenting, without in the slightest degree
succumbing to the player--not even when Freke, playing a wandering
accompaniment, like another air from the one he was singing, would sing
some of Heine's sea-songs, in which she could almost hear the sound of
the wind as it rose and wailed and died upon the waves. When the music
stopped, and Freke would look at her piercingly, she was no more moved
by it emotionally than General Temple was, who pronounced it "uncommon
fine fiddling, by George! Some of the tunes haven't got much tune,
though." This unbroken resistance on Judith's part piqued Freke
immeasurably; but quite naturally, as it often is with men of his
temperament, as he could not please her, he determined to spite her--and
he did it by a silent, furtive courtship of Jacqueline. Of this, neither
General nor Mrs. Temple suspected anything. In one sense, the girl had
suffered from neglect. Beverley had been the favorite of both parents.
He had been the conventional good son, the comfort of his parents'
hearts, while Jacqueline was more or less of a puzzle to both of them.
In vain Mrs. Temple tried to interest her in household affairs;
Jacqueline would have none of them. She shocked and mystified her mother
by saying that she hated Barn Elms--it was so old and shabby, and there
were not enough carpets and curtains in the house; and the hair-cloth
furniture in the drawing-room made her ill. Mrs. Temple, who excelled
in all sweet, feminine virtues, who would have loved and bettered any
home given her, thought this sort of thing on Jacqueline's part very
depraved. The mother and the daughter did not understand each other,
and could not. Judith's superior intelligence here came in. Jacqueline
loved her, and, while she obeyed her mother from sheer force of will
on Mrs. Temple's part, she rebelled against being influenced by
her. Judith, on the contrary, without a particle of authority over
Jacqueline, could do anything she wished with her. Mrs. Temple could
only command and be obeyed in outward things, but Judith ruled
Jacqueline's inner soul more than anybody else.

The county people, outside of the Severn neighborhood, still held
perfectly aloof from Throckmorton. This angered him somewhat, although,
as a matter of fact, the people who did recognize him supplied him with
all the company he wanted; for Throckmorton was always enough for
himself, and depended upon no man and no woman for his content. He had
bought Millenbeck and come there for a year, and a year he would stay,
no matter what the Carters and the Carringtons and the Randolphs thought
about it. Then he really had enough of company, and all the books and
cigars he wanted, and plenty of the finest shooting, although he never
killed a robin after that absurd promise he made to Jacqueline, but he
never saw one without giving a thought to her and a grim smile at
himself. And so the quiet autumn slipped away. Throckmorton felt every
day the charm of exquisite repose. In his life he had known a good
deal of excitement--the four years of the war he had been in active
service all the time--and this return to quiet and a sort of refined
primitiveness pleased him. He was charmed with the simplicity of the
people at Barn Elms--the simplicity of genuine country people, whose
outlook is upon nature. He had often heard that country people never
were really sophisticated, and he began to believe it. Even in the
stirrings of his own heart toward the place of his boyhood, after the
lapse of so many busy and exciting years, he recognized the spell that
Nature lays softly upon those whose young eyes have seen nothing but
her. Throckmorton, in spite of a certain firmness that was almost
hardness, was at heart a sentimentalist. He found content, pleasure,
and interest in this lazy, dreamy life. Of happiness he had discovered
that, except during that early married life of his, he had none, for
he was too wise to confound peace and happiness. At forty-four, when
his dark hair had turned quite gray, he acknowledged to himself
that nothing deserved the name of happiness but love. But all these
dreams and fancies he kept to himself, and revolved chiefly in his
mind when he was tramping along the country roads with a gun over his
shoulder, or stretched before a blazing wood-fire in the library at
Millenbeck smoking strong cigars by the dozen. He managed to keep his
sentimentalism well out of sight, not because he was ashamed of it, but
because he respected it.

Freke was a positive acquisition to him. Throckmorton had that sort of
broad, masculine tolerance that can find excuses for everything a man
may do except cheating at cards. Freke came constantly to Millenbeck,
much oftener than Throckmorton went to Wareham.

Millenbeck, though, was a pleasant place to visit. Throckmorton had left
the restoration and fitting up of the place to people who understood
their business well; and consequently, when he arrived, he found he had
one of the most comfortable, if not luxurious, country-houses that could
be imagined. His fortune, which at the North would have been nothing
more than a handsome competence, was a superb patrimony in the ruined
Virginia, and with ready money and Sweeney anybody could be comfortable,
Throckmorton thought. The Rev. Edmund Morford also gave him much of his
(Morford's) company, and obtained a vast number of household receipts
and learned many contrivances for domestic comfort from Sweeney.

"Be jabers, the parson's more of an ould woman than mesilf," Sweeney
would remark to his colored coadjutors. "He can make as good white gravy
as any she-cook going, and counts his sheets and towels every week as
reg'lar as the mother of him did, I warrant," which was quite true.
But the parson's good heart outweighed his innocent conceit and his
effeminate beauty with Throckmorton. Morford tried conscientiously to
get Throckmorton into the church, but with ill success.

"Sink the parson, Morford," Throckmorton would laugh. "Perhaps I'll get
married some day, and my wife will pray me into heaven, like most of the
men who get there, I suspect."

Nevertheless Throckmorton had a reverent soul, and, although he would
have turned pale and have been constrained by an iron silence had he
got up and tried to open his mouth on the subject of the inscrutable
problems that Morford attacked with such glib self-sufficiency, he
revered religion and did not scoff even at the callowest form of it.

Both Jack and himself got to going over to Barn Elms often;
Throckmorton, however, being an old bird, exercised considerable
wariness, so as not to collide with Jack at these times. Jack keptup a
continual fire from ambush at his father, regarding which of the young
women at Barn Elms the major would eventually capitulate to; but
Throckmorton treated this with the dignified silence that was the only
weapon against Jack's sly rallying. As for General Temple, he regarded
all of Throckmorton's visits as particularly directed toward himself,
for the purpose of acquiring military knowledge; and Throckmorton heard
more of the theory of war from General Temple at this time than he ever
heard in all his life before. While the general, who had all campaigns,
modern and ancient, at his finger-ends, declaimed with sonorous
confidence on the mistakes of Hannibal, Caesar, Scipio, and other
well-known military characters, Throckmorton listened meekly, seldom
venturing an observation. General Temple indicated a faint surprise that
Throckmorton, during his career, had never undergone any of the
thrilling adventures which had actually happened to General Temple, who
would have been a great soldier after the pattern of Brian de Bois
Guilbert; nor could Throckmorton convince him that he, Throckmorton,
conceived it his duty to stay with his men, and considered unnecessary
seeking of danger as unsoldier-like in the highest degree. Throckmorton,
however, did not argue the point. In place of General Temple's
innumerable and real hair-breadth escapes, and horses shot under him,
Throckmorton could only say that the solitary physical injury he
received during the war was a bad rheumaticky arm from sleeping in the
wet, and a troublesome attack of measles caught by visiting his men in
the hospital. But General Temple knew that Throckmorton had been
mentioned half a dozen times in general orders, and had got several
brevets, while General Temple had narrowly missed half a dozen
courts-martial for being where he didn't belong at a critical time. The
fact that he was in imminent personal danger on all these occasions,
General Temple considered not only an ample excuse, but quite a feather
in his cap.

Occasionally, though (during the general's disquisitions),
Throckmorton's eye would seek Judith's as she sat under the lamp, with
a piece of delicate embroidery in her hand, stitching demurely, and
something like a smile would pass between them. Judith understood the
joke. The mingled softness and archness of her glance was very beautiful
to Throckmorton, but it had not the power over him of Jacqueline's
coquettish air. Throckmorton was rather vexed at the charm this
kittenish young thing cast over him. He had always professed a great
aversion to young fools, who invariably turn into old bores, but he
could not deny that he was more drawn to sit near Jacqueline in her low
chair, than to Judith sitting gracefully upright under the lamp. That
Jacqueline was not far off from folly, he was forced to admit to himself
every time he talked with her, but the admission brought with it a
slight pang. Then he never lost sight of the disparity in their years;
and this was painful because of the secret attraction he felt for her.
Sometimes, walking home from Barn Elms, across the fields in autumn
nights, he would find himself comparing the two women, and wishing that
the older woman possessed for him the subtle charm of the younger one.
Any man might love Judith Temple--she was so gentle, so unconscious of
her own superiority to the average woman, so winning upon one's reason
and self-respect--and then Throckmorton would sigh, and stride faster
along the path in the wintry darkness. Suppose--suppose he should
seriously try to win Jacqueline? How long would he be happy? And what
sort of a life would it be for her, with that childish restlessness and
inability to depend for one moment on herself? And Throckmorton knew
instinctively that, although he possessed great power in bending women
to his will, it was not in him to adapt himself to any woman. He might
love her, indulge her, adore her, but he could not change his fixed and
immutable character one iota. It would be a peculiar madness for him to
marry any woman who did not possess adaptability in a high degree; and
this Throckmorton had known, ever since he had grown hair on his face,
went only with a certain mental force and breadth in women. He had the
whole theory mapped out, that the more intellectual a man was, the less
adaptable he was, while with women the converse was strikingly true--the
more intellectual a woman was, the more adaptable she was. He also knew
perfectly well that in women the emotions and the intellect are so
inextricably involved that a woman's emotional range was exactly limited
by her intellectual range; that there is nothing more commonplace in
a commonplace woman than her emotions. Nay, more. He remembered Dr.
Johnson's thundering against female fools: "Sir, a man usually marries a
fool, with the expectation of ruling her; but the fool, sir, invariably
rules the man." But all this went to pieces when he saw Jacqueline. She
was to him as if a figure of Youth had stepped out of a white Greek
frieze; and whenever he realized this charm of hers, he sighed to
himself profoundly.

People are never too old or too sensible to commit follies, but people
of sense and experience suffer the misery of knowing all about their
follies when they do commit them.

To Freke, who was incomparably the keenest observer in all this little
circle, the whole thing was a psychic study of great interest. He had
the art in a singular degree of getting outside of his own emotions; and
the fact that he had been guilty of the egregious folly of falling in
love with Judith at first sight made him only keener in studying out
the situation. He took an abstract pleasure in partly confiding his
discoveries to Mrs. Sherrard, who was a bold woman, and had become an
out-and-out partisan of his--the only one he could count on, except
Jacqueline, under the rose. It was a subject of active concern why
Freke ever bought Wareham in the beginning, and still more so why he
should continue to stay there. When pressed on the subject by Mrs.
Sherrard--they were sitting in the comfortable drawing-room at Turkey
Thicket, the blazing wood-fire making the dull wintry afternoon, and
the flat, monotonous landscape outside more dreary by contrast--Freke
declared that he had settled in the country in order to cultivate the
domestic virtues to advantage.

"Pooh!" said Mrs. Sherrard.

Freke then hinted at a possibility of his marrying, which, considering
his divorced condition, gave Mrs. Sherrard a thrill of horror. He saw in
an instant that this divorce question was one upon which Mrs. Sherrard's
prejudices, like those of everybody else in the county, were adamantine,
and not to be trifled with; so he dropped the obnoxious subject promptly
and wisely.

"The fact is," he said, standing up with his back to the fire, and
causing Mrs. Sherrard to notice how excellent was his slight but
well-knit figure, "I've got to live somewhere, and why not here? I don't
know whether I've got anything left of my money or not--anything, that
is, that my creditors or my lawyers will let me have in peace--but
there's excellent shooting on the place, and it only cost a song. I
think I can stay here as long as I can stay anywhere; you know I am a
sort of civilized Bedouin anyhow. And then I own up to a desire to see
that little comedy between--between--Millenbeck and Barn Elms played
through. It's an amusing little piece."

Mrs. Sherrard pricked up her ears. Freke's reputation as a conquering
hero had inspired in her the interest it always does in the female
breast. Was it possible that he shouldn't be making love to either
Judith or Jacqueline?

"I'll tell you what," he cried, smiling, "they are the most precious
pack of innocents at Barn Elms! There's my uncle--a high-minded,
good-natured, unterrified old blunderbuss--the most unsophisticated of
the lot. Then my aunt, who belongs properly to the age of Rowena and
Rebecca--and Judith."

Here Freke's countenance changed a little from its laughing
carelessness. His rather ordinary features were full of a piercing and
subtile expression.

"Judith fancies, because she has been a wife, a mother, and a widow,
that she knows the whole gamut of life, when actually she has only
struck the first note correctly a little while ago--no, I forget--that
young one. But that's very one-sided, although intense. She loves the
child because he is her own, not because he is Beverley's--rather in
spite of it, I fancy."

Mrs. Sherrard, in the excitement of the moment--for what is more
exciting than unexpected and inside discoveries about our
neighbors?--got up too.

"I knew it--I knew it!" she answered, her sharp old eyes getting bright.
"I saw Judith when she was a bride, and she wasn't in the least
rapturous. And the next time I saw her she had on that odd widow's cap
she wears, and that blessed baby in her arms; and if ever I saw secret
happiness painted on any human countenance it was hers; and all the time
she was trying to imagine herself broken-hearted for Beverley Temple."

"Fudge!" almost shouted Freke. "It's my belief she'd have traded off six
husbands like Beverley for one black-eyed boy like that young one."

"Beverley," began Mrs. Sherrard, delighted, yet fluttered by this plain
speaking, "you remember, was a big, handsome fellow--rode like a
centaur, danced beautifully, the best shot in the county--as polite
as a dancing-master or--General Temple--as brave as a lion--"

"Oh, good God, don't talk to me about Beverley Temple! He was the most
wooden-headed Temple I ever knew, and that's saying a good deal, ma'am!"
responded Freke, with energy.

"_You_ are no fool," said Mrs. Sherrard, as if willing to argue the
point.

"Yes, but you couldn't any more take me as a type of the Temples than
you could take Edmund Morford as a type of the Sherrards. Lord, Mrs.
Sherrard, what an ass your nephew is!"

"Isn't he, though? But he is a good soul," was Mrs. Sherrard's answer.

Was it Judith or was it Jacqueline that Freke was trying his charms on,
thought Mrs. Sherrard, taking her afternoon nap over the fire, after
Freke left. Freke, however, really could not have enlightened her. For
Judith his admiration increased every day--her very defiance of him was
captivating to him. He well knew that she hated every bone in his body,
and he had made up his mind, as a set-off to this, to get a description
of a certain scene during the war out of Throckmorton some time in her
presence. It was a species of vivisection, but she deserved it--deserved
it richly--for had she not brought it on herself by the way she treated
him, Temple Freke? And then Jacqueline--she was certainly a fascinating
little object, though not half the woman that Judith was--this Freke
magnanimously allowed, riding briskly along the country road in the
wintry twilight.

The family at Barn Elms had never yet dined with Throckmorton, owing
to General Temple's continued wrestle with the gout, that had now made
him a prisoner for four long weeks. Mrs. Temple, who every day got
fonder of George, as she called Throckmorton, had promised to dine at
Millenbeck when the general was able to go; but, as she invested all
their intercourse with Millenbeck with the solemnity of a formal
reconciliation, she delayed until the whole family could go in state
and ceremony. At last Dr. Wortley, having gained a temporary advantage
over Delilah, and brought General Temple to observe his (Dr. Wortley's)
regimen, instead of Delilah's, a week or two marked a decided
improvement. The general's Calvinism abated, his profanity mended, and
he became once more the amiable soldier and stanch churchman that he was
by nature.

"Now, Mrs. Temple," said Throckmorton one evening as he was going away,
"if you will keep the general out of mischief for a day or two longer,
you will be able to pay me that long-promised visit. Let me know, so I
can get Mrs. Sherrard and Dr. Wortley--and Morford and Freke; but you,
my dear friend, will be the guest of honor."

Mrs. Temple blushed like a girl, with pleasure--Throckmorton's way of
saying this was so whole-souled and affectionate.

"You say right, my dear Throckmorton," remarked General Temple, putting
his arm around Mrs. Temple's waist, "the tenderest, sweetest, most
obedient wife"--at which Simon Peter, putting wood on the fire,
snickered audibly, and Throckmorton would have laughed outright had he
dared.

So it was fixed that on the following Friday evening they were all to
dine at Millenbeck, Mrs. Temple promising to watch the general, lest he
should relapse into gout and gloom--and a promise from Mrs. Temple was a
promise. She went about, a little surprised at the complete way that
Throckmorton had brought her round. Here was one Yankee whom she loved
with a genuine motherly affection--and he was a Virginia Yankee,
too--which she esteemed the very worst kind.

Jacqueline, as usual, was off her head at the notion of going, and
Judith's suppressed excitement did not escape Mrs. Temple's eye. Both of
them, provincials of provincials, as they were, felt a true feminine
curiosity regarding the reputed splendors of Millenbeck, which was, in
fact, destined to dazzle their countryfied eyes.

On the Friday evening, therefore, at half-past six, they found
themselves driving down the Millenbeck lane. General Temple had begun,
figuratively speaking, to shake hands across the bloody chasm from the
moment he started from Barn Elms. He harangued the whole way upon the
touching aspect of the reconciliation between the great leaders of the
hostile armies, as typified by his present expedition. Going down the
lane they caught up with Mrs. Sherrard, being driven by Mr. Morford in a
top buggy.

"Jane Temple, are we a couple of fools?" called out Mrs. Sherrard,
putting her head out of the buggy.

"No, Katharine Sherrard, we are a couple of Christians," piously
responded Mrs. Temple.

General Temple thrust his bare head out of the carriage-window, holding
his hat in his hand, as it was his unbroken rule never to speak to a
woman with his head covered, and entered into a disquisition respecting
the ethics of the great civil war, which lasted until they drew up to
the very door of Millenbeck.

A handsome graveled drive led up to the door, and a _porte-cochere_,
which was really a very modest affair of glass and iron, had been thrown
over the drive; but, as it was the only one ever seen in the county, all
of them regarded it with great respect. Throckmorton, with old-time
Virginia hospitality, met them at the steps. Like all true gentlemen, he
was a model host. As he helped Mrs. Temple to alight, he raised her
small, withered hand to his lips and kissed it respectfully.

"Welcome to Millenbeck, my best and earliest friend," he said.

"George Throckmorton," responded Mrs. Temple, with sweet gravity, "you
have taught forgiveness to my hard and unforgiving heart."

Within the house was more magnificence. The inevitable great, dark,
useless hall was robbed of its coldness and bleakness by soft Turkish
rugs placed over the polished floor. There was no way of heating it in
the original plan, but Throckmorton's decorator and furnisher had hit
upon the plan of having a quaint Dutch stove, which now glowed redly
with a hard-coal fire. The startling innovation of lighting the broad
oak staircase had likewise been adopted, and at intervals up the
stairway wax-candles in sconces shed a mellow half-light in the hall
below.

General Temple was exuberant. He shook hands with Throckmorton half a
dozen times, and informed him that, strange as the defection of a
Virginian from his native State might appear, he, General Temple,
believed that Throckmorton was actuated by conscientious though mistaken
notions in remaining in the army after the breaking out of the war.

"Thank you," laughed Throckmorton, immensely tickled; "I haven't
apologized for it yet, have I, general?"

Up-stairs, in a luxurious spare bedroom, the ladies' wraps were laid
aside. Here, also, that perfect comfort prevailed, which is rare in
Virginia country-houses, although luxury, in certain ways, is common
enough. As they passed an open door, going down, they caught sight of
Throckmorton's own room. In that alone a Spartan simplicity reigned.
There was no carpet on the spotless floor, and an iron bedstead, a large
table, and a few chairs completed the furnishing of it. But it had an
air of exquisite neatness and military preciseness in it that made an
atmosphere about Throckmorton. Over the unornamented mantel two swords
were crossed, and over them was a pretty, girlish portrait of Jack's
mother. Judith, in passing, craned her long, white neck to get a better
look at the portrait, was caught in the act by Mrs. Temple, and blushed
furiously.

She had a strange sensation of both joy and fear in coming to
Throckmorton's house. In her inmost soul she felt it to be a crime of
great magnitude; and, indeed, the circumstances made it about as nearly
a crime as such a woman could commit. More than that, if it should ever
be known--and it was liable to be known at any moment--the deliberate
foreknowledge with which she went to Millenbeck, she would never be
allowed to remain another hour under the roof of Barn Elms: of that much
she was perfectly sure. This, however, had but little effect on her,
although she was risking not only her own but her child's future; but
the conviction that it was absolutely wrong for her to go, caused her to
make some paltering excuse when Throckmorton first asked her. He put it
aside with his usual calm superiority in dealing with her scruples about
going to places, and she yielded to the sweet temptation of obeying his
wishes. She took pains, though, to tell Freke herself that she was
going--a risky but delicious piece of braggadocio--at which Freke lifted
his eyebrows slightly. Inwardly he determined to make her pay for her
rashness. She was the only woman who had ever fought him, and he was not
to be driven off the field by any of the sex.

Judith's blush lasted until she reached the drawing-room, and made her
not less handsome. There the gentlemen were being dazzled by still
further splendors. This room, which was large and of stately
proportions, was really handsome. Throckmorton, who cared nothing for
luxury, and whose personal habits were simplicity itself, was yet too
broad-minded to impress his own tastes upon anybody else. Since most
people liked luxury, he had his house made luxurious; and his own room
was the only plain one in it. Jack's was a perfect bower, "more fit," as
Throckmorton remarked with good-natured sarcasm, "for a young lady's
boudoir than a bunk for a hulking youngster." In the same way
Throckmorton managed to dress like a gentleman on what Jack spent on
hats and canes and cravats; but nobody ever knew whether Throckmorton's
clothes were new or old. His personality eclipsed all his belongings.

Jacqueline was completely subdued by the luxury around her. No human
soul ever loved these pleasant things of life better than she loved
them. Comfort and beauty and luxury were as the breath of life to her.
She had hungered and thirsted for them ever since she could remember.
Going down the stairs she caught Judith's hand, with a quick, childish
grasp. The lights, the glitter, almost took her breath away; and when
she saw a great mound of roses on the drawing-room table, got from
Norfolk by the phenomenal Sweeney, she almost screamed with delight.

"God bless my soul, this is pleasant!" remarked Dr. Wortley, rubbing his
hands cheerfully before the drawing-room fire, where the gentlemen,
including Morford and Freke, were assembled. "Here we are all met again,
under Millenbeck's roof, as we were before the war. Let by-gones be
by-gones, say I, about the war."

"Amen," answered Mrs. Temple, after a little pause, piously and sweetly.

Sweeney, who could make quite a dashing figure as a waiter, now
appeared, dressed in faultless evening costume of much newer fashion
than Throckmorton's, and announced dinner. Throckmorton, with his most
graceful air--for he was on his mettle in his own house, and with those
charming, unsophisticated women--gave his arm to Mrs. Temple; the
general, with a grand flourish, did the same to Mrs. Sherrard; Judith
had the doctor of divinity on one hand and the doctor of medicine on the
other and Jacqueline brought up the rear with Jack Throckmorton and
Temple Freke. Judith, when she saw this arrangement, comforted herself
with the reflection that, if anybody could counteract Freke's influence
over Jacqueline, it was Jack Throckmorton, whom Jacqueline candidly
acknowledged was infinitely more attractive to her than the master of
Millenbeck.

But Jacqueline needed no counteraction. Freke, who read her perfectly,
was secretly amused, and annoyed as well, when he saw that Jacqueline
was every moment more carried away by Throckmorton's wax-candles and
carved chairs and embroidered screens and onyx tables, and glass and
plate. He felt not one thrill of the jealousy of Throckmorton, where
Jacqueline was concerned, that Throckmorton sometimes felt for him,
because he was infinitely more astute in the knowledge of human and
especially feminine weaknesses and f

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