Читать книгу Lewis Rand - Mary Johnston - Страница 17

Table of Contents

"I never dance but by candlelight," remarked Unity. "A Congo in the heat of the afternoon, a jig before sunset—la! I had rather plough by moonlight. As well be a grasshopper in a daisy field! Elegance by waxlight becomes rusticity in the sunshine—and of all things I would not be rustic! Oh, Mr. Cary, I've caught my gown in this rosebush!"

Mr. Fairfax Cary knelt to release the muslin prisoner. "Rusticity becomes you so that if I were a king, you should dance with me the livelong day. But I'll not grumble if only you'll dance with me as soon as the candles are lit! Last night you were all for that booby, Ned Hunter!"

"He's no booby," said Miss Dandridge. "He is bashful—though, indeed, I think he is only bashful in company! We sat on the porch, and he told me the long history of his life."

"Confound his impudence—"

"Oh, it was interesting as—as the Mysteries of Udolpho! You are a long time over that briar, Mr. Cary. There! thank you! Listen to Mr. Pincornet's fiddle. Scrape, scrape, scrape! The children are dancing, and Jacqueline is helping them. Jacqueline is always helping some one. But Mr. Pincornet thinks it is because she is in love with him. He is sorry for her because he rather prefers me. I am in love with him too. So is Molly Carter, so is Anne Page, and so will be little Deb as soon as she is old enough. He is fifty, and French, and a dancing master, and he wears an old, old, lace cravat and a powdered wig! When are we going back to the house, Mr. Cary?"

"Let us walk a little farther!" pleaded the gentleman. "It is cool and pleasant, with no fuss, and no Ned Hunter, with the history of his life, confound him! Other men have histories as well as he! Your gown looks so pretty against the leaves. Let us walk down to the lower gate."

Unity pursed her red lips, and considered the distance with velvety black eyes. "I have on my dancing shoes—but perhaps you will help me across the brook!"

"I will," declared Fairfax Cary, and, when the brook was reached, was as good as his word.

"I shall tell Uncle Dick to put safer stepping-stones," quoth Miss Dandridge, with heightened colour. "How thick the mint grows here! We are at the gate, Mr. Cary."

"Let us walk to the bend of the road! The wild honeysuckle is in bloom there; I noticed it riding to Charlottesville the other morning. It is just the colour of your gown."

"Then it must be beautiful," said Miss Dandridge, "for this rose-coloured muslin came from London. Ah, you looked so angry and so beaten on Wednesday, when you came back from Charlottesville!"

"I was not angry, and I was not beaten."

"Fie! You mean that your brother was."

"I mean nothing of the kind!" cried the younger Cary hotly. "My brother, at the importunity of his friends, and for the good of the county, consented to stand against this pet of Jefferson's, this—this vaurien Lewis Rand. Some one had to stand. He knew what the result would be. 'Twas but a skirmish—just a seat in a tri-colour Republican House of Delegates! My faith! the honour's not great. But wait awhile, Miss Dandridge! The real battle's not yet. Beaten! Rands, Miss Dandridge, don't beat Carys!"

"La, so warm!" exclaimed Unity. "I have never seen a man love a brother so!"

"Ludwell Cary is worthy of any man's love—or any woman's either!"

"The pair of you ought to be put in the wax-works, and labelled 'The Loving Brothers.' When you marry, there'll be no love left for your wife."

"Just you try and see."

"The man whom I marry," said Miss Dandridge, "must have no thought but for me. He must swoon if I frown, laugh if I smile, weep if I sigh, be altogether desperate if I look another way. I am like Falkland in The Rivals. Heigho! this is the bend of the road, Mr. Cary."

"I am altogether desperate when you look another way. When you looked at Ned Hunter last night, I wanted to blow his brains out. He hasn't any, but I should like to try."

"Then you would have been hanged for murder," remarked Miss Dandridge. "Think how terrible that would be for us all!—Did you know that Mr. Hunter once dined with General Washington?"

"You are a royal coquette. See, there is the honeysuckle! If I gather it for you, will you wear one spray to-night?"

"It is a very stiff flower," said Unity thoughtfully, "and I have an idea that Mr. Hunter will bring me violets. But—I will see if I can find a place for one small spray."

She sat down upon a fallen tree, took her round chin into her hand, and studied the point of her morocco shoe, while her cavalier, not without detriment to his pumps and silk stockings, scrambled up the red bank to the rosy flowers.

The honeysuckles did not grow upon the main road, but upon a rough and narrow cross-country track, little used except by horsemen pressed for time. Now, clear through the still afternoon, a sound of hoofs gave warning that riders were coming down the steep and dangerous hill beyond the turn. Unity looked up with interest, and Fairfax Cary paused with his hand upon a coral bough. Suddenly there was a change in the beat, then a frightened shout, and a sound of rolling stones and a wild clatter of hoofs. Unity sprang to her feet; Cary came down the bank at a run, tossed her his armful of blossoms, and was in the middle of the road in time to seize by the bridle the riderless horse which came plunging around the bend.

Fairfax Cary was strong, the black horse not quite mad with terror, and the man mastered the brute. "Whose is he?" he asked. "If you will hold him—he is quite quiet now—I will go see."

A negro came panting around the turn. "Gawd-a-moughty, marster! did you cotch dat horse? You, Selim, I's gwine lam' you, I's gwine teach you er lesson—dancin' roun' on yo' two foots 'cause you sees er scrap of paper! R'arin' an' pitchin' an' flingin' white folks on er heap of stones! I'll larn you! Yo' marster was a-dreamin', or you'd never th'owed him! You jes wait twel I git you home! Marse Fairfax Cary, dis debbil done th'owed my marster, an' he lyin' by de roadside, an' I don' know whether he live or daid!"

"I know you now," exclaimed the younger Cary. "You're Mr. Lewis Rand's servant. Hadn't you better stay here, Miss Dandridge, until I see what really is the matter? Here, boy, stop chattering your teeth! Your master's not killed. Was it at the top of the hill?"

"Halfway down, Marse Fairfax, whar de footpath goes down through de papaw bushes. Joab'll show you."

"I'm coming too," said Miss Dandridge. "I'll lead Selim."

Without more ado the four rounded the bend of the road and began to climb the hill. Halfway up, as Joab had stated, they found their man. He lay beside the papaw bushes, among the loose stones, and he lay very still. One arm was doubled under him. His head was thrown back, and his brown hair was matted with blood.

"Oh!" cried Unity pitifully, and went down upon her knees beside the unfortunate.

Cary examined the cut in the head. "Well, he's not dead, but he's had a pretty fall! What's to be done? Joab—"

"Joab," commanded Miss Dandridge, "ride straight to Fontenoy and tell Colonel Dick to send Big Jim and a couple of men with the old litter!—and then ride to Charlottesville and bring Dr. Gilmer—"

"Are you going to take him to Fontenoy?" asked the younger Cary.

"Why not?" flashed Miss Dandridge. "Would you leave him to bleed to death by the roadside? 'My enemy's dog—' and so forth. Hurry, Joab!"

The negro mounted his horse that had been grazing by the papaw bushes, and was off at a gallop, leaving Unity and Cary with the luckless rider. Cary brought water from the brook that brawled at the foot of the steep hillside, and Unity wet the brow and lips of the unconscious man, but he had given no sign of life when the relief party arrived from Fontenoy. This consisted of four stout negroes bearing the litter, and of Colonel Dick Churchill and Mr. Ned Hunter.

"Tut, tut!" cried Colonel Dick. "What's this? what's this? Damn this place! My mare Nelly threw me here thirty years ago!—I was coming home from a wedding. Senseless and cut across the head!—and I don't like the way that arm's bent.—Ned Hunter, you take Big Jim's corner of the litter for a minute. Now, Big Jim, you lift Mr. Rand.—So! we'll have him at Fontenoy in a jiffy, and in bed in the blue room. Run ahead, Unity, and tell Jacqueline and Mammy Chloe to make ready. His boy's gone for Gilmer. Easy now, men! Yes, 'twas at this very spot my mare Nelly threw me!—it was Maria Erskine's wedding."

The sun was low in the heavens when the good Samaritans and the unconscious man arrived at the foot of the wide, white-pillared Fontenoy porch. The arrival had many witnesses; for on hearing of the accident the large party assembled for the dancing class had at once dropped all employment and flocked to various coigns of vantage. A bevy of young girls looked from one parlour window, and another framed Mr. Pincornet's face and wig and flowered coat. In the hall and on the porch the elders gathered, while on the broad porch steps young men in holiday dress waited to see if they might be of help. Around the corner of the house peered the house negroes, pleasurably excited by any catastrophe and any procession, even that of a wounded man borne on a litter.

The cortège arrived. In the midst of much ejaculation, and accompanied by a fire of directions from Colonel Dick, Lewis Rand was borne up the steps and across the porch into the cool, wide hail. Here the litter was met by Jacqueline Churchill. She came down the shadowy staircase in a white gown, with a salver and a glass in her hand. "The room is ready, Uncle Dick," she said, in a steady voice. "The blue room. Aunt Nancy says you must make him take this cordial. I have lint and bandages all ready. This way, Big Jim. Mind the wall!"

She turned and preceded the men up the stair, along a hallway and into a pleasant chamber hung with blue and white. "Turn down the sheet, Mammy Chloe," she directed a negro woman standing beside the bed. "Quick! quick! he is bleeding so."

Rand was laid upon the bed, and as the men drew their arms from beneath him, he moved his head, and his lips parted. A moment later he opened his eyes. Colonel Dick heaved a sigh of relief. "He'll do now! Gilmer shall come and bleed him, and he'll be out again before you can say Jack Robinson! I'll have that place in the road mended to-morrow. Yes, yes, Mr. Rand, you've had an accident. Lie still! you're with friends. Hey, what did you say?"

Rand had said nothing articulate. His eyes were upon Jacqueline, standing at the foot of the bed. The room was in the western wing of the house, and where she stood she was bathed in the light of the sinking sun. It made her brown hair golden and like a nimbus. Rand made a straying motion with his hand. "I did not believe in heaven," he muttered. "If I have erred—"

"Lie still, lie still!" said Jacqueline. In a moment she turned, left the room, and went downstairs. "He is better," she told her cousin Unity, who with Fairfax Cary was waiting in the lower hall; then went on to the library, opened the door, and closed it softly behind her.

The room was dim, and she thought it vacant. There was an old leather chair which she loved, which had always stood beside the glass doors that gave upon the sunset, in whose worn depths she had, as a child, told herself fairy tales, and found escape from childish woes. She went straight to it now, sank into its old arms, and pressed her cheek against the cool leather. She closed her eyes, and sat very still, and tried to ease the throbbing of her heart. Some one coughed, and she looked up to find her Uncle Edward regarding her from his own favourite chair.

"I did not know you were there," she exclaimed. "I thought the room was empty. What are you reading?"

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

Jacqueline coloured. "Uncle Dick—"

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

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

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

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

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