Kitabı oku: «The Bondwoman», sayfa 22
She avoided the rest and retired to her own room on the plea of fatigue. Colonel McVeigh was engaged with his mother and Judge Clarkson on some affairs of the plantation, so very much had to be crowded into his few hours at home. Money had to be raised, property had to be sold, and the salable properties were growing so few in those days.
Masterson was waiting impatiently for the Colonel, whom he had only seen for the most brief exchange of words that morning. It was now noon. He had important news to communicate before that guard arrived for Monroe; it might entail surprising disclosures, and the minutes seemed like hours to him, while Judge Clarkson leisurely presented one paper after another for Kenneth’s perusal and signature, and Mrs. McVeigh listened and asked advice.
Judithe descended the stairs, radiant in a gown of fluffy yellow stuff, with girdle of old topaz and a fillet of the same in quaint dull settings. The storm had grown terrific–the heavy clouds trailing to the earth and the lightning flashes lit up dusky corners. Evilena had proposed darkening the windows entirely, lighting the lamps to dispel the gloom, and dressing in their prettiest to drive away forgetfulness of the tragedy of the elements; it was Kenneth’s last day at home; they must be gay though the heavens fell.
Thus it was that the sitting room and dining room presented the unusual mid-day spectacle of jewels glittering in the lamplight, for Gertrude also humored Evilena’s whim to the extent of a dainty dress of softest sky blue silk, half covered with the finest work of delicate lace; she wore a pretty brooch and bracelet of turquoise, and was a charming picture of blonde beauty, a veritable white lily of a woman. Dr. Delaven, noting the well-bred grace, the gentle, unassuming air so truly refined and patrician, figuratively took off his hat to the Colonel, who, between two such alluring examples of femininity, two women of such widely different types as the Parisian and the Carolinian, had even been able to make a choice. For he could see what every one but Kenneth could see plainly, that while Miss Loring was gracious and interested in her other men friends, he remained, as ever, her one hero, apart from, and above all others, and if Judithe de Caron had not appeared upon the scene–
Gertrude looked even lovelier than she had the night before at the party. Her cheeks had a color unusual, and her eyes were bright with hope, expectation, or some unspoken cause for happiness; it sounded in the tones of her voice and shone in the happy curves of her lips as she smiled.
“Look at yourself in the glass, Gertrude,” said Evilena, dragging her to the long mirror in the sitting room, “you are always lovely, dear, but today you are entrancingly beautiful.”
“Today I am entrancingly happy,” returned Miss Loring, looking in the mirror, but seeing in it not herself, but Judithe, who was crossing the hall, and who looked like a Spanish picture in her gleam of yellow tissues and topazes.
“Wasn’t it clever of me to think of lighting the lamps?” asked Evilena in frank self-laudation, “just listen how that rain beats; and did you see the hail? Well, it fell, lots of it, while we were dressing; that’s what makes the air so cool. I hope it will storm all the rain down at once and then give us a clear day tomorrow, when Kenneth has to go away.”
“It would be awful for any one to be out in a storm like this,” remarked the other as the crash of thunder shook the house; “what about Captain Monroe having to go through it?”
“Caroline said the guard has just got here, so I suppose he will have to go no matter what the weather is. Well, I suppose he’d just as soon be killed by the storm as to be shot for a spy. Only think of it–a guest of ours to be taken away as a spy!”
“It is dreadful,” assented Gertrude, and then looking at Judithe, she added, “I hope you were not made nervous by the shot and excitement last night; I assure you we do not usually have such finales to our parties.”
“I am not naturally timid, thank you,” returned Judithe, with a careless smile, all the more careless that she felt the blue eyes were regarding her with unusual watchfulness; “one must expect all those inconveniences in war times, especially when people are located on the border land, and I hear it is really but a short ride to the coast, where your enemies have their war vessels for blockade. Did I understand you to say the military men have come for your friend, the Federal Captain? What a pity! He danced so well!”
And with the careless smile still on her lips, she passed them and crossed the hall to the library.
Evilena shook her head and sighed. “I am just broken hearted over his arrest,” she acknowledged, “but it is because–well, it is not merely because he was a good dancer! Gertrude, I–I did something horrid this morning, I just could not eat my breakfast without showing my sympathy in some way. You know those last cookies I baked? Well, I had some of those sent over with his breakfast.”
“Poor fellow!” and Delaven shook his head sadly over the fate of Monroe. Evilena eyed him suspiciously; but his face was all innocence and sympathy.
“It is terrible,” she assented; “poor mama just wept this morning when we heard of it; of course, if he really proves to be a spy, we should not care what happened to him; but mama thinks of his mother, and of his dead brother, and–well, we both prayed for him this morning; it was all we could do. Kenneth says no one must go near him, and of course Kenneth knows what is best; but we are both hoping with all our hearts that he had nothing to do with that spy; funny, isn’t it, that we are praying and crying on account of a man who, after all, is a real Yankee?”
“Faith, I’d turn Yankee myself for the same sweet sympathy,” declared Delaven, and received only a reproachful glance for his frivolity.
Judithe crossed the hall to the library, the indifferent smile still on her lips, her movements graceful and unhurried; under the curious eyes of Gertrude Loring she would show no special interest in the man under discussion, or the guard just arrived, but for all that the arrival of the guard determined her course. All her courage was needed to face the inevitable; the inevitable had arrived, and she was not a coward.
She looked at the wedding ring on her finger; it had been the wedding ring of the dowager long ago, and she had given it to Kenneth McVeigh that morning for the ceremony.
“Maman would approve if she knew all,” she assured herself, and now she touched the ring to remind her of many things, and to blot out the remembrance of others, for instance, the avowal of love under the arbor in the dusk of the night before!
“But that was last night,” she thought, grimly; “the darkness made me impressionable, the situation made of me a nervous fool, who said the thing she felt and had no right to feel. It is no longer night, and I am no longer a fool! Do not let me forget, little ring, why I allowed you to be placed there. I am going to tell him now, and I shall need you and–Maman.”
So she passed into the library; there could be no further delay, since the guard had arrived; Monroe should not be sacrificed.
She closed the door after her and looked around. A man was in the large arm chair by the table, but it was not Colonel McVeigh. It was Matthew Loring, whose man Ben was closing a refractory banging shutter, and drawing curtains over the windows, while Pluto brought in a lighted lamp for the table, and both of them listened stoically to Loring’s grumbling.
For a wonder he approved of the innovation of lamps and closed shutters. He had, in fact, come from his own room because of the fury of the storm. He growled that the noise of it annoyed him, but would not have acknowledged the truth, that the force of it appalled him, and that he shrank from being alone while the lightning threw threats in every direction, and the crashes of thunder shook the house.
“No, Kenneth isn’t here,” he answered, grumpily. “They told me he was, but the nigger lied.”
“Mahsa Kenneth jest gone up to his own room, Madame Caron,” said Pluto, quietly. “Mist’ess, she went, too, an’ Judge Clarkson.”
“Humph! Clarkson has got him pinned down at last, has he?” and there was a note of satisfaction in his tone. “I was beginning to think that between this fracas with the spy, and his galloping around the country, he would have no time left for business. I should not think you’d consider it worth while to go pleasure-riding such a morning as this.”
“Oh, yes; it was quite worth while,” she answered, serenely; “the storm did not break until our return. You are waiting for Colonel McVeigh? So am I, and in the meantime I am at your service, willing to be entertained.”
“I am too much upset to entertain any one today,” he declared, fretfully; “that trouble last night spoiled my rest. I knew the woman Margeret lied when she came back and said it was only an accident. I’m nervous as a cat today. The doctors forbid me every form of excitement, yet they quarter a Yankee spy in the room over mine, and commence shooting affairs in the middle of the night. It’s–it’s outrageous!”
He fell back in the chair, exhausted by his indignation. Judithe took the fan from Pluto’s hand and waved it gently above the dark, vindictive face. His eyes were closed and as she surveyed the cynical countenance a sudden determination came to her. If she should leave for Savannah in the morning, why not let Matthew Loring hear, first, of the plans for Loringwood’s future? She knew how to hurt Kenneth McVeigh; she meant to see if there was any way of hurting this trafficker in humanity, this aristocratic panderer to horrid vices.
“You may go, Pluto,” she said, kindly. “I will ring if you are needed.”
Both the colored men went out, closing the door after them, and she brought a hassock and placed it beside his chair, and seated herself, after taking a book from the shelf and opening it without glancing at the title or pages.
“Since you refuse to be entertainer, Monsieur Loring, you must submit to being entertained,” she said, pleasantly; “shall I sing to you, read to you, or tell you a story?”
Her direct and persistent graciousness made him straighten up in his chair and regard her, inquiringly; there was a curious mocking tone in her voice as she spoke, but the voice itself was forgotten as he looked in her face.
The light from the lamp was shining full on her face, and the face was closer to him than it had ever been before. If she designed to dazzle him by thus arranging a living picture for his benefit she certainly succeeded. He had never really seen her until now, and he caught his breath sharply and was conscious that one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen in his life was looking at him with a strange smile touching her perfect mouth, and a strange haunting resemblance to some one once known, shining in her dark eyes.
“What sort of stories do you prefer–love stories?” she continued, as he did not speak–only stared at her; “or, since we have had a real adventure in the house last night, possibly you would be interested in the intrigue back of that–would you?”
“Do you mean,” he asked, eagerly, “that you could give me some new facts concerning the spy–Monroe?”
“Yes, I really think I could,” she said, amiably, “as there happen to be several things you have not been well informed upon.”
“I know it!” he said, tapping the arm of the chair, impatiently, “they never tell me half what is going on, now!–as if I was a child! and when I ask the cursed niggers, they lie so. Well, well, go on; tell me the latest news about this Yankee–Monroe.”
“The very latest?” and she smiled again in that strange mocking way. “Well, the latest is that he is entirely innocent; had nothing whatever to do with the taking of the papers.”
“Madame Caron!”
“Yes, I am quite serious. I was just about to tell Colonel McVeigh, but we can chat about it until he comes;” and she pretended not to notice the wonder in his face, and went serenely on, “in fact, it was not a man who took the papers at all, but a woman; yes, a woman,” she said, nodding her head, as a frown of quick suspicion touched his forehead and his eyes gleamed darkly on her, “in fact a confidential agent, whom Captain Masterson designated yesterday as most dangerous to the Confederate cause. I am about to inform Colonel McVeigh of her identity. But I do not fancy that will interest you nearly so much as another story I have for you personally.”
She paused and drew back a little, to better observe every expression of his countenance. He was glaring at her and his breath was coming in broken gasps.
“There are really two of those secret Federal agents in this especial territory,” she continued, “two women who have worked faithfully for the Union. I fancied you might be especially interested in the story of one of them, as she belongs to the Loring family.”
“To our family? That is some cursed Yankee lie!” he burst out fiercely, “every Loring is loyal to the South! To our family? Let them try to prove that statement! It can’t be done!”
“You are quite right, Monsieur Loring,” she agreed, quietly, “it would be difficult to prove, even if you wished to do it.” He fairly glared at the possibility that he should want to prove it. “But it may have an interest to you for all that, since the girl in question was your brother’s daughter.”
“My brother’s–!” He seemed choking, and he gazed at her with a horrible expression. The door opened and Mrs. McVeigh entered rather hastily, looking for something in the desk. Loring had sunk back in the chair, and she did not see his face, but she could see Judithe’s, and it was uplifted and slightly smiling.
“Have you found something mutually interesting?” she asked, glancing at the book open on Judithe’s knee.
“Yes; a child’s story,” returned her guest, and then the door closed, and the two were again alone.
“There is a woman to be loved and honored, if one could only forget the sort of son she has trained,” remarked Judithe, thoughtfully, “with my heart I love her, but with my reason I condemn her. Can you comprehend that, Monsieur Loring? I presume not, as you do not interest yourself with hearts.”
He was still staring at her like a man in a frightened dream; she could see the perspiration standing on his forehead; his lips were twitching horribly.
“You understand, of course,” she said, continuing her former discussion, “that the daughter in the story is not the lovely lady who is your heiress, and who is called Miss Loring. It is a younger daughter I refer to; she had no surname, because masters do not marry slaves, and her mother was a half Greek octoroon from Florida; her name was Retta Lacaris, and your brother promised her the freedom she never received until death granted her what you could not keep from her; do you remember that mother and child, Monsieur Loring?–the mother who went mad and died, and the child whom you sold to Kenneth McVeigh?–sold as a slave for his bachelor establishment; a slave who would look like a white girl, whom you contracted should have the accomplishments of a white girl, but without a white girl’s inconvenient independence, and the power of disposing of herself.”
“You–you dare to tell me!–you–” He was choking with rage, but she raised her hand for silence, and continued in the same quiet tone:
“I have discussed the same affair in the salons of Paris–why not to you? It was in Paris your good friend, Monsieur Larue, placed the girl for the education Kenneth McVeigh paid for. It was also your friend who bribed her to industry by a suggestion that she might gain freedom if her accomplishments warranted it. But you had forgotten, Matthew Loring, that the child of your brother had generations of white blood–of intellectual ancestry back of her. She had heard before leaving your shores the sort of freedom she was intended for, and your school was not a prison strong enough to hold her. She escaped, fled into the country, hid like a criminal in the day, and walked alone at night through an unknown county, a girl of seventeen! She found a friend in an aged woman, to whom she told her story, every word of it, Matthew Loring, and was received into the home as a daughter. That home, all the wealth which made it magnificent, and the title which had once belonged to her benefactress, became the property of your brother’s daughter before that daughter was twenty years old. Now, do you comprehend why one woman has crossed the seas to help, if possible, overthrow an institution championed by you? Now do you comprehend my assurance that Captain Monroe is innocent? Now, dare you contest my statement that one of the Loring family is a Federal agent?”
“By God! I know you at last!” and he half arose from his chair as if to strike her with both upraised shaking hands. “I–I’ll have you tied up and whipped until you shed blood for every word you’ve uttered here! You wench! You black cattle! You–”
“Stop!” she said, stepping back and smiling at his impotent rage. “You are in the house of Colonel McVeigh, and you are speaking to his wife!”
He uttered a low cry of horror, and fell back in the chair, nerveless, speechless.
“I thought you would be interested, if not pleased,” she continued, “and I wanted, moreover, to tell you that your sale of your brother’s child was one reason why your estate of Loringwood was selected in preference to any other as a dowered home for free children–girl children, of color! Your ancestral estate, Monsieur Loring, will be used as an industrial home for such young girls. The story of your human traffic shall be told, and the name of Matthew Loring execrated in those walls long after the last of the Lorings shall be under the sod. That is the monument I have designed for you, and the design will be carried out whether I live or die.”
He did not speak, only sat there with that horrible stare in his eyes, and watched her.
“I shall probably not see you again,” she continued, “as I leave for Savannah in the morning, unless Colonel McVeigh holds his wife as a spy, but I could not part without taking you into my confidence to a certain extent, though I presume it is not necessary to tell you how useless it would be for you to use this knowledge to my disadvantage unless I myself should avow it. You know I have told you the truth, but you could not prove it to any other, and–well, I think that is all.” She was replacing the book in the case when Gertrude entered from the hall. Judithe only heard the rustle of a gown, and without turning her head to see who it was, added, “Yes, that is all, except to assure you our tete-a-tete has been exceedingly delightful to me; I had actually forgotten that a storm was raging!”
CHAPTER XXIX
Miss Loring glanced about in surprise when she found no one in the room but her uncle and Madame Caron.
“Oh, I did not know you had left your room,” she remarked, going towards him; “do you think it quite wise? And the storm; isn’t it dreadful?”
“I have endeavored to make him forget it,” remarked Judithe, “and trust I have not been entirely a failure.”
She was idly fingering the volumes in the book-case, and glanced over her shoulder as she spoke. Her hands trembled, but her teeth were set under the smiling lips–she was waiting for his accusation.
“I have no doubt my uncle appreciates your endeavors,” returned Gertrude, with civil uncordiality, as she halted back of his chair, “but he is not equal to gayeties today; last night’s excitement was quite a shock to him, as it was to all of us.”
“Yes,” agreed Judithe; “we were just speaking of it.”
“Phil Masterson tells me the men will be here some time today for Captain Monroe,” continued Gertrude, still speaking from the back of his chair, over which she was leaning. “Phil’s orderly just returned from following the spy last night. Caroline made us think at first it was the guard already from the fort, but that was a mistake; she could not see clearly because of the storm. And, uncle, he came back without ever getting in sight of the man, though he rode until morning before he turned back; isn’t it too bad for–”
Something in that strange silence of the man in the chair suddenly checked the speech on her lips, and with a quick movement she was in front of him, looking in his face, into the eyes which turned towards her with a strange, horrible expression in them, and the lips vainly trying to speak, to give her warning. But the blow of paralysis had fallen again. He was speechless, helpless. Her piercing scream brought the others from the sitting room; the stricken man was carried to his own apartment by order of Dr. Delaven, who could give them little hope of recovery; his speech might, of course, return as it had done a year before, after the other paralytic stroke, but–
Mrs. McVeigh put her arm protectingly around the weeping girl, comprehending that even though he might recover his speech, any improvement must now be but a temporary respite.
At the door Gertrude halted and turned to the still figure at the book case.
“Madame Caron, you–you were talking to him,” she said, appealingly, “you did not suspect, either?”
“I did not suspect,” answered Judithe, quietly, and then they went out, leaving her alone, staring after them and then at the chair, where but a few minutes ago he had been seated, full of a life as vindictive as her own, if not so strong; and now–had she murdered him? She glanced at the mirror back of the writing desk, and saw that she was white and strange looking; she rubbed her hands together because they were so suddenly cold. She heard some one halt at the door, and she turned again to the book-case lest whoever entered should be shocked at her face.
It was Evilena who peered in wistfully in search of some one not oppressed by woe.
“Kenneth’s last day home,” she lamented, “and such a celebration of it; isn’t it perfectly awful? Just as if Captain Monroe and the storm had not brought us distress enough! Of course,” she added, contritely, “it’s unfeeling of me to take that view of it, and I don’t expect you to sympathize with me.” There was a pause in which she felt herself condemned. “And the house all lit up as for a party; oh, dear; it will all be solemn as a grave now in spite of the lights, and our pretty dresses; well, I think I’ll take a book into the sitting room. I could not possibly read in here,” and she cast a shrinking glance towards the big chair. “Is that not Romeo and Juliet under your hand? That will do, please.”
Judithe took down the volume, turned the leaves rapidly, and smiled.
“You will find the balcony scene on the tenth page,” she remarked.
And then they both laughed, and Evilena beat a retreat lest some of the others should enter and catch her laughing when the rest of the household were doleful, and she simply could not be doleful over Matthew Loring; she was only sorry Kenneth’s day was spoiled.
The little episode, slight as it was, broke in on the unpleasant fancies of Judithe, and substituted a new element. She closed the glass doors and turned towards the window, quite herself again.
She stepped between the curtains and looked out on the driving storm, trying to peer through the grey sheets of falling rain. The guard, then, according to Miss Loring, had not yet arrived, after all, and the others, the Federals, had a chance of being first on the field; oh, why–why did they not hurry?
The pelting of the rain on the window prevented her from hearing the entrance of Colonel McVeigh and the Judge, while the curtain hid her effectually; it was not until she turned to cross the room into the hall that she was aware of the two men beside the table, each with documents and papers of various sorts, which they were arranging. The Judge held one over which he hesitated; looking at the younger man thoughtfully, and finally he said:
“The rest are all right, Kenneth; it was not for those I wanted to see you alone, but for this. I could not have it come under your mother’s notice, and the settlement has already been delayed too long, but your absence, first abroad, then direct to the frontier, and then our own war, and Mr. Loring’s illness–”
He was rambling along inconsequently; McVeigh glanced at him, questioningly; it was so rare a thing to see the Judge ill at ease over any legal transaction, but he plainly was, now; and when his client reached over and took the paper from his hand he surrendered it and broke off abruptly his rambling explanation.
McVeigh unfolded the paper and glanced at it with an incredulous frown.
“What is the meaning of this agreement to purchase a girl of color, aged twelve, named Rhoda Larue? We have bought no colored people from the Lorings, nor from any one else.”
“The girl was contracted for without your knowledge, my boy, before your majority, in fact; though she is mentioned there as a girl of color she was to all appearances perfectly white, the daughter of an octaroon, and also the daughter of Tom Loring.”
The woman back of the curtain was listening now with every sense alert, never for one instant had it occurred to her that Kenneth McVeigh did not know! How she listened for his next words!
“And why should a white girl like that be bought for the McVeigh plantation?”
There was a pause; then Clarkson laid down the other papers, and faced him, frankly:
“Kenneth, my boy, she was never intended for the McVeigh plantation, but was contracted for, educated, given certain accomplishments that she might be a desirable personal property of yours when you were twenty.”
McVeigh was on his feet in an instant, his blue eyes flaming.
“And who arranged this affair?–not–my father?”
“No.”
“Thank God for that! Go on, who was accountable?”
“Your guardian, Matthew Loring. He explains that he made the arrangement, having in mind the social entanglement of boys within our own knowledge, who have rushed into unequal marriages, or–or associations equally deplorable with scheming women who are alert where moneyed youth is concerned. Mr. Loring, as your guardian, determined to forestall such complications in your case. From a business point of view he did not think it a bad investment, since, if you for any reason, objected to this arrangement, a girl so well educated, even accomplished, could be disposed of at a profit.”
McVeigh was walking up and down the room.
“So!” he said, bitterly, “that was Matthew Loring’s amiable little arrangement. That girl, then, belonged not to his estate, but to Gertrude’s. He was her guardian as well as mine; he would have given me the elder sister as a wife, and the younger one as a slave. What a curse the man is! It is for such hellish deeds that every Southerner outside of his own lands is forced to defend slavery against heavy odds. The outsiders never stop to consider that there is not one man out of a thousand among us who would use his power as this man has used it in this case; the many are condemned for the sins of the few! Go on; what became of the girl?”
“She was, in accordance with this agreement, sent to a first-class school, from which she disappeared–escaped, and never was found again. The money advanced from your estate for her education is, therefore, to be repaid you, with the interest to date; you, of course, must not lose the money, since Loring has failed to keep his part of the contract.”
“Good God!” muttered McVeigh, continuing his restless walk; “it seems incredible, damnable! Think of it!–a girl with the blood, the brain, the education of a white woman, and bought in my name! I will have nothing–nothing to do with such cursed traffic!”
Neither of them heard the smothered sobs of the woman kneeling there back of that curtain; all the world had been changed for her by his words.
She did not hear the finale of their conversation, only the confused murmur of their voices came to her; then, after a little, there was the closing of a door, and Colonel McVeigh was alone.
He was seated in the big chair where Matthew Loring had received the stroke which meant death. The hammock was still beside it, and she knelt there, touching his arm, timidly.
He had not heard her approach, but at her touch he turned from the papers.
“Well, my sweetheart, what is it?” he said, and with averted face she whispered:
“Only that–I love you!–no,” as he bent towards her, “don’t kiss me! I never knew–I never guessed.”
“Never guessed that you loved me?” he asked, regarding her with a quizzical smile. “Now, I guessed it all the time, even though you did run away from me.”
“No, no, it is not that!” and she moved away, out of the reach of his caressing hands. “But I was there, by the window; I heard all that story. I had heard it long ago, and I thought you were to blame. I judged you–condemned you! Now I see how wrong I was–wrong in every way–in every way. I have wronged you–you! Oh, how I have wronged you!” she whispered, under her breath, as she remembered the men she looked for, had sent for–the men who were to take him away a prisoner!
“Nonsense, dear!” and he clasped her hands and smiled at her reassuringly. “You are over-wrought by all the excitement here since yesterday; you are nervous and remorseful over a trifle; you could not wrong me in any way; if you did, I forgive you.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head and gazing at him with eyes more sad than he had ever seen them; “no, you would not forgive me if you knew; you never will forgive me when you do know. And–I must tell you–tell you everything–tell you now–”
“No, not now, Judithe,” he said, as he heard Masterson’s voice in the hall. “We can’t be alone now. Later you shall tell me all your sins against me.” He was walking with her to the door and looking down at her with all his heart in his eyes; his tenderness made her sorrows all the more terrible, and as he bent to kiss her she shrunk from him.
“No, not until I tell you all,” she said again, then as his hands touched hers she suddenly pressed them to her lips, her eyes, her cheek; “and whatever you think of me then, when you do hear all, I want you to know that I love you, I love you, I love you!”
