Throckmorton Part 12

"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 G.o.d, 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 a.s.s 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 gla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 furnis.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sing, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 s.e.x.

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 n.o.body 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.

"G.o.d 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 a.s.sembled. "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 das.h.i.+ng figure as a waiter, now appeared, dressed in faultless evening costume of much newer fas.h.i.+on 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 gla.s.s 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 follies; and he saw that the chairs and tables at Millenbeck were much more fascinating to Jacqueline than Throckmorton with his matured grace, his manly dignity. Freke, too, having long since worn out his emotions, except that slight lapse as regarded Judith, for whom he always _felt_ something--admiration, or pity, or a desire to be revenged--had an acute judgment of women which was quite unbiased by the way any particular woman treated or felt toward him. Judith, although she hated him, and he frankly admitted she had cause to, he ranked infinitely above Jacqueline. He had seen, long before, that Jacqueline, if she ever seriously tried, could draw Throckmorton by a thread, and it gave Freke a certain contempt for Throckmorton's taste and perception. Any man who could prefer Jacqueline to Judith was, in Freke's esteem, wanting in taste; for, after all, he considered these things more as matters of taste than anything else.

The dinner was very merry. When the general had told his fifth long-winded story of his adventures and hair-breadth escapes during the war, Mrs. Temple, with a glance, shut him up. Freke was in his element at a dinner-table, and told some ridiculous stories about the straits to which he had been reduced during his seven years' absence in Europe--"when," as he explained "my laudable desire to acquire knowledge and virtue threatened to be balked at every moment by my uncle getting me home. However, I managed to stay." He told with much gravity how he had been occasionally reduced to his fiddle for means of raising the wind, and had figured in concert programmes as Signor Tempolino, at which stories all shouted with laughter except Mrs. Temple and the general--Mrs. Temple sighing, and the general scowling prodigiously.

Edmund Morford, who was afraid that laughing was injurious to his dignity, tried not to smile, but Freke was too comical for him.

Amid all the laughter and jollity and good-cheer, Jacqueline sat, glancing shyly up at Throckmorton once in a while with a look that Nature had endowed her with, and which, had she but known it, was a full equivalent to a fortune. She had never, in all her simple provincial life, seen anything like this--endless forks and spoons at the table; queer ways of serving queerer things; an easy-cus.h.i.+oned chair to sit in; no darns or patches in the damask; and the aroma of wealth, an easy income everywhere. The desire to own all this suddenly took possession of her. At the moment this dawned upon her mind, she actually started, and, opening her fan in a flutter, she knocked over a wine-gla.s.s, which Jack deftly replaced without stopping in his conversation. Then she began to study Throckmorton under her eyelashes. He was not so old, after all, and did not have the gout, like her father. And then she caught his kind eyes fixed on her, and flashed him back a look that thrilled him. Jack was talking to her, but she managed to convey subtly to Throckmorton that she was not listening to Jack, which pleased the major very much, who had heretofore found Jack a dangerous rival in all his looks and words with Jacqueline.

Freke, telling his funny stories, did not for one moment pretermit his study of the little comedy before him--Jacqueline and Throckmorton and Judith. It was as plain as print to him. Judith, in her black gown, which opened at the throat and showed the white pillar of her neck, and with half-sleeves that revealed the milky whiteness of her slender arms, sat midway the table, just opposite Jacqueline. Usually Judith's color was as delicate as a wild rose, but to-night it was a carnation flush.

"Is Throckmorton a fool?" thought Freke, in the midst of an interval given over to laughter at some of his stories, which were as short and pithy as General Temple's were sapless and long drawn out; for Throckmorton, who did nothing by halves, and was const.i.tutionally averse to dawdling, returned Jacqueline's glances with compound interest. Before they left the table, two persons had seen the promising beginning of the affair, and only two, none of the others having a suspicion. These two were Freke and Judith.

The knowledge came quickly to Judith. Women can live ages of agony in a moment over these things. Judith, smiling, graceful, waving her large black fan sedately to and fro, by all odds the handsomest as well as the most gifted woman there, felt something tearing at her heart-strings, that she could have screamed aloud with pain. But even Freke, who saw everything nearly, did not see that; he only surmised it. It was nearly ten o'clock before they went back into the drawing-room. Throckmorton gave n.o.body occasion to say that he devoted himself particularly to any of the four women who were his guests; but his look, his talk, his manner to Jacqueline underwent a subtile change; and when he sat and talked to Judith he thought what a sweet sister she would make, and blessed her for her tenderness to Jacqueline. Judith's color had been gradually fading from the moment she caught Throckmorton's glance at Jacqueline. She was now quite pale, and less animated, less interesting, than Throckmorton ever remembered to have seen her. At something he said to her, she gave an answer so wide of the mark that she felt ashamed and apologized.

"I was thinking of my child at that moment and wondering if he were asleep," she said.

From the moment of that first meaning glance of Throckmorton's at Jacqueline, the evening had spun out interminably to Judith. Mrs. Temple noticed it with secret approval, as a sign of loyalty to her widowhood.

At eleven o'clock a move was made to go, when Throckmorton suddenly remembered that he had not showed them his modest conservatory, which appeared quite imposing to their provincial eyes. He took Judith into the little gla.s.s room opening off the hall. It was very hot, very damp, and very close, as such places usually are, and full of a faint, sickly perfume. Freke followed them in. At last he had got his chance. He began to talk in his easy, unconstrained way, and in a minute or two had got the conversation around to something they had been speaking of the night of the party at Turkey Thicket.

"You were saying," said Freke, "something about a bad quarter of an hour you had with that old sorrel horse of yours--"

"Well, I should say it was a bad quarter of an hour," answered Throckmorton. "To be ridden down and knocked off my horse was bad enough, with that strapping fellow pinioning my arms to my side so I couldn't draw my pistol; and old Tartar, perfectly mad with fright--the only time I ever knew him to be so demoralized--tearing at the reins that wouldn't break and that I couldn't loose my arm from, and every time I looked up I saw his fore-feet in the air ready to come down on me--"

"And what sort of a looking fellow was it you say that rode you down?"

"A tall, blonde fellow--an officer evidently.--Good G.o.d! Mrs. Beverley, what is the matter?" For the color had dropped out of Judith's face as the mercury drops out of the tube, and she was gazing with wide, wild eyes at Throckmorton. How often had she heard that grewsome story--even that the plunging horse was a sorrel! But at least Freke should not see her break down. She heard herself saying, in a strange, unnatural voice:

"Nothing. I think it is too warm for me in here." Throckmorton took her by the arm and led her back into the hall, and to a small window which he opened. He felt like a brute for mentioning anything connected with the war--of course it must be intensely painful to Judith--but she stopped his earnest apologies with a word.

"Don't blame yourself--pray, don't. It was very warm--and Freke--oh, how I hate him!"