Throckmorton Part 9

"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 pa.s.sing gleam, he could see Jacqueline's eyes s.h.i.+ning.

"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, embarra.s.sed 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 circ.u.mstances. If I didn't know that those who have good consciences, like myself, should be above superst.i.tion, 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," a.s.sented 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, const.i.tuted 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 a.s.sure 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 a.s.sociated 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 pa.s.sion, 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--G.o.d 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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. n.o.body thinks as much of the major as I do--he's the kindest, n.o.blest, 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.