Lewis Rand Part 24

"No, he is no friend to Mr. Jefferson. The room looks well, sweetheart.

But some day you shall have a much grander one, all light and splendour, and larger flowers than these--"

His wife rested her head against his shoulder. "I don't want it, Lewis.

It is only you who care for magnificence. Sometimes I wonder that you should so care."

"It is my mother in me," he answered. "She cared--poor soul. But I don't want magnificence for myself. I want it for you--"

"You must not want it for me," cried Jacqueline, with wistful pa.s.sion.

"I am happy here, and I am happy at Roselands--but I was happiest of all in the house on the Three-Notched Road!"

There was a moment's silence, then Rand spoke slowly. "I was not born for content. I am urged on--and on--and I cannot always tell right from wrong. There is a darkness within me--I wish it were light instead!" He laughed. "But if wishes were horses, beggars might ride!--And you've cut all your pretty bright flowers! After supper, before we begin our talk, you must sing to him. They say his daughter is an accomplished and beautiful woman. But you--you are Beauty, Jacqueline!"

The knocker sounded. "That is he," exclaimed Rand, and went into the hail to welcome his guest. Jacqueline returned to the drawing-room, and waited there before the fire. She was dressed in white, with bare neck and arms and her mother's amethysts around her throat. In a moment the two men entered. "This is my wife, Colonel Burr," said Rand.

Jacqueline curtsied. A small, slight, black-eyed, and smiling gentleman bowed low, and with much grace of manner took and kissed her hand. "Mr.

Rand, now I understand the pride in your voice! Madam, I wish my daughter Theodosia were with me. She is my pride, and when I say that you two would be friends, I pay you both a compliment!"

"I have heard much of her," answered Jacqueline, "and nothing but good.

My husband tells me that you have been in the South--and in Virginia we are welcoming you with a snowstorm!"

"The cold is all outside," said Colonel Burr. "Permit me--"

He handed his hostess to the green-striped sofa, and seated himself beside her with a sigh of appreciation for the warmth and soft light of the pleasant room, and the presence of woman. "Your harp!" he exclaimed.

"I should have brought a sheaf of Spanish songs such as the ladies sing to the guitar in New Orleans!--My dear sir, your fair wife and my Theodosia must one day sing together, walk hand in hand together, in that richer, sweeter land! They shall use the mantilla and wield the fan. Crowns are too heavy--they shall wear black lace!"

He spoke with not unpleasant brusqueness, a military manner tempered with gallantry, and he looked at Rand with quick black eyes. "Yes, they must meet," said Rand simply. He spoke composedly, but he had nevertheless a moment's vision of Jacqueline, away from the snow and the storm, walking in beauty through the gardens of a far country. He saw her with a circlet of gold upon her head, a circlet of Mexican gold.

Crowns were heavy, but men--ay, and women, too!--fought for them. Hers should be light and fanciful upon her head. She should wear black lace if she chose,--though always he liked her best in white, in her kingdom, in the kingdom he was going to help Aaron Burr establish.--No! in the kingdom Aaron Burr should help Lewis Rand establis.h.!.+ His dream broke. He was not sure that he meant to come to an understanding with Burr. It depended--it depended. But still he saw Jacqueline in trailing robes, with the gold circlet on her head.

Joab at the door announced supper, and the three went into the dining-room, where the red geraniums glowed between the candles.

Jacqueline took her place behind the coffee-urn, and Joab waited.

The meal went pleasantly on. Colonel Burr was accomplished in conversation, now supple and insinuating as a courtier, now direct, forceful, even plain, as became an old soldier of the Revolution, always agreeable, and always with a fine air of sincerity. The daughter of Henry Churchill did not lack wit, charm, and proper fire, and the Virginia hostess never showed her private feelings to a guest. She watched over the stranger's comfort with soft care, and met his talk with graceful readiness. He spoke to her of her family: of her grandfather, whose name had been widely known, of her father, whose praises he had heard sung, of Major Churchill, whom he had met in Philadelphia in General Was.h.i.+ngton's time. He spoke of her kinsmen with an admiration which went far toward including their opinions. Jacqueline marvelled. Surely this gentleman was a Democrat-Republican, lately the Vice-President of that party's electing. It was not two years since he had slain General Hamilton; and now, in a quiet, refined voice, he was talking of Federalists and Federal ways with all the familiarity, sympathy, and ease of one born in the fold and contented with his lot.

She wondered if he had quarrelled with his party, and while he was talking she was proudly thinking, "The Federalists will not have him--no, not if he went on his knees to them!" And then she thought, "He is a man without a country."

Rand sat somewhat silent and distrait, his mind occupied in building, building, now laying the timbers this way and now that; but presently, upon his guest's referring to him some point for elucidation, he entered the conversation, and thenceforth, though he spoke not a great deal, his personality dominated it. The acute intelligence opposite him took faint alarm. "I am bargaining for a supporter," Burr told himself, "not for a rival," and became if possible more deferentially courteous than before. The talk went smoothly on, from Virginia politics to the triumphal march of Napoleon through Europe; from England and the death of Pitt to the Spanish intrigues, and so back to questions of the West; and to references, which Jacqueline did not understand, to the Spanish Minister, Casa Yrujo, to the English Mr. Merry, and to Messieurs Sauve, Derbigny, and Jean Noel Destrehan of New Orleans.

Joab took away the Chelsea plates and dishes, brushed the mahogany, and placed before his master squat decanters of sherry and Madeira. The flowing talk took a warmer tone, and began to sing with the music of the South and the golden West; to be charged with Spanish, French, and Indian names, with the odour of strange flowers, the roll of the Mississippi, and the flas.h.i.+ng of coloured wings. It was the two men now who spoke. Jacqueline, leaning back in her chair, half listened to the talk of the Territory of Orleans, the Perdido, and the road to Mexico, half dreamed of what they might be doing at Fontenoy this snowy night.

The knocker sounded. "That is Adam Gaudylock," exclaimed Rand. "Joab, show Mr. Gaudylock in."

Jacqueline rose, and Colonel Burr sprang to open the door for her. "We may sit late, Jacqueline," said Rand, and their guest, "Madam, I will make court to you in a court some day!"

Gaudylock's voice floated in from the hall: "Is a little man with him?--a black-eyed man?" She pa.s.sed into the drawing-room, and, pressing her brow against the window-pane, looked out into the night. The snow had ceased to fall, and the moon was struggling with the breaking clouds. The door opened to admit her husband, who came for a moment to her side. "It is not snowing now," he said. "A visitor will hardly knock on such a night. If by chance one should come, say that I am engaged with a client, make my excuses, and as soon as possible get rid of him.

On no account--on no account, Jacqueline, would I have it known that Aaron Burr is here to-night. This is important. I will keep the doors shut, and we will not speak loudly." He turned to go, then hesitated.

"On second thoughts, I will tell Joab to excuse us both at the door. For you--do not sit up, dear heart! It will be late before our business is done."

He was gone. Jacqueline went back to the fire and, sitting down beneath the high mantel, opened the fifth volume of Clarissa Harlowe. She read for a while, then closed the book, and with her chin in her hand fell to studying the ruddy hollows and the dropping coals. Perhaps half an hour pa.s.sed. The door opened, and she looked up from her picture in the deep hollows to see Ludwell Cary smiling down upon her and holding out his hand. "Perhaps I should have drifted past with the snow," he said, "but the light in the window drew me, and I heard to-day from Fontenoy. Mr.

Rand, I know, is at home."

"Yes," answered Jacqueline, rising, "but he is much engaged to-night with--with a friend. Did Joab not tell you?"

"Mammy Chloe let me in. I did not see Joab. I am sorry--"

He hesitated. There came a blast of wind that rattled the boughs of the maple outside the window. The fire leaped and the shadows danced in the corners of the room. Jacqueline knew that it was cold outside--her visitor's coat was wet with snow. Sitting there before the fire she had been lonely, and her heart was hungry for news from home.

"May I stay a few minutes?" asked Cary. "I will read you what Major Edward says of Fontenoy."

She was far from dreaming how little Rand would wish this visitor to know of his affairs that night. Her knowledge extended no further than the fact that for some reason Colonel Burr did not wish it known that he was in Richmond. She listened, but the walls were thick, and she heard no sound from the distant dining-room. Cary would know only what she told him, and in a few minutes he would be gone. "I should like to hear the letter," she said, and motioned to the armchair beside the hearth.

He took it, and she seated herself opposite him, upon an old, embroidered tabouret. Between them the fire of hickory logs burned softly; without the curtained windows the maple branches, moved by the wind, struck at intervals against the eaves. Jacqueline faced the door.

It was her intention, should she hear steps, to rise and speak to Lewis in the hail without.

The letter which Cary drew from his breast pocket was from Major Churchill. That he did not read it all was due to his correspondent's choice of subjects and great plainness of speech; but he read what the Major had to say of Fontenoy, of the winter weather and the ailing slaves, of Mustapha, of county deaths and marriages, of the books he had been reading, and the men to whom he wrote. Major Edward's strain was ironic, fine, and very humanly lonely. Jacqueline's eyes filled with tears, and all the flames of the fire ran together like shaken jewels.

"Almost all the rest," said Cary, "has to do with politics. I will not read you what he has to say of us slight, younger men and the puny times in which we live. But this will interest you--this is of general import."

He turned the page and read: "I have to-day a letter from G. Morris with the latest mischief from the North. Aaron Burr is going West, but with, I warrant you, no thought of the setting sun. The Ancient Iniquity in Was.h.i.+ngton smiles with thin lips and p.r.o.nounces that all men and Aaron Burr are unambitious, unselfish, and peace-loving--but none the less, he looks askance at the serpent's windings. The friends of Burr are not the friends of Jefferson. There are Federalists--'tis said they increase in numbers--who do not wish the former ill; myself I am not of them.

Colonel Burr _desired_ that duel; he lay in wait for the affront which should be his opportunity; he murdered Hamilton. He risked his own life--very true, the majority of murderers do the same. The one who does not is a dastard in addition--_voila tout!_

"Burr quits the East, and all men know that the West, like Israel of old, is weary of an Idea and would like to have a King. If the world revolves this way much longer, the Man of the People will not be asked to write the next Declaration of Independence, and the country west of the Ohio will be celebrating not the Fourth of July but an eighteenth Prairial. Aaron Burr and his confederates intend an Empire. 'Tis said there are five hundred men in his confidence here in the East, and that the chief of these wait but for a signal from him or from Wilkinson--whereupon they'll follow him and he'll make them dukes and princes.

"Like Macbeth, he has done his murder and is on his way to be crowned at Scone. He has not a wife, but he has a daughter ambitious as himself.

She has a son. He sees his line secured. He has suborned other murderers and made traitors of honest men--and our Laputa philosopher at Was.h.i.+ngton smiles and says there is nothing amiss!

"May I be gathered soon out of this cap-and-bells democracy to some Walhalla where I may find Hamilton and General Was.h.i.+ngton and be at peace! This world is growing wearisome to me.

"G. Morris speaks of the bulk of his news as report merely, but I'll stake my head the report is true."

Cary ceased to read. Jacqueline sat motionless, and in the silence of the room they heard the wind outside and the tapping of the maple branches.

"If I were Mr. Jefferson," said Cary presently, "I would arrest Colonel Burr this side of the Ohio. He has been West too often; he is in the East now, and I would see to it that he remained here. But Mr. Jefferson will temporize, and Burr will make his dash for a throne. Well! he is neither Caesar nor Buonaparte; he is only Aaron Burr. He is the adventurer, not the Emperor. The danger is that in all the motley he is enlisting there may be a Buonaparte. Then farewell to this poor schemer and any delusions he may yet nourish as to a peaceful, federated West!

War and brazen clamour and the yelling eagles of a conqueror!"

He spoke with conviction, but now, as though to lighten his own mood, he laughed. "All this may not be so," he said. "It may be but a dream of our over-peaceful night."

Jacqueline rose, motioned him with a smile to keep his seat, and, moving to an escritoire standing near the door, wrote a line upon a sheet of paper, then rang the bell and when Joab appeared, put the paper into his hand. "Give this to your master," she said, and came back to Cary beside the fire. She smiled, but he saw with concern that she was very pale, and that the amethysts were trembling at her throat. "I should not have read you this letter," he exclaimed. "It is over-caustic, over-bitter.

Do not let it trouble you. You have grown pale!"

She bent over the fire as if she were cold. "It is nothing. Yes, I was troubled--I am always troubled when I think of Fontenoy. But it is over now--and indeed I wanted to hear Uncle Edward's letter." She straightened herself and turned to him a smiling face. "And now tell me of yourself! You are looking worn. Men work too hard in Richmond. Oh, for the Albemarle air! The snow will be white to-morrow on my fir tree, and Deb will have to throw crumbs for the birds. I have learned a new song. When next you come, I will sing it to you."

"Will you not," asked Cary,--"will you not sing it to me now?"

She shook her head. "Not now. How the branches strike against the roof to-night!"

As she spoke she moved restlessly, and Cary saw the amethysts stir again. A thought flashed through his mind. It had to do with Lewis Rand, of whom he often thought, sometimes with melancholy envy, sometimes with strong dislike, sometimes with unwilling admiration, and always with painful curiosity. Now, the substance of Major Churchill's letter strongly in mind, with senses rendered more acute and emotions heightened as they always were in the presence of the woman he had not ceased to love, troubled, too, by something in her demeanor, intangibly different from her usual frank welcome, he suddenly and vividly recalled a much-applauded speech that Rand had made three days before in a public gathering. It had included a noteworthy display of minute information of western conditions, extending to the physical features of the country and to every degree of its complex population. One sentence among many had caught Cary's attention, had perplexed him, and had remained in his memory to be considered afterwards, closely and thoughtfully. There was one possible meaning--

Cary crumpled the letter in his hand. Rand's speech perplexed him no longer. That was it--that was it! His breath came quickly. He had builded better--he had builded better than he knew, when he wrote that paper signed "Aurelius"!

With fingers that were not quite steady he smoothed and refolded Major Churchill's letter He was saying to himself, "What does she know She grew pale Thou suspicious fool! That was for thought of home He will have told her nothing--nothing! Her soul is clear."

He pocketed his letter and, rising, spoke to her with a chivalrous gentleness "I will go now Do not let the thought of Fontenoy distress you Do you remember the snow man we made there once, wreathing his head with holly? But I'll tell you a strange thing,--even on such a night as this, I always see Fontenoy bathed in summer weather!"