CHAPTER IX.
Love and Politics.
The presence of the enemy in the neighborhood convinced every one of the necessity of taking every precaution to protect themselves and their property. At first alarm many persons had hidden their plate and other valuables, and many had sent their families farther inland. But beyond the discomforts occasioned by raids, when houses were sacked and often burned to the ground, and when slaves were enticed away, the people of Maryland did not suffer as much as did those of lower Virginia. Where there was no marked resistance, and where there was no reason to suppose the heads of families were in the American army, allowance was made for property taken, and pay given. Therefore Aunt Martha had reason on her side when she said, “I shall simply let them take what they want and shall expect pay for it.”
“That is not what we will do,” Lettice said. “We are not going to pretend that we are friends, but ofcourse it is different with you, Aunt Martha.” Lettice had recovered from her fright and was really enjoying life. If James lost no opportunity in visiting Sylvia’s Ramble, neither did Robert Clinton fail to make a daily appearance at Hopkins’s Point, till Lettice came to look for his coming as part of her day’s pleasure. He was truly a very attractive young man, every one conceded.
“I haven’t a word against him,” said Lettice’s brother William, “except for his politics. You’ll not go over to the enemy, will you, sis?” he said, pinching her cheek.
“Never!” returned Lettice, steadily. Nevertheless, the telltale blush upon her cheek was not caused by the pink sunbonnet she wore. The little maid of seventeen found it hard to remember her politics when she was listening to the beguiling words of the young New Yorker, who by this time had declared himself her devoted suitor.
“Why do you deny me, sweet Lettice?” he said. “Must I leave you altogether? Am I so hateful to you?” This was but the night before, when the two were coming home from a frolic at Becky Lowe’s.
“There is Rhoda, you know,” Lettice had answered in a low tone.
“Rhoda, yes; but—” he looked down as he gathered Lettice’s hand in his—“but you see, I don’t love Rhoda, nor does she love me.”
“How do you know?” Lettice asked, wondering if it were right to allow her hand to lie so long in his clasp.
“I know that Rhoda feels toward me as I do toward her. We are excellent friends. I admire and respect her greatly, and to no one would I be more ready to give my confidence, for she is discretion itself; but I know full well who it is that has captured my heart, and besides, did you see your brother James and Rhoda as we passed them just now? I do not think they were thinking of either of us.”
“No, I did not notice them, I wasn’t looking; besides, Rhoda doesn’t love James’s politics any more than I do yours.”
“Politics? What have sweet lasses like you to do with politics? Let the men settle the affairs of the nation, and let the maidens rule in the court of love, where they are more at home.”
Then Lettice sighed and did not draw her hand away. The witching moonlight, the summer night, the low pleading tones of her lover—all these cast a glamour over her, and so swayed her that it seemed that the present alone was the only thing to consider, and Robert walked across the fieldsto Sylvia’s Ramble, feeling that his wooing would soon come to a happy ending.
And yet, the next morning Lettice said never would she go over to the enemy. “I told Brother William I never would. I have promised him,” she said to herself, as she ran swiftly along the path to the old graveyard. Lutie started up from where she was sitting before one of the cabins in the quarter, but Lettice waved her back. “I don’t want you, Lutie,” she said. “You can go back.”
“Whar yuh gwine, Miss Letty?”
“Never mind where I am going. I don’t need you, and I don’t want you to follow me. Stay where you are.”
“Miss Letty gwine whar she gwine. She got no use fo’ nobody dis mawnin’,” Lutie remarked to the old woman before whose cabin she sat.
Lettice made a detour and came around by the rear of the old graveyard. The thicket was closer here, and hid her from the view of any one passing. She threw herself down in the long grass, hiding her face in her arm. “I said that, and I am afraid I am growing to love him,” she murmured. “I have made one promise to my brother, andhow can I make another to him?” She lay still a long time, and once in a while a tear trickled down her cheek.
Presently she sat up. A sudden thought had struck her. Suppose she could win her lover over to her side of thinking. That would be a triumph indeed! Why shouldn’t she? Did he love her, he certainly would not give her up; yet as she pondered upon the subject, she felt that she was by no means certain of the success of her effort, and her face grew grave again.
From over the hedge came a voice, calling softly, “Lettice! Sweet Lettice, where have you hidden yourself?”
She sprang to her feet and stood where she could be seen. Robert pressed aside the detaining vines and came up to her. “Lettice, sweetheart, I could not stay away. Do you forgive me for coming so early? Was it a dream? a beautiful dream which I had last night, or did I see a light in your dear eyes? I love you so, sweet Lettice, that I could not sleep last night for thinking of you.” He gently pushed back the sunbonnet she had drawn over her face. “Sweetheart, you have been weeping,” he said in a troubled tone. “Your sweet eyes are wet. What is wrong?”
Lettice gave a little sob, and for one momentyielded to the clasp of his arm, burying her hot face on his breast. She felt a sudden joy to be thus near him, to hear him speak, but only for an instant she allowed herself to remain thus, and then she sprang away, and stood a little beyond him. “Tell me,” she said, “do you love me enough to join the cause of my father and my brothers?”
He looked at her gloomily, and then, leaning on the tall headstone which her movement had placed between them, he said slowly: “Do you make that an issue between us? You love me less than you love the platform upon which rests the opinion of certain members of your family?”
She looked troubled in her turn. There was a long pause. An utter stillness prevailed. Once in a while a bird darted from the faintly rustling leaves. The distant sound of water plashing against the side of the bay shores, or the murmur of voices from the fields struck their ears. Lettice noted these things unconsciously, and with them the faint odors of the growing greenness about her, and the shapes of the shadows on the grass. She drew a long breath. “You do not love me, if you are willing to lose me because Ilove my country.”
“It is my country, too. There is not a difference in our love for our native land, but in our belief in what is good for her. I believe that the war is unrighteous and will be the country’s ruin. I am hostile to nothing except the war. I am for peace at any cost. You pin your faith on your father’s beliefs, that is all; and it cannot, it shall not, separate us.” He made a step toward her, but she drew back.
“No, no,” she cried. “While my father is fighting on the Canada border, so far away, perhaps at this moment lying wounded, or dead,” she whispered, “can I promise myself to one who is willing to encourage his foes to work his destruction? No, I cannot, I cannot!”
The young man turned aside and leaned heavily against a gnarled old tree which overshadowed them, and again there was silence. When Robert spoke, it was very quietly. “That I would encourage a foe of yours is a thought too terrible to contemplate; that I could ever do aught to bring you one moment’s pang seems to me impossible. The war cannot last. I do not give you up, I but wait till the war is over, and then—Lettice!” He held out his hands yearningly, but she did notmove. “Promise me, dearest, promise me, that when the question is settled, that you will no longer deny me my place, and meantime keep me in your heart.”
“Provided you do us no wrong, provided you do nothing to bring trouble upon us, after the war—I will—consider it.”
“Even that ray of hope is much. I make this concession, and you, dearest, can never know what it costs: I promise to take no active part in the measures against the carrying on of the war. I have been an earnest partisan, I acknowledge; yet I will henceforth be a neutral. God forgive me, if I am wrong; if to win your favor is more to me than the approval of my countrymen. Can you not give me a proof of a like measure of love?”
“If when the war is over, you come to me with hands unstained, and with a conscience clean of having done no injury to our side, I think I may, perhaps, be ready to promise you—what you ask.” She hung her head, and the last words were in a whisper.
“And you will seal the bond, beloved, you will?” He advanced and would have kissed her, but she retreated, crying:—
“No, no, the war is not over yet.” She spoke gayly, however, and held out her hand, which hepressed to his lips. But just then Lutie’s voice broke in upon them.
“Miss Letty, Miss Betty say huccome yuh fo’git yuh-alls is gwine to yo Aunt Marthy’s to dinner? She say yuh bleedged ter come an’ git dressed e’ssen dey leave yuh ’thout nothin’ but cold pone.” Lutie’s giggle followed the message, and Lettice, with Robert at her side, took her way to the house.
“Law, Letty,” cried Betty, meeting her in the hall, “you certainly are feather-brained these days. Here I am all ready, and you are mooning about, nobody knows where. It is high time we were off. This is to be a state dinner, remember, and Aunt Martha will never forgive us if we are late.”
“I didn’t know what time it was,” said Lettice, as she ran upstairs.
Aunt Martha’s state dinners were rather dreary affairs. Solemn dinings to which dignified heads of families were invited. In this instance it was in honor of an elderly bride that the invitations were sent out. One of Mr. Hopkins’s cousins had taken to himself a second wife, and Lettice did not anticipate any great joviality; yet her hopes were high, for she had gained a great point, she considered. Robert would be true to his promise,she knew he would; and if the war would but end, then he would make his request of her father in proper form, and her father would not refuse. She was entirely unworldly in her thought of it all, and hardly gave a passing consideration to the fact that her lover was a wealthy man, and considered an excellent match; all that troubled her was his politics. She stopped so often, and was so preoccupied in the making of her toilet, that Lutie finally exclaimed:—
“Yuh sholy mus’ be in lub, Miss Letty. Yuh ain’t gwine put on bofe dem scarfs, is yuh?”
Then Lettice laughed and told Lutie she was a saucy minx, that if she didn’t behave she should be sent out with the field hands. And Lutie, who knew just what that threat amounted to, having frequently heard it before, giggled and further remarked that: “Mars Clinton a mighty fine gemman,” and when Miss Letty went to New York to live, Lutie hoped she wasn’t “gwine be lef’ behin’,” for which speech she received a rap of Lettice’s knuckles, and then mistress and maid descended the stairs, the latter as proud of her young lady, in her best summer attire, as the young lady was of herself.
It may have been that Lettice was not willingto risk sitting by Betty’s side under the ardent gaze of her lover on the opposite seat of the carriage, and with Betty to watch every glance of his eye, for at the last moment she declared that she wanted Jamie to drive her over, and would wait for him, and wouldn’t the others please go on without her.
“You are a contrary little piece,” said Betty, out of patience. “Here you have kept us waiting all this time, and now you won’t go with us. Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
“I didn’t think of it,” returned Lettice, calmly. “You flustered me so by telling me it was late, that I forgot about Jamie.” And seeing she was bound to have her own way, Betty and Mr. Clinton drove off without her.
The company had all assembled when the last guests from Hopkins’s Point reached Sylvia’s Ramble, and Lettice wished she had come earlier when she saw that Mr. Clinton was at the gate to meet her, and that with him in attendance she would be obliged to pass under the scrutiny of a dozen mature cousins, each of whom felt it a prerogative to make as many personal remarks as he or she desired; so that the girl was glad to escape with Rhoda, who, though critical, was notso aggressively candid as one’s relatives are likely to be.
The guests, although knowing that Mrs. Tom Hopkins was a Boston woman, supposed her frankly siding with her husband, and therefore they did not scruple to discuss at the dinner-table politics from their point of view. News of the Remonstrance Act of Massachusetts had just been received, and those favoring the war policy were hot against the Bay State, and did not hesitate to voice their feelings.
“With our brave Lawrence not cold in his grave,” said Mr. Jacob Seth, “the Massachusetts people adopt a resolution that it is not becoming a moral and religious people to express any approbation of military or naval exploits not immediately connected with the defence of their sea-coast and their soil.”
“And it was in Boston harbor that the fight between theChesapeakeand theShannontook place,” said another guest.
Rhoda bit her lip and glanced quickly at James, who regarded her with an amused look, while Lettice’s eyes sought Robert. His face was flushed, and he was looking steadfastly into his plate.
“Massachusetts believes the war to be caused by ambition and desire for conquest,” put in Aunt Martha, stiffly.
“I beg your pardon, Cousin Martha,” said Mr. Seth, “we forget that you are not a Marylander. Cousin Tom has taken such a decided stand, that we do not realize that perhaps you may be less enthusiastic. The women of our land whose husbands have gone to the war could scarcely be expected to approve it.”
“It is not a cheerful subject, anyhow,” the bride remarked.
“And I am sure the occasion warrants a livelier one,” returned Mr. Seth, gallantly. And they fell to chaffing each other, and in the end, Lettice declared a more pleasant dinner she had never enjoyed at Aunt Martha’s.
“I am surprised that Robert did not immediately take up the cudgels; he is not wont to be so circumspect,” said Rhoda, musingly, as she and Lettice were walking in the garden.
“Isn’t he?” returned Lettice. “Perhaps we are converting him to our way of thinking.”
“That would scarcely be possible,” Rhoda replied. “He is pledged to support his cause, and is too ardent an adherent to give in easily. My fathersays he is a strong aid to him, and he depends much upon him in various important matters, although Robert is so much the younger.”
“I suppose that is true,” said Lettice, thoughtfully. “I do not wonder, then, that he is anxious that you should be fond of each other. How about it, Rhoda?” she asked teasingly.
Rhoda showed no special emotion except by the nervous closing of her hand. “When the war is over,” she replied, “these vexing, political problems will not interfere with our decisions in other directions, as now they must do.”
“That is very true, Rhoda,” Lettice answered softly. “Let us suppose the war over, and each of us free to act as she would? Is there then no reason why you should not favor Mr. Clinton? What says your heart?”
Rhoda looked her squarely in the eyes. “I admire Robert. I have known him since I was a little child. He is entirely worthy any woman’s regard.” Then suddenly. “And you? What does your heart say?”
Lettice looked confused; then she replied, laughing, “I’ll tell you when the war is over.”
Rhoda regarded her gravely. “Robert Clintonwill never desert his party,” she said; “and I think he will spare no means to forward the interests of those whose opinions he endorses.”
“Perhaps,” Lettice returned lightly; “but men are not infallible. The best of them are mistaken sometimes, and he may yet change. Rhoda, would or could any one in the world make you differ from your father in politics?”
Red grew Rhoda’s cheeks. “I don’t know,” she returned faintly.