A cloud came over the young man's serene face, though his features retained their habitual sweetness.
"I can marry you, cousin, even to Meshach Milburn," he said, "if that is your wish. Why do you marry him?"
"It is not loyal in you to ask, William, but I will give you this answer: he has asked me. He is also devoted and rich. To avoid excitement, possibly some opposition, though it would be vain, we are to be married without further notice, and papa is to give me away."
Silent for a moment, the young rector exclaimed:
"Cousin Vesta, have I lived to see you a mercenary woman? Has this man's asserted wealth found you cold enough to want it, when love has been so generously offered you by almost every young man of station in this region, and from abroad—even by me?" he said, after a pause. "The scar is on my heart yet, cousin. No, I will not believe such a thing of you. There is a reason back of the fact."
"William, if you respected me as you once said you ever would, like your sister, you would not add this night the weight of your doubt to my other burdens, but take my hand with all the strength of yours, and lift me onward."
"I will," said the rector, swallowing a dry spot in his throat. "Though it was a bitter time I had when you refused me, cousin, the pain led me to my vows at the altar where I minister, and I have had the assistance of your beautiful music there, like the angel I seem to have seen reserved for me, in place of you, sitting at your side. And I know that this marriage is, on your part, pure as my sister's. No further will I inquire—what penalty you are paying for another, what mystery I cannot pierce."
He raised his hands above her head: "The peace ofGod that passeth understanding, abide with you, dear sister, forever!"
He went out with his eyes filled with tears, but hers were full of heavenly light, feeling his benediction to be righteous.
The Washington Tavern, or, rather, the brick sidewalk which came up to its doors, and was the lounging-place for all the grown loiterers in Princess Anne, had been in the greatest activity all that Saturday afternoon, since it was reported by Jack Wonnell, who set himself to be a spy on Meshach's errand, that the steeple-hat had disappeared in the broad mansion of Judge Daniel Custis.
Jack Wonnell had a worn bell-crown on his head, exposed to all kinds of weather, as he was in the habit of fishing in these beaver-hats, and never owned an umbrella in his life. He lived near Meshach, in the old part of Princess Anne, near the bridge, and was the subject of the money-lender's scorn and contempt, as tending to make a mutual eccentricity ridiculous. Milburn had been willing to be hated for his hat, but Jack Wonnell made all unseasonable hats laughable, the more so that he was nearly as old a wearer of his bell-crowns as Milburn of the steeple-top. Although he had no such reasons of reverence and stern consistency as his rich neighbor, he seemed to have, in his own mind, and in plain people's, a better defence for violating the standard taste of dress.
The people said that Jack Wonnell, being a poor man, could not buy all the fashions, and was merely wearing out a bargain; that he knew he was ridiculous, and set no such conceit on his absurdity as that grim Milburn;and they rather enjoyed his playing the Dromio to that Antipholus, and turning into farce the comedy of Meshach's error.
Jack Wonnell had partly embraced his bargain by the example of Meshach. A frivolous, unambitious, childish fellow, amusing people, obliging people, running errands, driving stage, gardening, fishing, playing with the lads, courting poor white bound girls, incontinent, inoffensive, he had been impelled to bid off his lot of old hats by Jimmy Phœbus saying:
"Jack, dirt cheap! Last you all your life! Better hats than old Meshach Milburn's. You'll drive his'n out of town."
To his infinite amusement and dignity, his appearance in the bell-crown hats attracted the severe regard of Milburn, and set the little town on a grin. The joke went on till Jimmy Phœbus, Judge Custis, and some others prompted Jack Wonnell, with the promise of a gallon of whiskey, to ask Meshach to trade the steeple-top for the bell-crown. The intense look of outrage and hate, with the accompanying menace his townsman returned, really frightened Jack, and he had prudently avoided Milburn ever since, while keeping as close a watch upon his movements and whereabouts as upon some incited bull-dog, liable to appear anywhere.
In this way Jack Wonnell had followed Meshach to the court-house corner, where stood Judge Custis's brick bank—which, of late, had done little discounting—and, from the open space between it and the court-house in its rear, he peeped after Milburn up the main cross street, called Prince William Street, which stopped right at Judge Custis's gate. There, in the quiet of early afternoon, he heard the knocker sound, saw the door open, and beheld the Entailed Hat disappear in the great doorway. Then, scarcely believing himself, Wonnell ran back to the tavern, and exclaimed:
"May I be struck stone dead ef ole Meshach ain't gwyn in to the Jedge's!"
"You're a liar!" said Jimmy Phœbus, promptly, catching Jack by the back of the neck, and pushing his bell-crown down till it mashed over his nose and eyes, "What do you mean by tellin' a splurge like that?"
"I seen him, Jimmy," was the bell-crowned hero's smothered cry; "if I didn't, hope I may die!"
"What did he go there for?"
"I can't tell, Jimmy, to save my life!"
"Whoo-oo-p!" cried Phœbus, waving his old straw hat, itself nearly out of season. "If this is a lie, Jack Wonnell, I'll make you eat a raw fish. Levin"—to Levin Dennis—"you slip up by Custis's, and see if ole Meshach hain't passed around the fence, or dropped along Church Street and hid in the graveyard, where he sometimes goes. I'll stay yer, and make Jack Wonnell account for sech lyin'!"
Levin Dennis, a boyish, curly-haired, graceful-going orphan, walked up the cross street, passing Church lane and the Back alley, and slowly turned the long front of Teackle Hall, and went out the parallel street towards the lower bridge on the Deil's Island road, till he could turn and see the three great-chimneyed buildings of Teackle Hall lifting their gables and lightning-rods to his sight in their reverse, the partly stripped trees allowing that manorial pile to stand forth in much of its length and imposing proportions. Lest he might not be suspected of curiosity, Levin continued on to the bridge at Manokin landing, and counted the geese come out of a lawn on a willowy cape there, and take to water like a fleet of white schooners. He ascended the rise beyond the bridge, and looked over to see if Meshach might have taken a walk down the road. Then returning, he swept the back view of Princess Anne, from the low bluff of cedars on another inhabited cape on the right, whichbordered the Manokin marshes, to the vale of the little river at the left, as it descended between Meshach's storehouse and the ancient Presbyterian church of the Head of Manokin, seated among its gravestones between its hitching-stalls and its respectable parsonage manse. Nothing was visible of the owner of the distinguishing hat.
So Levin Dennis returned more slowly around the north wing of Teackle Hall, looking at every window, as if Meshach might be there; but nothing did he see except the dog, which, to Levin's eye, appeared uneasy, and ran out of the gate to make friends with him.
"So, Turk!" Dennis muttered, patting the dog's head, "no wonder you're scared, boy, to see old Meshach Milburn come in."
Teackle Hall, according to rumor, was built at the close of the revolutionary war by an uncle, or grand-uncle, of Judge Custis, who came from Virginia, somewhere between Accomac and Northampton counties, and went into shipbuilding on the Manokin, adding some privateering and banking, too, and once, going abroad, he brought back from some ducal residence the plan of Teackle Hall, as Judge Custis found it on his coming into the property.
It was nearly two hundred feet in length, and would have made three respectable churches, standing in line, with their sharp gables to the front, the bold wings connected with the bolder centre by habitable curtains or colonnades, in which panels of slate or grained stone made an attic story above the lines of windows, and lintels and sills of the same stone, with high keystones, capped every window in the many-sided surface of the whole stately block, all built of brick brought over in vessels from the western shore, or possibly from the North, or Europe, and painted a gray stone color.
Its central gable had deep carved eaves, and a pediment-base to shed rain, and a large circular window inthat pediment. The two mighty chimneys of that centre were parallel with the ridge of the roof, and rose nearly from the middle of the two opposite slopes, bespeaking four great fireplaces below, and a flat, low-galleried observatory upon the roof gave views of portions of the bay on clear days.
The wings of Teackle Hall had similar, but lower, chimneys, astraddle of their roofs, and forest trees—oak, gum, holly, and pine, with a great willow, and some tawny cedars, and bushes of rose and lilac—dotted the grassy lawn. The Virginia creeper and wild ivy climbed here and there to the upper windows, and a tall, broad, panelled doorway, opening on a low, open portico platform with steps, seemed to say to visitors: "Men of port and consideration come in this way, but inferiors enter by some of the smaller doors!"
Levin Dennis, who had never sounded that knocker, though he had often taken his terrapins to the kitchen, stared in concern at the door where it was reported Meshach Milburn had gone in, and would hardly have been surprised if that intruder had now appeared at one of the three deep windows over the door with a firebrand in his hand.
Levin muttered to himself: "Rich folks, I reckon, must make a trade. Maybe it's hosses—maybe not. I know it ain't hats."
He then turned down to the Episcopal Church, only a square from Teackle Hall, and on a street between it and the main street, though in a retired situation, its front turned from the town, and looking over the fields and farms, like a good pastor who is warming at the fire with his hands behind him.
A single-storied, long, low edifice of British bricks, with its semicircular choir next the street, and, adjoining the choir, a spire of more modern brickwork built up to an open bell cupola, and open ribbed dome, also of brick,tipped with a gilded cross, the ivy was greenly matted all round the choir, and ran along the side of the church, where Levin Dennis walked under four tall, round-topped windows of stained and wired glass, till he came to the end gable or front of the church, standing in unworldly contemplation of the graveyard and the back fields.
There, since the Stamp Act Congress, or when Princess Anne was not half a century old, the old church had taken its stand, backed up to the town, recluse from its gossip. Between its tall round doors, with little window-panes like spectacles let into their panels, the ivy vine arose in form like the print of The Crucified, reaching out its stems and tendrils wide of the one glorified window in the gable, in whose red dyes glimmered the triumph of a bloody countenance. The mossy walls, often scraped, the mossified pavement, the greenish tombs of marble under the maples and firs, showed the effect of shade, solitude, and humidity upon all things of brick in this climate, where wood was already rising into favor as building material, but to the detraction of picturesqueness and all the appearance of antiquity.
No sign of the unpopular townsman was to be seen anywhere, but, as Levin Dennis peeked around the foliage in the yard he beheld a man he had never observed before, and of a tall, bearded, suspicious, and ruffianly exterior, lying flat on the top of a memorial vault, with his head and feet half concealed in some cedar brambles.
"Hallo!" Dennis shouted.
"What do you hallo for?" spoke the man; "don't you never come to a churchyard to git yer sins forgive?"
"No," said the terrapin-finder, "not till I knows I has some sins."
"What air you prowlin' about the church then fur, anyhow?" demanded the stranger, standing up in his boots, into which his trousers were tucked; and he stoodsuch a straight, long-limbed, lithe giant of a man that Levin saw he could never run away, even if the intruder meant to chew him up right there.
"I ain't a prowlin', friend," answered Levin Dennis. "I was jess a lookin'."
"Lookin' fur what, fur which, fur who?" said the man, taking a step towards Dennis, who felt himself to be no bigger than one of the other's long, ditch-leaping, good-for-wading legs.
"Why, I was jess a follerin' a man—that is, friend, not 'zackly a man, but a hat."
"A hat?" The man walked up to Dennis this time, and stood over him like a pine-tree over a sucker. "Yer's yer hat," pulling an old straw article, over-worn, from Dennis's head. "No wind's a blowin' to blow hats into graveyards. Or did you set yer hat under a hen in yere, by a stiffy?"
Dennis looked up, laughing, though not all at ease, but his amiable want of either intelligence or fear, which belong near together, made his most natural reply to the pertinacious intruder a disarming grin.
"No, man," Dennis said, "it was a hat on a man's head—ole Meshach Milburn's steeple-top. I was a follerin' of him."
"Stow your wid!" the man clapped the hat back on Levin's head. "You're a poor hobb, anyhow. Is thair any niggers to sell hereby?"
"Oh, that's your trade, nigger buyin'? Well, there's mighty few niggers to sell in Prencess Anne. Unless"—here a flash of intelligence shone in Levin's eyes—"unless that's what's took ole Meshach Milburn to Jedge Custis's. He goes nowhar unless there's trouble or money forhim."
"And where is Judge Custis's, you rum chub?"
"Yander!" pointing to Teackle Hall.
"Ha! that is a Judge's? And niggers? Broke, too!Well, it's no hank for a napper bloke. So bingavast! Git! Whar's the tavern?"
"I'm a-goin' right thair," answered Levin, much relieved. "You must be a Yankee, or some other furriner, sir."
"No, hobb! I'm workin' my lay back to Delaware from Norfolk, by pungy to Somers's cove. Show me to the tavern and I'll sluice your gob. I'll treat you to swig."
At the prospect of a drink, of which he was too fond, Levin led the way to the Washington Tavern, where there was a material addition to the attendance since Jimmy Phœbus had called to every passer-by that Meshach Milburn, on the testimony of Jack Wonnell, had actually been and gone and disappeared in Judge Custis's doorway, and nearly a dozen townsfolks were now discussing the why and wherefore, when, suddenly, Levin Dennis came out of Church Street with a man over six feet high, of a prodigious pair of legs, and arms nearly as long, with a cold, challenging, yet restless pair of blue eyes, and with reddish-brown beard and hair, coarse and stringy. The free negro, Samson Hat, being a little way off, was observed to cast a beaming glance of admiration at the athletic proportions of the stranger, who looked as if he might shoulder an ox, or outrun a horse.
"Hallo!" exclaimed Jimmy Phœbus, looking the stranger over boldly, yet with indifference, at last. "You're cuttin' a splurge, Levin, too. Where's Meshach?"
"Can't see no sign of him, Jimmy. Guess Jack Wonnell hit it, an' he's gone in the Jedge's. Mebbe he's buyin' of Jedge Custis's niggers. That's this gentleman's business."
Jimmy Phœbus, himself no slight specimen of a man, gave another glance at the stranger from the black cherries of his eyes, and, apparently no better satisfied with the inspection, made no sign of acquaintance.
"Whoever ain't too nice to drink with a nigger buyer," said the man, independently, "can come in and set up his drink, with my redge, for I'm rhino-fat and just rotten with flush."
There was a pause for somebody to take the initiative, but Jimmy Phœbus, turning his big, broad Greekish face and small forehead on the stranger, remarked:
"I never tuk a drink with a nigger buyer yit, and, by smoke! I reckon I'm too old to begin."
The man stopped and measured Jimmy up in his eye.
"Humph!" he said with a sneer, "you look to be a little more than half nigger yourself. If I was dead broke I'd run you to market an' git my price for you."
"No doubt of it whatever, as fur as you're concerned," said Jimmy, unexcited, while the man pushed Levin Dennis in towards the bar.
Either the new movement of Meshach Milburn, or the example of the strange man, set Princess Anne in a tipsy condition that day. The stranger was full of money, and treating indiscriminately, and the pavement before the hotel was continually beset with the loiterers, and the bar took money and spread mischief. So when, an hour after dark, the unpopular townsman, avoiding the crowd, passed by on the opposite side of the street, nearest his own lodging, one of the loudest and most unanimous yells he had ever heard in his experience, rang out from the Washington Tavern.
"Steeple-top! Steeple-top! Old Meshach's loose. Whoo-o-op!"
"Laugh on!" thought Meshach, "till now I never knew the meaning of 'let them laugh who win.'"
He felt confirmed in his idea to be married in the Raleigh tile, and when he saw Samson Hat, Milburn said: "Boy, brush all my clothing well. Then go back to the livery stable, and order a buggy to be ready for you at ten o'clock. At that hour set out for Berlin;and bring back Rhody Holland with you in the morning."
"It's more dan thirty mile, marster, an' a sandy road."
"No matter. Take it slow. I will write you a letter to carry. Samson, I am going to be married to-night to the rose of Princess Anne."
"Dar's on'y one," said Samson. "Not Miss Vesty Custis?"
"Yes, Samson. Princess Anne may now have something to howl at. The poor girl may be lonesome, as, no doubt, she will be dropped everywhere on my account, and not a soul can I think of, to be my young lady's maid, unless it is Rhody."
"Yes, Marster, wid all your money you're pore in friends; in women-friends you is starved."
"You may go with me to the church," said Meshach, "I suppose you want to see me married."
"Yes, sir. Dat I do! Wouldn't miss dat fo' my Christmas gift. I 'spect dat gal Virgie will come wid Miss Vesty to de cer'mony, marster."
"Perhaps so. You are not thinking of love, too, Samson?"
"Well, don't know, marster. Virgie's a fine gal, sho' I am a little old, Marster Milburn, but I'll have to look out for myseff, I 'spec, now you done burnt down my spreein' place. Dar's a wife comin' in yar now. So if you don't speak a good word fur me wid some o' Miss Vesty's gals, I'm aboot done."
"Well, boy," Meshach said, "you have got the same chance I had: the upper hand. I owe you a nice little sum in wages, and you may be able to buy one of the Custis housemaids, and set her free, and marry her, or, be her owner. You are a free man."
Samson shook his head gravely.
"Dat won't do among niggers," he said. "Niggers never kin play de upper hand in love, like white people. Dey has to do it by love itseff: by kindness, marster."
Before nine o'clock Milburn and his negro left the old store by the town bridge, and passing by the river lane called Front Street, into Church Street, walked back of the hotel, avoiding its triflers, and reached the church in a few minutes unobserved. The long windows shed some light, however, but as it was Saturday night, this was attributed, by the few who noticed it, to preparations for the next Sabbath morning. Before setting out, Samson Hat, observing his employer to shake a trifle, asked him if a dram of whiskey would not be proper.
"No, boy; this is a wedding without wine. I shall need all my wits to find my manners."
He entered the church, and found it warmed, and the minister already present in his surplice, kneeling alone at the altar. Mr. Tilghman arose, with his youthful face very pale, and tears upon his cheeks, and seeing his neglected parishioner and the serving-man, came down the aisle.
"Mr. Milburn," he said, extending his hand, "I hope to congratulate, after this ceremony, a Christian-hearted bridegroom, and one who will take the rare charge which has fallen to him, in tender keeping. My endeavor shall be to love you, sir, if you will let me! Miss Vesta is the priestess of Princess Anne, and if you take her from our sight and hearing, even God's ministrations in this church will seem hollow, I fear."
"To me they would," said Milburn, "though from no disrespect to our pastor."
"You have been a faithful parishioner," resumed Tilghman, "during my brief labor here, as in my boyhood, when I little dreamed I should fill that desk. You know, perhaps, that it was from the hopeless love of my cousin Custis, I fled to God for consolation, and he made me his humble minister."
"I have heard so," said Milburn; "or, rather, I have seen so."
"Pardon my mentioning a subject so irrelevant to you, sir, but, though I have surrendered every vain emotion for my cousin, her happiness is a part of my religion, and this sudden conclusion of her marriage, about which I have asked only one question, has urged me to throw myself upon your sympathy."
"What do you ask, William Tilghman? No matter—your request is granted."
"How have I won your favor?" the young rector asked, somewhat surprised.
Milburn mechanically picked his hat from a pew, and held it a little way up.
"You were the only boy in this village who never cried after this hat."
"Then it was probably overlooked by me. I was like the other boys, mischievous, before my spirits had been depressed by unhappy love, and I did not know I was any exception to their habits."
"It was grateful to see that exception," said Milburn; "hooted people make fine distinctions."
"Oh, Mr. Milburn, forgive the boys! They are made for laughter, and little causes excite it, like dogs to bark, from health and exercise—scarcely more than that. The request I make is to let me be your friend, because I have been your wife's! Frankness becomes my calling, and I think you need friendly, cordial surroundings to bring out your usefulness, and give you the freedom that will take constraint out of your family life, and, without diminishing your good sensibilities, dispel any morbid ones. This will open a way for Vesta to see her domestic career, which, otherwise, might become so rapidly contracted as to disappoint you both. You have seen her the idol of her wide circle, free as a bird, indulged by her kind, and by Providence also, till joy and grace, beautyand health, faith and hope live abundant in her, and you are the beneficiary of it all. Her society hereafter you must control. May I become your friend, and let my love for your wife recommend me to your confidence, as you to mine and to my prayers?"
"Have I another friend already?" exclaimed Milburn, his voice quivering. "What wealth she brings me never known before! William, you will be ever welcome to me."
They clasped hands upon it, and old Samson Hat, sitting back, was heard to chuckle aloud such a warming laugh, that Meshach's response to it, in a sudden pallid shivering, seemed slightly out of keeping. He was recalled, however, by the entrance of Judge Custis with his daughter, and her maid, Virgie.
Vesta was very pale, but neither shrinking nor negative. On the contrary, she supported her father rather than received his support, and Milburn saw the Judge's worn, helpless face, with the pride faded from it, and pity for his daughter absorbing every other feeling of depression.
He wore his best cloth suit, with the coat tails falling to his knees behind, the body cut square to the hips, and the collar raised high upon his stock of white enamelled English leather. His low-buttoned vest exposed his shirt-buttons of crystal and gilt, and a ruffle, ironed by Roxy's slender hands with nimble touches, parted down the middle like sea foam on shell, and similar ruffles at the wrists were clasped by chain buttons of pearl and silver. His vest was of figured Marseilles stuff, and gaiters of the same material partly covered his shoes; and his heavy seal, with his coat of arms upon it, fell from a pale ribbon at his fob. Debtor though he was, and answering at the bar of the church to a heavy personal and family judgment, his large and flowing lines of body, deeply cut chin, full eyes, and natural height and grace of stature made him a marked and noble presence anywhere.
Vesta Custis, dropping off a mantle of blue velvet at a touch of her maid, stood in a party dress of white silk, the neck, shoulders, and arms bare; and, as she halted a minute in the aisle, Virgie struck the cloth sandals from her mistress's white slippers of silk, and, removing her hood of home-embroidered cloth, a veil of white fell to her train. The dingy light from the lamps of whale-oil gathered, like poor folks' children's marvelling eyes, around the pair of diamonds in her delicately moulded, but alert and generous ears. Her fine gold watch-chain, twice dependent from her neck, disappeared in the snowy mould of her bosom, on whose heaving drift swam a magnolia-bud and blossom, each with a leaf. Her father's picture, in a careful miniature set in pearls, lay higher on her breast, fastened by a pearl necklace. Her hands were covered with white gloves, and her arms were without ornament. Her hair, dropping in dark ringlets around her forehead and temples, was combed upward farther back, and then gathered around a pearl comb in high braids, and the plentiful loops drooped to her shoulder.
Milburn glanced at the treasures of her peerless bodily charms, never till now revealed to his sight, and their splendor almost made him afraid.
Never had he been at a theatre, a ball, or anywhere from which he could have foreseen a swan-like neck and bosom sculptured like these, and arms as white as the limbs of the silver-maple, and warmed with bridal-life and modesty.
Her lips, parted and red, her great rich eyes a goddess might have commanded through, with their eyebrows of raven-black, like entrances to the caves of the Cumæan sibyl, her small head borne as easily upon her neck as a dove upon a sprig—all flashed upon Milburn's thrilled yet flinching soul, as the revelation of a divinity.
As she stepped forward he spoke to her with that boldinstinct or ecstasy she had observed when she first addressed him in her father's house, ten hours before.
"You have dressed yourself for me?" he said.
"Sir, such as I could command upon this necessity I thought to do you honor with."
"Forme, to look so beautiful! what can I say? You are very lovely!"
"It is gracious of you to praise me. Shall we wait, or are you ready?"
He gave her his hand, unable to speak again, and she was calm enough to notice that his hand was now hot, as if he had fever. Her father, at her side, reached out also, and took the bridegroom's other hand:
"Milburn," he said, huskily, "this is no work of mine. My daughter has my consent only because it is her will."
"The nobler to me for that," Milburn spoke, with his countenance strangely flushed. "What shall we do, my lady?"
"Give me your arm; not that one. This is right. Have you brought a ring, sir?"
"Yes." He drew from his vest pocket a little, lean gold ring, worth hardly half a dollar.
"It was my poor mother's," he said.
Without another word she walked forward, her arm drawing him on, Virgie following, and her father bringing up the rear. Samson Hat, feeling uneasy at being awarded no part in the ceremony, slipped up the aisle as far as the big, stiff-aproned stove in the middle of the church, behind which he ducked his body, but kept his head and faculties in the centre of the events.
Mr. Tilghman had preceded them in his surplice, and taking his place at the altar, with his countenance pale as death, he read the exordium in an altered voice: "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here, and in the face of this company, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony."
"What 'company' is here?" thought Vesta. "Not alone these poor negroes and my father; no, I feel behind me, looking on, the generations of our pride and helpless ease, the worthy younger suitors I have been too exacting and particular to see the consideration and merits of, the golden hours I might have improved my mind in, with brilliant opportunities I was not jealous of, and which will be mine no more, because I had not trimmed my virgin lamp; and so I slept away my girlhood, till now I awaken at the cry, 'The bridegroom cometh,' and I behold! Yes, I have been a foolish virgin, and am surprised when my fate is here! Perhaps my guardian angel also stands behind me, the cross advanced that I must take, my crown concealed; but somewhere, midway of this journey of life, she may give it to me, and say, 'Well done!'"
"This 'company,'" thought Milburn, with swimming head, "gathered to see me marry! what company? I seem to feel, besides these negroes, my sole spectators, the populous forest peering on, the barefoot generations, the illiterate broods, the instinctive parents, the sandy graves. They give forth my lost tribe, and all cry at me, 'Go, leave us, proud one! despiser, go!' Yet there is one I see, pure as my bride, white as my captive's bosom, her soul all in her believing eyes, and saying, 'Oh, my son, it is a woman like me that has come into your life, and her heart is very tender, and, by your mother's dying love! be kind to the poor stranger you have bought.'"
He answered, "I will!" aloud, and it seemed almost a miraculous coincidence that it was a response to the minister's question, till he heard the corresponding inquiry put to his bride in the clergyman's low, but gentlest, tones:
"Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep him, in sickness and in health; and forsaking allothers, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?"
"I will!" spoke the Judge's daughter, clear as music, and the Judge drew a long, deep sigh, saturated with tears, as if from the deepest wells of grief.
He could not distinctly answer, as he joined her hand to the minister's. The minister lost his office and speech for a moment, joining her hand to the bridegroom's. The slave-girl burst into a wail she could not control, and only Vesta stood calm as her bridegroom, putting her cool, moist hand in his palm of fire, and waited to repeat the Church's deliberate language.
When both had made this solemn promise, she reached for the little ring, and gave it to her old lover, the minister, and Virgie loosed her glove. Mr. Tilghman, his tears silently falling upon his book, passed the ring to Meshach, and saw its tiny circle hoop her white finger round, no bigger than a straw, yet formidable as the martyr's chain. His prayers were said with deep feeling, and he pronounced them man and wife. Then, shaking Meshach's hand, he said, with his boyish countenance bright as faith could make it:
"My friend, may I take my kiss?"
Meshach nodded his head, but his face was like a ball of fire, and he hardly knew what was asked. Mr. Tilghman kissed Vesta, saying,
"Cousin, your husband is my friend, and love and friendship both surround you now. May your happiness be, like your goodness, securest when you surmount difficulties, like those birds that cannot float at perfect grace till they have struggled above the clouds."
"May I kiss you now?" Milburn said, gazing with a wild look upon her rich eyes.
As she obediently raised her lips, a strange, warm, husky breath, not natural nor even passionate, came from his nostrils. The Judge, looking at this—no pleasingscene to him, the fairest Custis in two hundred years being devoured before his sight—exclaimed within his soul,
"Is Meshach drinking? His eyes look fiery."
So, after kissing his daughter also, and saying, "May God reward you with triumphs and compensation beyond our fears!" the Judge said:
"Milburn, I suppose, in the sudden conclusion of this union, you have made no arrangements as to where you will go; so come, of course, to Teackle Hall, and make it your home."
"Is that your wish, my dear one?"
Vesta replied, "Yes. But it is yours to choose, sir."
"You have some business with your father for an hour," Milburn said; "meantime, I require something at my warehouse, and, as it is yet early in the night, may I leave you a little while?"
She bowed her head again, and, while they proceeded towards the church-door, lingering there, Samson took the opportunity to seize both of Virgie's hands.
"Virgie," he exclaimed, "is all dat kissin a gwyin on an' we black folks git none of it? Come hyeah, purty gal, an' kiss yer ole gran'fadder!"
Virgie consented without resistance, till Samson continued, "Oh, what peach an' honey, Virgie! Gi me anoder one! I say, Virgie, sence my marster an' your mistis have done gone an' leff us two orphans, sposen we git Mr. Tilghman to pernounce us man an' wife, too?" Then Virgie drew away.
"Samson Hat," she said, "what's that you are talking about? You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You are old enough to be my father!"
"'Deed I ain't, my love. I'm good as four o' dese new kine o' Somoset County beaux. I'm a free man. Maybe I'll sot you free too, Virgie—me an' my marster yonder. He says we better git married. 'Deed he does."
"You are just an impertinent old negro," the girl replied. "Do you suppose any well-raised girl would have a man who got rich by cleaning the Bad Man's hat? You're nothing but the devil's serving-man, sir."
"Look out dat debbil don't ketch you, den," said Samson. "You pore, foolish, believin' chile! Look out dem purty black eyes don't cry for ole Samson yit. He's done bound to marry some spring chicken, ole Samson is, an' I reckon you'll brile de tenderest, Virgie."
Virgie, indignant, but fluttered at her first real proposal, and from one of the richest men of her color in Princess Anne, hastened to tie on her young mistress's walking-shoes, and, as they all stepped from the happy old church, where Vesta's voice had so often pierced, in her flights of harmony, to a bliss that seemed to carry her soul, like a lark, to heaven's gate, that
"singing, still dost soar, and, soaring, ever singest,"
she saw fall upon the pavement of the churchyard the long, preposterous, moon-thrown hat of the bridegroom.
"Oh, what will he do with that hat, now that he has married me?" Vesta thought. "Will he continue to afflict me with it?"
Her heart sank down, so that she felt relieved when he kissed her again at the church-gate, and saying, "I will come soon, darling," went, with his man, into Princess Anne.
"Is your buggy ready harnessed, Samson?" his master asked, when they turned the court-house corner.
"Yes, marster."
At this moment a large crowd of men, comprising all the idle population in town, as well as many Saturday-night bacchanalians from the country and coasts, some standing before the tavern, others on the opposite sidewalks or gathered on the court-house corner, seeing the hatted figure of Meshach rise against the moonlight,raised the scattering cry, finally deepening into a yell, of:
"Man with the hat loose! Steeple-top! Three cheers for old Meshach's hat!"
With a minute's irresolution, as if hesitating to go through the crowd, Milburn turned into the main street, crossed it, and continued down the opposite sidewalk, on the same side with his domicile, the jeers and jests still continuing.
"Dar's rum a workin' in dis town all arternoon, marster," his faithful negro said, "eber sence dat long man come in from de churchyard wid Levin Dennis. Look out, marster!"
He had scarcely spoken, when three men were seen to bar the way, two of them drunk, the third ugly with drink, emerging from a groggery that stood across the street from the tavern, where further beverage had been denied them. The first was Jack Wonnell. He hiccoughed, cried "Steeple-top!" and slunk behind a mulberry-tree. The second man was Levin Dennis, hardly able to stand, and he sat down on the groggery step, smiling up idiotically.
The third man, rising like a giant out of his boots, with his arms swaying like loose grapevines, and his bearded face streaked with tobacco drippings, looking insolence and contempt, brought the flat of one hand fairly down on the crown of Milburn's surprising tile, with the words:
"Halloo! Yer's Goosecap! Hocus that cady, Old Gripefist!"
The hat, age being against it, wilted down on Meshach's eyes, and the heedless stroke, unconsciously powerful, staggered him.
Samson, who had drunk in the giant's qualifications with an instant's admiration, immediately drew off, seeing his master insulted, and struck the tall stranger a blow with his fist. The man reeled, rallied, and sought to grapple with Samson. That skilful pugilist bent his knees, slided his shoulders back, and, avoiding the clutch, raised, and threw his trunk forward, with the blow studied well, and planted his knuckles in the white man's eyes. The tall ruffian went down as from a bolt of lightning.
Milburn saw all this happen in a minute of time, and his eye, looking for something to defend himself, dropped on the brick pier under the groggery steps, where Levin Dennis sat, stupefied by the scene. A brick in the pier was loose, and Milburn stepped towards it. In this small interval the hardy stranger had recovered himself and staggered to his feet, and had drawn a dirk-knife.
"The ruffian oly you!" he bellowed. "Knocked down! by a nigger, too! Hell have you, then!"
As he darted forward, he described a rapid circle backward and downward with the knife, aiming to turn it through Samson's bowels, which he would have done—that valorous servant being without defence, and not so much as a pebble of stone lying on the bare plain of the soil to give him aid—had not Meshach, wresting the loose brick from the pier, aimed it at the corresponding exposed portion of the assassin's body, and struck him full in the pit of the stomach. The man's eyes rolled, and he fell, like one stone-dead, his dirk sticking in the sidewalk.
"Let him lie there," said Meshach, contemptuously. "No danger of such a dog dying! If there is time he shall mend in the jail. Take to your buggy, boy, and keep out of the way."
The negro needed no warning, as the impiety of striking a white man was forbidden in a larger book than the Bible—the book of ignorance. He disappeared through the houses and was a mile out of Princess Anne, driving fast, before the new man had raised his head from the ground.
"Where is the nigger?" he gasped, his paleface paintedby his bloodshot eyes. "What kind of coves are you to let a black bloke fight a white man? I'll cut his heart out before I tip the town."
He looked around on the crew which had crossed over from the tavern; Meshach had vanished in his store at the descent of the road. Jimmy Phœbus was the only one to speak.
"Nigger buyer," he said, "if you are around this town from now till midnight, or after midnight to-morrer, Sunday night, ole Meshach Milburn will have you in that air jail till Spring. By smoke! he'll find out yer aunty's cedents, whair you goin, whair you been, what's yer splurge, an all yer hokey pokey. You've struck the Ark of the Lord this time—ole Milburn's Entailed Hat! Take my advice an' travel!"
The man washed his face at the tavern pump, turned the bank corner, and disappeared in the night towards Teackle Hall.
As Vesta and her father stepped over the sill of Teackle Hall, it seemed very dear, yet somewhat dread to them, being reclaimed again, but at the penalty of a new member of the family and he an intruder. To the library Vesta and her father went, and he threw some wood upon the low fire, and lighted the lamp and candles; then turning, he took his daughter in his arms and sobbed bitterly, repeating over the words: "What shall I do! O what shall I do!" She also yielded to the luxury of grief, but was speechless till he said:
"My darling, I have dreamed of your wedding-day many a time, but it was not like this. Music and joy,free-heartedness, a handsome, youthful bridegroom, our whole connection gathered here from the army and navy, from South, West, and North, and all happy except poor Daniel Custis, about to lose his child!"
"Your child is not to go," Vesta whispered; "is not that a comfort?"
"I do not know. Is it my pure, poor child? Had I seen you waste with consumption, day by day, like a dying lilac-tree, with its clusters fewer every year till it deadened to the root, I could have wept in heavenly sympathy, and learned from you the way I have not walked. But, in your flower to be a forester's plucking, stripped from my stem and trodden in the sand, your pride reduced, your tastes unheeded, your heart dragged into the wigwam of a savage and made to consult his maudlin will—— Oh, what shall I do!"
"I do not fear my husband like that," Vesta said, opening his arms. "My mind, I think, he will rather raise to serious things, for which I have some desire, though, I fear, no talent. Papa, something tells me that this old life we have led, easy and happy, comfortable and independent, is passing away. Our family race must learn the new lessons of the age if we would not see it retired and obscure. Is that not so?"
"I fear it is God's truth, my darling. The life we have led is only a remnant of colonial, or, rather, of provincial dignity, to which the nature of this republican government is hostile. Tobacco, which was once our money, is disappearing from this shore, and wheat and corn we cannot grow like the rich young West, which is pouring them out through the canal the late Governor Clinton lived to open. Money is becoming a thing and not merely a name, and it captures every other thing—land, distinction, talent, family, even beauty and purity. The man you married understands the art of money and we do not."
"Then are we not impostors, papa, if we assume to be so much better than our real superiors? Surely we must persevere in those things the age demands, and excel in them, to sustain our pride."
"Yes, if the breed is gamecock it will accept any challenge, not only war and politics, but mechanics, shop-keeping, cattle-herding, anything!"
"Papa, if you can see these things that are to be, so clearly, why can you not take the wise steps to plant your family on the safe side?"
"Ah! we Virginians were always the best statesmen, but we died poor. Having no manual craft, slight bookkeeping, and unlimited capacity for office, we foresaw everything but the humiliation of ourselves, and that we hardly admitted when it had come, so much were we flattered by our philosophic intellects. Our newest amusement is to expound the constitution to them who are doing too well under it, although our fathers, who made it, like Jefferson and Madison, died only yesterday, overwhelmed with debts, and poor Mr. Monroe is run away to New York, they say, to dodge the Virginia bailiffs."
"Well, papa, I have saved you from that fear. Here are your notes to Mr. Milburn and others. Sit down and look them over carefully and see if they are all here!"
He took them up, with volatile relief laughing on his yet tear-marked face, and said:
"We'll burn them, Vessy."
"Nay, sir, not till you have seen them all. A single note missing would give you the same perplexity, and there is no daughter left to settle it."
He looked at her with a smile, yet annoyance.
"You are not going to make a Meshach Milburn of me?"
"Stop, sir!" Vesta said. "You might do worse than learn from my husband."
Something strange in her expression baffled the Judge.
"Ha!" he interjected, "have I a rival already, daughter? Is his conquest as complete as that?"
"I promised to honor him a few moments ago, and I believe I can, papa. All that you tell me adds to my respect for a man who seems to be only what he is."
"Perhaps you can love him, too?" the Judge said, watching her with an apprehension a little like wonder, a little like jealousy.
"Oh, I wish I could, papa! That also I promised to do, and I will try. But my work will all be a failure if you do not become reconciled to Mr. Milburn. It was for you I married him, and to save your name, your peace, your independence, and the upbraiding we expected from mamma at the loss of her dower. He is now your son-in-law, still in the prime of life, with the business training you lament that you do not possess. Begin this moment, papa, and learn his habits. Count and identify those notes!"
Judge Custis looked them over separately, ran the number of notes he had given over in his mind, and said:
"Yes, he has made fair restitution. There are none missing."
"Restitution implies that he has robbed you, papa. A just man did not speak there! Every penny in those debts is stamped with Mr. Milburn's injuries and coined by his sacrifices. Have you spent his money remembering that?"
"No, my child, I suppose not."
"Give me the notes, papa."
She took them and sat thinking a few moments silently.
"If I were a man, papa," she said at length, "I would try to learn business sense. It must be so respectable to live with one's mind able to help one's security and one's friends, and prepare for age or sickness whilestrong and healthy. Now, I think I will not let you burn these notes till you have paid the price of them! Please write a transfer of this house, servants, and your manor to me, Vesta——yes, Vesta Milburn!"
She blushed as she spoke for the first time her new-worn name.
"Alas!" sighed her father, "Vesta Custis no more. I begin to feel it. Well, Mrs. Milburn—I will give you the title—for what must I make over these old properties to you?"
"In consideration of my repayment of the sum of my mother's estate to you for her, for which you have given her no security whatever. It is not provided for by these notes. I have only Mr. Meshach Milburn's promise that he will pay her this money, risked and lost by you, father, I fear very heedlessly. Is it restitution, also, for Mr. Milburn to strip himself to pay your debts to mother?"
"No," said the Judge, guiltily, "that he pays on account of his passion for you. He may cheat you there."
"I do not believe it, because he has been faithful to me so many years before I knew he loved me. A man who keeps himself pure for a woman he has no vows to, will pay her father's debts of honor when he has promised."
Judge Custis found the issue quite too warm for his convenience, and blushing as much as Vesta, he sat down and drew up a conveyance of his property to Vesta Milburn, in her own right, and in consideration of twenty-five thousand dollars, paid to Mrs. Lucy Custis on account of judgment confessed to her by Daniel Custis.
"There, my dear," he said, passing it over, "what do you want with it? Are you not sure of a home here as long as you live, even with me as the proprietor?"
"No. The tragedy nearly finished here may be repeated, papa, and all of us be homeless if you can go in debt again. I shall not do that—not even for my husband, and here will stand Teackle Hall to protect you all from the cold if bad times ever come again."
"You have paid a greater price for it, my child, than it is worth, and you are entitled to it."
"Besides, dear father, if Mr. Milburn needs any reminder of his promise to repay mamma's dowry, this will give it. He intended his gift to be my marriage dower, and were I to convey it to you I should first ask his consent; not in law, perhaps, but in delicacy."
"Oh, yes," the Judge said carelessly, "I am glad you have such good reasons. Yet, my beautiful, my last child,—pride of my race! I hate to see you so ready for this business—this calculation and foresight. It is not like the Custises. I fear this man, Milburn, in a single day has thrown his net around your nature, and annexed you to his sordid existence. At this moment the redeeming thing about you is that you cannot love him."
"Dear father, thoughts like that beset me, too—the pride of aristocracy, the remembrance of what has been; but I want to be honest and not to cheat my heart or any person. We have fallen from our height; he has raised himself from his condition; and there is no deception in my conduct. He knows I do not love him. Instead of standing upon an obdurate heart, I pray God to melt my nature and mould it to his affection!"
Regarding her a moment with increasing interest, Judge Custis came forward and kissed her forehead.
"Amen, then!" he said. "May you love your husband! I will do all I can to love him, too."
"That is spoken like a true man," Vesta said. "And now, father, good-night! Be ready here for Mr. Milburn's arrival. Ring for a decanter and some cake. It will not hurt you, after your fast, to drink a glass of sherry with the bridegroom."
He kissed her and felt her trembling in his arms. As she started to go, she returned and clung to him again. Her face was pale with fear.
"Oh, dreadful God!" he muttered, "to visit my many sins upon this spotless angel! Where shall I fly?"
A step was upon the porch, and Vesta flashed up the stairway.
Judge Custis went to his door apprehensive and in tears. A strange man stood there, with his eye bruised and blood dripping down to his coarse, rope-like beard. He was in liquor, but so pale that it was apparent by the starlight.
"Good-evening," said the man; "you don't know me, Judge Custis? No matter, I'm Joe Johnson."
The Judge, whose tears had taken him far from things of trivial memory, looked at the man and repeated "JoeJohnson. Not Joe Johnson of Dorchester?"
"Yes, Judge, Joe Johnson, the slave-dealer. I've bought many a nigger from a Custis when it was impolite to sell 'em, Judge, so they let me run' em off, and cussed me for it to the public. An' that's made me onpopular, Judge Custis, and that's my fix to-night."
"You have been fighting, Johnson, I think," said the Judge, with suppressed dislike.
"I've been knocked down by a nigger," said the man, with a glare of ferocity, removing his hand from the wounded eye, as if it inflamed his recollection of the blow to see the drops of blood drip from his beard to the porch. "This town is too nice to abide a dealer in the constitutional article, and so they set on me, when I was a little jingle-brained with lush, an' while the nigger klemmed me in the peep, a little white villain with a steeple bonnet hit me in the bread-bag with a stone. I've come yer, Judge, to lie up in the kitchen, an' sleep warm over Sunday, for the cops threaten to take me, if they catch me before midnight."
"I suppose you know, Johnson, that I am a magistrate, and the proper harborage I give to breakers of the peace is the jail."
"I'm not afraid of that limbo, Judge Custis, when I come to you. Old Patty Cannon has done you many a good turn with Joe Johnson's gang about election times in the upper destreeks of Somerset. Patty always said Judge Custis was a game gentleman that returned a favor."
The Judge's countenance, an instant blank, lighted up with all a vote-getter's smile, and he said:
"Joe, you're a terrible fellow, but dear old Aunt Patty did always take my part! I suspect, Joe, that you have run afoul of Samson, the hired man of Meshach Milburn, who is a boxer, though I wonder that he could get away with your youth and size. Of course, I won't let you come to harm. You haven't been playing your tricks on anybody's negroes, Joe?"
"No, upon my word, Judge! You see, I took a load of Egypt down the Nanticoke to Norfolk, and shipped 'em to Orleens. Says I: 'I'll go back Eastern Shore way, and see if there's any niggers to git.' So I tramped it from Somers's Cove to Princess Anne, an' sluiced my gob at Kingston and the Trappe till I felt noddy with the booze, and lay down in the churchyard to snooze it off. Bein' awaked before my nod was out, I felt evil an' chiveyish, and the tavern blokes, an' the nigger, an' the feller with the steeple shap, all clecked me at once."
"Well, Joe, for Aunt Patty's sake, I'll take care of you. Go to the kitchen door, and I'll step through the house and tell our Aunt Hominy to give you supper and breakfast, and a place to get some sleep. But you must keep out of the way, and slip off quietly on Sunday, for we have had a wedding in the family to-day, Joe, and though I cannot understand your peculiar slang, I suspect the bridegroom to be the man who knocked the breath out of you with the stone."
The stranger lifted his hand from his bloody eye again, and counted the red drops splashing down from his beard. Judge Custis marked his scowl.
"Tut, tut!" said the Judge, "you will never get your revenge out of that man. He is too strong. I don't wonder that he disabled you, and don't you ever get into his clutches, Joe; for if he knows you are here, I shall be forced to send you to jail this very night. Keep out of the hands of Meshach Milburn! He has knocked the breath out of you, Mr. Johnson, but there are some whose hearts he has twisted out of their bodies."
"I'll meet him somewhere," Joe Johnson muttered, "but not in Princess Anne;" and he pulled down his slouched hat to cover his eyes, and stalked away to find the kitchen.
"Oh, what a day can bring forth," Judge Custis thought, raising his hands to the October stars: "Meshach of the ominous hat the host in my parlor: Joe Johnson, the son-in-law of Patty Cannon, the guest of my kitchen!"
Vesta had slept she hardly knew how long, but it was day, and slowly her eyes turned towards the remainder of her bed to see if it was occupied.
The bridegroom was not there.
She reached her foot into her slipper at the bedside, and at one swift step passed before her mirror, whispering:
"I have dreamed it all!"
The fresh, flushing skin, and radiant contrasts of hair and eyes seemed so welcome to her in their perfect assurance of health, that she whispered again:
"Have I dreamed it? He is not here. Oh, am I free?"
Then a feeling of reproval came to her as the minutestmemory of that wonderful yesterday rose to her mind, and the vow she had made to honor and obey seemed to have been too easily repented. She looked upon her hand, and the little, thin, pathetic thread of gold reaffirmed her memory of the wedding-ring, and at the next suggestion a blush coursed through her being like a redbird in the apple-blossoms: perhaps he had stolen from her chamber stealthily as he came, while she, drowned in deep slumber, wotted not.
A glance into the mirror again revealed those blushes repeating each other, like the Aurora in the northern dawn, till, with a searching consciousness, and her voice raised above the whisper, she said,
"Be still, sillygirl!"
Opening the door, she found Virgie lying on the rug without, warmly wrapped in her mistress's blanket-shawl, but wide awake.
"Virgie, no one has passed?" asked Vesta.
"No, Miss Vessy. Nobody could have stepped over me, for my mind has been too awake, if I did sleep a little. Maybeheain't a-coming, Miss Vessy. Maybe he's ashamed!"
"Hush, Virgie," Vesta said, "you are speaking of your master."
Throwing her morning-robe around her shoulders, the maiden bride tripped noiselessly to her mother's apartment; the door was open, the night taper floating in its vase, and Mrs. Custis lay asleep with her bank-book under her pillow.
"Shall I awake her?" Vesta thought. "Yes, if I do not need her experience, I do want her confidence, and not to give her mine would seem deceit now."
Vesta kissed her mother softly, and placed her cheek beside that lady's thin, respectable profile as she awoke, and said:
"Daughter, mercy! why, what has become of you? Itseems to me I have seen nobody for days, and I wanted to express my indignation even in my dreams. Where have you been?"
"Oh, mamma," Vesta said, taking Mrs. Custis's head in her arms, "I have been finding your lost fortune, which troubled us all so much. It is to be given back to you, dearest—my husband has promised to do so."
"Your husband? Whom have you selected, that he is so free with his money? How could you hear from Baltimore so soon? Now, don't tell me a parcel of stuff, thinking to comfort me. Your father is a villain, and my connections shall know it."
Mrs. Custis drew her bank-book from under her head, and began to cry, as she took a single look at its former total.
"Darling mamma," Vesta said, "seeing you so miserable yesterday on account of papa's failure, and your portion gone with it, I accepted an offer of marriage, and have a rich man's promise that, first of all, your part shall be paid to you. This house, and our manor, and everything as it is—the servants, the stable, and the movables—belong to me, in my own name, paid for in papa's notes, and by him transferred to me to be our home forever, so that a revulsion like yesterday may not again cross the sill of our door. Does not that deserve a kiss, mamma?"
"I don't believe a word of it," said Mrs. Custis. "This is another trick to deceive me. I don't accuse you of it, Vesta, but you are the victim of somebody and your father. Now, who can this man be, so free with his ready money? It's not the style in Baltimore to promise so liberally as all that. Have you accepted young Carroll?"
"No, nor thought of him, mamma."
"Then it must be that widower fool, Hynson, ready to sell his negroes for a second wife like you."
"He has neither been here in body or mind," Vesta said; "never in my mind."
"That would be a marriage to make a talk: it wouldn't be like you to bestow so much beauty on a widower. I think there is a certain vulgarity about an elegant girl marrying a widower. She is so refined, and he is generally so sleek and sensual. Did you hear from Charles McLane?"
"Nothing, mamma; let me ease your mind by telling you that my husband lives here in Princess Anne. He was father's creditor, Mr. Meshach Milburn. He has loved me unknown for years. I saw a way to stop all scandal and recrimination by marrying him at once, that the society we know would have but one, and not two, subjects of curiosity. Papa saw me married last night to Mr. Milburn, and I bear his name this Sabbath day."
"His wife? Meshach Milburn? The vulgarian in the play-actor's hat? That man! Daughter, you play with my poor head. It is going again. Oh-h-h!"
"Mother, it is true. I am Mrs. Milburn. My husband is your benefactor."
It was unnecessary to say more, for Mrs. Custis had really fainted.
"Poor mother!" thought Vesta, "I am confirmed in my fear that, if she had been told of my purpose, she would have opposed it bitterly."
Roxy was summoned to assist Vesta, and after Mrs. Custis had become conscious, and sighed and cried hysterically, her daughter, sitting in her lady's rocker, spoke out plainly:
"Mother, I appreciate your disappointment in my marriage, though I should be the one to make complaint and receive sympathy, instead of discouragement; but I do not desire it; indeed, I will not permit any person to disparage my husband, or draw odious comparisons between my poverty and his exertions. If there are in my body, or my society, any merits to please a man, they have fallen to him under the law of Providence, that he that hath shall receive. I pity your illness, dear mamma,but I fear Mr. Milburn is ill, too, for he has not been here all night, though he left me at the church-gate."
"I hope the viper is dead!" Mrs. Custis said, with great clearness, and energized it by sitting up in bed. Roxy left the room.
"I hope he has been murdered," said Mrs. Custis, "and that the murderer will never be discovered. If there is any spirit of the McLanes left in my brothers and nephews, they will wipe out, in blood, the insult of this marriage between my daughter and the man who set a trap upon the honor of a respectable family."
Vesta arose with a pale, troubled face, yet with some of her mother's prejudice flashing back.
"He can defend himself, mamma. I shall go to seek him now, since he is so much hated for me."
She returned to her room, and put on a walking-suit, and made her toilet. In the library Vesta found her father dozing in a large chair, with his feet upon a leather sofa, and a silk handkerchief drawn across his crown, under which were the dry beds of tears that had coursed down his cheeks. She saw, with a touch of joy, that the sherry in the decanter was untouched, and the two glasses were still clean: he had not relapsed into his habits, even while making an all-night vigil to wait for the unwelcome son-in-law. He started as she entered, and then stared at her between his dazed wits and a mute inquiry that she could understand.
"He has not come, papa. And mamma—oh! she is severe."
Vesta, trembling at the throat a moment, rushed into her father's wide-open arms, and buried the sob in his breast.
"Poor soul! Poor lamb! Poor thing!" he said, over and over, while his temper slowly rose, that seldom rose of recent years, since pleasure and carelessness had taken its masculine sting away, but Vesta felt his tones changewhile he petted her, and at last heard him say, hoarsely:
"By God!"
"Sh—h!" she whispered, raising her hand to his mouth.
"I will kill somebody," he went on, finishing his sentence, and as she drew away he strode across the room and back again, a noble exhibition of passion that had a noble origin, in fatherly pity.
"Don't lose your true pride, papa, after you have persevered so long," Vesta said. "It is Sunday. Do you think he will come? What can have happened?"
"He will either come or fight me," Judge Custis remarked. "I have tried to be a peaceable man and Christian magistrate, albeit a poor hypocrite in some, things, but I am pushed too far. My wife's smallness is worse than insanity and wickedness put together. Between her and this money-broking fiend, and my neglected child entrapped into such a marriage, by God! I will clean my old duelling arms, and appeal to injustice itself to set me even."
If he had been fine-looking in his sincere grief, he was thrice more attractive in his sincere high spirit. Vesta, admiring him in spite of her cares, did not like to see him in this unnatural recklessness.
"Dear father," she said, soothingly, "you have no cause of quarrel."
"I have every cause," he cried; "the proposal to marry you was an insult, for which I should have challenged him, and shot him if he declined. Now he has married you and absconded, using you and the Custis honor with contempt. In my day I was the best shot in Eastern Virginia. I can kill a man in this cause as easily as I have broken either of a man's arms, at choice, in my courting days. Public opinion will clear me under this provocation, and I can acquit my own conscience, abhorrent as duelling is to me. My sons-in-law would leap to take the quarrel up, and rid the world of Meshach Milburn."
"That is mamma's idea, to kill the debtor who has been specially kind to her. She says she will send for Uncle Allan McLane, and is more unreasonable than ever. Papa, your feelings are unjust. Something we do not know of has happened to Mr. Milburn. He was not himself all the while at the church. Now that I recollect, he was not ardent for the marriage to be so soon. It was I who hastened the hour. Let us be right in everything, having progressed so far with the recovery of our fortunes, and let us await the fulfilment of events hopefully."
"Milburn was drunk at the ceremony, I saw that," Judge Custis said, "but it was no excuse. In fact, what good can come of this violent alliance? It seems to me that we have leaped from the frying-pan into the fire. I feel ugly, my daughter, and there is no concealing it."
"Then you are in the mood to talk to mother this morning," Vesta said, "while you have some unusual will and spirit. This resentful sullenness she is showing I fear more than your passing emotion, papa. Be firm, yet kind, with her, and I will go to find my husband. Yes, that is my place. He may be more justly complaining of my absence now, than we of his neglect."
"You don't mean that you are going to visit him at his den?"
"I shall go there first. It would have been my home last night if he had required it. To tell the truth," Vesta said, blushing, "the poor man was so kind to me yesterday, in spite of his object, and so quaint, and, as it seemed, dependent on me, that my charity is enlisted for him, and I could almost have married him from pity."
The Judge's temper fell a little in the study of his daughter's blushing.