Dalton found them all at dinner when he reached Huntersfield. He was not in the least prepared for the scene which met his eyes—shining mahogany, old silver and Sheffield, tall white candles, Calvin in a snowy jacket, Mrs. Beaufort and Mrs. Paine in low-necked gowns, the Judge and Randy in dinner-coats somewhat the worse for wear, Becky in thin, delicate blue, with a string of pearls which seemed to George an excellent imitation of the real thing.
He had thought that the trail of Mrs. Paine's boarding-house might be over it all. He had known boarding-houses as a boy, before his father made his money. There had been basement dining-rooms, catsup bottles, and people passing everything to everybody else!
"I'm afraid I'm early," he said in his quick voice.
"Not a bit. Calvin, place a chair for Mr. Dalton."
There were fruit and nuts and raisins in a great silver epergne, with fat cupids making love among garlands. There was coffee in Sevres cups.
Back among the shadows twinkled a priceless mirror; shutting off Calvin's serving table was a painted screen worth its weight in gold. It was a far cry from the catsup bottles and squalid service of George's early days. The Bannisters of Huntersfield wore their poverty like a plume!
The Judge carried Dalton off presently to the Bird Room. George went with reluctance. This was not what he had come for. Becky, slim and small, with her hair peaked up to a topknot, Becky in pale blue, Becky as fair as her string of imitation pearls, Becky in the golden haze of the softly illumined room, Becky, Becky Bannister—the name chimed in his ears.
Dalton had had some difficulty in getting away from Hamilton Hill.
"It's my last night," Madge had said; "shall we go out in the garden and watch the moon rise?"
"Sorry," George had told her, "but I've promised Flora to take a fourth hand at bridge."
"And after that?" asked Madge softly.
"What do you mean?"
"Who is the new—little girl?"
It was useless to pretend. "She's a beauty, rather, isn't she?"
"Oh, Georgie-Porgie, I wish you wouldn't."
"Wouldn't what?"
"Kiss the girls—and make them—cry——"
"You've never cried——"
She laughed at that. "If I haven't it is because I know that afterwards you always—run away."
He admitted it. "One can't marry them all."
"I wonder if you are ever serious," she told him, her chin in her hand.
"I am always serious. That's what makes it interesting——"
"But the poor little—hearts?"
"Some one has to teach them," said George, "that it's a pretty game——"
"Will it be always a game—to you—Georgie?"
"Who knows?" he said. "So far I've held trumps——"
"Your conceit is colossal, but somehow you seem to get away with it." She smiled and stood, up. "I'm going to bed early. I have been losing my beauty sleep lately, Georgie."
He chose to be gallant. "You are not losing your beauty, if that's what you mean."
Her dinner gown was of the same shade of mauve that she had worn in the afternoon. But it was of a material so sheer that the gold of her skin seemed to shine through.
"Good-night, Golden Girl," said Dalton, and kissed the tips of her fingers as she stood on the stairs. Then he went off to join the others.
Madge did not go to bed. She went out alone and watched the moon rise. Oscar Waterman's house was on a hill which gave a view of the whole valley. Gradually under the moon the houses of Charlottesville showed the outlines of the University, and far beyond the shadowy sweep of the Blue Ridge. What a world it had been in the old days—great men had ridden over these red roads in swaying carriages, Jefferson, Lafayette, Washington himself.
If she could only meet men like that. Men to whom life was more than a game—a carnival. From the stone bench where she sat she had a view through the long French windows of the three tables of bridge—there were slender, restless girls, eager, elegant youths. "Perhaps they are no worse than those who lived here before them," Madge's sense of justice told her. "But isn't there something better?"
From her window later, she saw Dalton's car flash out into the road. The light wound down and down, and appeared at last upon the highway. It was not the first time that George had played the game with another girl. But he had always come back to her. She had often wondered why she let him come. "Why do I let him?" she asked the moon.
It really was a great moon. It shone through the windows of the Bird Room at Huntersfield, wooing George out into the fragrant night. He could hear voices on the lawn—young Paine's laugh—Becky's. Once when he looked he saw them on the ridge, silhouetted against the golden sky. They were dancing, and Randy's clear whistle, piping a modern tune, came up to him, tantalizing him.
But the Judge held him. It took him nearly an hour to get through with the Bob-whites and the sandpipers, the wild turkeys, the ducks and the wild geese. And long before that time George was bored to extinction. He had little imagination. To him the Trumpeter was just a stuffed old bird. He could not picture him as blowing his trumpet beside the moon, or wearing a golden crown as in "The Seven Brothers." He had never heard of "The Seven Brothers," and nobody in the world wore crowns except kings. As for the old eagle, it is doubtful whether George had ever felt the symbolism of his presence on a silver coin, or that he had ever linked him in his heart with God.
Then, suddenly, the whole world changed. Becky appeared on the threshold.
"Grandfather," she said, "Aunt Claudia says there is lemonade on the lawn."
"In a moment, my dear."
George rose hastily. "Don't let me keep you, Judge——"
Becky advanced into the room. "Aren't birds wonderful?"
"They are," said George, seeing them wonderful for the first time.
"I always feel," she said, "as if some time they will flap their wings and fly away—on a night like this—the swans going first, and then the ducks and geese, and last of all the little birds, trailing across the moon——" Her hands fluttered to show them trailing. Becky used her hands a great deal when she talked. Aunt Claudia deplored it as indicating too little repose. The nuns, she felt, should have corrected the habit. But the nuns had loved Becky's descriptive hands, poking, emphasizing, and had let her alone.
The three of them, the Judge and Becky and Dalton, went out together. The little group which sat in the wide moonlighted space in front of the house was dwarfed by the great trees which hung in masses of black against the brilliant night. The white dresses of the women seemed touched with silver.
The lemonade was delicious, and Aunt Claudia forced herself to be gracious. Caroline Paine was gracious without an effort. She liked Dalton. Not in the same way, perhaps, that she liked Major Prime, but he was undoubtedly handsome, and of a world which wore lovely clothes and did not have to count its pennies.
Major Prime had little to say. He was content to sit there in the fragrant night and listen to the rest. A year ago he had been jolted over rough roads in an ambulance. There had been a moon and men groaning. There had seemed to him something sinister about that white night with its spectral shadows, and with the trenches of the enemy wriggling like great serpents underground. The trail of the serpent was still over the world. He had been caught but not killed. There was still poison in his fangs!
He spoke sharply, therefore, when Dalton said, "It was a great adventure for a lot of fellows who went over——"
"Don't," said the Major, and sat up. "Does it matter what took them?The thing that matters is how they came back——"
"What do you mean?"
"A thousand reasons took them over. Some of them went because they had to, some of them because they wanted to. Some of them dramatized themselves as heroes and hoped for an opportunity to demonstrate their courage. Some of them were scared stiff, but went because of their consciences, some of them wanted to fight and some of them didn't, but whatever the reason, they went. And now they are back, and it is much more important to know what they think now about war than what they thought about it when they were enlisted or drafted. If their baptism of fire has made them hate cruelty and injustice, if it has opened their eyes to the dangers of a dreaming idealism which refuses to see evil until evil has had its way, if it has made them swear to purge America of the things which has made Germany the slimy crawling enemy of the universe, if they have come back feeling that God is in His Heaven but that things can't be right with the world until we come to think in terms of personal as well as of national righteousness—if they have come back thus illumined, then we can concede to them their great adventure. But if they have come back to forget that democracy is on trial, that we have talked of it to other nations and do not know it ourselves, if they have come back to let injustice or ignorance rule—then they had better have died on the fields of France——"
He stopped suddenly amid a startled silence. Not a sound from any of them.
"I beg your pardon," he laughed a bit awkwardly, "I didn't mean to preach a sermon."
"Don't spoil it,please," Aunt Claudia begged brokenly; "I wish more men would speak out."
"May I say this, then, before I stop? The future of our country is in the hands of the men who fought in France. On them must descend the mantles of our great men, Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt—we must walk with these spirits if we love America——"
"Do you wonder," Randy said, under his breath to Becky, "that his men fought, and that they died for him?"
She found her little handkerchief and wiped her eyes. "He's a—perfect—darling," she whispered, and could say no more.
Dalton was for the time eclipsed. He knew it and was not at ease. He was glad when Mrs. Paine stood up. "I am sorry to tear myself away. But I must. I can't be sure that Susie has made up the morning rolls. There's a camp-meeting at Keswick, and she's lost the little mind that she usually puts on her cooking."
Randy and the Major went with her in the low carriage, with Rosalind making good time towards the home stable, and with Nellie Custis following with flapping ears.
Dalton stayed on. The Judge urged him. "It's too lovely to go in," he said; "what's your hurry?"
Aunt Claudia, who was inexpressibly weary, felt that her father was exceeding the bounds of necessary hospitality. She felt, too, that the length of Dalton's first call was inexcusable. But she did not go to bed. As long as Becky was there, she should stay to chaperon her. With a sense of martyrdom upon her, Mrs. Beaufort sat stiffly in her chair.
The Judge was talkative and brilliant, glad of a new and apparently attentive listener. Becky had little to say. She sat with her small feet set primly on the ground. Her hands were folded in her lap. Dalton was used to girls who lounged or who hung fatuously on his words, as if they had set themselves to please him.
But Becky had no arts. She was frank and unaffected, and apparently not unconscious of Dalton's charms. The whole thing was, he felt, going to be rather stimulating.
When at last he left them, he asked the Judge if he might come again. "I'd like to look at those birds by daylight."
Becky, giving him her hand, hoped that he might come. She had been all the evening in a sort of waking dream. Even when Dalton had been silent, she had been intensely aware of his presence, and when he had talked, he had seemed to speak to her alone, although his words were for others.
"I saw you dancing," he said, before he dropped her hand.
"Oh, did you?"
"Yes."
Back of the house the dogs barked.
"Will you dance some time with me?"
"Oh, could I?"
"Why not?"
A moment later he was gone. The light of his motor flashed down the hills like a falling star.
"I wonder what made the dogs bark," the Judge said as they went in.
"They probably thought it was morning," was Mrs. Beaufort's retort, as she preceded Becky up the stairs.
The dogs had barked because Randy after a quick drive home had walked back to Huntersfield.
"Look here," he burst out as he and the Major had stood on the steps of the Schoolhouse, "do you like him?"
"Who? Dalton?"
"Yes."
"He's not a man's man," the Major said, "and he doesn't care in the least what you and I think of him."
"Doesn't he?"
"No, and he doesn't care for—stuffed birds—and he doesn't care for the Judge, and he doesn't care for Mrs. Beaufort——"
"Oh, you needn't rub it in. I know what he's after."
"Do you?"
"Yes——"
The Major whistled softly a lilting tune. He had been called "The Whistling Major" by his men and they had liked his clear piping.
He stopped abruptly. "Well, you can't build fences around lovely little ladies——"
"I wish I could. I'd like to shut her up in a tower——"
They left it there. It was really not a thing to be talked about. They both knew it, and stopped in time.
Randy, climbing the outside stairs, presently, to his bedroom, turned at the upper landing to survey the scene spread out before him. The hills were steeped in silence. The world was black and gold—the fragrance of the honeysuckle came up from the hedge below. On such a night as this one could not sleep. He felt himself restless, emotionally keyed up. He descended the stairs. Then, suddenly, he found himself taking the trail back towards Huntersfield.
He walked easily, following the path which led across the hills. The distance was not great, and he had often walked it. He loved a night like this. As he came to a stretch of woodland, he went under the trees with the thrill of one who enters an enchanted forest.
An owl hooted overhead. A whip-poor-will in a distant swamp sounded his plaintive call.
Randy could not have analyzed the instinct which sent him back to Becky. It was not in the least to spy upon her, nor upon Dalton. He only knew that he could not sleep, that something drew him on and on, as Romeo was drawn perchance to Capulet's orchard.
He came out from under the trees to other hills. He was still on his own land. These acres had belonged to his father, his grandfather, his great-grandfather, and back of that to a certain gallant gentleman who had come to Virginia with grants from the King. There had been, too, a great chief, whose blood was in his veins, and who had roamed through this land before Europe knew it. Powhatan was a rare old name to link with one's own, and Randy had a Virginian's pride in his savage strain.
So, as he went along, he saw canoes upon the shining river. He saw tall forms with feathers blowing. He saw fires on the heights.
The hill in front of him dipped to a little stream. He and Becky had once waded in that stream together. How white her feet had been on the brown stones. His life, as he thought of it, was bound up in memories of Becky. She had come down from school for blissful week-ends and holidays, and she and Randy had tramped over the hills and through the pine woods, finding wild-flowers in the spring, arbutus, flushing to beauty in its hidden bed, blood-root, hepatica, wind-flowers, violets in a purple glory; finding in the summer wild roses, dewberries, blackberries, bees and butterflies, the cool shade of the little groves, the shine and shimmer of the streams; finding in the fall a golden stillness and the redness of Virginia Creeper. They had ridden on horseback over the clay roads, they had roamed the stubble with a pack of wiry hounds at their heels, they had gathered Christmas greens, they had sung carols, they had watched the Old Year out and the New Year in, and their souls had been knit in a comradeship which had been a very fine thing indeed for a boy like Randy and a girl like Becky.
There had been, too, about their friendship a rather engaging seriousness. They had talked a great deal of futures. They had dreamed together very great dreams. Their dreams had, of course, changed from time to time. There had been that dream of Becky's when she first went to the convent, that she wanted some day to be a nun like Sister Loretto. The fact that it would involve a change of faith was thrashed over flamingly by Randy. "It is all very well for an old woman, Becky. But you'd hate it."
Becky had been sure that she would not hate it. "You don't know how lovely she looks in the chapel."
"Well, there are other ways to look lovely."
"But it would be nice to be—good."
"You are good enough."
"I am not really, Randy. Sister Loretto says her prayers all day——"
"How often do you say yours?"
"Oh, at night. And in the mornings—sometimes——"
"That's enough for anybody. If you say them hard enough once, what more can the Lord ask?"
He had been a rather fierce figure as he had flung his questions, but he had not swerved her in the least from her thought of herself as a novice in a white veil, and later as a full-fledged sister, with beads and a black head-dress.
This dream had, in time, been supplanted by one imposed upon her by the ambitions of a much-admired classmate.
"Maude and I are going to be doctors," Becky had announced as she and Randy had walked over the fields with the hounds at their heels. "It's a great opportunity for women, Randy, and we shall study in Philadelphia."
"Shall you like cutting people up?" he had demanded brutally.
She had shuddered. "I shan't have to cut them up very much, shall I?"
"You'll have to cut them up a lot. All doctors do, and sometimes they are dead."
She had argued a bit shakily after that, and that night she had slept badly. The next morning they had gone over it again. "You fainted when the kitten's paw was crushed in the door."
"It was dreadful——"
"And you cried when I cut my foot with the hatchet and we were out in the woods. And if you are going to be a doctor you'll have to look at people who are crushed and cut——"
"Oh, please, Randy——"
Three days of such intensive argument had settled it. Becky decided that it was, after all, better to be an authoress. "There was Louisa Alcott, you know, Randy."
He was scornful. "Women weren't made for that—to sit in an attic and write. Why do you keep talking about doing things, Becky? You'll get married when you grow up and that will be the end of it."
"I am not going to get married, Randy."
"Well, of course you will, and I shall marry and be a lawyer like my father, and perhaps I'll go to Congress."
Later he had a leaning towards the ministry. "If I preached I could make the world better, Becky."
That was the time when she had come down for Hallowe'en, and it was on Sunday evening that they had talked it over in the Bird Room at Huntersfield. There had been a smouldering fire on the wide hearth, and the Trumpeter Swan had stared down at them with shining eyes. They had been to church that morning and the text had been, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved."
"I want to make the world better, Becky,"
Randy had said in the still twilight, and Becky had answered in an awed tone, "It would be so splendid to see you in the pulpit, Randy, wearing a gown like Dr. Hodge."
But the pulpit to Randy had meant more than that. And the next day when they walked through the deserted mill town, he had said, "Everybody is dead who lived here, and once they were alive like us."
She had shivered, "I don't like to think of it."
"It's a thing we've all got to think of. I like to remember that Thomas Jefferson came riding through and stopped at the mill and talked to the miller."
"How dreadful to know that they are—dead."
"Mother says that men like Jefferson never die. Their souls go marching on."
The stream which ground the county's corn was at their feet. "But what about the miller?" Becky had asked; "does his soul march, too?"
Randy, with the burden of yesterday's sermon upon him, hoped that the miller was saved.
He smiled now as he thought of the rigidness of his boyish theology. To him in those days Heaven was Heaven and Hell was Hell.
The years at school had brought doubt—apostasy. Then on the fields of France, Randy's God had come back to him—the Christ who bound up wounds, who gave a cup of cold water, who fought with flaming sword against the battalions of brutality, who led up and up that white company who gave their lives for a glorious Cause. Here, indeed, was a God of righteousness and of justice, of tenderness and purity. To other men than Randy, Christ had in a very personal and specific sense been born across the sea.
It was in France, too, that the dream had come to him of a future of creative purpose. He had always wanted to write. Looking back over his University days, he was aware of a formative process which had led towards this end. It was there he had communed with the spirit of a tragic muse. There had been all the traditions of Poe and his tempestuous youth—and Randy, passing the door which had once opened and closed on that dark figure, had felt the thrill of a living personality—of one who spoke still in lines of ineffable beauty—"Banners yellow, glorious, golden. On its roof did float and flow——" and again "A dirge for her the doubly dead, in that she died so young——" with the gayety and gloom and grandeur of those chiming, rhyming, tolling bells—"Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme——" and that "grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore——"
"Do you think I could write?" Randy had asked one of his teachers, coming verse-saturated to the question.
The man had looked at him with somber eyes. "You have an ear for it—and an eye—— But genius pays a price."
"What do you mean?"
"It shows its heart to the world, dissects its sacred thoughts, has no secrets——"
"But think of leaving a thing behind you like—'To Helen——'"
"Do you think the knowledge that he had written a few bits of incomparable verse helped Poe to live? If he had invented a pill or a headache powder, he would have slept on down and have dined from gold dishes."
"I'd rather write 'Ulalume' than dine from gold dishes."
"You think that now. But in twenty years you will sigh for a—feather bed——"
"You don't believe that."
There had come a lighting of the somber eyes. "My dear fellow, if you, by the grace of God, have it in you to write, what I believe won't have anything to do with it. You will crucify yourself for the sake of a line—starve for the love of a rhythm."
Randy had not yet starved for love of a rhythm, but he had lost sleep during those nights in France, trying to put into words the things that gripped his soul. There had been beauty as well as horror in those days. What a world it had been, a world of men—a striving, eager group, raised for the moment above sordidness, above self——
He had not found verse his medium, although he had drunk eagerly of the golden cups which others had to offer him. But his prose had gained because of his belief in beauty of structure and of singing lovely words. As yet he had nothing to show for his pains, but practice had given strength to his pen—he felt that some day with the right theme he might do—wonders——
The trees had again closed in about him. A shadow flitted by—a fox, unafraid and in search of a belated meal. Randy remembered the days when he and Becky had thought that there might be wolves in the forest. He laughed a little, recalling Becky's words. "Sister Loretto has the feeling that the world is a dark forest, and that I am Red Riding Hood." Was it that which had brought him back? Was there, indeed, a Wolf?
When he reached Huntersfield, and the dogs barked, he had feared for the moment discovery. He was saved, however, by the friendly silence which followed that first note of alarm. The dogs knew him and followed him with wagging tails as he skirted the lawn and came at last to the gate which had closed a few minutes before on Dalton's car. He saw the Judge go in. Aunt Claudia, Becky—shadowy figures between the white pillars.
Then, after a moment, a room on the second floor was illumined. The shade was up and he saw the interior as one sees the scene of a play. There was the outline of a rose-colored canopy, the gleam of a mirror, the shine of polished wood, and in the center, Becky in pale blue, with a candle in her hand.
And as he saw her there, Randolph knew why he had come. To worship at a shrine. That was where Becky belonged—high above him. The flame of the candle was a sacred fire.
Madge came down the next morning dressed for her journey. "Oscar and Flora are going to take me as far as Washington in their car. They want you to make a fourth, Georgie."
Dalton was eating alone. Breakfast was served at small tables on the west terrace. There was a flagged stone space with wide awnings overhead. Except that it overlooked a formal garden instead of streets, one might have been in a Parisian cafe. The idea was Oscar's. Dalton had laughed at him. "You'll be aboulevardier, Oscar, until you die."
Oscar had been sulky. "Well, how do you want me to do it?"
"Breakfast in bed—or in a breakfast room with things hot on the sideboard, luncheon, out here on the terrace when the weather permits, tea in the garden, dinner in great state in the big dining-room."
"I suppose you think you know all about it. But the thing that I am always asking myself is, were you born to it, Dalton?"
"I've been around a lot," Dalton evaded. "Of course if you don't want me to be perfectly frank with you, I won't."
"Be as frank as you please," Oscar had said, "but it's your air of knowing everything that gets me."
Dalton's breakfast was a hearty one—bacon and two eggs, and a pile of buttered toast. There had been a melon to begin with, and there was a pot of coffee. He was eating with an appetite when Madge came down.
"I had mine in bed," Madge said, as George rose and pulled out a chair for her. "Isn't this the beastliest fashion, having little tables?"
"That's what I told Oscar."
"Oscar and Flora will never have too much of restaurants. They belong to the class which finds all that it wants in a jazz band and scrambled eggs at Jack's at one o'clock in the morning. Georgie, in my next incarnation, I hope there won't be any dansants or night frolics. I'd like a May-pole in the sunshine and a lot of plump and rosy women and bluff and hearty men for my friends—with a fine old farmhouse and myself in the dairy making butter——"
George smiled at her. "I should have fancied you an Egyptian princess, with twin serpents above your forehead instead of that turban."
"Heavens, no. I want no ardours and no Anthonys. Tell me about the new little girl, Georgie."
"How do you know there is a—new little girl?"
"I know your tricks and your manners, and the way you managed to meet her at the Horse Show. And you saw her last night."
"How do you know?"
"By the light in your eyes."
"Do I show it like that? Well, she's rather—not to be talked about, Madge——"
She was not in the least affronted. "So that's it? You always begin that way—putting them on a pedestal—— If you'd only keep one of us there it might do you good."
"Which one—you?" he leaned a little forward.
"No." Indignation stirred within her. How easy it was for him to play the game. And last night she had lain long awake, listening for the sound of his motor. She had seen the moon set, and spectral dawn steal into the garden. "No, I'm running away. I am tired of drifting always on the tides of other people's inclination. We have stayed down here where it is hot because Oscar and Flora like it, yet there's all the coolness of the North Shore waiting for us——"
She rose and walked to the edge of the terrace. The garden was splashed now with clear color, purple and rose and gold. The air was oppressive, with a gathering haze back of the hills.
"I'm tired of it. Some day I'm going to flap my wings and fly away where you won't be able to find me, Georgie. I'd rather be a wild gull to the wind-swept sky, than a tame pigeon—to eat from your hand——" She said it lightly; this was not a moment for plaintiveness.
There was a dancing light in his eyes. "You're a golden pheasant—and you'll never fly so far that I shan't find you."
Oscar arriving at this moment saved a retort. "Flora's not well. We can't motor up, Madge."
"I am sorry but I can take a train."
"There's one at three. I don't see why you are going," irritably; "Flora won't stay here long after you leave."
"I am not as necessary as you think, Oscar. There are plenty of others, and I must go——"
"Oh, very well. Andrews will drive you down."
"I'll drive her myself," said Dalton.
Aunt Claudia was going to Washington also on the three o'clock train. She had had a wireless from Truxton who had sailed from Brest and would arrive at New York within the week.
"Of course you'll go and meet him, Aunt Claudia," Becky had said; "I'll help you to get your things ready."
Aunt Claudia, quite white and inwardly shaken by the thought of the happiness which was on its way to her, murmured her thanks.
Becky, divining something of the tumult which was beneath that outward show of serenity, patted the cushions of the couch in Mrs. Beaufort's bedroom. "Lie down here, you darling dear. It was such a surprise, wasn't it?"
"Well, my knees are weak," Mrs. Beaufort admitted.
The nuns had taught Becky nice ways and useful arts, so she folded and packed under Aunt Claudia's eye and was much applauded.
"Most girls in these days," said Mrs. Beaufort, "throw things in. Last summer I stayed at a house where the girls sat on their trunks to shut them, and sent parcel-post packages after them of the things they had left out."
"Sister Loretto says that I am not naturally tidy, so she keeps me at it. I used to weep my eyes out when she'd send me back to my room—— But crying doesn't do any good with Sister Loretto."
"Crying is never any good," said Aunt Claudia. She was of Spartan mold. "Crying only weakens. When things are so bad that you must cry, then do it where the world can't see."
Becky found herself thrilled by the thought of Aunt Claudia crying in secret. She was a martial little soul in spite of her distinctly feminine type of mind.
Aunt Claudia's lingerie, chastely French-embroidered in little scallops, with fresh white ribbons run in, was laid out on the bed in neat piles. There was also a gray corduroy dressing-gown, lined with silk.
"This will be too warm," Becky said; "please let me put in my white crepe house-coat. It will look so pretty, Aunt Claudia, when Truxton comes in the morning to kiss you——"
Aunt Claudia had been holding on to her emotions tightly. The thought of that morning kiss which for three dreadful years had been denied her—for three dreadful years she had not known whether Truxton would ever breeze into her room before breakfast with his "Mornin' Mums." She felt that if she allowed herself any softness or yielding at this moment she would spoil her spotless record of self-control and weep in maudlin fashion in Becky's arms.
So in self-defense, she spoke with coldness. "I never wear borrowed clothes, my dear."
Becky, somewhat dishevelled and warm from her exertions, sat down to argue it. "I haven't had it on. And I'd love to give it to you——"
"My dear, of course not. It's very generous of you—very——" Aunt Claudia buried her face suddenly in the pillows and sobbed stormily.
Becky stood up. "Oh, Aunt Claudia," she gasped. Then with the instinctive knowledge that silence was best, she gave her aunt a little pat on the shoulder and crept from the room.
She crept back presently and packed the crepe house-coat with the other things. Then, since Aunt Claudia made no sign, she went down-stairs to the kitchen.
Mandy, the cook, who had a complexion like an old copper cent, and who wore a white Dutch cap in place of the traditional bandana, was cutting corn from the cob for fritters.
"If you'll make a cup of tea," Becky said, "I'll take it up to Aunt Claudia. She's lying down."
"Is you goin' wid her?" Mandy asked.
"To New York? No. She'll want Truxton all to herself, Mandy."
"Well, I hopes she has him," Mandy husked an ear of corn viciously. "I ain' got my boy. He hol's his haid so high, he ain' got no time fo' his ol' Mammy."
"You know you are proud of him, Mandy."
"I ain' sayin' I is, and I ain' sayin' I isn't. But dat Daisy down the road, she ac' like she own him."
"Oh, Daisy? Is he in love with her?"
"Love," with withering scorn, "love? Ain' he got somefin' bettah to do than lovin' when he's jes' fit and fought fo' Uncle Sam?" She beat the eggs for her batter as if she had Daisy's head under the whip. "He fit and fought fo' Uncle Sam," she repeated, "and now he comes home and camps hisse'f on Daisy's do'-step."
Against the breeze of such high indignation, any argument would be blown away. Becky changed the subject hastily. "Mandy," she asked, "are you making corn fritters?"
"I is——"
"What else for lunch?"
"An omlec——"
"Mandy, I'm so hungry I could eat a house——"
"You look it," Mandy told her; "effen I was you, I'd eat and git fat."
"It isn't fashionable to be fat, Mandy."
"Skeletums may be in style," said Mandy, breaking eggs for the omelette, "but I ain' ever found good looks in bones."
"Don't you likemybones, Mandy?"
"You ain't got none, honey."
"You called me a skeleton."
The kettle boiled. "Effen I called you a skeletum," Mandy said as she placed a cup and saucer on a small napkined tray, "my min' was on dat-ar Daisy. You ain' got no bones, Miss Becky. But Daisy, she's got a neck like a picked tukkey, and her shoulder-blades stan' out like wings."
Becky went to the train with her aunt. George Dalton drove Madge down and passed the old surrey on the way.
Later Madge met Mrs. Beaufort and Becky on the station platform, and it was when Dalton settled her in her chair in the train that she said, "She's a darling. Keep her on a pedestal, Georgie——"
"You're a good sport," he told her; "you know you'd hate it if I did."
"I shouldn't. I'd like to think of you on your knees——"
It was time for him to leave her. She gave him her hand. "Until we meet again, Georgie."
Her eyes were cool and smiling. Yet later as she looked out on the flying hills, there was trouble in them. There had been a time when Dalton had seemed to square with her girlish dreams.
And now, there was no one to warn this other girl with dreams in her eyes. George was not a vulture, he was simply a marauding bee——!
Becky was already in the surrey when George came back, and Calvin was gathering up his reins.
"Oh, look here, I wish you'd let me drive you up, Miss Bannister," George said, sparkling; "there's no reason, is there, why you must ride alone?"
"Oh, no."
"Then you will?"
Her hesitation was slight. "I should like it."
"And can't we drive about a bit? You'll show me the old places? It is such a perfect day. I hope you haven't anything else to do."
She had not. "I'll go with Mr. Dalton, Calvin."
Calvin, who had watched over more than one generation of Bannister girls, and knew what was expected of them, made a worried protest.
"Hit's gwine rain, Miss Becky."
Dalton dismissed him with a wave of the hand. "I won't let her get wet," he lifted Becky from the surrey and walked with her to his car.
Kemp, who had come down in the house truck with Madge's trunks, stood stiff and straight by the door. Being off with Miss MacVeigh he was on with Miss Bannister. Girls might come and girls might go in his master's life, but Kemp had an air of going on forever.
When he had seated Becky, Dalton stepped back and gave hurried instructions.
"At four, Kemp," he said, "or if you are later, wait until we come."
"Very well, sir." Kemp stood statuesquely at attention until the car whirled on. Then he sat down on the station platform, and talked to the agent. He was no longer a servant but a man.
As the big car whirled up the hill, Becky, looking out upon the familiar landscape, saw it with new eyes. There was a light upon it which had never been for her on sea or land. She had not believed that in all the world there could be such singing, blossoming radiance.
They drove through the old mill town and the stream was bright under the willows. They stopped on the bridge for a moment to view the shining bend.
"There are old chimneys under the vines," Becky said; "doesn't it seem dreadful to think of all those dead houses——"
George gave a quick turn. "Why think of them? You were not made to think of dead houses, you were made to live."
On and on they went, up the hills and down into the valleys, between rail fences which were a riot of honeysuckle, and with the roads in places rough. Under their wheels, with the fields gold with stubble, the sky a faint blue, with that thick look on the horizon.
George talked a great deal about himself. Perhaps if he had listened instead to Becky he might have learned things which would have surprised him. But he really had very interesting things to tell, and Becky was content to sit in silence and watch his hands on the wheel. They were small hands, and for some tastes a bit too plump and well-kept, but Becky found no fault with them. She felt that she could sit there forever, and watch his hands and listen to his clear quick voice.
At last George glanced at the little clock which hung in front of him. "Look here," he said, "I told Kemp to have tea for us at a place which I found once when I walked in the woods. A sort of summer house which looks towards Monticello. Do you know it?"
"Yes. Pavilion Hill. It's on Randy Paine's plantation—King's Crest."
"Then you've been there?"
"A thousand times with Randy."
"I thought it was Waterman's. We shan't be jailed as trespassers, shall we?"
"No. But how could you tell your man to have tea for us when you didn't know that I'd be—willing?"
"But I did—know——"
A little silence, then "How?"
"Because when I put my mind on a thing I usually get my way."
She sat very still. He bent down to her. "You're not angry?"
"No." Her cheeks were flaming. She was thrilled by his masterfulness. No man had ever spoken to her like that. She was, indeed, having her first experience of ardent, impassioned pursuit. So might young Juliet have given ear to Romeo. And if Romeo had been a Georgie-Porgie, then alas, poor Juliet!
The Pavilion had been built a hundred and fifty years before of cedar logs. There had been a time when Thomas Jefferson had walked over to drink not tea, but something stronger with dead and gone Paines. Its four sides were open, but the vines formed a curtain which gave within a soft gloom. They approached it from the east side, getting out of their car and climbing the hill from the roadside. They found Kemp with everything ready. The kettle was boiling, and the tea measured into the Canton teapot which stood in its basket——
"Aren't you glad you came?" Dalton asked. "Kemp, when you've poured the tea, you can look after the car."
The wind, rising, tore the dry leaves from the trees. Kemp, exiled, as it were, from the Pavilion, sat in the big car and watched the gathering blackness. Finally he got out and put up the curtains. Everything would be ready when Dalton came. He knew better, however, than to warn his master. George was apt to be sharp when his plans were spoiled.
And now throughout the wooded slope there was the restless movement of nature disturbed in the midst of peaceful dreaming. The trees bent and whispered. The birds, flying low, called sharp warnings. A small dog, spurning the leaves, as she followed a path up the west side of the hill, stopped suddenly and looked back at the man who followed her.
"We'll make the Pavilion if we can, old girl," he told her, and as if she understood, she went up and up in a straight line, disregarding the temptation of side tours into bush and bramble.
George and Becky had finished their tea. There had been some rather delectable sweet biscuit which Kemp kept on hand for such occasions, and there was a small round box of glacé nuts, which George had insisted that Becky must keep. The box was of blue silk set off by gold lace and small pink roses.
"Blue is your color," George had said as he presented it.
"That's what Randy says."
"You are always talking of Randy."
She looked her surprise. "I've always known him."
"Is he in love with you?"
She set down the box and looked at him. "Randy is only a boy. I am very fond of him. But we aren't either of us—silly."
She brought the last sentence out with such scorn that George had a moment of startled amaze.
Then, recovering, he said with a smile, "Is being in love silly?"
"I think it's rather sacred——"
The word threw him back upon himself. Love was, you understand, to George, a game. And, here was Becky acting as if it were a ritual.
Yet the novelty of her point of view made her seem more than ever adorable. In his heart he found himself saying, "Oh, you lovely, lovely little thing."
But he did not say it aloud. Indeed he, quite unaccountably, found himself unable to say anything, and while he hesitated, there charged up the west hill a panting dog with flapping ears. At the arched opening of the Pavilion she paused and wagged a tentative question.
"It's Nellie Custis——" Becky rose and ran towards her. "Where's your master, darling?Randy——"
In response to her call came an eerie cry—the old war cry of the Indian chiefs. Then young Paine came running up. "Becky! Here? There's going to be a storm. You better get home——"
He stopped short. Dalton was standing by the folding table.
"Hello, Paine," he said, with ease. "We're playing 'Babes in the Wood.'"
"You seem very comfortable," Randy was as stiff as a wooden tobacco sign.
"We are," Becky said. "Mr. Dalton waved his wand like the Arabian nights——"
"My man did it," said Dalton; "he's down there in the car."
Randy felt a sense of surging rage. The Pavilion was his. It was old and vine-covered, and hallowed by a thousand memories. And here was Dalton trespassing with his tables and chairs and his Canton teapot. What right had George Dalton to bring a Canton teapot on another man's acres?
Becky was pouring tea for him. "Two lumps, Randy?"
"I don't want any tea," he said ungraciously. His eyes were appraising the flame of her cheeks, the light in her eyes. What had Dalton been saying? "I don't want any tea. And there's a storm coming."
All her life Becky had been terrified in a storm. She had cowered and shivered at the first flash of lightning, at the first rush of wind, at the first roll of thunder. And now she sat serene, while the trees waved despairing arms to a furious sky, while blackness settled over the earth, while her ears were assailed by the noise of a thousand guns.
What had come over her? More than anything else, the thing that struck against Randy's heart was this lack of fear in Becky!