CHAPTER IIITHE POINT OF HONOR
WHILE it was yet dark on Christmas morning, the silvery notes of a bugle, like the horns of elfland, floated out upon the wintry fields, the black flowing river, and lost itself in the echoing woods and far-off uplands. It was the signal for the awakening of life upon the estate. The bugle was played by Hector from his bachelor quarters over the carriage house. Hector scorned matrimony and, like Benedick, thought he should not live until he were married. It was Hector’s duty by this call to rouse the sleeping black people—a duty which he cheerfully and punctually performed and then went back to his own bed to snooze comfortably until he felt like getting up to perform his sole, regular duty in life—the shaving of Colonel Tremaine.
On Christmas morning, however, all were awake before the sounding of the bugle call; candles and fires were lighted in the old house and crowds of negro children with shining eyes and gleaming teeth came trooping in the early dawn toward the old mansion. Shouts of laughter resounded, the older negroes appearing and joining in the merry hubbub and laughing excitement. Santa Claus for them was in the hall of Harrowby, where were piled up gifts for everyone onthe estate. Each negro child was given a coarse woolen stocking filled to the top with sweets, and in each stocking was a switch which was understood as an admonishment to good behavior. The dogs about the place waked; long, lean, red deerhounds and short-legged beagles, all yelping and barking in unison. Within the house, as each servant entered the sleeping rooms to make the fires, the occupant was greeted with “Chris’mus gif’,” “Chris’mus gif’,” the theory being that the first who claimed a Christmas gift should get it. There was no more sleeping in the house after daylight. By seven o’clock all were up and dressed and the hall doors were opened for the negroes to come in and get their Christmas gifts. These were distributed by Angela and Archie, the children of the house.
It was a happy, noisy, primitive occasion and had about it the true Christmas spirit, the making of a holiday for each dependent. After the younger negroes had departed, half a dozen old negro men, the veterans of the place, long since retired from work, remained to have a glass of apple toddy with Colonel Tremaine. The great family punch bowl was filled with this concoction of apple brandy, sugar, and roasted apples. And Colonel Tremaine, filling the glass of each of the old men, wished him health and long life, to which each responded with the politeness characteristic of his race, “Sarvint, suh, the same to you, suh, an’ ole Missis an’ young Marse an’ de little Missis.” Hector departed from this form as not being elegant enough for a person who had been to Richmond, Baltimore, had seen a panorama of the city of New York, and who had accompaniedhis master during the Mexican War, and always answered as follows: “Colonel Tremaine’s felicitations. I beg, suh, you will accept, suh, the assurances of my distinguished consideration,” a phrase which he had mastered with great effort and which invariably revealed how much liquor Hector had imbibed. He was able to say it without hesitation at taking his first swig of apple toddy in the morning, but was likely to become a little mixed in his phrasing as the day wore on.
Breakfast was late, and as there was to be a large dinner at five o’clock, the fashionable hour of the day, and a dance in the evening, there was much to be done by the house servants. But the negroes, like all their race, reckoned it a holiday when they were preparing for a festival. As the case was under the oldrégime, the burden of preparation fell upon Mrs. Tremaine and Angela. Colonel Tremaine, his three sons, and Lyddon went for a long ride in the morning for the express purpose of being out of the way while the making ready for the dinner and the dance created turmoil in the house. Mrs. Tremaine, with a masterly hand and with Angela to assist her, carried through the infinite details of the work of preparation for a hundred persons, where everything had to be done with only the forces and implements of one household. Hector, as usual, in his determination to save Tasso and Jim Henry from the danger of strong drink, had consumed the remainder of the apple toddy himself and, in consequence, soon took no note of time or anything else, mislaid his keys, misplaced everything he touched, and, although barely able to keep his feet, harangued eloquently upon thesin of drunkenness. Mrs. Tremaine had struggled with this complication for thirty-five years and encountered it as usual with patience and authority. In spite of Hector everything was in readiness by four o’clock, for, as the guests came from considerable distances, they were liable to arrive half an hour before the time or half an hour afterward.
At four o’clock Angela, dressed for the festivity, took the last look in her mirror with the happy satisfaction of a nineteen-year-old girl. She wore a gown of pale blue of trailing length; wide sleeves with frills of filmy lace fell back from her slender arms. Her gown was cut away squarely back and front like one she had seen in an old print of a Romney portrait. Her delicate throat and neck were thin but exquisitely white. She had longed for a headdress of lace and flowers, such as Mrs. Tremaine wore, but that had been forbidden as being too old, and she had only been permitted to twine a long strand of gold beads in and out among the masses of her chestnut hair. She passed out of her room and as she reached the top of the staircase the hall door opened and Neville entered in his riding dress. He walked slowly toward the staircase, keeping his eyes fixed upon Angela as she came down the stairs. She was smiling and blushing with the self-consciousness of first youth and fixed her laughing eyes on Neville as the nearest masculine object in view from whom to exact tribute. The tribute, however, was readily paid and in a coin upon which Angela had not counted. As they met upon the broad landing of the stairs there was a look in Neville’s eyes which Angela had never seenthere before; love had taken the place of kindness, Neville did what he had never done before in his life to her—took her little hand in his and raised it to his lips. Like all women, she recognized the master passion at the first glance and under all disguises. Neville in an instant of time had changed from the indulgent elder brother, the friend, the grown-up companion of her childhood, and had become her lover, a being to be reckoned with and different in many ways. The feeling was not one of rapture to Angela any more than an electric shock is rapture.
“How pretty you are, Angela!” said Neville, still holding her hand. Angela, with a scarlet face, tried to hark back to their old relations.
“It is the first time you ever called me pretty in my life,” she said. “I remember how furious I was once a long time ago when I heard you telling Aunt Sophia that you didn’t believe I should ever have any good looks, I was so—skinny.”
“It must, indeed, have been a long time ago,” answered Neville in the tone of a lover. “The truth is, Angela, you are to-day grown up for the first time. Until now you have been a child, but after this you will be a child no longer, for you are loved by a man—by me.” The words had come involuntarily and the next moment Neville called himself a fool a thousand times over for taking such a place and such a time to make such an acknowledgment. Richard Tremaine had suddenly entered the hall by a small door close to the stairs and coming rapidly up the steps caught Neville and Angela standing hand in hand with every evidenceof guilt. Neville dropped Angela’s hand and scowled at Richard, who gave one comprehensive glance at Angela’s crimson, downcast face, and then, turning to Neville, winked portentously. Angela, turning from them both, ran lightly down the stairs while Richard followed Neville back down the stairs into his own room. The brothers had adjoining rooms, small and low, on the ground floor in the old part of the house and next the study. There was a door of communication between the two rooms which always stood open. When the brothers were alone, Neville condescended to smile a little as Richard said laughing, “By Jove, I didn’t mean to do such an ungentlemanlike thing as interrupt a love scene.”
“And I didn’t mean to make it a love scene,” responded Neville grimly.
“Oh, never mind, old fellow, those things will happen, you know! I knew a man once who made an offer to a girl at twelve o’clock on the Fourth of July in front of the custom house in New Orleans and they were married and lived happy ever after. I hope this affair may turn out likewise.”
“But it is no merry jest, as you know, Richard. This may be the last Christmas I shall ever be permitted to spend under my father’s roof. When I see and feel my mother’s tenderness, my father’s kindness, and know how it may change in the twinkling of an eye, it staggers me.”
“I shall not change,” replied Richard briefly. And the two brothers clasped hands for a moment. Whatever else might be torn apart, the tie of brotherly lovecould never be severed. When Neville spoke next it was only to tell Richard what he had known before.
“If Virginia goes out of the Union,” he said, “I shall not resign from the army. Of course, I want to and would if my conscience permitted, but I can’t. I have gone all over it a thousand times; everything draws me to the South, even my own interests. My position in the United States Army will be a frightful one. I shall be hated by my own people and distrusted by those with whom I must remain. I shan’t have the approval of anyone except”—he struck himself on the breast—“here.”
“Have you reasoned it out, Neville? Do you think it can be possible that you alone should be right and nine-tenths of the men in your position, nay, ninety-nine out of a hundred, should be wrong?”
“I am a soldier, Richard. I haven’t your subtlety. I can only ask myself this question, ‘Does the oath I took on entering the army still bind me?’ I feel that it does. Incidentally, this course wrecks me, but if I do otherwise, my honor is wrecked.”
There was a pause as the two brothers stood facing each other in the little room with its small windows filled with the dull glow of the dying December sun. They loved each other well and it seemed as if the hour of separation and doom were coming fast. Their intimacy was such that although their first parting had come when Neville was seventeen and Richard but sixteen, it had made not the smallest change in either. Each had many friends, but his intimates, except Philip Isabey, were found only under the roof tree of Harrowby.Both men grew pale as they stood silent and reflective. Then Richard said: “It is just as well to keep it from our father——”
“And from our mother.”
“Yes, by all means from our mother.”
“Think how strange it is when I leave Harrowby this time, I don’t know whether I shall ever be permitted to come here again.”
“At least, while you are here you are the favored son. Yes, Neville, mother loves you better than anything on earth and father is more in sympathy with you than with me because he loves military life. I am not thinking so much of you as I am of them. Great God, what a deathblow they must receive!” Richard turned and went into the next room.
Neville walked to the window and looked out upon the sweet, familiar landscape now all red and gold in the declining afternoon. He peopled it with all the events of his boyhood and youth and through all was a vision of Angela in her little white frock—the spoiled darling of the family. Mrs. Tremaine was a good disciplinarian and her own three sons were brought up under wholesome restraint, but Angela, being fatherless, motherless, and penniless, had been treated with an indulgence which would have ruined an ordinary nature. Neville remembered with a smile that on the few occasions when Mrs. Tremaine had undertaken to administer some mild punishment to the child, Colonel Tremaine had always frowned and called Mrs. Tremaine “Sophia” during the rest of the day. And when Archie and Angela had got into mischief together, justicewas sternly meted out to Archie while Angela was always let off with a promise to be good in the future. But under this excess of kindness Angela had developed as a peach ripens on the sunny side of a wall. Neville glanced through the open door and saw Richard, still in his riding clothes, sitting before the fire with his feet stretched out to the blaze. He was reflecting upon the blow which was to fall at Harrowby. Neville went into his brother’s room and, leaning against the mantelpiece, said: “When I go away, take care of Angela for me.”
“I had forgotten all about Angela,” answered Richard frankly. “I was thinking of our father and mother.”
“You must think also of Angela; she will have her share of pain—that is, if she stands by me.”
Neither had noticed how the time had passed or that the early twilight of winter had fallen upon them until Peter, Richard’s boy, suddenly burst into the room and cried out, “Good Gord A’might’, Marse Richard, de company is comin’ an’ Unc’ Hector he done knocked ober an’ broke one o’ ole Marse’ bes’ decanters, an’ Missis say fur de Lord’s sake to come in ’long to her right ’way.”
The company had come indeed, and by the time Richard and Neville had scrambled through their dressing, the whole party was assembled in the drawing-room—a fine large apartment with many mirrors and a grand piano as large as a small house. The guests were the usual types of country gentry; the men, full-blooded, hard-riding, and sometimes hard-drinking, but full of an Old World courtesy and grace; the women, gentle,soft-voiced, with a certain provincial grace. Mrs. Tremaine, in a brown brocade with fine old lace and a lace headdress which was admired and envied by Angela, wore an air of serene triumph as the mothers of sons always wear. As the young men came in and greeted their guests, Neville was overwhelmed with kindly welcome. He came from the great outside world which was strange to most of these people, whose travels rarely extended beyond Baltimore in one direction and the White Sulphur Springs in another. Standing close to Mrs. Tremaine was Mrs. Charteris, her friend and schoolmate, the richest widow in five counties, with one only son, a boy not yet eighteen years of age. Neville greeted her with fine courtesy and Richard with charming impudence, and kissing her on the cheek, inquired when her wedding would come off with Mr. Brand, the rector of Petworth Church. As this affair had been going on for at least twenty years and Mr. Brand had made no perceptible headway, it had become a county joke.
“I declare the impudence of the young men of the present day is perfectly intolerable,” cried Mrs. Charteris, delighted with Richard’s presumption. “There’s Mr. Brand now, just coming in. Go and ask him.”
The rector, who was at that time shaking hands with Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine, was the tallest and by all odds the handsomest man in the room, with a voice of melodious thunder, and it may be added that Mr. Brand was commonly considered the most chicken-hearted of his species. He escaped from Colonel Tremaine’s bowing and scraping and elaborate welcome to march over to hisinamorata, Mrs. Charteris, who, like the rest of her sex, enjoyed tormenting a lover and promptly hit upon the subject most painful to the rector’s feelings.
“Well, Mr. Brand,” she cried, “I sympathize with you more than I can express. We all know your warlike spirit and that you would be in the forefront of the hottest battle if you could, but Colonel Tremaine has just been telling us that when the war breaks out only the services of men under forty-five years will be required. Of course, however, you can volunteer, and with your splendid physique, you are certain to be accepted.”
Mr. Brand winced. He was oratorically patriotic and took the ground that when the conflict came, every able-bodied man should shoulder his musket and go to the front, that is to say, except himself. Moreover, his age, which was well beyond the fifty mark, was a tender point with him, and it was exactly like Mrs. Charteris, who was a notorious meddler, to be raking up these unpleasant subjects and laughing irreverently.
“My calling, my dear Mrs. Charteris,” began Mr. Brand lamely. “My cloth——”
“Oh, chaplains will be needed in our armies; you don’t suppose that the Southern soldiers will be a set of heathens, do you? And you can have a chance to march——”
“And sleep in the mud and catch rheumatism and starve——”
“And be a target for Yankee bullets like the rest of us,” added Richard Tremaine maliciously, who was a secret partisan of Mrs. Charteris. The conversation then grew general all about the coming war. The news ofSouth Carolina’s secession was still fresh and vivid, and it was realized that the parting of the ways had come. The ladies professed their willingness to wear their old hats and bonnets indefinitely, to scrape up all the linen sheets for lint and to outdo the women of the French Revolution in patriotism. The gentlemen encouraged the ladies by their laughter and applause except Neville Tremaine, but as he was usually a reticent man, no one was surprised at his silence. Mrs. Tremaine, as the mother of two gallant sons to give the Cause, assumed unconsciously the arrogance of proud motherhood and exchanged strange glances with Mrs. Charteris, who with one seventeen-year-old boy knew herself to be envious of the other woman.
It was after five o’clock before the last belated carriage load had arrived and the guests were marshaled into the dining room. A great table, bright with candles, was laid the full length of the room with side tables at intervals where the younger and merrier members of the party sat. It was a feast which would have delighted a Crusader. A huge turkey was set before Colonel Tremaine, who with elaborate apologies to the whole table, was forced to rise in order to carve the gigantic bird. Everything eatable that grew in the earth or walked upon it or could be found in the depths of the sea or winged its way through the air was found upon that Virginia dinner table. Hector was still able to keep his feet in spite of halcyon incursions upon the bowl of apple toddy in the hall, and was in great form and imitated with more than usual success all of Colonel Tremaine’s affectations. He spilled the wine upon the cloth, liberally distributed gravyover some of the ladies’ dresses, and in a fit of absent-mindedness served the custard with the ham. But these trifles were borne suavely by all present except Lyddon, who reckoned Hector to be about as much use in the world as the fifth wheel to a coach or a second tail to a dog. There was much laughter, as became a Christmas feast, and Mrs. Tremaine, with a pride which she called humility, recognized that of all the young men present, her two sons easily bore away the palm. They had seats at the main table, but Angela with Archie and half a dozen youngsters were seated at the side tables.
Angela was glad of this until she found that she was in full view of Neville across the room, and instantly she became conscious of his observation. As the dinner progressed the war talk increased, and as the wine circulated freely and the decanters spun around the table upon the old-fashioned coasters, the conversation grew louder and graver. The war spirit in this people was strong. They loved fighting for fighting’s sake, and were eager to begin the conflict. The last stupendous course, a huge plum pudding, having been served, according to the old custom, the cloth was removed and the shining mahogany table bore only the nuts and wine. Then the drinking of toasts began. Colonel Tremaine’s usually pale and high-bred face was flushed, as it might well be after such a Christmas dinner and Christmas wine, and it grew still more so when he proposed a toast.
“My friends,” said he, “let us drink to the gallant State of South Carolina. She has shown us the way, and Virginia will soon follow. Let us drink this toast with all honors.” He rose and there was the noise of thirty personspushing back their chairs and coming to their feet. All glasses were filled and raised except one, and that was Neville Tremaine’s. Colonel Tremaine looked at him inquiringly, and Neville, smiling, said pleasantly to his father, “You, sir, as a soldier understand that as long as Virginia stays in the Union, I, as an officer of the United States Army, cannot drink the toast you propose.”
“Certainly,” answered Colonel Tremaine quickly. “You are excused, my son. We understand perfectly how you are situated at present, but the day will come when you will be able to drink to this sentiment with us.” The toast was drunk standing and then Mrs. Tremaine in a soft, clear voice at the head of the table added:
“And let us now drink to secession.” At this there was a burst of applause, and Mrs. Tremaine, sipping the last of her wine, did what only a woman bursting with patriotism could do, struck the slender stem of the wine glass on the edge of the table and smashed it to bits. Mrs. Charteris raised her hand.
“Spare the wine glasses,” she cried. “They’re cut glass, every one of them, and the breaking of one is enough to show Sophie Tremaine’s patriotism.”
The wine glasses were spared, but the fighting spirit was mightily increased by this simple action on Mrs. Tremaine’s part. By the time thirty persons had been served the fiddles were heard tuning up in the hall. There Uncle Josh, the plantation fiddler, with a couple of hirelings were running the bows across the strings. Other guests were arriving for the evening party. And to them coming from long distances in the December evening, another kind of a meal had to be immediately served;hot biscuits, sandwiches, and coffee were reckoned to be a mere appetizer for the substantial supper which was due at midnight. Ladies muffled up in wraps and gentlemen in riding cloaks were pouring in a steady stream up the broad stairs and in a little while the large drawing-room was full, while in the library the card tables were set out for the elderly persons who liked a quiet rubber. The hall into which the piano had been wheeled was given up to the dancers, and half a dozen sets of quadrilles were formed. In those days gentlemen of all ages danced and usually made havoc in the lancers, which were just then coming into fashion, and of which the figures were only perfectly done by the young and modish. General round dancing was considered improper, and when Uncle Josh and his postulants played the few waltzes and polkas and schottisches in their repertory, girls danced with each other or with their brothers.
The apple toddy was going steadily the whole evening. In that day and time it was thought a mark of spirit in a man to become what was euphemistically called “a little mellow.” Colonel Tremaine was decidedly mellow and Mr. Brand mellower still. Dr. Yelverton, the great medical luminary of the county, had already requested Hector’s assistance up the stairs to the gentlemen’s dressing room, where he proposed to take a short nap. Hector, who was the mellowest man at Harrowby, attempted to assist the doctor up the steps, and but for Lyddon, who sustained them both, the pair would have come to grief on the first landing. Other elderly gentlemen did the double shuffle and cut pigeon wings after the manner of 1830, and several, following Dr. Yelverton’s example,sought refuge at various times in the haven of the dressing room. About three o’clock in the morning, after seven hours of continuous dancing, the move was made to break up so that the driving home along the country roads could be made by the light of a late moon. Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine pressed each guest who hinted at departure to remain longer, but at last the order was given to play the reel with which all Virginia parties break up. This was the great dance of the evening, and the fiddlers put renewed energy into their sawing and scraping. Every gentleman asking a lady’s hand for the reel paid her a special compliment. Neville had danced with every lady in the room except Angela, but early in the evening he had whispered to her, “You’ll save the reel for me, won’t you?” And Angela had replied out loud, “Yes.” No one was excused from this last dance; even Lyddon, the most awkward man alive, was pressed into service and forced to walk through it. Colonel Tremaine led with Mrs. Charteris and executed the most beautiful and difficult steps ever seen, meanwhile blowing kisses to the ladies. When the march figure was executed, the rhythmic hand-clapping accentuated the music and put new life into the fiddlers. As the partners of the dance were in full view every moment, there was no opportunity for Neville to exchange a word with Angela, but as they passed fleetly down the middle she felt the warm pressure of his hand. It was an hour before the reel was over, and then when the last strain was played and the formation broken up, Angela, running up to Colonel Tremaine, whispered something in his ear. Then she went to the piano, and Archie, following a signal, appeared with his violin andbow in his hand. Colonel Tremaine in a voice as mellow as himself called out:
“My friends, one thing more remains for this Christmas night. The daughter of our family and my youngest son have made themselves proficient in the new patriotic air called ‘Dixie,’ which is destined to become the national air of the South, and they will now have pleasure in performing it for you.” The voices and bustle of a crowd of persons stopped instantly, and Angela, playing the opening chord of ‘Dixie,’ Archie struck into the first inspiring strain of the air. The two played it through with immense fire and spirit and then a storm of applause burst forth. Gentlemen shook hands, ladies clasped each other and fell into a rapture of hand-clapping and cries of applause. The air had to be repeated a half dozen times, and each time the tempest of enthusiasm rose and swept with magic force the souls and hearts of all present. Two persons alone were excepted, Neville Tremaine and Lyddon. They stood together near the fireplace while the music and cheering echoed around them and exchanged significant glances. “It is theça iraof to-day,” said Lyddon in Neville’s ear.
At last, after an hour of excitement, enthusiasm, laughter, cheering, and glorious anticipation of victory, the last guest had driven off, and the ghostly light of a pallid moon and the dawn was creeping in at the windows. The candles had burnt down in their sockets and the hall fire was low when the Harrowby family said good night, or rather good morning. Lyddon noticed that Angela, although in appearance so fragile, seemed as fresh as when the dancing had begun eight hoursbefore, and in fact she and Archie, after the fiddlers had gone, danced a final polka without music and had to be sent ignominiously to their rooms by Mrs. Tremaine’s authority. When Lyddon with Richard and Neville went into the study for a smoke before a three hours’ morning nap, they found Hector snoring comfortably on the hearth rug.
“I wonder if any people in the world except you easy-going Virginians would stand this sort of thing?” said Lyddon, who had never been able to accustom himself to the spectacle of a butler who had got tipsy on every possible occasion for forty years.
“Oh, that’s nothing!” replied Richard easily. “You never have understood our peculiar institution, Mr. Lyddon; it is strictly feudal, you know!”
“It is a little too infernally feudal for me,” replied Lyddon. “It is worse than the feudalism in the Highlands of Scotland.”