Kate Beaumont
CHAPTER XXIV.
ASLEEP, comfortably and for the time unwakably asleep, lay Randolph Armitage on the damp mossy turf of the forest, not a scratch upon him from Sam Hicks’s bullets, all gone astray in the uncertain moonlight.
He was gathered up, borne to his horse, set astride behind Quash, tightly bound to him, and thus taken home. Transportation of this sort being naturally slow, it was two or three in the morning before Redhead Saxon got clear of his responsibility, stealthily depositing this senseless lump of humanity in its usual place of storage, and then hurrying away on guilty tiptoes after the fashion of boon-companions who bring home drunkards. All this time nothing could waken Armitage ; he would open his eyes under shaking and keep them open, but he still slumbered on ; he was a limp, inert, inconvenient mass of stupor The moderately affectionate and immoderately lazy Quash simply laid him on a sofa and covered him with a shawl. Then, with the thoughtlessness of discovery and of consequences characteristic of slaves, at least when they are negroes, he stretched himself on the bare floor and went to sleep, without so much as locking the door.
In this state the two were found at six in the morning by Nellie Armitage, who could not altogether repress anxiety to know whether her husband was alive. She gave him one glance, guessed with sufficient accuracy how he had spent the night, turned from him in quiet scorn, and awoke the blackamoor with her foot.
“ Where have you been with him ?” she asked.
“ Hain’t been nowhar,” responded Quash, lying without a moment’s thought and with infantile awkwardness, as “ niggers ” do.
“ How dare you tell me that ? Leave the room.”
As Quash crept out Kate Beaumont glided in, asking, “ Has he returned ? Is he hurt ? ”
Mrs. Armitage, shaken by a night of sleeplessness, lost control of herself in this emergency ; the weariness, the sorrow, the shame, and the scorn that were in her face turned at once into redhot anger, demanding utterance ; and though she at first raised her hand instinctively to check her sister’s advance, she immediately dropped it.
“ Come on,” she said. “ It is time to tell the truth. I have hidden my misery long enough. Come here and look at him. There is a husband ; that thing is a husband. What do you think of it ? ”
Armitage lay perfectly quiet ; indeed there was a look about him as if nothing on earth could move him ; he was the image of utter helplessness and clod-like insensibility. One eye was partly open, but there was a horrible glassiness and lifelessness in it, and it was obvious that he saw nothing. His face was colorless, except a faint tinting of bluish and yellowish shades, as if it were the countenance of a corpse. Yet in spite of this shocking metamorphosis, his features were so symmetrical that he was handsome still.
Kate, trembling from head to foot, stared at him without speaking. She had never before seen a man in the last stage of intoxication ; and in spite of what Nellie had said, she did not fully comprehend his condition.
“Oh ! " she exclaimed. “What is the matter with him ? Is he — dying ? ”
“ He is dead, — dead drunk,” replied the wife.
“ O no, Nellie ! ” implored Kate.
“To think how I have loved him ! ” Nellie went on. “That man has had all the good, all the best that was in my heart. He has had it and trampled on it and wasted it till it is gone. I can hate now, and I hate him.“
Kate joined her hands as if pleading with her sister to be silent.
“ No man ever had greater love ; no man ever despised greater love,” continued Nellie. “ I have seen the time when I could kneel and kiss the figures of the carpet which his feet had rested upon. I worshipped him ; even after I began to find out what he was, I worshipped him ; I passed years in forgiving and worshipping. Once, when he came home drunk, yes, when he came home to abuse me, I would watch over him all night in his stupid sleep, and forgive him the moment he spoke to me in the morning. O, how handsome he was in my eyes ! He fascinated me. That was it ; he was beautiful ; I could see nothing else. How I did love him for his beauty ! And now see how I hate him and despise him. I can take a mean and cowardly revenge on him.”
She suddenly advanced upon the senseless man, and slapped his face with her open hand.
“ O, you woman, what are you doing ? ” exclaimed Kate, seizing her and drawing her away. “ Nellie, I won’t love you!”
“Yes, I am hateful,” replied Nellie. “ Do you know why ? I can’t tell you half the reasons I have for being hateful. Look at that scar,” pointing to a mark on her forehead. “ I have never revealed to any one how I came to have that. He did it. He struck me with his doubled fist, and that gash was cut by the ring which I gave him. ”
Kate sat down, covered her face with her hands, and sobbed violently.
“It was not the only time,” pursued Nellie. “He had struck me before, and he has struck me since. And there have been other insults ; I would not have thought that I could have taken them ; but from him I have learned to take them. O, if my father and brothers knew! They guess, but they don’t know.”
“They would kill him, Nellie,”said Kate, looking up piteously, as if pleading for the man’s life.
“ I know it. But that is not all. I have become so savage, that it seems to me I would not mind that. What I care for is exposure. If they should shoot him, people would learn why. It would be known that I had failed; that Nellie Beaumont could not live with her husband ; that she could not lie on her bed after making it; that she had failed as a wife and a woman.”
“ Is there no such thing as separation?” asked Kate. She said it hesitatingly and with a sense of culpability, for the idea of breaking the marriage bond was shocking to her.
“ There is. But who would have the children ? Do you suppose I want to leave them here to grow up drunkards ? As long as I am with them, they do not taste a drop of the poison which makes a beast of their father. I don’t know whether I could have both the children. Besides, separation is exposure; the courts would have to know everything; the public would know and babble ; the Beaumonts would know. I shall stay and fight it out here until I can fight no longer. But I wanted some one’s sympathy. I wanted at least to tell my own sister how miserable I am.”
She stopped, fell on her knees, laid her head in the girl’s lap, and broke out in violent crying.
After a minute she rose, lifted Kate to her feet, embraced her passionately, and said in a voice which bad suddenly become calm, “ This is my first cry in two years. My heart feels a little less like breaking. Let us go.”
“Do you suppose he has heard?” asked the younger woman, glancing at Armitage.
“ Heard ? ” answered Nellie with a hard laugh. “ He could n’t hear the last trump, if it should be blown in this room. Is i’t he horrible — and handsome ? My darling, that is an Armitage. Don’t marry one of them. Promise me. You won’t ? ”
“ Never,” answered Kate.
“ I must tell you a great deal,” continued Nellie, when she had reached her own room.' “ My heart is open, and I must let it run.”
During a large part of the day she talked about her husband, detailing with painful minuteness the outrages of his periods of orgie ; how he had upset tables, thrown food out of the windows, broken dishes, furniture, mirrors, beaten the servants and children ; how he had fallen down and slept all night in his dooryard, or been brought home half dead from accidents or fights.
“ Sometimes it is ridiculous,” she said. “ I have actually laughed to see him lying among the ruins of chairs and crockery. It seemed so absurd that any human being could become demented enough to beat and belabor inanimate things till he gasped with fatigue and wore himself out, that I could not help laughing. Of course I had lost all respect for him then, and all affection. How could I keep either? The man was more like a crazy monkey than like a human being. His pranks surpass all description. There are things that I cannot tell you of, for very shame. I did hope, when I brought you here, that, for your sake and out of fear of our family, he would control himself. But he is irreclaimable. He is contemptible. He is horrible.”
“ Nellie, you have a way of talking that makes my blood run cold,” said Kate. “If you stay here, will you not be over-tempted some day, and do something wrong ? ”
“ I shall never commit a crime,” replied Mrs. Armitage. “ I am a lady. I would not disgrace myself and my family by even considering such a thing as poisoning. Is that what you fear? You may be tranquil.”
“ How dreadful it is even to think of such things ! I never thought before that anything in life could be so dreadful.”
“Well, we will say no more about it to-day,” sighed Nellie. “ I will try never to speak of this subject to you again. Hereafter I can bear my troubles better. Some one knows, some one sympathizes.”
There was an embrace, and a mingling of tears between the two sisters, followed by a long and sad silence.
“ Some one has come,” was Nellie’s next remark. “ I heard a carriage drive up to the door. It is probably Bent Armitage. Scarcely any one else stops here.”
“ I am so glad,” said Kate. “ Won’t he help us? Won’t he have some influence ? ”
“ He has influence when none is wanted. At such times as this no one has any influence, at least none for any good end. But Bentley will try to make things easy for us. He is not hard-hearted, and he never becomes a madman in my presence, although he is taking the same road with his brother. It is in the blood to go that way.”
“ I wish nothing unpleasant had passed between him and myself,” said Kate, coloring slightly.
“ Don’t care for that,” returned Nellie, proudly. “ You were right in avoiding him, and he knows it. He knows that no Armitage has any claim on any Beaumont. My only wonder is, that he dared court you when he knew what his brother had done to me. If he begins again, tell me of it. I won’t have it, certainly not here. I am mistress in this house, so far as he is concerned. Remember now; we ask no manner of favors of him ; he is just a guest and nothing more.”
There was a little glancing into mirrors, a little arranging of curls and shaking out of dresses ; there was the sacrifice to becomingness which woman rarely neglects to pay, however unhappy she may be and indifferent to the eyes that are to pass judgment upon her ; then they went down to receive their visitor. Bent Armitage was walking the parlor, staring abstractedly at the old faded engravings which he had seen a thousand times, his “ clapper,” as he called his partially paralyzed foot, slapping the floor in its usual style, and his queer smile curling up into his dark cheek as a confession of embarrassment. Remembering Nellie’s interference between him and her sister, be feared that he should be received as an intruder, and he was ill at ease. He was even humble to an extent which was pathetic ; he had laid aside all his self-respect in coming here. “ Let me look at her a moment,” his face seemed to plead ; “ then turn me away forever, if you must; at least I shall have seen her.”
“I hope I am not indiscreet,” he said meekly, as he kissed the cheek of his sister-in-law and shook hands with Kate. “ I am just up in these diggings from a grand tour as far as Charleston,” he went on, talking slang to gain courage. “ I heard at Brownville that you were both here, and I thought I might venture to rein up for a minute.”
“We are glad to see you,” replied Kate; and Nellie added, “You must stay a few days.”
Bentley brightened a little ; loving hopes rose out of their graves.
“ We may need your assistance,” Nellie explained quietly.
His countenance fell at once. He understood that his brother was making trouble; that was the reason why he was wanted, or endured. But, although the revelation was a painful one to him, he did not turn sullen under it. Impelled by a fine movement of soul, he resolved to serve these women, who demanded service without offering reward or scarcely thanks. In spite of his slang, his back-country roughness of manner, his willingness to shed blood on occasion, and his hereditary tendency to strong drink, there was a foundation of good and warm feeling in Bentley. He was not such a detestable egotist as his brother ; he was capable of a love other and stronger than the love of self.
“ I will stay as long as I can be of use,” he said. “ Shall I hitch up in the old spot ? ”
“ I would rather you should take the room next to Randolph’s,” replied Nellie.
“Just as handy,” assented Bentley, at the same time thinking, “ So I am to be his keeper.”
“ How are things at Hartland, Miss Beaumont?” he now inquired. “Everybody chirk there ?”
“All well, thank you,” Kate said. “ At least so my last letters told me.”
“The fight with the Philistines keeps up, I suppose.”
“With the — the McAlisters? I suppose so,” answered the girl, her face coloring perceptibly.
She was almost angry with him for speaking so carelessly of the feud and so irreverently of the McAlisters. Bentley perceived that he had made a mistake, and for a moment looked absolutely frightened as well as embarrassed, so anxious was he to stand well with this girl. As to being sorry for the renewal of the quarrel between the Beaumonts and their neighbors, he could not of course reach that state of grace ; in fact, he could not but rejoice in the event, inasmuch as it had relieved him of one whom he knew to be a preferred rival, and made the winning of Kate seem possible. It was this new hope, to a certain extent, which had brought him to Saxonburg.
“ Well, 1 ’ll go to my nest and arrange my feathers,” he remarked, presently, shuffling and slapping his way up stairs.
Before attending to his toilet he stepped into his brother’s room. No one was there but Quash, lazily setting things to rights.
“ Hi, Mars Bent,” chuckled the darky. “ I ’se mighty glad for to see you, Mars Bent. Yon’s jess come in good time. Wah, wah, wah. You ’s wanted, Mars Bent.”
“ If you’s so mighty glad to see me, brush my boots,” returned Bentley, seating himself.
“Yes, Mars Bent,” said Quash, getting out his brushes cheerfully, quite sure of a dime, or perhaps a quarter.
“Whar’s Mars Ranney ? ” continued Bentley, imitating the negro dialect and pronunciation, as he loved to do.
“ He jess done gone down sta’rs ; dunno whar.”
“ Is he on a bender ? ”
“ Yes, marsr.”
“ Big one ? ”
“ Well, nuffin pertickler; nuffin great, so fur.”
“ From fair to middlin’, eh ? ”
“ Yes, marsr.”
“ Could n’t you hide his whiskey ? ”
“Would n’t dast do it, Mars Bent,” replied Quash, looking up earnestly. “ Lordy, Mars Bent, you knows how he kerries on. He’d jess bust my head.’’
“ I s’pose so,” growled Bentley. “ Well, what of it ? You ought to have your head bust, Quash. You are a rascal.”
Quash merely sniggered and continued to polish away, sure of his dime. The boots were just done when a loud crash of furniture was heard down stairs, followed by a wrathful shouting.
“Thar he goes,” observed Quash. “ Smashin’ things like he allays doos.”
“ Here ’s your quarter,” said Bentley, rising hastily. “ If you ’ll break his whiskey-jug, I ’ll give you two dollars.”
Hastening down to the parlor, he discovered Randolph dancing on the fragments of a delicate work-table, a present to Nellie from her brother Vincent.
“ Halloo ! ” shouted the drunkard. “Is nobody coming ? What am I left alone for ? ”
Just then Kate Beaumont entered the room ; she was very pale, and her soft eyes were dilated with amazement and horror ; but she advanced calmly to the maniac and said, “ Randolph, what do you want ? ”
At first he simply glared at her; he seemed to be ready to strike her. Bentley Armitage picked up a leg of the table and came close to his brother, perfectly resolved to knock him down if he raised a hand upon Kate.
“Go away,” said Randolph, hoarsely, “ I did n’t call for you. I wanted Nell”
Bentley made a sign of the head to the young lady, and in obedience to it she retired without a word further.
“ Oho,” exclaimed Randolph, discovering his brother and turning short upon him. “ So you are here. What the — do you want ? ”
“ I’ve come to bear a hand generally,” returned Bentley, endeavoring to smile, but anticipating a difficulty, and showing it in his face.
“You bear a hand somewhere else,” screamed Randolph, alt at once beside himself with an insane rage, approaching to delirium tremens. “ You bear a hand out of this house. You leave. It’s my house. You’ve had your share. We divided, did n’t we ? You took the Pickens land, did n’t you ? You ’ve no claim here. You travel. Take your traps and travel. By the Lord, I am master here. I won’t be overcrowed by anybody. Lay down that club. Leave it, and leave here.”
“ Come, come, Randolph,” expostulated Bentley'. “ There’s no sense in this, and I don’t deserve it. I ’ve come to make myself agreeable and bear a hand at anything you like.”
“ I’ve no use for you, I tell you I’ve no use for you,” Randolph went on screaming, utterly out of his senses. “You just hump yourself and get to your own district. You travel, or I ’ll — ” Here he caught up a glass lamp and hurled it at his brother’s head, the missile narrowly missing its mark and smashing against the wall. Then he made a charge. The younger man struck, but unwillingly and faintly : his blow only exasperated the assailant. Bentley, far less muscular than Randolph, and lame besides, was thrown and badly hammered. This horrible scene was ended by the entrance of Mrs. Armitage and several of the houseservants, who with great difficulty dragged the drunken maniac off his victim and pushed him out of the room.
“ You must go,” said Nellie to Bentley, when they' two were alone.
‘Ah, if he was n’t my brother!” exclaimed the young man, furious from his conflict, “ I would finish him.”
“ But he is your brother, and you can do no good here, at least not now. You will have to go.”
“ What, and leave you with that madman ! Leave her with him ! ”
“ We can manage him better than you. Seeing another man here only makes him want to fight. We shall be better off without you.”
“ I never was called on to do so mean a thing before,” said Bentley.
“ I don't wish to charge you with being capable of meanness. Besides, it won’t be mean to do this when I insist upon it.”
“ Well,” assented the young man, unwillingly and sullenly. “ But I won’t go farther than Rullet’s tavern, on the road to Brownville, you know, five miles from here. If you need me, you can send a nigger, and I ’ll put over.”
“Very good,” said Nellie. “Now you will have to take your Brownville carriage back. You can slip through the garden and meet it below the house. Quash will take care of your baggage.”
“ I never saw him so bad before,” muttered Bentley, meaning his brother.
“ He gets worse every time. His constitution is breaking down. His nerves are not what they used to be.”
“ Be sure you send for me slap off, if there is any serious trouble,” were the farewell words of Bentley.
Randolph Armitage, totally forgetting his brother’s visit, spent the rest of the afternoon in his room, drinking, singing, breaking such furniture as he could break, and at last going to sleep among the ruins. The women remained together, talking rarely and sadly, the younger sometimes crying, the elder never.
“ I wonder at you,” said Kate once. “ I never imagined that a woman could have such fortitude.”
“ Fortitude ! ” returned Nellie. “ I am intelligent enough to know that it is not the fortitude that you mean. It is mere hardened callousness and want of feeling. I ceased some time ago to be a woman. I am a species of brute.”
This eminently true and simple and clear-headed person showed herself great by refusing to claim a greatness which did not belong to her.
“If ever I am tried as you have been, perhaps I shall become as noble as you are,” was the answer of Kate, faithfully admiring her sister.
When bedtime came the younger woman said, “ I shall stay with you tonight.”
“You can’t,” replied Mrs. Armitage. “ My husband has a right to come to my room at any time.”
“ Ah ! ” murmured Kate, recoiling at once before the authority of marriage.
“ You are not afraid for yourself, are you?” asked Nellie,
“ I had not thought of that,” answered the girl. “ Besides, my door bolts and locks.”
“Good night,” said Nellie, with a kiss. “You are a great comfort to me, I am glad that you know everything; I am glad that I told you everything, though I did it in a fit of madness, and it was wrong. I bear things the better because you know them. I was growing savage and wicked with lack of sympathy. Thank you for your sympathy, darling. Good night.”
Kate went to her room, fastened her doors with lock and bolt, then deliberately unfastened it and left it ajar, fearing a little for herself, but far more for her sister. She was worn out ; it seemed to her that the day had been years long ; that she had stepped from youth to middle age since morning. Could it be that the degrading and miserable tragedy which she had looked upon was marriage ? What might be her own future, even should the feud once more be allayed, and life promise as fairly as it had done weeks before ? Even should she, by some incredible chance, become the wife of the man whom she preferred and trusted above all other men, what then ? Would the end of her once fair hopes be like the end of the once fair hopes of Nellie ? Her mind ran all towards evil foreboding ; the future seemed a wilderness, complex, pathless, and sombre ; merely to think of it was a weariness and sorrow. Yet she was so exhausted with the unrest of the previous night and the emotions of the day, that, even while saying to herself that she should never sleep, she lost her consciousness.
After a time some noise partially roused her ; it was painful to lose her hold on slumber, and she strove not to awake ; but the noise persisted and so alarmingly that of a sudden she started up in her full senses. It was clear to her now that she heard the voice of Randolph in loud altercation with his wife ; and, hastily slipping on a dressing-gown, she glided down a dark passage to the door of Nellie’s room. The door was ajar, and there was a faint light within as of a candle, but she was so placed that she could not see the speakers. The conversation, however, was but too audible.
“ Will you tell me — ? ” demanded the husband, in a hoarse, thick utterance.
“ No, I will not, Randolph,” answered Nellie, in that monotone of hers which meant unshakable persistence.
“Then, by heavens—! Look here, you obstinate fool ; don’t you know what I ’ll do to you ? Don’t you know ? ”
“I know, Randolph,” said Nellie. “ I don’t care for your threats.”
The answer to this speech was a sound as of a struggle. Kate hesitated no longer; she stepped swiftly into the room. By the flicker of a candle dying in its socket she saw Randolph holding his wife down on the pillow with one hand, while with the other he brandished a long knife.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE cry and rush with which Kate entered the room startled the tremulous madman who was attempting murder, or counterfeiting it.
“ Whooh ! ” he exclaimed ; it was a beastly sound, like the short, explosive growl of a surprised dog ; but as he uttered it he let go of his wife and faced about.
“ O, it’s you, is it ? ” he stammered, staring at the girl with watery, uncertain eyes, and with a grin that was half embarrassed, half defiant. “ I forgot there was another woman in the house. What the Devil do you want ? ”
“ Randolph ! ” exclaimed Kate with an imposing air of reproach ; then, dropping to a tone of entreaty, she implored, “ Won’t you go away ? ”
“ I want my whiskey,” he replied, exposing without shame the degrading motive of his brutality. “ She’s hidden it.”
Kate turned on Nellie an appealing glance which said, “ Can’t you let him have it ? ”
“ It is not here,” answered Mrs. Armitage, speaking to her sister. “ When I say that it is n’t here, you may know that it is n’t.”
“ Do you know where it is ? ” demanded the husband, evidently believing her, unable to disbelieve her.
“ I do not,” she said, still not looking at him. “ I know nothing about it. If I knew, I would not tell.”
“ Then I ’ll leave,” he growled, after a moment’s hesitation, meanwhile staring at his knife as if still uncertain whether he would not use it. “ That’s all I came here for. Do you suppose I wanted you?''
With this parting insult to his wife, he turned his back on her, reeled by Kate, and went out. A few seconds later a howl of joyous oaths announced that he had found his treasure ; the bungling and lazy and also no doubt timorous Quash having concealed it instead of destroying it.
“ What shall we do ? ” asked Kate, who had meanwhile locked the door, and now stood by it listening.
“Let him drink,” said Nellie, with the sad comn. on-sense born of long trouble. “It is the easiest way to get rid of him.”
“ Is n’t it horrible ! ” Kate could not help groaning, still hearkening at the keyhole for Randolph’s return.
The unhappy wife, invisible in the darkness, made no reply. Presently Kate became alarmed at the silence; she whispered, “ Nellie,” and then called aloud ; still no answer. The terrible thought crossed the girl that Randolph might actually have stabbed his wife, and that she might now be dying, or dead. Groping her way to the bedside, she threw her arms around her sister, dropped kisses and tears upon the cool, damp face which touched hers, and sobbed repeatedly, “ Nellie ! Nellie ! ” But wild as she was with alarm, she perceived soon that the heart was still beating, and she guessed that this was not death. By the time she had found matches and lighted a lamp, Nellie began to draw the long sighs which mark restoration from a swoon, and presently opened her eyes.
“ I have been faint,” she whispered, with a bitter smile. ‘‘I did n’t know there was so much of the woman left in me. I ought to have got over this sort of thing long ago. I am ashamed of myself.”
“Nellie, what can I do for you?” asked Kate.
“Nothing. I will get up in a moment, and go to packing,”
“Are you going to leave him ? Ah, — well.”
“At all events I shall take you away. You have seen enough of this, and too much. I ought not to have brought you here at all. It is quite sufficient for one man that he should make one woman wretched. It is as much success as is due to a drunkard. My dear, you won’t marry a high-strung gentleman, I hope. Marry a Quaker first, or a Yankee pedler, — anything that does n’t get drunk and fight, anything that is n’t high-strung. I hate the word. It’s a mean, slang word, and it stands for a curse.”
Kate thought of a man who, as she believed, was not high-strung. It was true that he had fought a duel ; it was true also that he had fought it with her brother ; but then possibly he could not have helped that ; there was the code, that savage mystery ; it was all beyond her judgment. At any rate he did not drink, nor address women with brutality, nor lead an habitually wild life. But she could say nothing of him to Nellie, and indeed it was useless to think of him, for there was the family feud, an abyss between him and her.
“Will Randolph let you go?” she asked.
“ His whiskey-jug will attend to that,” replied Nellie. “ He has a noble master, has n’t he ? He prides himself on not being ruled by his wife. It is so much more manly, more chivalrous, more high-strung to be ruled by a jug ! Come, go and do your packing. I will do mine and the children’s.”
An hour or so later the trunks were ready, the little ones dressed, and the carriage at the door.
“ I will go and bid good by to my husband,” said Nellie.
Kate followed her, fearful lest Randolph might be awake and a collision ensue. There was no trouble; the man lay on the floor, stone-blind drunk ; an earthquake could not have shaken that stupor.
“ Handsome Armitage ! ” murmured Nellie, looking at the sodden countenance with a strange mixture of scorn and grief in her own pale face. Then turning to Quash, who rose drowsily from his usual sleeping-place in the passage, she said : “Take care of him. But tell him nothing about our going away. Let him find it out for himself.”
“Yes, missus,” yawned Quash, and proceeded to lie down again, covering his shoulders and head with his blanket-coat.
The bays were started off at their speediest trot, for ten miles of rough, hilly road lay between the Armitage place and the Brownville station, and the down train, the only train of the day, left at six in the morning. At the half-way house, known as Rullet’s Tavern, or more commonly as Old John Rullet’s, Nellie looked at her watch, and said calmly: “It is useless. We sha’ n’t get there till after six. We may as well stop and see Bentley.”
The younger Armitage, a bad sleeper in these days, and consequently an early riser, made his appearance almost immediately.
“ Travelling ? ” he said, with a wretched attempt at a smile, thinking meanwhile that this might be his last interview with Kate. “I rather judge it’s the healthiest thing you can do.”
“We can’t catch the train,” replied Nellie. “ We shall have to wait in Brownville till to-morrow morning.”
After glancing at his watch, shaking his head, and pondering a minute, he remarked : “ I suppose I had better go and amuse Randolph.”
“Bentley, it is a hard thing to owe you so much,” said Nellie.
“ O, it’s all in the family,” he smiled. “ And it does n’t square the family account either.”
“ Be careful,” said Kate, honestly anxious for him.
He looked greatly pleased; he seemed to think it very kind of her merely to care a little for his life ; the humility of his gratitude made it absolutely pathetic.
“No particular danger, I reckon,” he replied, shaking her hand cordially. “ You won’t mind it, I hope, if you hear of our drinking a little. A prosperous journey to you. Good by.”
“ Good by, Bentley,” said Nellie, bending down and kissing him. “ I wish I could do more for you.”
It seemed to Bentley also that he deserved more than the kiss of a sisterin-law ; but none the less he set about his ill - requited work promptly and courageously. Rough as he was, and in some respects coarsely vicious, he had certain high notions of gentility. As he turned his back on Kate Beaumont, and prepared for his horrible tête-à-tête with his brother, he said to himself, “ Noblesse oblige.”
When he reached the Armitage place Randolph was just coming out of his drunken slumber. Then followed a tragi comedy which, considering that the two leading actors in it were brothers, was little less than infernal. Bentley’s purpose was to keep Randolph so far under the influence of liquor that he should not notice the absence of his family, or should be indifferent to it if he discovered it. To this end he drank, jested, gambled, quarrelled, exchanged blows even, went through reconciliations, drank again, squabbled again, and so on for twenty-four hours. It must be observed that, although he had not sought the spree for its own sake, he did in a certain measure enjoy it. Whiskey tasted good to him ; a little of the excitement of alcohol always made him long for more ; he was only less of a drunkard than his brother because younger. But for anxiety as to the result, and also for the somewhat burdensome reflection that he was tippling under compulsion, he would have had a truly delightful carouse. Perhaps we ought, moreover, to consider that he was a disappointed lover, and that liquor helped to drown his sorrow. In short, Bentley had a downright honest bender, although he never quite forgot his object in commencing it.
The day passed in freaks beyond the imagination of monkeys. Whenever Randolph demanded his family, Bentley invented some new madness. For instance, late in the afternoon he proposed that they should mob Nancy Gile, on the plea that Randolph had been insulted and attacked by her lowdown following. So, mounting their horses, they galloped four or five miles to surprise the “ lone woman,” turned her furniture topsy-turvy, drank her last gill of whiskey, and then, giving her a couple of dollars to pay the damages, departed hooting. The next thing was a wild-goose chase through swamps and old fields, on the supposed trail of Sam Hicks, both the brothers being now in strenuous earnest, and intent upon killing their man if they should find him, which they did not. Giving up their fruitless hunt when night came on, they made a circuit to reach the cabin of Redhead Saxon, and held another festival in his society.
And now came the climax of the saturnalia. Randolph, who in his cups would have quarrelled with angels or devils, became irritated at Saxon for some cause never afterwards heard of, and laid that faithful henchman prostrate with a fisticuff.
“ Square, that’s low-flung business,” roared Saxon, so drunk that he forgot his fealty. “ You’ve no call to hit a chap when he ain’t a lookin’,” he continued, rising with difficulty and by instalments, first on all fours, and so on. “ You would n’t ’a’ dared fetch me that lick, ef your brother had n’t been here.”
44 You need n’t count in Bentley,” replied Randolph. " He sha’ n’t take a hand. I ’ll play it alone.”
He tried to get off his coat, but in the effort went down and struggled some time on the floor with the garment over his head. When he regained his feet he accused Redhead of pushing him, and proceeded to draw his revolver. At this point Mrs. Saxon, a powerful young amazon of at least six feet in height, rushed upon the scene from the other room of the cabin, shouting, " Quit that. No fightin’ yere. Ef you want to fight, go out do’.”
This pacifying admonition not being heeded, she sprang at her husband, scratched him smartly, and bundled him out of the cabin. Then, holding the door against him, she turned upon the Armitages, and broke out : " Now say. What d’ you two want ? You’ve got the man out of his own house. S'posin’ you try your hand on the woman. Ain’t you a high-tone gentleman, Square Armitage ? Then go whar you b’long, an’ fight with yer own sort. Oughter be shamed of yerself, pickin’ musses with crackers. Wish I was yer wife, and had the breakin’ of ye. I’d learn ye to go in harness. Don’t ye p’int yer shootin’iron at me. I ’ll take it away from ye, an’ lam yer face with it. You cl'ar. You jest cl’ar, or I ’ll light on ye.”
“ We ’ll go,” answered Bentley, grinning at the scene like an amused monkey and surveying the pugnacious housewife with bland approbation. " Randolph, we ’re getting the hot end of the poker. Come, old lady, let us out.”
“ No sir-ee,” declared the contradictory Madam Saxon. “You want to mount my old man outside. — Jimmy,” she screamed, through a crack of the door, " you travel.”
“ I won’t,” vociferated Redhead, who all the while was trying to re-enter.
“ Dog gone these men ! ” objurgated the lady. " Why can’t they be peaceful like women-folks ? It takes a woman to every man to make him behave.”
“ Let me in !” roared the husband. " Ef you don’t, I ’ll fire through the do’.”
“ Hold up a minute, Redhead,” called Bentley. Then addressing Mrs. Saxon in a caressing whisper, meanwhile patting her stalwart shoulder, he added, “ Look here, old girl. The best way is to powder it out. Let’s have a sham fight. You load your husband’s pistol and I ’ll load Ranney’s. Blank cartridges, you understand. What do you say ? ”
“ All right,” grinned the amazon, her wide mouth stretching from ear to ear to embrace the joke. “ Git hold of the Square’s shooting-iron, I ’ll fix Jimmy’s.”
When the duel was proposed to Randolph, he assented at once with a drunken solemnity which finely satirized the behavior usual with principals in real affairs of honor, and delivered his revolver to Bentley to be discharged and reloaded.
“ Hand over ye five - shooter, old man,” demanded Mrs. Saxon, rushing out upon her husband and disarming him. " We ’re gwine to hev a duel.”
“Who’s a gwine to?” asked Redhead, falling into the cabin.
“ You be ; you an’ the Square.”
“ You go to—! ” retorted the man of tlie house, who, drunk as he was, discovered an absurdity in the proposition.
“ Redhead, you are a gentleman, I suppose,” began Bentley.
“ No, I ain’t,” interrupted Saxon, his reason perfectly sound on that point.
“ Wal, you ’re a man, ain't ye ? ” put in his wife, flying at him and giving him a shake. " Yon stan’ up in that corner till things is ready. Mr. Bent, you set the Square up in t’ other corner. Thar’s a bar’l thar for him to hold on to.”
The two principals being placed, the seconds went out of doors to prepare the weapons. The ball cartridges in the barrels were discharged, and other cartridges substituted with the bullets broken off.
“ It’ll be mighty slim huntin’, won’t it?” said Mrs. Saxon, bursting into loud laughter. “ Would n’t my old man be mad, ef he sensed the thing. He ain’t used to goin’ a shootin’ with nothin’ but powder.”
This idea amused her excessively, and she returned to it several times. “ To think of Jim firin’ away at a feller with nothin’ but powder! ”
“ Well, old lady, are you loaded ? ” asked Bentley.
“ Reckon I be,” grinned Molly Saxon, revolving the chamber of her pistol with experienced dexterity. “ No bullets in them. Let’s see yourn. All right, my blessed stranger. Now what ’ll we do next ? ”
“Just hand your old man his cold iron, and caution him to wait for the word. I ’ll give the instructions.”
They re-entered the cabin. There were Saxon and Randolph Armitage, each propped up in his corner and holding fast, their faces very solemn and stolid. Molly’s broad physiognomy twitched all over with suppressed laughter as she handed the pistol to her husband.
“ Now, Jim, ha’ n’t you got any last words for yer woman ? ” she asked by way of joke.
“ Stan’ out the way, ole gal,” replied Redhead, thickly. “ An’ take care yerself.”
At this moment Randolph, trying to stand independent of his barrel, fell over it and rolled on the floor.
“ Set’m up agen,” muttered Redhead calmly, and without showing the slightest amusement.
By the aid of Bentley the prostrate man rose and braced himself once more in his corner, smiling the monotonous smile of intoxication.
“ Catch hold,” said Bentley, delivering the revolver. “ And don’t fire till I give the word. Gentlemen, listen to the instructions. I shall pronounce the words, ‘one, two, three, — fire.’ At the word ‘fire,’ you are at liberty to commence, and you will go on until you have exhausted your barrels.”
“ That’s so,” sniggered Molly, cramming a yard or so of her calico apron into her mouth to keep from laughing outright. “ Jim, do you understand ?”
“ You shut up,” snapped Redhead in a tone of impatience which redoubled his wife’s amusement.
“ Now, then,” called Bentley. “ One, two, three, — fire.”
A deliberate firing ensued ; it was curious how cool the two drunkards were ; though they could scarcely stand, they meant business.
“ That’s all,” mumbled Randolph when he had exhausted his barrels.
“No ’t ain’t,” called Saxon. “I’ve got a charge left.”
“Well, blaze away, old Redhead,” returned Randolph, still smiling his alcoholized smile.
Old Redhead took steady aim, resting his revolver across his left arm, and blazed away to the best of his ability. Randolph fell across his barrel once more, but it was whiskey which upset him, and not a bullet.
“ Square, are you bad hurt ? ” called Saxon, advancing slowly and unsteadily. “ Square, I ’m sorry for it; dog goned if I ain’t.”
Then seeing his antagonist rise, with the assistance of Bentley, he added, “ Did I miss you, Square ? Wall, I ’ll be dog-rotted !! However, never mind. Glad you come out of it safe. Bully for you, Square. Stood it like a sojer. Le’s shake han’s.”
There was shaking hands accordingly, as in more elegant and sober affairs of honor, the two late enemies complimenting each other as hightoned gentlemen, etc., etc., while Molly Saxon fairly capered and stamped with delight.
“ An’ now you two cl’ar,” she presently whispered to Bentley. “ I want room to larf. Ef I don’t hev it, I shall bust.”
Bentley hurried his brother away the more willingly because Saxon, a blazing pine-knot in hand, was searching for the marks of his bullets, and not finding them, might be led to suspect and denounce the trick which had been played, to the manifest risk of further altercation.
“You need n’t look for ’em, Jim,” Molly was heard to giggle. “ You ’re too drunk to aim at anythin’. You fired out o’ winder an’ up chimney an’ everywhar but at him.”
“ I ’ll be dog-rotted ef I ever see any such doin’s befo’,” returned the confounded Jim. “ When a man can’t hit a house, standin’ inside on ’t, he 'd better quit shootin’.”
And now, as it was getting towards midnight, the Armitages went home. Bentley was still afraid that Randolph might discover the absence of his wife and set out in pursuit of her. He resolved to floor him completely, if the thing could be done ; he commenced a fresh drinking-bout and kept it up for hours. It was the very saturnalia of doing evil that good might come. It was ludicrous and it was horrible.
CHAPTER XXVI.
AFFAIRS of state, a shouting of stumporators, and a buzzing of swarming fellow-citizens recall us to Hartland.
The canvassing for the election of representatives to Congress was at the boiling-point. There was speechifying, discussion around groceries and at street corners, generous betting and chivalrous fighting every day. The principals in the contest, as well as their partisans, had gone into the struggle in the highest-toned fashion, prepared to clean out the adversaries if the latter persistently refused to hearken to reason. When Peyton Beaumont went forth on his stumping progresses, his sons guarded him with revolvers under their shooting-jackets ; while Judge McAlister was escorted in a similar manner by his warlike progeny, even Frank admitting that he must defend his, father. As for the Colts and Derringers, and bowies and toothpicks, which were carried by the rank and file, they were beyond enumeration. Excepting that the weapons were concealed, those election scenes resembled the political assemblages of the ancient Gauls, who discussed questions of war and peace with spear in hand and buckler on shoulder. All these gaunt and long - legged men, whether clad in “ store-clothes ” of black broadcloth, or in short-backed, long-tailed frock-coats of gray or butternut homespun, were as bellicose as so many Scotch Highlanders of three hundred years ago.
It must not be supposed, however, that fighting was continuous or even very frequent. As every man took it for granted that every other man was armed, discussions were usually conducted with great civility of speech, unless the disputants had become inflamed with whiskey. Even if angry words were exchanged and weapons drawn, there were friends at hand to do the proper amount of coat-tail pulling, and bloodshed was generally averted. As for such harmless blusterers as Crazy Taylor and Drunken John Charles, they were allowed to roll each other in the dust at their pleasure, it being understood that they would only furnish innocent amusement to their fellow-electors. The fun which these conflicts afforded was increased by the fact that the defeated athlete usually pitched into some boy or nigger who had laughed at his overthrow, and kicked him with much swearing around the nearest corner. Let us state, by the way, that John Charles and Crazy Taylor were not landless crackers or penniless village loafers. Although they dressed in homespun and held such high-caste people as the Beaumonts and McAlisters in deep reverence, they were well-to-do farmers, owning their five hundred acres and their twenty or thirty head of niggers. John Charles, in spite of his frequent benders, was “ captain of patrol ” in his “ beat,” or magisterial precinct. Crazy Taylor never went howling about the streets and making a spectacle of himself, except when he was drunk.
Notwithstanding the serious sensitiveness of Southerners, and the danger of jesting with punctilious men who carry revolvers, much sly, coarse ridicule was current in the Hartland political debates. For instance, John Charles, a violent adherent of the Beaumonts, set afloat ridiculous tales about the McAlister chieftain, representing him as a man of little less than idiotic simplicity, which was true in so far as this that the Judge had not the remotest idea of a joke.
“He go to Congress!” sneered John Charles. “Them Yankees would come games on him an' poke fun at him from Sunday morning to Saturday night. I 'll tell you what sort of a man he is. The Judge started out to canvass the district. How did he do it? Got up his coach. Sure as you ’re born he got up his coach an’ four horses to go an’ ask poo’ men for their votes. Well, he druv round an’ kissed the young uns an’ talked Sabba' school to the women folks, an’ subscribed to meetin’-houses an’ all that sort of nonsense. An’ you bet he made mistakes. You bet on it an’ win every time. Durned ef he did n’t take short-haired Dolly Stokes,— she a settin’ by the fire wrapped up in blankets because of the chills, — durned ef he did n’t take her for the old man an’ ask her to vote for him. Now you don’t believe that, you fellers of the McAlister crowd. But it’s true; you bet your best bale on it; old Stokes he told me. Now that’s a lively man to go to Congress from Hartland District and South Carolina. Why, he would n’t know a he Yankee from a she one. Them fellers up thar in them foreign States would stock the keerds ag'in him an’ clean him out every time. Now look at the Honorable Peyton Beaumont in a poor man’s cabin. He don’t come in no coach ; he comes a horseback. He walks in square an’ strong, like he was to home. He straddles out before the fire, an’ parts his coat-tails behind him, an’ hollers for his tod of plain whiskey, an’ chaws an’ spits like one of the family. He don’t make no mistakes betwixt the old man an’ the old woman. He knows other folks as sure ’s he knows himself. He knows the name of every voter in this part of South Carolina an’ the name of that voter’s dog. He’s that kind of a man that rouses your entuzzymuzzy. He ’s a man that South-Carolinians will take a heap of trouble for. We never had an election yet but what loads of fellers would pile over the line from every district round here, walkin’ or ridin’ ten or fifteen miles perhaps to give him a lift, an’ that too after going as fur for their own men whar they belong. An’ they ’re right; they ’re right in takin’ all that extra trouble for him ; he deserves it. I tell you, ef thar’s a gentleman in this district who’s fit to stand for the people of this district and South Carolina, it’s old squar’-shouldered, open-eyed, true-handed, bighearted, high-toned Peyt Beaumont.”
Of course we are not to put absolute faith in the partisan declarations of John Charles. There is no doubt that he exaggerated both the innocence of Judge McAlister and the slightly demagogic courtesy with which Beaumont did occasionally temper his patrician haughtiness.
But we must leave the political background of our story and return to the personages who occupy its foreground. Very sad in these days was Frank McAlister, miserable over the past, and despondent over the future. He did not even believe in the success of his party in the election, for he had almost of necessity taken the measure of his prim, solemn, unbending father, and had guessed that he could not carry Hartland electors against hearty, fullblooded, off-handed Peyton Beaumont. The Beaumonts would triumph at the ballot-box ; they would add contempt for his family to hatred for it; there was not a chance for him to win their daughter and sister. He was in these days so gloomy, so haggard, so unable to sleep, so unable to eat, that his mother became terrified about him.
Of course she had guessed the cause of his trouble ; a woman and a mother could not fail to guess it. But what could she do to raise the spirits of her stricken giant, and renovate his health, and save his life ? It was impossible to quiet the family feud, and consequently impossible to get Kate Beaumont for him. That sovereign remedy being out of the question, was there no other ? Time ? Alas, time is very slow in his work, and affection abhors waiting. Mrs. McAlister knew of a cure which was quicker than that and every way more consonant with her own feelings ; it occurred to her that it would be the best thing in the world to get another young lady in the place of the young lady who had been lost.
The proposition may shock a sentimental man, but I suspect that it was both motherly and womanly. A woman believes in love; if one love affair fails, she requires that another should commence as soon as may be. The single adventure, though very great to her, is not so great as the passion. Moreover, her sister-women are cheaper in her eyes than they are in ours, and she sees no sufficient cause why the loss of one of them should stop a man from using his heart, especially in view of the fact that his heart is in her opinion his noblest organ.
It was in consequence of these reasons (which Mrs. McAlister did not of course take the trouble to reason upon, not even with herself) that she invited Jenny Devine to make a visit under her roof. Stating the case plainly, she meant to have Trank fall in love with Jenny, and so forget the girl whom he could not get. True, Wallace was enamored of Miss Devine: the allseeing mother was not ignorant of that. But Wallace, it was pretty certain, could not have her; and, moreover, Wallace did not stand in pressing need of matrimony, not being broken in spirits and shattered in health ; and finally Frank, her youngest and handsomest, was her favorite child. Small, plain, bald-headed Wallace must be sacrificed just a little to save his magnificent, his suffering brother. The plan savored of cruelty, but it was the cruelty of intense affection, perhaps also of wise judgment.
Thus it was that pretty, flirting, jolly, good-hearted Jenny Devine became an inmate of the McAlister mansion. She did not come at all unsuspiciously; she guessed that coquettish passages awaited her ; she was somewhat like a cat entering a buttery. In the first place, she was accustomed to be begged for from house to house to entertain young gentlemen visiting in Hartland, and to enliven hops and teas with her music, her dancing, her small talk, and her bright eyes. In the second place, she knew pretty positively that Frank McAlister had been fascinated by Kate Beaumont, and so must have found it a sad business to be divided from her.
Yes, she was specially wanted ; a flirtation or something of that nature was to be got up between her and this disappointed young man ; that was the object of Mrs. McAlister. That Jenny was at least willing to run a risk in the matter is shown by the fact that she accepted the invitation. She liked Frank, and she thought no less of him for having liked Kate ; for she was not one of those sensitive girls who recoil from a man because he has loved some one else ; she had had too many courting affairs of her own to be fastidious on that point. As for cutting out her absent friend, there could be no question of it. Kate had been cut out already by the revival of the old hate between the two families. Moreover, Kate was not in love with Frank ; so much Jenny believed that she had discovered. Accordingly, with conscience clear of unworthy intent, and with heart prepared for either great or little emotions, she repaired with her select armor of finery to the enchanted palace of the McAlisters, to take the chances of such adventures as might befall her there.
She was received with a gladness, which, considering the grave character of the family, was equivalent to festivity. Mrs. McAlister fairly leaned towards the girl ; she enjoyed her in anticipation as a daughter-in-law, the chosen one of her favorite son ; she secretly loved her and blessed her in a spirit of prophecy. It was the yearning of a bereaved mother, who trusts that she is yet to obtain a child in place of the one that has been taken away. Not but that Mrs. McAlister would still have preferred Kate as a daughter ; she had no spite against the Beaumont men even, and she loved their loved one dearly. But Kate being lost beyond recovery, she must positively have some one in her place, and in her longing she grasped at Jenny.
One result of this craving—a result which looks like the effect of witchery — was that she at once lost sight of the girl’s defects, though plainly discernible by her heretofore. Jenny was a flirt; so Mrs. McAlister had thus far always admitted ; she had even been angry at her for trifling with Wallace’s affections; very angry because of the quarrel which had been made up between him and Vincent. She had said to herself that Jenny Devine, notwithstanding her good temper and mainly good intentions, would make no fit wife for a man of high character and sensitive feelings. Now she forgave all these shortcomings and peccadilloes so completely that she forgot them. Jenny was no flirt; it was not supposable that she could jilt Frank ; she would accept him and be an excellent wife and a charming daughter. Mrs. McAlister reasoned about the girl as a lover reasons about the mistress of his heart. Desire and hope did the whole of the argument, and of course reached the most agreeable conclusions.
To all these feelings and wishes Mary McAlister assented with the instantaneous facility and energy of her mind. Not that there was any open talk on the matter between the mother and daughter ; but the latter had the power of divining the mind of the former by sympathy ; and the moment she divined it she was guided by it. It would be difficult to find any other two human beings so much at one in opinion as these two. Which ever felt first on any given subject had the lead ; the other discovered the feeling by clairvoyance, and at once shared it ; there was no need between them of statement, and much less of argument. Thus they were always alike in their credences, desires, and purposes. Even the action, the ratiocination, and the persuasions of the respected male folk of their family could not divide them. Their union was a singular and interesting and almost touching instance of the potency of mere feminine sympathy. Both hated the feud ; both abhorred duelling and all bloodshed ; both adored Frank, and would have died for him ; both loved Kate Beaumont, and longed for relationship with her ; both accepted Jenny Devine when Kate was no longer attainable. The unanimity of reason is perhaps grander than this unanimity of the heart, and no doubt in the main practically more useful, but surely not half so beautiful.
The tall, thin, gray-haired mother and the tall, slender, chestnut-ringleted daughter, both shooting rays of love out of large mild eyes, embraced Jenny Devine with the same tenderness.
“ I am so delighted that we have not lost you as a friend,” said Mrs. McAlister. “It seems as if there were no friends of late. Everybody is a partisan.”
“ The Beaumonts will not be angry at you for coming to us ? ” asked Mary. “ We did hope not when we begged for you. But you must tell us.”
“ I am not their kin,” replied Jenny. “ And I am not a man either. I claim a woman’s right to be sweet to everybody. Don’t worry about my good standing with the Beaumonts. If the Honorable Peyton looks glum at me, I shall take his arm and smile in his face, and the next I know he will be patting my head. These old gentlemen are all fools with girls. If you had a speck of courage and impudence, Molly, you could go and tame him in fifteen minutes. I do believe that, if I were in your place, I could make him call on the Judge and ask the whole family to dinner.”
“Jenny, I wish we could work such miracles,” sighed Mrs. McAlister. “ I would go on my knees to do it.”
“ O, you would n't answer at all,” laughed the frank and saucy Jenny. “It would take somebody as young as Molly. By the way, there is an idea ; why, would n't that be nice ? Molly, you could be Mrs. Peyton Beaumont the third, merely for winking; only, poor thing, you don’t know how to wink.”
“ What nonsense ! ” protested Mary, in blushing amazement. “ Who could imagine such a thing? Nobody but you.”
“ I could make Dr. Mattieson imagine it,” whispered the teasing Jenny. “ Would n’t he rage ? ”
Mary blushed still deeper, and glanced with maidenly alarm at her mother, who, of course, pretended not to hear and looked all benignity.
Jenny’s frolicsomeness was one cause why the McAlisters continually forgave her misdeeds and liked her. They were a grave generation, without meaning it, and finding persistent gravity a burden ; and, like all such, they extracted much comfort from jolly people, and craved them as thirsty souls do water.
Thus it may be conceived that Frank McAlister, weighted always with seriousness of spirit, and just now crushed under disappointment, should incline kindly to the company of this prattling and gleesome young lady. Because she made him smile in spite of himself, he liked to listen to her. Because she turned whist into mere fun, he took a hand as her partner. Presently he came to walk with her and then to ride with her. The intimacy, ripened by his sorrowful tenderness of feeling, burgeoned rapidly into confidences. Before long the subject of Kate Beaumont was broached between the two, and after that there was no end to their talking together.
What an enticing, abundant, limitless subject it was ! It was like a Missouri prairie to a herd of buffalo; there was room there to browse forever. Little by little Frank told Jenny all that was in his heart, — how he had loved, how he had hoped to win, and how he had lost. The girl, in spite of her levity, was like almost all other women in the matter of quick sympathy, and especially could not help being touched by a tale of wounded affections. She forgot herself; she opened her heart wide to his procession of sorrows ; and of course it followed that he found her charming. In a certain sense she was Jenny Devine and Kate Beaumont in one. To talk to her about Kate was the next best thing to talking to Kate about herself.
Who has not smiled at the ease with which many a grief-stricken widower has been won by a woman who sincerely pitied him for the loss of his wife ? Shall we have cause to smile thus at our hitherto unchangeable lover, Frank McAlister ?
“ How tedious I must be to you ! ” he said one day, ashamed of his egotism.
“ You are not tedious at all,” declared Jenny, her cheeks coloring with the enthusiasm of honest and earnest feeling.
“ Is it possible that you can like to hear me tell how I love another woman ? ” he asked, amazed.
“ I do like it,” said Jenny. “ She so nobly deserves it.”
“ Miss Devine, you are admirable,” he replied, with profound reverence. “ I am astonished at women, the more I know of them. They have so much unselfishness and sympathy. I think a great heart is nobler than a great brain.”
“ Ah, don't give me too much credit,” sighed Jenny, dropping her eyes. It occurred to her just then that perhaps she was playing falsely by her friend, and running risk of winning that friend’s lover. In the next breath she said to herself: “ But Kate does not care for him ; she told me so.”
In fact Jenny was becoming interested and even fascinated. At the time this dialogue took place she had been over a week in the McAlister house. During that crowded week she had seen much of Frank and had grown to be his intimate and his confidant. She had looked further into his heart than she had ever before looked into the heart of man ; and all that she discovered there had led her to admire him exceedingly; to judge that his love was worth any woman’s having. It was not for her ; it was for her friend Kate ; but would it always be ? She had not distinctly asked herself this momentous question, nor any other that concerned her future relations with Frank. Rather she had gone on blindly, first sympathizing, then sympathizing more, then admiring, then liking, then — No, not loving; not at all that ; at least, not yet. But there was danger of it, and at times she saw the danger.
During the evening following this conversation she announced her intention of returning home on the morrow. But Mrs. McAlister, in whose opinion things were going on passing well, would not hear of it ; and Mary McAlister, guessing at once her mother’s ideas and consenting to them, also would not hear of it. So strenuous was their opposition, that Jenny gave up her wise project and meekly stayed on, not knowing what might happen to her heart, and beginning not to care. “ I shall be disappointed in love,” she sometimes thought ; “ but it does not matter a bit; I shall deserve it.”
Meantime Wallace McAlister was wretched with jealousy. His mother saw it and grieved over it, but did not change her plan for all her grief. To save Frank, it seemed that Wallace must be sacrificed; it was very sad that it should be so, but she could not help it. After all, Wally must not be a dog in the manger. Unable to get Jenny himself, he must not prevent her from saving his brother ; that would be the extreme of selfishness. The unlucky young man himself thought something like these thoughts in his more rational moments. But none the less he suffered ; felt his heart shrivel when Jenny strolled out with Frank ; clapped his beaver on his poor bald head, and went off to be miserable alone.
Another person who was troubled and alarmed by this sudden intimacy between Frank and Jenny was Major John Lawson. He did not learn it from the McAlisters, of whom he saw very little in these days, he being still a guest of Kershaw’s, and consequently more or less tied to the Beaumonts. It was Mrs. Chester who told him of this new peril which threatened his romance of Romeo and Juliet in South Carolina. Mrs. Chester had met Mrs. Devine ; and Mrs. Devine had been over to see Jenny in the McAlister hunting-grounds ; and the result was certain motherly smiles and hints of a prophetic and exultant nature. Thereupon Mrs. Chester, who had turned to speaking evil of her lost Titan as strenuously as she had once followed after him, spread the report that he was about to marry the greatest flirt in Hartland District, namely, Miss Jenny Devine.
“ You don’t tell me so, Mrs. Chester ! ” grinned the disquieted Major, when she had exploded this bit of news under his nose like a fire - cracker. “ My dear Mrs. Chester, you don’t seriously believe it ! Why, it would be a most delightful arrangement,” he continued, recovering his self-possession and wishing to stick some sly pins in Mrs. Chester. “ Really delightful ! Jenny is an admirable girl. A little of a flirt, no doubt, as you say. But so are all women until they are married. All the same, she is admirable. Deserves him. Deserves anybody. I had had hopes, by the way, that she would have caught Vincent. I am a little disappointed. Do you suppose, Mrs. Chester, that our excellent friend Mrs. Devine speaks with authority ? Mothers are so apt to deceive themselves, you know. They are sharp-sighted, wonderfully sharpsighted : I admit it. But nevertheless they do sometimes hang up a scalp for their daughters which has not yet been taken. Do you suppose, Mrs. Chester, do you really suppose — ”
“ I know nothing about it,” replied the imbittered lady. “ Mrs. Devine makes her boasts and 1 record them. Miss Jenny Devine is nothing to me, and Mr. McAlister is of course less than nothing. I merely mention the thing as a matter of common uninteresting gossip.”
“ Ah,” bowed the Major, smiling unspeakable compliments at Mrs. Chester, while in the same breath he investigated her with twinkling, analytic eyes. “Of course. Certainly. Not worthy of your attention. Certainly not.”
“ I never was more mistaken in any man than I was in that Mr. Frank McAlister,” the lady went on vixenishly. “ I thought well of him for a short time ; I thought him good-hearted and a gentleman. He is a selfish, stupid, low fellow. I never saw another man so vulgarly and stupidly ungrateful for civilities. It is well for our family that we got shut of him and his breed. I hope Jenny Devine will catch him. The little cross jilt is just fit for him, and he is just fit for her. They will punish each other nicely.”
« Ah — you think so?” nodded the Major, hardly able to keep from grinning in her face. “ Really, how dull we male creatures are ! Here I had been thinking well of the girl ; wishing my young friend Vincent could catch her ; envying him the chance. God bless my soul, — God bless my soul! Mrs. Chester, I am positively not fit to go about the world alone. I need your guidance at every moment ; absolutely need it, must have it,”he fluted in his finest trills and quavers, cocking his head on one side like a curious parrot, and puckering his face into a thousand wrinkles, all expressive of adoration, and servitude. But the moment he got out of her presence he muttered, “ Spiteful, disappointed old beldame ! ”
“ What does the woman lie for in that style?” he went on, commencing a long soliloquy about this worrying bit of gossip. “ I don’t believe a word she says. Frank McAlister in love with Jenny Devine ! Frank McAlister forgotten Kate Beaumont ! Romeo false to Juliet ! Impossible. I can’t have been so mistaken in the young man. I know him ; I have studied him ; I have looked him in the eyes ; I have sounded his character. Sounded it, — sound-ed it,” he insisted, smirking and twinkling as if he were talking to some one else than himself and trying to carry conviction to his auditor. “ I must see Romeo,” he continued vehemently. “ I must say to him, ‘ This won’t do ; this spoils our drama ; this will make the plot a nullity ; this will draw a storm of hisses.’ I will see him. It will be awkward ; it may lead to difficulties ; the Beaumonts may scowl at me. But no : the Beaumonts prize me ; they are under obligations to me ; they know that I fought Tom well ; yes, fought him well, begad,” affirmed the Major aloud, chuckling over the recollection of his only duel — as a second. . “ And if the heathen do rage, I must defy them. In the name of the poetic unities, I must defy them. I can’t have my romance, the darling romance of my life, broken up because of an election, a mere tempest in a teapot, a squabble sure to end in six weeks. God bless my soul, I can’t have it. It would make me miserable. I should leave this part of the country. And 1 have already written to Charleston about my little drama. Prophesied about it, — bragged over it. I could n’t go back to Charleston. Where the deuce could I go ? ”
And, mounting his horse, the Major rode off boldly toward the McAlister place, not caring in his desperation what the Beaumonts might think of his confabulating with their enemies. He neared the house ; he got a view of the garden from the high road ; and there, among the roses he saw — what ? Frank McAlister walking with Jenny Devine, bending over her in a manner which indicated close amity, and holding her — yes, her hand.
In his indignation and despair, the Major at once wheeled his horse and galloped, without drawing rein, to Kershaw’s.
J. W. DeForest.