Throckmorton Part 6

"Yes," continued Jacqueline, with much seriousness. "Occasionally she gives papa a little treat. You know she always liked you, and papa has been dying to call to see you. But mamma can't forget the war and Beverley. At last, though--she's been thinking about it ever since that first day at church--she concluded to give in--and--and--you're to be asked to tea next Sunday evening!"

The way this was told was not particularly flattering to Throckmorton, but he was sincerely grateful and attached to Mrs. Temple, and he knew and pitied the state of feeling that had caused her to intrench herself in her prejudices. She must indeed remember those old days when she was willing to do what Throckmorton suspected she had promised herself never to do. "I want to be friends with Mrs. Temple--that's plain enough," he said, "and if she asks me I shall certainly come."

"Do you know," said Jacqueline, after a pause, in a very confidential voice, "I sometimes wish--now this is a secret, remember--that papa and mamma would forget Beverley a little--and think--of Judith and me? They seem to expect Judith to wear black all the time, and never to smile or to laugh or to sing, as if Beverley could know. I don't believe the dead in their graves know or care anything about us."

She was on delicate ground, but, her tongue being unloosed, Throckmorton's attempt to check her was a complete failure.

"Judith, you know," she continued, cutting in on Throckmorton's awkward remonstrance, "only knew Beverley a little while. Her father and mother were dead, and papa was her guardian. She came to Barn Elms to live after she left school, and Beverley came home from the war, and they were married right away--almost as soon as they were acquainted. It was so sudden because Beverley's leave was up, and Delilah says that Beverley knew he was going to be killed soon. She says he dreamed it, or something. Do you believe in dreams?"

"No, and you mustn't believe all Delilah tells you."

"Anyhow, he went away, and he never came back. That broke papa and mamma's hearts. And you know--little Beverley--Judith's child--is like her--and not a bit like Beverley, and mamma talks sometimes as if it was a crime on the child's part. She says to everybody, 'Don't you think the child is like his father?' and n.o.body answers her quite truthfully, and she knows it."

Throckmorton hardly knew how to receive these family confidences, but he could not but admire the color coming and going in Jacqueline's cheeks, and the fitful light that burned in her eyes as she talked.

"And Judith--I do love Judith. It seems hard--now this is another secret--that she should never have any more pleasure in this world. And she is so bright and clever. She understands the most wonderful books.

And there's something--I can't help telling you this."

"Perhaps you had better not tell me," said Throckmorton in a warning voice.

"But I can't help it, you are so--so sympathetic: I don't believe Judith cared for Beverley much."

Jacqueline drew off to see the effect of this on Throckmorton. She did not at all suspect him of any interest in Judith; but this family tragedy, that had stalked beside her nearly all her life, she thought was of immense importance, and she wanted to see how it affected Throckmorton. In fact, it only embarra.s.sed him. He said, rather briefly:

"Mrs. Beverley is very handsome--very charming."

"She's the best sister in the world," exclaimed Jacqueline. "Some people think that sisters-in-law can't love each other. Sometimes I would throw myself in the river if it wasn't for Judith."

"Why should such a tender little thing as you want to throw herself in the river?" he asked; and if Jack had heard the tone in which this was spoken, he would, no doubt, have found food for unG.o.dly mirth in it.

"You don't know what sorrows I have," responded Jacqueline, gravely. And then they were almost at the gate of Barn Elms, and Throckmorton bade her good-by, and tramped back home, while Jacqueline scudded into the house to confide the wonderful adventures of the afternoon to Judith.

In a day or two a note from General Temple came, inviting Throckmorton and Jack to tea at Barn Elms the following Sunday evening. It was rather a letter than a note, General Temple spreading himself--his honest soul loved a rhetorical flourish--and containing many references to their early a.s.sociation. Throckmorton accepted, in a reply in which he told, much more glibly than his tongue could, the grateful affection he had cherished from his neglected and unhappy boyhood toward the whole family at Barn Elms. On the Sunday evening, therefore, Throckmorton, with Jack, presented himself, and was effusively received by the general and Simon Peter, who were not unlike in their overpowering courtesy to guests.

Judith was cordial and dignified, and Jacqueline full of a shy delight.

No doubt they would be invited to Millenbeck, and she would see with her own eyes the Bruskins carpets and other royal splendors Delilah was never weary of recounting.

General Temple was able to be down in the drawing-room, but Mrs. Temple was not present. Delilah, however, soon put her head in the door, and, crossing her hands under a huge white ap.r.o.n she wore, brought a message.

"Mistis, she say, won't Ma.r.s.e George please ter come in de charmber."

Throckmorton at once followed her. The "charmber" at Barn Elms was a sort of star chamber, and utterances within its precincts were usually of a solemn character. As Throckmorton entered, Mrs. Temple rose from the big rush-bottomed chair in which she sat. Throckmorton remembered the room perfectly, in all the years since he had been in it--the dimity curtains, the high-post mahogany bed, the s.h.i.+ning bra.s.s fender and andirons, the tall candlesticks on the high wooden mantel. He remembered, with a queer, boyish feeling, sundry moral discourses gently administered to him in that room on certain occasions when he had been caught in the act of fis.h.i.+ng on Sunday, or poking a broomstick up the chimney to dislodge the sooty swallows that built their nests there in the summer-time, and other instances of juvenile turpitude. And he well recollected once, when Mrs. Temple was ill, he had hung about the place, a picture of boyish misery; and when at last he was admitted into the room where she lay, white and feeble, on the broad, old-fas.h.i.+oned lounge, how happy, how glad, how honored he had felt. He went forward eagerly and raised Mrs. Temple's hand to his lips.

"George Throckmorton, this is nearer forgiveness than I ever expected to come," she said.

"Dear Mrs. Temple, don't let us talk about forgiveness. Let us only remember that we are friends of more than thirty years'

standing--because I can't remember the time when I was a boy that I didn't love you."

"And I loved you, too--next to my own Beverley. I sent for you here that I might tell you my trouble as you used to tell me yours so long ago.

Often you have sat on that little cricket over there and told me of your grandfather's cruel ways to you--he was a G.o.dless man, George."

"He was indeed," fervently a.s.sented Throckmorton.

"And now I want to tell you of _my_ sorrows, George."

Throckmorton listened patiently while she went over all of Beverley's life. She told it with a touching simplicity. Throckmorton well saw how that still stern unforgiveness might rankle in her gentle but immovable mind. Then he told her of his marriage--something he had never in all his life spoken of to any one in that manner; but the force of sweet and early habit was upon him--he could talk to Mrs. Temple about the young creature so much loved and so long dead. Mrs. Temple, who knew what such revealing meant from a man of Throckmorton's strong and self-contained nature, was completely won by this. An hour afterward, when they came into the drawing-room, and found Jack and Jacqueline in a perfect gale of merriment, with Judith looking smilingly on, Mrs. Temple laid her hand on Throckmorton's shoulder, and said to General Temple, with sweet gravity, "He is the same George Throckmorton."

Judith was leaning a little forward in her chair, with her arm around her child. The boy was a beautiful, manly fellow, and gazed at Throckmorton with friendly, serious eyes. Throckmorton, whose heart was tender toward all children, smiled at him. Beverley at this marched forward and climbed upon Throckmorton's knee, his little white frock, heavy with embroidery worked by Judith's patient fingers, spreading all around him. The boy immediately launched into conversation, eying Throckmorton boldly, although his eyes usually had the shy expression of his mother's. He wanted to know if Throckmorton had a gun, and could he beat the drum; also, if he could ride a horse. Sometimes grandfather would take him up and let him ride as far as the gate. Throckmorton answered all these questions satisfactorily, and then told about a pony he had at Millenbeck--a pony that had been Jack's, when Jack was no bigger than Beverley, and that was now too old and slow for any but a very little boy. While Throckmorton talked to the child, Judith listened with a smiling look in her eyes. Throckmorton could not but be struck by the pretty picture the young mother and her child made. He saw the resemblance between them at once, and when he told of a tragic adventure Jack had with the pony, falling through a bridge, both pairs of large, soft eyes grew wide with grave amazement. Unconsciously Judith a.s.sumed the child's expression. Beverley seemed determined to monopolize his new acquaintance, but presently Judith with a little air of authority sent him off with Delilah. Beverley paused at the door to say:

"You come again and bring the pony."

Presently they went into the dining-room, and the old-fas.h.i.+oned tea was served. There was enough to feed a regiment, and all of the best kind, but nothing approaching vulgar display. Mrs. Temple put Throckmorton at her right, and every time she spoke to Jack she called him George.

Throckmorton had forgotten nothing of the old days, and he not only began to feel young himself, but he made General and Mrs. Temple feel that time had turned backward. Jacqueline, on the opposite side of the table, smiled at him and talked a little. In her heart she could not quite make out Throckmorton. He had arrived at an age that seemed to her almost venerable; yet he quite ignored the fact that he ought to be old, and certainly was not old, nor could anybody say that he was young.

Jack's boyish fun she understood well enough, but Throckmorton's shrewd humor, his confident, experienced way of looking at things, was rather beyond her. And as the case had been, whenever Throckmorton saw her, he had to exercise a certain restraint, lest everybody should see how strangely and completely she magnetized him. If anybody had asked him to compare Judith and Jacqueline, he would have given Judith the palm in everything--even in beauty; but Jacqueline's young prettiness in some way caught his fancy more than Judith's deeper and more significant beauty.

But Judith had her charm too for him. She captivated his judgment as Jacqueline captivated some inner sense to which he could give no name.

Judith's talk was seasoned with liveliness, and Throckmorton, who possessed a dry and penetrating humor of his own, could always count on a responsive sparkle in Judith's eye.

When they returned to the drawing-room, Mrs. Temple said:

"Judith, my dear, sing us some of your sweet hymns."

Judith sat down to the piano and in her clear and bell-like soprano sang some old-fas.h.i.+oned hymns, so sweetly and unaffectedly that Throckmorton thought it was like angels singing. The sound of the simple music, the soft light of fire and lamp, the atmosphere of love and courtesy that seemed to breathe over the quaint circle, had a fascination for him. It was the poetry of domestic life. He had often dreamed of what "home"

might be, but he had never known it, for that brief married life of his had been too short, too flickering; they were boy and girl lovers, and, before the new life had had time to crystallize, he was left alone. But here he saw the sweet privacy of home, the repose, the family nest, safe and warm. He sighed a little. Money could not buy it, else he would have had it at Millenbeck, comfortable handsome country-house that it was.

But here, at this shabby old Barn Elms, it was in perfection, in all its naturalness and simplicity. After all, women were necessary to make a home; even money, with a Sweeney as presiding genius, couldn't do it.

It was late when they left. Mrs. Temple's parting was as solemn as her greeting:

"I have done that which I never expected to do, and all because in my heart I can't but love you, George Throckmorton!"

Throckmorton's keen pleasure showed in his dark eyes.

"I always knew, if you would only listen to that dear, kind heart of yours, you would forgive the Yankees," he laughed.

CHAPTER V.

Miracles usually happen in cycles. They unquestionably did in the Severn neighborhood. Before the hurricane of talk over Throckmorton's arrival, Jack's audacity, and Sweeney's brogue had fairly reached a crisis, a letter came one day to General Temple, from his nephew, Temple Freke, announcing his intention of paying a visit to his dear uncle and aunt at Barn Elms.

General Temple handed the letter to Mrs. Temple with a sort of groan.

"This is he--I mean, my love, this is most discomposing."

At this Mrs. Temple shook her head in a manner expressing perfect despair. The problem whether Throckmorton should be admitted within the doors of Barn Elms was a mere nothing compared with this. Both of them firmly believed in a personal devil; and Temple Freke, with his extravagance, his vices, his unprincipled behavior, stood for Satan himself. This Freke was very unlike the conservative, home-keeping type of a gentleman that prevailed in Virginia. He was born and brought up in Louisiana, and was fifteen years old when, by the death of his father, General Temple became his guardian, and he was brought to Barn Elms to lead the staid Beverley into all sorts of sc.r.a.pes, and to torment General Temple's honest soul almost to madness. The elder Freke, perhaps, knowing the boy's disposition, had made General Temple's guardians.h.i.+p to extend until Temple Freke's twenty-fifth birthday.

Of the horrors of that guardians.h.i.+p, n.o.body but the kind and simple-hearted general could tell--of Freke's extravagance, of his gambling and betting and drinking, and one frightful scene, when Freke, with a loaded pistol in his hand, swore that, unless a certain debt of honor was paid, he would kill himself on the spot; and General Temple, who was not easily frightened, promptly paid it, with the conviction that the young fellow was quite capable of carrying out the threat.

Immediately after this, General Temple s.h.i.+pped him off to Europe, but apparently it made bad worse. For six whole years was General Temple commanding, entreating, praying, and wheedling to get Freke back to Virginia. It was true, he might have cut off supplies, but Freke made no bones of saying that, if he couldn't get his own money, he would contrive to get somebody else's; so the poor general, with groans and moans, would cash Freke's drafts on him as long as money could be screwed out of the Louisiana sugar plantations to do it with.