The Battle Ground Part 27

"Then you must come in to get it," answered Betty, her eyes narrowing.

"Breakfast is getting cold, and Cupid is calling down Aunt Rhody's wrath upon your head."

"Oh, I'll come, I'll come," returned the Major, hurrying up the steps, and adding as he entered the dining room, "My child, if you'd only take a fancy to Champe, I'd be the happiest man on earth."

"Now I shan't allow any matchmaking on Sunday," said Betty, warningly, as she prepared Mrs. Lightfoot's breakfast. "Sit down and carve the chicken while I run upstairs with this."

She went out and came back in a moment, laughing merrily. "Do you know, she threatens to become bedridden now that I am here to fix her trays," she explained, sitting down between the tall silver urns and pouring out the Major's coffee. "What an uncertain day you have for church," she added as she gave his cup to Cupid.

With his eyes on her vivid face the old man listened rapturously to her fresh young voice--the voice, he said, that always made him think of clear water falling over stones. It was one of the things that came to her from Peyton Ambler, he knew, with her warm hazel eyes and the sweet, strong curve of her mouth. "Ah, but you're like your father," he said as he watched her. "If you had brown hair you'd be his very image."

"I used to wish that I had," responded Betty, "but I don't now--I'd just as soon have red." She was thinking that Dan did not like brown hair so much, and the thought shone in her face--only the Major, in his ignorance, mistook its meaning.

After breakfast he got into the coach and started off, and Betty, with the key basket on her arm, followed Cupid and Aunt Rhody into the storeroom.

Then she gathered fresh flowers for the table, and went upstairs to read a chapter from the Bible to Mrs. Lightfoot.

The Major stayed to dinner in town, returning late in a moody humour and exhausted by his drive. As Betty brushed her hair before her bureau, she heard him talking in a loud voice to Mrs. Lightfoot, and when she went in at supper time the old, lady called her to her bedside and took her hand.

"He has had a touch of the gout, Betty," she whispered in her ear, "and he heard some news in town which upset him a little. You must try to cheer him up at supper, child."

"Was it bad news?" asked Betty, in alarm.

"It may not be true, my dear. I hope it isn't, but, as I told Mr.

Lightfoot, it is always better to believe the worst, so if any surprise comes it may be a pleasant one. Somebody told him in church--and they had much better have been attending to the service, I'm sure,--that Dan had gotten into trouble again, and Mr. Lightfoot is very angry about it. He had a talk with the boy before he went away, and made him promise to turn over a new leaf this year--but it seems this is the most serious thing that has happened yet. I must say I always told Mr. Lightfoot it was what he had to expect."

"In trouble again?" repeated Betty, kneeling by the bed. Her hands went cold, and she pressed them nervously together.

"Of course we know very little about it, my dear," pursued Mrs. Lightfoot.

"All we have heard is that he fought a duel and was sent away from the University. He was even put into gaol for a night, I believe--a Lightfoot in a common dirty gaol! Well, well, as I said before, all we can do now is to expect the worst."

"Oh, is that all?" cried Betty, and the leaping of her heart told her the horror of her dim foreboding. She rose to her feet and smiled brightly down upon the astonished old lady.

"I don't know what more you want," replied Mrs. Lightfoot, tartly. "If he ever gets clean again after a whole night in a common gaol, I must say I don't see how he'll manage it. But if you aren't satisfied I can only tell you that the affair was all about some bar-room wench, and that the papers will be full of it. Not that the boy was anything but foolish," she added hastily. "I'll do him the justice to admit that he's more of a fool than a villain--and I hardly know whether it's a compliment that I'm paying him or not. He got some quixotic notion into his head that Harry Maupin insulted the girl in his presence, and he called him to account for it. As if the honour of a barkeeper's daughter was the concern of any gentleman!"

"Oh!" cried Betty, and caught her breath. The word went out of her in a sudden burst of joy, but the joy was so sharp that a moment afterwards she hid her wet face in the bedclothes and sobbed softly to herself.

"I don't think Mr. Lightfoot would have taken it so hard but for Virginia,"

said the old lady, with her keen eyes on the girl. "You know he has always wanted to bring Dan and Virginia together, and he seems to think that the boy has been dishonourable about it."

"But Virginia doesn't care--she doesn't care," protested Betty.

"Well, I'm glad to hear it," returned Mrs. Lightfoot, relieved, "and I hope the foolish boy will stay away long enough for his grandfather to cool off.

Mr. Lightfoot is a high-tempered man, my child. I've spent fifty years in keeping him at peace with the world. There now, run down and cheer him up."

She lay back among her pillows, and Betty leaned over and kissed her with cold lips before she dried her eyes and went downstairs to find the Major.

With the first glance at his face she saw that Dan's cause was hopeless for the hour, and she set herself, with a cheerful countenance, to a discussion of the trivial happenings of the day. She talked pleasantly of the rector's sermon, of the morning reading with Mrs. Lightfoot, and of a great hawk that had appeared suddenly in the air and raised an outcry among the turkeys on the lawn. When these topics were worn threadbare she bethought herself of the beauty of the autumn woods, and lamented the ruined garden with its last sad flowers.

The Major listened gloomily, putting in a word now and then, and keeping his weak red eyes upon his plate. There was a heavy cloud on his brow, and the flush that Betty had learned to dread was in his face. Once when she spoke carelessly of Dan, he threw out an angry gesture and inquired if she "found Mrs. Lightfoot easier to-night?"

"Oh, I think so," replied the girl, and then, as they rose from the table, she slipped her hand through his arm and went with him into the library.

"Shall I sit with you this evening?" she asked timidly. "I'd be so glad to read to you, if you would let me."

He shook his head, patted her affectionately upon the shoulder, and smiled down into her upraised face. "No, no, my dear, I've a little work to do,"

he replied kindly. "There are a few papers I want to look over, so run up to Molly and tell her I sent my suns.h.i.+ne to her."

He stooped and kissed her cheek; and Betty, with a troubled heart, went slowly up to Mrs. Lightfoot's chamber.

The Major sat down at his writing table, and spread his papers out before him. Then he raised the wick of his lamp, and with his pen in his hand, resolutely set himself to his task. When Cupid came in with the decanter of Burgundy, he filled a gla.s.s and held it absently against the light, but he did not drink it, and in a moment he put it down with so tremulous a hand that the wine spilled upon the floor.

"I've a touch of the gout, Cupid," he said testily. "A touch of the gout that's been hanging over me for a month or more."

"Huccome you ain' fit hit, Ole Marster?"

"Oh, I've been fighting it tooth and nail," answered the old gentleman, "but there are some things that always get the better of you in the end, Cupid, and the gout's one of them."

"En rheumaticks. .h.i.t's anurr," added Cupid, rubbing his knee.

He rolled a fresh log upon the andirons and went out, while the Major returned, frowning, to his work.

He was still at his writing table, when he heard the sound of a horse trotting in the drive, and an instant afterwards the quick fall of the old bra.s.s knocker. The flush deepened in his face, and with a look at once angry and appealing, he half rose from his chair. As he waited the outside bars were withdrawn, there followed a few short steps across the hall, and Dan came into the library.

"I suppose you know what's brought me back, grandpa?" he said quietly as he entered.

The Major started up and then sat down again.

"I do know, sir, and I wish to G.o.d I didn't," he replied, choking in his anger.

Dan stood where he had halted upon his entrance, and looked at him with eyes in which there was still a defiant humour. His face was pale and his hair hung in black streaks across his forehead. The white dust of the turnpike had settled upon his clothes, and as he moved it floated in a little cloud about him.

"I reckon you think it's a pretty bad thing, eh?" he questioned coolly, though his hands trembled.

The Major's eyes flashed ominously from beneath his heavy brows.

"Pretty bad?" he repeated, taking a long breath. "If you want to know what I think about it, sir, I think that it's a d.a.m.nable disgrace. Pretty bad!--By G.o.d, sir, do you call having a gaol-bird for a grandson pretty bad?"

"Stop, sir!" called Dan, sharply. He had steadied himself to withstand the shock of the Major's temper, but, in the dash of his youthful folly, he had forgotten to reckon with his own. "For heaven's sake, let's talk about it calmly," he added irritably.

"I am perfectly calm, sir!" thundered the Major, rising to his feet. The terrible flush went in a wave to his forehead, and he put up one quivering hand to loosen his high stock. "I tell you calmly that you've done a d.a.m.nable thing; that you've brought disgrace upon the name of Lightfoot."

"It is not my name," replied Dan, lifting his head. "My name is Montjoy, sir."

"And it's a name to hang a dog for," retorted the Major.

As they faced each other with the same flash of temper kindling in both faces, the likeness between them grew suddenly more striking. It was as if the spirit of the fiery old man had risen, in a finer and younger shape, from the air before him.

"At all events it is not yours," said Dan, hotly. Then he came nearer, and the anger died out of his eyes. "Don't let's quarrel, grandpa," he pleaded.

"I've gotten into a mess, and I'm sorry for it--on my word I am."