Part 24 (1/2)
”No, he is no friend to Mr. Jefferson. The room looks well, sweetheart.
But some day you shall have a much grander one, all light and splendour, and larger flowers than these--”
His wife rested her head against his shoulder. ”I don't want it, Lewis.
It is only you who care for magnificence. Sometimes I wonder that you should so care.”
”It is my mother in me,” he answered. ”She cared--poor soul. But I don't want magnificence for myself. I want it for you--”
”You must not want it for me,” cried Jacqueline, with wistful pa.s.sion.
”I am happy here, and I am happy at Roselands--but I was happiest of all in the house on the Three-Notched Road!”
There was a moment's silence, then Rand spoke slowly. ”I was not born for content. I am urged on--and on--and I cannot always tell right from wrong. There is a darkness within me--I wish it were light instead!” He laughed. ”But if wishes were horses, beggars might ride!--And you've cut all your pretty bright flowers! After supper, before we begin our talk, you must sing to him. They say his daughter is an accomplished and beautiful woman. But you--you are Beauty, Jacqueline!”
The knocker sounded. ”That is he,” exclaimed Rand, and went into the hail to welcome his guest. Jacqueline returned to the drawing-room, and waited there before the fire. She was dressed in white, with bare neck and arms and her mother's amethysts around her throat. In a moment the two men entered. ”This is my wife, Colonel Burr,” said Rand.
Jacqueline curtsied. A small, slight, black-eyed, and smiling gentleman bowed low, and with much grace of manner took and kissed her hand. ”Mr.
Rand, now I understand the pride in your voice! Madam, I wish my daughter Theodosia were with me. She is my pride, and when I say that you two would be friends, I pay you both a compliment!”
”I have heard much of her,” answered Jacqueline, ”and nothing but good.
My husband tells me that you have been in the South--and in Virginia we are welcoming you with a snowstorm!”
”The cold is all outside,” said Colonel Burr. ”Permit me--”
He handed his hostess to the green-striped sofa, and seated himself beside her with a sigh of appreciation for the warmth and soft light of the pleasant room, and the presence of woman. ”Your harp!” he exclaimed.
”I should have brought a sheaf of Spanish songs such as the ladies sing to the guitar in New Orleans!--My dear sir, your fair wife and my Theodosia must one day sing together, walk hand in hand together, in that richer, sweeter land! They shall use the mantilla and wield the fan. Crowns are too heavy--they shall wear black lace!”
He spoke with not unpleasant brusqueness, a military manner tempered with gallantry, and he looked at Rand with quick black eyes. ”Yes, they must meet,” said Rand simply. He spoke composedly, but he had nevertheless a moment's vision of Jacqueline, away from the snow and the storm, walking in beauty through the gardens of a far country. He saw her with a circlet of gold upon her head, a circlet of Mexican gold.
Crowns were heavy, but men--ay, and women, too!--fought for them. Hers should be light and fanciful upon her head. She should wear black lace if she chose,--though always he liked her best in white, in her kingdom, in the kingdom he was going to help Aaron Burr establish.--No! in the kingdom Aaron Burr should help Lewis Rand establis.h.!.+ His dream broke. He was not sure that he meant to come to an understanding with Burr. It depended--it depended. But still he saw Jacqueline in trailing robes, with the gold circlet on her head.
Joab at the door announced supper, and the three went into the dining-room, where the red geraniums glowed between the candles.
Jacqueline took her place behind the coffee-urn, and Joab waited.
The meal went pleasantly on. Colonel Burr was accomplished in conversation, now supple and insinuating as a courtier, now direct, forceful, even plain, as became an old soldier of the Revolution, always agreeable, and always with a fine air of sincerity. The daughter of Henry Churchill did not lack wit, charm, and proper fire, and the Virginia hostess never showed her private feelings to a guest. She watched over the stranger's comfort with soft care, and met his talk with graceful readiness. He spoke to her of her family: of her grandfather, whose name had been widely known, of her father, whose praises he had heard sung, of Major Churchill, whom he had met in Philadelphia in General Was.h.i.+ngton's time. He spoke of her kinsmen with an admiration which went far toward including their opinions. Jacqueline marvelled. Surely this gentleman was a Democrat-Republican, lately the Vice-President of that party's electing. It was not two years since he had slain General Hamilton; and now, in a quiet, refined voice, he was talking of Federalists and Federal ways with all the familiarity, sympathy, and ease of one born in the fold and contented with his lot.
She wondered if he had quarrelled with his party, and while he was talking she was proudly thinking, ”The Federalists will not have him--no, not if he went on his knees to them!” And then she thought, ”He is a man without a country.”
Rand sat somewhat silent and distrait, his mind occupied in building, building, now laying the timbers this way and now that; but presently, upon his guest's referring to him some point for elucidation, he entered the conversation, and thenceforth, though he spoke not a great deal, his personality dominated it. The acute intelligence opposite him took faint alarm. ”I am bargaining for a supporter,” Burr told himself, ”not for a rival,” and became if possible more deferentially courteous than before. The talk went smoothly on, from Virginia politics to the triumphal march of Napoleon through Europe; from England and the death of Pitt to the Spanish intrigues, and so back to questions of the West; and to references, which Jacqueline did not understand, to the Spanish Minister, Casa Yrujo, to the English Mr. Merry, and to Messieurs Sauve, Derbigny, and Jean Noel Destrehan of New Orleans.
Joab took away the Chelsea plates and dishes, brushed the mahogany, and placed before his master squat decanters of sherry and Madeira. The flowing talk took a warmer tone, and began to sing with the music of the South and the golden West; to be charged with Spanish, French, and Indian names, with the odour of strange flowers, the roll of the Mississippi, and the flas.h.i.+ng of coloured wings. It was the two men now who spoke. Jacqueline, leaning back in her chair, half listened to the talk of the Territory of Orleans, the Perdido, and the road to Mexico, half dreamed of what they might be doing at Fontenoy this snowy night.
The knocker sounded. ”That is Adam Gaudylock,” exclaimed Rand. ”Joab, show Mr. Gaudylock in.”
Jacqueline rose, and Colonel Burr sprang to open the door for her. ”We may sit late, Jacqueline,” said Rand, and their guest, ”Madam, I will make court to you in a court some day!”
Gaudylock's voice floated in from the hall: ”Is a little man with him?--a black-eyed man?” She pa.s.sed into the drawing-room, and, pressing her brow against the window-pane, looked out into the night. The snow had ceased to fall, and the moon was struggling with the breaking clouds. The door opened to admit her husband, who came for a moment to her side. ”It is not snowing now,” he said. ”A visitor will hardly knock on such a night. If by chance one should come, say that I am engaged with a client, make my excuses, and as soon as possible get rid of him.
On no account--on no account, Jacqueline, would I have it known that Aaron Burr is here to-night. This is important. I will keep the doors shut, and we will not speak loudly.” He turned to go, then hesitated.
”On second thoughts, I will tell Joab to excuse us both at the door. For you--do not sit up, dear heart! It will be late before our business is done.”
He was gone. Jacqueline went back to the fire and, sitting down beneath the high mantel, opened the fifth volume of Clarissa Harlowe. She read for a while, then closed the book, and with her chin in her hand fell to studying the ruddy hollows and the dropping coals. Perhaps half an hour pa.s.sed. The door opened, and she looked up from her picture in the deep hollows to see Ludwell Cary smiling down upon her and holding out his hand. ”Perhaps I should have drifted past with the snow,” he said, ”but the light in the window drew me, and I heard to-day from Fontenoy. Mr.
Rand, I know, is at home.”