Part 27 (1/2)

Rand turned the thin blue page, snuffed the candle, and fell again to his reading. Right and left the talk continued. ”Gla.s.s, tin.... The Albemarle Resolutions. Great speech. He's over there.... All this talk about Aaron Burr.... Austerlitz--twenty thousand Russians.... Westwood the coiner got clean away on a brig for Martinique. One villain the less here, one the more in Martinique. Martinique! that's where the Empress Josephine comes from--”

”My faith!” said Adam. ”It's worse than the mockingbirds in June!”

The doors opened and the two Carys entered the coffee room. Rand lifted his eyes for a moment, then let them fall to the third sheet of his letter. Mr. Lynch bustled forward. ”Ha, Mr. Cary, your letters are waiting! Mr. Fairfax Cary,--your servant, sir!--Eli, wine for Mr.

Cary--_the_ Madeira. Christopher, more wood to the fire! The night is falling cold.”

”Very cold, Mr. Lynch,” said Ludwell Cary. ”Colonel Ambler--Mr. Wickham, we meet again!”--and his brother, ”We never have such cold in Albemarle, Mr. Lynch! Ha, your fire is good, and your wine's good, and your company's good. There's a table by the fire, Ludwell.”

They moved to it, exchanging greetings, as they went, with half the room, sat down, drank each a gla.s.s of wine, and fell to their letters, careless of the surrounding war of words. The elder's mail was heavy,--letters from London, from New York, from Philadelphia, one from his overseer at Greenwood, others from clients, colleagues, and strangers,--all the varied correspondence of the lawyer, the planter, and the man of the world. Fairfax Cary's letters were fewer in number, but one was gilt-edged, curiously folded, and superscribed in a strong and delicate hand. ”Miss Dandridge seals with a dove and an olive branch?” murmured the elder brother. ”Lucky Fair! What's the frown for?”

”Olive branch?” quoth the other. ”She should seal with a nettle! Listen to this: 'Mr. Hunter has been some time with us at Fontenoy. Mr. Carter spent his Christmas here--he dances extremely well. Mr. Page gives us now and then the pleasure of his company. He turns the leaves of my music for me. Mr. Lee and I are reading Sir Charles Grandison together.

I see Mr. Nelson at Saint Anne's.' Saint Anne! Saint Griselda! Her letters are enough to make a man renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil, and turn Trappist--”

”I wish the room would turn Trappist,” said the other. ”I am tired of talk. I would like to be somewhere in the woods to-night--quiet. We won't stay long here. There has been contention enough to-day.”

The younger leaned forward. ”Lewis Rand is over there--three tables back.”

”I know. I saw him when we came in. Read your letters and we will be gone.”

The minutes pa.s.sed. Outside Lynch's the western red faded, and the still, winter night came quickly on. Within, fire and candles burned bright, but to not a few of Mr. Lynch's patrons the flames danced unsteadily. It was an age of hard drinking; the day had been an exciting one, and Lynch's wine or punch or apple toddy but the last of many potations. The a.s.semblage was a.s.suredly not drunken, but neither was it, at this hour and after the emotional wear and tear of the past hours, quite sane or less than hectic. Its mood was edged. Now, in the quarter of an hour before the general start for home and supper, foreign and federal affairs gave way to first-hand matters and a review of the day that was closing. It had been a field day. The city of Richmond was strongly Federal, the General a.s.sembly mainly Republican. At Lynch's this evening were members, Federalist and Republican, of the two Houses, with citizens, planters, visitors enough of either principle. When the general talk turned upon the Albemarle Resolutions and the morning's proceedings in the House of Delegates, it was as though an invisible grindstone had put upon the moment a finer edge.

Lewis Rand, sweeping his letters and papers together, had nodded to Adam and moved from his table to that of a pillar of the Republican party, with whom he was now in attentive discourse. Apparently he gave no heed to the voices around him, though he might have heard his own name, seeing that wherever the talk now turned it came at last upon his speech of that morning. Presently, ”Mr. Rand!” called some one from across the room.

Rand turned. ”Mr. Harrison?”

”Mr. Rand, there's a dispute here. Just what did you mean by--” and there followed a quotation from the morning's speech.

Rand moistened his lips with wine, turned more fully in his chair, and answered in a sentence of such pith as to bring applause from those of his party who heard. In a moment there was another query, then a third; he was presently committed to a short and vigorous exposition and defence of the point in question. The entire room became attentive.

Then, as he paused, the strident voice of a noted and irascible man proclaimed, ”That's not democracy and not Jefferson--that doctrine, Mr.

Rand. Veil her as you please in gauze and tinsel, you've got conquest by the hand. You may not think it, but you're preaching--what's the word that 'Aurelius' used?--'Buonapartism.'”

A Federalist of light weight who had arrived at quarrelsomeness and an empty bottle put in a sudden oar. ”'Buonapartism' equals Ambition, and both begin with an R.” He looked pointedly at Rand.

”My name begins with an R, sir,” said Rand.

”Pshaw! so does mine!” exclaimed the man at the table with him. ”Let him alone, Rand. He doesn't know what he is saying.”

Rand turned to the first speaker. ”'Buonapartism,'--that's a word that's as ample as Charity, but I hardly think, sir, that it covers this case.

It's a very vague word. But writers to the Gazette are apt to be more fluent than accurate.”

”I shouldn't call it vague,” cried his opponent. ”It's a d.a.m.ned good word, and so I'd tell 'Aurelius,' if I knew who he was.”

”It wasn't random firing in that letter,” said a voice from another quarter of the room. ”I don't much care to know the gunner, but I'd mightily like to know who was aimed at. It was a d.a.m.ned definite thing, that letter. 'Buonapartism--the will to mount--sacrifice of obligations--Genius prost.i.tuted to Ambition--sin against light--a man's betrayal of his highest self and his own belief--the mind's incurable blindness--I, I am above all law--to take rich gifts and hold the G.o.ds in contempt--Daedalus wings'”--The speaker paused to fill his gla.s.s.

”Yes, I should powerfully like to know at whom 'Aurelius' was aiming.”

”At no one, I think,” said Rand coolly. ”He made a scarecrow of his own, and then was frightened by it. His chain-shot raked a man of straw,--and so would I tell 'Aurelius,' if I knew who he was.”