Part 50 (1/2)
”Yeth, thir.”
”I want a promise from you.”
”Yeth, Mr. Rand.”
”You've always been my good friend, ever since long ago when you came from the little house in Richmond to this little house in Charlottesville, and I was reading law with Mr. Henning. Why, I don't know what I should do without you and Tom!”
Vinie's eyes filled. ”I couldn't--Tom and me couldn't--do without you, Mr. Rand. You're our best friend, and we'd die for you, and you know it.
I'll promise you anything, and I'll keep my promise.”
”I know that you will. It's nothing more than this. Vinie, I don't want it known that I stopped here to-day, and I want you to forget--look at me, Vinie.”
”Yeth, thir.”
”I want you to forget what I asked you for, and what I did in Tom's room.
”Yeth, thir,” said Vinie, with large eyes. ”And that you cut yourself?”
”That, too. Everything, Vinie, except that, coming along the main road, I stopped a moment at the gate to say how d'ye do, and to tell you that Tom would be at home in two or three days. That is all, and my coming into the house and the rest of it never was. Do you understand?”
”I won't say anything at all, thir.”
”It's a promise?”
”Yeth, thir. I promise.”
They went out into the porch together. ”Ithn't there anything else?”
Rand, studying in silence the clouds and the whirling dust, had started down the step or two to the path between the marigolds. He paused. ”I can't think of anything, Vinie”; then, after a moment, and very oddly, ”Would you give me, once more, a cup of cool water?”
Vinie brought it in her hand. ”You always thaid this water washed the dust off clean.”
Rand drank, and gave back the cup. ”Thank you. I'll go on now. How your vine has borne this year!”
”Yeth. I'm going to make some wine this week. Good-bye.”
Her visitor pa.s.sed through the little yard, between the vivid flowers.
At the gate he turned his head. ”Tom is really coming, Vinie, in two or three days.”
”Yeth, thir,” said Vinie. ”I'll be mighty glad to see him.”
Rand mounted, and he and Young Isham rode away. Vinie stood upon the porch and watched them as far as the turn in the road. A gust of hot wind blew against her, ruffling her calico dress and lifting light tendrils of hair from her forehead and neck. In the southwest the lightning flashed fiercely and there came a crash of thunder. Vinie uttered a startled cry, clapped her hands to her ears, and ran into the house.
Rand rode through a portion of the main street of Charlottesville. He kept the pace of a man who wishes to be at home before the rain falls, but his manner of going showed no undue haste and no trepidation. Faces at doors and windows, men gathered before the Eagle and the post-office, greeted him. He answered each salute in kind, and at the Eagle drew rein long enough to reply to the inevitable questions as to Richmond and the trial, and to agree that the rain was needed, since the main road, from Bates's Mill on, was nothing but a trough of dust.
”That's so,” chimed in one. ”If it wasn't so rough, the river road would be pleasanter travelling. There's the first drop!”
Rand looked up at the clouds. ”I'll gallop on, gentlemen. A rain is coming that will lay the dust.”