Part 13 (1/2)
The major laughed out suddenly, harshly, in the quiet room, and looked down as if he expected to see that letter still lying in his hand. But the laugh could not still a regular pulsing sound that was in his ears--elfin like the voices, but as distinct--the sound of a horse's hoofs going from Damory Court.
He had heard those hoof-beats echo in his brain for thirty years!
CHAPTER XVII
THE TRESPa.s.sER
Till the sun was high John Valiant lay on his back in the fragrant gra.s.s, meditatively watching a bucaneering chicken-hawk draw widening circles against the blue and listening to the vibrant tattoo of a ”p.e.c.k.e.r-wood” on a far-away tree, and the timorous wet whistle of a bob-white. The sun shone through the tracery of the foliage, making a quivering mosaic of light and shadow all about him. A robin ran across the gra.s.s with his breast puffed out as if he had been stealing apples; now and then an inquisitive yellow-hammer darted above and in the bushes cardinals wove slender sharp flashes of living crimson. The whole place was very quiet now. For just one thrilling moment it had burgeoned into sound and movement: when the sweaty horses had stood snorting and stamping in the yard with the hounds scampering between their legs and the riding-coats winking like rubies in the early suns.h.i.+ne!
Had she recognized him as the smudged tinkerer of the stalled car? ”She saw me drop that wretched brute through the window,” he chuckled. ”I could take oath to that. But she didn't give me away, true little sport that she was. And she won't. I can't think of any reason, but I know.”
The chuckle broadened to an appreciative grin. ”What an a.s.s she must have thought me! To risk a nasty bite and rob her of her brush into the bargain! How she looked at me, just for a minute, with that thoroughbred face, out of those sea-deep eyes, under that whorling, marvelous heaped-up hair of hers! Was she angry? I wonder!”
At length he rose and went back to the house. With a bunch of keys he had found he went to the stables, after some difficulty gained access, and propped the crazy doors and windows open to the sun. The building was airy and well-lighted and contained a dozen roomy box-stalls, a s.p.a.cious loft and a carriage-house. The straw bedding had been unremoved, mice-gnawed sacking and rotted hay lay in the mangers, and the warped harness, hanging on its pegs, was a smelly ma.s.s of mildew and decay. In the carriage-house were three vehicles--a coach with rat-riddled upholstery and old-fas.h.i.+oned hoop-iron springs eaten through with rust, a rockaway and a surrey. The latter had collapsed where it stood. He found a stick, mowed away the festooning cobwebs, and moved the debris piece-meal.
”There!” he said with satisfaction. ”There's a place for the motor--if Uncle Jefferson ever gets it here.”
It was noon when he returned, after a wash-up in the lake, to the meal with which Aunt Daphne, in a costume dimly suggestive of a bran-meal poultice with a gingham ap.r.o.n on, regaled him. Fried chicken, corn-bread so soft and fluffy that it had to be lifted from the pan with a spoon, browned potatoes, and to his surprise, fresh milk. ”Ah done druv ouah ol' cow ovah, suh,” explained Aunt Daphne. ”'Case she gotter be milked, er she run dry ez de Red Sea fo' de chillen ob Izril.”
”Aunt Daphne,” inquired Valiant with his mouth full, ”what do you call this green thing?”
”Dat? Dat's jes' turnip-tops, suh, wid er hunk er bacon in de pot.
Laws-er-me, et cert'n'y do me good ter see yo' git arter it dat way, suh. Reck'n yo' got er appert.i.te! Hyuh, Hyuh!”
”I have. I never guessed it before, and it's a magnificent discovery.
However, it suggests unwelcome reflections. Aunt Daphne, how long do you estimate a man can dine like this on--well, say on a hundred dollars?”
”Er hun'ed dollahs, suh? Dat's er right smart heap o' money, 'deed et is! Well, suh, 'pen's on whut yo' raises. Ef yo' raises yo' own gyarden-sa.s.s, en chick'ns en aigs, Ah reck'n yo' kin live longah dan dat ar Methoosalum, en still haf mos' of it in de ol' stockin'.”
”Ah! I can grow all those things myself, you think?”
”Yo' cert'n'y _kin_,” said Aunt Daphne. ”Ev'ybody do. De chick'ns done peck fo' deyselves en de yuddah things--yo' o'ny gotter 'courage 'em en dey jes' grows.”
Valiant ate his dessert with a thoughtful smile wrinkling his brow. As he pushed back his chair he smote his hands together and laughed aloud.
”Back to the soil!” he said. ”John Valiant, farmer! The miracle of it is that it sounds good to me. I _want_ to raise my own grub and till my own soil. I want to be my own man! And I'm beginning to see my way. Crops will have to wait for another season, but there's water and pasture for cattle now. There's timber--lots of it--on that hillside, too. I must look into that.”
He filled his pipe and climbed the staircase to the upper floor. Here the lower hall was duplicated. He proceeded slowly and carefully with the dusty task of window-opening. There were many bedrooms with great four-posted, canopied beds and old-fas.h.i.+oned carved furniture of mahogany and curly-maple, and in one he found a great cedar-lined chest filled with bed-linen and napery. In these rooms were more evidences of decay. They showed in faded hues, streaked and discolored finis.h.i.+ngs, yellow mildew beneath the gla.s.s of framed engravings and unsightly stains on walls and floors from leaks in the roof. On a dainty dressing-table had been left a pin-cus.h.i.+on; its stuffing was strewn in a tiny trickling trail to a mouse-hole in the base-board. The bedroom he mentally chose for his own was the plainest of all, and was above the library, fronting the vagabond garden. It had a great black desk with many gla.s.s-k.n.o.bbed drawers and a book-rack. The volumes this contained were mostly of the historical sort: a history of the _Middle Plantation, Meade's Old Churches,_ and at the end a parchment-bound tome inscribed _The Valiants of Virginia_.
He lingered longest in a room over whose door was painted _The Hilarium_. It had evidently been a nursery and schoolroom. Here on the walls were many shelves wound over with networks of cobwebs, and piled with the oddest a.s.semblage of toys: wooden and splintered soldiers that had once been bravely painted, dolls in various states of worn-outness--one rag doll in a calico dress with shoe-b.u.t.ton eyes and a string of bright gla.s.s beads round her neck--a wooden box of marbles, a tattered boxing-glove. There were school-books, too, thumbed and dog-eared, from _First Reader_ to Caesar's _Gallic Wars_, with names of small Valiants scrawled on their fly-leaves. He carefully relocked the door of this room; he wanted to dust those toys and books with his own hands.
In the upper hall again he leaned from the window, sniffing the far-flung scent of orchards and peach-blown fence-rows. The soft whirring sound of a bird's wing went past, almost brus.h.i.+ng his startled face, and the old oaks seemed to stretch their bent limbs with a faithful brute-like yawn of pleasure. In the room below he could hear the vigorous sound of Aunt Daphne's hard-driven broom and the sound flooded the echoing s.p.a.ce with a comfortable commotion.
The present task was one after Aunt Daphne's own heart. A small mountain of dust was growing on the terrace, and as beneath brush and rag the colors of wall and parquetry stood forth, her face became one s.h.i.+ny expanse of ebony satisfaction. When the bulldog, returning from his jaunt, out-stripping Uncle Jefferson, bounced in to prance against her she smote him l.u.s.tily with her scrubbing-brush.
”Git outer heah, yo' good-fo'-nuffin' w'ite rapscallyun! Gwine trapse yo' muddy feet all ovah dis yeah floor, whut Ah jes' scrubbed tell yo'
marstah kin eat off'n et?” She broke off to listen to Uncle Jefferson's voice outside, directed toward the upper window.
”Dat yo', suh? Yas, suh, dis me. Well, suh, Ah take ol' Sukey out de Red Road, en Ah hitch huh ter yo' machine-thing, en she done balk. Won't go nohow ... whut, suh? 'Beat huh ovah de haid?' Yas, suh, done hit huh in de haid six times wid de whip-han'l, en she look me in de eye en ain'