Part 35 (1/2)
”Yes, he was,” and Judithe gave a little sigh ending in a smile; ”but one can't keep forever all the fine fellows one meets, and when they are so admirable in every way as Dumaresque, it seems selfish for one woman to capture them.”
Mrs. McVeigh shook her head hopelessly over such an argument, but broke a tiny spray of blossom from a plant and fastened it in the lapel of Judithe's habit.
”It is not so gorgeous as the rose, but it is at least free from the pests.”
Judithe looked down at the blossom admiringly. ”I trust Mr. Loring will forgive my panic--I fear it annoyed him.”
”Oh, no--not really. He is a trifle eccentric, but his invalidism gains him many excuses. There is no doubt but that you made a decided impression on him.”
”I hope so,” said Judithe.
Margeret entered the room just then, and with her hand on the door paused and stared at the stranger who was facing her. Judithe, glancing up, saw a pair of strange dark eyes regarding her. She noticed how wraith-like the woman appeared, and how the brown dress she wore made the sallow face yet more sallow. A narrow collar and cuffs of white, and the ap.r.o.n, were the only sharp tones in the picture; all the rest was brown--brown hair tinged with grey rippling back from the broad forehead, brown eyes with a world of patience and sadness in them and slender, sallow-looking hands against the white ap.r.o.n.
She looked like none of the house servants at the Terrace--in fact Judithe was a trifle puzzled as to whether she was a servant at all.
She had not a feature suggesting colored blood, was much more Caucasian in appearance than Louise.
It was but a few seconds they stood looking at each other, when Margeret made a slight little inclination of her head and a movement of the lips that might have been an apology, but in that moment the strange woman's face fairly photographed itself on Judithe's mind--the melancholy expression of it haunted her afterwards.
Mrs. McVeigh, noticing her guest's absorbed gaze, turned and saw Margeret as she was about to leave the room.
”What is it, Margeret?” she asked, kindly, ”looking for Miss Gertrude?”
”Yes, Mistress McVeigh; Mr. Loring wants her.”
”I think she must have gone to her room, she and Mistress Nesbitt went upstairs some time ago.”
Margeret gently inclined her head, and pa.s.sed out with the noiseless tread Evilena had striven to emulate in vain that day at Loringwood.
”One of Miss Loring's retainers?” asked Judithe; ”I fancied they only kept colored servants.”
”Margeret _is_ colored,” explained Mrs. McVeigh, ”that is,” as the other showed surprise, ”although her skin does not really show color, yet she is an octoroon--one-eighth of colored ancestry. She has never been to the Terrace before, and she had a lost sort of appearance as she wandered in here, did she not? She belongs to Miss Loring's portion of the estate, and is very capable in her strange, quiet way.
There have been times, however, when she was not quite right mentally--before we moved up here, and the darkies rather stand in awe of her ever since, but she is entirely harmless.”
”That explains her peculiar, wistful expression,” suggested Judithe.
”I am glad you told me of it, for her melancholy had an almost mesmeric effect on me--and her eyes!”
All the time she was changing her dress for lunch those haunting eyes, and even the tones of her voice, remained with her.
”Those poor octoroons!” and she sighed as she thought of them, ”the intellect of their white fathers, and the bar of their mothers' blood against the development of it--poor soul, poor soul--she actually looks like a soul in prison. Oh!”--and she flung out her hands in sudden pa.s.sion of impotence. ”What can one woman do against such a mult.i.tude? One look into that woman's hopeless face has taken all the courage from me. Ah, the resignation of it!”
But when she appeared among the others a little later, gowned in sheer white, with touches of apple green here and there, and the gay, gracious manner of one pleased with the world, and having all reason to believe the world pleased with her, no one could suspect that she had any more serious problem to solve than that of arranging her own amus.e.m.e.nts.
Just now the things most interesting to her were the affairs of the Confederacy. Judge Clarkson answered all her questions with much good humor, mingled with amus.e.m.e.nt, for the Marquise, despite her American sympathies, would get affairs hopelessly mixed when trying to comprehend political and military intricacies; and then the gallant Judge would explain it all over again. Whether from Columbia or Charleston, he was always in touch with the latest returns, hopes, plans of the leaders, and possibilities of the Southern Confederacy, together with all surrept.i.tious a.s.sistance from foreign sources, in which Great Britain came first and Spain close behind, each having special reasons of their own for widening the breach in the union of states.
From Mobile there came, also, through letters to Mrs. McVeigh, many of the plans and possibilities of the Southern posts--her brother being stationed at a fort there and transmitting many interesting views and facts of the situation to his sister on her more Northern plantation.
Thus, although they were out of the whirl of border and coast strife, they were by no means isolated as regards tidings, and the fact was so well understood that their less fortunate neighbors gathered often at the Terrace to hear and discuss new endeavors, hopes and fears.
”I like it,” confessed Judithe to Delaven, ”they are like one great family; in no country in the world could you see such unanimous enthusiasm over one central question. They all appear to know so many of the representative people; in no other agricultural land could it be so. And there is one thing especially striking to me in comparison with France--in all this turmoil there is never a scandal, no intrigues in high places such as we are accustomed to in a court where Madame, the general's wife, is often quite as much of a factor in the political scene as the general himself; it is all very refres.h.i.+ng to a foreigner.”