Part 50 (1/2)
”You'll come down?” he whisperously asked; but the window closed on his words, the dim light vanished, and all was still.
He was watching, on his left, the batten shutters of the sitting-room, when a small, unnoticed door near the dark, rear corner of the house clicked and then faintly creaked. Mr. Pettigrew became one tremolo of ecstasy. He glided to the spot, not imagining even then that he was to be granted more than a moment's interview through an inch or two of opening, when what was his joy to see the door swiftly spread wide inward by a dim figure that extended her arms in gracious invitation.
”O love!” was all his pa.s.sion could murmur as they clasped in the blessed dark, while she, not waiting to hear word or voice, rubbed half the rice powder and rouge from her lips and cheeks to his and cried,
”O you sweet, speckle', yalleh niggeh liah, you tol' me you on'y play de fife in de similitude o' ligislation!”
As Dinwiddie silently but violently recoiled Daphne Jane half stifled a scream, sprang through a stair door, shot the bolt and rushed upstairs.
At the same instant he heard behind him a key slipped from its lock. He glanced back in affright, and trembling on legs too limp to lift, dimly saw the outer door swing to. As the darkness changed to blackness he heard the key re-enter its lock and turn on the outside. The pirate was a prisoner.
Daphne Jane, locking everything as she fled, whirled into her mistress's room and out of her mistress's clothes. Though quaking with apprehension so that she could scarcely b.u.t.ton her own things on again, she was filled with the joy of adventure and a revel of vanity and mirth. The moment she could complete her change of dress and whisk her borrowed fineries back into their places she stole to a window over the door by which she had let the serenader in, softly opened it, and was alarmed afresh to hear two voices.
The words of the one in the room were quite indistinguishable, but those from the other on the outside, though uttered in a half whisper, were clear enough.
”No, seh, I ain't dead-sho' who you is, but I has ezamine yo' hoss, an'
whilce I wouldn' swear you ah Mr. Pettigrew, tha.s.s the premonition I espec' to espress to my frien' Mr. March, lessn you tell me now, an'
tell me true, who you ah.
”Ya.s.s, seh, I thought so. Ya.s.s, seh. No, seh, I know they ain't a minute to lose, but still I think the time ain't quite so pow'ful pressin' to me like what it is to you; I thought jess now I hyeard buggy-wheels, but mebbe I didn't.
”Ya.s.s, seh, I _does_ think I has cause, if not to be mad, leas'wise to be ve'y much paained. You fus' kiss the young lady I destine faw my sultana, an' now you offeh me a briibe! Well, tha.s.s how I unde'stood it, seh.
”Seh? No, seh! that wouldn't be high tone'! But I tell you what I will do, seh. I'll let you out an' take yo' place an' make the young lady think her on'y mistake was a-thinkin' she was mistakened.
”Seh? Ya.s.s, I'm jess that se'f-sacrificin'. I'm gen'ous as the whistlin'
win'. An' I'll neveh whisp' a breath o' all this shaameful procedu'e evm to my dear frien' March, ef so be that--an' so long as--yo'
gratichude--seh?
”O nothin'. I wus jess a-listenin' ef that soun' was buggy wheels, but I know that don't make no diff'ence to you, yo' courage is so vas'. I'm the bravess o' the brave, myseff, an' yit jess to think o' takin' yo'
place fills me as full o' cole s.h.i.+vehs as a pup und' a pump.
”Seh? O I say I'll neveh whisp' it so long as yo' gratichude continue to evince itseff fresh an' lively at the rate of evm on'y a few dollahs per month as a sawt o' friends.h.i.+p's offerin'.
”Seh? I cayn't he'p it, seh; tha.s.s the ve'y bes' I can do; no otheh co'se would be hon'able.”
The listening maid heard the door unlock and open and beheld liberty bartered for captivity with love for boot, and Mr. Pettigrew speed like a phantom across the moonlight and vanish in the woods. Before she could leave the window a sound of galloping hoofs told at last the coming of John March. Cornelius had barely time to scamper out into the night when the master of Widewood came trotting around the corner of the house and thence off to the stable, never to know of the farce which made Mr.
Pettigrew thereafter the tool of Leggett, and which might even more easily have been a tragedy with the mountain people for actors and himself its victim.
LIV.
AN UNEXPECTED PLEASURE
Ravenel and Fannie were married in church on an afternoon. The bridesmaids were Barbara and a very pretty cousin of Fannie's from Pulaski City, who would have been prettier yet had she not been revel-worn. The crowded company was dotted with notables; Garnet and Gamble took excellent care of the governor. But the bride's father was the finest figure of all.
”Old Halliday looks grand!” said Gamble.
”I'm glad he does,” kindly responded Garnet; ”it would be a pity for him to be disappointed in himself on such an occasion.”