III
_JESSAMINE AND HONEYSUCKLE_
It was a peculiarity of inherited quarrels between old Virginia familiesthat they must never be recognised outwardly by any act of discourtesy,and still less by any neglect of formal attention where courtesy wascalled for. Such quarrels were never mentioned between the families thatwere involved in them, and equally they were never forgotten. Eachmember of either family owed it to himself to treat all members of theother family with the utmost deference, while never for a momentpermitting that deference to lapse into anything that could be construedto mean forgiveness or forgetfulness.
Agatha, as we have seen, had twice violated the code under which suchaffairs were conducted; once in the note she had sent to Baillie Pegramin Richmond, and for the second time in giving him permission to call atThe Oaks to inquire concerning her journey homeward on his mare. But onboth occasions she had been out of the presence and admonitory influenceof her aunts, and when absent from them, Agatha Ronald was not at allwell regulated, as we know. She was given to acting upon her own naturaland healthy-minded impulses, and such impulses were apt to be at warwith propriety as propriety was understood and insisted upon at TheOaks.
But Baillie Pegram was not minded to make any mistake in a matter of somuch delicacy and importance. He had received Agatha's permission tomake that formal call of inquiry, which was customary on all suchoccasions, and she in her heedlessness had probably meant what she said,as it was her habit to do. But Baillie knew very well that her goodaunts would neither expect nor wish him to call upon their niece. At thesame time he must not leave his omission to do so unexplained. He mustsend a note of apology, not to Agatha,--as he would have done to anyother young woman under like circumstances,--but to her aunts instead.In a note to them he reported his sudden summons to Richmond, addingthat as he was uncertain as to the length of his stay there, he beggedthe good ladies to accept his absence from home as his sufficient excusefor not calling to inquire concerning the behaviour of his mare duringtheir niece's journey upon that rather uncertain-minded animal's back.This note he gave to Sam for delivery, when Sam brought him the horse hehad ordered but no longer wanted.
Baillie Pegram had all the pride of his lineage and his class. He hadsought to forget all about Agatha Ronald after her astonishing littlenote had come to him some months before in Richmond, and until thismorning he had believed that he had accomplished that forgetfulness. Butnow the thought of her haunted him ceaselessly. All the way to Richmondher beauty and her charm, as she had stood there by the roadside, filledhis mind with visions that tortured him. He tried with all his might todismiss the visions and to think of something else. He bought the dailypapers and tried to interest himself in their excited utterances, butfailed. Red-hot leaders, that were meant to stir all Virginian souls towrathful resolution, made no impression on his mind. He read them, andknew not what he had read. He was thinking of the girl by the roadside,and his soul was fascinated with the memory of her looks, her words, herfinely modulated voice, her ways, as she had tried to refuse his offerof assistance. Had he been of vain and conceited temper, he might haveflattered himself with the thought that her very hauteur in conversewith him implied something more and better than indifference on her parttoward him. But that thought did not enter his mind. He thought instead:
"What a sublimated idiot I am! That girl is nothing to me--worse thannothing. Circumstances place her wholly outside my acquaintance, exceptin the most formal fashion. She is a young gentlewoman of my ownclass--distinctly superior to all the other young gentlewomen of thatclass whom I have ever met,--and ordinarily it would be the most naturalthing in the world for me to pay my addresses to her. But in this casethat is completely out of the question. To me at least she is theunattainable. I must school myself to think of her no more, and thatought to be easy enough, as I am not in love with her and am notpermitted even to think of being so. It's simply a craze that has takenpossession of me for a time,--the instinct of the huntsman, to whomquarry is desirable in the precise ratio of its elusiveness. There, I'vethought the whole thing out to an end, and now I must give my mind tosomething more important."
Yet even in the midst of the excitement that prevailed in Richmond thatday, Baillie Pegram did not quite succeed in driving out of his mind thememory of the little tableau by the bridge, or forgetting how supremelyfascinating Agatha Ronald had seemed, as she had haughtily declined hisoffer of service, and still more as she had reluctantly accepted it, andridden away after so cleverly evading his offer to help her mount.
It had been his purpose to remain in Richmond for a week or more, but onthe third morning he found himself homeward bound, and filled with vainimaginings. Just why he had started homeward before the intended time,it would have puzzled him to say; but several times he caught himselfwondering if there would be awaiting him at Warlock an answer to hisformal note of apology for not having made a call which nobody hadexpected him to make. He perfectly knew that no such answer was to beexpected, and especially that if there should be any answer at all, itmust be one of formal and repellent courtesy, containing no message fromAgatha of the kind that his troubled imagination persisted in conceivingin spite of the scorn with which he rejected the absurd conjecture.
Nevertheless as he neared home he found himself half-expecting to findthere an answer to his note, and he found it. It gave him no pleasure inthe reading, and in his present state of mind he could not find even asource of amusement in the stilted formality of its rhetoric. It hadbeen written by one of Agatha's aunts, and signed by both of them. Thusit ran:
"The Misses Ronald of The Oaks feel themselves deeply indebted to Mr. Baillie Pegram for his courtesy to their niece and guest, Miss Agatha Ronald, on the occasion of her recent misadventure. They have also to thank Mr. Pegram most sincerely for having taken upon himself the disagreeable duty of giving painless death to the unfortunate animal that their niece was riding upon that occasion. They have to inform Mr. Pegram that as Miss Agatha Ronald is making her preparations for an almost immediate return to her maternal grandfather's plantation of Willoughby, in Fauquier, and as she will probably begin her journey before Mr. Pegram's return from Richmond, there will scarcely be opportunity for his intended call to inquire concerning her welfare after her homeward ride upon the mare which he so graciously placed at her disposal at a time of sore need. They beg to report that the beautiful animal behaved with the utmost gentleness during the journey.
"The Oaks ladies beg to assure Mr. Pegram of their high esteem, and to express their hope that he will permit none of the events of this troubled time to prevent him from dining with them at The Oaks on the third Friday of each month, as it has been his courteous custom to do in the past. The Misses Ronald remain,
"Most respectfully,
"SARAH RONALD,
"JANE RONALD."
This missive was more than a little bewildering. Its courtesy wasextreme. Even in practically telling Baillie Pegram not to call upontheir niece, the good ladies had adroitly managed to make their messageseem rather one of regret than of prohibition. Certainly there was not aword in the missive at which offence could be taken, and not anexpression lacking, the lack of which could imply negligence. The youngman read it over several times before he could make out its exactsignificance, and even then he was not quite sure that he fullyunderstood.
"It reads like a 'joint note' from the Powers to the Grand Turk," hesaid to the young man--his bosom friend--whom he had found awaiting himat Warlock on his return. This young man, Marshall Pollard, had beenBaillie Pegram's intimate at the university, and now that universitydays were done, it was his habit to come and go at will at Warlock, theplantation of which Baillie was owner and sole white occupant with theexception of a maiden aunt who presided over his household.
The intimacy between these two young men was always a matter of wonderto their friends. They had few tastes in common, except tha
t both had apassionate love for books. Baillie Pegram was fond of fishing andshooting and riding to hounds. He loved a horse from foretop to fetlock.His friend cared nothing for sport of any kind, and very often he walkedover long distances rather than "jolt on horseback," as he explained. Hewas thoroughly manly, but of dreamy, introspective moods and quiettastes. But these two agreed in their love of books, and especially ofsuch rare old books as abounded in the Warlock library, the accumulationof generations of cultivated and intellectual men and women. Theyagreed, too, in their fondness for each other.
Marshall Pollard was never regarded as a guest at Warlock, or treated assuch. He came and went at will, giving no account of either his comingsor his goings. He did precisely as he pleased, and so did his host,neither ever thinking it necessary to offer an apology for leaving theother alone for a day or for a week, as the case might be. Pollard hadhis own quarters in the rambling old house, with perfect liberty fortheir best furnishing. Often the two friends became interested togetherin a single subject of literary or historical study, and would pore overpiles of books in the great hallway if it rained, and out under thespreading trees on the lawn if the weather were fair. Often, on theother hand, their moods would take different courses, and for daystogether they would scarcely see each other except at meal-times. Theirswas a friendship that trusted itself implicitly.
"It's an ideal friendship, this of yours and mine," said Marshall, inhis dreamy way, one day. "It never interferes with the perfect libertyof either. What a pity it is that it must come to an end!"
"But why should it come to an end?" asked his less introspective friend.
"O, because one or the other of us will presently take to himself awife," was the answer.
"But why should that make a difference? It will not if I am the one tomarry first. That will only make your life at Warlock the pleasanter foryou. It will give you two devoted friends instead of one."
"It will do nothing of the kind," answered Pollard, with that confidenceof tone which suggests that a matter has been completely thought out."Our friendship is based upon the fact that we both care more for eachother than for anybody else. When you get married, you'll naturally andproperly care more for your wife than for me. You'd be a brute if youdidn't, and I'd quarrel with you. After your marriage we shall continueto be friends, of course, but not in the old way. I'll come to Warlockwhenever I please, and go away whenever it suits me to go, just as I donow. But I shall make my bow to my lady when I come, and my adieus toher when I take my departure. I'll enjoy doing that, because I know thatyour wife will be a charming person, worthy of your devotion to her. Butit will not be the same as now. And it will be best so. 'Male and femalecreated he them,' and it would be an abominable shame if you were toremain single for many years to come. It is your duty, and it willpresently be your highest pleasure to make some loving and lovable womanas happy as God intended her to be. Better than that--the love of a goodwoman will make your life richer and worthier than it is now. It willennoble you, and fit you for the life that your good qualities destineyou to lead. You see I've been studying your case, Baillie, and I'vemade up my mind that there never was a man who needed to marry more thanyou do. You're a thoroughly good fellow now--but that's about all.You'll be something mightily better than that, when you have theinspiration of a good woman's love to spur you out of your presentegotistic self-content, and give you higher purposes in life than thoseof the well-bred, respectable citizen that you are. You pay your debts;you take excellent care of your negroes; you serve your neighbours as anunpaid magistrate and all that, and it is all very well. But you arecapable of much higher things, and when you get yourself a wife worthyof you, you'll rise to a new level of character and conduct."
"And how about you?" the friend asked.
"O, as for me, I don't count. You see, I'm that anomalous thing, aVirginian who doesn't ride horses or care for sport. I'm abnormal. Womenlike me in a way, and the more elderly ones among them do me the honourto approve me. But that is all. Young women are apt to fall in love withrobuster young fellows."
"But you are robust," quickly answered Baillie, "and altogether manly."
"No, I'm not. I'm physically strong enough, of course, but strengthisn't all of robustness. I can lift as much as you can, but I don't liketo lift, and you do. I can jump as high, but I don't like to jump, whileyou do. When we were canoeing in Canada a year ago, I could shoot arapid as well as you, but I'd very much rather have walked down thebank, leaving the guide to navigate the canoe, while you often sent theguide about his business and rebuked his impertinence in offering helpwhere you wanted to do your own helping of yourself without anyinterference on his part. I remember that just as we were starting onthe long and difficult journey to the Lake of the Woods, you dismissedthe whole crew of half-breed hangers-on, and we set out alone. I wouldnever have done that, greatly as I detested the unclean company. I wentwith you, of course, but I went relying upon you for guidance, just as Ishould have gone relying upon the half-breeds if you had not been withme. We two are differently built, I tell you. Now, even here at Warlock,I send for Sam when I want my studs changed from one shirt to another,while only this morning you cleaned your own boots rather than wait forSam after you had whistled for him thrice. I don't think I'm lazier thanyou are, and I know I'm not more afraid of anything. But you rejoice intoilsome journeys, while I prefer to take them easily, hiring otherpeople to do the hard work. You relish danger just as you do red pepper,while I prefer safety and a less pungent seasoning. Now, young women ofour kind and class prefer your kind of man to my kind, and so you arelikely to marry, while I am not. Another thing. I saw you throw aside acopy of Shakespeare the other day without even marking your place in thevolume, because a company of gentlewomen had driven up to visit youraunt, and you completely forgot your Shakespeare in thinking of thegentlewomen. Now I, in a like case, should have edged a little fartheraround the tree, read on to the end of the scene, marked my place, andonly then have discovered that the gentlewomen had driven up. Women likeyour ways better than mine, and they are entirely right."
In all this, Marshall Pollard exaggerated somewhat, in playful fashion,and to his own discrediting. But in the main his analysis of thedifference between himself and his friend was quite correct.
It was to this friend that Baillie Pegram spoke of the note he hadreceived from The Oaks ladies, saying that it read "like a joint notefrom the Powers to the Grand Turk."
"Tell me about it," answered Marshall.
"O, read it for yourself," Baillie replied, handing him the sheet. "Thestilted ceremoniousness of it," he presently added, "is easy enough tounderstand, but I can't, for the life of me, see why the good ladies ofThe Oaks felt it incumbent upon themselves to write to me at all. Theyare always scrupulously attentive to forms and conventionalities whendischarging any obligation of courtesy, and in this case they have hadthe rather embarrassing duty imposed upon them of telling me not to callupon their niece, who is also their guest. That sufficiently accountsfor the stiff formality of their rhetoric, and their scrupulousattention to the niceties of courtesy in the embarrassing case, but--"
"Remember, also," broke in Marshall Pollard, "that they are 'maidenladies,' while you, my dear, unsuspicious boy, are a particularlymarriageable young man."
"Don't talk nonsense, Marshall; this is a serious matter," answeredBaillie.
"It isn't nonsense at all that I'm talking," said his friend. "I'mspeaking only words of 'truth and soberness.' The Misses Sarah and JaneRonald, as I understand the matter, are highly bred and blue-bloodedlydescended Virginia gentlewomen, who happen to be as yet unmarried. Verynaturally and properly they adopt a guarded manner in addressing amissive to a peculiarly marriageable young gentleman like you, lesttheir intentions be misinterpreted."
"Why, they are old enough," Baillie replied, "to be my grandmothers!"
"True," answered the other, "but you wouldn't venture to suggest thatfact to the mind of either of them, would you, Baillie?"
; "Certainly not, but--"
"Certainly not. And certainly they in their turn do not give specialweight to that fact. When will you learn to understand women a littlebit, Baillie? Don't you know that no woman ever thinks of herself astoo old or too ugly or too unattractive to fascinate a young man?Especially no well-bred spinster, accustomed to be courted in her youth,and treated with deference in her middle age, ever realises that she isso old as to be privileged to lay aside those reserves with which shewas trained in youth to guard her maidenly modesty against the uglyimputation of a desire to 'throw herself at the head' of a younggentleman possessed of good manners, good looks, an old family name, anda plantation of five or six thousand acres? Now, don't let your vanityrun away with you, my boy. I do not mean for one moment to suggest thateither of The Oaks ladies would think of accepting an offer of marriagefrom you or anybody else. I am too gallant to imagine that they have nothad abundant opportunities of marriage in their day. At the same time,propriety is propriety, you know, and the conduct of an 'unattachedfemale' cannot be too carefully guarded against the possibility ofmisinterpretation."
Baillie laughed, and presently fell into silence for a space. Finallyhis companion lazily said:
"It is time for you to be off, if you are going."
"Going where?"
"Why, to dine at The Oaks, of course. You are invited for the thirdFriday of each month, if I understand the matter correctly, and this isthe third Friday of April, I believe."
"Why, so it is. I hadn't thought of the date. By Jove, I'll go! There'sjust a chance that she hasn't started yet."
"It's awkward, of course," said Pollard, in his meditative,philosophical way, "especially with this war coming on. But these thingsnever will adjust themselves to circumstances in a spirit of rationalityand accommodation."
"What on earth do you mean, Marshall? I don't understand."
"Of course not. The bird caught in the net of the fowler does notusually see just what is the matter with him."
"But Marshall--"
"O, I'll explain as well as I can. I mean only that you are in love withAgatha Ronald. Of course you're totally unconscious of your state ofmind, but you'll find it out after awhile. It is an utterly irrationalstate of mind for you to be in, but the malady often takes that form, Ibelieve, and I've done you a service in telling you about it, for as arule a man never finds out what's the matter with him in such a caseuntil some friend tells him. He just goes on making a fool of himselfuntil somebody else jogs his elbow with information which he alone hasneed of. Now suppose you tell me all about this case. What is it thatstands between you and the young lady?"
Again Baillie laughed. But this time the laugh was accompanied by atell-tale flushing of the face.
"The whole thing is ridiculous," he presently said. "It couldn't havehappened anywhere but in this dear old Virginia of ours. I'll tell youall I know about it. My grandfather whom I never saw in my life, andMiss Agatha Ronald's father, who died before she was born, were friends,like you and me. They owned adjoining plantations,--Warlock and TheOaks, both held by original grants to their great-grandfathers, made inthe early colonial times. But the county clerk's office burned up, ageneration or two ago, and with it all the records that could show wherethe boundaries between these two plantations lay. In trying todetermine those boundaries one unlucky day, when both had probably takentoo much or too little Madeira for dinner, the two irascible oldgentlemen fell into a dispute as to where the boundary line should runthrough a wretched little scrap of ground down there on Nib's Creek,which never had been cultivated, never has been, and never will be. Thething was not worth a moment's thought in itself, but the gout got intoit, or in some other way the two absurd old gentlemen's dignity gotitself involved, and so they quarrelled. If there had been time, theywould have laughed the thing off presently over a mint-julep. Butunhappily one of them died, and that made a permanent family quarrel ofthe dispute. All the women-kind took it up as an inherited feud, whichmade it impossible that any Pegram should have aught to do with anyRonald, or any Ronald with any Pegram. So much, it was held, was due tothe tender memory of the dead. But, after our Virginian tradition, theindividual members of both families have been held bound to treat eachother with the extreme of formal but quite unfriendly courtesy. That iswhy I have been required, from my fifteenth birthday onward, to dine atThe Oaks on the third Friday of every month when I happened to be in thecounty on that day. I had only the vaguest notion of the situation untillast Christmas, when circumstances brought it to my attention. Then Imade my good Aunt Catherine tell me all about it. When I learned whatthe matter in dispute was, I sent for the family lawyer, and ordered himto make out a deed to The Oaks ladies, conveying all my right, title,and interest in the disputed piece of land to them 'for and inconsideration of the sum of one dollar in hand paid, receipt whereof ishereby acknowledged.' I sent the deed to The Oaks ladies, with a perhapstoo effusive note, asking them to accept it as an evidence of my desireto make an end of a quarrel which had long alienated those who shouldhave remained friends."
"What an idiot you made of yourself by doing that!" broke in youngPollard.
"Of course, and I soon found it out. The Oaks ladies wrote that they hadnever, by any act or word, recognised the existence of a quarrel; thatif such quarrel existed, it lay between the dead, who had notauthorised them or me to adjust it; and that they, holding only a lifeinterest in The Oaks, by virtue of their 'poor brother's' kindly will,were not authorised either to alienate any part of the fee, or to add toit, by deed of gift or otherwise; that their 'poor brother' had neverbeen accustomed to accept gifts of land or of anything else from others,and finally that they were sure his spirit would not sanction thepurchase, for the miserable consideration of one dollar, of a piece ofland which, till the time of his death, he had believed to be absolutelyhis own. There was no use arguing such a case or explaining it. So Ihave let it rest, and have gone once a month to dine with The Oaksladies, as a matter of duty. It's all absurd, but--"
"But it interferes with your interest in Miss Agatha," broke in thefriend. "Take my advice, and don't let it. Off with you to The Oaks, andten to one you'll find the young lady still there. The date of herdeparture was not fixed when this diplomatic note was despatched, and asyou were not expected to receive the communication for a week to come,she is probably still there. If so, by the way, please don't mention mypresence at Warlock. You see--well, I have met the young lady at hergrandfather's, and properly I ought to pay my respects to her, now thatshe's a guest on a plantation adjoining that on which I am staying. ButI don't want to. Your saddle-horses jolt so confoundedly, and besides,I've discovered up-stairs a copy of old T. Gordon's seventeenth centurytranslation of Tacitus, with his essays on that author, and hisbitter-tongued comments on all preceding translations of his favouriteclassic. I want an afternoon with the old boy."
"You certainly are a queer fellow, Marshall," said Baillie.
"How so? Because I like old books? Or is it because I don't like thejolting of your horses?"
"Why haven't you told me that you knew Miss Agatha Ronald?"
"I have told you--within the last minute."
"But why didn't you tell me before?"
"O, well,--perhaps I didn't think of it. Never mind that. It is time foryou to be off, unless you want the soup and your welcome to grow coldwhile waiting for you."
When Baillie had ridden away, Marshall Pollard sat idly for a time inthe porch. Then tossing aside the book he had been holding in his handbut not reading, he rose and went to his room. There he searched amonghis belongings for a little Elzevir volume, and took from between itsleaves a sprig of dried yellow jessamine.
"It is a poisonous flower," he said, as he tossed it out of the window."She warned me of that when I took it from her hand. She was altogetherright."
Apparently pursuing a new-born purpose, the young man returned to theporch, broke off a sprig of honeysuckle leaves--for the vine was not yetin flower--and carefully placed it between th
e pages of the Elzevir.
"The honeysuckle," he said to himself, "is unlike the yellow jessamine.It is sweet and wholesome. So is the friendship of the man from whosevine I have plucked it."
The Master of Warlock: A Virginia War Story Page 3