XVII
A VISIT TO VIRGINIA
Not until he was settled in the car did Laine let himself take in themeaning of the journey he was taking. The past few hours had beentoo hurried to think; but as he sat in the smoking-compartmentthought was no longer to be held in abeyance, and he yielded to itwith no effort at restraint.
Sleep was impossible. The train, due at Washington at seven-twelve,would there have to be changed to a local for Fredericksburg, but theearly rising was no hardship. To sit up all night would have beennone. Each turn of the wheel was taking him nearer and nearer, andto listen to them was strange joy. Only that morning he had wishedChristmas was over, had indeed counted the days before business couldagain absorb, and now every hour would be priceless, every moment tobe held back hungrily.
One by one, the days in which he had seen Claudia passed in reviewbefore him. The turn of her head, the light on her hair, the poiseof her body on her horse, bits of gay talk, the few long quiet ones,the look of eyes unafraid of life, light laughter, and sometimesquick frown and quicker speech, and, clearest of all, the evening inwhich she had told him the story, with Channing in her arms andDorothea in his. There had been few waking moments in which it hadnot repeated itself to him, and in his dreams the scene would changeand the home would be theirs--his home and hers--and she would betelling him again what life should mean.
He had long known the name of the land in which he lived. It was,indeed, a Lonely Land; but that it was of his own choosing he had notunderstood, nor had he cared to think all people were his people.There was much that he must know. He needed help, needed itinfinitely. If she would give it-- A man, reeling slightly, came inthe compartment, and, getting up, Laine went out quickly. For a fewmoments he stood in the vestibule and let the air from a partly opendoor blow over him, then, with a glance at the stars, turned and cameinside.
At Fredericksburg the next morning Laine turned to the negro hackman,who, with Chesterfieldian bows, was hovering over his baggage andboxes, and made inquiries of the boat, the time of leaving, of ahotel, of what there was to see during the hours of waiting; andbefore he understood how it happened he found himself and hisparaphernalia in the shabby old hack and was told he would be takento the boat at once. He had never been to Virginia, had never seen aspecimen of human nature such as now flourished a whip in one handand with the other waved a battered and bruised silk hat toward themuddy street that led from the station to the town above, and withpuzzled eyes he looked at the one before him.
"Yas, suh! I knows jes' exactly what 'tis you want to be doin', suh.You jes' set yourself right back in the carridge and I'll take youand the baggige right down to the boat and put 'em in for you, andthen me and you'll go round and see this heah town. I reckon youain't never been to this place before. Is you all right now, suh?"The once shiny hat was put on the back of the grizzled gray head, aworn and torn robe was tucked around Laine's knees, and before answercould be made the driver was on the box, the whip was cracked, andtwo sleepy old horses began the slight incline of the long street outof which they presently turned to go to the wharf and the boat tiedloosely to it.
Half an hour later, bags and boxes having been stored in astate-room, a hasty survey of the boat made, and a few wordsexchanged with a blue-coated man of friendly manners concerning thehour of departure, Laine again got in the old ramshackle hack and fortwo hours was shown the honors and glories of the little town whichhad hitherto been but a name and forever after was to be a smilingmemory. Snow and slush covered its sidewalks, mud was deep in themiddle of the streets, but the air went to the head with its stingingfreshness, the sun shone brilliantly, and in the faces of the peoplewas happy content.
Reins dropped loosely in his lap, Beauregarde, the driver, satsideways on the box and emitted information in terms of his own; andLaine looked and listened in silent joy to statements made and themanner of their making.
"Yas, suh, this heah town am second only in historic con-se-quence toWilliamsburg, suh, though folks don't know it till they come and findit out from me. I been a-drivin' this heah hack and a-studyin' ofhistory for more'n forty years, and I ain't hardly scratch the skinof what done happen heah before a Yankee man was ever thought of.They didn't use to have no Yankees 'fore the war, but they donepropogate themselves so all over the land that they clean gotpossession of 'most all of it. They's worse than them little Englishsparrows, they tell me. Marse George Washington he used to walkthese streets on his way to school. He had to cross the river fromFerry Farm over yonder"--the whip was waved vaguely in the air--"andhe wore long trousers till he got to be a man. Young folks didn'tuse to show their legs in those days, suh, jes' gentlemen. Thatplace we're comin' to is Swan Tavern, and if it could talk it couldtell things that big men said, that it could. This heah house iswhere Mis' Mary, the mother of Marse George Washington, used to livewhen she got too old to boss the farm. Some society owns it what wasoriginated to preserve our Virginia iniquities, and they done put upa monument to her that's the onliest one ever put up to a woman forbeing the mother of a man. They was bus head people, the Washingtonswas, but so was a lot of others who didn't do nothin' to prove it,and so is now forgot, and quality folks in them days was so thickthere warn't enough other kind to do 'em reverence. GovernorSpottswood and his Horse-Shoe gentlemen took dinner once in this heahtown, and President James Monroe used to live heah. I'm a-goin' toshow you his home and his office, presently, and the house whereMarse Paul Jones used to live in. I reckon you done heard tell ofMarse John Paul Jones, ain't you?"
Laine admitted having heard of him, but historic personages did notinterest as much as present-day ones. The occupants of certainquaint and charming old houses, with servants' quarters in the rearand flower-filled gardens in the front, the rose-bushes of which werenow bent and burdened with snow, appealed, as the other places offamous associations failed to do, and he wondered in which of themClaudia's relatives lived.
At Marye's Heights Beauregarde waxed eloquent. Half of what he saidwas unheard, however, and as Laine's eyes swept the famousbattle-fields his forehead wrinkled in fine folds. Could they havebeen settled in any other way--those questions which had torn anation's heart from its bosom? Would the spilling of blood beforever necessary? He ordered Beauregarde to drive to the hotel.There was just time for lunch, and then the boat which would take himdown the river to where Claudia would be waiting.
As the boat swung off from the wharf and slowly made its way down thenarrow river, curving like a horse-shoe around its ice-bound banks,Laine, standing in the bow, scanned the scene closely, and wonderedif it were but yesterday that he had been in the rush and stir ofcity life. Straight up from the water the bluff rose boldly. Raysof pale sunlight sent threads of rainbow colors on the snow whichcovered it, and through the crystal-coated trees, here and there, astately mansion could be seen overlooking the river. Skimming thewater, a sea-gull would now and then dip and splash and rise again inthe clear, cold air, and, save for the throb of the engine, there wasno sound.
Until the sun had set and darkness made farther scanning of banks andbluff and winding river impossible, Laine walked the deck, hands inpockets, and thought of the morrow and the days ahead. The boatwould tie up for the night at Pratt's Wharf and was due at ten thenext morning at Brooke Bank if there was no unusual delay. Suddenlyhe remembered she had said other friends would be on the boat. Mostof the passengers were obviously returning home from a shopping tripto the city, package-laden and bundle-burdened, but two city men hehad noticed and then forgotten in the thought of other things. Whowere they? He opened the door of the stuffy little cabin and wentin. Five minutes later he was at the supper-table and next to thetwo men who were talking in undertones of former Christmases atElmwood. They were young, good-looking, and of Claudia's world. Hegot up and again went out.
The Man in Lonely Land Page 17