CHAPTER VI
THE BRIDGE OF DREAMS
"And then, Major, hell broke loose! Dave stood up and--" Tom Cantrell'seyes snapped and he slashed with his crop at the bright andirons thatheld the flamed logs.
"No, Major, it wasn't hell that broke up, it was something inside me. Ifelt it smash. For a moment I didn't grasp what Taylor was saying. Itsounded so like the ravings of an insane phonograph that I was for beingamused, but when I found that he was actually advising the mayor torefuse our committee the use of the hay market for a bivouac during theConfederate reunion, I just got up and took his speech and fed it to himraw. I saw red with a touch of purple and I didn't know I was on my feetand--"
"Major," interrupted Andrew Sevier, his eyes bright as those of Kildareand his quiet voice under perfect control, "Judge Taylor's exact wordswere that it seemed inadvisable to turn over property belonging to thecity for the use of parties that could in no way be held responsible. Heelucidated his excuse by saying that the Confederate soldiers were so oldnow that they were better off at home than parading the streets andinciting rebellious feelings in the children, throwing the city intoconfusion by their disorderly conduct and--"
"That's all he said, Major, that's all. I was on my feet then and allthat needs to be said and done to him was said and done right there. Isaid it and Phoebe and Mrs. Peyton Kendrick did it as they walked rightpast him and out of the chamber of commerce hall of committees while hewas trying to answer me. That broke up the meeting and he can't be foundthis morning. Cap has had Tom looking for him. I think when we find himwe will have a few more words of remonstrance with him!" said Davequietly. And he stood straight and tall before the major, and as he threwback his head he was most commanding. There was an expression of power inthe face of David Kildare that the major had never seen there before.
He balanced his glasses in his hands a moment and looked keenly at thefour young men lined up before him. They made a very forcefultypification of the new order of things and were rather magnificentin their defense of the old. The major's voice tightened in his throatbefore he could say what they were waiting to hear.
"Boys," he said, and his old face lit with one of its rare smiles,"there were live sparks in these gray ashes--or we could not have bredyou. I'm thinking you, yourselves, justify the existence of us oldJohnnies and give us a clear title to live a little while longer,reunite once a year, sing the old songs, speechify, parade, bivouac a fewmore times together--and be as disorderly as we damn please, in this orany other city's hay market. Tom, telephone Cap to go straight to thebivouac headquarters and have them get ready to get out a special editionof the _Gray Picket_. If reports of this matter are sent out over theSouth without immediate and drastic refutations there will be aconflagration of thousands of old fire-eaters. They will never livethrough the strain. Andrew, take David up to your rooms, send for astenographer and get together as much of that David Kildare speech asyou can. Hobson, get hold of the stenographer of the city council and gethis report of both Taylor's and Potts' speeches. Choke it out of him forI suspect they have both attempted to have them destroyed."
"Don't you see, Major, don't you see, he tried to make a play to themasses of protecting the city's property and the city's law and order,but he jumped into a hornet's nest? We managed to keep it all out of themorning paper but something is sure to creep in. Hadn't we better have aconference with the editors?" Tom was a solid quantity to be reckonedwith in a stress that called for keenness of judgment rather thanemotion.
"Ask them for a conference in the editorial rooms of the _Gray Picket_ attwo-thirty, Tom," answered the major. "In the meantime I'll draft aneditorial for the special edition. We must come out with it in themorning at all odds."
In a few moments the echo of their steps over the polished floors and thering of their voices had died away and the major was once more alone inhis quiet library. He laid aside his books and drew his chair up to thetable and began to make preparations for his editorial utterances. Hisrampant grizzled forelock stood straight up and his jaws were squared andgrim. He paused and was in the act of calling Jeff to summon Phoebe overthe wire when the curtains parted and she stood on the threshold. Themajor never failed to experience a glow of pride when Phoebe appearedbefore him suddenly. She was a very clear-eyed, alert, poisedindividuality, with the freshness of the early morning breezes about her.
"My dear," he said without any kind of preliminary greeting, "what do youmake of the encounter between David Kildare and Julge Taylor? The boyshave been here, but I want your account of it before I begin to takeaction in the matter."
"It was the most dastardly thing I ever heard, Major," said Phoebequietly with a deep note in her voice. "For one moment I sat stunned. Thelong line of veterans as I saw them last year at the reunion, old andgray, limping some of them, but glory in their bright faces, some of themsinging and laughing, came back to me. I thought my heart would burst atthe insult to them and to--us, their children. But when David rose fromhis chair beside me I drew a long breath. I wish you could have heard himand seen him. He was stately and courteous--and he said it _all_. Hevoiced the love and the reverence that is in all our hearts for them.It was a very dignified forceful speech--and _David_ made it!" Phoebestood close against the table and for a moment veiled her tear-starredeyes from the major's keen glance.
"Phoebe," he said after a moment's silence, "I sometimes think the worldlacks a standard by which to measure some of her vaster products. Perhapsyou and I have just explored the heart of David Kildare so far. But aheart as fine as his isn't going to pump fool blood into any man'sbrain--eh?"
"Sometimes and about some things, you do me a great injustice, Major,"answered Phoebe slowly, with a serious look into the keen eyes bent uponhers. "Of all the 'glad crowd', as David calls us, I am the only womanwho comes directly in contact with the struggling, working, hand-to-handfight of life, and I can't help letting it affect me in my judgmentof--of us. I can't forget it when--when I amuse myself or let David amuseme. I seem to belong with them and not in the life he would make for me;yet you know I care--but if you are going to get out that extra editionyou must get to work. I will sit here and get up my one o'clock notes forthe imp, and if you need me, tell me so."
The major bestowed a slow quizzical smile upon her and took up his pen.For an hour they both wrote rapidly with now a quick question from themajor and a concise answer from Phoebe, or a short debate over thewording of one of his sentences or paragraphs. The editorial minds of thegraybeard and the girl were of much the same quality and they had writtentogether for many years. The major had gone far in the molding ofPhoebe's keen wit.
"Why, here you are, Phoebe," exclaimed Mrs. Buchanan as she hurried intothe room just as Phoebe was finishing some of her last paragraphs,"Caroline and I have been telephoning everywhere for you. Do come andmotor out to the Country Club with us for lunch. David and Andrew leftsome partridges there yesterday as they came from hunting on Old Harpeth,to be grilled for us to-day. You are going out there to play bridge withMrs. Shelby's guest from Charleston at three, so please come with usnow!"
She was all eagerness and she rested one plump, persuasive little hand onPhoebe's arm. To Mrs. Matilda, any time that Phoebe could be persuaded tofrolic was one of undimmed joy.
"Now, Mrs. Matilda," said the major, as he smiled at her with theexpression of delight that her presence always called forth even in timesof extreme strenuosity, "do leave Phoebe with me--I'm really a very lornold man."
"Why, are you really lonely dear? Then Caroline and I won't think ofgoing. We'll stay right here to lunch with you. I will go tell her andyou put up your books and papers and we will bring our sewing and chatwith you and Phoebe. It will be lovely."
"Matilda," answered the major hastily with real alarm in his eyes, "Iinsist that you unroll my strings to your apron as far as the CountryClub this once. I capitulate--no man in the world ever had more attentionthan I have. Why, Phoebe knows that--"
"Indeed, indeed, he really d
oesn't want us, Mrs. Matilda. Let's leave himto his Immortals. I will be ready in a half-hour if I can write fasthere. Tell Caroline Darrah to hunt me up a fresh veil and phone MammyKitty not to expect me home until--until midnight. Now while you dress Iwill write."
"Very well," answered Mrs. Buchanan, "if you are sure you don't need us,Major," and with a caress on his rampant lock she hurried away.
"You took an awful risk then, Major," said Phoebe with a twinkle in hereyes.
"I know it," answered the major. "I've been taking them for nearly fortyyears. It's added much to this affair between Mrs. Buchanan and me. Smallexcitements are all that are necessary to fan the true connubial flame. Ididn't tell her about all this because I really hadn't the time. Tell heron the way out, for I expect there will be a rattle of musketry as soonas the dimity brigade hears the circumstances."
Then for a half-hour Phoebe and the major wrote rapidly until shegathered her sheets together and left them under his paper-weight to bedelivered to the devil from the office.
She departed quietly, taking Mrs. Matilda and Caroline with her.
And for still another hour the major continued to push his pen rapidlyacross the paper, then he settled down to the business of reading andannotating his work.
For years Major Buchanan had been the editor of the _Gray Picket_, whichwent its way weekly into almost every home in the South. It was a quaint,bright little folio full of articles of interest to the old Johnnie Rebsscattered south of Mason and Dixon. As a general thing it radiated goodcheer and a most patriotic spirit, but at times something would occur tostir the gray ashes from which would fly a crash of sparks. Then againthe spirit of peace unutterable would reign in its columns. It waspublished for the most part to keep up the desire for the yearlyConfederate reunions--those bivouacs of chosen spirits, the like of whichcould never have been before and can never be after. The major's pen wasa trenchant one but reconstructed--in the main.
But the scene at the Country Club in the early afternoon was, accordingto the major's prediction, far from peaceful in tone; it was confusionconfounded. Mrs. Peyton Kendrick was there and the card-tables weredeserted as the players, matrons and maids, gathered around her anddiscussed excitedly the result of her "ways and means for the reunion"mission to the city council, the judge's insult and David Kildare'sreply. They were every mother's daughter of them Dames of the Confederacyand their very lovely gowns were none the less their fighting clothes.
"And then," said Mrs. Payt, her cheeks pink with indignation, and theessence of belligerency in her excited eyes, "for a moment I satpetrified, _petrified_ with cold rage, until David Kildare's speechbegan--there had never been a greater one delivered in the United Statesof America! He said--he said--oh, I don't know what he did say, but itwas--"
"I just feel--" gasped Polly Farrell with a sob, "that I ought to getdown on my knees to him. He's a hero--he's a--"
"Of course for a second I was surprised. I had never heard David Kildarespeak about a--a serious matter before, but I could have expected it,for his father was a most brilliant lawyer, and his mother's father wasour senator for twenty years and his uncle our ambassador to the courtof--" and Mrs. Peyton's voice trailed off in the clamor.
"Well, I've always known that Cousin Dave was a great man. He oughtto be the president or governor--or _something_. I would vote for himto-morrow--or that is, I would make some man--I don't know just who--doit!" And Polly's treble voice again took up the theme of David's praises.
"And think of the old soldiers," said Mrs. Buchanan with a catch in herbreath. "It will hurt them so when they read it. They will think peopleare tired of them and that we don't want them to come here in the springfor the reunion. They are old and feeble and they have had so much tobear. It was cruel, _cruel_."
"And to think of not wanting the children to see them and know them andlove them--and understand!" Milly's soft voice both broke and blazed.
"I'm going to cry--I'm doing it," sobbed Polly with her head on Phoebe'sshoulder. "I wasn't but twelve when they met here last time and Ifollowed all the parades and cried for three solid days. It wasdelicious. I'm not mad at any Yankee--I'm in love with a man from Bostonand I'm--oh, please, don't anybody tell I said that! I may not be, I justthink so because he is so good-looking and--"
"We must all go out to the Soldier's Home to-morrow, a large committee,and take every good thing we can think up and make. We must pay them somuch attention that they will let us make a joke of it," said Mrs.Matilda thinking immediately of the old fellows who "sat in thesun"--waiting.
"Yes," answered Mrs. Peyton, "and we must go oftener. We want some morecommittees. It won't be many years--two were buried last week from theHome." There was a moment's silence and the sun streamed in across thedeserted tables.
"Oh," murmured Caroline Darrah Brown with her eyes in a blaze, "I can'tstand it, Phoebe. I never felt so before--I who have no right."
"Dear," said Phoebe with a quiet though intensely sad smile, "this isjust an afterglow of what they must have felt in those awful times. Let'sget them started at the game."
For just a moment longer Phoebe watched them in their heated discussion,then chose her time and her strong quiet voice commanded immediateattention.
"Girls," she said, and as she spoke she held out her hand to Mrs. PeytonKendrick with an audacious little smile. Any woman from two to sixtylikes to be called girl--audaciously as Phoebe did it. "Let's leave itall to the men. I think we can trust them to compel the judge to dine offhis yesterday's remarks in tomorrow's papers. And then if we don't likethe way they have settled with him we can have a gorgeous time tellingthem how much better they might have done it. Let's all play--everybodyfor the game!"
"And Phoebe!" called Mrs. Payt as she sat down at the table farthest inthe corner. She spoke in a clear high-pitched voice that carried wellover the rustle of settling gowns and shuffling cards: "We all intendafter this to _see_ that David Kildare gets what he wants--youunderstand?" A laugh rippled from every table but Phoebe was equal to theoccasion.
"Why not, Mrs. Payt," she answered with the utmost cordiality. "And let'sbe sure and find something he really wants to present to him as atestimony of our esteem."
"Oh, Phoebe," trilled Polly, her emotions getting the better of her asshe stood with score-card in hand waiting for the game to begin, "_I_can't keep from loving him myself and _you_ treat him so mean!"
But a gale of merriment interrupted her outburst and a flutter of cardson the felts marked the first rounds of the hands. In a few minutes theywere as absorbed as if nothing had happened to ruffle the depths; but inthe pool of every woman's nature the deepest spot shelters the lostcauses of life, and from it wells a tidal wave if stirred.
After a little while Caroline Darrah rose from a dummy and spoke in a lowpleading tone to Polly, who had been watching her game, standing ready toscore. Polly demurred, then consented and sat down while Caroline Darrahtook her departure, quietly but fleetly, down the side steps.
She was muffled in her long furs and she swung her sable toque withits one drooping plume in her hand as she walked rapidly across thetennis-courts, cut through the beeches and came out on the bank of thebrawling little Silver Fork Creek, that wound itself from over the ridgedown through the club lands to the river. She stood by the sycamore for amoment listening delightedly to its chatter over the rocks, then climbedout on the huge old rock that jutted out from the bank and was entwinedby the bleached roots of the tall tree. The strong winter sun had warmedthe flat slab on the south side and, sinking down with a sigh of delight,she embraced her knees and bent over to gaze into the sparkling littlewaterfall that gushed across the foot of the boulder.
Then for a mystic half-hour she sat and let her eyes roam the blueHarpeth hills in the distance, that were naked and stark save for thelace traceries of their winter-robbed trees. As the sun sank a soft rosepurple shot through the blue and the mists of the valley rose higherabout the bared breasts of the old ridge.
And because of th
e stillness and beauty of the place and hour, CarolineDarrah began, as women will if the opportunity only so slightly invitesthem, to dream--until a crackle in a thicket opposite her perchdistracted her attention and sent her head up with a little start. In asecond she found herself looking across the chatty little stream straightinto the eyes of Andrew Sevier, in which she found an expression ofhaving come upon a treasure with distracting suddenness.
"Oh," she said to break the silence which seemed to be settling itselfbetween them permanently, "I think I must have been dreaming and youcrashed right in. I--I--"
"Are you sure you are not the dream itself--just come true?" demanded thepoet in a matter-of-fact tone, as if he were asking the time of day orthe trail home.
"I don't think I am, in fact I'm sure," she answered with a break in hercurled lips. "The dream is a bridge, a beautiful bridge, and I've beenseeing it grow for minutes and minutes. One end of it rests down thereby that broken log--see where the little knoll swells up from thefield?--and it stretches in a beautiful strong arch until it seems to cutacross that broken-backed old hill in the distance. And then it fallsacross--but I don't know where to put the other end of it--the groundsinks so--it might wobble. I don't want my bridge to wobble."
Her tone was expressive of a real distress as she looked at him inappealing confusion. And in his eyes she found the dawn of an amusedwonder, almost consternation. Slowly over his face there spread a deepflush and his lips were indrawn with a quick breath.
"Wait a minute, I'll show you," he said in almost an undertone. He swunghimself across the creek on a couple of stones, climbed up the boulderand seated himself at her side. Then he drew a sketch-book from hispocket and spread it open on the slab before them.
There it was--the dream bridge! It rose in a fine strong curve from thelittle knoll, spanned across the distant ridge and fell to the oppositebank on to a broad support that braced itself against a rock ledge. Itwas as fine a perspective sketch as ever came from the pencil of anenthusiastic young Beaux Arts.
"Yes," she said with a delighted sigh that was like the slide of thewater over smooth pebbles, "yes, that is what I want it to be, only Icouldn't seem to see how it would rest right away. It is just as Idreamed it and,"--then she looked at him with startled jeweled eyes."Where did I see it--where did you--what does it mean?" she demanded, andthe flush that rose up to the waves of her hair was the reflection of theone that had stained his face before he came across the stream. "I thinkI'm frightened," she added with a little nervous laugh.
"Please don't be--because I am, too," he answered. And instinctively,like two children, they drew close together. They both gazed at thespecter sketch spread before them and drew still nearer to each other.
"I have been planning it for days," he said in almost a whisper. Hersmall pink ear was very near his lips and his breath agitated two littlegold tendrils that blew across it. "I want to build it before I go away,it is needed here for the hunting. I came out and made the sketch fromright here an hour ago. I came back--I must have come back to haveit--verified." He laughed softly, and for just a second his fingersrested against hers on the edge of the sketch.
"I'm still frightened," she said, but a tippy little smile coaxed at thecorners of her mouth. She turned her face away from his eyes that hadgrown--disturbing.
"I'm not," he announced boldly. "Beautiful wild things are flying looseall over the world and why shouldn't we capture one for ourselves. Do youmind--please don't!"
"I don't think I do," she answered, and her lashes swept her cheeksas she lifted the sketch-book to her knees. "Only suppose I was todream--some of your--other work--some day? I don't want to build yourbridges--but I might want to--write some of your poems. Hadn't you betterdo something to stop me right now?" The smile had come to stay andpeeped roguishly out at him from beneath her lashes.
"No," he answered calmly, "if you want my dreams--they are yours."
"Oh," she said as she rose to her feet and looked down at him wistfully,"your beautiful, beautiful dreams! Ever since that afternoon I have goneover and over the lines you read me. The one about the 'brotherhood ofour heart's desires' keeps me from being lonely. I think--I think I wentto sleep saying it to myself last night and--"
It couldn't go on any longer--as Andrew rose to his feet he gatheredtogether any stray wreckage of wits that was within his reach andmanaged, by not looking directly at her, to say in a rational, elderly,friendly tone, slightly tinged with the scientific:
"My dear child, and that's why you built my bridge for me to-day. Youput yourself into mental accord with me by the use of my jingle lastnight and fell asleep having hypnotized yourself with it. Things wilderthan fancies are facts these days, written in large volumes by extremelyerudite old gentlemen and we believe them because we must. This is asimple case, with a well-known scientific name and--"
"But," interrupted Caroline Darrah, and as she stood away from himagainst the dim hills, her slender figure seemed poised as if for flight,and a hurt young seriousness was in her lifted purple eyes: "I don't wantit to be a 'simple case' with any scientific--" and just here a merrycall interrupted her from up-stream.
Phoebe and Polly had come to summon her back to the club; tea was on thebrew. With the intensest hospitality they invited Andrew to come, too.But he declined with what grace he could and made his way through thetangle down-stream as they walked back under the beeches.
Thus a very bitter thing had come to Andrew Sevier--and sweet as thepulse of heaven. In his hand he had seen a sensitive flower unfold to itsvery heart of flame.
"Never let her know," he prayed, "never let her know."
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