CHAPTER XIV.
MESHACH'S HOME.
Vesta had slept she hardly knew how long, but it was day, and slowly hereyes turned towards the remainder of her bed to see if it was occupied.
The bridegroom was not there.
She reached her foot into her slipper at the bedside, and at one swiftstep passed before her mirror, whispering:
"I have dreamed it all!"
The fresh, flushing skin, and radiant contrasts of hair and eyes seemedso welcome to her in their perfect assurance of health, that shewhispered again:
"Have I dreamed it? He is not here. Oh, am I free?"
Then a feeling of reproval came to her as the minutest memory of thatwonderful yesterday rose to her mind, and the vow she had made to honorand obey seemed to have been too easily repented. She looked upon herhand, and the little, thin, pathetic thread of gold reaffirmed hermemory of the wedding-ring, and at the next suggestion a blush coursedthrough her being like a redbird in the apple-blossoms: perhaps he hadstolen from her chamber stealthily as he came, while she, drowned indeep slumber, wotted not.
A glance into the mirror again revealed those blushes repeating eachother, like the Aurora in the northern dawn, till, with a searchingconsciousness, and her voice raised above the whisper, she said,
"Be still, silly _girl_!"
Opening the door, she found Virgie lying on the rug without, warmlywrapped in her mistress's blanket-shawl, but wide awake.
"Virgie, no one has passed?" asked Vesta.
"No, Miss Vessy. Nobody could have stepped over me, for my mind has beentoo awake, if I did sleep a little. Maybe _he_ ain't a-coming, MissVessy. Maybe he's ashamed!"
"Hush, Virgie," Vesta said, "you are speaking of your master."
Throwing her morning-robe around her shoulders, the maiden bride trippednoiselessly to her mother's apartment; the door was open, the nighttaper floating in its vase, and Mrs. Custis lay asleep with herbank-book under her pillow.
"Shall I awake her?" Vesta thought. "Yes, if I do not need herexperience, I do want her confidence, and not to give her mine wouldseem deceit now."
Vesta kissed her mother softly, and placed her cheek beside that lady'sthin, respectable profile as she awoke, and said:
"Daughter, mercy! why, what has become of you? It seems to me I haveseen nobody for days, and I wanted to express my indignation even in mydreams. Where have you been?"
"Oh, mamma," Vesta said, taking Mrs. Custis's head in her arms, "I havebeen finding your lost fortune, which troubled us all so much. It is tobe given back to you, dearest--my husband has promised to do so."
"Your husband? Whom have you selected, that he is so free with hismoney? How could you hear from Baltimore so soon? Now, don't tell me aparcel of stuff, thinking to comfort me. Your father is a villain, andmy connections shall know it."
Mrs. Custis drew her bank-book from under her head, and began to cry, asshe took a single look at its former total.
"Darling mamma," Vesta said, "seeing you so miserable yesterday onaccount of papa's failure, and your portion gone with it, I accepted anoffer of marriage, and have a rich man's promise that, first of all,your part shall be paid to you. This house, and our manor, andeverything as it is--the servants, the stable, and the movables--belongto me, in my own name, paid for in papa's notes, and by him transferredto me to be our home forever, so that a revulsion like yesterday may notagain cross the sill of our door. Does not that deserve a kiss, mamma?"
"I don't believe a word of it," said Mrs. Custis. "This is another trickto deceive me. I don't accuse you of it, Vesta, but you are the victimof somebody and your father. Now, who can this man be, so free with hisready money? It's not the style in Baltimore to promise so liberally asall that. Have you accepted young Carroll?"
"No, nor thought of him, mamma."
"Then it must be that widower fool, Hynson, ready to sell his negroesfor a second wife like you."
"He has neither been here in body or mind," Vesta said; "never in mymind."
"That would be a marriage to make a talk: it wouldn't be like you tobestow so much beauty on a widower. I think there is a certain vulgarityabout an elegant girl marrying a widower. She is so refined, and he isgenerally so sleek and sensual. Did you hear from Charles McLane?"
"Nothing, mamma; let me ease your mind by telling you that my husbandlives here in Princess Anne. He was father's creditor, Mr. MeshachMilburn. He has loved me unknown for years. I saw a way to stop allscandal and recrimination by marrying him at once, that the society weknow would have but one, and not two, subjects of curiosity. Papa saw memarried last night to Mr. Milburn, and I bear his name this Sabbathday."
"His wife? Meshach Milburn? The vulgarian in the play-actor's hat? Thatman! Daughter, you play with my poor head. It is going again. Oh-h-h!"
"Mother, it is true. I am Mrs. Milburn. My husband is your benefactor."
It was unnecessary to say more, for Mrs. Custis had really fainted.
"Poor mother!" thought Vesta, "I am confirmed in my fear that, if shehad been told of my purpose, she would have opposed it bitterly."
Roxy was summoned to assist Vesta, and after Mrs. Custis had becomeconscious, and sighed and cried hysterically, her daughter, sitting inher lady's rocker, spoke out plainly:
"Mother, I appreciate your disappointment in my marriage, though Ishould be the one to make complaint and receive sympathy, instead ofdiscouragement; but I do not desire it; indeed, I will not permit anyperson to disparage my husband, or draw odious comparisons between mypoverty and his exertions. If there are in my body, or my society, anymerits to please a man, they have fallen to him under the law ofProvidence, that he that hath shall receive. I pity your illness, dearmamma, but I fear Mr. Milburn is ill, too, for he has not been here allnight, though he left me at the church-gate."
"I hope the viper is dead!" Mrs. Custis said, with great clearness, andenergized it by sitting up in bed. Roxy left the room.
"I hope he has been murdered," said Mrs. Custis, "and that the murdererwill never be discovered. If there is any spirit of the McLanes left inmy brothers and nephews, they will wipe out, in blood, the insult ofthis marriage between my daughter and the man who set a trap upon thehonor of a respectable family."
Vesta arose with a pale, troubled face, yet with some of her mother'sprejudice flashing back.
"He can defend himself, mamma. I shall go to seek him now, since he isso much hated for me."
She returned to her room, and put on a walking-suit, and made hertoilet. In the library Vesta found her father dozing in a large chair,with his feet upon a leather sofa, and a silk handkerchief drawn acrosshis crown, under which were the dry beds of tears that had coursed downhis cheeks. She saw, with a touch of joy, that the sherry in thedecanter was untouched, and the two glasses were still clean: he had notrelapsed into his habits, even while making an all-night vigil to waitfor the unwelcome son-in-law. He started as she entered, and then staredat her between his dazed wits and a mute inquiry that she couldunderstand.
"He has not come, papa. And mamma--oh! she is severe."
Vesta, trembling at the throat a moment, rushed into her father'swide-open arms, and buried the sob in his breast.
"Poor soul! Poor lamb! Poor thing!" he said, over and over, while histemper slowly rose, that seldom rose of recent years, since pleasure andcarelessness had taken its masculine sting away, but Vesta felt histones change while he petted her, and at last heard him say, hoarsely:
"By God!"
"Sh--h!" she whispered, raising her hand to his mouth.
"I will kill somebody," he went on, finishing his sentence, and as shedrew away he strode across the room and back again, a noble exhibitionof passion that had a noble origin, in fatherly pity.
"Don't lose your true pride, papa, after you have persevered so long,"Vesta said. "It is Sunday. Do you think he will come? What can havehappened?"
"He will either come or fight me," Judge Custis remarked. "I have triedto be a peaceable man and Christian
magistrate, albeit a poor hypocritein some, things, but I am pushed too far. My wife's smallness is worsethan insanity and wickedness put together. Between her and thismoney-broking fiend, and my neglected child entrapped into such amarriage, by God! I will clean my old duelling arms, and appeal toinjustice itself to set me even."
If he had been fine-looking in his sincere grief, he was thrice moreattractive in his sincere high spirit. Vesta, admiring him in spite ofher cares, did not like to see him in this unnatural recklessness.
"Dear father," she said, soothingly, "you have no cause of quarrel."
"I have every cause," he cried; "the proposal to marry you was aninsult, for which I should have challenged him, and shot him if hedeclined. Now he has married you and absconded, using you and the Custishonor with contempt. In my day I was the best shot in Eastern Virginia.I can kill a man in this cause as easily as I have broken either of aman's arms, at choice, in my courting days. Public opinion will clear meunder this provocation, and I can acquit my own conscience, abhorrentas duelling is to me. My sons-in-law would leap to take the quarrel up,and rid the world of Meshach Milburn."
"That is mamma's idea, to kill the debtor who has been specially kind toher. She says she will send for Uncle Allan McLane, and is moreunreasonable than ever. Papa, your feelings are unjust. Something we donot know of has happened to Mr. Milburn. He was not himself all thewhile at the church. Now that I recollect, he was not ardent for themarriage to be so soon. It was I who hastened the hour. Let us be rightin everything, having progressed so far with the recovery of ourfortunes, and let us await the fulfilment of events hopefully."
"Milburn was drunk at the ceremony, I saw that," Judge Custis said, "butit was no excuse. In fact, what good can come of this violent alliance?It seems to me that we have leaped from the frying-pan into the fire. Ifeel ugly, my daughter, and there is no concealing it."
"Then you are in the mood to talk to mother this morning," Vesta said,"while you have some unusual will and spirit. This resentful sullennessshe is showing I fear more than your passing emotion, papa. Be firm, yetkind, with her, and I will go to find my husband. Yes, that is my place.He may be more justly complaining of my absence now, than we of hisneglect."
"You don't mean that you are going to visit him at his den?"
"I shall go there first. It would have been my home last night if he hadrequired it. To tell the truth," Vesta said, blushing, "the poor man wasso kind to me yesterday, in spite of his object, and so quaint, and, asit seemed, dependent on me, that my charity is enlisted for him, and Icould almost have married him from pity."
The Judge's temper fell a little in the study of his daughter'sblushing.
"Wonderful! wonderful!" he thought to himself; "that poor corn-bredfellow has already made more impression on this girl's pride than ahundred cavalier gallants. Truly, we are a republic, Vesta," hecontinued aloud, "and you lay down the Custis character as easily as ourold connection, Lord Fairfax, accepted the democracy of his hiredsurveyor, Mr. Washington, before he died."
"I laid down the Custis name yesterday," Vesta said, "though not theirbetter character, I hope. Papa, there is only one law of marriage; it iswhere the wife follows the husband."
She looked a little archly at him, wiping her eyes of recent tears, andthough she may not have meant it, he was reminded of his own fear of hiswife.
Aunt Hominy now came in, having been told by Virgie to prepare coffee,and she followed Roxy, who brought it into the library. The old cook hada strange look, as of one who had been up all night at a fire, or a"protracted meeting," and she poked her head in as if afraid to comefarther, till Vesta went out and kissed her kindly.
"Poor Aunty Hominy! did you think I was sold, or abused, because I hadbeen married? Dear old aunty, I shall never leave you!"
Aunt Hominy had a countenance of profound, almost vacant, melancholy,mixed with a fear that, the Judge remarked, "he had seen on the faces ofniggers that had stolen something."
"Miss Vessy," she stammered, at last, "is you measured in by oleMeshach? Is he got you, honey? Dat he has, chile! He's gwyn to bury youunder dat pizen hat. Po' little girl! Po' Miss Vessy!"
"Oh, Aunt Hominy," Vesta said, "he will be a kind master in spite of hisqueer hat, and take good care of you and all the children; for he is myhusband, and will love you all for me."
A dumb, terrified look adhered to the old black woman's face.
"No, he won't be kind to nobody," she gasped. "You has gwyn been lost,Miss Vessy. You is measured in. De good Lord try an' bress you! Hominyain't measured in yit. Hominy's kivered herseff wid cammermile, an'drunk biled lizzer tea. Hominy's gone an' got Quaker."
"What's _Quaker_, Aunt Hominy?"
"Quaker," the old woman repeated, backing out and looking down,"Quaker's what keeps him from a measurin' of me in!"
Then, as Vesta drew on her bonnet and shawl, having taken her coffee andtoast, the old servant, gliding back in the depths of Teackle Hall,raised a wild African croon, as over the dead, giving her voice amusical inflection like the jingle of Juba rhyme:
"Good-bye, Miss Vessy! Good-bye, Aunt Hominy's baby! Good-bye, dearyoung missis! Good-bye, my darlin' chile, furever, furever, an' Ofurever, little Vessy Custis, O chile, farewell!"
The tears raining upon her cheeks, her wild, wringing hands and upflungarms and shape convulsed, Vesta remembered long, and thought, as sheleft Teackle Hall with Virgie, that some African superstition had, bythe aid of dreams, drawn into a passing excitement the faithfulservant's brain.
At the corner of old Front Street, and extending almost out upon thelittle Manokin bridge, stood Meshach Milburn's two-story house andstore, with a door upon both streets. Though planted low, in a hollow,it stood forward like Milburn's challenging countenance, unsupported byany neighbors.
"Don't it look like a witch's, Missy?" Virgie said, as Vesta took in itsnot unpicturesque outlines and crude plank carpentry, the weather-rottedroof, the decrepit chimney at the far end, the one garret window in thesharp gable, the scant little windows above stairs, and the doors low tothe sand.
"It may have been the pride of the town fifty years ago, Virgie. I havepassed it many a day, looking with mischievous curiosity for thesteeple-hat, to show that to some city friend, little thinking I mustever enter the house. But hear that wilful bird singing so loud! Whereis it?"
"I can't tell to save my life. It ain't in the tree yonder. It's thefirst bird up this mornin', Miss Vessy, sho'!"
"Is not that larger door standing ajar, the one with the four panels init?" Vesta asked. "Yes, it is unfastened and partly open."
The blood left Vesta's heart a moment, as the thought ran through hermind: "He has been watched, followed home, and murdered!"
The idea seemed to explain his absence on his marriage night, and, likea sudden flame first seen upon a burning ship, lighting up the wideocean with its bright terrors, Vesta saw the infinite relations of sucha crime: her almost secret marriage, her custody of her father's notes,the record of them upon her husband's books, his last word at the churchgate: "I will come soon, darling," and now, this silent abode, with itsdoor ajar on Sunday dawn, before the town was up--they might bear thesuspicion of a dreadful crime by the ruined debtor house of Custisagainst their friendless creditor.
This thought, personal to her father, was immediately dismissed in thefeeling for a possibly murdered husband. If the idea barely touched hersense of self, that her tremendous sacrifice had been arrested byHeaven, and her purity saved between the altar and the nuptials by thebloodshed of her purchaser at the hands of some meaner avenger, thoughnot until she had redeemed her father from Milburn's clutch, this ideanever passed beyond the portal of her mind; she repulsed it, entering,and began to think of the easy prey her husband might have been, hatedby so many, defended by none, known to be very rich, no loss to thecommunity, as it might think, in its financial ignorance, and his onlyguard a stalwart negro notorious for fighting.
Believing Milburn to deserve better than his present fame,
Vestaadvanced towards the door of the old wooden store with a spirit ofcommiseration and awe, and still the wild bird from somewhere poured outa shriek, a chuckle, a hurrah, enough to turn her blood to ice.
As Vesta pushed open the old, seasoned door it dragged along the floor,and the loose iron bar and padlock, dropping down, made a ring thatbrought an echo like a tomb's out of the hollow interior.
"'Deed, Miss Vessy, I'm 'fraid to go in there," Virgie said.
"You are not to come in till I call you. But hear that bird rioting insong! Does Mr. Milburn keep birds?"
"I can't tell, Miss Vessy. That bird's a Mocker. It must be in theresomewhere. Oh, don't go in, Miss Vessy; something will catch you, dearMissy, sho'."
But Vesta was already gone, following the piercing sound of the nativebird, that seemed to be in the loft.
She saw a little counter of pine, and a pine desk built into it, andbundles of skins, some cord-wood, a pile of lumber and boxes, a fewbarrels of oil or spirits, and dust and cobwebs thick on everything; anda little way in from the door the light and darkness made weird effectsupon each other, increasing the apparent distances, and changing theforms; and the sun, now risen, made turning cylinders of gold-dust atcertain knot-holes in the eastern gable, across whose film she saw twolean mice stand upon the floor unalarmed, and tamely watch her come.
The screaming of the bird was conveyed through the thin floor from abovewith loud distinctness, and every note of singing things seemed to beimitated by it, from the hawk's gloating cry to the swallow's twitteringalarm, with the most rapid versatility, and even hurry, as if thecreature was trying over every bird language, with the hope of findingone mankind could understand. It was idle to expect to be heard amidsuch clamor, and Vesta, having pounded on the floor a few times, madeher way to a sort of cupboard, that might turn out to be a stairway,and, sure enough, a door opened on its dark side, and light from aboveflickered down.
At this moment the bird's notes abruptly ceased, and a voice, unlikeanything she had ever heard in her life, yet human, spoke in response toa more natural human voice, both issuing from above.
The second voice seemed to be Milburn's; the first voice was somethinglike it, yet not like anything from the throat of man, and thesuperstition she had been rebuking in her servant came with a thrillinginfluence upon her entire nature. She was about to fly, but called outone word as she arrested herself:
"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!"
The loud, unclassifiable voice above immediately answered:
"Gent! Gent-gent-gent-en! t-chee, t-chee! Gents, tss-tss-tss! Ha! ha!Gentlemen!"
"May I come up?" Vesta cried.
"Come, p-chee! Come chee! come tsee! See me! see me! see me! Comep-chee! come see! come see me!"
The last accentuation, in spite of the bird's interference, wassufficiently distinct to amount to an invitation, and with a raising ofher eyelids once dependently to heaven, Vesta went up the stairs.
She put her head into a large, long room, which took up the wholecontents of the second story, and was lighted on three sides by thesmall windows she had seen without. It had no carpet or floor-coveringof any kind; the fire was gone out upon the chimney-hearth in the end,and the atmosphere, a little chill, was melting before the sunshinewhich now streamed in at both sides of the fireplace and clearlyrevealed every object in the apartment,--some clothes-pegs, a woodentable with a blue plate, a blue cup and saucer and a saucepan upon it,and a coarse knife and fork; a large green chest, and a leather hat-box;an old hair trunk fifty years old, and nearly falling to pieces; blacksilhouettes, in little round ebony frames, of a woman and a man hungover the mantel, and between them a silhouette of a face she had nodifficulty in recognizing to be intended for her own.
Stretched upon a low child's bed, of the sort called trundle-bed inthose days, which could be wheeled under the high-legged bed of theparents, lay the bridegroom, in his wedding-dress and gaitered shoes,with his steeple-crowned hat upon the faded calico quilt beside him, andhis face as red as burning fever could make it.
Vesta only verified the particulars of the inventory of Milburn's lodgeafterwards, her instant attention being drawn to the motionless form ofher husband, whose flushed face seemed to indicate a death bystrangulation or apoplexy. She went forward and put her hand upon him.
"Mr. Milburn!" she spoke.
"Milburn!" echoed a voice of piercing strength, though ill articulated.She looked around in astonishment, and saw nobody.
"Husband!" Vesta spoke, louder, stooping over him.
"S'band! s'band! See! see!" shouted the wanton voice, almost at herelbow.
Vesta, with one hand on the helpless man's brow, turned again, almostindignantly, for the tone seemed to address some sense of neglect orshame in her, which she had not been guilty of. Still, nothing was to beseen.
At the far corner of the room was a step-ladder leading to a hole in theloft above; but this was not the place of the interruption, for sheheard the voice now come as from the chimney at the opposite end of theroom, nearer the bed, and accompanied with a fluttering and scratching,as if some spirit of evil, with the talons of a rat or a bat, was tryingto break in where the prostrate man lay on the bed of oblivion.
"Meshach! Meshach!" rang the half-human cry, "Hoo! hoo! Vesty! Vesty!Sweet! sweet! sweet! Ha, ha! See me! See me! Meshach, he! Vesty, she!She! she! she! Hoot! hoot! ha!"
Rapidly changing her view, with her ears no less than her heart tinglingat the use of her own name, Vesta saw on the dusty wooden mantel acommon bird of a gray color, with dashes of brown and black upon hiswings, and a whitish breast, and he was greatly agitated, as if he meantto fly upon her or upon some other intruder she could not see.
His eyes, of black pupils upon yellowish eyeballs, sparkled with nervousactivity. He flung himself into the air above her head, uttering soundsof such mellow richness and such infinite fecundity of modulation, thatthe old hovel almost burst with intoxicated song, combining gladness,welcome, fear, defiance, superstition, horror, and epithalamium alltogether, like Orpheus gone mad, and losing the continuity of his goldennotes.
The bird's upper bill was beaked like a hawk's, his lower was sharp as alance, and between them issued that infuriated melody and cadence andepithet that old Patrick Henry's spirit might have migrated into fromhis grave in the Virginia woods. He suddenly flung himself from hisvortex of song upon the bed of the sick man, with a twitching hop andrapid opening and shutting of the tail, like the fan of a disturbedbeauty, and thence perched upon Milburn's peaked hat, and with aconvulsive struggle of his throat and body, as if he were in superhumanlabor, brought out, distinct as man could speak, the words,
"'Sband! 'sband! Vesty! Vesty! Sweet! sweet! Come see! come see!"
Vesta, by a quick, expert movement, grasped the bird, and smoothed itagainst her bosom, and soothed its excitement.
She had heard verified what Audubon avowed, and had but recentlypublished in the beautiful edition of his works her father was asubscriber to, that some said the American mocking-bird could imitatethe human voice, though the naturalist remarked that he himself hadnever heard the bird do it.
The present verification, Vesta thought, of the mocking-bird's supremestpower, might have issued from its excitement at the silent and helplesscondition of its master--that master who had told Vesta that no bird inthe woods ever resisted his seductions and mystic influence.
"If that be true," Vesta said to herself, "there is no danger of thisvociferous pet making his escape if I put him out of the window till Ican see if his master speaks or lives."
So she raised the window, and flung the mocking-bird up into the air,and it came down and dropped into the old willow-tree beneath, and thereset up a concert the Sabbath morning might have been proud of, when, inthe corn-fields, the free-footed Saviour went plucking the milky ears.Vesta could but stop a minute and listen.
The liquid notes chased each other around in circles of dizzy harmony,as if angels were at hide-and-seek on the blue branches of the air,eluding ea
ch other in pure-heartedness, chasing each other with eagerlove, sighing praise and happiness as their supernal hearts emittedmusic in the glow of ecstasy, and carrying upward the loveliest emotionsof the earth in yearning sympathy for nature. No language, now, thatVesta could identify, was woven into that maze of morning song, whichchallenged, with its fulness and golden weight, the floods of sunshine,matching light with sound, spontaneous both, and rivals for the favorsof the soft atmosphere. Singing with all its heart, outdoing all itknew, forgetting imitation in wild improvisation, watching her window asit danced upon the twigs and fluttered into the air, conscious of herlistening as it purled and warbled towards her, and sounded every pipeand trumpet, virginal and clarion, hautboy and castanet, in theorchestra of its rustic bosom, the mocking-bird's ode seemed almostsupernatural this morn to Vesta, and she thought to herself:
"Oh, what wedding music in the cathedral at Baltimore could equal that?and this poor man receives it for his epithalamium, without cost, astruly as if nature were greeting my coming to him in the old poet'sspirit:
"'Now all is done; bring home the bride againe; Bring home the triumph of our victory; Bring home with you the glory of her gaine, With joyance bring her and with jollity: Sing, ye sweet angels, Alleluia sing, That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring.'"
Relieved from the agitation of the mocking-bird, Vesta now gave herwhole attention to her husband; and the high heat of his brain andcirculation, and his muttering, like delirium, seemed to indicate thathe had an intense attack of intermittent fever. She heard the wordsseveral times repeated by him: "I will come soon, darling!" and thesimplicity of his devotion to her, unloved as he was, had such flavor ofpathos in it that the tears started to Vesta's eyes.
"Poor soul!" she said, "it will be long before I can love him. _There_,his hunger must be enduring. But my duty is not the less clear to stayby his side and nurse him, as his wife."
At this conclusion she looked Milburn over carefully, to see if anywound or sign of violence, whether by accident or an enemy, appearedupon him, and finding none, and he all the time wandering in his sleep,she climbed the ladder and peeped into the garret, to see if his servantmight be there. Samson's bed, as she supposed it was, had not beendisturbed, and so, descending, she raised the window over the largerdoor she had entered by, and beckoned Virgie to come up.
"Take this tin cup," she said to the quadroon, "and go to the spring,near here, and bring it to me full of water."
Then, as the girl tripped away, Vesta found a piece of paper, and wroteher father a note, telling him to come to her; and to the girl, when shereturned, her mistress said:
"I want you to get a roll of new rag-carpet at Teackle Hall, and have itbrought here, to spread upon this floor. Send me, too, a pair of ourbrass andirons, and pack in a basket some glass, table-ware, and linen.Tell papa to bring one of his own night-shirts, and to take down mypicture in the sewing-room, and wrap it up, and have it sent. I musthave mamma's medicine-box and a wheelbarrow of ice; and let Hominy makesome strong tea and hot-water toast. Virgie, do not forget that thissick gentleman is my husband, and a part of our own family!"
"The girl's face preserved its respect with difficulty as she heard thelast part of the sentence, but she replied to What she understood to bea warning by saying:
"Miss Vessy, I never tell anybody tales."
"No, dear, you do not. I only feared you might forget the very differentview we must take of Mr. Milburn from his former life here."
Being again left alone, Vesta took the tin cup of spring-water, and,raising the disturbed man's head, she gave him a drink, and, as heopened his eyes to see whom it was, she heard him say, with anarticulate sigh:
"Heaven."
With the remainder of the water and her handkerchief she washed his hotskin and kept it moist, and fitful murmurs, as "Darling!" "Angel!""Beautiful lady!" came from his roving brain as perception and poisoncontended for his mind. The inborn sense in woman of happiness afterdoing good offices and being appreciated was attended with a certainintellectual elation, and even amusement, at having witnessed what wasaltogether new to her,--the life of the meaner class of white people.She looked at the dexterous silhouette of herself, cut, probably, frommemory, long ago, by the man, no doubt, who never knew her untilyesterday, and, guessing the companion profiles to be his mother andfather, she exclaimed, mentally:
"I cannot see anything insincere about this man's statement to me. Hereare all the proofs of his deep attachment to me long before he forced myname upon papa with such apparent insolence. If papa could see theseproofs with a woman's interest, he would have a full apology in them.Here, too, is the bird that sings my name. What strength ofprepossession the master must have had to make the feathered pupilrepeat the sound of 'Vesta,' and call me 'sweet!' What resources, too,without the use of money or social aids! He knows the story of ourEnglish beginning, while we make it an idle boast; but to him Cromwelland Milton, Raleigh and Vane, are men of to-day. Ah!" Vesta thought, "Ithink I see now one of those Puritans in my husband, of whom I haveheard as sprinkled through Virginia. We are the Cavaliers. There is theRoundhead, even to the King James hat."
As she was led onward in these probabilities, Vesta took up the demureold Hat and looked it over without any superstition, and reflected:
"Do we not exaggerate trifles? Why should this man be so derided becausehe covers his head with an old hat? What of it? Suppose it shows somevanity or eccentricity, why is there more merit in covering that up thanin expressing it in the dress? The styles we wear to-day are thederision even of the current journals, and what will be thought of themfifty years hence, when the fashion magazines show me as I look,--theenvy of my moment, the fright of my grandchildren?"
With rising color, she put the hat in the leather hat-box, and shut itup.
Judge Custis made his way up the dark stairs in a little while, and, assoon as he looked at Milburn, exclaimed,
"Curses come home to roost! It was only night before last that I said,in the presence of Meshach's negro, 'May the ague strike him and thebilious sweat from Nassawongo mill-pond!' He slept by it that night,while I was tossing in misery. The next night it was his turn. Daughter,he has the bilious intermittent fever, the legacy of all his fathers. Heexposed himself, I suppose, extraordinarily that night, and I hear thathe burned the old cabin in the morning. Now he will burn, in memory ofit, for the next ten weeks; for he has, I suspect, from the time of daythe burning and delirium came, what is called the double quotidian typeof the fever, with two attacks in the twenty-four hours."
"Poor man!" exclaimed Vesta.
"Now I can account for his appearance at the marriage ceremony lastnight. The fever was on him, but he went through it by hard grit, and,probably, returning here to get some relief, he just fell over on thatbed, and his head left him for some hours. The paroxysm goes away duringsleep, and returns in the morning; so, before he could get abroadto-day, even if he could walk, to report himself at Teackle Hall,another fever came, and a furious one, too, and he will have good luckto survive forty days of fever, with probably eighty sweats in thattime."
"He must be doctored at once, papa."
"Well, I am good enough doctor for the bilious fever. He wants plenty ofcold lemonade, cold sponging, and ice to suck when the fever is on him.When the chills intervene he wants blanketing, hot bottles at his feet,and hot tea, or something stronger. In the rest between the attacks offever and chill, he wants calomel and Peruvian bark, and if thesedelirious spells go on, he may want both bleeding and opium."
"Here are some of the things he immediately needs, then," Vesta said, asa tall white man she had never seen before came up the stairs withVirgie, bringing some Susquehanna ice in a blanket, and a roll ofcarpet, and other articles she had sent for. The man's face wore a largebruise that heightened his savage appearance.
"Judge," exclaimed the stranger, "I'm doin' a little work to pay fur myboard. Who's your whiffler? He'll know me when he sees me next time."
&n
bsp; Following the stranger's eyes, Vesta and her father saw Meshach Milburn,half raised up from the low trundle-bed, staring at Joe Johnson as iftrying to get at him. His lips moved, he partly articulated:
"Catch the--scoundre--_him_!"
"Joe," said the Judge, "slip away! He recognizes you as the assailantyesterday. Don't hesitate: see how he glares at you!"
"Oh, it's the billy-noodle with the steeple nab-cheat, him that settledme with the brick," said the stranger, in a low voice. "So I have pipedhim. Ah! that's plumby!"
As the tall man started to go Milburn's countenance relaxed, he wanderedagain in his head, and fell back upon the bed.
"I told you he was a hard hater, Mr. Johnson," the Judge remarked.
"Them shakes is the equivvy for the bruise he give me,--that is, till weboth heal up. He's painted the ensigns of all nations on my stummick,Judge. But a blow is cured by a blow!"
With a look of admiring computation upon the girl Virgie, Joe Johnsondrew his long figure down the stairs, like a pole.
"What a brutal giant," Vesta said; "and how came he to be doing ourerrands?"
"Why, Aunt Hominy hadn't nobody to bring the wheelbarrow load, and thisman said he'd come, and he would come, Miss Vesty, so I couldn't sayanything."
"He's a man of a good deal of influence," said the Judge, uneasily, "inthe upper part of our county, and in Delaware. Last night, after thewedding, he slapped Meshach's hat, and old Samson knocked him down forit, and he would have killed Samson, I hear, but for your bridegroom,who felled him with a timely brick. It's a hard team to pass on a narrowroad,--Meshach and Samson; hey, Virgie?"
"I'm glad old Samson beat him, anyway," the pretty quadroon said,showing her white teeth.
"Oh, what troubles will not that hat bring upon us!" Vesta thought; andthen spoke: "If Mr. Milburn was strong, I think he would hardly let thatman get out of the county before night."
"Well, daughter, what are you going to do with these articles he hasbrought?"
"They are to make this room comfortable. See, he has my picture here,cut by his own hands: I want to put a better one before him: help mehang it, papa!"
In a few minutes the bright oil portrait, but recently painted by Mr.Rembrandt Peale, was taking the sunlight upon its warm brunette cheeks,in full sight of the bridegroom, and the thick rag carpet warmed thefloor, and Virgie had made a second errand to Teackle Hall, and broughtback the lady's rocking-chair that Milburn so much affected, and toiletarticles, and some dark cloth to hide the bare boards in places, and theold loft soon wore a reasonable appearance of habitable life. Virgiemade up the fire, and the brass andirons took the cheerful flame uponthem, while Vesta sweetened the lemonade after her father had cut andsqueezed the lemons, and added some magnesia to make the drink foam.
"Really," said Judge Custis, "this miserable den takes the rudimentaryform of a home. I suppose there are now more comforts in his sight thanMeshach's whole race ever collected. What is your next move, Vesta?"
"To stay right here, darling papa, till it is safe and convenient tocarry Mr. Milburn home."
"Oh, folly! it will excite scandal, and be repulsive to my feelings.This loft over a former groggery is no place for you: the news willspread from Chincoteague to Arlington. Every Custis that lives willcensure me and outlaw you."
"I think you had best see Mr. Tilghman before the service, papa, andhave the marriage announced from the desk this morning: that will settlethe excitement before night. As for staying here, my home, you know, iswhere he needs me. At his will I should have to stay here altogether.But I wish to do this, dear father. It is of the greatest necessity tomy nature to improve my intercourse with my husband while he is sick,that the hasty marriage we made may still have its period ofacquaintance and good understanding. I want to sound the possibilitiesof my happiness. He will be less my master now than in his strength andpossession. Perhaps--" Vesta's voice fell, and she turned to gaze uponthe bridegroom, whose fever still consumed his wits--"perhaps I caninfluence his dress,--his appearance."
"You mean the steeple top!" Judge Custis exclaimed, petulantly.
At the loud sound of this familiar word, the feverish man's ears werepierced as through some ever-open ventricle, like an old wound.
"Steeple-top! Who cried 'steeple-top'?" he muttered. "Oh, can't you seeI'm married. _She_ hears it. Oh, spare and pity her!"
He wandered into the miasmatic world again, leaving them all touched,yet oppressed.
"How the very flint-stone will wear away before the water-drop," JudgeCustis finally said; "his obdurate heart has been bruised by thatnickname. In public he never appeared to flinch before it; but you seeit inflicted a never-healing wound. Who has not his vulture?"
"And how unjust to pursue this man with such frivolous inhospitality somany years," Vesta exclaimed, her splendid eyes flashing. "No accounthas been made of his private reasons, his family piety, or his sterntaste, perhaps; for he must have a reason for his wardrobe, that being,it would seem, the only thing there can be no independence about. Didyou hear, papa, his feeling for me but this moment? Strangely enough, myown mind was thinking of that hat. It seems to be bigger than the verysteeples of the churches: it rises between the people and worship, yes,between us and Charity, and Faith,--I had almost said Hope, too."
"The colored people all say that hat he has to wear, because the devilmakes him," the trim, fawn-footed Virgie said; "Aunt Hominy says the BadMan wouldn't let him make no mo' money if he didn't go to church in thathat. Some of the white people says so, too."
"You don't believe such foolish tales as that, Virgie?" Vesta asked.
"'Deed, I don't believe anything you say is a story, Miss Vessy. Hominybelieves it. She's 'most scared out of her life about Mr. Milburn comingto the house, an' she's got all the little ones a' most crazy withfear."
"Poor, dark, ignorant soul!" Vesta said; "she is, however, moreexcusable than these grown men, whose prejudices against an article ofdress are as heathen in character as her fetish superstition."
"If he is a good man to you, Miss Vessy," the slave girl said, "I'llthink the Bad Man hasn't got anything to do with him. If he treats youbad, I'll think the Bad Man has."
"Sometimes I feel as if men ought to have been left wild, like theanimals," the Judge said, rinsing out Milburn's mouth with a piece ofice, "for the obstacles to liberty raised by fashion and civilizationare Asiatic in their despotism. Think of the taxes we pay to fashionwhen we refused less to kings. Think of the aristocracy based upondress, after we have formally extirpated it by statute! Think of theinfluence the boot-makers and mantua-makers of Europe, proceeding fromthe courts we have renounced, exert upon our Presidents and Senators,and, through the women of this country, upon all the men in the land! Amillion women who do not know that there are two houses of Congress,know just what bonnet the Duchess d'Angouleme is wearing, and howCharles X. in Paris ties his cravat. So the devil always gets a worm inevery apple. The French Revolution abolished feudality, titles, greatlanded property, and only omitted to abolish fashion, and that worm--asilkworm it is--is devastating republican government everywhere, usingthe women to infect us."
"Yet, in the nature of woman," said Vesta, "is the love of dress asstrongly as the love of woman is in man. Some righteous purpose is init, papa,--to ornament ourselves like the birds, and let art be born."
"God knows his own mysteries," Judge Custis said. "But Vesta, go homewith me to your own comfortable home, and let Virgie stay here to keepwatch."
"Master, I'm afraid to stay here," the girl exclaimed, sidling towardsher young mistress.
"Then I will stay, and be nurse," the Judge said. "Fear not! I will givehim only wholesome medicine, whatever poison he has given me and mine.You stay in Teackle Hall, my precious child! Indeed, I must command it."
Vesta smiled sadly and pointed to her husband.
"He commands me now, papa. You were too indulgent a master, and spoiledme. No, Virgie and I will both remain, and you conciliate mamma. All isgoing well. Really, I
am happy and grateful to my Heavenly Father thathe is smoothing the way so gently, that I thought would be so hard."
"Oh, the conditions of this disease are repulsive, my child. You are alady."
"No, I am a woman," said Vesta; "that man and I must see one or theother die. You do not know how easy it is for a woman to nurse a man.Though love might make the task more grateful, yet gratitude will domuch to sweeten it. He has loved me and taken the shadow from your oldage for me. Shall I leave him here to feel that I despise him? No."
She kissed her father, and gave him his cane.
"Come back this afternoon, my love," she said to him.
"Nothing on earth is like you!" exclaimed the old man. "I fear you arenot mine."
"Yes," Vesta said, "you are full of good, wherever you may havestrayed."
As the sound of his feet passed from the doorway below, the sick man,with a sigh as from burning fire, opened his eyes and looked around.They fell upon her picture.
"What is that?" he murmured; "I dreamed nothing like that, just now."
"It is my picture. I am here," Vesta said, bending over him. "Don't youknow me?"
"Who are you, dear lady?" he breathed, with fever-weakened eye-sockets,and mind struggling up to his distended orbs, "do I know you?"
"Yes, I am Vesta--Vesta Custis, I was. I am your wife."
His eyes opened wide, as if hearing some wonderful news.
"Wife? what is that? My wife? No."
"Yes, I am Vesta Milburn, your wife."
He seemed to remember, and, with compassion for him, she stooped andkissed him.
"God bless you!" he sighed, and passed away into the Upas shades again.
At that minute the mocking-bird flew in the open window and flutteredabove the lowly bed, and perched upon the headboard and began to sing:
"'Sband! 'sband! see! see! Vesty, sweet! Vesty, sweet! Ha, ha! hurrah!"
The Entailed Hat; Or, Patty Cannon's Times Page 16