The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Trumpeter Swan, by Temple Bailey This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Trumpeter Swan Author: Temple Bailey Illustrator: Alice Barber Stephens Release Date: February 7, 2006 [EBook #17697] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRUMPETER SWAN *** Produced by Sjaani, Beginners Projects and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net The Trumpeter Swan By TEMPLE BAILEY Author of "The Tin Soldier" "Contrary Mary" "Mistress Anne" "Glory of Youth" Sonus ex nubibus te revocabit a mundo A sound from the clouds shall call thee from this earth Illustrated by ALICE BARBER STEPHENS THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY PHILADELPHIA 1920 COPYRIGHT 1920 BY THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY CHAPTER PAGE I. A Major and Two Minors 7 [Pg 3] II. Stuffed Birds 33 III. A Wolf in the Forest 61 IV. Rain and Randy's Soul 88 V. Little Sister 108 VI. Georgie-Porgie 127 VII. Mademoiselle Midas 147 VIII. Ancestors 161 IX. "T. Branch" 181 X. A Gentleman's Lie 214 XI. Wanted—a Pedestal 245 XII. Indian—Indian 263 XIII. The Whistling Sally 289 XIV. The Dancer on the Moor 313 XV. The Trumpeter Swan 333 XVI. The Conqueror 361 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE "When I am Married Will You Sound Your Trumpet High Up Near the Moon?" Frontispiece "It's So Heavenly to Have You Home" 9 Becky Drew A Sharp Breath—Then Faced Dalton Squarely—"I Am Going to Marry Randy" 143 "Oh, Oh," She Whispered, "You Don't Know How I Have Wanted You" 257 THE TRUMPETER SWAN CHAPTER I A MAJOR AND TWO MINORS I It had rained all night, one of the summer rains that, beginning in a thunder-storm in Washington, had continued in a steaming drizzle until morning. There were only four passengers in the sleeper, men all of them—two in adjoining sections in the middle of the car, a third in the drawing-room, a fourth an intermittent occupant of a berth at the end. They had gone to bed unaware of the estate or circumstance of their fellow-travellers, and had waked to find the train delayed by washouts, and side-tracked until more could be learned of the condition of the road. The man in the drawing-room shone, in the few glimpses that the others had of him, with an effulgence which was dazzling. His valet, the intermittent sleeper in the end berth, was a smug little soul, with a small nose which pointed to the stars. When the door of the compartment opened to admit breakfast there was the radiance of a brocade dressing- gown, the shine of a sleek head, the staccato of an imperious voice. Randy Paine, long and lank, in faded khaki, rose, leaned over the seat of the section in front of him and drawled, "'It is not raining rain to me—it's raining roses—down——'" A pleasant laugh, and a deep voice, "Come around here and talk to me. You're a Virginian, aren't you?" "By the grace of God and the discrimination of my ancestors," young Randolph, as he dropped into the seat opposite the man with the deep voice, saluted the dead and gone Paines. "Then you know this part of it?" "I was born here. In this county. It is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh," there was a break in the boy's voice which robbed the words of grandiloquence. "Hum—you love it? Yes? And I am greedy to get away. I want wider spaces——" "California?" "Yes. Haven't seen it for three years. I thought when the war was over I might. But I've got to be near Washington, it [Pg 7] [Pg 8] seems. The heat drove me out, and somebody told me it would be cool in these hills——" "It is, at night. By day we're not strenuous." "I like to be strenuous. I hate inaction." He moved restlessly. There was a crutch by his side. Young Paine noticed it for the first time. "I hate it." He had a strong frame, broad shoulders and thin hips. One placed him immediately as a man of great physical force. Yet there was the crutch. Randy had seen other men, broad-shouldered, thin-hipped, who had come to worse than crutches. He did not want to think of them. He had escaped without a scratch. He did not believe that he had lacked courage, and there was a decoration to prove that he had not. But when he thought of those other men, he had no sense of his own valor. He had given so little and they had given so much. Yet it was not a thing to speak of. He struck, therefore, a note to which he knew the other might respond. "If you haven't been here before, you'll like the old places." "I am going to one of them." "Which?" "King's Crest." A moment's silence. Then, "That's my home. I have lived there all my life." The lame man gave him a sharp glance. "I heard of it in Washington—delightful atmosphere—and all that——" "You are going as a—paying guest?" "Yes." A deep flush stained the younger man's face. Suddenly he broke out. "If you knew how rotten it seems to me to have my mother keeping—boarders——" "My dear fellow, I hope you don't think it is going to be rotten to have me?" "No. But there are other people. And I didn't know until I came back from France—— She had to tell me when she knew I was coming." "She had been doing it all the time you were away?" "Yes. Before I went we had mortgaged things to help me through the University. I should have finished in a year if I hadn't enlisted. And Mother insisted there was enough for her. But there wasn't with the interest and everything—and she wouldn't sell an acre. I shan't let her keep on——" "Are you going to turn me out?" His smile was irresistible. Randy smiled back. "I suppose you think I'm a fool——?" "Yes. For being ashamed of it." Randy's head went up. "I'm not ashamed of the boarding-house. I am ashamed to have my mother work." "So," said the lame man, softly, "that's it? And your name is Paine?" "Randolph Paine of King's Crest. There have been a lot of us—and not a piker in the lot." "I am Mark Prime." "Major Prime of the 135th?" The other nodded. "The wonderful 135th—God, what men they were——" his eyes shone. Randy made his little gesture of salute. "They were that. I don't wonder you are proud of them." "It was worth all the rest," the Major said, "to have known my men." He looked out of the window at the drizzle of rain. "How quiet the world seems after it all——" Then like the snap of bullets came the staccato voice through the open door of the compartment. "Find out why we are stopping in this beastly hole, Kemp, and get me something cold to drink." Kemp, sailing down the aisle, like a Lilliputian drum major, tripped over Randy's foot. "Beg pardon, sir," he said, and sailed on. Randy looked after him. "'His Master's voice——'" [Pg 9] [Pg 10] [Pg 11] "And to think," Prime remarked, "that the coldest thing he can get on this train is ginger ale." Kemp, coming back with a golden bottle, with cracked ice in a tall glass, with a crisp curl of lemon peel, ready for an innocuous libation, brought his nose down from the heights to look for the foot, found that it no longer barred the way, and marched on to hidden music. "Leave the door open, leave it open," snapped the voice, "isn't there an electric fan? Well, put it on, put it on——" "He drinks nectar and complains to the gods," said the Major softly, "why can't we, too, drink?" They had theirs on a table which the porter set between them. The train moved on before they had finished. "We'll be in Charlottesville in less than an hour," the conductor announced. "Is that where we get off, Paine?" "One mile beyond. Are they going to meet you?" "I'll get a station wagon." Young Paine grinned. "There aren't any. But if Mother knows you're coming she'll send down. And anyhow she expects me." "After a year in France—it will be a warm welcome——" "A wet one, but I love the rain, and the red mud, every blooming inch of it." "Of course you do. Just as I love the dust of the desert." They spoke, each of them, with a sort of tense calmness. One doesn't confess to a lump in one's throat. The little man, Kemp, was brushing things in the aisle. He was hot but unconquered. Having laid out the belongings of the man he served, he took a sudden recess, and came back with a fresh collar, a wet but faultless pompadour, and a suspicion of powder on his small nose. "All right, sir, we'll be there in fifteen minutes, sir," they heard him say, as he was swallowed up by the yawning door. II Fifteen minutes later when the train slowed up, there emerged from the drawing-room a man some years older than Randolph Paine, and many years younger than Major Prime. He was good-looking, well-dressed, but apparently in a very bad temper. Kemp, in an excited, Skye-terrier manner, had gotten the bags together, had a raincoat over his arm, had an umbrella handy, had apparently foreseen every contingency but one. "Great guns, Kemp, why are we getting off here?" "The conductor said it was nearer, sir." Randolph Paine was already hanging on the step, ready to drop the moment the train stopped. He had given the porter an extra tip to look after Major Prime. "He isn't used to that crutch, yet. He'd hate it if I tried to help him." The rain having drizzled for hours, condensed suddenly in a downpour. When the train moved on, the men found themselves in a small and stuffy waiting-room. Around the station platform was a sea of red mud. Misty hills shot up in a circle to the horizon. There was not a house in sight. There was not a soul in sight except the agent who knew young Paine. No one having come to meet them, he suggested the use of the telephone. In the meantime Kemp was having a hard time of it. "Why in the name of Heaven didn't we get off at Charlottesville," his master was demanding. "The conductor said this was nearer, sir," Kemp repeated. His response had the bounding quality of a rubber ball. "If you'll sit here and make yourself comfortable, Mr. Dalton, I'll see what I can do." "Oh, it's a beastly hole, Kemp. How can I be comfortable?" Randy, who had come back from the telephone with a look on his face which clutched at Major Prime's throat, caught Dalton's complaint. "It isn't a beastly hole," he said in a ringing voice, "it's God's country—— I got my mother on the 'phone, Major. She has sent for us and the horses are on the way." Dalton looked him over. What a lank and shabby youth he was to carry in his voice that ring of authority. "What's the answer to our getting off here?" he asked. "Depends upon where you are going." "To Oscar Waterman's——" [Pg 12] [Pg 13] [Pg 14] [Pg 15] "Never heard of him." "Hamilton Hill," said the station agent. Randy's neck stiffened. "Then the Hamiltons have sold it?" "Yes. A Mr. Waterman of New York bought it." Kemp had come back. "Mr. Waterman says he'll send the car at once. He is delighted to know that you have come, sir." "How long must I wait?" "Not more than ten minutes, he said, sir," Kemp's optimism seemed to ricochet against his master's hardness and come back unhurt. "He will send a closed car and will have your rooms ready for you." "Serves me right for not wiring," said Dalton, "but who would believe there is a place in the world where a man can't get a taxi?" Young Paine was at the door, listening for the sound of hoofs, watching with impatience. Suddenly he gave a shout, and the others looked to see a small object which came whirling like a bomb through the mist. "Nellie, little old lady, little old lady," the boy was on his knees, the dog in his arms—an ecstatic, panting creature, the first to welcome her master home! Before he let her go, the little dog's coat was wet with more than rain, but Randy was not ashamed of the tears in his eyes as he faced the others. "I've had her from a pup—she's a faithful beast. Hello, there they come. Gee, Jefferson, but you've grown! You are almost as big as your name." Jefferson was the negro boy who drove the horses. There was a great splashing of red mud as he drew up. The flaps of the surrey closed it in. Jefferson's eyes were twinkling beads as he greeted his master. "I sure is glad to see you, Mr. Randy. Miss Caroline, she say there was another gemp'mun?" "He's here—Major Prime. You run in there and look after his bags." Randy unbuttoned the flaps and gave a gasp of astonishment: "Becky—Becky Bannister!" In another moment she was out on the platform, and he was holding her hands, protesting in the meantime, "You'll get wet, my dear——" "Oh, I want to be rained on, Randy. It's so heavenly to have you home. I caught Jefferson on the way down. I didn't even wait to get my hat." [Pg 16] [Pg 17] She did not need a hat. It would have hidden her hair. George Dalton, watching her from the door, decided that he had never seen such hair, bronze, parted on the side, with a thick wave across the forehead, it shaded eyes which were clear wells of light. She was a little thing with a quality in her youth which made one think of the year at the spring, of the day at morn, of Botticelli's Simonetta, of Shelley's lark, of Wordsworth's daffodils, of Keats' Eve of St. Agnes—of all the lovely radiant things of which the poets of the world have sung—— Of course Dalton did not think of her in quite that way. He knew something of Browning and little of Keats, but he had at least the wit to discern the rareness of her type. As for the rest, she wore faded blue, which melted into the blue of the mists, stubbed and shabby russet shoes and an air of absorption in her returned soldier. This absorption Dalton found himself subconsciously resenting. Following an instinctive urge, he emerged, therefore, from his chrysalis of ill-temper, and smiled upon a transformed universe. "My raincoat, Kemp," he said, and strode forth across the platform, a creature as shining and splendid as ever trod its boards. Becky, beholding him, asked, "Is that Major Prime?" "No, thank Heaven." Jefferson, steering the Major expertly, came up at this moment. Then, splashing down the red road whirled the gorgeous limousine. There were two men on the box. Kemp, who had been fluttering around Dalton with an umbrella, darted into the waiting-room for the bags. The door of the limousine was opened by the footman, who also had an umbrella ready. Dalton hesitated, his eyes on that shabby group by the mud-stained surrey. He made up his mind suddenly and approached young Paine. "We can take one of you in here. You'll be crowded with all of those bags." "Not a bit. We'll manage perfectly, thank you," Randy's voice dismissed him. He went, with a lingering glance backward. Becky, catching that glance, waked suddenly to the fact that he was very good-looking. "It was kind of him to offer, Randy." "Was it?" Nothing more was said, but Becky wondered a bit as they drove on. She liked Major Prime. He was an old dear. But why had Randy thanked Heaven that the other man was not the Major? III The Waterman motor passed the surrey, and Dalton, straining his eyes for a glimpse of the pretty girl, was rewarded only by a view of Randy on the front seat with his back turned on the world, while he talked with someone hidden by the curtains. Perhaps the fact that she was hidden by the curtains kept Dalton's thoughts upon her. He felt that her beauty must shine even among the shadows—he envied Major Prime, who sat next to her. The Major was aware that his position was enviable. It was worth much to watch these two young people, eager in their reunion. "Becky Bannister, whom I have known all my life," had been Randy's presentation of the little lady with the shining hair. "Grandfather doesn't know that I came, or Aunt Claudia. They felt that your mother ought to see you first and so did I. Until the last minute. Then I saw Jefferson driving by—I was down at the gate to wave to you, Randy—and I just came ——" her gay laugh was infectious—the men laughed with her. "You must let me out when we get to Huntersfield, and you mustn't tell—either of you. We are all to dine together to- night at your house, Randy, and when you meet me, you are to say—Becky'—just as you did to-day, as if I had fallen from the skies." [Pg 17] [Pg 18] [Pg 19] [Pg 20] "Well, you did fall—straight," Randy told her. "Becky, you are too good to be true; oh, you're too pretty to be true. Isn't she, Major?" "It is just because I am—American. Are you glad to get back to us, Randy?" "Glad," he drew a long breath. Nellie, who had wedged herself in tightly between her master and Jefferson, wriggled and licked his hand. He looked down at her, tried to say something, broke a little on it, and ended abruptly, "It's Heaven." "And you weren't hurt?" "Not a scratch, worse luck." She turned to Major Prime and did the wise thing and the thing he liked. "You were," she said, simply, "but I am not going to be sorry for you, shall I?" "No," he said, "I am not sorry for—myself——" For a moment there was silence, then Becky carried the conversation into lighter currents. "Everybody is here for the Horse Show next week. Your mother's house is full, and those awful Waterman people have guests." "One of them came down with us." "The good-looking man who offered us a ride?" "Oh, of course if you like that kind of looks, he's the kind of man you'd like," said Randy, "but coming down he seemed rather out of tune with the universe." "How out of tune?" "Well, it was hot and he was hot——" "It is hot, Randy, and perhaps he isn't used to it." "Are you making excuses for him?" "I don't even know him." Major Prime interposed. "His man was a corking little chap, never turned a hair, as cool as a cucumber, with everybody else sizzling." They were ascending a hill, and the horse went slowly. Ahead of them was a buggy without a top. In the buggy were a man and a woman. The woman had an umbrella over her, and a child in her arms. "It's Mary Flippin and her father. See if you can't overtake them, Jefferson. I want you to see Fiddle Flippin, Randy." "Who is Fiddle Flippin?" "Mary's little girl. Mary is a war bride. She was in Petersburg teaching school when the war broke out, and she married a man named Branch. Then she came home—and she called the baby Fidelity." "I hope he was a good husband." "Nobody has seen him, he was ordered away at once. But she is very proud of him. And the baby is a darling. Just beginning to walk and talk." "Stop a minute, Jefferson, while I speak to them." Mr. Flippin pulled up his fat horse. He was black-haired, ruddy, and wide of girth. "Well, well," he said, with a big laugh, "it is cert'n'y good to see you." Mary Flippin was slender and delicate and her eyes were blue. Her hair was thick and dark. There was Scotch-Irish blood in the Flippins, and Mary's charm was in that of duskiness of hair and blueness of eye. "Oh, Randy Paine," she said, with her cheeks flaming, "when did you get back?" "Ten minutes ago. Mary, if you'll hand me that corking kid, I'll kiss her." Fiddle was handed over. She was rosy and round with her mother's blue eyes. She wore a little buttoned hat of white piqué, with strings tied under her chin. "So," said Randy, after a moist kiss, "you are Fiddle-dee-dee?" "Ess——" "Who gave you that name?" "It is her own way of saying Fidelity," Mary explained. [Pg 21] [Pg 22] "Isn't she rather young to say anything?" "Oh, Randy, she's a year and a half," Becky protested. "Your mother says that you talked in your cradle." Randy laughed, "Oh, if you listen to Mother——" "I'm glad you're in time for the Horse Show," Mr. Flippin interposed, "I've got a couple of prize hawgs—an' when you see them, you'll say they ain't anything like them on the other side." "Oh, Father——" "Well, they ain't. I reckon Virginia's good enough for you to come back to, ain't it, Mr. Randy——?" "It is good enough for me to stay in now that I'm here." "So you're back for good?" "Yes." "Well, we're mighty glad to have you." Fiddle Flippin, dancing and doubling up on Randy's knee like a very soft doll, suddenly held out her arms to her mother. As Mary leaned forward to take her, Randy was aware of the change in her. In the old days Mary had been a gay little thing, with an impertinent tongue. She was not gay now. She was a Madonna, tender-eyed, brooding over her child. "She has changed a lot," Randy said, as they drove on. "Why shouldn't she change?" Becky demanded. "Wouldn't any woman change if she had loved a man and had let him go to France?" IV It was still raining hard when the surrey stopped at a high and rusty iron gate flanked by brick pillars overgrown with Virginia creeper. "Becky," said young Paine, "you can't walk up to the house. It's pouring." "I don't see any house," said Major Prime. "Well, you never do from the road in this part of the country. We put our houses on the tops of hills, and have acres to the right of us, and acres to the left, and acres in front, and acres behind, and you can never visit your neighbors without going miles, and nobody ever walks except little Becky Bannister when she runs away." "And I am going to run now," said Becky. "Randy, there's a raincoat under that seat. I'll put it on if you will hand it out to me." "You are going to ride up, my dear child. Drive on, Jefferson." "Randy, please, your mother is waiting. She didn't come down to the station because she said that if she wept on your shoulder, she would not do it before the whole world. But she is waiting—— And it isn't fair for me to hold you back a minute." He yielded at last reluctantly. "Remember, you are to act as if you had never met me," she said to Major Prime as she gave him her hand at parting, "when you see me to-night." "Becky," Randy asked, in a sudden panic, "are the boarders to be drawn up in ranks to welcome me?" "No, your mother has given you and Major Prime each two rooms in the Schoolhouse, and we are to dine out there, in your sitting-room—our families and the Major. And there won't be a soul to see you until morning, and then you can show yourself off by inches." "Until to-night then," said Randy, and opened the gate for her. "Until to-night," she watched them and waved her hand as they drove off. "A beautiful child," the Major remarked from the shadow of the back seat. "She's more than beautiful," said Randy, glowing, "oh, you wait till you really know her, Major." V The Schoolhouse at King's Crest had been built years before by one of the Paines for two sons and their tutor. It was separated from the old brick mansion by a wide expanse of unmowed lawn, thick now in midsummer with fluttering poppies. There was a flagged stone walk, and an orchard at the left, beyond the orchard were rolling fields, and in the [Pg 23] [Pg 24] [Pg 25] [Pg 26] distance one caught a glimpse of the shining river. On the lower floor of the Schoolhouse were two ample sitting-rooms with bedrooms above, one of which was reached by outside stairs, and the other by an enclosed stairway. Baths had been added when Mrs. Paine had come as a widow to King's Crest with her small son, and had chosen the Schoolhouse as a quiet haven. Later, on the death of his grandparents, Randy had inherited the estate, and he and his mother had moved into the mansion. But he had kept his rooms in the Schoolhouse, and was glad to know that he could go back to them. Major Prime had the west sitting-room. It was lined with low bookcases, full of old, old books. There was a fireplace, a winged chair, a broad couch, a big desk of dark seasoned mahogany, and over the mantel a steel engraving of Robert E. Lee. The low windows at the back looked out upon the wooded green of the ascending hill; at the front was a porch which gave a view of the valley. Randolph's arrival had had something of the effect of a triumphal entry. Jefferson had driven him straight to the Schoolhouse, but on the way they had encountered old Susie, Jefferson's mother, who cooked, and old Bob, who acted as butler, and the new maid who waited on the table. These had followed the surrey as a sort of ecstatic convoy. Not a boarder was in sight but behind the windows of the big house one was aware of watching eyes. "They are all crazy to meet you," Randy's mother had told him, as they came into the Major's sitting-room after those first sacred moments when the doors had been shut against the world, "they are all crazy to meet you, but you needn't come over to lunch unless you really care to do it. Jefferson can serve you here." "What do you want me to do?" "My dear, I'm so proud of you, I'd like to show you to the whole world." "But there are so many of us, Mother." "There's only one of you——" "And we haven't come back to be put on pedestals." "You were put on pedestals before you went away." "I'll be spoiled if you talk to me like that." "I shall talk as I please, Randy. Major Prime, isn't he as handsome as a—rose?" "Mother——" "Well, you are——" "Mother, if you talk like this to the boarders, I'll go back and get shot up——" She clung to him. "Randy, don't say such a thing. He mustn't talk like that, must he, Major?" "He doesn't mean it. Paine, this looks to me like the Promised Land——" "I'm glad you like it," said Mrs. Paine, "and now if you don't mind, I'll run along and kill the fatted calf——" She kissed her son, and under a huge umbrella made her way through the poppies that starred the grass—— "On Flanders field—where poppies blow"—the Major drew a sudden quick breath—— He wished there were no poppies at King's Crest. "I hate this hero stuff," Randy was saying, "don't you?" "I am not so sure that I do. Down deep we'd resent it if we were not applauded, shouldn't we?" Randy laughed. "I believe we should." "I fancy that when we've been home for a time, we may feel somewhat bitter if we find that our pedestals are knocked from under us. Our people don't worship long. They have too much to think of. They'll put up some arches, and a few statues and build tribute houses in a lot of towns, and then they'll go on about their business, and we who have fought will feel a bit blank." Randy laughed, "You haven't any illusions about it, have you?" "No, but you and I know that it's all right however it goes." Randy, standing very straight, looked out over the valley where the river showed through the rain like a silver thread. "Well, we didn't do it for praise, did we?" "No, thank God." Their eyes were seeing other things than these quiet hills. Things they wanted to forget. But they did not want to forget the high exaltation which had sent them over, or the quiet conviction of right which had helped them to carry on. What [Pg 27] [Pg 28] [Pg 29] the people at home might do or think did not matter. What mattered was their own adjustment to the things which were to follow. Randy went up-stairs, took off his uniform, bathed and came down in the garments of peace. "Glad to get out of your uniform?" the Major asked. "I believe I am. Perhaps if I'd been an officer, I shouldn't." "Everybody couldn't be. I've no doubt you deserved it." "I could have pulled wires, of course, before I went over, but I wouldn't." From somewhere within the big house came the reverberation of a Japanese gong. Randy rose. "I'm going over to lunch. I'd rather face guns, but Mother will like it. You can have yours here." "Not if I know it," the Major rose, "I'm going to share the fatted calf." VI It was late that night when the Major went to bed. The feast in Randy's honor had lasted until ten. There had been the shine of candles, and the laughter of the women, the old Judge's genial humor. Through the windows had come the fragrance of honeysuckle and of late roses. Becky had sung for them, standing between two straight white candles. "In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea, With the glory in his bosom which transfigures you and me. As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free While God is marching on——" The last time the Major had heard a woman sing that song had been in a little French town just after the United States had gone into the war. She was of his own country, red-haired and in uniform. She had stood on the steps of a stone house and weary men had clustered about her—French, English, Scotch, a few Americans. Tired and spent, they had gazed up at her as if they drank her in. To them she was more than a singing woman. She was the daughter of a nation of dreamers, the daughter of a nation which made its dreams come true! Behind her stood a steadfast people, and —God was marching on——! He had had his leg then, and after that there had been dreadful fighting, and sometimes in the midst of it the voice of the singing woman had come back to him, stiffening him to his task. And here, miles away from that war-swept land, another woman sang. And there was honeysuckle outside, and late roses—and poppies, and there was Peace. And the world which had not fought would forget. But the men who had fought would remember. He heard Randy's voice, sharp with nerves. "Sing something else, Becky. We've had enough of war——" The Major leaned across the table. "When did you last hear that song, Paine?" "On the other side, a red-haired woman—whose lover had been killed. I never want to hear it again——" "Nor I——" It was as if they were alone at the table, seeing the things which they had left behind. What did these people know who had stayed at home? The words were sacred—not to be sung; to be whispered—over the graves of—France. CHAPTER II STUFFED BIRDS I The Country Club was, as Judge Bannister had been the first to declare, "an excrescence." Under the old régime, there had been no need for country clubs. The houses on the great estates had been thrown open for the county families and their friends. There had been meat and drink for man and beast. The servant problem had, however, in these latter days, put a curb on generous impulse. There were no more niggers underfoot, and hospitality was necessarily curtailed. The people who at the time of the August Horse Show had once packed great hampers with delicious foods, and who had feasted under the trees amid all the loveliness of mellow-tinted hills, now ordered by telephone a luncheon of cut-and-dried courses, and motored down to eat it. After that, they [Pg 30] [Pg 31] [Pg 32] [Pg 33] looked at the horses, and with the feeling upon them of the futility of such shows yawned a bit. In due season, they held, the horse would be as extinct as the Dodo, and as mythical as the Centaur. The Judge argued hotly for the things which had been. Love of the horse was bred in the bone of Old Dominion men. He swore by all the gods that when he had to part with his bays and ride behind gasoline, he would be ready to die. Becky agreed with her grandfather. She adored the old traditions, and she adored the Judge. She spent two months of every year with him in his square brick house in Albemarle surrounded by unprofitable acres. The remaining two months of her vacation were given to her mother's father, Admiral Meredith, whose fortune had come down to him from whale- hunting ancestors. The Admiral lived also in a square brick house, but it had no acres, for it was on the Main Street of Nantucket town, with a Captain's walk on top, and a spiral staircase piercing its middle. The other eight months of the year Becky had spent at school in an old convent in Georgetown. She was a Protestant and a Presbyterian; the Nantucket grandfather was a Unitarian of Quaker stock, Judge Bannister was High Church, and it was his wife's Presbyterianism which had been handed down to Becky. Religion had therefore nothing to do with her residence at the school. A great many of the Bannister girls had been educated at convents, and when a Bannister had done a thing once it was apt to be done again. Becky was nineteen, and her school days were just over. She knew nothing of men, she knew nothing indeed of life. The world was to her an open sea, to sail its trackless wastes she had only a cockle-shell of dreams. "If anybody," said Judge Bannister, on the first day of the Horse Show, "thinks I am going to eat dabs of things at the club when I can have Mandy to cook for me, they think wrong." He gave orders, therefore, which belonged to more opulent days, when his father's estate had swarmed with blacks. There was now in the Judge's household only Mandy, the cook, and Calvin, her husband. Mandy sat up half the night to bake a cake, and Calvin killed chickens at dawn, and dressed them, and pounded the dough for biscuits on a marble slab, and helped his wife with the mayonnaise. When at last the luncheon was packed there was coffee in the thermos bottle. Prohibition was an assured fact, and the Judge would not break the laws. The flowing glass must go into the discard with other picturesque customs of the South. His own estate that had once been sold by John Randolph to Thomas Jefferson for a bowl of arrack punch ——! Old times, old manners! The Judge drank his coffee with the air of one who accepts a good thing regretfully. He stood staunchly by the Administration. If the President had asked the sacrifice of his head, he would have offered it on the platter of political allegiance. So on this August morning, an aristocrat by inheritance, and a democrat by assumption, he drove his bays proudly. Calvin, in a worn blue coat, sat beside him with his arms folded. Becky was on the back seat with Aunt Claudia. Aunt Claudia was a widow and wore black. She was small and slight, and the black was made smart by touches of white crepe. Aunt Claudia had not forgotten that she had been a belle in Richmond. She was a stately little woman with a firm conviction of the necessity of maintaining dignified standards of living. She was in no sense a snob. But she held that women of birth and breeding must preserve the fastidiousness of their ideals, lest there be social chaos. "There would be no ladies left in the world," she often told Becky, "if we older women went at the modern pace." Becky, in contrast to Aunt Claudia's smartness, showed up rather ingloriously. She wore the stubbed russet shoes, a not too fresh cotton frock of pale yellow, and a brown straw sailor. "You might at least have stopped to change your shoes," Aunt Claudia told her, as they left the house behind. "I was out with Randy and the dogs. It was heavenly, Aunt Claudia." "My dear, if a walk with Randy is heavenly, what will you call Heaven when you get to it?" They drove through the first gate, and Calvin climbed down to open it. Beyond the gate the road descended gradually through an open pasture, where sheep grazed on the hillside or lay at rest in the shade. The bells of the leaders tinkled faintly, the ewes and the lambs were calling. Beyond the big gate, the highroad was washed with the recent rains. From the gate to the club was a matter of five miles, and the bays ate up the distance easily. The people on the porch of the Country Club were very gay and gorgeous, so that Becky in her careless frock and shabby shoes would have been a pitiful contrast if she had cared in the least what the people on the porch thought of her. But she did not care. She nodded and smiled to a friend or two as the Judge stopped for a moment in the crush of motors. George Dalton was on the porch. When he saw Becky he leaned forward for a good look at her. "Some girl," he said to Waterman, as the surrey moved on, "the one in the sailor hat. Who is she?" Oscar Waterman was a newcomer in Albemarle. He had bought a thousand acres, with an idea of grafting on to Southern environment his own ideas of luxurious living. The county families had not called, but he was not yet aware of his social isolation. He was rich, and most of the county families were poor—from his point of view the odds were in his [Pg 34] [Pg 35] [Pg 36] [Pg 37] [Pg 38] favor—and it was never hard to get guests. He could always motor up to Washington and New York, and bring a crowd back with him. His cellars were well stocked, and his hospitality undiscriminating. "I don't know the girl," he told Dalton, "but the old man is Judge Bannister. He's one of the natives—no money and oodles of pride." In calling Judge Bannister a "native," Oscar showed a lack of proportion. A native, in the sense that he used the word, is a South Sea Islander, indigenous but negligible. Oscar was fooled, you see, by the Judge's old-fashioned clothes, and the high surrey, and the horses with the flowing tails. His ideas of life had to do with motor cars and mansions, and with everybody very much dressed up. He felt that the only thing in the world that really counted was money. If you had enough of it the world was yours! II Year after year the Bannisters of Huntersfield had eaten their Horse Show luncheon under a clump of old oaks beneath which the horses now stopped. The big trees were dropping golden leaves in the dryness. From the rise of the hill one looked down on the grandstand and the crowd as from the seats of an amphitheater. Judge Bannister remembered when the women of the crowd had worn hoops and waterfalls. Aunt Claudia's memory went back to bustles and bonnets. There were deeper memories, too, than of clothes—of old friends and young faces —there was always a moment of pensive retrospect when the Bannisters stopped under the old oak on the hill. Randolph Paine, his mother and Major Prime were to join them at luncheon. Separate plans had been made by the boarders who had packed themselves into various cars and carriages, and had their own boxes and baskets. "Caroline Paine is always late," the Judge said with some impatience; "if we don't eat on time, we shall have to hurry. I have never hurried in my life and I don't want to begin now." Claudia Beaufort was accustomed to impatience in men, and she was inflexible as a hostess. "Well, of course, we couldn't begin without them, could we?" she asked. "There they come now, Father. William, you'd better help Major Prime." Randy was driving the fat mare, Rosalind. Nellie Custis, Randolph's wiry hound, loped along with flapping ears in the rear of the low-seated carriage. Major Prime was on the back seat with Mrs. Paine. "My dear Judge," he said, as the old gentleman came to the side of the carriage, "I can't tell you how honored I am to be included in your party. This is about the best thing that has happened to me in a long time." "I wanted you to get the old atmosphere. You can't get it at the Country Club. We Bannisters have lunched up here for sixty years—older than you are, eh?" "Twenty years——" "We used to call it the races, but now they tack on the Horse Show. It was different, of course, when all the old places were owned by the old families. But they can't change the oaks and the sweep of the hills, and the mettle of the horses, thank God." "I am sorry I was late," said Caroline Paine, as they settled themselves under the trees, "but I went to town to have my hair waved." "I wish you wouldn't, Caroline," Mrs. Beaufort told her, "your hair is nice enough without it." Caroline Paine took off her hat, "I couldn't get it up to look like this, could I?" The Judge surveyed the undulations critically. "Caroline," he said, "you are too pretty to need it." "I want to keep young for Randolph's sake," Mrs. Paine told him, "then he'll like me better than any other girl." "You needn't think you have to get your hair curled to make me love you," said her tall son; "you are ducky enough as you are." Major Prime, delighting in their lack of self-consciousness, made a diplomatic contribution. "Why quarrel with such a charming coiffure?" Mrs. Paine smiled at him, comfortably. "I feel much better," she said; "they are always trying to hold me back." She was a woman of ample proportions and of leisurely habit. Life had of late hurried her a bit, but she still gave the effect of restful calm. She was of the same generation as Aunt Claudia, and a widow. But she wore her widowhood with a difference. She had on to-day a purple hat. Her hair was white, her dress was white, and her shoes. She was prettier than Aunt Claudia but she lacked her distinction of manner and of carriage. "They always want to hold me back when I try to be up-to-date," she repeated. Randy threw an acorn at her. "Nobody can hold you back, Mother," he said, "when you get your mind on a thing. Aunt [Pg 39] [Pg 40] [Pg 41] [Pg 42] Claudia, what do you hear from Truxton?" "A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Beaufort, lighting up with the thought of it. "I hadn't heard for days before that. And I was worried." "Truxton hasn't killed himself writing letters since he went over," the Judge asserted. "Claudia, can't we have lunch?" "William is unpacking the hamper now, Father. And I think Truxton has done very well. It isn't easy for the boys to find time." "Randy wrote to me every week." "Now, Mother——" "Well, you did." "But I'm that kind. I have to get things off my mind. Truxton isn't. And I'll bet when Aunt Claudia does get his letters that they are worth reading." Mrs. Beaufort nodded. "They are lovely letters. I have the last one with me; would you like to hear it?" "Not before lunch, Claudia," the Judge urged. "I will read it while the rest of you eat." There were red spots in Mrs. Beaufort's cheeks. She adored her son. She could not understand her father's critical attitude. Had she searched for motives, however, she might have found them in the Judge's jealousy. It was while she was reading Truxton's letter that the Flippins came by—Mr. Flippin and his wife, Mary, and little Fidelity. A slender mulatto woman followed with a basket. The Flippins were one of the "second families." Between them and the Paines of King's Crest and the Bannisters of Huntersfield stretched a deep chasm of social prejudice. Three generations of Flippins had been small farmers on rented lands. They had no coats-of-arms or family trees. They were never asked to dine with the Paines or Bannisters, but there had been always an interchange of small hospitalities, and much neighborliness, and as children Mary Flippin, Randy and Becky and Truxton had played together and had been great friends. So it was now as they stopped to speak to the Judge's party that Mrs. Beaufort said graciously, "I am reading a letter from Truxton. Would you like to hear it?" Mary, speaking with a sort of tense eagerness, said, "Yes." So the Flippins sat down, and Mrs. Beaufort read in her pleasant voice the letter from France. Randy, lying on his back under the old oak, listened. Truxton gave a joyous diary of the days—little details of the towns through which he passed, of the houses where he was billeted, jokes of the men, of the food they ate, of his hope of coming home. "He seems very happy," said Mrs. Beaufort, as she finished. "He is and he isn't——" "You might make yourself a little clearer, Randolph," said the Judge. "He is happy because France in summer is a pleasant sort of Paradise—with the cabbages stuck up on the brown hillsides like rosettes—and the minnows flashing in the little brooks and the old mills turning—and he isn't happy— because he is homesick." Randy raised himself on his elbow and smiled at his listening audience—and as he smiled he was aware of a change in Mary Flippin. The brooding look was gone. She was leaning forward, lips parted—"Then you think that he is— homesick?" "I don't think. I know. Why, over there, my bones actually ached for Virginia." The Judge raised his coffee cup. "Virginia, God bless her," he murmured, and drank it down! The Flippins moved on presently—the slender mulatto trailing after them. "If the Flippins don't send that Daisy back to Washington," Mrs. Paine remarked, "she'll spoil all the negroes on the place." Mrs. Beaufort agreed, "I don't know what we are coming to. Did you see her high heels and tight skirt?" "Once upon a time," the Judge declaimed, "black wenches like that wore red handkerchiefs on their heads and went barefoot. But the world moves, and some day when we have white servants wished on us, we'll pray to God to send our black ones back." [Pg 43] [Pg 44] [Pg 45] Calvin was passing things expertly. Randy smiled at Becky as he filled her plate. "Hungry?" "Ravenous." "You don't look it." "Don't I?" "No. You're not a bread and butter sort of person." "What kind am I?" "Sugar and spice and everything nice." "Did you learn to say such things in France?" "Haven't I always said them?" "Not in quite the same way. You've grown up, Randy. You seem years older." "Do you like me—older?" "Of course." There was warmth in her voice but no coquetry. "What a silly thing to ask, Randy." Calvin, having served the lunch, ate his own particular feast of chicken backs and necks under the surrey from a pasteboard box cover. Having thus separated himself as it were from those he served, he was at his ease. He knew his place and was happy in it. Mary Flippin also knew her place. But she was not happy. She sat higher up on the hill with her child asleep in her arms, and looked down on the Judge's party. Except for an accident of birth, she might be sitting now among them. Would she ever sit among them? Would her little daughter, Fidelity? III "We are the only one of the old families who are eating lunch out of a basket," said Caroline Paine; "next year we shall have to go to the Country Club with the rest of them." "I shall never go to the Country Club," said Judge Bannister, "as long as there is a nigger to fry chicken for me." "We may have to swim with the tide." "Don't tell me that you'd rather be up there than here, Caroline." "I'd like it for some things," Mrs. Paine admitted frankly; "you should see the clothes that those Waterman women are wearing." "What do you care what they wear. You don't want to be like them, do you?" "I may not care to be like them, but I want to look like them. I got the pattern of this sweater I am knitting from one of my boarders. Do you want it, Claudia?" Mrs. Beaufort winced at the word "boarders." She hated to think that Caroline must—— "I never wear sweaters, Caroline. They are not my style. But I am knitting one for Becky." "Is it blue?" Randy asked. "Becky ought always to wear blue, except when she wears pale yellow. That was a heavenly thing you had on at dinner the night we arrived, wasn't it, Major?" "Everything was heavenly. I felt like one who expecting a barren plain sees—Paradise." It was not flattery and they knew it. They were hospitable souls, and in a week he had become, as it were, one of them. Randy, returning to the subject in hand, asked, "Will you wear the blue if I come up to-night, Becky?" "I will not." Becky was making herself a chaplet of yellow leaves, and her bronze hair caught the light. "I will not. I shall probably put on my old white if I dress for dinner." "Of course you'll dress," said Mrs. Beaufort; "there are certain things which we must always demand of ourselves——" Caroline Paine agreed. "That's what I tell Randy when he says he doesn't want to finish his law course. His father was a lawyer and his grandfather. He owes it to them to live up to their standards." Randy was again flat on his back with his hands under his head. "If I stay at the University, it means no money for either of us except what you earn, Mother." The war had taken its toll of Caroline Paine. Things had not been easy since her son had left her. They would not be [Pg 46] [Pg 47] [Pg 48] easy now. "I know," she said, "but you wouldn't want your father to be ashamed of you." Randy sat up. "It isn't that—but I ought to make some money——" The word was a challenge to the Judge. "Don't run with the mob, my boy. The world is money-mad." "I'm not money-mad," said Randy; "I know what I should like to do if my life was my own. But it isn't. And I'm not going to have Mother twist and turn as she has twisted and turned for the last fifteen years in order to get me educated up to the family standard." "If you don't mind I shouldn't." Caroline Paine was setting her feet to a rocky path, but she did not falter. "You shouldn't mind if I don't." Becky laid down the chaplet of leaves. She knew some of the things Caroline Paine had sacrificed and she was thrilled by them. "Randy," she admonished, with youthful severity, "it would be a shame to disappoint your mother." Randolph flushed beneath his dark skin. The Paines had an Indian strain in them—Pocahontas was responsible for it, or some of the other princesses who had mixed red blood with blue in the days when Virginia belonged to the King. Randy showed signs of it in his square-set jaw, the high lift of his head, his long easy stride, the straightness of his black hair. He showed it, too, in a certain stoical impassiveness which might have been taken for indifference. His world was, for the moment, against him; he would attempt no argument. "I am afraid this doesn't interest Major Prime," he said. "It interests me very much," said the Major. "It is only another case of the fighting man's adjustment to life after his return. We all have to face it in one way or another." His eyes went out over the hills. They were gray eyes, deep set, and, at this moment, kindly. They could blaze, however, in stress of fighting, like bits of steel. "We all have to face it in one way or another. And the future of America depends largely on our seeing things straight." "Well, there's only one way for Randy to face it," said Caroline Paine, firmly, "and that is to do as his fathers did before him." "If I do," Randy flared, "it will be three years before I can make a living, and I'll be twenty-five." Becky put on the chaplet of leaves. It fitted like a cap. She might have b...