Perhaps, thought Joseph hopefully, Colonel Burr may not arrive at all; he was apparently having much difficulty in finding transportation, or the money for it. So he tried to forget the matter.
He did not know about Theo's recent letter, and had no inkling of her decision that willy-nilly the family should assist at Aaron's welcome. The Vice-President in hiding at his daughter's home—never! Aaron was no skulking criminal, but a much-wronged man; he should be received with honor. But unfortunately one must first proceed with guile.
'I think we should give a party for William Algernon and Mrs. Young,' she announced one evening at dinner.
Joseph was surprised and pleased. Her share in the family hospitality had never been as whole-hearted as he wished.
'Splendid! I must go to Columbia next week, but when I return——'
'That is too long to wait,' she interrupted. 'I was thinking of Saturday. No,' she went on quickly, as she saw protest forming. He never liked sudden plans, particularly when they did not originate with him. 'I shall take care of everything. I have already written all the invitations. Pompey shall deliver them this evening. Besides, if we wait too long, Mrs. Young may be gone. She is contemplating a trip to Charleston to buy her wedding finery, you know.'
He nodded unwillingly. 'Well, but it seems hurried. We must do the thing right. It would never do to be niggardly. We entertain so seldom here.'
'Of course. We'll give a magnificent party. Waccamaw Neck will never forget it, I promise you.'
Especially after they discover who is to be the real guest of honor, she thought, secretly mirthful, and set about her plans.
It was to be a truly magnificent party. Everything from the food to the entertainment was to be as perfect as she could provide from the limited resources of the Waccamaw. This was to be none of their stodgy dinners of fried meats and rice washed down with rum punch, and followed by a desultory card game, or the plunkety-plunking of the children on the harpsichord. She would startle them out of their smugness, show them that, when she chose, she could entertain with lavishness and brilliance.
The invitations were all accepted, as she had known they would be. Social gatherings were scarce on their remote neck of land, and the family approved of her wish to entertain for the affianced couple, though they attributed this idea to Joseph.
Theo impressed Eleanore into service, and between them they bullied and inspired the servants to activity. Ever distrustful of Phoebe's cooking, Theo imported a free negro caterer from Georgetown. Dido, of course, was not permitted by Phoebe in her kitchen, but even Dido could not rise to the culinary heights to which Theo was soaring. She was delighted to find that the caterer was capable of a dish on which she had set her heart. It was called 'Preserve of Fowl,' though this title in no way did justice to its intricate mysteries. It was fashioned like the nest of Chinese boxes which Aaron had once given her for a toy. A dove must be inserted into a partridge, the partridge into a guinea hen, this into a wild duck, then into a capon, the capon into a goose, and last all the amalgamated birds were enclosed in a mammoth turkey. Each fowl was first boned and seasoned with herbs and rich gravy. There were to be four of these creations, and Theo delegated a small army of helpers to the perspiring caterer—for the preparation took days.
She supervised the garnishing of the rooms herself. The floors were polished until they gleamed like brown mirrors. She impounded all the supplies of myrtleberry candles for the candelabra, and on Saturday afternoon filled every cranny of the rooms with massed armfuls of whatever blossoms she could find untouched by the frost.
She surveyed her handiwork critically: the rooms still looked a trifle bare. An idea struck her. She ran out to the clustering live-oaks and dragged from them great bunches of the hanging moss. She draped this over the branched sconces to try the effect; then, calling two of the servants, she had them bring in basketfuls and fasten the greenish-gray streamers to the ceilings, until the rooms were filled with a cloudy, swaying mistiness. The Alstons so admired their everlasting moss and considered it, for no reason at all, yet another proof of their superiority to the North. Well, they should have it, she thought, plenty of it!
Joseph came in from the rice fields just as she was finishing. He had been watching the women burn the stubble of cut stalks—necessary fall procedure to prepare the land for its fresh crop. He stopped dead in the doorway.
'What in the world have you been doing? What's all this truck in here for?' he demanded, with marked displeasure.
She pushed back her disheveled hair with one hand and turned on him a flushed and laughing face. 'I wanted some decorations, and we have no bunting nor enough paper to make streamers, so I thought of this. I think it's pretty. And our ceilings aren't properly finished yet: this hides them.'
'I think it's confounded silly,' he snapped. 'Lot of vegetable matter in the house, sure to bring bugs'. But the effect was attractive, and there was no doubt that the ceilings were in a bad state. He had been rather ashamed of them, for the recent plastering had already scaled into brown patches. He abandoned the subject for one more urgent. 'I wanted to give Ishmael some orders and was told he had gone. It seems you sent him to Georgetown with six of our men in the big barge. Pray, why did you do that?'
She bit her lips and busied herself straightening a china shepherdess on the mantel. Ishmael was their best boatman, and she had hurriedly dispatched him that morning to wait beside the Georgetown Wharf until Aaron's ship docked, then bring him posthaste up the river to the Oaks. Though Joseph would find all this out eventually, she did not wish him to do so yet. There was still time to stop the guests from coming, as he would certainly do if he knew.
'I discovered that we were out of some essential supplies,' she said lamely. 'I sent Ishmael, because he's so much quicker than the rest.'
Joseph grunted. 'I wish you would not do such things without consulting me, it's most inconvenient. What things did you need so badly?'
She was saved from answering by the wheezing chime from the corner clock.
'Oh, it's late!' she cried, escaping. 'I must get dressed.'
She had hoped to startle her guests, and she succeeded. The hordes of arriving Alstons and near Alstons were literally struck dumb by her arrangements. She greeted them all with a charming, unconscious smile, as each group stopped in the doorway and stared at the transformed rooms, which looked as though they had suddenly grown long gray hair. It gave the place a weird eldritch air, a fantastic unreality that shocked their conventional minds.
'What a peculiar thing to do,' whispered Maria Nisbett to Mrs. Huger, as they divested themselves of their wraps upstairs. 'Really outrageous, I think it. Just what one would expect of——' She gave an eloquent shrug. 'And, my dear, what in the world is that noise downstairs?'
They both paused to listen. Rhythmic strumming assailed their incredulous ears, an obtrusive barbaric rhythm that was strangely disquieting. The strumming was accompanied by the chant of soft male voices.
The ladies looked at each other. 'It sounds like niggers,' cried Lady Nisbett. 'It sounds like a Saturday night on the "street." But surely she couldn't——'
She not only could, but had, they discovered when they went downstairs. Six buck niggers crouched together in a corner of the drawing-room, partially but by no means sufficiently shrouded in long fronds of the moss. They were playing on their uncouth homemade instruments, heathen monstrosities called banias or banjos, identical with those their fathers had twanged in Africa.
'Lawkes!' murmured Maria, drawing herself up after one outraged stare. 'Niggers in the drawing-room and the hideous racket! I cannot imagine how Joseph can allow—surely she cannot expect us to listen to that. It's insulting.'
Her lips drawn tight, she swept pointedly past the musicians, gathered up the other bewildered Alston ladies and retired with them to the farthest comer of the library, where they fell to indignant whispering.
Theo saw this maneuver and was discomfited. She had expected them to be amused, an
d, when they got used to the unfamiliar sound, pleased with her innovation. She thought the negro music stimulating. She recognized in its mournful harmonies some genuine beauty. Their music was the only thing about the negroes for which she had much sympathy, and she had been delighted with her idea of having them provide a musical accompaniment to the party. Particularly as it was impossible to get conventional musicians on the Waccamaw, and surely in their hearts the isolated planters must be as sick of their own blundering renditions of murdered classics as she was.
It seemed that she was wrong. The Alston backs were without exception rigid and disapproving, not a single foot tapped unconscious time to the infectious rhythms. Theo sighed and directed the banjo players to stop for a bit.
Perhaps punch would thaw the Alstons. She ordered the servants to bring it in. Not their inevitable rum and lime punch, but the Richmond Hill specialty of iced peach brandy and champagne. This innovation, too, had in prospect seemed brilliant. She watched them eagerly as glasses were raised to the first toast: 'To the happiness of Mrs. Young and William Algernon.'
They scarcely touched the bubbling liquid. Maria, indeed, gave an exaggerated start of surprise and put down her glass with a decided thump.
You'd think I was trying to poison them, thought Theo, trying to hang on to the vanishing shreds of her sense of the ridiculous. It was of no use, she was angry and hurt. The party was a failure, and far from the merry convivial setting she had imagined. Here was no laughter, no relaxation. She had been a fool to think of delighting them with novelty. They weren't dazzled, they were affronted. Even the sight of her splendid dining-table evoked only a few polite murmurs, then astonished silence.
She had been so proud of that table. The caterer had outdone himself. Besides the four 'Preserves of Fowl' there were great bowls of cooter stew with the terrapin's luscious green fat swimming in sherry sauce. There were piles of roasted eggs and fried oysters fresh that day from the creek behind Debordieu. And there was rice: huge sculptured mounds of the flaky white grains. Even Theo had not dared serve a meal here without rice.
These delicacies were but pale triumphs compared to the two centerpieces. The caterer, imbued by artistic fervor, had fashioned on one platter two lifelike doves of blancmange, hovering upon a mammoth nest of shredded and candied orange peel; while on the other platter towered a huge cake in the shape of a castle, and the Alston coat of arms was picked out in colored comfits upon the iced walls. Theo had meant this as a delicate compliment, or, if they chose, a touch of humor. It produced no emotion at all except astonishment tempered with suspicion.
True, Polly Young said, 'How beautiful! It almost seems a shame to cat such pretty confections'—and smiled her wide, good-natured smile. But Maria with an audible sniff remarked to Mr. Huger on her left: 'How strange to serve food tortured into such unnatural shapes. I doubt that it is wholesome. I'm sure I shall not dare cat a bit of it'. Though she did manage to consume a goodly amount under cover of an air of chill disapproval. If Theodosia was trying to impress them, she might save her pains. She might far better, thought Maria, comport herself quietly and inconspicuously in all ways in view of her father's disgrace—nestling with humble gratitude beneath the outer tip of the family's wing, not putting herself forward. Thank Heaven, Sir John had not got himself mixed up with that man, after all. That Sir John had at one time made every effort to secure patronage from Aaron she conveniently forgot.
The general drift of Maria's thoughts was obvious to Theodosia. What an atmosphere in which to introduce Aaron! The plan had been mad. Instead of furthering his cause, it would hinder it. For Aaron there would be humiliation, averted eyes, perhaps even insult. It would be better, after all, to smuggle him upstairs to her bedroom if she could. But how? The stairs were in plain sight of the company. How stupid I am, and how badly I've managed this! she thought. Why didn't I offer them the same dull fare and dull entertainment to which they arc accustomed? Or, better yet, why did I invite them at all?
She cast a nervous glance at the door. She had told little Cupid to wait down by the landing and warn her by a secret signal the moment he heard the splash of oars approaching on the creek. It must be nearly time. Her guests at least had eaten plenty. The men, indeed, had paid her food the compliment of silent and concentrated consumption. They now pushed back their plates and wiped their mouths. Colonel William extracted his gold toothpick from his pocket and plied it vigorously. The white doves had vanished, their nest was demolished, and the proud cake castle had crumbled to pathetic ruins.
As Theo rose, and the other ladies with her, she saw Cupid flash by the door, his small black face twisted into a grimace of conspiracy. She nodded, and, leading the way to the drawing-room, instructed the banjo players to strike up a tune. The ladies would not like it, but no matter. She no longer cared what they thought, and the noise would help to cover her retreat and Aaron's arrival.
'Will you excuse me a moment?' she murmured, and without waiting for their stiff bows slipped out of the room. She caught up a long dark cloak from a corner of the porch where she had hidden it and ran down the path beside the house. Cupid joined her with a lantern, and they scurried together on the hard trampled quarter-mile to the landing.
The barge had already been tied up to the dock. She saw the black, half-naked figures of the boatmen by the light of their torch, and then, detached from them, advancing toward her, came Aaron, erect and lithe as ever in a dark gray suit and beaver hat that showed not the slightest trace of his grueling travel.
'Father, darling!' she cried, flinging her arms around his neck. 'Oh, I'm so glad to see you! So glad!' Her voice broke. She had not known how much she had longed for him, or the full extent of her worry about him, until she saw him. It was all right now. What did the Alstons matter, or the failure of her silly party? He was here with her, and between them they could manage or defy the world. Joy washed over her like a golden wave.
He kissed her tenderly and laughed. 'How now, Miss Prissy, do you greet me with tears? I should hardly have traveled a thousand miles to you for such a reception'. But her joy was reflected in him too.
'Where is your estimable husband?' he asked 'Up at the house; we have guests. I—I didn't tell him you were coming today.'
' So? And why not, pray?'
She hesitated, then tucked her hand through his arm. 'Father, we have so much to talk about, I don't know where to begin. Let's not go back to the house yet. I want you for myself a little while. '
'Willingly, but just where do you propose that we talk? It's dark and passing gloomy out here, and I see no place to sit.'
She frowned. It was true, there was no place where they might sit alone and talk. She bade Cupid hold high the lantern, while she searched for a fallen log or stone. Then her gaze fell on the silent little graveyard. 'Over there, Father, we can sit.'
Aaron laughed. 'I find your choice a trifle macabre, but so be it.'
He followed her through the wrought-iron gate; they took the lantern, and dismissed Cupid, who scuttled away terrified by the possibility of 'hants. 'Aaron spread his traveling cloak over one of the raised horizontal slabs, and they seated themselves on it.
'This is a mournful and eerie place,' observed Aaron, contemplating the hemming trunks of live-oaks and their burden of weeping moss.
She shuddered. 'I know. I hate it. I never come here. I confess I'm afraid of the place—not of the quiet people who already lie here, but I think I'm afraid of the future ones: of those to come. I don't want to lie here——' She broke off. No, she didn't want to lie here under the weeping trees with people and in a country that were alien. For a second terror seized her. All those people up there at the house, the Alstons, how many of them were destined to end here in this mouldering plot—? And I, too; they'll pull me in and bury me here, because I bear their name; my body will fester and crumble next to theirs, we shall mingle together to form yet more of this hateful black earth.
She caught her breath in a little sobbing gasp. 'Pr
omise me, Father, that you won't let me be put here——'
'My dear child,' said Aaron briskly, 'you are being not only exceedingly morbid but very foolish. You are twenty-one, and I am forty-eight. It is, therefore, unlikely that I shall have the opportunity of directing the disposition of your remains. If you can't think of more pleasing topics of conversation, I move we go elsewhere'. He belied the severity of his words, however, by putting an arm around her and giving her a small affectionate shake.
Her terror vanished at his touch. 'Forgive me,' she said, and managed to laugh. 'Tell me of your journeys; the letters were so few. The heat down in Georgia and the Floridas must have been frightful. And you were miraculously lucky to have escaped the fever.'
Aaron shrugged. 'I did, at any rate. I confess that my four hundred miles of travel in an open canoe became a trifle tedious, but I'm none the worse for it and brown as a mulatto, as you'll see when we get into the light.'
'Father——' She hesitated, fearing to open a topic too painful, but she had to hear from his own lips. 'Will you tell me of the duel? There have been so many rumors and—slanders. I have no clear account of it. You never mentioned it directly.'
Aaron nodded wearily. 'I am sick to death of the subject. I wish to forget it, but I recognize your right to question me, though I recognize no one else's. I need not go into the provocation to you, I think. It has been continuous for years.'
'Yes, I know. Even as a child I realized that Hamilton was your bitter enemy. Before you did yourself, I think.'
'Yes, perhaps. I was stupidly blind for too long a time. At any rate, before I challenged him, I gave him ample opportunity to apologize or explain. He declined to do either and stated that he was willing to abide by the consequences. I know he did not wish to fight, but it's not true, as many say, that he had no intention of firing at me. He discharged his pistol as my ball took effect. The shot went wild, but that it went deliberately so, I do not believe.'