_Five_
At the end of the garden stood a frame house with a wide, columnedporch. It had once been white, and the windows closed with blinds thatstill retained a faded tint of green. Upon the porch, in a comfortablearm chair, sat an old lady, wearing a white cap, under which her whitehair showed at the sides, and holding her hands, upon which she woreblack silk mits, crossed upon her lap. On the top step, at oppositeends, sat two young people--one of them a rosy-cheeked girl, in thebloom of early youth, with a head of rebellious brown hair. She hadbeen reading a book held open in her hand. The other was along-legged, lean, shy young man, of apparently twenty-three ortwenty-four, with black hair and eyes and a swarthy complexion. Fromthe jack-knife beside him, and the shavings scattered around, it wasclear that he had been whittling out the piece of pine that he wasadjusting, with some nicety, to a wooden model of some mechanicalcontrivance which stood upon the floor beside him. They were astrikingly handsome couple, of ideally contrasting types.
"Mother," said Miss Treadwell, "this is Henry French--ColonelFrench--who has come back from the North to visit his old home and thegraves of his ancestors. I found him in the cemetery; and this is hisdear little boy, Philip--named after his grandfather."
The old lady gave the colonel a slender white hand, thin almost totransparency.
"Henry," she said, in a silvery thread of voice, "I am glad to seeyou. You must excuse my not rising--I can't walk without help. You arelike your father, and even more like your grandfather, and your littleboy takes after the family." She drew Phil toward her and kissed him.
Phil accepted this attention amiably. Meantime the young people hadrisen.
"This," said Miss Treadwell, laying her hand affectionately on thegirl's arm, "is my niece Graciella--my brother Tom's child. Tom isdead, you know, these eight years and more, and so is Graciella'smother, and she has lived with us."
Graciella gave the colonel her hand with engaging frankness. "I'm surewe're awfully glad to see anybody from the North," she said. "Are youfamiliar with New York?"
"I left there only day before yesterday," replied the colonel.
"And this," said Miss Treadwell, introducing the young man, who, whenhe unfolded his long legs, rose to a rather imposing height, "this isMr. Ben Dudley."
"The son of Malcolm Dudley, of Mink Run, I suppose? I'm glad to meetyou," said the colonel, giving the young man's hand a cordial grasp.
"His nephew, sir," returned young Dudley. "My uncle never married."
"Oh, indeed? I did not know; but he is alive, I trust, and well?"
"Alive, sir, but very much broken. He has not been himself for years."
"You find things sadly changed, Henry," said Mrs. Treadwell. "Theyhave never been the same since the surrender. Our people are poor now,right poor, most of them, though we ourselves were fortunate enough tohave something left."
"We have enough left for supper, mother," interposed Miss Lauraquickly, "to which we are going to ask Colonel French to stay."
"I suppose that in New York every one has dinner at six, and supperafter the theatre or the concert?" said Graciella, inquiringly.
"The fortunate few," returned the colonel, smiling into her eagerface, "who can afford a seat at the opera, and to pay for and digesttwo meals, all in the same evening."
"And now, colonel," said Miss Treadwell, "I'm going to see about thesupper. Mother will talk to you while I am gone."
"I must be going," said young Dudley.
"Won't you stay to supper, Ben?" asked Miss Laura.
"No, Miss Laura; I'd like to, but uncle wasn't well to-day and I muststop by the drug store and get some medicine for him. Dr. Price gaveme a prescription on my way in. Good-bye, sir," he added, addressingthe colonel. "Will you be in town long?"
"I really haven't decided. A day or two, perhaps a week. I am notbound, at present, by any business ties--am foot-loose, as we used tosay when I was young. I shall follow my inclinations."
"Then I hope, sir, that you'll feel inclined to pay us a long visitand that I shall see you many times."
As Ben Dudley, after this courteous wish, stepped down from thepiazza, Graciella rose and walked with him along the garden path. Shewas tall as most women, but only reached his shoulder.
"Say, Graciella," he asked, "won't you give me an answer."
"I'm thinking about it, Ben. If you could take me away from this deadold town, with its lazy white people and its trifling niggers, to aplace where there's music and art, and life and society--where there'ssomething going on all the time, I'd _like_ to marry you. But if I didso now, you'd take me out to your rickety old house, with your daffyold uncle and his dumb old housekeeper, and I should lose my own mindin a week or ten days. When you can promise to take me to New York,I'll promise to marry you, Ben. I want to travel, and to see things,to visit the art galleries and libraries, to hear Patti, and to lookat the millionaires promenading on Fifth Avenue--and I'll marry theman who'll take me there!"
"Uncle Malcolm can't live forever, Graciella--though I wouldn't wishhis span shortened by a single day--and I'll get the plantation. Andthen, you know," he added, hesitating, "we may--we may find themoney."
Graciella shook her head compassionately. "No, Ben, you'll never findthe money. There isn't any; it's all imagination--moonshine. The warunsettled your uncle's brain, and he dreamed the money."
"It's as true as I'm standing here, Graciella," replied Ben,earnestly, "that there's money--gold--somewhere about the house. Unclecouldn't imagine paper and ink, and I've seen the letter from myuncle's uncle Ralph--I'll get it and bring it to you. Some day themoney will turn up, and then may be I'll be able to take you away.Meantime some one must look after uncle and the place; there's no oneelse but me to do it. Things must grow better some time--they alwaysdo, you know."
"They couldn't be much worse," returned Graciella, discontentedly.
"Oh, they'll be better--they're bound to be! They'll just have to be.And you'll wait for me, won't you, Graciella?"
"Oh, I suppose I'll have to. You're around here so much that every oneelse is scared away, and there isn't much choice at the best; all theyoung men worth having are gone away already. But you know myultimatum--I must get to New York. If you are ready before any oneelse speaks, you may take me there."
"You're hard on a poor devil, Graciella. I don't believe you care abit for me, or you wouldn't talk like that. Don't you suppose I haveany feelings, even if I ain't much account? Ain't I worth as much as atrip up North?"
"Why should I waste my time with you, if I didn't care for you?"returned Graciella, begging the question. "Here's a rose, in token ofmy love."
She plucked the flower and thrust it into his hand.
"It's full of thorns, like your love," he said ruefully, as he pickedthe sharp points out of his fingers.
"'Faithful are the wounds of a friend,'" returned the girl. "SeePsalms, xxvii: 6."
"Take care of my cotton press, Graciella; I'll come in to-morrowevening and work on it some more. I'll bring some cotton along to tryit with."
"You'll probably find some excuse--you always do."
"Don't you want me to come?" he asked with a trace of resentment. "Ican stay away, if you don't."
"Oh, you come so often that I--I suppose I'd miss you, if you didn't!One must have some company, and half a loaf is better than no bread."
He went on down the hill, turning at the corner for a lingeringbackward look at his tyrant. Graciella, bending her head over thewall, followed his movements with a swift tenderness in her sparklingbrown eyes.
"I love him better than anything on earth," she sighed, "but it wouldnever do to tell him so. He'd get so conceited that I couldn't managehim any longer, and so lazy that he'd never exert himself. I must getaway from this town before I'm old and gray--I'll be seventeen nextweek, and an old maid in next to no time--and Ben must take me away.But I must be his inspiration; he'd never do it by himself. I'll gonow and talk to that dear old Colonel French about the North; I canlearn a great de
al from him. And he doesn't look so old either," shemused, as she went back up the walk to where the colonel sat on thepiazza talking to the other ladies.