CHAPTER XVII
IN WHICH MY FORTUNES RISE
The winter began with a heavy snow-storm and ended in a long April rain,and in all those swiftly moving months I had seen Sally barely a dozentimes. Not only my pride, but Miss Mitty's rigid commands had kept mefrom her house, and the girl had promised that for the first six monthsshe would not meet me except by chance.
"In the spring--oh, in the spring," she wrote, "I shall be free. Mypromise was given and I could not recall it, but I believe now that itwas pride, not love, that made them exact it. Do you know, I sometimesthink that they do not love me at all. They have both told me that theywould rather see me dead than married, as they call it, beneath me.Beneath me, indeed! Ah, dearest, dearest, how can one lower one's selfto a giant? When I think of all that you are, of all that you have madeyourself, I feel so humble and proud. The truth is, Ben, I'm notsuffering half so much from love as I am from indignation. If it keepsup, some day I'll burst out like Aunt Matoaca, for I've got it in me.And she of all people! Why, she goes about in her meek, sanctifiedmanner distributing pamphlets on the emancipation of woman, and yet sheactually told me the other day that, of course, she would prefer to haveonly 'ladies' permitted to vote. 'In that case, however,' she added, 'Ishould desire to restrict the franchise to gentlemen, also.' Did youever in your whole life hear of anything so absurd, and she really meantit. She's a martyr, and filled with a holy zeal to get burned or racked.But it's awful, every bit of it. Oh, lift me up, Ben! Lift me up!" Andin a postscript, "What does the General say to you? Aunt Mitty has toldthe General."
The General had said nothing to me, but when I drove him up from hisoffice the next day, he invited me to dine with him, and talkedincessantly through the three simple courses about the prospects of theNational Oil Company.
"So you're sweeping the whole South?" he said.
"Yes, Sam has made a big thing of it. We've knocked out everybody elsein the oil business in this part of the world."
"Mark my word, then, you've been cutting into the interest of the oiltrust, and it will come along presently and try to knock you out. Whenit does, Ben, make it pay, make it pay."
"Oh, I'll make it pay," I answered. "The consolidated interests maysweep out the independent companies, but they can't overturn the GreatSouth Midland and Atlantic Railroad."
"It's the road, of course, that has made such a success possible."
"Yes, it's the road--everything is the road, General."
"And to think that when I got control of it, it was bankrupt."
Rising from the table he took my arm, and limped painfully into hisstudy, where he lit a cigar and sank back in his easy chair.
"Look here, Ben," he began suddenly, with a change of tone, "what's thistrouble brewing between you and Miss Mitty Bland?"
"There's no trouble, sir, except that her niece has promised to marryme."
"Promised to marry you, eh? Sally Mickleborough? Are you sure it's SallyMickleborough?"
"I'm hardly likely to be mistaken, General, about the identity of myfuture wife."
"No, I suppose you ain't," he admitted, "but, good Lord, Ben, how didyou make her do it?"
"I didn't make her. She was good enough to do it of her own accord."
"So she did it of her own accord? Well, confound you, boy, how did itever occur to you to ask her?"
"That's what I can't answer, General, I don't believe it ever occurredto me any more than it occurred to me to fall in love with her."
"You've fallen in love with Sally Mickleborough, Miss Matoaca's niece.She refused George, you know?"
I replied that I didn't know it, but I never supposed that she wouldengage herself to two men at the same time.
"And she's seriously engaged to you?" he demanded, still unconvinced."Are you precious sure she isn't flirting? Girls will flirt, and I don'treckon you've had much experience of 'em. Why, even Miss Mitty was knownto flirt in a prim, stiff-necked fashion in her time, and as for SarahBland, they say she promised to marry a whole regiment before the battleof Seven Pines. A little warning beforehand ain't going to do any harm,Ben."
"I'm much obliged to you, General, but I don't think in this case it'sneeded. Sally is staunch and true."
"Sally? Do you call her 'Sally'? It used to be the custom to address thelady you were engaged to as 'Miss Sally' up to the day of the marriage."
I laughed and shook my head. "Oh, we move fast!"
"Yes, I'm an old man," he admitted sadly, "and I was brought up in adifferent civilisation. It's funny, my boy, how many customs were sweptaway with the institution of slavery."
"There'd have been little room for me in those days."
"Oh, you'd have got into some places quick enough, but you'd never havecrossed the Blands' threshold when they lived down on James River. Thereisn't much of that nonsense left now, but Miss Mitty has got it andTheophilus has got it; and, when all's said, they, might have somethingconsiderably worse. Why, look at Miss Matoaca. When I first saw heryou'd never have imagined there was an idea inside her head."
"I can understand that she must have been very pretty."
"Pretty? She was as beautiful as an angel. And to think of herdistributing those damned woman's rights pamphlets! She left one on mydesk," he added, sticking out his lower lip like a crying child, andwiping his bloodshot eyes on the hem of his silk handkerchief. "I tellyou if she'd had a husband this would never have happened."
"We can't tell--it might have been worse, if she believes it."
"Believes what, sir?" gasped the great man, enraged. "Believes thatoutlandish Yankee twaddle about a woman wanting any rights except theright to a husband! Do you think she'd be running round loose in thiscrackbrained way if she had a home she could stay in and a husband shecould slave over? I tell you there's not a woman alive that ain'thappier with a bad husband than with none at all."
"That's a comfortable view, at any rate."
"View? It's not a view, it's a fact--and what business has a lady gotwith a view anyway? If Miss Matoaca hadn't got hold of those heathenishviews, she'd be a happy wife and mother this very minute."
"Does it follow, General, that she would have been a happy one?" I askeda little unfairly.
"Of course it follows. Isn't every wife and mother happy? What more doesshe want unless she's a Yankee Abolitionist?"
"Who's a Yankee?" enquired young George, in his amiable voice from thehall. "I'm surprised to hear you calling names when the war is over,sir."
"I wasn't calling names, George. I was just saying that Miss MatoacaBland was a Yankee. Did you ever hear of a Virginia lady who wasn'tcontent to be what the Lord and the men intended her?"
"No, sir, I never did--but it seems to me that Miss Matoaca has managedto secure a greater share of your attention than the more amenableVirginia ladies."
"Well, isn't it a sad enough sight to see any lady going cracked?"retorted the General, hotly; "do you know, George, that SallyMickleborough--he says he's sure it's Sally Mickleborough--has promisedto marry Ben Starr?"
"Oh, it's Sally all right," responded George, "she has just told me."
He came over and held out his hand, smiling pleasantly, though there wasa hurt look in his eyes.
"I congratulate you, Ben," he observed in his easy, good-natured way,"the best man comes in ahead."
His face wore the frown, not from temper, but from pain, that I had seenon it at the club when his favourite hunter had dropped dead, and he hadtried to appear indifferent. He was a superb horseman, a typical manabout town, a bit of a sport, also, as Dr. Theophilus said. I knew heloved Sally, just as I had known he loved his hunter, by a sympatheticreading of his character rather than by any expression of regret on hislong, highly coloured, slightly wooden countenance, with its set mouthover which drooped a mustache so carefully trimmed that it looked almostas if it were glued on his upper lip.
"By the way, uncle, have you heard the last news?" he asked, "Barclay isbuying all the A. P. & C. Stock he can lay hands on. It's selling
at--"
"Hello! What's that? Barclay, did you say? I knew it was coming, andthat he'd spring it. Here, Hatty, give me my cape, I'm going back to theoffice!"
"George, George, the doctor told you not to excite yourself,"remonstrated Miss Hatty, appearing in the doorway with a glass ofmedicine in her hand.
"Excite myself? Pish! Tush!" retorted the General, "I ain't a bit moreexcited than you are yourself. Do you think if I hadn't had a cool headthey'd have made me president of the South Midland? But I tell youBarclay's trying to get control of the A. P. & C., and I'll be blamed ifhe shall! Do you want him to snatch a railroad out of my very mouth,madam?"
By this time he had got into his cape and slouch hat, turning at thelast moment to swallow Miss Hatty's dose of medicine with a wry mouth.Then with one arm in George's and one in mine, he descended the stepsand limped as far as the car line on Main Street.
On that same afternoon I walked out to meet Sally on her ride in one ofthe country roads to what was called "the Pump House," and when she haddismounted, we strolled together along the little path under the scarletbuds of young maples. At the end of the path there was a rude benchplaced beside the stream, which broke from the dam above with a soundthat was like laughing water. The grass was powdered with small springflowers, and overhead a sycamore drooped its silvery branches to thesparkling waves. Spring was in the air, in the scarlet buds of maples,in the song of birds, in the warm wind that played on Sally's flushedcheek and lifted a loosened curl on her forehead. And spring was in myheart, too, as I sat there beside her, on the old bench, with her handin mine.
"You will marry me in November, Sally?"
"On the nineteenth of November, as I promised. Aunt Mitty and AuntMatoaca have forbidden me to mention your name to them, so I shall walkwith you to church some morning--to old Saint John's, I think, Ben."
"Then may God punish me if I ever fail you," I answered.
Her look softened. "You will never fail me."
"You will trust me now and in all the future?"
"Now and in all the future."
As we strolled back a little later to her horse that was tethered to amaple on the roadside, I told her of the success of the National OilCompany and of the possibility that I might some day be a rich man.
"As things go in the South, sweetheart, I'm a rich man now for myyears."
"I am glad for your sake, Ben, but I have never expected to have wealth,you know."
"All the same I want you to have it, I want to give it to you."
"Then I'll begin to love it for your sake--if it means that to you?"
"It means nothing else. But what do you think it will mean to your auntsnext November?"
She shook her head, while I untethered Dolly, the sorrel mare.
"They haven't a particle of worldliness, either of them, and I don'tbelieve it will make any great difference if we have millions. Of courseif you were, for instance, the president of the South Midland they wouldnot have refused to receive you, but they would have objected quite asstrongly to your marrying into the family. What you are yourself mightconcern them if they were inviting you to dinner, but when it is aquestion of connecting yourself with their blood, it is what your fatherwas that affects them. I really believe," she finished half angrily,half humorously, "that Aunt Mitty--not Aunt Matoaca--would honestlyrather I'd marry a well-born drunkard or libertine than you, whom shecalls 'quite an extraordinary-looking young man.'"
"Then if they can neither be cajoled nor bought, I see no hope forthem," I replied, laughing, as she sprang from my hand into her saddle.
The red flame of the maple was in her face as she looked back at me."Everything will come right, Ben, if we only love enough," she said.