University of Virginia Library

22. CHAPTER XXII.

So haggard and pale had Frank become
since Kate last saw him, that, although she
had recognized him the instant his tall
form appeared in the distance, yet when he
drew up by her side she almost mistook him
for a stranger.

“Mr.,” she stammered, — “Mr. McAlister.”
Then guessing all at once that the
duel had taken place, that he was wounded
and that Tom was killed, she screamed,
“What is the matter? Why do you speak
to me?”

He had not spoken as yet; and he could
hardly speak now. It was the first time
that he had ever heard such a voice from
her, or seen such an expression of agony,
terror, and aversion on her face. In amaze,
and scarcely knowing what he said, he
replied, “Your brother is well.”

“It is n't true,” she gasped, scared by his
hoarseness and pallor, and shrinking from
him. “O, is it?” she demanded, hope
leaping up in her heart. Then, seeing the
answer in his face, she reached towards him,
her rich cheeks flushing, her hazel eyes
sparkling, and her small mouth quivering
with joy. “O, thank you, Mr. McAlister,”
she whispered. “Then you have not fought.”

“I wanted him to kill me,” was Frank's
confession. “I wanted him to, and he would
not.”

“O, how could you?” she answered, falling
back from him with a look of reproach
which seemed like anger. “Cruel — wicked
man!”

The coachman, a grave and fatherly old
negro belonging to Kershaw, judged that
he had heard the last words that could ever
pass between these two, and softly drove on.
Had he not done so, there would surely have
been explanations and pleadings on the part
of Frank, and Kate might at once have pardoned,
or even more than pardoned. But

the uncomprehending slave, acting the part
of a deaf and blind fate, divided them before
they could think to forbid it.

Frank remained behind, speechless and
paralyzed. The first word of harsh reproach
which we receive from one whom we dearly
love is an avalanche. For a time it puts
out of mind all other calamities and all
other things whatsoever. To Frank there
seemed to be nothing in the world, nothing
past or present or future, but those words,
“Cruel — wicked.” His eyes were on the
retreating carriage, and he did not move
until it was out of sight. Then he started,
rushing away at full speed, and directing
his course toward a wood near the Beaumont
place, his sole purpose being to reach a stile
over which he had once helped Kate to
pass. Finding it, he dismounted and stood
for a long time contemplating the worm-eaten
rail, repeatedly kissing the spot on
which he remembered that her foot had
rested. After an hour in this place, an
hour made heavenly as well as wretched by
passing pageants of her form and face, he
found himself faint with hunger and fever
and rode slowly homeward.

We must return to Kate. She had
scarcely been driven past the sight of the
man whom she had called cruel and wicked,
ere she longed to call him to her side.
“Why does he drive on?” she thought,
glancing helplessly at the slave, who would
have stopped had she bidden him. Next
she turned in a useless paroxysm of haste,
and looked back at Frank through the rear
window of the carriage, querying whether
he would follow her. “What did I say to
him?” she asked, sure that she had uttered
something bitter, but not yet able to remember
what. In great trembling of body and
spirit, and finding life a woful perplexity
and burden, she was taken home.

The first of the family to meet her was
Tom. She drew him to her, kissed him on
both cheeks, and then held him back at
arm's length, looking him sadly in the eyes
and saying, “Ah, Tom! How could you?”

The next instant, remembering those
words, “I wanted your brother to kill me,
and he would not,” she threw herself into
the boy's arms and covered his face with
kisses and tears of gratitude. This staid,
simple, pure girl, her eyes humid, her
cheeks flushed to burning, and every feature
alight with unusual emotion, was at the
moment eloquent and beautiful beyond
humanity. There never was a finer glow
and glory on anything earthly than was
then on her exquisite young face. Just in
this breath her father came to the door, and
stood dazzled by his own child. Steeped
in brandy and hot with his chronic pugnacity,
he forgot at the sight of Kate everything
but Kate.

“Ah, my daughter!” he said, taking her
into his short heavy arms and pressing her
against his solid chest. “How I have neglected
you for the last few days! What
have I been about?”

“Father, was it fair —?” she began, and
stopped to recover control of her voice.

“No, it was n't fair,” answered old Peyton,
understanding in a moment and repenting
as quickly. “No, by heavens, it was n't
fair. Tom, we ought to have told her.
She 's a Beaumont, and she 's my own dear
daughter, and she had a right to know everything
we did. Kate, we have behaved, by
heavens, miserably.”

“Well, it is over, and safely,” sighed
Kate, laying her head on her father's shoulder.
“I thank God for it,” she added in a
whisper.

“So do I, Kate,” replied Beaumont,
touched almost to crying. “I do, by heavens.
I 'm a poor, savage, old beast; but I
am thankful, by heavens. I 'm glad Tom is
out of it safe, and I 'm glad the other is out
of it safe.”

“Father, I must go to bed,” said the girl,
presently. “I am very, very tired.”

“Not sick?” demanded Beaumont, staring
at her in great alarm.

He assisted her up stairs to her room;
he would not let anybody else do it; he forgot
that his feet were masses of gout.
When he came down, he said to Tom,
“Ride for a doctor; ride like the devil.
Don't bring any of those d—d surgeons
who were in the duel. Bring somebody
else.”

During that day and the next he haunted
the passages which led to his daughter's
room. Indifferent to pain, merely cursing
it, he regularly hobbled up stairs to carry
her food with his own hands, affirming that
no one else knew how to wait on her
properly, and denouncing the incapacity
and stupidity of “niggers.” When she was
awake and able to see him, he sat for hours
by her bed, holding her hand, looking at
her, and talking softly.

“My God, how I have neglected you!”
he groaned; “I don't see how I could have
done it. I ought to have known that you
would run yourself down. I ought to have
stopped it.”

Such was Peyton Beaumont: he passed
his life in sinning and repenting; and he
did each with equal fervor. As to the cause
of Kate's shattered condition, he had grave
suspicions that it was not merely watching
over Kershaw, and not merely the shock of
the news of the duel. At times he regretted
bitterly the renewal of the feud, and blamed
Judge McAlister very severely for having
brought about the untoward result, being,
of course, unable to see that he himself was
at all responsible therefor. “Unreasonable,

incomprehensible, hard-hearted, selfish old
beast!” he grumbled in perfect honesty,
meaning McAlister, and not Beaumont.
Well, there was no help for it; the only
thing to be done was not to speak of that
family in Kate's presence; above all, she
must not once hear the name of Frank.
This wise decision he communicated distinctly
to Nellie, and vaguely, but with
great energy of manner, to Mrs. Chester.
As for his boys, he trusted to their sense
and delicacy as gentlemen, and he trusted
not in vain.

The result was, that, when Kate came
down in a day or two to table, anxious to
learn all about the quarrel, and to hear the
name of McAlister incessantly, she got
never a word on those subjects. It was very
uncomforting; it was like being shut in
prison. Open utterance of hate against the
McAlisters would have been more tolerable
to her than this boding silence with its attendant
suspense. Kate had self-command
and dignity of soul; she would not allow
her face to show anxiety or sorrow; there
was nothing uncheerful in it, save a pathetic
lassitude. But at times it seemed to her as
if her heart must absolutely break bounds
and demand, “Will none of you speak of
him? Is it not enough that I shall never
see him more? Must I not even hear his
name?”

She could not relieve herself by struggling
against the feud. She had fought it once
when fighting it seemed to be a matter of
simple humanity and of affection for her
own race. But now, her soul more or less
laden with Frank McAlister, she could not
demand peace without having the air of suing
for a lover. Indeed, she dared not introduce
the subject of the family warfare,
lest her face should reveal the secret of her
heart, and even suggest more than was thus
far true. For she maintained to herself
that as yet she was not quite in love with
this man. To love him, especially to confess
it to others, when he had not openly
asked for her affection, would be shameful;
and the girl was calmly resolved to endure
any suffering rather than descend below
her own respect or that of her family. So
for several days there was silence in the
Beaumont prandial and other public conclaves
concerning Frank McAlister and all
his breed.

“I think Kate is getting on very well,”
remarked Peyton Beaumont to his married
daughter. It was not an assertion, but a
query; he did not feel at all certain that
Kate was getting on well; he wanted a
woman's opinion about a woman.

“If saying nothing, and growing paler
every day, is getting on well, you are right,”
answered Nellie, in her straightforward,
business-like, manly way.

“You don't mean,” stammered the father,
— “you don't mean that she cares for —”

“Don't mention his name,” interjected
Nellie. “That man, I absolutely hate him.
I did want him shot. He is intolerable.
Do you know, father, I sympathized with
that man and showed him that I did? To
think that after that, no matter what the
provocation, he should tie my brother!
Grossly iusult my brother! It was not an
outrage upon Tom only; it was an outrage
upon me and upon Kate.”

“The scoundrel!” growled Beaumont,
his eyes flaming at once, and his bushy eyebrows
working like a forest in a hurricane.
“Nellie, why did n't you tell us this before?
Tom would have shot him, sure.”

“Ah, — well. On the whole I did not.
I had liked him so well, that I could not
quite say the word to have him — hurt. I
had really liked him; that was it. And
perhaps it is as well; yes, perhaps it is better.
He behaved well in the duel, father?”

“Yes,” assented Beaumont, a tiger who
had been tamed by his children, and easily
followed their leading. “He stood up to
the scratch like a man.”

“And he did n't fire at Tom.”

“That 's true. He showed penitence.
He behaved well.”

“Let him go,” added Nellie, after a moment
of revery. “But Kate must not be
allowed to meet him again.”

“Of course, she won't meet him again,”
declared Beaumont, lifting his eyebrows in
amazement. “How the deuce should she
meet him again?”

“Shall I take her away with me for a few
weeks?” asked Mrs. Armitage.

“No,” returned the father, promptly.
“Why, good heavens, she has just got home.
I can't spare her yet. But you are not going
now,” he added. “What do you want
to go for?”

“My husband has written me to come,”
answered Nellie, with that strange look,
half imploring and half defiant, which so
often came over her face.

Beaumont walked up and down the room,
muttering something which sounded like,
“Hang your husband!”

“Besides, Aunt Marian quarrels with me
every day,” pursued Mrs. Armitage, forcing
a smile.

“O, never mind Aunt Marian! She quarrels
with everybody and always did and
always will. She can't help it. She grew
up that way. And really she is n't so much
to biame for it. She was a spoilt baby. My
father could n't govern his only daughter,
and my mother would n't have let him if he
had wanted to. The consequence was that
Marian always behaved like the very deuce,
just as she does now. Yelled, scratched,
fought for sugar, bounced away from table,

called her mother names, sulked by the
twenty-four hours, grew up that way and
stayed so. Come, Aunt Marian is too old to
cure; she is a fixed fact. No use quarrelling
with her. Let her alone and never mind
her.”

“I don't mind her much,” said Nellie,
coolly. “I rather think she gets the worst
of it.”

“I rather think so,” the father could not
help laughing, pleased that his daughter
should overmatch his sister.

“It 's a shame, is n't it, that people
should n't govern their children?” continued
Nellie with a smile.

“A shame? It 's downright wickedness,”
declared Beaumont, who had not a suspicion
that he had failed to rule his offspring properly.

Nellie laughed outright.

“Still, I must go,” she resumed. “I
have been here nearly a month; it is so
pleasant to be here! But it is time that I
got back and set to work. There are the
autumn suits for our niggers to be cut out
and made up.”

“Oh!” answered Beaumont, seeing something
to the purpose in this statement.

“And I want Kate to help me.”

“Pshaw! You don't want her.”

“She ought to learn that sort of thing.”

Beaumont uttered a growl of discontent:
he could not spare his favorite.

“I shall leave it to Kate,” declared Nellie,
as she closed the interview, somewhat queening
it over her father.

In the same spirit of benevolent imperiousness
she went off directly to lay the
question of the visit before her sister. She
had not heretofore meditated her plan; she
had thought of it while talking with her
father, and immediately resolved upon it;
and she was now as much prepared to urge
it as if she had had it in view for weeks.
She meant to suggest it to Kate; and, if it
was opposed, to argue for it; and, if necessary,
quarrel for it. It was one of those
cases of instantaneous consideration and
decision for which women, and indeed all
emotional people, including Beaumonts, are
noted.

Kate, however, was not altogether womanish
or Beaumontish; there was something
manly, there was something of the
Kershaw nature in her; she was thoughtful,
judicial, deliberative, and a little slow.
In her aquiline face, delicate and feminine
and beautiful as it was, there was a waiting,
holdfast power, like that in the face of
Washington.

“Don't you mean to go?” demanded Mrs.
Armitage, excitedly, and almost angrily,
after advocating her plan for ten minutes.

“Yes,” replied Kate. “Thank you, Nellie.
I shall be very glad to go.”

“Then why did n't you say so?”

“I was thinking,” said Kate, dreamily.

About the corners of her small, pulpy,
rosy mouth there was a slight droop which
Mrs. Armitage comprehended at once and
translated into a long confession of trouble.
She rustled forward, put one of her large
arms around the girl's waist and kissed her
in an eagerly petting way, as a mother
kisses her baby. Not a word of explanation
passed between the two; and when
Nellie spoke again it was only to say,
“Now go and get ready.”

“Have you asked papa about it?” demanded
Kate.

“I told him I should leave it to you,”
replied Nellie, in her prompt, decided way.
“I will let him know that you are going.”

“He and grandpa Kershaw must both be
consulted,” said Kate, with tranquil firmness.

The next day, all relatives consenting,
willingly or unwillingly, Mrs. Armitage carried
her sister from the scene where she
had found weariness and sorrow. Ten
hours of travel in creaky, rolling, staggering
cars, over a rickety railroad of a hundred
and thirty miles in length, brought
them into the mountainous western corner
of the State, and left them at sundown in
the straggling borough of Brownville.

“We shall perhaps find Randolph here,”
said Nellie, as they neared the lonely, rusty
station-house. “He wrote me that he
should come every evening until I appeared.”
Then she added with a somewhat
humbled air, “But I don't much expect
him.”

It was a wife's imbittered confession of
the fact that her husband has learned to
pay her little attention.

The Armitage equipage, a shabby barouche
attached by a roughly patched harness
to two noble horses, was at the station;
but the only human being about it was a
ragged negro coachman; there was no Randolph.

“He would have come if he had expected
you,” was Nellie's too frank comment.
“Husbands are fond of novelty. Wait till
you get one.”

“I am sure you are unjust to him,” said
Kate. “Of course he has his business.”

“O yes, of course,” replied Nellie, hiding
the wound which she had been indiscreet
enough to expose. “We women demand
incessantly, and demand more than can be
given. I only thought it worth while to
warn you not to expect too much.”

“What is that?” asked Kate, anxious
to change the subject of the conversation,
and pointing to an axe and a coil of rope
which lay on the driver's foot-board.

“Dem ar is to mend the kerridge with,
case it breaks down, miss,” grinned the
coachman.

“You don't know our Saxonburg fashions,”
laughed Nellie. “Family coaches
will get shaky if they are kept long enough;
and we up-country people almost always
keep them long enough.”

“I don't object to old things,” said Kate;
“excepting old family feuds,” she added,
unable to help thinking at every moment of
the troubles at home.

In an hour the high-spirited bays halted
champing at the door of Randolph Armitage's
house. It was a strange-looking
residence, which had obviously not been
created all at once, but in successive parts,
as the means of the owner increased, and
without regard to aught but interior convenience.
Two stories in height here and
one story there, with one front facing the
south and another the southwest, it appeared
less like a single building than like
an accidental collection of buildings. If
three or four small dwellings should be
swept away by a flood, and beached together
without further disposition than that
of the random waters, the inchoate result
would resemble this singular mansion. It
was, in fact, the nest where the Armitages
had grown up through three generations
from backwoods rudeness to their present
grandeur, if grandeur it might be called.
There was evidence in the building that
prosperity did not yet haunt it overflowingly.
The white paint which had once decked
the miscellaneous clapboards had become
ragged and rusty. In a back wing, constituting
the kitchen and servants' quarters,
several window-panes were broken. The
wooden front steps were somewhat shaky, and
the enclosing fence fantastically dilapidated.

The adorning light of a summer day in
the hour after sundown fell upon Randolph
Armitage as he came out to greet his wife
and children. Kate had not met him since
she was a girl of fourteen: but she perfectly
well recollected the glamour of his personal
beauty, — a beauty which was so
great that it fascinated children. In the
exquisite mild radiance of the hour he
seemed faultlessly beautiful still. He wore
an old loose coat of gray homespun, but the
shapeliness of his form could not be hidden.
His long black hair, matted and careless as
it was, offered superb waves and masses.
There yet was the Apollonian profile of
old, the advanced full forehead, the straight
nose nearly on a line with it, the delicately
chiselled mouth, the small but firm chin,
the straight and smooth cheeks, the many-tinted
brown eyes, and the clear olive
complexion. He still seemed to Kate the
handsomest man that she had ever seen;
handsomer even than that splendid and
good giant, Frank McAlister.

“So you have come at last!” were the
ungracious first words of this Apollo.

Kate knew nothing of the domestic troubles
of her sister. On hearing this reproving
growl, she suspected only that Nellie had
wrongly delayed her return home; and before
even she got out of the carriage, she tried
to take the blame upon herself. She called
out, “I dare say it is my fault, Randolph.”

“What!” he exclaimed, his face changing
from sullenness to gayety. “Is it
Kate?” he asked, helping her down the
step and gazing at her with admiration.
“What a beauty you have grown!” and he
kissed her cheek caressingly. “Why, my
dear little sister, you are a thousand times
welcome. So my wife waited to bring you?
She is always doing better than I suspect.”

He kissed his wife now, and she calmly
returned it. Kate of course could not see
that the embrace was on her account. How
should she, whose heart yearned to love and
be loved, guess easily that husband and wife
could meet without pleasure.

“And here are my youngsters,” said Armitage,
turning away from Nellie with singular
suddenness. “Willie, did you have a
nice long visit? And you, Freddy? Did
you both play with grandpapa?”

He lifted them successively, hugged them
with a graceful air of fervor, and set them
down promptly.

“And now, Kate,” he added, offering her
his arm gayly, “let me escort you into my
house for the first time. It is a great honor
to me and a great pleasure.”

All the evening his manner to his guest
was most caressing and flattering. Moreover,
he dressed in her honor, laying aside
his slovenly homespun and coming to the
table attired in a way to show his fine figure
to advantage. Yet as the hours wore on,
and as Kate's spirits turned to depression
under a sense of homesickness and fatigue,
she seemed to perceive something disagreeable,
or at least something suspicious, under
this brilliant surface. She was like one
who, after gazing with delight on a tide of
clear sparkling water, should half think that
he discovers a corpse in the translucent
abysses. The light of the lamps showed
her that Randolph's face was not all that it
had been in other days; the fervid color
had faded a little, and there were bags
under the still brilliant eyes, and a jaded
air as of dissipation. Was it true, too, that
there was a shadow of reserve between husband
and wife, as if neither were sure of
possessing the other's sympathy? What
did it mean, moreover, that they occupied
separate rooms?

In spite of the girl's efforts to believe that
all went well in this family which was so
near and dear to her, she retired that night
with a vague impression that she was in a
household haunted by mysteries, if not by
misery.