University of Virginia Library

35. CHAPTER XXXV.

“What is up now?” were Bent Armitage's
first words to Mrs. Chester when she
rustled suddenly into his lonely lodgings.

Puzzled by her unexpected advent, he
supposed that she could only have come to
bring him some startling news of Randolph,
still a fugitive from such justice as homicidal
high-flung gentlemen had in those days
to fear in South Carolina.

“I am driven from my brother's house by
my brother's children,” answered Mrs. Chester
in an excited tragical way which struck
him as both singular and ludicrous. “Have
you a place where I can hide my head?”

“Lots of places to hide heads in,” answered
the reassured Bentley, his queer
smile, a smile indescribably and perhaps
unintentionally quizzical, curling up into
one cheek. “This old rookery is just the
spot for hiding heads, or bodies either, for
that matter. Any number of handy closets
for skeletons.”

Mrs. Chester dropped various bundles on
the floor, and then dropped herself with equal
helplessness into an arm-chair, gasping as
if she had run all the way from Hartland.

“So the boys have been turning up
rusty?” inquired Bent, after picking up the
fallen packages and seeing otherwise to his
visitor's baggage.

“It 's the girls,” said Mrs. Chester. “I
can get along with men.”

Bentley smiled again; she was about
right there.

“I had hoped, or rather I was afraid, that
you brought news of Randolph,” he added,
turning grave.

Starting off suddenly, like a turbine-wheel
when the water is let on, Mrs. Chester
told the whole story of the killing of
Colonel Kershaw. Her distinctness of
memory was wonderful; she related every
incident of the tragedy with amazing
minuteness, picturesqueness, and fluency;
she was extremely interesting and even
amusing. Another noteworthy circumstance
was that she talked with such
rapidity as to throw off a slight spattering
of foam from her lips.

“I knew all that,” said Bentley, when he
found a chance to speak. “But where is
Ran now? That 's the point.”

“I don't know,” replied Mrs. Chester
with curious dryness and indifference.
“Give me some writing-materials. I want
to write a letter.”

Pen and paper being furnished, she commenced
writing with singular slowness and
hesitation, using first her right hand and
then her left.

“I am disguising my hand,” she presently
explained. “It is an anonymous letter.”

Before Bentley could fairly say, “The
dickens it is!” she added, her eyes flashing
spitefully, “It is to Frank McAlister.”

Bentley was astonished, but amused. He
had heard somewhat of the woman's fancy
for the young giant. Was she going, at her
respectable age, to send him a valentine?

“I want to make him miserable,” she
continued.

“I 've no objection,” observed Bent,
lighting a cigar, and watching her through
the smoke. “Sock it to him.”

“I am going to tell him,” went on Mrs.
Chester, with a sullen, absent-minded air, —
“I am going to tell him that Kate is engaged
to Arthur Gilyard.”

Bentley turned pale and dropped his
cigar.

“He 'll believe it, and he 'll be miserable,
— he 'll believe it, and he 'll be miserable,”
repeated Mrs. Chester, with an air of
savage pleasure in the iteration.

“But it is n't true?” asked, or rather
implored, Bentley.

“It is,” answered Mrs. Chester. “And
O, ain't I glad of it? I hate those McAlisters!”

The unhappy youngster reeled to his feet
and left the room. When he returned, a
few minutes later, he had the look of a man
who has risen from an illness. Mrs. Chester,
who had by this time finished and
directed her letter, went on talking about
the McAlisters precisely as if she had been
talking about them all the while, unconscious
of his absence.

“The feud has lasted seventy years now,”
she said. “There have been three generations
in it. There have been fourteen
Beaumonts killed in it and thirteen McAlisters.
We still owe them one. Just think
of it: Peyton is the only one left of seven
brothers; all the rest died in their boots, as
the saying is. Until three years ago, our
family has never been out of mourning since
I can remember. And now Kate is in
mourning for her grandfather.”

Bentley softly whistled a plaintive Methodist
tune which recalled a chorus commencing,
“O, there will be mourning, —
mourning, mourning, mourning.”

“Yes, there has been mourning,” said

Mrs. Chester, recognizing the air; “and
there will be more. It can't stop here.
We owe them one, and we must pay the
debt. I don't know who will do it, but
somebody will. Your brother missed his
mark. He fired at a McAlister, and hit
Colonel Kershaw. Perhaps you 'll be the
next one to take up the old quarrel. Ain't
you Beaumont enough?”

“Scarcely,” was Bent's dry answer.

“O well. You are not married into the
family; but you may be. I thought at one
time you were going to take Kate. Why
did n't you?”

“Did n't hear any loud call to do so,”
said Bent. His words were jocose, but his
face was tragic.

“O, I know,” went on Mrs. Chester.
“That Frank McAlister got in your way.
He stopped it.”

“Did he?” asked Bentley.

“You could have got her, if it had n't
been for him.”

False as this undoubtedly was, Bentley
had himself supposed it to be true, unwilling
to believe that his love had been declined
simply on account of his own demerits.

“Of course he slandered you,” said Mrs.
Chester.

“O no,” protested Bentley, who, notwithstanding
the credulity of sorrow and
eagerness, found this hard to credit.

“He began it with his eyes,” continued
Mrs. Chester. “He used to look at you
and then look at her in a way that was the
same thing as a warning. She understood
him. I could see that she did. After one
of those looks, she used to avoid you. O,
you don't know how quick women are at
taking hints! I know them. A hint goes
further with them than a long argument.
They think it over by themselves and make
ever so much out of it. It is the best way
to lead them, to give them little hints and
winks. I have found out a thousand things
that way. But Frank McAlister did n't
stop there. After a while he went on to talk
to her about you. He said you were a
drunkard and would make her miserable.”

Mrs. Chester's disordered imagination invented
so rapidly, that her tongue could
hardly keep up with it. She talked so volubly
and by moments so indistinctly, that
Bentley found some difficulty in followin
her. It may seem singular that he should
have credited her babble; but it must be
remembered that she had him upon a subject
where his wits were at a disadvantage;
that in talking to him of Kate Beaumont
she used a spell which paralyzed his judgment.

“Look here, this is too much,” he exclaimed
at last, starting up and striding
about, his partially disabled foot slapping
the floor more paralytically than usual.

“Of course it is too much,” replied Mrs.
Chester, eagerly. “I don't see how you
can endure it.”

“I can't,” said Bentley, rushing out of
the room.

It was evening when this conversation
took place. Before bedtime Bent was under
the influence of the hereditary devil of
his family. In trouble as well as in joy, in
seasons of wrath as well as in seasons of
conviviality in all times of excitement and
too often in times of dulness, it was the
custom of the Armitages to betake themselves
to whiskey. As certain peoples in a
state of revolution elevate a tyrant to power,
so this breed, when distracted by emotions,
enthroned alcohol.

In the morning, rising from the irritation
of evil slumbers, Bentley resumed his drinking
before breakfast, keeping it up all day
and for days following. There were some
strange scenes of carousal in the lonely
mansion. Mrs. Chester, we remember, was
an ardent admirer of men, and especially of
young men; and even in her present excitement
she did not forget her old predilection.
She took to flattering and petting Bent
Armitage, as she had once flattered and
petted Frank McAlister. She was so
thankful for what little attention she got
from him, that she did not mind his semi-intoxication,
and indeed ministered unto it.
She mixed his liquor and set it before him
in a coquettish, hoydenish, juvenile way,
sincerely gratified to serve him. She was
a cracked old Cleopatra waiting on a young
rough of an Antony. It was a spectacle
which could be painted as ludicrous, but
which I can only paint as woful and horrible.

The more Bent drank, and the more
irrational and savage he became with his
long debauch, the more completely he credited
Mrs. Chester's tales concerning Frank
McAlister's slanders of himself. For the
feud he cared nothing; even in his present
wild state, he knew that he had nothing to
do with it; his native clearness of head asserted
itself thus far. But he did believe
that Frank had injured him, and he did
want to shoot the fellow. He used to go to
sleep muttering, “Hang Frank McAlister!
Hang all the McAlisters! Hang Frank McAlister
particularly! Hang him particularly!”
Only, in place of the word “hang,”
he used a stronger objurgation.

Alcohol is a magician. It tears down a
man's natural character in an hour, and
builds him a new one. It accomplishes
miracles which remind one of the doctrine
of the transmigration of souls. Under its
enchantment your body is forsaken by the
spirit which belongs to it, and entered upon

by a spirit which you knew not of, any more
than if it came from another world.
Bentley Armitage, a far better fellow than
Randolph, and also furnished with more
common sense, was presently on his way to
Hartland to fight Frank McAlister, following
precisely in the steps of his addle-pated
brother, under the same frenzying influence.
It was the stupid iteration of that stupidest
of possessing demons, “rum-madness.”

But, though playing Randolph's part after
him, he did it with another port and mask.
Even in his inebriety he kept his knowing
look and quizzical smile, rather exaggerating
them than otherwise. Moreover,
instead of improvidently depending for
drink on station bar-rooms and on the bottles
of wayfarers, he carried with him a
full demijohn. In his slangy way he called
this his “wine-press,” and when he treated
his fellow-travellers, which he did often and
liberally, he always said with tiresome repetition,
“Won't you have some of the wine
of astonishment?” It must be understood
that he was not helplessly and idiotically
tipsy; that he did not reel and stammer
and hiccough and talk incoherences. He
was simply in an exasperated nervous state
because of a long spree.

Arrived in Hartland, he had sense enough
not to go to the Beaumont house, knowing
to a certain extent what his condition was,
and not wishing to present himself thus
before Kate. He took the one hack of the
little town and drove to the one hotel with
his valise and demijohn. After tea he
thought himself sober enough to face his
relatives, the Devines, and repaired to their
house with the hope of learning that the
Gilyard engagement was a fiction. The
moment that Jenny laid eyes on him, she
detected his status; for being a student of
men, she knew him thoroughly, habits, expression,
and all.

“What are you here for, Bent?” she
asked at once, with not a little tartness.

“O, I am around,” he replied, trying to
smile naturally. “I am going to and fro in
the earth, like Satan, you know.”

“Exactly,” said Jenny. “What are you
going on in this way for? You'll be doing
something to worry us. Where is your baggage?
Why did n't you come here at once?
You had better go up stairs and take a
nap?”

“Come, don't jump on a man the minute
you see him,” protested Bentley, with a
momentary sense of humiliation at being so
quickly guessed out and so sharply lectured.
“I am a two-legged creature without feathers,
I believe. I don't need a coop.”

“I wish you would come here and let us
take care of you,” insisted Jenny. “You
are not fit to be about alone. Shame on
you, you great baby! There, you sha' n't
go,” she added, running to the door, shutting
it upon him and placing her plump
shoulders against it. “Now I want to know
what you are in Hartland for.”

“How you do jockey me!” he said, with
the magnanimous smile of a man who feels
that he could resist if he would. “See here,
Jenny,” he added, after a scowl of trouble.
“Is — is Kate Beaumont — is she engaged?
Mrs. Chester tells me that she is engaged to
the minister, Gilyard. Is it true?”

Jenny hesitated; a flash passed through
her hazel eyes; it was a gleam of mingled
reflection and decision.

“He has been very attentive to her,” she
replied. “And if Mrs. Chester told you so,
why, of course, Mrs. Chester knows.”

Bentley, his face sobered and ennobled
at once by intense grief, advanced to the
door and seized the knob firmly.

“Where are you going?” demanded
Jenny, without giving way.

“I am going back to Saxonburg,” he
whispered.

“Right,” she said, letting him out. “I
am sorry for you, Bentley; I am indeed.
But you had better go.”

Unfortunately there was no train up
country till the next day. During the evening
a number of Bentley's boon companions
found him at the hotel, and beguiled
him into a carouse which lasted till near
morning. When he awoke from a brief and
feverish sleep, he had lost the gentle sentiments
which Jenny's feminine magnetism
had instilled into him, and was ready in his
semi-delirium to fight the first creature
which approached him, whether it were a
man, or a royal Bengal tiger, or a turtledove.
He resolved to stay in Hartland and
do battle with Frank McAlister. Part of
the day he passed in wandering about the
strcets, heavy laden with bowie-knife, pistols,
and ammunition, including whiskey,
waiting for the appearance of his slanderer.
But after dinner, meeting with that martial
young lawyer, Jobson, he communicated his
griefs to him, and under his dictation drew
up a challenge in the approved style of old
General Johnson, the document being as
rhetorical and almost as voluminous as Cicero's
Orations against Verres. This “flight
of eloquence” was despatched to its destination
by the hands of that most bloodthirsty
paradox, invented by the code of honor, and
ironically denominated “a friend.”

We must see now how the cartel was received
at the McAlister residence.

Perhaps, however, we ought first to note
what was the general state of mind of the
challenged party, and what had been his
moral history, since we left him retiring
from the mêlée in which Colonel Kershaw
had fallen.

His moral history referred solely to Kate

Beaumont; he thought of nothing else, and
as it were knew nothing else. But while
he thus lived solely for her, he believed that
she could never live for him. It was not
her heirship to a large estate which put her
beyond his reach. He was not ashamed to
sue for her because she had become rich;
he respected himself too much to entertain
that kind of shame, loved her too much to
suffer it to trammel him. Besides, he would
one day be rich himself, at least sufficiently
so to live like a gentleman. In his magnanimous
and manly opinion, the match
would be an equal one, only for this, that
Kate was individually far his superior, as
she was far the superior of any man.

But the perpetual conflicts and tragedies,
— that last degrading mêlée and that last
horrible tragedy, — how could he bridge
them over so as to reach her? It seemed
impossible; a sea of blood blown upon by
winds of hate lay between them, — a sea
which grew wider and stormier at every
attempt to span it. Fate had been so long
and violently against him, that it had almost
wearied him out and stripped him of hope.
But not of desire: he still longed passionately
for her; all the more passionately
because of disappointments and barriers.

While he was thus fighting weakly with
despair (as a man fights who only receives
blows and cannot return them) he received
Mrs. Chester's anonymous gossip as to the
Gilyard engagement. At first he declared
to himself with angry contempt that he
would not believe it; and then, comparing
it with what he knew of the young clergyman's
visits to the Beaumont place, he did
believe it. It may be supposed that life
had very little value in his eyes when, a few
days later, he opened Bent Armitage's challenge.

He read the challenge with amazement,
and it was surely an amazing paper. It
was as full of specifications as an old-time
indictment; it charged him with calumniating
Bentley and Randolph Armitage
at divers times and in sundry places; in
short, it contained the whole substance
of Mrs. Chester's malicious or crazy inventions.

“I wonder he did n't add, and for kicking
up a blamed fuss generally,” remarked
Wallace, to whom Frank handed the three
or four sheets of foolscap. “But I say, old
fellow, for a man who pretends to be peaceable,
you get into an awful number of
squabbles.”

“I know nothing about these things,”
said Frank. “He must be insane.”

“I 'll fight him myself,” offered Wallace,
who had lately been rejected by Jenny
Devine, and did not feel that life was worth
keeping.

“It is not your business,” replied Frank,
remembering the story about Gilyard, and
feeling far more acutely than Wallace that
existence was a burden.

“Well, what do you mean to do, with
your notions about duelling?” asked Wallace.

“I shall deny these ridiculous charges.
Then, if he persists in picking a quarrel
with me, — and I suppose that is his object,
— I shall defend myself.”

“You mean a rencontre?”

“I hate the word,” said Frank. “But
poor as life is, I have a right to defend it,
and I shall do so.”

“Of course, you might put him under
bonds to keep the peace,” suggested Wallace,
doubtfully.

“O, is it worth while?” groaned Frank,
almost wishing for a bullet in his brains.

“No,” said Wallace. “We gentlemen
don't do it. We gentlemen are like necessity;
we know no law. Law is for our
inferiors.”

“Or for our betters,” said Frank.