University of Virginia Library

25. CHAPTER XXV.
MEETINGS AND PARTINGS.

IT being too late to take the boat for Natchez, Vance proceeded
to the St. Charles. The gong for the five o'clock
ordinary had sounded. Entering the dining-hall, he was about
taking a seat, when he saw Miss Tremaine motioning to him
to occupy one vacant by her side.

“Truly an enterprising young lady!” But what could
he do?

“I 'm so glad to see you, Mr. Vance! I 've not forgotten
my promise. I called to-day on Mrs. Gentry, — found her in
the depths. Miss Murray has disappeared, — absconded, —
nobody knows where!”

“Indeed! After what you 've said of her singing, I 'm very
anxious to hear her. Do try to find her.”

“I 'll do what I can, Mr. Vance. There's a mystery. Of
that much I 'm persuaded from Mrs. Gentry's manner.”

“You mustn't mind Darling's notions on slavery.”

“O no, Mr. Vance, I shall turn her over to you for conversion.”

“Should you succeed in entrapping her, detain her till I
come back from Natchez, which will be before Sunday.”

“Be sure I 'll hold on to her.”

Mr. Tremaine came in, and began to talk politics. Vance
was sorry he had an engagement. The big clock of the hall
pointed to seven o'clock. He rose, bowed, and left.

“Why,” sighed Laura, “can't other gentlemen be as agreeable
as this Mr. Vance? He knows all about the latest fashions;
all about modes of fixing the hair; all about music and

dancing; all about the opera and the theatre; in short, what is
there the man does n't know?”

Papa was too absorbed in his terrapin soup to answer.

Let us follow Vance to the little house, scene of his brief,
fugitive days of delight. He stood under the old magnolia in
the tender moonlight. The gas was down in Clara's room.
She was at the piano, extemporizing some low and plaintive
variations on a melody by Moore, “When twilight dews are
falling soft.” Suddenly she stopped, and put up the gas.
There was a knock at her door. She opened it, and saw
Vance. They shook hands as if they were old friends.

“Where are the Bernards?”

“They are out promenading. I told them I was not afraid.”

“How have you passed your time, Miss Perdita?”

“O, I 've not been idle. Such choice books as you have
here! And then what a variety of music!”

“Have you studied any of the pieces?”

“Not many. That from Schubert.”

“Please play it for me.”

Tacitly accepting him as her teacher, she played it without
embarrassment. Vance checked her here and there, and suggested
a change. He uttered no other word of praise than to
say: “If you 'll practise six years longer four hours a day,
you 'll be a player.”

“I shall do it!” said Clara.

“Have you heard that famous Hallelujah Chorus, which the
Northern soldiers sing?”

“No, Mr. Vance.”

“No? Why, 't is in honor of John Brown (any relation of
Perdita?) You shall hear it.”

And he played the well-known air, now appropriated by the
hand-organs. Clara asked for a repetition, that she might
remember it.

“Sing me something,” he said.

Clara placed on the reading-frame the song of “Pestal.”

“Not that, Perdita! What possessed you to study that?”

“It suited my mood. Will you not hear it?”

“No!.... Yes, Perdita. Pardon my abruptness. But
that song was the first I ever heard from lips, O so fair and
dear to me!”

Clara put aside the music, and walked away toward the
window. Vance went up to her. He could see that she was
with difficulty curbing her tears.

O, if this man whose very presence inspired such confidence
and hope, — if it was sweeter to him to remember another than
to listen to her, — where in the wide world should she find, in
her desperate strait, a friend?

There was that in her attitude which reminded Vance of
Estelle. Some lemon-blossoms in her hair intensified the association
by their odors. For a moment it was as if he had
thrown off the burden of twenty years, and was living over, in
Clara's presence, that ambrosial hour of first love on the very
spot of its birth. “For O, she stood beside him like his
youth, — transformed for him the real to a dream, clothing
the palpable and the familiar with golden exhalations of the
dawn!” Be wary, Vance! One look, one tone amiss, and
there 'll be danger!

“Let us talk over your affairs,” he said. “To-morrow I
must leave for Natchez. Will you remain here till I come
back?”

Clara leaned out of the window a moment, as if to enjoy the
balmy evening, and then, calmly taking a seat, replied: “I
think 't will be best for me to lay my case before Miss Tremaine.
True, we parted in a pet, but she may not be implacable.
Yes, I will call on her. To you, a stranger, what return
for your kindness can I make?”

“This return, Perdita: let me be your friend. As soon as
't is discovered you 've no money, your position may become a
painful one. Let me supply you with funds. I 'm rich; and
my only heir is my country.”

“No, Mr. Vance! I 've no claim upon you, — none whatever.
What I want for the moment is a shelter; and Laura will give
me that, I 'm confident.”

Vance reflected a moment, and then, as if a plan had occurred
to him by which he could provide for her without her knowing
it, he replied: “We shall probably meet at the St. Charles.
You can easily send for me, should you require my help. Be
generous, and say you 'll notify me, should there be an hour of
need?”

“I 'll not fail to remember you in that event, Mr. Vance.”

“Honor bright?”

“Honor bright, Mr. Vance!”

“Consider, Perdita, you can always find a home in this
house. I shall give such directions to Mrs. Bernard as will
make your presence welcome.”

“Then I shall not feel utterly homeless. Thank you, Mr.
Vance!”

“And by the way, Perdita, do not let Miss Tremaine know
that we are acquainted.”

“I 'll heed your caution, Mr. Vance.”

“We shall meet again, my dear young lady. Of that I feel
assured.”

“I hope so, Mr. Vance.”

“And now farewell! I 'll tell Bernard to order a carriage
and attend to your baggage. Good by, Perdita!”

“Good by, Mr. Vance.”

Again they shook hands, and parted. Vance gave his
directions to the Bernards, and then strolled home to his hotel.
As he traversed the corridor leading to his room, he encountered
Kenrick. Their apartments were nearly opposite.

“I was not aware we were such near neighbors, Mr.
Kenrick.”

“To me also 't is a surprise, — and a pleasant one. Will
you walk in, Mr. Vance?”

“Yes, if 't is not past your hour for visitors.”

They went in, and Kenrick put up the gas. “I can't
offer you either cigars or whiskey; but you can ring for what
you want.”

“Is it possible you eschew alcohol and tobacco?”

“Yes,” replied Kenrick; “I once indulged in cigars. But
I found the use so offensive in others that I myself abandoned
it in disgust. One sits down to converse with a person
disguised as a gentleman, and suddenly a fume, as if from the
essence of old tobacco-pipes, mixed with odors from stale
brandy-bottles, poisons the innocent air, and almost knocks one
down. It 's a mystery that ladies endure the nuisance of such
breaths. My sensitive nose has made me an anti-rum, anti-tobacco
man.”

“But I fear me you 're a come-outer, Mr. Kenrick! Is it
conservative to abuse tobacco and whiskey? No wonder you
are unsound on the slavery question!”

“Come up to the confessional, Mr. Vance! Admit that
you 're as much of an antislavery man as I am.”

“More, Mr. Kenrick! If I were not, I might be quite as
imprudent as you. And then I should put a stop to my
usefulness.”

“You puzzle me, Mr. Vance.”

“Not as much as you 've puzzled me, my young friend.
Come here, and look in the mirror with me.”

Vance took him by the hand and led him to a full-length
looking-glass. There they stood looking at their reflections.

“What do you see?” asked Vance.

“Two rather personable fellows,” replied Kenrick, laughing;
“one of them ten or twelve years older than the other;
height of the two, about the same; figures very much alike,
inclining to slimness, but compact, erect, well-knit; hands and
feet small; heads, — I have no fault to find with the shape or
size of either; hair similar in color; eyes, — as near as I can
see, the two pairs resemble each other, and the crow's-feet at
the corners are the same in each; features, — nose, — brows
— I see why you 've brought me here, Mr. Vance! We are
enough alike to be brothers.”

“Can you explain the mystery?” asked Vance, “for I
can't. Can there be any family relationship? I had an aunt,
now deceased, who was married to a Louisianian. But his
name was not Kenrick.”

“What was it?”

“Arthur Maclain.”

“My father! Cousin, your hand! In order to inherit
property, my father, after his marriage, procured a change of
name. I can't tell you how pleasant to me it is to meet one
of my mother's relations.”

They had come together still more akin in spirit than in
blood. The night was all too short for the confidences they
now poured out to each other. Vance told his whole story,
pausing occasionally to calm down the excitement which the
narrative caused in his hearer.

When it was finished Kenrick said: “Cousin, count me
your ally in compassing your revenge. May God do so to me,
and more also, if I do not give this beastly Slave Power blood
for blood.”

“I can't help thinking, Charles,” said Vance, “that your
zeal has the purer origin. Mine sprang from a personal
experience of wrong; yours, from an abstract conception of
what is just; from those inner motives that point to righteousness
and God.”

“I almost wish sometimes,” replied Kenrick, “that I had
the spur of a great personal grievance to give body to my
wrath. And yet Slavery, when it lays its foul hand on the
least of these little ones ought to be felt by me also, and by all
men! But now — now — I shall not lack the sting of a
personal incentive. Your griefs, cousin, fall on my own heart,
and shall not find the soil altogether barren. This Ratcliff, —
I know him well. He has been more than once at our house.
A perfect type of the sort of beast born of slavery, —
moulded as in a matrix by slavery, — kept alive by slavery!
Take away slavery, and he would perish of inanition. He
would be, like the plesiosaur, a fossil monster, representative
of an extinct genus.”

“Cousin,” said Vance, “all you lack is to join the serpent
with the dove. Be content to bide your time. Here in
Louisiana lies your work. We must make the whole western
bank of the Mississippi free soil. Texas can be taken care of
in due time. But with a belt of freedom surrounding the
Cotton States, the doom of slavery is fixed. Give me to see
that day, and I shall be ready to say, `Now, Lord, dismiss thy
servant!'”

“I had intended to go North, and join the army of freedom,”
said Kenrick; “but what you say gives me pause.”

“We must not be seen together much,” resumed Vance.
“And now good night, or rather, good morning, for there 's a
glimmer in the east, premonitory of day. Ah, cousin, when I
hear the braggarts around us, gassing about Confederate courage
and Yankee cowardice, I can't help recalling an old couplet
I used to spout, when an actor, from a play by Southern, —