第5章
"Mr.Drummond, the vice-president of the company," interposed Courtland cheerfully, "was engaged in furnishing to us the sinews of war."Major Reed bowed a little more formally."Most of us heah, sir, were in the wah some time or other, and if you gentlemen will honah me by joining in a social glass at the hotel across the way, I'll introduce you to Captain Prendergast, who left a leg at Fair Oaks."Drummond would have declined, but a significant pressure on his arm from Courtland changed his determination.He followed them to the hotel and into the presence of the one-legged warrior (who turned out to be the landlord and barkeeper), to whom Courtland was hilariously introduced by Major Reed as "the man, sir, who had pounded my division for three hours at Stony Creek!"Major Reed's house was but a few minutes' walk down the dusty lane, and was presently heralded by the baying of three or four foxhounds and foreshadowed by a dilapidated condition of picket-fence and stuccoed gate front.Beyond it stretched the wooden Doric columns of the usual Southern mansion, dimly seen through the broad leaves of the horse-chestnut-trees that shaded it.There were the usual listless black shadows haunting the veranda and outer offices--former slaves and still attached house-servants, arrested like lizards in breathless attitudes at the approach of strange footsteps, and still holding the brush, broom, duster, or home implement they had been lazily using, in their fixed hands.From the doorway of the detached kitchen, connected by a gallery to the wing of the mansion, "Aunt Martha," the cook, gazed also, with a saucepan clasped to her bosom, and her revolving hand with the scrubbing cloth in it apparently stopped on a dead centre.
Drummond, whose gorge had risen at these evidences of hopeless incapacity and utter shiftlessness, was not relieved by the presence of Mrs.Reed--a soured, disappointed woman of forty, who still carried in her small dark eyes and thin handsome lips something of the bitterness and antagonism of the typical "Southern rights" woman; nor of her two daughters, Octavia and Augusta, whose languid atrabiliousness seemed a part of the mourning they still wore.The optimistic gallantry and good fellowship of the major appeared the more remarkable by contrast with his cypress-shadowed family and their venomous possibilities.Perhaps there might have been a light vein of Southern insincerity in his good humor.
"Paw," said Miss Octavia, with gloomy confidence to Courtland, but with a pretty curl of the hereditary lip, "is about the only 'reconstructed' one of the entire family.We don't make 'em much about yer.But I'd advise yo' friend, Mr.Drummond, if he's coming here carpet-bagging, not to trust too much to paw's 'reconstruction.'
It won't wash." But when Courtland hastened to assure her that Drummond was not a "carpet-bagger," was not only free from any of the political intrigue implied under that baleful title, but was a wealthy Northern capitalist simply seeking investment, the young lady was scarcely more hopeful."I suppose he reckons to pay paw for those niggers yo' stole?" she suggested with gloomy sarcasm.
"No," said Courtland, smiling; "but what if he reckoned to pay those niggers for working for your father and him?""If paw is going into trading business with him; if Major Reed--a So'th'n gentleman--is going to keep shop, he ain't such a fool as to believe niggers will work when they ain't obliged to.THAT'Sbeen tried over at Mirandy Dows's, not five miles from here, and the niggers are half the time hangin' round here takin' holiday.
She put up new quarters for 'em, and tried to make 'em eat together at a long table like those low-down folks up North, and did away with their cabins and their melon patches, and allowed it would get 'em out of lying round too much, and wanted 'em to work over-time and get mo' pay.And the result was that she and her niece, and a lot of poor whites, Irish and Scotch, that she had to pick up ''long the river,' do all the work.And her niece Sally was mo'
than half Union woman during the wah, and up to all No'th'n tricks and dodges, and swearin' by them; and yet, for all that--the thing won't work.""But isn't that partly the reason? Isn't her failure a great deal due to this lack of sympathy from her neighbors? Discontent is easily sown, and the negro is still weighted down by superstition;the Fifteenth Amendment did not quite knock off ALL his chains.""Yes, but that is nothing to HER.For if there ever was a person in this world who reckoned she was just born to manage everything and everybody, it is Sally Dows!""Sally Dows!" repeated Courtland, with a slight start.
"Yes, Sally Dows, of Pineville."
"You say she was half Union, but did she have any relations or--or--friends--in the war--on your side? Any--who--were killed in battle?""They were all killed, I reckon," returned Miss Reed darkly.
"There was her cousin, Jule Jeffcourt, shot in the cemetery with her beau, who, they say, was Sally's too; there were Chet Brooks and Joyce Masterton, who were both gone on her and both killed too;and there was old Captain Dows himself, who never lifted his head again after Richmond was taken, and drank himself to death.It wasn't considered healthy to be Miss Sally's relations in those times, or to be even wantin' to be one."Colonel Courtland did not reply.The face of the dead young officer coming towards him out of the blue smoke rose as vividly as on that memorable day.The picture and letter he had taken from the dead man's breast, which he had retained ever since; the romantic and fruitless quest he had made for the fair original in after days; and the strange and fateful interest in her which had grown up in his heart since then, he now knew had only been lulled to sleep in the busy preoccupation of the last six months, for it all came back to him with redoubled force.His present mission and its practical object, his honest zeal in its pursuit, and the cautious skill and experience he had brought to it, all seemed to be suddenly displaced by this romantic and unreal fantasy.Oddly enough it appeared now to be the only reality in his life, the rest was an incoherent, purposeless dream.
"Is--is--Miss Sally married?" he asked, collecting himself with an effort.
"Married? Yes, to that farm of her aunt's! I reckon that's the only thing she cares for."Courtland looked up, recovering his usual cheerful calm."Well, Ithink that after luncheon I'll pay my respects to her family.From what you have just told me the farm is certainly an experiment worth seeing.I suppose your father will have no objection to give me a letter to Miss Dows?"