Throckmorton: A Novel

by Molly Elliot Seawell

  CHAPTER XIV.

  Throckmorton's year of leave was not up, yet he went immediately back tohis post. Everything that had happened to him in the last six months hadbeen so unreal, so out of all his previous experiences, that he neededthe every-day routine of duty to enable him to get his bearings. Hewanted to find out if he himself was changed. There was certainly achange in him, which everybody saw; but he was not a man to bequestioned. He went about his duty, quietly and self-containedly. He hadalways found a plenty to do, and wondered at the idleness that hesometimes saw around him; and now he was busier than ever. He was not aphilanthropic meddler, and was as loath to offer his advice unasked to asoldier as to an officer, but he earnestly desired, now more than ever,to be of help to his fellow-men, and Throckmorton's help was alwaysefficient because it never hurt the self-respect of those who receivedit. Certain of the non-commissioned officers at his post were competingfor a commission. To his surprise and gratification, he found themanxious to be instructed by him. So he turned schoolmaster, andpatiently and laboriously, night after night, gave them the advantage ofall he knew. Only one got the commission, but all were qualified whenThrockmorton got through with them. He was not any less alert andattentive than before, but in all his waking moments, when his mind wasnot imperatively drawn to other things, he was thinking over those sixmonths at Millenbeck--the hopes with which he went back; the strangenessof finding himself under the ban among his own people; the renewal ofthe link with Barn Elms, after thirty years' absence; his completeinfatuation with Jacqueline--and, out of it all, rose Judith's face. Howhard had been her lot; and how strange it was that he had madeconfidences to her, and that, of all the women he had ever known, shewas the only one of whose sympathy he had ever felt the need! Heconsidered his somewhat barren life--his reserved habits--and sometimesthought Heaven was kind to Jacqueline in not giving her to him, for hecould not bend his nature to any woman's--the woman must conform to him;and it was not in Jacqueline to be anything but what Nature had madeher.

  Jack was off at the university, and Millenbeck was shut up, silent anddeserted.

  Freke was gone. He disappeared apparently from the face of the earth. Hewanted neither to see nor hear anything of anybody connected withJacqueline. Throckmorton, on the contrary, clung to the ties at BarnElms.

  But to Judith Temple life had become infinitely sadder and poorer thanever before. She had caught one glimpse of paradise, and that hadchanged the whole face of life for her, and she seemed all at once to bevery much alone. But in one sense she was less alone than ever before.Mrs. Temple's will and courage and purpose seemed gone. She changedstrangely after Jacqueline's death. She, who had once silently resentedthe slightest forgetfulness of Beverley, now seemed to feel acutely thatthe living should not be sacrificed to the dead. She began to urgeJudith to go from home; to take off her mourning at the end of a year.Judith gently protested. The truth was that, although Mrs. Temple had atlast come out of that strange forgetfulness of Jacqueline and mourned asother mothers do, Jacqueline took nothing out of her life. With Judithit was as if her child had been taken. She could not pass Jacqueline'sempty room without remembering how she would waylay her, and draw her into sit by the fire and dream and romance. She could not sew or read ordo anything without feeling the loss of the childish companionship. Evenwhen she laid aside her seriousness for her child and romped and playedwith the boy, he was apt to say, "I wish Jacky would come back and playwith me again."

  At intervals Mrs. Temple received kind and sympathetic letters fromThrockmorton, and replied to them with letters worded with her ownsimple eloquence. In Throckmorton's letters he spoke of Jacquelinerather as if she had been his child than his promised wife. Among themall Jacqueline's memory was that of a child. Throckmorton sent kindmessages to Judith; and Mrs. Temple, when she wrote, conveyed short butexpressive replies from Judith.

  Two years had passed. So quiet and uneventful had been their lives,that Judith would have had difficulty in persuading herself that theyears were slipping by, but for little Beverley, now a handsome,sturdy urchin, whose long, fair hair had been cut off, and who emergedfrom dainty white frocks into kilts. The grandfather and grandmotherdaily more adored the child. Judith thought sometimes they were fastforgetting Jacqueline. The grass was quite green over Jacqueline by thistime, and the head-stone had lost its perfect whiteness. But to Judiththere was no forgetting. She had loved the child as if she had been herown, and she loved Throckmorton still. Jack wrote to her at intervals,his letters always containing some allusion to Jacqueline. Judiththought sometimes, with wonder, that Fate should not in the firstinstance have united those two young creatures, boy and girl.

  One night, two winters after Jacqueline had gone away, Judith, whoevery night before going to bed went to her window, and, drawing thecurtain, looked long toward Millenbeck, saw a bright light shining fromthe hall-door and two of the lower windows of the house. Every night, asshe gazed at it, she had seen it black and tenantless, and utterlydeserted; but, now--

  "Throckmorton has come!" she said to herself.

  Next morning he came over early to see them. He found General Temple thesame General Temple--courteous and verbose. His health being very good,he was an Episcopalian for the time being; but, whenever the goutappeared, he had his old way of lapsing into Presbyterianism. Mrs.Temple was the same, and yet not the same. Throckmorton saw a change inher. She, the most unyielding of women, had become easy and indulgent.Simon Peter and Delilah came in to speak to him, and a wifely rebuke,administered in the pantry, was distinctly audible to Throckmorton:

  "Huccome you ain' taken off dat ole coat, nigger, an' put on dat onemistis give you, fur ter speak ter Marse George Throckmorton? He su't'nywill think we all's po', ef you keep on dat er way."

  "We _is_ po', but we is first quality, 'oman!"

  Judith, who had great self-command, could control her eyes, her voice,her manner; but happiness, the outlaw, at seeing Throckmorton again,brought the red blood surging to her cheeks. Throckmorton, who wasexactly like his old self, was surprised and inwardly agitated at it.They spoke some tender words of Jacqueline, all of them sitting togetherin the old-fashioned drawing-room. Her little chair was in its oldplace, but Judith sat in it; and even the ragged footstool on whichJacqueline had toasted her little feet was near it. Throckmorton noticedall these things with tenderness in his dark eyes. He was a littlegrayer than before, but he was the same erect, soldierly figure; he hadthe same simple but commanding dignity.

  He walked home in a curious state of emotion. In those two years he hadnot ceased thinking deeply over that short episode, so full of happinessand pain--the happiness a little unreal, and vexed with many pangs; thepain very real, but with strange suggestions that, after all, thehappiness held more possibilities of wretchedness. He could think, forJacqueline's sake, how much better off she was, lying so peacefully inthe old grave-yard, than if she had lived, so weak, so captivating, sounthinking. What would life have been to her? And so, at forty-six,after having experienced more than most men, he began the analysis ofhis own emotions, and realized that all he had known of love wasperilously like a mirage. He had entered into a fool's paradise, but heknew that he of all men could least be satisfied there. His reason, hisintellect, always overmastered him in the end; and what was there inthis bewitching child to satisfy either? Jacqueline, young, was a dream;Jacqueline, old, was a fantasm. All this had come to him soon afterJacqueline's death, in that period of self-searching that followed. But,when he had got thus far, which was some time before his return toMillenbeck, a great change came upon him. He began to feel a sort ofacute disappointment. He had loved and suffered much for that which hefelt would not have made him happy had he gained it. All that love,grief, passion, had been vain; here he checked himself; the memory ofhis girl-wife was sacred from even his own questionings; and so was thatlater love, but the necessity for checking himself told volumes. Andthen, by slow degrees, the image of Judith Temple had stolen upon him.It was very gradual, it was many mont
hs in coming, but, when at last itdawned upon him, it was a sort of glorious surprise. How stupid, howblind had he been! Where were his doubts and questionings? Could anybodydoubt Judith Temple's sympathy and understanding? He remembered thequaint words of the Jewish king, "The heart of her husband doth safelytrust." He had seen enough of the way these weaker women had striven tobend him, but Judith had the beautiful charm of bending herself. Shecould be whatever the man she loved desired her to be. Throckmorton atonce felt that any man married to Judith Temple would indeed be free,and how sweet would it be to see that proud spirit that yielded butseldom bend to his will! That homage, so rare and precious, was whatwomen of her type paid to the master-passion. Most women that he hadever seen yielded to the predominant influence; but women like JudithTemple bent their heads and smiled and played at humility, but yieldednot one inch of their soul's standing-ground until the moment came.Throckmorton, who possessed true masculine courage, admired this kind offeminine bravery. He felt that to conquer such a woman would be likecapturing a Roman standard. And how utterly those proud womensurrendered when they did surrender! He could fancy Judith's bravepretenses melting away; how charming would be her sweet inexperience!How quickly she would persuade herself that there was nothing so wise,true, just as love! Throckmorton, although he had silenced hisdiscernment, had never strangled it, and he began to study and knowJudith. But there was no suspicion in his mind that she cared anythingfor him; and, when he made up his mind to return to Millenbeck and seeher again, he was anything but sanguine. He felt that if he failed itwould make infinitely more difference to him than anything that had everhappened to him in life before. He was absolutely afraid, and fear, heknew, when it came to men like him, meant something overmastering.Throckmorton sighed when he realized his want of courage. He knew itwould be forthcoming in an emergency; he had felt that in battle, wherehis first tremors never made him doubt for an instant that when the timecame to use his courage it would be there; but it was a new thing tofear his fate at the hands of a woman. But the woman had become muchmore to him than any other woman had ever been; she was so much to himthat it rather appalled him.

  Nevertheless, anxieties or no anxieties, he went about winning Judithwith the same coolness and deliberation he did everything else. He hadtwo months' leave, and he determined to spend it all at Millenbeck.Judith might break his heart, but she should not defraud him of thosemonths in her society that he had promised himself for a good whilebefore. For a long time past in his pleasant quarters at his post, inhis regular round of duty, in the part he took in social life, he hadcomforted himself with the idea that, whether he was destined to thisgreater happiness or not, he would at least see this woman of all women;he would hear her soft voice, listen to her talk, seasoned with adainty, womanly wit. Nobody should deprive him of that. He began toremember with a frown Jack's turpitude about Judith's letters. As soonas Jack found out that his father wanted to see those friendly, kindlyletters, he made great ado about showing them, playing the major verymuch as he would a peculiarly game and warlike salmon. The cast inThrockmorton's eye was apt to come out so savagely at these times thathe was, as Jack said, positively cross-eyed. But after Jack had workedhim up into a silent rage, he would then produce the letters.Throckmorton had always taken women's letters as highly indicative, andJudith's were so refined, so sparkling in spite of the narrow round inwhich she lived, that Throckmorton's countenance immediately cleared andthe cast disappeared from his eye as soon as he had got hold of one ofthese cherished epistles, all of which had been by no means lost onJack.

  Throckmorton went and came between Barn Elms and Millenbeck in the mostnatural and neighborly way in the world. He brought books over toJudith, and often read aloud at Barn Elms in the evenings. GeneralTemple, still hard at work on the History of Temple's Brigade, which nowapproached its seventh volume, found Throckmorton a mine of information.A soldier from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot,Throckmorton had a queer diffidence about speaking of his profession, inmarked contrast to General Temple, who declaimed the science of war withsame easy confidence with which Edmund Morford explained the inscrutablemysteries of religion. As Throckmorton watched General Temple stalkingup and down the quaint old drawing-room, haranguing and expounding, theidea that this man had been intrusted with the fate of battle perfectlystaggered him. His sense of humor was keen, and, between hisprofessional horror of General Temple's methods and the utter absurdityof the whole thing, he would be convulsed with silent laughter. Judith,the picture of demureness, would give him a glance that would almostcreate an explosion. With much simplicity General Temple would add:

  "At that time, my dear Throckmorton, I was unfortunately separated frommy command. I conceive it to be the duty of the commander of troops toset them an example of personal courage, and so I occupied a slightlyexposed position."

  Throckmorton did not doubt it in the least. The general's incapacity wasonly exceeded by his courage.

  Throckmorton's native modesty, as well as the fact that he knew a greatdeal about the war and his profession, kept him comparatively silent;but finding that, when he talked with General Temple about battles andcampaigns, Judith's face gradually grew scarlet with suppressedexcitement, and that like most women she was easily carried away by therecitals of adventure, he artfully took up the thread of conversationand surprised himself by his own eloquence. It was not like the almostforgotten Freke's polished and charming periods, but it was none theless eloquent for being rather brief and pointed; and once or twicewhen Judith paid him some little compliment, her speaking eyes conveyingmore meaning than her words, Throckmorton would be seized with a fit ofbashfulness, and clapping his rusty but still cherished blue cap on hishead would go home and never say "war" for a week.

  Their lives were so quiet, so shut out from even the small world of aprovincial neighborhood, that nothing was known or talked of about them.Judith, who was capable of revenge, felt a deep resentment against thecounty people. She, who before Jacqueline's death had been all sweetnessand affability, showed a kind of haughtiness to the people who were wellenough disposed to make amends to the Barn Elms family. Throckmortonnoticed, when she went out of church behind General and Mrs. Temple,holding her boy by the hand, that the father and mother stopped andtalked as neighbors in the country do, but Judith made straight for therickety carriage which Simon Peter still drove.

  The two months were nearly over. Throckmorton and Judith had seen muchof each other, but there had been no exchange of intimate thoughtsbetween them but once. This was one afternoon when they were alone atBarn Elms, that Throckmorton talked openly of Jacqueline.

  "It is not treason to her, poor child," he said, "but--it was--amistake. I truly loved her. I had thought that love was impossible to meafter the loss I suffered so many years ago. But it was a madness; and,however delicious the madness of youth may be, when a man has reached mytime of life he knows it to be madness. I have never dared to think whatwould the ultimate end have been had she lived and married me. Thecertainty one has of happiness is the life of love; but that certainty Inever had. I never knew whether Jacqueline's love would be enough forme, even had it been mine; and I could never shake off a horrible fearthat mine would not be enough for her."

  Judith, who had listened silently to this, suddenly leaned forward andgazed at him involuntarily. The thought in her mind was, that noordinary woman would be enough for Throckmorton. He could give much, buthe would ask for much. Like all men of commanding sense and character,he was exacting.

  Throckmorton could not follow her thought--he only saw her deep andexpressive eyes, the pensive droop of her mouth, all the refined beautyof her face. He began to think how she would blossom out under theinfluence of happiness; what a happy, merry, delightful creature shewould be if she loved; and something in his fixed and ardent gaze madeJudith draw back, and brought the slight flush to her face, that meantmuch for her. She trembled a little, and Throckmorton saw it. When hereturned to Millenbeck, he sat up half the night smoking str
ongcigars--the prosaic way in which his agitations always worked themselvesoff--lost in a delicious reverie of what might be. Here was a woman whoappealed to his pride as much as to his love. Throckmorton, who waspractical as well as romantic, thought it a very good thing for a man tomarry a woman he could be proud of. Yet, when the last embers of thelibrary fire had died out, and the cigars had given out too, and hebegan to be chill and stiff, sitting in his great arm-chair, he feltdiscouraged, and said almost out aloud, "I don't believe she will marryme."

  It grew toward the last days of Throckmorton's stay. He had gone to butfew places in the county. The temper of the people toward him hadchanged since he first came there; every year had brought its crop oftolerance, but it had ceased to be of importance to him. Indeed, but onething mattered to him then--whether Judith would marry him. But hedeliberately put off the decisive moment until the very afternoon beforehe was to leave. He had in vain tried to find out whether the friendlyregret at his going that she expressed concealed a deeper feeling, butJudith was too clever for him. She had gone through the whole range offeeling since she first knew him, and now was better armed than she hadever been before.

  He walked over to Barn Elms on that last afternoon, feeling very muchas he had done years before, when, after long waiting, with the thunderof cannon in his ears and the smoke of musketry before his eyes, theorder had come for him to move forward. It was well enough to think andplan before--but now, it was time to act; and, just as in that time ofbattle, he became cool and confident as soon as he was brought face toface with danger.

  He timed his visit just when he knew Judith would be taking herafternoon walk with little Beverley. Sure enough, she was out. He stayeda little while with General and Mrs. Temple. When he rose to go, hesaid, quite boldly, to Mrs. Temple:

  "I am going to find Judith."

  He had never called her by her name before, and did it unconsciously.Mrs. Temple, though, who was acute as most women are about these things,looked at him steadily. Throckmorton colored a little, but his eye hadnever drooped before any woman's, not even Mrs. Temple's. But she, aftera little pause, laid her hand on his shoulder--he was not a tall man,like General Temple, and she could easily reach it--and said: "I hopeyou--will find Judith, George Throckmorton."

  He went forth and struck out toward the belt of fragrant pines, where heknew Judith oftenest walked. It was spring again--April, with thedelicious smell of the newly plowed earth in the air, and the faintperfume of the coming leaves--the putting-forth time. The entrancingstillness that all people born and nurtured in the country love so muchwas upon the soul of Nature. The dreamy and solemn murmur of the pinesseemed only to make the greater silence obvious. In a little while hesaw Judith's graceful figure coming his way. She wore a pale-gray gown,and a large black hat shaded her face. In her hand she carried a branchof the pale-pink dogwood, that does not grow by open roads andfarm-fields, but in the depths of the woods. Beverley, with anotherbranch of dogwood across his shoulder, like a gun, marched sturdilyahead of her. Throckmorton, who had carefully guarded his behavior sincehe had been home, was quite reckless now. He meant to risk it, and sinceall depended on the cast of a die, prudence was superfluous. He tookJudith's hand and held it until he saw the red blood steal into herface. He looked at her so, that she could not lift her eyes from theground. Beverley, however, claimed his rights. He and Throckmorton weregreat friends.

  "How you _is_?" he asked, offering his chubby hand and looking upfearlessly into Throckmorton's face. The child had lost his mother'sshy, appealing glance. He was a little man, instead of a baby, as heoften told her proudly. "I'm going to be a soldier, I am," was his nextremark, "and I'm going to be a brave soldier."

  "That's right," said Throckmorton, "and, as I'm a soldier, too, perhapsI'll help you along."

  "Will you make me a soldier?" asked Beverley, pushing his cap back offhis curly head.

  "Yes, if you will go immediately home--all by yourself. You see--itisn't far--just along the path and through the gap, to the orchard, andthen to the house."

  Beverley looked meditatively at the distance. It seemed a perilous wayfor a six-year old. Judith stood, crimson and helpless. Throckmorton wasa masterful man, and, when he took things in his own hands, he was aptto have his own way. She knew at once what he meant, and it gave her akind of shock--she seemed about to be transported to another world. Thissending away of her child was what nobody had ever done before.Throckmorton, smiling, said to the boy, "A soldier shouldn't be afraid."

  "I'm not afraid of nothin'," answered Beverley, stoutly. Judith stoopedtoward him, and the child threw his arms about her and kissed her--akiss she passionately returned. She felt it to be her farewell to him asthe first object of her existence. She knew that he was to besupplanted. The boy trotted off, not looking behind once.

  "See how brave he is, for a little fellow," she said, still blushing.

  "Yes, very brave. But you are a woman of great courage. You gave some ofit to that boy."

  Throckmorton was no laggard in love. He lost not a moment. He, who wasby nature reticent, became, under the influence of the master-passion,bold and ready of speech. Judith, who was by nature of a sweet andhumorous talkativeness, became eloquently silent--her heart seemed tomelt into an ineffable softness and yielding. She said one thing,though, as they turned to walk home through the delicious purpletwilight:

  "I think men can love more than once; but I don't think women can lovebut once."

  Throckmorton perfectly understood her.

  When they walked together across the lawn, under the gnarled locusts andpoplars, they saw General and Mrs. Temple standing on the steps of theold house, with little Beverley between them. Throckmorton watchedJudith jealously to see if there was anything like shame or apology inher look; but she, who could not look him in the face when they werealone in their secret paradise, now held her head up proudly. Nobodycould have told, from Throckmorton's quiet self-possession, thatanything unusual had occurred; but never before had he known anythinglike the deep delight that now enthralled him.

  THE END.