BOOK V. MARTIN COLBERT

  I

  ON THE FIRST day of June the Romney stage, more than an hour late, crossed Back Creek and stopped before the tollgate. A girl with a broad, flat, good-natured face came out to lift the rickety gate and collect the toll. The driver leaned down from his high seat to pass the time of day with her. This courtesy he never omitted, no matter how much he was behind in his schedule. While the driver was chatting, one of his five passengers jumped out at the rear end of the stage: a young man, well dressed and good-looking. He walked forward and interrupted.

  “I say, driver, isn’t that turn-off the road to the mill?”

  “Shorely is, sir.”

  “Then I’ll walk over from here. Take my trunk on to the post office, please, and leave it. My uncle will send for it.”

  “Your uncle?”

  “Yes; Mr. Colbert, at the mill.”

  “So that’s how it is; you’re a Colbert.” The driver shifted his tobacco to the other cheek. “Which on ’em is your paw?”

  “Jacob. I’m Martin Colbert.”

  “Is that so!” He looked the young man over with interest. “Ever been out here before?”

  “Yes, when I was a youngster. Good day, driver. Don’t forget to put my trunk off.” The young man saw no reason for tarrying; there was no one in sight but the toll-girl, noticeable only for her flat red face. Martin lifted his hat to her, however, and set off down the stony by-road before the stage started. The driver leaned over to say to the girl: “The miller won’t be none too tickled to see him, I reckon! Feller must ‘a’ got into some scrape agin, or he wouldn’t be comin’ out here, with a trunk, too! He’s a turrible wild one.”

  The stage rattled on toward the post office, where it was to change horses. The flat-faced girl turned and went slowly down the mill road after the stranger, peering to right and left; but he was already hidden from sight by the tall sassafras bushes which grew thick all along the rail fence.

  Young Colbert walked along carelessly, finding exercise agreeable after the jolting of the stage. Sometimes he hummed a tune, sometimes he chuckled and ducked his shoulders. He was amused to find himself actually on his way to the Mill House, one of the dreariest spots in all Virginia, he reckoned. “The joke’s on me,” his giggle seemed to say.

  Just now he was lucky to have any place to go where he would be comfortable and well fed, and rid of his creditors. He was a tall, well-enough built fellow, but there was something soft about the lines of his body. He carried himself loosely at the shoulders and thighs. His clothes were town clothes, but strolling along unobserved he behaved like a country boy. When he laughed at his present predicament, he hitched up his trousers by his gallowses where his waistcoat hung open. He was easily diverted; no fixed purpose lurked behind his chuckle, though there was sometimes a flash of slyness in his whisky-coloured eyes. He stopped to watch a mud-turtle waddle across the road, and rolled the old fellow over on his back to see him kick — then relented and turned him right side up. When he got near the mill, Martin buttoned his waistcoat, wiped the dust from his face, and straightened his shoulders. He did not stop at the mill, but went directly on to the house. Till met him at the front door with genuine cordiality, restrained by correctness.

  “The Mistress is waiting for you in the parlour, Mr. Martin. We expected you before this.”

  “Sorry, Till. The stage was late starting; had to wait for passengers from Martinsburg. All the folks well here?”

  “They’re all as usual, sir.” She opened the door into the parlour, where Mrs. Colbert was sitting near the fireplace, now closed by a painted fire-board. She smiled graciously and held out her hand. Martin hurried across the room, and gallantly kissed her on the cheek.

  She shook her finger at him. “You’ve kept me waiting for you a long while, Martin. You were certainly in no hurry to make me a visit. I first wrote you before Easter, and here we are coming into June.”

  “It’s been a right busy time on the place, Aunt Sapphy.” He was still standing beside her chair. She reached out and felt his palm. “I don’t find any calluses’.”

  He laughed gaily. “Oh, we have plenty of field-hands — too many!”

  Washington came in with the tea-tray and put it on the table beside the Mistress. The visitor drew up a chair and sat down opposite his aunt, crossing his legs and falling into an attitude of easy indolence which diverted her. She liked a dash of impudence in young men whom she considered attractive; and Martin, she was thinking, was the best favoured of the younger Colberts. Just then she happened to notice that his boots were very dusty.

  “Why, Martin, didn’t you ride your mare out?”

  “No, ma’am. I came on the stage and walked over from the tollgate.”

  “The stage? You must have been very uncomfortable. Why didn’t you ride Merrylegs, and send your box by the stage? It’s a pleasant ride.”

  “I sold Merrylegs this spring. Had a good offer and needed the money.”

  While he helped himself to sandwiches she studied his face.

  “Are you sure you sold her, Mart?” she asked shrewdly.

  He had not expected this question. He gave her a quick glance, and ducked his head with a grin which seemed to say: “You’ve caught me now!”

  “Well, anyhow, I parted with her, Aunt Sapphy.”

  “Cards, I’ll be bound!”

  “No, honour bright. It was a racing bet. I’m not much of a card man. But I lose my head at the races.” He looked at her frankly, holding out his teacup with an “If you please.” Easy, confidential, a trifle free in manner, as if she were not an old woman and an invalid. That was how she liked it. She told herself that Martin’s visit would be very refreshing. She almost believed she had urged him to come solely because she liked to have young people about.

  “No matter. We can let you have a mount. Henry keeps a good riding horse to go in to Winchester on business. He doesn’t like to be bothered with the carriage. I always preferred to go on horseback when I went to town for Sunday service.”

  “You pretty nearly lived on horseback, didn’t you? Oh, down with us they still tell about how you used to take the fences.”

  “Yes, I liked riding, but I never gave myself over body and soul to horses, as the Bushwells appear to do.”

  “That’s right. They just live for the stables. The house and grounds would shock you now. People say they used to keep the place up as long as you went to visit there. But Chestnut Hill has never been the same since old Matchem died.”

  Till appeared at the door and said that Martin’s box had come.

  Mrs. Colbert beckoned her. “Call Nancy to take Mr. Martin up to his room and unpack his things for him. She keeps your uncle’s room at the mill, Martin, and she will do yours, and look after your laundry. Young men are none too orderly, I seem to remember. Now I will rest for an hour before supper.”

  Martin went up the wide staircase leading from the long hall. Upstairs he saw an open door, and a young mulatto girl standing at attention outside.

  “And are you Nancy? Good evening, Nancy. I hear you are going to take care of me.” He stood still and looked hard at her.

  A wave of pink went over her gold-coloured cheeks, and her eyes fell. “If I can please you, sir,” she said quietly, waiting for him to enter the chamber.

  “Oh, you do please me!” he laughed.

  Going into the room, Martin glanced about: large, airy, not too much furniture, canopy bed with fresh muslin curtains. He opened one of the front windows and looked out over the yard, the mill, the woods across the creek. Beyond the woods the blue, wavy slopes of the North Mountain lay against the sky. The upper porch ran along outside the room; he put one leg out through the open window. “Am I allowed to go on the veranda, girl? Very strict rules in this house, I’ve heard tell.”

  “Certainly, sir. There’s a door in the hall goes out to the upper porch,” she said quickly, correcting an implied reproach on the house.

  Martin drew in his foot. “That will be more convenient. And now you can unpack my trunk.”

  “It’s locked, sir.”

  “Lordy, I forgot!” His sole-leather trunk had been placed on a chair. He unlocked it and threw back the lid. “There. Now you put my clothes where you think they ought to go, and I’ll watch you, so I’ll know where to find them.” He pulled off his coat and waistcoat, threw them on the bed, and sat down in the usual guest-chamber rocking-chair. Nancy took the discarded upper garments and hung them in the clothes-press. She opened the bureau drawers and stood timidly hesitating before the trunk.

  “Would you like your collars an’ neckcloths kept in the upper drawer, sir?”

  He was just lighting a cigar. “Follow your own notion. We have a slut of a housekeeper at home. I never know where to find anything.”

  She went noiselessly to work, moving back and forth between the bureau and the press. Young Colbert sat with his feet on the low window sill, enjoying his cigar.

  “Does my aunt object to smoking?” he asked presently.

  “Oh, no, sir! She likes to have the gen’lemen smoke.”

  After putting away the shirts and nightshirts, Nancy lifted the top tray and stood perplexed by the confusion she found below.

  “If you don’t mind, sir, I’ll take the coats an’ pants downstairs direc’ly, an’ press ’em.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  The shoes and boots she found stuffed full of dirty socks and soiled underwear. She made a bundle of the rumpled linen and put it outside the door. She was embarrassed because the guest watched her so closely.

  “Anybody ever tell you you’re a damned pretty girl, Nancy?” she heard as she stooped over the trunk.

  “No, sir.”

  Martin would have done better to change his tone. But he did not see her face, and went on teasingly:

  “You tryin’ to make me believe none of these country jakes around here been makin’ up to you? You can’t fool me!”

  “There’s good, kind folks on Back Creek, Mr. Martin.”

  “You don’t say, honey!” Martin laughed, stretching his loose shoulders.

  Nancy didn’t like his laugh, not at all! She took up an armful of coats and trousers, snatched the pile of soiled linen outside the door, and vanished so quickly that when the young man turned from throwing his cigar end out of the window, he was amazed to find her gone.

  II

  MRS. COLBERT HAD Zack sent down to the mill to ask her husband to come up early before supper-time. When his wife told him that his nephew had come to visit them, he showed neither pleasure nor annoyance. Hospitality, in those days, was one of the decencies of life. Whoever came, friend or stranger, was made welcome and cared for according to his place in the world. Henry saw that his wife was wearing her velvet gown, so he unquestioningly changed his shirt and put on his black suit. When Martin came downstairs, his uncle met him in the spacious hall, gave him a hearty handshake, and told him he was glad to see him.

  Washington announced supper and wheeled the Mistress to her place at table. The miller noticed that a bottle of his best Madeira was on the sideboard. As soon as the two men were seated, Washington filled the wineglasses. Martin lifted his, saying:

  “To the lady of the house, Uncle Henry,” bowing to his aunt, who smiled graciously. His uncle also smiled.

  Supper was served at seven o’clock in summer, and throughout the hour Sampson’s twelve-year-old Katie, barefoot, in a stiffly starched red calico dress, walked round and round the table waving a long flybrush made of a peacock’s tail. Even in town houses the flybrush was part of the table service.

  Katie had seldom heard such animated conversation at supper. Mrs. Colbert had reserved all her inquiries about Loudoun County families until her husband should be present. She wished Martin to make a good impression. He was full of gossip and told a story well. He complimented his uncle on his wine, and drank it liberally. The abstemious miller drank two glasses and left the third standing full. His wife, who always had a little wine with her supper, signalled Washington to bring on another bottle.

  Martin’s stories were never quite indecent, and always characteristic of old Loudoun County neighbours. When he was talking about Captain Bushwell’s fine horses, he happened to say: “Fact is, his trainers say nowadays Bushwell sleeps in the stables.” Suddenly remembering that the miller was said to sleep at the mill, he caught himself up with a giggle, blushed, and ducked his shoulders.

  Sapphira promptly covered his blush by asking him about Hal Gogarty, a dare-devil young Irishman whose stables rivalled Bushwell’s.

  “Gogarty? ‘Course you know about his runaway last summer?”

  “Runaway? I didn’t know he ever had one. It’s funny Sister Bushwell didn’t tell me about it when I saw her in town at Easter.”

  Gogarty, she knew, delighted in driving a coach-and-four over the roughest roads in the Blue Ridge Mountains. People down there took more interest in horses than in anything else.

  Martin said Gogarty had a party of visitors up from the Tidewater country. (Loudoun County people were thought to be a little jealous of the older and richer families in Tidewater Virginia.) Gogarty had wanted to give his guests a little excitement, since they made it plain that in staying with him they were tasting frontier life. He arranged to take them on a coaching party, and asked Martin to go along and sit on the box with him, whispering that he meant to make it a pretty rough trip. They set out with six passengers.

  “That drive,” Martin went on, “took in some of the worst roads in the mountains, Uncle Henry, and you know the best are none too good. Nobody can handle four horses better than Gogarty. We went like the wind. Up hill and down dale. The women laughed and screamed, but Hal never let on he heard them. He’d have come out all right, too, except for a funny thing. Just as we were coming down a long hill at a pretty good pace, a young deer jumped out of the bushes right in front of the horses. Of course they reared and shied. Hal kept his head, nothing got tangled. But the right front wheel smashed on a big rock beside the road. He couldn’t stop the horses on the minute, so we bumped along on a dished wheel till the spokes flew out and we turned over. Then the horses went plumb crazy. Hal held on to the lines and sawed the bits, while I got forward and cut the traces. I thought I’d be kicked to death, and I did get a bad shin plaster. Our passengers were pretty well bumped up, but nobody was much hurt. One girl got her nose broken; she was a pretty girl, too. I was mighty sorry; so was Hal. It was that damn-fool deer made all the mischief. Who ever heard of a deer acting so?” Martin looked from his uncle to his aunt.

  “Certainly, no one,” his aunt replied with a twinkle. “It must have been got up on Hal’s account. Those folks from the Tidewater do hold their heads high, though I’ve never seen just why they feel called upon.”

  The miller had laughed at the story, but he looked at his wife, not his nephew. Martin’s laugh showed an upper front tooth of a bluish cast; it was set on a wooden pivot and did not fit his gum snugly. There was a story about this tooth, and the miller did not like to be reminded of it.

  Martin, on his way to and from the hunts over in Clarke County, had found a pretty, homespun girl in the Blue Ridge. She used to meet him in the woods, and, as the mountain folk put it, “he fooled her.” Her two brothers lay for him in the thickets along the road to give him a horsewhipping. When they jumped out from cover and caught his mare by the bit, he saw he was in for it.

  “You’re in the right, boys,” he said amiably, “but no whip. Come at me with your fists, an’ I’ll do the best I can, one against two. That’s fair enough.”

  They took him at his word, and did him in completely. They put their mark on him by knocking out one of his white teeth. (White teeth were not common in that tobacco-chewing country.) The brothers left him unconscious beside the road, but they let his horse go home to give the alarm.

  Everyone in the Blue Ridge country and in Winchester knew the story of Martin’s blue tooth. Many of them agreed with Sapphira: that Martin deserved what he got, but that spirited young men were wild and always would be.

  Sampson’s Katie, walking round and round the supper table with her flybrush, wondered what had come over her folks. “Jist a-laffin’ an’ a-laffin’.” She was so delighted, so distracted, that more than once she let her peacock feathers dip on Miss Sapphy’s high headdress. Even the Master laughed at the stories about his old neighbours; a deep laugh from the belly up, it did a body good to hear it. The Mistress’s laugh was always pleasant (when she was not laughing scornfully, as a form of reprimand): tinkling, ladylike, but with something cordially appreciative, like the occasional flash in her eyes.

  Martin’s laugh was just on the edge of being vulgar — rather loose, caught-in-the-act as it were. Old Washington, standing behind his mistress’s chair, reflected that this was a pretty figger of a young man, but he wasn’t a full-growed gen’leman yet.

  Katie, excited as she was by the talk, had even keener joys in anticipation. Her eyes gloated over the good things Mr. Washington carried in to the table. She knew she would get a taste of them, though Bluebell always had the best of what went back to the kitchen. Lizzie had promised to make ice cream enough for everybody. Tap had brought squares and chunks of ice in a wheelbarrow up from the icehouse, — a dark, sawdust filled cave under one wing of the mill. Since six o’clock old Jeff had been seated behind the laundry cabin, turning the big freezer. In winter, whenever there was a snowfall, Lizzie made “snow-cream” for the Mistress — beating the fresh, clean snow into a bowl of thick cream well flavoured with sugar and brandy. But she made ice cream only on special occasions.

  The family sat so long at table that the after-supper visit in the parlour was brief that night. The Mistress admitted that she was tired.

  “I seldom spend such a lively day, Martin. I had a long wait for my guest, and a very pleasant tea and supper after he got here. I like having young people with me,” she added, patting his hand. She rang for Washington and told him to send Nancy upstairs to turn down Mr. Martin’s bed and see that he had everything to make him comfortable.