The Westovers

Chapter I

' Born at Lady's-Meade, Parish of Evelynton — County of Werewocomico — State of Virginia — Confederate States of America ' — (pen flourishes here) — ' In the Year of our Lord 1 86 1 — On the Twenty-first Day of July — Date ofthe Glorious Confederate Victory of Manassas — Virginia Gaylord — First Daughter of Thomas Meade Westover — and Mary Carey — His Wife.' This was the latest entry in the Westover family Bible, which recounted with quaint precision, on its title page, that the chief of the Westovers in America was, at a breath, burgess, Knight of the Golden Horse-Shoe, shipowner in the Bermudas, planter on Turkey Island, and last, though not least, descend ant of a worthy gentleman of Norfolk, England, younger son of a peer of the Realm. The question might be asked — How did Virginia Gaylord, or Gay as she was called, justify this pedigree which conferred on her the luxuries of a pretty crest for her notepaper, a sharp tongue, said to be the ' Westovers' privilege,' and features re sembling those of her remote kinswoman, Evelyn Byrd, whose harpsichord stood in one of the corners of the front hall, behind the family Bible ?

The answer to such a question, however, must vary with the character of the judges. A ' She reads too much po'try and that sort of thing,' was the stricture passed upon this young woman, now grown up, by the Reverend Philip Hoggard, present rector of Evelynton; and, for his relief, he spelt these objections (mentally, of course) in capitals, rubrically emblazoned; notwithstanding these and other faults with which the Reverend Philip taxed this daring slip of womanhood, he very much wished to marry her. ' Gay— she is a chip of the old block ; her father over and over again, all Westover,' Cousin Rosalie Brodnax said one morning over the breakfast-table at Fleur-de-Hundred. 'She'll never get a husband. Why, the men are all afraid of her ! ' ' Make an exception or two, if you please, mother,' came the retort of Hal, with whom the girl was known to be something of a favourite. ' Well, I must say what I think.

If Gay were more of a fool, or if, at least, she would let the men think she was, she might have her pick of a husband.' Mrs Brodnax, letting loose this speech, intended to convey a thrust at husband, sons, anyone who would take it; but there was one son who would not, it being a principle of his never to let his mother get ahead of him. ' Then you consider a husband the brevet of inferiority ; upon my honour, a hit at you, father, but I suppose you can console yourself with the reflection that mamma cannot aim at you without cutting herself as well — she sends her arrows sharpened at both ends.' ' Young men are not what they were in my day, Hal,' was Mr Brodnax's grave comment behind his newspaper. 'You could not find the girl too saucy for the youngsters of my generation. I wish I had the fortune I put into horses that galloped across the country after your mother before she accepted the name of Brodnax.' This information concerning his father's wooing, often re peated in the course of a lifetime, excited no surprise whatever in Phil, the elder son, who took everything exactly as he found it; but it set Hal, the younger, to wondering how anything on the face of the earth could ever have roused his father out of his usual slothful self-absorption.

Gay's father and mother belonged to a time when family names succeeded each other, like those of the kings of a dynasty ; when bed-linen and ball dresses descended to great grandchildren, and they stood a little in awe, perhaps, of their daughter, as the period passing does, in presence of the Renaissance, for she had a crotchet in her head which those who smiled upon it called an Ideal, but which disturbed her serenity and caused her to clash with that gifted kinsman, Harold Brodnax, who was also an exasperating mingling of modernity and old-fashioned sentiment. He was awaiting Gay, now, on the verandah, a book in his hand, but not too much engrossed with it to note her delay in answering his summons. The splendour of September was in the gold thread-work that spread its tissue over the bare floor of the front hall ; it made the artificial eyes in the fox-head to twinkle maliciously upon the wall ; it polished the mahogany concave of the colonel's chair, sent a solemn blush to the face of the steeple clock, and finally illumined Gay's own figure, when she appeared on the landing above, and began slowly to descend the stair.

At the foot she paused and rested her hand for a moment thoughtfully on the wooden artichoke that sur mounted the pillar. A muslin gown, of her own making, showed pleasantly the upward swing of her figure, and the brown waist-ribbon outlined a wholesome, plastic form. Her face erred, perhaps, on the side of length, but at the corners her lips took rising curves. Falling toward the right ear was a mole that seemed to darken what was already a dark cheek, and she had a girlish sensitiveness concerning her profile. ' I must give my friends my whole attention,' she often said laughingly, ' and call my eyes to redeem my nose.' Yes, Gay's eyes quickly won attention from faultier features ; they were not large, but full, brown, sunny, except when with drawn within a veil of softness set floating by dreams.

They could be tamed to mildness by her heart, but their searching glance struck fire because so often preluding epigrammatic speech, as natural to her as swearing to the colonel, her father. Yet, surely, the transformation undergone by quick feel ing, through heredity, need not be censured, when it proceeds on the upward scale. Her chief charms were her voice, that leaned lovingly on certain syllables as if she did not wish to lose them, and her smile which, however, was given more rarely to her friends than her frown. Gay, pausing on the lowest step of the staircase, heard the afternoon stillness broken by the nervous flutter of leaves on the verandah, then, with a queer little smile, that made of her lips a problem, she hastened forward to meet her visitor.

Chapter II

As Gay set foot to porch, Hal snapped together the covers of a volume absorbing him during the interval of waiting, sprang to his toes, and made of the porch planks a couple of strides, boy-fashion, declaiming, as he sprang airily forward to meet his cousin, lines from ' Sordello.' ' Trash — nothing but trash, Gay, for all that Browning builds a cathedral with words. . . .' 'While you knock one down . . . with words?' The greeting thus interchanged seemed to take up con versation at the point where it had been dropped at the last time of meeting. ' I was going to propose an hour with Browning under the willow by the river ; but yonder comes Hoggard's buggy, full tilt, down the avenue. How would you like to fly from sewing societies and organ-funds — there lies the river, our means of escape, a last walk in the Devil's Dancing Bottom . . . will you?' Gay glanced up quickly, perhaps to flout this proposition ; but catching the spark in her companion's eye as he repeated, — 'Come, I won't have the smallest fraction of an opinion of your taste if you don't' — and seeing the Reverend Mr Hoggard's buggy at that moment round ing the box hedge, she found the temptation too great to be resisted, so, firing ' Yes ' from her eyes, she followed her cousin down the grassy walk leading to the little pier.

She was still breathless when she took her seat in the boat, which, under the impulsion of Hal's strokes, sped up the stream out of the reach of Philip Hoggard's eyes. This stream led between yellow sedgefields, on which a solitary pine, at intervals, circled its deep shadow. It was at the hour when the sun tosses his tawny mane so close to earth as to let his radiant tresses trail, for a few minutes, over the rich red fallows, the paler stubble fields, and the brownish water of the shallow river bottom. It was the perfect hour of a perfect summer day, when the light hallows all it touches, yielding preference to brown as the colour most expressive of majesty ; the group of firs w-hich gave taper symmetry to the north slope of Timber Creek flushed brokenly to Pompeian red ; the lea sweeping west blushed to rose under a burning sky as soon as the sun dipped ; how rapidly then did certain fields become cheated of colour, their tree stems turning to a dusky dimness like the brown of charred fagots. ' You are certainly going to Folksmouth to-morrow ? ' Hal asked at last.

Gay nodded to the stream. ' And to Miss Grafton's ? ' Another nod, followed by a pause, during which the oarsman leaned on the row-locks in order to concentrate attention on the girl fronting him. ' Well, fore-warned is fore-armed ; Miss Grafton, whether you will believe me or not, is an unscrupulous woman, and one whom I should not wish to see the companion of a sister of mine, if I had one.' ' Your sister, if you had one, Hal, would be made to pattern, no doubt ; but how can you pronounce so lightly on a woman whom you scarcely know ? Are you regulating your judgment by reason or instinct ? ' Receiving no answer, she continued, — 'At all events, name her faults; then, at least, I shall have some thing tangible to resist.' Still receiving no answer, and watch ing with a half-smile the energy lavished on the boat which he was now pulling against a strong current, she added, — ' If Cousin Bonnibel Grafton has a fault, papa would pronounce it a too great sedateness.

As for me, I hardly know her, except through most flattering reports.' ' Sedateness,' echoed Hal, who had, at this period of his life, a taste for playing mentor ; ' Miss Grafton is about as sedate as those butterflies.' A swarm of tiny yellow ones, like flying cowslips, fluttered the tallest grass blades that trimmed the shore with green ribbon lengths and attracted Hal's playing eyes. ' The concentrated essence of summer, are they not ? ' he murmured more to himself than to Gay. ' One would say the May flowers had suddenly put spurs to their petals and determined to be tourists like ourselves.' In spite of his pretty speech, a sombre cloud broke over his countenance. Hal's sympathies w-ith human beings were not so deep as they were diffusive. He could be as much inter ested in a common-place, middle-aged woman, as in a beautiful girl, until he had classified her ; after which his interest waned.

This sometimes made him charming, but, oftener, disappointing. ' The colonel, Gay, draws on kid gloves when he analyses one of your sex ; he believes in woman. If he happens to doubt a particular one, he is apt to give her the benefit of his doubt ; and he would blame Ophelia's premature death, not on her own undisciplined emotions, but Hamlet's. No, he is too gallant to be a critic ; but — to return to Miss Grafton — I believe she would flirt in her grave if she happened to be buried near a man.' Gay felt obliged to interpose some words of championship in behalf of Miss Grafton, but was somewhat impatiently set aside by Hal, who added, — ' Oh, it is not her levity that is to be feared so much as that subtle veil of sedateness which she casts over it ; besides which she is immensely clever, with a mind like a man's, not so much in its processes, as in its choice of subjects ; if she were willing to forego conventionality, she is capable of being a politician ; she could be the secretary of some vast scheme.

I declare to you that she is one of the most fascinating women I ever met, yet she is deep .... and dangerous ; such an eye as hers means danger. I have heard people say that she never talks herself out, but suggests reserves for the intimate friend to explore.' Gay opened her eyes wide. 'You make of Cousin Bonnibel an enigma. I like enigmas — ' And she might have added — you are an enigma, that is why I like you. For in this young man two characters struggled for precedence — saint and exquisite, Bohemian and monk. This conflict between opposites gave him a weary look, but it was the weariness of a sweet child, or of an over-con scientious woman, and somehow it quickened sympathy, especially in stronger, or in highly ethical natures. Gay opened her eyes wider on the word enigma, and perceived the saint in the ascendency when his lids drooped, slide out of his countenance while his lips narrowed, his nostrils sharpened their curves, and an eager look in the midst of brilliance swept him to the side of Mephisto, who tosses feeling into the jaws of analysis.

After a startled minute, in which she en deavoured to read his countenance, she said, carelessly, — ' You see, the people I live among are so far from being enigmas, that I can tell beforehand just what they will say or do under such and such circumstances. My father, for instance — ' ' Your father is an old-fashioned, blue-blooded, whole-souled, open-handed Virginian, with the faults of his class, it is true, but they lean, mostly, to virtue's side.' ' You are right, Hal, quite right ; I believe there is no truer gentleman in the whole world.' ' Man, not gentleman, if you please,' was the interruption of Hal, who disliked what he termed old-fashioned words more than old-fashioned virtues. ' And my mother — ' Pausing to find the right epithet, Hal took up the word, — 'Your mother may be said to have a thirst for holiness, which only prayer can quench; after this, why care for enigmas and the unexpected.' Gay looked dreamy, and pondered.

Up to the present time, her religion had been temperamental, imagined rather than actualised, composed of some very sweet delusions, mingled with true aspirations. Hal's system of ethics, touched up with a wondrous imagination, lured her often to follow him, until some frivolous theory or weird freak jarred her more serious nature, and sent it to sharp antagonism. ' Ah, I know how Miss Grafton will begin — ' Hal set forth a word-picture, in which naval officers played a brilliant part. ' Go on, by all means,' was Gay's encouragement. ' I like your idea of the naval officers.' He was piqued into saying in his fresh, eager tone, — ' Ah, but first give me, at least, a half promise before you go to Folksmouth, won't you ? One little claim upon that heart.' He felt as if the heart he craved were some lovely rose he was seeking in Arcadia for. ' What, here now, in the face of all these naval officers ? ' Sarcasm is a beautifier as well as tenderness ; one decorates with diamonds, the other with pearls. ' Plague take your naval officers ! ' Hal's voice rang out. ' Yes, in the face of the naval officers, and Phil Hoggard — everybody — promise me that sincere, generous heart, that kind hand of yours, some day, will you ? ' In spite of pleading, there was no atom of passion in the speaker's tones, which were pure and penetrating, like bugles' notes, and accompanied a dazzling glance of general rapture, as if the half-developed man were confronting a vision of love in the abstract, rather than a proud girl palpitating with surplus feeling, of which she did not know how much it is maidenly to show.

She took refuge in instinct which counselled her to show none. ' And suppose— just suppose, for the sake of speculation, of course — that I should happen to like some one else better — one of those naval officers, for instance ? ' Flippancy was assumed to conceal emotion. ' And how far in the future would you wish to have my hand ? ' she inquired with pretended gravity. ' The date you shall fix yourself, Gay. Gratify your longings for society, enigmas and surprises, with all their attendant tumults ; after kneading, knocking, patting, rubbing from foreign hands, the plastic nature acquires symmetry. You may like a great many naval officers, if you will promise to like none of them as well as you like me.' His lids fell gently on his eyes, as one rose petal does upon another. He thought himself generous in allowing her as many admirers as she might choose ; though, of course, safety lies in numbers.

But what did Gay care for such generosity. Were it a question of love, she would neither have desired nor allowed reservations. ' Constancy, after all, is a nun.' Hal's voice was again at concert pitch. ' Why not preach breadth ? Love is not bond age, as a fine-art it is infinite freedom. I demand much, but I also give much.' Gay's look was remonstrant ; she also possessed an artistic nature, but charged with warmth, and she did not believe in making art an excuse for selfishness. ' Frankly, Hal, would you like to have your wife, if you had one, preach breadth, as you call it ? ' ' Wife ? — a home thrust. Why will you always take me seri ously, even when I talk nonsense ? ' Seriously ? Oh ! Harold, Harold ! when will you see that love is nothing if not serious ? This want of passion was her woman's grievance. ' Well ' — he resumed after a minute or two — •' you will soon find that these naval officers are not the splendid water-fowl you imagine them to be.' ' Have a care, Hal, have a care !

Perhaps you are running down some very particular friend of mine .... that is to be.' There was no time for answer ; the oars, half-idlers though they had been for the last half hour, had done their work at last. The boat touched grittily the sandy bank of the Devil's Dancing Bottom. Hal threw down his oars, and Gay sprang out of the boat. The shore rose to meet a ridge, and then descended to a densely-wooded, cup-shaped hollow, which was known as the Devil's Dancing Bottom, because its mire quaked and trembled over a quicksand, fathering many a tale told by the negroes — the favourite being of a chariot and six that, in colonial days, had come dashing along the River Road, bound for the Governor's ball at Williamburg.

At this point the horses had ' skeert, tunned aside, and down the hull of um went ; down in de dreffle maash, sucked in dey wuz, an' Mistus Betsey Page dat de gub'ner done sot his eyes on — de Lawd bless ole Amos ! — but dat wuz de breakin'est-haartedest sight .... one po' leetle slipper les on de ma-ash.' (Amos, one of the Westover servants, related the tale as if he had been eye-witness.) 'It wuz de drefful'est day's wuck as was eber did roun' he-ah, an', ef yer b'leeves me, Marse Angel Gabr'el, he done cuss dis place an' der road nigh it, untwull yer gits to de far fiel', whar de bridge lays crawst de crick like ' — Amos's voice always sunk here to a hoarse whisper, — ' an', ef yer b'leeves me, de ole-time folks, dey's stayed he-ah eber since, an' our folks done mended de road, an' tunned it clean off sum dis he-ah drefful harnt.' No negro in the neighbourhood but was fertile in excuses to avoid hauling wood past here, or searching for stray pigs in the swamp-land after nightfall, scared away by 'de ole-time folks ' (ghosts), which they believed in more firmly, perhaps, than in any other of their religious tenets.

Once Gay, fed on negroes' tales, had been afraid to come to the Devil's Dancing Bottom in the flare of mid-day, having some haunting idea that the ghost of ' sweet Betsey Page ' would rise out of the marsh, damp, dead leaves hanging to her hair, her features defiled with the black swamp clay, and that she would dodge in and out, in a malicious hide-and-seek through the gloomy hollow, and fina'ly hurl ' dat po' leetle slipper ' full in the intruder's face. Hal used to laugh at her 'girl notions,' and once he insisted on dragging her here in spite of shaking knees. But that was ages ago ; now she had come to love the spot the better for its weirdness. Up to this, Hal had been in the bloom of his worldly mood — a Melancthon smiling out of a valentine could hardly have been more irritating. But, as he and Gay walked under the hollies, over bronzie pine-needles, he became suddenly serious, his shoulders stooped, his head bent downward, as if he had a confession of unusual import to make.

After a philippic against publishers, readers and critics, as well as a prosaic age, he asked, with a little burst of excitement, — ' What reliance can you place upon words, when slang has a right to reform and turn classic under the title idiom ? or upon judgment, when impudence is interchangeable with wit, and gossip gets the picturesque name of tradition ? Do you like secrets as well as enigmas, Gay, and can you keep one of mine ? ' Gay, of course, was ready with every declaration necessary for tempting the fullest confidence. She had a woman's love of mystery, though she herself was frank, and she could nurse a secret like a baby. Hal's tongue was loosed. ' I wrote a poem — not bad style, I think — whose chief figure is Mistress Betsey Page, in green shoulder-cape and beaver bonnet, driving to the Governor's ball.

Then a com panion piece, in which her ghost, as we used to fancy, haunts the marsh, making the wood, on dark nights, twinkle with corpse candles. This, however, in only an incident — a key note, you might say — the substance being deeper, shadowed out, rather than defined. It hints at that wonderful theory of detach ment as the only purifier. He, at least, who likes, may read it so.' ' Let rne read your poem, Hal,' Gay at once insisted. ' Well, if you are willing to face a ghost ' — (smiling) — ' not Betsey Page's, but mine, my own. This time for me is critical — a word of sympathy might divorce me from law and wed me to letters. You see I have had several Socialistic tracts ac cepted with complimentary alacrity. This poem I constituted a test of something more than mere facility. I therefore sent it to The Cycle, to Wedgewood, The National— decXmed by all, with thanks too, the worst part of it.' Gay did not notice this attempt at jocoseness, but inter rupted with, — ' Where is the poem now ? ' ' Do you see that stump covered with fungus, embedded in dead leaves ? ' 'Yes.' ' That is its sepulchre.' ' Buried in that stump ? ' Gay cried incredulously.

Then, as if for confirmation, she went close to the remains of the ancient tree, which stood, vase-like, sculptured on the outside with lichens, its top sealed close with ferns, tufts of grass — whose growth had been favoured by warmth and damp — and sprinkled over with seasons upon seasons of pine tags and decaying leaves that sent up a smell half rank, half sweet. There it stood, sphinx-like, and it told no tales. ' Hal, I do not believe a word of what you have been telling me ; surely nothing but the hand of Nature has ever touched this stump.' ' Believe it or not as you like, I buried my treasures here where old Blue-Nose, the pirate captain, is said to have buried his years and years ago, and where Crutch-Amos swears they are still to be found, if any one will dig who has the " lucky hand."

Poor old scamp ! he wouldn't dig in the Devil's Danc ing Bottom for as much as his life is worth. Betsey Page, you and I and the devils, it seems, have the Dancing Bottom all to ourselves.' He brought his hand down upon the heap of rich woods' earth, filling the cavity with a force that caused the rotten bark to spring a leak and let out a puff of crumbled, sodden wood fibre, the home of certain fantastic, long-legged bugs, that ran helter-skelter as soon as they felt themselves deprived of the sheltering darkness. ' I buried the poet here that the lawyer might arise from his ashes. Father thinks law the legitimate profession of a Brodnax, and mother, of course, considers that I have only to turn around in order to swing to the eminence upon which grandfather Brodnax stood, simply, I suppose, because my nose is like his — maternal logic, you know, but the hardest to fight.' He laughed a little bitterly. ' But you do not mean that you are going to give up as easily as that — that you are going to bury your talent in a de cayed tree-trunk?' There was stricture in Gay's voice which implied that she was not going to sympathise with failure, if it showed lack of perseverance. ' Give up ? ' repeated Hal. ' I would give up everything if I could be sure that I had a message for the world.

How can a man know himself? As his own judge, he is partial; then his only means of entrance into life is not his publishers, but their readers. If they happen to have had a full morning, or a full meal, perhaps, then it is all over with him. A headache, an accident, a trifle, a hair's weight — not merit — determines a manuscript's fate. Besides which, The Cycle will not take more than twenty words ; Wedgewood not less than a hundred. How can a man stretch his muse on the Procrustean bed, and pull out her delicate limbs, or chop off her pretty feet to suit the standard of a rack ? ' Gay shook her head gravely at this crucifying image, then sat down on a patch of moss close to the stump, and bent her attention upon a spider which, with grotesquely long, atten uated legs, and a mere excuse for a body, was taking swift, shadow-like strides across the hem of her lawn dress.

Had the tide been high in the salt creek, its ripples would have given a chilling shower-bath to the gossamer spider, skipping about so airily on her muslin skirt, and its dancing waves would have clasped the baby peninsula in its silver arms, and hidden it from sight ; now, however, the tide being low, it sent in only faint little ripples of water, which left broken necklaces of pearls on the sand. ' Will you accept me for a judge ? ' Gay inquired at length. ' I think I can be impartial, and I have no headache, no full meal, nor any accident to cloud my mind, like your readers.' She looked earnestly at the boyish man, her eyes mellowing at sight of his anxiously drawn brows and his ethereal person ality, that could kindle so fitfully with genius's effervescence. He did not look weak in health, but there was a kind of hypersen suous quality in his physical organisation which suggests an early doom, unless greater staying power were added to his nerve force.

Of course, Gay did not consciously perceive all this, but she did vaguely, and it made her soul cry aloud suddenly, — ' Let me into the life of Betsey Page. Do I not know her already ? I will be her true friend.' She was surprised by Hal's immediate compliance with this proposition. ' Here she is, then,' he cried, starting up and attacking the stump with a knowing hand. A mouldy packet was straightway brought to view, of which Gay could have deciphered next to nothing, but Hal threw himself on the ground, glanced over the mildewed writing, restored a word here and there, and then began to read. He passed lightly over the scene painting, scents of damp forest, shade of box-tree walk, resonance of whip-poor-will, or hermit thrush, and dwelt upon the deeper meaning, which, like the accompaniment of a bass hand in music, made the back ground for sensuous impression, and searched the hidden chords of the soul.

Gay heard him through in silence, and while she still reflected, his lids threw off their weight of dreami ness, and his keen eyes frisked over her boldly. ' Well, if you were my reader, would you decline me ? ' he asked. ' No-o,' she drew a long breath, seeling that she required eyes, as well as ears, tc give a criticism that should be of value ! ' Your poem affects me strangely,' she began. ' It is strong, it is beautiful — it is a message. I shall think of it at home, but ' (she hesitated) ' this is no criticism ; if I had the manuscript in my hands, I would write out just what I think.' ' You shall have it then. Seriously, did you see nothing to criticise ? ' ' I was too deeply interested to criticise, I believe, unless, perhaps, the adjectives. Don't you use too many, too weird, and too odd ones ? ' ' You may be right ; adjectives are, just now, out of fashion, though, in my opinion, they are as indispensable to style as over tones to a violin — they call it writing with ink that is too purple.