CHAPTER XVI.
Next morning Charley and I called at the Carters’ to give the Don the invitation to visit Elmington, but found he had gone out for his first walk since his accident, to test, at Mrs. Carter’s instance, his strength before going into his own quarters. Charley was compelled, therefore, to leave the city without seeing him. In the evening I called at his rooms. Knocking at his sitting-room door, I was invited to enter, and found him sitting by a table reading a small book, which he closed, but held in his hand as he rose and came forward to greet me.
“Reading?” began I, bowing and glancing casually towards the little book, the back of which was turned away from me.
“Yes,” replied he, but without looking at the book; “getting through an evening alone I find rather dull work after my recent charming experience. Take a seat. Will you have a pipe, or do you prefer a cigar? A pipe? You will find the tobacco very good.” And walking to a small set of shelves near the door, he placed the little book upon it,—a circumstance too trivial to mention, did it not afford a characteristic example of the quiet but effectual way the Don had of nipping in the bud any conversation which was about to take a line he did not wish it to follow. I suppose we had been chatting for half an hour before I alluded to my errand.
“Mr. Frobisher wished to see me particularly, you say?”
“Yes; Charley heard you say one day that you were fond of shooting; and as there is fine sport to be had in Leicester, he thought it might be agreeable to you to—”
The smile of polite curiosity with which he heard that Charley had had something to say to him rapidly faded as I spoke, and there came into his countenance a look of such intense seriousness, nay, even of subdued and suffering agitation, that, for a moment, I lost my self-possession in my surprise, but managed to finish my message in a stumbling sort of way. As for the Don, anticipating, apparently, from my opening words what that message was to be, he seemed hardly conscious that it was ended. He sat, for a moment, with his head resting in the palm of his hand, his piercing eyes fixed upon the floor; but seeming suddenly to realize that this was a queer way of meeting a courtesy, he quickly raised his head. “Thanks, thanks,” said he, with a forced smile, but with apologetic emphasis. “Charley—I beg pardon—Mr. Frobisher is very kind,—very kind indeed! Yes, I should immensely enjoy having a tilt once more at the partridges.[[1]] Very much indeed.”
“Then I may hope that you will accept?”
“Oh, certainly, with very great pleasure. Please present my warmest acknowledgments to Char—Mr. Frobisher, and say that I shall be at his command so soon as I shall have recovered my strength somewhat.” He paused for a moment; then, throwing back his head with a little laugh: “By the way,” he continued, “I beg you will not misinterpret my singular way of receiving the invitation. It was such a surprise, and I am still a little weak, you know.”
“You must allow me to add how much gratified I, too, am at your decision. You know—or do you not?—that the invitation is to my grandfather’s place, Elmington.”
“Elmington?”
“Ah, I see—very naturally, you don’t understand that Charley lives with my grandfather.”
“With your grandfather? Why, how can that be? I thought his place adjoined your—” And he stopped suddenly. “Please be so good as to explain,” he added, in a low voice.
“Well, this rather peculiar state of things came about in this way. My mother died before I was a month old, and my father, my grandfather’s only son, survived her less than a year; so that I was brought up by the old gentleman. Now, Charley’s place adjoined Elmington, my grandfather’s, their respective residences being not over a half-mile apart; and so Charley got into the habit—however, I must mention that Charley lost his father years ago, and, about ten years since, his mother died.”
“His mother? His mother is dead?” asked the Don, in a low tone, and without raising his eyes from the floor.
“Yes. They say she was a lovely woman.”
“And she is dead, you say—your friend’s mother?” he repeated, in a mechanical sort of way; and, resting his head upon his hand, he fixed his eyes upon the window with a look so grim that I paused in my narrative.
“Yes,” I presently resumed, “she—Charley’s mother; that is—”
“I beg pardon,” said he, abruptly turning to me, and, as the Latin hath it, serening his face with an effort,—“please go on.”
“Well, Charley was at the University at the time of his mother’s death; and during the following vacation he seemed to find his own desolate home—he was singularly devoted to his mother—unendurable; so he would frequently drop in on my grandfather and myself at tea, walking home, when bedtime came, across the fields; but my grandfather, remarking the sad look that always came into his face when he arose to depart, would frequently insist upon his spending the night with us. The poor fellow could scarcely ever resist the temptation, to my great delight; for to me, a boy of thirteen, Charley, who was eighteen, and a student, was a sort of demi-god. I suppose, in fact, that apart from my grandfather’s personal liking for the young man, and his sympathy with him under the circumstances, he was very glad to give me the society of some one younger than himself. And so, to make a long story short, Charley’s visits becoming more and more frequent and regular, it came at last to be understood that he was to spend every night with us,—during his vacation, of course. At last, at the end of three years, Charley left the University with the degree of Master of Arts in pocket.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes. You are surprised, no doubt. He is so unassuming, one would hardly suppose that he had attained an honor which is reached by hardly more than one out of every hundred of the students at the University. To continue. When he returned from college and took charge of his farm, it soon appeared that the tables were turned. It was Charley’s companionship now that had grown to be a necessity to the old gentleman. ‘We shall expect you to dinner,’ he would say every morning, as Charley rode off to look after his farming operations. Charley often protested against this one-sided hospitality, and, as a compromise, we would dine with him occasionally; but at last my grandfather proposed a consolidation of the two households, all of us wondering why the plan had not been thought of before. That is the way Charley came to live at Elmington. The two farms are separate, though from time to time worked in common, as occasion demands,—in harvest-time, for example. Each farm contributes its quota to the table, though not in any fixed ratio. My grandfather, for example, is firmly persuaded that the grass on his farm—notably in one special field—imparts, in some occult way, a flavor to his mutton that Charley’s does not possess; while, on the other hand, an old woman on Charley’s place has such a gift at raising chickens, turkeys, and ducks, that we have gotten in the habit of looking to her for our fowls.”
The Don smiled.
“It is rather a singular arrangement, isn’t it? but I have gone into these details that you might see that Elmington is, for all the purposes of hospitality, as much Charley’s as my grandfather’s. I hope it will not be long,” I added, rising, “before you will be able to go down and see how the arrangement works, though I am sorry I shall not be able to join you till Christmas week, being detained by professional engagements, or, rather, the hope of such, as I have but recently opened a law office.”
“You may rest assured that I shall not lose a day, when once my physician has given me leave to go. Can’t you sit longer? Another visit yet? Ah, I am sorry.” And he accompanied me to the door of his sitting-room.
As we stood there for a moment, exchanging the customary civilities of leave-taking, my eye fell upon the little book the Don had laid upon a shelf of his book-case.
It was a copy of the New Testament.
| [1] | The quail is unknown in Virginia—both bird and word.—Ed. |