“'I've knowed Mr. Eaton since befo' d' las' wah with d' British what Marse Gen'ral done whups at Noo Aw-leans; Mr. Eaton's a kin to my Marse Major. I've been down by his place a hun'red times at Franklin; an' you hyar me, honey! they aint been no mention about you bein' his wife in Tennessee.'
“She smile a bit at this—she's seemin' trifle sad like—an' says: 'Mr. Eaton an' me, we get married only 'bout a month ago in Wash'ton.' An' so she tell me ag'in to go fotch you; an' arter sort o' hesitatin' 'round between a balk an' a break-down for a while, settlin' on d' properest move, I reckons mebbe I'd better come an' tell you arter all.”
“It's as well you did,” I said, turning back to the General's door.
“That's all right, Marse Major.” Jim called this after me in severe tones. “I'm boun' I'm gwine look arter you-all jes' d' same.” Then in a wheedling voice: “Say, Marse Major, would you-all mind if I he'ps myse'f to a dram outen d' demijohn in your closet? What with all dish yere talkin' an' frettin' about you, Jim's mouth is as dry as a kivered bridge.”
“One, mind you; no more.” The General, in converse with a caller, was considering Van Buren, and party lines and issues in New York. I would have told him of Peg, and that I was about to see her, but the presence of his visitor put it out of reach. On the whole, I decided, it would be as well to meet Peg first and tell the General later. I interrupted, and explained that I was going to the parlors for a moment; we would get to his letters on my return.
“No hurry, Major, no hurry,” he replied; “I'm quite content to put them off. I am already seized on by the spirit of laziness that pervades this place, and which caused Randolph to say: 'I never wind my watch whilst in Washington, as I feel that all time spent here is wasted and thrown away.' It's not quite that bad, perhaps; still, we'll willingly put off the letters until to-morrow.”
And now, since I am to tell you of Peg, I would that I possessed somewhat the art of petticoats—a little polite skill for flounce and farthingale—some shadow of a parlor or a boudoir grace.
Peg, then, was the truth itself for height and mould, and her pretty hands and feet told of no tavern in their genesis, even though the lip of envy did. I give you my first impression of her, earned eye to eye and ear to voice. I say the latter because her voice was as honey and wove conviction like a spell. She had your pansy face; a face regular and ineffably good. And how any, even a woman and a rival, might look her deep eyes through and doubt her, masters conjecture! Peg's hair—hanging in long curls about her neck and shoulders—was black; fine as silk or cobwebs; black, yet with the gold-black of the black Saxon. And her skin was snow and peach-blow. There was meditation, too, in her wide brow; and her mouth, with teeth like milk, was both firm and loving. Also, there was that in her atmosphere to bring brave men to her. It was upon one in a moment that Peg, while tender to be hurt, was hard to conquer; sensitive, she would feel her fate; yet she would face it—face it with the faithful courage of an angel. But I'll have done; why furnish the fragments and queer splinters of a portrait I'm too inaptly dull to offer as a whole!
Peg O'Neal came this day, and making herself known, gave me my first sight of her in the drawing room of the Indian Queen. There was a look about her, lonely, bitter and pathetic; a look that should belong with one hunted, and who waits to be made sure of her friends. She gave me her hand; white and soft and small and yielding—it was as though I took hold on a lily. My heart went out to her before she spoke; as I've confessed, I was warm for her cause on the instant.
Peg had read the cabinet list in the paper; I think, too, she foresaw the woe and worry to become the tail of it more clearly than did either the General or myself, or even the port-wine Duff Green. It was of that she desired to talk; she would see the General; but first she would see me.