Was it a charm or a curse that invested her man on horseback? What dark Nemesis had hovered over that little cabin back in the North Carolina sandhills where he had been born? What strange power had preserved him when all his family succumbed to the hardships of that time of bitter war? What power of destiny had brought him up, an orphaned waif, led him through so many conflicts, made him a firebrand and a leader whom men would follow as they followed a flag?
Sick and coughing, his frail health her constant anxiety, he inspired strong men. Something was brewing now. Rachel felt it, but she must hold her tongue and quiet her unease with the drug of hope.
A horse came trotting up the drive and Rachel saw Emily start forward eagerly. Then the girl stopped as a slim figure in oilskin slid from the saddle.
“It’s Ralph!” Rachel hurried forward to greet the young artist, Ralph Earl. Off and on, for many years, the portrait painter had made his home at the Hermitage. He had done a fine portrait of the General, wooed and won Jane Caffrey, Rachel’s niece. There had been a fine wedding in the old log house that still stood there in the yard, but gentle Jane had lived only a year. Now Earl was a saddened and lonely man and Rachel mothered him after her habit with all young, unmothered creatures. “How fine that you got back from the East for Christmas, Ralph!” she cried, taking his hand.
“I came to paint your picture,” he said. “The General will never give me any peace till I do your portrait, aunt Rachel.”
“Fiddlesticks!” She led him into the house. “You come get warm and dry this minute before you take a ptisic. I’ll make a hot toddy for you, myself. And you don’t want to paint a picture of a fat old woman like me. Nobody would look at it. We’d have to hang it in the wash-house.”
“A portrait of you might be hung on the walls of some very splendid place, aunt Rachel,” Earl argued, handing his damp garments to a servant.
She looked at him in sudden alarm. “Now whatever do you mean by that?”
“Oh—just an idea I had,” he soothed, seeing her perturbation. “People keep getting notions about what Andrew Jackson could do for this country. I hear about them—traveling around.”
She clutched at his arm. “No, Ralph—whatever their notions are, he’s not going to go dashing off again on some wild adventure or other. He’s not strong, you know that. He’ll get that lung fever again and it almost caused his death last winter. And besides,”—her eyes misted and her voice croaked—“he’d have to leave our home! Our Hermitage!”