Gertrude promptly assured old Nelse that the plantation needed no extra caretakers just then, the work was progressing very well since their return. Nelse swept the jockey cap over his feet in a profound bow, and sauntered around the house. The mistress of Loringwood asked Evilena to see if he had gone to his canoe. She did so, and reported that he had gone direct to the stables, where he had looked carefully over all the horses, and found one threatened with some dangerous ailment requiring his personal ministrations. He had announced his intention of staying right there until that horse was “up an’ doin’ again.” At that minute he was seated on a half bushel measure as on a throne from which he was giving his orders, and all the young niggers were fairly flying to execute them.
“It is no use, Gertrude,” said Mrs. Nesbitt, with a sigh; “as soon as I saw that vest and your grandfather’s coat with the brass buttons, I knew Nelse had come to stay a spell, and stay he will in spite of us.”
Which statement gave the man from Dublin another sidelight on the race question!
One of the servants announced a canoe in sight, coming from up the river, and anticipating a probable addition to their visitors, Delaven escaped by a side door, until the greetings were over, and walking aimlessly along a little path back from the river, found it ended at a group of pines surrounded by an iron railing, enclosing, also, the high, 158 square granite and marble abodes of the dead. It was here Nelse had pointed when telling of Tom Loring’s sudden death and burial.
He opened the gate, and as he did so noticed a woman at the other side of the enclosure. Remembering how intensely superstitious the colored folks were said to be, he wondered at one of them coming alone into the grove so nearly darkened by the dense covering of pine, and with only the ghostly white of the tombs surrounding her.
He halted and stood silent beside a tree until she arose and turned towards the gate, then he could see plainly the clear, delicate profile of the silent Margeret. Of all the people he had met in this new country, this quiet, pale woman puzzled him most. She seemed to compel an atmosphere of silence, for no one spoke of her. She moved about like a shadow in the house, but she moved to some purpose, for she was a most efficient housekeeper, even the pickaninnies from the quarters––saucy and mischievous enough with any one else––were subdued when Margeret spoke.
After she had passed out of the gate he went over where he had seen her first. Two tombs were side by side, and of the same pattern; a freshly plucked flower lay on one. He read the name beneath the flower; it was, Thomas Loring, in the thirtieth year of his age; the other tomb was that of his wife, who had died seven years earlier.
But it was on Tom Loring’s tomb the blossom had been laid.
Was it merely an accident that it was the marble on which the fragrant bit of red had been let fall? or––
He walked slowly back to the house, feeling that he had touched on some story more strange than any Evilena had asked him to listen to of the old days, and this one was vital, human, fascinating.