The House of de Mailly

by Margaret Horton Potter

"Ye-ah! He'll get it 's mo'n fo' shuah. Thanks, Mist' Trev'."

Showing all his glistening teeth, the negro pocketed the coin, which no slave was supposed to possess, and, leaving his work unfinished, departed at once on the very welcome errand which served to let him out of the house for an hour into the August sunshine.

Vincent found the doctor in the hall, and lightly touched his arm: "I have sent your black, Jerry, on an errand, Carroll. It was important, or I shouldn't have presumed. You'll pardon me?"

"My dear Vincent, while you are with me my house is yours. Don't speak of it. So soon, madam? This is a niggardly visit, I vow!"

Carroll hurried forward as Madam Trevor entered the hall. She had just come down, the three young women behind her, each carrying a package containing her party finery and night garments. The coach and Vincent's riding-horse were already at the door. After a chorus of farewells and acknowledgments of hospitality, the ladies were finally settled in the roomy vehicle, which set off in a whirl of dust down Gloucester Street. On their way through the town they passed the door of the "Blue Balls" tavern, and madam bit her lip.

"Virginia, be assured that I shall speak to Charles when he returns. It is disgraceful, it is abominable, this behavior on the very night of his engagement to you. You may be certain that it shall not go unnoticed."

For an instant Virginia's lip curled scornfully. Then all the former indifference came back again to her face. She made no reply to her mother's words, but, as they continued on their way, some other train of thought brought a new expression to her fine features—an expression of resigned sorrow, of hidden suffering, of strong repression, that her mother did not see, and could not have read even had she noticed it. The rest of the drive was silent. Madam Trevor, seated beside Virginia, was very firm of lip, very straight of shoulder, very immovable as to hands. Lucy and Deborah, on the opposite side of the coach, had no desire to indulge in the usual ball reminiscences common to young girls. One of them was anxious-eyed and pale with foreboding; the other sat motionless, eyes closed, face unreadable, but enduring such inward tumult as none, seeing her, could have conceived.

At three o'clock in the afternoon of that same Thursday a man on foot crossed the narrow bridge over the inlet at the end of Prince George Street, and started up the country road that led along the left bank of the Severn. The day was intensely hot, the white dust inches deep, and what wind blew at all was from the west, a mere breath of parching grass and thirsting prairie lands. The man, however, was not thinking of heat. His face showed very plainly that his mind was some distance away, and that it was fixed on a subject of deep import to him. His prim black suit grew gray with sand, his immaculate queue flopped limply on his shoulder, his face was damp with perspiration, his very eyebrows were ruffled by the vigorous mopping which he now and then gave his forehead. Nevertheless, oblivious of discomfort, John Whitney plodded on his way towards the Trevor plantation, his eyes on the road, his hope in the clouds. For the first time he was treading this well-known path with an untroubled conscience. He was going to Lucy openly, not even of his own planning, but at the request of Lucy's brother, whose courteous note of invitation lay hot under his vest, next to the homespun linen shirt which it was his pleasure to wear.

Whitney was within five minutes of his destination, already visible above the trees round the little bend in the shore, when the sound of wheels rapidly approaching from behind him caused him hastily to mount the bank at the side of the road. A calèche, drawn by two horses and containing a man garbed in shining pink satin, flashed by in a whirl of dust, and presently turned in at the road leading to the Trevor house. Whitney pursed his lips, stared a little, and moved on again.

Claude, in his court costume and hired vehicle, stopping at the door of Deborah's home, found Jim, the stable-boy, white-eyed and open-mouthed with amazement at his dress, waiting to receive him and to fetch water for the horses.