CHAPTER XIX
MONTICELLO AGAIN
The night was hot and dark when Rand, riding Selim, left the town and took the Monticello road. He forded the creek, and the horse, scrambling up the farther side, struck fire from the loose stones. Farther on, the way grew steep, and the heavy shadow of the overhanging trees made yet more oppressive the breathless night. The stars could hardly be seen between the branches, but from the ground to the leafy roof the fireflies sparkled restlessly. Rand thought, as he rode, of the future and the present, but not of the past. It was so old and familiar, this road, that he might well feel the eyes of the past fixed upon him from every bush and tree; but if he felt the gaze, he set his will and would not return it. For some time he climbed through the thick darkness, shot with those small and wandering fires, but at last he came upon the higher levels and saw below him the wide and dark plain. In the east there was heat lightning. Here on the mountain-top the air blew, and a man was free from the dust of the valley. He drew a long breath, checked Selim for a moment, and, sitting there, looked out over the vast expanse; but the eyes of the past grew troublesome, and he hurried on. It was striking nine when a negro opened the house gate for him and, following him to the portico, took the horse from which he dismounted. Light streamed from the open door, and from the library windows. Except for a glimmer in the Abbé Correa's room, the rest of the house was in darkness. If Mrs. Randolph and her daughters were there, they had retired. He heard no voices. In the hot and sulphurous night the pillared, silent house with its open portal provoked a sensation of strangeness. Rand crossed the portico and paused at the door. Time had been when he would have made no pause, but, familiar to the house and assured of his welcome, would have passed through the wide hall to the library and his waiting friend and mentor. Now he laid his hand upon the knocker, but before it could sound, a door halfway down the hall opened, and there appeared the tall figure of the President. He stood for a moment, framed in the doorway, gazing at his visitor, and there was in his regard a curious thoughtfulness, an old regret, and—or so Rand thought—a faint hostility. The look lasted but a moment; he raised his hand, and, with a movement that was both a gesture of welcome and an invitation to follow him, turned and entered the passage which led to the library. Rand moved in silence through the hall, where Indian curiosities, horns of elk, and prehistoric relics were arranged above the marble heads of Buonaparte and Alexander the First, Franklin and Voltaire, and down the narrow passage to the room that had been almost chief of all his sacred places. It was now somewhat dimly lit, with every window wide to the night. Jefferson, sitting beside the table in his particular great chair, motioned the younger man to a seat across from him, evidently placed in anticipation of his coming. Rand took the chair, but as he did so, he slightly moved the candles upon the table so that they did not illumine, as they had been placed to illumine, his face and figure. It was he who began the conversation, and he wasted no time upon preliminaries. The night was in his blood, and he was weary of half measures. This storm had long been brewing: let it break and be over with; better the open lightning than the sullen storing up of unpaid scores, unemptied vials of wrath! There were matters of quarrel: well, let the quarrel come! The supreme matter, unknown and undreamed of by the philosopher opposite him, would sleep secure beneath the uproar over little things. He craved the open quarrel. It would be easier after the storm. The air would be cleared, though by forces that were dire, and he could go more easily through the forest when he had laid the trees low. It was better to hurry over the bared plain towards the shining goal than to stumble and be deterred amid these snares of old memories, habits, affections, and gratitudes. The past—the past was man's enemy. He was committed to the future, and in order to serve that strong master there was work—disagreeable work—to be done in the present. Ingratitude!—that, too, was but a word, though a long one. He was willing to deceive himself, and so ideas and images came at his bidding, but they hung his path with false lights, and they served, not him, but his inward foe.
He spoke abruptly. "That Militia Bill,—the matter did not approve itself to my reason, and so I could not push it through. I understood, of course, at the time that you were vexed—"
"I should not say that 'vexed' was the word. I was surprised. You will do me the justice to acknowledge that I cheerfully accepted the explanation which you gave me. You are fully aware that I, of all men, would be the last to deny your right—any man's right—of private judgment. All this was last winter, and might have been buried out of sight."
"I have heard that a letter of mine in the Enquirer gave you umbrage. It was my opinion that the country's honour demanded less milk and water, less supineness in our dealings with England, and I expressed my opinion—"
"The country's honour! That expression of your opinion placed you among the critics of the administration, and that at an hour when every friend was needed. It came without warning, and if it was meant to wound me, it succeeded."
Rand moved restlessly. "It was not," he said sombrely; "it was not meant to wound you, sir. Let me, once for all, sitting in this room amid the shades of so many past kindnesses, utterly disavow any personal feeling toward you other than respect and gratitude. It was apparent to me that the letter must be written, but I take God to witness that I regretted the necessity."
"The regret," answered the other, "will doubtless, in the sight of the Power you invoke, justify the performance. Well, the nine days' wonder of the letter is long over! A man in public life cannot live sixty years without suffering and forgiving many a similar stab. The letter was in February. Afterwards—"
"I ceased to write to you. Through all the years in which I had written, we had been in perfect accord. Now I saw the rift between us, and that it would widen, and I threw no futile bridges."