CHAPTER XXV
OLD SAINT JOHN'S
The distance was so great from the more populous part of the town to Saint John's on Church Hill, and the road thereto so steep, in hot weather dusty, in wet deep in mud, that it had become the Richmond custom to worship within the Capitol, in the Hall of the House of Delegates. But during this August of the year 1807 the habit was foregone. It was the month in which Aaron Burr, arrested in Alabama in January, brought to Richmond in the early spring, and, since the finding of a true bill, confined in the penitentiary without the town, was to be tried for his life on the charge of high treason. Early and late, during the week, every apartment of the Capitol was in requisition, and though the building itself was closed on Sunday, the Capitol Square remained, a place of rendezvous, noise, heat, confusion, and dispute. There was in the town a multitude of strangers, with a range from legal, political, military, and naval heights, through a rolling country of frontiersmen, to a level of Ohio boatmen, servants, and nondescript. Many were witnesses subpoenaed by the Government, others had been called by Burr, and yet others brought upon the scene by varied interests, or by the sheer, compelling curiosity which the trial evoked. One and all were loudly and fiercely partisan. The lesser sort and ruder fry congregated in numbers beneath the trees about the Capitol, and it was thought with propriety that during this month church-going ladies would prefer to attend Saint John's. Here, therefore, on a Sunday in mid-August, the Reverend John Buchanan preached to a large and noteworthy assemblage.
The day was hot, but the chestnut trees and sycamores gave a grateful shade, and large white clouds in a brilliant blue threw now and then a transient screen between sun and earth. The broad and murmuring river and the far stretch of woodland upon the Chesterfield side gave, too, a sensation of space and coolness. Faint airs carried the smell of midsummer flowers, and bees droned around the flat tombstones sunk in honeysuckle. The congregation gathered slowly, the masculine portion of it lingering, as was the custom, in the wide old churchyard until the second tinkling of the bell should call them indoors. They had thus the double advantage of talk and observation of the Progress of Women. These traversed the path to the church door like a drift of blossoms in the summer air, saluted on either hand by the lowest of bows, the most gallant lifting of bell-shaped hats. Whatever might be said of the men's dress, from the fair top-boot to the yards of lawn that swathed the throat, that of the weaker sex, in the days of the Empire, was admirably fitted for August weather. Above pale, thin stuffs, girdled beneath the breast and falling straight and narrow to the instep, rose bare white neck and arms, while each charming face looked forth from an umbrageous bonnet of fine straw. Bonnet and large fan appeared the only ample articles of attire; even the gloves were but mitts. By ones and twos, or in larger knots, the wearers of this slender finery entered Saint John's with sedateness, took their seats in the dim old pews, and waited in the warm, fragrant, whisper-filled air for the ringing of the second bell and the entrance of the men. After church, custom would still reign, and all alike would linger, laugh, and talk beneath the trees, while the coaches drew up slowly and the grooms brought the saddle-horses from the rack, and those who meant to walk gathered courage for the dusty venture.
Jacqueline Rand and Unity Dandridge, the one in her customary white, the other in a blue that marvellously set off dark hair, dark eyes, and brilliant bloom, entered Saint John's together and passed up the aisle to a seat halfway between door and pulpit. By some miscalculation of Unity's they were very early, a fact which presently brought a whispered ejaculation of annoyance from Miss Dandridge. "I love a flutter when I come in and the knowledge that I've turned every head—and here we've entered an empty church! Heigho! Nothing to do for half an hour."
"Read your prayer book," suggested Jacqueline. "Oh! does it open just there as easily as all that?"
"It always did open just there," answered Miss Dandridge. "It's something in the binding. Heigho! 'Love, honour, and obey.' Obey!"
"Your entrance," said her cousin, "was not entirely unseen, and here comes one whose head is certainly turned."
"Is it?" asked Unity, and hastily closed the prayer book as Fairfax Cary entered the pew behind them.
Jacqueline turned and greeted the young man with a smile. There was now between Greenwood and Roselands, between the house on Shockoe Hill and the quarters of the Carys at the Swan, a profound breach, an almost utter division. Lewis Rand and Ludwell Cary were private as well as political enemies, and all men knew as much. There had been no attempt on the part of either to conceal the fact of the duel in November. Their world of town and country surmised and conjectured, volubly or silently, according to company, drew its conclusions, and chose its colours. The conclusions were largely false, for it occurred to no one—at least outside of Fontenoy—to connect the quarrel and the duel with the President's proclamation and the Burr conspiracy. During the past winter Cary had been much in Albemarle, little in Richmond, and the encounters of the two had not been frequent. In the spring, however, matters had brought him to the city, and in the fever and excitement of the ensuing summer he and Rand were often thrown into company. When this was the case, they spoke with a bare and cold civility, and left each other's neighbourhood as soon as circumstances permitted. Cary came, of course, no more to the house on Shockoe Hill. Jacqueline, remaining in town through the summer because her husband remained, saw him now and again in some public place or gathering. He bowed low and she inclined her head, but they did not speak. Her heart was hot and pained. She had pleaded that afternoon in the cedar wood for his better understanding of Lewis, and to what purpose?—an open quarrel and a duel! She did not want to speak; she wanted to forget him.