“Oh, yes, but I didn’t feel at home with him. Jack and I understand each other. I know what he means when he talks to me. I don’t always understand Major Throckmorton. Judith, is my cousin Freke a very wicked man?”
“So people say,” replied Judith in a subdued voice, which had not altogether overcome its agitation.
“He isn’t handsome enough to be very—very attractive,” said Jacqueline after a pause.
But the rule of contrary seemed to suddenly prevail at Barn Elms then. Within a week everybody in the house had succumbed more or less to Freke’s charm. General Temple found him invaluable in the preparation of the History of Temple’s Brigade; and Freke, who had a store of military knowledge among his great fund of general information, easily persuaded the general that he was a military historian of the first order. When the general began his evening harangues, Freke always had an example pat of a certain occasion when Prince Eugene, or the Duke of Marlborough, or some equally distinguished leader had successfully pursued General Temple’s tactics. All this General Temple laboriously transcribed in his manuscript. Judith, who very much doubted whether Freke were not making it up as he went along, had her suspicions confirmed when Freke would occasionally turn his expressive face on her and actually wink with appreciation of the general’s simplicity. Judith was indignant, but she could not help laughing at Freke’s genuine humor. Mrs. Temple showed her regard for the returned prodigal by taking him into the “charmber” one day and reasoning in a motherly way upon Freke’s duty to return to his wife. Judith was astounded after a while to hear Mrs. Temple’s gentle but intense laughter making itself heard outside the room. Freke, with the most good-natured manner in the world, sitting in the rush-bottomed chair, with one foot over his knee, began to tell Mrs. Temple some of his marital experiences with his Julia. Mrs. Temple at first put on her severest frown and fairly groaned aloud at his declaration that he didn’t know whether he was married or not in Virginia, as his divorce was got in one of the Northwestern States; but, divorce or no divorce, he wouldn’t tempt Fate again in another matrimonial venture even with a creature as beautiful as Helen, as wise as Portia, and with a million in her own right. Then he began to tell of the adventures between Julia and himself which had led to their separation, winding up with a description of their final scene, when Julia threw a dish at him and he in turn threw a bucket of ice-water over Julia. Before this, though, Mrs. Temple’s laughter had been heard. Freke issued from the room the picture of innocence, and at peace with himself and all the world. Mrs. Temple, on the contrary, was an image of guilt. Never had she before in her life been beguiled from a moral lecture into unseemly laughter—and laughter on such a subject! Mrs. Temple’s conscience rose up and fought her, and she began to think that all her moral foundation was tottering.
Surprises were the order of the day. One night, just after family prayers, when the gout, and the doubt whether anybody at all was to be saved, had caused General Temple to make a more pessimistic, vociferous, and grewsome prayer than usual, in which he called the Deity to account for so grievously afflicting the Temple family, Freke, whom Judith had caught smiling in the midst of General Temple’s most telling periods, quietly announced that he had that day bought Wareham, a place within two miles of Barn Elms.
It was not much of a place, being at most about three hundred acres, with a small, untenanted house on it—and property went for a song, anyhow, in that part of the world—but, nevertheless, the news was paralyzing to General and Mrs. Temple. Judith, who was developing a certain dislike and distrust of Freke that grew daily, could hardly forbear laughing at the mute horror of General and Mrs. Temple over this unlooked-for news. Freke went on to say that a very little would make the place habitable for him, and he liked the fishing and shooting to be had—especially the shooting, as the birds had had four years’ rest during the war. Then he said good-night pleasantly, and went off to bed.
“This is the dev—I mean this is most unfortunate, my love,” remarked General Temple, dismally, to Mrs. Temple, at two o’clock in the morning following this, as he paraded up and down the “charmber,” declaiming against Freke’s iniquities.
Next day, Mrs. Sherrard came over, and the direful news was communicated to her by Mrs. Temple, with a very long face. Mrs. Sherrard’s eyes danced.
“Now you’ll know what it is to have a nephew that one would like to be entirely unlike what he is. That’s my trouble with Edmund Morford. You know, I hate a humbug—and Edmund is a good soul, but a dreadful humbug.”
“Katharine!” exclaimed Mrs. Temple. “A minister of the gospel—”