Throckmorton: A Novel

by Molly Elliot Seawell

“Jane! Jane!” General Temple would shout.—“Come here, my love. If you don’t get rid of this infernal old fool, who wants absolutely to dragoon me out of my religion, I’ll be damned if I—God forgive me for swearing—and you, my dear—”

Sometimes these theological discussions had been known to end by Delilah’s flying out of the room, with the general’s boot-jack whizzing after her. At Mrs. Temple’s appearance, though, the emeute would be instantly quelled. Delilah was also actively at war with Dr. Wortley, as the black mammies and the doctors invariably were, and during the visits of the doctor, who was a peppery little man, it was no infrequent thing to hear his shrill falsetto, the general’s loud basso, and Delilah’s emphatic treble all combined in an angry three-cornered discussion carried on at the top of their lungs.

Like mistress, like maid. As Mrs. Temple ruled the general, Delilah ruled Simon Peter, her husband, who since the war was butler, coachman, gardener, and man-of-all-work at Barn Elms. Mrs. Temple, however, ruled with circumlocution as well as circumspection, and had not words sufficient to condemn women who attempt to govern their husbands. But Delilah had no such scruples, and frequently treated Simon Peter to remarks like these:

“Menfolks is mighty consequenchical. Dey strut ’bout, an’ dey cusses an’ damns, an’ de womenfolks do all de thinkin’ an’ de wukkin’. How long you think ole marse keep dis heah plantation if it warn’t fur mistis?”

“Look a heah, ’oman,” Simon Peter would retaliate, when intolerably goaded, “Paul de ’postle say—”

“What anybody keer fur Paul de ’postle? Womenfolks ain’ got no use fur dat ole bachelor. Men is cornvenient fur ter tote water, an’ I ain’ seen nuttin’ else much dey is good fur.”

Simon Peter’s entire absence of style partly accounted for the low opinion of his abilities entertained by his better half. He was slouchy and sheep-faced, and, when he appeared upon great occasions in one of General Temple’s cast-off coats, the tails dragged the ground, while the sleeves had to be turned back nearly to the elbow. Delilah, on the contrary, was as tall as a grenadier, and had an air of command second only to General Temple himself and much more genuine. She was addicted to loud, linsey-woolsey plaids, and on her head was an immaculately white “handkercher” knotted into a turban that would have done credit to the Osmanlis.

The war had given General Temple the opportunity of his lifetime. He “tendered his sword to his State,” as he expressed it, immediately organized Temple’s Brigade, and thereafter won a reputation as the bravest and most incompetent commander of his day. His ideas of a brigade commander were admirably suited to the middle ages. He would have been great with Richard Cœur de Lion at the siege of Ascalon, but of modern warfare the general was as innocent as a babe. It was commonly reported that, the first time he led his brigade into action, he did not find it again for three days. His men called him Pop, and always cheered him vociferously, but pointedly declined to follow him wherever he should lead, which was invariably where he oughtn’t to have been. He had innumerable horses shot under him, but, by a succession of miracles, escaped wounds or capture. It was a serious mortification to the general that he should have come out of the war with both arms and both legs; and it was marvelous, considering that he put himself in direct line of fire upon every possible occasion, and galloped furiously about, waving his sword whenever he was in a particularly ticklish place.

Since the war General Temple had found congenial employment in studying the art of war as exemplified in books, and in writing a History of Temple’s Brigade. As he knew less about it than any man in it, his undertaking was a considerable one, especially as he had to give a personal sketch, with pedigree and anecdotes, of every member of the brigade. He had started out to complete this great work in three volumes, but it looked as if ten would be nearer the mark. As regards the theory of war, General Temple soon became an expert, and knew by heart every campaign of importance from those of Hannibal, the one-eyed son of Hamilcar, down to Appomattox. A good deal of the money that would have paid his taxes went into the general’s military library, which was a source of endless pride to him, and which caused the History of Temple’s Brigade to be, in some sort, a history of all wars, ancient and modern.

The pride and satisfaction this literary work of his gave the general’s honest heart can not be described. He read passages of it aloud to Mrs. Temple and Judith and Jacqueline in the solemn evenings in the old country-house, his resonant voice echoing through the old-fashioned, low-pitched drawing-room. Mrs. Temple listened sedately and admiringly, and thanked Heaven for having given her this prodigy of valor and learning. Nor, after hearing the History of Temple’s Brigade all the evening, was she wearied when, at two o’clock in the morning, General Temple would have a wakeful period, and striding up and down the bedroom floor, wrapped in a big blanket over his dressing-gown, declaimed and dissected all the campaigns of the war, from Big Bethel to Appomattox. Mrs. Temple, sitting up in bed, with the most placid air in the world, would listen, and thank and admire and love more than ever this hero, whom she had wrapped around her finger for the last thirty years. O blessed ignorance—O happy blindness of women! which gracious boon God has not withheld from any of the sex. But there was something else that made General Temple’s long-winded war stories so deeply, tragically interesting to Mrs. Temple. There had been a son—the husband of the handsome daughter-in-law—Mrs. Temple could not yet speak his name without a sob in her voice. That was what she had given to the great fight. When the news of his death came, General Temple, who had never before dreamed of helping Mrs. Temple’s stronger nature, had ridden night and day to be with her at that supreme moment, knowing that the blow would crush her if it did not kill her. She came out of the furnace alive but unforgetting. She would not herself forget Beverley, nor would she allow anybody else to forget him. She remembered his anniversaries, she cherished his belongings; she, this tender, excellent, self-sacrificing woman, sacrificed, as far as she could, herself and everybody else to the memory of the dead and gone Beverley. As fast as one crape band on the general’s hat wore out, she herself, with trembling hands, sewed another one on. As for herself, she would have thought it sacrilege to have worn anything but the deepest black; and Judith, after four years of widowhood, wore, whether willingly or unwillingly, the severest widow’s garb. Jacqueline alone had been suffered, out of consideration for her youth and the general’s pleading, to put on colors. The girl, who was beautiful and simple, but quite different from other girls, in her heart cherished a hatred against this memory of the dead, that had made her youth so sad, so encompassed with death. Jacqueline loved life and feared death; and whenever her mother began to speak of Beverley, which she did a dozen times a day, Jacqueline’s shoulders would twitch impatiently. She longed to say: “What is he to us? He is dead—and we live. Why can’t he be allowed to rest in peace, like other dead people?” Jacqueline was far from heartless; she loved her sister-in-law twice as well as she had ever loved her handsome silent brother, whose death made no gap in her life, but had ruthlessly barred out all brightness from it. Jacqueline, in her soul, longed for luxury and comfort. All the discrepancies and deficiencies at Barn Elms were actually painful to her, although she had been used to them all her life. She wanted a new piano instead of the wheezy old machine in the drawing-room. She wanted a thousand things, and, to make her dissatisfaction with Barn Elms more complete, not a quarter of a mile away, across a short stretch of feathery pine-trees, on a knoll, stood a really great house, Millenbeck by name. To Jacqueline’s inexperienced eyes, the large square brick house, with its stone balustrade around the roof, its broad porch, with marble steps that shone whitely through the trees around it, was quite palatial. And nobody at all lived there. It was the family place of the Throckmortons. The last Throckmorton in the county was dead and gone; but there was another—grandson to the last—a certain Major George Throckmorton, who, although Virginian born and bred, had remained in the regular army all through the war, and was still in it. This George Throckmorton had spent his boyhood at Millenbeck with his grandfather, who was evil tempered and morose, and thoroughly wicked in every way. The old man had gone to his account during the war, and since then his creditors had been fighting over his assets, which consisted of Millenbeck alone. Major Throckmorton had money, and it had been whispered about that, whenever Millenbeck was sold, this army Throckmorton would buy it. But it was freely predicted that he would never dare show his face in his native county after his turpitude during the war in fighting against his State, and he was commonly alluded to as a traitor. Nevertheless, at Severn church, one Sunday, it was said that this Throckmorton had bought Millenbeck, and would shortly make his appearance there.