Red Rock: A Chronicle of Reconstruction

by Thomas Nelson Page

The roughness of the treatment Jacquelin had received at Leech’s hands caused his wound to break out afresh, and for a time he was seriously ill. But he had some compensations. Every girl in the neighborhood deemed him her especial favorite and charge. And from time to time, in the door walked, floated, or entered somehow, a goddess; and with her came heaven. Her entrance was always a miracle; she lit up the room, radiance took the place of gloom; the racked nerves found a sudden anodyne, and in the mere joy of her presence, Jacquelin forgot that he was crippled. She read to him, sat by him, soothed him, talked with him, sympathized with him, turned darkness into light, and pain, at least, into fortitude. How divinely tender her eyes could grow as some sudden paroxysm wrung his nerves, and brought a flush to his wan cheek! How solicitous was her voice! How soft her touch! And how much she knew! As much as Aunt Thomasia! How could a young girl have read so much! It stimulated Jacquelin, and he began to emulate her, as in old days, until reading became a habit.

Under these influences Jacquelin actually began to get well.

Middleton passed by one evening and saw the young girl sitting on the rose-bowered veranda, by Jacquelin’s lounge, reading to him. The soft cadences of a charming voice were borne to him murmurously. A strange pang of loneliness shot through him. That far-away visit in the past seemed to rise up before him, and the long years were suddenly obliterated. He was back, a visitor at a beautiful old country-place, where joy and hospitality reigned. Jacquelin was a handsome, bright-faced boy again, and Blair was a little girl, with those wonderful eyes and confiding ways. Middleton wondered if he should suddenly turn and walk in on them, with a reminder of that old time, how they would receive him. He was half-minded to do it, and actually paused. He would go in and say, “Here, the war is over—let’s be friends.” But suddenly a man passed him and glanced up in his face and saluted. It was Leech, and Middleton saw him look across to where the invalid and his fair young nurse sat on the shaded veranda, and knew what his thoughts were. The spell was broken. Middleton stepped down from romance to the hard ground of reality, and passed on to give his orders for the evening.

Jacquelin’s arrest and illness had come near breaking up the entertainment (a name which had been substituted for ball, to meet the scruples of Miss Thomasia and some other pious ladies). But this Jacquelin would on no account hear of. Besides, after the order forbidding public gatherings at night, it would look like truckling. As, however, in the family’s absence, the assembly could not be held at Red Rock, it was decided to have it at the court-house, where Jacquelin now was. This concession was made; the largest and best building there for such an entertainment was one used as a Masonic hall, and occasionally as a place for religious services. This hall was selected. Who was responsible for its selection was not actually known. Thurston told Middleton that when he said he ought to have been a bishop, he placed his abilities far too low—that really he ought to have been a pope. But he did not appear in the matter at all except to meet the objections raised by Leech, and to silence that official by an allusion to his recent pious ministrations in that building. Steve Allen was the chief advocate of the hall, and took the lead in its selection and also in its defence; for some objection was made by others than Leech to having a party in this building, and on very different grounds. Miss Thomasia and some others who were not entirely satisfied anyhow about dancing, thought that it was certainly more likely to be wrong in a room which had been sometimes used, however rarely, for religious services, and it took some skill to overrule their objections. Thurston said to Mrs. Dockett that it had never been consecrated. “So far from it,” said Mrs. Dockett, “it has been desecrated.” (The last service held in it had been held by a Union chaplain, who had come up from town and preached in it to the soldiers, with Leech on the front bench.)

Miss Thomasia, being for once in accord with both Thurston and Steve, gave in, and actually lent her aid and counsel, at least so far as related to the embellishment of the hall, and of some who were to attend there. She ventured her advice to Steve in only one matter relating to the outside. Having found him at work one evening, making a short rustic bench to be placed under one of the trees in the yard, she said she hoped he did not intend that for two people, and that young man scandalously replied that he was making it short on purpose for her and the General; and, in the face of her offended dignity, impudently added that the General had engaged him to do it, and had given him the measurements.

“Steve Allen, I am too old for you to talk to me so,” said Miss Thomasia.

“‘Taint me, Cousin Thomasia; ’tis the General,” persisted Steve, and then, as the little faded lady still remained grave and dignified, he straightened up and glanced at her. Stepping to her side, he slipped his arm round her, like a big stalwart son, and, looking down in her face with kindly eyes, said, tenderly:

“Cousin Thomasia, there aren’t any of ’em like you nowadays. They don’t make ’em so any more. The mould’s broken.” He seated the little lady gently on the bench, pleased and mollified, and flung himself on the grass at her feet, and the two had a long, confidential talk, from which both derived much comfort, and Steve much profit (he said). At least, he learned something new, and when as the dew began to fall Miss Thomasia rose, it was with a better insight into the nature of the reckless young fellow; and Steve, on his part, had a new feeling for Miss Thomasia, and led her in with a new tenderness. For Miss Thomasia had told the young man, what she had never admitted to a soul in all her life—that the reason the General, or anyone else, had never won her was that long ago her heart had been given to another—“the handsomest, most brilliant man I ever saw,” she said—who had loved her, she believed, with all his soul, but had not been strong enough to resist, even for her sake, the temptation of two besetting sins—drink and gambling—and she had obeyed her father, and given him up.

Steve was lying full length on his back at her feet, his face turned to her, and his clasped hands under his head.

“Cousin Thomasia, who was he, and what became of him?” he asked, gently.