Red Rock: A Chronicle of Reconstruction

by Thomas Nelson Page

“You too late—you better make haste an’ git off dem crutches, honey, and git ’pon horseback. Crutches can’t keep up with horses.” She disappeared within and Jacquelin was left in a flame of jealousy. By the time Blair arrived he was in just the state of mind to make a fool of himself. When Jacquelin began the interview, he, perhaps, had no idea of going as far as his heat carried him; but unhappily he lost his head—or as much of a head as a man can have who is deeply in love and, having gone to see his sweetheart, finds her off riding with a rival.

It was quite dusk when the riders rode slowly up the avenue. They stopped at the gate, and Jacquelin could hear Blair’s cordial invitation to her companion to come in and take supper with them. Middleton declined.

“But I’m afraid you will catch cold, riding so far in wet clothes,” she urged. He, however, had to return immediately, he declared, and after a few more words he galloped off, while Blair came on to the house.

“Why, Jacquelin! You here all by yourself!” she exclaimed. She bent over him quickly to prevent his rising for her. Had Jacquelin been cool enough to note her voice it might have saved him; but he was not even looking at her. His manner hauled her up short, and the next instant hers had changed. She seated herself and tried for a few moments to be light and divert him. She told of the episode at the ford. Jacquelin, however, was not to be diverted, and, taking the silence which presently fell on her for a confession, he began to assume a bolder tone, and proceeded to take her to task for her conduct.

“It was an outrage—an outrage on—Steve. It was shameful,” he said, “that with such a man as Steve offering his heart to her, she should be boldly encouraging a Yankee officer, so that everybody in the county was talking about it.” It was when he said it was an outrage on Steve that the explosion came. Blair was on her feet in a second.

“Jacquelin!” she exclaimed, with a gasp. The next second she had found her voice. He had never seen her as she became. It was a new Blair standing above him, tall and straight in the dusk, her frame trembling, her voice vibrating. She positively flamed with indignation, not because of the charge, but against him for making it.

“Whose business is it?” she asked him, with glowing cheeks and flashing eyes. If her father and mother did not object, had he a right to interfere? If Steve were not satisfied, could not he take care of himself? Who had given him such a right? And before Jacquelin could recover from his surprise, she had burst into tears and rushed into the house.

Jacquelin drove home in black despair. He had been put wholly in the wrong, and yet he felt that he had had right originally on his side. His whole past appeared suddenly rooted up; his whole future destroyed by this new-comer, this hostile interloper. How he would love to have some cause of personal quarrel with him! How gladly he would put it all to the test of one meeting. Yet what had Middleton done but win fairly! and he had been a gentleman always. Jacquelin was forced to admit this. But oh! if he only had a just cause of quarrel! Let him look out hereafter. But—if he were to meet him and he should fall, what would be the consequence? He would only have ruined Blair’s happiness and have destroyed his only hope. He almost ground his teeth at his helplessness as he drove home through the dusk. He did not know that at that moment Blair Cary, with locked door, was sobbing in her little white-curtained room, her anger no longer turned against him, but against herself.

When Jacquelin awoke the next morning it was with a sinking at the heart. Blair was lost to him forever. Daylight, however, is a great restorer of courage, and, little by little, his spirits revived, until by evening he began to consider himself a most ill-used person, and to fancy Blair suing for pardon. He even found himself nursing an idea that she would write a note; but instead of that, he heard that Middleton had been up to see her again, and once more his heart sank and his anger rose. He would show her that he was not to be trampled on and insulted as she had done.

When Middleton arrived at the court-house the afternoon of his ride, he found an order transferring his company to a frontier post in the far Northwest. They were to leave immediately.