Red Rock: A Chronicle of Reconstruction

by Thomas Nelson Page

With her other neighbors Ruth stood on her dignity, in armed guardfulness. She carried her head higher than she had ever done in her life, and responded to their advances with a coldness that soon gained her a reputation for as much pride as she could have desired, if not for a good deal of temper. Mrs. Dockett attempted a sympathetic manner with her, and if subsequent rumors were any indication, that redoubted champion did not come off wholly unscathed.

“The little minx has got her mother’s tongue,” sniffed the offended lady. “Why, she actually snubbed me—me! Think of her daring to tell me, when I was giving her to understand that we knew she was not responsible for any of the insulting things that had been said about us, that she always agreed with her mother and father in everything!—Which I’ll wager she doesn’t, unless she’s different from all the other girls I know! And away she marched with her little mouth pursed up and her head held as high as Captain Allen’s. She’ll know when I try to be civil to her again! She’s getting her head turned because Captain Allen said she had some pretension to good looks.”

It must be said, though, on behalf of Mrs. Dockett, that after the first smart of the rebuff she had received was over, she liked Ruth none the less, and after a little while used to tell the story of Ruth’s snubbing her, with a very humorous take-off of Miss Welch’s air and of her own confusion. And long afterward she admitted that the first time she really liked Ruth Welch was when she resented her condescension. “It takes a good woman—or man either—to stand up to me, you know!” she said, with a twinkle of pride and amusement in her bright eyes.

Mrs. Dockett was not by any means the only one to whom the young lady showed her resentment. Ruth felt her isolation keenly, though she did not show this generally, except in a new hauteur. She not only gave up visiting, and immersed herself in the home duties which devolved upon her in consequence of her mother’s absorption in her philanthropical work, but she suddenly began to take a much deeper interest than ever before in that work itself, riding about and visiting the poor negroes in whom her mother was interested, and extending her visits to the poorer whites as well. She was surprised at the frequency with which she met Mrs. Gray and Blair, or, if she did not meet them, heard of their visits to the people she was attending. Once or twice she met Miss Thomasia, also, accompanied by old Peggy as her escort. “I heard that the fence was going to be put up between us and old Mrs. Granger,” explained Miss Thomasia, “and I am such a poor hand at climbing fences, I am trying to see her as often as I can before it is done. I do hope the old woman will die before it is put up.” She saw the astonished look on Ruth’s face and laughed heartily. “You know what I mean, my dear, I am always getting things wrong. But, are you alone, my dear?”

Ruth said she was alone.

“I don’t think it quite right,” said Miss Thomasia, shaking her head. “Steve, I am sure, would be very glad to accompany you on any of your visitations, and so would Jacquelin.” She was perfectly innocent, but Ruth was incensed to find herself blushing violently.

It happened that on these visitations, more than once, Ruth fell in with Captain Allen. She treated him with marked coldness—with actual savageness, Steve declared afterward, but at the time, it must be said, it appeared to have little apparent effect upon that gentleman. Indeed, it appeared simply to amuse him. He was “riding about on business,” he explained to her. He seemed to have a great deal of business “to ride about on” of late. Ruth always declined, with much coolness, his request to be allowed to escort her, but her refusal did not seem to offend him, and he would turn up unexpectedly the next time she rode out alone, cheerful and amused. (One singular thing was that she rarely saw him when she was accompanied by her father.) Still she did not stop riding. She did not see why she should give up her visits of philanthropy, simply because Captain Allen also happened to have business to attend to. She began to be conscious that sometimes she even felt disappointed if on her rides she did not see him somewhere, and she hated herself for this, and took to disciplining herself for it by riding on unfrequented roads. Yet even here, now and then, Captain Allen passed her, and she began to feel as if he were in some sort doing it to protect her. On one occasion when he found her on a somewhat lonely road, he took her to task for riding so much alone, and told her that she ought not to do it. She was secretly pleased, but fired up at his manner.

“Why?” She looked him defiantly in the eyes.

He appeared confused.

“Why—because—Suppose you should lose your way, what would you do?” She saw that this was not his reason.