Red Rock: A Chronicle of Reconstruction

by Thomas Nelson Page

When the engagement of Captain Thurston and Miss Elizabeth Dockett was announced to Mrs. Dockett, it was by Miss Dockett herself. It must be left to the members of Mrs. Dockett’s own sex to say whether Mrs. Dockett was surprised or not. But if Miss Elizabeth had struck her flag, Mrs. Dockett had not by any means struck hers. Her first pronunciamento was that she had not a word to say against Captain Thurston, who was, she admitted, a perfect gentleman; but that she wanted him to understand that everyone who came into that house had to dance to the tune of Dixie. This the Captain professed he was prepared to do, and would only ask that he might sometimes be allowed to warble in his own room the Star-Spangled Banner.

Not long after this, the Red Rock case was to come up again. But a little time before the term of court at which it was to be tried, an offer of compromise was made to Jacquelin. It was said that Hiram Still had one night seen the “Indian Killer” standing by the red-rock, and that this influenced him to make his proposition. Later on, some said the apparition was Rupert, who had just come back from the West a stalwart youngster as tall as Jacquelin.

Under the terms of Still’s offer the mansion and a part of the plantation were to become Jacquelin’s and Rupert’s, while the overseer’s house, with something like half the estate, was to remain Mr. Still’s.

Jacquelin was, at first, unwilling to make any terms with Still. He was satisfied that, with the evidence he now had, he should win his case, and that Still could be sent to the penitentiary. But Bail was to sit in the case again, and the upper court was composed of Leech’s creatures; so that no one could be sure of winning his cause, whatever its merits; while Still himself was reported to be so feeble that his death was expected at any time.

There were, perhaps, other reasons that moved Jacquelin. Miss Thomasia, when she heard of Still’s offer, promptly urged its rejection. She would never allow him to be lawful owner of an acre of their old place, though, she added, with a sigh, she herself would, perhaps, not live to set foot there again.

“Yes, you shall,” said Jacquelin; and he wrote that night and accepted the terms proposed. His first act was the fulfilment of his pledge to his mother on her death-bed; and she was laid beside her husband in the Red Rock burying-ground, in sight of the old garden in which she had walked as a bride.

When Miss Thomasia entered the Red Rock door on the day of her return, she stopped and clasped her hands tightly. The eyes bent on her, from the walls seemed to beam on her a welcome.

“Well, thank God for all His mercies!” she said, fervently; and, taking her seat in an arm-chair, she spent most of the afternoon knitting silently and looking round her with softened eyes and lips that moved constantly, though they uttered no sound. Later she went out into the garden, and looked at the remnants of the flowers that were left; and there Steve and his wife found her when they came to take tea with her that first evening, and there, still later, Jacquelin brought Blair to tell of his new happiness.