A Soldier of Virginia - Burton Egbert Stevenson
"Yes, it is true," he answered, and looked down at me, smiling sadly.
"Shall I tell you the story, Thomas?"
I nodded eagerly, for I loved to listen to stories, especially true ones.
"When Louis Fourteenth was King of France," he began, and I think he took
a melancholy pleasure in telling it, "he issued a decree commanding all
the Protestants, who in France are called Huguenots, to abjure their
faith and become Catholics, or leave the kingdom. He had oftentimes
before promised them protection, but he was growing old and weak, and
thought that this might help to save his soul, which was in great need of
saving, for he had been a wicked king. My father and my mother were
Huguenots, and they chose to leave their home rather than give up their
faith, as did many thousand others, and after suffering many hardships,
escaped to England, with no worldly possession save the clothes upon
their backs, but with a great treasure in heaven and an abiding trust in
the Lord. They had six children, and after giving us a good education,
especially as to our religion, committed us to the providence of a
covenant God to seek our fortunes in the wide world. All of us came to
America, although Moses and John have since returned to England. James is
a farmer in King William County, Francis is minister of York-Hampton
parish, and sister Ruth lives with me, as you know."
A great deal more he told me, which slipped from my memory, for I was
thinking over what he had already said.
"And your mother and father," I asked, as we started back together, "fled
from France rather than give up their faith?"
"Yes," he answered, and smiled down into my eyes, raised anxiously to
his.
"And were persecuted just as the early martyrs were?"
"Yes, very much the same. All of their goods were taken from them, and
they were long in prison."
"But they were never sorry?"
"No, they were never sorry. No one is ever sorry for doing a thing
like that."
I trotted on in silence for a moment, holding tight to his kindly hand,
and revolving this new idea in my mind. At last I looked up at him, big
with purpose.
"I am going to do something like that some day," I said.
He gazed down at me, his eyes shining queerly.
"God grant that you may have the strength, my boy," he said. He bent
and kissed me, and we returned to the house together without saying
another word.
It was the custom of the Fontaine family to hold a meeting every year to
give thanks for the deliverance from persecution of their parents in
France, and I remember being present with my father and mother at one of
these meetings when I was seven or eight years old. One passage of the
sermon he preached on that occasion remained fixed indelibly in my mind.
He took his text from Romans, "That ye may with one mind and one mouth
glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." He applied the
duty thus enjoined to the Fontaine family, saying,--
"For many weary months was our father forced to shift among forests and
deserts for his safety, because he had dared to preach the word of God to
the innocent and sincere people among whom he lived, and who desired to
be instructed in their duty and to be confirmed in their faith. The
forest afforded him a shelter and the rocks a resting-place, but his
enemies gave him no quiet, and pursued him even to these fastnesses,
until finally, of his own accord, he delivered himself to them. They
loaded his hands with chains, a dungeon was his abode, and his feet stuck
fast in the mire. Murderers and thieves were his companions, yet even
among them did he pursue his labors, until God, by means of a pious
gentlewoman, who had seen and pitied his sufferings, relieved him."
To my childish imagination, the picture thus painted was a real and
living one, and filled me with a singular exaltation. I think each of us
at some time of his life has felt, as I did then, a desire to suffer for
conscience' sake.
The preachers of Virginia were, as a whole, anything but admirable, a
condition due no doubt to the worldly spirit which pervaded the church on
both sides of the ocean. The average parson was then--and many of them
still are--coarse and rough, as contact with the forests and waste places
of the world will often make men, even godly ones. But many of them were
worse than that, gamblers and drunkards. They hunted the fox across
country with great halloo, mounted on fast horses of their own. They
attended horse-races and cock-fights, almost always with some money on
the outcome, and frequently with a horse or cock entered in the races or
the pittings. And when the sport was over, they would accompany the
planters home to dinner, which ended in a drinking-bout, and it was
seldom the parson who went under the table first. One fought a duel in
the graveyard behind his church,--our own little Westover church, it
was,--and succeeded in pinking his opponent through the breast, for which
he had incontinently to return to England; another stopped the communion
which he was celebrating, and bawled out to his warden, "Here, George,
this bread's not fit for a dog," nor would he go on with the service
until bread more to his liking had been brought; another married a
wealthy widow, though he had already a wife living in England. His bishop
was compelled to recall him, but I never heard that he was discharged
from holy orders. Another on a certain Saturday called a meeting of his
vestry, and when they refused to take some action which he desired,
thrashed them all soundly, and on the next day added insult to injury by
preaching to them from the text, "And I contended with them, and cursed
them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair." I should
like to have seen the faces of the vestrymen while the sermon was in
progress! It was not an unusual sight to see the parson riding home from
some great dinner tied fast in his chaise to keep him from falling out,
as the result of over-indulgence in the planter's red wine. But our
worthy pastor, during his forty years' ministry in Charles City parish,
was concerned in no such escapades, and I count it one of the great
happinesses of my life that I had the good fortune to fall under the
influence of such a man. A passage of a letter written by him to one of
his brothers in England on the subject of preserving health gives an
outline of the rules of his life. After commending active exercise in the
open air on foot and on horseback, he says, "I drink no spirituous
liquors at all; but when I am obliged to take more than ordinary fatigue,
either in serving my churches or other branches of duty, I take one glass
of good old Madeira wine, which revives me, and contributes to my going
through without much fatigue."
One other figure do I recall distinctly. We had driven to church as usual
one Sunday morning in early fall, and when we came in sight of the little
brick building, peeping through its veil of ivy, I was surprised to see
the parishioners in line on either side the path which led to the broad,
low doorway. Mr. Fontaine stood there as though awaiting some one, and
when he saw us, came down the steps and spoke a word to father. In a
moment, from down the road came the rumble of heavy wheels, and then a
great, gorgeous, yellow chariot, with four outriders, swung into view and
drew up with a flourish before the church. The footmen sprang to the
door, opened it, and let down the steps. I, who was staring with all my
eyes, as you may well believe, saw descend a little old man, very weak
and very tremulous, yet holding his head proudly, and after him a
younger. They came slowly up the walk, the old man leaning heavily upon
the other's shoulder and nodding recognition to right and left. As they
drew near, I caught the gleam of a great jewel on his sword-hilt, and
then of others on finger, knee, and instep. The younger bore himself very
erect and haughty, yet I saw the two were fashioned in one mould. On up
the steps and into the church they went, Mr. Fontaine before and we after
them. They took their seats in the great pew with the curious carving on
the back, which I had never before seen occupied.
"Who are the gentlemen, mother?" I whispered, so soon as I could
get her ear.
"It is Colonel Byrd and his son come back from London," she answered.
"Now take your eyes off them and attend the service."
Take my eyes off them I did, by a great effort of will, but I fear I
heard little of the service, for my mind was full of the great house on
the river-bank, which it had once been my fortune to visit. Mr. Fontaine
had taken me with him in his chaise for a pastoral call at quite the
other end of his parish, and as we returned, we were caught in a sudden
storm of rain. My companion had hesitated for a moment, and then turned
his horse's head through a gateway with a curious monogram in iron at the
top, along an avenue of stately tulip-trees, and so to the door of a
massive square mansion of red brick, which stood on a little knoll
overlooking the James. The door was closed and the windows shuttered, but
half a dozen negroes came running from the back at the sound of our
wheels and took us in out of the storm. A mighty fire was started in the
deep fireplace, and as I stood steaming before it, I looked with dazzled
eyes at the great carved staircase, at the paintings and at the books, of
which there were many hundreds.
Presently the old overseer, whom Mr. Fontaine addressed as Murray, and
who had grown from youth to trembling age in the Byrd service, came in to
offer us refreshment, and over the table they fell to gossiping.
"Westover's not the place it was," said Murray, sipping his flip
disconsolately,--"not the place it was while Miss Evelyn was alive. There
was no other like it in Virginia then. Why, it was always full of gay
company, and the colonel kept a nigger down there at the gate to invite
in every traveler who passed. But all that's changed, and has been these
six year."
Mr. Fontaine nodded over his tea.
"Yes," he said, "Evelyn's death was a great blow to her father."
"You may well say that, sir," assented Murray, with a sigh. "He was never
the same man after. He used to sit there at that window and watch her in
the garden, after they came back from London, and every day he saw her
whiter and thinner. At night, after she was safe abed, I have seen him
walking up and down over there along the river, sobbing like a baby. And
when she died, he was like a man dazed, thinking, perhaps, it was he who
had killed her."
"I know," nodded Mr. Fontaine. "I was here." There was a moment's
silence. I was bursting with questions, but I did not dare to speak.
"The young master took him back to London after that," went on Murray,
"hoping that a change would do him good and take his mind off Miss
Evelyn, but I doubt he'll ever get over it. While they were in London,
Sir Godfrey Kneller painted him and Miss Evelyn. Would you like to see
the pictures, sir?"
"Yes, I should like to see them," said Mr. Fontaine softly. "Evelyn was
very dear to me."
They were hanging side by side in the great hall, and even my childish
eyes saw their strength and beauty. His was a narrow, patrician face,
beautiful as a woman's, looking from a wealth of brown curls, soft and
flowing. The little pucker at the corners of his mouth bespoke his
relish of a jest, and the high nose and well-placed eyes his courage and
spirit. But it was at the other I looked the longest. She was seated upon
a grassy bank, with the shadows of the evening gathering about her. In
the branches above her head gleamed a red-bird's brilliant plumage. On
her lap lay a heap of roses, and in her hand she held a shepherd's crook.
Her gown, of pale blue satin, was open at the throat, and showed its fair
sweet fullness and the bosom's promise. Her face was pensive,--sad,
almost,--the lips just touching, a soft light in the great dark eyes. I
had never seen such a picture,--nor have I ever looked upon another such.
I can close my eyes and see it even now. But the storm had passed, and it
was time to go.
"Why did Miss Evelyn die?" I questioned, as soon as we were out of the
avenue of tulips and in the highway.
He looked down at me a moment, and seemed hesitating for an answer.
"She loved a man in London," he said. "Her father would not let her marry
him, and brought her home. She was not strong, and gossips say her heart
was broken."
"But why would he not let her marry him?" I asked.
"He was not of her religion. Her father thought he was acting for
her good."
I pondered on this for a time in silence, and found here a question too
great for my small brain.
"But was he right?" I asked at last, falling back upon my companion's
greater knowledge.
"It is hard to say," he answered softly. "Perhaps he was, and yet I have
come to think there is little to choose between one sect and another, so
Christ be in them and the man honest."
He looked out across the fields with tender eyes and I slipped my hand
in his. A vision of her sad face danced before me and I fell asleep, my
head within his arm, to waken only when he lifted me down at our
journey's end.
All this came back to me with the vividness which childish recollections
sometimes have, as I sat there in the pew at my mother's side. Only I
could not quite believe that this little wrinkled old man was the same
who looked so proudly from Kneller's canvas. But when the service ended
and he stopped to exchange a word with father, I saw the face was indeed
the same, though now writ over sadly by the hand of time weighted down
with sorrow. It was the only time I ever saw him in the flesh, for he was
near the end and died soon after. He was buried beside his daughter in
the little graveyard near his home. It was Mr. Fontaine who closed his
eyes in hope of resurrection and spoke the last words above his grave,--
beloved in this great mansion as in the lowliest cabin at Charles City.
My pen would fain linger over the portrait of this sainted man, which is
the fairest and most benign in the whole gallery of my youth, but I must
turn to another subject,--to the cloud which began to shadow my life at
my tenth year, and which still shadows it to-day. For the first six or
seven years of their married life my father and mother were, I believe,
wholly and unaffectedly happy. When I think of them now, I think of them
only as they were during that time, and wonder how many of the married
people about me could say as much. Their means were small, and they lived
a quiet life, which had few luxuries. But as time went on, my father
began to chafe at the petty economies which the smallness of their income
rendered necessary. He had been bred amid the luxuries of a great estate,
where the house was open to every passer-by, and it vexed him that he
could not now show the same wide hospitality. I think he yet had hopes of
succeeding to his father's estate, out of which, indeed, there was no law
in Virginia to keep him should he choose to claim it. Whatever his
thoughts may have been, he grew gradually to live beyond his means, and
as the years passed, he had recourse to the cards and dice in the hope,
no doubt, of recouping his vanishing fortune. It was true then, as it is
true now and always will be true, that the man who gambles because he
needs the money is sure to lose, and affairs went from bad to worse until
the final disaster came.
It was just after my tenth birthday. My mother and I were sitting
together on the broad porch which overlooked the river. She had been
reading to me from the Bible,--the parable of the talents,--in which and
in the kind advice of Parson Fontaine she found her only comfort in the
anxious days which had gone before, and which I knew nothing of. But the
lengthening shadows finally fell across the page, and she closed the book
and held it on her knee, while she talked to me about my lessons and a
ramble we had planned for the morrow. The red of the sunset still
lingered in the west, and a single crimson cloud hung poised high up
against the sky. I remember watching it as it turned to purple and then
to gray. A burst of singing came from the negro quarters behind the
house, and in the strip of woodland by the river the noises of the night
began to sound.
As the twilight deepened to darkness, my mother's voice faltered and
ceased, and when I glanced at her, I saw she had fallen into a reverie,
and that there was a shadow on her face. I have only to shut my eyes, and
the years roll back and she is sitting there again beside me, in her
white gown, simply made, and gathered at the waist with a broad blue
ribbon, her slim white hands playing with the book upon her knee, her
eyes gazing afar off across the water, her mouth drooping in the curve
which it had never known till recently, her wealth of blue-black hair
forming a halo round her head. Ah, that she were there when I open my
eyes again, that I might speak to her! For the bitterest thought that
ever came to me is one which troubles my rest from time to time even now:
Did I love her as she deserved; was I a staff for her to lean upon in her
trouble; was I not, rather, a careless, unseeing boy, who recked nothing
of the impending storm until it burst about him? I trust the tears which
have wet my pillow since have gladdened her heart in heaven.
I was awakened from the doze into which I had fallen by the sound of
rapid hoof-beats down the road. We listened to them in silence, as they
drew near and nearer. I did not doubt it was my father, for few others
ever rode our way. He had been from home all day, as he frequently was of
late, only he did not usually return so early in the evening. Something
in my mother's face as she strained her eyes into the shadows to catch a
glimpse of the advancing horseman drew me from my chair and to her side.
"It is your father," she said, in a voice almost inaudible, and as she
spoke, the rider leaped from the shadow of the trees. He drew his horse
up before the porch with a jerk and threw himself from the saddle. As he
came up the steps, I saw that his face was strangely flushed and his eyes
gleaming in a way that made me shiver. I felt my mother's arm about me
trembling as she drew me closer to her.
"Well, it's over," he said, flinging himself down upon the upper step,
"and damme if I'm sorry. Anything's better than living here in the woods
like a lump on a log."
"What do you mean is over, Tom?" asked my mother very quietly.
"I mean our possession of this place is over. Since an hour ago, it has
belonged to Squire Blakesley, across the river."
"You mean you have gambled it away?"
"If you choose to call it that," said my father ungraciously, and he
turned his back to us and gazed gloomily out over the water.
For a moment there was silence.
"Since we no longer possess this place," said my mother at last, "I
suppose you intend to forget your foolish anger against your father, and
claim your patrimony?"
"Foolish or not," he cried, "I have sworn never to take it until it is
offered to me, and I mean to keep my word!"
"You would make your boy a beggar to gratify a foolish whim!" retorted my
mother, her voice trembling with passion. I had never seen her so, and
even my father glanced at her furtively in some astonishment. "Very well.
In that it is for you to do as you may choose, but his estate here, or
what is left of it, shall be kept intact for him."
"What do you mean?" cried my father, and he sprang to his feet and
slashed his boot savagely with his riding-whip.
"I mean," said my mother very quietly, "that since a gambling debt is not
recoverable by law, we have only to live on quietly here and no one will
dare disturb us."
"And my honor?" cried my father with an oath, the first I had ever heard
him use. "It seems to me that you forget my honor, madam."
"You have been the first to forget your honor, sir," said my mother,
rising to face him, but still keeping me within her arm, "in staking your
son's inheritance upon a throw of the dice."
My father started as though he had been struck across the face, but he
was too far gone in anger to listen to the voice of reason. Indeed, I
have always found that the more a man deserves rebuke, the less likely is
he to take it quietly.
"Come here, Tom," he said to me, and when I hesitated, added in a sterner
tone, "come here, sir, I say."
I had no choice but to go to him, nor did my mother seek to hold me back.
He caught me by the arms and bent until his face was close to mine.
"You are to promise me two things, Tom," he said, and I perceived that
his breath was heavy with the fumes of wine. "One is that you are never
to claim your inheritance of Riverview until it is offered to you freely
by them that now possess it. Do you promise me that?"
"Yes," I faltered. "I promise you, sir."
"Good!" he said. "And the other is that you will pay my debts of honor
after I am dead, if they be not paid before. Promise me that also, Tom."
His eyes were on mine, and I could do nothing but obey, even had I
thought of resisting.
"I promise that also, sir," I said.
"Very well," and he retained his grasp on my arms yet a moment.
"Remember, Tom, that a gentleman never breaks his word. It is his most
priceless possession, the thing which above all others makes him a
gentleman."
He dropped his hands and turned away into the house. A moment later,
from the refuge of my mother's arms, I heard him heavily mounting the
stairs to his room on the floor above. My mother said never a word, but
she covered my face with kisses, and I felt that she was crying. She held
me for a time upon her lap, gazing out across the river as before, and
when I raised my hand and caressed her cheek, smiled down upon me sadly.
She kissed me again as she put me to bed, and the last thing I saw before
drifting away into the land of dreams was her sweet face bending over me.
Had I known that it was the last time I was to see it so,--the last time
those tender hands were to draw the covers close about me,--I should not
have closed my eyes in such content.
CHAPTER V
THE SECRET OF A HEART
Late that night I was awakened by the slamming of doors and hurried
footsteps in the hall and up and down the stairs. I sat up in bed, and as
I listened intently, heard frightened whispering without my door. It rose
and died away and rose again, broken by stifled sobbing, and I knew that
some great disaster had befallen. It seemed, somehow, natural that this
should happen, after my father's recent conduct. With a cold fear at my
heart, I threw the covers back, slid from the bed, and groped my way
across the room. As I fumbled at the latch, the whispering and sobbing
came suddenly to an end, as though those without had stopped with bated
breath. At last I got the door open, and looking out, saw half a dozen
negro servants grouped upon the landing. One of them held a lantern,
which threw slender rays of light across the floor and queer shadows up
against their faces. They stared at me an instant, and then, finding
their breath again, burst forth in lamentation.
"What is it?" I cried. "What has happened?"
My old mammy had her arms around me and caught me up to her face, down
which the tears were streaming.
"Oh, Lawd, keep dis chile!" she sobbed, looking down at me with infinite
tenderness. "Oh, Lawd, bless an' keep dis chile!"
"But, mammy," I repeated impatiently, "what has happened?"
Her trembling lips would not permit her answering, but she pointed to the
door of my father's room and her tears broke forth afresh.
"Is my mother there?" I asked.
She nodded.
"Then I will go to her," I said, and I had squirmed out of her arms and
was running along the passage before she could detain me. In a moment I
had reached the door, but all my courage seemed to fail me in face of the
mystery within, and the knock I gave was a very feeble and timid one. I
heard a quick step on the floor, and the door opened ever so little.
"Is it you, doctor?" asked my mother's voice.
"No, mother, it is only I," I said.
"You!" she cried, in a terrible voice, and I caught a glimpse of her face
rigid with horror before she slammed the door. The sight seemed to freeze
me there on the threshold, powerless to move. I have tried--ah, how
often!--to put behind me the memory of her face as I saw it then, but it
is before me now and again, even yet. And I began to cry, for it was the
first time my mother had ever shut me from her presence.
"Are you there, Tom?" I heard her voice ask in a moment. Her voice, did
I say? Nay, not hers, but a voice I had never heard before,--the voice of
a woman suffocating with anguish.
"Yes, mother," I answered, "I am here."
"And you love me, do you not, Tom?"
"Oh, yes, mother!" I cried; and I thank God to this day that there was so
much of genuine feeling in my voice.
"Then if you love me, Tom," she said, "you will go back to your room
and not come near this door again. Promise me, Tom, that you will do as
I ask you."
"I promise, mother," I answered. "But what has happened? Is father dead?"