Read Ebook: La petite Jeanne; ou Le devoir by Carraud Zulma

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Ebook has 1426 lines and 55169 words, and 29 pages

Griswold read of the New Orleans incident with a smile, while several fellow-passengers discussed it in a tone of banter. One of them, a gentleman from Mississippi, presently produced a flask, which he offered to the others, remarking, "As the Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of South Carolina," which was, to be sure, pertinent to the hour and the discussion, and bristling with fresh significance.

"They were both in Atlanta this morning," said the man with the flask, "and they would have been travelling together on this train if they hadn't met in the ticket office and nearly exploded with rage."

The speaker was suddenly overcome with his own humour, and slapped his knee and laughed; then they all laughed, including Griswold.

"One ought to have taken the lower berth and one the upper to make it perfect," observed an Alabama man. "I wonder when they'll get home."

"They'll probably both walk to be sure they don't take the same train," suggested a commercial traveller from Cincinnati, who had just come from New Orleans. "Their friends are doing their best to keep them apart. They both have a reputation for being quick on the trigger."

"Bosh!" exclaimed Griswold. "I dare say it's all a newspaper story. There's no knife-and-pistol nonsense in the South any more. They'll both go home and attend to their business, and that will be the last of it. The people of North Carolina ought to be proud of Dangerfield; he's one of the best governors they ever had. And Osborne is a first-class man, too, one of the old Palmetto families."

"I guess they're both all right," drawled the Mississippian, settling his big black hat more firmly on his head. "Dangerfield spoke in our town at the state fair last year, and he's one of the best talkers I ever heard."

Therefore, as no one appeared to speak for the governor of South Carolina, the drummer volunteered to vouch for his oratorical gifts, on the strength of an address lately delivered by Governor Osborne in a lecture course at Cincinnati. Being pressed by the Mississippian, he admitted that he had not himself attended the lecture, but he had heard it warmly praised by competent critics.

The Mississippian had resented Griswold's rejection of the possibility of personal violence between the governors, and wished to return to the subject.

"It's not only themselves," he declared, "but each man has got the honour of his state to defend. Suppose, when they met in the railway office at Atlanta this morning, Dangerfield had drawed his gun. Do you suppose, gentlemen, that if North Carolina had drawed South Carolina wouldn't have followed suit? I declare, young man, you don't know what you're talking about. If Bill Dangerfield won't fight, I don't know fightin' blood when I see it."

"Well, sir," began the Alabama man, "my brother-in-law in Charleston went to college with Osborne, and many's the time I've heard him say that he was sorry for the man who woke up Charlie Osborne. Charlie--I mean the governor, you understand--is one of these fellows who never says much, but when you get him going he's terrible to witness. Bill Dangerfield may be Governor of North Car'line, and I reckon he is, but he ain't Governor of South Car'line, not by a damned good deal."

The discussion had begun to bore Griswold, and he went back to his own section, having it in mind to revise a lecture he was preparing on "The Right of Search on the High Seas." It had grown dark, and the car was brilliantly lighted. There were not more than half a dozen other persons in his sleeper, and these were widely scattered. Having taken an inventory of his belongings to be sure they were all at hand, he became conscious of the presence of a young lady in the opposite section. In the seat behind her sat an old coloured woman in snowy cap and apron, who was evidently the young lady's servant. Griswold was aware that this dusky duenna bristled and frowned and pursed her lips in the way of her picturesque kind as he glanced at her, as though his presence were an intrusion upon her mistress, who sat withdrawn to the extreme corner of her section, seeking its fullest seclusion, with her head against a pillow, and the tips of her su?de shoes showing under her gray travelling skirt on the farther half of the section. She twirled idly in her fingers a half-opened white rosebud--a fact unimportant in itself, but destined to linger long in Griswold's memory. The pillow afforded the happiest possible background for her brown head, her cheek bright with colour, and a profile clear-cut, and just now--an impression due, perhaps, to the slight quiver of her nostrils and the compression of her lips--seemingly disdainful of the world. Griswold hung up his hat and opened his portfolio; but the presence of the girl suggested Ardmore and his ridiculous quest of the alluring blue eye, and it was refreshing to recall Ardmore and his ways. Here was one man, at least, in this twentieth century, at whose door the Time Spirit might thump and thunder in vain.

The black woman rose and ministered to her mistress, muttering in kind monotone consolatory phrases from which "chile" and "honey" occasionally reached Griswold's ears. The old mammy produced from a bag several toilet bottles, a fresh handkerchief, a hand mirror, and a brush, which she arranged in the empty seat. The silver trinkets glowed brightly against the blue upholstery.

"Thank you, Aunt Phoebe, I'm feeling much better. Just let me alone now, please."

The girl put aside the white rose for a moment and breathed deeply of the vinaigrette, whose keen, pungent odour stole across the aisle to Griswold. She bent forward, took up the hand mirror, and brushed the hair away from her forehead with half a dozen light strokes. She touched her handkerchief to the cologne flask, passed it across her eyes, and then took up the rose again and settled back with a little sigh of relief. In her new upright position her gaze rested upon Griswold's newspapers, which he had flung down on the empty half of his section. One of them had fallen open, and lay with its outer page staring with the bold grin of display type.

TWO GOVERNORS AT WAR.

WHAT DID THE GOVERNOR OF NORTH CAROLINA SAY TO THE GOVERNOR OF SOUTH CAROLINA?

The colour deepened in the girl's face; a slight frown gathered in her smooth forehead; then she called the coloured woman, and a brief colloquy followed between them. In a moment Griswold was addressed in a tone and manner at once condescending and deferential.

"If yo' please, suh, would yo' all 'low my mistus t' look at yo' newspapahs?"

"Certainly. Take them along."

And Griswold, recalled from a passage in his lecture that dealt with contraband munitions of war, handed over the newspapers, and saw them pass into the hands of his fellow-passenger. He had read the newspapers pretty thoroughly, and knew the distribution of their contents, so that he noted with surprise the girl's immediate absorption in the telegrams from New Orleans relating to the difficulty between the two governors.

As she read she lost, he thought, something of her splendid colour, and at one point in her reading her face went white for a moment, and Griswold saw the paper wrinkle under the tightening grasp of her hands. The tidings from New Orleans had undoubtedly aroused her indignation, which expressed itself further in the rigid lines of her figure as she read, and in the gradual lifting of her head, as though with some new resolution. She seemed to lose account of her surroundings, and several times Griswold was quite sure that he heard her half exclaim, "Preposterous! Infamous!"

When she had finished the New Orleans telegrams she cast the offending newspapers from her; then, recalling herself, summoned the black woman, and returned them to Griswold, the dusky agent expressing the elaborate thanks of her race for his courtesy. The girl had utterly ignored Griswold, and she now pulled down the curtain at her elbow with a snap and turned her face away from him.

Professor Griswold's eyes wandered repeatedly from his manuscript to the car ceiling, then furtively to the uncompromisingly averted shoulder and head of the young lady, then back to his lecture notes, until he was weary of the process. He wished Ardmore were at hand, for his friend would find here a case that promised much better than the pursuit to which he had addressed himself. The girl in this instance was at least a self-respecting lady, not given to flirtations with chance travellers, and the brown eyes, of which Griswold had caught one or two fleeting glimpses, were clearly not of the winking sort. The attendance of the black mammy distinguished the girl as a person of quality, whose travels were stamped with an austere propriety.

Her silver toilet articles testified to an acquaintance with the comforts if not the luxuries of life. The alligator-hide suit-case thrust under the seat bore the familiar label of a Swiss hotel where Griswold had once spent a week, and spoke of the girl's acquaintance with an ampler world. When Phoebe had brought it forth, the initials "B. O." in small black letters suggested Baltimore and Ohio to Griswold's lazy speculations, whereupon he reflected that while Baltimore was plausible, the black servant eliminated Ohio; and as every Virginian knows every other Virginian, he tried to identify her with Old Dominion family names beginning with O, but without result. He finally concluded that, while her name might be Beatrice or Barbara, it could not be Bessie, and he decided that very likely the suit-case belonged to her brother Benjamin, in whom he felt no interest whatever.

He went out to supper, secured the only remaining table for two, and was giving his order when the young lady appeared. She had donned her hat, and as she stood a moment in the entrance, surveying the line of tables, her distinction was undeniable. There were but two vacant places in the car, one facing Griswold, the other across the aisle at a larger table where three men were engaged in animated discussion. The girl viewed the prospect with evident disappointment as the waiter drew out the vacant chair at Griswold's table. She carried herself bravely, but wore still a triste air that touched Griswold's sympathy. He rose, told the waiter that he would sit at the other table, and the girl murmured her thanks with a forlorn little smile as she took his seat.

The appearance of Griswold aroused the Mississippian to a renewal of the discussion of the New Orleans incident. He was in excellent humour, and had carried to the car a quart bottle, which he pushed toward Griswold.

"No, thank you," and as he spoke Griswold's eyes fell upon the girl, and he saw annoyance written fleetingly on her face.

"You needn't be afraid of that whisky. It's all right," the Mississippian protested.

"I'm confident of that; but some other time, thank you."

"Please pass the salt," interposed Griswold.

The Mississippian enjoyed the sound of his own voice, which boomed out above the noise of the train with broad effects of dialect that these types will not be asked to reproduce. Griswold's eyes had again met those of the girl opposite, and there was, he felt, a look of appeal in them. The discussion distressed her, just as the telegrams from New Orleans in the afternoon papers had distressed her, and Griswold began at once to entertain his table companions with his views on a number of national political issues, that were as vital to Arizona or Wyoming as to the Carolinas. He told stories to illustrate his points, and told them so well that his three companions forgot the estrangement of the belligerent governors.

Griswold ran on in the low, musical voice that distinguishes the cultivated Virginian in any company anywhere in the world, and the noisy loquacity of the Mississippian went down before him. He was so intent on holding their attention that his dishes were taken from him almost untouched. The others lingered until his coffee was brought. He was so absorbed that he failed to see the smile that occasionally passed over the girl's face as some fragment of one of his stories found its way to her. He had undertaken to deflect the talk from a channel which had, it seemed, some painful association for her, but he had done more in unwittingly diverting her own thoughts by his droll humour. He did not cease until she had left the car, whereupon he followed his trio of auditors to the smoking compartment, and there suffered the Mississippian to hold uninterrupted sway.

When he went back into the car at eleven o'clock he found the girl and her maid still sitting in their sections, though most of the other berths, including his own, had been made up. The train was slowing down, and wishing a breath of air before retiring, he went to the rear platform of the sleeper, which was the last car of the train. The porter had opened the door in the vestibule to allow the brakeman to run back with his torpedoes. The baggage car had developed a hot box, and jumping out, Griswold saw lanterns flashing ahead where the trainmen laboured with the sick wheel. The porter vanished, leaving Griswold alone. The train had stopped at the edge of a small town, whose scattered houses lay darkly against the hills beyond. The platform lamps of a station shone a quarter of a mile ahead. The feverish steel yielded reluctantly to treatment, and Griswold went forward and watched the men at work for a few minutes, then returned to the end of the train. He swung himself into the vestibule and leaned upon the guard rail, gazing down the track toward the brakeman's lantern. Then he grew impatient at the continued delay and dropped down again, pacing back and forth in the road-bed behind the becalmed train. The night was overcast, with hints of rain in the air, and a little way from the rear lights it was pitch dark. Griswold felt sure that the train would not leave without the brakeman, and he was further reassured by the lanterns of the trainmen beside the baggage car. Suddenly, as he reached the car and turned to retrace his steps, a man sprang up, seemingly from nowhere, and accosted him.

"I reckon y'u're the gov'nor, ain't y'u?"

"Yes, certainly, my man. What can I do for you?" replied Griswold instantly.

"I reckoned it was y'u when y'u fust come out on the platform. I'm app'inted to tell y'u, Gov'nor, that if y'u have Bill Appleweight arrested in South Car'lina, y'u'll get something one of these days y'u won't like. And if y'u try to find me y'u'll get it quicker. Good-night, Gov'nor."

"Good-night!" stammered Griswold.

The least irony had crept into the word governor as the man uttered it and slipped away into the darkness. The shadows swallowed him up; the frogs in the ditch beside the track chanted dolorously; then the locomotive whistled for the brakeman, whose lantern was already bobbing toward the train.

As Griswold swung himself into the vestibule the girl who had borrowed his newspapers turned away hurriedly and walked swiftly before him to her section. The porter, who was gathering her things together, said, as she paused in the aisle by her seat,--

"Beginnin' to get ready, Miss Osbo'n. We're gwine intu Columbia thirty minutes late all account dat hot box."

Griswold passed on to the smoking compartment and lighted a cigar. His acquaintances of the supper table had retired, and he was glad to be alone with his thoughts before the train reached Columbia. He dealt harshly with himself for his stupidity in not having associated the girl's perturbation over the breach between the governor of North Carolina and the governor of South Carolina with the initials on her travelling bag; he had been very dull, but it was clear to him now that she was either the daughter or some other near relative of Governor Osborne. In a few minutes she would leave the train at Columbia, where the governor lived, and, being a gentleman, he would continue on his way to Richmond, and thence to the university, and the incident would be closed. But Griswold was a lawyer, and he had an old-fashioned Southern lawyer's respect for the majesty of law. On the spur of curiosity or impulse he had received a threatening message intended for the governor of South Carolina, who, from the manner of the delivery of the message, had been expected on this train. Griswold argued that the man who had spoken to him had been waiting at the little station near which they had stopped, in the hope of seeing the governor; that the waiting messenger had taken advantage of the unexpected halt of the train; and, further, that some suggestion of the governor in his own appearance had deceived the stranger. He felt the least bit guilty at having deceived the man, but it was now clearly his duty to see that the governor was advised of the threat that had been communicated in so unusual a manner.

He was pondering whether he should do this in person or by letter or telegram, when the rattle of the train over the switch frogs in the Columbia yards brought him to the point of decision.

The porter thrust his head into the compartment.

"Columbia, sah. Yo' berth's all ready, sah. Yo' gwine t' Richmond--yes, sah."

His hands were filled with the young lady's luggage. The lettering on the suit-case seemed, in a way, to appeal to Griswold and to fix his determination.

"Porter! Put my things off. I'll wait here for the morning train."

THE ABSENCE OF GOVERNOR OSBORNE.

Griswold spent the night at the Saluda House, Columbia, and rose in the morning with every intention of seeing Governor Osborne, or some one in authority at his office, as soon as possible, and proceeding to Richmond without further delay. As he scanned the morning newspaper at breakfast he read with chagrin this item, prominently headlined:

Governor Osborne, who was expected home from the Cotton Planters' Convention yesterday morning, has been unavoidably detained in Atlanta by important personal business. Miss Barbara Osborne arrived last night and proceeded at once to the governor's mansion.

Several matters of considerable importance await the governor's return. Among these is the matter of dealing with the notorious Bill Appleweight. It is understood that the North Carolina officials are unwilling to arrest Appleweight, though his hiding-place in the hills on the border near Kildare is well known. Although he runs back and forth across the state line at pleasure, he is a North Carolinian beyond question, and it's about time Governor Dangerfield took note of the fact. However, the governor of South Carolina may be relied on to act with his usual high sense of public duty in this matter.

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