"Don't--don't you think Pluto ain't thankful, Madame Caron," said the soft tones of Margeret, and they were not quite steady tones, either.

Judithe did not look up for fear she should see tears in the melancholy, dark eyes; "that black boy just so thankful he can't speak. He'll worship you for what you've done for him, and well he may."

There was a soft rustle beside her--the presence of lips on her hand, and then Judithe was alone in the room, and stronger than when she had entered it so short a while since, braced by the certainty that here, at least, she had been of use--practical use her own eyes could see, and all the evening a bird sang in her heart, and the grateful touch of the bondwoman's lips gave her more pleasure than she could remember through the same tribute of any courtier.

CHAPTER XXI.

When Pluto brought her mail, an hour later, he tried to express more clearly in words the utter happiness showing through every feature of his dark face, but she stopped him with a little gesture.

"I see you are glad--no need to tell it," she remarked, briefly; "if you want to thank me do it by helping any of your people whom you find in trouble. There are many of them, no doubt."

And when Mrs. McVeigh thanked her for doing what she could not have done on such short notice, Judithe put the question aside quite as lightly.

"The man is a very good groom," she remarked. "I enjoyed my ride the more today for having him along to answer all my curious questions of the country. I meant to give him 'backsheesh,' as the Orientals call it, so why not select what the fellow most wants--even though it be a pickaninny?"

"Well, he certainly is singing your praises down in the cook-house. I even heard several 'hallelujas' from Aunt Dilsey's particular corner.

Judge Clarkson has endorsed the check and will send a white man horseback with it to Larues in the morning. Pluto starts tonight on foot across country--says he can't sleep, any way--he's so happy. The women are arguing already as to which shall have the special care of Zekal. Altogether, you have created a sensation in the household, and we all love you for it."

"What further recompense to be desired? It really is not worth so much of praise."

"Kenneth will not think so when he comes home," and Kenneth's mother slipped her arm around the girl's shoulder affectionately, not noticing how her careless expression changed at mention of the name.

"Oh! Will he, then, be interested in such small things as pickaninnies?"

and her light words belied the look in her eyes.

"Will he? Well, I should think so! You have done just what he would want done--what he would do if it were possible. For two generations the McVeighs have neither bought nor sold slaves"--Judithe's eyes shot one disdainful flash--"just kept those inherited; but I'm sure that boy of mine would have broken the rule for his generation in this case, and he'll be so grateful to you for it. Pluto was his playmate and respected monitor as a child, and Pluto's Zekal certainly will have a place in his affections."

Judithe picked up one of several letters, over which she had glanced, and remarked that she would expect a visitor within a week--possibly in a day or two, the master of her yacht, which from a letter received, she learned had reached Savannah before Louise. A storm had been encountered somewhere along the southern coast, and he would submit the list of damages--not heavy, yet needing a certain amount of refitting.

"Fortunate Louise did go down," she said, with a certain satisfaction, as she laid down the communication. "She will be perfectly happy, even hobbling around with a cane, if she is only buying things; she delights in spending money;" then, after a pause, "I presume Col.

McVeigh's return is still uncertain?"

"Yes, rather; yet I fancy each morning he will come before night, and each night that he may waken me in the morning. I have been living in that delightful hopefulness for a week."

Lena called them and they went out to the rustic seat circling the great live oak at the foot of the steps. The others were there, and the Judge was preparing to drive the three miles home with his sister.

Now that the invalid was better, and the wanderer returned from Mobile, Aunt Sajane bethought herself of the possible sixes and sevens of her own establishment, and drove away with promises of frequent visits on both sides.

Long after the others had retired for the night Judithe's light burned, and there was little of the careless b.u.t.terfly of fashion in her manner as she examined one after another of the letters brought her by the last mail, and wrote replies to some she meant to take to the office herself during her early morning ride; it was so delightful to have an errand, and Pluto had shown her the road.

After all the others were done she picked up again the communication she had shown to Mrs. McVeigh--the report from the yacht master, and from the same envelope extracted a soft silken slip of paper with marks peculiar--apparently mere senseless scratches of a thoughtless pen, but it was over that paper and the reply most of the evening was spent. It was the most ancient method of secret writing known to history, yet, apparently, so meaningless that it might pa.s.s unnoticed even by the alert, or be turned aside as the ambitious scrawlings of a little child.

Each word as deciphered she had pencilled on a slip of paper, and when complete it read:

"Courant brings word McV. is likely to be of special interest. If he travels with guard we can't interfere on road from coast, and you will be only hope. A guard of Federals will be landed north of Beaufort and await your orders. Messenger will communicate soon as movements are known. You may expect Pierson. We await your orders or any suggestions."

There was no signature. Her orders or suggestions were written in the same cipher, and required much more time and thought than had been given to the buying and freeing of Pluto's pickaninny, after which she destroyed all unnecessary writings, and retired with the satisfied feeling of good work done and better in prospect, and in a short time was sleeping the calm, sweet sleep of a conscienceless child.

She rode even further next morning than she had the preceding day, when Pluto was her guide, and she rode as straight east as she could go towards the coast. When she met colored folk along the road she halted, and spoke with them, to their great delight. She asked of the older ones where the road led to, and were the pine woods everywhere along it, and what about swamps and streams to ford, etc., etc.

Altogether, she had gained considerable knowledge of that especial territory by the time she rode back to the Terrace and joined the rest at the late breakfast. She had been in the saddle since dawn, and recounted with vivacity all the little episodes of her solitary const.i.tutional; the novelty of it was exhilarating. That it appeared a trifle eccentric to a Southerner did not suggest itself to her; all her eccentricities were charming to the McVeigh household, and Delaven lamented he had not been invited as proxy for Pluto, and amused the breakfast party by anecdotes of hunting days in Ireland, and the energy and daring of the ladies who rode at dawn there.

Several times during the day Judithe attempted to have a tete-a-tete with Mrs. McVeigh, and learn more about Miss Loring's silent maid, who was the first person she saw on her return from the ride that morning. The absolute self-effacement of an individual whose repose suggested self-reliance, and whose well shaped head was poised so admirably as to suggest pride, made the sad-faced servant a fascinating personality to any one interested in questions concerning her race. No other had so won her attention since she made compact with Kora in Paris.

But Mistress McVeigh was a very busy woman that day. Pluto's absence left a vacancy in the establishment no other could fill so intelligently. Miss Loring had promptly attached herself as general a.s.sistant to the mistress of the house. Delaven noticed how naturally she fell into the position of an elder daughter there, and, remembering Evilena's disclosures at Loringwood, and Matthew Loring's own statement, he concluded that the wedding bells might sound at any time after Kenneth's return, and he fancied they had been delayed, already, three years longer than suited the pleasure of her uncle.

Delaven, as well as Judithe, was attracted by the personality of Margeret. In the light, or the shadow, of the sad story he had listened to, she took on a new interest, an atmosphere of romance surrounded her. He pictured what her life must have been as a child, amid the sunshine of Florida, the favorite of her easy-living, easy-loving Greek father, the sole relic of some pretty slave! As she walked silently along the halls of the Terrace, he tried to realize Nelse's description of her gayety, once, in the halls of Loringwood.

And when he observed the adoring eyes with which she regarded the Marquise after the pickaninny episode, he understood it was another child she was thinking of--a child who should have been freed, and was not, and the feelings of Pluto were as her own.

Two entire days pa.s.sed without Pluto's return. There was some delay, owing to the absence of the overseer from the Larue estate; then, Zekal was ailing, and that delayed him until sundown of the second day, when he took the child in his arms--his own child now--and with its scanty wardrobe, and a few sundry articles of Rose's, all saved religiously by an old "aunty," who had nursed her--he started homeward on his long night tramp, so happy he scarce felt the weight of the boy in his arms, or that of the bundle fastened with a rope across his shoulders. He had his boy, and the boy was free! and when he thought of the stranger who had wrought this miracle his heart swelled with grat.i.tude and the tears blinded him as he tramped homeward through the darkness.

The first faint color of dawn was showing in the east when he walked into Dilsey's cook-house and showed the child asleep in his arms.

What a commotion! as the other house servants mustered in, sleepily, and straightway were startled very wide awake indeed, and each insisted on feeling the weight of the newcomer, just, Dilsey said, as if there never was a child seen on that plantation before. And all had cures for the "brashy" spell the little chap had been afflicted by, and which seemed frightened away entirely, as he looked about him with eyes like black beads. All the new faces, and the petting, were a revelation to Zekal.

Dilsey put up with it till everything else seemed at a standstill in the morning's work, when she scattered the young folks right and left to their several duties, got Pluto an excellent breakfast, and gave the child in charge of one of the mothers in the quarters till "mist'ess" settled about him.

"Yo' better take his little duds, too, Lucy," suggested Pluto, as the boy was toddling away with her, contentedly, rich in the possession of two little fists full of sweet things; "they're tied up in that bandana--not the blue one! That blue one got some o' his mammy's things I gwine look over; maybe might be something make him shirts or ap.r.o.ns, an' if there is a clean dress in that poke I--I like to have it put on 'im 'fore she sees him--Madame Caron, an', an' Mist'ess, o'

course! I like her to see he's worth while."

Then he asked questions about what all had been done in his absence, and learned there had been company coming and going so much Mahs Loring had his meals in his own room, "'cause o' the clatter they made." Margeret had been over at the Pines with Miss Loring to see about the work already commenced there, and Madame Caron and Miss Lena and Dr. Delaven just amused themselves.

He learned that the mail had been detained and no one had gone for it, and, tired though he was, started at once. He had noticed Madame Caron's mail was of daily importance, and it should not be neglected by him even if company did make the others forgetful.

He was especially pleased that he had gone, when the postmaster handed over to him, besides several other letters and papers, a large, important-looking envelope for the Marquise de Caron--a t.i.tle difficult for Pluto to spell; though he recognized it at sight.

The lady herself was on the veranda, in riding garb, when he presented himself, and she smiled as she caught sight of that special envelope among the rest.

"Margeret tells me you brought back the boy," she said, glancing up, after peering in the envelope and ascertaining its contents, "and, Pluto, you paid me for Zekal when you brought this letter to me--so the balance is even."

Pluto made no comment--only shook his head and smiled. He could not comprehend how any letter, even a big one, could balance Zekal.

She retired to her room to examine the other letters, while Pluto placed the mail for the rest at their several places on the breakfast table.

Judithe unfolded the large enclosure and gave a sigh of utter content as her eyes rested on the words there. They conveyed to the Marquise de Caron, of France, an estate in South Carolina outlined and described and known as Loringwood. The house was sold furnished as it stood, and there followed an inventory of contents, excepting only family china and portraits.

"Not such an unlucky journey, after all, despite the coffins in the tea cups," and she smiled at the fearful fancies of Louise, as she laid the paper aside; for the time it had made her forget there were other things equally important.

There was another letter, without signature. It said: "McVeigh is in Charleston, detained by official matters. Pierson leaves with particulars. Mail too irregular to be reliable. Your latest word from Columbia most valuable; we transmitted it as you suggested. Your location fortunate. The Powers at W. delighted with your success, but doubtful of your safety--unhealthy climate except for the natives!

Report emanc.i.p.ation will be proclaimed, but nothing definite heard yet."

She removed her habit and joined the rest at the breakfast table, clad in the daintiest of pink morning gowns, and listened with pleased surprise to Mrs. McVeigh's information that her son, the Colonel, might be expected at any time. They had pa.s.sed the blockade successfully, reached Charleston two nights before; were detained by official matters, and hoped, surely, to reach home within twenty-four hours after the letter. His stay, however, would have to be brief, as he must move north at once with his regiment.

And in the midst of the delight, Judithe created a sensation by remarking:

"Well, my good people, I am not going to allow the Colonel all the surprise. I have had one of my own this morning, and I can scarcely wait to share it with you. It is the most astonishing thing!" and she glanced around at the expectant faces.

"If it's of interest to you, it will be the wide world's worth to us,"

affirmed Delaven, with exaggerated show of devotion, at which she laughed happily, and turned to her hostess.