Lewis Rand - Mary Johnston

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was not attentive," said Rand, "and my horse is a masterful brute. Pray assure Miss Dandridge and your brother of my gratitude. I am under deep obligation to all at Fontenoy."

      "It is a kindly place," said Cary simply. He looked about him. "The blue room! When I was a boy and came a-visiting, they always put me here. That screen would set me dreaming—and the blue roses and the moon clock. I used to lie in that bed and send myself to sleep with more tales than are in the Arabian Nights. There's a rift in the poplars through which you can see a very bright star—Sirius, I believe. May you have pleasant dreams, Mr. Rand, in my old bed!" He glanced from Rand's flushed face to the papers strewn upon the counterpane. "You have been writing? Would Dr. Gilmer approve?"

      Rand looked somewhat ruefully at the scrawled sheets and the ink upon his fingers. "It is a necessary paper of instructions," he said. "I was retained by the State for the North Garden murder case. It is to be tried next week—and here am I, laid by the heels! My associate must handle it." He made a movement of impatience. "He's skilful enough, but he's not the sort to convince a jury—especially in Albemarle, where they don't like to hang people. If he's left to himself, Fitch may go free."

      "The murderer?"

      "Yes, the murderer. These," he laid his hand upon the papers, "are the points that must be made. If Mocket follows instructions, the State will win. But I wish that Selim had not chosen to break my right arm—it is difficult to write with the left hand."

      "Could not Mr. Mocket take his instructions directly from you?"

      Rand moved again impatiently, and with a quick sigh. "I sent him word not to come. I will not bring a friend or ally where I myself must seem an intruder and a most unwelcome guest. There's a fine irony in human affairs! Selim might have thrown me before Edgehill or Dunlora—but to choose Fontenoy!" He looked at Cary with a certain appeal. "I shall, of course, remove myself as soon as possible. In the meantime, if you could assure me that Colonel Churchill and his family understand—"

      "Set your mind at rest," said Cary at once. "Colonel Churchill is the soul of kindness and hospitality, and the ladies of Fontenoy are all angels. You must not think yourself an unwelcome guest." He glanced again at the papers. "I am sure you should not try to write. Will you not accept me as amanuensis? The matter is not private?"

      Not at all: but—"

      "Then let me write from your dictation. I have nothing at all to do for the next two hours—I am staying in the house, you know—and it will give me genuine pleasure to help you. You have no business with such labour. Dr. Gilmer, I know, must have forbidden it. Come! I write a very fair clerkly hand."

      "You don't know the imposition," said Rand, with an answering smile. "It is nothing less than a Treatise on Murder."

      "I shall be glad," replied Cary, "to hear what you have to say on the subject. Come! here are blank sheets and a new quill and an attentive secretary!"

      Rand smiled. "It's the strangest post for you!—but all life's a dream just now. I confess that writing is uphill work! Well—since you are so good."

      He began to dictate. At first his words came slowly, with some stiffness and self-consciousness. This passed; he forgot himself, thought only of his subject, and utterance became quiet, grave, and fluent. He did not speak as though he were addressing a jury. Gesture was impossible, and his voice must not carry beyond the blue room. He spoke as to himself, as giving reasons to a high intelligence for the invalidity of murder. For an infusion of sentiment and rhetoric he knew he might trust Mocket's unaided powers, but the basis of the matter he would furnish. He spoke of murder as the check the savage gives to social order, as the costliest error, the last injustice, the monstrousness beyond the brute, the debt without surety, the destruction by a fool of that which he knows not how to create. He spoke for society, without animus and without sentiment; in a level voice marshalling fact and example, and moving unfalteringly toward the doom of the transgressor. Turning to the case in hand, he wove strand by strand a rope for the guilty wretch in question; then laid it for the nonce aside and spoke of murder more deeply with a sombre force and a red glow of imagery. Then followed three minutes of slow words which laid the finished and tested rope in the sheriff's hand. Rand's voice ceased, and he lay staring at the poplar leaves without the window.

      Cary laid the pen softly down, sat still and upright in his chair for a minute, then leaned back with a long breath. "The poor wretch!" he said.

      "Poor enough," assented Rand abruptly. "But Nature does not, and Society must not, think of that. As he brewed, so let him drink, and the measure that he meted, let it be meted to him again. There is on earth no place for him." He fell silent again, his eyes upon the dancing leaves.

      "You will make your mark," said Cary slowly. "This is more than able work. You have before you a great future."

      Rand looked at him half eagerly, half wistfully. "Do you really think that?"

      "I cannot think otherwise," Cary answered. "I saw it plainly in the courtroom the other day." He smiled. "I deplore your political principles, Mr. Rand, but I rejoice that my conqueror is no lesser man. I must to work against the next time we encounter."

      "You have been long out of the county," said Rand. "I had the start of you, that is all. You were trained to the law. Will you practise it, or will Greenwood take all your time?"

      "I shall practise. A man's life is larger than a few acres, a house, and slaves. But first I must put Greenwood in order, and I must—" He did not finish the sentence, but sat looking about the blue room. "The old moon clock! I used to listen to it in the night and dream of twenty thousand things, and never once of what I dream of now! What a strange young savage is a boy!" He gathered the written sheets together. "You will want to look these over? I shall be very glad to see that they reach Mr. Mocket safely, or to serve you in any way. Just now I am very idle, and I will be your secretary every day with pleasure." He rose. "And now you must rest, or we will have a rating from Dr. Gilmer. Is there any message I may take for you?"

      "My devotion and my thanks to the ladies of the house," replied Rand—"to Mrs. Churchill and Miss Dandridge and to Miss Churchill. For these"—he put his hand upon the papers—"I shall look them over, and Joab will take them to Charlottesville to Mocket. I cannot sufficiently thank you for your aid and for your kindness."

      Cary went, and Rand lay back upon his pillows, weary enough, though with a smile upon his lips. He valued Cary's visit, valued the opinion of his fellow lawyer and fellow thinker. He valued praise from almost any source, though this was a hidden thirst. Where he loved, there he valued good opinion most; but also he strongly desired that his enemies should think highly of him. To be justly feared was one thing, to be contemned quite another. Apparently Ludwell Cary neither feared nor contemned. As, a few days before on the Justice's Bench, Rand had wondered if he were going to hate Cary, so now, lying in the quiet blue room, weakened by pain and loss of blood, softened by exquisite kindness, and touched by approbation, he wondered if he were going to like Cary. Something of the old charm, the old appeal, the old recognition, with no mean envy, of a golden nature moving in harmonious circumstance, stirred in Lewis Rand's breast. He sighed and lay still, his eyes upon the pansies on the table beside his bed. The moon clock ticked; the sunshine entered softly through the veil of poplar leaves; upon the bough that brushed the window, a cicada shrilled of the approaching summer. Rand put out his uninjured arm and took a pansy from the bowl. The little face, brave and friendly, looked at him from the white counterpane where he laid it. He studied it for a while, touching it gently, with the thought in his mind that Jacqueline might have gathered the pansies, and then he left it there, took up his papers, and turned to the argument which must hang Fitch.

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