Then the summons came for the return to the train, and Mr. and Mrs.
Macauley, waving to them from the other end of the platform, met them at
the step.
On the morning of the third day the party reached their destination. They
were met at the small station by a staid but comfortable equipage, driven
by an old family coachman with grizzled, kinky hair and a black face full
of solemnity. They were taken to the hospitable home of the owner of the
dignified old carriage and the fat, well-kept horses which had brought
them to her door, and were there welcomed as only Southern hostesses can
welcome. Mrs. Catesby's mother had been a friend of Madam Chase's youth,
and for her sake the daughter had thrown open her house to do honour to
the ashes of one whom she had never seen.
"How glad I am," Charlotte said, soon after her arrival, standing by a
window with kind Mrs. Catesby, "to come down here where it is spring. I
could never have borne it--to put Granny away under the snow. She didn't
like the snow, though she never said so. Are those camellias down by the
hedge? Oh, may I go out and pick some--for Granny?"
"I thought you might like them--and might want to pick them yourself, or
I should have had them ready. I sent for no other flowers. I remember my
mother telling me how Madam Chase loved them--as she herself did."
From an upper window, in the room to which he had been assigned, Leaver
saw Charlotte go down the garden path to the hedge, there to fill a small
basket with the snowy blooms. When she turned to go back to the house she
found him beside her.
"I see now why you wanted no other flowers," he said, as he took the
basket. "These are like her--fair and pure and fragile."
"She was fond of them. She wore them in her hair when she was a girl.
They have no fragrance; that is why I want them for her now. How people
can bear strong, sweet flowers around their dead I can never understand."
"I have always wondered at that, too," Leaver admitted. "My mother had
the same feeling." He looked closely at Charlotte's face, as the bright
sunlight of the Southern spring morning fell upon it. "You are very
tired," he said, and his voice was like a caress. "Not in body, but in
mind--and heart. I wish, by some magic, I could secure for you two full
hours' sleep before--the hour."
"I couldn't sleep. But I am strong, I shall not break down."
"No, you will not break down; that wouldn't be like you. And
to-night--you shall sleep. I promise you that."
"I wish you could," Charlotte said, and her lips trembled ever so
slightly. "But I shall not."
"You shall. Trust me that you shall. I know a way to make you sleep."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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