The Leopard's Spots (1902)/Book 3/Chapter 17
TWO days after McLeod and his bride reached Asheville on their wedding trip, General Worth received a letter which threw him into a paroxysm of rage. Sallie's wedding had been fixed for the day of the inauguration of the Governor. The invitations were out and society in a flutter of comment and gossip over the romantic and brilliant career of young Gaston, and his luck in winning power, love, and fortune in a day.
The letter was from McLeod, at Asheville, informing him that his daughter was already married, and that Gaston was simply seeking his fortune by a subterfuge, and showing his power over him by humiliating him at the last moment before the world. He enclosed a transcript of the marriage record, signed by the Rev. John Durham, and witnessed by Mrs. Durham and Stella Holt. This record was certified before the Clerk of the Court and bore his seal. There was no doubt whatever of the facts.
When the General handed this letter to Sallie she flushed, looked wistfully into his face, saw its hard expression of speechless anger, turned pale and burst into tears.
Her father without a word went to his room, and locked himself in for twenty-four hours, refusing to see her or speak to her.
On the following day she forced her way into his presence, and they had the last great battle of wills. All the iron power of his unconquered pride, accustomed for a lifetime to command men and receive instant obedience, was roused to the pitch of madness.
"If you marry him I swear to you a thousand times you shall never cross my doorstep, and you shall never receive one penny of my fortune. He is a gambler and an adventurer, and seeks to make me a laughing stock for the world!"
"Papa, nothing could be further from his thoughts. He has always loved and respected you. I assume all the responsibility for our secret marriage."
"Then sharper than a serpent's tooth is the ingratitude of a disobedient child!"
"But, Papa, I waited five years of patient suffering trying to obey you," she protested.
"I had rather see you dead than to see you marry that man now, and have him sneer his triumph in my face."
"We are already married. Why talk like that?" she pleaded tearfully.
"I deny it. I am going to annul that marriage. Felony is ground for the dissolution of the marriage tie. A ceremony performed under such conditions, when one of the parties is in prison charged with felony without bail, is illegal, and I'll show it. The lawyers will be here in an hour and I will take action to-morrow."
"Never, with my consent!" she firmly replied. She left the room, consulted with her mother, and hastily despatched a telegram to Hambright summoning Gaston to Independence immediately.
When this telegram came he was in his office hard at work on his inaugural address, outlining the policy of his administration. He was in a heated argument with the Preacher about the article on education, which followed his recommendation of the disfranchisement of the Negro.
He had advised large appropriations for the industrial training of negroes along the lines of the new movement of their more sober leaders.
"It's a mistake," argued the Preacher, "if the Negro is made master of the industries of the South he will become the master of the South. Sooner than allow him to take the bread from their mouths, the white men will kill him here, as they do North, when the struggle for bread becomes as tragic. The Negro must ultimately leave this continent. You might as well begin to prepare for it."
"But we propose to train him principally in Agriculture. We need millions of good farmers," persisted Gaston.
"So much the worse, I tell you," replied the Preacher. "Make the Negro a scientific and successful farmer, and let him plant his feet deep in your soil, and it will mean a race war."
"It seems to me impracticable ever to move him."
"Why?" asked the Preacher. "Those over certain ages can be left to end their days here. The Negro has cost us already the loss of $7,000,000,000, a war that killed a half million men, the debauchery of our suffrage, the corruption of our life, and threatens the future with anarchy. Lincoln was right when he said,
'There is a physical difference between the white and the black races, which I believe will forever forbid them living together on terms of social and political equality.'
"Even you are still labouring under the delusions of 'Reconstruction.' The Ethiopian can not change his skin, or the leopard his spots. Those who think it possible will always tell you that the place to work this miracle is in the South. Exactly. If a man really believes in equality, let him prove it by giving his daughter to a negro in marriage. That is the test. When she sinks with her mulatto children into the black abyss of a Negroid life, then ask him! Your scheme of education is humbug. You don't believe that any amount of education can fit a negro to rule an Anglo-Saxon, or to marry his daughter. Then don't be a hypocrite."
"But can we afford to stop his education?"
"The more you educate, the more impossible you make his position in a democracy. Education! Can you change the colour of his skin, the kink of his hair, the bulge of his lips, the spread of his nose, or the beat of his heart, with a spelling book? The Negro is the human donkey. You can train him, but you can't make of him a horse. Mate him with a horse, you lose the horse, and get a larger donkey called a mule, incapable of preserving his species. What is called our race prejudice is simply God's first law of nature—the instinct of self-preservation."
Gaston was gazing at the ceiling with an absent look in his eyes and a smile playing around his lips.
"You are not listening to me now, you young rascal! You are dreaming about your bride."
Gaston quickly lowered his eyes, and saw the messenger boy who had been standing several minutes with his telegram.
He read Sallie's message with amazement.
"What can that mean?" He handed the telegram to the Preacher.
"It means he has discovered the facts, and there is going to be trouble. He is a man of terrific passions when his pride is roused."
"I must go immediately."
He closed his office and caught his train after a hard drive. When he reached Independence he sprang into a carriage and ordered the driver to take him direct to Oakwood. What had happened he did not know and he did not care. Of one thing he was now sure—Sallie's love and the swift end of their separation.
His heart was singing with a great joy as he drove over the familiar avenue through the deep shadows of the woods, and turning through the gate saw the light gleaming from her room.
"God bless her, she's mine now—I hope I can take her home to-night!" he cried.
She had walked down the drive to meet him. He leaped from the carriage, kissed her and asked,
"What is it, dear?"
"McLeod wrote him about our marriage, and now he swears he will bring a suit to annul it. Leave your carriage here and come with me. If he don't send these lawyers away and receive you, I will be ready to go with you in an hour."
"Queen of my heart!" he whispered. "You are all mine at last!"
She called her father from the library into the parlour and stood on the very spot where Gaston had writhed in agony on that night of his interview with the General.
He started at the expression on her face and the tense vigour with which she held herself erect. His suit had not been progressing well with his lawyers. They had tried to humour him, but had declined to express any hope of success in such an action. He saw they were half-hearted and it depressed him.
"Now, Papa," she firmly said, "It will not take us ten minutes to decide forever the question of our lives. If you take another step with these lawyers,—if you do not dismiss them at once, I will leave this house in an hour, go with the man of my choice to his home, and you will never see me again. You shall not humiliate me or him another hour."
The General looked at her as though stunned, his voice trembled as he replied,
"Would you leave me so in an hour, dear?"
"Yes, Charlie is waiting there on the porch for me now, and his carriage is outside. I will not subject him to another insult, nor allow any one else to do it."
The General sank heavily into a chair, and stretched out his hands toward her in a gesture of tender entreaty.
"Come child and kiss me,—you know I can't live without you! Forgive all the foolish things I've said in anger and pride. Your happiness is more to me than all else."
She was crying now in his arms.
"Go, bring Charlie. The youngster has beaten me. I've fought a foeman worthy of my steel. It's no disgrace to surrender to him."
In a moment she led Gaston into the room, and the General grasped his hand.
"Young man, for the last time I welcome you to this house. Now, it is yours. You can run this place to suit yourself. I've worked all my life for Sallie. I give up the ship to you."
"General, let me assure you of my warmest love. I have never said an unkind thing or harboured a harsh thought toward you. I shall be proud of you as my father. I have loved you and Mrs. Worth since the first day I looked into Sallie's face."
The invitations stood. Gaston returned immediately to Hambright, and on the morning of the inauguration, accompanied by Bob St. Clare, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he entered the grand old mansion with its stately pillars and claimed his bride. The Chief Justice performed a civil ceremony, and the party started on a triumphal procession to the Capital. The General was bubbling over with pride in the handsome appearance the bride and groom made, and tried to outdo himself in kindliness toward Gaston.
"Come to think it over, Governor," he said to him after the inauguration, "it was a brave thing in my little girl marching into that jail alone and marrying her lover in a prison, wasn't it? By George, she's a chip off the old block! I don't care if the world does know it!"
"General, that was the bravest thing a woman could do. She is the heroine of the drama. I play second part."
They did not wait long for the people to know it. At four o'clock in the afternoon an extra appeared with a startling account of the fact that the Governor's beautiful bride had braved the world and secretly married him when his fortunes were at ebb-tide, and he was a prisoner in the Asheville jail.
That night when Sallie entered the Banquet Hall of the Governor's Mansion, leaning proudly on Gaston's arm, she was greeted with an outburst of homage and deep feeling she had never dreamed of receiving. When the Governor acknowledged the applause of his name, he bowed to his bride, not to the crowd.
The Preacher rose to respond to the toast, "The Master and the Mistress of the Governor's Mansion," and seemed to pay no attention to the Governor, but turning to Sallie, he said,
"To the queenly daughter of the South, who had eyes to see a glorious manhood behind prison bars, the nobility to stoop from wealth to poverty and transform a jail into a palace with the beauty of her face and the splendour of her love—to her, the heroine who inspired Charles Gaston with power to mould a million wills in his, change the current of history, and become the Governor of the Commonwealth—to her all honour, and praise, and homage.
"My daughter, it is meet that our wealth and beauty should mate with the genius and chivalry of the South. May it ever be so, and may your children's children be as the sands of the sea!"
Sallie bowed her head as every eye was turned admiringly upon her. The General trembled, and, when the crowd rose to their feet and reëchoed, "To her all honour and praise and homage," and the Governor bent proudly kissing her hand, he bowed his head and wept.
Her mother sitting by her side with shining eyes pressed her hand and whispered,
"My beautiful daughter, now my work is done."
As Gaston strolled out on the lawn with his bride after the banquet, they found a seat in a secluded spot amid the shrubbery.
"My sweet wife!" he exclaimed.
"My husband!" she whispered, as they tenderly clasped hands.
"Tell me now who was the author of all those lies about me to your father?"
"Why ask it, dear? You know Allan wrote the last letter."
"The dastard. I was sure of it from the first. Well, he had the facts in that last letter, didn't he?"
"Yes," she answered with a smile.
They rose to return to the Mansion, roused by the stroke of midnight from the clock in the tower of the City Hall.
"From to-night, my dear," he said, with enthusiasm, "you will share with me all the honours and responsibilities of public life."
"No, my love, I do not desire any part in public life except through you. You are my world. I ask no higher gift of God than your love, whether you live in a Governor's Mansion, or the humblest cottage. I desire no career save that of a wife—your wife"—she hid her face on his breast as a little sob caught her voice, "and I would not change places with the proudest queen that ever wore a crown!" She said this looking up into his face through a mist of tears.
With trembling lips and dimmed eyes he stooped and kissed her as he replied,
"And I had rather be the husband of such a woman than to be the ruler of the world."
The end