The Girl at the Halfway House | Page 2

position of yet higher trust. The Beauchamps had always had men in

the ranks of the professions or in stations of responsibility. They held
large lands, and in the almost feudal creed of the times they gave large
services in return. The curse of politics had not yet reached this land of
born politicians. Quietly, smoothly, yet withal keyed to a high standard
of living, the ways of this old community, as of these two
representative families, went on with little change from generation to
generation.
It was not unknown that these two families should intermarry, a Fairfax
finding a wife among the Beauchamps, or perchance a Beauchamp
coming to the Fairfax home to find a mistress for his own household. It
was considered a matter of course that young Henry Fairfax, son of
Colonel Fairfax, should, after completing his studies at the ancient
institution of William and Mary College, step into his father's law
office, eventually to be admitted to the bar and to become his father's
partner; after which he should marry Miss Ellen Beauchamp, loveliest
daughter of a family noted for its beautiful women. So much was this
taken for granted, and so fully did it meet the approval of both families,
that the tide of the young people's plans ran on with little to disturb its
current. With the gallantry of their class the young men of the
plantations round about, the young men of the fastidiously best, rode in
to ask permission of Mary Ellen's father to pay court to his daughter.
One by one they came, and one by one they rode away again, but of
them all not one remained other than Mary Ellen's loyal slave. Her
refusal seemed to have so much reason that each disappointed suitor
felt his own defeat quite stingless. Young Fairfax seemed so perfectly
to represent the traditions of his family, and his future seemed so secure;
and Mary Ellen herself, tall and slender, bound to be stately and of
noble grace, seemed so eminently fit to be a Beauchamp beauty and a
Fairfax bride.
For the young people themselves it may be doubted if there had yet
awakened the passion of genuine, personal love. They met, but, under
the strict code of that land and time, they never met alone. They rode
together under the trees along the winding country roads, but never
without the presence of some older relative whose supervision was
conventional if careless. They met under the honeysuckles on the

gallery of the Beauchamp home, where the air was sweet with the
fragrance of the near-by orchards, but with correct gallantry Henry
Fairfax paid his court rather to the mother than to the daughter. The
hands of the lovers had touched, their eyes had momentarily
encountered, but their lips had never met. Over the young girl's soul
there sat still the unbroken mystery of life; nor had the reverent
devotion of the boy yet learned love's iconoclasm.
For two years Colonel Fairfax had been with his regiment, fighting for
what he considered the welfare of his country and for the institutions in
whose justice he had been taught to believe. There remained at the old
Fairfax home in Louisburg only the wife of Colonel Fairfax and the son
Henry, the latter chafing at a part which seemed to him so obviously
ignoble. One by one his comrades, even younger than himself, departed
and joined the army hastening forward toward the throbbing guns.
Spirited and proud, restive under comparisons which he had never
heard but always dreaded to hear. Henry Fairfax begged his mother to
let him go, though still she said, "Not yet."
But the lines of the enemy tightened ever about Louisburg. Then came
a day--a fatal day--fraught with the tidings of what seemed a double
death. The wife of Colonel Henry Fairfax was grande dame that day,
when she buried her husband and sent away her son. There were yet
traditions to support.
Henry Fairfax said good-bye to Mary Ellen upon the gallery of the old
home, beneath a solemn, white-faced moon, amid the odours of the
drooping honeysuckle. Had Mary Ellen's eyes not been hid beneath the
lids they might have seen a face pale and sad as her own. They sat
silent, for it was no time for human speech. The hour came for parting,
and he rose. His lips just lightly touched her cheek. It seemed to him he
heard a faint "good-bye." He stepped slowly down the long walk in the
moonlight, and his hand was at his face. Turning at the gate for the last
wrench of separation, he gazed back at a drooping form upon the
gallery. Then Mrs. Beauchamp came and took Ellen's head upon her
bosom, seeing that now she was a woman, and that her