THE CORTELYOU FEUD
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It could never have happened to us anywhere in New York but at Mrs. Baxter’s. I say this not with bitterness at, but in calm recognition of, the merits and demerits of that universally esteemed lady. Abroad, with the lords chamberlain, herald’s offices, and peerages, it would be impossible. In the far West, where the biography and genealogy of the leading families are not subjects for polite conversation, it might occur frequently. But in New York, lying between these two extremes, one is safe, except from accidents due to the unfortunate existence of a peculiar class of people.
The kind I refer to are those described as having a good heart. Such an organ involves, as a natural corollary, a weak head. These qualities in combination are a terrible menace to society; for, owingto the very goodness of heart, their possessors are pardoned over and over again, and repeat their ill deeds with as much immunity from punishment as a New York police captain. Every social circle has one or more of these half-criminals, and in that in which my lot was cast Mrs. Baxter was unequalled for the number, ingenuity, and innocence of her mistakes. Omitting all hearsay and they-say knowledge, I was her forty-seventh victim; and as pœnologists affirm that more than half of the criminal acts are undiscovered, it can at once be seen how society is menaced by people with good hearts.
The lady who always tells me when I do wrong—and to married men I need not be more descriptive—has held me responsible for that evening; and, since she married me, her husband is not the one to impeach her discrimination. She insists that, knowing Mrs. Baxter, I should have come early, and so had time to arrange matters quietly. I appeal to any man if it would ever occur to him to getto a dinner early on the possibility he was to sit next a lighted shell, in order that he might express to his hostess his dislike of explosives. All New York has known for years of our family feud. It’s been common property ever since our esteemed ancestors thrashed it out in court, to the enjoyment of the public and the disruption of our family. For thirty years dinners, luncheons, yacht cruises, and house parties have been arranged so as to keep a proper distance between the descendants of my grandfather John Cortelyou and of his nephew Dabney. Sometimes I have seen one of the latter at the opposite end of a large dinner-table, and here and there I have had other glimpses of them. But until that evening, no matter how close chance brought us together, we had always succeeded in maintaining a dignified unconsciousness of each other’s existence.
I was, let it be confessed, thirty minutes late, and merely accepting the last little envelope on the tray the footman offeredme, hurried towards the drawing-room. On my way I naturally looked at the card inside and read:
Mr. Pellew.Miss Cortelyou.
Mr. Pellew.Miss Cortelyou.
Mr. Pellew.
Miss Cortelyou.
That meant nothing to me. The name is not an uncommon one, and I have taken in my aunts often enough to get accustomed to the occurrence, even in the family. So, without a second thought of the matter, I passed through the doorway and discharged my devoirs with Mrs. Baxter.
“I was on the point of suicide, thinking you had failed me,” she said. “As it is, Mr. and Mrs. Dana have just sent me word that they can’t come because Milly has croup.”
“My note said half after seven,” I stated boldly. When one is very late it is always best to put one’s hostess in the wrong, and a mistake more or less to Mrs. Baxter was immaterial.
“Oh, never!” she declared, so guiltilythat I was really sorry for her. “Well, we can’t discuss it now. We were just going in without you, and we’ll go on, leaving you to find your partner by the process of elimination. I haven’t left you Hobson’s choice, however.”
I glanced round, and as the couples had gravitated together, I easily picked out the only single figure left, and went towards it. She was turned from me, standing by Ferdie Gallaudet and his partner, who had not yet moved.
“That back is too young and pretty for Aunt Ellen or Madge,” was my first thought. My second was a spoken one, and merely consisted of the trite, “I am to have the pleasure, Miss Cortelyou.”
She was saying something to the girl, and went on saying it, with her head over her shoulder, even as she rested her hand on my arm and let me lead her away. And just as I was going to look at her, I caught sight of Ferdie’s face, and fell to wondering what could ail him that he looked so queer. We had been close tothe door, and before she had finished her remark, or I had ceased from wondering, we were through it and in the half-gloom of the hall.
“I beg your pardon,” said she, turning to me, and speaking very sweetly. “It was a message, and I had only just begun when you came.”
“What a nuisance messages are!” was my remark. “What a nice voice you have!” was my thought. Then we entered the dining-room, and I glanced at my partner. It was Kate Cortelyou!
She looked at me at the same moment, and as our eyes met, an expression of consternation appeared on both our faces. At least, that’s what I felt in myself and saw in her. Horror succeeded as a next sensation and expression. Womanlike, she cast her eyes appealingly towards her hostess, and, manlike, I took a step towards the hall door. In another second I think I should have bolted, but just then Ferdie Gallaudet said, “Here’s your seat, Jack,” with a grin like a Cheshire caton his face. I looked at Kate and she looked at me. Then we both looked at the chairs. Mechanically I stepped to them and pulled out that on the right of mine. Kate’s eyelashes fluttered for a moment, as if she were hesitating; then she slipped into the seat, and the next moment I was sitting beside her. But enchantingly pretty as I thought her (and I was either too fair-minded or she was too beautiful for me not to acknowledge it, however much I might dislike to do so), I could only wish I had broken my leg on my way to the house.
I turned to my left to see if any escape were possible, but my neighbour on that side was that horrible perpetual motion of a Mrs. Marvin, and, besides, she was very properly occupied with her partner. I peered furtively behind Kate to see if she could escape me, for anything was better than the alternative. Next her were two empty seats. Mrs. Baxter’s capacity for social blundering had done its worst.
There is this to be said for the Cortelyou women, whether friends or enemies: I’ve never seen one show the white feather in action. Just as I was preparing to collapse under this accumulation of horrors, Kate turned to me, with the friendliest of smiles, and murmured,—
“It’s ghastly, but every one except Mrs. Baxter is watching us.”
I took a furtive glimpse of the other guests. They were all pretending to talk, but all clearly were missing nothing of ourtableau vivant. Wasn’t she clever to have seen it so quickly?
“They hope we’ll make a show of the family for their benefit,” I growled.
“Can’t we—” suggested Kate, and then hesitated, and blushed very prettily. The Cortelyou women are plucky, but Kate was only nineteen.
I never was good as leader, but at the shafts I’m steady and reliable. “Of course we can,” I responded, won by that blush.
“Don’t frown, then,” smiled Kate.
“I was not frowning at you,” I protested.
“But they’ll think you are,” she replied.
I tried to appear as pleased as Kate so successfully pretended to be, and she rewarded me with an encouraging “That’s better,” and a very refreshing look at her eyes.
“Now,” she continued, “how can we do it?”
“I’m pretty well up on the litany,” I whispered. “If you can do the supplications I can respond with the ‘miserable sinner’ part.”
Kate laughed merrily, even while shaking her head reprovingly. Kate has nice teeth. “You are painfully frank,” she told me.
“Frank?”
“Yes. You are probably not a bit more miserable than I am, but I don’t groan aloud.”
“Oh, I say!” I exclaimed, rather horrified at the construction my speech had been given. “It would be pure form, you know, quite as it is in church, and not mean a bit more than it does when the sinner’s pretty and wears a French gown.”
Kate drew her mouth down into a church-going expression, which was very fetching in its demureness, but which wasn’t suitable for our public performance, so I remarked:
“Don’t look so disapproving. The saintly vein suits the Madonna type, but the Cortelyou forte lies in quite another direction.”
I won another laugh from those unsaintly lips. “You are worse than I thought,” she added.
“Then you have thought of me?” I inquired, beginning to mellow under her laugh. That was a mistake, for her face instantly became serious, and her eyes gave a flash.
“What I think is my own concern,” she responded. The Cortelyou women are stunning when they look haughty.
Being one of the family, however, I am too accustomed to the look to be as entirely crushed by it as others are. “Who’s frowning now?” I asked. I thought I’d learn what kind of a temper Kate had.
She still smiled as if she liked being put next me, but her eyes gleamed, and I knew she’d pay me for my speech if the opportunity occurred.
“We can’t begin like this,” she said. “Suggest something else.”
“I once heard of a poor couple in an English county who were always sitting next each other, so they agreed to count alternative tens up to a thousand,” I answered.
“I’m afraid you haven’t enough facial control for that,” replied Kate, sweetly, appearing the picture of contentment. I thought her remark unnecessary, considering we had been face to face only a few minutes, and that she had just lost control of hers.
“Then suggest something yourself,” I muttered.
“As the photographer says, ‘A little more smile, please,’” corrected Kate. “Yes, you unquestionably have the Cortelyou temper,” she added serenely.
“If I had,” I asserted, “I should long since have turned to Mrs. Marvin, who isdying for a listener.” I thought I’d let Kate understandIwasn’t sitting next two empty chairs.
She realised my advantage, but she wouldn’t retreat. The Cortelyou women never do. Yet she knew enough to allow the honours of war to a hard-driven enemy. “The Cortelyou men are gentlemen,” she said. Wasn’t that a neat way of telling me that I would never fail a woman in distress? I felt pleased that she understood the family so well as to have no fear for the conduct of even her bitterest enemy. “Besides,” she continued, “I like the Cortelyou temper.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Yes,” she persisted, “it’s an absolutely reliable factor. Now, papa—” Then she hesitated, realising the slip.
With an older girl I should have let her flounder, and enjoyed it; but she was so young, and blushed so charmingly that I had to help her out. “Don’t keep me in suspense about your father,” I said, in my most interested of tones, as if I trulywished to know something of that blot on the ‘scutcheon. This was my second mistake, and a bad one.
“We’ll leave Mr. Dabney Cortelyou out of the conversation, please,” she retorted, looking me in the eyes. Was there ever a meaner return for an act of pure charity than that?
By the way, Kate’s eyes are not Cortelyou. I wondered from where she got them. When we are angry we contract ours, which is ugly. She opens hers, which is—I tried to make her do it again by saying, “You should set a better example, then.” No good: she had got back to her form, and was smiling sweetly.
“They are furiously disappointed so far,” she remarked.
“What an old curiosity shop the world is about other people’s affairs! It’s no concern of theirs that my grandfather and your”—I faltered, and went on—“that my grandfather had a row in his family. We don’t talk of it.” When I said “we” I meant the present company, but unfortunatelyKate took it to mean our faction, and knowing of her father’s idle blabbing, she didn’t like it.
“Your side has always dodged publicity,” she affirmed viciously, though smiling winsomely. Kate’s smile must be her strong card.
“We have maintained a dignified silence,” I responded calmly; but I knew that a dagger thrust below that beautifully modelled throat would be less cruel.
She tried to carry the wound bravely. “My father is quite justified in letting the truth be known,” she insisted.
“Then why don’t you, too, give public house-warmings in the family-skeleton closet?” I inquired blandly. That was really a triumph, for Kate had never talked to outsiders about the wretched business. She couldn’t even respond with what she thought; for if she said that it was always the side in the wrong which talked, she was no better off, because we, like her, had kept silence, but her father had chattered it all over town. She looked down,and I gloated over her silence, till suddenly I thought I saw a suggestion of moisture on her down-turned lashes. What I said to myself was not flattering, and moreover is not fit for publication. What I said aloud I still glow over with pride when it recurs to memory.
“Beware of the croquette!” I exclaimed hastily. “I’ve just burned my tongue horribly.” And I reached for the ice-water.
She was as quick as I had been. The Cortelyou girls are quick, but she—well, I think the ancestress who gave her those eyes must have been a little quicker.
“You spoke a moment too late,” she replied, looking up at me. “I had just done the same, and feel like weeping.” I wonder what the recording angel wrote against those two speeches?
Then suddenly Kate began to laugh.
“What is it?” I queried.
“Taste your croquette,” she suggested.
It was as cool as it should have been hot!
We both laughed so heartily that Mr.Baxter called, “Come; don’t keep such a good story to yourselves.”
“Pretend you are so engrossed that you didn’t hear,” advised Kate, simulating the utmost interest. “Aren’t we doing well?”
“Thanks to you,” was my gallant reply.
“Thanks to the Cortelyous,” she declared.
“They might have known,” said I, “that we’d never have a public circus to please them.”
“Isn’t it nice,” she responded, “since we had to have a fracas, that it should be between ladies and gentlemen?”
“Isn’t it?” I acceded. “Just supposing there had been some cad concerned, who would have written to the papers and talked to reporters!”
“That was impossible, because we are all Cortelyous,” explained Kate. I like a girl who stands up for her stock.
“Yes,” I assented. “And that’s the one advantage of family rows.”
“I want to tell you,” she went on, “that you do my father a great injustice. Some natures are silent in grief or pain, and some must cry out. Because he talks, merely means that he suffers.”
I longed to quote her remark about leaving her father out of the conversation, but having told her there were no cads in the family, the quotation was unavailable. So I merely observed, “Not knowing Mr. Dabney Cortelyou, I have had no chance to do him justice.”
“But what you hear—” she began, with the proudest of looks; and it really hurt me to have to interrupt her by saying,—
“Since I only get word of him from his dearest friends I am forced to take a somewhat jaundiced view of him.”
“I suppose you are surrounded by toadies who pretend to know him,” she said contemptuously.
I was not to be made angry. I was enjoying the dinner too much. “It would be a very terrible thing for our mutualfriends,” I continued, “if the breach were ever healed, and we exchanged notes as to their tattling.”
“Fortunately they are in no danger,” she answered, more cheerfully—indeed I might say, more gleefully—than it seemed to me the occasion required.
“Fortunately,” I agreed, out of self-respect. Then I weakened a little by adding, “But what a pity it is you and I didn’t have the settling of that farm-line!”
“My father could not have acted otherwise,” she challenged back.
“And the courts decided that my grandfather was right.”
“I should have done just as he did,” she replied.
“Then you acknowledge my grandfather was right?”
“I!”—indignantly.
“You just assured me you should have done as he did!” I teased, laughing. “No. Of course both of them were justified in everything but in their making a legal matter a family quarrel. If we had had itto do, it would have been done amicably, I think.”
“What makes you so sure?” she asked.
“Because I am sweet-tempered, and you—”
She wouldn’t accept a compliment from an enemy, so interrupted me with, “My father has one of the finest natures I have ever known.”
“‘Physician, know thyself,’” I quoted, getting in the compliment in spite of her.
“That’s more than you do,” she replied merrily.
This could be taken in two ways, but I preferred to make it applicable to her rather than to myself. I said, “Our acquaintance has been short.”
“But we know all about the stock,” she corrected.
“I’m proud of the family,” I acknowledged; “but don’t let’s be Ibsenish.”
“I knew you didn’t like him,” said Kate, confidentially. “I don’t either.”
“He’s rather rough on us old families,” I intimated.
“Sour grapes,” explained Kate. “The wouldn’t-because-I-can’t-be people always stir up the sediments of my Cortelyou temper.”
“I thought you liked the family temper,” I suggested.
“In anybody but myself,” she told me. “With others it’s really a great help. Now, with my brothers, I know just how far I can go safely, and it’s easy to manage them.”
“I suppose that accounts for the ease with which you manage me.”
She laughed, and replied demurely, “I think we are both on our good behaviour.”
“I’m afraid our respective and respected parents won’t think so.”
This made her look serious, and I wondered if her father could be brute enough ever to lose that awful temper of his at such a charming daughter. The thought almost made me lose mine. “They can’t blame you,” I assured her. “Your father—”
“Is sure that everything I do is right,” she interjected, “but Mrs. Pellew?”
“We will not make Mrs. Pellew—”
Kate saw I was going to use her own speech, and she interrupted in turn. “Of course you are over twenty-one,” she continued, “but the Cortelyou women always have their way. I hope she won’t be very bad to you.”
She certainly had paid me off, and to boot, for my earlier speech. And the nasty thing about it was that any attempt to answer her would look as if I felt there was truth in her speech, which was really ridiculous. Though I live with my mother, my friends know who is the real master of the house.
“Any one living with a Cortelyou woman must confess her superiority,” I responded, bowing deferentially.
“Yes,” she said, nodding her head knowingly. “People say that she spoils you. Now I see how you compass it.”
“We have only exchanged Ibsen for Mrs. Grundy,” I complained.
“‘Excelsior’ is a good rule,” announced Kate.
“That’s what you’ll be doing in a moment,” said I, trying to look doleful, for we were eating the game course.
“How well you act it!” replied Kate. “You ought to go on the stage. What a pity that you should waste your time on clubs and afternoon teas!”
“Look here,” I protested, “I’ve done my best all through dinner, considering my Cortelyou temper, and now, just because it’s so nearly over that you don’t need me any longer is no reason for making such speeches. I don’t go to my club once a week, and I despise afternoon teas.”
“That sampler has become positively threadbare,” retorted Kate. “I really think it must be worked in worsted, and hung up in all the New York clubs, like ‘God bless our home!’ and ‘Merry Christmas!’”
“I much prefer hearts to clubs, for a steady trump,” I remarked.
“You play billiards, I presume?”
“Yes,” I innocently replied.
“What’s your average run?”
It was a tempting bait she shoved under my nose, but I realised the trap; and was too wary to be caught. “Oh, four, when I’m in good form.”
“Really?”
“Really.” I did not choose to add that I was talking of the balk-line game, not caring to be too technical with a woman.
“That’s very curious!” she exclaimed.
“I suppose some devoted friend of mine has told you I’m only a billiard-marker?” I inquired.
“No—but—”
“But?”
“Nothing.”
“George Washington became President by always telling the truth.”
“That’s the advantage of being a woman,” replied Kate. “We don’t have to scheme and plot and crawl for the Presidency.”
“How about spring bonnets?” I mildly insinuated.
“Does your mother have a very bad time persuading you to pay for hers?” laughed Kate, mischievously.
I didn’t like the question, though I knew she was only teasing, so I recurred to my question. “You haven’t told me what that ‘nothing’ was,” I persisted.
“I oughtn’t,” urged Kate.
“Then I know you will,” I said confidently.
“Well, Seymour Halsey said to Weedon the other night, ‘I wish you could play with Jack Pellew, so as to knock some of his airs out of him!’”
“Why,” I ejaculated, “I could play cushion caroms against your brother’s straight game and beat him then!”
“I never did believe that story about George Washington,” asserted Kate, with a singular want of relevance.
“No woman could,” I answered, squaring accounts promptly.
Here I saw the little preliminary flutter among the ladies, and knowing that I should never speak to Kate again, I said:
“Miss Cortelyou, I’m afraid an unkind remark of mine a little while ago gave you pain. You’ve probably forgotten it already, but I never shall cease to regret I made it.”
“Don’t think of it again,” she replied, kindly, as she rose. “And thank you for a pleasant evening.”
“Don’t blame me for that,” I pleaded hastily. “It was your own fault.”
“Not entirely,” denied Kate. “We did it so well that I’m prouder than ever of the family.”
“I decline to share this honour with my grandfather,” I protested indignantly. “He couldn’t keep his temper, bother him!”
We were at the door now, and Kate gave me the prettiest of parting nods and smiles.
“Wasn’t it a pity?” she sighed. That was distinctly nice of her. Just like a Cortelyou woman.
“Whew! Jack,” whistled Ferdie Gallaudet. “I thought I should die, andexpected to sit on your body at the postmortem.” Ferdie thinks he’s clever!
“Oh, shut up, Ferdie,” I growled, dropping back into my seat.
“Don’t wonder your temper’s queered,” persisted the little ass. “‘Wotinell’ did you talk about?”
“Family matters,” I muttered.
“Oh, I say, that’s a bit shiny at the joints. It was too well done to have verged on that subject.”
“We talked family matters, and enjoyed it,” I insisted.
“Ever hear of George Washington?” inquired Ferdie.
“Kate mentioned him to me to-night, and I promised to put him up at the Knickerbocker for a month.”
“Kate!” exclaimed Ferdie.
I lighted my cigar.
“Kate!” he repeated, with a rising inflection. “Now look here, I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“Where’s your family Bible?” I inquired blandly.
“You’ll be saying next that to-night’s arrangement was by ‘special request.’”
“You were across the table,” I retorted. “Draw your own conclusions.”
“I suppose you’ll join her later,” suggested Ferdie, in an irritating manner.
I wouldn’t be bluffed by him, so I replied pointedly, “I may, to save her from worse.”
“Give you odds on it,” offered Ferdie.
“I don’t make bets where women are concerned,” I crushingly responded.
“Sorry the strain has left you so bad-tempered,” said Ferdie, rising. “There’s Caldwell beckoning to me. Ta, ta!”
I have liked Caldwell ever since.
When we joined the ladies I went over to Kate.
“This is persecution,” she smilingly protested, as she made room for me on the sofa.
“I know it,” I cheerfully groaned, as I sat down beside her. “But I had to for the sake of the family.”
“A family is a terrible thing to live up to!” sighed Kate.
“Terrible!” I ejaculated.
“Fortunately it will only be for a moment,” she assured me.
“If you go at once,” I urged, “they’ll all think it’s the feud.”
“What a nuisance!” cried Kate. “I ought to be on my way to a musical this very minute.”
“On the principle that music hath charms?” I queried.
“Good-night!” she said, holding out her hand. I had already noticed what pretty hands Kate had.
“Forgive me!” I begged.
“Never!” she replied.
“You are serious?” I questioned, and she understood what I meant as if I had said it. I do like people who can read between the lines!
She amended her “never” to, “Well, not till I have had my chance to even the score.”
“Take it now.”
“I haven’t time.”
“I will submit to anything.”
“My revenge must be deep.”
“I will do the thing I most hate.”
“Even afternoon teas?” laughed Kate, archly.
I faltered in voice while promising, “Even afternoon teas!”
“Then I’ll send you a card for mine,” she ended, and left me, crushed and hopeless.
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No. That didn’t end the feud. It only led to a truce. For a time things went very well, but then the quarrel broke out with renewed force. You see, Kate claimed I spoiled the boy, and I claimed she did the spoiling. So we submitted it to arbitration. My mother said Kate was very judicious, and her father declared I was a model parent. Then we called in his godmother, and she decided we all four spoiled him. It’s been open war ever since, with an occasional brief cessation of hostilities whenever Kate kisses me. After the boy’s grown up, I suppose, peace will come again.
His godmother? Oh! Mrs. Baxter. You see, we couldn’t do less, for she had talked it all over town that the match was of her making. Her making! In ten cases out of nine she would have had a disrupted dinner. It’s lucky for her that Kate was a Cortelyou woman!