Fate, who, as Doctor Vardaman's favourite classic assures us, calls, equal-footed, upon carpenters and kings, must surely have laid a directing hand on the old gentleman's shoulder that morning; not yet were his adventures over, even when he reached his own door. The Lexington and Amherst Street car crawled with him laboriously as far as the corner of Amherst and Richmond, where he must disembark and trudge the remaining five blocks of board sidewalk to number 201. The trolley whisks you out there in five minutes now. Not long ago I saw in somebody's back yard, a back yard of the proletariat, next door to a tenement, one of these dilapidated old horse-cars, pygmy ancestor of a race of giants, thrown aside, weather-worn, ancient as the palæolithic period, serving as a play-house for the proletarian youngsters. The windows were all out of it, even the purple glass lights overhead; but you might dimly discern the legend: "No. 5. Lexington and Amherst. No. 5." along its battered sides. The thing was as romantic as a derelict galleon; sentimental melancholy possessed me as I looked at it; all my youth rode in that decrepit chariot, if not with comfort, at least with tolerable satisfaction. Will the rising generation treasure so picturesque a memory? I think not. In cold weather there was a layer of straw, doubtful-tinted, breathing strange odours, in the bottom of it, thoughtfully provided by the street-car company to protect its patrons' feet. It was lit by two oil lamps, in two niches, fortified by wire-work, oneat either end of the car. These vehicles were banded about the body with a wide stripe in various colours to distinguish the various lines, an amazingly ingenious idea if people had only been able to see after dark, like cats; and, as the spectrum had been exhausted by the time the builders got around to the Lexington and Amherst line, they designated these cars, in a creditable burst of originality, by a sash of black-and-red squares, like the Rob Roy plaid. Immediately arose some genius with an equally fertile invention and baptised them "the checker-board cars," a title which they wore to the end. There was one very steep hill at the foot whereof it was the custom to hitch on an extra team of mules; I know of no more gallant spectacle than that furnished by a quadriga of mules nobly breasting Wade Street hill, with a checker-board car plunging in the rear. When it got off the track, as not infrequently happened, all the male passengers got out and helped push it back. We were firmly persuaded that this was rapid transit! Yet spare your merriment, youth of to-day; impartial Fate is waiting for your admired institutions, too, your Twentieth Century Flyers, your automobiles, your seven-league-boots. In twenty-five years, how will your sons and daughters deride you; with what longing, with what amused tenderness, will you not look back to these kind, simple days!
Doctor Vardaman, then, with Destiny stalking viewless at his side, swung off the checker-board car, and began the homeward walk. Some way ahead of him he saw a figure diminished by distance, plodding through his yard toward the kitchen door; and as he drew nearer, two more figures emerged from his front porch. The doctor recognised Bob Carson, and in the over-tall, lankily-graceful young woman,Mazie Pallinder, in an extremely modish tan-coloured cloth coat with dark brown plush collar and pocket flaps. Mazie's sleeves were about as tight as Bob's trousers—that is to say, they were as tight as human skill could make them, or human arms and legs endure. Thus were we clad in the eighties.
"Oh, hello, Doctor," said Bob, dropping Mazie's hand—I suppose he had been fastening her glove—and addressing the old gentleman with unusual vivacity and a notable increase of colour. "Ah—we—we've just been getting Huddesley to hear us our parts—in 'Mrs. Tankerville,' you know."
"I hope you have mastered yours," said Doctor Vardaman, without a smile. Bob's part, as he and everyone else knew, might have been omitted altogether without materially damaging the performance; he was a footman in "Mrs. Tankerville," and his lines were hardly more than "Yes, sir," and "No, sir," stated at the proper intervals. He got redder than ever under the doctor's grave survey, and affected to be busy knocking invisible mud from his boot heel with his cane as they stood by the gate. Mazie did not blush—for the best of reasons. Her face was too carefully arranged to permit of it. And, besides, what was there to blush about? Bob changed colour almost whenever she looked at him; but then Bob was a quiet and rather shy youth.
"Huddesley's simplyfine!" she said with enthusiasm. "I asked him how he came to know so much about the stage, and he says he was dresser for an actor once when he was right young, and used to be behind the scenes a lot. Come home and take lunch with us, won't you, Doctor?"
"I can't very well to-day. I was just about to ask you to stay here. Huddesley, you can get us up something, can't you?"
"Bit of 'am and a glass of porter, sir," said Huddesley deferentially, holding the door open. "Beg parding, Doctor Vardaman, sir, but Mrs. Maginnis is 'ere with your wash."
"I guess we'd better not stop so long's I've got so much company in the house," said Mazie. "Good-bye, Doctor; you'll come up this evening, anyway?" And as they walked away, the doctor heard Bob say, "Isn't Huddesleyimmense, though? 'Bit of 'am and a glass of porter.' Sounds just like Dickens, don't it?"
The doctor, still squired by unseen Fortune, went upstairs to his bedroom—and there, it may be presumed, the goddess left him, having executed her appointed task. Mrs. Maginnis awaited him, and Huddesley was already laying the doctor's shirts out of the basket. The laundress generally performed this rite herself, but to-day she stood watching the man with an oddly flustered manner, twisting the fringes of her old shawl between her fingers. Her bonnet, that feathered and beribboned structure indigenous to washerwomen, had worked askew a little; her face, with its premature wrinkles, its sunken mouth, was flushed with exercise or excitement. The doctor, observant as all physicians from lifelong habit, looked at her in some surprise. It crossed his mind that at some prehistorically distant time, when Mrs. Maginnis was a fresh barefoot girl, running the green swards of Connemara, she might have been pretty; her Irish blue eyes, faded with years, with toil, with sickness, with care, were quite bright to-day. A kind of tremulous happiness, an anxious joy, irradiated her; she was like a child to whom one should have given a new toy, scarcely daring to be glad yet in its possession.
"Got change for a fifty-dollar bill, Mrs. Maginnis?" said the old gentleman jocosely.
"Yez will have yer joke, now, won't ye, Docthor?" she retorted with gaiety, and tossed her head with the upstanding plumes in a roguish manner. "Niver moind. Some day I'll change ut for yez aisy enough. 'Taint much longer I'll be comin' 'round for me dollar and a half, at all, at all."
"Has Tim got well? Is he going back to work?" asked the doctor, beginning to fish for the required sum amongst the loose silver in his pockets. He spoke of her husband.
Tim was what Doctor Vardaman called a "non-combatant." To say that he was a washerwoman's husband describes him. Who ever heard of a washerwoman with a husband that was worth anything?
"Naw, it ain't that, Docthor," said Mrs. Maginnis, looking momentarily a little dashed. "Naw, Tim's awful bad with rheumatics this spring. But it's meself that's afther ma-akin me fortune in—in stocks. Yez didn't see me in the Turrner Buildin' th' marrnin'?"
Doctor Vardaman's hand paused, rigidly suspended over the money spread on his palm. "What—what's that you say?" he asked abruptly.
"I was goin' to ask yez to spake a wurrd to me characther wid Misther—I mane Meejor Pallinder," went on Mrs. Maginnis, happily unconscious. "But he seemed to be in a hurry, an' says I to meself, 'Betther not worry him, Nora Maginnis. Th' Meejor's thrustin' yez anyhow, an' ye're thrustin' him an' iverythin's fair an' square an' aboveboord. 'Taint as if yez were a gurrl goin' to ta-ake a new pla-ace, ye goose,' says I. So I just held me tongue, an' walked off.It's a grand gintleman th' Meejor is intoirely," she finished enthusiastically.
The doctor looked at her through a mist. "What have you been doing?" he said at last, striving to speak in his natural voice. He might have spared the trouble; Mrs. Maginnis was only too proud and pleased at his interest, at her own importance.
"Ah, thin, I've been investin'—investin' in stocks—or is it shares, I dinnaw?" she said eagerly, lifted her skirt, and drew out a paper, carefully hoarded, from a pocket in her petticoat. She held it toward him. "I got a letther about thim in th' mail, a printed letther, an' ut says: 'Dear Madame, we want to call your attintion——' like that ut begun, Docthor. I can't raymimber th' rest of ut, but yez ought to hear me little Danny, he's got ut by hearrt. Anyway, I was to call on or com-communicate with William Pallinder, Turrner Buildin', like what ut says there. They was iver so many on our sthreet got th' sa—ame, th' Hogans 'crost th' way, an' th' Schwartzes nixt dure but wan, but they ain't anybody wint but me, an' th' Meejor says it's a grreat pity, an' they'll all git left, for they won't be anny more shares or stocks, whichever ut is, sold so low. An' it's just loike pickin' money off of trees, he says, yez git tin for wan. That's four thousan' I'll git, Docthor, for it's four hundred I'm ta-akin out o' th' Buildin' an' Loan, where we been puttin ut for th' last tin years—an' weary wurrk ut is, too, savin' so slow, nothin' loike this, where yez just put in yer money, an' set back an' twiddle yer thumbs! It kapes goin' higher ivery breath yez draw purty near, th' Meejor says. An' whin I give him th' money, he wrote off a grand pa-aper, a receipt, he called ut, an' says he: 'I congrat'late yez, Mrs. Maginnis,' says he.'It's th' smarrt woman yez arre, an' plucky, too,' says he. 'Nothin' venture, nothin' have, yez may have hearrd th' sayin',' he says. 'That's the way I begun meself,' says he. 'I had just a little, 'twasn't be half so much as yours, an' I put ut in, an' ut kep' a-goin' up an' a-goin' up, an' there I was, like a big fool'—that's what he said, Docthor—'shiverin' an' shakin' an' layin' awake noights, for fear somethin' would happen to ut, an' whin ut doubled, I fair et up th' road gittin to th' office to sell out—an' th' very nixt day it was thribbled already! But I'm all over thim days now,' he says, laughin' that way he has, 'an' yez can see wid wan eye shut how I live, Mrs. Maginnis. Well, all that come from that little lump o' money not be half so big as yours, as I was just afther tellin' yez, an' that's where yez'll be, too, inside of a year, if yez'll be guided by me,' he says. Indade, it's th' foine gintleman he is, an' th' koind man, to be doin' all that for th' loikes of me, an' so I tould him."
For the second time that day Doctor Vardaman gazed silently at "El Paso & Rio Grande," "$172,000,000.00 in dividends," until the characters swam before his eyes.
"At least you'll want your dollar and a half in the meantime, Mrs. Maginnis," he said finally with an effort, and counted the money into her hand. She had on a pair of black worsted gloves, the fingers too long for her own, crooked, hardened and disfigured with work. She took the coins clumsily, and some of them dropped and rolled about the floor.
"Troth, what'll I do whin I'm a la-ady, settin' in me kerridge, wid kid gloves on, I wondher," she said with a laugh. "I'm that awkward wid these, I'd betther be learnin', I think. I'm goin' to have Maggie ta-ake pianny lessons, Docthor, an' I'm goin' to git a pair of va-ases for th' parlourmantelpiece, an' a wheel chair for Tim. That's what I'm goin' to do whin th' firrst o' th' money comes in. I made up me moind to that as I was walkin' along wid yer wash th' marrnin', an' thin all to oncet, I says to meself. 'An' what'll th' docthor be doin' for somewan to clear-starch his shirrts th' way he loikes? An' to do up thim white lawn cravats that's all cut on th' bias, an' sthretches somethin' awful—thim stocks yez call 'em, Docthor. Faith, there's stocks an'stocks, think o' that, now?" She laughed a little, hysterically, gulping at her own joke. "Yez wouldn't belave ut, Docthor, for all I was so happy, I cud ha' set right down an' cried to think that somewan might git hould o' thim, some naygur, mebbe, that 'ud ruin 'em!" The tears came into her faded blue eyes. "It's th' good man yez arre, Docthor Varrdaman, an' it's koind yez have been to me all these harrd years, an' I'll niver forgit ut. Whin I'm settin' in me parlour, wid th' pitchers an' th' Rogers Group like I mane to have ut, rockin' in me chair, an' listenin' to Maggie play, I'll be thinkin' of yez often an' often, Docthor, an' of th' ould days, whin I was sthrugglin' along at th' tub an' yez helped me."
Doctor Vardaman mechanically twisted his features into a smile. "I wish you luck with all my heart, Mrs. Maginnis," was all he could say; but the Irishwoman was too emotionally wrought up to heed the strangeness of his manner. Her sky was radiant with dreams.
"Sure, I kin have thim masses said for me mother—rest her sowl!" she said, crossing herself fervently; and the next moment, in gleeful anticipation: "An' buy me a black silk, Docthor, a black silk dhress, me that hasn't had a new rag to me back for eight years!"
She went; and Doctor Vardaman sat down before his table. He took out the colonel's fifty-dollar bill—the colonel's! It was Mrs. Maginnis', like all the rest of the bills in that handsome Russia-leather case! The doctor was as sure of it as if it had been sworn to in his presence. He stared at it miserably. Of course, he told himself, he had known all along that Pallinder was a humbug, had known in a sort of way that he was a scamp. But the truth is, you and I, even the most experienced, even the wisest and worldliest and most wary of us, knows very little about scamps. The doctor had lived his seventy years with such vicissitudes as fall to the lot of the ruck of mankind, and had encountered no greater rascality than that of some patient who ignored a bill or refused to pay it—an offence which he himself was the first to excuse or condone. By nature a humane and sympathetic man, he had learned in his profession a large charity, a habit of making allowances which he now denounced savagely for a contemptible shirking of responsibilities.Laissez faire, indeed! And one-half the world, not knowing how the other half lives, need not care! Yes, Pallinder was a scamp; but Doctor Vardaman found, with a wretched surprise, that he had had no real comprehension of what the word meant—the thing it denoted. This was its meaning, this shabby trickery, this cheap deceit; the discovery came upon him like a blow. There is an extraordinary bitterness to any generous mind in beholding the uncovered shame of a friend; we hate to see the feet of clay; the pain is two-edged and strikes us either way with the sense of his unworthiness, of our own folly. The doctor had liked Pallinder; liked him still—liked him and despised him. He sat wondering at his own weakness. "If it had been me," thought the oldgentleman, "if it had been me that he had cheated, fleeced, bamboozled in this way, or anyone of my class, I could almost say the game was fair and have my laugh at the dupe; it's our business to know better. But that poor old woman, that poor, ignorant, faithful, trusting creature, that honest, simple drudge!" He thought of her tired, work-worn hands in those pitiful gloves with a throb of pain and unreasoning self-reproach. Colonel Pallinder's hands were large, white, and very well-kept; a seal ring in pretty taste,simplex munditiis, adorned his little finger, the only piece of jewelry he wore. It was paid for, if at all, the doctor reflected grimly, out of the pocket of some other Mrs. Maginnis. The flavour of the colonel's cigar was yet on his lips; what washerwoman, what widow, what patient, laborious wage-earner's little savings had paid forthat? He got up and walked the floor restlessly. There was a kind of irony in the thought that he, John Vardaman, must suffer this travail of spirit, while the guilty one himself pursued his way unmoved, tranquil, eating and sleeping in triumphant ease. "After all," said the doctor inwardly, "am I my brother's keeper? No. But I have sat at Pallinder's table, smoked with him, drunk with him, laughed with him, sanctioned and encouraged him. All the while I knew he was a rogue; I did it open-eyed; I shared the spoil—it's late, late in the day, Jack Vardaman, for you to cry Fie on the thief! Dozens of others are daily doing the same thing; why not? The Pallinders amuse them. Of what stuff are we all made?" His glance fell on the bill again; he picked it up and smoothed it out mechanically, wondering what had prompted Pallinder to pay him out of all the people he owed. It was certainly not from any warm friendship, for Colonel Pallinder liked everybody equally well; his cordiality,his generosity emulated the very sunshine in their wide diffusion. If he stole meanly, he gave away magnificently—after his own desires were indulged. He was quite capable of picking Mrs. Maginnis' pocket one day, and relieving her distress with coal and warm blankets the next; and it is more than likely that he would have paid the first comer, whether Doctor Vardaman or somebody else, if the matter had occurred to him, and if the sum were not inconveniently large.
Huddesley, coming in with the tray of luncheon, was astonished at the doctor's haggard look; he moved about noiselessly, disposing the dishes to the old gentleman's liking, and once or twice sending a sharp glance into his face unobserved.
"Shall you be going up to Mrs. Pallinder's to dinner this evening, sir?" he asked at length respectfully. "Miss Pallinder said something about you——"
"No," said Doctor Vardaman sternly. "No. I shan't be going there again."
Huddesley looked at him with singular blankness. "Beg parding, sir, did you say——?"
"I said I was not going there again," repeated the doctor with deliberation. He thought a moment. "I'll write a note and ask the younger gentleman here to dinner next Friday night, Huddesley, and you can take it up to Mrs. Pallinder. It's the night of their party; we shan't see much more of them," said Doctor Vardaman, checking a sigh. He would not acknowledge to himself how much he should miss the careless jollity, the youthful fun and freedom of the last two years. Huddesley was leaving the room when the doctor abruptly called him back: "Huddesley!"
"Yes, sir."
"I—I seldom interfere in the affairs of my servants,Huddesley," said Doctor Vardaman, hesitating. "I realise that I have no more right to meddle with your business than you with mine. But I—I should like to ask you if you have ever had any business dealings with Colonel Pallinder? If you—you have ever bought any of his mining or 'Phosphate' stocks, in short?"
Huddesley, after a moment's puzzled silence, so far forgot his usually impeccable manners as to utter a queer unpleasant sound between a sneer and a laugh. "Me?" said he. "Not much. Think I'd be roped in by any such con game as that? I guessnot—bet your bottom dollar!" He caught the doctor's startled look, and faltered. "Hi—Hi 'ope you'll hexcuse me, sir," he said in genuine and very alarmed confusion; "Hi 'ear so much rough talk sometimes, Hi can't 'elp picking it hup——"
"Never mind," said Doctor Vardaman kindly. "I thought you were too shrewd a man and had seen too much of the world to—to be taken in, as you say. I should be sorry to think of your losing money—especially through over-confidence in—in any friend of mine. I wouldn't like to feel that you were influenced in that way," the old gentleman concluded rather sadly.
The servant eyed his downcast face with an unfathomable expression. He fumbled with the door-knob; then he cleared his throat and spoke with something of an effort. "You're mighty kind to me, Doctor Vardaman," he said huskily. "You treat me mighty white—and I won't forget it."
It was the second time within the hour that Doctor Vardaman had received this agreeable assurance. "'Mighty white,'" he quoted to himself, almost smiling, as the door closed. "I'm afraid Huddesley is becoming Americanised."
Among the forgotten fashions of the years from eighteen-eighty to eighty-five was that of giving our parties, evening or afternoon, for young people or old, of whatever kind, in short, in our own homes; the easy hospitality of clubs or fashionable hotels was not yet known. Houses with double-parlours and a dining-room back were considered ideal for any sort of entertainment; and, of course, such an architectural triumph as the old Gwynne house with that splendid ballroom on the third floor, washors concours. There was not another home in town to compare with it. Mrs. Pallinder could entertain without disturbing a single piece of the peacock-blue and old-gold furniture; she meant, however, to have the whole place floor-clothed the night of the twelfth. "I can't risk my Moquette carpets with a mob of young people tearing around all over the house, you know, my dear," she said with a smiling pretence of severity; and her guests, eying the rich scrolls and garlands underfoot, gravely acquiesced. Everywhere else, all the movables, except the bookcases and piano, were marshalled upstairs or out on the back porch. The little sofas in our parlours generally went into retirement under the stairs at the rear end of the hall. In the afternoons we were just beginning to have progressive euchres, and what we actually called "high teas." It is doubtless impossible for the mind of to-day to conceive of a society so devoid of education and good taste as to call any species of entertainment a "high tea," but such is the appalling fact. You maypick up aJournalorEvening Despatchof that date, and read not one but many notices such as this:
"At Mrs. Henderson P. Gates' high tea on Monday in the fashionable crush were observed:Mrs. Colonel Pallinder in a toilet of ottoman silk and silk plush in two shades of electric blue, with garniture of chenille and pearl fringes, and a capote of feathers en suite.Miss Pallinder in wine-coloured surah with sleeves and draperies of spotted silk grenadine.Miss Ponsonby-Baxter wore a redingote of crushed-strawberry pekin opening over a brocaded front in shades of the same, with panels of——"
"At Mrs. Henderson P. Gates' high tea on Monday in the fashionable crush were observed:
Mrs. Colonel Pallinder in a toilet of ottoman silk and silk plush in two shades of electric blue, with garniture of chenille and pearl fringes, and a capote of feathers en suite.
Miss Pallinder in wine-coloured surah with sleeves and draperies of spotted silk grenadine.
Miss Ponsonby-Baxter wore a redingote of crushed-strawberry pekin opening over a brocaded front in shades of the same, with panels of——"
No, I have not the heart to go on with the gaudy details of Muriel's panels and passementerie. But I remember that dress well, and, believe it or not, she looked as nobly and placidly beautiful in the crushed-strawberry redingote as had she been draped like the Winged Victory. Mrs. Gates continued her party with a dance that same evening. "The house was all torn up anyhow," Lily Gates told us; "and mamma thought she might just as well go ahead."
Muriel and J. B., or Mr. Taylor, as she decorously called him,—he was only J. B. to college mates or others who knew him well,—were sitting out a waltz on the top step of the Henderson P. Gates' stairs. It was a long flight, turning sharply at a little landing to reach the upper hall; and the musicians penned in the alcove behind the steps on the first floor were discoursing "A Medley of Popular Airs," with admirable command of rhythm and expression. "Wh-i-te Wings," "Swee-ee-t Vi-o-lets," the sounds travelled up to them as through a chimney. There was a smothering scent of lilacs—the house had been decorated with them—and in pauses of the noise one could hear the window-panesshuddering to the assaults of successive blasts of wind and rain commingled. The spring was early that year. A discreet twilight on the top step held out opportunities for flirtation which Mazie Pallinder never would have neglected in the world; but neither J. B. nor Muriel had any notion of taking advantage of them. The girl was absorbed in a certain dilemma; her even delicate brows were slightly drawn as she studied the pattern of her fan, and wondered how she could lead, draw, drag the conversation around to the desired point. And J. B. was thinking that "Pretty Pond-lilies" was a good waltz, and if it hadn't been so hot, and Miss Baxter something of an armful to pull around—and she couldn't reverse—he would have suggested a turn. He looked at her. It would be desirable, I suppose, to record minutely what Muriel wore that night; I refer you to the columns of theJournal; but does anyone remember that full dress in the eighties—in common with dress for all occasions—comprehended those two aids to beauty, "bangs," and "bustles"? Muriel's pretty copper-brown hair was arranged in the fringe down to the eyebrows, the knot low on the nape of her neck, to which a famous stage-beauty had lately given her name; and I am afraid her black lace skirts were crinolined in the height of the fashion. But the young man thought she looked like Juno—Juno with a bustle! They had been talking about Doctor Vardaman.
"The doctor's really awfully fond of his queer old things," J. B. remarked. "If you show the least interest—and it's not put on with me, Iaminterested—he'll take you around, and explain to you who all the big-bugs, his ancestors in the portraits were, and what they did, and tell you about his first editions, and the old wine he's got laid away, and theautograph-letters to his grandfather from Benjamin Franklin and all the rest of it."
"How odd!" said Muriel.
"Yes, I suppose it's funny to you, but you see over here we don't have all that the way you do. People aren't used to seeing it about them all the time. I expect that's the reason Huddesley fits in with the doctor so well; he cares for everything and understands—the way old family-servants do in novels you know. He's so English——"
"No, he isn't," said Muriel decidedly. "You think so, but none of youknow. Nobody talks like that at home."
"Well, not nice people of course, but servants——"
"No, not servants either. He's no more like a real servant at home than our stage-Yankees are like you."
"You've never come into contact with his class much, I guess," said J. B., remembering that the treatment accorded servants varies widely. "Everything is different with us; now the doctor likes to make him talk. We're all going down there to dinner Friday night, did you know it?"
"What, all of us? Why, that's the night we——"
"No, only the men, I mean. The doctor told Mrs. Pallinder he'd like to have us, and he thought maybe she'd just as lief we were out of the house, while all of you were getting ready for the performance. There are so many of us, you know, for 'William Tell.' Some of the fellows have sent their clothes out to his house, and are going to dress there."
Muriel looked at him timidly. He was unconsciously opening a door for the entrance of that all-important topic; she was not quick, however, and besides she was in doubt whether—whether it would be quite proper for her to speak to him about it at all! Next moment the opportunity was gone.
"If we get everybody in a good humour with the first performance, they won't care if 'Mrs. Tankerville'isa little rocky," J. B. observed sagely. "Teddy isn't so good asJenks the butler. He's not—not convincing. Ted doesn't look as if he could steal a potato, let alone a hatful of diamonds. And then he hasn't the chances to be funny there are in 'Tell.' Nobody knows their part yet, and here the thing's set for Friday!"
"I'm rather sure of myself all except one place," Muriel said. "We've been going so we haven't had much time to study."
"I know. It's an awful rush this season. The girls can stand it, of course; they rest in the daytime. But a fellow's got to go to business. Somebody said to Arch. Lewis the other day, 'Oh, never mind. They don't need you at the office.' He said, 'Yes, but hang it all, I don't want 'em to find that out!'"
Muriel listened and assented vaguely; she was not accustomed to young men who had businesses and offices. Time was passing, and they were no nearer the point than they were ten minutes ago. She hesitated; and J. B. admired, yet a little wondered at, the swift changes of colour in her cheeks. "These English girls beat everything at blushing," he said to himself; and then removed his eyes with a sudden guilty flush over his own face as he realised that he had been staring too hard. But, Jove, what a beauty she was!
"You all think Mr. Johns is very good in his part, don't you?" said Muriel, nervously conscious that they had been silent too long. American men, she had noticed, expected the girls to do the most of the talking; and, somehow, the girls did.
"Why, yes, especially in 'Tell,' don'tyou?"
"Well, I—I don't always understand, you know. And the last night we rehearsed, after we went to that dinner at the Ellises', I couldn't even make out some of the words he said, he spoke so——"
"He—he wasn't very well—we had to call the rehearsal off, you remember?" interrupted the young man hastily. Muriel was surprised to see him redden and avoid her eyes. There was an awkward pause—the kind of pause that, had Muriel been an American girl, with their uncanny sharpness of intuition, she would not have allowed to occur. But, had Muriel been an American girl, this history would have remained forever unwritten. But for her visit to the Pallinders' there would have been no 'Tell,' no 'Mrs. Tankerville,' no dinner at Doctor Vardaman's—who can say what might have happened instead?
"Ted can imitate Billy Rice first-rate," said J. B., anxious to steer gracefully away from an uncomfortable situation. "We had a minstrel-show one time, and he made up to look like Rice and sang that song of his:
"Arthur, they say, will em-i-grate,"
"Arthur, they say, will em-i-grate,"
"Arthur, they say, will em-i-grate,"
"Arthur, they say, will em-i-grate,"
"Then all the rest of us had to shout, you know,
"WHEN?""Bye-and-bye!Into the ma-tri-mo-ni-al state.""WHEN?""Bye-and-bye!"
"WHEN?""Bye-and-bye!Into the ma-tri-mo-ni-al state.""WHEN?""Bye-and-bye!"
"WHEN?""Bye-and-bye!Into the ma-tri-mo-ni-al state.""WHEN?""Bye-and-bye!"
"WHEN?"
"Bye-and-bye!
Into the ma-tri-mo-ni-al state."
"WHEN?"
"Bye-and-bye!"
"They're all the time getting off something about the President marrying again, you know. Teddy was as good as Rice any day."
"Billy Rice?" repeated Muriel. She had not thought the fragment of comic song very comic (and therein I dare say she was right), and she knew no more who Billy Rice was than—than the average reader of these lines. Time has dismissed that fat, jolly troubadour. Upon what bank of misty Acheron does he now perform his melodies? And where are the snows of yester-year?
"He's a big fat fellow—a white man, you know. They're all white, but blacked up, in the minstrel-shows," J. B. explained patiently.
"Fancy! What do they do?"
"Why, sing and dance; buck-and-wing, and all that. It's rather knock-down-and-drag-out fun, some of it; and some's pretty good."
"I don't believe I'd understand the jokes," said Muriel forlornly. "It's so different at home—it's quite simple. Everyone always knows when to laugh. But you know that song you sing in 'Tell,' 'The Maiden on the Icy Plank,' that first verse—would you mind explaining? You know where it says:
"The maiden on the icy plankShowed conduct quite surprising,She went and got a cake of yeast—Then fell instead of rising!"
"The maiden on the icy plankShowed conduct quite surprising,She went and got a cake of yeast—Then fell instead of rising!"
"The maiden on the icy plankShowed conduct quite surprising,She went and got a cake of yeast—Then fell instead of rising!"
"The maiden on the icy plank
Showed conduct quite surprising,
She went and got a cake of yeast—
Then fell instead of rising!"
I—I don't quite see it—the—the point, you know."
"Oh, that's just nonsense, you know—it's just silly. The fact is—yeast, you know,yeast, well, it makes thingsrise, and shefell——'
"Oh, sheatethe yeast?" said Muriel with a charming smile. "Oh, that's very droll!" She almost laughed. "It didn't say that, you see. That's why I didn't understand. But sheatethe yeast!"
"Yes, sheatethe yeast," said J. B. resignedly. "One can't quite explain a thing like that somehow. It's only meant to be silly."
"Most of your American jokes are like that, aren't they? I mean they have to be explained. At first I thought it was because I was slow—but you say suchqueerthings—and one can't ever be certain whether you're in fun or earnest."
"I suppose itishard for a stranger. Is there anything else—any other joke, I mean, that you'd like to get at the true inwardness of?"
Muriel recognised the opportunity she had sought.
"I—I wish you'd tell me, if you don't mind, you know that costume you wear in the play, that kilt—why do you wear that, Mr. Taylor?"
J. B. surveyed her perplexed.
"Why do I wear the kilt and all the rest of it? Why—why to make a little fun, you know."
"Ithoughtthat was it," said Muriel earnestly. "But, you see, it's really not funny."
"Oh, isn't it?"
"Not a bit," Muriel assured him; and then her heart dropped dismally at the expression on his face.
He did not looked pleased somehow.
"I—I didn't mean thatyouaren't funny, you know, I meanitisn't funny."
"I'm afraid I don't catch the distinction," said the young man a little drily. Bitter is the cup of the unappreciated joker.
"I mean—I—I——" quavered Muriel miserably. "Maybe it's because I'm not used to your fun—I don't see things—it's always really funny at home—so different from here—somuch easier. But—I—I think you're too—too nice to wear a kilt!"
The tears came into her eyes; tears of embarrassment and perhaps some deeper unanalysed feeling. Amazement encompassed J. B. What on earth was the matter with her? It was not possible she thought the kilt indecent!
"And—and that little red apple on the corner of your head!" faltered Muriel. "It all makes you look so foolish—not at all funny. And you're not foolish—really and truly not the least bit foolish—and I think it's a shame for you to make yourself look so!"
At the moment J. B. looked exceedingly foolish. Her interest was gratifying, of course; there was something almost maternally sweet in it. But it put him, as he phrased it to himself, in an awful box.
"You—you're not vexed, are you?" said Muriel, holding her chin steady by an effort. The young man glanced at her, and surprised an expression that caused him to look away, crimsoning. The next instant he inwardly cursed himself savagely for a despicable cad. Couldn't a nice girl look at him without his imagining——!
"Oh, I wouldn't get mad about a little thing like that, Miss Baxter," he said heartily. "I'm feeling pretty stuck-up about your—your speaking of it at all, you know. Of course, itisa Tom-fool costume, but I've let myself in for it now, and I can't very well back out, and leave them without anybody at the last minute. And I won't look any sillier than the others—not so silly as Ted for instance, in women's clothes."
"Oh, he doesn't make any difference!" said Muriel, almost with impatience.
"Well, he thinks he's pretty important, anyway," J. B.said, wondering privately what they would have done without the comparatively safe and conservative ground of Teddy Johns' character and abilities for a retreat, when the conversational horizon grew overcast. "In the second play especially—making away with peoples' diamond coronets and things! Mrs. Pallinder's going to let us have all hers. She's got some sparklers, you know, regular headlights; you've seen her wear them? Tell you, if I were in Ted's place, I wouldn't want to have 'em in my charge, even for a few minutes—and it's all through the last two acts—until the place where they drag him out from behind the screen, after I'm supposed to shoot him, remember?"
"Yes, where you say: 'Don't put the handcuffs on a dead man, men!'"
"And Billy Potter says: 'He ain't dead; you can't kill that kind with a blast o' dynamite. I guess these here's your tiary, lady.' Ted's going to have it all done up in a package in his inside pocket. He says he's going to keep the things in his clothes the whole time. There are so many servants around, and the carpenters to fix the scenery, and the caterer's men—you can't be too careful. 'Twouldn't do to leave a five-thousand-dollar diamond necklace lying around loose; everybody in town knows about that necklace, I guess."
"Do you suppose Mr. Potter really looks at all like a detective?"
J. B. laughed. "No. He cocks his hat over one eye, and acts that tough way, just to give the part a kind of snap—a little go, you know. But the only detective I ever knew was a very quiet, gentlemanly sort of fellow. We had a little trouble at the bank once, and had this chap—his name was Judd—there for a couple of weeks, in plain clothes, you know.He didn't look like Vidocq either—not a bit. He looked like—like—well, a nice young fellow clerking in a shoe-store, say."
"Fancy!"
The music achieved its final chord; and the stairs promptly filled with resting couples. Mrs. Gates came out of the parlour with an armful of gilt shepherds' crooks and wreaths of tissue-paper roses. She looked up at the long slant of young people, nodding and signalling; and went back to speak to the musicians. The "juhman" was about to begin.
"I do think it's too funny for any use," said Kitty Oldham across her late partner to the nearest girl, "the way Britannia throws herself atsomebody'shead. Simply monopolises him thewholetime."
"Oh, they were just sitting out one dance," said the man with her, displaying an unexpected acuteness. "Never mind looking at me that way, Miss Kitty. I know whom you were talking about. J. B. just didn't want to dance it, I guess."
"No wonder. Self-preservation's the first law of nature," said Kitty with undaunted pertness.
"Funny they don't teach 'em todance, on the other side, isn't it?"
"Oh, she thinks she's dancing," said Kitty, lazily scornful. "It's a delusion they all have, I suppose. J. B.'s the only man around big enough for her—except Gwynne, and he's tall, but he's too slim. He's dropped out of the play—did you know?"
"Why, no—what for?"
"I don't know. If he'd been here to-night, I'd have asked him. He just walked off, and nobody said anything, for fear of putting their foot in it. I guess there never was a thingof the kind yet, that there wasn't a lot of fighting about. It's bound to be that way, you know. Nobody will be on speaking-terms before it's over."
"Have they got someone to take his place?"
"I believe Joe McHenry is going to do Matilda, and they're going to leave out Joe's old part—it wasn't much anyway, and somebody or other can take his speeches. Pretty nearly every man in town that can sing or act at all is in it already, you know. Archie says he doesn't know what they'd do, if anyone were to be taken sick."
"But why do you suppose Gwynne——?"
"Goodness knows! It's a bother, we'd fixed up all the programmes with his name on, and there isn't time to make a whole new lot now. You can't tell anything about it—there's a queer streak in all the Gwynnes, you know."
Doctor Vardaman's house wore something of a festive look on Friday night when the "all-star cast," as some ribald jeerer had christened them, of "William Tell," began to arrive. It was partly due to the appearance of Huddesley in his worn evening-clothes, carefully brushed and pressed. How he contrived to get the dinner—and it was a good dinner—cooked and ready for serving, and yet present himself in the doctor's little oil-clothed entry to open the door whenever the bell tinkled, clean, cool, and unhurried, ready to take charge of overcoats and hats—how Huddesley did all that, I say, would have been a mystery to any woman. Even some of the young men spoke of it afterwards with enthusiasm. As I have already stated, it happened that I never saw Huddesley except once, later in this same fateful Friday evening, as we shall presently hear, so that I am unable to describe him; but he achieved a certain measure of immortality in much better-known and more widely-read columns than mine will ever be. And in fact there could not have been much about him to describe; I think he was undersized and lean, a decent-looking, temperate, capable creature. But nothing in his appearance, they tell me, would have moved one to a second glance at him; and perhaps it was that very neutrality of face and figure that adapted him so well to his position. That, and his manners, prudently balanced between respectful reticence and respectful interest. He had contributed in no small share to the coaching of everybody in the all-star cast; he knew these young men aswell as any subordinate can know his superiors—yet he took their coats in sedate silence, recognising them only by his grave "yes, sir," and "no sir," and retiring to his kitchen as soon as his services were no longer needed. Just once did J. B. imagine that he detected a faint flavour of—call it irony or covert impudence in the man's bearing; and he presently dismissed the idea from his mind as too fantastic. It was when Huddesley was hanging up Teddy Johns' coat alongside the others on the old-fashioned iron hat-rack, wrought in the semblance of a grapevine with tendrils and bunches of fruit that decorated the hall between two life-size oil-paintings of the doctor's "big-bugs."
"Who's that, Huddesley?" asked Teddy affably, indicating by a nod the one to the right. "The respectable-looking party in the knee-breeches, I mean."
"That's Doctor Vardaman's grandhuncle, I believe, sir; 'e's dead."
"No, you don't say? Tst, tst! Too bad! That's the first I've heard of it. When?"
"Habout heighteen-twelve, Hi hunderstand, Mr. Theodore," said Huddesley, paying the tribute of a deferential smile to the other's jocularity.
"Well, well, in the midst of life—the doctor's bearing up tolerably, however, I see. Do you suppose it was a good likeness? What a terrific big red nose the old boy had, didn't he?"
"Hi'm hafraid 'e was haddicted to the bottle, sir," said Huddesley respectfully. "That's what comes of the 'abit hoften."
"Hey? The bottle?"
"Yes, sir—'e took a drop too much, I dessay," saidHuddesley without the slightest change of expression. "But a great many gents did in those days compared to what does now, Hi'm told. Heverybody's very temperatenow, sir, as you must 'ave noticed. 'E probably began hearly, the hold gent yonder; you might say 'e was brought hup on the bottle."
J. B. eyed the man as Teddy, colouring a little, turned hastily into the parlour; but Huddesley's face was guileless. It was impossible to guess how much the fellow knew or meant to hint, though, indeed, it would have required no great penetration to discover poor Teddy's weakness. The wonder was that Huddesley, the silent, the discreet, should have allowed himself to touch upon the subject at all. It struck J. B. that he was almost too innocently humorous; he wondered if they had spoiled Huddesley, as Colonel Pallinder had predicted, by their unthinking familiarity. Muriel's words recurred uncomfortably to the young man's mind: "You think he's English, but you don'tknow." "He's no more like a servant at home than our stage-Yankees are like you." But the idea of his being anything else, of his perpetrating an elaborate hoax extending over two months and involving disagreeable manual labour, for no conceivable end, was too preposterous. The thought, hardly more than half-formed, floated across J. B.'s mental horizon, and vanished like a shred of cloud before the wind. Yet his confidence in Huddesley was oddly shaken; he halted, wavering at the fulfilment of a plan he had had in mind but a moment earlier. To say: "Look here, Huddesley, I wish you'd not fill Mr. Johns' glass as often as the rest of us, and never quite full anyhow"—surely that would have been a small matter, and no disloyalty to his friend, rather a kindness. And Huddesley was discreet—yes, thatwas just it, confound his wooden-faced discretion! All at once it savoured to J. B. of slyness. This uncertain mood was new to him, and while he hesitated in a kind of irritated wonder at his own lack of resolution——
"Beg parding, Mr. Breckinridge, sir, did you want to speak to me?" said Huddesley.
That settled it. J. B. felt as if those respectful eyes had bored through into his thoughts.
"No," he said shortly; and followed Teddy into his host's presence.
Doctor Vardaman's guests sat down some ten or twelve strong, the doctor at the head of his table, in a dress-coat the fashion of which antedated even Huddesley's, with his iron-grey hair brushed forward in a tuft over each ear; with a black stock such as he had worn since the year '40; his eyeglass on a black ribbon aslant across his shirt-front like an order; and a pair of Labrador-stone buttons in his cuffs, dark watery-green with a crumb of fire eerily visible in the depths of them. These cuff-buttons signalised the dinner as a gala-occasion; the doctor marked the day with a Labrador-stone. He only wore them when the event was of enough importance to justify such a display—a queer sentimental tribute to certain queer sentimental recollections. They had been given him who knows how long ago, and by whom? So do we all in secret offer some absurd and pathetic oblation before the shrines of the past. I dare say when the doctor opened the top drawer of his high-shouldered mahogany bureau and took his Labrador-stone buttons out of their dingy little green morocco case, for one moment the breath of a vanished spring saluted him, and the roses still bloomed by the calm Bendemeer. Thus did the old gentlemanpreside, invested with the kind dignity of his age and character, and of his noble and beautiful profession; and I have no doubt his ancient bachelor heart warmed a good deal at this exercise of hospitality, at the brave sight of the double row of young men's faces before him, and the deep and pleasant sound of their laughter. The other end of the table was held by Mr. J. Breckinridge Taylor, as the journals persisted in reporting him; and Huddesley brought in the soup. The doctor served it himself from a tub of a tureen, with a silver ladle not less than a yard long, both of which had graced the tables of his mother and grandmother—there were giants in those days!—as had all the other furnishings of this memorable dinner.
"There was one of those three-story-high cut-glass things, with tiers of cups on circular platforms—I don't know what you call 'em—filled with shaky jelly stuff and cream all foamy on top of it," one more than commonly observant young man told me afterwards. "That was in the middle of the table. And two silver castors with red Bohemian glass bottles full of vinegar and oil and things like that, you know, on each side of it; you could whirl 'em around, and pick out the bottle you wanted. And there were shallow glass dishes with jelly and two tall ones like big champagne-glasses, with kind of thick sticky preserves—they had lids, the tall ones. After the soup, everything came on at once, game, prairie-chicken, at the doctor's end, and just plain John Smith chicken roasted, about the middle, and boiled leg of mutton with this white sauce that has hard-boiled egg and little green things like pickled shoe-buttons"—he meant capers—"all through it, for J. B. to carve, and oysters and a ham, and four or five vegetables all over the table. There were the funniest oldsteel knives with ivory handles, and thin old silver forks and spoons with the doctor's crest, and a motto, 'Foy tiendrai,' whatever that may mean, on the backs. Everybody had half-a-dozen wine-glasses; and to begin with there were four decanters of sherry, one at each corner of the table, and when we'd finished those—well, youhadto have a lot of liquor to get through a dinner like that, you know—Huddesley brought out three other kinds."
J. B. conscientiously carving the joint at his end of the table, viewed the shrinkage in the decanters with considerable uneasiness. There was nothing prim or kill-joy about J. B. He had no idea of affecting the virtue that denies to another man his cakes and ale. But he was a hard-headed young fellow, not given to self-indulgence of any kind; and although in the State of his birth and earlier years over-drinking was anything but uncommon, he confessed to a sort of contemptuous impatience with the man who did not know when he had enough. It seemed as if one or two of the present company had nearly reached that desirable condition; and still Huddesley travelled about the table, impartial as Fate herself, leaving no glass unfilled; or even half-full. J. B. could see Doctor Vardaman's face but imperfectly around the erection of custard-cups in the centre, but he thought an anxiety equal to his own appeared and vanished there by turns. Once or twice the old gentleman seemed on the edge of signalling Huddesley to hold his hand, but some feeling rooted, most probably in his old-fashioned notions of hospitality, must have restrained him.
"Tell you what," said J. B.'s next neighbour confidentially, "Johns is about as full as I like to see him; it don't take much, you know. He's just good and jolly now, but ifhe gets much more——" He shook his head dubiously. "Say, have you heard anything more about the colonel? I saw Gwynne Peters on the street to-day——"
"Hock or madeira, sir?" said Huddesley in J. B.'s ear. "Hock, sir? Yes, sir."
"It seems the Pallinders—I don't care, hock, I guess. What's the difference anyhow? I don't know one of these wines from the other."
"What about the Pallindersnow?" asked J. B.
At that very moment, the length of the table away, Archie Lewis was saying, "Suppose you've heard that about Gwynne Peters, Doctor?"
Doctor Vardaman set down his glass with unusual emphasis. "That's the third or fourth time this week that I've heard 'that about Gwynne Peters,'" said he. "And in spite of it, I've never found out yet what 'that about Gwynne Peters' is!"
"What!Didn't youknow? Why, I thought somehow you knew all about the Gwynnes. Haven't you heard about the fuss with Pallinder and all?"
The doctor shook his head, and motioned to Huddesley for fresh glasses. "Never saw anything like the way the boys are getting through the wine," was his inward comment. "And how warm they all look!" Then aloud: "Sothat'sthe reason Gwynne dropped out of the play; I thought it a little odd when he declined my dinner," he said, fixing a thoughtful gaze on Archie. "There's been a fuss with the Colonel, has there? What was it about?" He fully expected to hear Archie say, "Why, you know old Steven Gwynne——" had done this or that. But the young man only looked at him inquiringly.
"I thought you always knew all there was to know about the Gwynnes," he repeated. "Templeton, their agent, has a desk with us—do you knowhim?"
"No—yes, I've seen him. He's short and stout and wears spectacles, doesn't he?"
"Yes, that's Templeton. You must have heard father's stories about him and the Gwynnes; he has this little real-estate business, and scratches along somehow, I believe the Gwynne estate's the biggest part of it. Father says it's no trouble at all now compared to what it was before Gwynne Peters took hold; father says there were two or three years when Gwynne was away, before he got through Harvard, you know, when Templeton's life wasn't worth living."
"Well, I never understood that Gwynne managed the estate personally," said the doctor, recalling, however, a recent scene in his library with considerable interest.
"No, he don't. He—well, he manages the family—I guess that's about the size of it. Gwynne's getting a pretty good law-practice, you know; he couldn't take his time to run around looking at roofs and down-spouts. That's Templeton's job. When he leased the house to Colonel Pallinder, you ought to have seen Templeton! I'll bet he was the happiest man in Washington County. He's a nervous, excitable little fellow anyhow. He said Pallinder leased it for three years at a hundred and fifty a month, and it was a perfect miracle; the house is awfully old, and it was all out of repair and hadn't any modern improvements, except a furnace. Why, you remember what it was like, Doctor. Well, then, the question of repapering and putting it in order came up, and he told the Colonel flat he couldn't allow but just so much (one month's rent, I think) for repairs. It was too funny, Doctor,to hear him telling father about it. 'You know there's about twenty of the Gwynne heirs, Judge Lewis,' says he, 'and nobody's got any money, and everybody's got a say; and I simplycouldn'tpromise to do all the Colonel wanted. Every time I paint a porch or fix somebody's sink, those two old Miss Gwynnes take to their beds!' You just ought to have seen Templeton telling all this, doctor, with those big glasses shining, and his Adam's apple kind of working up and down the way it does with nervous men. I guess it's not all pie attending to the Gwynnes' affairs, even now. They're all so queer—except Gwynne Peters,he'sall right. Finally the Colonel said he rather expected to buy the house anyhow, and if they had no objection he'd go ahead and fix it to suit himself,at his own expense. This is Templeton's side I'm giving you, you know; I guess it's as near the truth as we'll ever get. Seems to me Templeton was pretty careless, not to have it all in writing. Anyhow, you know what they did, Doctor; built that little conservatory, and put in all new plumbing, and had the house painted and papered and grained from top to bottom—the Lord knows what all the bills will come to—the Lord knows and He won't tell! But somebody else will," said Archie with a grin.
"Well, what's happened?"
"Everything," said Archie concisely. "The wonder is, it didn't happen before. In the first place, the plumber turns up in our office the other day with his unpaid bill for six hundred and sixty-four dollars and eight cents. He can't get anything out of Pallinder—Pallinder cannily refers him to the owners of the property. He comes in with fire in his eye, wanting to sue Templeton or the estate—father says he's got a case, too. The plumber's a German, and pretty excitable,and I told you Templeton was excitable, so you can imagine what it was like. We tried to smooth 'em down, but we all got so full of laugh, we made it worse, I think. One of the boys in the office says: 'Oh, come now, Mr. Scheurmann, let him down easy, knock off the eight cents, won't you?' 'I vill nodt gompromise! I vill haf my money! I vill nodt knock off von pfennig!' I tell you the office was a lively place for about two minutes, with Scheurmann jumping up and down and shaking his fists on one side, and Templeton jumping up and down shaking his on the other!"
"Well, but what's all this got to do with Gwynne?"
"Why, he came in after a while with some papers that I'd taken over to his office a day or so before, when I found that old Gwynne fellow that lives out on the farm, you know, and the two little old Gwynne twins sitting around like crows waiting for Gwynne to come in—I told you about that, didn't I? I was pretty sure right then that there was going to be some kind of trouble. Anyway Gwynne came into our office, and Templeton and the plumber left off jumping on each other to light into him. As if Gwynne had had anything to do with it! I never felt so sorry for a man in my life; he's the kind that always shoulders all the responsibility and gets blamed for everything, somehow. He takes the whole business terribly to heart; he'd been to see Pallinder, and I guess they'd had it hot and heavy. He was all broken up over it. He told father there was a poor devil of a gardener that had done some work about the greenhouse, and came to him with a bill for twelve dollars; his wife was sick, and he wanted Gwynne to see if he couldn't get the money out of the colonel. Gwynne didn't say so, but I know he paid that fellow out of his own pocket—he's that sort. He told father if he couldhe'd rake and scrape and pay the whole thing himself rather than have such a miserable scandal connected with the family. He seems to feel as if it all kind of came back on him—over sensitive,Icall it. You'd think it was all his fault."
"I think I can understand the feeling," said the doctor. "I'm afraid we've all bowed ourselves in the house of Rimmon."
"Hey? The house? Oh, yes, I was going to tell you about that, it all comes out now, the rent hasn't been paid, not one cent, since the first six months! Gwynne's going to bring suit. He said he wouldn't do it on his own account, but he's Sam's guardian—you knew about Sam being out at the asylum, or whatever Sheckard calls his place?—and he was responsible for Sam's money. I guess he had a devil of a row with Pallinder—he wouldn't talk about it. You'd think anyone could have seen all along that the colonel was nothing but an old bunco-steerer, but I suppose Gwynne actually thought he was all right until this came up!"
"The idea of accepting the Pallinders' hospitality doesn't sit heavy on your conscience at any rate," said the doctor. Archie looked up, surprised; then he flushed a little and laughed.
"Why, no, why should it? Pallinder's debts aren't worrying me any. And as for talking about him, why, Doctor, it's been all over town the last three days."
The doctor's wine and the Pallinder's affairs circulated in about equal proportion; and there was a good deal of speculation as to how long the present state of things would last—how long the colonel could hold out. "I hope nothing's going to happen—not while that Miss Baxter, that nice English girl is here, that's all—the papers always go foranything of that kind tooth-and-nail," said J. B.'s neighbour. "And you know, after all, in his way, he's been kind of pleasant to know—I've had some awfully good times up there."
"So have I. It seems low-down talking this way, but everybody does," said J. B.
The other let his eyes rest on J. B. a moment, half-amused, half-inquisitive. "I wonder—I do wonder what she thinks of us anyway."
"She? Who?"
"Why, Miss Baxter."
"Pretty small potatoes, I guess," said J. B. absently, one eye on Teddy.
"She thinksyou'reall right, old man."
"Bosh!" said J. B., resenting the tone more than the words.
"She told me the other day she thought Breckinridge was a beautiful name. 'Why, Miss Baxter,' I said, 'you ought to go to Kentucky; that's J. B.'s old home. It's so full of Breckinridges, you can't throw a stone without hitting one of 'em!' 'Really?' she says, just like that. 'Really?' She thought I was in earnest!"
"Every Breckinridge you hit would have a gun in one hip-pocket and a flask in the other," said J. B., turning the talk from Muriel as best he could. "Bad men to throw stones at, on the whole——"
"Champagne, sir?"
"No! Good Heavens, do you suppose the doctor expects us to eat all that pudding and jelly stuff, and fruit and nuts and cheese into the bargain? It's—what d'ye call it?—Homeric, that's what it is—a Homeric feast!"
"Whash savin' up for, J. B.?" Teddy shouted from hisseat; and J. B.'s face darkened. He directed a meaning look at Teddy's nearest neighbours; but by this time all the young men were beginning to be somewhat flushed, whether from too much eating or too much drinking, and there was an amazing amount of loud talk and hilarity. Teddy repeated his question: "Why'n't you drinkin', J. B.? Huddesley, you've lef' out Mr. Taylor. Mr. Taylor'smyfrien', Huddesley. All my frenge here——" He made a sweeping gesture, and knocked over a preserve-dish with a stunning clatter, gazed at the ruin a minute, then burst into a yell of laughter, in which, sad to relate, he was joined by more than one at the table. Teddy suddenly straightened up and looked around with profound gravity. "Somebody's makin' great deal noise!" said he, with elaborate distinctness of utterance. And then returned to the charge: "Why'n't you take some champagne, J. B.? Free's air, doctor's champagne. You do' wan' hurt doctor's feelingsh, J. B.?" he inquired pathetically.
"I want to be so I can sing my part," said J. B. good-humouredly. "It's hard to sing on top of a big dinner like this, you know, Ted. Better look out, hadn't you?—For Heaven's sake, somebody tell Huddesley not to give him any more!" he added in a whisper to his neighbours, and tried to catch the servant's eye. But Huddesley was bending all his energies to scooping up with exemplary method and expedition the mess of syrup and broken glass; it seemed impossible to attract his attention. And in another tour of the table he filled Teddy's glass again, no one remembering, or perhaps noticing at all, J. B.'s telegrams of consternation. "Well, damn it, I'm not his keeper!" said the latter to himself, in a rage. "Everybody's forgotten that Ted's pretty near the whole show, and they're letting him drink himself blinddrunk. He won't be able to stand up after this—I've donemybest anyhow," and in a spirit of savage recklessness, he swallowed his own champagne at one gulp, and turned to find Huddesley at his elbow with another bottle. Caution returned upon him.
"Say, Huddesley, didn't you see me shake my head when you gave Mr. Johns that last glass? He's had all that's good for him already. Now you quit it, you hear me?" said J. B., conscious of some confusion in his own head wherehislast glass was apparently hurrying to and fro uneasily. He spoke with huge severity; the more as Huddesley met his eye with disconcerting intelligence.
"Oh, Lord love you, Mr. Breckinridge, 'e ain't 'ad enough to 'urt," said he soothingly. "Hi won't let 'im get hout o' hand, sir."
J. B. all at once found himself standing up. Why was he standing up? The occasion somehow seemed to require it.
"You mind what I tell you. He's got a very impartont port—I mean a perry veportant imp—I say a very important-part-in-the-play-and-I-don't-want-him-to-be-too-drunk-to-speakstinctly," said J. B. painstakingly.
"That's all right, Mr. Taylor, you just sit right down in your chair—it's a nice chair; you just sit right down, now won't you?" said Huddesley still soothingly—too soothingly by far to suit J. B.
"Don't you give me any impudence," he said darkly. He sat down surveying the assembly with scorn shading into pity.Hewasn't drunk, anyhow. But now Doctor Vardaman had risen in his place at the head of the table, and was asking silence at the top of his lungs—not the best way in the world of getting it, to the mind of a disinterested onlooker,but, as nobody was so far gone yet as not to heed the host of the evening, he was finally obeyed, after Teddy, under the mistaken impression that he was being called on to give his justly famous rendition of the farmer about to kill a turkey, had been quelled.
"Gentlemen," said the doctor, casting a look of some anxiety over his table-full, "let us not forget, that, however much we may be enjoying the present hour—I speak for myself"—here a number of voices assured him heartily, "So are we! You bet!" and so on—"I say, gentlemen, we must not forget that time is passing, and we are due for the entertainment of our friends at nine o'clock. It would never do, I think, to keep the ladies waiting. And, having their convenience in view, I propose that we drink a final glass—" said the doctor, unable to avoid a slight stress on the adjective—"afinalglass to the success of the performance and adjourn. Reversing what seems to have been the practice of Scriptural times, I will offer you a very rare and choice old vintage—you will pardon the conceit that calls attention to its excellence—a wine that was laid down by my father, gentlemen, in eighteen-fifteen, the year of the battle of New Orleans, the Waterloo year, and, as it happens, the year of my birth. He obtained it—for it has its history—of a Dutch merchant in Cadiz, and we have since called it, not knowing in truth what its real name should be, Mynheer Van der Cuyp's wine. Huddesley——"
Here Huddesley stepped forward, and set before the doctor with something of a flourish two thick black bottles, dusty as to the shoulders, with the corks drawn, and a tray of the smallest variety of glasses—rather miserly provision, it might appear, for such a company, but Doctor Vardaman, notwithout considerable show of embarrassment, proceeded to explain: "I—I find myself obliged to warn you, gentlemen, inhospitable as it seems, that Mynheer Van der Cuyp's wine, what with age and the richness of its ingredients, is of an unexampled potency. It is at once smooth and heady, and—and I would not have you taken at unawares. In short, boys," he added earnestly, abandoning his formal manner, "it's the very deuce to go to one's head, and you all have to be careful. Huddesley——" Again that invaluable person began to circulate.
Doctor Vardaman did not get through his little speech (which he delivered in a style quaintly reminiscent of the after-dinner orators of his youth, in an attitude with one hand beneath his coat-tails) without some uproarious interruptions; the momentary pause that followed had the surprising effect of clearing the brain of at least one in his audience. Whatever the others felt, J. B. suddenly realised, as he afterwards put it, that "he had reached his limit." He knew whenhe'dhad enough, and the trepidation visible in the doctor's face as Mynheer Van der Cuyp's wine went on its devastating way, was repeated in his own. If the truth were known, the old gentleman had been congratulating himself on bringing off what he considered a tolerably clevercoupto end a sitting which promised disaster to some of the company; and doing it without offence. But alas! for the best-laid plans of mice and men! The catastrophe had occurred; some, perhaps most of the men were a little the worse for liquor; a few minutes of cool night air would cure them; but Teddy Johns, their prime performer, the peg upon which hung all their hopes of success, Teddy was hopelessly drunk. No night air, no applications of crushed ice and wettowels would curehim. Teddy was very good-natured; he sang, he winked, he joked, he told stories, he lavished endearments on his "frenge." Even in his worry, the doctor found time for the reflection that wine in, truth out is the most solid of maxims; liquor puts nothing into a man's nature that was not there already, it can but reveal him naked; and if he will be a brute in his cups, it is odds but you shall find him a brute at heart out of them. There was nothing brutal about poor Teddy; you could no more be angry with him than with a child. Too late the doctor regretted his hospitality, too late he lamented the love of good cheer and youthful company that had prompted him to this inordinate abundance. He was in the frame of mind to write a temperance tract; and a sarcastic grin fled across his features as he pictured what that celebrity of his earlier years, Mr. T. S. Arthur, would have made of the scene—the moral he would have drawn therefrom.
Once I myself had the privilege of tasting the wine of Mynheer Van der Cuyp. It was a dark and heavy liquor, pouring like oil, rich of aroma, searching the veins with subdued fire. Perhaps few of Doctor Vardaman's guests could appreciate that marvellous flavour; at any rate Teddy was the only one to express a clamorous approval:
"Pretty goo' for ol' Chickencoop! Give us s'more, Huddesley!"
And Huddesley stolidly gave him some more, oblivious to signs. It is with great reluctance that this historian enters a record of the disgraceful scene—but the thing must be done. The horrid tale of Mynheer Van der Cuyp's wine cannot be omitted. Of course, no man who reads about Doctor Vardaman's banquet has ever so far forgot himself as to get drunk, not even when he was a boy; he always had thestrength of character to resist that beastly temptation. And any woman knows very well that instead of an assemblage of fairly decent and manly young fellows, the doctor's guests were all low, swilling louts and boors. So be it; it is true that they turned out, as years went on, to be tolerable citizens most of them, good husbands, fathers of families for whom they toiled honestly and provided handsomely—but all that has nothing to do with the matter in hand.