Gwynne had to smile. The idea of fat little spectacled Templeton in the rôle of chief-villain's handy-man, be-cloaked and be-daggered as we are accustomed to figure those romantic gentlemen, was irresistibly comic. But Steven saw the smile and turned purple; he got up, choking and trembling.
"Very well, young man, very well!" he said, not without dignity. "I suppose you can afford to laugh—you have the upper hand. It's very funny, no doubt—butIwouldn't laugh at anybody in trouble—not at my own kin anyhow—blood's thicker than water. Oh, yes, I'm very funny, of course; I'm nothing but an old man that don't know anything—and—and a—a kind of a nuisance, I suppose, and and—I don't dress stylish, and it's real funny for me to want my money—oh, yes! You needn't worry, Gwynne, I'm not going to trouble you any more about it—I'll attend to my own affairs after this. Jack, where're my gum-shoes, please?Youcan let things alone, if you choose, Mr. Peters, butI'm——"
"What are you going to do?" said Gwynne harshly—the more harshly, perhaps, because he was touched and a little shamed, against his will.
Almost involuntarily, he moved between his cousin and the door.
"I'm going to my house, tomyhouse, to see Pallinder myself," said Steven, frightened yet obstinate.
Gwynne made a gesture of angry impatience. "He won't be at home at this time of day. Cousin Steven, if you'llonlywait a little——"
"I've done all the waiting I intend to, Mr. Gwynne Peters. If he ain't at home, I mean to seeher——"
"Oh, good Lord, Steven, you can't do that—you can't talk to a woman about things like that!" interposed Doctor Vardaman, shocked. "Now I'll tell you what, you stay here quietly with me, and take dinner and let Gwynne see to it. Gwynne'll fix it all right if you——" if you will give himtime, the doctor was about to add, when the weakness of that already well-worn plea struck him.
"I don't trust him, I tell you—he ain't to be trusted. I can attend to my own affairs and Iwill!" said Steven fiercely. The question had by this time become to him not so much that of recovering his money as of having his own way; they would conspire against him, would they? They would keep him from having a voice in his own proper affairs? Somebody had been meddling with him that way all his life;hewould show them, he, Steven Gwynne! "I won't have him interfering with me any longer—he don't suit me—I'll run my affairs to suit myself, without any leave from you, Mr. Gwynne Peters—call yourself a lawyer—I wouldn't trust you 'round the corner with a cent ofmymoney—I wouldn't have you try a case for my dog, I wouldn't——"
"Then get some other lawyer that you do trust!" shouted Gwynne above the other's shouting. "But right now you're not going near Mrs. Pallinder, d'ye hear me? It's shameful; she shan't be persecuted this way!"
"I'll go where I damn please, sir. Get another lawyer! Precious good care you've taken that Ican'tget another lawyer! Where's the money? where's my hundred and twenty dollars, Gwynne Peters?"
"If you'll come down to the office, I'll give you your infernal hundred and twenty now," said Gwynne, steadying himself as best he could. "I'll give it to you myself out of hand, and then you can go and employ ten lawyers if you like. But if you think I'm going to turn Mrs. Pall—the Pallinders out of doors, or hound them about the rent, you're mistaken. Why, it's my money just as much as yours, andamIworrying? The colonel's good for it, and even if he isn't, the house and furniture are there; they aren't going to fly away—if you'll be patient and act sensibly, I'll get your money. If you won't I'll wash my hands of the whole business. You can——"
"For God's sake, Gwynne," ejaculated the doctor in an undertone, "don't make things worse than they are! Steven can't control himself, butyoucan!"
"Why, I'm not a brute, Doctor Vardaman, I'm not a—a Jew! I won't allow Mrs. Pallinder to be made wretched because of this—this—it's bad enough for me to have to stand it; but she—she——" The young man caught himself; he was on the edge of saying "she's an angel," but even in that moment of excitement some saving sense of humour mercifully restrained him. "She don't know anything about business. You can't go toherfor your rent! It's—it's inhuman to harry a woman like Mrs. Pallinder aboutrent. Leaveherout of it at any rate, it's the least you can do."
"You, sir, get me my gum-shoes," said Steven determinedly, as the door once more swung to admit Huddesley. It is possible that this discreet and admirably trained individual had been improving his knowledge of Doctor Vardaman's acquaintances, just outside the key-hole; he overlooked Steven's orders, and went up to the doctor with a perturbed countenance. "Doctor Vardaman, if you please, sir——" there followed a whisper charged with meaning.
"Oh, thedevil!" said the old gentleman desperately. He looked around. "Steven, Gwynne, do sit down, both of you—why, yes, of course, Huddesley, certainly you can bring her in—and—and here's the key of the wine-cellar,Huddesley;" he was quite flustered. The others forgot their excitement a moment to wonder at him. "Bring her in, Huddesley, don't keep a lady standing," said the doctor, speaking testily in his confusion. Huddesley was keenly alive to the dramatic aspect of the meeting; he went ceremoniously out and ceremoniously returned, spreading the door with a flourish.
"Mrs. Pallinder!" he announced.
It was acoup-de-théâtre, falling as pat as if prearranged, an unthinkable accident; the melodrama was becoming entirely too melodramatic, according to Doctor Vardaman's notion. "Good Heavens!" he said to himself, irritated; "this sort of thing doesn'thappen—it has no business to happen!" He had what is perhaps the best tact in the world, the tact of a kind heart; but a plain man's experience does not prepare him for moments of such awkwardness, and the doctor's self-possession for once left him in the lurch. He advanced to meet Mrs. Pallinder, blunderingly putting on his eye-glasses, and blunderingly dropping them again to the length of their black silk ribbon, stuttering out a welcome, apprehensive of Steven's next move, out of patience with the whole grotesque and intolerable situation, and fearful that he showed it. Mrs. Pallinder could hardly have failed to overhear something of what was going forward; Steven's loud voice had been raised almost to its furthest pitch, and Gwynne's, if he was more self-contained, was still forcible and distinct enough. Neither one could at once adjust his threatening brows to a placid, scarcely even a natural expression, and, for that matter, the silence betrayed as much as their speech. She would have needed to be blind or deaf not to know that her presence came amiss—and blind and deaf Mrs. Pallinder promptly became! It was a feat; her assumption of unconsciousness was too perfect, but, if Gwynne and the doctor were undeceived, they werestill profoundly grateful, and Steven was reduced to a kind of pathetic diffidence. The old man felt, in his dim way, that he had no arms against this dazzling feminine creature; her manners, her dress, even her delicate and finished beauty frightened him; he might as well plan to sue a fairy for rent as this detached and brilliant personage. "Gwynne could have let the poor old boy go in peace," thought Doctor Vardaman, observing Steven's altered bearing; "he never would have faced Mrs. Pallinder—I doubt if he could have stood up to the colonel!"
"Don't get up, gentlemen, don't stand for justme!" said Mrs. Pallinder, looking around on everybody and beginning to loosen her furs. "Oh, Mr. Gwynne, what a nice surprise to find you here! Doctor Vardaman, you didn't tell me you were expecting Mr. Gwynne. You see I'm an old story to the doctor, Mr. Gwynne, I drop in almost every day—I wonder he doesn't run at the sight of me—it must be a relief as well as a pleasure to him to have you come in once in a while. Why don't you come to seeme, ever? We're so lonely out here—the colonel and I depend on the doctor. Nobody ever comes to see two rusty old creatures like us. Nobody but you, that is, Mr. Peters, you treat us with the respect due our age." She gave him a laughing glance; Gwynne knelt down, reddening and incoherent, to take off her overshoes. The doctor had space to reflect that a pretty woman, be she never so well or so long married, seldom wholly ceases to be a coquette. And all this while Steven stood, spellbound into silence, waiting for someone else to sit down. He would have liked to be gallant, cynical, daring, epigrammatic; Steven's notions of society were founded on Bulwer-Lytton's novels, with a dash of Reade, Disraeli, and Charles Lever. He had revolvedmore than one graceful yet stinging speech for the humbling of the Pallinders, figuring them brought down to a species of admiring submission. Lo, the hour was arrived, but where was the man? All his eloquence had stolen away; he was taken at unawares, tongue-tied in an awkwardness that at once incensed and humiliated him. He almost envied Gwynne his uncalculated ease.
"I had a letter from Mazie this morning, doctor," said Mrs. Pallinder, resolutely keeping the conversation going, and including Steven, as it were, by main force. "My daughter, you know, Mr. Gwynne. You've been at your country-place all winter, haven't you?" It was thus that Mrs. Pallinder picturesquely referred to Steven's ramshackle residence; and on her lips the phrase had a richness that pleased him ineffably. "Then you don't know that my daughter has been away nearly two months—she went a little after the holidays—and, oh, Mr. Gwynne, did you hear about the robbery?"
"Shedon't have to make talk about the weather—trust a woman!" said the doctor inwardly, both satirical and admiring. He had an instant of suspense, wondering what use Steven would make of his opportunity—and Steven was as mild as a lamb! He cleared his throat, and said yes, he had heard about the robbery—they didn't get anything after all, did they? He understood—that is, the paper said—he hadn't been in town to talk to anybody—that they were after Mrs. Pallinder's diamonds. There had been a picture in the paper of the necklace—he was glad they hadn't got anything.
"Why, I didn't know you approved of diamonds, Mr. Gwynne, I wouldn't have dared to wear mine before you," said Mrs. Pallinder, tempting Providence. "Everybody saysyou're so severe and critical—and—and like all the rest of you men—you laugh at us poor women shamefully, yes, and tyrannise over us, too, you know you do!" she went on, displaying a discernment for which nobody would have given her credit.
"Madame," said Steven, highly flattered; "you mistake me—beauty unadorned——"
"Oh, but Mr. Gwynne, I'm not in that class! Now come up to dinner to-night, and I'll put on every diamond I have, and you'll see I'll look the better for it." She raised her hand. "But don't involve me in an argument—I can't hold my ground with you, you know—you're too clever for me—I remember the last time, when you demolished me utterly—you told me we didn't need money to get along—think of that, Doctor Vardaman, he actually told me we didn't need to use money at all, 'the circulating medium,' wasn't that what you called it, Mr. Gwynne? See how well I remember! And, Doctor, before he got through, he persuaded me, sure enough, that we didn't need money—I believed him—at least I had nothing to say!"
Now how, how, I ask the unprejudiced and fair-minded observer, how could any gentleman—of the name ofGwynne—come at so winningly simple a woman as Mrs. Pallinder with a low question of rent? "Pay or quit" indeed! The thing was inconceivable, the moment inappropriate.
"Youwillcome to dinner, won't you, Mr. Gwynne? Mr. Peters, I've a crow to pick withyou, for never bringing him. Oh, I know you hate society, Mr. Gwynne, but just for once——"
Steven faltered; he would have accepted the invitation in another moment—and if he had, who knows how this storymight have ended?—but Doctor Vardaman intervened briskly.
"Steven's got to stay here, madame, I asked him first," he said, and clapped the other on the shoulder. Perhaps the doctor was a shade more cordial even than his nature prompted; he felt a great pity for Steven, and a certain shame at the cheap and flimsy devices by which his poor old friend could be overpowered. Mrs. Pallinder made a little mouth at him.
"You always have your way, Doctor, you've gotten the better of me ever so many times.You'vegot Huddesley, for instance," she said, not disdaining to bestow anoeilladeon the servant as he stood before her, offering sherry in the doctor's little old trumpet-shaped glasses; he acknowledged the compliment by a respectful grin. "AndI'msimply having the mostawfultime—you don't know of a good cook, do you, Huddesley?"
"No, ma'am. Hi don't know hanybody 'ere, ma'am," said Huddesley, with a faintly superior air; and passed on to Gwynne with his silver tray. It was true; he held himself apart from, and rather above, other servants. The doctor had often remarked it with an amused sympathy.
"Don'tyou? Isn't that a pity—I want so much to get settled in the kitchen before Mazie comes home—well, if you hear of anyone, you'll remember me, Huddesley, won't you?" Mrs. Pallinder held her glass in one hand, and shook a letter out of her muff with the other. "Mazie's letter, Doctor Vardaman—she'll be back in a week—she's going to bring a friend—the mostEnglishname—one of those hyphenated names, you know. Her father's one of the secretaries at the Legation. Where—oh, here it is. 'Muriel'isn'tthatEnglish? But just listen to the rest of it!—'Ponsonby-Baxter.' Her father is Sir Julian—no, it's Lucien—no, Mr. Peters, I believe my eyes are failing—can you make out what that word is?"
Gwynne, after a solemn inspection, pronounced it to be Llewellyn.
"I notice all these young men read my daughter's handwriting a great deal better than I can, for some mysterious reason, Mr. Gwynne," said Mrs. Pallinder pointedly, to Steven, with her pretty laugh. And Steven actually laughed, too! Where was his animosity? Where his anathemas? He was at ease, mild, pleased, interested. In fact, Mrs. Pallinder, looking hardly a day over thirty-five, with her fresh voice, her softly bright eyes, her trim and supple figure, was an impossible sort of person for the rôle of mother. There was a charming absurdity in her continual half-humorous, half-sentimental allusions to her years and infirmities. "When they get here, I'm thinking of having a little company in the house, Mr. Peters," she went on, with a confidential glance that magically comprehended everybody in the room. "Some of the girls, like Kitty Oldham, for instance, and your cousin Marian, of course, if her mother will let her come—I always say, Mr. Gwynne, that it's no wonder all the girls in your family are so well-bred and have such lovely manners—Gwynnemanners, Colonel Pallinder calls them—it's no wonder they're all that way, they've had such careful mothers, andsuchtraining! It's my despair—I'll never make Mazie that way! I should like to go to school to Mrs. Horace Gwynne myself for a while, only she wouldn't have an old thing like me around, trying to copy those beautiful, finished ways she has—the mostelegantwoman I know!I think a little party in the house like that will make it pleasant for Miss—Miss Baxter, I suppose we'll call her—the whole name's a little too much—Ponsonby-Baxter! And now the colonel says he'll have to have some men in the house in self-defence. Such a houseful of women! It bores a man, I really think—oh, now, you needn't look that way, Mr. Gwynne, youknowit bores men sometimes to have too many women around. So we want to have some of the young men, too—of course you, Mr. Peters, and do you think Mr. Lewis would come? And then there's Mr. Taylor—the one you all call J. B., I mean. There're those three large rooms in the wing at the back, and the small one over the hall—plenty of room, don't you think so, Mr. Gwynne? You ought to know how many the house will hold."
Steven looked important and considered. He remembered when Governor Gwynne had entertained the Whig Campaign Committee in—in—he forgot the year, but it was when Van Buren was elected; every room in the house had been occupied, and cots in the library—you could put ten cots in the library—oh, easily ten, end to end, you know——
"Cots! Oh, I don't think we'll need cots, you know, with young ladies in the party——"
Steven did not hear her. He was launched on an accurate description of the festivities, to which Mrs. Pallinder listened with a caressing attention. How much had she overheard? Or how much guessed? Possibly she would have been as painstakingly gracious to Steven in any event; to look her best, to act her best, was Mrs. Pallinder's trade, and you may trust me it was not always an easy one. "Sointeresting, isn't it? Oh, it's all very well for you to smile, Doctor Vardaman, you remember all this, and it seems very ordinary toyou, no doubt. But it's rarely one hears such reminiscences—you've met so many celebrated people, Mr. Gwynne—the Governor knew everybody, of course, in his position, and then he was a famous man himself. Oh, now I'm here, and have a chance at last, I want you to tell me again about that time the Governor gave away the crimson velvet waistcoat with gold bees embroidered on it—don't you remember, you told it to me the first time we met, and I tried to tell it to the colonel afterwards, but I got it all mixed up. He gave it to Tom Corwin, didn't he? And then the darky waiter got hold of it somehow, and wore it to the party? I laughed so when I came to that part, I couldn't go on with the story——"
Doctor Vardaman listened between relief and a singularly unreasonable resentment; the business of pacifying Steven seemed ludicrously easy, now. His weaknesses and the adroitness with which they were approached, were alike contemptible. Anything, of course, he admitted unwillingly, anything was better than having a scene; they should be thankful they were so well past that danger. Yet he wondered privately what Gwynne thought of this dexterous jockeying; a woman's performances in what she chooses to consider the art of diplomacy unveiled, seldom fail of moving the masculine onlooker to mingled wonder, scorn, and pity. The creature has the cunning of her feebleness; how she does juggle with honour and decency! How lightly she trips it along the unstable wire! What capital she makes of her toy emotions, her sham beliefs and unbeliefs! There is even something admirable in her serene assurance that the end always justifies the means.
Steven may not have talked himself, or been talked, into a complete forgetfulness of his errand; but at least the evil hour was a while postponed. He saw Mrs. Pallinder leavethe house escorted by Gwynne through the falling dusk, with genial unconcern; and reiterated to the doctor as they sat at table that evening his conviction that Mrs. Pallinder was a very polished lady! Thus did the afternoon finish; never was there a tamer sequel to a more alarming prelude. If the doctor had received some disquieting revelations, he could still put them from his mind as no affair of his; and if a vexed anxiety about Gwynne lurked within him, it needed no great effort to stifle or banish that, too, momentarily, at any rate. The boy knew what he was about—laissez faire!he thought, and surrendered himself to a long evening of Steven and the circulating medium with thankfulness and even some amusement.
"You—you're ever so kind to poor old Cousin Steven, Mrs. Pallinder," Gwynne said to her, with a good deal of feeling, as they parted in the shadow of the Parthenon front. His voice trembled a little; and perhaps the lady let him hold her hand a trifle longer than etiquette prescribes.
"My dear boy," she said with gentle emphasis, "my dear boy, don'tI know—— If there is any way I can think of to make a person like that happier, wouldn't I gladly do it? That seems to me a very small thing—a woman's duty—what else are we for? I would do it foryouanyhow, even if I didn't feel so sorry for him." She melted into the house without waiting to gauge the effect of this touching speech, and the young man went off down the avenue with his head in the stars.
All very wrong and very improper, no doubt! But, on the whole, Gwynne's conduct, it seems to me, was most edifying—a pattern for any youth in his position. If Mrs. Pallinder had been the angel he thought her, he could not have bornehimself toward her with more respect. A young man's first love, or let us call it, his first amorous fancy, is free from grossness. There was something spiritual and exalted in Gwynne's devotion; I believe he figured himself, foolishly and egotistically enough, her knight, faithful without hope of reward, and gloried in his anguish. If he stood between her and the all-too-righteous exactions of his relatives and co-heirs, if he shielded her from the vials of their wrath, at the cost of some squirmings of conscience, still I am loath to blame him.
There was, of course, no excuse for him, yet—— Mrs. Pallinder was old enough to be his mother, and married to boot; but she was a very beautiful woman, and he was softhearted and sentimental, and had had a harsh and loveless life. How can I sit in judgment on him? Was I so wise at twenty-four? For Mrs. Pallinder herself, I say and stick to it, she was a perfectly good woman; having discovered that she could twist Gwynne around her finger, she cannot be blamed, in the circumstances, for twisting him. The men may well sneer at our tools, but we must even use the tools you let us have, gentlemen, and sometimes you thrust the haft into our hands. No woman can make a fool of a man, I think, unless the man lends himself whole-heartedly to the job. And there are times when she goes at it with little relish.
Was it pleasant for Mrs. Pallinder to blarney Gwynne into forgetfulness? Did she enjoy listening to old Steven's dreary, everlasting talk? I think that mean necessity galled her at times as much as it would have the highest-minded reader of this page. We must suppose she loved her swindling rascal of a husband, for I detect a dingy loyalty in hermethod of supporting him. So he cleaves to her and cherishes her, a woman cares not a jot whether her husband be honest or not; she will uphold him by such sorry arts as he himself will look upon with disfavour. So terrific is her moral obliquity that she will lie, wheedle, cozen, cheat, with an unruffled mind to protect or further him; displaying a distorted integrity of purpose that compels our grudging admiration. Let anyone who doubts these statements ask the wives and mothers who unsparingly condemn Mrs. Pallinder's line of conduct, what they would have had her do? Give up the game, and so betray her husband's interests, or engage in a little harmless flirtation to put off the hour of his reckoning? You will find that these virtuous ladies will dodge the question utterly. They will indignantly and scornfully reject either course—yet they will not be able to think of any other, and therein you have your answer. I remember once hearing Doctor Vardaman solemnly declare and vow that he believed nine-tenths of the shiftless, incompetent, scoundrelly men in the world were kept going in their profitless or criminal careers solely by the co-operation of some fool of a woman—"an honest woman, at that!" he added, with a laugh.
Gwynne walked away in a state of exaltation that obliterated from his mind all such sordid and petty considerations as twenty-four hundred dollars of rent in arrears. At the end of the avenue he turned to look back, and saw a light spring up in the bedroom window he knew to be Mrs. Pallinder's; he walked on slowly, watching it with what high-coloured and high-flown fancies! Miranda, I am afraid, is a name that defeats the muse; but Gwynne continued in this Romeo attitude and meditation until he crashed into a weary, homing labourer, a resident of Bucktown, most probably,faring along through the twilight with a whitewash bucket and brushes.
"Hy-yah! Keerful, cahn't yo'? Yo' 'd oughta look whar yo's g'wine, boss!"
Gwynne started at the words; he ought to look where he was going! He went on, slowly, frowning a little, with his head bent.
Lent dragged or slipped or scurried along according to the varying tempers of those that watched it go; of late years the speed of its passage has increased noticeably, it seems to me; successive Lents shove one another off the stage with an alarming celerity. But most of us voted it dismally slow in those days. A church entertainment was given, in which Mrs. Pallinder figured in tableaux asRuth, with white draperies, her hair bound up with fillets, and a sheaf of wheat (it was really pampas grass) in her beautiful bare white arms. She looked, undoubtedly, as much likeRuthas she had likeAstarte; that is to say, not at all. But people were unfeignedly delighted this time, and not without reason; the curtain had to be rung up repeatedly on "Ruth and Boaz." I thought, to be truthful, that her features seemed hard and sharp in the strong calcium-light; perhaps she was a little too old to impersonate a character like Ruth. But Teddy Johns assured me vehemently that she was ideal. "Beau'ful creature, Mis' Pallinder—hic—s'prisin'—Ruth—'Starte—Greek Slave—no, no, didn't mean that, of course—hic—Greek statue—always doin' somethin'—Pallinders, somethin' new, all time!" he said, meeting me in the passageway of Trinity Parish House, where the entertainment was given. I do not know where he had been; it is generally difficult to draw young men to church-tableaux, and there were not many there. Teddy had an air of surprise at finding himself in theaudience; his face was very much flushed, he laughed loud and inappropriately; and Judge Lewis came with a grave face, and took him by the arm and pulled him away, muttering some apology to me. Judge Lewis was a vestryman; I saw him talking to some of the others afterwards, and their grey heads wagged solemnly; the judge could not have been telling one of those humorous anecdotes for which he was so celebrated.
It was not long after this that Mazie at last came home; and she lived up to the reputation that Teddy had given the Pallinders of always doing something new. Doctor Vardaman assured her gallantly that she was like the angel that came down and stirred up the Pool of Bethesda—"we were all stagnating," said the old gentleman, in his kind mock-serious manner; and Mazie smiled and lifted her eyes at him, without, I dare say, understanding in the least where or what the Pool of Bethesda was. She brought with her Miss Muriel Ponsonby-Baxter; and, following upon their arrival, Mrs. Pallinder collected her house party. Most of the young people she asked caught eagerly at the invitation; you may laugh, or perhaps jeer, but house parties were not then the affair of everyday occurrence they have since become—not in our corner of the world, certainly. We all felt, delightedly, as if we were living in an English novel—one of "The Duchess'" for choice.
"You know we're going to have private theatricals in the ballroom," Mazie told everybody. "The girls and men in the house will all be in it, so we can have rehearsals any time. And papa is going to have a stage built with footlights and a curtain. We'll ask everyone, of course, and dance afterwards. I bought the favours for the german in New Yorkcoming home, you know. They're simply too sweet for any use."
("I baought the favuhs foh the juhman in New Yawhk, yuh knaow. Theah simply too sweet foh any use," was the way she said it, but I shall not attempt to reproduce Mazie's speech. It had a kind of drawling vivacity; and the final sentence was in the slang of the day—very fresh and spirited it sounded then, too!)
Mazie Pallinder was not a pretty girl; she was too tall and lank; and, except when she got her cheeks touched up, too pallid with her ink-black hair. But she had a certain air of lazy distinction, helped out by a real talent for dressing herself, and an unlimited purse—maybe an unlimited indifference to bills and tradesmen would be a better way of putting it.
"The first thing on the programme is to be 'William Tell,'" she said. "That's to have just men in it, you know. I think it's always best to have a lot more men than girls, and make them stand around. That's the way it is in the South, New Orleans, or Charleston, or anywhere I've ever been. You see them lined up all around the room waiting a chance, at dances, you know. All the girls have to split every waltz."
Bewildering dream of bliss! Somebody, recovering from the contemplation, wanted to know what "William Tell" would be like with only men in it?
"Oh, I've talked that all over with J. B." said Mazie. "It was his suggestion, you know. They gave it at college, his senior year, and, of course, all the parts were done by men. He said it was simply great. It's a take-off of the real 'William Tell.' What do you think? Doctor Vardamanasked if it was the real 'Tell,' and he said there was a beautifuladagiofor the horn in the overture! I simply screamed—I laughed till I nearly fell over. You see the funny thing is thereisa horn—but it's a dinner horn! Archie Lewis comes on with it when he sings his topical song. Archie's to be 'Tell,' you know. He's got a hit on everyone in town—they'll all be here in the audience, of course. It begins:
"'I'm a horny—horny—horny-handedSON OF TOIL!From Maine to CaliforniaYou couldn't find a hornier,And—and—I'm——
"'I'm a horny—horny—horny-handedSON OF TOIL!From Maine to CaliforniaYou couldn't find a hornier,And—and—I'm——
"'I'm a horny—horny—horny-handedSON OF TOIL!From Maine to CaliforniaYou couldn't find a hornier,And—and—I'm——
"'I'm a horny—horny—horny-handed
SON OF TOIL!
From Maine to California
You couldn't find a hornier,
And—and—I'm——
I can't remember the rest of it. He and J. B. wrote the verses—it's awfully funny, don't you think, Muriel? We've seen them go over parts of it."
"Yes," said Muriel tepidly. We all looked at her with some curiosity; lying back in one of Mazie's profuse rocking-chairs, she seemed very large by contrast with the rest of us. She had long round arms, long sloping thighs, long hands and feet, a great deal bigger than any of ours, but well-shaped, in so just a proportion one hardly noticed their size. I think I never saw so beautiful a woman. Beside her large classic calm, we were as a tribe of little gesticulating marionettes. She listened to our facile laughter, our high, excited voices, with a grave and rather wondering tolerance; no one ever sawherlaugh. We decided it was a pose with her, thinking she was conscious, very likely, that outright mirth or any other visible emotion would somehow become her ill. You cannot imagine the Bartholdi Liberty laughing. Such regularity of features, such steadfast, intrepid eyes had Muriel;and so did she oppose to passing people and events, silence and an unmoved brow. I give the idea that she was dull; it was not so. She thought as much and as much to the point as any of us; she only lacked our fevered sprightliness.
Mazie went on expounding: "Teddy Johns is to be Mrs. Gessler, and Gwynne Peters is Mrs. Tell, or Matilda, I forget which, and J. B.'s young 'Tell.' In the play his name'sJemmy, of all things I do think that's the funniest—Jemmy! J. B. said when they found that in the libretto, they said it would be a shame to change it. I believe in the original opera, a girl always sings the part. J. B.'s all the time wanting someone to hear him speak his piece, or give him a drink of water—things like that, you know, as if he were about four years old. And he gets lost and says to the policeman that he's Jemmy Tell—I don't know why you want to laugh, but it's so silly you can't help it. He must be six-feet-two if he's an inch, and he's going to wear a little white piqué kilt to his knees with a sash and short socks and ankle-ties, and a red apple fastened on his head kind of skew-wow over one ear, with an elastic under his chin. Simply too funny for any use!"
"I don't see how he can do it," said Muriel. "Fancy! A kilt! I think it's horrid!" She spoke with unexpected energy; the lovely English rose in her cheeks suddenly deepened. Every other girl in the room wondered what it was that had waked her up; and Mazie, who was manicuring her nails (she introduced that art among us), paused with the polisher suspended, and gave her friend an acute fleeting glance.
"I don't believe J. B. minds, or he wouldn't get himself up that way," she remarked airily. "We can stand it if hecan. He's got an awfully good figure. After all, the kilt isn't much different from a Roman costume—like what John McCullough wears in 'Virginius,' you know. J. B.'s on to his own good points; he's not going to make a guy of himself—catch a man doing that. 'Tell's' sort of comic opera, and do you know, girls, honestly, I can't see but that it's every bit as good as 'Olivette'—you haven't seen that yet. They'll have it out here by next winter, I suppose; it's always a year before things get West from New York. We thought we'd have the other play afterwards—they aren't either of them long. That will give all the men a chance to get into their dress-clothes before the dancing begins. Teddy and J. B. are both in the second one, too. It's called 'Mrs. Tankerville's Tiara."
"Where did you get it? Public Library?"
"Oh, gracious, no. I shouldn't have known what to ask for, you know; why, there've been millions andmillionsof plays written—did you know that? Justmillions! No, Doctor Vardaman lent me the book; I went down to the house and looked over ever so many with him. You ought to see the doctor's library; I'd never been in it before; I believe where we've got one book, he has twenty at the very least. They go all around the room in shelves with the busts of people on top, Shakespeare, I suppose, and—and—well, Shakespeare, you know, and men like that. And he has funny old stuffed birds sitting up between the busts. You wouldn't think that would be pretty, would you, just books, and mothy old birds, and no curtains at the windows; it isn't a bit stylish, but somehow it looks like Doctor Vardaman. Well, we looked at the greatest pile of books of plays, and I told the doctor I thought we oughtn't to attempt anythingbut farce, so that we'd be sure of entertaining people. But he said if we really meant to be funny, we'd better be serious; he'd guarantee everybody would be much more entertained. Doctor Vardaman does say such queer things—you never know whether he's laughing at you, or with you. But he's lovely about hearing us rehearse (he's seen it on the stage, you know), and suggestingbusiness—that's when you have to stand in a corner and make believe to be doing something when it isn't your turn to talk. Isn't it funny you never see actors standing still, and looking stumped for something to do? They're always walking around, or they've got something in their hands to fuss with, or——"
"Well, that'sbusiness, isn't it?"
"Yes, but I don't see why they can't sit still just the way we are now—but if they did, it probably wouldn't look right on the stage. Only how do they think up all the things they do?Businessis a lot harder than talking, anyhow. Muriel's the leading lady, she's got an awfully long part. J. B. has to make love to her, you know, and when the butler steals the diamonds, and they think Muriel did it, he goes right away and proposes to her, to show thathetrusts her anyway——"
"I don't like all that spoony part," said Muriel, colouring painfully.
"He don't either, I guess," said Kitty. "Men don't like being made to look ridiculous."
Kitty was undoubtedly a cat, but—— "You're in the play, too, aren't you, Miss Oldham?" Muriel asked her.
"Yes. I'm Mrs. Tankerville's maid. I've only got about two words to say."
"Oh!" said Muriel in her pleasant low voice. "Oh!"That was all. But she had got even, to our surprise. I believe we all liked her the better for it.
"We'll all have to copy out our parts," continued Mazie rather hastily. "It's comedy, except where Mrs. Tankerville's diamonds are stolen; Teddy Johns is 'Jenks,' the butler; in the last act he's shot, while he's hiding behind a screen, and then they find the diamonds on him, and it all comes out right, of course. And oh, girls, it opens with a ballroom scene, and we'll all have to be dressed up to the nines—wouldn't mamma be raging if she heard me say that—she thinks slang's simplyawful!"
"Was that slang?" asked honest Muriel, opening her eyes. "It doesn't seem to have any sense. But then one doesn't notice it, because so much of your talk is like that, in the States!"
"Never mind, you'll learn as you go along," said Kitty encouragingly. "It may take a good while, but you're bound to learnsometime. Everyone gets used to our slang in the end, even the very slowest ones!"
Mazie again intervened to shunt the conversation on a safer track; she kept on with the question of dress for the forthcoming dramatic performance; and as there were a good many changes for everybody, the scene being laid in the present day, before long she had us all in smooth water once more. Mazie was her mother's own daughter, deft as a juggler among the uncertain knives and balls of social favour; she was fully awake to the difficulties of managing that most unmanageable of bodies, a set of amateur actors. But during the fortnight or so that "William Tell" and "Mrs. Tankerville's Tiara" were in preparation, she and Mrs. Pallinder must have been taxed to the utmost, adroitas they were, to keep things going smoothly, or indeed, going at all. Teddy Johns, who was somewhat given to hyperbole, or, as he himself would have said, to "tall talk," once confided to me that he had a feeling we were "all dancing on top of a volcano—like the What-d'ye-call-'ems over the Thingumbob, you know," he said, gloomily. "I've read about 'em somewhere. Lucky if it don't go off under us!" Itdidgo off, after a fashion, but not quite as Teddy had expected.
Teddy Johns displayed more real talent—to call his small gift by a very large name—for the stage than any of us. He was not a clever young man—he had one lamentable failing; but he could control his sallow, solemn face, and ungainly body into expressions and attitudes that would have won laughter from stocks and stones. When Archie Lewis in his character of "Tell" came tearing across the stage, clamouring wildly in the highest style of high tragedy, "Me che-ild, me che-ild! Must I spank me own che-ild?" Teddy could say, "Do Tell!" in an accent of vacuous astonishment that reduced one to helpless and I suppose perfectly senseless merriment. Teddy was our sheet-anchor. Unquestionably without him the whole thing would be a "fizzle."
About this time all the papers were giving considerable attention in the columns which they headed variously: "Social Doings," "Among the Four Hundred,"—a phrase just then coming into notoriety,—"The Society Calendar," etc., to Mrs. Pallinder's house-party. That lady herself, her establishment, her clothes, her diamonds had provided us with gossip, as I have endeavoured to show, for the past two years. But if we were inured to Mrs. Pallinder, Miss Muriel Ponsonby-Baxter was something new. Everyone entertained for her; it was a matter of pride with us to give our English girl-visitor an unapproachably "good time," to prove to her how much the best country in this best of all possible worlds America was for the young, well-born, well-mannered, good-looking, and happy—ourselves, in short. Not one of us had the slightest acquaintance with English society; but we were confident our own was immeasurably better. Twenty-five years ago, it must be remembered, there was a chillier feeling between the two countries; and, of course, our provincialism accented it. The eagle ramped upon his perch; the lion suffered a deal of tail-twisting; hands across the sea were not quite so fervent in their clasp then as now. Our demagogues flung about dark hints concerning the machinations of the "Cobden Club." American protectionists, American free-traders bellowed themselves purple in the face from the stump in defence of their several creeds, and strangely enough, found in Englandequally an awful example, and a beacon-light of progress! The last, for obvious reasons, was a very unpopular view; in those Arcadian days the main diversion of a certain class of our politicians was the ferocious baiting of perfidious Albion. The Oriental-war scares, the race-problems, the anti-trust, and anti-railroad agitations of to-day must cause these amiable jingoes—a name, by the way, which they never heard—to turn in their graves. Bless thee, Bottom, how art thou translated! In that year, the Pendleton Civil-Service Reform Bill was the most important measure before the two Houses; and "to the victors belong the spoils," was the cry most frequently raised against it. That admirable argument, at once so condensed and so forcible, what respectable person would dare to utter it to-day? Blaine was alive; Tilden was alive; Ben Butler was governor of Massachusetts, he of fragrant memory, house-cleaner of New Orleans, promulgator of Regulation 19—or was it 29? Iram indeed is gone with all his rose, and Ben and all the rest along with him; and we have ceased, at a woeful expense, to be provincial. We were not bothering our headsthen, about tropical canals and the Philippines—oh, all-but-forgotten Golden Age!
We were not always certain what sort of impression we were making on Muriel; and, however eager we might have been to find out, there are some questions any girl would go to the scaffold rather than ask. But I know that on one point we were intolerably vain; perhaps that vanity was the most honest, creditable, endearing quality we possessed; and something of the same feeling stirs me even now. Where, where on this globe, we asked ourselves triumphantly, would Muriel find anything to match the ready deference, the kind, half-humorous, wholly charming devotion of the Americanman to his womankind? Indeed, it was plain to see she was unused to this Sir Walter Raleigh attitude; she was as much puzzled as pleased by it. I think we were somewhat disposed to patronise her; and Kitty Oldham declared openly she didn't believe Miss Baxter had ever had an offer in her life. She was an exceptionally handsome girl; she must have had a far wider social experience than ours; but, for all that, and in spite of her size and the splendid unconscious ease of her bearing, we detected in her a curious timidity. It suited her. Had she attempted to imitate the brisk, fearless, autocratic American girl, she would have been merely a big hoyden. There was, after all, something sweet in her naïve tactlessness, her awkward conscientious efforts at adapting herself to ways she could not understand, and perhaps at heart, did not really like. To one of us, at least, the association was not without profit. I used to feel that someone ought in conscience to explain Mrs. Botlisch to Muriel, to apologise for that really terrible old woman; the irritating thing was that Muriel accepted her without comment, exactly as she accepted the rest of us—as if, I thought with annoyance, we were all freaks together! "Mazie's grandmother is not—well—er—she's not at all—you know?" I said, feeling, notwithstanding this public-spirited effort, a little embarrassed under Muriel's direct, serious gaze. "Mrs. Botlisch is—well, she's really not—er—very good style, nobody else here is like her—you must have noticed it. She's awfullycommon—of course, we didn't know much about the Pallinders before they came here—nobody knows how they—they gotin, you see——"
"I shouldn't think you'd come to the house so much if you feel that way," said Muriel. "I wouldn't."
She did not mean it as a rebuke; she was only saying, as usual, precisely what she thought. But all at once, with the uncompromising harshness of youth, I saw and denounced myself inwardly for a petty groundling, eating people's bread with a covert sneer, and parading their shortcomings before a stranger. No, Muriel would not have done it.Noblesse oblige!
The Pallinders, to their honour be it said, never seemed to be ashamed of Mrs. Botlisch. They had their notions ofnoblesse oblige, too, strange as that may sound. Reflecting upon it now, I see certain a heroism in the respect they paid that dreadful, screeching, vile-tongued old termagant. I have known prosperous, reputable families, who paid the butcher and thought it a sin to play cards, wherein the unornamental older members were not treated with one-half the consideration these kind-hearted, conscienceless outlaws bestowed on Mrs. Botlisch. She was a fat harridan of seventy with a blotched red face, a great, coarse, husky voice like a man's and thick hands, the nails bitten down to the quick. She liked to go about without corsets or shoes in a shapeless gaberdine she called a double-gown—not too clean at that. She kept a bottle of whisky on her mantelpiece; she had a disconcerting habit of whisking out her teeth and laying them down wherever she chanced to be; you might come upon them grinning amongst Mazie's music on the piano, or under the sofa-cushions. She frankly enjoyed a loose story, and made a point of telling them in mixed companies of young people. She alternately bullied the servants and gossiped with them in the kitchen; once I most inopportunely happened upon Mrs. Botlisch engaged in a battle-royal with one of the chambermaids over some trifle—a broken dish, perhaps—inthe pantry. Fortunately, I could not understand one word they uttered; and after a little, Mrs. Pallinder came, looking quite grey over her handsome resolute face, and took her mother away still shrieking hideous abuse. "Ma is so eccentric," she said to me afterwards, with a ghastly smile; and some feeling, of mingled horror and compassion, withheld me from reporting the wretched scene. In most households, these undesirable parents can be thrust, gently or not, into the background; in fact, very many parents retire thither of their own accord. But Mrs. Botlisch was not of that type.
"I like to set in the parlour an' see the young folks," she said. "Mirandy she don't want me to, but I says to her, 'Mirandy,' says I, 'don't you worry. I'm goin' ter keep my uppers an' lowers in, 'less I git a fish-bone er a hunk o' meat under the plate at dinner, an' I ain't a-goin' to no bed till I git sleepy,' says I. She says, 'Ma, I'm afraid you won't be comf'ble with your—you know—on all evenin'.'" (Here she gave J. B. a poke in the side and dropped her left eyelid). "'Lord love you, don't set there lookin' so innercent like you'd never saw a woman undress in yer life—don't come that overme, young feller. She says, 'Ma, I'm afraid you'll feel kinder tight an' uncomf'ble with 'em on all evenin' 'long as you ain't used to wearin' 'em much in the daytime,' she says. 'Land!' says I. 'Mirandy,' I ain't squoze inter my cloze by main stren'th the way Mazie is. 'F I feel uncomf'ble, I'll just undo the bottom buttons of my basque an' I'll be all right, you see.'"
And there she sat, true to her word, creaking in her black silk and bugles (with the bottom buttons undone!), perspiring greasily over her fat red face; and shouting rough,humorous, and frequently shrewd criticism at our amateurs during rehearsal until midnight, when we went out to the dining-room for oysters, egg-nogg, and the too lavish entertainment of Colonel Pallinder's sideboard. The first time this occurred Teddy Johns retreated precipitately from the table, and, being sought, was discovered at last, pallidly reclining on the library lounge.
"I'm all right, old man," he said feebly. "Just a minute, please. I couldn't stand seeing old Mrs. Botlisch wallop down those oysters, that's all."
There lies before me now a square of rough paper (designedly rough), with jagged edges (designedly jagged), tinted in water colours an elegant cloudy blue, with a butterfly, or some such insect, painted in one corner, and a slit diagonally opposite through which we stuck a single rosebud, as I remember. Slanting across the sheet in loose gilt lettering I read "Programme," and a date beneath. This confection represented days of effort and ingenuity on the part of those young ladies among my contemporaries who painted china, or were otherwise "artistic." Some of them took the "Art Amateur," at a ruinous expenditure; that publication has long since gone the way of all flesh and most print, in company, it would appear, with the amateurs for whom it was destined. Nobody is either "artistic" or amateurish any more. We did the jagging with a meat-saw, I believe—what a spectacle for our accomplished posterity!
If I reverse the sheet, I find upon the other side, in a correct angular hand (it may well be my own, for angularity was much the fashion in those days; and the inartistic ones let what aid they could to the task of programme-making), I find, I say, the
The uninformed might very well inquire, as did Doctor Vardaman, what under Heaven Arnold von Winkelreid was doing in thisgalère? He appeared among the other historical personages with a baseball-catcher's padded guard tied about his chest, and stuck full of enormous arrows; at one time or another every young man in the cast, including Jimmie Hathaway himself, was overheard laboriously explaining to Muriel that it was "all just nonsense, you know; of course Winkelreid didn't have anything to do with Tell—but there was an Arnold in the cast of the real opera—and then there was that funny old piece about Arnold von Winkelreid in McGuffey's Reader, you know: 'Make way for liberty, he cried, make way for liberty, and died!' and he somehow seemed to fit in pretty well with the rest of the foolishness. They had thought of having Casabianca, too, but gave it up," and so on and so on.
"Don't pay any attention to their excuses, Miss Baxter,"said the doctor fiercely, yet shaking with laughter. "It's all miserable horse-play—vandalism—desecration. 'Guillaume Tell' is a beautiful opera, the creation of a great musical genius. I've seen Sonntag and Lablache in it; it ought to be sacred from these barbarians—you hear me, boys, barbarians!" He menaced them with a closed fist; and they went on shamelessly:
Gessler(in a loud voice)—Who are these fellows?Rudolph—My lord, these are Swiss.Gessler(louder, pointing to Tell)—Who's that fellow with the freckles?Rudolph—My lord, that is a dotted Swiss.Gessler(louder still)—Take away that dashed Swiss!Rudolph—My lord, I saiddotted.Gessler(very loud)—Well, I saiddashed——
Gessler(in a loud voice)—Who are these fellows?
Rudolph—My lord, these are Swiss.
Gessler(louder, pointing to Tell)—Who's that fellow with the freckles?
Rudolph—My lord, that is a dotted Swiss.
Gessler(louder still)—Take away that dashed Swiss!
Rudolph—My lord, I saiddotted.
Gessler(very loud)—Well, I saiddashed——
It took little enough to make us laugh, for we thought all that very funny indeed. And an interesting point might be made of the fact that "William Tell," whether the men had greater abilities, or easier parts, or from whatever reason, was, as a whole, far and away superior to the play in which the girls appeared. Doctor Vardaman, for all his old-time gallantry, betrayed his preference more than once; but it sometimes seemed to me as if the old gentleman took a malign satisfaction in viewing our performances, theatrical and otherwise, as one who should stand by and observe the antics of so many apes with an amused detachment.
"Of course, of course, I enjoy the comedy. Don't you want me to enjoy the comedy?" he said when I taxed him, and eyed me sidelong with his discomfiting grin. The doctor was a queer old man; not the least evidence of his queerness was the interest he displayed in our affairs. He watched usdrill for "William Tell" and "Mrs. Tankerville's Tiara," day by day, appearing to find therein unfailing entertainment. To be sure he had little else to do; he had long retired from practice, and, as he said of himself, was the weak-minded victim of his own whims. With all his oddities, we were fond of him; and his advice and suggestions were a real help to such of us as took ourselves and our parts seriously. The stage was one of his many hobbies; he had collected a huge library of books relating to it; had seen all of the celebrated actors of his day and known not a few of them; and could recall Laura Keane in the very rôle which Muriel was now essaying.
"Do you remember what she wore, Doctor?" Mazie asked him, characteristically enough, by the way.
"White gauze, I think," said the old gentleman, considering. "Yes, it was white gauze, and a touch of green about it somewhere."
"Huh! Touch o' green was a fig-leaf, I s'pose—hope so, anyhow!" said Mrs. Botlisch, and "wallopped" down another oyster. Shewasa terrible old woman.
"I don't know what we'd do without you, doctor," said Mazie precipitately. "You know so much about it—what we ought to do, I mean, and how the whole thing ought to go. It's ever so kind of you——"
"Not at all—the kindness is on your side," said the doctor. He glanced about with a smile in which there lurked a whimsical melancholy. "I don't aspire to the post of guide, philosopher, and fr——"
"Talkin' o' guides," old Mrs. Botlisch interrupted him. "Ever hear that story 'bout the English feller that went aroun' Niagry Falls with a guide, out to Table Rock an' GoatIsland, and down under th' Falls an' everywheres, an' when they got through, he took an' wrote in th' visitors' book, 'Why am I like Desdemona?' That's th' white girl that married a nigger in one o' these here plays, you know. He took an' wrote, 'Why am I like Desdemona? Becuz——'"
"Ahem!" interrupted Doctor Vardaman, with extraordinary vehemence. "You were asking me for the address of the man that sells make-up boxes, one of you the other day. I meant to bring it with me to-night, but forgot. Any time you want, you can stop at my house, and in case I'm out, ask Huddesley, I left it with him. It's Kryzowski—bowski—wowski—some such unpronounceable Russian name, and his shop is somewhere on Sixth Avenue, I think, but I can't exactly remember."
All of which speech the doctor delivered in a rapid and vigorous outburst of words, not pausing until he was quite out of breath; and even then he had the air of one skirting by a hair's-breadth some desperate verge.
"I'll stop in to-morrow," said J. B. "Huddesley isn't likely to get mixed up about it, is he?"
"Huddesley? Oh, no, trusthim. Besides I'll leave it written down. But Huddesley is perfectly reliable—a remarkable man, that—never had a such a servant is my house—he's really unusual."
"Snake in th' grass—don't tellme!" Mrs. Botlisch grunted. She had taken a bitter prejudice against the doctor's man-servant; partly, no doubt, because although he was a good deal about the house, coming and going on the doctor's errands, he had managed to avoid both her bullying and her patronage. There is nothing more offensive than the servant whose manners are better than our own. AndHuddesley's manners were perfect in his degree; he was English, we supposed from the short fragment of his history we had heard, and had not been long enough abroad to lose the insular standard of domestic service, and the insular traditions of class.
"Huddesley'll get spoiled if you don't look out, Doctor," Colonel Pallinder warned him. "None of my affair, of course, but, pardon me, too much notice and perhaps too much pay——"
"I know some of 'em that ain't sufferin' fromthatanyhow!" growled the old woman pointedly.
"I believe ma thinks we ought to give all these lazy darkies as much as we spend on ourselves," said Mrs. Pallinder with an indulgent laugh. "As if they weren't eating us out of house and home already! But William's right, doctor, Huddesley will be spoiled if we're not all more careful. A white servant can't stand petting and familiarity the way black ones do; sooner or later he'll presume on it. Did you know that all these boys have been going down to your house to get Huddesley to hear them their parts?"
"It's my fault, I began it," J. B. explained, reddening. "I said to Ted that if he wanted to know how an English butler behaved he'd better get a few pointers from Huddesley. Huddesley'd make an ideal 'Jenks,' you know, as far as looks go, I mean. He's the real thing in butlers. And it's funny, he's got ever so many good ideas aboutbusiness, you know, and all that. But we won't do it any more if you'd rather not, Doctor."
"Pooh, you can't spoil a man like that," the doctor said. "Reverence for class is born in 'em; it runs in the blood. That's what I admire about these English servants—theirperfect self-respect, and idea of the dignity of their own position, without presuming on yours."
"It's awfully convenient having him to prompt anyhow," said Mazie, who needed a great deal of prompting. "Nobody wants to sit and hold an old prompt-book and watch for mistakes. What bothers me is all those funny little pairs of letters 'r.u.' and 'cross over' and 'sits right' scattered all through your speech like hiccups. I don't know whatr.u.means, anyhow."
"Huddesley says it meansretire up—walk toward the back of the stage, you know."
"Well, but I thought you oughtn'teverto turn your back on the audience."
"Depends on yer figger, I guess," said Mrs. Botlisch. "Some girl's backs and fronts ain't no different—they're flat both sides like a paper doll!"
"Huddesley has aspirations," said Doctor Vardaman briskly. "I discovered that some time ago. At first I thought he wanted to study medicine; he used to be forever poking about my little room, pretending to dust and arrange the bottles, and asking all manner of questions. But since this business of your plays has come up, he's been tremendously interested in them. The fellow has some education, you know. I've found him two or three times reading in my library, with the feather duster under his arm—perfectly absorbed. He was very mortified the first time I caught him at it, and humbly begged my pardon. 'Hi can't resist a book, sir, sometimes,' he said. 'Hi wouldn't wish to be thought to presoom, but Hi've tastes hother than my lot can gratify; and Hi've 'ad 'opes—but,' says he, with a sigh, 'that's hall hover and gone, now.'"
"Kind of stagey, wasn't he?"
"Yes, of course, he must have got that out of some book. Once in a while, he uses very fine language, indeed, and then I know he's been reading. I said, 'Well, Huddesley, it's a pity, if feeling that way, you can't raise yourself as high as you choose here in America.' I only said it to draw him out, you know. He shook his head mournfully. 'No, sir,' says he, 'Hi won't never be anything but a butler—a servant pourin' out wine an' blackin' boots for the rich and light-'earted like yourself, sir.' I asked him what he would like to be if he could begin over again. 'A hactor, sir,' said he respectfully. 'Hi feel the stirrin' of Hart within my buzzom.' 'That's where we commonly feel 'em, Huddesley,' says I. 'Hi don't mean 'eart, sir, beggin' your parding, Hi mean Hart—with a Hay, sir—that's what Hi feel, but they'll never 'ave no houtlet, sir, Hi'm a butler—the die is cast——' and then I escaped into the garden to laugh."
"That isn't all funny—it's pathetic too," said J. B. thoughtfully. "Poor devil!"
At least two people in the room looked at the young man with a quicker interest—Doctor Vardaman and Muriel, the doctor with an odd and pleased surprise in his keen quizzical face. As for Muriel, she and J. B. looked at one another pretty often, as I remember. Mrs. Botlisch raised her hard old features from a close inspection of her empty, swept and scraped platter, and fixed the doctor with a little twinkling porcine eye.
"How long you had him anyway, Doc.?"
"Three months, or so, I believe."
"Oh, no, it's not that long, Doctor," exclaimed Mazie. "I remember Huddesley came after the holidays, just as Iwas starting to Washington. That was a little after the Charity Ball. I put off going so as not to miss it. I remember about Huddesley because you had just got rid of that awful man that had d.t's and came up here with an axe wanting to kill somebody."
"Huddesley's arrival raised the tone of our neighbourhood appreciably," said the doctor, with a laugh. Doctor Vardaman's men were a byword in the community. Men of every colour and nationality had drifted through his hands; it was a long procession of lazy, drunken, thieving rascality, or honesty so abysmally stupid and incompetent as to be equally worthless. "I'll never let him go, now I've got him," said the old gentleman. "I have a fellow-feeling for all you ladies that keep house. Rather than lose him, I'd give him everything I own even unto the half of my substance."
"He'll git more'n that 'fore he's through with ye," said Mrs. Botlisch. "You young Taylor feller,"—she always called J. B. and in fact all the young men that frequented the house, by the last name—"you'd better git that bottle o' rye away from Johns. He's had about enough, 'fI'many jedge—an' I reckon I'd oughter be, all th' drunks I've handled——"
"Pioneer times, pioneer times," said the colonel, hastily. "Er—um—the ice to Mr. Johns, Sam."
"When Mirandy's pa useter came home loaded," pursued the old woman, unmoved, "many's the time I've shet him in th' woodshed, him hollerin' bloody murder—'Let him holler!' says I. Time mornin' come I'd git him under th' pump—oh my, yes, I've had lots of experience."
"Pioneer times," said Colonel Pallinder again desperately. (But J. B.didtake the bottle away from Teddy'sneighbourhood.) "Pioneer days! Good God, gentlemen, when I think of what men and women had to contend with then, I'm ashamed, yes, ashamed of the luxuries we live in. You were saying, Doctor——"
"About—ahem—oh—ah—yes, about Huddesley," said the doctor, who had not been saying anything. "I can't always make the fellow out—I'm rather puzzled——"
"Speakin' o' puzzles," said old Mrs. Botlisch, "I was goin' to tell ye that one 'bout th' English feller that the guide was takin' 'roun' Niagry Falls. After they had gone down under th' Falls, an' out to Goat Island, and everywheres else, ye know, he took an' wrote in th' visitors' book, 'Why am I like Desdemona?' (That's the white girl that goes off with a nigger in th' play, ye know). He wrote just that: 'Why am I like Desdemona?' Th' answer is: 'Becuz——'"
This time, in spite of an outburst of coughing that threatened serious results to Doctor Vardaman, in spite of a fusillade of loud irrelevant talk from the colonel, in spite even of Teddy Johns' quite unintentionally falling over a chair, this time, I say, we all heard the answer!