"The gloaming one day was beginning to gloam,That's all, that's all!When I heard someone say 'The Incurables' Home?That's all, that's all!He told me of servants they had more than eight,And he thought that the one poor old battered inmateMust certainly live in magnificent state,That's all, that's all!"
"The gloaming one day was beginning to gloam,That's all, that's all!When I heard someone say 'The Incurables' Home?That's all, that's all!He told me of servants they had more than eight,And he thought that the one poor old battered inmateMust certainly live in magnificent state,That's all, that's all!"
"The gloaming one day was beginning to gloam,That's all, that's all!When I heard someone say 'The Incurables' Home?That's all, that's all!
"The gloaming one day was beginning to gloam,
That's all, that's all!
When I heard someone say 'The Incurables' Home?
That's all, that's all!
He told me of servants they had more than eight,And he thought that the one poor old battered inmateMust certainly live in magnificent state,That's all, that's all!"
He told me of servants they had more than eight,
And he thought that the one poor old battered inmate
Must certainly live in magnificent state,
That's all, that's all!"
A humorous effort which was received with great applause, the paucity of Incurables, and the disproportionate energy of their Lady Managers being a standing joke in our community. Mrs. Oldham was rumoured to have remarked acutely upon being applied to for a donation to the Home, that the only thing incurable about it was the idiots who ran it. Teddy sang and swaggered through his part in a very amusing fashion; he was good at that sort of entertainment. The fête—anything carried on out-doors was a fête in those days—was a success, nettingtheIncurable the handsome sum of fifty-one dollars twenty-seven cents, according to Mrs. Lewis' report. And the next day everyone in town was circulating the story of how some blundering or malicious person actually went up to poor Gwynne Peters and asked him where Sam was and what he was doing!
After this the house went again into one of its periods of eclipse, so to call them. No one even cared to look it over any more; and few people visited the neighbourhood at all since dear old Miss Clara Vardaman died and the doctor gave up practice. If it had not been for Gwynne I believe the house would have fallen down, and he must have had a hard pull getting the rest of them to contribute their share of the taxes and insurance. It was offered for sale at gradually diminishing terms; they had one chance to dispose of it to a German gentleman who proposed to convert it into a place of entertainment for the masses to be called Silberberg's Garden. Templeton was enthusiastically in favour of this plan, but figure the indignation of the two old Misses Gwynne!Even Gwynne, while he laughed, was a little ruffled. "Think of a band-stand and merry-go-round in the park," he said. "German waiters in their shirt-sleeves dashing from the house with beer-glasses and plates of wienerwurst, plumbers' apprentices and their girls waltzing and perspiring in our old ballroom, with a free fight thrown in now and then by way of variety! And how Doctor Vardaman would relish it! Picnic parties, sardine-cans, paper napkins, beer-bottles, sentimental couples spooning, band scraping and tooting 'Die Wacht am Rhein,' and 'How can I leave thee?' under his windows all day long—his property would be absolutely unsalable. We can't do it, I guess; no, not even for Silberberg's twenty-five thousand dollars!" I told him he was like the Arab who wouldn't part from his steed, in the poem at the back of the Third or Fourth Reader. "My beautiful, my beautiful——" he says; "Avaunt, tempter, I scorn thy gold!" And, springing on the horse's back, vanishes into the desert. Thus did all the Gwynnes turn up their noses—in the vernacular—at Silberberg. Templeton was very doleful. "You're missing the only chance you'll ever have to get rid of that damned old white elephant, Mr. Peters," he said. "Why not let the Dutchman have it? Lord, what difference does it make to you whether he turns it into a beer-garden or a cemetery? It's had its day." But, for once in his life, the little real-estate agent was at fault; for, on a sudden, without notice, fully five years after the house came on the market, when it had weathered through nearly every vicissitude known to houses, and its fortunes were at the dregs, the wheel took another turn—spun clean around—came full circle, in fact. Time and the hour run through the roughest day.
FOOTNOTE:[3]Easy walking distance! It was between five and six squares on a very indifferent plank sidewalk, as I have cause to know!—M. S. W.
[3]Easy walking distance! It was between five and six squares on a very indifferent plank sidewalk, as I have cause to know!—M. S. W.
[3]Easy walking distance! It was between five and six squares on a very indifferent plank sidewalk, as I have cause to know!—M. S. W.
Many warm-hearted people felt a great sympathy for Doctor Vardaman in his isolation and solitude after Miss Clara's death; I suspect that had the doctor been an old maid instead of an old bachelor, he would not have received so much attention. There is something in the spectacle of an elderly unattached male being, no matter how independent he may be, or how capable of taking care of himself, that at once engages the solicitude of all his friends, men and women alike. Everybody felt sorry for him; everybody wondered how he got along. Doctor Vardaman was a hale old gentleman verging on seventy, it is true, but still vigorous of mind and body, and with pronounced notions of his own on the subject of diet, hygiene, and the conduct of life generally. No one could have needed benevolent supervision less; but he might well have prayed with the antique worthy to be delivered from his friends. At Christmas he used to describe himself as blushing to his very heels and retreating in shamed confusion before the stern gaze of the expressman who unloaded case after case of expensive wines and spirits before his door; that he already had a whole cellar-full partly of his own collecting, partly inherited from his father, a man of means and discernment in such matters, made no manner of difference to these eager and generous givers. If he had smoked as diligently as a factory-chimney, he could not have vanquished the army of cigars he received yearly. A centipede would nothave accommodated all the doctor's pairs of knit and crocheted slippers; he solemnly avowed that there were bales of smoking-jackets and pen-wipers stored in his garret. He could have paved his walk with paper-weights, yet I never saw him use but one—a glass globe with a remarkable cameo-looking head encircled by a wreath of flowers mysteriously embedded beneath the surface, which Gwynne and I, clubbing our pennies, had presented to him the first Christmas after we were enlightened on the Santa Claus subject. He used to laugh and make little jokes about his being an "universal favourite" like certain patent medicines; yet he had a sentiment for all this trash, and would not allow it to be thrown or given away, except when kindness took the form of sending some perishable delicacy for his table, a frequent occurrence after Miss Clara's death, as it was known he had some trouble in getting competent "help." It would have been physically impossible for the doctor to get through all the aspic jelly, mango-pickle, and fruit-cake bestowed on him, and he said that it went against his medical conscience to give these rich dainties away, yet that must be done sometimes.
I myself have laboriously carried out little trays of orange-marmalade tumblers which I am sure never did any good to anybody but Mrs. Maginnis' children, who used to come bare-legged, with their tousled heads, freckles, and blue eyes to fetch the doctor's wash. It took no slight gymnastic ability to carry a basket or waiter of such unmanageable articles as marmalade-glasses, change cars twice, and pick one's way across the ankle-deep mud of Richmond Avenue, and along the wooden sidewalk full of loose uncertain boards, as far as Doctor Vardaman's house. On a gusty April day witha promise of rain in the air, one must go cumbered with an umbrella and overshoes; only fancy what that was to a young woman clad in the fashionable costume of eighty-one, to wit: a skin-tight navy-blue silk "jersey" waist, a navy-blue bunting skirt kilt-pleated with a voluminous round overskirt, and a pocket with purse and handkerchief securely concealed somewhere amongst the folds in the rear; French-heeled shoes, tan-coloured suède "Bernhardt" gloves, and a tremendous erection of velvet and feathers that we called a "Gainsborough hat" over all! These modes have mercifully gone out; but not more, I think, than the simple and kindly custom of sending glasses of jelly about to one's friends; I should not presume to ask one of my young acquaintances to perform so unseemly an office; no one either makes jelly or sends it as a present any more. Fortunately I fell in with Gwynne Peters on the last lap of the journey, that is, the Lexington and Amherst cars.
"Here, let me take that thing," said he, and as I thankfully gave up to him my burden of sweets—my wrists, not too loosely cased in the tan-coloured "Bernhardts" fairly aching with the weight—he went on: "What do you think? I believe we've got the old place rented at last! Templeton's going to have some people out there this afternoon and I'm to meet them. But they've been out two or three times already, and he says they've taken a fancy to it. The man—he's a Colonel Pallinder from Mobile or New Orleans or somewhere—says it reminds him of his old home in Virginia, 'befo' the wah,' you know, that's the way he talks."
"Are they nice? I mean—anybody we'dknow?"
"Why, I don't know—yes, I guess so. They're Episcopalians, they were asking Templeton about Trinity Church.I haven't met them yet, and you can't go much by what Templeton says—a fellow like that doesn't know anything except whether people are respectable or not. They're all grown-ups, no children. I think there's a young lady; Templeton's lost in admiration of Mrs. Pallinder—told me two or three times, 'She's an elegant lady, Mr. Peters, very lah-de-dah manners, you know, stylish as she can be!' Doctor Vardaman's met them; but there's no use asking the doctor anything, he just grinned when I mentioned the Pallinders, and said he didn't doubt they'd be a great addition to the neighbourhood."
Templeton's "livery-rig" was standing at the foot of the wide shallow steps leading up to the Parthenon portico as we came in sight of it from the road. The shutters were open; feet and voices went to and fro inside. A tall slim girl in a red waist (it was a "jersey," I thought) and hat came out to the carriage and gave the driver some order. The agent appeared from the back of the house between two more tall people, a lady and gentleman. Templeton gesticulated, he flourished toward the grounds, he flourished toward the façade of Doric columns. The gentleman pulled his beard, which he wore in a long sharply pointing tuft on his chin, and listened with his head at an angle. "Jiminy! I'm glad I got that chimney fixed!" ejaculated Gwynne thoughtfully. "You know I'd like to take away those old iron stags and things from the front lawn, but Cousin Steven would fall down dead if I touched 'em."
"Oh, I don't know, Gwynne, somehow they seem to suit the old place, they've been there so long. Wouldn't it be nice if these people turned out really—reallynice, so that the house would be the way it was in your grandfather's time?"
"It wouldso!" Gwynne agreed heartily. He looked about. Some way it seemed as if the thing were not wholly improbable; the fresh hopefulness of spring was in the air; pockets of new grass showed an excellent green, the trees were faintly rimmed with colour. All the thickets piped with birds. There were Arcadian vistas of many smooth mottled trunks and loftily stooping branches; the old house with its absurd classic front and assemblage of iron flocks and herds still became the landscape well. "Itispretty, isn't it?" said the young man, earnestly. "I should think anybody'd like it, wouldn't you?"
As he spoke, Templeton, an odd enough herald of good tidings, came scrunching hastily down the gravel drive from the house. He was too excited to notice my presence. "By gummy, Mr. Peters," he exclaimed breathlessly, as soon as he got within hearing distance, "I've landed 'em! You come on up to the house. Three years' lease—you come on up—privilege of purchase—you want to come right up and meet 'em—by gummy!"
Gwynne came grinning to us afterwards, as Doctor Vardaman and I stood in the old gentleman's porch, to describe the interview.
"I went up to the house," he said, "and here were Colonel Pallinder, looking like the Count of Monte Cristo, or the Chevalier de Maison Rouge, in a low-cut vest and a turn-down collar and black string-tie, and Mrs. Pallinder—by Jove, Templeton was right, she's an awfully handsome woman, and theyoungestlooking, she might be her own daughter! She was one of their Southern belles, I suppose, only she's quite fair, light hair and a beautiful complexion—have you noticed her complexion, doctor?"
"Mrs. Pallinder's complexion is remarkably well cared-for, I should say," said the doctor judicially.
"Yes, I've always understood these Southern women don't do much but eat candy and fix themselves up. Anyway, she's very striking-looking, much more so than the daughter. She's a very tall girl, I noticed her eyes were almost on a level with mine—big black eyes and she kind of rolls 'em around, you know——"
"What did they have on, Gwynne?"
He paused; he meditated. "They were all dressed up," he said at last, with the air of one conveying a piece of valuable information, the result of close and prolonged study. Again he meditated. "Well, they were both all dressed up, you know. What's that thing you've got on, that tight jacket thing—or is it a—a waist? Hers was red, with little curlycues all over it."
"You mean it was braided?"
"Yes, that's it, braided—they were both all dressed up, you know. Well, then Templeton introduced us, told the colonel who I was, that is, and he welcomed me as if I had been his long-lost brother with the strawberry-mark. Called me 'my dear boy' right off—I don't much care about that sort of thing," said Gwynne, shrugging. "But I suppose it's his way. Everybody was very cordial, and there was so much hands-all-round and hurrah-boys, you never would have thought we'd just met for the first time. It's not the way we're used to up here, but on the whole, doctor, it's rather nice—they're very interesting people, and they've got such pleasant Southern voices, and they're gay, somehow, gay and kind," said Gwynne, who, poor young fellow, had had little enough either of gaiety or kindness in his experience of life."The colonel presented me to the ladies with the grandest flourish you ever saw, and said he understood this was my ancestral home, and he knew just how I felt at seeing strangers in it, but I mustn't cease to look upon it as my home just the same, and that he hoped I would come there whenever I felt like it; and he didn't know howIthought about it, but forhispart, it seemed to him there was nothing like having a gentleman for a tenant and a gentleman for a landlord. Right there," said Gwynne, with a grin, "I might have sprung it on him that he was going to have quite a few gentlemen and some ladies for a landlord, but I only said, 'The house belongs to an estate, you know,' and something about our being so fortunate to have them in it—Ihadto say something after all their cordiality. And he went right on, without paying much attention, 'Ah, indeed?' he thought it quite possible he might buy it, he wanted to settle down somewhere, he was tired of travelling about, and he had got his business in such shape that hecouldsettle down at last."
"What is his business, Gwynne?" interrupted the doctor suddenly.
"Why, he's a broker, and Templeton says he's agent for a big syndicate of Eastern capitalists that have some kind of railroad or mining interests all over the West. He's rented an office in the Turner Building. I was going to bring up the subject of repairs, but it seems Templeton and he had got that all settled already. Pallinder's going to do a lot himself, about the bathroom and kitchen, and Mrs. Pallinder doesn't like the wood-work painted white that old-fashioned way, so they're going to change it, grain it to look like quartered oak or mahogany. I suppose Cousin Eleanor and the rest of them will go into fits, and I kind of hate to see theold white wood-work changed myself," added Gwynne regretfully. "But if the colonel buys the place, and I'm pretty sure he's going to after putting out all this money on it, why, it doesn't make any difference what they do to it. The whole thing's almost too good to be true."
"Itis," said Doctor Vardaman, rubbing his chin. "Being agent for an Eastern syndicate must be a very profitable walk of life—most people aren't so willing to spend their money on a rented house. Somehow or other I fear, I very much fear the Danai bringing gifts. Did you meet the old lady—Mrs. Botlisch? Was she with them?"
Gwynne began to laugh. "I was going to tell you about her. After we had gone through the whole house, and the colonel had pointed out what he meant to change, for instance: 'Those old mirrors over the parlour-mantels will do very well,' says he, pointing with his cane. 'The frames want a little——' 'Put a lick o' gilt paint over the bare spots,' says Templeton in a mortal stew for fear they were going to ask for something expensive. 'That'll make 'em look all right.' 'Exactly—a lick of paint over the bare spots,' said Pallinder, listening politely and without a smile. 'Mr. Templeton is quite right.' And with that Mrs. Pallinder began: 'I've been thinking I'll have the front parlour on the south side done in peacock-blue and old-gold, Mr. Peters. I saw a lovely paper with the blue ground and large gilt fleur-de-lys on it downtown that would just suit.' Templeton turned green. 'Well—er—um—I don't know——' says he. 'Oh, I'll have that done, Mr. Templeton,' said the colonel—and this time he did laugh, and winked at me over the little man's head. 'You're a very conscientious agent, sir,' says he. 'But don't worry. I wouldn't expect you togratify a whim like that. I'll let you into a secret, gentlemen, I'm a terribly hen-pecked man, and being the only one in the family, the odds are so heavily against me, three to one, that I always jump and do whatever's wanted without any discussion.' 'I guess it's pretty hard to refuse Mrs. Pallinder anything,' said Templeton, coming out strong in a way that nearly floored me; the lady gave him a sweet smile, and Miss Pallinder laughed outright. 'I'm going to have a paper with pink roses all over it, and pink curtains to match in my room, if Papa will let me, Mr. Templeton,' says she, and worked her eyes around at him like this. 'Now can't you say something nice tome?' 'I would, but I'm afraid Mrs. Templeton would hear of it,' said Templeton, and be hanged if he didn't rollhiseyes around at her," said Gwynne, writhing with laughter. "And then you ought to have seen Miss Pallinder laugh! We finally got around to the kitchen, and while the two ladies and Templeton were inspecting the closets, Colonel Pallinder mysteriously beckoned me outside. The man had driven Templeton's hack back there so as to stand in the shade, and I thought I saw somebody sitting on the rear seat, but I just glanced at it, for the colonel said: 'Ahem—Mr. Peters, you recall perhaps what the governor of South Carolina said to the governor of North Carolina? In my section of the country, sir—he pronounced it, 'suh'—we don't consider a bargain closed until we've—ahem—poured out a libation to—ah—um—Morpheus.' And upon that he fished out a very handsome silver-mounted flask from his hip pocket, with a little silver top that unscrewed and telescoped into a cup. 'If you'll partake, sir——?' says the colonel, pouring it full, so we partook, I out of the cup, and he out of the bottle, and I must say if the colonel's apoor student of the classics, he's a mighty good judge of whiskey," said Gwynne, with all the air of a connoisseur. "Only it was a pretty stiff drink. I believe my moustache smells of it this minute," he added with concern, fingering that exiguous growth tenderly. "While we were 'partaking,' somebody snorted out so suddenly that we both jumped and nearly dropped the sacrificial vessels, 'Say, Billie, I don't mind if I do myself. It's pretty dry work settin' out here.' And I looked and saw the old woman leaning out of the carriage——" Gwynne paused, and eyed the doctor inquiringly.
"Mrs. Botlisch?"
"Mrs. Botlisch. Doctor Vardaman, how—in—thunder, now—how—in—thunderdo you suppose they came to have that—that——?"
"She's Mrs. Pallinder's mother, I believe," said the old gentleman.
"Yes, I know, the colonel introduced us right off, and handed over the flask and cup just as if it were the most natural thing in the world. 'Here's how, bub!' the old woman said, winked at me, turned the whiskey off like an expert, handed the things back, and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. Mrs. Pallinder's mother! It's inconceivable! Doctor, I swear you could have knocked me down with a straw. The Pallinders don't seem to make anything of it—but that pretty, delicate-featured woman, and that slender spirited-looking girl, both of them so beautifully dressed, and their manners really charming, Doctor—a little different from what one sees ordinarily, maybe, but charming for all that! Why, the old woman might be their cook—I can't understand it! They take it just as a matter of course."
"Well, I don't know how else you'd have them take it," said the doctor. "She's Mrs. Pallinder's mother, and that's all there is to it. But Mrs. Pallinder did say something to me about the old lady being 'queer'—eccentric, as she put it. That's like charity—it covers a multitude of strange doings."
"Yes, 'queer' accounts for a good deal," said Gwynne, his face sobering. Doctor Vardaman looked at him with regretful tenderness. He walked with us as far as the street, and patted Gwynne's shoulder gently as we parted—an unusual display of feeling from the doctor, who was anything but a demonstrative man.
Doctor Vardaman's house was called, in the day when it was built, a Swiss cottage. It was a story and a half high, with a steep-pitched roof, garnished with a kind of scalloped wooden lambrequin pendant from the eaves all around. There were casement-windows with arched tops, and the whole edifice was painted a dark chocolate-brown in accordance, no doubt, with the best Swiss models—at least we never questioned the taste of it. It is possible that the charming and faithful Swiss cottage of to-day may be as much of an offence to the landscape in twenty-five years—so does the old order change, giving place to new. Yet it will always be true that a house derives some curious character from its tenant; the doctor redeemed his cottage; he was the soul of that misbegotten body. It was shabby and down-at-heel, if you like, but it was not bourgeois. There was a charm in his unkempt garden, in the slouching ease of his worn old furniture and carpets, his multitudinous loose-backed books, his dim family portraits in chipped gilt frames. He met all hints at alteration or renewal with an indulgent ridicule. "Fresh paint?" he said. "It would make the house look like a servant-girl dressed for Sunday!" Or: "Better is a horse-hair sofa with brass nails than a plush platform-rocker and veneering therewith!" When the Pallinders moved in, trailing a procession rich as Sheba's past his little iron gate, the doctor viewed it with an indecipherable smile. It was in April, a day of lightgusty winds, flashes of sunshine and flashes of rain; and Doctor Vardaman, in his shirt-sleeves, was trowelling amongst his young plants with what he frequently denounced as a frantic and futile energy. "I don't know why I do it," he would say soberly. "Nothing ever grows the better for it; very often nothing grows at all. The Irishman, the negro, the very Chinaman whom for my sins I am constrained to employ about the house, have achieved triumphs in the way of lilies of the valley and young onions that leave me gasping in defeat. They are ignorant, unwashed, dissolute pagans. Ling Chee was a spectre soaked in opium; Erastus absconded with all my clothes, my most cherished razors, and whatever money he could get at—yet they had but to scratch the ground and lo, the desert blossomed like the rose! You may see therein the constant allegory of Vice ascendant and unrewarded Virtue."
He leaned on his spade in an ironically rustic attitude to watch the Pallinder household goods go by—goods, not gods, for everything, as he observed, was of a transcendant and sparkling newness. Most of us live in unacknowledged bondage to certain kind, familiar, sooty, and begrimed, utterly useless hearthstone deities. We cling shamefaced to our rickety old relics. The pair of vases that used to stand on mother's mantelpiece—hideous things they are, too,—the little high chair that was Johnny's—he died in '87, you remember—who has not seen this pathetic lumber voyaging helplessly about from house to apartment, from town to country and back again, hobnobbing peaceably on the rear of the wagon with flower-stands and the gas-range, retiring at last to the garret, but somehow never getting as far as the junk-shop?Sunt lacrimæ rerum—as Doctor Vardamanwould have said, being somewhat given to Latin tags after the taste of an older generation. His own house was crowded with these touching reminders; the Pallinders went to the other extreme; either they sternly repressed the mushy sentimentalism that would cherish outworn sticks and stoneware for the sake of auld lang syne, or they never had had any to cherish. "They brought nothing into the town with them, and it is certain they took nothing away," said the doctor afterwards in an awful and irreverent parody. An aroma of fresh packing-stuff and varnish hung about the caravan; bright new mirrors swayed and glanced; and, since the fashions of eighty-one were more or less flamboyant, you might see from afar the roses, poppies, and what-not that bloomed upon the Pallinder rolls of new carpet, the gilt and veneered scrolls, knobs, and channellings of the Pallinder furniture, the Pallinder Tennessee-marble table-tops, carefully boxed, yet—as one may say in a figure—hallooing aloud for admiration of their size and costliness. There was one van filled with hogsheads packed with china; it was whispered that many of the things had been ordered from New York, but most of them were got in town at prices that kept the shop-keepers smiling until their bills were sent in—I am anticipating. The doctor espied the ladies in a carriage at the end, and bowed with the rather exuberant courtesy taught in his youth.
Miss Pallinder returned the salutation; Mrs. Botlisch shouted a jovial "Howdy, Doc.!" Mrs. Pallinder drew back impulsively in a momentary embarrassment; she emerged almost instantly and recognised him, triumphantly gracious. But the doctor resumed his digging, inscrutably grinning at the next shovelful. The fact is, this casual passage vividlyrecalled his first encounter with these ladies a few weeks earlier, upon one of the occasions when they had driven out to inspect the Gwynne house, before the bargain was closed. Doctor Vardaman, in a sleeve-waistcoat, for the day was cold, was busily spading up his beds, when a carriage drew in beside the iron palings.
"I looked up," the old gentleman used thus to recount the incident, "and saw an exceedingly homely old woman with her bonnet awry; a moderately good-looking young one with hers as straight as Nature intended it, and the rest of her clothes, so far as a man may judge, directly calculated to inspire all other women with despairing envy; and a very uncommonly handsome middle-aged one, whose clothes made positively no difference at all, so much did her looks eclipse them. I saw all these people craning out of their carriage, I say, and in the distance a cavalier on horseback dashing along after them in a military style. 'Say, you——' began the homely old one. 'My good man,' says the middle-aged one, with an ineffable sweet patronage in her tone. 'Will you take this card in to your master and tell him——' And at that moment up comes the outrider. He took me in at a glance, jumped off his horse, splashed through the mud, uncovered with a very gallant and engaging deference to my years, and: 'Doctor Vardaman?' says he. 'I'm sure thisisDoctor Vardaman, I'm happy to make your acquaintance. We're going to be your neighbours, I hope, and by gad, sir, you set us a good example! We find you like—ah—um—Quintilius among his cabbages. Sir, my name is Pallinder; let me present——' the fellow's manner was perfect; for the soul of me I couldn't help warming to him. And if you think it's a poor sort of gratification to be known for a gentleman,consider how very uncomplimentary it is to be taken for a servant! 'Lord—ee, Bill!' screeched out the old woman. 'Mirandy thought he was th' hired man! That's one onyou, Mirandy! Called him 'my good man,' she did! and went into a choking and gurgling fit of laughter. Mrs. Pallinder's face turned purple. 'Madame,' says I, anxious to relieve an unpleasant situation. 'I answer to the noun, but I'm a little doubtful about the adjective!' We parted in the end with great protestations on both sides; but Mrs. Pallinder was still red as they drove off. Sir, she had made a mistake, and she never would forgivemefor it!"
This was the first appearance of the Pallinder family upon our stage. They had figured brilliantly on a good many others already, as was discovered some two years later, when occurred their exit; San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, Louisville, to say nothing of a score of minor cities knew them, birds of passage. I believe they came from Memphis in the beginning, that is, if they can be said to have come from anywhere, or been native to any place. They were emphatically citizens of the world and called all skies home. I find, upon comparing recollections with friends of those days that the measures by which the Pallinders established themselves in our society are, in that phrase dear to the sedate historian of far weightier matters, shrouded in the mists of—of antiquity, the historian would say. Yet it is only twenty-five years, and no one now remembers, or perhaps took note at the time, exactly how these people who came from everywhere and nowhere, whom nobody knew, got themselves in the space of six months, known, liked, and invited far and wide. I fear that solid unornamental worth such as—let us be frank—yours or mine, would not have accomplished so much in asmany years. Mrs. Pallinder must have done a deal of social campaigning in those other centres of enlightenment and culture which I have mentioned, to have become so apt and able; that little slip with Doctor Vardaman was the only one I ever heard recorded against her. She never referred to her life and acquaintance elsewhere, nor traded upon her experiences to advance herself with us; yet she never seemed to be pushing. She built, as it were, from the ground; and I have heard very kind and intelligent persons who were not in the least snobs, comment with astonishment on the headway she contrived to make coming wholly unknown as she did, and handicapped by such a mother. The spectacle of wealth allied to feminine beauty, talent, and virtue, struggling for notice is one with which we are all tolerably familiar.
It is likely that prehistoric woman in the jungle—not prehistoric man, for man seems always to have been a creature slothful in social duties, dull, and democratic in his tastes—demurred at mingling with the same set as the jungle-lady next door; would not allow the children to play with the little cave-dwellers across the way; wanted to move to the choice and exclusive neighbourhood of the Probably-Arboreals, where she would have better opportunities for meeting those elect gentry. Nowadays, her grand-daughter goes to church with a praiseworthy devotion, she subscribes to all the charities, she sends her children to the most fashionable schools—they are always the best—she takes courses in French literature, in Current Events, in bridge-playing, in cooking, yes, she would take them, decent woman as she is, in bare-back riding and ballet dancing, in everything and anything under the sun, that will bring her into contact withthe charmed circle. She endures unnumbered snubs, or what is worse, the soul-blighting frigid politenesses of present-day Probably-Arboreals; she sheds tears in secret, she nearly drives her husband to drink, or the poorhouse. And she "gets there," she always gets there, and gleefully proceeds to visit upon the next aspirant some of the treatment she herself received. The strange thing is that you, who have been "there" all your life, who cannot understand her frantic desires, who are disposed to laugh or sneer at her, you will find her no hustling and elbowing vulgarian as you imagined, but a very charming woman, as clever and well bred as you or any of your native-born residents of the purple. She only wanted to get "there"; already she has forgot that mean struggle. As high-minded as you are, you too must at least a little admire Success; and she has displayed as much courage and perseverance on her shabby battlefield as it takes to conquer a citadel.
All this is by way of calling attention to the really remarkable fact that Mrs. Pallinder employed none of the tactics just recited; classes in bridge and Current Events were unknown in her day, and she went to church neither more nor less than other people. She succeeded, I make bold to say, as no one ever has before or since. And this, in spite of the rather unfavourable impression which she and her daughter had made at the start. I, for one, did not much fancy Gwynne's description of Miss Pallinder—her name was Mazie—ogling and making fun with a man like Templeton; I thought her behaviour distinctlycommon. And that business of taking Gwynne behind the house for a drink of whiskey—out of thebottle, at that!—which does not shock me at all now, was anathema in my eyes then. These opinionswere shared by everybody who heard the circumstances; what made us change our minds? That is the mystery. I think now that the Pallinders won upon us by that very frank gaiety and kindliness that had so touched and attracted Gwynne; nothing else can account for their popularity. Of course at the end of their stay everyone simultaneously discovered a number of disagreeable things; the usual wiseacres went about uttering the usual wisdom of "I-told-you-so." Colonel Pallinder had always been a man to distrust; Mrs. Pallinder and her daughter undeniably painted and were too lively in their manners; there was more poker and mint-julep going freely behind the Parthenon portals than one ever saw in the best houses; and Mrs. Botlisch was perfectly intolerable. To be just, however, no one had ever pretended to think Mrs. Botlisch other than intolerable; some people even went so far as to say that it was greatly to the Pallinders' credit that they did not shake off that terrific social drawback altogether.
The colonel was a big man, with thick flowing grey hair under a wide-brimmed soft hat; he wore his clothing with a slashing military picturesqueness—d'Artagnan in a long-skirted black broadcloth coat; and limped a little from a bullet in the thigh at Missionary Ridge. He had a handsome office downtown, and was always enthusiastically busy over the syndicate's affairs; maps of railroads, of iron, salt, coal and "phosphate" territory in Arkansas and elsewhere adorned his walls; circulars and prospectuses gushed forth from his place of business as from a living fountain. Who went up and drank at that sempiternally flowing spring—who, in plain language, invested with Colonel Pallinder? Nobody knew; but it was easy to see that investment with himpaid; the Pallinders lived in the spacious ease of an unlimited income.
I suppose his profession was that of promoting—a pursuit which has since been compactly described to me as selling you a cullender for a wash-basin. Socially he took no hand beyond inviting young men to the house, and within an incredibly short time he did not even have occasion for that. They went, of their own motion, in droves, like all the rest of the world. And I will say here, speaking for our youth, that in spite of the cards and cigarettes and champagne, the over-eating and over-drinking, the general lax gaiety of that meteoric two years, I do not believe any of us were materially harmed. We sincerely liked the Pallinders; we did not merely hanker for their flesh-pots. And even now, after twenty-five years, and knowing all the mean and dingy side of their career, I still cherish a fondness for those hearty, happy, self-indulgent, irresponsible adventurers.
The old Gwynne house now underwent a transformation the nature and extent of which can best be realised when it is learned that poor old Caroline Gwynne's room became Miss Mazie Pallinder's; the roses of Mazie's wall-paper climbed all over that tragic apartment; lace-edged muslins and flowered cretonne festooned the windows. What with a pillar obscuring the east window, and a heavy growth of wistaria matted on a frame in front of the south, you had to feel your way about at broad noon; and were liable to be suddenly assaulted on the tenderest part of the shins or ankles by some dastardly rocking-chair, lurking in the gloom like a Thug, and inadvertently set in motion. Surprises were pretty frequent in that room; it was not unusual to put your foot downin a box of chocolate-cream drops or through the parchment vitals of Mazie's banjo abandoned on the floor. And when you came face to face with a pale glimmering phantom in a corner it might be either your own figure reflected in one of the full-length mirrors liberally distributed around the walls, or Miss Pallinder herself in an embroidered French night-dress, her favourite afternoon wear. The other decorations were mostly photographs of Mazie in an astounding variety of costumes, and her numberless real or supposed conquests. Young men in regimentals, army or navy; young men in fancy dress, striking attitudes with a sword, or making a leg in silk tights; young men with the painfully close-fitting trousers and upright brush of hair fashionable in the eighties—it was a noble array, that gallery of Mazie's, particularly when she began to enrich it with certain more familiar likenesses. There you might see "J. B." Taylor—everybody called him "J. B."—with the cap and gown he had worn at his last Commencement; Teddy Johns laughing and showing all his teeth—Teddy had fine teeth and knew it; Bob Carson, with something written on the back of the photograph that Mazie made an affectation of not allowing us to read—we had all seen it nevertheless, and used to wonder if Bob were really in earnest; Gwynne Peters, whose fair hair did not come out very well in the photograph, looking startlingly like his grandfather's portrait, with the same long thick flourish of the pen under his name as used to adorn the Governor's. "Yours truly, Gwynne Peters," and thesstreeling off in a comet's-tail like the finaleof old Samuel Gwynne's signature. All these young fellows frequented the house; on summer nights they could be heard as they strode away down Richmond Avenue, proclaiming at the tops of their several setsof lungs to a smiling world that the moon shone bright on their old Kentucky-y-y ho-ome, or lamenting in concert that Alas, they were no swimmers, so they lost their Clementine! Doctor Vardaman heard them as he sat smoking the pipe of peace in his porch. "God bless the boys!" the old man used to say to himself with a sigh. Sometimes they stayed over night, and came yawning downtown to their desks in the morning, sheepishly evading the paternal scowl, victims of Colonel Pallinder's strenuous hospitality. If Mazie had no scalps strung at her belt, she at least displayed the spoils of the vanquished; gloves, bangles, and bon-bons were hers in profuse supply; when she went away on a visit she corresponded with all of them, and was reported to be engaged three deep, to our horrified delight. It is a mistake to suppose that girls envy one another these light successes; we all admired, and I am afraid some of us tried to imitate Miss Pallinder. It was to be noticed that she herself showed an entire impartiality; when no one else was convenient, she did not hesitate to keep her hand in on Doctor Vardaman, half in fun of course. The old gentleman made an open joke of it. "This is the first time I have given away my picture in forty years," he said; and wrote at the bottom of the card in his neat, clear, physician's hand:"Non sum qualis eram——"
"What does that mean, Doctor?" Mazie asked him suspiciously.
"It is a plaint—the plaint of an elderly sentimentalist like me," he answered gravely. "'I am not what once I was in thy day, oh dear Cynara,' he remarks—in effect. Shall I write the English?"
"No, don't. I think it's ever so much cuter this way. Who was Cynara?"
"Well—ahem——"
"Huh! Bet she wasn't any better than she'd ought to be!" grunted old Mrs. Botlisch sceptically; whereat the doctor, after a momentary struggle, laughed so immoderately that we all more than half suspected she was right.
If Gwynne Peters had supposed at the outset that the new tenants would remain long unacquainted with their set of erratic landlords, the "quite a few gentlemen and some ladies" whom he had tactfully refrained from mentioning, he would have been profoundly mistaken; but in fact he supposed nothing of the sort. He knew his kin too well; and perhaps shared tacitly Templeton's openly-expressed and most devout hope that none of them would say or do anything to put the Pallinders out of the notion of buying the property when the lease should expire. "They'll want thirty-five or forty thousand, if not more, I'll bet a doughnut," the agent would say in moments of gloomy confidence; "and you know, Mr. Peters, the place ain't worth—at least it can't be sold for—a dollar over twenty-eight, the way times are. I might screw the colonel up to twenty-nine-fifty—he seems to be a free spender, and the ladies like the house so much, he'd do anything they want. But, like as not, just as I've done that and got everything good and going, Mr. Steven Gwynne will come in with some objection and knock the whole deal higher than Gilderoy's kite. And when I think of what it will be to get 'em all combed down and willing to sign—and those children of Lucien Gwynne's out in Iowa, you know, they've got to quiet the title—and Mrs. Montgomery over in Chillicothe, she's another—well, I suppose there's no use crossing that bridge till we've come to it, but I tell you sometimes it keeps meawake nights worrying." The family had fallen into the habit of leaving all the business connected with THE GWYNNE ESTATE—it must be written thus to furnish some idea of the proportions it assumed in their minds—to Gwynne's management. He had just been elevated to the bar; from thence to the bench, and to whatever corresponds to the woolsack in our judicial system was, according to them, a short step for a Gwynne. The mantle of his grandfather had fallen upon his shoulders; they were proud of him in their extraordinary fashion, which combined hysterical and wholly unmerited praise with equally hysterical and undeserved blame. For a while even Gwynne, who had a tolerable sense of humour, took himself with amazing seriousness. He sat in his office surrounded by that copious library of the old gentleman's, now grown somewhat out of date, to be sure, but still impressive by sheer weight and numbers; there was a photographed copy of the Governor's portrait, inkstand and all, over his desk, and a massive safe in one corner. It contained at this time, as Gwynne long years afterward acknowledged to me, with laughter, nothing but some of the old family silver, forks, trays, ladles, and what-not blackened with age and neglect sacked up in flannel wherein the moth made great havoc. "Sam's share, you know," said Gwynne, his face clouding a little, when his laugh was out. "I had to take care of it, of course."
Into this august retreat came daily one or another of the young fellow's connection with inquiries about that property which everyone of them called in all honesty and simplicity "my house"; and, after much futile advice, took their leave, commenting on the fact that he strongly resembled his grandfather, and adjuring him to "remember that he was aGwynne." There were so many of them they gave the place a false air of bustle and business, to which Gwynne used, half in fun, to attribute his later success—"looked as if I was all balled up with work, you know, 'rising young lawyer,' and all the rest of it." But, indeed, I am afraid there were not many affairs of importance going forward among the calf-bound volumes, and Gwynne defaced more than one sheet of legal cap., with gross caricatures and idle verses. If the family took an interest in the fortunes of the house before, it was redoubled now. To have the place rented at all was a novelty; but to have it rented to personages of such opulence and distinction as the Pallinders satisfied the most exact standards; and the colonel's somewhat vague allusions to his design of ultimately buying it filled these sanguine souls with delight. Let me do them justice: they would one and all have indignantly refused thousands from people whom they deemed unworthy. Have we not seen them rejecting poor Silberberg's offer with contumely? But Colonel Pallinder with his Virginia accent and his large manner recalled a generation contemporary with Governor Gwynne himself, and the traditions of an antique and formal gentility. The Pallinders were the only people so far who had succeeded in residing in, and dispensing the hospitalities of the old Gwynne house without offence to its owners; I think the Gwynnes took a kind of vicarious pride in the spectacle. One after another, the entire family called upon them, appraised them, patronised them. They drank the colonel's fine sherry: they covertly eyed Mrs. Pallinder's suave beauty, and Mazie's bewildering toilettes; they were at first repelled and then overpowered by the rich tasteful changes in the ancient rooms; the peacock-blue plush and old-gold satin in the south parlour; thecrimson wall-paper embossed with gilt figures the size of a cabbage in the dining-room; the grand piano in the north parlour and piano-lamp glorious with onyx slabs and pendant glass icicles of prisms—the Gwynnes saw all these things with an Indian stolidity in the presence of their tenants, but they came away pleased to the core. They went down to Gwynne's office—yes, even Mrs. Horace Gwynne went!—and both figuratively and literally patted him on the back. They were actually civil to Templeton! Old Steven Gwynne, who had been violently alarmed at first, supposing that these improvements and furnishings must be paid for by himself and the rest of the heirs, magically recovered his tranquillity so soon as he heard that Colonel Pallinder was doing it all out of his own pocket; he pronounced the wall-paper and new graining to be in the best of taste, although hardly the equal in appearance or cost of what Governor Gwynne would have provided. Such was the Gwynne enthusiasm that I am convinced it must have contributed largely to the success of the Pallinders with our society; for, after all, as unstable as they themselves were, the Gwynne position with us was of the most stable; our city had known them for fifty years. A family whose men were rigorously confined to the professions—all except Horace Gwynne, who was in the wholesale grocery business,—a family which numbered among its members a governor of a State—even if it also numbered one or more "queer" people—such a family held, unquestioned, the highest social rank. And Mrs. Horace Gwynne—she was a daughter of old Bishop Hunter, which may be supposed in a measure to set off the grocery business—frankly considered herself arbiter not only of her husband's family, but of society in general as well; and never doubted that in thematter of assigning people to their caste and station one blast uponherbugle-horn was worth a thousand men.
She performed her first visit in state and ceremony in her well-ordered barouche—the Horace Gwynnes were fairly well-to-do, owing, people said, to Mrs. Horace's implacable thrift—and eying the approaches to the old house, as she drove up in a highly critical and examining mood. Her sharp glance noted every change; the carefully-weeded sweep and circle of the drive, the close-cut lawn and pruned shrubbery pleased her like an incense to the Governor's memory. The place had not looked so since his day. There was a length of red carpet down over the flagged veranda and stone steps such as used to adorn the sacred threshold thirty years before when she was a young bride just entered into the family; this trivial thing moved her inexplicably as such things do, and she descended at the door in a temper of less severity. It augured well for the pair of ladies within, profanely peering through their exceedingly high-priced lace curtains and wondering who on earth the funny little old lady in the chignon and her best black silk was.
Mazie, as soon as her acquaintance became more extended and intimate, entertained us with a picturesque and I have no doubt entirely accurate account of this and other Gwynne visits. If they amused her she was by far too sharp to let it be seen; not thus do people attain popularity. Mazie knew when, and in what company, and of what sort of things to make fun; no gift can be more valuable to the social aspirant. No, Miss Pallinder, curled up on her flowered-cretonne sofa, nibbling caramels, and telling us about the Gwynnes, might have posed for the model of the ingénue, girlish, inexperienced, and youthfully gay. "We didn't know there was sucha large family of Gwynnes," she explained. "Are any of you related to them? No? They're perfectly lovely people, aren't they? They've all called on us, and you know I think that's so kind when we came here such strangers; we were awfully lonesome for a while. If it hadn't been for Doctor Vardaman, I don't know what we'd have done. Isn't he thedearestold gentleman? Mamma fairly fell in love with him at first sight; we have him up to dinner all the time, now. You know it's such a terrible job for him to get a good servant—I'm sure I can't see why. I told him he could hire me any day. I suppose it's because it's a little lonely, and his house must be so quiet. We don't have any trouble, but then we have such a gang of them they keep each other company. But you know we were so surprised after people began to call on us to find out there were so many Gwynnes! Mr. Peters had said something about them—I think he'slovely, don't you? but we hadn't any idea there was such a big connection; the house belongs to all of them—did you know that? At least they all call it their house. Such a dear old lady came—well, maybe not so very old, but dressed in rather an old-fashioned way—Mrs. Horace Gwynne, of course you all know her. She was justsweet, and tooksuchan interest. She told mamma the piano ought to be on the other side of the room, because there was so much better light by that window, and that was where it always was when Governor Gwynne lived here. And she wanted to know if we had noticed that those big cut-glass chandeliers in the centre of the ceilings downstairs were an exact copy, only smaller, of the one in the State-House—that was being built at the same time as this house, and the Governor had the copies made, he admired the design so much. Isn't thatinteresting? And then mamma had one ofthe servants bring some hot coffee and little cakes, the way we always do, you know, and Mrs. Gwynne told us about some kind of cookies she has made that are the best she ever ate, so mamma asked her for the recipe right off—mamma can't cook a bit, and don't go in the kitchen once a month, but she's ever so much interested just the same. And when Mrs. Gwynne went away she said she'd had alovelytime—wasn't it nice of her? and was going to have all her family call on us—wasn't that kind? And she sent us a card to her reception; and right the very next afternoon Mrs. Lawrence called—she's another Gwynne, isn't she?—and asked us to Marian's coming-out party,sosweet. And, oh, girls, two such dear funny little old mai—I mean elderly, and they aren't married, you know—Miss Gwynne and Miss Mollie Gwynne came—what are you all laughing at, what's the joke? Well, I think you're real mean not to tell me!Ithought they werenice—well, of course, maybe they did seem kind of queer, but—well, itwasa little funny," said Mazie, yielding to the laughter with apparent reluctance; "we took them all over the house, because we thought, you know, they'd be pleased to see the way we'd fixed it up. And theydidseem rather tickled; Miss Gwynne said she thought they had never had any tenants in their house before that appreciated it as we did. And when we got to the south parlour Miss Mollie wouldn't go in, and Miss Gwynne took us in and said in an awful whisper that everybody in the family had been laid out in that room, but she'd try to get Miss Mollie in to look at the chandelier which was an exact copy of the one in the State-House—and Mollie hadn't been in the house for so long, maybe it would refresh her, and take her mind off the funerals, you know. So Mollie came in," went on Mazie,who by this time was openly laughing like everyone else, "and she took one look and covered her eyes like this, and said 'Oh, Sister Eleanor, I can't—I can't,' and Sister Eleanor said, 'Look up, Mollie, look up'—just as if it was Heaven, you know—'don't you remember the chandelier?' And then Miss Mollie said, 'Oh, yes, I remember—shall I ever forget—boo-hoo!—it cost three hundred and twenty-five dollars—boo-hoo!—every one of 'em cost three hundred and twenty-five dollars!' But, honestly, girls, it's all very well to laugh, but it gives me the creeps to think of that room since I've known; I can't go into it without seeing a coffin spread out right where our centre-table is; and you know there's that lovely bisque monkey climbing up a cord that mamma has hanging from the chandelier—think of that dangling down over a—B-r-r! I didn't know about so many Gwynnes dying here. There's enough left to keep the family going anyway, I should think. Was Mr. Peters' brother one of 'em that died in the house? Eh? What!Mercy!isn't thatawful? Why, I thought somebody said Sam Peters was in Honduras or Alaska or somewhere—is it the same one?Isn'tthat awful! Isn't it safe to have him—— Horrors! Oh, girls, I think that's awful! And Mr. Peters is such a dear, isn't he? Sonice! But don't you tell him I said that—now please don't, girls, I'd be ready to fall down dead I'd be so ashamed if he knew I said he was a dear. I'd never look him in the face again," said the ingenuous Mazie, knowing perfectly well—who better?—that Gwynne would be miraculously informed of this damaging admission before the next twenty-four hours were over.
The Pallinders were not quit of their landlords, for a few episodes such as those Mazie described; but, as ithappens, I never heard her tell of Steven Gwynne's visit; and only learned the details afterwards in a roundabout way from Doctor Vardaman and Gwynne, both of whom were witnesses of that momentous event. Steven was about the age of Doctor Vardaman and looked twenty years older; they had been boys together. When Steven came in town—he lived in a weird little tumble-down cottage with a ragged little farm to match it, several miles out in the country—he always went to see the doctor, whom he called Jack, and of whom he grew touchingly and somewhat embarrassingly fond towards the last of his life. I remember him a tremulous old man with wild grey hair and beard in clothing worse than shabby, and coarse boots, walking with the aid of a ferocious-looking cane, a forlorn and fantastic and rather alarming figure; yet he was really nothing to be afraid of, although I suppose he was just not quite crazy. When you came to know about him, poor old Steven filled one with pity and that strange baseless remorse with which the view of weakness or suffering sometimes afflicts us. The gifts are so unjustly portioned out; simple flesh-and-blood rebels at the shame of it. These are whole, prosperous and victorious; these maimed, mad, dull, helpless, or hopeless—and who is to blame? It is none of our fault; none the less, the sight galls us to the quick; and there are moments when the spectacle of a string of navvies moiling soddenly in a ditch seems an outrage on humanity. Something of this used to go through Doctor Vardaman's mind as he sat in his library listening patiently and most humanely to his old-time playfellow's endless rambling talk. Steven was a profuse talker; he picked up crumbs of misinformation with a kind of squirrel-like diligence; all his life he had been beginning something—law, medicine, divinity, what had he not tried? He never learnedanything; he could hardly spell; he used to declaim heatedly against the tyranny of schools, and had a great taste for phrases such as "Nature's gentlemen." Even our tolerant society could not stand Steven Gwynne; it was said that he was not stupid, and not much queerer, after all, than some of the other Gwynnes, but—nobody could stand Steven Gwynne. When he had nearly run through his patrimony, the Governor, who was his cousin, took him in hand, regulated his affairs, and exiled him to that little farm I have mentioned. Steven was upwards of thirty at this time, but he obeyed the family great man peaceably enough; and there he had lived ever since; indulging—theoretically only, by good luck—in extraordinary beliefs about State Rights—during the Civil War—about Science and Religion, about Property, about Marriage, about everything and anything under the sun, harmless, distressing, and annoying. Young Gwynne had inherited him along with the other responsibilities of the GWYNNE ESTATE; and when, rumours of the new tenants having reached him, the old gentleman appeared in the office, Gwynne must take him to call upon them. "I would not wish to be lacking in etiquette," said Steven elaborately. "And I'm told that Colonel Pallinder's family belong to our circle. It is the duty of every one of the owners, and I trust that it won't be forgotten thatIam one of the heirs to the Gwynne estate," he added, eying the reluctant young man with some harshness, for Steven was tenacious of his rights: "to—to hold out the right hand of fellowship to—to the stranger within our gates."
"You never did before," Gwynne objected. "We've had two or three tenants that you've never even seen. I don't really think it makes the least difference——"
"I've never had this kind of tenants before," said Steven—which, indeed, was an unanswerable argument. "Why, they've been there six months! You don't understand about these social matters, Gwynne. It's diplomacy. They're in Governor Gwynne's house, and it's natural they should expect the Gwynne family to recognise them. Why, they might take offence and leave! Besides, it's the part of kindness for us to introduce them around, it—it gives 'em a place at once. People say: 'There's So-and-so, he's a friend of the Gwynnes.' That—thatsettlesit, don't you see? Why, now, to give you an example: Jake Bennett was at my house the other day, and I told him I'd pay him as soon as the rent from my property came in. He says: 'That's all right, Mr. Gwynne, I know I can trust you. A Gwynne's word's as good as his bond,' he says. That just shows. 'A Gwynne's word's as good as his bond,' he says. 'I knowyou, Mr. Gwynne; you're Governor Gwynne's cousin, and that's good enough for me, or anybody——'"
"Who's Jake Bennett?" asked Gwynne abruptly.
"Why, he's a man I buy a load of manure from once in a while. He's a little queer in the upper story, you know," said old Steven, tapping his own forehead with a wise nod. "But the poor fellow's heart's in the right place. 'A Gwynne's word's as good as his bond,' he says——"
"You oughtn't to be owing that man, Cousin Steven," interrupted Gwynne. He turned to his desk. "Here, this is the nineteenth, but I'll give you yours now, and then you can pay him when you get home. Now, you sign a receipt for this seven-fifty, and I'll tell Templeton I advanced it, so he can hold it out of yours next month. Now you're getting your December money in November, see? There won't be anything coming to you from the house the first of December,understand? Seven dollars and a half—sign here. And you pay that manure-fellow as soon as you get home, will you?"
Steven would, he said. He folded the money together and crammed it into his tattered old pocket-book; he handled it a little eagerly, never having had much to handle. "We'd better start out to see them, the Pallinders, you know—right away, hadn't we?" he said, glancing at the clock.
Gwynne looked at him with a sinking heart. Of course he was not ashamed of his kin. What! Ashamed of Cousin Steven! Gwynne would have knocked down the man who hinted it. Nevertheless, it must be allowed that Cousin Steven was more lax in matters relating to his personal appearance even than became one of Nature's gentlemen. He did not shave; he chewed tobacco; his boots manifested some acquaintance with Jake Bennett's unpaid-for wares. We all know that these things really do not count; a man's a man for a' that. It would be a shoddy soul that would condemn him for not blacking his boots, or cavil at the fashion of his coat. Still, we are conscious of a curious confusion within us on the point; we muddle the clear stainless water of our theories with the cloudy dye of our conventions; and to most of us, the quality of gentleman seems somehow inextricably associated with clean linen. Gwynne was no snob, but——
"Suppose we stop in to see Doctor Vardaman first and ask him to lend you a collar and tie—you know that kind of high black stock he wears?" he suggested weakly. "And then you—you might wash your hands, you know, and, and—clean your nails. I should think your hands would be cold this weather, Cousin Steven; don't you want to buy a pair of gloves?"
"Gloves?" said Steven contemptuously. "You're toodelicate, Gwynne. You've got all effeminated, living the way you do. Gloves! D'ye suppose Adam, the great father of mankind, wore gloves? You want to get out and live next to grand old Nature, and old Mother Earth. Those Pallinders are kind of dressy people, hey? Well, I don't care how dressy they are; they can wear all the gloves they damn please. I'll let you know, sir, that a Gwynne in his undershirt would be enough too good for any Pallinder that ever lived—yes, or anybody else either!" A mottled flush appeared on his old face; he raised his voice; he made wild hasty gestures, thumping with his cane. "You want me to spend money on gloves—drivelling ostentation! Gold's the curse of this country, and you want me to——" Gwynne was a little alarmed at these signs of excitement.
"All right, Cousin Steven, never mind," he said soothingly. "I—I just wanted you to be comfortable, you know. You'd just as lief go and see Doctor Vardaman, wouldn't you?"
Steven was readily mollified—or perhaps, diverted would be the better word. Jack? Yes, he wanted to see old Jack—he wanted to talk to him about something. Jack Vardaman was a man of sound sense, if he could be brought to the right views. "He's been cramped by—by his career, and his profession," said the old man, gesticulating with one hand as they walked. "I tried it, studying medicine, you know—but it's not broad enough, Gwynne, not broad enough. Jack finds it hard to grasp any new ideas. I said to him the last time I was in: 'John, this money trouble we're labouring under all proceeds from—from—from the circulating medium. Why have any? Why have any circulating medium? Poverty is a lacking in the essentials of life because of waste on thesuperfluities through the use of money—circulating medium; you want to rid yourself of the—the—the economic compulsion to wrong-doing—I've been studying a pamphlet by William P. Drinkwater that goes to the heart of the financial situation in this country.' I say, get rid of the circulating medium. Gwynne, do away with it utterly, fall back on exchange of the—the products of labour, and an era of prosperity will set in such as this country has never seen!"
Gwynne reflected with a wry smile that it would be interesting to hear an expression of opinion from Jake Bennett on the subject; times were hard in eighty-one, as some of us remember, and in these disjointed arguments, Gwynne recognised some echo of the political agitations of the day. To be fair, Steven Gwynne was no more astray in speech or manner than many of the William P. Drinkwaters; the exasperating thing about him was that constant appearance of being able to control himself, if he only would, which seems to be one of the specific symptoms of unsoundness.
"You will find that the lack—I mean the absence of a medium of coinage," said Steven, as they climbed on the car—"By George! Itiscold, isn't it?" he interrupted himself, "I guess I'll put my mitts on." And, to Gwynne's surprise, he produced those symbols of ostentation and effeminacy from the pocket of his overcoat, and began to adjust them with every display of comfort. They were a bright "Maria-Louise" purple. "Knit worsted, you know," said Steven. "I got 'em at Billy Sharpe's at the corners, for seventy-five cents——"
"You're getting effeminated, Cousin Steven," said Gwynne, soberly. "Mittens! The idea! Do you suppose Adam wore mittens?"
"Well, I understand Adam didn't wear breeches either," said Steven, with an unexpected flash of humour. "I'm not luxurious, anyhow, like you with your kids. But you're young—you'll learn." He laid his hand on Gwynne's arm affectionately. "You're a good boy, Gwynne, if you do get kind of stuck-up notions, you're a good boy," he said with earnestness—and the young man's heart smote him.
He found his cousin so tractable on the journey out that he began to have hopes of persuading Steven to the collar and wash-basin, with Doctor Vardaman's help. "I'd rather Mrs. Pallinder saw him looking clean, anyhow—she's so dainty herself," thought Gwynne, with a burning change of colour. Alas! No such good luck! As they neared the Swiss cottage, they beheld the lady tripping out from the door, exquisitely trim and gracious, smiling and showing all her pretty white teeth, with Doctor Vardaman escorting her to his gate, in his pleasantly formal old way. Mrs. Pallinder dimpled, and flashed her clear grey eyes under their amazingly black lashes and brows at Gwynne; she was en-haloed in rich furs and soft scrolls of ostrich-plumes; she rustled and fluttered with an enticing suggestion of dainty womanliness, and there was something even in the frail absurdity of her little, thin, high-heeled and pointed-toed boots that appealed to the masculine sense almost touchingly. Old Steven Gwynne himself felt this jewelry-box charm; he looked at her with open, child-like, rather frightened admiration. Wealth and luxury for which in the abstract he had—or believed himself in all sincerity to have—so vigorous a disdain, exhibited thus concretely, stunned the old man; Mrs. Pallinder, to the ordinary view merely an unusually handsome and well-dressed woman, somehow represented to Steven that material power,confident, lucky, successful, to which he had long ago bowed down in the person of Governor Gwynne; and, if it had not been for the uplifting consciousness of being that great man's cousin, Steven would have shuffled and stammered before her like any school-boy.
"Mr. Peters," said Mrs. Pallinder, delightedly. She withdrew a hand from her coquettishly fashionable little muff—we wore them very small in those days, a mere cuff of fur—and gave it to Gwynne, who was oddly nervous, with soothing self-possession. The readiness with which she set herself to the business of putting Steven at his ease was a grateful thing to see; she accepted his purple mitt, and shed on him a smile as winning as if he had been the most desirable acquaintance in the world. These courtesies, we have been assured, are, in reality, nothing but small evidences of a kind heart; yet I never thought Mrs. Pallinder a kind-hearted woman. Her elegant cordialities were not spontaneous; she spread the conversation with a thin glittering varnish of smiles, agreeable speeches, pretty conventionalities; one sometimes felt uneasily that her tact was almost aggressively brilliant, her good manners too flawless. But Gwynne, having in mind, maybe, this very incident, was quite enthusiastic about her to his intimates; Mrs. Pallinder was so kind, so considerate, a—a—a really sweet woman—sweet-tempered, he meant, of course, wasn't she? As for Steven, he proclaimed her without exception the most polished lady he had ever met. Doctor Vardaman—but one could not always be sure of what Doctor Vardaman thought. "Mrs. Pallinder was an uncommon sort of woman," he used to say with an unreadable expression. "I admired her very much—almost as much as I wondered at her. When we met atmy gate she contrived to look at us three men, as if every one severally weretheman in the world in whom she was most interested. Are ladies taught these things from their cradles? I am told so; but I never saw one of them do it so well as Mrs. Pallinder. It's a tolerably stiff job to listen to poor Steven discourse on the circulating medium.Experto credite!I've done it myself for hours at a stretch that I piously hope will count for me when I get to the Place of Punishment. But I'm sure I never could have done it with so perfect a grace as Mrs. Pallinder. We went up to the house, she walking the whole way with Steven, Gwynne and I following in the rear, humbly grateful and admiring. 'You're not a married man, Mr. Gwynne?' says Mrs. Pallinder, snatching at a change of topic in one of the pauses of Steven's eloquence. 'I've met so many charming Mrs. Gwynnes——' 'Madame, I am not,' said Steven. 'Do you know why the eagle is called the bird of freedom, Mrs. Pallinder?' Here," said the doctor, with a malicious grin, "I thought I detected a sort of crooked sequence in Steven's thoughts, but Mrs. Pallinder was as nearly gravelled as I ever saw her; and you must admit the subject was somewhat abruptly introduced. 'A—er—why, I must give it up, I am afraid,' she said. 'It's a riddle, isn't it? I'm not very good at riddles.' 'Because it never mates in captivity, ma'am,' says Steven profoundly. 'That's the way I am; the chains ofgold, the circulating——' and I suppose he was going to intimate by a delicate allegory that he couldn't afford a wife and family, but we reached the house at that moment, and the changes in its appearance switched him off, as it were."
The old man was, in fact, rather pathetically overawed by all the Pallinder sumptuousness; he looked down at hisboots doubtfully, and trod with caution on the velvet moss-roses and lilies of the south parlour. It required the telling of the cut-glass chandelier story to revive his spirit; and Mrs. Pallinder further smoothed matters by asking his opinion of the new wall-paper with a caressing deference. Afterwards, it is true, Steven went away in a mood of gracious approval, and bragged freely with no little satisfaction about his tenants in his house; but at the first moment, he was both startled and unhappy. There were gilt mirrors all about that gave back a pitiless reflection of the party, and of them all, I believe that Doctor Vardaman was the only one who was not faintly ill at ease. The situation was actually relieved by the entrance of old Mrs. Botlisch, as incongruous a figure in the scene as Steven himself. "And somehow or other," said the doctor, "I am sure the look of her for once was a kind of comfort to Gwynne; it seemed as if she and poor Steven were a—well, a stand-off, with the balance in favour of Steven. You know Mrs. Pallinder was always saying in a gentle regretful way that her mother was 'eccentric.' She was, in fact—ahem!—I am informed by the ladies of my acquaintance," Doctor Vardaman would say, with another grin, "that she was a dreadfully 'common' old person who drank and swore like a trooper, but was as sane as anybody. Whereas, we all know that whatever Steven's faults, he was not—was not entirely responsible."