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diff --git a/30299-0.txt b/30299-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..54882ad --- /dev/null +++ b/30299-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14515 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30299 *** + + THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN + + BY ELLEN GLASGOW + + AUTHOR OF "THE DELIVERANCE," "THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE," ETC. + + +New York +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +1909 + +_All rights reserved_ + +Copyright, 1909, +By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. + +Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1909. Reprinted +May, July, August, September, twice, October, 1909. + +Norwood Press +J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. +Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. IN WHICH I APPEAR WITH FEW PRETENSIONS + + II. THE ENCHANTED GARDEN + + III. A PAIR OF RED SHOES + + IV. IN WHICH I PLAY IN THE ENCHANTED GARDEN + + V. IN WHICH I START IN LIFE + + VI. CONCERNING CARROTS + + VII. IN WHICH I MOUNT THE FIRST RUNG OF THE LADDER + + VIII. IN WHICH MY EDUCATION BEGINS + + IX. I LEARN A LITTLE LATIN AND A GREAT DEAL OF LIFE + + X. IN WHICH I GROW UP + + XI. IN WHICH I ENTER SOCIETY AND GET A FALL + + XII. I WALK INTO THE COUNTRY AND MEET WITH AN ADVENTURE + + XIII. IN WHICH I RUN AGAINST TRADITIONS + + XIV. IN WHICH I TEST MY STRENGTH + + XV. A MEETING IN THE ENCHANTED GARDEN + + XVI. IN WHICH SALLY SPEAKS HER MIND + + XVII. IN WHICH MY FORTUNES RISE + + XVIII. THE PRINCIPLES OF MISS MATOACA + + XIX. SHOWS THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE + + XX. IN WHICH SOCIETY RECEIVES US + + XXI. I AM THE WONDER OF THE HOUR + + XXII. THE MAN AND THE CLASS + + XXIII. IN WHICH I WALK ON THIN ICE + + XXIV. IN WHICH I GO DOWN + + XXV. WE FACE THE FACTS AND EACH OTHER + + XXVI. THE RED FLAG AT THE GATE + + XXVII. WE CLOSE THE DOOR BEHIND US + + XXVIII. IN WHICH SALLY STOOPS + + XXIX. IN WHICH WE RECEIVE VISITORS + + XXX. IN WHICH SALLY PLANS + + XXXI. THE DEEPEST SHADOW + + XXXII. I COME TO THE SURFACE + + XXXIII. THE GROWING DISTANCE + + XXXIV. THE BLOW THAT CLEARS + + XXXV. THE ULTIMATE CHOICE + + + + +THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN + + + + +CHAPTER I + +IN WHICH I APPEAR WITH FEW PRETENSIONS + + +As the storm broke and a shower of hail rattled like a handful of +pebbles against our little window, I choked back a sob and edged my +small green-painted stool a trifle nearer the hearth. On the opposite +side of the wire fender, my father kicked off his wet boots, stretched +his feet, in grey yarn stockings, out on the rag carpet in front of the +fire, and reached for his pipe which he had laid, still smoking, on the +floor under his chair. + +"It's as true as the Bible, Benjy," he said, "that on the day you were +born yo' brother President traded off my huntin' breeches for a yaller +pup." + +My knuckles went to my eyes, while the smart of my mother's slap faded +from the cheek I had turned to the fire. + +"What's become o' th' p-p-up-p?" I demanded, as I stared up at him with +my mouth held half open in readiness to break out again. + +"Dead," responded my father solemnly, and I wept aloud. + +It was an October evening in my childhood, and so vivid has my later +memory of it become that I can still see the sheets of water that rolled +from the lead pipe on our roof, and can still hear the splash! splash! +with which they fell into the gutter below. For three days the clouds +had hung in a grey curtain over the city, and at dawn a high wind, +blowing up from the river, had driven the dead leaves from the +churchyard like flocks of startled swallows into our little street. +Since morning I had watched them across my mother's "prize" red geranium +upon our window-sill--now whipped into deep swirls and eddies over the +sunken brick pavement, now rising in sighing swarms against the closed +doors of the houses, now soaring aloft until they flew almost as high as +the living swallows in the belfry of old Saint John's. Then as the dusk +fell, and the street lamps glimmered like blurred stars through the +rain, I drew back into our little sitting-room, which glowed bright as +an ember against the fierce weather outside. + +Half an hour earlier my father had come up from the marble yard, where +he spent his days cutting lambs and doves and elaborate ivy wreaths in +stone, and the smell from his great rubber coat, which hung drying +before the kitchen stove, floated with the aroma of coffee through the +half-open door. When I closed an eye and peeped through the crack, I +could see my mother's tall shadow, shifting, not flitting, on the +whitewashed wall of the kitchen, as she passed back and forth from the +stove to the wooden cradle in which my little sister Jessy lay asleep, +with the head of her rag doll in her mouth. + +Outside the splash! splash! of the rain still sounded on the brick +pavement, and as I glanced through the window, I saw an old blind negro +beggar groping under the street lamp at the corner. The muffled beat of +his stick in the drenched leaves passed our doorstep, and I heard it +grow gradually fainter as he turned in the direction of the negro hovels +that bordered our end of the town. Across the street, and on either side +of us, there were rows of small boxlike frame houses built with narrow +doorways, which opened from the sidewalk into funny little kitchens, +where women, in soiled calico dresses, appeared to iron all day long. It +was the poorer quarter of what is known in Richmond as "Church Hill," a +portion of the city which had been left behind in the earlier +fashionable progress westward. Between us and modern Richmond there were +several high hills, up which the poor dripping horses panted on summer +days, a railroad station, and a broad slum-like bottom vaguely described +as the "Old Market." Our prosperity, with our traditions, had crumbled +around us, yet there were still left the ancient church, with its shady +graveyard, and an imposing mansion or two inherited from the forgotten +splendour of former days. The other Richmond--that "up-town" I heard +sometimes mentioned--I had never seen, for my early horizon was bounded +by the green hill, by the crawling salmon-coloured James River at its +foot, and by the quaint white belfry of the parish of old St. John's. +Beneath that belfry I had made miniature graves on summer afternoons, +and as I sat now opposite to my father, with the bright fire between us, +the memory of those crumbling vaults made me hug myself in the warmth, +while I edged nearer the great black kettle singing before the flames. + +"Pa," I asked presently, with an effort to resume the conversation along +cheerful lines, "was it a he or a she pup?" + +My father turned his bright blue eyes from the fire, while his hand +wandered, with an habitual gesture, to his coarse straw-coloured hair +which stood, like mine, straight up from the forehead. + +"Wall, I'll be blessed if I can recollect, Benjy," he replied, and added +after a moment, in which I knew that his slow wits were working over a +fresh attempt at distraction, "but speaking of dawgs, it wouldn't +surprise me if yo' ma was to let you have a b'iled egg for yo' supper." + +Again the storm was averted. He was so handsome, so soft, so eager to +make everybody happy, that although he did not deceive even my infant +mind for a minute, I felt obliged by sheer force of sympathy to step +into the amiable snare he laid. + +"Hard or soft?" I demanded. + +"Now that's a matter of ch'ice, ain't it?" he rejoined, wrinkling his +forehead as if awed by the gravity of the decision; "but bein' a plain +man with a taste for solids, I'd say 'hard' every time." + +"Hard, ma," I repeated gravely through the crack of the door to the +shifting shape on the kitchen wall. Then, while he stooped over in the +firelight to prod fresh tobacco into his pipe, I began again my +insatiable quest for knowledge which had brought me punishment at the +hand of my mother an hour before. + +"Pa, who named me?" + +"Yo' ma." + +"Did ma name you, too?" + +He shook his head, doubtfully, not negatively. Above his short growth of +beard his cheeks had warmed to a clear pink, and his foolish blue eyes +were as soft as the eyes of a baby. + +"Wall, I can't say she did that--exactly." + +"Then who did name you?" + +"I don't recollect. My ma, I reckon." + +"Did ma name me Ben Starr, or just Ben?" + +"Just Ben. You were born Starr." + +"Was she born Starr, too?" + +"Good Lord, no, she was born Savage." + +"Then why warn't I born Savage?" + +"Because she married me an' I was born Starr." + +I gave it up with a sigh. "Who had the most to do with my comin' here, +God or ma?" I asked after a minute. + +My father hesitated as if afraid of committing himself to an heretical +utterance. "I ain't so sure," he replied at last, and added immediately +in a louder tone, "Yo' ma, I s'pose." + +"Then why don't I say my prayers to ma instead of to God?" + +"I wouldn't begin to worry over that at my age, if I were you," replied +my father, with angelic patience, "seein' as it's near supper time an' +the kettle's a-bilin'." + +"But I want to know, pa, why it was that I came to be named just Ben?" + +"To be named just Ben?" he repeated slowly, as if the fact had been +brought for the first time to his attention. "Wall, I reckon 'twas +because we'd had considerable trouble over the namin' of the first, +which was yo' brother President. That bein' the turn of the man of the +family, I calculated that as a plain American citizen, I couldn't do +better than show I hadn't any ill feelin' agin the Government. I don't +recollect just what the name of the gentleman at the head of the Nation +was, seein' 'twas goin' on sixteen years ago, but I'd made up my mind to +call the infant in the cradle arter him, if he'd ever answered my +letter--which he never did. It was then yo' ma an' I had words because +she didn't want a child of hers named arter such a bad-mannered, +stuck-up, ornary sort, President or no President. She raised a terrible +squall, but I held out against her," he went on, dropping his voice, +"an' I stood up for it that as long as 'twas the office an' not the man +I was complimentin', I'd name him arter the office, which I did on the +spot. When 'twas over an' done the notion got into my head an' kind of +tickled me, an' when you came at last, arter the four others in between, +that died befo' they took breath, I was a'ready to name you 'Governor' +if yo' ma had been agreeable. But 'twas her turn, so she called you +arter her Uncle Benjamin--" + +"What's become o' Uncle Benjamin?" I interrupted. + +"Dead," responded my father, and for the third time I wept. + +"I declar' that child's been goin' on like that for the last hour," +remarked my mother, appearing upon the threshold. "Thar, thar, Benjy +boy, stop cryin' an' I'll let you go to old Mr. Cudlip's burial +to-morrow." + +"May I go, too, ma?" enquired President, who had come in with a lighted +lamp in his hand. He was a big, heavy, overgrown boy, and his head was +already on a level with his father's. + +"Not if I know it," responded my mother tartly, for her temper was +rising and she looked tired and anxious. "I'll take Benjy along because +he can crowd in an' nobody'll mind." + +She moved a step nearer while her shadow loomed to gigantic proportions +on the whitewashed wall. Her thin brown hair, partially streaked with +grey, was brushed closely over her scalp, and this gave her profile an +angularity that became positively grotesque in the shape behind her. +Across her forehead there were three deep frowning wrinkles, which did +not disappear even when she smiled, and her sad, flint-coloured eyes +held a perplexed and anxious look, as if she were trying always to +remember something which was very important and which she had half +forgotten. I had never seen her, except when she went to funerals, +dressed otherwise than in a faded grey calico with a faded grey shawl +crossed tightly over her bosom and drawn to the back of her waist, where +it was secured by a safety pin of an enormous size. Beside her my father +looked so young and so amiable that I had a confused impression that he +had shrunk to my own age and importance. Then my mother retreated into +the kitchen and he resumed immediately his natural proportions. After +thirty years, when I think now of that ugly little room, with its +painted pine furniture, with its coloured glass vases, filled with dried +cat-tails, upon the mantelpiece, with its crude red and yellow print of +a miniature David attacking a colossal Goliath, with its narrow +window-panes, where beyond the "prize" red geranium the wind drove the +fallen leaves over the brick pavement, with its staring whitewashed +walls, and its hideous rag carpet--when I think of these vulgar details +it is to find that they are softened in my memory by a sense of peace, +of shelter, and of warm firelight shadows. + +My mother had just laid the supper table, over which I had watched her +smooth the clean red and white cloth with her twisted fingers; President +was proudly holding aloft a savoury dish of broiled herrings, and my +father had pinned on my bib and drawn back the green-painted chair in +which I sat for my meals--when a hurried knock at the door arrested each +one of us in his separate attitude as if he had been instantly petrified +by the sound. + +There was a second's pause, and then before my father could reach it, +the door opened and shut violently, and a woman, in a dripping cloak, +holding a little girl by the hand, came from the storm outside, and ran +straight to the fire, where she stood shaking the child's wet clothes +before the flames. As the light fell over them, I saw that the woman was +young and delicate and richly dressed, with a quantity of pale brown +hair which the rain and wind had beaten flat against her small +frightened face. At the time she was doubtless an unusually pretty +creature to a grown-up pair of eyes, but my gaze, burning with +curiosity, passed quickly over her to rest upon the little girl, who +possessed for me the attraction of my own age and size. She wore red +shoes, I saw at my first glance, and a white cloak, which I took to be +of fur, though it was probably made of some soft, fuzzy cloth I had +never seen. There was a white cap on her head, held by an elastic band +under her square little chin, and about her shoulders her hair lay in a +profuse, drenched mass of brown, which reminded me in the firelight of +the colour of wet November leaves. She was soaked through, and yet as +she stood there, with her teeth chattering in the warmth, I was struck +by the courage, almost the defiance, with which she returned my gaze. +Baby that she was, I felt that she would scorn to cry while my glance +was upon her, though there were fresh tear marks on her flushed cheeks, +and around her solemn grey eyes that were made more luminous by her +broad, heavily arched black eyebrows, which gave her an intense and +questioning look. The memory of this look, which was strange in so young +a child, remained with me after the colour of her hair and every +charming feature in her face were forgotten. Years afterwards I think I +could have recognised her in a crowded street by the mingling of light +with darkness, of intense black with clear grey, in her sparkling +glance. + +"I followed the wrong turn," said the pale little woman, breathing hard +with a pitiable, frightened sound, while my mother took her dripping +cloak from her shoulders, "and I could not keep on because of the rain +which came up so heavily. If I could only reach the foot of the hill I +might find a carriage to take me up-town." + +My father had sprung forward as she entered, and was vigorously stirring +the fire, which blazed and crackled merrily in the open grate. She +accepted thankfully my mother's efforts to relieve her of her wet wraps, +but the little girl drew back haughtily when she was approached, and +refused obstinately to slip out of her cloak, from which the water ran +in streams to the floor. + +"I don't like it here, mamma, it is a common place," she said, in a +clear childish voice, and though I hardly grasped the meaning of her +words, her tone brought to me for the first time a feeling of shame for +my humble surroundings. + +"Hush, Sally," replied her mother, "you must dry yourself. These people +are very kind." + +"But I thought we were going to grandmama's?" + +"Grandmama lives up-town, and we are going as soon as the storm has +blown over. There, be a good girl and let the little boy take your wet +cap." + +"I don't want him to take my cap. He is a common boy." + +In spite of the fact that she seemed to me to be the most disagreeable +little girl I had ever met, the word she had used was lodged unalterably +in my memory. In that puzzled instant, I think, began my struggle to +rise out of the class in which I belonged by birth; and I remember that +I repeated the word "common" in a whisper to myself, while I resolved +that I would learn its meaning in order that I might cease to be the +unknown thing that it implied. + +My mother, who had gone into the kitchen with the dripping cloak in her +arms, returned a moment later with a cup of steaming coffee in one hand +and a mug of hot milk in the other. + +"It's a mercy if you haven't caught your death with an inner chill," she +observed in a brisk, kindly tone. "'Twas the way old Mr. Cudlip, whose +funeral I'm going to to-morrow, came to his end, and he was as hale, +red-faced a body as you ever laid eyes on." + +The woman received the cup gratefully, and I could see her poor thin +hands tremble as she raised it to her lips. + +"Drink the warm milk, dear," she said pleadingly to the disagreeable +little girl, who shook her head and drew back with a stiff childish +gesture. + +"I'm not hungry, thank you," she replied to my mother in her sweet, +clear treble. To all further entreaties she returned the same answer, +standing there a haughty, though drenched and battered infant, in her +soiled white cloak and her red shoes, holding her mop of a muff tightly +in both hands. + +"I'm not hungry, thank you," she repeated, adding presently in a manner +of chill politeness, "give it to the boy." + +But the boy was not hungry either, and when my mother, finally taking +her at her word, turned, in exasperation, and offered the mug to me, I +declined it, also, and stood nervously shifting from one foot to the +other, while my hands caught and twisted the fringe of the table-cloth +at my back. The big grey eyes of the little girl looked straight into +mine, but there was no hint in them that she was aware of my existence. +Though her teeth were chattering, and she knew I heard them, she did not +relax for an instant from her scornful attitude. + +"We were just about to take a mouthful of supper, mum, an' we'd be proud +if you an' the little gal would jine us," remarked my father, with an +eager hospitality. + +"I thank you," replied the woman in her pretty, grateful manner, "but +the coffee has restored my strength, and if you will direct me to the +hill, I shall be quite able to go on again." + +A step passed close to the door on the pavement outside, and I saw her +start and clutch the child to her bosom with trembling hands. As she +stood there in her shaking terror, I remembered a white kitten I had +once seen chased by boys into the area of a deserted house. + +"If--if anyone should come to enquire after me, will you be so good as +to say nothing of my having been here?" she asked. + +"To be sure I will, with all the pleasure in life," responded my father, +who, it was evident even to me, had become a victim to her distressed +loveliness. + +Emboldened by the effusive politeness of my parent, I went up to the +little girl and shyly offered her a blossom from my mother's geranium +upon the window-sill. A scrap of a hand, as cold as ice when it touched +mine, closed over the stem of the flower, and without looking at me, she +stood, very erect, with the scarlet geranium grasped stiffly between her +fingers. + +"I'll take you to the bottom of the hill myself," protested my father, +"but I wish you could persuade yourself to try a bite of food befo' you +set out in the rain." + +"It is important that I should lose no time," answered the woman, +drawing her breath quickly through her small white teeth, "but I fear +that I am taking you away from your supper?" + +"Not at all, you will not deprive me in the least," stammered my father, +blushing up to his ears, while his straight flaxen hair appeared +literally to rise with embarrassment. "I--I--the fact is I'm not an +eater, mum." + +For an instant, remembering the story of Ananias I had heard in +Sunday-school, I looked round in terror, half expecting to hear the +dreadful feet of the young men on the pavement. But he passed scathless +for the hour at least, and our visitor had turned to receive her +half-dried cloak from my mother's hands, when her face changed suddenly +to a more deadly pallor, and seizing the little girl by the shoulder, +she fled, like a small frightened animal, across the threshold into the +kitchen. + +My father's hand had barely reached the knob of the street door, when it +opened and a man in a rubber coat entered, and stopped short in the +centre of the room, where he stood blinking rapidly in the lamplight. I +heard the rain drip with a soft pattering sound from his coat to the +floor, and when he wheeled about, after an instant in which his glance +searched the room, I saw that his face was flushed and his eyes swimming +and bloodshot. There was in his look, as I remember it now, something of +the inflamed yet bridled cruelty of a bird of prey. + +"Have you noticed a lady with a little girl go by?" he enquired. + +At his question my father fell back a step or two until he stood +squarely planted before the door into the kitchen. Though he was a big +man, he was not so big as the other, who towered above the dried +cat-tails in a china vase on the mantelpiece. + +"Are you sure they did not pass here?" asked the stranger, and as he +turned his head the dried pollen was loosened from the cat-tails and +drifted in an ashen dust to the hearth. + +"No, I'll stake my word on that. They ain't passed here yet," replied my +father. + +With an angry gesture the other shook his rubber coat over our bright +little carpet, and passed out again, slamming the door violently behind +him. Running to the window, I lifted the green shade, and watched his +big black figure splashing recklessly through the heavy puddles under +the faint yellowish glimmer of the street lamp at the comer. The light +flickered feebly on his rubber coat and appeared to go out in the +streams of water that fell from his shoulders. + +When I looked round I saw that the woman had come back into the room, +still grasping the little girl by the hand. + +"No, no, I must go at once. It is necessary that I should go at once," +she repeated breathlessly, looking up in a dazed way into my mother's +face. + +"If you must you must, an' what ain't my business ain't," replied my +mother a trifle sharply, while she wrapped a grey woollen comforter of +her own closely over the head and shoulders of the little girl, "but if +you'd take my advice, which you won't, you'd turn this minute an' walk +straight back home to yo' husband." + +But the woman only shook her head with its drenched mass of soft brown +hair. + +"We must go, Sally, mustn't we?" she said to the child. + +"Yes, we must go, mamma," answered the little girl, still grasping the +stem of the red geranium between her fingers. + +"That bein' the case, I'll get into my coat with all the pleasure in +life an' see you safe," remarked my father, with a manner that impressed +me as little short of the magnificent. + +"But I hate to take you away from home on such a terrible night." + +"Oh, don't mention the weather," responded my gallant parent, while he +struggled into his rubber shoes; and he added quite handsomely, after a +flourish which appeared to set the elements at defiance, "arter all, +weather is only weather, mum." + +As nobody, not even my mother, was found to challenge the truth of this +statement, the child was warmly wrapped up in an old blanket shawl, and +my father lifted her in his arms, while the three set out under a big +cotton umbrella for the brow of the hill. President and I peered after +them from the window, screening our eyes with our hollowed palms, and +flattening our noses against the icy panes; but in spite of our efforts +we could only discern dimly the shape of the umbrella rising like a +miniature black mountain out of the white blur of the fog. The long +empty street with the wind-drifts of dead leaves, the pale glimmer of +the solitary light at the far corner, the steady splash! splash! of the +rain as it fell on the brick pavement, the bitter draught that blew in +over the shivering geranium upon the sill--all these brought a lump to +my throat, and I turned back quickly into our cheerful little room, +where my untasted supper awaited me. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE ENCHANTED GARDEN + + +The funeral was not until nine o'clock, but at seven my mother served us +a cold breakfast in order, as she said, that she might get the dishes +washed and the house tidied before we started. Gathering about the bare +table, we ate our dismal meal in a depressed silence, while she bustled +back and forth from the kitchen in her holiday attire, which consisted +of a stiff black bombazine dress and the long rustling crape veil she +had first put on at the death of her uncle Benjamin, some twenty years +before. As her only outings were those occasioned by the deaths of her +neighbours, I suppose her costume was quite as appropriate as it seemed +to my childish eyes. Certainly, as she appeared before me in her hard, +shiny, very full bombazine skirt and attenuated bodice, I regarded her +with a reverence which her everyday calico had never inspired. + +"I ain't et a mouthful an' I doubt if I'll have time to befo' we start," +she was saying in an irritable voice, as I settled into my bib and my +chair. "Anybody might have thought I'd be allowed to attend a funeral in +peace, but I shan't be,--no, not even when it comes to my own." + +"Thar's plenty of time yet, Susan," returned my father cheerfully, while +he sawed at the cold cornbread on the table. "You've got a good hour an' +mo' befo' you." + +"An' the things to wash up an' the house to tidy in my veil and bonnet. +Thar ain't many women, I reckon, that would wash up china in a crape +veil, but I've done it befo' an' I'm used to it." + +"Why don't you lay off yo' black things till you're through?" + +His suggestion was made innocently enough, but it appeared, as he +uttered it, to be the one thing needed to sharpen the edge of my +mother's temper. The three frowning lines deepened across her forehead, +and she stared straight before her with her perplexed and anxious look +under her rustling crape. + +"Yes, I'll take 'em off an' lay 'em away an' git back to work," she +rejoined. "It did seem as if I might have taken a holiday at a time like +this--my next do' neighbour, too, an' I'd al'ays promised him I'd see +him laid safe in the earth. But, no, I can't do it. I'll go take off my +veil an' bonnet an' stay at home." + +Before this attack my father grew so depressed that I half expected to +see tears fall into his cup of coffee, as they had into mine. His +handsome gayety dropped from him, and he looked as downcast as was +possible for a face composed of so many flagrantly cheerful features. + +"I declar, Susan, I wa'nt thinkin' of that," he returned apologetically, +"it just seemed to me that you'd be mo' comfortable without that sheet +of crape floatin' down yo' back." + +"I've never been comfortable in my life," retorted my mother, "an' I +don't expect to begin when I dress myself to go to a funeral. It's got +to be, I reckon, an' it's what I'm used to; but if thar's a man alive +that would stand over a stove with a crape veil on his head, I'd be +obliged to him if he'd step up an' show his face." + +At this point; the half-grown girl who had promised to look after the +baby arrived, and with her assistance, my mother set about putting the +house in order, while my father, as soon as his luncheon basket was +packed, wished us a pleasant drive, and started for old Timothy Ball's +marble yard, where he worked. At the sink in the kitchen my mother, with +her crape veil pinned back, and her bombazine sleeves rolled up, stood +with her arms deep in soapsuds. + +"Ma," I asked, going up to her and turning my back while she unfastened +my bib with one soapy hand, "did you ever hear anybody call you common?" + +"Call me what?" + +"Common. What does it mean when anybody calls you common?" + +"It means generally that anybody is a fool." + +"Then am I, ma?" + +"Air you what?" + +"Am I common?" + +"For the Lord's sake, Benjy, stop yo' pesterin'. What on earth has gone +an' set that idee workin' inside yo' head?" + +"Is pa common?" + +She meditated an instant. "Wall, he wa'nt born a Savage, but I'd never +have called him common--exactly," she answered. + +"Then perhaps you are?" + +"You talk like a fool! Haven't I told you that I wa'nt?" she snapped. + +"Then if you ain't an' pa ain't exactly, how can I be?" I concluded with +triumph. + +"Whoever said you were? Show me the person." + +"It wa'nt a person. It was a little girl." + +"A little girl? You mean the half-drowned brat I wrapped up in yo' +grandma's old blanket shawl I set the muffin dough under? To think of my +sendin' yo' po' tired pa splashin' out with 'em into the rain. So she +called you common?" + +But the sound of a carriage turning the corner fell on my ears, and +running hastily into the sitting-room, I opened the door and looked out +eagerly for signs of the approaching funeral. + +A bright morning had followed the storm, and the burnished leaves, so +restless the day before, lay now wet and still under the sunshine. I had +stepped joyously over the threshold, to the sunken brick pavement, when +my mother, moved by a sudden anxiety for my health, called me back, and +in spite of my protestations, wrapped me in a grey blanket shawl, which +she fastened at my throat with the enormous safety-pin she had taken +from her own waist. Much embarrassed by this garment, which dragged +after me as I walked, I followed her sullenly out of the house and as +far as our neighbour's doorstep, where I was ordered to sit down and +wait until the service was over. As the stir of her crape passed into +the little hall, I seated myself obediently on the single step which led +straight from the street, and made faces, during the long wait, at the +merry driver of the hearse--a decrepit negro of ancient days, who +grinned provokingly at the figure I cut in my blanket shawl. + +"Hi! honey, is you got on swaddlin' close er a windin' sheet?" he +enquired. "I'se a-gittin' near bline en I cyarn mek out." + +"You jest wait till I'm bigger an' I'll show you," was my peaceable +rejoinder. + +"Wat's dat you gwine sho' me, boy? I reckon I'se done seed mo' curus +things den you in my lifetime." + +I looked up defiantly. Between the aristocratic, if fallen, negro and +myself there was all the instinctive antagonism that existed in the +Virginia of that period between the "quality" and the "poor white +trash." + +"If you don't lemme alone you'll see mo'n you wanter." + +"Whew! I reckon you gwine tu'n out sump'im' moughty outlandish, boy. +I'se a-lookin' wid all my eyes an I cyarn see nuttin' at all." + +"Wait till I'm bigger an' you'll see it," I answered. + +"I'se sho'ly gwine ter wait, caze ef'n hits mo' curus den you is en dat +ar windin' sheet, hit's a sight dat I'se erbleeged ter lay eyes on. +Wat's yo' name, suh?" he enquired, with a mocking salute. + +"I am Ben Starr," I replied promptly, "an' if you wait till I get +bigger, I'll bus' you open." + +"Hi! hi! wat you wanter bus' me open fur, boy? Is you got a pa?" + +"He's Thomas Starr, an' he cuts lambs and doves on tombstones. I've seen +'em, an' I'm goin' to learn to cut 'em, too, when I grow up. I like +lambs." + +The door behind me opened suddenly without warning, and as I scrambled +from the doorstep, my enemy, the merry driver, backed his creaking +vehicle to the sidewalk across which the slow procession of mourners +filed. A minute later I was caught up by my mother's hand, and borne +into a carriage, where I sat tightly wedged between two sombre females. + +"So you've brought yo' little boy along, Mrs. Starr," remarked a third +from the opposite seat, in an aggressive voice. + +"Yes, he had a cold an' I thought the air might do him good," replied my +mother with her society manner. + +"Wall, I've nine an' not one of 'em has ever been to a funeral," +returned the questioner. "I've al'ays been set dead against 'em for +children, ain't you, Mrs. Boxley?" + +Mrs. Boxley, a placid elderly woman, who had already begun to doze in +her corner, opened her eyes and smiled on me in a pleasant and friendly +way. + +"To tell the truth I ain't never been able really to enjoy a child's +funeral," she replied. + +"I'm sure we're all mighty glad to have him along, Mrs. Starr," observed +the fourth woman, who was soft and peaceable and very fat. "He's a fine, +strong boy now, ain't he, ma'am?" + +"Middlin' strong. I hope he ain't crowdin' you. Edge closer to me, +Benjy." + +I edged closer until her harsh bombazine sleeve seemed to scratch the +skin from my cheek. Mrs. Boxley had dozed again, and sinking lower on +the seat, I had just prepared myself to follow her example, when a +change in the conversation brought my wandering wits instantly together, +and I sat bolt upright while my eyes remained fixed on the small, +straggling houses we were passing. + +"Yes, she would go, rain or no rain," my mother was saying, and I knew +that in that second's snatch of sleep she had related the story of our +last evening's adventure. "To be sure she may have been all she ought to +be, but I must say I can't help mistrustin' that little, palaverin' kind +of a woman with eyes like a scared rabbit." + +"If it was Sarah Mickleborough, an' I think it was, she had reason +enough to look scared, po' thing," observed Mrs. Kidd, the soft fat +woman, who sat on my left side. "They've only lived over here in the old +Adams house for three months, but the neighbours say he's almost killed +her twice since they moved in. She came of mighty set up, high falutin' +folks, you know, an' when they wouldn't hear of the marriage, she ran +off with him one night about ten years ago just after he came home out +of the army. He looked fine, they say, in uniform, on his big black +horse, but after the war ended he took to drink and then from drink, as +is natchel, he took to beatin' her. It's strange--ain't it?--how easily +a man's hand turns against a woman once he's gone out of his head?" + +"Ah, I could see that she was the sort that's obliged to be beaten +sooner or later if thar was anybody handy around to do it," remarked my +mother. "Some women are made so that they're never happy except when +they're hurt, an' she's one of 'em. Why, they can't so much as look at a +man without invitin' him to ill-treat 'em." + +"Thar ain't many women that know how to deal with a husband as well as +you an' Mrs. Cudlip," remarked Mrs. Kidd, with delicate flattery. + +"Po' Mrs. Cudlip. I hope she is bearin' up," sighed my mother. "'Twas +the leg he lost at Seven Pines--wasn't it?--that supported her?" + +"That an' the cheers he bottomed. The last work he did, po' man, was for +Mrs. Mickleborough of whom we were speakin'. I used to hear of her befo' +the war when she was pretty Miss Sarah Bland, in a white poke bonnet +with pink roses." + +"An' now never a day, passes, they say, that Harry Mickleborough doesn't +threaten to turn her an' the child out into the street." + +"Are her folks still livin'? Why doesn't she go back to them?" + +"Her father died six months after the marriage, an' the rest of 'em live +up-town somewhar. The only thing that's stuck to her is her coloured +mammy, Aunt Euphronasia, an' they tell me that that old woman has mo' +influence over Harry Mickleborough than anybody livin'. When he gets +drunk an' goes into one of his tantrums she walks right up to him an' +humours him like a child." + +As we drove on their voices grew gradually muffled and thin in my ears, +and after a minute, in which I clung desperately to my eluding +consciousness, my head dropped with a soft thud upon Mrs. Kidd's +inviting bosom. The next instant I was jerked violently erect by my +mother and ordered sternly to "keep my place an' not to make myself a +nuisance by spreadin' about." With this admonition in my ears, I pinched +my leg and sat staring with heavy eyes out upon the quiet street, where +the rolling of the slow wheels over the fallen leaves was the only sound +that disturbed the silence. After ten bitter years the city was still +bound by the terrible lethargy which had immediately succeeded the war; +and on Church Hill it seemed almost as if we had been forgotten like the +breastworks and the battle-fields in the march of progress. The grip of +poverty, which was fiercer than the grip of armies, still held us, and +the few stately houses showed tenantless and abandoned in the midst of +their ruined gardens. Sometimes I saw an old negress in a coloured +turban come out upon one of the long porches and stare after us, her +pipe in her mouth and her hollowed palm screening her eyes; and once a +noisy group of young mulattoes emerged from an alley and followed us +curiously for a few blocks along the sidewalk. + +Withdrawing my gaze from the window, I looked enviously at Mrs. Boxley, +who snored gently in her corner. Then for the second time sleep +overpowered me, and in spite of my struggles, I sank again on Mrs. +Kidd's bosom. + +"Thar, now, don't think of disturbin' him, Mrs. Starr. He ain't the +least bit in my way. I can look right over his head," I heard murmured +over me as I slid blissfully into unconsciousness. + +What happened after this I was never able to remember, for when I came +clearly awake again, we had reached our door, and my mother was shaking +me in the effort to make me stand on my feet. + +"He's gone and slept through the whole thing," she remarked irritably to +President, while I stumbled after them across the pavement, with the +fringed ends of my blanket shawl rustling the leaves. + +"He's too little. You might have let me go, ma," replied President, as +he dragged me, sleepy eyes, ruffled flaxen hair, and trailing shawl over +the doorstep. + +"An' you're too big," retorted my mother, removing the long black pins +from her veil, and holding them in her mouth while she carefully +smoothed and folded the lengths of crape. "You could never have squeezed +in between us, an' as it was Mrs. Kidd almost overlaid Benjy. But you +didn't miss much," she hastened to assure him, "I declar' I thought at +one time we'd never get on it all went so slowly." + +Having placed her bonnet and veil in the tall white bandbox upon the +table, she hurried off to prepare our dinner, while President urged me +in an undertone to "sham sick" that afternoon so that he wouldn't have +to take me out for an airing on the hill. + +"But I want to go," I responded selfishly, wide awake at the prospect. +"I want to see the old Adams house where the little girl lives." + +"If you go I can't play checkers, an' it's downright mean. What do you +care about little girls? They ain't any good." + +"But this little girl has got a drunken father." + +"Well, you won't see _him_ anyway, so what is the use?" + +"She lives in a big house an' it's got a big garden--as big as that!" I +stretched out my arms in a vain attempt to impress his imagination, but +he merely looked scornful and swore a mighty vow that he'd "be jiggered +if he'd keep on playin' nurse-girl to a muff." + +At the time he put my pleading sternly aside, but a couple of hours +later, when the afternoon was already waning, he relented sufficiently +to take me out on the ragged hill, which was covered thickly with +pokeberry, yarrow, and stunted sumach. Before our feet the ground sank +gradually to the sparkling river, and farther away I could see the +silhouette of an anchored vessel etched boldly against the rosy clouds +of the sunset. + +As I stood there, holding fast to his hand, in the high wind that blew +up from the river, a stout gentleman, leaning heavily on a black +walking-stick, with a big gold knob at the top, came panting up the +slope and paused beside us, with his eyes on the western sky. He was +hale, handsome, and ruddy-faced, with a bunch of iron-grey whiskers on +either cheek, and a vivacious and merry eye which seemed to catch at a +twinkle whenever it met mine. His rounded stomach was spanned by a +massive gold watch-chain, from which dangled a bunch of seals that +delighted my childish gaze. + +"It's a fine view," he observed pleasantly, patting my shoulder as if I +were in some way responsible for the river, the anchored vessel, and the +rosy sunset. "I moved up-town as soon as the war ended, but I still +manage to crawl back once in a while to watch the afterglow." + +"Where does the sun go," I asked, "when it slips way down there on the +other side of the river?" + +The gentleman smiled benignly, and I saw from his merry glance that he +did not share my mother's hostility to the enquiring mind. + +"Well, I shouldn't be surprised if it went to the wrong side of the +world for little boys and girls over there to get up by," he replied. + +"May I go there, too, when I'm big?" + +"To the wrong side of the world? You may, who knows?" + +"Have you ever been there? What is it like?" + +"Not yet, not yet, but there's no telling. I've been across the ocean, +though, and that's pretty far. I went once in a ship that ran through +the blockade and brought in a cargo of Bibles." + +"What did you want with so many Bibles? We've got one. It has gilt +clasps." + +"Want with the Bibles! Why, every one of these Bibles, my boy, may have +saved a soul." + +"Has our Bible saved a soul? An' whose soul was it? It stays on our +centre table, an' my name's in it. I've seen it." + +"Indeed! and what may your name be?" + +"Ben Starr. That's my name. What is yours? Is yo' name in the Bible? +Does everybody's name have to be in the Bible if they're to be saved? +Who put them in there? Was it God or the angels? If I blot my name out +can I still go to heaven? An' if yours isn't in there will you have to +be damned? Have you ever been damned an' what does it feel like?" + +"Shut up, Benjy, or ma'll wallop you," growled President, squeezing my +hand so hard that I cried aloud. + +"Ah, he's a fine boy, a promising boy, a remarkable boy," observed the +gentleman, with one finger in his waistcoat pocket. "Wouldn't you like +to grow up and be President, my enquiring young friend?" + +"No, sir, I'd rather be God," I replied, shaking my head. + +All the gentleman's merry grey eyes seemed to run to sparkles. + +"Ah, there's nothing, after all, like the true American spirit," he +said, patting my shoulder. Then he laughed so heartily that his +gold-rimmed eye-glasses fell from his eyes and dangled in the air at the +end of a silk cord. "I'm afraid your aspiration is too lofty for my +help," he said, "but if you should happen to grow less ambitious as you +grow older, then remember, please, that my name is General Bolingbroke." + +"Why, you're the president of the Great South Midland and Atlantic +Railroad, sir!" exclaimed President, admiring and embarrassed. + +The General sighed, though even I could see that this simple tribute to +his fame had not left him unmoved. "Ten years ago I was the man who +tried to save Johnston's army, and to-day I am only a railroad +president," he answered, half to himself; "times change and fames change +almost as quickly. When all is said, however, there may be more lasting +honour in building a country's trade than in winning a battle. I'll have +a tombstone some day and I want written on it, 'He brought help to the +sick land and made the cotton flower to bloom anew.' My name is General +Bolingbroke," he added, with his genial and charming smile. "You will +not forget it?" + +I assured him that I should not, and that if it could be done, I'd try +to have it written in our Bible with gilt clasps, at which he thanked me +gravely as he shook my hand. + +"An' I think now I'd rather be president of the Great South Midland and +Atlantic Railroad, sir," I concluded. + +"Young man, I fear you're with the wind," he said, laughing, and added, +"I've a nephew just about your age and at least a head shorter, what do +you think of that?" + +"Has he a kite?" I enquired eagerly. "I have, an' a top an' ten checkers +an' a big balloon." + +"Have you, indeed? Well, my poor boy is not so well off, I regret to +say. But don't you think your prosperity is excessive considering the +impoverished condition of the country?" + +The big words left me gasping, and fearing that I had been too boastful +for politeness, I hastened to inform him that "although the balloon was +very big, it was also bu'sted, which made a difference." + +"Ah, it is, is it? Well, that does make a difference." + +"If your boy hasn't any checkers I'll give him half of mine," I added +with a gulp. + +With an elaborate flourish the General drew out a stiffly starched +pocket handkerchief and blew his nose. "That's a handsome offer and I'll +repeat it without fail," he said. + +Then he shook hands again and marched down the hill with his gold-headed +stick tapping the ground. + +"Now you'll come and trot home, I reckon," said President, when he had +disappeared. + +But the spirit of revolt had lifted its head within me, for through a +cleft in the future, I saw myself already as the president of the Great +South Midland and Atlantic Railroad, with a jingling bunch of seals and +a gold-headed stick. + +"I ain't goin' that way," I said, "I'm goin' home by the old Adams house +where the little girl lives." + +"No, you ain't either. I'll tell ma on you." + +"I don't care. If you don't take me home by the old Adams house, you'll +have to carry me every step of the way, an' I'll make myself heavy." + +For a long minute President wrinkled his brows and thought hard in +silence. Then an idea appeared to penetrate his slow mind, and he +grasped me by the shoulder and shook me until I begged him to stop. + +"If I take you home that way will you promise to sham sick to-morrow, so +I shan't have to bring you out?" + +The price was high, but swallowing my disappointment I met it squarely. + +"I will if you'll lift me an' let me look over the wall." + +"Hope you may die?" + +"Hope I may die." + +"Wall, it ain't anything to see but jest a house," remarked President, +as I held out my hand, "an' girls ain't worth the lookin' at." + +"She called me common," I said, soberly. + +"Oh, shucks!" retorted President, with fine scorn, and we said no more. + +Clinging tightly to his hand I trudged the short blocks in silence. As I +was little, and he was very large for his years, it was with difficulty +that I kept pace with him; but by taking two quick steps to his single +slow one, I managed to cover the same distance in almost the same number +of minutes. He was a tall, overgrown boy, very fat for his age, with a +foolish, large-featured face which continued to look sheepishly amiable +even when he got into a temper. + +"Is it far, President?" I enquired at last between panting breaths. + +"There 'tis," he answered, pointing with his free hand to a fine old +mansion, with a broad and hospitable front, from which the curved iron +railing bent in a bright bow to the pavement. It was the one great house +on the hill, with its spreading wings, its stuccoed offices, its massive +white columns at the rear, which presided solemnly over the terraced +hill-side. A moment later he led me up to the high, spiked wall, and +swung me from the ground to a secure perch on his shoulder. With my +hands clinging to the iron nails that studded the wall, I looked over, +and then caught my breath sharply at the thought that I was gazing upon +an enchanted garden. Through the interlacing elm boughs the rosy light +of the afterglow fell on the magnolias and laburnums, on the rose +squares, and on the tall latticed arbours, where amid a glossy bower of +foliage, a few pale microphylla roses bloomed out of season. Overhead +the wind stirred, and one by one the small yellow leaves drifted, like +wounded butterflies, down on the box hedges and the terraced walks. + +"You've got to come down now--you're too heavy," said President from +below, breathing hard as he held me up. + +"Jest a minute--give me a minute longer an' I'll let you eat my +blackberry jam at supper." + +"An' you've promised on yo' life to sham sick to-morrow?" + +"I'll sham sick an' I'll let you eat my jam, too, if you'll hold me a +little longer." + +He lifted me still higher, and clutching desperately to the iron spikes, +I hung there quivering, breathless, with a thumping heart. A glimmer of +white flitted between the box rows on a lower terrace, and I saw that +the princess of the enchanted garden was none other than my little girl +of the evening before. She was playing quietly by herself in a bower of +box, building small houses of moss and stones, which she erected with +infinite patience. So engrossed was she in her play that she seemed +perfectly oblivious of the fading light and of the birds and squirrels +that ran past her to their homes in the latticed arbours. Higher and +higher rose her houses of moss and stones, while she knelt there, +patient and silent, in the terrace walk with the small, yellow leaves +falling around her. + +"That's a square deal now," said President, dropping me suddenly to +earth. "You'd better come along and trot home or you'll get a lamming." + +My enchanted garden had vanished, the spiked wall rose over my head, and +before me, as I turned homeward, spread all the familiar commonplaceness +of Church Hill. + +"How long will it be befo' I can climb up by myself?" I asked. + +"When you grow up. You're nothin' but a kid." + +"An' when'll I grow up if I keep on fast?" + +"Oh, in ten or fifteen years, I reckon." + +"Shan't I be big enough to climb up befo' then?" + +"Look here, you shut up! I'm tired answerin' questions," shouted my +elder brother, and grasping his hand I trotted in a depressed silence +back to our little home. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A PAIR OF RED SHOES + + +I awoke the next morning a changed creature from the one who had fallen +asleep in my trundle-bed. In a single hour I had awakened to the sharp +sense of contrast, to the knowledge that all ways of life were not +confined to the sordid circle in which I lived. Outside the poverty, the +ugliness, the narrow streets, rose the spiked wall of the enchanted +garden; and when I shut my eyes tight, I could see still the half-bared +elms arching against the sunset, and the old house beyond, with its +stuccoed wings and its grave white columns, which looked down on the +magnolias and laburnums just emerging from the twilight on the lower +terrace. In the midst of this garden I saw always the little girl +patiently building her houses of moss and stones, and it seemed to me +that I could hardly live through the days until I grew strong enough to +leap the barriers and play beside her in the bower of box. + +"Ma," I asked, measuring myself against the red and white cloth on the +table, "does it look to you as if I were growin' up?" + +The air was strong with the odour of frying bacon, and when my mother +turned to answer me, she held a smoking skillet extended like a votive +offering in her right hand. She was busy preparing breakfast for Mrs. +Cudlip, whose husband's funeral we had attended the day before, and as +usual when any charitable mission was under way, her manner to my father +and myself had taken a biting edge. + +"Don't talk foolishness, Benjy," she replied, stopping to push back a +loosened wiry lock of hair; "it's time to think about growin' up when +you ain't been but two years in breeches. Here, if you're through +breakfast, I want you to step with this plate of muffins to Mrs. Cudlip. +Tell her I sent 'em an' that I hope she is bearin' up." + +"That you sent 'em an' that you hope she is bearin' up," I repeated. + +"That's it now. Don't forget what I told you befo' you're there. Thomas, +have you buttered that batch of muffins?" + +My father handed me the plate, which was neatly covered with a +red-bordered napkin. + +"Did you tell me to lay a slice of middlin' along side of 'em, Susan?" +he humbly enquired. + +Without replying to him in words, my mother seized the plate from me, +and lifting the napkin, removed the offending piece of bacon, which she +replaced in the dish. + +"I thought even you, Thomas, would have had mo' feelin' than to send +middlin' to a widow the day arter she has buried her husband--even a +one-legged one! Middlin' indeed! One egg an' that soft boiled, will be +as near a solid as she'll touch for a week. Keep along, Benjy, an' be +sure to say just what I told you." + +I did my errand quickly, and returning, asked eagerly if I might go out +all by myself an' play for an hour. "I'll stay close in the churchyard +if you'll lemme go," I entreated. + +"Run along then for a little while, but if you go out of the churchyard, +you'll get a whippin'," replied my mother. + +With this threat ringing like a bell in my ears, I left the house and +walked quickly along the narrow pavement to where, across the wide +street, I discerned the white tower and belfry which had been added by a +later century to the parish church of Saint John. Overhead there was a +bright blue sky, and the October sunshine, filtering through the bronzed +network of sycamore and poplar, steeped the flat tombstones and the +crumbling brick vaults in a clear golden light. The church stood upon a +moderate elevation above the street, and I entered it now by a short +flight of steps, which led to a grassy walk that did not end at the +closed door, but continued to the brow of the hill, where a few +scattered slabs stood erect as sentinels over the river banks. For a +moment I stood among them, watching the blue haze of the opposite shore; +then turning away I rolled over on my back and lay at full length in the +periwinkle that covered the ground. From beyond the church I could hear +Uncle Methusalah, the negro caretaker, raking the dead leaves from the +graves, and here and there among the dark boles of the trees there +appeared presently thin bluish spirals of smoke. The old negro's figure +was still hidden, but as his rake stirred the smouldering piles, I could +smell the sharp sweet odour of the burning leaves. Sometimes a wren or a +sparrow fluttered in and out of the periwinkle, and once a small green +lizard glided like the shadow of a moving leaf over a tombstone. One +sleeper among them I came to regard, as I grew somewhat older, almost +with affection--not only because he was young and a soldier, but because +the tall marble slab implored me to "tread lightly upon his ashes." Not +once during the many hours when I played in the churchyard, did I forget +myself and run over the sunken grave where he lay. + +The sound of the moving rake passed the church door and drew nearer, and +the grey head of Uncle Methusalah appeared suddenly from behind an ivied +tree trunk. Sitting up in the periwinkle, I watched him heap the +coloured leaves around me into a brilliant pile, and then bending over +hold a small flame close to the curling ends. The leaves, still moist +from the rain, caught slowly, and smouldered in a scented cloud under +the trees. + +"Dis yer trash ain' gwine ter bu'n twel hit's smoked out," he remarked +in a querulous voice. + +"Uncle Methusalah," I asked, springing up, "how old are you?" + +With a leisurely movement, he dragged his rake over the walk, and then +bringing it to rest at his feet, leaned his clasped hands on the end of +it, and looked at me over the burning leaves. He wore an old, tightly +fitting army coat of Union blue, bearing tarnished gold epaulets upon +the shoulders, and around his throat a red bandanna handkerchief was +wrapped closely to keep out the "chills." + +"Gaud-a-moughty, honey!" he replied, "I'se so ole dat I'se done clean +furgit ter count." + +"I reckon you knew almost everybody that's buried here, didn't you?" + +"Mos' un um, chile, but I ain't knowed near ez many ez my ole Marster. +He done shuck hans w'en he wuz live wid um great en small. I'se done +hyern 'im tell in my time how he shuck de han' er ole Marse Henry right +over dar in dat ar church." + +"Who was ole Marse Henry?" I enquired. + +"I dunno, honey, caze he died afo' my day, but he mus' hev done a +powerful heap er talkin' while he wuz 'live." + +"Whom did he talk to, Uncle Methusalah?" + +"Ter hisself mostly, I reckon, caze you know folks ain' got time al'ays +ter be lisen'in'. But hit wuz en dish yer church dat he stood up en ax +'em please ter gin 'im liberty er ter gin 'im deaf." + +"An' which did they give him, Uncle?" + +"Wall, honey, ez fur ez I recollect de story dey gun 'im bofe." + +Bending over in his old blue army coat with the tarnished epaulets, he +prodded the pile of leaves, where the scented smoke hung low in a cloud. +The wind stirred softly in the grass, and a small flame ran along a bent +twig of maple to a single scarlet leaf at the end. + +"Did they give 'em to him because he talked too much?" I asked. + +"I ain' never hyern ner better reason, chile. Folks cyarn' stan' too +much er de gab nohow, en' dey sez dat he 'ouldn't let up, but kep' up +sech a racket dat dey couldn't git ner sleep. Den at las' ole King +George over dar in England sent de hull army clear across de water jes' +ter shet his mouf." + +"An' did he shut it?" + +"Dat's all er hit dat I ever hyern tell, boy, but ef'n you don' quit +axin' folks questions day in en day out, he'll send all de way over yer +agin' jes' ter shet yourn." + +He went off, gathering the leaves into another pile at a little +distance, and after a moment I followed him and stood with my back +against a high brick vault. + +"Is there any way, Uncle Methusalah, that you can grow up befo' yo' +time?" I asked. + +"Dar 'tis agin!" exclaimed the old negro, but he added kindly enough, +"Dey tell me you kin do hit by stretchin', chile, but I ain' never seed +hit wid my eyes, en w'at I ain' seed wid my eyes I ain' set much sto' +by." + +His scepticism, however, honest as it was, did not prevent my seizing +upon the faint hope he offered, and I had just begun to stretch myself +violently against the vault, when a voice speaking at my back brought my +heels suddenly to the safe earth again. + +"Boy," said the voice, "do you want a dog?" + +Turning quickly I found myself face to face with the princess of the +enchanted garden. She wore a fresh white coat and a furry white cap and +a pair of red shoes that danced up and down. In her hand she carried a +dirty twine string, the other end of which was tied about the neck of a +miserable grey and white mongrel puppy. + +"Do you want a dog, boy?" she repeated, as proudly as if she offered a +canine prize. + +The puppy was ugly, ill-bred, and dirty, but not an instant did I +hesitate in the response I made. + +"Yes, I want a dog," I answered as gravely as she had spoken. + +She held out the string and my fist closed tightly over it. "I found him +in the gutter," she explained, "and I gave him a plate of bread and milk +because he is so young. Grandmama wouldn't let me keep him, as I have +three others. I think it was very cruel of grandmama." + +"I may keep him," I responded, "I ain't got any grandmama. I'll let him +sleep in my bed." + +"You must give him a bath first," she said, "and put him by the fire to +dry. They wouldn't let me bring him into our house, but yours is such a +little one that it will hardly matter." + +At this my pride dropped low. "You live in the great big house with the +high wall around the garden," I returned wistfully. + +She nodded, drawing back a step or two with a quaint little air of +dignity, and twisting a tassel on her coat in and out of her fingers, +which were encased in white crocheted mittens. The only touch of colour +about her was made by her small red shoes. + +"I haven't lived there long, and I remember where we came +from--way--away from here, over yonder across the river." She lifted her +hand and pointed across the brick vault to the distant blue on the +opposite shore of the James. "I liked it over there because it was the +country and we lived by ourselves, mamma and I. She taught me to knit +and I knitted a whole shawl--as big as that--for grandmama. Then papa +came and took us away, but now he has gone and left us again, and I am +glad. I hope he will never come back because he is so very bad and I +don't like him. Mamma likes him, but I don't." + +"May I play with you in your garden?" I asked when she had finished; +"I'd like to play with you an' I know ever so many nice ways to play +that I made up out of my head." + +She looked at me gravely and, I thought, regretfully. + +"You can't because you're common," she answered. "It's a great pity. I +don't really mind it myself," she added gently, seeing my downcast face, +"I'd just every bit as lief play with you as not--a little bit--but +grandmama wouldn't--" + +"But I don't want to play with your grandmama," I returned, on the point +of tears. + +"Well, you might come sometimes--not very often," she said at last, with +a sympathetic touch on my sleeve, "an' you must come to the side gate +where grandmama won't see you. I'll let you in an' mamma will not mind. +But you mustn't come often," she concluded in a sterner tone, "only once +or twice, so that there won't be any danger of my growin' like you. It +would hurt grandmama dreadfully if I were ever to grow like you." + +She paused a moment, and then began dancing up and down in her red shoes +over the coloured leaves. "I'd like to play--play--play all the time!" +she sang, whirling, a vivid little figure, around, the crumbling vault. + +The next minute she caught up the puppy in her arms and hugged him +passionately before she turned away. + +"His name is Samuel!" she called back over her shoulder as she ran out +of the churchyard. + +When she had gone down the short flight of steps and into the wide +street, I tucked Samuel under my arm, and lugged him, not without inward +misgivings, into the kitchen, where my mother stood at the +ironing-board, with one foot on the rocker of Jessy's cradle. + +"Ma," I began in a faltering and yet stubborn voice, "I've got a pup." + +My mother's foot left the rocker, and she turned squarely on me, with a +smoking iron half poised above the garment she had just sprinkled on the +board. + +"Whar did he come from?" she demanded, and moistened the iron with the +thumb of her free hand. + +"I got him in the churchyard. His name is Samuel." + +For a moment she stared at the two of us in a stony silence. Then her +face twitched as if with pain, the perplexed and anxious look appeared +in her eyes, and her mouth relaxed. + +"Wall, he's ugly enough to be named Satan," she said, "but I reckon if +you want to you may put him in a box in the back yard. Give him that +cold sheep's liver in the safe and then you come straight in and comb +yo' head. It looks for all the world like a tousled straw stack." + +All the afternoon I sat in our little sitting-room, and faithful to my +promise, shammed sickness, while Samuel lay in his box in the back yard +and howled. + +"I'll have that dog taken up the first thing in the mornin'," declared +my mother furiously, as she cleared the supper table. + +"I reckon he's lonely out thar, Susan," urged my father, observing my +trembling mouth, and eager, as usual, to put a pacific face on the +moment. + +"Lonely, indeed! I'm lonely in here, but I don't set up a howlin'. +Thar're mighty few folks, be they dogs or humans, that get all the +company they want in life." + +Once I crept out into the darkness, and hugging Samuel around his dirty +stomach besought him, with tears, to endure his lot in silence; but +though he licked my face rapturously at the time, I had no sooner +entered the house than his voice was lifted anew. + +"To think of po' Mrs. Cudlip havin' to mourn in all that noise," +commented my mother, as I undressed and got into my trundle-bed. + +My pillow was quite moist before I went to sleep, while my mother's loud +threats against Samuel sounded from the other side of the room with each +separate garment that she laid on the chair at the foot of her bed. In +sheer desperation at last I pulled the cover over my ears in an effort +to shut out her thin, querulous tones. At the instant I felt that I was +wicked enough to wish that I had been born without any mother, and I +asked myself how _she_ would like it if I raised as great a fuss about +baby Jessy's crying as she did about Samuel's--who didn't make one-half +the noise. + +Here the light went out, and I fell asleep, to awaken an hour or two +later because of the candle flash in my eyes. In the centre of the room +my mother was standing in her grey dressing-gown, with a shawl over her +head and the rapturously wriggling body of Samuel in her arms. Too +amazed to utter an exclamation, I watched her silently while she made a +bed with an old flannel petticoat before the waning fire. Then I saw her +bend over and pat the head of the puppy with her knotted hand before she +crept noiselessly back to bed. + +At this day I see her figure as distinctly as I saw it that instant by +the candle flame--her soiled grey wrapper clutched over her flat bosom; +her sallow, sharp-featured face, with bluish hollows in the temples over +which her sparse hair strayed in locks; her thin, stooping shoulders +under the knitted shawl; her sad, flint-coloured eyes, holding always +that anxious look as if she were trying to remember some important thing +which she had half forgotten. + +So she appeared to my startled gaze for a single minute. Then the light +went out, she faded into the darkness, and I fell asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +IN WHICH I PLAY IN THE ENCHANTED GARDEN + + +For the next two years, when my mother sent me on errands to McKenney's +grocery store, or for a pitcher of milk to old Mrs. Triffit's, who kept +a fascinating green parrot hanging under an arbour of musk cluster +roses, it was my habit to run five or six blocks out of my way, and +measure my growing height against the wall of the enchanted garden. On +the worn bricks, unless they have crumbled away, there may still be seen +the scratches from my penknife, by which I tried to persuade myself that +each rapidly passing week marked a visible increase in my stature. +Though I was a big boy for my age, the top of my straw-coloured hair +reached barely halfway up the spiked wall; and standing on my tiptoes my +hands still came far below the grim iron teeth at the top. Yet I +continued to measure myself, week by week, against the barrier, until at +last the zigzag scratches from my knife began to cover the bricks. + +It was on a warm morning in spring during my ninth year, that, while I +stood vigorously scraping the wall over my head, I heard a voice +speaking in indignant tones at my back. + +"You bad boy, what are you doing?" it said. + +Wheeling about, I stood again face to face with the little girl of the +red shoes and the dancing feet. Except for her shoes she was dressed all +in white just as I had last seen her, and this time, I saw with disgust, +she held a whining and sickly kitten clasped to her breast. + +"I know you are doing something you ought not to," she repeated, "what +is it?" + +"Nothink," I responded, and stared at her red shoes like one possessed. + +"Then why were you crawling so close along the wall to keep me from +seeing you?" + +"I wa'nt." + +"You wa'nt what?" + +"I wa'nt crawlin' along the wall; I was just tryin' to look in," I +answered defiantly. + +An old negro "mammy," in a snowy kerchief and apron, appeared suddenly +around the corner near which we stood, and made a grab at the child's +shoulder. + +"You jes let 'im alont, honey, en he ain' gwine hu't you," she said. + +"He won't hurt me anyway," replied the little girl, as if I were a +suspicious strange dog, "I'm not afraid of him." + +Then she made a step forward and held the whining grey kitten toward me. + +"Don't you want a cat, boy?" she asked, in a coaxing tone. + +My hands flew to my back, and the only reason I did not retreat before +her determined advance was that I could hardly retreat into a brick +wall. + +"I've just found it in the alley a minute ago," she explained. "It's +very little. I'd like to keep it, only I've got six already." + +"I don't like cats," I replied stubbornly, shaking my head. "I saw Peter +Finn's dog kill one. He shook it by the neck till it was dead. I'm goin' +to train my dog to kill 'em, too." + +Raising herself on the toes of her red shoes, she bent upon me a look so +scorching that it might have burned a passage straight through me into +the bricks. + +"I knew you were a horrid bad boy. You looked it!" she cried. + +At this I saw in my imagination the closed gate of the enchanted garden, +and my budding sportsman's proclivities withered in the white blaze of +her wrath. + +"I don't reckon I'll train him to catch 'em by the back of thar necks," +I hastened to add. + +At this she turned toward me again, her whole vivid little face with its +red mouth and arched black eyebrows inspired by a solemn purpose. + +"If you'll promise never, never to kill a cat, I'll let you come into +the garden--for a minute," she said. + +I hesitated for an instant, dazzled by the prospect and yet bargaining +for better terms. "Will you let me walk under the arbours and down all +the box-bordered paths?" + +She nodded. "Just once," she responded gravely. + +"An' may I play under the trees on the terrace where you built yo' +houses of moss and stones?" + +"For a little while. But I can't play with you because--because you +don't look clean." + +My heart sank like lead to my waist line, and I looked down ashamed at +my dirty hands. + +"I--I'd rather play with you," I faltered. + +"Fur de Lawd's sake, honey, come in en let dat ar gutter limb alont," +exclaimed the old negress, wagging her turbaned head. + +"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do," said her charge, after a deep +moment; "I'll let you play with me for a little while if you'll take the +cat." + +"But I ain't got any use for it," I stammered. + +"Take it home for a pet. Grandmama won't let any more come on the place. +She's very cruel is grandmama, isn't she, mammy?" + +"Go way, chile, dar ain' nobody dat 'ould want all dem ar critters," +rejoined the old negress. + +"_I_ do," said the little girl, and sighed softly. + +"I'll take it home with me," I began desperately at last, "if you'll let +me play with you the whole evening." + +"And take you into the house?" + +"An' take me into the house," I repeated doggedly. + +Her glance brushed me from head to foot, while I writhed under it, "I +wonder why you don't wash your face," she observed in her cool, +impersonal manner. + +I fell back a step and stared defiantly at the ground. + +"I ain't got any water," I answered, driven to bay. + +"I think if you'd wash it ever so hard and brush your hair flat on your +head, you'd look very nice--for a boy," she remarked. "I like your eyes +because they're blue, and I have a dog with blue eyes exactly like +yours. Did you ever see a blue-eyed dog? He's a collie. But your hair +stands always on end and it's the colour of straw." + +"It growed that way," I returned. "You can't get it to be flat. Ma has +tried." + +"I bet I could," she rejoined, and caught at the old woman's hand. "This +is my mammy an' her name is Euphronasia, an' she's got blue eyes an' +golden hair," she cried, beginning to dance up and down in her red +shoes. + +"Gawd erlive, lamb, I'se ez black ez a crow's foot," protested the old +woman, at which the dance of the red shoes changed into a stamp of +anger. + +"You aren't!--You aren't! You've got blue eyes an' golden hair!" +screamed the child. "I won't let you say you haven't,--I won't let +anybody say you haven't!" + +It took a few minutes to pacify her, during which the old negress +perjured herself to the extent of declaring on her word of honour that +she _had_ blue eyes and golden hair; and when the temper of her "lamb" +was appeased, we turned the corner, approached the front of the house, +and ascended the bright bow of steps. As we entered the wide hall, my +heart thumped so violently that I hurriedly buttoned my coat lest the +little girl should hear the sound and turn indignantly to accuse, me of +disturbing the peace. Then as the front door closed softly behind us, I +stood blinking nervously in the dim green light which entered through +the row of columns at the rear, beyond which I saw the curving stairway +and the two miniature yew trees at its foot. There was a strange musty +smell about the house--a smell that brings to me now, when I find it in +old and unlighted buildings, the memory of the high ceiling, the shining +floor over which I moved so cautiously, and the long melancholy rows of +moth-eaten stags' heads upon the wall. + +A door at the far end was half open, and inside the room there were two +ladies--one of them very little and old and shrivelled, and the other a +pretty, brown-haired, pliant creature, whom I recognised instantly as +our visitor of that stormy October evening more than two years ago. She +was reading aloud when we entered, in a voice which sounded so soft and +pious that I wondered if I ought to fold my hands and bow my head as I +had been taught to do in the infant Sunday-school. + +"Be careful not to mush your words, Sarah; the habit is growing upon +you," remarked the elder lady in a sharp, imperative tone. + +"Shall I read it over, mother? I will try to speak more distinctly," +returned the other submissively, and she began again a long paragraph +which, I gathered vaguely, related to that outward humility which is the +becoming and appropriate garment for a race of miserable sinners. + +"That is better," commented the old lady, in an utterly ungrateful +manner, "though you have never succeeded in properly rolling your r's. +There, that will do for to-day, we will continue the sermon upon +Humility to-morrow." + +She was so little and thin and wrinkled that it was a mystery to me, as +I looked at her, how she managed to express so much authority through so +small a medium. The chair in which she sat seemed almost to swallow her +in its high arms of faded green leather; and out of her wide, gathered +skirt of brocade, her body rose very erect, like one of my mother's +black-headed bonnet pins out of her draped pincushion. On her head there +was a cap of lace trimmed gayly with purple ribbons, and beneath this +festive adornment, a fringe of false curls, still brown and lustrous, +lent a ghastly coquetry to her mummied features. In the square of +sunshine, between the gauze curtains at the window, a green parrot, in a +wire cage, was scolding viciously while it pecked at a bit of +sponge-cake from its mistress's hand. At the time I was too badly +frightened to notice the wonderful space and richness of the room, with +its carved rosewood bookcases, and its dim portraits of beruffled +cavaliers and gravely smiling ladies. + +"Sally," said the old lady, turning upon me a piercing glance which was +like the flash of steel in the sunlight, "is that a boy?" + +Going over to the armchair, the little girl stood holding the kitten +behind her, while she kissed her grandmother's cheek. + +"What is it, Sally, dear?" asked the younger woman, closing her book +with a sigh. + +"It's a boy, mamma," answered the child. + +At this the old lady stiffened on her velvet cushions. "I thought I had +told you, Sally," she remarked icily, "that there is nothing that I +object to so much as a boy. Dogs and cats I have tolerated in silence, +but since I have been in this house no boy has set foot inside the +doors." + +"I am sure, dear mamma, that Sally did not mean to disobey you," +murmured the younger woman, almost in tears. + +"Yes, I did, mamma," answered the child, gravely, "I meant to disobey +her. But he has such nice blue eyes," she went on eagerly, her lips +glowing as she talked until they matched the bright red of her dancing +shoes; "an' he's goin' to take a kitten home for a pet, an' he says the +reason he doesn't wash his face is because he hasn't any water." + +"Is it possible," enquired the old lady in the manner of her pecking +parrot, "that he does not wash his face?" + +My pride could bear it no longer, and opening my mouth I spoke in a +loud, high voice. + +"If you please, ma'am, I wash my face every day," I said, "and all over +every Saturday night." + +She was still feeding the parrot with a bit of cake, and as I spoke, she +turned toward me and waved one of her wiry little hands, which reminded +me of a bird's claw, under its ruffle of yellowed lace. + +"Bring him here, Sally, and let me see him," she directed, as if I had +been some newly entrapped savage beast. + +Catching me by the arm, Sally obediently led me to the armchair, where I +stood awkward and trembling, with my hands clutching the flaps of my +breeches' pockets, and my eyes on the ground. + +For a long pause the old lady surveyed me critically with her merciless +eyes. Then, "Give him a piece of cake, Sally," she remarked, when the +examination was over. + +Sally's mother had come up softly behind me while I writhed under the +piercing gaze, and bending over she encircled my shoulders with her +protecting arms. + +"He's a dear little fellow, with such pretty blue eyes," she said. + +As she spoke I looked up for the first time, and my glance met my +reflection in a long, gold-framed mirror hanging between the windows. +The "pretty blue eyes" I saw, but I saw also the straw-coloured hair, +the broad nose sprinkled with freckles, and the sturdy legs disguised by +the shapeless breeches, which my mother had cut out of a discarded +dolman she had once worn to funerals. It was a figure which might have +raised a laugh in the ill-disposed, but the women before me carried kind +hearts in their bosoms, and even grandmama's chilling scrutiny ended in +nothing worse than a present of cake. + +"May I play with him just a little while, grandmama?" begged Sally, and +when the old lady nodded permission, we joined hands and went through +the open window out upon the sunny porch. + +On that spring morning the colours of the garden were all clear white +and purple, for at the foot of the curving stairway, and on the upper +terrace, bunches of lilacs bloomed high above the small spring flowers +that bordered the walk. Beneath the fluted columns a single great +snowball bush appeared to float like a cloud in the warm wind. As we +went together down the winding path to the box maze which was sprinkled +with tender green, a squirrel, darting out of one of the latticed +arbours, stopped motionless in the walk and sat looking up at us with a +pair of bright, suspicious eyes. + +"I reckon I could make him skeet, if I wanted to," I remarked, +embarrassed rather than malevolent. + +Her glance dwelt on me thoughtfully for a moment, while she stood there, +kicking a pebble with the toe of a red shoe. + +"An' I reckon I could make _you_ skeet, if I wanted to," she replied +with composure. + +Since the parade of mere masculinity had failed to impress her, I +resorted to subtler measures, and kneeling among the small spring +flowers which powdered the lower terrace, I began laboriously erecting a +palace of moss and stones. + +"I make one every evening, but when the ghosts come out and walk up an' +down, they scatter them," observed Sally, hanging attentively upon the +work. + +"Are there ghosts here really an' have you seen 'em?" I asked. + +Stretching out her hand, she swept it in a circle over the growing +palace. "They are all around here--everywhere," she answered. "I saw +them one night when I was running away from my father. Mamma and I hid +in that big box bush down there, an' the ghosts came and walked all +about us. Do you have to run away from your father, too?" + +For an instant I hesitated; then my pride triumphed magnificently over +my truthfulness. "I ran clear out to the hill an' all the way down it," +I rejoined. + +"Is his face red and awful?" + +"As red as--as an apple." + +"An apple ain't awful." + +"But he is. I wish you could see him." + +"Would he kill you if he caught you?" + +"He--he'd eat me," I panted. + +She sighed gravely. "I wonder if all fathers are like that?" she said. +"Anyway, I don't believe yours is as bad as mine." + +"I'd like to know why he ain't?" I protested indignantly. + +Her lips quivered and went upward at the corners with a trick of +expression which I found irresistible even then. + +"It's a pity that it's time for you to go home," she observed politely. + +"I reckon I can stay a little while longer," I returned. + +She shook her head, but I had already gone back to the unfinished +palace, and as the work progressed, she forgot her hint of dismissal in +watching the fairy towers. We were still absorbed in the building when +her mother came down the curving stairway and into the maze of box. + +"It's time for you to run home now, pretty blue eyes," she said in her +soft girlish way. Then catching our hands in hers, she turned with a +merry laugh, and ran with us up the terraced walk. + +"Is your mamma as beautiful as mine?" asked Sally, when we came to a +breathless stop. + +"She's as beautiful as--as a wax doll," I replied stoutly. + +"That's right," laughed the lady, stooping to kiss me. "You're a dear +boy. Tell your mother I said so." + +She went slowly up the steps as she spoke, and when I looked back a +moment later, I saw her smiling down on me between two great columns, +with the snowball bush floating in the warm wind beneath her and the +swallows flying low in the sunshine over her head. + +I had opened the side gate, when I felt a soft, furry touch on my hand, +and Sally thrust the forgotten kitten into my arms. + +"Be good to her," she said pleadingly. "Her name's Florabella." + +Resisting a dastardly impulse to forswear my bargain, I tucked the +mewing kitten under my coat, where it clawed me unobserved by any +jeering boy in the street. Passing Mrs. Cudlip's house on my way home, I +noticed at once that the window stood invitingly open, and yielding with +a quaking heart to temptation, I leaned inside the vacant room, and +dropped Florabella in the centre of the old lady's easy chair. Then, +fearful of capture, I darted along the pavement and flung myself +breathlessly across our doorstep. + +A group of neighbours was gathered in the centre of our little +sitting-room, and among them I recognised the flushed, perspiring face +of Mrs. Cudlip herself. As I entered, the women fell slightly apart, and +I saw that they regarded me with startled, compassionate glances. A +queer, strong smell of drugs was in the air, and near the kitchen door +my father was standing with a frightened and sheepish look on his face, +as if he had been thrust suddenly into a prominence from which he shrank +back abashed. + +"Where's ma?" I asked, and my voice sounded loud and unnatural in my own +ears. + +One of the women--a large, motherly person, whom I remembered without +recognising, crossed the room with a heavy step and took me into her +arms. At this day I can feel the deep yielding expanse of her bosom, +when pushing her from me, I looked round and repeated my question in a +louder tone. + +"Where's ma?" + +"She was took of a sudden, dear," replied the woman, still straining me +to her. "It came over her while she was standin' at the stove, an' befo' +anybody could reach her, she dropped right down an' was gone." + +She released me as she finished, and walking straight through the +kitchen and the consoling neighbours, I opened the back door, and +closing it after me, sat down on the single step. I can't remember that +I shed a tear or that I suffered, but I can still see as plainly as if +it were yesterday, the clothes-line stretching across the little yard +and the fluttering, half-dried garments along it. There was a striped +shirt of my father's, a faded blue one of mine, a pink slip of baby +Jessy's, and a patched blue and white gingham apron I had seen only that +morning tied at my mother's waist. Between the high board fence, above +the sunken bricks of the yard, they danced as gayly as if she who had +hung them there was not lying dead in the house. Samuel, trotting from a +sunny corner, crept close to my side, with his warm tongue licking my +hand, and so I sat for an hour watching the flutter of the blue, the +pink, and the striped shirts on the clothes-line. + +"There ain't nobody to iron 'em now," I said suddenly to Samuel, and +then I wept. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +IN WHICH I START IN LIFE + + +With my mother's death all that was homelike and comfortable passed from +our little house. For three days after the funeral the neglected clothes +still hung on the line in the back yard, but on the fourth morning a +slatternly girl, with red hair and arms, came from the grocery store at +the corner, and gathered them in. My little sister was put to nurse with +Mrs. Cudlip next door, and when, at the end of the week, President went +off to work somewhere in a mining town in West Virginia, my father and I +were left alone, except for the spasmodic appearances of the red-haired +slattern. Gradually the dust began to settle and thicken on the dried +cat-tails in the china vases upon the mantel; the "prize" red geranium +dropped its blossoms and withered upon the sill; the soaking dish-cloths +lay in a sloppy pile on the kitchen floor; and the vegetable rinds were +left carelessly to rot in the bucket beside the sink. The old neatness +and order had departed before the garments my mother had washed were +returned again to the tub, and day after day I saw my father shake his +head dismally over the soggy bread and the underdone beef. Whether or +not he ever realised that it was my mother's hand that had kept him +above the surface of life, I shall never know; but when that strong +grasp was relaxed, he went hopelessly, irretrievably, and unresistingly +under. In the beginning there was merely a general wildness and disorder +in his appearance,--first one button, then two, then three dropped from +his coat. After that his linen was changed less often, his hair allowed +to spread more stiffly above his forehead, and the old ashes from his +pipe dislodged less frequently from the creases in his striped shirt. At +the end of three months I noticed a new fact about him--a penetrating +odour of alcohol which belonged to the very air he breathed. His mind +grew slower and seemed at last almost to stop; his blue eyes became +heavier and glazed at times; and presently he fell into the habit of +going out in the evenings, and not returning until I had cried myself to +sleep, under my tattered quilt, with Samuel hugged close in my arms. +Sometimes the red-haired girl would stop after her work for a few +friendly words, proving that a slovenly exterior is by no means +incompatible with a kindly heart; but as a usual thing I was left alone, +after the boys had gone home from their play in the street, to amuse +myself and Samuel as I could through the long evening hours. Sometimes I +brought in an apple or a handful of chestnuts given me by one of the +neighbours and roasted them before the remnants of fire in the stove. +Once or twice I opened my mother's closet and took down her clothes--her +best bombazine dress, her black cashmere mantle trimmed with bugles, her +long rustling crape veil, folded neatly beneath her bonnet in the tall +bandbox--and half in grief, half in curiosity, I invaded those sacred +precincts where my hands had never dared penetrate while she was alive. +My great loss, from which probably in more cheerful surroundings I +should have recovered in a few weeks, was renewed in me every evening by +my loneliness and by the dumb sympathy of Samuel, who would stand +wagging his tail for an hour at the sight of the cloak or the bonnet +that she had worn. Like my father I grew more unkempt and ragged every +day I lived. I ceased to wash myself, because there was nobody to make +me. My buttons dropped off one by one and nobody scolded. I dared no +longer go near the gate of the enchanted garden, fearing that if the +little girl were to catch sight of me, she would call me "dirty," and +run away in disgust. Occasionally my father would clap me upon the +shoulder at breakfast, enquire how I was getting along, and give me a +rusty copper to spend. But for the greater part of the time, I believe, +he was hardly aware of my existence; the vacant, flushed look was almost +always in his face when we met, and he stayed out so late in the evening +that it was not often his stumbling footsteps aroused me when he came +upstairs to bed. + +So accustomed had I become to my lonely hours by the kitchen stove, with +Samuel curled up at my feet, that when one night, about six months after +my mother's death, I heard the unexpected sound of my father's tread on +the pavement outside, I turned almost with a feeling of terror, and +waited breathlessly for his unsteady hand on the door. It came after a +minute, followed immediately by his entrance into the kitchen, and to my +amazement I saw presently that he was accompanied by a strange woman, +whom I recognised at a glance as one of those examples of her sex that +my mother had been used to classify sweepingly as "females." She was +plump and jaunty, with yellow hair that hung in tight ringlets down to +her neck, and pink cheeks that looked as if they might "come off" if +they were thoroughly scrubbed. There was about her a spring, a bounce, +an animation that impressed me, in spite of my inherited moral sense, as +decidedly elegant. + +My father's eyes looked more vacant and his face fuller than ever. +"Benjy," he began at once in a husky voice, while his companion released +his arm in order to put her ringlets to rights, "I've brought you a new +mother." + +At this the female's hands fell from her hair, and she looked round in +horror. "What boy is that, Thomas?" she demanded, poised there in all +her flashing brightness like a figure of polished brass. + +"That boy," replied my father, as if at a loss exactly how to account +for me, "that boy is Ben Starr--otherwise Benjy--otherwise--" + +He would have gone on forever, I think, in his eagerness to explain me +away, if the woman had not jerked him up with a peremptory question: +"How did he come here?" she enquired. + +Since nothing but the naked truth would avail him now, he uttered it at +last in an eloquent monosyllable--"Born." + +"But you told me there was not a chick or a child," she exclaimed in a +rage. + +For a moment he hesitated; then opening his mouth slowly, he gave voice +to the single witticism of his life. + +"That was befo' I married you, dearie," he said. + +"Well, how am I to know," demanded the female, "that you haven't got a +parcel of others hidden away?" + +"Thar's one, the littlest, put out to nurse next do', an' another, the +biggest, gone to work in the West," he returned in his amiable, childish +manner. + +After my unfortunate introduction, however, the addition of a greater +and a lesser appeared to impress her but little. She looked scornfully +about the disorderly room, took off her big, florid bonnet, and began +arranging her hair before the three-cornered mottled mirror on the wall. +Then wheeling round in a temper, her eyes fell on Samuel, sitting +dejectedly on his tail by my mother's old blue and white gingham apron. + +"What is that?" she fired straight into my father's face. + +"That," he responded, offering his unnecessary information as if it were +a piece of flattery, "air the dawg, Sukey." + +"Whose dawg?" + +Goaded into defiance by this attack on my only friend, I spoke in a +shrill voice from the corner into which I had retreated. "Mine," I said. + +"Wall, I'll tell you what!" exclaimed the female, charging suddenly upon +me, "if I've got to put up with a chance o' kids, I don't reckon I've +got to be plagued with critters, too. Shoo, suh! get out!" + +Seizing my mother's broom, she advanced resolutely to the attack, and an +instant later, to my loud distress and to Samuel's unspeakable horror, +she had whisked him across the kitchen and through the back door out +into the yard. + +"Steady, Sukey, steady," remarked my father caressingly, much as he +might have spoken to a favourite but unruly heifer. For an instant he +looked a little crestfallen, I saw with pleasure, but as soon as Samuel +was outside and the door had closed, he resumed immediately his usual +expression of foolish good humour. It was impossible, I think, for him +to retain an idea in his mind after the object of it had been removed +from his sight. While I was still drying my eyes on my frayed coat +sleeve, I watched him with resentment begin a series of playful lunges +at the neck of the female, which she received with a sulky and +forbidding air. Stealing away the next minute, I softly opened the back +door and joined the outcast Samuel, where he sat whining upon the step. + +The night was very dark, but beyond the looming chimneys a lonely star +winked at me through the thick covering of clouds. I was a sturdy boy +for my age, sound in body, and inwardly not given to sentiment or +softness of any kind; but as I sat there on the doorstep, I felt a lump +rise in my throat at the thought that Samuel and I were two small +outcast animals in the midst of a shivering world. I remembered that +when my mother was alive I had never let her kiss me except when she +paid me by a copper or a slice of bread laid thickly with blackberry +jam; and I told myself desperately that if she could only come back now, +I would let her do it for nothing! She might even whip me because I'd +torn my trousers on the back fence, and I thought I should hardly feel +it. I recalled her last birthday, when I had gone down to the market +with five cents of my own to buy her some green gage plums, of which she +was very fond, and how on the way up the hill, being tempted, I had +eaten them all myself. At the time I had stifled my remorse with the +assurance that she would far rather I should have the plums than eat +them herself, but this was cold comfort to me to-night while I regretted +my selfishness. If I had only saved her half, as I had meant to do if +the hill had not been quite so long and so steep. + +Samuel snuggled closer to me and we both shivered, for the night was +fresh. The house had grown quiet inside; my father and his new wife had +evidently left the kitchen and gone upstairs. As I sat there I realised +suddenly, with a pang, that I could never go inside the door again; and +rising to my feet, I struck a match and fumbled for a piece of chalk in +my pocket. Then standing before the door I wrote in large letters across +the panel:-- + + "DEAR PA. + I have gone to work. + Your Aff. son, + BEN STARR." + +The blue flame of the match flickered an instant along the words; then +it went out, and with Samuel at my heels, I crept through the back gate +and down the alley to the next street, which led to the ragged brow of +the hill. Ahead of me, as I turned off into Main Street, the scattered +lights of the city showed like blurred patches upon the darkness. +Gradually, while I went rapidly downhill, I saw the patches change into +a nebulous cloud, and the cloud resolve itself presently into straight +rows of lamps. Few people were in the streets at that hour, and when I +reached the dim building of the Old Market, I found it cold and +deserted, except for a stray cur or two that snarled at Samuel from a +heap of trodden straw under a covered wagon. Despite the fact that I was +for all immediate purposes as homeless as the snarling curs, I was not +without the quickened pulses which attend any situation that a boy may +turn to an adventure. A high heart for desperate circumstances has never +failed me, and it bore me company that night when I came back again with +aching feet to the Old Market, and lay down, holding Samuel tight, on a +pile of straw. + +In a little while I awoke because Samuel was barking, and sitting up in +the straw I saw a dim shape huddled beside me, which I made out, after a +few startled blinks, to be the bent figure of a woman wrapped in a black +shawl with fringed ends, which were pulled over her head and knotted +under her chin. From the penetrating odour I had learned to associate +with my father, I judged that she had been lately drinking, and the +tumbled state of my coat convinced me that she had been frustrated by +Samuel in a base design to rifle my pockets. Yet she appeared so +miserable as she sat there rocking from side to side and crying to +herself, that I began all at once to feel very sorry. It seemed to hurt +her to cry and yet I saw that the more it hurt her the more she cried. + +"If I were you," I suggested politely, "I'd go home right away." + +"Home?" repeated the woman, with a hiccough, "what's home?" + +"The place you live in." + +"Lor, honey, I don't live in no place. I jest walks." + +"But what do you do when you get tired?" + +"I walks some mo'." + +"An' don't you ever leave off?" + +"Only when it's dark like this an' thar's no folks about." + +"But what do folks say to you when they see you walkin'?" + +"Say to me," she threw back her head and broke into a drunken laugh, +"why, they say to me: 'Step lively!'" + +She crawled closer, peering at me greedily under the pale glimmer of the +street lamp. + +"Why, you're a darlin' of a boy," she said, "an' such pretty blue eyes!" +Then she rose to her feet and stood swaying unsteadily above me, while +Samuel broke out into angry barks. "Shall I tell you a secret because of +yo' blue eyes?" she asked. "It's this--whatever you do in this world, +you step lively about it. I've done a heap of lookin' an' I've seen the +ones who get on are the ones who step the liveliest. It ain't no matter +where you're goin', it ain't no matter who's befo' you, if you want to +get there first, step lively!" + +She went out, taking her awful secret with her, and turning over I fell +asleep again on my pile of straw. "If ever I have a dollar I'll give it +to her so she may stop walkin'," was my last conscious thought. + +My next awakening was a very different one, for the light was streaming +into the market, and a cheerful red face was shining down, like a rising +sun, over a wheelbarrow of vegetables. + +"Don't you think it's about time all honest folk were out of bed, +sonny?" enquired a voice. + +"I ain't been here mo'n an hour," I retorted, resenting the imputation +of slothfulness with a spirit that was not unworthy of my mother. + +The open length of the market, I saw now, was beginning to present a +busy, almost a festive, air. Stalls were already laden with fruit and +vegetables, and farmers' wagons covered with canvas, and driven by +sunburnt countrymen, had drawn up to the sidewalk. Rising hurriedly to +my feet, I began rubbing my eyes, for I had been dreaming of the +fragrance of bacon in our little kitchen. + +"Now I'd be up an' off to home, if I were you, sonny," observed the +marketman, planting his wheelbarrow of vegetables on the brick floor, +and beginning to wipe off the stall. "The sooner you take yo' whippin', +the sooner you'll set easy again." + +"There ain't anybody to whip me," I replied dolefully, staring at the +sign over his head, on which was painted in large letters--"John +Chitling. Fish, Oysters (in season). Vegetables. Fruits." + +Stopping midway in his preparations, he turned on me his great beaming +face, so like the rising sun that looked over his shoulder, while I +watched his big jean apron swell with the panting breaths that drew from +his stomach. + +"Here's a boy that says he ain't got nobody to whip him!" he exclaimed +to his neighbours in the surrounding stalls,--a poultryman, covered with +feathers, a fish vender, bearing a string of mackerel in either hand, +and a butcher, with his sleeves rolled up and a blood-stained apron +about his waist. + +"I al'ays knew you were thick-headed, John Chitling," remarked the fish +dealer, with contempt, "but I never believed you were such a plum fool +as not to know a tramp when you seed him." + +"You ain't got but eleven of yo' own," observed the butcher, with a +snicker; "I reckon you'd better take him along to round out the full +dozen." + +"If I've got eleven there ain't one of 'em that wa'nt welcome," +responded John, his slow temper rising, "an' I reckon what the Lord +sends he's willing to provide for." + +"Oh, I reckon he is," sneered the fish dealer, who appeared to be of an +unpleasant disposition, "so long as you ain't over-particular about the +quality of the provision." + +"Well, he don't provide us with yo' fish, anyway," retorted John; and I +was watching excitedly for the coming blows when the butcher, who had +been looking over me as reflectively as if I had been a spring lamb +brought to slaughter, intervened with a peaceable suggestion that he +should take me into his service. + +"I'm on the lookout for a bright boy in my business," he observed. + +But the sight of blood on his rolled-up shirt sleeves produced in me +that strange sickness I had inherited from my mother, who used to pay an +old coloured market man to come up and wring the necks of her chickens; +and when the question was put to me if I'd like to be trained up for a +butcher, I drew back and stood ready for instant flight in case they +should attempt' to decide my future by present force. + +"I'd rather work for you," I said, looking straight at John Chitling, +for it occurred to me that if I were made to murder anything I'd rather +it would be oysters. + +"Ha! ha! he knows by the look of you, you're needin' one to make up the +dozen," exclaimed the butcher. + +"Well, I declar he does seem to have taken a regular fancy," +acknowledged John, flattered by my decision. "I don't want any real +hands now, sonny, but if you'd like to tote the marketing around with +Solomon, I reckon I can let you have a square meal or so along with the +others." + +"What'll yo' old woman say to it, John?" enquired the poultryman, with a +loud guffaw, "when you send her a new one of yo' own providin'?" + +John Chitling was busily arranging a pile of turnips with what he +doubtless thought was an artistic eye for colour, and the facetiousness +of the poultryman reacted harmlessly from his thick head. + +"You needn't worry about my wife, for she ain't worryin'," he rejoined, +and the shine seemed to gather like moisture on his round red face under +his shock of curling red hair. "She takes what comes an' leaves the Lord +to do the tendin'." + +At this a shout went up which I did not understand, until I came to know +later that an impression existed in the neighbourhood that the Chitlings +had left entirely too much of the bringing up of their eleven children +in the hands of Providence, who in turn had left them quite as +complacently to the care of the gutter. + +"I don't know but what too much trust in the Lord don't work as badly as +too little," observed the fish dealer, while John went on placidly +arranging his turnips and carrots. "What appears to me to be best +religion for a working-man is to hold a kind of middle strip between +faith and downright disbelievin'. Let yo' soul trust to the Lord's +lookin' arter you, but never let yo' hands get so much as an inklin' +that you're a-trustin'. Yes, the safest way is to believe in the Lord on +Sunday, an' on Monday to go to work as if you wa'nt quite so +sartain-sure." + +A long finger of sunshine stretched from beyond the chimneys across the +street, and pointed straight to the vegetables on John Chitling's +counter, until the onions glistened like silver balls, and the turnips +and carrots sent out flashes of dull red and bright orange. + +"I'll let you overhaul a barrel of apples, sonny," said the big man to +me; "have you got a sharp eye for specks?" + +When I replied that I thought I had, he pointed to a barrel from which +the top had been recently knocked. "They're to be sorted in piles, +according to size," he explained, and added, "For such is the +contrariness of human nature that there are some folks as can't see the +apple for the speck, an' others that would a long ways rather have the +speck than the apple. I've one old gentleman for a customer who can't +enjoy eatin' a pippin unless he can find one with a spot that won't keep +till to-morrow." + +Kneeling down on the bricks, as he directed, I sorted the yellow apples +until, growing presently faint from hunger, I began to gaze longingly, I +suppose, at the string of fish hanging above my head. + +"Maybe you'd like to run across an' get a bite of somethin' befo' you go +on," suggested John, reading my glances. + +But I only shook my head, in spite of my gnawing stomach, and went on +doggedly with my sorting, impelled by an inherent determination to do +with the best of me whatever I undertook to do at all. To the possession +of this trait, I can see now in looking back, I have owed any success or +achievement that has been mine--neither to brains nor to chance, but +simply to that instinct to hold fast which was bred in my bone and +structure. For the lack of this quality I have seen men with greater +intellects, with far quicker wits than mine, go down in the struggle. +Brilliancy I have not, nor any particular outward advantage, except that +of size and muscle; but when I was once in the race, I could never see +to right or to left of me, only straight ahead to the goal. + +Overhead the sun had risen slowly higher, until the open spaces and the +brick arches were flooded with light. If I had turned I should have seen +the gay vegetable stalls blooming like garden beds down the dim length +of the building. The voices of the market men floated toward me, now +quarrelling, now laughing, now raised to shout at a careless negro or a +prowling dog. I heard the sounds, and I smelt the strong smell of fish +from the gleaming strings of perch and mackerel hanging across the way. +But through it all I did not look up and I did not turn. My first piece +of work was done with the high determination to do it well, and it has +been my conviction from that morning that if I had slighted that barrel +of apples, I should have failed inevitably in my career. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +CONCERNING CARROTS + + +When I had finished my work, I rose from my knees and stood waiting for +John Chitling's directions. + +"Run along to the next street," he said kindly, "an' you can tell my +house, I reckon, by the number of children in the gutter. It's the house +with the most children befo' it. You'll find my wife cookin', likely +enough, in the kitchen, an' all you've got to say is that I told you to +tell her that you were hungry. She won't ax you many questions,--that +ain't her way,--but she'll jest set to work an' feed you." + +Reassured by this description, I whistled to Samuel, and crossed the +narrow street, crowded with farmers' wagons and empty wheelbarrows, to a +row of dingy houses, with darkened basements, which began at the corner. +By the number of ragged and unwashed children playing among the old tin +cans in the gutter before the second doorway, I concluded that this was +the home of John Chitling; and I was about to enter the close, dimly +lighted passage, when a chorus of piercing screams from the small +Chitlings outside, brought before me a large, slovenly woman, with +slipshod shoes, and a row of curl papers above her forehead. When she +reached the doorway, a small crowd had already gathered upon the +pavement, and I beheld a half-naked urchin of a year or thereabouts, +dangled, head downwards, by the hand of a passing milkman. + +"The baby's gone an' swallowed a cent, ma," shrieked a half-dozen treble +voices. + +"Well, the Lord be praised that it wa'nt a quarter!" exclaimed Mrs. +Chitling, with a cheerful piety, which impressed me hardly less than did +the placid face with which she gazed upon the howling baby. "There, +there, it ain't near so bad as it might have been. Don't scream so, +Tommy, a cent won't choke him an' a quarter might have." + +"But it was _my cent_, an' I ain't got a quarter!" roared Tommy, still +unconsoled. + +"Well, I'll give you a quarter when my ship comes in," responded his +mother, at which the grief of the small financier began gradually to +subside. + +"I had it right in my hand," he sniffled, with his knuckles at his eyes, +"an' I jest put it into the baby's mouth for keepin'." + +By this time Mrs. Chitling had received the baby into her arms, and +turning with an unruffled manner, she bore him into the house, where she +stopped his mouth with a spoonful of blackberry jam. As she replaced the +jar on the shelf she looked down, and for the first time became aware of +my presence. + +"He ain't swallowed anything of yours, has he?" she enquired. "If he has +you'll have to put the complaint in writing because the neighbours are +al'ays comin' to me for the things that are inside of him. I've never +been able to shake anything out of him," she added placidly, "except one +of Mrs. Haskin's bugle beads." + +She delivered this with such perfect amiability that I was emboldened to +say in my politest manner, "If you please, ma'am, Mr. Chitling told me I +was to say that he said that I was hungry." + +"So the baby really ain't took anything of yours?" she asked, relieved. +"Well, I al'ays said he didn't do half the damage they accused him of." + +As I possessed nothing except the clothes in which I stood, and even +that elastic urchin could hardly have accommodated these, I hastened to +assure her that I was the bearer of no complaint. This appeared to win +her entirely, and her large motherly face beamed upon me beneath the +aureole of curl papers that radiated from her forehead. With a single +movement she cleared a space on the disorderly kitchen table and slapped +down a plate, with a piece missing, as if the baby had taken a bite out +of it. + +"To think of yo' goin' hungry at yo' age an' without a mother," she +said, opening a safe, and whipping several slices of bacon and a couple +of eggs into a skillet. "Why, it would make me turn in my grave if I +thought of one of my eleven wantin' a bite of meat an' not havin' it." + +As she switched about in her cheerful, slovenly way, I saw that her +skirt had sagged at the back into what appeared to be an habitual gap, +and from beneath it there showed a black calico petticoat of a dingy +shade. But when a little later she sat me at the table, with Samuel's +breakfast on the floor beside me, I forgot her slatternly dress, her +halo of curl papers, and her slipshod shoes, while I plied my fork and +my fingers under the motherly effulgence of her smile. Tied into a high +chair in one corner, the baby sat bolt upright, with his thumb in his +mouth, deriving apparently the greatest enjoyment from watching my +appetite; and before I had finished, the ten cheerful children trooped +in and gathered about me. "Give him another cake, ma!" "It's my turn to +help him next, ma!" "I'll pour out his coffee for him!" "Oh, ma, let me +feed the dog," rose in a jubilant chorus of shrieks. + +"An' he ain't got any mother!" roared Tommy suddenly, and burst into +tears. + +A sob lodged in my throat, but before the choking sound of it reached my +ears, I felt myself enfolded in Mrs. Chitling's embrace. As I looked up +at her from this haven of refuge, it seemed to me that her curl papers +were transfigured into a halo, and that her face shone with a heavenly +beauty. + +I was given a bed in the attic, with the six younger Chitlings, and two +days later, when my father tracked me to my hiding-place, I hid under +the dark staircase in the hall, and heard my protector deliver an +eloquent invective on the subject of stepmothers. It was the one +occasion in my long acquaintance with her when I saw her fairly roused +out of her amiable inertia. Albemarle, the baby, had spilled bacon gravy +over her dress that very morning, and I had heard her console him +immediately with the assurance that there was "a plenty more in the +dish." But possessed though she was with that peculiar insight which +discerns in every misfortune a hidden blessing, in stepmothers, I found, +and in stepmothers alone, she could discern nothing except sermons. + +"To think of yo' havin' the brazen impudence to come here arter the harm +you've done that po' defenceless darling boy," she said, with a noble +dignity which obscured somehow her slovenly figure and her dirty +kitchen. Peering out from under the staircase, I could see that my +father stood quite humbly before her, twirling his hatbrim nervously in +his hands. + +"I ax you to believe, mum, what is the gospel truth," he replied, "that +I wa'nt meanin' any harm to Benjy." + +"Not meanin' any harm an' you brought him a stepmother befo' six months +was up?" she cried. "Well, that ain't _my_ way of lookin' at it, for +I've a mother's heart and it takes a mother's heart to stand the tricks +of children," she added, glancing down at the gravy stains on her bosom, +"an' it ain't to be supposed--is it?--that a stepmother should have a +mother's heart? It ain't natur--is it?--I put it to you, that any man or +woman should be born with a natchel taste for screamin' an' kickin' an' +bein' splashed with gravy, an' the only thing that's goin' to cultivate +them tastes in anybody is bringin' ten or eleven of 'em into the world. +Lord, suh, I wa'nt born with the love of dirt an' fussin' any mo' than +you. It just comes along o' motherhood like so much else. Now it stands +to reason that you ain't goin' to enjoy the trouble a child makes unless +that child is your own. Why, what did my baby do this mornin' when he +was learnin' to walk, but catch holt of the dish an' bring all the gravy +down over me. Is thar any livin' soul, I ax you plainly, expected to see +the cuteness in a thing like that except a mother? An' what I say is +that unless you can see the cuteness in a child instead of the badness, +you ain't got no business to bring 'em up--no, not even if you are the +President himself!--" + +Just here I distinctly heard my father murmur in his humble voice +something about having named an infant after the office and not the man. +But so brief was the pause in Mrs. Chitling's flow of remonstrance that +his interjection was overwhelmed almost before it was uttered. Her very +slovenliness, expressing as it did what she had given up rather than +what she was, served in a measure to increase the solemn majesty with +which she spoke; and I gathered easily that my father's small wits were +vanquished by the first charge of her impassioned rhetoric. + +"I thank you kindly, mum, it is all jest as you say," he replied, with +the submissiveness of utter defeat, "but, you see, a man has got to give +a thought to his washin'. It stands to reason--don't it?"--he concluded +with a flash of direct inspiration, "that thar ain't any way to get a +woman to wash free for you except to marry her." + +The logic of this appeared to impress even Mrs. Chitling, for she +hesitated an instant before replying, and when she finally spoke, I +thought her tone had lost something of its decision. + +"An' to make it worse you took a yaller-headed one an' they're the kind +that gad," she retorted feebly. + +My father shook his head, while a stubborn expression settled on his +sheepish features. + +"Thar's the cookin' an' the washin' for her to think of," he said. "I +ain't got any use for a woman that ain't satisfied with the pleasures of +home." + +"The moral kind are, Mr. Starr," rejoined Mrs. Chitling, who had +relapsed into a condition of placid indolence. "An' as far as I am +concerned since the first of my eleven came, I've never wanted to put on +my bonnet an' set foot outside that do'. My kitchen is my kingdom," she +added, with dignity, "an' for my part, I ain't got any use for those +women who are everlastingly standin' up for thar rights. What does a +woman want with rights, I say, when she can enjoy all the virtues? What +does she want to be standin' up for anyway as long as she can set?" + +"Thar's no doubt that it is true, mum," rejoined my father; and when he +took his leave a few minutes afterwards, their relations appeared to +have become extremely friendly,--not to say confidential. For an instant +I trembled in my hiding-place, half expecting to be delivered into his +hands. But he departed at last without discovering me, and I emerged +from the darkness and stood before Mrs. Chitling, who had begun +absent-mindedly to take down her curl papers. + +"Most likely it ain't his fault arter all," she observed, for her +judgment of him had already become a part of the general softness and +pliability of her criticism of life; "he seems to be a nice sensible +body with proper ideas about women. I like a man that knows a woman's +place, an' I like a woman that knows it, too. Yo' ma was a decent, +sober, hard-workin' person, wa'nt she, Benjy?" + +I replied that she was always in her kitchen and generally in her +washtub, except when she went to funerals. + +"Well, I ain't any moral objection to a funeral now an' then, or some +other sober kind of entertainment," returned Mrs. Chitling, removing her +curl papers in order to put on fresh ones, "but what I say is that the +woman who wants pleasure outside her do' ain't the woman that she ought +to be, that's all. What can she have, I ax, any mo' than she's got? +Ain't she got everything already that the men don't want? Ain't +sweetness an' virtue, an' patience an' long suffering an' childbearin' +enough for her without her impudently standin' up in the face of men an' +axin' for mo'? Had she rather have a vote than the respect of men, an' +ain't the respect of men enough to fill any honest female's life?" + +In the beginning of her discourse, she had turned aside to slap a +portion of cornmeal into a cracked yellow bowl, and after pouring a +little water out of a broken dipper, she began whipping the dough with a +long, irregular stroke that scattered a shower of fine drops at every +revolution of her hand. Two of the children had got into a fight over a +basin of apple parings, and she left her yellow bowl and separated them +with a hand that bestowed a patch of wet meal on the hair of one and on +the face of another. Not once did she hasten her preparations or +relinquish the cheerful serenity which endowed her large, loose figure +with a kind of majesty. + +The next day I started in as general assistant and market boy to John +Chitling, and when I was not sorting over ripe vegetables or barrels of +apples fresh from the orchard, I was toiling up the long hill, with a +split basket, containing somebody's marketing, on my arm. By degrees I +learned the names of John Chitling's patrons, the separate ways to their +houses, which always seemed divided by absurd distances, and the faces +of the negro cooks who met me at the kitchen steps and relieved me of my +burden. In the beginning I was accompanied on my rounds by a fat, +smudge-nosed youth some six or eight years my senior, who smoked vile +tobacco and enlivened the way by villainous abuses of John Chitling and +the universe. For the first months, I fear, my outlook upon the +customers I served was largely coloured by his narratives, but when at +last he dropped off and went on a new job at the butcher's, I arrived +gradually at a more correct, and certainly a more charitable, point of +view. By the end of the winter I had ceased to believe that John +Chitling was a skinflint and his customers all vipers. + +In the bright soft weather of that spring the city opened into a bloom +of faint pink and white, which comes back to me like a delicate +fragrance. The old gardens are gone now, with their honeysuckle arbours, +their cleanly swept walks, bordered by rows of miniature box, their +deep, odorous bowers of microphylla and musk cluster roses. Yet I can +look back still through the gauzy shadows of elms and sycamores; I can +hear still the rich, singing call of the negro drivers, as the covered +wagons from country farms passed sleepily through the hot sunshine which +fell between the arching trees; and I can smell again the air steeped in +a fragrance that is less that of flowers than of the subtle atmosphere +of an unforgettable youth. To-day the city is the same city no longer, +nor is the man who writes this the market boy who toiled up the long +hill in the blossoming spring, with the seeds of the future quickening +in brain and heart. + +The morning that I remember best is the one on which I carried the day's +marketing to an old grey house, with beds of wallflowers growing close +against the stuccoed bricks, and a shrub that flowered bright yellow +glancing through the tall gate at the rear. I had passed the wallflowers +as was my custom, and entering the gate at the back, had delivered my +basket at the kitchen door, when, as I turned to retrace my steps, I was +detained by the scolding voice of the pink-turbaned negro cook. + +"Hi! if you ain' clean furgit de car'ots!" she cried. + +Now the carrots had been placed in the basket, as I had seen with my own +eyes, by the hands of John Chitling himself, and I had been cautioned at +the time not to drop them out in my ascent of the steep hill. There was +a lady in the grey house, he had informed me, who was supposed to +subsist upon carrots alone, and who was in consequence extremely +particular as to their size and flavour. + +"Are you sure they ain't among the vegetables?" I asked. "I saw them put +in myself." + +"Huh! en you seed 'em fall out, too, I lay!" rejoined the negress, +protruding her thick red lips as she turned the basket upside down with +an indignant blow. + +"If they're lost, I'll go back and bring others," I said, thinking +disconsolately of the hill. + +"En you 'ould be back hyer agin in time fur supper," retorted the +outraged divinity. "Wat you reckon Miss Mitty wants wid car'ots fur 'er +supper? Dey is hern, dey ain' mine, but ef'n dey 'us mine I'd lamn you +twel you couldn't see ter set. Hit's bad enough ter hev ter live erlong +in de same worl' wid de slue-footed po' white trash widout hevin' dem +a-snatchin' de car'ots outer yo' ve'y mouf." + +My temper, never of the mildest, was stung quickly to a retort, and I +was about to order her to hold her tongue and return me my basket, when +the door into the house opened and shut, and the little girl of the +enchanted garden appeared in the flesh before me. + +"I want the plum cake you promised me, Aunt Mirabella," she cried; "and +oh! I hope you've stuffed it full of plums!" Then her glance fell upon +me and I saw her thick black eyebrows arch merrily over her sparkling +grey eyes. "It's my boy! My dear common boy!" she exclaimed, with a rush +toward me. For the first time I noticed then that she was dressed in +mourning, and that her black clothes intensified the dark brightness of +her look. "Oh, I _am_ glad to see you," she added, seizing my hand. + +I gazed up at her, wounded rather than pleased. "I shan't be a common +boy always," I answered. + +"Do you mind my calling you one? If you do, I won't," she said, and +without waiting a minute, "What are you doing here? I thought you lived +over on Church Hill." + +"I don't now. Ma died and I ran away." + +"My mother died, too," she returned softly, "and then grandmama." + +For a moment there was a pause. Then I said with a kind of stubborn +pride, "I ran away." + +The sadness passed from her and she turned on me in a glow of animation. +"Oh, I should just love dearly to run away!" she exclaimed. + +"You couldn't. You're a girl." + +"I could, too, if I chose." + +"Then why don't you choose?" + +"Because of Aunt Mitty and Aunt Matoaca. They haven't anybody but me." + +"I left my father," I replied proudly, "and I didn't care one single +bit. That's the trouble with girls. They're always caring." + +"Well, I'm not caring for you," she retorted with crushing effect, +shaking back the soft cloud of hair on her shoulders. + +"Boys don't care," I rejoined with indifference, taking up my market +basket. + +She detained me with a glance. "There's one thing they care +about--dreadfully," she said. + +"No, there ain't." + +Without replying in words she went over to the stove, and standing on +tiptoe, gingerly removed a hot plum cake, small and round and shaped +like a muffin, from the smoking oven. + +"I reckon they care about plum cake," she remarked tauntingly, and as +she held it toward me it smelt divinely. + +But my pride was in arms, for I remembered the cup of milk she had +refused disdainfully more than three years ago in our little kitchen. + +"No, they don't," I replied with a stoicism that might have added lustre +to a nobler cause. + +In my heart I was hoping that she would drop the cake into my basket in +spite of my protest, not only sparing my pride by an act of magnanimity, +but allowing me at the same time the felicity of munching the plums on +my way back to the Old Market. But the next moment, to my surprise and +indignation, she took a generous bite of the very dainty she had offered +me, making, while she ate it, provoking faces of a rapturous enjoyment. + +I was lingering in the doorway with a scornful yet fascinated gaze on +the diminishing cake, when the pink-turbaned cook, who had gone out to +empty a basin of pea shells, entered and resumed her querulous abuse. + +"De bes' thing you kin do is ter clear out," she said, "you en yo' +car'ots. He ain' fit'n fur you ter tu'n yo' eyes on, honey," she added +to the child, "en I don' reckon yo' ma would let yo' wipe yo' foot on +'im ef'n she 'uz alive. Yes'm, Miss Mitty, I'se a-comin'!" + +Her voice rose high in response to a call from the house, but before she +could leave the kitchen, the door behind the little girl opened, and a +lady said reprovingly:-- + +"Sally, Sally, haven't I told you to keep away from the kitchen?" + +"Oh, Aunt Mitty, I had to come for my plum cake," pleaded Sally, "and +Aunt Matoaca said that I might." + +An elderly lady, all soft black and old yellow lace, stood in the +doorway. Then before she could answer a second one appeared at her side, +and I had a vision of two slender maidenly figures, who reminded me, +meek heads, drooping faces, and creamy lace caps, of the wallflowers in +the border outside blooming in a patch of sunshine close against the old +grey house. At first there seemed to me to be no visible difference +between them, but after a minute, I saw that the second one was gentler +and smaller, with a softer smile and a more shrinking manner. + +"It was my fault, Sister Mitty," she said, "I told Sally that she might +come after her plum cake." + +Her voice was so low and mild that I was amazed the next instant to hear +the taller lady respond. + +"Of course, Sister Matoaca, you were at liberty to do as you thought +right, but I cannot conceal from you that I consider a person of your +dangerous views an unsafe guardian for a young girl." + +She advanced a step into the kitchen, and as Miss Matoaca followed her +she replied in an abashed and faltering voice:-- + +"I am sorry, Sister Mitty, that we do not agree in our principles. There +is nothing else that I will not sacrifice to you, but when a question of +principle is concerned, however painful it is to me, I must be firm." + +At this, while I was wondering what terrible thing a principle could +possibly turn out to be, I saw Miss Mitty draw herself up until she +fairly towered like a marble column about the shrinking figure in front +of her. + +"But such principles, Sister Matoaca!" she exclaimed. + +A flush rose to the clear brown surface of the little lady's cheek, and +more than ever, I thought, she resembled one of the wallflowers in the +border outside. Her head, with its shiny parting of soft chestnut hair, +was lifted with a mild, yet spirited gesture, and I saw the delicate +lace at her throat and wrists tremble as if a faint wind had passed. + +"Remember, sister, that my ancestors as well as yours fought against +oppression in three wars," she said in her sweet low voice that had, to +my ears, the sound of a silver bell, "and it has become my painful duty, +after long deliberation with my conscience, to inform you--I consider +that taxation without representation is tyranny." + +"Sally, go into the house," commanded Miss Mitty, "I cannot permit you +to hear such dangerous sentiments expressed." + +"Let me go, Sister Mitty," said Miss Matoaca, for the flash of spirit +had left her as wan and drooping as a blighted flower; "I will go +myself," and turning meekly, she left the kitchen, while Sally took a +second cake from the oven and came over to where I stood. + +"I'll just put this into your basket anyway," she remarked, "even if you +don't care about it." + +"Come, child," urged Miss Mitty, waiting, "but give the boy his cake +first." + +The cake was put into my hands, not into the basket, and I took a large, +delicious mouthful of it while I went by the meek wallflowers standing +in a row, like prim maiden ladies, against the old grey house. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +IN WHICH I MOUNT THE FIRST RUNG OF THE LADDER + + +As I passed through the gate and turned down Franklin Street under a +great sycamore that grew midway of the pavement, I vowed passionately in +my heart that I would remain "a common boy" no longer. With the plum +cake in my hand, and the delicious taste of it in my mouth, I placed my +basket on the ground and leaned against the silvery body of the tree, +with my eyes on Samuel, sitting very erect, with his paws held up, his +tail wagging, and his expectant gaze on my face. + +"What can we do about it, Samuel? How can we begin? Are we common to the +bone, I wonder? and how are we going to change?" + +But Samuel's thoughts were on the last bit of cake, and when I gave it +to him, he stopped begging like a wise dog that has what he wanted, and +lay down on the sidewalk with his eyes closed and his nose between his +outstretched paws. + +A gentle wind stirred overhead, and I smelt the sharp sweet fragrance of +the sycamore, which cast a delicate lace-work of shadows on the crooked +brick pavement. Not only the great sycamore and myself and Samuel, but +the whole blossoming city appeared to me in a dream; and as I glanced +down the quiet street, over which the large, slow shadows moved to and +fro, I saw through a mist the blurred grey-green foliage in the Capitol +Square. In the ground the seeds of the new South, which was in truth but +the resurrected spirit of the old, still germinated in darkness. But the +air, though I did not know it, was already full of the promise of the +industrial awakening, the constructive impulse, the recovered energy, +that was yet to be, and in which I, leaning there a barefooted market +boy, was to have my part. + +An aged negress, in a red bandanna turban, with a pipe in her mouth, +stopped to rest in the shadow of the sycamore, placing her basket, full +of onions and tomatoes, on the pavement beside my empty one. + +"Do you know who lives in that grey house, Mammy?" I asked. + +Twisting the stem of her pipe to the corner of her mouth, she sat +nodding at me, while the wind fluttered the wisps of grizzled hair +escaping from beneath her red and yellow head-dress. + +"Go 'way, chile, whar you done come f'om?" she demanded suspiciously. +"Ain't you ever hyern er Marse Bland? He riz me." + +I shook my head, sufficiently humbled by my plebeian ignorance. + +"Are the two old ladies his daughters?" + +"Wat you call Miss Mitty en Miss Matoaca ole fur? Dey ain' ole," she +responded indignantly. "I use'n ter b'long ter Marse Bland befo' de war, +en I kin recollect de day dat e'vy one er dem wuz born. Dey's all daid +now cep'n Miss Mitty en Miss Matoaca, en Marse Bland he's daid, too." + +"Then who is the little girl? Where did she come from?" + +There was a dandelion blooming in a tuft of grass between the loosened +bricks of the pavement, and I imprisoned it in my bare toes while I +waited impatiently for her answer. + +"Dat's Miss Sary's chile. She ran away wid Marse Harry Mickleborough, in +Marse Bland's lifetime, en he 'ouldn't lay eyes on her f'om dat day ter +his deaf. Miss Mitty en Miss Matoaca dey ain' ole, but Miss Sary she +want nuttin' mo'n a chile w'en she went off." + +"But why did her father never see her again?" + +"Dat was 'long er Marse Mickleborough, boy, but I ain' gwine inter de +ens en de outs er dat. Hit mought er been becaze er Marse +Mickleborough's fiddle, but I ain' sayin' dat hit wuz er dat hit wuzn't. +Dar's some folks dat cyarn' stan' de squeak er a fiddle, en he sutney +did fiddle a mont'ous lot. He usen ter beat Miss Sary, too, I hyern +tell, jes es you mought hev prognosticate er a fiddlin' man; but she +ain' never come home twel atter her pa wuz daid en buried over yonder in +Hollywood. Den w'en de will wuz read Marse Bland had lef ev'y las' cent +clean away f'om her en de chile. Atter Miss Mitty en Miss Matoaca die de +hull pa'cel er hit's er gwine ter some no 'count hospital whar dey take +live folks ter pieces en den put 'em tergedder agin." + +"You mean the little girl won't get a blessed cent?" I asked, and my +toes pinched the head of the dandelion until it dropped from its stem. + +"Ain't I done tole you how 'tis?" demanded the negress in exasperation, +rising from her seat on the curbing, "en wat mek you keep on axin' over +wat I done tole you?" + +She went off muttering to herself, while she clenched the stem of her +corncob pipe between her toothless gums; and picking up my basket and +whistling to Samuel, I walked slowly downhill, with the problem of the +future working excitedly in my brain. + +"A market boy is obliged to be a common boy," I thought, and +immediately: "Then I will not be a market boy any longer." + +So hopeless the next instant did my present condition of abject +ignorance appear to me, that I found myself regretting that I had not +asked advice of the aged negress who had rested beside me in the shadow +of the sycamore. I wondered if she would consider the selling of +newspapers a less degrading employment than the hawking of vegetables, +and with the thought, I saw stretching before me, in all its alluring +brightness, that royal road of success which leads from the castle of +dreams. One instant I resolved to start life as a fruit vender on the +train, and the next I was wildly imagining myself the president of the +Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad, with a jingling bunch of +seals and a gold-headed stick. When at last I reached the Old Market I +found that the gayety had departed from it, and it appeared slovenly and +disgusting to my awakened eyes. The fruit and vegetables, so fresh and +inviting in the early morning, were now stale and wilted; a swarm of +flies hung like a black cloud around the joint suspended before the +stall of Perkins, the butcher; and as I passed the stand of the fish +dealer, the odour of decaying fish entered my nostrils. Was it the same +place I had left only a few hours before, or what sudden change in +myself had revealed to me the grim ugliness of its aspect? "He's a +common boy," the little girl had said of me almost four years ago, and I +felt now, as I had felt then, the sting of a whip on my bare flesh at +her words. Come what might I would cease to be "a common boy" from that +hour. + +In the afternoon I bought an armful of "The Evening Planet," and +wandered up Franklin Street on a venture, crying the papers aloud with +an agreeable assurance that I had deserted huckstering to enter +journalism. As I passed the garden of the old grey house my voice rang +out shrilly, yet with a quavering note in it, "Eve-ning Pla-net!" and +almost before the sound had passed under the sycamores, the gate in the +wall opened cautiously and one of the ladies called to me timidly with +her face pressed to the crack. The two sisters were so much alike that +it was a minute before I discovered the one who spoke to be Miss +Matoaca. + +"Will you please let me have a paper," she said apologetically, "we do +not take it. There is no gentleman in the house. I--I am interested in +the marriages and deaths," she added, in a louder tone as if some one +were standing close to her beyond the garden gate. + +As I gave her the paper she stretched out her hand, under its yellowed +lace ruffle, and dropped the money into my palm. + +"I shall be obliged to you if you will call out every day when you pass +here," she remarked, after a minute; "I am almost always in the garden +at this hour." + +I promised her that I should certainly remember, and she was about to +draw inside the garden with a gentle, flower-like motion of her head, +when a gentleman, with a gold-headed walking-stick in his hand, lunged +suddenly round the smaller sycamore at the corner, and entrapped her +between the wall and the gate before she had time to retreat. + +"So I've caught you at it, eh, Miss Matoaca!" he exclaimed, shaking a +pudgy forefinger into her face, with an air of playful gallantry. +"Buying newspapers!" + +Poor Miss Matoaca, fluttering like a leaf before this onslaught of +chivalry, could only drop her bright brown eyes to the ground and flush +a delicate pink, which the General must have admired. + +"They--they are excellent to keep away moths!" she stammered. + +The sly and merry look, which I discovered afterwards to be his +invincible weapon with the ladies, appeared instantly in his watery grey +eyes. + +"And you don't even glance at the political headlines? Ah, confess, Miss +Matoaca." + +He was very stout, very red in the face, very round in the stomach, very +roguish in the eyes, yet I realised even then that some twenty years +before--when the results of his sportive masculinity had not become +visible in his appearance--he must have been handsome enough to have +melted even Miss Matoaca's heart. Like a faint lingering beam of autumn +sunshine, this comeliness, this blithe and unforgettable charm of youth, +still hovered about his heavy and plethoric figure. Across his expansive +front there stretched a massive gold chain of a unique pattern, and from +this chain, I saw now, there hung a jingling and fascinating bunch of +seals. The gentleman I might have forgotten, but that bunch of seals had +occupied for three long years a particular corner of my memory; and in +the instant that my eyes fell upon it, I saw again the ragged hill +covered with pokeberry, yarrow, and stunted sumach, the anchored vessel +outlined against the rosy sunset, and the panting stranger, who had +stopped to rest with his hand on my shoulder. I remembered suddenly that +I wanted to become the president of the Great South Midland and Atlantic +Railroad. + +He stood there now in all his redundant flesh before me, his large +mottled cheeks inflated with laughter, his full red lips pursed into a +gay and mocking expression. To me he personified success, happiness, +achievement--the other shining extreme from my own obscurity and +commonness; but the effect upon poor little Miss Matoaca was quite the +opposite, I judged the next minute, from the one that he had intended. I +watched her fragile shoulders straighten and a glow rather than a flash +of spirit pass into her uplifted face. + +"With your record, General Bolingbroke," she said, in a quavering yet +courageous voice, "you may refuse your approval, but not your respect, +to a matter of principle." + +The roguish twinkle, which was still so charming, appealed like the lost +spirit of youth in the General's eyes. + +"Ah, Miss Matoaca," he rejoined, in his most gallant manner, "principles +do not apply to ladies!" + +At this Miss Matoaca drew herself up almost haughtily, and I felt as I +looked at her that only her sex had kept her from becoming a general +herself. + +"It is very painful to me to disagree with the gentlemen I know," she +said, "but when it is a matter of conviction I feel that even the +respect of gentlemen should be sacrificed. My sister Mitty considers me +quite indelicate, but I cannot conceal from you that--" her voice broke +and dropped, but rose again instantly with a clear, silvery sound, "I +consider that taxation without representation is tyranny." + +A virgin martyr refusing to sacrifice a dove to Venus might have uttered +her costly heresy in such a voice and with such a look; but the General +met it suavely with a flourish of his wide-brimmed hat and a blandishing +smile. He was one of those gentlemen of the old school, I came to know +later, to whom it was an inherent impossibility to appear without +affectation in the presence of a member of the opposite sex. A high +liver, and a good fellow every inch of him, he could be natural, racy, +charming, and without vanity, when in the midst of men; but let so much +as the rustle of a petticoat sound on the pavement, and he would begin +to strut and plume himself as instinctively as the cock in the barnyard. + +"But what would you do with a vote, my dear Miss Matoaca," he protested +airily. "Put it into a pie?" + +His witticism, which he hardly seemed aware of until it was uttered, +afforded him the next instant an enjoyment so hilarious that I saw his +waist shake like a bowl of jelly between the flapping folds of his +alpaca coat. While he stood there with his large white cravat twisted +awry by the swelling of his crimson neck, and his legs, in a pair of +duck trousers, planted very far apart on the sidewalk, he presented the +aspect of a man who felt himself to be a graduate in the experimental +science of what he probably would have called "the sex." When I heard +him frequently alluded to afterwards as "a gay old bird," I wondered +that I had not fitted the phrase to him as he fixed his swimming, +parrot-like eyes on the flushed face of Miss Matoaca. + +"If that's all the use you'd make of it, I think we might safely trust +it to you," he observed with a flattering glance. "A woman who can make +your mince pies, dear lady, need not worry about her rights." + +"How is George, General?" asked Miss Matoaca, with an air of gentle, +offended dignity. "I heard he had come to live with you since his +mother's death." + +"So he has, the rascal," responded the General, "and a nephew under +twelve years of age is a severe strain on the habits of an elderly +bachelor." + +The corners of Miss Matoaca's mouth grew suddenly prim. + +"I suppose you could hardly close the door on your sister's orphan son," +she observed, in a severer tone than I had yet heard her use. + +He sighed, and the sigh appeared to pass in the form of a tremor through +his white-trousered legs. + +"Ah, that's it," he rejoined. "You ladies ought to be thankful that you +haven't our responsibilities. No, no, thank you, I won't come in. My +respects to Miss Mitty and to yourself." + +The gate closed softly as if after a love tryst, Miss Matoaca +disappeared into the garden, and the General's expression changed from +its jocose and smiling flattery to a look of genuine annoyance. + +"No, I don't want a paper, boy!" he exclaimed. + +With a wave of his gold-headed cane in my direction, he would have +passed on his way, but at his first step, happily for me, his toe struck +against a loosened brick, and the pain of the shock caused him to bend +over and begin rubbing his gouty foot, with an exclamation that sounded +suspiciously like an oath. Where was the roguish humour now in the small +watery grey eyes? The gout, not "the sex," had him ignominiously by the +heel. + +"If you please, General, do you remember me?" I enquired timidly. + +Still clasping his foot, he turned a crimson glare upon me. +"Damnation!--I mean Good Lord, have mercy on my toe, why should I +remember you?" + +"It was on Church Hill almost four years ago, you promised," I suggested +as a gentle spur to his memory. + +"And you expect me to remember what I promised four years ago?" he +rejoined with a sly twinkle. "Why, bless my soul, you're worse than a +woman." + +"You asked me, sir, if I wanted to grow up and be President," I +returned, not without resentment. + +Releasing his ankle abruptly, he stood up and slapped his thigh. + +"Great Jehosaphat! If you ain't the little chap who was content to be +nothing less than God Almighty!" he exclaimed. "I've told that story a +hundred times if I've told it once." + +"Then perhaps you'll help me a little, sir," I suggested. + +"Help you to become God Almighty?" he chuckled. + +"No, sir, help me to be the president of the Great South Midland and +Atlantic Railroad." + +"Then you'll be satisfied with the lesser office, eh?" + +"I shall, sir, if--if there isn't anything better." + +Again he slapped his thigh and again he chuckled. "But I've got one boy +already. I don't want another," he protested. "Good Lord, one is bad +enough when he's not your own." + +Whether or not he really supposed that I was a serious applicant for +adoption, I cannot say, but his face put on immediately an harassed and +suffering look. + +"Have you ever had a twinge of gout, boy?" he enquired. + +"No, sir." + +"Then you're lucky--damned lucky. When you go to bed to-night you get +down on your knees and thank the Lord that you've never had a twinge of +gout. You can even eat a strawberry without feeling it, I reckon?" + +I replied humbly that I certainly could if I ever got the chance. + +"And yet you ain't satisfied--you're asking to be president of a damned +railroad--a boy who can eat a strawberry without feeling it!" + +He moved on, limping slightly, and like a small persistent devil of +temptation, I kept at his elbow. + +"Isn't there anything that you can do for me, sir?" I asked, at the +point of tears. + +"Do for you? Bless my soul, boy, if I had your joints I shouldn't want +anything that anybody could do for me. Can't you walk, hop, skip, jump, +all you want to?" + +This was so manifestly unfair that I retorted stubbornly, "But I don't +want to." + +He glanced down on me with a flicker of his still charming smile. + +"Well, you would if you were president of the Great South Midland and +Atlantic and had looked into the evening paper," he said. + +"Are you president of it still, sir?" + +"Eh? eh? You'll be wanting to push me out of my job next, I suppose?" + +"I'd like to have it when you are dead, sir," I replied. + +But this instead of gratifying the General appeared plainly to annoy +him. "There now, you'd better run along and sell your papers," he +remarked irritably. "If I give you a dime, will you quit bothering me?" + +"I'd rather you'd give me a start, sir, as you promised." + +"Good Lord! There you are again! Do you know the meaning of +n-u-i-s-a-n-c-e, boy?" + +"No, sir." + +"Well, ask your teacher the next time you go to school." + +"I don't go to school. I work." + +"You work, eh? Well, look here, let's see. What do you want of me?" + +"I thought you might tell me how to begin. I don't want to stay common." + +For a moment his attention seemed fixed on a gold pencil which he had +taken from his waistcoat pocket. Then opening his card-case he scribbled +a line on a card and handed it to me. "If you choose you may take that +to Bob Brackett at the Old Dominion Tobacco Works, on Twenty-fifth +Street, near the river," he said, not unkindly. "If he happens to want a +boy, he may give you a job; but remember, I don't promise you that he +will want one,--and if he does, it isn't likely he'd make you president +on the spot," he concluded, with a chuckle. + +Waving a gesture of dismissal he started off at a hobble; then catching +the eye of a lady in a passing carriage, he straightened himself, bowed +with a gallant flourish of his wide-brimmed hat, and went on with a look +of agony but a jaunty pace. As I turned, a minute later, to discover who +could have wrought this startling change in the behaviour of the +General, an open surrey, the bottom filled with a pink cloud of wild +azaleas, stopped at the curbing before the grey house, and the faces of +Miss Mitty and Sally shone upon me over the blossoms. The child was +coloured like a flower from the sun and wind, and there was a soft dewy +look about her flushed cheeks, and her very full red lips. At the corner +of her mouth, near her square little chin, a tiny white scar showed like +a dimple, giving to her lower lip when she laughed an expression of +charming archness. I remember these things now--at the moment there was +no room for them in my whirling thoughts. + +"Oh!" cried the little girl in a burst of happiness, "there's my boy!" + +The next minute she had leaped out of the carriage and was bounding +across the pavement. Her arms were filled with azalea, and loosened +petals fluttered like a swarm of pink and white moths around her. + +"What are you doing, boy?" she asked. "Where is your basket?" + +"It's at the market. I'm selling papers." + +"Come, Sally," commanded Miss Mitty, stepping out of the surrey with the +rest of the flowers. "You must not stop in the street to talk to people +you don't know." + +"But I do know him, Aunt Mitty, he brings our marketing." + +"Well, come in anyway. You are breaking the flowers." + +The strong, heady perfume filled my nostrils, though when I remember it +now it changes to the scent of wallflowers, which clings always about my +memory of the old grey house, with its delicate lace curtains draped +back from the small square window-panes as if a face looked out on the +crooked pavement. + +"Please, Aunt Mitty, let me buy a paper," begged the child. + +"A paper, Sally! What on earth would you do with a paper?" + +"Couldn't I roll up my hair in it, Auntie?" + +"You don't roll up your hair in newspapers. Here, come in. I can't wait +any longer." + +Lingering an instant, Sally leaned toward me over the pink cloud of +azalea. "I'd just love to play with you and Samuel," she said with the +sparkling animation I remembered from our first meeting, "but dear Aunt +Mitty has so much pride, you know." + +She bent still lower, gave Samuel an impassioned hug with her free arm, +and then turning quickly away ran up the short flight of steps and +disappeared into the house. The next instant the door closed sharply +after her, and only the small rosy petals fluttering in the wind were +left to prove to me that I was really awake and it was not a dream. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +IN WHICH MY EDUCATION BEGINS + + +There was no lingering at kitchen doorways with scolding white-turbaned +cooks next morning, for as soon as I had delivered the marketing, I +returned the basket to John Chitling, and set out down Twenty-fifth +Street in the direction of the river. As I went on, a dry, pungent odour +seemed to escape from the pavement beneath and invade the air. The earth +was drenched with it, the crumbling bricks, the negro hovels, the few +sickly ailantus trees, exuded the sharp scent, and even the wind brought +stray wafts, as from a giant's pipe, when it blew in gusts up from the +river-bottom. Overhead the sky appeared to hang flat and low as if seen +through a thin brown veil, and the ancient warehouses, sloping toward +the river, rose like sombre prisons out of the murky air. It was still +before the introduction of modern machinery into the factories, and as I +approached the rotting wooden steps which led into the largest building, +loose leaves of tobacco, scattered in the unloading, rustled with a +sharp, crackling noise under my feet. + +Inside, a clerk on a high stool, with a massive ledger before him, +looked up at my entrance, and stuck his pen behind his ear with a sigh +of relief. + +"A gentleman told me you might want a boy, sir," I began. + +He got down from his stool, and sauntering across the room, took a long +drink from a bucket of water that stood by the door. + +"What gentleman?" he enquired, as he flirted a few drops on the steps +outside, and returned the tin dipper to the rusty nail over the bucket. + +I drew out the card, which I had kept carefully wrapped in a piece of +brown paper in my trousers' pocket. When I handed it to him, he looked +at it with a low whistle and stood twirling it in his fingers. + +"The gentleman owns about nine-tenths of the business," he remarked for +my information. Then turning his head he called over his shoulder to +some one hidden behind the massive ledgers on the desk. "I say, Bob, +here's a boy the General's sent along. What'll you do with him?" + +Bob, a big, blowzy man, who appeared to be upon terms of intimacy with +every clerk in the office, came leisurely out into the room, and looked +me over with what I felt to be a shrewd and yet not unkindly glance. +"It's the second he's sent down in two weeks," he observed, "but this +one seems sprightly enough. What's your name, boy?" + +"Ben Starr." + +"Well, Ben, what're you good for?" + +"'Most anything, sir." + +"'Most anything, eh? Well, come along, and I'll put you at 'most +anything." + +He spoke in a pleasant, jovial tone, which made me adore him on the +spot; and as he led me across a dark hall and up a sagging flight of +steps, he enquired good-humouredly how I had met General Bolingbroke and +why he had given me his card. + +"He's a great man, is the General!" he exclaimed with enthusiasm. "When +you met him, my boy, you met the biggest man in the South to-day." + +Immediately the crimson face, the white-trousered legs, the round +stomach, and even the gouty toe, were surrounded in my imagination with +a romantic halo. "What's he done to make him so big?" I asked. + +"Done? Why, he's done everything. He's opened the South, he's restored +trade, he's made an honest fortune out of the carpet-baggers. It's +something to own nine-tenths of the Old Dominion Tobacco Works, and to +be vice-president of the Bonfield Trust Company, but it's a long sight +better to be president of the Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad. +If you happen to know of a bigger job than that, I wish you'd point it +out." + +I couldn't point it out, and so I told him, at which he gave a friendly +guffaw and led the way in silence up the sagging staircase. At that +moment all that had been mere formless ambition in my mind was +concentrated into a single burning desire; and I swore to myself, as I +followed Bob, the manager, up the dark staircase to the leaf department, +that I, too, would become before I died the biggest man in the South and +the president of the Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad. The idea +which was to possess me utterly for thirty years dropped into my brain +and took root on that morning in the heavy atmosphere of the Old +Dominion Tobacco Works. From that hour I walked not aimlessly, but +toward a definite end. I might start in life, I told myself, with a +market basket, but I would start also with the resolution that out of +the market basket the Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad should +arise. The vow was still on my lips when the large sliding door on the +landing swung open, and we entered an immense barnlike room, in which +three or four hundred negroes were at work stemming tobacco. + +At first the stagnant fumes of the dry leaf mingling with the odours of +so many tightly packed bodies, caused me to turn suddenly dizzy, and the +rows of shining black faces swam before my eyes in a blur with the +brilliantly dyed turbans of the women. Then I gritted my teeth fiercely, +the mist cleared, and I listened undisturbed to the melancholy chant +which accompanied the rhythmic movements of the lithe brown fingers. + +At either end of the room, which covered the entire length and breadth +of the building, the windows were shut fast, and on the outside, close +against the greenish panes, innumerable flies swarmed like a black +curtain. Before the long troughs stretching waist high from wall to +wall, hundreds of negroes stood ceaselessly stripping the dry leaves +from the stems; and above the soft golden brown piles of tobacco, the +blur of colour separated into distinct and vivid splashes of red, blue, +and orange. Back and forth in the obscurity these brilliantly coloured +turbans nodded like savage flowers amid a crowd of black faces, in which +the eyes alone, very large, wide open, and with gleaming white circles +around the pupils, appeared to me to be really alive and human. They +were singing as we entered, and the sound did not stop while the manager +crossed the floor and paused for an instant beside the nearest worker, a +brawny, coal-black negro, with a red shirt open at his throat, on which +I saw a strange, jagged scar, running from ear to chest, like the +enigmatical symbol of some savage rite I could not understand. Without +turning his head at the manager's approach, he picked up a great leaf +and stripped it from the stem at a single stroke, while his tremendous +bass voice rolled like the music of an organ over the deep piles of +tobacco before which he stood. Above this rich volume of sound fluted +the piercing thin sopranos of the women, piping higher, higher, until +the ancient hymn resolved itself into something that was neither human +nor animal, but so elemental, so primeval, that it was like a voice +imprisoned in the soil--a dumb and inarticulate music, rooted deep, and +without consciousness, in the passionate earth. Over the mass of dark +faces, as they rocked back and forth, I saw light shadows tremble, as +faint and swift as the shadows of passing clouds, while here and there a +bright red or yellow head-dress rose slightly higher than its +neighbours, and floated above the rippling mass like a flower on a +stream. And it seemed to me as I stood there, half terrified by the +close, hot smells and the savage colours, that something within me +stirred and awakened like a secret that I had carried shut up in myself +since birth. The music grew louder in my ears, as if I, too, were a part +of it, and for the first time I heard clearly the words:-- + + "Christ totes de young lambs in his bosom, bosom, + Christ totes de young lambs in his bosom, bosom, + Christ totes de young lambs in his bosom, bosom, + Fa-ther, de ye-ar-ur Ju-bi-le-e!" + +Bob, the manager, picked up a leaf from the nearest trough, examined it +carefully, and tossed it aside. The great black negro turned his head +slowly toward him, the jagged scar standing out like a cord above the +open collar of his red shirt. + + "Christ leads de ole sheep by still watah, watah, + Christ leads de ole sheep by still watah, watah, + Christ leads de ole sheep by still watah, watah, + Fa-ther, de ye-ar-ur Ju-bi-le-e!" + +"If I were to leave you here an hour what would you do, Ben?" asked the +manager suddenly, speaking close to my ear. + +I thought for a moment. "Learn to stem tobacco quick'en they do," I +replied at last. + +"What have you found out since you came in?" + +"That you must strip the leaf off clean and throw it into the big trough +that slides it downstairs somewhere." + +A smile crossed his face. "If I give you a job it won't be much more +than running up and down stairs with messages," he said; "that's what a +nigger can't do." He hesitated an instant; "but that's the way I began," +he added kindly, "under General Bolingbroke." + +I looked up quickly, "And was it the way _he_ began?" + +"Oh, well, hardly. He belongs to one of the old families, you know. His +father was a great planter and he started on top." + +My crestfallen look must have moved his pity, I think, for he said as he +turned away and we walked down the long room, "It ain't the start that +makes the man, youngster, but the man that makes the start." + +The doors swung together behind us, and we descended the dark staircase, +with the piercing soprano voices fluting in our ears. + + "Christ leads de ole sheep by still watah, watah, + Christ leads de ole sheep by still watah, watah." + + * * * * * + +That afternoon I went home, full of hope, to my attic in the Old Market +quarter. Then as the weeks went on, and I took my place gradually as a +small laborious worker in the buzzing hive of human industry, whatever +romance had attached itself to the tobacco factory, scattered and +vanished in the hard, dry atmosphere of the reality. My part was to run +errands up and down the dark staircase for the manager of the leaf +department, or to stand for hours on hot days in the stagnant air, amid +the reeking smells of the big room, where the army of "stemmers" rocked +ceaselessly back and forth to the sound of their savage music. In all +those weary weeks I had passed General Bolingbroke but once, and by the +blank look on his great perspiring face, I saw that my hero had +forgotten utterly the incident of my existence. Yet as I turned on the +curbing and looked after him, while he ploughed, wiping his forehead, up +the long hill, under the leaves of mulberry and catalpa trees, I felt +instinctively that my future triumphs would be in a measure the +overthrow of the things for which he and his generation had stood. The +manager's casual phrase "the old families," had bred in me a secret +resentment, for I knew in my heart that the genial aristocracy, +represented by the president of the Great South Midland and Atlantic +Railroad, was in reality the enemy, and not the friend, of such as I. + +The long, hot summer unfolded slowly while I trudged to the factory in +the blinding mornings and back again to the Old Market at the +suffocating hour of sunset. Over the doors of the negro hovels luxuriant +gourd vines hung in festoons of large fan-shaped leaves, and above the +high plank fences at the back, gaudy sunflowers nodded their heads to me +as I went wearily by. The richer quarter of the city had blossomed into +a fragrant bower, but I saw only the squalid surroundings of the Old +Market, with its covered wagons, its overripe melons, its prowling dogs +hunting in refuse heaps, and beyond this the crooked street, which led +to the tobacco factory and then sagged slowly down to the river-bottom. +Sometimes I would lean from my little window at night into the stifling +atmosphere, where the humming of a mosquito, or the whirring of a moth, +made the only noise, and think of the enchanted garden lying desolate +and lovely under the soft shining of the stars. Were the ghosts moving +up and down the terraces in the mazes of scented box, I wondered? Then +the garden would fade far away from me into a cool, still distance, +while I knelt with my head in my hands, panting for breath in the +motionless air. Outside the shadow of the Old Market lay over all, +stretching sombre and black to where I crouched, a lonely, half-naked +child at my attic window. And so at last, bathed in sweat, I would fall +asleep, to awaken at dawn when the covered wagons passed through the +streets below, and the cry of "Wa-ter-mil-lion! Wa-ter-mil-lion!" rang +in the silence. Then the sun would rise slowly, the day begin, and Mrs. +Chitling's cheerful bustle would start anew. Tired, sleepless, +despairing, I would set off to work at last, while the Great South +Midland Railroad receded farther and farther into the dim province of +inaccessible things. + +After a long August day, when the factory had shut down while it was yet +afternoon, I crept up to Church Hill, and looked again over the spiked +wall into the enchanted garden. It was deserted and seemed very sad, I +thought, for its only tenants appeared to be the swallows that flew, +with short cries, in and out of the white columns. On the front door a +large sign hung, reading "For Sale"; and turning away with a sinking +heart, I went on to Mrs. Cudlip's in the hope of catching a glimpse of +baby Jessy, whom I had not seen since I ran away. She was playing on the +sidewalk, a pretty, golden-haired little girl, with the melting blue +eyes of my father; and when she caught sight of me, she gave a gurgling +cry and ran straight to me out of the arms of President, who, I saw to +my surprise, was standing in the doorway of our old home. He was taller +than my father now, with the same kind, sheepish face, and the awkward +movements as of an overgrown boy. + +"Wall, if it ain't Benjy!" he exclaimed, his slow wits paralysed by my +unexpected appearance. "If it ain't Benjy!" + +Turning aside he spat a wad of tobacco into the gutter, and then coming +toward me, seized both my hands and wrung them in his big fists with a +grip that hurt. + +"You're comin' along now, ain't you, Benjy?" he inquired proudly. + +"Tith my Pethedent," lisped baby Jessy at his knees, and he stooped from +his great height and lifted her in his arms with the gentleness of a +woman. + +"What about an eddication, Benjy boy?" he asked over the golden curls. + +"I can't get an education and work, too," I answered, "and I've got to +work. How's pa?" + +"He's taken an awful fondness to the bottle," replied President, with a +sly wink, "an' if thar's a thing on earth that can fill a man's thoughts +till it crowds out everything else in it, it's the bottle. But speakin' +of an eddication, you see I never had one either, an' I tell you, when +you don't have it, you miss it every blessed minute of yo' life. +Whenever I see a man step on ahead of me in the race, I say to myself, +'Thar goes an eddication. It's the eddication in him that's a-movin' an' +not the man.' You mark my words, Benjy, I've stood stock still an' seen +'em stridin' on that didn't have one bloomin' thing inside of 'em except +an eddication." + +"But how am I to get it, President?" I asked dolefully. "I've got to +work." + +"Get it out of books, Benjy. It's in 'em if you only have the patience +to stick at 'em till you get it out. I never had on o'count of my eyes +and my slowness, but you're young an' peart an' you don't get confused +by the printed letters." + +Diving into his bulging pockets, he took out a big leather purse, from +which he extracted a dollar and handed it to me. "Let that go toward an +eddication," he said, adding: "If you can get it out of books I'll send +you a dollar toward it every week I live. That's a kind of starter, +anyway, ain't it?" + +I replied that I thought it was, and carefully twisted the money into +the torn lining of my pocket. + +"I'm goin' back to West Virginy to-night," he resumed. "Arter I've seen +you an' the little sister thar ain't any use my hangin' on out of work." + +"Have you got a good place, President?" + +"As good as can be expected for a plain man without an eddication," he +responded sadly, and a half hour later, when I said good-by to him, with +a sob, he came to the brow of the hill, with little Jessy clinging to +his hand, and called after me solemnly, "Remember, Benjy boy, what you +want is an eddication!" + +So impressed was I by the earnestness of this advice, that as I went +back down the dreary hill, with its musty second-hand clothes' shops, +its noisy barrooms, and its general aspect of decay and poverty, I felt +that my surroundings smothered me because I lacked the peculiar virtue +which enabled a man to overcome the adverse circumstances in which he +was born. The hot August day was drawing to its end, and the stagnant +air in which I moved seemed burdened with sweat until it had become a +tangible thing. The gourd vines were hanging limp now over the negro +hovels, as if the weight of the yellow globes dragged them to the earth; +and in the small square yards at the back, the wilted sunflowers seemed +trying to hide their scorched faces from the last gaze of a too ardent +lover. Whole families had swarmed out into the streets, and from time to +time I stepped over a negro urchin, who lay flat on his stomach, +drinking the juice of an overripe watermelon out of the rind. Above the +dirt and squalor the street cries still rang out from covered wagons +which crawled ceaslessly back and forth from the country to the Old +Market. "Wa-ter-mil-lion. Wa-ter-mil-l-i-o-n! Hyer's yo' Wa-ter-mil-lion +fresh f'om de vi-ne!" And as I shut my eyes against the dirt, and my +nostrils against the odours, I saw always in my imagination the +enchanted garden, with its cool sweet magnolias and laburnums, and its +great white columns from which the swallows flew, with short cries, +toward the sunset. + +A white shopkeeper and a mulatto woman had got into a quarrel on the +pavement, and turning away to avoid them, I stumbled by accident into +the open door of a second-hand shop, where the proprietor sat on an old +cooking-stove drinking a glass of beer. As I started back my frightened +glance lit on a heap of dusty volumes in one corner, and in reply to a +question, which I put the next instant in a trembling voice, I was +informed that I might have the whole pile for fifty cents, provided I'd +clear them out on the spot. The bargain was no sooner clinched than I +gathered the books in my arms and staggered under their weight in the +direction of Mrs. Chitling's. Even for a grown man they would have made +a big armful, and when at last I toiled up to my attic, and dropped on +my knees by the open window, I was shaking from head to foot with +exhaustion. The dust was thick on my hands and arms, and as I turned +them over eagerly by the red light of the sunset, the worm-eaten +bindings left queer greenish stains on my fingers. Among a number of +loose magazines called _The Farmer's Friend_, I found an illustrated, +rather handsome copy of "Pilgrim's Progress," presented, as an +inscription on the flyleaf testified, to one Jeremiah Wakefield as a +reward for deportment; the entire eight volumes of "Sir Charles +Grandison"; a complete Johnson's Dictionary, with the binding missing; +and Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" in faded crimson morocco. When I +had dusted them carefully on an old shirt, and arranged them on the +three-cornered shelf at the head of my cot, I felt, with a glow of +satisfaction, that the foundations of that education to which President +had contributed were already laid in my brain. If the secret of the +future had been imprisoned in those mouldy books, I could hardly have +attacked them with greater earnestness; and there was probably no +accident in my life which directed so powerfully my fortunes as the one +that sent me stumbling into that second-hand shop on that afternoon in +mid-August. I can imagine what I should have been if I had never had the +help of a friend in my career, but when I try to think of myself as +unaided by Johnson's Dictionary, or by "Sir Charles Grandison," whose +prosiest speeches I committed joyfully to memory, my fancy stumbles in +vain in the attempt. For five drudging years those books were my +constant companions, my one resource, and to conceive of myself without +them is to conceive of another and an entirely different man. If there +was harm in any of them, which I doubt, it was clothed to appeal to an +older and a less ignorant imagination than mine; and from the elaborate +treatises on love melancholy in Burton's "Anatomy," I extracted merely +the fine aromatic flavour of his quotations. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +I LEARN A LITTLE LATIN AND A GREAT DEAL OF LIFE + + +My opportunity came at last when Bob Brackett, the manager of the leaf +department, discovered me one afternoon tucked away with the half of +Johnson's Dictionary in a corner of the stemming room, where the negroes +were singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." + +"I say, Ben, why ain't you out on the floor?" he asked. + +I laid the book face downwards on the window-sill, and came out, +embarrassed and secretive, to where he stood. "I just dropped down there +a minute ago to rest," I replied. + +"You weren't resting, you were reading. Show me the book." + +Without a word I handed him the great dictionary, and he fingered the +dog-eared pages with a critical and reflective air. + +"Holy Moses! it ain't a blessed thing except words!" he exclaimed, after +a minute. "Do you mean to tell me you can sit down and read a dictionary +for the pure pleasure of reading?" + +"I wasn't reading, I was learning," I answered. + +"Learning how?" + +"Learning by heart. I've already got as far as the _d_'s." + +"You mean you can say every last word of them _a_'s, _b_'s, and _c_'s +straight off?" + +I nodded gravely, my hands behind my back, my eyes on the beams in the +ceiling. "As far as the _d_'s." + +"And you're doing all this learning just to get an education, ain't +you?" + +My eyes dropped from the beams and I shook my head, "I don't believe +it's there, sir." + +"What? Where?" + +"I don't believe an education is in them. I did once." + +For a moment he stood turning over the discoloured leaves without +replying. "I reckon you can tell me the meaning of 'most any word, eh, +Ben?" he demanded. + +"Not unless it begins with _a_, _b_, or _c_, sir." + +"Well, any word beginning with an _a_, then, that's something. There're +a precious lot of 'em. How about allelujah, how's that for a mouthful?" + +Instinctively my eyes closed, and I began my reply in a tone that seemed +to chime in with the negro's melody. + +'Falsely written for Hallelujah, a word of spiritual exultation, used in +hymns; signifies, _Praise God. He will set his tongue, to those pious +divine strains; which may be a proper præludium to those allelujahs, he +hopes eternally to sing._ + +"'_Government of the Tongue._'" + +"Hooray! That's a whopper!" he exclaimed, with enthusiasm. "What's a +præ-lu-di-um?" + +"I told you I hadn't got to _p_'s yet," I returned, not without +resentment. + +The hymn changed suddenly; the negro in the red shirt, with the scar on +his neck, turned his great oxlike eyes upon me, and the next instant his +superb voice rolled, rich and deep, as the sound of an organ, from his +bared black chest. + + "A-settin' in de kingdom, + Y-e-s, m-y-L-a-w-d!" + +"Well, you've got gumption," said Bob, the manager. "That's what I +always lacked--just plain gumption, and when you ain't got it, there's +nothing to take its place. I was talking to General Bolingbroke about +you yesterday, Ben, and that's what I said. 'There's but one word for +that boy, General, and it's gumption.'" + +I accepted the tribute with a swelling heart. "What good will it do me +if I can't get an education?" I demanded. + +"It's that will give it to you, Ben. Why, don't you know every blessed +word in the English language that begins with an _a_? That's more than I +know--that's more, I reckon," he burst out, "than the General himself +knows!" + +In this there was comfort, if a feeble one. "But there're so many other +things besides the _a_'s that you've got to learn," I responded. + +"Yes, but if you learn the _a_'s, you'll learn the other things,--now +ain't that logic? The trouble with me, you see, is that I learned the +other things without knowing a blamed sight of an _a_. I tell you what +I'll do, Ben, my boy, I'll speak to the General about it the Very next +time he comes to the factory." + +He gave me back the dictionary, and I applied myself to its pages with a +terrible earnestness while I awaited the great man's attention. + +It was a week before it came, for the General, having gone North on +affairs of the railroad, did not condescend to concern himself with my +destiny until the more important business was arranged and despatched. +Being in a bland mood, however, upon his return, it appeared that he had +listened and expressed himself to some purpose at last. + +"Tell him to go to Theophilus Pry and let me have his report," was what +he had said. + +"But who is Theophilus Pry?" I enquired, when this was repeated to me by +Bob Brackett. + +"Dr. Theophilus Pry, an old friend of the General's, who takes his +nephew to coach in the evenings. The doctor's very poor, I believe, +because they say of him that he never refuses a patient and never sends +a bill. He swears there isn't enough knowledge in his profession to make +it worth anybody's money." + +"And where does he live?" + +"In that little old house with the office in the yard on Franklin +Street. The General says you're to go to him this evening at eight +o'clock." + +The sound of my beating heart was so loud in my ears that I hurriedly +buttoned my jacket across it. Then as if I were to be examined on +Johnson's Dictionary, my lips began to move silently while I spelled +over the biggest words. If I could only confine my future conversations +to the use of the _a_'s and _b_'s, I felt that I might safely pass +through life without desperate disaster in the matter of speech. + +It was a mild October evening, with a smoky blue haze, through which a +single star shone over the clipped box in Dr. Theophilus Pry's garden, +when I opened the iron gate and went softly along the pebbled walk to +the square little office standing detached from the house. A black +servant, carrying a plate of waffles from the outside kitchen, informed +me in a querulous voice that the doctor was still at supper, but I might +go in and wait; and accepting the suggestion with more amiability than +accompanied it, I entered the small, cheerful room, where a lamp, with a +lowered wick, burned under a green shade. Around the walls there were +many ancient volumes in bindings of stout English calf, and on the +mantelpiece, above which hung one of the original engravings of Latane's +"Burial," two enormous glass jars, marked "Calomel" and "Quinine," +presided over the apartment with an air of medicinal solemnity. They +were the only visible and positive evidence of the doctor's calling in +life, and when I knew him better in after years, I discovered that they +were the only drugs he admitted to a place in the profession of healing. +To the day of his death, he administered these alternatives with a high +finality and an imposing presence. It was told of him that he considered +but one symptom, and this he discovered with his hand on the patient's +pulse and his eyes on a big loud-ticking watch in a hunting case. If the +pulse was quick, he prescribed quinine, if sluggish, he ordered calomel. +To dally with minor ailments was as much beneath him as to temporise +with modern medicine. In his last years he was still suspicious of +vaccination, and entertained a profound contempt for the knife. Beyond +his faith in calomel and quinine, there were but two articles in his +creed; he believed first in cleanliness, secondly in God. "Madam," he is +reported to have remarked irreverently to a mother whom he found praying +for her child's recovery in the midst of a dirty house, "when God +doesn't respond to prayer, He sometimes answers a broom and a bucket of +soapsuds." Honest, affable, adored, he presented the singular spectacle +of a physician who scorned medicine, and yet who, it was said, had fewer +deaths and more recoveries to his credit than any other practitioner of +his generation. This belief arose probably in the legendary glamour +which resulted from his boundless, though mysterious, charities; for +despite the fact that he had until his death a large and devoted +following, he lived all his life in a condition of genteel poverty. His +single weakness was, I believe, an utter inability to appreciate the +exchange value of dollars and cents; and this failing grew upon him so +rapidly in his declining years that Mrs. Clay, his widowed sister, who +kept his house, was at last obliged to "put up pickles" for the market +in order to keep a roof over her brother's distinguished head. + +I was sitting in one of the worn leather chairs under the green lamp, +when the door opened and shut quickly, and Dr. Theophilus Pry came in +and held out his hand. + +"So you're the lad George was telling me about," he began at once, with +a charming, straightforward courtesy. "I hope I haven't kept you +waiting many minutes, sir." + +He was spare and tall, with stooping shoulders, a hooked nose, bearing a +few red veins, and a smile that lit up his face like the flash of a +lantern. Everything about his clothes that could be coloured was of a +bright, strong red; his cravat, his big silk handkerchief, and the polka +dots in his black stockings. "Yes, I like any colour as long as it's +red," he was fond of saying with his genial chuckle. + +Bending over the green baize cloth on the table, he pushed away a pile +of examination papers, and raised the wick of the lamp. + +"So you've started out to learn Dr. Johnson's Dictionary by heart," he +observed. "Now by a fair calculation how long do you suppose it will +take you?" + +I replied with diffidence that it appeared to me now as if it would very +likely take me till the Day of Judgment. + +"Well, 'tis as good an occupation as most, and a long ways better than +some," commented the doctor. "You've come to me, haven't you, because +you think you'd like to learn a little Latin?" + +"I'd like to learn anything, sir, that will help me to get on." + +"What's the business?" + +"Tobacco." + +"I don't know that Latin will help you much there, unless it aids you to +name a blend." + +"It--it isn't only that, sir, I--I want an education--not just a common +one." + +A smile broke suddenly like a beam of light on his face, and I +understood all at once why his calomel and his quinine so often cured. +At that moment I should have swallowed tar water on faith if he had +prescribed it. + +"I don't know much about you, my lad," he remarked with a grave, +old-fashioned courtesy, which lifted me several feet above the spot of +carpet on which I stood, "but a gentleman who starts out to learn old +Samuel Johnson's Dictionary by heart, is a gentleman I'll give my hand +to." + +With my pulses throbbing hard, I watched him take down a dog-eared Latin +Grammar, and begin turning the pages; and when, after a minute, he put a +few simple questions to me, I answered as well as I could for the lump +in my throat. "It's the fashion now to neglect the classics," he said +sadly, "and a man had the impertinence to tell me yesterday that the +only use for a dead language was to write prescriptions for sick people +in it. But I maintain, and I will repeat it, that you never find a +gentleman of cultured and elevated tastes who has not at least a bowing +acquaintance with the Latin language. The common man may deride--" + +I looked up quickly. "If you please, sir, I'd like to learn it," I broke +in with determination. + +He glanced at me kindly, secretly flattered, I suspect, by my +spontaneous tribute to his eloquence, and the leaves of the Latin +Grammar had fluttered open, when the door swung wide with a cheerful +bang, and a boy of about my own age, though considerably under my height +and size, entered the room. + +"I didn't get in from the ball game till an hour ago, doctor," he +exclaimed. "Uncle George says please don't slam me if I am late." + +Some surface resemblance to my hero of the railroad made me aware, even +before Dr. Pry introduced us, that the newcomer was the "young George" +of whom I had heard. He was a fresh, high-coloured boy, whose features +showed even now a slight forecast of General Bolingbroke's awful +redness. Before I looked: at him I got a vague impression that he was +handsome; after I looked at him I began to wonder curiously why he was +not? His hair was of a bright chestnut colour, very curly, and clipped +unusually close, in order to hide the natural wave of which, I +discovered later, he was ashamed. He had pleasant brown eyes, and a +merry smile, which lent a singular charm to his face when it hovered +about his mouth. + +"I say, doctor, I wish you'd let me off to-night. I'll do double +to-morrow," he begged, and then turned to me with his pleasant, intimate +manner: "Don't you hate Latin? I do. Before Dr. Theophilus began +coaching me I went to a woman, and that was worse--she made it so silly. +I hate women, don't you?" + +"Young George," observed Dr. Theophilus, with sternness, "for every +disrespectful allusion to the ladies, I shall give you an extra page of +grammar." + +"I'm no worse than uncle, doctor. Uncle says--" + +"I forbid you to repeat any flippant remarks of General Bolingbroke's, +George, and you may tell him so, with my compliments, at breakfast." + +Opening his book, he glanced at me gravely over its pages, and the next +instant my education in the ancient languages and the finer graces of +society commenced. + +On that first evening I won a place in the doctor's affections, which, I +like to think, I never really lost in the many changes the future +brought me. My obsequious respect for dead tongues redeemed, to a great +measure, the appalling ignorance I immediately displayed of the merest +rudiments of geography and history; and when the time came, I believe it +even reconciled him to my bodily stature, which always appeared to him +to be too large to conform to the smaller requirements of society. In my +fourteenth year I began to grow rapidly, and his chief complaint of me +after this was that I never learned to manage my hands and feet as if +they really belonged to me--a failing that I am perfectly aware I was +never able entirely to overcome. It would doubtless take the breeding of +all the Bolingbrokes, he once informed me, with a sigh, to enable a man +to carry a stature such as mine with the careless dignity which might +possibly have been attained by a moderate birth and a smaller body. + +"Nature has intended you for a prize-fighter, but God has made of you a +gentleman," he added, with his fine, characteristic philosophy, which +escaped me at the moment; "it is a blessing, I suppose, to be endowed +with a healthy body, but if I were you, I should endeavour to keep my +members constantly in my mind. It is the next best thing to behaving as +if they did not exist." + +This was said so regretfully that I hadn't the heart to inform him that +my mind, being of limited dimensions, found difficulty in accommodating +at one and the same time my bodily members and the Latin language. Even +my "Cæsar" caused me less misery at this period than did the problem of +the proper disposal of my hands and feet. Do what I would they were +hopelessly (by some singular freak of nature) in my way. The breeding of +all the Bolingbrokes would have been taxed to its utmost, I believe, to +behave for a single instant as if they did not exist. + +Except for the embarrassment of my increasing stature, the years that +followed my introduction to Dr. Theophilus, as he was called, stand out +in my memory as ones of almost unruffled happiness. The two great jars +of calomel and quinine on the mantelpiece became like faces of familiar, +beneficent friends; and the dusty bookcases, with their shining rows of +old English bindings, formed an appropriate background for the flight of +my wildest dreams. To this day those adolescent fancies have never +detached themselves from the little office, the scattered bricks of +which are now lying in the ruined garden between the blighted yew tree +and the uprooted box. I can see them still circling like vague faces +around the green lamp, under which Dr. Theophilus sits, with his brown +and white pointer, Robin, asleep at his feet. Sometimes there was a +saucer of fresh raspberry jam brought in by Mrs. Clay, the widowed +sister; sometimes a basket of winesap apples; and once a year, on the +night before Christmas, a large slice of fruit cake and a very small +tumbler of egg-nog. Always there were the cheery smile, the pleasant +talk, racy with anecdotes, and the wagging tail of Robin, the pointer. + +"A good dog, Ben, this little mongrel of yours," the doctor would say, +as he stooped to pat Samuel's head; "but then, all dogs are good dogs. +You remember your Plutarch? Now, here's this Robin of mine. I wouldn't +take five hundred dollars in my hand for him to-night." At this Robin, +the pointer, would lift his big brown eyes, and slip his soft nose into +his master's hand. "I wouldn't take five hundred dollars down for him," +Dr. Theophilus would repeat with emphasis. + +On the nights when our teacher was called out to a patient, as he often +was, George Bolingbroke and I would push back the chairs for a game of +checkers, or step outside into the garden for a wrestling match, in +which I was always the victor. The physical proportions which the doctor +lamented, were, I believe, the strongest hold I had upon the admiration +of young George. Latin he treated with the same half-playful, +half-contemptuous courtesy that I had observed in General Bolingbroke's +manner to "the ladies," and even the doctor he regarded as a mixture of +a scholar and a mollycoddle. It was perfectly characteristic that one +thing, and one thing only, should command his unqualified respect, and +this was the possession of the potential power to knock him down. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +IN WHICH I GROW UP + + +In my eighteenth year, when I had achieved a position and a salary in +the tobacco factory, I left the Old Market forever, and moved into a +room, which Mrs. Clay had offered to rent to me, in the house of Dr. +Theophilus. During the next twelve months my intimacy with young George, +who was about to enter the University, led to an acquaintance, though a +slight one, with that great man, the General. As the years passed my +dream of the Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad, instead of +evaporating, had become fixed in my mind as the fruition of all my toil, +the end of all my ambition. I saw in it still, as I had seen in it that +afternoon against the rosy sunset and the anchored vessel, the one +glorious possibility, the great adventure. The General's plethoric +figure, with his big paunch and his gouty toe, had never lost in my eyes +the legendary light in which I had enveloped it; and when George +suggested to me carelessly one spring afternoon that I should stop by +his house and have a look at his uncle's classical library, I felt my +cheeks burn, while my heart beat an excited tattoo against my ribs. The +house I knew by sight, a grave, low-browed mansion, with a fringe of +purple wistaria draping the long porch; and it was under a pendulous +shower of blossoms that we found the General seated with the evening +newspaper in his hand and his bandaged foot on a wicker stool. As we +entered the gate he was making a face over a glass of water, while he +complained fretfully to Dr. Theophilus, who sat in a rocking-chair, with +Robin, the pointer, stretched on a rug at his feet. + +"I'll never get used to the taste of water, if I live to be a hundred," +the great man was saying peevishly. "To save my soul I can't understand +why the Lord made anything so darn flat!" + +A single lock of hair, growing just above the bald spot on his head, +stirred in the soft wind like a tuft of bleached grass, while his lower, +slightly protruding lip pursed itself into an angry and childish +expression. He was paying the inevitable price, I gathered, for his +career as "a gay old bird"; but even in the rebuking glance which Dr. +Theophilus now bent upon him, I read the recognition that the president +of the Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad must be dosed more +sparingly than other men. Under his loose, puffy chin he wore a loose, +puffy tie of a magenta shade, in the midst of which a single black pearl +reposed; and when he turned his head, the creases in his neck looked +like white cords sunk deep in the scarlet flesh. + +"There's no use, Theophilus, I can't stand it," he protested. "Delilah, +bring me a sip of whiskey to put a taste in my mouth." + +"No whiskey, Delilah, not a drop," commanded the doctor sternly. "It's +the result of your own imprudence, George, and you've got to pay for it. +You've been eating strawberries, and I told you not to touch one with a +ten-foot pole." + +"You didn't say a word about strawberry shortcake," rejoined the +General, like a guilty child, "and this attack is due to an entirely +different cause. I dined at the Blands' on Sunday, and Miss Mitty gave +me mint sauce on my lamb. I never could abide mint sauce." + +Taking out his prescription book the doctor wrote down a prescription in +a single word, which looked ominously like "calomel" from a distance. + +"How did Miss Matoaca seem?" he asked, while Robin, the old pointer, +came and sniffed at my ankles, and I thought of Samuel, sleeping under a +flower bed in the doctor's garden. "She has a touch of malaria, and I +ordered her three grains of quinine every morning." + +A purple flush mounted to the General's face, which, if I could have +read it by the light of history, would have explained the scornful +flattery in his attitude toward "the sex." It was easy to catch the +personal note in his piquant allusions to "the ladies," though an +instinct, which he would probably have called a principle, kept them +always within the bounds of politeness. Later I was to learn that Miss +Matoaca had been the most ardent, if by no means the only, romance of +his youth; and that because of some headstrong and indelicate opinions +of hers on the subject of masculine morals, she had, when confronted +with tangible proofs of the General's airy wanderings, hopelessly +severed the engagement within a few weeks of the marriage. To a gay +young bird the prospect of a storm in a nest had been far from +attractive; and after a fierce quarrel, he had started dizzily down the +descent of his bachelorhood, while she had folded her trembling wings +and retired into the shadow. That Miss Matoaca possessed "headstrong +opinions," even the doctor, with all his gallantry, would have been the +last to deny. "She seems to think men are made just like women," he +remarked now, wonderingly, "but, oh, Lord, they ain't!" + +"I tell you it's those outlandish heathen notions of hers that are +driving us all crazy!" exclaimed the General, making a face as he had +done over his glass of water. "Talks about taxes without representation +exactly as if she were a man and had rights! What rights does a woman +want, anyway, I'd like to know, except the right to a husband? They all +ought to have husbands--God knows I'm not denying them that!--the state +ought to see to it. But rights! Pshaw! They'll get so presently they +won't know how to bear their wrongs with dignity. And I tell you, +doctor, if there's a more edifying sight than a woman bearing her wrongs +beautifully, I've never seen it. Why, I remember my Cousin Jenny +Tyler--you know she married that scamp who used to drink and throw his +boots at her. 'What do you do, Jenny?' I asked, in a boiling rage, when +she told me, and I never saw a woman look more like an angel than she +did when she answered, 'I pick them up.' Why, she made me cry, sir; +that's the sort of woman that makes a man want to marry." + +"I dare say you're right," sighed the doctor, "but Miss Matoaca is made, +of a different stuff. I can't imagine her picking up any man's boots, +George." + +"No more can I," retorted the General, "it serves her right that she +never got a husband. No gentleman wants to throw his boots at his wife, +but, by Jove, he likes to feel that if he were ever to do such a thing, +she'd be the kind that would pick them up. He doesn't want to think +everlastingly that he's got to walk a chalk-line or catch a flea in his +ear. Now, what do you suppose Miss Matoaca said to me on Sunday? We were +talking of Tom Frost's running for governor, and she said she hoped he +wouldn't be elected because he led an impure life. An impure life! Will +you tell me what business it is of an unmarried lady's whether a man +leads an impure life or not? It isn't ladylike--I'll be damned if it is! +I could see that Miss Mitty blushed for her. What's the world coming to, +I ask, when a maiden lady isn't ashamed to know that a man leads an +impure life?" + +He raged softly, and I could see that Dr. Theophilus was growing sterner +over his flippancy. + +"Well, you're a gay old bird, George," he remarked, "and I dare say you +think me something of a prude." + +Tearing off a leaf from his prescription book, he laid it on the table, +and held out his hand. Then he stood for a minute with his eyes on +Robin, who was marching stiffly round a bed of red geraniums near the +gate. "It's time to go," he added; "that old dog of mine is getting +ready to root up your geraniums." + +"You'd better keep a cat," observed the General, "they do less damage." + +Young George and I, who had stood in the shadow of the wistaria awaiting +the doctor's departure, came forward now, and I made my awkward bow to +the General's bandaged foot. + +"Any relative of Jack Starr?" he enquired affably as he shook my hand. + +I towered so conspicuously above him, while I stood there with my hat in +my hand, that I was for a moment embarrassed by my mere physical +advantages. + +"No, sir, not that I ever heard of," I answered. + +"Then you ought to be thankful," he returned peevishly, "for the first +time I ever met the fellow he deliberately trod on my toe--deliberately, +sir. And now they're wanting to nominate him for governor--but I say +they shan't do it. I've no idea of allowing it. It's utterly out of the +question." + +"Uncle George, I've brought Ben to see your library," interrupted young +George at my elbow. + +"Library, eh? Are you going to be a lawyer?" demanded the General. + +I shook my head. + +"A preacher?" in a more reverent voice. + +"No, sir, I'm in the Old Dominion Tobacco Works. You got me my first +job." + +"I got you your job--did I? Then you're the young chap that discovered +that blend for smoking. I told Bob you ought to have a royalty on that. +Did he give it to you?" + +"I'm to have ten per cent of the sales, sir. They've just begun." + +"Well, hold on to it--it's a good blend. I tried it. And when you get +your ten per cent, put it into the Old South Chemical Company, if you +want to grow rich. It isn't everybody I'd give that tip to, but I like +the looks of you. How tall are you?" + +"Six feet one in my stockings." + +"Well, I wouldn't grow any more. You're all right, if you can only +manage to keep your hands and feet down. You've got good eyes and a good +jaw, and it's the jaw that tells the man. Now, that's the trouble with +that Jack Starr they want to nominate for governor. He lacks jaw. 'You +can't make a governor out of a fellow who hasn't jaw,' that's what I +said. And besides, he deliberately trod on my toe the first time I ever +met him. Didn't know it was gouty, eh? What right has he got, I asked, +to suppose that any gentleman's toe isn't gouty?" + +His lower lip protruded angrily, and he sat staring into his glass of +water with an enquiring and sulky look. It is no small tribute to my +capacity for hero-worship to say that it survived even this nearer +approach to the gouty presence of my divinity. But the glamour of +success--the only glamour that shines without borrowed light in the +hard, dry atmosphere of the workaday world--still hung around him; and +his very dissipations--yes, even his fleshly frailties--reflected, for +the moment at least, a romantic interest. I began to wonder if certain +moral weaknesses were, indeed, the inevitable attributes of the great +man, and there shot into my mind, with a youthful folly of regret, the +memory of a drink I had declined that morning, and of a pretty maiden at +the Old Market whom I might have kissed and did not. Was the doctor's +teaching wrong, after all, and had his virtues made him a failure in +life, while the General's vices had but helped him to his success? I was +very young, and I had not yet reached the age when I could perceive the +expediency of the path of virtue unless in the end it bordered on +pleasant places. "The General is a bigger man than the doctor," I +thought, half angrily, "and yet the General will be a gay old bird as +long as the gout permits him to hobble." And it seemed to me suddenly +that the moral order, on which the doctor loved to dilate, had gone +topsy-turvy while I stood on the General's porch. As if reading my +thoughts the great man looked up at me, with his roguish twinkle. + +"Now there's Theophilus!" he observed. "Whatever you are, sir, don't be +a damned mollycoddle." + +Young George, plucking persistently at my sleeve, drew me at last out of +the presence and into the house, where I smelt the fragrance of +strawberries, freshly gathered. + +"Here're the books," said George, leading me to the door of a long room, +filled with rosewood bookcases and family portraits of departed +Bolingbrokes. Then as I was about to cross the threshold, the sound of a +bright voice speaking to the General on the porch caused me to stop +short, and stand holding my breath in the hall. + +"Good afternoon, General! You look as if you needed exercise." + +"Exercise, indeed! Do you take me for your age, you minx?" + +"Oh, come, General! You aren't old--you're lazy." + +By this time George and I had edged nearer the porch, and even before he +breathed her name in a whisper, I knew in the instant that her sparkling +glance ran over me, that she was my little girl of the red shoes just +budding into womanhood. She was standing in a square patch of sunlight, +midway between the steps and a bed of red geraniums near the gate, and +her dress of some thin white material was blown closely against the +curves of her bosom and her rounded hips. Over her broad white forehead, +with its heavily arched black eyebrows, the mass of her pale brown hair +spread in the strong breeze and stood out like the wings of a bird in +flight, and this gave her whole, finely poised figure a swift and +expectant look, as of one who is swept forward by some radiant impulse. +Her face, too, had this same ardent expression; I saw it in her eyes, +which fixed me the next moment with her starry and friendly gaze; in her +very full red lips that broke the pure outline of her features; and in +her strong, square chin held always a little upward with a proud and +impatient carriage. So vivid was my first glimpse of her, that for a +single instant I wondered if the radiance in her figure was not produced +by some fleeting accident of light and shadow. When I knew her better I +learned that this quality of brightness belonged neither to the mind nor +to an edge of light, but to the face itself--to some peculiar mingling +of clear grey with intense darkness in her brow and eyes. + +As she stood there chatting gayly with the General, young George eyed +her from the darkened hall with a glance in which I read, when I turned +to him, a touch of his uncle's playful masculine superiority. + +"She'll be a stunner, if she doesn't get too big," he observed. "I don't +like big girls--do you?" + +Then as I made no rejoinder, he added after a moment, "Do you think her +mouth spoils her? Aunt Hatty calls her mouth coarse." + +"Coarse?" I echoed angrily. "What does she mean by coarse?" + +"Oh, too red and too full. She says a lady's mouth ought to be a +delicate bow." + +"I never saw a delicate bow--" + +"No more did I--but I'd call Sally a regular stunner now, mouth and all. +Sally!" he broke out suddenly, and stepped out on the porch. "I'll go +riding with you some day," he said, "if you want me." + +She laughed up at him. "But I don't want you." + +"You wanted me bad enough a year ago." + +"That was a year ago." + +Running hurriedly down the steps, he stood talking to her beside the bed +of scarlet geraniums, while I felt a burning embarrassment pervade my +body to the very palms of my hands. + +"Where's the other fellow, George?" called the General, suddenly. +"What's become of him?" + +As he turned his head in my direction, I left the hall, and came out +upon the porch, acutely conscious, all the time, that there was too much +of me, that my hands and feet got in my way, that I ought to have put on +a different shirt in the afternoon. + +Sally was stooping over to snip off the head of a geranium, and when she +looked up the next instant, with her hair blown back from her forehead, +her starry, expectant gaze rested full on my own. + +"Why, it's the boy I used to know," she exclaimed, moving toward me. +"Boy, how do you do?" She put out her hand, and as I took it in mine, I +saw for the first time that she was a large girl for her age, and would +be a large woman. Her figure was already ripening under her thin white +gown, but her hands and feet were still those of a child, and moulded, I +saw, with that peculiar delicacy, which, I had learned from the doctor, +was the distinguishing characteristic of the Virginian aristocracy. + +"It is a long time since--since I saw you," she remarked in a cordial +voice. + +"It's been eight years," I answered. "I wonder that you remember me." + +"Oh, I never forget. And besides, if I didn't see you for eight years +more, I should still recognise you by your eyes. There aren't many +boys," she said merrily, "who have eyes like a blue-eyed collie's." + +With this she turned from me to George, and after a word or two to the +General, and a nod in my direction, they passed through the gate, and +went slowly along the street, her pale brown hair still blown like a +bird's wing behind her. + +The General's sister, young George's Aunt Hatty, a severe little lady, +with a very flat figure, had come out on the porch, and was offering her +brother a dose of medicine. + +"A good girl, Hatty," remarked the great man, in an affable mood. "A +little too much of her Aunt Matoaca's spirit for a wife, but a very good +girl, as long as you ain't married to her." + +"She would be handsome, George, except for her mouth. It's a pity her +mouth spoils her." + +"What's the matter with her mouth? I haven't got your eyesight, Hatty, +but it appears a perfectly good mouth to me." + +"That's because you have naturally coarse tastes, George. A lady's mouth +should be a delicate bow." + +A delicate bow, indeed! Those full, sensitive lips that showed like a +splash of carmine in the clear pallor of her face! As I walked home +under the broad, green leaves of the sycamores, I remembered the +features of the pretty maiden at the Old Market, and they appeared to me +suddenly divested of all beauty. It was as if a bright beam of sunshine +had fallen on a blaze of artificial light, and extinguished it forever. +Henceforth I should move straight toward a single love, as I had already +begun to move straight toward a single ambition. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +IN WHICH I ENTER SOCIETY AND GET A FALL + + +My first successful speculation was made in my twenty-first year with +five hundred dollars paid to me by Bob Brackett when the Nectar blend +had been six months on the market. By the General's advice I put the +money in the Old South Chemical Company, and selling out a little later +at high profits, I immediately reinvested. As the years went by, that +smoking mixture, discovered almost by accident in an idle moment, began +to yield me considerably larger checks twice a year; and twice a year, +with the General's enthusiastic assistance, I went in for a modest +speculation from which I hoped sometime to reap a fortune. When I was +twenty-five, a temporary depression in the market gave me the +opportunity which, as Dr. Theophilus had informed me almost daily for +ten years, "waits always around the corner for the man who walks +quickly." I put everything I owned into copper mining stock, then +selling very low, and a year later when the copper trade recovered +quickly and grew active, I rushed to the General and enquired +breathlessly if I must sell out. + +"Hold on and await developments," he replied from his wicker chair over +his bandaged foot, "and remember that the successful speculator is the +man who always runs in the other direction from the crowd. When you see +people sitting still, you'd better get up, and when you see them begin +to get up, you'd better sit still. Fortune's a woman, you know; don't +try to flirt with her, but at the same time don't throw your boots at +her head." + +Five years before I had left the tobacco factory to go into the +General's office, and my days were spent now, absorbed and alert, beside +the chair in which he sat, coolly playing his big game of chess, and +controlling a railroad. He was in his day the strongest financier in the +South, and he taught me my lesson. Tireless, sleepless, throbbing with a +fever that was like the fever of love, I studied at his side every +movement of the market, I weighed every word he uttered, I watched every +stroke of his stout cork-handled pen. An infallible judge of men, my +intimate knowledge soon taught me that it was by judging men, not +things, he had won his success. "Learn men, learn men, learn men," he +would repeat in one of his frequent losses of temper. "Everything rests +on a man, and the way to know the thing is to know the man." + +"That's why I'm learning you, General," I once replied, as he hobbled +out of his office on my arm. + +"Oh, I know, I know," he retorted with his sly chuckle. "You are letting +me lean on you now because you think the time will come when you can +throw me aside and stand up by yourself. It's age and youth, my boy, age +and youth." + +He sighed wearily, and looking at him I saw for the first time that he +was growing old. + +"Well, you've stood straight enough in your day, sir," I answered. + +"Oh, I've had my youth, and I shan't begin to put on a long face because +I've lost it. I didn't have your stature, Ben, but I had a pretty fair +middling-size one of my own. They used to say of me that I had an eye +for the big chance, and that's a thing a man's got to be born with. To +see big you've got to be big, and that's what I like about you--you +ain't busy looking for specks." + +"If I can only become as big a man as you, General, I shall be content." + +"No, you won't, no, you won't, don't stop at me. Already they are +beginning to call you my 'wonderful boy,' you know. 'I like that +wonderful boy of yours, George,' Jessoms said to me only last night at +the club. You know Jessoms--don't you? He's president of the Union +Bank." + +"Yes, I talked to him for two solid hours yesterday." + +"He told me so, and I said to him: 'By Jove, you're right, Jessoms, and +that boy's got a future ahead of him if he doesn't swell.' Now that's +the Gospel truth, Ben, and all the body you've got ain't going to save +you if you don't keep your head. If you ever feel it beginning to swell, +you step outside and put it under a pump, that's the best thing I know +of. How old are you?" + +"Twenty-six." + +"And you've got fifty thousand dollars already?" + +"Thanks to you, sir." + +"So you ain't swelled yet. Well, I've given you six years of hard +training, and I made it all the blamed harder because I liked you. +You've got the look of success about you, I've seen enough of it to know +it. They used to say of me in Washington that I could sit in my office +chair and overlook a line of men and spot every last one of them that +was going to get on. I never went wrong but once, and that was because +the poor devil began to swell and thought he was as big as his own +shadow. But if the look's there, I see it--it's something in the eye and +the jaw, and the grip of the hands that nobody can give you except God +Almighty--and by George, it turns me into a downright heathen and makes +me believe in fate. When a man has that something in the eye and in the +jaw and in the grip of the hand, there ain't enough devils in the +universe to keep him from coming out on top at the last. He may go +under, but he won't stay under--no, sir, not if they pile all the +bu'sted stocks in the market on top his shoulders." + +"Anyway, you've started me rolling, General, whether I spin on or come +to a dead stop." + +"Then remember," he retorted slyly, as we parted,' "that my earnest +advice to a young man starting in business is--don't begin to swell!" + +There was small danger of that, I thought, as I went on alone with my +vision of the Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad. From my +childhood I had seen the big road, as I saw it to-day, sweeping in a +bright track over the entire South, lengthening, branching, winding away +toward the distant horizon, girdling the cotton fields, the rice fields, +and the coal fields, like a protecting arm. One by one, I saw now, the +small adjunct lines, absorbed by the main system, until in the whole +South only the Great South Midland and Atlantic would be left. To +dominate that living organism, to control, in my turn, that splendid +liberator of a people's resources, this was still the inaccessible hope +upon which I had fixed my heart. + +In my room I found young George Bolingbroke, who had been waiting, as he +at once informed me, "a good half an hour." + +"I say, Ben," he broke out the next minute, "why don't you get the +housemaid to tie your cravats? She'd do it a long sight better. Are your +fingers all thumbs?" + +"They must be," I replied with a humility I had never assumed before the +General, "I can't do the thing properly to save my life." + +"I wonder it doesn't give you a common look," he remarked +dispassionately, while I winced at the word, "but somehow it only makes +you appear superior to such trifles, like a giant gazing over molehills +at a mountain. It's your size, I reckon, but you're the kind of chap who +can put on a turned-down collar with your evening clothes, or a tie +that's been twisted through a wringer, and not look ridiculous. It's the +rest of us that seem fops because we're properly dressed." + +"I'd prefer to wear the right thing, you know," I returned, crestfallen. + +"You never will. Anybody might as well expect a mountain to put forth +rose-bushes instead of pine. It suits you, somehow, like your hair, +which would make the rest of us look a regular guy. But I'm forgetting +my mission. I've brought you an invitation to a party." + +"What on earth should I do at a party?" + +"Look pleasant. Did I take you to Miss Lessie Bell's dancing class for +nothing? and were you put through the steps of the Highland Fling in +vain?" + +"I wasn't put through, I never learned." + +"Well, you kicked at it anyway. I say, is all your pirouetting to be +done with stocks? Are you going to pass away in ignorance of polite +society and the manners of the ladies?" + +"When I make a fortune, perhaps--" + +"Perhaps is always too late. To-morrow is better." + +"Where is the party?" + +"The Blands are giving it. Uncle George was puffing and blowing about +you when we dined there last Sunday, and Sally Mickleborough told me to +bring you to her party on Wednesday night." + +Rising hurriedly I walked away from young George to the fireplace. A +mist was before my eyes, I smelt again the scent of wallflowers, and I +saw in a dream the old grey house, with its delicate lace curtains +parted from the small square window-panes as if a face looked out on the +crooked pavement. + +"I'll go, George," I said, wheeling about, "if you'll pledge yourself +that I go properly dressed." + +"Done," he responded, with his unfailing amiability. "I'll tie your +cravat myself; and thank your stars, Ben, that whatever you are, you +can't be little, for that's the unforgivable sin in Sally's eyes." + +On Wednesday night he proved as good as his promise, and when nine +o'clock struck, it found me, in irreproachable evening clothes, +following him down Franklin Street, to the old house, where a softly +coloured light streamed through the windows and lay in a rosy pool under +the sycamores. All day I had been very nervous. At the moment when I was +reading telegrams for the General, I had suddenly remembered that I +possessed no gloves suitable to be worn at my first party, and I had +committed so many blunders that the great man had roared the word +"Swelled!" in a furious tone. Now, however, when the sound of a waltz, +played softly on stringed instruments, fell on my ears, my nervousness +departed as quickly as it had come. The big mahogany doors swung open +before us, and as I passed with George, into the brilliantly lighted +hall, where the perfume of roses filled the air, I managed to move, if +not with grace, at least with the necessary dignity of an invited guest. +The lamps, placed here and there amid feathery palm branches, glowed +under pink shades like enormous roses in full bloom, and up and down the +wide staircase, carpeted in white, a number of pretty girls tripped +under trailing garlands of Southern smilax. As we entered the door on +the right, I saw Miss Mitty and Miss Matoaca, standing very erect in +their black brocades and old lace, with outstretched hands and +constantly smiling lips. + +George presented me, with the slightly formal manner which seemed +appropriate to the occasion. I had held the little hand of each lady for +a minute in my own, and had looked once into each pair of brightly +shining eyes, when my glance, dropping from theirs, flew straight as a +bird to Sally Mickleborough, who stood talking animatedly to an elderly +gentleman with grey side-whiskers and a pleasant laugh. She was dressed +all in white, and her pale brown hair, which I had last seen flying like +the wing of a bird, was now braided and wound in a wreath about her +head. As the elderly gentleman bowed and passed on, she lifted her eyes, +and her starry, expectant gaze rested full on my face. + +Between us there stretched an expanse of polished floor, in which the +pink-shaded lamps and the nodding roses were mirrored as in a pool. +Around us there was the music of stringed instruments, playing a waltz +softly; the sound, too, of many voices, now laughing, now whispering; of +Miss Mitty's repeated "It was so good of you to come"; of Miss Matoaca's +gently murmured "We are _so_ glad to have you with us"; of Dr. +Theophilus's "You grow younger every day, ladies. Will you dance +to-night?"; of General Bolingbroke's "I never missed an opportunity of +coming to you in my life, ma'am"; of a confused chorus of girlish +murmurs, of youthful merriment. + +For one delirious instant it seemed to me that if I stepped on the +shining floor, I should go down as on a frozen pool. Then her look +summoned me, and as I drew nearer she held out her hand and stood +waiting. There was a white rose in her wreath of plaits, and when I bent +to speak to her the fragrance floated about me. + +"Do you still remember me because of the blue-eyed collie?" I asked, for +it was all I could think of. + +Her firm square chin was tilted a little upward, and as she smiled at +me, her thick black eyebrows were raised in the old childish expression +of charming archness. It was the face of an idea rather than the face of +a woman, and the power, the humour, the radiant energy in her look, +appeared to divide her, as by an immeasurable distance, from the pretty +girls of her own age among whom she stood. She seemed at once older and +younger than her companions--older by some deeper and sadder knowledge +of life, younger because of the peculiar buoyancy with which she moved +and spoke. As I looked at her mouth, very full, of an almost violent +red, and tremulous with expression, I remembered Miss Hatty's "delicate +bow" with an odd feeling of anger. + +"It has been a long time, but I haven't forgotten you, Ben Starr," she +said. + +"Do you remember the night of the storm and the cup of milk you wouldn't +drink?" + +"How horrid I was! And the geranium you gave me?" + +"And the churchyard and the red shoes and Samuel?" + +"Poor Samuel. I can't have any dogs now. Aunt Mitty doesn't like them--" + +Some one came up to speak to her, and while I bowed awkwardly and turned +away, I saw her gaze looking back at me from the roses and the +pink-shaded lamps. A touch on my arm brought the face of young George +between me and my ecstatic visions. + +"I say, Ben, there's an awfully pretty girl over there I want you to +waltz with--Bessy Dandridge." + +In spite of my protest he led me the next instant to a slim figure in +pink tarlatan, with a crown of azaleas, who sat in one corner between +two very stout ladies. As I approached, the stout ladies smiled at me +benignly, hiding suppressed yawns behind feather fans. Miss Dandridge +was, as George said, "awfully pretty," with large shallow eyes of pale +blue, an insipid mouth, and a shy little smile that looked as if she had +put it on with her crown of azaleas and would take it off again and lay +it away in her bureau drawer when the party was over. + +"Get up and dance, dear," urged one of the stout ladies sleepily, "we +ought to have come earlier." + +"The girls look very well," remarked the other, suddenly alert and +interested, "but I don't like this new fashion of wearing the hair. +Sally Mickleborough is handsome, though it's a pity she takes so much +after her father." + +My arm was already around the pink tarlatan waist of my partner, the +crown of azaleas had brushed my shoulder like a gentle caress, and I had +whirled halfway down the room in triumphant agony, when a floating +phrase uttered in a girlish voice entered my ears and carried confusion +into my brain. + +"Get out of the way. Doesn't Bessy look for all the world like a +rose-bush uprooted by a whirlwind?" + +I caught the words as I went, and they proved too much for the trembling +balance of my self-confidence. My strained gaze, fixed on the glassy +surface beneath my feet, plunged suddenly downward amid the reflected +roses and lamps. The music went wild and out of tune on the air. My +blood beat violently in my pulses, I made a single false step, tripped +over a flounce of pink tarlatan, which seemed to shriek as I went down, +and the next instant my partner and I were flat on the polished floor, +clutching desperately for support at the mirrored roses beneath. + +The wreck lasted only a minute. A single suppressed titter fell on my +ears, and was instantly checked. I looked up in time to see a smile +freeze on Miss Mitty's face, and melt immediately into an expression of +sympathy. The pretty girl, with the crown of azalea hanging awry on her +flaxen tresses, and her flounce of pink tarlatan held disconsolately in +her hand, looked for one dreadful instant as if she were about to burst +into tears. A few dancers had stopped and gathered sympathetically +around us, but the rest were happily whirling on, while the music, after +a piercing crescendo, came breathlessly to a pause amid a silence that I +felt to be far louder than sound. The perspiration, forced out by inward +agony, stood in drops on my forehead, and as I wiped it away, I said +almost defiantly:-- + +"It was the fault of George Bolingbroke. I told him I didn't know how to +dance." + +"I think I'd better go home," murmured the heroine of the disaster, +catching her lower lip in her teeth to bite back a sob, "I wonder where +mamma can be?" + +"Here, dear," responded a commiserating voice, and I was about to turn +away in disgrace without a further apology, when the little circle +around us divided with a flutter, and Sally appeared, leaning on the arm +of a youth with bulging eyes and a lantern jaw. + +"Go home, Bessy? Why, how silly!" she exclaimed, and her energetic voice +seemed suddenly to dominate the situation. "It wasn't so many years ago, +I'm sure, that you used to tumble for the pleasure of it. Here, let me +pin on your crown, and then run straight upstairs to the red room and +get mammy to mend your flounce. It won't take her a minute. There, now, +you're all the prettier for a high colour." + +When she had pushed Bessy across the threshold with her small, strong +hands, she turned to me, laughing a little, and slipped her arm into +mine with the air of a young queen bestowing a favour. + +"It's just as well, Ben Starr," she said, "that you're engaged to me for +this dance, and not to a timid lady." + +It wasn't my dance, I knew; in fact, I had not had sufficient boldness +to ask her for one, and I discovered the next minute, when she sent away +rather impatiently a youth who approached, that she had taken such +glorious possession merely from some indomitable instinct to give people +pleasure. + +"Shall we sit down and talk a little over there under the smilax?" she +asked, "or would you rather dance? If you'd like to dance," she added +with a sparkle in her face, "I am not afraid." + +"Well, I am," I retorted, "I shall never dance again." + +"How serious that sounds--but since you've made the resolution I hope +you'll keep it. I like things to be kept." + +"There's no chance of my breaking it. I never made but one other solemn +vow in my life." + +"And you've kept that?" + +"I am keeping it now." + +She sat down, arranging her white draperies under the festoons of +smilax, her left hand, from which a big feather fan drooped, resting on +her knees, her small, white-slippered foot moving to the sound of the +waltz. + +"Was it a vow not to grow any more?" she asked with a soft laugh. + +"It was," I leaned toward her and the fragrance of the white rose, +drooping a little in her wreath of plaits, filled my nostrils, "that I +would not stay common." + +Her lashes, which had been lowered, were raised suddenly, and I met her +eyes. "O Ben Starr, Ben Starr," she said, "how well you have kept it!" + +"Do you remember the stormy night when you would not let me take your +wet cap because I was a common boy?". + +"How hateful I must have been!" + +"On that night I determined that I would not grow up to be a common man. +That was why I ran away, that was why I went into the tobacco factory, +that was why I started to learn Johnson's Dictionary by heart--why I +drudged over my Latin, why I went into stocks, why--" + +Her eyes had not left my face, but unfurling the big feather fan, she +waved it slowly between us. I, who had, in the words of Dr. Theophilus, +"no small wits in my head," who could stand, dumb and a clown, in a +ballroom, who could even trip up my partner, had found words that could +arrest the gaze of the woman before me. To talk at all I must talk of +big things, and it was of big things that I now spoke--of poverty, of +struggle, of failure, of aspiration. My mind, like my body, was not +rounded to the lighter graces, the rippling surface, that society +requires. In my everyday clothes, among men, I was at no loss for words, +but the high collar and the correctly tied cravat I wore seemed to +strangle my throat, until those starry eyes, seeking big things also, +had looked into mine. Then I forgot my fruitless efforts at +conversation, I forgot the height of my collar, the stiffness of my +shirt, the size of my hands and my feet. I forgot that I was a plain +man, and remembered only that I was a man. The merely social, the +trivial, the commonplace, dropped from my thoughts. My dignity,--the +dignity that George Bolingbroke had called that of size,--was restored +to me; and beyond the rosy lights and the disturbing music, we stood a +man and a woman together. Our consciousness had left the surface of +life. We had become acutely aware of each other and aware, too, of the +silence in which our eyes wavered and met. + +"That was why I starved and sweated and drudged and longed," I added, +while her fan waved with its large, slow movement between us, "that was +why--" + +Her lips parted, she leaned slightly forward, and I saw in her face what +I had never seen in the face of a woman before--the bloom of a soul. + +"And you've done this all your life?" + +"Since that stormy evening." + +"You have won--already you have won--" + +"Not yet. I am beginning and I may win in the end if I keep steady, if I +don't lose my head. I shall win in the end--perhaps--" + +"You will win what?" + +"A fortune it may be, or it may be even the thing that has made the +fortune seem worth the having." + +"And that is?" she asked simply. + +"It is too long a story. Some day, if you will listen, I may tell you, +but not now--" + +The dance stopped, she rose to her feet, and George Bolingbroke, rushing +excitedly to where we stood, claimed the coming Virginia reel as his +own. + +"Some day you shall tell me the long story, Ben Starr," she said, as she +gave me her hand. + +I watched her take her place in the Virginia reel, watched the dance +begin, watched her full, womanly figure, in its soft white draperies, +glide between the lines, with her head held high, her hand in George +Bolingbroke's, her white slippers skimming the polished floor. Then +turning away, I walked slowly down the length of the two drawing-rooms, +and said "Good-night" to Miss Mitty and Miss Matoaca near the door. As I +passed into the hall, I heard a woman's voice murmur distinctly:-- + +"Yes, he is a magnificent animal, but he has no social manner." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +I WALK INTO THE COUNTRY AND MEET WITH AN ADVENTURE + + +My sleep that night was broken by dreams of roses and pink-shaded lamps. +For the first time in my life my brain and body alike refused rest, and +the one was illumined as by the rosy glow of a flame, while the other +was scorched by a fever which kept me tossing sleeplessly between Mrs. +Clay's lavender-scented sheets. At last when the sun rose, I got out of +bed, and hurriedly dressing, went up Franklin Street, and turned into +one of the straight country roads which led through bronzed levels of +broomsedge. Eastward the sun was ploughing a purple furrow across the +sky, and toward the south a single golden cloud hung over some thin +stretches of pine. The ghost of a moon, pale and watery, was riding low, +after a night of high frolic, and as the young dawn grew stronger, I +watched her melt gradually away like a face that one sees through smoke. +The October wind, blowing with a biting edge over the broomsedge, bent +the blood-red tops of the sumach like pointed flames toward the road. + +For me a new light shone on the landscape--a light that seemed to have +its part in the high wind, in the waving broomsedge, and in the rising +sun. For the first time since those old days in the churchyard I felt +with every fibre of me, with every beat of my pulses, with every drop of +my blood, that it was good to be alive--that it was worth while every +bit of it. My starved boyhood, the drudgery in the tobacco factory, the +breathless nights in the Old Market, the hours when, leaning over +Johnson's Dictionary, I had been obliged to pinch myself to keep wide +awake--the squalor out of which I had come, and the future into which I +was going--all these were a part to-day of this strange new ecstasy that +sang in the wind and moved in the waving broomsedge. + +And through it all ran my thoughts: "How fragrant the white rose was in +her hair! How tremulous her mouth! Are her eyes grey or green, and is it +only the heavy shadow of her lashes that makes them appear black at +times, as if they changed colour with her thoughts? Is it possible that +she could ever love me? If I make a fortune will that bring me any +nearer to her? Obscure as I am my cause is hopeless, but even if I were +rich and powerful, should I ever dare to ascend the steps of that house +where I had once delivered marketing at the kitchen door?" + +The memory of the spring morning when I had first gone there with my +basket on my arm returned to me, and I saw myself again as a ragged, +barefooted boy resting beneath the silvery branches of the great +sycamore. Even then I had dreamed of her; all through my life the +thought of her had run like a thread of gold. I remembered her as she +had stood in our little kitchen on that stormy October evening, holding +her mop of a muff in her cold little hands, and looking back at me with +her sparkling defiant gaze. Then she came to me in her red shoes, +dancing over the coloured leaves in the churchyard, and a minute later, +as she had knelt in the box-bordered path patiently building her houses +of moss and stones. As a child she had stirred my imagination, as a +woman she had filled and possessed my thoughts. Always I had seen her a +little above, a little beyond, but still beckoning me on. + +The next instant my thoughts dropped back to the evening before, and I +went over word for word every careless phrase she had spoken. Was she +merely kind to the boor in her house? or had there been a deeper meaning +in her divine smile--in her suddenly lifted eyes? "O Ben Starr, you have +won!" she had said, and had the thrill in her voice, the tremor of her +bosom under its fall of lace, meant that her heart was touched? Modest +or humble I had never been. The will to fight--the exaggerated +self-importance, the overweening pride of the strong man who has made +his way by buffeting obstacles, were all mine; and yet, walking there +that morning in the high wind between the rolling broomsedge and the +blood-red sumach, I was aware again of the boyish timidity with which I +had carried my market basket so many years ago to her kitchen doorstep. +She had said of me last night that I was no longer "common." Was that +because she had read in my glance that I had kept myself pure for her +sake?--that for her sake I had made myself strong to resist as well as +to achieve? Would Miss Mitty's or Miss Matoaca's verdict, I wondered, +have been as merciful, as large as hers? "A magnificent animal, but with +no social manner," the voice had said of me, and the words burned now, +hot with shame, in my memory. The recollection of my fall in the dance, +of the crying lips of the pretty girl in pink tarlatan, while she stood +holding her ruined flounce, became positive agony. What did she think of +my boorishness? Was I, for her also, merely a magnificent animal? Had +she noticed how ill at ease I felt in my evening clothes? O young Love, +young Love, your sharpest torments are not with arrows, but with pin +pricks! + +A trailing blackberry vine, running like a crimson vein close to the +earth, caught my foot, and I stooped for a minute. When I looked up she +was standing clear against the reflected light of the sunrise, where a +low hill rose above the stretches of broomsedge. Her sorrel mare was +beside her, licking contentedly at a bright branch of sassafras; and I +saw that she had evidently dismounted but the moment before. As I +approached, she fastened her riding skirt above her high boots, and +kneeling down on the dusty roadside, lifted the mare's foot and examined +it with searching and anxious eyes. Her three-cornered riding hat had +slipped to her shoulders, where it was held by a broad black band of +elastic, and I saw her charming head, with its wreath of plaits, defined +against the golden cloud that hung above the thin stretch of pines. At +my back the full sunrise broke, and when she turned toward me, her gaze +was dazzled for a moment by the flood of light. + +"Let me have a look," I said, as I reached her, "is the mare hurt?" + +"She went lame a few minutes ago. There's a stone in her foot, but I +can't get it out." + +"Perhaps I can." + +Rising from her knees, she yielded me her place, and then stood looking +down on me while I removed the stone. + +"She'll still limp, I fear, it was a bad one," I said as I finished. + +Without replying, she turned from me and ran a few steps along the road, +calling, "Come, Dolly," in a caressing voice. The mare followed with +difficulty, flinching as she put her sore foot to the ground. + +"See how it hurts her," she said, coming back to me. "I'll have to lead +her slowly--there's no other way." + +"Why not ride at a walk?" + +She shook her head. "My feet are better than a lame horse. It's not more +than two miles anyway." + +"And you danced all night?" + +I hung the reins over my arm and we turned together, facing the sunrise. + +"Yes, but the way to rest is to run out-of-doors. Are you often up with +the dawn, too?" + +"No, but I couldn't sleep. The music got into my head." + +"Into mine also. But I often take a canter at sunrise. It is my hour." + +"And this is your road?" + +"Not always. I go different ways. This one I call the +road-to-what-might-have-been because it turns off just as it reaches a +glorious view." + +"Then don't let's travel it. I'd rather go with you on the +road-to-what-is-to-be." + +She looked at me steadily for a minute with arching brows. "I wonder why +they say of you that you have no social amenities?" she observed +mockingly. + +"I haven't. That isn't an amenity, it is a fact. To save my life I +couldn't find a blessed thing to say last night to the little lady in +pink tarlatan whose dress I tore." + +"Poor Bessy!" she laughed softly, "she vows she'll never waltz with you +again." + +"She's perfectly safe to vow it." + +"Oh, yes, I remember, and I hope you won't dance any more. Do you know, +I like you better out-of-doors." + +"Out-of-doors?" + +"Well, the broomsedge is becoming to you. It seems your natural +background somehow. Now it makes George Bolingbroke look frivolous." + +"His natural background is the ballroom, and I'm not sure he hasn't the +best of it. I can't live always in the broomsedge." + +"Oh, it isn't only the broomsedge, though that goes admirably with your +hair--it's the bigness, the space, the simplicity. You take up too much +room among lamps and palms, you trip on a waxed floor, and down goes +poor Bessy. But out here you are natural and at home. The sky sets off +your head--and it's really very fine if you only knew it. Out here, with +me, you are in your native element." + +"Is that because you are my native element? Can you imagine poor Bessy +fitting into the picture?" + +"To tell the truth I can't imagine poor Bessy fitting you at all. Her +native element is pink tarlatan." + +"And yours?" I demanded. + +"That you must find out for yourself." A smile played on her face like +an edge of light. + +"The sunrise," I answered. + +"Like you, I am sorry that I can't be always in my proper setting," she +replied. + +"You are always. The sunrise never leaves you." + +Her brows arched merrily, and I saw the tiny scar I had remembered from +childhood catch up the corner of her mouth with its provoking and +irresistible trick of expression. + +"Do you mean to tell me that you learned these gallantries in Johnson's +Dictionary?" she enquired, "or have you taken other lessons from the +General besides those in speculations?" + +I had got out of my starched shirt and my evening clothes, and the +timidity of the ballroom had no part in me under the open sky. +"Johnson's Dictionary wasn't my only teacher," I retorted, "nor was the +General. At ten years of age I could recite the prosiest speeches of Sir +Charles Grandison." + +"Ah, that explains it. Well, I'm glad anyway you didn't learn it from +the General. He broke poor Aunt Matoaca's heart, you know." + +"Then I hope he managed to break his own at the same time." + +"He didn't. I don't believe he had a big enough one to break. Oh, yes, +I've always detested your great man, the General. They were engaged to +be married, you have heard, I suppose, and three weeks before the +wedding she found out some dreadful things about his life--and she +behaved then, as Dr. Theophilus used to say, 'like a gentleman of +honour.' He--he ought to have married another woman, but even after Aunt +Matoaca gave him up, he refused to do it--and this was what she never +got over. If he had behaved as dishonourably as that in business, no man +would have spoken to him, she said--and can you believe it?--she +declined to speak to him for twenty years, though she was desperately in +love with him all the time. She only began again when he got old and +gouty and humbled himself to her. In my heart of hearts I can't help +disliking him in spite of all his success, but I really believe that he +has never in his life cared for any woman except Aunt Matoaca. It's +because she's so perfectly honourable, I think--but, of course, it is +her terrible experience that has made her so--so extreme in her views." + +"What are her views?" + +"She calls them principles--but Aunt Mitty says, and I suppose she's +right, that it would have been more ladylike to have borne her wrongs in +silence instead of shrieking them aloud. For my part I think that, +however loud she shrieked, she couldn't shriek as loud as the General +has acted." + +"I hope she isn't still in love with him?" + +Her clear rippling laugh--the laugh of a free spirit--fluted over the +broomsedge. "Can you imagine it? One might quite as well be in love with +one's Thanksgiving turkey. No, she isn't in love with him now, but she's +in love with the idea that she used to be, and that's almost as bad. I +know it's her own past that makes her think all the time about the +wrongs of women. She wants to have them vote, and make the laws, and +have a voice in the government. Do you?" + +"I never thought about it, but I'm pretty sure I shouldn't like my wife +to go to the polls," I answered. + +Again she laughed. "It's funny, isn't it?--that when you ask a man +anything about women, he always begins to talk about his wife, even when +he hasn't got one?" + +"That's because he's always hoping to have one, I suppose." + +"Do you want one very badly?" she taunted. + +"Dreadfully--the one I want." + +"A real dream lady in pink tarlatan?" + +"No, a living lady in a riding habit." + +If I had thought to embarrass her by this flight of gallantry, my hope +was fruitless, for the arrow, splintered by her smile, fell harmlessly +to the dust of the road. + +"An Amazon seems hardly the appropriate mate to Sir Charles Grandison," +she retorted. + +"Just now it was the General that I resembled." + +"Oh, you out-generaled the General a mile back. Even he didn't attempt +to break the heart of Aunt Matoaca at their second meeting." + +The candid merriment in her face had put me wholly at ease,--I who had +stood tongue-tied and blushing before the simpers of poor Bessy. Dare as +I might, I could bring no shadow of self-consciousness, no armour of +sex, into her sparkling eyes. + +"And have I tried to break yours?" I asked bluntly. + +"Have you? You know best. I am not familiar with Grandisonian tactics." + +"I don't believe there's a man alive who could break your heart," I +said. + +With her arm on the neck of the sorrel mare, she gave me back my glance, +straight and full, like a gallant boy. + +"Nothing," she remarked blithely, "short of a hammer could do it." + +We laughed together, and the laughter brought us into an intimacy which +to me, at least, was dangerously sweet. My head whirled suddenly. + +"You asked me last night about the one thing I'd wanted most all my +life," I said. + +"The thing that made you learn Johnson's Dictionary by heart?" she +asked. + +"Only to the end of the _c_'s. Don't credit me, please, with the whole +alphabet." + +"The thing, then," she corrected herself, "that made you learn the _a_, +_b_, _c_'s of Johnson's Dictionary by heart?" + +"If you wish it I will tell you what it was." + +For the first time her look wavered. "Is it very long? Here is Franklin +Street, and in a little while we shall be at home." + +"It is not long--it is very short. It is a single word of three +letters." + +"I thought you said it had covered every hour of your life?" + +"Every hour of my life has been covered by a word of three letters." + +"What an elastic word!" + +"It is, for it has covered everything at which I looked--both the earth +and the sky." + +"And the General and the Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad?" + +"Without that word the General and the railroad would have been +nothing." + +"How very much obliged to it the poor General must be!" + +"Will you hear it?" I asked, for when I was once started to the goal +there was no turning me by laughter. + +She raised her eyes, which had been lowered, and looked at me long and +deeply--so long and deeply that it seemed as if she were seeking +something within myself of which even I was unconscious. + +"Will you hear it?" I asked again. + +Her gaze was still on mine. "What is the word?" she asked, almost in a +whisper. + +At the instant I felt that I staked my whole future, and yet that it was +no longer in my power to hesitate or to draw back. "The word is--you," I +replied. + +Her hand dropped from the mare's neck, where it had almost touched mine, +and I watched her mouth grow tremulous until the red of it showed in a +violent contrast to the clear pallor of her face. Then she turned her +head away from me toward the sun, and thoughtful and in silence, we +passed down Franklin Street to the old grey house. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +IN WHICH I RUN AGAINST TRADITIONS + + +When we had delivered the mare to the coloured groom waiting on the +sidewalk, she turned to me for the first time since I had uttered my +daring word. + +"You must come in to breakfast with us," she said, with a friendly and +careless smile, "Aunt Mitty will be disappointed if I return without +what she calls 'a cavalier.'" + +The doubt occurred to me if Miss Mitty would consider me entitled to so +felicitous a phrase, but smothering it the next minute as best I could, +I followed Sally, not without trepidation, up the short flight of steps, +and into the wide hall, where the air was heavy with the perfume of +fading roses. Great silver bowls of them drooped now, with blighted +heads, amid the withered smilax, and the floor was strewn thickly with +petals, as if a strong wind had blown down the staircase. From the +dining room came a delicious aroma of coffee, and as we crossed the +threshold, I saw that the two ladies, in their lace morning caps, were +already seated at the round mahogany table. From behind the tall old +silver service, the grave oval face of Miss Mitty cast on me, as I +entered, a look in which a faint wonder was mingled with a pleasant +hereditary habit of welcome. A cover was already laid for the chance +comer, and as I took possession of it in response to her invitation, I +felt again that terrible shyness--that burning physical embarrassment of +the plain man in unfamiliar surroundings. So had I felt on the morning +when I had stood in the kitchen, with my basket on my arm, and declined +the plum cake for which my mouth watered. In the road with Sally I had +appeared to share, as she had said, something of the dignity of the +broomsedge and the open sky; here opposite to Miss Matoaca, with the +rich mahogany table and the vase of chrysanthemums between us, I seemed +ridiculously out of proportion to the surroundings amid which I sat, +speechless and awkward. Was it possible that any woman could look +beneath that mountain of shyness, and discern a self-confidence in large +matters that would some day make a greater man than the General? + +"Cream and sugar?" enquired Miss Mitty, in a tone from which I knew she +had striven to banish the recognition that she addressed a social +inferior. Her pleasant smile seemed etched about her mouth, over the +expression of faint wonder which persisted beneath. I felt that her +racial breeding, like Miss Matoaca's, was battling against her +instinctive aversion, and at the same moment I knew that I ought to have +declined the invitation Sally had given. A sense of outrage--of +resentment--swelled hot and strong in my heart. What was this social +barrier--this aristocratic standard that could accept the General and +reject such men as I? If it had sprung back, strong and flexible as a +steel wire, before the man, would it still present its irresistible +strength against the power of money? In that instant I resolved that if +wealth alone could triumph over it, wealth should become the weapon of +my attack. Then my gaze met Sally's over the chrysanthemums, and the +thought in my brain shrank back suddenly abashed. + +"Dolly got a stone in her foot, poor dear," she remarked to her aunts, +"and Ben Starr got it out. She limped all the way home." + +At her playful use of my name, a glance flashed from Miss Mitty to Miss +Matoaca and back again across the high silver service. + +"Then we are very grateful to Mr. Starr," replied Miss Mitty in a prim +voice. "Sister Matoaca and I were just agreeing that you ought not to be +allowed to ride alone outside the city." + +"Perhaps we can arrange with Ben to go walking along the same road," +responded Sally provokingly, "and I shouldn't be in need of a groom." + +For the first time I raised my eyes. "I'll walk anywhere except along +the road-to-what-might-have-been," I said, and my voice was quite +steady. + +Her glance dropped to her plate. Then she looked across the vase of +chrysanthemums into Miss Mitty's face. + +"Ben and I used to play together, Aunt Mitty," she said, offering the +information as if it were the most pleasant fact in the world, "when I +lived on Church Hill." + +A flush rose to Miss Mitty's cheeks, and passed the next instant, as if +by a wave of sympathy, into Miss Matoaca's. + +"I hoped, Sally, that you had forgotten that part of your life," +observed the elder lady stiffly. + +"How can I forget it, Aunt Mitty? I was very happy over there." + +"And are you not happy here, dear?" asked Miss Matoaca, hurt by the +words, and bending over, she smelt a spray of lilies-of-the-valley that +had lain beside her plate. + +"Of course I am, Aunt Matoaca, but one doesn't forget. I met Ben first +when I was six years old. Mamma and I stopped at his house in a storm +one night on our way over to grandmama's. We were soaking wet, and they +were very kind and dried us and gave us hot things to drink, and his +mother wrapped me up in a shawl and sent me here with mamma. I shall +always remember how good they were, and how he broke off a red geranium +from his mother's plant and gave it to me." + +As she told her story, Miss Mitty watched her attentively, the +expression of faint wonder in her eyes and her narrow eyebrows, and her +pleasant, rather pained smile etched delicately about her fine, thin +lips. Her long, oval face, suffused now by an unusual colour, rose above +the quaint old coffee urn, on which the Fairfax crest, belonging to her +mother's family, was engraved. If any passion could have been supposed +to rock that flat, virgin bosom, I should have said that it was moved by +a passion of wounded pride. + +"Is your coffee right, Mr. Starr? Have you cream enough?" she enquired +politely. "Selim, give Mr. Starr a partridge." + +My coffee was right, and I declined the bird, which would have stuck in +my throat. The united pride of the Blands and the Fairfaxes, I told +myself, could not equal that possessed by a single obscure son of a +stone-cutter. + +"If you are as hungry as I am, you are famished," observed Sally, with a +gallant effort to make a semblance of gayety sport on a frozen +atmosphere. "Aunt Matoaca, have pity and give me a muffin." + +Muffins were passed by Miss Matoaca; waffles were presented immediately +by Selim. + +"Do take a hot one," urged Miss Matoaca anxiously, "yours is quite +cold." + +I took a hot one, and after placing it on the small white and gold +plate, swore desperately to myself that I would not eat a mouthful in +that house until I could eat there as an equal. The faint wonder beneath +the pained fixed smile on Miss Mitty's face stabbed me like a knife. All +her anxious hospitality, all her offers of cream and partridges, could +not for a single minute efface it. Turning my head I discerned the same +expression, still fainter, still gentler, reflected on Miss Matoaca's +lips--as if some subtle bond of sympathy between them were asking +always, beneath the hereditary courtesy: "Can this be possible? Are we, +whose mother was a Fairfax, whose father was a Bland, sitting at our own +table with a man who is not a gentleman by birth?--who has even brought +a market basket to our kitchen door? What has become of the established +order if such a thing as this can happen to two unprotected Virginia +ladies?" + +And it was quite characteristic of their race, of their class, that the +greater the wonder grew in their gentle minds, the more sedulously they +plied me with coffee and partridges and preserves--that the more their +souls abhorred me, the more lavish became their hands. Divided as they +were by their principles, something stronger than a principle now held +the sisters together, and this was a passionate belief in the integrity +of their race. + +Again Selim handed the waffles in a frozen silence, and again Sally made +an unsuccessful attempt to produce an appearance of animation. + +"Are you going to market, Aunt Matoaca?" she asked, "and will you +remember to buy seed for my canary?" + +The flush in Miss Matoaca's cheek this time, I could not explain. + +"Sister Mitty will go," she replied, in confusion, "I--I have another +engagement." + +"She alludes to a meeting of one of her boards," observed Miss Mitty, +and turning to me she added, with what I felt to be an unfair thrust at +the shrinking bosom of Miss Matoaca, "My sister is a great reader, Mr. +Starr, and she has drawn many of her opinions out of books instead of +from life." + +I looked up, my eyes met Miss Matoaca's, and I remembered her love +story. + +"We all do that, I suppose," I answered. "Even when we get them from +life, haven't most of them had their beginning in books?" + +"I am not a great reader myself," remarked Miss Mitty, a trifle primly. +"My father used to say that when a lady had read a chapter of her Bible +in the morning, and consulted her cook-book, she had done as much +literary work as was good for her. Too intimate an acquaintance with +books, he always said, was apt to unsettle the views, and the best +judgment a woman can have, I am sure, is the opinion of the gentlemen of +her family." + +"That may be true," I admitted, and my self-possession returned to me, +until a certain masculine assurance sounded in my voice, "but I'm quite +sure I shouldn't like anybody else's opinion to decide mine." + +"You are a man," rejoined Miss Mitty, and I felt that she had not been +able to bring her truthful lips to utter the word "gentleman." "It is +natural that you should have independent ideas, but, as far as I am +concerned, I am perfectly content to think as my grandmother and my +great-grandmother have thought before me. Indeed, it seems to me almost +disrespectful to differ from them." + +"And it was dear great-grandmama," laughed Sally, "who when the doctor +once enquired if her tooth ached, turned to great-grandpapa and asked, +'Does it ache, Bolivar?'" + +She had tossed her riding hat aside, and a single loosened wave of her +hair had fallen low on her forehead above her arched black eyebrows. +Beneath it her eyes, very wide and bright, held a puzzled yet resolute +look, as if they were fixed upon an obstacle which frightened her, and +which she was determined to overcome. + +"You are speaking of my grandmama, Sally," observed Miss Mitty, and I +could see that the levity of the girl had wounded her. + +"I'm sorry, dear Aunt Mitty, she was my great-grandmama, too, but that +doesn't keep me from thinking her a very silly person." + +"A silly person? Your own great-grandmama, Sally!" Her mind, long and +narrow, like her face, had never diverged, I felt, from the straight +line of descent. + +"My sister and I unfortunately do not agree in our principles, Mr. +Starr," said Miss Matoaca, breaking her strained silence suddenly in a +high voice, and with an energy that left tremors in her thin, delicate +figure. "Indeed, I believe that I hold views which are opposed generally +by Virginia ladies--but I feel it to be a point of honour that I should +let them be known." She paused breathlessly, having delivered herself +of the heresy that worked in her bosom, and a moment later she sat +trembling from head to foot with her eyes on her plate. Poor little +gallant lady, I thought, did she remember the time when at the call of +that same word "honour," she had thrown away, not only her peace, but +her happiness? + +"Whatever your opinions may be, Miss Matoaca, I respect your honest and +loyal support of them," I said. + +The embarrassment that had overwhelmed me five minutes before had +vanished utterly. At the first chance to declare myself--to contend, not +merely with a manner, but with a situation, I felt the full strength of +my manhood. The General himself could not have uttered his piquant +pleasantries in a blither tone than I did my impulsive defence of the +right of private judgment. Miss Mitty raised her eyes to mine, and Miss +Matoaca did likewise. Over me their looks clashed, and I saw at once +that it was the relentless warfare between individual temperament and +racial instinct. In spite of the obscurity of my birth, I knew that in +Miss Matoaca, at that instant, I had won a friend. + +"Surely Aunt Matoaca is right to express what she thinks," said Sally, +loyally following my lead. + +"No woman of our family has ever thought such things, Sally, or has ever +felt called upon to express her views in the presence of men." + +"Well, I suppose, some woman has got to begin some day, and it may as +well be Aunt Matoaca." + +"There is no reason why any woman should begin. Your great-grandmama did +not." + +"But my great-grandmama couldn't tell when her tooth ached, and you can, +I've heard you do it. It was very disrespectful of you, dear Auntie." + +"If you cannot be serious, Sally, I refuse to discuss the subject." + +"But how can anybody be serious, Aunt Mitty, about a person who didn't +know when her own tooth ached?" + +"Dear sister," remarked Miss Matoaca, in a voice of gentle obstinacy, "I +do not wish to be the cause of a disagreement between Sally and +yourself. Any question that was not one of principle I should gladly +give up. I know you are not much of a reader, but if you would only +glance at an article in the last _Fortnightly Review_ on the +Emancipation of Women--" + +"I should have thought, sister Matoaca, that Dr. Peterson's last sermon +in St. Paul's on the feminine sphere would have been a far safer guide +for you. His text, Mr. Starr," she added, turning to me, "was, 'She +looketh well to the ways of her household.'" + +"At least you can't accuse Aunt Matoaca of neglecting the ways of her +household," said Sally, merrily, "even the General rises up after dinner +and praises her mince pies. Do you like mince pies, Ben?" + +I replied that I was sure that I should like Miss Matoaca's, for I had +heard them lauded by General Bolingbroke; at which the poor lady blushed +until her cheeks looked like withered rose leaves. She was one of those +unhappy women, I had learned during breakfast, who suffered from a +greater mental activity than was usually allotted to the females of +their generation. Behind that long and narrow face, with its pencilled +eyebrows, its fine, straight nose, and restlessly shining eyes, what +battles of conviction against tradition must have waged. Was the final +triumph of intellect due, in reality, to the accident of an unhappy +love? Had the General's frailties driven this shy little lady, with her +devotion to law and order, and her excellent mince pies, into a martyr +for the rights of sex? + +"I am told that Mrs. Clay prides herself upon her pies," she remarked. +"I have never eaten them, but Dr. Theophilus tells me that he prefers +mine because I use less suet." + +"I am sure nobody's could compare with yours, sister Matoaca," observed +Miss Mitty in an affable tone, "and I happen to know that Mrs. Clay +resorts to Mrs. Camberwell's cook-book. _We_ prefer Mrs. Randolph's," +she added, turning to me. + +"Well, we'll ask Ben to dinner some day, and he may judge," said Sally. + +Instantly I felt that her words were a challenge, and the shining +mahogany table, with its delicate lace mats, its silver and its +chrysanthemums, became a battle-field for opposing spirits. I saw Miss +Mitty stiffen and the corners of her mouth grow rigid under her +pleasant, fixed smile. + +"Will you have some marmalade, Mr. Starr?" she asked, and I knew that +with the phrase, she had flung down her gauntlet on the table. Her very +politeness veiled a purpose, not of iron, but finely tempered and +resistless as a blade. Had she said to me: "Sir, you are an upstart, and +I, sitting quietly at the same table with you, and inviting you to eat +of the same dish of marmalade, am a descendant of the Blands and the +Fairfaxes,"--her words would have stabbed me less deeply than did the +pathetic "Can this be possible?" of her smiling features. + +A canary, swinging in a gilt cage between the curtains at the window, +broke suddenly into a jubilant fluting; and rising from the table, we +stood for a minute, as if petrified, with our eyes on the bird, and on +the box of blossoming sweet alyssum upon the sill. A little later, when +I left with the plea that the General expected me at nine o'clock, the +two elder ladies gave me their small, transparent hands, while their +polite farewell sounded as final as if it had been uttered on the edge +of an open grave. Only Sally, smiling up at me, with that puzzled yet +determined look still in her eyes, said gayly, "When you go walking at +sunrise, Ben, choose the road-to-what-might-have-been!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +IN WHICH I TEST MY STRENGTH + + +Her words rang in my ears while I went along the crooked pavement under +the burnished sycamore. As I met the General at the corner I was still +hearing them, and they prompted the speech that burst impulsively from +my lips. + +"General, I've got to get rich quickly, and I'm finding a way." + +"You'd better make sure first that your royal road doesn't end in a +ditch." + +"I was talking to a man from West Virginia yesterday about buying out +the National Oil Company, and I dreamed of it all night. He wants me to +go in with him, and start a refining plant. If I can get special +privileges and rebates from the railroads to give us advantages, we may +make a big business of it." + +"You may and you mayn't. Who's your man?" + +"Sam Brackett. Bob's brother, you know." + +"A mighty good fellow, and shrewd, too. But I'd think it over carefully, +if I were you." + +I did think it over, and the result of my thoughts was, as I told the +General a fortnight later, the purchase of a refining plant near +Clarksburg, and the beginning of a lively war with the competitors in +the business. + +"We're going to sweep the South, General, with the help of the +railroad," I said. + +The great man, with his gouty foot in a felt slipper, sat gazing +meditatively over the words of a telegram, which had come on his private +wire. + +"Midland stock is selling at 160," he said. "It's a big railroad, my +boy, and I've made it." + +Even to-day, with the living presence of Sally still in my eyes, I was +filled again with the old unappeasable desire for the great railroad. +The woman and the road were distinct and yet blended in my thoughts. + +At dinner-time, when the General hobbled to his buggy on my arm, I made +again the remark I had blurted out so inopportunely. + +"General, I've been to West Virginia and started the plant, and we're +going to give Hail Columbia to our competitors." + +He looked at me attentively, and a sly twinkle appeared in his little +watery grey eyes, which were sunk deep in the bluish and swollen +sockets. + +"Do you feel yourself getting big, Ben?" he enquired, with a chuckle. + +I shook my head. "Not yet, but it's a fair risk and a good chance to +make a big business." + +"Well, you're right, I suppose, and if you ain't you'll find out before +long. What's luck, after all, but the thing that enables a man to see a +long way ahead?" + +He settled himself under his fur rug, flicked the reins over the old +grey horse, and we drove slowly up Main Street behind a street car. + +"I don't know about luck, General, but I'm going to win out if hard +pushing can do it." + +"It can do 'most anything if you only push hard, enough. But you talk as +if you were in love, Ben, I've said the same thing a hundred times in my +day, I reckon." + +I blushed furiously, and then turning my face from him, stared at a +group of children upon the sidewalk. + +"Whom could I marry, General?" I asked. "You know well enough that a +woman in your class wouldn't marry a man in mine--unless--" + +"Unless she were over head and heels in love with him," he chuckled. + +"Unless he were a great man," I corrected. + +"You mean a rich man, Ben? So your oil business is merely a little love +attention, after all." + +"No, money has very little to do with it, and the woman I want to marry +wouldn't marry me for money. But it's the mettle that counts, and in +this age, given the position I've started from, how can a man prove his +mettle except by success?--and success does mean money. The president of +the Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad is obliged to be a rich +man, isn't he?" + +"So you're still after my job, eh? Is that why you've let me bully and +badger you for the last six years?" + +"It was at the bottom of it," I answered honestly, for the gay old bird +liked downright speaking, and I knew it. "I'd rather have been your +confidential secretary for six years than general manager of traffic. I +was learning what I wanted to know." + +"And what was that?" + +"The way you did things. The way you handled men and bought and sold +stocks." + +"You like the road, too, eh?" + +"I like the road as long as it can be of use to me." + +"And when it ceases to be you'll throw it over?" + +"Yes, if it ever ceases to be I'll throw it over--honestly," I answered. + +"Now that's the thing," he said, "remember always that in handling men +honesty is a big asset. I've always been honest, my boy, and it's helped +me when I needed it. Why, when I came in and got control of the road in +that slump after the war, I was able to reorganise it principally +because of the reputation for honesty I had earned. It was a long time +before it began to pay dividends, but nobody grumbled. They knew I was +doing my best--and that I was doing it fair and square, and to-day we +control nearly twenty thousand miles of road." + +"Yes, honesty I've learned in your office, sir." + +"Well, it's good training,--it's mighty good training, if I do say it +myself. You could have got with a darn bloater like Dick Horseley, and +he'd have worked your ruin. Now you never saw me lose my head, did you, +eh, Ben?" + +I replied that I had not--not even when his private wire had ticked off +news of the last panic. + +"Well, I never did," he said reflectively, "except with women. Take my +advice, Ben, and find a good sensible wife, even if she's in your own +class, and marry and settle down. It steadies a man, somehow. I'd be a +long ways happier to-day," he added, a little wistfully, "if I'd taken a +wife when I was young." + +I thought of Miss Matoaca, with her bright brown eyes, her withered +roseleaf cheeks, and her sacrifice in the cause of honour. + +"Whatever you are don't be an old bachelor," he pursued after a pause, +"it may be pleasant in the beginning, but I'll be blamed if it pays in +the end. Find a good sensible woman who hasn't any opinions of her own, +and you will be happy. But as you value your peace, don't go and fall in +love with a woman who has any heathenish ideas in her head. When a woman +once gets that maggot in her brain, she stops believing in gentleness +and self-sacrifice, and by George, she ceases to be a woman. Every man +knows there's got to be a lot of sacrifice in marriage, and he likes to +feel that he's marrying a woman who is fully capable of making it. A +strong-minded woman can't--she's gone and unsexed herself--and instead +of taking pleasure in giving up, she begins to talk everlastingly about +her 'honour.' Pshaw! the next thing she'll expect to be treated as +punctiliously as if she were a business partner!" + +The old wound still ached sometimes, it was easy to see; and because of +his age and his growing infirmities, he found it harder to keep back the +querulous complaints that rose to his lips. + +"Now, there's that George of mine," he resumed, still fretting, "he's +probably gone and set his eyes on Sally Mickleborough, and it's as plain +as daylight that she's got a plenty of that outlandish spirit of her +aunt's. I don't mean she's got her notions--I ain't saying any harm of +the girl--she's handsome enough in spite of Hatty's nonsense about her +mouth--and I call it downright scandalous of Edmund Bland to leave every +last penny of his money away from her. But, mark my words, and I tell +George so every single day I live, if she marries George he's going to +have trouble as sure as shot. She's just the kind to expect him to make +sacrifices, and by Jove, no man wants to be expected to make sacrifices +in his own home!" + +Sacrifices! My blood sang in my ears. If she would only marry me I'd +promise to make a sacrifice for her every blessed minute that I lived. + +"And do you think she likes George, General?" I asked timidly. + +"Oh, I don't suppose she knows her own mind," he retorted. "I never in +my life, sir, knew but one woman who did." + +We drove on for a minute in silence, and from the red and watery look in +the General's eyes, I inferred that, in spite of his broken engagement +and his bitter judgment, Miss Matoaca had managed to retain her place in +his memory. As I looked at him, sitting there like a wounded eagle, +huddled under his fur rug, a feeling of thanksgiving that was almost one +of rapture swelled in my heart. If I had a plain name, I had also a +clean life to offer the woman I loved. When I remembered the strong, +pure line of her features, her broad, intelligent brow, her clear, +unswerving gaze, I told myself that whatever the world had to say, she, +at least, would consider the difference a fair one. At the great moment +she would choose me, I knew, for myself alone; choose in a democracy the +man who, God helping him, would stand always for the best in the +democratic spirit--for courage and truth and strength and a clean honour +toward men and women. + +"Who was that pretty girl, Ben," the General enquired presently, "I saw +you walking with last Sunday? A sweetheart?" + +"No, sir. My sister." + +"A lady? She looked it." + +"She has been taught like one." + +"What'll you do with her? Marry her off?" + +"I haven't thought--but she won't look at any of the men she knows." + +"Oh, well, if the National Oil wins, you may give her a fortune. There +are plenty of young chaps who would jump at her. Bless my soul, she's +more to my taste than Sally Mickleborough. It's the women who are such +fools about birth, you know, men don't care a rap. Why, if I'd loved a +woman, she might have been born in the poorhouse for all the thought I'd +have given it. A pretty face or a small foot goes a long sight farther +with a man than the tallest grandfather that ever lived." For a moment +he was silent, and then he spoke softly, unconscious that he uttered his +thought aloud. "No, Matoaca's birth, whatever it might have been, +couldn't have come between us--it was her damned principles." + +He looked tired and old, now that his armour of business had dropped +from him, as he sat there, with the fur rug drawn over his chest, and +his loose lower lip hanging slightly away from his shrunken gums. A +sudden pity, the first I had ever dared feel for the president of the +Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad, shot through my heart. The +gay old bird, I told myself, was shedding his plumage at last. + +"Well, as long as I can't rest on my birth, I might as well stand up on +something," I said. + +"Women think a lot of it," he resumed, as if he had not noticed my +flippant interjection; "and I reckon it about fits the size of their +minds. Why, to hear Miss Mitty Bland talk you would think good birth was +the only virtue she admitted to the first rank. I was telling her about +you," he added with a chuckle, "and you've got sense enough to see the +humour of what she said." + +"I hope I have, General." + +"Well, I began it by boasting about your looks, Ben, if you don't mind. +'That wonderful boy of ours is the finest-looking fellow in the South +to-day, Miss Mitty,' I burst out, 'and he stands six feet two in his +stockings.' 'Ah, General,' she replied sadly, 'what are six feet two +inches without a grandfather?'" + +He threw back his head with a roar, appearing a trifle chagrined the +next instant by my faint-hearted pretence of mirth. + +"Doesn't it tickle you, Ben?" he enquired, checking his laughter. + +"I'm afraid it makes me rather angry, General," I answered. + +"Oh, well, I didn't think you'd take it seriously. It's just a joke, you +know. Go ahead and make your fortune, and they'll receive you quick +enough." + +"But they have received me. They asked me to their party." + +"That was Sally, my boy--it was her party, and she fought the ladies for +you. That girl's a born fighter, and I reckon she gets it from Harry +Mickleborough--for the only blessed thing he could do was to fight. He +was a mighty poor man, was Harry, but a God Almighty soldier--and he +sent more Yankees to glory than any single man in the whole South. The +girl gets it from him, and she hasn't any of her aunts' aristocratic +nonsense in her either. She told Miss Mitty, on the spot, and I can see +her eyes shine now, that she liked you and she meant to know you." + +"That she meant to know me," I repeated, with a singing heart. + +"The ladies were put out, I could see, but they ain't a match for that +scamp Harry, and he's in her. There never lived the general that could +command him, and he'd have been shot for insubordination in '63 if he +hadn't been as good as a whole company to the army. 'I'll fight for the +South and welcome,' he used to say, 'but, by God, sir, I'll fight as I +damn please.' 'Twas the same way about the church, too. Old Dr. Peterson +got after him once about standing, instead of kneeling, during prayers, +and 'I'll pray as I damn please, sir!' responded Harry. Oh, he was a sad +scamp!" + +"So his daughter fought for me?" I said. "How did it end?" + +"It will end all right when you are president of the Great South Midland +and Atlantic Railroad, and have shipped me to Kingdom Come. They won't +shut their doors in your face, then." + +"But she stood up for me?" I asked, and my voice trembled. + +"She? Do you mean Miss Matoaca? Well, she granted your good looks and +your virtues, but she regretted that they couldn't ask you to their +house." + +"And Miss Mitty?" + +"Oh, Miss Mitty assured me that six feet two were as an inch in her +sight, without a grandfather." + +"But her niece--Miss Mickleborough?" I had worked delicately up to my +point. + +"The girl fought for you--but then she's obliged to fight for +something?--it's Harry in her. That's why, as I said to George at +breakfast, I don't want him to marry her. She's a good girl, and I like +her, but who in the deuce wants to marry a fighting wife? Look at that +fellow mauling his horse, Ben. It makes me sick to see 'em do it, but +it's no business of mine, I reckon." + +"It is of mine, General," I replied, for the sight of an ill-treated +animal had made my blood boil since childhood. Before he could answer, I +had jumped over the moving wheel, and had reached the miserable, +sore-backed horse struggling under a load of coal and a big stick. + +"Come off and put your shoulder to the wheel, you drunken brute," I +said, as my rage rose in my throat. + +"I'll be damned if I will," replied the fellow, and he was about to +begin belabouring again, when I seized him by the collar and swung him +clear to the street. + +"I'll be damned if you don't," I retorted. + +I was a strong man, and when my passions were roused, the thought of my +own strength slipped from consciousness. + +"You'll break his bones, Ben," said the General, leaning out of his +buggy, but his eyes shone as they might have shone at the sight of his +first battle. + +"I hope I shall," I responded grimly, and going over to the wagon I put +my shoulder to the wheel, and began the ascent of the steep hill. +Somebody on the pavement came to my help on the other side, and we went +up slowly, with a half-drunken driver reeling at our sides and the +General following, in his buggy, a short way behind. + +"I thought you were a diffident fellow, Ben," remarked the great man, as +I took my seat again by his side; "but I don't believe there's another +man in Richmond that would make such a spectacle of himself." + +"I forget myself when I'm worked up," I answered, "and I forget that +anybody is looking." + +"Well, somebody was," he replied slyly. "You didn't see Miss Matoaca +Bland pass you in a carriage as you were pushing that wheel?" + +"No, I didn't see anybody." + +"She saw you--and so did Sally Mickleborough. Why, I'd have given +something pretty in my day to make a girl's eyes blaze like that." + +A week later I swallowed my pride, with an effort, and called at the old +grey house at the hour of sunset. Selim, stepping softly, conducted me +into the dimly lighted drawing-room, where a cedar log burned, with a +delicious fragrance, on a pair of high brass andirons. The red glow, +half light, half shadow, flickered over the quaint tapestried furniture, +the white-painted woodwork, and the portraits of departed Blands and +Fairfaxes that smiled gravely down, with averted eyes. In a massive gilt +frame over a rosewood spinet there was a picture of Miss Mitty and Miss +Mataoca, painted in fancy dress, with clasped hands, under a garland of +roses. My gaze was upon it, when the sound of a door opening quickly +somewhere in the rear came to my ears; and the next instant I heard Miss +Mitty's prim tones saying distinctly:-- + +"Tell Mr. Starr, Selim, that the ladies are not receiving." + +There was a moment's silence, followed by a voice that brought my +delighted heart with a bound into my throat. + +"Aunt Mitty, I _will_ see him." + +"Sally, how can you receive a man who was not born a gentleman?" + +"Aunt Mitty, if you don't let me see him here, I'll--I'll meet him in +the street." + +The door shut sharply, there was a sound of rapid steps, and the voices +ceased. Harry Mickleborough, in his daughter, I judged, had gained the +victory; for an instant afterwards I heard her cross the hall, with a +defiant and energetic rustle of skirts. When she entered the room, and +held out her hand, I saw that she was dressed in her walking gown. There +were soft brown furs about her throat, and on her head she wore a small +fur hat, with a bunch of violets at one side, under a thin white veil. + +"I was just going to walk," she said, breathing a little quickly, while +her eyes, very wide and bright, held that puzzled and resolute look I +remembered; "will you come with me?" + +She turned at once to the door, as if eager to leave the house, and +while I followed her through the hall, and down the short flight of +steps to the pavement, I was conscious of a sharp presentiment that I +should never again cross that threshold. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +A MEETING IN THE ENCHANTED GARDEN + + +I spoke no word of love in that brisk walk up Franklin Street, and when +I remembered this a month afterwards, it seemed to me that I had let the +opportunity of a lifetime slip by. Since that afternoon I had not seen +Sally again--some fierce instinct held me back from entering the doors +that would have closed against me--and as the days passed, crowded with +work and cheered by the immediate success of the National Oil Company, I +felt that Miss Mitty and Miss Matoaca, and even Sally, whom I loved, had +faded out of the actual world into a vague cloud-like horizon. To women +it is given, I suppose, to merge the ideal into everyday life, but with +men it is different. I saw Sally still every minute that I lived, but I +saw her as a star, set high above the common business world in which I +had my place--above the strain and stress of the General's office, above +the rise and fall of the stock market, above the brisk triumphant war +with competitors for the National Oil Company, above even the hope of +the future presidency of the Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad. +Between my love and its fulfilment, stretched, I knew, hard years of +struggle, but bred in me, bone and structure, the instinct of democracy +was still strong enough to support me in the hour of defeat. Never +once--not even when I sat, condescendingly plied with coffee and +partridges, face to face with the wonder expressed in Miss Mitty's eyes, +had I admitted to myself that I was obliged to remain in the class from +which I had sprung. Courage I had never lost for an instant; the present +might embarrass me, but the future, I felt always, I held securely +grasped in my own hands. The birthright of a Republic was mine as well +as the General's, and I knew that among a free people it was the mettle +of the man that would count in the struggle. In the fight between +democratic ideals and Old World institutions I had no fear, even to-day, +of what the future would bring. The right of a man to make his own +standing was all that I asked. + +And yet the long waiting! As I walked one Sunday afternoon over to +Church Hill, after a visit to Jessy (who was living now with a friend of +the doctor's), I asked myself again and again if Sally had read my heart +that last afternoon and had seen in it the reason of my fierce reserve. +Jessy had been affectionate and very pretty--she was a cold, small, +blond woman, with a perfect face and the manner of an indifferent +child--but she had been unable to wean me from the thought which +returned to take royal possession as soon as the high pressure of my +working day was relaxed. It controlled me utterly from the moment I put +the question of the stock market aside; and it was driving me now, like +the ghost of an unhappy lover, back for a passionate hour in the +enchanted garden. + +The house was half closed when I reached it, though the open shutters to +the upper windows led me to believe that some of the rooms, at least, +were tenanted. When I entered the gate and passed the stuccoed wing to +the rear piazza, I saw that the terraces were blotted and ruined as if +an invading army had tramped over them. The magnolias and laburnums, +with the exception of a few lonely trees, had already fallen; the +latticed arbours were slowly rotting away; and several hardy +rose-bushes, blooming bravely in the overgrown squares, were the only +survivals of the summer splendour that I remembered. Turning out of the +path, I plucked one of these gallant roses, and found it pale and +sickly, with a November blight at the heart. Only the great elms still +arched their bared branches unchanged against a red sunset; and now as +then the small yellow leaves fluttered slowly down, like wounded +butterflies, to the narrow walks. + +I had left the upper terrace and had descended the sunken green steps, +when the dry rustle of leaves in the path fell on my ears, and turning a +fallen summer house, I saw Sally approaching me through the broken maze +of the box. A colour flamed in her face, and pausing in the leaf-strewn +path, she looked up at me with shining and happy eyes. + +"It has been so long since I saw you," she said, with her hand +outstretched. + +I took her hand, and turning we moved down the walk while I still held +it in mine. Out of the blur of her figure, which swam in a mist, I saw +only her shining and happy eyes. + +"It has been a thousand years," I answered, "but I knew that they would +pass." + +"That they would pass?" she repeated. + +"That they must pass. I have worked for that end every minute since I +saw you. I have loved you, as you surely know," I blurted out, "every +instant of my life, but I knew that I could offer you nothing until I +could offer you something worthy of your acceptance." + +Reaching out her hand, which she had withdrawn from mine, she caught +several drifting elm leaves in her open palm. + +"And what," she asked slowly, "do you consider to be worthy of my +acceptance?" + +"A name," I answered, "that you would be proud to bear. Not only the +love of a man's soul and body, but the soul and body themselves after +they have been tried and tested. Wealth, I know, would not count with +you, and I believe, birth would not, even though you are a Bland--but I +must have wealth, I must have honour, so that at least you will not +appear to stoop. I must give you all that it lies in my power to +achieve, or I must give you nothing." + +"Wealth! honour!" she said, with a little laugh, "O Ben Starr! Ben +Starr!" + +"So that, at least, you will not appear to stoop," I repeated. + +"I stoop to you?" she responded, and again she laughed. + +"You know that I love you?" I asked. + +"Yes," she replied, and lifted her eyes to mine, "I know that you love +me." + +"Beyond love I have nothing at the moment." + +A light wind swept the leaves from her hand, and blew the ends of her +white veil against my breast. + +"And suppose," she demanded in a clear voice, "that love was all that I +wanted?" + +Her lashes did not tremble; but in her eyes, in her parted red lips, and +in her whole swift and expectant figure, there was something noble and +free, as if she were swept forward by the radiant purpose which shone in +her look. + +"Not my love--not yet--my darling," I said. + +At the word her blush came. + +"You say you have only yourself to give," she went on with an effort. +"Is it possible that in the future--in any future--you could have more +than yourself?" + +"Not more love, Sally, not more love." + +"Then more of what?" + +"Of things that other men and women count worth the having!" + +The sparkle returned to her eyes, and I watched the old childish +archness play in her face. + +"Do I understand that you are proposing to other men and women or to me, +sir?" she enquired, above her muff, in the prim tone of Miss Mitty. + +"To neither the one nor the other," I answered stubbornly, though I +longed to kiss the mockery away from her curving lips. "When the time +comes I shall return to you." + +"And you are doing this for the sake of other people, not for me," she +said. "I suppose, indeed, that it's Aunt Mitty and Aunt Matoaca you are +putting before me. They would be flattered, I am sure, if they could +only know of it--but they can't. As a matter of fact, they also put +something before me, so I don't appear to come first with anybody. Aunt +Mitty prefers her pride and Aunt Matoaca prefers her principles, and you +prefer both--" + +"I am only twenty-six," I returned. "In five years--in ten at most--I +shall be far in the race--" + +"And quite out of breath with the running," she observed, "by the time +you turn and come back for me." + +"I don't dare ask you to wait for me." + +"As a matter of fact," she responded serenely, "I don't think I shall. I +could never endure waiting." + +Her calmness was like a dash of cold water into my face. + +"Don't laugh at me whatever you do," I implored. + +"I'm not laughing--it's far too serious," she retorted. "That scheme of +yours," she flashed out suddenly, "is worthy of the great brain of the +General." + +"Now I'll stand anything but that!" I replied, and turned squarely on +her; "Sally, do you love me?" + +"Love a man who puts both his pride and his principles before me?" + +"If you don't love me--and, of course you can't--why do you torment me?" + +"It isn't torment, it's education. When next you start to propose to the +lady of your choice, don't begin by telling her you are lovesick for the +good opinion of her maiden aunts." + +"Sally, Sally!" I cried joyfully. My hand went out to hers, and then as +she turned away--my arm was about her, and the little fur hat with the +bunch of violets was on my breast. + +"O, Ben Starr, were you born blind?" she said with a sob. + +"Sally, am I mad or do you love me?" I asked, and the next instant, +bending over as she looked up, I kissed her parted lips. + +For a minute she was silent, as if my kiss had drawn her strength +through her tremulous red mouth. Her body quivered and seemed to melt in +my arms--and then with a happy laugh, she yielded herself to my embrace. + +"A little of both, Ben," she answered, "you are mad, I suppose, and so +am I--and I love you." + +"But how could you? When did you begin?" + +"I could because I would, and there was no beginning. I was born that +way." + +"You meant you have cared for me, as I have for you--always?" + +"Not always, perhaps--but--well, it started in the churchyard, I think, +when I gave you Samuel. Then when I met you again it might have been +just the way you look--for oh, Ben, did you ever discover that you are +splendid to look at?" + +"A magnificent animal," I retorted. + +She blushed, recognising the phrase. "To tell the truth, though, it +wasn't the way you look," she went on impulsively, "it was, I think,--I +am quite sure,--the time you pushed that wheel up the hill. I adored +you, Ben, at that moment. If you'd asked me to marry you on the spot I'd +have responded, 'Yes, thank you, sir,' as one of my great-grandmothers +did at the altar." + +"And to think I didn't even know you were there. I'd forgotten it, but I +remember now the General told me I made a spectacle of myself." + +"Well, I always liked a spectacle, it's in my blood. I like a man, too, +who does things as if he didn't care whether anybody was looking at him +or not--and that's you, Ben." + +"It's not my business to shatter your ideals," I answered, and the next +minute, "O Sally, how is it to end?" + +"That depends, doesn't it," she asked, "whether you want to marry me or +my maiden aunts?" + +"Do you mean that you will marry me?" + +"I mean, Ben, that if you aren't so obliging as to marry me, I'll pine +away and die a lovelorn death." + +"Be serious, Sally." + +"Could anything on earth be more serious than a lovelorn death?" + +I would have caught her back to my breast, but eluding my arms, she +stood poised like the fleeting-spirit of gaiety in the little path. + +"Will you promise to marry me, Ben Starr?" she asked. + +"I'll promise anything on earth," I answered. + +"Not to talk any more about my stooping to a giant?" + +"I won't talk about it, darling, I'll let you do it." + +"And if you're poor you'll let me be poor too? And if you're rich you'll +give me a share of the money?" + +"Both--all." + +"And you'll make a sacrifice for me--as the General said George +wouldn't--whenever I happen particularly to want one?" + +"A million of them--anything, everything." + +She came a step nearer, and raised her smiling lips to mine. + +"Anything--everything, Ben, together," she said. + +Presently we walked back slowly, hand in hand, through the maze of box. + +"Will you tell your aunts, or shall I, Sally?" I asked. + +"We'll go to them together." + +"Now, at this instant?" + +"Now--at this instant," she agreed, "but I thought you were so patient?" + +"Patient? I'm as patient as an engine on the Great South Midland." + +"A minute ago you were prepared to wait ten years." + +"Oh, ten years!" I echoed, as I followed her out of the enchanted +garden. + +At the corner the surrey was standing, and the face of old Shadrach, the +negro driver, stared back at me, transfixed with amazement. + +"Whar you gwine now, Miss Sally?" he demanded defiantly of his young +mistress, as I took my place under the fur rug beside her. + +"Home, Uncle Shadrach," she replied. + +"Ain't I gwine drap de gent'man some whar on de way up?" + +"No, Uncle Shadrach, home,"--and for home we started merrily with a +flick of the whip over the backs of the greys. + +Sitting beside her for the first time in my life, I was conscious, as we +drove through the familiar streets, only of an acute physical delight in +her presence. As she turned toward me, her breath fanned my cheek, the +touch of her arm on mine was a rapture, and when the edge of her white +veil was blown into my face, I felt my blood rush to meet it. Never +before had I been so confident, so strong, so assured of the future. Not +the future alone, but the whole universe seemed to lie in the closed +palm of my hand. I knew that I was plain, that I was rough beside the +velvet softness of the woman who had promised to share my life; but this +plainness, this roughness, no longer troubled me since she had found in +it something of the power that had drawn her to me. My awkwardness had +dropped from me in the revelation of my strength which she had brought. +The odour of burning leaves floated up from the street, and I saw again +her red shoes dancing over the sunken graves in the churchyard. Oh, +those red shoes had danced into my life and would stay there forever! + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +IN WHICH SALLY SPEAKS HER MIND + + +We crossed the threshold, which I had thought never to pass again, and +entered the drawing-room, where a cedar log burned on the andirons. At +either end of the low brass fender, Miss Mitty and Miss Matoaca sat very +erect, like two delicate silhouettes, the red light of the flames +shining through their fine, almost transparent profiles. Beyond them, +over the rosewood spinet, I saw their portrait, painted in fancy dress, +with clasped hands under a garland of roses. + +As we entered the room, they rose slightly from their chairs, and turned +toward us with an expression of mild surprise on their faces. It was +impossible, I knew, for their delicately moulded features to express any +impulse more strongly. + +"Dear aunties," began Sally, in a voice that was a caress, "I've brought +Ben back with me because I met him in the garden on Church +Hill--and--and--and he told me that he loved me." + +"He told you that he loved you?" repeated Miss Mitty in a high voice, +while Miss Matoaca sat speechless, with her unnaturally bright eyes on +her niece's face. + +Kneeling on the rug at their feet, Sally looked from one to the other +with an appealing and tender glance. + +"You brought him back because he told you that he loved you?" said Miss +Mitty again, as if her closed mind had refused to admit the words she +had uttered. + +"Well, only partly because of that, Aunt Mitty," replied Sally bravely, +"the rest was because--because I told him that I loved him." + +For a moment there was a tense and unnatural silence in the midst of +which I heard the sharp crackling of the fire and smelt the faint sweet +smell of the burning cedar. The two aunts looked at each other over the +kneeling girl, and it seemed to me that the long, narrow faces had grown +suddenly pinched and old. + +"I--I don't think we understood quite what you said, Sally dear," said +Miss Matoaca, in a hesitating voice; and I felt sorry for her as she +spoke--sorry for them both because the edifice of their beliefs and +traditions, reared so patiently through the centuries by dead Fairfaxes +and Blands, had crumbled about their ears. + +"What she means, Miss Matoaca," I said gently, coming forward into the +firelight, "is that I have asked her to marry me." + +"To marry you--you--Ben Starr?" exclaimed Miss Mitty abruptly, rising +from her chair, and then falling nervelessly back. "There is some +mistake--not that I doubt," she added courteously, the generations of +breeding overcoming her raw impulse of horror, "not that I doubt for a +minute that you are an estimable and deserving character--General +Bolingbroke tells me so and I trust his word. But Sally marry you! Why, +your father--I beg your pardon for reminding you of it--your father was +not even an educated man." + +"No," I replied, "my father was not an educated man, but I am." + +"That speaks very well for you, sir, I am sure--but how--how could my +niece marry a man who--I apologise again for alluding to your +origin--whose father was a stone-cutter--I have heard?" + +"Yes, he was a stone-cutter, and I am sorry to say wasn't even a good +one." + +"I don't know that good or bad makes a difference, except, of course, as +it affected his earning a livelihood. But the fact remains that he was a +common workman and that no member of our family on either side has ever +been even remotely connected with trade. Surely, you yourself, Mr. +Starr, must be aware that my niece and you are not in the same walk of +life. Do you not realise the impossibility of--of the connection you +speak of?" + +"I realised it so much," I answered, "that until I met her this +afternoon I had determined to wait five--perhaps ten years before asking +her to become my wife." + +"Ten years? But what can ten years have to do with it? Families are not +made in ten years, Mr. Starr, and how could that length of time alter +the fact that your father was a person of no education and that you +yourself are a self-made man?" + +"I am not ashamed to offer her the man after he is made," I replied. +"What I did not think worthy of her was the man in the making." + +"But it is the man in the making that I want," said Sally, rising to her +feet, and taking my hand in hers. "O Aunt Matoaca, I love him!" + +The little lady to whom she appealed bent slowly forward in the +firelight, her face, which had grown old and wan, looking up at us, as +we stood there, hand in hand, on the rug. + +"I am distressed for you, Sally," she said, "but when it becomes a +question of honour, love must be sacrificed." + +"Honour!" cried Sally, and there was a passionate anger in her voice, +"but I _do_ honour him." My hand was in hers, and she stooped and kissed +it before turning to Miss Matoaca, who had drawn herself up, thin and +straight as a blade, in her chair. + +"You are right," I said, "to tell me that I am unworthy of your +niece--for I am. I am plain and rough beside her, but, at least, I am +honest. What I offer her is a man's heart, and a man's hand that has +dealt cleanly and fairly with both men and women." + +Until the words were uttered my pride had blinded me to my cruelty. Then +I saw two bright red spots appear in Miss Matoaca's thin cheeks, and I +asked myself in anger if the General or George Bolingbroke would have +been guilty of so deep a thrust? Did she dream that I knew her story? +And were those pathetic red spots the outward sign of a stab in her +gentle bosom? + +"There are many different kinds of merit, Mr. Starr," she returned, with +a wistful dignity. "I do not undervalue that of character, but I do not +think that even a good character can atone for the absence of family +inheritance--of the qualities which come from refined birth and +breeding. We have had the misfortune in our family of one experience of +an ill-assorted and tragic marriage," she added. + +"We must never forget poor Sarah's misery and ours, Sister Matoaca," +remarked Miss Mitty, from the opposite side of the hearth; "and yet +Harry Mickleborough's father was a most respectable man, and the teacher +of Greek in a college." + +All the pity went out of me, and I felt only a blind sense of irritation +at the artificial values, the feminine lack of grasp, the ignorance of +the true proportions of life. I grew suddenly hard, and something of +this hardness passed into my voice when I spoke. + +"I stand or fall by own worth and by that alone," I returned, "and your +niece, if she marries me, will stand or fall as I do. I ask no favours, +no allowances, even from her." + +Withdrawing her hand from mine, Sally took a single step forward, and +stood with her eyes on the faces that showed so starved and wan in the +firelight. + +"Don't you see--oh, can't you see," she asked, "that it is because of +these very things that I love him? How can I separate his past from what +he is to-day? How can I say that I would have this or that +different--his birth, his childhood, his struggle--when all these have +helped to make him the man I love? Who else have I ever known that could +compare with him for a minute? You wanted me to marry George +Bolingbroke, but what has he ever done to prove what he was worth?" + +"Sally, Sally," said Miss Mitty, sternly, "he had no need to prove it. +It was proved centuries before his birth. The Bolingbrokes proved +themselves to their king before this was a country--" + +"Well, I'm not his king," rejoined Sally, scornfully, "so it wasn't +proved to me. I ask something more." + +"More, Sally?" + +"Yes, more, Aunt Mitty, a thousand times and ten thousand times. What do +I care for a dead arm that fought for a dead king? Both are dust to-day, +and I am alive. No, no, give me, not honour and loyalty that have been +dead five hundred years, but truth and courage that I can turn to +to-day,--not chivalric phrases that are mere empty sound, but honesty +and a strong arm that I can lean on." + +Miss Matoaca's head had dropped as if from weariness over her thin +breast, which palpitated under the piece of old lace, like the breast of +a wounded bird. Then, as the girl stopped and caught her breath sharply +from sheer stress of feeling, the little lady looked up again and +straightened herself with a gesture of pride. + +"Do not make the mistake, Sally," she said, "of thinking that a humble +birth means necessarily greater honesty than a high one. Generations of +refinement are the best material for character-building, and you might +as easily find the qualities you esteem in a gentleman of your own +social position." + +"I might, Aunt Matoaca; but, as a matter of fact, have I? Until you have +seen a man fight can you know him? Is family tradition, after all, as +good a school as the hard world? A life like Ben's does not always make +a man good, I know, but it has made him so. If this were not true--if +any one could prove to me that he had been false or cruel to any living +creature--man, woman, or animal--I'd give him up to-day and not break my +heart--" + +It was true, I knew it as she spoke, and I could have knelt to her. + +"You are blind, Sally, blind and rash as your mother before you," +returned Miss Mitty. + +"No, Aunt Mitty, it is you who are blind--who see by the old values that +the world has long since outgrown--who think you can assign a place to a +man and say to him, 'You belong there and cannot come out of it.' But, +oh, Aunt Matoaca, surely you, who have sacrificed so much for what you +believe to be right,--who have placed principle before any claims of +blood, surely you will uphold me--" + +"My child, my child," replied the poor lady, with a sob, "I placed +principle first, but never emotion--never emotion." + +"Poor Sarah was the only one of us who gave up everything for the sake +of an emotion," added Miss Mitty, "and what did it bring her except +misery?" + +Our cause was lost--we saw it at the same instant--and again Sally gave +me her hand and stood side by side with me in the firelight. + +"I am sorry, dear aunts," she said gently, and turning to me, she added +slowly and clearly, "I will marry you a year from to-day, if you will +wait, Ben." + +"I will wait for you, whether you marry me or not, forever," I answered; +and bowing silently, I turned and left the room, while Sally went down +again on her knees. + +Once outside, I drew a long breath of air, sharp with the scent of the +sycamore, and stood gazing up at the clear sunset beyond the silvery +boughs. It was good to be out of those mouldering traditions, that +atmosphere of an all-enveloping past; good, too, to be out of the +tapestried room, away from the grave, fixed smiles of the dead Blands +and Fairfaxes and the close, sweet smell of the burning cedar. There I +dared not step with my full weight, lest I should ruthlessly tread on a +sentiment, or bring down a moth-eaten tradition upon my head. I was for +the hard, bright world, and the future; there in that cedar-scented +room, sat the two ladies, forever guarding the faded furniture and the +crumbling past. The pathetic contradiction of Miss Matoaca returned to +me, and I laughed aloud. Miss Matoaca, who worked for the emancipation +of women, while she herself was the slave of an ancestry of men who +oppressed women, and women who loved oppression! Miss Matoaca, whose +mind, long and narrow like her face, could grasp but a single idea and +reject the sequence to which it inevitably led! I wondered if she meant +to emancipate "ladies" merely, or if her principles could possibly +overleap her birthright of caste? Was she a gallant martyr to the +inequalities of sex, who still clung, trembling, to the inequalities of +society? She would go to the stake, I felt sure, for the cause of +womanhood, but she would go supported by the serene conviction that she +was "a lady." The pathos of it, and the mockery, checked the laugh in my +throat. To how many of us, after all, was it given to discern, not only +immediate effects, but universal relations as well? To the General? To +myself? What did we see except the possible opportunity, the room for +the ego, the adjustment to selfish ends? Yet our school was the world. +Should we, then, expect that little lady, with her bright eyes and her +withered roseleaf cheeks, to look farther than the scented firelight in +which she sat? I felt a tenderness for her, as I felt a tenderness for +all among whom Sally moved. The house in which she lived, the threshold +she had crossed, the servants who surrounded her, were all bathed for me +in the rosy light of her lamps. Common day did not shine there. I was +but twenty-seven, and my eyes could still find romance in the rustle of +her skirt and in the curl of her eyelash. + +In the little office, where the curtains were drawn and the green-shaded +lamp already lit, I found Dr. Theophilus sitting over his evening mint +julep, the solitary dissipation in which I had ever seen him indulge. +His strong, ruddy face, with its hooked nose and illuminating smile, was +still the face of a middle-aged man, though he had passed, a year ago, +his seventieth birthday. At his feet, Waif, a stray dog, rescued in +memory of Robin, the pointer, was curled up on a rug. + +"Well, my boy," he said cheerily, "you've had a good day, I hope?" + +"A good day, doctor, I've been in heaven," I answered. + +His smile shone out, clear and bright, as it did at a patient's bedside. +"I've been there, too, Ben," he responded, "forty years ago." + +"Then why didn't you stay, sir?" + +"Because it isn't given to any man to stay longer than a few minutes. +Ah, my boy, you are the mixture of a fighter and a dreamer." + +"But suppose," I blushed, for I was a reserved man, though few people +were reserved with Dr. Theophilus, "suppose that your heaven is a +woman?" + +"Has it ever been anything else to a man since Adam?" he asked. "Every +man's heaven, and most men's hell, is a woman, my boy. Why, look at old +George Bolingbroke now! He's no longer young, and he's certainly no +longer handsome, yet I've seen him, in his day, stand up straight and +tall in church at Miss Matoaca Bland's side, and look perfectly happy +because he could sing from the same hymn-book. Then a week later, when +she'd thrown him over, I saw him jump up at a supper, and drink +champagne out of the slipper of some variety actress." + +"Yet she was right, I suppose, to throw him over?" + +"Oh, she was right, I'm not questioning that she was right," he +responded hastily; "but it isn't always the woman who is right, Ben," he +added, "that makes a man's heaven." + +"The poor little lady had no slipperful of champagne to fall back on," I +suggested. + +"It's a pity she hadn't--for it's as true as the Gospel, that George +Bolingbroke drove her into all this nonsense about the equality of +sexes. Equality, indeed! A man doesn't want to make love to an equal, +but to an angel! Bless my soul, I don't know to save my life, what to +think of Miss Matoaca, except that she's crazy. That's the kindest thing +I can say for her. She's gone now and got into correspondence with some +bloodthirsty, fire-eating woman's rights advocates up North, and she's +actually taken to distributing their indecent pamphlets. She had the +face to leave one on my desk this morning. I'd just taken it in the +tongs before you came in and put it into the fire. There are the ashes +of it," he added sardonically, waving his silver goblet in the direction +of some grey shreds of paper in the fireplace. + +"All the same, doctor, she may be crazy, but I respect her." + +"Respect her? Respect Miss Matoaca Bland? Of course you respect her, +sir. Even George Bolingbroke, bitter as he is, respects her from his +boots up. She's the embodiment of honour, and if there's a man alive who +doesn't respect the embodiment of honour, be it male or female, he +ought--he ought to be taken out and horsewhipped, sir! Her own sister, +poor Miss Mitty, has the greatest veneration for her, though she can't +help lying awake at night and wondering where those crazy principles +will lead her next. If they lead her to a quagmire, she'll lift her +skirts and step in, Ben, there's no doubt of that--and what Miss Mitty +fears now is that, since she's got hold of these abolition sheets, +they'll lead her to the public platform--" + +"You mean she'd get up and speak in public? She couldn't to save her +head." + +"You'd better not conclude that Miss Matoaca can't do anything until +you've seen her try it," replied the doctor indignantly. "I suppose +you'd think she couldn't bombard a political meeting, with not a woman +to help her. Yet last winter she went down to the Legislature, in her +black silk dress and poke bonnet, and tried to get her obnoxious +measures brought before a committee." + +"Was she laughed at?" I demanded angrily. + +"Good Lord, no. They are gentlemen, even if they are politicians, and +they know a lady even if she's cracked." + +"And is she entirely alone? Has she no supporter?" + +"As far as I know, my boy, Matoaca Bland is the only blessed thing in +the state that cares a continental whether women are emancipated or +not." + +He lifted the silver goblet to his lips, and drank long and deeply, +while the rustle of Mrs. Clay's skirts was heard at his office door. +After a sharp rap, she entered in her bustling way, and presented me +with a second julep, deliciously frosted and fragrant. She was a small, +very alert old lady, wearing a bottle-green alpaca, made so slender in +the waist that it caused her to resemble one of her own famous pickled +cucumbers. + +"Theophilus," she began in a crisp, high voice, "I hope you have sent in +those bills, as you promised me?" + +"Good Lord, Tina," responded the doctor, with a burst of irritation, +"isn't it bad enough to be sick without being made to pay for it?" + +"You promised me, Theophilus." + +"I promised you I'd send bills to the folks I'd cured, but, when I came +to think of it, how was I to know, Tina, that I'd cured any?" + +"At least you dosed them?" + +"Yes, I dosed them," he admitted; "but taking medicine isn't a pleasure +that I'd like to pay for." + +Turning away, she rustled indignantly through the door, and Dr. +Theophilus, as he returned to the rim of his silver goblet, gave me a +sly wink over his sprigs of mint. + +"Yes, Ben, it isn't always the woman who is right that makes a man's +heaven," he said. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +IN WHICH MY FORTUNES RISE + + +The winter began with a heavy snow-storm and ended in a long April rain, +and in all those swiftly moving months I had seen Sally barely a dozen +times. Not only my pride, but Miss Mitty's rigid commands had kept me +from her house, and the girl had promised that for the first six months +she would not meet me except by chance. + +"In the spring--oh, in the spring," she wrote, "I shall be free. My +promise was given and I could not recall it, but I believe now that it +was pride, not love, that made them exact it. Do you know, I sometimes +think that they do not love me at all. They have both told me that they +would rather see me dead than married, as they call it, beneath me. +Beneath me, indeed! Ah, dearest, dearest, how can one lower one's self +to a giant? When I think of all that you are, of all that you have made +yourself, I feel so humble and proud. The truth is, Ben, I'm not +suffering half so much from love as I am from indignation. If it keeps +up, some day I'll burst out like Aunt Matoaca, for I've got it in me. +And she of all people! Why, she goes about in her meek, sanctified +manner distributing pamphlets on the emancipation of woman, and yet she +actually told me the other day that, of course, she would prefer to have +only 'ladies' permitted to vote. 'In that case, however,' she added, 'I +should desire to restrict the franchise to gentlemen, also.' Did you +ever in your whole life hear of anything so absurd, and she really meant +it. She's a martyr, and filled with a holy zeal to get burned or racked. +But it's awful, every bit of it. Oh, lift me up, Ben! Lift me up!" And +in a postscript, "What does the General say to you? Aunt Mitty has told +the General." + +The General had said nothing to me, but when I drove him up from his +office the next day, he invited me to dine with him, and talked +incessantly through the three simple courses about the prospects of the +National Oil Company. + +"So you're sweeping the whole South?" he said. + +"Yes, Sam has made a big thing of it. We've knocked out everybody else +in the oil business in this part of the world." + +"Mark my word, then, you've been cutting into the interest of the oil +trust, and it will come along presently and try to knock you out. When +it does, Ben, make it pay, make it pay." + +"Oh, I'll make it pay," I answered. "The consolidated interests may +sweep out the independent companies, but they can't overturn the Great +South Midland and Atlantic Railroad." + +"It's the road, of course, that has made such a success possible." + +"Yes, it's the road--everything is the road, General." + +"And to think that when I got control of it, it was bankrupt." + +Rising from the table he took my arm, and limped painfully into his +study, where he lit a cigar and sank back in his easy chair. + +"Look here, Ben," he began suddenly, with a change of tone, "what's this +trouble brewing between you and Miss Mitty Bland?" + +"There's no trouble, sir, except that her niece has promised to marry +me." + +"Promised to marry you, eh? Sally Mickleborough? Are you sure it's Sally +Mickleborough?" + +"I'm hardly likely to be mistaken, General, about the identity of my +future wife." + +"No, I suppose you ain't," he admitted, "but, good Lord, Ben, how did +you make her do it?" + +"I didn't make her. She was good enough to do it of her own accord." + +"So she did it of her own accord? Well, confound you, boy, how did it +ever occur to you to ask her?" + +"That's what I can't answer, General, I don't believe it ever occurred +to me any more than it occurred to me to fall in love with her." + +"You've fallen in love with Sally Mickleborough, Miss Matoaca's niece. +She refused George, you know?" + +I replied that I didn't know it, but I never supposed that she would +engage herself to two men at the same time. + +"And she's seriously engaged to you?" he demanded, still unconvinced. +"Are you precious sure she isn't flirting? Girls will flirt, and I don't +reckon you've had much experience of 'em. Why, even Miss Mitty was known +to flirt in a prim, stiff-necked fashion in her time, and as for Sarah +Bland, they say she promised to marry a whole regiment before the battle +of Seven Pines. A little warning beforehand ain't going to do any harm, +Ben." + +"I'm much obliged to you, General, but I don't think in this case it's +needed. Sally is staunch and true." + +"Sally? Do you call her 'Sally'? It used to be the custom to address the +lady you were engaged to as 'Miss Sally' up to the day of the marriage." + +I laughed and shook my head. "Oh, we move fast!" + +"Yes, I'm an old man," he admitted sadly, "and I was brought up in a +different civilisation. It's funny, my boy, how many customs were swept +away with the institution of slavery." + +"There'd have been little room for me in those days." + +"Oh, you'd have got into some places quick enough, but you'd never have +crossed the Blands' threshold when they lived down on James River. There +isn't much of that nonsense left now, but Miss Mitty has got it and +Theophilus has got it; and, when all's said, they, might have something +considerably worse. Why, look at Miss Matoaca. When I first saw her +you'd never have imagined there was an idea inside her head." + +"I can understand that she must have been very pretty." + +"Pretty? She was as beautiful as an angel. And to think of her +distributing those damned woman's rights pamphlets! She left one on my +desk," he added, sticking out his lower lip like a crying child, and +wiping his bloodshot eyes on the hem of his silk handkerchief. "I tell +you if she'd had a husband this would never have happened." + +"We can't tell--it might have been worse, if she believes it." + +"Believes what, sir?" gasped the great man, enraged. "Believes that +outlandish Yankee twaddle about a woman wanting any rights except the +right to a husband! Do you think she'd be running round loose in this +crackbrained way if she had a home she could stay in and a husband she +could slave over? I tell you there's not a woman alive that ain't +happier with a bad husband than with none at all." + +"That's a comfortable view, at any rate." + +"View? It's not a view, it's a fact--and what business has a lady got +with a view anyway? If Miss Matoaca hadn't got hold of those heathenish +views, she'd be a happy wife and mother this very minute." + +"Does it follow, General, that she would have been a happy one?" I asked +a little unfairly. + +"Of course it follows. Isn't every wife and mother happy? What more does +she want unless she's a Yankee Abolitionist?" + +"Who's a Yankee?" enquired young George, in his amiable voice from the +hall. "I'm surprised to hear you calling names when the war is over, +sir." + +"I wasn't calling names, George. I was just saying that Miss Matoaca +Bland was a Yankee. Did you ever hear of a Virginia lady who wasn't +content to be what the Lord and the men intended her?" + +"No, sir, I never did--but it seems to me that Miss Matoaca has managed +to secure a greater share of your attention than the more amenable +Virginia ladies." + +"Well, isn't it a sad enough sight to see any lady going cracked?" +retorted the General, hotly; "do you know, George, that Sally +Mickleborough--he says he's sure it's Sally Mickleborough--has promised +to marry Ben Starr?" + +"Oh, it's Sally all right," responded George, "she has just told me." + +He came over and held out his hand, smiling pleasantly, though there was +a hurt look in his eyes. + +"I congratulate you, Ben," he observed in his easy, good-natured way, +"the best man comes in ahead." + +His face wore the frown, not from temper, but from pain, that I had seen +on it at the club when his favourite hunter had dropped dead, and he had +tried to appear indifferent. He was a superb horseman, a typical man +about town, a bit of a sport, also, as Dr. Theophilus said. I knew he +loved Sally, just as I had known he loved his hunter, by a sympathetic +reading of his character rather than by any expression of regret on his +long, highly coloured, slightly wooden countenance, with its set mouth +over which drooped a mustache so carefully trimmed that it looked almost +as if it were glued on his upper lip. + +"By the way, uncle, have you heard the last news?" he asked, "Barclay is +buying all the A. P. & C. Stock he can lay hands on. It's selling at--" + +"Hello! What's that? Barclay, did you say? I knew it was coming, and +that he'd spring it. Here, Hatty, give me my cape, I'm going back to the +office!" + +"George, George, the doctor told you not to excite yourself," +remonstrated Miss Hatty, appearing in the doorway with a glass of +medicine in her hand. + +"Excite myself? Pish! Tush!" retorted the General, "I ain't a bit more +excited than you are yourself. Do you think if I hadn't had a cool head +they'd have made me president of the South Midland? But I tell you +Barclay's trying to get control of the A. P. & C., and I'll be blamed if +he shall! Do you want him to snatch a railroad out of my very mouth, +madam?" + +By this time he had got into his cape and slouch hat, turning at the +last moment to swallow Miss Hatty's dose of medicine with a wry mouth. +Then with one arm in George's and one in mine, he descended the steps +and limped as far as the car line on Main Street. + +On that same afternoon I walked out to meet Sally on her ride in one of +the country roads to what was called "the Pump House," and when she had +dismounted, we strolled together along the little path under the scarlet +buds of young maples. At the end of the path there was a rude bench +placed beside the stream, which broke from the dam above with a sound +that was like laughing water. The grass was powdered with small spring +flowers, and overhead a sycamore drooped its silvery branches to the +sparkling waves. Spring was in the air, in the scarlet buds of maples, +in the song of birds, in the warm wind that played on Sally's flushed +cheek and lifted a loosened curl on her forehead. And spring was in my +heart, too, as I sat there beside her, on the old bench, with her hand +in mine. + +"You will marry me in November, Sally?" + +"On the nineteenth of November, as I promised. Aunt Mitty and Aunt +Matoaca have forbidden me to mention your name to them, so I shall walk +with you to church some morning--to old Saint John's, I think, Ben." + +"Then may God punish me if I ever fail you," I answered. + +Her look softened. "You will never fail me." + +"You will trust me now and in all the future?" + +"Now and in all the future." + +As we strolled back a little later to her horse that was tethered to a +maple on the roadside, I told her of the success of the National Oil +Company and of the possibility that I might some day be a rich man. + +"As things go in the South, sweetheart, I'm a rich man now for my +years." + +"I am glad for your sake, Ben, but I have never expected to have wealth, +you know." + +"All the same I want you to have it, I want to give it to you." + +"Then I'll begin to love it for your sake--if it means that to you?" + +"It means nothing else. But what do you think it will mean to your aunts +next November?" + +She shook her head, while I untethered Dolly, the sorrel mare. + +"They haven't a particle of worldliness, either of them, and I don't +believe it will make any great difference if we have millions. Of course +if you were, for instance, the president of the South Midland they would +not have refused to receive you, but they would have objected quite as +strongly to your marrying into the family. What you are yourself might +concern them if they were inviting you to dinner, but when it is a +question of connecting yourself with their blood, it is what your father +was that affects them. I really believe," she finished half angrily, +half humorously, "that Aunt Mitty--not Aunt Matoaca--would honestly +rather I'd marry a well-born drunkard or libertine than you, whom she +calls 'quite an extraordinary-looking young man.'" + +"Then if they can neither be cajoled nor bought, I see no hope for +them," I replied, laughing, as she sprang from my hand into her saddle. + +The red flame of the maple was in her face as she looked back at me. +"Everything will come right, Ben, if we only love enough," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE PRINCIPLES OF MISS MATOACA + + +When I walked down to the office now, I began to be pointed out as "the +General's wonderful boy." Invitations to start companies, or to +directorships of innumerable boards, were showered upon me, and +adventurous promoters of vain schemes sought desperately to shelter +themselves behind my growing credit. Then, in the following October, the +consolidated oil interests bought out my business at my own price, and I +awoke one glorious morning to the knowledge that my fortune was made. + +"If you're going to swell, Ben, now's the time," said the General, "and +out you go." + +But my training had been in a hard school, and by the end of the month +he had ceased to enquire in the mornings "if my hat still fitted my +head." + +"You'll have your ups and downs, Ben, like the rest of us," he said, +"but the main thing is, let your fortunes see-saw as they may, always +keep your eyes on a level. By the way, I saw Sally Mickleborough last +night, and when I asked her why she fell in love with you, she replied +it was because she saw you pushing a wheel up a hill. Now there's a +woman with a reason--you'd better look sharp, or she'll begin talking +politics presently like her Aunt Matoaca. What do you think I found on +my desk this morning? A pamphlet, addressed in her handwriting, about +the presidential election." Then his tone softened. "So Sally's going to +marry you in spite of her aunts? Well, she's a good girl, a brave girl, +and I'm proud of her." + +When I went home to supper, I was to have a different opinion from Dr. +Theophilus. + +"I saw Sally Mickleborough to-day, Ben, when I called on Miss +Matoaca,--[that poor lady gets flightier every day, she left a pamphlet +here this morning about the presidential election]--and the girl told me +in the few minutes I saw her in the hall, that she meant to marry you +next month." + +"She will do me that great honour, doctor." + +"Well, I regret it, Ben; I can't conceal from you that I regret it. +You're a good boy, and I'm proud of you, but I don't like to see young +folks putting themselves in opposition to the judgment of their elders. +I'm an orthodox believer in the claims of blood, you know." + +"And is there nothing to be said for the claims of love?" + +"The claims of moonshine, Ben," observed Mrs. Clay in her sharp voice, +looking up from a pair of yarn socks she was knitting for the doctor; +"you know I'm fond of you, but when you begin to talk of the claims of +love driving a girl to break with her family, I feel like boxing your +ears." + +"You see, Tina is a cynic," remarked Dr. Theophilus, smiling, "and I +don't doubt that she has her excellent reasons, as usual; most cynics +have. A woman, however, has got to believe in love to the point of +lunacy or become a scoffer. What I contend, now, is that love isn't +moonshine, but that however solid a thing it may be, it isn't, after +all, as solid as one's duty to one's family." + +"Of course I can't argue with you, doctor. I know little of the unit you +call 'the family'; but I should think the first duty of the family would +be to consider the happiness of the individual." + +"And do you think, Ben, that you are the only person who is considering +Sally's happiness?" + +"I know that I am considering it; for the rest I can't speak." + +"I firmly believe," broke in Mrs. Clay, "that Sally's behaviour has +helped to drive Matoaca Bland clean out of her wits. She's actually sent +me one of her leaflets,--what do you think of that, Theophilus?--to me, +the most refined and retiring woman on earth." + +"What I'd say, Tina, is that you aren't half as refined and retiring as +Miss Matoaca," chuckled the doctor. + +"That is merely the way she dresses," rejoined Mrs. Clay stiffly; "it is +her poke bonnet and black silk mantle that deceives you. As for me, I +can call no woman truly refined who does not naturally avoid the society +of men." + +"Well, Tina, I had a notion that all of you were pretty fond of it, when +it comes to that." + +"Not of the society of men, Theophilus, but of the select attentions of +gentlemen." + +"I'm not taking up for Miss Matoaca," pursued the good man; "I can't +conscientiously do that, and I'm more concerned at this minute about the +marriage of Ben and Sally. You may smile at me as superstitious, if you +please, but I never yet saw a marriage turn out happily that was made in +defiance of family feeling." + +As I could make no reply to this, except to put forward a second time +what Mrs. Clay had tartly called "the claims of moonshine," I bade the +doctor goodnight, and going upstairs to my room, sat down beside the +small square window, which gave on the garden, with its miniature box +borders and its single clipped yew-tree, over which a young moon was +rising. "A mixture of a fighter and a dreamer," the old man had once +called me, and it seemed to me now that something apart from the mere +business of living and the alert man of affairs, brooded in me over the +young moon and the yew-tree. + +A letter from Sally had reached me a few hours before, and taking it +from my pocket, I turned to the lamp and read it for the sixth time with +a throbbing heart. + +"You ask me if I am happy, dearest," she wrote, "and I answer that I am +happy, with a still, deep happiness, over which a hundred troubles and +cares ripple like shadows on a lake. But oh! poor Aunt Mitty, with her +silent hurt pride in her face, and poor Aunt Matoaca, with the strained, +unnatural brightness in her eyes, and her cheeks so like rose leaves +that have crumpled. Oh, Ben, I believe Aunt Matoaca is living over again +her own romance, and it breaks my heart. Last night I went into her +room, and found her with her old yellowed wedding veil and orange +blossoms laid out on the bed. She tried to pretend that she was +straightening her cedar chests, but she looked so little and +pitiable--if you could only have seen her! I wonder what she would be +now if the General had been a man like you? How grateful I am, how +profoundly thankful with my whole heart that I am marrying a man that I +can trust!" + +"That I can trust!" Her words rang in my ears, and I heard them again, +clear and strong, the next morning, when I met Miss Matoaca as I was on +my way to my office. She was coming slowly up Franklin Street, her arms +filled with packages, and when she recognised me, with a shy, startled +movement to turn aside, a number of leaflets fluttered from her grasp to +the pavement between us. When I stooped and gathered them up, her face, +under the old-fashioned poke bonnet, was brought close to my eyes, and I +saw that she looked wan and pinched, and that her bright brown eyes were +shining as if from fever. + +"Mr. Starr," she said, straightening her thin little figure as I handed +her the leaflets, "I've wanted for some time to speak a word to you on +the subject of my niece--Miss Mickleborough." + +"Yes, Miss Matoaca." + +"My sister Mitty thought it better that I should refrain from doing so, +and upon such matters she has excellent judgment. It is my habit, +indeed, to yield to her opinion in everything except a question of +conscience." + +"Yes?" for again she had paused. "It is very kind of you," I added. + +"I do not mean it for kindness, Mr. Starr. My niece is very dear to me; +and since poor Sarah's unfortunate experience, we have felt +more--strongly, if possible, about unequal marriages. I know that you +are a most remarkable young man, but I do not feel that you are in any +way suited to make the happiness of our niece--Miss Mickleborough--" + +"I am sorry, Miss Matoaca, but Miss Mickleborough thinks differently." + +"Young people are rarely the best judges in such matters, Mr. Starr." + +"But do you think their elders can judge for them?" + +"If they have had experience--yes." + +"Ah, Miss Matoaca, does our own experience ever teach us to understand +the experience of others?" + +"The Blands have never needed to be taught," she returned with pride, +"that the claims of the family are not to be sacrificed to--to a +sentiment. Except in the case of poor Sarah there has never been a +mésalliance in our history. We have always put one thing above the +consideration of our blood, and that is--a principle. If it were a +question of conscience, however painful it might be to me, I should +uphold my niece in her opposition to my sister Mitty. I myself have +opposed her for a matter of principle." + +"I am aware of it, Miss Matoaca." + +Her withered cheeks were tinged with a delicate rose, and I could almost +see the working of her long, narrow mind behind her long, narrow face. + +"I should like to leave a few of these leaflets with you, Mr. Starr," +she said. + +A minute afterwards, when she had moved on with her meek, slow walk, I +was left standing on the pavement with her suffrage pamphlets fluttering +in my hand. Stuffing them hurriedly into my pocket, I went on to the +office, utterly oblivious of the existence of any principle on earth +except the one underlying the immediate expansion of the Great South +Midland and Atlantic Railroad. + +A fortnight later I heard that Miss Matoaca had begun writing letters to +the "Richmond Herald"; and I remembered, with an easy masculine +complacency, the pamphlets I had thrown into the waste basket beside the +General's desk. The presidential election, with its usual upheaval of +the business world, had arrived; and that timid little Miss Matoaca +should have intruded herself into the affairs of the nation did not +occur to me as possible, until the General informed me, while we watched +a Democratic procession one afternoon, that Miss Mitty had come to him +the day before in tears over the impropriety of her sister's conduct. + +"She begged me to remonstrate with Miss Matoaca," he pursued, "and by +George, I promised her that I would. There's one thing, Ben, I've never +been able to stand, and that's the sight of a woman in tears. Of course +when you've made 'em cry yourself, it is different; but to have a lady +coming to you weeping over somebody else--and a lady like Miss +Mitty--well, I honestly believe if she'd requested me to give her my +skin, I'd have tried to get out of it just to oblige her." + +"Did you go to Miss Matoaca?" I asked, for the picture of the General +lecturing his old love on the subject of the proprieties had caught my +attention even in the midst of a large Democratic procession that was +marching along the street. While he rambled on in his breaking voice, +which had begun to grow weak and old, I gazed over his head at the +political banners with their familiar, jesting inscriptions. + +"I declare, Ben, I'd rather have swallowed a dose of medicine," he went +on; "you see I used to know Miss Matoaca very well forty years ago--I +reckon you've heard of it. We were engaged to be married, and it was +broken off because of some woman's rights nonsense she'd got in her +head." + +"Well, it's hard to imagine your interview of yesterday." + +"There wasn't any interview. I went to her and put it as mildly as I +could. 'Miss Matoaca,' I said, 'I'm sorry to hear you've gone cracked.'" + +"And how did she take it?" + +"'Do you mean my heart or my head, General?' she asked--she had always +plenty of spirit, had Matoaca, for all her soft looks. 'It's your head,' +I answered. 'Lord knows I'm not casting any reflections on the rest of +you.' 'Then it has fared better than my heart, General,' she replied, +'for that was broken.' She looked kind of wild, Ben, as she said it. I +don't know what she was talking about, I declare on my honour I don't!" + +A cheer went up from the procession, and an expression of eager +curiosity came into his face. + +"Can you read that inscription, Ben? My eyes ain't so good as they used +to be." + +"It's some campaign joke. So your lecture wasn't quite a success?" + +"It would have been if she'd listened to reason." + +"But she did not, I presume?" + +"She never listened to it in her life. If she had, she wouldn't be a +poor miserable old maid at this moment. What's that coming they're +making such a noise about? My God, Ben, if it ain't Matoaca herself!" + +It was Matoaca, and the breathless horror in the General's voice passed +into my own mind as I looked. There she was, in her poke bonnet and her +black silk mantle, walking primly at the straggling end of the +procession, among a crowd of hooting small boys and gaping negroes. Her +eyes, very wide and bright, like the eyes of one who is mentally +deranged, were fixed straight ahead, over the lines of men marching in +front of her, on the blue sky above the church steeples. Under her poke +bonnet I saw her meekly parted hair and her faded cheeks, flushed now +with a hectic colour. In one neatly gloved hand her silk skirt was held +primly; in the other she carried a little white silk flag, on which the +staring gold letters were lost in the rippling folds. With her eyes on +the sky and her feet in the dust, she marched, a prim, ladylike figure, +an inspired spinster, oblivious alike of the hooting small boys and the +half-compassionate, half-scoffing gazers upon the pavement. + +"She's crazy, Ben," said the General, and his voice broke with a sob. + +For a minute, as dazed as he, I stared blankly at the little figure with +the white flag. Then bewilderment gave place before the call to action, +and it seemed to me that I saw Sally there in Miss Matoaca, as I had +seen her in the rising moon over the clipped yew, and in the whirlpool +of the stock market. Leaving my place at the General's side, I descended +the steps at a bound, and made my way through the jostling, noisy crowd +to the little lady in its midst. + +"Miss Matoaca!" I said. + +For the first time her eyes left the sky, and as she looked down, the +consciousness of her situation entered into her strained bright eyes. +Her composure was lost in a birdlike, palpitating movement of terror. + +"I--I am going as far as the Square, Mr. Starr," she replied, as if she +were repeating by rote a phrase in a strange tongue. + +At my approach the ridicule, somewhat subdued by the sense of her +helplessness, broke suddenly loose. Bending over I offered her my arm, +my head still uncovered. As the hand holding the white flag drooped from +exhaustion, I took it, with the banner, into my own. + +"Then I'll go with you, Miss Matoaca," I responded. + +We started on, took a few measured paces in the line of march, and then +her strength failing her, she sank back, with a pathetic moan of +weariness, into my arms. Lifting her like a child I carried her out of +the street and up the steps into the General's office. Turning at a +touch as I entered the room, I saw that Sally was at my side. + +"I've sent for Dr. Theophilus," she said. "There, put her on the +lounge." + +Kneeling on the floor she began bathing Miss Matoaca's forehead with +water which somebody had brought. The General, his eyes very red and +bloodshot and his lower lip fallen into a senile droop, was trying +vainly to fan her with his pocket-handkerchief. + +"We have always feared this would happen," said Sally, very quiet and +pale. + +"She was talking to me yesterday about her heart," returned the General, +"and I didn't know what she meant." + +He bent over, fanning her more violently with his silk handkerchief, and +on the lounge beneath, Miss Matoaca lay, very prim and maidenly, with +her skirt folded modestly about her ankles. + +Dr. Theophilus, coming in with the messenger, bent over her for a long +minute. + +"I always thought her sense of honour would kill her," he said at last +as he looked up. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +SHOWS THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE + + +A week after Miss Matoaca's funeral, Sally met me in one of the secluded +streets by the Capitol Square, and we walked slowly up and down for an +hour in the November sunshine. In her black clothes she appeared to have +bloomed into a brighter beauty, a richer colour. + +"Why can't I believe, Sally, that you will really marry me a week from +to-day?" + +"A week from to-day. Just you and I in old Saint John's." + +"And Miss Mitty, will she not come with you?" + +"She refuses to let me speak your name to her. It would be hard to leave +her, Ben, if--if she hadn't been so bitter and stern to me for the last +year. I live in the same house with her and see nothing of her." + +"I thought Miss Matoaca's death might have softened her." + +"Nothing will soften her. Aunt Matoaca's death has hurt her terribly, I +know, but--and this is a dreadful thing to say--I believe it has hurt +her pride more than her heart. If the poor dear had died quietly in her +bed, with her prayer-book on the counterpane, Aunt Mitty would have +grieved for her in an entirely different way. She lives in a kind of +stained-glass seclusion, and anything outside of that seems to her +vulgar--even emotion." + +"How I must have startled her." + +"You startled her so that she has never had courage to face the effect. +Think what it must mean to a person who has lived sixty-five years in an +atmosphere of stained glass to be dragged outside and made to look at +the great common sun--" + +A squirrel, running out from between the iron railing surrounding the +square, crossed the pavement and then sat erect in front of us, his +bushy tail waving like a brush over his ears. While she was bending over +to speak to it, the Bland surrey turned the corner at a rapid pace, and +I saw the figure of Miss Mitty, swathed heavily in black, sitting very +stiff and upright behind old Shadrach. As she caught sight of us, she +leaned slightly forward, and in obedience to her order, the carriage +stopped the next instant beside the pavement. + +"Sally!" she called, and there was no hint in her manner that she was +aware of my presence. + +"Yes, Aunt Mitty." The girl had straightened herself, and stood calmly +and without embarrassment at my side. + +"I should like you to come with me to Hollywood." + +"Yes, Aunt Mitty." + +Pausing for an instant, she gave me her hand. "Until Wednesday, Ben," +she said in a low, clear voice, and then entering the surrey, she took +her place under the fur robe and was driven away. + +The week dragged by like a century, and on Wednesday morning, when I got +up and opened my shutters, I found that our wedding-day had begun in a +slow autumnal rain. A thick tent of clouds stretched overhead, and the +miniature box in the garden looked like flutings of crape on the pebbled +walk, which had been washed clean and glistening during the night. The +clipped yew stood dark and sombre as a solitary mourner among the +blossomless rose-bushes. + +At breakfast Mrs. Clay poured my coffee with a rigid hand and an averted +face, and Dr. Theophilus appeared to find difficulty in keeping up his +cheerful morning comments. + +"I'll miss you, Ben, my boy," he remarked, as he rose from the table; +"it's a sad day for me when I lose you." + +"I hate to lose you, doctor, but I shan't, after all, be far off. I've +bought a house, as you know, beyond the Park in Franklin Street." + +"The one Jack Montgomery used to live in before he lost his money--yes, +it is a fine place. Well, you have my best wishes, Ben, whatever comes; +you may be sure of that. I hope you and Sally will have every +happiness." + +He shook my hand in his hearty grasp before going into his little +office, and the next minute I went out into the rain, and walked down +for a few words with the General, before I met Sally under the big +sycamore at the side gate. I had waited for her but a little while when +she came out under an umbrella held by Aunt Euphronasia, who was to +accompany us on our journey South in the General's private car. As she +entered the carriage, I saw that she wore a white dress under her long +black cloak. + +"Mammy wouldn't let me be married in black," she said; "she says it +means death or a bad husband." + +"Dar ain' gwine be a bad husband fur dish yer chile," grumbled the old +woman, who was evidently full of gloomy forebodings, "caze she ain' +built wid de kinder spine, suh, dat bends easy." + +"There'll be nobody at church?" asked Sally. + +"Only the General, and I suppose the sexton." + +"I am glad." She leaned forward, we clasped hands, and I saw that the +eyes she lifted to mine were starry and expectant, as they had been that +day, so many years ago, when she stood between the gate and the bed of +geraniums in the General's yard. + +The carriage rolled softly over the soaking streets, and above the sound +of the wheels I heard the patter of the rain on the dead leaves in the +gutters. I can see still a wet sparrow or two that fluttered down from +the bared branches, and the negro maid sweeping the water from the steps +in front of the doctor's house. There was no wind, and the rain fell in +straight elongated drops like a shower of silvery pine-needles. The +mixture of a fighter and a dreamer! On my wedding-day, as I sat beside +the woman I loved, approaching the fulfilment of my desire, I was +conscious of a curious gravity, of almost a feeling of sadness. The +stillness without, intensified by the slow, soft fall of the rain on the +dead leaves, seemed not detached, but at one with the inner stillness +which possessed alike my heart and my brain. I, the man of action, the +embodiment of worldly success, was awed by the very intensity of my +love, which added a throb of apprehension to the supreme moment of its +fulfilment. + +The carriage crawled up the long hill, and stopped before the steps +leading to the churchyard of Saint John's. Like a sombre omen up went +the umbrella in the hands of Aunt Euphronasia; and as I led Sally across +the pavement to the General, who stood waiting under the dripping maples +and sycamores, I saw that she was very pale, and that her lips trembled +when she smiled back at me. With her arm in the General's, she passed +before me up the walk to the church door, while Aunt Euphronasia and I +followed under the same umbrella a short way behind. + +At the door the minister met us with outstretched hands, for he had +known us from childhood; and when Aunt Euphronasia had removed the +bride's moist cloak, Sally joined me before the altar, in the square of +faint light that fell from the windows. The interior of the church was +very dim, so dim that her white dress and the minister's gown seemed the +only patches of high light in the obscurity. Through the window I could +see the wet silvery boughs of a sycamore, and, I remember still, as if +it had been illuminated upon my brain, a single bronzed leaf that +writhed and twisted at the end of a slender branch. Never in my life had +my mind been so awake to trivial impressions, so acutely aware of the +external world, so perfectly unable to realise the profound significance +of the words I uttered. The sound of the soft rain on the graves outside +was in my ears, and instead of my marriage, I found myself thinking of +the day I had seen Sally dancing toward me in her red shoes, over the +coloured leaves. In those few minutes, which changed the course of our +two lives, it was as if I myself--the man that men knew--had been +present only in a dream. + +When it was over, the General kissed Sally, and wiped his eyes on his +silk handkerchief. + +"You're a brave girl, my dear, and I'm proud of you," he said; "you've +got your mother's heart and your father's fighting blood, and that's a +good blending." + +"I wish the sun had shone on you," observed the old minister, while I +helped her into her cloak; "but we Christians can't afford to waste +regret on heathen superstitions. I married your mother," he added, as if +there were possible comfort in a proof of the futility of omens, "on a +cloudless morning in June." + +Sally shivered, and glanced across the churchyard, where the water +dripped from the bared trees on the graves that were covered thickly +with sodden leaves. + +"The sun may welcome us home," she replied, with an effort to be +cheerful; "we shall be back again in a fortnight." + +"And you go South?" asked the minister nervously, like a man who tries +to make conversation because his professional duty requires it of him. +Then the umbrella went up again, and after a good-by to the General, we +started together down the walk, with Aunt Euphronasia following close as +a shadow. + +"The rain does not sadden you, sweetheart?" + +"It saddens me, but that does not mean that I am not happy." + +"And you would do it over again?" + +"I would do it over until--until the last hour of my life." + +"Oh, Sally, Sally, if I were only sure that I was worthy." + +A light broke in her face, and as she looked up at me, I bent over and +kissed her under the leafless trees. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +IN WHICH SOCIETY RECEIVES US + + +It was a bright December evening when we returned to Richmond, and drove +through the frosty air to our new home. The house was large and modern, +with a hideous brown stone front, and at the top of the brown stone +steps several girl friends of Sally's were waiting to receive us. Beyond +them, in the brilliantly lighted hall, I saw masses of palms and roses +under the oak staircase. + +"Oh, you bad Sally, not even to ask us to your wedding. And you know how +we adore one!" cried a handsome, dark girl in a riding habit, named +Bonny Page. "How do you do, Mr. Starr? We're to call you 'Ben' now +because you've married our cousin." + +I made some brief response, and while I spoke, I felt again the old +sense of embarrassment, of strangeness in my surroundings, that always +came upon me in a gathering of women--especially of girls. With Sally I +never forgot that I was a strong man,--with Bonny Page I remembered only +that I was a plain one. As she stood there, with her arm about Sally, +and her black eyes dancing with fun, she looked the incarnate spirit of +mischief,--and beside the spirit of mischief I felt decidedly heavy. She +was a tall, splendid girl, with a beautiful figure,--the belle of +Richmond and the best horsewoman of the state. I had seen her take a +jump that had brought my heart to my throat, and come down on the other +side with a laugh. A little dazzling, a little cold, fine, quick, +generous to her friends, and merciless to her lovers, I had wondered +often what subtle sympathy had knit Sally and herself so closely +together. + +"You'd always promised that I should be your bridesmaid," she remarked +reproachfully; "she's hurt us dreadfully, hasn't she, Bessy? And it's +very forgiving of us to warm her house and have her dinner ready for +her." + +Bessy, the little heroine of the azalea wreath and my first party, +murmured shyly that she hoped the furniture was placed right and that +the dinner would be good. + +"Oh, you darlings, it's too sweet of you!" said Sally, entering the +drawing-room, amid palms and roses, with an arm about the neck of each. +"You know, don't you," she went on, "that poor Aunt Mitty's not coming +kept me from having even you? How is she, Bonny? O Bonny, she won't +speak to me." + +Immediately she was clasped in Bonny's arms, where she shed a few tears +on Bonny's handsome shoulder. + +"She'll grow used to it," said little Bessy; "but, Sally, how did you +have the courage?" + +"Ask Bonny how she had the courage to take that five-foot jump." + +"I took it with my teeth set and my eyes shut," said Bonny. + +"Well, that's how I took Ben, with my teeth set and my eyes shut tight." + +"And I came down with a laugh," added Bonny. + +"So did I--I came down with a laugh. Oh, you dears, how lovely the house +looks! Here are all the bridal roses that I missed and you've +remembered." + +"There're blue roses in your room," said Bonny; "I mean on the chintz +and on the paper." + +"How can I help being happy, when I have blue roses, Bonny? Aren't blue +roses an emblem of the impossible achieved?" + +Bonny's dancing black eyes were on me, and I read in them plainly the +thought, "Yes, I'm going to be nice to you because Sally has married +you, and Sally's my cousin--even if I can't understand how she came to +do it." + +No, she couldn't understand, and she never would, this I read also. The +man that she saw and the man that Sally knew were two different persons, +drawing life from two different sources of sympathy. To her I was still, +and would always be, the "magnificent animal,"--a creature of good +muscle and sinew, with an honest eye, doubtless, and clean hands, but +lacking in the finer qualities of person and manner that must appeal to +her taste. Where Sally beheld power, and admired, Bonny Page saw only +roughness, and wondered. + +Presently, they led her away, and I heard their merry voices floating +down from the bedrooms above. The pink light of the candles on the +dinner table in the room beyond, the vague, sweet scent of the roses, +and the warmth of the wood fire burning on the andirons, seemed to grow +faint and distant, for I was very tired with the fatigue of a man whose +muscles are cramped from want of exercise. I felt all at once that I had +stepped from the open world into a place that was too small for me. I +was a rich man at last, I was the husband, too, of the princess of the +enchanted garden, and yet in the midst of the perfume and the soft +lights and the laughter floating down from above, I saw myself, by some +freak of memory, as I had crouched homeless in the straw under a +deserted stall in the Old Market. Would the thought of the boy I had +been haunt forever the man I had become? Did my past add a keener +happiness to my present, or hang always like a threatening shadow above +it? There was a part in my life which these girls could not understand, +which even Sally, whom I loved, could never share with me. How could +they or she comprehend hunger, who had never gone without for a moment? +Or sympathise with the lust of battle when they had never encountered an +obstacle? Already I heard the call of the streets, and my blood +responded to it in the midst of the scented atmosphere. These things +were for Sally, but for me was the joy of the struggle, the passion to +achieve that I might return, with my spoils and pile them higher and +higher before her feet. The grasping was what I loved, not the +possession; the instant of triumph, not the fruits of the conquest. Love +throbbed in my heart, but my mind, as if freeing itself from a +restraint, followed the Great South Midland and Atlantic, covering that +night under the stars nearly twenty thousand miles of road. The +elemental man in me chafed under the social curb, and I longed at that +instant to bear the woman I had won out into the rough joys of the +world. My muscles would soon grow flabby in this scented warmth. The +fighter would war with the dreamer, and I would regret the short, fierce +battle with my competitors in the business of life. + +A slight sound made me turn, and I saw Bonny Page standing alone in the +doorway, and looking straight at me with her dancing eyes. + +"I don't know you yet, Ben," she said in the direct, gallant manner of a +perfect horsewoman, "but I'm going to like you." + +"Please try," I answered, "and I'll do my best not to make it hard." + +"I don't think it will be hard, but even if it were, I'd do it for +Sally's sake. Sally is my darling." + +"And mine. So we're alike in one thing at least." + +"I'm perfectly furious with Aunt Mitty. I mean to tell her so the next +time I've taken a high jump." + +"Poor Miss Mitty. How can she help herself? She was born that way." + +"Well, it was a very bad way to be born--to want to break Sally's heart. +Do you know, I think it was delightful--the way you did it. If I'm ever +married, I want to run away, too,--only I'll run away on horseback, +because that will be far more exciting." + +She ran on merrily, partly I knew to take my measure while she watched +me, partly to ease the embarrassment which her exquisite social instinct +had at once discerned. She was charming, friendly, almost affectionate, +yet I was conscious all the time that, in spite of herself, she was a +little critical, a trifle aloof. Her perfect grooming, the very fineness +of her self-possession, her high-bred gallantry of manner, and even the +shining gloss on her black, beribboned hair, and her high boots, +produced in me a sense of remoteness, which I found it impossible +altogether to overcome. + +In a little while there was a flutter on the staircase, and the other +girls trooped down, with Sally in their midst. She had changed her +travelling dress for a gown of white, cut low at the neck, and about her +throat she wore a necklace of pearls I had given her at her wedding. +There was a bright flush in her face, and she looked to me as she had +done that day, in her red shoes, in Saint John's churchyard. + +When I came downstairs from my dressing-room, I found that the girls had +gone, and she was standing by the dinner table, with her face bent down +over the vase of pink roses in the centre. + +"So we are in our own home, darling, at last," I said, and a few minutes +later, as I looked across the pink candle shades and the roses, and saw +her sitting opposite to me, I told myself that at last both the fighter +in me and the dreamer had found the fulfilment of their desire. + +After dinner, when I had had my smoke in the library, we caught hands +and wandered like two children over the new house--into the pink and +white guest room, and then into Sally's bedroom, where the blue roses +sprawled over the chintz-covered furniture and the silk curtains. A +glass door gave on a tiny balcony, and throwing a shawl about her head +and her bare shoulders, she went with me out into the frosty December +night, where a cold bright moon was riding high above the church +steeples. With my arm about her, and her head on my breast, we stood in +silence gazing over the city, while the sense of her nearness, of her +throbbing spirit and body, filled my heart with an exquisite peace. + +"You and I are the world, Ben." + +"You are my world, anyway." + +"It is such a happy world to-night. There is nothing but love in it--no +pain, no sorrow, no disappointment. Why doesn't everybody love, I +wonder?" + +"Everybody hasn't you." + +"I'm so sorry for poor Aunt Mitty,--she never loved,--and for poor Aunt +Matoaca, because she didn't love my lover. Oh, you are so strong, Ben; +that, I think, is why I first loved you! I see you always in the +background of my thoughts pushing that wheel up the hill." + +"That won you. And to think if I'd known you were there, Sally, I +couldn't have done it." + +"That, too, is why I love you, so there's another reason! It +isn't only your strength, Ben, it is, I believe, still more your +self-forgetfulness. Then you forgot yourself because you thought of the +poor horse; and again, do you remember the day of Aunt Matoaca's death, +when you gave her your arm and took her little flag in your hand? You +would have marched all the way to the Capitol just like that, and I +don't believe you would ever have known that it looked ridiculous or +that people were laughing at you." + +"To tell the truth, Sally, I should never have cared." + +She clung closer, her perfumed hair on my breast. + +"And yet they wondered why I loved you," she murmured; "they wondered +why!" + +"Can you guess why I loved you?" I asked. "Was it for your red shoes? Or +for that tiny scar like a dimple I've always adored?" + +"I never told you what made that," she said, after a moment. "I was a +very little baby when my father got angry with mamma one day--he had +been drinking--and he upset the cradle in which I was asleep." + +She lifted her face, and I kissed the scar under the white shawl. + +The next day when I came home to luncheon, she told me that she had been +to her old home to see Miss Mitty. + +"I couldn't stand the thought of her loneliness, so I went into the +drawing-room at the hour I knew she would be tending her sweet alyssum +and Dicky, the canary. She was there, looking very thin and old, and, +Ben, she treated me like a stranger. She wouldn't kiss me, and she +didn't ask me a single question--only spoke of the weather and her +flower boxes, as if I had called for the first time." + +"I know, I know," I said, taking her into my arms. + +"And everybody else is so kind. People have been sending me flowers all +day. Did you ever see such a profusion? They are all calling, too,--the +Fitzhughs, the Harrisons, the Tuckers, the Mayos, Jennie Randolph came, +and old Mrs. Tucker, who never goes anywhere since her daughter died, +and Charlotte Peyton, and all the Corbins in a bunch." Then her tone +changed. "Ben," she said, "I want to see that little sister of yours. +Will you take me there this afternoon?" + +Something in her request, or in the way she uttered it, touched me to +the heart. + +"I'd like you to see Jessy--she's pretty enough to look at--but I didn't +mean you to marry my family, you know." + +"I know you didn't, dear, but I've married everything of yours all the +same. If you can spare a few minutes after luncheon, we'll drive down +and speak to her." + +I could spare the few minutes, and when the carriage was ready, she came +down in her hat and furs, and we went at a merry pace down Franklin +Street to the boarding-house in which Jessy was living. As we drove up +to the pavement, the door of the house opened and my little sister came +out, dressed for walking and looking unusually pretty. + +"Why, Ben, she's a beauty!" said Sally, in a whisper, as the girl +approached us. To me Jessy's face had always appeared too cold and +vacant for beauty, in spite of her perfect features and the brilliant +fairness of her complexion. Even now I missed the glow of feeling or of +animation in her glance, as she crossed the pavement with her slow, +precise walk, and put her hand into Sally's. + +"How do you do? It is very kind of you to come," she said in a measured, +correct voice. + +"Of course I came, Jessy. I am your new sister, and you must come and +stay with me when I am out of mourning." + +"Thank you," responded Jessy gravely, "I should like to." + +The cold had touched her cheek until it looked like tinted marble, and +under her big black hat her blond hair rolled in natural waves from her +forehead. + +"Are you happy here, Jessy?" I asked. + +"They are very kind to me. There's an old gentleman boarding here now +from the West. He is going to give us a theatre party to-night. They say +he has millions." For the first time the glow of enthusiasm shone in her +limpid blue eyes. + +"A good use to make of his millions," I laughed. "Do you hear often from +President, Jessy?" + +The glow faded from her eyes and they grew cold again. "He writes such +bad letters," she answered, "I can hardly read them." + +"Never forget," I answered sternly, "that he denied himself an education +in order that you might become what you are." + +While I spoke the door of the house opened again, and the old gentleman +she had alluded to came gingerly down the steps. He had a small, wizened +face, and he wore a fur-lined overcoat, in which it was evident that he +still suffered from the cold. + +"This is my brother and my sister, Mr. Cottrel," said Jessy, as he came +slowly toward us. + +He bowed with a pompous manner, and stood twirling the chain of his +eye-glasses. "Yes, yes, I have heard of your brother. His name is well +known already," he answered. "I congratulate, sir," he added, "not the +'man who got rich quickly,' as I've heard you called, but the fortunate +brother of a beautiful sister." + +"What a perfectly horrid old man," remarked Sally, some minutes later, +as we drove back again. "I think, Ben, we'll have to take the little +sister. She's a beauty." + +"If she wasn't so everlastingly cold and quiet." + +"It suits her style--that little precise way she has. There's a look +about her like one of Perugino's saints." + +Then the carriage stopped at the office, and I returned, with a high +heart, to the game. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +I AM THE WONDER OF THE HOUR + + +During the first year of my marriage I was already spoken of as the most +successful speculator in the state. The whirlpool of finance had won me +from the road, and I had sacrificed the single allegiance to the bolder +moves of the game. Yet if I could be bold, I was cautious, too,--and +that peculiar quality which the General called "financial genius," and +the world named "the luck of the speculator," had enabled me to act +always between the two dangerous extremes of timidity and rashness. "To +get up when others sat down, and to sit down when others got up," I told +the General one day, had been the rule by which I had played. + +"They were talking of you at the club last night, Ben," he said. "You +were the only one of us who had sense enough to load up with A. P. & C. +stock when it was selling at 80, and now it's jumped up to 150. Jim +Randolph was fool enough to remark that you'd had the easiest success of +any man he knew." + +"Easy? Does he think so?" + +"So you call that easy, gentlemen?' I responded. 'Well, I tell you that +boy has sweated for it since he was seven years old. It's the only way, +too, I'm sure of it. If you want to succeed, you've got to begin by +sweating.'" + +"Thank you, General, but I suppose most things look easy until you've +tried them." + +"It doesn't look easy to me, Ben, when I've seen you at it all day and +half the night since you were a boy. What I said to those fellows at the +club is the Gospel truth--there's but one way to get anything in this +world, and that is by sweating for it." + +We were in his study, to which he was confined by an attack of the gout, +and at such times he loved to ramble on in his aging, reminiscent habit. + +"You know, General," I said, "that they want me to accept the presidency +of the Union Bank in Jennings' place. I've been one of the directors, +you see, for the last three or four years." + +"You'd be the youngest bank president in the country. It's a good thing, +and you'd control enough money to keep you awake at night. But remember, +Ben, as my dear old coloured mammy used to say to me, 'to hatch first +ain't always to crow last.'" + +"Do you call it hatching or crowing to become president of the Union +Bank?" + +"That depends. If you're shrewd and safe, as I think you are, it may +turn out to be both. It would be a good plan, though, to say to yourself +every time you come up Franklin Street, 'I've toted potatoes up this +hill, and not my own potatoes either.' It's good for you, sir, to +remember it, damned good." + +"I'm not likely to forget it--they were heavy." + +"It was the best thing that ever happened to you--it was the making of +you. There's nothing I know so good for a man as to be able to remember +that he toted somebody else's potatoes. Now, look at that George of +mine. He never toted a potato in his life--not even his own. If he had, +he might have been a bank president to-day instead of the pleasant, +well-dressed club-man he is, with a mustache like wax-work. I've an +idea, Ben, but don't let it get any farther, that he never got over not +having Sally, and that took the spirit out of him. She's well, ain't +she?" + +"Yes, she's very well and more beautiful than ever." + +"Hasn't developed any principles yet, eh? I always thought they were in +her." + +"None that interfere with my comfort at any rate." + +"Keep an eye on her and keep her occupied all the time. That's the way +to deal with a woman who has ideas--don't leave her a blessed minute to +sit down and hatch 'em out. Pet her, dress her, amuse her, and whenever +she begins to talk about a principle, step out and buy her a present to +take her mind off it. Anything no bigger than a thimble will turn a +woman's mind in the right direction if you spring it on her like a +surprise. Ah, that's the way her Aunt Matoaca ought to have been +treated. Poor Miss Matoaca, she went wrong for the want of a little +simple management like that. You never saw Miss Matoaca Bland when she +was a girl, Ben?" + +"I have heard she was beautiful." + +"Beautiful ain't the word, sir! I tell you the first time I ever saw her +she came to church in a white poke bonnet lined with cherry-coloured +silk, and her cheeks exactly a match to her bonnet lining." He got out +his big silk handkerchief, and blew his nose loudly, after which he +wiped his eyes, and sat staring moodily at his foot bandaged out of all +proportion to its natural size. + +"Who'd have thought to look at her then," he pursued, "that she'd go +cracked over this Yankee abolition idea before she died." + +"Why, I thought they owned slaves up to the end, General." + +"Slaves? What have slaves got to do with it? Ain't the abolitionists and +the woman suffragists and the rest of those damned fire-eating Yankees +all the same? What they want to do is to overturn the Constitution, and +it makes no difference to 'em whether they overturn it under one name or +the other. I tell you, Ben, as sure's my name's George Bolingbroke, +Matoaca Bland couldn't have told me to the day of her death whether she +was an abolitionist or a woman's suffragist. When a woman goes cracked +like that, all she wants is to be a fire-eater, and I doubt if she ever +knows what she is eating it about. Women ain't like men, my boy, there +isn't an ounce of moderation to the whole sex, sir. Why, look at the way +they're always getting their hearts broken or their heads cracked. They +can't feel an emotion or think an idea that something inside of 'em +doesn't begin to split. Now, did you ever hear of a man getting his +heart broken or his brain cracked?" + +The canker was still there, doing its bitter work. For forty years Miss +Matoaca had had her revenge, and even in the grave her ghost would not +lie quiet and let him rest. In his watery little eyes and his +protruding, childish lip, I read the story of fruitless excesses and of +vain retaliations. + +When I reached home, I found Sally in her upstairs sitting-room with +Jessy, who was trying on an elaborate ball gown of white lace. Since the +two years of mourning were over, the little sister had come to stay with +us, and Sally was filled with generous plans for the girl's pleasure. +Jessy, herself, received it all with her reserved, indifferent manner, +turning her beautiful profile upon us with an expression of saintly +serenity. It amused me sometimes to wonder what was behind the brilliant +red and white of her complexion--what thoughts? what desires? what +impulses? She went so placidly on her way, gaining what she wanted, +executing what she planned, accepting what was offered to her, that +there were moments when I felt tempted to arouse her by a burst of +anger--to discover if a single natural instinct survived the shining +polish of her exterior. Sally had worked a miracle in her manner, her +speech, her dress; and yet in all that time I had never seen the ripple +of an impulse cross the exquisite vacancy of her face. Did she feel? Did +she think? Did she care? I demanded. Once or twice I had spoken of +President, trying to excite a look of gratitude, if not of affection; +but even then no change had come in the mirror-like surface of her blue +eyes. President, I was aware, had sacrificed himself to her while I was +still a child, had slaved and toiled and denied himself that he might +make her a lady. Yet when I asked her if she ever wrote to him, she +smiled quietly and shook her head. + +"Why don't you write to him, Jessy? He was always fond of you." + +"He writes such dreadful letters--just like a working-man's--that I hate +to get them," she answered, turning to catch the effect of her train in +the long mirror. + +"He is a working-man, Jessy, and so am I." + +She accepted the statement without demur, as she accepted +everything--neither denying nor disputing, but apparently indifferent to +its truth or falseness. My eyes met Sally's in the glass, and they held +me in a long, compassionate gaze. + +"All men are working-men, Jessy, if they are worth anything," she said, +"and any work is good work if it is well done." + +"He is a miner," responded Jessy. + +"If he is, it is because he prefers to do the work he knows to being +idle," I answered sharply. "What you must remember is that when he had +little, and I had nothing, he gave you freely all that he had." + +She did not answer, and for a moment I thought I had convinced her. + +"Will you write to President to-night?" I asked. + +"But we are having a dinner party. How can I?" + +"To-morrow, then?" + +"I am going to the theatre with Mrs. Blansford. Mr. Cottrel has taken a +box for her. He is one of the richest men in the West, isn't he?" + +"There are a great many rich men in the West. How can it concern you?" + +"Oh, it's beautiful to be rich," she returned, in the most enthusiastic +phrase I had ever heard her utter; and gathering her white lace train +over her arm she went into her bedroom to remove the dress. + +"What is she made of, Sally?" I asked, in sheer desperation; "flesh and +blood, do you think?" + +"I don't know, Ben, not your flesh and blood, certainly." + +"But for President--why wasn't my father hanged before he gave him such +a name!--she would have remained ignorant and common with all her +beauty. He almost starved himself in order to send her to a good school +and give her pretty clothes." + +"I know, I know, it seems terribly ungrateful--but perhaps she's excited +over her first dinner." + +That evening we were to give our first formal dinner, and when I came +downstairs a little before eight o'clock, I found the rooms a bower of +azaleas, over which the pink-shaded lamps shed a light that touched +Jessy's lace gown with pale rose. + +"It's like fairyland, isn't it?" she said, "and the table is so +beautiful. Come and see the table." + +She led me into the dining-room and we stood gazing down on the +decorations, while we waited for Sally. + +"Who is coming, Jessy?" + +"Twelve in all. General Bolingbroke and Mr. Bolingbroke, Mrs. Fitzhugh, +Governor Blenner, Miss Page," she went on reading the cards, "Mr. Mason, +Miss Watson, Colonel Henry, Mrs. Preston, Mrs. Tyler--" + +"That will do. I'll know them when I see them. Do you like it, Jessy?" + +"Yes, I like it. Isn't my dress lovely?" + +"Very, but don't get spoiled. You see Sally has had this all her life, +and she isn't spoiled." + +"I don't believe she could be," she responded, for her admiration for +Sally was the most human thing I had ever discovered about her, "and +she's so beautiful--more beautiful, I think, than Bonny Page, though of +course nobody would agree with me." + +"Well, she's perfect, and she always was and always will be," I +returned. + +"You're a great man, aren't you?" she asked suddenly, turning away from +the table. + +"Why, no. What in the world put that into your head?" + +"Well, the General told Mr. Cottrel you were a genius, and Mr. Cottrel +said you were the first genius he had ever heard of who measured six +feet two in his stockings." + +"Of course I'm not a genius. They were joking." + +"You're rich anyway, and that's just as good." + +I was about to make some sharp rejoinder, irritated by her insistence on +the distinction of wealth, when the sound of Sally's step fell on my +ears, and a moment later she came down the brilliantly lighted +staircase, her long black lace train rippling behind her. As she moved +among the lamps and azaleas, I thought I had never seen her more +radiant--not even on the night of her first party when she wore the +white rose in her wreath of plaits. Her hair was arranged to-night in +the same simple fashion, her mouth was as vivid, her grey eyes held the +same mingling of light with darkness. But there was a deeper serenity in +her face, brought there by the untroubled happiness of her marriage, and +her figure had grown fuller and nobler, as if it had moulded itself to +the larger and finer purposes of life. + +"The house is charming, Jessy is lovely, and you, Ben, are magnificent," +she said, her eyebrows arching merrily as she slipped her hand in my +arm. "And it's a good dinner, too," she went on; "the terrapin is +perfect. I sent into the country for the game, and the man from +Washington came down with the decorations and the ices. Best of all, I +made the salad myself, so be sure to eat it. We'll begin to be gay now, +shan't we? Are you sure we have money enough for a ball?" + +"We've money enough for anything that you want, Sally." + +"Then I'll spend it--but oh! Ben, promise me you won't mention stocks +to-night until the women have left the table." + +"I'll promise you, and keep it, too. I don't believe I ever introduced a +subject in my life to any woman but you." + +"I'm glad, at least, there's one subject you didn't introduce to any +other." + +Then the door-bell rang, and we hurried into the drawing-room in time to +receive Governor Blenner and the General, who arrived together. + +"I almost got a fall on your pavement, Ben," said the General, "it's +beginning to sleet. You'd better have some sawdust down." + +It took me a few minutes to order the sawdust, and when I returned, the +other guests were already in the room, and Sally was waiting to go in to +dinner on the arm of Governor Blenner, a slim, nervous-looking man, with +a long iron-grey mustache. I took in Mrs. Tyler, a handsome widow, with +a young face and snow-white hair, and we were no sooner seated than she +began to tell me a story she had heard about me that morning. + +"Carry James told me she gave her little boy a penny and asked him what +he meant to do with it. 'Ath Mithter Starr to thurn it into, a +quarther,' he replied." + +"Oh, he thinks that easy now, but he'll find out differently some day," +I returned. + +She nodded brightly, with the interested, animated manner of a woman who +realises that the burden of conversation lies, not on the man's +shoulders, but on hers. While she ate her soup I knew that her alert +mind was working over the subject which she intended to introduce with +the next course. From the other end of the table Sally's eyes were +raised to mine over the basket of roses and lilies. Jessy was listening +to George Bolingbroke, who was telling a story about the races, while +his eyes rested on Sally, with a dumb, pained look that made me suddenly +feel very sorry for him. I knew that he still loved her, but until I saw +that look in his eyes I had never understood what the loss of her must +have meant in his life. Suppose I had lost her, and he had won, and I +had sat and stared at her across her own dinner table with my secret +written in my eyes for her husband to read. A fierce sense of possession +swept over me, and I felt angered because his longing gaze was on her +flushed cheeks and bare shoulders. + +"No, no wine. I've drunk my last glass of wine unless I may hope for it +in heaven," I heard the General say; "a little Scotch whiskey now and +then will see me safely to my grave." + +"From champagne to Scotch whiskey was a flat fall, General," observed +Mrs. Tyler, my sprightly neighbour. + +"It's not so flat as the fall to Lithia water, though," retorted the +General. + +I was about to join vacantly in the laugh, when a sound in the doorway +caused me to lift my eyes from my plate, and the next instant I sat +paralysed by the figure that towered there over the palms and azaleas. + +"Why, Benjy boy!" cried a voice, in a tone of joyous surprise, and while +every head turned instantly in the direction of the words, the candles +and the roses swam in a blur of colour before my eyes. Standing on the +threshold, between two flowering azaleas, with a palm branch waving +above his head, was President, my brother, who was a miner. Twenty years +ago I had last seen him, and though he was rougher and older and greyer +now, he had the same honest blue eyes and the same kind, sheepish face. +The clothes he wore were evidently those in which he dressed himself for +church on Sunday, and they made him ten times more awkward, ten times +more ill at ease, than he would have looked in his suit of jeans. + +"Why, Benjy boy!" he burst out again; "and little Jessy!" + +I sprang to my feet, while a hot wave swept over me at the thought that +for a single dreadful instant I had been ashamed of my brother. Already +I had pushed back my chair, but before I could move from my place, Sally +had walked the length of the table, and stood, tall and queenly, between +the flowering azaleas, with her hand outstretched. There was no shame in +her face, no embarrassment, no hesitation. Before I could speak she had +turned and come back to us, with her arm through President's, and never +in my eyes had she appeared so noble, so high-bred, so thoroughly a +Bland and a Fairfax as she did at that moment. + +"Governor, this is my brother, Mr. Starr," she said in her low, clear +voice. "Ben has not seen him for twenty years, so if you will pardon +him, he will go upstairs with him to his room." + +As I went toward her my glance swept the table for Jessy, and I saw that +she was sitting perfectly still and colourless, crumbling a small piece +of bread, while her eyes clung to the basket of roses and lilies. + +"Well, Benjy boy!" exclaimed President, too full for speech, "and little +Jessy!" + +In spite of his awkwardness and his Sunday clothes, he looked so happy, +so uplifted by the sincerity of his affection above any false feeling of +shame, that the tears sprang to my eyes as I clasped his hand. + +The governor had risen to speak to him, the General had done likewise. +By their side Sally stood with a smile on her face and her hand on the +table. She was a Bland, after all, and the racial instinct within her +had risen to meet the crisis. They recognised it, I saw, and they, whose +blood was as blue as hers, responded generously to the call. Not one had +failed her! Then my eyes fell on Jessy, sitting cold and silent, while +she crumbled her bit of bread. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE MAN AND THE CLASS + + +"I oughtn't to have done it, Benjy," said President, following me with +diffidence under the waving palm branches and up the staircase. + +"Nonsense, President," I answered; "I'm awfully glad you've come. Only +if I'd known about it, I'd have met you at the station." + +"No, I oughtn't to have done it, Benjy," he repeated humbly, standing in +a dejected attitude in the centre of the guest room next to Jessy's. He +had entered nervously, as if he were stepping on glass, and when I +motioned to a chair he shook his head and glanced uneasily at the +delicate chintz covering. + +"I'd better not sit down. I'm feared I'll hurt it." + +"It's made to be sat in. You aren't going to stand up in the middle of +the room all night, old fellow, are you?" + +At this he appeared to hesitate, and a pathetic groping showed itself in +his large, good-humoured face. + +"You see, I've been down in the mines," he said, "an' anything so fancy +makes my flesh crawl." + +"I wish you'd give up that work. It's a shame to have you do it when +I've got more money than I can find investments for." + +"I'm a worker, Benjy, and I'll die a worker. Pa wa'nt a worker, and +that's why he took to drink." + +"Well, sit down now, and make yourself at home. I've got to go back +downstairs, but I'll come up again the very minute that it's over." + +Pushing him, in spite of his stubborn, though humble, resistance, into +the depths of the chintz-covered chair, I went hurriedly back to the +dinner-table, and took my seat beside Mrs. Tyler, who remarked with a +tact which won me completely:-- + +"Mrs. Starr has been telling us such interesting things about your +brother. He has a very fine head." + +"By George, I'm glad I shook his hand," said the General, in his loud, +kindly way. "Bring him to see me, Ben, I like a worker." + +The terrible minute in which I had sat there, paralysed by the shame of +acknowledging him, was still searing my mind. As I met Sally's eyes over +the roses and lilies, I wondered if she had seen my cowardliness as I +had seen Jessy's, and been repelled by it? When the dinner was over, and +the last guest had gone, I asked myself the question again while I went +upstairs to bring my brother from his retirement. As I opened the door, +he started up from the chair in which I had placed him, and began +rubbing his eyes as he followed me timidly out of the room. At the table +Sally seated herself opposite to him, and talked in her simple, kindly +manner while he ate his dinner. + +"Pour his wine, Ben," she said, dismissing the butler, "there are too +many frivolities, aren't there? I like a clear space, too." + +Turning toward him she pushed gently away the confusing decorations, and +removed the useless number of forks from beside his plate. If the way he +ate his soup and drank his wine annoyed her, there was no hint of it in +her kind eyes and her untroubled smile. She, who was sensitive to the +point of delicacy, I knew, watched him crumble his bread into his green +turtle, and gulp down his sherry, with a glance which apparently was +oblivious of the thing at which it looked. Jessy shrank gradually away, +confessing presently that she had a headache and would like to go +upstairs to bed; and when she kissed President's cheek, I saw aversion +written in every line of her shrinking figure. Yet opposite to him sat +Sally, who was a Bland and a Fairfax, and not a tremor, not the flicker +of an eyelash, disturbed her friendly and charming expression. What was +the secret of that exquisite patience, that perfect courtesy, which was +confirmed by the heart, not by the lips? Did the hidden cause of it lie +in the fact that it was not a manner, after all, but the very essence of +a character, whose ruling spirit was exhaustless sympathy? + +"I've told Benjy, ma'am," said President, selecting the largest fork by +some instinct for appropriateness, "that I know I oughtn't to have done +it." + +"To have done what?" repeated Sally kindly. + +"That I oughtn't to have come in on a party like that dressed as I am, +and I so plain and uneddicated." + +"You mustn't worry," she answered, bending forward in all the +queenliness of her braided wreath and her bare shoulders, "you mustn't +worry--not for a minute. It was natural that you should come to your +brother at once, and, of course, we want you to stay with us." + +I had never seen her fail when social intuition guided her, and she did +not fail now. He glanced down at his clothes in a pleased, yet +hesitating, manner. + +"These did very well on Sunday in Pocahontas," he said, "but somehow +they don't seem to suit here; I reckon so many flowers and lights kind +of dazzle my eyes." + +"They do perfectly well," answered Sally, speaking in a firm, direct way +as if she were talking to a child; "but if you would feel more +comfortable in some of Ben's clothes, he has any number of them at your +service. He is about your height, is he not?" + +"To think of little Benjy growin' so tall," he remarked with a kind of +ecstasy, and when we went into the library for a smoke, he insisted upon +measuring heights with me against the ledge of the door. Then, alone +with me and the cheerful crackling of the log fire, his embarrassment +disappeared, and he began to ask a multitude of eager questions about +myself and Jessy and my marriage. + +"And so pa died," he remarked sadly, between the long whiffs of his +pipe. + +"I'm not sure it wasn't the best thing he ever did," I responded. + +"Well, you see, Benjy, he wa'nt a worker, and when a man ain't a worker +there's mighty little to stand between him and drink. Now, ma, she was a +worker." + +"And we got it from her. That's why we hate to be idle, I suppose." + +"Did it ever strike you, Benjy," he enquired solemnly, after a minute, +"that in the marriage of ma and pa the breeches were on the wrong one of +'em? Pa wa'nt much of a man, but he would have made a female that we +could have been proud of. With all the good working qualities, we never +could be proud of ma when we considered her as a female." + +"Well, I don't know, but I think she was the best we ever had." + +"We are proud of Jessy," he pursued reflectively. + +"Yes, we are proud of Jessy," I repeated, and as I uttered the words, I +remembered her beautiful blighted look, while she sat cold and silent, +crumbling her bit of bread. + +"And we are proud of you, Benjy," he added, "but you ain't any +particular reason to be proud of me. You can't be proud of a man that +ain't had an eddication." + +"Well, the education doesn't make the man, you know." + +"It does a good deal towards it. The stuffing goes a long way with the +goose, as poor ma used to say. Do you ever think what ma would have been +if she'd had an eddication? An eddication and breeches would have made a +general of her. It must take a powerful lot of patience to stand being +born a female." + +He took a wad of tobacco from his pocket, eyed it timidly, and after +glancing at the tiled hearth, put it back again. + +"You know what I would do if I were a rich man, Benjy?" he said; "I'd +buy a railroad." + +"You'd have to be a very rich man, indeed, to do that." + +"It's a little dead-beat road, the West Virginia and Wyanoke. I +overheard two gentlemen talking about it yesterday in Pocahontas, and +one of 'em had been down to look at those worked-out coal fields at +Wyanoke. 'If I wa'nt in as many schemes as I could float, I'd buy up a +control of that road,' said the one who had been there, 'you mark my +words, there's better coal in those fields than has ever come out of +'em.' They called him Huntley, and he said he'd been down with an +expert." + +"Huntley?" I caught at the name, for he was one of the shrewdest +promoters in the South. "If he thinks that, why didn't he get control of +the road himself?" + +"The other wanted him to. He said the time would come when they tapped +the coal fields that the Great South Midland and Atlantic would want the +little road as a feeder." + +"So he believed the Wyanoke coal fields weren't worked out, eh?" + +"He said they wa'nt even developed. You see it was all a secret, and +they didn't pay any attention to me, because I was just a common miner." + +"And couldn't buy a railroad. Well, President, if it comes to anything, +you shall have your share. Meanwhile, I'll run out to Wyanoke and look +around." + +With the idea still in my mind, I went into the General's office next +day, and told him that I had decided to accept the presidency of the +Union Bank. + +"Well, I'm sorry to lose you, Ben. Perhaps you'll come back to the road +in another capacity when I am dead. It will be a bigger road then. We're +buying up the Tennessee and Carolina, you know." + +"It's a great road you've made, General, and I like to serve it. By the +way, I'm going to West Virginia in a day or two to have a look at the +West Virginia and Wyanoke. What do you know of the coal fields at +Wyanoke?" + +"No 'count ones. I wouldn't meddle with that little road if I were you. +It will go bankrupt presently, and then we'll buy it, I suppose, at our +own price. It runs through scrub land populated by old field pines. How +is that miner brother of yours, Ben? I saw Sally at the theatre with +him. You've got a jewel, my boy, there's no doubt of that. When I looked +at her sailing down the room on his arm last night, by George, I wished +I was forty years younger and married to her myself." + +Some hours later I repeated his remark to Sally, when I went home at +dusk and found her sitting before a wood fire in her bedroom, with her +hat and coat on, just as she had dropped there after a drive with +President. + +"Well, I wouldn't have the General at any age. You needn't be jealous, +Ben," she responded. "I'm too much like Aunt Matoaca." + +"He always said you were," I retorted, "but, oh, Sally, you are an +angel! When I saw you rise at dinner last night, I wanted to squeeze you +in my arms and kiss you before them all." + +The little scar by her mouth dimpled with the old childish expression of +archness. + +"Suppose you do it now, sir," she rejoined, with the primness of Miss +Mitty, and a little later, "What else was there to do but rise, you +absurd boy? Poor mamma used to tell me that grandpapa always said to +her, 'When in doubt choose the kindest way.'" + +"And yet he disinherited his favourite daughter." + +"Which only proves, my dear, how much easier it is to make a proverb +than to practise it." + +"Do you know, Sally," I began falteringly, after a minute, "there is +something I ought to tell you, and that is, that when I looked up at the +table last night and saw President in the doorway, my first feeling was +one of shame." + +She rubbed her cheek softly against my sleeve. + +"Shall I confess something just as dreadful?" she asked. "When I looked +up and saw him standing there my first feeling was exactly the same." + +"Sally, I am so thankful." + +"You wicked creature, to want me to be as bad as yourself." + +"It couldn't have lasted with you but a second." + +"It didn't, but a second is an hour in the mind of a snob." + +"Well, we were both snobs together, and that's some comfort, anyway." + +For the three days that President remained with us he wore my clothes, +in which he looked more than ever like a miner attired for church, and +carried himself with a resigned and humble manner. + +Sally took him to the theatre and to drive with her in the afternoon, +and I carried him to the General's office and over the Capitol, which he +surveyed with awed and admiring eyes. Only Jessy still shrank from him, +and not once during his visit were we able to prevail upon her to appear +with him in the presence of strangers. There was always an excuse ready +to trip off her tongue--she had a headache, she was going to the +dressmaker's, the milliner's, the dentist's even; and I honestly believe +that she sought cheerfully this last place of torture as an escape. To +the end, however, he regarded her with an affection that fell little +short of adoration. + +"Who'd have thought that little Jessy would have shot up into a regular +beauty!" he exclaimed for the twentieth time as he stood ready to +depart. "She takes arter pa, and I always said the only thing against pa +was that he wa'nt born a female." + +He kissed her good-by in a reverential fashion, and after a cordial, +though exhausted, leave-taking from Sally, we went together to West +Virginia. In spite of the General's advice, I had decided to take a look +at the coal fields of Wyanoke, and a week later, when I returned to +Richmond, I was the owner of a control of the little West Virginia and +Wyanoke Railroad. It was a long distance from the presidency of the +Great South Midland and Atlantic, but I watched still from some vantage +ground in my imagination, the gleaming tracks of the big road sweeping +straight on to the southern horizon. + +For the next few years there was hardly a shadow on the smiling surface +of our prosperity. Society had received us in spite of my father, in +spite even of my brother; and the day that had made me Sally's husband +had given me a place, if an alien one, in the circle in which she moved. +I was there at last, and it was neither her fault nor mine if I carried +with me into that stained-glass atmosphere something of the +consciousness of the market boy, who seemed to stand always at the +kitchen door. Curiously enough there were instants even now when I felt +vaguely aware that, however large I might appear to loom in my physical +presence, a part of me was, in reality, still on the outside, hovering +uncertainly beyond the threshold. There were things I had never +learned--would never learn; things that belonged so naturally to the +people with whom I lived that they seemed only aware of them when +brought face to face with the fact of their absence. The lightness of +life taught me nothing except that I was built in mind and in body upon +a heavier plan. At the dinner-table, when the airy talk floated about +me, I felt again and again that the sparkling trivialities settled like +thistledown upon the solid mass I presented, and remained there because +of my native inability to waft them back. It was still as impossible for +me to entertain pretty girls in pink tarlatan as it had been on the +night of my first party; and the memory of that disastrous social +episode stung me at times when I stood large and awkward before a gay +and animated maiden, or sat wedged in, like a massive block, between two +patient and sleepy mothers. These people were all Sally's friends, not +mine, and it was for her sake, I never forgot for a minute, that they +had accepted me. With just such pleasant condescension they would still +have accepted me, I knew, if I had, in truth, entered their company with +my basket of potatoes or carrots on my arm. One alone held out +unwaveringly through the years; for Miss Mitty, shut with her pride and +her portraits in the old grey house, obstinately closed her big mahogany +doors against our repeated friendly advances. Sometimes at dusk, as I +passed on the crooked pavement under the two great sycamores, I would +glance up at the windows, where the red firelight glimmered on the small +square panes, and fancy that I saw her long, oval face gazing down on me +from between the parted lace curtains. But she made no sign of +forgiveness, and when Sally went to see her, as she did sometimes, the +old lady received her formally in the drawing-room, with a distant and +stately manner. She, who was the mixture of a Bland and a Fairfax, sat +enthroned upon her traditions, while we of the common, outside world +walked by under the silvery boughs of her sycamores. + +"Aunt Mitty has told Selim not to admit me," said Sally one day at +luncheon. "I know she wasn't out in this dreadful March wind--she never +leaves the house except in summer--and yet when I went there, he told me +positively she was not at home. When I think of her all alone hour after +hour with Aunt Matoaca's things around her, I feel as if it would break +my heart. George says she is looking very badly." + +"Does George see her?" I asked, glancing up from my cup of coffee, while +I waited for the light to a cigar. "I didn't imagine he had enough +attentions left over from his hunters to bestow upon maiden ladies." + +The sugar tongs were in her hand, and she looked not at me, but at the +lump of sugar poised above her cup, as she answered, + +"He is so good." + +"Good?" I echoed lightly; "do you call George good? The General thinks +he's a sad scamp." + +The lump of sugar dropped with a splash into her cup, and her eyes were +dark as she raised them quickly to my face. Instinctively I felt, with a +blind groping of perception, that I had wounded her pride, or her +loyalty, or some other hereditary attribute of the Blands and the +Fairfaxes that I could not comprehend. + +"If I wanted an estimate of goodness, I don't think I'd go to the +General as an authority," she retorted. + +"I'm sorry you never liked him, Sally. He's a great man." + +"Well, he isn't _my_ great man anyway," she retorted. "I prefer Dr. +Theophilus or George." + +I laughed gayly. "The doctor is a mollycoddle and George is a fop." My +tone was jaunty, yet her words were like the prick of a needle in a +sensitive place. What was her praise of George except the confession of +an appreciation of the very things that I could never possess? I knew +she loved me and not George--was not her marriage a proof of this +sufficient to cover a lifetime?--yet I knew also that the external +graces which I treated with scorn because I lacked them, held for her +the charm of habit, of association, of racial memory. Would the power in +me that had captured her serve as well through a future of familiar +possession as it had served in the supreme moment of conquest? I could +not go through life, as I had once said, forever pushing a wheel up a +hill, and the strength of a shoulder might prove, after all, less +effective in the freedom of daily intercourse than the quickness or +delicacy of a manner. Would she begin to regret presently, I wondered, +the lack in the man she loved of those smaller virtues which in the +first rosy glow of romance had seemed to her insignificant and of little +worth? + +"There are worse things than a mollycoddle or a fop," she rejoined after +a pause, and added quickly, while old Esdras left the dining-room to +answer a ring at the bell, "That's either Bonny Page or George now. One +of them is coming to take me out." + +For a moment I hoped foolishly that the visitor might be Bonny Page, but +the sound of George's pleasant drawling voice was heard speaking to old +Esdras, and as the curtains swung back, he crossed the threshold and +came over to take Sally's outstretched hand. + +"You're lunching late to-day," he said. "I don't often find you here at +this hour, Ben." + +"No, I'm not a man-about-town like you," I replied, pushing the cigars +and the lamp toward him; "the business of living takes up too much of my +time." + +He leaned over, without replying to me, his hand on the back of Sally's +chair, his eyes on her face. + +"It's all right, Sally," he said in a low voice, and when he drew back, +I saw that he had laid a spray of sweet alyssum on the table beside her +plate. + +Her eyes shone suddenly as if she were looking at sunlight, and when she +smiled up at him, there was an expression in her face, half gratitude, +half admiration, that made it very beautiful. While I watched her, I +tried to overcome an ugly irrational resentment because George had been +the one to call that tremulous new beauty into existence. + +"How like you it was," she returned, almost in a whisper, with the spray +of sweet alyssum held to her lips, "and how can I thank you?" + +His slightly wooden features, flushed now with a fine colour, as if he +had been riding in the March wind, softened until I hardly knew them. +Standing there in his immaculate clothes, with his carefully groomed +mustache hiding a trembling mouth, he had become, I realised vaguely, a +George with whom the General and I possessed hardly so much as an +acquaintance. The man before me was a man whom Sally had invoked into +being, and it seemed to me, as I watched them, that she had awakened in +George, who had lost her, some quality--inscrutable and elusive--that +she had never aroused in the man to whom she belonged. What this quality +was, or wherein it lay, I could not then define. Understanding, +sympathy, perception, none of these words covered it, yet it appeared to +contain and possess them all. The mere fact of its existence, and that I +recognised without explaining it, had the effect of a barrier which +separated me for the moment from my wife and the man to whom she was +related by the ties of race and of class. Again I was aware of that +sense of strangeness, of remoteness, which I had felt on the night of +our home-coming when I had stood, spellbound, before Bonny Page's +exquisite grooming and the shining gloss on her hair and boots. +Something--a trifle, perhaps, had passed between Sally and George--and +the reason I did not understand it was because I belonged to another +order and had inherited different perceptions from theirs. The +trifle--whatever it was--appeared visibly, I knew, before us; it was +evident and on the surface, and if I failed to discern it what did that +prove except the shortness of the vision through which I looked? A +physical soreness, like that of a new bruise, attacked my heart, and +rising hastily from the table, I made some hurried apology and went out, +leaving them alone together. Glancing back as I got into my overcoat in +the hall, I saw that Sally still held the spray of sweet alyssum to her +lips, and that the look George bent on her was transfigured by the +tenderness that flooded his face with colour. She loved me, she was +mine, and yet at this instant she had turned to another man for a keener +comprehension, a subtler sympathy, than I could give. A passion, not of +jealousy, but of hurt pride, throbbed in my heart, and by some curious +eccentricity of emotion, this pride was associated with a rush of +ambition, with the impelling desire to succeed to the fullest in the +things in which success was possible. If I could not give what George +gave, I would give, I told myself passionately, something far better. +When the struggle came closer between the class and the individual, I +had little doubt that the claims of tradition would yield as they had +always done to the possession of power. Only let that power find its +fullest expression, and I should stand to George Bolingbroke as the +living present of action stands to the dead past of history. After all, +what I had to give was my own, hewn by my own strength out of life, +while the thing in which he excelled was merely a web of delicate fibre +woven by generations of hands that had long since crumbled to dust. +Triumph over him, I resolved that I would in the end, and the way to +triumph led, I knew, through a future of outward achievement to the +dazzling presidency of the South Midland and Atlantic Railroad. + +As time went on this passionate ambition, which was so closely bound up +with my love for Sally, absorbed me even to the exclusion of the feeling +from which it had drawn its greatest strength. The responsibilities of +my position, the partial control of the large sums of money that passed +through my hands, crowded my days with schemes and anxieties, and kept +me tossing, sleepless yet with wearied brain, through many a night. For +pleasure I had no time; Sally I saw only for a hurried or an +absent-minded hour or two at meals, or when I came up too tired to think +or to talk in the evenings. Often I fell asleep over my cigar after +dinner, while she dressed and hastened, with her wreathed head and bare +shoulders, to a reception or a ball. A third of my time was spent in New +York, and during my absence, it never occurred to me to enquire how she +filled her long, empty days. She was sure of me, she trusted me, I knew; +and in the future, I told myself when I had leisure to think of it--next +year, perhaps--I should begin again to play the part of an ardent lover. +She was as desirable--she was far dearer to me than she had ever been in +her life, but while I held her safe and close in my clasp, my mind +reached out with its indomitable energy after the uncertain, the +unattained. I had my wife--what I wanted now was a fortune and a great +name to lay at her feet. + +And all these months did she ever question, ever ask herself, while she +watched me struggling day after day with the lust for power, if the +thing that I sought to give her would in the end turn to Dead Sea fruit +at her lips? Question she may have done in her heart, but no hint of it +ever reached me--no complaint of her marriage ever disturbed the outward +serenity in which we lived. Yet, deep in myself, I heard always a still +small voice, which told me that she demanded something far subtler and +finer than I had given--something that belonged inherently to the nature +of George Bolingbroke rather than to mine. Even now, though she loved me +and not George, it was George who was always free, who was always +amiable, who was always just ready and just waiting to be called. On +another day, a month or two later, he came in again with his blossom of +sweet alyssum, and again her eyes grew shining and grateful, while the +old bruise throbbed quickly to life in my heart. + +"Is it all right still?" she asked, and he answered, "All right," with +his rare smile, which lent a singular charm to his softened features. + +Then he glanced across at me and made, I realised, an effort to be +friendly. + +"You ought to get a horse, Ben," he remarked, "it would keep you from +getting glum. If you'd hunted with us yesterday, you would have seen +Bonny Page take a gate like a bird." + +"I tried to follow," said Sally, "but Prince Charlie refused." + +"You mean I wouldn't let go your bridle," returned George, in a +half-playful, half-serious tone. + +The bruise throbbed again. Here, also, I was shut out--I who had carried +potatoes to George's door while he was off learning to follow the +hounds. His immaculate, yet careless, dress; the perfection of his +manner, which seemed to make him a part of the surroundings in which he +stood; the very smoothness and slenderness of the hand that rested on +Sally's chair--all these produced in me a curious and unreasonable +sensation of anger. + +"I forbid you to jump, Sally," I said, almost sharply; "you know I hate +it." + +She leaned forward, glancing first at me and then at George, with an +expression of surprise. + +"Why, what's the matter, Ben?" she asked. "He's a perfect bear, isn't +he, George?" + +"The best way to keep her from jumping," observed George, pleasantly +enough, though his face flushed, "is to be on the spot to catch her +bridle or her horse's mane or anything else that's handy. It's the only +means I've found successful, for there was never a Bland yet who didn't +go straight ahead and do the thing he was forbidden to. Miss Mitty told +me with pride that she had been eating lobster, which she always hated, +and I discovered her only reason was that the doctor had ordered her not +to touch it." + +"Then I shan't forbid, I'll entreat," I replied, recovering myself with +an effort. "Please don't jump, Sally, I implore it." + +"I won't jump if you'll come with me, Ben," she answered. + +I laughed shortly, for how was it possible to explain to two Virginians +of their blood and habits that a man of six feet two inches could not +sit a horse for the first time without appearing ridiculous in the eyes +even of the woman who loved him? They had grown up together in the +fields or at the stables, and a knowledge of horse-flesh was as much a +part of their birthright as the observance of manners. The one I could +never acquire; the other I had attained unaided and in the face of the +tremendous barriers that shut me out. The repeated insistence upon the +fact that Sally was a Bland aroused in me, whenever I met it, an +irritation which I tried in vain to dispel. To be a Bland meant, after +all, simply to be removed as far as possible from any temperamental +relation to the race of Starrs. + +"I wish I could, dear," I answered, as I rose to go out, "but remember, +I've never been on a horse in my life and it's too late to begin." + +"Oh, I forgot. Of course you can't," she rejoined. "So if George isn't +strong enough to hold me back, I'll have to go straight after Bonny." + +"I promise you I'll swing on with all my might, Ben," said George, with +a laugh in which I felt there was an amiable condescension, as from the +best horseman in his state to a man who had never ridden to hounds. + +A little later, as I walked down the street, past the old grey house, +under the young budding leaves of the sycamores, the recollection of +this amiable condescension returned to me like the stab of a knife. The +image of Sally, mounted on Prince Charlie, at George's side, troubled my +thoughts, and I wondered, with a pang, if the people who saw them +together would ask themselves curiously why she had chosen me. To one +and all of them,--to Miss Mitty, to Bonny Page, to Dr. Theophilus,--the +mystery, I felt, was as obscure to-day as it had been in the beginning +of our love. Why was it? I questioned angrily, and wherein lay the +subtle distinction which divided my nature from George Bolingbroke's and +even from Sally's? The forces of democracy had made way for me, and yet +was there something stronger than democracy--and this something, fine +and invincible as a blade, I had felt long ago in the presence of Miss +Mitty and Miss Matoaca. Over my head, under the spreading boughs of the +sycamore, a window was lifted, and between the parted lace curtains, the +song of Miss Mitty's canary floated out into the street. As the music +entered my thoughts, I remembered suddenly the box of sweet alyssum +blooming on the window-sill under the swinging cage, and there flashed +into my consciousness the meaning of the flowers George had laid beside +Sally's plate. For her sake he had gone to Miss Mitty in the sad old +house, and that little blossom was the mute expression of a service he +had rendered joyfully in the name of love. The gratitude in Sally's eyes +was made clear to me, and a helpless rage at my own blindness, my own +denseness, flooded my heart. George, because of some inborn fineness of +perception, had discerned the existence of a sorrow in my wife to which +I, the man whom she loved and who loved her, had been insensible. He had +understood and had comforted--while I, engrossed in larger matters, had +gone on my way unheeding and indifferent. Then the anger against myself +turned blindly upon George, and I demanded passionately if he would +stand forever in my life as the embodiment of instincts and perceptions +that the generations had bred? Would I fail forever in little things +because I had been cursed at birth by an inability to see any except big +ones? And where I failed would George be always ready to fill the +unspoken need and to bestow the unasked-for sympathy? + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +IN WHICH I WALK ON THIN ICE + + +On a November evening, when we had been married several years, I came +home after seven o'clock, and found Sally standing before the bureau +while she fastened a bunch of violets to the bosom of her gown. + +"I'm sorry I couldn't get up earlier, but there's a good deal of +excitement over a failure in Wall Street," I said. "Are you going out?" + +Her hands fell from her bosom, and as she turned toward me, I saw that +she was dressed as though for a ball. + +"Not to-night, Ben. I had an engagement, but I broke it because I wanted +to spend the evening with you. I thought we might have a nice cosy time +all by ourselves." + +"What a shame, darling. I've promised Bradley I'd do a little work with +him in my study. He's coming at half-past eight and will probably keep +me till midnight. I'll have to hurry. Did you put on that gorgeous gown +just for me?" + +"Just for you." There was an expression on her face, half humorous, half +resentful, that I had never seen there before. "What day is this, Ben?" +she asked, as I was about to enter my dressing-room. + +"The nineteenth of November," I replied carelessly, looking back at her +with my hand on the door. + +"The nineteenth of November," she echoed slowly, as if saying the words +to herself. + +I was already on the threshold when light broke on me in a flash, and I +turned, blind with remorse, and seized her in my arms. + +"Sally, Sally, I am a brute!" + +She laughed a little, drawing away, not coming closer. + +"Ben, are you happy?" + +"As happy as a king. I'll telephone Bradley not to come." + +"Is it important?" + +"Yes, very important. That failure I told you of is a pretty serious +matter." + +"Then let him come. All days are the same, after all, when one comes to +think of it." + +Her hand went to the violets at her breast, and as my eyes followed it, +a sudden intuitive dread entered my mind like an impulse of rage. + +"I intended to send you flowers, Sally, but in the rush, I forgot. Whose +are those you are wearing?" + +She moved slightly, and the perfume of the violets floated from the +cloud of lace on her bosom. + +"George sent them," she answered quietly. + +Before she spoke I had known it--the curse of my life was to be that +George would always remember--and the intuitive dread I had felt +changed, while I stood there, to the dull ache of remorse. + +"Take them off, and I'll get you others if there's a shop open in the +city," I said. Then, as she hesitated, wavering between doubt and +surprise, I left the room, descended the steps with a rush, and picking +up my hat, hurried in search of a belated florist who had not closed. At +the corner a man, going out to dine, paused to fasten his overcoat under +the electric light, which blazed fitfully in the wind; and as I +approached and he looked up, I saw that it was George Bolingbroke. + +"It's time all sober married men were at home dressing for dinner," he +observed in a whimsical tone. + +The wind had brought a glow of colour into his face, and he looked very +handsome as he stood there, in his fur-lined coat, under the blaze of +light. + +"I was kept late down town," I replied. "The General and I get all the +hard knocks while you take it easy." + +"Well, I like an easy world, and I believe your world is pretty much +about what you make it. Where are you rushing? Do you go my way?" + +"No, I'm turning off here. There's something I forgot this morning and I +came out to attend to it." + +"Don't fall into the habit of forgetting. It's a bad one and it's sure +to grow on you--and whatever you forget," he added with a laugh as we +parted, "don't forget for a minute of your life that you've married +Sally." + +He passed on, still laughing pleasantly, and quickening my steps, I went +to the corner of Broad Street, where I found a florist's shop still +lighted and filled with customers. There were no violets left, and while +I waited for a sheaf of pink roses, with my eyes on the elaborate +funeral designs covering the counter, I heard a voice speaking in a low +tone beyond a mass of flowering azalea beside which I stood. + +"Yes, her mother married beneath her, also," it said; "that seems to be +the unfortunate habit of the Blands." + +I turned quickly, my face hot with anger, and as I did so my eyes met +those of a dark, pale lady, through the thick rosy clusters of the +azalea. When she recognised me, she flushed slightly, and then moving +slowly around the big green tub that divided us, she held out her hand +with a startled and birdlike flutter of manner. + +"I missed you at the reception last night, Mr. Starr," she said; "Sally +was there, and I had never seen her looking so handsome." + +Then as the sheaf of roses was handed to me, she vanished behind the +azaleas again, while I turned quickly away and carried my fragrant +armful out into the night. + +When I reached home, I was met on the staircase by Jessy, who ran, +laughing, before me to Sally, with the remark that I had come back +bringing an entire rose garden in my hands. + +"There weren't any violets left, darling," I said, as I entered and +tossed the flowers on the couch, "and even these roses aren't fresh." + +"Well, they're sweet anyway, poor things," she returned, gathering them +into her lap, while her hands caressed the half-opened petals. "It was +like you, Ben, when you did remember, to bring me the whole shopful." + +Breaking one from the long stem, she fastened it in place of the violets +in the cloud of lace on her bosom. + +"Pink suits me better, after all," she remarked gayly; "and now you must +let Bradley come, and Jessy and I will go to the theatre." + +"I suppose he'll have to come," I said moodily, "but I'll be up earlier +to-morrow, Sally, if I wreck the bank in order to do it." + +All the next day I kept the importance of fulfilling this promise in my +mind, and at five o'clock, I abruptly broke off a business appointment +to rush breathlessly home in the hope of finding Sally ready to walk or +to drive. As I turned the corner, however, I saw, to my disappointment, +that several riding horses were waiting under the young maples beside +the pavement, and when I entered the house, I heard the merry flutelike +tones of Bonny Page from the long drawing-room, where Sally was serving +tea. + +For a minute the unconquerable shyness I always felt in the presence of +women held me, rooted in silence, on the threshold. Then, "Is that you, +Ben?" floated to me in Sally's voice, and pushing the curtains aside, I +entered the room and crossed to the little group gathered before the +fire. In the midst of it, I saw the tall, almost boyish figure of Bonny +Page, and the sight of her gallant air and her brilliant, vivacious +smile aroused in me instantly the oppressive self-consciousness of our +first meeting. I remembered suddenly that I had dressed carelessly in +the morning, that I had tied my cravat in a hurry, that my coat fitted +me badly and I had neglected to send it back. All the innumerable +details of life--the little things I despised or overlooked--swarmed, +like stinging gnats, into my thoughts while I stood there. + +"You're just in time for tea, Ben," said Sally; "it's a pity you don't +drink it." + +"And you're just in time for a scolding," remarked Bonny. "Do you know, +if I had a husband who wouldn't ride with me, I'd gallop off the first +time I went hunting with another man." + +"You'd better start, Ben. It wouldn't take you three days to follow +Bonny over a gate," said Ned Marshall, one of her many lovers, eager, I +detected at once, to appear intimate and friendly. He was a fine, +strong, athletic young fellow, with a handsome, smooth-shaven face, a +slightly vacant laugh, and a figure that showed superbly in his +loose-fitting riding clothes. + +"When I get the time, I'll buy a horse and begin," I replied; "but all +hours are working hours to me now, Sally will tell you." + +"It's exactly as if I'd married a railroad engine," remarked Sally, +laughing, and I realised by the strained look in their faces, that this +absorption in larger matters--this unchangeable habit of thought that I +could not shake off even in a drawing-room--puzzled them, because of +their inherent incapacity to understand how it could be. My mind, which +responded so promptly to the need for greater exertions, was reduced to +mere leaden weight by this restless movement of little things. And this +leaden weight, this strained effort to become something other than I was +by nature, was reflected in the smiling faces around me as in a mirror. +The embarrassment in my thoughts extended suddenly to my body, and I +asked myself the next minute if Sally contrasted my heavy silence with +the blithe self-confidence and the sportive pleasantries of Ned +Marshall? Was she beginning already, unconsciously to her own heart, +perhaps, to question if the passion I had given her would suffice to +cover in her life the absence of the unspoken harmony in outward things? +With the question there rose before me the figure of George Bolingbroke, +as he bent over and laid the blossom of sweet alyssum beside her plate; +and, as at the instant in which I had watched him, I felt again the +physical soreness which had become a part of my furious desire to make +good my stand. + +When Bonny and Ned Marshall had mounted and ridden happily away in the +dusk, Sally came back with me from the door, and stood, silent and +pensive, for a moment, while she stroked my arm. + +"You look tired, Ben. If you only wouldn't work so hard." + +"I must work. It's the only thing I'm good for." + +"But I see so little of you and--and I get so lonely." + +"When I've won out, I'll stop, and then you shall see me every living +minute of the day, if you choose." + +"That's so far off, and it's now I want you. I'd like you to take me +away, Ben--to take me somewhere just as you did when we were married." + +Her face was very soft in the firelight, and stooping, I kissed her +cheek as she looked up at me, with a grave, almost pensive smile on her +lips. + +"I wish I could, sweetheart, but I'm needed here so badly that I don't +dare run off for a day. You've married a working-man, and he's obliged +to stick to his place." + +She said nothing more to persuade me, but from that evening until the +spring, when our son was born, it seemed to me that she retreated +farther and farther into that pale dream distance where I had first seen +and desired her. With the coming of the child I got her back to earth +and to reality, and when the warm little body, wrapped in flannels, was +first placed in my arms, it seemed to me that the thrill of the mere +physical contact had in it something of the peculiar starlike radiance +of my bridal night. Sally, lying upon the pillow under a blue satin +coverlet, smiled up at me with flushed cheeks and eyes shining with +love, and while I stood there, some divine significance in her look, in +her helplessness, in the oneness of the three of us drawn together in +that little circle of life, moved my heart to the faint quiver of +apprehension that had come to me while I stood by her side before the +altar in old Saint John's. + +When she was well, and the long, still days of the summer opened, little +Benjamin was wrapped in a blue veil and taken in Aunt Euphronasia's arms +to visit Miss Mitty in the old grey house. + +"What did she say, mammy? How did she receive him?" asked Sally eagerly, +when the old negress returned. + +"She ain' said nuttin' 'tall, honey, cep'n 'huh,'" replied Aunt +Euphronasia, in an aggrieved and resentful tone. "Dar she wuz a-settin' +jes' ez prim by de side er dat ar box er sweet alyssum, en ez soon ez I +lay eyes on her, I said, 'Howdy, Miss Mitty, hyer's Marse Ben's en Miss +Sally's baby done come to see you.' Den she kinder turnt her haid, like +oner dese yer ole wedder cocks on a roof, en she looked me spang in de +eye en said 'huh' out right flat jes' like dat." + +"But didn't you show her his pretty blue eyes, mammy?" persisted Sally. + +"Go way f'om hyer, chile, Miss Mitty done seen de eyes er a baby befo' +now. I knowed dat, en I lowed in my mind dat you ain' gwinter git aroun' +her by pretendin' you kin show her nuttin'. So I jes' begin ter sidle up +ter her en kinder talk sof ez ef'n I 'uz a-talkin' ter myself. 'Dish yer +chile is jes' de spi't er Marse Bland,' I sez, 'en dar ain' noner de po' +wite trash in de look er him needer.'" + +"Aunt Euphronasia, how dare you!" said Sally, sternly. + +"Well, 'tis de trufe, ain't hit? Dar ain' nuttin er de po' wite trash in +de look er him, is dar?" + +"And what did she say then, Aunt Euphronasia?" + +"Who? Miss Mitty? She sez 'huh' again jes' ez she done befo'. Miss Mitty +ain't de kind dat's gwinter eat her words, honey. W'at she sez, she sez, +en she's gwinter stick up ter hit. The hull time I 'uz dar, I ain' never +yearn nuttin' but 'huh!' pass thoo her mouf." + +"I knew she was proud, Ben, but I didn't know she was so cruel as to +visit it on this precious angel," said Sally, on the point of tears; +"and I believe Jessy is the same way. Nobody cares about him except his +doting mother." + +"What's become of his doting father?" + +"Oh, his doting father is entirely too busy with his darling stocks." + +"Sally," I asked seriously, "don't you understand that all +this--everything I'm doing--is just for you and the boy?" + +"Is it, Ben?" she responded, and the next minute, "Of course, I +understand it. How could I help it?" + +She was always reasonable--it was one of her greatest charms, and I knew +that if I were to open my mind to her at the moment, she would enter +into my troubles with all the insight of her resourceful sympathy. But I +kept silence, restrained by some masculine instinct that prompted me to +shut the business world outside the doors of home. + +"Well, I must go downtown, dear; I don't see much of you these days, do +I?" + +"Not much, but I know you're here to stay and that's a good deal of +comfort." + +"I'm glad you've got the baby. He keeps you company." + +She looked up at me with the puzzling expression, half humour, half +resentment, I had seen frequently in her face of late. If she stopped to +question whether I really imagined that a child of three months was all +the companionship required by a woman of her years, she let no sign of +it escape the smiling serenity of her lips. On her knees little Benjamin +lay perfectly quiet while he stared straight up at the ceiling with his +round blue eyes like the eyes of an animated doll. + +"Yes, he is company," she answered gently; and stooping to kiss them +both, I ran downstairs, hurried into my overcoat, and went out into the +street. + +As I closed the door behind me, I saw the General's buggy turning the +corner, and a minute later he drew up under the young maples beside the +pavement, and made room for me under the grey fur rug that covered his +knees. + +"I don't like the way things are behaving in Wall Street, Ben," he said. +"Did that last smash cost you anything?" + +"About two hundred thousand dollars, General, but I hadn't spoken of +it." + +"I hope the bank hasn't been loaning any more money to the Cumberland +and Tidewater. I meant to ask you about that several days ago." + +"The question comes up before the directors this afternoon. We'll +probably refuse to advance any further loans, but they've already drawn +on us pretty heavily, you understand, and we may have to go in deeper to +save what we've got." + +"Well, it looks pretty shaky, that's all I've got to say. If Jenkins +doesn't butt in and reorganise it, it will probably go into the hands of +a receiver before the year is up. Is it the bank or your private +investments you've been worrying over?" + +"My own affairs entirely. You see I'd dealt pretty largely through Cross +and Hankins, and I don't know exactly what their failure will mean to +me." + +"A good many men in the country are asking themselves that question. A +smash like that isn't over in a day or a night. But I'm afraid you've +been spending too much money, Ben. Is your wife extravagant?" + +"No, it's my own fault. I've never liked her to consider the value of +money." + +"It's a bad way to begin. Women have got it in their blood, and I +remember my poor mother used to say she never felt that a dollar was +worth anything until she spent it. If I were you, I'd pull up and go +slowly, but it's mighty hard to do after you've once started at a +gallop." + +"I don't think I'll have any trouble, but I hate like the deuce to speak +of it to Sally." + +"That's your damned delicacy. It puts me in mind of my cousin, Jenny +Tyler, who married that scamp who used to throw his boots at her. Once +when she was a girl she stayed with us for a summer, and old Judge Lacy, +one of the ugliest men of his day, fell over head and heels in love with +her. She couldn't endure the sight of him, and yet, if you'll believe my +word, though she was as modest as an angel, I actually found him kissing +her one day in a summer-house. 'Bless my soul, Jenny!' I exclaimed, 'why +didn't you tell that old baboon to stop hugging you and behave himself?' +'O Cousin George,' she replied, blushing the colour of a cherry, 'I +didn't like to mention it.' Now, that's the kind of false modesty you've +got, Ben." + +"Well, you see, General," I responded when he had finished his sly +chuckle, "I've always felt that money was the only thing that I had to +offer." + +"You may feel that way, Ben, but I don't believe that Sally does. My +honest opinion is that it means a lot more to you than it does to her. +There never was a Bland yet that didn't look upon money as a vulgar +thing. I've known Sally's grandfather to refuse to invite a man to his +house when the only objection he had to him was that he was too rich to +be a gentleman. If you think it's wealth or luxury or their old house +that the Blands pride themselves on, you haven't learned a thing about +'em in spite of the fact that you've married into the family. What +they're proud of is that they can do without any of these things; +they've got something else--whatever it is--that they consider a long +sight better. Miss Mitty Bland would still have it if she went in rags +and did her own cooking, and it's this, not any material possessions, +that makes her so terribly important. Look here, now, you take my advice +and go home and tell Sally to stop spending money. How's that boy of +yours? Is he wanting to become a bank president already?" + +The old grey horse, rounding the corner at an amble, came suddenly to a +stop as he recognised the half-grown negro urchin waiting upon the +pavement. As if moved by a mechanical spring, the General's expression +changed at once from its sly and jolly good nature to the look of +capable activity which marked the successful man of affairs. The twinkle +in his little bloodshot eyes narrowed to a point of steel, the loose +lines of his mouth, which was the mouth of a generous libertine, grew +instantly sober, and even his crimson neck, sprawling over his puffy, +magenta-coloured tie, stiffened into an appearance of pompous dignity. + +"Look sharp about the Cumberland and Tidewater, Ben," he remarked as he +turned to limp painfully into the railroad office. Then the glass doors +swung together behind him, and he forgot my existence, while I crossed +the street in a rush and entered the Union Bank, which was a block +farther down on the opposite side. + +On the way home that afternoon, I told myself with determination that I +would tell Sally frankly about the money I had lost; but when a little +later she slipped her hand into my arm, and led me into the nursery to +show me a trunk filled with baby's clothes that had come down from New +York, my courage melted to air, and I could not bring myself to dispel +the pretty excitement with which she laid each separate tiny garment +upon the bed. + +"Oh, of course, you don't enjoy them, Ben, as I do, but isn't that +little embroidered cloak too lovely?" + +"Lovely, dear, only I've had a bad day, and I'm tired." + +"Poor boy, I know you are. Here, we'll put them away. But first there's +something really dreadful I've got to tell you." + +"Dreadful, Sally?" + +"Yes, but it isn't about us. Do you know, I honestly believe that Jessy +intends to marry Mr. Cottrel." + +"What? That old rocking-horse? Why, he's a Methusalah, and knock-kneed +into the bargain." + +"It doesn't matter. Nothing matters to her except clothes. I've heard of +women who sold themselves for clothes, and I believe she's one of them." + +"Well, we're an eccentric family," I said wearily, "and she's the +worst." + +At any other time the news would probably have excited my indignation, +but as I sat there, in the wicker rocking-chair, by the nursery fire, I +was too exhausted to resent any manifestation of the family spirit. The +last week had been a terrible strain, and there were months ahead which +I knew would demand the exercise of every particle of energy that I +possessed. In the afternoon there was to be a meeting of the directors +of the bank, called to discuss the advancing of further loans to the +Cumberland and Tidewater Railroad, and at eight o'clock I had promised +to work for several hours with Bradley, my secretary. To go slowly now +was impossible. My only hope was that by going fast enough I might +manage to save what remained of the situation. + +As the winter passed I went earlier to my office and came up later. +Failure succeeded failure in Wall Street, and the whole country began +presently to send back echoes of the prolonged crash. The Cumberland and +Tidewater Railroad, to which we had refused a further loan, went into +the hands of a receiver, and the Great South Midland and Atlantic +immediately bought up the remnants at its own price. The General, who +had been jubilant about the purchase, relapsed into melancholy a week +later over the loss of "a good third" of his personal income. + +"I'm an old fool or I'd have stopped dabbling in speculations and put +away a nest-egg for my old age," he remarked, wiping his empurpled lids +on his silk handkerchief. "No man over fifty ought to be trusted to +gamble in stocks. Thank God, I'm the one to suffer, however, and not the +road. If there's a more solid road in the country, Ben, than the South +Midland, I've got to hear of it. It's big, but it's growing--swallowing +up everything that comes in its way, like a regular boa constrictor. +Think what it was when I came into it immediately after the war; and +to-day it's one of the few roads that is steadily increasing its +earnings in spite of this blamed panic." + +"You worked regeneration, General, as I've often told you." + +"Well, I'm too old to see what it's coming to. I hope a good man will +step into my place after I'm gone. I'm sometimes sorry you didn't stick +by me, Ben." + +He spoke of the great road in a tone of regretful sentiment which I had +never found in his allusions to his lost Matoaca. The romance of his +life, after all, was not a woman, but a railroad, and his happiest +memory was, I believe, not the Sunday upon which he had stood beside the +rose-lined bonnet of his betrothed and sung lustily out of the same +hymn-book, but the day when the stock of the Great South Midland and +Atlantic had sold at 180 in the open market. + +"I'll tell you what, my boy," he remarked with a quiver of his lower +lip, which hung still farther away from his bloodless gum, "a woman may +go back on you, and the better the woman the more likely she is to do +it,--but a road won't,--no, not if it is a good road." + +"Well, I'm not getting much return out of the West Virginia and Wyanoke +just now," I replied. "It's no fun being a little road at the mercy of a +big one when the big one is a boa constrictor. Even if you get a fair +division of the rates, you don't get your cars when you want them." + +"The moral of that," returned the General, with a chuckle, "is, to quote +from my poor old mammy again, 'Don't hatch until you're ready to hatch +whole.'" + +We parted with a laugh, and I dismissed the affairs of the little +railroad as I entered my office at the bank, where my private wire +immediately ticked off the news of a state of panic in the money market. +That was in February, and it was not until the end of March that the ice +on which I was walking cracked under my feet and I went through. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +IN WHICH I GO DOWN + + +I had just risen from breakfast on the last day of March when I was +called to the telephone by Cummins, the cashier of the bank. + +"Things are going pretty queer down here. Looks as if a run were +beginning. Some old fool started it after reading about that failure of +the Darlington Trust Company in New York. Wish you'd hurry." + +"Call up the directors, and look here!--pay out all deposits slowly +until I get there." + +The telephone rang off, and picking up my hat, I went down the front +steps to the carriage, which had been ordered by Sally for an early +appointment. As I stepped in, she appeared in her hat and coat and +joined me. + +"Drive to the bank, Micah," I said, "I want to get there like +lightning." + +"Can you wait till I speak to mammy? She is bringing the baby." + +For the first time since our marriage my nerves got the better of me, +and I answered her sharply. + +"No, I can't wait--not a minute, not a second. Drive on, Micah." + +In obedience to my commands, Micah touched the horses, and as we sped +down Franklin Street, Sally looked at me with an expression which +reminded me of the faint wonder under the fixed smile about Miss Mitty's +mouth. + +"What's the matter, Ben? Are you working too hard?" she enquired. + +"I'm tired and I'm anxious. Do you realise that we are living in the +midst of a panic?" + +"Are we?" she asked quietly, and arranged the fur rug over her knees. + +"Do you mean to tell me you hadn't heard it?" I demanded, in pure +amazement that the thing which had possessed me to madness for three +months should have escaped the consciousness of the wife with whom I +lived. + +"How was I to hear of it? You never told me, and I seldom read the +papers now since the baby came. Of course I knew something was wrong. +You were looking so badly and so much older." + +To me it had needed no telling, because it had become suddenly the most +obvious fact in the world in which I moved. Only a fool would gaze up at +the sky during a storm burst and remark to a bystander, "It thunders." +Yet even now I saw that what she realised was not the gravity of the +financial crisis, but its injurious effect upon my health and my +appearance. + +"You've been on too great a strain," she remarked sympathetically; "when +it's all over you must come away and we'll go to Florida in the +General's car." + +To Florida! and at that instant I was struggling in the grip of +failure--the failure of the successful financier, which is of all +failures the hardest. Not a few retrenchments, not the economy of a +luxury here and there, but ultimate poverty was the thing that I faced +while I sat beside her on the soft cushions under the rich fur rug. One +by one the familiar houses whirled by me. I saw the doors open and shut, +the people come out of them, the sunshine fall through the budding trees +on the sidewalk; and the houses and the moving people and the budding +trees, all seemed to me detached and unreal, as if they stood apart +somewhere in a world of quiet, while I was sucked in by the whirlpool. +Though I lifted my voice and called aloud to them, I felt that the +people I passed would still go quietly in and out of the opening doors +in the placid spring sunshine. + +"There's Bonny Page," said Sally, waving her hand; "she's to marry Ned +Marshall next month, you know, and they are going to Europe. Did you +notice that baby in the carriage--the one with blue bows and the Irish +lace afghan?--it is Bessy Munford's,--the handsomest in town, they say, +after little Benjamin." + +The sight of the baby carriage, with its useless blue fripperies, +trundled on the pavement under the budding trees, had aroused in me a +sudden ridiculous anger, as though it represented the sinful +extravagance of an entire nation. That silly carriage with its blue +ribbons and its lace coverlet! And over the whole country factory after +factory was shutting down, and thousands of hungry mothers and children +were sitting on door-steps in this same sunshine. My nerves were bad. It +had been months since I had a good night's sleep, and I knew that in the +condition of my temper a trifle might be magnified out of all due +proportion to its relative significance. + +The horses stopped at the bank, and Sally leaned out to bow smilingly to +one of the directors, who was coming along the sidewalk. + +"I never saw so many people about here, Ben," she remarked; "it looks +exactly as if it were a theatre. Ah, there's the General now going into +his office. He hobbles so badly, doesn't he? When do you think you'll be +home?" + +"I don't know," I returned shortly, "perhaps at midnight--perhaps next +week." + +My tone brought a flush to her cheek, and she looked at me with the +faint wonder that I had seen first on the face of Miss Mitty when I went +in to breakfast with her on that autumn morning. It was the look of +race, of the Bland breeding, of the tradition that questioned, not +violently, but gently, "Can this be possible?" + +She drove on without replying to me, and as I entered my office, the +faces of Miss Mitty and of Sally were confused into one by my disordered +mind. + +The run had already started--a depositor, who had withdrawn ten thousand +dollars after reading of the failure of the Darlington Trust Company, +had been paid off first, and following him the line had come, crawling +like black ants on the pavement. As I entered the doors, it seemed to me +that the face of each man or woman in the throng stood out, separate and +distinct, as though an electric search-light had passed over it; and I +saw one and all, frightened, satisfied, or merely ludicrous, with a +vividness of perception which failed me when I remembered the features +of my own wife. + +"We can pay them off slowly till three o'clock," said Bingley, the +vice-president, whom I found, with five or six of the directors, already +in my office. "I've got only one paying teller's window open. The +trouble, of course, began with the small accounts, of which we carry +such a blamed lot. Mark my words, it is the little depositor that +endangers a bank." + +He looked nervous, and swallowed hastily while he talked, as if he had +just rushed in from breakfast, with his last mouthful still unchewed. As +I entered and faced the men sitting in different attitudes, but all +wearing the same strained and helpless expression, a feeling of +irritation swept over me, and I paused in the middle of the floor, with +my hat and a folded newspaper in my hand. + +"A quarter of a million in hard cash would tide us over, I believe," +pursued Bingley, swallowing faster; "but the question is how in thunder +are we to lay hands on it by nine o'clock to-morrow morning?" + +I drew out my watch, and with the simple, mechanical action, I was +conscious of an immediate quickening of the blood, a clearing of the +brain. A certain readiness for decision, a power of dealing with an +emergency, of handling a crisis, a response of pulse and brain to the +call for action, stood me service now as in every difficult instant of +my career. They were picked business men and shrewd financiers before +me, yet I was aware that I dominated them, all and each, by some quality +of force, of aggressiveness, of inflated self-confidence. The secret of +my success, I had once said to the General, was that I began to get cool +when I saw other people getting scared. + +"It is now a quarter of ten, gentlemen," I said, "and I pledge my word +of honour that I will have a quarter of a million dollars in bank by ten +o'clock to-morrow." + +"For God's sake, Ben, where is it coming from?" demanded Judge Kenton, +an old Confederate, with the solemn face I had sometimes watched him +assume in church during the singing of the hymns. As I looked at him the +humour of his expression struck me, and I broke into a laugh. + +"I beg your pardon," I returned the next minute, "but I'll get +it--somewhere--if it's in the city." + +One of the men--I forget which, though I remember quite clearly that he +wore a red necktie--got up from the table and slapped me on the +shoulder. + +"Go ahead, Ben, and get it," he said. "We take your word." + +On the pavement the crowd had thickened, and when it caught sight of me, +a confused murmur rose, and I was surrounded by half-hysterical women. +The trouble, as Bingley had said, had begun with the small depositors; +and in the line that pressed now like black ants to the doors, there +were many evidently who had entrusted their nest-eggs to us for +safe-keeping. I was not gentle by nature, and the sight of a woman's +tears always aroused in me, not the angel, but the brute. For five years +I had been married to a descendant of the Blands and the Fairfaxes, and +yet, as I stood there, held at bay, in the midst of those sobbing women, +the veneer of refinement peeled off from me, and the raw strength of the +common man showed on the surface, and triumphed again as it had +triumphed over the frightened directors in my office. + +"What are you whining about?" I said with a laugh, "your money is all +there. Go in and get it." + +An old woman in a plaid shawl, with her mouth twisted sideways by a +recent stroke of paralysis, barred my way with an outstretched hand, in +which she held the foot of a grey yarn stocking. + +"I'd laid it up for my old age, Mister," she mumbled, through her +toothless gums, "an' they told me it was safer in the bank, so I put it +there. But I reckon I'd feel easier if I had it back--I reckon I'd feel +easier." + +"Then go after it," I replied harshly, pushing her out of my way. "If +you don't get it before I come back, I'll give it to you with my own +hands." + +For a minute my presence subdued the crowd; but the panic terror had +gripped it, and while I crossed the street the hysterical murmurs were +in my ears. A desire to turn and throttle the sound as I might a howling +wild beast took possession of me. It was true, I suppose, as Dr. +Theophilus had once told me, that the quality I lacked was tenderness. + +The General fortunately was alone in his private office, and when I went +in he glanced up enquiringly from a railroad report he was reading. + +"It's you, Ben, is it?" he remarked, and went back to his paper. + +"General," I said bluntly, and stopped short in the centre of the room, +"I want a quarter of a million dollars in cash by nine o'clock to-morrow +morning." + +For a moment he sat speechless, blinking at me with his swollen eyelids, +while his lower lip protruded angrily, like the lip of a crying child. +Then the old war-horse in him responded gallantly to the scent of +battle. + +"Damn you, Ben, do you know cash is as tight as wax?" he enquired. "You +ain't dozing in the midst of a panic?" + +"There's trouble at the bank," I replied. "A run has started, but so far +it is almost entirely among the small depositors. We can manage to pay +off till three o'clock, and if we open to-morrow with a quarter of a +million, we shall probably keep on our feet, unless the excitement +spreads." + +"When do you want it?" + +"By nine o'clock to-morrow morning; and I want it, General," I added, +"on my personal credit." + +He rose from his chair and stood swaying unsteadily on his gouty foot. + +"I'll give you every penny that I've got, Ben," he answered, "but it +ain't that much." + +"You have access to the cash of both the Tilden Bank and the Bonfield +Trust Company. If there's a dollar in the city you can get it." + +A hint of his sly humour appeared for an instant in his eyes. "It wasn't +any longer ago than breakfast that I remarked I didn't believe there was +a blamed dollar in the whole country," he returned. Then his swaying +stopped and he became invested suddenly with the dignity of the greatest +financier in the state. + +"Hand me my stick, Ben, and I'll go and see what I can do about it," he +said. + +I gave him his stick and my arm, and with my assistance he limped to the +offices of the Bonfield Trust Company on the next block. When I returned +to the bank the directors were talking excitedly, but at my entrance a +hush fell, and they sat looking at me with a row of vacant, expectant +faces that waited apparently to be filled with expression. + +"By ten o'clock to-morrow morning," I said, "a quarter of a million in +cash will be brought in through the door in bags." + +"I told you he'd do it," exclaimed Bingley, as he grasped my hand, "and +I hope to God it will stay 'em off." + +"You need a drink, Ben," observed Judge Kenton, "and so do I. Let's go +and get it. A soft-boiled egg was all I had for breakfast, and I've gone +faint." + +I remember that I went to a restaurant with him, that a few old women +sitting on the curbing spoke to us as we passed, that we ate oysters, +and returned in half an hour to another meeting, that we discussed ways +and means until eight o'clock and decided nothing. I know also that when +we came out again several of the old women were still crouching there, +and that when they came whining up to me, I turned on them with an oath +and ordered them to be off. As clearly as if it were yesterday, I can +see still the long, solemn face of the Judge as he glanced up at me, and +I see written upon it something of the faint wonder that I had grown to +regard as the peculiar look of the Blands. + +I had telephoned Sally not to wait, and when I reached home I found that +she had dismissed the servants and was preparing a little supper for me +herself. While she served me, I sat perfectly silent, too exhausted to +talk or to think, trying in vain to remember the more important events +of the day. Only once did Sally speak, and that was to beg me to eat the +slice of cold turkey she had laid on my plate. + +"I'm not hungry, I got something with Judge Kenton down town," I +returned as I pushed back my chair and rose from the table; "what I need +is sleep, sleep, sleep. If I don't get to bed, I'll drop to sleep on the +hearth-rug." + +"Then go, dear," she answered, and not until I reached the landing above +did I realise that through it all she had not put a single question to +me. With the realisation I knew that I ought to have told her what in +her heart she must have felt it to be her right to know; but a nervous +shrinking, which seemed to be a result of my complete physical +exhaustion, held me back when I started to retrace my steps. + +She might cry, and the sight of tears would unman me. There's time +enough, I thought. Why not to-morrow instead? Yet in my heart I knew it +would be no easier to do it to-morrow than it was to-day. By some +strange freak of the imagination those unshed tears of hers seemed +already dropping upon my nerves. "There's time enough, she'll be obliged +to hear it in the end," something within me repeated with a kind of +dulness. And with the words, while my head touched the pillow, I started +suddenly wide awake as though from the flash of a lantern that was +turned inward. Trivial impressions of the afternoon stood out as if +illuminated against the outer darkness, and there hovered before me the +face of the old woman, in the plaid shawl, with her twisted mouth, and +the foot of her grey yarn stocking held out in her palsied hand. "I +reckon I'd feel easier if I had it back," said a voice somewhere in my +brain. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +WE FACE THE FACTS AND EACH OTHER + + +The panic which had begun with the depositors of small accounts, spread +next day to the holders of larger ones, and even while I stood at my +window and watched the cash brought in in bags through the cheering +crowd on the sidewalk, I knew that the quarter of a million dollars +would go down with the rest. My financial insight had misled me, and the +bank funds, which I had believed so carefully guarded, had suffered the +same fate as my private fortune. There were more serious questions +behind the immediate need of currency, and these questions drummed in my +mind now, dull and regular as the beat of a hammer. + +For three days we paid off our accounts, and at the end of that time, +when I left the building, after the run had stopped, it seemed to me +that the city had a deserted and trampled look, as if some enormous +picnic had been held in the streets. A few loose shreds of paper, a +banana peel here and there, the ends of numerous cigars, and the white +patch torn from a woman's petticoat littered the pavement. Over all +there was a thick coating of dust, and the wind, blowing straight from +the east, whipped swirls of it into our faces, as the General and I +drove slowly up-town in his buggy. + +"You look down in the mouth, Ben," he remarked, as I took the reins. + +"I've got an infernal toothache, General; it kept me awake all night." + +"Well, bless my soul, you ought to be thankful if it takes your mind off +the country. I haven't seen such a state of affairs since the days of +reconstruction. I tell you, my boy, the only thing on earth to do is to +take a julep. Lithia water is well enough in times of prosperity, but +you can't support a panic on it. I've gone back to my julep, and if I +die of it, I'll die with a little spirit in me." + +"There're worse things than death ahead of me, General, there's ruin." + +"It's the toothache, Ben. Don't let it take all the spirit out of you." + +"No, it's more than the toothache, confound it!--it never leaves off. +The truth is, I'm in the tightest place of my life, and to keep what I +own would cost me more than I've got. I haven't the money to pay up--and +if I can't buy outright, you see that I must let go." + +"I've done what I could for you, Ben, and if there is more I can do, +heaven knows I'll be thankful enough." + +"You've already done too much, General, but I've made sure that you +shan't suffer by it. I've simply gone down, that's all, and I've got to +stay there till I can get on my feet. The bank will close temporarily, I +suppose, but when it starts again, it will have to start with another +man. I shall look out for a smaller job." + +"If you come back to the road, I'll find a place for you--but it won't +be like being a bank president, you know." + +"Well, when the time comes, I'll let you know," I added, when the buggy +stopped before my door, and I handed him the reins. + +"Listen to me, my boy," he called back, as he drove off and I went up +the brown stone steps, "and take a julep." + +But the support I needed was not that of whiskey, and though I swallowed +a dozen juleps, the thought of Sally's face when I broke the news would +suffer no blessed obscurity. + +"Shall I tell her now, or after dinner?" I asked, while I drew out my +latch-key; and then when she met me at the head of the staircase, with +her shining eyes, I grew cowardly again, and said, "Not now--not now. +To-night I will tell her." + +At night, when we sat opposite to each other, with a silver bowl of +jonquils between us, she began talking idly about the marriage of Bonny +Page, inspired, I felt, by a valiant determination to save the situation +in the eyes of the servants at least. The small yellow candle shades, +made to resemble flowers, shone like suns in a mist before my eyes; and +all the time that my thoughts worked over the approaching hour, I heard, +like a muffled undertone, the soft, regular footfalls of old Esdras, the +butler, on the velvet carpet. + +"I'll tell her after the servants have gone, and the house is +quiet--when she has taken off her dinner gown--when she may turn on her +pillow and cry it out. I'll say simply, 'Sally, I am ruined. I haven't a +penny left of my own. Even the horses and the carriages and the +furniture are not mine!' No, that is a brutal way. It will be better to +put it like this"--"What did you say, dear?" I asked, speaking aloud. + +"Only that Bonny Page is to have six bridesmaids, but the wedding will +be quiet, because they have lost money." + +"They've lost money?" + +"Everybody has lost money--everybody, the General says. Ben, do you +know," she added, "I've never cared truly about money in my heart." + +In some vague woman's way she meant it, I suppose, yet as I looked at +her, where she sat beyond the bowl of jonquils, in one of her old Paris +gowns, which she had told me she was wearing out, I broke into a short, +mirthless laugh. She held her head high, with its wreath of plaits that +made a charming frame for her arched black eyebrows and her full red +mouth. On her bare throat, round and white as a marble column, there was +an old-fashioned necklace of wrought gold, which had belonged to some +ancestress, who was doubtless the belle and beauty of her generation. +Was it possible to picture her in a common gown, with her sleeves rolled +up and the perplexed and anxious look that poverty brings in her eyes? +For the first time in my life I was afraid to face the moment before me. + +The roast was removed, the dessert served, and played with in silence. +The footfalls of old Esdras, the butler, sounded softer on the carpet, +as he carried away the untasted pudding and brought coffee and an +apricot brandy, which he placed before me with a persuasive air. I lit a +cigar at the flame of the little silver lamp he offered me, drank my +coffee hurriedly, and rose from the table. + +"Are you going to work, Ben?" asked Sally, following me to the door of +the library. + +"Yes, I am going to work." + +Without a word she raised her lips to mine, and when I had kissed her, +she turned slowly away, and went up the staircase, with the branching +lights in the hall shining upon her head. + +I closed the door, lowered the wick of the oil lamp on my desk, and +began walking up and down the length of the room, between the black oak +bookcases filled with rows of calf-bound volumes. I tried to think, but +between my thoughts and myself there obtruded always, like some small, +malignant devil, the face of the old woman on the pavement before the +bank, with her distorted and twisted mouth. "This will have to +go--everything will have to go--when I've sold every last stick I have +in the world, I shall still owe a debt of some cool hundreds of +thousands. I'll pay that, too, some day. Of course, of course, but when? +Meanwhile, we've got to live somewhere, somehow. There's the child, +too--and there's Sally. I always said I'd only money to give her, and +now I haven't that. We'll have to go into some cheap place, and I'll +begin over again, with the disadvantages of a failure behind me, and a +burden of debt on my shoulders. She's got to know--I've got to tell her. +Confound that old woman! Why can't I keep her out of my thoughts?" + +The hours went by, and still I walked up and down between the black oak +bookcases, driven by some demon of torture to follow the same line in +the Turkish rug, to turn always at the same point, to measure always the +same number of steps. + +"Well, she got her money--they all got their money," I said at last. "I +am the only one who is ruined--no, not the only one--there is Sally and +there is the child. I'd feel easier," I added, echoing the words of the +old woman aloud, "I'd feel easier if I were the only one." + +A clock somewhere in the city struck the hour of midnight, and while the +sound was still in the air, the door opened softly and Sally came into +the room. She had slipped on a wrapper over her nightdress, and her +hair, flattened and warmed by the pillow, hung in a single braid over +her bosom. There were deep circles under her eyes, which shone the more +brilliantly because of the heavy shadows. + +"What is the matter, Ben? Why don't you come upstairs?" + +"I couldn't sleep--I am thinking," I answered, almost roughly, oppressed +by my weight of misery. + +"Would you rather be alone? Shall I go away again?" + +"Yes, I'd rather be alone." + +She went silently to the door, stood there a minute, and then ran back +with her arms outstretched. + +"Oh, Ben, Ben, why are you so hard? Why are you so cruel?" + +"Cruel? Hard? To you, Sally?" + +"You treat me as if--as if I'd married you for your money and you've +made me hate and despise it. I wish--I almost wish we hadn't a penny." + +I laughed the bitter, mirthless laugh that had broken from me at dinner. + +"As a matter of fact we haven't--not a single penny that we can honestly +call our own." + +She drew back instantly, her head held high under the branching electric +jet in the ceiling. + +"Well, I'm glad of it," she responded defiantly. + +"You don't in the least understand what it means, Sally. It isn't merely +giving up a few luxuries, it is actually going without the necessities. +It is practically beginning again." + +"I am glad of it," she repeated, and there was no regret in her voice. + +"Oh, can't you understand?" + +"Tell me and I will try." + +"I've lost everything. I'm ruined." + +"There is nothing left?" + +"There is honour," I said bitterly, "a couple of hundred thousand +dollars of debt, and a little West Virginia railroad too poor to go +bankrupt." + +"Then we must start from the very bottom?" + +"From the very bottom. Nothing that you are likely to imagine can be +worse than the facts--and I've brought you to it." + +Something that was like a sob burst from me, and turning away, I flung +myself into the chair on the hearth-rug. + +"Can't you think of anything that would be worse?" she asked quietly. + +I shook my head, "The worst thing about it is that I've brought you to +it." + +"Wouldn't it be worse," she went on in the same level voice, "if you had +lost me?" + +"Lost you!" I cried, and my arms were open at the thought. + +"I'm glad, I'm glad." With the words she was on her knees at my side, +and her mouth touched my cheek. "I knew it wasn't the worst, Ben,--I +knew you'd rather give up the money than give up me. Ah, can't you +see--can't you see, that the worst can't come to us while we are still +together?" + +Leaning over her, I gathered her to me with a hunger for comfort, +kissing her eyes, her mouth, her throat, and the loosened braid on her +bosom. + +"Oh, you witch, you've almost made me happy!" I said. + +"I am happy, Ben." + +"Happy? The horses must go, and the carriage and the furniture even. +We'll have to move into some cheap place. I'll get a position of some +kind with the railroad, and then we'll have to scrimp and save for an +eternity, until we pay off this damned burden of debt." + +She laughed softly, her mouth at my ear. "I'm happy, Ben." + +"We shan't be able to keep servants. You'll have to wear old clothes, +and I'll go so shabby that you'll be ashamed of me. We'll forget what a +bottle of wine looks like, and if we were ever to see a decent dinner, +we shouldn't recognise it." + +Again she laughed, "I'm still happy, Ben." + +"We'll live in some God-forsaken, out-of-the-way little hole, and never +even dare ask a person in to a meal for fear there wouldn't be enough +potatoes to go around. It will be a daily uphill grind until I've +managed to pay off honestly every cent I owe." + +Her arms tightened about my neck, "Oh, Ben, I'm so happy." + +"Then you are a perfectly abandoned creature," I returned, lifting her +from the rug until she nestled against my heart. "I've given up trying +to make you as miserable as a self-respecting female ought to be. If you +won't be proper and wretched, I can't help it, for I've done my best. +And the most ridiculous part of it is, darling, that I actually believe +I'm happy, too!" + +She laughed like a child between her kisses. "Then, you see, it isn't +really the thing, but the way you take it that matters." + +"I'm not sure about the logic of that--but I'm inclined to think just +now that the only thing I've ever taken is you." + +"If you'll try to remember that, you'll be always happy." + +"But I must remember also that I've brought you to poverty--I, who had +only money to give you." + +"Do you dare to tell me to my face that I married you for money?" + +"You couldn't very well have married me without it." + +"I don't know about the 'very well,' but I know that I'd have done it." + +"Do you think that, Sally?" + +Turning in my arms, she lifted her head, and looked steadily into my +face. + +"Have I ever lied to you since we were married, Ben?" + +"No, darling." + +"Have I ever deceived you?" + +"Never, I am sure," I responded with a desperate levity, "except for my +good." + +"Have I ever deceived you," she demanded sternly, "even for your good?" + +"To tell the truth, I don't believe you ever have." + +The warm pressure of her body was withdrawn, and rising to her feet, she +stood before me under the blazing light. + +"Then I'm not lying to you when I say that I'd have married you if you +hadn't possessed a penny to your name--I'd have married you if--if I'd +had to take in washing." + +"Sally!" I cried, and made a movement to recapture her; but pushing me +back, she stood straight and tall, with the fingers of her outstretched +hand touching my breast. + +"No, listen to me, listen to me," she said gravely. "As long as I have +you and you love me, Ben, nothing can break my spirit, because the thing +that makes life of value to me will still be mine. If you ever ceased to +love me, I might get desperate, and do something wild and foolish--even +run off with another man, I believe--I don't know, but I am my father's +daughter, as well as my mother's. Until that time comes, I can bear +anything, and bear it with courage--with gaiety even. I can imagine +myself without everything else, but not without you. I love my +child--you know I love my child--but even my child isn't you. If I had +to choose to-night between my baby and you, I'd give him up,--and cling +the closer to you. You are myself, and if I had to choose between +everything else I've ever known in my life and you, I'd let everything +else go and follow you anywhere--anywhere. There is nothing that you can +endure that I cannot share with you. I can bear poverty, I could even +have borne shame. If we had to go to some strange country far away from +all I have ever known, I could go and go cheerfully. I can work beside +you, I can work for you--oh, my dear, my dearest, I am your wife, do you +still doubt me?" + +I had fallen on my knees before her, with her open palms pressed to my +forehead, in which my very brain seemed throbbing. As I looked up at +her, she stooped and gathered me to her bosom. + +"Do you know me now?" she asked in a whisper. + +Then her voice broke, and the next instant she would have sunk down +beside me, if I had not sprung to my feet and lifted her in my arms. +While I held her thus, pressed close against me, something of her +radiant strength entered into me, and I was aware of a power in myself +that was neither hers nor mine, but the welding of the finer qualities +in both our natures. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE RED FLAG AT THE GATE + + +Sally was not beside me when I awoke in the morning, nor was she sipping +her coffee by the window, as I had sometimes found her doing when I +slept late. Going downstairs an hour afterwards, I discovered her, for +the first time since our marriage, awaiting me in the dining-room. In +her dainty breakfast jacket of blue silk, with a bit of lace and ribbon +framing her wreath of plaits, she appeared to my tired eyes as the +embodied freshness and buoyancy of the morning. Would her sparkling +gaiety endure, I wondered, through the monotonous days ahead, when +poverty became, not a child's play, not a game tricked out by the +imagination, but the sordid actuality of hard work and hourly +self-denial? + +"I am practising early rising, Ben," she said, "and it's astonishing +what an appetite it gives one. I've made the coffee myself, and Aunt +Mehitable has just taught me how to make yeast. One can never tell what +may come useful, you know, and if we go to live somewhere in a jungle, +which I'm quite prepared to do, you'd be glad to know that I could make +yeast, wouldn't you?" + +"I suppose so, sweetheart, and as a matter of fact," I added presently, +"this is the best cup of coffee I've had for many a month." + +Laughing merrily, she perched herself on the arm of my chair, and sipped +out of the cup I held toward her. "Of course it is. So you've gained +that much by losing everything. It's very strange, Ben, and you may +consider it presumptuous, but I've a profound conviction somewhere in +the bottom of my heart that I can do everything better than anybody +else, if I once turn my hand to it. At this minute I haven't a doubt +that my yeast is better than Aunt Mehitable's. I'm going to cook dinner, +too, and she'll be positively jealous of my performance. How do we know +whether or not we'll meet any cooks in the jungle? And if we do, they'll +probably be tigers--" + +"Oh, Sally, Sally! You think it play now, but what will you feel when +you know it's earnest?" + +"Of course it's earnest. Do you imagine I'd get out of my bed at seven +o'clock and cut up a slimy potato if it wasn't earnest? That may be your +idea of play, but it's not mine." + +"And you expect to flutter about a stove in a pale blue breakfast jacket +and a lace cap?" + +"Just as long as they last. When they go, I suppose I'll have to take to +calico, but it will be pretty calico, and pink. Pink calico don't cost a +penny more than drab--and there's one thing I positively decline to do, +even in a jungle, and that is look ugly." + +"You couldn't if you tried, my beauty." + +"Oh, yes, I could--I could look hideous--any woman could if she tried. +But as long as it doesn't cost any more, you've no objection to my +cooking in pink instead of drab, I suppose?" + +"I've an objection to your cooking in anything. Another cup of coffee, +please." + +"Ben." + +"Yes, dear." + +"You never drank but one of Aunt Mehitable's." + +"I'm aware of it, and I'm aware of something else. It's worth being +poor, Sally, to be poor with you." + +"Then give me another taste of your coffee. But you don't call this +being poor, do you, you silly boy?--with all this beautiful mahogany +that I can use for a mirror? This isn't any fun in the world. Just wait +until I spread the cloth over a pine table. Then we'll have something to +laugh at sure enough, Ben." + +"And I thought you'd cry!" + +"You thought a great many very foolish things, my dear. You even thought +I'd married you because I wanted to be rich, and it seemed an easy way." + +"Only it turned out to be an easier way of getting poor." + +"Well, rich or poor, what I married you for, after all, was the +essential thing." + +"And you've got it, sweetheart?" + +"Of course I've got it. If I didn't have it, do you think I'd be able to +laugh at a pine table?" + +"If I were only sure you realised it!" + +"You'll be sure enough when we are in the midst of it, and we'll be in +the midst of it, I don't doubt, in a little while. I've been thinking +pretty hard since last night, and this is what I worked out while I was +making yeast." + +"Let's have it, then." + +"Now, the first thing we've got to do is to get out of debt, isn't it?" + +"The very first thing, if it can be managed." + +"We'll manage it this way. The furniture and the silver and my jewels +must all be sold, of course; that's easy. But even after we've done +that, there'll still be a great big burden to carry, I suppose?" + +"Pretty big, I'm afraid, for your shoulders." + +"Oh, we'll pay it every bit in the end. We won't go bankrupt. You'll go +back to the railroad on a salary, and we'll begin to pinch on the spot." + +"Yes, but times are hard and salaries are low." + +"Anyway they're salaries, there's that much to be said for them. And +while we're pinching as hard as we can pinch, we'll move over to Church +Hill and rent two or three rooms in the old house with the enchanted +garden. All the servants will have to go except Aunt Euphronasia, who +couldn't go very far, poor thing, because she's rheumatic and can't +stand on her feet. She can sit still very well, however, and rock the +baby, and I'll look after the rooms and get the meals--I'm glad they'll +be simple ones--and we'll put by every penny that we can save." + +"The mere interest on the debt will take almost as much as we can save. +There'll be some arrangement made, of course, and the payments will be +easy, but there's one thing I'm determined on, and that is that I'll pay +it, every cent, if I live. Then, too, there's chance, you know. +Something may turn up--something almost always turns up to a man like +myself." + +"Well, if it turns up, we'll welcome it with open arms. But in the +meantime we'll see if we can't scrape along without it. I'm going over +this morning to look for rooms. How soon, Ben, do you suppose they will +evict us?" + +"Does there exist a woman," I demanded sternly, "who can be humorous +over her own eviction?" + +"It's better to be humorous over one's own than over one's neighbour's, +isn't it? And besides, a laugh may help things, but tears never do. I +was born laughing, mamma always said." + +"Then laugh on, sweetheart." + +I had risen from the table, and was moving toward the door, when she +caught my arm. + +"There's only one thing I'll never, never consent to," she said, "you +remember Dolly?" + +"Your old mare?" + +"I've pensioned her, you know, and I'll pay that pension as long as she +lives if we both have to starve." + +"You shall do it if we're hanged and drawn for it--and now, Sally, I +must be off to my troubles!" + +"Then, good-by and be brave. Oh, Ben, my dearest, what is the matter?" + +"It's my head. I've been worrying too much, and it's gone back on me +like that twice in the last few days." + +I went out hurriedly, convinced that even failure wasn't quite so bad as +it had appeared from a distance; and Sally, following me to the door, +stood smiling after me as I went down the block toward the car line. +Looking back at the corner, I saw that she was still standing on the +threshold, with the sun in her eyes and her head held high under the +ruffle of lace and ribbon that framed her hair. + +The street was filled with people that morning, and at the end of the +first block Bonny Page nodded to me jauntily, as she passed on her early +ride with Ned Marshall. Turning, almost unconsciously, my eyes followed +her graceful, very erect figure, in its close black habit, swaying so +perfectly with the motion of her chestnut mare. An immeasurable, +wind-blown space seemed to stretch between us, and the very sound of the +horse's hoofs on the cobblestones in the street came to me, faint and +thin, as if it had floated back from some remote past which I but dimly +remembered. I had never felt, even when standing at Bonny's side, that I +was within speaking distance of her, and to-day, while I looked after +the vanishing horses, I knew that odd, baffling sensation of struggling +to break through an inflexible, yet invisible barrier. Why was it that I +who had won Sally should still remain so hopelessly divided from all +that to which Sally by right and by nature belonged? + +Farther down the two great sycamores, still gaunt and bare as skeletons, +stood out against a sky of intense blueness; and on the crooked pavement +beneath, the shadows, fine and delicate as lace-work, rippled gently in +the wind that blew straight in from the river. Looking up from under the +silvery boughs, I saw the wire cage of the canary between the parted +curtains, and beyond it the pale oval face of Miss Mitty, with its +grave, set smile, so like the smile of the painted Blands and Fairfaxes +that hung, in massive frames, on the drawing-room walls. In the midst of +my own ruin an impulse of compassion entered my heart. The vacancy of +the old grey house was like the vacancy of a tomb in which the ashes +have scattered, and the one living spirit seemed that of the canary +singing joyously in his wire cage. Something in the song brought Sally +to my mind as she had appeared that morning at breakfast, and I felt +again the soft, comforting touch of the hand she had laid on my face. +Then I turned my eyes to the street, and saw George Bolingbroke coming +slowly toward me, beyond the last great sycamore, which grew midway of +the bricks. At the sight of him all that had comforted or supported me +crumbled and fell. In its place came that sharp physical soreness--like +the soreness from violent action--that the shock of my failure had +brought. I, who had meant so passionately to win in the race, was +suddenly crippled. Money, I had said, was all that I had to give, and +yet I was beggared now even of that. Shorn of my power, what remained to +me that would make me his match? + +He came up, taking his cigar from his mouth as he stopped, and flicking +the ashes away, while he stood looking at me with an expression of +sympathy which he struggled in vain, I saw, to dissemble. On his finely +coloured, though rather impassive features, there was the same darkening +of a carefully suppressed emotion--the same lines of anger drawn, not by +temper, but by suffering--that I had seen first at the club when his +favourite hunter had died, and next on the day when the General had +spoken to him, in my presence, of my engagement to Sally. Under his +short dark mustache, his thin, nervous lips were set closely together. + +"I'm awfully cut up, Ben," he said, "I declare I don't know when I was +ever so cut up about anything before." + +"I'm cut up too, George, like the deuce, but it doesn't appear to help +matters, somehow." + +"That's the worst thing about being a man of affairs like you--or like +Uncle George," he observed, making an amiable effort to assure me that +even in the hour of adversity, I still held my coveted place in the +General's class; "when the crash comes, you big ones have to pay the +piper, while the rest of us small fry manage to go scot-free." + +It was put laboriously, but beneath the words I felt the force of that +painful sympathy, too strong for concealment, and yet not strong enough +to break through the inherited habit of self-command. The General had +broken through, I acknowledged, but then was not the very greatness of +the great man the expression of an erratic departure from traditions +rather than of the perfect adherence to the racial type? + +"And the louder the music the bigger the cost of the piper," I observed, +with a laugh. + +"Oh, you'll come out all right," he rejoined cheerfully, "things are +never so bad as they might be." + +"Well, I don't know that there's much comfort in reflecting that a +thunder-storm might have been accompanied by an earthquake." + +For a moment he stood in silence watching the end of his cigar, which +went out in his hand. Then without meeting my eyes he asked in a voice +that had a curiously muffled sound:-- + +"It's rough on Sally, isn't it? How does she stand it?" + +"As she stands everything--like an angel out of heaven." + +"Yes, you're right--she is an angel," he returned, still without looking +into my face. An instant later, as if in response to an impulse which +for once rose superior to the dead weight of custom, he blurted out with +a kind of suffering violence, "I say, Ben, you know it's really awful. +I'm so cut up about it I don't know what to do. I wish you'd let me help +you out of this hole till you're on your feet. I've got nobody on me, +you see, and I can't spend half of my income." + +For the first time in our long acquaintance the tables were turned; it +was George who was awkward now, and I who was perfectly at my ease. + +"I can't do that, George," I said quietly, "but I'm grateful to you all +the same. You're a first-rate chap." + +We shook hands with a grip, and while he still lingered to strike a +match and light the fresh cigar he had taken from his case, the little +yellow flame followed, like an illuminated pointer, the expression of +suffering violence which showed so strangely upon his face. Then, +tossing the match into the gutter, he went on his way, while I passed +the great scarred body of the sycamore and hurried down the long hill, +which I never descended without recalling, as the General had said, that +I had once "toted potatoes for John Chitling." + +At the beginning of the next block, I saw the miniature box hedge and +the clipped yew in the little garden of Dr. Theophilus, and as I turned +down the side street, the face of the old man looked at me from the +midst of some leafless red currant bushes that grew in clumps at the end +of the walk. + +"Come in, Ben, come in a minute," he called, beaming at me over his +lowered spectacles, "there's a thing or two I should like to say." + +As I entered the garden and walked along the tiny path, bordered by +oyster shells, to the red currant bushes beyond, he laid his +pruning-knife on the ground, and sat down on an old bench beside a +little green table, on which a sparrow was hopping about. On his +seventy-fifth birthday he had resigned his profession to take to +gardening, and I had heard from no less an authority than the General +that "that old fool Theophilus was spending more money in roses than +Mrs. Clay was making out of pickles." + +"What is it, doctor?" I asked, for, oppressed by my own burdens, I +waited a little impatiently to hear "the thing or two" he wanted to say. + +"You see I've given up people, Ben, and taken to roses," he began, while +I stood grinding my heel into the gravelled walk; "and it's a good +change, too, when you come to my years, there's no doubt of that. If you +weed and water them and plant an occasional onion about their roots you +can make roses what you want--but you can't people--no, not even when +you've helped to bring them into the world. No matter how straight they +come at birth, they're all just as liable as not to take an inward crank +and go crooked before the end." He looked thoughtfully at the sparrow +hopping about on the green table, and his face, beautiful with the +wisdom of more than seventy years, was illumined by a smile which seemed +in some way a part of the April sunshine flooding the clumps of red +currant bushes and the miniature box. "George--I mean old George--was +telling me about you, Ben," he went on after a minute, "and as soon as I +heard of your troubles, I said to Tina--'We've got a roof and we've got +a bite, so they'll come to us.' What with Tina's pickling and preserving +we manage to keep a home, my boy, and you're more than welcome to share +it with us--you and Sally and your little Benjamin--" + +"Doctor--doctor--" was all I could say, for words failed me, and I, +also, stood looking thoughtfully at the sparrow hopping about on the +green table, with eyes that saw two small brown feathered bodies in the +place where, a minute before, there had been but one. + +"Come when you're ready, come when you're ready," he repeated, "and +we'll make you welcome, Tina and I." + +I grasped his hand without speaking, and as I wrung it in my own, I felt +that it was long and fine and nervous,--the hand, not of a worker, but +of a dreamer. Then tearing my gaze from the sparrow, I went back through +the clump of red currant bushes, and between the shining rows of oyster +shells, to the busy street which led to a busy world and my office door. + +A fortnight later the house was sold over our heads, and when I came up +in the afternoon, I found a red flag flying at the gate, and the dusty +buggies of a few real estate men tied to the young maples on the +sidewalk. Upstairs Sally was sitting on a couch, in the midst of the +scattered furniture, while George Bolingbroke stood looking ruefully at +a pile of silver and bric-a-brac that filled the centre of the floor. + +"Are you laughing now, Sally?" I asked desperately, as I entered. + +"Not just this minute, dear, because that awful man and a crowd of +people have been going over the house, and Aunt Euphronasia and I locked +ourselves in the nursery. I'll begin again, however, as soon as they've +gone. All these things belong to George. It was silly of him to buy +them, but he says he had no idea of allowing them to go to strangers." + +"Well, George as well as anybody, I suppose," I responded, moodily. + +Beside the window Aunt Euphronasia was rocking slowly back and forth, +with little Benjamin fast asleep on her knees, and her great rolling +eyes, rimmed with white, passed from me to George and from George to me +with a defiant and angry look. + +"I ain' seen nuttin' like dese yer doin's sence war time," she grumbled; +"en hit's wuss den war time, caze war time hit's fur all, en dish yer +hit ain't fur nobody cep'n us." + +Throwing herself back on the pillow, Sally lay for a minute with her +hand over her eyes. + +"I can laugh now," she said at last, raising her head, and she, also, as +she sat there, pale and weary but bravely smiling, glanced from me to +George with a perplexed, inscrutable look. A minute later, when George +made some pleasant, comforting remark and went down to join the crowd +gathered before the door, her gaze still followed him, a little +pensively, as he left the room. The bruise throbbed again; and walking +to the window, I stood looking through the partly closed blinds to the +street below, where I could see the dusty buggies, the switching tails +of the horses, bothered by flies, and the group of real estate men, +lounging, while they spat tobacco juice, by the red flag at the gate. In +the warm air, which was heavy with the scent of a purple catalpa tree on +the corner, the drawling voice of the auctioneer could be heard like the +loud droning of innumerable bees. A carriage passed down the street in a +cloud of dust, and the very dust, as it drifted toward us, was drenched +with the heady perfume of the catalpa. + +"That tree makes me dizzy," I said; "it's odd I never minded it before." + +"You aren't well--that's the trouble--but even if you were, the voice of +that man down there is enough to drive any sane person crazy. He sounds +exactly as if he were intoning a church service over our misfortunes. +That is certainly adding horror to humiliation," she finished with +merriment. + +"At any rate he doesn't humiliate you?" + +"Of course he doesn't. Imagine one of the Blands and the Fairfaxes being +humiliated by an auctioneer! He amuses me, even though it is our woes he +is singing about. If I were Aunt Mitty, I'd probably be seated on the +front porch with my embroidery at this minute, bowing calmly to the +passers-by, as if it were the most matter-of-fact occurrence in the +world to have an auctioneer selling one's house over one's head." + +"Dear old enemy, I wonder what she thinks of this?" + +"She hasn't heard it, probably. A newspaper never enters her doors, and +do you believe she has a relative who would be reckless enough to break +it to her?" + +"I hope she hasn't, anyhow." + +"They haven't had time to go to her. They have all been here. People +have been coming all day with offers of help--even Jessy's Mr. +Cottrel--and oh, Ben, she told me she meant to marry him! Bonny Page," a +little sob broke from her, "Bonny Page wanted to give up her trip to +Europe and have me take the money. Then everybody's been sending me +luncheons and jellies and things just exactly as if I were an invalid." + +"Hit's de way dey does in war time, honey," remarked Aunt Euphronasia, +shaking little Benjamin with the slow, cradling movement of the arms +known only to the negroes. + +Downstairs the auction was over, the drawling monologue was succeeded by +a babel of voices, and glancing through the blinds, I saw the real +estate men untying their horses from the young maples. A swirl of dust +laden with the scent of the catalpa blew up from the street. + +"But we can't take help, Sally," I said, almost fiercely. + +"No, we can't take help, I told them so--I told them that we didn't need +it. In a few years we'd be back where we were, I said, and I believed +it." + +"Do you believe it after listening to that confounded fog-horn on the +porch?" + +"Well, it's a trial to faith, as Aunt Mitty would say, but, oh, Ben, I +really _do_ believe it still." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +WE CLOSE THE DOOR BEHIND US + + +It was a warm spring afternoon when we closed the door behind us for the +last time, and took the car for Church Hill, where we had rented several +rooms on the first floor of the house with the enchanted garden. As the +car descended into the neighbourhood of the Old Market, with its tightly +packed barrooms, its squalid junk shops, its strings of old clothes +waving before darkened, ill-smelling doorways, I seemed to have stepped +suddenly backward into a place that was divided between the dream and +the actuality. I remembered my awakening on the pile of straw, with the +face of John Chitling beaming down on me over the wheelbarrow of +vegetables; and the incidents of that morning--the long line of stalls +giving out brilliant flashes from turnips and onions, the sharp, fishy +odour from the strings of mackerel and perch, the very bloodstains on +the apron and rolled-up sleeves of the butcher--all these things were +more vivid to my consciousness than were the faces of Sally and of Aunt +Euphronasia, or the fretful cries of little Benjamin, swathed in a blue +veil, in the old negress's lap. I had meant to make good that morning, +when I had knelt there sorting the yellow apples. I had made good for a +time, and yet to-day I was back in the place from which I had started. +Well, not in the same place, perhaps, but my foot had slipped on the +ladder, and I must begin again, if not from the very bottom, at least +from the middle rung. The market wagons, covered with canvas, were still +standing with empty shafts in the littered street, as if they had waited +there, a shelter for prowling dogs, until my return. Mrs. Chitling's +slovenly doorstep I could not see, but as we ascended the long hill on +the other side, I recognised the musty "old clothes" shop, in which I +had stumbled on "Sir Charles Grandison" and Johnson's Dictionary. That +minute, I understood now, had been in reality the turning-point in my +career. In that close-smelling room I had come to the cross-roads of +success or failure, and swerving aside from the dull level of ignorance, +I had rushed, almost by accident, into the better way. The very odour of +the place was still in my nostrils--a mixture of old clothes, of stale +cheese, of overripe melons. A sudden dizziness seized me, and a wave of +physical nausea passed over me, as if the intense heat of that past +summer afternoon had gone to my head. + +The car stopped at the corner of old Saint John's; we got out, assisting +Aunt Euphronasia, and then turned down a side street in the direction of +our new home. As we mounted the curving steps, Sally passed a little +ahead of me, and looked back with her hand on the door. + +"I am happy, Ben," she said with a smile; and with the words on her +lips, she crossed the threshold and entered the wide hall, where the +moth-eaten stags' heads, worn bare of fur, still hung on the faded +plaster. + +My first impression upon entering the room was that the strange +surroundings struck with a homelike and familiar aspect upon my +consciousness. Then, as bewilderment gave place before a closer +scrutiny, I saw that this aspect was due to the presence of the objects +by which I had been so long accustomed to see Sally surrounded. Her +amber satin curtains hung at the windows; the deep couch, with the amber +lining, upon which she rested before dressing for dinner, stood near the +hearth; and even the two crystal vases, which I had always seen holding +fresh flowers upon her small, inlaid writing desk, were filled now with +branching clusters of American Beauty roses. Beyond them, and beyond the +amber satin curtains at the long window, I saw the elm boughs arching +against a pale gold sunset into which a single swallow was flying. And I +remember that swallow as I remember the look, swift, expectant, as if +it, also, were flying, that trembled, for an instant, on Sally's face. + +"It is George," she said, turning to me with radiant eyes; "George has +done this. These are the things he bought, and I wondered so what he +would do with them." Then before something in my face, the radiance died +out of her eyes. "Would you rather he didn't do it? Would you rather I +shouldn't keep them?" she asked. + +A struggle began within me. Through the window I could see still the +pale gold sunset beyond the elms, but the swallow was gone, and gone, +also, from Sally's face was the look as of one flying. + +"Would you rather that I shouldn't keep them?" she asked again, and her +voice was very gentle. + +At that gentleness the struggle ceased as sharply as it had begun. + +"Do as you choose, darling, you know far better than I," I replied; and +bending over her, I raised her chin that was lowered, and kissed her +lips. + +A light, a bloom, something that was fragrant and soft as the colour and +scent of the American Beauty roses, broke over her as she looked up at +me with her mouth still opening under my kiss. + +"Then I'll keep them," she answered, "because it would hurt him so, Ben, +if I sent them back." + +The colour and bloom were still there, but in my heart a chill had +entered to drive out the warmth. My ruin, my failure, the poverty to +which I had brought Sally and the child through my inordinate ambition, +and the weight of the two hundred thousand dollars of debt on my +shoulders--all these things returned to my memory, with an additional +heaviness, like a burden that has been lifted only to drop back more +crushingly. And as always in my thoughts now, this sense of my failure +came to me in the image of George Bolingbroke, with his air of generous +self-sufficiency, as if he needed nothing because he had been born to +the possession of all necessary things. + +Sally drew the long pins from her hat, laid them, with the floating +white veil and her coat, on a chair in one corner, and began to move +softly about in her restful, capable way. Her very presence, I had once +said of her, would make a home, and I remembered this a little later as +I watched the shadow of her head flit across the faded walls above the +fine old wainscoting, from which the white paint was peeling in places. +Her touch, swift and unfaltering, released some spirit of beauty and +cheerfulness which must have lain imprisoned for a generation in the +superb old rooms. On the floor with us there were no other tenants, but +when I heard an occasional sound in the room above, I remembered that +the agent had told me of an aristocratic, though poverty-stricken, +maiden lady, who was starving up there in the midst of some rare pieces +of old Chippendale furniture, and with the portrait of an English +ancestress by Gainsborough hanging above her fireless hearth. + +"The baby is asleep, so Aunt Euphronasia and I are cooking supper," said +Sally, when she had spread the cloth over the little table, and laid +covers for two on either side of the shaded lamp; "at least she's +cooking and I'm serving. Come into the garden, Ben, before it's ready, +and run with me down the terrace." + +"The garden is ruined. I saw it when I came over with the agent." + +"Ruined? And with such lilacs! They are a little late because of the +cold spring, but a perfect bower." + +She caught my hand as she spoke, and we passed together through the long +window leading from our bedroom to the porch, where a few startled +swallows flew out, crying harshly, from among the white columns. Many of +the elms had died; the magnolias and laburnums, with the exception of a +few stately trees, had decayed on the terrace, and the thick maze of box +was now thin and rapidly dwindling away from the gravelled paths. On the +ground, under the young green of dandelion and wild violets, the rotting +leaves of last year were still lying; and as we descended the steps, and +followed the littered walks down the hill-side, broken pieces of pottery +crumbled beneath our feet. + +Clasping hands like two children, we stood for a minute in silence, with +our eyes on the ruin before us, and the memory of the enchanted garden +and our first love in our thoughts. Then, "Oh, Ben, the lilacs!" said +Sally, softly. + +They were there on all sides, floating like purple and white clouds in +the wind, and shedding their delicious perfume over the scattered rose +arbours and the dwindling box. Light, delicate, and brave, they had +withstood frost and decay, while the latticed summer houses had fallen +under the weight of the microphylla roses that grew over them. The wind +now was laden with their sweetness, and the golden light seemed aware of +their colour as it entered the garden softly through the screen of +boughs. + +"Do you remember the first day, Ben?" + +"The first day? That was when President lifted me on the wall--and even +the wall has gone." + +"Did you dream then that you'd ever stand here with me like this?" + +"I dreamed nothing else. I've never dreamed anything else." + +"Then you aren't so very unhappy as long as we are together?" + +"Not so unhappy as I might be, but, remember, I'm a man, Sally, and I +have failed." + +"Yes, you're a man, and you couldn't be happy even with me--without +something else." + +"The something else is a part of you. It belongs to you, and that's +mostly why I want to make good. These debts are like a dead weight--like +the Old Man of the Sea--on my shoulders. Until I'm able to shake them +off, I shall not stand up straight." + +"I'm glad you've gone back to the railroad." + +"There are a lot of men in the railroad, and very few places. The +General found me this job at six thousand a year, which is precious +little for a man of my earning capacity. They'll probably want to send +me down South to build up the traffic on the Tennessee and Carolina,--I +don't know. It will take me a month anyway to wind up my affairs and +start back with the road. Oh, it's going to be a long, hard pull when it +once begins." + +Pressing her cheek to my arm, she rubbed it softly up and down with a +gentle caress. "Well, we'll pull it, never fear," she responded. + +At our feet the twilight rose slowly from the sunken terrace, and the +perfume of the lilacs seemed to grow stronger as the light faded. For a +moment we stood drawn close together; then turning, with my arm still +about her, we went back over the broken pieces of pottery, and ascending +the steps, left the pearly afterglow and the fragrant stillness behind +us. + +Half an hour later, when we were in the midst of our supper, which she +had served with gaiety and I had eaten with sadness, a hesitating knock +came at the door leading into the dim hall, and opening it with +surprise, I was confronted by a small, barefooted urchin, who stood, +like the resurrected image of my own childhood, holding a covered dish +at arm's length before him. + +"If you please, ma'am," he said, under my shoulder, to Sally, who was +standing behind me, "ma's jest heard you'd moved over here, an' she's +sent you some waffles for supper." + +"And what may ma's name be?" enquired Sally politely, as she removed the +red and white napkin which covered the gift. + +"Ma's Mrs. Titterbury, an' she lives jest over yonder. She says she's +been a-lookin' out for you an' she hopes you've come to stay." + +"That's very kind of her, and I'm much obliged. Tell her to come to see +me." + +"She's a-comin', ma'am," he responded cheerfully, and as he withdrew, +his place was immediately filled by a little girl in a crimson calico, +with two very tight and very slender braids hanging down to her waist in +the back. + +"Ma's been makin' jelly an' syllabub, an' she thought you might like a +taste," she said, offering a glass dish. "Her name is Mrs. Barley, an' +she lives around the corner." + +"These are evidently our poorer neighbours," observed Sally, as the door +closed after the crimson calico and the slender braids; "where are the +well-to-do ones that live in all the big houses around us?" + +"It probably never occurred to them that we might want a supper. It's +the poor who have imagination. By Jove! there's another!" + +This time it was a stout, elderly female in rusty black, with a very red +face, whom, after some frantic groping of memory, I recognised as Mrs. +Cudlip, unaltered apparently by her thirty years of widowhood. + +"I jest heard you'd moved back over here, Benjy," she remarked, and at +the words and the voice, I seemed to shrink again into the small, +half-scared figure clad in a pair of shapeless breeches which were made +out of an old dolman my mother had once worn to funerals, "an' I thought +as you might like a taste of muffins made arter the old receipt of yo' +po' ma's--the very same kind of muffins she sent me by you on the +mornin' arter I buried my man." + +Placing the dish upon the table, she seated herself, in response to an +invitation from Sally, and spread her rusty black skirt, with a +leisurely movement, over her comfortable lap. As I looked at her, I +forgot that I stood six feet two inches in my stockings; I forgot that I +had married a descendant of the Blands and the Fairfaxes; and I +remembered as plainly as if it were yesterday, the morning of the +funeral, when, with my mother's grey blanket shawl pinned on my +shoulders, I had sat on the step outside and waited for the service to +end, while I made scornful faces at the merry driver of the hearse. + +"It's been going on thirty years sence yo' ma died, ain't it, Benjy?" +she enquired, while I struggled vainly to recover a proper consciousness +of my size and my importance. + +"I was a little chap at the time, Mrs. Cudlip," I returned. + +"An' it's been twenty, I reckon," she pursued reminiscently, "sence yo' +pa was took. Wall, wall, time does fly when you come to think of deaths, +now, doesn't it? I al'ays said thar wa'nt nothin' so calculated to put +cheer an' spirit into you as jest to remember the people who've dropped +off an' died while you've been spared. You didn't see much of yo' pa +durin' his last days, did you?" + +"Never after I ran away, and that was the night he brought his second +wife home." + +"He had a hard time toward the end, but I reckon she had a harder. It +wa'nt that he was a bad man at bottom, but he was soft-natured an' easy, +an' what he needed was to be helt an' to be helt steady. Some men air +like that--they can't stand alone a minute without beginnin' to wobble. +Now as long as yo' ma lived, she kept a tight hand on yo' pa, an' he +stayed straight; but jest as soon as he was left alone, he began to +wobble, an' from wobblin' he took to the bottle, and from the bottle he +took to that brass-headed huzzy he married. She was the death of him, +Benjy; I ought to know, for I lived next do' to 'em to the day of his +burial. As to that, anyway, ma'am," she added to Sally, "my humble +opinion is that women have killed mo' men anyway than they've ever +brought into the world. It's a po' thought, I've al'ays said, in which +you can't find some comfort." + +"You were very kind to him, I have heard," I observed, as she paused for +breath and turned toward me. + +"It wa'nt mo'n my duty if I was, Benjy, for yo' ma was a real good +neighbour to me, an' many's the plate of buttered muffins you've brought +to my do' when you wa'nt any higher than that." + +It was true, I admitted the fact as gracefully as I could. + +"My mother thought a great deal of you," I remarked. + +"You don't see many of her like now," she returned with a sigh, "the +mo's the pity. 'Thar ain't room for two in marriage,' she used to say, +'one of 'em has got to git an' I'd rather 'twould be the other!' 'Twa'nt +that way with the palaverin' yaller-headed piece that yo' pa married +arterwards. She'd a sharp enough tongue, but a tongue don't do you much +good with a man unless he knows you've got the backbone behind to drive +it. It ain't the tongue, but the backbone that counts in marriage. At +first he was mighty soft, but befo' two weeks was up he'd begun to beat +her, an' I ain't got a particle of respect for a woman that's once been +beaten. Men air born mean, I know, it's thar natur, an' the good Lord +intended it; but, all the same, it's my belief that mighty few women +come in for a downright beatin' unless they've bent thar backs to +welcome it. It takes two to make a beatin' the same as a courtin', an' +whar the back ain't ready, the blows air slow to fall." + +"I never saw her but once, and then I ran away," I remarked to fill in +her pause. + +"Wall, you didn't miss much, or you either, ma'am," she rejoined +politely; "she was the kind that makes an honest woman ashamed to belong +to a sex that's got to thrive through foolishness, an' to git to a place +by sidlin' backwards. That wa'nt yo' ma's way, Benjy, an' I've often +said that I don't believe she ever hung back in her life an' waited for +a man to hand her what she could walk right up an' take holt of without +his help. 'The woman that waits on a man has got a long wait ahead of +her,' was what she used to say." + +Rising to her feet, she stood with the empty plate in her hand, and her +back ceremoniously bent in a parting bow. + +"Is that yo' youngest? Now, ain't he a fine baby!" she burst out, as +little Benjamin appeared, crowing, in the arms of Aunt Euphronasia, "an +he's got all the soft, pleasant look of yo' po' pa a'ready." + +I opened the door, and with a last effusive good-by, she passed out in +her stiff, rustling black, which looked as if she had gone into +perpetual mourning. + +"Will you have some syllabub, Ben?" enquired Sally primly, as the door +closed. + +"Sally, how will you stand it?" + +"She wants to be kind--she really wants to be." + +Crossing moodily to the table, I pushed aside the waffles, the muffins, +and the syllabub, with an angry gesture. + +"It is what I came from, after all. It is my class." + +"Your class?" she repeated, laughing and sobbing together with her arms +on my shoulders. "There's nobody else in the whole world in your class, +Ben." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +IN WHICH SALLY STOOPS + + +A week or two later the General stopped me as I was leaving his office. + +"I don't like the look of you, Ben. What's the matter?" + +"My head has been troubling me, General. It's been splitting for a week, +and I can't see straight." + +"You've thought too much, that's the mischief. Why not cut the whole +thing and go West with me to-morrow in my car? I'll be gone for a +month." + +"It's out of the question. A man who is over head and ears in debt +oughtn't to be spinning about the country in a private car." + +"I don't see the logic of that as long as it's somebody else's car." + +"You'd see it if you had two hundred thousand dollars of debt." + +"Well, I've been worse off. I've had two hundred thousand devils of +gout. Here, come along with me. Bring Sally, bring the youngster. I'll +take the whole bunch of 'em." + +When I declined, he still urged me, showing his annoyance plainly, as a +man does in whom opposition even in trifles arouses a resentful, almost +a violent, spirit of conquest. So, I knew, he had pursued every aim, +great or small, of his life, with the look in his face of an intelligent +bulldog, and the conviction somewhere in his brain that the only method +of overcoming an obstacle was to hang on, if necessary, until the +obstacle grew too weak to put forth further resistance. Once, and once +only, to my knowledge, had this power to hang on, this bulldog grip, +availed him but little, and that was when his violence had encountered a +gentleness as soft as velvet, yet as inflexible as steel. In his whole +life only poor little Miss Matoaca had withstood him; and as I met the +angry, indomitable spirit in his eyes, there rose before me the figure +of his old love, with her look of meek, unconquerable obstinacy and with +the faint fragrance and colour about her that was like the fragrance and +colour of faded rose-leaves. + +"There's no use, General. I can't do it," I said at last; and parting +from him at the corner, I signalled the car for Church Hill, while he +drove slowly up-town in his buggy. + +It was a breathless June afternoon. A spell of intense early heat had +swept over the country, and the summer flowers were unfolding as if +forced open in the air of a hothouse. At the door Sally met me with a +telegram from Jessy announcing her marriage to Mr. Cottrel in New York; +but the words and the fact seemed to me to have no nearer relation to my +life than if they had described the romantic adventures of a girl, in a +crimson blouse, who was passing along the pavement. + +"Well, she's got what she wanted." I remarked indifferently, "so she's +to be congratulated, I suppose. My head is throbbing as if it would +break open. I'll go in and lie down in the dusk, before supper." + +"Do the flowers bother you? Shall I take them away?" she asked, +following me into the bedroom, and closing the shutters. + +"I don't notice them. This confounded headache is the only thing I can +think of. It hasn't let up a single minute." + +Bending over me, she laid her cheek to mine, and stroked the hair back +from my forehead with her small, cool hand, which reminded me of the +touch of roses. Then going softly out, she closed the door after her, +while I turned on my side, and lay, half asleep, half awake, in the +deepening twilight. + +From the garden, through the open blinds of the green shutters, floated +the strong, sweet scent of the jessamine blooming on the columns of the +piazza; and I heard, now and then, as if from a great distance, the +harsh, frightened cry of a swallow as it flew out from its nest under +the roof. A sudden, sharp realisation of imperative duties left undone +awoke in my mind; and I felt impelled, as if by some outward pressure, +to rise and go back again down the long, hot hill into the city. +"There's something important I meant to do, and did not," I thought; "as +soon as this pain stops, I suppose I shall remember it, and why it is so +urgent. If I can only sleep for a few minutes, my brain will clear, and +then I can think it out, and everything that is so confused now will be +easy." In some way, I knew that this neglected duty concerned Sally and +the child. I had been selfish with Sally in my misery. When I awoke with +a clear head, I would go to her and say I was sorry. + +The scent of the jessamine became suddenly so intense that I drew the +coverlet over my face in the effort to shut it out. Then turning my eyes +to the wall, I lay without thinking or feeling, while my consciousness +slowly drifted outside the closed room and the penetrating fragrance of +the garden beyond. Once it seemed to me that somebody came in a dream +and bent over me, stroking my forehead. At first I thought it was Sally, +until the roughness of the hand startled me, and opening my eyes, I saw +that it was my mother, in her faded grey calico, with the perplexed and +anxious look in her eyes, as if she, too, were trying to remember some +duty which was very important, and which she had half forgotten. "Why, I +thought you were dead!" I exclaimed aloud, and the sound of my own voice +waked me. + +It was broad daylight now; the shutters were open, and the breeze, +blowing through the long window, brought the scent of jessamine +distilled in the sunshine beyond. It seemed to me that I had slept +through an eternity, and with my first waking thought, there revived the +same pressure of responsibility, the same sense of duties, unfulfilled +and imperative, with which I had turned to the wall and drawn the +coverlet over my face. "I must get up," I said aloud; and then, as I +lifted my hand, I saw that it was wasted and shrunken, and that the blue +veins showed through the flesh as through delicate porcelain. Then, +"I've been ill," I thought, and "Sally? Sally?" The effort of memory was +too great for me, and without moving my body, I lay looking toward the +long window, where Aunt Euphronasia sat, in the square of sunshine, +crooning to little Benjamin, while she rocked slowly back and forth, +beating time with her foot to the music. + + "Oh, we'll ride in de golden cha'iot, by en bye, lil' chillun, + We'll ride in de golden cha'iot, by en bye. + + Oh, we'se all gwine home ter glory, by en bye, lil' chillun, + We'se all gwine home ter glory by en bye. + + Oh, we'll drink outer de healin' fountain, by en bye, lil' chillun, + We'll drink outer de healin' fountain by en bye." + +"Sally!" I called aloud, and my voice sounded thin and distant in my own +ears. + +There was the sound of quick steps, the door opened and shut, and Sally +came in and leaned over me. She wore a blue gingham apron over her +dress, her sleeves were rolled up, and her hand, when it touched my +face, felt warm and soft as if it had been plunged into hot soapsuds. +Then my eyes fell on a jagged burn on her wrist. + +"What is that?" I asked, pointing to it. "You've hurt yourself." + +"Oh, Ben, my dearest, are you really awake?" + +"What is that, Sally? You have hurt yourself." + +"I burned my hand on the stove--it is nothing. Dearest, are you better? +Wait. Don't speak till you take your nourishment." + +She went out, returning a moment later with a glass of milk and whiskey, +which she held to my lips, sitting on the bedside, with her arm slipped +under my pillow. + +"How long have I been ill, Sally?" + +"Several weeks. You became conscious and then had a relapse. Do you +remember?" + +"No, I remember nothing." + +"Well, don't talk. Everything is all right--and I'm so happy to have you +alive I could sing the Jubilee, as Aunt Euphronasia says." + +"Several weeks and there was no money! Of course, you went to the +General, Sally--but I forgot, the General is away. You went to somebody, +though. Surely you got help?" + +"Oh, I managed, Ben. There's nothing to worry about now that you are +better. I feel that there'll never be anything to worry about again." + +"But several weeks, Sally, and I lying like a log, and the General away! +What did you do?" + +"I nursed you for one thing, and gave you medicine and chicken broth and +milk and whiskey. Now, I shan't talk any more until the doctor comes. +Lie quiet and try to sleep." + +But the jagged burn on her wrist still held my gaze, and catching her +hand as she turned away, I pressed my lips to it with all my strength. + +"Your hand feels so queer, Sally. It's as red as if it had been +scalded." + +"I've been cooking my dinner, and you see I eat a great deal. There, +now, that's positively my last word." + +Bending over, she kissed me hurriedly, a tear fell on my face, and then +before I could catch the fluttering hem of her apron, she had broken +from me, and gone out, closing the door after her. For a minute I lay +perfectly motionless, too weak for thought. Then opening my eyes with an +effort, I stared straight up at the white ceiling, against which a green +June beetle was knocking with a persistent, buzzing sound that seemed an +accompaniment to the crooning lullaby of Aunt Euphronasia. + + "Oh, we'se all gwine home ter glory, by en bye, lil' chillun, + We'se all gwine home ter glory, by en bye." + +"Will he break his wings on the ceiling, or will he fly out of the +window?" I thought drowsily, and it appeared to me suddenly that my +personal troubles--my illness, my anxiety for Sally, and even the +poverty that must have pressed upon her--had receded to an obscure and +cloudy distance, in which they became less important in my mind than the +problem of the green June beetle knocking against the ceiling. "Will he +break his wings or will he fly out?" I asked, with a dull interest in +the event, which engrossed my thoughts to the exclusion of all personal +matters. "I ought to think of Sally and the child, but I can't. My head +won't let me. It has gone wrong, and if I begin to think hard thoughts +I'll go delirious again. There is jessamine blooming somewhere. Did she +have a spray in her hair when she bent over me? Why did she wear a +gingham apron at a ball instead of pink tarlatan? No, that was not the +problem I had to solve. Will he break his wings or will he fly out?" + + "Oh, we'll fit on de golden slippers, by en bye, lil' chillun," + +crooned Aunt Euphronasia, rocking little Benjamin in the square of +sunlight. + +The song soothed me and I slept for a minute. Then starting awake in the +cold sweat of terror, I struggled wildly after the problem which still +eluded me. + +"Has he flown out?" I asked. + +"Who, Marse Ben?" enquired the old negress, stopping her rocking and her +lullaby at the same instant. + +"The June beetle. I thought he'd break his wings on the ceiling." + +"Go 'way f'om hyer, honey, he ain' gwine breck 'is wings. Dar's moughty +little sense inside er dem, but dey ain' gwine do dat. Is yo' wits done +come back?" + +"Not quite. I feel crazy. Aunt Euphronasia!" + +"W'at you atter, Marse Ben?" + +"How did Sally manage?" + +"Ef'n hit's de las' wud I speak, she's done managed jes exactly ez ef'n +she wuz de Lawd A'moughty." + +"And she didn't suffer?" + +"Who? She? Dar ain' none un us suffer, honey, we'se all been livin' on +de ve'y fat er de lan', we is. Dar's been roas' pig en shoat e'vy +blessed day fur dinner." + +She had talked me down, and I turned over again and lay in silence, +until Sally came in with a dose of medicine and a cup of broth. + +"Have I been very ill, Sally?" + +"Very ill. It was the long mental strain, followed by the intense heat. +At one time we feared that a blood vessel was broken. Now, put +everything out of your mind, and get well." + +She had taken off her gingham apron, and was wearing one of her last +summer's dresses of flowered organdie. I remembered that I had always +liked it because it had blue roses over it. + +"How can I get well when I know that you have been starving?" + +"But we haven't been. We've had everything on earth we wanted." + +"Then thank God you got help. Whom did you go to?" + +Putting the empty glass aside, she began feeding me spoonfuls of broth, +with her arm under my pillow. + +"If you will be bad and insist upon knowing--I didn't go to anybody. You +said you couldn't bear being helped, you know." + +"I said it--oh, darling--but I didn't think of this!" + +"Well, I thought of it, anyway, and I wasn't going to do while you were +ill and helpless what you didn't want me to do when you were well." + +"You mean you told nobody all these weeks?" + +"Well, I told one or two people, but I didn't accept charity from them. +The General was away, you know, but some people from the office came +over with offers of help--and I told them we needed nothing. Dr. +Theophilus was too far away to treat you, but he has come almost every +day with a pitcher of Mrs. Clay's chicken broth. Oh, we've prospered, +Ben, there's no doubt of that, we've prospered!" + +"How soon may I get up?" + +"Not for three weeks, and it will be another three weeks even if you're +good, before you can go back to the office." + +A sob rose in my throat, but I bit it back fiercely before it passed my +lips. + +"Oh, Sally, my darling, why did you marry me?" + +"You cruel boy," she returned cheerfully, as she smoothed my pillows, +"when you know that if I hadn't married you there wouldn't be any little +Benjamin in the world." + +After this the slow days dragged away, while I consumed chicken broth +and milk punches with a frantic desire to get back my strength. Only to +be on my feet again, and able to lift the burden from Sally's shoulders! +Only to drive that tired look from her eyes, and that patient, divine +smile from her lips! I watched her with jealous longing while I lay +there, helpless as a fallen tree, and I saw that she grew daily thinner, +that the soft redness never left her small, childlike hands, that three +fine, nervous wrinkles had appeared between her arched eyebrows. +Something was killing her, while I, the man who had sworn before God to +cherish her, was but an additional burden on her fragile shoulders. And +yet how I loved her! Never had she seemed to me more lovely, more +desirable, than she did as she moved about my bed in her gingham apron, +with the anxious smile on her lips, and the delicate furrows deepening +between her eyebrows. + +"How soon? How soon, Sally?" I asked almost hourly, kissing the scar on +her wrist when she bent over me. + +"Be patient, dear." + +"I am trying to be patient for your sake, but oh, it's devilish hard!" + +"I know it is, Ben. Another week, and you will be up." + +"Another week, and this killing you!" + +"It isn't killing me. If it were killing me, do you think I could laugh? +And you hear me laugh?" + +"Yes, I hear you laugh, and it breaks my heart as I lie here. If I'm +ever up, Sally, if I'm ever well, I'll make you go to bed and I will +slave over you." + +"There are many things I'd enjoy more, dear. Going to bed isn't my idea +of happiness." + +"Then you shall sit on a cushion and eat nothing but strawberries and +cream." + +"That sounds better. Well, there's something I've got to see about, so +I'll leave you with Aunt Euphronasia to look after you. The doctor says +you may have a cup of tea if you're good. We'll make a party together." + +An hour or two later, when the afternoon sunshine was shut out by the +green blinds, and the room was filled with a gentle droning sound from +the humming-birds at the jessamine, she drew up the small wicker tea +table to my bedside, and we made the party with merriment. Her eyes were +tired, the three fine nervous wrinkles had deepened between her arched +eyebrows, and the soft redness I had objected to, covered her hands; yet +that spirit of gaiety, which had seemed to me to resemble the spirit of +the bird singing in the old grey house, still showed in her voice and +her smile. As she brewed the tea in the little brown tea-pot and poured +it into the delicate cups, with the faded pattern of moss rosebuds +around the brim, I wondered, half in a dream, from what inexhaustible +source she drew this courage which faced life, not with endurance, but +with blitheness. Were the ghosts of the dead Blands and Fairfaxes from +whom she had sprung fighting over again their ancient battles in their +descendant? + +"This is a nice party, isn't it?" she asked, when she had brought the +hot buttered toast from the kitchen and cut it into very small slices on +my plate; "the tea smells deliciously. I paid a dollar and a quarter for +a pound of it this morning." + +"If I'm ever rich again you shall pay a million and a quarter, if you +want to." + +The charming archness awoke in her eyes, while she looked at me over the +brim of the cup. + +"Isn't this just as nice as being rich, Ben?" she asked; "I am really, +you know, a far better cook than Aunt Mehitable." + +"All the same I'd rather live on bread and water than have you do it," I +answered. + +She lifted her hand, pushing the heavy hair from her forehead, and my +gaze fell on the jagged scar on her wrist. Then, as she caught my +glance, her arm dropped suddenly under the table, and she pulled her +loose muslin sleeve into place. + +"Does the burn hurt you, Sally?" + +"Not now--it is quite healed. At first it smarted a little." + +"Darling, how did you do it?" + +"I've forgotten. On the stove, I think." + +I fell back on the pillow, too faint, in spite of the tea I had taken, +to follow a thought in which there was so sharp and so incessant a pang. +Before my eyes the little table, with its white cloth and its fragile +china service, decorated with moss rosebuds, appeared to dissolve into +some painful dream distance, in which the sound of the humming-birds at +the jessamine grew gradually louder. + +Six days longer I remained in bed, too weak to get into my clothes, or +to stand on my feet, but at the end of that time I was permitted to +struggle to the square of sunlight by the window, where I sat for an +hour with the warm breeze from the garden blowing into my face. For the +first day or two I was unable to rise from the deep chintz-covered +chair, in which Aunt Euphronasia and Sally had placed me; but one +afternoon, when the old negress had returned to the kitchen, and Sally +had gone out on an errand, I disobeyed their orders and crawled out on +the porch, where the scent of the jessamine seemed a part of the summer +sunshine. The next day I ventured as far as the kitchen steps, and found +Aunt Euphronasia plucking a chicken for my broth, with little Benjamin +asleep in his carriage at her side. + +"Aunt Euphronasia, do you know where Sally goes every afternoon?" I +enquired. + +"Hi! Marse Ben, ain't un 'oman erbleeged ter teck her time off de same +ez a man?" she demanded indignantly. "She cyarn' be everlastin'ly +a-settin' plum at yo' elbow." + +"You know perfectly well I'm not such a brute as to be complaining, +mammy." + +"Mebbe you ain't, honey, but hit sounds dat ar way ter me." + +"If I could only make sure she'd gone to walk, I'd be jolly glad." + +"Ef'n you ax me," she retorted contemptuously, "she ain't de sort, suh, +dat's gwineter traipse jes' fur de love er traipsing.'" + +There was small comfort, I saw, to be had from her, so turning away, +while she resumed her plucking, I crawled slowly back through the +bedroom into the hall, and along the hall to the front door, which stood +open. Here the dust of the street rose like steam to my nostrils, and +the stone steps and the brick pavement were thickly coated. A +watering-cart turned the corner, scattering a refreshing spray, and +behind it came a troop of thirsty dogs, licking greedily at the water +before it sank into the dust. The foliage of the trees was scorched to a +livid shade, and the ends of the leaves curled upward as if a flame had +blown by them. Down the street, as I stood there, came the old familiar +cry from a covered wagon: "Water-million! Hyer's yo' watermillion fresh +f'om de vine!" + +Clinging to the iron railing, which burned my hand, I descended the +steps with trembling limbs, and stood for a minute in the patch of shade +at the bottom. A negro, seated on the curbing, was drinking the juice +from a melon rind, and he looked up at me with rolling eyes, his +gluttonous red lips moving in rapture. + +"Dish yer's a moughty good melon, Marster," he said, and returned to his +feast. + +As I was about to place my foot on the bottom step and begin the +difficult ascent, my eyes, raised to our sitting-room window, hung +spellbound on a black and white sign fastened against the panes: + +"Fine laundering. Old laces a specialty. Desserts made to order." + +"Old laces a specialty," I repeated, as if struck by the phrase. Then, +as my strength failed me, I sank on the stone step in the patch of +shade, and buried my face in my hands. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +IN WHICH WE RECEIVE VISITORS + + +I was still sitting there, with my head propped in my hands, when my +eyes, which had seen nothing before, saw Sally coming through the hot +dust in the street, with George Bolingbroke, carrying a bundle under his +arm, at her side. As she neared me a perplexed and anxious look--the +look I had seen always on the face of my mother when the day's burden +was heavy--succeeded the smiling brightness with which she had been +speaking to George. + +"Why, Ben!" she exclaimed, quickening her steps, "what are you doing out +here in this terrible heat?" + +"I got down and couldn't get back," I answered. + +"Well, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Here, George, give me the +bundle and help him up." + +"He deserves to be left here," remarked George, laughing good-humouredly +as he grasped my arm, and half led, half dragged me up the steps and +into the house. Then, when I was placed in the deep chintz-covered chair +by the window, Sally came in with a milk punch, which she held to my +lips while I drank. + +"You're really very foolish, Ben." + +"I know all, Sally," I replied, sitting up and pushing the glass and her +hand away, "and I'm going to get up and go back to work to-morrow." + +"Then drink this, please, so you will be able to go. I suppose you saw +the sign," she pursued quietly, when I had swallowed the punch; "George +saw it, too, and it put him into a rage." + +"What has George got to do with it?" I demanded with a pang in my heart. + +"He hasn't anything, of course, but it was kind of him all the same to +want to lend me his money. You see, the way of it was that when you fell +ill, and there wasn't a penny in the house, I remembered how bitterly +you'd hated the idea of taking help." + +I caught her hand to my lips. "I'd beg, borrow, or steal for you, +darling." + +"You'd neglected to tell me that, so I didn't know. What I did was to +sit down and think hard for an hour, and at the end of that time, when +you were well enough to be left, I got on the car and went over to see +several women, who, I knew, were so rich that they had plenty of old +lace and embroidery. I told them exactly how it was and, of course, they +all wanted to give me money, and Jennie Randolph even sat down and cried +when I wouldn't take it. Then they agreed to let me launder all their +fine lace and embroidered blouses, and I've made desserts and cakes for +some of them and--and--" + +"Don't go on, Sally, I can't stand it. I'm a crackbrained fool and I'm +going to cry." + +"Of course, the worst part was having to leave you, but when George +found out about it, he insisted upon fetching and carrying my bundles." + +"George!" I exclaimed sharply, and a spasm of pain, like the entrance of +poison into an unhealed wound, contracted my heart. "Was that confounded +package under his arm," I questioned, almost angrily, "some of the +stuff?" + +"That was a blouse of Maggie Tyler's. He is going to take it back to her +on Friday. There, now, stay quiet, while I run and speak to him. He is +waiting for me in the kitchen." + +She went out, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her +to take in washing and for George to deliver it, while, opening the long +green shutters, I sat staring, beyond the humming-birds and the white +columns, to the shimmering haze that hung over the old tea-roses and the +dwindled box in the garden. Here the heat, though it was still visible +to the eyes, was softened and made fragrant by the greenness of the +trees and the grass and by the perfume of the jessamine and the old +tea-roses, dropping their faintly coloured leaves in the sunshine. From +time to time the sounds of the city, grown melancholy and discordant, +like the sounds that one hears in fever, reached me across the +shimmering vagueness of the garden. + +And then as I sat there, with folded hands, there came to me, out of +some place, so remote that it seemed a thousand miles away from the +sunny stillness, and yet so near that I knew it existed only within my +soul, a sense of failure, of helplessness, of humiliation. A hundred +casual memories thronged through my mind, and all these memories, +gathering significance from my imagination, plunged me deeper into the +bitter despondency which had closed over my head. I saw the General, +with his little, alert bloodshot eyes, like the eyes of an intelligent +bulldog, with that look of stubbornness, of tenacity, persisting beneath +the sly humour that gleamed in his face, as if he were thinking always +somewhere far back in his brain, "I'll hang on to the death, I'll hang +on to the death." His figure, which, because of that legendary glamour I +had seen surrounding it in childhood, still personified shining success +in my eyes, appeared to add a certain horror to this sense of +helplessness, of failure, that dragged me under. Deep down within me, +down below my love for Sally or for the child, something older than any +emotion, older than any instinct except the instinct of battle, awakened +and passed from passiveness into violence. "Let me but start again in +the race," said this something, "let me but stand once more on my feet." +The despondency, which had been at first formless and vague as mere +darkness, leaped suddenly into a tangible shape, and I felt that the +oppressive weight of the debt on my shoulders was the weight, not of +thought, but of metal. Until that was lifted--until I had struggled +free--I should be crippled, I told myself, not only in ambition, but in +body. + +From the detached kitchen, at the end of the short brick walk, overgrown +with wild violets, that led to it, the sound of George's laugh fell on +my ears. Rising to my feet with an effort, I stood, listening, without +thought, to the sound, which seemed to grow vacant and sad as it floated +to me in the warm air over the sunken bricks. Then passing through the +long window, I descended the steps slowly, and stopped in the shadow of +a pink crape myrtle that grew near the kitchen doorway. Again the +merriment came to me, Sally's laughter mingling this time with George's. + +"No, that will never do. This is the way," she said, in her sparkling +voice, which reminded me always of running water. + +"Sally!" I called, and moving nearer, I paused at the kitchen step, +while she came quickly forward, with some white, filmy stuff she had +just rinsed in the tub still in her hands. + +"Why, here's Ben!" she exclaimed. "You bad boy, when I told you +positively not to get up out of that chair!" + +A gingham apron was pinned over her waist and bosom, her sleeves were +rolled back, and I saw the redness from the hot soapsuds rising from her +hands to her elbows. + +"For God's sake, Sally, what are you doing?" I demanded, and reaching +out, as I swayed slightly, I caught the lintel of the door for support. + +"I'm washing and George is splitting kindling wood," she replied +cheerfully, shaking out the white, filmy stuff with an upward movement +of her bare arms; "the boy who splits the wood never came--I think he +ate too many currants yesterday--and if George hadn't offered his +services as man of all work, I dread to think what you and Aunt +Euphronasia would have eaten for supper." + +"It's first-rate work for the muscles, Ben," remarked George, flinging +an armful of wood on the brick floor, and kneeling beside the stove to +kindle a fire in the old ashes. "I haven't a doubt but it's better for +the back and arms than horseback riding. All the same," he added, poking +vigorously at the smouldering embers, "I'm going to wallop that boy as +soon as I've got this fire started." + +"You won't have time to do that until you've delivered the day's +washing," rejoined Sally, with merriment. + +"Yes, I shall. I'll stop on my way--that boy comes first," returned +George with a grim, if humorous, determination. + +This humour, this lightness, and above all this gallantry, which was so +much a part of the older civilisation to which they belonged, wrought +upon my disordered nerves with a feeling of anger. Here, at last, I had +run against that "something else" of the Blands', apart from wealth, +apart from position, apart even from blood, of which the General had +spoken. Miss Mitty might go in rags and do her own cooking, he had said, +but as long as she possessed this "something else," that supported her, +she would preserve to the end, in defiance of circumstances, her +terrible importance. + +"You know I don't care a bit what I eat, Sally!" I blurted out, in a +temper. + +"Well, you may not, dear, but George and I do," she rejoined, pinning +the white stuff on a clothes-line she had stretched between the door and +the window, "we are both interested, you see, in getting you back to +work. There's the door-bell, George. You may wash your hands at the sink +and answer it. If it's the butter, bring it to me, and if it's a caller, +let him wait, while I turn down my sleeves." + +Rising from his knees, George washed his hands at the sink, and went out +along the brick walk to the house, while I stood in the doorway, under +the shadow of the pink crape myrtle, and made a vow in my heart. + +"Sally," I said at last in the agony of desperation, "you ought to have +married George." + +With her arms still upraised to the clothes-line, she looked round at me +over her shoulder. + +"He is useful in an emergency," she admitted; "but, after all, the +emergency isn't the man, you know." + +I was about to press the point home to conscience, when George, +returning along the walk, announced with the mock solemnity of a footman +in livery, that the callers were Dr. Theophilus and the General, who +awaited us in the sitting-room. + +"There's no hurry, Sally," he added; "they started over to condole with +you, I imagine, but they've both become so absorbed in discussing this +neighbourhood as it was fifty years ago, that I honestly believe they've +entirely forgotten that you live here." + +"Well, we'll have to remind them," said Sally, with a laugh; and when +she had rolled down her sleeves and tidied her hair before the cracked +mirror on the wall, we went back to the house, where we found the two +old men engaged in a violent controversy over the departed inhabitants +of Church Hill. + +"I tell you, Theophilus, it wasn't Robert Carrington, but his brother +Bushrod that lived in that house!" exclaimed the General, as we entered; +and he concluded--while he shook hands with us, in the tone of one who +forever clinches an argument, "I can take you this minute straight over +there to his grave in Saint John's Churchyard. How are you, Ben, glad to +see you up," he observed in an absent-minded manner. "Have you got a +palm-leaf fan around, Sally? I can't get through these sweltering +afternoons without a fan. What do you think Theophilus is arguing about +now? He is trying to prove to me that it was Robert Carrington, not +Bushrod, who lived in that big house at the top of the hill. Why, I tell +you I knew Bushrod Carrington as well as I did my own brother, sir." + +He sat far back in his chair, pursing his full red lips angrily, like a +whimpering child, and fanning himself with short, excited movements of +the palm-leaf fan. His determined, mottled face was covered thickly with +fine drops of perspiration. + +"I knew Robert very intimately," remarked the doctor, in a peaceable +voice. "He married Matty Price, and I was the best man at his wedding. +They lived unhappily, I believe, but he told me on his death-bed--I +attended him in his last illness--that he would do it over again if he +had to re-live his life. 'I never had a dull minute after I married her, +doctor,' he said, 'I lived with her for forty years and I never knew +what was coming next till she died.'" + +"Robert was a fool," commented the General, brusquely, "a long +white-livered, studious fellow that dragged around at his wife's apron +strings. Couldn't hold a candle to his brother Bushrod. When I was a +boy, Bushrod Carrington--he was nearer my father's age than mine--was +the greatest dandy and duellist in the state. Got all his clothes in +Paris, and I can see him now, as plainly as if it were yesterday, when +he used to come to church in a peachblow brocade waistcoat of a foreign +fashion, and his hair shining with pomatum. Yes, he was a great +duellist--that was the age of duels. Shot a man the first year he came +back from France, didn't he?" + +"A sad scamp, but a good husband," remarked the doctor, ignoring the +incident of the duel. "I remember when his first child was born, he was +on his knees praying the whole time, and then when it was over he went +out and got as drunk as a lord. 'Where's Bushrod?' were the first words +his wife spoke, and when some fool answered her, 'Bushrod's drunk, +Bessy,' she replied, like an angel, 'Poor fellow, I know he needs it.' +They were a most devoted couple, I always heard. Who was she, George? +It's gone out of my mind. Was she Bessy Randolph?" + +"No, Bessy Randolph was his first flame, and when she threw him over for +Ned Peyton, he married Bessy Tucker. They used to say that when he +couldn't get one Bessy, he took the other. Yes, he made a devoted +husband, never a wild oat to sow after his marriage. I remember when I +called on him once, when he was living in that big house there on top of +the hill--" + +"I think you're wrong about that, George. I am sure it was Robert who +lived there. When I attended him in his last illness--" + +"I reckon I know where Bushrod Carrington lived, Theophilus. I've been +there often enough. The house you're talking about is over on the other +side of the hill, and was built by Robert." + +"Well, I'm perfectly positive, George, that when I attended Robert in +his last illness--" + +"His last illness be hanged! I tell you what, Theophilus, you're getting +entirely too opinionated for a man of your years. If it grows on you, +you'll be having an attack of apoplexy next. Have you got a glass of +iced water you can give Theophilus, Sally?" + +"I'll get it," said young George, as Sally rose, and when he had gone +out in response to her nod, the General, cooling a little, glanced with +a sly wink from Sally to me. "You put me in mind of Bushrod's first +flame, Bessy Randolph, my dear," he observed; "she was a great belle and +beauty and half the men in Virginia proposed to her, they used to say, +before she married Ned Peyton. 'No, I can't accept you for a husband,' +the minx would reply, 'but I think you will do very well indeed as a +hanger-on.' It looks as if you'd got George for a hanger-on, eh?" + +"At present she's got him in place of a boy-of-all-jobs," I observed +rightly, though a fierce misery worked in my mind. + +"Well, she can't do better," said the doctor, as they prepared to leave. +"Let me hear how you are, Ben. Don't eat too much till you get back your +strength, and be sure to take your egg-nog three times a day. Come +along, George, and we'll look up Robert's and Bushrod's graves in the +churchyard. You'd better bring the palm-leaf fan, you'll probably need +it." + +They descended the curving steps leisurely, the General clinging to the +railing on one side, and supported by George on the other. Then, at +last, after many protestations of sympathy, and not a few anecdotes +forgotten until the instant of departure revived the memory, the old +grey horse, deciding suddenly that it was time for oats and the cool +stable, started of his own accord up the street toward the churchyard. +As the buggy passed out of sight, with the palm-leaf fan waving +frantically when it turned the corner, George came up the steps again, +and going indoors, brought out the little bundle of lace that he was to +deliver to its owner on his way home. + +"Keep up your pluck, Ben," he said cheerfully; and turning away, he +looked at Sally with a long, thoughtful gaze as he held out his hand. + +"Now, I'm going to wallop that boy," he remarked, after a minute. "Is +there anything else? I'll be over to-morrow as soon as I can get off +from the office." + +"Nothing else," she replied; then, as he was moving away, she leaned +forward, with that bloom and softness in her look which always came to +her in moments when she was deeply stirred. "George!" she called, in a +low voice, "George!" + +He stopped and came back, meeting her vivid face with eyes that grew +suddenly dark and gentle. + +"It's just to say that I don't know what in the world I should have done +without you," she said. + +Again he turned from her, and this time he went quickly, without looking +back, along the dusty street in the direction of the car line beyond the +corner. + +"You've been up too long, Ben, and you're as white as a sheet," said +Sally, putting her hand on my arm. "Come, now, and lie down again while +Aunt Euphronasia is cooking supper. I must iron Maggie Tyler's blouse as +soon as it is dry." + +The mention of Maggie Tyler's blouse was all I needed to precipitate me +into the abyss above which I had stood. Too miserable to offer useless +comment upon so obvious a tragedy, I followed her in silence back to the +bedroom, where she placed me on the bed and flung a soft, thin coverlet +over my prostrate body. She was still standing beside me, when Aunt +Euphronasia hobbled excitedly into the room, and looking across the +threshold, I discerned a tall, slender figure, shrouded heavily in +black, hovering in the dim hall beyond. + +"Hi! hi! honey, hyer's Miss Mitty done come ter see you!" exclaimed Aunt +Euphronasia, in a burst of ecstasy. + +Sally turned with a cry, and the next instant she was clasped in Miss +Mitty's arms, with her head hidden in the rustling crape on the old +lady's shoulder. + +"I've just heard that you were in trouble, and that your husband was +ill," said Miss Mitty, when she had seated herself in the chair by the +window; "I came over at once, though I hadn't left the house for a year +except to go out to Hollywood." + +"It was so good of you, Aunt Mitty, so good of you," replied Sally, +caressing her hand. + +"If I'd only known sooner, I should have come. You are looking very +badly, my child." + +"Ben will be well quickly now, and then I can rest." + +At this she turned toward me, and enquired in a gentle, reserved way +about my illness, the nature of the fever, and the pain from which I had +suffered. + +"I hope you had the proper food, Ben," she said, calling me for the +first time by my name; "I am sorry that I could not supply you with my +chicken jelly. Dr. Theophilus tells me he considers it superior to any +he has ever tried.--even to Mrs. Clay's." + +"Comfort Sally, Miss Mitty, and it will do me more good than chicken +jelly." + +For a minute she sat looking at me kindly in silence. Then, as little +Benjamin was brought, she took him upon her lap, and remarked that he +was a beautiful baby, and that she already discerned in him the look of +her Uncle Theodoric Fairfax. + +"I should like you to come to my house as soon as you are able to move," +she said presently, as she rose to go, and paused for a minute to bend +over and kiss little Benjamin. "You will be more comfortable there, +though the air is, perhaps, fresher over here." + +I thanked her with tears in my eyes, and a resolve in my mind that at +least Sally and the baby should accept the offer. + +"There is a basket of old port in the sitting-room; I thought it might +help to strengthen you," were her last words as she passed out, with +Sally clinging to her arm, and the crape veil she still wore for Miss +Matoaca rustling as she moved. + +"Po' Miss Mitty has done breck so I 'ouldn't hev knowed her f'om de +daid," observed Aunt Euphronasia, when the front door had closed and the +sound of rapidly rolling wheels had passed down the street. + +All night Sally and I talked of her, she resisting and I entreating that +she should go to her old home for the rest of the summer. + +"How can I leave you, Ben? How can you possibly do without me?" + +"Don't bother about me. I'll manage to scrape along, somehow. There are +two things that are killing me, Sally--the fact of owing money that I +can't pay, and the thought of your toiling like a slave over my +comfort." + +"I'll go, then, if you will come with me." + +"You know I can't come with you. She only asked me, you must realise, +out of pity." + +"Well, I shan't go a step without you," she said decisively at last, +"for I don't see how on earth you would live through the summer if I +did." + +"I don't see either," I admitted honestly, looking at her, as she stood +in the frame of the long window, the ruffles of her muslin dressing-gown +blowing gently in the breeze which had sprung up in the garden. Beyond +her there was a pale dimness, and the fresh, moist smell of the dew on +the grass. + +What she had said was the truth. How could I have lived through the +summer if she had left me? Since the night after my failure, when we had +come, for the first time, face to face with each other, I had leaned on +her with all the weight of my crippled strength; and this weight, +instead of crushing her to the earth, appeared to add vigour and +buoyancy to her slender figure. Long afterwards, when my knowledge of +her had come at last, not through love, but through bitterness, I +wondered why I had not understood on that night, while I lay there +watching her pale outline framed by the window. Love, not meat and +drink, was her nourishment, and without love, though I were to surround +her with all the fruits of the earth, she would still be famished. That +she was strong, I had already learned. What I was still to discover was +that this strength lay less in character than in emotion. Her very +endurance--her power of sustained sympathy, of sacrifice--had its birth +in some strangely idealised quality of passion--as though even suffering +or duty was enkindled by this warm, clear flame that burned always +within her. + +As the light broke, we were awakened, after a few hours' restless sleep, +by a sharp ring at the bell; and when she had slipped into her wrapper +and answered it, she came back very slowly, holding an open note in her +hands. + +"Oh, poor Aunt Mitty, poor Aunt Mitty. She died all alone in her house +last night, and the servants found her this morning." + +"Well, the last thing she did was a kindness," I said gently. + +"I'm glad of that, glad she came to see me, but, Ben, I can't help +believing that it killed her. She had Aunt Matoaca's heart trouble, and +the strain was too much." Then, as I held out my arms, she clung to me, +weeping. "Never leave me alone, Ben--whatever happens, never, never +leave me alone!" + + * * * * * + +A few days later, when Miss Mitty's will was opened, it was found that +she had left to Sally her little savings of the last few years, which +amounted to ten thousand dollars. The house, with her income, passed +from her to the hospital endowed by Edmond Bland in a fit of rage with +his youngest daughter; and the old lady's canary and the cheque, which +fluttered some weeks later from the lawyer's letter, were the only +possessions of hers that reached her niece. + +"She left the miniature of me painted when I was a child to George," +said Sally, with the cheque in her hand; "George was very good to her at +the end. Did you ever notice my miniature, framed in pearls, that she +wore sometimes, in place of grandmama's, at her throat?" + +I had not noticed it, and the fact that I had never seen it, and was +perfectly unaware whether or not it resembled Sally, seemed in some +curious way to increase, rather than to diminish, the jealous pain at my +heart. Why should George have been given this trifle, which was +associated with Sally, and which I had never seen? + +She leaned forward and the cheque fluttered into my plate. + +"Take the money, Ben, and do what you think best with it," she added. + +"It belongs to you. Wouldn't you rather keep it in bank as a nest-egg?" + +"No, take it. I had everything of yours as long as you had anything." + +"Then it goes into bank for you all the same," I replied, as I slipped +the paper into my pocket. + +An hour later, as I passed in the car down the long hill, I told myself +that I would place the money to Sally's account, in order that she might +draw on it until I had made good the strain of my illness. My first +intention had been to go into the bank on my way to the office; but +glancing at my watch as I left the car, I found that it was already +after nine o'clock, and so returning the cheque to my pocket, I crossed +the street, where I found the devil of temptation awaiting me in the +person of Sam Brackett. + +"I say, Ben, if you had a little cash, here's an opportunity to make +your fortune rise," he remarked; "I've just given George a tip and he's +going in." + +"You'd better keep out of it, Ben," said George, wheeling round suddenly +after he had nodded and turned away. "It's copper, and you know if +there's a thing on earth that can begin to monkey when you don't expect +it to, it's the copper trade." + +"Bonanza copper mining stock is selling at zero again," commented Sam +imperturbably, "and if it doesn't go up like a shot, then I'm a deader." + +Whether his future was to be that of a deader or not concerned me +little; but while I stood there on the crowded pavement, with my eyes on +the sky, I had a sudden sensation, as if the burden of debt--which was +the burden, not of thought, but of metal--had been removed from my +shoulders. My first fortune had been made in copper,--why not repeat it? +That one minute's sense of release, of freedom, had gone like wine to my +head. I saw stretching away from me the dull years I must spend in +chains, but I saw, also, in the blessed vision which Sam Brackett had +called up, the single means of escape. + +"What does the General think of it, George?" I enquired. + +"He's putting in money, I believe, moderately as usual," replied George, +with a worried look on his face; "but I tell you frankly, Ben, whether +it's a good thing or not, if that's Miss Mitty's legacy, you oughtn't to +speculate with it. Sally might need it." + +"Sally needs a thousand times more," I returned, not without irritation, +"and I shall get it for her in the way I can." Then I held out my hand. +"You're a first-rate chap, George," I added, "but just think what it +would mean to Sally if I could get out of debt at a jump." + +"I dare say," he responded, "but I'm not sure that putting your last ten +thousand dollars in the Bonanza copper mining stock is a rational way of +doing it." + +"Such things aren't done in a rational way. The secret of successful +speculating is to be willing to dare everything for something. Sam's got +faith in the Bonanza, and he knows a hundred times as much about it as +you or I." + +"If it doesn't rise," said Sam emphatically, "then I'm a deader." + +I still saw the dull years stretching ahead, and I still felt the +tangible weight on my shoulders of the two hundred thousand dollars I +owed. The old prostrate instinct of the speculator, which is but the +gambler's instinct in better clothes, lifted its head within me. + +"Well, it won't do any harm to go into Townley's and find out about it," +I said, moving in the direction of the broker's office next door. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +IN WHICH SALLY PLANS + + +My first sensation after putting Sally's ten thousand dollars into +copper mining stock was one of immense relief, almost of exhilaration, +as if I already heard in my fancy the clanking of the loosened chains as +they dropped from me. I recalled, one by one, the incidents of my +earliest "risky" and yet fortunate venture, when, following the +General's advice, I had gone in boldly, and after a short period of +breathless fluctuation, had "realised," as he had said, "a nice little +fortune for a first hatching." And because this seemed to me the single +means of recovery, because I had so often before in my life been guided +by some infallible instinct to seize the last chance that in the outcome +had proved to be the right way, I felt now that reliance upon fortune, +that assurance of the thing hoped for, which was as much a portion of +experience as it was a quality of temperament. + +At home, when I reached there late in the afternoon, I found Sally just +stepping out of the General's buggy, while the great man, sacrificing +gallantry to the claims of gout, sat, under his old-fashioned linen dust +robe, holding the slackened reins over the grey horse. + +"We've got a beautiful plan, Ben, the General and I," remarked Sally, +when he had driven away, and we were entering the house; "but it's a +secret, and you're not to know of it until it is ready to be divulged." + +"Is George aware of it?" I asked irrelevantly, moved by I know not what +spirit of averseness. + +"Yes, we've let George into it, but I'm not perfectly sure that he +approves. The idea came to the General and to me almost at the same +instant, and that is a very good thing to be said of any idea. It proves +it to be an elastic one anyway." + +She talked merrily through supper, breaking into smiles from time to +time, caressing evidently this idea, which was so elastic, and which she +declined provokingly to divulge. But I, also, had my secret, for my +mind, responding to the springs of hope, toyed ceaselessly with the +possibility of escape. For several weeks this dream of ultimate freedom +possessed my thoughts, and then, at last, when the copper trade, instead +of reviving, seemed paralysed for a season, I awakened with a shock, to +the knowledge that I had lost Sally's little fortune as irretrievably as +I appeared to have lost my larger one. Clearly my financial genius was +asleep, or off assisting at a sacrifice; and it did little good, as I +toiled home in the afternoon, to curse myself frantically for a perverse +and a thankless brute. It was too late now; I had played the fool once +too often and the money was gone. Was my brain weakened permanently by +the fever, I wondered? Had the muscles of my will dwindled away and +grown flabby, like the muscles of my body? + +As I left the car, a group of school children ran along the pavement in +front of me, and then scattering like pigeons, fluttered after a big, +old-fashioned barouche that had turned the corner. When it came nearer, +I saw that the barouche was the General's, a piece of family property +which had descended to him from his father, and that the great man now +sat on the deep, broadcloth-covered cushions, his legs very far apart, +his hands clasped on his gold-headed walking-stick, and his square, +mottled face staring straight ahead, with that look of tenacity, as if +he were saying somewhere back in his brain, "I'll hang on to the death." + +Before our door, where Sally was waiting in her hat and veil, the +barouche drew up with a flourish; Balaam, the old negro coachman, +settled himself for a doze on the box, and the pair of fat roans began +switching their long tails in the faces of the swarming school children. + +"So you're just in time, Ben," remarked the General, while he hobbled +out in order to help Sally in. "I thought you'd have been at home at +least an hour ago. Meant to come earlier, but something went wrong at +the stables. Something always is wrong at the stables. I wouldn't be in +George's shoes for a mint of money. Never a day passes that he isn't +fussing about his horses, or his traps, or his groom. Well, you're +ready, Sally? I like a woman who is punctual, and I never in my life +knew but one who was. That was your Aunt Matoaca. You get it from her, I +suppose. Ah, _she_ never kept you waiting a minute,--no fussing about +gloves or fans or handkerchiefs. Always just ready when you came for +her, and looking like an angel. Never saw her in a rose-lined bonnet, +did you, my dear?" + +"Only in black, General," replied Sally, as she took her seat in the +barouche. "Come, get in, Ben, we're going to reveal our secret at last, +and we want you to be with us." + +The General got in again with difficulty, groaning a little; I entered +and sat down opposite to them, with my back to the horses; and the old +negro coachman, disappointed at the length of the wait, pulled the reins +gently and gave a slight, admonishing flick at the broad flanks of the +roans. Behind the barouche the school children still fluttered, and +turning in his seat, the General looked back angrily and threatened them +with a wave of his big ebony walking-stick. + +"What is it, Sally?" I asked, striving to force a curiosity my +wretchedness prevented me from feeling; "can't you unfold the mystery?" + +"Be patient, be patient," she responded gaily, leaning back beside the +General, as we rolled down the wide street under the wilted, dusty +leaves of the trees. "Haven't you noticed for weeks that the General and +I have had a secret?" + +"Yes, I've noticed it, but I thought you'd tell me when the time came." + +"We shan't tell him, shall we, General?--We'll show him." + +"Ah, there's time enough, time enough," returned the General, +absent-mindedly, for he had not been listening. His resolute, bulldog +face, flushed now by the heat and covered with a fine perspiration, had +taken on an absorbed and pondering look. "I never come along here that +it doesn't put me back at least fifty years," he observed, leaning over +his side of the barouche, and peering down one of the side streets that +led past the churchyard. "Sorry they've been meddling with that old +church. Better have left it as it used to be in my boyhood. Do you see +that little house there, set back in the yard, with the chimney +crumbling to pieces? That was the first school I ever went to, and it +was taught by old Miss Deborah Timberlake, the sister of William +Timberlake who shot all those stags' heads you've got hanging in your +hall. Nobody ever knew why she taught school. Plenty to eat and drink. +William gave her everything that she wanted, but she got cranky when +she'd turned sixty, and insisted on being independent. Independent, she +said! Pish! Tush. Never learned a word from her. Taught us English +history, then Virginia history. As for the rest of America, she used to +say it didn't have a history, merely a past. Mentioned the Boston tea +party once by mistake, and had to explain that _that_ was an incident, +not history. Well, well, it seems a thousand years ago. Never could +understand, to save my life, why she took to teaching. Had all she +wanted. Her brother William was an odd man. A fine toast. I never heard +a better story--I remember them even as a boy--and often enough I've got +them off since his death. Used to ill-treat his slaves, though, they +said, and had queer ideas about women and property. Married his wife who +didn't have a red penny, and on his wedding journey, when she called him +by his name, replied to her, 'Madam, my dependants are accustomed to +address me as Mr. Timberlake.' Ha, ha! a queer bird was William." + +The street was the one down which I had passed so many years ago, wedged +tightly between my mother and Mrs. Kidd, to the funeral of old Mr. +Cudlip; and it seemed to me that it held unchanged, as if it had +stagnated there between the quaint old houses, that same atmosphere of +sadness, of desolation. The houses, still half closed, appeared all but +deserted; the aged negresses, staring after us under their hollowed +palms, looked as if they had stood there forever. Progress, which had +invaded the neighbouring quarters, had left this one, as yet, +undisturbed. + +Opposite to me, Sally smiled with beaming eyes when she met my gaze. I +knew that she was hugging her secret, and I knew, in some intuitive way, +that she expected this secret to afford me pleasure. The General, +peering from right to left in search of associations, kept moving his +lips as if he were thinking aloud. On his face, in the deep creases +where the perspiration had gathered, the dust, rising from the street, +had settled in greyish streaks. From time to time, in an absent-minded +manner, he got out his big white silk handkerchief and wiped it away. + +"There now! I've got it! Hold on a minute, Balaam. That's the house that +Robert Carrington built clean over here on the other side of the hill. +There it is now--the one with that pink crape myrtle in the yard, and +the four columns, you can see it with your own eyes. Theophilus tried to +prove to me that Robert lived in Bushrod's house, and that he'd attended +him there in his last illness. Last illness, indeed! The truth is that +Theophilus isn't what he once was. Memory's going and he doesn't like to +own it. No use arguing with him--you can't argue with a man whose memory +is going--but there's Robert Carrington's house. You've seen it with +your own eyes. Drive on, Balaam." + +Balaam drove on; and the carriage, leaving the city and the thinning +suburbs, passed rapidly into one of the country roads, white with dust, +which stretched between ragged borders of yarrow and pokeberry that were +white with dust also. The fields on either side, sometimes planted in +corn, oftener grown wild in broomsedge or life-everlasting, shimmered +under the heat, which was alive with the whirring of innumerable +insects. Here and there a negro cabin, built close to the road, stood +bare in a piece of burned-out clearing, or showed behind the thick +fanlike leaves of gourd vines, with the heads of sunflowers nodding +heavily beside the open doorways. Occasionally, in the first few miles, +a covered wagon crawled by us on its way to town, the driver leaning far +over the dusty horses, and singing out "Howdy!" in a friendly voice,--to +which the General invariably responded "Howdy," in the same tone, as he +touched the wide brim of his straw hat with his ebony stick. + +"Hasn't got on the scent, has he?" he enquired presently of Sally, with +a sly wink in my direction. "Are you sure George hasn't let it out? +Never could keep a secret, could George. He's one of those close-mouthed +fellows that shuts a thing up so tight it explodes before he's aware of +it. He can't hide anything from me. I read him just as if he were a +book. It's as well, I reckon, as I told him the other day, that he isn't +still in love with your wife, Ben, or it would be written all over him +as plain as big print." + +My eyes caught Sally's, and she blushed a clear, warm pink to the heavy +waves of her hair. + +"Not that he'd ever be such a rascal as to keep up a fancy for a married +woman," pursued the great man, unseeing and unthinking. "The +Bolingbrokes may have been wild, but they've always been men of honour, +and even if they've played fast and loose now and then with a woman, +they have never tried to pilfer anything that belonged to another man." + +"I think we're coming to it," said Sally suddenly, trying to turn the +conversation to lighter matters. + +"Ah, so we are, so we are. That's a good view of the river, and there's +the railroad station at the foot of the hill not a half mile away. It's +the very thing you need, Ben, it will be the making of you and of the +youngster, as I said to Sally when the idea first entered my mind." + +The barouche made a quick turn into a straight lane bordered by old +locust trees, and stopped a few minutes later before a square red brick +country house, with four white columns supporting the portico, and a +bower of ancient ivy growing over the roof. + +"Here we are at last! Oh, Ben, don't you like it?" said Sally, springing +to the ground before the horses had stopped. + +"Like it? Of course he likes it," returned the General, impatiently, as +he got out and followed her between the rows of calycanthus bushes that +edged the walk. "What business has he got not to like it after all the +trouble we've been to on his account? It's the very thing for his +health--that's what I said to you, my dear, as soon as I heard of Miss +Mitty's legacy. 'The old Bending place is for sale and will go cheap,' I +said. 'Why not move out into the country and give Ben and the youngster +a chance to breathe fresh air? He's beginning to look seedy and fresh +air will set him up.'" + +"But I really don't believe he likes it," rejoined Sally, a little +wistfully, turning, as she reached the columns of the portico, and +looking doubtfully into my face. + +"You know I like anything that you like, Sally," I answered in a voice +which, I knew, sounded flat and unenthusiastic, in spite of my effort; +"it's a fine house and there's a good view of the river, I dare say, at +the back." + +"I thought it would please you, Ben. It seemed to the General and me the +very best thing we could do with Aunt Mitty's money." + +There was a hurt look in her eyes; her mouth trembled as she spoke, and +all the charming mystery had fled from her manner. If we had been alone +I should have opened my arms to her, and have made my confession with +her head on my shoulder; but the square, excited figure of the General, +who kept marching aimlessly up and down between the calycanthus bushes, +put the restraint of a terrible embarrassment upon my words. Tell her I +must, and yet how could I tell her while the little cynical bloodshot +eyes of the great man were upon us? + +"Let's go to the back. We can see the river from the terrace," she said, +and there was a touching disappointment in her smile and her voice. + +"Yes, we'll go to the back," responded the General, with eagerness. +"Follow this path, Ben, the one that leads round the west wing," and he +added when we had turned the corner of the house, and stopped on the +trim terrace, covered with beds of sweet-william and foxglove, "What do +you think of that for a view now? If those big poplars were out of the +way, you could see clear down to Merrivale, the old Smith place, where I +used to go as a boy." + +Meeting the disappointment in Sally's look, I tried to rise valiantly to +the occasion; but it was evident, even while I uttered my empty phrases, +that to all of us, except the General, the mystery had been blighted by +some deadly chill in the very instant of its unfolding. The great man +alone, with that power of ignoring the obvious, which had contributed so +largely to his success, continued his running comments in his cheerful, +dogmatic tone. Some twenty minutes later, when, after an indifferent +inspection of the house on our part, and a vigilant one on the +General's, we rolled back again in the barouche over the dusty road, he +was still perfectly unaware that the surprise he had sprung had not been +attended by a triumph of pleasure for us all. + +"You're foolish, my dear, about those big poplars," he said a dozen +times, while he sat staring, with an unseeing gaze, at the thin red line +of the sunset over the corn-fields. "They ought to come down, and then +you could see clean to the old Smith place, where I used to go as a boy. +I learned to shoot there. Fell in love, too, when I wasn't more than +twelve with Miss Lucy Smith, my first flame--pretty as a pink, all the +boys were in love with her." + +Sally's hand stole into mine under the muslin ruffles of her dress, and +her eyes, when she looked at me, held a soft, deprecating expression, as +if she were trying to understand, and could not, how she had hurt me. +When at last we came to our own door and the General, after insisting +again that the only improvement needed to the place was that the big +poplars should come down, had driven serenely away in his big barouche, +we ascended the steps in silence, and entered the sitting-room, which +was filled with the pale gloom of twilight. While I lighted the lamp, +she waited in the centre of the room, with the soft, deprecating +expression still in her eyes. + +"What is it, Ben?" she asked, facing the lamp as I turned; "did you mind +my keeping the idea a secret? Why, I thought that would please you." + +"It isn't that, Sally, it isn't that,--but--I've lost the money." + +"Lost it, Ben?" + +"I saw what I thought was a good chance to speculate--and I speculated." + +"You speculated with the ten thousand dollars?" + +"Yes." + +"And lost it?" + +"Yes." + +For a moment her face was inscrutable. + +"When did it happen?" + +"I found out to-day that it was gone beyond hope of recovery." + +"Then you haven't known it all along and kept it from me?" + +"I was going to tell you as soon as I came up this afternoon, but the +General was here." + +"I am glad of that," she said quietly. "If you had kept anything from me +and worried over it, it would have broken my heart." + +"Sally, I have been a fool." + +"Yes, dear." + +"Heaven knows, I don't mean to add to your troubles, but when I think of +all that I've brought you to, I feel as if I should go out of my mind." + +She put her hand on my arm, smiling up at me with her old sparkling +gaiety. "Come and sit down by me, and we'll have a cup of tea, and +you'll feel better. But first I must tell you that I am a terribly +extravagant person, Ben, for I paid another dollar and a quarter for a +pound of tea this morning." + +"Thank heaven for it," I returned devoutly. + +"And there's something else. I feel my sins growing on me. Do you +remember last winter, when you were worrying so over your losses, and +didn't know where you could turn for cash--do you remember that I paid +five thousand dollars--five thousand dollars, you understand, and that's +half of ten--for a lace gown?" + +"Did you, darling?" + +"Do you remember what you said?" + +"'Thank you for the privilege of paying for it,' I hope." + +"You paid the bill, and never told me I oughtn't to have bought it. What +you said was, 'I'm awfully glad you've got such a becoming dress, +because business is going badly, and we may have to pull up for a +while.' Then I found out from George that you'd sold your motor car, and +everything else you could lay hands on to meet the daily expenses. Now, +Ben, tell me honestly which is the worse sinner, you or I?" + +"But that was my fault, too--everything was my fault." + +"The idea of your committing the extravagance of a lace gown! Why, you +couldn't even tell the difference between imitation and real. And that +pound of tea! You know you'd never have gone out and spent your last +dollar and a quarter on a pound of tea." + +"If you'd wanted it, Sally." + +"Well, you speculated with that ten thousand dollars from exactly the +same motive--because you thought I wanted so much that I didn't have. +But I bought that gown entirely to gratify my vanity--so you see, after +all, I'm a great deal the worse sinner of us two. There, now, I must see +about the baby. He was very fretful all the morning, and the doctor says +it is the heat. I'm sure, Ben, that he ought to get out of the city. How +can we manage it?" + +"I'll manage it, dear. The General will be only too glad to lend the +money. I'll go straight over and explain matters to him." + +A cry came from little Benjamin in the nursery, and kissing me hurriedly +with, "Remember, I'm a sinner, Ben," she left the room, while I took up +my hat again, and went up-town to make my confession to the General and +request his assistance. + +"Lend it to you, you scamp!" he exclaimed, when I found him on his front +porch with a palm-leaf fan in his hand. "Of course, I'll lend it to you; +but why in the deuce were you so blamed cheerful this afternoon about +that house in the country? I could have sworn you were in a gale over +the idea. Here, Hatty, bring me a pen. I can see perfectly well by this +damned electric light they've stuck at my door. Well, I'm sorry enough, +for you, Ben. It's hard on your wife, and she's the kind of woman that +makes a man believe in the angels. Her Aunt Matoaca all over--you know, +George, I always told you that Sally Mickleborough was the image of her +Aunt Matoaca." + +"I know you did," replied George, twirling the end of his mustache. He +looked tired and anxious, and it seemed to me suddenly that the whole +city, and every face in it, under the white blaze of the electric light, +had this same tired and anxious expression. + +I took the cheque, put it into my pocket with a word of thanks, and +turned to the steps. + +"I can't stay, General, while the baby is ill. Sally may need me." + +"Well, you're right, Ben, stick to her when she needs you, and you'll +find she'll stick to you. I've always said that gratitude counted +stronger in the sex than love." + +As I went down the steps George joined me, and walked with me to the car +line. The look on his face brought to my memory the night I had seen him +staring moodily across the roses and lilies at Sally's bare shoulders, +and the same fierce instinct of possession gnawed in my heart. + +"Look here, Ben, I can't bear to think of the way things are going with +Sally," he said. + +"I can't bear to think of it myself," I returned gloomily. + +"If there's ever anything I can do--remember I am at your service." + +"I'll remember it, George," I answered, angry with myself because my +gratitude was shot through with a less noble feeling. "I'll remember it, +and I thank you, too." + +"Then it's a bargain. You won't let her suffer because you're too proud +to take help?" + +"No, I won't let her suffer if I have to beg to prevent it. Haven't I +just done so?" + +He held out his hand, I wrung it in mine, and then, as I got on the car, +he turned away and walked at his lazy step back along the block. Looking +from the car window, as it passed on, I saw his slim, straight figure +moving, with bent head, as if plunged in thought, under the electric +light at the corner. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +THE DEEPEST SHADOW + + +As I entered the house, the sound of Aunt Euphronasia's crooning fell on +my ears, and going into the nursery, I found Sally sitting by the +window, with the child on her knees, while the old negress waved a +palm-leaf fan back and forth with a slow, rhythmic movement. A +night-lamp burned, with lowered wick, on the bureau, and as Sally looked +up at me, I saw that her face had grown wan and haggard since I had left +her. + +"The baby was taken very ill just after you went," she said; "we feared +a convulsion, and I sent one of the neighbours' children for the doctor. +It may be only the heat, he says, but he is coming again at midnight." + +"I had hoped you would be able to get off in the morning." + +"No, not now. The baby is too ill. In a few days, perhaps, if he is +better." + +Her voice broke, and kneeling beside her, I clasped them both in my +arms, while the anguish in my heart rose suddenly like a wild beast to +my throat. + +"What can I do, Sally?" I asked passionately. "What can I do?" + +"Nothing, dear, nothing. Only be quiet." + +Only be quiet! Rising to my feet I walked softly to the end of the room, +and then turning came back again to the spot where I had knelt. At the +moment I longed to knock down something, to strangle something, to pull +to earth and destroy as a beast destroys in a rage. Through the open +window I could see a full moon shining over a magnolia, and the very +softness and quiet of the moonlight appeared, in some strange way, to +increase my suffering. A faint breeze, scented with jessamine, blew +every now and then from the garden, rising, dying away, and rising +again, until it waved the loosened tendrils of hair on Sally's neck. The +odour, also, like the moonlight, mingled, while I stood there, and was +made one with the anguish in my thoughts. Again I walked the length of +the room, and again I turned and came back to the window beside which +Sally sat. My foot as I moved stumbled upon something soft and round, +and stooping to pick it up, I saw that it was a rubber doll, dropped by +little Benjamin when he had grown too ill or too tired to play. I laid +it in Sally's work-basket on the table, and then throwing off my coat, +flung myself into a chair in one corner. A minute afterwards I rose, and +walking gently through the long window, looked on the garden, which lay +dim and fragrant under the moonlight. On the porch, twining in and out +of the columns, the star jessamine, riotous with its second blooming, +swayed back and forth like a curtain; and as I bent over, the small, +white, deadly sweet blossoms caressed my face. A white moth whirred by +me into the room, and when I entered again, I saw that it was flying +swiftly in circles, above the flame of the night-lamp on the bureau. +Sally was sitting just as I had left her, her arm under the child's +head, her face bent forward as if listening to a distant, almost +inaudible sound. She appeared so still, so patient, that I wondered in +amazement if she had sat there for hours, unchanged, unheeding, +unapproachable? There was in her attitude, in her pensive quiet, +something so detached and tragic, that I felt suddenly that I had never +really seen her until that minute; and instead of going to her as I had +intended, I drew away, and stood on the threshold watching her almost as +a stranger might have done. Once the child stirred and cried, lifting +his little hands and letting them fall again with the same short cry of +distress. The flesh of my heart seemed to tear suddenly asunder, and I +sprang forward. Sally looked up at me, shook her head with a slow, quiet +movement, and I stopped short as if rooted there by the single step I +had taken. After ten years I remember every detail, every glimmer of +light, every fitful rise and fall of the breeze, as if, not visual +objects only, but scents, sounds, and movements, were photographed +indelibly on my brain. I know that the white moth fluttered about my +head, and that raising my hand, I caught it in my palm, which closed +over it with violence. Then the cry from little Benjamin came again, and +opening my palm, I watched the white moth fall dead, with crushed wings, +to the floor. When I forget all else in my life, I shall still see Sally +sitting motionless, like a painted figure, in the faint, reddish glow of +the night-lamp, while above her, and above the little waxen face on her +knee, the shadow, of the palm-leaf fan, waved by Aunt Euphronasia, +flitted to and fro like the wing of a bat. + +At midnight the doctor came, and when he left, I followed him to the +front steps. + +"I'll come again at dawn," he said, "and in the meantime look out for +your wife. She's been strained to the point of breaking." + +"You think, then, that the child is--is hopeless?" + +"Not hopeless, but very serious. I'll be back in a few hours. If there's +a change, send for me, and remember, as I said, look out for your wife." + +I went indoors, found some port wine left in Miss Mitty's bottles, +poured out a glass, and carried it to her. + +"Drink this, darling," I said. + +As I held it to her lips, she swallowed it obediently, and then, looking +up, she thanked me with her unfailing smile. + + "Oh, we'll drink outer de healin' fountain, by en bye, lil' + chillun," + +crooned Aunt Euphronasia softly, and the tune has rung ever afterwards +somewhere in my brain. To escape from it at the time, I went out upon +the front steps, closed the door, and walked, restless as a caged tiger, +up and down the deserted pavement. A homeless dog or two, panting from +thirst, lay in the gutter; otherwise there was not a sound, not a living +thing, from end to end of the long dusty street. + +For two hours I walked up and down there, entering the house from time +to time to see if Sally needed me, or if she had moved. Then, as the +light broke feebly, the doctor came, and we went in together. Sally was +still sitting there, as she had sat all night, rigid in the dim glow of +the lamp, and over her Aunt Euphronasia still waved the palm-leaf fan +with its black, flitting shadow. Then, as we crossed the threshold, +there was a sudden sharp cry, and when I sprang forward and caught them +both in my arms, I found that Sally had fainted and the child was dead +on her knees. + + * * * * * + +We buried the child in the old Bland section at Hollywood, where a +single twisted yew-tree grew between the graves, obliterated by ivy, of +Edmond Bland and his wife, Caroline Matilda, born Fairfax. On the way +home Sally sat rigid and tearless, with her hand in mine, and her eyes +fixed on the drawn blinds of the carriage, as though she were staring +intently through the closed window at something that fascinated and held +her gaze in the dusty street. + +"Does your head ache, darling?" I asked once, and she made a quick, +half-impatient gesture of denial, with that strained, rapt look, as if +she were seeing a vision, still in her face. Only when we reached home, +and Aunt Euphronasia met her with outstretched arms on the threshold, +did this agonised composure break down in passionate weeping on the old +negress's shoulder. + +The strength which had upheld her so long seemed suddenly to have +departed, and all night she wept on my breast, while I fanned her in the +hot air, which had grown humid and close. Not until the dawn had broken +did my arm drop powerless with sleep, and the fan fell on the pillow. +Then I slept for an hour, worn out with grief and exhaustion, and when +presently I awoke with a start, I saw that she had left my side, and +that her muslin dressing-gown was missing from the chintz-covered chair +where it had lain. When I called her in alarm, she came through the +doorway that led to the kitchen, freshly dressed, with a coffeepot in +her hand. + +"For God's sake, Sally," I implored, "don't make coffee for me!" + +"I've made it, dear," she answered. "I couldn't let you go out without a +mouthful to eat. You did not sleep a wink." + +"And you?" I demanded. + +"I didn't sleep either, but then I can rest all day." Her lip trembled +and she pressed her teeth into it. "By the time you are dressed, Ben, +breakfast will be ready." + +Her eyes were red and swollen, her mouth pale and tremulous, all her +radiant energy seemed beaten out of her; yet she spoke almost +cheerfully, and there was none of the slovenliness of sorrow in her +fresh and charming appearance. I dressed quickly, and going into the +sitting-room, drank the coffee she had made because I knew it would +please her. When it was time for me to start, she went with me to the +door, and turning midway of the block, I saw her standing on the steps, +smiling after me, with the sun in her eyes, like the ghost of herself as +she had stood and smiled the morning after my failure. In the evening I +found her paler, thinner, more than ever like the wan shadow of herself, +yet meeting me with the same brave cheerfulness with which she had sent +me forth. Could I ever repay her? I asked myself passionately, could I +ever forget? + +The dreary summer weeks dragged by like an eternity; the autumn came and +passed, and at the first of the year I was sent down, with a salary of +ten thousand dollars, to build up traffic on the Tennessee and Carolina +Railroad, which the Great South Midland and Atlantic had absorbed. Sally +went with me, but she was so languid and ill that the change, instead of +invigorating her, appeared to exhaust her remaining vitality. She lived +only when I was with her, and when I came in unexpectedly, as I did +sometimes, I would find her lying so still and cold on the couch that I +would gather her to me in a passion of fear lest she should elude the +lighter grasp with which I had held her. Never, not even in her +girlhood, had I loved her with the intensity, the violence, of those +months when I hardly dared clasp her to me in my terror that she might +dissolve and vanish from my embrace. Then, at last, when the spring +came, and the woods were filled with flowering dogwood and red-bud, she +seemed to revive a little, to bloom softly again, like a flower that +opens the sweeter and fresher after the storm. + +"Is it the mild air, or the spring flowers?" I asked one afternoon, as +we drove through the Southern woods, along a narrow deserted road that +smelt of the budding pines. + +"Neither, Ben, it is you," she replied. "I have had you all these +months. Without that I could not have lived." + +"You have had me," I answered, "ever since the first minute I saw your +face. You have had me always." + +"Not always. During those years of your great success I thought I had +lost you." + +"How could you, Sally, when it was all for you, and you knew it?" + +"It may have been for me in the beginning, but success, when it came, +crowded me out. It left me no room. That's why I didn't really mind the +failure, dear, and the poverty--that's why I don't now really mind this +burden of debt. Success took you away from me, failure brings you the +closer. And when you go from me, Ben, there's something in me, I don't +know what--something, like Aunt Matoaca in my blood--that rises up and +rebels. If things had gone on like that, if you hadn't come back, I +should have grown hard and indifferent. I should have found some other +interest." + +"Some other interest?" I repeated, while my heart throbbed as if a spasm +of memory contracted it. + +"Oh, of course, I don't know now just what I mean--but when I look back, +I realise that I couldn't have stood many years like that with nothing +to fill them. I'd have done something desperate, if it was only going +over gates after Bonny. There's one thing they taught me, though, Ben," +she added, "and that is that poor Aunt Matoaca was right." + +"Right in what, Sally?" + +"Right in believing that women must have larger lives--that they mustn't +be expected to feed always upon their hearts. You tell them to let love +fill their lives, and then when the lives are swept bare and clean of +everything else, in place of love you leave mere vacancy--just mere +vacancy and nothing but that. How can they fill their lives with love +when love isn't there--when it's off in the stock market or the +railroad, or wherever its practical affairs may be?" + +"But it comes back in the evening." + +"Yes, it comes back in the evening and falls asleep over its cigar." + +"Well, you've got me now," I responded cheerfully, "there's no doubt of +that, you've got me now." + +"That's why I'm getting well. How delicious the pines are! and look at +the red-bud flowering there over the fence! It may be wicked of me, but, +do you know--I've never been really able to regret that you lost your +money." + +"It is rather wicked, dear, to rejoice in my misery." + +"I didn't say I 'rejoiced'--only that I couldn't regret. How can I +regret it when the money came so between us?" + +"But it didn't, Sally, if you could only understand! I loved you just as +much all that time as I do now." + +"But how was I to be sure, when you didn't want to be with me?" + +"I did want to be with you--only there was always something else that +had to be done." + +"And the something else came always before me. But my life, you see, was +swept bare and clean of everything except you." + +"I had to work, Sally, I had to follow my ambition." + +"You work now, but it is different. I don't mind this because it isn't +working with madness. Just as you felt that you wanted your ambition, +Ben, I felt that I wanted love. I was made so, I can't help it. Like +Aunt Matoaca, my life has been swept and garnished for that one guest, +and if it were ever to fail me, I'd--I'd go wild like Aunt Matoaca, I +suppose." + +A red bird flew out of the pines across the road, and lifting her eyes, +she followed its flight with a look in which there was a curious +blending of sadness with passion. The truth of her words came home to +me, with a quiver of apprehension, while I looked at her face, and by +some curious freak of memory there flashed before me the image of George +Bolingbroke as he had bent over to lay the blossom of sweet alyssum +beside her plate. In all those months George, not I, had been there, I +remembered, and some fierce resentment, which was half jealousy, half +remorse, made me answer her almost with violence as my arm went about +her. + +"But you had the big things always, and it is the big things that count +in the end." + +"Yes, the big things count in the end. I used to tell myself that when +you forgot all the anniversaries. You remember them now." + +"I have time to think now, then I hadn't." As I uttered the words I was +conscious of a sudden depression, of a poignant realisation of what this +"time to think" signified in my life. The smart of my failure was still +there, and I had known hours of late when my balked ambition was like a +wild thing crying for freedom within me. The old lust of power, the +passion for supremacy, still haunted my dreams, or came back to me at +moments like this, when I drove with Sally through the restless pines, +and smelt those vague, sweet scents of the spring, which stirred +something primitive and male in my heart. The fighter and the dreamer, +having fought out their racial battle to a finish, were now merged into +one. + +We drove home slowly, the lights of the little Southern village shining +brightly through a cloudless atmosphere ahead--and the lights, like the +spring scents and the restless soughing of the pines, deepened the sense +of failure, of incompleteness, from which I suffered. My career showed +to me as suddenly cut off and broken, like a road the making of which +has stopped short halfway up a hill. Did she discern this restlessness +in me, I wondered, this ceaseless ache which resembled the ache of +muscles that have been long unused? + +After this the months slipped quietly by, one placid week succeeding +another in a serene and cloudless monotony. Sally had few friends, there +were no women of her own social position in the place; yet she was never +lonely, never bored, never in search of distraction. + +"I love it here, Ben," she said once, "it is so peaceful, just you and +I." + +"You'd tire of it before long, and you'll be glad enough to go back to +Richmond when next spring comes." + +At the time she did not protest, but when the following spring began to +unfold, and we prepared to return to Virginia in May, there was +something pensive and wistful in her parting from the little village and +from the people who had been kind to her in the year she had spent +there. We had taken several rooms in the house of Dr. Theophilus, who +was supported in his prodigality in roses only by the strenuous pickling +and preserving of Mrs. Clay; and as we drove, on a warm May afternoon, +up the familiar street from the station, I tried in vain to arouse in +her some of the interest, the animation, that she had lost. + +"You'll be glad to see the doctor and Bonny and George," I said. + +"Yes, I'll be glad to see the doctor and Bonny and George. There is the +house now, and look, the doctor is in his garden." + +He had seen us before she spoke, for glancing up meditatively from +working a bed of bleeding hearts near the gate, his dim old eyes, over +their lowered spectacles, had been attracted to the approaching +carriage. Rising to his feet, he came rapidly to the pavement, his +trowel still in hand, his outstretched arms trembling with pleasure. + +"Well, well, so here you are. It's good to see you. Tina, they have come +sooner than we expected them. Moses" (to a little negro, who appeared +from behind the currant bushes, where he had been digging), "take the +bags upstairs to the front rooms and tell your Miss Tina that they have +come sooner than we expected them." + +As Moses darted off on his errand, in which he was assisted by the negro +coachman, Dr. Theophilus led us back into the garden, and placed Sally +in a low canvas chair, which he had brought from the porch to a shady +spot between a gorgeous giant of battle rose-bush and a bed of bleeding +hearts in full bloom. + +"Come and sit down, my dear, come and sit down," he repeated, fussing +about her. "Tina will give you a cup of tea out here before you go to +your rooms, and Ben and I will take our juleps before supper. I've been +working in my garden, you see; there's nothing so satisfying in old age +as a taste for flowers. It's more absorbing than chess, as I tell +George--old George, I mean--and it's more soothing than children. Were +you far enough South, my dear, to see the yellow jessamine grow wild? +They tell me, too, that the Marshal Niel rose runs there up to the roofs +of the houses. With us it is a very delicate rose. I have never been +able to do anything with it,--but I have had a great success this year +with my bleeding hearts, you will notice. Ah, there's Tina! So you see, +Tina, here they are. They came sooner than we expected." + +From the low white porch, under a bower of honeysuckle, Mrs. Clay +appeared, with a cup of tea and a silver basket of sponge snowballs +which she placed before Sally on a small green table; and immediately a +troop of slate-coloured pigeons fluttered from the mimosa tree and the +clipped yew at the end of the garden, and began pecking greedily in the +gravelled walk. + +"I'm glad you've come, my dears," remarked the old lady in her brusque, +honest manner, "and I hope to heaven that you will be able to take +Theophilus's mind off his flowers. I declare he has grown so besotted +about them that I believe he'd sell the very clothes off his back to buy +a new variety of rose or lily. Only a week ago he took back a dozen +socks I had given him because he said he'd rather have the money to +spend in a strange kind of iris he'd just heard of." + +"A most remarkable plant," observed the doctor, with enthusiasm, "the +peculiarity of which is that it is smaller and less attractive to the +vulgar eye than the common iris, of which I have a great number growing +at the end of the garden. Don't listen to Tina, my children, she's a +cynic, and no cynic can understand the philosophy of gardening. It was +one of the wisest of men, though a trifle unorthodox, I admit, who +advised us to cultivate our garden. A pessimist he may have been before +he took up the trowel, but a cynic--never." + +"I am not complaining of the trowel, Theophilus," observed Mrs. Clay, +"though when it comes to that I don't see why a trowel and a bed of +roses is any more philosophic than a ladle and a kettle of pickles." + +"Perhaps not, Tina, perhaps not," chuckled the doctor, "but yours is a +practical mind, and there's nothing, I've always said, like a practical +mind for seeing things crooked. It suits a crooked world, I suppose, and +that's why it usually manages to get on so well in it." + +"And I'd like to know how you see things, Theophilus," sniffed Mrs. +Clay, whose temper was rising. + +"I see them as they are, Tina, which isn't in the very least as they +appear," rejoined the good man, unruffled. + +He bent forward, made a lunge with his trowel at a solitary blade of +grass growing in the bed of bleeding hearts, and after uprooting it, +returned with a tranquil face to his garden chair. + +But Mrs. Clay, having, as he had said, a practical mind, merely sniffed +while she wiped off the small green table with a red-bordered napkin and +scattered the crumbs of sponge-cake to the greedy slate-coloured +pigeons. + +"If I judged you by what you appear, Theophilus," she retorted, +crushingly, "I should have judged you for a fool on the day you were +born." + +This sally, which was delivered with spirit, afforded the doctor an +evident relish. + +"If you knew your Juvenal, my dear," he responded, with perfect good +humour, "you would remember: _Fronti nulla fides_." + +Rising from his seat, he stooped fondly over the bed of bleeding hearts, +and gathering a few blossoms, presented them to Sally, with a courtly +bow. + +"A favourite flower of mine. My poor mother was always very partial to +it," he remarked. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +I COME TO THE SURFACE + + +It was a bright June day, I remember, when I came to the surface again, +and saw clear sky for the first time for more than two years. I had +entered the office a little late, and the General had greeted me with an +outstretched hand in which I felt the grip of the bones through the +flabby flesh. + +"Look here, Ben, have you kept control of the West Virginia and +Wyanoke?" he enquired, and I saw the pupils of his eyes contract to fine +points of steel, as they did when he meant business. + +"Nobody wanted it, General. I still own control--or rather I still +practically own the road." + +"Well, take my advice and don't sell to the first man that asks you, +even if he comes from the South Midland. I've just heard that they've +been tapping those undeveloped coal fields at Wyanoke, and I shouldn't +be surprised if they turned out, after all, to be the richest in West +Virginia." + +It was then that I saw clear sky. + +"I'll hold on, General, as long as you say," I replied. "Meanwhile, I'll +run out there and have a look." + +"Oh, have a look by all means. I say, Ben," he added after a minute, +with a worried expression in his face, "have you heard about the trouble +that old fool Theophilus has been getting into? Mark my words, before he +dies, he'll land his sister in the poorhouse, as sure as I sit here. +Garden needed moisture, he said, couldn't raise some of those scraggy, +new-fangled things that nobody can pronounce the names of except +himself, so he went to work and had pipes laid from one end to the +other. When the bill came in there was no way to pay it except by +mortgaging his house, so he's gone and mortgaged it. Mrs. Clay, poor +lady, came to me on the point of tears--she'll be in the poorhouse yet, +I was obliged to tell her so--and entreated me to make an effort to +restrain Theophilus. 'I try to keep the catalogues from reaching him,' +she said, 'but sometimes the postman slips in without my seeing him, and +then he's sure to deliver one. Whenever Theophilus reads about any +strange specimen, or any hybridising nonsense that nobody heard of when +I was young, he seems to go completely out of his head, and the worst of +'em is,' she added," concluded the General, chuckling under his breath, +"'there isn't a single pretty, sweet-smelling flower in the lot.'" + +"I'm awfully sorry about the house, General. Isn't there some way of +curbing him?" + +"I never saw the bit yet that could curb an old fool," replied the great +man, indignantly; "the next thing his roof will be sold over his head, +and they'll go to the poorhouse, that's what I told Mrs. Clay. Poor +lady, she was really in a terrible state of mind." + +"Surely you won't let it come to that. Wait till these dreamed-of coal +fields materialise and I'll take over that mortgage." + +The General's lower lip shot out with a sulky and forbidding expression. + +"The best thing that could happen to the old fool would be to have his +house sold above him, and by Jove, if he doesn't cease his extravagance, +I'll stand off and let them do it as sure as my name is George +Bolingbroke. What Theophilus needs," he concluded angrily, "is +discipline." + +"It's too late to begin to discipline a man of over eighty." + +"No, it ain't," retorted the General; "it's never too late. If it +doesn't do him any good in this world, it will be sure to benefit him in +the next. He's entirely too opinionated, that's the trouble with him. Do +you remember the way he sat up over there on Church Hill, and tried to +beat me down that Robert Carrington lived in Bushrod's house, and that +he'd attended him there in his last illness? As if I didn't know Bushrod +Carrington as well as my own brother. Got all his clothes in Paris. Can +see him now as he used to come to church in one of his waistcoats of +peaehblow brocade. Yet you heard Theophilus stick out against me. +Wouldn't give in even when I offered to take him straight to Bushrod's +grave in Saint John's Churchyard, where I had helped to lay him. That's +at the back of the whole thing, I tell you. If Theophilus had had a +little discipline, this would never have happened." + +"All the same I hope you won't let it come to a sale," I responded, as a +bunch of telegrams was brought to him, and we settled down to our +morning's work. + +In the afternoon when I went back to the doctor's, I found Sally in the +low canvas chair between the giant-of-battle rose-bush and the bleeding +hearts, with George Bolingbroke on the ground at her feet, reading to +her, I noticed at a glance, out of a book of poems. George hated +poetry--I had never forgotten his contemptuous boyish attitude toward +Latin--and the sight of him stretched there, his handsome figure at full +length, his impassive face flushed with a fine colour, produced in me a +curious irritation, which sounded in my voice when I spoke. + +"I thought you scorned literature, George. Are you acting the part of a +gay deceiver?" + +"Oh, it goes well on a day like this," he rejoined in his amiable +drawling manner; "the doctor has been quoting his favourite verse of +Horace to us. He has had trouble with his hybridising or something, so +he tells us--what is it, doctor? I'm no good at Latin." + +Dr. Theophilus, who was planting oysters at the roots of a calla lily, +having discovered, as he repeatedly informed us, that such treatment +increased the number and size of the blossoms, raised his fine old head, +and stood up after wiping his trowel on the trimly mown grass in the +border. + +"_Æquam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem_," he replied, rolling +the Latin words luxuriously on his tongue, as if he relished the +flavour. "That verse of the poet has sustained me in many and varied +afflictions. Not to know it is to dispense with an unfailing source of +consolation in trouble. When using it at a patient's bedside, I have +found that it invariably acted as a sedative to an excited mind. I +sometimes think," he added gently, "that if Tina had not been ignorant +of Latin, she would have had a--a less practical temper." + +Picking up the trowel, which he had laid on the grass, he returned with +a calm soul to his difficulties, while Sally, looking up at me with +anxious eyes, said:-- + +"Something has happened, Ben. What is it?" + +I broke into a laugh. "Only that that little dead-beat road in West +Virginia may restore my fortune, after all," I replied. + +The next day I went to Wyanoke and reorganised the affairs of the little +road. Shortly afterwards orders for freight cars came in faster than we +were able to supply them, and we called at once on the cars of the Great +South Midland and Atlantic. + +"If you weren't a friend, this would be a mighty good chance to squeeze +you," remarked the General; "we could keep your cars back until we'd +clean squelched your traffic, and then buy the little road up for a +song. It's business, but it isn't fair, and I'll be blamed if I'm going +to squelch a friend." + +He did not squelch us, being as good as his word; the undeveloped coal +fields developed amazingly and the result was that before the year was +over, I had sold the little road at my own price to the big one. Then I +stood up and drew breath, like a man released from the weight of irons. + +"We can go into our own home," I said joyfully to Sally. "In a year or +two, if all goes well, and I work hard, we'll be back again where we +were." + +"Where we were?" she repeated, and there was, I thought, a listless note +in her voice. + +"Doesn't it make you happy?" I asked. + +"Oh, I'm glad, glad the debt is gone, and now you'll look young and +splendid again, won't you?" + +"I'll try hard if you want me to." + +"I do want you to," she answered, looking up at me with a smile. + +The window was open, and a flood of sunshine fell on her pale brown +hair, as it rested against the high arm of a chintz-covered sofa. Her +hand, small and childlike, though less round and soft than it had been +two years ago, caressed my cheek when I bent over her. She was well +again, she was blooming, but the bloom was paler and more delicate, and +there was a fragility in her appearance which was a new and disturbing +sign of diminished strength. Would she ever, even when cradled in +luxuries, recover her buoyant health, her sparkling vitality, I +wondered. + +The old Bland house, with the two great sycamores growing beside it, was +for sale; and thinking to please Sally, I bought it without her +knowledge, filled, as it was, with the Bland and Fairfax furniture, +which had surrounded Miss Mitty and Miss Matoaca. On the day some eight +or nine months later that we moved into it the sycamores were budding, +and there were faint spring scents in the air. + +"This is where you belong. This is home to you," I said as we stood on +the wide porch at the back, and looked down on the garden. "You will be +happy here, dearest." + +"Oh, yes, I'll be happy here." + +"It won't be so hard for you when I'm obliged to leave you alone. I'm +sorry I've had to be away so much of late. Have you been lonely?" + +"I've taken up riding again. George has found me a new horse, a beauty. +To-morrow I shall follow the hounds with Bonny." + +"Oh, be careful, Sally, promise me that you will be careful." + +She turned with a laugh that sounded a little reckless. + +"There's no pleasure in being careful, and I'm seeking pleasure," she +answered. + +The next morning I went to New York for a couple of days, and when I +returned late one afternoon, I found Sally, in her riding habit, pouring +tea for Bonny Marshall and George Bolingbroke in the drawing-room. + +I was very tired, my mind was engrossed in business, as it had been +engrossed since the day of the sale of the West Virginia and Wyanoke +Railroad, and I was about to pass upstairs to my dressing-room, when +George, catching sight of me, called to me to come in and exert my +powers of persuasion. + +"I'm begging Sally to sell that horse, Beauchamp," he said. "She tried +to make him take a fence this afternoon and he balked and threw her. At +first we were frightened out of our wits, but she got up laughing and +insisted upon mounting him again on the spot." + +"Of course you didn't let her," I retorted, with anger. + +"Let her? Great Scott! have you been married to a Bland for nearly eight +years and are you still saying, 'let her'?" + +"I mounted and rode on with the hunt," said Sally, looking at me with +shining eyes in which there was a defiant and reckless expression. "He +got quite away with me, but I held on and came in at the death, though +without a hat. Now my arms are so sore I shall hardly be able to do my +hair." + +"Of course you're not to ride that horse again, Sally," I responded +sternly, forgetting my dusty clothes, forgetting Bonny's dancing black +eyes that never left my face while I stood there. + +"Of course I am, Ben," rejoined Sally, laughing, while a high colour +rose to her forehead. "Of course I'm going to ride him to-morrow +afternoon when I go out with Bonny." + +"Ah, don't, please," entreated Bonny, in evident distress; "he's really +an ugly brute, you know, dear, if he is so beautiful." + +"I feel awfully mean about it, Ben," said George, "because, you see, I +got him for her." + +"And you got him," I retorted, indignantly, "without knowing evidently a +thing about him." + +"One can never know anything about a brute like that. He went like a +lamb as long as I was on him, but the trouble is that Sally has too +light a hand." + +"He'd be all right with me," remarked Bonny, stretching out her arm, in +which the muscle was hard as steel. "See what a grip I have." + +"I'll never give up, I'll never give up," said Sally, and though she +uttered the words with gaiety, the expression of defiance, of +recklessness, was still in her eyes. + +When George and Bonny had gone, I tried in vain to shake this resolve, +which had in it something of the gentle, yet unconquerable, obstinacy of +Miss Matoaca. + +"Promise me, Sally, that you will not attempt to ride that horse again," +I entreated. + +Turning from me, she walked slowly to the end of the room and bent over +the box of sweet alyssum, which still blossomed under a canary cage on +the window-sill. A cedar log was burning on the andirons, and the red +light of the flames fell on the tapestried furniture, on the quaint +inlaid spinet in one corner, and on the portrait above it of Miss Mitty +and Miss Matoaca clasping hands under a garland of roses. + +"Will you promise me, dearest?" I asked again, for she did not answer. + +Lifting her head from the flowers, she stood with her hand on one of the +delicate curtains, and her figure, in its straight black habit, drawn +very erect. + +"I'll ride him," she responded quietly, "if--if he kills me." + +"But why--why--what on earth is the use of taking so great a risk?" I +demanded. + +A humorous expression shot into her face, and I saw her full, red lips +grow tremulous with laughter. + +"That," she answered, after a moment, "is my ambition. All of us have an +ambition, you know, women as well as men." + +"An ambition?" I repeated, and looked in mystification at the portrait +above the spinet. + +"It sounds strange to you," she went on, "but why shouldn't I have one? +I was a very promising horsewoman before my marriage, and my ambition +now is to--to go after Bonny. Only Bonny says I can't," she added +regretfully, "because of my hands." + +"They are too small?" + +"Too small and too light. They can't hold things." + +"Well, they've managed to hold one at any rate," I responded gaily, +though I added seriously the minute afterward, "If you'll let me sell +that horse, darling, I'll give you anything on God's earth that you +want." + +"But suppose I don't want anything on God's earth except that horse?" + +"There's no sense in that," I blurted out, in bewilderment. "What in +thunder is there about the brute that has so taken your fancy?" + +Her hand fell from the curtain, and plucking a single blossom of sweet +alyssum, she came back to the hearth holding it to her lips. + +"He has taken my fancy," she replied, "because he is exciting--and I am +craving excitement." + +"But you never used to want excitement." + +"People change, all the poets and philosophers tell us. I've wanted it +very badly indeed for the last six or eight months." + +"Just since we've recovered our money?" + +"Well, one can't have excitement without money, can one? It costs a good +deal. Beauchamp sold for sixteen hundred dollars." + +"He'd sell for sixteen to-morrow if I had my way." + +"But you haven't. He's the only excitement I have and I mean to keep +him. I shall go out again with the hounds on Saturday." + +"If you do, you'll make me miserable, Sally. I shan't be able to do a +stroke of work." + +"Then you'll be very foolish, Ben," she responded, and when I would have +still pressed the point, she ran out of the room with the remark that +she must have a hot bath before dinner. "If I don't I'll be too stiff to +mount," she called back defiantly as she went up the staircase. + +All night I worried over the supremacy of Beauchamp, but on the morrow +she was kept in bed by the results of her fall, and before she was up +again, George had spirited the horse off somewhere to a farm in the +country. + +"I'd have turned horse thief before I'd have let her get on him again," +he said. "I bought the brute, so I had the best right to dispose of him +as I wanted to." + +"Well, I hope you'll do better next time," I returned. "Sally has got +some absurd idea in her head about rivalling Bonny Marshall, but she +never will because she isn't built that way." + +"No, she isn't built that way," he agreed, "and I'm glad of it. When I +want a boy I'd rather have him in breeches than in skirts. Is she out of +bed yet?" + +"She was up this morning, and on the point of telephoning to the stables +when I left the house." + +He laughed softly. "Well, my word goes at the stables," he rejoined, "so +you needn't worry. I'll not let any harm come to her." + +The tone in which he spoke, pleasant as it was, wounded my pride of +possession in some inexplicable manner. Sally was safe! It was all taken +out of my hands, and the only thing that remained for me was to return +with a tranquil mind to my affairs. In spite of myself this constant +beneficent intervention of George in my life fretted my temper. If he +would only fail sometimes! If he would only make a mistake! If he would +only attend to his own difficulties, and leave mine to go wrong if they +pleased! + +This was on my way up-town in the afternoon, and when I reached home, I +found Sally lying on a couch in her upstairs sitting-room, with an uncut +novel in her hands. + +"Ben, did you sell Beauchamp?" she asked, as I entered, and her tone was +full of suppressed resentment, of indignant surprise. + +"I'm sorry to say I didn't, dear," I responded cheerfully, "for I should +certainly have done so if George hadn't been too quick for me." + +"It was George, then," she said, and her voice lost its resentment. + +"Yes, it was George--everything is George," I retorted, in an irascible +tone. + +Her eyebrows arched, not playfully as they were used to do, but in +surprise or perplexity. + +"He has been very good to me all my life," she answered quietly. + +"I know, I know," I said, repenting at once of my temper, "and if you +want another horse, Sally, you shall have it--George will find you a +gentle one this time." + +She shook her head, smiling a little. + +"I don't want a gentle one. I wanted Beauchamp, and since he has gone I +don't think I care to ride any more. Bonny is right, I suppose, I could +never keep up with her." + +"Just as you like, sweetheart, but for my part, I feel easier, somehow, +when you don't go out with the hounds. I'd rather you wouldn't do such +rough riding." + +"That's because like most men you have an ideal of a 'faire ladye,'" she +answered, mockingly. "I'm not sure, however, that the huntress hasn't +the best of it. What an empty existence the 'faire ladye' must have +led!" + +At first I thought her determination was uttered in jest, and would not +endure through the night; but as the weeks and the months went by and +she still refused to consider the purchase of the various horses George +put through their paces before her, I realised that she really meant, as +she had said, to give up her brief dream of excelling Bonny. Then, for a +few months in the spring and summer, she turned to gardening with +passion, and aided by Dr. Theophilus and George, she planted a cart-load +of bulbs in our square of ground at the back. When I came up late now, I +would find the three of them poring over flower catalogues, with +gathered brows and thoughtful, enquiring faces. + +"There's nothing like a love of the trowel for making friends," remarked +the old man, one May afternoon, when I found them resting from their +labours while they drank tea on the porch; "it's a pity you haven't time +to take it up, Ben. Now, young George there has developed a most +extraordinary talent for gardening that he never knew he possessed until +I cultivated it. I shouldn't wonder if it took the place of the horse +with him in the end. What do you say, Sally?" he added, turning to where +Sally and George were leaning together over the railing, with their eyes +on a bed of Oriental poppies. "I was telling Ben that I shouldn't wonder +if George's taste for flowers would not finally triumph over his fancy +for the horse." + +For a minute Sally did not look round, and when at last she turned, her +face wore a defiant and reckless expression, as it had done that +afternoon when Beauchamp had thrown her. + +"I'm not sure, doctor," she answered; "after all flowers are tame sport, +aren't they? And George is like me--what he wants is excitement." + +"I'm sorry to hear that, my dear, a gentle and quiet pursuit is a source +of happiness. You remember what Horace says--" + +"Ah, I know, doctor, but did even Horace remember what he said while he +was young?" + +George was still gazing attentively down on the bed of Oriental poppies +at the foot of the steps, and though he had taken no part in the +conversation, something in his back, in the rigid look of his shoulders, +as though his muscles were drawn and tense, made me say suddenly: + +"If George has changed his hobby from horse-racing to flowers, I'll +begin to expect the General to start collecting insects." + +At this George wheeled squarely upon me, and in his dark, flushed face +there was the set look of a man that has taken a high jump. + +"It's a bad plan to pin all your pleasure on one thing, Ben," he said. +"If you put all your eggs in one basket you're more than likely to stub +your toe." + +"Well, a good deal depends upon how wisely you may have chosen your +pursuit," commented the doctor, pushing his spectacles away from his +eyes to his hair, which was still thick and long; "I don't believe that +a man can make a mistake in selecting either flowers or insects for his +life's interest. The choice between the two is merely a question of +temperament, I suppose, and though I myself confess to a leaning toward +plants, I seriously considered once devoting my declining years to the +study of the habits of beetles. Your suggestion as to George, +however,--old George, I am alluding to,--is a capital one, and I shall +call his attention to it the next time I see him. He couldn't do better, +I am persuaded, than bend his remaining energies in the direction of +insects." + +He paused to drink his tea, nodding gently over the rim of his cup to +Bonny Marshall and Bessy Dandridge, who came through one of the long +windows out upon the porch. + +"So you've really stopped for a minute," remarked Bonny merrily, +swinging her floating silk train as if it were the skirt of a riding +habit, "and even Ben has fallen out of the race long enough to get a +glimpse of his wife. Have stocks tripped him up again, poor fellow? Do +you know, Sally, it's perfectly scandalous the way you are never seen in +public together. At the reception at the Governor's the other night, one +of those strange men from New York asked me if George were your husband. +Now, that's what I call positively improper--I really felt the +atmosphere of the divorce court around me when he said it--and my +grandmama assures me that if such a thing had happened to _your_ +grandmama, Caroline Matilda Fairfax, she would never have held up her +head again. 'But neither morals nor manners are what they were when +Caroline Matilda and I were young,' she added regretfully, 'and it is +due, I suppose, to the war and to the intrusion into society of all +these new people that no one ever heard of.' When I mentioned the guests +at the two last receptions I'd been to, if you will believe me, she had +never heard of a single name,--'all mushrooms,' she declared." + +Her eyes, dancing roguishly, met mine over the tea-table, and a bright +blush instantly overspread her face, as if a rose-coloured search-light +had fallen on her. + +The embarrassment which I always felt in her presence became suddenly as +acute as physical soreness, and the blush in her face served only to +illuminate her consciousness of my difference, of my roughness, of the +fact that externally, at least, I had never managed to shake myself free +from a resemblance to the market boy who had once brought his basket of +potatoes to the door of this very house. The "magnificent animal," I +knew, had never appealed to her except as it was represented in +horse-flesh; and yet the "magnificent animal" was what in her eyes I +must ever remain. I looked at George, leaning against a white column, +and his appearance of perfect self-sufficiency, his air of needing +nothing, changed my embarrassment into a smothered sensation of anger. +And as in the old days of my first great success, this anger brought +with it, through some curious association of impulses, a fierce, almost +a frenzied, desire for achievement. Here, in the little world of +tradition and sentiment, I might show still at a disadvantage, but +outside, in the open, I could respond freely to the lust for power, to +the passion for supremacy, which stirred my blood. Turning, with a +muttered excuse about letters to read, I went into the house, and closed +my study door behind me with a sense of returning to a friendly and +familiar atmosphere. + +Through the rest of the year Sally devoted herself with energy to the +cultivation of flowers; but when the following spring opened, after a +hard winter, she seemed to have grown listless and indifferent, and when +I spoke of the garden, she merely shook her head and pointed to an +unworked border at the foot of the grey-wall. + +"I can't make anything grow, Ben. All those brown sticks down there are +the only signs of the bulbs I set out last autumn with my own hands. +Nothing comes up as it ought to." + +"Perhaps you need pipes like the doctor," I suggested. + +"Oh, no, that would uproot the old shrubs, and besides, I am tired of +it, I think." + +She was lying on the couch in her sitting-room, a pile of novels on a +table beside her, and the delicacy in her appearance, the transparent +fineness of her features, of her hands, awoke in me the feeling of +anxiety I had felt so often during the year after little Benjamin's +death. + +"I'm sorry I can't get up to luncheon now, darling, but we are making a +big railroad deal. What have you been doing all day long by yourself?" + +She looked up at me, and I remembered the face of Miss Matoaca, as I had +seen it against the red firelight on the afternoon when Sally and I had +gone in to tell her of our engagement. + +"I didn't go out," she answered. "It was raining so hard that I stayed +by the fire." + +"You've been lying here all day alone?" + +"Bonny Page came in for a few minutes." + +"Have you read?" + +"No, I've been thinking." + +"Thinking of what, sweetheart?" + +"Oh, so many things. You've come up again, haven't you, Ben, splendidly! +Luck is with you, the General says, and whatever you touch prospers." + +"Yes, I've come up, but this is the crisis. If I slip now, if I make a +false move, if I draw out, I'm as dead as a door-nail. But give me five +or ten years of hard work and breathless thinking, and I'll be as big a +man as the General." + +"As the General?" she repeated gently, and played with the petals of an +American Beauty rose on the table beside her. + +"As soon as I'm secure, as soon as I can slacken work a bit, I'm going +to cut all this and take you away. We'll have a second honeymoon when +that time comes." + +"In five or ten years?" + +"Perhaps sooner. Meanwhile, isn't there something that I can do for you? +Is there anything on God's earth that you want? Would you like a string +of pearls?" + +She shook her head with a laugh. "No, I don't want a string of pearls. +Is it time now to dress for dinner?" + +"Would you mind if I didn't change, dear? I'm so tired that I shall +probably fall asleep over the dessert." + +An evening or two later, when I came up after seven o'clock, I thought +that she had been crying, and taking her in my arms, I passionately +kissed the tear marks away. + +"There's but one thing to do, Sally. You must go away. What do you say +to Europe?" + +"With you?" + +"I wish to heaven it could be with me, but if I shirk this deal now, I'm +done for, and if I stick it out, it may mean future millions. Why not +ask Bessy Dandridge?" + +"I don't think I want to go with Bessy Dandridge." + +Her tone troubled me, it was so gentle, so reserved, and walking to the +window, I stood gazing out upon the April rain that dripped softly +through the budding sycamores. I felt that I ought to go, and yet I knew +that unless I gave up my career, it was out of the question. The +railroad deal was, as I had said, very important, and if I were to +withdraw from it now, it would probably collapse and bring down on me +the odium of my associates. After my desperate failure of less than five +years ago, I was just recovering my ground, and the incidents of that +disaster were still too recent to permit me to breathe freely. My name +had suffered little because my personal tragedy had been regarded as a +part of the general panic, and I had, in the words of George +Bolingbroke, "gone to smashes with honour." Yet I was not secure now; I +had not reached the top of the ladder, but was merely mounting. "It's +for Sally's sake that I'm doing it," I said to myself, suddenly +comforted by the reflection; "without Sally the whole thing might go to +ruin and I wouldn't hold up my hand. But I must make her proud of me. I +must justify her choice in the eyes of her friends." And the balm of +this thought seemed to lighten my weight of trouble and to appease my +conscience. "It isn't as if I were doing it for myself, or my own +ambition. I am really doing it for her--everything is for her. If I can +hold on now, in a few years I'll give her millions to spend." Then I +remembered that the last time I had gone motoring with her it had +appeared to do her good, and that she had remarked she preferred a car +with a red lining. + +"I tell you what, sweetheart," I said, going back to her, "as I can't +take you away, I'll buy you a new motor car with a red lining and I'll +take you out every blessed afternoon I can get off from the office. +You'll like that, won't you?" I asked eagerly. + +"Yes, I'll like that," she replied, with an effort at animation, while +she bent her face over the rose in her hand. + +A week later I bought the motor car, the handsomest I could find, with +the softest red lining; and when May came, I went out with her whenever +I could break away from my work. But the pressure was great, the General +was failing and leaned on me, and I was over head and ears in a dozen +outside schemes that needed only my amazing energy to push them to +success. Never had my financial insight appeared so infallible, never +had my "genius" for affairs shone so brilliantly. The years of poverty +had increased, not dissipated, my influence, and I had come up all the +stronger for the experience that had sent me down. The lesson that a +weaker man might have succumbed beneath, I had absorbed into myself, and +was now making use of as I had made use of every incident, bad or good, +in my life. I passed on, I accumulated, but I did not squander. Little +things, as well as great things, served me for material, and during +those first years of my recovery, I became by far the most brilliant +figure in my world of finance. "Pile all the bu'sted stocks in the +market on his shoulders, and he'll still come out on top," chuckled the +General. "The best thing that ever happened to you, Ben, barring the +toting of potatoes, was the blow on the head that sent you under water. +A little fellow would have drowned, but you knew how to float." + +"I'd agree with you about its being the best thing, except--except for +Sally." + +"What's the matter with Sally? Is she going cracked? You know I always +said she was the image of her aunt--Miss Matoaca Bland." + +"She has never recovered. Her health seems to have given way." + +"She needs coddling, that's the manner of women and babies. Do you +coddle her? It's worth while, though some men don't know how to do it. +Lord, Lord, I remember when my poor mother was on her death-bed and my +father got on his knees and asked her if he'd been a good husband (she +was his third wife and died of her tenth child), she looked at him with +a kind of gentle resentment and replied: 'You were a saint, I suppose, +Samuel, but I'd rather have had a sinner that would have coddled me.' +She was the prim, flat-bosomed type, too, just like Miss Mitty Bland, +and my father said afterwards, crying like a baby, that he had so much +respect for her he would as soon have thought of trying to coddle a +Lombardy poplar. Poplar or mimosa tree, I tell you, they are all made +that way, every last one of them--and nothing on earth made poor Miss +Matoaca a fire-eater and a disturber of the peace except that she didn't +have a man to coddle her." + +"I give Sally everything under heaven I can think of, but she doesn't +appear to want it." + +"Keep on giving, it's the only way. You'll see her begin to pick up +presently before you know it. They ain't rational, my boy, that's the +whole truth about 'em, they ain't rational. If Miss Matoaca had belonged +to a rational sex, do you think she'd have killed herself trying to get +on an equality with us? You can't make a pullet into a rooster by +teaching it to crow, as my old mammy used to say." For a minute he was +silent, and appeared to be meditating. "I tell you what I'll do, Ben," +he said at last, with a flash of inspiration, "I'll go in with you and +see if I can't cheer up Sally a bit." + +When we reached my door, he let the reins fall over the back of his old +horse, and getting out, hobbled, with my assistance, upstairs, and into +Sally's sitting-room, where we found George Bolingbroke, looking +depressed and sullen. + +She was charmingly dressed, as usual, and as the General entered, she +came forward to meet him with the gracious manner which some one had +told me was a part, not of her Bland, but of her Fairfax inheritance. +"That's a pretty tea-gown you've got on," observed the great man, in the +playful tone in which he might have remarked to a baby that it was +wearing a beautiful bib. "You haven't been paying much attention to +fripperies of late, Ben tells me. Have you seen any hats? I don't know +anything better for a woman's low spirits, my dear, than a trip to New +York to buy a hat." + +She laughed merrily, while her eyes met George Bolingbroke's over the +General's head. + +"I bought six hats last month," she replied. + +"And you didn't feel any better?" + +"Not permanently. Then Ben got me a diamond bracelet." She held out her +arm, with the bracelet on her wrist, which looked thin and transparent. + +The General bent his bald head over the trinket, which he examined as +attentively as if it had been a report of the Great South Midland and +Atlantic Railroad. + +"Ben's got good taste," he observed; "that's a pretty bracelet." + +"Yes, it's a pretty bracelet." + +"But that didn't make you feel any brighter?" + +"Oh, I'm well," she responded, laughing. "I've just been telling George +I'm so well I'm going to a ball with him." + +"To a ball," I said; "are you strong enough for that, Sally?" + +"I'm quite strong, I'm well, I feel wildly gay." + +"It's the best thing for her," remarked the General. "Don't stop her, +Ben, let her go." + +At dinner that night, in a gorgeous lace gown, with pearls on her throat +and in her hair, she was cheerful, animated, almost, as she had said, +wildly gay. When George came for her, I put her into the carriage. + +"Are you all right?" I asked anxiously. "Are you sure you are strong +enough, Sally?" + +"Quite strong. What will you do, Ben?" + +"I've got to work. There are some papers to draw up. Don't let her stay +late, George." + +"Oh, I'll take care of her," said George. "Good-night." + +She leaned out, touching my hand. "You'll be in bed when I come back. +Good-night." + +The carriage rolled off, and entering the house I went into the library, +where I worked until twelve o'clock. Then as Sally had not returned and +I had a hard day ahead of me, I went upstairs to bed. + +She did not wake me when she came in, and in the morning I found her +sleeping quietly, with her cheek pillowed on her open palm, and a +pensive smile on her lips. After breakfast, when I came up to speak to +her before going out, she was sitting up in bed, in a jacket of blue +satin and a lace cap, drinking her coffee. + +"Did you have a good time?" I asked, kissing her. "Already you look +better." + +"I danced ever so many dances. Do you know, Ben, I believe it was +diversion I needed. I've thought too much and I'm going to stop." + +"That's right, dance on if it helps you." + +"I can't get that year on Church Hill out of my mind." + +"Forget it, sweetheart, it's over; forget it." + +"Yes, it's over," she repeated, and then as she lay back, in her blue +satin jacket, on the embroidered pillows and smiled up at me, I saw in +her face a reflection of the faint wonder which was the inherited look +of the Blands in regarding life. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +THE GROWING DISTANCE + + +The memory of this look was with me as I went, a little later, down the +block to the car line, but meeting the General at the corner, all other +matters were crowded out of my mind by the gravity of the news he leaned +out of his buggy to impart. + +"Well, it's come at last, Ben, just as I said it would," he remarked +cheerfully; "Theophilus is to be sold out at four o'clock this +afternoon." + +"I'd forgotten all about it, General, but do you really mean you will +let it come to a public auction?" + +"It's the only way on God's earth to stop his extravagance. Of course +I'm going to buy the house in at the end. I've given the agent orders. +Theophilus ain't going to suffer, but he's got to have a lesson and I'm +the only one who can teach it. A little judicious discipline right now +will make him a better and a happier man for the remainder of his life. +He's too opinionated, that's the trouble with him and always has been. +He's got some absurd idea in his head now that I ought to quit the +railroad and begin watching insects. Actually brought me a microscope +and some ants in a little box that he had had sent all the way from +California. Wanted me to build 'em a glass house in my garden, and spend +my time looking at 'em. 'Look here, Theophilus,' I said, 'I haven't come +to my dotage yet, and when I get there, I'm going to take up something a +little bigger than an insect. From a railroad to an ant is too long a +jump." + +"But this auction, General, I'm very much worried about it. You know I'd +always intended to take over that mortgage, but, to tell the truth, it +escaped my memory." + +"Oh, leave that to me, leave that to me," responded the great man +serenely. "Theophilus ain't going to suffer, but a little discipline +won't do him any harm." + +His plan was well laid, I saw, but the best-laid plans, as the great man +himself might have informed me, are not always those that are destined +to reach maturity. When I had parted from him, I fell, almost +unconsciously, to scheming on my own account, and the result was that +before going into my office, I looked up the real estate agent who had +charge of the auction, and took over the mortgage which too great an +indulgence in roses had forced upon Dr. Theophilus. In my luncheon hour +I rushed up to the house, where I found Mrs. Clay, with a big wooden +ladle in her hand, wandering distractedly between the outside kitchen +and the little garden, where the doctor was placidly spraying his roses +with a solution of kerosene oil. + +"I knew it would come," said the poor lady, in tears; "no amount of +preserves and pickles could support the extravagance of Theophilus. More +than two years ago George Bolingbroke warned me that I should end my +days in the poorhouse, and it has come at last. As for Theophilus, even +the thought of the poorhouse does not appear to disturb him. He does +nothing but walk around and repeat some foolish Latin verse about +Æquam--æquam--until I am sick of the very sound--" + +When I explained to her that the auction would be postponed, at least +for another century, she recovered her temper and her spirit, and +observed emphatically that she hoped the lesson would do Theophilus +good. + +"May I go out to him now?" + +"Oh, yes, you'll find him somewhere in the garden. He has just been in +with a watering-pot to ask for kerosene oil." + +In the centre of the gravelled walk, between the shining rows of oyster +shells, the doctor stood energetically spraying his roses. At the sound +of my step he looked round with a tranquil face, his long white hair +blowing in the breeze above his spectacles, which he wore, as usual when +he was not reading, pushed up on his forehead. + +"Ah, Ben, you find us afflicted, but not despondent," he observed. "Now +is the time, as I just remarked to Tina a minute ago, to prove the +unfailing support of a knowledge of Latin and of the poet Horace. _Æquam +memento_--" + +"I'm afraid, doctor, I haven't time for Horace," I returned, ruthlessly +cutting short his enjoyment, while the sonorous sentence still rolled in +his mouth; "but I've attended to this affair of the mortgage, and you +shan't be bothered again. Why on earth didn't you come to me sooner +about it?" + +Bending over, he plucked a rosebud with a canker at the heart, and stood +meditatively surveying it. "An Anna von Diesbach," he observed, "and +when perfect a most beautiful rose. The truth was, my boy, that I felt a +delicacy about approaching my friends in the hour of my misfortunes. Old +George I did go to in my extremity, but I fear, Ben,--I seriously fear +that I have estranged old George by making him a present of a little box +of ants. He imagines, I fancy, that I intended a reflection upon his +intelligence. Because the ant is small, he concludes, unreasonably, that +it is unworthy. On the contrary, as I endeavoured to convince him, it +possesses a degree of sagacity and foresight the human being might well +envy--" + +"I can't stop now, doctor, I'm in too great a rush, but remember, if you +ever have a few hundred dollars you'd like me to turn over for you, I'm +at your service. At all events, preserve your calm soul and leave me to +contend with your difficulties--" + +"The word 'preserve,'" commented the doctor, "though used in a different +and less practical sense, reminds me of Tina. She has sacrificed her +peace of mind to preserves, as I told her this morning. Even I should +find it impossible to maintain an equable character, if I lived in the +atmosphere of a stove and devoted my energies to a kettle. One's +occupation has, without doubt, a marked influence upon one's attitude +towards the universe. This was in my thoughts entirely when I suggested +to a man of old George's headstrong and undisciplined nature that he +would do well to investigate the habits of a sober and industrious +insect like the ant. He has led an improvident life, and I thought that +as he neared his end, whatever would promote a philosophic cast of mind +would inevitably benefit his declining years--" + +"He doesn't like to be reminded that they are declining, doctor, that's +the trouble," I returned, as I shook hands hurriedly, and went on down +the gravelled walk between the oyster shells to the gate that opened, +beyond the currant bushes, out into the street. + +My readjustment of the doctor's affairs had occupied no small part of my +working day, and it was even later than usual when I arrived at home, +too tired to consider dressing for dinner. At the door old Esdras +announced that Sally had already gone to dine with Bonny Marshall, and +would go to the theatre afterwards. + +"Was she alone, Esdras?" + +"Naw, suh, Marse George he done come fur her en ca'ried her off." + +"Well, I'll dine just as I am, and as soon as it's ready." + +The house was empty and deserted without Sally, and the perfume of a +mimosa tree, which floated in on the warm breeze as I entered the +drawing-room, came to me like the sweet, vague scent of her hair and her +gown. A dim light burned under a pink shade in one corner, and so quiet +appeared the quaint old room, with its faded cashmere rugs and its +tapestried furniture, that the eyes of the painted Blands and Fairfaxes +seemed alive as they looked down on me from the high white walls. From +his wire cage, shrouded in a silk cover, the new canary piped a single +enquiring note as he heard my step. + +I dined alone, waited on in a paternal, though condescending, manner by +old Esdras, and when I had finished my coffee I sat for a few minutes +with a cigar on the porch, where the branches of the mimosa tree in full +bloom drooped over the white railing. While I sat there, I thought +drowsily of many things--of the various financial schemes in which I was +now involved; of the big railroad deal which I had refused to shirk and +which meant possible millions; of the fact that the General was rapidly +aging, and had already spoken of resigning the presidency of the Great +South Midland and Atlantic. Then there flashed before me suddenly, in +the midst of my business reflections, the look with which Sally had +regarded me that morning while she lay, in her blue satin jacket, on the +embroidered pillows. + +"How alike all the Blands are," I thought sleepily, as I threw the end +of my cigar out into the garden and rose to go upstairs to bed; "I never +noticed until of late how much Sally is growing to resemble her Aunt +Matoaca." + +At midnight, after two hours' restless sleep, I awoke to find her +standing before the bureau, in a gown of silver gauze, which gave her an +illusive appearance of being clothed in moonlight. When I called her, +and she turned and came toward me, I saw that there was a brilliant, +unnatural look in her face, as though she had been dancing wildly or +were in a fever. And this brilliancy seemed only to accentuate the +sharpened lines of her features, with their suggestion of delicacy, of a +too transparent fineness. + +"You were asleep, Ben. I am sorry I waked you," she said. + +"What is the matter, you are so flushed?" I asked. + +"It was very warm in the theatre. I shan't go again until autumn." + +"I don't believe you are well, dear. Isn't it time for you to get out of +the city?" + +Her arms were raised to unfasten the pearl necklace at her throat, and +while I watched her face in the mirror, I saw that the flush suddenly +left it and it grew deadly white. + +"It's that queer pain in my back," she said, sinking into a chair, and +hiding her eyes in her hands. "It comes on like this without warning. +I've had it ever--ever since that year on Church Hill." + +In an instant I was beside her, catching her in my arms as she swayed +toward me. + +"What can I do for you, dearest? Shall I get you a glass of wine?" + +"No, it goes just as it comes," she answered, letting her hands fall +from her face, and looking at me with a smile. "There, I'm better now, +but I think you're right. I need to go out of the city. Even if I were +to stay here," she added, "you would be almost always away." + +"Go North with Bonny Marshall, as she suggested, and I'll join you for +two weeks in August." + +Shrinking gently out of my arms, she sat with the unfastened bodice of +her gown slipping away from her shoulders, and her face bent over the +pearl necklace which she was running back and forth through her fingers. + +"Bonny and Ned and George all want me to go to Bar Harbor," she said, +after a moment. Then she raised her eyes and looked at me with the +expression of defiance, of recklessness, I had seen in them first on the +afternoon when Beauchamp had thrown her. "If you want me to go, too, +that will decide it." + +"Of course I shall miss you,--I missed you this evening,--but I believe +it's the thing for you." + +"Then I'll go," she responded quietly, and turning away, as if the +conversation were over, she went into her dressing-room to do her hair +for the night. + +Two weeks later she went, and during her absence the long hot summer +dragged slowly by while I plunged deeper and deeper into the whirlpool +of affairs. In August I made an effort to spend the promised two weeks +with her, but on the third day of my visit, I was summoned home by a +telegram; and once back in the city, the General's rapidly failing +health kept me close as a prisoner at his side. When October came and I +met her at the station, I noticed, with my first glance, that the look +of excitement, of strained and unnatural brilliancy, had returned to her +appearance. Some inward flame, burning steadily at a white heat, shone +in her eyes and in her altered, transparent features. + +"It's good to have you back again, heaven knows," I remarked, as we +drove up the street between the scattered trees in their changing +October foliage. "The house has been like a prison." + +For the first time since she had stepped from the train, she leaned +nearer and looked at me attentively, as if she were trying to recall +some detail to her memory. + +"You're different, Ben," she said; "you look so--so careless." + +Her tone was gentle, yet it fell on my ears with a curious detachment, a +remoteness, as if in thought, at least, she were standing off somewhere +in an unapproachable place. + +"I've had nobody to keep me up and I've grown seedy," I replied, trying +to speak with lightness. "Now I'll begin grooming again, but all the +same, I've made a pretty pile of money for you this summer." + +"Oh, money!" she returned indifferently, "I've heard nothing but money +since I went away. Is there a spot on earth, I wonder, where in this age +they worship another God?" + +"I know one person who doesn't worship it, and that's Dr. Theophilus." + +She laughed softly. + +"Well, the doctor and I will have to set up a little altar of our own." + +For the first month after her return, I hoped that she had come back to +a quieter and a more healthful life; but with the beginning of the +winter season, she resumed the ceaseless rush of gaiety in which she had +lived for the last two years. She was rarely at home now in the +evenings; I came up always too tired or too busy to go out with her, and +after dining alone, without dressing, I would hurry into my study for an +hour's work with Bradley, or more often doze for a while before the +cedar logs, with a cigar in my hand. On the few occasions when she +remained at home, our conversation languished feebly because the one +subject which engrossed my thoughts was received by her with candid, if +smiling, scorn. + +"I sometimes wish, Ben," she remarked one evening while we sat by the +hearth for a few minutes before going upstairs, "that you'd begin to +learn Johnson's Dictionary again. I'm sure it's more interesting than +stocks." + +The red light of the flames shone on her exquisite fineness, on that +"look of the Blands," which lent its peculiar distinction, its +suggestion of the "something else," to her delicate features and to her +long slender figure, which had grown a little too thin. Between her and +myself, divided as we were merely by the space of the fireside, I felt +suddenly that there stretched both a mental and a physical distance; and +this sense of unlikeness,--which I had become aware of for the first +time, when she stepped from the train that October morning, between +Bonny and George,--grew upon me until I could no longer tell whether it +was my pride or my affection that suffered. I had grown careless, I +knew, of "the little things" that she prized, while I so passionately +pursued the big ones to which she appeared still indifferent. Meeting my +image in one of the old gilt-framed mirrors between the windows, I saw +that my features had taken the settled and preoccupied look of the +typical man of affairs, that my figure, needing the exercise I had had +no time for of late, had grown already unelastic and heavy. Had she +noticed, I wondered, that the "magnificent animal" was losing his hold? +Only that afternoon I had heard her laughing with George over some +trivial jest which they had not explained; and this very laughter, +because I did not understand it, had seemed, in some subtle way, to draw +them to each other and farther from me. Yet she was mine, not George's, +and the gloss on her hair, the scent of her gown, the pearls at her +throat, were all the things that my money had given her. + +"I've got terribly one-ideaed, Sally, I know," I said, answering her +remark after a long silence; "but some day, in a year or two perhaps, +when I'm stronger, more successful, I'll cut it all for a time, and +we'll go to Europe together. We'll have our second honeymoon as soon as +I can get away." + +"Remember I've a reception Thursday night, please, Ben," she responded, +brushing my sentimental suggestion lightly aside. + +"By Jove, I'm awfully sorry, but I've arranged to meet a man in New York +on Wednesday. I simply had to do it. There was no way out of it." + +"Then you won't be here?" + +"I'll make a desperate effort to get back on the seven o'clock train +from Washington. That will be in time?" + +"Yes, that will be in time. You are in New York and Washington +two-thirds of the month now." + +"It's a beastly shame, too, but it won't last." + +With a smothered yawn, she rose from her chair, and went over to the +canary cage, raising the silk cover, while she put her lips to the wires +and piped softly. + +"Dicky is fast asleep," she remarked, turning away, "and you, Ben, are +nodding. How dull the evenings are when one has nothing to do." + +The next day I went to New York, and leaving Washington on Thursday +afternoon, I had expected to reach Richmond in time to appear at Sally's +reception by nine o'clock that evening. But a wreck on the road caused +the train to be held back for several hours, and it was already late +when I jumped from the cab at my door, and hurried under the awning +across the pavement. The sound of stringed instruments playing softly +reached me as it had done so many years ago on the night when I first +crossed the threshold; and a minute afterwards, when I went hastily up +the staircase, in its covering of white, and its festoons of smilax, +pretty girls made way for me, with laughing reprimands on their lips. +Dressing as quickly as I could, I came down again and met the same +rebukes from the same charming and smiling faces. + +"You are really the most outrageous man I know," observed Bonny +Marshall, stopping me at the foot of the staircase. "Poor Sally has been +so awfully worried that she hasn't any colour, and I've advised her +simply to engage George as permanent proxy. He is taking your place this +evening quite charmingly." + +The splendour of her appearance, rather than the severity of her words, +held me bound and speechless. She was the most beautiful woman, it was +generally admitted, in all Virginia, and in her spangled gown, which +fell away from her superb shoulders, there was something brilliant and +barbaric about her that went like strong wine to the head. A minute +later she passed on, surrounded by former discarded lovers; and before +entering the drawing-room--where Sally was standing between George +Bolingbroke and a man whom I did not know--I paused behind a tub of +flowering azalea, and watched the brightly coloured gowns of the women +as they flitted back and forth over the shining floor. It was a year +since I had been out even to dine, and while I stood there, the music, +the lights, and the gaily dressed, laughing women produced in me the old +boyish consciousness of the disadvantage of my size, of my awkwardness, +of my increasing weight. I remembered suddenly the figure of President +as he had loomed on the night of our first dinner party between the +feathery palm branches in the brilliantly lighted hall; and a sense of +kinship with my own family, with my own past, awoke not in my thoughts, +but in my body. Across the threshold, only a few steps away, I could see +Sally receiving her guests in her gracious Fairfax manner, with George +and the man whom I did not know at her side; and whenever George turned +and spoke, as he did always at the right instant, I was struck by the +perfect agreement, the fitness, in their appearance. These things that +she valued--these adornments of the outside of existence--were not in my +power to bestow except when they could be bought with money. How large, +how heavy, I should have appeared there in George's place, which was +mine. For the first time in my life a contempt for mere wealth, and for +the position which the amassment of wealth confers, entered my heart. In +seeking to give money had I, in reality, sacrificed the ability to give +the things that she valued far more? Surrounded by the flowers and the +lights and the music of the stringed instruments, I saw her in my memory +framed in the long window of our bedroom on Church Hill, with the dim +grey garden behind her, and the breeze, fragrant with jessamine, blowing +the thin folds of her gown. Some clairvoyant insight, purchased, not by +success, but by the suffering of those months, opened my eyes. What I +had lost, I saw now, was Sally herself--not the outward woman, but the +inner spirit, the fineness of sympathy, the quickness of understanding. +The things that she could have taught me were the finer beauties of +life--and these I had scorned to learn because they could not be grasped +in the hands. The objective, the external, was what I had worshipped, +and our real division had come, not from the accident of our different +beginnings, but from the choice that had committed us to opposite ends. + +Some of the guests I knew, and these spoke to me as they passed; others +I had never seen, and these walked by with level abstracted eyes fixed +on the little group surrounding Sally and George. It was not only +Sally's "set"--the older aristocratic circle--that was represented, I +knew, for in the throng I recognised many of "the new people"--of the +"mushrooms," of whom Bonny's grandmama had spoken with scorn. Once +George turned and came toward the doorway, and the General, starting +somewhere from a corner, observed in his loud hilarious voice, "I don't +know what kind of husband you'd have made, George, but, by Jove, you do +mighty well as a 'hanger-on'!" + +What George's response was I could not hear, but from the dark flushed +look of his features, I judged that he had not received the attack with +his accustomed amiability. Then, as he was about to pass into the hall, +his eyes fell on me, standing behind the tub of azalea, and a low +whistle of surprise broke from his lips. + +"So here you are, Ben! We'd given you up at least three hours ago." + +"There was a wreck, and the train was delayed." + +"Well, come in and do your duty, or what remains of it. It's no fun +acting host in another man's house, when you don't know where he keeps +his cigars. Sally, Ben's turned up, after all, at the last minute, when +the hard work is over." + +Crossing the threshold, I joined the little group, shaking hands here +and there, while Sally made running comments in a voice that sounded +hopelessly animated and cheerful. She was looking very pale, there were +dark violet circles under her eyes, and her gown of some faint sea-green +shade brought out the delicate sharpened lines of her face and throat. +The flame, which had burnt so steadily for the last year, seemed to die +out slowly, in a waning flicker, while she stood there. + +George, pushing me aside, came back with a glass of wine and a biscuit. + +"Drink this, Sally," he said. "No, don't shake your head, drink it." + +She held out her hand for the glass, but after she had taken it from +him, before she could raise it to her lips, a tremor of anguish that was +almost like a convulsion passed into her face. The glass fell from her +hand, and the wine, splashing over her gown, stained it in a red streak +from bosom to hem. Her figure swayed slightly, but when I reached out my +arms to catch her, she gazed straight beyond me, with eyes which had +grown wide and bright from some physical pain. + +"George!" she said, "George!" and the name as she uttered it was an +appeal for help. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +THE BLOW THAT CLEARS + + +Until dawn the doctor was with her, but in the afternoon, when I went +into her room, I found that she had got out of bed and was dressed for +motoring. + +"Oh, I'm all right. There's nothing the matter with me except that I am +smothering for fresh air," she said almost irritably, in reply to my +remonstrances. + +"But you are ill, Sally. You are as pale as a ghost." + +She shook her head impatiently, and I noticed that the furs she wore +seemed to drag down her slender figure. + +"The wind will bring back my colour. If I lie there and think all day, I +shall go out of my mind." Her lips trembled and a quiver passed through +her face, but when I made a step toward her, she repulsed me with a +gesture which, gentle as it was, appeared to place me at a measured +distance. "I wish--oh, I wish Aunt Euphronasia wasn't dead," she said in +a whisper. + +"If you go, may I go with you?" I asked. + +For a minute she hesitated, then meeting my eyes with a glance in which +I read for the first time since I had known her, a gentle aversion, a +faint hostility, she answered quietly:-- + +"I am sorry, but I've just telephoned Bonny that I'd call for her." + +The old bruise in my heart throbbed while I turned away; but the pain +instead of melting my pride, only increased the terrible reticence which +I wore now as an armour. Her face, above the heavy furs that seemed +dragging her down, had in it something of the soft, uncompromising +obstinacy of Miss Matoaca. So delicate she appeared that I could almost +have broken her body in my grasp; yet I knew that she would not yield +though I brought the full strength of my will to bear in the struggle. +In the old days, doubtless, Matoaca Bland, then in her pride and beauty, +had faced the General with this same firmness which was as soft as +velvet yet as inflexible as steel. + +A few days after this, the great man, who had grown at last too feeble +for an active part in "affairs," resigned the presidency of the South +Midland, and retired, as he said, "to enjoy his second childhood." + +"It's about time for Theophilus to bring around his box of ants, I +reckon," he observed, and added seriously after a moment, "Yes, there's +no use trying to prop up a fallen tree, Ben. I've had a long life and a +good life, and I am willing to draw out. It's a losing game any way you +play it, when it comes to that. I've thought a lot about it, my boy, +these last weeks, and I tell you the only thing that sticks by you to +the last is the love of a woman. If you need a woman when you are young, +you need her ten thousand times more when you're old. If Miss Matoaca +had married me, we'd both of us have been a long ways better off." + +That night I told Sally of the resignation, and repeated to her a part +of the conversation. The sentimental allusion to Miss Matoaca she +treated with scorn, but after a few thoughtful moments she said:-- + +"You've always wanted to be president of the South Midland more than +anything in the world?" + +"More than anything in the world," I admitted absently. + +"There's a chance now?" + +"Yes, I suppose there's a chance now." + +She said nothing more, but the next morning as I was getting into my +overcoat, she sent me word that she wished to speak to me again before I +went out. + +"I'll be up in a minute," I answered, and I had turned to follow the +maid up the staircase, when a sharp ring at the telephone distracted my +attention. + +"Come down in five minutes if you can," said a voice. "You're wanted +badly about the B. and R. deal." + +"Is your mistress ill?" I enquired, turning from the telephone to take +up my overcoat. + +"I think not, sir," replied the woman, "she is dressing." + +"Then tell her I'm called away, but I will see her at luncheon," I +answered hurriedly, as I rushed out. + +Upon reaching my office, I found that my presence was required in +Washington before two o'clock, and as I had not time to return home, I +telephoned Sally for my bag, which she sent down to the station by +Micah, the coachman. + +"I hope to return early to-morrow," I said to the negro from the +platform, as the train pulled out. + +In my anxiety over the possible collapse of the important B. and R. +deal, the message that Sally had sent me that morning was crowded for +several hours out of my thoughts. When I remembered it later in the +afternoon, I sent her a telegram explaining my absence; and my +conscience, which had troubled me for a moment, was appeased by this +attention that would prove to her that even in the midst of my business +worries I had not forgotten her. There was, indeed, I assured myself, no +cause for the sudden throb of anxiety, almost of apprehension, I had +felt at the recollection of the message that I had disregarded. She had +looked stronger yesterday; I had commented at dinner on the fine flush +in her cheeks; and the pain, which had caused me such sharp distress +while it lasted, had vanished entirely for the last thirty-six hours. +Then the sound of her voice, with its note of appeal, of helplessness, +of terror, when she had called upon George at the reception, returned to +me as if it were spoken audibly somewhere in my brain. I saw her eyes, +wide and bright, as they had been when they looked straight beyond me in +search of help, and her slender, swaying figure in its gown of a pale +sea-foam shade that was stained from bosom to hem with the red streak of +the wine. "Yet there is nothing to worry about," I thought, annoyed +because I could not put this anxiety, this apprehension, out of my mind. +"She is not ill. She is better. Only last night I heard her laughing as +she has not done for weeks." + +The afternoon was crowded with meetings, and it was three o'clock the +next day when I reached home and asked eagerly for Sally as I went up +the staircase. She had gone out, her maid informed me, but I would find +a note she had left on my desk in the library. Turning hastily back, I +took up the note from the silver blotter beneath which it was lying, and +as I opened it, I saw that the address looked tremulous and uncertain, +as if it had been written in haste or excitement. + + "Dear Ben (it read), I have been in trouble, and as I do not wish + to disturb you at this time, I am going away for a few days to + think it over. I shall be at Riverview, the old place on James + River where mamma and I used to stay--but go ahead with the South + Midland, and don't worry about me, it is all right. + + "SALLY." + +"I have been in trouble," I repeated slowly. "What trouble, and why +should she keep it from me? Oh, because of the presidency of the South +Midland! Damn the South Midland!" I said suddenly aloud. A time-table +was on my desk, and looking into it, I found that a train left for +Riverview in half an hour. I rang the bell and old Esdras appeared to +announce luncheon. + +"I want nothing to eat. Bring me a cup of coffee. I must catch a train +in a few minutes." + +"Fur de Lawd's sake, Marse Ben," exclaimed the old negro, "you ain' +never gwineter res' at home agin." + +Still grumbling he brought the coffee, and I was standing by the desk +with the cup raised to my lips, when the front door opened and shut +sharply, and the General came into the room, leaning upon two +gold-headed walking-sticks. He looked old and tired, and more than ever, +in his fur-lined overcoat, like a wounded eagle. + +"Ben," he said, "what's this Hatty tells me about George taking Sally +out motoring with him yesterday, and not bringing her back? Has there +been an accident?" + +My arteries drummed in my ears, and for a minute the noise shut out all +other sounds. Then I heard a carriage roll by in the street, and the +faint regular ticking of the small clock on the mantel. + +"Sally is at Riverview," I answered, "I am going down to her on the next +train." + +"Then where in the devil is George? He went off with her." + +"George may be there, too. I hope he is. She needs somebody with her." + +A purple flush rose to the General's face, and the expression in his +small, watery grey eyes held me speechless. + +"Confound you, Ben!" he exclaimed, in a burst of temper, "do you mean to +tell me you don't know that George's blamed foolishness is the talk of +the town? Why, he hasn't let Sally out of his sight for the last two +years." + +"No, I didn't know it," I replied. + +"Great Scott! Where are your wits?" + +"In the stock market," I answered bitterly. Then something in me, out of +the chaos and the darkness, rose suddenly, as if with wings, into the +light. "Of course Sally is an angel, General, we both know that--but how +she could have helped seeing that George is the better man of us, I +don't for a minute pretend to understand." + +"Well, I never had much opinion of George," responded the General. "It +always seemed to me that he ought to have made a great deal more of +himself than he has done." + +"What he has made of himself," I answered, and my voice sounded harsh in +my ears, "is the man that Sally ought to have married." + +I went out hurriedly, forgetting to assist him, and limping painfully, +he followed me to the porch, and called after me as I ran down into the +street. Looking back, as I turned the corner, I saw him getting with +difficulty into his buggy, which waited beside the curbing, and it +seemed to me that his great bulky figure, in his fur-lined overcoat, was +unreal and intangible like the images that one sees in sleep. + +The train was about to pull out as I entered the station, and swinging +on to the rear coach, I settled myself into the first chair I came to, +which happened to be directly behind the shining bald head and red neck +of a man I knew. As I shrank back, he turned, caught sight of me, and +held out his hand with an easy air of good-fellowship. + +"So General Bolingbroke has retired from the South Midland and Atlantic +Railroad, I hear," he remarked. "Well, there's a big job waiting for +somebody, but he'll have to be a big man to fit it." + +A sudden ridiculous annoyance took possession of me; the General, the +South Midland Railroad, and the bald-headed man before me, all appeared +to enter my consciousness like small, stinging gnats that swarmed about +larger bodies. What was the railroad to me, if I had lost Sally? Had I +lost her? Was it possible to win her again? "I am in trouble," the words +whirled in my thoughts, "and as I do not wish to disturb you at this +time, I have gone off for a few days to think it over." Was the trouble +associated with George Bolingbroke? Did she mind the gossip? Did she +think I should mind it? Whatever it was, why didn't she come to me and +weep it out on my breast? "I didn't want to disturb you at this time." +At this time? That was because of the South Midland and Atlantic +Railroad. "Damn the South Midland and Atlantic Railroad!" I said again +under my breath. + +The red neck of the bald-headed man in front of me suddenly turned. + +"Going down for a little hunting?" he enquired genially, "there isn't +much else, I reckon, to take a man like you down into this half-baked +country. I hear the partridges are getting scarce, and they are going to +bring a bill into the Legislature forbidding the sending of them outside +of the state. Now, that's a direct slap, I say, at the small farmer. A +bird is a bird, ain't it, even if it's a Virginia partridge?" + +I rose and took up my overcoat. "I'll go into the smoking-car. They keep +it too hot here." + +He nodded cheerfully. "I was in there myself, but it's like an oven, +too, so I came out." Then he unfolded his newspaper, and I passed +hurriedly down the aisle of the coach. + +In the smoking-car the air was like the fumes in the stemming room of a +tobacco factory, but lighting a cigar, I leaned back on one of the hard, +plush-covered seats, and stared out at the low, pale landscape beyond +the window. It was late November, and the sombre colours of the fields +and of the leafless trees showed through a fine autumnal mist, which +lent an atmosphere of melancholy to the stretches of fallow land, to the +harvested corn-fields, in which the stubble stood in rows, like a +headless army, and to the long red-clay road winding, deep in mud, to +the distant horizon. + +"I am in trouble--I am in trouble," I heard always above the roar of the +train, above the shrill whistle of the engine, as it rounded a curve, +above the thin, drawling voices of my fellow-passengers, disputing a +question in politics. "I am in trouble," ran the words. "What trouble? +What trouble? What trouble?" I repeated passionately, while my teeth bit +into my cigar, and the flame went out. "So George hasn't let her out of +his sight for two years, and I did not know it. For two years! And in +these two years how much have I seen of her--of Sally, my wife? We have +been living separate lives under the same roof, and when she asked me +for bread, I have given her--pearls!" A passion of remorse gripped me at +the throat like the spring of a beast. Pearls for bread, and that to +Sally--to my wife, whom I loved! The melancholy landscape at which I +looked appeared to divide and dissolve, and she came back to me, not as +I had last seen her, weighed down by the furs which were too heavy, but +in her blue gingham apron with the jagged burn on her wrist, and the +patient, divine smile hovering about her lips. If she went from me now, +it would be always the Sally of that year of poverty, of suffering, that +I had lost. In the future she would haunt me, not in her sea-green gown, +with the jewels on her bosom, but in her gingham apron with the sleeves +rolled back from her reddened arms and the jagged scar from the burn +disfiguring her flesh. + +"I'll see him in hell, before I'll vote for him!" called out a voice at +my back, in a rage. + +The train pulled into the little wayside station of Riverview, and +getting out, I started on the walk of two miles through the flat, brown +fields to the house. The road was heavy with mud, and it was like +ploughing to keep straight on in the single red-clay furrow which the +wheels of passing wagons had left. All was desolate, all was deserted, +and the only living things I saw between the station and the house were +a few lonely sheep browsing beside a stream, and the brown-winged birds +that flew, with wet plumage, across the road. + +When I reached the ruined gateway of Riverview, the old estate of the +Blands', I quickened my pace, and went rapidly up the long drive to the +front of the house, where I saw the glimmer of red firelight on the +ivied window-panes in the west wing. As I ascended the steps, there was +a sound on the gravel, and George Bolingbroke came around the corner of +the house, in hunting clothes, with a setter dog at his heels. + +"Hello, Ben!" he remarked, half angrily. "So you've turned up, have you? +Has there been another panic in the market?" + +"Is Sally here?" I asked. "I'm anxious about her." + +"Well, it's time you were," he answered. "Yes, she's inside." + +He stopped in the centre of the walk, and turning from the door, I came +back and faced him in a silence that seemed alive with the beating of +innumerable wings in the air. + +"Something's wrong, George," I said at last, breaking through my +restraint. + +He looked at me with a calm, enquiring gaze while I was speaking, and by +that look I understood, in an inspiration, he had condemned me. + +"Yes, something's wrong," he answered quietly, "but have you just found +it out?" + +"I haven't found it out yet. What is it? What is the matter?" + +At the question his calmness deserted him and the dark flush of anger +broke suddenly in his face. + +"The matter is, Ben," he replied, holding himself in with an effort, +"that you've missed being a fool only by being a genius instead." + +Then turning away, as if his temper had got the better of him, he strode +back through a clump of trees on the lawn, while I went up the steps +again, and crossing the cold hall, entered the dismantled drawing-room, +where a bright log fire was burning. + +Sally was sitting on the hearth, half hidden by the high arms of the +chair, and as I closed the door behind me, she rose and stood looking at +me with an expression of surprise. So had Miss Mitty and Miss Matoaca +looked in the firelight on that November afternoon when Sally and I had +gone in together. + +"Why, Ben!" she said quietly, "I thought you were in Washington!" + +"I got home this morning and found your note. Sally, what is the +trouble?" + +"You came after me?" + +"I came after you. The General went wild and imagined that there had +been an accident, or George had run off with you." + +"Then the General sent you?" + +"Nobody sent me. I was leaving the house when he found me." + +She had not moved toward me, and for some reason, I still stood where I +had stopped short in the centre of the room, kept back by the reserve, +the detachment in her expression. + +"You came believing that George and I had gone off together?" she asked, +and there was a faint hostility in her voice. + +"Of course I didn't believe it. I'm not a fool if I am an ass. But if I +had believed it," I added passionately, "it would have made no +difference. I'd have come after you if you'd gone off with twenty +Georges." + +"Well, there's only one," she said, "and I did go off with him." + +"It makes no difference." + +"We left Richmond at ten o'clock yesterday, and we've been here ever +since." + +"What does that matter?" + +"You mean it doesn't matter that I came away with George and spent +twenty-four hours?" + +"I mean that nothing matters--not if you'd spent twenty-four years." + +"I suppose it doesn't," she responded quietly, and there was a curious +remoteness, a hollowness in the sound of the words. "When one comes to +see things as they are, nothing really matters. It is all just the +same." + +Her face looked unsubstantial and wan in the firelight, and so ethereal, +so fleshless, appeared her figure, that it seemed to me I could see +through it to the shining of the flames before which she stood. + +"I can't talk, Sally," I said, "I am not good at words, I believe I'm +more than half a fool as George has just told me--but--but--I want +you--I've always wanted you--I've never in my heart wanted anything in +the world but you--" + +"I don't suppose even that matters much," she answered wearily, "but if +you care to know, Ben, George and Bonny found me when I was alone +and--and very unhappy, and they brought me with them when they came down +to hunt. They are hunting now." + +"You were alone and unhappy?" I said, for George Bolingbroke and Bonny +Marshall had faded from me into the region of utterly indifferent +things. + +"It was that I wanted to tell you the morning you couldn't wait," she +returned gently; "I had kept it from you the night before because I saw +that you were so tired and needed sleep. But--but I had seen two +doctors, both had told me that I was ill, that I had some trouble of the +spine, that I might be an invalid--a useless invalid, if I lived, +that--that there would never be another child--that--" + +Her voice faltered and ceased, for crossing the room with a bound, I had +gathered her to my breast, and was bending over her in an intensity, a +violence of love, crushing back her hands on her bosom, while I kissed +her face, her throat, her hair, her dress even, as I had never kissed +her in the early days of our marriage. The passion of happiness in that +radiant prime was pale and bloodless beside the passion of sorrow which +shook me now. + +"Stop, stop, Ben," she said, struggling to be free, "let me go. You are +hurting me." + +"I shall never stop, I shall never let you go," I answered, "I shall +hold you forever, even if it hurts you." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +THE ULTIMATE CHOICE + + +We carried her home next day in George's motor car, ploughing with +difficulty over the heavy roads, which in a month's time would have +become impassable. A golden morning had followed the rain; the sun shone +clear, the wind sang in the bronzed tree-tops, and on the low hills to +the right of us, the harvested corn ricks stood out illuminated against +a deep blue sky. When the brown-winged birds flew, as they sometimes +did, across the road, her eyes measured their flight with a look in +which there was none of the radiant impulse I had seen on that afternoon +when she gazed after the flying swallows. She spoke but seldom, and then +it was merely to thank me when I wrapped the fur rug about her, or to +reply to a question of George's with a smile that had in it a touching +helplessness, a pathetic courage. And this helplessness, this courage, +brought to my memory the sound of her voice when she had called George's +name aloud in her terror. Even after we had reached home, and when she +and I stood alone, for a minute, before the fire in her room, I felt +still that something within her--something immaterial and flamelike that +was her soul--turned from me, seeking always a clearer and a diviner +air. + +"Are you in pain now, Sally? What can I do for you?" I asked. + +"No, I am better. Don't worry," she answered. + +Then, because there seemed nothing further to say, I stood in silence, +while she moved from me, as if the burden of her weight was too much for +her, and sank down on the couch, hiding her face in the pillows. + +Two days later there came down a great specialist from New York for a +consultation; and while he was upstairs in her closed bedroom, I walked +up and down the floor of the library, over the Turkish rugs, between the +black oak bookcases, as I had walked in that other house on the night of +my failure. How small a thing that seemed to me now compared with this! +What I remembered best from that night was the look in her face when she +had turned and run back to me with her arms outstretched, and the warm, +flattened braid of her hair that had brushed my cheek. I understood at +last, as I walked restlessly back and forth, waiting for the verdict +from the closed room, that I had been happy then--if I had only known +it! The warmth stifled me, and going to the window, I flung it open, and +leaned out into the mild November weather. In the street below leaves +were burning, and while the odour floated up to me I saw again her red +shoes dancing over the sunken graves in the churchyard. + +The door opened above, there was the sound of a slow heavy tread on the +staircase, and I went forward to meet the great specialist as he came +into the room. + +For a minute he looked at me enquiringly over a pair of black-rimmed +glasses, while I stood there neither thinking nor feeling, but waiting. +Something in my brain, which until then had seemed to tick the slow +movement of time, came suddenly to a stop like a clock that has run +down. + +"In my opinion an operation is unnecessary, Mr. Starr," he said, drawing +out his watch as he spoke, "and in your wife's present condition I +seriously advise against it. The injury to the spine may not be +permanent, but there is only one cure for it--time--time and rest. To +make recovery possible she should have absolute quiet, absolute freedom +from care. She must be taken to a milder climate,--I would suggest +southern California,--and she must be kept free from mental disturbance +for a number of years." + +"In that case there is hope of recovery?" + +For an instant he stared at me blankly, his gaze wandering from his +watch to the clock on the mantel, as if there were a discrepancy in the +time, which he would like to correct. + +"Ah, yes, hope," he replied suddenly, in a cheerful voice, "there is +always hope." Then having uttered his confession of faith, he appeared +to grow nervous. "Have you a time-table on your desk?" he enquired. "I'd +like to look up an earlier train than the Florida special." + +Having looked up his train, he turned to shake hands with me, while the +abstracted and preoccupied expression in his face grew a trifle more +human, as if he had found what he wanted. + +"What your wife needs, my dear sir," he remarked, as he went out, "is +not medical treatment, but daily and hourly care." + +A minute later, when the front door had closed after him, and the motor +car had borne him on his way to the station, I stood alone in the room, +repeating his words with a kind of joy, as if they contained the secret +of happiness for which I had sought. "Daily and hourly care, daily and +hourly care." I tried to think clearly of what it meant--of the love, +the sacrifice, the service that would go into it. I tried, too, to think +of her as she was lying now, still and pale in the room upstairs, with +the expression of touching helplessness, of pathetic courage, about her +mouth; but even as I made the effort, the scent of burning leaves +floated again through the window and I could see her only in her red +shoes dancing over the sunken graves. "Daily and hourly care," I +repeated aloud. + +The words were still on my lips when old Esdras, stepping softly, came +in and put a telegram into my hands, and as I tore it open, I said over +slowly, like one who impresses a fact on the memory, "What your wife +needs is daily and hourly care." Ah, she should have it. How she should +have it! Then my eyes fell on the paper, and before I read the words, I +knew that it was the offer of the presidency of the Great South Midland +and Atlantic Railroad. The end of my ambition, the great adventure of my +boyhood, lay in my grasp. + +With the telegram still in my hand, I went up the staircase, and entered +the bedroom where Sally was lying, with wide, bright eyes, in the +dimness. + +"It's good news," I said, as I bent over her, "there's only good news +to-day." + +She looked up at me with that searching brightness I had seen when she +gazed straight beyond me for the help that I could not give. + +"It means going away from everything I have ever known," she said +slowly; "it means leaving you, Ben." + +"It means never leaving me again in your life," I replied; "not for a +day--not for an hour." + +"You will go, too?" she asked, and the faint wonder in her face pierced +to my heart. + +"Do you think I'd be left?" I demanded. + +Her eyes filled and as she turned from me, a tear fell on my hand. + +"But your work, your career--oh, no, no, Ben, no." + +"You are my career, darling, I have never in my heart had any career but +you. What I am, I am yours, Sally, but there are things that I cannot +give you because they are not mine, because they are not in me. These +are the things that were George's." + +Lifting my hand she kissed it gently and let it fall with a gesture that +expressed an acquiescence in life rather than a surrender to love. + +"I've sometimes thought that if I hadn't loved you first, Ben--if I +could ever have changed, I should have loved George," she said, and +added very softly, like one who seeks to draw strength from a radiant +memory, "but I had already loved you once for all, I suppose, in the +beginning." + +"I am yours, such as I am," I returned. "Plain I shall always be--plain +and rough sometimes, and forgetful to the end of the little things--but +the big things are there as you know, Sally, as you know." + +"As I know," she repeated, a little sadly, yet with the pathetic courage +in her voice; "and it is the big things, after all, that I've wanted +most all my life." + +Then she shook her head with a smile that brought me to my knees at her +side. + +"You've forgotten the railroad," she said. "You've forgotten the +presidency of the South Midland--that's what _you_ wanted most." + +My laugh answered her. "Hang the presidency of the South Midland!" I +responded gaily. + +Her brows went up, and she looked at me with the shadow of her old +charming archness. By this look I knew that the spirit of the Blands +would fight on, though always with that faint wonder. Then her eyes fell +on the crumpled telegram I still held in my hand, and she reached to +take it. + +"What is that, dear?" she asked. + +Breaking away from her, I walked to the fireplace and tossed the offer +of the presidency of the South Midland and Atlantic Railroad into the +grate. It caught slowly, and I stood there while it flamed up, and then +crumbled with curled fiery ends among the ashes. When it was quite gone, +I turned and came back to her. + +"Only a bit of waste paper," I answered. + + + + +Mr. JAMES LANE ALLEN'S NOVELS + + +The Choir Invisible + + "One reads the story for the story's sake, and then re-reads the + book out of pure delight in its beauty. The story is American to + the very core.... Mr. Allen stands to-day in the front rank of + American novelists. _The Choir Invisible_ will solidify a + reputation already established and bring into clear light his rare + gifts as an artist. For this latest story is as genuine a work of + art as has come from an American hand."--Hamilton Mabie in _The + Outlook_. + + +The Reign of Law. A Tale of the Kentucky Hempfields + + "Mr. Allen has a style as original and almost as perfectly finished + as Hawthorne's, and he has also Hawthorne's fondness for spiritual + suggestion that makes all his stories rich in the qualities that + are lacking in so many novels of the period.... If read in the + right way, it cannot fail to add to one's spiritual + possessions."--_San Francisco Chronicle._ + + +The Mettle of the Pasture + + "It may be that _The Mettle of the Pasture_ will live and become a + part of our literature; it certainly will live far beyond the + allotted term of present-day fiction. Our principal concern is that + it is a notable novel, that it ranks high in the range of American + and English fiction, and that it is worth the reading, the + re-reading, and the continuous appreciation of those who care for + modern literature at its best."--By E. F. E. in the _Boston + Transcript_. + +Summer in Arcady. A Tale of Nature + + "This story by James Lane Allen is one of the gems of the season. + It is artistic in its setting, realistic and true to nature and + life in its descriptions, dramatic, pathetic, tragic, in its + incidents; indeed, a veritable masterpiece that must become + classic. It is difficult to give an outline of the story; it is one + of the stories which do not outline; it must be read."--_Boston + Daily Advertiser._ + + +_Shorter Stories_ + + The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky + Flute and Violin, and Other Kentucky Tales + The Bride of the Mistletoe + A Kentucky Cardinal. + Aftermath. A Sequel to "A Kentucky Cardinal" + + + + +Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS + + +Mr. Crawford has no equal as a writer of brilliant cosmopolitan fiction, +in which the characters really belong to the chosen scene and the story +interest is strong. His novels possess atmosphere in a high degree. + +Mr. Isaacs (India) + +Its scenes are laid in Simla, chiefly. This is the work which first +placed its author among the most brilliant novelists of his day. + +Greifenstein (The Black Forest) + +"... Another notable contribution to the literature of the day. It +possesses originality in its conception and is a work of unusual +ability. Its interest is sustained to the close, and it is an advance +even on the previous work of this talented author. Like all Mr. +Crawford's work, this novel is crisp, clear, and vigorous, and will be +read with a great deal of interest."--_New York Evening Telegram._ + +Zoroaster (Persia) + +"It is a drama in the force of its situations and in the poetry and +dignity of its language; but its men and women are not men and women of +a play. By the naturalness of their conversation and behavior they seem +to live and lay hold of our human sympathy more than the same characters +on a stage could possibly do."--_The New York Times._ + +The Witch of Prague (Bohemia) + +"_A fantastic tale," illustrated by W. J. Hennessy._ + +"The artistic skill with which this extraordinary story is constructed +and carried out is admirable and delightful.... Mr. Crawford has scored +a decided triumph, for the interest of the tale is sustained +throughout.... A very remarkable, powerful, and interesting +story."--_New York Tribune._ + +Paul Patoff (Constantinople) + +"Mr. Crawford has a marked talent for assimilating local color, not to +make mention of a broader historical sense. Even though he may adopt, as +it is the romancer's right to do, the extreme romantic view of history, +it is always a living and moving picture that he evolves for us, varied +and stirring."--_New York Evening Post._ + +Marietta (Venice) + +"No living writer can surpass Mr. Crawford in the construction of a +complicated plot and the skilful unravelling of the tangled +skein."--_Chicago Record-Herald._ + +"He has gone back to the field of his earlier triumphs, and has, +perhaps, scored the greatest triumph of them all."--_New York Herald._ + + +THE SARACINESCA SERIES + +Saracinesca + +"The work has two distinct merits, either of which would serve to make +it great,--that of telling a perfect story in a perfect way, and of +giving a graphic picture of Roman society in the last days of the Pope's +temporal power.... The story is exquisitely told."--_Boston Traveler._ + +Sant' Ilario. A Sequel to "Saracinesca" + +"A singularly powerful and beautiful story.... It fulfils every +requirement of artistic fiction. It brings out what is most impressive +in human action, without owing any of its effectiveness to +sensationalism or artifice. It is natural, fluent in evolution, +accordant with experience, graphic in description, penetrating in +analysis, and absorbing in interest."--_New York Tribune._ + +Don Orsino. A Sequel to "Sant' Ilario" + +"Perhaps the cleverest novel of the year.... There is not a dull +paragraph in the book, and the reader may be assured that once begun, +the story of _Don Orsino_ will fascinate him until its close."--_The +Critic._ + +Taquisara + +"To Mr. Crawford's Roman novels belongs the supreme quality of uniting +subtly drawn characters to a plot of uncommon interest."--_Chicago +Tribune._ + +Corleone + +"Mr. Crawford is the novelist born ... a natural story-teller, with wit, +imagination, and insight added to a varied and profound knowledge of +social life."--_The Inter-Ocean_, Chicago. + +Casa Braccio. _In two volumes, $2.00._ Illustrated by A. Castaigne. + +"Mr. Crawford's books have life, pathos, and insight; he tells a +dramatic story with many exquisite touches."--_New York Sun._ + +The White Sister + + +NOVELS OF ROMAN SOCIAL LIFE + +A Roman Singer + +"One of the earliest and best works of this famous novelist.... None but +a genuine artist could have made so true a picture of human life, +crossed by human passions and interwoven with human weakness. It is a +perfect specimen of literary art."--_The Newark Advertiser._ + +Marzio's Crucifix + +"We have repeatedly had occasion to say that Mr. Crawford possesses in +an extraordinary degree the art of constructing a story. It is as if it +could not have been written otherwise, so naturally does the story +unfold itself, and so logical and consistent is the sequence of incident +after incident. As a story, _Marzio's Crucifix_ is perfectly +constructed."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ + +Heart of Rome. A Tale of the Lost Water + +"Mr. Crawford has written a story of absorbing interest, a story with a +genuine thrill in it; he has drawn his characters with a sure and +brilliant touch, and he has said many things surpassingly well."--_New +York Times Saturday Review._ + +Cecilia. A Story of Modern Rome + +"That F. Marion Crawford is a master of mystery needs no new telling.... +His latest novel, _Cecilia_, is as weird as anything he has done since +the memorable _Mr. Isaacs_.... A strong, interesting, dramatic story, +with the picturesque Roman setting beautifully handled as only a +master's touch could do it."--_Philadelphia Evening Telegraph._ + +Whosoever Shall Offend + +"It is a story sustained from beginning to end by an ever increasing +dramatic quality."--_New York Evening Post._ + +Pietro Ghisleri + +"The imaginative richness, the marvellous ingenuity of plot, the power +and subtlety of the portrayal of character, the charm of the romantic +environment,--the entire atmosphere, indeed,--rank this novel at once +among the great creations."--_The Boston Budget._ + +To Leeward + +"The four characters with whose fortunes this novel deals are, perhaps, +the most brilliantly executed portraits in the whole of Mr. Crawford's +long picture gallery, while for subtle insight into the springs of human +passion and for swift dramatic action none of the novels surpasses this +one."--_The News and Courier._ + +A Lady of Rome + +Via Crucis. A Romance of the Second Crusade. + +"_Via Crucis...._ A tale of former days, possessing an air of reality +and an absorbing interest such as few writers since Scott have been able +to accomplish when dealing with historical characters."--_Boston +Transcript._ + +In the Palace of the King (Spain) + +"_In the Palace of the King_ is a masterpiece; there is a +picturesqueness, a sincerity which will catch all readers in an +agreeable storm of emotion, and even leave a hardened reviewer impressed +and delighted."--_Literature_, London. + +With the Immortals + +"The strange central idea of the story could have occurred only to a +writer whose mind was very sensitive to the current of modern thought +and progress, while its execution, the setting it forth in proper +literary clothing, could be successfully attempted only by one whose +active literary ability should be fully equalled by his power of +assimilative knowledge both literary and scientific, and no less by his +courage and capacity for hard work. The book will be found to have a +fascination entirely new for the habitual reader of novels. Indeed, Mr. +Crawford has succeeded in taking his readers quite above the ordinary +plane of novel interest."--_Boston Advertiser._ + +Children of the King (Calabria) + +"One of the most artistic and exquisitely finished pieces of work that +Crawford has produced. The picturesque setting, Calabria and its +surroundings, the beautiful Sorrento and the Gulf of Salerno, with the +bewitching accessories that climate, sea, and sky afford, give Mr. +Crawford rich opportunities to show his rare descriptive powers. As a +whole the book is strong and beautiful through its simplicity, and ranks +among the choicest of the author's many fine productions."--_Public +Opinion._ + +A Cigarette Maker's Romance (Munich) + +and Khaled, a Tale of Arabia + +"Two gems of subtle analysis of human passion and motive."--_Times._ + +"The interest is unflagging throughout. Never has Mr. Crawford done more +brilliant realistic work than here. But his realism is only the case and +cover for those intense feelings which, placed under no matter what +humble conditions, produce the most dramatic and the most tragic +situations.... This is a secret of genius, to take the most coarse and +common material, the meanest surroundings, the most sordid material +prospects, and out of the vehement passions which sometimes dominate all +human beings to build up with these poor elements, scenes and passages +the dramatic and emotional power of which at once enforce attention and +awaken the profoundest interest."--_New York Tribune._ + +Arethusa (Constantinople) + +Dr. Cooper, in _The Bookman_, once gave to Mr. Crawford the title which +best marks his place in modern fiction: "the prince of storytellers." + +A Tale of a Lonely Parish + +"It is a pleasure to have anything so perfect of its kind as this brief +and vivid story.... It is doubly a success, being full of human +sympathy, as well as thoroughly artistic in its nice balancing of the +unusual with the commonplace, the clever juxtaposition of innocence and +guilt, comedy and tragedy, simplicity and intrigue."--_Critic._ + +Dr. Claudius. A True Story + +The scene changes from Heidelberg to New York, and much of the story +develops during the ocean voyage. + +"There is a satisfying quality in Mr. Crawford's strong, vital, forceful +stories."--_Boston Herald._ + +An American Politician. The scenes are laid in Boston + +"It need scarcely be said that the story is skilfully and picturesquely +written, portraying sharply individual characters in well-defined +surroundings."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ + +The Three Fates + +"Mr. Crawford has manifestly brought his best qualities as a student of +human nature and his finest resources as a master of an original and +picturesque style to bear upon this story. Taken for all in all, it is +one of the most pleasing of all his productions in fiction, and it +affords a view of certain phases of American, or perhaps we should say +of New York, life that have not hitherto been treated with anything like +the same adequacy and felicity."--_Boston Beacon._ + +Marion Darche + +"Full enough of incident to have furnished material for three or four +stories.... A most interesting and engrossing book. Every page unfolds +new possibilities, and the incidents multiply rapidly."--_Detroit Free +Press._ + +"We are disposed to rank _Marion Darche_ as the best of Mr. Crawford's +American stories."--_The Literary World._ + +Katharine Lauderdale + +The Ralstons. A Sequel to "Katharine Lauderdale" + +"Mr. Crawford at his best is a great novelist, and in _Katharine +Lauderdale_ we have him at his best."--_Boston Daily Advertiser._ + +"A most admirable novel, excellent in style, flashing with humor, and +full of the ripest and wisest reflections upon men and women."--_The +Westminster Gazette._ + +"It is the first time, we think, in American fiction that any such +breadth of view has shown itself in the study of our social +framework."--_Life._ + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Romance of a Plain Man, by Ellen Glasgow + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30299 *** |