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18. profit. I used to feel that someone ought in conscience to explain
Mrs. Botlisch to Muriel, to apologise for that really terrible old
woman; the irritating thing was that Muriel accepted her without
comment, exactly as she accepted the rest of us—as if, I thought
with annoyance, we were all freaks together! "Mazie's grandmother
is not—well—er—she's not at all—you know?" I said, feeling,
notwithstanding this public-spirited effort, a little embarrassed under
Muriel's direct, serious gaze. "Mrs. Botlisch is—well, she's really not—
er—very good style, nobody else here is like her—you must have
noticed it. She's awfully common—of course, we didn't know much
about the Pallinders before they came here—nobody knows how
they—they got in, you see——"
"I shouldn't think you'd come to the house so much if you feel that
way," said Muriel. "I wouldn't."
She did not mean it as a rebuke; she was only saying, as usual,
precisely what she thought. But all at once, with the
uncompromising harshness of youth, I saw and denounced myself
inwardly for a petty groundling, eating people's bread with a covert
sneer, and parading their shortcomings before a stranger. No, Muriel
would not have done it. Noblesse oblige!
The Pallinders, to their honour be it said, never seemed to be
ashamed of Mrs. Botlisch. They had their notions of noblesse oblige,
too, strange as that may sound. Reflecting upon it now, I see certain
a heroism in the respect they paid that dreadful, screeching, vile-
tongued old termagant. I have known prosperous, reputable
families, who paid the butcher and thought it a sin to play cards,
wherein the unornamental older members were not treated with
one-half the consideration these kind-hearted, conscienceless
outlaws bestowed on Mrs. Botlisch. She was a fat harridan of
seventy with a blotched red face, a great, coarse, husky voice like a
man's and thick hands, the nails bitten down to the quick. She liked
to go about without corsets or shoes in a shapeless gaberdine she
called a double-gown—not too clean at that. She kept a bottle of
whisky on her mantelpiece; she had a disconcerting habit of
19. whisking out her teeth and laying them down wherever she chanced
to be; you might come upon them grinning amongst Mazie's music
on the piano, or under the sofa-cushions. She frankly enjoyed a
loose story, and made a point of telling them in mixed companies of
young people. She alternately bullied the servants and gossiped with
them in the kitchen; once I most inopportunely happened upon Mrs.
Botlisch engaged in a battle-royal with one of the chambermaids
over some trifle—a broken dish, perhaps—in the pantry. Fortunately,
I could not understand one word they uttered; and after a little, Mrs.
Pallinder came, looking quite grey over her handsome resolute face,
and took her mother away still shrieking hideous abuse. "Ma is so
eccentric," she said to me afterwards, with a ghastly smile; and
some feeling, of mingled horror and compassion, withheld me from
reporting the wretched scene. In most households, these
undesirable parents can be thrust, gently or not, into the
background; in fact, very many parents retire thither of their own
accord. But Mrs. Botlisch was not of that type.
"I like to set in the parlour an' see the young folks," she said.
"Mirandy she don't want me to, but I says to her, 'Mirandy,' says I,
'don't you worry. I'm goin' ter keep my uppers an' lowers in, 'less I
git a fish-bone er a hunk o' meat under the plate at dinner, an' I ain't
a-goin' to no bed till I git sleepy,' says I. She says, 'Ma, I'm afraid
you won't be comf'ble with your—you know—on all evenin'.'" (Here
she gave J. B. a poke in the side and dropped her left eyelid). "'Lord
love you, don't set there lookin' so innercent like you'd never saw a
woman undress in yer life—don't come that over me, young feller.
She says, 'Ma, I'm afraid you'll feel kinder tight an' uncomf'ble with
'em on all evenin' 'long as you ain't used to wearin' 'em much in the
daytime,' she says. 'Land!' says I. 'Mirandy,' I ain't squoze inter my
cloze by main stren'th the way Mazie is. 'F I feel uncomf'ble, I'll just
undo the bottom buttons of my basque an' I'll be all right, you see.'"
And there she sat, true to her word, creaking in her black silk and
bugles (with the bottom buttons undone!), perspiring greasily over
her fat red face; and shouting rough, humorous, and frequently
20. shrewd criticism at our amateurs during rehearsal until midnight,
when we went out to the dining-room for oysters, egg-nogg, and the
too lavish entertainment of Colonel Pallinder's sideboard. The first
time this occurred Teddy Johns retreated precipitately from the
table, and, being sought, was discovered at last, pallidly reclining on
the library lounge.
"I'm all right, old man," he said feebly. "Just a minute, please. I
couldn't stand seeing old Mrs. Botlisch wallop down those oysters,
that's all."
There lies before me now a square of rough paper (designedly
rough), with jagged edges (designedly jagged), tinted in water
colours an elegant cloudy blue, with a butterfly, or some such insect,
painted in one corner, and a slit diagonally opposite through which
we stuck a single rosebud, as I remember. Slanting across the sheet
in loose gilt lettering I read "Programme," and a date beneath. This
confection represented days of effort and ingenuity on the part of
those young ladies among my contemporaries who painted china, or
were otherwise "artistic." Some of them took the "Art Amateur," at a
ruinous expenditure; that publication has long since gone the way of
all flesh and most print, in company, it would appear, with the
amateurs for whom it was destined. Nobody is either "artistic" or
amateurish any more. We did the jagging with a meat-saw, I believe
—what a spectacle for our accomplished posterity!
If I reverse the sheet, I find upon the other side, in a correct angular
hand (it may well be my own, for angularity was much the fashion in
those days; and the inartistic ones let what aid they could to the
task of programme-making), I find, I say, the
CAST OF CHARACTERS
WILLIAM TELL,
An Opera in Two Acts.
William Tell Mr. Archer Baldwin Lewis
Arnold von Winkelreid Mr. James Hathaway
Walter Furst Mr. Julian Todd
21. Melcthal Mr. Appleton Wingate
Gessler Mr. James Smith
Rudolph Mr. John Porter
Ruodi Mr. Joseph Randall McHenry
Leuthold Mr. Henry Barnes Smith
Matilda Mr. Gwynne Peters
Mrs. Tell Mr. Oliver Hunt
Mrs. Gessler Mr. Theodore E. Johns
Jemmy, Tell's son
Mr. Junius Brutus
Breckinridge Taylor
Chorus of Peasants, Knights, Pages,
Ladies, Hunters,
Soldiers, etc.
Mr. Robert Carson
Scene: The Schactenthal Waterfall.
The uninformed might very well inquire, as did Doctor Vardaman,
what under Heaven Arnold von Winkelreid was doing in this galère?
He appeared among the other historical personages with a baseball-
catcher's padded guard tied about his chest, and stuck full of
enormous arrows; at one time or another every young man in the
cast, including Jimmie Hathaway himself, was overheard laboriously
explaining to Muriel that it was "all just nonsense, you know; of
course Winkelreid didn't have anything to do with Tell—but there
was an Arnold in the cast of the real opera—and then there was that
funny old piece about Arnold von Winkelreid in McGuffey's Reader,
you know: 'Make way for liberty, he cried, make way for liberty, and
died!' and he somehow seemed to fit in pretty well with the rest of
the foolishness. They had thought of having Casabianca, too, but
gave it up," and so on and so on.
"Don't pay any attention to their excuses, Miss Baxter," said the
doctor fiercely, yet shaking with laughter. "It's all miserable horse-
play—vandalism—desecration. 'Guillaume Tell' is a beautiful opera,
the creation of a great musical genius. I've seen Sonntag and
Lablache in it; it ought to be sacred from these barbarians—you hear
22. me, boys, barbarians!" He menaced them with a closed fist; and
they went on shamelessly:
Gessler (in a loud voice)—Who are these fellows?
Rudolph—My lord, these are Swiss.
Gessler (louder, pointing to Tell)—Who's that fellow with the
freckles?
Rudolph—My lord, that is a dotted Swiss.
Gessler (louder still)—Take away that dashed Swiss!
Rudolph—My lord, I said dotted.
Gessler (very loud)—Well, I said dashed——
It took little enough to make us laugh, for we thought all that very
funny indeed. And an interesting point might be made of the fact
that "William Tell," whether the men had greater abilities, or easier
parts, or from whatever reason, was, as a whole, far and away
superior to the play in which the girls appeared. Doctor Vardaman,
for all his old-time gallantry, betrayed his preference more than
once; but it sometimes seemed to me as if the old gentleman took a
malign satisfaction in viewing our performances, theatrical and
otherwise, as one who should stand by and observe the antics of so
many apes with an amused detachment.
"Of course, of course, I enjoy the comedy. Don't you want me to
enjoy the comedy?" he said when I taxed him, and eyed me
sidelong with his discomfiting grin. The doctor was a queer old man;
not the least evidence of his queerness was the interest he displayed
in our affairs. He watched us drill for "William Tell" and "Mrs.
Tankerville's Tiara," day by day, appearing to find therein unfailing
entertainment. To be sure he had little else to do; he had long
retired from practice, and, as he said of himself, was the weak-
minded victim of his own whims. With all his oddities, we were fond
23. of him; and his advice and suggestions were a real help to such of
us as took ourselves and our parts seriously. The stage was one of
his many hobbies; he had collected a huge library of books relating
to it; had seen all of the celebrated actors of his day and known not
a few of them; and could recall Laura Keane in the very rôle which
Muriel was now essaying.
"Do you remember what she wore, Doctor?" Mazie asked him,
characteristically enough, by the way.
"White gauze, I think," said the old gentleman, considering. "Yes, it
was white gauze, and a touch of green about it somewhere."
"Huh! Touch o' green was a fig-leaf, I s'pose—hope so, anyhow!"
said Mrs. Botlisch, and "wallopped" down another oyster. She was a
terrible old woman.
"I don't know what we'd do without you, doctor," said Mazie
precipitately. "You know so much about it—what we ought to do, I
mean, and how the whole thing ought to go. It's ever so kind of you
——"
"Not at all—the kindness is on your side," said the doctor. He
glanced about with a smile in which there lurked a whimsical
melancholy. "I don't aspire to the post of guide, philosopher, and fr
——"
"Talkin' o' guides," old Mrs. Botlisch interrupted him. "Ever hear that
story 'bout the English feller that went aroun' Niagry Falls with a
guide, out to Table Rock an' Goat Island, and down under th' Falls
an' everywheres, an' when they got through, he took an' wrote in th'
visitors' book, 'Why am I like Desdemona?' That's th' white girl that
married a nigger in one o' these here plays, you know. He took an'
wrote, 'Why am I like Desdemona? Becuz——'"
"Ahem!" interrupted Doctor Vardaman, with extraordinary
vehemence. "You were asking me for the address of the man that
sells make-up boxes, one of you the other day. I meant to bring it
24. with me to-night, but forgot. Any time you want, you can stop at my
house, and in case I'm out, ask Huddesley, I left it with him. It's
Kryzowski—bowski—wowski—some such unpronounceable Russian
name, and his shop is somewhere on Sixth Avenue, I think, but I
can't exactly remember."
All of which speech the doctor delivered in a rapid and vigorous
outburst of words, not pausing until he was quite out of breath; and
even then he had the air of one skirting by a hair's-breadth some
desperate verge.
"I'll stop in to-morrow," said J. B. "Huddesley isn't likely to get mixed
up about it, is he?"
"Huddesley? Oh, no, trust him. Besides I'll leave it written down. But
Huddesley is perfectly reliable—a remarkable man, that—never had
a such a servant is my house—he's really unusual."
"Snake in th' grass—don't tell me!" Mrs. Botlisch grunted. She had
taken a bitter prejudice against the doctor's man-servant; partly, no
doubt, because although he was a good deal about the house,
coming and going on the doctor's errands, he had managed to avoid
both her bullying and her patronage. There is nothing more
offensive than the servant whose manners are better than our own.
And Huddesley's manners were perfect in his degree; he was
English, we supposed from the short fragment of his history we had
heard, and had not been long enough abroad to lose the insular
standard of domestic service, and the insular traditions of class.
"Huddesley'll get spoiled if you don't look out, Doctor," Colonel
Pallinder warned him. "None of my affair, of course, but, pardon me,
too much notice and perhaps too much pay——"
"I know some of 'em that ain't sufferin' from that anyhow!" growled
the old woman pointedly.
"I believe ma thinks we ought to give all these lazy darkies as much
as we spend on ourselves," said Mrs. Pallinder with an indulgent
25. laugh. "As if they weren't eating us out of house and home already!
But William's right, doctor, Huddesley will be spoiled if we're not all
more careful. A white servant can't stand petting and familiarity the
way black ones do; sooner or later he'll presume on it. Did you know
that all these boys have been going down to your house to get
Huddesley to hear them their parts?"
"It's my fault, I began it," J. B. explained, reddening. "I said to Ted
that if he wanted to know how an English butler behaved he'd better
get a few pointers from Huddesley. Huddesley'd make an ideal
'Jenks,' you know, as far as looks go, I mean. He's the real thing in
butlers. And it's funny, he's got ever so many good ideas about
business, you know, and all that. But we won't do it any more if
you'd rather not, Doctor."
"Pooh, you can't spoil a man like that," the doctor said. "Reverence
for class is born in 'em; it runs in the blood. That's what I admire
about these English servants—their perfect self-respect, and idea of
the dignity of their own position, without presuming on yours."
"It's awfully convenient having him to prompt anyhow," said Mazie,
who needed a great deal of prompting. "Nobody wants to sit and
hold an old prompt-book and watch for mistakes. What bothers me
is all those funny little pairs of letters 'r.u.' and 'cross over' and 'sits
right' scattered all through your speech like hiccups. I don't know
what r.u. means, anyhow."
"Huddesley says it means retire up—walk toward the back of the
stage, you know."
"Well, but I thought you oughtn't ever to turn your back on the
audience."
"Depends on yer figger, I guess," said Mrs. Botlisch. "Some girl's
backs and fronts ain't no different—they're flat both sides like a
paper doll!"
26. "Huddesley has aspirations," said Doctor Vardaman briskly. "I
discovered that some time ago. At first I thought he wanted to study
medicine; he used to be forever poking about my little room,
pretending to dust and arrange the bottles, and asking all manner of
questions. But since this business of your plays has come up, he's
been tremendously interested in them. The fellow has some
education, you know. I've found him two or three times reading in
my library, with the feather duster under his arm—perfectly
absorbed. He was very mortified the first time I caught him at it, and
humbly begged my pardon. 'Hi can't resist a book, sir, sometimes,'
he said. 'Hi wouldn't wish to be thought to presoom, but Hi've tastes
hother than my lot can gratify; and Hi've 'ad 'opes—but,' says he,
with a sigh, 'that's hall hover and gone, now.'"
"Kind of stagey, wasn't he?"
"Yes, of course, he must have got that out of some book. Once in a
while, he uses very fine language, indeed, and then I know he's
been reading. I said, 'Well, Huddesley, it's a pity, if feeling that way,
you can't raise yourself as high as you choose here in America.' I
only said it to draw him out, you know. He shook his head
mournfully. 'No, sir,' says he, 'Hi won't never be anything but a butler
—a servant pourin' out wine an' blackin' boots for the rich and light-
'earted like yourself, sir.' I asked him what he would like to be if he
could begin over again. 'A hactor, sir,' said he respectfully. 'Hi feel the
stirrin' of Hart within my buzzom.' 'That's where we commonly feel
'em, Huddesley,' says I. 'Hi don't mean 'eart, sir, beggin' your
parding, Hi mean Hart—with a Hay, sir—that's what Hi feel, but
they'll never 'ave no houtlet, sir, Hi'm a butler—the die is cast——'
and then I escaped into the garden to laugh."
"That isn't all funny—it's pathetic too," said J. B. thoughtfully. "Poor
devil!"
At least two people in the room looked at the young man with a
quicker interest—Doctor Vardaman and Muriel, the doctor with an
odd and pleased surprise in his keen quizzical face. As for Muriel,
27. she and J. B. looked at one another pretty often, as I remember.
Mrs. Botlisch raised her hard old features from a close inspection of
her empty, swept and scraped platter, and fixed the doctor with a
little twinkling porcine eye.
"How long you had him anyway, Doc.?"
"Three months, or so, I believe."
"Oh, no, it's not that long, Doctor," exclaimed Mazie. "I remember
Huddesley came after the holidays, just as I was starting to
Washington. That was a little after the Charity Ball. I put off going so
as not to miss it. I remember about Huddesley because you had just
got rid of that awful man that had d.t's and came up here with an
axe wanting to kill somebody."
"Huddesley's arrival raised the tone of our neighbourhood
appreciably," said the doctor, with a laugh. Doctor Vardaman's men
were a byword in the community. Men of every colour and
nationality had drifted through his hands; it was a long procession of
lazy, drunken, thieving rascality, or honesty so abysmally stupid and
incompetent as to be equally worthless. "I'll never let him go, now
I've got him," said the old gentleman. "I have a fellow-feeling for all
you ladies that keep house. Rather than lose him, I'd give him
everything I own even unto the half of my substance."
"He'll git more'n that 'fore he's through with ye," said Mrs. Botlisch.
"You young Taylor feller,"—she always called J. B. and in fact all the
young men that frequented the house, by the last name—"you'd
better git that bottle o' rye away from Johns. He's had about
enough, 'f I'm any jedge—an' I reckon I'd oughter be, all th' drunks
I've handled——"
"Pioneer times, pioneer times," said the colonel, hastily. "Er—um—
the ice to Mr. Johns, Sam."
"When Mirandy's pa useter came home loaded," pursued the old
woman, unmoved, "many's the time I've shet him in th' woodshed,
28. him hollerin' bloody murder—'Let him holler!' says I. Time mornin'
come I'd git him under th' pump—oh my, yes, I've had lots of
experience."
"Pioneer times," said Colonel Pallinder again desperately. (But J. B.
did take the bottle away from Teddy's neighbourhood.) "Pioneer
days! Good God, gentlemen, when I think of what men and women
had to contend with then, I'm ashamed, yes, ashamed of the
luxuries we live in. You were saying, Doctor——"
"About—ahem—oh—ah—yes, about Huddesley," said the doctor, who
had not been saying anything. "I can't always make the fellow out—
I'm rather puzzled——"
"Speakin' o' puzzles," said old Mrs. Botlisch, "I was goin' to tell ye
that one 'bout th' English feller that the guide was takin' 'roun'
Niagry Falls. After they had gone down under th' Falls, an' out to
Goat Island, and everywheres else, ye know, he took an' wrote in th'
visitors' book, 'Why am I like Desdemona?' (That's the white girl that
goes off with a nigger in th' play, ye know). He wrote just that: 'Why
am I like Desdemona?' Th' answer is: 'Becuz——'"
This time, in spite of an outburst of coughing that threatened serious
results to Doctor Vardaman, in spite of a fusillade of loud irrelevant
talk from the colonel, in spite even of Teddy Johns' quite
unintentionally falling over a chair, this time, I say, we all heard the
answer!
29. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Not long since I had a visit from Gwynne Peters' oldest boy. The little
fellow is twelve, and, as I abstained from any embarrassing and
inconvenient demonstrations of affection or even friendship, we
became quite intimate, and I believe he enjoyed himself after a
fashion. He is not like his father, neither so delicate in body, nor so
gentle and winning as I remember the elder Gwynne—but, in truth, I
do not know if I ever found the way to his heart, with all my
diplomacy; the unconquerable barrier of age divided us; childhood
looks with so solidly-rooted a suspicion on our efforts to approach it;
it guards its quaint jungles, its enchanted gardens with so jealous a
care that we may well despair of ever touching hands. And for that
matter I sometimes think we are all strangers more or less to the
end, and our nearest intimacy only a painful interchange of signals
in a fog. Little Gwynne tolerated me, and I soon ceased to ask
anything else. He approved of cookies and the works of Mr. Alger; as
these latter immortal productions do not form a part of my library,
we were obliged to call upon the Carnegie one a few squares
distant, whence he requisitioned them at the rate of a new Alger
volume about every twenty-four hours until the supply was
exhausted, when we began on Mr. Henty. This fell out very luckily, as
I had discovered him asleep in a corner over "Ivanhoe," and I should
not have wished him to carry away so unfavourable an impression of
my resources in the way of entertainment. But what I most observed
in him was an indifference to, or ignorance of, his family history and
traditions that seemed abnormal in a Gwynne, however remotely
descended. I asked him if he had ever been to see his great-
grandfather's portrait in the State-House? The moment was ill-
chosen, as he was profoundly occupied with a new variety of top,
but he absently answered: "Yep."
"What did you think of it?"
30. "Nothin'," said this renegade, with astounding callousness, bending
himself to the top; it was warranted to spin five minutes at a stretch,
and when he had got it started, and was timing it by my watch, he
felt his mind released from cares enough to volunteer indulgently:
"Father's got a big photograph of it in his office. It's all yellow and
fly-specky, because it's so old, you know. I guess it's 'most as old as
father—or maybe you."
"Doesn't your father ever tell you about him—what a great man he
was, and all?"
"Nope."
"What!" said I, then, unable to believe my ears. "Doesn't he ever
talk to you about Governor Gwynne? Doesn't anybody ever tell you
to remember that you're a Gwynne?" The top was reeling to its fall,
and he was very busy, and, as I could see, justifiably annoyed at my
persistence, but this question caused him to look up sharply with the
quick suspicion of his twelve years.
"Aw, you're in fun!" he said, eying me shrewdly. "Father wouldn't
talk guff like that! And anyway my name's Peters—Gwynne's just my
given name—so it wouldn't be true, see?" Guff like that! These were
his sacrilegious words. Nothing could have more stingingly brought
home to me the lapse of years, or better illustrated the changes in
men's minds. And I might here insert some valuable reflections on
the vanity of human achievement, and the hollow and transitory
character of fame, if I were not uneasily conscious that Governor
Gwynne's renown, even in his heyday, was not of a kind to fill the
four corners of the universe; it was only in the opinion of his family
that it reached those magnificent proportions. Now he and his deeds
are forgotten, even by them; the fires are all dead on that fantastic
altar which the Gwynnes tended for so many years with so much
misplaced zeal. It is not likely, I think, that little Gwynne will ever be
troubled by the problems confronting his father in March of the year
of Grace, 1883.
31. In fact, during this time, Gwynne might have been seen any day
pondering gloomily before his empty desk, under his grandfather's
grimly searching scrutiny, by the hour. The Pallinder business had
reached a stage when he could no longer ignore it; yet he could not
bring himself to any active measures. Gwynne knew as much as
anybody about the colonel's affairs; he had heard certain subdued
but very disagreeable rumours. Templeton himself had brought them
to him months earlier with a countenance of fright and perplexity. It
had not cleared much when he left the office; the little agent could
not understand what ailed his patron. He had never known Gwynne
to be so indifferent, so careless of the rights and feelings of the
other heirs; it was clean out of his character, and Templeton felt with
dismay that his surest prop had been removed. If Mr. Peters was
becoming as queer as the rest of them, Templeton was almost ready
to resign from the management of the Gwynne estate; single-
handed, he could not "hold up his end," as he phrased it. In the
years of their association he had conceived something like a real
affection for the young man, and this change obscurely alarmed and
distressed him. Gwynne, about everything else so open, so
resourceful, so patient in the control of his difficult kindred, so
genially shrewd, would not allow any discussion of the Pallinder
delinquency; he shifted the subject, or turned upon Templeton with
a manner of such forbidding reticence that the agent shrank
discomfited. "Oh, well, Mr. Peters, I—I guess I'd better leave you
alone to run your tenants and the family," he would say humbly,
reaching for his hat in an apologetic confusion. "I—I ain't ever made
such a success of it that I've any call to argue, or advise you how to
do," and so would shuffle meekly from the room, leaving the young
man, had he known it, in a miserable humiliation. Time and again,
Gwynne had made the resolve to have it out with the colonel; and
time and again had turned aside from the act, like a hunter refusing
the leap. He bargained with himself, loathing his own weakness; he
would go and see Colonel Pallinder on such a day at such an hour;
he would say to him thus and so. The day came and the hour—why
was it that something invariably prevented him? Once he even got
so far as the door of Colonel Pallinder's office—and it was locked.
32. The office was closed for the day: it was late Saturday afternoon,
and in his heart Gwynne knew the office would be closed—knew it
before he left his own. He turned away in a flash of angry contempt
of himself—of Pallinder—of the whole shabby business. Yet the
colonel was safe for that day; you cannot scour the town for a man,
like a bailiff; and Gwynne certainly was not going to follow him to
the house, and dun him under the very roof where he himself had
received so many hospitalities, such unfailing courtesy and kindness,
within hearing of the fellow's innocent wife and daughter! What had
Mrs.—ahem!—what had those two poor women done? Very likely
they knew nothing whatever about Pallinder's indebtedness; they
were both of them touchingly ignorant of money matters. This was
strictly an affair for men—he would see Pallinder Monday. And so
Gwynne strode away home, to dinner and a change of dress, and
thence, by the most natural sequence in the world, to the Lexington
and Amherst cars, and out to the Pallinders'! In one of his spasms of
conscience he had refused their urgent invitation to the house party
—the irony of his position was apparent, even to him; but he
balanced the scales by going out night after night to the rehearsals
of "William Tell," wherein he bore his part with a feverish enthusiasm
that surprised his friends.
It might have been noticed, but, as a matter of fact, I am sure
hardly anybody did notice, that Gwynne was the only one of the
family who figured in the theatricals, or, in the pungent everyday
phrase, had anything to do with the Pallinders. Marian Lawrence had
been asked to the house party, and had eagerly promised to come,
but in a day or so Mrs. Pallinder received a charming, apologetic,
and graceful little note from Mrs. Lawrence, declining on Marian's
behalf, for some vague reason. The truth is, Mrs. Horace Gwynne,
on hearing of the plan, had once again ordered out her barouche
and driven over to the Lawrences', upright and stern, with the stark
face of Doom. And after a heated conference with the mother, the
note had been despatched; Mrs. Lawrence sat down and cried
heartily with the disappointed girl when that dire act had been
performed—but neither of them thought of disobeying Cousin
33. Jennie. When they met Mrs. Pallinder face to face coming out of
church next Sunday morning they were both a good deal flustered;
they flinched before Mrs. Pallinder's steadily radiant smile, and were
devoutly glad, I think, to escape from her neighbourhood into the
crowd. Archie Lewis walked home with Marian, and raised his hat as
a carriage spun by—"That was the Pallinders with Miss Baxter," said
Archie, observing with a passing surprise that his companion made
no sign of recognition. "Was it? I didn't see them," said Marian
stoutly, looking straight in front of her with very red cheeks. Not so
long before, Mazie had been one of her most intimate friends. Look
on that picture, and now on this! What was the matter with all the
Gwynnes? Little old Eleanor and little old Mollie, on seeing the
colonel less than half a square off, advancing upon them, already
uncovered, courtly, bland, with outstretched hand—the two old
sisters, I say, fairly took to their heels up a side street, with scared
and shrinking faces. They gathered up their virgin skirts and fled
shudderingly as from contamination. Mrs. Horace Gwynne, alone of
them all, possessed the courage of her convictions. Erect in her
barouche, she encountered and returned Mrs. Pallinder's smile with
a salute so casual, so perfunctory that it suggested the recognition
she would have bestowed upon her cook in event of a public
meeting with that functionary. Mrs. Pallinder bit her lips; she
reddened through her rouge—and the next moment was gaily
bowing to another acquaintance as if life meant nothing to her but
this pleasant exchange of civilities. "Of course I never would
deliberately cut anybody," Mrs. Horace explained later; "that sort of
behaviour is childish and ill-tempered. But I flatter myself I know as
well as anyone how to put people in their proper place, and intimate
my opinion of them, without talking or acting like a washerwoman. I
wanted Mrs. Pallinder to understand that while I was absolutely
indifferent to such a matter as the back-rent she owed me and every
one of us, I did not approve of the principle of the thing. She knew
perfectly well what I meant. And at receptions or wherever she
happened to be in the same company with me afterwards, I simply
didn't see her at all! I was always talking to someone else, or had
my back turned. She understood—a person like that!" I dare say
34. Mrs. Pallinder did understand; she was not without some previous
experience, and it is likely deserved every snub and stab which Mrs.
Horace, with the just severity of a good and upright woman, inflicted
on her. So must we all lie upon the beds we make.
This was the secret of the Gwynnes' altered demeanour; it was, of
course, not the failure to pay them their rent to which they objected,
but the appalling principle, or lack of principle, it indicated. At least,
that is what they all and severally declared afterwards. At the time,
with characteristic Gwynne reticence, they kept their troubles to
themselves; no set of conspiring revolutionists could have been more
close-mouthed. Their behaviour in this instance was of a piece with
the futile pride that prompted their efforts to distract the public mind
from Caroline—from Steven—from Sam Peters. What! Drag their
noble name through the mud and riot of a Common Pleas suit?
Associate their house and the memory of Governor Gwynne with a
debasing scandal about Money! I should not care to reveal the arts
by which Gwynne put off the hour of retribution for the Pallinders,
playing upon these familiar strings with a skill he himself despised.
Even he, in the end, sounded the note once too often, as we have
seen in the case of old Steven, to whom the sum, small as it was,
meant more than to the other members of the family. For Steven,
once away from the blandishments of Mrs. Pallinder, naturally
reverted in the shortest possible space of time to his previous mood
of brooding indignation. He had parted from Doctor Vardaman with a
confused notion that everything was going smoothly—that Gwynne
would settle with the Pallinders in a few days—a week, perhaps, at
furthest. It had not been stated in so many words; none the less
Steven carried away these ideas planted within him either by Mrs.
Pallinder's soothing flatteries, or by the doctor's well-meant efforts at
comforting and diverting him. He waited a day or two, eagerly
inspecting every mail; he spoke grandly of his expected remittances
to his tolerant country neighbours, and alluded to Gwynne with a
large air as his man of business. But as the days passed and his man
of business made no sign, Steven's slender allowance of patience
gave out once more. He wrote to Gwynne, and waited a fevered
35. while for an answer. Wrote again, and with the letter, addressed and
stamped, in his pocket, abandoned his design, and took the first
train for town. It was with a fierce and resolute face that he stalked
into the office that afternoon—and Gwynne had gone out! This
delay, to speak in high metaphorical terms which would have
delighted Steven's own taste, did not arrest the falling of the levin-
brand; it only increased its momentum. In proportion as the
moments lapsed, his wrath gathered head. As it happened, he found
himself in appropriate company, with his grievance; when he entered
the room there sat his cousins, the two Misses Gwynne, with their
pale, furtive, startled faces framed in curls and satin rosettes, in their
rigid bombazine skirts, Miss Gwynne tremblingly clasping an
umbrella, Miss Mollie fingering a foolscap document whereon, if
Steven had cared to look, he might have seen some arithmetical
calculations similar to his own. They started up, fluttering and
ejaculating at his appearance; then sank down disappointed, yet,
probably, a little relieved. The two not only dressed, but thought and
acted in couples; either one was helpless without the other; and
both now wore an air of terrified resolution such as a pair of mice, a
pair of pullets might have presented in some desperate crisis of the
trap or butcher's knife. Even in their day, a day which recognised but
one career for respectable women, which knew not women's
colleges or bachelor-maids, or what we call the professional equality
of the sexes, Eleanor and Mollie were caricatures of spinsterhood;
we looked upon them with as much pity as amusement, I believe.
This was a tremendous step for them to take; and horror laid a
throttling hold on both at the idea (occurring to them
simultaneously) that Cousin Steven might think them indiscreet or
unladylike. But Steven was much too preoccupied to spare a thought
to their confusion. "Huh, girls!" said he, sat down in Gwynne's
revolving-chair, and glowered absently out of the window, beating a
tattoo on the desk, and framing the sentences in which he would
open his arraignment. "Waiting to see Gwynne?" he inquired,
rousing himself with a momentary curiosity after a while.
The twins murmured inarticulately, looking at each other.
36. "So'm I," said Steven, scowling, and they might all three have
proceeded to some explanations, but at that moment, upon this
amiable family-group, strolled in Archie Lewis, on some errand from
his father's office, debonair, whistling his song from "William Tell,"
and very much taken aback at sight of the company into which he
had stumbled. "It was a perfect nest of Gwynnes," he said,
graphically describing the episode. "I felt like Daniel in the lions'
den."
"Oh—ah—Mr. Gwynne—er—Miss Gwynne——" said he, stopping
short in embarrassment. "Ah—um—Gwynne's gone out, I see."
"He'll be back in a few minutes," stammered Miss Eleanor, after a
moment of fearful indecision.
"The office-boy said so," added Miss Mollie faintly. "It's almost half-
an-hour now."
"Well, I guess I won't wait—if you'll be so kind as to tell him I was
here? And I'll just put this on his desk under the paperweight—he'll
understand when he sees it," said Archie, depositing his bundle of
papers on the desk as he spoke, and very ready to beat a retreat.
But Steven, eying him, suddenly growled out, "You're Judge Lewis'
son, ain't you?"
"Why, yes—you know my father, of course—I've often heard him
speak of you," said Archie, conventionally, edging off.
"Sit down," said Steven, imperiously motioning. "Gwynne'll be along
in a little. You ought to be a lawyer, young man—your father's a
lawyer. I haven't seen him for years—I guess he's a good deal
changed. Law kind of changes people; it's seldom a man takes it up
and stays honest. Sit down; Gwynne'll be here presently."
("And so," said Archie, "I sat down. The fact is, the old fellow looked
sort of queer, and though I never heard of his doing anything, I
didn't much like to leave him alone with those two old ladies—you
never can tell, you know.")
37. "I'd like to see the judge," said Steven.
"Why, I'm sure father'd be very pleased——"
Steven waved an impatient gesture. "I'm not particular about seeing
him," said he—and Archie used to repeat this part of the story in his
father's presence with infinite relish—"But I'd like to have his
opinion, in a matter of—a matter of debt!"
The two sisters exchanged a horrified glance; they knew what
Steven's errand was, now, and thought he was about to reveal the
awful secret, and tarnish the name of Gwynne forever. But that was
by no means Steven's intention; he was as tender of the family
honour as they, but much more confident of his own knowledge of
the world and diplomatic abilities. Archie, upon whose youthfully
sharp wits none of this by-play was lost, sat wondering what was to
come next.
"This debt—or—er—this indebtedness," said Steven elaborately, "is—
er—it should be, in short, collected—that is—er—measures should
be taken by which it—could be, in short, collected." He fixed a
profound look on the young man, pausing while he considered in
what other roundabout terms he could present the situation.
"Is the fellow that owes you responsible—solid, I mean, you know?"
asked Archie, beginning to be interested. "If he's on a salary, or got
a good business you might attach——"
"I—I—I'm not prepared to state," said Steven, appalled at the
briskness of Archie's deductions. "I'm just supposing a case, you
understand."
"Oh!" said Archie, suppressing a grin. "Well—ah—are you supposing
it to be a large sum, Mr. Gwynne?"
"A debt's a debt," said Steven, with magnificent brevity; he could not
resist a sidelong glance at Eleanor and Mollie, commanding their
admiration.
38. "Yes, of course, Mr. Gwynne, but there's a difference between a debt
of five dollars and one of five hundred," said Archie peaceably. "If
you can come to some kind of compromise, it's generally a great
deal better than going to law; you may get a little less than you're
entitled to, but you save time and trouble and worry. I suppose I've
heard my father say that to a hundred clients."
This view appeared to strike Eleanor and Mollie favourably;
something in the half-a-loaf policy appeals with a subtle power to
the feminine mind. But Steven's old face reddened; he darted a
vengeful glance at this Laodicean councillor.
"Compromise—nothing!" he snarled. "I'll see him da—I'll see him
farther before I'll compromise!"
"All right—all right, I was just saying that's one way of settling these
things," said Archie hastily. "Of course you know what you want, Mr.
Gwynne. Trouble is, you go into court with a case, and you never
know how long it will take to wind it up—maybe two or three years
—that's perfectly irrespective of the rights of the case. Whereas, if
you accept some kind of settlement, you—well, in general, you come
out ahead of the game," said Archie, falling back on the vernacular.
Oh, wise young judge! The two Misses Gwynne listened to Archie's
exposition with respectful awe. I have heard him say with a laugh
that at no time in his subsequent career—which has been one of
considerable distinction—has he ever felt himself to be exerting so
much influence, no, not in his most sustained and vigorous flights of
oratory. "I might have been the Almighty, instead of a smart-Alecky
boy, by the way those two poor old women were impressed—it was
funny—funny and pitiful," he says, and shakes his grizzling head.
"It's—it's very awful to have someone in debt to you, Mr. Lewis,"
Miss Mollie took courage to say falteringly.
"Not so bad as being in debt to somebody yourself, though," said
Archie genially. This well-intended levity was a serious mistake; they
shrank—they withered before the dreadful suggestion.
39. "We—we aren't that, Mr. Lewis," cried both old maids in scared
chorus. "It's not we that are in debt—it's somebody that owes us
——"
"That owes the GWYNNE ESTATE," said Steven ponderously. He had
forgot all about his supposititious case, and Archie, who, as he
himself might have said, was not born yesterday, had already made
a shrewd guess as to the identity of the debtor.
"A debt's a bad business, anyway you fix it," he said easily. "Reminds
me of that story father tells of himself when he was a boy borrowing
money of their old coloured man to go to the circus with. 'Chile,'
says old Mose, 'you's got to 'member this; er debt that ain't paid
stahts er roorback! You owe me, an' I owe Pete, an' Pete he owes
that wall-eyed niggah oveh at the liv'ry-stable, an' lakly Mistah
Walleye, he owes somebody else, an' 'twell one of us stahts the
payin', nobuddy cyahn't pay—an' thar's your roorback!'" Archie
laughed. He laughed alone, for this sprightly tale, although he had
recited it in a careful imitation of Judge Lewis' best manner,
apparently failed to amuse anybody but himself. Perhaps it went too
near the truth to be wholly agreeable. "I never realised until that
moment," he used to say with a certain naïveté, "what an awful job
poor Gwynne Peters had for years with those people. I'll bet nobody
knows or ever will know what he put up with!"
His new sympathy put a greater warmth into his greeting when
Gwynne at last came in, a few minutes later. Archie, as he explained
his errand, noted inwardly that his friend's face was drawn and tired;
nor did he wonder much at the grim look Gwynne cast around the
waiting family-circle.
"You're late, Gwynne," said old Steven, fierce-eyed under his shaggy
brows.
"I know it," said Gwynne, in a harsh voice. "I had to go out to the
country this morning, and that put me back with everything."
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