MADEMOISELLE MIDAS
I
There came to Huntersfield the next morning at about the same moment,
Kemp in his little car with a small parcel for Becky, and Calvin with a
big box from the express office.
Becky was in her room at breakfast when Calvin brought the boxes up to
her. It was a sunshiny morning, and the Judge had gone a-fishing with
Mr. Flippin. Becky, in a lace cap and a robe that was delicately blue,
sat in a big chair with a low table in front of her.
There were white roses on the table in a silver bowl. The Judge had
sent them to her. The Judge had for the women of his family a feeling
that was almost youthfully romantic, and which was, unquestionably,
old-fashioned. He liked to think that they had roses for their little
noses, ribbons and laces for their pretty faces. He wanted no harsh
winds to blow on them. And in return for the softness and ease with
which he would surround them, he wanted their deference to his
masculine point of view.
With the box which George sent was a note. It was the first that Becky
had ever received from her lover. George's code did not include much
correspondence. Flaming sentiment on paper was apt to look silly when
the affair ended.
To Becky, her name on the outside of the envelope seemed written in
gold. She was all blushing expectation.
"There ain't no answer," Calvin said, and she waited for him to go
before she opened it.
She read it and sat there drained of all feeling. She was as white as
the roses on her table. She read the note again and her hands shook.
"Flora is very ill. We are taking her up to New York. After that we
shall go to the North Shore. There isn't time for me to come and say;
'Good-bye.' Perhaps it is better not to come. It has been a wonderful
summer, and it is you who have made it wonderful for me. The memory
will linger with me always--like a sweet dream or a rare old tale. I
am sending yon a little token--for remembrance. Think of me sometimes,
Becky."
That was all, except a scrawled "G. D." at the end. No word of coming
back. No word of writing to her again. No word of any future in which
she would have a part.
She opened the box. Within on a slender chain was a pendant--a square
sapphire set in platinum, and surrounded by diamonds. George had
ordered it in anticipation of this crisis. He had, hitherto, found
such things rather effective in the cure of broken hearts.
Now, had George but known it, Becky had jewels in leather cases in the
vaults of her bank which put his sapphire trinket to shame. There were
the diamonds in which a Meredith great-grandmother had been presented
at the Court of St. James, and there were the pearls of which her own
string was a small part. There were emeralds and rubies, old corals
and jade--not for nothing had the Admiral sailed the seas, bringing
back from China and India lovely things for the woman he loved. And
now the jewels were Becky's, and she had not cared for them in the
least. If George had loved her she would have cherished his sapphire
more than all the rest.
But he did not love her. She knew it in that moment. All of her
doubts were confirmed.
The thing that had happened to her seemed incredible.
She put the sapphire back in its box, wrapped it, tied the string
carefully and called Mandy.
"Tell Calvin to take this to Mr. Dalton."
Mandy knew at once that something was wrong. But this was not a moment
for words. The Bannisters did not talk about things that troubled
them. They held their heads high. And Becky's was high at this
moment, and her eyes were blazing.
As she sat there, tense, Becky wondered what Dalton could have thought
of her. If she had not had a jewel in the world, she would not have
kept his sapphire. Didn't he know that?
But how could he know? To him it had been "a sweet dream--a rare old
tale," and she had thought him a Romeo ready to die for her sake, an
Aucassin--willing to brave Hell rather than give her up, a Lohengrin
sent from Heaven!
She shuddered and hid her face in her hands. At last she crept into
bed. Mandy, coming in to straighten the room, was told to lower the
curtains.
"My--my head aches, Mandy."
Mandy, wise old Mandy, knew of course that it was her heart. "You res'
an' sleep, honey," she said, and moved about quietly setting things in
order.
But Becky did not sleep. She lay wide awake, and tried to get the
thing straight in her mind. How had it happened? Where had she
failed? Oh, why hadn't Sister Loretto told her that there were men
like this? Why hadn't Aunt Claudia returned in time?
In the big box which Mandy had brought up were clothes--exquisite
things which Becky had ordered from New York. She had thought it a
miracle that George should have fallen in love with her believing her
poor. It showed, she felt, his splendidness, his kindly indifference
to--poverty. Yet she had planned a moment when he should know. When
their love was proclaimed to the world he should see her in a splendor
which matched his own. He had loved her in spite of her faded cottons,
in spite of her shabby shoes. She had made up her list carefully,
thinking of his sparkling eyes when he behold her.
She got out of bed and opened the box. The lively garments were
wrapped in rosy tissue paper, and tied with ribbons to match. It
seemed to Becky as if those rosy wrappings held the last faint glow of
her dreams.
She untied the ribbons of the top parcel, and disclosed a frock of fine
white lace--there was cloth of silver for a petticoat, and silver
slippers. She would have worn her pearls, and George and she would
have danced together at the Harvest Ball at the Merriweathers. It was
an annual and very exclusive affair in the county. It was not likely
that the Watermans and their guests would be invited, but there would
have been a welcome for Dalton as her friend--her more than friend.
There was a white lace wrap with puffs of pink taffeta and knots of
silver ribbon which went with the gown. Becky with a sudden impulse
put it on. She stripped the cap from her head, and wound her bronze
locks in a high knot. She surveyed herself.
Well, she was Becky Bannister of Huntersfield--and the mirror showed
her beauty. And Dalton had not known or cared. He thought her poor;
and had thrown her aside like an old glove!
Down-stairs the telephone rang. Old Mandy, coming up to say that Mr.
Randy was on the wire, stood in amazement at the sight of Becky in the
rosy wrap with her hair peaked up to a topknot.
"Ain' you in baid?" she asked, superfluously.
"No. Who wants me, Mandy?"
"I tole you--Mr. Randy."
Becky deliberated. "I'll go down. When I come up we'll unpack all
this, Mandy."
Randy at the other end of the wire was asking Becky to go to a barbecue
the next day.
"The boarders are giving it--it is Mother's birthday and they want to
celebrate. It is to be on Pavilion Hill. They want you and the
Judge----"
"To-morrow? Oh, I don't know, Randy."
"Why not? Have you another engagement?"
"No."
"Then what's the matter? Can't you tear yourself away from your
shining knight?"
Silence.
"Becky--oh, I didn't mean that. I'm sorry--_Becky_----"
Her answer came faintly, "I'll come."
"What's the matter with the wire? I can't hear you."
There was nothing the matter with the wire. The thing that was the
matter was Becky's voice. She found it suddenly unmanageable. "We'll
come," she told him finally, and hung up the receiver.
She ascended the stairs as if she carried a burden on her back. Mandy
was on her knees before the hamper, untying the rosy packages.
"Is you goin' to try 'em on, honey?" she asked.
Becky stood in the doorway, the lace wrap hanging from her shoulders
and showing the delicate blue of the negligee beneath--her face was
like chalk but her eyes shone. "Yes," she said, "there's a pink
gingham I want to wear to the barbecue to-morrow. There ought to be a
hat to match. Did the hats come, Mandy?"
"Calvin he say there's another box, but he ain' brought it up from the
deepot. He was ridin' dat Jo-mule, and this yer basket was all he
could ca'y."
In the pink frock Becky looked like a lovely child.
"Huc-cum you-all gettin' eve'y thing pink, Miss Becky?" Mandy asked.
"For a change," said Becky.
And how could she tell old Mandy that she had felt that in a
rose-colored world everything should be rose-color?
She tried on each frock deliberately. She tried on every pair of
slippers. She tried on the wraps, and the hats which came up finally
with Calvin staggering beneath the bulkiness of the box. She was
lovely in everything. And she was no longer the little Becky Bannister
whom Dalton had wooed. She was Mademoiselle Midas, appraising her
beauty in her lovely clothes, and wondering what Dalton would think if
he could see her.
II
Becky did not, after all, wear the pink gingham. The Judge elected to
go on horseback, so Becky rode forth by his side correctly and smartly
attired in a gray habit, with a straight black sailor and a high stock
and boots that made her look like a charming boy.
They came to Pavilion Hill to find the boarders like the chorus in
light opera very picturesque in summer dresses and summer flannels, and
with Mrs. Paine in a broad hat playing the part of leading lady. Mr.
Flippin, who was high-priest at all of the county barbecues, was
superintending the roasting of a whole pig, and Mrs. Flippin had her
mind on hot biscuits. The young mulatto, Daisy, and Mandy's John, with
the negroes from the Paine household, were setting the long tables
under the trees. There was the good smell of coffee, much laughter,
and a generally festive atmosphere.
The Judge, enthroned presently in the Pavilion, was the pivotal center
of the crowd. Everybody wanted to hear his stories, and with this
fresh audience to stimulate him, he dominated the scene. He wore a
sack suit and a Panama hat and his thin, fine face, the puff of curled
white hair at the back of his neck, the gayety of his glance gave an
almost theatric touch to his appearance, so that one felt he might at
any moment come down stage and sing a topical song in the best
Gilbertian manner.
It was an old scene with a new setting. It was not the first time that
Pavilion Hill had been the backgrounds of a barbecue. But it was the
first time that a Paine of King's Crest had accepted hospitality on its
own land. It was the first time that it had echoed to the voices of an
alien group. It was the first time that it had seen a fighting black
man home from France. The old order had changed indeed. No more would
there be feudal lords of Albemarle acres.
Yet old loyalties die hard. It was the Judge and Mrs. Paine and Becky
and Randy who stood first in the hearts of the dusky folk who served at
the long tables. The boarders were not in any sense "quality."
Whatever they might be, North, East and West, their names were not
known on Virginia records. And what was any family tree worth if it
was not rooted in Virginia soil?
"Effen the Jedge was a king and wo' a crown," said Mandy's John to
Daisy, "he couldn't look mo' bawn to a th'one."
Daisy nodded. "Settin' at the head o' that table minds me o' whut my
old Mammy used to say, 'han'some is as han'some does.' The Bannisters
_done_ han'some and they _is_ handsome."
"They sure is," John agreed; "that-all's whut makes you so
good-lookin', Daisy."
He came close to her and she drew away. "You put yo' min' on passin'
them plates," she said with severity, "or you'll be spillin' po'k gravy
on they haids." Her smile took away the sting of her admonition. John
moved on, murmuring, "Well, yo' does han'some and yo' is han'some,
Daisy, and that's why I loves you."
There were speeches after dinner. One from Randy, in which he thanked
them in the name of his mother, and found himself quite suddenly and
unexpectedly being fond of the boarders. Major Prime was not there.
He had been summoned back to Washington, but would return, he hoped,
for the week-end.
It was after lunch that Randy and Becky walked to the woods. Nellie
Custis followed them. They sat down at last at the foot of a hickory
tree. Becky took off her hat and the wind blew her shining hair about
her face. She was pale and wore an air of deep preoccupation.
"Randy," she asked suddenly out of a long silence, "did you ever kiss a
girl?"
Her question did not surprise him. He and Becky had argued many
matters. And they usually plunged in without preliminaries. He
fancied that Becky was discussing kisses in the abstract. It never
occurred to him that the problem was personal.
"Yes," he said, "I have. What about it?"
"Did you--ask her to marry you?"
"No."
"Why not?"
He pulled Nellie Custis' ears. "One of them wasn't a nice sort of
girl--not the kind that I should have cared to introduce to--you."
"Yet you cared to--kiss her?"
Randy flushed faintly. "I know how it looks to you. I hated it
afterwards, but I couldn't marry a girl--like that----"
"Who was the other girl?"
For a moment he did not reply, then he said with something of an
effort, "It was you, Becky."
"Me? When?" She turned on him her startled gaze.
"Do you remember at Christmas--oh, ten years ago--and your grandfather
had a party for you. There was mistletoe in the hall, and we danced
and stopped under the mistletoe----"
"I remember, Randy--how long ago it seems."
"Yet ten years isn't really such a long time, is it, Becky? I was only
a little boy, but I told myself then that I would never kiss any other
girl. I thought then that--that some day I might ask you to marry me.
I--I had a wild dream that I might try to make you love me. I didn't
know then that poverty is a millstone about a man's neck." He gave a
bitter laugh.
Becky's breath came quickly. "Oh, Randy," she said, "poverty wouldn't
have had anything to do with it--not if we had--cared----"
"I care," said Randy, "and I think the first time I knew how much I
cared was when I kissed that other girl. Somehow you came to me that
night, a little white thing, so fine and different, and I loathed her."
He was standing now--tall and lean and black-haired, but with the look
of race on his thin face, a rather princely chap in spite of his shabby
clothes. "Of course you don't care," he said; "I think if I had money
I should try to make you. But I haven't the right. I had thought
that, perhaps, if no other man came that some time I might----"
Becky picked up her riding crop, and as she talked she tapped her hoot
in a sort of staccato accompaniment.
"That other man has come," _tap-tap_, "he kissed me," _tap-tap_, "and
made me love him," _tap-tap_, "and he has gone away--and he hasn't
asked me to marry him."
One saw the Indian in Randy now, in the lifted head, the square-set
jaw, the almost cruel keenness of the eyes.
"Of course it is George Dalton," he said.
"Yes."
"I could kill him, Becky."
She laughed, ruefully. "For what? Perhaps he thinks I'm not a nice
sort of girl--like the one you kissed----"
"For God's sake, Becky."
He sat down on a flat rock. He was white, and shaking a little. He
wanted more than anything else in the wide world to kill George Dalton.
Of course in these days such things were preposterous. But he had
murder in his heart.
"I blame myself," Becky said, _tap-tap_, "I should have known that a
man doesn't respect," _tap-tap_, "a woman he can kiss."
He took the riding crop forcibly out of her hands. "Look at me, look
at me, Becky, do you love him?"
She whispered, "Yes."
"Then he's got to marry you."
But her pride was up. "Do you think I want him if he doesn't want--me?"
"He shall want you," said Randy Paine; "the day shall come when he
shall beg on his knees."
Randy had studied law. But there are laws back of the laws of the
white man. The Indian knows no rest until his enemy is in his hands.
Randy lay awake late that night thinking it out. But he was not
thinking only of Georgie. He was thinking of Becky and her
self-respect. "She will never get it back," he said, "until that dog
asks her to marry him."
He had faith enough in her to believe that she would not marry Dalton
now if he asked her. But she must be given the chance.