Next morning when I saw the weltering sky I resigned myself to a day of
dullness; yet before its end I had caught a bright new glimpse of
John Mayrant’s abilities, and also had come, through tribulation, to a
further understanding of the South; so that I do not, to-day, regret the
tribulation. As the rain disappointed me of two outdoor expeditions, to
which I had been for some little while looking forward, I dedicated most
of my long morning to a sadly neglected correspondence, and trusted that
the expeditions, as soon as the next fine weather visited Kings Port,
would still be in store for me. Not only everybody in town here, but
Aunt Carola, up in the North also, had assured me that to miss the sight
of Live Oaks when the azaleas in the gardens of that country seat were
in flower would be to lose one of the rarest and most beautiful things
which could be seen anywhere; and so I looked out of my window at the
furious storm, hoping that it might not strip the bushes at Live Oaks
of their bloom, which recent tourists at Mrs. Trevise’s had described
as drawing near the zenith of its luxuriance. The other excursion to
Udolpho with John Mayrant was not so likely to fall through. Udolpho
was a sort of hunting lodge or country club near Tern Creek and an old
colonial church, so old that it bore the royal arms upon a shield
still preserved as a sign of its colonial origin. A note from Mayrant,
received at breakfast, informed me that the rain would take all
pleasure from such an excursion, and that he should seize the earliest
opportunity the weather might afford to hold me to my promise. The wet
gale, even as I sat writing, was beating down some of the full-blown
flowers in the garden next Mrs. Trevise’s house, and as the morning wore
on I watched the paths grow more strewn with broken twigs and leaves.
I filled my correspondence with accounts of Daddy Ben and his grandson,
the carpenter, doubtless from some pride in my part in that, but also
because it had become, through thinking it over, even more interesting
to-day than it had been at the moment of its occurrence; and in replying
to a sort of postscript of Aunt Carola’s in which she hurriedly wrote
that she had forgotten to say she had heard the La Heu family in South
Carolina was related to the Bombos, and should be obliged to me if I
would make inquiries about this, I told her that it would be easy,
and then described to her the Teuton, plying his “antiquity” trade
externally while internally cherishing his collected skulls and nursing
his scientific rage. All my letters were the more abundant concerning
these adventures of mine from my having kept entirely silent upon them
at Mrs. Trevise’s tea-table. I dreaded Juno when let loose upon the
negro question; and the fact that I was beginning to understand her
feelings did not at all make me wish to be deafened by them. Neither
Juno, therefore, nor any of them learned a word from me about the
kettle-supporter incident. What I did take pains to inform the assembled
company was my gratification that the report of Mr. Mayrant’s engagement
being broken was unfounded; and this caused Juno to observe that in
that case Miss Rieppe must have the most imperative reasons for uniting
herself to such a young man.
Unintimidated by the rain, this formidable creature had taken herself
off to her nephew’s bedside almost immediately after breakfast; and
later in the day I, too, risked a drenching for the sake of ordering the
packing-box that I needed. When I returned, it was close on tea-time;
I had seen Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael send out the hot coffee to the
conductor, and I had found a negro carpenter whose week it happily was
to stay sober; and now I learned that, when tea should be finished, the
poetess had in store for us, as a treat, her ode.
Our evening meal was not plain sailing, even for the veteran navigation
of Mrs. Trevise; Juno had returned from the bedside very plainly
displeased (she was always candid even when silent) by something which
had happened there; and before the joyful moment came when we all
learned what this was, a very gouty Boston lady who had arrived with her
husband from Florida on her way North--and whose nature you will readily
grasp when I tell you that we found ourselves speaking of the man as
Mrs. Braintree’s husband and never as Mr. Braintree--this crippled lady,
who was of a candor equal to Juno’s, embarked upon a conversation with
Juno that compelled Mrs. Trevise to tinkle her bell for Daphne after
only two remarks had been exchanged.
I had been sorry at first that here in this Southern boarding-house
Boston should be represented only by a lady who appeared to unite in
herself all the stony products of that city, and none of the others;
for she was as convivial as a statue and as well-informed as a
spelling-book; she stood no more for the whole of Boston than did Juno
for the whole of Kings Port. But my sorrow grew less when I found
that in Mrs. Braintree we had indeed a capable match for her Southern
counterpart. Juno, according to her custom, had remembered something
objectionable that had been perpetrated in 1865 by the Northern vandals.
“Edward,” said Mrs. Braintree to her husband, in a frightfully clear
voice, “it was at Chambersburg, was it not, that the Southern vandals
burned the house in which were your father’s title-deeds?”
Edward, who, it appeared, had fought through the whole Civil War, and
was in consequence perfectly good-humored and peaceable in his feelings
upon that subject, replied hastily and amiably: “Oh, yes, yes! Why, I
believe it was!”
But this availed nothing; Juno bent her great height forward, and
addressed Mrs. Braintree. “This is the first time I have been told
Southerners were vandals.”
“You will never be able to say that again!” replied Mrs. Braintree.
After the bell and Daphne had stopped, the invaluable Briton addressed a
genial generalization to us all: “I often think how truly awful your war
would have been if the women had fought it, y’know, instead of the men.”
“Quite so!” said the easy-going Edward “Squaws! Mutilation! Yes!” and he
laughed at his little joke, but he laughed alone.
I turned to Juno. “Speaking of mutilation, I trust your nephew is better
this evening.”
I was rejoiced by receiving a glare in response. But still more joy was
to come.
“An apology ought to help cure him a lot,” observed the Briton.
Juno employed her policy of not hearing him.
“Indeed, I trust that your nephew is in less pain,” said the poetess.
Juno was willing to answer this. “The injuries, thank you, are the
merest trifles--all that such a light-weight could inflict.” And
she shrugged her shoulders to indicate the futility of young John’s
pugilism.
“But,” the surprised Briton interposed, “I thought you said your nephew
was too feeble to eat steak or hear poetry.”
Juno could always stem the eddy of her own contradictions--but she did
raise her voice a little. “I fancy, sir, that Doctor Beaugarcon knows
what he is talking about.”
“Have they apologized yet?” inquired the male honeymooner from the
up-country.
“My nephew, sir, nobly consented to shake hands this afternoon. He did
it entirely out of respect for Mr. Mayrant’s family, who coerced him
into this tardy reparation, and who feel unable to recognize him since
his treasonable attitude in the Custom House.”
“Must be fairly hard to coerce a chap you can’t recognize,” said the
Briton.
An et cetera now spoke to the honeymoon bride from the up-country: “I
heard Doctor Beaugarcon say he was coming to visit you this evening.”
“Yais,” assented the bride. “Doctor Beaugarcon is my mother’s fourth
cousin.”
Juno now took--most unwisely, as it proved--a vindictive turn at me. “I
knew that your friend, Mr. Mayrant, was intemperate,” she began.
I don’t think that Mrs. Trevise had any intention to ring for Daphne at
this point--her curiosity was too lively; but Juno was going to risk no
such intervention, and I saw her lay a precautionary hand heavily down
over the bell. “But,” she continued, “I did not know that Mr. Mayrant
was a gambler.”
“Have you ever seen him intemperate?” I asked.
“That would be quite needless,” Juno returned. “And of the gambling I
have ocular proof, since I found him, cards, counters, and money, with
my sick nephew. He had actually brought cards in his pocket.”
“I suppose,” said the Briton, “your nephew was too sick to resist him.”
The male honeymooner, with two of the et ceteras, made such unsteady
demonstrations at this that Mrs. Trevise protracted our sitting no
longer. She rose, and this meant rising for us all.
A sense of regret and incompleteness filled me, and finding the Briton
at my elbow as our company proceeded toward the sitting room, I said:
“Too bad!”
His whisper was confident. “We’ll get the rest of it out of her yet.”
But the rest of it came without our connivance.
In the sitting room Doctor Beaugarcon sat waiting, and at sight of Juno
entering the door (she headed our irregular procession) he sprang up
and lifted admiring hands. “Oh, why didn’t I have an aunt like you!” he
exclaimed, and to Mrs. Trevise as she followed: “She pays her nephew’s
poker debts.”
“How much, cousin Tom?” asked the upcountry bride.
And the gay old doctor chuckled, as he kissed her: “Thirty dollars this
afternoon, my darling.”
At this the Briton dragged me behind a door in the hall, and there we
danced together.
“That Mayrant chap will do,” he declared; and we composed ourselves for
a proper entrance into the sitting room, where the introductions had
been made, and where Doctor Beaugarcon and Mrs. Braintree’s husband had
already fallen into war reminiscences, and were discovering with mutual
amiability that they had fought against each other in a number of
battles.
“And you generally licked us,” smiled the Union soldier.
“Ah! don’t I know myself how it feels to run!” laughed the Confederate.
“Are you down at the club?”
But upon learning from the poetess that her ode was now to be read
aloud, Doctor Beaugarcon paid his fourth cousin’s daughter a brief,
though affectionate, visit, lamenting that a very ill patient should
compel him to take himself away so immediately, but promising her
presently in his stead two visitors much more interesting.
“Miss Josephine St. Michael desires to call upon you,” he said, “and I
fancy that her nephew will escort her.”
“In all this rain?” said the bride.
“Oh, it’s letting up, letting up! Good night, Mistress Trevise. Good
night, sir; I am glad to have met you.” He shook hands with Mrs.
Braintree’s husband. “We fellows,” he whispered, “who fought in the war
have had war enough.” And bidding the general company good night, and
kissing the bride again, he left us even as the poetess returned from
her room with the manuscript.
I soon wished that I had escaped with him, because I feared what Mrs.
Braintree might say when the verses should be finished; and so, I think,
did her husband. We should have taken the hint which tactful Doctor
Beaugarcon had meant, I began to believe, to give us in that whispered
remark of his. But it had been given too lightly, and so we sat and
heard the ode out. I am sure that the poetess, wrapped in the thoughts
of her own composition, had lost sight of all but the phrasing of her
poem and the strong feelings which it not unmusically voiced; there
Is no other way to account for her being willing to read it in Mrs.
Braintree’s presence.
Whatever gayety had filled me when the Boston lady had clashed with Juno
was now changed to deprecation and concern. Indeed, I myself felt
almost as if I were being physically struck by the words, until mere
bewilderment took possession of me; and after bewilderment, a little,
a very little, light, which, however, rapidly increased. We were the
victors, we the North, and we had gone upon our way with songs and
rejoicing--able to forget, because we were the victors. We had our
victory; let the vanquished have their memory. But here was the cry of
the vanquished, coming after forty years. It was the time which at
first bewildered me; Juno had seen the war, Juno’s bitterness I could
comprehend, even if I could not comprehend her freedom in expressing it,
but the poetess could not be more than a year or two older than I was;
she had come after it was all over. Why should she prolong such memories
and feelings? But my light increased as I remembered she had not written
this for us, and that if she had not seen the flames of war, she had
seen the ashes; for the ashes I had seen myself here in Kings Port, and
had been overwhelmed by the sight, forty years later, more overwhelmed
than I could possibly say to Mrs. Gregory St. Michael, or Mrs. Weguelin,
or anybody. The strain of sitting and waiting for the end made my hands
cold and my head hot, but nevertheless the light which had come enabled
me to bend instantly to Mrs. Braintree and murmur a great and abused
quotation to her:--
“Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner.”
But my petition could not move her. She was too old; she had seen the
flames of war; and so she said to her husband:--
“Edward, will you please help me upstairs?”
And thus the lame, irreconcilable lady left the room with the assistance
of her unhappy warrior, who must have suffered far more keenly than I
did.
This departure left us all in a constraint which was becoming unbearable
when the blessed doorbell rang and delivered us, and Miss Josephine St.
Michael entered with John Mayrant. He wore a most curious expression;
his eyes went searching about the room, and at length settled upon Juno
with a light in them as impish as that which had flickered in my own
mood before the ode.
To my surprise, Miss Josephine advanced and gave me a special and marked
greeting. Before this she had always merely bowed to me; to-night she
held out her hand. “Of course my visit is not to you; but I am very glad
to find you here and express the appreciation of several of us for your
timely aid to Daddy Ben. He feels much shame in having said nothing to
you himself.”
And while I muttered those inevitable modest nothings which fit such
occasions, Miss St. Michael recounted to the bride, whom she was
ostensibly calling upon, and to the rest of our now once more harmonious
circle, my adventures in the alleys of Africa. These loomed, even with
Miss St. Michael’s perfectly quiet and simple rendering of them, almost
of heroic size, thanks doubtless to Daddy Ben’s tropical imagery when he
first told the tale; and before they were over Miss St. Michael’s
marked recognition of me actually brought from Juno some reflected
recognition--only this resembled in its graciousness the original about
as correctly as a hollow spoon reflects the human countenance divine.
Still, it was at Juno’s own request that I brought down from my chamber
and displayed to them the kettle-supporter.
I have said that Miss St. Michael’s visit was ostensibly to the bride:
and that is because for some magnetic reason or other I felt diplomacy
like an undercurrent passing among our chairs. Young John’s expression
deepened, whenever he watched Juno, to a devilishness which his polite
manners veiled no better than a mosquito netting; and I believe that his
aunt, on account of the battle between their respective nephews, had for
family reasons deemed it advisable to pay, indirectly, under cover of
the bride, a state visit to Juno; and I think that I saw Juno accepting
it as a state visit, and that the two together, without using a word
of spoken language, gave each other to understand that the recent
deplorable circumstances were a closed incident. I think that his Aunt
Josephine had desired young John to pay a visit likewise, and, to make
sure of his speedy compliance, had brought him along with her--coerced
him, as Juno would have said. He wore somewhat the look of having been
“coerced,” and he contributed remarkably few observations to the talk.
It was all harmonious, and decorous, and properly conducted, this state
visit; yet even so, Juno and John exchanged at parting some verbal
sweet-meats which rather stuck out from the smooth meringue of
diplomacy.
She contemplated his bruise. “You are feeling stronger, I hope, than you
have been lately? A bridegroom’s health should be good.”
He thanked her. “I am feeling better to-night than for many weeks.”
The rascal had the thirty dollars visibly bulging that moment in his
pocket. I doubt if he had acquainted his aunt with this episode, but she
was certain to hear it soon; and when she did hear it, I rather fancy
that she wished to smile--as I completely smiled alone in my bed that
night thinking young John over.
But I did not go to sleep smiling; listening to the “Ode for the
Daughters of Dixie” had been an ordeal too truly painful, because it
disclosed live feelings which I had thought were dead, or rather, it
disclosed that those feelings smouldered in the young as well as in the
old. Doctor Beaugarcon didn’t have them--he had fought them out, just
as Mr. Braintree had fought them out; and Mrs. Braintree, like Juno,
retained them, because she hadn’t fought them out; and John Mayrant
didn’t have them, because he had been to other places; and I didn’t have
them--never had had them in my life, because I came into the world when
it was all over. Why then--Stop, I told myself, growing very wakeful,
and seeing in the darkness the light which had come to me, you have
beheld the ashes, and even the sight has overwhelmed you; these others
were born in the ashes, and have had ashes to sleep in and ashes to eat.
This I said to myself; and I remembered that War hadn’t been all; that
Reconstruction came in due season; and I thought of the “reconstructed”
negro, as Daddy Ben had so ingeniously styled him. These white people,
my race, had been set beneath the reconstructed negro. Still, still,
this did not justify the whole of it to me; my perfectly innocent
generation seemed to be included in the unforgiving, unforgetting ode.
“I must have it out with somebody,” I said. And in time I fell asleep.