VITRIOL AND THE HOODOO
"I suppose it is absurd for a staid old matron like myself to be
jealous, really jealous, at seeing a child like you being consumed
alive by a lot of simpering misses in pink and blue chiffon pinafores,
who ought to be in their nursery cots asleep, but I have been and am,
boy. Did you forget that I was your oldest friend while Sue Tomlinson
fed you sweets out of her hand?" And as she spoke she seated herself
in the exact center of the window seat and motioned me to place myself
in the portion of the left side that remained. I inserted myself into
the space that was so indicated and laid my arm along the window ledge
behind her very much undressed back, so that I might give to my lungs
space to expand for air. I think that arrangement made very much for
the comfort of the beautiful Madam Patricia, for she immediately
appropriated that arm as a cushion for her undraped shoulders. We
being thus comfortably wedged, the warfare began.
"All week I've been thinking about you, you wonderful boy, and
wondering just what you have been doing and what has been doing
to you. The General is so--so incomprehensible in his attitude
towards you and yours. All these years he has been"--and as she
spoke she looked up into my eyes and pressed slightly towards
me--"uncompromising, hasn't he?"
"Yes, Madam, I do find my Uncle, the General Robert, to be, as you
say, uncompromising," I answered as I looked down at her with a smile.
"But you are not like that, are you, beautiful Madam Whitworth? You
will compromise yourself, will you not?"
"Don't use English words so carelessly, my dear, until you are less
ignorant of their meaning," she reproved me as she sat erect and gave
to my lungs an inch more breathing space. I had heard that large lady
of the State of Cincinnati on the ship say that a nice lady from a
place called Kansas, and whom everyone gave the title of Mrs. Grass
because of a disagreeable husband who was not dead, "compromised"
herself with a very much drinking gentleman from Boston because she
sat in a small space with him behind the chimney for smoke from the
engine, and I thought it was a nice word to fit into the conversation
with Madam Whitworth at that time. And I think it did fit better than
I had quite intended that it should. I saw offense and I hastened to
make a peace so that I should learn all that I wanted to know from her
while letting her learn all that I did not know from me.
"I beg that you pardon me, beautiful Madam, and teach me the English
words to say that will express all of--of the most wonderful things
that I think of you. What is the one word that expresses the beauty of
the blue flowers in crystal that I said your eyes to be, to myself,
the first time I looked into them upon that railroad train when you
rescued me from the black taffeta lady?" And as I was at that moment
speaking the exact truth I spoke with a great ardor.
"I rather think that offsets Sue Tomlinson's 'cream jug'
compliment--and you _are_ a dear," she answered as she again
diminished the space for my lung action. "I hear the dear General has
turned you over to the Governor completely. What do you think of him?"
she asked as if to manufacture conversation.
"Yes, I was made a gift to him last week, and I do not think very much
of that Gouverneur," I made answer with excellent falseness, because I
had had no thoughts since my presentation to that Gouverneur Faulkner
that were not of him. I had obtained the uncomplimentary remark upon
the ship, from the lady of Cincinnati, who said it about the doctor of
the seasickness from which she suffered.
"Between you and me, boy--if anything, even an opinion, can be wedged
between us--I think the Governor is a great, overrated stupid,
encouraged in his denseness by the dear General whose ideas
have--have--er--rather solidified with age. I rather pity you for
having to have all of your opinions and policies of life moulded by
them. Yes, it is a pity." And she sighed very near to my cheek.
"Will you not mould me to some extent yourself, beautiful flower-eyed
Madam?" I asked of her with great gentleness, and did administer a
nice little pressure to her shoulders like I had adventured upon the
waist of the beautiful Belle in blue and silver dress which Madam
Whitworth had named a pinafore.
"You are a perfect dear, and I will help you all I can. Just come and
tell me all of your difficulties and I'll try and smooth them away for
you. I suppose you will find it easy to translate their French
documents for them about this very boring mule deal. I have had to do
it and I am glad to turn the burden of it all over to you. You may
have some trouble with the English technicalities and perhaps you had
best bring them in to me and I'll run over them to see that you get
them straight. Only don't let the General know that I am helping you,
for I verily believe the old dear thinks I am a nihilist ready to blow
the Governor or any of his other old mules into a thousand bits."
"I thank you, beautiful Madam Whitworth, for your offer of assistance,
and I will avail myself of it at the first opportunity. Is it at your
house that we can be alone?" I questioned with a daring smile that
would serve both for a purpose of coquetry and also to ascertain if I
would encounter in a call upon her that very disagreeable appearing
gentleman, Mr. Jefferson Whitworth, who is the husband to his very
beautiful wife.
"Come any afternoon at four o'clock and telephone me before you come
so that I can get rid of anybody who happens to be around. And be sure
to bring any work you have for me to help you with. That's the only
way I can excuse an ancient matron like myself for keeping you even
for a few minutes away from the pinafores." And she looked into my
eyes with a sigh for her antiquity. In the language of that Mr. Willie
Saint Louis I knew it was "up to me," and I "handed the dame one."
"In my country, beautiful Madam, the fruit is much more regarded than
the bud," is what I presented to her.
"You are delicious," she laughed as she again diminished my breathing
space. "I cannot see why the dear General has been so violent in his
prejudice against all things from France. You must try to win him
over, especially as he is letting his prejudice to France, if you can
call downright hatred that, stand in the way of lending his aid in
doing a great service to your poor, struggling, brave army, while at
the same time reaping a profit to his own State. Has he told you
anything of this mule deal he is forcing Governor Faulkner to hold up
on some others who want to do a service to France?" As she questioned
me, the beautiful Madam's eyes became much narrower and I could
observe that she watched me with intentness for any sign of
intelligence. I gave her none.
"Will you not tell me, my Madam of the blue flower eyes, about all of
the matter? It will be of great benefit to me to understand it all
from you, for my Uncle the General Robert is a man of few words and I
am not a man of much business intelligence." And as I spoke I regarded
her with a great and beseeching humility.
And there, in the Mansion of the Gouverneur of the State of Harpeth
himself, that lovely woman did unfold to me the most wonderful plan
for the most enormous robbery of both her own government and mine--or
should I say of both of my governments?--that it could be in the power
of mortal mind to conceive. It was a beautiful, reasonable, generous,
patriotic, sympathetic drama of the gigantic war mule and it had only
one tiny, hidden obscure line in one of its verses, but in that line
lay all of dishonor that could come to a man and a State who should
allow a smaller nation fighting for its life and its honor to be
defrauded of one of the supplies which were of a deadly necessity for
its success. I think I even saw the dastardly scheme more plainly than
did my Uncle, the General Robert, for I had listened with more than
one ear while my Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, explained to wee
Pierre some of the details of supplying the army of the Republique. I
think he had talked of things that the little one could not understand
just to make an ease of the pressure of all of his business upon his
troubled mind and breaking heart. And as Madam Whitworth talked I
could hear my Pierre's brave voice as he always gave assurances to his
sad idol.
"All of plenty is in America, and she will give to France."
And here sat great strong Roberta, the Marquise of Grez and Bye,
holding in the hollow of her arm a beautiful American woman who had
herself contrived a monstrous plan to let a quantity of the lifeblood
of France to turn into gold for her own vain uses. If to throttle her
then and there with my bare strong hands had insured the great big
needful mules to France, and saved the honor of my Gouverneur of the
State of Harpeth, and my Uncle, the General Robert, I think I might
have had a great temptation to administer that death to her; but
instead I held her now closer in my arm and I began to plot her to
death in any other way I could discover, so that her intrigue should
die with her.
"Of a truth, beautiful Madam, the poor old Uncle, the General Robert,
must not be allowed to interfere with such a beautiful plan as you
have for supplying those very fine strong mules from the State of
Harpeth to poor struggling France, and I will join with you in
convincing the stupid Gouverneur Faulkner that such must not be the
case. You will direct me, will you not? I am very young and I have but
so lately come to this land that I do not know--I do not feel exactly
what you call at home." And I spoke again with beseeching humility.
"We'll do it for France together, boy," she whispered as she turned in
my arm and pressed herself against my raven attire above my heart held
in restraint by that towel of the bath. "And then you can claim from
me any--reward--you--"
Just at this lovely moment, when the beautiful Madam Whitworth had
thrown herself into my arms and I had been obliged by my cunning to
hold her there instead of flinging her to the floor as I naturally
desired, there arrived at the door of the room which we were occupying
with our plotting, my tall and awful Uncle, the General Robert, and
looked down upon us with the lightnings of a storm in his eyes. Then,
before I could make exclamation and betray his presence to the lady in
my arms, whose back was turned in his direction, he had disappeared.
Did I betray that presence to the lady? I did not. I decided that it
would be much to the advantage of the affair to have the lady in
ignorance of his knowledge.
"You must go now, boy," she said at about the moment in which I could
no longer keep my dissembling alive. "Send the Governor in here to me,
for it is about the time I had promised to dance with him. I want to
talk with him and try to make him see some at least of this matter in
the right light. Go; and come to me to-morrow at four--for--for
France."
I went and it was with much joy in the going. I stopped at a tall
window to get into my lungs a very deep supply of atmosphere and also
to take counsel with myself.
"Mr. Robert Carruthers," I said to myself, "you are in what that Mr.
G. Slade of Detroit said to be a 'hell of a fix' when the nice aunt of
that beautiful and refined 'skirt' of Saint Joseph, Missouri,
discovered her to be in his embrace of farewell. I cannot tell to my
Uncle, the General Robert, that it is that I, a woman of honor, have
planned for myself, a man of dishonor, to betray a woman into his
hands, and I shall receive from him what that Buzz Clendenning calls
to be a 'dressing down.' But I must go to send to Madam Delilah now
the great Gouverneur of the State of Harpeth and for what she does to
him that is unholy she will answer to Robert Carruthers or--or
Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye." And then immediately I went to
deliver the summons of Madam Whitworth to the Gouverneur Faulkner and
I did not look into his face as I spoke the words, but waited with my
eyes cast down to the floor until he dismissed me.
Then after that very painful hour of intrigue I allowed to Mr. Robert
Carruthers another of very delightful gayety with all of the "chiffon
pinafore" ladies upon the ballroom floor. I have in my blood that
gayety which led some of my ancestors to laugh and compliment each
other and play piquet up even to the edge of the guillotine, and I
refused to see the countenance of my Uncle, the General Robert,
regarding me from the door in the end of the ballroom. I considered
that an hour of pleasure was a sacred thing not to be interfered with,
and I danced with that sweet Sue Tomlinson right past the edge of his
toes while I could feel the delicious giggle within her, which was
answering that within me, at his fierce regard of us both.
"He'll eat you up before daylight, Mr. Carruthers," she said as she
cast a sweet and loving glance at my Uncle, the General Robert, which,
I could see as I lowered her over my arm and slid away from him, was
giving to him much nice fury.
"I will request that Madam black Kizzie to make a good cream gravy to
me," I made answer to her with merriment. "I am very tender," I added
with audacity that I was learning with such a rapidity that I trembled
for the reputation of Mr. Robert Carruthers, and as I spoke the words
I gave to her a little embrace in a turn of the dance. It should not
have been done, but if that sweet Sue had known that a very lonely
girl danced in that raven garb of a man, who wanted to hold her close
for her comforting, she would have forgiven it, I feel sure. That Sue
is a young woman of such a good sense that I must forever cherish her.
"Don't do that again, Bobby Carruthers," she said, looking up at me
with a lovely seriousness in her honest young eyes. "I know you are
French, and queer, but--but don't--" After a little she added: "We are
going to be grand friends, aren't we?" "Yes, lovely Sue, and I beg of
you pardon," I answered her with all of the friendliness of Roberta,
Marquise of Grez and Bye, in my eyes and voice, which seemed to give
to her a beautiful satisfaction.
"Good! I'll tell you what let's do. You come by for me to-morrow
afternoon and I'll go with you to the Capitol and I'll beard the
General Lion in his den and ask him to let us be friends, and then
we'll take him out to the Confederate Soldiers' Home for 'flags
down'--it mellowed him so once, when I was about ten, that he let me
trot home beside him holding his hand, though he didn't speak to me
for a week after. Want to?" I did enjoy the mischief in those merry
eyes that I laughed into.
"I'll steal his big car and come and help you--what do you
say?--kidnap my Uncle, the General Robert," I answered her with
delight as I released her into the arms of that Buzz Clendenning
before the fox had been more than half trotted.
"Go pick roses out of your own garden, L'Aiglon," he said as he slid
her away from me.
And for the reason that I was very slightly fatigued and also slightly
warm from being obliged to dance in the very heavy swathings of a
gentleman, when I had been accustomed to the coolness of chiffon and
tulle and thin lace of a lady, I went again into the broad hall and to
the wide window that looked away to those comforting blue hills. Below
me the garden was coming out of a veil of mist as the moon, which was
now very old, came slowly up from behind the dim ridge of hills that
my Uncle the General Robert had told me to be called Paradise Ridge.
All the spring flowers below me seemed to be sending up to me
greetings of perfumes and the tall purple and white lilac flowers
waved plumes of friendliness at me, while large round pink blossoms
that I think are called peonies, nodded and beckoned to me with sweet
countenances. I felt that they were flower friends who in their turn
were saying messages of welcome to the lonely girl who had come across
the dark waters to them and in my throat I began to hum that "Say can
you see--" Star Spangled hymn to them, and was just preparing to step
from the window onto a balcony and descend to them, when a movement of
human beings caught my eye upon the side of that balcony and I paused
in the darkness of the window curtain. What did I see?
A man stood at the rail of the balcony in the dim moonlight and he was
speaking to a woman whom his broad shoulders hid from me. The man was
the Gouverneur Faulkner of the State of Harpeth and in a moment I
discovered the identity of the lady with him.
"And now, can't you see, you great big stupid man, what an opportunity
I have procured for all of you?" was the question that came in the
soft voice of the beautiful Madam Patricia Whitworth. "All my life I
have worked just to get a little ease and comfort, carrying the burden
of Jeff in his incompetency strapped to my shoulders, and now you, who
know how I've suffered and slaved, are going to take it all from me
when it is just within my reach, and all from no earthly reason than a
fancied scruple of honor which that old doddering woman-hater imposes
on you. I cannot believe that you would so treat me." And there were
sobs in her words that were wooing and compelling.
"I cannot do a thing that my Secretary of State and his lawyers
declare unconstitutional, Patricia," answered the voice of the
Gouverneur Faulkner, in which were notes of pain. "You know how it
pains me--my God, don't tempt me to--" His voice shook as I saw the
beautiful, bare white arms of Madam Whitworth raise themselves and go
about his neck like great white grappling hooks from which he was
unable to defend himself.
"Am I to have nothing from life--no ease or luxury and no--love or--"
Her voice ended in sobs as she pressed her head down into his shoulder
as his arm folded about her to prevent that she should fall.
"Patricia--" the deep voice of the strong man was beginning to say as
I was starting to spring forward in his defense and to do--I do not
know what--when a firm grasp was laid upon my shoulder and I was
turned away from the window into the light of the wide hall and found
my Uncle, the General Robert, looking down into my flashing eyes with
a great and very cool calmness.
"Young man," he said as he gave to me a very powerful shake, "all
women are poison but some are vitriol and others just--Oh, well,
paregoric. Go out there and take another dose of that soothing
syrup labeled Susan Tomlinson, before I take you home, and
you--keep--away--from--vitriol--or--I'll--break--your--hot--young--
head. Vitriol, mind you!" With which command my Uncle, the General
Robert, strode down the hall in the direction of the smoking room and
left me blinking in the lights of the wide hall.
"Little Mas' Robert," came in a soft voice at my elbow as I stood
tottering, "is you got a picture of yo' mudder you could show Cato
some day when the General ain't lookin'. 'Fore I dies I wants to set
my eyes on de woman dat drawed little Mas' Henry away from us all. Dey
_is_ such a thing in dis hard old world as love what you goes
'crost many waters' to git, and he shorely got it." And I looked into
the eyes of that old black man to find a truth that all the white
humans about me, myself included, were acting in the terms of a lie.
Before I could answer the old man, in through the window came the
Gouverneur Faulkner and the beautiful Madam Whitworth, and from his
white face set in sternness and hers with its smile of the opening
rose upon its red mouth I could not tell whether his honor had been
slain or had been spared for another round.
"I'll want you in my office at the Capitol at eleven to-morrow,
Robert," he said to me, and there was a cold sternness in his glance
as they passed by me and the old Cato into the ballroom.
"At four," murmured the beautiful Madam Whitworth as she swept past me
with a soft smile but in a tone of voice too low for any ears save my
own and I think of the old Cato's.
For a very short moment the old black man detained me as he searched
one of the pockets of his long gray coat and then he handed to me a
tiny flat parcel apparently folded in some kind of thin red cloth.
"Wear that in your left shoe, honey, day and night. You'll need it if
she's got her eye on you," he said as he hurried away from me into the
smoking room.
After disrobing that night, or rather in the early morning of the
following day, I investigated the contents of that package. In it were
a gray feather off of an apparently very nice chicken, a very old and
rusty pin bent in two places and a flat little black seed I had never
before beheld.
I gazed at the package for several long moments, then I put back upon
my left foot the silk sock I had removed, placed the token of old Cato
within it under my heel, dived into that large bed of my ancestors and
in the darkness covered up my head tightly with the silk comforter.