Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN
by
IRVIN SHREWSBURY COBB
First Published 1927
_To my friend_
G. W. LILLIE
_Contents_
PAGE
A Lady and a Gentleman 1
The Order of the Bath 28
Two of Everything 67
We of the Old South 99
Killed with Kindness 136
Peace on Earth 161
Three Wise Men of the East Side 202
The Cowboy and the Lady and Her Pa 226
A Close Shave 259
Good Sam 270
How to Choke a Cat without Using Butter 300
_Ladies
and Gentlemen_
_Ladies and Gentlemen_
A LADY AND A GENTLEMAN
[Decoration]
There were the hotel lobbies; they roared and spun like whirlpools with
the crowds that were in them. But the streets outside were more like
mill-races, and the exits from the railroad stations became flumes down
which all morning and all afternoon the living torrents unceasingly
had poured. Every main crossing was in a twist of opposing currents.
Overhead, on cornices and across window-ledges and against house-fronts
and on ropes which passed above the roadway from one building to
another, hung buntings and flags and streamers, the prevalent colors
being red and white; and also many great goggle-eyed and bewhiskered
portraits of dead warriors done on sail-cloth in the best styles of
two domestic schools--sign-painting and election-bannering. Numbers
of brass bands marched to and fro, playing this, that, and the next
appropriate air, but when in doubt playing "Dixie"; and the musicians
waded knee-deep through an accumulating wreckage of abandoned
consonants--softly dropped _g's_, eliminated _r's_. In short, the
United Confederate Veterans were holding their annual reunion, this
being the evening of the opening day.
For absolute proof that this really was a reunion of his kind, there
was visible here and there a veteran. His average age was eighty-three
years and some odd months. He was feeble or he was halt or sometimes
he was purblind. Only very rarely did he carry his years and his frame
straight. He was near to being swept away and drowned in a vast and
fragrant sea of gracious, chattering femininity. His daughters and his
granddaughters and his nieces and his younger sisters and, very rarely,
his wife--they collectively were as ten to one against him. They were
the sponsors and the maids of honor and the matrons of honor and the
chaperons; they represented such-and-such a camp or such-and-such a
state, wearing flowing badges to attest their queenly distinctions;
wearing, also, white summery gowns, the most of them, with touches of
red. But the older women nearly always were in black.
Here and there moved the Amazonian figure of one among them who had
decked herself for this great occasion in a gray uniform with bullet
buttons of brass in twin rows down the front of the jacket and with
a soldier cap on her bobbed hair--nearly always it was bobbed--and
gold braid at the seams of her short walking skirt. A crafty stylist
even had thought out the added touches of epaulets for her straight
shoulders and a pair of black cavalry boots; and she went about much
admired by herself and the rest.
You see, it was like this: In the days when there were many of them,
the veterans had shared their reunions with their women. Now that
they were so few and so weakly, their women would let the veterans
share the reunions with them. It was very much like this--a gorgeous
social event, the whole South participating; with sentiment for
its half-erased background, with the memories of a war that ended
nearly sixty years before for its fainting, fading excuse; with the
splendid promise of balls and parties and receptions and flirting and
love-making and match-making for its assembly call to the campaigning
rampaging young of the species.
Only over by the river at the big yellow pine auditorium did the
puny veteran element yet hold its own against the dominant attendant
tides of the newer generations of its descendants. "General Van Brunk
of Texas, honored leader of the Trans-Mississippi Department, will
now present the important report of the Committee on History," the
octogenarian commander-in-chief was announcing to those fifteen hundred
white heads that nodded before him like so much ripened cotton in the
bolls. So General Van Brunk, holding the typewritten fruitage of one
year's hard work in his palsied hands, took the platform and cleared a
shrunken throat and began.
But just then the members of the Orphan Brigade of Kentucky--thirty-two
of them, no less--marched down the middle aisle with a fife-and-drum
corps at their head and a color-bearer bearing a tattered rag on a
scarred staff, and everybody rose up shakily to give the Rebel yell,
and nobody, not even General Van Brunk, ever heard a word of General
Van Brunk's report. It was ordered spread upon the minutes, though,
while the commander-in-chief stood up there with his arms outstretched
and wept a welcome to the straggly incoming column. He was an Orphan
himself.
The proceedings were proceeding according to custom. The orator chosen
to deliver the annual oration would have an easy time of it when his
hour came next day. "Comrades of my father," he would say and they
would applaud for five minutes. He would mention Jackson and they would
whoop for seven minutes; mention Lee and that would mean ten minutes of
the same. And so on.
At a quarter to ten a certain portly churchman--lately a chaplain with
the A.E.F.--who by invitation had come down from Minneapolis to bear
an affectionate message to these old men on behalf of the American
Legion, wormed his way out of a side door of the auditorium, his job
done. Inside his black garments he was perspiring heavily. The air of
the packed hall had been steaming hot. He stood for a minute on the
sidewalk, grateful for the cooling wind of the May night and trying
to decide whether he ought to turn east or west to get back to his
hotel. He was a bishop of the Episcopal Church and he had the bishop's
look and manner. On his arm he felt a bony clutch, like the clutch of a
parrot's foot.
A bent shell of a man was alongside him; it was this shell had fastened
its skeleton fingers upon his sleeve. Out of a head that was just a
skull with a brown hard skin stretched over it, a pair of filmed eyes
looked up into his face, and from behind an ambush of dense white
whiskers came a piping voice saying:
"Howdy, son."
The bishop was startled and secretly amused. He was used to being
called "Father"--frequently his collar and vest deceived Romanists--but
he couldn't remember when anyone had addressed him as "son."
"Good evening, sir," he answered.
"Son," quavered the other--he must be all of ninety, the bishop
decided--"say, son, I heared you back thar--part of whut you said. You
done fust-rate--yep, fust-rate, fur a Yankee. You air a Yankee, ain't
you?"
"Well, I was born in Nebraska, but I live now in Minnesota," said the
bishop.
"That so? Well, I'm an Alabama boy!"
All at once the bishop ceased to be amused. As the talon released its
fumbling hold on him and the remnant tottered away, the bishop's right
arm came up smartly but involuntarily in a military salute.
"He calls himself a boy!" quoth the bishop, addressing no one in
particular. "I know now why they fought four years against such odds!"
Suddenly he was prouder than ever of being an American. And he, a
stranger to these parts, felt the pathos of it all--the pathos of age
and decrepitude, the pathos of the thronging shadows of an heroic Lost
Cause, the gallant pathos of these defeated men who even now at their
time of life would never admit they had been defeated--these things,
thrown out in relief against this screen of blaring brass and pretty
young girls and socially ambitious mothers and general hullabaloo.
But this story, such as it is, is not concerned with this particular
reunion so much as it is concerned with the reactions to the reunion
of one surviving Confederate who attended it. He was not an imported
orator nor a thwarted deliverer of historical reports, nor yet the
commander of some phantom division whose main camp ground now was a
cemetery. He was still what he had been back yonder in '65--a high
private of the rear rank. He was fond of saying so. With him it was one
favorite little joke which never staled.
He was a very weary high private as he trudged along. An exceedingly
young and sleepy Boy Scout was his guide, striving to keep in stride
with him. First the old man would tote his small valise, then the Scout
would take it over for a spell.
They had ridden together on a street-car. At a corner which the guide
thought must be their corner, they got off. They were entering an
outlying part of the city, that much was certain, at least. The last
high-dangled example of the art preservative as practiced by local
masters of outdoor advertising service--it was labeled with the name
of President Jefferson Davis, so it must be a likeness of President
Davis--was swinging aloft far behind them. Those thin broken sounds
of distant band-music no longer came to their ears. The houses were
getting scarcer, getting to be farther apart. They stumbled in the
darkness across railroad tracks, thence passed on through a sort of
tunnel that was as black inside as a pocket. When they came out from
under the culvert they found themselves in a desert so far as stirring
life went.
"Shore you're not lost, sonny?" asked the old man for the second or
third time.
"No, suh, I think not." But the youngster's tone had lost its earlier
manful conviction. "It oughter be right down this way somewhere. I
guess we'll strike it soon."
So they went ahead. The veteran's trudge became a shamble. The Scout's
step became a drowsy stagger. That Scout was growing very tired in his
legs; they were such short legs. He had been on duty since breakfast
time.
It was the high private's turn to carry the grip. He halted and put it
down to ease his cramped hand and to breathe. His companion lurched
with a bump against the telephone pole and gave a comatose grunt.
"Look here, little pardner," said the old man, "you act like to me
you're mighty near played out. Whereabouts do you live?"
"Clean over--over--on the other side of town from here." The child
spoke between jaw-stretching yawns. "That car-line back there goes
right past our house though." His voice was very wistful as he said
that.
"Tell you what, then. It'd be wrong to keep you up any longer. But me,
I'm one of these here old-time campaigners. You hand me over that piece
of paper with the name and the number and all on it, and then you put
out for home and get yourself a good night's rest. By myself I'll be
shore to locate the place we're hunting for. Anyway, you've done enough
good deeds for one day."
That Scout might be sleepy, but sleepy or not he had a bounden service
to perform and would have so stated. But the veteran cut short those
plucky semiconscious protests of his, and being outargued, the boy
surrendered a scrap of cardboard and bade his late charge good-by and
good night and set out on his return to civilization.
Under a near-by electric this old-time campaigner adjusted his glasses
and studied the scribbled face of the card. Immediately above his head
a street-marker showed on the lamp-post where the light would fall
on it, and next he looked up and spelled out the lettering there. He
merely was reconfirming a fact already confirmed.
"This is certainly the right street," he said to himself. "But the
question is--which-a-way is the right house? The thing for me to do, I
reckin, is to roust up somebody and ask--if I can find anybody awake."
Diagonally opposite, he made out the square bulk of a sizable two-story
structure. It must be a dwelling, for it had a bit of lawn in front
of it; it must be tenanted because a patchy dullish crescent of
illumination made outlines for a transom above the door. Maybe somebody
over there might be smart enough to tell him.
He went across, moving very slowly, and toiled up a flight of porch
steps. There were only four of the steps; he would have taken his oath
there were a full dozen of them. He fumbled at the door-jamb until he
found a knocker.
To his knocking the response was immediate. From the inner side there
was the scraping sound as of a heavy bolt being withdrawn. Next a lock
clicked, and then discreetly, almost cautiously, the door opened a few
inches and the face of a negro girl was revealed to him in the dim glow
of a heavily hooded light burning behind her in the entry hall. She
squinted hard at him.
"Whut you want yere this time o' night, mista?" she demanded. Her
manner was not hospitable; it bordered on the suspicious.
"I'm looking for an address," he began.
"Dis can't be it."
"I know that. But I thought maybe somebody here might help direct me."
From his growing exhaustion the intruder fairly was panting. "I'm sort
of lost."
"Oh, so tha's it? Wait a minute, then." Still holding the door slightly
ajar, she called rearward over her shoulder: "Miss Sissie! Oh, Miss
Sissie!"
"What is it?" The answer came from back of her.
"They's a ole, kinder feebled-up lookin' w'ite gen'elman out yere w'ich
he think he's lost his way."
"Wait, I'll come talk to him."
A middle-aged tall woman, who was dressed, so the stranger decided, as
though expecting stylish company, appeared now at the door and above
the servant's shoulder eyed him appraisingly. He tried to tell her his
mission, but his voice weakened on him and trailed off. He caught at
the door-casing; he felt dizzy.
The white woman elbowed the black one aside.
"Come on in," she ordered. "Get out of the way, can't you, Pansy?" She
threw this second command at her maid. "Don't you see he's about ready
to drop? Pick up his valise. There, that's it, mister. Just put your
weight on me."
She half-lifted him across the threshold and eased him down upon a sofa
in the hall. The negress closed and barred the door.
"Run make some hot coffee," her employer bade her. "Or maybe you'd
rather have a little liquor? I've got plenty of it in the house." She
addressed the slumped intruder.
"Nome, I never touch anything strong. But I reckin a cup of coffee
would taste good to me--if I'm not putting you out too much? You'll
please have to excuse me, ma'am, for breaking in on you this way, but
I--" Remembering his manners, he got his hat off in a little flurry of
confusion.
"Where were you trying to get to?"
With difficulty he brought his card forth from his pocket and she took
it from him and read what was written upon it.
"You're a good long two miles and a half from where you belong," she
told him sharply.
"But ain't this Bonaventure Avenue?"
"Yes, North Bonaventure. You came out Lawes Drive, didn't you?--the
wide street where the trolley-line is? Well, you should have gone south
when you turned off. Instead of that you came north. These people"--she
consulted the card again--"Philipson or whatever the name is--are they
friends of yours?"
"Well, yes, ma'am, and nome. I've never met them. But they're
taking in one old soldier during the reunion, the hotels and the
boarding-houses and all being so full up. And a gentleman at Tennessee
Headquarters--that's my headquarters, ma'am--he gave me that card and
sent me there."
"Send you alone?" Her angular shoulders, bare above a low-cut evening
gown, shrugged impatiently.
"Oh, nome, one of these here little Boy Scouts he came with me to show
me the way. You see, ma'am, it's rightly my own fault, my not being
all settled before dark. But I didn't get in on the steam-cars till
about six o'clock this evening and I didn't want to miss the opening
session at the big hall. So I went right there, packing my baggage
along with me, just as soon as I'd got me a snack of supper, me not
wanting to miss anything, as I was saying to you, ma'am. Then when
the speechmaking and all was over, me and this little Boy Scout--he'd
stayed right along with me at the hall--we put out to find where I was
to stay. But he couldn't hardly drag one foot behind the other. Poor
little wore-out fellow, I reckin he'd been running around all day.
So a few minutes ago I made him go on home, me figuring I could find
the house my own self. And--well, here I am, ma'am, imposing on your
kindness and mighty sorry to do it, too."
"Never mind that part of it."
"But just as soon as I can get a dram of hot coffee in me I expect I'll
feel stronger and then I'll be shoving along and not bother you any
more. I reckin that long train ride and the excitement and everything
must 'a' took it out of me, some way. There was a time when it wouldn't
have bothered me at all--not a bit. Still, I'll have to confess I'm
getting along, ma'am. I'll be eighty-four this coming ninth of August."
"Listen to me: You're not going to stir another inch tonight. You stay
right here and tomorrow morning I'll decide myself whether you're fit
to go trapesing off across to the other side of town."
"Oh, ma'am, I couldn't do that!"
"Why couldn't you?"
"But, ma'am, are you taking in any visitors during the reunion?"
"I wasn't aiming to." Her voice was grim. "But I'm fixing now to do
that very little thing, whether or no."
"But honest, now--I--" He scuffled with his tired feet. "It's mighty
good and mighty sweet of you, ma'am, but I'd hate to impose on you like
that."
"No imposition. There're five spare bedrooms in this house--and nobody
in any of them. And nobody going to be in any of them, either, while
you're here--except you. I think you'll be comfortable."
"I know I'd be comfortable but--"
"Then it's all settled. By the way, I don't know your name yet?"
"My name is Braswell--Nathan Braswell, late high private of the
rear rank in the Eighteenth Tennessee Infantry. But up at Forks
of Hatchie--that's my home town, ma'am, a little town up in West
Tennessee--they call me the Reverend Braswell, sometimes."
"Reverend?" Her eyelids narrowed. "Are you a minister?"
"Oh, nome. But sometimes when we're short on a preacher I make out to
take the pulpit and read the Scriptures and make a little kind of a
talk--not a regular sermon--just a little kind of a religious talk. And
I'm purty active in church work generally. So I reckin that's why some
people call me the Reverend Braswell. But I never use the entitlement
myself--it wouldn't be becoming in a layman."
"I see. You preach but you're not a preacher. I guess you practice what
you preach, too. You look like a good man, to me--and a good man can be
set down anywhere and not suffer by it; at least that's my opinion. So,
Mr. Braswell, right here is where you camp."
"Just as you say, ma'am." His surrender was complete now, his weariness
was, too. "Probably you're right--if I tried to go any further tonight
it's likely I wouldn't be much good tomorrow and I want to be spry and
fresh so I can knock around and see if I can't run across some of my
old pardners in the army. But excuse me again--you got my name but you
ain't told me yours?"
"Call me Miss Sissie, if you want to. That's what nearly everybody does
call me. Or else just plain Sis."
"All right, Miss Sissie, just as you say." He bowed to her with a grave
simplicity. "And I'm sure I'm very much beholden to you, ma'am. It
ain't every day that an old fellow like me is lucky enough to run into
such a lovely nice lady as you."
He drank his coffee, and, being helped to his feet, he went upstairs
with some aid from the lovely nice lady and presently was sound asleep
in a clean bed in what he regarded as a very fine bedroom indeed. Its
grandeur impressed him even through his tiredness.
Coming back down after seeing him properly bestowed, the mistress of
the house hailed the colored girl. "Pansy," she said, "this place is
out of business until further orders, understand?"
At that, Pansy seemed deeply puzzled. "But, Miss Sissie," she
expostulated, "don't you remember 'at a suttin party--you know, Mista
J. W. B.--is 'spectin' to be yere most any time wid--"
"Did you hear what I told you?" A quality of metallic harshness in Miss
Sissie's voice was emphasized.
"Yessum, but you know yo'se'f how that there party, Mista J. W. B., is.
He'll shore be dis'p'inted. He's liable raise Cain. He's--"
"Get him on the telephone; you know his number. Tell him this place
is closed for tonight and for every day and every night until further
notice from me. And tell the same thing to everybody else who calls up
or stops by during the reunion. Get me?" By her tone she menaced the
darky.
"Yassum."
"Then turn that hall light out."
* * * * *
For three days Mr. Braswell abode under that roof. Frequently during
that time he remarked that he couldn't remember when he'd had a
pleasanter stay anywhere. Nor could it be said that Miss Sissie failed
in any possible effort to make the visit pleasant for him.
He limped down to breakfast next morning; to limp was the best he could
do. His entertainer gave her household staff a double surprise, first
by coming down to join him at the meal instead of taking her coffee
and rolls in her room and second by appearing not in negligée but in a
plain dark house-gown which accentuated rather than softened the square
contours of her face and the sharp lines in it. By daylight the two
had better opportunity to study each other than the somewhat hurried
meeting of the night before had afforded.
She saw in him a gentle tottery relic of a man with a pair of faded
unworldly old eyes looking out from a bland, wrinkly, rather empty
face. He saw in her a most kindly and considerate hostess. Privately he
decided she must have had plenty of sorrow in her time--something or
other about her told him that life had bestowed upon her more than her
proper share of hard knocks. He figured that living here alone in such
a big house--except for the servants she seemed to be quite alone--must
be lonesome for her, too.
As they sat down, just the two of them, he said, not apologetically
exactly but a bit timidly:
"I hope, ma'am, you don't mind if I say a grace at your table? I always
like to invoke the divine blessing before I break bread--seems like
to me it makes the victuals taste better. Or maybe"--he hesitated
politely--"maybe it's your custom to ask the blessing your own self?"
"You say it, please," she urged him in a curious strained fashion,
which, however, he did not notice, and lowered her head. She lifted
it once--to shoot a quick venomous glance at Pansy, who stood to
serve, and a convulsive giggle which had formed in Pansy's throat died
instantly. Then she bowed it again and kept it bowed while he asked God
to sanctify this food to their uses and to be merciful to all within
those walls and to all His children everywhere. For Jesus' sake, Amen!
She piled his plate abundantly and, for all his bodily infirmity, he
showed her a healthy appetite. He talked freely, she encouraging him by
proving a good listener. He was a widower with one married daughter.
Since his wife's death he had made his home with this daughter. Her
husband was a mighty fine man--not religious, but high-principled and
doing very well indeed as a banker, considering that Forks of Hatchie
was such a small town. He himself had been in the grain and feed
business for most of his life but was retired now. He'd never been much
of a hand for gadding over the world. Going to reunions once a year
was about the extent of his traveling around. In all the time since
the United Confederate Veterans had been formed he'd missed but one
reunion--that was the spring when his wife died.
"Minty--that's my daughter, ma'am--Minty, she didn't want me to come to
this one," he went on. "She was afraid for me to be putting out alone
on such a long trip 'way down here; she kept saying, Minty did, she
was afraid the excitement might be too much for me at my age. But I
says to her, I says, 'Minty, child, when my time comes for me to go I
don't ask anything better than that it should be whilst I'm amongst my
old comrades, with the sound of one of our old battle songs ringing in
my ears!' I says to her, 'Shucks, but what's the use of talking that
way! Nothing's going to happen to me. I can get there and I can get
back!' I says to her. 'Going to reunion makes me feel young and spry
all over again.' But, ma'am, I'm afraid Minty was right about it, this
time anyhow. I actually don't believe I'm going to be able to get back
down-town for today's doings--not for the morning's session anyway. I
have to own up to you that I feel all kind of let-down and no-account,
someway."
So through the forenoon he sat in an easy chair in an inner sitting-room
and Miss Sissie, abandoning whatever else she might have had to do,
read to him the accounts of the great event which filled column after
column of the morning paper. He dozed off occasionally but she kept
on reading, her voice droning across the placid quiet. Following the
dinner which came at midday, she prevailed on him to take a real
nap, and he stretched out on a sofa under a light coverlid which she
tucked about him and slept peacefully until four o'clock. Late in the
afternoon a closed car containing a couple--a man and a woman--stopped
in the alleyway behind the house and the driver came to the back door,
but Miss Sissie went out and gave him a message for his passengers and
he returned to his car and drove away. There were no other callers that
day.
Mr. Braswell fretted a little after supper over his inability to muster
up strength for getting to the auditorium, but somewhat was consoled by
her assurances that a good night's rest should put him in proper trim
for marching in the big parade next morning. By nine o'clock he was in
bed and Miss Sissie had a silent idle evening at home and seemed not
ungrateful for it.
On the second morning the ancient greeted her in what plainly was his
official wardrobe for parading. A frayed and threadbare butternut
jacket, absurdly short, with a little peaked tail sticking out behind
and a line of tarnished brass buttons spaced down its front, hung
grotesquely upon his withered framework. Probably it had fitted him
once; now it was acres too loose. Pinned to the left breast was a huge
badge, evidently home-made, of yellowed white silk, and lengthwise of
it in straggled letters worked with faded red floss ran the number
and name of his regiment. In his hand he carried a slouch-hat which
had been black once but now was a rusty brown, with a scrap of black
ostrich-plume fastened to its band by a brass token.
With trembling fingers he proudly caressed the badge.
"My wife made it for me out of a piece of her own wedding-dress nearly
thirty years ago," he explained. "I've worn it to every reunion since
then. It's funny how you put me in mind of my wife. Not that you look
like her nor talk like her either. She was kind of small and she had a
low voice and you're so much taller and your way of speaking is deeper
and carries further than hers did. And of course you can't be more
than half as old as she'd be if she'd lived. Funny, but you do remind
me of her, though. Still, I reckin that's easy to explain. All good
women favor each other some way even when they don't look alike. It's
something inside of them that does it, I judge--goodness and purity and
thinking Christian thoughts."
If she winced at that last his innocent, weakened old eyes missed it.
Anyhow the veteran very soon had personal cause for distress. He had
to confess that he wasn't up to marching. Leaving the dining-room, he
practically collapsed. He was heart-broken.
"Don't you worry," said Miss Sissie, in that masterful way of hers.
"Even if you're not able to turn out with the rest of them you're going
to see the parade. I can't send you down-town in my own car--it's--it's
broken down--and I can't go with you myself--I--I'm going to be busy.
But I can send you in a taxicab with a careful man to drive and you can
see the parade."
"That's mighty sweet of you--but then, I reckin it's your nature to
be sweet and thoughtful for other folks," he said gratefully. "But,
ma'am"--and doubt crept into his voice--"but ain't all the public hacks
likely to be engaged beforehand for today?"
"I happen to know the manager of the leading taxicab company here," she
told him. "He'll do what I say even if he has to take a rig away from
somebody else. I'll telephone him."
"But with the streets all crowded the way they'll be, won't it be hard
to find a place where I can watch the other boys marching by?" In his
eagerness he was childish.
"That'll be arranged, too," she stated. "As it so happens, I also know
the chief of police. I'll call him up and give him the number of the
taxi you're in and I'll guarantee one of his policemen will be on the
special lookout for you at the far end of the Drive to see to it that
you get a good place somewhere along the route."
"Seems like to me the most important people in this town must respect
you mighty highly!" he exclaimed happily. "Well, I guess it's that same
way everywhere--all kinds of people are bound to recognize a real lady
when they meet her and look up to her!"
"Oh, yes, there's one thing more." She added this as if by an
afterthought. "You needn't tell anybody you meet--any of your
old friends or any of the committeemen or anybody--where you're
stopping. You see, I didn't arrange to take in any visitors for the
reunion--there were reasons why I didn't care to take in anyone--and
now that I have you with me I wouldn't care for anybody connected
with the local arrangements to know about it. You understand, don't
you?--they might think I was presuming on their rights."
"Oh, yes'm, I understand," he said unsuspectingly. "It'll just be a
little secret between us if that's the way you'd rather it was. But I
couldn't rightly tell anybody anyhow--seeing that you ain't ever told
me what your last name is. I'd like to know it, too--I aim to write you
a letter after I get home."
"My name is Lamprey," she said. "Cecelia Lamprey. I don't hear it very
often myself--at least, not spoken out in full. And now I'd better
be ringing up those influential friends of mine--you mustn't be late
getting started."
* * * * *
The same taxicab driver who drove him on this day came again on the
third day to take Miss Sissie's venerable house guest to his train. It
would appear that her car still was out of commission.
She did not accompany him to the station. Domestic cares would hold
her, she told him. She did not go to the front of the house to see him
off, either. Indeed a more observant person than Mr. Braswell might
have marveled that so constantly she had secluded herself indoors
during his visit; and not only indoors, but behind windows curtained
against the bright, warm Southern sunshine. They exchanged their
farewells in her living-room.
"I ain't never going to forget you," he told her. "If you'd been my own
daughter you couldn't 'a' treated me any nicer than what you have--and
me just an old stove-up spavined country-jake that you never saw before
in your life and probably never will see again. You ain't seen fit,
ma'am, to tell me much about yourself--seems like you let me do most of
the talking, and that suited me--but old as I am I know a perfect lady
when I see one and that's what you are, ma'am, and what always you must
have been and always will be--good-by and God bless you!"
Saying nothing, she bent in the attitude of one accepting a
benediction, and a moment later she was following him to the door and
watching him as he crept in his labored, faltering gait along the
entrance-hall. Under his arm was his luncheon to be eaten on the train;
she had with her own hands prepared and boxed it. She waited there on
the threshold until the hooded front door clicked behind him.
"Pansy," she called then toward the back of the house, and now her
voice had in it a customary rasping quality which, strangely, had been
almost altogether lacking from it these past two or three days. "You,
Pansy!"
"Yassum."
"You might call up that party that we turned down the other night and
tell him this place has reopened for business as usual."
* * * * *
Approximately two weeks later, Mr. Randolph Embury, president of the
Forks of Hatchie People's Bank, wrote as follows to the mayor of that
city where the veterans had met:
"Dear Mr. Mayor: You may possibly recall that we met in 1922
while serving as delegates for our respective states at the
Inter-Southern Commercial Congress in Norfolk? I am therefore
taking advantage of our slight acquaintance and am trespassing upon
your patience to ask a favor which means a great deal to my wife.
"Her aged father, the late Nathan Braswell, attended the recent
Confederate Reunion in your city. Almost immediately upon his
arrival back at this place he suffered a stroke of paralysis.
Within ten days a second stroke resulted fatally to him. The
interment took place yesterday, the twenty-ninth inst. His loss in
this community is very deeply mourned. He was the last old soldier
left here.
"Although rendered completely helpless by the first stroke, he
remained almost entirely rational and coherent until the second
one occurred. In this stage of his illness he spoke repeatedly
of his experiences while at the reunion. He was a guest in the
private home of one who must have been a most cultured and
charming lady--undoubtedly a lady of position and affluence. By
her graciousness and her zealous care of him and her constant
ministrations to his comfort she made a deep impression upon
him. He was most anxious that she should know of his gratitude,
and repeatedly he charged us to write her, telling how much he
appreciated the attentions shown him.
"Naturally, during his illness and until after the interment
neither my wife nor myself had much time for letter-writing.
But this morning Mrs. Embury wrote to this lady, thanking her
in her dead father's name and in ours and telling her that with
practically his last conscious breath he spoke affectionately of
her and paid tribute to her splendid womanly qualities and even
uttered a little prayer for her well-being. He was a very devout
man. That letter I enclose with this one, but in an unaddressed
envelop. Mrs. Embury, of course, is most anxious that it should
reach the intended recipient promptly.
"The reason for not addressing it you will understand when I tell
you that my father-in-law could not remember his benefactress's
last name except that it began with an 'L' and sounded something
like 'Lampey' or 'Lambry.' He referred to her always as 'Miss
Sissie,' which I would judge was her familiar name among more
intimate friends. He could not remember the name of the street upon
which she resided. However, he did describe the residence as being
a very large and very handsome one, standing in a somewhat secluded
part of the outskirts and not far from where a railroad track and
an overhead viaduct were.
"This, then, is the favor I would ask of you: If the lady is
as prominently connected as I had reason to believe from Mr.
Braswell's statements, I assume you know her already. If not, I
take it that it should not be a very difficult matter to locate one
whose character and attainments must have given her a high standing
among your good citizens. So I am asking you to see to it that the
enclosed letter is put at once into her hands.
"Thanking you in advance for any trouble or inconvenience to which
you may be put in carrying out our wishes, I remain,
"Yours most sincerely,
"RANDOLPH EMBURY."
And within four days got back the following reply:
"Mayor's Office, June 2.
"Dear Sir:
"Yours received and contents carefully noted. In reply to same
would say that while ready at any time to serve you and your good
wife in every way possible, yet in this case I am put in a delicate
attitude and fear you also may be put in one should I undertake to
fulfill your desire.
"Undoubtedly the person that your late father-in-law had in mind
was one Cecelia Lamprey, better known as 'Sis.' But not by the
widest stretch of imagination could anyone think of her as a
'lady.' She is the proprietress of a most notorious assignation
house located on North Bonaventure Avenue, this city, and according
to my best information and belief, has always been a woman of loose
morals and bad repute. I might add that having been elected on a
reform ticket and being committed to the task of ridding our city
of evil, I am at present setting on foot an effort to close up her
establishment, which has until lately enjoyed secret 'protection,'
and to drive her from our midst.
"Accordingly, I am constrained to believe that, being probably
semi-delirious, the lately deceased, your esteemed father-in-law,
must have made a mistake. I assume that he had 'Sis' Lamprey's
house pointed out to him and in his ravings got it confused with
the domicile where he was housed during his sojourn among us. It
is not conceivable to me that a man such as you describe would,
while in his sober senses, set foot inside an establishment so
readily recognizable at a glance as being absolutely disreputable,
let alone remain there for any appreciable period of time. It is
equally incredible to think of 'Sis' opening her doors to any
decent person or for any worthy purpose.
"In view of these facts I am constrained to believe your wife
would shrink from any contact or any communication with such an
individual. I am therefore taking the liberty of holding her letter
on my desk until you and she have had opportunity to consider
this embarrassing situation and to decide what you should do. My
advice is that you instruct me to return the letter to you at once
and consider the incident closed. However, I await your further
instruction.
(Signed) "JASON BRODERICK, Mayor."
To which the following reply was immediately dispatched by wire:
"Nevertheless, on behalf of my wife and myself, kindly be so good
as immediately to deliver the letter in question to the lady in
question."
THE ORDER OF THE BATH
[Decoration]
It seemed like everything that was happening that week happened to
the Gridleys. Substantially, these were Mrs. Gridley's own words in
speaking of the phenomena.
To begin with, their waitress quit practically without any warning
at all. Afflicted by that strange and sudden migratory impulse which
at times affects most of the birds and many of the hired help, she
walked out between two suns. In the second place, the water famine
reached a point where the board of trustees forbade the use of water
for all-over bathing purposes or for wetting-down lawns or washing cars
or sprinkling streets or spraying flower-beds even; and Mr. Gridley,
as one of the trustees, felt it incumbent upon him to set a proper
example before the rest of the community by putting his own household
upon the strictest of rations, abluently speaking. In the third place,
Mr. Jeffreys Boyce-Upchurch, the eminent English novelist, became their
guest. And fourthly, although not occurring in this order, the Gridleys
took on a butler of the interesting name of Launcelot Ditto.
To a considerable extent, three of these events were interrelated. The
drought which had brought on the shortage in the village reservoir
was the isolated exception, a manifestation of freaky nature and of
absolutely unprecedented weather conditions. But the others were
more or less coordinated. If their old waitress had not quit on them
the Gridleys would not have been in the market for a new servant to
fill the vacancy, and if Mr. Boyce-Upchurch had not been coming to
stay with them it was possible she might not have quit at all. There
was a suspicion that she was influenced by a private objection to so
much company in the heat of the summer, Mrs. Gridley's mother and
sister from Baltimore, the latter bringing her little boy with her,
having just concluded a two weeks' stay; and if it had not been Mr.
Boyce-Upchurch who was coming, but some less important person, the
Gridleys would have been content with hiring for the succession one who
also was a female and home-grown, or if not exactly home-grown, one
belonging to almost any of the commoner Nordic stocks--say Scandinavian
or Celtic--whereas it was felt that the advent of a Boyce-Upchurch
called for something of an especially rich and fruity imported nature
in the line of butlers. At least, such was the language employed by
Mrs. Gridley's brother, Mr. Oliver Braid, in describing, this phase of
the issue. He--young Mr. Braid--was the only member of the household
who declined to take the situation seriously. In this regard he stood
quite alone. Mr. Gridley took it seriously, as, to a more or less
degree, did the neighbors also. But Mrs. Gridley took it most seriously
of all.
Its seriousness began to lay hold upon her in the morning on a Monday,
which proverbially is a bothersome day for housewives anyhow, when
Miss Rena Belle Titworthy, the recording secretary of the Ingleglade
Woman's Club and its only salaried officer, called to break the news to
her, it being that in the judgment of a majority of the active workers
in the club Mrs. Gridley should have the distinguished pleasure of
entertaining Mr. Boyce-Upchurch on the occasion of his impending visit.
In a more vulgar circle of life the same thing has been termed passing
the buck.
"But," expostulated Mrs. Gridley, "but--of course I feel flattered and
I am sure Henry will, too, when he comes home tonight and hears about
it--but I'm afraid we couldn't make such a prominent man comfortable.
Our house is rather small and all that, and besides there's Olga
having packed up and left only last night and all that. Really, don't
you think, Miss Rena Belle, that he would prefer to go to the hotel
where he could be--you know--quieter and more to himself? Or to Mrs.
Wainwright's? She's the president of the club and she's the madam
chairman of the executive committee besides, and naturally the pleasure
of having Mr. Boyce-Upchurch should go to her. Her house is a mansion,
almost, while we--"
Miss Titworthy caught her up right there.
"No," said Miss Titworthy firmly. Miss Titworthy had authority about
her and a considerable distinction. She was large and deep-chested and
combined in her manner the magisterial and the managerial and, subtly,
the maternal. She had all that a motherly woman should have, except
children. And, as just stated, she was large, while on the other hand
Mrs. Gridley was slight and, upon the whole, plastic by temperament,
not to say bordering on the yielding. And bulk, in such cases, counts.
"Pardon me," said Miss Titworthy still more firmly, "pardon me, my
dear, but no. Madam Chairman Wainwright is closing up their place to
go to their other place in the Berkshires; you must have known that.
Probably you forgot it. And the hotel is quite out of the question.
I had a letter only yesterday from Mr. Boyce-Upchurch, written by
him personally--it seems he doesn't carry a secretary with him on
his tour--saying he preferred stopping at some private home. He
mentioned the inconveniences of American hotels and something about
their exceedingly high rates. I'm going to keep it as a souvenir. And
so, what with Madam Chairman Wainwright closing up and you being the
first vice-president--well, there you are, aren't you?" concluded Miss
Titworthy with a gesture which was meant to be a death blow to further
argument.
"And then the water being shut off--I'm thinking of that, too," said
Mrs. Gridley, but in a weakening tone. "Henry had the plumber come and
disconnect all three of the bathtubs. He said he wasn't going to put
temptation in the way of his own family or himself, either. I know lots
of people are doing it on the sly--using a hose, too--but I can't even
have a little water in a sprinkling can for my poor withered flowers.
Look at them out of that window there--just literally drying up. And
we're sending all the wash, even the flat pieces, to the Eagle Laundry.
And Henry is going to his club in town for a bath every day, and I'm
doing the best I can with the wash-basin and a sponge, and the way
Nora--that's my cook's name--and Delia, the waitress--now that Olga
has gone, Delia's the only other girl we've got left--the way those
two carry on and complain you'd think I was personally responsible for
the fact that not a drop of rain has fallen in over two months. And
the English being such great hands for their tubs and all, and Mr.
Boyce-Upchurch being an Englishman and all, why, I'm honestly afraid,
Miss Rena Belle, that he'll be awfully put out.
"I dessay he'll be able to accommodate himself to a condition over
which none of us has any control," stated Miss Titworthy. "He'll
arrive Wednesday afternoon on the five o'clock boat. He asked that he
be met with a car. I dessay you'll be wanting to give a little dinner
to him Wednesday evening. I don't know what he'll want to do Thursday
morning--be driven around, I imagine. And Thursday afternoon there's
the reception at the Woman's Club, and his lecture is that night, and
Friday he leaves for Trenton where he has his next date on Saturday. He
did write something about preferring to be ridden over to Trenton."
"I could take him over myself," said Mrs. Gridley, her citadel
undermined and she rapidly capitulating, "if he doesn't mind going in a
two-seated runabout."
"There'll be no trouble about the car," stated Miss Titworthy. "I
dessay someone will proffer the use of a touring car."
"Well, that point is settled then," agreed Mrs. Gridley, now entirely
committed to the undertaking. "But I must get somebody in and broken in
to take Olga's place between now and Wednesday. Really that gives me
only today and tomorrow, and help is so hard to get, you've no idea,
Miss Titworthy! I suppose I'd better run into town this afternoon and
go to the employment agencies. No, I can't,--there's my bridge lesson.
And tomorrow is the Fergus' tea. I can't go then, either. I promised
Mrs. Fergus I'd pour. I suppose I'll have to get Henry or my brother
Oliver to do it. But neither one of them would know how to pick out a
girl, provided there's any choice at the agencies to pick from--oh,
dear!"
"Had you thought of a butler?" inquired Miss Titworthy.
"A butler?"
"Yes, instead of a maid. You'll pardon the suggestion but I was
thinking that Mr. Boyce-Upchurch being a foreigner and accustomed, of
course, to butlers, and a butler giving a sort of air--a tone, as it
were--to a household, that perhaps--well--"
They had fallen on fertile ground, those seeds. They were sprouting,
germinating. Before the massive shoulders of the Ingleglade Woman's
Club's efficient recording secretary had vanished down the bowery and
winding reaches of Edgecliff Avenue they were putting forth small green
speculative shoots through Mrs. Gridley's mind. Always and ever, from
the very first days of her married life, Mrs. Gridley had cherished in
the back of her mind a picture of an establishment in which the butler,
a figure of dignity and poise and gray striped trousers in the daytime
but full-dress by night, would be the chief of staff. As what woman
has not? And now for the gratifying of that secret ambition she had an
excuse and a reason.
* * * * *
Section Two of this narrative brings us to another conversation. At
this stage the narrative seems somehow to fall naturally into sections,
but one has a premonition that toward the last it will become a thing
of cutbacks and close-ups and iris-ins and fade-outs, like a movie. It
brings us to this other conversation, which passed over the telephone
between Mrs. Gridley and her brother Mr. Oliver Braid.
"Well, Dumplings," said that gentleman, speaking at noon of Tuesday
from his office, "the hellish deed is done!"
"You got one then?" she answered eagerly.
"Got one? Madam, you wrong me and you low-rate him. I got the One and
only One--the Original One. The only misleading thing about him is his
name. Be prepared for a pleasant shock. It's Launcelot Ditto. I ask you
to let that soak into your tissues and be absorbed by the system. Only
Ditto means more of the same and if I'm any judge, there aren't any
more at home like him and there never will be. But the Launcelot part
fits like a union suit.