How I Seem to Feel a Wanting Note in the Chorus of Welcome.
I could hear the noisy clamor among the negroes over the advent of Tulp,
whom I had sent off, desiring to be alone, while I still stood irresolute
on the porch. My hand was on the familiar, well-worn latch, yet I almost
hesitated to enter, so excited was I with eager anticipations of welcome.
The spacious hall--our sitting-room--was deserted. A fire was blazing on
the hearth, and plates were laid on the oak table as in preparation for a
meal, but there was no one to speak to me. I lighted a candle, and opened
the door to the kitchen; here too there was a fire, but my aunt was not
visible. Mr. Stewart's room to the right of the hall, and mine to the
left, were alike unoccupied. I threw aside my hat and watch-coat here, and
then with the light went up-stairs, whistling as was my wont to warn Daisy
of my coming. There was no sound or sign of movement. The door of her
outer room stood open, and I entered and looked about.
The furniture and appointments had been changed in position somewhat, so
that the chamber seemed strange to me. There were numerous novel objects
scattered through the rooms as well. A Spanish guitar which I had never
seen before stood beside the old piano. There were several elegantly bound
books, new to me, on the table; on the mantel-shelf were three miniatures,
delicately painted, depicting a florid officer in scarlet, a handsome,
proud-looking lady with towering powdered coiffure, and a fair-haired,
proud-looking youth. This last I knew in an instant to be the likeness of
Master Philip Cross, though it seemingly portrayed him at an age half-way
between the two times I had seen him as boy and man. His resemblance to
the lady, and then my own recurring recollection of the officer's
features, helped me to place them as his parents.
I called out "Daisy!" My voice had a faltering, mournful sound, and there
was no answer.
I came down the stairs again, burdened with a sudden sense of mental
discomfort. Already the visions I had had of an enthusiastic welcome were
but vague outlines of dreams. There had sprung up in my mind instead a
sudden, novel doubt of my position in this house--a cruel idea that
perhaps the affection which had so swelled and buoyed my heart was not
reciprocated. I put this notion away as foolish and baseless, but all the
same the silent hall-room down-stairs seemed now larger and colder, and
the flames curled and writhed toward the flue with a chill, metallic
aspect, instead of the bright, honest glow of greeting.
While I stood before the fire-place, still holding the candle in my hand,
my aunt entered the room from the kitchen door. At sight of me the good
soul gave a guttural exclamation, dropped flat an apronful of chips she
was bringing in, and stared at me open-mouthed. When she was at last
persuaded that I was in proper person and not the spirit, she submitted to
be kissed by me--it was not a fervent proceeding, I am bound to add--but
it was evident the shock had sent her wits wool-gathering. Her hands were
a bright brown from the butternut dye, and the pungent, acrid odor she
brought in with her garments made unnecessary her halting explanation that
she had been out in the smoke-house.
"Philip sent down two haunches yesterday by Marinus Folts," she said,
apologetically, "and this muggy weather I was afraid they wouldn't keep."
"This is the Dutch conception of a welcome after five months!" I could not
help thinking to myself, uncharitably forgetting for the moment my aunt's
infirmities. Aloud I said:
"How are they all--Mr. Stewart and Daisy? And where are they? And how have
the farms been doing?"
"Well," answered Dame Kronk, upon reflection, "I maintain that the wool is
the worst we ever clipped. Was the shearing after you went? Yes, of course
it was. Well, how I'm going to get out enough fine for the stockings
alone, is more than I can see. It's downright poor."
"But Mr. Stewart and Daisy--are they well? Where are they?"
"But the niggers have gathered five times as much ginseng as they ever did
before. The pigs are fattening fit to eat alive. Eli's been drunk some,
bur his girls are really a good deal of help. There are going to be more
elder-berries this fall than you can shake a stick at; they're just
breaking the branches. And the--"
"Oh, aunt," I broke in, "do tell me! Are Daisy and Mr. Stewart well?"
"Why, of course they are," she answered; "that is, they were when they
left here a week come Thursday. And Marinus Folts didn't say anything to
the contrary yesterday. Why shouldn't they be well? They don't do anything
but gad about, these days. Daisy hasn't done a stitch of work all summer
but knit a couple of comforters--and the time she's been about it! When I
was her age I could have knit the whole side of a house in less time. One
of them is for you."
Dear girl, I had wronged her, then. She had been thinking of me--working
for me. My heart felt lighter.
"But where _are_ they?" I repeated.
"Oh, where are they? Up at Sir William's new summer-house that he's just
built. I don't know just where it is, but it's fourteen miles from the
Hall, up somewhere on the Sacondaga Vlaie, where two creeks join. He's
made a corduroy road out to it, and he's painted it white and green, and
he's been having a sort of fandango out there--a house-warming, I take it.
Marinus Folts says he never saw so much drinking in his born days. He'd
had his full share himself, I should judge. They're coming back to-night."
I sat down at this, and stared into the fire. It was not just the
home-coming which I had looked forward to, but it would be all right when
they returned Ah, but would it? Yes, I forced myself to believe so, and
began to find comfort of mind again.
My aunt picked up the chips and dumped them into the wood-box. Then she
came over and stood for a long time looking at me. Once she said: "I'm
going to get supper for them when they get back. Can you wait till then,
or shall I cook you something now?" Upon my thanking her and saying I
would wait, she relapsed into silence, but still keeping her eyes on me. I
was growing nervous under this phlegmatic inspection, and idly investing
it with some occult and sinister significance, when she broke out with:
"Oh, I know what it was I wanted to ask you. Is it really true that the
trappers and men in the woods out there eat the hind-quarters of frogs
and toads?"
This was the sum of my relative's interest in my voyage. When I had
answered her, she gathered up my luggage and bundles and took them off to
the kitchen, there to be overhauled, washed, and mended.
I got into my slippers and a loose coat, lighted a pipe, and settled
myself in front of the fire to wait. Tulp came over, grinning with delight
at being among his own once more, to see if I wanted anything. I sent him
off, rather irritably I fear, but I couldn't bear the contrast which his
jocose bearing enforced on my moody mind, between my reception and his.
This slave of mine had kin and friends who rushed to fall upon his neck,
and made the night echoes ring again with their shouts of welcome. I could
hear that old Eli had got down his fiddle, and between the faint squeaking
strains I could distinguish choruses of happy guffaws and bursts of
child-like merriment. Tulp's return caused joy, while mine----
Then I grew vexed at my peevish injustice in complaining because my dear
ones, not being gifted with second-sight, had failed to exactly anticipate
my coming; and in blaming my poor aunt for behaving just as the dear old
slow-witted creature had always behaved since she was stricken with
small-pox, twenty years before. Yet this course of candid self-reproach
upon which I entered brought me small relief. I was unhappy, and whether
it was my own fault or that of somebody else did not at all help the
matter. And I had thought to be so exaltedly happy, on this of all the
nights of my life!
At length I heard the sound of hoofs clattering down the road, and of
voices lifted in laughing converse. Eli's fiddle ceased its droning, and
on going to the window I saw lanterns scudding along to the gate from the
slaves' cabins, like fireflies in a gale. I opened the window softly,
enough to hear. Not much was to be seen, for the night had set in dark;
but there were evidently a number of horsemen outside the gate, and,
judging from the noise, all were talking together. The bulk of the party,
I understood at once, were going on down the river road, to make a night
of it at Sir John's bachelor quarters in old Fort Johnson, or at one of
the houses of his two brothers-in-law. I was relieved to hear these
roisterers severally decline the invitations to enter the Cedars for a
time, and presently out of the gloom became distinguishable the forms of
the two for whom I had been waiting. Both were muffled to the eyes, for
the air had turned cold, but it seemed as if I should have recognized them
in any disguise.
I heard Tulp and Eli jointly shouting out the news of my arrival--for
which premature disclosure I could have knocked their woolly heads
together--but it seemed that the tidings had reached them before. In fact,
they had met Mr. Cross and Enoch on the road down from Johnstown, as I
learned afterward.
All my doubts vanished in the warm effusion of their welcome to me, as
sincere and honest as it was affectionate. I had pictured it to myself
almost aright. Mr. Stewart did come to me with outstretched arms, and
wring my hands, and pat my shoulder, and well-nigh weep for joy at seeing
me returned, safe and hale. Daisy did not indeed throw herself upon my
breast, but she ran to me and took my hands, and lifted her face to be
kissed with a smile of pleasure in which there was no reservation.
And it was a merry supper-table around which we sat, too, half an hour
later, and gossiped gayly, while the wind rose outside, and the sparks
flew the swifter and higher for it. There was so much to tell on
both sides.
Somehow, doubtless because of my slowness of tongue, my side did not seem
very big compared with theirs. One day had been very much like another
with me, and, besides, the scenes through which I had passed did not
possess the novelty for these frontier folk that they would have for
people nowadays.
But their budget of news was fairly prodigious, alike in range and
quantity. The cream of this, so to speak, had been taken off by hospitable
Jelles Fonda at Caughnawaga, yet still a portentous substance remained.
Some of my friends were dead, others were married. George Klock was in
fresh trouble through his evil tricks with the Indians. A young half-breed
had come down from the Seneca nation and claimed John Abeel as his father.
Daniel Claus had set up a pack of hounds, equal in breed to Sir William's.
It was really true that Sir John was to marry Miss Polly Watts of New
York, and soon too. Walter Butler had been crossed in love, and was very
melancholy and moody, so much so that he had refused to join the
house-warming party at the new summer-house on Sacondaga Vlaie, which Sir
William had christened Mount Joy Pleasure Hall--an ambitious enough name,
surely, for a forest fishing-cottage.
Naturally a great deal was told me concerning this festival from which
they had just returned. It seems that Lady Berenicia Cross and Daisy were
the only ladies there. They were given one of the two sleeping-rooms,
while Sir William and Mr. Stewart shared the other. The younger men had
ridden over to Fish House each night, returning next day. Without its
being said in so many words, I could see that the drinking and carousing
there had disturbed and displeased Daisy. There had even, I fancied, been
a dispute on this subject between her and our guardian, for he was at
pains several times to insist upon telling me incidents which it was plain
she desired left unmentioned, and to rather pointedly yet good-humoredly
laugh at her as a little puritan, who did not realize that young gentlemen
had their own particular ways, as proper and natural to them as were other
habits and ways to young foxes or fishes. Her manner said clearly enough
that she did not like these ways, but he pleasantly joked her down.
I noted some slight changes in Mr. Stewart, which gave me a sense of
uneasiness. He seemed paler than before, and there were darker pits under
his prominent, bright eyes. He had been visibly exhausted on entering the
house, but revived his strength and spirits under the influence of the
food and wine. But the spirits struck, somehow, a false note on my ear.
They seemed not to come from a natural and wholesome fund, as of old, but
to have a ring of artificiality in them. I could not help thinking, as I
looked at him, of the aged French noblemen we read about, who, at an age
and an hour which ought to have found them nightcapped and asleep,
nourishing their waning vitality, were dancing attendance in ladies'
boudoirs, painted, rouged, padded, and wigged, aping the youth they had
parted with so long ago. Of course, the comparison was ridiculous, but
still it suggested itself, and, once framed in my mind, clung there.
It dawned upon me after a time that it was contact with that Lady
Berenicia which had wrought this change in him, or, rather, had brought
forth in his old age a development of his early associations, that, but
for her, would to the end have lain hidden, unsuspected, under the manly
cover of his simple middle life.
If there were alterations of a similar sort in Daisy, I could not see them
this night. I had regard only for the beauty of the fire-glow on her fair
cheek, for the sweet, maidenly light in her hazel eyes, for the soft smile
which melted over her face when she looked upon me. If she was quieter and
more reserved in her manner than of old, doubtless the same was true of
me, for I did not notice it.
I had learned at Fonda's that young Philip Cross was cutting a great
swath, socially, in the Valley, and that he was building a grand mansion,
fully as large as Johnson Hall, nearly at the summit of the eminence which
crowned his patent. Major Fonda was, indeed, contracting to furnish the
bricks for what he called the "shimlies," and the house was, by all
accounts, to be a wonderful affair. I heard much more about it, in detail,
this evening, chiefly from Mr. Stewart. Nay, I might say entirely, for
Daisy never once mentioned Philip's name if it could be avoided. Mr.
Stewart was evidently much captivated by the young man's spirit and social
qualities and demeanor generally.
"He is his father's own boy, ay, and his mother's too," said the old man,
with sparkling eyes. "Not much for books, perhaps, though no dullard. But
he can break a wild colt, or turn a bottle inside out, or bore a
pencilled hole with a pistol-bullet at thirty paces, or tell a story, or
sing a song, or ride, dance, box, cross swords, with any gentleman in the
Colony. You should have seen him stand Walrath the blacksmith on his head
at the races a fortnight ago! I never saw it better done in the
Tweed country."
"A highly accomplished gentleman, truly," I said, with as little obvious
satire as possible.
"Ah, but he has mind as well as muscle," put in Mr. Stewart. "He is a very
Bolingbroke with the ladies. It carries me back to my days at the play, I
swear, to hear him and Lady Berenicia clashing rapiers in badinage. You
shall hear them, my boy, and judge. And there's a sweet side to his
tongue, too, or many a pretty, blushing cheek belies the little ear
behind it."
The old gentleman chuckled amiably to himself as he spoke, and poured more
Madeira into my glass and his. Daisy somewhat hurriedly rose, bade us
"good-night," and left us to ourselves.
Oh, if I had only spoken the word that night!