WHO WON THE BET?
We arrived at the Misses Laurens, bag and baggage, at the appointed
hour. Those ladies greeted us with studied courtesy, but it was evident
from their manner that they looked upon us as Yankee invaders. The fact
that Tweedles and I were from Virginia and Mrs. Green from Kentucky, all
of us with as good Confederate records as one could wish, had no weight
with them. We were all clumped as Northerners in their minds. But we
were guests under their ancestral roof and must be treated with
punctilious politeness.
Tweedles and I were shown into two large adjoining rooms, the Greens
across the hall from us, with a room beyond theirs for Mr. Tucker. The
beds were great four-posters that looked as though there should be
little stepladders furnished to climb into them, like those the porter
brings you to scramble into an upper berth.
"Just 'spose you should fall out of bed! 'Twould be sure death,"
declared Dee.
"Look at this mahogany candle-stand! Did you ever in all your life see
anything quite so lovely? And look, only look at this silver
candlestick! It looks like it had been looted from some old Spanish
church," and Dum reverently picked up the heavy old silver to examine
the quaint design beaten around its base.
"But this wardrobe! I'm sure there's a skeleton in it hiding behind
rustling old silks. It is big enough to go to housekeeping in. I wonder
if Miss Arabella and Miss Judith ever played in it when they were
children."
"Old Page, always romancing."
"Well, if anyone is ever going to romance she would do it here. It
smells like romance even. I know there are jars of dried rose leaves in
every room. I am sure there is lavender in the sheets and I am positive
there is a ghost around somewhere."
"Can you smell it, too? How does a ghost smell? Not like a rat, I hope,"
teased Dee.
"How are we going to sleep? If there is a ghost flaunting his fragrance
around, I hope I shall not draw the lonesome singleton," said Dum.
"I'll take the room by myself," I said magnanimously, the truth of the
matter being that while I approved of our custom of drawing straws or
tossing up for everything, I was afraid that Dee might draw the lonesome
singleton, and I did not think that after the experience she had so
recently been through she should be put off by herself. I did not want
to say anything about my reasons, but decided that I would simply
install myself in the far room.
"Are you aware of the fact, girls, that there is no gas in these rooms?
These candlesticks are not meant for ornaments, but to light us to our
couches. Shades of Bracken! I wonder if there is any plumbing!" Like
most persons born and brought up without plumbing, I thought more of it
than daily bread. I had my own great English bathtub at Bracken, but
plumbingless houses were not always equipped with individual tubs.
"I thought of asking Miss Arabella where the bathroom was, but somehow
it was as difficult as asking her how much she charged for board, and I
could not muster courage," laughed Dee.
"Where does that door go? If it is not locked, we might explore a
little."
It yielded and proved to be the opening into an old-fashioned
dressing-room that had been converted into a bathroom as an
afterthought. It was big enough for four ordinary bathrooms, and had,
besides the copper-lined bathtub, with plumbing that must have been the
first to be installed in South Carolina, a wardrobe, bureau, washstand
and several chairs. Another door opening into a narrow hall must have
been meant for the other occupants of the house.
"Thank goodness for the tub, even if it is reminiscent of a
preserving-kettle," I sighed. "I had visions of our making out with bird
dishes, and had begun to regret that I had not taken several more baths
at the hotel, where the arrangements were certainly perfect."
"It's an awful pity a body can't save up cleanliness like she can save
up dirt," said Dee. "Wouldn't it be nice if we could take seven baths in
one day at a nice hotel and then come stay a week in a delightful old
house like this, delightful in every way but tubs, and not have to wash
all that time?"
"I knew a girl in Richmond who was one of these once-a-weekers, and she
was going abroad for the summer and decided to get a Turkish bath before
sailing. Do you know she saved up two weeks so as to get her money's
worth? But we had better get unpacked and into our dinner dresses," and
Dum began to pull things out of her suitcase with her unpacking
manner--not calculated to improve the condition of clothes.
We found Professor and Mrs. Green walking in the garden.
"Edwin is as pleased as we were, and has forgiven us for not seeing the
bedrooms, now that he finds he shall not have to sleep on a stone bench.
We have a bed big enough for an old-fashioned family of fifteen to sleep
in. I hope you girls are comfortably placed."
"Yes, indeed, beautifully!" we exclaimed in chorus.
"Only look at this old sun-dial, Molly! '_Tempus Fugit_' carved around
it! I don't believe Time has flown here for many a year. I think he has
stood stock-still."
The garden was wondrously sweet in the soft evening light. Waxen white
japonicas gleamed through the shrubbery and lilacs, lavender, purple and
white were in a perfect tangle, meeting overhead, almost concealing an
overgrown walk that led to a rustic summer house in the far corner.
Wherever there was nothing else, there was honeysuckle. It seemed to be
trying to over-run the place, but periwinkle was holding its own on the
ground, asserting itself with its darker green leaves, and snow balls
and syringa bushes, shaking off the honeysuckle that had tried to
smother and choke it, rose superior with their masses of whiteness.
Hyacinths, narcissi, lilies-of-the-valley, snowdrops and violets filled
the beds to overflowing, a floral struggle for the survival of the
fittest.
"Won't Zebedee love it, though!" said Dee. "It seems almost as peaceful
as a graveyard. Listen! Listen! A mocking-bird!"
"We might have known a mocking-bird would build here," whispered Mrs.
Green. "There he is on that oleander, and there's his mate still busy
with her household duties, carrying straw for her nest. It must be hard
to be a female bird and not to be able to pour forth your soul in song,
no matter how bursting you are with the joy of living. I always thought
that it was unfair. No doubt that little newlywed mocking-bird feels as
deeply as the male, but all she can do to show it is just drag straw and
hairs and build and build, and then sit patiently on her eggs, and then
teach the little ones to fly after she has worn herself to skin and bone
grubbing worms for them. No doubt if she should begin to sing she would
astonish her little husband to such an extent that he would call her a
suffragette, and tell her a lady bird's place was in her nest and he
could make noise enough for two, thank you!"
"Well, it certainly would be a pity for her to sing if she couldn't
sing," objected Professor Green. "I suppose long ages of thinking she
couldn't sing has put her where she can't. Perhaps she can sing, and Mr.
Cock Mocking-Bird has told her she can't because he wants the floor, or
rather the swinging limb, himself."
"Edwin is trying to get me into an argument on feminism, but the evening
is too perfect, and the mere male bird is singing too wonderfully to
tempt me to bring discord into the garden."
"Have you talked business yet with either of the ladies, Professor
Green? I am getting ready to tell my Timrod good-by."
"Well--er--not yet. I have not had an opportunity."
"Why, Edwin, you have seen both of them several times since we arrived."
"Yes, but the subject of our conversation was such that it did not seem
an appropriate time to broach the matter of board."
All of us laughed at our masculine contingent's being as bad as we had
been, and I felt more secure than ever that father would get his Timrod
and I would own a volume of J. Gordon Coogler.
Dilsey, the corn-field hand, almost fell down the steps announcing
supper. Of course we were hungry, and even though the garden was so
lovely we were glad to go to supper. We hoped its loveliness would keep,
and we knew that food could not be trusted to.
The ladies of the house were dressed in stiff grosgrain silk. Mrs. Green
knew the name of the kind of silk; we had never seen it before. She said
she had an Aunt Clay in Kentucky who wore it on state occasions. They
did not look nearly so funereal, as they had bits of fine old lace in
necks and sleeves. Lace is a wonderful fabric for lightening up
sombreness. It can cheer up dripping black.
It seems that I was wrong about the Misses Laurens having suffered
recent bereavement. They had the mourning habit. Claire Gaillard had
told us that they had had no deaths in the family for at least ten
years, but that they always wore mourning, poor old things. When we met
them in the bus, the morning of our arrival, they were not coming from
the funeral of a relative who had not left them the legacy they had been
counting on, as I had made up about them; on the contrary, they were
coming from the wedding of a young cousin in a neighboring town. So the
would-be author fell down that time in her surmises. Surely persons who
expect to figure in plots of stories have no business looking as though
they were coming from funerals when they have been to weddings. It is
hard on real authors to have to contend with such contrariness, and
simply impossible for would-bes.
The dining-room was even lovelier than the parlor. The walls were
papered with a hunting scene that had faded very little, considering it
must have been there half a century. It was a peculiar paper that seemed
to have been varnished, no doubt thus preserving it.
The sideboard was worth a king's ransom, whatever that is. It was not
the eternal Colonial that is of course beautiful, but it has come to the
pass that Americans think there is no other style worth considering. It
was very old Florentine, as were also the chairs and table. The carving
on the sideboard could only be equalled by the Cimabue gates, I am sure.
The chairs were upholstered in deep red Genoese velvet. It seems a
remote Huguenot ancestor had been United States Consul in Florence and
had brought home with him this dining-room furniture. There were no
pictures in this room, as with paper of that type pictures are out of
place, but polychrome sconces were hung at intervals, half a dozen in
all. The candles in them were not lighted, as it was still daylight, and
a great silver candelabrum on the table gave what additional light was
needed.
The table was set with the finest Sevres china, cobweb mats and thin old
teaspoons that looked a little like the old ladies themselves. The
forks, however, were as big as two ordinary forks of the day; so big in
fact that one might have been forgiven if, like Sam Weller, he "handled
his wittles with cold steel."
Miss Judith looked flushed, and I was afraid she had been cooking the
supper herself, while Miss Arabella had on a fresh thumb-stall that
suggested a possible burn on her thin, blue-veined old hand. Supper
consisted of fried chicken, hot rolls, four kinds of preserves, the
inevitable rice that is served twice a day in South Carolina, as though
to encourage home industries, and gravy, of course, to go on the rice,
another thing that is the rule in the best families, so I have been
told.
It is very funny how different sections of the country establish their
aristocracy by the way certain favorite dishes are served. I heard a
lady from Plymouth, Massachusetts, say once that some of her townsmen
were not really very good people; they put too much molasses in their
baked beans. I am sure a South Carolinian would consider any one po'
white trash who liked rice cooked mushy and not dry with every grain
standing out like a pearl. Certainly anywhere in the South sugar in the
cornbread would label any family as not to the manor-born, while in the
North sugar in the cornbread is a regular thing, born or not born.
Everything was delicious on that table, and the hostesses quite warmed
up into a pleasant glow of hospitality. It is difficult to be stiff,
even if you have swallowed a heredity poker, when gay, happy, hungry
young people are at your board, showing their appreciation of your
culinary skill by devouring everything handed to them.
Dilsey waited on table as though it had been set on ploughed ground,
every now and then almost falling down in an imaginary furrow. The
Misses Laurens completely ignored her awkwardness, although in all
probability, being human, they were in agony for fear she would shoot
the rolls across the room, or pour the coffee down a guest's back or do
something else equally trying. Dilsey seemed delighted with her prowess,
and every time she safely landed some article of food to the destination
to which her mistresses had sent it, she gave a pleased cluck. She would
come up to you and lean over your shoulder in a really most engaging
manner, and say:
"Now do hab a lil' mo' 'sarves! Try dem quinches dis time."
She was especially lively with the "graby," and handed it every time
there was a lull in operations. Professor Green refused it so often that
it really became embarrassing, but still the girl persisted in her
endeavors. "Jes' lil' graby on yo' rice!" Finally Miss Arabella
interfered to prevent further persecution, and this is where Professor
Green "broke his 'lasses pitcher" with the Misses Laurens.
"Perhaps you do not care for gravy," she suggested. "Won't you have some
butter on your rice? The butter to Professor Green, Dilsey."
"Thank you, no butter! I should like some sugar and cream on my rice,
however. I am very fond of it that way."
"Sugar and cream! On rice!" came in gasps from both ladies.
Oh, ye gods and little fishes! What had our masculine contingent done?
Flown in the face of customs older than Time! Dilsey's awkward waiting,
taking boarders, nothing had upset the well-bred equanimity of these
descendants of ancestors like this awful alien fact. "Sugar on rice!
Cream on rice! The Yankees are upon us! Hide the spoons!" That was the
manner they had when almost tearfully they instructed Dilsey to pass the
rice, pass the sugar and cream.
The professor ate it with about as much relish as Proserpine must have
eaten the dried-up pomegranate that Pluto obtained for her. He knew he
had done something terrible, but, man-like, he did not know just exactly
what it was. He knew that rice and sugar and cream were mixed up in it,
but how? Had he realized as I did that his request for a peculiar
combination of food had lost him the bet, perhaps it would have choked
him outright. It was a difficult feat to accomplish at best, to tackle
these old aristocrats on the subject of remuneration, but now that he
had done such a terribly plebeian thing as to want his rice mushy and
sweet, there was no possible way to get back in their good graces,
certainly no quick way of doing it. A reconstruction period would have
to be gone through with and then after much burying of many hatchets
perhaps cordial relations could be re-established.
Professor Green looked scared and rather boyish. His Molly was bubbling
over with suppressed merriment, while Dum and I had to assume a deep
gloom to keep from exploding. Dee came to the rescue, of course, with
rhapsodies over the garden, jumping from that to the pictures in the
City Hall and back to praise Claire Gaillard, who was evidently a
favorite of the old ladies.
The clock on the mantelpiece chimed seven and St. Michael's bells
verified its strike. I looked up at Professor Green as he choked down
the last of the fatal rice.
"I'll give you another hour," I whispered.
"Thank you, but I believe another year would not help me."
I now own J. Gordon Coogler and father will have his Timrod, which,
after all, had never really been in jeopardy.