"Your initials spell Mab," King William was telling Alexina as they
sat on the step; "that means you'll be rich. Mine don't spell
anything. I'm named for my grandfather up in Woodford, William
Ransome. He's dead. Father's don't either--Georges Gautier Hippolyte
Leroy. His father ran away from France because he was a Girondist, and
came to Louisville because it was French, and father's been to Paris,
too; haven't you, father?"
The gentleman thus adjured removed his cigar and addressed his wife.
"It begins to amount to garrulity. If the opposite sex produces this
at ten, what are we to expect later on?"
Mrs. Leroy's voice had a note of defence in it, as if she could not
brook even humorous criticism of the boy. It was plain where the
passionate ardour in her nature was centred.
"I'm glad, I'm glad to see it," she declared. "I was afraid it was not
in him, I was beginning to fear he was a self-sufficient little
monster."
But her son was continuing the family history. "Mother's name was
Charlotte Ransome; wasn't it, mother? When I'm a man I'm going to buy
my grandfather's stock farm back, and we'll live there; won't we,
mother?"
But the impulsive Charlotte, veering around, here took her husband's
side: "'I'm going to--I'm going to,'" she mimicked the boy, then
began to chant derisively as in words familiar to both:
"And if you don't believe me
And think I tell a lie--"
But it only gave him an idea. He was not often a host. It was going to
his head. "Wait!" he ordered, to whom it was not quite clear, and tore
into the house, to be back almost at once, bearing a beribboned
guitar.
"Now," he said, depositing it upon his mother's lap; "now, sing it for
her; sing it right, mother. It's 'The Ram of Derby.'" This to Alexina,
with a sudden shyness as he found himself addressing her.
But she, unconscious soul, did not recognize it, hers being an
all-absorbed interest, and, reassured, young William went on:
"There was a William Ransome once, when he was little, sat on General
Washington's knee, and General Washington sang him 'The Ram of Derby.'
Go on, mother, sing it."
And Charlotte, with eyes laughing down on the two upturned faces,
"went on," her jewelled fingers bringing the touch of a practised hand
upon the strings, her buoyant figure responsive to the rhythm, while
into the Munchausen recital she threw a dash, a swing that rendered
the interest breathless.
"There was a ram of Derby
I've often heard it said,
He was the greatest sheep, sir,
That ever wore a head.
And if you don't believe me
And think I tell a lie,
Just go down to Derby
And see as well as I.
"The horns upon this ram, sir,
They reached up to the sky,
The eagles built their nest there,
For I heard the young ones cry.
And if you don't believe me, etc., etc.
"The wool upon this ram, sir,
It grew down to the ground,
The devil cut it off, sir,
To make a morning gown.
And if you don't believe me, etc., etc."
And so on through the tale. King William, at her knees, clapped his
hands. Alexina, by him, clapped hers, too, for joy of companionship,
while the third listener sat with unchanging countenance below. But he
liked it, somehow one knew he liked it, knew that he was listening
down there in the dusk.
Perhaps Charlotte knew it, too. The vibrant twang slowed to richer
chords, broke into rippling chromatic, caught a new measure, a minor
note, and her contralto began:
"I am going far away, far away to leave you now,
To the Mississippi River I am going--"
But this was only so much suggestion for her son's active brain.
"Tell her, mother," he begged, pulling at Charlotte's sleeve; "tell
her about the 'King William.'"
"And it has lain dormant, this egotism, unsuspected," came up from out
of the dusk.
Charlotte's fingers swept the chords, her eyes fixed adoringly on her
little son's face, the while she sang on, absently, softly:
"Down in my ol' cabin home,
There lies my sister an' my brother.
There lies my wife, the joy of my life,
An' the child in the grave with its mother."
But King William, far from being harrowed by the woeful enumeration,
laid an imperious hand on the strings. "Tell her, mother; I want you
to tell her."
"Come then, and kiss mother, and I will."
He moved the intervening step and submitted a cheek reluctantly.
"Just one and you said you'd tell."
But Charlotte, imperious herself, waved him off; she'd none of him
now. "It's because he's a vain boy, little Mary Alexina Blair, and
filled with self-importance, that he wants you to know, and he only
wants me to tell you because he has not quite the assurance to do it
himself; that is why he wants me to tell about the great, white-prowed
Argo--"
"We call them bows, not prows," came up out of the dusk.
But she refused the correction. "--The white-prowed Argo that is
building across the river, to go in search of a golden fleece for
little Jason here, a boat large, oh larger even than those other boats
of little Jason's father, the Captain down there, which used to float
up and down the Mississippi, and which vanished one day into the maw
of the Confederacy--"
But Jason was lifting his voice. "Not that way; make her stop, father;
that ain't the way!"
But mother was not to be hurried out of her revenge. "And this big,
white ark is one day going to float off on the flood of Hope, bearing
Jason and his father and his mother, the last plank of fortune between
them and--"
Jason was beating with his hands on the steps. "Make her stop, father;
make her tell it right; she don't understand what mother means. Do
you?" with an appeal to the absorbed Alexina.
That small soul jumped and looked embarrassed to know what to say, for
direct admissions are not always polite. "I had an ark once," she
stated, "but I sucked the red off Noah, and Marie, my bonne, took it
away."
Leaning down, Charlotte Leroy swept the baby-voiced creature up into
her lap. There was a passion of maternity in the act. "You innocent,"
she said, and held her fast.
It was nice to be there; the ribbons and the lacy ruffles were soft
beneath her cheek, and the dark eyes of the lady were smiling down.
The child turned suddenly and clung to Charlotte with passionate
responsiveness.
"It's about the boat his father is building, Willy wants you to know,
little Mab," the lady was telling her, "and how, the other day, the
Captain down there and our friends and Willy and I went aboard her, on
the ways at the shipyard over the river, and how, at the ax-stroke, as
she slid down and out across the water, Willy broke the bottle on the
bow and christened the boat 'King William.'"
"Just so," came up in the Captain's voice.
The moon was rising slowly.
"There's some one at the gate," cried Willy.
"It's for me," said Alexina, starting up; "it's Nelly and she's
hunting me."
Later, Nelly, leading her across the street, was saying, "I don't
believe Miss Harriet is going to like it when she knows where you've
been."
"Why?"
But Nelly couldn't say; "except that they're the only ladies on the
street not knowing each other," she explained.
The two went in. Alexina dropped Nelly's hand and walked into the
parlour and across to Harriet's knee. Austen sat reading on the other
side of the table.
"I've been over to a boy's house," said Alexina; "his name is King
William and their other name is Leroy."
Harriet held the cambric strip of embroidery from her and viewed it.
"Austen," she asked, "is Alexina to play indiscriminately with the
children on the square?"
Austen looked across at his sister. "It is within your authority to
decide," he returned, "but I know of no reason why she should not."
Harriet made no response. Outwardly she was concerned with some
directions to Nelly, waiting to take the child to bed, but inwardly
she was wondering if Austen ever could have cared for this Charlotte
Ransome.
He sat long after Harriet had gone. Then, rising abruptly, he went out
the front door and walked to the corner of the house. It was dark in
the coachman's room above the stable, and the master could go to bed
secure that his oil was not being wasted.
That was all, yet he did not go in. The night was perfect, full of
moonlight and the scent of earth and growing things. It was so still
the houses along the street seemed asleep.
Almost furtively, the gaze of Austen lifted to the cottage, dark and
silent across the way. He had been the one who would not forgive; the
other had been only an impetuous girl.
He stood there long. Perhaps his face was colder, his lips pressed to
a thinner line; perhaps it was the moonlight. Then he turned and went
into the house.