deck, and going up the steep stairs there was such confusion, to keep
the black skirts well over the stiff white petticoats; and, coming
down, such blushing when suspicion would cross the unprepared face
that a rim of white stocking might be visible; and the thin feet,
laced so tightly in the glossy new leather boots, would cling to each
successive step as if they could never, never make another venture;
and then one boot would (there is but that word) hesitate out, and
feel and feel around, and have such a pause of helpless agony as if
indeed the next step must have been wilfully removed, or was nowhere
to be found on the wide, wide earth.
It was a miracle that the pilot ever got her up into the pilot-house;
but pilots have a lonely time, and do not hesitate even at miracles
when there is a chance for company. He would place a box for her to
climb to the tall bench behind the wheel, and he would arrange the
cushions, and open a window here to let in air, and shut one there to
cut off a draft, as if there could be no tenderer consideration in
life for him than her comfort. And he would talk of the river to her,
explain the chart, pointing out eddies, whirlpools, shoals, depths,
new beds, old beds, cut-offs, caving banks, and making banks, as
exquisitely and respectfully as if she had been the River Commission.
It was his opinion that there was as great a river as the Mississippi
flowing directly under it--an underself of a river, as much a
counterpart of the other as the second story of a house is of the
first; in fact, he said they were navigating through the upper story.
Whirlpools were holes in the floor of the upper river, so to speak;
eddies were rifts and cracks. And deep under the earth, hurrying
toward the subterranean stream, were other streams, small and
great, but all deep, hurrying to and from that great mother-stream
underneath, just as the small and great overground streams hurry to
and from their mother Mississippi. It was almost more than the little
convent girl could take in: at least such was the expression of her
eyes; for they opened as all eyes have to open at pilot stories. And
he knew as much of astronomy as he did of hydrology, could call the
stars by name, and define the shapes of the constellations; and she,
who had studied astronomy at the convent, was charmed to find that
what she had learned was all true. It was in the pilot-house, one
night, that she forgot herself for the first time in her life, and
stayed up until after nine o'clock. Although she appeared almost
intoxicated at the wild pleasure, she was immediately overwhelmed
at the wickedness of it, and observed much more rigidity of conduct
thereafter. The engineer, the boiler-men, the firemen, the stokers,
they all knew when the little convent girl was up in the pilot-house:
the speaking-tube became so mild and gentle.
With all the delays of river and boat, however, there is an end to the
journey from Cincinnati to New Orleans. The latter city, which at one
time to the impatient seemed at the terminus of the never, began,
all of a sudden, one day to make its nearingness felt; and from that
period every other interest paled before the interest in the immanence
of arrival into port, and the whole boat was seized with a panic of
preparation, the little convent girl with the others. Although so
immaculate was she in person and effects that she might have been
struck with a landing, as some good people might be struck with death,
at any moment without fear of results, her trunk was packed and
repacked, her satchel arranged and rearranged, and, the last day, her
hair was brushed and plaited and smoothed over and over again until
the very last glimmer of a curl disappeared. Her dress was whisked,
as if for microscopic inspection; her face was washed; and her
finger-nails were scrubbed with the hard convent nail-brush, until
the disciplined little tips ached with a pristine soreness. And still
there were hours to wait, and still the boat added up delays. But she
arrived at last, after all, with not more than the usual and expected
difference between the actual and the advertised time of arrival.
There was extra blowing and extra ringing, shouting, commanding,
rushing up the gangway and rushing down the gangway. The clerks,
sitting behind tables on the first deck, were plied, in the twinkling
of an eye, with estimates, receipts, charges, countercharges, claims,
reclaims, demands, questions, accusations, threats, all at topmost
voices. None but steamboat clerks could have stood it. And there were
throngs composed of individuals every one of whom wanted to see the
captain first and at once: and those who could not get to him shouted
over the heads of the others; and as usual he lost his temper and
politeness, and began to do what he termed "hustle."
"Captain! Captain!" a voice called him to where a hand plucked his
sleeve, and a letter was thrust toward him. "The cross, and the name
of the convent." He recognized the envelop of the mother superior. He
read the duplicate of the letter given by the sisters. He looked at
the woman--the mother--casually, then again and again.
The little convent girl saw him coming, leading some one toward her.
She rose. The captain took her hand first, before the other greeting,
"Good-by, my dear," he said. He tried to add something else, but
seemed undetermined what. "Be a good little girl--" It was evidently
all he could think of. Nodding to the woman behind him, he turned on
his heel, and left.
One of the deck-hands was sent to fetch her trunk. He walked out
behind them, through the cabin, and the crowd on deck, down the
stairs, and out over the gangway. The little convent girl and her
mother went with hands tightly clasped. She did not turn her eyes to
the right or left, or once (what all passengers do) look backward at
the boat which, however slowly, had carried her surely over dangers
that she wot not of. All looked at her as she passed. All wanted to
say good-by to the little convent girl, to see the mother who had been
deprived of her so long. Some expressed surprise in a whistle; some
in other ways. All exclaimed audibly, or to themselves, "Colored!"
It takes about a month to make the round trip from New Orleans to
Cincinnati and back, counting five days' stoppage in New Orleans. It
was a month to a day when the steamboat came puffing and blowing up to
the wharf again, like a stout dowager after too long a walk; and the
same scene of confusion was enacted, as it had been enacted twelve
times a year, at almost the same wharf for twenty years; and the
same calm, a death calmness by contrast, followed as usual the next
morning.
The decks were quiet and clean; one cargo had just been delivered,
part of another stood ready on the levee to be shipped. The captain
was there waiting for his business to begin, the clerk was in his
office getting his books ready, the voice of the mate could be heard
below, mustering the old crew out and a new crew in; for if steamboat
crews have a single principle,--and there are those who deny them
any,--it is never to ship twice in succession on the same boat. It was
too early yet for any but roustabouts, marketers, and church-goers;
so early that even the river was still partly mist-covered; only in
places could the swift, dark current be seen rolling swiftly along.
"Captain!" A hand plucked at his elbow, as if not confident that the
mere calling would secure attention. The captain turned. The mother of
the little convent girl stood there, and she held the little convent
girl by the hand. "I have brought her to see you," the woman said.
"You were so kind--and she is so quiet, so still, all the time, I
thought it would do her a pleasure."
She spoke with an accent, and with embarrassment; otherwise one would
have said that she was bold and assured enough.
"She don't go nowhere, she don't do nothing but make her crochet and
her prayers, so I thought I would bring her for a little visit of 'How
d' ye do' to you."
There was, perhaps, some inflection in the woman's voice that might
have made known, or at least awakened, the suspicion of some latent
hope or intention, had the captain's ear been fine enough to detect
it. There might have been something in the little convent girl's face,
had his eye been more sensitive--trifle paler, maybe, the lips a
little tighter drawn, the blue ribbon a shade faded. He may have
noticed that, but-- And the visit of "How d' ye do" came to an end.
They walked down the stairway, the woman in front, the little convent
girl--her hand released to shake hands with the captain--following,
across the bared deck, out to the gangway, over to the middle of
it. No one was looking, no one saw more than a flutter of white
petticoats, a show of white stockings, as the little convent girl went
under the water.
The roustabout dived, as the roustabouts always do, after the
drowning, even at the risk of their good-for-nothing lives. The mate
himself jumped overboard; but she had gone down in a whirlpool.
Perhaps, as the pilot had told her whirlpools always did, it may have
carried her through to the underground river, to that vast, hidden,
dark Mississippi that flows beneath the one we see; for her body was
never found.
GRANDMOTHER'S GRANDMOTHER
As the grandmother related it fresh from the primeval sources that
feed a grandmother's memory, it happened thus:
In the early days of the settlement of Georgia--ah, how green and
rustic appears to us now the world in the early days of the settlement
of Georgia! Sometimes to women, listening to the stories of their
grandmothers, it seems better to have lived then than now--her
grandmother was at that time a young wife. It was the day of arduous,
if not of long, courtship before marriage, when every wedding
celebrated the close of an original romance; and when young couples,
for bridal trips, went out to settle new States, riding on a pillion
generally, with their trousseaux following as best they could on
sumpter mules; to hear the grandmother describe it made one long to be
a bride of those days.
The young husband had the enumeration of qualities that went to the
making of a man of that period, and if the qualities were in the
proportion of ten physical to one intellectual, it does not follow
that the grandmother's grandfather was not a man of parts. For, to
obtain the hand of his bride, an only child and an heiress, he had to
give test of his mettle by ignoring his fortune, studying law, and
getting his license before marriage, and binding himself to live the
first year afterward on the proceeds of his practice; a device of the
time thought to be a wholesome corrective of the corrupting influence
of over-wealth in young domesticities.
Although he had already chosen the sea for his profession, and was a
midshipman at the time, with more of a reputation for living than for
learning, such was he, and such, it may be said, was the incentive
genius of his choice, that almost before his resignation as midshipman
was accepted, his license as a lawyer was signed. As for practice, it
was currently remarked at his wedding, at the sight of him flying down
the room in the reel with his bride for partner, that his tongue was
as nimble as his heels, and that if he only turned his attention to
criminal practice, there was no man in the country who would make
a better prosecuting attorney for the State. And with him for
prosecuting attorney, it was warranted that sirrahs the highwaymen
would not continue to hold Georgia judge-and-jury justice in quite
such contemptible estimation, and that the gallows would not be left
so long bereft of their legitimate swingings. As for fees, it was
predicted that the young fellow as he stood, or rather "chassé'd,"
could snap his fingers at both his and his bride's trustees.
He did turn his attention to criminal law, was made prosecuting
attorney for the State in his county, and, before his six months
had passed, was convincing the hitherto high and mighty, lordly,
independent knights of the road that other counties in Georgia
furnished more secure pasturage for them.
It was a beautiful spring morning. The young wife bade him a hearty
good-by, and stood in the doorway watching him, gay and _debonair_,
riding off, on his stout black charger Beetle, in the direction of the
town in which court was to be held that week.
She herself feeling as full of ambition and work as if she also were
prosecuting attorney, with a perennial spring of eloquence bubbling in
her brain, turned to her domestic duties, and, without going into
the detail of them, it suffices to say that, according to the
grandmother's estimation, one morning's list of duties for a healthy
young bride of that period would shame the week's work of a syndicate
of them to-day. Finding herself nearing the limit of diminution of
several household necessities, and the spring suggesting the beginning
of new ones, she made up her mind to profit by her husband's absence
and the fair weather to make a trading visit to the neighboring town
next day.
[Illustration: "TURNED TO HER DOMESTIC DUTIES."]
So, early in a morning as beautiful as the preceding one, mounted on
her own stanch mare Maid Marion, she ambled down the green over-hung
forest-road, in the vista of which she had watched her husband
disappear the day before; thinking about what she had to buy, and
thinking, no doubt, much more, as brides will, of the absent lord and
master--as brides of those days loved to consider and denominate their
husbands.
Coming into the little town, the freshly painted, swinging sign-board
of the new tavern, "The Honest Georgian," as usual was the thing to
catch her eye; but the instant after what should she see but Black
Beetle hitched to the rack under the tree that shadowed the hostelry!
It was not decorous; but she was young, and the day of her first
separation from her husband had been so long; and was he not also,
against the firmest of resolutions and plans, hastening back to her,
the separation being too long for him also?
Slipping her foot from the stirrup, she jumped to the ground, and ran
into the tavern. There he stood calling hastily for a drink; and
her heart more than her eyes took in his, to her, consecrated
signalment--the riding-boots, short clothes, blue coat, cocked hat,
ruffles. She crept up behind to surprise him, her face, with its
delight and smiles, beyond her control. She crept, until she saw his
watch-fob dangling against the counter, and then her heart made a
call. He turned. He was not her husband! Another man was in her
husband's clothes, a man with a villainous countenance! With a scream
she gave the alarm. The stranger turned, dropped his drink, bounded to
the door and out, leaped to the back of Beetle, gave rein and spur,
and the black horse made good his reputation. In a second all was
hue-and-cry and pursuit. While men and horses made, for all they were
worth, down the road after Beetle, she on Maid Marion galloped for
her life in the opposite direction, the direction of the court town
whither her husband had journeyed. The mare's hide made acquaintance
with the whip that day if never before, for not even the willing Maid
Marion could keep pace with the apprehensions on her back.
Scouring with her eyes the highway ahead of her, shooting hawk's
glances into the forest on each side of her, the wife rode through
the distance all, all day, praying that the day might be long enough,
might equal the distance. The sun set, and night began to fall; but
she and Maid Marion were none the less fresh, except in the heart.
The moon rose straight before them down the road, lighting it and them
through the threatened obscurity. And so they came to trampled earth
and torn grass, and so she uncovered concealed footsteps, and so,
creeping on her hands and knees, she followed traces of blood, through
thicket and glade, into the deep forest, to a hastily piled hillock of
earth, gravel, and leaves. Burrowing with her hands, she came to it,
the naked body of her young husband, cold and stiff, foully murdered.
Maid Marion approached at her call. She wrapped him in her cloak,
and--a young wife of those times alone would do it--put him in the
saddle before her: the good mare Maid Marion alone knows the rest. In
the early gray dawn, from one highway there rode into the town the
baffled pursuers, from the other the grandmother's grandmother,
clasping the corpse of her husband with arms as stiff as his own;
loving him, so the grandmother used to say, with a love which, if ever
love could do so, would have effected a resurrection.
THE OLD LADY'S RESTORATION
The news came out in the papers that the old lady had been restored
to her fortune. She had been deprived of it so long ago that the real
manner of her dispossession had become lost, or at least hidden under
the many versions that had been invented to replace lapses of memory,
or to remedy the unpicturesqueness of the original truth. The face of
truth, like the face of many a good woman, is liable to the accident
of ugliness, and the desire to embellish one as well as the other
need not necessarily proceed from anything more harmful than an
overweighted love of the beautiful.
If the old lady had not been restored to her fortune, her _personalia_
would have remained in the oblivion which, as one might say, had
accumulated upon everything belonging to her. But after that newspaper
paragraph, there was such a flowering of memory around her name as
would have done credit to a whole cemetery on All Saints. It took
three generations to do justice to the old lady, for so long and so
slow had been her descent into poverty that a grandmother was needed
to remember her setting out upon the road to it.
She set out as most people do, well provided with money, diamonds,
pretty clothing, handsome residence, equipage, opera-box, beaus (for
she was a widow), and so many, many friends that she could never
indulge in a small party--she always had to give a grand ball
to accommodate them. She made quite an occasion of her first
reverse,--some litigation decided against her,--and said it came from
the court's' having only one ear, and that preempted by the other
party.
She always said whatever she thought, regardless of the consequences,
because she averred truth was so much more interesting than falsehood.
Nothing annoyed her more in society than to have to listen to the
compositions women make as a substitute for the original truth. It was
as if, when she went to the theater to hear Shakspere and Molière,
the actors should try to impose upon the audience by reciting lines
of their own. Truth was the wit of life and the wit of books. She
traveled her road from affluence so leisurely that nothing escaped her
eyes or her feelings, and she signaled unhesitatingly every stage in
it.
"My dear, do you know there is really such a thing as existence
without a carriage and horses?"--"I assure you it is perfectly new to
me to find that an opera-box is not a necessity. It is a luxury. In
theory one can really never tell the distinction between luxuries and
necessities."--"How absurd! At one time I thought hair was given
us only to furnish a profession to hair-dressers; just as we wear
artificial flowers to support the flower-makers."--"Upon my word,
it is not uninteresting. There is always some _haute nouveauté_ in
economy. The ways of depriving one's self are infinite. There is wine,
now."--"Not own your residence! As soon not own your tomb as your
residence! My mama used to scream that in my ears. According to her,
it was not _comme il faut_ to board or live in a rented house.
How little she knew!"
When her friends, learning her increasing difficulties, which they did
from the best authority (herself), complimented her, as they were
forced to do, upon her still handsome appearance, pretty laces,
feathers, jewelry, silks, "Fat," she would answer--"fat. I am living
off my fat, as bears do in winter. In truth, I remind myself of an
animal in more ways than one."
And so every one had something to contribute to the conversation about
her--bits which, they said, affection and admiration had kept alive in
their memory.
Each city has its own roads to certain ends, its ways of Calvary, so
to speak. In New Orleans the victim seems ever to walk down Royal
street and up Chartres, or _vice versa_. One would infer so, at least,
from the display in the shops and windows of those thorough-fares.
Old furniture, cut glass, pictures, books, jewelry, lace, china--the
fleece (sometimes the flesh still sticking to it) left on the
brambles by the driven herd. If there should some day be a trump of
resurrection for defunct fortunes, those shops would be emptied in
the same twinkling of the eye allowed to tombs for their rendition of
property.
The old lady must have made that promenade many, many times, to judge
by the samples of her "fat or fleece" displayed in the windows. She
took to hobbling, as if from tired or sore feet.
"It is nothing," in answer to an inquiry. "Made-to-order feet learning
to walk in ready-made shoes: that is all. One's feet, after all, are
the most unintelligent part of one's body." Tea was her abomination,
coffee her adoration; but she explained: "Tea, you know, is so
detestable that the very worst is hardly worse than the very best;
while coffee is so perfect that the smallest shade of impurity is not
to be tolerated. The truly economical, I observe, always drink tea."
"At one time I thought if all the luxuries of the world were exposed
to me, and but one choice allowed, I should select gloves. Believe me,
there is no superfluity in the world so easily dispensed with."
As may be supposed, her path led her farther and farther away from her
old friends. Even her intimates became scarce; so much so, that these
observations, which, of course, could be made only to intimates,
became fewer and fewer, unfortunately, for her circumstances were
becoming such that the remarks became increasingly valuable. The last
thing related of her was apropos of friends.
"My friends! My dear, I cannot tell you just so, on the spur of the
moment, but with a little reflection and calculation I could tell you,
to a picayune, the rent of every friend in the market. You can lease,
rent, or hire them, like horses, carriages, opera-boxes, servants, by
year, month, day, or hour; and the tariff is just as fixed.
"Christians! Christians are the most discreet people in the world. If
you should ask me what Christianity has most promoted in the world, I
should answer without hesitation, discretion. Of course, when I say
the world I mean society, and when I say Christianity I mean our
interpretation of it. If only duns could be pastors, and pastors duns!
But of course you do not know what duns are; they are the guardian
angels of the creditor, the pursuing fiends of the debtor."
After that, the old lady made her disappearance under the waves of
that sea into the depths of which it is very improbable that a single
friend ever attempted to pursue her. And there she remained until the
news came that she was restored to fortune.
A week passed, two weeks; no sight or sound of her. It was during this
period that her old friends were so occupied resuscitating their old
friendships for her--when all her antique sayings and doings became
current ball-room and dinner-table gossip--that she arose from her
obscurity like Cinderella from her ashes, to be decked with every gift
that fairy minds could suggest. Those who had known her intimately
made no effort to conceal their importance. Those who did not know her
personally put forward claims of inherited friendship, and those who
did not know her traditionally or otherwise--the _nouveaux riches_
and _parvenus_, who alone feel the moneyed value of such social
connections--began making their resolutions to capture her as soon as
she came in sight of society.
The old residence was to be re-bought, and refurnished from France;
the _avant scène_ at the opera had been engaged; the old cook was to
be hired back from the club at a fabulous price; the old balls and the
old dinners were to gladden the city--so said they who seemed to know.
Nothing was to be spared, nothing stinted--at her age, with no child
or relative, and life running short for pleasure. Diamonds, laces,
velvets, champagne, Château Yquem--"Grand Dieu Seigneur!" the old
Creole servants exclaimed, raising their hands at the enumeration of
it.