INTRODUCED TO MRS. ESTELL.
A week passed by with no sign of a setback and one morning the doctor
said that I might sit up. Brother Washington eased me into a rocking
chair, and stood as if expecting me to command him to continue the work
of my conversion. But I told him to sit down, a position which he always
assumed in sorrow, seeming to regard it as a retreat when his spirit
cried for a charge.
The Senator came in with a hearty good morning, and instructed
Washington to draw my chair into the parlor. The sore trial of listening
to Mrs. Estell had come. I had not seen her, had made no inquiry
concerning her, but I had thought of her, and not with kindness. The
pleasure of getting again into my clothes had been marred by fancy's
sketch of her--sharp of voice and sour of face--a woman whose husband
had willingly died, leaving her, unfortunately, to inflict man with her
elocution. I wanted to sit alone and enjoy the sweet scents blown from
the garden; through the window I had seen a mocking-bird alight on the
top of a magnolia tree, and in silence I wanted to listen to his song.
But the Senator was my benefactor. He had found me a wounded outcast,
lying unconscious on the sand, and had made his mansion my hospital; and
I could not lift an ungrateful finger in protest against a torture which
in his belief was an act of kindness.
"Now easy, Washington," said the Senator as he held the door open.
"That's it, come ahead."
The parlor was at the end of a long and lofty hall. The Senator opened
the door. The chair was drawn across the threshold, and I found myself
in the midst of dark, old-fashioned furniture and the portraits of
Statesmen and of ladies done by Frenchmen who had come to this country
to leave a trail of art along the shores of the mighty river.
"Not too near the window, Washington," said the Senator. "About here.
Now you can go about your business and I will introduce Mrs. Estell."
They left me sitting with my back toward the door. I wondered why there
should be such an air of ceremony. Was it the custom in Bolanyo to
dignify a torture with a stately introduction? But I had not long to
muse. I heard the Senator returning. "Ah, Mr. Belford," he said,
stepping into the room, "let me present you to my daughter, Mrs.
Estell."
I looked round with a start, and a living line from old Chaucer, in
golden letters, hung bright before me--"Her glad eyes." I bowed; and I
must have spluttered my astonishment, for the Senator broke out in a
loud and ringing laugh.
"Sit down, Florence," he said, drawing forward a chair for her. And
then to me, while softly laughing, he observed:
"Oh, I saw you were distressed at the idea of being read to, and I could
have explained that you needn't look forward to any infliction, but I
thought I'd wait and let you find it out for yourself. Why, Sir, this
child couldn't bore anybody."
"Mr. Belford, don't listen to him when he calls me a child," she spoke
up. "I am a staid married woman."
I had not, as yet, sufficiently recovered from my astonishment to
venture a word, so I merely bowed, and read anew old Chaucer's glowing
line.
"Yes, a child," said the Senator, "but a woman; yes, Sir, as manly a
woman as you ever saw--chase a fox or shake a 'possum out of a persimmon
tree. Well, I must go down town and see what's going on. Don't sit up
too long, Mr. Belford. Send for Washington and he'll pull you back into
the other room."
"Mrs. Estell, I was never more agreeably surprised," said I, when the
Senator had taken his leave. "I expected to be tormented by an
elocutionist."
"If an elocutionist is your terror, you needn't be afraid of me," she
replied. "I have read to father and my husband, and that is the extent
of my--shall I say, inflictions."
"Husband," I repeated. "Are you really married?"
"Surely. Why not?"
"You are so young--"
"I am not old enough to be flattered by that remark," she broke in.
"Yes, I have been married two years. My husband is the State Treasurer,
and is at the capital now, but will be home next week. He stays over
there a good deal of the time, and I go with him once in a while, but I
don't like it there. I like my old home better."
"I don't blame you for that. It must be a charming place. Have you any
brothers or sisters?"
"No, Sir. It was reserved for me to be the only and, therefore, the
spoiled child. I don't remember my mother. There's her portrait."
I looked at a picture that had struck me when first I glanced at the
wall. How truthfully the Frenchman had caught a sweet and gentle spirit;
how exquisite was the art that had vivified those loving eyes with the
speaking light of life.
"Charming," I said sincerely, and she did not look upon it as flattery,
but accepted it as a truth. I looked at her and she did not avoid my
eye, but met it, strong and full, with her own, and I felt that, though
gentle, she was fearless. Sometimes the tone of her voice was serious
and the expression of her face thoughtful, but her eyes appeared to have
been always glad.
"When are you going to begin reading to me?" I asked, after we had sat
for a time in a contemplative silence.
"I'm not going to read to you. Don't you see I haven't brought a book?"
"Then play something," I requested, looking toward the piano.
"I don't play; and now I must tell you, Mr. Belford, that I haven't a
single accomplishment. I can't sing, and I never cared for dancing; I
don't draw, wouldn't attempt to paint, and I can't speak a word of
Italian. I was never intended for anything but a real companion for my
father, and a dutiful wife to my husband. I am wholly unadorned."
"No, you are adorned with the highest qualities. Any woman can learn to
play a piano, to speak Italian and to make an attempt at painting, but
every woman cannot be a perfect companion for a man."
"And a dutiful wife to her husband," she said, laughing. "But to be
dutiful is not so serious a matter.--not so serious to us as I fancy it
is to you stage people."
"Well, no," I admitted; "and also more serious than the views held by
thousands of good people who live in the large cities."
She shrugged her shoulders. "Nature doesn't grant divorces," she said.
"Birds are not divorced."
"But they change mates every year," I replied.
"Oh, do they? The shameless creatures."
We laughed, looking straight into each other's eyes. I thought that she
would make a splendid figure on the stage, and I told her so, expecting
to hear her cry out against it, but she did not. She was pleased. "I
have had that sort of longing," she said, "but I never expressed it,
knowing that it would meet with a storm of disapproval. It wouldn't do,"
she continued, shaking her head. "I know that I could never reach the
top, and a lower place--"
"Would make your proud heart sore," I cried, with bitterness.
She gave me a quick look of compassion, but said nothing; she let me
continue: "I have had the cold clamps put on my impetuous soul, and,
trying to conquer the evil opinion of the critic, I have worked and
studied under the stimulus of despair. But I have given up the fight; I
am going to quit the stage."
I leaned toward her, hoping for a protest, but she quietly said, "I
don't blame you," and I settled myself back with a sigh. She had seen me
act.
"What line of work do you intend to take up?" she inquired.
"I am going to write plays."
"And will you be satisfied if you don't write the best?"
"I hadn't thought of that. Yes, in that line I think that I shall be
satisfied with merely a success."
And then with a wisdom that made me stare at her, she said: "We can find
contentment in the middle ground of a second choice, for then the heart
has had its day of suffering."
"What do you read to your father?" I asked.
"Dull books in leather," she answered. "And I have sometimes feared that
this schooling has unfitted me for the light and pleasing society of my
friends. They called me an old maid before I was twenty. Oh, I've got
something to show you," she cried, jumping up and running out of the
room; and soon she returned with a little chicken held against her
cheek. "A hawk carried its mother away, and all of its brothers and
sisters were drowned in the rain. Listen to the little thing. Isn't it
sweet? I had a pet duck once and I loved it until it got big enough to
go out and get its feet muddy and then--I granted it a divorce. And
after a while this little thing will grow up and leave me, won't you,
pet? No, you won't, will you? There, I knew you wouldn't. You'll always
be little and lovable, and will stay with me. Come on, now, and let's go
back to the kitchen." She tripped out a girl, singing as she went, but
she came back a woman; and of the ways, the air and the ambitions of the
town I gathered more from a few moments of her talk than her father
could have given me in an hour's oration. He knew the men, but she knew
the whims; and while men may build the houses and make the laws, it is
the whim that makes the atmosphere. And for this reason an old town is
always more interesting than a new one. The subtle influence of odd
characters long since gone continues to live in the air. The Spaniards
had settled on the site of Bolanyo, and though naught but the faint
tracings of a fortified camp were left to mark the manner of their
occupation, still the town felt the honor of almost an ancient origin.
We talked until nearly noontime; until there came a light tap at the
open door. I looked up and there stood the black giant.
"Pardon me," he said, "but I am afraid you have been up long enough."
"Hannibal, your unbending discipline--" I began, but with lifting his
mighty hand he shut me off.
"I am a soldier of the Lord and Hannibal was a soldier of the devil," he
said. "Please don't compare us."
Mrs. Estell jumped up, laughing. "You'll have to do as he tells you, Mr.
Belford."
I had no time to argue against his authority, for already he had
advanced and put his hands on the back of my chair. She walked beside me
down the hall, and as the giant was easing the chair across the
threshold of my room she said:
"I hope you'll soon get well, and when you do, we'll go fox-hunting, you
and papa and I. Won't that be fun?"
"I don't know," I answered, from the inside of the room. "Oh, yes, it
will be fun for you and your father."
The negro took hold of the door as if impatient to shut it, and I looked
at him hard enough, I thought, to have bored him through, but, giving me
simply the heed of his slow wink, he continued to stand there.
"Of course, you can ride a horse," she said; and quickly she added:
"Gracious alive, Washington, don't look at me that way. Good-bye, Mr.
Belford."
The negro closed the door. "Damn it, man, what do you mean?" I cried.
"Confound you, can't you see--"
"Sir," he said, standing over me with his arms folded, "do you know what
you are saying?"
"Yes, I do, and I want to tell you right now, and once for all, that I
appreciate your kindness, but will not submit to your insolence. Do you
understand?"
"I hear you, Sir."
"But do you understand; that's the question?"
"I understand, but you don't," he said. "Now, listen to me. There is the
noblest young woman in the world; when she was a child I was her horse,
the black beast who delighted to do her bidding. I know her--I know she
is hungry for someone to talk to. Now, do you understand?"
I did, but I said "No." I knew that she was hungry; but if I could give
her food, why should this monster dash it to the ground?
"If you don't, the theatre is a more innocent place than I think it
is," he replied.
I looked up at him and he winked at me slowly. "But you say she is
noble," I said.
"She is, Sir, and strong; but a marriage tie cannot hold an unwilling
mind. Don't misunderstand me, Sir. The greatest harm you could do would
be to make her still more dissatisfied. With the presumption of an old
servant, I may say something that sounds impertinent, but I am a
preacher and a moralist. Thomas Rodney Estell is regarded here as a
great man; he has been State Treasurer nearly ten years, and he and the
Senator are warm friends."
"Well?" I said.
He looked up at the ceiling and replied: "A girl may marry her father's
friend, but it is not often that she loves him."
"Washington, are you in league with the devil?"
This struck through the superficial coating of his education, into his
real negro nature and made him roar with laughter. "No, Sah, I'm er
feard o' him;" but feeling the disgrace of his dialect he sobered and
said: "I think you understand me now, Mr. Belford."
"Yes, I do, and I don't blame you. But before we go further let me tell
you this: I have been on the stage, which is quite enough to fix my
character in the opinion of many a good but narrow-minded person, but I
am from a long line of Puritan stock, and in my blood there is a strong
sense of moral responsibility. I have never made an intentional show of
those puritanic influences; I have striven rather to hide them from the
contempt of my lighter-hearted companions; but a sagacious old
stage-strutter once held up my overreligious ancestors as the cause of
my failure to catch the subtle art of a high grade of work. He declared
that all great English-speaking actors could trace their blood back to
the cart's tail."
"I don't understand, Mr. Belford--the reference to the cart's tail."
"To ease their consciences and to serve the Lord with becoming
activity, it was the custom of the Puritans, in the olden day, to
condemn actors and tie them to the tail of a cart, and whip them through
the street."
"I have never read about it, Mr. Belford."
"I suppose not. Church history doesn't dwell upon it."
He turned toward the door, faced about and said: "The woman will bring
your dinner. I am going out among my people and shall not be here again
until to-morrow."
"You needn't come then, Washington."
"Yes, to pull your chair into the parlor."
"That's so. Thank you."
He stood for a moment in silence, and, without speaking, he stepped
back, and, with a grave nod and a slow wink, he softly shut the door.