ON THE RIALTO
Cyrus rises early as a rule, though the definition of the adverb varies.
Six is my hour; I hold it a good one, winter and summer. But if I have
ever mentioned this to City friends who get up at eight, with the
purring contentment that early risers feel and that late risers scorn, I
do so no more, since hearing the following fragment of dialogue between
two Cyrus women:
Mrs. A.: "What time did it happen?"
Mrs. B.: "Oh! we was all up. 'Twas four or five o'clock; 'twas late!"
Collective Cyrus, that part of it at least that went to Madam Flynt's
party, allowed itself an extra half hour the following morning; all but
two people. With the earliest morning red, Mrs. Sharpe and Cissy leaped
from their beds, prepared and swallowed a hasty breakfast, flung on
their "things," and rushed out into the street. They wasted no time in
speech beyond a few exclamatory remarks while dressing. No words were
needed between them: they knew what they knew. Behooved that the World
should know. In the street they separated, one going north, one south.
Since we cannot follow both, let us take the mother.
The first person Mrs. Sharpe met was Jim Ruff, the one-armed milkman,
whistling his way cheerily along. Jim was born with one arm, and never
could for the life of him see what folks wanted of two. In his off hours
he was a nurse, and in great demand among old gentlemen of rheumatic
tendencies who liked to have "a rub and a lift" at bed-time. Mrs. Sharpe
leapt into the roadway, beckoning: Jim checked his horse.
"Good morning, Jim! Only a pint this morning, please; we've had
breakfast. Leave it inside the storm door, will you? Have you heard the
news?"
"Not a word!" Jim leaned over the dasher sociably. "Nice party, was it?
The cream was all right anyway, I bet!"
"Very nice! very nice!" Mrs. Sharpe waved the cream away hastily. "But
what is the outcome, I ask you? What comes of dancing and jigging and
feasting? _Destruction!_ Kitty Ross has eloped with Wilson Wibird!"
"_What!_" People did not, as a rule, pay much attention to Mrs. Sharpe,
but the milkman was startled out of his usual calm.
"What you say, Mis' Sharpe?"
"They have _eloped_!" she repeated. "Kitty Ross and Wilson Wibird! I saw
them with these eyes. Isn't it awful? What did I always say? But I won't
keep you, Jim!"
She waved her hand as if stricken speechless; in reality, she had spied
Mr. Cheeseman, stumping along to take down his shutters and open shop.
Him she attacked with such suddenness that he almost dropped his pipe.
"Let me prepare you for a shock!" cried the lady. "You are an aged man,
Mr. Cheeseman, and your nerves are easy shook. What I have to tell might
strike an aged person into palsy, I wouldn't wonder. There has been an
_elopement_ in Cyrus! a wicked, terrible elopement! Oh! what I say is,
shall we ever hold up our heads again? When I think of what Tinkham will
say!"
(Mrs. Sharpe came from Tinkham; we were too polite as a rule to say that
that accounted for her.)
"I don't know what Tinkham will say," snapped Mr. Cheeseman, "nor I
don't care. Cyrus will most likely say it ain't so. Who's eloped, I'd
like to know!"
"Kitty Ross and Wilson Wibird!" The lady's thin neck shot forward,
serpent-wise, as she hissed out the names. Mr. Cheeseman received the
shock calmly.
"Don't believe a word of it!" he said.
"You don't! You don't believe the witness of these eyes? I tell you I
_saw_ them, the two of them, after midnight, in a sleigh, dashing
through Cyrus Street, like--like flames of fire. The hoss was gallopin':
they was fairly rushin' to their doom. Don't say you don't believe me,
Mr. Cheeseman, because sight is sight, and I am not blind."
"No, nor dumb!" Mr. Cheeseman was not a patient man. "Likely the hoss
got roused up, waitin' in the cold. I always tell Kitty she drives too
tarnal fast. Wish you good mornin', Mis' Sharpe." And he stumped on,
resuming his interrupted pipe in short, irritated puffs.
Mrs. Sharpe looked after him with a snort, half pitying, half
contemptuous, and sped on her way. By this time the male part of Cyrus
was trooping down to business. In half an hour every man in the street
had heard with varying emotions that Kitty Ross had eloped with Wilson
Wibird. I don't know that anybody exactly believed it; at least, no one
was found who confessed afterward to having done so, but the Street
certainly had an uncomfortable half hour till the counter report reached
it; namely, that Wilson Wibird was lying in his bed, wounded and
bleeding from a frightful accident with one of them wild hosses of Kitty
Ross's. He had been hove out, and the hoss had gone off at a tearing
gallop, and where Kitty was this minute no human being prob'ly knew.
Likely she had been dragged to her death, and they would track her by
the blood----
You see, Cissy had gone straight to the Wibirds', secretly determined
for once to "get ahead of Mumma." Mrs. Wibird had been naturally
perturbed at seeing her son "hove out" (it was at their own corner that
the incident occurred) and at his stumbling into the house some minutes
later, bleeding profusely, and in a savage humor. It was no wonder
perhaps that she made the most of what she had seen, but she ought to
have made it clear, as Melissa did afterward, that Wilson's bleeding was
from the nose. The two reports met at Bygood's, like the two halves of a
chemical formula. The gentlemen had just come in for their morning
papers, and it seethed and bubbled around them. Judge Peters said
"Pish!" Mr. Mallow said "Bosh!" Mr. Jordano waved his note-book in a
composite frenzy of anxiety, incredulity and professional excitement,
and murmured unintelligible sounds ending in "O". Italian, he always
maintained, was the natural language of the emotions. The result of all
this was that by eleven o'clock ("Earlier than that would not be decent,
sir! not decent, after a party! The child is probably in bed, and the
best place for her!" thus Judge Peters, very erect over his black satin
stock), by eleven o'clock, I say, the Judge and Mr. Mallow were posting
up the hill toward Ross House. Wholly improbable that anything was out
of the way; those women ought to get thirty days, sir, and learn to
govern their tongues! But if there _were_ anything, these two, as old
family friends, were manifestly the ones to look into it.
"We'll let you know, Very," said Mr. Mallow kindly, "if there's anything
for you in it."
Mr. Jordano, still waving his notebook, thanked him, fervently, and
turned to minister to Mr. Bygood, to whom the effervescence had
penetrated, causing him great alarm. The ladies had not yet appeared:
Mr. Jordano hovered about the old gentleman, adjuring him to be calm and
murmuring, "No periloso! no dangeroso! Cheer up-pup-pup, my venerable
friend; all will be right-tite-tite!" in a manner equally agitated and
agitating.
The Judge and "the Mine Host," as the _Centinel_ loved to call him, were
not the first callers at Ross House. Bobby Chanter, speeding down the
hill to his morning train, met Cissy's half of the chemical formula on
the way; threw Education to the dogs, and sped back up the hill at a
rate that brought him to Ross House crimson and breathless. His furious
ring producing Sarepta Darwin in a state of high tension, he could only
gape at her, and gasp, "All right?"
Now this was no morning to gape at Sarepta. In the first place, she had
slaved like three niggers, as she expressed it, the day before, had got
to bed long after midnight, and been kept awake long after that,
recalling the way Kitty had looked and the way "the folks" had looked at
her. In the second place, she had already been bothered enough by Jim
Ruff, who had no business that she knew of to inquire minutely into the
state of Kitty's health, wanting to know if Sarepta had seen her this
morning, and what time she got home. He got a flea in _his_ ear all
right, Sarepta reflected comfortably; now she was fully ready for the
next intruder.
"All right?" she said with acerbity. "All wrong, I should say, from the
looks of you! Ain't you ashamed, Bobby Chanter, at this time in the
morning? Go home and tell your Pa, and see what he'll say to you! The
idea! You're a disgrace!"
She was shutting the door, but Bobby was not a football player for
nothing. An adroit foot checked the door in its closing, and the next
moment a broad shoulder pressed through the opening, followed by the
whole person of a very vigorous young man. Bobby shut the door and stood
against it: he had got his breath by this time; also, it was evident
from Sarepta's aspect that no disaster had come to the house.
"Don't be crusty, Sarepta!" he said coaxingly. "Tell me how Kitty is
after the party! There's nothing the matter with me!" he added, "and I'm
your friend, you know, Sarepta! I always was."
Sarepta's iron face relaxed: it was true. With the sole exception of
Kitty, she thought little of girls, had been heard to say that she
wouldn't be bothered raisin' 'em: but she liked a good-looking boy, and
Bobby was undeniably good-looking. Before she could speak, however, a
clear voice sounded from the stairway.
"How Kitty is? Very well, I thank you, Bobby Shafto!" and there was
Kitty herself coming downstairs, so distractingly pretty in her brown
corduroy suit that Bobby's feelings flew "all ways to once't," like
Huldy's in "The Courtin'." She was too adorable! Bobby wanted to go down
on his knees then and there, among the walking-sticks and the Christmas
greens, and cry out that she was his queen, and that he would rather be
under her little lovely feet than on a king's throne. But Bobby was
twenty-three years old and a senior at Corona College.
"All right, are you, Kitty?" he asked. "I--I thought I'd just inquire as
I went to the train."
"Bobby! the train has gone! I heard it whistle just as you rang the
bell. Won't you catch it from the dean? Come into the sitting-room!"
Muttering that he couldn't stop, Bobby came in; would not sit down, but
leaned against the door with an air of elaborate detachment.
"Got home all right, Kitty? It was mean of you not to let me see you
home."
"Don't you think I had earned a little solitude, Bobby? I didn't get it
though!" Kitty's eyes twinkled.
"What do you mean? We were the last load, you said."
"Yes, you were! but I met Wilson, and he had lost his rubbers, and
looked so forlorn, I _had_ to take him home, Bobby, when he asked me."
"He didn't!" Bobby's cheek flushed. "The impudent shrimp!"
"Impudent shrimpudent!" said Kitty, and then remembered that she had
never played rhymes with Bobby.
"I--I didn't take him quite all the way!" she began, and then broke into
a peal of laughter so clear and joyous that Sarepta had to make a
special errand--a stick of wood, it was, which the fire did not need--to
see what was up.
"Glad you didn't! of all the cheek I ever heard of! I wish I'd been
there. How did you get rid of him, Kitty?"
"Why--I ought not to tell, Bobby. Promise never to tell anybody!
Promise, Sarepta! Well--Wilson felt a little sentimental after the party
and all, and I--I--tipped him out, going round the corner!"
"Ha! ha! ha!" roared Bobby Shafto.
"He! he! he!" tittered Sarepta, and fled, her bread being in the oven.
Kitty held out her hands with a sudden gesture, Bobby grasped them, and
the two danced up and down, holding hands and laughing like two
children. Kitty ought to have known better. There are so many
psycho-chemical formulae; they combine so easily, especially with
certain cardiac conditions. She knew perfectly well that Bobby had been
sighing and looking and sighing again, ever since she came back. I am
afraid she was rather used to sighs and looks. She had spoken casually
of "people" in Switzerland and Italy who had been "rather foolish." She
knew, or she ought to have known, that it was one thing to dance with a
lad at the party, one revolving unit among many, and a wholly different
thing to take hands with that lad and dance child-fashion, just the two
of them in all the world. What wonder that poor Bobby Shafto was swept
out to sea in good earnest? He could not know that the girl was not
really thinking of him at all, that she was dancing with Tommy Lee, as
she always had danced, ever since she could toddle.
Kitty saw the look in Bobby's eyes, and a cold wave swept over her. She
would have withdrawn her hands, but Bobby held them tight.
"Kitty!" The laughter died out of his rosy face.
"Kitty, dear!"
"Yes, Bobby! we must stop now, and you must run along; I have my
housekeeping to see to."
"Kitty, dear! wait just a minute. I--I want--I wish I might hold these
little hands all the time!"
Kitty tried to laugh. "Can't be done, Bobby," she said, "it would
interfere with my driving. Let me go, please, there's a good Bobby
Shafto!"
But Bobby could not be stopped now. "I must tell you!" he cried. "I
_have_ to! I love you so, Kitty, I can't think of anything else. And it
isn't all selfishness, dear. I want to take care of you. I won't have
you exposed to insults from a miserable chump like Wilson Wibird. I
shall be out of college next year, Kitty, and I have a good job promised
me; won't you--won't you let me take care of you, my dear?"
Kitty was grave enough now. Her gray eyes were full of tender kindness,
as they looked straight into the boy's burning blue ones; but at that
kind look, the cold wave swept over him, too.
"Dear Bobby! dear, good friend! no! it can never, never be. No! don't
say any more. Let me go, _please_, my dear!"
He dropped her hands, and turned away with a little broken sound. It was
not quite a sob, but it went straight to Kitty's heart. Cruel, wicked
girl that she had been! This was her friend, Tommy's friend, from
petticoat-days. Was this the best she could do for him?
"Bobby," she said quietly, "come into the sitting-room a minute! I have
something to say to you."
Bobby followed her mutely, with hanging head. She beckoned him to a seat
beside her on the leather sofa. She was trembling, but she managed with
an effort to steady her voice.
"We have been friends all our lives, Bobby!" she said. "I am going to be
honest with you; it is the least thing I can do, and the only thing. If
you think a little, Bobby Shafto, perhaps--you will see why I
cannot--cannot care in the way you mean, my poorest Bobby. Think back a
little! There--there used to be three of us; don't you remember?"
Her voice sank almost to a whisper, but her eyes were brave and honest.
Bobby looked into them: then he hung his head: the comely red ebbed out
of his face, leaving it very pale.
"I--I wouldn't have spoken at all if he had been here!" he muttered. "Of
course I wouldn't! but----"
"I know you wouldn't, dear! And, oh, Bobby, I may never see him again.
He may be dead, or--or--he may never think about me at all, he may care
for somebody else: think of all the girls he has met since he went away!
but--but you see, Bobby, there will never be any one else for me."
When Bobby had gone away sadly down the hill, Kitty ran up to her room
and had a good solid cry, a thing she rarely indulged in.
"Tommy!" sobbed the girl, and she stretched out her young lonely arms to
the empty air. "Tommy, I do want you so! Aren't you ever coming? Don't
you really care? I want my Duke of Lee! Oh, how happy would this
gentlewoman be, to be blessed with her Duke's good company! Oh! oh!"
By and by she got the better of herself, dried her eyes, washed her
face, and was cheerful Kitty again. Then she did an absurd thing: Kitty
_was_ absurd, there was no denying that. She went to the long glass and
curtsied to her image: then, gravely and formally, she proceeded to
dance the "Duke of Lee," stepping high, stepping low, tossing her pretty
head, waving her pretty arms, all as carefully and precisely as if a
partner had been bowing and pirouetting opposite her. While she danced,
she sang the song from end to end; sang it so clear and sweet (barring
one little sob in the middle) that Aunt Johanna, in her bed, wiped her
eyes and thanked goodness some one was happy in the world; and Sarepta
Darwin in the kitchen sniffed, and forgot for the moment the dreadful
fact of her having got too deep a bake on them loaves, l'iterin' in the
parlor with them triflin' children.
As the last "Marry oo, diddy goo, diddy goo!" died away, the doorbell
rang, and Kitty went down, cheerfully, to receive Judge Peters and Mr.
Mallow.
The gentlemen had just called in passing to ask how Kitty found herself
after the party: quite unnecessary to ask, on seeing her, said the
Judge, but they thought they would call. What a delightful party! Madam
Flynt always did things well. That was so! Mr. Mallow opined. She had a
genus for soci'ty, no two ways about that. Used to entertain a great
deal in the Colonel's time; Colonel was social, too. Great thing to have
the house open again.
"Got home all right, did you, Kitty?" Mr. Mallow bolted from the
carefully circuitous path laid down by the Judge.
"All right, thank you, Mr. Mallow! It cleared off fine, you know, and I
took Pilot and the open sleigh for the last few loads. It was such fun!"
"Pilot is a fine horse!" the Judge nodded the approval of a connoisseur.
"A spirited animal! a trifle hard-bitted, is he, Kitty?"
"Kind o' fresh last night, was he? Cold night and all; don't blame him a
mite!" chimed in Mr. Mallow.
Kitty looked from one to the other; her eyes began to twinkle.
"What's the matter?" she asked. "Did I drive too fast for somebody? You
know Father always called me a daughter of Jehu, Judge. Have you come to
arrest me for fast driving? Is it to be fine or imprisonment?"
The Judge laughed outright. "You are too sharp for me, Kitty; or Brother
Mallow is too impatient for diplomatic procedure. Well! nothing of any
consequence, my dear; we gather that your last trip was rather speedy,
and that there was a little--a trifling accident toward the end of it.
We--a--passing by, you understand--thought we would inquire--we wanted
to make sure that you were not hurt, my dear."
"Wilse Wibird was hove out, they claim!" Mr. Mallow could not abide what
he called "snangles" in conversation. Give him a fack and he could
handle it, but he wouldn't have no snangles.
"His Ma says the hoss was runnin' away; how about it, Kitty?"
Kitty broke into a sudden laugh; then suddenly looked grave.
"Pilot never ran away in his life, Mr. Mallow! Don't let John Tucker
know that he was ever suspected of such a thing. I was to blame, Judge.
I--wanted to get home; I cut the corner too sharp, and Wilson rolled
out, that's all! I suppose I ought to have stopped," she added. "I never
thought of his being hurt, I truly didn't. There was a nice fat drift,
and he went into it so comfortably, I thought! I do hope he isn't hurt,
Mr. Mallow!"
Here Kitty looked up at the two gentlemen with such a penitent
expression that they both laughed again.
"No serious injury, I gather!" said Judge Peters.
"Hurt his pride and made his nose bleed," said Mr. Mallow. "That's all,
Kitty. Don't you worry about him!"
Something in her face made him add impulsively, "Wilse hadn't been
pesterin' you, had he, Kitty?"
Kitty turned scarlet and jumped up hastily.
"Oh, no!" she said. At least she was sure Wilson had not meant to annoy
her. She was so glad he was not hurt, and now she wanted to show the
Judge her Dutch bulbs. He knew all about bulbs, and she thought some of
them looked queer.
"Blubs, eh? Good business!" Mr. Mallow rose also. "While you're showin'
him the blubs, I'll step into the kitchen if you've no projection,
Kitty, and ask S'repty for her receipt for them marracoons of hers. She
promised it to me. Talk of Dutch, they beat any Dutch ever I see!"
The bulbs pronounced upon, and Mr. Mallow lingering in fervent
consultation over the "marracoons," the Judge inquired for Miss Johanna.
He trusted she was gaining steadily. It was hard for so active a person
to be deprived of liberty of locomotion even for a time. Was
she--a--interested in the bulbs? Fond of flowers, perhaps?
"Oh, yes, indeed, Judge! She enjoys them as much as I do. I take every
pot up to her room as soon as it begins to bud. She isn't really ill,
you know, just tired and resting. Speaking of flowers, do you know, some
unknown friend sends her the most wonderful violets, every week! They
scent the whole house! Don't you smell them, Judge Peters?"
The Judge sniffed gravely and thought he did perceive a fragrance:
highly agreeable. Miss Ross was fond of violets?
"They are her favorite flowers; and just think," Kitty rippled on, "they
have come to her every week for twenty years, and she has _never_ known
who sent them. Did you ever hear of anything so romantic?"
"Quite so!" the Judge rose and looked about for his hat. "Very pleasant,
very agreeable. Probably the sender enjoys the blossoms fully as much as
the recipient. Present my kindest regards to your aunt, will you, Kitty?
Tell her I trust it will not be long before her old friends may enjoy
the privilege of her society. Ahem! Brother Mallow, we should be
stepping. Good-bye, my dear! Happy to find you so well!"
Going down the hill, the two gentlemen came to a conclusion which was
less than just to the unfortunate Wilson. He was not drunk, only
slightly "elevated," to use an obsolescent slang phrase. But Mr. Mallow
knew his nephew well, and if there was a doubt, Wilson received no
benefit of it. Wilson had been drunk, they decided, and had annoyed
Kitty, who had "speeded up" the only-too-ready Pilot in order to escape
his importunities. Young cub had ought to be horsewhipped, Mr. Mallow
thought; the Judge urged a severe reprimand instead. Kitty must be kept
out of this so far as might be, he said. A different impression must be
created from either of the two which had been--unfortunately--put about
early in the day. Yes! highly injudicious.
"Pair o' darned patterin' chetticoats!" interjected Mr. Mallow, and
neither he nor the Judge noticed the transposition of consonants.
Gravely consulting, the two gentlemen repaired to the office of the
_Centinel_, where "Italio" had already begun a fervid eulogy of the
Party. As a result, the following paragraph appeared next morning in the
paper:
"Among those who ministered to the enjoyment of Cyrus in connection with
the delightful festivity of last evening, not least was our talented and
accomplished young equestrienne, Miss Katharine Ross, who with the
valuable assistance of Mr. John Tucker transported all the guests to and
from the ball with equal skill and celerity. The gallant steeds which
Mr. Tucker keeps in such prime condition partook of the gayety of the
occasion, and doubtless in their equine fashion enjoyed the evening as
much as the fortunate bipeds whom they furnished with the means of
speedy locomotion. The Scribe is informed that an unexpected burst of
playful speed on the part of the justly-celebrated black thoroughbred,
Pilot, was the cause of one of our young gallants' receiving a morning
bath of snow earlier than his accustomed hour. Hard luck, Wilson! Italio
is glad you got off with a nosebleed!"
So Pilot had to bear the blame after all, and John Tucker was furious.