herself the duties of housekeeper in her aunt's mansion, and kept order
there in a way that won something like local fame for herself. It was
not art, or intuition, or rule that inspired her. It was temperament.
Absolute cleanliness was to her a religion, and the servant who fell in
the remotest way short of that was quickly made to think of herself as
an unregenerate sinner. Absolute neatness was another requirement which
the budding little woman insisted upon with relentless persistence. Then
again it seemed to her that there was no possible excuse for any cooking
short of the best.
"Why should a beefsteak be scorched?" she would ask protestingly. "It is
only a question of attention and honesty. Why should the aroma be boiled
out of a pot of coffee? Again, it is only a matter of attention and
honesty." That was her attitude always, and the servant who hoped to
please her must ceaselessly recognize it.
Sometimes her aunt would plead for a little lenity in these matters, but
the girl would grant none. "The servants are employed to do things
right. Why should I let them do things wrong? They profess to have skill
in such work. Surely, they ought to do it as well as I can, who have no
skill. And besides, it wouldn't be good for them to let them off with
less than the best. They would degenerate. They have their living to
make by work, and the better work they do the better work they can do."
A few years later the aunt's husband met with misfortune and went to the
West. Presently he died, and Barbara's aunt was widowed and
impoverished at one and the same time.
Then it was that Barbara rose in the strength of her practical wisdom,
and met the emergency with all of character that she had built up. Her
aunt was helpless, so Barbara took matters into her own hands. She was
nearly twenty years old then, and her capacities as a housekeeper had
ripened through use until she felt modestly confident of herself.
"Besides," she argued, "there is nobody else to do things if I don't."
She persuaded her aunt to take a little house with a big sunny dining
room, and there she offered to the young bachelors of the town--in her
aunt's name--better meals than they could get at the pretentious hotel,
and she charged them scarcely more than half the hotel rate.
One by one the best of the young men in the town were drawn to Barbara's
table until the dining room was filled. After that anyone who wished to
join the circle must put his name upon a waiting list, and bide his time
till there should be a vacancy. For Barbara held that it would be unjust
to crowd present boarders in order to take new ones, and she hated all
injustice. The waiting list was always long, for the fame of Barbara's
table was great.
When her friends suggested an increase in her charges, she promptly said
them nay. "I'm charging enough," she answered. "The gentlemen pay us
enough to keep auntie and me comfortable. They have to work hard for
their money, and it would be very mean to charge them more, merely
because they'll pay it rather than get their meals anywhere else."
"Perhaps so," answered Captain Will Hallam, who had pressed this advice
upon the girl. "But it's always good business, you know, to get what you
can. A thing is worth what it will sell for, and your good dinners, Miss
Barbara, would sell for a good deal more than you are charging for
them."
But Barbara would not listen to the wisdom of "business." Hers was the
wisdom of a white soul, and it controlled her absolutely.
And it really was her own skill that made her table famous. She hired a
cook, of course, after her little business became prosperous, and
sometimes for a brief while she trusted to the cook's skill. Then her
conscience beset her because the breakfasts and dinners and suppers were
not prepared in that perfection which alone could satisfy this
conscientious little woman's soul. "You see, it isn't honest, aunty,"
she would say in explanation whenever she returned to the kitchen and
gave personal attention to every detail. "We are charging these young
gentlemen for their meals, and it seems to me dishonest if we give them
less than the best that we can. They come to us because they have heard
that we serve the best meals that can be had in Cairo. How mean and
wrong it would be for us to trade upon that reputation and give them
meals of an inferior quality! I simply can't get a cook who will do
things at their best, and so I must do most of the cooking myself, and
then I'll know it is well done."
She hired a "neat-handed Phyllis," in a cambric gown--which Barbara
insisted must be fresh and clean every day--to wait upon the table. She
hired a handy negro boy to wash dishes, scrub, and prepare vegetables
under her own direction. She did all the more important part of the
cooking herself, and the negro boy, Bob, simply worshiped the girl whom
he always addressed as "Little Missie."
XIII
A BATTLE AND AN ACQUAINTANCE
There were boys in Cairo, of course, and equally of course some of them
were bad. The bad ones used to do things to annoy Robert's "Little
Missie." Robert proceeded to thrash them upon every proper occasion, and
he did it with a thoroughness that left nothing to be desired
thereafter. When Robert had thrashed a boy, that boy went to bed for
repairs. And he was apt to be reticent as to where and how he had
received his bruises. That was because Robert always ended a fist
encounter with a warning.
"Ef you don't want a double dose o' dis here you'll prehaps obstain f'um
mentionin' de name o' de culled gentleman wot gib it ter you."
And the victim usually "obstained." If he didn't it was presently the
worse for him.
Robert had been born in the South. He had lived there till his
fourteenth year. He had there imbibed certain doctrines of pugnacious
chivalry. There had been bred in his bone the conviction that it was
every strong man's duty to protect every woman, and to punish any
disrespect shown to her.
In Robert's view there was only one gentlewoman in Cairo--his "Little
Missie"--and it seemed to him as clearly a matter of duty to protect her
against annoyance as it was to scrub the kitchen floor or to wash the
dishes.
It was through one of Robert's battles that Guilford Duncan became
acquainted with his hostess, Barbara Verne. That young woman very rarely
appeared in the dining room, and so the young Virginian had scarcely
more than met her, when one morning on his way to breakfast he came upon
a battle between Robert--"free man of color," as he loved to call
himself--and three Cairo boys who had waylaid him in order to avenge the
punishment he had given a few days before to one of them who had
playfully hurled half a brick through Barbara's kitchen window.
When Duncan came upon the battlefield, Robert was backed up against a
dead wall. Two of his adversaries had gone to grass, and the third was
hesitating to prosecute the attack alone. Seeing his hesitation,
Bob--great strategist that he was--instantly decided to convert his
successful defense into a successful offense, without delay. Quitting
his defensive position against the wall, he rushed upon his remaining
adversary, who promptly retreated without waiting to reckon up the
casualties.
Then Bob jumped upon his other and slowly rising antagonists, knocked
them down again and hurriedly exacted of each a "wish-I-may-die" promise
to let "Little Missie" alone from that day forth.
"Good for you, Bob!" exclaimed young Duncan. "But we'll make that
promise more binding. Help me and I'll take these young ruffians before
Judge Gross and compel them to give bonds for good behavior."
It didn't take long to arraign the culprits, prove that they had thrown
a brickbat through Barbara's window, and secure an order of the court
requiring them to give considerable bonds for good behavior in future.
This brought their parents into court and subjected them to a good deal
of annoyance and trouble. They had to give bonds, and more troublesome
still, they had to control their boys. Then again the newspapers
published the facts.
In this way Guilford Duncan multiplied his enemies in Cairo. But he had
a deep-seated conviction that it is worth a man's while to make enemies
by doing right. In this matter he had done only right. He had invoked
the law for the protection of a woman, and he had completely
accomplished his purpose. He cared nothing for the revilings that
ensued, but Ober, the man of brains and character who edited the
principal newspaper of the town, took the matter up and made much of it.
"This town is barbaric," he wrote in his editorial columns, "It owes
sincere thanks to Mr. Guilford Duncan for teaching it that law is
supreme, that it is to the law we should appeal in every case of wrong
doing. The parents of the young hoodlums who have been bound over to
keep the peace have long needed this lesson. This newspaper rejoices
that the lesson has been given in so emphatic and conspicuous a manner.
It congratulates its young fellow citizen, Mr. Duncan, upon the quality
of his citizenship, and upon the results of its activity."
Within an hour after that editorial appeared, three columns of
advertisements were angrily withdrawn from Ober's newspaper.
Within the next hour Captain Will Hallam quietly sent in nineteen
columns of advertisements, and wrote to Ober: "Stand by your guns and
I'll stand by you. If the damned fools think they can squelch you or
Duncan in such a case as this, we'll teach them better. Spread my
advertisements all over the paper and send bills to me. Keep it up.
We'll make Cairo a better town to live in, or we'll know why. The thing
to do now is to make a systematic campaign against abuses. Do it with
all your might, and I'll stand by you.
"I'll get Duncan to help you. He's a queer fellow, but he knows how to
use vitriol instead of ink, and it's vitriol we need just now."
In the meanwhile the entire talk of the little city was of Duncan's
activity in haling the hoodlum sons of highly "respectable" parents
before a magistrate, as a consequence of their battle with a "nigger."
On that subject tongues wagged busily, pro and con. The friends of the
aggrieved parents who had been forced to give bonds for the good
behavior of their ill-regulated offspring, indignantly made a "race
issue" of a matter which had nothing whatever to do with race prejudice.
They could not understand how a southerner and an ex-Confederate soldier
could thus have taken the part of a "nigger" against "respectable white
boys." Others who were clamorous for the "rights of the negro," rejoiced
in Duncan as a convert to their doctrine.
Both were wrong, of course. Neither in the remotest way recognized the
real impulses of his act, namely, the impulse to protect a woman and the
impulse of a law-loving citizen to insist upon the equal enforcement of
the law, for the sake of good order in the community. But Duncan
concerned himself with none of these things. He had done his simple duty
as a man and as a citizen, and he had no care whatever for consequences.
And yet the consequences were such as vitally affected his entire career
in more ways than one. His performance brought him, for one thing, into
close acquaintance with a certain young woman whom he had scarcely known
before, and whose destiny it was to influence the entire future course
of his life.
It was Duncan's habit to sit long and smoke over his final cup of coffee
at the evening meal. The other table boarders were accustomed to hurry
away as soon as they had swallowed their supper, leaving him in sole
possession of the dining room.
On the evening of the day on which the events already related occurred,
he sat as usual, smoking, sipping his coffee, and reading Ober's evening
newspaper. Presently Barbara Verne entered, and with a manner in which
extreme shyness was mingled with a resolute determination to do the duty
that lay before her, approached young Duncan and held out her hand. As
he rose deferentially to greet her, taking her proffered hand in his,
the girl said:
"I've come to thank you, Mr. Duncan. It was very kind of you--to protect
Robert, you know--and me. I'm Barbara Verne. Thank you, ever so much."
As she made her little speech the brave but timid girl looked him in the
eyes with the embarrassed front of a child set to do a duty, mingled
with the calm composure of a woman who knows and cherishes the dignity
of her womanhood.
Duncan protested that no thanks were due him for doing his simple duty,
and, after a word or two more, the girl quitted the room, while Duncan,
gallantly bowing, held the door open for her.
The little interview lasted for less than two minutes, and not an
unnecessary word was spoken on either side. Yet it seemed to Duncan an
event of consequence, as indeed, it proved to be.
Something in the girl's voice, or manner, or something in her eyes, or
something in her grace of movement, her bearing, her mingled simplicity
and dignity--or something in all these combined--had mightily impressed
him. He had seen little of women in any intimate way, and while he
honored womanhood and deferred to it, as every sound-souled man must, he
had thought himself quite indifferent to women in their individual
personality. But somehow he could not feel so with Barbara Verne, and
later in the evening he scourged himself for his folly in continuing to
think of her to the interruption of the reading he had set himself to
do.
"What's the matter with me?" he asked himself almost with irritation, as
at last he laid down the volume of Herbert Spencer's Social Statics,
over which he had been laboring in vain. "I can't read a single
paragraph with understanding. I can't keep my attention upon the lines
as I read them. I must be tired out--though I don't know what has tired
me. Fortunately I've no visitors to-night. They have all gone to hear
the Swiss Bell Ringers at the Athenæum. I wonder if anybody took Barbara
Verne?"
Thus his thought came back again to the girl and he was annoyed with
himself for having permitted that.
"I do not know the girl at all," he reflected. "Except to bow a distant
'good-morning' or 'good-evening' at infrequent intervals, I never spoke
to her until this evening, and then the interview was one of purely
formal courtesy. And yet here I am thinking about her so persistently
that even Herbert Spencer cannot win my attention."
Then he sat for a time trying to think of something else, or trying,
with renewed resolution, to concentrate his attention upon his book.
The effort was a dismal failure. Barbara Verne's eyes gazed softly at
him out of the page, her gentle voice echoed in his ears, and the
simple, straight-forward words of thanks that she had spoken thrust out
of his mind the words of the great philosopher, as the youth endeavored
to read them.
He was sitting, in his dressing gown, with his slippered feet resting
upon a stool. In the large grate a mass of Pittsburg coal blazed and
flickered restfully. At his elbow softly burned a shaded student lamp,
on a table covered with a scarlet and black cloth, and littered with
books. The curtains--inexpensive, but heavy--were closely drawn to shut
out every suggestion of the wintry night outside.
"Confound it," muttered the young man aloud, as he again threw down the
book, this time without marking his place; "if I weren't so supremely
comfortable here, I'd get myself into my clothes again and go out to
fight the night for a while. That would be the right thing to do, but
I'm too self-indulgent to do it. Wonder if Barbara Verne ever shirked a
duty for the sake of comfort?"
Thus he began again to think of the girl.
"She's a new type to me," he thought, as he gazed into the fire. "She
seems almost a child, and yet altogether a woman. Wonder what her life
has been. I fancy she felt, when she came in to thank me, like a child
who has been naughty and is required to make a proper apology. There was
certainly a suggestion of that sort of thing in her manner, just at
first. Then the strong woman in her mastered the child, and she carried
out her determination resolutely. It is very charming, that combination
of shy child-likeness, with the self-control of a strong woman."
At this point Guilford Duncan impatiently kicked over his footrest, rose
to his feet and began dressing for the out of doors. "What an idiot I
am!" he thought. "Here I am presuming to analyze the moods and motives
of a young woman of whose life and character I know nothing whatever,
and with whom I have exchanged not more than a dozen or twenty sentences
in all my life. You need a drenching in the storm, Guilford Duncan, and
you shall have it, in the interest of your sanity."
Donning his boots and overcoat, and pulling his slouch hat well down
over his eyes and ears, the young man strode out into the storm.
When he came back at midnight, drenched and chilled, his fire had burned
itself out. After he had rubbed his damp skin into a healthful glow, he
extinguished the lamp and crawled into bed.
In spite of all, however, Guilford Duncan was still thinking of Barbara
Verne, when, at last, he sank to sleep. His final thought of her took
the form of a resolution:
"I will call upon her, and become really acquainted with her. That will
cure me of this strange and utterly absurd fascination. Of course the
girl must be commonplace in the main, and when I come to realize that,
the glamour will fade away."
XIV
A SOCIAL ADVANCE
Guilford Duncan carried out his purpose, as he thought, with a good deal
of tact. He began by calling, not upon Barbara, but upon three or four
other young women--a thing he had never done before. He thought in this
way to make his call upon Barbara, when it should come, an inconspicuous
event. To his surprise, his entrance thus into society created something
of a flutter among the women-folk, especially the married women who had
marriageable daughters, or who were matchmakingly interested in other
young women, not their daughters.
For Guilford Duncan, the moment he was thought of as a social factor,
and a matrimonial possibility, was seen to be the "best catch" in the
little city, the most desirable young man in the town. He was young and
distinctly handsome. He was a man of education, culture, and superior
intelligence. His manners were easy, polished, and very winning.
Especially he treated women with a certain chivalric deference, that
pleased them even more than they knew. Captain Will Hallam's wife, who
was the social leader of the city, said to him one day:
"You must be careful what you do in the way of paying attention to young
women. A very little attention on your part is apt to mean a great deal
to a girl--and still more to her mamma."
"But why should it?" asked Duncan, in unfeigned astonishment. "Why
should ordinary social courtesy on my part mean more than the same thing
means in the case of any other young man?"
"I don't know that I can tell you," she answered. "At least, I don't
know that I can make you understand."
"I sincerely wish you would try. I certainly do not want to----" He
hesitated, and did not complete the sentence.
"Oh, I know all that. I know what you mean, because it is what I mean. I
tell you that if you pay more than just a little, and a very casual,
attention to any girl, the girl, and, worse still, all her elderly
female relatives, are likely to misconstrue your motives. You are in
serious danger of breaking some tender hearts, and winning for yourself
the reputation of being that most detestable thing--a male flirt."
"But really, Mrs. Hallam," interrupted the perplexed young man, "I don't
understand----"
"Of course you don't, and of course I'm glad you don't. You'd be a
detestably conceited popinjay if you did. But I do, and in a strictly
limited way I'm going to explain it to you for your own good, and as a
warning. I can't explain it fully without treason to my own sex. But
I'll tell you this much: you have a singularly pleasing, soothing,
caressing, and most winning manner with women--all women. You are
respectful--no, that isn't the word. You are courteously gentle and
deferential, and solicitous to give pleasure. Anyhow, you please women.
Then, again, you have made yourself the most conspicuous young man in
Cairo, and everybody counts upon your success as certain. There, I'm not
going to explain further; I only warn you."
"But, Mrs. Hallam, I have not called more than twice upon any one girl,
and----"
"Well, don't. That's all I've got to say."
Duncan went away puzzled. He had intended to be very shrewd and
circumspect in this matter. He had intended, by calling once or twice
upon each of several young women, to deprive the calls he intended to
make upon Barbara of any look of significance, and now, before he had
even begun to cultivate acquaintance with Barbara, he found his small
preparatory callings the subject of curiosity and gossip.
He was resolved not to be balked of his purpose, however. He saw no
reason to permit that. He would go that very evening to see Barbara, and
he would repeat the visit from time to time, until a fuller
acquaintance with the girl should cure him of his fascination.
Acquaintance must do that, he was persuaded.
He carried out his part of the program resolutely. If the results were
not precisely what he expected, and intended, the fault was not his own.
Barbara Verne was not accustomed to receive visits from young men. She
was almost too young, for one thing, or, at least, she had been almost
too young until about this time. Moreover, her life was unusually
secluded. She devoted all her time to her exacting household duties.
Except that she attended church once each Sunday, she was never seen in
any public place, or anywhere else, outside of her aunt's house, or the
house of her single friend--Mrs. Richards--a retiring matron, who
neither received company nor went out anywhere. These two--the young
girl and the middle-aged matron--were somewhat more than intimate in
their affection, but apart from this one friend, Barbara visited nobody.
The young women of the town did not think of her, therefore, as one of
themselves at all. They regarded her rather as a child than as a young
woman, though if they had troubled to think about the matter, they would
have remembered that she was as old as some of themselves.
When Guilford Duncan made his first call upon Barbara, therefore, that
young person was very greatly astonished, but she was in no way
embarrassed. It was her nature to meet all circumstances and all events
frankly, and to do with conscientious faithfulness whatsoever she
conceived to be her duty. So when Guilford Duncan called upon her, she
promptly put away her surprise, and entered the little parlor to greet
him.
She did not keep him waiting, and he specially liked that. He was apt to
be impatient of waiting. She did not think it necessary to change her
gown. It was her habit to dress with exceeding simplicity and extreme
neatness. She could not afford anything pretentious in dress, and she
would make no false pretense. Besides, she owned no better gown than the
one of French calico, which she was already wearing.
So, without a minute's wait, Barbara walked into the parlor and greeted
her visitor, not without some lingering trace of surprise at the honor
done her, but with no touch of foolish embarrassment in her manner.
Barbara was simply her own sweet, natural self, and when Duncan went
away, after his call, the glamour of her personality was more strongly
upon him than ever.