AND ARIEL MAKES MUSIC
We had wired Judge Gatchell when to expect us, but the venerable
negro hackman who was on the lookout for us explained that the judge
had a "misery in the laigs" which confined him to his room, and that
he advised us to go to the hotel for a while.
We couldn't, for wasn't our own house waiting for us? A minute later
we had bundled into the ancient hack and were bumping and splashing
through unpaved streets, getting wet, gray glimpses of old houses in
old gardens, and every now and then a pink crape-myrtle blushing in
the pouring rain. Hyndsville was, it seemed, one of those sprawling,
easy-going old Carolina towns that liked plenty of elbow-room and
wasn't particular about architectural order. Hynds House itself was
on the extreme edge of things.
The hack presently stopped before a high iron gate in a waist-high
brick wall with a spiked iron railing on top of it, the whole
overrun with weeds and creepers. Of Hynds House itself one couldn't
see anything but a stack of chimneys above a forest of trees.
The gate creaked and groaned on its rusty hinges; then we were
walking up a weedy, rain-soaked path where untrimmed branches
slapped viciously at our faces, and tough brambles, like snares and
gins, tried to catch our feet. On each side was a jungle. Of a
sudden the path turned, widened into a fairly cleared space; and
Hynds House was before us.
We had expected a fair-sized dwelling-house in its garden. And there
confronted us, glooming under the gray and threatening sky that
seemed the only proper and fitting canopy for it, what looked like a
pile reared in medieval Europe rather than a home in America. Its
stained brick walls, partly covered with ivy and lichens; its
smokeless chimneys; its barred doors; its many shuttered windows,
like blind eyes--all appeared deliberately to thrust aside human
habitancy.
_A residence for woman, child, and man,
A dwelling-place,--and yet no habitation;
A House,--but under some prodigious ban
Of Excommunication._
Yet there was nothing ruinous about it, for the Hyndses had sought
to build it as the old Egyptians sought to build their temples--to
last forever, to defy time and decay. It was not only meant to be a
place for Hyndses to be born and live and die in: it was a monument
to Family Pride, a brick-and-granite symbol of place and power.
The walls were of an immense thickness, the corners further
strengthened with great blocks of granite. The house had but two
stories, with an attic under its sloping roofs, but it gave an
effect of height as well as of solidity. Behind it was another brick
building, the lower part of which had been used for stables and
carriage house, and the upper portion as quarters for the house
slaves, in the old days. Another smaller building, slate-roofed and
ivy covered, was the spring-house, with a clear, cold little spring
still bubbling away as merrily in its granite basin, as if all the
Hyndses were not dead and gone. And there was a deep well, protected
by a round stone wall, with a cupola-like roof supported by four
slender pillars. And everything was dank and weedy and splotched
with mildew and with mold.
_O'er all there hung a shadow and a fear
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is Haunted!_
When we opened the great front door, above which was the fan-light
of Alicia's hope, just as the round front porch had the big pillars,
a damp and moldy air met us. The house had not been opened since
Sophronisba's funeral, and everything--stairs, settles, tables,
cabinets, pictures, the chairs backed inhospitably against the wall
as if to prevent anybody from sitting in them--was covered with a
shrouding pall of dust.
The hall was cross-shaped, the side passage running between the back
drawing-room and library on one side, and the dining-room and two
locked rooms on the other. It was a nice place, that side passage,
with a fireplace and settles; and beautiful windows opening upon the
tangled garden. All the down-stairs walls were paneled: precious
woods were not so hard to come by when Hynds House was built. It was
lovely, of course, but depressingly dark.
We got one of the big windows open, and let some stale damp air out
and some fresh damp air in. Then, having despatched our hackman for
certain necessities, Alicia and I turned and stared at each other,
another Alicia and Sophy staring back at us from a dim and dusty
mirror opposite. If, at that moment, I could have heard the familiar
buzzer at my elbow! If I could have heard the good everyday New York
"Miss Smith, attend to this, please"! God wot, if I had not
literally burned my bridges behind me--Oh, oh, I had!
"The garden around this house,"--Alicia spoke in a
whisper--"stretches to the end of the world and then laps over. It
hasn't been trimmed since Adam and Eve moved out. But those
crape-myrtle trees are quite the loveliest things left over from
Paradise, and I'm glad we came here to see them with our own eyes!
Brace up, Sophy! We'll feel heaps better when we've had something to
eat. Aren't you frightfully hungry, and doesn't a chill suspicion
strike you, somewhere around the wishbone, that if that Ancient
Mariner of a hackman doesn't get back soon we shall starve?"
At that moment, from somewhere--it seemed to us from up-stairs--a
sudden flood of sweetest sound poured goldenly through that sad,
dim, dusty house, as if a blithe spirit had slipped in unawares and
was bidding us welcome. For a few wonderful moments the exquisite
music filled the dark old place and banished gloom and neglect and
decay; then, with a pattering scamper, as of the bare, rosy feet of
a beloved and mischievous child making a rush for his crib, it went
as suddenly as it had come. There was nothing to break the silence
but the swishing downpour of the outside rain.
When I could speak: "It came from up-stairs! Somebody's playing a
violin up-stairs. I'm going up-stairs to find out who it is."
Alicia demurred: "It may be a real person, Sophy!--a real person
with a real violin. But I'd rather believe it's Ariel's self, come
out of those pink crape-myrtles. Don't go up-stairs, please, Sophy!"
"Nonsense!" said I. "Somebody's played a violin and I mean to know
who he is!"
And up-stairs I went, into a huge dark hall, with the cross-passage
cutting it, and closed doors everywhere. At the front end was a most
beautiful window, opening doorlike upon a tiny iron bird-cage of a
balcony, hung up Southern fashion under the roof of the pillared
front porch. At the rear a more ordinary door opened upon the broad
veranda that ran the full width of the house. Both door and window
were closed, and bolted on the inside, and the big, dark, dusty
rooms which I resolutely entered were quite empty, their fireplaces
boarded up, their windows close-shuttered. There was no sign
anywhere of violin or player. I went down-stairs just as wise as I
had gone up.
"I told you it was Ariel!" Alicia stood by the open window--our
windows are sunk into the walls, and cased with solid black walnut
as Impervious to decay as the granite itself--and leaned out to the
wet and dripping garden.
"Sophy," said she, in her high, sweet voice that carries like a
thrush's. "Sophy, the best thing about this world is, that the best
things in it aren't really _real_. This is one of its enchanted
places. Sycorax used to live in this house: that's what you feel
about it yet. But now she's gone, her spell is lifting, and Hynds
House is going to come alive and be young again!"
"At least," I grumbled, "admit that the dust inside and the rain
outside and the weeds and mud are real; and I'm really hungry!"
"Me too!" Alicia assented instantly and ungrammatically. "Oh, for a
square meal!" She thrust her charming head out far enough for the
rain to splatter on her bright hair and whip it into curls, and
bring a deeper shade of pink to her cheeks, and a deeper blue
to her eyes. "Ariel!" she fluted, "Spirit of the Violin, I'm
hungry--earthily, worm-of-the-dustly, unromantically hungry! Send us
something to eat."
"Why don't you rap on one of the tables," I suggested ironically,
"and call up your high spirits to do your bidding?"
"My high spirits won't be above making you a soothing cup of coffee
just as soon as that ancient African returns. In the meantime,
let's look around us."
People had forests to draw from when they built rooms like those in
Hynds House. There were eight of them on the first floor. On one
side the two drawing-rooms, the library, and behind that a room
evidently used for an office. We didn't know it then, of course, but
that library was treasure trove. Almost every book and pamphlet
covering the early American settlements, that is of any value at
all, is in Hynds House library; we have some pamphlets that even the
British Museum lacks.
The rooms had enough furniture to stock half a dozen antique-shops,
all of it in a shocking state, the brocades in tatters, the carvings
caked with dust. You couldn't see yourself in the tarnished mirrors,
the portraits were black with dirt, and most of the prints were
badly stained. Alicia swooped upon a pair of china dogs with mauve
eyes and black spots and sloppy red tongues, on a what-not in a
corner. She said she had been aching for a china dog ever since she
was born.
"Oh, Sophy!" cried she, dancing, "wasn't it heavenly of that old
soul to die and leave you two whole china dogs! I wouldn't want
sure-enough dogs that looked like these, but as china dogs they're
perfect! And cast your eyes about you, Sophy! Have you ever in all
your life seen a house that needed so much done to it as this house
does?
"'If seven maids with seven mops,
Swept it for half a year,
Do you suppose,' the Walrus said,
'That that would make it clear?'
'I doubt it,' said the Carpenter,
'And--'
"Sophy! I shall clean some of these windows myself. Did you know
that Queen Victoria, when she was a child, had the same virtuous
inclination? Well, she had, and you see how she turned out!"
"I don't believe it!"
"Don't be skeptical!--Look at that pink mustache-cup over there on
that little table! Who do you suppose had a mustache and drank out
of that cup? It couldn't have been Sophronisba herself? _I_
insist that it was a black-mustached Confederate with a red sash
around his waist. I adore Confederates! They're the most glamorous,
romantic figures in American history. I wish a black mustache went
along with the cup and the house; don't you? It would make things so
much more interesting!" And she began to sing, at the top of her
voice, in the sad and faded room that hadn't heard a singing voice
these many, many years:
"'Arrah, Missis McGraw,' the Captain said,
'Will ye make a sojer av your son Ted?
Wid a g-r-rand mus-tache, an' a three-cocked hat,
Wisha, Missis McGraw, wouldn't you like that!
_You like that--tooroo looroo loo!_
_Wisha, Missis McGraw, wouldn't you like that!_'"
If Great-Aunt Sophronisba's ghost, and the scandalized ghosts of all
the haughy Hyndses ever intended to walk, now was the accepted time!
And as if that graceless ballad were the signal for something to
happen, upon the hall window-shutter sounded three loud, imperative
knocks.
Alicia dashed down the hall.
"Sophy!" she called, breathlessly, "Sophy!"
Framed in the open window, with the dripping trees and the slanting
rain behind him, was the bizarre, the astounding figure of a
gnomelike negro in a terra-cotta robe fastened about the waist with
a girdle made of a twisted black shawl with the most beautiful
Persian border and fringe. A striped silk scarf was bound
turban-wise about his head, from which tufts of snowy wool
protruded. From his ears hung crescent-shaped silver ear-rings
studded with coral and turquoise; a necklace of the same barbaric
magnificence was about his neck, and his arms were covered with
bracelets. His deep-set eyes, his flat nose, his mouth set in a
thousand fine wrinkles, the whole aspect of him, breathed a sly and
impish drollery. He glanced from Alicia to me with the smiling
malice of a jinnee delighted to mystify mortals. Then with a rapid
movement he shifted the umbrella he carried over a large
linen-covered tray, eased the latter upon the deep window-ledge, and
beckoned with a very black and beringed hand.
"For _us_?" breathed Alicia.
With a fine flourish he swept aside the linen covering. And there
was golden-brown chicken, white rice, cream gravy, hot biscuit, cool
sliced tomatoes with sprigs of green parsley, fresh butter, fresh
cream, a great slab of heavenly cake, a wicker basket of Elberta
peaches, rain-cooled, odorous, delicious, and a pot of steaming
coffee. On the edge of the tray was a cluster of rain-washed roses.
"No," Alicia doubted, "this is not true: it can't be!--Sophy, do you
see it, too?"
He motioned her to take the tray; and his ear-rings swung, and all
his bracelets set up a silver tinkling. An automobile honked outside
in the street shut off by our garden trees, and a dog barked. Our
jinnee cocked a cautious head and a listening ear, thrust the tray
upon Alicia, and with inconceivable swiftness vanished around a
corner.
"Let's hurry and eat it before it, too, takes to its heels," said
Alicia, practically. Without further ado we dragged forward a small
table, and fell to. Aladdin probably tasted fare like that, the
first time he rubbed the magic lamp.
When we had polished the last chicken bone, and had that comfortable
feeling that nothing can give so thoroughly as a good meal, Alicia
carefully examined the china and silver.
"Old blue-and-white English china; English silver initialed 'R.H.G.'
Sophy, handle this prayerfully: it's an apostle spoon. Think of
having a jinnee fetch you your coffee, and of stirring it with an
apostle spoon."
She spoke reverently. Alicia is the sort who flattens her nose
against antique-shop windows, and would go without dessert for a
month of Sundays and trudge afoot to save carfare, if thereby she
might buy an old print, or a bit of pottery; just as I am content to
admire the print or the pottery in the shop window, feeling sure
that when they are finally sold to somebody better able to buy them,
something else I can admire just as much will take their place. Mine
is a philosophy not altogether to be despised, though Alicia rejects
it. She handled the blue-and-white ware with tender hands, laid the
silver together, and set the tray upon the window-ledge. Then, on a
leaf of my pocket memorandum--she never carries one of her own--she
scribbled the following absurdity and pinned it to the linen cover:
Ariel, accept the gratitude of mortals set down hungry in
the house of Sycorax. Gay and kind spirit, when we broke
your bread you broke her spell: the wishbone of your chicken
has cooked her goose! Maker of Music, Donator of Dinners,
thanks!
"And now," said she, "having been serenaded, and satisfied with
nothing short of perfection, let's go up-stairs, Sophy, and decide
where we shall sleep to-night."
We chose the front room because of a gate-legged table that Alicia
wanted to say her prayers beside, and because of the particularly
fine portrait of a colonial gentleman above the mantel, a very
handsome man in claret-colored satin, with a vest of flowered gold
brocade, a gold-hilted sword upon which his fine fingers rested, and
a pair of silk-stockinged legs of which he seemed complacently
aware.
"I wish you weren't dead," Alicia told him regretfully. "Your taste
in clothes is above all praise, though I fancy you were somewhat too
vain of your legs, sir. I never knew before that men had legs like
that, did you, Sophy?"
"I take no pleasure in the legs of a man." I quoted the Psalmist
acridly enough.
"Don't pay any attention to Sophy," Alicia advised the portrait,
naughtily. "Just to prove how much we both admire you, you shall
have Ariel's roses." She had brought them up-stairs with us, and now
she walked over to the mantel to place them beneath the picture.
"Why!" exclaimed Alicia, "why!" and she held up nothing more
remarkable than a package of cigarettes, evidently left there
recently, for it was not dusty.
"I dare say Judge Gatchell forgot it, when he was looking over the
house. That reminds me: the silver you admired so much was marked
'G.' Then, in all probability, Judge Gatchell sent us that spread,
and very thoughtful it was of him, I must say."
"Rheumatic old judges don't smoke superfine cigarettes, Sophy, nor
send black tray-bearers in terra-cotta robes out on rainy days for
the entertainment of strange ladies. No: this is something, or
somebody, _young_. But since when did Ariel take to tobacco?"
"Let's go down-stairs," I suggested, "and wait for that old darky,
if he is a real darky and ever means to return." I did not fancy
those big forlorn rooms, with their great beds that didn't seem made
for people to sleep and dream in, but to stay awake and worry over
their sins--and then die in.
The down-stairs halls had grown darker, and the rain came down in a
gray sheet, so that the open window seemed a hole cut into it. The
tray we had left on the window-ledge was gone. In its place was
nothing more romantic than a freshly filled and trimmed kerosene
lamp, two candles, and a box of matches.
When our Jehu finally returned he rummaged out some firewood from
the sooty kitchen and built us a fire in the hall. He was a pleasant
old negro, garrulous and kindly, by name Adam King, or, as he
informed us, "Unc' Adam" to all Hyndsville folks.
"Uncle Adam," Alicia asked, while he was drying himself before the
blazing logs, "Uncle Adam, who's the violinist around here?"
Uncle Adam looked at the Yankee lady a bit doubtfully. The old
fellow was slightly deaf, but he would have died rather than admit
it.
"Wellum," he told us, "since ol' Mis' Scarlett's gone, folks does
say de doctor is. Dat's 'cause ob de Hynds' blood in 'im. All dem
Hyndses was natchelly de violentest kind o' pussons, an' Doctor, he
ain't behin' de do'." He rubbed his hands and chuckled. "Lawd, yes!
I know de Doctor, man an' boy, an' he suttinly rips an' ta'hs when
he's riled! You ought ter seen 'im de day ol' Mis' Scarlett let fly
wid 'er shot-gun an' blowed de tails spang off'n two of 'is hens an'
de haid off'n 'is prize rooster! De fowls come thoo' de haidge, an'
ol' Mis' grab 'er gun an' blaze away. De Doctor hear de squallation,
an' come flyin' outer de office an' right ovah de haidge. I 'uz
totin' fiahwood fo' ol' Mis' dat day, an' I drap een de bushes; it
ain't no place fo' sensible niggahs when white folks grab shot-guns.
Doctor see me an' holler: 'Adam! git outer dem bushes, you ol' fool!
You my witness what dis hellion's done to my fowls!'
"Ol' Mis' Scarlett she s'anter ter de winder wid 'er gun sort o'
hangin' loose, an' holler: 'Adam! Come outer dem bushes 'fo' I
pickle yo' hide! You my witness ob dis ruffian trispassin' on my
prop'ty an' cussin' an' seducin' a ol' woman widout 'er consent,'
she says. 'Has I retched my age,' says ol' Mis' Scarlett, 'to have
his fowls ruinin' my gyardin', an' him whut's a dunghill rooster
himself flyin' ovah my fences unbeknownst?'
"'If there evah was a leather-hided ol' hen ripe foh roastin' on
Beelzebub's own griddle, it's you, you gallows ol' witch!' says
Doctor, shakin' 'is fist up at her.
"'Aha! I got a plain case!' says ol' Mis', grim-like. 'I'll have a
warrant out foh you dis day, Geddes, you owdacious villyum!'
"And she done it. Yas'm. An' dey done sont de shariff atter me for
witness, all two bofe o' dem."
"Well, and what did you do?" I asked, curiously. I was getting a
side-light on Great-Aunt Sophronisba.
"Me? I got on muh knees an' wrastled wid de speret," said Uncle
Adam. "I done tuck mah troubles to de Lawd, whichin He _'bleeged_
ter know I cyant deal wid ol' Mis' Scarlett an' de Doctor. Missis, I
prayed!"
"Oh! And what happened then?"
The old man looked around him, cautiously, and lowered his voice:
"Wellum, Mis' Scarlett she tuck an' went an' up an' died. Yessum!
She done daid. An' next thing we-all heah, she 'd went an' lef de
Hynds place to youna, 'stead ob de Doctor, or dat furriner."
"She had Hynds relatives, then? I didn't know."
"Wellum, de Doctor an' ol' Mis' Scarlett wuz cousins. Dat's how come
dey could fight so powerful. Ain't you nevah had no relations to
fight wid, ma'ams?"
We explained, regretfully, that we hadn't.
"Den you ain't nevah knowed, an' you ain't nevah gwine ter knew,
whut real, sho-nough fightin' _is_," said Unc' Adam, with
conviction.
"You mentioned a foreigner," hinted Alicia.
The old man shook his head deprecatingly. "Don't seem lak I evah
able to rickermembah dat boy's name, nohow. His grampa' 'uz a Hynds,
likewise his ma, but she 'sisted on marryin' er furriner, an' de
boy takes atter de furriners 'stead er we-all. 'Taint de po' boy's
fault, but ol' Mis' Scarlett hated 'im wuss 'n pizen. De only notice
she take er de boy is ter warrant 'im fo' trispassin'. Dat 's how
come folkses ter say--" he paused suddenly.
"Well, what do folks say?" I wanted to know.
"Well, Missis," he admitted, "dey say it's natchel to fight wid yo'
kin whilst you 're livin', but 'taint natchel ter carry de fight
inter de grave-yahd. Dat's whut she done, ma'ams. An' folks is
outdone wid 'er, whichin' she ain't lef de Hynds place to de
Hyndses, but done tuhn it ovah ter--uh--ah--"
"To a Yankee woman named Smith?"
"Yessum, dat's it."
"Had either the Doctor or the foreigner any real claim or right to
this property, do you know?"
"No, ma'am, we-all 'lows dey ain't got no mo' law-right dan whut
you's got. Ol' Mis' Scarlett ain't _'bleeged_ ter lef it to de
Hyndses, but folks thinks she oughter done it, an' dey's powerful
riled 'cause she ain't. Dey minds dis wuss'n all de warrantin' an'
rampagin' an' rucusses she cut up whilst she wuz wid us."
"I see," said I, thoughtfully.
"Missises," said the old man, anxiously, "you-all ain't meanin' ter
stay hyuh to-night, is you?" He seemed really distressed at the
notion. "Lemme take you-all to de hotel, please, Missises! Don't
stay hyuh to-night!"
"Why not? What's the matter with this house?"
Again he looked around him, stealthily.
"It's h'anted!" said he, desperately. "Missis, listen: I 'uz comin'
home from prayer-meetin', 'bout two weeks ago, walkin' back er dis
same place in de dark ob de moon. An' all ob a suddin I hyuh de
pianner in de pahlor, _ting-a-ling-a-ling! ting-a-ling-a-ling!_ I
say, 'Who de name er Gawd in ol' Mis' Scarlett's pahlor, when dey
ain't nobody in it?' I look thoo de haidge, an' dey's one weenchy
light in de room, an' whilst I'm lookin', it goes out! An' de
pianner, she's a-playin' right along! Yessum, de pianner, she's er
tingalingin' by 'erself in de middle o' de night!"
"And who was playing it, Uncle Adam?"
"Dat's what I axin yit: who playin' Mis' Scarlett's pianner when dey
wasn't nobody in de house?"
"Why didn't you find out?"
"Who, me?" cried the old man, with horror. "If I could er borried a
extra pahr er laigs from er yaller dawg, I'd a did it right den, so 's
I could run twict faster 'n I done!--Whichin' please, ma'ams, lemme
take you-all ter de hotel."
When he saw that he couldn't prevail upon us to do so, he left us
regretfully, shaking his head. He would come back early in the
morning to do anything we might require. But he wouldn't stay
overnight in Hynds House for any consideration. No negro in the
county would.
"Alicia," said I, when we had had a cup of tea made over our spirit
lamp, and firelight and lamplight made the place less depressing and
eerie, "Alicia, that terrible old woman has played me, like an ace
up her sleeve, against her neighbors and her family. She has left me
a house that needs everything done to it except to burn it down and
rebuild it, and a garden that will have to be cleared out with
dynamite. And she has seen to it that I have the preconceived
prejudice of all Hyndsville."
Alicia's pretty, soft lips closed firmly.
"Here we are and here we stay!" she said determinedly. "Nobody's
been disinherited to make room for us. Sophy, in all our lives we
have never had a chance to make a real home. Well, then, Hynds House
is our chance, and I'd just like to see anybody take it away from
us!"
"Up, Guards, and at 'em!" said I, smiling at her tone. I am slower
than she, but even more stubborn, as the English are.
"Tell your admiral that if he gets in my way I will blow his ships
out of the water!" said Alicia, gallantly.
But when we went up-stairs, we took good care to lock our door, and
bolt it, too. Alicia said her prayers kneeling by the gate-legged
table, snuggled into bed between the clean sheets we had brought
with us, tucked a china dog under her chin, and went to sleep like
the child that she was. I said the Shepherd's Psalm and went to
sleep, too.
I was awakened suddenly, and found myself sitting up in bed, staring
wildly about the strange room. The house was breathlessly still. My
heart pounded against my ribs, the blood beat in my ears. I was
oppressed with a nameless terror, an anguished sense that something
had happened, something irremediable. The feeling was so strong that
my throat closed chokingly.
I am particular in thus setting it down, because it was an
experience that all of us under that roof had to undergo. You had to
fight it, shut your mind against it, oppose your will to it like a
stone wall, refuse to let it master you. Then, as if defeated, it
would go as suddenly, as inexplicably, as it had come.
That's what I did then, more by instinct than reason. But I was
exhausted when I finally got back to sleep.