No answer to that telegram; no arriving daughter. Yet nobody showed any
uneasiness or seemed surprised; that is, nobody but Washington. After
three days of waiting, he asked Lady Rossmore what she supposed the
trouble was. She answered, tranquilly:
“Oh, it’s some notion of hers, you never can tell. She’s a Sellers, all
through—at least in some of her ways; and a Sellers can’t tell you
beforehand what he’s going to do, because he don’t know himself till
he’s done it. _She’s_ all right; no occasion to worry about _her_. When
she’s ready she’ll come or she’ll write, and you can’t tell which, till
it’s happened.”
It turned out to be a letter. It was handed in at that moment, and was
received by the mother without trembling hands or feverish eagerness,
or any other of the manifestations common in the case of long delayed
answers to imperative telegrams. She polished her glasses with
tranquility and thoroughness, pleasantly gossiping along, the while,
then opened the letter and began to read aloud:
KENILWORTH KEEP, REDGAUNTLET HALL,
ROWENA-IVANHOE COLLEGE, THURSDAY.
DEAR PRECIOUS MAMMA ROSSMORE:
Oh, the joy of it!—you can’t think. They had always turned up their
noses at our pretentions, you know; and I had fought back as well as I
could by turning up mine at theirs. They always said it might be
something great and fine to be the rightful Shadow of an earldom, but
to merely be shadow _of_ a shadow, and two or three times removed at
that—pooh-pooh! And I always retorted that not to be able to show four
generations of American-Colonial-Dutch
Peddler-and-Salt-Cod-McAllister-Nobility might be endurable, but to
_have_ to confess such an origin—pfew-few! Well, the telegram, it was
just a cyclone! The messenger came right into the great Rob Roy Hall of
Audience, as excited as he could be, singing out, “Dispatch for Lady
Gwendolen Sellers!” and you ought to have seen that simpering
chattering assemblage of pinchbeck aristocrats, turn to stone! I was
off in the corner, of course, by myself—it’s where Cinderella belongs.
I took the telegram and read it, and tried to faint—and I could have
done it if I had had any preparation, but it was all so sudden, you
know—but no matter, I did the next best thing: I put my handkerchief to
my eyes and fled sobbing to my room, dropping the telegram as I
started. I released one corner of my eye a moment—just enough to see
the herd swarm for the telegram—and then continued my broken-hearted
flight just as happy as a bird.
Then the visits of condolence began, and I had to accept the loan of
Miss Augusta-Templeton-Ashmore Hamilton’s quarters because the press
was so great and there isn’t room for three and a cat in mine. And I’ve
been holding a Lodge of Sorrow ever since and defending myself against
people’s attempts to claim kin. And do you know, the very first girl to
fetch her tears and sympathy to my market was that foolish Skimperton
girl who has always snubbed me so shamefully and claimed lordship and
precedence of the whole college because some ancestor of hers, some
time or other, was a McAllister. Why it was like the bottom bird in the
menagerie putting on airs because its head ancestor was a pterodactyl.
But the ger-reatest triumph of all was—guess. But you’ll never. This is
it. That little fool and two others have always been fussing and
fretting over which was entitled to precedence—by rank, you know.
They’ve nearly starved themselves at it; for each claimed the right to
take precedence of all the college in leaving the table, and so neither
of them ever finished her dinner, but broke off in the middle and tried
to get out ahead of the others. Well, after my first day’s grief and
seclusion—I was fixing up a mourning dress you see—I appeared at the
public table again, and then—what do you think? Those three fluffy
goslings sat there contentedly, and squared up the long famine—lapped
and lapped, munched and munched, ate and ate, till the gravy appeared
in their eyes—humbly waiting for the Lady Gwendolen to take precedence
and move out first, you see!
Oh, yes, I’ve been having a darling good time. And do you know, not one
of these collegians has had the cruelty to ask me how I came by my new
name. With some, this is due to charity, but with the others it isn’t.
They refrain, not from native kindness but from educated discretion. I
educated them.
Well, as soon as I shall have settled up what’s left of the old scores
and snuffed up a few more of those pleasantly intoxicating clouds of
incense, I shall pack and depart homeward. Tell papa I am as fond of
him as I am of my new name. I couldn’t put it stronger than that. What
an inspiration it was! But inspirations come easy to him.
These, from your loving daughter,
GWENDOLEN.
Hawkins reached for the letter and glanced over it.
“Good hand,” he said, “and full of confidence and animation, and goes
racing right along. She’s bright—that’s plain.”
“Oh, they’re all bright—the Sellerses. Anyway, they would be, if there
were any. Even those poor Latherses would have been bright if they had
been Sellerses; I mean full blood. Of course they had a Sellers strain
in them—a big strain of it, too—but being a Bland dollar don’t make it
a _dollar_ just the same.”
The seventh day after the date of the telegram Washington came dreaming
down to breakfast and was set wide awake by an electrical spasm of
pleasure.
Here was the most beautiful young creature he had ever seen in his
life. It was Sally Sellers Lady Gwendolen; she had come in the night.
And it seemed to him that her clothes were the prettiest and the
daintiest he had ever looked upon, and the most exquisitely contrived
and fashioned and combined, as to decorative trimmings, and fixings,
and melting harmonies of color. It was only a morning dress, and
inexpensive, but he confessed to himself, in the English common to
Cherokee Strip, that it was a “corker.” And now, as he perceived, the
reason why the Sellers household poverties and sterilities had been
made to blossom like the rose, and charm the eye and satisfy the
spirit, stood explained; here was the magician; here in the midst of
her works, and furnishing in her own person the proper accent and
climaxing finish of the whole.
“My daughter, Major Hawkins—come home to mourn; flown home at the call
of affliction to help the authors of her being bear the burden of
bereavement. She was very fond of the late earl—idolized him, sir,
idolized him—”
“Why, father, I’ve never seen him.”
“True—she’s right, I was thinking of another—er—of her mother—”
“_I_ idolized that smoked haddock?—that sentimental, spiritless—”
“I was thinking of myself! Poor noble fellow, we were inseparable com—”
“Hear the man! Mulberry Sel—Mul—Rossmore—hang the troublesome name I
can never—if I’ve heard you say once, I’ve heard you say a thousand
times that if that poor sheep—”
“I was thinking of—of—I don’t know who I was thinking of, and it
doesn’t make any difference anyway; _some_body idolized him, I
recollect it as if it were yesterday; and—”
“Father, I am going to shake hands with Major Hawkins, and let the
introduction work along and catch up at its leisure. I remember you
very well in deed, Major Hawkins, although I was a little child when I
saw you last; and I am very, very glad indeed to see you again and have
you in our house as one of us;” and beaming in his face she finished
her cordial shake with the hope that he had not forgotten her.
p061.jpg (29K)
He was prodigiously pleased by her outspoken heartiness, and wanted to
repay her by assuring her that he remembered her, and not only that but
better even than he remembered his own children, but the facts would
not quite warrant this; still, he stumbled through a tangled sentence
which answered just as well, since the purport of it was an awkward and
unintentional confession that her extraordinary beauty had so stupefied
him that he hadn’t got back to his bearings, yet, and therefore
couldn’t be certain as to whether he remembered her at all or not. The
speech made him her friend; it couldn’t well help it.
In truth the beauty of this fair creature was of a rare type, and may
well excuse a moment of our time spent in its consideration. It did not
consist in the _fact_ that she had eyes, nose, mouth, chin, hair, ears,
it consisted in their arrangement. In true beauty, more depends upon
right location and judicious distribution of feature than upon
multiplicity of them. So also as regards color. The very combination of
colors which in a volcanic irruption would add beauty to a landscape
might detach it from a girl. Such was Gwendolen Sellers.
The family circle being completed by Gwendolen’s arrival, it was
decreed that the official mourning should now begin; that it should
begin at six o’clock every evening, (the dinner hour,) and end with the
dinner.
“It’s a grand old line, major, a sublime old line, and deserves to be
mourned for, almost royally; almost imperially, I may say. Er—Lady
Gwendolen—but she’s gone; never mind; I wanted my Peerage; I’ll fetch
it myself, presently, and show you a thing or two that will give you a
realizing idea of what our house is. I’ve been glancing through Burke,
and I find that of William the Conqueror’s sixty-four natural ch—my
dear, would you mind getting me that book? It’s on the escritoire in
our boudoir. Yes, as I was saying, there’s only St. Albans, Buccleugh
and Grafton ahead of us on the list—all the rest of the British
nobility are in procession behind us. Ah, thanks, my lady. Now then, we
turn to William, and we find—letter for XYZ? Oh, splendid—when’d you
get it?”
“Last night; but I was asleep before you came, you were out so late;
and when I came to breakfast Miss Gwendolen—well, she knocked
everything out of me, you know—”
“Wonderful girl, wonderful; her great origin is detectable in her step,
her carriage, her features—but what does he _say?_ Come, this is
exciting.”
“I haven’t read it—er—Rossm—Mr. Rossm—er—”
“M’lord! Just cut it short like that. It’s the English way. I’ll open
it. Ah, now let’s see.”
A. TO YOU KNOW WHO. Think I know you. Wait ten days. Coming to
Washington.
The excitement died out of both men’s faces. There was a brooding
silence for a while, then the younger one said with a sigh:
“Why, _we_ can’t wait ten days for the money.”
“No—the man’s unreasonable; we are down to the bed rock, financially
speaking.”
“If we could explain to him in some way, that we are so situated that
time is of the utmost importance to us—”
“Yes—yes, that’s it—and so if it would be as convenient for him to come
at once it would be a great accommodation to us, and one which we—which
we—which we—wh—well, which we should sincerely appreciate—”
“That’s it—and most gladly reciprocate—”
“Certainly—that’ll fetch him. Worded right, if he’s a _man_—got any of
the _feelings_ of a man, _sympathies_ and all that, he’ll be here
inside of twenty-four hours. Pen and paper—come, we’ll get right at
it.”
Between them they framed twenty-two different advertisements, but none
was satisfactory. A main fault in all of them was urgency. That feature
was very troublesome: if made prominent, it was calculated to excite
Pete’s suspicion; if modified below the suspicion-point it was flat and
meaningless. Finally the Colonel resigned, and said:
“I have noticed, in such literary experiences as I have had, that one
of the most taking things to do is to conceal your meaning when you are
_trying_ to conceal it. Whereas, if you go at literature with a free
conscience and nothing to conceal, you can turn out a book, every time,
that the very elect can’t understand. They all do.”
Then Hawkins resigned also, and the two agreed that they must manage to
wait the ten days some how or other. Next, they caught a ray of cheer:
since they had something definite to go upon, now, they could probably
borrow money on the reward—enough, at any rate, to tide them over till
they got it; and meantime the materializing recipe would be perfected,
and then good bye to trouble for good and all.
The next day, May the tenth, a couple of things happened—among others.
The remains of the noble Arkansas twins left our shores for England,
consigned to Lord Rossmore, and Lord Rossmore’s son, Kirkcudbright
Llanover Marjoribanks Sellers Viscount Berkeley, sailed from Liverpool
for America to place the reversion of the earldom in the hands of the
rightful peer, Mulberry Sellers, of Rossmore Towers in the District of
Columbia, U. S. A.
These two impressive shipments would meet and part in mid-Atlantic,
five days later, and give no sign.