Poor old Rutherford is fond of recalling that memorable luncheon to
this day. Ruth's joyous soul frothed into fun which sounded at times so
exactly like Pontycroft that he seemed to be at her elbow. For a reason
not hard to seek, to sophisticated minds, General Adgate, too, seemed
in high spirits. Rutherford--well--we know what infatuated young men
are--excellent company because they laugh at a word, could applaud the
dullest saw. Neither Ruth nor General Adgate spoke in saws; by a saw
we mean the easy pert phrase, _la phrase toute faite_ which passes
so readily for wit in any land. General Adgate was an accomplished
raconteur. He could tell a story with an economy of language, a grace
worthy the subtlest story-writers; the point, unexpected when it came,
brought the house down. Ruth listened--astonished, and led him on.
Rutherford's haww-hawws, more appreciative than musical, provided the
essential base to the trio.
When lunch was over Ruth ordered coffee to be served in the
drawing-room. “You're a daring creature! I've never had the courage to
ask Martha to do that,” objected General Adgate.
“But don't you always have coffee after luncheon?” she asked.
“Yes, but I must e'en drink it where it's brought to me, at table.”
“Poor dear! You see the advantage of having a woman by who fears
nothing.”
“I see the advantage of having a fair niece to minister to my poor human
wants,” gallantly responded the General. “And to make life extremely
worth while, hey Rutherford?”
“Miss Adgate is an adorable hostess. If I don't envy you as her uncle,
General, it is because I find her perfect as Lady of Barracks Hill,”
said Rutherford. He said it with a flush and with the fear upon him that
he had said too much.
But Martha just then had entered bearing the coffee; Ruth, indicating
the Japanese tea-table, took no notice of his speech. The table, the
shining silver Georgian service on its silver tray were placed before
her.
“Where did you get this old service, Uncle?” Ruth asked as she lifted the
elongated, graceful coffee-pot by its ebony handle and began to pour the
coffee.
“Martha must have unearthed that from the cupboard upstairs,” answered
her uncle. “The salver has been put away for years. It belonged to your
great-grandmother. But how did they manage to give it such a polish?”
“Miss Adgate's maid helped me, sir,” Martha vouchsafed in her primmest
voice. “We tried that new powder. It took no time at all.”
She left the room with her chin up as who should say: “We know the
proper thing to do, when there's someone at hand who knows we ought to
know it.”
“Well!” exclaimed Rutherford, confounded.
“Ruth's a mistress as gives satisfaction,” General Adgate laughed
softly while Martha's footsteps receded towards the kitchen. “I believe,
Rutherford, we'll be having our afternoon tea here yet, in the British
fashion.”
“_Ma, da vero! come si fa?_” cried Ruth, lapsing into Italian in her
surprise, “don't you _always_ have afternoon tea?”
“We have _tea_, Miss Adgate,” Rutherford answered merrily, “tea with
cold meat, stewed fruit and cake at six o'clock. Not a minute later,
mind you. Martha and Bridget have something better to do than to be
serving even you all day. By seven of the clock one is off with one's
young man or running over to mother's.... You need not inquire at what
hour we get back, we have the latch-key, and your breakfast's generally
served on time.” Ruth cast a wild look at General Adgate.
He bowed his diminished head: “I'm afraid it's true,” he murmured.
“Is it--a--universal habit,--in Oldbridge?” asked Ruth, her eyes
dancing.
“It has to be the universal habit,” answered Rutherford. “We simply
can't help ourselves. We could get no one at all to wait upon us if we
didn't conform to it. The--the--and the--are the only people in town
who are known to have late dinners and that's because, hopelessly
Europeanised, they don't care what they pay their girls, and keep a
butler. Even they are obliged to dine at seven;--besides,” laughed
Rutherford, “late dinners _ain't 'ealthy!_”
“After all,” said Ruth, thoughtfully, “the custom is primitive, not to
say Puritan; I think it suits Oldbridge. Our forefathers had to do with
less service I suppose. And as you say, late dinners _ain't 'ealthy_.
But Paolina shall give us our afternoon tea, at four, Uncle. It will
make her feel at home to serve it to us. But aren't you famished for
some music? I want to try the Steinway. This morning when I came down I
raised the lid and saw the name.”
She rose from her corner of the sofa and seated herself at the piano.
_Oft have I travelled in those Realms of Gold_... Presently she had
started her two companions, travelling, journeying _in those Realms of
Gold_ which Chopin opens to the least of musicians. Chopin's austerity
of perfect beauty wrought in a sad sincerity,--entered the New England
drawing-room. To General Adgate's ears the music seemed to lend voice
at last,--give expression, at last,--to holy, self-repressed, patient
lives,--lives of the dead and the gone--particles of whose spirit still
clung, perhaps, to the panelled walls, pervaded, perhaps, the air of the
old room. To Ruth, this incomplete New England world, which something
more than herself and less than herself was, for the nonce, infatuated
with, possessed by,--which yet, to certain of her perceptions,--revealed
itself as a milieu approaching to semi-barbarism, Oldbridge, melted
away. At her own magic touch, Italian landscapes, rich in dreams,
rich in love, abundant; decked forth in fair realities, intellectual
joys,--complete and vibrant of absolute beauty, harmonious,
suggestive,--rose, took shape before her.
“_I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls_, among pink fragrant oleanders,” she
repeated, smiling to her thoughts as she played and forgot the present.
Rutherford, Rutherford,--oh,--of course--Rutherford found in those
heavenly chords and melodies what every lover finds in Chopin.
Ruth turned around upon her piano stool.
“Have you had enough?” she asked, smiling.
“Enough?” exclaimed the lovesick youth. “I, for one could never have
enough.”
“_Toujours perdrix!_” said Ruth and lifted up a warning finger.
“Play us something else, child,” said her uncle in a matter-of-fact tone
intended to disperse sentimentality. “Let us hear your Russians and a
little Schubert.”
And so Ruth played the Valse Lente from the Fifth Tschaikowsky Symphony
and the famous Rachmaninoff which, I believe, everybody plays, and
finished at last with the Fourth Fugue of the immortal Bach.
“There!” she exclaimed, “I'm tired.”
“And so am I,” said the transcriber, laying down the pen.