This etext was produced by Julie A. Irizarry.
email at jairizarry(at)adelphia.net
Miss Gibbie Gault
by Kate Langley Bosher
Author of "Mary Cary," etc.
With Frontispiece
By Harriet Roosevelt Richards
To My Husband
Contents
Chap.
I. The Guild of Gossips
II. The Views of Miss Gibbie
III. Apple-Blossom Land
IV. The Council Chamber
V. In Which Mary Cary Speaks
VI. Midnight
VII. Peggy
VIII. Peggy's Party
IX. John Maxwell and Mary Cary
X. The Forgotten Engagement
XI. A Day of Entertainment
XII. The Bargain
XIII. A Grateful Convalescent
XIV. A Morning Talk
XV. Buzzie
XVI. Men and Husbands
XVII. In Which Mary Cary is Puzzled
XVIII. Pictures in the Fire
XIX. The Testimony Party
XX. A Sudden Change
XXI. The Release
XXII. The News
XXIII. The Guild Again
XXIV. The Piece of Paper
XXV. The Conclusion of a Matter
XXVI. The Surrender
XXVII. A Tie That Binds
MISS GIBBIE GAULT
Chapter I
THE GUILD OF GOSSIPS
The Needlework Guild, which met every Thursday at eleven o'clock, on
this particular Thursday was meeting with Mrs. Tate. It was the last
meeting before adjournment for the summer, and though Mrs. Pryor, the
president, had personally requested a large attendance, the attendance
was small. In consequence, Mrs. Pryor was displeased.
"Mercy, but it's warm in here," said Mrs. Tate, going to a window and
opening wide its shutters. "I had no idea it would be as hot as this
to-day, though you can nearly always look for heat in May." She
slapped her hands together in an attempt to kill a fly that was following
her, then stood a moment at the window looking up and down the street.
"Wish to goodness I could have one of those electric fans like Miss
Gibbie Gault's got," she went on, coming back to her seat and wiping
her face with Mrs. Webb's handkerchief, which happened to be closest
to her; "but wishing and getting are not on speaking terms in our
house. Have any of you seen Miss Gibbie's new hat?"
"I have." Mrs. Moon took up the large braidbound palm-leaf fan lying
on the chair next to her and began to use it in leisurely, rhythmic
strokes. "She has five others exactly like it. She says she would have
ordered ten, but when a person has passed the sixty-fifth birthday the
chances are against ten being used, and six years ahead are sufficient
provision for hats. Five of them are put away in camphor."
"Imagine ordering hats for years ahead just to save trouble! I'm
thankful to have one for immediate use." Mrs. Corbin put down the
work on which she had not been sewing and folded her arms. "Miss
Gibbie may be queer, but there's a lot of sense in deciding on a
certain style and sticking to it. Fashions come and fashions go, but
never is she bothered. Just think of the peace of mind sacrificed to
clothes!"
"Who but Miss Gibbie would wear the same kind year after year, year
after year?" said Mrs. Pryor, who alone was industriously sewing.
"But that's Gibbie Gault. From the time she was born she has snapped
her fingers at other people, and, if it's possible to do a thing
differently from the way others do it, she will do it that way or--"
"Make them do it. I never will forget the day she marched Beth's boys
through the streets and locked them up in her house." Mrs. Tate pointed
her needle, which had been unthreaded all the morning, at Mrs. Moon.
"Funniest thing I ever saw. Remember it, Beth?"
"Remember? I should think I did." Mrs. Moon smiled quietly. "I have
long seen the funny side, but it took me long to see it. Nobody but
Miss Gibbie would have done it."
"Please tell me about it, Mrs. Moon," said Mrs. Burnham, who was still
something of a stranger in Yorkburg. "Every now and then I hear
references to Miss Gibbie Gault's graveyard, and to the way she once
got ahead of your boys, and I've often wanted to ask about it. Is there
really a graveyard at Tree Hill, and is the gate bricked up so that
no one can get in?"
"It certainly is." Mrs. Moon laughed. There isn't very much to tell.
Everybody knows about the old Bloodgood graveyard at Tree Hill in which
Miss Gibbie's parents and grandparents and great-grandparents are
buried. Her mother was a Bloodgood; and everybody knows, also, that
since the Yankee soldier, who died during the war at Judge Gault's
house, was buried there the gate has been bricked up and nobody has
ever been inside but Miss Gibbie and Jackson who cuts the grass."
"But how does she get in?" Mrs. Burnham's voice was puzzled inquiry.
"If there's no gate, how--
"She climbs up a ladder on the outside of the wall, which is eight
feet high and two feet thick, and down another which is inside,"
interrupted Mrs. Tate, to whom the question had not been asked. "I
wish to goodness I had been there the day she nabbed your boys, Beth.
I don't wonder they were scared."
"They were certainly scared." Mrs. Moon wiped her lips and smiled
reminiscently. "My boys followed her one day, Mrs. Burnham, and the
result was one of the most ridiculous sights ever seen in Yorkburg.
"After finishing what she had to do that day, Miss Gibbie climbed up
the ladder she keeps inside and started to get on the one outside,
and there was none to get on. The boys had taken her ladder and hidden
it, and they themselves were hiding behind an oak-tree some little
distance off.
"At first they doubled up with laughter when they saw Miss Gibbie
straddling the top of the wall, unable to get down either way; but
suddenly, Richard said, she balanced herself on the top of the wall
and sat there with her feet hanging over as if going to spend the day,
and then in a flash she was down on the ground.
"Half a minute later she had each of them by the arm. Dick said his
feet were dead feet, he couldn't budge. Neither could Frederick. The
sudden jump had paralyzed them.
"'Moon boys!' she said--'Moon boys! Fine fun, wasn't it? Well, let's
go home and have some more fun,' and down the hill she marched them
and on into town. All the length of King Street they went, then into
St. Mary's Road, then Fitzhugh Street, and back into King, and finally
into her home in Pelham Place.
"All the time nothing had been said. Everybody who had seen them had
stopped and stared, and some of the boys had started to follow, but
Miss Gibbie had nodded her head backward, and a nod was enough.
When they got in the house she took them up-stairs to a big bedroom
and told them to sit down and cool off; then she locked the door and
left them.
"Five hours later the door was opened and dinner was brought in. It
was a good dinner, and the boys ate it, every bit of it, and, feeling
better, were beginning to look around for means of escape, when in
walked Miss Gibbie with two white things in her hand.
"'Didn't we have lots of fun this morning?' she said. 'Awful lot of
fun to see a lady play Humpty-Dumpty. Pity nobody else could see. When
people look funny everybody ought to see.' And Frederick said, as she
didn't seem mad a bit, he thought she was going to tell them to run on
home, when she turned to the dining-room servant, who had come in
with her, and flung out two big old-fashioned nightgowns of her own.
'Here, Hampton, help these boys take off their hot clothes and put on
something cool,' she said, and she made Hampton undress them and put
on her gowns, and then sent them flying home."
Miss Matoaca Brockenborough threw back her head and laughed
heartily. "I can see them now, as they came running down the street.
They were trying to hold their white robes up in front, but behind
they were trailing in the dust, and following them were boys and dogs
and goats and girls, and I stood still, like all the other grown
people, to see what was the matter. I laughed till I cried. Frederick
stumbled at every other step, and Dick got his feet so tangled that he
fell flat twice. If old Admiral Bloodgood's ghost had been chasing
them, they couldn't have run faster. Nobody but Miss Gibbie would have
dressed them up that way."
"And nobody but Miss Gibbie would have come back at me as she did
when I told her how uneasy I had been by the boys' absence at dinner,"
said Mrs. Moon, who had moved nearer the window. "It was twelve
years ago, but I have never forgotten what she said or the way she
said it. I can see her now." Mrs. Moon sat upright. "'My dear Madam,'
she said, 'my dear Madam, you will have cause not only for uneasiness,
but for shame and sorrow, if you don't let your boys understand early
in life that disrespect to ladies means disaster later on.'"
"That's true; but a lot of true things aren't nice to have on your
mind. Don't you all think it's awful hot in here? I do," and again
Mrs. Tate got up and walked across the room, this time throwing wide
the shutters and letting in a glare of sunshine. "If I'd known it was
going to be as warm as this I would have made some lemonade. There
goes Mary Cary!" and, looking up, the ladies saw her smile and nod and
shake her fan at some one who was passing.
"Is she riding?" asked Mrs. Webb, threading the needle held closely to
her eyes--"or walking?"
"Riding, and without a piece of hat. That little Peggy McDougal is
with her, holding a green parasol over both."
"Mary Cary will ruin that child," said Mrs. Pryor. "She is constantly
taking her about and giving her things. But Mary, of course, does as
she pleases. She always has and always will."
"She pleases a lot of people besides herself, and I always did say if you
could do that you certainly ought to, for there are so few that can.
But I don't think Mary gives herself a thought. Did you all know the
night-school teacher is going to leave?" and Mrs. Tate put down her
fan long enough to again wipe her face with Mrs. Webb's handkerchief.
"Mary is so sorry about it, but, of course, she can't help it."
"I believe she can help it." Mrs. Pryor looked around the room as if
for confirmation. "Everybody knows the reason he's going. I believe
any girl can keep a man from falling in love with her if she wants to.
The trouble with Mary is she doesn't want to. There are my girls. You
don't catch them encouraging attentions they don't want."
Mrs. Moon's foot pressed Mrs. Corbin's. Miss Matoaca Brockenborough's
elbow nudged Mrs. Tazewell, but no one spoke, and Mrs. Pryor went on:
"But Mary Cary has been a law unto herself from childhood, and, now
she is back in Yorkburg, she thinks she can keep it up, can live her
life independently of others, can do her own way, come and go as she
pleases, and not be criticized. Yorkburg isn't used to having a young
woman livein a house alone, except for a white servant whom nobody
knows anything about."
"She's got three servants," chimed Mrs. Tate. "Ephraim and Kezia both
live with her."
"I wasn't speaking of colored servants." Again Mrs. Pryor waved her
fan as if for silence. "Besides, they have their quarters outside, and
both are old. Out West people may do the things she is doing, but in
Virginia we are different. We--"
"Oh, we're nothing of the kind, Lizzie," and Mrs. Webb laid her sewing
in her lap. "Yorkburg is like all the rest of the world, as we would
know if we went about more. The trouble is, we think we are the world."
"I don't see why Mary Cary shouldn't live in the way she wants to,"
said Mrs. Corbin. "We live to suit ourselves, and why shouldn't she?
Heaven knows she's done enough for Yorkburg since she came back. I
think she was mighty good to come and live in a quiet little town like
this, when she could live almost anywhere she wants. And think of the
money she spends here!"
"That is just it! Where does all that money come from? Only yesterday
she chartered the /General Maury/ to take the orphan children on
an all-day picnic to Wayne Beach on the fourteenth of this month, and
all at her expense. It takes money to do things of this kind. She says
she is not rich. Where does the money come from?"
Mrs. Pryor tapped the table on which her hands had rested and looked
around with an answer-that-now-if-you-can air, and several started to
answer. Mrs. Burnham's voice was clearest, however, and as she spoke
those in front turned to hear her.
"We don't know where it comes from," she said, courageously, though
her face flushed, "and I am not sure that it is required of us to know.
If Miss Cary prefers not to discuss her money matters, we have no right
to inquire into them. I have not been here very long, and I don't know
Yorkburg as well as the people who were born here, but if more of us
took interest in the things she--"
"In Yorkburg, Mrs. Burnham, women are not supposed to take interest
in what are conceded to be the affairs of men."
Mrs. Pryor was withering in her disapproval, and this time Mrs. Corbin
touched Miss Matoaca's foot. "I suppose you allude to the streets of
Yorkburg, the schools, and library--and some other things. All these
Western and Northern ideas which Mary Cary has brought back are
very distasteful to the Virginians of historic ancestry. We have gotten
on very well for many centuries without women meddling in men's matters.
I have good authority for what I say. It is unscriptural. St. Paul says,
let the women keep silent and learn of their husbands at home!"
The door behind Mrs. Pryor's back had opened while she was talking,
and Miss Gibbie Gault, listening with her hand on the knob, tilted her
chin and screwed up her left eye so tightly that it seemed but a little
round hole, and at sight of it some of the ladies brightened visibly,
while others fidgeted in nervous apprehension of what might come.
Miss Gibbie came farther in the room, laid her bag and turkey-wing fan
on the table over which Mrs. Pryor was presiding, and, without a
good-morning to the others, took her seat and began the pulling-off of
her white cotton gloves.
"What's all this nonsense about St. Paul and women, Lizzie?" she began,
laying the gloves by the bag and taking up the fan. "I heard that last
remark, but Mr. Pryor didn't. Do you ever tell Mr. Pryor about St.
Paul's opinions? I hope, some of these eternal times, I am going to
know St. Paul. His epistles don't speak of a wife, but I've always
imagined he had one, and of the kind who didn't agree with you, Lizzie,
that women should keep silent and learn of their husbands at home--
like you learn of yours."
The white ribbon strings which tied Miss Gibbie's broad-brimmed white
straw hat under her chin were unfastened and thrown back over her
shoulders, the sprig muslin skirt was spread out carefully, and the
turkey-wing fan lifted from her lap, but for a moment Mrs. Pryor did not
speak.
Her face, not given to flushing, had colored at Miss Gibbie's words. She
pressed her lips firmly together and looked around the room as if asking
for Christian forbearance for so irreverent a speech as had just been
heard; then she rose.
"I do not care to discuss St. Paul. When a woman sits in judgment upon
one of the disciples of the Lord--"
"Don't get your Biblical history mixed, Lizzie. St. Paul was not one of
the twelve. He was an apostle, a writer of epistles. I admire him, but,
from his assertions concerning women, he must have had some in his
family who gave him trouble. Whenever you hear a man in public
insisting on keeping women in their place, keeping them down and under,
not letting them do this or letting them do that, you may be certain he
is a managed man. But if you won't discuss St. Paul with a sinner such
as I, we willgo back to the person you were discussing, and I will
discuss her with Christians such as you. Who was it? If it wasn't Mary
Cary I will give ten dollars to your heathen fund." She looked around
the room and then at Mrs. Webb. "Was it Mary Cary, Virginia?"
Mrs. Webb, biting a strand of cotton held at arm's-length from the
spool, nodded, then threaded her needle.
"Yes, we were talking about her work here in Yorkburg, and Mrs. Pryor
was telling us she had engaged the /General Maury/ to take the
orphan children to Wayne Beach on the fourteenth, and--"
"Lizzie wanted to know where the money was coming from? For a Christian
woman, Lizzie, your curiosity in money matters is unrighteous. If money
is honestly come by, what business is it of ours how it is spent?"
"Why doesn't she tell how it is come by?" Mrs. Pryor's voice was high
and sharp. "Mary Cary has been back in Yorkburg seven months--"
"Seven months and two weeks," corrected Mrs. Tate, pointing her
unthreaded needle at Mrs. Pryor.
"She was a penniless orphan until thirteen"--the interruption was
ignored--"and, so far as we've heard, she has never had a fortune left
her, and yet after nine years' absence she comes back, has a beautiful
home, a horse, and a runabout, keeps three servants, gives to
everything, spends freely, and never tells how she gets the money."
"And that's something good people will never forgive, will they,
Lizzie?"
Miss Gibbie Gault leaned forward and tapped the table on which Mrs.
Pryor's hands were resting with the tip of the turkey-wing fan. "Though
one feeds the hungry and clothes the naked, brings cleanliness out of
dirt, and gladness where was dulness, makes flowers grow where were
weeds, it profiteth nothing--if one's business is not told. Be honest,
Lizzie. Isn't that so?"
Mrs. Moon glanced anxiously at the clock on the mantel just under the
portrait of Mrs. Tate's great-grandfather, and hurriedly folded her
work. She never came to a meeting of the Needlework Guild if she
thought it likely Miss Gibbie would be there. But Miss Gibbie was
even less regular than Miss Honoria Brockenborough, and her attendance
to-day was evidently for a purpose. By herself Miss Gibbie was an
Occasion, a visit to her was an experience that gave color and life to
the dullest of days, and she did not deny her enjoyment of Miss Gibbie's
comments on people and things. But Mrs. Pryor and Miss Gibbie together
made an atmosphere too electrical for her peace-loving nature, and
she was wondering if it were possible to get away when the door opened
and Mrs. Tate's maid put her head inside.
"Mis' Pryor," she said, and her eyes seemed all whites, "somebody at
the telephone say for you to come on home' that Mr. Pryor done took
sick on the street and they've brung him in. Miss Lizzie Bettie say to
come on quick."
Every woman turned in her seat. From some came exclamations of
frightened sympathy. From others a movement to rise, as if the summons
had come to them, but Mrs. Pryor waved them back.
"I don't think it is anything serious," she said, bluntly. "I can't
even go to a meeting in peace. Lizzie Bettie is so excitable. Mr. Pryor
has been having attacks of indigestion for months. He ate sausage this
morning for breakfast. He knows he can't eat sausage."