"Inhuman monster!" I cried. "You have killed him!"
He touched a silver bell and another servant appeared.
"Take this body out and bring me a clean knife," he commanded. "Resume
your seat, Miss Cook. Like all your countrymen, you evince a penchant
for dark meat. Mammy, dear, can I send you a choice bit of the
'possum?"
* * * * *
The next day I met the four DeVere children, and found them very
bright and lovable. Two were boys and two girls, ranging from 10 to 16
years of age. The little school house was half a mile away down a
beautiful country lane, full of grass and flowers. I had fifteen
scholars in my school, and except for a few things my life at Vereton
would have been like Paradise. The first month I saved up $42. My
salary was $40, and I made the other two by loaning small sums to my
scholars for a few days at a time, for which they paid me from 10 to
25 cents interest.
I took a curious interest in studying the character of Aubrey DeVere.
His was one of the noblest and grandest natures I had ever known, but
it was so far influenced by the traditions and customs of the people
with whom he had lived, that scarcely a vestige of its natural good
remained.
He had been splendidly educated at the University of Virginia, and was
an accomplished orator, musician and painter, but from his early
childhood he had been allowed to give way to every impulse and desire,
and his manhood showed sadly his lack of self-control.
One evening I was in the music room in the second story of the DeVere
mansion, playing over that loveliest of Schubert's Leider, "Hark,
Hark, the Lark," when Aubrey DeVere entered. Of late, on account of
some strange whim, he had become more careful in his dress.
This evening he wore a shirt, thrown open in front, exhibiting his
massive collar bone, and a black velvet smoking jacket, trimmed with
gold braid in a fanciful design. On his hands were white kid gloves,
and I noticed that his feet, on which he absolutely refused to wear
shoes, had been recently washed at the pump. He was in one of his most
bitter and sneering moods, and launched forth into a most acrimonious
tirade against Grant, Lincoln, George Francis Train and other heroes
of the Union. He sat down upon the center table and began scratching
one of his ankles with the toe of the other foot in a manner that he
knew always irritated me.
Resolved not to become angry, I continued playing. Suddenly he said:
"Pardon me, Miss Cook, but you struck a wrong note in effecting the
run in that diminished seventh."
"I think not," I answered.
"You are a liar!" he replied. "You struck a natural, when it should
have been a sharp. This is the note you should have played."
I heard something swish through the air. From where he sat on the
center table, he shot between his teeth a solid stream of tobacco
juice with deadly aim full upon the black key of A-sharp on the piano.
I rose from the stool, somewhat nettled, but smiling.
"You are offended," he said, sarcastically. "You do not like our
Southern ways. You think me a mauvais sujet. You think we lack aplomb
and savoir-vivre. With your Boston culture, you think you can detect a
false note in our courtesy, a certain lack of fineness and refinement
in our manners. Do not deny it."
"Mr. DeVere," I said coldly, "your taunts are nothing to me. I am here
to do my duty. In your own house you are at liberty to act as you
choose. Will you move one of your feet and allow me to pass?"
Mr. DeVere suddenly sprang from the table and clasped me fiercely in
his arms.
"Penelope," he cried, in a terrible voice. "I love you! You miserable
little dried-up, washed-out, white-eyed, sallow-cheeked, prim, angular
Yankee schoolma'am. I loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you.
Will you marry me?"