Produced by Alex Gam, Suzanne Shell and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
_The_ Ghosts
_of their_
Ancestors
[Illustration: "_Those ancestry books are a standard joke with us_"]
_The_ Ghosts _of
their_ Ancestors
_by Weymer Jay Mills_
_Author of_
"Caroline _of_ Courtlandt Street"
_Pictures by_ John Rae
[Illustration]
New York
Fox Duffield & Co.
1906
Copyright, 1906, by
Fox Duffield & Company
Published, March, 1906
The Trow Press, N. Y.
[Illustration: To American Ladies & Gentlemen of prodigious Quality]
To
_Minerva_
and
_Virginia_
Pictures
"_Those ancestry books are a standard joke with us_" Frontispiece
Facing page
"_How lovely she is, Juma!_" 18
"_My Julie saw them kissing less than an hour ago on the
marine parade_" 80
"_The lady of the banished portrait was moving through
the doorway_" 110
Chapter _One_
[Illustration]
There was a clanging, brassy melody upon the air. For three-score years
since York of the Scarlet Coats died, and the tune "God Save the King"
floated for the last time out of tavern door and mansion window, the bells
of old St. Paul's had begun their ringing like this:
"Loud and full voiced at eight o'clock sends good cheer abroad," said the
tottering sexton. "Softer and softer, as folks turn into bed, and faint
and sweet at midnight, when our dear Lord rises with the dawn." Cheery
bells full of hope--gentle chimes, as if the holy mother were dreaming of
her babe. Joyous, jingling, jangling bells! Through the town their tones
drifted, over the thousands of slate-colored roofs, now insistent on the
Broadway, now lessening a little in some long winding alley, and then
finally dying away on the bare Lispenard Meadows.
Vesey Street--the gentry street--heard them first. The bigwigs in the long
ago, with the help of Gracious George, built the church, and who had a
better right than their children to its voices. Calm and serene lay Vesey
Street with its rows of leafing elms. Over the dim confusion of
architectural forms slipped the moonlight in silver ribbons, seeming to
make sport of the grave, smug faces of the antiquated domiciles. Like a
line of deserted dowagers waiting for some recalcitrant Sir Roger de
Coverley, they stood scowling at one another. No longer linkboys and
running footmen stuck brave lights into the well-painted extinguishers at
each doorstep. No longer fashion fluttered to their gates. The gallants
who had been wont to pass them with, "Lud! what a pretty house!" were most
of them asleep now on the green breast of mother England, forgetful of
that wide thoroughfare, which had never reckoned life without them.
Into the parlor of Knickerbocker House, dubbed Knickerbocker Mansion some
years after the bibulous Sir William Howe had laid down his sceptre as
ruler of the town, the chorus of bells crashed.
"What a dastardly noise!" cried Jonathan Knickerbocker, throwing his
newspaper over his head. "Can this Easter time never be kept without an
infernal bell bombilation? I shall call a meeting of the vestry--that
idiot Jenkins should be kept at home!"
The head of the Knickerbocker family turned irately in his chair and
glared at his daughters. Three timid pairs of blinking eyes were raised
from short sacks in answer to his challenge, then lowered again over the
wool. The fourth and fairest daughter of the house, seated on the walnut
sofa in the bow-window, gave no heed to his vehemence but a suppressed
sigh. With a final snort the _Gazette_ was picked up again. The Easter
melody was waning.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The Knickerbocker parlor--not the state parlor, which had long been
closed--was a dismal place--so large that four candles and one Rumford
lamp made but a patch of brightness in the gloom. Most of the furniture
was ponderous and ugly, with two or three alien little chairs that looked
as if they might once have belonged to some light-hearted lover of the
Louis. On the almost barren chimney-piece stood a pair of tall nankeen
beakers, sepulchrally reminiscent of buried Chinese years. Along the walls
hung a score of mediocre portraits, the handiwork of the usurious limner
John Watson and his compatriot Hessilius. Spans of sunlit days had stolen
every tinge of carmine from their immobile and woodeny faces, leaving them
the drab color of time, in keeping with the room.
Above the cornice, near the sofa where Patricia Knickerbocker sat, hung an
empty frame. The portrait it contained had been banished to the attic
while her three eldest sisters were still in Wellington pantalets.
"The woman looks like a Jezebel," Jonathan had sputtered. "Och! that
leering smile." He tried to blot from his mind the stray leaves he knew of
her story, and the disturbing thought that she was of his blood. "She
shall not remain with the likenesses of my ancestors!" he had told his
sisters, who were over from Goby House.
When this descendant of the Knickerbockers spoke of his progenitors he
always held his head a trifle more erect, and puffed out his pompous
figure, though, strange to relate, like many another worthy man of a later
day having the same foible, he knew very little about them. Of course he
could have told you that the lady over the east bookcase, wearing a blue
tucker and holding a spray of milk-weed in her hand, was his Aunt Jane;
and that his father was a noted New York judge, the pride of three
circuits. Or if his digression were extended, there was his trump card,
one of the first American Knickerbockers, labelled "The Friend of Lord
Cornbury!" These were the firmest rocks in his family history, to which he
could climb in safety, thence to look down with scorn on those
unfortunates beneath his social eminence. He was a Knickerbocker, of
Knickerbocker Mansion, Vesey Street, and a member of one of the oldest
families in York and America.
Patricia, smiling little Patricia, rummaging one day among the dust-bins
under the eaves, had found the banished portrait. Juma, the gray-wooled
negro, a comparatively new member of the Knickerbocker household, who had
appointed himself her body-servant ever since his arrival at the mansion,
was with her.
[Illustration]
A faithful slave to old Miss Johnstone of Crown Street, Juma had been
forced by his mistress's death into new service. He was a picture of
ebonized urbanity, a good specimen of the vanished race of Gotham blacks,
gentler in manners and clearer in speech than their Southern cousins. In
his youth he had been sent to one Jean Toussaint of Elizabethtown to learn
the art of hair-dressing. He could impart much knowledge of wigs to a
wigless age, and talked in a grandiloquent fashion of Spencers,
Albemarles, and Lavants. Many a beau peruke and macaroni toupee his lithe
fingers curled and sprinkled with sweet flower-water. The voices of the
fine people who were his visitors made constant music in his memory, and
his tongue was ever ready with anecdotes of wizened beauties and uncrowned
cavaliers.
Juma was faithful to the period of his greatest splendor. Deep in his
heart he despised the home to which freedom and poverty had led him after
the demise of his protectress. "Gold braid on company coat and silk
stockings done ravel out in dese days. Knickerbockers talk quality, but
dey ain't got quality mannahs--Missy Patsy is de only one of dem with
tone."
He loved to listen to the girl as she tripped through the great rooms,
humming softly some air from Lennet's "London Song-Book"--one of the relics
of his "ole Miss." Patricia always sang on the days when her sisters were
visiting their aunts on the bluff. Juma loved her, and during his five
years' residence in the family had many times taken her youthful mind in
train with quaint eighteenth-century maxims and fetiches.
"De wise miss drop her fan when she enters de ballroom," he would say.
"Den she gets de men on der knees from de start."
"I wish I were invited to balls," Patricia sighed. "The Kings and Grahams
give one or two every year, but father never notices them."
"Well, you jes' know how to behave," he chuckled. "Doan' yo' forget de
tricks your Uncle Juma taught yo'."
When the two had met in the attic that April day, Juma's spirits were as
ebullient as usual.
"How lovely she is, Juma! See, there is a blush on each cheek. Her pink
brocade makes me think of a rose dancing in the wind."
Patricia stared into the canvas face before her and the lips seemed to
curve themselves into the shadow of a smile. "I know you were the fairest
one of us," she whispered, "the fairest and the best."
"Dat's the real quality way of holding the head," vouchsafed Juma. "I'se
pow'ful 'clined to think she looks like yo', missy." And then they had
laughed, shut away with maimed chairs, tired spinets, and other voiceless
things, glad to have escaped from Knickerbocker frowns.
[Illustration: "_How lovely she is, Juma!_"]
It was a dismal household, that of the old mansion--the master absorbed in
his passion for wealth and worship of family; the three eldest daughters,
who might once have had some individuality but now were moulded in the
form of their father. "Callow old maids," any individual of the lower
ranks of York would have dubbed them. They wore little bunches of sedate
curls over each ear, and dressed in sombre, genteel colors proper to their
exalted rank. On the first day of the week they dozed through a long
sermon; on its last day they simpered politely at the Whist Club. Fears of
broken jelly-moulds or of the romping Patricia's next prank were the only
disturbers of the tranquillity of their lives. Jonathan Knickerbocker was
their one Almighty Mirror. When he labelled Mrs. Scruggins, the draper's
niece, a person not fit to associate with, their stiff gowns obediently
gave forth hisses at the said lady. When he prated of his father's
shrewdness, they nodded discreet approval; and at the mere mention of the
loyal friend of Lord Cornbury, they bobbed like grass before a gale.
Patricia's impressionable temperament was saved by Juma's advent from the
sirocco of dulness that wafted her sisters over the lake of years. His
"ole Miss," a looker on at the "Court of Florizel," had unconsciously
taught him to imbibe the atmosphere surrounding the Graces. A democracy
could not spoil her elegance, for Chesterfield's warning was ever before
her eyes. She who copied the footsteps of Baccelli, adored her Sterne and
Beattie, and though her eyes grew dim, never let romance pass her window
unmolested, had left her impress upon the mind of the faithful servitor.
Life to him was a gay-colored picture-book, brighter perhaps because he
could not read the printed page. All his maids were cherry-ribboned and
belaced; all his roystering sparks clinked gilded canakins. Love was ever
smiling on them! For wellnigh half a century he had listened to tales of
the gay god as he bound one romance-loving woman's silken tresses. Small
wonder that he thought the urchin ruled the world!
* * * * *
When the bells rested their brassy throats for the first time that night,
and Jonathan Knickerbocker could take up his West Indies accounts
undisturbed, giving his daughters freedom to doze in peace, "Miss Patsy"
stole on tiptoe from the room. She wanted to be alone. Juma, ambling
through the dim hall to his pantry, caught sight of her fluttering
garments, but did not speak. Only an hour or two before, he had placed in
the chamber where she slept a bunch of arbutus which young Sheridan, the
organist, had given into his keeping. The wild, sweet-scented flower grew
in but one spot near the town--an island in the centre of the Woodbridge
Swamp, where Captain Kidd in a freak of fancy had planted it over the body
of a comrade, tradition said, and no one ever disputed the story. To reach
it, even the most sure-footed ran the danger of being caught in the bog.
Patricia wondered as she mounted the stairs how her lover had been able to
come with her gift unseen. The watching negro smiled sadly and shook his
head when the last bit of her garment disappeared over the staircase like
a white moth moving treeward.
Oh, how terrible it was never to see him in her father's house! Never to
have seen him alone, only that one time, after twilight service, when she
had stolen a meeting at the Battery, while her family were taking their
Sabbath-day ride up the Bowery Road!
The old vehicle held but six, and as the aunts always rode home with their
brother, Patricia was left to the escort of Juma, custodian of the
prayer-books. By the clump of protecting boxwood at the end of the Marine
Parade she had come upon him. The sea held his eyes until there was no
mistaking the footsteps. Her approaching crinoline made soft little
rustles, as if entreating him to leave his musings. Her body-guard's
shuffles, too, were unmistakable. Like some young potentate her lover
turned about, describing an elaborate bow with his white castor. The very
picture of starched tranquillity he looked, but underneath the blue
hammer-tail coat a heart was beating wildly, as she, made wise by love,
knew well--for her own was its echo.
There was a brief moment while she watched the color mount to his
sun-bronzed face, the blue eyes glow, the strong form quiver ever so
slightly. Then her lips framed "Richard"--the key of the universe.
"Patricia!" came the answer.
Juma, from his discreet distance, heard her compared to the magnolia worn
on the lapel of the coat she admired so much. In her white and fragrant
young womanhood she was like it from sheer inaccessibility. The flower
expressed her character and position--Patricia Knickerbocker, a daughter
of the autocrat of York. When he mentioned her father's name the girl
shivered. An invisible wall seemed to rise between them. Then the feeling
died away. Her soul grew wider awake each moment her lover gazed at her.
As he drew her closer to him Juma's figure in the background bent over a
flower in the path.
"Let 'em kiss," he mumbled. "Ole Miss used to say de female dat never lub
am a sour pippin, and dere's enough ter start a vinegar press in dis
family."
"You'll not permit them to take you away from me? You will be mine forever
and ever?" said the youth.
A sigh of happiness answered him.
"I know I'm poor, Patricia, and my family can never equal yours."
"Don't!" she whispered. "What does it matter, what does anything
matter--only that I'm here _with you_!"
"See the night creeping in off there, dear heart. It holds nothing more
wonderful than this moment."
"How black the water looks," she faltered.
"I will go to your father and demand your hand." She was trembling.
"You do not know what a Knickerbocker is--an awful creature with a hundred
gorgon heads constantly leering and preaching; detecting flaws in other
people's families. One head will tell you that you play the organ in St.
Paul's, and another may see that your coat is a trifle worn. We're not the
only clan of them in the land."
"We must not fear them--not to-night, when love is filling the world."
"Only one of my grandmothers married for love, and she was thought to be
disgraced."
"You will follow her?" he asked, a catch in his voice.
Juma was signalling for them to part, and on his forehead she kissed "I
will!"
Now alone on the dark staircase she meditated on his words. When that
malignant crone, Gossip, started on her round, what would happen?
Suddenly the voice of her father adding up the indigo cargo fell upon her
ears. He would end their happiness; a man powerful enough to kill the
spirit of Easter in his home could do anything. Creeping through the
narrow passage she came to the great north balcony window. There she
paused and raised her eyes to the dome of the night. Long lines of stars
were strung across the meadows of heaven. The dials of the world seemed
suddenly stilled. Below the infinite peace a budding landscape sloped
gently into a placid sea. Myriads of little lights in humble cots blinked
an answer to the fires above. Leaning on the broad window-seat of
blackened Jersey oak she tried to descry his dwelling, but the tree-tops
shut it away.
A few hours before, he had asked her to be his wife, and she, a
Knickerbocker, had thrilled at his words. Like a tide the memory of his
love swept back to her. Then on its surges came the stupor of desolation.
The gates of Knickerbocker pride were strong. A second David might fail to
force them. All her dreams were fantasies, with no bearing upon reality.
All her hopes were sunbeams vanquished by one dark shadow. To her
distorted imagination her family seemed accursed. Every face bore some
mark of it, even the row of dim portraits in the room below. But, ah!
there was one, a face turned to the rafters of the attic, whose bright
eyes and red lips knew love untinctured by the dross of the world. In the
darkness it rose before her strangely insistent. As in a time-blurred
mirror she looked and saw herself, and the feeling, though uncanny, gave
her a sense of comfort.
A wind began to sigh in the garden. Through the boxwood maze and barren
urns it swept. Smiling Flora, sleeping Endymion, and all the fabulous
court that had stood there years before the coming of the Knickerbockers
grew more humanly colored as the moon passed behind a cloud. Since York
had become a queenly city and the wonder of the western world, mute and
peacefully passive they had watched the seasons come and go. Countless
lovers must have known them. She saw back into the springs, the flower
times. Sedan chairs and swaying post-chaises had borne these dainty lovers
all away. Oh, strange, sweet thought! She, too, would have to go--with
him.
Down by the pale and shivering elms the iron bar of the gate clicked. Dark
figures were entering the garden. The gods and goddesses faded before her
eyes. No one visited them on Easter eve. Her father did not keep the
season.
She steadied her knees on the slippery seat. The spray of arbutus she was
wearing over her heart cut her hands as she pressed closer to the pane.
"My aunts! they know!" she whispered to herself.
Terror of her father--of them all--swept over her, chilling the very
recesses of her being. As the habiliments of her august relatives became
more distinct, she grew calmer. With slow and measured tread they walked,
while to their right minced Betty, a small abigail, swaying a lantern.
"It is the march of pride coming to crush me!" she cried.
Then the bells began to peal again--"Pride--pride" they seemed to mock.
"Love must die for pride!"
[Illustration]
Chapter _Two_
[Illustration: I Rule by Right]
On the wreck of many social thrones--for the town named after the Duke of
York passed through numerous transitions the world knows nothing
of--Patricia's aunt, Miss Georgina Knickerbocker, had elected to raise her
sceptre. "I rule by right" was her dictum. "My family is old; few families
are older or more aristocratic. The famous Judge Josiah Knickerbocker was
my father, and my brother Jonathan owns Knickerbocker Mansion, the finest
dwelling in York."
No potentate ever wore a crown more blissfully than Miss Georgina. Tall,
beak-nosed, gruff-voiced she was, always with her younger sister, Miss
Julie, in tow and under good control--Miss Julie, who smirked and copied
her when family pride was concerned, though she had her own misgivings and
opinions on other matters. Miss Julie even had emotions and
sentimentalities of her own, which she struggled to keep bottled up before
her relatives and the world, uncovering them only in secret, as she did
her jasmine scent and pomatum pot.
The little woman's real name was Jerusalem, bestowed upon her at a time
when the judge her father's religious spirit was in its blossoming period.
One great grief of her life was that she had given way to wickedness and
changed this outlandish cognomen. She often brought the subject up before
Dr. Slumnus, as he stopped in for a social game of chess. "Indeed, Miss
Julie," he would answer soothingly, "the name is so Christian that it
sounds heathenish. No well-conducted female should presume to bear the
name of the holy city. Nay, ma'am, it would have come perilously near
sacrilege to retain it!"
Thus assured, Miss Julie would give herself over to the excitement of
endeavoring to queen a pawn. Later, in her chamber, ready to blow out her
candle, alone with the crowd of memories waiting to conduct her to the
land of dreams, she shuddered. Her father's stern eyes would glare at her
reproachfully; sometimes she would try to mock at them, remembering the
words of Dr. Slumnus--but oftener a tear or two trickled down her faded
cheeks and stained the strings of her nightcap.
Together these two elderly Knickerbockers were unweary in their efforts to
interpret high life to their circle. Their family pride was more expansive
than their brother Jonathan's. He talked chiefly of his Aunt Jane, the
milk-weed lady, of his renowned father, and of that dim shade of a
Knickerbocker who was the friend of Lord Cornbury. Miss Georgina had
climbed higher into her hereditary tree. She prated of a great-uncle who
married a niece of Lord Campbell--a cousin underscored in her records as
Laird of Barula--the grand Makemies, the high-stepping Gabies, and the
learned Gobies. And, as for Aunt Jane, why, she was dowered with a larger
chest of silver than any Jersey woman of her day. Those records of her
paduasoys and alamodes would have sickened a Custis; and her
love-affairs!--the wench herself might have been astounded at hearing that
she once refused a patroon of Rensselaerswyck and a president of the
College of New Jersey.
Quietly Miss Julie would sit and listen to her sister, but, once away from
her, she would assume what she believed to be the Almack manner, call
imagination to her aid, and discourse to her long-suffering acquaintance.
Aunt Jane's chest of plate became a veritable crown furgeon laden with
tasters, posset cups, punch-bowls, muffineers, and salvers of priceless
and unique patterns. Her gowns would have done credit to a Drury Lane
queen. The patroon of Rensselaerswyck drank a flask of camphor to forget
his Jane. Scores of suitors died of lacerated hearts for her dear sake,
and the president of the College of New Jersey vowed he could not hear the
word love spoken in his presence, not even in his young gentlemen's
conjugations.
It was the arrival, from the vulgarian camp of Trenton, of one Mrs.
Snograss that first brought interference with the sway of these gentle
ladies. That year, in which Richard Sheridan first played the organ in St.
Paul's and Mrs. Snograss elected to reside in York, proved, indeed, an
eventful one for the community. The genteel portion of Gotham society,
like the family of the Vicar of Wakefield, was wont to lead a peaceful
life. Most of its adventures befell it by its own fireside, or consisted
of migrations from the blue bed to the brown. Or there was the yearly
glimpse of the Branch, or Schooley's Mountain, and on rare occasions
venturesome parents took their offspring to Hobuck for a
fortnight--especially if they were marriageable daughters.
The Misses Knickerbocker had visited the latter place in its transition
period. There Georgina purchased her Davenport tea-service for a song, and
was fond of telling of the fact. And Julie treasured a sweeter memory of
the green Elysium--a dried-up flower of memory, but once a rose,
nevertheless, carefully guarded from the world, hidden indeed from herself
most of the time.
No one knew exactly how it began--that social war over the two capitals of
Trenton and York. Black "Rushingbeau," the York pronunciation for Mrs.
Snograss's serving-man, Rochambeau, meeting Juma at the morning market in
the centre of the green, had dubbed the Knickerbocker chickens
"spinkle-shanked fowls."
"Wot you know 'bout hens in yo' small 'count town!" retorted the loyal
champion of York. Like a mushroom the story grew, and spread from Vesey
Street kitchens into sitting-rooms and parlors. Of course the aspersive
attitude toward York was that of Mrs. Snograss reflected in Rochambeau.
"To think that a resident of Trenton, a city named after a mere merchant,
should have the effrontery to speak disparagingly of our ancient capital!"
cried Mrs. Rumbell, mother-in-law of Dr. Slumnus. "These are degenerate
times, alack! What would poor Roberta Johnstone say if she were here? Let
me see how many royal governors have lived amongst us."
Mrs. Rumbell counted on her slim, old fingers. The Knickerbocker ladies,
who lacked the Rumbell knowledge of their city's past, brought all their
brightest family banners to the fray.
"Lud," said Miss Georgina, and Miss Julie promptly echoed her, "I have
never even visited the spot where the Snograss woman came from; I know
that the Comte de Survilliers, or plain Mr. Bonaparte, as he prefers to be
called, when he failed to secure Knickerbocker Mansion for a residence
decided to repair thither. Poor man, he must have languished!" she added
with a final snort.
"And he was such a showy man too!" sighed her sister.
Mrs. Snograss, learning of the ferment her servant had aroused,
sagaciously remarked: "Let them talk; their chatter is a lecture to the
wise; as for capitals, everybody knows, counting out the inhabitants of
this mud-hole, that Trenton came near being the capital of the whole
country!"
When this bombastic statement was hurled at Vesey Street, it made as much
of a sensation as the late news from Cherubusco. Most of the Government
officers were classed with the Snograss widow by the affronted Gothamites,
and Mrs. Rumbell said openly that if she had her life to live over England
should have welcomed her when the cross of St. George was torn down from
the courthouse flag-staff.
The winter died and still there was no cessation of hostilities. The
choir-room of St. Paul's, where the ladies of the Bengal mission met and
listened to itinerant lecturers, or sewed garments for the needy, was the
usual field for battle. When Mrs. Snograss arrived late one day for Mr.
Timbuckey's talk on the piety of George Crabbe, she was unfortunately
ushered to Miss Georgina Knickerbocker's bench. That haughty lady, the
enemy being comfortably ensconced, arose and stalked over to Mrs.
Rumbell's seat, followed by her sister and the Mansion girls, so that the
bustle ensuing spoke to everybody of what was taking place. Patricia
smiled a mortified, half-sad smile at Mrs. Snograss, but the Trentonian
only accepted it as additional insult.
A month later Mrs. Rumbell fainted when her sewing-chair was placed by the
disturber of her peace. She was one of the most violent in her aversion to
the newcomer. The Rev. Samuel Slumnus shook his fat finger at his
mother-in-law, as the crafty dowager, enjoying the excitement created by
her feigned swoon, could see with her eyes half-opened. Such conduct was
not to be borne. "Rebellion in my own family," fumed the perplexed
dominie. "I must put a stop to it at once." In his agitation he clasped
and unclasped his hands and caressed his sparse locks. When a hush fell at
last upon the room, he was seen mounting the choir-platform.
"The meeting of the Easter Guild will be held this year at the residence
of Mrs. Snograss," he sputtered. For a full minute silence reigned--then
came a clangor of tongues. "He is almost as red in the face as if he
choked on the prune-pits in the Knickerbocker fruit-cake," some irreverent
one whispered. It was said afterward that Mrs. Snograss had put a
five-dollar bill in the mission-box as she left the choir-room that
morning--a performance not without effect. A few parishioners were even
heard to lament the fact that Dr. Slumnus's family was not of the same
standing as his wife's. Miss Georgina declared privately to her sister
that any one who went to the Snograss woman's should never darken the door
of Goby House again. But when the day preceding Easter came, and she heard
from Julie of the delight the town was taking in the prospect of viewing
the much-talked of Snograss interior, one venturesome housekeeper having
even asserted that she intended going up to the chambers, Miss Georgina,
wild with jealousy, decided to carry the war into the enemy's country.
[Illustration]
As the night before that day of days died away and clarion cocks made the
young dawn vocal, eager hands drew back the curtains of four-posters.
Above the green-gray of spring-time streets and lanes, the sentinel
tree-tops pointed to the translucent blue of a smiling sky. "Day's fair
and all's well!" bawled the watch as they blew out their smoking lights.
Voices cracked and rusted by sleep echoed the cry in the depths of soft,
chintz-bound coverlets. "My best ferrandine coat," mumbled Miss Georgina
to herself, in her delight over a pleasing picture of her entrance into
the Snograss parlor. She let the bolster slip to the floor and
precipitated her head against the carved laurel leaves of the top-board,
all unconsciously. Bright were the visions of cherished falafals and
gewgaws that came to the members of the Easter Guild as they parted
company with Morpheus.
Mrs. Rumbell, looking from a casement in the rectory, felt the sweetness
of the season fall upon her. That patch of fresh sky, suggestive of new
life and a swift-footed May, was more to her than a volley of sermons. The
snow still lay on hill and heath. Father Winter, neglectful of one of his
worlds, was sporting among the northern mountains. Oh, the peace of it!
Why should she care if the wealthy Mrs. Snograss had come to York with her
Trenton innovations? All her past grievances were forgotten. In her
blissful state she felt she could even go the length of sewing whalebone
in her second-best silk skirt to conform to the ridiculous fashion of
stiffened skirts, introduced by that lady. Everything was changing! What
could she, frail and old, gain by wrestling with the times? Across the
way, torn landscape shades blinded the windows of Johnstone House. Roberta
was dead and her home awaited a new tenant. Beyond lay the Bowling Green,
the background of her long life--witness to all the parts the
stage-master, Fate, had dealt out to her. Joys and sorrows marked its worn
paths. The city of her golden time was fading away. No halloos of eager
huntsmen, ushering in Aurora, greeted her ears as of yore. Only a stray
thrush, mistaking the season, trilled liquid notes to his lost mates on a
hemlock by her chamber.
Soon the daylight's eyes were wide open, and the door-knockers, across the
church-yard, began to glow like miniature suns. Festivals and holidays
always brought the housekeepers of York to market, followed by their
faithful blacks carrying little wicker baskets. They tripped first to Mrs.
Sykes's booth, where one could find all the season's delicacies; then to
the wintergreen-berry man, and on through the circle of venders. The
mystical joy of Eastertide that flooded the heart of Mrs. Rumbell in the
dawn swept through the concourse at the market. The perfume of the
southern lilies, the merry cries of hucksters, and the shrill calls of
gutter-waifs as they tugged at the skirts of Cock-a-nee-nae Bess were all
permeated with it.
The prattling groups about Mrs. Sykes ofttimes broke away to take sly
looks across the green at the distant Broadway. "Will she come?" "Shall we
extend our hands to her, or just curtesy?" These and many like questions
went for naught that morning. The blinds of Snograss house were parted; a
turbaned negress came out and washed the entry. Once the opening of a door
thrilled the curious dames. But the newcomer was waiting to enjoy her full
triumph in the afternoon.
No one looked toward the house on Vesey Street. The Knickerbockers never
frequented the market--Jonathan Knickerbocker forbade his family's
participation in such vulgar customs.
Georgina did not descend to her sitting-room in as pleasant a humor as was
to have been expected from her waking contemplations. She jangled her keys
so ominously as she strutted through the halls and pantries that Julie was
afraid to venture out. On the day before Easter the little woman was in
the habit of stealing away to a by-lane near the market. From a discreet
distance she directed her purchases. Children would run for her oranges,
the cock-a-nee-nae necessary to her happiness, the boxes of Poppleton
sweets and foreign nuts. When they were very swift she would reward them
with as much as a dime apiece, so great was the delight she felt in
providing a secret store of goodies.
To-day there was no escaping. The market was sold out and the booths
carried away before she finished helping her sister tie up the Easter
presents. It was a custom among the ladies of York to exchange chaste and
useful gifts of their own handiwork. Worsted hat-bag covers and silk
mittens were the favorites. Mrs. Rumbell was the one exception to the
rule. She still cut up her father's brocade vests into small squares,
which she filled with dried rose-geranium leaves and distributed among her
acquaintance. Three generations had received these fragrant marks of her
regard, and the wits accused her relative of having been a Hollander,
addicted to the habit of swarthing himself in superfluous garments.
Members of the Scruggins set went further, and hinted maliciously that he
was a dealer in old clothes.
Miss Georgina preferred silk mittens, and gave and received no less than a
dozen pairs a season. If the ones sent to her were of a color she did not
like, she kept them for a year or two, and then packed them off again.
This was quite permissible in York. On one occasion Georgina's own mittens
were returned to her, but far from being angry, she smiled a grim welcome
at them, and remarked to her household that she was glad to see them back
for they were at least fashioned of pure silk, and that was more than she
could say of many pairs that had been sent to her.
Quaint little ladies of Gothamtown--quaint little old-time
figures!--flitting in and out of your ancient homes like shadows!--who
cares to-day for your petty gifts, your plans, and jealousies? Only one or
two remember you. The walks you trod are vanishing, the water-front
gardens where you smiled and languished at sedate gentlemen are mostly
hidden 'neath bricks and mortar, and the very buildings you were born in,
that stood so long impervious to the rude hands of progress, are being
demolished. Those musty garments of Juma's "ole Miss," the friend of Mrs.
Rumbell, are now folded in some attic trunk with your own pet vanities.
What would the haughty Miss Georgina have said if she could have gazed
through the door of the future and seen a Scruggins brat grown into a
leader of fashion and carrying her own tortoise fan--sold with other
Knickerbocker effects at the last vendue?
[Illustration]
If one had loitered in Vesey Street that afternoon before Easter so many
years past, one would, no doubt, have joined the stragglers about the
gates of Snograss House, and watched the members of St. Paul's Easter
Guild mince up Broadway, carefully keeping to the pave. The Flying Swan
from Elizabethtown was due at four o'clock, and those timid ladies of the
long ago knew that the swaying, swaggering bedlam of a coach would enjoy
spattering them as it rattled up to the City Hotel. On the porch of that
fine hostelry, where Mr. Clarke once wooed his muse and scores of thirsty
throats the wine-cup, stood the host, Davy Juniper, whose very name was
synonymous with cheer. Through the half-opened door came loud gusts of
unceremonious laughter as the portly innkeeper, curveting on tiptoe, swung
his garland of Easter green over the sign-board. Davy's eyes were riveted
on the flashing colors of feminine gear across the street. Now Mrs.
Rumbell tottered by and bobbed to him; now a bevy of the Scruggins set
passed the house opposite, and gazed in, like forbidden Peris at the door
of Paradise. Sometimes the street was covered with pedestrians. The
quality abroad affected the good man's spirits. He began to pipe some
merry verses from a tap-room ditty:
Major Macpherson heav'd a sigh,
Tol, de diddle, dol, dol;
And Major Macpherson didn't know why,
Tol, de diddle, dol, dol;
But Major Macpherson soon found out,
Tol, de diddle, dol, dol;
'Twas all for Miss Lavinia Scout,
Tol, de diddle, dol, dol.
The night was creeping on, clear and cold, and there would be full settles
about his waggish fires. In the sky, puffs of fleecy clouds were hurrying
away like sheep eager to reach the fold of mother-dusk. Off in the west,
where twilight parted her curtains, glowed faint streaks of yellow and
rose color, promises of daffodil meadows and flower-strewn lands to come.
He was turning for a parting survey of the street when his ears caught the
tremulous motion of some vehicle. Dashing out of Vesey Street came the
Knickerbocker chariot, creaking protestations as it swung up to the
Snograss stile.
Out popped Miss Georgina, followed by her sister. Never had Miss Georgina
seemed so like a man-of-war's man in a flounce. Miss Julie shrunk into
insignificance beside her. Tavern maids, attracted by the noise and
heedless of the cold, poked their heads out of dormer windows. The
passengers on the Flying Swan just turning the pike slipped cautiously
from the seats behind the guard to find out the cause of the excitement.
Juma, hurrying home to the mansion, paused for a moment to see the sisters
of his master step down. "Ramrods--old Ramrods," jeered Mr. Juniper, as he
flung a last defiant "tol, de rol," at the gaping street.
The door of the tavern had no more than swung to when that of Snograss
House opened. Every inmate of the room eyed Miss Georgina as she greeted
the mistress. There was an element of hostility in their ceremonious
handshake. As the sister of the autocrat of York viewed the rich
furnishings of the apartment, the gold-legged piano and the silk-covered
furniture, her lips straightened into a sinister line. Her own possessions
shrunk into insignificance compared with this elegance. Even the long
shut-up state parlor in Knickerbocker Mansion could hardly vie with it.
Lady Tyron, the last lady of York, had fitted that room with heirlooms
from her English home. Jonathan was in the habit of calling it the finest
apartment in the State. He prated of its mouldering beauties often,
forgetting that it was lauded by his townsmen long before the
Knickerbockers entered its portals.
The contents of the Snograss parlor had given other Gothamites momentary
uneasiness that afternoon. Of course no one felt they possessed the
Knickerbocker right to feel deeply aggrieved over them. Mrs. Rumbell,
spying the oil-painted views of Trenton by the entrance door, hurriedly
shut her eyes, vowing the calm feeling in her heart should not be
disturbed. As penance for the pain which the pictures of the hated capital
gave her she seized a dish of quince scones and ran with them to Dr.
Slumnus. Refreshments had not been passed about, and the rector of St.
Paul's signalled to his mother-in-law not to approach. Thinking that he
preferred the gooseberry tarts on an opposite table she hastened over for
them, until Samuel, visibly embarrassed by her attentions, left his
comfortable cushioned chair and took refuge in the hall.
[Illustration]
If any one had imagined that Mrs. Snograss would forgive the various
slights put upon her in York, she or he was doomed to disappointment. All
the pleasant things they said to her about her costly egg-shell china, the
glass aviary with the artificial tree, and other luxuries, failed to
soften her vindictive mood. Each timidly expressed compliment recalled to
her a covert sneer, a deprecating smile, or a garment hastily drawn aside.
As Miss Georgina, on behalf of the presiding committee, counted up the
Easter gifts the church would give to the poor, the Trenton widow whom she
feared as a rival was musing on past insults.
"Ten tin trumpets," called the loud voice.
"I can humble her," thought the Snograss woman.
"Ten surprise packages," continued the other.
"I'll give the Knickerbocker family a surprise," spoke the indignant
Trentonian half aloud.
She was naturally an amiable person, but the aristocratic congregation of
St. Paul's had impaired her temper, proffering her vinegar when she had
sought the wine of good-fellowship. She stared at the bedizened figure of
the sister of the autocrat of York a moment longer, then turned meaningly
to the only member of the Scruggins set who happened to be present. There
was already a look of triumph in her eyes. "She shall bend to the dust
soon," she whispered. Then she arose from her sofa, clashing the folds of
her tilter until the room was full of lustring mockery. Everything was in
readiness for Mrs. Snograss's climax of the afternoon. Revenge spread out
its hands and gave her tongue.
"Have you ever heard of 'The School for Scandal,' Miss Knickerbocker?" she
asked, wreathing her face in an inscrutable smile.
Glad of an opportunity for displaying her knowledge, Georgina rose eagerly
to the bait. "I saw the play at the Park in the twenties. 'Twas a
prodigious fine cast, if I remember."
"They say a new Sheridan has come to our city." Every Gothamite loved that
phrase, "our city," and Mrs. Snograss dwelt on the words with the nicest
shade of mimicry. "He is preparing a little comedy I might dub the same
name," she snickered.
"An author man?" asked the Knickerbocker voice that always filled the
room. "What does he want here?"
A sudden silence fell upon the company. Eyes were turned on the Turkey
carpet before the fireplace where the great ladies stood. Ears were cocked
in their direction. The pirouetting woodland fay embellishing the tambour
firescreen, worked by the Trentonian when she attended Madame de Foe's
Academy for gentle children, wore a more conscious smirk than usual. Even
the twin Bow dogs which had held their tufted tails erect through the
stormiest family fracases seemed agitated.
"He plays the organ at our church," she answered with forced deliberation;
then in a whisper loud enough to have done credit to a lady on the boards,
she added, "and when away from that instrument spends his time making love
to your niece Patricia."
Mrs. Snograss gave a hysterical laugh and retreated a few rods.
A thunder-bolt falling at Miss Georgina's feet could not have created more
consternation. For a moment she glared at the creature before her as if
she were a butterfly or a beetle--something to be crushed and killed--then
remembering that politeness is always a trusty weapon, she roared in as
soft a fashion as she could, "You are mistaken, madam!"
"My Julie saw them kissing less than an hour ago on the Marine Parade!"
"Ladies who make confidants of their servants are often misinformed," the
other hissed.
By this time all Vesey Street was on its feet. The plans of the day were
forgotten. Every one was too stunned to speak. A Knickerbocker openly
insulted--the thought was appalling! Miss Julie, who was fingering some
Snograss ambrotypes, let them slip to the floor in her excitement. She had
not been so much agitated for years--not since a certain ship sailed out
of Amboy for the Indies bearing a youthful captain whom Judge
Knickerbocker had bidden her forget.
"Oh, oh!" she gasped--and there were those who afterward declared she
looked almost pleased. "My niece has a lover!" But in another breath, "Oh,
what will her father say?"
[Illustration: "_My Julie saw them kissing less than an hour ago on the
marine parade_"]
"Jerusalem, restrain yourself," called her sister. That lady was sweeping
proudly from the room.
"Impudence!" she said, thrusting her sister out of the hall. When the cold
air of the street touched their hot faces, she spoke again. Her anger was
fast engulfed in a wave of bitter humiliation.
"We are disgraced, Jerusalem! The Knickerbocker name dishonored! The man
is a person of common family. I fear the Gobies and the Gabies are turning
in their graves. What would Aunt Jane have thought?"
"They kissed in the shrubbery--My niece in love?" Miss Julie was
whispering to herself unheeded. The faded leaves of the one flower in her
heart were stirring gently.
Now and then the faint note of a bell drifted on the air. The old sexton
of St. Paul's was preparing his metal children for their long anthem.
"Oh, joyous night, make haste--make haste," they tinkled to the taper-like
star above them.
"Disgraced!" muttered Miss Georgina.
[Illustration]
Chapter _Three_
[Illustration]
The glimmering lantern which the serving-maid Betty carried seemed like a
huge firefly come back to a land of blooms. Sometimes in dim alleyways it
caught in her flapping garments, and her two mistresses were forced to
cling together until they reached the next patch of moonlight. When their
half-tasted dinner was finished, and the silver counted and locked in the
cherry cabinet, Georgina commanded her sister to step over with her to the
mansion. Jonathan never permitted the family vehicle to be brought out
when the world was not looking, and his womenkind were used to tramping
through the darkness. Julie was reluctant to go at first, but the other's
anger flamed so high she could not help catching some of the sparks.
"Would you allow your niece to ruin her life by marrying a man who gains
his livelihood playing a musical instrument? Methinks you have a fondness
for hornpipers and such. There was Signor Succhi, our dancing-master, I
recollect"--nodding her head--"he used to call you 'little
peach-blossom'--his little peach-blossom!"
Julie smiled at Georgina's latest feat of memory; then she turned about
and gazed into the dying embers. For a moment she stood beside a
merry-eyed youth who dared her to prick the signor's silken calves. Did he
really perfect their symmetry with cotton as was said, she wondered? Alas,
that she was born timorous.
"Are your wits leaving you, Jerusalem?" continued the other--"you who wear
Aunt Jane's hair locket and have been for years an ornament in the highest
sphere of this city--now being ruined by Trentonians and other foreigners.
Where is your boasted allegiance to those of your family who have gone
before you?"
Threatened and cajoled by turns Miss Julie was led into the night. "The
Snograss woman may have lied," came the consoling thought. She cheered
herself with it hurrying through the snow.
Up Church Street they stumbled past huts and houses. Warm windows beckoned
to them. Georgina had forgotten the mittens for her nieces. The scene at
the Snograss House was uppermost in her mind. "What a sly minx Patricia is
to have kept the disgraceful affair from us so long," she was thinking.
"Could that skulking Juma have helped her? He knew enough to bamboozle
one. There was a report that old Roberta Johnstone even read him novels."
The boisterous wind, tossing the budding lilac branches about the statues
in the Knickerbocker garden which the girl in the window-seat was
watching, came shrieking out of unexpected openings and buffeted her aunts
in the face.
Now they were entering the narrow passage that opened into Vesey Street.
The tavern lights twinkled beyond, but drear and lonely the artery for
cut-throats appeared.
Georgina, brave and intrepid, was still nursing her wrath when a mist came
before her eyes. "I see! I feel queer!" she cried. Her companions were
shaking like autumn leaves. "Oh, don't pause, sister!" squeaked terrified
Julie, "here's where that picaroon in the black mask was wont to hide. A
Dick Turpin may be concealed yonder!"
"Hist!" called Georgina, as if speaking to some vermin of the night. A
shadowy mocking face was rising up before her. She began to tremble--where
had she seen it? Yes, 'twas the face of the ancestress whose portrait
Jonathan took down from the line of Knickerbockers in the parlor. "My
nerves," she gasped. "Come, let us haste, you trembling fools!" Once in
the driveway to the house she denied her fright. Betty was scolded for
stumbling over a brier-bush. When the long flight of steps was reached,
she rushed at them boldly. "Knock, Jerusalem," she commanded.
The little woman tried to sound the clapper, then fell back exhausted.
Georgina, enraged, seized it and thumped violently upon the plate. The
sounds reverberated through the night, clashing against the bell-notes and
the sound of the swaying elms.