CHAPTER XIV
THE TALISMAN
Mrs. Cheshire Scarboro was far from the fool her cousin Sophronisbahad credited her with being. She had sufficient cleverness tounderstand that Hyndsville wasn't big enough to hold two factions.For a faction was forming with Hynds House as its storm-center, andit was one which threatened Mrs. Scarboro's hitherto unquestionedsovereignty. Jimmy Scarboro himself, a most personable youth, wasone of the ringleaders of revolt.
A weaker woman would have kept up the fight. Mrs. Scarborounderstood that to spend one's powers trying to hold an untenableposition is a proof not of valor but of stupidity. She quietlydeclared a truce, sending out, in the form of an invitation to oneof her sacred card-parties, tentative notice that she would considerjoining forces. We recognized the olive-branch, seriously extended.The next move was ours.
"There's a time to fight, and a time to leave off fighting," Aliciadecided. "Here's where we disarm. When these people come from underthe shade of the dear old family tree, they're quite human. We havegot to let them give themselves the opportunity to discover thatwe're human, too."
It wasn't necessary to explain things to The Author, because aportion of his brain is purely and cattily feminine. That's why heis a genius. No man is a genius whose brain isn't bisexual.
"I shall have to lay aside a cherished prejudice and lend this ladythe light of my countenance, although I loathe card-parties. I abhorcards, outside of draw-poker on shipboard, with a crook of sortssitting in to lend the game a fillip. Despite the fact that poorMrs. Scarboro couldn't lay hands on a decent crook to save her life,I think I shall go, and thereby acquire merit," he concluded, withthe air of a martyr.
I looked at him gratefully.
"I'll wager that little Sophy thinks she wants to go because shedesires to be friends and neighbors. 'Behold how good and howpleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!'--You're atransparent person, you Sophy!"
"But I do desire to be friends with them. I have to live here allthe rest of my life, haven't I?"
"Not necessarily," replied The Author, arching his eyebrows. "Forinstance, you can live in New York any time you want to, Sophy."
"I've never told you that you might call me Sophy," I parried,hastily.
"Oh, but I like to call you Sophy," he responded airily. "Andreally, you shouldn't mind. I've called people lots worse thingsthan Sophy, in my time! But then," he added, "I didn't happen tolike them. As for you, I find you a very likeable being, Sophy; uponmy word, extremely likeable!"
"Thank you," said I. I wasn't anxious to hear The Author tell me howlikable he found me; at least, not yet.
* * * * *
For pride's sake as well as for the sake of custom--and in SouthCarolina custom has all the power of a fetish--Mrs. Scarboro wouldhave died rather than vary by one jot or tittle her usualrefreshments, or wear a new frock, on that particular night. Yet theoccasion, despite its mild diversions, was distinctly epochal, inthat it marked the reunion of Hyndsville. Even Mr. Nicholas Jelnik,for the first time, put in his decorative appearance, to TheAuthor's fidgety surprise. He played a highly creditable game ofbridge. And after a while he sang "Believe Me if All Those EndearingYoung Charms," so exquisitely that a hushed and rapturous silencefell upon everybody, and the old ladies and gentlemen present heldtheir hands before misty eyes. They used to sing that song when theold men were boy soldiers marching off to the tune of "The BonnieBlue Flag," and the old ladies were ringleted girls in hoop-skirtsbidding them good-by.
"My dear boy," Mrs. Scarboro told him, with great feeling, "you havebeen forgetting that you're a cousin of mine. Your mother and I weregirls together. I want you to meet some other old friends of hersand your grandfather's," and she carried him off to a group of thosewonderful old ladies who grow to purest perfection in SouthCarolina--low-voiced lovely old ladies, dressed in black silk, withcameo brooches at their throats, and lace caps on their white hair.
A little group of old gentlemen immediately foregathered with them.They knew who was and wasn't kin to Sally Hynds's son, unto theseventh generation.
"They've begun on the begats," chuckled The Author, "First Book ofChronicles, Chapters One to Four."
"Jelnik's really kin to them, and he ought to pay for theprivilege," said Mr. Johnson.
The Author looked at the old ladies, on whose delicate witheredhands the wedding-rings hung loosely, and at the erect old gentlemenwith white goatees, and something whimsically tender came into hisclever face.
"It is worth the price," he said, very gently--for him.
"Now, that was your soul speaking!" said Miss Emmeline, warmly.Instantly The Author wrinkled his nose, bristled his mustache, andlooked like a hyena. Miss Martha Hopkins, worshipfully observant ofthe great man, caught his eye at that moment and thought he wasscowling at _her_. She looked so stricken that The Author presentlystrolled over and sat down beside her, to her fluttering delight.But discovering that she was wholly unacquainted with the originalverse of J. Gordon Coogler of Columbia, he first bitterly reproachedher for neglecting home-made talent, and then proceeded to make surethat she would remember the Bard of the Congaree so long as shelived.
"Not know Coogler!" cried The Author, shrilly; "ignorant of the bardraised, so to speak, around your own door-step? Horrible! Listen tothis!" said he, accusingly:
"Fair lady, on that snowy neck and half-clad bosom Which you so publicly reveal to man, There's not a single outward stain or speck. Would that you had given but half the care To the training of your intellect and heart, As you have given to that spotless neck!"
"Gracious Heavens!" gasped Miss Martha, who showed a modestsalt-cellar in the mildest of Vs.
"Is it possible you don't like him?" demanded The Author, amazedly."But, my dear woman! Coogler's--why, Coogler's ginger-pop to athirsty world!"
"I--I don't drink ginger-pop!" confessed the be-deviled Center ofCulture, foggily.
"Alas! for the South, her books have grown fewer, She never was much given to literature,"
quoted The Author, pensively.
She was speechless. The shameless Author, fixing upon her a lastlong, lingering look of sorrowful reproach, said with emotion:
"From early youth to the frost of age Man's days have been a mixture Of all that constitutes in life A dark and gloomy picture."
And he stalked off, leaving Miss Martha Hopkins in a state of mind.
"Friend Author," Alicia murmured, as he paused beside her, "I wishyou were my own dear little boy for just five merry minutes. I'dshow you," she declared, divided between Irish mirth and human pityfor Miss Martha, "I'd show you what a hair-brush could accomplish!"
"Too late!" regretted The Author, shaking his head. "But," hesuggested, brightening, "couldn't you wish to be my own dear littlegirl, instead?"
"This is so sudden!" murmured Alicia, coyly.
"Deluding devilette!" breathed The Author, "get thee behind me!"
That evening was the first time I had ever heard myself called"pretty." I was used to "businesslike" and "efficient" and"trustworthy"--all excellent terms, in their way, but not such happythings, any one of them, as "pretty."
"What are you thinking of, Sophy?" asked The Author. "Something overthe hills and far away? Because you look as Maude Adams used to lookwhen she first played 'Peter Pan.'"
I hoped it might be true, because--
I looked up then and met Mr. Nicholas Jelnik's dark eyes. They werefalcon eyes, but now there was something in them that made me, to myrage and confusion and chagrin, blush like a silly school-girl. WhenI again ventured to glance in his direction he was patiently andpolitely listening to a white-goateed, game-legged U.C.V. refightthe Civil War with so fiery a zest that he presently caught anotherveteran a resounding crack on the funny-bone with the gold-headedstick he was flourishing. Both gentlemen half rose, the one makingwry faces and rubbing his elbow
, the other bowing and apologetic.
"Pahdon me, Majah! My deah suh, pahdon me! But I was just tellin'this boy about the day in the Wilderness his grandfathah Hynds tooka Yankee bullet out of my leg with a paih of silvah scissahs andbandaged it with the tail of his shirt.
"'I've lost my niggah and my instruments, Sam,' says the doctah,'but that's no reason why the damyankees should have thesatisfaction of killin' a puffeckly good rebel, when there's notenough to go around now. Hold your leg still,' says he, rollin' uphis sleeves, 'an' with the help of God and my scissahs and myshirt-tail, I'll save it for you.' An' he did. I walked home fromAppomattox on that same leg, suh," said the veteran, and brought hisstick down on the toes of it with a force that made him utter amuffled bellow.
The other, still nursing an outraged elbow, smiled sweetly.
"Thanks, Sam," he drawled.
The Author chuckled appreciatively. "And to think we Americans rushabroad, when the republic of South Carolina is right next-door tous!" he murmured.
A gentle change was creeping over Hynds House, perhaps because ofthe delightful old ladies who had begun to come there. Oldgentlemen, too, formed the pleasant habit of dropping in, beguiledby the artful Author, waited upon son-like by his secretary,foregathered with as kith and kin by the Englishman, mint-juleped bythe three of them, enchanted by Alicia, and teaed and caked andbeloved by me. Even our cats adored them. The Black family couldspot a Confederate veteran as far off as the front gate, and wouldrush wildly to meet him, rubbing and roaching and purring in and outof his old legs. The Author insisted that their passion for U.C.V.'swas an inherited trait with our cats, and that we ourselves weremerely acquired characteristics.
In April, just before Miss Emmeline was to return to Boston, and theEnglishman and his daughter were to go back home, Alicia and Idecided to give a farewell dance. It was to be in costume.
Hyndsville was pleasantly excited. Never had there been suchrummaging of attics, such searchings of old trunks! We rummaged ourattic, too. I selected a yellow brocade trimmed with seed-pearls andcascades of lace, and Alicia chose a skimpy blue satin frock with around neck, an upstanding lace collar, and absurd little puffedsleeves. The Englishman was a Puritan, his daughter a Quakeress,Mr. Johnson a Huguenot Lover, Miss Emmeline a Colonial Lady, DoctorGeddes a bearded and belted Boyar, and The Author a painfullyrealistic Mephistopheles, his eyebrows corked upward and hismustache waxed into points. Mr. Jelnik sent regrets.
We had waxed the floors, and moved most of the furniture out of thebig front drawing-room; and this and the wide halls were used for aball-room, just as they had been used in the old days. The olderpeople played cards in the living-room and library. Every now andthen, between pauses, some masked and brilliant figure, like abright ghost from the past, would steal in to look over theirshoulders and whisper in their ears.
But those grandparents weren't content to sit down and play cardswhile others footed it. Not they! They danced the Lancers, and apolka or two, and waltzed and dipped and bowed to "Comin' throughthe Rye" while all the masqueraders lined up against the walls toadmire and applaud. And after the gayest sort of a buffet supper,the prizes that had been won by a belle and a trooper of '61--she inher grandmother's crinoline and he in his grandfather's grayjacket--were turned over by acclaim to a sprightly lady of seventyand her sprightlier partner of seventy-five, for coming disguised asold folks. The Author made the presentation speech. He began it bysaying that in South Carolina any man might well be excused forfalling in love with his grandmother.
Then the oldsters began to depart, with laughter and gay goodnights. It had been a delightful affair, one of those affairs thatgo with a swing and a rhythm all their own, and that one rememberswith a pleasant taste in the mouth.
Only the more indefatigable youngsters remained. They hadn't theslightest intention of foregoing half a night's dancing. They dancedin the hall to the music of the victrola, while the regularmusicians were being feted in the kitchen by Mary Magdalen,Queenasheeba, and Fernolia.
I missed my fan, and went into the drawing-room to look for it. Theroom was quite empty for the moment, and looked lonesome for all itsblazing lights. A cool, sweet night wind came in through the openwindows, refreshingly. And quite suddenly there was framed in one ofthem a figure more exotic, more bizarre, than any of our maskers hadbeen.
His dark robe was folded over his breast, and the silver shaft of aknife showed in his red girdle. His white wool stuck out from underhis red fez, and his ear-rings gleamed against his black cheeks, andthe bracelets on his wiry arms made a faint tinkling as he leanedforward. Emboldened by his twinkling eyes, his crooked, friendlysmile, eager to question him, I drew nearer. He stretched out hishand, and slipped into mine the half of a broken coin.