CHAPTER VII
A BRIGHT PARTICULAR STAR
Wire from The Author, New York City, to Miss S. Smith, Hyndsville,South Carolina:
Photos received. Furniture noted. It's pretty, but is it art?
Wire from Miss Smith to The Author:
What is Art?
Wire from The Author:
Sometimes an invention of the devil. Is your stuff Madison Avenue or Grand Rapids? Reply.
Wire from Miss Smith:
Madison Avenue and Grand Rapids hadn't been invented when Hynds House was furnished.
Wire from The Author:
Maybe not, but mightn't be same furniture. Have been stung before. Can't be genuine. Too much of it.
Wire from Miss Smith:
Please yourself.
Wire from The Author:
Coming to investigate. Won't sleep in anything but pineapple bed; won't sit in anything but carved chair; can't pray without prie-dieu. If spurious will publicly gibbet you and probably burn your house down. Hold southwest room my arrival.
Alicia laughed, and cuddled those yellow slips.
"I knew this was an enchanted place!" she cried. "Oh, Sophy, it'sworking! He's coming, he's coming, and he's the biggest ever, andhe's going to _stay_! Sophy, think of the advertising!"
"He will probably be detestable. Geniuses are generally horrid tolive with. And there will be something the matter with hisdigestion; there is always something the matter with theirdigestion."
"From swallowing all the flattery shoveled upon them, poor dears,"Alicia explained charitably. "Don't worry about his digestion: leaveit to Mary Magdalen's waffles. Hooray! Hynds House stock isbooming!"
It was.
From the head of our firm:
_My dear Miss Smith_:
I have your interesting letter and the delightful photographs, which have so completely charmed Mrs. Westmacote and me that we have decided it wouldn't be good business to miss Hynds House on our trip South this year.
Mrs. Westmacote asks if you could also accommodate a cousin of hers, Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons, a lady deeply interested in the colonial homes of America.
You must allow me heartily to congratulate you upon your great good fortune in falling heir to such a wonderful old place; and to wish you many happy and prosperous years in it.
I shall telegraph you when to expect us. With all good wishes,
Yours faithfully, GEORGE PEABODY WESTMACOTE.
Letter from Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons, of Boston:
_Dear Miss Smith_:
My cousin Mrs. Westmacote, whom I have been visiting, showed me your letter and the enchanting photographs of your house which you were kind enough to send Mr. Westmacote. Hynds House is just the one place I have long been looking for!--an unspoiled colonial house, with historic associations!
It is perfect! I must see with my own eyes those Chelsea figures on your drawing-room mantel, the luster and Washington jugs in the dining-room, and the cabinets in the hall.
Sincerely yours, EMMELINE PHELPS-PARSONS.
P.S. I hope it is really true that there is an Influence in Hynds House? I do so greatly long to come in contact with the Occult and the Unknown!
"Somewhere on the firing-line of fifty," mused Alicia. "A lady witha soul. Don't you hear dear old Boston calling you, Sophy? Here'sone to put Miss Martha Hopkins's light under a bushel basket!"
We had several other inquirers; and chose from them Mr. ChetwyndHarrison-Gore and his daughter, English folk "doing" America anddelighted to include a Carolina colonial house in their trip; asuffrage leader, whose throat needed a rest; and Morenas, theillustrator. It seemed that Hynds House offered to each onesomething that had been craved for.
The Author pounced upon us two or three days before we expected him,to take stock after his own fashion. I have heard The Authorcommended for "the humor of his rare smile and the keen, kindintellectuality of his remarkable eyes." Well, the smile was rareenough; and of course there isn't any doubt about the man'sintellectuality. For the rest, he proved to be a tall, lanky,stooping person, with a thin tanned face, outstanding ears, a highnose, and long, blue-gray eyes half-hidden under drooping lids andbehind glasses. His hair was just hair. And he had the sort ofmustache that bristled like a cat's when he twisted his lip.
So far as monetary success, and efficacious press-agents, and theadulation, admiration, emulation, and envy of his contemporarieswent, he had nothing to complain of. He was lionized, quoted,courted, flattered, reviewed, viewed through rose-coloredspectacles; and disillusioned, discontented, cynical, selfish, and,of course, most horribly bored. He was gun-shy of women; hesuspected them of wanting to marry him. He was wary of men; hesuspected them of wanting to exploit him. He loathed children, whowere generally obstreperous and unnecessary editions of parents hedidn't admire. He didn't even trust the beautiful works of men'shands. They, even they, were too often faked! If you had dug up theindubitable mummy of the first Pharaoh from under the oldest of thepyramids, The Author would have turned him over on his back andhunted for the trade-mark of The Modern Mummy-makers: London, Paris,and New York; Catalogue on Request.
He stalked through Hynds House with slitted eyes and bristlingmustache--business of silent sleuth on the trail of thefurniture-fakir! He'd pause at each door and with an eagle glancetake a comprehensive survey; then, defensively, offensively, heexamined things in detail. From our rambling attics to our vast andcavernous cellars did he go; and not a word crossed his lips untilhe had completed this conandoyley examination. Then:
"Telegraph form if you have one, please," he requested briefly. "Iwish to wire for my car. Put Johnson in the room next mine.Johnson's my secretary." He looked at Alicia, reflectively. "Amiableass, Johnson," he volunteered. Then he went over to the tiledfireplace--we were in the library--and bent worshipfully before it.
"The finest bit of tile-work on this continent," he said, in ahushed voice. "Absolutely perfect. And it belongs to a woman namedSmith!"
"We know just how you feel about it," Alicia told himsympathetically, while The Author turned red to his ears. "I haveoften felt like that myself, when something I particularly wantedwas bought by somebody I was sure couldn't properly appreciate it. Idare say I was mistaken," admitted Alicia, "just as mistaken as youare now in thinking that Sophy and I aren't worthy of those tiles.We are--all the more so because we never before had anything likethem."
The spoiled darling of success looked at us intently; and a mostcurious change came over his clever, bad-tempered face. His eyes areas bright as ice, and have somewhat the same cold light in them. Nowa thaw set in and melted them, and a mottled red spread over hissallow cheeks.
"Miss Gaines," he said, abruptly, "your doll-baby face does yourintelligence an injustice--Miss Smith, I apologize." And before theastonished and indignant Alicia could summon a withering retort, headded heartily: "This whole place is quite the real thing, youknow--almost too good to be true and too true to be good. Would youmind telling me how you happened to think of letting me in on it,eh?"
"Because we knew it _was_ the real thing," Alicia replied,truthfully.
"Do you know,"--The Author was plainly pleased--"that that is one ofthe very nicest things that's ever been said to me? Because I really_do_ know above a bit about genuine stuff."
"It must be a great relief to you to hear something pleasant aboutyourself that is also something true," I said with sympathy. TheAuthor grinned like a hyena, and Alicia giggled. "Because you mustbe bored to extinction, having to listen to all sorts of peopleascribe to you all sorts of virtues that no one man could possiblypossess and remain human." I was remembering some of the fulsomeflubdub I'd read about him.
"Hark to her!" grinned The Author. "What! you don't believe all thenice
things you've read about me?"
"I do not."
"You don't in the least look or write like a dehumanized saint, youknow," supplemented Alicia, laughing.
"What _do_ I look like, then?" He sat on the edge of a table andcuddled a bony knee. Behind his glasses his eyes began to twinkle.
"You look more like yourself than you do like your photographs,"decided Alicia.
The Author threw up his hands.
"And now, tell me this, please: How, when, where, and from whom, didyou acquire the supreme art of aiding and abetting an old house togrow young again without losing its character?"
"We were born," Alicia explained, "with the inherent desire to dojust what we have been able to do here. This house gave us our bigchance. But it wouldn't have been so--so in keeping with itself,"she was feeling for the right words, "if it hadn't been for Mr.Nicholas Jelnik."
The Author pricked up his intellectual ears. His eyes narrowed.
"Jelnik? I knew a Jelnik, an Austrian alienist; met him at dinner atthe American Ambassador's in Vienna; quiet, unassuming, pleasantman, and one of the greatest doctors in Europe."
"Mr. Jelnik is Doctor Jelnik's son."
"What!" shrieked The Author. And with unfeigned amazement: "In thename of high heaven, what is Jelnik's son doing _here_?"
"Mr. Jelnik's mother was a Miss Hynds. She met and married yourdoctor abroad."
That sixth sense possessed by him to an unusual degree, warned himthat he was on the trail of Copy.
"May I ask questions?" he demanded.
"Of course."
"You inherited this property from an old aunt, I believe?"
"She wasn't my aunt, really. She married my mother's uncle, JohnnyScarlett."
"I see. And Jelnik's mother was a Miss Hynds. How long has he beenhere?"
"For some time before we came."
"Near neighbor of yours?"
"Yes," Alicia put in; "and Doctor Richard Geddes is our neighbor onthe other side. His grandmother was a Miss Hynds."
"Pardon a writer-man's curiosity," begged The Author, smiling. "Butthis house is unusual, very unusual. While I am here I shall look upits history. It should make good copy."
Having a pretty shrewd idea of The Author's powers of finding outwhat he wanted to find out, we thought it better that he should hearthat history, as we knew it. If the mystery had ever been solved,the tragedy of Hynds House would have had but passing interest forThe Author. But the undiscovered piqued and puzzled him and arousedhis combative egotism.
From the pictured face of Freeman--dark, stern, uncommunicative--hetrotted back to the drawing room to look again at the boyish face oflittle Richard leaning against his pretty mother's knees; at thehaughty, handsome face of James Hampden; and at beautiful darkJessamine, who had a long black curl straying across the shoulder ofa blue frock, and a curled red lip, and a breast of snow.
"Freeman was not a crook; his face is hard, stern, bigoted,secretive, but honest. Yet if he didn't do it himself what was hetrying to tell when death cut off his wind? If he did it, where didhe hide the plunder? Here in this house? His family must have knownevery nook and cranny as well as he did himself, and he could besure they'd pull it to pieces in the search that would ensue.
"If Richard were the thief, to whom did he give the loot? If thegems had been put upon the market, some trace of them must have beendiscovered. Remains: Who got them? Where did they go?"
"That's what the unhappy people in this house asked a century ago,and there was no answer," I remarked, soberly.
"And that poor woman Jessamine went mad trying to solve it!" hesaid, looking at her with commiseration. And after a pause: "And sothe lady who left her husband's grandniece the house of herforebears was Freeman's daughter: and the Austrian doctor's son isRichard's great-great-grandson! I meet Jelnik _pere_ in Vienna, andcome to Hyndsville, South Carolina, to meet Jelnik _fils_. H'm!Decidedly, the situation has nice possibilities!"
Whereupon he took note-book and fountain-pen from his coat pocketand in the most composed manner began to jot down the outstandingfeatures of Hynds House history.
"It will give me something to puzzle over while I'm here," heremarked, complacently. It did!
The Author approved of Hynds House. It had all the charm of a newand quaint field of exploration and research, and there was nothingin it to offend his hypercritical judgment. I have a shrewdsuspicion that Mary Magdalen's cooking played no mean part in hissatisfaction. His prowess as a trencherman aroused the admirationand respect of Fernolia, who waited on table. Fernolia had learnedto admire herself in her smart apron and cap, and to servecreditably enough. Only twice did she fall from grace; once was themorning The Author broke his own record for waffles. Fernolia,excited and astonished, placed the last platter before him, raisedthe cover with a flourish, and remarked with deep meaning:
"_Dem's all!_"
The second time was when we had what Mary Magdalen calls "mulattorice," which is a dish built upon a firm foundation of small stripsof bacon, onion, stewed tomatoes, and rice, and a later and lastaddition of deliciously browned country sausages. Fernolia, beamingupon The Author hospitably, broke her parole:
"You ain't called to skimp yo'self none on dat rice," she told himconfidentially. "De cook done put yo' name in de pot _big_. She sayshe glad we-all got man in de house to 'preciate vittles. Yes-_suh_,Ma'y Magdalen aim to make you bust yo' buttonholes whilst you hab dechanst."
I am told that The Author always makes a great hit when he tellsthat on himself, and is considered tremendously clever because hecan imitate Fernolia's soft South Carolina drawl.
Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, whom he managed to meet within the week,aroused The Author's professional interest. For once his tried andtested powers of turning other people's minds inside out failedutterly. His innocent-sounding queries, his adroit leads, weresmilingly turned aside. The defense, so far as Mr. Jelnik wasconcerned, was ridiculously simple: he didn't want to talk abouthimself and he didn't do it.
He was perfectly willing to talk, when the humor seized him, and hedid talk, brilliantly, wittily, freely, and impersonally. Theegoistic "I" was conspicuous by its absence. And while he talked youcould see the agile antennae of The Author's winged mind feelingafter the soul-string that might lead him through the mazes of thisunusual character. That he could be deftly diverted filled TheAuthor with chagrin mingled with wonder.
He manoeuvered for an invitation to the gray cottage and securedit with suspicious ease; called, and had a glass of most excellentwine in his host's simplest of bachelor living-rooms; made thecloser acquaintance of Boris--he didn't care for dogs--and ofself-contained, dark-faced Daoud, Mr. Jelnik's East Indianman-servant; and came home dissatisfied and determined. He scented"copy," and a born writer after copy is, next to an Apache after ascalp or a Dyak after his enemy's head, the most ruthless of createdbeings. He will pick his mother's naked soul to pieces, bore intohis wife's living brain, dissect his daughter's quivering heart,tear across his sister's mind, rip up his father's life and his bestfriend's character, lay bare the tomb itself, and make for himselfan ink of tears and blood that he may write what he finds. Of suchis the kingdom of Genius.
And in the meantime the wondrous news that The Author himself wasstaying at Hynds House, percolated through Hyndsville and soaked tothe bone. The Author was too big a figure to be ignored, even bySouth Carolina people. Something had to be done. But how shall onebecome acquainted with a notoriously unfriendly and gun-shycelebrity, a personage of such note that every utterance meansnewspaper space; and at the same time manage utterly to ignore andcast into outer darkness the people with whom the great one isstaying?
The town felt itself put upon its mettle. The first move was made byMiss Martha Hopkins. It was understood that if anybody could clearthe way, carry a difficult position with skill and aplomb, thatsomebody was Miss Martha Hopkins.
She didn't bear down directly upon The Author: that would have beencrude. She opened her campaign by a flank movement upon Alicia
andme, in her capacity of secretary and treasurer of the missionarysociety.
Miss Hopkins sailed into Hynds House on a perfect afternoon, todiscuss with us a proposed rummage-sale which was to benefit theheathen. She wasn't really worrying about the heathen: he had allthe rest of his benighted life to get himself saved in, hadn't he?All the while she sat there and talked about him, she was reallyloaded to the muzzle with pertinent remarks to affluent authors.
She had come with the hope of chancing upon the great man himself;and, failing that, she meant to pump Alicia and me of enoughmaterial to, say, enable her to use a part of her stock of petadjectives in the paper she would prepare for the next meeting ofthe literary society. She had a pretty stock of adjectives--plump,purple words like _lyric_, and _liquid_, and _plastic_, and_subtile_, and _poignancy_, with every now and then a _chiaoscuro_thrown in for good measure; and a whole melting-pot full of "rareemotional experiences," "art that was almost intuitive in itspassion, so subtly did it"--oh, do all sorts of things!--and"handling the plastic outlines of the theme with rare emotionalskill and mastery of technique," "purest lyricism lifted to heightsof poignancy,"--all that sort of stuff, you know. Next time awriter, or, better still, a fiddler or a pianist comes to your town,look in your home paper the morning after, and you'll see it.
As it happened, The Author was not at home. His secretary hadarrived a day or two before, and after unloading a systemful of copyupon that faithful beast of burden, The Author had given himself ahalf-holiday with old Riedriech, who knew quite enough about oldfurniture to win his interest and affection.
Miss Hopkins, then, had Alicia and me to herself. Sedately wediscussed rummage-sales, and the effect of cotton shirts upon theadolescent cannibal; and all the while Miss Hopkins was stealthilywatching doors and windows and hoping that high heaven would sendThe Author to her hands. We hadn't so much as mentioned his name. Itpleased us to sit there and watch her trying to make us do so.
The iron knocker on the front door sounded. And ushered in byQueenasheeba, there stood Nicholas Jelnik with great gray Borisbeside him, and beauty and glamour and romance upon him like alight. Miss Hopkins had seen him on the streets, but hadn't met himpersonally. I don't think she relished the fact that she had to cometo Hynds House to do so. Nor could she save herself from the crudityof staring with all her eyes at this handsome offshoot of theHyndses, with what in a less polite person might well have beencalled avid curiosity.
"Miss Leetchy," (he had gaily borrowed Fernolia's pronunciation ofAlicia's name), "I have brought you the butter-scotch your soulhankers after. I fear you can never hope to grow up, Miss Leetchy,while you cherish a jejune passion for butter-scotch."
"Oh, I don't know. It might have been fudge!" Alicia replied airily."But thank you, Mr. Jelnik: it was very nice of you to remember."
"Yes. I have such an excellent memory," said he, blandly. "MissSmith, this preserved ginger is laid at your shrine. If you offer mea piece or two, I shall accept with thanks: I like preserved ginger,myself.--Boris, you'll prefer butter-scotch. You may ask Miss Gainesto give you a piece."
Miss Hopkins, it appeared, despised butter-scotch, and abhorredpreserved ginger.
"I saw The Author hiking across lots a while since. Nice,open-hearted, neighborly man, The Author.--Oh, by the way, MissSmith: is it, or is it not written in the Book of Darwin that thegadfly is one of the distinct evolutionary links in the descent ofman?"
"Good heavens, certainly not!" cried Miss Hopkins. And she lookedstrangely upon Mr. Nicholas Jelnik.
"No? Thank you. I was in doubt," murmured Mr. Jelnik. The goldenflecks danced in and out of his eyes. "But we were speaking of TheAuthor: may I ask how The Author appeals to you as a human being,Miss Hopkins?"
"I do not know him as a human being," Miss Hopkins admitted.
Mr. Jelnik looked surprised. His eyebrows went up.
"Oh, come, now!" he demurred. "He isn't so bad as all _that_!"
"Oh, dear me, no!" Alicia protested, in a shocked voice. "He mayhave abrupt manners and say unexpected things, but he is perfectlyrespectable, Miss Hopkins! There's never been a _breath_ against hischaracter. I thought you knew," purred the hussy, demurely. "Why,he's dined at the White House, and lunched and motored and yachtedwith royalties, and lectured before the D.A.R.'s themselves! And hebelongs to at least a dozen societies. There are,"--Alicia wasenjoying her naughty self immensely--"good authors and bad authors.Sometimes the bad authors are good, and sometimes the good authorsare bad. But our author is more than either: he's It!"
"You entirely and strangely misunderstand me." Miss Hopkins spokewith the deadly gentleness of suppressed fury. "I had no slightestintention of reflecting upon the character of so eminent a writer,with whose career, Miss Gaines, I am thoroughly familiar. I wasmerely trying to explain that I had never met him."
"Oh, I see. Of course! I should have remembered that!"
Miss Hopkins's entire contempt for Alicia's mentality overcame anysuspicion she might have entertained. Also, she had come determinedto discover what she could about The Author, and she was not onelightly to be put aside. She said, smiling tolerantly:
"Of course you should! But mayn't I congratulate _you_ upon knowinghim? Having him here in Hynds House almost justifies turning the oldplace into a boarding-house, doesn't it?"
"The Author," Mr. Jelnik remarked gently, "has a very sensitivesoul. I shudder to think what the effect upon him would be were heto hear himself referred to as a boarder. My dear Miss Hopkins,never, never let him hear you designate him 'boarder'!"
"Who's talking about boarders?" asked a hearty voice, and DoctorRichard Geddes came in like a gale of mountain air.
"Miss Hopkins. She thinks The Author's presence almost justifies theturning of Hynds House into a boarding-house," answered Mr. Jelnik.He added, thoughtfully, "Curious notion; isn't it?"
"Martha has plenty more," said the doctor, bluntly. "Boarding-house?Well, supposing? What was it before? A hyena-cage, Martha, ahyena-cage, into which you'd be the last to venture your nose, mydear woman! I say, put on your bonnets, all of you, and let's have aspin in the fresh air. The roads are gorgeous. You can come too,Jelnik: there's room for five."
Mr. Jelnik was desolated: he had a pressing engagement. Miss Hopkinsrose precipitately. She also had an engagement; besides, she likedto walk. People needed to walk more than they did. The reason whyone saw so many bad figures nowadays, was that people lolled aroundin automobiles instead of walking.
"Well, walking is certainly good for you, Martha. It helps you toreduce," the doctor agreed. Miss Hopkins said dryly that the littlewalking she intended to do just then wouldn't affect her weight any.And that Doctor Geddes should himself take to walking: men alwaysgot fat as they neared fifty.
"Fat! Fifty!" roared the doctor, with enraged astonishment. "Why,I'm not by some years as old as you are, Martha! You were severalclasses ahead of me in school, don't you remember? I am exactlythirty-nine years old, and as you know everything else, you ought toknow that!"
Miss Hopkins studied him with a balefully level eye.
"You really can't blame anybody for forgetting it, Richard," shesaid, ambiguously.
"You are to recollect, Geddes, that a woman is always as young asshe looks," (Mr. Jelnik bowed, smilingly, to Miss Hopkins), "and aman is older than he feels," he added, for the doctor's benefit.
"All right. Let's say I feel as good as Martha looks," the doctor'smomentary ill humor vanished. Miss Hopkins smiled. She had stuck herclaws into him and drawn blood; but her fur was still ruffled.
Mr. Jelnik made his adieus, Boris offering each of us a polite paw.
"And now," the doctor ordered briskly, "to your spinning, jades, toyour spinning! Into my car, the three of you! No, Martha, I will_not_ take a refusal; you shall not walk: you've got to come along,if I have to tuck you under my arm. I don't care if you neverreduce. What do you want to reduce for, anyhow? You're all rightjust as you are! There! are you satisfied?"
We stood by passively while the
masterful doctor heckled and hustledthe unhappy Center of Culture into his car. With heaven knows whatfeelings, she found herself seated beside me, Sophy Smith, whileAlicia, beside the doctor, tossed gay remarks over her shoulder.Miss Hopkins realized that all Hyndsville would witness what sheherself knew to be high-handed capture by force, but which musthideously resemble capitulation; and she also realized thatexplanations never explain.
I respected her misery enough to keep silent, and she made noattempt to converse. Her hat slid forward at a rakish angle over oneear, and her hair blew about her face in stringy wisps, as thedoctor broke the speed laws on the long, level stretches of quietroads. When we came to a rough spot she bounced up and down (onemight hear her breath exhaled in a--well, yes, in a grunt) but shemade no complaint, uttered no protest. She was a shackled andvoiceless victim, until we finally drew up at her own gate, after anhour's jaunt, and allowed her to escape.
"Why, Martha, our little spin has given you a fine color!" remarkedthe doctor, genuinely pleased. Two conspicuously red spots shone inMiss Hopkins's cheeks, and her eyes were extremely bright. "We'llhave to take you out with us again," he added, genially.
"Shall you, Richard?" muttered Miss Hopkins, and scuttled up herfront path,
Like one who in a lonesome wood Doth walk in fear and dread, Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread!
By and large, I should say that the honors were with Alicia.
The Author's secretary was pacing up and down the garden when wereached home, with Potty Black careering after him and every now andthen dashing into the shrubbery to put to flight Beautiful Dog, whowas also enamored of the young man with the nice smile and the goodbrown eyes. He had a great affection for animals, as they seemed tounderstand.
Beautiful Dog laid aside, for his sake, his fear of white people,and slunk after him fawningly, wagging what did duty as a tail, andshowing every tooth in an ear-to-ear grin. At sight of us, BeautifulDog gave a dismal yelp and disappeared.
"Let's sit in the library," coaxed the secretary. "I want youplease to allow me to hold in my hands your copy of 'Purchas hisPilgrimes.' The Author dreams about that book out loud. Oh, yes,another thing I want to ask you: what sort of perfume do you use,and where do you get it?"
My scalp prickled.
"I noticed it in the upper hall last night," went on the secretary,innocently. "It was pervasive, but at the same time so delicate, soelusive, that I couldn't determine what it was. I am very sensitiveto perfumes."
"So are we," Alicia told him. "And if what you think you smelled iswhat we think we smell, it isn't a--a regular perfume. It's a--a--asomething that belongs to Hynds House."
The library was flooded with the ruddy light of sunset. Every bit ofcolor in the big room stood out against a golden background, and agreat golden spear fell across the dark, brooding face of FreemanHynds above the old tiled fireplace. In that rosy glow he seemed tolook down at us with living eyes.
"Is that so?" The secretary stopped; and his head went up and hisnose wrinkled. For the "something that belonged to Hynds House"walked upon the air with invisible feet.