"Oh, she stayed at Rosemont to look after the house."
"The General tells me his daughter is to be married to Mr. Ravenel in March."
John gave an inward start, but was silent for a moment. Then he said, absently,
"So that"s out, is it?" But a few steps farther on he touched Fair"s arm.
"Let"s go--slower." His smile was ashen. "I--h--I don"t know why in the devil I have these sickish feelings come on me at f-funerals." They stopped. "Humph! Wha"d" you reckon can be the cause of it--indigestion?"
Mr. Fair thought it very likely, and March said it was pa.s.sing off already.
"Humph! it"s ridiculous. Come on, I"m all right now."
The man behind them pa.s.sed, looked back, stopped and returned.
"Gen"le_men_, sirs, to you. Mr. Mahch, escuse me by pyo accident earwhilin" yo" colloquial terms. I know e"zacly what cause yo" sick transit. Ya.s.s, seh. Tha.s.s the imagination. I"ve had it, myseff."
March stopped haughtily, Fair moved out of hearing, and Cornelius spoke low, with a sweet smile. "Ya.s.s, seh. You see the imagination o" yo" head is evil. You imaginin" somepm what ain"t happm yit an" jiss like as not won"t happm at all. But tha.s.s not why I seeks to interrup" you at this junction.
"Mr. Mahch, I"m impudize to espress to you in behalfs o" a vas" colo"ed const.i.tuency--but speakin" th"oo a small ban" o" they magnates with me as they sawt o" janizary chairman--that Gen"l Halliday seem to be ti-ud o" us an" done paa.s.s his bes" dotage, an" likewise the groun"s an"
debas.e.m.e.nts on an" faw which we be proud to help you depopulate yo"
lan"s, ya.s.s, seh, with all conceivable ligislation thereunto."
"What business is it of yours or your Blackland darkies what I do with my woods?"
"Why, tha.s.s jess it! Wha.s.s n.o.body"s business is ev"ybody"s business, you know."
March smiled and moved toward Fair. "I"ve no time to talk with you now, Leggett."
"Oh! no, seh, I knowed you wouldn"t have. But bein" the talk" o" the town that you an" this young gen"leman"--dipping low to Fair--"is projeckin" said depopulation I has cawdially engross ow meaju" in writin" faw yo" conjint an" confidential consideration. Ya.s.s, seh, aw in default whereof then to compote it in like manneh to the nex" mos"
interested."
"And, pray, who is the next most interested in my private property?"
"Why, Majo" Gyarnit, I reck"n--an" Mr. Ravenel, seein" he"s the Djuke o"
Suez--p-he!"
March let his hand accept a soiled doc.u.ment, saying, "Well, he"s not Duke of me. Just leave me this. I"ll either mail it to you or see you again. Good-by."
The t.i.tle of the doc.u.ment as indorsed on it was: "The Suez and Three Counties Transportation, Immigration, Education, Navigation, and Construction Co."
x.x.xIV.
DAPHNE AND DINWIDDIE: A PASTEL IN PROSE
"Professor" Pettigrew had always been coldly indifferent to many things commonly counted chief matters of life. One of these was religion; another was woman. His punctuality at church at the head of Rosemont"s cadets was so obviously perfunctory as to be without a stain of hypocrisy. Yet he never vaunted his scepticism, but only let it exhale from him in interrogative insinuations that the premises and maxims of religion were refuted by the outcome of the war. To woman his heart was as hard, cold, and polished as celluloid. Only when pressed did he admit that he regarded her as an insipid necessity. One has to have a female parent in order to get into this world--no gentleman admitted without a lady; and when one goes out of it again, it is good to leave children so as to keep the great unwashed from getting one"s property.
Property!--humph! he or his father, at least--he became silent.
He often saw Mrs. March in church, yet kept his heart. But one night a stereoptican lecture was given in Suez. In Mrs. March"s opinion such things, unlike the deadly theatre, were harmful only when carried to excess. To keep John from carrying this one to excess--that is, from going to it with anybody else--she went with him, and they "happened"--I suppose an agnostic would say--to sit next to Dinwiddie Pettigrew. John being in a silent mood Daphne and Dinwiddie found time for much conversation. The hour fixed for the lecture was half-past seven.
Promptly about half-past eight the audience began to arrive. At a quarter of nine it was growing numerous.
"Oh! no," said General Halliday to the lecturer, "don"t you fret about them going home; they"ll stay like the yellow fever"--and punctually somewhere about nine "The Great Love Stories of History" began to be told, and luminously pictured on a white cotton full moon.
With lights turned low and everybody enjoined to converse only in softest whispers, the conditions for spontaneous combustion were complete in many bosoms, and at the close of the entertainment Daphne Dalrymple, her own asbestos affections warmed, but not ignited, walked away with the celluloid heart of Dinwiddie Pettigrew in a light blaze.
x.x.xV.
A WIDOW"S ULTIMATUM
At the time of which we would here speak the lover had made one call at Widewood, but had not met sufficient encouragement to embolden him to ask that the lovee would give, oh, give him back a heart so damaged by fire, as to be worthless except to the thief; though his manner was rank with hints that she might keep it now and take the rest.
Mrs. March was altogether too sacred in her own eyes to be in haste at such a juncture. Her truly shrinking spirit was a stranger to all manner of auctioning, but she believed in fair play, and could not in conscience quite forget her exhilarating skirmish with Mr. Ravenel on the day of Susie"s wedding.
It had not brought on a war of roses. Something kept him away from Widewood. Was it, she wondered, the n.o.ble fear that he might subject her to those social rumors that are so often all the more annoying because only premature? Ah, if he could but know how lightly she regarded such prattle! But she would not tell him, even in impersonal verse. On the contrary, she contributed to the _Presbyterian Monthly_--a non-sectarian publication--those lines--which caught one glance of so many of her friends and escaped any subsequent notice--ent.i.tled,
"LOVE-PROOF.
"She pities much, yet laughs at Love For love of laughter! Fadeless youth"--
But the simple fact is that Mr. Ravenel"s flatteries, when rare chance brought him and the poetess together, were without purpose, and justified in his liberal mind by the right of every Southern gentleman to treat as irresistible any and every woman in her turn.--"Got to do something pleasant, Miss Fannie; can"t buy her poetry."
On the evening when March received from Leggett the draft of An Act Ent.i.tled, etc., the mother and son sat silent through their supper, though John was longing to speak. At last, as they were going into the front room he managed to say:
"Well, mother, Fair"s gone--goes to-night."
He dropped an arm about her shoulders.
"Oh!--when I can scarcely bear my own weight!" She sank into her favorite chair and turned away from his regrets, sighing,
"Oh, no, youth and health never do think."
The son sat down and leaned thoughtfully on the centre-table.
"That"s so! They don"t think; they"re too busy feeling."
"Ah, John, you don"t feel! I wish you could."
"Humph! I wish I couldn"t." He smoothed off a frown and let his palm fall so flat upon the bare mahogany that a woman of less fort.i.tude than Mrs. March would certainly have squeaked. "Mother, dear, I believe I"ll try to see how little I can feel and how much I can think."
"Providence permitting, my reckless boy."