"And now, can"t you see, you great big stupid man, what an opportunity I have procured for all of you?" was the question that came in the soft voice of the beautiful Madam Patricia Whitworth. "All my life I have worked just to get a little ease and comfort, carrying the burden of Jeff in his incompetency strapped to my shoulders, and now you, who know how I"ve suffered and slaved, are going to take it all from me when it is just within my reach, and all from no earthly reason than a fancied scruple of honor which that old doddering woman-hater imposes on you. I cannot believe that you would so treat me." And there were sobs in her words that were wooing and compelling.
"I cannot do a thing that my Secretary of State and his lawyers declare unconst.i.tutional, Patricia," answered the voice of the Gouverneur Faulkner, in which were notes of pain. "You know how it pains me--my G.o.d, don"t tempt me to--" His voice shook as I saw the beautiful, bare white arms of Madam Whitworth raise themselves and go about his neck like great white grappling hooks from which he was unable to defend himself.
"Am I to have nothing from life--no ease or luxury and no--love or--"
Her voice ended in sobs as she pressed her head down into his shoulder as his arm folded about her to prevent that she should fall.
"Patricia--" the deep voice of the strong man was beginning to say as I was starting to spring forward in his defense and to do--I do not know what--when a firm grasp was laid upon my shoulder and I was turned away from the window into the light of the wide hall and found my Uncle, the General Robert, looking down into my flashing eyes with a great and very cool calmness.
"Young man," he said as he gave to me a very powerful shake, "all women are poison but some are vitriol and others just--Oh, well, paregoric. Go out there and take another dose of that soothing syrup labeled Susan Tomlinson, before I take you home, and you--keep--away--from--vitriol--or--I"ll--break--your--hot--young-- head. Vitriol, mind you!" With which command my Uncle, the General Robert, strode down the hall in the direction of the smoking room and left me blinking in the lights of the wide hall.
"Little Mas" Robert," came in a soft voice at my elbow as I stood tottering, "is you got a picture of yo" mudder you could show Cato some day when the General ain"t lookin". "Fore I dies I wants to set my eyes on de woman dat drawed little Mas" Henry away from us all. Dey _is_ such a thing in dis hard old world as love what you goes "crost many waters" to git, and he sh.o.r.ely got it." And I looked into the eyes of that old black man to find a truth that all the white humans about me, myself included, were acting in the terms of a lie.
Before I could answer the old man, in through the window came the Gouverneur Faulkner and the beautiful Madam Whitworth, and from his white face set in sternness and hers with its smile of the opening rose upon its red mouth I could not tell whether his honor had been slain or had been spared for another round.
"I"ll want you in my office at the Capitol at eleven to-morrow, Robert," he said to me, and there was a cold sternness in his glance as they pa.s.sed by me and the old Cato into the ballroom.
"At four," murmured the beautiful Madam Whitworth as she swept past me with a soft smile but in a tone of voice too low for any ears save my own and I think of the old Cato"s.
For a very short moment the old black man detained me as he searched one of the pockets of his long gray coat and then he handed to me a tiny flat parcel apparently folded in some kind of thin red cloth.
"Wear that in your left shoe, honey, day and night. You"ll need it if she"s got her eye on you," he said as he hurried away from me into the smoking room.
After disrobing that night, or rather in the early morning of the following day, I investigated the contents of that package. In it were a gray feather off of an apparently very nice chicken, a very old and rusty pin bent in two places and a flat little black seed I had never before beheld.
I gazed at the package for several long moments, then I put back upon my left foot the silk sock I had removed, placed the token of old Cato within it under my heel, dived into that large bed of my ancestors and in the darkness covered up my head tightly with the silk comforter.
CHAPTER XI
BUSINESS AND PIE
That Mr. Buzz Clendenning has in the composition of his nature a very large portion of nice foolishness which makes the heart of a lonely person most comfortable. He decided, upon that very first day of our introduction, that I was to be as a small brother to him who was much loved but also to be much joked about a quaintness which he chose to call "French greenness," and for which I was most grateful because with that excuse I could cover all mistakes that arose from my being a girl who was ignorant of the exact methods of being a man. And, also, that nice att.i.tude towards me was of quite a contagion, for all of the young ladies and gentlemen of the city of Hayesville became the same to me and all of the time my heart was warm and rejoiced at their affection shown in banter and jokes.
The morning after that very much enjoyed dinner dance, with which the Governor Faulkner complimented my Uncle, the General Robert, through me, I was standing in front of the mirror in my room without my coat or my collar, endeavoring to reduce the wave in my black hair to the sleekness of that of my beloved Buzz, which had a difficulty because of one lock over my temple whose waywardness I had for the last few years trained to fall upon my cheek for purposes of coquetry and which would persist in trying still to fulfill that unworthy function. And right in the center of my punishment of that lovelock with the stiff brush without a handle, which was twins with another that had come with the gentleman"s traveling bag which I had purchased in New York of the nice fat gentleman in the store of clothing for men, into my room came that Buzz without any ceremony save a rap upon my door which did not allow sufficient time for any response from me. I blushed with alarm at the thought that his entrance might have come at a much earlier stage of my toilet and I made a resolve to lock the door tight in future, at the same time turning to greet him with a fine and great composure.
"Say, Bobby, are you in for side-stepping the chiefs at eleven-thirty and going with me to take a nice bunch of calicoes out to the Country Club for a little midday sandwich dance? You can eat a thin ham and fox trot at the same time. Sue and Belle and Kate Keith all want to get on to that long slide you"ve brought over direct from Paree. It stuck in their systems last evening and they want more. Want to go?"
"With a greatness of pleasure, but His Excellency has commanded me at eleven o"clock and will I be through the tasks at the hour for escorting those calicoes out to your Club for a dance?" I asked with great delight as I continued my operations with the brush upon the rebellious lock.
"You"ll have time if you stop that primping and hustle into your collar and coat. Here, let me show you how to doctor that place where the cow licked you. Why don"t you take both brushes to it? Like this!"
With which Mr. Buzz took from my hand the one brush and from the high dressing table the other, for which my ignorance had discovered no use, and did then commence a vigorous a.s.sault on my enemy the curl.
"What was it you said of a cow, my Buzz?" I questioned him as I made a squirming under the vigor of his attack upon my hair.
"When hair acts up like this we call it a cowlick in United States language. See here, L"Aiglon, old boy, this hair looks as if it had at one time been curled. Did you wear it that way in Paris?" And as he asked the question he gave that side of my hair one more vigorous sweep and stood off to admire his work.
"No, my Buzz, I a.s.sure you that it was the cruelty of that cow you mention, while I was at a very tender age," I answered with a laugh into his eyes that covered nicely the blush that rose to my cheek at his accusation concerning the lovelock.
"Well, knot that tie now in a jiffy and climb into your coat. Let"s get to the Capitol and give the old boys as little of our attention as they"ll stand for, and then beat it for the girls. Bet my chief growls blue blazes at me over the way Sue ragged him about you last night.
He"ll issue a command at the point of the bayonet to me to keep you away from the bunch, and I"ll agree just so as to make the slide from under easy. Come on." And while he spoke to me, that Buzz raced me down the hall of my ancestors and out into his very slim, fast car before I could get breath for speaking.
"But suppose His Excellency the Gouverneur Faulkner requires my presence beyond that half hour after eleven o"clock, my Buzz, is it that you will await me for a few short minutes?" I asked of him as we ascended the steps of the Capitol of the State of Harpeth.
"Oh, Bill won"t keep you any longer than that. He"ll have twenty other interviews on the string for to-day. Fifteen minutes will be about right for you; you wait for me in the General"s anteroom. I"ll have to get heroics before instructions. I always do. Now beat it." With which words my Buzz left me in the wide hall of the great Capitol before a door marked: "Office of the Governor."
Upon that door I knocked and it was immediately opened to me by fine black Cato, whose eyes shone in recognition of me.
"Got it in yo" shoe?" he demanded in a whisper.
"Yes, my good Cato," I responded also in a low tone of voice.
"Den pa.s.s on in to de Governor; he am waitin" fer you. You"s safe, chile." And he escorted me past several gentlemen seated and standing in groups, to another door, which he opened for me and through which he motioned me to pa.s.s.
"Mr. Robert Carruthers," he announced me with the greatest ceremony.
"Go in, honey," he said softly and I pa.s.sed into the room whose door he closed quietly behind me.
"Good morning, Robert," said the Gouverneur Faulkner to me as I came and stood opposite him at the edge of his wide desk. And he smiled at me with a great gentleness that had also humor playing into it from the corners of his eyes and mouth. "I"m afraid that you"ve landed in the midst of a genuine case of American hustle this "morning after."
Here are two lists of specifications, one in English weights and measurements and the other in French. I want you to compare them carefully, checking them as you go and then re-checking them. I want to be sure they are the same. Also make a good literal translation of any notes that may be in French and compare them with the notes in English. Do you think it can be done for me by three o"clock, in time for a conference I have at that hour?" With which request he, the Gouverneur Faulkner, handed me two large sheets of paper down which were many long columns of figures.
"_Mon Dieu_," I said to myself under my breath, for always I have had to count out the pieces of money necessary to give to Nannette for the washer of the linen at the Chateau de Grez, upon the fingers of my hands, which often seemed too few to furnish me sufficient aid. But in a small instant I had recovered my courage, which brought with it a determination to do that task if it meant my death.
"Yes, Your Excellency," I answered him with a great composure in the face of the tragedy.
"You"ll find the small office between my office and that of General Carruthers empty. A ring of the bell under the desk means for you to come to me. I"ll try not to interrupt you. Two rings means to go to the General. That is about all." With a wave of his hand the Gouverneur Faulkner dismissed me to my death.
With my head up in the air I turned from him and prepared to retire to my prison from which I could see no release, when again I heard his summons. He had risen and was standing beside his desk and as I turned he held out his hand into which I laid mine as he drew me near to him.
"Youngster," he said and the smile which all persons call cold was all of gentleness into my eyes, "these are going to be some hard days for us all, these next ten, and if I drive you too hard, balk, will you?"
"To the death for you I"ll go, my Gouverneur Faulkner," I answered him, looking straight into his tired eyes that were so deep under the black, silver-tipped wings of his brows. I did not mean that death I had threatened myself from the mathematics in the paper, but in my heart there was something that rose and answered the sadness in his eyes with again all that savageness of a barbarian.
"Then I"ll take you to the point of demise--almost--if I need you," he answered me with a laugh that hid a quiver of emotion in his voice as something that was like unto a spark shot from the depths of his eyes into the depths of mine. "Go get the papers verified and let me know when you have finished." And this time I was in reality dismissed. I went; but in my heart was a strange smoulder that the spark had kindled.
In the small room that opened off of that of the Gouverneur Faulkner, with a door that I knew to lead into the room of my Uncle, the General Robert, I seated myself at a table by a window which looked down upon the city spread at the foot of the Capitol hill lying shimmering in the young spring mists that drifted across its housetops. I laid down the papers, took a pencil from a tray close beside my hand and then faced the most dreadful of any situation that I had ever brought down upon my own head. I also faced at the same time the smiling countenance of my Buzz, who looked into the door from the room of my Uncle, the General Robert, slipped through that door and closed it gently behind him.
"Safe on first base! The old boy of the bayonets has been called to the Governor and he"ll not be back before they both have luncheon sent in to them. I have taken his letters and now I"m off. What did Bill hand you?"
"Death and also destruction," I answered in an expletive often used by my father in times of a catastrophe, and with those words I showed to my Buzz the two long papers.
"Shoo, that"s no big job. I looked over and verified this one myself yesterday in ten minutes. h.e.l.lo, this other one is in French. Just run it through and if it is to tally, call it; and I"ll hold this one. We can do it in fifteen minutes. Go ahead from the top line across." And my Buzz held the paper in his hand as he seated himself in readiness upon the corner of my desk beside me.
"Oh, my Buzz, I have such a mortification that I cannot add one to another of these long figures. When I place one number to another I must use my fingers, and in this case you see that it is impossible."
Tears I did not allow in my eyes, but they were in my voice, and I looked into the eyes of my Buzz with a great terror. "What is it that I shall do? I am in disgrace."
"You complete edition of a kid, you, don"t you know I can do it for you? That is, if you know what all these kilo things stand for in English. Do you?" As he spoke, that kind Buzz put his hand on my shoulder with a nice rough shake.