"I do know from my governess, Madam Fournet, and I will write it all down for you, my Buzz, for whom I feel so much grat.i.tude for help," I answered with quickness.
"Stow the grat.i.tude and write "em all out. It will take us about an hour but it is good to keep calicoes waiting occasionally," he said, and did thereupon seat himself beside the table and draw to himself the two sheets of paper, while I quickly wrote out the table of French weights and measurements translated into English.
I did very much enjoy that hour in which my Buzz labored with a pencil and a great industry while I called to him the list of long figures and then verified as he showed me the units upon the page in the French language. He made jokes at me between workings while he attended his cigarette and we, together, had much laughter.
"There are just three places where these figures disagree and I have marked them carefully, L"Aiglon," he said as at last he laid down both pieces of the paper. "These French specifications and figures that floored you, represent the ideal mule in bulk and these United States figures promise the same mult.i.tude in scrub. I thought as much. You just run in there to Bill with them and then forget you ever saw them, and we"ll be on our way to the girls in ten minutes. Bobby, I mean it when I say that men in your and my positions of trust just forget facts and figures the minute we get out of sight of our chiefs. And we forget the chiefs too, believe me. Now run along and come out to the car on the same trot."
"Is it of honor not to tell to the Gouverneur Faulkner that you a.s.sisted me in this task, my Buzz?" I asked of him with anxiety.
"No need to tell him--it"s all in the same office and will come to me for filing. Don"t say anything that will bring on talk that keeps us from Sue and the gang. Just run!" With which advice my kind Buzz disappeared through the door into the office of my Uncle, the General Robert, as I softly opened the door of the room of the Gouverneur Faulkner and entered into his presence. And in that presence I found also my Uncle, the General Robert, in a very grave consultation with the Gouverneur Faulkner.
"The papers completed, Your Excellency," I said in a very low and meek tone of my voice as I laid the papers beside him on the table and prepared to take the running departure that my Buzz had commanded of me.
"Bless my soul, are you here and at work, young man? I thought you were asleep after all that gallivanting, and was just preparing to blow you up out of bed over the telephone," exclaimed my Uncle, the General Robert, with great fierceness of manner but also a great pleasure of eyes at the sight of me in the character of such a nice Secretary to the Gouverneur of Harpeth.
"Robert arrived five minutes after I did and ten minutes before you came into the building, General," said that Gouverneur Faulkner, with a twinkle of great enjoyment in his eyes. "He"s done a day"s work before we have begun. Will you have your luncheon sent up from the restaurant with ours, Robert? Just order the usual things for us and any kind of frills you care for. Shall I say snails?"
"I thank Your Excellency deeply but I am engaged that I luncheon and dance with Mr. Buzz Clendenning in his club in the country if I may be given permission to go," I answered as I laid my fingers with affection on the arm of my Uncle, the General Robert, as I stood beside him.
"Nonsense, sir! You"ll not join those jackanapes in their gambols during business hours. Order yourself up a slice of pie and a gla.s.s of b.u.t.termilk along with mine and sit down here to listen to matters of business by which you can profit. Luncheon and dancing! No, pie and business, I say, pie and business!" And the fierceness of my Uncle, the General Robert, made me retire several feet away from him in astonishment and in the direction of the Gouverneur Faulkner.
"Now, General, don"t tie the boy down to pie and the company of two musty old gentlemen like ourselves. He"s earned a dance. You may go, Robert, and I wish--I wish my heels were light enough to go with yours," that kind Gouverneur said in my behalf.
"Light heels, light head! And I say he shall--" And another explosion of fierceness was about to arrive from my Uncle, the General Robert, when I said with great and real humility:
"It will be my great pleasure to sit at the feet of you and His Excellency, which are not light for dancing, my Uncle Robert, and eat a large piece of pie and also milk." I spoke with a sincerity, for suddenly I knew that there would be nothing at that dance of girls in the club of my Buzz that I would so desire as to sit near to that Gouverneur Faulkner, in whose eyes came that sadness when he spoke of the dance for which he had not the light feet, and eat with him and my Uncle, the General Robert, a piece of that American pie of which I had heard my father speak many times.
"Why, he means it, General," said the Gouverneur Faulkner with a great softness in his eyes that answered the affection that was in mine that pleaded for the pie and a place at his side. "Run, youngster, run, before the General says another word. You are dismissed. Go!" And with a great laugh the Gouverneur Faulkner rose, put his arm around my shoulder and put me out of that room before my Uncle, the General Robert, could begin any more words of remonstrance. And I ran away from that door to my Buzz in the waiting car with both light and reluctant feet.
The two hours that I spent with my Buzz at his club in the country with what he called in front of their very faces, bunches of calico, pa.s.sed with such a rapidity that I felt I must grasp each minute and remonstrate with them for their fleetness. That Mademoiselle Sue was even much more lovely in her gray costume of golf with a tie the color of the one worn by my Buzz, than she had been in her chiffon of the dinner dance, and the beautiful Belle was much the same, with an added gayety and charm, while I discovered a very sweet Kate Keith and a Mildred Summers who was not of a great beauty but of many interesting remarks which induced much laughing. With them were that Miles Menefee whom my Buzz had recommended to me, and also several young gentlemen of America whom I liked exceedingly. One Mr. Phillips Taylor took me by my heart with a great force when, as we were all seated on the steps of the wide porch eating the promised sandwich and consuming breath for another dance in a very few minutes, he said to me:
"Say, Mr. Robert Carruthers, my mater wants to see you over in the east card room directly. She says she had it on with your father in their dancing school days and it was only by the intervention of some sort of love ruckus that you and I are not brothers or maybe what would be worse, brother and sister. If that had happened you would have had to be it. I wouldn"t. But that"s not our quarrel."
"You couldn"t have been a woman unless you had received a much better finishing polish before being sent to bless the earth, Phil, dear,"
said that funny Mademoiselle Mildred Summers, and that Mr. Phillips Taylor returned the insult by lifting her off of her feet and gliding her halfway across the porch verandah in the beginning of one tango dance to the music that was again to be heard from the hall within the building.
"Mildred and Phil fight like aborigines, and their love for combat will lead to matrimony in their early youth if they are not reconciled to each other soon," said lovely Sue as she fitted herself into my arms for our tango.
"After this dance with you will you lead me to that Madam Taylor, the friend of my father, beautiful Sue?" I asked of her. "It makes happy my heart to see one who loved him." And as I spoke, the longing for my father that will ever be in my heart made a sadness in my voice and a dimness in my eyes.
"I think everybody loved him just as we are all beginning to--to like you, Bobby dear," said that sweet girl as she smiled up at me in a way that sent the dimness in my eyes back to my heart.
"I am very grateful that you like me, lovely Sue," I said with great humility. "I will endeavor to win and deserve more and more of that liking, until it is with me as if I had been born in a house near to yours, as is the case with my dear Buzz and also that funny Mildred."
"I couldn"t like you any better, Bobby, if you had torn the hair off of my doll"s head or broken my slate a dozen times," she laughed at me again as we slid together the last slide in the dance. "Now come over and be introduced to Mrs. Taylor. You have only a few minutes, for you and Buzz must both be back at the Capitol at two. I feel in honor bound to the State to send you both back on time." And while she spoke she led me across the hall of the clubhouse and into a room full of ladies, who sat at card tables consuming very beautiful food while also preparing to resume playing the cards.
CHAPTER XII
THE BEAUTIFUL MADAM WHITWORTH
Sue then made for me many introductions and all of those lovely _grande dames_ gave to me affectionate welcomes. Some of them I had encountered at the dance of the Gouverneur Faulkner and all of them had smiles for me.
"Why, boy, you are Henry"s very self come back to us after all these years--only with a lot of added deviltry in the way of French beauty,"
said that Madam Taylor, who was very stately, with white hair and a very young countenance of sweetness. "The daredevil--it was like him to send you back to us as--as revenge," she added with something that almost seemed like anger under the sweetness of her voice.
"It is what my father always named me, Madam, the "daredevil," and will you not accept me for your cherishing?" I spoke those words to her from an impulse that I could not understand but I saw them soothe a hurt in her eyes as she laughed and kissed my cheek as I raised my head from kissing her jeweled hand.
"Yes," she answered me softly.
"Come on, L"Aiglon; it"s time to beat it. We are late and Sue is beginning to shoo," called my Buzz from the door of the card room. "We are coming home with Phil for supper to-night, Mrs. Taylor, and the Prince wants an introduction to your custard pie. Yes"m, seven sharp!
Come on, Bob!"
"My Buzz," I said to that Mr. Buzz Clendenning as he raced the slim car through the country and the city up to the Capitol hill, "you give to me a life of much joy in only a few days. I would that it could so continue."
"It just will until we are jolly old boys with long white beards and canes, Bobby," he answered me with an affectionate grin as we rounded a corner on two wheels of the car. "Say, let"s get out of this politics soon, go in for selling timber lands, marry two of the calicoes and found families. We"ll call the firm Carruthers and Clendenning and I choose Sue. You can decide about your dame later."
Suddenly something very cold and dead was there in place of my heart that had danced with happiness. What should I do at that time of disclosing myself as one large lie to all of these kind friends who were giving me affection on the account of my honored father and Uncle, the General Robert? That daredevil in me had led me into this dishonor, with the excuse, it is true, of fear that the wicked Uncle would not have mended the hip of small Pierre if I did not obey his summons as a nephew. And now I must stay to be of service to him and to the Gouverneur Faulkner but also to be more involved in that lie and to accept more confidence and affection with thievery.
"I cannot sell the lands of timber with you, my Buzz," I made answer to him quickly and with fierceness. "As soon as this business of the mules is settled and my Uncle, the General Robert, no longer requires my services, I must return and go into the trenches of France." And I felt as I spoke that my fate was decided, and a great calmness came over me. "Then I"ll go with you," answered me that Buzz with a look of the steadfast affection which might have grown with years of comradeship. "I"ll go and fight for France with you if you"ll come back and build an American family alongside of mine. Jump out--we are fifteen minutes late--and watch the General scalp me. Come in through his office and take a part of it, will you?"
Even in the very short time which I had known my Uncle, the General Robert, I had discovered that the times at which could be antic.i.p.ated explosions, none came, and also the reverse of that fact. When my Buzz and I entered his office he very hastily concealed a book that had some variety of richly colored pictures in it in his desk and smiled with a wink of the eye at my Buzz. Later I should know about that book to my great joy.
"Here"s a letter for you, Robert, and go get to your knitting with Governor Bill," he said to me with kindness in his smile as he handed me a large letter and motioned me from the room into the small anteroom that I now knew to be the place a.s.signed to my Buzz and me when not wanted in the offices of my Uncle, the General Robert, or the Gouverneur Faulkner. I made a low bow to my Uncle, the General Robert, and also to Monsieur the b.u.mble Bee and departed thence.
On seating myself at my table to await the bell of the Gouverneur Faulkner, without which ringing my Buzz had instructed me I must never on pain of extinction as a secretary enter His Excellency"s office, I opened that letter and began to read with difficulty a letter of a few words from my wee Pierre, now in the hospital of that kind Doctor Burns. I read not more than one sentence when I leaped to my feet with a cry of joy and my heart beat very high with happiness. To whom should I turn to tell of that happiness? I did not pause to answer that question in my heart but I quickly opened the door of the august Gouverneur of Harpeth and presented myself to him in a disobedience of strict orders. And then what befell me?
Seated at his desk was that great and good man, with his head bowed upon his hands; and at my entrance he raised that head with an alarm.
I could see that his face was heavy and sad with deep pondering and I was instantly thrown into mortification that I had so interrupted him.
I faltered there beside him and found halting words to exclaim:
"Oh, it is a pardon I ask Your Excellency for intruding into your door, but it is that my small Pierre has stood upon two feet for perhaps a whole minute in the hospital of that good Dr. Burns and I must run to tell you of my joy. Is it quite possible now that Pierre will no longer be for life crooked in the back?" And as I spoke I held out to him the letter upon which tears were dripping and one of my hands I clasped trembling at my breast that shook under that stylish cheviot bag of a coat I had that morning put upon me for the first time. And did that great Gouverneur Faulkner repulse his wicked secretary? He did not.
"G.o.d bless you, youngster! Of course you run right to tell me when a big thing like that happens. Sure that back will be all straight in no time and we"ll have the little maid down, running in and out at her will in just a few months," and as he spoke that Gouverneur Faulkner came to my side and took the hand that held the tear-besprinkled letter and also drew the one from my breast into his own two large and warm ones. "I"ve been hearing people"s troubles for what seems like an eternity, boy, but not a single son-of-a-gun has run to me with his joy until you have. Here, use one corner of my handkerchief while I use the other," and as he spoke that very large and broad-shouldered man released one of my hands, dabbed his own eyes that were sparkling with perhaps a tear, and then handed that handkerchief to me.
And those tears of both of us ended in a large laugh.
"It is my habit that I shed tears when in joy," I said with apology, as I returned that large white handkerchief to that Gouverneur Faulkner.
"Mind you don"t tell anybody that Governor Bill Faulkner does the same thing," he answered with a laugh.
"I have a feeling that is of longing to rush to small Pierre and to prostrate myself at the feet of that good Doctor," I said as again the great joy of that news rushed upon me.
"No, boy, not right now," answered that great Gouverneur Faulkner as he turned and laid a large warm hand on each of my shoulders. "The crisis is at hand and I need you here for a little time. I can"t explain it, but--but you seem to feed--feed my faith in myself. In just a few days I"ve grown to depend on you to--to--. You ridiculous boy, you, with your storms and joy sunbursts, get out of here and tell Cato to send Mr. Whitworth and Mr. Brown into my office immediately."
And with a laugh and a shake of me away from his side, the Gouverneur Faulkner picked up the two long sheets of paper which had been of so much labor to my Buzz and me and began to scowl back of his black, white-tipped eyebrows over them. I departed with great rapidity.