<SPAN name="Six" id="Six"></SPAN><hr />
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</SPAN></span><br/>
<h3><i>Six</i></h3>
<br/>
<p>The colonel spent a delightful evening in the company of his friends.
The supper was typically Southern, and the cook evidently a good one.
There was smothered chicken, light biscuit, fresh eggs, poundcake and
tea. The tablecloth and napkins were of fine linen. That they were
soft and smooth the colonel noticed, but he did not observe closely
enough to see that they had been carefully darned in many places. The
silver spoons were of fine, old-fashioned patterns, worn very thin—so
thin that even the colonel was struck by their fragility. How
charming, he thought, to prefer the simple dignity of the past to the
vulgar ostentation of a more modern time. He had once dined off a
golden dinner service, at the table of a multi-millionaire, and had
not enjoyed the meal half so much. The dining-room looked out upon the
garden and the perfume of lilac and violet stole in through the open
windows. A soft-footed, shapely, well-trained negro <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</SPAN></span>maid, in white
cap and apron, waited deftly upon the table; a woman of serious
countenance—so serious that the colonel wondered if she were a
present-day type of her race, and if the responsibilities of freedom
had robbed her people of their traditional light-heartedness and
gaiety.</p>
<p>After supper they sat out upon the piazza. The lights within were
turned down low, so that the moths and other insects might not be
attracted. Sweet odours from the garden filled the air. Through the
elms the stars, brighter than in more northern latitudes, looked out
from a sky of darker blue; so bright were they that the colonel,
looking around for the moon, was surprised to find that luminary
invisible. On the green background of the foliage the fireflies glowed
and flickered. There was no strident steam whistle from factory or
train to assault the ear, no rumble of passing cabs or street cars.
Far away, in some distant part of the straggling town, a sweet-toned
bell sounded the hour of an evening church service.</p>
<p>"To see you is a breath from the past, Henry," said Mrs. Treadwell.
"You are a fine, strong man now, but I can see you as you were, the
day you went away to the war, in your new gray uniform, on your fine
gray horse, at the head of your company. You were going to take Peter
with you, but he had got his feet poisoned with poison ivy, and
couldn't walk, and your father gave you another boy, and Peter cried
like a baby at being left behind. I can remember how proud you were,
and how proud your father was, when he gave you his sword—your
grandfather's sword, and told you never to draw it or sheath it,
except in honour; and how, when you were gone, the old gentleman shut
himself up for two whole days and would speak to no one. He was glad
and sorry—glad to send you to fight for your country, and sorry to
see you go—for you were his only boy."</p>
<p>The colonel thrilled with love and regret. His father had loved him,
he knew very well, and he had not visited his tomb for twenty-five
years. How far away it seemed too, the time when he had thought of
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</SPAN></span>the Confederacy as his country! And the sword, his grandfather's
sword, had been for years stored away in a dark closet. His father had
kept it displayed upon the drawing-room wall, over the table on which
the family Bible had rested.</p>
<p>Mrs. Treadwell was silent for a moment.</p>
<p>"Times have changed since then, Henry. We have lost a great deal,
although we still have enough—yes, we have plenty to live upon, and
to hold up our heads among the best."</p>
<p>Miss Laura and Graciella, behind the colonel's back, exchanged meaning
glances. How well they knew how little they had to live upon!</p>
<p>"That is quite evident," said the colonel, glancing through the window
at the tasteful interior, "and I am glad to see that you have fared so
well. My father lost everything."</p>
<p>"We were more fortunate," said Mrs. Treadwell. "We were obliged to let
Belleview go when Major Treadwell died—there were debts to be paid,
and we were robbed as well—but we have several rentable properties in
town, and an estate in the country which brings us in an income. But
things are not quite what they used to be!"</p>
<p>Mrs. Treadwell sighed, and nodded. Miss Laura sat in silence—a
pensive silence. She, too, remembered the time gone by, but unlike her
mother's life, her own had only begun as the good times were ending.
Her mother, in her youth, had seen something of the world. The
daughter of a wealthy planter, she had spent her summers at Saratoga,
had visited New York and Philadelphia and New Orleans, and had taken a
voyage to Europe. Graciella was young and beautiful. Her prince might
come, might be here even now, if this grand gentleman should chance to
throw the handkerchief. But she, Laura, had passed her youth in a
transition period; the pleasures neither of memory nor of hope had
been hers—except such memories as came of duty well performed, and
such hopes as had no root in anything earthly or corruptible.</p>
<p>Graciella was not in a reflective mood, and took up the burden <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</SPAN></span>of the
conversation where her grandmother had dropped it. Her thoughts were
not of the past, but of the future. She asked many eager questions of
New York. Was it true that ladies at the Waldorf-Astoria always went
to dinner in low-cut bodices with short sleeves, and was evening dress
always required at the theatre? Did the old Knickerbocker families
recognise the Vanderbilts? Were the Rockefellers anything at all
socially? Did he know Ward McAllister, at that period the Beau Brummel
of the metropolitan smart set? Was Fifth Avenue losing its
pre-eminence? On what days of the week was the Art Museum free to the
public? What was the fare to New York, and the best quarter of the
city in which to inquire for a quiet, select boarding house where a
Southern lady of refinement and good family might stay at a reasonable
price, and meet some nice people? And would he recommend stenography
or magazine work, and which did he consider preferable, as a career
which such a young lady might follow without injury to her social
standing?</p>
<p>The colonel, with some amusement, answered these artless inquiries as
best he could; they came as a refreshing foil to the sweet but
melancholy memories of the past. They were interesting, too, from this
very pretty but very ignorant little girl in this backward little
Southern town. She was a flash of sunlight through a soft gray cloud;
a vigorous shoot from an old moss-covered stump—she was life, young
life, the vital principle, breaking through the cumbering envelope,
and asserting its right to reach the sun.</p>
<p>After a while a couple of very young ladies, friends of Graciella,
dropped in. They were introduced to the colonel, who found that he had
known their fathers, or their mothers, or their grandfathers, or their
grandmothers, and that many of them were more or less distantly
related. A little later a couple of young men, friends of Graciella's
friends—also very young, and very self-conscious—made their
appearance, and were duly introduced, in person and by pedigree. The
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</SPAN></span>conversation languished for a moment, and then one of the young ladies
said something about music, and one of the young men remarked that he
had brought over a new song. Graciella begged the colonel to excuse
them, and led the way to the parlour, followed by her young friends.</p>
<p>Mrs. Treadwell had fallen asleep, and was leaning comfortably back in
her armchair. Miss Laura excused herself, brought a veil, and laid it
softly across her mother's face.</p>
<p>"The night air is not damp," she said, "and it is pleasanter for her
here than in the house. She won't mind the music; she is accustomed to
it."</p>
<p>Graciella went to the piano and with great boldness of touch struck
the bizarre opening chords and then launched into the grotesque words
of the latest New York "coon song," one of the first and worst of its
kind, and the other young people joined in the chorus.</p>
<p>It was the first discordant note. At home, the colonel subscribed to
the opera, and enjoyed the music. A plantation song of the olden time,
as he remembered it, borne upon the evening air, when sung by the
tired slaves at the end of their day of toil, would have been
pleasing, with its simple melody, its plaintive minor strains, its
notes of vague longing; but to the colonel's senses there was to-night
no music in this hackneyed popular favourite. In a metropolitan music
hall, gaudily bedecked and brilliantly lighted, it would have been
tolerable from the lips of a black-face comedian. But in this quiet
place, upon this quiet night, and in the colonel's mood, it seemed
like profanation. The song of the coloured girl, who had dreamt that
she dwelt in marble halls, and the rest, had been less incongruous; it
had at least breathed aspiration.</p>
<p>Mrs. Treadwell was still dozing in her armchair. The colonel,
beckoning Miss Laura to follow him, moved to the farther end of the
piazza, where they might not hear the singers and the song.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</SPAN></span>"It is delightful here, Laura. I seem to have renewed my youth. I
yield myself a willing victim to the charm of the old place, the old
ways, the old friends."</p>
<p>"You see our best side, Henry. Night has a kindly hand, that covers
our defects, and the starlight throws a glamour over everything. You
see us through a haze of tender memories. When you have been here a
week, the town will seem dull, and narrow, and sluggish. You will find
us ignorant and backward, worshipping our old idols, and setting up no
new ones; our young men leaving us, and none coming in to take their
place. Had you, and men like you, remained with us, we might have
hoped for better things."</p>
<p>"And perhaps not, Laura. Environment controls the making of men. Some
rise above it, the majority do not. We might have followed in the
well-worn rut. But let us not spoil this delightful evening by
speaking of anything sad or gloomy. This is your daily life; to me it
is like a scene from a play, over which one sighs to see the curtain
fall—all enchantment, all light, all happiness."</p>
<p>But even while he spoke of light, a shadow loomed up beside them. The
coloured woman who had waited at the table came around the house from
the back yard and stood by the piazza railing.</p>
<p>"Miss Laura!" she called, softly and appealingly. "Kin you come hyuh a
minute?"</p>
<p>"What is it, Catherine?"</p>
<p>"Kin I speak just a word to you, ma'am? It's somethin'
partic'lar—mighty partic'lar, ma'am."</p>
<p>"Excuse me a minute, Henry," said Miss Laura, rising with evident
reluctance.</p>
<p>She stepped down from the piazza, and walked beside the woman down one
of the garden paths. The colonel, as he sat there smoking—with Miss
Laura's permission he had lighted a cigar—could see the light stuff
of the lady's gown against the green background, though <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</SPAN></span>she was
walking in the shadow of the elms. From the murmur which came to him,
he gathered that the black woman was pleading earnestly, passionately,
and he could hear Miss Laura's regretful voice, as she closed the
interview:</p>
<p>"I am sorry, Catherine, but it is simply impossible. I would if I
could, but I cannot."</p>
<p>The woman came back first, and as she passed by an open window, the
light fell upon her face, which showed signs of deep distress,
hardening already into resignation or despair. She was probably in
trouble of some sort, and her mistress had not been able, doubtless
for some good reason, to help her out. This suspicion was borne out by
the fact that when Miss Laura came back to him, she too seemed
troubled. But since she did not speak of the matter, the colonel gave
no sign of his own thoughts.</p>
<p>"You have said nothing of yourself, Laura," he said, wishing to divert
her mind from anything unpleasant. "Tell me something of your own
life—it could only be a cheerful theme, for you have means and
leisure, and a perfect environment. Tell me of your occupations, your
hopes, your aspirations."</p>
<p>"There is little enough to tell, Henry," she returned, with a sudden
courage, "but that little shall be the truth. You will find it out, if
you stay long in town, and I would rather you learned it from our lips
than from others less friendly. My mother is—my mother—a dear, sweet
woman to whom I have devoted my life! But we are not well off, Henry.
Our parlour carpet has been down for twenty-five years; surely you
must have recognised the pattern! The house has not been painted for
the same length of time; it is of heart pine, and we train the flowers
and vines to cover it as much as may be, and there are many others
like it, so it is not conspicuous. Our rentable property is three
ramshackle cabins on the alley at the rear of the lot, for which we
get four dollars a month each, when we can collect it. Our country
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</SPAN></span>estate is a few acres of poor land, which we rent on shares, and from
which we get a few bushels of corn, an occasional load of firewood,
and a few barrels of potatoes. As for my own life, I husband our small
resources; I keep the house, and wait on mother, as I have done since
she became helpless, ten years ago. I look after Graciella. I teach in
the Sunday School, and I give to those less fortunate such help as the
poor can give the poor."</p>
<p>"How did you come to lose Belleview?" asked the colonel, after a
pause. "I had understood Major Treadwell to be one of the few people
around here who weathered the storm of war and emerged financially
sound."</p>
<p>"He did; and he remained so—until he met Mr. Fetters, who had made
money out of the war while all the rest were losing. Father despised
the slavetrader's son, but admired his ability to get along. Fetters
made his acquaintance, flattered him, told him glowing stories of
wealth to be made by speculating in cotton and turpentine. Father was
not a business man, but he listened. Fetters lent him money, and
father lent Fetters money, and they had transactions back and forth,
and jointly. Father lost and gained and we had no inkling that he had
suffered greatly, until, at his sudden death, Fetters foreclosed a
mortgage he held upon Belleview. Mother has always believed there was
something wrong about the transaction, and that father was not
indebted to Fetters in any such sum as Fetters claimed. But we could
find no papers and we had no proof, and Fetters took the plantation
for his debt. He changed its name to Sycamore; he wanted a post-office
there, and there were too many Belleviews."</p>
<p>"Does he own it still?"</p>
<p>"Yes, and runs it—with convict labour! The thought makes me shudder!
We were rich when he was poor; we are poor and he is rich. But we
trust in God, who has never deserted the widow and the fatherless. By
His mercy we have lived and, as mother says, held up <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</SPAN></span>our heads, not
in pride or haughtiness, but in self-respect, for we cannot forget
what we were."</p>
<p>"Nor what you are, Laura, for you are wonderful," said the colonel,
not unwilling to lighten a situation that bordered on intensity. "You
should have married and had children. The South needs such mothers as
you would have made. Unless the men of Clarendon have lost their
discernment, unless chivalry has vanished and the fire died out of the
Southern blood, it has not been for lack of opportunity that your name
remains unchanged."</p>
<p>Miss Laura's cheek flushed unseen in the shadow of the porch.</p>
<p>"Ah, Henry, that would be telling! But to marry me, one must have
married the family, for I could not have left them—they have had only
me. I have not been unhappy. I do not know that I would have had my
life different."</p>
<p>Graciella and her friends had finished their song, the piano had
ceased to sound, and the visitors were taking their leave. Graciella
went with them to the gate, where they stood laughing and talking. The
colonel looked at his watch by the light of the open door.</p>
<p>"It is not late," he said. "If my memory is true, you too played the
piano when you—when I was young."</p>
<p>"It is the same piano, Henry, and, like our life here, somewhat thin
and weak of tone. But if you think it would give you pleasure, I will
play—as well as I know how."</p>
<p>She readjusted the veil, which had slipped from her mother's face, and
they went into the parlour. From a pile of time-stained music she
selected a sheet and seated herself at the piano. The colonel stood at
her elbow. She had a pretty back, he thought, and a still youthful
turn of the head, and still plentiful, glossy brown hair. Her hands
were white, slender and well kept, though he saw on the side of the
forefinger of her left hand the telltale marks of the needle.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</SPAN></span>The piece was an arrangement of the well-known air from the opera of
<i>Maritana</i>:</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0"><i>"Scenes that are brightest,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i2"><i>May charm awhile,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Hearts which are lightest</i><br/></span>
<span class="i2"><i>And eyes that smile.</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Yet o'er them above us,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i2"><i>Though nature beam,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>With none to love us,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i2"><i>How sad they seem!"</i><br/></span></div>
</div>
<p>Under her sympathetic touch a gentle stream of melody flowed from the
old-time piano, scarcely stronger toned in its decrepitude, than the
spinet of a former century. A few moments before, under Graciella's
vigorous hands, it had seemed to protest at the dissonances it had
been compelled to emit; now it seemed to breathe the notes of the old
opera with an almost human love and tenderness. It, too, mused the
colonel, had lived and loved and was recalling the memories of a
brighter past.</p>
<p>The music died into silence. Mrs. Treadwell was awake.</p>
<p>"Laura!" she called.</p>
<p>Miss Treadwell went to the door.</p>
<p>"I must have been nodding for a minute. I hope Colonel French did not
observe it—it would scarcely seem polite. He hasn't gone yet?"</p>
<p>"No, mother, he is in the parlour."</p>
<p>"I must be going," said the colonel, who came to the door. "I had
almost forgotten Phil, and it is long past his bedtime."</p>
<p>Miss Laura went to wake up Phil, who had fallen asleep after supper.
He was still rubbing his eyes when the lady led him out.</p>
<p>"Wake up, Phil," said the colonel. "It's time to be going. Tell the
ladies good night."</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</SPAN></span>Graciella came running up the walk.</p>
<p>"Why, Colonel French," she cried, "you are not going already? I made
the others leave early so that I might talk to you."</p>
<p>"My dear young lady," smiled the colonel, "I have already risen to go,
and if I stayed longer I might wear out my welcome, and Phil would
surely go to sleep again. But I will come another time—I shall stay
in town several days."</p>
<p>"Yes, <i>do</i> come, if you <i>must</i> go," rejoined Graciella with emphasis.
"I want to hear more about the North, and about New York society
and—oh, everything! Good night, Philip. <i>Good</i> night, Colonel
French."</p>
<p>"Beware of the steps, Henry," said Miss Laura, "the bottom stone is
loose."</p>
<p>They heard his footsteps in the quiet street, and Phil's light patter
beside him.</p>
<p>"He's a lovely man, isn't he, Aunt Laura?" said Graciella.</p>
<p>"He is a gentleman," replied her aunt, with a pensive look at her
young niece.</p>
<p>"Of the old school," piped Mrs. Treadwell.</p>
<p>"And Philip is a sweet child," said Miss Laura.</p>
<p>"A chip of the old block," added Mrs. Treadwell. "I remember——"</p>
<p>"Yes, mother, you can tell me when I've shut up the house,"
interrupted Miss Laura. "Put out the lamps, Graciella—there's not
much oil—and when you go to bed hang up your gown carefully, for it
takes me nearly half an hour to iron it."</p>
<p>"And you are right good to do it! Good night, dear Aunt Laura! Good
night, grandma!"</p>
<p>Mr. French had left the hotel at noon that day as free as air, and he
slept well that night, with no sense of the forces that were to
constrain his life. And yet the events of the day had started the
growth of a dozen tendrils, which were destined to grow, and reach
out, and seize and hold him with ties that do not break.</p>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</SPAN></span><br/>
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