Isham Frederic Stewart
The Strollers

CHAPTER III
AT THE RACES

For several days, after rehearsals were over, the strollers were free to amuse themselves as they pleased. Their engagement at the theater did not begin for about a week, and meanwhile they managed to combine recreation with labor in nearly equal proportions. Assiduously they devoted themselves to a round of drives and rambles: through pastures and wood-land to Carrolton; along the shell road to Lake Pontchartrain; to Biloxi, the first settlement of the French; and to the battle grounds, once known as the plains of Chalmette, where volunteer soldiers were now encamped, awaiting orders to go to the front in the Mexican campaign. For those who craved greater excitement, the three race-courses–the Louisiana, the Metairie and the Carrolton offered stimulating diversion.

Within sight of the Metairie were the old dueling grounds, under the oaks, where, it is related, on one Sunday in ’39 ten duels occurred; where the contestants frequently fought on horseback with sabers; and, where the cowherds, says a chronicler, became so accustomed to seeing honor satisfied in this manner that they paid little attention to these meetings, pursuing their own humble duties, indifferent to the follies of fashionable society. The fencing schools flourished–what memories cluster around that odd, strange master of the blade, Spedella, a melancholy enigma of a man, whose art embodied much of the finest shading and phrasing peculiar to himself; from whom even many of Bonaparte’s discarded veterans were not above acquiring new technique and temperament! Men in those days were most punctilious about reputation, but permitted a sufficiently wide latitude in its interpretation not to hamper themselves or seriously interfere with their desires or pleasures. Thus, virtue did not become a burden, nor honor a millstone. Both, like epaulets or tassels, were worn lightly and befittingly.

Shortly after the players’ arrival began the celebrated Leduc matches, attracting noted men and women from all over the South. The hotels were crowded, the lodging-houses filled, while many of the large homes hospitably opened their doors to visiting friends. The afternoons found the city almost deserted; the bartenders discontentedly smoked in solitude; the legion of waiters in the hotels and resorts became reduced to a thinly scattered array; while even the street venders had “folded their tents” and silently stolen to the races. On one such memorable occasion most of the members of Barnes’ company repaired to the Metairie.

Below the grand stand, brilliant with color, strutted the dandies attending to their bets; above they played a winning or losing game with the fair sex. Intrigue and love-making were the order of the hour, and these daughters of the South beguiled time–and mortals!–in a heyday of pleasure. In that mixed gathering burly cotton planters from the country rubbed elbows with aristocratic creoles, whose attire was distinguishable by enormous ruffles and light boots of cloth. The professional follower of these events, the importunate tout, also mingled with the crowd, plainly in evidence by the pronounced character of his dress, the size of his diamond studs or cravat pin, and the massive dimensions of his finger rings. No paltry, scrubby track cadger was this resplendent gentleman, but a picturesque rogue, with impudence as pronounced as his jewels!

Surrounded by a bevy of admirers, Susan, sprightly and sparkling, was an example of that “frippery one of her sex is made up with, a pasticcio of gauzes, pins and ribbons that go to compound that multifarious thing, a well-dressed woman.” Ever ready with a quick retort, she bestowed her favors generously, to the evident discomfiture of a young officer in her retinue whom she had met several days before, and who, ever since, had coveted a full harvest of smiles, liking not a little the first sample he had gathered. However, it was not Susan’s way to entrust herself fully to any one; it was all very interesting to play one against another; to intercept angry gleams; to hold in check clashing suitors–this was exciting and diverting–but she exercised care not to transgress those bounds where she ceased to be mistress of the situation. Perhaps her limits in coquetry were further set than most women would have ventured to place them, but without this temerity and daring, the pastime would have lost its charm for her. She might play with edged tools, but she also knew how to use them.

Near her was seated Kate, indolent as of yore, now watching her sister with an indulgent, enigmatic expression, anon permitting a scornful glance to stray toward Adonis, who, for his part, had eyes only for his companion, a distinct change from country hoidens, tavern demoiselles and dainty wenches, with their rough hands and rosy cheeks. This lady’s hands were like milk; her cheeks, ivory, and Adonis in bestowing his attentions upon her, had a two-fold purpose: to return tit for tat for Kate’s flaunting ways, and to gratify his own ever-fleeting fancy.

In a box, half the length of the grand stand removed, some distance back and to the left of Susan’s gay party, Constance, Mrs. Adams and the soldier were also observers of this scene of animation.

Since the manager’s successful flight from the landlord and the constables, the relations of the young girl and Saint-Prosper had undergone little change. At first, it is true, with the memory of the wild ride to the river fresh in her mind, and the more or less disturbing recollections of that strange, dark night, a certain reticence had marked her manner toward the soldier; but, as time went by, this touch of reserve wore off, and was succeeded by her usual frankness or gaiety. In her eyes appeared, at times, a new thoughtfulness, but for no longer period than the quick passing of a summer cloud over a sunny meadow. This half-light of brief conjecture or vague retrospection only mellowed the depths of her gaze, and Barnes alone noted and wondered.

But to-day no partial shadows lay under the black, shading lashes; the exhilarating scene, the rapidly succeeding events, the turbulence and flutter around her, were calculated to dispel the most pronounced abstraction. Beneath a protecting parasol–for the sunlight shot below the roof at the back and touched that part of the grand stand–a faint glow warmed her cheeks, while her eyes shone with the gladness of the moment. Many of the dandies, regarding her with marked persistency, asked who she was, and none knew, until finally Editor-Rhymster Straws was appealed to. Straws, informed on all matters, was able to satisfy his questioners.

“She is an actress,” said Straws. “So we are told. We shall find out next week. She is a beauty. We can tell that now.”

“You’re right, Straws!” exclaimed a pitch-and-toss youngster. “If she shows as well at the wire–”

“You’d take a long chance on her winning?” laughed the philosopher.

“I’ll play you odds on it!” cried the juvenile. “Four to one, damme! I’ll risk that on her eyes.”

“Four to one on a lady’s eyes, child! Say forty to one, and take the hazard of the die.”

Standing near the rhymster, story-writer and journalist, was a tall young man, dressed in creole fashion. He followed the glances of Straws’ questioners and a pallor overspread his dark complexion as he looked at the object of their attention.

“The stroller!” he exclaimed half audibly. “Her counterpart doesn’t exist.”

He stepped back where he could see her more plainly. In that sea of faces, her features alone shone before him, clearly, insistently.

“Do you know her, Mr. Mauville?” asked the rhymster, observing that steadfast glance.

“Know her?” repeated the land baron, starting. “Oh, I’ve seen her act.”

“Tip me off her points and I’ll tip my readers.”

“She is going to play here then?” said the patroon.

“Yes. What is she like? Does tragedy or comedy favor her most? You see,” he added apologetically, “when people begin to talk about anybody, we Grubstreet hacks thrive on the gossip. It is deplorable”–with regret–“but small talk and tattle bring more than a choice lyric or sonnet. And, heaven help us!”–shaking his head–“what a vendible article a fine scandal is! It sells fast, like goods at a Dutch auction. Penny a line? More nearly six pence! If I could only bring myself to deal in such merchandise! If I were only a good rag picker, instead of a bad poet!” And Straws walked away, forgetting the questions he had asked in his own more interesting cogitations.

Without definite purpose, the patroon, who had listened with scant attention to the poet, began to move slowly toward the actress, and at that moment, the eyes of the soldier, turning to the saddling paddock, where the horses were being led out, fell upon the figure drawing near, recognizing in him the heir to the manor, Edward Mauville. Construing in his approach a deliberate intention, a flush of quick anger overspread Saint-Prosper’s face and he glanced at the girl by his side. But her manner assured him she had not observed the land baron, for at that moment she was looking in the opposite direction, endeavoring to discover Barnes or the others of the company in the immense throng.

Murmuring some excuse to his unconscious companion and cutting short the wiry old lady’s reminiscences of the first public trotting race in 1818, the soldier left the box, and, moving with some difficulty through the crowd, met Mauville in the aisle near the stairway. The latter’s face expressed surprise, not altogether of an agreeable nature, at the encounter, but he immediately regained his composure.

“Ah, Monsieur Saint-Prosper,” he observed easily, “I little thought to see you here.”

“Nor I you!” said the other bluntly.

The patroon gazed in seeming carelessness from the soldier to the young girl. Saint-Prosper’s presence in New Orleans could be accounted for; he had followed her from the Shadengo Valley across the continent; the drive begun at the country inn–he looking down from the dormer window to witness the start–had been a long one; very different from his own brief flight, with its wretched end. These thoughts coursed rapidly through the land baron’s brain; her appearance rekindled the ashes of the past; the fire in his breast flamed from his eyes, but otherwise he made no display of feeling. He glanced out upon the many faces below them, bowing to one woman and smiling at another.

“Oh, I couldn’t stand a winter in the North,” resumed the patroon, turning once more to the soldier. “Although the barn-burners promised to make it warm for me!”

Offering no reply to this sally, Saint-Prosper’s gaze continued to rest coldly and expectantly upon the other. Goaded by that arbitrary regard, an implied barrier between him and the young girl, the land baron sought to press forward; his glittering eyes met the other’s; the glances they exchanged were like the thrust and parry of swords. Without wishing to address the actress–and thereby risk a public rebuff–it was, nevertheless, impossible for the hot-blooded Southerner to submit to peremptory restraint. Who had made the soldier his taskmaster? He read Saint-Prosper’s purpose and was not slow to retaliate.

“If I am not mistaken, yonder is our divinity of the lane,” said the patroon softly. “Permit me.” And he strove to pass.

The soldier did not move.

“You are blocking my way, Monsieur,” continued the other, sharply.

“Not if it lies the other way.”

“This way, or that way, how does it concern you?” retorted the land baron.

“If you seek further to annoy a lady whom you have already sufficiently wronged, it is any man’s concern.”

“Especially if he has followed her across the country,” sneered Mauville. “Besides, since when have actresses become so chary of their favors?” In his anger the land baron threw out intimations he would have challenged from other lips. “Has the stage then become a holy convent?”

“You stamped yourself a scoundrel some time ago,” said the soldier slowly, as though weighing each word, “and now show yourself a coward when you malign a young girl, without father, brother–”

“Or lover!” interrupted the land baron. “Perhaps, however, you were only traveling to see the country! A grand tour, enlivened with studies of human nature, as well as glimpses of scenery!”

“Have you anything further with me?” interjected Saint-Prosper, curtly.

The patroon’s blood coursed, burning, through his veins; the other’s contemptuous manner stung him more fiercely than language.

“Yes,” he said, meaningly, his eyes challenging Saint-Prosper’s. “Have you been at Spedella’s fencing rooms? Are you in practice?”

Saint-Prosper hesitated a moment and the land baron’s face fell. Was it possible the other would refuse to meet him? But he would not let him off easily; there were ways to force–and suddenly the words of the marquis recurring to him, he surveyed the soldier, disdainfully.

“Gad! you must come of a family of cowards and traitors! But you shall fight or–the public becomes arbiter!” And he half raised his arm threateningly.

The soldier’s tanned cheek was now as pale as a moment before it had been flushed; his mouth set resolutely, as though fighting back some weakness. With lowering brows and darkening glance he regarded the land baron.

“I was thinking,” he said at length, with an effort, “that if I killed you, people would want to know the reason.”

The patroon laughed. “How solicitous you are for her welfare–and mine! Do you then measure skill only by inches? If so, I confess you would stand a fair chance of despatching me. But your address? The St. Charles, I presume.” The soldier nodded curtly, and, having accomplished his purpose, Mauville had turned to leave, when loud voices, in a front box near the right aisle, attracted general attention from those occupying that part of the grand stand. The young officer who had accompanied Susan to the races was angrily confronting a thick-set man, the latest recruit to her corps of willing captives. The lad had assumed the arduous task of guarding the object of his fancy from all comers, simply because she had been kind. And why should she not have been?–he was only a boy–she was old enough to be–well, an adviser! When, after a brief but pointed altercation, he flung himself away with a last reproachful look in the direction of his enslaver, Susan looked hurt. That was her reward for being nice to a child!

“A fractious young cub!” said the thick-set man, complacently.

“Well, I like cubs better than bears!” retorted Susan, pointedly.

Not long, however, could the interest of the spectators be diverted from the amusement of the day and soon all eyes were drawn once more to the track where the horses’ hoofs resounded with exciting patter, as they struggled toward the wire, urged by the stimulating voices of the jockeys.

But even when Leduc won the race, beating the best heat on record; when the ladies in the grand stand arose in a body, like a thousand butterflies, disturbed by a sudden footfall in a sunlit field; when the jockey became the hero of the hour; when the small boys outside nearly fell from the trees in their exuberance of ecstasy, and the men threw their hats in the air and shouted themselves hoarse–even these exhilarating circumstances failed to reawaken the land baron’s concern in the scene around him. His efforts at indifference were chafing his inmost being; the cloak of insouciance was stifling him; the primeval man was struggling for expression, that brute-like rage whose only limits are its own fury and violence.

A quavering voice, near at hand, recalled him to himself, and turning, he beheld the marquis approaching with mincing manner, the paint and pigments cracked by the artificial smiles wreathing his wrinkled face. In that vast assemblage, amid all the energy, youth and surfeit of vitality, he seemed like a dried and crackling leaf, tossed helplessly, which any foot might crush to dust. The roar of the multitude subsided, a storm dying in the distance; the ladies sank in their seats–butterflies settling once more in the fields–and Leduc, with drooping head, was led to the paddock, followed by a few fair adorers.

“I placed the winner, Monsieur Mauville,” piped the marquis. “Though the doctors told me the excitement would kill me! What folly! Every new sensation adds a day to life.”

“In your case, certainly, Marquis, for I never saw you looking younger,” answered the land baron, with an effort.

“You are too amiable, my dear friend! The ladies would not think so,” he added, mournfully wagging his head with anile melancholy.

“Nonsense!” protested the other. “With your spirit, animation–”

“If I thought you were right,” interrupted the delighted marquis, taking his young friend’s arm, “I would ask you to present me to the lady over there–the one you just bowed to.”

“The deuce!” said Mauville to himself. “The marquis is becoming a bore.”

“You rascal! I saw the smile she gave you,” continued the other playfully. “And you ran away from her. What are the young men made of nowadays? In the old days they were tinder; women sparks. But who is she?”

“You mean Susan Duran, the actress?”

“An actress!” exclaimed the nobleman. “A charming creature at any rate!”

“All froth; a bubble!” added Mauville impatiently.

“How entertaining! Any lovers?” leered the nobleman.

“A dozen; a baker’s dozen, for all I know!”

“What is her history?” said the marquis eagerly.

“I never inquired.”

“Sometimes it’s just as well,” murmured the other vaguely. “How old is she?”

“How can you tell?” answered Mauville.

“In Paris I kept a little book wherein was entered the passe-parole of every pretty woman; age; lovers platonic! When a woman became a grandmother, I put a black mark against her name, for I have always held,” continued the nobleman, wagging his head, “that a woman who is a grandmother has no business to deceive a younger generation of men. But present me to Miss Susan at once, my dear friend. I am all impatience to meet her.”

His eagerness permitted no refusal; besides, Mauville was not in the mood to enjoy the nobleman’s society, and was but too pleased to turn him over to the tender care of Susan.

“How do you do, Miss Duran,” he said, having made his way to her box.

“Where did you drop from?” she asked, in surprise, giving him her hand.

“The skies,” he returned, with forced lightness.

“A fallen angel!” commented Susan.

“Good! Charming!” cried the marquis, clapping his withered hands.

“Miss Duran, the Marquis de Ligne has requested the pleasure of meeting you.”

She flashed a smile at him. He bent over her hand; held it a moment in his icy grasp.

“The pleasure,” said Susan, prettily, not shirking the ordeal, “is mine.”

“In which case,” added Mauville, half ironically, “I will leave you together to enjoy your happiness.”

Eagerly availing himself of the place offered at her side, soon the marquis was cackling after the manner of a senile beau of the old school; relating spicy anecdotes of dames who had long departed this realm of scandal; and mingling witticism and wickedness in one continual flow, until like a panorama another age was revived in his words–an age when bedizened women wore patches and their perfumed gallants wrote verses on the demise of their lap-dogs; when “their virtue resembled a statesman’s religion, the Quaker’s word, the gamester’s oath and the great man’s honor–but to cheat those that trusted them!”

The day’s events, however, were soon over; the city of pleasure finally capitulated; its people began rapidly to depart. That sudden movement resembled the migration of a swarm of bees to form a new colony, when, if the day be bright, the expedition issues forth with wondrous rapidity. So this human hive commenced to empty itself of queens, drones and workers. It was an outgoing wave of such life and animation as is apparent in the flight of a swarm of cell-dwellers, giving out a loud and sharp-toned hum from the action of their wings as they soar over the blooming heather and the “bright consummate flowers.” And these human bees had their passions, too! their massacres; their tragedies; their “Rival Queens”; their combats; their sentinels; their dreams of that Utopian form of government realized in the communistic society of insects.

“How did you enjoy it, my dear?” asked Barnes, suddenly reappearing at Constance’s box. “A grand heat, that! Though I did bet on the wrong horse! But don’t wait for us, Saint-Prosper. Mrs. Adams and I will take our time getting through the crowd. I will see you at the hotel, my dear!” he added, as the soldier and Constance moved away.

Only the merry home-going remained, and the culmination, a dinner at Moreau’s, Victor’s, or Miguel’s, the natural epilogue to the day’s pastime, the tag to the comedy! In the returning throng were creoles with sky-blue costumes and palmetto hats; the Lafourche or Attakapas planter; representatives of the older régime and the varied newer populace. Superb equipages mingled in democratic confusion with carts and wagons; the broken-winded nag and spavined crowbait–veterans at the bugle call!–pricked up their ears and kicked up their heels like colts in pasture, while the delighted darkies thumped their bony shanks to encourage this brief rejuvenescence.

Those who had lost felt the money well spent; those who had won would be the more lavish in the spending. They had simply won a few more pleasures. “Quick come; quick go!” sang the whirling wheels. “The niggard in pound and pence is a usurer in happiness; a miser driving a hard bargain with pleasure. Better burn the candle at both ends than not burn it at all! In one case, you get light; in the other nothing but darkness. Laughter is cheap at any price. A castle in the air is almost as durable as Solomon’s temple. How soon–how soon both fade away!”

Thus ran the song of the wheels before them and behind them, as the soldier and Constance joined the desultory fag-end of the procession. On either side of the road waved the mournful cypress, draped by the hoary tillandsia, and from the somber depths of foliage came the chirp of the tree-crickets and the note of the swamp owl. Faint music, in measured rhythm, a foil to disconnected wood-sound, was wafted from a distant plantation.

“Wait!” said Constance.

He drew in the horses and silently they listened. Or, was he listening? His glance seemed bent so moodily–almost!–on space she concluded he was not. She stole a sidelong look at him.

“A penny for your thoughts!” she said gaily.

He started. “I was thinking how soon I might leave New Orleans.”

“Leave New Orleans!” she repeated in surprise. “But I thought you intended staying here. Why have you changed your mind?”

Did he detect a subtle accent of regret in her voice? A deep flush mounted to his brow. He bent over her suddenly, eagerly.

“Would it matter–if I went?”

She drew back at the abruptness of his words.

“How unfair to answer one question with another!” she said lightly.

A pause fell between them. Perhaps she, too, felt the sudden repulse of her own answer and the ensuing constraint. Perhaps some compunction moved her to add in a voice not entirely steady:

“And so you think–of going back to France?”

“To France!” he repeated, quickly. “No”–and stopped.

Looking up, a half-questioning light in her eyes took flight to his, until suddenly arrested by the hard, set expression of his features. Abruptly chilled by she knew not what, her lashes fell. The horses champed their bits and tugged at the reins, impatient of the prolonged pause.

“Let us go!” she said in a low, constrained voice.

At her words he turned, the harshness dropping from his face like a discarded mask; the lines of determination wavering.

“Let us go!” she said again, without looking up.

He made no motion to obey, until the sound of a vehicle behind them seemed to break the spell and mechanically he touched the horses with the whip.