Speed Nell
Tripping with the Tucker Twins
CHAPTER XVII
MISS ARABELLA
No ghosts came to disturb my slumbers in the great four-poster, but the early morning sun awoke me long before Tweedles gave any indication of coming to life. I thought for a while I was at Bracken. It must have been the lavender in the sheets and the mocking-bird, who was singing like Caruso just outside of my window. An odor will carry more suggestion than any sight; and sound comes next, I believe. I lay there wondering how long it would be before Mammy Susan would come bringing my bath-water, devoutly praying she would not "het" it up, but let me have it stinging cold from the well.
The realization that I was in Charleston came over me gradually; also, that no one would bring me bath-water, and that if I wanted first to go in the preserving-kettle I had better get up and take it. I had to go through the twins' room to get to the bathroom, and I found them sleeping like infants, looking ridiculously alike with their eyes shut and their chins snuggled down in the bed clothes. The squareness of Dum's chin and the dimple in Dee's was more of a differentiation in their case than even the eyes. Dum's were hazel while Dee's were gray, but the shape and setting were similar, if not identical. I stood a moment gazing at them, and it came over me with an added realization what their friendship had meant to me; theirs and their father's. I had known them according to the calendar only twenty months, not quite two years, but counting time by "heart throbs," I had known them since the beginning of time. God grant nothing should ever come between us!
Mr. Tucker had certainly been a little snappy with me before he went to Columbia, but I was never the kind to go around with a chip on my shoulder hunting for trouble, so if it was an accident I was perfectly willing to let it go at that. The truth of the matter was, that the Tuckers had one and all spoiled me. They were so lovely to me on all occasions that a slight let-up on the part of any one of them was more noticeable because of their usual kindness. He was to come back that day, and I was very glad, as indeed all of us were, although we were expecting a good teasing for having so bravely undertaken the business of getting board and then moving in without any business arrangement.
The copper tub was not so bad, after all, and the Charleston water is always a delight to bathe in. It is strangely soft, as though it had just fallen from a summer cloud, and it has a peculiar sweetish taste. I dressed in a great hurry and soon found myself in the garden. The sun that had made his way into my window had not yet reached the garden, because of the high wall.
"One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed."
That was what I thought as I stepped out into that wonderful old garden. There was a misty haze of early morning, and the freshness of the new-born day that few persons know of. Early rising is a habit that it is a pity ever to lose, and still it is something that the civilized world seems to fight against. Children naturally wake early, but as one grows older the sunrise is such a rarity that many grown-ups cannot remember ever having seen this wonderful spectacle which takes place every morning.
Father says that one of the signs of advancing years is waking quite early in the morning and not being able to go back to sleep. When he is called in to doctor old persons, who complain of waking early, he always tells them not to try to go back to sleep, but to get up and go out in the morning and see how glorious Creation is. Nature may be asserting herself in these old persons so they can get back some of the spirit of childhood before they are called to the Great Beyond. He always tells them to eat something, however, before they go to commune with Nature.
The mocking-bird was not holding the fort alone that morning, as he had the evening before. His little wife was still carrying building materials for their home, and he was helping, but every now and then he left off work, although he had heard no whistle blow to tell him it was time to stop. Then such a stream of melody as he would pour forth would put Caruso to the blush. Other birds were in the garden, and all of them very busy. A tiny song sparrow had something to say with remarkable volume considering his size, and Mr. Mocking-Bird listened intently, determined to learn the new song. A thrush broke in and then a stylish robin. I thought I heard the notes of a bobolink, but it turned out to be the mocking-bird, who seemed intent on singing down all the others. It reminded me rather of the sextette from "Lucia de Lammermoor" when the artists all seem to be trying to outdo each other and still harmony is the result.
I had brought down all the combings from our three heads, well knowing how the birds delight in hair as a building material. Of course Mammy Susan had done her best all my life to keep me from letting birds get any of my hair for nests, as it is supposed to be the very worst luck that can befall one, and terrible headaches are sure to be the lot of a person whose hair helps make a nest. Nevertheless, I had always sneaked my hair to the birds at Bracken, and this morning, feeling sure that I was the only person astir, I had quite openly brought a wad of hair, Dum's burnished black, Dee's blue black, and my curly brown, all mingled together. I put some on a lilac bush and some on the path where I noticed the builders had found some straw and would no doubt soon spy the more desirable material.
"I wish I had some of Molly Brown's," I said to myself. We had got in the habit of speaking of Mrs. Green as Molly Brown, and no doubt would soon begin to call her Molly to her face. "Hers would make the dear birds feel that they were weaving sunshine into their nests. I'm going to ask her for some."
I made my way very slowly and quietly, so as not to disturb the busy homemakers, along the overgrown path to the summer house.
I was mistaken in thinking I was the only human being astir in that enchanted garden. As I lifted a great branch of snowballs that, heavy with its own beauty, had fallen across the path, I saw that Miss Arabella was before me. She was seated in the summer house. The great gray cat was on the ground in front of her, looking up into her face with a sly expression in his round, yellow eyes.
"Now, Grimalkin, I give you fair warning. If you dare so much as look at one of these birds I will shut you up in the house for the rest of the day! You hear me, sir?"
"Me-i-ou – !" and he tried to slink off, deceit in every curve of his handsome body.
"No, you don't, sir!" and with astonishing agility for an old lady who had swallowed a hereditary poker, she swooped forward and caught the cat up into her lap. How different this was from the Miss Arabella of the evening before! Her soft gray hair, with a glint of gold in it, was all loosened about her face. There was a little flush on her cheeks, and instead of the sombre black dress she now wore a loose lavender wrapper. If it had been possible to back out and get up the garden path without being seen, I would have done it. I felt like Peeping Tom and Lady Godiva. Somehow this was Miss Arabella's naked soul I had come on, and I was afraid she would be terribly cut up. There was nothing for me, however, but to speak. I made a little scratching on the path with my toe and shook the snowball branch. She looked up, startled, and loosened her hold on Grimalkin, who immediately took advantage of her and sprang from her lap. This was no time for dignity! The cat at liberty in the garden meant havoc for the nesting birds.
"I'll catch him!" I cried, and then such a chase ensued! Grimalkin thought all the world moved as slowly as the dear ladies who had raised him, and at first scorned me as a pursuer, but I soon gave him to understand that a country girl with gym training added to her natural agility is a match for a fat old tomcat. I cornered him just as he started up the high wall, and, catching him by the back of his neck, in the proper place for a cat to be held, I carried him back to his smiling mistress, who, all unmindful of his unsheathed claws, caught him to her bosom, where he soon dropped asleep, purring away as though that was where he meant to go all the time.
"You are very kind! I am exceedingly grateful to you!"
"Oh, not at all! It was my fault the cat got away. I thought I was all alone in the garden and did not mean to come on you this way. I fancied the birds and I were the only creatures awake."
"I always come down in the garden very early in the morning. I can't trust Grimalkin alone out here while the birds are nesting. After they have hatched and the little ones can fly they can escape from him, he is so fat, but I am always afraid he will drive the mocking-birds away. I can't sleep in the early morning, anyhow. Do you usually arise so early?"
"Not always, but I am a country girl, and country people always get up earlier than city people. My friends, the Tuckers, have to be dragged out of bed unless there is some especial reason for getting up, and then they are energetic enough. I did not disturb them this morning as they were sleeping so peacefully."
Miss Arabella had made a place for me on the stone bench, and was still smiling at me in a very encouraging way. Perhaps she was as eager to find out things about me as I was about her.
"My sister was sleeping, too, at least she seemed to be trying to. Both of us, as a rule, awaken very early, but she lies still trying to get back to sleep, while I feel that it is best to get up and take advantage of the beautiful morning light. You must excuse my being en déshabillé. I did not expect to be seen."
"Oh, I think you look lovely!"
She didn't mind a bit, but blushed and patted my hand.
"I am very fond of young girls, but never see any nowadays but Claire Gaillard. She is the only one who comes to our sad old house."
"Sad! Not sad, it is too beautiful to be sad."
"It is its very beauty that seems sad to me," she sighed. "And the garden! I feel like a traitor to let it get so unkempt. I am not strong enough to keep it weeded. All I have strength to do now is to keep Grimalkin from devouring the birds. Judith thinks I am very foolish. She lays more stress on having the furniture rubbed and keeping up the inside of the house, but to me the garden and birds are more important. I'd like to see the garden looking as it used to, with trim flower beds and the dead wood all cut away."
Miss Arabella seemed to forget I was there, or to forget I was a stranger, perhaps. I am sure she had no intention of unburdening her soul to me. She closed her eyes and I knew she was picturing the garden as it had been years ago, and perhaps she was even seeing the lover of the past as he looked when she kissed him through the gate. A thought wave seemed to have gone from me to her. I no sooner put my mind on the iron gates that I felt sure must have been where the ugly board ones were now, ere she began talking of those very gates. The sun had reached the garden now, and was lifting the soft mist that hung over it like a tulle veil. I felt somehow that the veil of the past was being lifted, too, and Miss Arabella was letting me catch a glimpse of her true self.
"I hate that ugly gate," she mused. "I miss the beautiful old grille that had been there for so many years – where our friends and ancestors had come and gone so often."
"I was sure there must have been an iron gate there."
"Yes, my dear, one of the most beautiful in Charleston. We had to let something go. I thought the Stuart portrait of General Laurens would be the best, but Judith felt that the gates would be the thing to give up. She rather likes having the board ones that no one can see through. I hate them, as I like to look out on the street sometimes. The gates were very valuable, being wrought-iron of a most delicate and intricate pattern. There was hardly a spot where one could so much as get a hand through." I gasped here and had a vision of Miss Arabella, young and beautiful, trying to get her hand through and ending by finding a place where her rosy lips with some pouting could reach her lover, locked out no doubt by a stern parent. "I don't know why I should speak of these things to you, child. It would provoke sister Judith very much if she knew – "
"But she won't know," and I took the frail old hand in mine. "I long to hear about the gates and the garden as it used to be. It is so lovely now that I can well picture what it must have been. Please go right on and tell me everything about it, and let me be your friend, as well as Claire."
And the old lady, with her eyes all soft, sat on the stone bench in that early morning, the purring Grimalkin clasped with one hand and the other holding mine, and told many wonderful tales of olden times. It was an hour never to be forgotten by me. The birds hopped close to us, some in search of the early worm and some intent on building material, stopping every now and then to pour forth the joy of living in song. They seemed to trust the lady of the garden to keep the enemy from them.
I hoped the stern Miss Judith was sleeping peacefully, and would not come stalking into our dreams like a great Grimalkin herself. Miss Arabella was enjoying herself immensely. She lived in the past, and her mind was like some old chest filled with faded souvenirs of a happier time. She had opened this wonder-box for me and was having the time of her life taking out treasure after treasure, shaking out the folds of some rare silken memory, or unwrapping some quaintly set jewel of experience. I listened entranced, only occasionally dropping a word to show my interest or pressing the little hand, so thin now that perhaps it might have slipped through the grille.
Dilsey, opening the shutters of the dining-room, brought us back to the present. The household was astir! Miss Judith must be up and doing by now. The sun had found the garden out with his searching rays, and the last bit of mist had disappeared.
"My goodness! It must be getting quite late!" exclaimed my old new friend. "I am afraid you are sadly bored with my tales," she added penitently.
"Bored! Why, Miss Arabella, it has been lovely. I do thank you for talking to me and please do it some more."
"Well, another morning then, child! I must hurry in now and dress myself and be a sad old woman some more. I thank you for making me forget it for once, – being a sad old woman, I mean."
She certainly did not look like a sad old woman as she tripped down the path to the house, her lavender draperies brushing the syringa and lilacs as she passed. She seemed to me more to be the spirit of eternal youth and spring. Miss Arabella might swathe herself in black again and remember to respond to the hereditary poker, but I had glimpsed the real Miss Arabella and knew now that the sad old woman was merely the body in which a radiant spirit dwelt. It was this spirit that we had heard singing that night in the garden, "Speak not, ah, breathe not – there's peace on the deep."
Tweedles were opening their eyes when I came in, and, uncovering their chins, so they did not look so much alike.
"Dressed already, Page?" yawned Dum.
"Yes, dressed and out in the garden for hours! I took down all the combings for the birds and they are crazy about them. Can't you hear their hymn of thanksgiving?"
"Pig! Why didn't you call me?" and Dee rolled out of bed to beat Dum to the copper-kettle-like bathtub.
"I hate to wake you up when I have to, and goodness knows I am not going to do any gratuitous waking," I laughed. "Girls! I have had the time of my life, and have got to know Miss Arabella real well. She is simply a darling!" and I rummaged for my notebook.
I was afraid to put off for a moment jotting down in my little book some of the impressions of the morning. If I should forget anything Miss Arabella had told me I would never forgive myself. I wrote like mad all the time the twins were dressing, but it is strange about the things Miss Arabella divulged to me that morning; although I know that what an author or a would-be author hears in this life belongs to him, and is his property to be twisted and turned in his writing as he sees fit to use it, somehow those memories I have held sacred always, and I can't believe in my writing I could ever get so hard-pressed that I'd feel at liberty to make copy of what Miss Arabella told me on that enchanted morning in the garden.
CHAPTER XVIII
A CHANCE FOR LOUIS
Contrary to our expectations, Zebedee did not tease us at all for engaging board without knowing what it was. He said he was in thorough sympathy with all of us for shying at the subject, and for his part he was perfectly willing to trust the dear old ladies to do exactly the right thing.
He blew in, his usual manner of arriving, while we were at luncheon, and as we might have known, took the Misses Laurens by storm. The hereditary pokers melted as if by magic and even Miss Judith succumbed to his charms and promised to go to a moving picture show with him some night. As for Miss Arabella: her poker was only an imitation one, anyhow, and it did not take much to limber her up. It was rather astonishing, though, to find her unbending to the extent that she and Zebedee sang Gilbert and Sullivan operas together that evening in the garden, Zebedee doing Dick Deadeye with his usual abandon and Miss Arabella singing:
"I'm called little Buttercup, dear little Buttercup,
Though I could never tell why —
But still I'm called Buttercup, dear little Buttercup,
Sweet little Buttercup, I."
"I wouldn't be at all astonished to see Miss Judith dance a jig after this," whispered Dum to me. "Isn't our young father a wonder?"
He was certainly that. Professor Green looked on in envy and amazement, still bitterly regretting the sugar-on-the-rice episode. It is a strange thing what makes a "mixer." Professor Green was quite as kind as Zebedee, and quite as eager to make people happy. He was as intelligent, as well-bred, better educated, more traveled, but when the time came to make old persons forget their dignity and years or make young persons forget their youth and callowness, Zebedee certainly could put it all over the learned professor. I remember hearing one of the twins say that he could make crabs and ice cream agree, and surely I believe he could.
"I have never met any one like him but once," said Mrs. Green as the singers finished a duet from "Pinafore" and began humming some tunes from "Patience," while Miss Judith sat smiling, and even occasionally supplying a missing word. "I used to know a young newspaper man named Jimmy Lufton, and he could keep a crowd happy and make the most impossible people mingle and enjoy themselves. It is only a very kind-hearted person who can do it, but of course, having a kind heart does not mean you have that power."
"Thank you, my dear, for that," said Professor Green, smiling whimsically if somewhat ruefully. "I remember very well how miserable that very Jimmy Lufton made me on that hay ride we went on in Kentucky, you remember, when it poured so that the creek almost carried us away, four-horse wagon and all. He made everybody gay and happy but me. I was so green with jealousy I almost sprouted."
Mrs. Green blushed one of her adorable blushes that always made her look so lovely, we did not blame her husband for gazing at her as though she were a ripe peach and meant to be eaten up that moment.
"If you girls go to New York to pursue your studies I am going to write to Jimmy Lufton and send him a letter of introduction to you, that is, if you would care to meet him."
"If he is anything like Zebedee, I should say we would!" exclaimed Dee.
"I don't mean he is like him in every way, but just that he has that quality of mixing. I don't know how it is done. It is a talent as elusive as that of a born mayonnaise maker. I have seen persons who labored to have guests enjoy themselves, taking the greatest pains to seat them a certain way and introduce subjects congenial to all present, and still have the most dismal and doleful failures of parties; while others seem to be perfectly haphazard in their methods, and with a certain social charm make the lion and the lamb get on finely. The same way with mayonnaise makers – some people can have the oil ice cold, the eggs on ice for days, chill the bowl and the fork even, drop the oil in half a minim at the time and beat and stir like the demented, and still turn out runny dressing, not fit for axle grease. Others can waive all precautions of having everything cold and pour in oil with perfect recklessness, stirring leisurely, dump in vinegar or lemon at the psychological moment with a pinch of salt and a dash of cayenne, and, behold! a smooth, beautiful mayonnaise is the result."
"Speaking of lemons! Who's here?" from Dum.
It was his Eminence of the Tum Tum, in all the glory of a starched piqué vest, followed by Claire and Louis, both of them rather ill at ease in their father's presence. Miss Judith introduced the paying and non-paying guests with all the ceremony of a presentation at the Court of St. James.
"Now I am afraid Mr. Tucker's mayonnaise is going back on him," whispered Mrs. Green to me; "I don't believe he and Jimmy Lufton together could beat in that old man and make him into a smooth, palatable mixture."
But I was betting on Zebedee.
Miss Judith and Miss Arabella were looking around for their pokers so they could swallow them again, but Zebedee had hidden them, and with his inimitable good nature and tact he drew old Mr. Gaillard into his charmed circle. By some strange legerdemain he soon had the stiff old man telling tales of Charleston before the earthquake. He drew from him his opinion of the political situation of South Carolina and agreed with him that it was a pity that politics was no longer a gentleman's game. I happened to know that he felt it was the duty of every man to make it his game, but he evidently deemed it not the part of wisdom to voice his conviction to the old man.
We had agreed that we would do all in our power to make Mr. Gaillard like us, as in that way we hoped to be of some use to Louis. Zebedee and Professor Green had been discussing the boy quite seriously that very afternoon, and had thought of several ways to benefit him. They had decided, however, to make friends with the father first and not spring their plans too suddenly.
Mr. Gaillard was evidently enjoying himself hugely. The Greens were most flattering in their attention as he pompously recounted his tales. Mrs. Green was looking her loveliest, and one could see with half an eye that he soon began to direct his conversation to her. He pulled down his starched vest that had an annoying way of riding up over his rotundity, and smoothed his freshly shaven double chin with the air of being quite a ladies' man. Tweedles and I drew Claire and Louis over to the summer house away from their father's disconcerting presence. Their easy manners returned then and we spent a merry, happy hour.
Professor Green joined us after a while. He seemed anxious to make friends with Louis and to fathom the boy. I felt sure he had some plan for helping him and was sounding him, in a way. Louis was natural and simple in his attitude toward Professor Green, and I could see was making a very good impression.
"You would like to go to college, would you not?"
"Beyond everything. I am prepared to enter college now, but I am nineteen and feel if I do not go soon it will be too late. I am rather late graduating at the high school but had to miss a year because of an illness."
"I think nineteen is a very proper age to enter college," said the professor kindly. "I wonder if you would like my old college, Exmoor? It is a small college, but of excellent standing."
"I am sure I should like any college," and Louis sighed.
"I am commissioned by the faculty of Exmoor to find a young Southern gentleman to take pity on a scholarship that has been endowed for their college. It seems that this scholarship can only be used by a Southerner, and he must be a gentleman born and bred. It was presented four years ago by a man whose only son was rescued from drowning by a daring young Southern boy. The father had more money than he could use, and he wanted to send the brave youth to college to show in some measure his appreciation of what he had done. To make the gift one that the boy could not hesitate to accept, he established a permanent scholarship at Exmoor. Of course no one is too proud or high-born to accept a scholarship. That boy graduates this year with high honors after four very creditable years at college, and now the faculty must find another Southerner to fill his place. The president asked me to be on the lookout for one while I am on this trip, and if you would like to take it, I should be proud and gratified to be the means of presenting it to you."
Through this long speech Louis stood wide-eyed and flushed. Claire caught him by one hand and impulsive Dee by the other.
"Oh, sir!" was all he could falter.
"You must, you must!" exclaimed Dee.
"Louis, Louis, if you only can!" and Claire raised his hand to her cheek.
"But what will my father say?"
"We are going to leave him to Mr. Tucker, at least he is going to prepare the way. I have had a long talk with Tucker this afternoon, and we have mapped out a plan of campaign."
"But your father surely could have no objection," said Dum. "A scholarship is something that everybody accepts."
"But father is very – very – well – proud, I might say," and poor Claire looked exceedingly uncomfortable.
"Well, this can make him prouder than ever," I put in. "He can be proud that his son is chosen to have this scholarship because of his being the nice Southern gentleman he is."
By this time Louis could command his voice, and he said:
"I can hardly tell you, sir, how much I appreciate the interest you have shown in me and your kindness in making this offer, and I hope to be able to accept it. I wish it might have been because of something I am in myself, and not just because I am the descendant of gentlemen."
"But you are what you are partly because of that descent," I insisted. "Persons of low extraction accomplish something in spite of it sometimes; but I must say it is pleasant to have scholarships thrust upon one because of being a Southern gentleman. I think in this day and generation our ancestors do precious little for us – just sit back in their gilt frames and make us uncomfortable – I am glad for some of them to be getting to work."
Louis laughed and said he didn't know but that I was right. We all of us wanted to hear more of Exmoor, and Professor Green told us it was a small college, quite old and of excellent standing among educators, and that it was in walking distance of Wellington, where he occupied the chair of English. It turned out, however, that the professor was a great walker, and that Exmoor and Wellington were more than ten miles apart.
"Exmoor has a very fine course in agriculture and one of the greatest landscape gardeners in the United States is a graduate of that college, and boasts that he got his start there."
"Oh, Louis, that will be splendid, and you can specialize in that and come back to Charleston and do all the things you dream of doing!" exclaimed Dee, who still had Louis by the hand but was totally oblivious of the fact.
She was so excited over the offer Professor Green had made her friend that she might even have hugged him without knowing she was doing it. Louis was not quite so unconscious as Dee, but was making the best of his opportunity. Dee's attitude toward Louis was very much one that she had toward Oliver, the kitten she saved from drowning our first year at boarding-school, a purely maternal feeling, looking upon herself as his protector and elderly friend (being about two years his junior). Louis, however, was tumbling head over heels in love with her, as Dum and I could plainly see. There had not been many meetings, but when there were he stuck much closer than a brother to her side.
Claire could see it as plainly as we could, and no doubt went through all the heartaches an only sister would. She evidently liked Dee very much, however, and was willing to efface herself completely if it would make Louis happy. But Dee would have been quite as astonished if the kitten, Oliver, had stood up on his hind legs and sworn undying love for her; or Pharaoh's daughter, if the infant Moses had burst forth in amorous rhapsodies from his wicker basket after she had saved him from the waters of the Nile. She dropped his hand to pick up Grimalkin, and I am sure at the time she had no more sensations about the one than the other.
"If I might advise you young people," said Professor Green, "I think it will be just as well to say nothing to your father yet about the scholarship, but wait and Mr. Tucker and I will formally suggest it to him and ask his permission."
Of course the young Gaillards agreed heartily with Professor Green, and glad they were, no doubt, to have the office of approaching their pompous relative delegated to someone else. In the meantime, the pompous relative was making himself vastly agreeable, and the two arch conspirators, Molly and Zebedee, were doing all in their power to flatter and soft-soap him with a view to gaining his confidence and putting in an entering wedge toward helping his son.
"Claire," said his Eminence of the Tum Tum, "have you extended an invitation to tea in the garden of our home to the Misses Laurens and their guests?"
We had joined the rest of the party, attracted by the gay laughter and evident enjoyment of the older members.
"No, father," said Claire timidly. I haven't a doubt that he had told her not to ask us until he found out whether we were worthy or not. "We shall be most pleased to have all of you to afternoon tea tomorrow."
