The Romance of a Plain Man Read online

  CHAPTER X

  IN WHICH I GROW UP

  In my eighteenth year, when I had achieved a position and a salary inthe tobacco factory, I left the Old Market forever, and moved into aroom, which Mrs. Clay had offered to rent to me, in the house of Dr.Theophilus. During the next twelve months my intimacy with young George,who was about to enter the University, led to an acquaintance, though aslight one, with that great man, the General. As the years passed mydream of the Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad, instead ofevaporating, had become fixed in my mind as the fruition of all my toil,the end of all my ambition. I saw in it still, as I had seen in it thatafternoon against the rosy sunset and the anchored vessel, the oneglorious possibility, the great adventure. The General's plethoricfigure, with his big paunch and his gouty toe, had never lost in my eyesthe legendary light in which I had enveloped it; and when Georgesuggested to me carelessly one spring afternoon that I should stop byhis house and have a look at his uncle's classical library, I felt mycheeks burn, while my heart beat an excited tattoo against my ribs. Thehouse I knew by sight, a grave, low-browed mansion, with a fringe ofpurple wistaria draping the long porch; and it was under a pendulousshower of blossoms that we found the General seated with the eveningnewspaper in his hand and his bandaged foot on a wicker stool. As weentered the gate he was making a face over a glass of water, while hecomplained fretfully to Dr. Theophilus, who sat in a rocking-chair, withRobin, the pointer, stretched on a rug at his feet.

  "I'll never get used to the taste of water, if I live to be a hundred,"the great man was saying peevishly. "To save my soul I can't understandwhy the Lord made anything so darn flat!"

  A single lock of hair, growing just above the bald spot on his head,stirred in the soft wind like a tuft of bleached grass, while his lower,slightly protruding lip pursed itself into an angry and childishexpression. He was paying the inevitable price, I gathered, for hiscareer as "a gay old bird"; but even in the rebuking glance which Dr.Theophilus now bent upon him, I read the recognition that the presidentof the Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad must be dosed moresparingly than other men. Under his loose, puffy chin he wore a loose,puffy tie of a magenta shade, in the midst of which a single black pearlreposed; and when he turned his head, the creases in his neck lookedlike white cords sunk deep in the scarlet flesh.

  "There's no use, Theophilus, I can't stand it," he protested. "Delilah,bring me a sip of whiskey to put a taste in my mouth."

  "No whiskey, Delilah, not a drop," commanded the doctor sternly. "It'sthe result of your own imprudence, George, and you've got to pay for it.You've been eating strawberries, and I told you not to touch one with aten-foot pole."

  "You didn't say a word about strawberry shortcake," rejoined theGeneral, like a guilty child, "and this attack is due to an entirelydifferent cause. I dined at the Blands' on Sunday, and Miss Mitty gaveme mint sauce on my lamb. I never could abide mint sauce."

  Taking out his prescription book the doctor wrote down a prescription ina single word, which looked ominously like "calomel" from a distance.

  "How did Miss Matoaca seem?" he asked, while Robin, the old pointer,came and sniffed at my ankles, and I thought of Samuel, sleeping under aflower bed in the doctor's garden. "She has a touch of malaria, and Iordered her three grains of quinine every morning."

  A purple flush mounted to the General's face, which, if I could haveread it by the light of history, would have explained the scornfulflattery in his attitude toward "the sex." It was easy to catch thepersonal note in his piquant allusions to "the ladies," though aninstinct, which he would probably have called a principle, kept themalways within the bounds of politeness. Later I was to learn that MissMatoaca had been the most ardent, if by no means the only, romance ofhis youth; and that because of some headstrong and indelicate opinionsof hers on the subject of masculine morals, she had, when confrontedwith tangible proofs of the General's airy wanderings, hopelesslysevered the engagement within a few weeks of the marriage. To a gayyoung bird the prospect of a storm in a nest had been far fromattractive; and after a fierce quarrel, he had started dizzily down thedescent of his bachelorhood, while she had folded her trembling wingsand retired into the shadow. That Miss Matoaca possessed "headstrongopinions," even the doctor, with all his gallantry, would have been thelast to deny. "She seems to think men are made just like women," heremarked now, wonderingly, "but, oh, Lord, they ain't!"

  "I tell you it's those outlandish heathen notions of hers that aredriving us all crazy!" exclaimed the General, making a face as he haddone over his glass of water. "Talks about taxes without representationexactly as if she were a man and had rights! What rights does a womanwant, anyway, I'd like to know, except the right to a husband? They allought to have husbands--God knows I'm not denying them that!--the stateought to see to it. But rights! Pshaw! They'll get so presently theywon't know how to bear their wrongs with dignity. And I tell you,doctor, if there's a more edifying sight than a woman bearing her wrongsbeautifully, I've never seen it. Why, I remember my Cousin JennyTyler--you know she married that scamp who used to drink and throw hisboots at her. 'What do you do, Jenny?' I asked, in a boiling rage, whenshe told me, and I never saw a woman look more like an angel than shedid when she answered, 'I pick them up.' Why, she made me cry, sir;that's the sort of woman that makes a man want to marry."

  "I dare say you're right," sighed the doctor, "but Miss Matoaca is made,of a different stuff. I can't imagine her picking up any man's boots,George."

  "No more can I," retorted the General, "it serves her right that shenever got a husband. No gentleman wants to throw his boots at his wife,but, by Jove, he likes to feel that if he were ever to do such a thing,she'd be the kind that would pick them up. He doesn't want to thinkeverlastingly that he's got to walk a chalk-line or catch a flea in hisear. Now, what do you suppose Miss Matoaca said to me on Sunday? We weretalking of Tom Frost's running for governor, and she said she hoped hewouldn't be elected because he led an impure life. An impure life! Willyou tell me what business it is of an unmarried lady's whether a manleads an impure life or not? It isn't ladylike--I'll be damned if it is!I could see that Miss Mitty blushed for her. What's the world coming to,I ask, when a maiden lady isn't ashamed to know that a man leads animpure life?"

  He raged softly, and I could see that Dr. Theophilus was growing sternerover his flippancy.

  "Well, you're a gay old bird, George," he remarked, "and I dare say youthink me something of a prude."

  Tearing off a leaf from his prescription book, he laid it on the table,and held out his hand. Then he stood for a minute with his eyes onRobin, who was marching stiffly round a bed of red geraniums near thegate. "It's time to go," he added; "that old dog of mine is gettingready to root up your geraniums."

  "You'd better keep a cat," observed the General, "they do less damage."

  Young George and I, who had stood in the shadow of the wistaria awaitingthe doctor's departure, came forward now, and I made my awkward bow tothe General's bandaged foot.

  "Any relative of Jack Starr?" he enquired affably as he shook my hand.

  I towered so conspicuously above him, while I stood there with my hat inmy hand, that I was for a moment embarrassed by my mere physicaladvantages.

  "No, sir, not that I ever heard of," I answered.

  "Then you ought to be thankful," he returned peevishly, "for the firsttime I ever met the fellow he deliberately trod on my toe--deliberately,sir. And now they're wanting to nominate him for governor--but I saythey shan't do it. I've no idea of allowing it. It's utterly out of thequestion."

  "Uncle George, I've brought Ben to see your library," interrupted youngGeorge at my elbow.

  "Library, eh? Are you going to be a lawyer?" demanded the General.

  I shook my head.

  "A preacher?" in a more reverent voice.

  "No, sir, I'm in the Old Dominion Tobacco Works. You got me my firstjob."

  "I got you your job--did I? Then you're the young chap that discoveredthat blend for s
moking. I told Bob you ought to have a royalty on that.Did he give it to you?"

  "I'm to have ten per cent of the sales, sir. They've just begun."

  "Well, hold on to it--it's a good blend. I tried it. And when you getyour ten per cent, put it into the Old South Chemical Company, if youwant to grow rich. It isn't everybody I'd give that tip to, but I likethe looks of you. How tall are you?"

  "Six feet one in my stockings."

  "Well, I wouldn't grow any more. You're all right, if you can onlymanage to keep your hands and feet down. You've got good eyes and a goodjaw, and it's the jaw that tells the man. Now, that's the trouble withthat Jack Starr they want to nominate for governor. He lacks jaw. 'Youcan't make a governor out of a fellow who hasn't jaw,' that's what Isaid. And besides, he deliberately trod on my toe the first time I evermet him. Didn't know it was gouty, eh? What right has he got, I asked,to suppose that any gentleman's toe isn't gouty?"

  His lower lip protruded angrily, and he sat staring into his glass ofwater with an enquiring and sulky look. It is no small tribute to mycapacity for hero-worship to say that it survived even this nearerapproach to the gouty presence of my divinity. But the glamour ofsuccess--the only glamour that shines without borrowed light in thehard, dry atmosphere of the workaday world--still hung around him; andhis very dissipations--yes, even his fleshly frailties--reflected, forthe moment at least, a romantic interest. I began to wonder if certainmoral weaknesses were, indeed, the inevitable attributes of the greatman, and there shot into my mind, with a youthful folly of regret, thememory of a drink I had declined that morning, and of a pretty maiden atthe Old Market whom I might have kissed and did not. Was the doctor'steaching wrong, after all, and had his virtues made him a failure inlife, while the General's vices had but helped him to his success? I wasvery young, and I had not yet reached the age when I could perceive theexpediency of the path of virtue unless in the end it bordered onpleasant places. "The General is a bigger man than the doctor," Ithought, half angrily, "and yet the General will be a gay old bird aslong as the gout permits him to hobble." And it seemed to me suddenlythat the moral order, on which the doctor loved to dilate, had gonetopsy-turvy while I stood on the General's porch. As if reading mythoughts the great man looked up at me, with his roguish twinkle.

  "Now there's Theophilus!" he observed. "Whatever you are, sir, don't bea damned mollycoddle."

  Young George, plucking persistently at my sleeve, drew me at last out ofthe presence and into the house, where I smelt the fragrance ofstrawberries, freshly gathered.

  "Here're the books," said George, leading me to the door of a long room,filled with rosewood bookcases and family portraits of departedBolingbrokes. Then as I was about to cross the threshold, the sound of abright voice speaking to the General on the porch caused me to stopshort, and stand holding my breath in the hall.

  "Good afternoon, General! You look as if you needed exercise."

  "Exercise, indeed! Do you take me for your age, you minx?"

  "Oh, come, General! You aren't old--you're lazy."

  By this time George and I had edged nearer the porch, and even before hebreathed her name in a whisper, I knew in the instant that her sparklingglance ran over me, that she was my little girl of the red shoes justbudding into womanhood. She was standing in a square patch of sunlight,midway between the steps and a bed of red geraniums near the gate, andher dress of some thin white material was blown closely against thecurves of her bosom and her rounded hips. Over her broad white forehead,with its heavily arched black eyebrows, the mass of her pale brown hairspread in the strong breeze and stood out like the wings of a bird inflight, and this gave her whole, finely poised figure a swift andexpectant look, as of one who is swept forward by some radiant impulse.Her face, too, had this same ardent expression; I saw it in her eyes,which fixed me the next moment with her starry and friendly gaze; in hervery full red lips that broke the pure outline of her features; and inher strong, square chin held always a little upward with a proud andimpatient carriage. So vivid was my first glimpse of her, that for asingle instant I wondered if the radiance in her figure was not producedby some fleeting accident of light and shadow. When I knew her better Ilearned that this quality of brightness belonged neither to the mind norto an edge of light, but to the face itself--to some peculiar minglingof clear grey with intense darkness in her brow and eyes.

  As she stood there chatting gayly with the General, young George eyedher from the darkened hall with a glance in which I read, when I turnedto him, a touch of his uncle's playful masculine superiority.

  "She'll be a stunner, if she doesn't get too big," he observed. "I don'tlike big girls--do you?"

  Then as I made no rejoinder, he added after a moment, "Do you think hermouth spoils her? Aunt Hatty calls her mouth coarse."

  "Coarse?" I echoed angrily. "What does she mean by coarse?"

  "Oh, too red and too full. She says a lady's mouth ought to be adelicate bow."

  "I never saw a delicate bow--"

  "No more did I--but I'd call Sally a regular stunner now, mouth and all.Sally!" he broke out suddenly, and stepped out on the porch. "I'll goriding with you some day," he said, "if you want me."

  She laughed up at him. "But I don't want you."

  "You wanted me bad enough a year ago."

  "That was a year ago."

  Running hurriedly down the steps, he stood talking to her beside the bedof scarlet geraniums, while I felt a burning embarrassment pervade mybody to the very palms of my hands.

  "Where's the other fellow, George?" called the General, suddenly."What's become of him?"

  As he turned his head in my direction, I left the hall, and came outupon the porch, acutely conscious, all the time, that there was too muchof me, that my hands and feet got in my way, that I ought to have put ona different shirt in the afternoon.

  Sally was stooping over to snip off the head of a geranium, and when shelooked up the next instant, with her hair blown back from her forehead,her starry, expectant gaze rested full on my own.

  "Why, it's the boy I used to know," she exclaimed, moving toward me."Boy, how do you do?" She put out her hand, and as I took it in mine, Isaw for the first time that she was a large girl for her age, and wouldbe a large woman. Her figure was already ripening under her thin whitegown, but her hands and feet were still those of a child, and moulded, Isaw, with that peculiar delicacy, which, I had learned from the doctor,was the distinguishing characteristic of the Virginian aristocracy.

  "It is a long time since--since I saw you," she remarked in a cordialvoice.

  "It's been eight years," I answered. "I wonder that you remember me."

  "Oh, I never forget. And besides, if I didn't see you for eight yearsmore, I should still recognise you by your eyes. There aren't manyboys," she said merrily, "who have eyes like a blue-eyed collie's."

  With this she turned from me to George, and after a word or two to theGeneral, and a nod in my direction, they passed through the gate, andwent slowly along the street, her pale brown hair still blown like abird's wing behind her.

  The General's sister, young George's Aunt Hatty, a severe little lady,with a very flat figure, had come out on the porch, and was offering herbrother a dose of medicine.

  "A good girl, Hatty," remarked the great man, in an affable mood. "Alittle too much of her Aunt Matoaca's spirit for a wife, but a very goodgirl, as long as you ain't married to her."

  "She would be handsome, George, except for her mouth. It's a pity hermouth spoils her."

  "What's the matter with her mouth? I haven't got your eyesight, Hatty,but it appears a perfectly good mouth to me."

  "That's because you have naturally coarse tastes, George. A lady's mouthshould be a delicate bow."

  A delicate bow, indeed! Those full, sensitive lips that showed like asplash of carmine in the clear pallor of her face! As I walked homeunder the broad, green leaves of the sycamores, I remembered thefeatures of the pretty maiden at the Old Market, and they appeared to mesuddenly diveste
d of all beauty. It was as if a bright beam of sunshinehad fallen on a blaze of artificial light, and extinguished it forever.Henceforth I should move straight toward a single love, as I had alreadybegun to move straight toward a single ambition.