The Romance of a Plain Man Read online

  CHAPTER XIII

  IN WHICH I RUN AGAINST TRADITIONS

  When we had delivered the mare to the coloured groom waiting on thesidewalk, she turned to me for the first time since I had uttered mydaring word.

  "You must come in to breakfast with us," she said, with a friendly andcareless smile, "Aunt Mitty will be disappointed if I return withoutwhat she calls 'a cavalier.'"

  The doubt occurred to me if Miss Mitty would consider me entitled to sofelicitous a phrase, but smothering it the next minute as best I could,I followed Sally, not without trepidation, up the short flight of steps,and into the wide hall, where the air was heavy with the perfume offading roses. Great silver bowls of them drooped now, with blightedheads, amid the withered smilax, and the floor was strewn thickly withpetals, as if a strong wind had blown down the staircase. From thedining room came a delicious aroma of coffee, and as we crossed thethreshold, I saw that the two ladies, in their lace morning caps, werealready seated at the round mahogany table. From behind the tall oldsilver service, the grave oval face of Miss Mitty cast on me, as Ientered, a look in which a faint wonder was mingled with a pleasanthereditary habit of welcome. A cover was already laid for the chancecomer, and as I took possession of it in response to her invitation, Ifelt again that terrible shyness--that burning physical embarrassment ofthe plain man in unfamiliar surroundings. So had I felt on the morningwhen I had stood in the kitchen, with my basket on my arm, and declinedthe plum cake for which my mouth watered. In the road with Sally I hadappeared to share, as she had said, something of the dignity of thebroomsedge and the open sky; here opposite to Miss Matoaca, with therich mahogany table and the vase of chrysanthemums between us, I seemedridiculously out of proportion to the surroundings amid which I sat,speechless and awkward. Was it possible that any woman could lookbeneath that mountain of shyness, and discern a self-confidence in largematters that would some day make a greater man than the General?

  "Cream and sugar?" enquired Miss Mitty, in a tone from which I knew shehad striven to banish the recognition that she addressed a socialinferior. Her pleasant smile seemed etched about her mouth, over theexpression of faint wonder which persisted beneath. I felt that herracial breeding, like Miss Matoaca's, was battling against herinstinctive aversion, and at the same moment I knew that I ought to havedeclined the invitation Sally had given. A sense of outrage--ofresentment--swelled hot and strong in my heart. What was this socialbarrier--this aristocratic standard that could accept the General andreject such men as I? If it had sprung back, strong and flexible as asteel wire, before the man, would it still present its irresistiblestrength against the power of money? In that instant I resolved that ifwealth alone could triumph over it, wealth should become the weapon ofmy attack. Then my gaze met Sally's over the chrysanthemums, and thethought in my brain shrank back suddenly abashed.

  "Dolly got a stone in her foot, poor dear," she remarked to her aunts,"and Ben Starr got it out. She limped all the way home."

  At her playful use of my name, a glance flashed from Miss Mitty to MissMatoaca and back again across the high silver service.

  "Then we are very grateful to Mr. Starr," replied Miss Mitty in a primvoice. "Sister Matoaca and I were just agreeing that you ought not to beallowed to ride alone outside the city."

  "Perhaps we can arrange with Ben to go walking along the same road,"responded Sally provokingly, "and I shouldn't be in need of a groom."

  For the first time I raised my eyes. "I'll walk anywhere except alongthe road-to-what-might-have-been," I said, and my voice was quitesteady.

  Her glance dropped to her plate. Then she looked across the vase ofchrysanthemums into Miss Mitty's face.

  "Ben and I used to play together, Aunt Mitty," she said, offering theinformation as if it were the most pleasant fact in the world, "when Ilived on Church Hill."

  A flush rose to Miss Mitty's cheeks, and passed the next instant, as ifby a wave of sympathy, into Miss Matoaca's.

  "I hoped, Sally, that you had forgotten that part of your life,"observed the elder lady stiffly.

  "How can I forget it, Aunt Mitty? I was very happy over there."

  "And are you not happy here, dear?" asked Miss Matoaca, hurt by thewords, and bending over, she smelt a spray of lilies-of-the-valley thathad lain beside her plate.

  "Of course I am, Aunt Matoaca, but one doesn't forget. I met Ben firstwhen I was six years old. Mamma and I stopped at his house in a stormone night on our way over to grandmama's. We were soaking wet, and theywere very kind and dried us and gave us hot things to drink, and hismother wrapped me up in a shawl and sent me here with mamma. I shallalways remember how good they were, and how he broke off a red geraniumfrom his mother's plant and gave it to me."

  As she told her story, Miss Mitty watched her attentively, theexpression of faint wonder in her eyes and her narrow eyebrows, and herpleasant, rather pained smile etched delicately about her fine, thinlips. Her long, oval face, suffused now by an unusual colour, rose abovethe quaint old coffee urn, on which the Fairfax crest, belonging to hermother's family, was engraved. If any passion could have been supposedto rock that flat, virgin bosom, I should have said that it was moved bya passion of wounded pride.

  "Is your coffee right, Mr. Starr? Have you cream enough?" she enquiredpolitely. "Selim, give Mr. Starr a partridge."

  My coffee was right, and I declined the bird, which would have stuck inmy throat. The united pride of the Blands and the Fairfaxes, I toldmyself, could not equal that possessed by a single obscure son of astone-cutter.

  "If you are as hungry as I am, you are famished," observed Sally, with agallant effort to make a semblance of gayety sport on a frozenatmosphere. "Aunt Matoaca, have pity and give me a muffin."

  Muffins were passed by Miss Matoaca; waffles were presented immediatelyby Selim.

  "Do take a hot one," urged Miss Matoaca anxiously, "yours is quitecold."

  I took a hot one, and after placing it on the small white and goldplate, swore desperately to myself that I would not eat a mouthful inthat house until I could eat there as an equal. The faint wonder beneaththe pained fixed smile on Miss Mitty's face stabbed me like a knife. Allher anxious hospitality, all her offers of cream and partridges, couldnot for a single minute efface it. Turning my head I discerned the sameexpression, still fainter, still gentler, reflected on Miss Matoaca'slips--as if some subtle bond of sympathy between them were askingalways, beneath the hereditary courtesy: "Can this be possible? Are we,whose mother was a Fairfax, whose father was a Bland, sitting at our owntable with a man who is not a gentleman by birth?--who has even broughta market basket to our kitchen door? What has become of the establishedorder if such a thing as this can happen to two unprotected Virginialadies?"

  And it was quite characteristic of their race, of their class, that thegreater the wonder grew in their gentle minds, the more sedulously theyplied me with coffee and partridges and preserves--that the more theirsouls abhorred me, the more lavish became their hands. Divided as theywere by their principles, something stronger than a principle now heldthe sisters together, and this was a passionate belief in the integrityof their race.

  Again Selim handed the waffles in a frozen silence, and again Sally madean unsuccessful attempt to produce an appearance of animation.

  "Are you going to market, Aunt Matoaca?" she asked, "and will youremember to buy seed for my canary?"

  The flush in Miss Matoaca's cheek this time, I could not explain.

  "Sister Mitty will go," she replied, in confusion, "I--I have anotherengagement."

  "She alludes to a meeting of one of her boards," observed Miss Mitty,and turning to me she added, with what I felt to be an unfair thrust atthe shrinking bosom of Miss Matoaca, "My sister is a great reader, Mr.Starr, and she has drawn many of her opinions out of books instead offrom life."

  I looked up, my eyes met Miss Matoaca's, and I remembered her lovestory.

  "We all do that, I suppose," I answered. "Even when we get them fromlife, haven't most of them had thei
r beginning in books?"

  "I am not a great reader myself," remarked Miss Mitty, a trifle primly."My father used to say that when a lady had read a chapter of her Biblein the morning, and consulted her cook-book, she had done as muchliterary work as was good for her. Too intimate an acquaintance withbooks, he always said, was apt to unsettle the views, and the bestjudgment a woman can have, I am sure, is the opinion of the gentlemen ofher family."

  "That may be true," I admitted, and my self-possession returned to me,until a certain masculine assurance sounded in my voice, "but I'm quitesure I shouldn't like anybody else's opinion to decide mine."

  "You are a man," rejoined Miss Mitty, and I felt that she had not beenable to bring her truthful lips to utter the word "gentleman." "It isnatural that you should have independent ideas, but, as far as I amconcerned, I am perfectly content to think as my grandmother and mygreat-grandmother have thought before me. Indeed, it seems to me almostdisrespectful to differ from them."

  "And it was dear great-grandmama," laughed Sally, "who when the doctoronce enquired if her tooth ached, turned to great-grandpapa and asked,'Does it ache, Bolivar?'"

  She had tossed her riding hat aside, and a single loosened wave of herhair had fallen low on her forehead above her arched black eyebrows.Beneath it her eyes, very wide and bright, held a puzzled yet resolutelook, as if they were fixed upon an obstacle which frightened her, andwhich she was determined to overcome.

  "You are speaking of my grandmama, Sally," observed Miss Mitty, and Icould see that the levity of the girl had wounded her.

  "I'm sorry, dear Aunt Mitty, she was my great-grandmama, too, but thatdoesn't keep me from thinking her a very silly person."

  "A silly person? Your own great-grandmama, Sally!" Her mind, long andnarrow, like her face, had never diverged, I felt, from the straightline of descent.

  "My sister and I unfortunately do not agree in our principles, Mr.Starr," said Miss Matoaca, breaking her strained silence suddenly in ahigh voice, and with an energy that left tremors in her thin, delicatefigure. "Indeed, I believe that I hold views which are opposed generallyby Virginia ladies--but I feel it to be a point of honour that I shouldlet them be known." She paused breathlessly, having delivered herselfof the heresy that worked in her bosom, and a moment later she sattrembling from head to foot with her eyes on her plate. Poor littlegallant lady, I thought, did she remember the time when at the call ofthat same word "honour," she had thrown away, not only her peace, buther happiness?

  "Whatever your opinions may be, Miss Matoaca, I respect your honest andloyal support of them," I said.

  The embarrassment that had overwhelmed me five minutes before hadvanished utterly. At the first chance to declare myself--to contend, notmerely with a manner, but with a situation, I felt the full strength ofmy manhood. The General himself could not have uttered his piquantpleasantries in a blither tone than I did my impulsive defence of theright of private judgment. Miss Mitty raised her eyes to mine, and MissMatoaca did likewise. Over me their looks clashed, and I saw at oncethat it was the relentless warfare between individual temperament andracial instinct. In spite of the obscurity of my birth, I knew that inMiss Matoaca, at that instant, I had won a friend.

  "Surely Aunt Matoaca is right to express what she thinks," said Sally,loyally following my lead.

  "No woman of our family has ever thought such things, Sally, or has everfelt called upon to express her views in the presence of men."

  "Well, I suppose, some woman has got to begin some day, and it may aswell be Aunt Matoaca."

  "There is no reason why any woman should begin. Your great-grandmama didnot."

  "But my great-grandmama couldn't tell when her tooth ached, and you can,I've heard you do it. It was very disrespectful of you, dear Auntie."

  "If you cannot be serious, Sally, I refuse to discuss the subject."

  "But how can anybody be serious, Aunt Mitty, about a person who didn'tknow when her own tooth ached?"

  "Dear sister," remarked Miss Matoaca, in a voice of gentle obstinacy, "Ido not wish to be the cause of a disagreement between Sally andyourself. Any question that was not one of principle I should gladlygive up. I know you are not much of a reader, but if you would onlyglance at an article in the last _Fortnightly Review_ on theEmancipation of Women--"

  "I should have thought, sister Matoaca, that Dr. Peterson's last sermonin St. Paul's on the feminine sphere would have been a far safer guidefor you. His text, Mr. Starr," she added, turning to me, "was, 'Shelooketh well to the ways of her household.'"

  "At least you can't accuse Aunt Matoaca of neglecting the ways of herhousehold," said Sally, merrily, "even the General rises up after dinnerand praises her mince pies. Do you like mince pies, Ben?"

  I replied that I was sure that I should like Miss Matoaca's, for I hadheard them lauded by General Bolingbroke; at which the poor lady blusheduntil her cheeks looked like withered rose leaves. She was one of thoseunhappy women, I had learned during breakfast, who suffered from agreater mental activity than was usually allotted to the females oftheir generation. Behind that long and narrow face, with its pencilledeyebrows, its fine, straight nose, and restlessly shining eyes, whatbattles of conviction against tradition must have waged. Was the finaltriumph of intellect due, in reality, to the accident of an unhappylove? Had the General's frailties driven this shy little lady, with herdevotion to law and order, and her excellent mince pies, into a martyrfor the rights of sex?

  "I am told that Mrs. Clay prides herself upon her pies," she remarked."I have never eaten them, but Dr. Theophilus tells me that he prefersmine because I use less suet."

  "I am sure nobody's could compare with yours, sister Matoaca," observedMiss Mitty in an affable tone, "and I happen to know that Mrs. Clayresorts to Mrs. Camberwell's cook-book. _We_ prefer Mrs. Randolph's,"she added, turning to me.

  "Well, we'll ask Ben to dinner some day, and he may judge," said Sally.

  Instantly I felt that her words were a challenge, and the shiningmahogany table, with its delicate lace mats, its silver and itschrysanthemums, became a battle-field for opposing spirits. I saw MissMitty stiffen and the corners of her mouth grow rigid under herpleasant, fixed smile.

  "Will you have some marmalade, Mr. Starr?" she asked, and I knew thatwith the phrase, she had flung down her gauntlet on the table. Her verypoliteness veiled a purpose, not of iron, but finely tempered andresistless as a blade. Had she said to me: "Sir, you are an upstart, andI, sitting quietly at the same table with you, and inviting you to eatof the same dish of marmalade, am a descendant of the Blands and theFairfaxes,"--her words would have stabbed me less deeply than did thepathetic "Can this be possible?" of her smiling features.

  A canary, swinging in a gilt cage between the curtains at the window,broke suddenly into a jubilant fluting; and rising from the table, westood for a minute, as if petrified, with our eyes on the bird, and onthe box of blossoming sweet alyssum upon the sill. A little later, whenI left with the plea that the General expected me at nine o'clock, thetwo elder ladies gave me their small, transparent hands, while theirpolite farewell sounded as final as if it had been uttered on the edgeof an open grave. Only Sally, smiling up at me, with that puzzled yetdetermined look still in her eyes, said gayly, "When you go walking atsunrise, Ben, choose the road-to-what-might-have-been!"