Part 10 (2/2)
The weather, that afternoon, made an outing quite the natural thing; for it was hot. The ladies in their most summery gowns fluttered like white dryads from shade to shade, uttering bird-like pipings of surprise at the preparations made for their entertainment.
The ravine had been transformed. At an available point in its bed Jim had thrown a dam across the stream, and a beautiful little lake rippled in the breeze, bearing on its bosom a bright-colored boat, which in our ignorance of things Venetian we mistakenly dubbed a gondola. At the upper end of this water the canvas of a large pavilion gleamed whitely through the greenery, displaying from its top the British and American flags, their color reflected in a particolored streak on the wimpling face of the lake. The groves, in the tops of which the woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, warblers, and vireos disturbedly carried on the imperatively necessary work of rearing their broods, were gay with festoons of Chinese lanterns in readiness for the evening. Hammocks were slung from tree to tree, cus.h.i.+ons and seats were arranged in cosy nooks; and when my wife and I stepped from our carriage, all these appliances for the utilization of shade and leisure were in full use. The ”gondola” was making, trips from the cascade (as the dam was already called) to the pavilion, carrying loads of young people from whom came to our ears those peals of merriment which have everywhere but one meaning, and that a part of the world-old mystery of the way of a man with a maid.
Jim was on the ground early, to receive the guests and keep the management in hand. Josie Trescott and her mother walked down through the Trescott pasture, and joined Alice and me under one of the splendid lindens, where, as we lounged in the shade, the sound of the little waterfall filled the s.p.a.ces in our talk. Long before any one else had seen them coming through the trees, Mr. Elkins had spied them, and went forward to meet them with something more than the hospitable solicitude with which he had met the others. In fact, the princ.i.p.al guests of the day had alighted from their carriage before Jim, ensconced in a hammock with Josie, was made aware of their arrival. I am not quick to see such things; but to my eyes, even, the affair had a.s.sumed interest as a sort of public flirtation. I had not thought that Josie would so easily fall into deportment so distinctly encouraging. She was altogether in a surprising mood,--her eyes s.h.i.+ning as with some stimulant, her cheeks a little flushed, her lips scarlet, her whole appearance suggesting suppressed excitement. And when Jim rose to meet his guests, she dismissed him with one of those charmingly inviting glances and gestures with which such an adorable woman spins the thread by which the banished one is drawn back,--and then she disappeared until the dinner was served.
The green crown of the western hill was throwing its shadow across the valley, when Mr. Hinckley came with Mr. Cornish and Mr. Barr-Smith in a barouche; followed by Antonia, who brought Mr. Cecil in her trap--and a concomitant thrill to the company. Mr. Cornish, in his dress, had struck a happy medium between the habiliments of business and those of sylvan recreation. Mr. Barr-Smith on the other hand, was garbed cap-a-pie for an outing, presenting an appearance with which the racket, the bat, or even the alpenstock might have been conjoined in perfect harmony. As for the men of Lattimore, any one of them would as soon have been seen in the war-dress of a Sioux chief as in this entirely correct costume of our British visitor. We walked about in the every-day vestments of the shops, banks, and offices, ill.u.s.trating the difference between a state of society in which apparel is regarded as an incident in life, and one rising to the height of realizing its true significance as a religion.
Mr. Barr-Smith bowed not the knee to the Baal of western clothes-monotone, but daily sent out his sartorial orisons, keeping his windows open toward the Jerusalem of his London tailor, in a manner which would have delighted a Teufelsdrockh.
He was a short man, with protruding cheeks, and a nose ending in an amorphous flare of purple and scarlet. His mustache, red like that of his brother, and const.i.tuting the only point of physical resemblance between them, grew down over a receding chin, being forced thereto by the bulbous overhang of the nose. He had rufous side-whiskers, clipped moderately close, and carroty hair mixed with gray. His erect shoulders and straight back were a little out of keeping with the rotundity of his figure in other respects; but the combination, hinting, as it did, of affairs both gastronomic and martial, taken with a manner at once dignified, formal, and suave, const.i.tuted the most intensely respectable appearance I ever saw. To the imagination of Lattimore he represented everything of which, Cornish fell short, piling Lombard upon Wall Street.
The arrival of these gentlemen was the signal for gathering in the pavilion where dinner was served. The tables were arranged in a great L, at the apex of which sat Jim and the distinguished guests. On one side of him sat Mr. Barr-Smith, who listened absorbedly to the conversation of Mrs. Hinckley, filling every pause with a husky ”Quite so!” On the other sat Josie Trescott, who was smiling upon a very tall and spare old man who wore a beautiful white mustache and imperial. I had never met him, but I knew him for General Lattimore. His fondness for Josie was well known; and to him Jim attributed that young lady's lack of enthusiasm over our schemes for city-building. His presence at this gathering was somewhat of a surprise to me.
Antonia and Cecil Barr-Smith, the Tollivers, Mr. Hinckley and Alice, myself, Mr. Giddings, and Miss Addison sat across the table from the host. Mrs. Trescott, after expressing wonder at the changes wrought in the ravine, and confiding to me her disapproval of the useless expense, had returned to the farm, impelled by that habitual feeling that something was wrong there. Mr. Giddings was exceedingly attentive to Miss Addison.
”I know why you're trying to look severe,” said he to her, as the consomme was served; ”and it's the only thing I can imagine you making a failure of, unless it would be looking anything but pretty. But you are trying it, and I know why. You think they ought to have had some one say grace before pulling this thing off.”
”I'm not trying to look--anyhow,” she answered. ”But you are right in thinking that I believe such duties should not be transgressed, for fear that the world may call us provincial or old-fas.h.i.+oned.”
And she shot a glance at Cornish and Barr-Smith as the visible representatives of the ”world.”
”Don't listen to that age-old clash between fervor and unregeneracy,”
said Josie across the narrow table, her remarks made possible by the music of the orchestra, ”but tell us about Mr. Barr-Smith and--the other gentlemen.”
”I wanted to ask you about the Britons,” said I; ”are they good specimens of the men you saw in England?”
”An art-student, with a consciousness of guilt in slowly eating up the year's s.h.i.+pment of steers, isn't likely to know much more of the Barr-Smiths' London than she can see from the street. But I think them fine examples of not very rare types. I should like to try drawing the elder brother!”
”Before he goes away, I predict--” I began, when my villainous pun was arrested in mid-utterance by the voice of Captain Tolliver, suddenly becoming the culminating peak in the table-talk.
”The Anglo-Saxon, suh,” he was saying, ”is found in his greatest purity of blood in ouah Southe'n states. It is thah, suh, that those qualities of virility and capacity fo' rulers.h.i.+p which make the race what is ah found in theiah highest development--on this side of the watah, suh, on this side!”
”Quite so! I dare say, quite so!” responded Mr. Barr-Smith. ”I hope to know the people of the South better. In fact, I may say, really, you know, an occasion like this gives one the desire to become acquainted with the whole American people.”
General Lattimore, whose nostrils flared as he leaned forward listening, like an opponent in a debate, to the remarks of Captain Tolliver, subsided as he heard the Englishman's diplomatic reply.
”What's the use?” said he to Josie. ”He may be nearer right than I can understand.”
”We hope,” said Mr. Elkins, ”that this desire may be focalized locally, and grow to anything short of a disease. I a.s.sure you, Lattimore will congratulate herself.”
Mr. Barr-Smith's fingers sought his gla.s.s, as if the impulse were on him to propose a toast; but the liquid facilities being absent, he relapsed into a conversation with Mrs. Hinckley.
”I'd say those things, too, if I were in his place,” came the words of Giddings, overshooting their mark, the ear of Miss Addison; ”but it's all rot. He's disgusted with the whole barbarous outfit of us.”
”I am becoming curious,” was the _sotto voce_ reply, ”to know upon what model you found your conduct, Mr. Giddings.”
”I know what you mean,” said Mr. Giddings. ”But I have adopted Iago.”
”Why, Mr. Giddings! How shocking! Iago--”
”Now, don't be horrified,” said Giddings, with an air of candor, ”but look at it from a practical standpoint. If Oth.e.l.lo hadn't been such a fool, Iago would have made his point all right. He had a right to be sore at Oth.e.l.lo for promoting Ca.s.sio over his head, and his scheme was a good one, if Oth.e.l.lo hadn't gone crazy. Iago is dominated by reason and the principle of the survival of the fittest. He is an agreeable fellow--”
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