Part 3 (1/2)
”Good-bye, then,” said his wife, cheerfully, resting her hand on his shoulder for a moment, as she stood beside his chair. The Major drew the slender hand forward to his gray moustache.
”Fie, Major! you spoil me,” said the little woman, laughing.
She left the room, making, with her light dress and long curls, a pretty picture at the door, as she turned to give him over her shoulder a farewell nod and smile. The Major kept on looking at the closed door for several minutes after she had gone.
Not long after this the same door opened, and a little boy came in; his step was so light and his movements so careful that he made no sound. He closed the door, and laid the book he had brought with him upon a table.
He was a small, frail child, with a serious face and large blue eyes; his flaxen hair, thin and fine, hung in soft, scanty waves round his little throat--a throat which seemed too small for his well-developed head, yet quite large enough for his short, puny body. He was dressed in a blue jacket, with an embroidered white collar reaching to the shoulders, and ruffles of the same embroidery at the knee, where his short trousers ended. A blue ribbon tied his collar, and his slender little legs and feet were incased in long white stockings and low slippers, such as are worn by little girls. His whole costume, indeed, had an air of effeminacy; but he was such a delicate-looking little fellow that it was not noticeable. From a woman's point of view, he was prettily dressed.
He crossed the room, opened a closet door, and took from a shelf two boxes, which he carried to the table, making a separate journey with each. He arranged these systematically, the book in the centre, a box on each side; then he pushed the table over the carpet towards the Major's chair. The table was narrow and light, and made no sound. He moved onward slowly, his hands, widely apart, grasping its top, and he paused several times to peer round the corner of it so as to bring it up within an inch of the Major's feet, yet not to touch them. This accomplished, he surveyed the position gravely. Satisfied with it, he next brought up a chair for himself, which, while not the ordinary high-chair of a child, seemed yet to have been made especially for him on account of his low stature. He drew this chair close to the table on the opposite side, climbed into it, and then, when all was prepared, he spoke. ”I am quite ready now, papa, if you please.” His slender little voice was clear and even, like his mother's; his words followed each other with slow precision.
The Major woke, or, if he had not been asleep, opened his eyes. ”Ah, little Scar,” he said, ”you here?” And he patted the child's hand caressingly. Scar opened his book; then one of the boxes, which contained white blocks with large red letters painted upon them. He read aloud from the book a sentence, once, twice. Then he proceeded to make it from memory with the blocks on the table, working slowly, and choosing each letter with thoughtful deliberation.
”Good--blood--can--not--lie,” he read aloud from his row of letters when the sentence was completed. ”I think that is right. Your turn, papa.”
And then the Major, with almost equal slowness, formed, after Scar had read it, the following adage: ”A brave father makes a brave son.”
”That's you and I, Scar.”
”Yes, papa. And this is the next: 'The--knights--are--dust.--Their--good--swords--rust.--Their--souls--are --with--the--saints--we--trust.' That is too long for one. We will call it three.”
Father and little son completed in this slow way eight of the sentences the little book contained. It was a small, flat volume in ma.n.u.script, the letters clearly printed with pen and ink. The Major's wife had prepared it, ”from the Major's dictation,” she said. ”A collection of the fine old sayings of the world, which he greatly admires, and which he thinks should form part of the preliminary education of our son.”
”Eight. The lesson is finished, papa,” said Scar. ”If you think I have done sufficiently well, I may now amuse myself with my dominoes.” As he spoke he replaced the letters in their box, put on the cover, and laid the ma.n.u.script book on the top. Then he drew forward the second box, and took out his dominoes. He played by himself, one hand against the other. ”You will remember, papa, that my right hand I call Bayard and my left Roland.”
”Yes,” answered the Major, looking on with interest.
Roland won the first game. Then the second. ”The poor chevalier seems to have no luck to-day. I must help him a little,” said the Major. And he and Scar played a third game.
While they were thus engaged, with Bayard's fortunes not much improved as yet, the door opened, and Sara Carroll came in. The Major was sitting with his spectacles on and head bent forward, in order to read the numbers on the dominoes; his hand, poised over the game while he considered his choice, had the shrivelled appearance, with the veins prominent on the back, which more than anything else betrays the first feebleness of old age. As his daughter came in he looked up, first through his spectacles, then, dropping his head a little, over them, after the peering fas.h.i.+on of old men. But the instant he recognized her his manner, att.i.tude, even his whole appearance, changed, as if by magic; his spectacles were off; he had straightened himself, and risen.
”Ah! you have returned?” he said. ”Scar had his lessons so well that I have permitted him to amuse himself with his dominoes for a while, as you see. You are back rather sooner than you expected, aren't you?”
”We had to postpone our visit to Mrs. Hibbard,” said Sara.
The Major's lips formed, ”of the Mexican War;” but he did not utter the syllables aloud, and immediately thereafter seemed to take himself more vigorously in hand, as it were. He walked to the hearth-rug, and took up a position there with his shoulders back, his head erect, and one hand in the breast of his frock-coat. ”It is quite proper that you should go to see those two ladies, my daughter; the Ashleys are connected with the Carrolls by marriage, though the tie is a remote one, and the mother of Mrs.--Mrs.--the other lady you were mentioning; her name has just escaped me--”
”Hibbard,” said Sara.
”Yes, Mrs. Hibbard of the Mex--I mean, that Mrs. Hibbard's mother was a Witherspoon. It is right that you should recognize these--ah, these little distinctions and differences.” He brought out the last words in full, round tones. The Major's voice had always been a fine one.
He was a handsome, soldierly-looking man, tall, broad-shouldered, with n.o.ble bearing, and bold, well-cut features. He was dressed in black, with broad, stiff, freshly starched white cuffs, and a high standing collar, round which was folded a black silk cravat that when opened was three-quarters of a yard square. His thin gray hair, moustache, and imperial were cut after the fas.h.i.+on affected by the senior officers of the old army--the army before the war.
”They are not especially interesting in themselves, those two ladies,”
remarked his daughter, taking off her little black bonnet. ”Miss Honoria cares more about one's shoes--whether or not they are dusty enough to injure her oiled floors--than about one's self; and Mrs. Hibbard talks all the time about her ducks.”
”True, quite true. Those ducks are extremely tiresome. I have had to hear a great deal about them myself,” said the Major, in an injured tone, forgetting for a moment his military att.i.tude. ”What do I know of ducks? Yet she _will_ talk about them.”
”Why should you listen?” said Sara, drawing off her gloves.
”Ah, we must not forget that her mother was a Mex--I mean, a Witherspoon. It is not necessary for us, for you, to pay many visits, my daughter; our position does not require it. We--ah--we open our house; that is enough; our friends come to us; they do not expect us to go to them.”