Part 9 (1/2)
Mrs. Tanberry punctuated her observations with short volleys of husky laughter, so abrupt in both discharge and cessation that, until Miss Betty became accustomed to the habit, she was apt to start slightly at each salvo. ”I had a husband--once,” the lady resumed, ”but only once, my friend! He had ideas like your father's--your father is such an imbecile!--and he thought that wives, sisters, daughters, and such like ought to be obedient: that is, the rest of the world was wrong unless it was right; and right was just his own little, teeny-squeeny prejudices and emotions dressed up for a crazy masquerade as Facts. Poor man! He only lasted about a year!” And Mrs. Tanberry laughed heartily.
”They've been at me time and again to take another.” She lowered her voice and leaned toward Betty confidentially. ”Not I! I'd be willing to engage myself to Crailey Gray (though Crailey hasn't got round to me yet) for I don't mind just being engaged, my dear; but they'll have to invent something better than a man before I marry any one of 'em again!
But I love 'em, I do, the Charming Billies! And you'll see how they follow me!” She patted the girl's shoulder, her small eyes beaming quizzically. ”We'll have the gayest house in Rouen, ladybird! The young men all go to the Bareauds', but they'll come here now, and we'll have the Bareauds along with 'em. I've been away a long time, just finished unpacking yesterday night when your father came in after the fire--Whoo!
what a state he was in with that devilish temper of his! Didn't I snap him up when he asked me to come and stay with you? Ha, ha! I'd have come, even if you hadn't been beautiful; but I was wild to be your playmate, for I'd heard nothing but 'Miss Betty Carewe, Miss Betty Carewe' from everybody I saw, since the minute my stage came in. You set 'em all mad at your ball, and I knew we'd make a glorious house-full, you and I! Some of the vagabonds will turn up this very evening, you'll see if they don't. Ha, ha! The way they follow me!”
Mrs. Tanberry was irresistible: she filled the whole place otherwise than by the mere material voluminousness of her; bubbling over with froth of nonsense which flew through the house, driven by her energy, like sea-foam on a spring gale; and the day, so discordantly begun for Miss Betty, grew musical with her own laughter, answering the husky staccato of the vivacious newcomer. Nelson waited upon them at table, radiant, his smile like the keyboard of an ebony piano, and his disappearances into the kitchen were accomplished by means of a surrept.i.tious double-shuffle, and followed by the cachinnating echoes of the vain Mamie's reception of the visitor's sallies, which Nelson hastily retailed in pa.s.sing.
Nor was Mrs. Tanberry's prediction allowed to go unfulfilled regarding the advent of those persons whom she had designated as vagabonds. It may have been out of deference to Mr. Carewe's sense of decorum (or from a cautious regard of what he was liable to do when he considered that sense outraged) that the gallants of Rouen had placed themselves under the severe restraint of allowing three days to elapse after their introduction to Miss Carewe before they ”paid their respects at the house;” but, be that as it may, the dictator was now safely under way down the Rouen River, and Mrs. Tanberry reigned in his stead. Thus, at about eight o'clock that evening, the two ladies sat in the library engaged in conversation--though, for the sake of accuracy, it should be said that Mrs. Tanberry was engaged in conversation, Miss Betty in giving ear--when their attention was arrested by sounds of a somewhat musical nature from the lawn, which sounds were immediately identified as emanating from a flute and violin.
Mrs. Tanberry bounded across the room like a public building caught by a cyclone, and, das.h.i.+ng at the candles, ”Blow 'em out, blow 'em out!” she exclaimed, suiting the action to the word in a fl.u.s.ter of excitement.
”Why?” asked Miss Carewe, startled, as she rose to her feet. The candles were out before the question.
”'Why!” repeated the merry, husky voice in the darkness. ”My goodness, child precious, those vagabonds are here! To think of your never having been serenaded before!”
She drew the girl to the window and pointed to a group of dim figures near the iliac bushes. ”The dear, delightful vagabonds!” she chuckled.
”I knew they'd come! It's the beautiful Tappingham Marsh with his fiddle, and young Jeff Bareaud with his flute, and 'Gene Madrillon and little Frank Chenowith and thin Will c.u.mmings to sing. Hark to the rascals!”
It is perfectly truthful to say that the violin and flute executed the prelude, and then the trio sounded full on the evening air, the more effective chords obligingly drawn out as long as the breath in the singers could hold them, in order to allow the two fair auditors complete benefit of the harmony. They sang ”The Harp that Once Thro'
Tara's Halls,” and followed it with ”Long, Long Ago.”
”That,” Mrs. Tanberry whispered, between stifled gusts of almost uncontrollable laughter, ”is meant for just me!”
”Tell me the tales that to me were so dear,” entreated the trio.
”I told 'em plenty!” gurgled the enlivening widow. ”And I expect between us we can get up some more.” ”Now you are come my grief is removed,”
they sang.
”They mean your father is on his way to St. Louis,” remarked Mrs.
Tanberry.
”Let me forget that so long you have roved, Let me believe that you love as you loved, Long, long ago, long ago.”
”Applaud, applaud!” whispered Mrs. Tanberry, encouraging the minstrels by a hearty clapping of hands.
Hereupon dissension arose among the quintet, evidently a dispute in regard to their next selection; one of the gentlemen appearing more than merely to suggest a solo by himself, while the others too frankly expressed adverse opinions upon the value of the offering. The argument became heated, and in spite of many a ”s.h.!.+” and ”Not so loud!” the ill-suppressed voice of the intending soloist, Mr. Chenoweth, could be heard vehemently to exclaim: ”I will! I learned it especially for this occasion. I will sing it!”
His determination, patently, was not to be balked without physical encounter, consequently he was permitted to advance some paces from the lilac bushes, where he delivered himself, in an earnest and plaintive tenor, of the following morbid instructions, to which the violin played an obligato in tremulo, so execrable, and so excruciatingly discordant, that Mr. Chenoweth's subsequent charge that it was done with a deliberately evil intention could never be successfully opposed:
”Go! Forget me!
Why should Sorrow O'er that brow a shadow fling?
Go! Forget me, and, to-morrow, Brightly smile and sweetly sing!
”Smile! tho' I may not be near thee; Smile! tho' I may never see thee; May thy soul with pleasure s.h.i.+ne Lasting as this gloom of mine!”
Miss Carewe complied at once with the request; while her companion, unable to stop with the slight expression of pleasure demanded by the songster, threw herself upon a sofa and gave way to the mirth that consumed her.
Then the candles were relit, the serenaders invited within; Nelson came bearing cake and wine, and the house was made merry. Presently, the romp, Virginia Bareaud, making her appearance on the arm of General Trumble, Mrs. Tanberry led them all in a hearty game of Blind-man's Buff, followed by as hearty a dancing of Dan Tucker. After that, a quadrille being proposed, Mrs. Tanberry suggested that Jefferson should run home and bring Fanchon for the fourth lady. However, Virginia explained that she had endeavored to persuade both her sister and Mr. Gray to accompany the General and herself, but that Mr. Gray had complained of indisposition, having suffered greatly from headache, on account of inhaling so much smoke at the warehouse fire; and, of course, Fanchon would not leave him. (Miss Carewe permitted herself the slightest shrug of the shoulders.)