by Owen Wister
XII: From the Bedside
Next morning when I saw the weltering sky I resigned myself to a day ofdullness; yet before its end I had caught a bright new glimpse ofJohn Mayrant's abilities, and also had come, through tribulation, to afurther understanding of the South; so that I do not, to-day, regret thetribulation. As the rain disappointed me of two outdoor expeditions, towhich I had been for some little while looking forward, I dedicated mostof my long morning to a sadly neglected correspondence, and trusted thatthe expeditions, as soon as the next fine weather visited Kings Port,would still be in store for me. Not only everybody in town here, butAunt Carola, up in the North also, had assured me that to miss the sightof Live Oaks when the azaleas in the gardens of that country seat werein flower would be to lose one of the rarest and most beautiful thingswhich could be seen anywhere; and so I looked out of my window at thefurious storm, hoping that it might not strip the bushes at Live Oaksof their bloom, which recent tourists at Mrs. Trevise's had describedas drawing near the zenith of its luxuriance. The other excursion toUdolpho with John Mayrant was not so likely to fall through. Udolphowas a sort of hunting lodge or country club near Tern Creek and an oldcolonial church, so old that it bore the royal arms upon a shieldstill preserved as a sign of its colonial origin. A note from Mayrant,received at breakfast, informed me that the rain would take allpleasure from such an excursion, and that he should seize the earliestopportunity the weather might afford to hold me to my promise. The wetgale, even as I sat writing, was beating down some of the full-blownflowers in the garden next Mrs. Trevise's house, and as the morning woreon I watched the paths grow more strewn with broken twigs and leaves.
I filled my correspondence with accounts of Daddy Ben and his grandson,the carpenter, doubtless from some pride in my part in that, but alsobecause it had become, through thinking it over, even more interestingto-day than it had been at the moment of its occurrence; and in replyingto a sort of postscript of Aunt Carola's in which she hurriedly wrotethat she had forgotten to say she had heard the La Heu family in SouthCarolina was related to the Bombos, and should be obliged to me if Iwould make inquiries about this, I told her that it would be easy,and then described to her the Teuton, plying his "antiquity" tradeexternally while internally cherishing his collected skulls and nursinghis scientific rage. All my letters were the more abundant concerningthese adventures of mine from my having kept entirely silent upon themat Mrs. Trevise's tea-table. I dreaded Juno when let loose upon thenegro question; and the fact that I was beginning to understand herfeelings did not at all make me wish to be deafened by them. NeitherJuno, therefore, nor any of them learned a word from me about thekettle-supporter incident. What I did take pains to inform the assembledcompany was my gratification that the report of Mr. Mayrant's engagementbeing broken was unfounded; and this caused Juno to observe that inthat case Miss Rieppe must have the most imperative reasons for unitingherself to such a young man.
Unintimidated by the rain, this formidable creature had taken herselfoff to her nephew's bedside almost immediately after breakfast; andlater in the day I, too, risked a drenching for the sake of ordering thepacking-box that I needed. When I returned, it was close on tea-time;I had seen Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael send out the hot coffee to theconductor, and I had found a negro carpenter whose week it happily wasto stay sober; and now I learned that, when tea should be finished, thepoetess had in store for us, as a treat, her ode.
Our evening meal was not plain sailing, even for the veteran navigationof Mrs. Trevise; Juno had returned from the bedside very plainlydispleased (she was always candid even when silent) by something whichhad happened there; and before the joyful moment came when we alllearned what this was, a very gouty Boston lady who had arrived with herhusband from Florida on her way North--and whose nature you will readilygrasp when I tell you that we found ourselves speaking of the man asMrs. Braintree's husband and never as Mr. Braintree--this crippled lady,who was of a candor equal to Juno's, embarked upon a conversation withJuno that compelled Mrs. Trevise to tinkle her bell for Daphne afteronly two remarks had been exchanged.
I had been sorry at first that here in this Southern boarding-houseBoston should be represented only by a lady who appeared to unite inherself all the stony products of that city, and none of the others;for she was as convivial as a statue and as well-informed as aspelling-book; she stood no more for the whole of Boston than did Junofor the whole of Kings Port. But my sorrow grew less when I foundthat in Mrs. Braintree we had indeed a capable match for her Southerncounterpart. Juno, according to her custom, had remembered somethingobjectionable that had been perpetrated in 1865 by the Northern vandals.
"Edward," said Mrs. Braintree to her husband, in a frightfully clearvoice, "it was at Chambersburg, was it not, that the Southern vandalsburned the house in which were your father's title-deeds?"
Edward, who, it appeared, had fought through the whole Civil War, andwas in consequence perfectly good-humored and peaceable in his feelingsupon that subject, replied hastily and amiably: "Oh, yes, yes! Why, Ibelieve it was!"
But this availed nothing; Juno bent her great height forward, andaddressed Mrs. Braintree. "This is the first time I have been toldSoutherners were vandals."
"You will never be able to say that again!" replied Mrs. Braintree.
After the bell and Daphne had stopped, the invaluable Briton addressed agenial generalization to us all: "I often think how truly awful your warwould have been if the women had fought it, y'know, instead of the men."
"Quite so!" said the easy-going Edward "Squaws! Mutilation! Yes!" and helaughed at his little joke, but he laughed alone.
I turned to Juno. "Speaking of mutilation, I trust your nephew is betterthis evening."
I was rejoiced by receiving a glare in response. But still more joy wasto come.
"An apology ought to help cure him a lot," observed the Briton.
Juno employed her policy of not hearing him.
"Indeed, I trust that your nephew is in less pain," said the poetess.
Juno was willing to answer this. "The injuries, thank you, are themerest trifles--all that such a light-weight could inflict." Andshe shrugged her shoulders to indicate the futility of young John'spugilism.
"But," the surprised Briton interposed, "I thought you said your nephewwas too feeble to eat steak or hear poetry."
Juno could always stem the eddy of her own contradictions--but she didraise her voice a little. "I fancy, sir, that Doctor Beaugarcon knowswhat he is talking about."
"Have they apologized yet?" inquired the male honeymooner from theup-country.
"My nephew, sir, nobly consented to shake hands this afternoon. He didit entirely out of respect for Mr. Mayrant's family, who coerced himinto this tardy reparation, and who feel unable to recognize him sincehis treasonable attitude in the Custom House."
"Must be fairly hard to coerce a chap you can't recognize," said theBriton.
An et cetera now spoke to the honeymoon bride from the up-country: "Iheard Doctor Beaugarcon say he was coming to visit you this evening."
"Yais," assented the bride. "Doctor Beaugarcon is my mother's fourthcousin."
Juno now took--most unwisely, as it proved--a vindictive turn at me. "Iknew that your friend, Mr. Mayrant, was intemperate," she began.
I don't think that Mrs. Trevise had any intention to ring for Daphne atthis point--her curiosity was too lively; but Juno was going to risk nosuch intervention, and I saw her lay a precautionary hand heavily downover the bell. "But," she continued, "I did not know that Mr. Mayrantwas a gambler."
"Have you ever seen him intemperate?" I asked.
"That would be quite needless," Juno returned. "And of the gambling Ihave ocular proof, since I found him, cards, counters, and money, withmy sick nephew. He had actually brought cards in his pocket."
"I suppose," said the Briton, "your nephew was too sick to resist him."
The male honeymooner, with two of the et ceteras, made such unsteadydemonstrations at this that Mrs. T
revise protracted our sitting nolonger. She rose, and this meant rising for us all.
A sense of regret and incompleteness filled me, and finding the Britonat my elbow as our company proceeded toward the sitting room, I said:"Too bad!"
His whisper was confident. "We'll get the rest of it out of her yet."
But the rest of it came without our connivance.
In the sitting room Doctor Beaugarcon sat waiting, and at sight of Junoentering the door (she headed our irregular procession) he sprang upand lifted admiring hands. "Oh, why didn't I have an aunt like you!" heexclaimed, and to Mrs. Trevise as she followed: "She pays her nephew'spoker debts."
"How much, cousin Tom?" asked the upcountry bride.
And the gay old doctor chuckled, as he kissed her: "Thirty dollars thisafternoon, my darling."
At this the Briton dragged me behind a door in the hall, and there wedanced together.
"That Mayrant chap will do," he declared; and we composed ourselves fora proper entrance into the sitting room, where the introductions hadbeen made, and where Doctor Beaugarcon and Mrs. Braintree's husband hadalready fallen into war reminiscences, and were discovering with mutualamiability that they had fought against each other in a number ofbattles.
"And you generally licked us," smiled the Union soldier.
"Ah! don't I know myself how it feels to run!" laughed the Confederate."Are you down at the club?"
But upon learning from the poetess that her ode was now to be readaloud, Doctor Beaugarcon paid his fourth cousin's daughter a brief,though affectionate, visit, lamenting that a very ill patient shouldcompel him to take himself away so immediately, but promising herpresently in his stead two visitors much more interesting.
"Miss Josephine St. Michael desires to call upon you," he said, "and Ifancy that her nephew will escort her."
"In all this rain?" said the bride.
"Oh, it's letting up, letting up! Good night, Mistress Trevise. Goodnight, sir; I am glad to have met you." He shook hands with Mrs.Braintree's husband. "We fellows," he whispered, "who fought in the warhave had war enough." And bidding the general company good night, andkissing the bride again, he left us even as the poetess returned fromher room with the manuscript.
I soon wished that I had escaped with him, because I feared what Mrs.Braintree might say when the verses should be finished; and so, I think,did her husband. We should have taken the hint which tactful DoctorBeaugarcon had meant, I began to believe, to give us in that whisperedremark of his. But it had been given too lightly, and so we sat andheard the ode out. I am sure that the poetess, wrapped in the thoughtsof her own composition, had lost sight of all but the phrasing of herpoem and the strong feelings which it not unmusically voiced; thereIs no other way to account for her being willing to read it in Mrs.Braintree's presence.
Whatever gayety had filled me when the Boston lady had clashed with Junowas now changed to deprecation and concern. Indeed, I myself feltalmost as if I were being physically struck by the words, until merebewilderment took possession of me; and after bewilderment, a little,a very little, light, which, however, rapidly increased. We were thevictors, we the North, and we had gone upon our way with songs andrejoicing--able to forget, because we were the victors. We had ourvictory; let the vanquished have their memory. But here was the cry ofthe vanquished, coming after forty years. It was the time which atfirst bewildered me; Juno had seen the war, Juno's bitterness I couldcomprehend, even if I could not comprehend her freedom in expressing it,but the poetess could not be more than a year or two older than I was;she had come after it was all over. Why should she prolong such memoriesand feelings? But my light increased as I remembered she had not writtenthis for us, and that if she had not seen the flames of war, she hadseen the ashes; for the ashes I had seen myself here in Kings Port, andhad been overwhelmed by the sight, forty years later, more overwhelmedthan I could possibly say to Mrs. Gregory St. Michael, or Mrs. Weguelin,or anybody. The strain of sitting and waiting for the end made my handscold and my head hot, but nevertheless the light which had come enabledme to bend instantly to Mrs. Braintree and murmur a great and abusedquotation to her:--
"Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner."
But my petition could not move her. She was too old; she had seen theflames of war; and so she said to her husband:--
"Edward, will you please help me upstairs?"
And thus the lame, irreconcilable lady left the room with the assistanceof her unhappy warrior, who must have suffered far more keenly than Idid.
This departure left us all in a constraint which was becoming unbearablewhen the blessed doorbell rang and delivered us, and Miss Josephine St.Michael entered with John Mayrant. He wore a most curious expression;his eyes went searching about the room, and at length settled upon Junowith a light in them as impish as that which had flickered in my ownmood before the ode.
To my surprise, Miss Josephine advanced and gave me a special and markedgreeting. Before this she had always merely bowed to me; to-night sheheld out her hand. "Of course my visit is not to you; but I am very gladto find you here and express the appreciation of several of us for yourtimely aid to Daddy Ben. He feels much shame in having said nothing toyou himself."
And while I muttered those inevitable modest nothings which fit suchoccasions, Miss St. Michael recounted to the bride, whom she wasostensibly calling upon, and to the rest of our now once more harmoniouscircle, my adventures in the alleys of Africa. These loomed, even withMiss St. Michael's perfectly quiet and simple rendering of them, almostof heroic size, thanks doubtless to Daddy Ben's tropical imagery when hefirst told the tale; and before they were over Miss St. Michael'smarked recognition of me actually brought from Juno some reflectedrecognition--only this resembled in its graciousness the original aboutas correctly as a hollow spoon reflects the human countenance divine.Still, it was at Juno's own request that I brought down from my chamberand displayed to them the kettle-supporter.
I have said that Miss St. Michael's visit was ostensibly to the bride:and that is because for some magnetic reason or other I felt diplomacylike an undercurrent passing among our chairs. Young John's expressiondeepened, whenever he watched Juno, to a devilishness which his politemanners veiled no better than a mosquito netting; and I believe that hisaunt, on account of the battle between their respective nephews, had forfamily reasons deemed it advisable to pay, indirectly, under cover ofthe bride, a state visit to Juno; and I think that I saw Juno acceptingit as a state visit, and that the two together, without using a wordof spoken language, gave each other to understand that the recentdeplorable circumstances were a closed incident. I think that his AuntJosephine had desired young John to pay a visit likewise, and, to makesure of his speedy compliance, had brought him along with her--coercedhim, as Juno would have said. He wore somewhat the look of having been"coerced," and he contributed remarkably few observations to the talk.
It was all harmonious, and decorous, and properly conducted, this statevisit; yet even so, Juno and John exchanged at parting some verbalsweet-meats which rather stuck out from the smooth meringue ofdiplomacy.
She contemplated his bruise. "You are feeling stronger, I hope, than youhave been lately? A bridegroom's health should be good."
He thanked her. "I am feeling better to-night than for many weeks."
The rascal had the thirty dollars visibly bulging that moment in hispocket. I doubt if he had acquainted his aunt with this episode, but shewas certain to hear it soon; and when she did hear it, I rather fancythat she wished to smile--as I completely smiled alone in my bed thatnight thinking young John over.
But I did not go to sleep smiling; listening to the "Ode for theDaughters of Dixie" had been an ordeal too truly painful, because itdisclosed live feelings which I had thought were dead, or rather, itdisclosed that those feelings smouldered in the young as well as in theold. Doctor Beaugarcon didn't have them--he had fought them out, justas Mr. Braintree had fought them out; and Mrs. Braintree, like Juno,retained them, because she h
adn't fought them out; and John Mayrantdidn't have them, because he had been to other places; and I didn't havethem--never had had them in my life, because I came into the world whenit was all over. Why then--Stop, I told myself, growing very wakeful,and seeing in the darkness the light which had come to me, you havebeheld the ashes, and even the sight has overwhelmed you; these otherswere born in the ashes, and have had ashes to sleep in and ashes to eat.This I said to myself; and I remembered that War hadn't been all; thatReconstruction came in due season; and I thought of the "reconstructed"negro, as Daddy Ben had so ingeniously styled him. These white people,my race, had been set beneath the reconstructed negro. Still, still,this did not justify the whole of it to me; my perfectly innocentgeneration seemed to be included in the unforgiving, unforgetting ode."I must have it out with somebody," I said. And in time I fell asleep.
