Knickerbockers appeared in the room the waggling andchortling fell into a monotone, and the company began to pass in reviewbefore them, seemingly desirous of attracting individual notice. Few worethe costly attire one would have expected from the tales spread about themby the Knickerbockers of Vesey Street. Several were clad in plain hum-humsand torn fustians. One chirpy dame in a moth-eaten tabby hugged a littlepackage of Bohea to her stomacher, unmindful of the fact that the luxuryhad grown much cheaper since she quitted this sphere. Another, whoevidently thought herself a beauty, wore a false frontage of goat hairbefore her muslin cap, and ogled Jonathan as she passed, though he did notseem eager for a flirtation with his ugly great-aunt.
An ungainly yokel stepped on the feet of the Mansion girls, and some boldgentlemen, who had spent a goodly portion of their natural lives inBridewell, swore at them. Still the awful procession kept moving on--faceswere as thick as the tapers glowing in every bracket and candelabra.Bursts of music rose on the wind--a wheezing tune that sobbed of pastjubilation. Suddenly all the Knickerbockers gasped. Stern JudgeKnickerbocker, who had rarely smiled in life, was seen advancing, bentdouble with laughter and clinging to a figure in a cardinal hoop.
"Oh, let us cover our eyes," whispered Miss Georgina. "This is more than Ican bear."
"Don't!" said the lady of the banished portrait. "You have often boastedof your family's intimacy with that queer figure. Through your venerationof him, York has made him into quite a hero. It is the friend of one ofthe first American Knickerbockers--Lord Cornbury! He was addicted towearing women's furbelows!"
"Gazooks!" exclaimed his Lordship, in a tone loud enough for theKnickerbockers to hear. "More of those tiresome impertinents! The nextthing the whole of the presumptuous clan will be petitioning me forstanding room at my routs."
"Don't go any nearer to them," said the Judge, in the tones of asycophant. "If they bore you, my dear Corny, I am willing to cut them._You know it is the fashion on earth to recognize only the most desirable_ancestors, and we can return the compliment. Besides it was decreed that Ishould be jocular for the next half century, and I'm afraid a too closeinspection would cause me to don weepers."
The group by the doors felt a sickening sensation in their flaccid frames.Jonathan's partner, knowing how grievously they must all have beenaffected by the change in their parent, turned her head.
A one-eyed hag was advancing to her. She curtsied low, and presented twobits of plaster which had fallen from the ceiling.
"Messages," she snickered, fumbling with her hands.
"From Marmaduke and Leonidas Barula," read the lady (though no one knowshow, for she only observed the niches). "We beg to be excused from comingto-night. To put it mildly, we were raised aloft in Pearl Street Hollowfor practising target shooting on coach-drivers, and our necks are stillout of joint and not fit to be seen in company."
As the merriment waxed louder a Gobie, who had spent her life as afish-fag, began tapping on the panelled wainscot. With a hoarse guffaw sheturned her piercing alaquine eyes on Miss Julie and squinted--"More negus!More here, you slubber-degullions. We Gobies has a thirst. 'Twas what wewere noted for in life--not our learning, great-niece," she mocked, as sheturned her head and grimaced at Miss Georgina.
"Go away!" snuffled that once resolute woman, too weak to combat anylonger. A feeling of despair was settling upon her like a pall. What ifMrs. Rumbell, or, worse still, if Mrs. Snograss should be passingKnickerbocker House and hear the oaths and ungenteel voices of thesupposedly elegant family? No tap-room fracas at Fraunces' could haveequalled the deafening hubbub.
"Beshrew the old fool, she be as jealous for the lies she told of us as aBarbary pigeon."
"Go away!" continued the sinking sister of the autocrat of York.
That distraught-looking gentleman himself was hastening across the roomwith restorative salts, which one of his daughters always carried in herreticule. As he approached Georgina the Gobie snatched the bottle from hishand and drained it at a gulp.
"Anything with fire-water for me," she hiccoughed. Then clutching hold ofhim, she sunk her voice to a whisper--"I left this sphere for drinking aquart of gillyflower scent!"
Julie began to weep softly--"Oh, Aunt Jane, if you were only here! OurAunt Jane was different from these people," she wailed to herself, halfapologetically.
She was fond of studying the picture in the other room and could havetraced it from memory. Raising her eyes, she gave a prolonged shriek. Thefish-fag and some of the Makemies were dragging her beloved Jane over LadyLyron's court steps, out of the powdering closet.
The room was becoming uproarious. Doors were opening and shutting again,letting in the moaning of the bells. The culmination of the buffoonery wasapproaching.
"Good, Jane," sobbed Miss Julie.
"Good, Jane," echoed the chorus of the spectres.
Reluctant, and feigning a great stress of emotion, the poor lady waspushed into the illuminated space below the hundred-taper drop. She lookedlike some pretty long-vaulted effigy. In her hands she still carried thespray of milk-weed.
The noise lessened for a moment. Jane gazed reproachfully at her niece,Julie, as if the indiscreet wish were the cause of her present misery, andsaid, in a pensive voice, "I did not want to come to-night."
"I always knew you were a modest woman," said Jonathan, recovering alittle of his once audacious manner.
"Modest forsooth!" giggled the fish-fag diabolically, and seizing one ofJonathan's fat hands in her bony fingers, she drew it over the other'sface.
"Look, see the white streaks on her now! She reddened, the hussy,--or I'mnot a Gobie!"
"Yes, I was vain," answered the most prated-about of femaleKnickerbockers. "I used countless beautifiers--pearl powders, cherrysalve, cupid's tints. Everything Mr. Gaine sold at the Crown. They hookedthe men. When pearl powders came upon the market, I received threeoffers--Jenks--a tutor at King's College--not the President, as the reportremains on earth--wrote me a poem in the _Weekly Gossiper_, called 'Pinkand White Amanda.'"
"Jane Knickerbocker," said the ghost who was giving the party, "yourfamily has spent many hours telling the present generation of your womanlyvirtues, and they cannot fail in having an overweening respect for anyopinion you may utter. Shall this girl who bears your blood marry yonyouth?"
"Let them wed by all means, if they see advantage in it. I vow if I couldcome back to earth and live my twenty-eight years over again, I would joinhands with Jean, our Elizabeth-Town perfumer."
Lord Cornbury and the shades about him were bowed with mirth.
"Janet, you giddy girl, though half the age of most of us, I protest youare becoming a wit. You will be getting into society next," he cried. "Ishall never be mean enough to tell that in sublunary times one of thefirst American Knickerbockers knew me intimately only as my valet."
"A fig for your class distinctions," called the fair indignant, huntingfor a rouge rag. "Years ago we heard ''twas money made the court circle atYork.' Why, you must remember how you feared your creditors when theyfirst came below."
"Alack, indeed," said his Lordship plaintively, "this hooped petticoat wasnever paid for."
After dishevelled Jane had vanished again into the powdering closet whenceshe had first emerged, the lady of the banished portrait moved over toPatricia and her lover. Standing side by side the resemblance between thetwo women was remarkable. One was the budding flower; the other thefragile shadow of a beautiful life.
"Her kind will always exist," she said. "They marry for pearl powders andother vanities, and usually seek, or are forced into, a gilded cage.There, like jackdaws, they call out their possessions from dawn tillnight, and the heedless world passing by sees the sparkling of the gold,mistakes the caws for singing, and applauds. I knew love--the ideal lovethat smiles at one from the wayside when one is seeking it in thewell-kept gardens. I paid for it with my heart's blood, and I never hadcause to regret. Over the rough places of my earthly journey it followedme with radiant illusions. The April winds were sweeter, the
sunshine onthe roads warmer. I felt all the raptures mother nature gives herchildren. That is why I could leave the other world to do you thisservice. _Love_ is the one thing death cannot lull to sleep!"
Patricia tried to answer, but the power of speech had left her for themoment. Juma's face was glowing with peaceful smiles. He bent low on hisright knee to kiss the diaphanous draperies of the shade.
Outside in the night there arose the low murmurous chanting of the townwaits moving homeward. A chime of bells, as soft as a blessing. The thornshad fallen from the brows of love.
While Patricia's benefactress gave her message the circle of ghosts wasmaking way for the other
The ghosts of their ancestors Page 8
