Fiddler's Green, Or a Wedding, a Ball, and the Singular Adventures of Sundry Moss

by Van Reid

  “I will,” said this young man with a smile, and “Yes, certainly.”

  “Cordelia!” hissed Grace Morningside from the door, but the young woman’s parents greeted the Moosepath League with almost as much warmth.

  Mr. Thump introduced Philbrook to Christopher Eagleton (the tall blond fellow), who continued to shake hands, assuring their host that the rain would end by midnight and that clearing skies would herald a fine summer day.

  “Joseph and I were friends at school,” said Philbrook. To be truthful, they had not had much to do with each other, but he had always liked the quiet and courteous Joseph Thump. It was a wonder that he had recognized the man behind that extraordinary beard.

  Matthew Ephram, whose fine dark mustaches rivaled Philbrook’s own, was introduced next, whereupon this gentleman (with his free hand) produced a watch from his vest pocket and announced the time, which was seven minutes past eight. Philbrook was amused and a little confounded as Mr. Ephram, still shaking his hand, consulted a second and then a third watch before nodding his assurance that this information was accurate. “Mister Walton’s clock,” Philbrook thought the man said.

  Without further prompting, Joseph Thump said, “High tide at 3:14 A.M.” as if everyone present were planning a cruise. The fourth member of this quartet was then presented as Sundry Moss, and the host was sure he had misheard till the young man smiled and indicated by a short nod that his name often required repetition.

  Chatter and laughter filled the porch, and standing in the hall, Mrs. Morrell peered over several heads with exasperated curiosity. From one side of this flurry the impressive Dresden Scott watched with amused affection as his fiancée beamed at the Moosepath League and engaged Mr. Moss with a dozen questions about a recent wedding.

  Grace and Priscilla Morningside stood back (and from different motives, it was plain). Philbrook caught an expression of specific interest, mixed with apprehension, on the younger woman’s face, and following the flash of her glance, he caught its reflection, very nearly as reserved, from Mr. Moss, who was long and wiry and not quite handsome beneath his brown hair and the unaccustomed black silk hat. The young man remembered himself and pulled the hat from his head; it might have been a greeting to Miss Morningside on the other side of the crowd. When Philbrook shot a look back, Priscilla was turned away, head down, and talking to her mother.

  But other people were arriving, and Philbrook must fulfill his duties, though he did not forget the Moosepath League and the Underwoods when they left his porch for the ballroom. A society known as the Moosepath League belonged in any story according to his lights; the members themselves must be included simply because they seemed so strangely at odds with what he had heard about them, but the young man—this Sundry Moss—interested Philbrook very much, the more so since he could imagine Mr. Moss imagining the initials S. M. on Miss Morningside’s dance card. Philbrook had picked his second principal and the Moosepath League besides.

  14. Partners Bow

  Sundry Moss was aware of a genteel melody that carried the air from inside the Morrell mansion. Stepping into the front hall, he thought it looked large enough to hold a town meeting, and some people did linger there, watching as the Moosepath and Underwood parties entered. Miss Underwood chatted beside Sundry, all the while holding Dresden Scott’s arm with both hands and peering ahead of them for signs of her cousin Priscilla. “I don’t know where she and Aunt Grace could have gotten to so quickly,” she was saying. A servant by the stairs passed them each a dance card and steered them to their right, and they stepped into the opulent ballroom.

  Sundry took in the ornate columns along the immediate wall, the vaulted, two-storied ceiling decorated with articulate constellations, the parqueted floor, the elaborate furnishings, and the elaborately dressed crowd. He had never been to such a place, or to such an event, and he wished that the Waltons were with him. There were two elements in his favor: The first was that he did not mind being impressed, or even appearing impressed; the second was that the young woman with the dark hair and round spectacles, who stood with her mother some yards off, accounted for about all the apprehension and nerves that he could ponder at one time.

  Sundry had met Priscilla Morningside only twice before that night. It had been enough. The first time he saw her he had been struck by a quiet beauty, which was increased (he had been convinced) by the sweetness of the person beneath. A little more than a week ago they had met a second time, and something lingering and unstated from their first meeting had risen within him at the sight of her and the sound of her voice. He had met Priscilla Morningside only twice before that night, and it had not been anything like enough. He realized that he was shaking.

  It had been Priscilla’s custom (or, rather, her mother’s resolution) that she dress in a fashion less than her age, which was almost twenty-two. A small bout of rebellion on the part of the daughter (instigated by her mother’s unkind remark regarding a certain young man) and Cordelia’s exuberant insistence had put Priscilla in her present and intriguing dress. The result was more than Sundry could have anticipated. Miss Morning-side’s hair was coiffed in a manner that suited her longish features; the glasses on her nose had the effect of making her look thoughtful and mild.

  Priscilla wondered if she was up to this sort of luster and feared that she looked like a child playing in her mother’s gown. Standing beside Grace, fingering the ivory cameo that was fastened about her graceful neck with a velvet ribbon of dark blue, Priscilla must have looked, to the veterans of former balls, uncertain and a little lost. To Sundry she seemed so completely of a piece and so obviously the center of anyone’s attention who had the opportunity to look at her that he felt himself diminished by his own blockheaded daydreams and a fool for ever imagining that she had ever imagined him as anything more than a chance acquaintance.

  Sundry himself was tall and broad-shouldered. If he was on the narrow side, it was the narrowness of youthful vigor. He moved with ease and (as a rule) without self-consciousness. Tonight his natural élan was sharpened by the high élan of his clothes. When Priscilla Morningside turned at the sound of Cordelia’s voice, she saw the braw Mr. Moss cut out in the finest togs that Mister Walton’s purse and the former Phileda McCannon’s impeccable taste could afford; the fact that he had not the slightest idea of the effect of his ensemble simply made it the more emphatic. His hair was perhaps a shade too long, his features a little less than handsome, but he looked gallant and the very image of the well-to-do hero in a dozen stories Priscilla had read in the Century.

  Cordelia caught the look that passed between these two and was startled by their mutual and barely concealed panic. “Quick, Dresden!” said Cordelia in a near whisper. “Do something!”

  “Do something?” said Dresden Scott with more volume. When enjoined to “Do something!” in such dire tones, he was usually required to deal with an emergency that could arise only in the depths of the northern forests. Ballrooms were not his forte, not to mention that he had never been in one before. He was more amused than piqued by the mandate, however, and proved a quick thinker, even in this thicket. “Mrs. Morningside,” he said, his voice cracking only slightly with the unaccustomed effort. Cordelia’s aunt Grace looked dismayed to see her niece’s tall fiancé approaching her with such strange familiarity. “Mrs. Morningside,” he said, “have you met the members of the Moosepath League?”

  She hadn’t.

  “Christopher Eagleton, madam,” said that worthy. She did not offer her hand, so he bowed, looking very courtly and proper—and properly so, as he was both these things.

  “Matthew Ephram,” said the second in line. “We have heard such fervent praise of yourself and your children from our chairman!” He bowed also, and certainly as well as Eagleton.

  “I am sure I am quite gratified,” said Grace nervously.

  “Joseph Thump,” rumbled the third Moosepathian. He did not bow as much as he simply leaned forward.

  “Rain falling off, late this evening,
” said Eagleton. “Wednesday expected to emerge in a seasonable manner. Winds south by southwest.”

  If anything, she looked more startled than before.

  “High tide at 3:14,” said Thump.

  “It’s twenty-two minutes past the hour of eight,” informed Ephram.

  People across the room might have thought that the charter members were vying for Grace Momingside’s attentions, and she inadvertently encouraged such rumor with the appearance of tender indecision. With a hand at her breast to still her own rapid heartbeat, Grace looked from one member of the Grand Society to the other as if unable to judge among them.

  “Priscilla,” Cordelia was meanwhile saying. She gave Sundry a slight tug as she walked around the knot of introductions that surrounded her aunt.

  Sundry did his best to appear as if his entire reason for being there were not embodied in the dark-haired young woman, who turned toward him without speaking to Cordelia, gave a small smile, and said, “Good evening, Mr. Moss.”

  “Miss Morningside,” said Sundry, without the slightest notion of what to say next.

  Cordelia was at no such loss. “Mr. Moss has all the news about Mister Walton’s wedding!” she announced.

  Sincere interest and an element of inherent kindness lifted Priscilla Morningside above her reticence; her smile broadened, her eyes widened, and she said, “Was Miss McCannon very beautiful?”

  “She was,” said Sundry, who seemed restricted to sentences of two words.

  “I don’t suppose,” said Cordelia, “you’re equipped to describe her dress.”

  “Oh, Cord!” said Priscilla, almost with a laugh. “Leave him alone.” She waved a hand at her cousin, as if she would swat her.

  “It was white,” said Sundry with such a comic look of competence in this field of inquiry that Priscilla did laugh and put her hand to her mouth.

  Cordelia laughed as well. She was aware that other groups in the great hall were wandering toward their united parties, perhaps in hopes of overhearing something interesting about the mysterious Moosepath League. Cordelia cast a glance at her fiancé, who gallantly held the fort between Aunt Grace and the gentlemen of the club. Well, she thought, I will be spending the most of my life in his forests, so it serves him well!

  Dresden Scott (all six feet four inches of him) looked so completely out of place in this highly decorated and decorous setting that she fell in love with him all over again. He met her eyes and she gave him her “best shot” (as she was wont to call a particular expression that managed something coy and something come hither in the same instant). It was a peculiarity of this look that it must be cut off a little peremptorily, and she turned her attention back to Mr. Moss, who was telling Priscilla about the wedding.

  However, Grace had heard Priscilla’s delighted laugh, and a quick glance informed her that the young man she had once characterized as “a servant” was talking with her daughter. The mother’s stricken countenance grew so much more stricken that Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump were straightaway concerned for her and offered, in concert, to see her to a chair.

  “What?” she said. “Oh, dear me, no!”

  “Please, Mrs. Morningside,” said Eagleton. “Allow us to find you a seat. You look quite pale.” Eagleton himself paled to realize that he had suggested anything of such a personal nature to someone (and most especially to a woman!) whom he had just met. “Of course, it is very becoming,” he said without further study, and he paled some more. “Wouldn’t you say, Ephram?”

  “Oh, yes, certainly!” said Ephram before he had thought very much on what he was agreeing with. He thought that perhaps they would do well to look for several seats.

  “Thump?” said Eagleton when Grace Morningside appeared startled and perhaps just a small bit flattered by this attention.

  “Hmmm!” said Thump with more volume than that vowelless syllable might readily suggest.

  “The Moosepath is on the pursuit,” said one mordant wag who stood beside the punch table.

  “What’s that?” said another man nearby. He scanned the ballroom. “The Moosepath League, do you mean? Where are they?”

  “Those three fellows, just this side of the redheaded beauty.”

  “Oh?” said the second man—a tall, elegant sort, who carried himself with terrific confidence. “How do you know them?”

  “I don’t. I heard several people talking about them when they came in.”

  “The Moosepath League,” said the second man.

  “I believe,” said the first man, “they must have decided upon a contest for that woman’s attention—the one they are speaking with now. There’s not very much of her, but she has a decent face.”

  “You have an indecent mouth,” said the second man.

  The first fellow was unfazed. “Do you know her?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know them? The Moosepath League?” He pronounced the name of the club as if in mild disbelief.

  “I have met one of them,” said the second man. “I wouldn’t have asked you to point them out if I had known the others, would I? I think I will go rescue that woman.”

  “Now, now,” said the wag. “No need of a fourth dog on that fox. There’s hardly enough of her to go around.”

  “I believe, Mr. Pleasance,” said the second man, “that you are a villain. And I believe that if I were willing to dirty my hands, I might use them to strike you.” And with that less than implied threat, he wheeled about, his coattails flying, and marched across the room.

  “And I believe, Mr. Thistlecoat,” said Mr. Pleasance, “that you are a windbag.”

  15. Cutting In

  Charleston Thistlecoat had met one of the Moosepath League and had crossed swords of disposition with Mister Walton in an unspoken rivalry over the attentions of Phileda McCannon. Charleston had proposed marriage to the woman, the offer having been made in a friendly, if rather businesslike, letter. He had been puzzled, and a little put out, by her declining him. In the past he had had much to say about the Moosepath League without having seen their membership, and now that he saw the Moosepath League, he thought he had quite a lot to say to them.

  Charleston was a lofty man, or at least tall. Slender, with large features and dark, ironic eyebrows, he had a fine head of silver hair and a way of looking down his prominent nose that was not meant to put the subject of his study at ease. He was something of a self-made man (or thought of himself in this manner), and one wry observer had ventured that this relieved the Almighty of a great deal of responsibility.

  The dancing portion of the evening had yet to begin, and the musicians at the far end of the ballroom were rendering a classic march to rouse everyone’s blood. Charleston strode across the floor in time with the music and felt the eyes of the room upon him (whether real or imagined) without qualm.

  “Well,” he said when he arrived at his intended destination, “it is the Moosepath League.” He stood next to a short, bearded man, the better to loom majestically, and he pronounced the name of the society as if he were amused with, and also highly indulgent, of other people’s folly.

  The members of the club turned as one, and the short, bearded man craned his neck so that he might look up at the newcomer. “Joseph Thump,” said this fellow, and he offered his hand.

  “Yes,” drawled Thistlecoat. He accepted Thump’s hand, but indolently.

  Christopher Eagleton and Matthew Ephram introduced themselves as well, but the newcomer did not pronounce his own name till he turned to the small, pale woman standing nearby. “Charleston Thistlecoat,” he said, as if this name should mean something to her, and passing an eye over the members of the club, he said, “It is cordial of the Morrells to provide entertainment,” which may have referenced the ball itself or might have been meant to suggest that these men had been hired for the amusement of everyone else. There was a fourth man in the immediate vicinity who had not included himself in these preambles. “Are you a member of the Moosepath League?” asked Thistlecoat, who had t
o look up to this rugged, blond-bearded individual.

  The man frowned in a suspicious way and folded his arms before him. “I’m not,” he said, “but only because I haven’t been asked.”

  “How extraordinary!” said Thump.

  “Mr. Scott!” said Eagleton. “We would be honored!”

  “I think you must excuse these gentlemen if they weary you,” said Thistlecoat to the woman. “There is perhaps not much room for amenities on the Moosepath.” And again he pronounced this last word with a sort of wry forbearance even as he insinuated himself beside her.

  “I am a little worn out,” said the woman, amid the astonished sounds that emerged from Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump. “I mean, I’m somewhat overwhelmed, if you understand.”

  “Of course,” purred Thistlecoat.

  “We were just suggesting that Mrs. Morningside take a seat,” Ephram was saying, which statement was meant more as a general agreement with the newcomer than any defense of themselves.

  Not far away three young people were talking, and the single beau among these broke away to approach Thistlecoat and the others. “Mr. Thistlecoat, did I hear you say?”

  “Yes,” said the man. He was prepared to be generous to youth.

  “I have heard Mister Walton speak of you.”

  “Oh?” Thistlecoat’s tone altered perceptibly.

  “I’m sure that he would want me to forward his best,” said Sundry Moss, who had marked the tenor, if not the details, of what had passed between the members of the club and Thistlecoat. He had not been present at the meetings between Mister Walton and this man, but he had inferred from Mister Walton’s sedate descriptions that the fellow was trouble and that Thistlecoat had done his best to make Mister Walton appear small before Phileda McCannon. “And his wife,” said Sundry pleasantly. “I know she would forward her best as well.”