Ruggles of Red Gap Part 15

"The sort of vulgarity I'm obliged to contend with," said he, with a contemptuous gesture toward the h.o.a.rding. Indeed the thing lacked refinement in its diction, while the painted eyes were not Art in any true sense of the word. "The work of our precious Chamber of Commerce," he added, "though I pleaded with them for days and days."

"It's a sort of thing would never do with us, sir," I said.

"It's what one has to expect from a commercialized bourgeoise," he returned bitterly. "And even our a.s.sociation, 'The City Beautiful,' of which I was president, helped to erect the thing. Of course I resigned at once."

"Naturally, sir; the colours are atrocious."

"And the words a mere blatant boast!" He groaned and left me, for we were now well into a suburb of detached villas, many of them of a squalid character, and presently we had halted at the station. About this bleak affair was the usual gathering of peasantry and the common people, villagers, agricultural labourers, and the like, and these at once showed a tremendous interest in our party, many of them hailing various members of us with a quite offensive familiarity.

Belknap-Jackson, of course, bore himself through this with a proper aloofness, as did his wife and Mrs. Effie, but I heard the Mixer booming salutations right and left. It was Cousin Egbert, however, who most embarra.s.sed me by the freedom of his manner with these persons.

He shook hands warmly with at least a dozen of them and these hailed him with rude shouts, dealt him smart blows on the back and, forming a circle about him, escorted him to a carriage where Mrs. Effie and I awaited him. Here the driver, a loutish and familiar youth, also seized his hand and, with some crude effect of oratory, shouted to the crowd.

"What's the matter with Sour-dough?" To this, with a flourish of their impossible hats, they quickly responded in unison,

"He's all right!" accenting the first word terrifically.

Then, to the immense relief of Mrs. Effie and myself, he was released and we were driven quickly off from the raffish set. Through their Regent and Bond streets we went, though I mean to say they were on an unbelievably small or village scale, to an outlying region of detached villas that doubtless would be their St. John's Wood, but my efforts to observe closely were distracted by the extraordinary freedom with which our driver essayed to chat with us, saying he "guessed" we were glad to get back to G.o.d's country, and things of a similar intimate nature. This was even more embarra.s.sing to Mrs. Effie than it was to me, since she more than once felt obliged to answer the fellow with a feigned cordiality.

Relieved I was when we drew up before the town house of the Flouds.

Set well back from the driveway in a faded stretch of common, it was of rather a garbled architecture, with the Tudor, late Gothic, and French Renaissance so intermixed that one was puzzled to separate the periods. Nor was the result so vast as this might sound. Hardly would the thing have made a wing of the manor house at Chaynes-Wotten. The common or small park before it was s.h.i.+elded from the main thoroughfare by a fence of iron palings, and back of this on either side of a gravelled walk that led to the main entrance were two life-sized stags not badly sculptured from metal.

Once inside I began to suspect that my position was going to be more than a bit d.i.c.ky. I mean to say, it was not an establishment in our sense of the word, being staffed, apparently, by two China persons who performed the functions of cook, housemaids, footmen, butler, and housekeeper. There was not even a billiard room.

During the ensuing hour, marked by the arrival of our luggage and the unpacking of boxes, I meditated profoundly over the difficulties of my situation. In a wilderness, beyond the confines of civilization, I would undoubtedly be compelled to endure the hards.h.i.+ps of the pioneer; yet for the present I resolved to let no inkling of my dismay escape.

The evening meal over--dinner in but the barest technical sense--I sat alone in my own room, meditating thus darkly. Nor was I at all cheered by the voice of Cousin Egbert, who sang in his own room adjoining. I had found this to be a habit of his, and his songs are always dolorous to the last degree. Now, for example, while life seemed all too black to me, he sang a favourite of his, the pathetic ballad of two small children evidently begging in a business thoroughfare:

"Lone and weary through the streets we wander, For we have no place to lay our head; Not a friend is left on earth to shelter us, For both our parents now are dead."

It was a fair crumpler in my then mood. It made me wish to be out of North America--made me long for London; London with a yellow fog and its greasy pavements, where one knew what to apprehend. I wanted him to stop, but still he atrociously sang in his high, cracked voice:

"Dear mother died when we were both young, And father built for us a home, But now he's killed by falling timbers, And we are left here all alone."

I dare say I should have rushed madly into the night had there been another verse, but now he was still. A moment later, however, he entered nay room with the suggestion that I stroll about the village streets with him, he having a mission to perform for Mrs. Effie. I had already heard her confide this to him. He was to proceed to the office of their newspaper and there leave with the press chap a notice of our arrival which from day to day she had been composing on the train.

"I just got to leave this here piece for the _Recorder_," he said; "then we can sa.s.shay up and down for a while and meet some of the boys."

How profoundly may our whole destiny be affected by the mood of an idle moment; by some superficial indecision, mere fruit of a transient unrest. We lightly debate, we hesitate, we yawn, unconscious of the brink. We half-heartedly decline a suggested course, then lightly accept from sheer ennui, and "life," as I have read in a quite meritorious poem, "is never the same again." It was thus I now toyed there with my fate in my hands, as might a child have toyed with a bauble. I mean to say, I was looking for nothing thick.

"She's wrote a very fancy piece for that newspaper," Cousin Egbert went on, handing me the sheets of ma.n.u.script. Idly I glanced down the pages.

"Yesterday saw the return to Red Gap of Mrs. Senator James Knox Floud and Egbert G. Floud from their extensive European tour," it began.

Farther I caught vagrant lines, salient phrases: "--the well-known social leader of our North Side set ... planning a series of entertainments for the approaching social season that promise to eclipse all previous gayeties of Red Gap's smart set ... holding the reins of social leaders.h.i.+p with a firm grasp ... distinguished for her social graces and tact as a hostess ... their palatial home on Ophir Avenue, the scene of so much of the smart social life that has distinguished our beautiful city."

It left me rather unmoved from my depression, even the concluding note: "The Flouds are accompanied by their English manservant, secured through the kind offices of the brother of his lords.h.i.+p Earl of Brinstead, the well-known English peer, who will no doubt do much to impart to the coming functions that air of smartness which distinguishes the highest social circles of London, Paris, and other capitals of the great world of fas.h.i.+on."

"Some mess of words, that," observed Cousin Egbert, and it did indeed seem to be rather intimately phrased.

"Better come along with me," he again urged. There was a moment's fateful silence, then, quite mechanically, I arose and prepared to accompany him. In the hall below I handed him his evening stick and gloves, which he absently took from me, and we presently traversed that street of houses much in the fas.h.i.+on of the Floud house and nearly all boasting some sculptured bit of wild life on their terraces.

It was a calm night of late summer; all Nature seemed at peace. I looked aloft and reflected that the same stars were s.h.i.+ning upon the civilization I had left so far behind. As we walked I lost myself in musing pensively upon this curious astronomical fact and upon the further vicissitudes to which I would surely be exposed. I compared myself whimsically to an explorer chap who has ventured among a tribe of natives and who must seem to adopt their weird manners and customs to save himself from their fanatic violence.

From this I was aroused by Cousin Egbert, who, with sudden dismay regarding his stick and gloves, uttered a low cry of anguish and thrust them into my hands before I had divined his purpose.

"You'll have to tote them there things," he swiftly explained. "I forgot where I was." I demurred sharply, but he would not listen.

"I didn't mind it so much in Paris and Europe, where I ain't so very well known, but my good gos.h.!.+ man, this is my home town. You'll have to take them. People won't notice it in you so much, you being a foreigner, anyway."

Without further objection I wearily took them, finding a desperate drollery in being regarded as a foreigner, whereas I was simply alone among foreigners; but I knew that Cousin Egbert lacked the subtlety to grasp this point of view and made no effort to lay it before him. It was clear to me then, I think, that he would forever remain socially impossible, though perhaps no bad sort from a mere human point of view.

We continued our stroll, turning presently from this residential avenue to a street of small unlighted shops, and from this into a wider and brilliantly lighted thoroughfare of larger shops, where my companion presently began to greet native acquaintances. And now once more he affected that fas.h.i.+on of presenting me to his friends that I had so deplored in Paris. His own greeting made, he would call out heartily: "Shake hands with my friend Colonel Ruggles!" Nor would he heed my protests at this, so that in sheer desperation I presently ceased making them, reflecting that after all we were encountering the street cla.s.ses of the town.

At a score of such casual meetings I was thus presented, for he seemed to know quite almost every one and at times there would be a group of natives about us on the pavement. Twice we went into "saloons," as they rather pretentiously style their public houses, where Cousin Egbert would stand the drinks for all present, not omitting each time to present me formally to the bar-man. In all these instances I was at once asked what I thought of their town, which was at first rather embarra.s.sing, as I was confident that any frank disclosure of my opinion, being necessarily hurried, might easily be misunderstood. I at length devised a conventional formula of praise which, although feeling a frightful fool, I delivered each time thereafter.

Thus we progressed the length of their commercial centre, the incidents varying but little.

"h.e.l.lo, Sour-dough, you old sh.e.l.lback! When did you come off the trail?"

"Just got in. My lands! but it's good to be back. Billy, shake hands with my friend Colonel Ruggles."

I mean to say, the persons were not all named "Billy," that being used only by way of ill.u.s.tration. Sometimes they would be called "Doc" or "Hank" or "Al" or "Chris." Nor was my companion invariably called "sh.e.l.lback." "Horned-toad" and "Stinging-lizard" were also epithets much in favour with his friends.

At the end of this street we at length paused before the office, as I saw, of "The Red Gap _Recorder_; Daily and Weekly." Cousin Egbert entered here, but came out almost at once.

"Henshaw ain't there, and she said I got to be sure and give him this here piece personally; so come on. He's up to a lawn-feet."

"A social function, sir?" I asked.

"No; just a lawn-feet up in Judge Ballard's front yard to raise money for new uniforms for the band--that's what the boy said in there."

"But would it not be highly improper for me to appear there, sir?" I at once objected. "I fear it's not done, sir."

"Shucks!" he insisted, "don't talk foolish that way. You're a peach of a little mixer all right. Come on! Everybody goes. They'll even let me in. I can give this here piece to Henshaw and then we'll spend a little money to help the band-boys along."

My misgivings were by no means dispelled, yet as the affair seemed to be public rather than smart, I allowed myself to be led on.

Into another street of residences we turned, and after a brisk walk I was able to identify the "front yard" of which my companion had spoken. The strains of an orchestra came to us and from the trees and shrubbery gleamed the lights of paper lanterns. I could discern tents and marquees, a throng of people moving among them. Nearer, I observed a refreshment pavilion and a dancing platform.

Reaching the gate, Cousin Egbert paid for us an entrance fee of two s.h.i.+llings to a young lady in gypsy costume whom he greeted cordially as Beryl Mae, not omitting to present me to her as Colonel Ruggles.

We moved into the thick of the crowd. There was much laughter and hearty speech, and it at once occurred to me that Cousin Egbert had been right: it would not be an a.s.semblage of people that mattered, but rather of small tradesmen, artisans, tenant-farmers and the like with whom I could properly mingle.

My companion was greeted by several of the throng, to whom he in turn presented me, among them after a bit to a slight, reddish-bearded person wearing thick nose-gla.s.ses whom I understood to be the pressman we were in search of. Nervous of manner he was and preoccupied with a notebook in which he frantically scribbled items from time to time.

Yet no sooner was I presented to him than he began a quizzing sort of conversation with me that lasted near a half-hour, I should say. Very interested he seemed to hear of my previous life, having in full measure that nave curiosity about one which Americans take so little pains to hide. Like the other natives I had met that evening, he was especially concerned to know what I thought of Red Gap. The chat was not at all unpleasant, as he seemed to be a well-informed person, and it was not without regret that I noted the approach of Cousin Egbert in company with a pleasant-faced, middle-aged lady in Oriental garb, carrying a tambourine.

"Mrs. Ballard, allow me to make you acquainted with my friend Colonel Ruggles!" Thus Cousin Egbert performed his ceremony. The lady grasped my hand with great cordiality.

"You men have monopolized the Colonel long enough," she began with a large coquetry that I found not unpleasing, and firmly grasping my arm she led me off in the direction of the refreshment pavilion, where I was playfully let to know that I should purchase her bits of refreshment, coffee, plum-cake, an ice, things of that sort. Through it all she kept up a running fire of banter, from time to time presenting me to other women young and old who happened about us, all of whom betrayed an interest in my personality that was not unflattering, even from this commoner sort of the town's people.