Birthright Part 21

Peter ventured no opinion on this trait of lampmakers, but said that if the Captain knew where he could get an oil hand-lamp for a little more light, he thought he could unstop the hole.

The Captain looked at his helper and shook his head.

"I am surprised at you, Peter. When I was your age, I could see an aperture like that hole under the last quarter of the moon. In this strong light I could have--er--lunged the cleaner through it, sir. You must have strained your eyes in college." He paused, then added: "You'll find hand-lamps in any of the rooms fronting this porch. I don't know whether they have oil in them or not--the s.h.i.+ftless n.i.g.g.e.rs that come around to take care of this building--no dependence to be put in them.

When I try it myself, I do even worse."

The old gentleman's tone showed that he was thawing out of his irritable mood, and Peter sensed that he meant to be amusing in an austere, unsmiling fas.h.i.+on. The Captain rubbed his delicate wrinkled hands together in a pleased fas.h.i.+on and sat down in a big porch chair to await Peter's a.s.sembling of the lamp. The brown man started down the long piazza, in search of a hand-light.

He found a lamp in the first room he entered, returned to the piazza, sat down on the edge of it, and began his tinkering. The old Captain apparently watched him with profound satisfaction. Presently, after the fas.h.i.+on of the senile, he began endless and minute instructions as to how the lamp should be cleaned.

"Take the wire in your left hand, Peter,--that's right,--now hold the tip a little closer to the light--no, place the mantels on the right side--that's the way I do it. System...." the old man's monologue ran on and on, and became a murmur in Peter's ears. It was rather soothing than otherwise. Now and then it held tremulous vibrations that might have been from age or that might have been from some deep satisfaction mounting even to joy. But to Peter that seemed hardly probable. No doubt it was senility. The Captain was a tottery old man, past the age for any fundamental joy.

Night had fallen now, and a darkness, musky with autumn weeds, hemmed in the sphere of yellow light on the old piazza. A black-and-white cat materialized out of the gloom, purring, and arching against a pillar.

The whole place was filled with a sense of endless leisure. The old man, the cat, the perfume of the weeds, soothed in Peter even the rawness of his hurt at Cissie.

Indeed, in a way, the old manor became a sort of apology for the octoroon girl. The height and the reach of the piazza, exaggerated by the darkness, suggested a time when retinues of negroes pa.s.sed through its dignified colonnades. Those black folk were a part of the place.

They came and went, picked up and used what they could, and that was all life held for them. They were without wage, without rights, even to the possession of their own bodies; so by necessity they took what they could. That was only fifty-odd years ago. Thus, in a way, Peter's surroundings began a subtle explanation of and apology for Cissie, the whole racial training of black folk in petty thievery. And that this should have touched Cissie--the meanness, the pathos of her fate moved Peter.

The negro was aroused from his reverie by the old Captain's getting out of his chair and saying, "Very good," and then Peter saw that he had finished the lamp. The two men rose and carried it into the study, where Peter pumped and lighted it; a bit later its brilliant white light flooded the room.

"Quite good." The old Captain stood rubbing his hands with his odd air of continued delight. "How do you like this place, anyway, Peter?" He wrapped his gown around him, sat down in the old Morris chair beside the book-piled table, and indicated another seat for Peter.

The mulatto took it, aware of a certain flexing of Hooker's Bend custom, where negroes, unless old or infirm, are not supposed to sit in the presence of whites.

"Do you mean the study, Captain?"

"Yes, the study, the whole place."

"It's very pleasant," replied Peter; "it has the atmosphere of age."

Captain Renfrew nodded.

"These old places," pursued Peter, "always give me an impression of statesmans.h.i.+p, somehow. I always think of grave old gentlemen busy with the cares of public policy."

The old man seemed gratified.

"You are sensitive to atmosphere. If I may say it, every Southron of the old regime was a statesman by nature and training. The complete care of two or three hundred negroes, a regard for their bodily, moral, and spiritual welfare, inevitably led the master into the impersonal att.i.tude of statecraft. It was a training, sir, in leaders.h.i.+p, in social thinking, in, if you please, altruism." The old gentleman thumped the arm of his chair with a translucent palm. "Yes, sir, negro slavery was G.o.d's great lesson to the South in altruism and loving-kindness, sir! My boy, I do believe with all my heart that the inst.i.tution of slavery was placed here in G.o.d's country to rear up giants of political leaders.h.i.+p, that our nation might weather the revolutions of the world. Oh, the Yankees are necessary! I know that!" The old Captain held up a palm at Peter as if repressing an imminent retort. "I know the Yankees are the Marthas of the nation. They furnish food and fuel to the s.h.i.+p of state, but, my boy, the reservoir of our country's spiritual and mental strength, the Mary of our nation, must always be the South. Virginia is the mother of Presidents!"

The Captain's oration left him rather breathless. He paused a moment, then asked:

"Peter, have you ever thought that we men of the leisure cla.s.s owe a debt to the world?"

Peter smiled.

"I know the theory of the leisure cla.s.s, but I've had very little practical experience with leisure."

"Well, that's a subject close to my heart. As a scholar and a thinker, I feel that I should give the fruits of my leisure to the world. Er--in fact, Peter, that is why I sent for you to come and see me."

"Why you sent for me?" Peter was surprised at this turn.

"Precisely. You."

Here the old gentleman got himself out of his chair, walked across to one of a series of drawers in his bookcases, opened it, and took out a sheaf of papers and a quart bottle. He brought the papers and the bottle back to the table, made room for them, put the papers in a neat pile, and set the bottle at a certain distance from the heap.

"Now, Peter, please hand me one of those winegla.s.ses in the religious section of my library--I always keep two or three gla.s.ses among my religious works, in memory of the fact that our Lord and Master wrought a miracle at the feast of Cana, especially to bless the cup. Indeed, Peter, thinking of that miracle at the wedding-feast, I wonder, sir, how the prohibitionists can defend their conduct even to their own consciences, because logically, sir, logically, the miracle of our gracious Lord completely cuts away the ground from beneath their feet!

"No wonder, when the Mikado sent a j.a.panese envoy to America to make a tentative examination of Christianity as a proper creed for the state religion of j.a.pan--no wonder, with this miracle flouted by the prohibitionists, the emba.s.sy carried back the report that Americans really have no faith in the religion they profess. Shameful! Shameful!

Place the gla.s.s there on the left of the bottle. A little farther away from the bottle, please, just a trifle more. Thank you."

The Captain poured himself a tiny gla.s.sful, and its bouquet immediately filled the room. There was no guessing how old that whisky was.

"I will not break the laws of my country, Peter, no matter how G.o.dless and sacrilegious those laws may be; therefore I cannot offer you a drink, but you will observe a second gla.s.s among the religious works, and the bottle sits in plain view on the table--er--em." He watched Peter avail himself of his opportunity, and then added, "Now, you may just drink to me, standing, as you are, like that."

They drank, Peter standing, the old gentleman seated.

"It is just as necessary," pursued the old connoisseur, when Peter was reseated, "it is just as necessary for a gentleman to have a delicate palate for the tints of the vine as it is for him to have a delicate eye for the tints of the palette. Nature bestowed a taste both in art and wine on man, which he should strive to improve at every opportunity. It is a gift from G.o.d. Perhaps you would like another gla.s.s. No? Then accommodate me."

He drained this one, with Peter standing, worked his withered lips back and forth to experience its full taste, then swallowed, and smacked.

"Now, Peter," he said, "the reason I asked you to come to see me is that I need a man about this house. That will be one phase of your work. The more important part is that you shall serve as a sort of secretary. I have here a ma.n.u.script." He patted the pile of papers. "My handwriting is rather difficult. I want you to copy this matter out and get it ready for the printer."

Peter became more and more astonished.

"Are you offering me a permanent place, Captain Renfrew?" he asked.

The old man nodded.

"I need a man with a certain liberality of culture. I will no doubt have you run through books and periodicals and make note of any points germane to my thesis."

Peter looked at the pile of script on the table.

"That is very flattering, Captain; but the fact is, I came by your place at this hour because I am just in the act of leaving here on the steamboat to-night."

The Captain looked at Peter with concern on his face. "Leaving Hooker's Bend?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why?"

Peter hesitated.

"Well, my mother is dead--"

"Yes, but your--your--your work is still here, Peter." The Captain fell into a certain confusion. "A man's work, Peter; a man's work."

"Do you mean my school-teaching?"

Then came a pause. The conversation somehow had managed to leave them both somewhat at sea. The Captain began again, in a different tone: