John March, Southerner Part 14

"Ya.s.s, seh," Cornelius was tipsily remarking, "the journals o' the day reputes me to have absawb some paucity o' the school funds. Well, supposen I has; I say, jess _supposen_ it, you know. I antagonize you this question: did Napoleon Bonapawt never absawb any paucity o' otheh folks' things? An' yit he was the greates' o' the great. He's my patte'n, seh. He neveh stole jiss to be a-stealin'! An' yit wheneveh he found it a.s.sential of his _destiny_ to steal anything, he stole it!

"O' co'se he incurred and contracted enemies; I has mine; it's useless to translate it. My own motheh's husban'--you riccolec' ole Unc'

'Viticus, don't you?--Rev'en' Leviticus Wisdom--on'y niggeh that eveh refused a office!"--he giggled--"Well, he ensued to tu'n me out'n the church. Ya.s.s, seh, faw nothin' but fallin' in love with his daughteh--my step-sisteh--sayin' I run her out'n the county!

"But he couldn't p'ocure a sufficient concawdence o' my fellow-citizens; much less o' they wives--naw evm o' mine! No, seh! They brought in they verdic' that jess at this junction it'd be cal'lated to ungendeh strife an' could on'y do hahm." He giggled again.

"My politics save me, seh! They always will. An' they ought to; faw they as pyo as the crystial fountain."

The keeper brought a stew of canned oysters. The lobbyist served it, and Mr. Leggett talked on.

"Tha.s.s the diffunce 'twixt me and Gyarnit. That man's afraid o' me--jess as 'fraid as a chicken-hawk is of a gun, seh!--an' which n.o.body knows why essep' him an' me. But tha.s.s jess the diff'ence. n.o.body reputes him to steal, an' I don't say he do. I ain't ready to say it yit, you un'stan'; but his politics--his politics, seh; they does the stealin'!

An' which it's the low-downdest kind o' stealin', for it's stealin' fum n.i.g.g.e.rs. But tha.s.s the diff'ence; n.i.g.g.e.rs steals with they claws, white men with they laws. The claws steals by the pound; the laws steals by the boatload!"

The lobbyist agreed.

"Jess so!" cried Mr. Leggett. "Ef Gyarnit'd vote faw the things o' one common welfare an' gen'l progress an' program, folks--an' n.i.g.g.e.rs too--could affode faw him to vote faw somepm fat oncet in a while an' to evm take sugar on his vote--an' would sen' him to the ligislatur' stid o' me. Tha.s.s not sayin' I eveh did aw does take sugar on my vote. Ef I wins a bet oncet in a while on whether a certain bill 'll pa.s.s, why, that, along o' my official emoluments an' p'erequisites evince me a sufficient plenty.

"Wife?--Estravagant?--No!--Oh! you thinkin' o' my secon' wife. Yes, seh, she was too all-fired estravagant! I don't disadmire estravagant people.

I'm dreadful estravagant myseff. But Sophronia jess tuck the rag off'n the bush faw estravagance. Silk dresses, wine, jewelry--it's true she mos'ly spent her own green-backs, but tha.s.s jess it, you see; I jess had to paht with her, seh! You can asphyxiate that yo'seff, seh.

"Now this wife I got now--eh? No, I ain't never ezac'ly hear the news that the other one dead, but I suspicioned her, befo' she lef', o' bein'

consumpted, an'--O anyhow she's dead to me, seh! Now, the nex' time I marries--eh?--O yes, but the present Mis' Leggett can't las' much longeh, seh. I mistakened myseff when I aspoused her. I'm a man o' rich an' abundant natu'e an' ought to a-got a spouse consistent with my joys an' destinies. I may have to make a sawt o' Emp'ess Josephine o' her--ef she lives.

"Y'ought to see the nex' one!--Seh?--Engaged?--No, not yit; she as shy as a crow an'--ezac'ly the same colo'!--I'm done with light-complected women, seh.--But y'ought to see this-yeh one!--Shy as a pa't'idge! But I'm hot on her trail. She put_tend_ to be tarrible shocked--well, o'

co'se tha.s.s right!--Hid away in the hills--at Rosemont. But I kin git her on a day's notice. All I got to espress myself is--Majo' Gyarnit, seh!--Ef you continues faw twenty-fo' hours mo' to harbor the girl Johanna, otherwise Miss Wisdom, the Black Diana an' sim'lar names, I shall imbibe it my jewty to the gen'l welfare an' public progress to renovate yo' rememb'ance of a vas'ly diff'ent an' mo' financial matteh, as per my letteh to you of sich a date about seven year' ago an' not an's'd yit, _an' tell what I know about you_. Tha.s.s all I'll say. Tha.s.s all I haf to say! An' mebbe I won't haf to say that. Faw I'm tryin' love lettehs on her; wrote the fus' one this evenin'; on'y got two mo' to write. My third inevasively fetches 'em down the tree, seh!"

The lobbyist revived the subject of politics, the publican went after hot water for a punch, and the eavesdroppers slipped away.

Early the following week Mr. Leggett reclined in his seat in the House of Representatives. His boots were on his desk, and he tapped them with his sword-cane while he waited to back up with his vote a certain bet of the Friday night before. A speaker of his own party was alluding to him as the father of free schools in Blackland and Clear water; but he was used to this and only closed his eyes. A page brought his mail. It was small. One letter was perfumed. He opened it and sat transfixed with surprise, and a-tremble between vanity and doubt, desire and trepidation. He bent his beaded eyes close over the sweet thing and read its first page again and again. It might--it _might_ be an imposture; but it had come in a Rosemont envelope, and it was signed Johanna Wisdom.

The House began to vote. He answered to his name; the bill pa.s.sed, his bet was won. Adjournment followed. He hurried out and away, and down in a suburban lane entered his snug, though humble, "bo'd'n' house," locked his door, and read again.

Two or three well-known alumni of Rosemont and two or three Northern capitalists--railroad prospectors--were, on the following Friday, at the Swanee Hotel to be the guests of the Duke of Suez, as Ravenel was fondly called by the Rosemont boys. To show Suez at its best by night as well as by day, there was to be a Rosemont-Montrose ball in the hotel dining-room. Major Garnet opposed its being _called_ a ball, and it was announced as a musical reception and promenade. Mr. Leggett knew quite as well as Garnet and Ravenel that the coming visitors were behind the bill he had just voted for.

Johanna, the letter said, would be at the ball as an attendant in the ladies' cloak-room. It bade him meet her that night at eleven on the old bridge that spanned a ravine behind the hotel, where a back street ended at the edge of a neglected grove.

"Lawd, Lawd! little letteh, little letteh! is you de back windeh o'

heavm, aw is you de front gate o' h.e.l.l? Th' ain't no way to tell but by tryin'! Oh, how _kin_ I resk it? An' yit, how kin I he'p but resk it?

"Sheh! ain't I resk my life time an' time ag'in jess for my _abstrac'

rights_ to be a Republican niggeh?

"Ef they'd on'y shoot me! But they won't. They won't evm hang me; they'll jess tie me to a tree and bu'n me--wet me th'oo with coal-oil, tech a match--O Lawd!" He poured a tremendous dram, looked at it long, then stepped to the window, and with a quaking hand emptied both gla.s.s and bottle on the ground, as if he knew life depended on a silent tongue in a sober head.

And then he glanced once more at the letter, folded it, and let it slowly into his pocket.

"'Happy as a big sun-floweh,' is you? I ain't. I ain't no happier'n a pig on the ice. O it's mawnstus p'ecipitous! But it's gran'! It's mo'n gran'; it's muccurial! it's puffic'ly nocturnial!" With an exalted solemnity of face, half ardor, half anguish, he stiffened heroically and gulped out,

"I'll be thah!"

Friday came. John March and half-a-dozen other Rosemonters, a committee to furnish "greens" for garlanding the walls and doorways, hurried about in an expectancy and perturbation, now gay, now grave, that seemed quite excessive as the mere precursors of an evening dance. They gathered their greenery from the grove down beyond the old bridge and ravine, where the ground was an unbroken web of honeysuckle vines.

On this old bridge, at the late night hour fixed in the letter, Cornelius met a counterfeit, thickly-veiled Johanna, and swore to marry her.

"Black as you is? Ya.s.s! The blackeh the betteh! An' yit I'd marry you ef you wuz pyo white!--Colo' line!--I'll cross fifty colo' lines whenev' I feels like it!"

By midnight every Rosemonter at the ball had heard this speech repeated, and knew that it had hardly left the mulatto's throat before he had fled with shrieks of terror from the pretended ghosts of his earlier wives, and with the curses of a coward's rage from the vain clutches of his would-be captors.--But we go too fast.

XVIII.

THE PANGS OF COQUETRY

Night fell. The hotel shone. The veranda was gay with Chinese lanterns.

The m.u.f.fled girls were arriving. The musicians tuned up. There were three little fiddles, one big one, a flageolet, and a ba.s.soon.

"Twinkling stars are laughing, love, Laughing on you and me"

--sang the flageolet and little fiddles, while the double ba.s.s and the ba.s.soon grunted out their corroborative testimony with melodious unction. Presently the instruments changed their mood, the flageolet pretended to be a mocking-bird, all trills, the fiddles pa.s.sionately declared they were dreaming now-ow of Hallie--tr-r-r-ee!--dear Hallie--tr-r-r-ee!--sweet Hallie--tr-r-r-ee! and the ba.s.soon and double ba.s.s responded from the depths of their emotions, "Hmmh! hmmh!

hm-hm-hmmh!"

Ravenel and his guests appeared on the floor; Major Garnet, too. He had been with them, here, yonder, all day. Barbara remained at home, although her gowns were the full length now, and she coiled her hair.

General Halliday and Fannie arrived. Her dress, they said, was the prettiest in the room. Jeff-Jack introduced everybody to the Northerners. The women all asked them if Suez wasn't a beautiful city, and the guests praised the town, its site, its gardens, "its possibilities," its ladies--!--and its cla.s.sic river.

Try to look busy or dignified as he might, all these things only harried John March. He kept apart from Fannie. Indeed, what man of any self-regard--he asked his mangled spirit--could penetrate the crowd that hovered about her, ducking, fawning, giggling, att.i.tudinizing--listening over one another's shoulders, guffawing down each other's throats? It hurt him to see her show such indiscriminating amiability; but he felt sure he knew her best, and hoped she was saying to herself, "Oh, that these sycophants were gone, and only John and I and the twinkling stars remained to laugh together! Why does he stay away?"

"O my darling Nellie Gray, they have taken you away," wept the fiddles, and "Who? who? who-who-who?" inquired the ba.s.ses in deep solicitude.

Well, the first dance would soon come, now; the second would shortly follow, and then he and Fannie could go out on the veranda and settle all doubts. With certainty established in that quarter, whether it should bring rapture or despair, he hoped to command the magnanimity to hold over a terrified victim the lash of retribution, and then to p.r.o.nounce upon him, untouched, at last, the sentence of exile. He spoke aloud, and looking up quickly to see if anyone had heard, beheld his image in a mirror. He knew it instantly, both by its frown and by the trick of clapping one hand on the front of the thigh with the arm twisted so as to show a large seal-ring bought by himself with money that should have purchased underclothes for his father. He jerked it away with a growl of self-scorn, and went to mingle with older men, to whom, he fancied, the world meant more than young women and old scores.

He stopped in a part of the room where two Northerners were laughing at a keen skirmish of words between Garnet and Halliday. These two had gotten upon politics, and others were drawing near, full of eager but unplayful smiles.

"Never mind," said Garnet, in retort, "we've restored public credit and cut the rottenness out of our government."

The Northerners nodded approvingly, and the crowd packed close.

"Garnet," replied the general, with that superior smile which Garnet so hated, "States, like apples--and like men--have two sorts of rottenness.

One begins at the surface and shows from the start; the other starts from the core, and doesn't show till the whole thing is rotten."

For some secret reason, Garnet reddened fiercely for an instant, and then, with a forced laugh, addressed his words to one of the guests.

Another of the strangers was interested in the severe attention a strong-eyed Rosemont boy seemed to give to Halliday's speech. But it was only John March, who was saying, in his heart: