YOUTH AND MR. PARCHER Seventeen | ||
XXV. YOUTH AND MR. PARCHER
AS a hurried worldling, in almost perfectly fitting evening clothes, passed out of his father's gateway and hurried toward the place whence faintly came the sound of dance-music, a child's voice called sweetly from an unidentified window of the darkened house behind him:
"Well, anyway, you try and have a good time, Willie!"
William made no reply; he paused not in his stride. Jane's farewell injunction, though obviously not ill-intended, seemed in poor taste, and a reply might have encouraged her to believe that, in some measure at least, he condescended to discuss his inner life with her. He departed rapidly, but with hauteur. The moon was up, but shade-trees were thick along the sidewalk, and the hauteur was invisible to any human eye; nevertheless, William considered it necessary.
Jane's friendly but ill-chosen "anyway" had touched doubts already annoying him. He was
But as he hastened onward his spirits rose, and he did reply to Jane, after all, though he had placed a hundred yards between them.
"Yes, and you can bet your bottom dollar I will, too!" he muttered, between his determined teeth.
The very utterance of the words increased the firmness of his decision, and at the same time cheered him. His apprehensions fell away, and a glamorous excitement took their place, as he turned a corner and the music burst more loudly upon his tingling ear. For there, not half-way to the next street, the fairy scene lay spread before him.
Spellbound groups of uninvited persons, most of them colored, rested their forearms upon the upper rail of the Parchers' picket fence, offering to William's view a silhouette like that of a crowd at a fire. Beyond the fence, bright forms went skimming, shimmering, wavering over a white platform, while high overhead the young
The heart of William had behaved tumultuously the summer long, whenever his eyes beheld those pickets of the Parchers' fence, but now it outdid all its previous riotings. He was forced to open his mouth and gasp for breath, so deep was his draught of that young wine, romance. Yonder — somewhere in the breath-taking radiance — danced his Queen with all her Court about her. Queen and Court, thought William, and nothing less exorbitant could have expressed his feeling. For seventeen needs only some paper lanterns, a fiddle, and a pretty girl — and Versailles is all there!
The moment was so rich that William crossed the street with a slower step. His mood changed: an exaltation had come upon him, though he was never for an instant unaware of the tragedy beneath
A sense of picturesqueness — his own picturesqueness — made him walk rather theatrically as he passed through the groups of humble onlookers outside the picket fence. Many of these turned to stare at the belated guest, and William was unconscious of neither their low estate nor his own quality as a patrician man-about-town in almost perfectly fitting evening dress. A faint, cold smile was allowed to appear upon his lips, and a fragment from a story he had read came momentarily to his mind. . . . "Through the gaping crowds the young Augustan noble was borne down from the Palatine, scornful in his jeweled litter. . . ."
An admiring murmur reached William's ear.
"Oh, oh, honey! Look attem long-tail suit! 'At's a rich boy, honey!"
"Yessum, so! Bet he got his pockets pack' full o' twenty-dolluh gol' pieces right iss minute!"
"You right, honey!"
William allowed the coldness of his faint smile to increase to become scornful. These poor sidewalk creatures little knew what seethed inside the alabaster of the young Augustan noble! What was it to them that this was Miss Pratt's last night and that he intended to dance and dance with her, on and on?
Almost sternly he left these squalid lives behind him and passed to the festal gateway.
Upon one of the posts of that gateway there rested the elbow of a contemplative man, middle-aged or a little worse. Of all persons having pleasure or business within the bright inclosure, he was, that evening, the least important; being merely the background parent who paid the bills. However, even this unconsidered elder shared a thought in common with the Augustan now approaching: Mr. Parcher had just been thinking that there was true romance in the scene before him.
But what Mr. Parcher contemplated as romance arose from the fact that these young people were dancing on a spot where their great-grandfathers had scalped Indians. Music was
And upon another subject preoccupying both Mr. Parcher and William, their two views, though again founded upon one thought, had no real congeniality. The preoccupying subject was the imminence of Miss Pratt's departure; — neither Mr. Parcher nor William forgot it for an instant. No matter what else played upon the surface of their attention, each kept saying to himself, underneath: "This is the last night — the last night! Miss Pratt is going away — going away to-morrow!"
Mr. Parcher's expression was peaceful. It was more peaceful than it had been for a long time. In fact, he wore the look of a man who had been through the mill but now contemplated a restful and health-restoring vacation. For there are people in this world who have no respect for the memory of Ponce de Leon, and Mr. Parcher had come to be of their number. The elimination
Altogether, the summer had been a severe one;
Thus did the one thought divide itself between William and Mr. Parcher, keeping itself deep and pure under all their other thoughts. "Miss Pratt is going away!" thought William and Mr. Parcher. "Miss Pratt is going away — to-morrow!"
The unuttered words advanced tragically toward the gate in the head of William at the same time that they moved contentedly away in the head of Mr. Parcher; for Mr. Parcher caught sight of his wife just then, and went to join her as she sank wearily upon the front steps.
"Taking a rest for a minute?" he inquired. "By George! we're both entitled to a good long rest, after to-night! If we could afford it, we'd go away to a quiet little sanitarium in the hills, somewhere, and — " He ceased to speak and there was the renewal of an old bitterness in his expression as his staring eyes followed the movements
"Look at what?" asked his wife.
"That Baxter boy!" said Mr. Parcher, as William passed on toward the dancers. "What's he think he's imitating — Henry Irving? Look at his walk!"
"He walks that way a good deal, lately, I've noticed," said Mrs. Parcher in a tired voice. "So do Joe Bullitt and — "
"He didn't even come to say good evening to you," Mr. Parcher interrupted. "Talk about manners, nowadays! These young — "
"He didn't see us."
"Well, we're used to that," said Mr. Parcher. "None of 'em see us. They've worn holes in all the cane-seated chairs, they've scuffed up the whole house, and I haven't been able to sit down anywhere down-stairs for three months without sitting on some dam boy; but they don't even know we're alive! Well, thank the Lord, it's over — after to-night!" His voice became reflective. "That Baxter boy was the worst, until he took to coming in the daytime when I was down-town. I couldn't have stood it if he'd kept on coming in the evening. If I'd had to listen to any more of his talking or singing, either the embalmer or the lunatic-asylum would
"Is it Mr. Baxter's dress-suit?" Mrs. Parcher inquired. "How do you know?"
Mr. Parcher smiled. "How I happen to know is a secret," he said. "I forgot about that. His little sister, Jane, told me that Mrs. Baxter had hidden it, or something, so that Willie couldn't wear it, but I guess Jane wouldn't mind my telling you that she told me especially as they're letting him use it again to-night. I suppose he feels grander 'n the Wing o' Siam!"
"No," Mrs. Parcher returned, thoughtfully. "I don't think he does, just now." Her gaze was fixed upon the dancing-platform, which most of the dancers were abandoning as the music fell away to an interval of silence. In the center of the platform there remained one group, consisting of Miss Pratt and five orators, and of the orators the most impassioned and gesticulative was William.
"They all seem to want to dance with her all the time," said Mrs. Parcher. "I heard her telling one of the boys, half an hour ago, that all she could give him was either the twenty-eighth regular dance or the sixteenth `extra.' "
"The what?" Mr. Parcher demanded, whirling to face her. "Do they think this party's going to keep running till day after to-morrow?" And
"Oh, nothing," his wife returned. "Only trying to arrange a dance with her. He seems to be in difficulties."
YOUTH AND MR. PARCHER Seventeen | ||