University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.
ZENOBIA AND DIOGENES.

“How are you, James? All right at home?”
asked Mr. Barstow of the respectable-looking
coachman who stood ready to meet the
travellers in the station at the terminus of
their journey.

“All right, sir. We got your orders by
telegraph day before yesterday,” said James,
assuming his master's bag and shawl, and respectfully
touching his hat to Miss Wansted,
who followed her uncle down the steps of the
car.

“Well, let us get home as fast as possible.
I hope Mrs. Grey won't keep us waiting for
dinner,” said uncle Israel, a little impatiently;
and in a few moments Beatrice found herself
seated in a luxurious carriage, and rolling
rapidly through the lighted streets.

“It seems a little close here, after the country,
does it not?” asked Mr. Barstow, letting
down the windows with a jerk. “We must
have a run down to the sea-shore after you
have fairly established yourself in Midas-avenue.
By the way, you have never seen my
new house; I was still at the Grandare when
you visited us three years ago.”

“Yes, sir,” said Beatrice wearily.

“And that was before Chappelleford brought
his niece from the South, was it not?”

“I think he had gone for her then. I never
saw Mr. Chappelleford.”

“Not when he was at the Old Garrison?”

“No, sir. I was still at school.”

“Oh! yes; I remember. Well, I have invited
him and June to dine with us to-night,
and particularly asked them to be at the house
to receive us. I thought it would seem more
cheerful for you, my dear, to find the house
full.”

“Thank you, uncle,” said Beatrice, in wardly
longing to creep away somewhere, and hide
from the glare, the bustle, the introductions,
and the effort before her.

“You will be great friends with June, as
soon as you get to know her,” pursued Mr.
Barstow complacently, “and we will take
her to the beach with us. She was longing to
leave town the last time I saw her; but Chappelleford
never stirs from the neighborhood of
the libraries and museums among which he
lives; and June has no money of her own, poor
girl. Her husband died a bankrupt, or worse.”

“Is her name really June?” asked Beatrice,
feeling that she must say something.

“Oh! no. It is Juanita, and people generally
call her Nita; but I fancied to pronounce
the first syllable as it is spelled, and make
June of it. It is the same name as Jennie,
Mrs. Charlton says—that is, Juan is John, and
Juana is Jane, and Juanita is Jennie. Her
mother was a Spanish woman from Cuba,
who married Vezey Chappelleford's younger
brother in New-Orleans, and June lived there
until three years ago; so her blood is more
tropical than arctic, and her temper also; but
she and I always get on together admirably.”

“And I dare say she and I will also,” said
Beatrice, smiling a little at the lesson in philology
administered by her uncle, and beginning
to feel a dawning interest in this tropical
June-bird, whose praises her uncle so persistently
sung.

But the carriage-wheels already woke the
echoes of Midas-avenue, and presently stopped
mid-way down that aristocratic thoroughfare,
before a house large enough and handsome
enough to have served as the residence of an
ambassador, or to have crushed its parvenu
owner into insignificance had he been a man
less single-hearted and unpretentious than
Israel Barstow, who, opening his carriage-door
himself, stepped gayly out, and tendered
a hand to his niece, saying:

“Here we are at home, Trixie, and home
you must feel it to be, for there isn't the first
thing in it which is not yours as much as
mine.”

“Thank you, uncle,” said Beatrice quietly;
and in stepping from the carriage, she cast one
comprehensive glance at the house and locality,
feeling that the panacea for a wounded
spirit thus offered her was one not to be
despised.

At the door stood Mrs. Grey, a pale, placid
matron, with faded brown hair neatly folded
under a cap, faded blue eyes, habitually downcast,
and a faded smile upon her faded lips.
She dressed always in black silk or stuff
gowns, and wore clear-starched white muslin
aprons, and ruffles about her hands.

Mr. Barstow shook hands heartily with his
housekeeper and introduced his niece.

“This is Miss Wansted, or Miss Beatrice,
if you prefer it, Mrs. Grey, and she has travelled
sixty miles since breakfast, and would
like her dinner, I am very sure. I suppose,
though, she wants to wash her hands first,
and I am sure I do mine. You have a room
ready for her?”

“Certainly, sir. Shall I show you up-stairs,
Miss Wansted?”

“Thank you, Mrs. Grey.”

And Beatrice meekly followed the housekeeper
through a hall and up a staircase,
wrought and furnished in the luxurious fashion
of the day, to an apartment upon the
second floor, whose magnificence was its only
fault.

“Mr. Barstow wrote me word that these
were to be your rooms, Miss Wansted,” said
the housekeeper, opening two rooms at the
further side of the sleeping-chamber. “This
is the dressing-room, and this the sitting-room,
with another door into the hall. I hope you
will find them comfortably arranged, though
Mr. Barstow said that you would re-furnish
them to suit yourself as soon as you were
settled. Shall I send a maid to help you
change your dress, Miss?”

“No, thank you. If you will let some one
bring up my trunks, I will do all the rest. Is
Mrs. Charlton here, Mrs. Grey?”

“Yes, Miss, she arrived about half an hour
ago, and is in the drawing-room waiting for
you.”

“Thank you. Won't you call me Miss
Beatrice instead of Miss Wansted, as my
uncle said?” asked Beatrice with a smile;
and the housekeeper replied less formally
than she had yet spoken:

“Thank you, Miss Beatrice, it does sound
more home-like, and I hope you will make up
your mind to stay with us a good long while.
Now I will send up the trunks, and dinner
will be ready at eight.”

Half an hour later, Beatrice, whose hands
were as quick as her head, came from her
chamber refreshed in body and mind, and
dressed with a quiet simplicity sure at least
not to offend, although a critical beholder
might feel that more elegant attire would
better suit her patrician style of beauty.

The drawing-room door stood open, and
Beatrice, while descending the stairs, assured
herself that the room was occupied, and that
her uncle was not of the company. A shy impulse
prompted her to retreat, and wait for the
protection of his presence before entering; and
she had actually stolen up several stairs, when
a reäctionary pride arrested her steps, and,
turning, she went steadily down, and into the
drawing-room without pause or hesitation.
The struggle, however, had brought a deeper
color to her cheek, and lent a certain haughty
self-possession to her bearing, so easily to be
mistaken for the aplomb of a woman of the
world, that none but the keenest observers
would have recognized it as the defiant self-assertion
of inexperienced pride.

Vezey Chappelleford was the keenest of
observers, and he at once came forward to
meet the young girl whom he had already
catalogued as “Barstow's rustic protégée.”

“Miss Wansted, allow me to claim a sort of
collateral acquaintanceship with the kinswoman
of my old friend, and to present my
niece, Mrs. Charlton. Nita, Miss Wansted
and you have much to do in settling the
etiquette of welcome, since both are, in a manner,
hostess for this evening. By to-morrow,
Miss Wansted will have fairly assumed the
sceptre.”

“I am but too happy to take my place as
guest upon the instant,” replied Mrs. Charlton,
in a voice peculiarly rich and mellow in its
modulations, and subdued in its tone. Beatrice,
while murmuring some commonplace
reply, noted the voice, and examined its possessor
with a glance of feminine comprehensiveness.

She found a woman framed upon the heroic
scale, but with a figure of admirable proportions,
with a head which might have been
regal had it not been languid in its pose; a
face of dark, sultry beauty, with a life's experience
beneath the drooping eyelids, and in
the curve of the passionate lips, and with a
manner of perfect polish and indolent grace.

“Cleopatra!” thought Beatrice, as her slight
fingers lay within the firm, satiny touch of
Mrs. Charlton's large white hand.

“No; Zenobia,” said she again, as the other
led her to a seat, and placing herself beside
her with the air of one receiving rather than
conferring a favor, asked some courteous
questions of her journey.

While she replied, Mr. Barstow entered the
room, and as he welcomed his guests, Beatrice
looked at Mr. Chappelleford as she had at his
niece, and following the same bad habit he
had indulged toward her, mentaly bestowed
upon him the sobriquet of Diogenes. Nor
could that famous cynic have possessed a
more dome-like brow, stronger lineaments, or
determined reticence of manner. With the
majority of mankind, Vezey Chappelleford
lived on terms of mutual intolerance; among
savans he was known as a man of profound
and varied erudition; to Israel Barstow, who

never disputed the most untenable of his
theories, or interfered in the remotest manner
with his pursuits, he was a good humored
patron, although the merchant's daily income
far outweighed the philosopher s yearly annuity;
to children he was a simple-hearted
playmate; to women, a courteous misogynist;
to Juanita Charlton a puzzle without a key.

“Sorry to have kept you waiting, friends,
and to have left you to introduce yourselves
to each other,” said the host, shaking hands
with every body. “But in my dressing-room
I found that fellow Rowley—my head clerk,
you know, Chappelleford—and he had been
waiting an hour, and would have waited until
to-morrow morning if I had not attended to
him; so I had to sit down and listen and answer,
and sign, seal, and deliver, just as he ordered.
A shocking tyrant, that fellow.”

“Poor Rowley! I wish I had imagination
enough to fancy his crossing a t, or dotting an
i, without your especial permission, or your
amazed indignation should he do so,” said
Chappelleford with a cynical smile.

“Well, well, some people tyrannize by humble
appeals, as well as others by downright
bullying,” replied Mr. Barstow, reddening a
little at finding himself unmasked.

“Yes, that is the usual style of feminine
tyranny; is it not, Miss Wansted?” asked
Chappelleford, offering his arm to Beatrice as
dinner was announced.

“The disguise would not be of much use
where it is convicted beforehand,” replied she,
with a merry glance into the keen eyes bent
upon her; and the cynic replied with a smile
whose beauty always took the beholder by
surprise.

“You are right, young lady; most disguises
are like the shirt of Nessus, and he who
assumes them finds himself ruined within
them.”

“ `Honesty is the best policy' is as true now
as it ever was, and that's as true as the sun,”
remarked Mr. Barstow, who had caught the
last remark while seating himself at the foot
of the dinner-table.

“No need to look in books of reference for
that motto,” growled Chappelleford in reply.
“It is unmistakably English: none but a
nation of shopkeepers could have originated
it, or needed it.”

“Pitching into trade again?” laughed the
host with perfect good-nature, while his niece
raised her eyes indignantly. “Have some
turtle and a glass of Madeira, and consider
that, without trade, you must have begun your
dinner with clam-chowder and cider, and finished
it with hickory-nuts and currant-wine.”

“After which, we have only to consider
whether Madeira or manhood, callipash or
constitution, is more important to a nation, and
the question is settled,” said the philosopher,
sipping his glass of wine with a relish, and
glancing quizzically at Miss Wansted's flushed
face.

“Do you really think trade dishonorable,
Mr. Chappelleford?” inquired she, meeting
the glance.

“Did you ever read Mill on Political
Economy, Miss Wansted?” replied the philosopher.”

“No, sir.”

“Nor I, and Heaven send that we never
may. Is my friend Miss Barstow quite well,
and has she forgiven my rat-like invasion of
her wainscot, in search of truth?”

“Did you take a lantern to aid your search
for it?” asked Beatrice, her irritation outweighing
her discretion for the moment; but
her low voice was drowned by her uncle's
burly tones, and the allusion was unheard.