Kate Beaumont :: :: University of Virginia Library

This incantation is heard in the bedroom
of the Honorable Peyton Beaumont. It is
pronounced by a shining, jolly youngster of
a negro, seated on the bare clean pitch-pine
floor, his legs curving out before him like
compasses, a blacking-brush held up to his
mouth for further moistening, and an aristocratic-looking
boot drawn over his left hand
like a gauntlet. The incantation is responded
to by a savage grunt from a long bundle on
a tousled bed, out of which bundle peeps
a grizzled and ruffled topknot, and some
portion of a swarthy face framed in iron-gray
beard and whiskers. After the grunt
comes a silence which is followed in turn by
a snore so loud and prolonged that it reminds
one of the long roll of a drum-corps.

The negro resumes his work, whistling
the while in a sort of whisper and bobbing
his head in time to the tune. Presently he
pauses and takes a look at the bundle of
bedclothes. “Ain't gwine ter wake up yit;
mighty sleepy dis mornin'.” More brushing,
whistling, and bobbing. Then another look.
“Done gone fas' asleep again; guess I 'll catch
'nother hold.” There is a small table near
him, with a bottle on it and glasses. Hand
goes up; bottle is uncorked; liquor is decanted;
very neatly done indeed. More
brushing, whistling, and keeping time, just
to lull the sleeper. Hand seeks the table
once more; glass brought down and emptied;
set back in its place; no jingle. Then
further brushing, and the job is finished.

His work done, the negro got up with
an “O Lordy!” walked to the bedside,
dropped the boots with a band, and shouted,
“Hi! Mars Peyt!”

“Clear out!” growled Mars Peyton, and
made a lunge with a muscular hand, so
hairy that it might remind one of the paw
of an animal.

There was a rapid rectification of the frontier
on the part of the darky; he retreated
towards a doorway which led into what was
obviously a dressing-room. At a safe distance
from the bed he halted and yelled
anew, “Hi! Mars Peyt!”

Mars Peyt disengaged one hand entirely
from the bedclothes, seized the top of a
boot and slung it at the top of the negro,

who dodged grinning through the door just
as the projectile banged against it.

“Hi! Yah! Ho! ho, Mars Peyt!” he
shouted this time with an intonation of triumph,
aware that his toughest morning job
was over and pleased at having accomplished
it without barking a shin.

“Now den, Mars Peyt, you dress youself,”
he continued. “When you 's ready,
I 'll fix you cocktail.”

“Fix it now,” huskily growled the lord
of the manor. “I 'm dressing, — confound
you!”

Such was the Honorable Peyton Beaumont;
something like a big, wilful, passionate
boy; such at least he was on many
occasions. As for his difficulty in waking
up of mornings, we must excuse him on the
ground that he slept badly of nights. Went
to bed on brandy; honestly believed he
should rest the better for it; after two hours
of travelling or fighting nightmare, woke
up; dull pain and increasing heat in the
back of his head; pillow baking hot, and
hot all over; not another wink till morning.
Then came a short, feverish nap; then this
brushing, whistling, shouting Cato: — who
would n't throw boots at him? But Cato
was continued in the office of valet because
he was the only negro in the house who had
the impudence to bring about a thorough
waking, and because Mr. Beaumont was
determined to be up at a certain hour. He
was not the sort of man to let himself be
beaten, not even by his own physical necessities.

What was he like when he entered the
dressing-room in shirt and trousers, with the
streaky redness of soap and water about his
sombre face, and plumped heavily into a
high-backed oak arm-chair, to receive his
cocktail and to be shaved by Cato? At first
glance he might seem to be a clean but very
savage buccaneer. It would be easy to imagine
such a man grasping at chances for
duels and following the scent of a family feud.
His broad, dark red face, overhung by tousled
iron-gray hair and set in a stiff iron-gray
beard, had just this one merit, of being
regular in outline and feature. Otherwise
it was terrible; it was nothing less than
alarming. Paches, the Athenian admiral
who massacred the garrison of Notium,
might well have had such a countenance.
In the bloodshot black eyes (suffused with
the yellow of habitual biliousness), in the
stricture of the Grecian mouth, in the cattish
tremblings of the finely turned though hairy
nostrils, and in the nervous pointings of the
bushy eyebrows, there was an expression of
intense pugnacity, as fiery as powder and as
long-winded as death.

In fact, he had all sorts of a temper. It was
as sublime as a tiger's and as ridiculous as
a monkey's. His body was marked by the
scars of duels and rencontres, and the life-blood
of more than one human being was
crusted on his soul. At the same time he
could snap like a cross child, break crockery,
and kick chairs. Perhaps we ought partly
to excuse his fits of passion on the score of
nearly constant and often keen physical
suffering. People, in speaking of his temper,
said, “Brandy”; but it was mainly
brandy in its secondary forms, — broken
sleep, an inflamed alimentary canal, and
gout.

Meanwhile he had traits of gentleness
which occasionally astonished the people
who were afraid of him. While he could
fly at his children in sudden furies, he was
passionately fond of them, supported them
generously, and spoiled them with petting.
Barring chance oaths and kicks which were
surprised out of him, he was kind to his negroes,
feeding them liberally, and keeping
them well clothed. As proud as Lucifer
and as domineering as Beelzebub, he could be
charmingly courteous to equals and friends.

“How you fine that, Mars Peyt?” asked
Cato, when the cocktail had been hastily
clutched and greedily swallowed.

“Devilish thin.” Voice, however, the
smoother and face blander for it.

“Make you 'nother?”

“Yes.” Mellow growl, not exclusively
savage, much like that of a placated tiger.

This comedy, by the way, was played
every morning, with a variation Sundays.
Mr. Beaumont, having vague religious notions
about him, and being willing to make
a distinction in days, took three cocktails on
the Sabbath, besides lying in bed later.

The shaving commenced; the patient
bristling occasionally, but growing milder;
the operator supple, cautious, and talkative,
slowly getting the upper hands.

“Now hold you head still. You jerk
that way, an' you 'll get a cut. How you
s'pose I can shave when you 's slammin'
you face round like it was a do'?”

“Cato, I really need another cocktail this
morning. Had a precious bad night of
it.”

“No, you don', now. 'T ain't Sunday to-day.
Laws bless you, Mars Peyt, ho, ho!
you 's mos' 'ligious man I knows of, he, he!
befo' breakfus. You 'd jes like t' have Sunday
come every day in the week, so 's you
could have three cocktails. No you don',
no sech thing. 'T ain't good for you.
There, liked to cut you then. Hold you
nose roun', dere.” (Pushing the noble Greek
proboscis into place with thumb and finger.)
“Now then shut up you mouf; I 'se gwine
to lather. Them 's um. This yere 's fusrate
soap. Makes a reg'lar swamp o' lather.”

“Well, hurry up now,” growls Mr. Beaumont,
a little sore because he can't have his

third cocktail. “Don't stand there all day
staring at the soap-brush.”

“What 's Mars Vincent up to this mornin'?”
suggests Cato, seeking to lull the rising
storm with the oil of gossip.

“What is he up to?” demands Peyton
Beaumont with a fierce roll of the eyes: —
as much as to say, If anybody is up to anything
without my permission, I 'll break his
head.

“Flyin' roun' greasin' his pistils an' talkin'
softly with Mars Bent Armitage. Don'
like the looks of it.”

Mr. Beaumont uttered an inarticulate
growl and was clearly anxious to have the
dressing over. At last he was shaved; his
noble beard was combed and his martial
hair brushed upward; he rose with a strong
grip on the arms of his chair and slipped
his arm into his extended coat. He was
much improved in appearance from what he
had been; he still looked fierce, but not uncouth,
nor altogether uncourtly. One might
say a gentlemanly Turk, or even a sultan;
for there is something patrician in the expression
and port of the man.

In his long, columned piazza, whither he
went at once to get a breath of the morning
freshness which came in over his whitening
cotton-fields, he met his eldest son, Vincent.
The young gentleman was sauntering slowly,
his hands in the skirt-pockets of his shooting-jacket,
a pucker of thoughtfulness on his
brow, and the usual satirical smile rubbed
out. With dark, regular features, just a bit
pugnacious in expression, he resembled his
father as a fresh young gamecock resembles
an old one tattered by many a conflict.

A pleasant morning greeting was exchanged,
the eyes of the parent softening at
the sight of his son, and the latter brightening
with an air of confidence and cordiality.
It was strange to see two such combative
creatures look so amiably upon each other.
Clearly the family feeling was very strong
among the Beaumonts.

Instead of shouting, “What 's this about
pistols?” as he had meant to do, Mr. Beaumont
gently asked, “What 's the news,
Vincent?”

Then came the story of the previous
evening's adventure. It was related to this
effect: there had been some ironical sparring
between a Beaumont and a McAlister;
thereupon the McAlister had said, substantially,
“You are no gentleman.”

“How came you to go near the clown?”
growled Peyton Beaumont, his hairy nostrils
twitching and his thick eyebrows charging
bayonets.

“He approached me, while I was talking
to Miss Jenny Devine.”

Vincent did not think it the honorable
thing to explain that the young lady was
much to blame for the unpleasantness.

“The quarrelsome beasts!” snorted Beaumont.
“Always picking a fight with our
family. Trying to get themselves into decent
company that way. It 's always been
so, ever since they came to this district;
always! We had peace before. Why,
Vincent, it 's the most unprovoked insult
that I ever heard of. What had you said?
Nothing but what was — was socially allowable
— parliamentary. And he to respond
with a brutality! No gentleman! A Beaumont
no gentleman! By heavens, he deserves
to be shot on sight, shot at the first
street-corner, like a nigger-stealer. He
does n't deserve a duel. The code is too
good for him.”

“That sort of thing won't do now, at
least not among our set.”

“It did once. It did in my day. You
young fellows are getting so cursed fastidious.
Well, if it won't do, then —”

Mr. Beaumont took a sudden wheel and
walked the piazza in grave excitement.
When he returned to face the young man,
he said with undisguisable anxiety: “Well,
my boy! You know the duties of a gentleman.
I don't see that I am permitted to interfere.”

“I have put things into the hands of
Bentley Armitage,” added Vincent.

“Very good. Do as well as anybody,
seeing his brother is n't here. Come, let us
have breakfast.”

At the breakfast-table appeared only these
two men, and the second son, Poinsett.
There was not a white woman in the house,
though we must not blame Mr. Beaumont
for the deficiency, inasmuch as he had espoused
and lost two wives, and had been
known to try at least once for a third. His
eldest daughter, Nellie, was married to Randolph
Armitage, of Brownville District;
his only other daughter, Kate, and his sister,
Mrs. Chester, were, as we know, in
Charleston.

For some minutes Poinsett, a fat, tranquil,
pleasantly spoken, and talkative fellow
of perhaps twenty-five, bore the expense (as
the French say) of the conversation.

“Our feminine population will be home
soon, I venture to hope,” he said, among
other things. “Then, it is to be cheerfully
believed, we shall come out of our slough of
despond. American men, if you will excuse
me for saying so, are as dull and dry as
the Devil. They manage matters better in
France, and on the Continent generally,
and even in England. There, yes, even in
England, common prejudice to the contrary
notwithstanding, the genus homo is social.
Conversation goes on in those countries. I
don't say but that we Southerners are ahead
of our Northern brethren; but even we
bear traces of two hundred years in the forest.
We do speak; there is much monologuing,

and I perform my share of it; but
as for talking, quick interchange of ideas,
fair give and take, we are on a par with
Cooper's noble savage. Let me hope that
I don't wound your patriotism. I admit
that I have an immoral lack of prejudices.
But I want to know if you don't find life
here just a little dull?”

“Why the deuce don't you go to work,
then?” burst out Peyton Beaumont. “Here
you two fellows are as highly educated as
money can make you. You are a lawyer,
graduated at Berlin. Vincent is a doctor,
graduated at Paris. And yet you do nothing;
never either of you had a case; don't
want one.”

“Ah, work! that is dull too,” admitted
the smiling, imperturbable Poinsett. “Idleness
is dull; but work is duller. I confess
that it is a sad fact, and painful to me to
consider it. So let us change the subject.
Most noble Vincent, you seem to be in the
doldrums this morning.”

“He has an affair on his hands,” muttered
the father of the family.

“Ah!” said Poinsett, with a slight elevation
of the eyebrows, comprehending perfectly
that a duel was alluded to.

“Another McAlister impertinence,” pursued
Mr. Beaumont, and proceeded to tell
the story with great savageness.

“Wallace!” exclaimed Poinsett, “I confess
that I am the least bit surprised. I thought
Wallace an amiable, soporific creature like
myself. But the spirit of the breed — the
oversoul of the McAlisters — is too much
for his individuality. We are drops in a
river. I shall fight, too, some day, though
I don't at all crave it. Vincent, if I can do
anything for you, I am entirely at your service.”

Vincent's smile was noticeably satirical.
He was disagreeably amused with Poinsett's
coolness over another's duel. And he did
not believe that Poinsett could be easily
got to fight.

“I suppose that Bent Armitage will do
all that is necessary,” he said.

“Let us hope that the loading of the pistols
will be all that is necessary,” replied
Poinsett. “Let us hope that Wally will
bend his stiff knees, and confess that we
march at the head of civilization.”

“By heavens, I want him shot,” broke in
Beaumont the elder. “I can't understand
you young fellows, with your soft notions.
I belong to the old sort. There used to be
shooting in my day. Here is the most unprovoked
and brutal outrage that I ever
heard of. This beast calls a Beaumont no
gentleman. And here you hope there 'll be
an apology, and that end it. I want Vincent
to hit him. I want the fellow shelved;
I don't care if he 's killed; by heavens, I
don't.”

Mr. Beaumont was in a fit state to break
glasses and overturn the table. His black
eyes were bloodshot; his bushy eyebrows
were dancing and pointing as if they were
going through smallsword exercise; there
was a dull flame of blood all over his dark
cheeks and yellowish mottled forehead.
Vincent, the medical graduate of Paris,
surveyed his father through half-shut eyes,
and thought out the diagnosis, “Temporarily
insane.” There was no audible response
to the senior's good old-fashioned
Beaumont burst of rage.

After some minutes of silence, during
which Poinsett smilingly poured himself a
second cup of coffee (holding that he could
do it better than any waiter), the father
recovered his composure somewhat, and
added gravely: “Of course this is a serious
matter. I hope, trust, and believe that
Vincent will receive no harm. If he does”
(here his eyebrows bristled again), “I shall
take the field myself.”

“We will see,” smiled Poinsett. “My
impression is that my turn comes in somewhere.”

Here Cato, head waiter as well as valet,
put in his oar.

“That 's so Mars Poinsett. We all
has our turn, fightin' these yere McAlisters.”

“Why, what have you been at, Cato?”
asked the young man. “Challenging the
Judge? Or pulling the wool of his old
mauma?”

“No, sah. Yah, yah. I don' go roun'
challengin' white folks; knows my business
better. An' when I pulls wool, I pulls he
wool. Jes had a tackle yesterday with
Matt McAlister, the Judge's ole man that
waits on him. Matt he sets out, 'cause he 's
yaller, an' comes from Virginny, that he 's
better than we is, we Souf Carliny niggahs.
So every time I sees him I sasses him.
Yesr mornin', I meets him down to the
sto' — Mars Bill Wilkins's sto', don' ye
know? — kinder lookin' roun' for bar'l o'
flour. `So,' says I, `Boss,' says I, `how is
things up to your ole shanty?' He 's a
kinder gray ole fellow, don' ye know? puttin'
on airs like he was Noah, an' treatin'
everybody like they 's children, rollin' his
eyes out o' the corners kinder, an' crossin'
his arms jes as the Judge does. So he
looked at me, an', says he, `Boy, who is
you?' Says I, `I 'm Cato Beaumont.' So
says he, `I thought it mought be some o'
that breedin'.' Says I, `I was jes happenin'
down here to teach you your manners.'
So says he, `Boy, my manners was learned
befo' you ever heerd they was sech things.'
Then I kinder tripped him, an' he kinder
tripped me, an' then I squared off and
fotched back, an' says I —”

“Why did n't you hit him?” roared the

Hon. Mr. Beaumont, who had been listening
with great interest. “What did you
say another word for?”

“I was jes gwine to tell you what I said,”
returned Cato. “But now, 'fore gracious,
you done made me forget it. I said a heap
to him.”

“And so there was n't any fight after all,”
inferred the smiling Poinsett. “And nobody
got hurt. Heaven favors the brave.”

“It did n't 'zactly come to a wrastle,”
confessed Cato. “But I 'specs it would, for
I was gittin' powerful mad: only jes as I
was thinkin' o' gwine at him one o' Mars
Wikins's clerks come out, an' says he,
`Boys, don' make so much noise'; an' so I
quit.”

Beaumont senior gave forth a mild growl
of disapprobation, as deeply mellow as the
anger of waters in caves of the sea-shore.
“Cowardly niggers,” was one sound which
came from him; and yet, although he despised
negroes for being cowardly, he did
not blame them for it; he knew that chivalry,
prowess, and the like were properly
white man's business.

Half an hour after breakfast pistol-shots
resounded from an oak grove in the rear of
the mansion. Vincent was practising; had
a board five feet eight inches high planted
in the ground; hit the upper part of it with
fascinating accuracy. “Getting my hand
in,” he remarked to his father when the
latter came out to look on; and presently
the elder gentleman became interested, and
made a few exemplary shots himself. The
two men were in the midst of this cheering
recreation when Cato came running upon
them with frantic gestures and a yell of
“Mars Peyt! Stage come! Miss Kate
come!”

“What 's that, you rascal?” roared Beaumont,
his grim face suddenly transformed
into the likeness of something half angelic,
so honest and pure and fervent was its joy.
Plunging a hairy hand into his pocket, he
drew out a grip of coins, threw them at the
negro, and started for the house on a run
which knocked him out of his wind in
twenty paces. Then he halted, and shouted
back, “Vincent, hide those pistols. Cato,
if you say a word about this business, I 'll
skin you.”

Then away again, on a plethoric canter,
to meet his youngest daughter, his darling.

In the rear piazza of the house a tall and
lovely girl rushed into his arms with a cry
of “Father!” to which he responded with
a sound which was much like a sob of gladness.
There were tears of joy shed by
somebody; it was impossible to say whether
they came from Kate's eyes or from her
father's; but they were dried between their
nestling, caressing cheeks.

“Why, Kate! what a woman you are!”
exclaimed Beaumont, holding her back at
arm's length to worship her.

Vincent and Poinsett already stood by
waiting their turns for an embrace. It was
clear enough that, whatever defects there
might be in this Beaumont breed, the lack
of family feeling was not one of them.

Meantime Mrs. Chester and Tom were
coming through the house, the former chattering
steadily in a high, joyful soprano, and
the latter roaring his lion-cub content in
slangy exclamations.

The scene contrasted with the pistol practice
of the oak grove somewhat as paradise
contrasts with the inferno.

Of the paradise and the inferno, which is
to win?