University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.

Mrs. Armitage went through a variety
of spiritual exercises with regard to this
possible match between her sister and Frank
McAlister.

At first she had been sternly opposed to
it; then the contagion of Kate's emotion
caused her to relent somewhat; next she
reflected upon the matter by herself, and
hardened her heart once more; at last she
met the young man, and in consequence experienced
a further change.

Although she was prepared to find him
agreeable and handsome, she was rather surprised
by his grand figure, his fine face, and
pleasant address. His lofty stature did not
seem to her objectionable or even very odd,
for in the midland and back country of
South Carolina, where she had passed her
life, the human plant grows luxuriantly, six
feet being a common height, and six feet four
not unique. Moreover, there are probably
few women who do not find a certain massive
charm in large men. “No wonder,”
thought Nellie, “that Kate likes this fellow,
especially since he saved her life.” Nevertheless,
she would study him; she would see
whether he were half as good as he looked;
she would see whether he were good enough
to make up for being a McAlister.

There was not much in their interview of
the wandering small-talk which is apt to
follow introductions; for both Mrs. Armitage
and Frank were of that earnest class of souls
who usually mean something and say it. The
lady, too, had a fervent purpose at heart, and
none too much time in which to carry it
out.

“Are you going to live at home, Mr. McAlister?”
she very soon inquired.

Frank colored; it seemed as if she were
asking him whether he meant to live on his
father, like so many other sons of well-to-do
planters; and he remembered that he had
been in Hartland several weeks without
doing anything chemical or metallurgical.

“I have n't yet decided where I shall be,”
he replied. “But I hope before long to find
some place where I can earn my own living.”

Mrs. Armitage stared; a young gentleman
of expectations who wanted to earn his own
living was a novelty to her; she was so
puzzled that she smiled in a rather blank
fashion.

“And how do people earn their own living?”
she demanded.

“I want to earn mine by making other
people rich.”

“I don't understand,” said Nellie, more
perplexed than ever, and beginning to query
whether this McAlister were not jesting
with her.

So Frank explained that he had studied
metallurgy and commercial chemistry; that
he proposed to test mines and phosphate
beds, and decide whether they could be
worked profitably; and that for such services
he should expect a reasonable compensation.

“But will that get a living?” inquired
Mrs. Armitage. Another reflection, which,
however, she kept to herself was, “Is that
work for a gentleman?”

“It may not for a time,” laughed Frank.
“Our people don't care much as yet for
their underground wealth. Their eyes are
bandaged with cotton. But I have an ambition,
Mrs. Armitage. I want to open people's
eyes. I want to develop the natural
wealth of my State. I want to be a benefactor
to South Carolina.”

“O, that is right,” admitted Nellie, thinking
the while that, if he became famous as a
benefactor, he might run for Congress.

“Yes, there would be little to do for a
time,” continued Frank. “So the other
part of my plan is to obtain a professorship
in some college.”

Nellie frowned frankly; he seemed too
grand a fellow to be a mere professor; she
was already interested in him, and wished
him well.

“If you really want a professorship, I
should think you might easily get one,” she
said. “Your father has a great deal of political
influence.”

The serious young man was tempted to
smile in the face of the serious young woman.
Of course, scientific enthusiast as he was,
he scorned the idea of getting a professorship
through his father's wire-pullings, and
trusted to earn one by making himself famous,
desirable, and necessary as a chemist
and metallurgist. But it was not worth
while, nor perhaps in good taste, to try to
render these matters clear to Mrs. Armitage.

“Well, you will not starve; your father
will see to that,” was her next remark, good-naturedly
and smilingly uttered, but surely
very discouraging.

His father again! It was almost provoking
to have his high and mighty and respected
parent flung at his head in this
persistent manner. So far was Frank from
looking to the paternal statesmanship, influence,
and acres for his bread and butter, that
he at heart expected to gain pelf as well as
honor by his sciences, developing untold
wealth and sharing in the profits.

“Do you expect to find gold-mines in
Hartland District?” was Nellie's next
speech.

“No,” patiently responded our scientist,
not even marvelling at the depths of her
ignorance, though he knew that auriferous
ore out of Hartland was less possible than
sunbeams out of a cucumber. “I shall
have to run about after my work,” he
added.

He feared that he was damaging his
chances as a suitor for Kate; but he was
too honorable to tell anything less than the
truth.

“Run about,” repeated Nellie, quite decided
for the moment that he should not
have her sister; “I should think it would
be pleasanter to stay at home.”

Frank was discouraged; nobody hereabout
sympathized with his tenderness for
chemistry and his passion for metallurgy;
sometimes he thought he should have to
drop his sciences and go to sleep upon cotton,
like the rest of South Carolina.

“You must excuse my frankness,” said
Mrs. Armitage, who perceived that she had
dashed him a little. “It is so strange that
I should be talking to you at all! It seems
as if I were at liberty to say everything.”

“There has been a prodigious breaking
of the ice between our families.”

“Yes; and you broke it. It was a great
thing to do, and you found a grand way to
do it.”

“It was accident,” said Frank, coloring
under this praise from Kate's sister.

“I can't thank you enough for saving
her,” continued Nellie, a little moved. “It
is useless to try to do it.”

There was a short silence. The young
man's spirit was beginning to burgeon and
bloom all over with hope. The lady was
meditating how she could tear up his hopes,
without seeming to him and to herself outrageously
ungrateful and hard-hearted.

“Yes, you did a noble thing,” she resumed.
“I hope you will never have occasion
to regret it.”

“How!” he exclaimed, in a sudden burst
of earnest bass, at the same time starting up
and pacing the room. “I beg your pardon,”
he almost immediately added, and sat down
again.

“He is very much in love with her,”
thought Nellie. “What a dreadful business
it is! What shall I say to him?”

She steeled herself with a remembrance
of her duty to her sister, and added: “It
might have been better if some one else had
saved her.”

The Chinese wall was broken down; the
great subject of Kate Beaumont lay open
before them for discussion; and the only
question was, whether Frank McAlister
could summon breath to enter upon it. For
a moment he was like a climber of mountains,
who should discover a barely traversable
path leading to the longed-for summit,
and should just then find himself turning
dizzy. He absolutely had to make another
excursion to the window and back before
he was able to say, “Do you think I would
take improper advantage of my slight, very
slight claim to gratitude?”

“No, I do not,” replied the impulsive
Nellie, unable to help admiring him for his
honesty and his beauty. “I am sure, Mr.
McAlister, that you are a gentleman. But
have you thought, have you considered?
O, how hard it is to say some things! Well,
I must speak it out. Here is my young sister
under great obligations to you. And
you are a McAlister. I know that there is
peace now between our families. But how
long will it last? Suppose it should not
last? Would you like to have your name
stand between your wife and her own father
and brothers?”

Suddenly remembering that she had assumed
that he cared to marry her sister,
when he had not yet told her so, Nellie
stopped in confusion. It was so like her to
spring forward in that instinctive way; it
was so like the emotional, headlong race to
which she belonged.

“I hope it would never be as you say,”
groaned the young man, frankly acknowledging
the purpose which had been imputed
to him.

“Ah — yes,” replied Nellie, with a sigh
of sympathy. Her opposition was weakening;
she found it very hard to withstand
this good and handsome lover to his face;
she was mightily tempted to get done with
him by giving him her sister. Discovering
her weakness, and deciding that it was her
duty not to yield to it, she hastened to speak
her mind while she had one.

“See here, Mr. McAlister. I ask you
one thing. I ask it of you as a gentleman;
yes, and as a friend. I beg of you that, if
ever you should wish to say a word of love
to Kate, you will not say it without the full
permission of her father.”

He came up to her with a bright smile,
seized her hand, pressed it, and in his thankfulness
kissed it.

Nellie's resolution was almost upset; she
came very near saying, “Take her.”

“I worship her,” he whispered. “But
before I say one word, you shall permit it.
You and your father shall both permit it.”

“O, it all amounts to nothing,” returned
Nellie, shaking her head with a slightly
hysterical laugh. “Such things are said
without saying them. If you love her, she
will find it out, though you should never
speak again.”

“But you won't send me away?” begged
Frank, his smile suddenly fading and his
eyes turning anxious.

“No,” said Nellie. “Every woman is a
big fool on these subjects. I can't send you
away.”

Thus ended Mrs. Armitage's first attempt
to prevent a match between her sister and
Frank McAlister. It had been so far from
a triumph that she had given the young man
a tacit permission to continue some silent
sort of courtship, and had at the bottom of

her heart become little less than his partisan.
She did not deceive herself as to the
result of the onslaught; she admitted that
one more such victory would beat her completely;
and her sagacious decision was, “I
won't say another word about it.” It was a
resolution, as certain metaphysicians inform
us, easier for a woman to make than to keep.

In fact, Nellie was rather an aid than a
bar to Frank in his researches after happiness
at the Beaumont mansion, inasmuch
as she kept Mrs. Chester from balking and
worrying him with her venerable assiduities.
It must be understood that the
cracked old flirt had got over her wrath at
the youngster for playing his brother upon
her while he himself had walks and talks
with her niece. She observed that in these
days he never saw Kate alone; and, not
knowing the true reason, she guessed that
he had tired of her. Consequently she once
more had hopes of — the gracious knows
what; and with the return of hope came a
resurrection of fondness for her Titan.

Now Nellie did not mean to smooth the
course of Frank's love; impulsive as she
might be, she was no such weathercock
as that. But she had grown up in the
habit of fighting Aunt Marian; and, moreover,
she could not bear to see that
venerable chicken make a fool of herself;
for did not her absurdities more
or less disgrace the family? As soon, therefore,
as she perceived that Mrs. Chester
was indulging in her time-worn vice of flirting
with a man ever so much her junior, she
prepared to open fire upon her. The two
ladies were sewing by themselves in the
breezy veranda, when Mrs. Armitage commenced
her bombardment with “What a
handsome fellow Frank McAlister is!”

How easily the slyest of us are humbugged
when people talk to us about those
whom we love! It was of no use to Mrs.
Chester that she was a woman, that she
was a veteran worldling, that she was an
old coquette. The doors of her heart flew
open at the sound of the name which was her
open sesame; and with a throb of pleasure,
with the sincere countenance of a gratified
child she replied, “Yes, indeed!”

“He is trying to catch Kate, and I fear he
will do it,” added the cruel Nellie, sending
a straight thrust at the unguarded bosom.

“It would be a most outrageous match,”
burst out the surprised and tortured Mrs.
Chester.

“It would make more than one of us
miserable,” continued Nellie, turning the
blade in the wound; and at the same time
she gave her discovered, unhappy, ridiculous,
irrational relative a glance of angry
contempt. A woman who “loves not
wisely” gets little pity from other women;
they regard her as men regard a brother
man who loses his estate in silly speculations;
perhaps, also, they look upon her as
one who cheapens and discredits her sex.

All at once Mrs. Chester understood that
Nellie had found her out and was openly
flouting her. Exposure and a consciousness
of “scorn's unmoving finger” are
great helps to beclouded intelligences.
Although this widow bewitched was half
crazy about Frank McAlister, she could see
somewhat of the absurdity of her position
when another plainly pointed it out to her.
She shook with shame and rage; her pale
brunette cheek turned ashy; after a little
her black eyes sparkled vindictively. But
she had enough of self-control to go on with
her cuttings and bastings, and to merely
mutter, “Yes, the match would make
plenty of trouble.”

“He is enough to fascinate any woman,
young or old,” added Nellie, by way of completing
her massacre of this mature innocent.

Wonders were accomplished by this short
dialogue. Henceforward, so long as Mrs.
Armitage remained at the plantation, Aunt
Marian ceased making eyes at Frank McAlister,
or trying to entrap him into moonlight
strolls, or doing anything else that
was lovelorn, — at least before witnesses.
Her reformation was, however, only external;
she was in reality fully possessed by
that mighty demon, a heart-affair of middle
life; she was reaping the reward of having
passed thirty years in no other habit of mind,
than that of love-making. She was so far bewitched
with Frank McAlister that she would
have rushed into the madness of marrying
him, had he proposed it. The case may seem
incredible to those who have not witnessed
something similar. While we all know that
elderly men sometimes fall desperately in
love with girls, we are not accustomed to
see elderly women get into hallucinations
over youngsters. But the marvel sometimes
happens; and it happened to poor
Mrs. Chester.

In these days she passed much time in
her room; sometimes lost in reveries which
were alternately sweet and bitter; sometimes
trying on dress after dress and ornament
after ornament, not to mention perlatinas,
etc.; sometimes studying herself in
the glass and endeavoring to think herself
youthful, or at least not old. Like Southerners
in general, she found no embarrassment
in the presence of a negro; and so
her ancient maid, Miriam, had plenty of
opportunity to observe these prinkings and
prankings.

“Laws me!” muttered the indignant
mauma. “Ef Miss Marian don't oughter
have the biggest kind of a spakkin”'

There was no reason why Miriam should
not guess accurately what was the matter

with her mistress. Mrs. Chester was
one of those people who must have sympathy;
she had always been accustomed to
receive it from her faithful chattel; and she
demanded it now with a curious frankness.

“I don't see why Mr. McAlister should
avoid me,” she would say plaintively. Then
she would burst out with sudden vexation:
“But in these days no woman can get any
attention who is over twenty.”

“Don't see nuffin perticlar 'bout Mars
Frank,” muttered Miriam, lying a little for
her owner's good.

“O, he is so tall!” exclaimed Mrs. Chester,
in naïve ecstasy. So tall! Perhaps
that was the key to her possession. The
jaded flirt, famished after sensations, had
been captivated by a physical novelty. Her
next passion might be for a dwarf, or for
one of the Siamese Twins.

“No woman over twenty has any chance
of being noticed here in the country,” she
presently added, laying on the word country
an accent of scorn and spite.

“Miss Marian, you 's a big piece beyond
twenty,” exploded Miriam, losing all patience.
“You 's a young lookin' lady for your
age. I allows it. But for all that, you ain't
what they calls young no longer. I don'
keer, Miss Marian, ef you doos git angry. I
'se talkin' for your good, an' I 'se gwine to
talk a heap, an' I 'se gwine to talk it out.
You 's jess altogeder too old to be friskin'
roun' a young feller like Mars Frank McAlister.
He ain't a gwine to wanter frisk
back, an' you can't make him. Now you
jess let him alone. He 'll think mo' of you
ef you doos; he 'll think a heap mo'. An'
so 'll everybody. Thar! that 's what I 'se
got to say; an' I 've said it, thank the Lord;
an' I 'll say it agin.”

Mrs. Chester's first impulse, under this
benevolently cruel lecture, was to fly at
Miriam and kill her; her next and victorious
impulse was to cover her face with her
hands and shed tears of humiliation and
grief.

“Thar now, honey, don't,” implored the
suddenly softened Miriam. “Don't cry that
way. I 'se been mighty hash, I knows. The
Lord forgive me for hurtin' your feelin's.”

And then followed a strange, an almost
pathetic scene of weeping on one side and
coddling on the other, which only ended
when the sorrowful Marian had taken a
dose of chloroform and got to sleep. Coming
out of her nap refreshed, she wandered
through a thorny meditation concerning
Frank, and struggled up to the top of an
emotional Mount Pisgah whence she looked
upon him with her mind's eye, giving up
hope of possession. But this resolve left her
in an angry state of mind towards him and
his family, so that when she next met her
bland and sympathetic friend, Major Law
son, she launched into an invective against
the whole race of McAlisters.

“Dear me! Bless my soul!” said the
Major, in his most soothing whisper. “I
am excessively grieved that your feelings
should have been hurt by — by circumstances
unknown to me. What have those truly
unfortunate people been doing? I trust nothing
that an apology will not atone for. Do,
my dear old friend, — may I not venture to
call you so? — do confide in me. I will see
them about it,” he declared, grandly assuming
an air of sternness, as Hector might
have put on his helmet. “I will insist upon
an explanation. By heavens I will, my dear
friend.”

“O, it is nothing of that sort!” returned
Mrs. Chester. “There is nothing to have a
quarrel about, I suppose. But — ” and here
she burst out passionately — “they are so —
so ungrateful!”

“Un-grate-ful!” gasped the Major, seemingly
horror-stricken. “Un-grate-ful!” he
chanted, running his voice through four or
five flats, sharps, and naturals. “You —
you confound me, — you positively do, Mrs.
Chester. Wh-at a charge! And they were
supposed to be gentlemen. Claim to be
such. Pass for such. Ah! — Well?”

And here he looked at her for further
explanations, his hands wide-spread with
mock sympathy, and his eyes full of real
eagerness. In truth, the Major was very
anxious, for he did not know but that some
serious matter of offence had arisen between
the families, and he trembled for his Romeo
and Juliet romance.

“I have been as civil as I could be to Mr.
Frank McAlister,” began Mrs. Chester in a
low tone, which was, perhaps, a little tremulous.

The Major's eyes brightened; so that was
all the trouble; old flirt jealous about attentions.

“I have certainly shown him all the consideration
that a lady can properly show to
a gentleman,” she continued, her voice gaining
strength, if her reason did not. “I have
done it in kindness. His position here was
peculiar. So lately introduced among us,
and under such trying circumstances! I
thought that he needed encouragement, and
that some one was bound to give it to him.
I have given it. And the result is” — here
there was almost a choking in her utterance
— “that he avoids me.”

“Dear me! But no. It can't be possible.
It is n't true,” brazenly asserted the Major,
alarmed by her evident emotion and fearing
the worst results for Romeo and Juliet.
“My dear old friend,” getting hold of her
hand and squeezing it tenderly, “you must
be mistaken. Forgive me. I am in earnest.
I am excited. This is enough to throw any
man off his balance. Excuse me for speaking

plainly: pardon me for contradicting
you. But you must be mistaken. Why, it
was only yesterday that I was talking with
him, and the conversation fell upon yourself,
my dear Mrs. Chester, and he was enthusiastic
about you. Absolutely enthusiastic,”
repeated the Major as glibly as if he
were telling the truth. “Nothing less than
enthusiastic. Why, my dear friend, if he
seems to avoid you, it must be attributed to
modesty. He is afraid of wearying you, —
afraid of wearying you,” he reiterated, falling
back and gazing at her respectfully, as
if she were a wonder of intellect. “Afraid
of wearying you,” he added, reinforcing
his air of deference with a tender smile.
“Nothing else. Modest young man. Modest!
Appreciative, too. Knows your value.
Highly appreciative. I happen to know
that he appreciates you. Why I happen to
know it, — I am his confidant. His confidant,”
insisted the Major, looking whole
volumes of adoration, as if translating them
from McAlister.

But we can give no idea of the mellifluousness,
the sugar, and sirup, and molasses,
of this wondrous flatterer. To appreciate
his speeches it was necessary to
hear them and to watch him as he exuded
them. The petting, the coaxing, the adulation
that there was in his voice and address
beggared description. He was a band of
music; he played successively on the harp,
sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, flute, violin,
and bassoon; he flew from bass to falsetto
and back again with the agility of a squirrel
scampering up and down a hickory.
The repetitions in which he delighted were
invariably distinguished by variations of
pitch and manner. He said his impressive
thing in barytone, and then he said it in
tenor, and then he said it in soprano. He
enforced it the first time with a stare, the
second time with an arching of the eyebrows,
the third time with a long-drawn
smile. Nor did he weaken his effects by
hasty or indistinct utterance; he was as deliberate
and perspicuous as an experienced
judge delivering a charge to an obviously
stupid jury; he made a pause after each
important statement, to give you time to
swallow and digest it; and meanwhile he
watched you steadily to see how you bore
his dosing.

To some straightforward, hard-headed
people, the flattering, pottering Major was
very tiresome. They saw him depart from
their presence with the same joy with which
you behold a flea hop out of your sleeve
where he has been carrying on his inflammatory
familiarities. But to Mrs. Chester
and other souls, who could endure much
complimentary serenading, he was more delightful
than nightingales.

Well, he talked an hour, and he soothed
his auditor. By dint of playing interminably
on the same key, he produced in her
what is known to lawyers who have to
cajole jurymen as a “favorable state of
mind.” He made his female Balaam forget
that she had come out to curse the McAlisters,
and brought her to end the conversation
by uttering their praises.

But in doing thus much good he unwittingly
did some mischief, for he reawakened
Mrs. Chester's foolish hopes with regard to
her giant, and thus opened the way to further
complications and furies.