University of Virginia Library

41. CHAPTER XLI.
HOW JOSIE BORE IT.

“I understand that your claim killed the
old lady—haw, haw!” Mr. Sykes Drummond
had the indiscretion and the bad taste to say
to Josie.

Able as Drummond was in the coarser and
wickeder business of the world, he was in
some matters stonily stupid, owing to a want
of sensitiveness which incapacitated him
from sympathizing with others, and so prevented
him from guessing their feelings and
their resulting opinions.

“If it did kill the old lady, it has helped
the old gentleman,” Josie answered, promptly,
though with a flush of vexation and pain
on her face. “The dear old man is freed
from his servitude. He will now take a rest,
and have a good time. The next we shall
hear of him will be that he is frequenting
the theatres, and traveling all over Europe,
and courting a young lady.”

In these words she uttered the common
opinion, but not her own opinion. She was
too clever in divining the tendencies of emotional
people, and she had studied her widowed
relative too closely not to suspect that
he had received a deep wound, and perhaps
an incurable one. But a series of vicious

circumstances had so hurt and angered her,
that for a moment she lost her self-possession
and spoke vindictively.

She was indignant at Drummond—indignant
because of his coarse joke, and his hint
that he knew somewhat of the family quarrel—so
indignant that she actually thought
of marrying him merely to get a chance to
torture him.

Furthermore, she was offended with the
poor rector and his brother, because they had
inflicted a social stigma upon her, and shown
what she considered indelicate hostility by
failing to invite her to the funeral.

The blame of this slight, by-the-way, must
not be imputed to the colonel. He had
thought and ventured to urge that Josie
should receive an invitation, rather than
have all Washington gossipdom wondering
over her absence and nosing after the reason
of it.

But the rector could not take a rational
view of the subject. He insisted that she
was the fiendish murderess of his angelic
Huldah, and that it would be horrible to let
her come to gloat over her work; in short,
he so raved that the colonel passed the girl
over without a billet.

So she had felt herself driven to fib about
it; to explain that illness had prevented her
from attending the obsequies, and to counterfeit
a bedridden state for a day or two.

Of course the whole ugly business had been
exceedingly rasping to her, and she was not
in a temper to speak of her relatives with judicial
fair-mindedness. It was characteristic
of this able young creature, however, that,
even under the irritation of Drummond's
gravelly speech, she did not utter an overtly
angry syllable, nor expose her feelings by so
much as an acid intonation. Her prediction
as to the cheerfulness of the rector's widowhood
was delivered with a pleasant countenance
and a musical little laugh. Excepting
those palpitations which prompt to love-making,
Josie was, to a wonderful extent,
mistress of her feelings.

“So you think the old fellow will want to
marry again?” said Drummond. “I can't
see it in that light. When a man has had a
rough time with one wife, it doesn't seem
probable that he should want to try another
in a hurry.”

“My uncle never knew that he had a hard
time. He was distractedly fond of his old
lady.”

“I thought you called it a servitude.”

“So it was. But he served willingly, and
considered it a privilege. He was like the
loyal negroes of old times who worshiped
their masters.”

“I can't imagine his being fond of her.”

“You can't imagine any body being fond
of any body, I suppose.”

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Murray. I can
imagine myself as being very fond of you, if
I might be allowed the privilege. But your
worthy relative was very different from
you; she was very old and very plain, and a
domestic tyrant.”

“The tyranny doesn't hinder. In fact,
the better people are governed, the more contented
they are.”

“I believe you are right there,” said Drummond,
glancing at her with a sort of respectful
surprise. “It is not a favorite doctrine
in America, but I believe it is a true one.
The more severely our volunteers were disciplined,
the less they grumbled at their officers.
How the dence do you find out these
things at your age?”

Notwithstanding the compliment, Josie
was not pleased with this speech. She found
the word “dence” objectionable, not as being
a profanity or a vulgarity, but as being
a liberty. Mr. Drummond had to be checked
all the while, and it seemed to her that he
ought to be checked now.

It may be remembered that she used to be
afraid of him during their earlier interviews,
but she had long since discovered that she
could control him by a judicious mixture of
coquetry and huffing, and she stood in awe
of him no longer. It was usual with her to
be thus moved by men on first encountering
them, and to learn afterward to treat them
as the frogs treated King Log the Great.

“I learned ever so much by studying the
hard case of Miss Nancy Appleyard,” she answered,
well knowing that he hated the subject.
“There is an instance of love growing
under discipline. The more you ill-treat
that poor creature, the faster she runs after
you. And if ever you marry her (as I suppose
you will some day), and if ever she gets
the upper hand, then you will worship her.”

“Haw, haw, haw!” roared Drummond,
with counterfeit merriment. “By-the-way,
I have something new to tell you about
Squire Appleyard. She—or he, haw, haw!
—had the courage to come to my boarding-house
and take her meals there. I told her
decidedly that it would not do, and that one
of us two must leave. I murmured that tender
sentiment in her ear over our very first
breakfast in company.”

“And how did she bear it?” giggled Josie,
forgetting all her bitternesses in the fun of
this story.

“`De buckwheat cake was in her mouf, an
de tear was in her eye,”' quoted Drummond.
“But she deferred to my opinion, and tore
herself away.”

“You did your landlady a favor. I understand
that Miss Nancy pays, just as weak-minded
women do, in promises. Of course
it is not her fault. How can she have a
practice without clients?”

“It is a pity she hadn't a barn in her family,”
grinned Drummond, who wanted to
punish Josie for introducing this Appleyard
topic. “Your little claim goes on swimmingly,

I suppose, in spite of Mrs. Murray's ghost.
We are impenitently hell-bent on it, eh?”

“Gentlemen should not use profane language
before ladies, my dear lawgiver.”

“That is news to me—haw, haw! You
don't object to Senator Rigdon swearing by
the bale in your presence.”

“Senator Rigdon is a character—a humorist.
I don't so much object to a man's swearing
when it is a part of his circulation. The
Senator doesn't mean any thing disagreeable
by bad language, any more than Mr. Hollowbread
does by breathing loud. Besides, he
is a member of the Upper House.”

“You seem to be in a tomahawking and
scalping humor to-day,” grumbled the humiliated
member of the Lower House. “Perhaps,
if I should go away it might be a comfort
to you.”

“You had better stay and behave pretty,”
said Josie, coolly, but granting him a twinkle
of a smile.

And Mr. Drummond, though he had been
considerably tomahawked and scalped, did
stay and behave his prettiest.

During the whole of this chitchat and
light banter Josie was impatiently expecting
a letter from one or other of her uncles.
She had not wanted to part with her husband's
wealthy and patrician relatives; and,
now that Aunt Huldah no longer ruled the
family, she was eager to return to it.

Remembering how completely the rector
had lived for his wife, she inferred that he
had only opposed the claim in the natural
course of marital obedience, and that Mrs.
Murray was the real author of the opposition.
With her death, of course, all that
hostility might have died out, and the widower
might receive with pleasure an offer
of reconciliation. No doubt he was full of
sorrow, but bereavements sometimes softened
people's hearts, and made them welcome
any one who brought gifts of sympathy.
Moreover, a week had passed since
the funeral, and a week was surely enough
to lay a ghost, especially a ghost of eighty.
It seemed reasonable to hope that she could
appease the lonely old man; that, were she
but once housed with him, she could become
his diversion, his comforter, and his ruler;
that, in short, she could make herself the
mistress of the situation and the heir of the
future.

Thus had Josie argued herself up to the
venture of writing to the weeping, half-crazed
mourner a delicately worded letter of
apology, consolation, respect, and affection.

The response came while she was still
holding light discourse with Sykes Drummond.
In great agitation she tore open the
envelope, and read with extreme difficulty,
so tremulous was the handwriting, a missive
which had the tone of being a message
from the other world.

It no more resembled the usual sane and
genial epistolary style of the rector than the
ranting of a table-rapper's Socrates resembles
the philosophizing of Xenophon's sweet
teacher. It was a letter which well deserved
to be put in a strait-jacket and confined within
walls of cotton padding.

The general character of it may be inferred
from the fact that it opened with this
raging sentence, “I summon you before the
bar of God to answer for your crime as a
murderess.”

Josie fairly uttered a kittenish spit as she
crumpled up this piteous extravagance and
thrust it into her pocket. So indignant was
she, that for an instant she lost her prudence,
and exclaimed aloud,

“The old fool has gone stark crazy.”

“Who?” laughed Drummond. “Mr. Hollowbread,
I bet. Has he been popping?”

“It isn't Mr. Hollowbread; it is an old
gentleman in New York,” declared Josie,
with admirable presence of mind, not to say
absence of morals. “What a goose!”

“You are not very complimentary to the
Nestor of the House—haw, haw!” insisted
Drummond.

“The Nestor of the House isn't such a silly
as you take him to be,” smiled Josie, remembering
for perhaps the first time that day
that she was engaged to Mr. Hollowbread.
“I don't believe he would marry the Queen
of Sheba.”

“Nor I, either, so long as you live.”

“What nonsense!” giggled our heroine,
who was trying hard to forget the rector's
ravings. “You are not tall enough to see
the whole stature of Mr. Hollowbread. He
is simply a monument of platonic friendship.
He is as lofty as the Washington obelisk.”

“And as unfinished about the summit,”
haw-hawed Drummond, who was jealous of
the Nestor, both as a legislator and as a
lover.

“Why don't you say something hateful
about Mr. Beauman, or Mr. Smyler, or Mr.
Bray, or General Hornblower?” asked Josie.
“I know ever so many gentlemen besides
Mr. Hollowbread. Or couldn't you demolish
a few ladies of my acquaintance?”

“Oh, willingly; but it isn't necessary.
You demolish ladies enough yourself to fill
a man's heart with pity.”

“I am not one bit satirical or scandalous,
and you know it. What do you mean?”

“I mean that you are breaking Mrs. John
Vane's heart by sitting in curtained alcoves
at parties with Senator Ironman.”

“Oh, she has no heart to break. I dare
say it hurts her vanity and makes her jealous,
and that she slanders me awfully to pay
for it. But it doesn't matter. Every one
knows that she is a mere animal, and that
her opinion amounts to no more than a
horse's. I will venture to say that she never
complains of my alcove-dialogues to her
husband or to Mrs. Ironman. Of course you

know what I interview the Senator for. I
must look out for my claim in the Upper
House, as I dearly love to call it, just to tease
you.”

“I don't think you need fear for your
claim. You are the most potent and petted
lady that ever came to Washington to seek
her fortune. You eclipse even the old
stagers—the women who have grown gray
in pushing their bills and their husbands—
the claimants of twenty years' standing.”

“Old, painted, ogling, loud-talking, mannish
creatures! Have the goodness not to
compare me with them.”

“You can lead up twice as many votes as
Mrs. Griper, and four times as many as Mrs.
Warden.”

“Poor Mrs. Warden! She works so hard
and spends so much and gets so little!
Belle really ought to help her.”

“Aristides Cato Bradford is about the only
Congressman whom Belle will say a nice
word to.”

To this statement Josie made no response
further than to manipulate her handkerchief
with severity.

Bradford never came to see her nowadays;
had not called at the Warden house since
her advent into it; had once or twice joined
Belle in the street, but never herself. His
conduct pained her more than any thing
else; more, even, than her banishment from
the Murray family circle; infinitely more
than the death of Aunt Huldah and the
grief of Uncle John.

“You think, I suppose, that you have complimented
me prodigiously,” she said, presently,
making a violent effort to continue
the conversation with gayety. “You have
represented me as the Queen of the Lobby.
If I had been here ten years, and got as
crazed about Congress as Mrs. Warden and
some other women are, I suppose I should
feel grateful to you. As it is, I am not one
jot flattered by what you tell me, and rather
think I ought to be very angry.”

“Oh no! Congressmen are men, after all;
their scalps are worth taking—haw, haw!
I humbly hope that mine is. Well, you have
been on the war-path outside of the Capitol
also. You have had an offer within a week,
and I know who made it.”

“I have not; and you don't know any
thing about it.”

“The great secretary in futuro, the immense,
embryonic statesman, the grand,
gloomy, and peculiar, has been at your feet.”

“Whom do you mean?” giggled Josie,
meantime casting about for some evasion.

“The scrivener of General Bangs, the noble,
talented, and beauteous Bray — haw,
haw, haw!”

“What an absurd guess! There is not a
word of truth in it, from the bottom to the
top.”

“You deny it so promptly and flatly that
I know it is true. Besides, the elegant sufferer
has himself revealed his venture and
his disaster.”

“I don't believe he has told any such silly
fib.”

“He has. He elocutionized it to Beauman,
and Beauman snickered it to me.”

“I think you and Mr. Beauman might be
in better business than talking gossip about
Childe Harold Bray.”

“So I think. Sometimes we are in better
business. But, all the same, Bray has brayed
his sorrows out loud, just as I tell you.

“What an awful fool!” laughed Josie,
neither denying nor admitting the fact (for
it was a fact) of the young man's offer. “He
ought to wear a dunce-cap for telling such a
story.”

“It is no use calling it a story. He swears
himself that it is a true story. Come, Mrs.
Murray, make an honest confession for once,
just to see how it seems.”

“I never was so surprised in my life as
when he spoke to me,” conceded Mrs. Murray,
seeing at last that denial was useless.
“He had not paid me a spark of real attention,
so far as I knew. Probably he thought
I had been waiting for him, and that he had
only to speak the first word. What did he
say to Mr. Beauman?”

“I will tell you if you will tell me the exact
oration which he made to you.”

Josie was very curious to know the particulars
of Bray's avowal, and would have
immensely enjoyed laughing over their extravagance.
But, as we have heretofore
stated, she had that honor, or that caution,
whichever it may be, which causes women to
shrink from revealing one man's love-making
to another man.

So, after a moment of meditation, she replied,
firmly:

“I won't tell you any thing at all. There
is nothing to tell.”

“So it was a secret session, was it?” answered
Drummond. “Well, I admire you
and praise you for your discretion. When
my head falls at your feet, cover it with the
same merciful mystery. Let it be sepulchred
and forgotten.”

“I will forget it,” smiled Josie.

Here let us close our report of this dialogue.
It seemed worth narrating, because
one may draw from it an idea of our heroine's
situation after her exodus from the
Murray circle. She was prosperous, a belle
in society, the object of matrimonial desires,
a favorite with our patriotic lawgivers, and
hence likely to secure her hoped-for “steal.”

Nevertheless, as her claim was not positively
a bird in the hand, and as the only man
whom she really cared for was quite positively
a bird in the bush, she kept up her secret
engagement with the sexagenarian Hollowbread,
and flirted much with Drummond and
certain others.