 | III. Edwin Brothertoft |  |
3. III.
Place aux héros!
To-day the lady of Brothertoft Manor dines
Sir Henry Clinton and suite.
If General Putnam should ever march back,
and blame her that she gave aid and comfort
to the enemy, she will say that she was forced
to protect herself by a little sham hospitality.
It may be sham, but it is liberal. Sappho
contributes her most faithful soup. The river
gives a noble sturgeon, — and “Albany beef,”
treated as turbot, with sauce blanche, is fish
for anybody's fork. The brooks supply trouts
by the bushel. The Highlands have provided
special venison for this festival. The Manor kills
its fatted calf, its sweetest mutton, its spright-liest
young turkey, fed on honeydew grasshoppers.
There is a plum-pudding big as a pumpkin.
Alas that no patriot palate will vibrate to the
passing love-taps of these substantial good things!
All is ready, and Lady Brothertoft — so she
loves to be called — awaits her distinguished
guests, in her grandest attire.
But, calm and stately as she sits, there is now
miserable panic and now cruel hate in her heart;
for all the time she is whispering to herself.
“Lucy did not kiss me. It is the first time
in all her life. Edwin Brothertoft's daughter
has discovered at last what I am. Did he come
in a dream and tell her?”
Then she would raise her eyes as far as those
fair hands lying in her daughter's lap, — no
higher, no higher, or the daughter would face
her, — and think of the wedding-ring that her
plot is presently to force upon one of those
locked fingers. She could hardly keep back a
scream of wild triumph at the thought.
So the mother sits, and holds her peace, such
as it is. The daughter waits, in a strange dream
of patience. Major Kerr swaggers about, admires
his legs, feels embarrassed before his mute betrothed,
looks at his watch and grumbles, “It 's
half past two. Dinner 's three, sharp. The
soup will be spoiled if they don't show presently.”
They begin to show now upon the quarter-decks
of the three frigates in the river. The
guests, in full bloom of scarlet and gold, come
up from cabin and ward-room of the Tartar, the
Preston, and the Mercury. Jack on the forecastle
has his joke, as each new figure struts
forth, dodging whatever would stain or flavor
“Bear a hand there, you lubber, with
the flour for my hair-powder! How the devil
did that spot come on my coat-sleeve! Why the
devil did n't you have these ruffles starched?”
The last man now struggles into his tightest
Hessians. The last man draws on his silk stockings.
The last mans his pumps. Sir Henry
Clinton comes out with Commodore Hotham.
The captain's gig has been swinging half an
hour in the shade of the frigate's hull. Present
arms, sentry at the gangway! Here they
come, down the black side of the ship. Fire
and feathers, how splendid! Take care of your
sword, Sir Henry, or you 'll trip and get a
ducking instead of a dinner! They scuttle into
the stern-sheets. The oarsmen, in their neatest
holiday rig, scoff in their hearts, and name
these great personages “lobsters” and “land-lubbers.”
The captain's coxswain, the prettiest
man of the whole ship's company, gives the
word, “Shove off!” Boat-hook shoves, Jack on
deck peers through the port-holes. A topman,
aloft, accidentally drops a tarry bit of spunyarn
and hits Sir Henry on his biggish nose. “Back
starboard,” the pretty coxswain orders. “Pull
port!” “Give way all!” And so we go to
dinner! And so from men-of-war in our time
heroes go to dinners ashore.
And now the gay party enters the dining-room
at Brothertoft Manor.
How bright the sunbeams of the October afternoon,
ricochetting from the smooth Hudson into
the windows, gleam on the epaulets and buttons
of a dozen gorgeous officers! One special
ray is clearly detailed to signalize that star on
Sir Henry Clinton's left breast. The room is
aflame with scarlet. Certainly these flamboyant
heroes will presently consume away every vestige
of a rebel army. Surely, after a parry or
two against these dress swords, the champions
of freedom will drop their points and yield their
necks to the halter. Each elaborate fine gentleman,
too, of all this bandboxy company, is
crowned with victor bays. They plucked them
only t' other day across the river on the ramparts
of Forts Clinton and Montgomery. When
Jack Burgoyne sends down his bunch of laurel
from Saratoga, the whole are to be tied up in
one big bouquet, and despatched to tickle the
nose and the heart of Farmer George at Windsor
Castle.
Sir Henry Clinton — no less — Cœsar ipse —
hands in the grand hostess, and takes his seat
at her right. How jolly he looks, the fat little
man! How his round face shines, and his protuberant
nose begins to glow with inhaling the
steam of the feast!
“I must have you on my left, Admiral,” says
the hostess, to a hearty gentleman in naval uniform.
“Thank you for my promotion, Madam,” rejoins
Commodore Hotham, dropping into his
place.
At the head of her table, then, sits Lady
Brothertoft, proud and handsome, flanked by
the two chiefs. And down on either side the
guests dispose themselves in belaurelled vista.
Major Kerr takes the foot of the table. He
carves well for everybody, and best for himself.
Two spoonsful of sauce blanche float his choice
portion of the Albany beef. The liver of the
turkey he accepts as carver's perquisites. And
when he comes to cut the saddle of venison,
plenty of delicate little scraps, quite too small to
offer to others, find their way to his plate.
Lucy is at his right. What? in high spirits?
in gay colors? Has she so soon become a hypocrite
and conspiratress? Why, the little dissembler
laughs merrily, and flirts audaciously!
Laughs merrily! Ah! there are bitter tears
just beneath that laugh! If you call tolerating
compliments from that young Captain at
her right flirting, then she is flirting, and so conceals
her disgust of her betrothed.
And who is that young Captain? He stole
into the chair at Lucy's right, and began to talk
this fine gentleman of twenty-six, with the oval
face, the regular features, the slightly supercilious
mouth, the dimpled chin, the hair so carefully
powdered and queued? Who is this elegant
petit maître? With what studied gesture
he airs his ruffles! How fluently he rattles!
How easily he improvises jingle! He quotes
French, as if it were his mother-tongue. He
smiles and sighs like an accomplished lady-killer.
Who is he?
Major Emerick, of the Hessian Chasseurs,
looks across the table at this gay rattle, and then
whispers to his own neighbor, Lord Rawdon,
“Zee dat dab maggaroni, Chack Antré; how
he bake lubb to de breddy Lucie! Bajor Gurr
will bide off his 'ead breddy sood.”
“Kerr may glower and look like a cannibal,”
Rawdon returned, in a whisper, “but he will
not eat Jack André's head so long as there 's
any of that venison left.”
“I dinkèd Chack was id Bedsylvadia or Cherzey,”
says Emerick, wiping that enormous moustache
of his, — a coarse Hessian article, planted
like a bushy abattis before his mouth.
“He was,” replied Rawdon, “and I don't see
how he has been able to get here so soon, unless
that is his eidolon, his wraith, and moves like the
ghost in Hamlet. I suppose he heard that Kerr
be an Adjutancy looking for an Adjutant, and has
posted up to offer himself. He did n't know I
was to have it. Jack is in too much hurry to
be a great man. His vanity will get him into a
scrape some of these days.”
So this sentimental Captain is Jack André.
A pretty face; but there is gallows in it. A
pretty laced cravat; but the tie has slipped
ominously round under the left ear. Ah! Jack,
Rawdon is right; thy vanity will be the death of
thee. Suppose thou hast been jilted by the
pretty Mrs. R. L. Edgeworth, née Sneyd, do not
be over hasty to gain name and fame, that she
may be sorry she loved the respectable Richard,
and not thee, flippant Jack. Sink thy shop-keeping
days; nobody remembers them against
thee. Do not try by unsoldierly tricks of bribery
and treachery, and a correspondence after
the bagman model, to get for thyself the rank of
Brigadier and the title Sir John. And, Jack,
take warning that the latitude of Brothertoft
Manor is unhealthy for thee in the autumn.
Never come here again, or thy bootjack will
draw thy boots and find death in them! Swinging
by the neck is a sorry exit for a petit maître,
and it must be annoying to know that, in punishment
for a single shabby act, one's fame is standing
forever in the pillory in Westminster Abbey.
Captain André whispered soft nothings to Lucy.
And though Kerr glowered truculently, she listened,
much to the amusement of Emerick and
Rawdon. Lucky, perhaps, for the daughter, that
mamma, at the head of the table, did not detect
this by-play! She might have scented revolt,
and hastened the marriage. An hour would
have brought the Tartar's chaplain; five minutes
would have clothed him in his limp surplice, and
in five more, Lucy, still quelled by the old tyranny,
would have stammered, “love, honor, and
obey,” — and “die.”
She was not always very attentive to her butterfly
companion.
Sometimes she bent forward, and looked at her
mother, sitting in all her glory between Army
and Navy, and the daughter's cheeks burned
with shame. She longed to fly away from all
this splendor, somewhither where she could dwell
innocently and weep away the infinite sorrow in
her gentle heart. If she had not been too bewildered
by her throng of battling hopes and
fears within, by the clatter of the feast, and Jack
André's mischianza of gossip and compliment,
her notions of right and wrong, of crime and
punishment, would have become sadly confused.
Questions did indeed drift across her mind, —
“How can she sit there so proud and handsome?
How can she be so calm and hard?
and lead the talk so vigorously? She wields
and manages every one about her. They applaud
her wit. They listen to her suggestions.
She seems to comprehend these political matters
better than any of them. Hear Sir Henry
Clinton, `Madam, if you were Queen of England,
these rebel Colonies would soon be taught
subjection.' It is half compliment of guest to
hostess; but more than half truth. For she is
an imperious, potent woman. And has evil in her
soul given her this power and this knowledge?
Must women sin to be strong? How can she
sit there, knowing what she knows of herself,
knowing what is known of her? She seems to
triumph. Triumph! alas! why is she not away
in silence and solitude, with a veil over her
bad beauty, praying to God to forgive her for
the harm she has done, and for the sin she is?
Is such hypocrisy possible? Or am I deceived?
May not she perhaps, perhaps, be worthy? May
she not be wise and good? Is it not I who
am the hypocrite? May she not mean kindly
in providing me a man of rank and power as a
protector in these rude times? Are not my suspicions
the ignorance of a child, — my plots the
wicked struggles of a rebellious heart against
duty? O God, pity and guide me!”
Lucy felt tears starting to her eyes at these
to listen to Jack André's small-talk.
Jack was telling a clever story of a raid he
and some brother officers had made from New
York on the poultry-yards of Staten Island.
An old lady with a broomstick had endeavored
to defend the Clove Road against these turkey-snatchers,
and he gave her drawl to the life.
“Then,” says Jack, “out came Captain Rambullet,
with the rusty matchlock of Rambouillet
his Huguenot ancestor, and interposed a smell of
cornstalk whiskey between us and his hen-roost.”
This scene, too, Jack gave with twang and
drawl to the life, amid roars of laughter, and
cries of “Coot! coot!” from Major Emerick.
Lucy did not laugh. She had all at once
discovered that her sympathies were with these
rebels, nasal twang and all. “My father is one
of them,” she thought. “If I am to be saved
from marrying this coarse glutton, it must be
by a rebel. Putnam and his officers were not
so showy as these men; but they seemed more
in earnest.”
I do not succeed in entertaining you, fair
lady,” says André, sotto voce. “Your thoughts
are all for that happy fellow beside you,” — and
he looked with a little sneer towards Kerr, who
was applying to Bottle for the boon of wit.
A feeling of utter despair came over poor
glanced at the animal. Then she drew away
indignantly from the man who had put this
little stab into her heart.
“Are there no gentlemen in the world?” she
thought. “Do men dare to speak so and look
so at other young ladies?”
“Loog ad de breddy Meess,” says Emerick,
holding a wine-glass before his bushy abattis,
as a cover. “Zhe is nod habbie wid Chack,
nor wid Gurr!”
“A dozen fellows,” Rawdon rejoined, behind
his glass, “of better blood than Jack, and better
hearts than Kerr, would have cut in there long
ago. The daughter is as sweet and pure as
a lily. But who dares marry such a mother-in-law?”
— and he shrugged his shoulders expressively
toward the hostess.
Do we talk so at dinner-tables in 1860? eh,
nous autres?
The hostess now rose, and beckoned her daughter.
“I leave you, gentlemen, to your toasts,” she
said. “Major Kerr will be my representative.”
She moved to the door. Army and Navy,
Albion and Hesse, all sprang to open for her.
A murmur of admiration for her beauty and
bearing applauded the exit. Lady Brothertoft
seemed to be at her climax.
Kerr of course did not let the toasts lag.
“The King, gentlemen!”
Cheers! Drank cyathis plenis.
Sir Henry Clinton rises, gleaming star, red
nose, and all, and proposes, “Our hostess!”
Bumpers and uproar!
Then they load and fire, fast and furious.
Bottle can hardly gallop fast enough to supply
ammunition.
“The Army!” “Hooray, hooray! Speech
from Lord Rawdon!”
“The Navy!” “Three cheers for Commodore
Hotham!”
“The captured forts!” Drank in silence to
the memory of Colonel Campbell and Count
Grabowski, killed there.
“Luck to Jack Burgoyne!” “Pouting Jack,”
André suggests. “May he be a spiler to
Schuyler, and fling Gates over the hedge into
the ditch!” Laughter and cheers, and immense
rattling of glasses on the table.
“Here 's to General Vaughan and his trip
up the river to-morrow! May he add a moral
to the Esopus fables!”
“The Brandywine! and here 's hoping Mr.
Washington may have another taste of the
same cup!”
Are modern toasts and dinner-table wit of this
same calibre?
Kerr rose and endeavored to offer the famous
sentiment known as The Four Rules of Arithmetic.
He was muddled by this time, and the
toast got itself transposed. He gravely proposed,
in a thick voice, and in words with no
syllables, — “Addition to the Whigs! Subtraction
to the Tories! Multiplication to the King's
foes! Division to his friends!” And added
Kerr, out of his own head, — “Cuffush'n t'
ev'ryborry!”
Ironical cheers from Jack André. Whereupon
good-natured Emerick, to cover the general
serio-comic dismay, rose and said, — “Shettlemen,
I kiv Bajor Gurr and his breddy bride.”
Double bumpers. Hoorayryrayryray! Rattle
everybody, with glasses, forks, and nut-crackers.
One enthusiast flung his glass over his head, and
then blundered out a call for Captain André's
song, “The Lover's Lament.” Lord Rawdon
was the only one to perceive the bad omen.
So Jack, without more solicitation, began, in a
pretty voice, —
When Delia's heart was mine,” —
— a most moving ditty, the words and music
his own.
Everybody felt a little maudlin when this Jack
of all airs and graces closed his lay with a dulcet
revel.
In such pauses young gentlemen who love
flirtation more than potation dodge off and join
the ladies.
Let us follow this good example. A revel,
with Major Kerr for its master, may easily grow
to an orgie; and meanwhile the mother and
daughter are sitting in the parlor alone.
| III. Edwin Brothertoft | |