XVIII
In a certain part of the Land of Cotton, where they grow nothing butrice, Colonel Melville Meredith stood beside the charred foundations ofa house and nursed his chin with his hand. With the exception of a swordwhich the King of Greece had given him, all those possessions which hehad considered of value had gone up in smoke with the house of hisancestors. The family portraits were gone, the silver Lamarie, andLesage, and all the Domingan satinwood. If Colonel Meredith had been anolder man, he must almost have wept. But the grip upon his chin was notof one mourning. It was the grip of consideration. He was wondering whatsort of a new house he should build upon the foundations of the old.
He must, of course, build upon the old site. There were other good sitesamong his thousands of acres, but none which was so well planted. A goodarchitect could copy the Taj Mahal for you. But the Pemaque oak is onehundred and seven feet, or less, in circumference, and the avenue ofoaks leading from the turnpike, two miles away, was planted in 1653.There were also divers jungles of rhododendrons, laurel, and azalea inthe river garden that it had taken no less than a great-grandmother toplant.
"It can't be the first conflagration in the family," he thought."Everybody's ancestors, at one time or another, must have lost by fireand built again. As for Pemaque--it _was_ a lovely old house, but a newhouse could be just as lovely, and it could have bathrooms and be maderat-proof. And I wouldn't mind if people scratched the floors."
I have said that Colonel Meredith had lost all the possessions which hevalued. But of course the land remained, the trees, the duck ponds, thealligator sloughs, and so forth. There remained, also, a robust youth,crowded with experiences and memories of wars and statesmen and ofdelightful people who live for pleasure. There remained, also--leastvaluable of all to a man of action and sentiment--a perfectly safeincome, derived from bonds, of nearly two hundred and fifty thousanddollars a year. Colonel Meredith was by all odds the richest man in thatpart of the Land of Cotton, where they grow nothing but rice.
It was piping hot among the foundations of the old house; the sticky,ticky season had descended upon the Carolina seacoast. The snakes andthe lizards were saying among themselves, "Now this is really somethinglike," and were behaving accordingly. Every few minutes a new andambitious generation of mosquitoes was hatched. The magnolias were goingto seed. Colonel Meredith's Gordon setter, a determined expression uponhis face, had been scratching himself with almost supercanine speed forthe last twenty minutes.
Colonel Meredith scorned ticks, trod with indifference upon snakes, andwas not poisoned or even pained by mosquitoes, but he had travelled allover the world and was not averse to being cooler and more comfortable.
"We've got the grandest climate in the world," he thought loyally, "foreight months in the year--but when it comes to summer give me Vera Cruz,Singapore, or even hell. I'll build a home for autumn, winter, andspring, but when it gets to be summer, I'll go away and shoot polarbears."
He whistled his dog and walked thoughtfully to where his automobile waswaiting in the shade. His driver, an Irish boy from New York, was in astate of wilt.
"I have determined," said Colonel Meredith, "not to begin buildinguntil cool weather. We shall go North to-night. I hope the thought willrefresh you. Now we will go back to Mr. Jonstone's. Do you feel able todrive, or shall I?"
It was typical of the region that the Mr. Jonstone with whom Meredithwas stopping should own the best bed of mint south of Washington, andcould make the best mint-juleps. The mint-bed was about all he did own.Everything else was heavily mortgaged. Everything, that is, except thefamily silver and jewels. These Jonstone's grandmother had buried whenSherman came marching through, and had almost immediately forgottenwhere she had buried them. Jonstone employed one trustworthy negro whoseyear-around business was to dig for the treasure. There existed a listof the objects buried, which was enough to make even a rich man's palmitch.
"Nothing to-day," said Jonstone as his guest drove up. "And it's abouttime for a julep."
"I'm going North to-night," said Meredith, "and you're going with me."
They were cousins, second or third, of about the same age. They evenlooked alike, but whereas Meredith had travelled all over the world,Jonstone had never been south of Savannah or north of Washington.
He began with an ivory toddy-stick to convert sugar and Bourbon intosirup.
"How's that, Mel?" he asked. "And why?"
"Between us two, Bob," said Meredith, "this is one hell of a climate insummer. The brighter we are the quicker we'll get out of it."
"I'd like to go you on that, but aside from the family silver I haven'ta penny in the world."
"Bob, I'm sick of offering to lend you money. I'm sick of offering togive you money. There's only one chance left."
Jonstone made a gentle clashing sound with fine ice.
"As you know, my family silver has all gone up in smoke. Now yourshasn't. Suppose you sell me yours. What's it worth?"
"With or without the diamonds?"
"If I should ever marry, it would be advisable to have the diamonds."
"Well," said Jonstone, beginning to turn over a bundle of straws, withthe object of selecting four which should be flawless, "I don't want tostick you. We have a complete list of the pieces, with their weights anddates. Some of the New York dealers could tell us what the collectionwould be worth in the open market. Double that sum in the name ofsentiment, and I'll go you."
"I must have a free hand to hunt for the stuff in my own way-- It'sperfection--you never, never made a better one--now, how about thediamonds?"
"I have the weights. And you know the Jonstones were always particularabout water."
"That's why they are all dead but you. Then you'll come?"
Bob Jonstone nodded.
"You'll have to lend me a suit of clothes--but, look here, Mel: supposethe silver and stuff has been lifted--doesn't exist any more? Wouldn'tI, in selling it to you, be guilty of sharp practice?"
"Our great-great-grandfather, the Signer, doesn't exist any more, Bob.That silver is somewhere--in some form or other. I pay for it, and it'smine. Does it matter if I never see it or handle it? I shall always beable to allude to it--isn't that enough? As for you, you'll be able topay all your mortgages, to fix the front door so's it won't have to bekept shut with a keg of nails, and to spend what is necessary on yourfields."
"Of course," said Jonstone, who had finished his julep. "It afflicts meto part with what has been in the family so long."
"But you ought to be afflicted."
"Why?"
"Didn't you vote for Wilson?"
Jonstone nodded solemnly.
"Come, then," said Meredith, as if he were pardoning an erring child;"there's just time for one julep and to pack up our things. You'll justlove New York. And when we get there we'll make up our minds whetherwe'll go to Newport or Bar Harbor. Bob, did it ever occur to you thatyou and I ought to get married? That looks as if it was going to bebetter than the other, though darker-- What's the use of havingancestors if you're not going to be one?"
"Show me a girl as handsome as Sully's portrait of Great-grandmotherPringle, and I'll take notice."
"Why, every other girl in a Broadway chorus has got the old lady skinnedto death, Bob!"
"You may be worldly-wiser than me, Mel, but you've lost your reverence.It's always been agreed in the family that Great-grandmother Pringle wasthe most beautiful woman in the South. And when a man says 'the South,'and refers at the same time to female charms, he has as good as said thewhole world."
"Bob, among ourselves, do you really think Jefferson Davis was agreater man than Abraham Lincoln?"
"Ssssh!" said Jonstone.
"Do you really think the Southern armies wiped up the map with theNorthern armies every time they met? And do you really think thatwooden-faced doll that Sully painted has no equal for beauty north ofthe Mason and Dixon line? What you need is travel and experience."
"What's the matter with _you_ getting married?--My God
, don't spillthat, Mel!"
"There's nothing the matter with it. And I'll tell you what I'll do: Iwill if you will."
"They ought to be sisters, seeing as how you and I have always been likebrothers and voted the Democratic ticket and fought chickens."
"And fed the same ticks and mosquitoes."
"We'll have a double wedding. We'll each be the other's best man, andthey'll each be the other's best girl."
"No--no; they are each to be our best girls."
"What I mean is----"
"I know what you mean, but you've made this julep too strong."
"That's _one_ thing they can't do in the North."
"What's that?"
"Make a julep."
Meredith considered this at some length. "No, Bob," he said at length,"they can't. But I once met a statesman from Maine who made a thing thatlooked like a julep, tasted like a julep, and that--I'd say it if it wasmy dying statement--had the same effect."
"She must be better-looking than Great-grandmother Pringle," saidJonstone. "She must be able to make a julep, and she must have a sisterjust like her. Can you lend me a suit of clothes till we get to NewYork?"
"I can lend you anything from a yachting suit to a Bulgarian uniform."
"And you're sure I'm not imposing on you in the matter of the silver?"
"Sure. I just want to know it's mine."
In the morning, soon after this precious pair had breakfasted, a boywent through the train with newspapers and magazines. He proclaimed inthe sweetest Virginian voice that his magazines were just out, but acopy of _The Four Seasons_ which Colonel Meredith bought proved not onlyto be of an ancient date but to have had coffee spilled upon it.
At the moment when this discovery was made, the youthful paper-mongerhad just swung from the crawling train to the platform of a waystation, so there was no redress. The cousins agreed, laughing, that ifa Yankee had played them such a trick they would have wished to cut hisheart out, but that, turned upon them by a fellow countryman, it wasmerely a proof of smartness and push.
"Between you and me, Bob," said Colonel Meredith, "an accurate count ofour Southern population would proclaim a villain or two here and there.I was brought up to believe that to be born in a certain region was allthat was necessary. But that's not so. I tell you this because I amafraid that when you are meeting people in New York and having a goodtime you will be wanting to lay down the law, to wit, that oneSoutherner can whip five Yankees. Don't do it. I will tell you a horridtruth. I was once whipped by a small-sized Frenchman within an inch ofmy life. He had studied _le boxe_ under Carpentier and I hadn't. Did youever study _le boxe_? No? An Anglo-Saxon imagines that he was bornboxing. And it takes a licking by a man of Latin blood to prove to himthat he wasn't. Just because people make funny noises and monkey crieswhen they fight doesn't prove that they are afraid. There is nothing soridiculous as a baboon going into action and nothing more terrible whenhe gets there."
"The more you travel, Mel, the more you show a deplorable tendency tofoul your own nest."
"_I_ run down the South? I like that! But, my dear Bob, there is onlyone chosen people. And it isn't us." Here he made a significant gesturewith his hands, turning the palms up, and they both laughed. "A Jew," hewent on, "is what he is because he is a Jew. His good points and his badare racial. But between two men of our race there is no materialresemblance. One is mean, the other generous; one broad, one narrow; onebrave, the other not. Do you know why hornless cows give less milk thanhorned cows? Because there are fewer of them. Do you know why there aremore honest men in the North, and pretty girls, than there are in theSouth? Simply because there are more men and more girls. It also followsthat there are more dishonest men and ugly girls; more of everything, infact."
He was slowly turning over the pages of _The Four Seasons_, lookingalways, with Pemaque in mind, at pictures of country houses. Suddenly heclosed the magazine, looked pensively out of the window, and began towhistle with piercing sweetness. He once more opened the magazine, butthis time with great caution as if he was half afraid that somethingdisagreeable would jump out at him. Nothing did, however. He folded themagazine back upon itself and held it close to his eyes, then far off,then at mid-distance.
"What's the matter with you?" said Bob Jonstone.
"Nothing," said Meredith, "only I'm thinking there ought to be six of usinstead of only two. Look at that page and tell me where we're going tospend the summer."
Jonstone took the magazine and saw the six Darling sisters sitting onthe float in their bathing-dresses. Presently he smiled and said:"You've just won an argument, Mel."
"How's that?"
"Why, in the South there wouldn't be so many of them--but maybe they arenot always there. Maybe they were only there last summer."
"Well, we can find out where they've gone, can't we?"
"It doesn't seem in strict good breeding to pursue ladies one doesn'tknow."
"Why, bless you, I chased all over Europe after a face I saw in _TheSketch_, only to find out that she was willing to marry anybody withmoney and had a voice like a guinea-hen. And after I'd found that out,she chased _me_ all over Europe and as far East as Cairo."
"I've never been chased by a woman," said Jonstone a little wistfully."What happened in the end?"
"I left Cairo between two days, fled away into the desert with somepeople just stepped out of the Bible, and never came back."
"Suppose she hadn't been willing to marry you and had had a voice like adove?"
"Don't suppose. We are on a new quest."
"What is the Adirondacks?"
"We wouldn't think much of it in the South. It's a place where you arealways cool and clean and can drink the nearest water. The trout don'teat mud and haven't got long white whiskers, and the deer are biggerthan dogs, and you don't go to sleep at night. The night just comes andputs you to sleep. It's just like Bar Harbor--only a little more so insome ways and a little less so in others."
Jonstone spread _The Four Seasons_ wide open upon his knees.
"Let's agree right now," he said, "which each of us thinks is theprettiest. It would be dreadful after travelling so far if we were bothto pick on the same one."
"We would have to fight a duel," said Meredith, "with swords, andconsidering that you could never even sharpen a pencil without cuttingyourself----"
"A boy wouldn't come along," said Jonstone, "and sell us a copy of amagazine months old if fate hadn't meant us to see this picture. I thinkI like the third one from the end."
"I think I like the three that look just alike."
"That is because you have travelled in Turkey. You never seem toremember that you are a Christian gentleman."