CHAPTER VI
FLAG DAY
Now, according to my ethics, there are two kinds of men who go todaylight parties--idiots and those that are dragged there by theirwives.
I had scarcely crossed the lawn of Seven Oaks and found for myself amodest place beside the speaker's stand--which was garlanded with asmany different kinds of flags as there were rats in Hamelin Town--whenI observed that this present congregation held a fair sprinkling ofeach kind.
But these held my attention for only a moment--because of the house inthe background, and the trees overhead. (To be candid, Mrs. HiramWalker's country place is not exactly a soothing retreat to visitwhen temptation is barking at your heels like a little hungry dog--andthe desire of your heart begins with H.)
"House that's a Home" might have been written on the sign-board of thecar-station much more truthfully than "Seven Oaks"--for only theimmense patriarchal ones were included in the "Seven" there beinghordes of lesser ones which were no more mentioned than children arewhen they're getting big enough to be paying railroad fare. The grovewas well cared for, but not made artificial, and even theluxuriousness of the house itself could not hurt the charm, for theHiram Walkers were human beings before they were society columnacrobats.
Our families had always been friends, so I happened to know that yearsand years ago, when Mr. Walker was a clerk in an insuranceoffice--with a horse and buggy for business through the week and joyunconfined on Sunday--they had been in the habit of haunting thisspot, he and his slim young wife--bringing a basket full of supperand thrusting the baby's milk bottle down into the ice-cream freezer.Then, there were more years, of longing and saving; they bought thehill, patiently enduring a period of blue-prints and architecturaladvice before the house was built. By this time Mrs. Walker's slimnesswas gone, and Mr. Walker had found out the vanity of hair tonics--butthe house was theirs at last. It was big and very beautiful--roomy,rather than mushroomy--and thoughtful, rambling, old-timey, spreadingout a great deal of portico to the kiss of the sun. Brown-hooded monksand clanking beads ought, by rights, to have gone with that portico.
Then, the June sunshine was doing such wonders with the oaks, greatand small, along the hillsides!
It touched up, with a tinge of glory, even the shining motor-cars inthe driveway. There were dozens of them--limousines, touring cars,lady-like coupes--with their lazy, half-asleep attendants, and theregularity of their unbroken files, their dignity, their quietness,and the glitter of the sun against their metal gave them something ofa martial aspect. The silver sheen of the lamps and levers was broughtout in a manner to suggest a line of marching men, silent, but verypotent--and enjoying more than a little what they offered to view, thedazzle of helmet, sword and coat-of-mail.
The beauty of it all--the softened glory of the shade in which I satmaking me feel that I was a spectator at a tournament--cast a spellover me, for I never find it very hard to fall spellbound. Isn't itfunny that when you're possessed of an intelligence which has fits ofSt. Vitus' dance they call it Imagination?--That's the kind mineis--jerky and unreliable. It is the kind of imagination which can takea dried-up acorn and draw forth a medieval forest; or gaze upon arusty old spur and live over again the time when knights were bold.
But to get back to "those present."
First of all, I noted Oldburgh's best-known remittance man. I notedhim mentally, mind you, not paragraphically, for they never made me dothe real drudgery of the society page. He was sitting beside his mama,swinging her gauze fan annoyingly against her lorgnette chain. Hisdivorce the year before had come near uniting Church and State, sinceit's a fact that nothing so cements conflicting bodies like theuprising of a new common foe; and he had sinned against bothimpartially. After him came two or three financial graybeards; threeor four yearling bridegrooms, not broken yet to taking the bit betweentheir teeth and staying rebelliously at the office; a habitual"welcomer to our city"--Major Harvey Coleman, a high officer in theSons of the American Revolution, and the piece de resistence of thisoccasion--then--then--!
Well, certainly the impassive being next him was the mostunsocial-looking man I had ever had my eyes droop beneath the gaze of!
He was sitting in the place of honor--in the last chair of the firstrow--but despite this, he so clearly did not belong at that party,and he so clearly wished himself away that I--well, I instantly begansearching through the crowds to find a woman with handcuffs! I feltsure that, whoever she might be--she hadn't got him there any otherway!
And yet--and yet--(my thoughts were coming in little dashing jerkslike that) he _was_ rather too big for any one woman to have handledhim!
I decided this after another look and another droop of my own eyes,for he was still looking--and that was what I decided about himfirst--that he was very _big_! Then misbehaving brown hair came nextinto my consciousness. It came to top off a picture which for a momentcaused me to wonder whether he was really a flesh-and-blood man atMrs. Walker's reception, or the spirit of some woodsman--come again,after many years, to haunt the grove of the Seven Oaks.
His New York clothes didn't make a bit of difference--except to spoilthe illusion a little. They were all light gray, except for a glimpseof blue silk hose, and their perfection only served to remind you thatit was a pity for a man who looked like _that_ to dress like _that_!
Modern man has but one artistic garment--a bathrobe; yet it wouldn'thave relieved my feelings any if this man had been dressed in one. Forhe wasn't artistic--and certainly he wasn't modern!
Still, I felt the pity of it all, for he ought to have had betterperceptions. He ought to have had his clothes and cosmic consciousnessmatch! He ought to have been dressed in a coat of goatskin--and hisknees ought to have been bare--and the rawhide thongs of his moccasinsought to have been strong and firm!
I had just reached this point in my plans for the change in hiswardrobe, when our hostess bustled up and shooed me out of my quietcorner.
"Grace," she whispered, "move out a bit, will you, and let me crowd aman in over there--"
"In here?"
She nodded.
"Where he can't _escape_!" she explained.
I gathered up my opened sheet of copy paper and moved obediently intothe next chair, which she had indicated.
"That's right--thank you! I've found out by experience that if you letcertain suspicious characters linger on the ragged edges of a crowdlike this they're sure to disappear."
Then she turned and beckoned to my Fifth-Avenue-lookingbackwoodsman--with a smile of triumph.
"_Him?_" I asked in surprise.
She was looking in his direction, so failed to see the expression ofmy face.
"It's no more than he deserves--having this American Revolution rubbedin on him," she observed absently. "I have never worked so hard in mylife over any one man as I have over this identical Maitland Tait!"
I saw him rise and come toward her--then I began having trouble withmy throat. I couldn't breathe very easily.
"Maitland Tait!" I gasped.
"Yes--_the_ Maitland Tait!"
Her voice sounded with a brass-band echo of victory.
"But how did you--"
"By outwitting Pollie Kendall--plague take her!"
The man was coming leisurely, stopping once to speak to one of thegraybeard financiers.
"Have you met him?" Mrs. Walker asked carelessly, as he approached.
"No."
She turned to him.
"I'm going to put you in here--where you'll have to stay," shelaughed, her big, heavy frame looking dwarfed beside his own toweringheight.
"I wasn't going to run away."
"No? You can't always tell--and I thought it safe to take everyprecaution, for this lecture may be long, and it's certain to beirritating to one of your nationality.--In this location you'll be inthe clutches of the Press, you see, and--by the way, you must meetMiss Christie!--Mr. Tait, Miss Christie!"
His face was still perfectly impassive, and he bowed gravely--withthat down-to-the
-belt grace which foreigners have. I nodded the pinksatin rose on my hat in his direction. This was all! Neither made anyfurther demonstration than that!--And to think that since Creation'sdawn--the world over--the thing is done just as idly and carelessly asthat! "Mr. Tait, Miss Christie!"--These are the words which weresaid--and, dear me, all the days of one's life ought to be spent inpreparation for the event!
"You are a Daughter of the Revolution, I presume?" his voice finallyasked me--a deep clear voice, which was strong enough to drown out theWagnerian processionals beating at that moment against my brain, andto follow me off on the mother-of-pearl cloud I had embarked upon. Itwas a glorious voice, distinctly un-American, but with the suggestionof having the ability to do linguistic contortions. He looked like aman who had traveled far--over seas and deserts--and his voiceconfirmed it. It proclaimed that he could bargain with equal ease inpiasters and pence. Still, it was a big wholesome voice. It matchedthe coat of goatskin, the bare knees and the moccasins I had plannedfor him.
"Yes, I am," I answered.
Our eyes met for an instant, as he disengaged his gaze from thatten-barred insignia on my coat. Far, far back, concealed by his darkiris, was a tinge of amused contempt.
"Then I dare say you're interested in this occasion?" he inquired. Ishouldn't say that he inquired, for he didn't. His tone held achallenge.
"No, indeed, I'm not!" I answered foolishly. "I came only because Ihave to write up Major Coleman's speech for my paper. I am a specialwriter for the _Herald_."
And it was then that he smiled--really smiled. I saw a transformationwhich I had never seen in any other man's face, for with him a smileescapes! There is a breaking up of the ruggedness, an eclipse of thestern gravity for a moment, and--no matter how much you had cared forthese an instant before--you could not miss them then--not in thattwinkling flood of radiance!
"Oh--so you're not an ancestor-worshiper?"
"No."
"But I thought Americans were!" he insisted.
"Americans?" I repeated loftily. "Why, of course, that's anEnglish--religion."
"Not always," he answered grimly, and the Italian band stationedbehind the clump of boxwood cut short any further conversation.
I was glad, for I did not want to talk to him then. I merely wanted tostand off--and look at him--and tell myself what manner of man he mustbe.
To do this I glanced down at my copy paper, with one eyelid raised infavor of his profile. An ancestor-worshiper? Absurd! Ancestors werequite out of the question with him, I felt sure. There was somethinggloriously _traditionless_ about his face and expansive frame. But hishands? Those infallible records of what has gone before?--I dropped myeyes to their normal position. His hands were _good_! They were bigand long and brown--that shade of brownness that comes to a meerschaumpipe after it has been kissed a time or two by nicotine. And his hairwas brown, too light by several shades to match with his very darkeyes, but it likely looked lighter on account of its conduct, standingup, and away, and back from his face. His complexion spoke of anearly-to-bed and early-to-tub code of ethics. His nose and mouth werewell in the foreground.
"You are a man who cares nothing at all for your ancestors--but you'llcare a great deal for your descendants!" was the summing up I finallymade of him.
At the close of the band's Hungarian Rhapsody he leaned over andwhispered to me.
"Did you say the _Herald_?" he asked.
"Yes."
"I have had my--attention called to your paper recently," he said, inso serious a tone that I was compelled to look up and search for thesmile which I felt must lurk behind it. And when I saw it there I feltreassured, and smiled in response.
"So they told me at the office," I said with great cordiality. "Is itthree or four of our reporters you've thrown down your front steps?"
"Oh, I haven't got close enough to them to throw them down the steps,"he disclaimed quickly. "That's one thing you have to guard againstwith reporters. They've got you--if they once see the whites of youreyes!"
I felt it my duty to bristle, in defense of my kind.
"Not unless your eyes _talk_," I said. Then, when he stared at me inuncertainty for a moment, I dropped my own eyes again, for I feltthat they were proclaiming their convictions as loudly as a Hyde Parksuffragette meeting.
The band at that moment struck up _The Star-Spangled Banner_ in amanner to suggest the president's advent into the theater, and Isearched in my bag for my pencil. I had seen the lecturer cough.
"I say--how long is this convocation supposed to last?" Maitland Taitinquired in a very inconspicuous whisper, as the white-flanneled lionof the affair arose from his chair and became the cynosure oflorgnettes.
"Well, this talk will absorb about forty-five minutes, I shouldhazard," I said. Already I had had the forethought to jot down theusual opening: "Ladies and Gentlemen--Daughters and Sons of theAmerican Revolution: It is with a feeling of profoundest pleasure thatI have the privilege of being with you to-day," etc. So for the momentmy attention was undivided.
"And there will be other talks?"
"Yes."
"And a walk through the gardens, I believe Mrs.--Mrs. Walker said?"
"Probably so. The Seven Oaks gardens are very lovely in June."
At the mention of gardens his eyes wandered, with what I fancied was atinge of homesickness, toward the colorful flowering spaces beyond thebox hedges. There were acres and acres of typical English gardens backthere; and the odor of the sweet old-fashioned shrubs came in ongentle heat waves from the open area. He looked as if he would like tobe back there in those English-looking gardens--with all the peoplegone.
Amazing Grace, Who Proves That Virtue Has Its Silver Lining Page 6