“It’s a sign they’ll keep afloat,” suggested. Jones. “Rats leave a sinking ship.”
“It was a fine ship once,” remarked Scott. “Wonderful! Those doors — what beautiful old wood! What architectural degenerates we Yankees, have become!”
“We are becoming regenerated.”
“I don’t agree with you.”
“Oh, you never do,” retorted Scott.
Jones ignored the retort:
“The wainscoting in this room would set an antiquary mad with delight!” he said. “Have you noticed any of the furniture?”
“Yes. It’s mostly Sheraton.”
“It’s mostly Chippendale.”
In the fading light they turned and looked around them, and Scott presently got up and closely inspected the magnificently carved posts of the bed on which he had been sitting.
“Old black San Domingo mahogany,” he said, “period of 1790. But the chairs yonder are English and much older.”
“Chippendale,” nodded Jones, lifting one with an effort; “and absolutely genuine. Scott, these things are amazingly beautiful! Look at that chest of drawers. Have you any idea what it would fetch in New York?”
“About eight hundred dollars.”
“About eighteen hundred!”
He examined the carving, worn and softened to an exquisitely polished texture.
“And those chairs,” he exclaimed; “why, they are worth easily from eight hundred to a thousand dollars apiece!”
Scott said under his breath:
“I wonder whether these people know what they have and what it is worth.”
“Perhaps they do, and prefer to keep them and live on nothing a year. I think they’re that sort of people.”
“Ought we to tell them? Some antique dealer may wander out here some day and skin the life out of them.”
Jones, examining the faded and ghostly glass of a lovely old Adam mirror, looked around at his comrade perplexed.
“If the entire house is full of such stuff,” he said, “there’s a small fortune in it. No New England kitchen crudeness here! No back stairs slat-backs, no native Windsor chairs, no damn spinning-wheel junk — no rag-carpets, no messy Dutch cupboards, no heaps of pewter and coarse and cracked blue china sitting around on curly-maple bureaus! These are fine pieces, every one of them — mellowed and made beautiful by years of care — noble pieces designed, carved, and put together for aristocrats!”
“They are certainly museum pieces,” nodded Scott. Jones walked back to the pale and faded mirror again, and began to knot his tie under the collar of his clean flannel shirt.
“I know plenty of wealthy people who would go crazy over these things,” he remarked.... “And those very charming girls are so poor.... It seems a pity, doesn’t it?”
“They are very pretty,” mused Scott.... “There is one — whose hair is a little redder than the other’s — Chrysis.”
“She is not so attractive as Cisthene. What a name for a girl — Chrysis!”
Scott said:
“You know that is purely a matter of opinion, Jones, about Chrysis having a punk name and not being as attractive as the other.”
“Do you think she is?”
“I do. I think she is even prettier and more attractive.”
“You’re wrong, old top.”
“Maybe you are, too.”
One of their customary disputes had begun. “Anybody,” retorted Jones impatiently, “can see that Cisthene is actually beautiful — I don’t care whether she has freckles or not. Chrysis merely resembles her, but the original of this unusual type of beauty is Cisthene.”
“How can she be the original if they’re twins?” demanded Scott, irritated. “And let me tell you that she looks positively plain and faded compared to her sister.”
“Doubtless you prefer red hair to gold,” snapped Jones with a shrug.
“It isn’t red” insisted Scott earnestly. “Not that I care — not that I have any personal interest in either of them; and of course we’re never likely to see them again after we leave; but your snapshot, cocksure opinions irritate me, and I want you to know that I have artistic taste and good taste in girls as well as in furniture; and my judgment tells me that Chrysis is beautiful and Cisthene isn’t!”
“Cisthene,” retorted Jones sharply, “is, in face and figure, a practically perfect specimen of the human girl! Anybody who denies it doesn’t know anything.”
“I know something,” returned Scott, getting very red, “and I know that Chrysis is what you say Cisthene is, and Cisthene isn’t!”
Jones sat down on the bed, too mad to speak; Scott shoved his hands into his pocket and sauntered out.
They quarrelled rather frequently concerning anything and everything; but they remained inseparable, neither one apparently being able to do without the other. So presently Jones went tagging after Scott, and came up with him on the veranda.
“Scotty,” he said, linking arms with him, “you’re fearfully pig-headed, but I like you. You’re welcome to your girl.”
“Same to you, Gordon,” returned his comrade.
“Lord! Listen to those mosquitoes! If it were not for the screens we’d all be murdered alive!”
A white figure stole out of the scented gloom: it was Cisthene come to summon them to dinner.
Here, on the polished, three-ply, antique Sheraton table, stood the only candles in the house, two of them, and their soft light glimmered on a wonderful sideboard — a masterpiece of plum-bloom mahogany exquisitely inlaid with dim, golden woods. Above hung two portraits.
“Gilbert Stuart,” nodded Jones mechanically.
The Professor made a courteous gesture in the affirmative, and his slender daughters looked up somewhat solemnly at their great-grandparents.
There was no cloth on the table; an ancient square of lace lay in the centre. A fat black wench served them “hawg and hominy,” home wine, corn-pone oranges, guavas, and bananas. And Jones thought he ought to cease eating, but simply couldn’t; nor could Scott, who fairly groaned within himself as he ate, fearful of totally impoverishing his hosts with such an appetite.
And after dinner Scott formally escorted Chrysis ta the veranda, and Jones took out Cisthene.
The ancient custom of not smoking in the presence of ladies still prevailed at Castle Place: the Professor took his guests to the west porch, seated them, and produced three new cob pipes and a jug of brandy, 1840.
And here they sat in courteous conversation until the pipes burned! out and the tiny glasses were empty.
And what interested and touched the young fellows was this man’s perfect confidence in them, his simplicity, his innocence of the world — for his travels had been only as far north as the travels of the Confederate army.
Of the world’s progress since the war, of the times he lived in, he knew very little. He read the Verbena Herald only when it was sent to him wrapped about some humble purchase; but the purchases of the Castle family were very few and far between. Any surplus from their slender means was invariably used for the yearly Commencement Ball. Because, he explained, it was proper and fitting that his family keep in touch with the celebrated institution of learning at Jasmine Inlet, wherein he had served his time in the cause of education. Besides, it was his daughters’ only social opportunity.
“Otherwise, sir, I should have had this veranda repaired, had not the funds available been, requiahed for the yearly social demands made upon my daughters,” explained the Professor without embarrassment.
Jones acquiesced gravely:
“This is a fine old place,” he said, glancing meaningly at Scott. “In fact, sir, it has seldom been my privilege to see such a beautiful collection of furniture under one roof.”
“I am attached to it all,” said the Professor simply.
“Are all the rooms still furnished with the original furniture?” Scott asked.
“I believe so, sir.”
Jones said casually:
“Apart
from the sentimental value you naturally attach to these very beautiful examples of early eighteenth century furniture, you doubtless are aware of how valuable your collection is?”
The old man looked up inquiringly:
“Sir?”
“The furniture at Castle Place,” repeated Jones, “is of considerable historical importance. Collectors would consider many of these pieces almost priceless.”
“Do you mean, sir, that the furniture here is of any particular value to anybody except my own family and myse’f?”
Jones smiled:
“Why, yes. There are thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of furniture here that I myself have seen. I don’t know how much more this big house contains. But I know this, that the pair of Stuart portraits over the dining-room sideboard are alone worth thousands of dollars.”
There was a long silence. After a while Jones said quietly:
“Were you not aware of this?”
The Professor lifted his delicate face. It seemed unusually pale.
“No, sir,” he said, “I was not aware of the pecuniary value of my property.”
Another long silence fell; then at length the Professor rose with a slight and graceful inclination to his guests:
“Shall we have the honour of joining the ladies, gentlemen?”
On their carved and stately beds, under canopies from which faded brocades hung in tatters, the young men slept profoundly in their old-time chambers.
The Southern moon looked in, courteously, to see that all was well with them. All was well. Each stately chair stood on guard as though aware of the hospitality devolving upon it: the long, deeply carved sofas opened wide arms between overflowing horns of plenty; creamy moonlight carpeted the floor.
Only the scented silence knew what dim, sweet ghosts entered, lingered, and glided away from those moonlit rooms where two sleeping Yankees lay.
But it was as though Jones divined their presence, for he lay sideways on his lavender-tinctured pillow, smiling in his dreams; and Scott’s boyish head was pillowed lightly on one arm as though it had been another arm, more slenderly rounded, perhaps.
On the morrow they had not departed. They pretended to each other that they meant to go. A week later they no longer even pretended. But the week after that their vacation would end. Jones so informed Cisthene, and Scott told Chrysis. Both girls expressed their regrets very sweetly.
They breakfasted late the day fixed for their departure, and they were a trifle ashamed, not to say chagrined, to find the Professor reading on the veranda and his daughters gone at dawn with horse and hound and horn.
“Not literally, gentlemen,” explained the Professor mildly, “for my daughters use a metal whistle and not a hunting horn.”
A few minutes later, while Jones and Scott, accoutred for forest work, were pocketing notebooks, compass, and an assortment of vials, bottles, boxes, and unusual looking instruments, the Professor, who had been watching them, said:
“I have to thank you for the information which you so courteously gave me in regard to the furniture of this house.”
He looked down at his worn volume, gravely, touching the yellowed pages with delicate fingers:
“It was, I must admit, a ve’y great surprise to me, gentlemen. I had never befo’ given any thought to such matters.”
“The growing appreciation of old-time art is very noticeable in New York,” said Jones.
“And the commercial value of such objects doubles every few years,” added Scott.
The Professor’s absent eyes rested on the ancient oaks that ringed the house. His revery remained unbroken until Jones, moving gingerly, picked up and belted his light wood axe. Then he glanced up gravely:
“Young gentlemen,” he said, as though his thoughts had been lingering about his chair of Greek at Verbena University, “the subject in question admits of but one interpretation. What the gods have given should be used foh the peace and happiness and material wellbeing of the living — not as memorials of the past, not as monuments to the dead.... I shall dispose of my furniture.... I have so informed my daughters.”
“It’s too bad, isn’t it?” remarked Jones, an hour later, jotting down caliper measurements in his notebook.
Scott had discovered a borer unknown to him, crawling on the bark of a blackjack.
“He can chew the damn tree for all I care,” he muttered, “but I’d better bottle him, I suppose.” And, answering Jones’ remark while immersing the reluctant beetle in alcohol: “Sure, it’s tough on such people to part with their heirlooms. But what else is there for them to do?”
“Nothing, I suppose.... Unless some wealthy idiot came along and married one of the twins.... Chrysis, for instance.”
“Why Chrysis?” asked Scott, looking around. “Why not Cisthene? Isn’t a wandering and wealthy idiot as likely to marry her as Chrysis?”
“She wouldn’t,” said Jones. “She’s not that sort.”
“Well, is Chrysis? Why do you suppose she is mercenary?”
“Did I say mercenary? Chrysis could fall in love with some wealthy ass, couldn’t she?”
“Why the devil do you assume that Chrysis could fall in love with an ass of any sort?” demanded Scott, hotly. “Your speculations concerning her are unwarranted.”
“I only said—”
“I know what you said! And it’s presumptuous!”
“Presumptuous P’
“Yes, it is! And it’s tiresome. If you want to speculate, speculate about Cisthene.”
“Off the handle again,” commented Jones.
“Why not? Yes, I am irritated. I talked to Chrysis last evening, and I know what sort of girl she is. She wouldn’t marry for money; she wouldn’t marry an ass. She is a very wonderful young girl, Jones — aside from her charm and beauty.”
“But why get mad about it?”
“I don’t! Only it irritates me. If anybody is likely to marry an ass for his money it’s her sister, I imagine.”
“You never had any imagination,” retorted Jones, warmly. “And you don’t know what you’re talking about. It happens that I conversed with Cisthene last evening, and am perfectly able to form an estimate of the character of perhaps the most remarkable girl I ever met in all my life. And let me inform you right now; Cisthene is as incapable of marrying unless she was in love as you are of falling in love!”
“What!”
“As you are incapable of falling in love,” repeated Jones.
“Why am I incapable of falling in love?” demanded Scott, angrily.
“You’re too fond of yourself.”
“Do you think so?”
“I know it.”
“That,” scowled Scott, “shows how much you know about anything! I’m not only capable of falling in love, but I’ve been seriously thinking of doing it.”
“With whom?” inquired Jones incredulously.
“With a girl who is, perhaps, the most rare and unusual example of her sex that I have ever encountered.”
“Do you mean Chrysis?”
“Why not?” retorted Scott, fiercely.
“No reason,” said Jones, with misleading mildness, “except I doubt that she’d return the compliment.”
“That may be. I never saw any man good enough for such a girl. Maybe she wouldn’t bother with men like me — or you. But,” he muttered, shaking his bottled beetle, “we’ll see.”
“You are going to ask her!”
“I don’t know.... I can’t keep my mind on this beetle, or on anything for thinking of her. That’s the truth, Jones. It — it hit me like lightning; that’s what it did to me!” he said, gesticulating with his bottled beetle. “It just happened. I didn’t know what was happening to me. Why,” he demanded dramatically, “why should this happen to me this way? How could I dream that I’d ever come down into this God-forsaken corner of the world, after borers and fungi, and be sandbagged by — by Love within the first few minutes!”
Jones came over to where his comrad
e was standing:
“Are you really serious?”
“I seem to be. I didn’t even realize I was serious, until this squabble with you opened my eyes.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jones.
“Well, you needn’t be. I’m glad we had a row; I’m glad I know how I feel about Chrysis. I’m in love with her; that’s what has happened to me. And I’m going to stay here until I tell her so.”
“Good luck to you,” said Jones respectfully.
They shook hands; Scott jiggled the alcohol and gazed absently upon the defunct beetle; Jones wandered off, a prey to uneasy wonder.
For what had happened to Scott might happen to him. Had it happened already, stealthily, without any suspicion on his part?
He examined himself honestly and didn’t think it had.
“No, I’m not in love with Cisthene,” he thought with a sigh — of relief, perhaps; and perhaps he sighed because he was not in love. Young men are odd.
“Evidently,” he said to himself, “I am not in love with Cisthene.... But I don’t feel like working, either.... I wonder if she has returned.”
Half an hour later he realized that he had wandered in a semicircle through the woods, for here was the orange grove, and beyond it rose the weather stained portico of Castle Place.
A negro was crossing the open space leading two sweating saddle horses; a troop of nondescript and muddy dogs trudged at his heels, tongues lolling. And on the ancient horse block sat Cisthene and Chrysis, their riding habits spotted with marl and streaked with white dust from the shell road.
“Where is Mr. Scott?” asked Chrysis naïvely, as Jones came up, hat in hand.
Jones had been looking at Cisthene. And suddenly he realized that he loved her. And, with the descent of a great and sudden love upon the defenceless heart of Jones, there arose within that young man’s brain a great and sudden cunning.
He said to Chrysis:
“Scott is down by the stream in the woods where the blackjacks grow. He has discovered a most remarkable beetle — a creature unknown to him. Would you like to see it?”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 1192