CHAPTER XVI
IN WHICH SALLY SPEAKS HER MIND
We crossed the threshold, which I had thought never to pass again, andentered the drawing-room, where a cedar log burned on the andirons. Ateither end of the low brass fender, Miss Mitty and Miss Matoaca sat veryerect, like two delicate silhouettes, the red light of the flamesshining through their fine, almost transparent profiles. Beyond them,over the rosewood spinet, I saw their portrait, painted in fancy dress,with clasped hands under a garland of roses.
As we entered the room, they rose slightly from their chairs, and turnedtoward us with an expression of mild surprise on their faces. It wasimpossible, I knew, for their delicately moulded features to express anyimpulse more strongly.
"Dear aunties," began Sally, in a voice that was a caress, "I've broughtBen back with me because I met him in the garden on ChurchHill--and--and--and he told me that he loved me."
"He told you that he loved you?" repeated Miss Mitty in a high voice,while Miss Matoaca sat speechless, with her unnaturally bright eyes onher niece's face.
Kneeling on the rug at their feet, Sally looked from one to the otherwith an appealing and tender glance.
"You brought him back because he told you that he loved you?" said MissMitty again, as if her closed mind had refused to admit the words shehad uttered.
"Well, only partly because of that, Aunt Mitty," replied Sally bravely,"the rest was because--because I told him that I loved him."
For a moment there was a tense and unnatural silence in the midst ofwhich I heard the sharp crackling of the fire and smelt the faint sweetsmell of the burning cedar. The two aunts looked at each other over thekneeling girl, and it seemed to me that the long, narrow faces had grownsuddenly pinched and old.
"I--I don't think we understood quite what you said, Sally dear," saidMiss Matoaca, in a hesitating voice; and I felt sorry for her as shespoke--sorry for them both because the edifice of their beliefs andtraditions, reared so patiently through the centuries by dead Fairfaxesand Blands, had crumbled about their ears.
"What she means, Miss Matoaca," I said gently, coming forward into thefirelight, "is that I have asked her to marry me."
"To marry you--you--Ben Starr?" exclaimed Miss Mitty abruptly, risingfrom her chair, and then falling nervelessly back. "There is somemistake--not that I doubt," she added courteously, the generations ofbreeding overcoming her raw impulse of horror, "not that I doubt for aminute that you are an estimable and deserving character--GeneralBolingbroke tells me so and I trust his word. But Sally marry you! Why,your father--I beg your pardon for reminding you of it--your father wasnot even an educated man."
"No," I replied, "my father was not an educated man, but I am."
"That speaks very well for you, sir, I am sure--but how--how could myniece marry a man who--I apologise again for alluding to yourorigin--whose father was a stone-cutter--I have heard?"
"Yes, he was a stone-cutter, and I am sorry to say wasn't even a goodone."
"I don't know that good or bad makes a difference, except, of course, asit affected his earning a livelihood. But the fact remains that he was acommon workman and that no member of our family on either side has everbeen even remotely connected with trade. Surely, you yourself, Mr.Starr, must be aware that my niece and you are not in the same walk oflife. Do you not realise the impossibility of--of the connection youspeak of?"
"I realised it so much," I answered, "that until I met her thisafternoon I had determined to wait five--perhaps ten years before askingher to become my wife."
"Ten years? But what can ten years have to do with it? Families are notmade in ten years, Mr. Starr, and how could that length of time alterthe fact that your father was a person of no education and that youyourself are a self-made man?"
"I am not ashamed to offer her the man after he is made," I replied."What I did not think worthy of her was the man in the making."
"But it is the man in the making that I want," said Sally, rising to herfeet, and taking my hand in hers. "O Aunt Matoaca, I love him!"
The little lady to whom she appealed bent slowly forward in thefirelight, her face, which had grown old and wan, looking up at us, aswe stood there, hand in hand, on the rug.
"I am distressed for you, Sally," she said, "but when it becomes aquestion of honour, love must be sacrificed."
"Honour!" cried Sally, and there was a passionate anger in her voice,"but I _do_ honour him." My hand was in hers, and she stooped and kissedit before turning to Miss Matoaca, who had drawn herself up, thin andstraight as a blade, in her chair.
"You are right," I said, "to tell me that I am unworthy of yourniece--for I am. I am plain and rough beside her, but, at least, I amhonest. What I offer her is a man's heart, and a man's hand that hasdealt cleanly and fairly with both men and women."
Until the words were uttered my pride had blinded me to my cruelty. ThenI saw two bright red spots appear in Miss Matoaca's thin cheeks, and Iasked myself in anger if the General or George Bolingbroke would havebeen guilty of so deep a thrust? Did she dream that I knew her story?And were those pathetic red spots the outward sign of a stab in hergentle bosom?
"There are many different kinds of merit, Mr. Starr," she returned, witha wistful dignity. "I do not undervalue that of character, but I do notthink that even a good character can atone for the absence of familyinheritance--of the qualities which come from refined birth andbreeding. We have had the misfortune in our family of one experience ofan ill-assorted and tragic marriage," she added.
"We must never forget poor Sarah's misery and ours, Sister Matoaca,"remarked Miss Mitty, from the opposite side of the hearth; "and yetHarry Mickleborough's father was a most respectable man, and the teacherof Greek in a college."
All the pity went out of me, and I felt only a blind sense of irritationat the artificial values, the feminine lack of grasp, the ignorance ofthe true proportions of life. I grew suddenly hard, and something ofthis hardness passed into my voice when I spoke.
"I stand or fall by own worth and by that alone," I returned, "and yourniece, if she marries me, will stand or fall as I do. I ask no favours,no allowances, even from her."
Withdrawing her hand from mine, Sally took a single step forward, andstood with her eyes on the faces that showed so starved and wan in thefirelight.
"Don't you see--oh, can't you see," she asked, "that it is because ofthese very things that I love him? How can I separate his past from whathe is to-day? How can I say that I would have this or thatdifferent--his birth, his childhood, his struggle--when all these havehelped to make him the man I love? Who else have I ever known that couldcompare with him for a minute? You wanted me to marry GeorgeBolingbroke, but what has he ever done to prove what he was worth?"
"Sally, Sally," said Miss Mitty, sternly, "he had no need to prove it.It was proved centuries before his birth. The Bolingbrokes provedthemselves to their king before this was a country--"
"Well, I'm not his king," rejoined Sally, scornfully, "so it wasn'tproved to me. I ask something more."
"More, Sally?"
"Yes, more, Aunt Mitty, a thousand times and ten thousand times. What doI care for a dead arm that fought for a dead king? Both are dust to-day,and I am alive. No, no, give me, not honour and loyalty that have beendead five hundred years, but truth and courage that I can turn toto-day,--not chivalric phrases that are mere empty sound, but honestyand a strong arm that I can lean on."
Miss Matoaca's head had dropped as if from weariness over her thinbreast, which palpitated under the piece of old lace, like the breast ofa wounded bird. Then, as the girl stopped and caught her breath sharplyfrom sheer stress of feeling, the little lady looked up again andstraightened herself with a gesture of pride.
"Do not make the mistake, Sally," she said, "of thinking that a humblebirth means necessarily greater honesty than a high one. Generations ofrefinement are the best material for character-building, and you mightas easily find the qualities you esteem in a gentleman of your ownsocial position."
"I might, Aunt Matoaca; but, as a matter of fact, have I? Until you haveseen a man fight can you know him? Is family tradition, after all, asgood a school as the hard world? A life like Ben's does not always makea man good, I know, but it has made him so. If this were not true--ifany one could prove to me that he had been false or cruel to any livingcreature--man, woman, or animal--I'd give him up to-day and not break myheart--"
It was true, I knew it as she spoke, and I could have knelt to her.
"You are blind, Sally, blind and rash as your mother before you,"returned Miss Mitty.
"No, Aunt Mitty, it is you who are blind--who see by the old values thatthe world has long since outgrown--who think you can assign a place to aman and say to him, 'You belong there and cannot come out of it.' But,oh, Aunt Matoaca, surely you, who have sacrificed so much for what youbelieve to be right,--who have placed principle before any claims ofblood, surely you will uphold me--"
"My child, my child," replied the poor lady, with a sob, "I placedprinciple first, but never emotion--never emotion."
"Poor Sarah was the only one of us who gave up everything for the sakeof an emotion," added Miss Mitty, "and what did it bring her exceptmisery?"
Our cause was lost--we saw it at the same instant--and again Sally gaveme her hand and stood side by side with me in the firelight.
"I am sorry, dear aunts," she said gently, and turning to me, she addedslowly and clearly, "I will marry you a year from to-day, if you willwait, Ben."
"I will wait for you, whether you marry me or not, forever," I answered;and bowing silently, I turned and left the room, while Sally went downagain on her knees.
Once outside, I drew a long breath of air, sharp with the scent of thesycamore, and stood gazing up at the clear sunset beyond the silveryboughs. It was good to be out of those mouldering traditions, thatatmosphere of an all-enveloping past; good, too, to be out of thetapestried room, away from the grave, fixed smiles of the dead Blandsand Fairfaxes and the close, sweet smell of the burning cedar. There Idared not step with my full weight, lest I should ruthlessly tread on asentiment, or bring down a moth-eaten tradition upon my head. I was forthe hard, bright world, and the future; there in that cedar-scentedroom, sat the two ladies, forever guarding the faded furniture and thecrumbling past. The pathetic contradiction of Miss Matoaca returned tome, and I laughed aloud. Miss Matoaca, who worked for the emancipationof women, while she herself was the slave of an ancestry of men whooppressed women, and women who loved oppression! Miss Matoaca, whosemind, long and narrow like her face, could grasp but a single idea andreject the sequence to which it inevitably led! I wondered if she meantto emancipate "ladies" merely, or if her principles could possiblyoverleap her birthright of caste? Was she a gallant martyr to theinequalities of sex, who still clung, trembling, to the inequalities ofsociety? She would go to the stake, I felt sure, for the cause ofwomanhood, but she would go supported by the serene conviction that shewas "a lady." The pathos of it, and the mockery, checked the laugh in mythroat. To how many of us, after all, was it given to discern, not onlyimmediate effects, but universal relations as well? To the General? Tomyself? What did we see except the possible opportunity, the room forthe ego, the adjustment to selfish ends? Yet our school was the world.Should we, then, expect that little lady, with her bright eyes and herwithered roseleaf cheeks, to look farther than the scented firelight inwhich she sat? I felt a tenderness for her, as I felt a tenderness forall among whom Sally moved. The house in which she lived, the thresholdshe had crossed, the servants who surrounded her, were all bathed for mein the rosy light of her lamps. Common day did not shine there. I wasbut twenty-seven, and my eyes could still find romance in the rustle ofher skirt and in the curl of her eyelash.
In the little office, where the curtains were drawn and the green-shadedlamp already lit, I found Dr. Theophilus sitting over his evening mintjulep, the solitary dissipation in which I had ever seen him indulge.His strong, ruddy face, with its hooked nose and illuminating smile, wasstill the face of a middle-aged man, though he had passed, a year ago,his seventieth birthday. At his feet, Waif, a stray dog, rescued inmemory of Robin, the pointer, was curled up on a rug.
"Well, my boy," he said cheerily, "you've had a good day, I hope?"
"A good day, doctor, I've been in heaven," I answered.
His smile shone out, clear and bright, as it did at a patient's bedside."I've been there, too, Ben," he responded, "forty years ago."
"Then why didn't you stay, sir?"
"Because it isn't given to any man to stay longer than a few minutes.Ah, my boy, you are the mixture of a fighter and a dreamer."
"But suppose," I blushed, for I was a reserved man, though few peoplewere reserved with Dr. Theophilus, "suppose that your heaven is awoman?"
"Has it ever been anything else to a man since Adam?" he asked. "Everyman's heaven, and most men's hell, is a woman, my boy. Why, look at oldGeorge Bolingbroke now! He's no longer young, and he's certainly nolonger handsome, yet I've seen him, in his day, stand up straight andtall in church at Miss Matoaca Bland's side, and look perfectly happybecause he could sing from the same hymn-book. Then a week later, whenshe'd thrown him over, I saw him jump up at a supper, and drinkchampagne out of the slipper of some variety actress."
"Yet she was right, I suppose, to throw him over?"
"Oh, she was right, I'm not questioning that she was right," heresponded hastily; "but it isn't always the woman who is right, Ben," headded, "that makes a man's heaven."
"The poor little lady had no slipperful of champagne to fall back on," Isuggested.
"It's a pity she hadn't--for it's as true as the Gospel, that GeorgeBolingbroke drove her into all this nonsense about the equality ofsexes. Equality, indeed! A man doesn't want to make love to an equal,but to an angel! Bless my soul, I don't know to save my life, what tothink of Miss Matoaca, except that she's crazy. That's the kindest thingI can say for her. She's gone now and got into correspondence with somebloodthirsty, fire-eating woman's rights advocates up North, and she'sactually taken to distributing their indecent pamphlets. She had theface to leave one on my desk this morning. I'd just taken it in thetongs before you came in and put it into the fire. There are the ashesof it," he added sardonically, waving his silver goblet in the directionof some grey shreds of paper in the fireplace.
"All the same, doctor, she may be crazy, but I respect her."
"Respect her? Respect Miss Matoaca Bland? Of course you respect her,sir. Even George Bolingbroke, bitter as he is, respects her from hisboots up. She's the embodiment of honour, and if there's a man alive whodoesn't respect the embodiment of honour, be it male or female, heought--he ought to be taken out and horsewhipped, sir! Her own sister,poor Miss Mitty, has the greatest veneration for her, though she can'thelp lying awake at night and wondering where those crazy principleswill lead her next. If they lead her to a quagmire, she'll lift herskirts and step in, Ben, there's no doubt of that--and what Miss Mittyfears now is that, since she's got hold of these abolition sheets,they'll lead her to the public platform--"
"You mean she'd get up and speak in public? She couldn't to save herhead."
"You'd better not conclude that Miss Matoaca can't do anything untilyou've seen her try it," replied the doctor indignantly. "I supposeyou'd think she couldn't bombard a political meeting, with not a womanto help her. Yet last winter she went down to the Legislature, in herblack silk dress and poke bonnet, and tried to get her obnoxiousmeasures brought before a committee."
"Was she laughed at?" I demanded angrily.
"Good Lord, no. They are gentlemen, even if they are politicians, andthey know a lady even if she's cracked."
"And is she entirely alone? Has she no supporter?"
"As far as I know, my boy, Matoaca Bland is the only blessed thing inthe state that cares a continental whether women are emancipated ornot."
He lifted the silver goblet to his lips, and drank long and deeply,while the rustle of Mrs. Clay's skirts was heard at his office door
.After a sharp rap, she entered in her bustling way, and presented mewith a second julep, deliciously frosted and fragrant. She was a small,very alert old lady, wearing a bottle-green alpaca, made so slender inthe waist that it caused her to resemble one of her own famous pickledcucumbers.
"Theophilus," she began in a crisp, high voice, "I hope you have sent inthose bills, as you promised me?"
"Good Lord, Tina," responded the doctor, with a burst of irritation,"isn't it bad enough to be sick without being made to pay for it?"
"You promised me, Theophilus."
"I promised you I'd send bills to the folks I'd cured, but, when I cameto think of it, how was I to know, Tina, that I'd cured any?"
"At least you dosed them?"
"Yes, I dosed them," he admitted; "but taking medicine isn't a pleasurethat I'd like to pay for."
Turning away, she rustled indignantly through the door, and Dr.Theophilus, as he returned to the rim of his silver goblet, gave me asly wink over his sprigs of mint.
"Yes, Ben, it isn't always the woman who is right that makes a man'sheaven," he said.
The Romance of a Plain Man Page 16