Horace Chase Part 18

The Chases and Walter Willoughby had come to the Indian party for a particular purpose, or rather Walter had asked the a.s.sistance of the other two in carrying out a purpose of his own, which was to make Mrs.

Kip give them a ball. For Andalusia possessed a capital room for dancing. The room was, in fact, an old gymnasium--a one-story building near the house. Mrs. Kip was in the habit of lending this gymnasium for tableaux and Sunday-school festivals; to-day it had served as a dining-room for the Indians. Walter declared that with the aid of flags and flowers the gymnasium would make an excellent ball-room; and as the regimental band had arrived at St. Francis Barracks that morning for a short stay, the mistress of Andalusia must be attacked at once.

"We'll go to her Indian party, and compliment her out of her shoes," he suggested. "You, Mrs. Chase, must be struck with her dress. I shall simply make love to her. And let me see--what can you do?" he went on, addressing Chase. "I have it; you can admire her chiefs."

"Dirty lot!" Chase answered. "I'd rather admire the hostess."

But the six Indians were not at all dirty; they had never been half so clean since they were born; they fairly shone with soap and ablutions.

Dressed in trousers and calico shirts, with moccasins on their feet, and their black hair carefully anointed, they walked, stood, or sat in a straight row all together, according to the strongly emphasized instructions which they had received before setting out. Two old warriors, one of them the gluttonous Drowning Raven reproved by the interpreter, grinned affably at everything. The others preserved the dignified Indian impa.s.siveness.

Soon after his arrival, Walter, who had paid his greetings upon entering, returned to his fair hostess. "I hear you have a rose-tree that is a wonder, Mrs. Kip; where is it?"

Mrs. Kip began to explain. "Go through the first orange-walk. Then turn to the right. Then--"

"I am afraid I can't remember. Take me there yourself," said Walter, calmly.

"Oh, I ought to be here, I think. People are still coming, you know,"

answered the lady. Then, as he did not withdraw his order, "Well," she said, a.s.sentingly.

They were absent twenty minutes.

When they returned, the soft brown eyes of the widow had a partly pleased, partly deprecatory expression. Another young man in love with her! What could she do to prevent these occurrences?

Walter, meanwhile, had returned to Mr. and Mrs. Chase. "It's all right,"

he said to Ruth. "The ball will come off to-morrow night. Impromptu."

"Well, you _have_ got cheek!" commented Chase.

Mrs. Kip herself soon came up. "Ruth, dear, do you know that the artillery band is only to stay a short time? My gymnasium has a capital floor; what do you say to an impromptu dance there to-morrow night? I've just thought of it; it's my own idea entirely."

"Now what made her lug in that unnecessary lie at the end?" inquired Chase, in a reasoning tone, when their hostess, after a few minutes more of conversation, had returned to her duties. "It's of no importance to anybody whose idea it was. That's what I call taking trouble for nothing!"

"If you believe your lie, it's no longer a lie," answered Walter; "and she believes hers. A quarter of a minute after a thing has happened, a woman can often succeed in convincing herself that it happened not _quite_ in that way, but in another. Then she tells it in _her_ way forever after."

Chase gave a yawn. "Well, haven't you had about enough of this fool business?" he said to his wife, using the words humorously.

"I am ready to go whenever you like," she answered. For if he allowed her to arrange their days as she pleased, she, on her side, always yielded to his wishes whenever he expressed them.

"I'll go and see if the ponies have come," he suggested, and he made his way towards the gate.

"You don't give us a very nice character," Ruth went on to Walter.

"About fibs, do you mean? I only said that you ladies have very powerful beliefs. Proof is nothing to you; faith is all. There is another odd fact connected with the subject, Mrs. Chase, and that is that an absolutely veracious woman, one who tells the exact, bare, cold truth on all occasions and nothing more; who never exaggerates or is tempted to exaggerate, by even a hair's-breadth--who is never conscious that she is coloring things too rosily--such a woman is somehow a very uninteresting person to men! I can't explain it, and it doesn't seem just. But it's so. Women of that sort (for they exist--a few of them) move through life very admirably; but quite without masculine adorers." Then he stopped himself. "I'm not here, however, to discuss problems with her," he thought. "Several hours more of daylight; let me see, what can I suggest next to amuse her?"

This young man--he was twenty-seven--had had an intention in seeking St.

Augustine at this time; he wished to become well acquainted, if possible intimate, with the enterprising member of his uncle's firm. He had some money, but not much. His father, the elder Walter, had been the one black sheep of the Willoughby flock, the one spendthrift of that prudent family circle. After the death of the prodigal, Richard and Nicholas had befriended the son; the younger Walter was a graduate of Columbia; he had spent eighteen months in Europe; and when not at college or abroad, he had lived with his rich uncles. But this did not satisfy him, he was intensely ambitious; the other Willoughbys had no suspicion of the reach of this nephew's plans. For his ambitions extended in half a dozen different directions, whereas what might have been called the family idea had moved always along one line. Walter had more taste than his uncles; he knew a good picture when he saw it; he liked good architecture; he admired a well-bound book. But these things were subordinate; his first wish was to be rich; that was the stepping-stone to all the rest. As his uncles had children, he could not expect to be their heir; but he had the advantage of the name and the relationship, and they had already done much by making him, nominally at least, a junior partner in this new (comparatively new) firm--a firm which was, however, but one of their interests. The very first time that Walter had met the Chase of Willoughby & Chase he had made up his mind that this was the person he needed, the person to give him a lift.

Richard and Nicholas were too cautious, too conservative, for daring enterprises, for outside speculations; in addition, they had no need to turn to things of that sort. Their nephew, however, was in a hurry, and here, ready to his hand, appeared a man of resources; a man who had made one fortune in a baking-powder, another by the bold purchase of three-quarters of an uncertain silver mine, a third by speculation on a large scale in lumber, while a fourth was now in progress, founded (more regularly) in steamers. At present also there was a rumor that he had something new on foot, something in California; Walter had an ardent desire to be admitted to a part in this Californian enterprise, whatever it might be. But Chase's trip to Europe had delayed any progress he might have hoped for in this direction, just as it had delayed the carrying out of the Asheville speculation. The Chases had returned to New York in November. But immediately (for it had seemed immediately to the impatient junior partner) Chase had been hurried off again, this time to Florida, by his silly wife. Walter did not really mean that Ruth was silly; he thought her pretty and amiable. But as she was gay, restless, fond of change, she had interfered (unconsciously of course) with his plans and his hopes for nearly a year; to call her silly, therefore, was, in comparison, a mild revenge. "What under heaven is the use of her dragging poor Chase 'away down South to the land of the cotton,' when she has already kept him a whole summer wandering about Europe," he had said to himself, discomfited, when he first heard of the proposed Florida journey. The next day an idea came to him: "Why shouldn't I go also? Chase will be sure to bore himself to death down there, with nothing in the world to do. And then I shall be on hand to help him through the eternal sunshiny days! In addition, I may as well try to make myself agreeable to his gadding wife; for, whether she knows it as yet or not, it is evident that _she_ rules the roost." He followed, therefore. But as he came straight to Florida, and as Mr. and Mrs. Chase had stopped _en route_ at Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, Charleston, and Savannah, Walter had been in St. Augustine nearly two weeks before they arrived.

So far, all had turned out as he had hoped it would. This was not surprising; for young Willoughby was, not merely in manner, but also in reality, a good-natured, agreeable fellow, full of life, fond of amus.e.m.e.nt. He was ambitious, it is true. But he was as far as possible from being a drudging money-maker. He meant to carry out his plans, but he also meant to enjoy life as he went along. He had noticed, even as far back as the time of the wedding, that the girl whom Horace Chase was to marry had in her temperament both indolence and activity; now one of these moods predominated, now the other. As soon, therefore, as Mr. and Mrs. Chase were established in their St. Augustine house, he let himself go. Whenever the young wife's mood for activity appeared to be uppermost, he opened a door for it; he proposed an excursion, an entertainment of some sort. Already, under his leadership, they had sailed down the Matanzas River (as the inlet is called) to see the old Spanish lookout; they had rowed up Moultrie Creek; they had sent horses across to Anastasia Island and had galloped for miles southward down the hard ocean beach. They had explored the barrens; they had had a bear-hunt; they had camped out; they had caught sharks. On these occasions they had always been a party of at least four, and often of seven, when Mrs. Franklin and Dolly, Mrs. Kip and Commodore Etheridge joined in the excursion. Dolly in particular had surprised everybody by her unexpected strength; she had accompanied them whenever it had been possible. When it was not, she had urged her mother to take the vacant place. "Do go, His Grand, so that you can tell me about it. For it does amuse me so!"

Walter's latest inspiration, the ball at Andalusia, having been arranged, he now suggested that they should slip out un.o.bserved and finish the afternoon with a sail. "I noticed the _Owl and the p.u.s.s.ycat_ moored at the pier as we came by," he said. "If she is still there, Paul Archer is at the club, probably, and I can easily borrow her."

"Anything to get away from these Apaches," Chase answered. "And I'm a good deal afraid, too, of that Evangeline Taylor! She has asked me three times, with such a voice from the tombs, if I feel well to-day, that she has turned me stiff."

"Why on earth does that girl make such _awful_ face?" inquired Walter.

Ruth gave way to laughter. "I can never make you two believe it, but it is really her deep sense of duty. She thinks that she ought to look earnest, or intelligent, or grateful, or whatever it may be, and so she constantly tries new ways to do it."

"What way is it when she glares at a fellow's collar for fifteen minutes steadily," said Walter; "at close range?"

"She _never_ did!" protested Ruth.

"Yes--in the tea-room; _my_ collar. And every now and then she gave a ghastly smile."

"She didn't know it was your collar; she was simply fixing her eyes upon a point in s.p.a.ce, as less embarra.s.sing than looking about. And she smiled because she thought she ought to, as it is a party."

"A point in s.p.a.ce! My collar!" grumbled Walter.

At the gate they looked back for a moment. The guests, nearly a hundred in number, had gathered in a semicircle under a live-oak; they were gazing with fresh interest at the Indians, who had been drawn up before them. The six redskins were still in as close a row as though they had been handcuffed together; the serious spinsters had failed entirely in their attempts to break the rank, and have a gentle word with one or two of them, apart. The Rev. Mr. Harrison, who was to make an address, now advanced and began to speak; the listeners at the gate could hear his voice, though they were too far off to catch the words. The voice would go on for a minute or two, and pause. Then would follow the more staccato accents of the interpreter.

"The horse-joke comes in, Walter, when that interpreter begins," said Chase. "Who knows what he is saying?"

The interpreter, however, made a very good speech. It was, perhaps, less spiritual than Mr. Harrison's.

It turned out afterwards that the thing which had made the deepest impression upon the Apaches was not the "lady's quiet home," nor the Sunday-school teachers, nor the cabinet-organ, nor even the dinner; it was the extraordinary length of "the young-squaw-with-her-head-in-the-sky,"

as they designated Evangeline Taylor.

Ruth drove her ponies down to the Basin. The little yacht called the _Owl and the p.u.s.s.ycat_ was still moored at the pier; but Paul Archer, her owner, was not at the club, as Walter had supposed; he had gone to the Florida House to call upon some friends. Commodore Etheridge was in the club-room; he was forcing himself to stay away from Andalusia, for he had an alarming vision of its mistress, dressed in white, with the sunshine lighting up her sea-sh.e.l.l complexion and bringing out, amorously, the rich tints of her hair. Delighted to have something to do, he immediately took charge of Walter.

"Write a line, Mr. Willoughby; write a line on your card, and our porter shall take it to the Florida House at once. In the meanwhile Mr. and Mrs. Chase can wait here. Not a bad place to wait in, Mrs. Chase?

Simple, you see. Close to nature. And nature's great restorer" (for two of the club-men were asleep).

The room was close to restorers of all sorts, for the land front was let to a druggist. The house stood on the wooden pier facing the little Plaza, across whose gra.s.sy s.p.a.ce the old Spanish cathedral and the more modern Episcopal church eyed each other without rancour. The Plaza's third side was occupied by the post-office, which had once been the residence of the Spanish governor.

The club-room was a large, pleasant apartment, with windows and verandas overlooking the water. There was a general straightening up of lounging att.i.tudes when Mrs. Chase came in. Etheridge had already introduced Horace Chase to everybody at the club, and Chase, in his turn, had introduced almost everybody to his wife. The club, to a man, admired Mrs. Chase; while she waited, therefore, she held a little court. The commodore, meanwhile, kindly took upon himself, as usual, the duty of entertaining the Bubble.

"Mr. Willoughby need not have gone to the Florida House in person; our porter could perfectly well have taken a note, as I suggested. Capital fellow, our porter; I never come South, Mr. Chase, without being struck afresh with the excellence of the negroes as servants; they are the best in the world; they're born for it!"

"That's all right, if they're willing," Chase answered. "But not to force 'em, you know. That slave-market in the Plaza, now--"

"Oh Lord! Slave-market! Have _you_ got hold of that story too?"

interposed Etheridge, irritably. "It was never anything but a fish-market in its life! But I'm tired of explaining it; that, and the full-length skeleton hanging by its neck in an iron cage in the underground dungeon at the fort--if they're not true, they ought to be; that's what people appear to think! '_Si non ee veero, ee ben trovatoro_,' as the Italians say. And speaking of the fort, I suppose you have been to that ridiculous Indian party at Andalusia to-day? Mrs.

Kip must have looked grotesque, out-of-doors? In white too, I dare say?"

"Grotesque? Why, she's pretty," answered Chase.

"Not to my eye," responded Etheridge, determinedly. "She has the facial outlines of a frog. Do you know the real reason why I didn't marry? I couldn't endure, sir, the prospect of an old woman's face opposite mine at table year after year. For our women grow old so soon--"

As he brought this out, a dim remembrance of having said it to Horace Chase before came into his mind. Had he, or had he not? Chase's face betrayed nothing. If he had, what the devil did the fellow mean by not answering naturally, "Yes, you told me?" Could it be possible that he, Anthony Etheridge, had fallen into a habit of repeating?--So that people were accustomed--? He went off and pretended to look at a file of porpoises, who were going out to sea in a long line, like so many fat dark wheels rolling through the water.