Mortmain Part 45

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Curtis," said I. "I'm Jarvis, 190--. Was this really your room? That seems an awfully long time ago."

He smiled again.

"I'm afraid it seems longer ago to you than to me. Would you mind if I should smoke a cigar with you? I'd like to ask you some things about the old building."

"Please do," said I. "And let me introduce my roommate, Ralph Hughes."

Ralph shook hands with Mr. Curtis, and we all sat down around the fireplace. It seemed rather inhospitable not to be able to offer him any refreshments, but there was only one bottle of beer in the _papier-mache_ fire pail in my bedroom, and it was warm at that. Hence we accepted our guest's cigars with some diffidence and awaited his first interrogation. I could see that Ralph was br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with eagerness to ask about "Uncle Ned" and a hundred other things which that romantic ostrich of a boy had invented during the afternoon, and I felt quite sure that before Mr. Curtis got away he would be obliged to pay heavily for the temerity of his visit by being offered up upon the altar as a sacrifice to Ralph's b.u.mp of acquisitiveness.

"Yes," said Mr. Curtis, "this was my room for four years. If you look over on the windowpane I think you'll find my name scratched on the gla.s.s in the lower left-hand corner. I wonder if that old picture of the Belvoir Fox Hunt, that I left, is still here?"

"Oh, was that yours?" exclaimed Ralph. He darted into the bedroom and unhooked a framed lithograph which had been the joy and pride of the occupants of the room for the past four decades. Mr. Curtis turned it round and pointed to his name in faded ink upon the back at the head of a long line of indors.e.m.e.nts, each of which represented a temporary possessor.

"The old room seems about the same. The wall-paper has been changed, but that big crack over by the bedroom I remember well. And there ought to be a bullet hole in the frame of the door."

"A bullet hole!" exclaimed Ralph and I in unison.

"Yes," said Mr. Curtis quietly, "a bullet hole--a thirty-two caliber, I should judge."

Ralph seized the lamp and, holding it high above his head, carefully scrutinized the woodwork of the door.

"There it is!" he cried eagerly. "Right in the middle; and, by George, there's the bullet, too! There's a story about that, I bet--isn't there?

Who fired it? How did it get there?"

He replaced the lamp, quivering with interest.

"A story if you like," responded Mr. Curtis, looking curiously out of his laughing brown eyes at my impetuous roommate. "Yes, quite a little story. I could hardly tell you about it unless I told you also something of the man who fired the shot. Did you ever hear of Randolph? Randolph, '64?"

The blank look which came into our faces rendered answer unnecessary.

"Never heard of Randolph, '64! _Sic fama est!_ I suppose some Jones or Smith or Robinson now holds his place. Outside of Prex himself, there wasn't a better-known figure in my time. Why, he occupied this very room. He was my roommate."

"Did he, though!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ralph. "How did he come to be firing a pistol around? Didn't he fall foul of the Yard policeman?"

"There were no Yard policemen in those days," said Mr. Curtis.

"What luck!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ralph. "Do tell us about Randolph!" he pleaded in the same breath.

"Certainly. If you really wish it. I trust you fellows haven't any examinations to-morrow."

"Examinations be hanged!" exclaimed Ralph.

"Well," began Mr. Curtis meditatively, "I remember as if it were only yesterday being awakened one bright September morning in '60 by the sound of a rich negro voice singing in time to the scuff-scuff of the blacking of a pair of shoes. The sound entered the open window through which the autumn sun was already pouring, and penetrated the stillness of my bedroom, over there. I sprang out of bed and, thrusting my head out of the window, beheld, seated comfortably upon the topmost step, a comically visaged darky, clad in a pair of brown overalls and battered felt hat, busily engaged in putting the finishing touches to a highly polished pair of russet riding boots. Piled indiscriminately upon the sidewalk, in front of the windows of the room opposite, lay several huge trunks, while at the foot of the steps reposed a long wicker basket, before which were ranged in order of height an astonishing collection of riding boots and shoes of all varieties, upon which the disturber of my dreams had evidently been hard at work, since they shone with a l.u.s.ter glorious to behold. The negro, having critically examined the boot upon his arm, and evidently satisfied with its condition, arose to place it by the side of its mate, and in so doing caught sight of me. Instantly he had doffed his old gray hat and was making a grave salutation.

"'Good mornin', suh.'

"For a moment this vision of darky courtesy deprived me of my ordinary self-possession. Then his grin became contagious.

"'I heard you singing and thought I'd look out to see who it was. Do you know who those trunks belong to?'

"'Dose? Why, dose is Ma.r.s.e d.i.c.k's. Oh, p'r'aps you ain't met Ma.r.s.e d.i.c.k--Ma.r.s.e d.i.c.k Randolph, ob Randolph Hall, Virginny, suh.' He drew himself up with conscious pride. 'We-uns jes' come las' night. Ma.r.s.e d.i.c.k's rooms is in dar'--nodding toward the window--'en I wuz jes'

a-lookin' ober some ob his traps. Anyt'ing I kin do fo' you, suh? Glad to be of any service, suh. I'se Ma.r.s.e d.i.c.k's boy--Moses--Moses March, suh.'

"'Well, Moses,' I answered, 'I'm glad to make your acquaintance. You can tell Mr. Randolph that if he is going to be a neighbor of mine I shall call upon him at the earliest opportunity.'

"'Yah, suh. T'ank you, suh,' responded Moses.

"Just then the old bell on Harvard Hall began to clamor for the morning chapel service, and realizing that the master of my new acquaintance might be unfamiliar with college regulations, I called out:

"'You'd better wake Mr. Randolph or he'll be late for chapel.'

"'Call Ma.r.s.e d.i.c.k!' exclaimed the darky in apparent horror. 'Golly, I darsn't call Ma.r.s.e d.i.c.k 'fo' ten o'clock. Why, he'd skin me alive.

'Sides, he tole me to bring roun' Azam 'bout ten o'clock.'

"'Azam?' I queried.

"'Yah, suh; Azam's Ma.r.s.e d.i.c.k's hunter. Bes' Kentucky blood, suh. Sired by ole Ma.r.s.e's stallion Satan, out o' White Clover. Dar's a hunter fo'

you, suh. You jes' ought ter see Ma.r.s.e d.i.c.k a-follerin' de hounds.

'Scuse me, suh, fo' keepin' you a-waitin'. No, suh, t'ank you, suh; I won't forgit de card, suh.'

"Hastily retiring to my bedroom I threw on my clothes and then hurried off to chapel. The shades of Number 9, the room across the hall, were still tightly drawn."

Mr. Curtis stopped and relit his cigar. The yellow sash curtains on their sagging wires softly bellied in the night breeze, and through the open windows came the distant chanting of the Inst.i.tute march and the tinkle of the pump.

"This very room!" repeated the old gentleman half to himself. "And this very window!" His voice sank dreamily and he seemed for the moment to have forgotten our presence. "Those were happy times. As I look back over the forty years, the time I spent here seems one long vista of glorious autumn days. The same old red-brick buildings; the same green velvet sward; that old tolling bell; the gravel walks; the pump--I remember there always used to be a damp place about ten feet square about the pump; the old creaking stairs outside this very door; the quiet evenings on the steps where those jolly chaps were singing; the long talks before this very fireplace under the lamplight with d.i.c.k; and then that fatal rupture with the South! How little it means to you! Why, it is isn't even a dream. It's just tradition. I suppose you feel it--you can't help feeling it. But if you had sat here, as I did, with the fellows going away, and the company drilling on the Delta over there--what do you call it now: the Delta?--and had shared the feverish enthusiasm which we all felt, tempered by the sorrow of losing our comrades; the little scenes when they went off one by one, and we gave each fellow a sword or some knickknack to carry with him; and the long, sad, anxious days when you waited breathless for news--and then, when it came, often as not, had felt a pang at your heartstrings because some fellow that you loved had got it at Bull Run, or Antietam, or Cold Harbor! No, you can never know what that meant, and thank G.o.d you can't.

The rest is about the same. I see you have squirrels in the Yard now. We never had any squirrels. I suppose you sit in these windows and watch 'em by the hour. Busier than you, I guess.

"But apart from the squirrels and the new buildings, the old place is about the same--bigger, more imposing, of course, with its modern equipment of museums and laboratories and all that, and best of all that splendid monument with its transept full of memories. But it's not the same to me. It's only when I turn toward the corner by Hollis and Stoughton, as I did this afternoon, with Holden Chapel just peeping in between, and the big elms swinging overhead, and, shutting my ears to the rattle of the electric cars, listen to the sound of the same old clanging bell, with the sun gilding the tree trunks and slanting along the gravel pathways, that I can call back those dear old days. Then, it seems as if I were back in '61."

In the pause which followed Ralph volunteered that we all did feel somewhat of the same thing, only in a minor degree. He had often imagined the fellows going off to the war and had wondered if it was anything like what he supposed. He pattered on in his own peculiar way trying to put our guest at ease and, as he expressed it later, to cheer him up. It would never have done, he averred later in his own defense, to let "Old Ma.r.s.e" get groggy over the "sunlit elms." However, Mr.

Curtis changed the tone himself.

"And now to come to that first time that I ever saw Randolph. I had just come from tea and was sauntering along the Yard in front of Stoughton when I became conscious that my customary place upon the steps, out there, had been usurped. The trunks and paraphernalia of the morning had disappeared, and although Moses was absent, I knew somehow that this could be no other than 'Ma.r.s.e d.i.c.k.' He was tall, with muscular back and shoulders, and his clothes of dark-blue serge hung on him as if they had grown there. His feet were encased in long-toed vermilion morocco slippers, and the other elements of his costume which caught my eye were a yellow corduroy waistcoat, very faddish for those days, and a flowing red cravat. A broad-brimmed black slouch hat was well pulled down over his eyes, while from beneath protruded a long brierwood pipe from which voluminous clouds of smoke rolled forth upon the evening air without causing any annoyance, so it seemed, to an enormous mastiff, who sat contentedly between his master's knees, blinking his eyes and thumping his tail in response to the caresses of the hand upon his head. As I drew near the dog stalked over to meet me, sniffing good-naturedly, and the stranger stepped down, removed his hat, and held out his hand with a smile of greeting.

"'Mr. Curtis, I believe, suh?' he said in a low but agreeable drawl. 'My boy Moses gave me the card you were kind enough to send by him this morning. We are neighbors, are we not?'

"I had rather expected to see the face of a dandy, but instead a pair of black eyes under almost beetling black brows burned steadily into mine.

He looked nearer thirty than twenty, and this appearance of maturity was heightened by a tiny goatee. His smile was straightforward and honest, the forehead, under the curly black locks, low and broad, the nose aquiline and the skin dark and ruddy. Yes, he was a very pretty figure of a man--as handsome a lad as one would care to meet on a summer's day--part pirate, part Spanish grandee, part student, and every inch a gentleman. Later there were plenty of fellows who said that no man could dress like that (we were all soberly arrayed in those days) and be a gentleman; or that no one could come flaunting his horses and dogs and n.i.g.g.e.rs into Cambridge, as Randolph undoubtedly did, and be one; or could parade around the Yard smoking real cigars and keep dueling pistols on his mantel and rum under the bed, as d.i.c.k did, and be one.

But he was, boys, he was!

"Perhaps he did talk too much about his n.i.g.g.e.rs and his acres; too much about his old mansion and its flower gardens, about stables, fox-hunting and fiddlers--what of it? The point was that we were a lot of soul-starved, psalm-singing Yankees, talking through our noses and counting our pennies; while Randolph was a warm-hearted, hot-headed, fire-eating, cursing Virginian.

"We shook hands and I joined him on the steps. It was just such a night as this--calm and sweet, the stars peeping through the boughs, and the windows shining. And that's how I like to think of him.

"He'd never been away from home before except to go to Paris. He talked like a feudal baron, seeming to think that life was just one long holiday; that no one had to earn a living; that things in general were constructed by an amiable Deity solely for our delectation; and there was in his att.i.tude a recklessness and disregard for established usages that left me totally at a loss. Imagine a fellow like myself taught to regard card playing, the theater, and dancing as mortal sins, with a father who believed in infant d.a.m.nation and predestination; a fellow brought up to gaze in silent admiration at Charles Sumner; and who was allowed a silver half-dollar a week pocket money--imagine me, I say, sitting out there with this free-thinking, free-hating, free-handed slave owner! Why, I loved him with my whole heart inside of five minutes. G.o.d bless my soul, how my father used to frown when they told him about my new friend's latest escapade! But with all his freedom of ideas he was as simple as a child. I don't believe the fellow ever had a mean or an impure thought. I believe that as I believe in G.o.d.

"Well, I told him about my life--what there was to tell--and he told me about his; how his father had died three years before, leaving him the owner of very large estates and a great many hundred slaves--I forget how many. His mother was still living down on the plantation. They were Roman Catholics--'Papists,' my father called them. The doctrines of the Church, however, didn't seem to bother him at all, that I could see. His father had evidently been the big man of the county, and had shared all his sports and studies, cramming him with the most extraordinary amount of miscellaneous reading and curious Chesterfieldian ideas of honor and manners.

"I can remember, now, just how he described the old place to me, sitting out there on the steps. He thought it the finest home in all the land.