The ghosts of their ancestors Part 5

The room was becoming uproarious. Doors were opening and shutting again, letting in the moaning of the bells. The culmination of the buffoonery was approaching.

"Good, Jane," sobbed Miss Julie.

"Good, Jane," echoed the chorus of the spectres.

Reluctant, and feigning a great stress of emotion, the poor lady was pushed into the illuminated s.p.a.ce below the hundred-taper drop. She looked like some pretty long-vaulted effigy. In her hands she still carried the spray of milk-weed.

The noise lessened for a moment. Jane gazed reproachfully at her niece, Julie, as if the indiscreet wish were the cause of her present misery, and said, in a pensive voice, "I did not want to come to-night."

"I always knew you were a modest woman," said Jonathan, recovering a little of his once audacious manner.

"Modest forsooth!" giggled the fish-f.a.g diabolically, and seizing one of Jonathan's fat hands in her bony fingers, she drew it over the other's face.

"Look, see the white streaks on her now! She reddened, the hussy,--or I'm not a Gobie!"

"Yes, I was vain," answered the most prated-about of female Knickerbockers. "I used countless beautifiers--pearl powders, cherry salve, cupid's tints. Everything Mr. Gaine sold at the Crown. They hooked the men. When pearl powders came upon the market, I received three offers--Jenks--a tutor at King's College--not the President, as the report remains on earth--wrote me a poem in the _Weekly Gossiper_, called 'Pink and White Amanda.'"

"Jane Knickerbocker," said the ghost who was giving the party, "your family has spent many hours telling the present generation of your womanly virtues, and they cannot fail in having an overweening respect for any opinion you may utter. Shall this girl who bears your blood marry yon youth?"

"Let them wed by all means, if they see advantage in it. I vow if I could come back to earth and live my twenty-eight years over again, I would join hands with Jean, our Elizabeth-Town perfumer."

Lord Cornbury and the shades about him were bowed with mirth.

"Janet, you giddy girl, though half the age of most of us, I protest you are becoming a wit. You will be getting into society next," he cried. "I shall never be mean enough to tell that in sublunary times one of the first American Knickerbockers knew me intimately only as my valet."

"A fig for your cla.s.s distinctions," called the fair indignant, hunting for a rouge rag. "Years ago we heard ''twas money made the court circle at York.' Why, you must remember how you feared your creditors when they first came below."

"Alack, indeed," said his Lordship plaintively, "this hooped petticoat was never paid for."

After dishevelled Jane had vanished again into the powdering closet whence she had first emerged, the lady of the banished portrait moved over to Patricia and her lover. Standing side by side the resemblance between the two women was remarkable. One was the budding flower; the other the fragile shadow of a beautiful life.

"Her kind will always exist," she said. "They marry for pearl powders and other vanities, and usually seek, or are forced into, a gilded cage.

There, like jackdaws, they call out their possessions from dawn till night, and the heedless world pa.s.sing by sees the sparkling of the gold, mistakes the caws for singing, and applauds. I knew love--the ideal love that smiles at one from the wayside when one is seeking it in the well-kept gardens. I paid for it with my heart's blood, and I never had cause to regret. Over the rough places of my earthly journey it followed me with radiant illusions. The April winds were sweeter, the sunshine on the roads warmer. I felt all the raptures mother nature gives her children. That is why I could leave the other world to do you this service. _Love_ is the one thing death cannot lull to sleep!"

Patricia tried to answer, but the power of speech had left her for the moment. Juma's face was glowing with peaceful smiles. He bent low on his right knee to kiss the diaphanous draperies of the shade.

Outside in the night there arose the low murmurous chanting of the town waits moving homeward. A chime of bells, as soft as a blessing. The thorns had fallen from the brows of love.

While Patricia's benefactress gave her message the circle of ghosts was making way for the other Knickerbockers to enter. On closer inspection, many of them proved to be tame sort of animals enough. From a distance one monster of a woman had given the impression that she was trying to bully posterity. Perhaps this was due to the long feathers in her head-dress, that nodded maliciously at her most placid motion. As she bowed to her descendants a plume tickled the tip of Jonathan's nose and he jumped back slightly. "I am Melodia Mudford Makemie," she said, "and I thought you would like to meet me, as I started the Christmas fashion of giving hot-bag covers in York."

"Hot-bag covers!" reiterated Miss Georgina, astonished. "I have always said mittens. Why, in my ancestry book it is noted that in the year 1768 you gave one hundred pairs of silk mittens to Gruel Hall, the home for tiresome gentlewomen."

"The years play great hoaxes," chuckled the ghost. "Those ancestry books are a standard joke with us, and I believe they are looked upon with some suspicion in your own world."

Melodia seemed so friendly, Julie gained courage enough to purse up her lips for a speech, but the shade antic.i.p.ated her.

"I know what you are going to ask--why did I make such a wide frill about the bottle's neck? 'Tis easy to explain. I never took my bag to church to warm my hands--'twas my stomach!"

"Oh!" said Miss Julie, faltering slightly, fearing that this relative might become vulgar like the terrible Gobies still dancing about Lord Cornbury.

"Yes," continued the other, "when William fell asleep during the sermon I used to sink down well in the pew, put the frill up to my mouth, squeeze the end of the bag, and get as much as a dram of whiskey."

"Oh!" exclaimed Julie, aghast; "a hot-water bag for whiskey!"

"Why not?" said the ghost, angrily. Her manner was that of one who had expected commendation for her cleverness. The plumes in her head-dress were shaking violently.

"Why not, miss?" she asked again. "You are far too nice. At any rate you know the reason for those tomfool bag-covers. 'Twas to deaden the smell of liquor. Your generation of Yorkers does not appreciate them as we did."

Then her voice broke into derisive sn.i.g.g.e.rs, as she glided away.

And now upon the strange company fell the bellowing of some faithful pa.s.sing watchman.

"Midnight's here and fair weather!"

A sleepy c.o.c.k crowed in a distant Chelsea barn.

The faces of the shades began to blanch and a.s.sume the lack-l.u.s.tre tint of ashes. The lady of the banished portrait touched Patricia as if giving her a last embrace, and her smile at Richard Sheridan was full of good wishes.

"Do you consent to the marriage," she whispered, bending over Jonathan, "or shall we come to-morrow night?"

"I do," he answered hoa.r.s.ely.

"Then we go in peace," sighed the ghost.

There was a flutter of garments and the lights vanished suddenly. Only the scents of old-time perfumes remained, sweet as the hearts of vanished roses.

A cackle of feeble laughter floated back to the room as if the departing Knickerbockers were still making merry on the stairway to the other world.

The song of the weary bells was over. Peace had fallen upon the earth, and in Lady Tyron's mouldering parlor the vials of a foolish pride were despoiled forever. Through the mystical light the living of the family seemed to be strangely transfigured. Jonathan Knickerbocker, the autocrat of York, walked with his head bowed upon his breast. The hard lineaments of Georgina's face were softened. Ofttimes she turned uneasily, half expecting some awful apparition to emerge before her. As for Miss Julie, she moved like one in a dreamland of her own. The tears of the night had fallen upon that little flower in her heart and brought it back to life.

Henceforth it would fill all her remaining years with fragrance. The three eldest Knickerbocker daughters clung to her as if she were the guiding light of their starved souls.

Suddenly she left them, and went to her brother.

"I am glad they came, Jonathan," she faltered; "we had forgotten G.o.d made us all in His own image. He gave us the flowers and the stars, the sweet winds and the spring-times--the voices of children and the songs of birds.

Every man is rich if he but knew it, and those who are only rich in pride are the poorest of the race."

Over by the shimmering cas.e.m.e.nt, the youth and the girl crept nearer to each other. Softly he drew her to him until her face was close to his. The night was dead. Down old Broadway, over the Bowling Green, the Easter dawn tiptoed into the silent city.

[Ill.u.s.tration]