The Romance of a Plain Man Part 29

"Oh, she was right, I'm not questioning that she was right," he responded hastily; "but it isn't always the woman who is right, Ben," he added, "that makes a man's heaven."

"The poor little lady had no slipperful of champagne to fall back on," I suggested.

"It's a pity she hadn't--for it's as true as the Gospel, that George Bolingbroke drove her into all this nonsense about the equality of s.e.xes. 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 to think of Miss Matoaca, except that she's crazy. That's the kindest thing I can say for her. She's gone now and got into correspondence with some bloodthirsty, fire-eating woman's rights advocates up North, and she's actually taken to distributing their indecent pamphlets. She had the face to leave one on my desk this morning. I'd just taken it in the tongs before you came in and put it into the fire. There are the ashes of it," he added sardonically, waving his silver goblet in the direction of 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 his boots up. She's the embodiment of honour, and if there's a man alive who doesn't respect the embodiment of honour, be it male or female, he ought--he ought to be taken out and horsewhipped, sir! Her own sister, poor Miss Mitty, has the greatest veneration for her, though she can't help lying awake at night and wondering where those crazy principles will lead her next. If they lead her to a quagmire, she'll lift her skirts and step in, Ben, there's no doubt of that--and what Miss Mitty fears 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 her head."

"You'd better not conclude that Miss Matoaca can't do anything until you've seen her try it," replied the doctor indignantly. "I suppose you'd think she couldn't bombard a political meeting, with not a woman to help her. Yet last winter she went down to the Legislature, in her black silk dress and poke bonnet, and tried to get her obnoxious measures brought before a committee."

"Was she laughed at?" I demanded angrily.

"Good Lord, no. They are gentlemen, even if they are politicians, and they 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 in the state that cares a continental whether women are emanc.i.p.ated or not."

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 me with a second julep, deliciously frosted and fragrant. She was a small, very alert old lady, wearing a bottle-green alpaca, made so slender in the waist that it caused her to resemble one of her own famous pickled cuc.u.mbers.

"Theophilus," she began in a crisp, high voice, "I hope you have sent in those 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 came to 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 pleasure that 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 a sly wink over his sprigs of mint.

"Yes, Ben, it isn't always the woman who is right that makes a man's heaven," he said.

CHAPTER XVII

IN WHICH MY FORTUNES RISE

The winter began with a heavy snow-storm and ended in a long April rain, and in all those swiftly moving months I had seen Sally barely a dozen times. Not only my pride, but Miss Mitty's rigid commands had kept me from her house, and the girl had promised that for the first six months she would not meet me except by chance.

"In the spring--oh, in the spring," she wrote, "I shall be free. My promise was given and I could not recall it, but I believe now that it was pride, not love, that made them exact it. Do you know, I sometimes think that they do not love me at all. They have both told me that they would rather see me dead than married, as they call it, beneath me.

Beneath me, indeed! Ah, dearest, dearest, how can one lower one's self to a giant? When I think of all that you are, of all that you have made yourself, I feel so humble and proud. The truth is, Ben, I'm not suffering half so much from love as I am from indignation. If it keeps up, some day I'll burst out like Aunt Matoaca, for I've got it in me.

And she of all people! Why, she goes about in her meek, sanctified manner distributing pamphlets on the emanc.i.p.ation of woman, and yet she actually told me the other day that, of course, she would prefer to have only 'ladies' permitted to vote. 'In that case, however,' she added, 'I should desire to restrict the franchise to gentlemen, also.' Did you ever in your whole life hear of anything so absurd, and she really meant it. She's a martyr, and filled with a holy zeal to get burned or racked.

But it's awful, every bit of it. Oh, lift me up, Ben! Lift me up!" And in a postscript, "What does the General say to you? Aunt Mitty has told the General."

The General had said nothing to me, but when I drove him up from his office the next day, he invited me to dine with him, and talked incessantly through the three simple courses about the prospects of the National Oil Company.

"So you're sweeping the whole South?" he said.

"Yes, Sam has made a big thing of it. We've knocked out everybody else in the oil business in this part of the world."

"Mark my word, then, you've been cutting into the interest of the oil trust, and it will come along presently and try to knock you out. When it does, Ben, make it pay, make it pay."

"Oh, I'll make it pay," I answered. "The consolidated interests may sweep out the independent companies, but they can't overturn the Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad."

"It's the road, of course, that has made such a success possible."

"Yes, it's the road--everything is the road, General."

"And to think that when I got control of it, it was bankrupt."

Rising from the table he took my arm, and limped painfully into his study, where he lit a cigar and sank back in his easy chair.

"Look here, Ben," he began suddenly, with a change of tone, "what's this trouble brewing between you and Miss Mitty Bland?"

"There's no trouble, sir, except that her niece has promised to marry me."

"Promised to marry you, eh? Sally Mickleborough? Are you sure it's Sally Mickleborough?"

"I'm hardly likely to be mistaken, General, about the ident.i.ty of my future wife."

"No, I suppose you ain't," he admitted, "but, good Lord, Ben, how did you make her do it?"

"I didn't make her. She was good enough to do it of her own accord."

"So she did it of her own accord? Well, confound you, boy, how did it ever occur to you to ask her?"

"That's what I can't answer, General, I don't believe it ever occurred to me any more than it occurred to me to fall in love with her."

"You've fallen in love with Sally Mickleborough, Miss Matoaca's niece.

She refused George, you know?"

I replied that I didn't know it, but I never supposed that she would engage herself to two men at the same time.

"And she's seriously engaged to you?" he demanded, still unconvinced.

"Are you precious sure she isn't flirting? Girls will flirt, and I don't reckon you've had much experience of 'em. Why, even Miss Mitty was known to flirt in a prim, stiff-necked fashion in her time, and as for Sarah Bland, they say she promised to marry a whole regiment before the battle of Seven Pines. A little warning beforehand ain't going to do any harm, Ben."

"I'm much obliged to you, General, but I don't think in this case it's needed. Sally is staunch and true."