Virginia: the Old Dominion Part 19

By this time, we were becoming anxious about the lateness of the season. Of course it was only through some mistake that we were getting all those fine warm days in December. Perhaps Nature had not had her weather eye open when Father Time wet his thumb and turned over to the last page of the calendar. But now, there was something in the look of the sky and in the feel of the air to make us fearful that the mix-up of the seasons had been discovered, and that winter was being prodded to the front.

Still we lingered in Eppes Creek, and soon we could not do otherwise than linger; for we wakened one morning to find the stream frozen over, and Gadabout presenting the incongruous spectacle of a houseboat fast in the ice.

All that day and the next the coldness held; and the ice and the tide battled along the creek with crackings and roarings and, now and then, reports like pistol shots. This surely was strange houseboating. It was a serious matter too. We knew that we might be held in the grip of the ice indefinitely. We did not care to spend the winter in Eppes Creek; nor could we abandon our boat there.

Throwing on our heavy wraps and trying to throw off our heavy spirits, we went above and paced the deck. In mockery our flags rippled under the northwest wind; from our flower-boxes, leafless, shrivelled little arms were held up to us; while our bright striped awning, with all its a.s.sociations of sunshine and summer-time, was close furled and frozen stiff and hung with icicles.

We were surprised enough when the weather suddenly changed again, and the bright, warm sun set up such a thawing as soon sent the ice out of the creek and our anxieties with it. But no time was to be lost in getting away from that beautiful, treacherous stream. We should make one more visit to Shirley and then head again up river. But that last visit should be a quite conventional one; we should run the houseboat around to the regular steamboat pier in front of the old manor-house.

It was a warm, hazy afternoon down in Eppes Creek when we untied our ropes from the trees (cast them off, we ought to say), and Gadabout pulled her nose from the reedy bank and slowly backed out into the stream. She was obeying every turn of the steering-wheel perfectly (as indeed she always did except when the mischievous wind put notions into her head); and it was not her fault at all when her bow swung round under the tree that leaned out over the water and almost knocked her little chimney off. We dropped down the stream and pa.s.sed out into the river where everything was softened and beautified by the light fog.

Skirting the low northern sh.o.r.e, we looked across the river at the high southern one where, through the mist, we could see the town of City Point and the bold promontory that marked where the Appomattox was flowing into the James. Upon the tip of the promontory was the home of the Eppes family, "Appomattox." While the present house is not a colonial one, the estate is one of the oldest in the country.

Now, just ahead of us was the Shirley pier on one side of the river and the village of Bermuda Hundred on the other. We headed first for the village, our intention being to get some supplies there.

We could not see much of Bermuda Hundred, perhaps because there was not much to see. It consists princ.i.p.ally of age, having been founded only four years after the settlement of James Towne. Still, we let the sailor go ash.o.r.e for b.u.t.ter and eggs, trusting that both would be as modern as possible. Our supplies aboard, Gadabout quickly carried us across the river and landed us at Shirley.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE KITCHEN BUILDING, FIFTY YARDS FROM THE MANOR-HOUSE.]

In that last visit to the old home, we went across the quadrangle and into the kitchen building, with its cook-room on one side of the hall and its bake-room on the other. Of course most of the colonial kitchen appointments had long since disappeared; but we were glad to see, in the stone-paved bake-room, the old-time brick ovens. With their cavernous depths, they were quite an object lesson in early Virginia hospitality.

And can any modern ranges bake quite as perfectly as did those colonial brick ovens? After a fire of oven-wood had flamed for hours in one of those brick chambers, and at last the iron door had been opened and the ashes swept out, the heated interior was ready to receive the meats and breads and pastry, and to bake them "to a turn."

When, in the restoration of Mount Vernon, the kitchen was reached, recourse was had to Shirley's kitchen. Drawings were made of an unusual colonial table, of a pair of andirons with hooks for spits to rest on, and of several other old-time cookery appointments; and, from these drawings, were constructed the duplicates that are now in the Mount Vernon kitchen.

It was on our way from the kitchen to the mansion that we came upon another visitor to Shirley. She was short and round and black and smiling and "feelin' tol'ble, thank you, ma'am." This, we learned, was Aunt Patsy. She had "jes heard dat Miss Marion done come home"; and so, arrayed in her best clothes including a spotless checked ap.r.o.n, she had come to "de gre't house" to pay her respects to Mrs. Oliver.

Drawn out somewhat for our benefit, she gave her views upon the subject of matrimony.

"I been married five times," she said. We were not particularly surprised at that; but were scarcely prepared for the added statement, "an' I done had two husban's."

However, no one could fail to understand Aunt Patsy's position, and to heartily agree with her, when she came to explain her marital paradox.

"De way 'tis is dis way," she said. "What I calls a _husban_' is one dat goes out, he do, an' gethahs up" (here, a sweeping gesture with the ap.r.o.n, suggestive of lavish ingathering), "gethahs up things an' brings 'em in to me. But what I calls _havin' a man aroun'_ is whar he sets by de fiah and smokes he pipe, while I goes out an' wuks an' brings things home, an' he eats what I gives him. An' dat's how come I been married five times, an' I done had two husban's."

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRICK OVEN IN THE BAKE-ROOM.]

Before the old oak chest was opened for us, that day at Shirley, we knew that this colonial home was rich in antique silver. Yet, the family speak of the many pieces as "remnants," because of the still greater number lost at the time of the war. The plate was sent for safe-keeping to a man in Richmond who was afterward able to account for but a small part of it. Evidently, the Hills and the Carters went far in following the old colonial custom of investing in household silver.

And as an investment the purchase of this ware was largely regarded in those days; family plate being deemed one of the best forms in which to hold surplus wealth.

Different periods are represented in the old pieces yet remaining at Shirley. There are the graceful, cla.s.sic types of the days of the Georges; the earlier ornate, rococo forms; and the yet earlier ma.s.sive styles of the time of Queen Anne and long before. Among the most ancient pieces, are heavy tankards that remind one of the long ago, when such great communal cups went round from merry lip to merry lip--microbes all unknown. The numerous spoons too speak of the time when there were no forks to share their labours. Most of the silver remaining to-day is engraved with the coat of arms of the Carters.

Suggestive of the days when colonial belles were toasted about Shirley's table, are the old punch bowl and the punch strainer and the wine coasters; though a more noteworthy object, having the same a.s.sociations, is an antique mahogany wine chest with many of the original cut gla.s.s bottles still in its compartments.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOME NOTEWORTHY PIECES OF OLD SHIRLEY PLATE.]

And looking at Shirley's old silver in Shirley's old dining-room, we thought of the lavish colonial entertainments in which both had played their part. What hospitable places were those early planters' homes! As courts, a.s.semblies, races, funerals, weddings, and festivals took the people up and down the country, they found few inns; but, instead, at every great plantation, wide-spreading roofs and ever-open doors. The spirit of welcome even stood at the gates and laid hands upon the pa.s.sing traveller, drawing him up the shady avenues and into the hospitable homes.

In the days of the colonial Carters (who, through a complicated network of intermarriages, were cousins to all the rest of Virginia), Shirley must often have been full to overflowing.

And, along with our thoughts of Shirley's hospitality, came the recollection of a pretty story that had been told to us one day at Brandon by Miss Mary Lee, daughter of General Robert E. Lee. It was a story of one of the merry, old-time gatherings about Charles Carter's long table in the Shirley dining-room. Among the guests was a dashing young cavalry officer who had won fame and the rank of general in the Revolutionary War; and who, in his unsatisfied military ardour, was contemplating joining the Revolutionary Army of France. But just now, he was contemplating only his host and his dinner.

Suddenly, he became aware of a flushed and charming maiden in distress.

She had lifted a great cut gla.s.s dish filled with strawberries, and it was more than her little hands could hold. She strove to avert a crash; and, just in time, the gallant young General caught the appealing look from the dark eyes and the toppling dish from the trembling hands. But in saving the bowl and the berries, he lost his heart.

And the maiden was Anne Hill Carter, daughter of the genial host; and the young General was "Light Horse Harry" Lee. The dreams of further glory on French battlefields were abandoned; and there was another feast at Shirley when bridal roses of June were in bloom. The young people went to live at Stratford, the ancestral home of the Lees; and there was born their famous son, Robert E. Lee.

As Shirley's old dining-room thus brought to our minds that greatest Virginian of our day, so it brought to mind the greatest Virginian of all days; for, even as we looked at silver and thought of love stories, a life-size portrait of George Washington, by Charles Wilson Peale, stood looking down upon us from the panelled wall.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PEALE'S PORTRAIT OF GEORGE WASHINGTON.]

It is a noted and invaluable canvas that hangs there at Shirley, and it is doubtless a good likeness of the Father of our Country; but it is not just the George Washington that most of us have in our mind's eye.

When the average American thinks of hatchets and cherry trees and abnormal truthfulness, the face that rises before him is that benign and fatherly one that he has seen a thousand times in the popular reproductions of the portrait by Gilbert Stuart. Just as for generations only the good has been told of George Washington, so has this handsomest picture (doubtless a trifle flattering) always been the popular one.

However, in this day, when the ideal George Washington of story is being ruthlessly brushed aside in the search for the real flesh-and-blood man, any canvas also that has idealized him is somewhat in jeopardy.

It is well that the Washington of Sparks and of Irving and of Stuart should be superseded by the truer Washington of Mitch.e.l.l and of Ford and of Peale; but the result will be that, for a while, the country will scarcely recognize its own father.

Always at Shirley our interest came back to the old colonial hall. Of course, to get the good of it, one had to set one's eyes so as to throw out of focus many marks of modernism; but that adjustment would almost come of itself with a little study of quaint transoms, or of ancient hatchments, or, above all, of the time-worn stairway.

Why is it that the spirit of the long-ago so clings about an old stairway? Why should the empty stair seem to remember so much, to suggest so much, of a life that came to it only in fitful pa.s.sings and that left nothing of itself behind?

There were no signs of that long by-gone life upon Shirley's stairway, save for a dimming of the old rail where countless hands--strong, feeble, fair--had lightly rested or, more helpless, clung; and save for that worn trail of the generations that followed up the dull, dark treads. But even these had much to tell of the pa.s.sings for nearly two centuries and a half up and down this household highway: of the masterful tread of spur-shod boots, the dancing of the belle's slim-slippered feet, the pompous double steps of b.u.mpy baby shoes, the gouty stump of old grandsire, and the faithful shamble of the black boy at his heels.

That day (regretfully our last in this colonial home) not only the stairway but all of the old house seemed inclined to become reminiscent. Nautica noticed this in the quiet drawing-room that would keep bringing up by-gone times, and, she insisted, by-gone people too.

In the great hall, even the Commodore felt the mood of old Shirley and the presence of a life that all seemed natural enough, but that must have come a good ways out of the past.

On the staircase, despite the dim light over there (or because of it), one could even catch sight of a shadowy old-time company.

There were stately figures pa.s.sing up and down: the old lords of the wilderness in velvet coats and huge wigs, and ladies of the wilderness too in rich brocades and laced stomachers. There were many slender and youthful figures. Charmingly odd and quaint were the merry groups of girls, catching and swaying upon the shadowy stair; dainty ruffles peeping through the bal.u.s.ters; laughing faces bending above the dark, old rail. And fine indeed were the gallants that did them homage; those young colonials of bright velvets and flowered waistcoats and lace ruffles and powdered periwigs.

Now, from the stairway the old-time life spread throughout the old-time home. Shirley was living over again some merry-making of colonial days.

That was the Governor that just pa.s.sed with the glint of gold lace and the glint of gold snuff-box; and that, a councillor's lady that rustled by in stiff silks, her feet in gold-heeled slippers and her powdered head dressed "Dutch." And quite as fine and quite as quaint were the ladies that followed in their gay flowered "sacques" looped back from bright petticoats and point lace ap.r.o.ns.

It was all as London-like as might be: rich velvets and brocades, wide-hooped skirts and stiff stomachers, laced coats and embroidered waistcoats, broad tuckers and Mechlin ruffles, high-heeled shoes and handsome buckles, powdered wigs and powdered puffs, and crescent beauty patches.

Evidently, by colonial time, twilight was coming on; for now the fragrant bayberry candles were lighted. There was the faint tinkle of a harpsichord. Dim figures moved in the stately minuet; their curtsies, punctiliously in keeping with the last word from London, were "slow and low."

Little groups gathered about the card tables, where fresh candles and ivory counters were waiting. Lovers found their way to deep window-seats; and lovers of yet another sort to br.i.m.m.i.n.g gla.s.ses and colonial toasts, and perhaps to wigs awry.

It was the old-time Shirley, the strange, incongruous Shirley that was a bright bit of English manor life within; and, without, wilderness and savages and tobacco-fields and Africans. In from the life of the old messuage, came a touch of the barbaric; weird minor songs that belonged with the hot throb of the African tom-tom floated in through the deep windows, and strangely mingled with the thin tinkle of the harpsichord and the tender strains of an old English ballad.

The green bayberry candles grew dim, and in their fragrant smoke the old colonials faded away. Our visit at Shirley was over.

Out in the quadrangle, we turned for a last look at the homestead, and were almost forced to doubt that old colonial scene that we had just left within. There stood the fine buildings in perfect preservation, insisting at last as they had insisted at first that this matter of old age was but a huge mistake--that they had been built but yesterday.