第11章 THE GIRL BEHIND THE COUNTER--I(1)
I fear--no;to say one "fears"that one has stepped aside from the narrow path of duty,when one knows perfectly well that one has done so,is a ridiculous half-dodging of the truth;let me dismiss from my service such a cowardly circumlocution,and squarely say that I neglected the Cowpens during certain days which now followed.Nay,more;I totally deserted them.Although I feel quite sure that to discover one is a real king's descendant must bring an exultation of no mean order to the heart,there's no exultation whatever in failing to discover this,day after day.Mine is a nature which demands results,or at any rate signs of results coming sooner or later.Even the most abandoned fisherman requires a bite now and then;but my fishing for Fannings had not yet brought me one single nibble--and I gave up the sad sport for a while.
The beautiful weather took me out of doors over the land,and also over the water,for I am a great lover of sailing;and I found a little cat-boat and a little negro,both of which suited me very well.I spent many delightful hours in their company among the deeps and shallows of these fair Southern waters.
And indoors,also,I made most agreeable use of my time,in spite of one disappointment when,on the day following my visit to the ladies,I re-turned full of expectancy to lunch at the Woman's exchange,the girl behind the counter was not there.I found in her stead,it is true,a most polite lady,who provided me with chocolate and sandwiches that were just as good as their predecessors;but she was of advanced years,and little inclined to light conversation.Beyond telling me that Miss Eliza La Heu was indisposed,but not gravely so,and that she was not likely to be long away from her post of duty,this lady furnished me with scant information.
Now I desired a great deal of information.To learn of an imminent wedding where the bridegroom attends to the cake,and is suspected of diminished eagerness for the bride,who is a steel wasp--that is not enough to learn of such nuptials.Therefore I fear--I mean,I know--that it was not wholly for the sake of telling Mrs.Gregory St.Michael about Aunt Carola that I repaired again to Le Maire Street and rang Mrs.St.
Michael's door-bell.
She was at home,to be sure,but with her sat another visitor,the tall,severe lady who had embroidered and had not liked the freedom with which her sister had spoken to me about the wedding.There was not a bit of freedom to-day;the severe lady took care of that.
When,after some utterly unprofitable conversation,I managed to say in a casual voice,which I thought very well tuned for the purpose,"What part of Georgia did you say that General Rieppe came from?"the severe lady responded:--"I do not think that I mentioned him at all.""Georgia?"said Mrs.Gregory St.Michael."I never heard that they came from Georgia."And this revived my hopes.But the severe lady at once remarked to her:--"I have received a most agreeable letter from my sister in Paris."This stopped Mrs.Gregory St.Michael,and dashed my hopes to earth.
The severe lady continued to me:--
"My sister writes of witnessing a performance of the Lohengrin.Can you tell me if it is a composition of merit?"I assured her that it was a composition of the highest merit.
"It is many years since I have heard an opera,"she pursued."In my day the works of the Italians were much applauded.But I doubt if Mozart will be surpassed.I hope you admire the Nozze?"You will not need me to tell you that I came out of Mrs.Gregory St.
Michael's house little wiser than I went in.My experience did not lead me to abandon all hope.I paid other visits to other ladies;but these answered my inquiries in much the same sort of way as had the lady who admired Mozart.They spoke delightfully of travel,books,people,and of the colonial renown of Kings Port and its leading families;but it is scarce an exaggeration to say that Mozart was as near the cake,the wedding,or the steel wasp as I came with any of them.By patience,however,and mostly at our boarding-house table,I gathered a certain knowledge,though small in amount.
If the health of John Mayrant's mother,I learned,had allowed that lady to bring him up Herself,many follies might have been saved the youth.
His aunt,Miss Eliza St.Michael,though a pattern of good intentions,was not always a pattern of wisdom.Moreover,how should a spinster bring up a boy fitly?
Of the Rieppes,father and daughter,I also learned a little more.They did not (most people believed)come from Georgia.Natchez and Mobile seemed to divide the responsibility of giving them to the world.It was quite certain the General had run away from Chattanooga.Nobody disputed this,or offered any other battle as the authentic one.Of late the Rieppes were seldom to be seen in Kings Port.Their house (if it had ever been their own property,which I heard hotly argued both ways)had been sold more than two years ago,and their recent brief sojourns in the town were generally beneath the roof of hospitable friends--people by the name of Cornerly,"whom we do not know,"as I was carefully informed by more than one member of the St.Michael family.The girl had disturbed a number of mothers whose sons were prone to slip out of the strict hereditary fold in directions where beauty or champagne was to be found;and the Cornerlys dined late,and had champagne.Miss Hortense had "splurged it"a good deal here,and the measure of her success with the male youth was the measure of her condemnation by their female elders.