Temple Bailey - The Trumpeter Swan

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It was a long speech. "So now you see," she said, as she ended, "why I
like Dickens."

"Yes. I see. And so--in your next incarnation you are going to be
like----"

"Little Dorrit."

He laughed and leaned forward. "I can't imagine--you."

"She really had a heavenly time. Dickens tried to make you feel sorry
for her. But she had the best of it all through. Somebody always wanted
her."

"But she was imposed upon. And her unselfishness brought her heavy
burdens."

"She got a lot out of it in the end, didn't she? And what do selfish
people get? I'm one of them. I live absolutely for myself. There isn't a
person except Flora who gets anything of service or self-sacrifice out
of me. I came down here because she wanted me, but I hated to come. The
modern theory is that unselfishness weakens. And the modern psychologist
would tell you that little Dorrit was all wrong. She gave herself for
others--and it didn't pay. But does the other thing pay?"

"Selfishness?"

"Yes. I'm selfish, and Oscar is, and Flora, and George Dalton, and most
of the people we know. And we are all bored to death. If being unselfish
is interesting, why not let us be unselfish?" Her lively glance seemed
to challenge him, and they laughed together.

"I know what you mean."

"Of course you do. Everybody does who _thinks_."

"And so you are going to wait for the next plane to do the things that
you want to do?"

"Yes."

"But why--wait?"

"How can I break away? I am tied into knots with the people whom I have
always known; and I shall keep on doing the things I have always done,
just as I shall keep on wearing pale purples and letting my skin get
burned so that I may seem distinctive."

It came to him with something of a shock that she did these things with
intention. That the charms which seemed to belong to her were carefully
planned.

Yet how could he tell if what she said was true, when her eyes laughed?

"I shall get all I can out of being here. Mary Flippin is going to let
me help her make butter, and Mrs. Flippin will teach me to make
corn-bread, and some day I am going fishing with the Judge and Mr.
Flippin and learn to fry eggs out-of-doors----"

"So those are the things you like?"

She nodded. "I think I do. George Dalton says it is only because I crave
a change. But it isn't that. And I haven't told him the way I feel about
it--the Dickens way--as I have told you."

He was glad that she had not talked to Dalton as she had talked to him.

"I wonder," he said slowly, "why you couldn't shake yourself free from
the life which binds you?"

"I'm not strong enough. I'm like the drug-fiend, who doesn't want his
drug, but can't give it up."

"Perhaps you need--help. There are doctors of everything, you know, in
these days."

"None that can cure me of the habit of frivolity--of the claims of
custom----"

"If a man takes a drug, he is cured by substituting something else for a
while until he learns to do without it."

"What would you substitute for--my drug?"

"I'll have to think about it. May I come again and tell you?"

"Of course. I am dying to know."

Mrs. Flippin entered just then with a tall pitcher of lemonade and a
plate of delicate cakes. "I think Miss MacVeigh is looking mighty fine,"
she said; "don't you, Major?"

He would not have dared to tell how fine she looked to him.

He limped across the room with the plate of cakes, and poured lemonade
into a glass for Madge. Her eyes followed his strong soldierly figure.
What a man he must have been before the war crippled him. What a man he
was still, and his strength was not merely that of body. She felt the
strength too of mind and soul.

"I think," said Mrs. Flippin that night, "that Major Prime is one of the
nicest men."

Madge was in bed. The nurse had made her ready for the night, and was
out on the porch with Mr. Flippin. Mrs. Flippin had fallen into the
habit of having a little nightly talk with Madge. She missed her
daughter, and Madge was pleasant and friendly.

"I think that Major Prime is one of the nicest men," repeated Mrs.
Flippin as she sat down beside the bed, "but what a dreadful thing that
he is lame."

"I am not sure," Madge said, "that it is dreadful."

She hastened to redeem herself from any possible charge of
bloodthirstiness.

"I don't mean," she said, "that it isn't awful for a man to lose his leg.
But men who go through a thing like that and come out--conquerors--are
rather wonderful, Mrs. Flippin."

Madge had hold of Mrs. Flippin's hand. She often held it in this quiet
hour, and the idea rather amused her. She was not demonstrative, and it
seemed inconceivable that she should care to hold Mrs. Flippin's hand.
But there was a motherliness about Mrs. Flippin, a quality with which
Madge had never before come closely in contact. "It is like the way I
used to feel when I was a little girl and said my prayers at night," she
told herself.

Madge did not say her prayers now. Nobody did, apparently. She thought
it rather a pity. It was a comfortable thing to do. And it meant a great
deal if you only believed in it.

"Do you say your prayers, Mrs. Flippin?" she asked suddenly.

Mrs. Flippin was getting used to Madge's queer questions. She treated
them as a missionary might treat the questions of a beautiful and
appealing savage, who having gone with him to some strange country was
constantly interrogatory.

"She don't seem to know anything about the things we do," Mrs. Flippin
told her husband. "She got the nurse to wheel her out into the kitchen
this afternoon, and watched me frost a cake and cut out biscuits. And
she says that she has never seen anything so sociable as the teakettle,
the way it rocks and sings."

So now when Madge asked Mrs. Flippin if she said her prayers, Mrs.
Flippin said, "Do you mean at night?"

"Yes."

"Bob and I say them together," said Mrs. Flippin. "We started on our
wedding night, and we ain't ever stopped."

It was a simple statement of a sublime fact. For thirty years this plain
man and this plain woman had kept alive the spiritual flame on the
household altar. No wonder that peace was under this roof and serenity.

Madge, as she lay there holding Mrs. Flippin's hand, looked very young,
almost like a little girl. Her hair was parted and the burnished braids
lay heavy on her lovely neck. Her thin fine gown left her arms bare.
"Mrs. Flippin," she said, "I wish I could live here always, and have you
come every night and sit and hold my hand."

Her eyes were smiling and Mrs. Flippin smiled back. "You'd get tired."

"No," said Madge, "I don't believe anybody ever gets tired of goodness.
Not real goodness. The kind that isn't hypocritical or priggish. And in
these days it is so rare, that one just loves it. I am bored to death
with near-bad people, Mrs. Flippin, and near-good ones. I'd much rather
have them real saints and real sinners."

The nurse came in just then, and Mrs. Flippin went away. And after a
time the house was very still. Madge's bed was close to the window.
Outside innumerable fireflies studded the night with gold. Now and then
a screech-owl sounded his mournful note. It was a ghostly call, and
there was the patter of little feet on the porch as the old cat played
with her kittens in the warm dark. But Madge was not afraid. She had a
sense of great content as she lay there and thought of the things she
had said to Major Prime. It was not often that she revealed herself, and
when she did it was still rarer to meet understanding. But he had
understood. She was sure of that, and she would see him soon. He had
promised. And she would not have to go back to Oscar and Flora until she
was ready. Flora was better, but still very weak. It would be much
wiser, the doctor had said, if she saw no one but her nurses for several
days.

II

Truxton Beaufort rode over to King's Crest the next morning, and sat on
the steps of the Schoolhouse. Randy and Major Prime were having
breakfast out-of-doors. It was ten o'clock, but they were apparently
taking their ease.

"I thought you had to work," Truxton said to Randy.

"I sold a car yesterday----"

"And to-day you are playing around like a plutocrat. I wish I could sell
cars. I wish I could do _anything_. Look here, you two. I wonder if you
feel as I do."

"About what?"

"Coming back. I came home expecting a pedestal--and I give you my word
nobody seems to think much of me except my family. And they aren't
worshipful--exactly. They can't be. How can they rave over my one
decoration when that young nigger John has two, and deserved them, and
when the butcher and baker and candlestick-maker are my ranking
officers? War used to be a gentleman's game. But it isn't any more."

"We've got to carve our own pedestals," said the Major. "We are gods of
yesterday. The world won't stop to praise us. We did our duty, and we
would do it again. But our laurel wreaths are doffed. Our swords are
beaten into plowshares. Peace is upon us. If we want pedestals, we've
got to carve them."

Truxton argued that it wasn't quite fair. The Major agreed that it might
not seem so, but the thing had been so vast, and there were so many men
involved, so many heroes.

"Every little family has a hero of its own," Truxton supplemented. "Mary
thinks none of the others did _anything_--I won the _whole_ war. That's
where I have it over you two," he grinned.

"It is a thing," said the Major, cheerfully, "which can be remedied."

"It can," Truxton told him; "which reminds me that our young John is
going to marry Flippins' Daisy, and our household is in mourning. Mandy
doesn't approve of Daisy, and neither does Calvin. Mandy took to her bed
when she heard the news, and young John cooked breakfast to the tune of
his Daddy's lamentations. But it was a good breakfast."

"Marriage," said the Major, "seems rather epidemic in these days."

Randy rose restlessly and sat on the porch rail. "Why in the world does
John want to marry Daisy----"

"Why not?" easily. "There's some style about Daisy----"

"But there are lots of nice, comfortable, hard-working girls in this
neighborhood."

"Lead me to 'em," Truxton mimicked young John, "lead me to 'em. Mary
says that Daisy is the best of the lot. She has plenty of good sense
back of her foolishness, and she is one of the best cooks in the county.
She and John are planning to go up to Washington and open an
old-fashioned oyster house. She says that people are complaining that
they can't get oysters as they did in the old days, and she is going to
show them. I wouldn't be surprised if they made a success of it. And I
tell you this--I envy John. He will have a paying business, and here I
am without a thing ahead of me, and I have married a wife and the ravens
won't feed us."

Randy stuck his hands in his pockets with an air of sudden resolution.

"Look here," he said, "why can't we go halves in this car business? It
will pay our expenses, and we can finish our law course at the
University."

"Law? Oh, look here, Randy, I thought you had given that up."

"I haven't, and why should you? We will finish, and some day we will
open an office together."

The Major, whistling softly, listened and said nothing.

"I have been thinking a lot about it," Randy went on, "and I can't see
much of a future ahead of me. Not the kind of future that our families
are expecting of us. You and I have got to stand for something, Truxton,
or some day the world will be saying that all the great men died with
Thomas Jefferson."

The Major went on with his lilting tune. What a pair they were, these
lads! Randy, afire with his dreams, and rather tragic in his dreaming.
Truxton, light as a feather--laughing.

"Why can't we give to the world as much as the men who have gone before
us?" Randy was demanding. "Are we going to take everything from our
ancestors, and give nothing to our descendants?"

Truxton chuckled. "By Jove," he said, "now that I come to think of it, I
am the head of a family--there's Fiddle-dee-dee, and I shall have to
reckon with Fiddle-dee-dee's children and grandchildren and
great-grandchildren--who will expect that my portrait will hang on the
wall at Huntersfield."

"It is all very well to laugh," said Randy hotly, "but that is the way
it looks to me; that we have got to show to the world that our ambitions
are--big. It is all very well to talk about the day's work. I am going
to do it, and pay my way, but there's got to be something beyond that to
think about--something bigger than I have ever known."

He gained dignity through the sincerity of his purpose. The Major, still
whistling softly, wondered what had come over the boy. He recognized a
difference since he had last talked to him. Randy was not only roused;
he was ready to look life in the face, to wrest from it the best. "If
that is what love of the little girl is doing for him," said the Major
to himself, "then let him love her."

Truxton continued to treat the situation lightly. "Look here," he said,
"do you think you are going to be the only great man in our generation?"

Randy laughed; but the fire was still in his eyes. "The county will hold
the two of us."

And now the Major spoke. "No man can be great by simply saying it. But I
think most of our great men have expected things of themselves. They
have dreamed dreams of greatness. I fancy that Lincoln did in his log
cabin, and Roosevelt on the plains. And it wasn't egotism--it was a
boy's wish to give himself to the world. And the wish was the urge. And
the trouble with many of our men in these days is that they are content
to dream of what they can get instead of what they can do. Paine has the
right idea. There must be a day's work no matter how hard, and it must
be done well, but beyond that must be a dream of bigger things for the
future----"

Truxton stood up. "I asked for bread and you have given me--caviar.
Sufficient unto the day is the greatness thereof. And in the meantime,
Randy, I will make the grand gesture--and help you sell cars." He was
grinning as he left them. "Good-bye, Major. Good-bye, T. Jefferson, Jr.
Let me know when you want me in your Cabinet."

It was late that afternoon that Mary, looking for her husband, found him
in the Judge's library.

"What are you doing?" she asked, with lively curiosity.

Truxton was sitting on the floor with a pile of calf-bound books beside
him.

"What are you doing, lover?"

"Come here and I'll tell you." He made a seat for her of four of the big
books. His arm went around her and he laid his head against her
shoulder.

"Mary," he said, "I am carving a pedestal."

"You are what?"

He explained. He laughed a great deal as he gave her an account of his
conversation with the Major and Randy that morning.

"You see before you," with a final flourish, "a potential great man. A
Thomas Jefferson, up-to-date; a John Randolph of the present day; the
Lincoln of my own time; the ancestor of Fiddle's great-grandchildren."

She rumpled his hair. "I like you as you are."

He caught her hand and held it. "But you'd like me on--a pedestal?"

"If you'll let me help you carve it."

He kissed the hand that he held. "If I am ever anything more than I am,"
he said, and now he was not laughing, "it will be because of you--my
dearest darling."

CHAPTER XII

INDIAN--INDIAN

I

The Merriweather fortunes had not been affected by the fall of the
Confederacy. There had been money invested in European ventures, and
when peace had come in sixty-five, the old grey stone house had again
flung wide its doors to the distinguished guests who had always honored
it, and had resumed its ancient custom of an annual harvest ball.

The ballroom, built at the back of the main house, was connected with it
by wide curving corridors, which contained the family portraits, and
which had long windows which opened out on little balconies. On the
night of the ball these balconies were lighted by round yellow lanterns,
so that the effect from the outside was that of a succession of full
moons.

The ballroom was octagonal, and canopied with a blue ceiling studded
with silver stars. There were cupids with garlands on the side walls,
and faded blue brocade hangings. Across one end of the ballroom was the
long gallery reserved for those whom the Merriweathers still called "the
tenantry," and it was here that Mary and Mrs. Flippin always sat after
baking cakes.

Mrs. Flippin had not baked the cakes to-day, nor was she in the gallery,
for her daughter, Mary, was among the guests on the ballroom floor, and
her mother's own good sense had kept her at home.

"I shall look after Miss MacVeigh," she had said. "I want Truxton to
bring you over and show you in your pretty new dress."

When they came, Madge, who was sitting up, insisted that she, too, must
see Mary. "My dear, my dear," she said, "what a wonderful frock."

"Yes," Mary said, "it is. It is one of Becky's, and she gave it to me.
And the turquoises are Mrs. Beaufort's."

Madge, who knew the whole alphabet of smart costumers, was aware of the
sophisticated perfection of that fluff of jade green tulle. The touch of
gold at the girdle, the flash of gold for the petticoat. She guessed the
price, a stiff one, and wondered that Mary should speak of it casually
as "one of Becky's."

"The turquoises are the perfect touch."

"That was Becky's idea. It seemed queer to me at first, blue with the
green. But she said if I just wore this band around my hair, and the
ring. And it does seem right, doesn't it?"

"It is perfect. What is Miss Bannister wearing?"

"Silver and white--lace, you know. The new kind, like a cobweb--with
silver underneath--and a rose-colored fan--and pearls. You should see
her pearls, Miss MacVeigh. Tell her about them, Truxton."

"Well, once upon a time they belonged to a queen. Becky's
great-grandfather on the Meredith side was a diplomat in Paris, and he
bought them, or so the story runs. Becky only wears a part of them. The
rest are in the family vaults."

Madge listened, and showed no surprise. But that account of lace and
silver, and priceless pearls did not sound in the least like the new
little girl about whom George had, in the few times that she had seen
him of late, been so silent.

"If only Flora would get well, and let me leave this beastly hole," had
been the burden of his complaint.

"I thought you liked it."

"It is well enough for a time."

"What about the new little girl?"

He was plainly embarrassed, but bluffed it out. "I wish you wouldn't ask
questions."

"I wish you wouldn't be--rude--Georgie-Porgie."

"I hate that name, Madge. Any man has a right to be rude when a woman
calls him 'Georgie-Porgie.'"

"So that's it? Well, now run along. And please don't come again until
you are nice--and smiling."

"Oh, look here, Madge."

"Run along----"

"But there isn't any place to run."

Laughter lurked in her eyes. "Oh, Georgie-Porgie--for once in your life
can't you run away?"

"Do you think you are funny?"

"Perhaps not. Smile a little, Georgie."

"How can anybody smile, with everybody sick?"

"Oh, no, we're not. We are better. I am so glad that Flora is
improving."

"Oscar thinks it is because that little old man prayed for her. Fancy
Oscar----"

Madge meditated. "Yet it might be, you know, George. There are things in
that old man's petition that transcend all our philosophy."

"Oh, you're as bad as Oscar," said George. He rose and stood frowning on
the threshold. "Well, good-bye, Madge."

"Good-bye, Georgie, and smile when you come again."

She had guessed then that something had gone wrong in the game with the
new little girl. She had a consuming curiosity to know the details. But
she could never force things with Georgie. Some day, perhaps, he would
tell her.

And now here was news indeed! She waited until young Beaufort and his
wife had driven away, and until Mrs. Flippin had time for that quiet
hour by her bedside.

"Mary looked lovely," said Madge.

"Didn't she?" Mrs. Flippin rocked and talked. "You would never have
known that dress was made for anybody but for Mary. Becky gave Mary
another dress out of a lot she had down from New York. It is yellow
organdie, made by hand and with little embroidered scallops."

Madge knew the house which made a specialty of those organdie gowns with
embroidered scallops, and she knew the price.

"But how does--Becky manage to have such lovely things?"

"Oh, she's rich," Mrs. Flippin was rocking comfortably. "You would never
know it, and nobody thinks of it much. But she's got money. From her
grandmother. And there was something in the will about having her live
out of the world as long as she could. That's why they sent her to a
convent and kept her down here as much as possible. She ain't ever
seemed to care for clothes. She could always have had anything she
wanted, but she ain't cared. She told Mary that she had a sudden notion
to have some pretty things, and she sent for them, and it was lucky for
Mary that she did. She couldn't have gone to this ball, for there wasn't
any time to get anything made. Mr. Flippin and I are going to buy her
some nice things when she goes to Richmond. But they won't be like the
things that Becky gets, of course."

Madge, listening to further details of the Meredith fortunes, wondered
how much of this Georgie knew. "Becky's mother died when she was five,
and her father two years later," Mrs. Flippin was saying. "She might
have been spoiled to death if she had been brought up as some children
are. But she has spent her winters at the convent with Sister Loretto,
and she's never worn much of anything but the uniform of the school. You
wouldn't think that she had any money to see her, would you, Miss
MacVeigh?"

"No, you wouldn't," said Madge, truthfully.

It was after nine o'clock--a warm night--with no sound but the ticking
of the clock and the insistent hum of locusts.

"Mrs. Flippin," said Madge, "I wish you'd call up Hamilton Hill and ask
for Mr. Dalton, and tell him that Miss MacVeigh would like to have him
come and see her if he has nothing else on hand."

Mrs. Flippin looked her astonishment. "To-night?"

"Oh, I am not going to receive him this way," Madge reassured her. "If
he can come, I'll get nurse to dress me and make me comfy in the
sitting-room."

Having ascertained that Dalton would be over at once, the nurse was
called, and Madge was made ready. It was a rather high-handed
proceeding, and both Mrs. Flippin and the nurse stood aghast.

The nurse protested. "You really ought not, Miss MacVeigh."

"I love to do things that I ought not to do."

"But you'll tire yourself."

"If you were my Mary," said Mrs. Flippin severely, "I wouldn't let you
have your way----"

"I love to have my own way, Mrs. Flippin. And--I am not your Mary"--then
fearing that she had hurt the kind heart, she caught Mrs. Flippin's hand
in her own and kissed it,--"but I wish I were. You're such a lovely
mother."

Mrs. Flippin smiled at her. "I'm as near like your mother as a hen is
mother to a bluebird."

Madge, robed in the mauve gown, refused to have her hair touched. "I
like it in braids," and so when George came there she sat in the
sitting-room, all gold and mauve--a charming picture for his sulky
eyes.

"Oh," she said, as he came in, in a gray sack suit, with a gray cap in
his hand, "why, you aren't even dressed for dinner!"

"Why should I be?" he demanded. "Kemp has left me."

She had expected something different. "Kemp?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"He didn't give any reason. Just said he was going--and went. He said he
had intended to go before, and had only stayed until Mrs. Waterman was
better. Offered to stay on a little longer if it would embarrass me any
to have him leave. I told him that if he wanted to go, he could get out
now. And he is packing his bags."

"But what will you do without him?"

"I have wired to New York for a Jap."

"Where will Kemp go?"

"To King's Crest. To work for that lame officer--Prime."

"Oh--Major Prime? How did it happen?"

"Heaven only knows. I call it a mean trick."

"Well, of course, Kemp had a right to go if he wanted to. And perhaps
you will like a Jap better. You always said Kemp was too independent."

"He is," shortly, "but I hate to be upset. It seems as if everything
goes wrong these days. What did you want with me, Madge?"

Her eyelashes flickered as she surveyed him. "I wanted to see
you--smile, Georgie."

"You didn't bring me down here to tell me that----" But in spite of
himself the corners of his lips curled. "Oh, what's the answer, Madge?"
he said, and laughed in spite of himself.

"I wanted to talk a little about--your Becky."

His laughter died at once. "Well, I'm not going to talk about her."

"Please--I am dying of curiosity--I hear that she is very--rich,
Georgie."

"Rich?"

"Yes. She has oodles of money----"

"I don't believe it."

"But it is true, Georgie."

"Who told you?"

"Mrs. Flippin."

"It is all--rot----"

"It isn't rot, Georgie. Mrs. Flippin knows about it. Becky inherits from
her Meredith grandmother. And her grandfather is Admiral Meredith of
Nantucket, with a big house on Beacon Street in Boston. And they all
belong to the inner circle."

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