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Chanticleer: A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family, a fiction by Cornelius Mathews |
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CHAPTER 6. THE FASHIONABLE LADY AND HER SON |
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_ CHAPTER 6. THE FASHIONABLE LADY AND HER SON All the next day, being the Wednesday before thanksgiving, was alive and busy with the various preparations for the great festival, now held to be a sacred holiday throughout this wide-spread union. The lark had no sooner called morning in the meadow than Mopsey, who seemed to regard herself as having the entire weight of the occasion on her single shoulders, slipped from bed, hurried to the garden, and taking a last look at the great pumpkin as it lay in all its golden glory, severed the vine at a stroke and trundled it with her own arms, (she saw with a smile of pity the poor brown mouse skulking off, like a little pirate as he was, disappointed of his prize,) in at the back-door. The Peabodys were gathering for breakfast, and coming forward, stood at either side of the entrance regarding the pumpkin with profound interest. It fairly shook the house as it rolled in upon the kitchen floor. When little Sam, who had lingered in bed beyond the others, with pleasant dreams, came down stairs, he was met by young William Peabody. "What do you think, Sam?" said Peabody Junior, smiling. "I suppose Aunt Carrack has come," Sam answered. "It's nothing to me if she has." "No, that isn't it.--Turkey's dead!" Little Sam dropped a tear, and went away by himself to walk in the garden. Little Sam took no breakfast that morning. Every window in the house was thrown wide open to begin with; every chair walked out of its place; the new broom which Miriam had gathered with a song, was used for the first time freely on every floor, in every nook and corner; then the new broom was carried away, and locked in a closet like a conjuror who had wrought his spell and need not appear again till some other magic was to be performed. All the chairs were set soberly and steadily against the wall, the windows were closed, and a sacred shade thrown over the house against the approaching festival. The key was turned in the lock of the old parlor, which was to have no company (save the tall old clock talking all alone in the corner to himself) till to-morrow. And so the day sailed on, like a dainty boat with silent oar on a calm-flowing stream, to evening, when, as though it had been a new-born meteor or great will-o'-the-wisp, there appeared on the edge of the twilight, along the distant horizon, a silvery glitter, which, drawing nearer and nearer, presently disclosed a servant in a shining band mounted on a great coach, with horses in burnished harness; with champing speed, which it seemed must have borne it far beyond, it came to in a moment at the very gate of the homestead, as at the striking of a clock. A gentleman in bearded lip, in high polish of hat, chains and boots, emerged, (the door being opened by a stripling also in a banded hat, who leaped from behind,) followed by a lady in a gown of glossy silk and a yellow feather, waving in the partial darkness from her hat. Such wonder and astonishment as seized on the Peabodys, who looked on it from the balcony, no man can describe. Angels have descended before now and walked upon the earth--giants have been at some time or other seen strutting about--ghosts appear occasionally in the neighborhood of old farm-houses, but neither ghost, giant, nor angel had such a welcome of uplifted hands and staring eyes as encountered Mrs. Carrack and her son Tiffany, when they, in the body entered in at the gate of the old Peabody mansion at that time. There was but one person in the company, old Sylvester perhaps excepted, who seemed to have his wits about him, and that was the red rooster who, sitting on the wall near the gate when Mr. Tiffany Carrack pushed it open, cocked his eye smartly on him, and darted sharply at his white hand, with its glittering jewel as he laid it on the gate. "Nancy," said old Sylvester, addressing her with extended grasp, and a pleasant smile of welcome on his brow, "we had given up looking for you." Was there ever such a rash old man! "Nancy!" as though she had been a common person he was speaking to. Mrs. Carrack, who was a short woman, stiff and stern, tossing her feather, gave the tips of her fingers to the patriarch, and ordering in a huge leathern trunk all over brass nails and capital C's, condescended to enter into the house. In spite of all resolutions and persuasions to the contrary the door of the best parlor unlocked before her grandeur of demeanor, and she took possession as though she had not the slightest connection with the other members of the Peabody family, nor the remotest interest in the common sitting-room without. Mr. Tiffany Carrack, with patent shanks to his boots which sprang him into the air as he walked, corsets to brace his body in, new-fangled straps to keep him down, a patent collar of a peculiar invention, to hold his head aloft, moving as it were under the convoy of a company of invisible influences, deriving all his motions from the shoe-maker, stay-maker, tailor and linen-draper, who originally wound him up and set him a-going, for whose sole convenience he lives, having withal, by way of paint to his ashy countenance, a couple of little conch-shell tufts, tawny-yellow, (that being the latest to be had at the perfumer's,) on his upper lip; the representative and embodiment of all the latest new improvements, patents, and contrivances in apparel, Mr. Tiffany Carrack followed his excellent mother. "Why, Tiffany," said old Sylvester, who notwithstanding the immensity of these people, calmly pursued his old course, "we all thought you were in California." The family were gathered around and awaited Mr. Tiffany Carrack's answer with a good deal of curiosity. "That was all a delusion, sir," he replied, plucking at his little crop of yellow tufts,--"a horrible delusion. I had some thought of that kind in my mind, in fact I had got as far south as New Orleans, when I met a seedy fellow who told me that the natives had rebelled and wouldn't work any more; so I found if I would get any of the precious, I must dig with a shovel with my own dear digits; of course I turned back in disgust, and here I am as good as new--Jehoshaphat!" It was well that Mr. Tiffany had a fashion of emphasizing his discourse with a reference to this ancient person, whom he supposed to have been an exquisite of the first water, which happily furnished a cover under which the entire Peabody family exploded with laughter at Mr. Carrack's announcement of the sudden termination of his grand expedition to the Gold Region. Without an exception they all went off in an enormous burst, the Captain, little Sam, and Mopsey leading. "Every word true, 'pon my honor," repeated Mr. Carrack. The great burst was renewed. "It was a capital idea, wasn't it?" he said again, supposing he had made a great hit. The explosion for the third time, but softened a little by pity in the female section of the chorus. Mrs. Carrack had sat stately and aloof, with an inkling in her brain that all this mirthful tumult was not entirely in the nature of a complimentary tribute to her son. "I think," she said, with haughty severity of aspect, "my son was perfectly right. It was a sinful and a wicked adventure at the best, as the Reverend Strawbery Hyson clearly showed from the fourth Revelations, in his last annual discourse to the young ladies of the church." "He did, so he did," said Mr. Tiffany, stroking his chin, "I remember perfectly: it was very prettily stated by Hyson." "The Reverend Strawbery Hyson," said Mrs. Carrack. "Always give that excellent man his full title. What would you say, my son, if he should appear in the streets without his black coat and white cravat? Would you have any confidence in his preaching after that?" "Next to myself," answered Mr. Tiffany, "I think our parson's the best-dressed man in Boston." "He should be, as an example," said Mrs. Carrack. "He has a very genteel congregation." Old Sylvester, who had on at that moment an old brown coat and a frayed black ribbon for a neck-cloth, ordered Mopsey to send the two best pies in the house immediately to the negroes in the Hills. Mrs. Carrack smiled loftily, and drew from her pocket an elegant small silver vial of the pure otto of rose, and applied it to her nostrils as though something disagreeable had just struck upon the air and tainted it. "By the way," said Mr. Tiffany Carrack, adjusting his shirt collar, "how is my little friend Miriam?" "Melancholy!" was the only answer any one had to make. "So I thought," pursued Mr. Carrack, rolling his eyes and heaving an infant sigh from his bosom. "Poor thing, no wonder, if she thought I was gone away so far. She shall be comforted." Mopsey looking in at this moment, gave the summons to tea, which was answered by Mr. Tiffany Carrack's offering his arm, impressively, to his excellent mother, and leading the way to the table. It was observed, that in his progress to the tea-table, Mr. Tiffany adopted a tottering and uncertain step, indicating a dilapidated old age, only kept together by the clothes he wore, which was altogether unintelligible to the Peabody family, seeing that Mr. Carrack was in the very prime of youth, till Mrs. Carrack remarked, with an affectionate smile of motherly pride: "You remind me more and more every day, Tiff, of that dear delightful old Baden-Baden." "I wish the glorious old fellow would come over to me for a short lark," rejoined Mr. Tiffany. "But he couldn't live here long; there's nothing old here." "Who's Baden Baden?" asked Sylvester. "Only a prince of my acquaintance on the other side of the water, and a devilish clever fellow. But he could'nt stand it here--I'm afraid--everything's so new." "I'm rather old," suggested Sylvester, smiling on the young man. "So you are, by Jove--But that aint the thing I want exactly; I want an old castle or two, and a donjon-keep, and that sort of thing.--You understand." "Something," suggested the grandfather, "in the style of the old revolutionary fort on Fort Hill?" "No--no--you don't take exactly. I mean something more in the antique--something or other, you see"--here he began twirling his forefinger in the air and sketching an amorphous phantom of some sort, of an altogether unattainable character, "in a word--Jehoshaphat!" The moment the eye of Mrs. Carrack fell upon the blue and white crockery, the pewter plates which had been in use time out of mind in the family, and the plain knives and forks of steel, she cast on her son a significant glance of mingled surprise and contempt. "Thomas," she said, standing before the place assigned to her, her son doing the same, "the napkins!" The napkins were brought from a great basket which had accompanied the leathern trunk. "The other things!" The other things, consisting of china plates, cups and saucers, and knives and forks of silver for two, were duly laid--Mrs. Carrack and her son having kept the rest of the family waiting the saying of grace by old Sylvester, were good enough to be seated at the old farmer's (Mrs. Carrack's father's) board. When old Sylvester unclosed his eyes from the delivery of thanks, he discovered at the back of Mrs. Carrack and her son's chairs, the two city servants in livery, with their short cut hair and embroidered coats of the fashion of those worn in English farces on the stage, standing erect and without the motion of a muscle. There is not a doubt but that old Sylvester Peabody was a good deal astonished, although he gave no utterance to his feelings. But when the two young men in livery began to dive in here and there about the table, snapping up the dishes in exclusive service on Mrs. Carrack and Mr. Tiffany Carrack, he could remain silent no longer. "Boys," he said, addressing himself to the two fine personages in question, "you will oblige me by going into the yard and chopping wood till we are done supper. We shall need all you can split in an hour to bake the pies with." Thunderstruck, as though a bolt had smitten them individually in the head, this direction, delivered in a quiet voice of command not to be resisted, sent the two servants forth at the back-door. They were no sooner out of view than they addressed each other almost at the same moment, "My eyes! did you ever see such a queer old fellow as that!" When Mrs. Carrack and her son turned, and found that the two young gentlemen in livery had actually vanished, the lady smiled a delicate smile of gentle scorn, and Mr. Tiffany, regarding his aged grandfather steadily, merely remarked, in a tone of most friendly and familiar condescension, "Baden-Baden wouldn't have done such a thing!" The overpowering grandeur of the fashionable lady chilled the household, and there was little conversation till she addressed the widow Margaret. "Hadn't you a grown up son, Mrs. Peabody?" The widow was silent. Presently Mr. Carrack renewed the discourse. "By the by," he said, "I thought I saw that son of yours--wasn't his name Elbridge, or something of that sort?--in New Orleans." "Did you speak to him?" asked the Captain, flushing a little in the face. "I observed he was a good deal out at elbows," Mr. Carrack answered, "and it was broad day-light, in one of the fashionable streets." "Is that all you have to tell us of your cousin?" old Sylvester inquired. "He is my cousin--much obliged for the information. I had almost forgotten that! Why ye-es--I couldn't help seeing that he went into a miserable broken-down house in a by-street--but had to get my moustache oiled for a Creole ball that evening, and couldn't be reasonably expected to follow him, could I?--Jehoshaphat!" If the human countenance, by reason of its clouding up in gusts of pitchy blackness acquired the power, like darkening skies, of discharging thunderbolts, it would have been, I am sure, a hot and heavy one which Mopsey, blackening and blazing, had delivered, as she departed to the kitchen, lowering upon Mr. Tiffany Carrack,--"'_He thought he saw her son Elbridge!_' The vagabone has no more feeling nor de bottom of a stone jug." The meal over, the evening wore on in friendly chat of old Thanksgiving times--of neighbors and early family histories; each one in turn launching, so to speak, a little boat upon the current, freighted deep with many precious stores of old-time remembrance; Mrs. Carrack sitting alone as an iceberg in the very midst of the waters, melting not once, nor contributing a drop or trickle to the friendly flow. And when bed-time came again, how clearly was it shown, that there is nothing certain in this changeful world. By some sudden and unforeseen interruption, nations lose power, communities are shattered, households well-constructed fall in pieces at a breath. Her sudden appearance in their midst, compelled another consultation to be taken as to the disposal of the great Mrs. Carrack for the night. It would never answer to put that grand person in any secondary lodging; so all the old arrangements were of necessity broken up; the best bed-room allotted to her; and that her gentle nerves might not be afflicted, the old clock, which adjoined her sleeping-chamber, and which had occupied his corner and told the time for the Peabodys for better than a hundred years from the same spot, was instantly silenced, as impertinent. The Captain's high-actioned white horse, which had enjoyed the privilege of roaming unmolested about the house, was led away like an unhappy convict, and stabled in the barn; and to complete the arrangements, the two servants in livery were put on guard near her window, to drive off the geese, turkeys, and other talkative birds of the night, that she might sleep without the slightest disturbance from that noisy old creature, Nature. Mr. Tiffany Carrack, while these delicate preparations were in progress, was evidently agitated with some extraordinary design, in which Miriam Haven was bearing a part; for, although he did not address a word to that young maiden, he was as busy as his imitation of the antiquity of Baden-Baden would allow him, ogling, grimacing, and plucking his tawny beard at her every minute in the most astonishing manner, closely watched by Mopsey, the Captain, and old Sylvester, who strongly suspected the young man of being affected in his wits. It was very clear that it was this same Mr. Tiffany Carrack who had entered in at the door of the sleeping chamber assigned to that gentleman, but who would have ventured to assert that the figure, which, somewhere about the middle of the night, emerged from the window of the chamber in question, in yellow slippers, red silk cloak trimmed with gold, fez cap, and white muslin turban, and, with folded arms, began pacing up and down under the casement of Miriam Haven, after the manner of singers at the opera, preparatory to beginning, was the same Tiffany? And yet, when he returned again, and holding his face up to the moon, which was shining at a convenient angle over the edge of the house, the tawny tuft clearly identified it as Tiffany and no one else. And yet, as if to further confuse all recognition, what sound is that which breaks from his throat, articulating:-- "Dearest, awake--you need not fear;
A gentle conviction was dawning in the brain of Mr. Carrack that this was the fair Miriam happily responding to his challenge in the appropriate character and costume of a Moorish Princess; when, as he began to roar again, still more violent and furious in his chanting, the black head opened and demanded, "what you want dere?" followed by an extraordinary shower of gourd-shells, which, crashing upon his sconce, with a distinct shatter for each shell, could not, for a moment, be mistaken for flowers, signet-rings, or any other ordinarily recognised love-tokens. It immediately occurred to Mr. Carrack, with the suddenness of inspiration, that he had better return to his chamber and go to bed; a design which was checked, as he proceeded in that direction, by the alarming apparition of a great body with a fire-lock thrust out of the window of the apartment, next to his own, occupied by the Captain, presented directly at his head, with a cry "Avast, there!" and a movement on the part of the body, to follow the gun out at the window. Fearfully harassed in that quarter, Mr. Carrack wheeled rapidly about, encountering as he turned, the two servants in livery, still making the circuit of the homestead--who in alarm of their lives from this singular figure in the red cloak, fled into the fields and lurked in an old out-house till daylight. As these scampered away before him, Mr. Tiffany, to relieve himself of the apparition of the gun, would have turned the corner of the house; when Mopsey appeared, wildly gesticulating, with a great brush-broom reared aloft, and threatening instant ruin to his person. From this double peril, what but the happiest genius could have suggested to Mr. Tiffany, an instant and straightforward flight from the house; in which he immediately engaged, making up the road--the Captain with his musket, and Mopsey with her hearth-broom, close at his heels. If Mr. Tiffany Carrack had promptly employed his undoubted resources of youth and activity, his escape from the necessity of disclosure or surrender had been perhaps easy; but it so happened that his progress was a good deal baffled by the conflict constantly kept up in his brain, between the desire to use his legs in the natural manner, and to preserve that antique pace of tottering gentility which he had acquired from that devilish fine old fellow, the Prince of Baden-Baden, so that at one moment he was in the very hands of the enemy, and at the next, flying like an antelope in the distance. The gun, constantly following him with a loud threat, from the Captain, seemed, in the moonlight, like a great finger perpetually pointing at his head; till at last it became altogether too dreadful to bear, and making up the road toward Brundage's, which still further inflamed the pursuit, in sheer exhaustion he rushed through an open gate into a neighboring tan-yard, and took refuge in the old bark-mill. There was but a moment's rest allowed him even here, for Mopsey and the Captain, furiously threatening all sorts of death and destruction, presently rushed in at the door, and sent him scampering about the ring like a distracted colt, in his first day's service; a game of short duration, for the Captain and Mopsey, closing in upon him from opposite directions compelled him to retreat again into the open air. How much longer the chase might have continued, it were hard to tell, for as his pursuers made after him, Mr. Tiffany Carrack suddenly disappeared, like a melted snow-flake, from the surface of the earth. In his confused state he had tumbled into a vat, fortunately without the observation of the inexorable enemy, although as he clung to the side the Captain discharged his musket directly over his head. "I guess that's done his business," said the Captain. "We'll come and look for the body in the morning." Now it is strongly suspected that both Mopsey and the Captain knew well enough all along that this was Mr. Tiffany Carrack they had been pursuing, and that as they watched him from the distance emerge from the vat, return to the homestead, and skulk, dripping in, like a rat of outlandish breed, at his chamber-window, they were amply avenged: the Captain, for the freedom with which the city-exquisite had treated the Peabody family, especially the good old grandfather, and Mopsey, for the slighting manner in which he had referred to absent young Mas'r Elbridge. When all was peace again within the homestead, there was one who still watched the night, and ignorant of the nature of this strange tumult, trembled as at the approach of a long-wished for happiness. It was Miriam, the orphan dependent, who now sat by the midnight casement. Oh, who of living men can tell how that young heart yearned at the thought--the hope--the thrilling momentary belief--that this was her absent lover happily returning? In the wide darkness of the lonesome night, which was it shone brightest and with purest lustre, in view of the all-seeing Mover of the Heavens--the stars glittering far away in space, in all their lofty glory, or the timid eyes of that simple maiden, wet with the dew of youth, and bright with the pure hope of honest love! When all was still again, and no Elbridge's voice was heard, no form of absent Elbridge there to cheer her, oh, who can tell how near to breaking, in its silent agony, was that young heart, and with what tremblings of solicitude and fear, the patient Miriam waited for the friendly light to open the golden-gate of dawn upon another morrow! _ |
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