CHAPTER XLIII.
SHALL SHE COME OR STAY?
Richling read Mary’s letter through three times without a smile. The feeling that he had prompted the missive – that it was partly his – stood between him and a tumult of gladness. And yet when he closed his eyes he could see Mary, all buoyancy and laughter, spurning his claim to each and every stroke of the pen. It was all hers, all!
As he was slowly folding the sheet Mrs. Reisen came in upon him. It was one of those excessively warm spring evenings that sometimes make New Orleans fear it will have no May. The baker’s wife stood with her immense red hands thrust into the pockets of an expansive pinafore, and her three double chins glistening with perspiration. She bade her manager a pleasant good-evening.
Richling inquired how she had left her husband.
“Kviet, Mr. Richlin’, kviet. Mr. Richlin’, I pelief Reisen kittin petter. If he don’t gittin’ better, how come he’ss every day a little more kvieter, and sit’ still and don’t say nutting to nobody?”
“Mrs. Reisen, my wife is asking me to send for her” – Richling gave the folded letter a little shake as he held it by one corner – “to come down here and live again.”
“Now, Mr. Richlin’?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I will shwear!” She dropped into a seat. “Right in de bekinning o’ summer time! Vell, vell, vell! And you told me Mrs. Richling is a sentsible voman! Vell, I don’t belief dat I efer see a young voman w’at aint de pickest kind o’ fool apowt her hussbandt. Vell, vell! – And she comin’ down heah ’n’ choost kittin’ all your money shpent, ’n’ den her mudter kittin’ vorse ’n’ she got ’o go pack akin!”
“Why, Mrs. Reisen,” exclaimed Richling, warmly. “you speak as if you didn’t want her to come.” He contrived to smile as he finished.
“Vell, – of – course! You don’t vant her to come, do you?”
Richling forced a laugh.
“Seems to me ’twould be natural if I did, Mrs. Reisen. Didn’t the preacher say, when we were married, ‘Let no man put asunder’?”
“Oh, now, Mr. Richlin’, dere aindt nopotty a-koin’ to put you under! – ’less-n it’s your vife. Vot she want to come down for? Don’t I takin’ koot care you?” There was a tear in her eye as she went out.
An hour or so later the little rector dropped in.
“Richling, I came to see if I did any damage the last time I was here. My own words worried me.”
“You were afraid,” responded Richling, “that I would understand you to recommend me to send for my wife.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t understand you so.”
“Well, my mind’s relieved.”
“Mine isn’t,” said Richling. He laid down his pen and gathered his fingers around one knee. “Why shouldn’t I send for her?”
“You will, some day.”
“But I mean now.”
The clergyman shook his head pleasantly.
“I don’t think that’s what you mean.”
“Well, let that pass. I know what I do mean. I mean to get out of this business. I’ve lived long enough with these savages.” A wave of his hand indicated the whole personnel of the bread business.
“I would try not to mind their savageness, Richling,” said the little preacher, slowly. “The best of us are only savages hid under a harness. If we’re not, we’ve somehow made a loss.” Richling looked at him with amused astonishment, but he persisted. “I’m in earnest! We’ve had something refined out of us that we shouldn’t have parted with. Now, there’s Mrs. Reisen. I like her. She’s a good woman. If the savage can stand you, why can’t you stand the savage?”
“Yes, true enough. Yet – well, I must get out of this, anyway.”
The little man clapped him on the shoulder.
“Climb out. See here, you Milwaukee man,” – he pushed Richling playfully, – “what are you doing with these Southern notions of ours about the ‘yoke of menial service,’ anyhow?”
“I was not born in Milwaukee,” said Richling.
“And you’ll not die with these notions, either,” retorted the other. “Look here, I am going. Good-by. You’ve got to get rid of them, you know, before your wife comes. I’m glad you are not going to send for her now.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Oh, you don’t know what you’d do,” said Richling.
The little preacher eyed him steadily for a moment, and then slowly returned to where he still sat holding his knee.
They had a long talk in very quiet tones. At the end the rector asked: —
“Didn’t you once meet Dr. Sevier’s two nieces – at his house?”
“Yes,” said Richling.
“Do you remember the one named Laura? – the dark, flashing one?”
“Yes.”
“Well, – oh, pshaw! I could tell you something funny, but I don’t care to do it.”
What he did not care to tell was, that she had promised him five years before to be his wife any day when he should say the word. In all that time, and this very night, one letter, one line almost, and he could have ended his waiting; but he was not seeking his own happiness.
They smiled together. “Well, good-by again. Don’t think I’m always going to persecute you with my solicitude.”
“I’m not worth it,” said Richling, slipping slowly down from his high stool and letting the little man out into the street.
A little way down the street some one coming out of a dark alley just in time to confront the clergyman extended a hand in salutation.
“Good-evenin’, Mr. Blank.”
He took the hand. It belonged to a girl of eighteen, bareheaded and barefooted, holding in the other hand a small oil-can. Her eyes looked steadily into his.
“You don’t know me,” she said, pleasantly.
“Why, yes, now I remember you. You’re Maggie.”
“Yes,” replied the girl. “Don’t you recollect – in the mission-school? Don’t you recollect you married me and Larry? That’s two years ago.” She almost laughed out with pleasure.
“And where’s Larry?”
“Why, don’t you recollect? He’s on the sloop-o’-war Preble.” Then she added more gravely: “I aint seen him in twenty months. But I know he’s all right. I aint a-scared about that– only if he’s alive and well; yes, sir. Well, good-evenin’, sir. Yes, sir; I think I’ll come to the mission nex’ Sunday – and I’ll bring the baby, will I? All right, sir. Well, so long, sir. Take care of yourself, sir.”
What a word that was! It echoed in his ear all the way home: “Take care of yourself.” What boast is there for the civilization that refines away the unconscious heroism of the unfriended poor?
He was glad he had not told Richling all his little secret. But Richling found it out later from Dr. Sevier.
CHAPTER XLIV.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
Three days Mary’s letter lay unanswered. About dusk of the third, as Richling was hurrying across the yard of the bakery on some errand connected with the establishment, a light touch was laid upon his shoulder; a peculiar touch, which he recognized in an instant. He turned in the gloom and exclaimed, in a whisper: —
“Why, Ristofalo!”
“Howdy?” said Raphael, in his usual voice.
“Why, how did you get out?” asked Richling. “Have you escaped?”
“No. Just come out for little air. Captain of the prison and me. Not captain, exactly; one of the keepers. Goin’ back some time to-night.” He stood there in his old-fashioned way, gently smiling, and looking as immovable as a piece of granite. “Have you heard from wife lately?”
“Yes,” said Richling. “But – why – I don’t understand. You and the jailer out together?”
“Yes, takin’ a little stroll ’round. He’s out there in the street. You can see him on door-step ’cross yonder. Pretty drunk, eh?” The Italian’s smile broadened for a moment, then came back to its usual self again. “I jus’ lef’ Kate at home. Thought I’d come see you a little while.”
“Return calls?” suggested Richling.
“Yes, return call. Your wife well?”
“Yes. But – why, this is the drollest” – He stopped short, for the Italian’s gravity indicated his opinion that there had been enough amusement shown. “Yes, she’s well, thank you. By-the-by, what do you think of my letting her come out here now and begin life over again? Doesn’t it seem to you it’s high time, if we’re ever going to do it at all?”
“What you think?” asked Ristofalo.
“Well, now, you answer my question first.”
“No, you answer me first.”
“I can’t. I haven’t decided. I’ve been three days thinking about it. It may seem like a small matter to hesitate so long over” – Richling paused for his hearer to dissent.
“Yes,” said Ristofalo, “pretty small.” His smile remained the same. “She ask you? Reckon you put her up to it, eh?”
“I don’t see why you should reckon that,” said Richling, with resentful coldness.
“I dunno,” said the Italian; “thought so – that’s the way fellows do sometimes.” There was a pause. Then he resumed: “I wouldn’t let her come yet. Wait.”
“For what?”
“See which way the cat goin’ to jump.”
Richling laughed unpleasantly.
“What do you mean by that?” he inquired.
“We goin’ to have war,” said Raphael Ristofalo.
“Ho! ho! ho! Why, Ristofalo, you were never more mistaken in your life!”
“I dunno,” replied the Italian, sticking in his tracks, “think it pretty certain. I read all the papers every day; nothin’ else to do in parish prison. Think we see war nex’ winter.”
“Ristofalo, a man of your sort can hardly conceive the amount of bluster this country can stand without coming to blows. We Americans are not like you Italians.”
“No,” responded Ristofalo, “not much like.” His smile changed peculiarly. “Wasn’t for Kate, I go to Italia now.”
“Kate and the parish prison,” said Richling.
“Oh!” – the old smile returned, – “I get out that place any time I want.”
“And you’d join Garibaldi, I suppose?” The news had just come of Garibaldi in Sicily.
“Yes,” responded the Italian. There was a twinkle deep in his eyes as he added: “I know Garibaldi.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes. Sailed under him when he was ship-cap’n. He knows me.”
“And I dare say he’d remember you,” said Richling, with enthusiasm.
“He remember me,” said the quieter man. “Well, – must go. Good-e’nin’. Better tell yo’ wife wait a while.”
“I – don’t know. I’ll see. Ristofalo” —
“What?”
“I want to quit this business.”
“Better not quit. Stick to one thing.”
“But you never did that. You never did one thing twice in succession.”
“There’s heap o’ diff’ence.”
“I don’t see it. What is it?”
But the Italian only smiled and shrugged, and began to move away. In a moment he said: —
“You see, Mr. Richlin’, you sen’ for yo’ wife, you can’t risk change o’ business. You change business, you can’t risk sen’ for yo’ wife. Well, good-night.”
Richling was left to his thoughts. Naturally they were of the man whom he still saw, in his imagination, picking his jailer up off the door-step and going back to prison. Who could say that this man might not any day make just such a lion’s leap into the world’s arena as Garibaldi had made, and startle the nations as Garibaldi had done? What was that red-shirted scourge of tyrants that this man might not be? Sailor, soldier, hero, patriot, prisoner! See Garibaldi: despising the restraints of law; careless of the simplest conventionalities that go to make up an honest gentleman; doing both right and wrong – like a lion; everything in him leonine. All this was in Ristofalo’s reach. It was all beyond Richling’s. Which was best, the capability or the incapability? It was a question he would have liked to ask Mary.
Well, at any rate, he had strength now for one thing – “one pretty small thing.” He would answer her letter. He answered it, and wrote: “Don’t come; wait a little while.” He put aside all those sweet lovers’ pictures that had been floating before his eyes by night and day, and bade her stay until the summer, with its risks to health, should have passed, and she could leave her mother well and strong.
It was only a day or two afterward that he fell sick. It was provoking to have such a cold and not know how he caught it, and to have it in such fine weather. He was in bed some days, and was robbed of much sleep by a cough. Mrs. Reisen found occasion to tell Dr. Sevier of Mary’s desire, as communicated to her by “Mr. Richlin’,” and of the advice she had given him.
“And he didn’t send for her, I suppose.”
“No, sir.”
“Well, Mrs. Reisen, I wish you had kept your advice to yourself.” The Doctor went to Richling’s bedside.
“Richling, why don’t you send for your wife?”
The patient floundered in the bed and drew himself up on his pillow.
“O Doctor, just listen!” He smiled incredulously. “Bring that little woman and her baby down here just as the hot season is beginning?” He thought a moment, and then continued: “I’m afraid, Doctor, you’re prescribing for homesickness. Pray don’t tell me that’s my ailment.”
“No, it’s not. You have a bad cough, that you must take care of; but still, the other is one of the counts in your case, and you know how quickly Mary and – the little girl would cure it.”
Richling smiled again.
“I can’t do that, Doctor; when I go to Mary, or send for her, on account of homesickness, it must be hers, not mine.”
“Well, Mrs. Reisen,” said the Doctor, outside the street door, “I hope you’ll remember my request.”
“I’ll tdo udt, Dtoctor,” was the reply, so humbly spoken that he repented half his harshness.
“I suppose you’ve often heard that ‘you can’t make a silk purse of a sow’s ear,’ haven’t you?” he asked.
“Yes; I pin right often heeard udt.” She spoke as though she was not wedded to any inflexible opinion concerning the proposition.
“Well, Mrs. Reisen, as a man once said to me, ‘neither can you make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse.’”
“Vell, to be cettaintly!” said the poor woman, drawing not the shadow of an inference; “how kin you?”
“Mr. Richling tells me he will write to Mrs. Richling to prepare to come down in the fall.”
“Vell,” exclaimed the delighted Mrs. Reisen, in her husband’s best manner, “t’at’s te etsectly I atwised him!” And, as the Doctor drove away, she rubbed her mighty hands around each other in restored complacency. Two or three days later she had the additional pleasure of seeing Richling up and about his work again. It was upon her motherly urging that he indulged himself, one calm, warm afternoon, in a walk in the upper part of the city.
CHAPTER XLV.
NARCISSE WITH NEWS
It was very beautiful to see the summer set in. Trees everywhere. You looked down a street, and, unless it were one of the two broad avenues where the only street-cars ran, it was pretty sure to be so overarched with boughs that, down in the distance, there was left but a narrow streak of vivid blue sky in the middle. Well-nigh every house had its garden, as every garden its countless flowers. The dark orange began to show its growing weight of fruitfulness, and was hiding in its thorny interior the nestlings of yonder mocking-bird, silently foraging down in the sunny grass. The yielding branches of the privet were bowed down with their plumy panicles, and swayed heavily from side to side, drunk with gladness and plenty. Here the peach was beginning to droop over a wall. There, and yonder again, beyond, ranks of fig-trees, that had so muffled themselves in their foliage that not the nakedness of a twig showed through, had yet more figs than leaves. The crisp, cool masses of the pomegranate were dotted with scarlet flowers. The cape jasmine wore hundreds of her own white favors, whose fragrance forerun the sight. Every breath of air was a new perfume. Roses, an innumerable host, ran a fairy riot about all grounds, and clambered from the lowest door-step to the highest roof. The oleander, wrapped in one great garment of red blossoms, nodded in the sun, and stirred and winked in the faint stirrings of the air The pale banana slowly fanned herself with her own broad leaf. High up against the intense sky, its hard, burnished foliage glittering in the sunlight, the magnolia spread its dark boughs, adorned with their queenly white flowers. Not a bird nor an insect seemed unmated. The little wren stood and sung to his sitting wife his loud, ecstatic song, made all of her own name, – Matilda, Urilda, Lucinda, Belinda, Adaline, Madaline, Caroline, or Melinda, as the case might be, – singing as though every bone of his tiny body were a golden flute. The hummingbirds hung on invisible wings, and twittered with delight as they feasted on woodbine and honeysuckle. The pigeon on the roof-tree cooed and wheeled about his mate, and swelled his throat, and tremulously bowed and walked with a smiting step, and arched his purpling neck, and wheeled and bowed and wheeled again. Pairs of butterflies rose in straight upward flight, fluttered about each other in amorous strife, and drifted away in the upper air. And out of every garden came the voices of little children at play, – the blessedest sound on earth.
“O Mary, Mary! why should two lovers live apart on this beautiful earth? Autumn is no time for mating. Who can tell what autumn will bring?”
The revery was interrupted.
“Mistoo Itchlin, ’ow you enjoyin’ yo’ ’ealth in that beaucheouz weatheh juz at the pwesent? Me, I’m well. Yes, I’m always well, in fact. At the same time nevvatheless, I fine myseff slightly sad. I s’pose ’tis natu’al – a man what love the ’itings of Lawd By’on as much as me. You know, of co’se, the melancholic intelligens?”
“No,” said Richling; “has any one” —
“Lady By’on, seh. Yesseh. ‘In the mids’ of life’ – you know where we ah, Mistoo Itchlin, I su-pose?”
“Is Lady Byron dead?”
“Yesseh.” Narcisse bowed solemnly. “Gone, Mistoo Itchlin. Since the seventeenth of last; yesseh. ‘Kig the bucket,’ as the povvub say.” He showed an extra band of black drawn neatly around his new straw hat. “I thought it but p’opeh to put some moaning – as a species of twibute.” He restored the hat to his head. “You like the tas’e of that, Mistoo Itchlin?”
Richling could but confess the whole thing was delicious.
“Yo humble servan’, seh,” responded the smiling Creole, with a flattered bow. Then, assuming a gravity becoming the historian, he said: —
“In fact, ’tis a gweat mistake, that statement that Lawd By’on evva qua’led with his lady, Mistoo Itchlin. But I s’pose you know ’tis but a slandeh of the pwess. Yesseh. As, faw instance, thass anotheh slandeh of the pwess that the delegates qua’led ad the Chawleston convention. They only pwetend to qua’l; so, by that way, to mizguide those Abolish-nists. Mistoo Itchlin, I am p’ojecting to ’ite some obitua’ ’emawks about that Lady By’on, but I scass know w’etheh to ’ite them in the poetic style aw in the p’osaic. Which would you conclude, Mistoo Itchlin?”
Richling reflected with downcast eyes.
“It seems to me,” he said, when he had passed his hand across his mouth in apparent meditation and looked up, – “seems to me I’d conclude both, without delay.”
“Yes? But accawding to what fawmule, Mistoo Itchlin? ’Ay, ’tis theh is the ’ub,’ in fact, as Lawd By’on say. Is it to migs the two style’ that you advise?”
“That’s the favorite method,” replied Richling.
“Well, I dunno ’ow ’tis, Mistoo Itchlin, but I fine the moze facil’ty in the poetic. ’Tis t’ue, in the poetic you got to look out concehning the ’ime. You got to keep the eye skin’ faw it, in fact. But in the p’osaic, on the cont’a-ay, ’tis juz the opposite; you got to keep the eye skin’ faw the sense. Yesseh. Now, if you migs the two style’ – well – ’ow’s that, Mistoo Itchlin, if you migs them? Seem’ to me I dunno.”
“Why, don’t you see?” asked Richling. “If you mix them, you avoid both necessities. You sail triumphantly between Scylla and Charybdis without so much as skinning your eye.”
Narcisse looked at him a moment with a slightly searching glance, dropped his eyes upon his own beautiful feet, and said, in a meditative tone: —
“I believe you co’ect.” But his smile was gone, and Richling saw he had ventured too far.
“I wish my wife were here,” said Richling; “she might give you better advice than I.”
“Yes,” replied Narcisse, “I believe you co’ect ag’in, Mistoo Itchlin. ’Tis but since yeste’d’y that I jus appen to hea’ Dr. Seveeah d’op a saying ’esembling to that. Yesseh, she’s a v’ey ’emawkable, Mistoo Itchlin.”
“Is that what Dr. Sevier said?” Richling began to fear an ambush.
“No, seh. What the Doctah say – ’twas me’ly to ’emawk in his jocose way – you know the Doctah’s lill callous, jocose way, Mistoo Itchlin.”
He waved either hand outward gladsomely.
“Yes,” said Richling, “I’ve seen specimens of it.”
“Yesseh. He was ve’y complimenta’y, in fact, the Doctah. ’Tis the trooth. He says, ‘She’ll make a man of Witchlin if anythin’ can.’ Juz in his jocose way, you know.”
The Creole’s smile had returned in concentrated sweetness. He stood silent, his face beaming with what seemed his confidence that Richling would be delighted. Richling recalled the physician’s saying concerning this very same little tale-bearer, – that he carried his nonsense on top and his good sense underneath.
“Dr. Sevier said that, did he?” asked Richling, after a time.
“’Tis the vehbatim, seh. Convussing to yo’ ’eve’end fwend. You can ask him; he will co’obo’ate me in fact. Well, Mistoo Itchlin, it supp’ise me you not tickle at that. Me, I may say, I wish I had a wife to make a man out of me.”
“I wish you had,” said Richling. But Narcisse smiled on.
“Well, au ’evoi’.” He paused an instant with an earnest face. “Pehchance I’ll meet you this evening, Mistoo Itchlin? Faw doubtless, like myseff, you will assist at the gweat a-ally faw the Union, the Const’ution, and the enfo’cemen’ of the law. Dr. Seveeah will addwess.”
“I don’t know that I care to hear him,” replied Richling.
“Goin’ to be a gwan’ out-po’-ing, Mistoo Itchlin. Citizens of Noo ’Leans without the leas’ ’espec’ faw fawmeh polly-tickle diff’ence. Also fiah-works. ‘Come one, come all,’ as says the gweat Scott – includin’ yo’seff, Mistoo Itchlin. No? Well, au ’evoi’, Mistoo Itchlin.”