"My, what a color dancing gives you!" exclaimed my partner. "A minute ago you looked so sad I wondered what you were thinking of, and now you are as rosy as the dawn."
"'It is darkest just before dawn,' you know," I answered. I wondered what he would have said had he known what I was thinking of when I looked so sad. And then a strange thing happened, and the kind of thing has happened very often in my life when I have been with Mr. Tucker: he took up my thoughts almost as though he had read them and said:
"I was thinking of my little girl wife, Virginia. I so often think of her when I dance. She and I danced our youth away. She was a wonderful dancer. She had the same smooth glide that you have. I hate a hoppy dancer," and with his usual disregard of appearances he wiped his eyes in which the big tears had gathered. I did feel so sorry for him, I actually had the hardihood to pat him on the shoulder where my left hand rested, but I could not say anything to him, I felt so choky. The sun came out in a very few moments, however, and he smiled into my eyes, and we finished the dance without ever losing a step. I know Mr. Jeffry Tucker is the only person in the world who could cry and dance at the same time. His tears were sincere, too, quite as sincere as his dancing, and he certainly put his whole soul into every step he took.
"Miss Page, you have been mighty good to Tweedles. I don't know how to thank you for it," he said, as the music stopped and left us stranded across the ballroom from Father and the twins, also, who had been dancing with some college boys, home for the holidays.
"Me good to them! Why, they are good to me, as good as gold!"
"Oh, I know what you have done for them. They control themselves so much better than they used to and are so much more considerate in every way. I see your influence at every turn. They haven't had a fight since they came home and actually listen when I talk, whether I have anything to say or not." I had to laugh at this. I had really made the girls come to their senses about fighting when they disagreed. Even with gloves on, it was a very boisterous way of settling disputes; and we had a rule at 117 Carter Hall, instituted by me, that a fine of one penny was imposed when any of us interrupted, unless the speaker had had the floor out of all reason.
We found the girls enthusiastic over the dancing, and Father having as good a time as any of us. It was his first experience in seeing the much written and talked-of new dances, and he was greatly interested.
"Why, daughter, you dance beautifully!" he said fondly, as I squeezed in by him. "If you have learned as much Latin and French at Gresham as you have dancing, you will be a highly-educated young woman."
"Well, I can't promise that," I laughed; "but I know how to conjugate 'to dance' both in Latin and French."
"Well, to be able to conjugate as well as dance means you are becoming very erudite. That is a very pretty step that Dum has been taking. Is that the fox-trot? It looks easy, too."
"It is easy, Doctor Allison," answered Dum, "and now they are going to dance it again. Come on and try!" And to the delight and astonishment of all of us, Father was on the floor with Dum fox-trotting with a precision that made us know he had been watching the dancers very carefully and had been mentally dancing for some time. I know he had not danced for at least sixteen years, but, like Miss Jane Cox, once a dancer, always a dancer.
"This is more fun than Gresham," whispered Dee to me, when we stopped to rest a minute between dances. The college students had been very attentive and the twins and I had danced every dance. Who should come rushing up to us at this moment but Mabel Binks! She embraced us noisily, and one would have thought we were her long-lost sisters. We were coldly polite, but she overlooked our want of cordiality and fastened herself on to us. There was nothing for us but to introduce her to Father and Mr. Tucker and the young men who had been dancing attendance on us. That was what she wanted, and the dead set she made at Mr. Tucker showed what she considered big game. The festive Mabel, who lived in Newport News, was stopping in Richmond for a few days on her way back to Gresham. She was visiting an old cousin who, she volubly explained, was too selfish to do anything for her pleasure. She had with difficulty persuaded her to bring her to the Country Club, and now they were there the cousin either wouldn't or couldn't introduce her to any men.
"I can just shift for myself, I'll let her know!" the dashing girl exclaimed. "The wall is not meant for me to hold up, and if no one will ask me to dance, I'll get out and do a pas seul!"
"I should like to see that pas seul, but first will you do me the extreme honor to dance this with me?" said Mr. Tucker, with mock grandiloquence.
"Dee-lighted!" gushed Mabel, and was soon engaged in a boisterous hopping match with Mr. Tucker.
"I could kill Zebedee!" said Dum through clenched teeth. "I believe that Binks thing came through Richmond with the hope of meeting him, and here he tumbles at the first shot and goes off dancing with her as though it – Oh, I can't talk about it, it makes me so furious. Look how they are romping, too! I dare Dee or me to romp that way."
I could but recall the views Mr. Tucker had so recently expressed to me about dancers who hopped, and here he was jumping around like a hen on a hot griddle, and as far as I could see, enjoying himself very much. I sympathized with Dum; while I did not feel called upon to get into a rage and clench my teeth, I was a little disappointed in my kind host. I felt very young and shy all of a sudden. Mabel, as she triumphantly bore off the prize, had in a most condescending way tossed me her handkerchief and gloves with a "Here, child, hold these for me!" That I would not do. The heavy smell of musk that hung around all of Mabel's belongings sickened me; and why should she make a catch-all of me, anyhow? I put them down disdainfully on a chair, meeting with Dum's hearty approval by my act, and then had a nice quiet dance with Father, who proved to be as good a partner as one could want.
CHAPTER XX.
DINNER AT COUSIN PARK'S
Sunday dawned and with it the consciousness that I had to go through the ordeal of dinner with Cousin Park. Oh, how I hated the thought of it! We had slept late after the unusual hours we had kept the night before, and Mr. Tucker had kindly had our breakfast sent up from the café.
"That's to make up for treating us the way he did last night," said Dum, buttering her cakes as she sat up in bed.
"Treating us what way?" inquired Dee.
"Dancing with that Binks abomination. He knew he had no business to do it."
"Why, Dum," I said, determined to cool her down if possible, "I don't really see how Mr. Tucker could have done otherwise. A schoolmate who from all appearances is devoted to his daughters, joins our group and lets it be known that she is dying to dance, indeed is thinking of dancing alone. Why, there was no way for a gentleman to behave than just exactly as Zeb – I mean Mr. Tucker – did behave. I would have been pleased if my Father had done exactly as yours did, and I believe Father would if her innuendos had been addressed to him."
"Well, Doctor Allison would never have hopped as Zebedee did. What I hate to think about is the way that girl is going to tell all the girls at school about our handsome young Father and how he devoted himself to her. I bet she comes here to-day on some pretext or other."
"Well, I'll sic Brindle on her if she does. He can't stand cats!" hissed Dee, who was becoming worked up by Dum's evident passion.
"Well, I'll tell you one thing: the ruder you are to Mabel the more polite your Father will be; and the more polite you are, the more indifferent Mr. Tucker will be," I admonished.
"How did you get so wise, old Solomon?" asked Dum, in rather muffled tones through a mouthful of flannel cakes.
"Why, Mammy Susan says, 'Men folks an' mules is moughty sim'lar; jes' nachally contrary-wise. Ef yer want 'em ter go ter de mill, make out dey's got ter stay in de parsture, an' jes' ter spite yer dey'll run all de way ter de mill.'"
"Well, we'll make out Zebedee has got to go to the mill and he'll want to stay in the pasture. Mabel Binks is more like a mill than a pasture," said Dum, rather taken with my philosophy.
"Yes, and 'All is grist that comes to her mill,' too," declared Dee. "I am going to try the plan on Zebedee this minute," and she bounced up and donning slippers and kimono went in to the living room where Mr. Tucker was deep in the Sunday paper. She left the door slightly ajar and Dum and I could plainly hear the conversation.
"Good morning, Zebedee," and the sound of a hearty kiss. "It was awfully good of you to have breakfast sent up to us. We did not mean to oversleep."
"Glad to do it, Tweedledeedles. I thought all of you would be tired after tripping the light fantastic toe almost into Sunday morning."
"Say, Zebedee, Page has to go to her Cousin Park's to dinner to-day, so don't you think it would be nice to have Mabel Binks to dinner with us?"
Dum gasped and started to rush into the sitting room, without the formality of a kimono, but I grabbed her and with a warning finger quieted her.
"Oh, come now, Dee, I should think you and Dum would be content to spend your last Sunday at home quietly with your poor old lonesome Zebedee. I can't see what you want with Miss Binks. She is much older than you, Tweedles, and not a bit the kind of person I should encourage you to have as an intimate. I get the names of your schoolmates mixed, but wasn't she the girl you wrote me was so purse-proud and unfeeling in her treatment of that nice ladylike little girl from Price's Landing?"
"Ye – s, but I thought you liked her pretty well last night."
"Why, I never gave her a thought! She so plainly asked me to dance with her that I had to do it; but that was all. She is showily handsome and amusing enough in the daring way in which she talks, but nay, nay, not for me!"
More sounds of kissing, and then: "Now run on and all of you get dressed in a hurry so we can take a nice spin with Henry Ford and go to church before Miss Page has to be delivered over to the Dragon."
"What's that smell, Zebedee? The hall is reeking with a terrible odor," asked Dee, sniffing suspiciously.
"I can't imagine. I was afraid you and Dum and Miss Page had gone in for musk. The whole apartment is permeated with it." Dee went out into the little hall connecting the girls' bedroom with the living room and poked around the hatrack, where the odor seemed to be strongest.
"Here it is," she cried, "in your overcoat pocket!"
"Oh, that wretched girl's gloves! She asked me to hold them for her just before we left the club, and I must have put them in my pocket. Hang 'em outside the bathroom window. That smell is enough to make all of us faint. Please turn my pocket inside out, so it can air."
"What did I tell you?" and Dee burst into the bedroom, waving the smelly gloves as she came; "the minx made Zebedee keep her gloves just so she could get around here. We'd better dress in a hurry so we can be ready to receive her. She might eat up poor Zebedee without his knowing what got him," and she scornfully hung the offensive kids out the bathroom window.
Mabel Binks did come before Dum and I were quite dressed, but Dee was installed in the living room waiting for her with Brindle at her side ready to sic on Mabel if she showed signs of walking off with the handsome young father.
"Oh, you naughty man, I am almost sure you purloined my gloves last night!" we heard her say, in her loud and strident tones. "I thought I would stop in on the way to church to get them."
"Yes, he did hook them from you," said Dum, making her appearance like a whirlwind. "Zebedee is great on that. He steals girls' gloves all the time and gives them to Dee and me. We never have to buy any. All the girls get him to hold their gloves for them and then he brings them home to us and we divide them up. Here yours are. Zebedee did not know whose they were, but we recognized the perfume you are so fond of. They are too big for us, so we were not going to row over them." Mr. Tucker sat dumfounded during this tirade of Dum's, and as for me, I had to dive back in the room from which I was emerging to get my countenance straightened out.
Dee buried her nose in Brindle's neck and made such a funny little noise trying to keep back her laughter that Brindle growled and wrinkled up his neck in a most ominous manner. Mabel took the gloves, and for once her aplomb deserted her. She beat a hasty retreat with good-bys that were scarcely audible.
I fully expected that Mr. Tucker would admonish Dum for the ridiculous fabrication of which she had been guilty, but he seemed to forget all about the behavior befitting a parent, and caught us by the hand and in a moment we were dancing the Lobster Quadrille and singing lustily, "Will you, won't you, won't you, will you, will you join the dance?"
"Now hurry up and get on your hats and jackets and we will speed little Henry Ford to church." And off we went in a Christian frame of mind and at peace with the whole world, especially Dum, who had scored heavily over the detested Mabel.
The hour for dinner at Cousin Park's had at last come. How slowly I walked up the broad stone steps leading to her fine house! The same lugubrious butler opened the door that had performed that office when I visited Cousin Park on that other memorable occasion. He had the air of one who is letting in the mourners. I involuntarily glanced at the door bell to see if by any chance crêpe could be hanging from it.
This butler's appropriate name was Jeremiah, and he was what is known as "a blue-gum nigger." I smiled when I greeted him, and for a moment he showed his blue gums in a vain attempt at cheerfulness, but he quickly subsided into his habitual gloom. I recalled what Mammy Susan had said to me many a time. "Be mighty keerful, honey; don' nebber cross a blue-gum nigger, fer de bite er one is rank pizen and sho death."
Cousin Park was seated in state in her ugly, handsome, oiled-walnut parlor. The room was of noble proportions and might have been pretty, but Cousin Park had happened to marry the genial Major at the period when oiled walnut was the prevailing style, and her whole life had been built on the oiled-walnut basis ever since. Her costly velvet carpets still came right to the edge of the floor and were snugly tacked close to the baseboard. No hardwood floors and rugs for her.
The heavy furniture was deeply carved, and if the unwary visitor forgot himself for a moment and attempted to lounge in his chair he was quickly brought to a sense of propriety by a carved pineapple getting him between his shoulders or maybe a bunch of grapes striking him in the small of his back. I usually tried to sit on the horsehair sofa. Long practice in riding bareback had given me a poise that enabled me to be very comfortable seated thus without sliding off. The pictures were hung close up to the ceiling according to the style in vogue in times gone by. They were mostly dark portraits in heavy gilt frames and they glared down at you as though they resented your intrusion into their mausoleum.
Father was seated forward in his chair, trying to avoid the pineapple, and on his face was an expression like that of a little boy who has been taken to church and fears every minute to be questioned as to the text. I rather expected our stern relative to tell him to go wash his hands for dinner. He jumped up and hugged me enthusiastically, and I felt ashamed that I had hated so to come. Cousin Park gave me an upholstered embrace and I made for the horsehair sofa, that seemed friendly and yielding in comparison with Cousin Park.
"Well, so you have torn yourself away from those Tuckers long enough to do your duty, have you?" I scented a battle from afar, but determined to be good and not say anything to make my cousin angry. No doubt she was hungry and would be more agreeable as soon as dinner was announced.
"It is kind of you to ask me to dinner, Cousin Park, and I am glad to come," I meekly replied. And thinking maybe it would be tactful to change the subject, I said to Father: "How do you feel after dancing last night?"
"Fine, daughter; I never had such a good time in my life."
"Cousin James! You – dancing! You are surely jesting – you – you – a man of your age!"
"Oh, I'm not so awfully old, Cousin Park! There were men on the floor ten years older than I am – bank presidents, eminent surgeons, and several judges, all dancing the new dances with the utmost abandon."
"Well, where on earth did you learn the new dances, Cousin James?"
"Well, I never saw them danced before, so it must have been by a correspondence course." And Father winked at me.
The sepulchral butler came in to announce dinner just at this crucial moment when his irate mistress looked as though she would burst her tight black satin basque in which she had been so compactly hooked. He quavered in a sad voice: "Dinner is served," but his tone reminded me of Jeremiah, Chapter IX, first verse: "Oh, that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night!"
The dining room was one degree more cheerful than the parlor, as instead of the portraits there were Audubon prints and the Marriage of Pocahontas. A heavy walnut sideboard laden with massive silver almost filled one side of the room. The table was precisely set and the food may have been good, but everything was so ponderous, including the hostess, that when we got through with the long tiresome courses I felt like the old wolf that Mammy Susan used to tell about. He swallowed seven little kids whole and then, while he slept by the water's edge, the Widow Goat came and ripped him open, took out the dear little kids and put in their place seven huge stones. The old wolf was naturally thirsty after this surgical operation, and so was I when I had packed in and hammered down roast chicken, boiled hominy, mashed potatoes, baked rice, macaroni and I don't know what besides, except that we topped off with a plum pudding that was the last straw.
I longed for sleep with an intensity that was truly painful, and I could see that poor dear Father was desperate. The conversation at the table was as heavy and starchy as the food. Father and I could not help comparing it to the gay little dinner we had enjoyed the night before at the Country Club.
Cousin Park's manner was always dictatorial, even when she was the visitor instead of the hostess, and on that day she seemed to think she was born to boss the Universe. She picked on me most of the time and I let her do it, knowing Father must have had his share of correction, but when she began on my friends, the darling Tuckers, I got a little restive. Mammy Susan always told me: "Don't sass old folks till dey fust sass you," and I began to feel that old folks were sassing me considerably. I smiled to myself, remembering that Mr. Tucker had told me that when the Major died, at his funeral they sang "Peace, perfect peace," and the pall bearers themselves could hardly keep from grinning to think what a far from peaceful time the poor Major had had on earth.
Father came to my rescue when our masterful cousin finally sprung this mine on us: "I am astonished, Cousin James, that you should have no more sense of propriety than to let Page visit that Jeffry Tucker without a chaperon."
"Why, Cousin Park, you astonish me! Page is visiting Mr. Tucker's daughters, her schoolmates. They are all three very young to have a question of propriety brought up."
"I don't care, a woman is never too young or too old to be made the subject of gossip," and Cousin Park creaked ominously.
"Well, that being the case, I think it is highly improper and imprudent for me to be visiting you, unless we can look upon Jeremiah as a chaperon."
And Cousin Park, knowing herself to be worsted, sighed a great, heaving sigh and looked sadly at the Major's portrait, as though if he had been alive he would have protected her.
How glad we were to hear the toot of Henry Ford and to know that our time in purgatory was over. The fresh air took away that awful drowsiness, and the cheerful talk of the Tuckers as we spun out into the country made us forget the deadly conversation we had been forced to be a party to. Father had an engagement for supper with a medical brother, and he was to go back to Bracken the next day.
"Blood may be thicker than water," he said. "In fact, to-day it was so thick you couldn't stir it, but never again do I intend to make a visit at Cousin Park Garnett's. Why, I feel as though that blue-gum nigger had bitten me."