Kennedy Square

CHAPTER II

If Kate's ancestors had wasted any part of their substance in too lavish a hospitality, after the manner of the spendthrift whose extravagances were recounted in the preceding chapter, there was nothing to indicate it in the home of their descendants. No loose shutters, crumbling chimneys, or blistered woodwork defaced the Seymour mansion:—the touch of the restorer was too apparent. No sooner did a shutter sag or a hinge give way than away it went to the carpenter or the blacksmith; no sooner did a banister wabble, or a table crack, or an andiron lose a leg, than up came somebody with a kit, or a bag, or a box of tools, and they were as good as new before you could wink your eye. Indeed, so great was the desire to keep things up that it was only necessary (so a wag said) to scratch a match on old Seymour's front door to have its panels repainted the next morning.

And then its seclusion:—while its neighbors—the Temple mansion among them—had been placed boldly out to the full building line where they could see and be seen, the Seymours, with that spirit of aloofness which had marked the family for generations, had set their dwelling back ten paces, thrown up a hedge of sweet-smelling box to screen the inmates from the gaze of passers-by, planted three or four big trees as protection for the upper windows, and, to insure still greater privacy, had put up a swinging wooden gate, kept shut by a ball and chain, its clang announcing the entrance of each and every visitor.

And this same spirit was manifest the moment you stepped into the wide hall, glanced at the old family portraits marching steadily, one after another, up the side of the spacious stairs (revarnished every other year)—entered the great drawing-room hung with yellow satin and decorated with quaint mirrors, and took a scat in one of the all-embracing arm-chairs, there to await the arrival of either the master of the house or his charming daughter.

If it were the master to whom you wished to pay your respects, one glance at the Honorable Howard Douglass Seymour would have convinced you that he was precisely the kind of man who should have had charge of so well-ordered a home: so well brushed was he—so clean-shaven—so immaculately upholstered—the two points of his collar pinching his cheeks at the same precise angle; his faultless black stock fitting to perfection, the lapels of his high-rolled coat matching exactly. And then the correct parting of the thin gray hair and the two little gray brush-tails of lovelocks that were combed in front of his ears, there to become a part of the two little dabs of gray whiskers that stretched from his temples to his bleached cheekbones. Yes—a most carefully preserved, prim, and well-ordered person was Kate's father.

As to the great man's career, apart from his service in the legislature, which won him his title, there was no other act of his life which marked him apart from his fellows. Suffice it to say that he was born a gentleman without a penny to his name; that he married Kate's mother when she was twenty and he forty (and here is another story, and a sad one)—she the belle of her time—and sole heir to the estate of her grandfather, Captain Hugh Barkeley, the rich ship-owner—and that the alliance had made him a gentleman of unlimited leisure, she, at her death, having left all her property to her daughter Kate, with the Honorable Prim as custodian.

And this trust, to his credit be it said—for Seymour was of Scotch descent, a point in his favor with old Captain Barkeley, who was Scotch on his mother's side, and, therefore, somewhat canny—was most religiously kept, he living within his ample means—or Kate's, which was the same thing—discharging the duties of father, citizen, and friend, with the regularity of a clock—so many hours with his daughter, so many hours at his club, so many hours at his office; the intermediate minutes being given over to resting, dressing, breakfasting, dining, sleeping, and no doubt praying; the precise moment that marked the beginning and ending of each task having been fixed years in advance by this most exemplary, highly respectable, and utterly colorless old gentleman of sixty.

That this dry shell of a man could be the father of our spontaneous lovely Kate was one of the things that none of the younger people around Kennedy Square could understand—but then few of them had known her beautiful mother with her proud step and flashing eyes.

But it is not the punctilious, methodical Prim whom St. George wishes to see to-night; nor does he go through any of the formalities customary to the house. There is no waiting until old Ben, the family butler in snuff-colored coat and silver buttons, shuffles upstairs or into the library, or wherever the inmates were to be found, there to announce “Massa George Temple.” Nor did he send in his card, or wait until his knock was answered. He simply swung back the gate until the old chain and ball, shocked at his familiarity, rattled itself into a rage, strode past the neatly trimmed, fragrant box, pushed open the door—no front door was ever locked in the daytime in Kennedy Square, and few at night—and halting at the bottom step, called up the silent stairs in a voice that was a joyous greeting in itself:

“Kate, you darling! come down as quick as your dear little feet will carry you! It's Uncle George, do you hear?—or shall I come up and bring you down in my arms, you bunch of roses? It won't be the first time.” The first time was when she was a year old.

“Oh!—is that you, Uncle George? Yes,—just as soon as I do up my back hair.” The voice came from the top of the stairs—a lark's voice singing down from high up. “Father's out and—”

“Yes—I know he's out; I met him on his way to the club. Hurry now—I've got the best news in the world for you.”

“Yes—in a minute.”

He knew her minutes, and how long they could be, and in his impatience roamed about the wide hall examining the old English engravings and colored prints decorating the panels until he heard her step overhead and looking up watched her cross the upper hall, her well-poised, aristocratic head high in air, her full, well-rounded, blossoming body imaged in the loose embroidered scarf wound about her sloping shoulders. Soon he caught the wealth of her blue-black hair in whose folds her negro mammy had pinned a rose that matched the brilliancy of her cheeks, two stray curls wandering over her neck; her broad forehead, with clearly marked eyebrows, arching black lashes shading lustrous, slumbering eyes; and as she drew nearer, her warm red lips, exquisite teeth, and delicate chin, and last, the little feet that played hide and seek beneath her quilted petticoat: a tall, dark, full-blooded, handsome girl of eighteen with an air of command and distinction tempered by a certain sweet dignity and delicious coquetry—a woman to be loved even when she ruled and to be reverenced even when she trifled.

She had reached the floor now, and the two arm in arm, he patting her hand, she laughing beside him, had entered the small library followed by the old butler bringing another big candelabra newly lighted.

“It's so good of you to come,” she cried, her face alight with the joy of seeing him—“and you look so happy and well—your trip down the bay has done you a world of good. Ben says the ducks you sent father are the best we have had this winter. Now tell me, dear Uncle George”—she had him in one of the deep arm-chairs by this time, with a cushion behind his shoulders—“I am dying to hear all about it.”

“Don't you 'dear Uncle George' me until you've heard what I've got to say.”

“But you said you had the best news in the world for me,” she laughed, looking at him from under her lashes.

“So I have.”

“What is it?”

“Harry.”

The girl's face clouded and her lips quivered. Then she sat bolt upright.

“I won't hear a word about him. He's broken his promise to me and I will never trust him again. If I thought you'd come to talk about Harry, I wouldn't have come down.”

St. George lay back in his chair, shrugged his shoulders, stole a look at her from beneath his bushy eyebrows, and said with an assumed dignity, a smile playing about his lips:

“All right, off goes his head—exit the scoundrel. Much as I could do to keep him out of Jones Falls this morning, but of course now it's all over we can let Spitfire break his neck. That's the way a gentleman should die of love—and not be fished out of a dirty stream with his clothes all bespattered with mud.”

“But he won't die for love. He doesn't know what love means or he wouldn't behave as he does. Do you know what really happened, Uncle George?” Her brown eyes were flashing, her cheeks aflame with her indignation.

“Oh, I know exactly what happened. Harry told me with the tears running down his cheeks. It was dreadful—INEXCUSABLE—BARBAROUS! I've been that way myself—tumbled half-way down these same stairs before you were born and had to be put to bed, which accounts for the miserable scapegrace I am to-day.” His face was in a broad smile, but his voice never wavered.

Kate looked at him and put out her hand. “You never did—I won't believe a word of it.”

“Ask your father, my dear. He helped carry me upstairs, and Ben pulled off my boots. Oh, it was most disgraceful! I'm just beginning to live it down,” and he reached over and patted the girl's cheek, his hearty laugh ringing through the room.

Kate was smiling now—her Uncle George was always irresistible when he was like this.

“But Harry isn't you,” she pouted.

“ISN'T ME!—why I was ten times worse! He's only twenty-one and I was twenty-five. He's got four years the better of me in which to reform.”

“He'll NEVER be like you—you never broke a promise in your life. He gave me his word of honor he would never get—yes—I'm just going to say it—drunk—again: yes—that's the very word—DRUNK! I don't care—I won't have it! I won't have anything to do with anybody who breaks his promise, and who can't keep sober. My father was never so in his life, and Harry shall never come near me again if he—”

“Hold on!—HOLD ON! Oh, what an unforgiving minx! You Seymours are all like tinder boxes—your mother was just like you and so was—”

“Well, not father,” she bridled, with a toss of her head.

St. George smiled queerly—Prim was one of his jokes. “Your father, my dear Kate, has the milk of human kindness in his veins, not red fighting blood. That makes a whole lot of difference. Now listen to me:—you love Harry—”

“No! I DESPISE him! I told him so!” She had risen from her seat and had moved to the mantel, where she stood looking into the fire, her back toward him.

“Don't you interrupt me, you blessed girl—just you listen to Uncle George for a minute. You DO love Harry—you can't help it—nobody can. If you had seen him this morning you would have thrown your arms around him in a minute—I came near doing it myself. Of course he's wild, reckless, and hot-headed like all the Rutters and does no end of foolish things, but you wouldn't love him if he was different. He's just like Spitfire—never keeps still a minute—restless, pawing the ground, or all four feet in the air—then away she goes! You can't reason with her—you don't wish to; you get impatient when she chafes at the bit because you are determined she shall keep still, but if you wanted her to go like the wind and she couldn't, you'd be more dissatisfied than ever. The pawing and chafing is of no matter; it is her temperament that counts. So it is with Harry. He wouldn't be the lovable, dashing, high-spirited young fellow he is if he didn't kick over the traces once in a while and break everything to pieces—his promises among them. And it isn't his fault—it's the Spanish and Dutch blood in his veins—the blood of that old hidalgo and his Dutch ancestor, De Ruyter—that crops out once in a while. Harry would be a pirate and sweep the Spanish main if he had lived in those days, instead of being a gentleman who values nothing in life so much as the woman he loves.”

He had been speaking to her back all this time, the girl never moving, the outlines of her graceful body in silhouette against the blaze.

“Then why doesn't he prove it?” she sighed. She liked old hidalgos and had no aversion to pirates if they were manly and brave about their work.

“He does—and he lives up to his standard except in this one failing for which I am truly sorry. Abominable I grant you—but there are many things which are worse.”

“I can't think of anything worse,” she echoed with a deep sigh, walking slowly toward him and regaining her chair, all her anger gone, only the pain in her heart left. “I don't want Harry to be like the others, and he can't live their lives if he's going to be my husband. I want him to be different,—to be big and fine and strong,—like the men who have made the world better for their having lived in it—that old De Ruyter, for instance, that his father is always bragging about—not a weak, foolish boy whom everybody can turn around their fingers. Some of my girl friends don't mind what the young men do, or how often they break their word to them so that they are sure of their love. I do, and I won't have it, and I have told Harry so over and over again. It's such a cowardly thing—not to be man enough to stand up and say 'No—I won't drink with you!' That's why I say I can't think of his doing anything worse.”

St. George fixed his eyes upon her. He had thought he knew the girl's heart, but this was a revelation to him. Perhaps her sorrow, like that of her mother, was making a well-rounded woman of her.

“Oh, I can think of a dozen things worse,” he rejoined with some positiveness. “Harry might lie; Harry might be a coward; Harry might stand by and hear a friend defamed; Harry might be discourteous to a woman, or allow another man to be—a thing he'd rather die than permit. None of these things could he be or do. I'd shut my door in his face if he did any one of them, and so should you. And then he is so penitent when he has done anything wrong. 'It was my fault—I would rather hang myself than lose Kate. I haven't slept a wink, Uncle George.' And he was so handsome when he came in this morning—his big black eyes flashing, his cheeks like two roses—so straight and strong, and so graceful and wholesome and lovable. I wouldn't care, if I were you, if he did slip once in a while—not any more than I would if Spitfire stumbled. And then again”—here he moved his chair close to her own so he could get his hand on hers the easier—“if Spitfire does stumble, there is the bridle to pull her up, but for this she might break her neck. That's where you come in, Kate. Harry's in your hands—has been since the hour he loved you. Don't let him go headlong to the devil—and he will if you turn him loose without a bridle.”

“I can't do him any good—he won't mind anything I say. And what dependence can I place on him after this?” her voice sank to a tone of helpless tenderness. “It isn't his being drunk altogether; he will outgrow that, perhaps, as you say you did, and be man enough to say no next time; but it's because he broke his promise to me. That he will never outgrow! Oh, it's wicked!—wicked for him to treat me so. I have never done anything he didn't want me to do! and he has no right to—Oh, Uncle George, it's—”

St. George leaned nearer and covered her limp fingers with his own tender grasp.

“Try him once more, Kate. Let me send him to you. It will be all over in a minute and you will be so happy—both of you! Nothing like making up—it really pays for the pain of a quarrel.”

The outside door shut gently and there was a slight movement in the hall behind them, but neither of them noticed it. Kate sat with her head up, her mind at work, her eyes watching the firelight. It was her future she was looking into. She had positive, fixed ideas of what her station in life as a married woman should be;—not what her own or Harry's birth and position could bring her. With that will-o'-the-wisp she had no sympathy. Her grandfather in his early days had been a plain, seafaring man even if his ancestry did go back to the time of James I, and her mother had been a lady, and that too without the admixture of a single drop of the blood of any Kennedy Square aristocrat. That Harry was well born and well bred was as it should be, but there was something more;—the man himself. That was why she hesitated. Yes—it WOULD “all be over in a minute,” just as Uncle George said, but when would the next break come? And then again there was her mother's life with all the misery that a broken promise had caused her. Uncle George was not the only young gallant who had been put to bed in her grandfather's house. Her mother had loved too—just as much as she loved Harry—loved with her whole soul—until grandpa Barkeley put his foot down.

St. George waited in silence as he read her mind. Breaches between most of the boys and girls were easily patched up—a hearty cry, an outstretched hand—“I am so sorry,” and they were in each other's arms. Not so with Kate. Her reason, as well as her heart, had to be satisfied. This was one of the things that made her different from all the other girls about her, and this too was what had given her first place in the affections and respect of all who knew her. Her heart he saw was uppermost to-night, but reason still lurked in the background.

“What do you think made him do it again?” she murmured at last in a voice barely audible, her fingers tightening in his palm. “He knows how I suffer and he knows too WHY I suffer. Oh, Uncle George!—won't you please talk to him! I love him so, and I can't marry him if he's like this. I can't!—I CAN'T!”

A restrained smile played over St. George's face. The tide was setting his way.

“It won't do a bit of good,” he said calmly, smothering his joy. “I've talked to him until I'm tired, and the longer I talk the more wild he is to see you. Now it's your turn and there's no time to lose. I'll have him here in five minutes,” and he glanced at the clock. She raised her hand in alarm:

“I don't want him yet. You must see him first—you must—”

“No, I won't see him first, and I'm not going to wait a minute. Talk to him yourself; put your arms around him and tell him everything you have told me—now—to-night. I'm going for him,” and he sprang to his feet.

“No!—you must not! You SHALL not!” she cried, clutching nervously at his arm, but he was out of the room before she could stop him.

In the silent hall, hat in hand, his whole body tense with expectancy, stood Harry. He had killed time by walking up and down the long strip of carpet between the front door and the staircase, measuring his nervous steps to the length of the pattern, his mind distracted by his fears for the outcome—his heart thumping away at his throat, a dull fright gripping him when he thought of losing her altogether.

St. George's quick step, followed by his firm clutch of the inside knob, awoke him to consciousness. He sprang forward to catch his first word.

“Can I go in?” he stammered.

St. George grabbed him by the shoulder, wheeled him around, and faced him.

“Yes, you reprobate, and when you get in go down on your knees and beg her pardon, and if I ever catch you causing her another heartache I'll break your damned neck!—do you hear?”

With the shutting of the swinging gate the wily old diplomat regained his normal good-humored poise, his face beaming, his whole body tingling at his success. He knew what was going on behind the closed curtains, and just how contrite and humble the boy would be, and how Kate would scold and draw herself up—proud duchess that she was—and how Harry would swear by the nine gods, and an extra one if need be—and then there would come a long, long silence, broken by meaningless, half-spoken words—and then another silence—so deep and absorbing that a full choir of angels might have started an anthem above their heads and neither of them would have heard a word or note.

And so he kept on his way, picking his steps between the moist places in the path to avoid soiling his freshly varnished boots; tightening the lower button of his snug-fitting plum-colored coat as a bracing to his waist-line; throwing open the collar of his overcoat the wider to give his shoulders the more room—very happy—very well satisfied with himself, with the world, and with everybody who lived in it.