Aladdin & Co.: A Romance of Yankee Magic
Cornish had written that Mr. Barr-Smith wanted to look the thing over
personally; and that, given the element of safety, his people would much
prefer an investment of a million to one of ten thousand. Cornish
further hinted that the London gentleman acted like a man who wanted a
side interest in the construction company; as to which he would sound
him further by the way.
"He'll expect something in the way of birds and bottles," observed
Elkins; "but they won't mix with the general society of this town, where
the worm of the still is popularly supposed to be the original Edenic
tempter. And he'll want to inspect Lynhurst Park. I want him to see our
beauty and our chivalry,--meaning the ladies and Captain Tolliver,--and
the rest of our best people. I guess we'll have to make it a temperate
sort of orgy, making up in the spectacular what it lacks in
spirituousness."
Mr. Cornish came, gradually moulting his mystery; but still far above
the Lattimore standard in dress and style of living. In truth, he always
had a good deal of the swell in his make-up, and can almost be acquitted
of deceit in the impressions conveyed at his coming. The Honorable De
Forest Barr-Smith fraternized with Cornish, as he could with no one
else. No one looking at Mr. Cornish could harbor a doubt as to his
morning tub; and his evening dress was always correct. With Jim, Mr.
Barr-Smith went into the discussion of business propositions freely and
confidentially. I feel sure that had he greatly desired a candid
statement of the very truth as to local views, or the exact judgment of
one on the spot, he would have come to me. But between him and Cornish
there was the stronger sympathy of a common understanding of the occult
intricacies of clothes, and a view-point as to the surface of things,
embracing manifold points of agreement. Cornish's unerring conformity
of vogue in the manner and as to the occasion of wearing the tuxedo or
the claw-hammer coat was clearly restful to Mr. Barr-Smith, in this new
and strange country, where, if danger was to be avoided, things had to
be approached with distended nostril and many preliminary snuffings of
the wind.
There came with these two a younger brother of Mr. Barr-Smith, Cecil--a
big young civil engineer, just out of college, and as like his brother
in accent and dress as could be expected of one of his years; but
national characteristics are matters of growth, and college boys all
over the world are a good deal alike. Cecil Barr-Smith, with his red
mustache, his dark eyes, and his six feet of British brawn, was nearer
in touch with our younger people that first day than his honorable
brother ever became. To Antonia, especially, he took kindly, and
respectfully devoted himself.
"At this distance," said Mr. Barr-Smith, as he saw his brother sitting
on the grass at Miss Hinckley's feet, "I'd think them brother and
sister. She resembles sister Gritty remarkably; the same complexion and
the same style, you know. Quite so!"
The Lynhurst function was the real introduction of these three gentlemen
to Lattimore society. I knew nothing of the arrangements, except what I
could deduce from Jim's volume of business with caterers and other
handicraftsmen; and I looked forward to the fete with much curiosity.
The weather, that afternoon, made an outing quite the natural thing; for
it was hot. The ladies in their most summery gowns fluttered like white
dryads from shade to shade, uttering bird-like pipings of surprise at
the preparations made for their entertainment.
The ravine had been transformed. At an available point in its bed Jim
had thrown a dam across the stream, and a beautiful little lake rippled
in the breeze, bearing on its bosom a bright-colored boat, which in our
ignorance of things Venetian we mistakenly dubbed a gondola. At the
upper end of this water the canvas of a large pavilion gleamed whitely
through the greenery, displaying from its top the British and American
flags, their color reflected in a particolored streak on the wimpling
face of the lake. The groves, in the tops of which the woodpeckers,
warblers, and vireos disturbedly carried on the imperatively necessary
work of rearing their broods, were gay with festoons of Chinese lanterns
in readiness for the evening. Hammocks were slung from tree to tree,
cushions and seats were arranged in cosy nooks; and when my wife and I
stepped from our carriage, all these appliances for the utilization of
shade and leisure were in full use. The "gondola" was making, trips from
the cascade (as the dam was already called) to the pavilion, carrying
loads of young people from whom came to our ears those peals of
merriment which have everywhere but one meaning, and that a part of the
world-old mystery of the way of a man with a maid.
Jim was on the ground early, to receive the guests and keep the
management in hand. Josie Trescott and her mother walked down through
the Trescott pasture, and joined Alice and me under one of the splendid
lindens, where, as we lounged in the shade, the sound of the little
waterfall filled the spaces in our talk. Long before any one else had
seen them coming through the trees, Mr. Elkins had spied them, and went
forward to meet them with something more than the hospitable solicitude
with which he had met the others. In fact, the principal guests of the
day had alighted from their carriage before Jim, ensconced in a hammock
with Josie, was made aware of their arrival. I am not quick to see such
things; but to my eyes, even, the affair had assumed interest as a sort
of public flirtation. I had not thought that Josie would so easily fall
into deportment so distinctly encouraging. She was altogether in a
surprising mood,--her eyes shining as with some stimulant, her cheeks a
little flushed, her lips scarlet, her whole appearance suggesting
suppressed excitement. And when Jim rose to meet his guests, she
dismissed him with one of those charmingly inviting glances and gestures
with which such an adorable woman spins the thread by which the banished
one is drawn back,--and then she disappeared until the dinner was
served.
The green crown of the western hill was throwing its shadow across the
valley, when Mr. Hinckley came with Mr. Cornish and Mr. Barr-Smith in a
barouche; followed by Antonia, who brought Mr. Cecil in her trap--and a
concomitant thrill to the company. Mr. Cornish, in his dress, had struck
a happy medium between the habiliments of business and those of sylvan
recreation. Mr. Barr-Smith on the other hand, was garbed cap-a-pie for
an outing, presenting an appearance with which the racket, the bat, or
even the alpenstock might have been conjoined in perfect harmony. As for
the men of Lattimore, any one of them would as soon have been seen in
the war-dress of a Sioux chief as in this entirely correct costume of
our British visitor. We walked about in the every-day vestments of the
shops, banks, and offices, illustrating the difference between a state
of society in which apparel is regarded as an incident in life, and one
rising to the height of realizing its true significance as a religion.
Mr. Barr-Smith bowed not the knee to the Baal of western
clothes-monotone, but daily sent out his sartorial orisons, keeping his
windows open toward the Jerusalem of his London tailor, in a manner
which would have delighted a Teufelsdroeckh.
He was a short man, with protruding cheeks, and a nose ending in an
amorphous flare of purple and scarlet. His mustache, red like that of
his brother, and constituting the only point of physical resemblance
between them, grew down over a receding chin, being forced thereto by
the bulbous overhang of the nose. He had rufous side-whiskers, clipped
moderately close, and carroty hair mixed with gray. His erect shoulders
and straight back were a little out of keeping with the rotundity of his
figure in other respects; but the combination, hinting, as it did, of
affairs both gastronomic and martial, taken with a manner at once
dignified, formal, and suave, constituted the most intensely respectable
appearance I ever saw. To the imagination of Lattimore he represented
everything of which, Cornish fell short, piling Lombard upon Wall
Street.
The arrival of these gentlemen was the signal for gathering in the
pavilion where dinner was served. The tables were arranged in a great L,
at the apex of which sat Jim and the distinguished guests. On one side
of him sat Mr. Barr-Smith, who listened absorbedly to the conversation
of Mrs. Hinckley, filling every pause with a husky "Quite so!" On the
other sat Josie Trescott, who was smiling upon a very tall and spare old
man who wore a beautiful white mustache and imperial. I had never met
him, but I knew him for General Lattimore. His fondness for Josie was
well known; and to him Jim attributed that young lady's lack of
enthusiasm over our schemes for city-building. His presence at this
gathering was somewhat of a surprise to me.
Antonia and Cecil Barr-Smith, the Tollivers, Mr. Hinckley and Alice,
myself, Mr. Giddings, and Miss Addison sat across the table from the
host. Mrs. Trescott, after expressing wonder at the changes wrought in
the ravine, and confiding to me her disapproval of the useless expense,
had returned to the farm, impelled by that habitual feeling that
something was wrong there. Mr. Giddings was exceedingly attentive to
Miss Addison.
"I know why you're trying to look severe," said he to her, as the
consomme was served; "and it's the only thing I can imagine you making a
failure of, unless it would be looking anything but pretty. But you are
trying it, and I know why. You think they ought to have had some one say
grace before pulling this thing off."
"I'm not trying to look--anyhow," she answered. "But you are right in
thinking that I believe such duties should not be transgressed, for fear
that the world may call us provincial or old-fashioned."
And she shot a glance at Cornish and Barr-Smith as the visible
representatives of the "world."
"Don't listen to that age-old clash between fervor and unregeneracy,"
said Josie across the narrow table, her remarks made possible by the
music of the orchestra, "but tell us about Mr. Barr-Smith and--the other
gentlemen."
"I wanted to ask you about the Britons," said I; "are they good
specimens of the men you saw in England?"
"An art-student, with a consciousness of guilt in slowly eating up the
year's shipment of steers, isn't likely to know much more of the
Barr-Smiths' London than she can see from the street. But I think them
fine examples of not very rare types. I should like to try drawing the
elder brother!"
"Before he goes away, I predict--" I began, when my villainous pun was
arrested in mid-utterance by the voice of Captain Tolliver, suddenly
becoming the culminating peak in the table-talk.
"The Anglo-Saxon, suh," he was saying, "is found in his greatest purity
of blood in ouah Southe'n states. It is thah, suh, that those qualities
of virility and capacity fo' rulership which make the race what is ah
found in theiah highest development--on this side of the watah, suh, on
this side!"
"Quite so! I dare say, quite so!" responded Mr. Barr-Smith. "I hope to
know the people of the South better. In fact, I may say, really, you
know, an occasion like this gives one the desire to become acquainted
with the whole American people."
General Lattimore, whose nostrils flared as he leaned forward listening,
like an opponent in a debate, to the remarks of Captain Tolliver,
subsided as he heard the Englishman's diplomatic reply.
"What's the use?" said he to Josie. "He may be nearer right than I can
understand."
"We hope," said Mr. Elkins, "that this desire may be focalized locally,
and grow to anything short of a disease. I assure you, Lattimore will