Stories by American Authors.
Volume 7.
by Various.
THE BISHOP'S VAGABOND.
BY OCTAVE THANET.
_Atlantic Monthly, January, 1884._
The Bishop was walking down the wide Aiken street. He was the only bishop in Aiken, and they made much of him, accordingly, though his diocese was in the West, which of course was a drawback.
He was a tall man, with a handsome, kind face under his shovel hat; portly, as a bishop should be, and having a twinkle of humor in his eye. He dressed well and soberly, in the decorous habiliments of his office. "So English," the young ladies of the Highland Park Hotel used to whisper to each other, admiring him. Perhaps this is the time to mention that the Bishop was a widower.
To-day he walked at a gentle pace, repeatedly lifting his hat in answer to a multitude of salutations; for it was a bright April day, and the street was thronged. There was the half-humorous incongruity between the people and the place always visible in a place where two thirds of the population are a mere pleasant-weather growth, dependent on the climate. Groups of Northerners stood in the red and blue and green doorways of the gay little shops, or sauntered past them; easily distinguished by their clothing and their air of unaccustomed and dissatisfied languor. One could pick out at a glance the new-comers just up from Florida; they were so decorated with alligator-tooth jewelry, and gazed so contemptuously at the oranges and bananas in the windows. The native Southerners were equally conspicuous, in the case of the men, from their careless dress and placid demeanor. A plentiful sprinkling of black and yellow skins added to the picturesque character of the scene. Over it all hung a certain holiday air, the reason for which one presently detected to be an almost universal wearing of flowers,--bunches of roses, clusters of violets or trailing arbutus, or twigs of yellow jasmine; while bare-footed boys, with dusky faces and gleaming teeth, proffered nosegays at every corner.
The Aiken nosegay has this peculiarity,--the flowers are wedged together with unexampled tightness. Truly enough may the little venders boast, "Dey's orful lots o' roses in dem, mister; you'll fin'
w'en you onties 'em." No one of the pedestrians appeared to be in a hurry; and under all the holiday air of flowers there was a pathetic disproportion of pale and weary faces.
But if they did not hurry on the sidewalk, there was plenty of motion in the street; horses in Aiken being always urged to their full speed,--which, to be sure, is not alarming. Now, carriages were whirling by and riders galloping in both directions. The riders were of every age, sex, and condition: pretty girls in jaunty riding habits, young men with polo mallets, old men and children, and grinning negroes lashing their sorry hacks with twigs. Of the carriages, it would be hard to tell which was the more noticeable, the smartness of the vehicles or the jaded depression of the thin beasts that pulled them. Where Park and Ashland avenues meet at right angles the crowd was most dense. There, on one side, one sees the neat little post-office and the photographer's gallery, and off in the distance the white pine towers of the hotel, rising out of its green hills; on the other, the long street slowly climbs the hill, through shops and square white houses with green blinds, set back in luxuriant gardens.
At this corner two persons were standing, a young man and a young woman, both watching the Bishop. The young woman was tall, handsome, and--always an attraction in Aiken--evidently not an invalid. The erect grace of her slim figure, the soft and varying color on her cheek, the light in her beautiful brown eyes,--all were the unmistakable signs of health. The young man was a good-looking little fellow, perfectly dressed, and having an expression of indolent amusement on his delicate features. He had light yellow hair, cut closely enough to show the fine outline of his head, a slight mustache waxed at the ends, and a very fair complexion.
The young woman was speaking. "Do you see to whom my father is talking, Mr. Talboys?" said she.
"Plainly, he has picked up his vagabond."
"Demming? Yes, it _is_ Demming."
"Now I wonder, do you know," said the young man, "what induces the Bishop to waste his time on such hopeless moral trash as that." He spoke in a pleasant, slow voice, with an English accent.
"It isn't hopeless to him, I suppose," she answered. Her voice also was slow, and it was singularly sweet.
"I think it must be his sense of humor," he continued. "The Bishop loves a joke, and Demming is a droll fellow. He is a sort of grim joke himself, you know, a high-toned gentleman who lives by begging. He brings his bag to the hotels every day. Of course you have heard him talk, Miss Louise. His strong card is his wife. 'Th' ole 'ooman's nigh blin','"--here Talboys gave a very good imitation of the South Carolina local drawl--"'an' she's been so tenderly raised she cyan't live 'thout cyoffee three times a day!'"
"I have heard that identical speech," said Louise, smiling as Talboys knew she would smile over the imitation. "He gets a good deal from the Northerners, I fancy."
"Enough to enable him to be a pillar of the saloons," said Talboys.
"He is a lavish soul, and treats the crowd when he prospers in his profession. Once his money gave out before the crowd's thirst. 'Never min', gen'lemen,' says our friend, 'res' easy. I see the Bishop a-gwine up the street; I'll git a dollar from him. Yes, wait; I won't be gwine long.'"
"And he got the money?"
"Oh, yes. I believe he got it to buy quinine for 'th' ole 'ooman,' who was down with the break-bone fever. He is like Yorick, 'a fellow of infinite jest'--in the way of lying. He talks well, too. You ought to hear him discourse on politics. As he gets most of his revenue from the North, he is kind enough to express the friendliest sentiments. 'I wuz opposed to the wah's bein" is his standard speech, 'an' now I'm opposed to its continnerin'.' For all that, he was a mild kind of Ku-Klux."
"He did it for money, he says," returned Louise. "The funniest thing about him is his absolute frankness after he is found out in any trick. He doesn't seem to have any sense of shame, and will fairly chuckle in my father's face as he is owning up to some piece of roguery."
"You know he was in the Confederate army. Fought well, too, I'm told.
What does he do when the Northerners are gone? Aiken must be a pretty bare begging ground."
"Oh, he has a wretched little cabin out in the woods," said Louise, "and a sweet-potato patch. He raises sweet potatoes and persimmons--"
"And pigs," Talboys interrupted. "I saw some particularly lean swine grubbing about in the sand for snakes. They feed them on snakes, in the pine barrens, you know, which serves two purposes: kills the snakes and fills the pigs. Entertainment for man and beast, don't you see? By the way, talking of being entertained, I know of a fine old Southern manor-house over the bridge."
Louise shook her head incredulously. "I have lost faith in Southern manor-houses. Ever since I came South I have sought them vainly. All the way from Atlanta I risked my life, putting my head out of the car windows, to see the plantations. At every scrubby-looking little station we passed, the conductor would say, 'Mighty nice people live heah; great deal of wealth heah before the wah!' Then I would recklessly put my head out. I expected to see the real Southern mansion of the novelists, with enormous piazzas and Corinthian pillars and beautiful avenues; and the white-washed cabins of the negroes in the middle distance; and the planter, in a white linen suit and a wide straw hat, sitting on the piazza drinking mint juleps. Well, I don't really think I expected the planter, but I did hope for the house.
Nothing of the kind. All I saw was a moderate-sized square house, with piazzas and a flat roof, all sadly in need of paint. Now, I'm like Betsey Prig; 'I don't believe there's no sich person.' It's a myth, like the good old Southern cooking."
"Oh, they do exist," said Talboys, his eyes brightening over this long speech, delivered in the softest voice in the world. "There are houses in Charleston and Beaufort and on the Lower Mississippi that suggest the novels; but, on the whole, I think the novelists have played us false. We expect to find the ruins of luxury and splendor and all that sort of thing in the South; but in point of fact there was very little luxury about Southern life. They had plenty of service, such as it was, and plenty of horses, and that was about all; their other household arrangements were painfully primitive. All the same, sha'n't we go over the bridge?"
Louise assented, and they turned and went their way in the opposite direction.
Meanwhile, the Bishop and his vagabond were talking earnestly. The vagabond seemed to belong to the class known as "crackers." Poverty, sickness, and laziness were written in every flutter of his rags, in every uncouth curve or angle of his long, gaunt figure and sallow face. A mass of unkempt iron-gray hair fell about his sharp features, further hidden by a grizzly beard. His black frock coat had once adorned the distinguished and ample person of a Northern senator; it was wrinkled dismally about Demming's bones, while its soiled gentility was a queer contrast to his nether garments of ragged butternut, his coarse boots, and an utterly disreputable hat, through a hole of which a tuft of hair had made its way, and waved plume-wise in the wind. Around the hat was wound a strip of rusty crape. The Bishop quickly noticed this woeful addition to the man's garb. He asked the reason.
"She's done gone, Bishop," answered Demming, winking his eyes hard before rubbing them with a grimy knuckle; "th' ole 'ooman's done lef'
me 'lone in the worl'. It's an orful 'fliction!" He made so pitiful a figure, standing there in the sandy road, the wind fluttering his poor token of mourning, that the Bishop's kind heart was stirred.
"I am truly sorry, Demming," said he. "Isn't this very sudden?"
"Laws, yes, Bishop, powerful suddint an' onprecedented. 'Pears 's if I couldn't git myself to b'lieve it, nohow. Yes'day ev'nin' she wuz chipper's evah, out pickin' pine buds; an' this mahnin' she woked me up, an' says she, 'I reckon you'd better fix the cyoffee yo'self, Demming, I feel so cu'se,' says she. An' so I did; an' when I come to gin it ter her, oh, Lordy, oh, Lordy!--'scuse me, Bishop,--she wuz cole an' dead! Doctor cyouldn't do nuthin', w'en I brung 'im.
Rheumatchism o' th' heart, he says. It wuz turrible suddint, onyhow.
'Minded me o' them thar games with the thimble, you know, Bishop,--now ye see it, an' now ye don'; yes, 's quick 's thet!"
The Bishop opened his eyes at the comparison; but Demming had turned away, with a quivering lip, to bury his face in his hands, and the Bishop was reproached for his criticism of the other's _naif_ phraseology. Now, to be frank, he had approached Demming prepared to show severity, rather than sympathy, because of the cracker's last flagrant wrong-doing; but his indignation, righteous though it was, took flight before grief. Forgetting judgment in mercy, he proffered all the consolations he could summon, spiritual and material, and ended by asking Demming if he had made any preparations for the funeral.
"Thet thar's w'at I'm yere for," replied the man, mournfully. "You know jes' how I'm fixed. Cyoffins cost a heap; an' then thar's the shroud, an' I ain't got no reg'lar fun'al cloze, an' 'pears 's ef 't 'ud be a conserlation t' have a kerridge or two. She wuz a bawn lady, Bishop; we're kin ter some o' the real aristookracy o' Carolina,--we are, fur a fac'; an' I'd kin' o' like ter hev her ride ter her own fun'al, onyhow."
"Then you will need money?"
"Not frum you, Bishop, not a red cent; but if you uns over thar,"
jerking his thumb in the direction of the white pine towers,--"if you all 'd kin' o' gin me a small sum, an' ef you'd jes' start a paper, as 'twere, an' al-so ef you yo'self 'ud hev the gre't kin'ness ter come out an' conduc' the fun'al obskesies, it 'ud gratify the corpse powerful. Mistress Demming'll be entered[A] then like a bawn lady.
Yes, sir, thet thar, an' no mo', 's w'at I'm emboldened ter ax frum you."
[Footnote A: It is supposed that Mr. Demming intended to say "interred."]
The Bishop reflected. "Demming," said he, gravely, "I will try to help you. You have no objection, I suppose, to our buying the coffin and other things needed. We will pay the bills."
Demming's dejected bearing grew a shade more sombre: he waved his hand, a gesture very common with him, and usually denoting affable approval; now it meant gloomy assent. "No objection 't all, Bishop,"
he said. "I knows my weakness, though I don' feel now as ef I'd evah want ter go on no carousements no mo'. I'm 'bliged ter you uns jes'
the same. An' you won't forget 'bout the cloze? I've been a right good frien' to th' Norf in Aiken, an' I hope the Norf'll stan' by me in the hour o' trubbel. Now, Bishop, I'll be gwine 'long. You'll fin' me at the cyoffin sto'. Mose Barnwell--he's a mighty decent cullud man--lives nigh me; he's gwine fur ter len' me his cyart ter tek the cyoffin home. Mahnin', Bishop, an' min', I don' want money outen _you_. No, sir, I do _not_!"
Then, having waved his hand at his hat, the cracker slouched away. The Bishop had a busy morning. He went from friend to friend, until the needed sum was collected. Nor did money satisfy him: he gathered together a suit of clothes from the tallest Northerners of benevolent impulses. Talboys was too short to be a donor of clothes, but he gave more money than all the others united,--a munificence that rebuked the Bishop, for he had sought the young Boston man last of all and reluctantly; somehow, he could not feel acquainted with him, notwithstanding many meetings in many places. Moreover, he held him in slight esteem, as an idle fellow who did little good with a great fortune. In his gratitude he became expansive: told Talboys about his acquaintance with the cracker, described his experiences and perplexities, and at last invited the young man to go to the funeral, the next day. Talboys was delighted to accept the invitation; yet it could not be said that he was often delighted. But he admired the Bishop, and, even more warmly, he admired the Bishop's daughter; hence he caught at any opportunity to show his friendliness. Martin Talboys was never enthusiastic, and at times his views of life might be called cynical; but it would be a mistake to infer, therefore, that, as is common enough, he, having a mean opinion of other people, struck a balance with a very high one of himself. In truth, Martin was too modest for his own peace of mind. For years he had contrived to meet Louise, by accident, almost everywhere she went. She travelled a good deal, and her image was relieved against a variety of backgrounds. It seemed to him fairer in each new picture. His love for the Bishop's daughter grew more and more absorbing; but at the same time he became less and less sanguine that she would ever care for him. Although he was not enthusiastic, he was quite capable of feeling deeply; and he had begun to suspect that he was capable of suffering. Yet he could not force himself to decide his fate by speaking. It was not that Louise disliked him; on the contrary, she avowed a sincere liking; she always hailed his coming with pleasure, telling him frankly that no one amused her as did he. There, alas! was the hopeless part of it; he used to say bitterly to himself that he wasn't a man, a lover, to her; he was a mimic, a genteel clown, an errand boy, never out of temper with his work; in short, she did not take him seriously at all. He knew the manner of man she did take seriously,--a man of action, who had done something in the world. Once she told Talboys that he was a "capital observer." She made the remark as a compliment, but it stung him to the quick; he realized that she thought of him only as an observer. When a trifling but obstinate throat complaint brought the Bishop to Aiken, Talboys felt a great longing to win his approval.
Surely, Louise, who judged all men by her father's standard, must be influenced by her father's favor. Unhappily, the Bishop had never, as the phrase goes, "taken" to Talboys, nor did he seem more inclined to take to him now, and Martin was too modest to persist in unwelcome attentions. But he greeted the present opportunity all the more warmly.
In the morning, the three--the Bishop, Louise, and Talboys--drove to the cracker's cabin. The day was perfect, one of those Aiken days, so fair that even invalids find no complaint in their wearisome list to bring against them and can but sigh over each, "Ah, if all days might only be like this!" Hardly a cloud marred the tender blue of the sky.
The air was divinely soft. They drove through the woods, and the ground was carpeted with dry pine spikes, whereon their horses' hoofs made a dull and pleasant sound. A multitude of violets grew in the little spaces among the trees. Yellow jasmine flecked the roadside shade with gold, its fragrance blending with the keen odors of the pine. If they looked up, they saw the pine tops etched upon the sky, and a solemn, ceaseless murmur beat its organ-like waves through all their talk. The Bishop had put on his clerical robes; he sat on the back seat of the carriage, a superb figure, with his noble head and imposing mien. As they rolled along, the Bishop talked. He spoke of death. He spoke not as a priest, but as a man, dwelling on the mystery of death, bringing up those speculations with which from the beginning men have striven to light the eternal darkness.
"I suppose it is the mystery," said the Bishop, "which causes the unreality of death, its perpetual surprise. Now, behind my certainty of this poor woman's death I have a lurking expectation of seeing her standing in the doorway, her old clay pipe in her mouth. I can't help it."
"Though she was a 'bawn lady,' she smoked, did she?" said Talboys.
Then he felt the remark to be hopelessly below the level of the conversation, and made haste to add, "I suppose it was a consolation to her; she had a pretty hard life, I fancy."