At Home with the Jardines
L >> Lilian Bell >> At Home with the JardinesHe said little, however, but seated himself in the cooling and tranquil
vicinity of his Madonna-faced wife, while watching the Angel and Sir
Wemyss reduce the refractory tree to symmetry and healthfulness without
effort and without disaster.
His failure and particularly Bee's and my ghoulish laughter had nettled
him, however, and he was determined to recover himself as well as
regain his place in our esteem.
All day he wandered around, seeking a suitable opportunity, all the
while watching me craftily to see if I suspected his design. But I
gave no sign, which plainly lightened the burden he was carrying.
Lady Mary trained my crimson rambler rose over the dining-room window
and cut flowers for all the vases. This was ordinarily my work, and I
loved it, but it gave her pleasure, and above all it gave her a home
pleasure which she had missed. I asked her if she would train the
roses every day while she was with us, taking the work off my hands.
She coloured softly as she gladly consented, and went prettily and
importantly to work.
Artie Beg, having just come home from a prolonged honeymoon, was
frequently obliged to go into town for a few hours' conference with his
partner, and Cary, from being one of the most energetic of guests, had
developed a tendency to talk of nothing in the world except her
husband, and, when no one would listen to her, of sitting apart with
her hands folded in her lap and a dreamy look in her eyes as if only
her body were present at my house-party. Her mind was plainly in Wall
Street.
I may not be believed, but Christianity and the love of God were
working in my heart when the next afternoon I asked Jimmie's help in a
piece of work which it did not seem possible for him to fail in.
The side porch has a great curving, bulging iron trellis for the
honeysuckle, and I keep the vines so thinned out that I can have boxes
of flowers growing on the porch railing, which only need what sunlight
comes filtering through the honeysuckle. By cutting the blossoms every
day I obtain the result I wish, and on this occasion I had cut all I
could reach, and I asked Jimmie to cut those which were beyond me.
These boxes at the bottom were only as wide as the porch railing, but
flared out on both sides in order to hold more earth, and all were
painted green. Now in that particular box, shaded by the honeysuckle,
I had, with infinite care, coaxed sun-loving dwarf nasturtiums to grow,
because their gorgeous colouring looked so well next to the box which
held my ferns.
I had planted the nasturtiums in early spring in the box in the
greenhouse, shading the colours from pale yellow at each end to a
glorious orange and crimson in the middle. Each plant was perfect of
its kind and growing and blooming riotously before I took the box,
which was some fourteen feet long, and with my own hands nailed it to
the porch railing, and its ends to two pillars.
It never occurred to me that Jimmie would be foolish enough to try to
_stand_ on the edge of that box, for of course, while I am no
carpenter, I drove my nails to cope with wind-storms, not a great man,
who--oh, well! I might have known that Jimmie would do something.
He could have reached all I wanted from the porch, but of course,
though I only stepped through the French window to lay my flowers down,
in that instant Jimmie had sprung upon that slanting edge of my poor,
frail little box, and in that instant the mischief was done. The box
tilted and flung Jimmie forward against the curving trellis, which
began to creak and groan alarmingly. All my precious nasturtiums were
pitched headlong into the flower-beds below, and for once Jimmie
shrieked my name in accents of the acutest entreaty.
"Faith!" he shouted, below his breath. "Faith, for God's sake run here
and catch me! This damned thing is giving way. Haul me back. Oh, my
coat won't save me! Leggo my coat-tails. Put your arms around my
waist. Stop laughing! Put--your--arms--around my waist--I say--and
haul me back! Brace your feet and pull!"
I did as he desired, bracing my feet and dragging him back to safety by
his leather belt.
We were detected, however, by Bee and Captain Featherstone, who came
strolling gracefully around the corner of the house just as Jimmie's
convulsed clutch loosened from the trellis and set all the vines to
dancing and trembling, as if a wind-storm had passed over them.
There was no need of their asking what had happened. The ruin spoke
for itself. Captain Featherstone gallantly helped me to pick up and
replant my poor nasturtiums, but they had been so bruised and their
feelings so wounded by their undignified tumble that they did nothing
but sulk all the remainder of the summer, never once blooming out
handsomely as they should, although I carefully explained to them just
how it happened. They seemed to think that it was my fault, and they
never forgave me. Sometimes flowers are as unreasonable as people.
Three days after Billy's arrival, when he had thoroughly mastered all
the details of Peach Orchard and knew personally all the cows, the
horses, the white bulldog, the cats, the chickens, the little calves,
and the reachable branches of every tree on the place, old Amos came in
to speak to me.
He stood before me, bowing, with his hat in his hand:
"Well'm, Miss Faith honey, I reckon de time's about ripe foh de goats.
Dat boy's investigated every nook an' cornder ob de place, an' ef you
tink bes' I'll go after de goats dis afternoon."
"Very well, Amos," I said. "We are all going to Philadelphia to-day to
attend the launching of Mr. Beguelin's yacht, and we are going to take
Billy. You can bring the goats up while we are away, and tomorrow
morning we can give them to him."
"Yas'm," said Amos, bowing. "I'll have 'em hyah when y'all gets back."
I will say nothing of the ceremony of the launching of the yacht,
although, from Cary's uplifted face, you would have thought it was the
christening of a first-born child. Jimmie says we needn't say
anything. We were worse!
Billy was wildly excited over the breaking of the bottle of champagne,
and asked a thousand questions about it.
The next morning we all went out to the barn to see him receive his
goats. His face fairly beamed when he saw them. He clapped his hands.
"Oh, Uncle Aubrey! Miss Tats! Are they for me?"
Then he flung his arms around his mother's neck--Bee's neck, mind
you!--and cried out:
"Oh, mother, I do think I have the kindest relatives in all the world!
What other little boys' relatives would think of the kindness of giving
them goats?"
"That's right, my boy," said Captain Featherstone, looking with open
admiration at Bee's motherly attitude, on her knees beside her boy and
his arms around her neck, "always be grateful. It's a rare virtue
these days."
Jimmie, however, who always spoils things, winked at Aubrey. But
Billy's next remark threw us all into fits of laughter.
"Oh, Uncle Aubrey, can't we have a ceremony of launching the goats, and
mayn't I break a bottle of champagne over their horns?"
Jimmie fairly yelled. Billy looked distressed.
"Their horns are very strong!" he urged. "I don't believe it would
hurt them one bit. And you might give me one of those little bottles I
saw Mr. Jimmie open--you remember the little one you had after the two
big ones, don't you, Mr. Jimmie?"
"Oh, yes, Billy," I said. "Mr. Jimmie remembers. (You'd be ashamed
not to, wouldn't you, Jimmie?)"
"You think you're funny," growled Jimmie, witheringly, as Sir Wemyss
and Captain Featherstone broke out afresh, and even Artie Beg left off
looking at Cary long enough to smile at Jimmie's scarlet face and Mrs.
Jimmie's anxious one. She moved quietly over to where Jimmie was
standing with his hands in his pockets, and slipped her arm through
his. She did not know quite what it was all about, but she felt that
they were laughing at her Jimmie, and, as usual, she looked
reproachfully at me.
Billy's plaintive voice recalled us.
"Yes, dearie," I hastened to say. "You may have a small bottle of
champagne--or perhaps Apollinaris water would be better, it sparkles
just the same, and if it flew in the goats' eyes it wouldn't make them
smart, and the champagne would."
Billy beamingly acquiesced.
"Now I must just think up some good names for them," he said, with an
air of importance, "and perhaps I'll have to ask Uncle Aubrey and Mr.
Jimmie to help me. It's awful hard to think up suitable names for
goats."
"All right, old man," said Aubrey. "Come along. We'll think 'em up
now, and have the launching this afternoon, and invite some people to
the ceremony."
So he and Billy and Jimmie took leave of us, and strolled away
together, Billy with his hands in his trousers' pockets and striving to
take just as long steps as they did. He would have given his kingdom
for a pipe!
We got up quite a little party, and worked very hard over it. Bee and
Captain Featherstone delivered the invitations, and people thought it
was a most delicious joke, and came in a mood of the utmost hilarity.
At first Billy wanted to break the bottle himself, but upon being told
that girls always did it, he invited a bewitching little maid of seven,
Kathleen Van Osdel, to christen them, while Billy valiantly sat in the
goat-carriage, waiting for Aubrey and Amos to let go of the goats'
horns.
The names were kept a profound secret, but Jimmie had a fashion of
going purple in the face, and pretending he was only going to sneeze.
He walked around among the guests trying to appear unconcerned--which
made me watch him closely.
He had appointed himself master of ceremonies. He it was who put the
Apollinaris bottle into Kathleen's hands, and held her in his arms
while she leaned down and broke the bottle over the horns of the
gentler goat.
Then her childish treble shrilled out:
"I christen thee, Roosevelt and Congress!" she cried out.
"Let go!" shouted Billy, standing up in the goat carriage, his cheeks
like scarlet flowers.
Amos and Aubrey released their hold, Kathleen screamed with excitement,
and away bounded the goats down the driveway, with Sir Wemyss after
them on horseback, for fear anything might happen.
But nothing did happen, and in ten minutes back they came to receive
congratulations from everybody.
"Are they all right, Billy?" I cried.
"Yes, Miss Tats. Congress is just as gentle as can be when you let him
alone. They go splendidly, except when Roosevelt butts. You know he
is always butting into Congress and making trouble."
At that I understood, for Jimmie deliberately rolled on the grass.
"I noticed that peculiarity of the goats," he gasped, when he could
speak, "but if I had trained that child a month, he couldn't have put
it better. It's--it's simply too good to be true!"
Then he went away to explain the joke to Lady Mary.
I think Bee enjoyed the house-party in spite of its gardening flavour,
for we entertained quite a little. At another time I gave a musicale,
and had people out from town; we were invited about while automobiles
snorted and chunked into Peach Orchard at all hours of the day to the
everlasting terror of the cats, who streaked by us and flashed up trees
in simple lines of long gray fur.
It was strange how the cat family resembled human beings, for it was
the young cats, Puffy and Pinkie and Fitz and Corbett, who got used to
the automobiles first, and ceased to run at their approach. Youth is
ever progressive and adaptable, while poor old Mitnick crouched in the
fork of a high pine, and glared with her yellow eyes and waved her
great tail in furious revolt at those puffing, snorting monsters which
she never could abide anyway,--and she was glad she couldn't.
We had no automobile, but the sorrels were there in the height of their
glory and slimness, and we still basked in the refulgence of the
coachman and footman of Bee's own selection, so her soul was at peace.
Only one thing happened to mar our pleasure. Jimmie fell ill.
Mrs. Jimmie hunted me up one blistering morning, and said, anxiously:
"Faith, I am very much worried about Jimmie. He is lying down."
"Well, what of it?" I said, with unintentioned brutality. "Does he
always sit up that you seem so surprised?"
She looked at me reproachfully.
"He always sits up when he is well," she said, gently.
"Is he ill?" I exclaimed, dropping my gardening shears and hastily
wiping my hands on my apron. "Can I do anything for him? Does he need
a doctor? I'll go right up."
Mrs. Jimmie coloured all over her soft creamy face. She laid her hand
on my arm.
"Don't be offended, will you, dear?" she begged, "but--Jimmie--you know
how unreasonable sick men are--"
She paused helplessly.
I waited.
"Well, out with it! What does he want?"
"He said--I didn't realize how difficult it would be to tell you when
he said it--but he said--"
Again she stopped.
"I shall evidently have to go and ask him what he wants," I said,
moving toward the house.
"No, no, dear! I will tell you! Don't go near him!" pleaded Mrs.
Jimmie. "That is just what he doesn't want. He said on no account
were you to come near him."
She paused with a gasp. Evidently she expected me to burst into tears.
"The brute!" I remarked, pleasantly. "I hope he is suffering!"
Mrs. Jimmie's beautiful face became instantly grave.
"He is suffering, Faith," she said, quietly.
"Then why won't he see me? Perhaps I could do something. Aubrey
always lets me try. Has he a headache?"
"He has a splitting headache, he says, and a high fever, and his collar
hurts him."
"His collar hurts him! Then why doesn't he take it off?"
"That's just it. He won't. He says he always wears it and it never
hurt him before, and he'll be--well, he says he won't take it off for
anybody."
I turned away and bit my lip.
Poor old sick, obstinate Jimmie! In my mind's eye I could just see him
lying there with all his hot clothes on and swearing he would not take
them off and be made comfortable.
But I could do nothing. He would see none of us. I sent tea and
lemonade and ice and hot-water bags and every conceivable remedy to his
rooms, but with no effect. Nor would he hear of our calling a doctor.
About four o'clock Mrs. Jimmie left him for a few moments, and this was
my chance.
I slipped into the room. He was lying on the couch with his feet in
patent leather shoes,--even his coat and waistcoat on, and a high,
tight collar which rasped his ears.
He grinned sheepishly when he saw me.
"You told me to keep out, I know, but I never do as I'm told, so I came
anyhow."
"I know that," growled Jimmie.
"Your head's as hot as fire," I said. "And those shoes are drawing
like a mustard plaster."
"I don't care. I won't take 'em off," said Jimmie, savagely, raising
himself on his elbow.
I turned on him.
"You always were a fool, Jimmie," I said. "You don't have to take them
off if you don't want to." (He sank back with a groan of pain.) "But
I'm going to do it, and if you kick while your foot is in my lap you'll
hurt me."
Before he could wink I had pulled off those abominable things, and
slipped his narrow silk-stockinged feet into cool slippers. He
couldn't restrain a sigh of comfort. I went in the closet to put his
shoes on their trees, and brought out a white linen coat.
"Sit up and put this on," I commanded.
"I will not!" he answered, flatly.
I looked around and there stood Mrs. Jimmie. If she had stayed away
another ten minutes, I would have got him comfortable. But in spite of
our combined efforts he insisted upon lying there as he was.
I went out and telephoned for the doctor, and when he came it pleased
Jimmie no end that he didn't say a word about taking off those hot
clothes.
"You see," he said to his wife, "that doctor knows his business. He
doesn't devil me the way you women do."
Mrs. Jimmie was wise enough to make no reply.
"He said if you would go to sleep for an hour you would feel better,"
she said. "So put on this thin coat, then I'll close the blinds and go
out."
Jimmie looked at her quizzically. Then he slowly sat up and changed
his coat without a word.
When he wakened his headache was gone. But he was unable to come down
to dinner, and we saw him no more that day.
As he went to bed that night he said:
"I suppose you and Faith chuckled over getting your own way with my
shoes and coat. But I want you to tell Faith that I stuck it out on
the collar and that I only took it off when I went to bed!"
He was all right the next day, so we were spared the grief of being
obliged to bury him in that collar.
So it came to be the last day of the Lombards' stay.
We had all grown exceedingly fond of the dear English people who had
come so sweetly into the midst of an American home and adapted
themselves to our way of living with such easy grace. No one would
have believed, to see Lady Mary in her simple garden hat and cotton
gown, that she was a court beauty, over whose hand royalty had often
bent in gracious admiration. But it was true.
Nor was she deficient in a sense of humour, for she openly doted on
Jimmie, and listened intently for his jokes, with the laudable
intention of seeing them before they were explained to her, if she
could.
His absurd misadventures, however, came well within her ken, and this
last one so tickled her fancy that--I blush to say it, but it is
true--our imported Guernsey cow is responsible for Jimmie's invitation
to Combe Abbey to visit the Duchess of Strowther, when Lady Mary goes
home to her mother next May.
This is how it happened.
We were all out on the tennis-court one afternoon, when our attention
was attracted by the strange antics of the Guernsey. She was generally
quite shy and would allow no one to whom she was not accustomed to come
near her. But on this occasion she lurched up near where we were
standing, and crossed her forefeet and leered at us in such a way that
we women instinctively moved backward and put the men between us and
her.
We all stared at her, and she stared back and switched her long tail
and hung her tongue out and rolled from side to side, until Jimmie said:
"I'm blessed if the old girl doesn't look drunk!"
Just then old Amos ambled up, his fat sides shaking.
"Dat's jest what!" he exclaimed. "You sho'ly am a jedge ob jags,
Mistah Jimmie, tah be able tah tell 'em in man er beas'! Dat cow's
drunk. Dat's what she is. Jest plain drunk an' disorderly. She broke
her rope dis mornin' en got at de apples en filled hersif full ob dem.
And apples always mek a cow drunk!"
"I never heard of such a thing," said Captain Featherstone.
Amos scratched his head.
"Well, Mars Captain, I reckon dere's a heap o' tings about a farm dat
army ossifers never hearn tell of--meaning no onrespect to dere book
larnin'. But jes' de same, dat air Guernsey am drunk."
We all looked at her with interest.
"But what will she do?" I said. "How does being drunk affect a cow?"
"Jes' same as er man, Miss Faith, honey. Jes' look at her! She used
to be de shyest, mos' ladylake cow awn de place. She always seemed to
'member dat she'd had a calf en was a lady ob quality. Now look at
her! She don' keer! She'd jes' as soon lean her head on de Boss's
shoulder en ax him fer a drink er de loan ob his cee-gyar. She's done
forgot dat she's a mudder. She feels lake she don' know which is de
odder side ob de street en she don' want to be tol'! Dat's what drink
does for man or beas'."
"But will it hurt her milk?" I said, soberly, for the rest were
screaming at the imbecile expression of the Guernsey while Amos thus
diagnosed her case.
"No'm, no'm. Leastways hit won't hurt huh none. It'll dry her up,
dough. Such a jag as dat Guernsey's got will dry up her milk for two
weeks er mo'. En I wouldn't keer to be de one ter milk huh, neider!"
Here was Jimmie's opportunity.
"Nonsense!" he said. "I'll milk her! I'm not afraid of what a drunken
cow will do. Let me know, Amos, when you want her milked."
"All right, Mistah Jimmie. I sho will let you know, yas, sir. Now
den, Missus fool cow! Ef you can leab off chattin' wid de quality long
enough to go teh yo' stall, I'll show you de way."
I repeat--the Guernsey used to be our best-behaved, most intelligent
and ladylike cow, but when Amos endeavoured to lead her away, she
calmly sank down just where she was, and went to sleep.
This was too much for Amos. Fun was fun, to be sure, and he seemed
glad we were pleased by the Guernsey's antics, but his wrath at a cow's
taking the tennis-court for her afternoon nap upset his ideas of
propriety.
"Doesn't she remind you for all the world," cried Jimmie, with tears in
his eyes, "of a man who sinks to sleep with his arm affectionately
around a lamp-post? Her feet are in an attitude that a painter would
call 'one of unstudied grace!'"
But Amos, in a fury, pushed, pulled, slapped, and shoved her into a
sitting posture, and, by dint of leaning upon each other as if both
were under the weather, he finally got her started toward the barn,
she, every once in awhile, pausing to lift a fore foot hilariously
before planting it on her next uncertain step.
Several hours later I saw Jimmie, with a shining new milk-pail on his
arm, followed by Amos with the milking-stool in his hand and his tongue
in his cheek, go toward the Guernsey's stall.
We all looked expectantly at each other, then rose, as if by common
consent, and followed.
Lady Mary tucked her arm under Mrs. Jimmie's, and gurgled deliciously.
"Oh, dear Mrs. Jimmie! Is your husband always as amusing as he has
been here at Peach Orchard? If he is, I am sure mamma would just
delight in him--only things aren't always happening at Combe Abbey to
show him off as they are at Mrs. Jardine's."
Mrs. Jimmie looked dubious at the first part of this remark, flushed
with pleasure at the middle of it, and looked reproachfully at me at
the last.
Why is everything always my fault, I wonder?
"Well, I don't know," she said, slowly, "but it does seem as if Jimmie
always gets into more troub--I mean, has more adventures when he and
Faith are together than when he and I are alone. Oh, oh! What can be
the matter with that cow! Oh, I wonder if she has killed my husband!"
We all looked just in time to see the Guernsey gallop madly across the
garden, plough her way through the sweet corn, and disappear gaily over
the fence, heading for the trolley-tracks, with Amos a close second as
she took the hurdle.
Bee's English coachman, who took great pride in the kitchen-garden,
hastily followed to see what damage she had done, but at Mrs. Jimmie's
agonized entreaty to know what had become of Jimmie, I called him, and
he came, respectfully touching his forelock in a way which Jimmie
always said "was worth the price of admission."
"I think she has about done for the Country Gentleman, ma'am. She has
trampled it so it will never be any good."
Mrs. Jimmie turned white, and leaned gaspingly on Lady Mary.
"Trampled him!" she cried. "Oh, come! Come quickly, and see if she
has killed him!"
"My dear!" I cried, almost hysterical over her mistake. "The Country
Gentleman is a kind of sweet corn--not Jimmie! See, there he is now.
Look, dearest!"
Sure enough, there came Jimmie, a trifle sheepish, but defiant. His
derby hat was without a brim, the milk-pail was jammed together like a
folding lunch-box, and had a little foam on the outside, as the sole
product of his milking prowess.
We asked no questions, but our eager faces demanded an explanation.
He gave it,--terse as was his wont.
"Well, I'll bet that damned cow never switches her tail in anybody's
face again!"
We needed no further description of what had happened. The picture was
complete.
Strange to say, Lady Mary seemed to comprehend better than any of us.
She gurgled with laughter the whole evening, and lavished attentions
upon Jimmie so flatteringly that he ceased to look furtively at me and
became quite cocky before the evening was over, pretending that he had
done all these things to help me entertain my guests.
As we went up-stairs that night, Mrs. Jimmie clutched my arm, and, with
eyes as big as stars, said, in a tense whisper:
"My dear, we are invited to Combe Abbey! Think of it! To visit the
Duchess of Strowther! Lady Mary is going to write to her mother
immediately!"
If it had been anybody except dear Mrs. Jimmie, I should have said:
"Is she going to invite the cow, too?"
But as it was, I squeezed back, and said, earnestly:
"I am so glad, dear Mrs. Jimmie!"
CHAPTER XI
ON THE GENTLE ART OF WASTING OTHER PEOPLE'S TIME
On the last day of the house-party we decided to hold a family
gathering in the evening, to which each guest must bring a written
sketch of some member of the household. It was to be a very short
sketch, not to consume over ten minutes in the reading, and no one was
to get angry, and no one was to get his feelings hurt.
Aubrey had to go into New York to attend a dress rehearsal of his new
play, but he promised to write something on the train, and have it
ready. His absence left me at once to play hostess and to receive the
queer, curious, and inconsequent persons who flock to the door of the
successful playwright, with every wish from obtaining his autograph to
an offer to stage his plays.