The Two Vanrevels
CHAPTER IX
The Rule of the Regent
Betty never forgot her first sight of the old friend of her family. Returning
with a sad heart, she was walking the colt slowly through the carriage-gates,
when an extravagantly stout lady, in green muslin illustrated with huge red
flowers, came out upon the porch and waved a fat arm to the girl. The visitor
wore a dark-green turban and a Cashmere shawl, while the expanse of her skirts
was nothing short of magnificent: some cathedral-dome seemed to have been
misplaced and the lady dropped into it. Her outstretched hand terrified Betty:
how was she to approach near enough to take it?
Mrs. Tanberry was about sixty, looked forty, and at first you might have
guessed she weighed nearly three hundred, but the lightness of her smile and the
actual buoyancy which she somehow imparted to her whole dominion lessened that
by at least a hundred-weight. She ballooned out to the horse-block with a
billowy rush somewhere between bounding and soaring; and Miss Betty slid down
from the colt, who shied violently, to find herself enveloped, in spite of the
dome, in a vast surf of green and red muslin.
"My charming girl!" exclaimed the lady vehemently, in a voice of such husky
richness, of such merriment and unction of delight, that it fell upon Miss
Betty's ear with more of the quality of sheer gayety than any she had ever
heard. "Beautiful child! What a beautiful child you are!"
She kissed the girl resoundingly on both cheeks; stepped back from her and
laughed, and clapped her fat hands, which were covered with flashing rings. "Oh,
but you are a true blue Beauty! You're a Princess! I am Mrs. Tanberry, Jane
Tanberry, young Janie Tanberry. I haven't seen you since you were a baby and
your pretty mother was a girl like us!"
"You are so kind to come," said Betty hesitatingly. "I shall try to be very
obedient."
"Obedient!" Mrs. Tanberry uttered the word with a shriek. "You'll be nothing
of the kind. I am the light-mindedest woman in the universe, and anyone who
obeyed me would be embroiled in everlasting trouble every second in the day.
You'll find that I am the one that needs looking after, my charmer!"
She tapped Miss Betty's cheek with her jeweled fingers as the two mounted the
veranda steps. "It will be worry enough for you to obey yourself; a body sees
that at the first blush. You have conscience in your forehead and rebellion in
your chin. Ha, ha, ha!" Here Mrs. Tanberry sat upon, and obliterated, a large
chair, Miss Carewe taking a stool at her knee.
"People of our age oughtn't to be bothered with obeying; there'll be time
enough for that when we get old and can't enjoy anything. Ha, ha!"
Mrs. Tanberry punctuated her observations with short volleys of husky
laughter, so abrupt in both discharge and cessation that, until Miss Betty
became accustomed to the habit, she was apt to start slightly at each salvo. "I
had a husband—once," the lady resumed, "but only once, my friend! He had ideas
like your father's—your father is such an imbecile!—and he thought that wives,
sisters, daughters, and such like ought to be obedient: that is, the rest of the
world was wrong unless it was right; and right was just his own little,
teeny-squeeny prejudices and emotions dressed up for a crazy masquerade as
Facts. Poor man! He only lasted about a year!" And Mrs. Tanberry laughed
heartily.
"They've been at me time and again to take another." She lowered her voice
and leaned toward Betty confidentially. "Not I! I'd be willing to engage myself
to Crailey Gray (though Crailey hasn't got round to me yet) for I don't mind
just being engaged, my dear; but they'll have to invent something better than a
man before I marry any one of 'em again! But I love 'em, I do, the Charming
Billies! And you'll see how they follow me!" She patted the girl's shoulder, her
small eyes beaming quizzically. "We'll have the gayest house in Rouen, ladybird!
The young men all go to the Bareauds', but they'll come here now, and we'll have
the Bareauds along with 'em. I've been away a long time, just finished unpacking
yesterday night when your father came in after the fire—Whoo! what a state he
was in with that devilish temper of his! Didn't I snap him up when he asked me
to come and stay with you? Ha, ha! I'd have come, even if you hadn't been
beautiful; but I was wild to be your playmate, for I'd heard nothing but 'Miss
Betty Carewe, Miss Betty Carewe' from everybody I saw, since the minute my stage
came in. You set 'em all mad at your ball, and I knew we'd make a glorious
house-full, you and I! Some of the vagabonds will turn up this very evening,
you'll see if they don't. Ha, ha! The way they follow me!"
Mrs. Tanberry was irresistible: she filled the whole place otherwise than by
the mere material voluminousness of her; bubbling over with froth of nonsense
which flew through the house, driven by her energy, like sea-foam on a spring
gale; and the day, so discordantly begun for Miss Betty, grew musical with her
own laughter, answering the husky staccato of the vivacious newcomer. Nelson
waited upon them at table, radiant, his smile like the keyboard of an ebony
piano, and his disappearances into the kitchen were accomplished by means of a
surreptitious double-shuffle, and followed by the cachinnating echoes of the
vain Mamie's reception of the visitor's sallies, which Nelson hastily retailed
in passing.
Nor was Mrs. Tanberry's prediction allowed to go unfulfilled regarding the
advent of those persons whom she had designated as vagabonds. It may have been
out of deference to Mr. Carewe's sense of decorum (or from a cautious regard of
what he was liable to do when he considered that sense outraged) that the
gallants of Rouen had placed themselves under the severe restraint of allowing
three days to elapse after their introduction to Miss Carewe before they "paid
their respects at the house;" but, be that as it may, the dictator was now
safely under way down the Rouen River, and Mrs. Tanberry reigned in his stead.
Thus, at about eight o'clock that evening, the two ladies sat in the library
engaged in conversation—though, for the sake of accuracy, it should be said that
Mrs. Tanberry was engaged in conversation, Miss Betty in giving ear—when their
attention was arrested by sounds of a somewhat musical nature from the lawn,
which sounds were immediately identified as emanating from a flute and violin.
Mrs. Tanberry bounded across the room like a public building caught by a
cyclone, and, dashing at the candles, "Blow 'em out, blow 'em out!" she
exclaimed, suiting the action to the word in a fluster of excitement.
"Why?" asked Miss Carewe, startled, as she rose to her feet. The candles were
out before the question.
"'Why!" repeated the merry, husky voice in the darkness. "My goodness, child
precious, those vagabonds are here! To think of your never having been serenaded
before!"
She drew the girl to the window and pointed to a group of dim figures near
the iliac bushes. "The dear, delightful vagabonds!" she chuckled. "I knew they'd
come! It's the beautiful Tappingham Marsh with his fiddle, and young Jeff
Bareaud with his flute, and 'Gene Madrillon and little Frank Chenowith and thin
Will Cummings to sing. Hark to the rascals!"
It is perfectly truthful to say that the violin and flute executed the
prelude, and then the trio sounded full on the evening air, the more effective
chords obligingly drawn out as long as the breath in the singers could hold
them, in order to allow the two fair auditors complete benefit of the harmony.
They sang "The Harp that Once Thro' Tara's Halls," and followed it with "Long,
Long Ago."
"That," Mrs. Tanberry whispered, between stifled gusts of almost
uncontrollable laughter, "is meant for just me!"
"Tell me the tales that to me were so dear," entreated the trio.
"I told 'em plenty!" gurgled the enlivening widow. "And I expect between us
we can get up some more." "Now you are come my grief is removed," they sang.
"They mean your father is on his way to St. Louis," remarked Mrs. Tanberry.
"Let me forget that so long you have roved, Let me believe that you love as
you loved, Long, long ago, long ago."
"Applaud, applaud!" whispered Mrs. Tanberry, encouraging the minstrels by a
hearty clapping of hands.
Hereupon dissension arose among the quintet, evidently a dispute in regard to
their next selection; one of the gentlemen appearing more than merely to suggest
a solo by himself, while the others too frankly expressed adverse opinions upon
the value of the offering. The argument became heated, and in spite of many a
"Sh!" and "Not so loud!" the ill-suppressed voice of the intending soloist, Mr.
Chenoweth, could be heard vehemently to exclaim: "I will! I learned it
especially for this occasion. I will sing it!"
His determination, patently, was not to be balked without physical
encounter, consequently he was permitted to advance some paces from the
lilac bushes, where he delivered himself, in an earnest and plaintive
tenor, of the following morbid instructions, to which the violin played
an obligato in tremulo, so execrable, and so excruciatingly discordant,
that Mr. Chenoweth's subsequent charge that it was done with a
deliberately evil intention could never be successfully opposed:
"Go! Forget me!
Why should Sorrow
O'er that brow a shadow fling?
Go! Forget me, and, to-morrow,
Brightly smile and sweetly sing!
"Smile! tho' I may not be near thee;
Smile! tho' I may never see thee;
May thy soul with pleasure shine
Lasting as this gloom of mine!"
Miss Carewe complied at once with the request; while her companion, unable to
stop with the slight expression of pleasure demanded by the songster, threw
herself upon a sofa and gave way to the mirth that consumed her.
Then the candles were relit, the serenaders invited within; Nelson came
bearing cake and wine, and the house was made merry. Presently, the romp,
Virginia Bareaud, making her appearance on the arm of General Trumble, Mrs.
Tanberry led them all in a hearty game of Blind-man's Buff, followed by as
hearty a dancing of Dan Tucker. After that, a quadrille being proposed, Mrs.
Tanberry suggested that Jefferson should run home and bring Fanchon for the
fourth lady. However, Virginia explained that she had endeavored to persuade
both her sister and Mr. Gray to accompany the General and herself, but that Mr.
Gray had complained of indisposition, having suffered greatly from headache, on
account of inhaling so much smoke at the warehouse fire; and, of course, Fanchon
would not leave him. (Miss Carewe permitted herself the slightest shrug of the
shoulders.)
So they danced the quadrille with Jefferson at the piano and Mr. Marsh
performing in the character of a lady, a proceeding most unacceptable to the
General, whom Mrs. Tanberry forced to be his partner. And thus the evening
passed gayly away, and but too quickly, to join the ghosts of all the other
evenings since time began; and each of the little company had added a cheerful
sprite to the long rows of those varied shades that the after years bring to
revisit us, so many with pathetic reproach, so many bearing a tragic burden of
faces that we cannot make even to weep again, and so few with simple merriment
and lightheartedness. Tappingham Marsh spoke the truth, indeed, when he
exclaimed in parting, "O rare Mrs. Tanberry!"
But the house had not done with serenades that night. The guests had long
since departed; the windows were still and dark under the wan old moon, which
had risen lamely, looking unfamiliar and not half itself; the air bore an odor
of lateness, and nothing moved; when a delicate harmony stole out of the shadows
beyond the misty garden. Low but resonant chords sounded on the heavier strings
of a guitar, while above them, upon the lighter wires, rippled a slender,
tinkling melody that wooed the slumberer to a delicious half-wakefulness, as
dreamily, as tenderly, as the croon of rain on the roof soothes a child to
sleep. Under the artist's cunning touch the instrument was both the
accompaniment and the song; and Miss Betty, at first taking the music to be a
wandering thread in the fabric of her own bright dreams, drifted gradually to
consciousness to find herself smiling. Her eyes opened wide, but half closed
again with the ineffable sweetness of the sound.
Then a voice was heard, eerily low, yet gallant and clear, a vibrant
baritone, singing to the guitar.
"My lady's hair, That dark delight, Is both as fair And dusk as night. I know
some lovelorn hearts that beat In time to moonbeam twinklings fleet, That dance
and glance like jewels there, Emblazoning the raven hair!
"Ah, raven hair! So dark and bright, What loves lie there Enmeshed, to-night?
I know some sighing lads that say Their hearts were snared and torn away; And
now as pearls one fate they share, Entangled in the raven hair.
"Ah, raven hair, From such a plight Could you not spare One acolyte? I know a
broken heart that went To serve you but as ornament. Alas! a ruby now you wear,
Ensanguining the raven hair!"
The song had grown fainter and fainter, the singer moving away as he sang,
and the last lines were almost inaudible in the distance The guitar could be
heard for a moment or two more, then silence came again. It was broken by a
rustling in the room next to Miss Betty's, and Mrs. Tanberry called softly
through the open door:
"Princess, are you awake? Did you hear that serenade?"
After a pause the answer came hesitatingly in a small, faltering voice:
"Yes—if it was one. I thought perhaps he was only singing as he passed along the
street."
"Aha!" ejaculated Mrs. Tanberry, abruptly, as though she had made an
unexpected discovery. "You knew better; and this was a serenade that you did not
laugh at. Beautiful, I wouldn't let it go any farther, even while your father is
gone. Something might occur that would bring him home without warning—such
things have happened. Tom Vanrevel ought to be kept far away from this house."
"Oh, it was not he," returned Miss Betty, quickly. "It was Mr. Gray. Didn't
you—"
"My dear," interrupted the other, "Crailey Gray's specialty is talking. Most
of the vagabonds can sing and play a bit, and so can Crailey, particularly when
he's had a few bowls of punch; but when Tom Vanrevel touches the guitar and
lifts up his voice to sing, there isn't an angel in heaven that wouldn't quit
the place and come to hear him! Crailey wrote those words to Virginia Bareaud.
(Her hair is even darker than yours, you know.) That was when he was being
engaged to her; and Tom must have set the music to 'em lately, and now comes
here to sing 'em to you; and well enough they fit you! But you must keep him
away, Princess."
Nevertheless, Betty knew the voice was not that which had bid her look to the
stars, and she remained convinced that it belonged to Mr. Crailey Gray, who had
been too ill, a few hours earlier, to leave the Bareaud house, and now, with
Fanchon's kisses on his lips, came stealing into her garden and sang to her a
song he had made for another girl!
And the angels would leave heaven to listen when he sang, would they? Poor
Fanchon! No wonder she held him so tightly in leading strings! He might risk his
life all he wished at the end of a grappling-ladder, dangling in a fiery cloud
above nothing; but when it came to—ah, well, poor Fanchon! Did she invent the
headaches for him, or did she make him invent them for himself?
If there was one person in the world whom Miss Betty held in bitter contempt
and scorn, it was the owner of that voice and that guitar.