Читать книгу Vassall Morton - Francis Parkman - Страница 14

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The company is 'mixed,' (the phrase I quote is As much as saying, they're below your notice.)—Byron.

On reaching New Baden, towards night, they learned that there was to be a dance that evening, in the hall.

"The deuse!" ejaculated Meredith, as they entered; "have we come all this distance to find old faces again at New Baden? Look at that corner."

Morton looked, and beheld a solemn group taking no part in the amusements, but scrutinizing the scene with the air of superior beings. He recognized the familiar countenance of Mrs. Primrose, with her daughter, Miss Constance Primrose, and her daughter's friend, Miss Wallflower. There, too, was Mr. Benjamin Stubb, Morton's classmate, and Miss Primrose's reputed admirer, with several other kindred spirits. Stubb was a tall and very slender young man, with a grave and pallid visage, and an uncompromising rigidity of cravat. Though his brain was unfurnished, his morals were reasonably good, and he went regularly to church, believing that there was, he could not tell how, an inseparable connection between good society and the ritual of the English church. He prided himself on his gentlemanly deportment, and regarded a lady as a being who is under no circumstances to be approached, except through the medium of certain prescribed forms and ceremonies. He seldom noticed those whom he thought his inferiors, and was very formal and exact towards the select few whom he acknowledged as his equals. As to superiors, he confessed none, except in the highest ranks of the English aristocracy, upon whom he looked with great reverence. He thought that there was no really good society in America, except the society of Boston, of which he regarded himself and his connections as the crême, de la crême. He cherished a just hereditary scorn of upstarts and parvenus; for already nearly half a century had expired since the Stubbs began to rise on golden wings from their native mud. Nor was this their only claim to ancestral eminence; since a judicious investment of a little surplus income at the College of Heralds had revealed the gratifying truth that the Stubbs of Boston were lineal descendants of King Arthur.

Mrs. Primrose was a very benevolent and estimable person, who knew nothing of the world beyond her own circle, and looked with dire reprehension on any deviation from the standard of morals and manners which she had been accustomed to regard as the correct and proper one. Miss Constance Primrose realized Stubb's most exalted ideal of a young lady. She was very pretty, but with a face cold and unchanging as marble. She carried an unquestionable air of good, not to say of high breeding; having in this point an advantage over her mother, whose style savored a little of the simplicity of her early surroundings. The material, indeed, was very slender; but it had received a creditable polish; and though she had nothing to say, she said it with an undeniable grace.

Morton and Meredith paid their compliments to the group, the former hastening to mingle with the crowd again, while Meredith remained to exchange a few words with the pretty, modest, and too-much-neglected Miss Wallflower.

"Upon my word, Mr. Meredith," said Mrs. Primrose, "Mr. Morton has found a singular pair of acquaintances."

"O, yes," said Meredith; "those are particular friends of his."

"Very singular!" murmured Mrs. Primrose.

Morton was walking slowly up the hall, conversing with an odd-looking couple—a heavy, thick set man, in the fantastic finery of a Broadway swell, and a woman of five feet ten, thin and gaunt, with a yellow complexion, and a pair of fierce, glittering eyes, like an Indian squaw in ill humor. She was gorgeous in silk, brocade, and diamonds, and her huge, gloveless, bony fingers sparkled with jewelry. Her husband, on his part, displayed a mighty breastpin, in the shape of a war horse rampant, in diamond frostwork.

"Mr. Meredith," murmured the horrified Mrs. Primrose, "pray who are those persons?"

"Aborigines from Red River. Mr. and Mrs. Major Orson, of Natchitoches. He is a speculator, I believe, of more wealth than reputation."

"And are they friends of Mr. Morton?"

"O, Morton is a student of humanity. He met them at the tea table, and thinks them remarkable specimens of natural history."

Mrs. Primrose did not hear this explanation. The trio had now approached within a few yards; and her whole attention was absorbed in listening to the high, penetrating voice of the female ogre.

"There's one great and glorious thing about Natchitoches," remarked Mrs. Orson.

"What's that?" asked Morton.

"You can get every thing there to eat that heart can wish."

"That's a fact," said the major; "there ain't no discount on that."

"Game, and fish, and fruit, and vegetables," pursued the lady; "any thing and every thing. The north can't compete with it, I tell you. There's the pompano! O, my! Did you ever eat a pompano?"

"Never."

"Then you have got something to look forward to. That's a fish that is a fish. Why, sir, you can begin at the tail, and eat him clean away to the head, and the bones is just like marrow! It makes my mouth water to think of it!"

"O, hush!" cried the major, with sympathetic emotion.

"And then the fruit! Think of the peaches! They beat your nasty little northern peaches all holler!"

"Yes," added the major, and to have your own boys to shin up the tree and throw 'em down to you; and to sit under the shade all the afternoon eating 'em;—that's the way to live!"

"It's all the little niggers is good for, just to pick fruit."

"Troublesome animals, I should think," observed Morton.

"Well, they be; and the growed-up niggers ain't much better. To think of that girl, Cynthy, major. My! wasn't she one of 'em! The major is, out of all account, too tender to his niggers, and if it warn't for me, they wouldn't get a speck of justice done. Why, what are all those folks moving for? My! supper's ready. I'll go in with this gentleman, major, and you may foller with any pretty gal that you can get to come with you. I ain't a jealous woman"—turning to Morton—"I let the major do pretty much what he pleases."

Mrs. Primrose drew a deep breath. "There must be"—thus she communed with herself—"something essentially vulgar in the mind of that young man, if he can neglect a cultivated and refined young lady like Constance, and at the same time find pleasure in the conversation of a person like that." And she considered within herself whether it would not be best to warn Constance not to encourage any advances which he might in future make. On second thoughts, reflecting that his position was unquestionable, his wealth great, and that she had never heard any thing against his morals, she determined to suspend all action for the present, keeping a close watch, meanwhile, on his behavior.

While Morton was thus brought to the bar in the matronly breast of Mrs. Primrose, while the jury were bringing in a verdict of guilty, joined to a recommendation to mercy, the unconscious young man was leading his companion to the supper room; where, furnishing her with a huge plate of oysters, he left her in perfect contentment.

Not long after, he encountered Meredith.

"How do you like your friend in the diamonds?"

"She's a superb specimen; about as civilized, with all her jewelry, as a Pawnee squaw. She has a vein of womanhood, though. I saw her, in the tea room, fondle a kitten whose foot had been trodden upon, as tenderly as if it had been a child."

"If you had not been so busy with her, you would have met a person much better worth your time."

"Who's that?"

"Miss Fanny Euston."

"Do you mean that she is here?"

"She was here—in that room adjoining. But she has gone; you'll see nothing of her to-night."

"Will not her being here induce you to stay?"

The question, as he spoke it, had a sound of frankness; but the shameful truth must be confessed, that, in spite of his friendship for Meredith, and his admiration of Miss Leslie, he was a little jealous of his friend.

"No," replied Meredith, "it's out of the question. I must be off the day after to-morrow. By the way, you never told me how you liked Miss Euston."

"A rough diamond, needing nothing but to be cut, polished, and set!"

"It's too late, I think, for that. The polishing should have begun before eighteen. She is quite unformed, and quite unconscious of being so. I'll leave you here to fall in love with her, if you like; but if you do, colonel, you'll be a good deal younger than I take you for."

There was something in his friend's tone which led Morton half to suspect the truth. Meredith had himself a penchant for Miss Fanny Euston, held in abeyance by a very lively perception of her faults.