Birthright - T.S. Stribling
The Captain's oration left him rather breathless. He paused a moment,
then asked:
"Peter, have you ever thought that we men of the leisure class owe a
debt to the world?"
Peter smiled.
"I know the theory of the leisure class, but I've had very little
practical experience with leisure."
"Well, that's a subject close to my heart. As a scholar and a thinker, I
feel that I should give the fruits of my leisure to the world. Er--in
fact, Peter, that is why I sent for you to come and see me."
"Why you sent for me?" Peter was surprised at this turn.
"Precisely. You."
Here the old gentleman got himself out of his chair, walked across to
one of a series of drawers in his bookcases, opened it, and took out a
sheaf of papers and a quart bottle. He brought the papers and the bottle
back to the table, made room for them, put the papers in a neat pile,
and set the bottle at a certain distance from the heap.
"Now, Peter, please hand me one of those wineglasses in the religious
section of my library--I always keep two or three glasses among my
religious works, in memory of the fact that our Lord and Master wrought
a miracle at the feast of Cana, especially to bless the cup. Indeed,
Peter, thinking of that miracle at the wedding-feast, I wonder, sir, how
the prohibitionists can defend their conduct even to their own
consciences, because logically, sir, logically, the miracle of our
gracious Lord completely cuts away the ground from beneath their feet!
"No wonder, when the Mikado sent a Japanese envoy to America to make a
tentative examination of Christianity as a proper creed for the state
religion of Japan--no wonder, with this miracle flouted by the
prohibitionists, the embassy carried back the report that Americans
really have no faith in the religion they profess. Shameful! Shameful!
Place the glass there on the left of the bottle. A little farther away
from the bottle, please, just a trifle more. Thank you."
The Captain poured himself a tiny glassful, and its bouquet immediately
filled the room. There was no guessing how old that whisky was.
"I will not break the laws of my country, Peter, no matter how godless
and sacrilegious those laws may be; therefore I cannot offer you a
drink, but you will observe a second glass among the religious works,
and the bottle sits in plain view on the table--er--em." He watched
Peter avail himself of his opportunity, and then added, "Now, you may
just drink to me, standing, as you are, like that."
They drank, Peter standing, the old gentleman seated.
"It is just as necessary," pursued the old connoisseur, when Peter was
reseated, "it is just as necessary for a gentleman to have a delicate
palate for the tints of the vine as it is for him to have a delicate eye
for the tints of the palette. Nature bestowed a taste both in art and
wine on man, which he should strive to improve at every opportunity. It
is a gift from God. Perhaps you would like another glass. No? Then
accommodate me."
He drained this one, with Peter standing, worked his withered lips back
and forth to experience its full taste, then swallowed, and smacked.
"Now, Peter," he said, "the reason I asked you to come to see me is that
I need a man about this house. That will be one phase of your work. The
more important part is that you shall serve as a sort of secretary. I
have here a manuscript." He patted the pile of papers. "My handwriting
is rather difficult. I want you to copy this matter out and get it ready
for the printer."
Peter became more and more astonished.
"Are you offering me a permanent place, Captain Renfrew?" he asked.
The old man nodded.
"I need a man with a certain liberality of culture. I will no doubt have
you run through books and periodicals and make note of any points
germane to my thesis."
Peter looked at the pile of script on the table.
"That is very flattering, Captain; but the fact is, I came by your place
at this hour because I am just in the act of leaving here on the
steamboat to-night."
The Captain looked at Peter with concern on his face. "Leaving Hooker's
Bend?"
"Yes, sir."
"Why?"
Peter hesitated.
"Well, my mother is dead--"
"Yes, but your--your--your work is still here, Peter." The Captain fell
into a certain confusion. "A man's work, Peter; a man's work."
"Do you mean my school-teaching?"
Then came a pause. The conversation somehow had managed to leave them
both somewhat at sea. The Captain began again, in a different tone:
"Peter, I wish you to remain here with me for another reason. I am an
old man, Peter. Anything could happen to me here in this big house, and
nobody would know it. I don't like to think of it." The old man's tone
quite painted his fears. "I am not afraid of death, Peter. I have walked
before God all my life save in one or two points, which, I believe, in
His mercy, He has forgiven me; but I cannot endure the idea of being
found here some day in some unconsidered posture, fallen out of a chair,
or a-sprawl on the floor. I wish to die with dignity, Peter, as I have
lived."
"Then you mean that you want me to stay here with you until--until the
end, Captain?"
The old man nodded.
"That is my desire, Peter, for an honorarium which you yourself shall
designate. At my death, you will receive some proper portion of my
estate; in fact, the bulk of my estate, because I leave no other heirs.
I am the last Renfrew of my race, Peter."
Peter grew more and more amazed as the old gentleman unfolded this
strange proposal. What queerer, pleasanter berth could he find than that
offered him here in the quietude of the old manor, among books, tending
the feeble flame of this old aristocrat's life? An air of scholasticism
hung about the library. In some corner of this dark oaken library his
philosophies would rest comfortably.
Then it occurred to Peter that he would have to continue his sleeping
and eating in Niggertown, and since his mother had died and his rupture
with Cissie, the squalor and smells of the crescent had become
impossible. He told the old Captain his objections as diplomatically as
possible. The old man made short work of them. He wanted Peter to sleep
in the manor within calling distance, and he might begin this very night
and stay on for a week or so as a sort of test whether he liked the
position or not. The Captain waited with some concern until Peter agreed
to a trial.
After that the old gentleman talked on interminably of the South, of the
suffrage movement, the destructive influence it would have on the home,
the Irish question, the Indian question, whether the mound-builders did
not spring from the two lost tribes of Israel--an endless outpouring of
curious facts, quaint reasoning, and extraordinary conclusions, all
delivered with the great dignity and in the flowing periods of an
orator.
It was fully two o'clock in the morning when it occurred to the Captain
that his new secretary might like to go to bed. The old man took the
hand-lamp which was still burning and led the way out to the back piazza
past a number of doors to a corner bedroom. He shuffled along in his
carpet slippers, followed by the black-and-white cat, which ran along,
making futile efforts to rub itself against his lean shanks. Peter
followed in a sort of stupor from the flood of words, ideas, and strange
fancies that had been poured into his ears.
The Captain turned off the piazza into one of those old-fashioned
Southern rooms with full-length windows, which were really glazed doors,
a ceiling so high that Peter could make out only vague concentric rings
of stucco-work among the shadows overhead, and a floor space of ball-
room proportions. In one corner was a huge canopy bed, across from it a
clothes-press of dark wood, and in another corner a large screen hiding
the bathing arrangements.
Peter's bedroom was a sleeping apartment, in the old sense of the word
before the term "apartment" had lost its dignity.
The Captain placed the lamp on the great table and indicated Peter's
possession with a wave of the hand.
"If you stay here, Peter, I will put in a call-bell, so I can awaken you
if I need you during the night. Now I wish you healthful slumbers and
pleasant dreams." With that the old gentleman withdrew ceremoniously.
When the Captain was gone, the mulatto remained standing in the vast
expanse, marveling over this queer turn of fortune. Why Captain Renfrew
had selected him as a secretary and companion Peter could not fancy.
The magnificence of his surroundings revived his late dream of a
honeymoon with Cissie. Certainly, in his fancy, he had visioned a
honeymoon in Pullman parlor cars and suburban bungalows. He had been
mistaken. This great chamber rose about him like a corrected proof of
his desire.
Into just such a room he would like to lead Cissie; into this great room
that breathed pride and dignity. What a glowing heart the girl would
have made for its somber magnificence!
He walked over to the full-length windows and opened them; then he
unbolted the jalousies outside and swung them back. The musk of autumn
weeds breathed in out of the darkness. Peter drew a long breath, with a
sort of wistful melting in his chest.
CHAPTER IX
A turmoil aroused Peter Siner the next morning, and when he discovered
where he was, in the big canopy bed in the great room, he listened
curiously and heard a continuous chattering and quarreling. After a
minute or two he recognized the voice of old Rose Hobbett. Rose was
cooking the Captain's breakfast, and she performed this function in a
kind of solitary rage. She banged the vessels, slammed the stove-eyes on
and off, flung the stove-wood about, and kept up a snarling
animadversion upon every topic that drifted through her kinky head. She
called the kitchen a rat-hole, stated the Captain must be as mean as the
devil to live as long as he did, complained that no one ever paid any
attention to her, that she might as well be a stray cat, and so on.
As Peter grew wider awake, the monotony of the old negress's rancor
faded into an unobserved noise. He sat up on the edge of his bed between
the parted curtains and divined there was a bath behind the screen in
the corner of his room. Sure enough, he found two frayed but clean
towels, a pan, a pitcher, and a small tub all made of tin. Peter
assembled his find and began splashing his heavily molded chest with a
feeling of well-being. As he splashed on the water, he amused himself by
listening again to old Rose. She was now complaining that some white
young'uns had called her "raving Rose." She hoped "God'lmighty would
send down two she bears and eat 'em up." Peter was amazed by the old
crone's ability to maintain an unending flow of concentrated and aimless
virulence.
The kitchen of the Renfrew manor was a separate building, and presently
Peter saw old Rose carrying great platters across the weed-grown
compound into the dining-room. She bore plate after plate piled high
with cookery,--enough for a company of men. A little later came a
clangor on a rusty triangle, as if she were summoning a house party. Old
Rose did things in a wholesale spirit.
Peter started for his door, but when he had opened the shutter, he stood
hesitating. Breakfast introduced another delicate problem. He decided
not to go to the dining-room at once, but to wait and allow Captain
Renfrew to indicate whether he, Peter, should break his fast with the
master in the dining-room or with old Rose in the kitchen.
A moment later he saw the Captain coming down the long back piazza.
Peter almost addressed his host, but the old Southerner proceeded into
the dining-room apparently without seeing Peter at all.
The guest was gathering his breath to call good morning, but took the
cue with a negro's sensitiveness, and let his eyes run along the weeds
in the compound. The drying stalks were woven with endless spider-webs,
all white with frost. Peter stood regarding their delicate geometries a
moment longer and then reentered his room, not knowing precisely what to
do. He could hear Rose walking across the piazza to and from the dining-
room, and the clink of tableware. A few minutes later a knock came at
his door, and the old woman entered with a huge salver covered with
steaming dishes.
The negress came into the room scowling, and seemed doubtful for a
moment just how to shut the door and still hold the tray with both
hands. She solved the problem by backing against the door tremendously.
Then she saw Peter. She straightened and stared at him with outraged
dignity.
"Well, 'fo' Gawd! Is I bringin' dish-here breakfus' to a nigger?"
"I suppose it's mine," agreed Peter, amused.
"But whuffo, whuffo, nigger, is it dat you ain't come to de kitchen an'
eat off'n de shelf? Is you sick?"
Peter admitted fair bodily vigor.
"Den whut de debbil is I got into!" cried Rose, angrily. "I ain't gwine
wuck at no sich place, ca'yin' breakfus' to a big beef uv a nigger,
stout as a mule. Say, nigger, wha-chu doin' in heah, anyway? Hoccum
dis?"
Peter tried to explain that he was there to do a little writing for the
Captain.
"Well, 'fo' Gawd, when niggers gits to writin' fuh white folks, ants'll
be jumpin' fuh bullfrogs--an havin' other niggers bring dey breakfusses.
You jes as much a nigger as I is, Peter Siner, de brightes' day you ever
seen!"
Peter began a conciliatory phrase.
Old Rose banged the platter on the table and then threatened:
"Dis is de las' time I fetches a moufful to you, Peter Siner, or any
other nigger. You ain't no black Jesus, even ef you is a woods calf."
Peter paused in drawing a chair to the table.
"What did you say, Rose?" he asked sharply.
"You heared whut I say."
A wave of anger went over Peter.
"Yes, I did. You ought to be ashamed to speak ill of the dead."
The crone tossed her malicious head, a little abashed, perhaps, yet very
glad she had succeeded in hurting Peter. She turned and went out the
door, mumbling something which might have been apology or renewed
invectives.
Peter watched the old virago close the door and then sat down to his
breakfast. His anger presently died away, and he sat wondering what
could have happened to Rose Hobbett that had corroded her whole
existence. Did she enjoy her vituperation, her continual malice? He
tried to imagine how she felt.
The breakfast Rose had brought him was delicious: hot biscuits of
feathery lightness, three wide slices of ham, a bowl of scrambled eggs,
a pot of coffee, some preserved raspberries, and a tiny glass of whisky.
The plate which Captain Renfrew had set before his guest was a delicate
dawn pink ringed with a wreath of holly. It was old Worcester porcelain
of about the decade of 1760. The coffee-pot was really an old Whieldon
teapot in broad cauliflower design. Age and careless heating had given
the surface a fine reticulation. His cup and saucer, on the contrary,
were thick pieces of ware such as the cabin-boys toss about on
steamboats. The whole ceramic melange told of the fortuities of English
colonial and early American life, of the migration of families westward.
No doubt, once upon a time, that dawn-pink Worcester had married into a
Whieldon cauliflower family. A queer sort of genealogy might be traced
among Southern families through their mixtures of tableware.
As Peter mused over these implications of long ancestral lines, it
reminded him that he had none. Over his own past, over the lineage of
nearly every negro in the South, hung a curtain. Even the names of the
colored folk meant nothing, and gave no hint of their kin and clan. At
the end of the war between the States, Peter's people had selected names
for themselves, casually, as children pick up a pretty stone. They meant
nothing. It occurred to Peter for the first time, as he sat looking at
the chinaware, that he knew nothing about himself; whether his kinsmen
were valiant or recreant he did not know. Even his own father he knew
little about except that his mother had said his name was Peter, like
his own, and that he had gone down the river on a tie boat and was
drowned.
A faint sound attracted Peter's attention. He looked out at his open
window and saw old Rose making off the back way with something concealed
under her petticoat. Peter knew it was the unused ham and biscuits that
she had cooked. For once the old negress hurried along without railing
at the world. She moved with a silent, but, in a way, self-respecting,
flight. Peter could see by the tilt of her head and the set of her
shoulders that not only did her spoil gratify her enmity to mankind in
general and the Captain in particular, but she was well within her
rights in her acquisition. She disappeared around a syringa bush, and
was heard no more until she reappeared to cook the noon meal, as
vitriolic as ever.
* * * * *
When Peter entered the library, old Captain Renfrew greeted him with
morning wishes, thus sustaining the fiction that they had not seen each
other before, that morning.
The old gentleman seemed pleased but somewhat excited over his new
secretary. He moved some of his books aimlessly from one table to
another, placed them in exact piles as if he were just about to plunge
into heroic labor, and could not give time to such details once he had
begun.
As he arranged his books just so, he cleared his throat.
"Now, Peter, we want to get down to this," he announced dynamically; "do
this thing, shove this work out!" He started with tottery briskness
around to his manuscript drawer, but veered off to the left to aline
some magazines. "System, Peter, system. Without system one may well be
hopeless of performing any great literary labor; but with system, the
constant piling up of brick on brick, stone on stone--it's the way Rome
was built, my boy."
Peter made a murmur supposed to acknowledge the correctness of this
view.
Eventually the old Captain drew out his drawer of manuscript, stood
fumbling with it uncertainly. Now and then he glanced at Peter, a
genuine secretary who stood ready to help him in his undertaking. The
old gentleman picked up some sheets of his manuscript, seemed about to
read them aloud, but after a moment shook his head, and said, "No, we'll
do that to-night," and restored them to their places. Finally he turned
to his helper.
"Now, Peter," he explained, "in doing this work, I always write at
night. It's quieter then,--less distraction. My mornings I spend
downtown in conversation with my friends. If you should need me, Peter,
you can walk down and find me in front of the livery-stable. I sit there
for a while each morning."
The gravity with which he gave this schedule of his personal habits
amused Peter, who bowed with a serious, "Very well, Captain."
"And in the meantime," pursued the old man, looking vaguely about the
room, "you will do well to familiarize yourself with my library in order
that you may be properly qualified for your secretarial labors."
Peter agreed again.
"And now if you will get my hat and coat, I will be off and let you go
to work," concluded the Captain, with an air of continued urgency.
Peter became thoroughly amused at such an outcome of the old gentleman's
headlong attack on his work,--a stroll down to the village to hold
conversation with friends. The mulatto walked unsmilingly to a little
closet where the Captain hung his things. He took down the old
gentleman's tall hat, a gray greatcoat worn shiny about the shoulders
and tail, and a finely carved walnut cane. Some reminiscence of the
manners of butlers which Peter had seen in theaters caused him to swing
the overcoat across his left arm and polish the thin nap of the old hat
with his right sleeve. He presented it to his employer with a certain
duplication of a butler's obsequiousness. He offered the overcoat to the
old gentleman's arms with the same air. Then he held up the collar of
the greatcoat with one hand and with the other reached under its skirts,
and drew down the Captain's long day coat with little jerks, as if he
were going through a ritual.
Peter grew more and more hilarious over his barber's manners. It was his
contribution to the old gentleman's literary labors, and he was doing it
beautifully, so he thought. He was just making some minute adjustments
of the collar when, to his amazement, Captain Renfrew turned on him.
"Damn it, sir!" he flared out. "What do you think you are? I didn't
engage you for a kowtowing valet in waiting, sir! I asked you, sir, to
come under my roof as an intellectual co-worker, as one gentleman asks
another, and here you are making these niggery motions! They are
disgusting! They are defiling! They are beneath the dignity of one
gentleman to another, sir! What makes it more degrading, I perceive by
your mannerism that you assume a specious servility, sir, as if you
would flatter me by it!"
The old lawyer's face was white. His angry old eyes jerked Peter out of
his slight mummery. The negro felt oddly like a grammar-school boy
caught making faces behind his master's back. It shocked him into
sincerer manners.
"Captain," he said with a certain stiffness, "I apologize for my
mistake; but may I ask how you desire me to act?"
"Simply, naturally, sir," thundered the Captain, "as one alumnus of
Harvard to another! It is quite proper for a young man, sir, to assist
an old gentleman with his hat and coat, but without fripperies and
genuflections and absurdities!"
The old man's hauteur touched some spring of resentment in Peter. He
shook his head.
"No, Captain; our lack of sympathy goes deeper than manners. My position
here is anomalous. For instance, I can talk to you sitting, I can drink
with you standing, but I can't breakfast with you at all. I do that
_in camera_, like a disgraceful divorce proceeding. It's precisely
as I was treated coming down here South again; it's as I've been treated
ever since I've been back; it's--" He paused abruptly and swallowed down
the rancor that filled him. "No," he repeated in a different tone,
"there is no earthly excuse for me to remain here, Captain, or to let
you go on measuring out your indulgences to me. There is no way for us
to get together or to work together--not this far South. Let me thank
you for a night's entertainment and go."
Peter turned about, meaning to make an end of this queer adventure.
The old Captain watched him, and his pallor increased. He lifted an
unsteady hand.
"No, no, Peter," he objected, "not so soon. This has been no trial, no
fair trial. The little--little--er--details of our domestic life here,
they will--er--arrange themselves, Peter. Gossip--talk, you know, we
must avoid that." The old lawyer stood staring with strange eyes at his
protege. "I--I'm interested in you, Peter. My actions may seem--odd,
but--er--a negro boy going off and doing what you have done--
extraordinary. I--I have spoken to your mother, Caroline, about you
often. In fact, Peter, I--I made some little advances in order that you
might complete your studies. Now, now, don't thank me! It was purely
impersonal. You seemed bright. I have often thought we gentle people of
the South ought to do more to encourage our black folk--not--not as
social equals--" Here the old gentleman made a wry mouth as if he had
tasted salt.
"Stay here and look over the library," he broke off abruptly. "We can
arrange some ground of--of common action, some--"
He settled the lapels of his great-coat with precision, addressed his
palm to the knob of his stick, and marched stiffly out of the library,
around the piazza, and along the dismantled walk to the front gate.
Peter stood utterly astonished at this strange information. Suddenly he
ran after the old lawyer, and rounded the turn of the piazza in time to
see him walk stiffly down the shaded street with tremulous dignity. The
old gentleman was much the same as usual, a little shakier, perhaps, his
tall hat a little more polished, his shiny gray overcoat set a little
more snugly at the collar.
CHAPTER X
The village of Hooker's Bend amuses itself mainly with questionable
jests that range all the way from the slightly brackish to the
hopelessly obscene. Now, in using this type of anecdote, the Hooker's-
Benders must not be thought to design an attack upon the decencies of
life; on the contrary, they are relying on the fact that their hearers
have, in the depths of their beings, a profound reverence for the object
of their sallies. And so, by taking advantage of the moral shock they
produce and linking it to the idea of an absurdity, they convert the
whole psychical reaction into an explosion of humor. Thus the ring of
raconteurs telling blackguardly stories around the stoves in Hooker's
Bend stores, are, in reality, exercising one another in the more
delicate sentiments of life, and may very well be classed as a round
table of Sir Galahads, _sans peur et sans reproche_.
However, the best men weary in well doing, and for the last few days
Hooker's Bend had switched from its intellectual staple of conversation
to consider the comedy of Tump Pack's undoing. The incident held
undeniably comic elements. For Tump to start out carrying a forty-four,
meaning to blow a rival out of his path, and to wind up hard at work,
picking cotton at nothing a day for a man whose offer of three dollars a
day he had just refused, certainly held the makings of a farce.