# A Strange, Sad Comedy/Chapter 3

THE period so frankly mentioned by Letty, when the party from Corbin Hall would get to the end of their financial tether, arrived with surprising promptness. But something still more surprising happened. The Colonel quite unexpectedly had dumped upon him the vast and imposing sum of two thousand dollars. This astonishing fact was communicated to Farebrother one sunny day when he and Letty were watching a game of tennis at the Casino.
"Do you know," said she, turning two sparkling eyes on him from under her large white hat, and tilting her parasol back gaily, "we are not going away, after all."
"Thank the Lord," answered Farebrother, with fervent irreverence.
He had found out that he could talk any amount of sentiment to Letty with impunity. In fact, she rather demanded excessive senti​ment, of which she nevertheless believed not one word. Farebrother, who had seen something of Southern girls, very quickly and accurately guessed that it was the sort of thing Letty had been used to. But he was amused and charmed to find, that along with the most inveterate and arrant coquetry, she combined a modesty that amounted to prudery, and a reserve of manner in certain respects which kept him at an inexorable distance. He could whisper soft nonsense in Letty's ear all day long, and she would listen with an artless enjoyment that was inexpressibly diverting to Farebrother. But when he once attempted to touch her hand in putting on her wrap, Letty turned on him with an angry stare that disconcerted him utterly. It was not the surprise of an ignorant girl, but the thorough resentment of an offended woman. Farebrother took care not to transgress in that way again.
Letty fully expected him to express rapturous delight at her announcement, and was not disappointed. "It 's very strange," she continued, twirling her parasol and leaning forward in her chair; "grandpapa's father lent some money a long time ago,—I think the Corbins got some money by hook or by crook ​in 1814,—and they lent it all out, and ever since then they have been borrowing, as far as I can make out. Well, some of it was on a mortgage that was foreclosed the other day, so grandpapa says, and he got two thousand dollars."
Letty held off to watch the effect of this stunning statement. Two thousand dollars was a great deal of money to her. Farebrother, arrant hypocrite that he was, had learned the important lesson of promptly adopting Letty's view of everything, and did it so thoroughly that sometimes he overdid it.
"Why, that 's a pot of money," he said gravely. "It's quite staggering to contemplate."
Letty was not deficient in shrewdness, and she knew by that time that the standard of values in Virginia and at Newport varied. So she looked at him very hard, and said, sternly:
"I hope you are not telling me a story."
"Of course not. But really," here Farebrother became quite serious, "it depends a good deal on how it comes. Last year, for example, I only made three thousand dollars. ​You see I've got enough to live upon without work, and that 's a fearful drawback to people giving me work. I'm an architect, and I love my trade. But I can't convince people that I'm not a dilettante. I am ashamed to eat the bread of idleness, and yet—here's a question that comes up. Has any man a right, who does not need to work, to enter into close competition with those who do need it?"
Farebrother was very much in earnest by that time. He saw that these nineteenth-century problems had never presented themselves to Letty's simple experience. But they were of vast moment to him. Letty fixed her large, clear gaze upon him very much as if he were a new sort of animal she was studying.
"I thought here, where you are all so rich, you cared for nothing except how to enjoy yourselves."
"Did you? Then you made a huge mistake. Why, I know of men literally wallowing in money who work for the pure love of work. I could work for love of work, too, but I tell you, when I see a poor fellow, with a wife and family to support, slaving over plans and specifications, and then I feel that my competition is making that man's chances con​siderably less, it takes the heart out of my work. Now, if you 'll excuse me, I 'll say that I could make three thousand dollars several times over if I went at it for a living—because like all men who work from love, not from necessity, I am inclined to believe in my own capacity and to have a friendly opinion of my own performances. You may disparage everything about me, and although it may lacerate my feelings, I will forgive you. But just say one word against me as an architect, and everything is over between us."
"I sha'n't say anything against you or your architecture either," replied Letty, bringing the battery of her eyes and smile to bear on him with shameless cajolery.
But just then their attention was attracted by a group approaching them over the velvet turf. Sir Archibald Corbin was in the lead, escorting two tall, handsome, blonde young women. They were evidently sisters and evidently English. They had smooth, abundant light hair, knotted low under their turban hats, and their complexions were deliciously fresh. Although the day was warm, and Letty found her sheer white frock none too cool, and every other woman in sight had on a thin light gown, ​these two handsome English women wore dark, tight-fitting tweed frocks, and spotless linen collars. Behind them walked two men, one a thoroughly English-looking young fellow, while the last of the party so completely fixed Letty's attention as soon as she put her eyes on him, that she quite forgot everybody else.
He was an old man, small, slight, and scrupulously well dressed. His hair was perfectly white, and his face was bloodless. His clothes were a pale gray, his hat was a paler gray, and he was in effect a symphony in gray. Even the rose at his buttonhole was white. But from his pallid face gleamed a pair of the blackest and most fascinating eyes Letty had ever beheld. It was as if they had gained in fire and intensity as his blood and his life grew more sluggish. And however frail he might look, his eyes were full of vitality. He walked along, leaning upon the arm of the young man and speaking but little. The party stopped a little way off to watch a game of tennis, while Sir Archy made straight for Letty.
"May I introduce my friends to you?" he asked, in a low voice. "Mrs. Chessingham, and her sister, Miss Maywood, Chessingham ​and Mr. Romaine. Chess is one of the best and cleverest fellows going, and of good family, although he is a medical man, and he is traveling with Mr. Romaine—a rich old hypochondriac, I imagine."
As soon as he mentioned Mr. Romaine a flood of light burst upon Letty. "Is n't he a Virginian?—an American, I mean? And did n't grandpapa know him hundreds of years ago?" she asked, eagerly.
"I have heard he was born in Virginia, as poor Chessingham knows to his cost," answered Sir Archy, laughing quietly. "After having gone all over Europe, Asia, and Africa, the old hunks at last made up his mind that he would come back to America. Chess was very well pleased, particularly as Mrs, Chessingham and Miss Maywood were invited to come as his guests. But old Romaine swears he means to take the whole party back to Virginia to his old place there that he has n't seen for forty years, and naturally they 'll find it dull."
Sir Archy possessed in perfection that appalling English frankness which puts to shame the characteristic American caution. But Sir Archy's mistake was Farebrother's opportunity.
​"Deuced odd mistake, finding Virginia dull," remarked that arch hypocrite, at which Letty rewarded him with a brilliant smile.
Sir Archy had got his permission by that time, and he went across the grass to his friends and brought them up.
The two English women looked at Letty with calmly inquisitive eyes full of frank admiration, Letty, with a side-look and an air of extreme modesty, took them from the top of their dainty heads to the soles of their ugly shoes at one single swift glance. Then Mr. Chessingham was presented, and last, Mr. Romaine. Mr. Romaine gave the impression of looking through people when he looked at them and nailing them to the wall with his glance. And Letty was no exception to the rule. He fixed his black eyes on her, and said in a peculiarly soft, smooth voice: "Your name, my dear young lady, is extremely familiar to me. Archibald Corbin and his brothers were known to me well in my youth at Shrewsbury plantation."
"Mr. Archibald Corbin is my grandfather, and he has spoken often of you," replied Letty, gazing with all her eyes.
This then was Mr. Romaine, the eccentric, ​the gifted Mr. Romaine, of whose career vague rumors had reached the quiet Virginia country neighborhood which he had left so long ago. Far back in the dark ages, about 1835, when Colonel Corbin had made a memorable trip in a sailing-vessel to Europe, Mr. Romaine had been an attaché of the American legation in London; he had resigned that appointment, but he seemed to have taken a disgust to his native country, and had never returned to it. And Letty had a dim impression of having heard that Miss Jemima in her youth had had a slight weakness for the handsome Romaine. But it was so far in the distant past as to be quite shadowy. There was a superstition afloat that Mr. Romaine had made an enormous fortune in some way, and his conduct about Shrewsbury certainly indicated it. The place had been farmed on shares for a generation back, and the profits paid the taxes, and no more. But the house, which was a fine old mansion, had never been suffered to fall into decay, and was kept in a state of repair little short of marvelous in Virginia. Nobody was permitted to live in it, and at intervals of ten years the report would be started that Mr. Romaine intended returning ​to Shrewsbury. But nothing of the sort had been said for a long time now, and meanwhile Mr. Romaine was on the American side, and nobody in his native county had heard a word of it.
"And Miss Jemima Corbin," said Mr. Romaine, a faint smile wrinkling the fine lines about his mouth. "When I knew her she was a very pretty young lady; there have been a great many pretty young ladies in the Corbin family," he added, with old-fashioned gallantry.
"Aunt Jemima is still Miss Corbin," answered Letty, also smiling. "She never could find a man so good as my grandfather, 'brother Archibald,' as she calls him, and so she would not have any at all."
"May I ask if your grandfather is here with you? and is he enjoying good health?"
"Yes, he is now in the Casino—I don't know exactly where, but he will soon come for me."
This reawakening of his early life was not without its effect on Mr. Romaine, nor was it a wholly pleasant one. For time and Mr. Romaine were mortal enemies. His face flushed slightly, and he sat down on a garden ​chair by Letty, and the next moment Colonel Corbin was seen advancing upon them. The Colonel wore gaiters of an ancient pattern; they were some he had before the war. His new frock-coat was tightly buttoned over his tall, spare figure, and on his head was a broad palmetto hat. In an instant the two old men recognized each other and grasped hands. They had been boy friends, and in spite of the awful stretch of time which had separated them, and the total lack of communication between them, each turned back with emotion to their early associations together.
Then the Colonel was presented to the two ladies, who seemed to think that there was a vast and unnecessary amount of introducing going on, and the younger people formed a group to themselves. Letty and Miss Maywood fell to talking, and Letty asked the inevitable question:
"How do you like America?"
"Quite well," answered Miss Maywood, in her rich, clear English voice. "Of course the climate is hard on us; these heats are almost insufferable. But it is very interesting and picturesque, and all that sort of thing. Mr. Romaine tells us the autumn in Virginia, ​where he is to take us to his old place, is beautiful."
"Mr. Romaine's place and our place, Corbin Hall, are not far apart," said Letty, and at once Miss Maywood felt a new interest in her.
"Pray tell me about it," she said. "Is it a hunting country?"
"For men," answered Letty. "But I never knew of women following the hounds. We sometimes go out on horseback to see the hunt, but we don't really follow the hounds."
"But there is good hunting, I fancy," cried Miss Maywood with animation. "Mr. Romaine has promised me that, and I like a good stiff country, such as he tells me it is. I have hunted for four seasons in Yorkshire, but now that Gladys has married in London, she has invited me to be with her for six months in the year, and although I hate London, I love Gladys, and it's a great saving, too. But it puts a stop to my hunting."
Letty noticed that not only did Miss Maywood use Mr. Romaine's name very often, but she glanced at him continually. He sat quite close to the Colonel, listening with a half smile to Colonel Corbin's sounding pe​riods, describing the effects of the war and the present status of things in Virginia. His extraordinarily expressive black eyes supplied comment without words.
"I am very glad you are coming to the county," said Letty, after a moment, "and I hope you 'll like Newport, too. At first I did n't like it, but afterward, I met the Farebrothers"—she spoke in a low voice, and indicated Farebrother with a glance—"and they have been very kind to me, and I have had a very good time. We intended to go home next week. Newport 's a very expensive place," she added, with a frank little smile. "But now, we—that is, my grandfather and my aunt and myself—intend staying a little longer."
"Everything in America is expensive," cried Miss Maywood, with energy. "I can't imagine how Mr. Romaine can pay our bills; they are so enormous. Reginald—Mr. Chessingham—is his doctor, you know, and Mr. Romaine won't let Reggie leave him, and Reggie would n't leave Gladys, and Gladys would n't leave me, and so, here we are. It is the one good thing about Reggie's profession. I hate doctors, don't you?"
​"Why?" asked Letty, in surprise.
"Because," said Miss Maywood, positively, "it 's so unpleasant to have people saying, 'What a pity—there is that sweet, pretty Gladys Maywood married to a medical man'—he is n't even a doctor—and Gladys cannot go to Court, you know, and it has really made a great difference in her position in London. Papa was an army man, and we were presented when we came out; but society has come to an end as far as poor Gladys is concerned. And although Reggie is a dear fellow, and I love him, I do wish he was n't associated with plasters and pills and that sort of thing."
All this was thoroughly puzzling to Letty, but she had realized since she came to Newport that there was a great, big, wide world, with which she was totally unfamiliar, outside of Corbin Hall and its neighborhood. She knew she was a stranger to the thoughts and feelings of the people who lived in this outer world. She glanced at "Reggie"—he had a strong, sensible face, and she could imagine that Mr. Romaine might well find help in him.
"Is Mr. Romaine very, very ill?" she asked.
"I don't know," replied Miss Maywood, ​smiling. "He's a very interesting man, rich, and has an excellent position in England. He does n't do a great deal, but he always has strength enough to travel. I think, occasionally, perhaps, he is only hipped, but it would not do to say generally. Sometimes he talks about dying, and sometimes he talks about getting married."
"Who would marry him, though?" asked Letty, innocently.
"Who would n't marry him?" replied Miss Maywood, calmly. "There was a French woman a few years ago—" She stopped suddenly, remembering that she knew very little about this French woman, a widow of good family but small means. There had been a subdued hurricane of talk, and she remembered hearing that at the time wagers had been made as to whether the French woman would score or not. But Mr. Romaine had apparently outwitted Madame de Fonblanque,—that was her name,—and since the Chessinghams had been with him, nothing had been seen or heard of the French widow. So Miss Maywood merely said in her gentle, even way, "I grant you, he is n't young, and his health is not good, but his manners and his ​money are above reproach, and so is his position." Miss Maywood mentally added to this last qualification—"for an American."
"Marrying for manners, money, and position does n't strike me as quite a nice thing to do," said Letty, stoutly.
Miss Maywood simply glanced at her, but the look said as plainly as words, "What a fool to suppose anybody would believe you."
But what she actually said was, with a little laugh, "That's very nice to say, but marriage without those things is out of the question, and the possession of them marks the difference between a possible man and an impossible man."
This short discussion had brought the two young women to a mutual contempt of one another, although each was too well bred to show it. Just then there was a slight diversion in the group, and Letty gravitated toward Sir Archy. It was then his turn instead of Farebrother's to receive assurances of Miss Corbin's distinguished consideration.
"Where have you been all the morning?" she asked, with her sweetest wheedling. "I've been looking out for you a whole hour."
Farebrother was then engaged with Mrs. ​Chessingham and Miss Maywood, and did not hear this colossal fib, which would not have ranked as a fib at all in Letty's birthplace. But Miss Maywood heard it with a thrill of disgust. Not so Sir Archy. He had found out by that time that the typical American girl—not the sham English one, which sometimes is evolved from an American seedling—is prone to say flattering things to men, which cannot always be taken at their face value. Nevertheless, he liked the process, and showed his white teeth in a pleasant smile.
"And," continued Letty, with determined cajolery, "you really must not treat me with the utter neglect you 've shown me for the last ten days."
"Neglect, by Jove," said Sir Archy, laughing. "It seems to me that the neglect you complain of keeps me on the go from morning till night. When I am not doing errands for you I am reading up on subjects that I have never thought essential to a polite education before, but which you seem to think anybody but a Patagonian would know."
Nothing escaped Miss Maywood's ears. "The brazen thing," she thought indignantly to herself. "Pretending that she would n't ​marry for money and position and now simply throwing herself at Sir Archy's head."
Letty, however, was altogether unconscious of this, and went on with happy indifference.
"I found your knowledge of the American Constitution perfectly rudimentary, and of course I could not condescend to talk to any man ignorant of the first principles of our government, and you ought to go down on your knees and thank me for putting you in the way of enlightenment."
Every word Letty uttered startled Miss Maywood more and more. It was bad enough to see Sir Archy swallowing the huge lumps of flattery that Miss America so calmly administered, but to see him take mildly a hectoring and overbearing attack upon the one subject—public affairs—on which a man is supposed to be most superior to woman was simply paralyzing. Miss Maywood turned, fully expecting to see Sir Archy walk off in high dudgeon. Instead of that he was laughing at Letty, his fine, ruddy face showing a boyish dimple as he smiled.
Then there was a move toward the Casino. Somebody had proposed luncheon. Colonel Corbin and Mr. Romaine got up from their ​seats and joined the younger people. The Colonel, with a flourish of his hand, remarked to Mrs. Chessingham, "You have witnessed, madam, the meeting of two old men who have not seen each other in more than forty years. A very gratifying meeting, madam; for although all retrospection has its pain, it has also its pleasure."
This allusion to himself as an old man evidently did not enrapture Mr. Romaine. His eyes contracted and he scowled unmistakably, while the Colonel, with a bland smile, fondly imagined that he had said the very thing calculated to please. Farebrother took the lead, and the party was soon seated at a round table, close to a window that looked out upon the gay lawns and tennis grounds. Then Letty had a chance to study Mr. and Mrs. Chessingham and Mr. Romaine a little more closely.
Mr. Chessingham was unmistakably prepossessing. He had in abundance the vitality, the steadiness of nerve, the quiet reserve strength most lacking in Mr. Romaine. There was a healthy personal magnetism about the young doctor which accounted for Mr. Romaine's willingness to saddle himself with all of Chessingham's impedimenta. Mrs. Chess​ingham, although as like Miss Maywood as two peas, yet had something much more soft and winning about her. She was, it is true, strictly conventional, and had the typical English woman's respect for rank and money and matrimony, but marriage had plainly done much for her. She might grieve that "Reggie" could not go to Court, but she did full justice to Reggie as a man and a doctor.
Miss Maywood sat next Mr. Romaine, and agreed scrupulously with everything he said. This peculiarity of hers seemed to inspire the old gentleman with the determination to make a spectacle of her, and he advanced some of the most grotesque and alarming fallacies imaginable, to which Miss Maywood gave a facile assent.
"It is my belief," he said, quite gravely, at last, in consequence of an allusion to the Franco-Prussian war, "that had the Communists succeeded in keeping possession of Paris a month longer, we should have seen the German army trooping out of France, and glad to get away at any price. Had the Communists' intelligent use of petroleum been made available against the Prussians, who knows what the result might have been? I ​have always thought the few disorders they committed very much exaggerated, and their final overthrow a misfortune for France."
"Great heavens!" exclaimed Colonel Corbin, falling back in his chair; but finding nothing else to say, he poured out a glass of Apollinaris and gulped it down in portentous silence.
"No doubt you are right," said Miss Maywood, turning her fresh, handsome face on Mr. Romaine. "One never can get at the truth of these things. The Communists were beaten, and so they were wrong."
There was a slight pause, during which Sir Archy and Farebrother exchanged sympathetic grins; they saw how the land lay, and then Letty spoke up calmly.
"I can't agree with Mr. Romaine," she said in her clear voice. "I think the Communists were the most frightful wretches that ever drew breath. To think of their murdering that brave old archbishop."
"Political necessity, my dear young lady," murmured Mr. Romaine. "M. Darboy brought his fate on himself."
"However," retorted Letty with a gay smile, "it is just possible that you may be guying ​us. The fact is, Mr. Romaine, your eyes are too expressive, and when you uttered those terrific sentiments, I saw that you were simply setting a trap for us, as deep as a well and as wide as a church door. But we won't walk in it to please you."
Miss Maywood colored quickly. It never had occurred to her literal mind before that Mr. Romaine did not mean every word he said, and if she had thought to the contrary, she would not have dared to say it. She fully expected an outbreak of the temper which Mr. Romaine was known to possess, but instead, as with Sir Archy, Letty's daring onslaught produced only a smile. Mr. Romaine was well pleased at the notion that he was not too old to be chaffed.
"You are much too acute," he said, with a sort of silent laughter.
"Just what I have always told Miss Corbin," remarked Farebrother, energetically. "If you will join me, perhaps we can organize a society for the suppression of clever women, and then we sha'n't be at their mercy as we now are."
"And don't forget a clause guaranteeing that they shall be deprived of all opportunities of a higher education," suggested Sir Archy, ​who had learned by that time to forward any joke on hand.
"That would be unnecessary," said Mr. Romaine. "The higher education does them no harm at all, and gives them much innocent pride and pleasure."
As the luncheon progressed Miss Letty became more and more in doubt whether she liked Mr. Romaine or not. She regarded him as being somewhere in the neighborhood of ninety-five, and wished to feel the respect for him she ought to feel for all decent graybeards. But Mr. Romaine was as fully determined not to be thought old as Letty was determined to think that he was old. He was certainly unlike any old man that she had ever met; not that there was anything in the least ridiculous about him,—he was much too astute to affect juvenility,—but there was an alertness in his wonderful black eyes and a keenness in his soft speech that was far removed from old age. And he was easily master of everybody at the table, excepting Farebrother and Letty. With feminine intuition Letty felt Mr. Romaine's power, and knew that had Mr. Chessingham been the old man and Mr. Romaine the young doctor, Mr. Romaine would still have been in ​the ascendant. The Colonel, with well meant but cruel persistence, tried to get Mr. Romaine into a reminiscent mood, but in vain. Mr. Romaine utterly ignored the "forty years ago, my dear Romaine," with which Colonel Corbin began many stories that never came to a climax, and he positively declined to discuss anything that had happened more than twenty years before. In fact this peculiarity was so marked that Letty strongly suspected that the old gentleman's memory had been rigidly sawed off at a certain period, as a surgeon cuts off a leg at the knee-joint.
The Chessinghams evidently enjoyed themselves, and the utmost cordiality prevailed, except between the two girls, who eyed each other very much as the gladiators might have done when in the arena for the fray. Still they were perfectly polite, and showed a truly feminine capacity for pretty hypocrisy. Nevertheless, when the luncheon was over and the party separated, Miss Maywood and Miss Corbin parted with cordial sentiments of mutual disesteem. Scarcely were the two sisters alone at the hotel, before Miss Maywood burst forth with, "Well, Gladys, I suppose you see what the typical American girl is! Did you ​ever hear anything equal to Miss Corbin's language to Mr. Romaine and Sir Archy? Actually rating them! And then the next moment plying them with the most outrageous flattery."
"And yet, Ethel, she seemed to please them," answered Mrs. Chessingham, doubtfully. "But I was a little scandalized, I admit."
"A little scandalized! Now, I do assure you, leaving out of account altogether any personal grievance about these two particular men, I never heard a girl talk so to men in all my life."
Ethel told the truth this time and no mistake.
"Nor did I," said Mrs. Chessingham. "But perhaps she's not a fair type."
"Did n't Sir Archy tell us she was the most typical American that he has yet seen? And does n't Mr. Romaine know all about her family? And really," continued Miss Maywood, getting off her high horse, and looking genuinely puzzled, "I scarcely know whether it would be right for me to make a companion of such a girl; you know her home is in the same county as Mr. Romaine's place, quite ​near, I fancy—and we have been so carefully brought up by dear mama, and so often warned against associating with reckless girls, that I am not quite sure that we ought to know her when we go to Virginia."
Here Mrs. Chessingham's confidence in Reggie came to her help.
"Now don't say that, Ethel dear. Reggie thinks her a charming girl, and you saw for yourself nobody seemed to take her seriously except ourselves, so the best thing for you to do is to go on quietly and be guided by circumstances."
"But the way she made eyes!" said Miss Maywood, disgustedly. "It's perfectly plain she means to marry either Mr. Romaine or Sir Archy—she advertises the fact so plainly that she 'll probably overshoot the mark. At all events, I shall be on my guard, and unless I am much mistaken, you will find that we can't afford to know her."
Meanwhile Letty, in the little sitting-room of their lodgings, was haranguing Colonel Corbin and Miss Jemima upon Miss Maywood's iniquities.
"The most brazen piece, Aunt Jemima, actually saying that any girl would marry that ​old pachyderm, Mr. Romaine! I would n't marry him if he was padded an inch thick with thousand-dollar bills! But she as good as said she would—and the way he poked fun at her! She agrees with everything he says, and she is making such a dead set at him that she can't see the old gentleman's game. I am perfectly disgusted with her."
At the first mention of Mr. Romaine's name, a faint color came into Miss Jemima's gentle, withered face.
"Don't speak of him that way, Letty dear," she said. "He was a charming man once. But, perhaps, my love, it would be more prudent for you to avoid Miss Maywood. Nothing is more dangerous to young girls than association with others who lack modesty and refinement, as you represent this young lady."
"I 'll think over it," answered the prudent Letty, who at that moment remembered that they were all going to the country, which is dull for young people at best, and a new neighbor is a distinct godsend not to be trifled with. But in her heart she had grave doubts of Miss Maywood's propriety.