Chapter 10

Luckily, on this particular morning he reached his office and entered his private room without any serious rencontre. Here he opened his desk, and arranging his papers, he at once set to work with grim persistency. He had not been occupied for many minutes before the door opened to Mr. Pyecroft--one of a firm of attorneys who undertook the colonel's office work.

“I see you are early to work, Colonel,” said Mr. Pyecroft cheerfully.

“You see, sir,” said the colonel, correcting him with a slow deliberation that boded no good--“you see a Southern gentleman--blank it!--who has stood at the head of his profession for thirty-five years, obliged to work like a blank nigger, sir, in the dirty squabbles of psalm-singing Yankee traders, instead of--er--attending to the affairs of--er--legislation!”

“But you manage to get pretty good fees out of it--Colonel?” continued Pyecroft, with a laugh.

“Fees, sir! Filthy shekels! and barely enough to satisfy a debt of honor with one hand, and wipe out a tavern score for the entertainment of--er--a few lady friends with the other!”

This allusion to his losses at poker, as well as an oyster supper given to the two principal actresses of the “North Star Troupe,” then performing in the town, convinced Mr. Pyecroft that the colonel was in one of his “moods,” and he changed the subject.

“That reminds me of a little joke that happened in Sacramento last week. You remember Dick Stannard, who died a year ago--one of your friends?”

“I have yet to learn,” interrupted the colonel, with the same deadly deliberation, “what right HE--or ANYBODY--had to intimate that he held such a relationship with me. Am I to understand, sir, that he--er--publicly boasted of it?”

“Don't know!” resumed Pyecroft hastily; “but it don't matter, for if he wasn't a friend it only makes the joke bigger. Well, his widow didn't survive him long, but died in the States t'other day, leavin' the property in Sacramento--worth about three thousand dollars--to her little girl, who is at school at Santa Clara. The question of guardianship came up, and it appears that the widow--who only knew you through her husband--had, some time before her death, mentioned YOUR name in that connection! He! he!”

“What!” said Colonel Starbottle, starting up.

“Hold on!” said Pyecroft hilariously. “That isn't all! Neither the executors nor the probate judge knew you from Adam, and the Sacramento bar, scenting a good joke, lay low and said nothing. Then the old fool judge said that 'as you appeared to be a lawyer, a man of mature years, and a friend of the family, you were an eminently fit person, and ought to be communicated with'--you know his hifalutin' style. Nobody says anything. So that the next thing you'll know you'll get a letter from that executor asking you to look after that kid. Ha! ha! The boys said they could fancy they saw you trotting around with a ten year old girl holding on to your hand, and the Senorita Dolores or Miss Bellamont looking on! Or your being called away from a poker deal some night by the infant, singing, 'Gardy, dear gardy, come home with me now, the clock in the steeple strikes one!' And think of that old fool judge not knowing you! Ha! ha!”

A study of Colonel Starbottle's face during this speech would have puzzled a better physiognomist than Mr. Pyecroft. His first look of astonishment gave way to an empurpled confusion, from which a single short Silenus-like chuckle escaped, but this quickly changed again into a dull coppery indignation, and, as Pyecroft's laugh continued, faded out into a sallow rigidity in which his murky eyes alone seemed to keep what was left of his previous high color. But what was more singular, in spite of his enforced calm, something of his habitual old-fashioned loftiness and oratorical exaltation appeared to be returning to him as he placed his hand on his inflated breast and faced Pyceroft.

“The ignorance of the executor of Mrs. Stannard and the--er--probate judge,” he began slowly, “may be pardonable, Mr. Pyecroft, since his Honor would imply that, although unknown to HIM personally, I am at least amicus curiae in this question of--er--guardianship. But I am grieved--indeed I may say shocked--Mr. Pyecroft, that the--er--last sacred trust of a dying widow--perhaps the holiest trust that can be conceived by man--the care and welfare of her helpless orphaned girl--should be made the subject of mirth, sir, by yourself and the members of the Sacramento bar! I shall not allude, sir, to my own feelings in regard to Dick Stannard, one of my most cherished friends,” continued the colonel, in a voice charged with emotion, “but I can conceive of no nobler trust laid upon the altar of friendship than the care and guidance of his orphaned girl! And if, as you tell me, the utterly inadequate sum of three thousand dollars is all that is left for her maintenance through life, the selection of a guardian sufficiently devoted to the family to be willing to augment that pittance out of his own means from time to time would seem to be most important.”

Before the astounded Pyecroft could recover himself, Colonel Starbottle leaned back in his chair, half closing his eyes, and abandoned himself, quite after his old manner, to one of his dreamy reminiscences.

“Poor Dick Stannard! I have a vivid recollection, sir, of driving out with him on the Shell Road at New Orleans in '54, and of his saying, 'Star'--the only man, sir, who ever abbreviated my name--'Star, if anything happens to me or her, look after our child! It was during that very drive, sir, that, through his incautious neglect to fortify himself against the swampy malaria by a glass of straight Bourbon with a pinch of bark in it, he caught that fever which undermined his constitution. Thank you, Mr. Pyecroft, for--er--recalling the circumstance. I shall,” continued the colonel, suddenly abandoning reminiscence, sitting up, and arranging his papers, “look forward with great interest to--er--letter from the executor.”

The next day it was universally understood that Colonel Starbottle had been appointed guardian of Pansy Stannard by the probate judge of Sacramento.

There are of record two distinct accounts of Colonel Starbottle's first meeting with his ward after his appointment as her guardian. One, given by himself, varying slightly at times, but always bearing unvarying compliment to the grace, beauty, and singular accomplishments of this apparently gifted child, was nevertheless characterized more by vague, dreamy reminiscences of the departed parents than by any personal experience of the daughter.

“I found the young lady, sir,” he remarked to Mr. Pyecroft, “recalling my cherished friend Stannard in--er--form and features, and--although--er--personally unacquainted with her deceased mother--who belonged, sir, to one of the first families of Virginia--I am told that she is--er--remarkably like her. Miss Stannard is at present a pupil in one of the best educational establishments in Santa Clara, where she is receiving tuition in--er--the English classics, foreign belles lettres, embroidery, the harp, and--er--the use of the--er--globes, and--er--blackboard--under the most fastidious care, and my own personal supervision. The principal of the school, Miss Eudoxia Tish--associated with--er--er--Miss Prinkwell--is--er--remarkably gifted woman; and as I was present at one of the school exercises, I had the opportunity of testifying to her excellence in--er--short address I made to the young ladies.” From such glittering but unsatisfying generalities as these I prefer to turn to the real interview, gathered from contemporary witnesses.

It was the usual cloudless, dazzling, Californian summer day, tempered with the asperity of the northwest trades that Miss Tish, looking through her window towards the rose-embowered gateway of the seminary, saw an extraordinary figure advancing up the avenue. It was that of a man slightly past middle age, yet erect and jaunty, whose costume recalled the early water-color portraits of her own youthful days. His tightly buttoned blue frock coat with gilt buttons was opened far enough across the chest to allow the expanding of a frilled shirt, black stock, and nankeen waistcoat, and his immaculate white trousers were smartly strapped over his smart varnished boots. A white bell-crowned hat, carried in his hand to permit the wiping of his forehead with a silk handkerchief, and a gold-headed walking stick hooked over his arm, completed this singular equipment. He was followed, a few paces in the rear, by a negro carrying an enormous bouquet, and a number of small boxes and parcels tied up with ribbons. As the figure paused before the door, Miss Tish gasped, and cast a quick restraining glance around the classroom. But it was too late; a dozen pairs of blue, black, round, inquiring, or mischievous eyes were already dancing and gloating over the bizarre stranger through the window.

“A cirkiss--or nigger minstrels--sure as you're born!” said Mary Frost, aged nine, in a fierce whisper.

“No!--a agent from 'The Emporium,' with samples,” returned Miss Briggs, aged fourteen.

“Young ladies, attend to your studies,” said Miss Tish, as the servant brought in a card. Miss Tish glanced at it with some nervousness, and read to herself, “Colonel Culpeper Starbottle,” engraved in script, and below it in pencil, “To see Miss Pansy Stannard, under favor of Miss Tish.” Rising with some perturbation, Miss Tish hurriedly intrusted the class to an assistant, and descended to the reception room. She had never seen Pansy's guardian before (the executor had brought the child); and this extraordinary creature, whose visit she could not deny, might be ruinous to school discipline. It was therefore with an extra degree of frigidity of demeanor that she threw open the door of the reception room, and entered majestically. But to her utter astonishment, the colonel met her with a bow so stately, so ceremonious, and so commanding that she stopped, disarmed and speechless.

“I need not ask if I am addressing Miss Tish,” said the colonel loftily, “for without having the pleasure of--er--previous acquaintance, I can at once recognize the--er--Lady Superior and--er--chatelaine of this--er--establishment.” Miss Tish here gave way to a slight cough and an embarrassed curtsy, as the colonel, with a wave of his white hand towards the burden carried by his follower, resumed more lightly: “I have brought--er--few trifles and gewgaws for my ward--subject, of course, to your rules and discretion. They include some--er--dainties, free from any deleterious substance, as I am informed--a sash--a ribbon or two for the hair, gloves, mittens, and a nosegay--from which, I trust, it will be HER pleasure, as it is my own, to invite you to cull such blossoms as may suit your taste. Boy, you may set them down and retire!”

“At the present moment,” stammered Miss Tish, “Miss Stannard is engaged on her lessons. But”--She stopped again, hopelessly.

“I see,” said the colonel, with an air of playful, poetical reminiscence--“her lessons! Certainly!

'We will--er--go to our places, With smiles on our faces, And say all our lessons distinctly and slow.'

Certainly! Not for worlds would I interrupt them; until they are done, we will--er--walk through the classrooms and inspect”--

“No! no!” interrupted the horrified, principal, with a dreadful presentiment of the appalling effect of the colonel's entry upon the class. “No!--that is--I mean--our rules exclude--except on days of public examination”--

“Say no more, my dear madam,” said the colonel politely. “Until she is free I will stroll outside, through--er--the groves of the Academus”--

But Miss Tish, equally alarmed at the diversion this would create at the classroom windows, recalled herself with an effort. “Please wait here a moment,” she said hurriedly; “I will bring her down;” and before the colonel could politely open the door for her, she had fled.

Happily unconscious of the sensation he had caused, Colonel Starbottle seated himself on the sofa, his white hands resting easily on the gold-headed cane. Once or twice the door behind him opened and closed quietly, scarcely disturbing him; or again opened more ostentatiously to the words, “Oh, excuse, please,” and the brief glimpse of a flaxen braid, or a black curly head--to all of which the colonel nodded politely--even rising later to the apparition of a taller, demure young lady--and her more affected “Really, I beg your pardon!” The only result of this evident curiosity was slightly to change the colonel's attitude, so as to enable him to put his other hand in his breast in his favorite pose. But presently he was conscious of a more active movement in the hall, of the sounds of scuffling, of a high youthful voice saying “I won't” and “I shan't!” of the door opening to a momentary apparition of Miss Tish dragging a small hand and half of a small black-ribboned arm into the room, and her rapid disappearance again, apparently pulled back by the little hand and arm; of another and longer pause, of a whispered conference outside, and then the reappearance of Miss Tish majestically, reinforced and supported by the grim presence of her partner, Miss Prinkwell.

“This--er--unexpected visit,” began Miss Tish--“not previously arranged by letter”--

“Which is an invariable rule of our establishment,” supplemented Miss Prinkwell--

“And the fact that you are personally unknown to us,” continued Miss Tish--

“An ignorance shared by the child, who exhibits a distaste for an interview,” interpolated Miss Prinkwell, in a kind of antiphonal response--

“For which we have had no time to prepare her,” continued Miss Tish--

“Compels us most reluctantly”--But here she stopped short. Colonel Starbottle, who had risen with a deep bow at their entrance and remained standing, here walked quietly towards them. His usually high color had faded except from his eyes, but his exalted manner was still more pronounced, with a dreadful deliberation superadded.

“I believe--er--I had--the honah--to send up my kyard!” (In his supreme moments the colonel's Southern accent was always in evidence.) “I may--er--be mistaken--but--er--that is my impression.” The colonel paused, and placed his right hand statuesquely on his heart.

The two women trembled--Miss Tish fancied the very shirt frill of the colonel was majestically erecting itself--as they stammered in one voice,--

“Ye-e-es!”

“That kyard contained my full name--with a request to see my ward--Miss Stannard,” continued the colonel slowly. “I believe that is the fact.”

“Certainly! certainly!” gasped the women feebly.

“Then may I--er--point out to you that I AM--er--WAITING?”

Although nothing could exceed the laborious simplicity and husky sweetness of the colonel's utterance, it appeared to demoralize utterly his two hearers--Miss Prinkwell seemed to fade into the pattern of the wall paper, Miss Tish to droop submissively forward like a pink wax candle in the rays of the burning sun.

“We will bring her instantly. A thousand pardons, sir,” they uttered in the same breath, backing towards the door.

But here the unexpected intervened. Unnoticed by the three during the colloquy, a little figure in a black dress had peeped through the door, and then glided into the room. It was a girl of about ten, who, in all candor, could scarcely be called pretty, although the awkward change of adolescence had not destroyed the delicate proportions of her hands and feet nor the beauty of her brown eyes. These were, just then, round and wondering, and fixed alternately on the colonel and the two women. But like many other round and wondering eyes, they had taken in the full meaning of the situation, with a quickness the adult mind is not apt to give them credit for. They saw the complete and utter subjugation of the two supreme autocrats of the school, and, I grieve to say, they were filled with a secret and “fearful joy.” But the casual spectator saw none of this; the round and wondering eyes, still rimmed with recent and recalcitrant tears, only looked big and innocently shining.

The relief of the two women was sudden and unaffected.

“Oh, here you are, dearest, at last!” said Miss Tish eagerly. “This is your guardian, Colonel Starbottle. Come to him, dear!”

She took the hand of the child, who hung back with an odd mingling of shamefacedness and resentment of the interference, when the voice of Colonel Starbottle, in the same deadly calm deliberation, said,--

“I--er--will speak with her--alone.”

The round eyes again saw the complete collapse of authority, as the two women shrank back from the voice, and said hurriedly,--

“Certainly, Colonel Starbottle; perhaps it would be better,” and ingloriously quitted the room.

But the colonel's triumph left him helpless. He was alone with a simple child, an unprecedented, unheard-of situation, which left him embarrassed and--speechless. Even his vanity was conscious that his oratorical periods, his methods, his very attitude, were powerless here. The perspiration stood out on his forehead; he looked at her vaguely, and essayed a feeble smile. The child saw his embarrassment, even as she had seen and understood his triumph, and the small woman within her exulted. She put her little hands on her waist, and with the fingers turned downwards and outwards pressed them down her hips to her bended knees until they had forced her skirts into an egregious fullness before and behind, as if she were making a curtsy, and then jumped up and laughed.

“You did it! Hooray!”

“Did what?” said the colonel, pleased yet mystified.

“Frightened 'em!--the two old cats! Frightened 'em outen their slippers! Oh, jiminy! Never, never, NEVER before was they so skeert! Never since school kept did they have to crawl like that! They was skeert enough FIRST when you come, but just now!--Lordy! They wasn't a-goin' to let you see me--but they had to! had to! HAD TO!” and she emphasized each repetition with a skip.

“I believe--er,” said the colonel blandly, “that I--er--intimated with some firmness”--

“That's it--just it!” interrupted the child delightedly. “You--you--overdid 'em”

“What?”

“OVERDID 'EM! Don't you know? They're always so high and mighty! Kinder 'Don't tech me. My mother's an angel; my father's a king'--all that sort of thing. They did THIS”--she drew herself up in a presumable imitation of the two women's majestic entrance--“and then,” she continued, “you--YOU jest did this”--here she lifted her chin, and puffing out her small chest, strode towards the colonel in evident simulation of his grandest manner.

A short, deep chuckle escaped him--although the next moment his face became serious again. But Pansy in the mean time had taken possession of his coat sleeve and was rubbing her cheek against it like a young colt. At which the colonel succumbed feebly and sat down on the sofa, the child standing beside him, leaning over and transferring her little hands to the lapels of his frock coat, which she essayed to button over his chest as she looked into his murky eyes.

“The other girls said,” she began, tugging at the button, “that you was a 'cirkiss'”--another tug--“'a nigger minstrel'”--and a third tug--“'a agent with samples'--but that showed all they knew!”

“Ah,” said the colonel with exaggerated blandness, “and--er--what did YOU--er--say?”

The child smiled. “I said you was a Stuffed Donkey--but that was BEFORE I knew you. I was a little skeert too; but NOW”--she succeeded in buttoning the coat and making the colonel quite apoplectic,--“NOW I ain't frightened one bit--no, not one TINY bit! But,” she added, after a pause, unbuttoning the coat again and smoothing down the lapels between her fingers, “you're to keep on frightening the old cats--mind! Never mind about the GIRLS. I'll tell them.”

The colonel would have given worlds to be able to struggle up into an upright position with suitable oral expression. Not that his vanity was at all wounded by these irresponsible epithets, which only excited an amused wonder, but he was conscious of an embarrassed pleasure in the child's caressing familiarity, and her perfect trustfulness in him touched his extravagant chivalry. He ought to protect her, and yet correct her. In the consciousness of these duties he laid his white hand upon her head. Alas! she lifted her arm and instantly transferred his hand and part of his arm around her neck and shoulders, and comfortably snuggled against him. The colonel gasped. Nevertheless, something must be said, and he began, albeit somewhat crippled in delivery:--

“The--er--use of elegant and precise language by--er--young ladies cannot be too sedulously cultivated”--

But here the child laughed, and snuggling still closer, gurgled: “That's right! Give it to her when she comes down! That's the style!” and the colonel stopped, discomfited. Nevertheless, there was a certain wholesome glow in the contact of this nestling little figure.

Presently he resumed tentativery: “I have--er--brought you a few dainties.”

“Yes,” said Pansy, “I see; but they're from the wrong shop, you dear old silly! They're from Tomkins's, and we girls just abominate his things. You oughter have gone to Emmons's. Never mind. I'll show you when we go out. We're going out, aren't we?” she said suddenly, lifting her head anxiously. “You know it's allowed, and it's RIGHTS 'to parents and guardians'!”

“Certainly, certainly,” said the colonel. He knew he would feel a little less constrained in the open air.

“Then we'll go now,” said Pansy, jumping up. “I'll just run upstairs and put on my things. I'll say it's 'orders' from you. And I'll wear my new frock--it's longer.” (The colonel was slightly relieved at this; it had seemed to him, as a guardian, that there was perhaps an abnormal display of Pansy's black stockings.) “You wait; I won't be long.”

She darted to the door, but reaching it, suddenly stopped, returned to the sofa, where the colonel still sat, imprinted a swift kiss on his mottled cheek, and fled, leaving him invested with a mingled flavor of freshly ironed muslin, wintergreen lozenges, and recent bread and butter. He sat still for some time, staring out of the window. It was very quiet in the room; a bumblebee blundered from the jasmine outside into the open window, and snored loudly at the panes. But the colonel heeded it not, and remained abstracted and silent until the door opened to Miss Tish and Pansy--in her best frock and sash, at which the colonel started and became erect again and courtly.

“I am about to take my ward out,” he said deliberately, “to--er--taste the air in the Alameda, and--er--view the shops. We may--er--also--indulge in--er--slight suitable refreshment;--er--seed cake--or--bread and butter--and--a dish of tea.”

Miss Tish, now thoroughly subdued, was delighted to grant Miss Stannard the half holiday permitted on such occasions. She begged the colonel to suit his own pleasure, and intrusted “the dear child” to her guardian “with the greatest confidence.”

The colonel made a low bow, and Pansy, demurely slipping her hand into his, passed with him into the hall; there was a slight rustle of vanishing skirts, and Pansy pressed his hand significantly. When they were well outside, she said, in a lower voice:--

“Don't look up until we're under the gymnasium windows.” The colonel, mystified but obedient, strutted on. “Now!” said Pansy. He looked up, beheld the windows aglow with bright young faces, and bewildering with many handkerchiefs and clapping hands, stopped, and then taking off his hat, acknowledged the salute with a sweeping bow. Pansy was delighted. “I knew they'd be there; I'd already fixed 'em. They're just dyin' to know you.”

The colonel felt a certain glow of pleasure, “I--er--had already intimated a--er--willingness to--er--inspect the classes; but--I--er--understood that the rules”--