VIII
Poor old Rutherford is fond of recalling that memorable luncheon to this day. Ruth's joyous soul frothed into fun which sounded at times so exactly like Pontycroft that he seemed to be at her elbow. For a reason not hard to seek, to sophisticated minds, General Adgate, too, seemed in high spirits. Rutherford—well—we know what infatuated young men are—excellent company because they laugh at a word, could applaud the dullest saw. Neither Ruth nor General Adgate spoke in saws; by a saw we mean the easy pert phrase, la phrase toute faite which passes so readily for wit in any land. General Adgate was an accomplished raconteur. He could tell a story with an economy of language, a grace worthy the subtlest story-writers; the point, unexpected when it came, brought the house down. Ruth listened—astonished, and led him on. Rutherford's haww-hawws, more appreciative than musical, provided the essential base to the trio.
When lunch was over Ruth ordered coffee to be served in the drawing-room. “You're a daring creature! I've never had the courage to ask Martha to do that,” objected General Adgate.
“But don't you always have coffee after luncheon?” she asked.
“Yes, but I must e'en drink it where it's brought to me, at table.”
“Poor dear! You see the advantage of having a woman by who fears nothing.”
“I see the advantage of having a fair niece to minister to my poor human wants,” gallantly responded the General. “And to make life extremely worth while, hey Rutherford?”
“Miss Adgate is an adorable hostess. If I don't envy you as her uncle, General, it is because I find her perfect as Lady of Barracks Hill,” said Rutherford. He said it with a flush and with the fear upon him that he had said too much.
But Martha just then had entered bearing the coffee; Ruth, indicating the Japanese tea-table, took no notice of his speech. The table, the shining silver Georgian service on its silver tray were placed before her.
“Where did you get this old service, Uncle?” Ruth asked as she lifted the elongated, graceful coffee-pot by its ebony handle and began to pour the coffee.
“Martha must have unearthed that from the cupboard upstairs,” answered her uncle. “The salver has been put away for years. It belonged to your great-grandmother. But how did they manage to give it such a polish?”
“Miss Adgate's maid helped me, sir,” Martha vouchsafed in her primmest voice. “We tried that new powder. It took no time at all.”
She left the room with her chin up as who should say: “We know the proper thing to do, when there's someone at hand who knows we ought to know it.”
“Well!” exclaimed Rutherford, confounded.
“Ruth's a mistress as gives satisfaction,” General Adgate laughed softly while Martha's footsteps receded towards the kitchen. “I believe, Rutherford, we'll be having our afternoon tea here yet, in the British fashion.”
“Ma, da vero! come si fa?” cried Ruth, lapsing into Italian in her surprise, “don't you always have afternoon tea?”
“We have tea, Miss Adgate,” Rutherford answered merrily, “tea with cold meat, stewed fruit and cake at six o'clock. Not a minute later, mind you. Martha and Bridget have something better to do than to be serving even you all day. By seven of the clock one is off with one's young man or running over to mother's.... You need not inquire at what hour we get back, we have the latch-key, and your breakfast's generally served on time.” Ruth cast a wild look at General Adgate.
He bowed his diminished head: “I'm afraid it's true,” he murmured.
“Is it—a—universal habit,—in Oldbridge?” asked Ruth, her eyes dancing.
“It has to be the universal habit,” answered Rutherford. “We simply can't help ourselves. We could get no one at all to wait upon us if we didn't conform to it. The—the—and the—are the only people in town who are known to have late dinners and that's because, hopelessly Europeanised, they don't care what they pay their girls, and keep a butler. Even they are obliged to dine at seven;—besides,” laughed Rutherford, “late dinners ain't 'ealthy!”
“After all,” said Ruth, thoughtfully, “the custom is primitive, not to say Puritan; I think it suits Oldbridge. Our forefathers had to do with less service I suppose. And as you say, late dinners ain't 'ealthy. But Paolina shall give us our afternoon tea, at four, Uncle. It will make her feel at home to serve it to us. But aren't you famished for some music? I want to try the Steinway. This morning when I came down I raised the lid and saw the name.”
She rose from her corner of the sofa and seated herself at the piano. Oft have I travelled in those Realms of Gold... Presently she had started her two companions, travelling, journeying in those Realms of Gold which Chopin opens to the least of musicians. Chopin's austerity of perfect beauty wrought in a sad sincerity,—entered the New England drawing-room. To General Adgate's ears the music seemed to lend voice at last,—give expression, at last,—to holy, self-repressed, patient lives,—lives of the dead and the gone—particles of whose spirit still clung, perhaps, to the panelled walls, pervaded, perhaps, the air of the old room. To Ruth, this incomplete New England world, which something more than herself and less than herself was, for the nonce, infatuated with, possessed by,—which yet, to certain of her perceptions,—revealed itself as a milieu approaching to semi-barbarism, Oldbridge, melted away. At her own magic touch, Italian landscapes, rich in dreams, rich in love, abundant; decked forth in fair realities, intellectual joys,—complete and vibrant of absolute beauty, harmonious, suggestive,—rose, took shape before her.
“I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls, among pink fragrant oleanders,” she repeated, smiling to her thoughts as she played and forgot the present.
Rutherford, Rutherford,—oh,—of course—Rutherford found in those heavenly chords and melodies what every lover finds in Chopin.
Ruth turned around upon her piano stool.
“Have you had enough?” she asked, smiling.
“Enough?” exclaimed the lovesick youth. “I, for one could never have enough.”
“Toujours perdrix!” said Ruth and lifted up a warning finger.
“Play us something else, child,” said her uncle in a matter-of-fact tone intended to disperse sentimentality. “Let us hear your Russians and a little Schubert.”
And so Ruth played the Valse Lente from the Fifth Tschaikowsky Symphony and the famous Rachmaninoff which, I believe, everybody plays, and finished at last with the Fourth Fugue of the immortal Bach.
“There!” she exclaimed, “I'm tired.”
“And so am I,” said the transcriber, laying down the pen.