I.
Not since the day on which we heard of Lee's surrender had there been such a commotion in the house. We who had grown up since that date had ceased to expect anything in the way of pleasure, for "the war" was a ghost that wouldn't be laid. Did we want fine dresses, we were asked where the money was coming from, now that Uncle David had lost all his property by the war; did we vainly long for a trip to a Northern city, we were consoled by the announcement that if it had not been for the war Uncle David would have taken us to Europe; if we complained that we had to keep our own rooms in order and sweep the parlors besides, a dignified reference was made to the former number of servants in the establishment; and when we roundly declared that life wasn't worth living without a dessert for dinner every day, somebody would say that it could hardly be expected we should set such a table as we did before the war. Positively, we didn't know how old we were, for Aunt Nanny declared that her memory wasn't a yard long on account of the trouble she had had during the war, and the family Bible had been "confiscated" by a pious private of taking propensities. Lilly was the older, however: we knew that. She was half a head taller than I, and had a dignified figure, though she looked like a child in the face and had a good many child's ways. She never knew what to do with her hands, for one thing, and when a little embarrassed she had a sweet cunning habit of putting one hand up to her mouth and laughing behind it. Her mouth was her prettiest feature. It had a bewitching way of dimpling at the corners, and the twenty-four pearls behind it had never been touched by the dentist. This, Aunt Nanny said, was the one good result of the war; for we had to eat boiled rice and drink cold water instead of plum-cake and coffee; so we kept our teeth sound.
We were orphans. Our names were Lilly and Stella Tresvant. Our father had been killed during the war, and our mother had died of grief. We were little children then, and had been sent to the Island City, Galveston, to live with Aunt Nanny and Uncle David. We thought ourselves quite grown-up now. Since we came to our island home we had never been away from it. It was forlorn enough, though it was a pretty place, all overgrown with oleanders and cape-jessamines. We used to get so tired watching the sea, hearing the restless beat, beat of the waves against the shore, and seeing the far-off birds dip their wings into the water! There was an old book in Uncle David's library that I suppose we had read a dozen times. It was called Rasselas, and was about a young prince and his sister who lived in a Happy Valley, and yet could never be happy until they got away. "I can sympathize with them," Lilly used to say with such a mournful look in her big gray eyes; "and yet what was their case compared to ours? They didn't have to wear their grandmother's clothes made over, I'm very sure."
But the turning came in our long lane. One year Uncle David's crop was uncommonly good. He made a bale to the acre, got it all picked in good time, and the hands paid off without any grumbling. His plantation was in the interior, and just before the cotton was sent off we all went up to have a look at it. There were about fifty bales—a very good crop for these times, though Aunt Nanny declared it wouldn't have been a drop in the bucket "before the war." But it looked like immense wealth to Lilly and myself.
"Only think, Stella!" said Lilly to me: "if we had just a single bale apiece, what a good time we might have!"
Now, it happened that Uncle David overheard this. He was walking about the yard, as silent as usual, but he was holding his spectacles in his hand, and that was with him a sign of great good-humor. We could always tell the state of the cotton-market by the position of Uncle David's spectacles; and, as Mrs. Gargery tied on her apron when upon a "rampage," so uncle jammed his spectacles close to his eyes when things were very much out of joint.
"Well, girls," he said, "you've been pretty good lately, and I'll present you each with a bale of cotton."
We couldn't speak for surprise. But I flew at Uncle David and gave him such a kissing as he had never had from anybody, I suppose, for he blushed quite red.
Then we ran off to the cotton-press to see the last bales pressed. As often as we had watched that revolving screw and the two mules going slowly round squeezing the huge bale—it was rather a primitive press this, made by the carpenter on the place—we had never looked with an interest to compare with that which we now felt. It was our own property being squeezed into shape; and we actually stood there until the bale in press was rolled out, corded and tied. It was a great five-hundred-pounder at least; and "That's mine," said Lil.
When we had been at home a few days a lady called to see us who had been an old friend of our mother's: Mrs. Long was her name. She was sparkling with jewels, and Lil and I were quite dazzled by them and her pretty clothes and her careless way of saying that she thought of "running over to New Orleans for a couple of months," just as we should have proposed to run down to the beach to pick up shells.
"I wish I could take these two girls with me," she said, waving her hand toward Lilly and me. "Would it not be possible, dear Miss Nanny?"
Aunt Nanny shook her head, and began the usual doleful story about the war and its consequences; but Lilly gave me a quick look, and her face absolutely flashed. Then she slyly raised those long slim fingers of hers and spelled out, "The cotton."
Well, pretty soon we heard from the cotton. Uncle David had sent it to England, and it had brought a good price. In he came one day and tossed a little packet into my lap and into Lil's. We opened them, and out tumbled five twenty-dollar gold-pieces.
"Well, young ladies," said he, "what shall you do with your wealth?"
"Go to New Orleans," said Lilly as coolly as ever she spoke in her life.
"Pooh! pooh!" said Aunt Nanny: "just put it in the bank for a nest-egg."
"Now, Aunt Nanny," said Lilly, who had a perfect genius for argument, "what under heaven do we want with a nest-egg? Uncle David gave us this without any conditions: we were to do just as we pleased with it. And I am tired of staying on this old sand-bar: it just makes me sick to smell the oleanders. I want to go somewhere—to see something of life. Mrs. Long would be delighted to have us go over to New Orleans with her: this money will buy us some new dresses; so why can't we do it?"
"I think they might go, Nanny," said that blessed Uncle David; and then Maum' Hepsey came in. She had been our black mammy, and was a privileged character.
"Lor', yes, Miss Nanny!" said she: "let de chillen go, for massy's sake. Dey gits tired joggin' along here in de same ole ruts. 'Tain't gwine ter cost so very much; an' I'm willin' ter 'conomize six months ter help 'long."
The end of it all was that Aunt Nanny had to give her consent—that is, she said, if Mrs. Long really wanted us. So she dressed in her best—a long velvet cloak and a brocaded silk that looked very arkaic—and went the same day to find out that lady's mind. She came back, of course, with a warm repetition of Mrs. Long's invitation, and an urgent entreaty to be ready in a week's time. Hence the commotion in our family, for much had to be done in that week of preparation.
I did not suspect Lilly was not quite happy until one morning when we were walking on the beach before breakfast. It was a morning to make one in love with life. I danced along the hard shining white beach, and was more interested in watching the water, that broke into as many ripples as if the fishes were doing the diagonal waltz under the waves, than in looking at Lilly's face; but finally I noticed that she had an ugly little frown on her forehead.
"After all, Stell," she said, "one hundred dollars won't go a great way."
"Well, of course, Lil, we don't expect to launch out, like Dinah, in 'gorgeous array.'"
"No, but we don't want to look like Southern paupers."
"As we are," said I, laughing.
"No matter: we must put the best foot foremost," said Lil, looking very pretty and pale and earnest as the salt wind blew back her hair: "our new silks, with some of Aunt Nanny's old lace, will do very well, but how I wish we had some jewelry!"
"Oh, I don't care for that," said I.
"Good enough reason: you are younger than I am, and don't need it." (One would have thought Lilly thirty years old.) "But I should look like a different being with earrings. I must have a pair."
"The only question is how to get them," said I prosaically, for I'm always acting as a drag on Lilly's wheels.
"True," she said with a tragic air. "Dear me! I'm tempted to duck my head under the water, and let it stay there, when I think of all the troubles of life."
"'You would be a mermaid fair,
Sitting alone, sitting alone,'
and all strung round with corals and pearls. But I'd rather be Stella Tresvant on her way to New Orleans—and breakfast."
"Breakfast, indeed!" said Lilly with an accent of scorn.
Still, she ate this meal with a becoming appetite, and after it was ended proposed that we should go and have a chat with Maum' Hepsey.
We found Maum' Hepsey in her cabin, sitting in a rickety old rocking-chair, a short black pipe in her mouth from which she was drawing vigorous whiffs of comfort. A slow fire was burning in the fireplace, and on it was a huge black kettle half filled with white Southern corn. This was "lye hominy" in course of preparation—the succulent lye hominy dear to every Southern heart.
"Lor', chillen!" said Maum' Hepsey, "it's too hot for you to be in here. Massy knows if I wazn't seasoned to it I'd drap in my tracks, dis fire is so pow'ful drawin'."
"Oh, never mind, maum'; we can sit in the door. We just came to talk to you about our troubles."
"Sakes alive! I thought your troubles waz about over, now dat you're gwine ter have a trip to Orleans."
"That's it," sighed Lil: "we're going off to that grand city, where I suppose the ladies wear silks and satins every day, and we've nothing to wear."
"Whar's de money for de cotton?" Maum' Hepsey demanded, her lower jaw dropping in such a surprised way that the black pipe fell out and barely escaped the lye hominy.
"A hundred dollars doesn't go very far," said Lil contemptuously.
"Well, chillen, in my young days dat waz pretty much of a sum—sho's yo' born it waz."
"Things are different now; and besides, Maum' Hepsey, you don't know how a dressed-up lady ought to look."
"Highty-tighty!" said maum', while her eyes sparkled alarmingly. "As if I ain't seen mo' finery in a month dan you has in every blessed year of your life! Lor'! when my young mars' brung his bride over from Orleans dat chile didn't have a gownd in her trunk dat warn't made of Injy silk; an' she did look han'some a-trailin' round in 'em. An' you tell me I donno what fine dressin' is! Go 'long, chile! you've lost your manners."
Maum' Hepsey was really offended, and I hastened to soothe her: "Lil only meant that you didn't know how the ladies dressed now. We are to have two new dresses, maum', but Lilly's trouble is that she hasn't any jewelry."
She shook her turbaned head: "Jewelry costs a sight of money, honey. My young mis', she had a ring on her finger wid a stun in it like a star. 'Twarn't no bigger 'n a baby hazelnut, but, sho's yo' born, chillen, dat ring cost ten hundred dollars!"
"That was a diamond," said Lilly in an awed voice. "I never expect to have one if I live to be a thousand years old."
"Chillen," said Maum' Hepsey, lowering her voice, "why don't you git Miss Nanny to let you open dat trunk in de attic?"
"Whose is it, Maum' Hepsey?"
"Lor', honey! didn't you never hear 'bout dat trunk? It was lef' wid your Uncle David for sto'age durin' de war. A slim, dark-complected young man brought it one evenin' about sundown, an' from dat day to dis none of us has ever set eyes on him."
"What do you suppose became of him?"
"De good Lord knows, honey. Mos' likely he waz killed: men dropped down like oleander-blossoms in de high winds in dem dreadful days. Now, I shouldn't wonder, chillen, if dar waz money in dat trunk."
"So there might be," said Lilly with a start.
"It must ha' held somethin' valerble," said Maum' Hepsey, looking like a solemn old owl, "else why should he ha' been so mighty pertickeler 'bout havin' it stored safe? Den, ag'in, he must ha' been killed, else why shouldn't he ha' come back for it? An' why should we let de things—whatever is in it—moulder away, instead o' gettin' de good of 'em like sensible folks?"
"We shouldn't have any right," said I doubtfully.
"Oh shoo, chile, shoo! You'd have just as much right as de rats an' mice."
Lilly jumped up. "I think Maum' Hepsey's idea a good one," said she. "Who knows? That trunk may turn out a gold-mine."
Back we went to the house, and made an appeal to Aunt Nanny to be allowed to open the trunk.
"Dear me, girls! what will you think of next?" said she. "I had almost forgotten that old trunk."
"Tell us about the man who left it, aunty. What was his name?"
"That's what none of us know. He came here about dusk one evening—a wild, distracted looking man he was—and said he wanted to leave a trunk until called for. You know your uncle David was a commission-merchant, and very often had packages left with him for safe-keeping. He had a book in which he registered the names of the owners, descriptions of the parcels, etc. He turned to his desk to get out this ledger, and when he looked round again the man was gone. Your uncle ran to the door, but no trace of him was to be seen. He says that he would have thought the whole thing a dream, but for the little trunk on the floor."
"What a romance!" cried Lil.
"The poor fellow must have been killed," said Aunt Nanny. "We advertised the trunk after the war, but no claimant ever came for it."
"And you've kept it all this time without looking into it? How could you? It would have been a perfect Blue Beard's chamber to me."
"Dear me, child! With all the trouble that's come to this house I've had other things to do than to go prying into strangers' trunks."
"Well, you've got to pry now," said Lilly with her little air of decision. "Who knows what treasures we may unearth? Can't we open it, aunty?"
"Yes, if Uncle David says so."
We could hardly wait for Uncle David to come home. We dragged the trunk down from the attic to the sitting-room: finally, we went to the gate to watch for Uncle David, and before he was well in the house had won his consent to open the trunk. In fact, I think he was not without a mild curiosity himself, though he said, "I feel uncommonly like a burglar," as he knelt down by the trunk and tried to force the lock.
"How do you know how a burglar feels?" said Lil saucily.
It was rather an exciting moment. A sea-breeze sprang up, and the blinds rattled loudly, as though some angry hand were trying to break them away. I started nervously and looked over my shoulder, half expecting to see the wrathful face of a slim, dark man. A cold air blew through the room. It almost seemed that viewless influences were interposing to save the stranger's treasures from profanation.
It was a spring lock, and it flew open with a snap. We peered eagerly into the trunk. Commonplace enough! Uncle David handed out one shirt after another.
"Bah!" said Lilly, "only a man's shirts!"
"But only look!" said Aunt Nanny, "what exquisite linen! and how neatly made! Some woman's hand is in this."
Lil picked one up and looked at it curiously: "Well, they are nicely done: no sewing-machine work here. And see, aunty, here are initials."
The initials "C. G." were marked in delicate embroidery on all the garments. Next came a lot of gentleman's handkerchiefs marked in the same way, and with them half a dozen thread cambric, lace-bordered handkerchiefs, evidently intended for a lady's use, and without mark. The next thing was a dress-suit, in which we took very little interest: then a yellow sheet of paper that we seized eagerly. We hoped it was a letter, but it was a poem without date or signature, written in French:
Qu'elle est belle la marquise!
Que sa toilette est exquise!
Gants glacées à dix boutons,
Et bottines hauts talons!
Qu'elle est belle la marquise!
Quelles délices, quel délire,
Dans sa bouche et son sourire!
Et sa voix—qui ne dirait
Que le rossignol chantait?
Qu'elle est belle la marquise!
La marquise! ma marquise!
Bel amour est sa devise,
Et sa profession de foi
Est: je vous aime—aimez moi!
Qu'elle est belle la marquise!
"Oh, how interesting!" cried Lilly. "I shall die if I don't find out something more about him."
"You'll never hear of him again," said I, "so make up your mind to die."
"Perhaps he had left one he loved," said Uncle David, "and she waited for him day after day, and he never came back to her."
Uncle David's voice was as sad as the echo in a tomb. I thought I saw tears in the misty blue eyes behind the spectacles; and I believe at that moment, for the first time in my life, I realized that Uncle David, old and gray and wrinkled though he was, had a heart that had suffered.
"Well," said Lilly, shaking back her hair impatiently, "is there anything more?"
"Only this little box."
We opened the box, and there, on a bed of pink cotton, were a pair of cuff-buttons, the most elegant we had ever seen. They were onyx, with diamond stars for a centre. The diamonds were all small except the central ones, that were like the dewdrops at the tips of narrow leaves.
"How beautiful!" cried Lilly.
"These diamonds are of great value," said Uncle David, examining them critically.
"But this man must have had friends," said I: "there must be some one in the world to whom these things ought to belong."
"Until those friends are found," said Lilly, "I propose that we act as Mr. Unknown's heir and executors. You can have the handkerchiefs, Stell, and I will take these buttons: they could be made into lovely earrings."
"Oh, Lilly! should you like to wear them?"
"Certainly: why not?" and Lilly ran to the glass and held one of the darkly-shining stones against her pale, pretty cheek.—"Don't oppose it, aunty dear. Only think! fifteen years and the man not heard from!"
"Here are his initials again," said I, picking up the other button, on whose gold side the initials were engraved. "'C. G.'—Constant Gower? Colton Goran?"
"What nonsense, Stell!" interrupted Lilly.—"Tell me, Aunt Nanny—may I have the buttons?"
"Oh, I suppose so, child. You always manage to have your own way; and if your uncle David is willing, I've no objections."
Uncle David was equally willing, so Lilly took triumphant possession of the buttons.
Another week saw us on our way to New Orleans. We were neither of us seasick, and we enjoyed every moment of the voyage across the Gulf. Mrs. Long seemed glad to have us, and was interested in our incessant talk. Lilly of course gave her the whole story of the Frenchman's buttons, and brought them out for her inspection. She said they would make lovely earrings, and that she must attend to that the first thing on reaching New Orleans.
She took us to the St. Charles Hotel, and with beating hearts we made our toilettes for the table d'hote. What a grand occasion that was to us! I was rather frightened, but Lilly actually seemed to grow taller as she put on her new dress. She had chosen the suit herself, and while the skirt was black silk, the bodice was deep crimson laced in the back. Her face rose from it like a lily, pure and pale. I looked at her with admiration and despair, for in my nervousness I felt that my face was the color of an Indian peach. Once seated in the dining-room, however, we soon began to feel a comfortable sense of our own insignificance, and to look about at our neighbors as Mrs. Long was doing.
A season of delight now set in for us. We went to museums and picture-galleries; we drove on the Shell Road that wound in shining distance like a silver chain; and walked on Canal and Carondelet streets, equally interested in the fine shop-windows and the fine languid ladies who strolled past them.
To be in New Orleans at any time would have been joy enough, but it was "gilding refined gold" to be there in the gay week preceding the Carnival, and to look forward to Mardi-Gras itself to round off our visit. Already immense "proclamations," printed in every color of the rainbow, were thrown about the city like handbills, running somewhat in this style:
"We command that Tuesday, Mardi-Gras, March 5, be set apart as a day of Fun, Folly and Frolic, when the innocent license of the mask shall have no let, when the places of festivity shall offer a night of pleasure to all our people, and when the pageant of the Mystick Krewe of Comus shall dazzle the eye and captivate the reason by the wonders of art and beauty.
"Signed, Rex.
"Attest: Typhoon, Puck."
Who composed this Mystic Krewe no one knew. Year after year, like a splendid dream, a glittering procession moved through the streets at dusk of Shrove-Tuesday, representing the fairest myths of fable and the most gorgeous pageants of history. Mrs. Long, who had seen a Roman Carnival, declared it far surpassed in magnificence by that of our own Southern city. And we—lucky, lucky girls that we were!—were to see it all! We were even to go to the grand ball at the opera-house; for, though Aunt Nanny did not approve of balls, and we had never been to one, Mrs. Long declared it would do no harm for "once in a way," and that it would be a memory for a lifetime.
It is no part of my story to tell of the delights of the great day, nor of its magnificent displays; nor of our fluttering hearts as we dressed for the ball; nor of how pretty Lilly looked all in white, with white flowers in her dark hair, and the onyx earrings shining against her fair cheeks; nor even of the beautiful ball itself. A memory for a life Mrs. Long declared it would be; and this, I doubt not, it will prove, but for a reason she will never guess. Something happened so romantic, so wonderful, so extraordinary, that I am sure when we are old, old ladies—"sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything"—it will give us a thrill of the blood to think of that Mardi-Gras ball.
We were dancing in a cotillon. It was the basket figure, where the ladies are all grouped in the centre. I was on one side of Lilly: on the other was a pretty, foreign-looking little creature dressed in black with gleams of scarlet breaking through. Imagine what we felt when this lovely apparition seized Lilly by the wrist and said in a low, agitated voice, "In the name of Heaven, young lady, tell me where you got the earrings that you wear in your ears!"