CHAPTER XXXII.
“Christmas gift! young ladies, Christmas gift!” chirped Aunt Phœbe, bustling briskly, in her resplendent bandanna, into the room, and courtesying and bowing, and bowing and courtesying in turn, to the two fair heads that lay deep-nestled in their pillows.
“Christmas gift!” modestly echoed the handmaiden Milly, her sable daughter, modestly bringing up the rear and showing all her ivories.
I don’t think the relations between Virginia master and Virginia slave ever appeared in a gentler or more attractive aspect than on Christmas mornings. The way the older and more privileged domestics had of bursting into your room at the most unearthly hour, shouting “Christmas gift! Christmas gift!” beaming with smiles and brimful of good nature, was enough to warm the heart of a Cimon.
“Well, Aunt Phœbe,” said one of the drowsy beauties, “you have caught us.”
“Gracious, is it daybreak yet?” yawned hazel-eyed Alice. “I am s-o-o-o sleepy!” And turning over in bed with a toss, she closed her eyes and pouted as though she had much to endure.
“Daybreak? Daybreak? Why, Lor’, chile, ain’t Polly done put on her bread to bake? Git up, git up, you lazy things! Don’t you know all de beaux is up and dressed, and a-settin’ round, ’most a-dyin’ for to see you?”
“Poor things, are they?” mumbled Alice against her pillow.
“To-be-sho, to-be-sho dey is,” reiterated Aunt Phœbe; though, as a veracious historian, I must let the reader know that it was a pious fraud on the old lady’s part, inspired by solicitude for the reputation of the Elmington breakfast; for not one of the sinners had stirred.
“I believe,” added Aunt Phœbe, observing that Mary’s eyes were open,—“I believe,” said she, going up to Alice and looking down upon her with an admiring smile, “dat dis is de sleepyheadedest one of ’em all.”
Alice gave a little grunt, if the expression be parliamentary.
“Makin’ ’ten’ she ’sleep now,” said Aunt Phœbe, casting knowing nods and winks at Mary.
“When she is awake, Aunt Phœbe, she is wide enough awake for you, isn’t she?”
“Lor’ bless you, honey, I b’lieve you; she cert’n’y do beat all.” And the floor trembled beneath the good old soul’s adipose chuckle. “She is a pretty chile, too, she is mum,” continued the old lady, assuming, with her arms akimbo, a critical attitude. Mary rose on her elbow to observe Alice’s countenance. Her lips began to twitch, slightly, under this double gaze.
“And I ain’t de onliest one as thinks so, neither,” added she, tossing back her head with a look of triumphant sagacity.
“Who is it? who is it?” And Mary rose and sat up in bed.
“Nebber mind, nebber mind!” replied she, with diplomatic reserve. “Nebber mind; Phœbe ain’t been livin’ in this world so long for nothin’. De ole nigger got eyes in her head, and she can see out’n ’em, too; you b’lieve she can, my honeys.”
“Oh, do tell me, that’s a good Aunt Phœbe!”
“Though she ain’t got no specs on her nose.” And the good soul threw herself back and gave vent to a very audible h’yah, h’yah, h’yah.
“Is—it—Uncle—Tom?” droned out Alice, in an almost inarticulate murmur.
“Now jess listen at dat chile! Ole marster! She know better! She know who ’tis I’se ’spressin’ ’bout f’ all she a-layin’ d’yar squinched up in dat bed, making out she ’sleep. D’yar now, what I tell you!” exclaimed she, as Alice sprang suddenly up in bed, her eyes sparkling, her color high, her dishevelled hair in a golden foam about her temples.
“’Sleep, was she! h’yah, h’yah, h’yah! Well, to-be-sho, talk ’bout de young gent’men cert’n’y were de wakinest-up talk for a young lady dat eber dis ole nigger did see. To-be-sho! To-be-sho! Lord a’ mussy!” added she, rocking to and fro and clapping on her knees with both hands, as Alice, with a light bound, sprang into the middle of the floor. “Ef I didn’t fotch her clean out o’ bed!” And the hilarious old domestic wiped the tears from her eyes with a corner of her check apron. “Well, now, and what is she up to?” added she, as Alice ran nimbly across the room and opened a closet.
“Aunt Phœbe,” said Alice, advancing with all the solemnity of a presentation orator, “permit me to offer you, as a slight testimonial of my unbounded esteem, this trivial memento. Within this package is a dress, selected especially for you with the greatest care, at the most fashionable store in Richmond. Wear it, and rest assured that the dress will not become you more than you will become the dress.” And after executing, with her tiny little feet, a variety of droll capers, all the while maintaining a look of preternatural solemnity, she placed the package in the arms of the amazed Phœbe, with a tragic extension of her right arm, immediately thereafter dropping one of the most elaborately grotesque courtesies ever seen off the comic stage.
“Lord a’ mussy, what kind o’ funny lingo is—”
Squeak! squeak! Bang! bang! And two girls, but partially dressed, tumbled tumultuously into the room, shrieking and slamming the door after them.
The chemists tell us that if you separate two gases by a membrane, they will insist upon mingling; and, not knowing why this takes place, they have christened the process endosmose and exosmose. Sociology furnishes a noteworthy parallelism in the endosmose and exosmose of girls dressing for breakfast in a country house. You may stow as many as you will into as many rooms as you choose, but every one of them will find her way into every other room before her toilet is complete; and, by the end of a week, the raiment of each will be impartially distributed throughout the several chambers allotted to their sex. Their movements on these occasions are peculiar. “Where is that other stocking of mine? Oh, I know!” And she approaches the door of her room, opens it a couple of inches, and warily reconnoitres with eye and ear. Seizing an opportune moment when the coast is clear, she darts like a meteor across the hall, and into a neighboring room—
“I say, girls, have any of you seen a stray stocking?” etc., etc.
And so, upon the present occasion, a pair of beauties unadorned came bounding into the room, breaking in upon Alice’s impromptu tableau. This, however, they had not time to remark; but wheeling round, as soon as they were safe within the door, they opened it an inch or two, stuck their several noses into the opening, and uttered to some person in the hall a few words of saucy triumph. Mr. Whacker had, in fact, stepped into the hall just as they were crossing it; and, seeing them, had given chase. Having made a few mocking faces at the old gentleman, and shut the door with another slam and another pair of pretty shrieks when he made as though he would follow them, they turned to their friends.
“Did you hear it, girls?” began one of the intruders.
“Hear what?”
“The music.”
“The music? What music?”
“What! did you, too, sleep through it all?”
“What! was there a serenade, and you did not wake us? It was really mean of you!”
If ouch is masculine, really mean is feminine.
“Bless you, we heard never a note of it ourselves!”
“A note of what? Who heard it, and what was there to hear? What enigma is this?”
“Why, hasn’t Aunt Phœbe told you?”
“Told us what? What is there to tell, Aunt Phœbe, and why have you not told us already?”
“Bless your sweet souls un you, I ain’t had time,” said old Phœbe, bowing and courtesying all round; while Milly grinned ungainly in her wake.
“You see, I jess stepped in on dese two young ladies fust, and cotched ’em Christmas gift, and very nice presents they had, all ready and awaitin’ for ole Phœbe,”—and she courtesied to each,—“and for Milly, too, bless their sweet souls un ’em, jess like dey knowed Phœbe was a-comin’ to cotch ’em,—bless de pretty little honeys!—and so says I, says I to myself, says I, I’ll jess step in and catch dese two fust; and so, I creeps up to de door, I did, soft as a cat, I did, and turns de knob, easy-like, and I flings open de door and ‘Christmas gift’ says I, jess so, says I, and dey had de most loveliest presents all wrapped up and a-waiting for Phœbe, jess as I tell you, and for Milly too, and I dunno what Milly gwine do wid all de things she done got, and dey is all nice and one ain’t no prettier dan de others, and Phœbe is uncommon obleeged to one and all,”—and she gave a duck in front of each,—“and Milly too. Gal, what you a-standin’ dere for, wid your fingers in your mouth, like somebody ain’t got no sense? Ain’t you gwine to make no motion? Is dat de way I done fotch you up, and you b’long to de quality, too? Dese young niggers is too much—too much for Phœbe!”
It would be going too far, perhaps, to say that Milly blushed; but she managed to look abashed, and contrived to appease her mother by sundry uncouth wrigglings, meant to express her thanks.
“Howsomedever, as I was sayin’, year in and year out ole marster have had a heap o’ young ladies a-spendin’ Christmas at Elmin’ton,—fust one Christmas and den another; but ef ever Phœbe saw more lovelier—”
“Oh, Aunt Phœbe!”
“Fo’ de Lord, I hope de crabs may eat me ef tain’t so, jess as I tell you. Why, Lor’ bless my soul, ain’t I hear all the young gent’men say de same?” [general satisfaction.] “On course I has! I wish I may drop dead if I don’t b’lieve ole marster must a’ picked Richmond over pretty close.”
The merriment elicited by this remark gave such pause to the old lady’s eloquence that Alice was enabled to put in a word.
“But, Aunt Phœbe, tell me about the serenade?”
Phœbe looked puzzled.
“Tell us about the gentlemen’s serenade last night?”
“Lor’, chile, ole marster don’t have none o’ dem high-fangled Richmond doin’s ’bout him; thar warn’t nothin’ but apple-toddy and eggnog.”
“But the music, Aunt Phœbe?” persisted Alice, repressing a smile.
“De music!” ejaculated Phœbe; “de music! Didn’t you hear it through de window? You didn’t?” And she clasped her hands, shut her eyes, and began rocking to and fro, her head nodding all the while with certain peculiar little jerks, “Umgh-umgh!—umgh-umgh!—umgh-umgh!” This inexplicable dumb-show she kept up some time. “Don’t talk, chillun; don’t talk—umgh-umgh!—don’t talk,—I axed Dick dis mornin’, says I, Dick, says I, huckum, you reckon, nobody never told ole marster as how Mr. Smith drawed sich a bow, says I?”
“Mr. Smith!” exclaimed Alice, looking at the two girls with amazement in her wide eyes.
The two girls nodded.
“Yes, Mr. Smith was de very one. Phœbe never did hear de like, never in her born days. Sich a scrapin’ and a scratchin’, and sich a runnin’ up and down a fiddle, Phœbe never did see, though she thought she had seen fiddlers in her time.”
And she went on and gave such an account of the performance as you would not find in any musical journal. What did she know, poor soul, about technique, for example,—or breadth of phrasing, for the matter of that?
“Mr. Smith!” reiterated Alice, with stark incredulity.
“Dat was de very one!”
Alice looked from one to another of the girls.
“Did you ever!” looked they in turn.
“I thought I should a’ died a-laughin’ at young Marse Billy Jones. When I seed him and all dem young gent’men a-scufflin’ and a-bumpin’ under dat table, oh, Lord, says I, how long! But when Marse Raleigh, he upsot into de fire, thinks I to myself, my legs surely is gwine for to gin way under me!—but Marse Charley, he cert’n’y do beat all. I reckon all you young mistisses was a-thinkin’ he had done gone and cut he finger when he let de knife fall and went for a rag? I be bound you did; but Lor’ me, nobody don’t never know what Marse Charley is up to. Dey tell me as how he knowed all along ’bout Mr. Smith playin’ on de fiddle; but he never let on even to ole marster; and I heard ’em all a-questionin’ him ’bout it; but Marse Charley, he jess laugh and laugh, sort o’ easy-like, and never tell ’em nothin’.”
“Mr. Frobisher knew what a great musician Mr. Smith was?” asked Alice, her incredulity beginning to give way.
“Jess so, Miss Alice, jess so. Why, Dick says he really do b’lieve into he soul dat Mr. Smith b’longs to a show or somethin’ or other; and what Dick don’t know ’bout dem kind o’ mysteries ain’t worth knowin’. Why, didn’t Dick drive de carriage down to Yorktown when dey give de dinner to Ginrul Laughyet, and hear de brass band play and all? Great musicianer? I b’lieve you! Umgh-umgh! To-be-sho! To-be-sho!”
“Well!” said Alice, dropping down into a chair with a bump. “Well!” repeated she, with emphasis.
“Why, what is the matter?”
“Never mind!” said she, tossing her head as she pulled on a stocking. “I’ll make him pay for it!” she added, jerking on the other with a rather superfluous vigor; and then, discontinuing her toilet, she dropped her two hands upon her knees and gazed at vacancy for a moment.
“What is it? What is it?” cried the girls, as they saw, gradually diffusing itself over her flushed countenance, an intensely quizzical smile. For her only answer Alice threw herself into an exceedingly comic attitude of exaggerated stiffness, and began playing upon an imaginary piano, tum-tumming, in the most ludicrous way, a commonplace air much in vogue at the time.
“Oh, what geese we have made of ourselves!” cried the girls.
“Yes,” continued Alice, “here have we, all this time, been playing our little jiggetty-jigs before him, and he affecting not to know Yankee Doodle from Hail Columbia!” And she tossed off a few more bars with inimitable drollery. “Oh, it is too funny!” cried she, springing up, her sense of humor overriding her sense of chagrin; and from that time till the party were ready to descend to the breakfast-room, she was in one of her regular gales, causing the upper regions of the house to resound with incessant peals of laughter.
“Why, you dear, crazy little goose,” said one of the girls at last, “the breakfast-bell rang fifteen minutes ago, and all the rest of us are dressed, and there you are still in a most unpresentable costume.”
“There, then, I’ll be good,” said Alice, cutting short some caper; and instantly assuming the busiest air, she trotted briskly about the room, laying hands first on one article of dress and then on another, contriving, somehow, to combine with a maximum of ostentatious activity a minimum of actual progress in her toilet.
“Here, girls,” said Mary, “I’ll hold her while the rest of you dress her.”
So saying, she seized her, and in a moment the submissive victim was surrounded by as lovely a band of lady’s maids as one could wish to see. First one brought her—but, somehow, there seems to arise like an exhalation, just here, a mysterious haze, impenetrable to my bachelor eyes.
“There now, girls, you need not wait for me. I shall be down in a moment. Go down. No, I won’t have you wait for me! Aunt Phœbe will never forgive you if you let the muffins get cold. Moreover, I wish to add to my toilet, in private, a few killing touches, of which I alone possess the secret. Maidens, retire!” And with outstretched, dimpled arm, she pointed to the door. Thus dismissed, they soon found their way to the breakfast-table; and, as was to be expected, there immediately arose a very animated talk upon the events of the preceding evening.
A Virginia breakfast, in those days, was not wont to be a lugubrious affair; but I think that this was, perhaps, the brightest that I remember. The events of the previous evening were told and retold for the benefit of the ladies. Young Jones was invited to describe the emotions which caused him to dive under the table, the middle-aged fat gentleman got what sympathy was his due, when, just as each girl had, for the twentieth time, exclaimed that it was “really mean,” Alice stood upon the threshold.