[3] Easy walking distance! It was between five and six squares on a very indifferent plank sidewalk, as I have cause to know!—M. S. W.
CHAPTER FOUR
Many warm-hearted people felt a great sympathy for Doctor Vardaman in his isolation and solitude after Miss Clara's death; I suspect that had the doctor been an old maid instead of an old bachelor, he would not have received so much attention. There is something in the spectacle of an elderly unattached male being, no matter how independent he may be, or how capable of taking care of himself, that at once engages the solicitude of all his friends, men and women alike. Everybody felt sorry for him; everybody wondered how he got along. Doctor Vardaman was a hale old gentleman verging on seventy, it is true, but still vigorous of mind and body, and with pronounced notions of his own on the subject of diet, hygiene, and the conduct of life generally. No one could have needed benevolent supervision less; but he might well have prayed with the antique worthy to be delivered from his friends. At Christmas he used to describe himself as blushing to his very heels and retreating in shamed confusion before the stern gaze of the expressman who unloaded case after case of expensive wines and spirits before his door; that he already had a whole cellar-full partly of his own collecting, partly inherited from his father, a man of means and discernment in such matters, made no manner of difference to these eager and generous givers. If he had smoked as diligently as a factory-chimney, he could not have vanquished the army of cigars he received yearly. A centipede would not have accommodated all the doctor's pairs of knit and crocheted slippers; he solemnly avowed that there were bales of smoking-jackets and pen-wipers stored in his garret. He could have paved his walk with paper-weights, yet I never saw him use but one—a glass globe with a remarkable cameo-looking head encircled by a wreath of flowers mysteriously embedded beneath the surface, which Gwynne and I, clubbing our pennies, had presented to him the first Christmas after we were enlightened on the Santa Claus subject. He used to laugh and make little jokes about his being an "universal favourite" like certain patent medicines; yet he had a sentiment for all this trash, and would not allow it to be thrown or given away, except when kindness took the form of sending some perishable delicacy for his table, a frequent occurrence after Miss Clara's death, as it was known he had some trouble in getting competent "help." It would have been physically impossible for the doctor to get through all the aspic jelly, mango-pickle, and fruit-cake bestowed on him, and he said that it went against his medical conscience to give these rich dainties away, yet that must be done sometimes.
I myself have laboriously carried out little trays of orange-marmalade tumblers which I am sure never did any good to anybody but Mrs. Maginnis' children, who used to come bare-legged, with their tousled heads, freckles, and blue eyes to fetch the doctor's wash. It took no slight gymnastic ability to carry a basket or waiter of such unmanageable articles as marmalade-glasses, change cars twice, and pick one's way across the ankle-deep mud of Richmond Avenue, and along the wooden sidewalk full of loose uncertain boards, as far as Doctor Vardaman's house. On a gusty April day with a promise of rain in the air, one must go cumbered with an umbrella and overshoes; only fancy what that was to a young woman clad in the fashionable costume of eighty-one, to wit: a skin-tight navy-blue silk "jersey" waist, a navy-blue bunting skirt kilt-pleated with a voluminous round overskirt, and a pocket with purse and handkerchief securely concealed somewhere amongst the folds in the rear; French-heeled shoes, tan-coloured suède "Bernhardt" gloves, and a tremendous erection of velvet and feathers that we called a "Gainsborough hat" over all! These modes have mercifully gone out; but not more, I think, than the simple and kindly custom of sending glasses of jelly about to one's friends; I should not presume to ask one of my young acquaintances to perform so unseemly an office; no one either makes jelly or sends it as a present any more. Fortunately I fell in with Gwynne Peters on the last lap of the journey, that is, the Lexington and Amherst cars.
"Here, let me take that thing," said he, and as I thankfully gave up to him my burden of sweets—my wrists, not too loosely cased in the tan-coloured "Bernhardts" fairly aching with the weight—he went on: "What do you think? I believe we've got the old place rented at last! Templeton's going to have some people out there this afternoon and I'm to meet them. But they've been out two or three times already, and he says they've taken a fancy to it. The man—he's a Colonel Pallinder from Mobile or New Orleans or somewhere—says it reminds him of his old home in Virginia, 'befo' the wah,' you know, that's the way he talks."
"Are they nice? I mean—anybody we'd know?"
"Why, I don't know—yes, I guess so. They're Episcopalians, they were asking Templeton about Trinity Church. I haven't met them yet, and you can't go much by what Templeton says—a fellow like that doesn't know anything except whether people are respectable or not. They're all grown-ups, no children. I think there's a young lady; Templeton's lost in admiration of Mrs. Pallinder—told me two or three times, 'She's an elegant lady, Mr. Peters, very lah-de-dah manners, you know, stylish as she can be!' Doctor Vardaman's met them; but there's no use asking the doctor anything, he just grinned when I mentioned the Pallinders, and said he didn't doubt they'd be a great addition to the neighbourhood."
Templeton's "livery-rig" was standing at the foot of the wide shallow steps leading up to the Parthenon portico as we came in sight of it from the road. The shutters were open; feet and voices went to and fro inside. A tall slim girl in a red waist (it was a "jersey," I thought) and hat came out to the carriage and gave the driver some order. The agent appeared from the back of the house between two more tall people, a lady and gentleman. Templeton gesticulated, he flourished toward the grounds, he flourished toward the façade of Doric columns. The gentleman pulled his beard, which he wore in a long sharply pointing tuft on his chin, and listened with his head at an angle. "Jiminy! I'm glad I got that chimney fixed!" ejaculated Gwynne thoughtfully. "You know I'd like to take away those old iron stags and things from the front lawn, but Cousin Steven would fall down dead if I touched 'em."