In retort, Mr. Boggs, for once forgetting his reverential attitude, indignantly piped: “God give you understanding!” The Duchess merely lifted her eyebrows fractionally. Being a Pemberton by birth and a Tallafferr by name, she perceived no necessity of understanding lesser forms of life.
Yet she possessed understanding, too, and of a subtle, fine, and profound kind. Otherwise she could never have done for Schepstein what she did when Schep-stein's twenty-year-old Metta killed herself through taking poison tablets (by mistake of course, as the Little Red Doctor perjuriously certified). In his hour of lonely grief and shame, Our Square turned its back upon the little cross-eyed, cross-grained, agnostic trafficker in old debts, old furniture, old books, old stamps, old silver, and anything else old which he could buy from the uninformed and sell to the covetous; not because he had at one time or another got the better of most of us in some deal and was the best-hated habitant within the four inclosing streets, but because we did not know what to do for him and feared his savage and cynical rebuffs. But when the furtive hearse and the one carriage for Schepstein, which was to have been the whole of little Metta's funeral, drew up at night before the Schepstein flat, Madam Rachel Pinckney Pemberton Tal-lafferr descended her steps, and crossed Our Square, rustling and in the high estate of black silk and lace. She must have been watching. Behind her waddled Old Sally with an armful of white roses. They met Schepstein at the foot of his steps, following his dead. As the casket passed her, Madame Tallafferr took the wealth of bloom from the servant and scattered its snowy purity above the girl. At that the face of Schepstein, which had been cold lead-gray, changed and flushed and softened, and he staggered suddenly where he stood and might have fallen had not that strong old woman thrust an arm under his to help him on his way. So two mourners went in the lone carriage to little Metta's funeral.
Only long afterward was this known to Our Square. What established the Duchess as a local heroine and an Olympian controller of destinies was her handling of MacLachan the Tailor. MacLachan, on his black, alcoholic days, was wont to sing “The Cork Leg” under circumstances which I have set forth elsewhere. On this occasion he sang it, sitting on the coping of the fountain with his legs in the water, and beating time with a revolver which might or might not have been loaded. Nobody knew at the time. Regarding MacLachan there was no such room for doubt. Between stanzas he would announce his purpose of presently ending all his troubles with a bullet, previous to which, candidates for coffins would be considered in the order of their applications. In the natural logic of events this was a case for Terry the Cop, but Polyglot Elsa of the Elite Restaurant had early observed MacLachan's ready weapon, and with more cunning than conscience had dispatched the intrepid Terry to the farther end of the beat upon a purely fictitious Italian riot. For reasons of her own she did not wish Terry punctured. Hence Our Square, deprived of the official protection to which we were entitled, lurked about in the night shadows, watching the balladist from a respectful distance and wondering what would come next.
The Duchess came next. She rustled stiffly up to the fountain and bade MacLachan hold his peace. Old Sally followed with a market basket. MacLachan elevated his voice a pitch.
“Horror and fright were in his face.
The neighbors thought he was running a race;
He clung to a lamp-post to stay his pace,
But the leg broke away and kept up the chase,”
bellowed MacLachan. “I am not aweer,” he added, still rhythmic, though with a change of meter, “that now and here, you possess any legal authority in this Squeer!”
The Duchess pointed a stiletto-like finger at MacLachan. “You are a rum-wastrel,” she pronounced severely.
MacLachan pointed his revolver at the Duchess, though rather waveringly. “I am,” said he, “and proud of it.”
“You will do some harm with that firearm.”
“I will,” said MacLachan, “and glad to do it.”