“H’m!” And Charley slowly filled his pipe, and, lighting it, went out upon the lawn, where he walked haltingly up and down for some time. Quickly raising his eyes at last, and fixing them inquiringly upon the Poythress mansion, nestling across the river, in its clump of trees, he gazed at it with a look, now intent, now abstracted. “Can it be?” he muttered; and he stood long, chin upon breast, buried in thought; but what these thoughts were he breathed to no man.
CHAPTER XXII.
So, after all, my grandfather lost his opportunity of explaining to the Don how he came to build the Hall. No doubt he will do so as soon as the latter returns from his walk. But there are reasons why I prefer to give my own account of the matter. The truth is, I believe my narration will be more exactly in accordance with the facts of the case than Mr. Whacker’s would be. For, my grandfather (though as truthful as ever man was) having, like the rest of us, a great deal of human nature in him, did not always see very clearly what his own motives were; and, had he been asked why he had constructed this rather superfluous building, would have given an answer at variance with what Charley’s or mine would have been. Now, had either of us been questioned, confidentially, and apart from our friend, we would have unhesitatingly affirmed that he had built the Hall as a home for his quartet; but had he, perchance, overheard us, he would have denied this, and not without heat. And this is easily explicable.
On the whole subject of music—music, whether quartet or solo, vocal or instrumental—Mr. Whacker had grown sore, and as nearly irritable as his strong nature admitted of. His neighbors had worried him. They—and who shall wonder at it?—had naturally been filled with amazement—and, what is harder to bear—amusement—when their old friend had suddenly, at his time of life, burst out, as the homely phrase runs, in a fresh place,—and of this he could not but be aware; so that in the end he grew so sensitive under their jokes that he altogether gave over inviting even his nearest neighbors to be present at the Elmington musical performances. “Well, I hear your grandfather has got a new Dutchman,”—that was the way one old gentleman used to speak of the arrival at Elmington of each successive find of Waldteufel’s in Baltimore; and then his sides would shake. Naturally enough, my grandfather grew more and more reticent, under the circumstances, as to his musical doings and projects.
Now, the Elmington mansion was, originally, like most of the residences of the Virginia gentry, a rather plain and ill-planned structure. I dare say it had never occurred to the ancestral Whacker who contrived it that any one of its rooms would ever be acoustically tested by a string quartet. At any rate, my grandfather found his parlor, with its thick carpet and heavy furniture, very unsatisfactory as a concert-room, and resolved to build a better. True, he himself never uttered a word to this effect. Like a skilful strategist, he kept his front and flanks well covered as he advanced upon his objective-point. He began his forward movement with some skill.
The Virginians of that day, as is well known, with a hospitality that defied all arithmetic, used to stow away in their houses more people in proportion to the number of the rooms than was at all justifiable,—and a marvellous good time they all had too,—the necessity for extra ventilation being met by the happy provision of nature, that no true Virginian ever shuts a door.
I am far from claiming, my dear boy, that these ancestors of yours were entitled to any credit for their hospitality. For, even in our day of Mere Progress, we have ascertained that this is but a semibarbarous virtue, while, in your day of Perfected Sweetness and Light, it will be classed, doubtless, among the entirely savage vices. I am writing neither eulogium nor apology. I draw pictures merely. You and your day must draw the moral.
Well, Field-Marshal Whacker began operations by throwing out the suggestion, every now and then, that the Library would be more comfortable to the young men who were sometimes crowded into it, on gala occasions (what a time they used to have!), if the bookcases and the great table were removed. But where to put them? He had often been puzzling his head of late, he would say, trying to contrive some addition to the house, but it was so built that he did not very well see how it could be added to. After much beating about the bush, from time to time, at last the proposition for a separate building came. Charley, very naturally, could not see the necessity for this, considering we were but three; but, finding the old gentleman’s heart set on the project, he ceased to raise objections.
“It would be such a comfortable little nook to retire to.”
“Retire from whom, Uncle Tom?”