The House of Armour

CHAPTER XXIII
ON MARKET DAY

Just as the city clocks struck ten on the last Saturday morning of January of the year of which we write, Dr. Camperdown came down the steps and into the street from the large, stone building known as the post office.

His hands were full of letters and papers that he had just taken from his private box in the post office, and which he stuffed into his pockets, as he carefully picked his steps among the various boxes, and bundles, and numberless things in the way of encumbrances with which the sidewalk was almost blocked.

The scene was not new to him. He was looking about him absently rather than attentively, till he caught sight of Stargarde coming over the crossing from the near Provincial Building, accompanied by her solemn black dog. She had a little basket on her arm, and was evidently about to follow the custom of many Halifax housekeepers who on Saturday mornings do their marketing themselves.

A glad light, almost instantly repressed, leaped to his face when he saw her. “Good-morning,” he said, quietly touching his cap, and acting as though he were about to pass her by.

“Are you not going to speak to me?” she inquired with a gracious smile and extending a hand to him. “I wish to praise you a little.”

“For what?” he inquired, opening his eyes, through which he had been looking in a squinting fashion at her.

“For your goodness in not coming to see me. I think I shall have to start a system of cards of merit, and bestow them upon you at regular intervals.”

He smiled peculiarly. “I mustn’t take too much credit to myself; you have given me a new interest in life.”

“Yes; Zeb. I am longing to talk to you about her. Can you not walk about with me while I do my marketing? then we can have a little talk afterward. You don’t stay in your office Saturday mornings, I think.”

“No,” and hypocritically concealing his extravagant joy, he turned and walked beside her. “You have a very high color this morning, Stargarde,” he said demurely. "I hope that you are not feverish.”

“Why, it is cold, Brian, very cold for Halifax. Don’t you feel the chill in the air?”

“No,” indifferently, and swinging open his coat. “I am never cold; don’t feel a lowering of the temperature any more than our friends the market women. Just look at them, Stargarde,” and with a sudden interest in his surroundings, now that he was no longer alone, he pointed to the unique spectacle before them.

The people in the market on this particular morning were mostly colored. Their rough sleds, many of which were drawn by oxen, were ranged along the gutters close to the pavements. In most cases the animals had been taken out, and were fastened to telegraph poles, railings, anywhere that the ingenious Negro could find a rod or a staff around which to twine a rope. A few of the oxen were tethered to the tailboards of their sleds and stood patiently munching wisps of hay, and surveying their owners with kind, pathetic eyes.

One woman who had had the good fortune to dispose of her stock, was just about leaving the market, skillfully guiding through the crowded street her tandem pair, consisting of a cow and an attenuated horse, the horse leading.

“Look at her,” said Camperdown. “Happy as a queen! She has sold her stuff, and sits enthroned on a bundle of old clothes, and a few packages of flour and sugar and a jug of molasses that she’s taking home to her pickaninnies. You won’t see many ‘carriage ladies’ with an expression like that. What’s this? ‘Cow for sail,’” and he read the placard hanging over the neck of a dirty white animal tied to a telegraph pole. “When does that cow sail?” to a melancholy-looking Negro standing near, whose two huge, protruding lips curled back like pink-lined breakers over the foam-like whiteness of a jagged reef of teeth.

“She’ll sail now, mister, if you can raise de wind,” said the man with a depressed yet amiable smile.

“Ah, Brian, the biter bitten,” observed Stargarde laughingly.

“He’s gut out three sheets now, I b’lieve, missis,” the Negro went on inexorably. “You white folkses be always a makin’ fun of us Niggers,” with an apologetic grin.

“Oh, take in sail, take in sail,” said Camperdown, pointing to the obnoxious placard.

“Guess I better, if’n it’s goin’ to send all the white people into gales of high sterricks,” said the colored man agreeably. “You be’s the secon’ or third lot what has come to anchor here, gigglin’ and laughin’. What’s wrong wid the card, missis?”

“Only one word,” said Stargarde gently, “which is usually spelt s-a-l-e, rather than s-a-i-l, when one has anything to sell.”

“Thank you kin’ly, missis. I’ll altercate it,” and he lazily watched the two people going on their way.

“Here are eggs,” said Camperdown, “big, white ones, Stargarde, and butter like gold.”

Stargarde stopped beside a shy-faced French woman, who was standing guard over a wagon, and asked her how much her eggs were a dozen.

“Dwenty-vive cent, madam.”

“I will take two dozen, if you please, and four prints of butter.”

Camperdown looked at the woman, and seeing that he was looking at her, she immediately dropped her eyes. She was tall and neatly dressed, and wore a black shawl over her hair and pinned under her chin. “A Chezzencooker,” he muttered, then aloud, “What else have you?”

“Smells, zur; dirty sents a ztring.”

“Don’t want any of them; enough bad odors in Halifax now.”

“Smelts, Brian,” corrected Stargarde. “He doesn’t understand French,” she said kindly to the woman.

“Beg pardon, I do; once got a prize at school for extensive knowledge of the language. Needn’t tell her I was the only one in the class,” in a lower tone.

“And you have ducks, and chickens, and cherry bark tied up in neat, little bundles, haven’t you?” Stargarde went on; “also woolen socks and sarsaparilla. You must get some of the latter, Brian. Hannah will make you some tea. She says it is good for the blood.”

“Give me ten bundles, madam,” he said obligingly.

“I have only vive,” said the Frenchwoman, raising her eyes just long enough to glance at the man, who seemed to be a very bold kind of monster to her.

“Very well, give me the five; and in addition those little brooms. They will do for Hannah to sweep her hearth.”

“I buy zem for myself, zur,” said the woman hastily. “We make no brooms; ’tis the Neegurs that does.”

“Ah,” politely. “I understand. Infra dignitatem. Thank you, madam,” and he put his parcel of sarsaparilla under his arm. “Whom does she remind you of?” he asked Stargarde as they went on.

“Vivienne, naturally; but Brian, the Chezzencook people are not the same as the Digby and Yarmouth French, are they?”

“No; a different lot. Came here at another time. French though.”

“Oh, yes; I know that. What is happening here? Brian, let us stand back and watch them. I do love colored people.”

They withdrew a little from the moving stream of passers-by on the sidewalk, and accompanied by the dog placed their backs against the building. In front of them was a group of colored men and women, all warmly bundled in odds and ends of clothing, and laughing, chattering, and joking in the “wisely careless, innocently gay” fashion peculiar to their race.

“Small wonder that they do not feel the cold,” said Camperdown. “Just look at the clothes they have on. Talk about Edinburgh fishwives, they only wear seventeen petticoats. This stout dame has on seventy at least, haven’t you, auntie?” he asked, as a middle-aged colored woman approached them to get a basket, which was like a little, gay garden spot on the frozen snow, so filled was it with bunches of wintergreen and verdant ferns, dyed grasses, long and feathery, and heaps of red maple leaves, carefully pressed and waxed to preserve their flaming tints.

“Hasn’t I what, chile?” she asked, taking her short, black pipe from her mouth, and regarding him with a beaming, ebony face.

“Aren’t you pretty well protected against the inclemency of the weather?” he inquired meekly.

“I don’t know what ’clemency be, but the weather, good lan’, I knows that. Has to dress accordin’. Look at me feet, chile,” and she held up a substantial pair of men’s long-legged boots. “Inside that I’ve got on socks. Inside that agin, women’s stockin’s. And I’ve got on other wearin’ apparels belongin’ to men too, and Jemima Jane’s dress, and Grandmother Brown’s and me own ole frock, and on me head I puts a cloud, and on me cloud I puts a cap, and on me arms three pair o’ stockin’ legs, and on me hans two pair o’ mitts, an’ over all I puts me bes’ Sunday-go-to-meetin’ mantle, what I wears to the baptizins, an’ here an’ there,” mysteriously, “a few other happenins,” and bending over her basket she closed her thick lips on her pipe.

Camperdown watched her gravely.

“If you was a colored gemman, an’ had to ris’ in the middle o’ the night, an’ bile your kettle, an’ feed your pig, an breakfus your young uns, an hitch your ox,” she said presently, straightening herself up and laughing all over her face at him, “an drive a thought o’ twelve mile to town, an’ stan’ till gun fire, and perform your week’s buyin’, an’ peregrenize home over the Preston roads, which is main bad this weather, you’d habit yourself mebbe worsen I do, an’ not look so handsum nuther.”

Roguishly winking at him, she elevated her long basket to the top of her head and walked away, her back as straight as a soldier’s. With never a hand put up to steady the nodding, swaying garden spot atop of her head, she guided herself among the crowd of people, her manifold tier of petticoats bobbing behind her like the tail of a gigantic bird, and presently disappeared.

“Good souls, those colored people,” ejaculated Camperdown, looking after her. “They live on their spirits. Oh, look here, Stargarde,” and he drew some envelopes from his pocket. “Flora is chameleonizing. She’s going to give a dance for ma’m’selle. Read that invitation card. I frightened her into civility.”

“Poor Vivienne,” said Stargarde.

“Happy Vivienne; she enjoys herself. It’s marvelous to see the coolness with which she treats Flora—the right line of conduct to adopt. If she were meek and humble, Flora would impose upon her shamefully. They’re going to have some lively times at Pinewood, and that girl will be the leading spirit. I suppose you’ve noticed that Stanton is taking rather more interest than usual in her?”

“Yes; take care, Brian; take care. You are playing at match-making, and it is a dangerous game.”

“Well,” stoutly, “as you women nowadays are so busy attending to departments of public good, what is there for men to do but take up the private ones, such as the making of marriages? Don’t alarm yourself though, I don’t do much; only say a word now and then.”

“But your words have weight.”

“I am glad they have,” sarcastically, “with some people.”

“In your zeal for Stanton’s interests I hope you will do nothing to bias Vivienne; she may fancy Valentine.”

“Is thy servant a sneak?” he asked in an injured tone of voice. “And that is Stanton’s affair, not mine. He will be as just as the Lord Chancellor; but ma’m’selle doesn’t love Valentine. He’s too young; Stanton is just the age for her; he isn’t so old as his years. He got frozen when he was a lad, and has stayed frozen ever since. Frost preserves you know. I want to see him melt now, and dance for some woman the way the rest of us do.”

“Brian, it makes me nervous to hear you planning so surely on a thing that may never come to pass.”

“Stanton is all right,” he continued, rather as if he were soliloquizing; “but you women are uncertain qualities. That he will fall in love with her is a foregone conclusion. He rarely goes anywhere; never has been brought into intimacy with any woman for any length of time; propinquity makes a man either hate or love a woman. He’s disliked her long enough; can’t keep it up. There will be a tremendous rebound that will nearly shake the life out of him; but will she reciprocate?”

“I don’t see how she can help it,” said Stargarde impulsively; and the mere thought of Stanton beloved and happy, touched her tender heart and filled her eyes with tears.

“Nor I,” said Camperdown, with mock enthusiasm. “Such a sweet and tender bit of marble as he is! Such a loving block of wood! But you women like such creatures.”

Stargarde paid no attention to him. “And Valentine too,” she went on earnestly, “I do wish that he could fall under the influence of some good girl.”

“If he wants a good girl let him be a good boy,” coolly. “That’s your own doctrine, Stargarde. Pray don’t make an exception in favor of Valentine, when you’ve been so firm with the rest of the world. You’re one of the new women, you know. ‘A white life for two,’ isn’t that your motto? Same thorny path of virtue for men and women.”

“Not thorny, Brian.”

“Sometimes I’ve found it so. Just think of all the pleasant little dissipations I might have had if you hadn’t been watching me with that lynx eye of yours. No use to come to you and say, ‘Dear creature, will you take a tenth place in my affections, after cards, wine, and other things not worth mentioning?’ I know what’s in your mind now. You’re a true woman and have a sneaking fondness for vagabonds. You love Stanton; but you think he’s a strong man and can stand alone. You adore Valentine, and if either brother gets ma’m’selle, you think it should be the weakling, whose tottering footsteps need guidance. Come now, tell me, would you give the French girl to Valentine if it depended on you?”

She hesitated. “Not as he is now; but we are commanded to forgive those who repent.”

“Repent; nonsense, my dar—my dear Miss Turner. Can repentance change the corpuscles in a man’s blood? He sha’n’t have her, dissipated young scamp that he is. You wouldn’t allow it yourself if it came to the pinch. No; let ma’m’selle shake him out of his abominable state of self-complacency, if you will, but no marriage. A sisterly affection is what she must bestow upon him. She’ll tell him some wholesome truths if she gets to know him better. I hope she may. He’s been stepping over thorns all his life. I’d like to see him lie down now, and have a good roll in them.”

“Brian!” and Stargarde looked appealingly into the piercing eyes of her tormentor and lover.

“It would do him good,” he said, “and we’d help to dress his wounds afterward. And the little French girl would be amiable enough to help to give consolation.”

Stargarde sighed. “Why do you so often call her little? She is tall.”

“Oh, it’s a mannish façon de parler. Men always say that about women they like.”

“Do they?” wonderingly. “I haven’t noticed it.”

“I dare say not. Men as a rule don’t like big women.”

“Indeed!”

“No; they do not. I heard a man the other day speaking of a lovely creature, ‘But,’ he said, ‘she is too big to love.’”

Stargarde looked disturbed. “Was I the woman, Brian?” she said sweetly, almost childishly.

“Well—I would have throttled him if he had said anything else.”

“And do you find me so—so immense?” drawing herself up to the full height of her charming and exquisitely proportioned figure.

“Immense; yes. Quite immense.”

She scanned his face with an intentness that gave him the keenest pleasure, though he deceitfully pretended to be very much absorbed by a passing sleigh.

“Stargarde,” he said, when the sleigh had passed them, “you were criticising me just now, will you allow me to perform the same kind office for you?”

“Certainly,” with the utmost cheerfulness in tone and manner.

“You said that I am getting frivolous. In your character too, I see signs of weakening. There is rather an alarming symptom showing itself, of deference to the opinions of other people who are very much less clever than you, myself for example. You have always been so strong, Stargarde; have stood alone. Now you are becoming weak, deteriorating, getting to be like other women. I would check it, if I were you, this inclination toward the commonplace, the—the childish, if I may mention the word in your connection. Perhaps, though, the mental weakness follows upon a physical one. Aren’t you well and happy?”

She was very much discomposed. “Yes, Brian, I am well and happy; yet, I don’t know what it is lately, there seems to be a vague disquiet about me. Perhaps I have been doing more than I should.”

“That must be it,” soothingly. “You are working too hard. I will give you a tonic. Now let us walk down toward the harbor and talk about Zeb. You received my note?”

“Yes,” the expression of her face suddenly changing, “and I was so glad that I cried over it.”

“If your gladness had taken the form of coming to see her, I should have been better pleased,” he said complainingly.

“I decided that it was better to leave her wholly to you for a time.”

“Look at this,” he said, drawing a paper from his inside pocket. “Isn’t she going a pretty pace for a sometime ragamuffin?”

It was a milliner’s bill for twenty dollars, for one felt hat trimmed with ostrich plumes.

“Oh, Brian, what did you do about it?”

“Paid it. You must know that my Zeb, or Zilla as she prefers to be called—she says Zeb is vulgar—has fully made up her mind to become a young lady of fashion. She hasn’t got farther than the skin of decent people yet, and clothes to her are the token of respectability inside and out. I am reading ‘Sartor Resartus’ to her, but it hasn’t made much impression yet. Starting on the road to fashion she has resolved to drag me after her. I suppose you didn’t notice my new raiment?”

“Yes, I did,” said Stargarde, surveying the remarkably neat check of his tweed suit. “I never saw you look so smart, Brian.”

“Zilla hadn’t been in the house three days before she ransacked my wardrobe. Said it was—well, Mrs. Trotley says she swore like a ’longshoreman at the shabbiness of it. She stationed herself at the window and took observations. Little minx, like a Halifax girl born and bred, she has taken to scarlet fever as naturally as a fish uses its fins. Dotes on the military; would put me in a uniform if she could. Next to uniform she admires morning clothes of officers. She sketched one fellow top to toe for me, collar, tie, trousers, coat, boots; had her pencil and paper behind window curtains; then badgered me till I went to the tailor’s. Told her I wouldn’t ape any man’s garments, but would buy new fit-out. Have a collar on that almost saws my neck off, see,” and he held up his head. “Do you like the pattern of my tie, Stargarde?”

“Very much,” said the woman laughingly. “It is too delightful to think of Zeb—Zilla’s dictating to you.”

"I knew you’d enjoy it. Little witch made me go to church with her, to show off my new things she said. She is a fearful heathen. Wish you could have seen us Sunday filing into church, I and my respectable family. Mrs. Trotley always looks, as she is, a lady. Zilla is like a demon in frocks, with those wild eyes of hers. She drew a long breath when we got inside the doors, as if she were going into a shower bath, clutched my hand, and regularly mowed down the people with her eyes as she gazed defiantly about her. She would have slapped any one that laughed.

“I felt almost as queer—haven’t been to church for months. Zilla got in a fearful tangle with the service, but she is not the child to quail before a ritual. All this week she has been sitting with prayer-book in her hand. Mrs. Trotley is teaching her to find places, and I hear ‘Good Lord deliver us’ and the ‘Apostles’ Creed’ from every corner of the house. When ladies come to call on Mrs. Trotley she won’t see them, or if she does, she talks French. I happened to be in the house the other afternoon—she had run to meet me, and two old Miss Bellinghams caught her. She rarely loses self-possession. ‘C’mont allez-vous?’ she said in a meek, put-on-voice. Her French is remarkable, her own composition mostly. The like was never heard before nor will be again. ‘Don’t you talk English?’ they asked. ‘A leetle,’ she replied; ‘Je prefaire to parlee français.’ Poor little brat, she is afraid that her vile English will give her away. She is taking utmost pains to speak well. Makes me correct every mistake.”

“And she loves you, Brian,” said Stargarde in a delighted voice and with flashing eyes.

“I suppose so. Follows me like a dog about the house. Embraces frequently. Makes my money fly too, which is proof of feminine affection. First day or two she was very quiet—not overcome, she has been about too much for that—but sizing us up. Then she began to overturn; old Hannah must go and live with her son. I put my foot down there. Hannah must stay. Zilla swore a little, but was pacified by an offer of two maids to attend properly to the house. New furniture has been bought, likewise flower pots, bird cages, and such trash. I expect she’ll ruin me.”

In silent ecstasy, Stargarde gazed at him. Then she tapped the paper in her hands. “What about this hat, Brian? Did you let her wear it?”

“No; she threw it in the fire. I told her ladies wore fine hats; children plain ones. She first got into a rage and danced and used bad language, then hurled plumes and hat into the grate, and herself at my boots.”

“Could not Mrs. Trotley have prevented her from buying it?”

“The old lady is as wax in her hands. No one can manage her.”

“But you, Brian, you can.”

“Well, yes; I have to; she’d override everything.”

“Are you going to send her to school?”

“Not yet. I give her lessons, and Mrs. Trotley helps her to learn them. She’s the most indulgent bit of femininity that I could have found for Zilla.”

“And you are pleased, Brian, that you took the child?”

“Yes; she has given me an object in life. I couldn’t endure a stupid child. She is as smart as one of the saucy sparrows about our streets; she is a sparrow—and you are like one of those beautiful gulls circling in the pure air overhead,” he thought to himself, taking care not to utter the latter sentiment aloud; “and I am like one of those big, ugly crows yonder on the beach,” he reflected further, “hopping over his mates with eyes bent on the stones to see that he gets his share of the shell-fish. And by and by the white-winged gull will come down and sit quietly beside that old crow. And he will slay mollusks for himself and her too. I beg your pardon; what were you saying?”

“That I would like to see Zilla. I will call to-morrow.”

“Come this evening,” hospitably, “and have dinner with us. I will telephone for ma’m’selle and Judy, if you will.”

“Thank you,” said Stargarde, critically examining his face to see whether there was any feverish anxiety visible that she should accept the invitation. There was not. “I really believe,” she reflected, her blue eyes sparkling like the waves beyond them, “that the child is weaning him from me. I am overjoyed,” and she really fancied that she was.

By the quick insight of love he was well aware of what was passing in her mind. “You little guess, beautiful bird,” he thought, as he walked with his gaze bent on the ground, “why it is that your protégée has become the light of my eyes.”

“Yes; I will come,” she said at last. “I shall enjoy doing so.”

“You will see a change in Zilla even in this short time. Regular diet and an untroubled mind are doing wonders for her. Her cheeks are filling out. Her hair, now that it is properly taken care of, looks no longer like Gorgon locks. I daresay she may turn out to be a beauty. Her eyes are not so civilized as ma’m’selle’s, but when she gets that wild stare out of them, they will be just as attractive. That foreign streak in her blood makes her uncommon—an uncommon liar too. Wish I could get her to stop it.”

“Does she tell many stories?”

“Not to me. She is an acute little liar. Rarely gets trapped. I told her the Lord would punish her if she didn’t stop imposing on Mrs. Trotley and Hannah. She said that wouldn’t be fair. If the Lord had wanted her to be truthful he shouldn’t have given her to her mother to bring up, for she told lies oftener than the truth. I reminded her that ladies didn’t lie—may I be forgiven! That made a profound impression, and I can see an improvement. She won’t steal. Says it is—no, I can’t tell you what she said. Her language is forcible at times. She is brave—brave as a tigress; would kill any one, I think, that laid a hand on me.”

“She will get over her faults in time,” said Stargarde. “Think of her wild, undisciplined life so far. Oh, Brian, if I could only tell you what a noble thing you have done in taking Zeb. It is not the little, perishable body alone that you are caring for, but the immortal soul as well. There is something about the child that appeals to me strangely. I felt it to be a heart-breaking thing that she should be with those depraved creatures, her parents.”

“Brutes,” said Camperdown. “The devil’s own. He will get them.”

“Not the devil’s own; the Lord’s own, Brian. He has not given them up.”

“I think he has—one of them.”

“Which one?”

“The mother, Mrs. Frispi, as she calls herself.”

“We shall see. Zilla’s good fortune may make the mother more kindly disposed toward us. She may allow me to talk to her in time.”

“I wish that you would let her alone,” he said hastily.

“Nay, Brian, I cannot promise you that; and now I must go back to the Pavilion.”

He stood, cap in hand, looking after her as she walked away with a light firm step.

“Very carefully I spread a net for you, beautiful bird,” he muttered enjoyably; “and you slightly tangled your adored feet in it, and after you have fluttered awhile I will set you free. The best of it is you haven’t a suspicion of it. You’re dead in love, beautiful bird, and I’m trying to let you know it,” and he chuckled to himself.

“She’s saintly; very saintly,” he went on, after a time; “makes me feel vicious by comparison. I guess I’ll go to tease Stanton,” and swinging on his heel he walked at a brisk pace along Water Street, grimy, dirty Water Street, smelling of fish and oil and tar, and having more individuality than all the other streets of the town put together.