Kennedy Square Part 21

"I dare not--that is, I'm afraid to try. You are the man for a cork like that--and Todd!--hand Major Clayton the corkscrew and one of those silver nutpicks."

The Honorable Prim bent closer. "What is it, St. George, some old Port?"

he asked in a perfunctory way. Rare old wines never interested him.

"They are an affectation," he used to say.

"No, Seymour--it's really a bottle of the Peter Remsen 1817 Madeira."

The bottle was pa.s.sed, every eye watching it with the greatest interest.

"No, never mind the corkscrew, Todd,--I'll pick it out," remarked the major, examining the hazardous cork with the care of a watchmaker handling a broken-down chronometer. "You're right, St. George--it's too far gone. Don't watch me, Seymour, or I'll get nervous. You'll hoodoo it--you Scotchmen are the devil when it comes to anything fit to drink,"

and he winked at Prim.

"How much is there left of it, St. George?" asked Latrobe, watching the major manipulate the nutpick.

"Not a drop outside that bottle."

"Let us pray--for the cork," sighed Latrobe. "Easy--E-A-SY, major--think of your responsibility, man!"

It was out now, the major dusting the opening with one end of his napkin--his face wreathed in smiles when his nostrils caught the first whiff of its aroma.

"By Jupiter!--gentlemen!--When I'm being snuffed out I'll at least go like a gentleman if I have a drop of this on my lips. It's a bunch of roses--a veritable nosegay. Heavens!--what a bouquet! Some fresh gla.s.ses, Todd."

Malachi and Todd both stepped forward for the honor of serving it, but the major waved them aside, and rising to his feet began the round of the table, filling each slender pipe-stem gla.s.s to the brim.

Then the talk, which had long since drifted away from general topics, turned to the color and sparkle of some of the more famous wines absorbed these many years by their distinguished votaries. This was followed by the proper filtration and racking both of Ports and Madeiras, and whether milk or egg were best for the purpose--Kennedy recounting his experience of different vintages both here and abroad, the others joining in, and all with the same intense interest that a group of scientists or collectors would have evinced in discussing some new discovery in chemistry or physics, or the coming to light of some rare volume long since out of print--everybody, indeed, taking a hand in the discussion except Latrobe, whose mouth was occupied in the slow sipping of his favorite Madeira--tilting a few drops now and then on the end of his tongue, his eyes devoutly closed that he might the better relish its flavor and aroma.

It was all an object lesson to Harry, who had never been to a dinner of older men--not even at his father's--and though at first he smiled at what seemed to him a great fuss over nothing, he finally began to take a broader view. Wine, then, was like food or music, or poetry--or good-fellows.h.i.+p--something to be enjoyed in its place--and never out of it. For all that, he had allowed no drop of anything to fall into his own gla.s.s--a determination which Todd understood perfectly, but which he as studiously chose to ignore--going through all the motions of filling the gla.s.s so as not to cause Ma.r.s.e Harry any embarra.s.sment. Even the "1817" was turned down by the young man with a parrying gesture which caught the alert eyes of the major.

"You are right, my boy," the bon vivant said sententiously. "It is a wine for old men. But look after your stomach, you dog--or you may wake up some fine morning and not be able to know good Madeira from bad. You young bloods, with your vile concoctions of toddies, punches, and other satanic brews, are fast going to the devil--your palates, I am speaking of. If you ever saw the inside of a distillery you would never drink another drop of whiskey. There's poison in every thimbleful. There's suns.h.i.+ne in this, sir!" and he held the gla.s.s to his eyes until the light of the candles flashed through it.

"But I've never seen the inside or outside of a distillery in my life,"

answered Harry with a laugh, a reply which did not in the least quench the major's enthusiasms, who went on dilating, wine-gla.s.s in hand, on the vulgarity of drinking STANDING UP--the habitual custom of whiskey tipplers--in contrast with the refinement of sipping wines SITTING DOWN--one being a vice and the other a virtue.

Richard, too, had been noticing Harry. He had overheard, as the dinner progressed, a remark the boy had made to the guest next him, regarding the peculiar rhythm of Poe's verse--Harry repeating the closing lines of the poem with such keen appreciation of their meaning that Richard at once joined in the talk, commending him for his insight and discrimination. He had always supposed that Rutter's son, like all the younger bloods of his time, had abandoned his books when he left college and had affected horses and dogs instead. The discovery ended in his scrutinizing Harry's face the closer, reading between the lines--his father here, his mother there--until a quick knitting of the brows, and a flash from out the deep-brown eyes, upset all his preconceived opinions; he had expected grit and courage in the boy--there couldn't help being that when one thought of his father--but where did the lad get his imagination? Richard wondered--that which millions could not purchase. "A most engaging young man in spite of his madcap life," he said to himself--"I don't wonder St. George loves him."

When the bell in the old church struck the hour of ten, Harry again turned to Richard and said with a sigh of disappointment:

"I'm afraid it's too late to expect him--don't you think so?"

"Yes, I fear so," rejoined Richard, who all through the dinner had never ceased to bend his ear to every sound, hoping for the rumble of wheels or the quick step of a man in the hall. "Something extraordinary must have happened to him, or he may have been called suddenly to Richmond and taken the steamboat." Then leaning toward his host he called across the table: "Might I make a suggestion, St. George?"

St. George paused in his talk with Mr. Kennedy and Latrobe and raised his head:

"Well, Richard?"

"I was just saying to young Rutter here, that perhaps Mr. Poe has been called suddenly to Richmond and has sent you a note which has not reached you."

"Or he might be ill," suggested Harry in his anxiety to leave no loophole through which the poet could escape.

"Or he might be ill," repeated Richard--"quite true. Now would you mind if I sent Malachi to Guy's to find out?"

"No, Richard--but I'll send Todd. We can get along, I expect, with Malachi until he gets back. Todd!"

"Yes, sah."

"You go to Guy's and ask Mr. Lampson if Mr. Poe is still in the hotel.

If he is not there ask for any letter addressed to me and then come back. If he is in, go up to his room and present my compliments, and say we are waiting dinner for him."

Todd's face lengthened, but he missed no word of his master's instructions. Apart from these his mind was occupied with the number of minutes it would take him to run all the way to Guy's Hotel, mount the steps, deliver his message, and race back again. Malachi, who was nearly twice his age, and who had had twice his experience, might be all right until he reached that old Burgundy, but "dere warn't n.o.body could handle dem corks but Todd; Malachi'd bust 'em sho' and spile 'em 'fo' he could git back."

"'Spose dere ain't no gemman and no letter, den what?" he asked as a last resort.

"Then come straight home."

"Yes, sah," and he backed regretfully from the room and closed the door behind him.

St. George turned to Horn again: "Very good idea, Richard--wonder I hadn't thought of it before. I should probably had I not expected him every minute. And he was so glad to come. He told me he had never forgotten the dinner at Kennedy's some years ago, and when he heard you would be here as well, his whole face lighted up. I was also greatly struck with the improvement in his appearance, he seemed more a man of the world than when I first knew him--carried himself better and was more carefully dressed. This morning when I went in he--"

The door opened silently, and Todd, trembling all over, laid his hand on his master's shoulder, cutting short his dissertation.

"Ma.r.s.e George, please sah, can I speak to you a minute?" The boy looked as if he had just seen a ghost.

"Speak to me! Why haven't you taken my message, Todd?"

"Yes, sah--dat is--can't ye step in de hall a minute, Ma.r.s.e George--now--right away?"

"The hall!--what for?--is there anything the matter?"

St. George pushed back his chair and followed Todd from the room: something had gone wrong--something demanding instant attention or Todd wouldn't be scared out of his wits. Those nearest him, who had overheard Todd's whispered words, halted in their talk in the hope of getting some clew to the situation; others, further away, kept on, unconscious that anything unusual had taken place.

Several minutes pa.s.sed.

Again the door swung wide, and a man deathly pale, erect, faultlessly dressed in a full suit of black, the coat b.u.t.toned close to his chin, his cavernous eyes burning like coals of fire, entered on St. George's arm and advanced toward the group.

Every guest was on his feet in an instant.

"We have him at last!" cried St. George in his cheeriest voice. "A little late, but doubly welcome. Mr. Poe, gentlemen."

Kennedy was the first to extend his hand, Horn crowding close, the others waiting their turn.

Poe straightened his body, focussed his eyes on Kennedy, shook his extended hand gravely, but without the slightest sign of recognition, and repeated the same cold greeting to each guest in the room. He spoke no word--did not open his lips--only the mechanical movement of his outstretched hand--a movement so formal that it stifled all exclamations of praise on the part of the guests, or even of welcome. It was as if he had grasped the hands of strangers beside an open grave.

Then the cold, horrible truth flashed upon them:

Edgar Allan Poe was dead drunk!

The silence that followed was appalling--an expectant silence like that which precedes the explosion of a bomb. Kennedy, who had known him the longest and best, and who knew that if his mind could once be set working he would recover his tongue and wits, having seen him before in a similar crisis, stepped nearer and laid both hands on Poe's shoulders.

Get Poe to talking and he would be himself again; let him once be seated, and ten chances to one he would fall asleep at the table.