Gorgas

“ IX
“BONG-JOUR” THE winter was spent for Gorgas pretty much as Blynn had planned. She was entered as a pupil in the Misses Warren Select French and English School for Young Ladies; but the desertion from freedom was not made easily; nor was it ever entirely successful. Gorgas was the vagabond type. In literature Vagabondia has its charming unconventional men, but seldom if ever has the female of this species been put forward without shocking sensitive souls. The unconventional woman is—well, no better than she should be. ”

“ Miss Warren looked helplessly about. “Like a man!” she added. “Mercy! Do go out and tell her—”
But Gorgas cut that command short by dismounting—like a man. She was leading Gyp toward the stables, one arm over the horse’s mane, her head erect, her eyes focused far away. At that moment she was enjoying a childlike delight in successful martyrdom. As she passed around the school—really a fine old Colonial mansion—she came face to face with Miss Warren framed in a massive side door.
“You are Miss Gorgas Levering, I presume?” Miss Warren made the statement with disarming graciousness. ”

“ We’re just human, I suppose.”
Mrs. Levering’s voice could be heard calling for Mac. The two riotous young hearts beat violently at the sudden thought of detection; but they did not stir.
Fear shook her; if the mother had quietly opened the door before them and stared, in combined astonishment and indignation, Gorgas felt that she should be unable to get up. It was the sensation of dreams where we are about to be devoured by some hideous beast, yet can neither cry out nor move. ”

“ Gorgas inquired wonderingly.
“I’m afraid not.” Blynn’s lips were compressed; his gaze was fixed on the farther trees. “Books have been written against it. Goodness is weakness, they tell us; and so it is. The only right is might, they tell us; and that is undoubtedly the law of survival. Deceit, the snare, devouring murder—that is the supreme law of Nature. I believe that; and yet.... I cannot take my side with evil, even though I perish.”
Suddenly he laughed. The slight hardness went out of his eyes—that hidden scourging priest deep within him—and mon capitaine took its place. ”

“ No!” cried Gorgas, shocked at her intrusion.
“Come in, I say!” roared Bardek. “We jus’ celebr-r-rate our marriage—zat is all. Come in, and see how it is done.... Be still, Bit-of-my-heart,” he called to the struggling wife, but in some staccato dialect of Hungary. “We must be the teacher of the beautiful Gorgas in all things, and this is what she should learn to do; and it must be done well, or life itself is spilled to the wind.” This he translated gayly to Gorgas. “Come in, Liebschen! This is our marriage day. ”

“ She looked mildly at Gorgas.
Blynn hastened to explain.
“I was talking with Gorgas last Saturday afternoon at the tennis-courts—”
[36] “Ah! You came to talk about Gorgas. Good! The very thing I have been thinking of myself. I wish I had known you were coming, for I must be off to our little literary club. We’re fined if we don’t come on time,” she smiled as if the matter were unimportant. “Don’t let me seem abrupt, but I have only a half-minute. So let me come out bluntly. I want you to take Gorgas’ education in charge; look her over; find out where she needs patching and repainting. ”

“ Bardek laughed as he tapped. “Rats—it is the meaning of what? When I say, ‘How beautiful is Miss Gorgas, this morning,’ Miss Gorgas say, ‘Rats!’—that is to say, ‘Thank you so much for compliment.’ When I say, ‘She work too hard, she must play more,’ Miss Gorgas say, ‘Rats!’—that is to say, ‘Do you think I small child, eh?’ If I say, ‘When you going marry, Miss Gorgas?’ Miss Gorgas say, ‘Rats!’—which is to say, ‘Shut up, you ol’ fool, and mind own business.’ It is vairy convenient; one nice, little word do for everything. ”

“ Gorgas was in town purchasing materials for the “smitty.”
The old familiarity was there in their greetings and something of warmth due to the natural joy in another’s success; but there was also a deferential treatment due to his newspaper fame, which made him uncomfortable.
“My dear Professor Blynn,” Mrs. Levering beamed toward him, “I do wish I could get courage to ask you to glance over the literary program of our little club. We’re not at all satisfied with the plans for next year; of course, we are all amateurs without taste or knowledge. ”

“ Gorgas would say firmly. “I work hard all morning, I practice at music, to please you, and I must keep up my reading. Then, open air for me and a stiff fight and a shower. That makes me sing; makes me fit to do things. I wouldn’t have an original design in my head if I cooped up like most women. They are talking about voting! I’m with them there, but good Heavens! they could be enfranchised tomorrow if they could only break loose and live a decent, wholesome life.”
The severest quarrel was over clothes. Gorgas’ artistic sense was a deep-rooted thing. ”

“ And Leopold had been absolutely debarred from the Leverings; Gorgas would send for him when she wanted him.
There comes a night when lights go up in Bardek’s “white-wash house.” Gorgas is gloomily swinging in a hammock in the orchard. She listens to the clatter and to the singing, and knows that Bardek has recovered his spirits. Are they dancing? She can hear the thump of the children’s heavy shoes, and she can see forms flash back and forth between the light and the window. Bardek’s voice is roaring; and an occasional squeal from the inexpressive little wife is a certain sign of good times. ”

“ Do you think I’d care what anybody in Mount Airy said about me? They’re a pack of blithering fools.”
“Well, perhaps you’re right,” he said cheerfully as he bade her goodby at the gate. “‘Honorificabilitudinitatibus’ is a great charm. It always brings me to my senses! Goodby, Gorgas.” ”

“ Gorgas was searching in the tent for her materials.
“So, I take this child when she is child and teach her. You are professor, n’est-ce pas? Oh! You have my great admiration! You are—pardon!—so great a fool! You think you can teach old men and old girls who go to the university? How that is comic! Wooden-heads, they mumble words; they can repeat what you say, yes; but they can never do. To do, one must begin in the cradle. You would be contortionist, juggler, gymnast? Very well, wait until you are twenty-five! Sh! Non! You laugh? Zen why you try to teach old men of twenty how to think? ”

“ How you would jump! Oh, but you are so cold in America! You shake the hand, sometimes—good!—but you miss much warmth, much flow of blood. The love of man for woman, you have so! so!” a shrug that showed our lack even there, “but the love of man for man you have not at all—a great thing.”
“Bardek,” Gorgas broke in, “I will not have you making speeches all over the place. You—”
“In Bohemia,” he went joyfully on, waving an apologetic hand at the interrupter, “we embrace and kiss and have hot feelings. Here, you bow or say, ‘H’lo’ or ‘So long, ol’ man.’ Ach! We are flesh and blood. ”

“ Miss Lewis, the geography teacher, was quizzing.
“May I ask, Miss Lewis,” Gorgas plucked up courage to inquire, “why anyone should have to know that?”
“Please do not be impertinent, Miss Levering.”
Miss Lewis was not a good disciplinarian and she knew it. A native graciousness and meekness prevented her from succeeding in quelling pupils; but she struggled hard to dominate.
“Oh, I don’t mean to be impertinent,” Gorgas went on eagerly. “But population is always changing. Our book tells us the number of people who lived in New York, but only for 1880. ”

“ Leopold spoke thoughtfully, “what it is that draws us to our mates. Nobody knows. It is the greatest mystery in creation. Let us face the facts: Gorgas is a remarkable girl; she thinks; she has unusual abilities. ”

“ I’ll be late. You’ve cost me a quarter-dollar fine, young man. Dinners? If you do anything with Gorgas I’ll take you in as a permanent boarder. Day-day, child. Goodby, Mr. Blynn. Sorry I couldn’t stay. Gorgas,” she was at the door now, “get Louisa to make a nice cool drink. And give the Professor something to eat. Don’t ever let him get hungry!” Her laugh carried her down the steps.
As they picnicked on the back-lawn, his instinct told him to keep away from the Bardek story, to act as if it were a thing to be forgotten. ”

“ Gorgas was thoughtful.
[329] “No doubt they felt things as keenly as the men.... All the men wore beards, I suppose?” she continued irrelevantly.
“Undoubtedly,” Blynn’s mind was rarely personal. The merry face of Gorgas, he did not note at all; nor her attempts, with hand at mouth, to hold back a volume of laughter; nor Kate’s furtive, elderly signal of rebuke to the grinning sister. With eye mostly upon Kate, who was presenting a polite face of assumed interest, the young professor poured forth a dissertation on Elizabethan tonsorial fashions. ”

“ Somewhere in America is a crazy woman, all her life-time singing and shouting, ‘Dam t’ose sticks!’”
“We’ve caught you at last, Bardek,” Gorgas cried. “You are Czech! That’s what you are!”
“Oh, no!” he protested. “I am cosmopolitan. My mother, she was Czech when I was boy; but before t’at she was many t’ings; and after, many t’ings. I am cosmopolitan,” he claimed again. To Leopold and to Gorgas he spoke in French, to Blynn he made his remarks in German, and to the Italians he talked in their own tongue. The very timbre and rhythm of his voice changed with each language ”

“ It would be a comfort to have folks say, “Oh, Ned Morris, the tennis Morris?” Rather vain, that; but there are a hundred kinds of vanity, and some are virtues.
“What I wanted to see you about, Gorgas,” he began finally, looking suddenly at the grandfather clock in the corner—
“Not just yet, Ned,” Gorgas protested quietly. “Tell me about the Boys’ Club dinner first. I understand it went off like a Bellevue spread.”
Goodness! It was almost out, and then it would be all over, a pretty little dream spoiled by waking. Why are men so straightforward and possessing? ”

“ Ah! Nature is a great sweetener and cleaner. Ach! It is good to sit on hard chair! And how strong and fine smell the boards!”
And Mrs. Mac would lean in the doorway and listen to his sighs of satisfaction; and her eyes and her red cheeks would glow with pride.
Bardek would come back with something more than a nostalgia for boards and plaster; splendid orders he would bring for his own special work, and enough for Gorgas to keep her busy and prosperous. After one of these journeys there would be much excitement in the “smitty.” The lamp would burn at night. ”

“ The invitation in their eyes was so real that Gorgas slipped weakly to a chair near the door.
“He say to wait five, six, seven week or it not a marriage,” Bardek went on. “‘Five, six, seven week!’ I cry; ‘in that time she be grow up and ol’ woman! And I? Every day of zose week I die of waiting. Five, six, seven week? Not five, six, seven minute!’; and I scare zat priest by the things I say. And when I show him gold, he not so scared, but raise up the hands and make the language which I give him to make. ”

“ When it wells to the surface we know it for the first time, cry out in fear, or exult. When it subsides we say, “It is not there!” We are poor witnesses, with all our boastings and modesties, poor witnesses either for or against ourselves.
“I wonder where my roots are going?” Gorgas asked herself. For answer she dropped the consideration of the width of ribbon she would wear on her graduation dress and sat down to write a letter to Allen Blynn. ”

“ When you will want your man, you will go to him—like all t’others—and you cry out to him that you are here; and he will not come at first; and zen you will wear crazy clothes, and dance and beat a drum until he must see you. And all the time you will not know that you do that. You will not see.... But how you will beat zat drum!”
“Professor Blynn would not listen to her!” Gorgas announced irrelevantly. Her mind was on the Lady of the Interruption; there was defiance in her tone, a note of challenge to the unknown trespasser, none of which was lost on Bardek. ”

“ I can’t see why so many nice young boys and girls use such slang. Slang of the right sort, Mr. Blynn, I don’t mind; but the latest corruptions of the language are just low. Don’t toss those gloves on the ground, Gorgas, even if you do pay for them yourself. You have no proper reverence for fine clothes.”
“I’m ready to swear, mother, at any moment. Look out!” Gorgas smiled grimly.
“Ein tousand ein hundred ein und zwanzig!” helped Blynn. He was beginning to recover from the shock.
“Name of the name of a pipe!” she added, and suggested, “Let’s talk it over with Bardek.” ”

“ Morris retorted.
“Look out for a steal!” put in Gorgas over her shoulder.
“There he goes!” shouted Ned. “Slide! slide!... Safe by a mile!”
“Somebody coach third,” called Gorgas.
“Vairy good,” agreed Bardek, who was quite aware that all this nonsense was aimed at him. “Vairy good. That talk I do not know; but I know some t’ings.” He marched toward the door. “I not so beeg a fool to stand around and stop nice little boy-girl love-making. Je n’aime pas à faire le fâcheux troisieme. I know when three is one too many! Au revoir, les enfants!” ”

“ But that is not what draws us. I know dozens of women who are her superior—women whose conversation is—well!—shall I say more congenial? The truth is, Gorgas is not ready to enter on an intellectual level with either of us. In fact—well!—her education must be kept up—uh—afterwards. You are right; in many respects she is yet a child. I see things as a biologist: I fancy that her charm, after all, is her youth and her astonishing health. That is the mating cry—health.”
“If you don’t mind, Leopold,” Blynn stopped, “I’ll leave you here and cut off across this field alone.” ”