Tripping with the Tucker Twins Part 10

"I have often thought about this woman," said Claire, in her light, musical voice. "I have an idea that she must have been very hard-worked and perhaps longed for a few more minutes in bed every morning, and maybe the husband routed her out, and when she died perhaps he felt sorry he had not given her more rest."

"You hear that, Page?" asked Dum. "You had better have some mercy on me now. I may 'shuffle off this mortal coil' at any minute, and you will be so sorry you didn't let me sleep just a little while longer." (It had been my job ever since I started to room with the Tucker twins to be the waker-up. It was a thankless job, too, and no sinecure.) "See that my little bra.s.s bed is kept s.h.i.+ny, Zebedee dear."

"I wonder why it is that no one ever seems to feel very sad or quiet in old, old graveyards?" I asked, all of us laughing at Dum's bra.s.s bed.

"I think it is because all the persons who suffered at the death of the persons buried there are dead, too. No one feels very sorry for the dead; it is the living that are left to mourn. Old cemeteries are to me the most peaceful and cheerful spots one can visit," said Zebedee, leaning over to decipher some quaint epitaph.

"I think so, too!" exclaimed Claire, who had fitted herself into our crowd with delightful ease. "New graves are the ones that break my heart."

Louis turned away to hide his emotion. He had been too near to the Great Divide that very morning for talk of new-made graves and the sorrow of loved ones not to move him.

There was much of interest in that old burying ground, and Louis proved an excellent cicerone. He told us that the church was started in 1752; that the bells and organ and clock were imported from England, and that the present organ had parts of the old organ incorporated in it. The bells were seized during the Revolution and s.h.i.+pped and sold in England, where they were purchased by a former Charleston merchant and s.h.i.+pped back again. During the Civil War they were sent to Columbia for safekeeping, but were so badly injured when Columbia was burned that they had to be again sent to England and recast in the original mold.

They chimed out the hour while Louis was telling us about them as though to prove to us their being well worth all the trouble to which they had put the worthy citizens of Charleston.

"Saint Philip's next, while we are in the churchly spirit," said Louis; "and then the Huguenot church."

St. Philip's was a little older than St. Michael's. The chimes for that church were used for making cannon for the Confederacy, and for lack of funds up to the present time they have not been replaced. On top of the high steeple is a beacon light by which the s.h.i.+ps find their way into the harbor.

We had noticed at the hotel, both at our very early breakfast and at luncheon, a very charming couple who had attracted us greatly and who, in turn, seemed interested in us. The man was a scholarly person with kind, brown eyes, a very intelligent, comely countenance, and a tendency to baldness right on top that rather added to his intellectual appearance. His wife was quite pretty, young, and with a look of race and breeding that was most striking. Her hair was red gold, and she had perhaps the sweetest blue eyes I had ever beheld. Her eyes just matched her blue linen s.h.i.+rtwaist. What had attracted me to the couple was not only their interesting appearance, but the fact that they seemed to have such a good time together. They talked not in the perfunctory way that married persons often do, but with real spirit and interest.

As we entered the cemetery of St. Philip's, across the street from the church, we met this couple standing by the sarcophagus of the great John C. Calhoun. The lady bowed to us sweetly, acknowledging, as it were, having seen us in the hotel. We of course eagerly responded, delighted at the encounter. We had discussed them at length, and almost decided they were bride and groom; at least Tweedles had, but I thought not. They were too much at their ease to be on their first trip together, I declared, and of course got called a would-be author for my a.s.sertion.

"I hear there is a wonderful portrait of Calhoun by Healy in the City Hall," said the gentleman to Zebedee, as he courteously moved for us to read the inscription on the sarcophagus.

"Yes, so I am told, but this young man who belongs to this interesting city can tell us more about it," and in a little while all of us were drawn into conversation with our chance acquaintances.

Louis led us through the cemetery, telling us anything of note, and then we followed him to the Huguenot church, accompanied by our new friends.

A Huguenot church has stood on the site of the present one since 1667.

Many things have happened to the different buildings, but the present one, an edifice of unusual beauty and dignity, has remained intact since 1845. The preacher, a dear old man of over eighty, who is totally blind, has been pastor of this scanty flock for almost fifty years. He now conducts the service from memory, and preaches wonderful, simple sermons straight from his kind old heart.

"Oh, Edwin, see what wonderful old names are on these tablets," enthused the young wife--"Mazyck, Ravenel, Porcher, de Sasure, Huger, Cazanove, L'Hommedieu, Marquand, Gaillard----"

"Yes, dear, they sound like an echo from the Old World."

"This Gaillard is our great, great grandfather, isn't he, Louis?" asked Claire. "My brother knows so much more about such things than I do."

"Oh, is your name Gaillard?"

And then the introductions followed, Zebedee doing the honors, naming all of us in turn; and then the gentleman told us that his name was Edwin Green and introduced his wife.

I fancy Claire and Louis had not been in the habit of picking up acquaintances in this haphazard style, and the sensation was a new and delightful one to them. The Tuckers and I always did it. We talked to the people we met on trains and in parks, and many an item for my notebook did I get in this way. Zebedee says he thinks it is all right just so you don't pick out some flashy flatterer. Of course we never did that, but confined our chance acquaintances to women and children or nice old men, whose interest was purely fatherly. Making friends as we had with Louis was different, as there was nothing to do but help him; and his s.e.x and age were not to be considered at such a time.

"Are you to be in Charleston long?" asked Zebedee of Mr. Green.

"I can't tell. We are fascinated by it, but long to get out of the hotel and into some home."

"If I knew of some nice quiet place, I would put my girls there for a few days while I run over to Columbia on business. I can't leave them alone in the hotel."

"I should love to look after them, if you would trust me," said Mrs.

Green, flus.h.i.+ng for fear Zebedee might think her pus.h.i.+ng.

"Trust you! Why, you are too kind to make such an offer!" exclaimed Zebedee.

"We have some friends who have just opened their house for--for--guests," faltered Claire. "They live only a block from us, and are very lovely ladies. We heard only this morning that they are contemplating taking someone into their home." Tweedles and I exchanged glances; mine was a triumphant one. The would-be author had hit the nail on the head again. "Their name is Laurens." I knew it would be before Claire spoke.

"Oh, Miss Gaillard, if you could introduce us to those ladies we would be so grateful to you!" said Zebedee. "You would like to stay there, wouldn't you, girls?"

"Yes! Yes!"

"And Mrs. Green perhaps will decide to go there, too, and she will look after you, will you not, Mrs. Green?"

"I should be so happy to if the girls would like to have me for a chaperone."

"Oh, we'd love it! We've never had a chaperone in our lives but once, and she got married," tweedled the twins.

And so our compact was made, and Claire promised to see the Misses Laurens in regard to our becoming her "paying guests."

Mr. Green, who, as we found out afterward, was a professor of English at the College of Wellington and had all kinds of degrees that ent.i.tled him to be called Doctor, seemed rather amused at his wife's being a chaperone.

"She seems to me still to be nothing but a girl herself," he confided to Zebedee, "although we have got a fine big girl of our own over a year old, whom we have left in the care of my mother-in-law while we have this much talked-of trip together."

"Oh, have you got a baby? Do you know, Dum and I just stood Page down that you were bride and groom!"

"Molly, do you hear that? These young ladies thought we were newlyweds."

"I didn't!"

"And why didn't you?" smiled the young wife.

"I noticed you gave separate orders at the table and did not have to pretend to like the same things. I believe a bride and groom are afraid to differ on even such a thing as food."

"Oh, Edwin, do you hear that? Do you remember the unmerciful teasing Kent gave you at Fontainbleu because you pretended to like the mustard we got on our roast beef in the little English restaurant, just because I like English mustard?"

"Yes, I remember it very well, and I also remember lots of other things at Fontainbleu besides the mustard."

Mrs. Green blushed such a lovely pink at her husband's words that we longed to hear what he did remember.

"Kent is my brother--Kent Brown."

"Oh! Oh!" tweedled the twins. "Are you Molly Brown of Kentucky?"

"Yes, I was Molly Brown of Kentucky."

"And did you go to Wellington?" I asked.

"Yes, and I still go there, as my husband has the chair of English at Wellington."

"Girls! Girls! To think of our meeting Molly Brown of Kentucky! We have been hearing of you all winter from our teacher of English at Gresham, Miss Ball."