Mrs. Darrell

Time was, not so long ago, when Washington had some primitive aspects. This was when the city was merely a political capital and society was made up of the high government officials, the diplomatic corps, the army and navy, and senators were very great personages and even the now despised members of the House of Representatives had a place on the social chess–board. This was before the influx of recently acquired wealth and the building of splendid mansions wherein to house the retired trade. There were few private ball–rooms, and certain subscription dances were reckoned to be very smart. To these dances young ladies were not ashamed to wear muslin gowns, nor to go in the tram, carrying with them a contrivance known as a “party–bag,” which held their white slippers, fans, and gloves.

The young ladies were just as beautiful then as now, as certainly Captain Reginald Darrell and Captain Hugh Pelham, officers of the 178th Foot Regiment, then stationed in India, thought one night as they watched from the street those charming Washington girls thronging to the big Charity Ball of the season. It was a cold, clear January night, and the two young officers, cousins and chums, who had wandered idly from their hotel, watched with profound interest this phase of an American ball.

The event being a great Charity Ball, tickets were on sale at all the hotels. Pelham and Darrell had invested in a couple of tickets, and were now standing outside the building, doubting whether after all they should go in or not. They had heard and read much of American splendor, and this had come nearly deterring them from coming to America at all, considering their small allowance and modest pay in a foot regiment. Both of them, it was true, were the grandsons of a peer, but a peer almost as poor as Lazarus. Each had the enormous advantage of good birth, good breeding, and the urgent necessity of making his own way in the world. There was, it is true, some shadowy expectation of a fortune which Darrell might inherit as heir–at–law, and Pelham was next heir after Darrell. But the chance was so remote that the only present benefit they had out of it was mess–table joking, and a declaration on Darrell’s part that his love–affairs were always cruelly interfered with by Pelham. In fact, Pelham’s interference—that is to say, influence—with Darrell in every way was complete, Darrell being simple, brave, polite, handsome, and commonplace, while Pelham was short, dark, rather homely, of uncommon powers of mind and character. Pelham was much favored by women, whom he treated with remarkable gentleness and courtesy, but for whom he had felt a secret indifference.

Darrell, on the contrary, was devoted to the whole sex, their petted and curled darling. He thought a woman the object of the highest consequence,—that is to say, next to sport, which he regarded as something sacred, ranking with Church and State. He always had a dozen love–affairs on hand, and like the man in the old song, “He loved the ladies, every one.” In Darrell’s eyes, Pelham’s only fault was that he considered these love–affairs legitimate subjects of chaffing and laughing, while Darrell took them all with perfect seriousness.

It was Pelham who, in his desire to see the world, so far as his narrow purse would permit, had induced Darrell to plunge, so to speak, to the extent of going to India by way of the United States and spending three weeks in Washington, relying upon economy for the next five years when they would be with their regiment in India in the Punjaub.

They were somewhat surprised, however, to find that in the capital of the richest country in the world there was no great amount of splendor in those days, but rather a modest standard of living for a capital. In particular it appeared to them this evening that the splendor of the ball was conspicuous by its absence. It must be premised, however, that they had not then seen the supper, which was truly regal. Exteriorly, they could not but compare the scene with the real magnificence of such an occasion in London during the season, with the superb coaches magnificently horsed, the gorgeous–liveried footmen, the army of servants lining the stairways and the approaches, and the universal elegance which pervades these balls of the summer nights given under the sky of London. At the Washington ball, however, they saw only a moderate number of private carriages, ordinary in every way, a vast number of shabby old cabs,—known then as “hacks,”—gentlemen arriving on foot, and even young ladies, their ball–dresses discreetly covered with large cloaks, tripping along the streets, with their escorts of father or brother carrying a party–bag. This, remember, was before the Deluge, that is to say at least fifteen years ago.

The building in which the ball was held was large and plain, both inside and out, but blazing with lights. The street itself had long since been deserted by fashion. The negroes, never absent from a spectacle in Washington, with their white teeth shining in the wintry moonlight lined the sidewalk. A few white persons loitered under the gas–lamp, watching the long line of carriages discharging their inmates at the big, wide–open door, from whence the strains of the Marine Band floated out into the cold, still night.

The two young Englishmen entered the street and stood watching the scene with interest, leaning against the tall iron railings of the old–fashioned quarter. Pelham and Darrell noticed near them, also leaning against the iron railings, a man of about middle age, with a sort of leonine beauty and handsomely dressed, though far too showily. His fur–lined greatcoat brought out the clean–cut outlines of his clean–shaven face, his iron–gray hair, and straight, narrow brows over eyes of singular eloquence. Both young officers observed him, for it was difficult at any time to look once at James Clavering without looking at him twice.

In the circle of light made by two flashing gas–lamps in the front entrance, suddenly appeared a young girl leaning on the arm of an elderly gentleman. At the same instant the eyes of Pelham and Darrell and Clavering fell upon her, and each thought her the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen—which was, however, a very great mistake. Elizabeth Brandon had, it is true, hair of satin blackness and skin of milky whiteness, and eyes that reminded one of a summer night, so soft, so dark with occasional flashes of starlike brilliancy, and a figure as slight and graceful as a lily–stalk. Other women have as much beauty of feature as Elizabeth Brandon, but she had that which is beauty itself, the power to charm at a glance. She was not really as handsome as her father, General Brandon, on whose arm she leaned, and who carried her party–bag.

Both Pelham and Darrell saw at a glance that General Brandon was a military man. And Clavering recognized him as the Captain Brandon he had known twenty–five years before at a post in Texas, where Clavering was at the time a sutler. He had heard that, at the breaking out of the Civil War, Captain Brandon, who was a Southern man, had resigned and had become a brigadier–general in the Confederate Army. Since the war, Brandon had disappeared in the great, black gulf that opened where once stood a government which called itself the Confederate States of America. But Clavering gave no thought to this, as under the cover of darkness he surveyed the charming girl who clung to General Brandon’s arm. The two stood directly in front of Pelham and Darrell, who bestowed upon Elizabeth those glances of respectful admiration which is the homage due to beauty.

“My dear,” said General Brandon, in a peculiarly musical voice, to his daughter, “I think we had better wait here until Mrs. Luttrell’s carriage arrives. It is in line down the street, but will not be here for five minutes or more.”

Darrell and Pelham moved a little aside so that the young lady and her father might be somewhat out of the way of the passing throng. General Brandon recognized this civility by lifting his hat punctiliously to each, which courtesy both of them returned. At the same moment, Elizabeth lifting her hand to her white throat, her sleeve caught in a slender gold chain around her neck and a sudden movement broke it.

“Oh, papa!” she said, “save my little pearl heart. I would not lose it for the world.”

General Brandon immediately looked down on the wet sidewalk for the trinket, a search in which he was joined by both Pelham and Darrell. Clavering, who was in the shadow, did not move, but his eyes followed every movement of the group. Elizabeth unconsciously brushed against him. There was some mud on his boots, and it became transferred to her white muslin skirts, which she let fall in the anxiety of her loss. The trinket, it would seem, had fallen at their very feet, but it was not to be found. Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears, and she mourned for her little pearl heart as if it had been a lost child.

“It is of no real value,” she said to Pelham, raising her soft, dark eyes to his, “but I would not have lost it for anything.”

Both Pelham and Darrell were keen–eyed and searched diligently for the lost trinket, but unavailingly. Pelham, usually the most unimpressed of men where women and their fallals were concerned, felt that he would have given a month’s pay to have found the little ornament and thereby dry the tears that glistened on Elizabeth’s long, black lashes; but it was soon obvious that there was no finding her lost treasure. Its disappearance, though mysterious, was instant and complete.

General Brandon said in his slow, suave voice: “My dear child, all our efforts are vain. I think your little treasure must have been stolen by an unseen hand at the instant you dropped it; but you, gentlemen,” he said, turning to Pelham and Darrell, “have been most kind, and I beg to introduce myself to you. I am General Brandon of Virginia, formerly of the United States Army and lately of the Confederate Army. Here is my card, and I shall be most pleased to see you at my house.”

Pelham and Darrell were nearly knocked down by this unexpected invitation. They did not know that a Virginian never loses the habit of asking Thomas, Richard, and Henry to call upon him, on the slightest provocation and often without any provocation at all. But they recognized in a moment that this handsome and courtly person who went around recklessly inviting street acquaintances to visit his house, was a gentleman of purest rays serene, and being of the same caste themselves, and thereby made free, both of them promptly accepted. Pelham, who was quick of wit where Darrell was slow, introduced himself and his friend, each handing his card.

“Ah!” cried General Brandon, “so you are officers of the British Army. I am more than pleased to meet you. I am, like most persons in my native state, of unmixed English descent, my family being a younger branch of the Suffolk–Brandons; and I also am of the profession of arms. I was in the old army, where I held the rank of major, and afterward, when I followed my state out of the Union, I had the honor of being brigadier–general in the army of the Southern Confederacy. Permit me to introduce you to my daughter.” And this General Brandon proceeded to do. Elizabeth bowed and smiled and was not at all taken aback by the suddenness of the acquaintance. Virginians think that all well–bred persons constitute a sort of national and international oligarchy, whereof every member is or ought to be known to every other member.