The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck. A Comedy of Limitations

Charteris's tales of Lichfield,—'those effusions which' (if the Lichfield Courier-Herald is to be trusted) 'have builded, by the strength and witchery of record and rhyme, romance and poem, a myriad- windowed temple in Lichfield's honor—exquisite, luminous, and enduring—for all the world to see.'

Miss Stapylton appeared to delight in the cloistered easy-going life of Lichfield,—that town which was once, as the outside world has half-forgotten now, the center of America's wealth, politics and culture, the town to which Europeans compiling 'impressions' of America devoted one of their longest chapters in the heyday of Elijah Pogram and Jefferson Brick. But the War between the States has changed all that, and Lichfield endures to-day only as a pleasant backwater.

Very pleasant, too, it was in the days of Patricia's advent. There were strikingly few young men about, to be sure; most of them on reaching maturity had settled in more bustling regions. But many maidens remained whom memory delights to catalogue,—tall, brilliant Lizzie Allardyce, the lovely and cattish Marian Winwood, to whom Felix Kennaston wrote those wonderful love-letters which she published when he married Kathleen Saumarez, the rich Baugh heiresses from Georgia, the Pride twins, and Mattie Ferneyhaugh, whom even rival beauties loved, they say, and other damsels by the score,—all in due time to be wooed and won, and then to pass out of the old town's life.

Among the men of Rudolph Musgrave's generation—those gallant oldsters who were born and bred, and meant to die, in Lichfield,—Patricia did not lack for admirers. Tom May was one of them, of course; rarely a pretty face escaped the tribute of at least one proposal from Tom May. Then there was Roderick Taunton, he with the leonine mane, who spared her none of his forensic eloquence, but found Patricia less tractable than the most stubborn of juries. Bluff Walter Thurman, too, who was said to know more of Dickens, whist and criminal law than any other man living, came to worship at her shrine, as likewise did huge red-faced Ashby Bland, famed for that cavalry charge which history-books tell you that he led, and at which he actually was not present, for reasons all Lichfield knew and chuckled over. And Courtney Thorpe and Charles Maupin, doctors of the flesh and the spirit severally, were others among the rivals who gathered about Patricia at decorous festivals when, candles lighted, the butler and his underlings came with trays of delectable things to eat, and the 'nests' of tables were set out, and pleasant chatter abounded.

And among Patricia's attendants Colonel Musgrave, it is needless to relate, was preeminently pertinacious. The two found a deal to talk about, somehow, though it is doubtful if many of their comments were of sufficient importance or novelty to merit record. Then, also, he often read aloud to her from lovely books, for the colonel read admirably and did not scruple to give emotional passages their value. Trilby, published the preceding spring in book form, was one of these books, for all this was at a very remote period; and the Rubaiyat was another, for that poem was as yet unhackneyed and hardly wellknown enough to be parodied in those happy days.

Once he read to her that wonderful sad tale of Hans Christian Andersen's which treats of the china chimney-sweep and the shepherdess, who eloped from their bedizened tiny parlor-table, and were frightened by the vastness of the world outside, and crept ignominiously back to their fit home. 'And so,' the colonel ended, 'the little china people remained together, and were thankful for the rivet in grandfather's neck, and continued to love each other until they were broken to pieces.'

'It was really a very lucky thing,' Patricia estimated, 'that the grandfather had a rivet in his neck and couldn't nod to the billy-goat-legged person to take the shepherdess away into his cupboard. I don't doubt the little china people were glad of it. But after climbing so far—and seeing the stars,—I think they ought to have had more to be glad for.' Her voice was quaintly wistful.

'I will let you into a secret—er—Patricia. That rivet was made out of the strongest material in the whole universe. And the old grandfather was glad, at bottom, he had it in his neck so that he couldn't nod and separate the shepherdess from the chimney-sweep.'

'Yes,—I guess he had been rather a rip among the bric-a-brac in his day and sympathized with them?'

'No, it wasn't just that. You see these little china people had forsaken their orderly comfortable world on the parlor table to climb very high. It was a brave thing to do, even though they faltered and came back after a while. It is what we all want to do, Patricia—to climb toward the stars,—even those of us who are too lazy or too cowardly to attempt it. And when others try it, we are envious and a little uncomfortable, and we probably scoff; but we can't help admiring, and there is a rivet in the neck of all of us which prevents us from interfering. Oh, yes, we little china people have a variety of rivets, thank God, to prevent too frequent nodding and too cowardly a compromise with baseness,—rivets that are a part of us and force us into flashes of upright living, almost in spite of ourselves, when duty and inclination grapple. There is always the thing one cannot do for the reason that one is constituted as one is. That, I take it, is the real rivet in grandfather's neck and everybody else's.'

He spoke disjointedly, vaguely, but the girl nodded. 'I think I understand, Olaf. Only, it is a two-edged rivet —to mix metaphors—and keeps us stiffnecked against all sorts of calls. No, I am not sure that the thing one cannot do because one is what one is, proves to be always a cause for international jubilations and fireworks on the lawn.' 

II

Thus Lichfield, as to its staid trousered citizenry, fell prostrate at Miss Stapylton's feet, and as to the remainder of its adults, vociferously failed to see anything in the least remarkable in her appearance, and avidly took and compared notes as to her personal apparel.

'You have brought Asmodeus into Lichfield,' Colonel Musgrave one day rebuked Miss Stapylton, as they sat in the garden. 'The demon of pride and dress is rampant everywhere—er—Patricia. Even Agatha does her hair differently now; and in church last Sunday I counted no less than seven duplicates of that blue hat of yours.'

Miss Stapylton was moved to mirth. 'Fancy your noticing a thing like that!' said she. 'I didn't know you were even aware I had a blue hat.'

'I am no judge,' he conceded, gravely, 'of such fripperies. I don't pretend to be. But, on the other hand, I must plead guilty to deriving considerable harmless amusement from your efforts to dress as an example and an irritant to all Lichfield.'

'You wouldn't have me a dowd, Olaf?' said she, demurely. 'I have to be neat and tidy, you know. You wouldn't have me going about in a continuous state of unbuttonedness and black bombazine like Mrs. Rabbet, would you?'

Rudolph Musgrave debated as to this. 'I dare say,' he at last conceded, cautiously, 'that to the casual eye your appearance is somewhat —er—more pleasing than that of our rector's wife. But, on the other hand——'

'Olaf, I am embarrassed by such fulsome eulogy. Mrs. Rabbet isn't a day under forty-nine. And you consider me somewhat better-looking than she is!'

He inspected her critically, and was confirmed in his opinion.

'Olaf'—coaxingly—'do you really think I am as ugly as that?'

'Pouf!' said the colonel airily; 'I dare say you are well enough.'

'Olaf'—and this was even more cajoling—'do you know you've never told me what sort of a woman you most admire?'

'I don't admire any of them,' said Colonel Musgrave, stoutly. 'They are too vain and frivolous—especially the pink-and-white ones,' he added, unkindlily.

'Cousin Agatha has told me all about your multifarious affairs of course. She depicts you as a sort of cardiacal buccaneer and visibly gloats over the tale of your enormities. She is perfectly dear about it. But have you never—cared—for any woman, Olaf?'

Precarious ground, this! His eyes were fixed upon her now. And hers, for doubtless sufficient reasons, were curiously intent upon anything in the universe rather than Rudolph Musgrave.

'Yes,' said he, with a little intake of the breath; 'yes, I cared once.'

'And—she cared?' asked Miss Stapylton.

She happened, even now, not to be looking at him.

'She!' Rudolph Musgrave cried, in real surprise. 'Why, God bless my soul, of course she didn't! She didn't know anything about it.'