The Rivet in Grandfathers Neck | Page 3

Musgrave was a trifle irritated that
his self-sacrifice should be thus unrewarded by martyrdom.
Circumstances had enabled him to assume, and he had gladly accepted,
the blame for John Charteris's iniquity, rather than let Anne Charteris
know the truth about her husband and Clarice Pendomer. The truth
would have killed Anne, the colonel believed; and besides, the colonel
had enjoyed the performance of a picturesque action.
And having acted as a hero in permitting himself to be pilloried as a
libertine, it was preferable of course not to have incurred ostracism
thereby. His common-sense conceded this; and yet, to Colonel
Musgrave, it could not but be evident that Destiny was hardly rising to
the possibilities of the situation.

II
Concerning Colonel Musgrave one finds the ensuing account in a
publication of the period devoted to biographies of more or less
prominent Americans. It is reproduced unchanged, because these
memoirs were--in the old days--compiled by the person whom they
commemorated. The custom was a worthy one, since the value of an
autobiography is determined by the nature of its superfluities and
falsehoods.
"MUSGRAVE, RUDOLPH VARTREY, editor; b. Lichfield, Sill., Mar.

14, 1856; s. William Sebastian and Martha (Allardyce) M; g. s.
Theodorick Q.M., gov. of Sill. 1805-8, judge of the General Ct.,
1808-11, judge Supreme Ct. of Appeals, 1811-50 and pres. Supreme Ct.
of Appeals, 1841-50; grad. King's Coll. and U. of Sill. Corr. sec.
Lichfield Hist. Soc., and editor Sill. Mag. of Biog. since 1890; dir.
Traders Nat. Bank, Sill.; mem. Soc. of the Sons of Col. Govs., pres. Sill.
Soc. of Protestant Martyrs, comdr. Sill. Mil. Order of Lost Battles,
mem. exec. bd. Sill. Hist. Assn. for the Preservation of Ruins.
Democrat, Episcopalian, unmarried. Author: Colonial Lichfield, 1892;
Right on the Scaffold, 1893; Secession and the South, 1894; Chart of
the Descendants of Zenophon Perkins, 1894; Recollections of a
Gracious Era, 1895; Notes as to the Vartreys of Westphalia, 1896. Has
also written numerous pamphlets on hist., biog. and geneal. subjects.
Address: Lichfield, Sill."
For Colonel Musgrave was by birth the lineal head of all the Musgraves
of Matocton, which is in Lichfield, as degrees are counted there,
equivalent to what being born a marquis would mean in England.
Handsome and trim and affable, he defied chronology by looking ten
years younger than he was known to be. For at least a decade he had
been invaluable to Lichfield matrons alike against the entertainment of
an "out-of-town girl," the management of a cotillion and the prevention
of unpleasant pauses among incongruous dinner companies.
In short, he was by all accounts the social triumph of his generation;
and his military title, won by four years of arduous service at receptions
and parades while on the staff of a former Governor of the State, this
seasoned bachelor carried off with plausibility and distinction.
The story finds him "Librarian and Corresponding Secretary" of the
Lichfield Historical Association, which office he had held for some six
years. The salary was small, and the colonel had inherited little; but his
sister, Miss Agatha Musgrave, who lived with him, was a notable
housekeeper. He increased his resources in a gentlemanly fashion by
genealogical research, directed mostly toward the rehabilitation of
ambiguous pedigrees; and for the rest, no other man could have
fulfilled more gracefully the main duty of the Librarian, which was to

exhibit the Association's collection of relics to hurried tourists "doing"
Lichfield.
His "Library manner" was modeled upon that which an eighteenth
century portrait would conceivably possess, should witchcraft set the
canvas breathing.

III
Also the story finds Colonel Musgrave in the company of his sister on a
warm April day, whilst these two sat upon the porch of the Musgrave
home in Lichfield, and Colonel Musgrave waited until it should be time
to open the Library for the afternoon. And about them birds twittered
cheerily, and the formal garden flourished as gardens thrive nowhere
except in Lichfield, and overhead the sky was a turkis-blue, save for a
few irrelevant clouds which dappled it here and there like splashes of
whipped cream.
Yet, for all this, the colonel was ill-at-ease; and care was on his brow,
and venom in his speech.
"And one thing," Colonel Musgrave concluded, with decision, "I wish
distinctly understood, and that is, if she insists on having young men
loafing about her--as, of course, she will--she will have to entertain
them in the garden. I won't have them in the house, Agatha. You
remember that Langham girl you had here last Easter?" he added,
disconsolately --"the one who positively littered up the house with
young men, and sang idiotic jingles to them at all hours of the night
about the Bailey family and the correct way to spell chicken? She drove
me to the verge of insanity, and I