“I see,” said the foreman, and went on with his work, leaving Harvey in doubt.
“Have a cigar?” he asked, after a doleful pause. The man took it and looked at it keenly.
“I’ll smoke it after a while,” he said.
“Do the best you can about the bed in the back room upstairs,” said Harvey, engagingly.
An express wagon came at five o’clock and removed the servants’ trunks. A few minutes later the two domestics, be-hatted and cloaked, came up to say good-bye to him.
“You’re not leaving today?” he cried, aghast.
“If it’s just the same to you, sor,” said Bridget. “We’ve both got places beginnin’to-morry.”
“But who’ll cook my—”
“Niver you worry about that, sor; I’ve left a dozen av eggs, some bacon, rolls, and—”
“All right. Good-bye,” broke in the master, turning away.
“Good luck, sor,” said Bridget, amiably. Then they went away.
His dismal reflections were broken by the foreman, who found him in the kitchen.
“We’ll be back early in the morning and clean up everything. The van will be here at ten. Is everything here to go to the warehouse? I notice some things that look as though they might belong to you personally.”
There were a few pieces of furniture and bric-à-brac that Harvey could claim as his own. He stared gloomily at the floor for a long time, thinking. Of what use were they to him now? And where was he to put them in case he claimed them?
“I guess you’d better store everything,” he said, dejectedly. “They—they all go together.”
“The—your trunk, sir; how about that?”
“If you think you’ve got room for it, I—”
“Sure we have.”
“Take it, too. I’m going to pack what clothes I need in a suitcase. So much easier to carry than a trunk.” He was unconsciously funny, and did not understand the well-meant guffaw of the foreman.
It was a dreary, desolate night that he spent in the topsy-turvy cottage. He was quite alone except for the queer shapes and shadows that haunted him. When he was downstairs he could hear strange whisperings above; when he was upstairs the mutterings were below. Things stirred and creaked that had never shown signs of animation before. The coals in the fireplace spat with a malignant fury, as if blown upon by evil spirits lurking in the chimney until he went to bed so that they might come forth to revel in the gloom. The howl of the wind had a different note, a wail that seemed to come from a child in pain; forbidding sounds came up from the empty cellar; always there was something that stood directly behind him, ready to lay on a ghostly hand. He crouched in the chair, feeling never so small, never so impotent as now. The chair was partially wrapped for crating. Every time he moved there was a crackle of paper that sounded like the rattle of thunder before the final ear-splitting crash. As still as a mouse he sat and listened for new sounds, more sinister than those that had gone before; and, like the mouse, he jumped with each recurring sound.
Towering crates seemed on the verge of toppling over upon him, boxes and barrels appeared to draw closer together to present a barrier against any means of escape; cords and ropes wriggled with life as he stared at them, serpentine things that kept on creeping toward him, never away.
Oh, for the sound of Phoebe’s voice!
“Quoth the raven, nevermore!” That sombre sentence haunted him. He tried to close his ears against it, but to no purpose. It crept up from some inward lurking place in his being, crooning a hundred cadences in spite of all that he could do to change the order of his thoughts.
Far in the night he dashed fearfully up to his dismantled bedroom, a flickering candle in his hand. He had gone about the place to see that all of the doors and windows were fastened. Removing his shoes and his coat, he hurriedly crawled in between the blankets and blew out the light. Sleep would not come. He was sobbing. He got up twice and lighted the candle, once to put away the motto, again to take out of the trunk the cabinet size photograph of himself and Nellie and the baby, taken when the latter was three years old. Hugging this to his breast, he started back to bed.
A sudden thought staggered him. For a long time he stood in the middle of the room, shivering as he debated the great question this thought presented. At last, with a shudder, he urged his reluctant feet to carry him across the room to the single gas jet. Closing his eyes he turned on the gas full force and then leaped into the bed, holding the portrait to his heart. Then he waited for the end of everything.
When he opened his eyes broad daylight was streaming in upon him. Some one was pounding on the door downstairs. He leaped out of bed and began to pull on his shoes.
Suddenly it occurred to him that by all rights he should be lying there stiff and cold, suffocated by the escaping gas. He sniffed the air. There was no odour of gas. With a gasp of alarm he rushed over and turned off the stopcock, a cold perspiration coming out all over him.
“Gee, I hope I’m in time!” he groaned aloud. “I don’t want to die. I—I—it’s different in the daytime. The darkness did it. I hope I’m—” Then, considerably puzzled, he interrupted himself to turn the thing on again. He stood on his toes to smell the tip.“By jingo, I remember now, that fellow turned it off in the meter yesterday. Oh, Lord; what a close call I’ve had!”
He was so full of glee when he opened the door to admit the packers that they neglected, in their astonishment, to growl at him for keeping them standing in the cold for fifteen or twenty minutes.
“Thought maybe you’d gone and done it,”said the foreman. “Took poison or turned on the gas, or something. You was mighty blue yesterday, Mr.—Mr. Duluth.”
With the arrival of the van he set off to pay the bills due the tradespeople in town, returning before noon with all the receipts, and something like $20 left over. The world did not look so dark and dreary to him now. In his mind’s eye he saw himself rehabilitated in the sight of the scoffers, prospering ere long to such an extent that not only would he be able to reclaim Phoebe, but even Nellie might be persuaded to throw herself on his neck and beg for reinstatement in his good graces. With men like Harvey the ill wind never blows long or steadily; it blows the hardest under cover of night. The sunshine takes the keen, bitter edge off it, and it becomes a balmy zephyr.
Already he was planning the readjustment of his fortunes.
At length the van was loaded. His suitcase sat on the front porch, puny and pathetic. The owner of the house was there, superintending the boarding up of the windows and doors. Harvey stood in the middle of the walk, looking on with a strange yearning in his heart. All of his worldly possessions reposed in that humble bag, save the cotton umbrella that he carried in his hand. A cotton umbrella, with the mercury down to zero!
“Well, I’m sorry you’re leaving,” said the owner, pocketing the keys as he came up to the little man. “Can I give you a lift in my cutter down to the station?”
“If it isn’t too much bother,” said Harvey, blinking his eyes very rapidly.
“You’re going to the city, I suppose.”
“The city?”
“New York.”
“Oh,” said Harvey, wide-eyed and thoughtful,“I—I thought you meant Blakeville. I’m going out there for a visit with my Uncle Peter. He’s the leading photographer in Blakeville. My mother’s brother. No, I’m not going to New York. Not on your life!”
All the way to the station he was figuring on how far the twenty dollars would go toward paying his fare to Blakeville. How far could he ride on the cars, and how far would he have to walk? And what would his crabbed old uncle say to an extended visit in case he got to Blakeville without accident?
He bought some cigarettes at the newsstand and sat down to wait for the first train to turn up, westward bound.
CHAPTER VIII
BLAKEVILLE
If by any chance you should happen to stop off in the sleepy town of Blakeville, somewhere west of Chicago, you would be directed at once to th
e St. Nicholas Hotel, not only the leading hostelry of the city, but—to quote the advertisement in the local newspaper—the principal hotel in that Congressional district. After you had been conducted to the room with a bath—for I am sure you would insist on having it if it were not already occupied, which wouldn’t be likely—you would cross over to the window and look out upon Main Street. Directly across the way you would observe a show window in which huge bottles filled with red, yellow, and blue fluids predominated. The sign above the door would tell you that it was a drug store, if you needed anything more illuminating than the three big bottles.
“Davis’ drug store,” you would say to your wife, if she happened to be with you, and if you have been at all interested in the history of Mr.—Mr.—Now, what is his name?—you would doubtless add, “It seems to me I have heard of the place before.” And then you would stare hard to see if you could catch a glimpse of the soda-water dispenser, whose base of operations was just inside the door to the left, a marble structure that glistened with white and silver, and created within you at once a longing for sarsaparilla or vanilla and the delicious after effect of stinging gases coming up through the nostrils, not infrequently accompanied by tears of exquisite pain—a pungent pain, if you please.
At the rush periods of the day you could not possibly have seen him for the crowd of thirsty people who obstructed the view. Everybody in town flocked to Davis’ for their chocolate sundaes and cherry phosphates. Was not Harvey behind the counter once more? With all the new-fangled concoctions from gay New York, besides a few novelties from Paris, and a wonderful assortment of what might well have been called prestidigitatorial achievements!
He had a new way of juggling an egg phosphate that was worth going miles to see, and as for the manner in which he sprinkled nutmeg over the surface—well! no Delsartian movement ever was so full of grace.
Yes, he was back at the old place in Davis’.For a year and a half he had been there. So prosperous was his first summer behind the“soda counter” that the owner of the place agreed with him that the fountain could be kept running all winter, producing hot chocolate, beef tea, and all that sort of thing. Just to keep the customers from getting out of the habit, argued Harvey in support of his plan—and his job.
You may be interested to learn how he came back to Blakeville. He was a fortnight getting there from Tarrytown. His railroad ticket carried him to Cleveland. From that city he walked to Chicago, his purpose being to save a few dollars so that he might ride into Blakeville. His feet were so sore and swollen when he finally hobbled into his Uncle Peter’s art studio, on Main Street, that he couldn’t get his shoes on for forty-eight hours after once taking them off. He confessed to a bit of high living in his time, lugubriously admitting to his uncle that he feared he had a touch of the gout. He was subject to it, confound it. Beastly thing, gout. But you can’t live on lobster and terrapin and champagne without paying the price.
His uncle, a crusty and unimpressionable bachelor, was not long in getting the truth out of him. To Harvey’s unbounded surprise the old photographer sympathised with him. Instead of kicking him out he took him to his bosom, so to speak, and commiserated with him.
“I feel just as sorry for a married man, Harvey,” said he, “as I do for a half-starved dog. I’m always going out of my way to feed some of these cast-off dogs around town, so why shouldn’t I do the same for a poor devil of a husband? I’ll make you comfortable until you get into Davis’, but don’t you ever let on to these damned women that you’re a failure, or that you’re strapped, or that that measly little wife of yours gave you the sack. No, sir! Remember who you are. You are my nephew. I won’t say as I’m proud of you, but, by thunder! I don’t want anybody in Blakeville to know that I’m ashamed of you. If I feel that way about you, it’s my own secret and it’s nobody’s business. So you just put on a bold front and nobody need know. You can be quite sure I won’t tell on you, to have people saying that my poor dead sister’s boy wasn’t good enough for Ell Barkley or any other woman that ever lived.
“But it’s a lesson to you. Don’t—for God’s sake, don’t—ever let another one of ’em get her claws on you! Here’s ten dollars. Go out and buy some ten-cent cigars at Rumley’s, and smoke ’em where everybody can see you. Ten-centers, mind you; not two-fers, the kind I smoke. And get a new pair of shoes at Higgs’. And invite me to eat a—an expensive meal at the St. Nicholas. It can’t cost more’n a dollar, no matter how much we order, but you can ask for lobster and terrapin, and raise thunder because they haven’t got ’em, whatever they are. Then in a couple of days you can say you’re going to help me out during the busy season, soliciting orders for crayon portraits. I’ll board and lodge you here and give you four dollars a week to splurge on. The only thing I ask in return is that you’ll tell people I’m a smart man for never having married. That’s all!”
You may be quite sure that Harvey took to the place as a duck takes to water. Inside of a week after his arrival—or, properly speaking, his appearance in Blakeville, for you couldn’t connect the two on account of the gout—he was the most talked-of, most envied man in the place. In the cigar stores, poolrooms, and at the St. Nicholas he was wont to regale masculine Blakeville with tales of high life in the Tenderloin that caused them to fairly shiver from attacks of the imagination, and subsequently to go home and tell their women folk what a gay Lothario he was, with the result that the interest in the erstwhile drug clerk spread to the other sex with such remarkable unanimity that no bit of gossip was complete without him. Every one affected his society, because every one wanted to hear what he had to say of the gay world on Manhattan Island; the life behind the scenes of the great theatres, the life in the million dollar cafés and hotels, the life in the homes of fashionable New Yorkers,—with whom he was on perfectly amiable terms,—the life in Wall Street. Some of them wanted to know all about Old Trinity, others were interested in the literary atmosphere of Gotham, while others preferred to hear about the fashions. But the great majority hungered for the details of convivial escapades—and he saw to it that they were amply satisfied. Especially were they interested in stories concerning the genus “broiler.”Oh, he was really a devil of a fellow.
When the time came for him to begin his work as a solicitor for crayon portraits his reputation was such that not only was he able to gain admittance to every home visited, but he was allowed to remain and chat as long as he pleased, sometimes obtaining an order, but always being invited to call again after the lady of the house had had time to talk it over with her husband.
Sometimes he would lie awake in his bed trying in vain to remember the tales he had told and wondering if the people really believed him. Then he was prone to contrast his fiction with the truth as he knew it, and to blame himself for not having lived the brightly painted life when he had the opportunity. He almost wept when he thought of what he had missed. His imagination carried him so far that he cursed his mistaken rectitude and longed for one lone and indelible reminiscence which he could cherish as a real tribute to that beautiful thing called vice!
In answer to all questions he announced that poor Nellie had been advised to go West for her health. Of the real situation he said nothing.
No day passed that did not bring with it the longing for a letter from Nellie or a word from Phoebe. Down in his heart he was grieving. He wanted them, both of them. The hope that Nellie would appeal to him for forgiveness grew smaller as the days went by, and yet he did not let it die. His loyal imagination kept it alive, fed it with daily prayers and endless vistas of a reconstructed happiness for all of them.
Toward the end of his first summer at Davis’he was served with the notice that Nellie had instituted proceedings against him in Reno. It was in the days of Reno’s early popularity as a rest cure for those suffering from marital maladies; impediments and complications were not so annoying as they appear to be in these latter times of ours. There was also a legal notice printed in the Blakeville Patriot.
; The shock laid him up for a couple of days. If his uncle meant to encourage him by maintaining an almost incessant flow of invectives, he made a dismal failure of it. He couldn’t convince the heartsick Harvey that Nellie was “bad rubbish” and that he was lucky to be rid of her. No amount of cajolery could make him believe that he was a good deal happier than he had ever been before in all his life; he wasn’t happy and he couldn’t be fooled into believing he was. He was miserable—desperately miserable. Looking back on his futile attempts to take his own life, he realised now that he had missed two golden chances to be supremely happy. How happy he could be if he were only dead! He was rather glad, of course, that he failed with the pistol, because it would have been such a gory way out of it, but it was very stupid of him not to have gone out pleasantly—even immaculately—by the other route.
But it was too late to think of doing it now. He was under contract with Mrs. Davis, Mr. Davis having passed on late in the spring, and he could not desert the widow in the midst of the busy season. His last commission as a crayon solicitor had come through Mrs. Davis, two months after the demise of Blakeville’s leading apothecary. She ordered a life-size portrait of her husband, to be hung in the store, and they wept together over the prescription—that is to say, over the colour of the cravat and the shade of the sparse thatch that covered the head of the departed. Mrs. Davis never was to forget his sympathetic attitude. She never quite got over explaining the oversight that had deprived him of the distinction of being one of the pall-bearers, but she made up for it in a measure by insisting on opening the soda fountain at least a month earlier than was customary the next spring, and in other ways, as you will see later on.
Just as he was beginning to rise, phœnixlike, from the ashes of his despond, the Patriot reprinted the full details of Nellie’s complaint as they appeared in a New York daily. For a brief spell he shrivelled up with shame and horror; he could not look any one in the face. Nellie’s lawyers had made the astounding, outrageous charge of infidelity against him!
The George Barr McCutcheon Megapack: 25 Classic Novels and Stories Page 227