by Unknown
I was sorry for Mrs. Darrell. She was a really good sort and, as a matter of fact, just the kind of wife who would have done old Duggie a bit of good. And on her own ground I shouldn’t wonder if she might not have made a fight for it. But now she hadn’t a chance. Poor old Duggie was just like so much putty in Florence’s hands when he couldn’t get away from her. You could see the sawdust trickling out of Love’s Young Dream in a steady flow.
I took Mrs. Darrell for a walk one afternoon, to see if I couldn’t cheer her up a bit, but it wasn’t much good. She hardly spoke a word till we were on our way home. Then she said with a sort of jerk: “I’m going back to New York tomorrow, Mr. Pepper.”
I suppose I ought to have pretended to be surprised, but I couldn’t work it.
“I’m afraid you’ve had a bad time,” I said. “I’m very sorry.”
She laughed.
“Thank you,” she said. “It’s nice of you to be sympathetic instead of tactful. You’re rather a dear, Mr. Pepper.”
I hadn’t any remarks to make. I whacked at a nettle with my stick.
“I shall break off my engagement after dinner, so that Douglas can have a good night’s rest. I’m afraid he has been brooding on the future a good deal. It will be a great relief to him.”
“Oh, no,” I said.
“Oh, yes. I know exactly how he feels. He thought he could carry me off, but he finds he overestimated his powers. He has remembered that he is a Craye. I imagine that the fact has been pointed out to him.”
“If you ask my opinion,” I said—I was feeling pretty sore about it—”that woman Florence is an absolute cat.”
“My dear Mr. Pepper, I wouldn’t have dreamed of asking your opinion on such a delicate subject. But I’m glad to have it. Thank you very much. Do I strike you as a vindictive woman, Mr. Pepper?”
“I don’t think you do,” I said.
“By nature I don’t think I am. But I’m feeling a little vindictive just at present.”
She stopped suddenly.
“I don’t know why I’m boring you like this, Mr. Pepper,” she said. “For goodness’ sake let’s be cheerful. Say something bright.”
I was going to take a whirl at it, but she started in to talk, and talked all the rest of the way. She seemed to have cheered up a whole lot.
She left next day. I gather she fired Duggie as per schedule, for the old boy looked distinctly brighter, and Florence wore an off-duty expression and was quite decently civil. Mrs. Darrell bore up all right. She avoided Duggie, of course, and put in most of the time talking to Edwin. He evidently appreciated it, for I had never seen him look so nearly happy before.
I went back to New York directly afterward, and I hadn’t been there much more than a week when a most remarkably queer thing happened. Turning in at Hammerstein’s for half an hour one evening, whom should I meet but brother Edwin, quite fairly festive, with a fat cigar in his mouth. “Hello, Reggie,” he said.
“What are you doing here?” I said.
“I had to come up to New York to look up a life of Hilary de Craye at the library. I believe Mister Man was a sort of ancestor.”
“This isn’t the library.”
“I was beginning to guess as much. The difference is subtle but well marked.”
It struck me that there was another difference that was subtle but well marked, and that was the difference between the Edwin I’d left messing about over his family history a week before and the jovial rounder who was blowing smoke in my face now.
“As a matter of fact,” he said, “the library would be all the better for a little of this sort of thing. It’s too conservative. That’s what’s the trouble with the library. What’s the matter with having a cross-talk team and a few performing dogs there? It would brighten the place up and attract custom. Reggie, you’re looking fatigued. I’ve heard there’s a place somewhere in this city, if you can only find it, expressly designed for supplying first-aid to the fatigued. Let’s go and look for it.”
I’m not given to thinking much as a rule, but I couldn’t help pondering over this meeting with Edwin. It’s hard to make you see the remarkableness of the whole thing, for, of course, if you look at it, in one way, there’s nothing so record-breaking in smoking a cigar and drinking a highball. But then you have never seen Edwin. There are degrees in everything, don’t you know. For Edwin to behave as he did with me that night was simply nothing more nor less than a frightful outburst, and it disturbed me. Not that I cared what Edwin did, as a rule, but I couldn’t help feeling a sort of what-d’you-call-it—a presentiment, that somehow, in some way I didn’t understand, I was mixed up in it, or was soon going to be. I think the whole fearful family had got on my nerves to such an extent that the mere sight of any of them made me jumpy.
And, by George, I was perfectly right, don’t you know. In a day or two along came the usual telegram from Florence, telling me to come to Madison Avenue.
The mere idea of Madison Avenue was beginning to give me that tired feeling, and I made up my mind I wouldn’t go near the place. But of course I did. When it came to the point, I simply hadn’t the common manly courage to keep away.
Florence was there as before.
“Reginald,” she said, “I think I shall go raving mad.”
This struck me as a mighty happy solution of everybody’s troubles, but I felt it was too good to be true.
“Over a week ago,” she went on, “my brother Edwin came up to New York to consult a book at the library. I anticipated that this would occupy perhaps an afternoon, and was expecting him back by an early train next day. He did not arrive. He sent an incoherent telegram. But even then I suspected nothing.” She paused. “Yesterday morning,” she said, “I had a letter from my aunt Augusta.”
She paused again. She seemed to think I ought to be impressed.
Her eyes tied a bowknot in my spine.
“Let me read you her letter. No, I will tell you its contents. Aunt Augusta had seen Edwin lunching at the Waldorf with a creature.”
“A what?”
“My aunt described her. Her hair was of a curious dull bronze tint.”
“Your aunt’s?”
“The woman’s. It was then that I began to suspect. How many women with dull bronze hair does Edwin know?”
“Great Scott! Why ask me?”
I had got used to being treated as a sort of “Hey, Bill!” by Florence, but I was darned if I was going to be expected to be an encyclopedia as well.
“One,” she said. “That appalling Darrell woman.”
She drew a deep breath.
“Yesterday evening,” she said, “I saw them together in a taximeter cab. They were obviously on their way to some theatre.”
She fixed me with her eye.
“Reginald,” she said, “you must go and see her the first thing tomorrow.”
“What!” I cried. “Me? Why? Why me?”
“Because you are responsible for the whole affair. You introduced Douglas to her. You suggested that he should bring her home. Go to her tomorrow and ascertain her intentions.”
“But–-“
“The very first thing.”
“But wouldn’t it be better to have a talk with Edwin?”
“I have made every endeavour to see Edwin, but he deliberately avoids me. His answers to my telegrams are willfully evasive.”
There was no doubt that Edwin had effected a thorough bolt. He was having quite a pleasant little vacation: Two Weeks in Sunny New York. And from what I’d seen of him, he seemed to be thriving on it. I didn’t wonder Florence had got rather anxious. She’d have been more anxious if she had seen him when I did. He’d got a sort of “New-York-is-so-bracing” look about him, which meant a whole heap of trouble before he trotted back to the fold.
Well, I started off to interview Mrs. Darrell, and, believe me, I didn’t like the prospect. I think they ought to train A. D. T. messengers to do this sort of thing. I found her alone. The rush hour of clients hadn’t begun.
“How do you do, Mr. Pepper?” she said. “How nice of you to call.”
Very friendly, and all that. It made the situation darned difficult for a fellow, if you see what I mean.
“Say,” I said. “What about it, don’t you know?”
“I certainly don’t,” she said. “What ought I to know about what?”
“Well, about Edwin—Edwin Craye,” I said.
She smiled.
“Oh! So you’re an ambassador, Mr. Pepper?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I did come to see if I could find out how things were running. What’s going to happen?”
“Are you consulting me professionally? If so, you must show me your hand. Or perhaps you would rather I showed you mine?”
It was subtle, but I got on to it after a bit.
“Yes,” I said, “I wish you would.”
“Very well. Do you remember a conversation we had, Mr. Pepper, my last afternoon at the Crayes’? We came to the conclusion that I was rather a vindictive woman.”
“By George! You’re stringing old Edwin so as to put one over on Florence?”
She flushed a little.
“How very direct you are, Mr. Pepper! How do you know I’m not very fond of Mr. Craye? At any rate, I’m very sorry for him.”
“He’s such a chump.”
“But he’s improving every day. Have you seen him? You must notice the difference?”
“There is a difference.”
“He only wanted taking out of himself. I think he found his sister Florence’s influence a little oppressive sometimes.”
“No, but see here,” I said, “are you going to marry him?”
“I’m only a palmist. I don’t pretend to be a clairvoyant. A marriage may be indicated in Mr. Craye’s hand, but I couldn’t say without looking at it.”
“But I shall have to tell her something definite, or she won’t give me a moment’s peace.”
“Tell her her brother is of age. Surely that’s definite enough?”
And I couldn’t get any more out of her. I went back to Florence and reported. She got pretty excited about it.
“Oh, if I were a man!” she said.
I didn’t see how that would have helped. I said so.
“I’d go straight to Edwin and drag him away. He is staying at his club. If I were a man I could go in and find him–-“
“Not if you weren’t a member,” I said.
“—And tell him what I thought of his conduct. As I’m only a woman, I have to wait in the hall while a deceitful small boy pretends to go and look for him.”
It had never struck me before what a splendid institution a club was. Only a few days back I’d been thinking that the subscription to mine was a bit steep. But now I saw that the place earned every cent of the money.
“Have you no influence with him, Reginald?”
I said I didn’t think I had. She called me something. Invertebrate, or something. I didn’t catch it.
“Then there’s only one thing to do. You must find my father and tell him all. Perhaps you may rouse him to a sense of what is right. You may make him remember that he has duties as a parent.”
I thought it far more likely that I should make him remember that he had a foot. I hadn’t a very vivid recollection of old man Craye. I was quite a kid when he made his great speech on the Egg Question and beat it for Europe—but what I did recollect didn’t encourage me to go and chat with him about the duties of a parent.
As I remember him, he was a rather large man with elephantiasis of the temper. I distinctly recalled one occasion when I was spending a school vacation at his home, and he found me trying to shave old Duggie, then a kid of fourteen, with his razor.
“I shouldn’t be able to find him,” I said.
“You can get his address from his lawyers.”
“He may be at the North Pole.”
“Then you must go to the North Pole.”
“But say–-!”
“Reginald!”
“Oh, all right.”
I knew just what would happen. Parbury and Stevens, the lawyers, simply looked at me as if I had been caught snatching bags. At least, Stevens did. And Parbury would have done it, too, only he had been dead a good time. Finally, after drinking me in for about a quarter of an hour, Stevens said that if I desired to address a communication to his client, care of this office, it would be duly forwarded. Good morning. Good morning. Anything further? No, thanks. Good morning, Good morning.
I handed the glad news on to Florence and left her to do what she liked about it. She went down and interviewed Stevens. I suppose he’d had experience of her. At any rate, he didn’t argue. He yielded up the address in level time. Old man Craye was living in Paris, but was to arrive in New York that night, and would doubtless be at his club.
It was the same club where Edwin was hiding from Florence. I pointed this out to her.
“There’s no need for me to butt in after all,” I said. “He’ll meet Edwin there, and they can fight it out in the smoking room. You’ve only to drop him a line explaining the facts.”
“I shall certainly communicate with him in writing, but, nevertheless, you must see him. I cannot explain everything in a letter.”
“But doesn’t it strike you that he may think it pretty bad gall-impertinence, don’t you know, for a comparative stranger like me to be tackling a delicate family affair like this?”
“You will explain that you are acting for me.”
“It wouldn’t be better if old Duggie went along instead?”
“I wish you to go, Reginald.”
Well, of course, it was all right, don’t you know, but I was losing several pounds a day over the business. I was getting so light that I felt that, when the old man kicked me, I should just soar up to the ceiling like an air balloon.
The club was one of those large clubs that look like prisons. I used to go there to lunch with my uncle, the one who left me his money, and I always hated the place. It was one of those clubs that are all red leather and hushed whispers.
I’m bound to say, though, there wasn’t much hushed whispering when I started my interview with old man Craye. His voice was one of my childhood’s recollections.
He was most extraordinarily like Florence. He had just the same eyes. I felt boneless from the start.
“Good morning,” I said.
“What?” he said. “Speak up. Don’t mumble.”
I hadn’t known he was deaf. The last time we’d had any conversation—on the subject of razors—he had done all the talking. This seemed to me to put the lid on it.
“I only said ‘Good morning,’” I shouted.
“Good what? Speak up. I believe you’re sucking candy. Oh, good morning? I remember you now. You’re the boy who spoiled my razor.”
I didn’t half like this reopening of old wounds. I hurried on.
“I came about Edwin,” I said.
“Who?”
“Edwin. Your son.”
“What about him?”
“Florence told me to see you.”
“Who?”
“Florence. Your daughter.”
“What about her?”
All this vaudeville team business, mind you, as if we were bellowing at each other across the street. All round the room you could see old gentlemen shooting out of their chairs like rockets and dashing off at a gallop to write to the governing board about it. Thousands of waiters had appeared from nowhere, and were hanging about, dusting table legs. If ever a business wanted to be discussed privately, this seemed to me to be it. And it was just about as private as a conversation through megaphones in Longacre Square.
“Didn’t she write to you?”
“I got a letter from her. I tore it up. I didn’t read it.”
Pleasant, was it not? It was not. I began to understand what a shipwrecked sailor must feel when he finds there’s something gone wrong with the life belt.
I thought I might as well get to the p
oint and get it over.
“Edwin’s going to marry a palmist,” I said.
“Who the devil’s Harry?”
“Not Harry. Marry. He’s going to marry a palmist.”
About four hundred waiters noticed a speck of dust on an ash tray at the table next to ours, and swooped down on it.
“Edwin is going to marry a palmist?”
“Yes.”
“She must be mad. Hasn’t she seen Edwin?”
And just then who should stroll in but Edwin himself. I sighted him and gave him a hail.
He curveted up to us. It was amazing the way the fellow had altered. He looked like a two-year-old. Flower in his button-hole and a six-inch grin, and all that. The old man seemed surprised, too. I didn’t wonder. The Edwin he remembered was a pretty different kind of a fellow.
“Hullo, dad,” he said. “Fancy meeting you here. Have a cigarette?”
He shoved out his case. Old man Craye helped himself in a sort of dazed way.
“You are Edwin?” he said slowly.
I began to sidle out. They didn’t notice me. They had moved to a settee, and Edwin seemed to be telling his father a funny story.
At least, he was talking and grinning, and the old man was making a noise like distant thunder, which I supposed was his way of chuckling. I slid out and left them.
Some days later Duggie called on me. The old boy was looking scared.
“Reggie,” he said, “what do doctors call it when you think you see things when you don’t? Hal-something. I’ve got it, whatever it is. It’s sometimes caused by overwork. But it can’t be that with me, because I’ve not been doing any work. You don’t think my brain’s going or anything like that, do you?”
“What do you mean? What’s been happening?”
“It’s like being haunted. I read a story somewhere of a fellow who kept thinking he saw a battleship bearing down on him. I’ve got it, too. Four times in the last three days I could have sworn I saw my father and Edwin. I saw them as plainly as I see you. And, of course, Edwin’s at home and father’s in Europe somewhere. Do you think it’s some sort of a warning? Do you think I’m going to die?”