“Yes.”
“Well, sir, you know he was goin’ to drive back here and around the Square to win that bet off o’ Rolfo, and he never come. ‘Stead o’ that he turned up at the hardware store about two hours later and settled the bet. Says he lost it because she wasn’t feelin’ too well when he got there, and so they just set around and talked, instead of ridin’. But Bore never went back there, and ain’t goin’ to, you bet, any more than what Henry Ledyard is! There ain’t hardly a man in town but what Maud and Bill’s got buffaloed, Lu.”
Mr. Allen occupied himself with the sharpening of a pencil. “What did they do to Thompson?” he asked casually.
“Well, sir, fer the first few days I expect I was the only man in town knowed what it was.” Mr. Foie spoke with a little natural pride. “You see, after he went up there and wasn’t no sign of him on the Square fer awhile, why I didn’t have nothin’ much to do just then, and thinks I, ‘Why not go see what’s come of him?’ thinks I. So I walked around there the back way, by Copes’s alley, and just as I was turnin’ in one end the alley, by Glory! here come P. Borodino Thompson leadin’ ole General and the phaeton in at the other end, and walkin’ as fur away from him as he could and yet still lead him.
“Well, sir, I almost let out a holler: first thing I thought was they must of been in the worst accident this town had ever saw. Why, pore ole General — honest, he looked more like a slaughter-house than he did like a horse, Lu! ‘What in the name of God is the matter, Bore!’ I says, and you never hear a man take on the way he done.
“Seems Maud and Bill had painted ole General red, and they painted him thick, too, while Bore was in the house fixin’ to take their mother out on this here buggy-ride. And, well, sir, to hear him take on, you’d of thought I was responsible for the whole business! Says it might as well be all over town, now he’d ran into me! Truth is, he talked like he was out of his mind, but I kind o’ soothed him down, and last I fixed it up with him to give me credit fer a little insurance my wife’s been wantin’ to take out on her stepmother, if I’d put General and the phaeton in George Coles’s empty barn, there in the alley, until after dark, and not say nothin’ to George or anybody about it, and then drive him over to Bore’s and unhitch him and wash him off with turpentine that night.
“Well, sir, we got it all fixed up, and I done everything I said I would, but of course you can’t expect a thing like that not to leak out some way or other; so I’m not breakin’ any obligation by tellin’ you about it, because it got all over town several days ago. If I’ve told Bore Thompson once I’ve told him a hunderd times, what’s the use his actin’ the fool about it! ‘What earthly good’s it goin’ to do,’ I says, ‘to go around mad,’ I says, ‘and abusin’ the very ones,’ I says, ‘that done the most to help you out? The boys are bound to have their joke,’ I says to him, ‘and if it hadn’t been you, why, like as not they might of been riggin’ somep’n on Lu Allen or Cal Burns, or even me,’ I says, ‘because they don’t spare nobody! Why, look,’ I says. ‘Ain’t they goin’ after Milo Carter almost as much as they are you and Henry,’ I says, ‘on account of what happened to Milo’s store?’ I says, ‘And look at E, J. Fuller,’ I says. ‘Ain’t the name o’ Gran’-mammy Tipsytoe perty near fastened on him fer good? He don’t go all up and down pickin’ at his best friend,’ I says. ’E. J. Fuller’s got a little common sense!’ I says. Yes, sir, that’s the way I look at it, Lu.”
Mortimer unhooked his heels, and, stretching himself, elevated his legs until the alternation thus effected in the position of his centre of gravity brought his tilted chair to a level — whereupon he rose, stretched again, sighed, and prepared to conclude the interview.
“Speakin’ o’ the devil, Lu,” he said, as he moved to the door— “yes, sir, them two chuldern, Maud and Bill, have perty much got our whole little city buffaloed! They’s quite some talk goin’ on about the brain work you been showin’ Lu. I expect your reputation never did stand no higher in that line than what it does right to-day. I shouldn’t wonder it’d bring you a good deal extry law-practice, Lu: Mrs. Rolfo Williams says she always did know you were the smartest man in this town!”
“Now what are you talking about?” Lucius demanded sharply, but he was growing red to the ears, and over them.
“Goin’ out o’ town,” said Mortimer admiringly. “Keepin’ out the way o’ them chuldern and lettin’ other fellers take the brunt of ’em. Yes, sir; there isn’t a soul raises the question but what their mother is the finest-lookin’ lady that ever lived here, or but what she does every last thing any mortal could do in the line o’ disciplinn; but much as everybody’d enjoy to git better acquainted with her and begin to see somep’n of her, they all think she’s liable to lead kind of a lonesome life in our community unless—” Mortimer paused with his hand upon the door-knob— “unless somep’n happens to Maud and Bill!”
He departed languidly, his farewell coming back from the stairway: “So long, Lu!”
But the blush that had extended to include Mr. Allen’s ears, at the sound of so much praise of himself, did not vanish with the caller; it lingered and for a time grew even deeper. When it was gone, and its victim restored to his accustomed moderate pink, he pushed aside his work and went to a locked recess beneath his book-shelves. Therefrom he took the blue parasol, and a small volume in everything dissimilar to the heavy, calf-bound legal works that concealed all the walls of the room; and, returning to his swivel-chair, placed the parasol gently upon the desk. Then, allowing his left hand to remain lightly upon the parasol, he held the little book in his right and read musingly.
He read, thus, for a long time — in fact, until the setting in of twilight; and, whatever the slight shiftings of his position, he always kept one hand in light contact with the parasol. Some portions of the book he read over and over, though all of it was long since familiar to him; and there was one part of it in which his interest seemed quite unappeasable. Again and again he turned back to the same page; but at last, as the room had grown darker, and his eye-glasses tired him, he let the book rest in his lap, took off the glasses and used them to beat time to the rhythm of the cadences, as he murmured, half-aloud:
“The lamplight seems to glimmer with a flicker of surprise, As I turn it low to rest me of the dazzle in my eyes.
And light my pipe in silence, save a sigh that seems to yoke Its fate with my tobacco and to vanish with the smoke.
’Tis a fragrant retrospection — for the loving thoughts that start Into being are like perfume from the blossoms of the heart:
And to dream the old dreams over is a luxury divine —
When my truant fancy wanders with that old sweet-heart of mine.”
He fell silent; then his lips moved again:
“And I thrill beneath the glances of a pair of azure eyes As glowing as the summer and as tender as the skies.
I can see—”
Suddenly he broke off, and groaned aloud: “My Lord!” he said all in a breath. “And thirty-five years old — blame near thirty-six!”
He needs interpretation, this unfortunate Lucius.
He meant that it was inexplicable and disgraceful for a man of his age to be afraid of a boy of seven and a girl of five. He had never been afraid of anybody else’s children. No; it had to be hers! And that was why he was afraid of them; he knew the truth well enough: he was afraid of them because they were hers. He was a man who had always “got on” with children beautifully; but he was afraid of Maud and Bill. He was afraid of what they would do to him and of what they would think of him.
There, in brief, is the overwhelming part that children can play in true romance!
“Lordy, Lordy!” sighed Lucius Brutus Allen. “Oh, Lordy!”
But at last he bestirred himself. He knew that Saruly, his elderly darky cook, must be waiting for him with impatience; she would complain bitterly of dishes overcooked because of his tardiness. Having glanced down into the Square and found it virtually devoid of life, for this was the
universal hour of supper, he set his brown straw hat upon his head, and took the parasol under his arm — not because he meant to return it. He took it with him merely for the pleasure of its society.
Upon the bottom step of the flight of stairs that led down to the street, he found seated a small figure in a white “sailor suit.” This figure rose and spoke politely.
“How do you do?” it said. “Are you Uncle Lucius?”
“Who — What’s your name?”
“Bill. Bill Ricketts,” said Bill.
Lucius made a hasty motion to reascend the stairs, but Bill confidingly proffered a small, clean hand that Mr. Allen was constrained to accept. Once having accepted it, he found himself expected to retain it.
“Mamma lef’ me sittin’ here to wait till you came downstairs,” Bill explained. “That man that came out said he couldn’t say but he was pretty sure you were up there. She told me to wait till either you came downstairs or she came back for me. She wants her parasol. Come on!”
“Come on where?”
“Up to your house,” said Bill. “She lef’ Maud waitin’ up there for you.”
It was the truth. And after a rather hurried walk, during which the boy spoke not once unless spoken to, but trotted contentedly at Lucius’s side, confidingly hand-in-hand with him, when they came in sight of the small brick house in the big yard, where Lucius lived, a tiny white figure was discernible through the dusk, rocking patiently in a wicker rocking-chair on the veranda.
At sight of them she jumped up and came running to the gate to meet them. But there she paused, gravely.
She made a curtsey, formal but charming.
“How do do, Uncka Wucius?” she said. “Mamma would wike her paraso’.”
Saruly, looming dark and large behind her, supplemented this information:— “Miz Ricketts done lef’ the little girl here to wait fer you, Mist’ Allen. She tell me ask you please be so kine as to bring the chillun along home with you, an’ her parasol with ’em. She tell me the chillun been a little upset, jest at first, ‘count o’ movin’ to a new place, but they all quieted down now, an’ she think it’ll be safe fer you to stay to dinnuh. An’ as ev’ything in my kitchen’s plum done to a crisp ‘count o’ you bein’ so late, Mist’ Allen, if you leave it to me I think you bettuh.”
“I’ll leave it to you, Saruly,” said Lucius, gently. “I think I’d better.”
And then, with the parasol under his arm, and the hand of a child resting quietly in each of his, he turned with Bill and Maud, and, under the small, bright stars of the May evening, set forth from his own gate on his way to Lucy’s.
YOU
MURIEL ELIOT’S FRIENDS and contemporaries were in the habit of describing her as “the most brilliant girl in town.” She was “up on simply everything,” they said, and it was customary to add the exclamation: “How on earth she finds the time!’ And since Muriel also found time to be always charmingly dressed, in harmony with her notable comeliness, the marvel of so much upness in her infant twenties may indeed need a little explaining.
Her own conception was that she was a “serious” person and cared for “serious reading” — that is to say, after she left college, she read, not what is acceptably called literature, but young journalists’ musings about what aspires to be called that; she was not at all interested in buildings or pictures or statues themselves, but thought she was, read a little of what is printed about such things in reviews, and spoke of “art” and “literature” with authoritative conviction. She was a kind-hearted girl, and she believed that “capitalism” was the cunning device of greedy men to keep worthy persons under heel; hence it followed that all “capital” should be taken away from the “capitalist class” by the “people;” and, not picturing herself as in any way uncomfortably affected by the process of seizure, she called herself a “socialist.”
In addition to all this, Muriel’s upness included “the new psychology” and the appropriate humorous contempt for the Victorian Period, that elastic conception of something-or-other which, according to the writing young ladies and gentlemen who were her authorities, seemed to extend from about the time of Custer’s Last Fight to the close of President Wilson’s first administration. Muriel, like her original sources of information, was just becoming conscious of herself as an authority at about the latter date — she was sixteen then; and at twenty she began to speak of having spent her youth in the Late Victorian Period. That obscure decade before her birth, that time so formless and dark between the years of our Lord 1890 and 1900, was Mid-Victorian; people still mistook Tennyson and Longfellow for poets.
Sometimes older women thought Muriel a little hard; she was both brilliant and scholarly, they admitted; but the papers she wrote for the women’s clubs were so “purely intellectual,” so icily scientific, so little reticent in the discussion of love, marriage and children, that these ladies shook their heads. The new generation, as expressed by Muriel, lacked something important, they complained; for nothing less than maidenliness itself had been lost, and with it the rosebud reveries, the twilight half-dreams of a coming cavalier, the embowered guitar at moonrise. In a word, the charm of maidenhood was lost because romance was lost. Muriel lacked the romantic imagination, they said, a quality but ill replaced by so much “new thought.”
They made this mistake the more naturally because Muriel herself made it, though of course she did not think of her supposed lack of romance as a fault. She believed herself to be a severely practical person, and an originally thinking person, as a quotation from one of her essays may partly explain. “I face the actual world as it is; I face it without superstition, and without tradition. Despising both the nonsense and the misery into which former generations have been led by romance, I permit no illusions to guide my thinking. I respect nothing merely because it is established; I examine mathematically; I think mathematically; I believe nothing that I do not prove. I am a realist.”
When she wrote this, she was serious and really thought it true; but as a matter of fact, what she believed to be her thinking was the occasional mulling over of scattered absorptions from her reading. Her conception of her outward appearance, being somewhat aided by mirrors, came appreciably near the truth, but her conception of her mind had no such guide. Her mind spent the greater part of its time adrift in half-definite dreaming, and although she did not even suspect such a thing, her romantic imagination was the abode in which she really dwelt.
There is an astronomer who knows as much about the moon as can yet be known; but when that moon is new in the sky, each month, he will be a little troubled if he fails to catch his first glimpse of it over the right shoulder. When he does fail, his disappointment is so slight that he forgets all about it the next moment, and should you ask him if he has any superstition he will laugh disdainfully, with no idea that he deceives both his questioner and himself. This is the least of the mistakes he makes about his own thoughts; he is mistaken about most of them; and yet he is a great man, less given to mistakes than the rest of us. Muriel Eliot’s grandmother, who used to sing “Robin Adair,” who danced the Spanish Fandango at the Orphan Asylum Benefit in 1877, and wrote an anonymous love-letter to Lawrence Barrett, was not actually so romantic as Muriel.
The point is that Muriel’s dreaminess, of which she was so little aware, had a great deal more to do with governing her actions than had her mathematical examinings and what she believed to be her thinking. Moreover, this was the cause of her unkindness to young Renfrew Mears, who lived across the street. Even to herself she gave other reasons for rejecting him; but the motive lay deep in her romanticism; for Muriel, without knowing it, believed in fairies.
Had she been truly practical, she would have seen that young Mr. Mears was what is called an “ideal match” for her. His grandfather, a cautious banker, had thought so highly of the young man’s good sense as to leave him the means for a comfortable independence; yet Renfrew continued to live at home with his family and was almost always in bed by eleven o�
��clock. He was of a pleasant appearance; he was kind, modest, thoughtfully polite, and in everything the perfect material from which the equerry or background husband of a brilliant woman is constructed. No wonder her mother asked her what on earth she did want! Muriel replied that she despised the capitalistic institution of marriage, and she believed that she meant what she said; but of course what she really wanted was a fairy-story.
In those wandering and somewhat shapeless reveries that controlled her so much more than she guessed, there were various repetitions that had become rather definite, though never quite so. One of these was the figure of her Mate. Her revery-self never showed her this mystery clearly in contours and colours, but rather in shadowy outlines, though she was sure that her Mate had dark and glowing eyes. He was somewhere, and sometime she would see him. When she did see him, she would recognize him instantly; the first look exchanged would bring the full revelation to both of them — they would ever have little need of spoken words. But her most frequent picture of this mystic encounter was a painful one: she saw herself a bride upon the bridegroom’s arm and coming down the steps of the church; — a passing stranger, halting abruptly upon the pavement, gave her one look from dark and glowing eyes, a look fateful with reproach and a tragic derision, seeming to say: “You did not wait till I came, but took that fool!”
Then he passed on, forever; and it was unfortunate for young Mr. Mears that the figure of the bridegroom in these foreshadowings invariably bore a general resemblance to his own. Renfrew had more to overcome than appeared upon the surface; he had shadows to fight; and so have other lovers — more of them than is guessed — when ladies are reluctant. For that matter, the thing is almost universal; and rare is the girl, however willing, who says “Yes,” without giving up at least some faint little tremulous shadow of a dream — though she may forget it and deny it as honestly as that astronomer forgets and denies the moon and his right shoulder.
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 512