Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

“EGERIA BOYNTON.”

  Ford read this note many times over, and then mused long upon it. But he put it by, at last, and did a good morning’s work, and at one o’clock he gathered up the copy he had made, and carried it out to the newspaper office. He found himself without appetite for the lunch at his boardinghouse, and he wandered about, the early part of the afternoon, playing in his mind with a tendency which was drawing him in the direction of the Boyntons. The origin of all our impulses is obscure, and every motive from which we act is mixed. Even when it is simplest we like to feign that it is different from what it really is, and often we do not know what it is. It would be idle, then, to attempt to give the reason Ford alleged to himself for yielding to the attraction which he felt. His cheek flushed and his pulse quickened, as he mounted the steps to Mrs. Le Roy’s door; but this was the mood, half shame and half thrilled expectation, of many people who rang her bell.

  The door was set ajar by the servant, who revealed a three-quarters view of her face and a slice of her person in response to Ford’s summons. He asked if Dr. Boynton or Miss Boynton were at home, and she answered that they were gone, adding, “I don’t know as they ‘re gone for good;” and as he turned lingeringly away she said that Mrs. Le Roy was in.

  “I’ll see her,” rejoined Ford, and entered.

  Mrs. Le Roy made him wait her coming some minutes. He must have been announced to her merely as a gentleman, for after greeting him first with “How do you do, sir?” she added, “Ah, how do you do?” as if upon recognition, and offered him her hand.

  “I don’t know that I ought to have troubled you,” said Ford; “but I wished to ask when you expected Dr. Boynton back.”

  “Why, they ain’t coming back!” exclaimed Mrs. Le Roy. “They’ve gone home. Didn’t she tell you so?”

  “She? Who?” asked Ford.

  “The girl.”

  “Miss Boynton?”

  “Laws, no! The girl at the door.”

  “Oh!” replied Ford, in confusion. “No; she said she wasn’t certain.”

  “Well, they have.”

  Ford rose. After a moment’s hesitation, he asked, “They live somewhere in Maine, I believe?”

  “Yes, down there some’er’s,” assented Mrs. Le Roy, indifferently.

  “Do you know their address?”

  “Well, no, I don’t,” Mrs. Le Roy admitted. She asked, after a questioning glance at Ford, “Did you want to find out anything about them?”

  “Yes,” returned Ford.

  “Well,” exclaimed Mrs. Le Roy, “I could give you a see-aunts.”

  “A what?”

  “A see-aunts, — consult the spirits.”

  “Oh!” said Ford. “No, thanks. I haven’t time now,” he said, as he would put off an importunate barber who had offered him a shampoo. “I’m sorry to hare troubled you.”

  “Not at all,” said Mrs. Le Roy, following him out into the hall. “We have test see-auntses the first Sunday evenin’ of every month. Should be pleased to see you any time.”

  “Thanks,” said Ford.

  At the head of the street he met Phillips, walking toward the Public Garden. “Ah,” said Phillips, “I was thinking of you.”

  “Were you?” growled Ford.

  “Yes. I wanted to ask if you’d heard anything more of the Pythoness and her papa. They’re as curious an outcome of this bubble-and-squeak that we call our civilization as anything I know of. How did you find them?”

  “I didn’t find them; they’ve gone away,” said Ford, not caring to deny the imputation that he had been to look them up.

  “Gone away? How extraordinary! Has the doctor found Boston such a barren field, after all? Ford, you’ve deprived us of a phenomenon. You ought to have met him. It isn’t often that a father comes and invites a young man to contest his control over his daughter. The contest is generally against the old gentleman’s wishes. Where have they gone?”

  “They’ve gone home,” replied Ford.

  “And that is” —

  “I don’t know. In Maine, somewhere.”

  “I might have known, in Maine, — the land of Norembega, the mystical city. The witches settled Maine, when they were driven out of Salem. You will find all the witch names down there. Well, I’m sorry they ‘re gone. I had counted upon seeing more of them. One doesn’t often find such people in one’s way. I’ve been speculating about them since I saw you, and I find myself of two minds in regard to them, — just as I was before I began. I suppose we must consider them parts of a fraud; the question is whether they are conscious or unconscious parts of it. If they ‘re unconscious, it’s pathetic; if they ‘re conscious, they ‘re fascinating. I don’t wonder you couldn’t keep away, — that you had to come and try for another interview with them. As for me, I wonder that I haven’t fluttered about them continually ever since I first saw them. The girl is such a deliciously abnormal creature. It is girlhood at odds with itself. If she has been her father’s ‘subject’ ever since childhood, of course none of the ordinary young girl interests have entered into her life. She hasn’t known the delight of dress and of dancing; she hasn’t had ‘attentions;’ upon my word, that’s very suggestive! It means that she’s kept a childlike simplicity, and that she could go on and help out her father’s purposes, no matter how tricky they were, with no more sense of guilt than a child who makes believe talk with imaginary visitors. Yes, the Pythoness could be innocent in the midst of fraud. Come, I call that a pretty conjecture!”

  “Why do you waste it on me?” said Ford. “You could have made your fortune for the evening with that piece of quackery at the next place where you dine.”

  “Oh, it isn’t lost,” said Phillips. “I wasn’t wasting it; I was merely trying it on. Will you go with me to see a picture I’m hesitating about?”

  “No; you know I don’t understand pictures.”

  “Ah, that’s the reason I want you to see it. You are the light of the public square, the average ignorance, — an element of criticism not to be despised.”

  “If I thought I could be of use,” said Ford, “I’d come.”

  “You can. But what is the matter? Why this common decency?”

  “I owe you a debt of gratitude. You’ve given shape to the infernal sophistry that was floating through my mind, and made it disgusting.”

  Phillips laughed. “About the Pythoness? My dear fellow, I’m proud of that conjecture. It was worthy of Hawthorne.”

  VIII.

  EGERIA and her father had reached the station an hour before their train was to start; and the time, after the first flush of their arrival, began to hang heavy on her father’s hands. Now that he had set his face homeward, he was intolerant of delay. He looked at the waiting-room clock, and compared it with the clock above the tracks outside; he blamed Hatch for not being there to meet them, and fretted lest he should not come at all. It would be extremely embarrassing to be left behind, he said; he complained that it had the effect of placing him in a dependent position, and that Hatch had taken advantage of his temporary destitution to inflict a humiliation upon him. He said he would go out and look about the station while waiting, and he impatiently permitted Egeria to go with him. An idle throng were hanging about the draw of the Charlestown bridge, watching some men in a barge who were supplying air to a submarine diver at the bottom of the dock. The locality of the diver was indicated by the bubbles that rose and broke on the surface and floated away on the swift tide.

  “Egeria,” said her father, with instant speculation, “if it were possible to isolate a medium thus absolutely from all adverse influences, great results might be expected. A speaking-tube of rubber, running from the mouth of the submerged medium” — He looked at the girl, who smiled faintly.

  “I shouldn’t have the courage to go under the water, — I should be afraid of the fish.”

  “At first, no doubt,” replied her father. “But I was not thinking of you. I should like to see the experiment tried with Mrs. Le Roy.”

  Bo
ynton was not jesting, and his daughter did. not laugh at a proposal which would doubtless have amused the seeress herself. “How strange,” said Egeria, as they turned away, “the western sky is!”

  “Yes; the wind has changed to the east. The Probabilities, this morning, promised a storm.”

  “And the frames of all these railroad drawbridges against that strange sky” —

  “Yes, yes,” said her father; “they look like so many gibbets. It’s a homicidal sight, — or suicidal.” He gave a little shiver, and they walked back into the station, where the train they were to take was just making up. Boynton looked about for Hatch, but was arrested in his impatient scrutiny of the others by the presence of two men, whose peaceful faces no less than their quaint dress distinguished them from the rest of the thickening crowd. They wore low-crowned, broad-brimmed hats of beaver; one was habited in a straight-skirted coat of drab, and the other in a like garment of dark blue; their feet, in broad, flat shoes, protruded from pantaloons of a conscientiously unfashionable pattern. Their hair hung long in their necks, and when one lifted his hat to wipe his forehead he showed his hair cut in front like a young lady’s bang. They seemed quite at their ease under the glance of the passers, and talked quietly on, even when Boynton, expressing a doubt as to whether they were Quakers, halted Egeria, and lingered near them.

  “That is so, Joseph,” said one who seemed the younger, and was much the graver of the two. “It began with our people, and I think it will get its only true development among us. In the world outside, its professors are as bad as the hireling priesthood of the churches.”

  “Yee,” assented he called Joseph, with that quaint corruption through which the people of his sect fail in the scriptural injunction they strive to obey.

  “As soon as the money element touched it, it began to degenerate, and now it’s a trade, like any other. They are tempted all the while to eke it out with imposture.”

  “Nay, Elihu, not in all cases. At least, they don’t yield to the temptation in all cases. You must not let your judgment be too much swayed by the single case that has come to your knowledge.”

  “They can’t be Quakers,” said Egeria, in a low voice; “they say ‘you,’ and not ‘thee’ and ‘thou.’” Her father did not answer; he pressed her hand to make her keep silence, and insensibly drew her a little nearer to the men.

  “Yee,” replied the younger, “it is well to avoid a hasty judgment; but it is foolish to blind one’s self to the facts. And the facts are that in such hands as this gift has fallen into in the world outside it is mere sorcery, — a spell to conjure with.”

  “Nay, it is something better than that. It is still a proof of life hereafter to those who could receive no other evidence.”

  “Yee, that may be. But I feel that it cannot truly prosper except with those who are leading the angelic life, here and now.”

  These words, these phrases, had visibly made a great impression upon Boynton. His daughter saw that he was longing to accost the speakers. But at that moment she caught sight of Hatch coming out of the ladies’ room, and looking anxiously about as if seeking them.

  “Oh!” she cried gladly, “there’s Mr. Hatch!” and she pulled her father away with her.

  The two men turned at the sound of their going, and gazed after them.

  “That is a strange couple,” said he called Joseph. “Did you notice them as they stood here?”

  “Yee, I saw them. They seemed to be listening. But we were not saying anything to be ashamed of, and I thought they could not receive any harm from overhearing us. They looked like stage players to me: before I was gathered in, I used often to see such folks.”

  “Do you think they are man and wife?”

  “Nay, I don’t know.”

  “He seemed too old to be her husband.”

  “That often happens in the world.”

  “Yee,” said Joseph; “but I never like to see a young wife with an old husband. And there is something pleasing in a pretty young couple: they seem happy.”

  “Nay,” returned the other, “what does it matter to us how they mate together?”

  They stood looking after Egeria and her father, whom Hatch had now joined. “They seem to have found friends,” said Joseph. “I don’t think she is the elderly man’s wife.”

  Hatch hurried them into the waiting-room; and then he went to buy their tickets, and have their baggage checked.

  “I’ve got your trunks checked, doctor,” he said, when he returned and sat down beside them. “But you’ll have to change cars at Ayer Junction. You won’t have any trouble, though: you just walk out of the end of the depot, and take the train standing across the track of the one you’ve come on. You can stop at Portland, when you get there, or you can make the connection, and push right through, and be home by morning. I’ve been looking it all up for you in this Guide.” He drew a book out of his pocket.

  “Oh, we shall want to push right through, sha’n’t we, father?” asked Egeria.

  But her father had apparently lost all concern in the return home for which he had but now been so eager. He had listened with apathy to Hatch’s excuses for his delay, and he had received with indifference the checks and tickets the young man had brought him. “We will see how we feel when we get to Portland,” he answered testily, handing the money he had borrowed to Egeria. “Mr. Hatch,” he added, presently, with the mystery in which he liked to involve simple things, “are you pressed for time?”

  “I have all the time there is,” replied Hatch, cheerily.

  “Then oblige me by remaining here for a moment with Egeria, — for one moment only.”

  He left them, and they looked blankly at each other.

  “Your father,” Hatch began, “seems a little off the notion of going back.”

  “Yes,” assented Egeria, dispiritedly.

  “Well, of course; that’s the reaction. But he’ll be all right again when the train’s started. I know how that is. Miss Egeria,” he added, looking down at the neat valise between his feet, “I didn’t tell the doctor, but I hope you won’t object to company part of your journey. I’m going on your train as far as Ayer Junction.” He met her look of amaze with one of triumphant kindliness. “Yes. You know I can go West Iloosac Tunnel way.”

  “I didn’t know,” said Egeria.

  “Well, I can. And I thought I might be of use to you in changing cars at the Junction, and so I’m going.”

  “I don’t know what to say to you,” Egeria murmured, brokenly.

  “I thought you’d be glad,” said Hatch.

  “Yes; only you do too much,” returned the girl.

  “Well, I’m a little in debt to your father, yet; and I would do anything for — for your father. I hope you’ll make him push straight through tonight. I don’t think your father’s quite well, Miss Egeria. He needs rest. He ought to be home.”

  “Yes, he needs rest,” said Egeria sadly. “I’m glad we ‘re going home. But you know how it is, there, between him and grandfather,” she added, reluctantly. “I don’t know just where we’ll go. We can’t go to our old house; there are people in it; and father wouldn’t go to grandfather’s, after what’s passed.”

  “Oh, you’ll find friends there,” said Hatch, hopefully. “At any rate, you’ll be among your kind of folks, and that’s something. And that reminds me; here’s a little note I want you to give your grandfather for me. I always liked the old gentleman,” he added, giving her a letter. “He and I got along first-rate together. And I guess you can patch it up between him and your father.”

  “Mr. Hatch,” said Egeria, looking at the letter—” Or no, no matter.”

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing; merely something I was going to ask you, — to ask your advice. But it’s done now, and so it would be of no use.”

  Hatch laughed. “That’s the times ladies usually apply for advice, — after a thing’s done. And, as you say, it ain’t of much use then, — at least, not for that occasion.” />
  Egeria smiled sadly. “I suppose I wanted you to think I had done right.”

  “Well, I think that without your asking me.” Egeria put the letter away in her handbag, and put that carefully behind her on the seat, before she asked, a little tremulously, “Mr. Hatch, what do you think made him change his mind about it after he talked with you?”

  An angry flush passed over Hatch’s face, as he followed her meaning, and recalled the encounter of the morning. “I don’t know. Such a man as that wouldn’t need any reason. Perhaps he didn’t change his mind. He mightn’t choose to let me know what he intended to do.”

  Boynton returned from the outside, and interrupted their talk.

  “I went to see if I could find those two men,” he said to Egeria. “Some remarks that they dropped had a peculiar interest for me. But they were gone. Did you notice them, Mr. Hatch? They stood near us when we first caught sight of you.”

  “Parties in broad-brims? Yes, I saw them. But I didn’t notice them particularly. What were they talking about?”

  “The life hereafter,” said Boynton solemnly, “and the angelic life on earth.”

  “Well, I don’t know about the last, but the first is a good subject for a railroad depot. Makes you think whether you’ve bought your insurance ticket. Quakers, I suppose.”

  “No, they were not Quakers,” answered the doctor, with dry offense.

  “Well, they looked it,” said Hatch. “Perhaps they belonged to some of the new religious brotherhoods. I’ve seen fellows going round with skirts down to their heels; I believe they ‘re pretty good fellows, too; they take care of the sick and poor. But I don’t see why they can’t do it in sack coats.”

  “It’s possible that these are of the brotherhood you mean,” said the doctor. “I wish I could see them again.” He looked vexed and disappointed.

  “Well, you may run across ‘em,” returned Hatch, easily. “Perhaps they’ll be on our train.” He added, at the doctor’s inquiring look, “I’m going to Troy by the tunnel route; I shall be with you as far as Ayer Junction.”

  “Oh,” returned the doctor, with a little surprise, but with as little interest. “Isn’t it time to go on board?”