Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  “I presume, Dr. Olney,” Mrs. Bloomingdale went on, “that you know nothing of the circumstances of our acquaintance with Miss Aldgate; and I can’t expect you to sympathize with my — my — surprise that she should have turned from us at such a time. But I must say that I am very greatly surprised. Or not surprised, exactly. Pained.”

  “I am very sorry,” Olney said again. “I have no right to intervene in any matter so far beyond my functions as Mrs. Meredith’s physician, but I venture to suggest that the blow which has fallen on Miss Aldgate is enough to account for what seems strange to you in—”

  “Of course. Certainly. I make allowance for that,” said Mrs. Bloomingdale; and Olney was aware of receiving this proof of her amiability, her liberality, with regret; he would have so willingly had it otherwise, in justification of Miss Aldgate. “And I know that the past year has been one of great anxiety both to Mrs. Meredith and Miss Aldgate. You knew they had lost their money?”

  “No,” said Olney, with a joyful throb of the heart, “I didn’t.”

  “I have understood so. Miss Aldgate will be left without anything — in a manner. But that would have made no difference to us. We should have been only too glad to prove to her that it made no difference. But if she prefers not to see us — We expect my son by Wednesday’s steamer in New York.” She added this suddenly and with apparent irrelevance, but Olney perceived that she wished to test his knowledge of the whole case, and she had instantly learned from his face that he knew much more than he would own. But he made no verbal concession to her curiosity. “I think you met my son in Florence?” she said.

  “I saw him at Professor Garofalo’s one night.”

  “He was there a great deal. It was there he met Mrs. Meredith.” Olney said nothing, and Mrs.

  Bloomingdale rose, and as with the same motion her large daughters rose. “ May I ask, Dr. Olney, that you will give Miss Aldgate our love, and say to her that if there is anything we can do, we shall be so — I suppose you have had to communicate with Mrs. Meredith’s — or Mr. Meredith’s rather — family?”

  “Yes.”

  “They will be at the funeral, of course; and if—”

  “They are not coming,” said Olney. “ They have telegraphed that they are unable to come.”

  “Oh,” said Mrs. Bloomingdale; and after a little pause she said, “Good-afternoon,” and led her girls out.

  Olney felt that he had parted with an enemy, and that though he had in one sort tried to keep a conscientious neutrality, he had discharged himself of an offensive office in a hostile manner, that he had made her his enemy if not Miss Aldgate’s enemy. She suspected him he knew that, of having somehow come between her and Miss Aldgate of his own will as well as Rhoda’s. In view of this fact he had to ask himself to be very explicit as to his feelings, his hopes, his intentions; and after a season of close question, the response was very clear. He could not doubt what he wished to do; the only doubt he had was as to how and where and whether he could do it.

  XI

  THE day of the funeral Bloomingdale arrived. None of his family had come to the last rites, though Olney had made it a point both of conscience and of honor to let them know when and where the ceremony would take place. He felt that their absence was an expression of resentment, but that it was a provisional resentment merely. There was a terrible provisionality about the whole business, beginning with the provisional deposition of the dead in the receiving-vault at Mount Auburn, till it could be decided where the long-tormented clay was finally to rest. Every decision concerning the affair seemed postponed, but he did not know till when; death had apparently decided nothing; he did not see how life should.

  Bloomingdale came to see him in the evening, after dinner. His steamer had been late in getting up to her dock, and he had missed the first train on to Boston. He explained the fact briefly to Olney, and he said he had come directly to see him. He recalled their former meeting in Florence, but said, with somehow an effect of disappointment, that he had taken an older man whom he had seen at Professor Garofalo’s for Dr. Olney. On his part, Olney could have owned to an equal disappointment. He remembered perfectly that Mr. Bloomingdale was a slight, dark man; but the composite Bloomingdale type, from the successive impressions of his mother’s and sisters’ style, was so deeply stamped in his consciousness that he was surprised to find the young minister himself neither large nor blond. His mind wandered from him to the father whom he had never seen, but who had left so distinct a record of himself in his son, and not in his daughters, as fathers are supposed usually to do. Then Olney’s thoughts turned to that whole vexed question of heredity, and he lost himself deeply in conjecture of Rhoda’s ancestry, while Bloomingdale was feeling his way forward to inquire about her through explanation and interest concerning Mrs. Meredith, and a fit sympathy, a most intelligent and delicate appreciation of the situation in all its details. Before the fact formulated itself in his mind, Olney was aware of feeling that this man was as different from his family in the most essential and characteristic qualities as he was different from them in temperament and complexion.

  “And now about Miss Aldgate, Dr. Olney,” he said, with a kind of authority, which Olney instinctively, however unwillingly, admitted. “ I shall have to tell you why I am so very anxious to know how she is — how she bears this blow. I am afraid my mother betrayed to you the hurt which she felt, that Miss Aldgate should not have turned to her in her trouble; but I can understand how impossible it was she should. Without reflecting upon my mother at all for her feeling — for I can see how she would feel as she does — I must say I don’t share it. While Miss Aldgate was still uncertain about — about myself — it was simply impossible that she should receive any sort of favor or kindness from my family even in such an exigency as this. It would have been indelicate; it must have been infinitely easier for her to accept the good offices of a total stranger, as she has done. Dr. Olney, I have to ask your good offices — and I have first to make you a confidence, as my reason for asking them. I’m sure you will understand me!”

  In the fervor of his feeling the young man’s voice trembled, and Olney felt himself moved with a curious involuntary kindness for him — the sort of admiring pity which men have been said to feel toward a brave foeman they mean to fight to the death. ‘I had a very great hope — and I think I had grounds for my hope — that Miss Aldgate would have consented to be my wife when she met me, if this terrible visitation — if all had gone well.” The words sent a cold thrill through Olney’s heart, and the mere suggestion that Rhoda could be anybody’s wife but his own steeled it against this pretender to her love. “I offered myself to her in Liverpool before she sailed, and she was to have given me her answer here when we met. Now, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know anything. The whole world seems tumbled back into chaos. I can’t urge anything upon her at such a time. I’m not even sure that I can decently ask to see her. And yet if I don’t, what may not she think? Can’t you help me in this matter? You were Mrs. Meredith’s physician, and you stand in a sort of relation to Miss

  Aldgate that would authorize you to let her know that I am here, and very anxious to know what her wish — her will — is as to our meeting. It might not be professional, exactly, but — I came to you with the hope that it might be possible. Does it seem asking too much? I should be very sorry—”

  Olney saw that the man’s sensitiveness was taking fire, and in spite of his resentment of a request which set aside all his own secret hopes and intentions as non-existent, he could not forbear a concession to his unwitting rival’s generous feeling. “Not at all,” he said; “but I doubt my authority to intervene in any way. I have no right—”

  “Only the right I’ve suggested,” the young man urged. “ I wouldn’t have you assume anything for my sake. But I know that the circumstances are more than ordinarily distressing, and that Mrs. Meredith’s death came in a way that might make Miss Aldgate afraid that — that — there might be some shadow of change i
n me on account of them. At such times we have misgivings about everybody; but I wish it to be understood that no circumstance could influence my feeling toward her.”

  “I don’t know whether I understand you exactly,” said Olney, with a growing dread of the man’s generosity.

  “Why, I suppose, from what I am able to learn, that poor Mrs. Meredith committed suicide.”

  “Not at all,”Olney promptly returned. “There is no evidence of that. There’s every indication that she simply took an overdose of the medicine I prescribed. It wouldn’t have killed her of itself, but her forces were otherwise weakened.”

  “I’m glad, for her sake, to hear it,” said Bloomingdale, “but it would have made no difference with me if it had been different. If she had taken her life in a fit of insanity, as I inferred it would only have made me more constant in the feeling. There is no conceivable disadvantage which would not have endeared Miss Aldgate more to me. I could almost wish for the direst misfortune, the deepest disgrace,” he went on, while the tears sprang to his eyes, “to befall her, if only that I might show her that it counted nothing against her, that it counted everything for her!”

  Olney’s heart sank within him, and he felt guilty before this unselfish frankness, which, if a little boyish, was still so noble. He knew very well that if such a lover could be told everything, it would not matter the least to him; that the girl might be as black as ebony, and his passion would paint her divinely fairer than the lily. Olney knew this from his own thoughts as well as from the other’s words; he was himself like the spirit he conceived:

  “Du gleichst dem Geist dem du begreifst.”

  But he was aware of an instant purpose not to let his rival be brought to the test; and he was aware at the same time of a duty he had to let him somehow have his chance. “After all,” he reflected, “what reason have I to suppose that she ever cared a moment for me, or ever could care? Very likely she likes this fellow ; he is lovable; he is a fine fellow, though I hate him so; and what right have I to stand between them? He must have his chance.” When he came to this point, he said aloud, coldly, “I don’t understand what you expect me to do.”

  “Nothing! Only this: to let me go and see the lady with whom Miss Aldgate is staying, and learn from her whether and when Miss Aldgate will see me. That’s all I can reasonably ask. I ought to ask as much if I meant to give her up — and it’s all that I ask meaning never to give her up. Yes, that’s all I can ask!” he repeated, desperately.

  “That will be a very simple matter,” said Olney. “Miss Aldgate is with Mrs. Atherton, at Beverly. I

  can give you her address, and my card to her.”

  “Yes,yes! Thank you — thank you ever so much.But — but if I present myself without explanation, what will this lady think?”

  “She’ll give your name to Miss Aldgate, and that will be explanation enough,” said Olney, finding something a little superfine in this hesitation, and refusing to himself to be the bearer of any sort of confidences to Mrs. Atherton, who would be only too likely to take a romantic interest in the devoted young minister. Olney meant to give him an even chance, but nothing more.

  “True! “ said Bloomingdale, nervously gnawing his lip. “True!” He clrew a long breath, and added, “Of course, I can’t go now till morning.”

  Olney said nothing as to this. He was writing on his card Mrs. Atherton’s address and the introduction for Bloomingdale which he combined with it. He had resolved to go down himself that night. Bloomingdale clung fervently to his hand in parting.

  “I can never thank you enough!” he palpitated.

  “You have verv little to thank me for,” said Olney.

  XII

  IF Mrs. Atherton thought it strange of Dr. Olney, to drive up to her sea-side door at half-past nine, out of a white fog that her hospitable hall lamp could pierce only a few paces down the roadway, she dissembled her surprise so well that he felt he was doing the most natural thing, not to say the most conventional thing, in the world. She was notoriously a woman of no tact, but of so much heart that where it was a question at once of friendship and of romance, as the question of Dr. Olnev and of Miss Aldgate was with her, she exercised a sort of inspiration in dealing with it. She put herself so wholly at the service of their imagined exigency that she now made Olney feel his welcome most keenly: a welcome which expressed that she would have been equally glad and equally ready to receive him in her sweet-matted, warm-rugged, hearth-fire-lit little drawing-room, if he had suddenly appeared at half-past two in the morning. The Japanese portiere had not ceased tinkling behind him when she appeared through it, with outstretched hand. She promptly refused his excuses. “I really believe I was somehow expecting you to-night; and I’m ashamed that Mr. Atherton isn’t up to bear witness to my presentiment. But he’s had rather a tiresome day, in town, and he’s gone to bed early. I’m glad to say that Miss Aldgate has gone to her room, too. She’s feeling the reaction from the tension she’s been in, and I hope it will be a complete letting down for her. Have you heard anything more from those strange people? Very odd they shouldn’t any of them have come on!”

  Mrs. Atherton meant the St. Louis connections of Mrs. Meredith, and Olney said, with an embarrassed frown, “ No, they haven’t made any sign yet.”

  “The strange thing about a tragedy of this kind is,” Mrs. Atherton remarked, “ that you never can realize that it’s ended. You always think there’s going to be something more of it. I suppose I was thinking that you had heard something disagreeable from those people, though I don’t know what they could say or do to heighten the tragedy.”

  “I don’t either,” Olney answered. “ But something else has happened, Mrs. Atherton. You were quite right in your foreboding that the end was not yet.” He paused with a gloomier air than he knew, for Bloomingdale’s appearance was to him bv far the most tragical phase of the affair. Then he went on thoughtfully. “I hardly know how to approach the matter without seeming to meddle in it more than I mean to do. I wish absolutely to put myself outside of it. But there’s a kind of necessity that I should tell you about it.” As he said this the kind of necessity that he had thought there was instantly vanished, and left him feeling rather blank. There was no necessity at all that he should tell Mrs. Atherton what relation Bloomingdale bore, and wished to bear, toward Miss Aldgate. All that he had to do, if he had to do anything, was to tell her that he had given him his card to her, and that she might expect him in the morning, and so leave her to her conjectures. If he went beyond this, he must go very far beyond it, and not make any confidence for Bloomingdale without making a much ampler confidence for himself. “The fact is, I wish to submit a little case of conscience to you.”

  Mrs. Atherton was delighted; and if she had been drowsy before, this would have aroused her to the most vigilant alertness. She knew that the case of conscience must somehow have something to do with Miss Aldgate; she believed that it was nothing but a love affair in disguise, and a love affair, with a strong infusion of moral question in it, promised a pleasure to Mrs. Atherton’s sympathetic nature which nothing else could give. “Yes?” she said.

  “Mrs. Atherton,” Olnev resumed, “how far do you think a man is justified in pursuing an advantage which another has put in big hands unknowingly — say that another, who did not know that I was his enemy, had put in my hands?”

  “Not very far, Dr. Olney,” she answered, promptly. “In fact, not at all. That is, you might justify such a man, if the case were some one else’s. But you couldn’t justify him if the case were yours.”

  “I was afraid you would say so; I knew you would say so. Well, the case is mine,” said Olney,” and it’s this. I’ve run down here to-night to tell you that I’ve given my card to a gentleman who will call here in the morning.”

  Olney paused, and Mrs. Atherton said, “I’m sure I shall be glad to see any friend of yours, Dr. Olney.”

  “He isn’t my friend,” Olney returned, gloomily.

  “Then, any enemy,�
� Mrs. Atherton suggested.

  Olney put the little pleasantry by.”The day before Mrs. Meredith died, she told me something that I need not speak of except as it relates to this Mr. Bloomingdale.”

  “It’s Mr. Bloomingdale who’s coming, then?”

  “Yes. Do you know anything about him?”

  “Oh, no! Only it’s a very floral kind of name.”

  “I wish I could be light about the kind of person he is. But I can’t. He’s a very formidable kind of person: very sensible, very frank, very generous.”

  Mrs. Atherton shook her head with a subtle intelligence. “ These might be very disheartening traits — in another.”

  “They are. They complicate the business for me. This Mr. Bloomingdale has offered himself to Miss Aldgate.” Mrs. Atherton’s attentive gaze expressed no surprise; probably she had divined this from the beginning. ‘He was to have had his answer when he met her in Boston,” Olney said, with an effect of finding the words a bad taste in his mouth. That was the arrangement in Liverpool. But, of course, now—”

  He stopped, and Mrs. Atherton took the word, with a lofty courage:

  “Of course now he has all the greater right to it.”

  “Yes,” said Olney, though he did not see why.

  “I shall be glad to see Mr. Bloomingdale when he comes,” Mrs. Atherton went on; “and though it’s an embarrassing moment, I must manage to prepare Miss Aldgate for his coming. She will certainly have her mind made up by this time.”

  There was something definitive in Mrs. Atherton’s tone that made Olney feel as if he had transacted his business, and he rose. He had felt that he ought to tell Mrs. Atherton of his own hopes or purposes in regard to Miss Aldgate; but now that he had given Bloomingdale away, this did not seem necessary. In fact, by a sudden light that flashed upon it, he perceived that it would be allowing his rival a fairer chance if he let him have it without competition. Afterwards when he got out of the house he thought he was a fool to do this; but he could not go back and make his confession without appearing a greater fool; and he kept on to the station, and waited there till the last train for town came lagging along, and then he put himself beyond temptation, at least for the night.