Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  “How dear of you! But, Bessie, I got to thinking you’d been rather sacrificed. It came into my mind the instant I woke, and gave me this severe case of conscience. I suppose it’s a kind of conscience.”

  “Yes, yes. Go on! I like having been a martyr, if I don’t know what about.”

  “Why, you know, Bessie, or if you don’t you will presently, that it was I who got mamma to send him a card; I felt rather sorry for him, that day at Mrs. Bevidge’s, because she’d so obviously got him there to use him, and I got mamma to ask him. Everything takes care of itself, at a large affair, and I thought I might trust in Providence to deal with him after he came; and then I saw you made a means the whole evening! I didn’t reflect that there always has to be a means!”

  “It’s a question of Mr. Durgin?” said Bessie, coldly thrilling at the sound of a name that she pronounced so gayly in a tone of sympathetic amusement.

  Miss Enderby bobbed her head. “It shows that we ought never to do a good action, doesn’t it? But, poor thing! How you must have been swearing off!”

  “I don’t know. Was it so very bad? I’m trying to think,” said Bessie, thinking that after this beginning it would be impossible to confide in Mary Enderby.

  “Oh, now, Bessie! Don’t you be patient, or I shall begin to lose my faith in human nature. Just say at once that it was an outrage and I’ll forgive you! You see,” Miss Enderby went on, “it isn’t merely that he’s a jay; but he isn’t a very nice jay. None of the men like him — except Freddy Lancaster, of course; he likes everybody, on principle; he doesn’t count. I thought that perhaps, although he’s so crude and blunt, he might be sensitive and high-minded; you’re always reading about such things; but they say he isn’t, in the least; oh, not the least! They say he goes with a set of fast jays, and that he’s dreadful; though he has a very good mind, and could do very well if he chose. That’s what cousin Jim said to-day; he’s just been at our house; and it was so extremely telepathic that I thought I must run round and prevent your having the man on your conscience if you felt you had had too much of him. You won’t lay him up against us, will you?” She jumped to her feet.

  “You dear!” said Bessie, keeping Mary Enderby’s hand, and pressing it between both of hers against her breast as they now stood face to face, “do come up and have some tea!”

  “No, no! Really, I can’t.”

  They were both involuntarily silent. The door had been opened to some one, and there was a brief parley, which ended in a voice they knew to be the doctor’s, saying, “Then I’ll go right up to his room.” Both the girls broke into laughing adieux, to hide their consciousness that the doctor was going up to see Alan Lynde, who was never sick except in the one way.

  Miss Enderby even said: “I was so glad to see Alan looking so well, last night.”

  “Yes, he had such a good time,” said Bessie, and she followed her friend to the door, where she kissed her reassuringly, and thanked her for taking all the trouble she had, bidding her not be the least anxious on her account.

  It seemed to her that she should sink upon the stairs in mounting them to the library. Mary Enderby had told her only what she had known before; it was what her brother had told her; but then it had not been possible for the man to say that he had brought Alan home tipsy, and been alone in the house with her at three o’clock in the morning. He would not only boast of it to all that vulgar comradehood of his, but it might get into those terrible papers which published the society scandals. There would be no way but to appeal to his pity, his generosity. She fancied herself writing to him, but he could show her note, and she must send for him to come and see her, and try to put him on his honor. Or, that would not do, either. She must make it happen that they should be thrown together, and then speak to him. Even that might make him think she was afraid of him; or he might take it wrong, and believe that she cared for him. He had really been very good to Alan, and she tried to feel safe in the thought of that. She did feel safe for a moment; but if she had meant nothing but to make him believe her grateful, what must he infer from her talking to him in the light way she did about forgiving him for not coming back to dance with her. Her manner, her looks, her tone, had given him the right to say that she had been willing to flirt with him there, at that hour, and in those dreadful circumstances.

  She found herself lying in a deep arm-chair in the library, when she was aware of Dr. Lacy pausing at the door and looking tentatively in upon her.

  “Come in, doctor,” she said, and she knew that her face was wet with tears, and that she spoke with the voice of weeping.

  He came forward and looked narrowly at her, without sitting down. “There’s nothing to be alarmed about, Miss Bessie,” he said. “But I think your brother had better leave home again, for a while.”

  “Yes,” she said, blankly. Her mind was not on his words.

  “I will make the arrangements.”

  “Thank you,” said Bessie, listlessly.

  The doctor had made a step backward, as if he were going away, and now he stopped. “Aren’t you feeling quite well, Miss Bessie?”

  “Oh yes,” she said, and she began to cry.

  The doctor came forward and said, cheerily: “Let me see.” He pulled a chair up to hers, and took her wrist between his fingers. “If you were at Mrs. Enderby’s last night, you’ll need another night to put you just right. But you’re pretty well as it is.” He let her wrist softly go, and said: “You mustn’t distress yourself about your brother’s case. Of course, it’s hard to have it happen now after he’s held up so long; longer than it has been before, I think, isn’t it? But it’s something that it has been so long. The next time, let us hope, it will be longer still.”

  The doctor made as if to rise. Bessie put her hand out to stay him. “What is it makes him do it?”

  “Ah, that’s a great mystery,” said the doctor. “I suppose you might say the excitement.”

  “Yes!”

  “But it seems to me very often, in such cases, as if it were to escape the excitement. I think you’re both keyed up pretty sharply by nature, Miss Bessie,” said the doctor, with the personal kindness he felt for the girl, and the pity softening his scientific spirit.

  “I know!” she answered. “We’re alike. Why don’t I take to drinking, too?”

  The doctor laughed at such a question from a young lady, but with an inner seriousness in his laugh, as if, coming from a patient, it was to be weighed. “Well, I suppose it isn’t the habit of your sex, Miss Bessie.”

  “Sometimes it is. Sometimes women get drunk, and then I think they do less harm than if they did other things to get away from the excitement.” She longed to confide in him; the words were on her tongue; she believed he could help her, tell her what to do; out of his stores of knowledge and experience he must have some suggestion, some remedy; he could advise her; he could stand her friend, so far. People told their doctors all kinds of things, silly things. Why should she not tell her doctor this?

  It would have been easier if it had been an older man, who might have had a daughter of her age. But he was in that period of the early forties when a doctor sometimes has a matter-of-fact, disagreeable wife whose idea stands between him and the spiritual intimacy of his patients, so that it seems as if they were delivering their confidences rather to her than to him. He was able, he was good, he was extremely acute, he was even with the latest facts and theories; but as he sat straight up in his chair his stomach defined itself as a half-moon before him, and he said to the quivering heap of emotions beside him, “You mean like breaking hearts, and such little matters?”

  It was fatally stupid, and it beat her back into herself.

  “Yes,” she said, with a contempt that she easily hid from him, “that’s worse than getting drunk, isn’t it?”

  “Well, it isn’t so regarded,” said the doctor, who supposed himself to have made a sprightly answer, and laughed at it. “I wish, Miss Bessie, you’d take a little remedy I’m going to send you. You’
ve merely been up too late, but it’s a very good thing for people who’ve been up too late.”

  “Thank you. And about my brother?”

  “Oh! I’ll send a man to look after him to-night, and tomorrow I really think he’d better go.”

  XXXVI.

  Miss Lynde had gone earlier than usual to bed, when Bessie heard Alan’s door open, and then heard him feeling his way fumbingly down-stairs. She surmised that he had drunk up all that he had in his room, and was making for the side-board in the dining-room.

  She ran and got the two decanters-one of whiskey and one of brandy, which he was in the habit of carrying back to his room from such an incursion.

  “Alan!” she called to him, in a low voice.

  “Where are you?” he answered back.

  “In the library,” she said. “Come in here, please.”

  He came, and stood looking gloomily in from the doorway. He caught sight of the decanters and the glasses on the library table. “Oh!” he said, and gave a laugh cut in two by a hiccough.

  “Come in, and shut the door, Alan,” she said. “Let’s make a night of it. I’ve got the materials here.” She waved her hand toward the decanters.

  Alan shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean.” But he came forward, and slouched into one of the deep chairs.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what,” said Bessie, with a laugh. “We’re both excited, and we want to get away from ourselves. Isn’t that what’s the matter with you when it begins? Doctor Lacy thinks it is.”

  “Does he?” Alan asked. “I didn’t suppose he had so much sense. What of it?”

  “Nothing. Merely that I’m going to drink a glass of whiskey and a glass of brandy for every glass that you drink to-night.”

  “You mustn’t play the fool, Bess,” said her brother, with dignified severity.

  “But I’m really serious, Alan. Shall I give you something? Which shall we begin on? And we’d better begin soon, for there’s a man coming from the doctor to look after you, and then you won’t get anything.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! Give me those decanters!” Alan struggled out of his chair, and trembled over to where she had them on the table beside her.

  She caught them up, one in either hand, and held them as high as she could lift them. “If you don’t sit down and promise to keep still, I’ll smash them both on the hearth. You know I will.”

  Her strange eyes gleamed, and he hesitated; then he went back to his chair.

  “I don’t see what’s got into you to-night. I don’t want anything,” he said. He tried to brave it out, but presently he cast a piteous glance at the decanters where she had put them down beside her again. “Does the doctor think I’d better go again?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “To-morrow.”

  He looked at the decanters. “And when is that fellow coming?”

  “He may be here any moment.”

  “It’s pretty rough,” he sighed. “Two glasses of that stuff would drive you so wild you wouldn’t know where you were, Bess,” he expostulated.

  “Well, I wish I didn’t know where I was. I wish I wasn’t anywhere.” He looked at her, and then dropped his eyes, with the effect of giving up a hopeless conundrum.

  But he asked: “What’s the matter?”

  She scanned him keenly before she answered: “Something that I should like to tell you — that you ought to know. Alan, do you think you are fit to judge of a very serious matter?”

  He laughed pathetically. “I don’t believe I’m in a very judicial frame of mind to-night, Bess. To-morrow—”

  “Oh, to-morrow! Where will you be to-morrow?”

  “That’s true! Well, what is it? I’ll try to listen. But if you knew how my nerves were going.” His eyes wandered from hers back to the decanters. “If I had just one glass—”

  “I’ll have one, too,” she said, with a motion toward the decanter next her.

  He threw up his arms. “Oh well, go on. I’ll listen as well as I can.” He sank down in his chair and stretched his little feet out toward the fire. “Go on!”

  She hesitated before she began. “Do you know who brought you home last night, Alan?”

  “Yes,” he answered, quickly, “Westover.”

  “Yes, Mr. Westover brought you, and you wouldn’t stay. You don’t remember anything else?”

  “No. What else?”

  “Nothing for you, if you don’t remember.” She sat in silent hopelessness for a while, and her brother’s eyes dwelt on the decanters, which she seemed to have forgotten. “Alan!” she broke out, abruptly, “I’m worried, and if I can’t tell you about it there’s no one I can.”

  The appeal in her voice must have reached him, though he seemed scarcely to have heeded her words. “What is it?” he asked, kindly.

  “You went back to the Enderbys’ after Mr. Westover brought you home, and then some one else had to bring you again.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I was up, and let you in—”

  “Did you, Bessie? That was like you,” he said, tenderly.

  “And I had to let him in, too. You pulled him into the house, and you made such a disturbance at the door that he had to come in for fear you would bring the police.”

  “What a beast!” said Alan, of himself, as if it were some one else.

  “He came in with you. And you wanted him to have some supper. And you fell asleep before the fire in the reception-room.”

  “That — that was the dream!” said Alan, severely. “What are you talking that stuff for, Bessie?”

  “Oh no!” she retorted, with a laugh, as if the pleasure of its coming in so fitly were compensation for the shame of the fact. “The dream was what happened afterward. The dream was that you fell asleep there, and left me there with him—”

  “Well, poor old Westover; he’s a gentleman! You needn’t be worried about him—”

  “You’re not fit!” cried the girl. “I give it up.” She got upon her feet and stood a moment listless.

  “No, I’m not, Bessie. I can’t pull my mind together tonight. But look here!” He seemed to lose what he wanted to say. He asked: “Is it something I’ve got you in for? Do I understand that?”

  “Partly,” she said.

  “Well, then, I’ll help you out. You can trust me, Bessie; you can, indeed. You don’t believe it?”

  “Oh, I believe you think I can trust you.”

  “But this time you can. If you need my help I will stand by you, right or wrong. If you want to tell me now I’ll listen, and I’ll advise you the best I can—”

  “It’s just something I’ve got nervous about,” she said, while her eyes shone with sudden tears. “But I won’t trouble you with it to-night. There’s no such great hurry. We can talk about it in the morning if you’re better then. Oh, I forgot! You’re going away!”

  “No,” said the young man, with pathetic dignity, “I’m not going if you need my help. But you’re right about me tonight, Bessie. I’m not fit. I’m afraid I can’t grasp anything to-night. Tell me in the morning. Oh, don’t be afraid!” he cried out at the glance she gave the decanters. “That’s over, now; you could put them in my hands and be safe enough. I’m going back to bed, and in the morning—”

  He rose and went toward the door. “If that doctor’s man comes to-night you can send him away again. He needn’t bother.”

  “All right, Alan,” she said, fondly. “Good-night. Don’t worry about me. Try to get some sleep.”

  “And you must sleep, too. You can trust me, Bessie.”

  He came back after he got out of the room and looked in. “Bess, if you’re anxious about it, if you don’t feel perfectly sure of me, you can take those things to your room with you.” He indicated the decanters with a glance.

  “Oh no! I shall leave them here. It wouldn’t be any use your just keeping well overnight. You’ll have to keep well a long time, Alan, if you’re going to help me. And that’s the reas
on I’d rather talk to you when you can give your whole mind to what I say.”

  “Is it something so serious?”

  “I don’t know. That’s for you to judge. Not very — not at all, perhaps.”

  “Then I won’t fail you, Bessie. I shall ‘keep well,’ as you call it, as long as you want me. Good-night.”

  “Good-night. I shall leave these bottles here, remember.”

  “You needn’t be afraid. You might put them beside my bed.”

  Bessie slept soundly, from exhaustion, and in that provisional fashion in which people who have postponed a care to a given moment are able to sleep. But she woke early, and crept down-stairs before any one else was astir, and went to the library. The decanters stood there on the table, empty. Her brother lay a shapeless heap in one of the deep arm-chairs.

  XXXVII.

  Westover got home from the Enderby dance at last with the forecast of a violent cold in his system, which verified itself the next morning. He had been housed a week, when Jeff Durgin came to see him. “Why didn’t you let me know you were sick?” he demanded, “I’d have come and looked after you.”

  “Thank you,” said Westover, with as much stiffness as he could command in his physical limpness. “I shouldn’t have allowed you to look after me; and I want you to understand, now, that there can’t be any sort of friendliness between us till you’ve accounted for your behavior with Lynde the other night.”

  “You mean at the party?” Jeff asked, tranquilly.

  “Yes!” cried Westover. “If I had not been shut up ever since, I should have gone to see you and had it out with you. I’ve only let you in, now, to give you the chance to explain; and I refuse to hear a word from you till you do.” Westover did not think that this was very forcible, and he was not much surprised that it made Jeff smile.

  “Why, I don’t know what there is to explain. I suppose you think I got him drunk; I know what you thought that night. But he was pretty well loaded when he struck my champagne. It wasn’t a question of what he was going to do any longer, but how he was going to do it. I kept an eye on him, and at the right time I helped the caterer’s man to get him up into that room where he wouldn’t make any trouble. I expected to go back and look after him, but I forgot him.”