Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  Blake: “I don’t misunderstand you now. You do tell me that you love me, don’t you? How should I dare hope without your leave?”

  Leslie: “You said you wouldn’t have taken me as a gift if I had. You said you’d have hated me. You said” —

  Blake: “I was all wrong in what I thought. I’m ashamed to think of that; but I was right in what I said.”

  Leslie: “Oh, were you! If you could misunderstand me then, how do you know that you ‘re not misunderstanding me now?”

  Blake: “Perhaps I am. Perhaps I’m dreaming as wildly as I was then. But you shall say. Am I?”

  Leslie, demurely: “I don’t know; I” — staying his instantaneous further approach with extended arm—” No, no!” She glances fearfully round “Wait; come with me. Come back with me — that is, if you will.”

  Blake, passionately: “If I will!”

  Leslie, with pensive archness: “I want you to help me clear up my character.”

  Make, gravely: “Leslie, may I” —

  Leslie: “I can’t talk with you here.”

  Blake, sadly: “I will not go back with you to make sorrow for you and trouble among your friends. It’s enough to know that you don’t forbid me to love you.”

  Leslie: “Oh no, it isn’t enough — for everybody.” —

  Blake: “Leslie” —

  Leslie: “Miss Bellingham, please!”

  Blake: “Miss Bellingham” —

  Leslie: “Well?”

  Blake, after a stare of rapturous perplexity: “Nothing!”

  Leslie, laughing through her tears: “If you don’t make haste you will be too late for the stage, and then you can’t get away till to-morrow.”

  VI. MR. CHARLES BELLINGHAM’S DIPLOMACY.

  I. MRS. BELLINGHAM, MRS. MURRAY, AND MR. CHARLES BELLINGHAM.

  IN the parlor with Mrs. Bellingham’ and Mrs. Murray sits a gentleman no longer young, but in the bloom of a comfortable middle life, with blonde hair tending to baldness, accurately parted in the middle, and with a handsome face, lazily shrewd, supported by a comely substructure of double chin, and traversed by a full blonde mustache. He is simply, almost carelessly, yet elegantly dressed in a thin summer stuff, and he has an effect of recent arrival. His manner has distinction, enhanced and refined by the eye-glasses which his near-sightedness obliges him to wear. He sits somewhat ponderously in the chair in which he has planted a person just losing its earlier squareness in the lines of beauty; his feet are set rather wide apart in the fashion of gentlemen approaching a certain weight; and he has an air of amiable resolution as of a man who having dined well yesterday means to dine well to-day.

  Charles Bellingham, smiling amusement and indolently getting the range of his aunt through his glasses: “So I have come a day after the fair.” Mrs. Murray: “That is your mother’s opinion.” Mrs. Bellingham: “Yes, Charles, Leslie had known what to do herself, and had done it, even before I spoke to her. I’m sorry we made you drag all the way up here, for nothing.”

  Bellingham: “Oh, I don’t mind it, mother. Duty called, and I obeyed. My leisure can wait for my return. The only thing is that they’ve got a new fellow at the club now, who interprets one’s ideas of planked Spanish mackerel with a sentiment that amounts to genius. I suppose you plank horn-pout, here. But as to coming for nothing, I’d much rather do that than come for something, in a case like this. You say Leslie saw herself that it wouldn’t do?”

  Mrs. Bellingham: “Yes, she had really behaved admirably, Charles; and when I set the whole matter before her, she fully agreed with me.”

  Bellingham: “But you think she rather liked him?”

  Mrs. Bellingham, sighing a little: “Yes, there is no doubt of that.”

  Bellingham, musingly: “Well, it’s a pity. Behaved rather well in that tramp business, you said?”

  Mrs. Bellingham: “Nobly.”

  Bellingham: “And hasn’t pushed himself, at all?”

  Mrs. Bellingham: “Not an instant.”

  Bellingham: “Well, I’m sorry for him, poor fellow, but I’m glad the thing’s over. It would have been an awkward affair, under all the circumstances, to take hold of. I say, mother,” — with a significant glance at Mrs. Murray,—” there hasn’t been anything — ah — abrupt in the management of this matter? You ladies sometimes forget the limitations of action in your amiable eagerness to have things over, you know.”

  Mrs. Bellingham: “I think your mother would not forget herself in such a case.”

  Bellingham: “Of course, of course; excuse my asking, mother. But you ‘re about the only woman that wouldn’t.”

  Mrs. Murray, bitterly: “Oh, your mother and Leslie have both used him with the greatest tenderness.”

  Bellingham, dryly: “I’m glad to hear it; I never doubted it. If the man had been treated by any of my family with the faintest slight after what had happened, I should have felt bound as a gentleman to offer him any reparation in my power, — to make him any apology. People of our sort can’t do anything shabby.” Mrs. Murray does not reply, but rises from her place on the sofa and goes to the window. “Does Leslie know I’m here?”

  Mrs. Bellingham, with a little start: “Really, I forgot to tell her you were coming to-day; we had been keeping it from her, and” —

  Bellingham: “I don’t know that it matters. Where is she?”

  Mrs. Bellingham: “I saw her going out with Maggie Wallace. I dare say she will be back soon.

  Bellingham: “All right. Where is the young man? Has he gone yet?”

  Mrs. Bellingham: “No, he couldn’t go till the afternoon stage leaves. He’s still here.”

  Bellingham: “I must look him up, and make my acknowledgments to him.” He rises. “By the way, what’s his name?”

  Mrs. Murray, standing with her face toward the window, leans forward and inclines to this side and that, as if to make perfectly sure before speaking of some fact of vivid interest which seems to have caught her notice, and at the moment Bellingham puts his question summons her sister-in-law in a voice of terrible incrimination and triumph: “Marion, did you say Leslie had gone out with Maggie Wallace?”

  Mrs. Bellingham, indifferently: “Yes.”

  Mrs. Murray: “Will you be kind enough to step here?” Mrs. Bellingham, with a little lady-like surprise, approaches, and Mrs. Murray indicates with a stabbing thrust of her hand, the sight which has so much interested her: “Does that look as if it were all over?”

  Bellingham, carelessly, as Mrs. Bellingham with great evident distress remains looking in the direction indicated: “What’s the matter now?”

  Mrs. Murray: “Nothing. I merely wished your mother to enjoy a fresh proof of Leslie’s discretion. She is returning to tell us that it’s out of the question in company with the young man himself.”

  Bellingham: “Wha — ha, ha, ha! — What?” Mrs. Murray: “She is returning with the young man from whom she had just parted forever.” Bellingham, approaching: “Oh, come now, aunt.” Mrs. Murray, fiercely: “Will you look for yourself, if you don’t believe me?”

  Bellingham: “Oh, I believe you, fast enough, but as for looking, you know I couldn’t tell the man in the moon at this distance, if Leslie happened to be walking home with him. But is the — ah — fat necessarily in the fire, because” — Mrs. Murray whirls away from Bellingham where he remains with his hands on his hips peering over his mother’s shoulder, and pounces upon a large opera-glass which stands on the centre-table, and returning with it thrusts it at him. “Eh? What?”

  Mrs. Murray, excitedly: “It’s what we watch the loons on the lake with.”

  Bellingham: “Well, but I don’t see the application. They ‘re not loons on the lake.”

  Mrs. Murray: “No; but they ‘re loons on the land, and it comes to the same thing.” She vehemently presses the glass upon him.

  Bellingham, gravely: “Do you mean, aunt, that you actually want me to watch my sister through an opera-glass, like a shabby Frenchman at a watering-place? Tha
nks. I could never look Les in the face again. It’s a little too much like eavesdropping.” He folds his arms, and regards his aunt with reproachful amazement, while he dashes back to set the glass on the table again.

  Mrs. Bellingham, in great trouble: “Wait, Kate. Charles, dear, I — I think you must.”

  Bellingham: “What?” —

  Mrs. Bellingham: “Yes, you had better look. You will have to proceed in this matter now, and you must form some conclusions beforehand.” Bellingham: “But mother” —

  Mrs. Bellingham, anxiously: “Don’t worry me, Charles. I think you must.”

  Bellingham: “All right, mother.” He unfolds his arms and accepts the glass from her. “I never knew you to take an unfair advantage, and I’ll obey you on trust. But I tell you I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all,” — getting the focus, with several trials; “I’ve never stolen sheep, but I think I can realize, now, something of the self-reproach which misappropriated mutton might bring. Where did you say they were? Oh, over there! I was looking off here, at that point. They ‘re coming this way, aren’t they?” With a start: Hollo! She’s got his arm! Oh, that won’t do. I’m surprised at Les doing that, unless” — continuing to look— “By Jove! He’s not a bad-looking fellow, at all. He — Why, confound it! No, it can’t be! Why, yes — no — yes, it is, it is — by Heaven, it is — by all that’s strange it is — BLAKE!” He lets the glass fall; and stands glaring at his aunt and mother, who confront him in speechless mystification.

  Mrs. Bellingham: “Blake? Why, of course it ‘a Blake. We told you it was Mr. Blake!”

  Bellingham: “No, I beg your pardon, mother, you didn’t! You never told me it was anybody — by name.”

  Mrs. Bellingham: ““Well?”

  Bellingham: “Why, don’t you understand, mother? It’s my Blake!”

  Mrs. Bellingham:— “Your Blake? Your —

  Charles, what do you mean?”

  Bellingham: “Why, I mean that this is the man” — giving his glasses a fresh pinch on his nose with his thumb and forefinger—” that fished me out of the Mississippi. I flatter myself he couldn’t do it now. ‘The grossness of my nature would have weight to drag him down,’ — both of us down. But he’d try it, and he’d have the pluck to go down with me if he failed. Come, mother, you see I can’t do anything in this matter. It’s simply impossible.’ It’s out of the question.”

  Mrs. Murray: “Why is it out of the question?” Bellingham: “Well, I don’t know that I can explain, aunt Kate, if it isn’t clear to you, already.” Mrs. Bellingham, recovering from the dismay in which her son’s words have plunged her:

  “Charles, Charles! Do you mean that this Mr Blake is the person who saved you from” —

  Bellingham: “From a watery grave? I do, mother.”

  Mrs. Bellingham: “ There must be some mistake. You can’t tell at this distance, Charles.”

  Bellingham: “There’s no mistake, mother. I should know Blake on the top of Ponkwasset. He was rather more than a casual acquaintance, you see. By Jove, I can’t think of the matter with any sort of repose. I can see it all now, just as if it were somebody else: I was weighted down down with my accoutrements, and I went over the side of the boat like a flash, and under that yellow deluge like a bullet. I had just leisure to think what a shame it was my life should go for nothing at a time when we needed men so much, when I felt a grip on my hair,” — rubbing his bald spot,—” it couldn’t he done now! Then I knew I was all right, and waited for developments. The only development was Blake. He fought shy of me, if you’ll believe it, after that, till I closed with him one day and had it out with him, and convinced him that he had done rather a handsome thing by me. But that was the end of it. I couldn’t get him to stand anything else in the way of gratitude. Blake had a vice: he was proud.”

  Mrs. Bellingham: “And what became of him?” Bellingham: “Who? Blake? He was the engineer of the boat, I ought to explain. He was transferred to a gunboat after that, and I believe he stuck to it throughout the fighting on the Mississippi. It’s — let me see — it’s five years now since I saw him in Nebraska, when I went out there to grow up with the country, and found I couldn’t wait for it.’ After a pause: “I don’t know what it was about Blake; but he somehow made everybody feel that there was stuff in him. In the three weeks we were together we became great friends, and I must say I never liked a man better. Well, that’s why, aunt Kate.”

  Mrs. Murray: “I don’t see that it has anything whatever to do with the matter. The question is whether you wish Leslie to marry a man of his station and breeding, or not. His goodness and greatness have nothing to do with it. The fact remains that he is not at all her equal — that he isn’t a gentleman” —

  Bellingham: “Oh, come now, aunt Kate. You ‘re not going to tell me that a man who saved my life isn’t a gentleman?”

  Mrs. Murray: “And you’re not going to tell me that a steamboat engineer is a gentleman?” Bellingham, disconcerted: “Eh?”

  Mrs. Murray: “The question is, are you going to abandon that unhappy girl to her fancy for a man totally unfit to be her husband simply because he happened to save your life?”

  Bellingham: “Why, you’re, aunt Kate” — Mrs. Murray: “Do you think it would be gentlemanly to do it?”

  Bellingham: “Well, if you put it that way, no, I don’t. And if you want to know, I don’t see my way to behaving like a gentleman in this connection, whatever I do.” He scratches his head ruefully: “The fact is that the advantages are all on Blake’s side, and he’ll have to manage very badly if he doesn’t come out the only gentleman in the business” After a moment: “How was it you didn’t put the name and the — a — profession together, mother, and reflect that this was my Blake?”

  Mrs. Bellingham, with plaintive reproach:

  “Charles, you know how uncommunicative you were about all your life as a soldier. You never told me half so much about this affair before, and you never — it seems very heartless now that I didn’t insist on knowing, but at the time it was only part of the nightmare in which we were living — you never told me his name before.”

  Bellingham: “Didn’t I? Well! I supposed I had, of course. Um!.. That was too bad. I say, mother, Blake has never let anything drop that made you think he had ever known me, or done me any little favor, I suppose?”

  Mrs. Bellingham: “No, not the slightest hint.

  If he had only” —

  Bellingham: “Ah, that was like him, confound him!” Bellingham muses again with a hopeless air, and then starts suddenly from his reverie: “ Why, the fact is, you know, mother, Blake is really a magnificent fellow; and you know — well, I like him!”

  Mrs. Murray: “Oh! That’s Leslie’s excuse!” Bellingham: “Eh?”

  Mrs. Murray: “If you are going to take Leslie’s part, it’s fortunate you have common ground. Like him!”

  Bellingham: “Mother, what is the unhallowed hour for dinner in these wilds? One o’clock? I’ve a fancy for tackling this business after dinner.” Mrs. Bellingham: “I’m afraid, my dear, that it can’t be put off. They must be here, soon.” Bellingham, sighing: ““Well! Though they didn’t seem to be hurrying.”

  Mrs. Murray, bitterly: “If they could only know what a friendly disposition there was towards him here, I’m sure they’d make haste!” Bellingham: “Um!”

  Mrs. Bellingham, after a pause: “You don’t know anything about his — his — family, do you, Charles?”

  Bellingham: “No, mother, I don’t. My impression is that he has no family, any more than — Adam; or — protoplasm. — All I know about him is that he was from first to last one of those natural gentlemen that upset all your preconceived notions of those things. His associations must have been commoner than — well it’s impossible to compare them to anything satisfactory; but I never saw a trait in him or heard a word from him that wasn’t refined. He gave me the impression of a very able man, too, as I was just saying, but where his strength lay, I can’t say.
”

  Mrs. Bellingham: “Leslie says he’s an inventor.”

  Bellingham: “Well, very likely. I remember, now: he was a machinist by trade, I believe, and he was an enlisted man on the boat when the engineer was killed; and Blake was the man who could step right into his place. It was considered a good thing amongst those people. He was a reader in his way, and most of the time he had some particularly hard-headed book in his hand when he was off duty, — about physics or metaphysics; used to talk them up now and then, very well. I never had any doubt about his coming out all right. He’s a baffler, Blake is, — at least he is, for me. Now I suppose aunt Kate, here, doesn’t find him baffling, at all. She takes our little standards, our little weights and measures, and tests him with them, and she’s perfectly satisfied with the result. It’s a clear case of won’t do.” Mrs. Murray: “Do you say it isn’t?” Bellingham: “No; I merely doubt if it is. You don’t doubt, and there you have the advantage of me. You always were a selected oyster, aunt Kate, and you always knew that you couldn’t be improved upon. Now, I’m a selected oyster, too, apparently, but I’m not certain that I’m the best choice that could have been made. I’m a huitre de mon siecle; I am the ill-starred mollusk that doubts. Of course we can’t go counter to the theory that God once created people and no-people, and that they have nothing to do but to go on reproducing themselves and leave him at leisure for the rest of eternity. But really, aunt Kate, I have seen some things in my time — and I don’t mind saying Blake is one of them — that made me think the Creator was still — active. I admit that it sounds” — fitting his glasses on—” rather absurd for an old diner-out like myself to say it.”

  Mrs. Murray, with energy: “All this is neither here nor there, Charles, and you know it. The simple question is whether you wish your sister to marry a man whose past you’ll be ashamed to be frank about. I’ll admit, if you like, that he’s quite our equal, — our superior; but what are you going to do with your ex-steamboat engineer in society?”

  Bellingham, dubiously: “‘Well, it would be rather awkward.”