Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  Bartlett.— “Go? What are you talking about?” He breaks again from the daze into which he had relapsed. “If there’s a hole on the face of the earth where I can hide myself from them, I want to find it. What do you think I’m made of? Go? I ought to be shot away out of a mortar; I ought to be struck away by lightning! Oh, I can’t excuse you, Cummings! The indelicacy, the brutality of telling me that! No, no, — I can’t overlook it.” He shakes his head and walks away from his friend; then he returns, and bends on him a look of curious inquiry. “Am I really such a ruffian” — he speaks very gently, almost meekly, now— “that you didn’t believe anything short of that would bring me to my senses? Who told you this of her?”

  Cummings.— “Her father.”

  Bartlett.— “Oh, that’s too loathsome! Had the man no soul, no mercy? Did he think me such a consummate beast that nothing less would drive me away? Yes, he did! Yes, I made him think so! Oh!” He hangs his head and walks away with a shudder.

  Cummings.— “I don’t know that he did you that injustice; but I’m afraid I did. I was at my wits’ end.”

  Bartlett, very humbly.— “Oh, I don’t know that you were wrong.”

  Cummings.— “I suppose that his anxiety for her life made it comparatively easy for him to speak of the hurt to her pride. She can’t be long for this world.”

  Bartlett.— “No, she had the dying look!” After a long pause, in which he has continued to wander aimlessly about the room: “Cummings, is it necessary that you should tell him you told me?”

  Cummings.— “You know I hate concealments of any kind, Bartlett.”

  Bartlett.— “Oh, well; do it then!”

  Cummings.— “But I don’t know that we shall see him again; and even if we do, I don’t see how I can tell him unless he asks. It’s rather painful.”

  Bartlett.— “Well, take that little sin on your conscience if you can. It seems to me too ghastly that I should know what you’ve told me; it’s indecent. Cummings,” — after another pause,— “how does a man go about such a thing? How does he contrive to tell the woman whose heart he has won that he doesn’t care for her, and break the faith that she would have staked her life on? Oh, I know, — women do such things, too; but it’s different, by a whole world’s difference. A man comes and a man goes, but a woman stays. The world is before him after that happens, and we don’t think him much of a man if he can’t get over it. But she, she has been sought out; she has been made to believe that her smile and her looks are heaven, poor, foolish, helpless idol! her fears have been laid, all her pretty maidenly traditions, her proud reserves overcome; she takes him into her inmost soul, — to find that his love is a lie, a lie! Imagine it! She can’t do anything. She can’t speak. She can’t move as long as she lives. She must stay where she has been left, and look and act as if nothing had happened. Oh, good Heaven! And I, I look like a man who could do that!” After a silence: “I feel as if there were blood on me!” He goes to the piano, and gathering up his things turns about towards Cummings again: “Come, man; I’m going. It’s sacrilege to stay an instant, — to exist.”

  Cummings.— “Don’t take it in that way, Bartlett. I blame myself very much for not having spared you in what I said. I wouldn’t have told you of it, if I could have supposed that an accidental resemblance of the sort would distress you so.”

  Bartlett, contritely.— “You had to tell me. I forced you to extreme measures. I’m quite worthy to look like him. Good Lord! I suppose I should be capable of his work.” He moves towards the door with his burden, but before he reaches it General Wyatt, from the corridor, meets him with an air of confused agitation. Bartlett halts awkwardly, and some of the things slip from his hold to the floor.

  VII.

  General Wyatt, Cummings, and Bartlett.

  General Wyatt.— “Sir, I am glad to see you.” He pronounces the civility with a manner evidently affected by the effort to reconcile Bartlett’s offensive personal appearance with his own sense of duty. “I — I was sorry to miss you before; and now I wish — Your friend” — referring with an inquiring glance to Cummings— “has explained to you the cause of our very extraordinary behaviour, and I hope you” —

  Bartlett.— “Mr. Cummings has told me that I have the misfortune to resemble some one with whom you have painful associations. That is quite enough, and entirely justifies you. I am going at once, and I trust you will forgive my rudeness in absenting myself a moment ago. I have a bad temper; but I never could forgive myself if I had forced my friend” — he turns and glares warningly at Cummings, who makes a faint pantomime of conscientious protest as Bartlett proceeds— “to hear anything more than the mere fact from you. No, no,” — as General Wyatt seems about to speak,— “it would be atrocious in me to seek to go behind it. I wish to know nothing more.” Cummings gives signs of extreme unrest at being made a party to this tacit deception, and General Wyatt, striking his palms hopelessly together, walks to the other end of the room. Bartlett touches the fallen camp-stool with his foot. “Cummings, will you be kind enough to put that on top of this other rubbish?” He indicates his armful, and as Cummings complies, he says in a swift fierce whisper: “Her secret is mine. If you dare to hint that you’ve told it to me, I’ll — I’ll assault you in your own pulpit.” Then to General Wyatt, who is returning toward him: “Good-morning, sir.”

  General Wyatt.— “Oh! Ah! Stop! That is, don’t go! Really, sir, I don’t know what to say. I must have seemed to you like a madman a moment ago, and now I’ve come to play the fool.” Bartlett and Cummings look their surprise, and General Wyatt hurries on: “I asked your friend to beg you to go away, and now I am here to beg you to remain. It’s perfectly ridiculous, sir, I know, and I can say nothing in defence of the monstrous liberties I have taken. Sir, the matter is simply this: my daughter’s health is so frail that her life seems to hang by a thread, and I am powerless to do anything against her wish. It may be a culpable weakness, but I cannot help it. When I went back to her from seeing your friend, she immediately divined what my mission had been, and it had the contrary effect from what I had expected. Well, sir! Nothing would content her but that I should return and ask you to stay. She looks upon it as the sole reparation we can make you.”

  Bartlett, gently.— “I understand that perfectly; and may I beg you to say that in going away I thanked her with all my heart, and ventured to leave her my best wishes?” He bows as if to go.

  General Wyatt, detaining him.— “Excuse me — thanks — but — but I am afraid she will not be satisfied with that. She will be satisfied with nothing less than your remaining. It is the whim of a sick child — which I must ask you to indulge. In a few days, sir, I hope we may be able to continue on our way. It would be simply unbearable pain to her to know that we had driven you away, and you must stay to show that you have forgiven the wrong we have done you.”

  Bartlett.— “That’s nothing, less than nothing. But I was thinking — I don’t care for myself in the matter — that Miss Wyatt is proposing a very unnecessary annoyance for you all. My friend can remain and assure her that I have no feeling whatever about the matter, and in the meantime I can remove — the embarrassment — of my presence.”

  General Wyatt.— “Sir, you are very considerate, very kind. My own judgment is in favour of your course, and yet” —

  Cummings.— “I think my friend is right, and that when he is gone” —

  General Wyatt.— “Well, sir! well, sir! It may be the best way. I think it is the best. We will venture upon it. Sir,” — to Bartlett,— “may I have the honour of taking your hand?” Bartlett lays down his burden on the piano, and gives his hand. “Thank you, thank you! You will not regret this goodness. God bless you! May you always prosper!”

  Bartlett.— “Good-bye; and say to Miss Wyatt” — At these words he pauses, arrested by an incomprehensible dismay in General Wyatt’s face, and turning about he sees Cummings transfixed at the apparition of Miss Wyatt advancing directly toward himself,
while her mother coming behind her exchanges signals of helplessness and despair with the General. The young girl’s hair, thick and bronze, has been heaped in hasty but beautiful masses on her delicate head; as she stands with fallen eyes before Bartlett, the heavy lashes lie dark on her pale cheeks, and the blue of her eyes shows through their transparent lids. She has a fan with which she makes a weak pretence of playing, and which she puts to her lips as if to hide the low murmur that escapes from them as she raises her eyes to Bartlett’s face.

  VIII.

  Constance, Mrs. Wyatt, and the others.

  Constance, with a phantom-like effort at hauteur.— “I hope you have been able to forgive the annoyance we caused you, and that you won’t let it drive you away.” She lifts her eyes with a slow effort, and starts with a little gasp as they fall upon his face, and then remains trembling before him while he speaks.

  Bartlett, reverently.— “I am to do whatever you wish. I have no annoyance — but the fear that — that” —

  Constance, in a husky whisper.— “Thanks!” As she turns from him to go back to her mother, she moves so frailly that he involuntarily puts out his hand.

  Mrs. Wyatt, starting forward.— “No!” But Constance clutches his extended arm with one of her pale hands, and staying herself for a moment lifts her eyes again to his, looks steadily at him with her face half turned upon him, and then, making a slight, sidelong inclination of the head, releases his arm and goes to her mother, who supports her to one of the easy-chairs and kneels beside her when she sinks into it. Bartlett, after an instant of hesitation, bows silently and withdraws, Cummings having already vanished. Constance watches him going, and then hides her face on her mother’s neck.

  II. DISTINCTIONS AND DIFFERENCES.

  I.

  Constance and Mrs. Wyatt.

  Constance.— “And he is still here? He is going to stay on, mother?” She reclines in a low folding chair, and languidly rests her head against one of the pillows with which her mother has propped her; on the bright coloured shawl which has been thrown over her lie her pale hands loosely holding her shut fan. Her mother stands half across the parlour from her, and wistfully surveys her work, to see if some touch may not yet be added for the girl’s comfort.

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “Yes, my child. He will stay. He told your father he would stay.”

  Constance.— “That’s very kind of him. He’s very good.”

  Mrs. Wyatt, seating herself before her daughter.— “Do you really wish him to stay? Remember how weak you are, Constance. If you are taking anything upon yourself out of a mistaken sense of duty, of compunction, you are not kind to your poor father or to me. Not that I mean to reproach you.”

  Constance.— “Oh, no. And I am not unkind to you in the way you think. I’m selfish enough in wishing him to stay. I can’t help wanting to see him again and again, — it’s so strange, so strange. All this past week, whenever I’ve caught a glimpse of him, it’s been like an apparition; and whenever he has spoken, it has been like a ghost speaking. But I haven’t been afraid since the first time. No, there’s been a dreary comfort in it; you won’t understand it; I can’t understand it myself; but I know now why people are glad to see their dead in dreams. If the ghost went, there would be nothing.”

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “Constance, you break my heart!”

  Constance.— “Yes, I know it; it’s because I’ve none.” She remains a little space without speaking, while she softly fingers the edges of the fan lying in her lap. “I suppose we shall become more acquainted, if he stays?”

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “Why, not necessarily, dear. You need know nothing more of him than you do now. He seems very busy, and not in the least inclined to intrude upon us. Your father thinks him a little odd, but very gentlemanly.”

  Constance, dreamily.— “I wonder what he would think if he knew that the man whom I would have given my life did not find my love worth having? I suppose it was worthless; but it seemed so much in the giving; it was that deceived me. He was wiser. Oh, me!” After a silence: “Mother, why was I so different from other girls?”

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “So different, Constance? You were only different in being lovelier and better than others.”

  Constance.— “Ah, that’s the mistake! If that were true, it could never have happened. Other girls, the poorest and plainest, are kept faith with; but I was left. There must have been something about me that made him despise me. Was I silly, mother? Was I too bold, too glad to have him care for me? I was so happy that I couldn’t help showing it. May be that displeased him. I must have been dull and tiresome. And I suppose I was somehow repulsive, and at last he couldn’t bear it any longer and had to break with me. Did I dress queerly? I know I looked ridiculous at times; and people laughed at me before him.”

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “Oh, Constance, Constance! Can’t you understand that it was his unworthiness alone, his wicked heartlessness?”

  Constance, with gentle slowness.— “No, I can’t understand that. It happened after we had learned to know each other so well. If he had been fickle, it would have happened long before that. It was something odious in me that he didn’t see at first. I have thought it out. It seems strange now that people could ever have tolerated me.” Desolately: “Well, they have their revenge.”

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “Their revenge on you, Constance? What harm did you ever do them, my poor child? Oh, you mustn’t let these morbid fancies overcome you. Where is our Constance that used to be, — our brave, bright girl, that nothing could daunt, and nothing could sadden?”

  Constance, sobbing.— “Dead, dead!”

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “I can’t understand! You are so young still, and with the world all before you. Why will you let one man’s baseness blacken it all, and blight your young life so? Where is your pride, Constance?”

  Constance.— “Pride? What have I to do with pride? A thing like me!”

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “Oh, child, you’re pitiless! It seems as if you took a dreadful pleasure in torturing those who love you.”

  Constance.— “You’ve said it, mother. I do. I know now that I am a vampire, and that it’s my hideous fate to prey upon those who are dearest to me. He must have known, he must have felt the vampire in me.”

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “Constance!”

  Constance.— “But at least I can be kind to those who care nothing for me. Who is this stranger? He must be an odd kind of man to forgive us. What is he, mother? — if he is anything in himself; he seems to me only a likeness, not a reality.”

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “He is a painter, your father says.” Mrs. Wyatt gives a quick sigh of relief, and makes haste to confirm the direction of the talk away from Constance: “He is painting some landscapes here. That friend of his who went to-day is a cousin of your father’s old friend, Major Cummings. He is a minister.”

  Constance.— “What is the painter’s name? Not that it matters. But I must call him something if I meet him again.”

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “Mr. Bartlett.”

  Constance.— “Oh yes, I forgot.” She falls into a brooding silence. “I wonder if he will despise me — if he will be like in that too?” Mrs. Wyatt sighs patiently. “Why do you mind what I say, mother? I’m not worth it. I must talk on, or else go mad with the mystery of what has been. We were so happy; he was so good to me, so kind; there was nothing but papa’s not seeming to like him; and then suddenly, in an instant, he turns and strikes me down! Yes, it was like a deadly blow. If you don’t let me believe that it was because he saw all at once that I was utterly unworthy, I can’t believe in anything.”

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “Hush, Constance; you don’t know what you’re saying.”

  Constance.— “Oh, I know too well! And now this stranger, who is so like him — who has all his looks, who has his walk, who has his voice, — won’t he have his insight too? I had better show myself for what I am, at once — weak, stupid, selfish, false; it’ll save me the pain of being found out. Pain? Oh, I’m past hurting! Why do you cry, mother? I’m no
t worth your tears.”

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “You’re all the world to us, Constance; you know it, child. Your poor father” —

  Constance.— “Does papa really like me?”

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “Constance!”

  Constance.— “No; but why should he? He never liked him; and sometimes I’ve wondered, if it wasn’t papa’s not liking him that first set him against me. Of course, it was best he should find me out, but still I can’t keep from thinking that if he had never begun to dislike me! I noticed from the first that after papa had been with us he was cold and constrained. Mother, I had better say it: I don’t believe I love papa as I ought. There’s something in my heart — some hardness — against him when he’s kindest to me. If he had only been kinder to him” —

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “Kinder to him? Constance, you drive me wild! Kind to a wolf, kind to a snake! Kind to the thief who has robbed us of all that made our lives dear; who stole your love, and then your hope, your health, your joy, your pride, your peace! And you think your father might have been kinder to him! Constance, you were our little girl when the war began, — the last of brothers and sisters that had died. You seemed given to our later years to console and comfort us for those that had been taken; and you were so bright and gay! All through those dreadful days and months and years you were our stay and hope, — mine at home, his in the field. Our letters were full of you, — like young people’s with their first child; all that you did and said I had to tell him, and then he had to talk it over in his answers back. When he came home at last after the peace — can you remember it, Constance?”