Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  Campbell, with caricatured tenderness: “Say yes.”

  Mrs. Somers: “What does he mean, Doctor?”

  Lawton: “Oh, I’m afraid he’s past all surgery. I give him over to you, Mrs. Somers.”

  Campbell: “There, now. She wasn’t the last to do it!”

  Mrs. Somers, with the resolution of a widow: “Well, I suppose there’s nothing else for it, then. I’ll see what can be done for your patient, Doctor.” She passes her hand through Campbell’s arm, where he continues to stand behind the tea-table.

  Mrs. Roberts, falling upon her and kissing her: “Amy, you don’t mean it!”

  Mrs. Bemis, embracing her in turn: “I never can believe it.”

  Mrs. Crashaw: “It is ridiculous! What, Willis?”

  Mrs. Miller: “It does seem too nice to be true.”

  Bemis: “You astonish us!”

  Roberts: “We never should have dreamed of it.”

  Young Mr. Bemis: “You must give us time to realize it.”

  Mrs. Wharton: “Is it possible?”

  Miss Bayly: “Is it possible?” They all shake hands with Mrs. Somers in turn.

  Roberts: “Isn’t this rather sudden, Willis?”

  Campbell: “Well, it is — for Mrs. Somers, perhaps. But I’ve found it awfully gradual.”

  Mrs. Somers: “Nonsense! It’s an old story for both of us.”

  Campbell: “Well, what I like about it is, it’s true. Founded on fact!”

  Mrs. Roberts: “Really? I can’t believe it!”

  Campbell: “Well, I don’t know whom all this charming incredulity’s intended to flatter, but if it’s I, I say no, not really, at all! It’s merely a little coup de théâtre we’ve been arranging.”

  Lawton, patting him on the shoulder: “One ahead, as usual.”

  Mrs. Somers: “Oh, thank you, Doctor! There are two of us ahead now.”

  Lawton: “I believe you, at any rate. Bravo!” He initiates an applause in which all the rest join, while Campbell catches up Mrs. Somers’s fan and unfurls it before both their faces.

  THE END

  THE MOUSE -TRAP.

  I. MRS. SOMERS; MR. CAMPBELL.

  IN her drawing-room, Mrs. Amy Somers, young, pretty, stylish, in the last evanescent traces of widowhood, stands confronting Mr. Willis Campbell. She has a newspaper in her hand, folded to the width of a single column, which she extends towards him with an effect of indignant menace.

  Mrs. Somers: “Then you acknowledge that it is yours?”

  Campbell: “I acknowledge that I made a speech before the legislative committee on behalf of the anti-suffragists. You knew I was going to do that. I don’t know how they’ve reported it.”

  Mrs. Somers, with severity: “Very well, then; I will read it. ‘ Willis Campbell, Esq., was next heard on behalf of the petitioners. He touched briefly upon the fact that the suffrage was evidently not desired by the vast majority of educated women.’”

  Campbell: “You’ve always said they didn’t want it.”

  Mrs. Somers: “That is not the point.” Reading: “‘And many of them would feel it an onerous burden, and not a privilege.’”

  Campbell: “Well, didn’t you—”

  Mrs. Somers: “Don’t interrupt!” Reading: “‘Which would compel them, at the cost of serious sacrifices, to contend at the polls with the ignorant classes who would be sure to exercise the right if conferred.’”

  Campbell: “That was your own argument, Amy. They’re almost your own words.”

  Mrs. Somers: “That isn’t what I object to.” Reading: “‘Mr. Campbell then referred in a more humorous strain to the argument, frequently used by the suffragists, that every tax-payer should have the right to vote. He said that he objected to this, because it implied that non-tax-payers should not have the right to vote, which would deprive of the suffrage a large body of adoptive citizens, who voted at all the elections with great promptness and assiduity. He thought the exemption of women from some duties required of men by the State fairly offset the loss of the ballot in their case, and that until we were prepared to send ladies to battle we ought not to oblige them to go to the polls. Some skirmishing ensued between Mr. Campbell and Mr. Willington, on the part of the suffragists, the latter gentleman affirming that in great crises of the world’s history women had shown as much courage as men, and the former contending that this did not at all affect his position, since the courage of women was in high degree a moral courage, which was not evoked by the ordinary conditions of peace or war, but required the imminence of some extraordinary, some vital emergency.’”

  Campbell: “Well, what do you object to in all that?”

  Mrs. Somers, tossing the paper on the table, and confronting him with her head lifted and her hands clasped upon her left side: “Everything! It is an insult to women.”

  Campbell: “Woman, you mean. I don’t think women would mind it. Who’s been talking to you, Amy?”

  Mrs. Somers: “Nobody. It doesn’t matter who’s been talking to me. That is not the question.”

  Campbell: “It’s the question I asked.”

  Mrs. Somers: “It isn’t the question I asked. I wish simply to know what you mean by that speech.”

  Campbell: “I wish you knew how pretty you look in that dress.” Mrs. Somers involuntarily glances down at the skirt of it on either side, and rearranges it a little, folding her hands again as before. “But perhaps you do.”

  Mrs. Somers, with dignity: “Will you answer my question?”

  Campbell: “Certainly. I meant what I said.”

  Mrs. Somers: “Oh, you did! Very well, then!

  When a woman stands by the bedside of her sick child, and risks her life from contagion, what kind of courage do you call that?”

  Campbell: “Moral.”

  Mrs. Somers: “And when she remains in a burning building or a sinking ship — as they often do — and perishes, while her child is saved, what kind of courage is it?”

  Campbell: “Moral.”

  Mrs. Somers: “When she seizes an axe and defends her little ones against a bear or a wolf that’s just bursting in the cabin door, what kind of courage does she show?”

  Campbell: “Moral.”

  Mrs. Somers: “Or when her babe crawls up the track, and she snatches it from the very jaws of the cow-catcher—”

  Campbell: “Oh, hold on, now, Amy! Be fair! It’s the engineer who does that: he runs along the side of the locomotive, and catches the smiling infant up, and lays it in the mother’s arms as the train thunders by. His name is usually Hank Rollins. The mother is always paralyzed with terror.” Mrs. Somers: “Of course she is. But in those other cases how does her courage differ from a man’s? If hers is always moral, what kind of courage does a man show when he faces the cannon?” Campbell: “Immoral. Come, Amy, are you trying to prove that women are braver than men? Well, they are. I never was in any danger yet that I didn’t wish I was a woman, for then I should have the courage to face it, or else I could turn and run without disgrace. All that I said in that speech was that women haven’t so much nerve as men.”

  Mrs. Somers: “They have more.”

  Campbell: “Nerves — yes.”

  Mrs. Somers: “No, nerve. Take Dr. Cissy Gay, that little, slender, delicate, sensitive thing: what do you suppose she went through when she was studying medicine, and walking the hospitals, and all those disgusting things? And Mrs. J. Plunkett Harmon: do you mean to say that she has no nerve, facing all sorts of audiences, on the platform, everywhere? Or Rev. Lily Barber, living down all that ridicule, and going quietly on in her work—”

  Campbell: “Oh, they’ve been talking to you.”

  Mrs. Somers: “They have not! And if they have, Dr. Gay is as much opposed to suffrage as you are.”

  Campbell: “As If Aren’t you opposed to it too?”

  Mrs. Somers: “Of course I am. Or I was till you made that speech.”

  Campbell: “It wasn’t exactly intended to convert you.”

  Mr
s. Somers: “It has placed me in a false position. Everybody knows, or the same as knows, that we’re engaged—”

  Campbell: “Well, I’m not ashamed of it, Amy.”

  Mrs. Somers, severely: “No matter! And now it will look as if I had no ideas of my own, and was just swayed about any way by you. A woman is despicable that joins with men in ridiculing women.” Campbell: “Who’s been saying that?”

  Mrs. Somers: “No one. It doesn’t matter who’s been saying it. Mrs. Mervane has been saying it.” Campbell: “Mrs. Mervane?”

  Mrs. Somers: “Yes, Mrs. Mervane, that you’re always praising and admiring so for her good sense and her right ideas. Didn’t you say she wrote as logically and forcibly as a man?”

  Campbell: “Yes, I did.”

  Mrs. Somers: “Very well, then, she says that if anything could turn her in favor of suffrage, it is that speech of yours. She says it’s a subtle attack upon the whole sex.”

  Campbell: “Well, I give it up! You are all alike. You take everything personally, in the first place, and then you say it’s an attack on all women. Couldn’t I make this right by publishing a card to acknowledge your physical courage before the whole community, Amy? Then your friends would have to say that I had recognized the pluck of universal womanhood.”

  Mrs. Somers: “No, sir; you can’t make it right now. And I’m sorry, sorry, sorry I signed the antisuffrage petition. Nothing will ever teach men to appreciate women till women practically assert themselves.”

  Campbell: “That sounds very much like another quotation, Amy.”

  Mrs. Somers: “And they must expect to be treated as cowards till they show themselves heroes. And they must first of all have the ballot.” Campbell: “Oh!” —

  Mrs. Somers: “Yes. Then, and not till then, men will acknowledge their equality in all that is admirable in both. Then there will be no more puling insolence about moral courage and vital emergencies to evoke it.”

  Campbell: “I don’t see the steps to this conclusion, but the master-mind of Mrs. J. Plunkett Harmon reaches conclusions at a bound.”

  Mrs. Somers: “It wasn’t Mrs. Harmon.” Campbell: “Oh, well, Rev. Lily Barber, then. You needn’t tell me you originated that stuff, Amy. But I submit for the present. Think it over, my dear, and when I come back to-morrow—”

  Mrs. Somers: “Perhaps you had better not come back to-morrow.”

  Campbell: “Why?”

  Mrs. Somers: “Because — because I’m afraid we are not in sympathy. Because if you thought that I needed some vital emergency to make me show that I was ready to die for you any moment—” Campbell: “Die for me? I want you to live for me, Amy.”

  Mrs. Somers: “ — and the emergency never came, you would despise me.”

  Campbell: “Never!”

  Mrs. Somers: “If you have such a low opinion of women generally—”

  Campbell: “I a low opinion of women!”

  Mrs. Somers: “You said they were cowards.” Campbell: “I didn’t say they were cowards. And if I seemed to say so, it was my misfortune. I honestly and truly think, Amy, that when a woman is roused, she isn’t afraid of anything in heaven or on—” He stops abruptly, and looks towards the corner of the room.

  Mrs. Somers: “What is it?”

  Campbell: “Oh, nothing. I thought I saw a mouse.”

  Mrs. Somers: “A mouse!” She flings herself upon him, and clutches him with convulsive energy. Then suddenly freeing him, she leaps upon a chair, and stoops over to hold her train from the floor. “Oh, drive it out, drive it out! Don’t kill it. Oh — e-e-e-e! Drive it out! Oh, what shall I do? Oh, Willis, love, jump on a chair! Oh, horrid little dreadful reptile! Oh, drive it out!” In uttering these appeals Mrs. Somers alternately looses her hold upon her train in order to clasp her face in her hands, and then uncovers her face to seize her train. “Oh, is it gone f Come here, Willis, and let me hold your hand! Or no! Drive it, drive it, drive it out!”

  Campbell, going about the room in deliberate examination: “I can’t find it. I guess it’s gone into its hole again.”

  Mrs. Somers: “No, it hasn’t! It hasn’t got any hole here. It must have come in from somewhere else. Oh, I hope I shall have a little wisdom some time, and never, never, never have cake and wine brought into the drawing-room again, no matter how faint with walking any one is. Of course it was the smell of the fruit and crumbs attracted it; and they might just as well take the horse-cars, but they said they had walked all the way to get me to sign the suffrage petition, and when I said I’d signed the anti-suffrage, of course I had to offer them something; I couldn’t do less. Have you driven it out?”

  Campbell: “I’ve done my best. But I can’t find it, and I can’t drive it out till I do find it.”

  Mrs. Somers: “It’s run into the fireplace. Rattle the tongs!” Campbell goes to the fireplace and rattles the tongs against the shovel, Mrs. Somers meanwhile covering her face. “Ow — ugh — e-e-e-e! Is it gone?” She uncovers her eyes.

  Campbell: “It never was there.”

  Mrs. Somers: “Yes, it was, Willis. Don’t tell me it wasn’t! Where else was it if it wasn’t there? Look under that book-table!”

  Campbell: “Which one?”

  Mrs. Somers: “That one with the shelf coming down almost to the carpet. Poke under it with the poker!” As Campbell obeys, she again hides her face. “U-u-u-gh! Is it gone now?” Campbell: “It wasn’t there.”

  Mrs. Somers: “Poke hard! Bang against the mop-board! Bang!”

  Campbell, poking and banging: “There! I tell you it never was there.”

  Mrs. Somers, uncovering her face: “Oh, what shall I do? It must be somewhere in the room, and I never can breathe till you’ve found it. Bang again!”

  Campbell: “Nonsense! It’s gone long ago. Do you suppose a mouse of any presence of mind or self-respect would stay here after all this uproar?” He restores the tongs to their stand with a clash.

  Mrs. Somers, responsive to the clash: “Ow!”

  Campbell, advancing towards her and extending his hand: “Come, Amy; get down now. I must be going.”

  Mrs. Somers, in horror: “Get down? Going?”

  Campbell: “Certainly. I can’t stay here all day. I’ve got to follow that mouse out into the street and have him arrested. It’s a public duty.”

  Mrs. Somers: “Don’t throw ridicule on it!” After a moment: “You know I can’t let you go till I’ve seen that mouse leave this room. Go all round, and stamp in the corners.” She covers her face again. “Ugh!”

  Campbell: “How are you going to see him leave the room if you won’t look? He’s left long ago. I wouldn’t stay if I was a mouse. And I’ve got to go, anyway.”

  Mrs. Somers, uncovering her face: “No! I beg, I command you to stay, or I shall never get out of this room alive. You know I sha’n’t.” A ring at the street door is heard. “Oh dear, what shall I do? I’ve told Jane I would see anybody that called, and now I daren’t step my foot to the floor! What shall I do?”

  Campbell, with authority: “You must get down. There’s no mouse here, I tell you; and if people come and find you standing on a chair in your drawing-room, what will they think?”

  Mrs. Somers: “I can kneel on it.” She drops to her knees on the chair. “There!”

  Campbell: “That’s no better. It’s worse.”

  Mrs. Somers, listening to the party at the door below, which the maid has opened: “‘Sh! I want to make out who it is. ‘Sh! Yes — it is!” After listening: “Yes; it’s Mrs. Miller and Lou Bemis and Mrs. Curwen! I don’t see how they happen to come together, for Mrs. Miller and Mrs. Curwen perfectly hate each other. Oh yes! I know! They’re all on the way to Mrs. Ransom’s reception; he’s showing his pictures and some of her things — horrid daubs; I don’t see how she can have the face — and they’ve met here by accident. ‘Sh! She’s showing them into the reception-room. Yes, that’s quite right.” Mrs. Somers delivers these sentences in a piercing whisper of extreme volubility. “Now, as so
on as she brings up their cards, I’ll say I’m not at all well — that I’m engaged — just going out. No, that won’t do. I must be sick. Anything else would be perfectly insulting after saying that I was at home; and Jane has got to go back and tell them she forgot that I had gone to bed with a severe headache.” As Jane appears at the drawing-room door, and falters at sight of Mrs. Somers kneeling on her chair, that lady beckons her to her, frowning, shaking her head, and pressing her finger on her lip to enforce silence, and takes the cards from her, while she continues in whisper: “Yes. All right, Jane! Go straight back and tell them you forgot I had gone to bed with a perfectly blinding headache; and don’t let another soul into the house. Mr. Campbell saw a mouse, and I can’t get down till he’s caught it. Go!”

  II. JANE; MRS. SOMERS; MR. CAMPBELL; THEN MRS. MILLER; MRS. CURWEN; MRS. BEMIS.

  Jane, after a moment of petrifaction: “A mouse! In the room, here? Oh, my goodness gracious me!” She leaps upon the chair next to Mrs. Somers, who again springs to her feet.

  Mrs. Somers: “Did you see it? Oh, e-e-e-e!”

  Jane: “W-o-o-o-o! I don’t know! Where was it? Oh yes, I thought—” They clutch each other convulsively, and blend their cries, at the sound of which the ladies in the reception-room below come flocking up-stairs into the drawing-room.

  The ladies, at sight of Mrs. Somers and her servant: “What is it? what is it?”

  Mrs. Somers: “Oh, there’s a mouse in the room. Oh, jump on chairs!”

  Mrs. Miller, vaulting into the middle of the sofa: “A mouse!”

  Mrs. Lou Bemis, alighting upon a slight reception-chair: “Oh, not in this room, Mrs. Somers! Don’t say it!”

  Mrs. Curwen, with a laugh of mingled terror and enjoyment, from the top of the table where she finds herself: “Where is it?”

  Mrs. Somers: “I don’t know. I didn’t see it. But, oh! it’s here somewhere. Mr. Campbell saw it, and Jane did when she came up with your cards, and he’s been trying to drive it out, but he can’t even budge it; and—”