CHAPTER XVII. PENROD'S BUSY DAY
Although the pressure had thus been relieved and Penrod found peace withhimself, nevertheless there were times during the rest of that weekwhen he felt a strong distaste for Margaret. His schoolmates frequentlyreminded him of such phrases in her letter as they seemed least able toforget, and for hours after each of these experiences he was unable tocomport himself with human courtesy when constrained (as at dinner) toremain for any length of time in the same room with her. But by Sundaythese moods had seemed to pass; he attended church in her closecompany, and had no thought of the troubles brought upon him by hercorrespondence with a person who throughout remained unknown to him.
Penrod slumped far down in the pew with his knees against the back ofthat in front, and he also languished to one side, so that the peoplesitting behind were afforded a view of him consisting of a little hairand one bored ear. The sermon--a noble one, searching and eloquent--wasbut a persistent sound in that ear, though, now and then, Penrod'sattention would be caught by some detached portion of a sentence, whenhis mind would dwell dully upon the phrases for a little while and lapseinto a torpor. At intervals his mother, without turning her head, wouldwhisper, "Sit up, Penrod," causing him to sigh profoundly and move hisshoulders about an inch, this mere gesture of compliance exhausting allthe energy that remained to him.
The black backs and gray heads of the elderly men in the congregationoppressed him; they made him lethargic with a sense of long lives ofrepellent dullness. But he should have been grateful to the lady withthe artificial cherries upon her hat. His gaze lingered there, wanderedaway, and hopelessly returned again and again, to be a little refreshedby the glossy scarlet of the cluster of tiny globes. He was not sofortunate as to be drowsy; that would have brought him some relief--andyet, after a while, his eyes became slightly glazed; he saw dimly, andwhat he saw was distorted.
The church had been built in the early 'Seventies, and it containedsome naive stained glass of that period. The arch at the top of a windowfacing Penrod was filled with a gigantic Eye. Of oyster-white and rawblues and reds, inflamed by the pouring sun, it had held an awful placein the infantile life of Penrod Schofield, for in his tenderer years heaccepted it without question as the literal Eye of Deity. He had beeninformed that the church was the divine dwelling--and there was the Eye!
Nowadays, being no longer a little child, he had somehow come to knowbetter without being told, and, though the great flaming Eye was nolonger the terrifying thing it had been to him during his childhood, itnevertheless retained something of its ominous character. It made himfeel spied upon, and its awful glare still pursued him, sometimes, ashe was falling asleep at night. When he faced the window his feeling wasone of dull resentment.
His own glazed eyes, becoming slightly crossed with an ennui that waspeculiarly intense this morning, rendered the Eye more monstrous than itwas. It expanded to horrible size, growing mountainous; it turned intoa volcano in the tropics, and yet it stared at him, indubitably an Eyeimplacably hostile to all rights of privacy forever. Penrod blinked andclinched his eyelids to be rid of this dual image, and he managed toshake off the volcano. Then, lowering the angle of his glance, he sawsomething most remarkable--and curiously out of place.
An inverted white soup-plate was lying miraculously balanced upon theback of a pew a little distance in front of him, and upon the upturnedbottom of the soup-plate was a brown cocoanut. Mildly surprised,Penrod yawned, and, in the effort to straighten his eyes, came to lifetemporarily. The cocoanut was revealed as Georgie Bassett's head,and the soup-plate as Georgie's white collar. Georgie was sitting upstraight, as he always did in church, and Penrod found this verticalrectitude unpleasant. He knew that he had more to fear from the Eyethan Georgie had, and he was under the impression (a correct one) thatGeorgie felt on intimate terms with it and was actually fond of it.
Penrod himself would have maintained that he was fond of it, if he hadbeen asked. He would have said so because he feared to say otherwise;and the truth is that he never consciously looked at the Eyedisrespectfully. He would have been alarmed if he thought the Eye hadany way of finding out how he really felt about it. When not off hisguard, he always looked at it placatively.
By and by, he sagged so far to the left that he had symptoms of a"stitch in the side", and, rousing himself, sat partially straight forseveral moments. Then he rubbed his shoulders slowly from side to sideagainst the back of the seat, until his mother whispered, "Don't dothat, Penrod."
Upon this, he allowed himself to slump inwardly till the curve in theback of his neck rested against the curved top of the back of the seat.It was a congenial fit, and Penrod again began to move slowly from sideto side, finding the friction soothing. Even so slight a pleasure wasdenied him by a husky, "Stop that!" from his father.
Penrod sighed, and slid farther down. He scratched his head, his leftknee, his right biceps and his left ankle, after which he scratchedhis right knee, his right ankle and his left biceps. Then he said, "Oh,hum!" unconsciously, but so loudly that there was a reproving stir inthe neighbourhood of the Schofield pew, and his father looked at himangrily.
Finally, his nose began to trouble him. It itched, and after scratchingit, he rubbed it harshly. Another "Stop that!" from his father proved ofno avail, being greeted by a desperate-sounding whisper, "I GOT to!"
And, continuing to rub his nose with his right hand, Penrod began tosearch his pockets with his left. The quest proving fruitless, herubbed his nose with his left hand and searched with his right. Thenhe abandoned his nose and searched feverishly with both hands, goingthrough all of his pockets several times.
"What DO you want?" whispered his mother.
But Margaret had divined his need, and she passed him her ownhandkerchief. This was both thoughtful and thoughtless--the latterbecause Margaret was in the habit of thinking that she became faint incrowds, especially at the theatre or in church, and she had just soakedher handkerchief with spirits of ammonia from a small phial she carriedin her muff.
Penrod hastily applied the handkerchief to his nose and even morehastily exploded. He sneezed stupendously; he choked, sneezedagain, wept, passed into a light convulsion of coughing and sneezingtogether--a mergence of sound that attracted much attention--and, aftera few recurrent spasms, convalesced into a condition marked by silenttears and only sporadic instances of sneezing.
By this time his family were unanimously scarlet--his father and motherwith mortification, and Margaret with the effort to control the almostirresistible mirth that the struggles and vociferations of Penrod hadinspired within her. And yet her heart misgave her, for his bloodshotand tearful eyes were fixed upon her from the first and remained uponher, even when half-blinded with his agony; and their expression--asterrible as that of the windowed Eye confronting her--was not for aninstant to be misunderstood. Absolutely, he believed that she had handedhim the ammonia-soaked handkerchief deliberately and with malice, andwell she knew that no power on earth could now or at any time henceforthpersuade him otherwise.
"Of course I didn't mean it, Penrod," she said, at the first opportunityupon their homeward way. "I didn't notice--that is, I didn't think--"Unfortunately for the effect of sincerity she hoped to produce, hervoice became tremulous and her shoulders moved suspiciously.
"Just you wait! You'll see!" he prophesied, in a voice now choking, notwith ammonia, but with emotion. "Poison a person, and then laugh in hisface!"
He spake no more until they had reached their own house, though she madesome further futile efforts at explanation and apology.
And after brooding abysmally throughout the meal that followed, hedisappeared from the sight of his family, having answered with onefrightful look his mother's timid suggestion that it was almost timefor Sunday-school. He retired to his eyry--the sawdust box in the emptystable--and there gave rein to his embittered imaginings, incidentallyforming many plans for Margaret.
Most of these were much too elaborate; but one was so alluring that hedwelt upo
n it, working out the details with gloomy pleasure, even afterhe had perceived its defects. It involved some postponement--in fact,until Margaret should have become the mother of a boy about Penrod'spresent age. This boy would be precisely like Georgie Bassett--Penrodconceived that as inevitable--and, like Georgie, he would be hismother's idol. Penrod meant to take him to church and force him to blowhis nose with an ammonia-soaked handkerchief in the presence of the Eyeand all the congregation.
Then Penrod intended to say to this boy, after church, "Well, that'sexackly what your mother did to me, and if you don't like it, you betterlook out!"
And the real Penrod in the sawdust box clenched his fists. "Come ahead,then!" he muttered. "You talk too much!" Whereupon, the Penrod of hisdream gave Margaret's puny son a contemptuous thrashing under the eyesof his mother, who besought in vain for mercy. This plan was finallydropped, not because of any lingering nepotism within Penrod, butbecause his injury called for action less belated.
One after another, he thought of impossible things; one after another,he thought of things merely inane and futile, for he was trying todo something beyond his power. Penrod was never brilliant, or evensuccessful, save by inspiration.
At four o'clock he came into the house, still nebulous, and as he passedthe open door of the library he heard a man's voice, not his father's.
"To me," said this voice, "the finest lines in all literature are thosein Tennyson's 'Maud'--
"'Had it lain for a century dead, My dust would hear her and beat, Andblossom in purple and red, There somewhere around near her feet.'
"I think I have quoted correctly," continued the voice nervously, "but,at any rate, what I wished to--ah--say was that I often think of thoseah--words; but I never think of them without thinking of--of--of YOU.I--ah--"
The nervous voice paused, and Penrod took an oblique survey of the room,himself unobserved. Margaret was seated in an easy chair and her facewas turned away from Penrod, so that her expression of the momentremained unknown to him. Facing her, and leaning toward her withperceptible emotion, was Mr. Claude Blakely--a young man with whomPenrod had no acquaintance, though he had seen him, was aware of hisidentity, and had heard speech between Mrs. Schofield and Margaret whichindicated that Mr. Blakely had formed the habit of calling frequently atthe house. This was a brilliantly handsome young man; indeed, his facewas so beautiful that even Penrod was able to perceive something aboutit which might be explicably pleasing--at least to women. And Penrodremembered that, on the last evening before Mr. Robert Williams'sdeparture for college, Margaret had been peevish because Penrod hadgenially spent the greater portion of the evening with Robert andherself upon the porch. Margaret made it clear, later, that she stronglypreferred to conduct her conversations with friends unassisted--and asPenrod listened to the faltering words of Mr. Claude Blakely, he feltinstinctively that, in a certain contingency, Margaret's indignationwould be even more severe to-day than on the former occasion.
Mr. Blakely coughed faintly and was able to continue.
"I mean to say that when I say that what Tennyson says--ah--seems to--toapply to--to a feeling about you--"
At this point, finding too little breath in himself to proceed, in spiteof the fact that he had spoken in an almost inaudible tone, Mr. Blakelystopped again.
Something about this little scene was making a deep impression uponPenrod. What that impression was, he could not possibly have stated;but he had a sense of the imminence of a tender crisis, and he perceivedthat the piquancy of affairs in the library had reached a point whichwould brand an intentional interruption as the act of a cold-bloodedruffian. Suddenly it was as though a strong light shone upon him: hedecided that it was Mr. Blakely who had told Margaret that her eyeswere like blue stars in heaven--THIS was the person who had caused thehateful letter to be written! That decided Penrod; his inspiration, solong waited for, had come.
"I--I feel that perhaps I am not plain," said Mr. Blakely, andimmediately became red, whereas he had been pale. He was at least modestenough about his looks to fear that Margaret might think he had referredto them. "I mean, not plain in another sense--that is, I mean not that_I_ am not plain in saying what I mean to you--I mean, what you mean toME! I feel--"
This was the moment selected by Penrod. He walked carelessly into thelibrary, inquiring in a loud, bluff voice:
"Has anybody seen my dog around here anywheres?"
Mr. Blakely had inclined himself so far toward Margaret, and he wassitting so near the edge of the chair, that only a really wonderful bitof instinctive gymnastics landed him upon his feet instead of upon hisback. As for Margaret, she said, "Good gracious!" and regarded Penrodblankly.
"Well," said Penrod breezily, "I guess it's no use lookin' for him--heisn't anywheres around. I guess I'll sit down." Herewith, he sank intoan easy chair, and remarked, as in comfortable explanation, "I'm kind oftired standin' up, anyway."
Even in this crisis, Margaret was a credit to her mother's training.
"Penrod, have you met Mr. Blakely?"
"What?"
Margaret primly performed the rite.
"Mr. Blakely, this is my little brother Penrod."
Mr. Blakely was understood to murmur, "How d'ye do?"
"I'm well," said Penrod.
Margaret bent a perplexed gaze upon him, and he saw that she had notdivined his intentions, though the expression of Mr. Blakely was alreadybeginning to be a little compensation for the ammonia outrage. Then,as the protracted silence which followed the introduction began to be asevere strain upon all parties, Penrod felt called upon to relieve it.
"I didn't have anything much to do this afternoon, anyway," he said. Andat that there leaped a spark in Margaret's eye; her expression becamesevere.
"You should have gone to Sunday-school," she told him crisply.
"Well, I didn't!" said Penrod, with a bitterness so significant ofsufferings connected with religion, ammonia, and herself, that Margaret,after giving him a thoughtful look, concluded not to urge the point.
Mr. Blakely smiled pleasantly. "I was looking out of the window a minuteago," he said, "and I saw a dog run across the street and turn thecorner."
"What kind of a lookin' dog was it?" Penrod inquired, with languor.
"Well," said Mr. Blakely, "it was a--it was a nice-looking dog."
"What colour was he?"
"He was--ah--white. That is, I think--"
"It wasn't Duke," said Penrod. "Duke's kind of brownish-gray-like."
Mr. Blakely brightened.
"Yes, that was it," he said. "This dog I saw first had another dog withhim--a brownish-gray dog."
"Little or big?" Penrod asked, without interest.
"Why, Duke's a little dog!" Margaret intervened. "Of COURSE, if it waslittle, it must have been Duke."
"It WAS little," said Mr. Blakely too enthusiastically. "It was a littlebit of a dog. I noticed it because it was so little."
"Couldn't 'a' been Duke, then," said Penrod. "Duke's a kind of amiddle-sized dog." He yawned, and added: "I don't want him now. I wantto stay in the house this afternoon, anyway. And it's better for Duke tobe out in the fresh air."
Mr. Blakely coughed again and sat down, finding little to say. It wasevident, also, that Margaret shared his perplexity; and another silencebecame so embarrassing that Penrod broke it.
"I was out in the sawdust-box," he said, "but it got kind of chilly."Neither of his auditors felt called upon to offer any comment, andpresently he added, "I thought I better come in here where it's warmer."
"It's too warm,"' said Margaret, at once. "Mr. Blakely, would you mindopening a window?"
"By all means!" the young man responded earnestly, as he rose. "MaybeI'd better open two?"
"Yes," said Margaret; "that would be much better."
But Penrod watched Mr. Blakely open two windows to their widest, andbetrayed no anxiety. His remarks upon the relative temperatures ofthe sawdust-box and the library had been made merely for the sake ofcreating sound in a silent place.
When the windows had been open forseveral minutes, Penrod's placidity, though gloomy, denoted anything butdiscomfort from the draft, which was powerful, the day being windy.
It was Mr. Blakely's turn to break a silence, and he did it sounexpectedly that Margaret started. He sneezed.
"Perhaps--" Margaret began, but paused apprehensively."Perhaps-per-per--" Her apprehensions became more and more poignant; hereyes seemed fixed upon some incredible disaster; she appeared to inflatewhile the catastrophe she foresaw became more and more imminent. All atonce she collapsed, but the power decorum had over her was attested bythe mildness of her sneeze after so threatening a prelude.
"Perhaps I'd better put one of the windows down," Mr. Blakely suggested.
"Both, I believe," said Margaret. "The room has cooled off, now, Ithink."
Mr. Blakely closed the windows, and, returning to a chair near Margaret,did his share in the production of another long period of quiet. Penrodallowed this one to pass without any vocal disturbance on his part. Itmay be, however, that his gaze was disturbing to Mr. Blakely, upon whoseperson it was glassily fixed with a self-forgetfulness that was almostmorbid.
"Didn't you enjoy the last meeting of the Cotillion Club?" Margaret saidfinally.
And upon Mr. Blakely's answering absently in the affirmative, shesuddenly began to be talkative. He seemed to catch a meaning in herfluency, and followed her lead, a conversation ensuing which at firsthad all the outward signs of eagerness. They talked with warm interestof people and events unknown to Penrod; they laughed enthusiasticallyabout things beyond his ken; they appeared to have arranged a perfectway to enjoy themselves, no matter whether he was with them or elsewherebut presently their briskness began to slacken; the appearance ofinterest became perfunctory. Within ten minutes the few last scatteringsemblances of gayety had passed, and they lapsed into the longest andmost profound of all their silences indoors that day. Its effect uponPenrod was to make him yawn and settle himself in his chair.
Then Mr. Blakely, coming to the surface out of deep inward communings,snapped his finger against the palm of his hand impulsively.
"By George!" he exclaimed, under his breath.
"What is it?" Margaret asked. "Did you remember something?"
"No, it's nothing," he said. "Nothing at all. But, by the way, it seemsa pity for you to be missing the fine weather. I wonder if I couldpersuade you to take a little walk?"
Margaret, somewhat to the surprise of both the gentlemen present, lookeduncertain.
"I don't know," she said.
Mr. Blakely saw that she missed his point.
"One can talk better in the open, don't you think?" he urged, with asignificant glance toward Penrod.
Margaret also glanced keenly at Penrod. "Well, perhaps." And then, "I'llget my hat," she said.
Penrod was on his feet before she left the room. He stretched himself.
"I'll get mine, too," he said.
But he carefully went to find it in a direction different from thattaken by his sister, and he joined her and her escort not till they wereat the front door, whither Mr. Blakely--with a last flickering of hopehad urged a flight in haste.
"I been thinkin' of takin' a walk, all afternoon," said Penrodpompously. "Don't matter to me which way we go."
The exquisite oval of Mr. Claude Blakely's face merged into outlinesmore rugged than usual; the conformation of his jaw became perceptible,and it could be seen that he had conceived an idea which wascrystallizing into a determination.
"I believe it happens that this is our first walk together," he said toMargaret, as they reached the pavement, "but, from the kind of tennisyou play, I judge that you could go a pretty good gait. Do you likewalking fast?"
She nodded. "For exercise."
"Shall we try it then?"
"You set the pace," said Margaret. "I think I can keep up."
He took her at her word, and the amazing briskness of their start seemeda little sinister to Penrod, though he was convinced that he coulddo anything that Margaret could do, and also that neither she nor hercomely friend could sustain such a speed for long. On the contrary, theyactually increased it with each fleeting block they covered.
"Here!" he panted, when they had thus put something more than ahalf-mile behind them. "There isn't anybody has to have a doctor, Iguess! What's the use our walkin' so fast?"
In truth, Penrod was not walking, for his shorter legs permitted noactual walking at such a speed; his gait was a half-trot.
"Oh, WE'RE out for a WALK!" Mr. Blakely returned, a note of gayetybeginning to sound in his voice. "Marg--ah--Miss Schofield, keep yourhead up and breathe through your nose. That's it! You'll find I wasright in suggesting this. It's going to turn out gloriously! Now, let'smake it a little faster."
Margaret murmured inarticulately, for she would not waste her breath ina more coherent reply. Her cheeks were flushed; her eyes were brimmingwith the wind, but when she looked at Penrod, they were brimming withsomething more. Gurgling sounds came from her.
Penrod's expression had become grim. He offered no second protest,mainly because he, likewise, would not waste his breath, and if hewould, he could not. Of breath in the ordinary sense breath, breathedautomatically--he had none. He had only gasps to feed his straininglungs, and his half-trot, which had long since become a trot, waschanged for a lope when Mr. Blakely reached his own best burst of speed.
And now people stared at the flying three. The gait of Margaret andMr. Blakely could be called a walk only by courtesy, while Penrod's wasbecoming a kind of blind scamper. At times he zigzagged; other times,he fell behind, wabbling. Anon, with elbows flopping and his facesculptured like an antique mask, he would actually forge ahead, and thencarom from one to the other of his companions as he fell back again.
Thus the trio sped through the coming of autumn dusk, outflying thefallen leaves that tumbled upon the wind. And still Penrod held to thetask that he had set himself. The street lamps flickered into life, buton and on Claude Blakely led the lady, and on and on reeled thegrim Penrod. Never once was he so far from them that they could haveexchanged a word unchaperoned by his throbbing ear.
"OH!" Margaret cried, and, halting suddenly, she draped herself about alamp-post like a strip of bunting. "Guh-uh-guh-GOODNESS!" she sobbed.
Penrod immediately drooped to the curb-stone, which he reached, by purefortune, in a sitting position. Mr. Blakely leaned against a fence, andsaid nothing, though his breathing was eloquent. "We--we must go--gohome," Margaret gasped. "We must, if--if we can drag ourselves!"
Then Penrod showed them what mettle they he'd tried to crack. A paroxysmof coughing shook him; he spoke through it sobbingly:
"'Drag!' 'S jus' lul-like a girl! Ha-why I walk--OOF!--faster'n thatevery day--on my--way to school." He managed to subjugate a tendency tonausea. "What you--want to go--home for?" he said. "Le's go on!"
In the darkness Mr. Claude Blakely's expression could not be seen,nor was his voice heard. For these and other reasons, his opinions andsentiments may not be stated.
... Mrs. Schofield was looking rather anxiously forth from her frontdoor when the two adult figures and the faithful smaller one came up thewalk.
"I was getting uneasy," she said. "Papa and I came in and found thehouse empty. It's after seven. Oh, Mr. Blakely, is that you?"
"Good-evening," he said. "I fear I must be keeping an engagement.Good-night. Good-night, Miss Schofield."
"Good-night."
"Well, good-night," Penrod called, staring after him. But Mr. Blakelywas already too far away to hear him, and a moment later Penrod followedhis mother and sister into the house.
"I let Della go to church," Mrs. Schofield said to Margaret. "You and Imight help Katie get supper."
"Not for a few minutes," Margaret returned gravely, looking at Penrod."Come upstairs, mamma; I want to tell you something."
Penrod cackled hoarse triumph and defiance.
"Go on! Tell! What _'I_ care? You try to poison a person in churchagain, and t
hen laugh in his face, you'll see what you get!"
But after his mother had retired with Margaret to the latter's room, hebegan to feel disturbed in spite of his firm belief that his causewas wholly that of justice victorious. Margaret had insidious ways ofstating a case; and her point of view, no matter how absurd or unjust,was almost always adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Schofield in cases ofcontroversy.
Penrod became uneasy. Perceiving himself to be in danger, he decidedthat certain measures were warranted. Unquestionably, it would be wellto know beforehand in what terms Margaret would couch the chargeswhich he supposed he must face in open court--that is to say, at thesupper-table. He stole softly up the stairs, and, flattening himselfagainst the wall, approached Margaret's door, which was about an inchajar.
He heard his mother making sounds which appalled him--he took them forsobs. And then Margaret's voice rang out in a peal of insane laughter.Trembling, he crept nearer the door. Within the room Margaret wasclinging to her mother, and both were trying to control their hilarity.
"He did it all to get even!" Margaret exclaimed, wiping her eyes. "Hecame in at just the right time. That GOOSE was beginning to talk hissilly, soft talk--the way he does with every girl in town--and he wasalmost proposing, and I didn't know how to stop him. And then Penrodcame in and did it for me. I could have hugged Penrod, mamma, I actuallycould! And I saw he meant to stay to get even for that ammonia--and, oh,I worked so hard to make him think I wanted him to GO! Mamma, mamma, ifyou could have SEEN that walk! That GOOSE kept thinking he could wearPenrod out or drop him behind, but I knew he couldn't so long as Penrodbelieved he was worrying us and getting even. And that GOOSE thought IWANTED to get rid of Penrod, too; and the conceited thing said it wouldturn out 'gloriously,' meaning we'd be alone together pretty soon--I'dlike to shake him! You see, I pretended so well, in order to make Penrodstick to us, that GOOSE believed I meant it! And if he hadn't tried towalk Penrod off his legs, he wouldn't have wilted his own collar andworn himself out, and I think he'd have hung on until you'd have had toinvite him to stay to supper, and he'd have stayed on all evening, andI wouldn't have had a chance to write to Robert Williams. Mamma, therehave been lots of times when I haven't been thankful for Penrod, butto-day I could have got down on my knees to you and papa for giving mesuch a brother!"
In the darkness of the hall, as a small but crushed and broken formstole away from the crack in the door, a gigantic Eye seemed toform--seemed to glare down upon Penrod--warning him that the way ofvengeance is the way of bafflement, and that genius may not prevailagainst the trickeries of women.
"This has been a NICE day!" Penrod muttered hoarsely.
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