The Whirligig of Time Part 34

"Madge," replied Harry solemnly from the doorstep, "it will make Nirvana look like the Black Hole of Calcutta!"

If there rose in her mind one pang of remorse for her behavior that evening, one suggestion of a desire to rush out on the doorstep and fling herself into his arms and tell him what a fool she was, it was reduced to subjection before she had closed the door and entirely smothered by the time she reached the parlor again.

"No," she told herself quite firmly as she rearranged the tumbled sofa cus.h.i.+ons, "that would never do--that was part of the Bargain." Just what was part of the bargain or exactly what the bargain was she did not bother to specify. "No, I must wait," she continued, trying the locks of the windows; "I must wait, a long time, a long, _long_ time. Till next September, in fact. One always has to wait to find out; nothing but time can show. And of course one must be _sure_"--she turned out the gas--"first. _Perfectly_ sure--beyond all manner of doubt and question.

Both on my own account"--she reached up with considerable effort and turned out the hall light--"and Harry's."

"No," she amended as she felt with her foot for the first step of the dark staircase; "not on my account. On Harry's."

CHAPTER IV

WILD HORSES AND CHAMPAGNE

James Wimbourne always had the reputation of being an exceptionally strong-willed person. None of his friends would have been in the least surprised to see him come so triumphantly through the first real test that life offered him, if they had known anything about it. Not one of them did know anything about it; no human being ever vaguely surmised that he renounced--the word is a big one but the act was worthy of it--Beatrice in favor of his brother. Beatrice may have suspected it at first, but her suspicion, if it existed at all, died an easy and natural death. Harry suspected it least of all, which was just what James wanted. The one reason why the renunciation did not turn out entirely as James intended was one over which he had no control, namely, the simple fact that Harry was never in love with Beatrice.

But as a matter of fact one must look deeper into James' character to discover how it was that, long before the completion of the four years that the story has recently skipped, James was able to think of Beatrice without even a flutter of the heart. Deeply imbedded in his nature there lay a motive force to which his will power, as other people knew it, was merely the servant. This may perhaps be most safely described as James'

att.i.tude toward Harry. It is not easy to describe it. It does not do to lay stress upon the elements of brotherly affection, desire to protect, unselfishness and so forth, which made it up; those things all appear to smack of priggishness and cant and are at variance with the spontaneity of the thing we are talking about. One might perhaps refer to it as an ineradicable conviction in the soul of James that Harry was always to be thought of first.

Very few people are capable of entertaining such a feeling. Very few are worthy of it. James had just the sort of nature in which it is most likely to occur. The Germans have an apt phrase for this type of nature--_schone Seele_. James had a _schone Seele_. He had his tastes and feelings, of course, like any one else, but the good always came naturally to him; the bad was abnormal. And this was why he found it possible and even--after a certain time--easy to erase from his brain the image of Beatrice, and set up in its place a vision of Harry and Beatrice coming into a mutual realization of each other.

Well, it couldn't have been much of a love in the first place if it wasn't stronger than brotherly affection, does some one suggest? some one, we fancy, who is thoroughly familiar with the poems of the late Robert Browning and entertains a _penchant_ for the Paolo and Francesca brand of love. Well, possibly. We confess to our own moments of Paolomania; every healthy person has them. But we would call the attention of the aforesaid some one to the stern fact that love in the United States of America in the twentieth century is of necessity a different thing from love in--Rimini, we were going to say, but Rimini is a real place, with a railroad station and hotel omnibusses, so let us change it to Paolo-and-Francescadom. Also that he may have fostered his cult of Paoloism rather at the expense of his study of the _schone Seele_. And we would also suggest, meeting him on his own ground, that there is no evidence of Paolo ever having got along very well with Giovanni. For if he had, of course, that whole beautiful story might have been spoilt.

Then, of course, James' remoteness from Beatrice made it easier for him.

Love is primarily a matter of geography, anyway. With the result that finally, when the month of June arrived and with it the offer of the New York position, the danger implied in New York's proximity to New Haven and Beatrice was not enough to deter James from closing with it. He accepted the offer, as we know, and took up his duties in New York in September.

He took Stodger McClintock with him. Stodger by this time simply belonged to James, as far as the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation and other legal technicalities permit of one person belonging to another. He had already obtained for him a job as office boy in McClellan's and now proposed to take him east and educate him, with the eventual idea of turning him into a chauffeur. Stodger seemed delighted with the prospect.

"Only," he objected, "please, I'll have to ask me grand-mudder!"

"Oh, of course," said James gravely. "You couldn't go without her consent. I'll have a talk with her myself, if you like."

Stodger seemed to think that would not be necessary. It ended by James taking a small apartment and installing Stodger as ch.o.r.e boy under the command of an eagle-eyed Swedish woman, where he could divide his time between cleaning shoes and attending high school.

October arrived; it was ten months since James had seen Beatrice and he decided it was now time to see her again, to make the sight of her and Harry together chase the last shreds of regret from his mind. So he wrote to Aunt Selina announcing that he would spend his next free Sat.u.r.day night in New Haven.

It happened that Aunt Selina had fixed upon that night to have some people to dinner. When she learned that James would be one of the number that idea vanished in smoke and from its ashes, phoenix-like, arose the conception of making it a real occasion; not dinner, nor people-to-dinner, but frankly, out-and-out, A Dinner, like that. She arranged to have eighteen, and sent out invitations accordingly.

James did not see Beatrice until nearly dinner-time on the Sat.u.r.day night. He came downstairs at five minutes or so before the hour and discovered Harry standing before the drawing-room fireplace with Aunt Selina placidly sitting on a sofa and Beatrice flying about giving a finis.h.i.+ng touch here and there. There was no strain or uneasiness about the meeting; his "h.e.l.lo, Beatrice," received by her almost on the wing as she pa.s.sed on some slight preprandial mission, was a model of cordial familiarity. And if she had not been too preoccupied to let the meeting be in the least awkward, Harry, gaily chattering from the chimney-piece, would have been enough to prevent it anyway.

"Well, here we all are," Harry was saying, "and n.o.body here to entertain. Of course if we had all happened to be a minute or two late there would have been a crowd of people waiting for us. We won't complain, though; being too early is the one great social sin. Yes, Aunt Selina dear, I know people didn't think so in the Hayes administration ... Beatrice, do stop pecking at those roses; they look very well indeed. You make me feel as if my hair wasn't properly brushed, or my s.h.i.+rt-front spotted. This suspense is telling on me; why doesn't somebody come?"

Somebody did come almost immediately. Aunt Selina arose and stood in state in front of the fireplace to receive, and she made James stand with her, as though as a reward for returning to the eastern half of the country. He looked extremely well standing there. There was not one of the guests that came up and shook his hand that did not mentally congratulate the house of Wimbourne upon its present head.

In some ways, indeed, one might say that those few minutes formed the very apex of James' life, the point toward which his whole past appeared to rise and his future to descend from. There are such moments in men's careers; moments to which one can point and say, Would that chance and my own nature had permitted me to stay there for the rest of my natural days! Surely there can be no harm in a soul remaining static if the level at which it remains is sufficiently high. Here was James, for example, not merely rich, good-looking, clever rather than otherwise, beloved of his fellow men, but with a very palpable balance on the side of good in his character. Why could not fate leave him stranded on that high point for the rest of his life, radiating goodness and happiness to every one who came near him? _Schone Seelen_ are rare enough in this world anyway; what a pity it is that they should not always be allowed to s.h.i.+ne to the greatest possible advantage! What a pity it is that so many of them are overwhelmed with shadows too deep for their struggling rays to pierce; shadows so thick that the poor little flames are accounted lucky if they can manage to burn on invisibly in the darkness, illuminating nothing but their own frail substance, content merely to live! The thought, indeed, would be intolerable were it not for certain other considerations; as for example, that the purest flames burn clearest in the darkness, or that a candle at midnight is worth more than an arc-light at noonday.

Having successfully survived the first meeting, James found himself performing the duties of the evening with astonis.h.i.+ng ease. He devoted himself chiefly to his right-hand neighbor, who for some reason was always referred to as "little" Mrs. Farnsworth. He was not conscious of the slightest feeling of strain in his conversation; he got on so well and so easily that he perhaps failed to realize that his was a real effort, made with the undoubted though unconscious purpose of keeping his mind off other things. If he had not succeeded so well, it might have been better. Certainly he would have been spared the let-down that he subsequently realized was inevitable. It came about halfway through dinner, in a general conversation which started with an account by James of Stodger's grandmother.

He had made rather a good thing of this. "Of course I never force his hand," he was explaining; "I never ask him out and out what her name is and where she lives; I try to give the impression of believing in her as profoundly as himself. But it's most amusing to see how cleverly he dodges the questions I do ask. When we were about to come east, for instance, I asked him how his grandmother dared to trust him so far away without seeing me or knowing anything about me. He replied that she was satisfied with the description he gave her of me. 'But Stodger,' I said, 'doesn't she want to see with her own eyes?' 'She's my _grand_mother, not my mother,' he answered, which really covered the matter pretty well."

"But he's never shown you either her or a letter from her?" asked Mrs.

Farnsworth.

"Of course not--how could he? Oh, I must say I admire him for it! You see, I found him living practically in the gutter, sleeping Heaven knows where and eating Heaven knows what; but through it all he hung onto this grandmother business as his one last tie with the world of respectability and good clothes and enough to eat. I think I never saw a person get so much out of a mere idea."

"It shows imagination, certainly," murmured Mrs. Farnsworth appreciatively, but her remark was drowned in the question of her right-hand neighbor, who had been listening to James' narrative and joined in with:

"Have you ever succeeded in getting any idea of what the old lady is like? I should think the boy's mental picture of a grandmother might form a key to his whole character."

"No," replied James; "I've never asked him anything very definite. I must find out something more about her some time."

"What would the ideal grandmother be like, I wonder?" queried Mrs.

Farnsworth. "Yours or mine, for example? Mine would be a dear old soul with a white cap and curls, whom I should always go to visit over Thanksgiving and eat too much pumpkin pie."

"Yes, I think that comes pretty near my ideal, too," said James; "provided she didn't want to kiss me too often and had no other bad habits."

"How idyllic!" said Mrs. Farnsworth's other neighbor. "Arcadians, both of you. I confess to something much more sophisticated; something living in town, say, with a box at the opera. Mrs. Harriman, it's your turn."

"Oh, leave me out!" answered Mrs. Harriman, a woman who still, at forty, gave the impression of being too young for her husband. "You see, I have a grandmother still living."

"So have I," irrepressibly retorted her neighbor, whose name was Nesmith; "two of them, in fact, and neither is anything like my ideal!

You can feel quite at your ease."

"Well, if I had to choose, I think I would have one more like yours, Mr.

Nesmith; only very old and dignified, something of the dowager type, who would tell delightful stories of Paris under Louis Philippe and Rome under the Popes, and possibly write some rather indiscreet memoirs.

Something definitely connecting my own time with hers, you know."

"Oh, I say, no fair!" interrupted James in unthoughtful high spirits.

"No fair stealing somebody else's grandmother! You've described Miss Carson's grandmother, Mrs. Harriman, unless I'm greatly mistaken.

Beatrice, isn't Mrs. Harriman's ideal grandmother suspiciously like old Lady Moville?"

Beatrice, who was sitting two places down the table from Mrs. Harriman, had heard the description; the grandmother conversation had, in fact, absorbed the attention of very nearly half the table.

"Very like, I admit; but Mrs. Harriman is quite welcome to her.... She is not exactly my ideal of a grandmother...!" She turned directly toward James and made the last remark straight at him with a sort of deprecating smile of comprehension. It was as though she said: "I say that to _you_ because I know you'll understand!" It did not amount to much; it was one of the fleeting signs of mutual comprehension that friends will frequently exchange in the presence of acquaintances. But unfortunately the remark and the way it was given were extremely ill-timed as far as James was concerned. The effect they caused in him may perhaps be best likened to one of those sudden fits of faintness that overcome people convalescing from a long illness; the sort of thing where you are all right one minute and gasping and calling for brandy the next, and the stronger you feel beforehand the harder the faintness seizes you when it comes. If James had been on the watch for such occurrences, the incident would not have had half the effect on him that it did. As it was, however, Beatrice's little speech and glance stirred into momentary activity much of the feeling that he had been striving all these months to keep down.

It was not really much; it did not actually undo the work of those ten months. James was really convalescent. But the suddenness of the thing overcame him for the moment and gave him a feeling approaching that of actual physical faintness. He saw a gla.s.s of champagne standing at his side and involuntarily reached toward it.

No one noticed him much. Mrs. Farnsworth was chattering easily with Mr.

Nesmith; conversation had resumed its normal course. Possibly the knowledge that James had touched on a rather doubtful topic, Beatrice's father's family, gave conversation a slight added impetus; certainly if anybody noticed James' embarra.s.sment they a.s.sumed that his slight indiscretion amply accounted for it. At any rate, when his embarra.s.sment led him so far as not only to reach for his left-hand neighbor's gla.s.s of champagne instead of his own but to tip it over in the process, the said left-hand neighbor, who happened to be Madge Elliston, attributed his action to that reason and acted accordingly.

With a tact that would have seemed overdone if it had not been so prompt and sufficient, she immediately a.s.sumed that it had been she who had knocked the gla.s.s over.

"Oh, I am so sorry!" she exclaimed. "I _am_ such an awkward idiot; I hope it didn't go all over you, James?... No, my dress is all right; apparently nothing but the tablecloth has suffered," and so forth, and so forth, to an accompaniment of gentle swabbings and s.h.i.+fting of table utensils.

"Oh, Madge?" said James vaguely. "That's all right--I mean, it's my fault, entirely...." He joined in the rescue work with grateful fervor, and in a moment a servant came up and did something efficient with a napkin. Madge chattered on.

"I never do get through a party without doing something silly! I'm glad it's nothing worse than this; I generally count that dinner as lost when I don't drop a hairpin into my food. I used to be quite embarra.s.sed about it, but I've got so now that I eat shamelessly on, right down to the hairpin. I wonder if your aunt saw? No--or rather, she did, and is far too polite to show it. She just won't ask me again, that's all!"