The Unspeakable Gentleman

by John P. Marquand

  III

  I had remembered him as a man who disliked talk. I had often seen himsit for hours on end without a word, looking at nothing in particular,with his expressionless serenity. But on this particular evening theday's activities appeared to have made his social instincts vividlyassertive, and to arouse him to unusual, and almost unnatural animation.As we sat at a small round table beside the dining room fireplace, helaunched into a cheerful discourse, ignoring completely any displeasureI attempted to assume. The great room with its dingy wainscot only halflighted by the candles on the table before us, was cluttered with ahundred odds and ends that collect in a deserted house--a ladder, astiff, rusted bridle, a coil of frayed rope, a kettle, a dozen sheets ofthe Gazette, empty bottles, dusty crockery and broken chairs. Hesurveyed them all with a bland, uncritical glance. From his manner hemight have been surrounded by brilliant company. From his conversationhe might have been in a pot house.

  I noticed at once what many had been at pains to mention to mebefore--that my father was not a temperate man. Nor did our cellar seemwholly bleak. He pressed wine upon me, and soon had finished a bottlehimself, only to gesture Brutus to uncork a second. And all the while heregaled me with anecdotes of the gaming table and the vices of a dozenseaports. With hardly a pause he described a lurid succession ofdrinking bouts and gallant adventures. He finished a second bottle ofwine, and was half way through a third. Yet all the while his voicenever lost its pleasant modulation. Never a flush or an increase ofanimation came to change him. Politely detached, he discoursed of loveand murder, gambling and chicanery, drawing on the seemingly exhaustlessbackground of his own experience for illustration. He seemed to haveknown the worst men from all the ends of the earth, to have shared intheir business and their pleasures. He seemed to have been in everydiscreditable undertaking that came beneath his notice. In retrospectthey pleased him--all and every one.

  What he saw when he glanced at me appeared to please him also. At anyrate, it gave him the encouragement that one usually receives from anattentive listener.

  "Brutus, again a bottle. It is at the fourth bottle," he explained, "thatI am at my best. It is the fourth bottle, or perhaps the fifth, thatseems to free me from the restraints that old habits and early educationhave wound about me. _In vino veritas_, my son, but the truth must bemeasured in quarts for each individual. Some men I know might be drownedin wine and still be hypocrites, so solidly are their heads placed upontheir shoulders. But my demands are modest, my son, just as modest as Iam a modest sinner."

  He called to Brutus to toss more wood upon the fire, leaned back for awhile, holding his glass to the light of the flames, and turned to meagain with his cool, perfunctory smile.

  "Strange, is it not, that men through all the ages have sought fools andcharlatans to tell their fortunes, when a little wine is clearer than themost mystic ball of crystal. Before the bottle the priests of Egypt andthe Delphic oracle seem as faint, my son, as the echoes in a snail shell.Palmistry and astrology--let us fling them into the whirlpool of vanity!But give a man wine enough, and any observer can tell his possibilities.A touch of it--and where are the barriers with which he has surroundedhimself? Another drop, and how futile are all the deceptions which he iswont to practice upon others! In St. Kitts once I drank wine with a mostrespectable merchant, a man who carried the Bible beside his snuff box,and referred to both almost as frequently as he did to the profit andbalance on his ledger. And would you believe it? The next time he met me,he blamed me for the loss of many thousands of pounds. He even laid at mydoor certain reprehensible indiscretions of his wife, though I could havetold him that night over the glasses that both were inevitable longbefore either occurred.

  "But pray do not look at me so blankly, my son. It was not clairvoyanceon my part--merely simple reasoning, aided by very excellent and veryheady Madeira. How true it is that there is truth in wine--and money too,if the grape is used to the proper advantage.

  "Again--some men talk of fortune at cards, good luck or bad, but as forme, I can tell how the luck will run by the number of bottles that areplaced beside the table. A little judgment, and the crudestreasoning--that is all. But doubtless mutual friends have alreadyhinted to you of my propensities at cards--and other things. Is it notso, my son?"

  Was it the gentle inflection of the question, or his intent glance thatmade me feel, as I had felt before that day, that I was face to face withan alert antagonist? He called on me to speak, and I was loth to break mysilence. If he had only left me to my own bitter thoughts,--but whyshould I have expected him to be tactful? Why should I have expected himto be different from the gossip that clouded his name?

  "Your card playing is still remembered, sir," I told him. "I have heardof it two months back."

  Deliberately he pushed one of the candles aside, so that the light shouldstand less between us, poured himself another glass of wine, and flickedthe dust from the bottle off his sleeve.

  "Indeed?" was his comment. "Your memory does you credit, even thoughyouthful impressions are apt to lodge fast. Or shall I say it is onlyanother proof of the veracity of my man of business? Two months ago, ata certain little gathering, someone, whose name I have yet to discover,informed you of certain bad habits I had contracted in games of chance. Iremember being interested at the time that my reputation lasted so wellin my absence. But I beg you--let me confirm the report still further. AmI mistaken in believing you made some apt retort?"

  "Sir," I said in a voice that sounded strangely discordant, "I toldhim he lied."

  "Ha!" said my father, and for a moment I thought he was going to commendmy act, but instead his eyes moved to the table.

  "Brutus," he continued, "is my mind becoming cloudy, or is it true thewine is running low? Open another bottle, Brutus."

  There was a silence while he raised his glass to his lips.

  "And am I right," he asked, "in recalling that you allowed yourself theliberty--of punctuating that comment?"

  "You have been well informed, sir," I answered. "I struck him inthe face."

  He waved a hand to me in a pleasant gesture of acknowledgment, and halfturned in his chair, the better to speak over his shoulder.

  "Did I hear aright, Brutus?" he inquired. "There's faith for you andloyalty! He called the boy a liar who called me a cheat at cards! Ah,those illusions of youth! Ah for that sweet mirage that used to glitterin the sky overhead! It's only the wine that brings it back today--calledhim a liar, Brutus, and gave him the blow!"

  "But pardon," he went on. His voice was still grave and slow, though hislips were bent in a bitter little smile. His face had reddened, and itwas the wine, I think, that made his eyes dance in the candle light."Overlook, I beg, the rudeness of my interruption. The exceptional inyour narrative quite intrigues me, my son. Doubtless your impulsiveaction led to the conventional result?"

  There he sat, amusedly examining me, smiling at my rising temper. Myreply shaped itself almost without my volition.

  "Excuse me, sir," I retorted, "if I say the result was more natural thanyour action upon a greater provocation."

  "Had it ever occurred to you, my son, that perhaps my self-control wasgreater also? Let us call it so, at any rate, and go on with ouradventure."

  "As you will, sir," I said. "We all make our mistakes."

  He raised his eyebrows in polite surprise, and his hand in a gestureof protest.

  "Our mistakes? Was I not right in believing you had a competentinstructor? I begin to fear your education is deficient. Surely you haveagility and courage. Why a mistake, my son?"

  "The mistake," I replied, "was in the beginning and not in the end. Imade the error in believing he told an untruth."

  "Indeed?" said my father. "Thank you, Brutus, I have had wine enough forthe evening. Do you not consider your error--how shall we put it--quiteinexcusable in view of the other things you have doubtless heard?"

  But I could only stare dumbly at him across the table.

  "Come, come," he continued. "How goes the g
ossip now? Surely there ismore about me. Surely you have heard"--he paused to drain the dregs inhis glass--"the rest?"

  I eyed him for a moment in silence before I answered, but he met myglance fairly, indulging apparently in the same curiosity, half idle,half cynical, that he might have displayed before some episode of thetheatre. It was a useless question that he asked. He knew too well thatthe answer was obvious.

  "Yes," I said, "I have heard it."

  "So," he exclaimed cheerfully, "my reputation still continues. Wonderful,is it not, how durable a bad reputation is, and how fragile a good one.One bounds back like a rubber ball. The other shatters like a lustrepunch bowl. And did the same young man--I presume he was young--enlightenyou about this, the most fatal parental weakness?"

  "No," I said, "I learned of it later."

  He raised his hand and began gently stroking his coat lapel, his fingersquickly crossing it in a vain search for some imaginary wrinkle, movingback and forth with a steady persistence, while he watched me, stillamused, still indifferent.

  "And might I ask who told you?" he inquired.

  "Your brother-in-law," I replied, "My Uncle Jason."

  "Dieu!" cried my father, "but I grow careless."

  He was looking ruefully at his lapel. Somehow the threads had given way,and there was a rent in the gray satin.

  "Another coat ruined," he observed, and the raillery was gone from hisvoice. "How fortunate it is that the evening is well along, and bed timeis nearly here. One coat torn in the brambles, and one with a knife, andnow--But your uncle was right, quite right in telling you. Indeed, Ishould have done the same myself. The truth first, my son. Alwaysremember that."

  And he turned again to his coat.

  "I told him I did not believe it," I ventured, but the appeal in myvoice, if there was any, passed him quite unnoticed.

  "Indeed?" he said. "Brutus, you will put an extra blanket on my bed, forI fancy the night air is biting."

  I pushed back my chair.

  "And now, you will excuse me" I said, "if I take my leave."

  I rose a trifle unsteadily, and stood before him, with no particulareffort to hide my anger and contempt. But apparently I had ceased to beof interest. He was sitting just as I had first seen him that morning,staring into the embers of the fire. As I watched him, even through myanger I felt a vague regret, a touch of pity--pity for a life that waswasted in spite of its possibilities, in boasting and blackguardry. Ibegan hoping that he would speak, would argue or remonstrate. Instead, hesaid nothing, only sat serenely indifferent, his eyes still on the fire.Stepping around the debris that filled the room, I had placed my hand onthe latch, when I heard a stealthy footstep behind me. Brutus was at myelbow. There was a tinkle of a wine glass falling on the hearth. I turnedto see my father facing me beside the table I had quitted--the calmmodulation gone from his voice, his whole body poised and alert, asthough ready to spring through the space that separated us.

  "No doubt," he said, drawing a deep breath, "you are leaving this housebecause you cannot bear to stay under the same roof with a man of mystamp and accomplishments. Come, is that the reason?"

  "Only partly," I answered, turning to face him, and then the wordstripped off my tongue, hot and bitter, before I had wit to check them."What right have I to be particular, now that I have found out myinheritance? Why should I pick my company? Why should I presume to holdmy head up? I can only be blessed now, sir, like the rest of the meek."

  I paused to let my final words sink in, and because I knew they wouldhurt him, I spoke them with an added satisfaction.

  "I shall start at once to acquire merit which the moth cannot corrupt," Icontinued. "I am leaving to apologize to the man I fought with because hecalled you a cheat--and to my uncle for doubting his word."

  My father's fist came down on the table with a crash.

  "Then, by God," he shouted, "you'll not leave this room! You'll not takea single step until you've learned two things, learned them so you'llnever forget. Stand where you are and listen!"