CHAPTER FIVE: The Love Story of Mr. Peter Spillikins
Almost any day, on Plutoria Avenue or thereabouts, you may see littleMr. Spillikins out walking with his four tall sons, who are practicallyas old as himself.
To be exact, Mr. Spillikins is twenty-four, and Bob, the oldest of theboys, must be at least twenty. Their exact ages are no longer known,because, by a dreadful accident, their mother forgot them. This was ata time when the boys were all at Mr. Wackem's Academy for ExceptionalYouths in the foothills of Tennessee, and while their mother, Mrs.Everleigh, was spending the winter on the Riviera and felt that fortheir own sake she must not allow herself to have the boys with her.
But now, of course, since Mrs. Everleigh has remarried and become Mrs.Everleigh-Spillikins there is no need to keep them at Mr. Wackem's anylonger. Mr. Spillikins is able to look after them.
Mr. Spillikins generally wears a little top hat and an English morningcoat. The boys are in Eton jackets and black trousers, which, at theirmother's wish, are kept just a little too short for them. This isbecause Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins feels that the day will come someday--say fifteen years hence--when the boys will no longer be children,and meantime it is so nice to feel that they are still mere boys. Bobis the eldest, but Sib the youngest is the tallest, whereas Willie thethird boy is the dullest, although this has often been denied by thosewho claim that Gib the second boy is just a trifle duller. Thus at anyrate there is a certain equality and good fellowship all round.
Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins is not to be seen walking with them. She isprobably at the race-meet, being taken there by Captain Cormorant ofthe United States navy, which Mr. Spillikins considers very handsome ofhim. Every now and then the captain, being in the navy, is compelled tobe at sea for perhaps a whole afternoon or even several days; in whichcase Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins is very generally taken to the Hunt Clubor the Country Club by Lieutenant Hawk, which Mr. Spillikins regards asawfully thoughtful of him. Or if Lieutenant Hawk is also out of townfor the day, as he sometimes has to be, because he is in the UnitedStates army, Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins is taken out by old ColonelShake, who is in the State militia and who is at leisure all the time.
During their walks on Plutoria Avenue one may hear the four boysaddressing Mr. Spillikins as "father" and "dad" in deep bull-frogvoices.
"Say, dad," drawls Bob, "couldn't we all go to the ball game?"
"No. Say, dad," says Gib, "let's all go back to the house and playfive-cent pool in the billiard-room."
"All right, boys," says Mr. Spillikins. And a few minutes later one maysee them all hustling up the steps of the Everleigh-Spillikins'smansion, quite eager at the prospect, and all talking together.
* * * * *
Now the whole of this daily panorama, to the eye that can read it,represents the outcome of the tangled love story of Mr. Spillikins,which culminated during the summer houseparty at Castel Casteggio, thewoodland retreat of Mr. and Mrs. Newberry.
But to understand the story one must turn back a year or so to the timewhen Mr. Peter Spillikins used to walk on Plutoria Avenue alone, or sitin the Mausoleum Club listening to the advice of people who told himthat he really ought to get married.
* * * * *
In those days the first thing that one noticed about Mr. PeterSpillikins was his exalted view of the other sex. Every time he passeda beautiful woman in the street he said to himself, "I say!" Even whenhe met a moderately beautiful one he murmured, "By Jove!" When anEaster hat went sailing past, or a group of summer parasols stoodtalking on a leafy corner, Mr. Spillikins ejaculated, "My word!" At theopera and at tango teas his projecting blue eyes almost popped out ofhis head.
Similarly, if he happened to be with one of his friends, he wouldmurmur, "I say, _do_ look at that beautiful girl," or would exclaim, "Isay, don't look, but isn't that an awfully pretty girl across thestreet?" or at the opera, "Old man, don't let her see you looking, butdo you see that lovely girl in the box opposite?"
One must add to this that Mr. Spillikins, in spite of his large andbulging blue eyes, enjoyed the heavenly gift of short sight. As aconsequence he lived in a world of amazingly beautiful women. And ashis mind was focused in the same way as his eyes he endowed them withall the virtues and graces which ought to adhere to fifty-dollarflowered hats and cerise parasols with ivory handles.
Nor, to do him justice, did Mr. Spillikins confine his attitude to hisview of women alone. He brought it to bear on everything. Every time hewent to the opera he would come away enthusiastic, saying, "By Jove,isn't it simply splendid! Of course I haven't the ear to appreciateit--I'm not musical, you know--but even with the little that I know,it's great; it absolutely puts me to sleep." And of each new novel thathe bought he said, "It's a perfectly wonderful book! Of course Ihaven't the head to understand it, so I didn't finish it, but it'ssimply thrilling." Similarly with painting, "It's one of the mostmarvellous pictures I ever saw," he would say. "Of course I've no eyefor pictures, and I couldn't see anything in it, but it's wonderful!"
The career of Mr. Spillikins up to the point of which we are speakinghad hitherto not been very satisfactory, or at least not from the pointof view of Mr. Boulder, who was his uncle and trustee. Mr. Boulder'sfirst idea had been to have Mr. Spillikins attend the university. Dr.Boomer, the president, had done his best to spread abroad the idea thata university education was perfectly suitable even for the rich; thatit didn't follow that because a man was a university graduate he needeither work or pursue his studies any further; that what the universityaimed to do was merely to put a certain stamp upon a man. That was all.And this stamp, according to the tenor of the president's convocationaddresses, was perfectly harmless. No one ought to be afraid of it. Asa result, a great many of the very best young men in the City, who hadno need for education at all, were beginning to attend college. "Itmarked," said Dr. Boomer, "a revolution."
Mr. Spillikins himself was fascinated with his studies. The professorsseemed to him living wonders.
"By Jove!" he said, "the professor of mathematics is a marvel. Youought to see him explaining trigonometry on the blackboard. You can'tunderstand a word of it." He hardly knew which of his studies he likedbest. "Physics," he said, "is a wonderful study. I got five per cent init. But, by Jove! I had to work for it. I'd go in for it altogether ifthey'd let me."
But that was just the trouble--they wouldn't. And so in course of timeMr. Spillikins was compelled, for academic reasons, to abandon his lifework. His last words about it were, "Gad! I nearly passed intrigonometry!" and he always said afterwards that he had got atremendous lot out of the university.
After that, as he had to leave the university, his trustee, Mr.Boulder, put Mr. Spillikins into business. It was, of course, his ownbusiness, one of the many enterprises for which Mr. Spillikins, eversince he was twenty-one, had already been signing documents andcountersigning cheques. So Mr. Spillikins found himself in a mahoganyoffice selling wholesale oil. And he liked it. He said that businesssharpened one up tremendously.
"I'm afraid, Mr. Spillikins," a caller in the mahogany office wouldsay, "that we can't meet you at five dollars. Four seventy is the bestwe can do on the present market."
"My dear chap," said Mr. Spillikins, "that's all right. After all,thirty cents isn't much, eh what? Dash it, old man, we won't fightabout thirty cents. How much do you want?"
"Well, at four seventy we'll take twenty thousand barrels."
"By Jove!" said Mr. Spillikins; "twenty thousand barrels. Gad! you wanta lot, don't you? Pretty big sale, eh, for a beginner like me? I guessuncle'll be tickled to death."
So tickled was he that after a few weeks of oil-selling Mr. Boulderurged Mr. Spillikins to retire, and wrote off many thousand dollarsfrom the capital value of his estate.
So after this there was only one thing for Mr. Spillikins to do, andeverybody told him so--namely to get married. "Spillikins," said hisfriends at the club after they had taken all his loose money over thecard table, "you ought to g
et married."
"Think so?" said Mr. Spillikins.
Goodness knows he was willing enough. In fact, up to this point Mr.Spillikins's whole existence had been one long aspiring sigh directedtowards the joys of matrimony.
In his brief college days his timid glances had wandered by anirresistible attraction towards the seats on the right-hand side of theclass room, where the girls of the first year sat, with golden pigtailsdown their backs, doing trigonometry.
He would have married any of them. But when a girl can work outtrigonometry at sight, what use can she possibly have for marriage?None. Mr. Spillikins knew this and it kept him silent. And even whenthe most beautiful girl in the class married the demonstrator and thusterminated her studies in her second year, Spillikins realized that itwas only because the man was, undeniably, a demonstrator and knewthings.
Later on, when Spillikins went into business and into society, the samefate pursued him. He loved, for at least six months, GeorgianaMcTeague, the niece of the presbyterian minister of St. Osoph's. Heloved her so well that for her sake he temporarily abandoned his pew atSt. Asaph's, which was episcopalian, and listened to fourteenconsecutive sermons on hell. But the affair got no further than that.Once or twice, indeed, Spillikins walked home with Georgiana fromchurch and talked about hell with her; and once her uncle asked himinto the manse for cold supper after evening service, and they had along talk about hell all through the meal and upstairs in thesitting-room afterwards. But somehow Spillikins could get no furtherwith it. He read up all he could about hell so as to be able to talkwith Georgiana, but in the end it failed: a young minister fresh fromcollege came and preached at St. Osoph's six special sermons on theabsolute certainty of eternal punishment, and he married Miss McTeagueas a result of it.
And, meantime, Mr. Spillikins had got engaged, or practically so, toAdelina Lightleigh; not that he had spoken to her, but he consideredhimself bound to her. For her sake he had given up hell altogether, andwas dancing till two in the morning and studying action bridge out of abook. For a time he felt so sure that she meant to have him that hebegan bringing his greatest friend, Edward Ruff of the college footballteam, of whom Spillikins was very proud, up to the Lightleighs'residence. He specially wanted Adelina and Edward to be great friends,so that Adelina and he might ask Edward up to the house after he wasmarried. And they got to be such great friends, and so quickly, thatthey were married in New York that autumn. After which Spillikins usedto be invited up to the house by Edward and Adelina. They both used totell him how much they owed him; and they, too, used to join in thechorus and say, "You know, Peter, you're awfully silly not to getmarried."
Now all this had happened and finished at about the time when theYahi-Bahi Society ran its course. At its first meeting Mr. Spillikinshad met Dulphemia Rasselyer-Brown. At the very sight of her he beganreading up the life of Buddha and a translation of the Upanishads so asto fit himself to aspire to live with her. Even when the society endedin disaster Mr. Spillikins's love only burned the stronger.Consequently, as soon as he knew that Mr. and Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown weregoing away for the summer, and that Dulphemia was to go to stay withthe Newberrys at Castel Casteggio, this latter place, the summerretreat of the Newberrys, became the one spot on earth for Mr. PeterSpillikins.
Naturally, therefore, Mr. Spillikins was presently transported to theseventh heaven when in due course of time he received a note whichsaid, "We shall be so pleased if you can come out and spend a week ortwo with us here. We will send the car down to the Thursday train tomeet you. We live here in the simplest fashion possible; in fact, asMr. Newberry says, we are just roughing it, but I am sure you don'tmind for a change. Dulphemia is with us, but we are quite a smallparty."
The note was signed "Margaret Newberry" and was written on heavy creampaper with a silver monogram such as people use when roughing it.
* * * * *
The Newberrys, like everybody else, went away from town in thesummertime. Mr. Newberry being still in business, after a fashion, itwould not have looked well for him to remain in town throughout theyear. It would have created a bad impression on the market as to howmuch he was making.
In fact, in the early summer everybody went out of town. The few whoever revisited the place in August reported that they hadn't seen asoul on the street.
It was a sort of longing for the simple life, for nature, that cameover everybody. Some people sought it at the seaside, where nature hadthrown out her broad plank walks and her long piers and her vaudevilleshows. Others sought it in the heart of the country, where nature hadspread her oiled motor roads and her wayside inns. Others, like theNewberrys, preferred to "rough it" in country residences of their own.
Some of the people, as already said, went for business reasons, toavoid the suspicion of having to work all the year round. Others wentto Europe to avoid the reproach of living always in America. Others,perhaps most people, went for medical reasons, being sent away by theirdoctors. Not that they were ill; but the doctors of Plutoria Avenue,such as Doctor Slyder, always preferred to send all their patients outof town during the summer months. No well-to-do doctor cares to bebothered with them. And of course patients, even when they are anxiousto go anywhere on their own account, much prefer to be sent there bytheir doctor.
"My dear madam," Dr. Slyder would say to a lady who, as he knew, wasmost anxious to go to Virginia, "there's really nothing I can do foryou." Here he spoke the truth. "It's not a case of treatment. It'ssimply a matter of dropping everything and going away. Now why don'tyou go for a month or two to some quiet place, where you will simply_do nothing?_" (She never, as he knew, did anything, anyway.) "What doyou say to Hot Springs, Virginia?--absolute quiet, good golf, not asoul there, plenty of tennis." Or else he would say, "My dear madam,you're simply _worn out_. Why don't you just drop everything and go toCanada?--perfectly quiet, not a soul there, and, I believe, nowadaysquite fashionable."
Thus, after all the patients had been sent away, Dr. Slyder and hiscolleagues of Plutoria Avenue managed to slip away themselves for amonth or two, heading straight for Paris and Vienna. There they wereable, so they said, to keep in touch with what continental doctors weredoing. They probably were.
Now it so happened that both the parents of Miss DulphemiaRasselyer-Brown had been sent out of town in this fashion. Mrs.Rasselyer-Brown's distressing experience with Yahi-Bahi had left her ina condition in which she was utterly fit for nothing, except to go on aMediterranean cruise, with about eighty other people also fit fornothing.
Mr. Rasselyer-Brown himself, though never exactly an invalid, hadconfessed that after all the fuss of the Yahi-Bahi business he neededbracing up, needed putting into shape, and had put himself into Dr.Slyder's hands. The doctor had examined him, questioned him searchinglyas to what he drank, and ended by prescribing port wine to be takenfirmly and unflinchingly during the evening, and for the daytime, atany moment of exhaustion, a light cordial such as rye whiskey, or rumand Vichy water. In addition to which Dr. Slyder had recommended Mr.Rasselyer-Brown to leave town.
"Why don't you go down to Nagahakett on the Atlantic?" he said.
"Is that in Maine?" said Mr. Rasselyer-Brown in horror.
"Oh, dear me, no!" answered the doctor reassuringly. "It's in NewBrunswick, Canada; excellent place, most liberal licence laws; firstclass cuisine and a bar in the hotel. No tourists, no golf, too cold toswim--just the place to enjoy oneself."
So Mr. Rasselyer-Brown had gone away also, and as a result DulphemiaRasselyer-Brown, at the particular moment of which we speak, wasdeclared by the Boudoir and Society column of the _Plutorian DailyDollar_ to be staying with Mr. and Mrs. Newberry at their charmingretreat, Castel Casteggio.
The Newberrys belonged to the class of people whose one aim in thesummer is to lead the simple life. Mr. Newberry himself said that hisone idea of a vacation was to get right out into the bush, and put onold clothes, and just eat when he felt like it.
This was why he had built Castel Casteggio. It stood
about forty milesfrom the city, out among the wooded hills on the shore of a littlelake. Except for the fifteen or twenty residences like it that dottedthe sides of the lake it was entirely isolated. The only way to reachit was by the motor road that wound its way among leafy hills from therailway station fifteen miles away. Every foot of the road was privateproperty, as all nature ought to be. The whole country about CastelCasteggio was absolutely primeval, or at any rate as primeval as Scotchgardeners and French landscape artists could make it. The lake itselflay like a sparkling gem from nature's workshop--except that they hadraised the level of it ten feet, stone-banked the sides, cleared outthe brush, and put a motor road round it. Beyond that it was purenature.
Castel Casteggio itself, a beautiful house of white brick with sweepingpiazzas and glittering conservatories, standing among great trees withrolling lawns broken with flower-beds as the ground sloped to the lake,was perhaps the most beautiful house of all; at any rate, it was anideal spot to wear old clothes in, to dine early (at 7.30) and, exceptfor tennis parties, motor-boat parties, lawn teas, and golf, to liveabsolutely to oneself.
It should be explained that the house was not called Castel Casteggiobecause the Newberrys were Italian: they were not; nor because theyowned estates in Italy: they didn't nor had travelled there: theyhadn't. Indeed, for a time they had thought of giving it a Welsh name,or a Scotch. But the beautiful country residence of theAsterisk-Thomsons had stood close by in the same primeval country wasalready called Penny-gw-rydd, and the woodland retreat of theHyphen-Joneses just across the little lake was calledStrathythan-na-Clee, and the charming chalet of the Wilson-Smiths wascalled Yodel-Dudel; so it seemed fairer to select an Italian name.
* * * * *
"By Jove! Miss Furlong, how awfully good of you to come down!"
The little suburban train--two cars only, both first class, for thetrain went nowhere except out into the primeval wilderness--had drawnup at the diminutive roadside station. Mr. Spillikins had alighted, andthere was Miss Philippa Furlong sitting behind the chauffeur in theNewberrys' motor. She was looking as beautiful as only the youngersister of a High Church episcopalian rector can look, dressed in white,the colour of saintliness, on a beautiful morning in July.
There was no doubt about Philippa Furlong. Her beauty was of thatpeculiar and almost sacred kind found only in the immediateneighbourhood of the High Church clergy. It was admitted by all whoenvied or admired her that she could enter a church more gracefully,move more swimmingly up the aisle, and pray better than any girl onPlutoria Avenue.
Mr. Spillikins, as he gazed at her in her white summer dress and widepicture hat, with her parasol nodding above her head, realized thatafter all, religion, as embodied in the younger sisters of the HighChurch clergy, fills a great place in the world.
"By Jove!" he repeated, "how awfully good of you!"
"Not a bit," said Philippa. "Hop in. Dulphemia was coming, but shecouldn't. Is that all you have with you?"
The last remark was ironical. It referred to the two quite largesteamer trunks of Mr. Spillikins that were being loaded, together withhis suit-case, tennis racket, and golf kit, on to the fore part of themotor. Mr. Spillikins, as a young man of social experience, had roughedit before. He knew what a lot of clothes one needs for it.
So the motor sped away, and went bowling noiselessly over the oiledroad, and turning corners where the green boughs of the great treesalmost swished in their faces, and rounding and twisting among curvesof the hills as it carried Spillikins and Philippa away from the lowerdomain or ordinary fields and farms up into the enchanted country ofprivate property and the magic castles of Casteggio and Penny-gw-rydd.
Mr. Spillikins must have assured Philippa at least a dozen times instarting off how awfully good it was of her to come down in the motor;and he was so pleased at her coming to meet him that Philippa nevereven hinted that the truth was that she had expected somebody else onthe same train. For to a girl brought up in the principles of the HighChurch the truth is a very sacred thing. She keeps it to herself.
And naturally, with such a sympathetic listener, it was not long beforeMr. Spillikins had begun to talk of Dulphemia and his hopes.
"I don't know whether she really cares for me or not," said Mr.Spillikins, "but I have pretty good hope. The other day, or at leastabout two months ago, at one of the Yahi-Bahi meetings--you were not inthat, were you?" he said breaking off.
"Only just at the beginning," said Philippa; "we went to Bermuda."
"Oh yes, I remember. Do you know, I thought it pretty rough at the end,especially on Ram Spudd. I liked him. I sent him two pounds of tobaccoto the penitentiary last week; you can get it in to them, you know, ifyou know how."
"But what were you going to say?" asked Philippa.
"Oh yes," said Mr. Spillikins. And he realized that he had actuallydrifted off the topic of Dulphemia, a thing that had never happened tohim before. "I was going to say that at one of the meetings, you know,I asked her if I might call her Dulphemia."
"And what did she say to that?" asked Philippa.
"She said she didn't care what I called her. So I think that lookspretty good, don't you?"
"Awfully good," said Philippa.
"And a little after that I took her slippers home from the Charity Ballat the Grand Palaver. Archie Jones took her home herself in his car,but I took her slippers. She'd forgotten them. I thought that a prettygood sign, wasn't it? You wouldn't let a chap carry round your slippersunless you knew him pretty well, would you, Miss Philippa?"
"Oh no, nobody would," said Philippa. This of course, was a standingprinciple of the Anglican Church.
"And a little after that Dulphemia and Charlie Mostyn and I werewalking to Mrs. Buncomhearst's musical, and we'd only just startedalong the street, when she stopped and sent me back for her music--me,mind you, not Charlie. That seems to me awfully significant."
"It seems to speak volumes," said Philippa.
"Doesn't it?" said Mr. Spillikins. "You don't mind my telling you allabout this Miss Philippa?" he added.
Incidentally Mr. Spillikins felt that it was all right to call her MissPhilippa, because she had a sister who was really Miss Furlong, so itwould have been quite wrong, as Mr. Spillikins realized, to have calledMiss Philippa by her surname. In any case, the beauty of the morningwas against it.
"I don't mind a bit," said Philippa. "I think it's awfully nice of youto tell me about it."
She didn't add that she knew all about it already.
"You see," said Mr. Spillikins, "you're so awfully sympathetic. Itmakes it so easy to talk to you. With other girls, especially withclever ones, even with Dulphemia. I often feel a perfect jackass besidethem. But I don t feel that way with you at all."
"Don't you really?" said Philippa, but the honest admiration in Mr.Spillikin's protruding blue eyes forbade a sarcastic answer.
"By Jove!" said Mr. Spillikins presently, with complete irrelevance, "Ihope you don't mind my saying it, but you look awfully well inwhite--stunning." He felt that a man who was affianced, or practicallyso, was allowed the smaller liberty of paying honest compliments.
"Oh, this old thing," laughed Philippa, with a contemptuous shake ofher dress. "But up here, you know, we just wear anything." She didn'tsay that this old thing was only two weeks old and had cost eightydollars, or the equivalent of one person's pew rent at St. Asaph's forsix months.
And after that they had only time, so it seemed to Mr. Spillikins, fortwo or three remarks, and he had scarcely had leisure to reflect what acharming girl Philippa had grown to be since she went to Bermuda--theeffect, no doubt, of the climate of those fortunate islands--when quitesuddenly they rounded a curve into an avenue of nodding trees, andthere were the great lawn and wide piazzas and the conservatories ofCastel Casteggio right in front of them.
"Here we are," said Philippa, "and there's Mr. Newberry out on thelawn."
* * * * *
"Now, here," Mr. Newberry was saying a
little later, waving his hand,"is where you get what I think the finest view of the place."
He was standing at the corner of the lawn where it sloped, dotted withgreat trees, to the banks of the little lake, and was showing Mr.Spillikins the beauties of Castel Casteggio.
Mr. Newberry wore on his short circular person the summer costume of aman taking his ease and careless of dress: plain white flanneltrousers, not worth more than six dollars a leg, an ordinary white silkshirt with a rolled collar, that couldn't have cost more than fifteendollars, and on his head an ordinary Panama hat, say forty dollars.
"By Jove!" said Mr. Spillikins, as he looked about him at the house andthe beautiful lawn with its great trees, "it's a lovely place."
"Isn't it?" said Mr. Newberry. "But you ought to have seen it when Itook hold of it. To make the motor road alone I had to dynamite outabout a hundred yards of rock, and then I fetched up cement, tons andtons of it, and boulders to buttress the embankment."
"Did you really!" said Mr. Spillikins, looking at Mr. Newberry withgreat respect.
"Yes, and even that was nothing to the house itself. Do you know, I hadto go at least forty feet for the foundations. First I went throughabout twenty feet of loose clay, after that I struck sand, and I'd nosooner got through that than, by George! I landed in eight feet ofwater. I had to pump it out; I think I took out a thousand gallonsbefore I got clear down to the rock. Then I took my solid steel beamsin fifty-foot lengths," here Mr. Newberry imitated with his arms theaction of a man setting up a steel beam, "and set them upright andbolted them on the rock. After that I threw my steel girders across,clapped on my roof rafters, all steel, in sixty-foot pieces, and thenjust held it easily, just supported it a bit, and let it sink graduallyto its place."
Mr. Newberry illustrated with his two arms the action of a huge housebeing allowed to sink slowly to a firm rest.
"You don't say so!" said Mr. Spillikins, lost in amazement at thewonderful physical strength that Mr. Newberry must have.
"Excuse me just a minute," broke off Mr. Newberry, "while I smooth outthe gravel where you're standing. You've rather disturbed it, I'mafraid."
"Oh, I'm awfully sorry," said Mr. Spillikins.
"Oh, not at all, not at all," said his host. "I don't mind in theleast. It's only on account of McAlister."
"Who?" asked Mr. Spillikins.
"My gardener. He doesn't care to have us walk on the gravel paths. Itscuffs up the gravel so. But sometimes one forgets."
It should be said here, for the sake of clearness, that one of thechief glories of Castel Casteggio lay in its servants. All of them, itgoes without saying, had been brought from Great Britain. The comfortthey gave to Mr. and Mrs. Newberry was unspeakable. In fact, as theythemselves admitted, servants of the kind are simply not to be found inAmerica.
"Our Scotch gardener," Mrs. Newberry always explained "is a perfectcharacter. I don't know how we could get another like him. Do you know,my dear, he simply won't allow us to pick the roses; and if any of uswalk across the grass he is furious. And he positively refuses to letus use the vegetables. He told me quite plainly that if we took any ofhis young peas or his early cucumbers he would leave. We are to havethem later on when he's finished growing them."
"How delightful it is to have servants of that sort," the ladyaddressed would murmur; "so devoted and so different from servants onthis side of the water. Just imagine, my dear, my chauffeur, when I wasin Colorado, actually threatened to leave me merely because I wanted toreduce his wages. I think it's these wretched labour unions."
"I'm sure it is. Of course we have trouble with McAlister at times, buthe's always very reasonable when we put things in the right light. Lastweek, for example, I was afraid that we had gone too far with him. Heis always accustomed to have a quart of beer every morning at half-pastten--the maids are told to bring it out to him, and after that he goesto sleep in the little arbour beside the tulip bed. And the other daywhen he went there he found that one of our guests who hadn't beentold, was actually sitting in there reading. Of course he was_furious_. I was afraid for the moment that he would give notice on thespot."
"What _would_ you have done?"
"Positively, my dear, I don't know. But we explained to him at oncethat it was only an accident and that the person hadn't known and thatof course it wouldn't occur again. After that he was softened a little,but he went off muttering to himself, and that evening he dug up allthe new tulips and threw them over the fence. We saw him do it, but wedidn't dare say anything."
"Oh no," echoed the other lady; "if you had you might have lost him."
"Exactly. And I don't think we could possibly get another man like him;at least, not on this side of the water."
* * * * *
"But come," said Mr. Newberry, after he had finished adjusting thegravel with his foot, "there are Mrs. Newberry and the girls on theverandah. Let's go and join them."
A few minutes later Mr. Spillikins was talking with Mrs. Newberry andDulphemia Rasselyer-Brown, and telling Mrs. Newberry what a beautifulhouse she had. Beside them stood Philippa Furlong, and she had her armaround Dulphemia's waist; and the picture that they thus made, withtheir heads close together, Dulphemia's hair being golden andPhilippa's chestnut-brown, was such that Mr. Spillikins had no eyes forMrs. Newberry nor for Castel Casteggio nor for anything. So much sothat he practically didn't see at all the little girl in green thatstood unobtrusively on the further side of Mrs. Newberry. Indeed,though somebody had murmured her name in introduction, he couldn't haverepeated it if asked two minutes afterwards. His eyes and his mind wereelsewhere.
But hers were not.
For the Little Girl in Green looked at Mr. Spillikins with wide eyes,and when she looked at him she saw all at once such wonderful thingsabout him as nobody had ever seen before.
For she could see from the poise of his head how awfully clever he was;and from the way he stood with his hands in his side pockets she couldsee how manly and brave he must be; and of course there was firmnessand strength written all over him. In short, she saw as she looked sucha Peter Spillikins as truly never existed, or could exist--or at leastsuch a Peter Spillikins as no one else in the world had ever suspectedbefore.
All in a moment she was ever so glad that she accepted Mrs. Newberry'sinvitation to Castel Casteggio and hadn't been afraid to come. For theLittle Girl in Green, whose Christian name was Norah, was only what iscalled a poor relation of Mrs. Newberry, and her father was a person ofno account whatever, who didn't belong to the Mausoleum Club or to anyother club, and who lived, with Norah, on a street that nobody who wasanybody lived upon. Norah had been asked up a few days before out ofthe City to give her air--which is the only thing that can be safelyand freely given to poor relations. Thus she had arrived at CastelCasteggio with one diminutive trunk, so small and shabby that even theservants who carried it upstairs were ashamed of it. In it were a pairof brand new tennis shoes (at ninety cents reduced to seventy-five) anda white dress of the kind that is called "almost evening," and such fewother things as poor relations might bring with fear and trembling tojoin in the simple rusticity of the rich.
Thus stood Norah looking at Mr. Spillikins.
As for him, such is the contrariety of human things, he had no eyes forher at all.
"What a perfectly charming house this is," Mr. Spillikins was saying.He always said this on such occasions, but it seemed to the Little Girlin Green that he spoke with wonderful social ease.
"I am so glad you think so," said Mrs. Newberry (this was what shealways answered); "you've no idea what work it has been. This year weput in all this new glass in the east conservatory, over a thousandpanes. Such a tremendous business!"
"I was just telling Mr. Spillikins," said Mr. Newberry, "about the workwe had blasting out the motor road. You can see the gap where it liesbetter from here, I think, Spillikins. I must have exploded a ton and ahalf of dynamite on it."
"By Jove!" said Mr. Spillikins; "it must be dangerous work eh?
I wonderyou aren't afraid of it."
"One simply gets used to it, that's all," said Newberry, shrugging hisshoulders; "but of course it is dangerous. I blew up two Italians onthe last job." He paused a minute and added musingly, "Hardy fellows,the Italians. I prefer them to any other people for blasting."
"Did you blow them up yourself?" asked Mr. Spillikins.
"I wasn't here," answered Mr. Newberry. "In fact, I never care to behere when I'm blasting. We go to town. But I had to foot the bill forthem all the same. Quite right, too. The risk, of course, was mine, nottheirs; that's the law, you know. They cost me two thousand each."
"But come," said Mrs. Newberry, "I think we must go and dress fordinner. Franklin will be frightfully put out if we're late. Franklin isour butler," she went on, seeing that Mr. Spillikins didn't understandthe reference, "and as we brought him out from England we have to berather careful. With a good man like Franklin one is always so afraidof losing him--and after last night we have to be doubly careful."
"Why last night?" asked Mr. Spillikins.
"Oh, it wasn't much," said Mrs. Newberry. "In fact, it was merely anaccident. Only it just chanced that at dinner, quite late in the meal,when we had had nearly everything (we dine very simply here, Mr.Spillikins), Mr. Newberry, who was thirsty and who wasn't reallythinking what he was saying, asked Franklin to give him a glass ofhock. Franklin said at once, 'I'm very sorry, sir, I don't care toserve hock after the entree!'"
"And of course he was right," said Dulphemia with emphasis. "Exactly;he was perfectly right. They know, you know. We were afraid that theremight be trouble, but Mr. Newberry went and saw Franklin afterwards andhe behaved very well over it. But suppose we go and dress? It'shalf-past six already and we've only an hour."
* * * * *
In this congenial company Mr. Spillikins spent the next three days.
Life at Castel Casteggio, as the Newberrys loved to explain, wasconducted on the very simplest plan. Early breakfast, country fashion,at nine o'clock; after that nothing to eat till lunch, unless one caredto have lemonade or bottled ale sent out with a biscuit or a macaroonto the tennis court. Lunch itself was a perfectly plain midday meal,lasting till about 1.30, and consisting simply of cold meats (say fourkinds) and salads, with perhaps a made dish or two, and, for anybodywho cared for it, a hot steak or a chop, or both. After that one hadcoffee and cigarettes in the shade of the piazza and waited forafternoon tea. This latter was served at a wicker table in any part ofthe grounds that the gardener was not at that moment clipping,trimming, or otherwise using. Afternoon tea being over, one rested orwalked on the lawn till it was time to dress for dinner.
This simple routine was broken only by irruptions of people in motorsor motor boats from Penny-gw-rydd or Yodel-Dudel Chalet.
The whole thing, from the point of view of Mr. Spillikins or Dulphemiaor Philippa, represented rusticity itself.
To the Little Girl in Green it seemed as brilliant as the Court ofVersailles; especially evening dinner--a plain home meal as the othersthought it--when she had four glasses to drink out of and used towonder over such problems as whether you were supposed, when Franklinpoured out wine, to tell him to stop or to wait till he stopped withoutbeing told to stop; and other similar mysteries, such as many peoplebefore and after have meditated upon.
During all this time Mr. Spillikins was nerving himself to propose toDulphemia Rasselyer-Brown. In fact, he spent part of his time walkingup and down under the trees with Philippa Furlong and discussing withher the proposal that he meant to make, together with such topics asmarriage in general and his own unworthiness.
He might have waited indefinitely had he not learned, on the third dayof his visit, that Dulphemia was to go away in the morning to join herfather at Nagahakett.
That evening he found the necessary nerve to speak, and the proposal inalmost every aspect of it was most successful.
"By Jove!" Spillikins said to Philippa Furlong next morning, inexplaining what had happened, "she was awfully nice about it. I thinkshe must have guessed, in a way, don't you, what I was going to say?But at any rate she was awfully nice--let me say everything I wanted,and when I explained what a fool I was, she said she didn't think I washalf such a fool as people thought me. But it's all right. It turns outthat she isn't thinking of getting married. I asked her if I mightalways go on thinking of her, and she said I might."
And that morning when Dulphemia was carried off in the motor to thestation, Mr. Spillikins, without exactly being aware how he had doneit, had somehow transferred himself to Philippa.
"Isn't she a splendid girl!" he said at least ten times a day to Norah,the Little Girl in Green. And Norah always agreed, because she reallythought Philippa a perfectly wonderful creature. There is no doubtthat, but for a slight shift of circumstances, Mr. Spillikins wouldhave proposed to Miss Furlong. Indeed, he spent a good part of his timerehearsing little speeches that began, "Of course I know I'm an awfulass in a way," or, "Of course I know that I'm not at all the sort offellow," and so on.
But not one of them ever was delivered.
For it so happened that on the Thursday, one week after Mr.Spillikins's arrival, Philippa went again to the station in the motor.And when she came back there was another passenger with her, a tallyoung man in tweed, and they both began calling out to the Newberrysfrom a distance of at least a hundred yards.
And both the Newberrys suddenly exclaimed, "Why, it's Tom!" and rushedoff to meet the motor. And there was such a laughing and jubilation asthe two descended and carried Tom's valises to the verandah, that Mr.Spillikins felt as suddenly and completely out of it as the Little Girlin Green herself--especially as his ear had caught, among the firstthings said, the words, "Congratulate us, Mrs. Newberry, we're engaged."
After which Mr. Spillikins had the pleasure of sitting and listeningwhile it was explained in wicker chairs on the verandah, that Philippaand Tom had been engaged already for ever so long--in fact, nearly twoweeks, only they had agreed not to say a word to anybody till Tom hadgone to North Carolina and back, to see his people.
And as to who Tom was, or what was the relation between Tom and theNewberrys, Mr. Spillikins neither knew or cared; nor did it interesthim in the least that Philippa had met Tom in Bermuda, and that shehadn't known that he even knew the Newberry's nor any other of theexuberant disclosures of the moment. In fact, if there was any oneperiod rather than another when Mr. Spillikins felt corroborated in hisprivate view of himself, it was at this moment.
So the next day Tom and Philippa vanished together.
"We shall be quite a small party now," said Mrs. Newberry; "in fact,quite by ourselves till Mrs. Everleigh comes, and she won't be here fora fortnight."
At which the heart of the Little Girl in Green was glad, because shehad been afraid that other girls might be coming, whereas she knew thatMrs. Everleigh was a widow with four sons and must be ever so old, pastforty.
The next few days were spent by Mr. Spillikins almost entirely in thesociety of Norah. He thought them on the whole rather pleasant days,but slow. To her they were an uninterrupted dream of happiness never tobe forgotten.
The Newberrys left them to themselves; not with any intent; it wasmerely that they were perpetually busy walking about the grounds ofCastel Casteggio, blowing up things with dynamite, throwing steelbridges over gullies, and hoisting heavy timber with derricks. Nor werethey to blame for it. For it had not always been theirs to commanddynamite and control the forces of nature. There had been a time, nowlong ago, when the two Newberrys had lived, both of them, on twentydollars a week, and Mrs. Newberry had made her own dresses, and Mr.Newberry had spent vigorous evenings in making hand-made shelves fortheir sitting-room. That was long ago, and since then Mr. Newberry,like many other people of those earlier days, had risen to wealth andCastel Casteggio, while others, like Norah's father, had stayed justwhere they were.
So the Newberrys left Peter and Norah to themselves all day. Even afterdinner, in the evening, Mr. Newberr
y was very apt to call to his wifein the dusk from some distant corner of the lawn:
"Margaret, come over here and tell me if you don't think we might cutdown this elm, tear the stump out by the roots, and throw it into theravine."
And the answer was, "One minute, Edward; just wait till I get a wrap."
Before they came back, the dusk had grown to darkness, and they hadredynamited half the estate.
During all of which time Mr. Spillikins sat with Norah on the piazza.He talked and she listened. He told her, for instance, all about histerrific experiences in the oil business, and about his exciting careerat college; or presently they went indoors and Norah played the pianoand Mr. Spillikins sat and smoked and listened. In such a house as theNewberry's, where dynamite and the greater explosives were everydaymatters, a little thing like the use of tobacco in the drawing-roomdidn't count. As for the music, "Go right ahead," said Mr. Spillikins;"I'm not musical, but I don't mind music a bit."
In the daytime they played tennis. There was a court at one end of thelawn beneath the trees, all chequered with sunlight and mingled shadow;very beautiful, Norah thought, though Mr. Spillikins explained that thespotted light put him off his game. In fact, it was owing entirely tothis bad light that Mr. Spillikins's fast drives, wonderful though theywere, somehow never got inside the service court.
Norah, of course, thought Mr. Spillikins a wonderful player. She wasglad--in fact, it suited them both--when he beat her six to nothing.She didn't know and didn't care that there was no one else in the worldthat Mr. Spillikins could beat like that. Once he even said to her.
"By Gad! you don't play half a bad game, you know. I think you know,with practice you'd come on quite a lot."
After that the games were understood to be more or less in the form oflessons, which put Mr. Spillikins on a pedestal of superiority, andallowed any bad strokes on his part to be viewed as a form ofindulgence.
Also, as the tennis was viewed in this light, it was Norah's part topick up the balls at the net and throw them back to Mr. Spillikins. Helet her do this, not from rudeness, for it wasn't in him, but becausein such a primeval place as Castel Casteggio the natural primitiverelation of the sexes is bound to reassert itself.
But of love Mr. Spillikins never thought. He had viewed it so eagerlyand so often from a distance that when it stood here modestly at hisvery elbow he did not recognize its presence. His mind had beenfashioned, as it were, to connect love with something stunning andsensational, with Easter hats and harem skirts and the luxuriousconsciousness of the unattainable.
Even at that, there is no knowing what might have happened. Tennis, inthe chequered light of sun and shadow cast by summer leaves, is adangerous game. There came a day when they were standing one each sideof the net and Mr. Spillikins was explaining to Norah the proper way tohold a racquet so as to be able to give those magnificent backhandsweeps of his, by which he generally drove the ball halfway to thelake; and explaining this involved putting his hand right over Norah'son the handle of the racquet, so that for just half a second her handwas clasped tight in his; and if that half-second had been lengthenedout into a whole second it is quite possible that what was alreadysubconscious in his mind would have broken its way triumphantly to thesurface, and Norah's hand would have stayed in his--how willingly--!for the rest of their two lives.
But just at that moment Mr. Spillikins looked up, and he said in quitean altered tone.
"By Jove! who's that awfully good-looking woman getting out of themotor?"
And their hands unclasped. Norah looked over towards the house and said:
"Why, it's Mrs. Everleigh. I thought she wasn't coming for anotherweek."
"I say," said Mr. Spillikins, straining his short sight to theuttermost, "what perfectly wonderful golden hair, eh?" "Why, it's--"Norah began, and then she stopped. It didn't seem right to explain thatMrs. Everleigh's hair was dyed. "And who's that tall chap standingbeside her?" said Mr. Spillikins.
"I think it's Captain Cormorant, but I don't think he's going to stay.He's only brought her up in the motor from town." "By Jove, how good ofhim!" said Spillikins; and this sentiment in regard to CaptainCormorant, though he didn't know it, was to become a keynote of hisexistence.
"I didn't know she was coming so soon," said Norah, and there wasweariness already in her heart. Certainly she didn't know it; stillless did she know, or anyone else, that the reason of Mrs. Everleigh'scoming was because Mr. Spillikins was there. She came with a setpurpose, and she sent Captain Cormorant directly back in the motorbecause she didn't want him on the premises.
"Oughtn't we to go up to the house?" said Norah.
"All right," said Mr. Spillikins with great alacrity, "let's go."
* * * * *
Now as this story began with the information that Mrs. Everleigh is atpresent Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins, there is no need to pursue in detailthe stages of Mr. Spillikins's wooing. Its course was swift and happy.Mr. Spillikins, having seen the back of Mrs. Everleigh's head, haddecided instantly that she was the most beautiful woman in the world;and that impression is not easily corrected in the half-light of ashaded drawing-room; nor across a dinner-table lighted only withcandles with deep red shades; nor even in the daytime through a veil.In any case, it is only fair to state that if Mrs. Everleigh was notand is not a singularly beautiful woman, Mr. Spillikins still doesn'tknow it. And in point of attraction the homage of such experts asCaptain Cormorant and Lieutenant Hawk speaks for itself.
So the course of Mr. Spillikins's love, for love it must have been, ranswiftly to its goal. Each stage of it was duly marked by his commentsto Norah.
"She _is_ a splendid woman," he said, "so sympathetic. She always seemsto know just what one's going to say."
So she did, for she was making him say it.
"By Jove!" he said a day later, "Mrs. Everleigh's an awfully finewoman, isn't she? I was telling her about my having been in the oilbusiness for a little while, and she thinks that I'd really be awfullygood in money things. She said she wished she had me to manage hermoney for her."
This also was quite true, except that Mrs. Everleigh had not made itquite clear that the management of her money was of the form generallyknown as deficit financing. In fact, her money was, very crudelystated, nonexistent, and it needed a lot of management.
A day or two later Mr. Spillikins was saying, "I think Mrs. Everleighmust have had great sorrow, don't you? Yesterday she was showing me aphotograph of her little boy--she has a little boy you know--"
"Yes, I know," said Norah. She didn't add that she knew that Mrs.Everleigh had four.
"--and she was saying how awfully rough it is having him always awayfrom her at Dr. Something's academy where he is."
And very soon after that Mr. Spillikins was saying, with quite a quaverin his voice,
"By Jove! yes, I'm awfully lucky; I never thought for a moment thatshe'd have me, you know--a woman like her, with so much attention andeverything. I can't imagine what she sees in me."
Which was just as well.
And then Mr. Spillikins checked himself, for he noticed--this was onthe verandah in the morning--that Norah had a hat and jacket on andthat the motor was rolling towards the door.
"I say," he said, "are you going away?"
"Yes, didn't you know?" Norah said. "I thought you heard them speakingof it at dinner last night. I have to go home; father's alone, youknow."
"Oh, I'm awfully sorry," said Mr. Spillikins; "we shan't have any moretennis."
"Goodbye," said Norah, and as she said it and put out her hand therewere tears brimming up into her eyes. But Mr. Spillikins, being shortof sight, didn't see them.
"Goodbye," he said.
Then as the motor carried her away he stood for a moment in a sort ofreverie. Perhaps certain things that might have been rose unformed andinarticulate before his mind. And then, a voice called from thedrawing-room within, in a measured and assured tone,
"Peter, darling, where are you?"
"Coming," cried Mr. Spillikins, and he came.
* * * * *
On the second day of the engagement Mrs. Everleigh showed to Peter alittle photograph in a brooch.
"This is Gib, my second little boy," she said.
Mr. Spillikins started to say, "I didn't know--" and then checkedhimself and said, "By Gad! what a fine-looking little chap, eh? I'mawfully fond of boys."
"Dear little fellow, isn't he?" said Mrs. Everleigh. "He's reallyrather taller than that now, because this picture was taken a littlewhile ago."
And the next day she said, "This is Willie, my third boy," and on theday after that she said, "This is Sib, my youngest boy; I'm sure you'lllove him."
"I'm sure I shall," said Mr. Spillikins. He loved him already for beingthe youngest.
* * * * *
And so in the fulness of time--nor was it so very full either, in fact,only about five weeks--Peter Spillikins and Mrs. Everleigh were marriedin St. Asaph's Church on Plutoria Avenue. And the wedding was one ofthe most beautiful and sumptuous of the weddings of the Septemberseason. There were flowers, and bridesmaids in long veils, and tallushers in frock-coats, and awnings at the church door, and strings ofmotors with wedding-favours on imported chauffeurs, and all that goesto invest marriage on Plutoria Avenue with its peculiar sacredness. Theface of the young rector, Mr. Fareforth Furlong, wore the addedsaintliness that springs from a five-hundred dollar fee. The whole townwas there, or at least everybody that was anybody; and if there was oneperson absent, one who sat by herself in the darkened drawing-room of adull little house on a shabby street, who knew or cared?
So after the ceremony the happy couple--for were they not so?--left forNew York. There they spent their honeymoon. They had thought ofgoing--it was Mr. Spillikins's idea--to the coast of Maine. But Mrs.Everleigh-Spillikins said that New York was much nicer, so restful,whereas, as everyone knows, the coast of Maine is frightfully noisy.
Moreover, it so happened that before the Everleigh-Spillikinses hadbeen more than four or five days in New York the ship of CaptainCormorant dropped anchor in the Hudson; and when the anchor of thatship was once down it generally stayed there. So the captain was ableto take the Everleigh-Spillikinses about in New York, and to give a teafor Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins on the deck of his vessel so that shemight meet the officers, and another tea in a private room of arestaurant on Fifth Avenue so that she might meet no one but himself.
And at this tea Captain Cormorant said, among other things, "Did hekick up rough at all when you told him about the money?"
And Mrs. Everleigh, now Mrs. Everleigh-Spillikins, said, "Not he! Ithink he is actually pleased to know that I haven't any. Do you know,Arthur, he's really an awfully good fellow," and as she said it shemoved her hand away from under Captain Cormorant's on the tea-table.
"I say," said the Captain, "don't get sentimental over him."
* * * * *
So that is how it is that the Everleigh-Spillikinses came to reside onPlutoria Avenue in a beautiful stone house, with a billiard-room in anextension on the second floor. Through the windows of it one can almosthear the click of the billiard balls, and a voice saying, "Hold on,father, you had your shot."
Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich Page 5
