Collected Works of Booth Tarkington

by Booth Tarkington

  He tried to speak but could not; he only lifted his hand again, despairingly, and dropped it to his side.

  “You must tell me better than that,” said she, going very close to him.

  He raised his head and met her eyes humbly, wretchedly. For once not an ounce of jauntiness was left in him; every vestige of his gay bearing was gone; even desperation had vanished; and only despair remained. My vigilance had brought him, at last, to the titter humiliation he deserved, and he afforded a spectacle wherein I read some pleasurable things for myself, as well as a warning example to the frivolous.

  “Yes,” he answered, finally, his voice shaking, “I did. I would have done more than that — and shall, if I get the chance!”

  At this point, precisely, occurred the most astonishing event of my whole life. It happened with a necromantic suddenness that caused me at first to think my eyes gone wrong, reproducing a distorted and unreal vision, for, all at once, the cherry ribbons seemed to lie on William’s shoulder. But mine orbs of vision were not distraught.

  The lady had flung herself into William’s arms.

  “What!” cries she. “Then you must just have me! A man who would do all that for a kind word from me deserves ten thousand of them from ten thousand times a finer creature than ever I shall be! But, since you want me—”

  With that the landlord gives a whoop and bolts from the room. I sat me down in a chair beside Mr. Gray. He seemed quite helpless, though he was able to waggle his head and make some weakish whisperings, symbolic of his darkened mind, with his lips, which I heard as one hears a sound in a dream. Miss Gray and William paid us no attention whatever.

  “Nay,” she said to him, with a tone of raillery so tender I could only conclude that she had been bewitched, “I was harsh to both of us, mayhap — a little; but you must never dream it was because I cared about your toasting ‘Cherry.’ Tell me where she lives, Will.”

  “Wherever Sylvia Gray abides,” he answered, “that’s where ‘Cherry’ dwells, my dear! And you know it very well.”

  “Do I? In truth, it did come over me, in a way, one day in the autumn after you had gone, Will, that perhaps you had meant me and the ribbons — but I don’t believe it. I’ll never believe it, nev—”

  Here William interrupted her.

  “Dearest Cherry!” he said; and may I be relegated, upon my decease, to the unquenchable conflagration, if he did not kiss her with me looking on! Her father was there, too.

  I pondered upon her words. She said he must have her because he had done so much to get her. Now, I had lost my sleep; I had spent half the night crawling on hands and knees through the cold snow, falling into ditches and nigh drowning; devastating my every garment on a prickly hedge; I had been shot at once as a hippopotamus, and later fired into at close range, my nightcap burned full of holes, and my face blackened as a negro’s by the discharge of a bell-mouthed blunderbuss; I had been choked, gagged, and buried in snow; the heaviest innkeeper in the colonies had leaped hither and thither upon me and had sat for a long time on my head. Heaven knows what I had not borne for her that night — and yet she said that William Fentriss had done so much to get her!

  As I have said, there are some questions upon which the final dictum can only be, “I do not understand.” Thus it was in the present instance. The whole affair was so incomprehensible as to bring about a sort of dizziness in me.

  The inexplicable pair turned to us at last.

  “Merry Christmas, gentlemen!” cried Fentriss, while Miss Gray greeted both her father and me with a smile of incomparable sauciness.

  “We forgot you were there!” said she.

  I rose.

  “William,” said I, “I have one favor to ask you. It is that you will tell me why you desired my society on this journey.”

  “I thought we might fall in with them,” he replied, waving his hand toward the others, “and I thought, if we did, that you and Mr. Gray would enjoy each other’s comp—”

  It happened that at this moment Mr. Gray recovered his voice.

  “William,” he exclaimed, between his daughter’s kisses, for she had sidled over to him and seated herself upon his knee, “I’ll never forgive you as long as I live! Never!”

  At this opposition to their marriage I looked to see the couple betray signs of distress. On the contrary, they both laughed merrily. Next, the old gentleman reached out, as well as he could for his daughter’s clinging to him, and laid both hands on William’s shoulders.

  “William,” he said, “you’re a wild, ran-tankerous lad, but I like you, and I am glad!”

  These words, directly contradicting what he had just said, and all expressions of his sentiments aforetime, were so extraordinary that, what with them and Miss Sylvia’s marvellous behavior, and the cold I had caught, my head spun till I scarce knew if I stood on my feet or, inverted, upon it. The mysteries of the morning were complete.

  For the first time (and the only time, I think I may claim) in my life, I was nonplussed beyond the power of expression; I was incapable of speech; what is more, I had nothing whatever to say. Without a word I walked toward the door. As I did so, old Mr. Gray’s jaw fell, and he broke off in the middle of a hearty laugh over the attack on the chaise (which he now appeared to regard in a humorous light!) and began to look at me in a strange, fascinated way, while I, still uttering not one syllable, bowed silently to each of the three and, sneezing slightly, left the room.

  After I had shut the door, I heard him drop into a chair and gasp.

  I was so bewildered as to care little for one more mystery, and I ordered Hoag to prepare a bed for me in another part of the house, for I had made up my mind to complete my disturbed slumbers by sleeping until noon, when I should once more proceed homeward, upon the back of my misused Jeremiah.

  Half an hour later I found myself dropping off to sleep between the warm, dry sheets, when I heard the chaise galloping out of the inn yard, and William and Sylvia and the old gentleman sending back a chorus of Merry Christmases to the people of the inn. Their voices rang out cheerily, particularly Sylvia’s — sounding as merry as the silver chatter of the sleigh-bells that now began to jingle by.

  One of my last drowsy thoughts, before slumber overcame me, was that I had been fortunate, indeed, not to have carried farther with so fickle a creature, a maiden who was overheard confessing her affection for one man in August, yet threw herself (without any expressions of regret) into the arms of another on Christmas morning! I remembered with symptoms of pleasurable anticipation the intelligent and appreciative Miss Amelia Robbins. If she was to win what Miss Sylvia’s eccentricity had lost, that could be esteemed no fault of mine.

  I omitted to repeat my customary oration from the classics, and, as I drifted comfortably into a sound slumber to the jingle of the Christmas sleigh-bells, I determined (in spite of the seeming light-mindedness of such a request) that, when I called at the Robbinses’, next day, I would ask Miss Amelia to wear, now and again, a bunch of cherry ribbons, that being a color becoming to women.

  The Two Vanrevels

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I. A Cat Can Do More than Look at a King

  CHAPTER II. Surviving Evils of the Reign of Terror

  CHAPTER III. The Rogue’s Gallery of a Father Should be Exhibited to a Daughter with Particular Care

  CHAPTER IV. “But Spare Your Country’s Flag”

  CHAPTER V. Nero not the Last Violinist of his Kind

  CHAPTER VI. The Ever Unpractical Feminine

  CHAPTER VII. The Comedian

  CHAPTER VIII. A Tale of a Political Difference

  CHAPTER IX. The Rule of the Regent

  CHAPTER X. Echoes of a Serenade

  CHAPTER XI. A Voice in a Garden

  CHAPTER XII. The Room in the Cupola

  CHAPTER XIII. The Tocsin

  CHAPTER XIV. The Firm of Gray and Vanrevel

  CHAPTER XV. When June Came

  CHAPTER XVI. “Those Endearing Young Charms”

  C
HAPTER XVII. The Price of Silence

  CHAPTER XVIII. The Uniform

  CHAPTER XIX. The Flag Goes Marching By

  CHAPTER XX. “Goodby”

  The first edition’s title page

  The original frontispiece

  CHAPTER I. A Cat Can Do More than Look at a King

  IT WAS LONG ago in the days when men sighed when they fell in love; when people danced by candle and lamp, and did dance, too, instead of solemnly gliding about; in that mellow time so long ago, when the young were romantic and summer was roses and wine, old Carewe brought his lovely daughter home from the convent to wreck the hearts of the youth of Rouen.

  That was not a far journey; only an afternoon’s drive through the woods and by the river, in an April, long ago; Miss Betty’s harp carefully strapped behind the great lumbering carriage, her guitar on the front seat, half-buried under a mound of bouquets and oddly shaped little bundles, farewell gifts of her comrades and the good Sisters. In her left hand she clutched a small lace handkerchief, with which she now and then touched her eyes, brimmed with the parting from Sister Cecilia, Sister Mary Bazilede, the old stone steps and all the girls: but for every time that she lifted the dainty kerchief to brush away the edge of a tear, she took a deep breath of the Western woodland air and smiled at least twice; for the years of strict inclosure within St. Mary’s walls and still gardens were finished and done with, and at last the many-colored world flashed and danced in a mystery before her. This mystery was brilliant to the convent-girl because it contained men; she was eager to behold it.

  They rumbled into town after sunset, in the fair twilight, the dogs barking before them, and everyone would have been surprised to know that Tom Vanrevel, instead of Mr. Crailey Gray, was the first to see her. By the merest accident, Tom was strolling near the Carewe place at the time; and when the carriage swung into the gates, with rattle and clink and clouds of dust at the finish, it was not too soon lost behind the shrubbery and trees for Tom to catch something more than a glimpse of a gray skirt behind a mound of flowers, and of a charming face with parted lips and dark eyes beneath the scuttle of an enormous bonnet. It happened — perhaps it is more accurate to say that Tom thought it happened — that she was just clearing away her veil when he turned to look. She blushed suddenly, so much was not to be mistaken; and the eyes that met his were remarkable for other reasons than the sheer loveliness of them, in that, even in the one flash of them he caught, they meant so many things at one time. They were sparkling, yet mournful; and they were wistful, although undeniably lively with the gayest comprehension of the recipient of their glance, seeming to say, “Oh, it’s you, young man, is it!” And they were shy and mysterious with youth, full of that wonder at the world which has the appearance, sometimes, of wisdom gathered in the unknown out of which we came. But, above all, these eyes were fully conscious of Tom Vanrevel.

  Without realizing what he did, Mr. Vanrevel stopped short. He had been swinging a walkingstick, which, describing a brief arc, remained poised half-way in its descent. There was only that one glance between them; and the carriage disappeared, leaving a scent of spring flowers in the air.

  The young man was left standing on the wooden pavement in the midst of a great loneliness, yet enveloped in the afterglow, his soul roseate, his being quavering, his expression, like his cane, instantaneously arrested. With such promptitude and finish was he disposed of, that, had Miss Carewe been aware of his name and the condition wrought in him by the single stroke, she could have sought only the terse Richard of England for a like executive ability, “Off with his head! So much for Vanrevel!”

  She had lifted a slender hand to the fluttering veil, a hand in a white glove with a small lace gauntlet at the wrist. This gesture was the final divinity of the radiant vision which remained with the dazed young man as he went down the street; and it may have been three-quarters of an hour later when the background of the picture became vivid to him: a carefully dressed gentleman with heavy brows and a handsome high nose, who sat stiffly upright beside the girl, his very bright eyes quite as conscious of the stricken pedestrian as were hers, vastly different, however, in this: that they glittered, nay, almost bristled, with hostility; while every polished button of his blue coat seemed to reflect their malignancy, and to dart little echoing shafts of venom at Mr. Vanrevel.

  Tom was dismayed by the acuteness of his perception that a man who does not speak to you has no right to have a daughter like the lady in the carriage; and, the moment of this realization occurring as he sat making a poor pretence to eat his evening meal at the “Rouen House,” he dropped his fork rattling upon his plate and leaned back, staring at nothing, a proceeding of which his table-mate, Mr. William Cummings, the editor of the Rouen Journal, was too busy over his river bass to take note.

  “Have you heard what’s new in town?” asked Cummings presently, looking up.

  “No,” said Tom truthfully, for he had seen what was new, but not heard it.

  “Old Carewe’s brought his daughter home. Fanchon Bareaud was with her at St. Mary’s until last year and Fanchon says she’s not only a great beauty but a great dear.”

  “Ah!” rejoined the other with masterly indifference. “Dare say — dare say.”

  “No wonder you’re not interested,” said Cummings cheerfully, returning to the discussion of his bass. “The old villain will take precious good care you don’t come near her.”

  Mr. Vanrevel already possessed a profound conviction to the same effect. Robert Meilhac Carewe was known not only as the wealthiest citizen of Rouen, but also as its heartiest and most steadfast hater: and, although there were only five or six thousand inhabitants, neither was a small distinction. For Rouen was ranked, in those easy days, as a wealthy town; even as it was called an old town; proud of its age and its riches, and bitter in its politics, of course. The French had built a fort there, soon after LaSalle’s last voyage, and, as Crailey Gray said, had settled the place, and had then been settled themselves by the pioneer militia. After the Revolution, Carolinians and Virginians had come, by way of Tennessee and Kentucky; while the adventurous countrymen from Connecticut, travelling thither to sell, remained to buy — and then sell — when the country was in its teens. In course of time the little trading-post of the Northwest Territory had grown to be the leading centre of elegance and culture in the Ohio Valley — at least they said so in Rouen; only a few people in the country, such as Mr. Irving of Tarrytown, for instance, questioning whether a centre could lead.

  The pivotal figure, though perhaps not the heart, of this centre, was unquestionably Mr. Carewe, and about him the neat and tight aristocracy of the place revolved; the old French remnant, having liberally intermarried, forming the nucleus, together with descendants of the Cavaliers (and those who said they were) and the industrious Yankees, by virtue (if not by the virtues) of all whom, the town grew and prospered. Robert Carewe was Rouen’s magnate, commercially and socially, and, until an upstart young lawyer named Vanrevel struck into his power with a broad-axe, politically. The wharves were Carewe’s; the warehouses that stood by the river, and the line of packets which plied upon it, were his; half the town was his, and in Rouen this meant that he was possessed of the Middle Justice, the High and the Low. His mother was a Frenchwoman, and, in those days, when to go abroad was a ponderous and venturesome undertaking, the fact that he had spent most of his youth in the French capital wrought a certain glamour about him; for to the American, Paris was Europe, and it lay shimmering on the far horizon of every imagination, a golden city. Scarce a drawing-room in Rouen lacked its fearsome engraving entitled “Grand Ball at the Tuileries,” nor was Godey’s Magazine ever more popular than when it contained articles elaborate of similar scenes of festal light, where brilliant uniforms mingled with shining jewels, fair locks, and the white shoulders of magnificently dressed duchesses, countesses, and ladies. Credit for this description should be given entirely to the above-mentioned periodical. Furthermore, a sojourn in Paris was held to confe
r a “certain nameless and indescribable polish” upon the manners of the visitor; also, there was something called “an air of foreign travel.”

  They talked a great deal about polish in those days; and some examples still extant do not deny their justification; but in the case of Mr. Carewe, there existed a citizen of Rouen, one already quoted, who had the temerity to declare the polish to be in truth quite nameless and indescribable for the reason that one cannot paint a vacuum. However, subscription to this opinion should not be over-hasty, since Mr. Crailey Gray had been notoriously a rival of Carewe’s with every pretty woman in town, both having the same eye in such matters, and also because the slandered gentleman could assume a manner when he chose to, whether or not he possessed it. At his own table he exhaled a hospitable graciousness which, from a man of known evil temper, carried the winsomeness of surprise. When he wooed, it was with an air of stately devotion, combined with that knowingness which sometimes offsets for a widower the tendency a girl has to giggle at him; and the combination had been, once or twice, too much for even the alluring Crailey.

  Mr. Carewe lived in an old-fashioned house on the broad, quiet, shady street which bore his name. There was a wide lawn in front, shadowy under elm and locust trees, and bounded by thick shrubberies. A long garden, fair with roses and hollyhocks, lay outside the library windows, an old-time garden, with fine gravel paths and green arbors; drowsed over in summer-time by the bees, while overhead the locust rasped his rusty cadences the livelong day; and a faraway sounding love-note from the high branches brought to mind the line, like an old refrain: