Collected Works of Booth Tarkington

by Booth Tarkington

  “Aren’t you very good-natured, Mr. Flitcroft?” she asked, with an odd intonation.

  “I’m imposed on, often enough,” he replied, rubbing his leg, “by people who think I am! Why?”

  “It is only that your sitting so abruptly upon the ground reminded me of something that happened long ago, before I left Canaan, the last time I met you.”

  “I don’t think I knew you before you went away. You haven’t said if you’ll go riding with me to-morrow. Please—”

  “Get up,” interrupted Mr. Arp, acidly. “Somebody ‘ll fall over you if you stay there.”

  Such a catastrophe in truth loomed imminent. Judge Pike was rapidly approaching on his way to the house, Bible in hand — far better in hand than was his temper, for it is an enraging thing to wait five hours in ambush for a man who does not come. In the darkness a desecration occurred, and Norbert perfected to the last detail whatever had been left incomplete of his own destruction. He began lumberingly to rise, talking at the same time, urging upon Ariel the charms of the roadside; wild flowers were in blossom, he said, recounting the benefits she might derive through acceptance of his invitation; and having, thus busily, risen to his knees, became aware that some one was passing near him. This some one Mr. Flitcroft, absorbed in artful persuasions, may have been betrayed by the darkness to mistake for Eugene. Reaching out for assistance, he mechanically seized upon the skirts of a coat, which he put to the uses of a rope, coming up hand-over-hand with such noble weight and energy that he brought himself to his feet and the owner of the coat to the ground simultaneously. The latter, hideously astonished, went down with an objurgation so outrageous in venom that Mr. Arp jumped with the shock. Judge Pike got to his feet quickly, but not so quickly as the piteous Flitcroft betook himself into the deep shadows of the street. Only a word, hoarse and horror-stricken, was left quivering on the night breeze by this accursed, whom the gods, intent upon his ruin, had early in the day, at his first sight of Ariel, in good truth, made mad: “MURDER!”

  “Can I help you brush off, Judge?” asked Eskew, rising painfully.

  Either Martin Pike was beyond words, or the courtesy proposed by the feeble old fellow (for Eskew was now very far along in years, and looked his age) emphasized too bitterly the indignity which had been put upon him: whatever the case, he went his way in-doors, leaving the cynic’s offer unacknowledged. Eskew sank back upon the bench, with the little rusty sounds, suggestions of creaks and sighs, which accompany the movement of antiques. “I’ve always thought,” he said, “that the Judge had spells when he was hard of hearing.”

  Oblongs of light abruptly dropped from the windows confronting them, one, falling across the bench, appropriately touching with lemon the acrid, withered face and trembling hands of the veteran. “You are younger than you were nine years ago, Mr. Arp,” said Ariel, gayly. “I caught a glimpse of you upon the street, to-day, and I thought so then. Now I see that I was right.”

  “Me — YOUNGER!” he groaned. “No, ma’am! I’m mighty near through with this fool world — and I’d be glad of it, if I didn’t expect that if there IS another one afterwards, it would be jest as ornery!”

  She laughed, leaning forward, resting her elbows on her knee, and her chin in her hand, so that the shadow of her hat shielded her eyes from the light. “I thought you looked surprised when you saw me to day.”

  “I reckon I did!” he exclaimed. “Who wouldn’t of been?”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” he repeated, confounded by her simplicity. “Why?”

  “Yes,” she laughed. “That’s what I’m anxious to know.”

  “Wasn’t the whole town the same way?” he demanded. “Did you meet anybody that didn’t look surprised?”

  “But why should they?”

  “Good Lord Admighty!” he broke out. “Ain’t you got any lookin’-glasses?”

  “I think almost all I have are still in the customs warehouse.”

  “Then use Mamie Pike’s,” responded the old man. “The town never dreamed you were goin’ to turn out pretty at all, let alone the WAY you’ve turned out pretty! The Tocsin had a good deal about your looks and so forth in it once, in a letter from Paris, but the folks that remembered you kind of set that down to the way papers talk about anybody with money, and nobody was prepared for it when they saw you. You don’t need to drop no curtseys to ME.” He set his mouth grimly, in response to the bow she made him. “I think female beauty is like all other human furbelows, and as holler as heaven will be if only the good people are let in! But yet I did stop to look at you when you went past me to-day, and I kept on lookin’, long as you were in sight. I reckon I always will, when I git the chance, too — only shows what human nature IS! But that wasn’t all that folks were starin’ at to-day. It was your walkin’ with Joe Louden that really finished ’em, and I can say it upset me more than anything I’ve seen for a good many years.”

  “Upset you, Mr. Arp?” she cried. “I don’t quite see.”

  The old man shook his head deploringly. “After what I’d written you about that boy—”

  “Ah,” she said, softly, touching his sleeve with her fingers, “I haven’t thanked you for that.”

  “You needn’t,” he returned, sharply. “It was a pleasure. Do you remember how easy and quick I promised you?”

  “I remember that you were very kind.”

  “Kind!” He gave forth an acid and chilling laugh. “It was about two months after Louden ran away, and before you and Roger left Canaan, and you asked me to promise to write to you whenever word of that outcast came—”

  “I didn’t put it so, Mr. Arp.”

  “No, but you’d ought of! You asked me to write you whatever news of him should come, and if he came back to tell you how and when and all about it. And I did it, and kept you sharp on his record ever since he landed here again. Do you know why I’ve done it? Do you know why I promised so quick and easy I WOULD do it?”

  “Out of the kindness of your heart, I think.”

  The acid laugh was repeated. “NO, ma ‘am! You couldn’t of guessed colder. I promised, and I kept my promise, because I knew there would never be anything good to tell! AND THERE NEVER WAS!”

  “Nothing at all?” she insisted, gravely.

  “Never! I leave it to you if I’ve written one good word of him.”

  “You’ve written of the treatment he has received here,” she began, “and I’ve been able to see what he has borne — and bears!”

  “But have I written one word to show that he didn’t deserve it all? Haven’t I told you everything, of his associates, his—”

  “Indeed you have!”

  “Then do you wonder that I was more surprised than most when I saw you walking with him to-day? Because I knew you did it in cold blood and knowledge aforethought! Other folks thought it was because you hadn’t been here long enough to hear his reputation, but I KNEW!”

  “Tell me,” she said, “if you were disappointed when you saw me with him.”

  “Yes,” he snapped. “I was!”

  “I thought so. I saw the consternation in your face! You APPROVED, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “Yes, you do! I know it bothers you to have me read you between the lines, but for this once you must let me. You are so consistent that you are never disappointed when things turn out badly, or people are wicked or foolish, are you?”

  “No, certainly not. I expect it.”

  “And you were disappointed in me to-day. Therefore, it must be that I was doing something you knew was right and good. You see?” She leaned a little closer to him, smiling angelically. “Ah, Mr. Arp,” she cried, “I know your secret: you ADMIRE me!”

  He rose, confused and incoherent, as full of denial as a detected pickpocket. “I DON’T! Me ADMIRE? WHAT? It’s an ornery world,” he protested. “I don’t admire any human that ever lived!”

  “Yes, you do,” she persisted. “I’ve just proved it!
But that is the least of your secret; the great thing is this: YOU ADMIRE MR. LOUDEN!”

  “I never heard such nonsense,” he continued to protest, at the same time moving down the walk toward the gate, leaning heavily on his stick. “Nothin’ of the kind. There ain’t any LOGIC to that kind of an argument, nor no REASON!”

  “You see, I understand you,” she called after him. “I’m sorry you go away in the bitterness of being found out.”

  “Found out!” His stick ceased for a moment to tap the cement. “Pooh!” he ejaculated, uneasily. There was a pause, followed by a malevolent chuckle. “At any rate,” he said, with joy in the afterthought, “you’ll never go walkin’ with him AGAIN!”

  He waited for the answer, which came, after a time, sadly. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I shall not.”

  “Ha, I thought so! Good-night.”

  “Good-night, Mr. Arp.”

  She turned toward the lighted house. Through the windows nearest her she could see Mamie, seated in the familiar chair, following with happy and tender eyes the figure of Eugene, who was pacing up and down the room. The town was deadly quiet: Ariel could hear the sound of footsteps perhaps a block away. She went to the gate and gazed a long time into the empty street, watching the yellow grains of light, sieved through the maples from the arc lights on the corner, moving to and fro in the deep shadow as the lamp swung slightly in the night air. Somewhere, not far away, the peace was broken by the screams of a “parlor organ,” which honked and wailed in pious agonies (the intention was hymnal), interminably protracting each spasm. Presently a woman’s voice outdid the organ, a voice which made vivid the picture of the woman who owned it, and the ploughed forehead of her, above the nose-glasses, when the “grace-notes” were proudly given birth. “Rescue the Perishing” was the startlingly appropriate selection, rendered with inconceivable lingering upon each syllable: “Roos-cyoo the Poor-oosh-oong!” At unexpected intervals two male voices, evidently belonging to men who had contracted the habit of holding tin in their mouths, joined the lady in a thorough search for the Lost Chord.

  That was the last of silence in Canaan for an hour or so. The organ was merely inaugural: across the street a piano sounded; firm, emphatic, determined, vocal competition with the instrument here also; “Rock of Ages” the incentive. Another piano presently followed suit, in a neighboring house: “Precious Jewels.” More distant, a second organ was heard; other pianos, other organs, took up other themes; and as a wakeful puppy’s barking will go over a village at night, stirring first the nearer dogs to give voice, these in turn stimulating those farther away to join, one passing the excitement on to another, until hounds in farm-yards far beyond the town contribute to the long-distance conversation, even so did “Rescue the Perishing” enliven the greater part of Canaan.

  It was this that made Ariel realize a thing of which hitherto she had not been able to convince herself: that she was actually once more in the town where she had spent her long-ago girlhood; now grown to seem the girlhood of some other person. It was true: her foot was on her native heath and her name was Ariel Tabor — the very name of the girl who had shared the town’s disapproval with Joe Louden! “Rescue the Perishing” brought it all back to her; and she listened to these sharply familiar rites of the Canaanite Sabbath evening with a shiver of pain.

  She turned from the gate to go into the house, heard Eugene’s voice at the door, and paused. He was saying good-night to Mamie.

  “And please say ‘au revoir’ to Miss Tabor for me,” he added, peering out under his hand. “I don’t know where she can have gone.”

  “Probably she came in and went to her room,” said Mamie.

  “Don’t forget to tell her ‘au revoir.’”

  “I won’t, dear. Good-night.”

  “Good-night.” She lifted her face and he kissed her perfunctorily. Then he came down the steps and went slowly toward the gate, looking about him into the darkness as if searching for something; but Ariel had fled away from the path of light that led from the open door.

  She skimmed noiselessly across the lawn and paused at the side of the house, leaning against the veranda, where, on a night long past, a boy had hid and a girl had wept. A small creaking sound fell upon her ear, and she made out an ungainly figure approaching, wheeling something of curious shape.

  “Is that you, Sam?” she said.

  Mr. Warden stopped, close by. “Yes’m,” he replied. “I’m a-gittin’ out de hose to lay de dus’ yonnah.” He stretched an arm along the cross-bar of the reel, relaxing himself, apparently, for conversation. “Y’all done change consid’able, Miss Airil,” he continued, with the directness of one sure of privilege.

  “You think so, Sam?”

  “Yes’m. Ev’ybody think so, I reckon. Be’n a tai’ble lot o’ talkum ‘bout you to-day. Dun’no’ how all dem oth’ young ladies goin’ take it!” He laughed with immoderate delight, yet, as to the volume of mere sound, discreetly, with an eye to open windows. “You got ’em all beat, Miss Airil! Dey ain’ be’n no one ‘roun’ dis town evah got in a thousum mile o’ you! Fer looks, an’ de way you walk an’ ca’y yo’self; an’ as fer de clo’es — name o’ de good lan’, honey, dey ain’ nevah SEE style befo’! My ole woman say you got mo’ fixin’s in a minute dan de whole res’ of ’em got in a yeah. She say when she helpin’ you onpack she must ‘a’ see mo’n a hunerd paihs o’ slippahs alone! An’ de good Man knows I ‘membuh w’en you runnin’ roun’ back-yods an’ up de alley rompin’ ‘ith Joe Louden, same you’s a boy!”

  “Do you ever see Mr. Louden, nowadays?” she asked.

  His laugh was repeated with the same discreet violence. “Ain’ I seen him dis ve’y day, fur up de street at de gate yonnah, stan’in’ ‘ith you, w’en I drivin’ de Judge?”

  “You — you didn’t happen to see him anywhere this — this afternoon?”

  “No’m, I ain’ SEE him.” Sam’s laughter vanished and his lowered voice became serious. “I ain’ SEE him, but I hearn about him.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “Dey be’n consid’able stir on de aidge o’ town, I reckon,” he answered, gravely, “an’ dey be’n havin’ some trouble out at de Beach—”

  “Beaver Beach, do you mean?”

  “Yes’m. Dey be’n some shootin’ goin’ on out dat way.”

  She sprang forward and caught at his arm without speaking.

  “Joe Louden all right,” he said, reassuringly. “Ain’ nuffum happen to him! Nigh as I kin mek out f’m de TALK, dat Happy Fear gone on de ramPAGE ag’in, an’ dey hatta sent fer Mist’ Louden to come in a hurry.”

  XIV. WHITE ROSES IN A LAW-OFFICE

  AS UPON A world canopied with storm, hung with mourning purple and habited in black, did Mr. Flitcroft turn his morning face at eight o’clock antemeridian Monday, as he hied himself to his daily duty at the Washington National Bank. Yet more than the merely funereal gloomed out from the hillocky area of his countenance. Was there not, i’faith, a glow, a Vesuvian shimmer, beneath the murk of that darkling eye? Was here one, think you, to turn the other cheek? Little has he learned of Norbert Flitcroft who conceives that this fiery spirit was easily to be quenched! Look upon the jowl of him, and let him who dares maintain that people — even the very Pikes themselves — were to grind beneath their brougham wheels a prostrate Norbert and ride on scatheless! In this his own metaphor is nearly touched “I guess not! They don’t run over ME! Martin Pike better look out how he tries it!”

  So Mother Nature at her kindly tasks, good Norbert, uses for her unguent our own perfect inconsistency: and often when we are stabbed deep in the breast she distracts us by thin scratches in other parts, that in the itch of these we may forget the greater hurt till it be healed. Thus, the remembrance of last night, when you undisguisedly ran from the wrath of a Pike, with a pretty girl looking on (to say nothing of the acrid Arp, who will fling the legend on a thousand winds), might well agonize you now, as, in less hasty moments and at a safe distance, you brood
upon the piteous figure you cut. On the contrary, behold: you see no blood crimsoning the edges of the horrid gash in your panoply of self-esteem: you but smart and scratch the scratches, forgetting your wound in the hot itch for vengeance. It is an itch which will last (for in such matters your temper shall be steadfast), and let the great Goliath in the mean time beware of you! You ran, last night. You ran — of course you ran. Why not? You ran to fight another day!

  A bank clerk sometimes has opportunities.

  The stricken fat one could not understand how it came about that he had blurted out the damning confession that he had visited Beaver Beach. When he tried to solve the puzzle, his mind refused the strain, became foggy and the terrors of his position acute. Was he, like Joe Louden, to endure the ban of Canaan, and like him stand excommunicate beyond the pale because of Martin Pike’s displeasure? For Norbert saw with perfect clearness to-day what the Judge had done for Joe. Now that he stood in danger of a fate identical, this came home to him. How many others, he wondered, would do as Mamie had done and write notes such as he had received by the hand of Sam Warden, late last night?

  “DEAR SIR.” (This from Mamie, who, in the Canaanitish way, had been wont to address him as “Norb”!)— “My father wishes me to state that after your remark yesterday afternoon on the steps which was overheard by my mother who happened to be standing in the hall behind you and your BEHAVIOR to himself later on — he considers it impossible to allow you to call any more or to speak to any member of his household.