Collected Works of Booth Tarkington

by Booth Tarkington

  There was one incongruity which surprised him — a wicker waste-paper basket, so nonsensically out of place in this arid cell, where not the wildest hare-brain could picture any one coming to read or write, that he bestowed upon it a particular, frowning attention, and so discovered the second attractive possession of the room. A fresh and lovely pink rose, just opening full from the bud, lay in the bottom of the basket.

  There was a rustling somewhere in the house and a murmur, above which a boy’s voice became audible in emphatic but undistinguishable complaint. A whispering followed, and a woman exclaimed protestingly, “Cora!” And then a startlingly pretty girl came carelessly into the room through the open door.

  She was humming “Quand I’ Amour Meurt” in a gay preoccupation, and evidently sought something upon the table in the centre of the room, for she continued her progress toward it several steps before realizing the presence of a visitor. She was a year or so younger than the girl who had admitted him, fairer and obviously more plastic, more expressive, more perishable, a great deal more insistently feminine; though it was to be seen that they were sisters. This one had eyes almost as dark as the other’s, but these were not cool; they were sweet, unrestful, and seeking; brilliant with a vivacious hunger: and not Diana but huntresses more ardent have such eyes. Her hair was much lighter than her sister’s; it was the colour of dry corn-silk in the sun; and she was the shorter by a head, rounder everywhere and not so slender; but no dumpling: she was exquisitely made. There was a softness about her: something of velvet, nothing of mush. She diffused with her entrance a radiance of gayety and of gentleness; sunlight ran with her. She seemed the incarnation of a caressing smile.

  She was point-device. Her close, white skirt hung from a plainly embroidered white waist to a silken instep; and from the crown of her charming head to the tall heels of her graceful white suede slippers, heels of a sweeter curve than the waist of a violin, she was as modern and lovely as this dingy old house was belated and hideous.

  Mr. Valentine Corliss spared the fraction of a second for another glance at the rose in the waste-basket.

  The girl saw him before she reached the table, gave a little gasp of surprise, and halted with one hand carried prettily to her breast.

  “Oh!” she said impulsively; “I beg your pardon. I didn’t know there was —— I was looking for a book I thought I — —”

  She stopped, whelmed with a breath-taking shyness, her eyes, after one quick but condensed encounter with those of Mr. Corliss, falling beneath exquisite lashes. Her voice was one to stir all men: it needs not many words for a supremely beautiful “speaking-voice” to be recognized for what it is; and this girl’s was like herself, hauntingly lovely. The intelligent young man immediately realized that no one who heard it could ever forget it.

  “I see,” she faltered, turning to leave the room; “it isn’t here — the book.”

  “There’s something else of yours here,” said Corliss.

  “Is there?” She paused, hesitating at the door, looking at him over her shoulder uncertainly.

  “You dropped this rose.” He lifted the rose from the waste-basket and repeated the bow he had made at the front door. This time it was not altogether wasted.

  “I?”

  “Yes. You lost it. It belongs to you.”

  “Yes — it does. How curious!” she said slowly. “How curious it happened to be there!” She stepped to take it from him, her eyes upon his in charming astonishment. “And how odd that — —” She stopped; then said quickly:

  “How did you know it was my rose?”

  “Any one would know!”

  Her expression of surprise was instantaneously merged in a flash of honest pleasure and admiration, such as only an artist may feel in the presence of a little masterpiece by a fellow-craftsman.

  Happily, anticlimax was spared them by the arrival of the person for whom the visitor had asked at the door, and the young man retained the rose in his hand.

  Mr. Madison, a shapeless hillock with a large, harassed, red face, evidently suffered from the heat: his gray hair was rumpled back from a damp forehead; the sleeves of his black alpaca coat were pulled up to the elbow above his uncuffed white shirtsleeves; and he carried in one mottled hand the ruins of a palm-leaf fan, in the other a balled wet handkerchief which released an aroma of camphor upon the banana-burdened air. He bore evidences of inadequate adjustment after a disturbed siesta, but, exercising a mechanical cordiality, preceded himself into the room by a genial half-cough and a hearty, “Well-well-well,” as if wishing to indicate a spirit of polite, even excited, hospitality.

  “I expected you might be turning up, after your letter,” he said, shaking hands. “Well, well, well! I remember you as a boy. Wouldn’t have known you, of course; but I expect you’ll find the town about as much changed as you are.”

  With a father’s blindness to all that is really vital, he concluded his greeting inconsequently: “Oh, this is my little girl Cora.”

  “Run along, little girl,” said the fat father.

  His little girl’s radiant glance at the alert visitor imparted her thorough comprehension of all the old man’s absurdities, which had reached their climax in her dismissal. Her parting look, falling from Corliss’s face to the waste-basket at his feet, just touched the rose in his hand as she passed through the door.

  CHAPTER TWO

  CORA PAUSED IN the hall at a point about twenty feet from the door, a girlish stratagem frequently of surprising advantage to the practitioner; but the two men had begun to speak of the weather. Suffering a momentary disappointment, she went on, stepping silently, and passed through a door at the end of the hall into a large and barren looking dining-room, stiffly and skimpily furnished, but well-lighted, owing to the fact that one end of it had been transformed into a narrow “conservatory,” a glass alcove now tenanted by two dried palms and a number of vacant jars and earthen crocks.

  Here her sister sat by an open window, repairing masculine underwear; and a handsome, shabby, dirty boy of about thirteen sprawled on the floor of the “conservatory” unloosing upon its innocent, cracked, old black and white tiles a ghastly family of snakes, owls, and visaged crescent moons, in orange, green, and other loathsome chalks. As Cora entered from the hall, a woman of fifty came in at a door opposite, and, a dust-cloth retained under her left arm, an unsheathed weapon ready for emergency, leaned sociably against the door-casing and continued to polish a tablespoon with a bit of powdered chamois-skin. She was tall and slightly bent; and, like the flat, old, silver spoon in her hand, seemed to have been worn thin by use; yet it was plain that the three young people in the room “got their looks” from her. Her eyes, if tired, were tolerant and fond; and her voice held its youth and something of the music of Cora’s.

  “What is he like?” She addressed the daughter by the window.

  “Why don’t you ask Coralie?” suggested the sprawling artist, relaxing his hideous labour. He pronounced his sister’s name with intense bitterness. He called it “Cora-lee,” with an implication far from subtle that his sister had at some time thus Gallicized herself, presumably for masculine favour; and he was pleased to receive tribute to his satire in a flash of dislike from her lovely eyes.

  “I ask Laura because it was Laura who went to the door,” Mrs. Madison answered. “I do not ask Cora because Cora hasn’t seen him. Do I satisfy you, Hedrick?”

  “`Cora hasn’t seen him!’” the boy hooted mockingly. “She hasn’t? She was peeking out of the library shutters when he came up the front walk, and she wouldn’t let me go to the door; she told Laura to go, but first she took the library waste-basket and laid one o’ them roses — —”

  “Those roses,” said Cora sharply. “He will hang around the neighbours’ stables. I think you ought to do something about it, mother.”

  “Them roses!” repeated Hedrick fiercely. “One o’ them roses Dick Lindley sent her this morning. Laid it in the waste-basket and sneaked it into the reception room for
an excuse to go galloping in and — —”

  “`Galloping’?” said Mrs. Madison gravely.

  “It was a pretty bum excuse,” continued the unaffected youth, “but you bet your life you’ll never beat our Cora-lee when there’s a person in pants on the premises! It’s sickening.” He rose, and performed something like a toe-dance, a supposed imitation of his sister’s mincing approach to the visitor. “Oh, dear, I am such a little sweety! Here I am all alone just reeking with Browning-and-Tennyson and thinking to myself about such lovely things, and walking around looking for my nice, pretty rose. Where can it be? Oh heavens, Mister, are you here? Oh my, I never, never thought that there was a man here! How you frighten me! See what a shy little thing I am? You do see, don’t you, old sweeticums? Ta, ta, here’s papa. Remember me by that rose, ‘cause it’s just like me. Me and it’s twins, you see, cutie-sugar!” The diabolical boy then concluded with a reversion to the severity of his own manner: “If she was my daughter I’d whip her!”

  His indignation was left in the air, for the three ladies had instinctively united against him, treacherously including his private feud in the sex-war of the ages: Cora jumped lightly upon the table and sat whistling and polishing the nails of one hand upon the palm of another; Laura continued to sew without looking up, and Mrs. Madison, conquering a tendency to laugh, preserved a serene countenance and said ruminatively:

  “They were all rather queer, the Corlisses.”

  Hedrick stared incredulously, baffled; but men must expect these things, and this was no doubt a helpful item in his education.

  “I wonder if he wants to sell the house,” said Mrs. Madison.

  “I wish he would. Anything that would make father get out of it!” Cora exclaimed. “I hope Mr. Corliss will burn it if he doesn’t sell it.”

  “He might want to live here himself.”

  “He!” Cora emitted a derisive outcry.

  Her mother gave her a quick, odd look, in which there was a real alarm. “What is he like, Cora?”

  “Awfully foreign and distinguished!”

  This brought Hedrick to confront her with a leap as of some wild animal under a lash. He landed close to her; his face awful.

  “Princely, I should call him,” said Cora, her enthusiasm undaunted. “Distinctly princely!”

  “Princely,” moaned Hedrick. “Pe-rin-sley!”

  “Hedrick!” Mrs. Madison reproved him automatically. “In what way is he `foreign,’ Cora?”

  “Oh, every way.” Cora let her glance rest dreamily upon the goaded boy. “He has a splendid head set upon a magnificent torso — —”

  “Torso!” Hedrick whispered hoarsely.

  “Tall, a glorious figure — like a young guardsman’s.” Madness was gathering in her brother’s eyes; and observing it with quiet pleasure, she added: “One sees immediately he has the grand manner, the bel air.”

  Hedrick exploded. “`Bel air’!” he screamed, and began to jump up and down, tossing his arms frantically, and gasping with emotion. “Oh, bel air! Oh, blah! `Henry Esmond!’ Been readin’ `Henry Esmond!’ Oh, you be-yoo-tiful Cora-Beatrix-a-lee! Magganifisent torso! Gullo-rious figgi-your! Bel air! Oh, slush! Oh, luv-a-ly slush!” He cast himself convulsively upon the floor, full length. “Luv-a-ly, luv-a-ly slush!”

  “He is thirty, I should say,” continued Cora, thoughtfully. “Yes — about thirty. A strong, keen face, rather tanned. He’s between fair and dark — —”

  Hedrick raised himself to the attitude of the “Dying Gaul.” “And with `hair slightly silvered at the temples!’ Ain’t his hair slightly silvered at the temples?” he cried imploringly. “Oh, sister, in pity’s name let his hair be slightly silvered at the temples? Only three grains of corn, your Grace; my children are starving!”

  He collapsed again, laid his face upon his extended arms, and writhed.

  “He has rather wonderful eyes,” said Cora. “They seem to look right through you.”

  “Slush, slush, luv-a-ly slush,” came in muffled tones from the floor.

  “And he wears his clothes so well — so differently! You feel at once that he’s not a person, but a personage.”

  Hedrick sat up, his eyes closed, his features contorted as with agony, and chanted, impromptu:

  “Slush, slush, luv-a-ly, slush!

  Le’ss all go a-swimmin’ in a dollar’s worth o’ mush.

  Slush in the morning, slush at night,

  If I don’t get my slush I’m bound to get tight!”

  “Hedrick!” said his mother.

  “Altogether I should say that Mr. Valentine Corliss looks as if he lived up to his name,” Cora went on tranquilly. “Valentine Corliss of Corliss Street — I think I rather like the sound of that name.” She let her beautiful voice linger upon it, caressingly. “Valentine Corliss.”

  Hedrick opened his eyes, allowed his countenance to resume its ordinary proportions, and spoke another name slowly and with honeyed thoughtfulness:

  “Ray Vilas.”

  This was the shot that told. Cora sprang down from the table with an exclamation.

  Hedrick, subduing elation, added gently, in a mournful whisper:

  “Poor old Dick Lindley!”

  His efforts to sting his sister were completely successful at last: Cora was visibly agitated, and appealed hotly to her mother. “Am I to bear this kind of thing all my life? Aren’t you ever going to punish his insolence?”

  “Hedrick, Hedrick!” said Mrs. Madison sadly.

  Cora turned to the girl by the window with a pathetic gesture. “Laura — —” she said, and hesitated.

  Laura Madison looked up into her sister’s troubled eyes.

  “I feel so morbid,” said Cora, flushing a little and glancing away. “I wish — —” She stopped.

  The silent Laura set aside her work, rose and went out of the room. Her cheeks, too, had reddened faintly, a circumstance sharply noted by the terrible boy. He sat where he was, asprawl, propped by his arms behind him, watching with acute concentration the injured departure of Cora, following her sister. At the door, Cora, without pausing, threw him a look over her shoulder: a full-eyed shot of frankest hatred.

  A few moments later, magnificent chords sounded through the house. The piano was old, but tuned to the middle of the note, and the keys were swept by a master hand. The wires were not hammered; they were touched knowingly as by the player’s own fingers, and so they sang — and from out among the chords there stole an errant melody. This was not “piano-playing” and not a pianist’s triumphant nimbleness — it was music. Art is the language of a heart that knows how to speak, and a heart that knew how was speaking here. What it told was something immeasurably wistful, something that might have welled up in the breast of a young girl standing at twilight in an April orchard. It was the inexpressible made into sound, an improvisation by a master player.

  “You hear what she’s up to?” said Hedrick, turning his head at last. But his mother had departed.

  He again extended himself flat upon the floor, face downward, this time as a necessary preliminary to rising after a manner of his own invention. Mysteriously he became higher in the middle, his body slowly forming first a round and then a pointed arch, with forehead, knees, and elbows touching the floor. A brilliantly executed manoeuvre closed his Gothic period, set him upright and upon his feet; then, without ostentation, he proceeded to the kitchen, where he found his mother polishing a sugar-bowl.

  He challenged her with a damnatory gesture in the direction of the music. “You hear what Cora’s up to?”

  Mrs. Madison’s expression was disturbed; she gave her son a look almost of appeal, and said, gently:

  “I believe there’s nothing precisely criminal in her getting Laura to play for her. Laura’s playing always soothes her when she feels out of sorts — and — you weren’t very considerate of her, Hedrick. You upset her.”

  “Mentioning Ray Vilas, you mean?” he demanded.

  “You weren’t kind.”

  “
She deserves it. Look at her! You know why she’s got Laura at the piano now.”

  “It’s — it’s because you worried her,” his mother faltered evasively. “Besides, it is very hot, and Cora isn’t as strong as she looks. She said she felt morbid and — —”

  “Morbid? Blah!” interrupted the direct boy. “She’s started after this Corliss man just like she did for Vilas. If I was Dick Lindley I wouldn’t stand for Cora’s — —”

  “Hedrick!” His mother checked his outburst pleadingly. “Cora has so much harder time than the other girls; they’re all so much better off. They seem to get everything they want, just by asking: nice clothes and jewellery — and automobiles. That seems to make a great difference nowadays; they all seem to have automobiles. We’re so dreadfully poor, and Cora has to struggle so for what good times she — —”

  “Her?” the boy jibed bitterly. “I don’t see her doing any particular struggling.” He waved his hand in a wide gesture. “She takes it all!”

  “There, there!” the mother said, and, as if feeling the need of placating this harsh judge, continued gently: “Cora isn’t strong, Hedrick, and she does have a hard time. Almost every one of the other girls in her set is at the seashore or somewhere having a gay summer. You don’t realize, but it’s mortifying to have to be the only one to stay at home, with everybody knowing it’s because your father can’t afford to send her. And this house is so hopeless,” Mrs. Madison went on, extending her plea hopefully; “it’s impossible to make it attractive, but Cora keeps trying and trying: she was all morning on her knees gilding those chairs for the music-room, poor child, and — —”

  “`Music-room’!” sneered the boy. “Gilt chairs! All show-off! That’s all she ever thinks about. It’s all there is to Cora, just show-off, so she’ll get a string o’ fellows chasin’ after her. She’s started for this Corliss just exactly the way she did for Ray Vilas!”