Collected Works of Booth Tarkington

by Booth Tarkington

  “Don’t begin till we reach your gate,” Fred said. “I’m going to leave you and Harlan there and go back to the club. But when I spoke of your speech I didn’t mean the one you made over by the fireplace, the one all about your son’s being the meaning of the universe and gods and everything. I meant your last speech — not a speech exactly, but what you said to Martha.”

  “I didn’t say anything to her except ‘good-night.’”

  “It seemed to me you did,” Fred said apologetically. “I may be wrong, but it seemed to me you said something more. Didn’t it seem so to you, Harlan?”

  “Yes, it did,” Harlan answered briefly. The group had paused at the Oliphants’ gate, and he opened it, about to pass within.

  But his cousin detained him. “Wait a moment, I mean about Dan’s hoping the baby would grow up to look like Martha. Didn’t it strike you — —”

  Dan laughed. “Oh, that? No; I said something about hoping he’d grow up to be like her: I meant I hoped he’d have her qualities.”

  “I see,” young Mr. Oliphant said pensively. “The only reason it struck me as peculiar was I thought that was what the father usually said to the mother.”

  Thereupon he lifted his hat politely, bowed and walked away, leaving both of the brothers staring after him.

  Chapter XV

  HIS HUMOUR WAS misplaced, and both of them would have been nothing less than dismayed could they have foreseen in what manner he was destined to misplace it again, and to what damage; for not gossip, nor scandal, nor slander’s very self can leave a trail more ruinous than may a merry bit of drollery misplaced. The occasion of the catastrophe was not immediate, however; it befell a month later, when the Oliphants made a celebration to mark the arrival of the baby and the completed recovery of the baby’s mother. Mrs. Oliphant gave a “family dinner.”

  She felt that something in the nature of a mild banquet was called for, and her interpretation of “the family” was a liberal one. Except those within her household, and except her mother, who was still somehow “hanging on,” she had no relatives of her own; but the kinsfolk of her husband were numerous, and she invited them all to meet their new little kinsman.

  They were presented to this personage; and then the jubilant father, carrying him high in his arms and shouting, led a lively procession into the dining-room. The baby behaved well, in spite of the noise his father made, and showed no alarm to be held so far aloft in the air, even when he was lifted as high as his bearer’s arms could reach.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Dan shouted, thus interpreting his offspring’s thoughts in the matter, “grandparents, great-uncles, great-aunts, uncle Harlan, second-cousins and third-cousins, kindly sit down and eat as much as you can. And please remember I invite you to my christening, one week from next Sunday; and if you want to know what’s goin’ to be my name, why, it’s Henry for my grandpa, and Daniel for my papa, and Oliphant for all of us. Take a good look at me, because I’m Henry Daniel Oliphant, ladies and gentlemen, the son and heir to Ornaby Addition!”

  There was cheering and applause; then the company sat down; the nurse took the little lacy white bundle from the protesting father’s arms; and Henry Daniel Oliphant was borne away amid the customary demonstrations, and carried upstairs to his cradle.

  Dan, at the head of the table, held forth in the immemorial manner of young fathers: the baby had laughed his first laugh that very morning; — Dan was sure it was neither an illusion of his own nor a chance configuration of the baby’s features. It was absolutely an actual human laugh, although at first the astounded parent hadn’t been able to believe it, because he’d never heard of any baby’s laughing when it was only a month old. But when Henry Daniel laughed not once, but twice, and moreover went on laughing for certainly as long as thirty-five seconds, the fact was proven and no longer to be doubted. “No, sir, I just had to believe my own eyes when he kept right on laughin’ up at me that way, as if he thought I was a mighty funny lookin’ old thing to be his daddy. My, but it does seem like a miracle to have your son look up at you that way and laugh! I hope he’ll keep doin’ it his whole life long, too. I’m certainly goin’ to do all I can to keep him from ever havin’ anything happen he can’t laugh at!”

  He continued, becoming jovially oratorical upon his theme, while down at the other end of the long table, sitting between the baby’s grandfather and grandmother, Lena now and then gave him a half-veiled, quick glance that a chance observer might have defined as inscrutable.

  Her pretty black-and-white dress of fluffy chiffon was designed with a more revealing coquetry than the times sanctioned; so that her amiable father-in-law, though not himself conscious of any disapproval, withheld from expression his thought that it was just as well that Mrs. Savage could not be of the company. The ruthless old lady might have supplemented her “lesson” to Lena, although it had produced somewhat pointedly the reverse of its intended effect. The young mother was “painted” more dashingly than the bride had been, and her lips as well as her cheeks were made so vivid that probably her friends in New York would have found her more than ever the French doll — a discontented French doll, they might have said.

  Yet, to her credit, if she was discontented, she made an effort not to seem so; she chattered gayly to her mother-in-law and Mr. Oliphant, laughed with them about Dan’s bragging of his offspring, and coquetted demurely with one or two elderly cousins-in-law. A young one, Mr. Frederic Oliphant, seemed genuinely to amuse her, which was what led to misfortune. He found her laughter a sweet fluting in his ears, and, wishing to hear more of it, elaborated the solemn-mannered waggeries that produced it.

  “It’s a great thing to be the only father in the world,” he said. “I suppose it’s even greater than being an earl.”

  “Why than an earl particularly?” she asked.

  “Didn’t you know? At the club and downtown nowadays they speak of your husband as the ‘Earl of Ornaby.’ You may not have noticed it, but he sometimes mentions a place called Ornaby Addition. Now that he’s got another subject though, I suspect his title ought to be changed to ‘Father of the Heir to Ornaby.’ Doesn’t that seem more intriguing, if I may employ the expression?”

  “Most intriguing!” she agreed. “But since my husband’s the ‘Earl,’ am I called the ‘Countess of Ornaby’?”

  “No; they leave you out of it, and I’m afraid you’ll be left out of it again if the new title’s conferred on him. No one would get an idea from his orations that the Heir to Ornaby has a mother. A father would seem to be Henry Daniel’s sole and total ancestry.” Then, as she laughed again, Fred added his unfortunate afterthought. “No; I forgot. I believe he does include a godmother as a sort of secondary necessity.”

  “Does he? We haven’t talked about who’s to be the godmother yet. We haven’t selected one.”

  “‘We?’” Fred repeated, affecting surprise. “You seem to think you have something to do with it! Perhaps when the father of the Heir to Ornaby gets around to it, he may condescend to inform you that the godmother was selected the very night after the heir was born.”

  “Was she?” Lena laughed. “Where? At the club?”

  “Goodness, no! Don’t you know where Dan went that night?”

  “Just to the club, didn’t he?” Lena said cheerfully, a little surprised. “That’s all I heard mentioned about it afterwards, at least.”

  “Ah, they cover up these things from you, I see. It’s time somebody warned you of what’s going on.” And Fred was inspired to add: “Haven’t you realized yet there’s an enchantress living right next door to you?”

  From the young man’s own point of view, this was foolery altogether harmless: Martha Shelby was almost “one of the family” — so near to being one of them, in fact, that he would not have been at all surprised to find her included in this family party — and the episode of his call upon her, with his cousin, upon the night after the baby’s birth, seemed to him of no other than a jocose significance. Like Dan’s “spee
ch” to Martha, it merely illustrated the hare-brained condition of a new-made father, and in that light was handy material for a family dinner-table humorist.

  In this capacity, therefore, he blundered on. “Yes, indeed — right next door! Old Dan may look like the steady, plodding homebody sort of husband, but when that type really breaks out it’s the wildest of all.”

  Lena gave the farceur a sidelong glance the sobriety of which he failed to perceive; but at once she seemed to fall in with the spirit of his burlesquing, and, assuming a mock solemnity herself, “This is terrible news!” she said. “I suspected him of being rather wild, but I didn’t suppose he’d go so far as to appoint an enchantress to be the godmother.”

  “And not only appointed her, but called on her in the middle of the night to notify her of the appointment,” Fred added. “Not only that, but dragged me along to be a chaperon!”

  “No! Did he? How funny!”

  “The way he behaved when we got there, I think he needed one!” the youth continued, expanding in the warmth of her eagerly responsive laughter. “We did get oratory! He explained to the enchantress that she was the only person who could understand his son’s being a god and the meaning of the universe; but that wasn’t all. Oh, not by any means!”

  “But he couldn’t have done worse than that!” she laughed. “Are you sure?”

  Fred was so overcome by mirthful recollection that he was unable to retain his affectation of solemnity; — a sputtering chuckle escaped him. “I wish you’d been there to hear him telling Martha he wanted Henry Daniel to grow up to be like her!”

  “No! Did he?”

  The jovial Frederic failed to catch the overtone in her voice, but happening to glance at Harlan, who sat opposite him, he was surprised, too late, by a brief pantomime of warning. Harlan frowned and pointedly shook his head; and at the same time Mrs. Oliphant, across whom the merry colloquy had taken place, began hastily to talk to Fred about his health. His mother had told her that he was ruining it at the club, she said amiably, and, to his mystification, became voluble upon the subject; but she also was too late. Lena continued to laugh, and, turning to Mr. Oliphant, prattled cheerily about nothing; — but Harlan saw her covert glance at the other end of the table where her husband was still bragging of Henry Daniel; and, although her eyelids quickly descended upon it, this glance was an evanescent spark glowing brightly for an instant through the fringe of blackened lashes.

  When the party left the table to prepare for the charades — the customary entertainment offered to one another by the Oliphants on such occasions — Frederic sought an opportunity to speak privately with Harlan.

  “What on earth were you shaking your head at me like that for? I wasn’t saying anything.”

  “Weren’t you?”

  “Certainly not! And your mother kept talking to me as fast as she could all the rest of the time we were at the table. Looked as if she was afraid for me to open my mouth again! What was it all about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then what made you act as if it was something?” Fred inquired. “You certainly don’t think your sister-in-law would ever be jealous of dear old Martha, do you?”

  “Oh, no,” Harlan said. “Not jealous. They don’t get on very well, though, I believe.”

  “What? Why, I passed by here only the other day and saw Martha coming out of the front door. She was laughing and waving her hand back to some one in the doorway and — —”

  “Oh, yes. She still comes to see mother sometimes, as she always did; but I believe she doesn’t ask for Lena any more when she comes. I understand Lena has never returned her call. You may have noticed that ladies regard those things as important?”

  “What of it? Lena would certainly understand. I’d never have mentioned our going in there that night, if there’d been any reason for her to mind it,” Fred protested. “What’s more, she doesn’t mind it. Look at her now.”

  He nodded toward where, across the broad drawing-room, Lena was helping to set the stage for the first of the charades. She moved with a dancing step, laughing and chattering to the group about her; and as she dropped a green velvet table cover over the back of an armchair, announcing that this drapery made the chair into a throne, she flung out her graceful little arms and whirled herself round and round in an airy pirouette. Fred laughed aloud, finding himself well-warranted in thinking his cousin’s uneasiness superfluous; for Lena seemed to be, indeed, the life of the party. Moreover, she remained in these high spirits all evening; and Harlan began to feel reassured, for this was what he and his mother and father had learned to think of as “Lena’s other mood”; and sometimes it lasted for several days.

  The present example of it was not to cover so extensive a period, however; although when the guests had gone she kissed her mother-in-law good-night affectionately, patted Mr. Oliphant’s shoulder, and then waved a sparkling little hand over the banisters to Harlan as she skipped upstairs and he stood below, locking the front doors. Humming “Tell me, pretty maiden,” from “Floradora,” she disappeared from his sight in the direction of her own room, but it was not there she went.

  Instead, she opened the door beyond hers, stepped within and closed it; — and during this slight and simple series of commonplace movements she underwent a sharp alteration. She had carried her liveliness all the way to the very doorknob, and, until she touched it, was still the pirouetting Lena who had been the life of the party; then suddenly she stood in the room, haggard; so that what happened to her was like the necromantic withering of a bright flower during the mere opening and closing of a door.

  It was Dan’s room, and he had just taken off his coat, preparing for bed. “Got to be out at Ornaby by six to-morrow morning,” he explained. “A contractor’s goin’ to meet me there to pick out a site for our automobile works. I won’t get much sleep, I guess — up at five this morning, too.” He yawned, and then, laughing, apologized. “I beg your pardon, Lena; I don’t mean I’m sleepy, if you want to talk the party over. You were just lovely this evening, and the whole family thought so, too. You made it a great success, and you can be certain we all appreciate it. I certainly do.”

  Facing him blankly, leaning back against the door with her hands behind her, she said nothing; and he stepped toward her solicitously. “I’m afraid you tired yourself out at it — only a week out of bed, poor child! You look — —”

  “Never mind how I look,” she said in a low voice, and as his hand was extended placatively, to pet her, she struck at it. “Just you keep away from me!”

  “Why, Lena!” he cried. “What in the world’s the matter?”

  She continued to stare at him, not replying, and he saw that she was trembling slightly from head to foot. “Lena! You’re lettin’ yourself get all upset over something or other again. You’ve gone ever since Henry was born without gettin’ this way. I was almost in hopes — in hopes — —”

  “Yes?” she said, as he faltered. “What were your hopes?”

  “Why, I was almost in hopes it — it wouldn’ happen again.”

  “What wouldn’t happen again?”

  “Your gettin’ upset like this,” he answered apologetically. “I honestly did pretty near hope it, Lena. It seemed to me we’d maybe kind of reached a turning point and could get along all right together, now Henry’s come to us.”

  “Maybe we have reached a turning point,” she said. “I suppose it’s generally considered quite a turning point when a wife leaves her husband for just cause, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, dear me!” Dan sighed, and sat down heavily on the side of his bed, taking his head between his hands. “I guess we’ve got to go through another of ’em.”

  “Another of what?”

  “Another of these troubles,” he sighed. “Well, what’s this one all about, Lena?”

  She came toward him angrily. “I’d like to know what you’d think of any other man that treated his wife as you do me! What would you say of any other man who went out the very ni
ght his child was born and did what you did?”

  “Why, I didn’t do anything,” he said, and looked up at her, surprised.

  “You didn’t? Don’t you call it anything to go to see that woman at midnight?”

  “You mean our goin’ in to Martha’s?” Dan asked, his surprise increasing. “It wasn’t midnight; it was about ten o’clock, and we only stayed a few minutes — half an hour maybe. I just wanted to tell her about the baby.”

  “Yes, so I hear,” Lena returned bitterly. “You took particularly good care not to mention that little call to me afterwards!”

  “No; I didn’t,” he protested. “I never thought of it; I’ve been too busy thinkin’ about the baby and Ornaby. I don’t say though” — he paused, and then went on with painful honesty: “I don’t say I would have mentioned it to you, if I had thought of it. I know you’ve never liked Martha. We could all see that, and it’s been sort of a trouble to us — —”

  “To ‘us’?” she interrupted sharply. “To whom?”

  “Well, to me, of course; but I mean mother, too, though she’s never said anything about it. We’ve all been as fond of Martha all her life as if she was one of our own family, and, for instance, I think mother was probably a little worried because she thought she’d better not invite her to-night, on your account. What I mean, though, is that I probably mightn’t have told you about our goin’ in to see her that night, even if I had thought of it afterwards, because as I knew how you felt about her I’d have been afraid of it’s gettin’ you into one of these upsetnesses. I guess I’d have been right, too,” he added, with a rueful laugh. “Somebody’s told you about it, and you have got into one.”

  “How kind of you! So you admit you went running to her the minute the baby was born, and yet you knew perfectly well how I felt about her.”

  “Well — I knew how unreasonably you felt about her.”