Collected Works of Booth Tarkington

by Booth Tarkington

  “‘Unreasonably?’” Lena cried shrilly. “What a wise little word! When you told her she was the only woman in the world who understands you!”

  “No, no! I don’t care who understands me,” Dan protested unhappily. “I meant she was the only one that would understand what I was sayin’ about the baby. I just had to talk about him, and she always understands anything at a time like that — or any time, for that matter. She — —”

  “Go on!” Lena said. “Go on making it worse!”

  “But I’m only tryin’ to explain how — —”

  “Explain this, then! You told her you wanted my child to grow up to be like her.”

  “Why, yes,” Dan said reasonably. “I didn’t mean to look like her; I only meant I hoped he’d have her qualities. Anybody that knows Martha would feel that way, Lena. Why, except my own father and mother, she’s the most even-tempered, understanding, helpful kind of person I ever knew in my life. Why, everybody in town looks up to her just the same as I do, and anybody’d have said that to her, Lena. You would yourself, if you had only not let yourself get prejudiced against her about nothin’ at all and just been sensible enough to really get acquainted with her.”

  Lena stood before him rigidly, except for the trembling, which had increased a little. “Tell me another thing,” she said. “When a young wife becomes a mother, does her husband ever consult her before inviting a woman she doesn’t like to act as godmother for the child?”

  Dan got up and began to pace the room, his face reddening with a prophetic distress. “Oh, golly!” he groaned. “You’re goin’ to object to it. I see that now!”

  “You do see it, do you? How remarkable!”

  He turned to her appealingly. “Look here, Lena; I did speak about it to her too soon. Of course I ought to’ve consulted you first; — I was just so enthusiastic about bein’ the boy’s father, and she’s such a dear, good, old friend — well, I guess I was excited. I know I ought to’ve waited and asked you who you wanted — but I didn’t. I did just blurt out and ask her, so it’s done and can’t be helped. Well, I can’t go back on it; I can’t go over there and just plain tell her you don’t want her!”

  “Can’t you?” Lena said. “It doesn’t matter to me what you tell her.”

  “You’re not goin’ to make me, are you?” he asked piteously.

  “No. Tell her anything you like.”

  Mistaking this icy permission, he uttered an almost vociferous sigh of relief. “Well, I do truly thank you, Lena. If you’re noble enough to overlook my selfishness in not thinkin’ about who you’d want to have for Henry’s godmother — well, my goodness, I am grateful to you, and I know it’s more’n I deserve. It’s a noble action on your part, and I’m sure it’s goin’ to lead to splendid results, because now you can’t help but get better acquainted with Martha, and you’ll do what I’ve hoped for so long: you’ll get to likin’ her and thinkin’ as much of her as everybody else does. With her in that relation — —”

  “In what relation?”

  “In the relation of the baby’s godmother. From the very day of the christening you’ll — —”

  “There may not be any such day,” Lena interrupted. “You seem to have mistaken me. There may not be any christening — at least not here. If she’s to be the godmother, the baby and I will be with my own family in New York.”

  “Oh, golly!” Dan said, and sank down on the side of the bed again. “Oh, golly!”

  Lena became vehement. “I should think you would say ‘golly’! If you had a spark of remorse in you, I think you’d say more than that!”

  “Remorse? I don’t see — —”

  “You don’t?” she cried. “You don’t see what you have to be remorseful for? You bring me out here to the life you’ve given me, and you see nothing to regret? You bring me to this flat town and its flat people, where not once in months can I hear a note of real music and where there’s no art and no beauty and no life — after you’d given me your word I should have a full year in Europe! — and you watch me struggling to bear it, to bear it with the best bravery I have in me, and the most kindness to you — and to be cheerful — and I dare you to say I haven’t made the best of it! I have — and how hard I’ve had to try most of the time to accomplish it! And what have you been? Who was the man I found I’d married? Even in this hole of a town he’s called a failure — the town failure! That’s who you got me to marry! Even these people out here — your own people — even they take you as a joke — the town joke! And when I make the best of it I can and bear it the best I can, and go on, month after month, not complaining, and suffer what I suffered when the baby came, you go gayly over to the woman whose hand you held the very first day I came here — yes, you did! — and the woman you’ve compared me to unfavourably every time you’ve ever dared to speak of me to her — yes, you have; every single time! — and you ask her to come and be the godmother to my child! You can go over there and tell her anything you like — tell her again you want my baby to be like her — but there’s one thing you’d better tell her besides, and that is, there won’t be any christening if she comes to it!”

  She ran out, the closing of the door reverberating eloquently through the house; and Dan remained seated upon the side of the bed, his head between his hands. It was by no means the first time he had remained in that position when Lena slammed the door.

  Chapter XVI

  HIS ATTITUDE HAD not changed, fifteen minutes later, when there came a light tapping upon that mishandled door of his; and at the sound he rose quickly, said, “Yes, mother,” and tried to regain his usual cheerfulness of aspect as Mrs. Oliphant came in noiselessly. She was smiling, and he was able to construct a smile in return, telling her she looked “mighty pretty” in her rose-coloured negligee — a compliment not exaggerated. Serenity, a good faith, and a cheerful disposition bring beauty in time even where it has not been; and, where beauty has always been, as it had with Mrs. Oliphant, white hair is only that crowning prettiness so knowingly sought by the ladies of the eighteenth-century when they powdered their blonde or brunette ringlets.

  “I just thought I’d slip in for a minute,” she said apologetically. “I was afraid you might forget you had to be up so early to-morrow morning, and get to thinking about something and not go to bed at all.”

  “Oh, no; don’t worry. I’ll not do that again,” he said. “It doesn’t do any good, I know. I suppose you heard her?”

  She patted his cheek, smiling up at him and resolutely withholding from expression the compassion that had brought her to him. “I just wanted to tell you not to be troubled. You’ll have to give her a little more time to get adjusted, Dan. A great many young couples don’t manage all these little adjustments until after the first few years of marriage; and I think my own father and mother didn’t manage it even that soon; — I’m afraid I remember their having some rather troubled times when I was a pretty old little girl. You mustn’t let yourself be discouraged, dear. Lena really tries to get the best of herself, and though she fails sometimes — —”

  “It isn’t that,” he interrupted. “At least it seemed to be something more definite than usual this time. You see, I didn’t stop to think about consulting her, and asked Martha to be Henry Daniel’s godmother.”

  “I heard Fred Oliphant say so, but I thought perhaps he was only trying to tease Lena.” For a moment Mrs. Oliphant looked disturbed, but brightened with a quickly reassuring second thought. “Well, that would be lovely, and I’m glad you did it; but Martha’ll decline.”

  “She didn’t, though, when I asked her.”

  “What did she say?”

  Dan rubbed his forehead. “Well, I don’t remember that she said anything.”

  “No?” His mother laughed. “You won’t have to withdraw your invitation, if that’s what’s troubling you, Dan.”

  “It is troubling me,” he admitted despondently. “I just couldn’t go over there and tell her — —”

  “No,” Mrs. Olip
hant said. “And Martha’d never let you.”

  “You mean you’d tell her — —”

  “No. Nobody’ll say a word to her about it. Don’t you know Martha well enough yet to understand that she won’t expect to be Henry’s godmother?”

  “But she must.”

  “No. If she did, she’d have spoken of it to me.”

  “That does look like it a little,” he said with some relief; then frowned again. “But I want her to be the godmother; and she ought to be. Lena hasn’t any great friend of her own that she wants for it; and Martha’s the best friend I ever — —”

  “No, no,” his mother interrupted hurriedly. “It wouldn’t do, Dan.”

  “But why?”

  “Well — —” she hesitated, sighed, and went on: “We all love Martha — except Lena. I’m afraid that’s reason enough. You must give it up.”

  “I’m afraid so,” he agreed gloomily. “Oh, lordy!”

  “Now, now! Martha knows you wanted her, and that’s all she’ll care about. She — —” Mrs. Oliphant paused with the bothered air of one who fears to elaborate an indiscretion already committed. Then she continued nervously: “There was something else I wanted to speak to you about. Your father and I — we’ve been a little afraid — —” She hesitated again.

  “Afraid of what, mother?”

  “Well, we were talking over this long struggle of yours to make a success of the Addition, Dan; and of course we’ve seen how hard you’ve been pressed from the very first, and yet you’ve always kept the thing a little alive and held on to it when time after time everybody said you’d just have to let go.”

  “Yes, mother?”

  “Well, it seems your father heard downtown to-day that this time you’d — you’d — —”

  “This time I’d what, mother?”

  She put her arms about him and, in spite of her resolution, the compassion she felt for him was evident in her voice and in her eyes. “Oh, Dan, if this time you can’t hold on to it any longer, you mustn’t feel too badly, please!”

  He had bent over her as she embraced him; but now he threw back his shoulders and laughed. “So that’s what father heard to-day,” he said. “You tell him he was listening to the wrong crowd, mother!” He moved her gently toward the door, his arm about her. “You go to bed, and so will I.” He laughed again, not grimly or bitterly, but with deep and hearty mirth. “Why, there isn’t any more chance of my not keepin’ hold of Ornaby than there is of this house fallin’ off the earth onto the moon! They can’t foreclose on me for anyhow two weeks more, and by that time I’ll show ’em what’s what! I sold a lot only last month, and there’ve been three more men out there already to look at locations. Two weeks is plenty of time for things to happen, mother. Don’t you worry.”

  He kissed her good-night, and as she smiled back at him from the hall and told him she wouldn’t worry if he’d get some sleep, he went on: “Why, they haven’t any more chance to get Ornaby away from me than they have to — than they have to” — he paused, searching for a sufficient comparison, and, finding it, finished with cheery explosiveness— “than they have to get Henry Daniel Oliphant himself away from me!”

  Upon this she went to her own door down the hall, where she nodded and whispered back to him a smiling good-night, and disappeared, glad to see him so abundantly recovered from his brief depression. “Somehow I believe he will manage to keep on going, even this time,” she told her husband. “He’s so sure failure’s an absolute impossibility that I do think maybe — —”

  “No, I don’t see even a ‘maybe’ in it for him,” Mr. Oliphant said, and shook his head. “Not this time, I’m afraid.”

  But the Earl of Ornaby was in the field by sunrise the next morning, and armoured in convictions so strong that he began the day with plans, not for the retention of the threatened domain, but for an extension of it; he went to see a farmer who owned sixty acres north of Ornaby and got an option on them before keeping his appointment with a contractor to select a site for the airily projected automobile factory.

  Not until the afternoon did he go downtown to see about raising a little money on a note to fend off the impending foreclosure; and he was still undiscouraged when he came home that evening without having succeeded. There were thirteen long days left, he told his mother, in the hall near the front door, where she met him when he came in; and she responded sunnily that thirteen was a lucky number, then gave him a note of a kind different from the one he had spent the afternoon trying to negotiate.

  “You see I was right,” she said. “Didn’t I tell you she’d understand? Their housemaid brought it in this morning after breakfast.”

  Martha had written to Mrs. Oliphant:

  We’re in such a rush of packing I won’t have time to come in and say good-bye, as I’d like to. Papa has to go to New York, and I’ve decided I ought to go with him, because there are so many automobiles there now, and he hasn’t learned that they’re getting even worse than the bicycle “speeders” about running over people.

  We’ll be there two or three weeks and I’ve almost persuaded him to let me show him Quebec and the Saguenay — and he says he might be willing to take the boat from Montreal for a little run to England after that!

  Please give my love to Mr. Oliphant and Harlan for me, and of course to Dan, whom I haven’t seen since his great evening after the baby was born. He was so funny and delightful, and he talked with such really true wisdom, too! I wanted to remember everything he said, but the trouble was that he talked so fast and said so much that the next day I couldn’t remember any of it at all!

  Please say good-bye for us to Mrs. Savage. Tell her when we get home we expect to find her downstairs again and enjoying the view from that big window of hers where she’s always loved to sit. Tell her papa wants to come with me to see her. He wants to talk with her about the old days when this was a little town. There aren’t so many left now he can do that with, though I know Mrs. Savage regards him as a mere youth, comparatively! He asks me to say good-bye to Mr. Oliphant and all of you for him — and for myself I close with good-bye to you and send you my best love, always.

  “Lordy!” Dan said, staring at this missive when he had finished reading it. “She is goin’ to be gone a long while! I don’t get to see her often, but it’s always mighty satisfactory to know she’s there — just next door. That house’ll look pretty empty for a while, won’t it?” He sighed. “Well, I suppose I’d better go and let Lena know there’s nothin’ to disturb her now about the christening.”

  Mrs. Oliphant told him lightly that she had already informed her daughter-in-law of Martha’s departure, and that it would be better for him not to mention the subject again; — Lena had selected his aunt Olive as a proper godmother. Dan looked rueful, but muttered an unenthusiastic consent and went into the library to consult his father upon the best way to raise money in thirteen days.

  Mr. Oliphant was unable to offer him either the money itself or practical advice how to get it. “I’m afraid it looks like pretty hard luck this time, Dan, old fellow,” he said. “It’s funny a man with as good a practice as mine can’t ever seem to be able to lay his hands on a little cash that doesn’t have to go right out on some old debt. If I just didn’t have to meet that confounded note I went on for poor old Tom Vertrees I — —”

  “No, no,” his son protested;— “I wouldn’t let you, if you could. My conscience’d trouble me about what I did let you do for me if I wasn’t so sure you’ll get paid back with seven per cent. interest as soon as I begin to get these lots to sellin’ off a little faster.”

  “What about the three men your mother tells me have been out there looking at lots since you sold the first one? Couldn’t you offer them a reduction in the price for a little cash in hand?”

  “I did,” Dan replied. “I did that the first thing with each of ’em. But one of ’em told a darkey I’ve got workin’ out there he thought he could get what he wanted still cheaper after the mortgage is for
eclosed; and I guess maybe the other two thought the same way about it. I guess that’s the way those seven people felt that came when I tried to auction off some lots awhile back.”

  “I’m afraid so. I hope you aren’t going to take it too hard, Dan.”

  “Take what too hard, sir?”

  “There are other things you can go into, my boy. You’ve shown you’ve got immense energy and perseverance. They may laugh at you, but you can be sure they like the grit you’ve shown, and if you do have to give up the idea — —”

  “What idea, sir?”

  “I mean the idea of this Addition,” his father explained. “If the time’s come when you have to let it go — —”

  “Ornaby?” Dan interrupted with an incredulity wholly untouched by the facts confronting him. “Why, you just put any such notion out of your mind, sir.” And he repeated the extreme comparison he had made the night before. “Why, I’m not goin’ to let Ornaby go any more than I am our little namesake upstairs in his cradle! I’m goin’ to keep it this time and every time! I’ve got thirteen days left and I’ll find some way!”

  He kept Ornaby “this time,” but in spite of his determined prophecy and all he did to fulfil it, six of his thirteen days passed and he had not found the way. Indeed, he did not find the way at all; for it was found through none of his seeking. On the seventh of the thirteen days his grandmother sent for him to come to talk to her in the evening; and when he sat down beside her and for a moment covered the ghostly hand on the coverlet with his own, he told her truthfully that she was looking better.

  “Why, a great deal better!” he said. “I guess you’re goin’ to do what Martha said in her message, grandma, and get downstairs again before she comes home.”

  “Do you think so?” she said in a voice a little stronger than it was when he had last talked with her. “You think I might fool that doctor after all?”

  “But doesn’t he say you’re better, grandma?”

  “Yes,” she said, and smiled faintly. “But he doesn’t think so. Told me this morning I was better and then came three times during the day! He doesn’t fool anybody.”