Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  Mrs. Butler was one of those pale, slight ladies, not easily imaginable apart from the kind of soft breakfast shawl which she wore, and which harmonised with the invalid purple under her kind eyes, the homes of habitual headache; and the daughters of the marriage Captain Butler had made rather late in life with a woman fifteen years younger than himself, were as unlike their mother as their father was. These large, warm blondes invited all the coolness they could with their draperies, and stood grouped about her, so many statues of health and young good looks and perpetual good-nature, with bangs and frizzes over their white foreheads, and shadowing their floating, heavily-lashed blue eyes. When alone they often tended in behaviour to an innocent rowdiness; they were so amiable, and so glad, and so strong, that they could not very well keep quiet, and when quiet, especially in their mother’s presence, they had a knowingly quelled look: in their father’s presence they were not expected nor liked to be quiet. They admired Helen almost as much as they admired their mother. She was older than any of them, except Marian, and was believed to be a pattern of style and wisdom, who had had lots of offers, and could marry anybody. While Helen and their mother talked together, they listened in silence, granting their superiority, with the eager humility of well-bred younger girlhood; and Marian went to see about lunch.

  Mr. Ray was coming to lunch, and Helen was to see him with Marian for the first time since their engagement. He was a man she had not known very well in Harvard, though he was of the class she had danced through with. He was rather quiet, and she had not formed a flattering opinion of him; some of the most brilliant fellows liked him, but she had chosen to think him dull. That was some years ago, and she had not often met him since; he had been away a great deal.

  His quiet seemed to have grown upon him, when he appeared, or it might have been the contrast of his composure with the tumult of the young girls that gave it such a positive effect. He seemed the best of friends with them all, but in his own way. He spoke little and he spoke low; and he could not be got to repeat what he said; he always said something different the second time, and if he only looked as if he were going to speak, his prospective sisters-in-law fell helplessly silent. He was not quite so tall as Marian, and he was much slighter; she generously prided herself upon being unable to wear his gloves, which Jessie Butler could just get on. He was a very scrupulously perfect man as to his gloves, and every part of his dress, which the young ladies now criticised in detail, after he had paid his duty to Helen and their mother. They all used him with a freedom that amused Helen, and that was not much short of the frankness with which Marian came out and planted a large kiss upon his lips, and then, without speaking to him, turned to her mother with an air of housekeeperly pre-occupation to ask something about the lunch, and disappeared again.

  Mr. Ray took everything with grave composure, a little point of light in either of his brown eyes, and the slightest curve of the small brown moustache that curled tightly in over his upper lip, showing his sense from time to time of what he must have found droll if some one else had been in his place. He had an affectionate deference for Mrs. Butler that charmed Helen. He carved at lunch with a mastery of the difficult art, and he was quite at ease in his character of head of the family. It gave Helen a sort of shock to detect him in pressing Marian’s hand under the table; but upon reflection, she was not sure that she disapproved of it.

  She perceived that she must revise her opinion of Mr. Ray. Without being witty, his talk was bright and to the last degree sensible, with an edge of satire for the young girls, to whom at the same time he was alertly attentive. Helen thought his manner exquisite, especially towards herself in her quality of Marian’s old and valued friend; it was just what the manner of a man in his place should be. He talked a good deal to her, and told her he had spent most of the summer on the water, “Which accounts,” she mused, “for his brown little hands, not much bigger than a Jap law-student’s, and for that perfect mass of freckles.” He said he was expecting his boat round from Manchester; and he hoped that she would come with the other young ladies and take a look at her after lunch. He said “boat” so low that Helen could just catch the word, and she smiled in consenting to go and look at it, for she imagined from his deprecatory tone that it was something like a dory which might have been bestowed upon Mr. Ray’s humility by some kindly fisherman. Walking to the shore by Helen’s side he said something further about running down to Mt. Dessert in his boat, and about one of his men knowing how to broil a mackerel pretty well, which puzzled her, and shook her in her error, just before they came upon a vision of snowy duck and paint, and shining brasses, straight and slim and exquisite as Helen herself in line, and light as a bird dipped for a moment upon the water. A small boat put out for them, and they were received on board the yacht with grave welcome by Mr. Ray, whose simple dress — so far hitherto from proclaiming itself nautical in cut or colour — now appeared perfectly adapted to yachting. He did not seem to do the host here any more than at Captain Butler’s table, but he distinguished Helen as his chief guest, with a subtle accent in his politeness that gave her quick nerves something of the pleasure of a fine touch in music. She was now aware that she admired Mr. Ray, and she wondered if he did not look shorter than he really was.

  She found it quite in character that he should have a friend on board, whom he had not mentioned to any of them, and whom he now introduced in his most suppressed tones. The friend was a tall young Englishman, in blue Scotch stuff; and Helen decided at once that his shoulders sloped too much; he talked very far down in his throat, and he had a nervous laugh; Helen discovered that he had also a shy, askance effect of having just looked at you.

  Ray asked the ladies if they would fish, and when they would not, he frankly tried to entertain them in other ways. It came out that he could both play and sing; and he picked on a banjo the air of a Canadian boat-song he had learned at Gaspé the summer before. That made the girls ask him to show his sketches of the habitans, and Helen thought them very good, and very droll, done with vigour and chic. He made the afternoon pass charmingly, but what amused Helen most was Marian’s having already got his tone about his possessions and accomplishments; her instinct would not suffer her to afflict him by any show of pride in them, proud as she was of them; and on the yacht there was no approach to endearments between them. “Really,” thought Helen, “Marian will be equal to it, after all,” and began to respect her sex. After supper, which Ray offered them on board, and which that one of the men who could broil a mackerel pretty well served with touches of exquisite marine cookery, Helen felt that it would be mean to refrain any longer. “Marian,” she whispered to her friend apart, “he is perfect!” and Marian looked gratefully at her and breathed “Yes!”

  Helen was generous, but the proximity of this prosperous love made her feel very desolate and left behind. The aching tenderness for Robert, which was at the bottom of all her moods, throbbed sorer; she must still it somehow, and she began to talk with the Englishman. As she went on she could not help seeing that the young Butler girls, innocently wondering at her under their bangs, were suffering some loss of an ideal, and that Marian’s averted eyes were reflecting Mr. Ray’s disapproval, otherwise hidden deeper than the sea over which they sailed.

  The Englishman after a moment of awkward hesitation and apparent self-question, seemed to fall an easy prey. He presently hung about her quite helplessly; but his helplessness did not make her pity him. “So nice,” he said, as they sat a little apart, after Ray had attempted a diversion with another Canadian barcarole, “to be able to do something of that kind. But it isn’t very common in the States, is it, Miss — Harkness?”

  “I don’t understand. Do you mean that we don’t commonly know Canadian boat-songs? I don’t suppose we do.”

  “No, no; I don’t mean that!” replied Mr. Rainford; if that was the name which Helen had caught. “I meant being able to do something, you know, to keep the ball foiling, as you say.”

  “Do we say ‘keep
the ball rolling’?” Helen affected to muse.

  “I heard it was an Americanism,” said Mr. Rainford, laughing at the pretence she made, with her downward look, of giving his words anxious thought. “I was thinking of the Canadians when I spoke.

  They seem to be up to all sorts of things. I was at a place last month — Old Beach or Old Orchard — something like that — where the Montreal people come; and some of those fellows knew no end of things. Songs, like Mr. Ray’s; and tricks; and — and — well, I don’t know.”

  Helen shook her head. “No, we don’t have those accomplishments in the States, as you say. We ‘re a serious people.”

  “I don’t know,” laughed Mr. Rainford. “You have your own fun, I suppose.”

  “In our poor way, yes. We go to lectures, and attend the public school exhibitions, and — yes, we have our amusements.”

  Mr. Rainford seemed carried quite beyond himself by these ironical impertinences. “Really, I can’t admit that they ‘re all of that kind. I saw a good deal of an amusement at the sea-side that I was told was not very serious.”

  “Indeed! What could it have been?” asked Helen, with the affectation of deep interest “Oh, surely now, Miss Harkness, you don’t expect me to explain it. All the young people seemed to understand it; the Canadian ladies said it was an American institution.” She did not help him on, and he had to get out of the affair as he could. He reddened with the effort. “I must say it seemed very pleasant, at least for the two people concerned.”

  “Oh, only two!” cried Helen.

  The poor young man laughed gratefully, and took up the burden of silliness which she now left wholly to him. “Yes; a young lady — always very charming — and—”

  “A gentleman always very brilliant and interesting. Oh, yes!” She turned about on her camp-stool with an unconscious air, and began to talk to the young Butler girls. She had provoked his recognition of the situation, if he had meant his allusion to sea-side flirtations for that, but her fretted nerves did not resent it the less because she was in the wrong. She could have said that there was nothing in her words, and afterwards she did say so to herself; but, as if he found a personal edge in them, Mr. Rainford sat quite blank for a moment; then after some attempts at self-recovery in talk with the others, he rose and went below.

  “Ned,” said Marian, “where did you pick up that particularly odious Englishman?” In her vexation with Helen, it was necessary to assail some one.

  “He’s a very good fellow,” said Ray quietly. “I met him in Cairo, first. He’s very clever; and remarkably well up in Coptic — for a lord.”

  All the Butlers started, as if to pounce upon Ray. “A lord!” they hoarsely breathed, with the bitter sense of loss natural to girls who might never see a nobleman again.

  “Why did you introduce him as Mister?” demanded Marian, in accents expressive of the common anguish; and somehow the revelation of her victim’s quality seemed to Helen to heighten the folly and cruelty of her behaviour; it seemed to elevate it into a question of international interest.

  “I said Lord Rainford,” retorted Ray.

  “You whispered it!” cried Marian bitterly.

  “Well, he won’t mind your calling him Mr. Rainford. I can explain,” said Ray. “Don’t change, now,” he added mischievously.

  “As if we should!” indignantly retorted Marian. “And let him know that we’d been talking about him! No, he shall remain Mister to the end of the chapter with us. Are you going to bring him to the house?”’

  “I’m going to Salem with him as soon as I put you ashore. I’d have asked you to let me bring him to lunch if I’d supposed he was on the boat. When I left him at Manchester this morning, he talked of going to Boston by the cars.”

  “I think he’s hideous,” said Marian, for all comment on the explanation.

  “Not pretty, but precious,” returned Ray tranquilly. “He’s a good fellow, but he knows he isn’t good-looking. He’s rather sensitive about it, and it makes him nervous and awkward with ladies; but he’s a very sensible fellow among men,” Ray concluded.

  There was a little unpleasant pause, and then Ray and Marian began talking eagerly to Helen, as if they felt a little ashamed, and a good deal sorry for her, and were anxious to get her to do or say something that would bring back their good opinion of her.

  They dropped anchor in a sheet of sunset red off Captain Butler’s place, and Ray pulled them ashore in his small boat. Some of them tried to sing the barcarole he had played, but the girlish voices thrilled sadly over the glassy tide, which was softly ebbing, and leaving more and more bare the drowned-looking boulders, heavily tressed with the dripping golden brown seaweed.

  Marian sat in the bow of the boat, and as she rose and stood there, holding out one hand to Ray to be helped ashore, and gathering her skirts with the other, she glanced towards the house: “Why, who is there with mamma on the verandah? Why, it can’t be papa!”

  Helen looked round over her shoulder where she sat, and now they all looked, Ray turning his head and mechanically clasping Marian’s hand.

  Captain Butler was walking up and down before his wife, who sat listening to what he was saying. He was talking very loud and very fast, with a sort of passionate vehemence; his tones reached them, but they could not make out his words. He gesticulated as if describing some scene, and then suddenly stopped, and threw back his head, and seemed to be laughing.

  “What can amuse Captain Butler so much?” asked Helen, with a smile. At the same time she saw him draw out his handkerchief and hide his face in it, and sit down with his face still hidden. The pantomime which they could see with such distinctness, and of which they yet remained so ignorant, somehow began to overawe them. Ray quickly helped them from the boat. “I am going up with you,” he said, and with a glance at Marian, “Miss Harkness,” he added, “won’t you take my arm over these rocks?”

  Helen clung heavily to him as she tottered up the path. “I wonder what has brought Captain Butler to-night,” she said tremulously. “He wasn’t to be here till Saturday.”

  “I fancy he’s persuaded your father to come with him,” answered Ray. “Look out for that stone, Miss Harkness.”

  “Oh, I hope papa isn’t worse again,” said Helen, stumbling over it. She hurt herself, and was glad of the pain that let her give their way to the tears that came into her eyes.

  “No; I should think he was more likely to be better,” said Ray, refusing to see her trouble, and really lifting her along. The others had fallen behind a little, and these two had now reached the gravel drive up to the piazza steps alone.

  They saw a quick parley between the Captain and Mrs. Butler, and he stepped in-doors through one of the long windows, while she came forward to the rail, and called out to Marian, “Your father wants all of you to go to the other door, Marian.”

  “Why, mamma—” began Marian.

  “Go, go!” cried her mother. “Don’t ask! — Edward, bring Helen here!”

  “Yes, it’s some little surprise,” said Ray, beginning to laugh. “Do you like surprises, Miss Harkness?”

  “I don’t believe I do,” she answered, trying to laugh too.

  Mrs. Butler came forward and took her from Ray, motioning or rather looking him aside, as she clasped the girl tight in her arms. At this moment she saw Captain Butler glance stealthily at them from within the room; his face was contorted and wet with tears. “What — what is it, Mrs. Butler?” she gasped, weakly pulling back a little from her close embrace, and facing her.

  There was an instant in which the elder woman dwelt upon her with all of compassion and imploring in her eyes. Then she said, “Death, Helen. Your father is dead!”

  Helen’s strength came back. As if many days had passed since she saw him, “To-day?” she asked, still holding her hand against Mrs. Butler’s breast, where she had pressed it.

  “At two o’clock.”

  Helen softly loosed herself from Mrs. Butler’s arms, and sat down in the chair n
ear which they stood, and looked out upon the grounds sloping to the water, the black rocks by the shore; the huger rocks that showed their backs like sleeping sea-beasts out of the smooth water; the yacht darkening against the east; far beyond the rim of the sea, a light just twinkling up in the invisible tower at the horizon’s verge. A thick darkness seemed to come down out of the sky over all, but Helen would not let it close upon her. She fought the swoon away, and looked up at the pitying, suffering face above her.

  “I am glad you told me at once, Mrs. Butler.

  Thank you,” she said, and sank back in her chair, while the other fell on her knees beside her, and gathered her to her heart again, and wept over her.