Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

LORENZO found himself before the great hotel register, which one of the clerks had wheeled round towards him. When he had fancied inscribing himself and Althea as Lorenzo Weaver and Wife, it had been very simple; but it suddenly came to him that they were not married, and that he could not truthfully call her his wife. He stood leaning over the register, and he was aware of the clerk waiting impatiently. He had said that he wished to register, and he was not doing so.

  The clerk said severely, and, Lorenzo felt, disdainfully, “Let this gentleman register, please,” and then he was aware of some one standing behind him. A large, flourishing-sort-of-looking man, with a shawl on his arm and a bag in his hand, which he put down when Lorenzo moved aside, wrote with the pen which the clerk dipped into the ink and offered him, “J. M. Bayne and Lady,” in a rapid, authoritative hand, and the clerk said, “Room, Mr. Bayne?” And the man answered, “No; dinner. We’re going on to Lake George in the afternoon. Like to check the things.” Aud the clerk answered, “Opposite desk, please.” And a black call-boy ran up and took the shawl and bag, aud the man went away, and left Lorenzo to the register again. The man had solved the problem for him, and he wrote “Lorenzo Weaver aud Lady.” If Althea was not his wife, she was certainly, in the parlance of the world-outside, a lady, and this seemed a safe way out of the trouble.

  “Dinner?” asked the clerk, who came back to him when he looked up from the register.

  “Nay — no, I guess I will have a room. But we do want dinner,” said Lorenzo. At the word he was sensible of being hungry.

  The clerk wrote a number and an initial against Lorenzo’s name, and then he asked,

  “Baggage?”

  “What?” said Lorenzo.

  “Any trunks or traps to go to your room?”

  “Oh, they haven’t come yet. We left our things at the stores till we could make up our minds which hotel—”

  “Ten dollars,” said the clerk, abruptly. Lorenzo did not know why he said this, but he stood waiting behind the register, and it came to Lorenzo that he was asking ten dollars of him, and he took out his money and paid it rather tentatively. The clerk took the money, and said, as he laid it in a drawer, “We have to get it in advance where there’s no baggage. Like to go to your room?”

  “I guess we’ll have some dinner first,” said Lorenzo. He had decided that he would not try to answer yes or no to anything, for fear he should say yee or nay, and he found it easy to begin always with a guess.

  “Early dinner from one to three,” said the clerk. “Go in any time you like.” He did not seem so unkind now as at first; he even smiled a little in looking at Lorenzo, as if now he had fathomed his hesitation in registering, and imagined him to have had the newly married man’s embarrassment in declaring his condition so publicly for the first time. He even added, “Dining-room right through the parlor,” and then he turned finally away.

  Lorenzo went back to the place where he had left Althea. She was not there, and his heart gave a leap of alarm. He looked all round, whirling about, and searching the long verandas with eyes which he could not keep from being anxious.

  Far off, almost at the end of the grove, two ladies — one in white and one in blue — were walking. At the moment he caught sight of them they stopped, and the one in blue began to wave her handkerchief as if she were signalling to him. Then he saw that it was Althea with that young woman who had taken his place beside her; it was she who was waving to him. She had Althea by the arm, and was leaning forward, as if talking rapidly up into her face. He went out to meet them, advancing shyly; and as soon as he came within hearing the young woman screamed at him, “Were you scared? Did you think some one had run away with her?”

  Lorenzo was ashamed to own that he had been frightened. He said, “I guess so;” and that seemed to pass for a joke with the young woman, who bowed herself forward, and then threw herself backward in the fit of laughter that seized her at his words. She walked mincingly, and she hung her disengaged hand at her side with her handkerchief always in it, which she now pressed to her eyes, as if to wipe away her tears of laughter. She realized to Lorenzo all that he had ever dreamed of fashionable splendor in the world-outside. Her dress was beautiful, and so was her hat, which she wore at a saucy slant on her little golden head.

  Althea blushed as they approached, but she merely said, “We thought you would see us; but we were coming back anyway.”

  “Oh, this is the best joke!” the young lady cried, beginning to laugh again. “I shall tell George about this the very first thing when I see him. I guess he wouldn’t have been scared. He knows I couldn’t be induced to run away from him. We did give you a scare, didn’t we? Poor Mr. Brown!”

  Lorenzo stared and said, “My name is Weaver.”

  “Why, your wife said it was Brown,” the young lady began, in a tone of injury. Then she burst out laughing again. “Oh, I see!” She turned to Althea. “You forgot you were married, and you told me your maiden name. Oh, that is too good! When I tell George about this! But it isn’t the least bit surprising. I’ve been married nearly a whole week, and I believe if I didn’t keep saying my married name over to myself all the time, I shouldn’t realize yet that I was married. But the only way is to keep saying it; and I write it too: Mrs. George Cargate, Mrs. George Cargate. If you don’t do it, you’ll get into all sorts of scrapes. Well, Mr. Weaver, I am going to be awfully good now, and leave you to yourselves; I can see that you’re just dying to be together.” She drew her arm out of Althea’s, and then seized her by both wrists. “Oh, you are just too sweet for anything! That cherry red does become you so, and it’s just the same shade here, and here, and here!” She touched the knot on Althea’s hat, the knot on her breast, and the dimple on her check; and then, with a cry of laughter, she broke from them and ran down the path to the hotel.

  Lorenzo and Althea stood abashed in each other’s presence. “Well, well!” he said, at last.

  “I presume we do not understand their ways yet,” said Althea. “She seems to mean well; but she seems to let herself go a good deal, even for the world-outside.”

  “Oh yes,” Lorenzo assented; “I presume she don’t mean any harm by it. I’d rather see a person more settled.”

  They were walking demurely side by side towards the hotel, and she cast an upward, sidewise look at him. “You wouldn’t like to have me start off now with a little scream and run after her, yonder?”

  “Nay,” said Lorenzo, soberly, “I should not Althea.” Something ascetic showed in his kind young face; the potentiality of Shaker eldership passed like a cloud-shadow over it. “I don’t like such behaving. Did you tell her — did you make her understand — that we were not married yet?”

  “Nay, there was no time for that,” answered Althea; “I had to let her go on talking to me, as if we were.”

  “Yee,” said Lorenzo.

  “We had to let that driver think so too,” she pursued.

  “Oh yee,” said Lorenzo, with a sigh; and he thought how he had let the hotel people think so by the entry he had made; but he did not tell Althea of that. “I presume,” he said, with another deep breath, “that it is not deceiving unless we mean to deceive. It will be all right as soon as we are married.”

  “We promised not to talk of that yet,” said Althea.

  “Yee. Not till you say so. I guess it’s about dinner-time now.”

  “Oh, well, then, let us go right in. I am hungry. It is a long time since we had breakfast.”

  XI

  AT the door of the dining-room, where Lorenzo gave his hat to a man who was taking hats and putting them on long shelves, they stopped.

  “My short hair will show,” Althea whispered, with her hands up to the elastic that held her hat on. “Shall you mind if it makes them look?”

  “Oh nay, not if you don’t,” and he flushed a little, thinking how pretty she was, with her hands up so.

  “I presume they will think it is queer. I don’t know exactly what to do, Lorenzo.”

  They stood s
taring into the vast dining-room in a hesitation that grew painful. Rows of small tables stretched away in long perspective, with one wide avenue dividing them, and aisles penetrating their multitude crosswise and lengthwise. The china and glass and silver glittered, the napery shone, and the black waiters in white linen jackets ran to and fro seating and serving the guests, who were there already in great number. They kept pressing in around Lorenzo and Althea where they stood. An old, gray-headed negro received them with severe state as they entered, and waved his hand to one of his subordinates, who beckoned to the guests and ran down the dining-hall before them to some table where he pulled out chairs for them to be seated.

  “Well, well!” said Lorenzo, in vague response to Althea’s perplexity; and he turned about without hope of help, but merely to gain time, when his eyes met the gay eyes of that young woman coming forward with her silent mother.

  “Oh, are you going to have early dinner, too?” she called to him, and her voice made Althea turn round. “We are, just to pass away the time; we have got to do something till George comes. I’ve just got a despatch from him — he telegraphs twice a day — and only think! He won’t be here till to-morrow morning. Isn’t it a shame? I don’t know what I’m going to do to live through it. Why don’t you go in?” she asked Althea, as she put her hand through her arm. “We can go in together, I suppose; but there are no seats at our table, and they’ll be sure to put you somewhere else, they’re so obstinate. What are you waiting for?” She seemed to note something unusual now in their delay, and she addressed her question to Lorenzo.

  “It’s her short hair,” he began; and in spite of Althea’s “Oh, Lorenzo!” he went on, “ It’ll show so when she takes her hat off.”

  “Well, don’t take it off, then!” cried the young woman. “Half of them are going in with their hats and bonnets on, don’t you see?”

  “Yee — es,” said Lorenzo. “But we didn’t know—”

  “I guess you can do what other people do. Why did you cut it off? Was it sickness? I had a fever once when I was little, and I had to have my head shaved. George says he wishes he could have seen me.” She was pressing into the room with her hand in Althea’s arm, and the stately negro stopped them with a bow that made her drop her hand. “There! I suppose they’ll put you off somewhere by yourselves. I think everything is too provoking to-day! But I’ll see you just as soon as we’re through dinner.” She went gayly off with her mother, and an airy waiter went down, and in and out of the tables, in a series of dancing positions, till he had led Lorenzo and Althea almost the whole length of the hall, and pulled out two chairs for them where they were to sit, and snapped his fingers to another waiter, who came forward to wait upon them. They were red with shame and fear, but under his friendly smile they began to feel more at their ease. They did not know what to ask for, and they let him choose their dinner, which he brought in splendid profusion, and put before them with affectionate hospitality, which, after he had served their dessert, began to suffer a chill eclipse. He went and stood gloomily against the wall with folded arms.

  “I can’t think what it is comes over them all, Althea,” said Lorenzo. “I believe I shall ask that young woman when we get back to the parlor and have a chance to speak to her.”

  He had not to wait so long. The young woman made her way to them from her distant table before they rose from theirs, and took a vacant seat beside Althea. When Lorenzo told how strangely the sleeping-car porter and the restaurant waiter and now this waiter had behaved towards the end, she laughed, and said, “Why, it must be the tip. Did you give them something.”

  “What for?”

  “For waiting on you.”

  “I thought they were paid for that.”

  “Well, they are. But they always expect something extra, George says.”

  “Well, well!” said Lorenzo. “How much had I ought to give?”

  “Well, George says — of course, I don’t know anything about it myself — George says he always gives them five dollars to begin with, and that makes them pleasant; but if they don’t look after him well after that he don’t give them anything more.”

  Lorenzo took out his money, which he had all in one roll of bills, and peeled off a five-dollar note, which he held out towards the waiter. The waiter rushed upon it. When he recognized its value he burst into a joyous effervescence of thanks; he begged them to let him bring them something else, and overwhelmed them with finger-bowls and superfluous service; he went down on his knees under the table, to see if they had not dropped something; he said that he would be sure to keep those seats for them as long as they stayed; and he said he would speak to the head-waiter, so that they should not be shown elsewhere.

  “Yes, I guess that was it,” said the young woman, when they had got away from him, and were walking up the wide avenue towards the door together. She had her hand through Althea’s arm again, and she talked to Lorenzo over her pretty shoulder, which she drew a little forward as she moved. “I guess you’ve fixed him. And now, Mr. Weaver, I’m going to ask a great favor of you. I want you to lend me your wife a little while. I want her to go shopping with me for an hour or so. I can’t think of any other way to put in the time, and if I don’t do something I shall simply go stark, staring, raving mad without George here. The stores in Saratoga are awfully nice, and I’ve seen a lot of things that I want to get, and I know Mrs. Weaver has seen things too that she wants.”

  “N — no,” Althea began. “I have got everything. I don’t want—”

  “Now that is all nonsense,” said the young woman. “You tell her it is, Mr. Weaver! I know she’s dying to get something; and you give her a lot of money, won’t you? It’s your wedding journey, you know, and of course you expect to waste a little, and then economize after you settle down. That’s what George says.”

  “Why, Althea, there may be something you need,” Lorenzo suggested.

  “Now I ain’t going to have it that way!” the young woman pouted. “She’s going to get what she wants, whether she needs it or not. That’s the way I tell George I’m going to do, and I shall make the money fly, and he had better look out to get plenty of it. It drives mamma almost crazy to hear me talk, and she always takes his part against me.”

  “Do you want I should go, Lorenzo?” asked Althea; but there was a latent light in her eye, that pleaded when her words would not.

  “Why, yee,” said Lorenzo.

  “Is that your pet way of saying yes?” asked the young woman. “I think it’s awfully nice to have those pet words just between yourselves. George and I, we say yep, and nop, just for fun, you know, like children. Well, now, give her the money, Mr. Weaver, and we’ll be back in the parlor about four o’clock, for I’m going to make an afternoon of it, and we’re not going to have you round. You can go off and sit in the park — Congress Park, right over there — and listen to the music, or you can go off shopping for yourself if you want to. Mrs. Weaver, I want you to come up to my room while I get my walking-dress on, and I want you to see my trousseau. There’s one imported dress — present from George — that is the dreamiest thing! By-by!” She waved her hand over her coquettishly shrugged shoulder, and without looking at Lorenzo again she pulled Althea away with her.

  XII

  LORENZO sat in the park till he was tired; then he went about to the different shops where they had left things, and carried them to the hotel himself. He had to wait half an hour in the hotel parlor before Althea and the young woman came in. The young woman said she was dead tired, and she knew they were just dying to be together, and she ran off and left them.

  “Lorenzo,” said Althea, “can I go over and sit in that place where you have been staying? I want to talk with you. Can we talk there?”

  “Why, yee. It’s a very quiet place now; the people nearly all went away when the band stopped.”

  At the gate of the park Lorenzo stopped and bought admission tickets from the man at the window.

  “Why, do you have to pay to go in?
” demanded Althea.

  “I found out I did when I tried to go in without,” said Lorenzo. “You have to pay for pretty much everything in the world-outside.”

  “Oh, the world-outside, the world-outside!” cried the girl.

  They walked along without speaking till they came to a seat where a recession in the high shaded bank made a special seclusion. They sat down, and Althea took from the belt of her dress a little roll of bank-notes and handed it to Lorenzo. “There is your money, Lorenzo — what is left of it. I spent some. I don’t know how much. I am not used to counting it.”

  Lorenzo put the money in his pocket without looking at it. “Nay, we’re neither of us much used to that, Althea. Did you get what you wanted?”

  “I got what she said I ought to get; I got a travelling-dress! I told them to send the things to the hotel.”

  “Yee. And I went round to the places where we left our things this morning and got them.”

  “I had forgotten about those things,” said Althea, dreamily. Lorenzo laughed vaguely, and she turned abruptly upon him, with a start from her absence. “Do you know what time it is, Lorenzo?”

  “It has been rather of a long day, Althea, and I guess you must have felt it so too. It seems to me, we’ve been about so, that it was back in the last century some time when we got out the cars this morning.” He pulled his watch out, a large silver one, and he said, with an air of pride, as her eye fell upon it, “Friend Nason thought I better get it, seeing I never had one before, and he went with me to the jeweller’s. It’s a Swiss one, and it cost twelve dollars; he said it was full as good as an American one that would have cost me twenty.” She seemed not to notice it, and he added, with a little disappointment, “It’s half-past four.” She did not say anything. He closed the case of his watch with a snap, and put it back in his pocket. “I was just thinkin’,” he went on, in a smiling muse, “how this light lays along the slope of the upper pasture at the Family. Strikes over the top of the hill and slants along down; and it gets to be evening there, I guess, as much as an hour before it does in the lower pasture and the garden.” He closed his eyes to a fine line. “I can see how it looks as plain as if I was there now. Rufus is comin’ up the cow-path to look after the cows and drive ’em down to the barn; and I can see Elder Thomas there, waitin’ with the boys to see ’em milk, and show ‘em. It’s just about the time your school lets out, and you’re walkin’ over to the Church Family house, and the children — Well, it’s kind of peaceful there! And it’s sightly. It’s full as sightly here, I guess, and now the band’s stopped it’s peaceful too.” The delicious breeze that had been freshening ever since morning was at its sweetest now; it sang through the tops of the tall, slim oaks of the park, and sighed in the clump of pines where they were sitting. Lorenzo paused, as if he hoped for some sympathetic response from Althea, and then he said, “But I like that upper pasture. I guess the thrushes are beginning to tune up about now in the wood-lot there. I sha’n’t forget how you used to look comin’ up by the walk, kind of bendin’ forward, and lookin’ for wild strawberries, with the little girls in the afternoons, a little later on—”