Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  “Don’t speak of them!” she implored.

  “We once went to an evening party,” he pursued, “where raw apples and cold water were served.”

  “I thought I should die of hunger. And when we got home to our own farmer’s we ravaged the pantry for everything left from supper. It wasn’t much. There!” Lindora screamed. “There is the taxi!” And the shuddering sound of the clock making time at their expense penetrated from the street. “Come!”

  “How the instinct of economy lingers in us, too, long after the use of it is outgrown. It’s as bad as the instinct of hospitality. We could easily afford to pay extra for the comfort of sitting here over these broken victuals—”

  “I tell you we shall be left,” she retorted; and in the thirty-five minutes they had at the station before their train started she outlined a scheme of social reform which she meant to put in force as soon as people began to gather in summer force at Lobster Cove.

  He derided the notion; but she said, “You will see!” and in rather more time than it takes to tell it they were settled in their cottage, where, after some unavoidable changes of cook and laundress, they were soon in perfect running order.

  By this time Lobster Cove was in the full tide of lunching and being lunched. The lunches were almost exclusively ladies’ lunches, and the ladies came to them with appetites sharpened by the incomparable air of those real Lobster Cove days which were all cloudless skies and west winds, and by the vigorous automobile exercise of getting to one another’s cottages. They seized every pretext for giving these feasts, marked each by some vivid touch of invention within the limits of the graceful convention which all felt bound not to transcend. It was some surprising flavor in the salad, or some touch of color appealing to the eye only; or it was some touch in the ice-cream, or some daring substitution of a native dish for it, as strawberry or peach shortcake; or some bold transposition in the order of the courses; or some capricious arrangement of the decoration, or the use of wild flowers, or even weeds (as meadow-rue or field-lilies), for the local florist’s flowers, which set the ladies screaming at the moment and talking of it till the next lunch. This would follow perhaps the next day, or the next but one, according as a new cottager’s claims insisted or a lady had a change of guests, or three days at the latest, for no reason.

  In their rapid succession people scarcely noticed that Lindora had not given a lunch, and she had so far abandoned herself to the enjoyment of the others’ lunches that she had half forgotten her high purposes of reform, when she was sharply recalled to them by a lunch which had not at all agreed with her; she had, in fact, had to have the doctor, and many people had asked one another whether they had heard how she was. Then she took her good resolution in both hands and gave an afternoon, asking people by note or ‘phone simply whether they would not come in at four sharp. People were a good deal mystified, but for this very reason everybody came. Some of them came from somebody’s lunch, which had been so nice that they lingered over it till four, and then walked, partly to fill in the time and partly to walk off the lunch, as there would be sure to be something at Lindora’s later on.

  It would be invidious to say what the nature of Lindora’s entertainment was. It was certainly to the last degree original, and those who said the worst of it could say no worse than that it was queer. It quite filled the time till six o’clock, and may be perhaps best described as a negative rather than a positive triumph, though what Lindora had aimed at she had undoubtedly achieved. Whatever it was, whether original or queer, it was certainly novel.

  A good many men had come, one at least to every five ladies, but as the time passed and a certain blankness began to gather over the spirits of all, they fell into different attitudes of the despair which the ladies did their best to pass off for rapture. At each unscheduled noise they started in a vain expectation, and when the end came, it came so without accent, so without anything but the clock to mark it as the close, that they could hardly get themselves together for going away. They did what was nice and right, of course, in thanking Lindora for her fascinating afternoon, but when they were well beyond hearing one said to another: “Well, I shall certainly have an appetite for my dinner to-night! Why, if there had only been a cup of the weakest kind of tea, or even of cold water!”

  Then those who had come in autos gathered as many pedestrians into them as they would hold in leaving the house, or caught them up fainting by the way.

  Lindora and Florindo watched them from their veranda.

  “Well, my dear,” he said, “it’s been a wonderful afternoon; an immense stride forward in the cause of anti-eating — or—”

  “Don’t speak to me!” she cried.

  “But it leaves one rather hungry, doesn’t it?”

  “Hungry!” she hurled back at him. “I could eat a — I don’t know what!”

  CITY AND COUNTRY IN THE FALL

  A Long-distance Eclogue

  1902

  Morrison. Hello! Hello! Is that you, Wetherbee?

  Wetherbee. Yes. Who are you? What do you want with me?

  Morrison. Oh, nothing much. It’s Morrison, you know;

  Morrison — down at Clamhurst Shortsands.

  Wetherbee. Oh!

  Why, Morrison, of course! Of course, I know!

  How are you, Morrison? And, by the way,

  Where are you? What! You never mean to say

  You are down there yet? Well, by the Holy Poker!

  What are you doing there, you ancient joker?

  Morrison. Sticking it out over Thanksgiving Day.

  I said I would. I tell you, it is gay

  Down here. You ought to see the Hunter’s Moon,

  These silver nights, prinking in our lagoon.

  You ought to see our sunsets, glassy red,

  Shading to pink and violet overhead.

  You ought to see our mornings, still and clear,

  White silence, far as you can look and hear.

  You ought to see the leaves — our oaks and ashes

  Crimson and yellow, with those gorgeous splashes,

  Purple and orange, against the bluish green

  Of the pine woods; and scattered in between

  The scarlet of the maples; and the blaze

  Of blackberry-vines, along the dusty ways

  And on the old stone walls; the air just balm,

  And the crows cawing through the perfect calm

  Of afternoons all gold and turquoise. Say,

  You ought to have been with wife and me to-day,

  A drive we took — it would have made you sick:

  The pigeons and the partridges so thick;

  And on the hill just beyond Barkin’s lane,

  Before you reach the barn of Widow Payne,

  Showing right up against the sky, as clear

  And motionless as sculpture, stood a deer!

  Say, does that jar you just a little? Say,

  How have you found things up there, anyway,

  Since you got back? Air like a cotton string

  To breathe? The same old dust on everything,

  And in your teeth, and in your eyes? The smoke

  From the soft coal, got long beyond a joke?

  The trolleys rather more upon your curves,

  And all the roar and clatter in your nerves?

  Don’t you wish you had stayed here, too?

  Wetherbee. Well, yes,

  I do at certain times, I must confess.

  I swear it is enough at times to make you swear

  You would almost rather be anywhere

  Than here. The building up and pulling down,

  The getting to and fro about the town,

  The turmoil underfoot and overhead,

  Certainly make you wish that you were dead,

  At first; and all the mean vulgarity

  Of city life, the filth and misery

  You see around you, make you want to put

  Back to the country anywhere, hot-foot.

 
Yet — there are compensations.

  Morrison. Such as?

  Wetherbee. Why,

  There is the club.

  Morrison. The club I can’t deny.

  Many o’ the fellows back there?

  Wetherbee. Nearly all.

  Over the twilight cocktails there are tall

  Stories and talk. But you would hardly care;

  You have the natives to talk with down there,

  And always find them meaty.

  Morrison. Well, so-so.

  Their words outlast their ideas at times, you know,

  And they have staying powers. The theaters

  All open now?

  Wetherbee. Yes, all. And it occurs

  To me: there’s one among the things that you

  Would have enjoyed; an opera with the new —

  Or at least the last — music by Sullivan,

  And words, though not Gilbertian, that ran

  Trippingly with it. Oh, I tell you what,

  I’d rather that you had been there than not.

  Morrison. Thanks ever so!

  Wetherbee. Oh, there is nothing mean

  About your early friend. That deer and autumn scene

  Were kind of you! And, say, I think you like

  Afternoon teas when good. I have chanced to strike

  Some of the best of late, where people said

  They had sent you cards, but thought you must be dead.

  I told them I left you down there by the sea,

  And then they sort of looked askance at me,

  As if it were a joke, and bade me get

  Myself some bouillon or some chocolate,

  And turned the subject — did not even give

  Me time to prove it is not life to live

  In town as long as you can keep from freezing

  Beside the autumn sea. A little sneezing,

  At Clamhurst Shortsands, since the frosts set in?

  Morrison. Well, not enough to make a true friend grin.

  Slight colds, mere nothings. With our open fires

  We’ve all the warmth and cheer that heart desires.

  Next year we’ll have a furnace in, and stay

  Not till Thanksgiving, but till Christmas Day.

  It’s glorious in these roomy autumn nights

  To sit between the firelight and the lights

  Of our big lamps, and read aloud by turns

  As long as kerosene or hickory burns.

  We hate to go to bed.

  Wetherbee. Of course you do!

  And hate to get up in the morning, too —

  To pull the coverlet from your frost-bit nose,

  And touch the glary matting with your toes!

  Are you beginning yet to break the ice

  In your wash-pitchers? No? Well, that is nice.

  I always hate to do it — seems as if

  Summer was going; but when your hand is stiff

  With cold, it can be done. Still, I prefer

  To wash and dress beside my register,

  When summer gets a little on, like this.

  But some folks find the other thing pure bliss —

  Lusty young chaps, like you.

  Morrison. And some folks find

  A sizzling radiator to their mind.

  What else have you, there, you could recommend

  To the attention of a country friend?

  Wetherbee. Well, you know how it is in Madison Square,

  Late afternoons, now, if the day’s been fair —

  How all the western sidewalk ebbs and flows

  With pretty women in their pretty clo’es:

  I’ve never seen them prettier than this year.

  Of course, I know a dear is not a deer,

  But still, I think that if I had to meet

  One or the other in the road, or street,

  All by myself, I am not sure but that

  I’d choose the dear that wears the fetching hat.

  Morrison. Get out! What else?

  Wetherbee. Well, it is not so bad,

  If you are feeling a little down, or sad,

  To walk along Fifth Avenue to the Park,

  When the day thinks perhaps of getting dark,

  And meet that mighty flood of vehicles

  Laden with all the different kinds of swells,

  Homing to dinner, in their carriages —

  Victorias, landaus, chariots, coupés —

  There’s nothing like it to lift up the heart

  And make you realize yourself a part,

  Sure, of the greatest show on earth.

  Morrison. Oh, yes,

  I know. I’ve felt that rapture more or less.

  But I would rather put it off as long

  As possible. I suppose you like the song

  Of the sweet car-gongs better than the cry

  Of jays and yellowhammers when the sky

  Begins to redden these October mornings,

  And the loons sound their melancholy warnings;

  Or honk of the wild-geese that write their A

  Along the horizon in the evening’s gray.

  Or when the squirrels look down on you and bark

  From the nut trees —

  Wetherbee. We have them in the Park

  Plenty enough. But, say, you aged sinner,

  Have you been out much recently at dinner?

  Morrison. What do you mean? You know there’s no one here

  That dines except ourselves now.

  Wetherbee. Well, that’s queer!

  I thought the natives — But I recollect!

  It was not reasonable to expect —

  Morrison. What are you driving at?

  Wetherbee. Oh, nothing much.

  But I was thinking how you come in touch

  With life at the first dinner in the fall,

  When you get back, first, as you can’t at all

  Later along. But you, of course, won’t care

  With your idyllic pleasures.

  Morrison. Who was there?

  Wetherbee. Oh — ha, ha! What d’you mean by there?

  Morrison. Come off!

  Wetherbee. What! you remain to pray that came to scoff!

  Morrison. You know what I am after.

  Wetherbee. Yes, that dinner.

  Just a round dozen: Ferguson and Binner

  For the fine arts; Bowyer the novelist;

  Dr. Le Martin; the psychologist

  Fletcher; the English actor Philipson;

  The two newspaper Witkins, Bob and John;

  A nice Bostonian, Bane the archæologer,

  And a queer Russian amateur astrologer;

  And Father Gray, the jolly ritualist priest,

  And last your humble servant, but not least.

  The food was not so filthy, and the wine

  Was not so poison. We made out to dine

  From eight till one A.M. One could endure

  The dinner. But, oh say! The talk was poor!

  Your natives down at Clamhurst —

  Morrison. Look ye here!

  What date does Thanksgiving come on this year?

  Wetherbee. Why, I suppose — although I don’t remember

  Certainly — the usual 28th November.

  Morrison. Novem — You should have waited to get sober!

  It comes on the 11th of October!

  And that’s to-morrow; and if you happen down

  Later, you’d better look for us in town.

  TABLE TALK

  They were talking after dinner in that cozy moment when the conversation has ripened, just before the coffee, into mocking guesses and laughing suggestions. The thing they were talking of was something that would have held them apart if less happily timed and placed, but then and there it drew these together in what most of them felt a charming and flattering intimacy. Not all of them took part in the talk, and of those who did, none perhaps assumed to talk with authority or finality. At first they spoke of the subject as it,
forbearing to name it, as if the name of it would convey an unpleasant shock, out of temper with the general feeling.

  “I don’t suppose,” the host said, “that it’s really so much commoner than it used to be. But the publicity is more invasive and explosive. That’s perhaps because it has got higher up in the world and has spread more among the first circles. The time was when you seldom heard of it there, and now it is scarcely a scandal. I remember that when I went abroad, twenty or thirty years ago, and the English brought me to book about it, I could put them down by saying that I didn’t know a single divorced person.”

  “And of course,” a bachelor guest ventured, “a person of that sort must be single.”

  At first the others did not take the joke; then they laughed, but the women not so much as the men.

  “And you couldn’t say that now?” the lady on the right of the host inquired.

  “Why, I don’t know,” he returned, thoughtfully, after a little interval. “I don’t just call one to mind.”

  “Then,” the bachelor said, “that classes you. If you moved in our best society you would certainly know some of the many smart people whose disunions alternate with the morning murders in the daily papers.”

  “Yes, the fact seems to rank me rather low; but I’m rather proud of the fact.”

  The hostess seemed not quite to like this arrogant humility. She said, over the length of the table (it was not very long), “I’m sure you know some very nice people who have not been.”

  “Well, yes, I do. But are they really smart people? They’re of very good family, certainly.”

  “You mustn’t brag,” the bachelor said.

  A husband on the right of the hostess wondered if there were really more of the thing than there used to be.

  “Qualitatively, yes, I should say. Quantitatively, I’m not convinced,” the host answered. “In a good many of the States it’s been made difficult.”

  The husband on the right of the hostess was not convinced, he said, as to the qualitative increase. The parties to the suits were rich enough, and sometimes they were high enough placed and far enough derived. But there was nearly always a leak in them, a social leak somewhere, on one side or the other. They could not be said to be persons of quality in the highest sense.