Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  Watkins: “If Fountain tries to kiss me, I’ll—”

  Fountain: “I wouldn’t kiss you for a dozen bath-gowns.” Lifting it up from the floor where Mrs. Fountain has dropped it: “It is rather nice.”

  Watkins: “Don’t overwhelm me.”

  Mrs. Fountain, dancing about with a long, soft roll in her hand: “Oh, oh, oh! She saw me gloating on it at Shumaker’s! I do wonder if it is.”

  Fountain, reaching for it: “Why, open it—”

  Mrs. Fountain: “You dare! No, it shall be opened the very last thing in the morning, now, to punish you! How is poor Sue? I saw her literally dropping by the way at Shumaker’s.”

  Watkins, making for the door: “Well, she must have got up again. I left her registering a vow that if ever she lived to see another Christmas she would leave the country months before the shopping began. She called down maledictions on all the recipients of her gifts and wished them the worst harm that can befall the wicked.”

  Mrs. Fountain: “Poor Sue! She simply lives to do people good, and I can understand exactly how she feels toward them. I’ll be round bright and early to-morrow to thank her. Why do you go?”

  Watkins: “Well, I can’t stay here all night, and I’d better let you and Clarence finish up.” He escapes from her detaining embrace and runs out.

  III

  MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN

  Mrs. Fountain, intent upon her roll: “How funny he is! I wonder if he did hear anything but our scolding voices? Where were we?”

  Fountain: “I had just called you a serpent.”

  Mrs. Fountain, with amusement: “No, really?” Feeling the parcel: “If it’s that Spanish lace scarf I can tell her it was machine lace. I saw it at the first glance. But poor Sue has no taste. I suppose I must stand it. But I can’t bear to think what she’s given the girls and children. She means well. Did you really say serpent, Clarence? You never called me just that before.”

  Fountain: “No, but you called me a laughing hyena, and said I scoffed at everything sacred.”

  Mrs. Fountain: “I can’t remember using the word hyena, exactly, though I do think the way you talk about Christmas is dreadful. But I take back the laughing hyena.”

  Fountain: “And I take back the serpent. I meant dove, anyway. But it’s this Christmas-time when a man gets so tired he doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

  Mrs. Fountain: “Well, you’re good, anyway, dearest, whatever you say; and now I’m going to help you arrange the things. I suppose there’ll be lots more to-morrow, but we must get rid of these now. Don’t you wish nobody would do anything for us? Just the children — dear little souls! I don’t believe but what we can make Jim and Susy believe in Santa Claus again; Benny is firm in the faith; he put him into his prayer. I declare, his sweetness almost broke my heart.” At a knock: “Who’s that, I wonder? Come in! Oh, it’s you, Maggie. Well?”

  IV

  THE FOUNTAINS, FOUNTAIN’S SISTERS

  Maggie: “It’s Mr. Fountain’s sisters just telephoned up.”

  Mrs. Fountain: “Have them come up at once, Maggie, of course.” As Maggie goes out: “Another interruption! If it’s going to keep on like this! Shouldn’t you have thought they might have sent their presents?”

  Fountain: “I thought something like it in Frank’s case; but I didn’t say it.”

  Mrs. Fountain: “And I don’t know why I say it, now. It’s because I’m so tired I don’t know what I am saying. Do forgive me! It’s this terrible Christmas spirit that gets into me. But now you’ll see how nice I can be to them.” At a tap on the door: “Come in! Come in! Don’t mind our being in all this mess. So darling of you to come! You can help cheer Clarence up; you know his Christmas Eve dumps.” She runs to them and clasps them in her arms with several half-open packages dangling from her hands and contrasting their disarray with the neatness of their silk-ribboned and tissue-papered parcels which their embrace makes meet at her back. “Minnie! Aggie! To lug here, when you ought to be at home in bed dying of fatigue! But it’s just like you, both of you. Did you ever see anything like the stores to-day? Do sit down, or swoon on the floor, or anything. Let me have those wretched bundles which are simply killing you.” She looks at the different packages. “‘For Benny from Grandpa.’ ‘For a good girl, from Susy’s grandmother.’ ‘Jim, from Aunt Minnie and Aunt Aggie.’ ‘Lucy, with love from Aggie and Minnie.’ And Clarence! What hearts you have got! Well, I always say there never were such thoughtful girls, and you always show such taste and such originality. I long to get at the things.” She keeps fingering the large bundle marked with her husband’s name. “Not — not — a—”

  Minnie: “Yes, a bath-robe. Unless you give him a cigar-case it’s about the only thing you can give a man.”

  Aggie: “Minnie thought of it and I chose it. Blue, because it’s his color. Try it on, Clarence, and if it’s too long—”

  Mrs. Fountain: “Yes, do, dear! Let’s see you with it on.” While the girls are fussily opening the robe, she manages to push her brother’s gift behind the door. Then, without looking round at her husband. “It isn’t a bit too long. Just the very—” Looking: “Well, it can easily be taken up at the hem. I can do it to-morrow.” She abandons him to his awkward isolation while she chatters on with his sisters. “Sit down; I insist! Don’t think of going. Did you see that frightful pack of people when the cab horse fell down in front of Shumaker’s?”

  Minnie: “See it?”

  Aggie: “We were in the midst of it! I wonder we ever got out alive. It’s enough to make you wish never to see another Christmas as long as you live.”

  Minnie: “A great many won’t live. There will be more grippe, and more pneumonia, and more appendicitis from those jams of people in the stores!”

  Aggie: “The germs must have been swarming.”

  Fountain: “Lucy was black with them when we got home.”

  Mrs. Fountain: “Don’t pay the slightest attention to him, girls. He’ll probably be the first to sneeze himself.”

  Minnie: “I don’t know about sneezing. I shall only be too glad if I don’t have nervous prostration from it.”

  Aggie: “I’m glad we got our motor-car just in time. Any one that goes in the trolleys now will take their life in their hand.” The girls rise and move toward the door. “Well, we must go on now. We’re making a regular round; you can’t trust the delivery wagons at a time like this. Good-by. Merry Christmas to the children. They’re fast asleep by this time, I suppose.”

  Minnie: “I only wish I was!”

  Mrs. Fountain: “I believe you, Minnie. Good-by. Good night. Good night, Aggie. Clarence, go to the elevator with them! Or no, he can’t in that ridiculous bath-gown!” Turning to Fountain as the door closes: “Now I’ve done it.”

  V

  MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN

  Fountain: “It isn’t a thing you could have wished to phrase that way, exactly.”

  Mrs. Fountain: “And you made me do it. Never thanking them, or anything, and standing there like I don’t know what, and leaving the talk all to me. And now, making me lose my temper again, when I wanted to be so nice to you. Well, it is no use trying, and from this on I won’t. Clarence!” She has opened the parcel addressed to herself and now stands transfixed with joy and wonder. “See what the girls have given me! The very necklace I’ve been longing for at Planets’, and denying myself for the last fortnight! Well, never will I say your sisters are mean again.”

  Fountain: “You ought to have said that to them.”

  Mrs. Fountain: “It quite reconciles one to Christmas. What? Oh, that was rather nasty. You know I didn’t mean it. I was so excited I didn’t know what I was saying. I’m sure nobody ever got on better with sisters-in-law, and that shows my tact; if I do make a slip, now and then, I can always get out of it. They will understand. Do you think it was very nice of them to flaunt their new motor in my face? But of course anything your family does is perfect, and always was, though I must say this necklace is sweet of them
. I wonder they had the taste.” A tap on the door is heard. “Come in, Maggie!” Sotto voce. “Take it off.” She snatches his bath-robe and tosses it behind the door.

  VI

  WILBUR HAZARD, THE FOUNTAINS

  Hazard: “I suppose I can come in, even if I’m not Maggie. Catch, Fountain.” He tosses a large bundle to Fountain. “It’s huge, but it isn’t hefty.” He turns to go out again.

  Mrs. Fountain: “Oh, oh, oh! Don’t go! Come in and help us. What have you brought Clarence! May I feel?”

  Hazard: “You can look, if you like. I’m rather proud of it. There’s only one other thing you can give a man, and I said, ‘No, not a cigar-case. Fountain smokes enough already, but if a bath-robe can induce him to wash—’” He goes out.

  Mrs. Fountain, screaming after him through the open door: “Oh, how good! Come back and see it on him.” She throws the bath-robe over Fountain’s shoulders.

  Hazard, looking in again: “Perfect fit, just as the Jew said, and the very color for Fountain.” He vanishes, shutting the door behind him.

  VII

  MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN

  Mrs. Fountain: “How coarse! Well, my dear, I don’t know where you picked up your bachelor friends. I hope this is the last of them.”

  Fountain: “Hazard’s the only one who has survived your rigorous treatment. But he always had a passion for cold shoulder, poor fellow. As bath-robes go, this isn’t bad.” He gets his arms into it, and walks up and down. “Heigh?”

  Mrs. Fountain: “Yes, it is pretty good. But the worst of Christmas is that it rouses up all your old friends.”

  Fountain: “They feel so abnormally good, confound them. I suppose poor old Hazard half killed himself looking this thing up and building the joke to go with it.”

  Mrs. Fountain: “Well, take it off, now, and come help me with the children’s presents. You’re quite forgetting about them, and it’ll be morning and you’ll have the little wretches swarming in before you can turn round. Dear little souls! I can sympathize with their impatience, of course. But what are you going to do with these bath-robes? You can’t wear four bath-robes.”

  Fountain: “I can change them every day. But there ought to be seven. This hood is rather a new wrinkle, though, isn’t it? I suppose it’s for a voyage, and you pull it up over your head when you come through the corridor back to your stateroom. We shall have to go to Europe, Lucy.”

  Mrs. Fountain: “I would go to Asia, Africa, and Oceanica, to escape another Christmas. Now if there are any more bath-robes — Come in, Maggie.”

  VIII

  MAGGIE, THE FOUNTAINS

  Maggie, bringing in a bundle: “Something a District Messenger brought. Will you sign for it, ma’am?”

  Mrs. Fountain: “You sign, Clarence. If I know anything about the look and the feel of a bundle, this is another bath-robe, but I shall soon see.” While she is cutting the string and tearing the wrappings away, Fountain signs and Maggie goes. Mrs. Fountain shakes out the folds of the robe. “Well, upon my word, I should think there was conspiracy to insult you, Clarence. I should like to know who has had the effrontery — What’s on it?”

  Fountain, reading from the card which had fallen out of the garment to the floor: “‘With Christmas greetings from Mrs. Arthur J. Gibby.’”

  Mrs. Fountain, dropping the robe and seizing the card: “Mrs. Arthur J. Gibby! Well, upon my word, this is impudence. It’s not only impudence, it’s indelicacy. And I had always thought she was the very embodiment of refinement, and I’ve gone about saying so. Now I shall have to take it back. The idea of a lady sending a bath-robe to a gentleman! What next, I wonder! What right has Mrs. Gibby to send you a bath-robe? Don’t prevaricate! Remember that the truth is the only thing that can save you. Matters must have gone pretty far, when a woman could send you anything so — intimate. What are you staring at with that paper? You needn’t hope to divert my mind by—”

  Fountain, giving her the paper in which the robe came: “Seems to be for Mrs. Clarence Fountain.”

  Mrs. Fountain, snatching it from him: “What! It is, it is! Oh, poor dear Lilly! How can you ever forgive me? She saw me looking at it to-day at Shumaker’s, and it must have come into her head in despair what else to get me. But it was a perfect inspiration — for it was just what I was longing for. Why” — laughing hysterically while she holds up the robe, and turns it this way and that— “I might have seen at a glance that it wasn’t a man’s, with this lace on and this silk hood, and” — she hurries into it, and pulls it forward, looking down at either side— “it’s just the right length, and if it was made for me it couldn’t fit me better. What a joke I shall have with Lilly, when I tell her about it. I sha’n’t spare myself a bit!”

  Fountain: “Then I hope you’ll spare me. I have some little delicacy of feeling, and I don’t like the notion of a lady’s giving me a bath-robe. It’s — intimate. I don’t know where you picked up your girl friends.”

  Mrs. Fountain, capering about joyfully: “Oh, how funny you are, darling! But go on. I don’t mind it, now. And you may be glad you’ve got off so easily. Only now if there are any more bath-robes—” A timid rap is heard at the door. “Come in, Maggie!” The door is slowly set ajar, then flung suddenly wide open, and Jim and Susy in their night-gowns rush dancing and exulting in.

  IX

  JIM, SUSY, THE FOUNTAINS

  Susy: “We’ve caught you, we’ve caught you.”

  Jim: “I just bet it was you, and now I’ve won, haven’t I, mother?”

  Susy: “And I’ve won, too, haven’t I, father?” Arrested at sight of her father in the hooded bath-gown: “He does look like Santa Claus, doesn’t he, Jimmy? But the real Santa Claus would be all over snow, and a long, white beard. You can’t fool us!”

  Jim: “You can’t fool us! We know you, we know you! And mother dressed up, too! There isn’t any Mrs. Santa Claus, and that proves it!”

  Mrs. Fountain, severely: “Dreadful little things! Who said you might come here? Go straight back to bed, this minute, or — Will you send them back, Clarence, and not stand staring so? What are you thinking of?”

  Fountain, dreamily: “Nothing. Merely wondering what we shall do when we’ve got rid of our superstitions. Shall we be the better for it, or even the wiser?”

  Mrs. Fountain: “What put that question into your head? Christmas, I suppose; and that’s another reason for wishing there was no such thing. If I had my way, there wouldn’t be.”

  Jim: “Oh, mother!”

  Susy: “No Christmas?”

  Mrs. Fountain: “Well, not for disobedient children who get out of bed and come in, spoiling everything. If you don’t go straight back, it will be the last time, Santa Claus or no Santa Claus.”

  Jim: “And if we go right back?”

  Susy: “And promise not to come in any more?”

  Mrs. Fountain: “Well, we’ll see how you keep your promise. If you don’t, that’s the end of Christmas in this house.”

  Jim: “It’s a bargain, then! Come on, Susy!”

  Susy: “And we do it for you, mother. And for you, father. We just came in for fun, anyway.”

  Jim: “We just came for a surprise.”

  Mrs. Fountain, kissing them both: “Well, then, if it was only for fun, we’ll excuse you this time. Run along, now, that’s good children. Clarence!”

  X

  MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN

  Fountain: “Well?” He looks up at her from where he has dropped into a chair beside the table strewn with opened and unopened gifts at the foot of the Christmas tree.

  Mrs. Fountain: “What are you mooning about?”

  Fountain: “What if it was all a fake? Those thousands and hundreds of thousands of churches that pierce the clouds with their spires; those millions of ministers and missionaries; those billions of worshipers, sitting and standing and kneeling, and singing and praying; those nuns and monks, and brotherhoods and sisterhoods, with their ideals of self-denial, and their duties to the sick and poo
r; those martyrs that died for the one true faith, and those other martyrs of the other true faiths whom the one true faith tortured and killed; those masses and sermons and ceremonies, what if they were all a delusion, a mistake, a misunderstanding? What if it were all as unlike the real thing, if there is any real thing, as this pagan Christmas of ours is as unlike a Christian Christmas?”

  Mrs. Fountain, springing up: “I knew it! I knew that it was this Christmas giving that was making you morbid again. Can’t you shake it off and be cheerful — like me? I’m sure I have to bear twice as much of it as you have. I’ve been shopping the whole week, and you’ve been just this one afternoon.” She begins to catch her breath, and fails in searching for her handkerchief in the folds of her dress under the bath-robe.

  Fountain, offering his handkerchief: “Take mine.”

  Mrs. Fountain, catching it from him, and hiding her face in it on the table: “You ought to help me bear up, and instead of that you fling yourself on my sympathies and break me down.” Lifting her face: “And if it was all a fake, as you say, and an illusion, what would you do, what would you give people in place of it?”

  Fountain: “I don’t know.”

  Mrs. Fountain: “What would you have in place of Christmas itself?”

  Fountain: “I don’t know.”

  Mrs. Fountain: “Well, then, I wouldn’t set myself up to preach down everything — in a blue bath-gown. You’ve no idea how ridiculous you are.”

  Fountain: “Oh, yes, I have. I can see you. You look like one of those blue nuns in Rome. But I don’t remember any lace on them.”

  Mrs. Fountain: “Well, you don’t look like a blue monk, you needn’t flatter yourself, for there are none. You look like — What are you thinking about?”

  Fountain: “Oh, nothing. What do you suppose is in all these packages here? Useful things, that we need, that we must have? You know without looking that it’s the superfluity of naughtiness in one form or other. And the givers of these gifts, they had to give them, just as we’ve had to give dozens of gifts ourselves. We ought to have put on our cards, ‘With the season’s bitterest grudges,’ ‘In hopes of a return,’ ‘With a hopeless sense of the folly,’ ‘To pay a hateful debt,’ ‘With impotent rage and despair.’”