Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  Constance.— “I can remember a little girl that ran down the street, and met an officer on horseback. He was all tanned and weather-beaten; he sat his horse at the head of his troop like a statue of bronze. When he saw her come running, dancing down the street, he leaped from his horse and caught her in his arms, and hugged her close and kissed her, and set her all crying and laughing in his saddle, and walked on beside her; and the men burst out with a wild yell, and the ragged flags flapped over her, and the music flashed out” — She rises in her chair with the thrill of her recollection; her voice comes free and full, and her pale cheeks flush; suddenly she sinks back upon the pillows: “Was it really I, mother?”

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “Yes, it was you, Constance. And do you remember all through your school-days, how proud and fond he was of you? what presents and feasts and pleasures he was always making you? I thought he would spoil you; he took you everywhere with him, and wanted to give you everything. When I saw you growing up with his pride and quick temper, I trembled, but I felt safe when I saw that you had his true and tender heart too. You can never know what a pang it cost him to part with you when we went abroad, but you can’t forget how he met you in Paris?”

  Constance.— “Oh, no, no! Poor papa!”

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “Oh, child! And I could tell you something of his bitter despair when he saw the man” —

  Constance, wearily.— “You needn’t tell me. I knew it as soon as they met, without looking at either of them.”

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “And when the worst that he feared came true, he was almost glad, I believe. He thought, and I thought, that your self-respect would come to your aid against such treachery.”

  Constance.— “My self-respect? Now I know you’ve not been talking of me.”

  Mrs. Wyatt, desperately.— “Oh, what shall I do?”

  Mary, the serving-woman, at the door.— “If you please, Mrs. Wyatt, I can’t open Miss Constance’s hat-box.”

  Mrs. Wyatt, rising.— “Oh, yes. There’s something the matter with the lock. I’ll come, Mary.” She looks at Constance.

  Constance.— “Yes, go, mother. I’m perfectly well here. I like being alone well enough.” As Mrs. Wyatt, after a moment’s reluctance, goes out, the girl’s heavy eyelids fall, and she lies motionless against her pillows, while the fan, released from her careless hold, slides slowly over the shawl, and drops with a light clash upon the floor. She starts at the sound, and utters a little involuntary cry at sight of Bartlett, who stands irresolute in the doorway on her right. He makes as if to retreat, but at a glance from her he remains.

  II.

  Bartlett and Constance.

  Bartlett, with a sort of subdued gruffness.— “I’m afraid I disturbed you.”

  Constance, passively.— “No, I think it was my fan. It fell.”

  Bartlett.— “I’m glad I can lay the blame on the fan.” He comes abruptly forward and picks it up for her. She makes no motion to receive it, and he lays it on her lap.

  Constance, starting from the abstraction in which she has been gazing at him.— “Oh! thanks.”

  Bartlett, with constraint.— “I hope you’re better this morning?”

  Constance.— “Yes.” She has again fallen into a dreamy study of him, as unconscious, apparently, as if he were a picture before her, the effect of which is to reduce him to a state of immovable awkwardness. At last he tears himself loose from the spot on which he has been petrifying, and takes refuge in the business which has brought him into the room.

  Bartlett.— “I came to look for one of my brushes. It must have dropped out of my traps here the other day.” He goes up to the piano and looks about the floor, while Constance’s gaze follows him in every attitude and movement. “Ah, here it is! I knew it would escape the broom under the landlady’s relaxed régime. If you happen to drop anything in this room, Miss Wyatt, you needn’t be troubled; you can always find it just where it fell.” Miss Wyatt’s fan again slips to the floor, and Bartlett again picks it up and restores it to her: “A case in point.”

  Constance, blushing faintly.— “Don’t do it for me. It isn’t worth while.”

  Bartlett, gravely.— “It doesn’t take a great deal of time, and the exercise does me good.” Constance faintly smiles, but does not relax her vigilance. “Isn’t that light rather strong for you?” He goes to the glass doors opening on the balcony, and offers to draw down one of their shades.

  Constance.— “It doesn’t make any difference.”

  Bartlett, bluffly.— “If it’s disagreeable it makes some difference. Is it disagreeable?”

  Constance.— “The light’s strong” — Bartlett dashes the curtain down— “but I could see the mountain.” He pulls the curtain up.

  Bartlett.— “I beg your pardon.” He again falls into statue-like discomposure under Miss Wyatt’s gaze, which does not seek the distant slopes of Ponkwasset, in spite of the lifted curtain.

  Constance.— “What is the name? Do you know?”

  Bartlett.— “Whose? Oh! Ponkwasset. It’s not a pretty name, but it’s aboriginal. And it doesn’t hurt the mountain.” Recovering a partial volition, he shows signs of a purpose to escape, when Miss Wyatt’s next question arrests him.

  Constance.— “Are you painting it, Mr. — Bartlett?”

  Bartlett, with a laugh.— “Oh no, I don’t soar so high as mountains; I only lift my eyes to a tree here and there, and a bit of pasture and a few of the lowlier and friendlier sort of rocks.” He now so far effects his purpose as to transfer his unwieldy presence to a lateral position as regards Miss Wyatt. The girl mechanically turns her head upon the pillow and again fixes her sad eyes upon him.

  Constance.— “Have you ever been up it?”

  Bartlett.— “Yes, half a dozen times.”

  Constance.— “Is it hard to climb — like the Swiss mountains?”

  Bartlett.— “You must speak for the Swiss mountains after you’ve tried Ponkwasset, Miss Wyatt. I’ve never been abroad.”

  Constance, her large eyes dilating with surprise.— “Never been abroad?”

  Bartlett.— “I enjoy that distinction.”

  Constance.— “Oh! I thought you had been abroad.” She speaks with a slow, absent, earnest accent, regarding him, as always, with a look of wistful bewilderment.

  Bartlett, struggling uneasily for his habitual lightness.— “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Miss Wyatt. I will go abroad as soon as possible. I’m going out in a boat this morning to work at a bit on the point of the island yonder, and I’ll take lessons in sea-faring.” Bartlett, managing at last to get fairly behind Miss Wyatt’s chair, indulges himself in a long, low sigh of relief, and taking out his handkerchief rubs his face with it.

  Constance, with sudden, meek compunction.— “I’ve been detaining you.”

  Bartlett, politely coming forward again.— “Oh no, not at all! I’m afraid I’ve tired you.”

  Constance.— “No, I’m glad to have you stay.” In the unconscious movement necessary to follow Bartlett in his changes of position, the young girl has loosened one of the pillows that prop her head. It slowly disengages itself and drops to the floor. Bartlett, who has been crushing his brush against the ball of his thumb, gives a start of terror, and looks from Constance to the pillow, and back again to Constance in despair.

  Constance.— “Never mind.” She tries to adjust her head to the remaining pillows, and then desists in evident discomfort.

  Bartlett, in great agony of spirit.— “I — I’m afraid you miss it.”

  Constance.— “Oh no.”

  Bartlett.— “Shall I call your mother, Miss Wyatt?”

  Constance.— “No. Oh no. She will be here presently. Thank you so much.”

  Bartlett eyes the pillow in renewed desperation.

  Bartlett.— “Do you think — do you suppose I could” — Recklessly: “Miss Wyatt, let me put back that pillow for you!”

  Constance, promptly, with a little flush:— “Why, you’re very good! I’m asha
med to trouble you.” As she speaks, she raises her head, and lifts herself forward slightly by help of the chair-arms; two more pillows topple out, one on either side, unknown to her.

  Bartlett, maddened by the fresh disaster:— “Good Lord!” He flings himself wildly upon the first pillow, and crams it into the chair behind Miss Wyatt; then without giving his courage time to flag, he seizes the others, and packs them in on top of it: “Will that do?” He stands hot and flushed, looking down upon her, as she makes a gentle attempt to adjust herself to the mass.

  Constance.— “Oh, perfectly.” She puts her hand behind her and feebly endeavours to modify Bartlett’s arrangement.

  Bartlett.— “What is it?”

  Constance.— “Oh — nothing. Ah — would — would you draw this one a little — toward you? So! Thanks. And that one — out a little on the — other side? You’re very kind; that’s right. And this one under my neck — lift it up a little? Ah, thank you ever so much.” Bartlett, in a fine frenzy, obeying these instructions, Miss Wyatt at last reposes herself against the pillows, looks up into his embarrassed face, and deeply blushes; then she turns suddenly white, and weakly catching up her fan she passes it once or twice before her face, and lets it fall: “I’m a little — faint.” Bartlett seizes the fan, and after a moment of silent self-dedication kneels down beside her chair, and fans her.

  Constance, after a moment:— “Thanks, thanks. You are very good. I’m better now. I’m ashamed to have troubled you. But I seem to live only to give trouble.”

  Bartlett, with sudden deep tenderness:— “Oh, Miss Wyatt, you mustn’t say that. I’m sure I — we all — that is — shall I call your mother now, Miss Wyatt?”

  Constance, after a deep breath, firmly:— “No. I’m quite well, now. She is busy. But I know I’m keeping you from your work,” — with ever so slight a wan little smile. “I mustn’t do that.”

  Bartlett.— “Oh, you’re not keeping me! There’s no hurry. I can work later just as well.”

  Constance.— “Then,” — with a glance at his devout posture, of which Bartlett has himself become quite unconscious,— “won’t you sit down, Mr. Bartlett?”

  Bartlett, restored to consciousness and confusion:— “Thanks; I think it will be better.” He rises, and in his embarrassment draws a chair to the spot on which he has been kneeling, and sits down very close to her. He keeps the fan in his hand, as he talks: “It’s rather nice out there, Miss Wyatt, — there on the island. You must be rowed out as soon as you can stand it. The General would like it.”

  Constance.— “Is it a large place, the island?”

  Bartlett.— “About two acres, devoted exclusively to golden-rod and granite. The fact is, I was going to make a little study of golden-rod and granite, there. You shall visit the Fortunate Isle in my sketch, this afternoon, and see whether you’d like to go, really. People camp out there in the summer. Who knows, but if you keep on — gaining — this way, you may yet feel like camping out there yourself before you go away? You do begin to feel better, don’t you? Everybody cries up this air.”

  Constance.— “It’s very pleasant; it seems fine and pure. Is the island a pretty place?”

  Bartlett, glancing out at it over his shoulder:— “Well, you get the best of it from the parlour window, here. Not that it’s so bad when you’re on it; there’s a surly, frugal, hard-headed kind of beauty about it, — like the local human nature — and it has its advantages. If you were camping out there, you could almost provision yourself from the fish and wild fowl of the surrounding waters, — supposing any of your party liked to fish or shoot. Does your father like shooting?”

  Constance.— “No, I don’t believe he cares for it.”

  Bartlett.— “I’m glad of that. I shall be spared the painful hospitality of pointing out the best places for ducks.” At an inquiring look from Constance: “I’m glad for their sakes, not mine; I don’t want to kill them.”

  Constance, with grave mistrust:— “Not like shooting?”

  Bartlett.— “No, I think it’s the sneakingest sort of assassination; it’s the pleasure of murder without the guilt. If you must kill, you ought to be man enough to kill something that you’ll suffer remorse for. Do you consider those atrocious sentiments, Miss Wyatt? I assure you that they’re entirely my own.”

  Constance, blankly.— “I wasn’t thinking — I was thinking — I supposed you liked shooting.”

  Bartlett, laughing uneasily.— “How did you get that impression?”

  Constance, evasively.— “I thought all gentlemen did.”

  Bartlett.— “They do in this region. It’s the only thing that can comfort them in affliction. The other day our ostler’s brother lost his sweetheart — she died, poor girl — and the ostler and another friend had him over here to cheer him up. They took him to the stable, and whittled round among the stalls with him half the forenoon, and let him rub down some of the horses; they stood him out among the vegetables and let him gather some of the new kind of potato-bugs; they made him sit in the office with his feet on top of the stove; they played billiards with him; but he showed no signs of resignation till they borrowed three squirrel-guns and started with him to the oak woods yonder. That seemed to ‘fetch’ him. You should have seen them trudging off together with their guns all aslant, — this way, — the stricken lover in the middle!” Bartlett rises to illustrate, and then at the deepening solemnity of Constance’s face he desists in sudden dismay: “Miss Wyatt, I’ve shocked you!”

  Constance.— “Oh, no — no!”

  Bartlett.— “It was shocking. I wonder how I could do it! I — I thought it would amuse you.”

  Constance, mournfully.— “It did, thank you, very much.” After a pause: “I didn’t know you liked — joking.”

  Bartlett.— “Ah! I don’t believe I do — all kinds. Good Lord — I beg your pardon.” Bartlett turns away with an air of guilty consciousness, and goes to the window and looks out, Constance’s gaze following him: “It’s a wonderful day!” He comes back toward her: “What a pity you couldn’t be carried there in your chair!”

  Constance.— “I’m not equal to that yet.” Presently: “Then you — like — nature?”

  Bartlett.— “Why, that’s mere shop in a landscape painter. I get my bread and butter by her. At least I ought to have some feeling of gratitude.”

  Constance, hastily.— “Of course, of course. It’s very stupid of me, asking.”

  Bartlett, with the desperate intention of grappling with the situation.— “I see you have a passion for formulating, classifying people, Miss Wyatt. That’s all very well, if one’s characteristics were not so very characteristic of everybody else. But I generally find in my moments of self-consciousness, when I’ve gone round priding myself that such and such traits are my peculiar property, that the first man I meet has them all and as many more, and isn’t the least proud of them. I dare say you don’t see anything very strange in them, so far.”

  Constance, musingly.— “Oh, yes; very strange indeed. They’re all — wrong!”

  Bartlett.— “Well! I don’t know — I’m very sorry — Then you consider it wrong not to like shooting and to be fond of joking and nature, and” —

  Constance, bewilderedly.— “Wrong? Oh no!”

  Bartlett.— “Oh, I’m glad to hear it. But you just said it was.”

  Constance, slowly recalling herself, with a painful blush, at last.— “I meant — I meant I didn’t expect any of those things of you.”

  Bartlett, with a smile.— “Well, on reflection, I don’t know that I did, either. I think they must have come without being expected. Upon my word, I’m tempted to propose something very ridiculous.”

  Constance, uneasily.— “Yes? What is that?”

  Bartlett.— “That you’ll let me try to guess you out. I’ve failed so miserably in my own case, that I feel quite encouraged.”

  Constance, morbidly.— “I’m not worth the trouble of guessing out.”

  Bartlett.�
�� “That means no. You always mean no by yes, because you can’t bear to say no. That is the mark of a very deep and darkling nature. I feel that I could go on and read your mind perfectly, but I’m afraid to do it. Let’s get back to myself. I can’t allow that you’ve failed to read my mind aright; I think you were careless about it. Will you give your intuitions one more chance?”

  Constance, with an anxious smile.— “Oh yes.”

  Bartlett.— “All those traits and tastes which we both find so unexpected in me are minor matters at the most. The great test question remains. If you answer it rightly, you prove yourself a mind-reader of wonderful power; if you miss it — The question is simply this: Do I like smoking?”

  Constance, instantly, with a quick, involuntary pressure of her handkerchief to her delicate nostrils.— “Oh, yes, indeed!”

  Bartlett, daunted and reddening.— “Miss Wyatt, you have been deluding me. You are really a mind-reader of great subtlety.”

  Constance.— “I don’t know — I can’t say that it was mind-reading exactly.” She lifts her eyes to his, and in his embarrassment he passes his hand over his forehead and then feels first in one pocket, and then in the other for his handkerchief; suddenly he twitches it forth, and with it a pipe, half a dozen cigars, and a pouch of smoking tobacco, which fly in different directions over the floor. As he stoops in dismay and sweeps together these treasures, she cries: “Oh, it didn’t need all that to prove it!” and breaks into a wild, helpless laugh, and striving to recover herself with many little moans and sighs behind her handkerchief, laughs on and on: “Oh, don’t! I oughtn’t! Oh dear, oh dear!” When at last she lies spent with her reluctant mirth, and uncovers her face, Bartlett is gone, and it is her mother who stands over her, looking down at her with affectionate misgiving.

  III.

  Mrs. Wyatt and Constance.

  Mrs. Wyatt.— “Laughing, Constance?”

  Constance, with a burst of indignant tears.— “Yes, yes! Isn’t it shocking? It’s horrible! He made me.”