Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

Mrs. Roberts, whimpering: “I can’t, Aunt Mary. And you couldn’t, if it was yours.”

  Roberts: “I pulled him over backwards.”

  Mrs. Roberts: “There, Willis!”

  Willis: “And grabbed your watch from him?” Roberts: “I was in quite a frenzy; I really hardly knew what I was doing—”

  Mrs. Roberts: “And he didn’t call for the police, or anything—” —

  Willis: “Ah, that showed presence of mind! He knew it wouldn’t have been any use.”

  Mrs. Roberts: “And when he had got his watch away from them, he just let them go, because they had families dependent on them.”

  Willis: “I should have let them go in the first place, but you behaved handsomely in the end, Roberts; there’s no denying that. And when you came in she gave you cologne to drink, and poured brandy on your head. It must have revived you. I should think it would wake the dead.”

  Mrs. Roberts: “I was all excitement, Willis—” Willis: “No, I should think from the fact that you had set the decanter here on the hearth, and put your cologne into the wood-box, you were perfectly calm, Agnes.” He takes them up and hands them to her. “Quite as calm as usual.” The doorbell rings.

  Mrs. Crashaw: “Willis, will you let that ridiculous man go away and make himself presentable before people begin to come?” The bell rings violently, peal upon peal.

  Mrs. Roberts: “Oh, my goodness, what’s that? It’s the garroters — I know it is; and we shall all be murdered in our beds!”

  Mrs. Crashaw: “What in the world can it—” Willis: “Why don’t your girl answer the bell, Agnes? Or I’ll go myself.” The bell rings violently again.

  Mrs. Roberts: “No, Willis, you sha’n’t! Don’t leave me, Edward! Aunt Mary! — Oh, if we must die, let us all die together! Oh, my poor children! Ugh! What’s that?” The servant-maid opens the outer door, and uttering a shriek, rushes in through the drawing-room portière.

  Bella, the Maid: “Oh, my goodness! Mrs. Roberts, it’s Mr. Bemis!”

  Mrs. Roberts: “Which Mr. Bemis?”

  Roberts: “What’s the matter with him?”

  Mrs. Crashaw: “Why doesn’t she show him in?” Willis: “Has he been garroting somebody too?”

  IV. MR. BEMIS, MR. CAMPBELL, MR. AND MRS. ROBERTS.

  Bemis, appearing through the portière: “I — I beg your pardon, Mrs. Roberts. I oughtn’t to present myself in this state — I — But I thought I’d better stop on my way home and report, so that my son needn’t be alarmed at my absence when he comes. I—” He stops, exhausted, and regards the others with a wild stare, while they stand taking note of his disordered coat, his torn vest, and his tumbled hat. “I’ve just been robbed—”

  Mrs. Roberts: “Robbed? Why, Edward has been robbed too.”

  Remis: “ — coming through the Common—” Mrs. Roberts: “Yes, Edward was coming through the Common.”

  Remis: “ — of my watch—”

  Mrs. Roberts, in rapturous admiration of the coincidence: “Oh, and it was Edward’s watch they took!”

  Willis: “It’s a parallel case, Agnes. Pour him out a glass of cologne to drink, and rub his head with brandy. And you might let him sit down and rest while you’re enjoying the excitement.”

  Mrs. Roberts, in hospitable remorse: “Oh, what am I thinking of! Here, Edward — or no, you’re too weak, you mustn’t. Willis, you help me to help him to the sofa.”

  Mrs. Crashaw: “I think you’d better help him off with his overcoat and his arctics.” To the maid: “Here, Bella, if you haven’t quite taken leave of your wits, undo his shoes.”

  Roberts: “I’ll help him off with his coat—” Remis: “Careful! careful! I may be injured internally.”

  Mrs. Roberts: “Oh, if you only were, Mr. Bemis, perhaps I could persuade Edward that he was too: I know he is. Edward, don’t exert yourself! Aunt Mary, will you stop him, or do you all wish to see me go distracted here before your eyes?”

  Willis, examining the overcoat which Roberts has removed: “Well, you won’t have much trouble buttoning and unbuttoning this coat for the present.” Remis: “They tore it open, and tore my watch from my vest pocket—”

  Willis, looking at the vest: “I see. Pretty lively work. Were there many of them?”

  Remis: “There must have been two, at least—” Mrs. Roberts: “There were half a dozen in the gang that attacked Edward.”

  Remis: “One of them pulled me violently over on my back—”

  Mrs. Roberts: “Edward’s put his arm round his neck and choked him.”

  Mrs. Crashaw: “Agnes!”

  Mrs. Roberts: “I know he did, Aunt Mary.” Bemis: “And the other tore my watch out of my pocket.”

  Mrs. Roberts: “Edward’s—”

  Mrs. Crashaw: “Agnes, I’m thoroughly ashamed of you. Will you stop interrupting?”

  Bemis: “And left me lying in the snow.”

  Mrs. Roberts: “And then he ran after them, and snatched his watch away again in spite of them all; and he didn’t call for the police, or anything, because it was their first offence, and he couldn’t bear to think of their suffering families.”

  Bemis, with a stare of profound astonishment: “Who?”

  Mrs. Roberts: “Edward. Didn’t I say Edward, all the time?”

  Bemis: “I thought you meant me. I didn’t think of pursuing them; but you may be very sure that if there had been a policeman within call — of course there wasn’t one within cannon-shot — I should have handed the scoundrels over without the slightest remorse.”

  Roberts: “Oh!” He sinks into a chair with a slight groan.

  Willis: “What is it?”

  Roberts: “‘Sh! Don’t say anything. But — stay here. I want to speak with you, Willis.”

  Bemis, with mounting wrath: “I should not have hesitated an instant to give the rascal in charge, no matter who was dependent upon him — no matter if he were my dearest friend, my own brother.”

  Roberts, under his breath: “Gracious powers!” Remis: “And while I am very sorry to disagree with Mr. Roberts, I can’t help feeling that he made a great mistake in allowing the ruffians to escape.” Mrs. Crashaw, with severity: “I think you are quite right, Mr. Bemis.”

  Remis: “Probably it was the same gang attacked us both. After escaping from Mr. Roberts they fell upon me.”

  Mrs. Crashaw: “I haven’t a doubt of it.” Roberts, sotto voce to his brother-in-law: “I think I’ll ask you to go with me to my room, Willis. Don’t alarm Agnes, please. I — I feel quite faint.” Mrs. Roberts, crestfallen: “I can’t feel that Edward was to blame. Ed — Oh, I suppose he’s gone off to make himself presentable. But Willis — Where’s Willis, Aunt Mary?”

  Mrs. Crashaw: “Probably gone with him to help him.”

  Mrs. Roberts: “Oh, he saw how unstrung poor Edward was! Mr. Bemis, I think you’re quite prejudiced. How could Edward help their escaping? I think it was quite enough for him, singlehanded, to get his watch back.” A ring at the door, and then a number of voices in the anteroom. “I do believe they’re all there! I’ll just run out and prepare your son. He would be dreadfully shocked if he came right in upon you.” She runs into the anteroom, and is heard without: “Oh, Dr. Lawton! Oh, Lou dear! Oh, Mr. Bemis! How can I ever tell you? Your poor father! No, no, I can’t tell you! You mustn’t ask me! It’s too hideous! And you wouldn’t believe me if I did.” Chorus of anguished voices: “What? what? what?”

  Mrs. Roberts: “They’ve been robbed! Garroted on the Common! And, oh, Dr. Lawton, I’m so glad you’ve come! They’re both injured internally, but I wish you’d look at Edward first.”

  Bemis: “Good heavens! Is that Mrs. Roberts’s idea of preparing my son? And his poor young wife!” He addresses his demand to Mrs. Crashaw, who lifts the hands of impotent despair.

  PART SECOND.

  MR. ROBERTS; MR. CAMPBELL.

  IN Mr. Roberts’s dressing-room, that gentleman is discovered tragically confronting Mr. Willis Campbell, with a watch uplifted in
either hand.

  Willis: “Well?”

  Roberts, gasping: “My — my watch!”

  Willis: “Yes. How comes there to be two of it?”

  Roberts: “Don’t you understand? When I went out I — didn’t take my watch — with me. I left it here on my bureau.”

  Willis: “Well?”

  Roberts: “Oh, merciful heavens! don’t you see? Then I couldn’t have been robbed!”

  Willis: “Well, but whose watch did you take from the fellow that didn’t rob you, then?”

  Roberts: “His own!” He abandons himself powerlessly upon a chair. “Yes; I left my own watch here, and when that person brushed against me in the Common, I missed it for the first time. I supposed he had robbed me, and ran after him, and—” Willis: “Robbed him!”

  Roberts: “Yes.”

  Willis: “Ah, ha, ha, ha! I, hi, hi, hi! O, ho, ho, ho!” He yields to a series of these gusts and paroxysms, bowing up and down, and stamping to and fro, and finally sits down exhausted, and wipes the tears from his cheeks. “Really, this thing will kill me. What are you going to do about it, Roberts?”

  Roberts, with profound dejection and abysmal solemnity: “I don’t know, Willis. Don’t you see that it must have been — that I must have robbed — Mr. Bemis?”

  Willis: “Bemis!” After a moment for tasting the fact. “Why, so it was! Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! And was poor old Bemis that burly ruffian? that blood-thirsty gang of giants? that — that — oh, Lord! oh, Lord!” He bows his head upon his chair-back in complete exhaustion, demanding, feebly, as he gets breath for the successive questions, “What are you going to d-o-o-o? What shall you s-a-a-a-y? How can you expla-a-ain it?”

  Roberts: “I can do nothing. I can say nothing. I can never explain it. I must go to Mr. Bemis and make a clean breast of it; but think of the absurdity — the ridicule!”

  Willis, after a thoughtful silence: “Oh, it isn’t that you’ve got to think of. You’ve got to think of the old gentleman’s sense of injury and outrage. Didn’t you hear what he said — that he would have handed over his dearest friend, his own brother, to the police?”

  Roberts: “But that was in the supposition that his dearest friend, his own brother, had intentionally robbed him. You can’t imagine, Willis—” Willis: “Oh, I can imagine a great many things. It’s all well enough for you to say that the robbery was a mistake; but it was a genuine case of garroting, as far as the assault and taking the watch go. He’s a very pudgicky old gentleman.”

  Roberts: “He is.”

  Willis: “And I don’t see how you’re going to satisfy him that it was all a joke. Joke? It wasn’t a joke! It was a real assault and a bona fide robbery, and Bemis can prove it.”

  Roberts: “But he would never insist—”

  Willis: “Oh, I don’t know about that. He’s pretty queer, Bemis is. You can’t say what an old gentleman like that will or won’t do. If he should choose to carry it into court—”

  Roberts: “Court!”

  Willis: “ — it might be embarrassing. And anyway, it would have a very strange look in the papers.”

  Roberts: “The papers! Good gracious!” Willis: “Ten years from now, a man that heard you mentioned would forget all about the acquittal, and say: ‘ Roberts? Oh yes! Wasn’t he the one they sent to the House of Correction for garroting an old friend of his on the Common?’ You see it wouldn’t do to go and make a clean breast of it to Bemis.”

  Roberts: “I see.”

  Willis: “What will you do?”

  Roberts: “I must never say anything to him about it. Just let it go.” —

  Willis: “And keep his watch? I don’t see how you could manage that. What would you do with the watch? You might sell it, of course—” Roberts: “Oh no, I couldn’t do that.”

  Willis: “You might give it away to some deserving person; but if it got him into trouble—” Roberts: “No, no; that wouldn’t do, either.” Willis: “And you can’t have it lying around; Agnes would be sure to find it, sooner or later.” Roberts: “Yes.”

  Willis: “Besides, there’s your conscience. Your conscience wouldn’t let you keep Bemis’s watch away from him. And if it would, what do you suppose Agnes’s conscience would do when she came to find it out? Agnes hasn’t got much of a head — the want of it seems to grow upon her; but she’s got a conscience as big as the side of a house.”

  Roberts: “Oh, I see; I see.”

  Willis, coming up and standing over him, with his hands in his pockets: “I tell you what, Roberts, you’re in a box.”

  Roberts, abjectly: “I know it, Willis; I know it. What do you suggest? You must know some way out of it.”

  Willis: “It isn’t a simple matter like telling them to start the elevator down when they couldn’t start her up. I’ve got to think it over.” He walks to and fro, Roberts’s eyes helplessly following his 3 movements. “How would it do to — No, that wouldn’t do, either.”

  Roberts: “What wouldn’t?”

  Willis: “Nothing. I was just thinking — I say, you might — Or, no, you couldn’t.”

  Roberts: “Couldn’t what?”

  Willis: “Nothing. But if you were to — No; up a stump that way too.”

  Roberts: “Which way? For mercy’s sake, my dear fellow, don’t seem to get a clew if you haven’t it. It’s more than I can bear.” He rises, and desperately confronts Willis in his promenade. “If you see any hope at all—”

  Willis, stopping: “Why, if you were a different sort of fellow, Roberts, the thing would be perfectly easy.”

  Roberts: “Very well, then. What sort of fellow do you want me to be? I’ll be any sort of fellow you like.”

  Willis: “Oh, but you couldn’t! With that face of yours, and that, confounded conscience of yours behind it, you would give away the whitest lie that was ever told.”

  Roberts: “Do you wish me to lie? Very well, then, I will lie. What is the lie?”

  Willis: “Ah, now you’re talking like a man! I can soon think up a lie, if you’re game for it. Suppose it wasn’t so very white — say a delicate blonde!”

  Roberts: “I shouldn’t care if it were as black as the ace of spades.”

  Willis: “Roberts, I honor you! It isn’t everybody who could steal an old gentleman’s watch, and then be so ready to lie out of it. Well, you have got courage — both kinds — moral and physical.”

  Roberts: “Thank you, Willis. Of course I don’t pretend that I should be willing to lie, under ordinary circumstances; but for the sake of Agnes and the children — I don’t want any awkwardness about the matter; it would be the death of me. Well, what do you wish me to say? Be quick; I don’t believe I could hold out for a great while. I don’t suppose but what Mr. Bemis would be reasonable, even if I—”

  Willis: “I’m afraid we couldn’t trust him. The only way is for you to take the bull by the horns.”

  Roberts: “Yes?”

  Willis: “You will not only have to lie, Roberts, but you will have to wear an air of innocent candor at the same time.”

  Roberts: “I — I’m afraid I couldn’t manage that. What is your idea?”

  Willis: “Oh, just come into the room with a laugh, when we go back, and say, in an off-hand way, ‘By the way, Agnes, Willis and I made a remarkable discovery in my dressing-room; we found my watch there on the bureau. Ha, ha, ha!’ Do you think you could do it?”

  Roberts: “I — I don’t know.”

  Willis: “Try the laugh now.”

  Roberts: “I’d rather not — now.”

  Willis: “Well, try it, anyway.”

  Roberts: “Ha, ha, ha!”

  Willis: “Once more.”

  Roberts: “Ha, ha, ha!”

  Willis: “Pretty ghastly; but I guess you can come it.”

  Roberts: “I’ll try. And then what?”

  Willis: “And then you say, ‘I hadn’t put it on when I went out, and when I got after that fellow and took it back, I was simply getting somebody else’s watch!’ Then you
hold out both watches to her, and laugh again. Everybody laughs, and crowds round you to examine the watches, and you make fun and crack jokes at your own expense all the time, and pretty soon old Bemis says, ‘Why, this is my watch, now!’ and you laugh more than ever—”

  Roberts: “I’m afraid I couldn’t laugh when he said that. I don’t believe I could laugh. It would make my blood run cold.”

  Willis: “Oh no, it wouldn’t. You’d be in the spirit of it by that time.”

  Roberts: “Do you think so? Well?”

  Willis: “And then you say, ‘Well, this is the most remarkable coincidence I ever heard of. I didn’t get my own watch from the fellow, but I got yours, Mr. Bemis;’ and then you hand it over to him and say, ‘Sorry I had to break the chain in getting it from him,’ and then everybody laughs again, and — and that ends it.”

  Roberts, with a profound sigh: “Do you think that would end it?” —

  Willis: “Why, certainly. It’ll put old Bemis in the wrong, don’t you see? It’ll show that instead of letting the fellow escape to go and rob him, you attacked him and took Bemis’s property back from him yourself. Bemis wouldn’t have a word to say. All you’ve got to do is to keep up a light, confident manner.”

  Roberts: “But what if it shouldn’t put Bemis in the wrong? What if he shouldn’t say or do anything that we’ve counted upon, but something altogether different?”

  Willis: “Well, then, you must trust to inspiration, and adapt yourself to circumstances.”

  Roberts: “Wouldn’t it be rather more of a joke to come out with the facts at once?”

  Willis: “On you it would; and a year from now — say next Christmas — you could get the laugh on Bemis that way. But if you were to risk it now, there’s no telling how he’d take it. He’s so indignant he might insist upon leaving the house. But with this plan of mine—”

  Roberts, in despair: “I couldn’t, Willis. I don’t feel light, and I don’t feel confident, and I couldn’t act it. If it were a simple lie—”

  Willis: “Oh, lies are never simple; they require the exercise of all your ingenuity. If you want something simple, you must stick to the truth, and throw yourself on Bemis’s mercy.”