Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  Campbell, desperately: “Ladies, there isn’t any mouse here! I’ve been racketing round here with the shovel and tongs all over the room, and the mouse is gone. You can depend upon that. You’re as safe here as you would be in your own rooms.” Mrs. Somers: “How can you say such a thing? No, I won’t be responsible if anything happens. The mouse is in this room. No one has seen it go out, and it’s here still.”

  Mrs. Bemis, balancing herself with difficulty on her chair: “Oh dear! how tippy it is! I’m sure it’s going to break.”

  Mrs. Curwen: “Get up here with me, Mrs. Bemis. We can protect each other.”

  Mrs. Miller: “You would both fall off. Better come here on the sofa, Mrs. Bemis.”

  Mrs. Curwen: “The mouse could run up that ottoman sofa as easily as the ground.”

  Mrs. Miller, covering her face: “Oh, how can you say such a thing?”

  Mrs. Bemis: “Oh, I know I’m going to fall!” Mrs. Somers: “Willis, for shame! Help her!” Campbell: “But how — how can I help—”

  Mrs. Somers: “Get her another chair.” Campbell: “Oh!” He pushes a large arm-chair towards Mrs. Bemis, who leaps into it with a wild cry, spurning the reception - chair half across the room in her flight.

  Mrs. Bemis: “Oh, thank you, thank you, Mr. Campbell! Oh, I shall always bless you!”

  Mrs. Curwen: “Yes, you have saved all our lives. Where there’s a man, I don’t care for a thousand mice.”

  Mrs. Miller: “Oh, how very frank!”

  Mrs. Curwen: “Yes, I’m nothing if not open-minded.”

  Campbell, surveying her with amusement and interest: “I don’t believe you’re very much scared.”

  Mrs. Bemis: “Oh yes, she is, Mr. Campbell. She keeps up that way, and then the first thing she faints.”

  Mrs. Curwen: “Not on centre-tables, my dear; there isn’t room.”

  Campbell, with increasing fascination: “Why don’t you get down, and set the rest an example of courage.”

  Mrs. Curwen: “I prefer to set the example here: it’s safer.”

  Campbell: “You look like the statue of some goddess on her altar — or saint—”

  Mrs. Curwen: “Thank you. If you will say victim, I will agree with you. Say Iphigenia. But the others are too much. I draw the line at goddesses and saints.”

  Campbell: “And you’re afraid of mice, too?”

  Mrs. Curwen: “To be sure I am.”

  Campbell: “Well, there is no mouse down here — nothing but a miserable man. Now, will you get down?”

  Mrs. Somers: “Mrs. Curwen, don’t think of it! He’s just saying it. The mouse is there.” To Campbell: “You are placing us all in a very ridiculous position.”

  Campbell: “I am sorry for that; I am, indeed, I give you my word of honor that I don’t believe there’s any mouse in the room.”

  Mrs. Somers: “Jane just saw it.”

  Campbell: “She thought she saw it, but I don’t think she did. A lion would have been scared out by this time.” A ring at the door is heard.

  Mrs. Somers: “There, Jane, there’s some one ringing! You must go to the door.”

  Jane, throwing her apron over her head: “Oh, please, Mrs. Somers, I can’t go! I’m so afraid of mice!”

  Mrs. Somers: “Nonsense! you must go. It’s perfectly ridiculous your pretending not.”

  Jane: “Oh, I couldn’t, Mrs. Somers! I was always so from a child. I can’t bear ‘em.”

  Mrs. Somers: “This is disgraceful. Do you mean to say that you won’t do what I ask you? Very well, then; you can go! You needn’t stay the week out; I will pay you, and you can go at once. Do you understand?”

  Jane: “Yes, I do, and I’d be glad to go this very minute, but I don’t dare to get down.”

  Mrs. Somers: “But why shouldn’t you get down?

  There isn’t the least danger. Is there any danger now, Mr. Campbell?”

  Campbell: “Not the least in the world. Mouse gone long ago.”

  Mrs. Somers: “There!”

  Jane: “I can’t help it. There are so many in the dining-room—”

  Mrs. Somers: “In my dining-room? Oh, my goodness! why didn’t you tell me before?”

  Jane: “And one ran right over my foot.”

  Mrs. Somers: “Your foot? Oh, I wonder that you live to tell it! Why haven’t you put traps? Where’s the cat?”

  Jane: “The cook’s spoiled the cat, feeding it so much.”

  Mrs. Miller: “Yes, that’s the worst of cooks: they always spoil cats.”

  Mrs. Bemis: “They overfeed them.”

  Mrs. Miller: “And then, of course, the cats are worth nothing as mousers. I had a cat—” The bell sounds again.

  Mrs. Somers: “There! Some one must go.” Campbell: “Why, I’ll go to the door.”

  Mrs. Somers: “And leave us here? Never! How can you propose such a thing? If you dare to go, I shall die. Don’t think of such a thing.” Jane: “The cook will go, if they keep ringing. Oh! ugh! hu, hu! When ever shall I get out of this?”

  Mrs. Somers: “Stop crying, Jane! Be calm! You’re perfectly safe. You may be glad it’s no worse. ‘Sh! There’s the cook going to the door at last. Who can it be? Listen!”

  Jane, clutching Mrs. Somers: “Oh! ugh! Wo-o-o-o!”

  All the Ladies: “E-e-e-e!”

  Mrs. Somers: “What’s the matter, Jane? Let me go! What’s the matter?”

  Jane: “Oh, I thought I was falling — right down in among it!”

  Mrs. Agnes Roberts, calling up from below: “What in the world is it, Amy?”

  Campbell: “Oh, my prophetic soul, my sister!” Mrs. Somers, shouting: “Is that you, Agnes? Don’t come up! Don’t come up, for your life! Don’t come up, unless you wish to perish instantly. Oh, it’s dreadful, your coming now. Keep away! Go right straight out of the house, unless you wish to fling your life away.”

  The other Ladies: “Don’t come! Don’t come! Keep away! It will do no good.”

  III. MRS. ROBERTS AND THE OTHERS.

  Mrs. Roberts, mounting the stairs, as if lured to her doom by an irresistible fascination: “Not come? Keep away? Who’s talking? What is it? Oh, Amy, what is it?” As she reaches the stair-landing space before the drawing-room and looks in, where Campbell stands in the middle of the floor with his hands in his pockets and despair in his face: “You here, Willis? What are you doing? What is it?” Her eye wanders to the ladies trembling in their several refuges, and a dawning apprehension makes itself seen in her face. “What is — Oh, it is — it isn’t — it isn’t a — mouse! Oh, Amy! Amy! Amy! Oh, how could you let me come right into the room with it? Oh, I never can forgive you! I thought it was somebody getting killed. Oh, why didn’t you tell me it was a mouse?” She alights on the piano-stool, and keeps it from rocking by staying herself with one hand on the piano-top.

  Campbell: “Now look here, Agnes—”

  Mrs. Roberts: “Hush! Don’t speak to me, Willis! You unnatural, cruel, heartless — Why did you let me come in? I wonder at you, Willis! If you had been half the brother you ought to be — Oh dear, dear! I know how you will go away and laugh now, and tell everybody. I suppose you think it corroborates that silly speech of yours before the legislative committee that’s wounded all your best friends so, and that I’ve been talking myself perfectly dumb defending you about.” Mrs. Roberts unconsciously gives a little push for emphasis, and the stool revolves with her. “E-e-e-e! Oh, Amy, how can you have one of these old-fashioned, horrid, whirling things, fit for nothing but boarding-house parlors!”

  Mrs. Somers, with just pique: “I’m very sorry you don’t like my piano-stool, Agnes. I keep it because it was my poor mother’s; but if you’ll give me due notice another time, I’ll try to have a different—”

  Mrs. Roberts, bursting into tears: “Oh, don’t say another word, Amy dear! I’m so ashamed of myself that I can hardly breathe now!”

  Campbell: “And I’m ashamed of you too, Agnes! Get down off that stool, and behave yourself like a sensibl
e woman.” He goes towards her as if to lift her down. “The mouse is gone long ago. And if it was here, it wouldn’t bite you.”

  Mrs. Roberts, repelling him with one hand while she clings insecurely to the piano with the other: “Bite? Do you suppose I care for a mouse’s biting, Willis? I wouldn’t care for the bite of an elephant. It’s the idea. Can’t you understand?”

  The other Ladies: “Oh yes, it’s the idea.”

  Mrs. Somers: “Yes, I told him in the first place, Agnes, that it was the idea of a mouse.”

  Mrs. Curwen: “It’s the innate repugnance.” Campbell: “It’s the enmity put between the mouse that tempted Eve and the woman—”

  Mrs. Roberts: “Don’t be — sacrilegious, Willis! Don’t, for your own sake!”

  Mrs. Somers: “Yes, it’s very easy to make fun of the Bible.”

  Mrs. Roberts: “Or woman. And the wit is equally contemptible in either case.”

  Mrs. Miller: “Other animals feel about mice just as we do. I was reading only the other day of an elephant — your mentioning an elephant reminded me of it, Mrs.—”

  Mrs. Roberts: “Oh!”

  The other Ladies: “E-e-e-e!”

  Mrs. Somers: “What is it?”

  Mrs. Roberts: “Nothing. I thought I was going to fall. Go on, Mrs. Miller.”

  Mrs. Miller: “Oh, it’s merely that the elephant was asleep, and a mouse ran up its trunk—”

  All the Ladies: “Horrors!”

  Mrs. Miller: “And the poor creature sprang up in the greatest alarm, and bellowed till it woke the whole menagerie. It simply shows that it isn’t because women are nervously constituted that they’re afraid of mice, for the nervous organism of an elephant—”

  Mrs. Somers: “The first time I went to Europe I found a mouse in one of my trunks. It was a steamer trunk, that you push under the berth, and I’ve perfectly loathed them ever since.”

  Mrs. Semis: “Once in a farm-house where we were staying the summer, a mouse ran right across the table.”

  All the Ladies: “Oh!”

  Mrs. Curwen: “One morning I found one in the bath-tub.”

  All the Ladies: “Oh> Mrs. Curwen!”

  Mrs. Curwen: “We’d heard it scrambling round all night. It was stone-dead.”

  All the Ladies: “Hideous!”

  Campbell: “Why, bless my soul! if the mouse was dead—”

  Mrs. Somers: “Then it was ten times as bad as if it was alive. Can’t you understand? It’s the idea. But, oh, don’t let’s talk of it any more, ladies! Let’s talk of something else. Agnes, are you going to Mrs. Ransom’s?”

  Mrs. Roberts: “I’ve been. Nearly everybody’s coming away.”

  Mrs. Miller: “Why, what time is it, Mrs. Somers?” Mrs. Somers: “I don’t know.”

  Campbell, looking at his watch: “It’s ten minutes of six, and I’ve missed my appointment.”

  Mrs. Curwen: “And if we don’t go now we shall miss the reception.”

  Mrs. Remis: “Papa was very particular I should go, because he couldn’t.”

  Mrs. Miller: “We must go at once.”

  Mrs. Somers: “Oh, I’m so sorry! Jane, go down with the ladies.”

  Jane: “Oh, please, Mrs. Somers Mrs. Miller: “But how are we to go? We are imprisoned here. We cannot get away. You must do something.”

  Mrs. Curwen: “It is your house, Mrs. Somers. You are responsible.”

  Mrs. Somers: “But what can I do? I can’t get down myself. And if I did, what good would it do?”

  Mrs. Roberts: “For shame, Willis, to laugh!” Campbell: “I wasn’t laughing. I was merely smiling aloud.”

  Mrs. Roberts: “It’s the same thing. You ought to think of something.”

  Mrs. Somers: “Oh yes, do, Willis. Think of something for my — for goodness’ sake, and I will always thank you. You’re so ingenious.”

  Campbell: “Well, in the first place, I don’t believe there’s any mouse in the room.”

  Mrs. Somers: “That is nonsense; Jane saw it. Is that all your ingenuity amounts to?”

  Mrs. Roberts, electrically: “Amy, I have an idea!” —

  Mrs. Somers: “Oh, Agnes! How like you!” Mrs. Roberts: “Not at all. It’s the simplest thing in the world. It’s the only way. And no thanks to Willis, either.”

  All the Ladies: “Well? Well? Well?”

  Mrs. Roberts: “It’s just this: all make a rush, one after another, and the rest scream. And Willis must keep beating the floor.”

  Mrs. Somers: “How perfectly magnificent! Well, Agnes, you have got your wits about you! It is the very thing! Now, Mrs. Curwen, if you will jump down and make a rush—”

  Mrs. Curwen: “It’s for you to make the rush first, Mrs. Somers. You are the hostess.”

  Mrs. Somers: “Yes, but I’m not going, don’t you see? I’ve sent my card to Mrs. Ransom.”

  Mrs. Curwen: “Then, Mrs. Miller, will you, please—”

  Mrs. Miller: “Mrs. Bemis is nearest the door. I think she will wish to start first.”

  Mrs. Bemis: “No; I will wait for the rest.” Mrs. Somers: “That is a good idea. They ought to all rush together, not one after another. Don’t you think so, Agnes?”

  Mrs. Roberts: “Yes, that was what I meant. And we ought to all scream just before they start, so as to scare it.”

  Mrs. Somers: “Oh, how capital! You have got a brain, Agnes! Now I begin to believe we shall live through it. And Mr. Campbell ought to beat the floor first, oughtn’t he?”

  Campbell: “I haven’t got anything to beat it with.” He looks about the room. “But I can go down and get my cane.”

  All: “No!”

  Mrs. Somers: “Jane will go down and get it for you.”

  Jane: “Oh, I couldn’t, Mrs. Somers!”

  Campbell: “Perhaps the poker — but it would spoil your carpet.” —

  Mrs. Somers: “No matter for the carpet; you can beat it into — pulp.” Campbell gets the poker and beats the carpet in different places. “Harder! Beat harder!”

  Mrs. Roberts: “You’re not beating at all, Willis. You’re just — temporizing.” Campbell wildly thrashes the carpet.

  Mrs. Somers: “There! that is something like. Now scream, Agnes! Scream, Mrs. Curwen! Mrs. Miller, Lou, scream, please!”

  All: “E-e-e-e!”

  Mrs. Somers: “But nobody started!”

  Mrs. Curwen: “I didn’t believe the rest would start, and so I didn’t.”

  Mrs. Miller: “I was sure no one else would start.”

  Mrs. Remis: “So was I.”

  Mrs. Roberts: “We must have faith in each other, or else the plan’s a failure. Now all scream!” They scream.

  Mrs. Somers: “E-e-e-e! Keep beating the carpet, Willis! Hard, hard, hard!” The other ladies all leap down from their perches, and rush screaming out of the drawing-room, followed by Jane, with a whoop that prolongs itself into the depths of the basement, after the retreating wails and hysterical laughter of the ladies have died out of the street door. “Oh, wasn’t it splendid? It was a perfect success.”

  IV. MRS. SOMERS; MR. CAMPBELL.

  Campbell, leaning on his poker, and panting with exhaustion: “They got out alive.”

  Mrs. Somers: “And it was all Agnes’s idea. Why, Agnes is gone too!”

  Campbell: “Yes, Agnes is gone. I think it was a ruse of hers to save her own life. She’s quite capable of it.”

  Mrs. Somers, with justice: “No, I don’t think that. She was just carried away by the excitement of the moment.”

  Campbell: “At any rate, she’s gone. And now, Amy, don’t you think you’d better get down?” Mrs. Somers, in astonishment: “Get down? Why, you must be crazy. How can I get down if it’s still there?”

  Campbell: “What?”

  Mrs. Somers: “The mouse.”

  Campbell: “But it isn’t there, my dear. You saw for yourself that it wasn’t there.”

  Mrs. Somers: “Did you see it run out?” Campbell: “No; but—”

 
Mrs. Somers: “Very well, then, it’s there still. Of course it is. I wouldn’t get down for worlds.”

  Campbell: “Oh, good heavens! Do you expect to spend the rest of your life up there in that chair?”

  Mrs. Somers: “I don’t know. I shall not get down till I see that mouse leave this room.”

  Campbell, desperately: “Well, then, I must make a clean breast of it. There never was any mouse here.”

  Mrs. Somers: “What do you mean?”

  Campbell: “I mean that when we were talking — arguing — about the physical courage of women, I thought I would try a mouse. It’s succeeded only too well. I’ll never try another.”

  Mrs. Somers: “And could you really be guilty of such a cruel—”

  Campbell: “Yes.”

  Mrs. Somers: “Shameless—”

  Campbell: “I was.”

  Mrs. Somers: “Despicable deception?” Campbell: “It was vile, I know, but I did it.” Mrs. Somers: “I don’t believe it. No, rather than believe that of you, Willis, I would believe there were a million mice in the room.”

  Campbell: “Amy, indeed—”

  Mrs. Somers: “No; if you could deceive me then, you can deceive me now. If you could say there was a mouse in the room when there wasn’t, you are quite capable of saying there isn’t when there is. You are just saying it now to get me to get down.”

  Campbell: “Upon my honor, I’m not.”

  Mrs. Somers: “Oh, don’t talk to me of honor! The honor of a man who could revel — yes, revel — in the terrors of helpless women—”

  Campbell: “No, no; I’d no idea of it, Amy.” Mrs. Somers: “You will please not address me in that way, Mr. Campbell. You have forfeited all right to do so.”

  Campbell: “I know it. What I did was very foolish and thoughtless.”

  Mrs. Somers: “It was very low and ungentlemanly. I suppose you will go away and laugh over it with your — associates.”

  Campbell: “Why not say my ruffianly accomplices at once, Amy? No, I assure you that unless you tell of the affair, nobody shall ever hear of it from me. It’s too disastrous a victory. I’m hoist by my own petard, caught in my own mousetrap. There is such a thing as succeeding too well.”