Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  Mrs. Roberts, to her husband: “You don’t mean to say you haven’t seen her yet?”

  Roberts, desperately: “Seen her? How should I know whether I’ve seen her? I never saw her in my life.”

  Mrs. Roberts: “Then what are you looking for, in that way?”

  Roberts: “I — I’m looking for her husband.”

  Mrs. Roberts: “Her husband?”

  Roberts: “Yes. He keeps coming back.” Campbell bursts into a wild shriek of laughter.

  Mrs. Roberts, imploringly: “Willis, what does it mean?”

  Mrs. Campbell, threateningly: “Willis, if you don’t behave yourself—”

  Mrs. Roberts, with the calm of despair: “Well, then, she isn’t coming! She’s given us the slip! I might have known it! Well, the cat might as well come out of the bag first as last, Amy, though I was trying to keep it in, to spare your feelings; I knew you’d be so full of sympathy.” Suddenly to her husband: “But if you saw her husband — Did he say she sent him? I didn’t dream of her being married. How do you know it’s her husband?”

  Roberts: “Because — because she went out and got him! Don’t I tell you?”

  Mrs. Roberts: “Went out and got him?”

  Roberts: “When I spoke to her.”

  Mrs. Roberts: “When you spoke to her? But you said you didn’t see her!”

  Roberts: “Of course I didn’t see her. How should I see her, when I never saw her before? I went up and spoke to her, and she said she wasn’t the one. She was very angry, and she went out and got her husband. He was tipsy, and he’s been coming back ever since. I don’t know what to do about the wretched creature. He says I’ve insulted his abominable wife!”

  Campbell, laughing: “O Lord! Lord! This will be the death of me!”

  Mrs. Campbell: “This is one of your tricks, Willis; one of your vile practical jokes.”

  Campbell: “No, no, my dear! I couldn’t invent anything equal to this. Oh my! oh my!”

  Mrs. Campbell, seizing him by the arm: “Well, if you don’t tell, instantly, what it is—”

  Campbell: “But I can’t tell. I promised Roberts I wouldn’t.”

  Roberts, wildly: “Oh, tell, tell!”

  Campbell: “About the cook, too, Agnes?”

  Mrs. Roberts: “Yes, yes; everything! Only tell!”

  Campbell, struggling to recover himself: “Why, you see, Agnes engaged a cook, up-town—”

  Mrs. Roberts: “I didn’t want you to know it, Amy. I thought you would be troubled if you knew you were coming to visit me just when I was trying to break in a new cook, and so I told Edward not to let Willis know. Go on, Willis.”

  Mrs. Campbell: “And I understand just how you felt about it, Agnes; you knew he’d laugh. Go on, Willis.”

  Campbell: “And she sent her down here, and told Roberts to keep her till she came herself.”

  Both Ladies: “Well?”

  Campbell: “And I found poor old Roberts here, looking out for a cook that he’d never seen before, and expecting to recognize a woman that he’d never met in his life.” He explodes in another fit of laughter. The ladies stare at him in mystification.

  Mrs. Roberts: “I would have stayed myself to meet her, but I’d left my plush bag with my purse in it at Stearns’s, and I had to go back after it.”

  Mrs. Campbell: “She had to leave him. What is there to laugh at?”

  Mrs. Roberts: “I see nothing to laugh at, Willis.”

  Campbell, sobered: “You don’t?”

  Both Ladies: “No.”

  Campbell: “Well, by Jove! Then perhaps you don’t see anything to laugh at in Roberts’s having to guess who the cook was; and going up to the wrong woman, and her getting mad, and going out and bringing back her little fiery-red tipsy Irishman of a husband, that wanted to fight Roberts; and my having to lie out of it for him; and their going off again, and the husband coming back four or five times between drinks, and having to be smoothed up each time—”

  Both Ladies: “No!”

  Mrs. Roberts: “It was simply horrid.”

  Mrs. Campbell: “It wasn’t funny at all; it was simply disgusting. Poor Mr. Roberts!”

  Campbell: “Well, by the holy poker! This knocks me out! The next time I’ll marry a man, and have somebody around that can appreciate a joke. The Irishman said himself it would make a cow laugh.”

  Mrs. Campbell: “I congratulate you on being of the same taste, Willis. And I dare say you tried to heighten the absurdity, and add to poor Mr. Roberts’s perplexity.”

  Roberts: “No, no! I assure you, Amy, if it hadn’t been for Willis, I shouldn’t have known how to manage. I was quite at my wits’ end.”

  Mrs. Campbell: “You are very generous, I’m sure, Mr. Roberts; and I suppose I shall have to believe you.”

  Roberts: “But I couldn’t act upon the suggestion to take the man out and treat him; Willis was convinced himself, I think, that that wouldn’t do. But I confess I was tempted.”

  Mrs. Roberts: “Treat him?”

  Roberts: “Yes. He was rather tipsy already; and Willis thought he would be more peaceable perhaps if we could get him quite drunk; but I really couldn’t bring my mind to it, though I was so distracted that I was on the point of yielding.”

  Both Ladies: “Willis!”

  Mrs. Roberts: “You wanted poor Edward to go out and drink with that wretched being, so as to get him into a still worse state?”

  Mrs. Campbell: “You suggested that poor Mr. Roberts should do such a thing as that? Well, Willis!”

  Mrs. Roberts: “Well, Willis!” She turns from him more in sorrow than in anger, and confronts a cook-like person of comfortable bulk, with a bundle in her hand, and every mark of hurry and exhaustion in her countenance. “Why, here’s Bridget now!”

  The Cook: “Maggie, mem! I was afraid I was after missun’ you, after all. I couldn’t see the gentleman anywhere, and I’ve been runnun’ up and down the depot askun’ fur um; and at last, thinks I, I’ll try the ladies’ room; and sure enough here ye was yourself. It was lucky I thought of it.”

  Mrs. Roberts: “Oh! I forgot to tell you he’d be in the ladies’ room. But it’s all right now, Maggie; and we’ve just got time to catch our train.”

  Campbell, bitterly: “Well, Agnes, for a woman that’s set so many people by the ears, you let yourself up pretty easily. By Jove! here comes that fellow back again!” They all mechanically shrink aside, and leave Roberts exposed to the approach of McIlheny.

  McIlheny: “Now, sor, me thrain’s gahn, and we can talk this little matter oover at our aise. What did ye mane, sor, by comin’ up to the Hannorable Mrs. Michael McIlheny and askun’ her if she was a cuke? Did she luke like a person that’d demane herself to a manial position like that? Her that never put her hands in wather, and had hilpers to milk her father’s cows? What did ye mane, sor? Did she luke like a lady, or did she luke like a cuke? Tell me that!”

  The Cook, bursting upon him from behind Roberts, who eagerly gives place to her: “I’ll tell ye that meself, ye impidint felly! What’s to kape a cuke from lukun’ like a lady, or a lady from lukun’ like a cuke? Ah, Mike McIlheny, ye drunken blaggurd, is it me ye’re tellin’ that Mary Molloy never put her hands in wather, and kept hilpers to milk her father’s cows! Cows indade! It was wan pig under the bed; and more shame to them that’s ashamed to call it a pig, if ye are my cousin! I’m the lady the gentleman was lukin’ for, and if ye think I’m not as good as Mary Molloy the best day she ever stipped, I’ll thank ye to tell me who is. Be off wid ye, or I’ll say something ye’ll not like to hear!”

  McIlheny: “Sure I was jokin’, Maggie! I was goun’ to tell the gintleman that if he was lukun’ for a cuke, I’d a cousin out of place that was the best professed cuke in Bahston. And I’m glad he’s got ye: and he’s a gintleman every inch, and so’s his lady, I dar’ say, though I haven’t the pleasure of her acquaintance—”

  The Colored Man who calls the Trains: “Cars ready for West Newton, Auburndale, Riverside,
Wellesley, Natick, and South Framingham. Train for South Framingham. Express to West Newton. Track No. 5.”

  Mrs. Roberts: “That’s our train, Amy’ We get off at Auburndale. Willis, Edward, Maggie — come!” They all rush out, leaving McIlheny alone.

  McIlheny, looking thoughtfully after them: “Sure, I wonder what Mary’ll be wantun’ me to ask um next!”

  THE END

  BRIDE ROSES

  SCENE

  A Lady, entering the florist’s with her muff to her face, and fluttering gayly up to the counter, where the florist stands folding a mass of loose flowers in a roll of cotton batting: “Good-morning, Mr. Eichenlaub! Ah, put plenty of cotton round the poor things, if you don’t want them frozen stiff! You have no idea what a day it is, here in your little tropic.” She takes away her muff as she speaks, but gives each of her cheeks a final pressure with it, and holds it up with one hand inside as she sinks upon the stool before the counter.

  The Florist: “Dropic? With icepergs on the wintows?” He nods his head toward the frosty panes, and wraps a sheet of tissue-paper around the cotton and the flowers.

  The Lady: “But you are not near the windows. Back here it is midsummer!”

  The Florist: “Yes, we got a rhevricherator to keep the rhoces from sunstroke.” He crimps the paper at the top, and twists it at the bottom of the bundle in his hand. “Hier!” he calls to a young man warming his hands at the stove. “Chon, but on your hat, and dtake this to — Holt on! I forgot to but in the cart.” He undoes the paper, and puts in a card lying on the counter before him; the lady watches him vaguely. “There!” He restores the wrapping and hands the package to the young man, who goes out with it. “Well, matam?”

  The Lady, laying her muff with her hand in it on the counter, and leaning forward over it: “Well, Mr. Eichenlaub. I am going to be very difficult.”

  The Florist: “That is what I lige. Then I don’t feel so rhesbonsible.”

  The Lady: “But to-day, I wish you to feel responsible. I want you to take the whole responsibility. Do you know why I always come to you, instead of those places on Fifth Avenue?”

  The Florist: “Well, it is a good teal cheaper, for one thing” —

  The Lady: “Not at all! That isn’t the reason, at all. Some of your things are dearer. It’s because you take so much more interest, and you talk over what I want, and you don’t urge me, when I haven’t made up my mind. You let me consult you, and you are not cross when I don’t take your advice.”

  The Florist: “You are very goodt, matam.”

  The Lady: “Not at all. I am simply just. And now I want you to provide the flowers for my first Saturday: Saturday of this week, in fact, and I want to talk the order all over with you. Are you very busy?”

  The Florist: “No; I am qvite at your service. We haf just had to egsegute a larche gommission very soddenly, and we are still in a little dtisorter yet; but” —

  The Lady: “Yes, I see.” She glances at the rear of the shop, where the floor is littered with the leaves and petals of flowers, and sprays of fern and evergreen. A woman, followed by a belated smell of breakfast, which gradually mingles with the odor of the plants, comes out of a door there, and begins to gather the larger fragments into her apron. The lady turns again, and looks at the jars and vases of cut flowers in the window, and on the counter. “What I can’t understand is how you know just the quantity of flowers to buy every day. You must often lose a good deal.”

  The Florist: “It gomes out about rhighdt, nearly always. When I get left, sometimes, I can chenerally work dem off on funerals. Now, that bic orter hat I just fill, that wass a funeral. It usedt up all the flowers I hat ofer from yesterday.”

  The Lady: “Don’t speak of it! And the flowers, are they just the same for funerals?”

  The Florist: “Yes, rhoces nearly always. Whidte ones.”

  The Lady: “Well, it is too dreadful. I am not going to have roses, whatever I have.” After a thoughtful pause, and a more careful look around the shop: “Mr. Eichenlaub, why wouldn’t orchids do?”

  The Florist: “Well, they would be bretty dtear. You couldn’t make any show at all for less than fifteen tollars.”

  The Lady, with a slight sigh: “No, orchids wouldn’t do. They are fantastic things, anyway, and they are not very effective, as you say. Pinks, anemones, marguerites, narcissus — there doesn’t seem to be any great variety, does there?”

  The Florist, patiently: “There will be more, lader on.”

  The Lady: “Yes, there will be more sun, later on. But now, Mr. Eichenlaub, what do you think of plants in pots, set around?”

  The Florist: “Balmss?”

  The Lady, vaguely: “Yes, palms.”

  The Florist: “Balmss would to. But there would not be very much golor.”

  The Lady: “That is true; there would be no color at all, and my rooms certainly need all the color I can get into them. Yes, I shall have to have roses, after all. But not white ones!”

  The Florist: “Chacks?”

  The Lady: “No; Jacks are too old-fashioned. But haven’t you got any other very dark rose? I should like something almost black, I believe.”

  The Florist, setting a vase of roses on the counter before her: “There is the Matame Hoste.”

  The Lady, bending over the roses, and touching one of them with the tip of her gloved finger: “Why, they are black, almost! They are nearly as black as black pansies. They are really wonderful!” She stoops over and inhales their fragrance. “Delicious! They are beautiful, but” — abruptly— “they are hideous. Their color makes me creep. It is so unnatural for a rose. A rose — a rose ought to be — rose-colored! Have you no rose-colored roses? What are those light pink ones there in the window?”

  The Florist, going to the window and getting two vases of cut roses, with long stems, both pink, but one kind a little larger than the other: “That is the Matame Watterville, and this is the Matame Cousine. They are sister rhoces; both the same, but the Matame Watterville is a little bigger, and it is a little dtearer.”

  The Lady: “They are both exquisite, and they are such a tender almond-bloom pink! I think the Madame Cousine is quite as nice; but of course the larger ones are more effective.” She examines them, turning her head from side to side, and then withdrawing a step, with a decisive sigh. “No; they are too pale. Have you nothing of a brighter pink? What is that over there?” She points to a vase of roses quite at the front of the window, and the florist climbs over the mass of plants and gets it for her.

  The Florist: “That is the Midio.”

  The Lady: “The what?”

  The Florist: “The Midio.”

  The Lady: “You will think I am very stupid this morning. Won’t you please write it down for me?” The florist writes on a sheet of wrapping-paper, and she leans over and reads: “Oh! Meteor! Well, it is very striking — a little too striking. I don’t like such a vivid pink, and I don’t like the name. Horrid to give such a name to a flower.” She puts both hands into her muff, and drifts a little way off, as if to get him in a better perspective. “Can’t you suggest something, Mr. Eichenlaub?”

  The Florist: “Some kind off yellow rhoce? Dtea-rhoces?”

  The Lady, shaking her head: “Tea-roses are ghastly. I hate yellow roses. I would rather have black, and black is simply impossible. I shall have to tell you just what I want to do. I don’t want to work up to my rooms with the flowers; I want to work up to the young lady who is going to pour tea for me. I don’t care if there isn’t a flower anywhere but on the table before her. I want a color scheme that shall not have a false note in it, from her face to the tiniest bud. I want them to all come together. Do you understand?”

  The Florist, doubtfully: “Yes.” After a moment: “What kindt looking yo’ng laty iss she?”

  The Lady: “The most ethereal creature in the world.”

  The Florist: “Yes; but what sdyle — fair or tark?”

  The Lady: “Oh, fair! Very, very fair, and very, very f
ragile-looking; a sort of moonlight blonde, with those remote, starry-looking eyes, don’t you know, and that pale saffron hair; not the least ashen; and just the faintest, faintest tinge of color in her face. I suppose you have nothing like the old-fashioned blush-rose? That would be the very thing.”

  The Florist, shaking his head: “Oh, no; there noding like that in a chreen-house rhoce.”

  The Lady: “Well, that is exactly what I want. It ought to be something very tall and ethereal; something very, very pale, and yet with a sort of suffusion of color.” She walks up and down the shop, looking at all the plants and flowers.

  The Florist, waiting patiently: “Somet’ing beside rhoces, then?”

  The Lady, coming back to him: “No; it must be roses, after all. I see that nothing else will do. What do you call those?” She nods at a vase of roses on a shelf behind him.

  The Florist, turning and taking them down for her: “Ah, those whidte ones! That is the Pridte. You sait you woultn’t haf whidte ones.”

  The Lady: “I may have to come to them. Why do they call it the Pride?”

  The Florist: “I didn’t say Bridte; I said Pridte.”

  The Lady: “Oh, Bride! And do they use Bride roses for” —

  The Florist: “Yes; and for weddtings, too; for everything.” The lady leans back a little and surveys the flowers critically. A young man enters, and approaches the florist, but waits with respectful impatience for the lady to transact her affairs. The florist turns to him inquiringly, and upon this hint he speaks.

  The Young Man: “I want you to send a few roses — white ones, or nearly white” — He looks at the lady. “Perhaps” —

  The Lady: “Oh, not at all! I hadn’t decided to take them.”

  The Florist: “I got plenty this kindt; all you want. I can always get them.”

  The Young Man, dreamily regarding the roses: “They look rather chilly.” He goes to the stove, and drawing off his gloves, warms his hands, and then comes back. “What do you call this rose?”