“That was what I was never able to find out. I have asked several people who saw the ghost, and none of them could tell me anything about its face, and yet while in its presence they never noticed its features, and never remarked on their absence or concealment. It was only afterward when they tried to recall calmly all the circumstances of meeting with the mysterious stranger, that they became aware that they had not seen its face. And they could not say whether the features were covered, or whether they were wanting, or what the trouble was. They knew only that the face was never seen. And no matter how often they might see it, they never fathomed this mystery. To this day nobody knows whether the ghost which used to haunt the little old house in Salem had a face, or what manner of face it had.”
“How awfully weird!” said Baby Van Rensselaer. “And why did the ghost go away?”
“I haven’t said it went away,” answered Uncle Larry, with much dignity.
“But you said it used to haunt the little old house at Salem, so I supposed it had moved. Didn’t it?”
“You shall be told in due time. Eliphalet Duncan used to spend most of his summer vacations at Salem, and the ghost never bothered him at all, for he was the master of the house—much to his disgust, too, because he wanted to see for himself the mysterious tenant at will of his property. But he never saw it, never. He arranged with friends to call him whenever it might appear, and he slept in the next room with the door open; and yet when their frightened cries waked him the ghost was gone, and his only reward was to hear reproachful sighs as soon as he went back to bed. You see, the ghost thought it was not fair of Eliphalet to seek an introduction which was plainly unwelcome.”
Dear Jones interrupted the story-teller by getting up and tucking a heavy rug more snugly around Baby Van Rensselaer’s feet, for the sky was now overcast and gray, and the air was damp and penetrating.
“One fine spring morning,” pursued Uncle Larry, “Eliphalet Duncan received great news. I told you that there was a title in the family in Scotland, and that Eliphalet’s father was the younger son of a younger son. Well, it happened that all Eliphalet’s father’s brothers and uncles had died off without male issue except the eldest son of the eldest, and he, of course, bore the title, and was Baron Duncan of Duncan. Now the great news that Eliphalet Duncan received in New York one fine spring morning was that Baron Duncan and his only son had been yachting in the Hebrides, and they had been caught in a black squall, and they were both dead. So my friend Eliphalet Duncan inherited the title and the estates.”
“How romantic!” said the Duchess. “So he was a baron!”
“Well,” answered Uncle Larry, “he was a baron if he chose. But he didn’t choose.”
“More fool he!” said Dear Jones sententiously.
“Well,” answered Uncle Larry, “I’m not so sure of that. You see, Eliphalet Duncan was half Scotch and half Yankee, and he had two eyes to the main chance. He held his tongue about his windfall of luck until he could find out whether the Scotch estates were enough to keep up the Scotch title. He soon discovered that they were not, and that the late Lord Duncan, having married money, kept up such state as he could out of the revenues of the dowry of Lady Duncan. And Eliphalet, he decided that he would rather be a well-fed lawyer in New York, living comfortably on his practice, than a starving lord in Scotland, living scantily on his title.”
“But he kept his title?” asked the Duchess.
“Well,” answered Uncle Larry, “he kept it quiet. I knew it, and a friend or two more. But Eliphalet was a sight too smart to put Baron Duncan of Duncan, Attorney and Counsellor at Law, on his shingle.”
“What has all this got to do with your ghost?” asked Dear Jones pertinently.
“Nothing with that ghost, but a good deal with another ghost. Eliphalet was very learned in spirit lore—perhaps because he owned the haunted house at Salem, perhaps because he was a Scotchman by descent. At all events, he had made a special study of the wraiths and white ladies and banshees and bogies of all kinds whose sayings and doings and warnings are recorded in the annals of the Scottish nobility. In fact, he was acquainted with the habits of every reputable spook in the Scotch peerage. And he knew that there was a Duncan ghost attached to the person of the holder of the title of Baron Duncan of Duncan.”
“So, besides being the owner of a haunted house in Salem, he was also a haunted man in Scotland?” asked Baby Van Rensselaer.
“Just so. But the Scotch ghost was not unpleasant, like the Salem ghost, although it had one peculiarity in common with its transatlantic fellow-spook. It never appeared to the holder of the title, just as the other never was visible to the owner of the house. In fact, the Duncan ghost was never seen at all. It was a guardian angel only. Its sole duty was to be in personal attendance on Baron Duncan of Duncan, and to warn him of impending evil. The traditions of the house told that the Barons of Duncan had again and again felt a premonition of ill fortune. Some of them had yielded and withdrawn from the venture they had undertaken, and it had failed dismally. Some had been obstinate, and had hardened their hearts, and had gone on reckless to defeat and to death. In no case had a Lord Duncan been exposed to peril without fair warning.”
“Then how came it that the father and son were lost in the yacht off the Hebrides?” asked Dear Jones.
“Because they were too enlightened to yield to superstition. There is extant now a letter of Lord Duncan, written to his wife a few minutes before he and his son set sail, in which he tells her how hard he has had to struggle with an almost overmastering desire to give up the trip. Had he obeyed the friendly warning of the family ghost, the latter would have been spared a journey across the Atlantic.”
“Did the ghost leave Scotland for America as soon as the old baron died?” asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with much interest.
“How did he come over,” queried Dear Jones—“in the steerage, or as a cabin passenger?”
“I don’t know,” answered Uncle Larry calmly, “and Eliphalet, he didn’t know. For as he was in no danger, and stood in no need of warning, he couldn’t tell whether the ghost was on duty or not. Of course he was on the watch for it all the time. But he never got any proof of its presence until he went down to the little old house of Salem, just before the Fourth of July. He took a friend down with him—a young fellow who had been in the regular army since the day Fort Sumter was fired on, and who thought that after four years of the little unpleasantness down South, including six months in Libby, and after ten years of fighting the bad Indians on the plains, he wasn’t likely to be much frightened by a ghost. Well, Eliphalet and the officer sat out on the porch all the evening smoking and talking over points in military law. A little after twelve o’clock, just as they began to think it was about time to turn in, they heard the most ghastly noise in the house. It wasn’t a shriek, or a howl, or a yell, or anything they could put a name to. It was an undeterminate, inexplicable shiver and shudder of sound, which went wailing out of the window. The officer had been at Cold Harbor, but he felt himself getting colder this time. Eliphalet knew it was the ghost who haunted the house. As this weird sound died away, it was followed by another, sharp, short, blood-curdling in its intensity. Something in this cry seemed familiar to Eliphalet, and he felt sure that it proceeded from the family ghost, the warning wraith of the Duncans.”
“Do I understand you to intimate that both ghosts were there together?” inquired the Duchess anxiously.
“Both of them were there,” answered Uncle Larry. “You see, one of them belonged to the house, and had to be there all the time, and the other was attached to the person of Baron Duncan, and had to follow him there; wherever he was, there was that ghost also. But Eliphalet, he had scarcely time to think this out when he heard both sounds again, not one after another, but both together, and something told him—some sort of an instinct he had—that those two ghosts didn’t agree, didn’t get on together, didn’t exactly hit it off; in fact, that they were quarrelling.”
“Quarrelling ghosts! Well, I never!” was Baby Van Rensselaer’s remark.
“It is a blessed thing to see ghosts dwell together in unity,” said Dear Jones.
And the Duchess added, “It would certainly be setting a better example.”
“You know,” resumed Uncle Larry, “that two waves of light or of sound may interfere and produce darkness or silence. So it was with these rival spooks. They interfered, but they did not produce silence or darkness. On the contrary, as soon as Eliphalet and the officer went into the house, there began at once a series of spiritualistic manifestations, a regular dark séance. A tambourine was played upon, a bell was rung, and a flaming banjo went singing around the room.”
“Where did they get the banjo?” asked Dear Jones skeptically.
“I don’t know. Materialized it, maybe, just as they did the tambourine. You don’t suppose a quiet New York lawyer kept a stock of musical instruments large enough to fit out a strolling minstrel troupe just on the chance of a pair of ghosts coming to give him a surprise party, do you? Every spook has its own instrument of torture. Angels play on harps, I’m informed, and spirits delight in banjos and tambourines. These spooks of Eliphalet Duncan’s were ghosts with all the modern improvements, and I guess they were capable of providing their own musical weapons. At all events, they had them there in the little old house at Salem the night Eliphalet and his friend came down. And they played on them, and they rang the bell, and they rapped here, there, and everywhere. And they kept it up all night.”
“All night?” asked the awe-stricken Duchess.
“All night long,” said Uncle Larry solemnly; “and the next night, too. Eliphalet did not get a wink of sleep, neither did his friend. On the second night the house ghost was seen by the officer; on the third night it showed itself again; and the next morning the officer packed his grip-sack and took the first train to Boston. He was a New Yorker, but he said he’d sooner go to Boston than see that ghost again. Eliphalet, he wasn’t scared at all, partly because he never saw either the domiciliary or the titular spook, and partly because he felt himself on friendly terms with the spirit world, and didn’t scare easily. But after losing three nights’ sleep and the society of his friend, he began to be a little impatient, and to think that the thing had gone far enough. You see, while in a way he was fond of ghosts, yet he liked them best one at a time. Two ghosts were one too many. He wasn’t bent on making a collection of spooks. He and one ghost were company, but he and two ghosts were a crowd.”
“What did he do?” asked Baby Van Rensselaer.
“Well, he couldn’t do anything. He waited awhile, hoping they would get tired; but he got tired out first. You see, it comes natural to a spook to sleep in the daytime, but a man wants to sleep nights, and they wouldn’t let him sleep nights. They kept on wrangling and quarrelling incessantly; they manifested and they dark-séanced as regularly as the old clock on the stairs struck twelve; they rapped and they rang bells and they banged the tambourine and they threw the flaming banjo about the house, and, worse than all, they swore.”
“I did not know that spirits were addicted to bad language,” said the Duchess.
“How did he know they were swearing? Could he hear them?” asked Dear Jones.
“That was just it,” responded Uncle Larry; “he could not hear them—at least not distinctly. There were inarticulate murmurs and stifled rumblings. But the impression produced on him was that they were swearing. If they had only sworn right out, he would not have minded it so much, because he would have known the worst. But the feeling that the air was full of suppressed profanity was very wearing, and after standing it for a week, he gave up in disgust and went to the White Mountains.”
“Leaving them to fight it out, I suppose,” interjected Baby Van Rensselaer.
“Not at all,” explained Uncle Larry. “They could not quarrel unless he was present. You see, he could not leave the titular ghost behind him, and the domiciliary ghost could not leave the house. When he went away he took the family ghost with him, leaving the house ghost behind. Now spooks can’t quarrel when they are a hundred miles apart any more than men can.”
“And what happened afterward?” asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with a pretty impatience.
“A most marvellous thing happened. Eliphalet Duncan went to the White Mountains, and in the car of the railroad that runs to the top of Mount Washington he met a classmate whom he had not seen for years, and this classmate introduced Duncan to his sister, and this sister was a remarkably pretty girl, and Duncan fell in love with her at first sight, and by the time he got to the top of Mount Washington he was so deep in love that he began to consider his own unworthiness, and to wonder whether she might ever be induced to care for him a little—ever so little.”
“I don’t think that is so marvellous a thing,” said Dear Jones, glancing at Baby Van Rensselaer.
“Who was she?” asked the Duchess, who had once lived in Philadelphia.
“She was Miss Kitty Sutton, of San Francisco, and she was a daughter of old Judge Sutton, of the firm of Pixley and Sutton.”
“A very respectable family,” assented the Duchess.
“I hope she wasn’t a daughter of that loud and vulgar old Mrs. Sutton whom I met at Saratoga, one summer, four or five years ago?” said Dear Jones.
“Probably she was.”
“She was a horrid old woman. The boys used to call her Mother Gorgon.”
“The pretty Kitty Sutton with whom Eliphalet Duncan had fallen in love was the daughter of Mother Gorgon. But he never saw the mother, who was in ’Frisco, or Los Angeles, or Santa Fé, or somewhere out West, and he saw a great deal of the daughter, who was up in the White Mountains. She was travelling with her brother and his wife, and as they journeyed from hotel to hotel, Duncan went with them, and filled out the quartette. Before the end of the summer he began to think about proposing. Of course he had lots of chances, going on excursions as they were every day. He made up his mind to seize the first opportunity, and that very evening he took her out for a moonlight row on Lake Winnipiseogee. As he handed her into the boat he resolved to do it, and he had a glimmer of a suspicion that she knew he was going to do it, too.”
“Girls,” said Dear Jones, “never go out in a row-boat at night with a young man unless you mean to accept him.”
“Sometimes it’s best to refuse him, and get it over once for all,” said Baby Van Rensselaer.
“As Eliphalet took the oars he felt a sudden chill. He tried to shake it off, but in vain. He began to have a growing consciousness of impending evil. Before he had taken ten strokes—and he was a swift oarsman—he was aware of a mysterious presence between him and Miss Sutton.”
“Was it the guardian-angel ghost warning him off the match?” interrupted Dear Jones.
“That’s just what it was,” said Uncle Larry. “And he yielded to it, and kept his peace, and rowed Miss Sutton back to the hotel with his proposal unspoken.”
“More fool he,” said Dear Jones. “It will take more than one ghost to keep me from proposing when my mind is made up.” And he looked at Baby Van Rensselaer.
“The next morning,” continued Uncle Larry, “Eliphalet overslept himself, and when he went down to a late breakfast he found that the Suttons had gone to New York by the morning train. He wanted to follow them at once, and again he felt the mysterious presence overpowering his will. He struggled two days, and at last he roused himself to do what he wanted in spite of the spook. When he arrived in New York it was late in the evening. He dressed himself hastily, and went to the hotel where the Suttons put up, in the hope of seeing at least her brother. The guardian angel fought every inch of the walk with him, until he began to wonder whether, if Miss Sutton were to take him, the spook would forbid the banns. At the hotel he saw no one that night, and he went home determined to call as early as he could the next afternoon, and make an end of it. When he left his office about two o’clock the next day to learn his fate, he had not walked five blocks before he discovered that the wraith of the Duncans had withdrawn his opposition to the suit. There was no feeling of impending evil, no resistance, no struggle, no consciousness of an opposing presence. Eliphalet was greatly encouraged. He walked briskly to the hotel; he found Miss Sutton alone. He asked her the question, and got his answer.”
“She accepted him, of course,” said Baby Van Rensselaer.
“Of course,” said Uncle Larry. “And while they were in the first flush of joy, swapping confidences and confessions, her brother came into the parlor with an expression of pain on his face and a telegram in his hand. The former was caused by the latter, which was from ’Frisco, and which announced the sudden death of Mrs. Sutton, their mother.”
“And that was why the ghost no longer opposed the match?” questioned Dear Jones.
“Exactly. You see, the family ghost knew that Mother Gorgon was an awful obstacle to Duncan’s happiness, so it warned him. But the moment the obstacle was removed, it gave its consent at once.”
The fog was lowering its thick damp curtain, and it was beginning to be difficult to see from one end of the boat to the other. Dear Jones tightened the rug which enwrapped Baby Van Rensselaer, and then withdrew again into his own substantial coverings.
Uncle Larry paused in his story long enough to light another of the tiny cigars he always smoked.
“I infer that Lord Duncan”—the Duchess was scrupulous in the bestowal of titles—“saw no more of the ghosts after he was married.”
“He never saw them at all, at any time, either before or since. But they came very near breaking off the match, and thus breaking two young hearts.”
“You don’t mean to say that they knew any just cause or impediment why they should not forever after hold their peace?” asked Dear Jones.
“How could a ghost, or even two ghosts, keep a girl from marrying the man she loved?” This was Baby Van Rensselaer’s question.
“It seems curious, doesn’t it?” and Uncle Larry tried to warm himself by two or three sharp pulls at his fiery little cigar. “And the circumstances are quite as curious as the fact itself. You see, Miss Sutton wouldn’t be married for a year after her mother’s death, so she and Duncan had lots of time to tell each other all they knew. Eliphalet, he got to know a good deal about the girls she went to school with, and Kitty, she learned all about his family. He didn’t tell her about the title for a long time, as he wasn’t one to brag. But he described to her the little old house at Salem. And one evening toward the end of the summer, the wedding-day having been appointed for early in September, she told him that she didn’t want a bridal tour at all; she just wanted to go down to the little old house at Salem to spend her honeymoon in peace and quiet, with nothing to do and nobody to bother them. Well, Eliphalet jumped at the suggestion: it suited him down to the ground. All of a sudden he remembered the spooks, and it knocked him all of a heap. He had told her about the Duncan banshee, and the idea of having an ancestral ghost in personal attendance on her husband tickled her immensely. But he had never said anything about the ghost which haunted the little old house at Salem. He knew she would be frightened out of her wits if the house ghost revealed itself to her, and he saw at once that it would be impossible to go to Salem on their wedding trip. So he told her all about it, and how whenever he went to Salem the two ghosts interfered, and gave dark séances and manifested and materialized and made the place absolutely impossible. Kitty, she listened in silence, and Eliphalet, he thought she had changed her mind. But she hadn’t done anything of the kind.”
“Just like a man—to think she was going to,” remarked Baby Van Rensselaer.
“She just told him she could not bear ghosts herself, but she would not marry a man who was afraid of them.”
“Just like a girl—to be so inconsistent,” remarked Dear Jones.
Uncle Larry’s tiny cigar had long been extinct. He lighted a new one, and continued: “Eliphalet protested in vain. Kitty said her mind was made up. She was determined to pass her honeymoon in the little old house at Salem, and she was equally determined not to go there as long as there were any ghosts there. Until he could assure her that the spectral tenant had received notice to quit, and that there was no danger of manifestations and materializing, she refused to be married at all. She did not intend to have her honeymoon interrupted by two wrangling ghosts, and the wedding could be postponed until he had made ready the house for her.”
“She was an unreasonable young woman,” said the Duchess.
“Well, that’s what Eliphalet thought, much as he was in love with her. And he believed he could talk her out of her determination. But he couldn’t. She was set. And when a girl is set, there’s nothing to do but to yield to the inevitable. And that’s just what Eliphalet did. He saw he would either have to give her up or to get the ghosts out; and as he loved her and did not care for the ghosts, he resolved to tackle the ghosts. He had clear grit, Eliphalet had—he was half Scotch and half Yankee, and neither breed turns tail in a hurry. So he made his plans and he went down to Salem. As he said good-by to Kitty he had an impression that she was sorry she had made him go, but she kept up bravely, and put a bold face on it, and saw him off, and went home and cried for an hour, and was perfectly miserable until he came back the next day.”
“Did he succeed in driving the ghosts away?” asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with great interest.
“That’s just what I’m coming to,” said Uncle Larry, pausing at the critical moment, in the manner of the trained story-teller. “You see, Eliphalet had got a rather tough job, and he would gladly have had an extension of time on the contract, but he had to choose between the girl and the ghosts, and he wanted the girl. He tried to invent or remember some short and easy way with ghosts, but he couldn’t. He wished that somebody had invented a specific for spooks—something that would make the ghosts come out of the house and die in the yard. He wondered if he could not tempt the ghosts to run in debt, so that he might get the sheriff to help him. He wondered also whether the ghosts could not be overcome with strong drink—a dissipated spook, a spook with delirium tremens, might be committed to the inebriate asylum. But none of these things seemed feasible.”
“What did he do?” interrupted Dear Jones. “The learned counsel will please speak to the point.”
“You will regret this unseemly haste,” said Uncle Larry, gravely, “when you know what really happened.”
“What was it, Uncle Larry?” asked Baby Van Rensselaer. “I’m all impatience.”
And Uncle Larry proceeded:
“Eliphalet went down to the little old house at Salem, and as soon as the clock struck twelve the rival ghosts began wrangling as before. Raps here, there, and everywhere, ringing bells, banging tambourines, strumming banjos sailing about the room, and all the other manifestations and materializations followed one another just as they had the summer before. The only difference Eliphalet could detect was a stronger flavor in the spectral profanity; and this, of course, was only a vague impression, for he did not actually hear a single word. He waited awhile in patience, listening and watching. Of course he never saw either of the ghosts, because neither of them could appear to him. At last he got his dander up, and he thought it was about time to interfere, so he rapped on the table, and asked for silence. As soon as he felt that the spooks were listening to him he explained the situation to them. He told them he was in love, and that he could not marry unless they vacated the house. He appealed to them as old friends, and he laid claim to their gratitude. The titular ghost had been sheltered by the Duncan family for hundreds of years, and the domiciliary ghost had had free lodging in the little old house at Salem for nearly two centuries. He implored them to settle their differences, and to get him out of his difficulty at once. He suggested that they had better fight it out then and there, and see who was master. He had brought down with him all needful weapons. And he pulled out his valise, and spread on the table a pair of navy revolvers, a pair of shot-guns, a pair of duelling swords, and a couple of bowie-knives. He offered to serve as second for both parties, and to give the word when to begin. He also took out of his valise a pack of cards and a bottle of poison, telling them that if they wished to avoid carnage they might cut the cards to see which one should take the poison. Then he waited anxiously for their reply. For a little space there was silence. Then he became conscious of a tremulous shivering in one corner of the room, and he remembered that he had heard from that direction what sounded like a frightened sigh when he made the first suggestion of the duel. Something told him that this was the domiciliary ghost, and that it was badly scared. Then he was impressed by a certain movement in the opposite corner of the room, as though the titular ghost were drawing himself up with offended dignity. Eliphalet couldn’t exactly see these things, because he never saw the ghosts, but he felt them. After a silence of nearly a minute a voice came from the corner where the family ghost stood—a voice strong and full, but trembling slightly with suppressed passion. And this voice told Eliphalet it was plain enough that he had not long been the head of the Duncans, and that he had never properly considered the characteristics of his race if now he supposed that one of his blood could draw his sword against a woman. Eliphalet said he had never suggested that the Duncan ghost should raise his hand against a woman, and all he wanted was that the Duncan ghost should fight the other ghost. And then the voice told Eliphalet that the other ghost was a woman.”
“What?” said Dear Jones, sitting up suddenly. “You don’t mean to tell me that the ghost which haunted the house was a woman?”
“Those were the very words Eliphalet Duncan used,” said Uncle Larry; “but he did not need to wait for the answer. All at once he recalled the traditions about the domiciliary ghost, and he knew that what the titular ghost said was the fact. He had never thought of the sex of a spook, but there was no doubt whatever that the house ghost was a woman. No sooner was this firmly fixed in Eliphalet’s mind than he saw his way out of the difficulty. The ghosts must be married!—for then there would be no more interference, no more quarrelling, no more manifestations and materializations, no more dark séances, with their raps and bells and tambourines and banjos. At first the ghosts would not hear of it. The voice in the corner declared that the Duncan wraith had never thought of matrimony. But Eliphalet argued with them, and pleaded and persuaded and coaxed, and dwelt on the advantages of matrimony. He had to confess, of course, that he did not know how to get a clergyman to marry them; but the voice from the corner gravely told him that there need be no difficulty in regard to that, as there was no lack of spiritual chaplains. Then, for the first time, the house ghost spoke, in a low, clear, gentle voice, and with a quaint, old-fashioned New England accent, which contrasted sharply with the broad Scotch speech of the family ghost. She said that Eliphalet Duncan seemed to have forgotten that she was married. But this did not upset Eliphalet at all; he remembered the whole case clearly, and he told her she was not a married ghost, but a widow, since her husband had been hung for murdering her. Then the Duncan ghost drew attention to the great disparity in their ages, saying that he was nearly four hundred and fifty years old, while she was barely two hundred. But Eliphalet had not talked to juries for nothing; he just buckled to, and coaxed those ghosts into matrimony. Afterward he came to the conclusion that they were willing to be coaxed, but at the time he thought he had pretty hard work to convince them of the advantages of the plan.”
“Did he succeed?” asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with a young lady’s interest in matrimony.
“He did,” said Uncle Larry. “He talked the wraith of the Duncans and the spectre of the little old house at Salem into a matrimonial engagement. And from the time they were engaged he had no more trouble with them. They were rival ghosts no longer. They were married by their spiritual chaplain the very same day that Eliphalet Duncan met Kitty Sutton in front of the railing of Grace Church. The ghostly bride and bridegroom went away at once on their bridal tour, and Lord and Lady Duncan went down to the little old house at Salem to pass their honeymoon.”
Uncle Larry stopped. His tiny cigar was out again. The tale of the rival ghosts was told. A solemn silence fell on the little party on the deck of the ocean steamer, broken harshly by the hoarse roar of the fog-horn.
New York, Nov. 16, 1883.
My dear Will:—
You cannot be expected to remember it, but this is the fifth anniversary of my wedding-day, and to-morrow—it will be to-morrow before this letter is closed—is my birthday—my fortieth. My head is full of those thoughts which the habit of my life moves me to put on paper, where I can best express them; and yet which must be written for only the friendliest of eyes. It is not the least of my happiness in this life that I have one friend to whom I can unlock my heart as I can to you.
The wife has just been putting your namesake to sleep. Don’t infer that, even on the occasion of this family feast, he has been allowed to sit up until half past eleven. He went to bed properly enough, with a tear or two, at eight; but when his mother stole into his room just now, after her custom, I heard his small voice raised in drowsy inquiry; and I followed her, and slipped the curtain of the doorway aside, and looked. But I did not go into the room.
The shaded lamp was making a yellow glory in one spot—the head of the little brass crib where my wife knelt by my boy. I saw the little face, so like hers, turned up to her. There was a smile on it that I knew was a reflection of hers. He was winking in a merry half-attempt to keep awake; but wakefulness was slipping away from him under the charm of that smile that I could not see. His brown eyes closed, and opened for an instant, and closed again as the tender, happy hush of a child’s sleep settled down upon him, and he was gone where we in our heavier slumbers shall hardly follow him. Then, before I could see my wife’s face as she bent and kissed him, I let the curtain fall, and crept back here, to sit by the last of the fire, and see that sacred sight again with the spiritual eyes, and to dream wonderingly over the unspeakable happiness that has in some mysterious way come to me, undeserving.
I tell you, Will, that moment was to me like one of those moments of waking that we know in childhood, when we catch the going of a dream too subtly sweet to belong to this earth—a glad vision, gone before our eyes can open wide; not to be figured into any earthly idea, leaving in its passage a joy so high and fine that the poets tell us it is a memory of some heaven from which our young souls are yet fresh.
You can understand how it is that I find it hard to realize that there can be such things in my life; for you know what that life was up to a few years ago. I am like a man who has spent his first thirty years in a cave. It takes more than a decade above ground to make him quite believe in the sun and the blue of the sky.
I was sitting just now before the hearth, with my feet in the bearskin rug you sent us two Christmases ago. The light of the low wood fire was chasing the shadows around the room, over my books and my pictures, and all the fine and gracious luxuries with which I may now make my eyes and my heart glad, and pamper the tastes that grow with feeding. I was taking count, so to speak, of my prosperity—the material treasures, the better treasure that I find in such portion of fame as the world has allotted me, and the treasure of treasures across the threshold of the next room—in the next room? No—there, here, in every room, in every corner of the house, filling it with peace, is the gentle and holy spirit of love.
As I sat and thought, my mind went back to the day that you and I first met, twenty-two years ago—twenty-two in February next. In twenty-two years more I could not forget that hideous first day in the city room of the Morning Record. I can see the great gloomy room, with its meagre gas-jets lighting up, here and there, a pale face at a desk, and bringing out in ghastly spots the ugliness of the ink-smeared walls. A winter rain was pouring down outside. I could feel its chill and damp in the room, though little of it was to be seen through the grimy window-panes. The composing-room in the rear sent a smell of ink and benzine to permeate the moist atmosphere. The rumble and shiver of the great presses printing the weekly came up from below. I sat there in my wet clothes and waited for my first assignment. I was eighteen, poor as a church mouse, green, desperately hopeful after a boy’s fashion, and with nothing in my head but the Latin and Greek of my one single year at college. My spirit had sunk down far out of sight. My heart beat nervously at every sound of that awful city editor’s voice, as he called up his soldiers one by one and assigned them to duty. I could only silently pray that he would “give me an easy one,” and that I should not disgrace myself in the doing of it. By Jove, Will, what an old martinet Baldwin was, for all his good heart! Do you remember that sharp, crackling voice of his, and the awful “Be brief! be brief!” that always drove all capacity for condensation out of a man’s head, and set him to stammering out his story with wordy incoherence? Baldwin is on the Record still. I wonder what poor devil is trembling at this hour under that disconcerting adjuration.
A wretched day that was! The hours went slow as grief. Smeary little bare-armed fiends trotted in from the composing-room and out again, bearing fluttering galley-proofs. Bedraggled, hollow-eyed men came in from the streets and set their soaked umbrellas to steam against the heater, and passed into the lion’s den to feed him with news, and were sent out again to take up their half-cooked umbrellas and go forth to forage for more. Everyone, I thought, gave me one brief glance of contempt and curiosity, and put me out of his thoughts. Everyone had some business—everyone but me. The men who had been waiting with me were called up one by one and detailed to work. I was left alone.
Then a new horror came to torture my nervously active imagination. Had my superior officer forgotten his new recruit? Or could he find no task mean enough for my powers? This filled me at first with a sinking shame, and then with a hot rage and sense of wrong. Why should he thus slight me? Had I not a right to be tried, at least? Was there any duty he could find that I would not perform or die? I would go to him and tell him that I had come there to work; and would make him give me the work. No, I should simply be snubbed, and sent to my seat like a school-boy, or perhaps discharged on the spot. I must bear my humiliation in silence.
I looked up and saw you entering, with your bright, ruddy boy’s face shining with wet, beaming a greeting to all the room. In my soul I cursed you, at a venture, for your lightheartedness and your look of cheery self-confidence. What a vast stretch of struggle and success set you above me—you, the reporter, above me, the novice! And just then came the awful summons—“Barclay! Barclay!”—I shall hear that strident note at the judgment day. I went in and got my orders, and came out with them, all in a sort of daze that must have made Baldwin think me an idiot. And then you came up to me and scraped acquaintance in a desultory way, to hide your kind intent; and gave me a hint or two as to how to obtain a full account of the biennial meeting of the Post-Pliocene Mineralogical Society, or whatever it was, without diving too deeply into the Post-Pliocene period. I would have fought for you to the death, at that moment.
’Twas a small matter, but the friendship begun in manly and helpful kindness has gone on for twenty-two years in mutual faith and loyalty; and the growth dignifies the seed.
A sturdy growth it was in its sapling days. It was in the late spring that we decided to take the room together in St. Mark’s Place. A big room and a poor room, indeed, on the third story of that “battered caravanserai,” and for twelve long years it held us and our hopes and our despairs and our troubles and our joys.
I don’t think I have forgotten one detail of that room. There is the generous old fireplace, insultingly bricked up by modern poverty, all save the meagre niche that holds our fire—when we can have a fire. There is the great second-hand table—our first purchase—where we sit and work for immortality in the scant intervals of working for life. Your drawer, with the manuscript of your “Concordance of Political Economy,” is to the right. Mine is to the left; it holds the unfinished play, and the poems that might better have been unfinished. There are the two narrow cots—yours to the left of the door as you enter; mine to the right.
How strange that I can see it all so clearly, now that all is different!
Yet I can remember myself coming home at one o’clock at night, dragging my tired feet up those dark, still, tortuous stairs, gripping the shaky baluster for aid. I open the door—I can feel the little old-fashioned brass knob in my palm even now—and I look to the left. Ah, you are already at home and in bed. I need not look toward the table. There is money—a little—in the common treasury; and, in accordance with our regular compact, I know there stand on that table twin bottles of beer, half a loaf of rye bread, and a double palm’s-breadth of Swiss cheese. You are staying your hunger in sleep; for one may not eat until the other comes. I will wake you up, and we shall feast together and talk over the day that is dead and the day that is begun.
Strange, is it not, that I should have some trouble to realize that this is only a memory,—I, with my feet in the bearskin rug that it would have beggared the two of us, or a dozen like us, to purchase in those days. Strange that my mind should be wandering on the crude work of my boyhood and my early manhood. I who have won name and fame, as the world would say. I, to whom young men come for advice and encouragement, as to a tried veteran! Strange that I should be thinking of a time when even your true and tireless friendship could not quench a subtle hunger at my heart, a hunger for a more dear and intimate comradeship. I, with the tenderest of wives scarce out of my sight; even in her sleep she is no further from me than my own soul.
Strangest of all this, that the mad agony of grief, the passion of desolation that came upon me when our long partnership was dissolved for ever, should now be nothing but a memory, like other memories, to be summoned up out of the resting-places of the mind, toyed with, idly questioned, and dismissed with a sigh and a smile! What a real thing it was just ten years ago; what a very present pain! Believe me, Will,—yes, I want you to believe this—that in those first hours of loneliness I could have welcomed death; death would have fallen upon me as calmly as sleep has fallen upon my boy in the room beyond there.
You knew nothing of this then; I suppose you but half believe it now; for our parting was manly enough. I kept as stiff an upper lip as you did, for all there was less hair on it. Perhaps it seems extravagant to you. But there was a deal of difference between our cases. You had turned your pen to money-making, at the call of love; you were going to Stillwater to marry the judge’s daughter, and to become a great land-owner and mayor of Stillwater and millionaire—or what is it now? And much of this you foresaw or hoped for, at least. Hope is something. But for me? I was left in the third-story of a poor lodging-house in St. Mark’s Place, my best friend gone from me; with neither remembrance nor hope of Love to live on, and with my last story back from all the magazines.
We will not talk about it. Let me get back to my pleasant library with the books and the pictures and the glancing fire-light, and me with my feet in your bearskin rug, listening to my wife’s step in the next room.
To your ear, for our communion has been so long and so close that to either one of us the faintest inflection of the other’s voice speaks clearer than formulated words; to your ear there must be something akin to a tone of regret—regret for the old days—in what I have just said. And would it be strange if there were? A poor soldier of fortune who had been set to a man’s work before he had done with his meagre boyhood, who had passed from recruit to the place of a young veteran in that great, hard-fighting, unresting pioneer army of journalism; was he the man, all of a sudden, to stretch his toughened sinews out and let them relax in the glow of the home hearth? Would not his legs begin to twitch for the road; would he not be wild to feel again the rain in his weather-beaten face? Would you think it strange if at night he should toss in his white, soft bed, longing to change it for a blanket on the turf, with the broad procession of sunlit worlds sweeping over his head, beyond the blue spaces of the night? And even if the dear face on the pillow next him were to wake and look at him with reproachful surprise; and even if warm arms drew him back to his new allegiance; would not his heart in dreams go throbbing to the rhythm of the drum or the music of songs sung by the camp-fire?
It was so at the beginning, in the incredible happiness of the first year, and even after the boy’s birth. Do you know, it was months before I could accept that boy as a fact? If, at any moment, he had vanished from my sight, crib and all, I should not have been surprised. I was not sure of him until he began to show his mother’s eyes.
Yes, even in those days some of the old leaven worked in me. I had moments of that old barbaric freedom which we used to rejoice in—that feeling of being answerable to nothing in the world save my own will—the sense of untrammeled, careless power.
Do you remember the night that we walked till sunrise? You remember how hot it was at midnight, when we left the office, and how the moonlight on the statue above the City Hall seemed to invite us fieldward, where no gaslight glared, no torches flickered. So we walked idly northward, through the black, silence-stricken down-town streets; through that feverish, unresting central region that lies between the vileness of Houston Street and the calm and spacious dignity of the brown-stone ways, where the closed and darkened dwellings looked like huge tombs in the pallid light of the moon. We passed the suburban belt of shanties; we passed the garden-girt villas beyond them, and it was from the hill above Spuyten Duyvil that we saw the first color of the morning upon the face of the Palisades.
It would have taken very little in that moment to set us off to tramping the broad earth, for the pure joy of free wayfaring. What was there to hold us back? No tie of home or kin. All we had in the world to leave behind us was some futile scribbling on various sheets of paper. And of that sort of thing both our heads were full enough. I think it was but the veriest chance that, having begun that walk, we did not go on and get our fill of wandering, and ruin our lives.
Well, that same wild, adventurous spirit came upon me now and then. There were times when, for the moment, I forgot that I had a wife and a child. There were times when I remembered them as a burden. Why should I not say this? It is the history of every married man,—at least of every manly man,—though he be married to the best woman in the world. It means no lack of love. It is as unavoidable as the leap of the blood in you that answers a trumpet-call.
At first I was frightened, and fought against it as against something that might grow upon me. I reproached myself for disloyalty in thought. Ah! what need had I to fight? What need had I to choke down rebellious fancies, while my wife’s love was working that miracle that makes two spirits one.
What is it, this union that comes to us as a surprise, and remains for all outside an incommunicable mystery? What is this that makes our unmarried love seem so slight and childish a thing? You and I, who know it, know that it is no mere fruit of intimacy and usage, although in its growth it keeps pace with these. We know that in some subtle way it has been given to a man to see a woman’s soul as he sees his own, and to a woman to look into a man’s heart as if it were, indeed, hers. But the friend who sits at my table, seeing that my wife and I understand each other at a simple meeting of the eyes, makes no more of it than he does of the glance of intelligence which, with close friends, often takes the place of speech. He never dreams of the sweet delight with which we commune together in a language that he cannot understand—that he cannot hear—a language that has no formulated words, feeling answering feeling.
It is not wonderful that I should wish to give expression to the gratitude with which I have seen my life made to blossom thus; my thankfulness for the love which has made me not only a happier, but, I humbly believe, a wiser and a better-minded man. But I know too well the hopelessness of trying to find words to describe what, were I a poet, my best song might but faintly, faintly echo.
I thought I heard a rustle behind me just now. In a little while my wife will come softly into the room, and softly up to where I am sitting, stepping silently across your bearskin rug, and will lay one hand softly on my left shoulder, while the other slips down this arm with which I write, until it falls and closes lightly, yet with loving firmness, on my hand that holds the pen. And I shall say, “Only the last words to Will and his wife, dear.” And she will release my hand, and will lift her own, I think, to caress the patch of gray hair on my temple; it is a way she has, as though it were some pitiful scar, and she will say, “Give them my love, and tell them they must not fail us this Christmas. I want them to see how our Willy has grown.” And when she says “Our Willy,” the hand on my shoulder will instinctively close a little, clingingly; and she will bend her head, and put her face close to mine, and I shall turn to look into her eyes.
Bear with me, my dear Will, until I have told you why I have written this letter and what it means. I have concealed one thing from you for the last six months. I have disease of the heart, and the doctor has told me that I may die at any moment. Somehow, I think—I know the moment is close at hand; I shall soon go to that narrow cot on the right of the door, and I do not believe I shall wake up in the morning with the sun in my eyes, to look across the room and see that its companion is gone.
For I am in the old room, Will, as you know, and it is not ten years since you went away, but two days. The picture that has seemed real to me as I wrote these pages is fading, and the thin gas-jet flickers and sinks as it always did in these first morning hours. I can hear the roar of the last Harlem train swell and sink, and the sharp clink of car-bells break the silence that follows. The wind is gasping and struggling in the chimney, and blowing a white powdery ash down on the hearth. I have just burnt my poems and the play. Both the table drawers are empty now; and soon enough the two empty chairs will stare at each other across the bare table. What a wild dream have I dreamt in all this emptiness! Just now, I thought indeed that it was true. I thought I heard a woman’s step behind me, and I turned—
Peace be with you, Will, in the fullness of your love. I am going to sleep. Perhaps I shall dream it all again, and shall hear that soft footfall when the turn of the night comes, and the pale light through the ragged blind, and the end of a long loneliness.
After I am dead, I wish you to think of me not as I was, but as I wanted to be. I have tried to show you that I have led by your side a happier and dearer life of hope and aspiration than the one you saw. I have tried to leave your memory a picture of me that you will not shrink from calling up when you have a quiet hour and time for thought of the friend whom you knew well; but whom you may, perhaps, know better now that he is dead.
Reginald Barclay.
[From the New York Herald of Nov. 18, 1883.]
Reginald Barclay, a journalist, was found dead in his bed at 15 St. Mark’s Place, yesterday morning. No inquest was held, as Mr. Barclay had been known to be suffering from disease of the heart, and his death was not unexpected. The deceased came originally from Oneida County, and was regarded as a young journalist of considerable promise. He had been for some years on the city staff of the Record, and was the correspondent of several out-of-town papers. He had also contributed to the monthly magazines, occasional poems and short stories, which showed the possession, in some measure, of the imaginative faculty. Mr. Barclay was about thirty years of age, and unmarried.
The Scene is a handsomely-furnished parlor, with a general air of home comfort. A curtained window on each side of the central fireplace would light the room if it were not evening, as the lamp on the work-table in the centre of the room informs us. At one side of the work-table is the wife, winding a ball of worsted from a skein which her husband holds in his hands.
He (looking at watch, aside). This wool takes as long to wind up as a bankrupt estate. (Fidgets.)
She. Do keep still, Jack! Stop fidgeting and jumping around.
He. When you pull the string, Jenny, I am always a jumping-jack to dance attendance on you.
She (seriously). Very pretty, indeed! It was true too—once—before we were married: now you lead me a different dance.
He. I am your partner still.
She (sadly). But the figure is always the Ladies’ Chain.
He (aside). If I don’t get away soon I sha’n’t be able to do any work to-night.—(Aloud). What do you mean by that solemn tone?
She. Oh, nothing—nothing of any consequence.
He (aside). We look like two fools acting in private theatricals.
She (finishing ball of worsted). That will do: thank you. Do not let me detain you: I know you are in a hurry.
He. I have my work to do.
She. So it seems; and it takes all day and half the night.
He (rising and going to fireplace). I am working hard for our future happiness.
She (quietly). I should like a little of the happiness now.
He (standing with back to fireplace). Are you unhappy?
She. Oh no—not very.
He. Do you not have everything you wish?
She. Oh yes—except the one thing I want most.
He. Well, my dear, I am at home as much as I can be.
She. So you think I meant you?
He (embarrassed). Well—I did suppose—that—
She. Yes, I used to want you. The days were long enough while you were away, and I waited for your return. Now I have been alone so much that I am getting accustomed to solitude. And I do not really know what it is I do want. I am listless, nervous, good-for-nothing—
He (gallantly). You are good enough for me.
She. You did think so once; and perhaps you would think so again—if you could spare the time to get acquainted with me.
He (surprised). Jenny, are you ill?
She. Not more so than usual. I was bright enough two years ago, when we were married. But for two years I have not lived, I have vegetated; more like a plant than a human being; and even plants require some sunshine.
He (aside). I have never heard her talk like this before. I don’t understand it.—(Aloud.) Why, Jenny, you speak as if I were a cloud over your life.
She. Do I? Well, it does not matter.
He. I try to be a good husband, don’t I?
She (indifferently). As well as you know how, I suppose.
He. Do I deprive you of anything you want?
She (impatiently). Of course you do not.
He. I work hard, I know, but when I go out in the evening now and then—
She (aside). Six nights every week. (Sighing.)
He. I really work. There are husbands who say they are at work when they are at the club playing poker: now I am really working.
She (impatiently). You have no small vices. (Rising.) Is there no work calling you away to-night? Why are you not off?
He (looking at watch). I am a little late, that’s a fact: still, I can do what I have to do if I work like a horse.
She. Have you to draw a conveyance? That is the old joke.
He. This is no joke. It’s a divorce suit.
She (quickly). Is it that Lightfoot person again?
He. It is Mrs. Lightfoot’s case. She is a very fine woman, and her husband has treated her shamefully.
She. Better than the creature deserved, I dare say. You will win her case for her?
He. I shall do my best.
She (sarcastically). No doubt.—(Aside.) I hate that woman! (Crosses the room and sits on sofa on the right of the fireplace.)
He. But the result of a lawsuit is generally a toss-up; and heads do not always win.
She. I wish you luck this time—for her husband’s sake: he’ll be glad to be rid of her. But I doubt it: you can’t get up any sympathy by exhibiting her to the jury: she isn’t good-looking enough.
He (quickly). She’s a very fine woman indeed.
She (aside). How eagerly he defends her!—(Aloud.) She’s a great big, tall, giantess creature, with a face like a wax doll and a head of hair like a Circassian Girl. No juryman will fall in love with her.
He. How often have I told you that Justice does not consider persons! Now, in the eye of the law—
She (interrupting). Do you acknowledge that the law has but one eye and can see only one side?
He. Are you jealous? (Crossing and standing in front of her.)
She. Jealous of this Mrs. Lightfoot? (Laughs.) Ridiculous!
He. I am glad of it, for I think a jealous woman has a very poor opinion of herself.
She (forcibly). And it is her business which takes you out to-night?
He (going toward the left-hand door). I have to go across to the Bar Association to look up some points, and—
She (rising quickly). And you can just send me a cab. I shall go to Mrs. Playfair’s to rehearse again for the private theatricals.
He (annoyed, coming back). But I had asked you to give it up.
She (with growing excitement). And I had almost determined to give it up, but I have changed my mind. That’s a woman’s privilege, isn’t it? I am tired of spending my evenings by myself.
He. Now be reasonable, Jenny: I must work.
She. And I must play—in the private theatricals.
He. But I don’t like private theatricals.
She. Don’t you? I do.
He. And I particularly dislike amateur actors.
She. Do you? I don’t. I like some of them very much; and some of them like me, too.
He. The deuce they do!
She. Tom Thursby and Dick Carey and Harry Wylde were all disputing who should make love to me.
He. Make love to you?
She. In the play—in Husbands and Wives.
He. Do you mean to say that you are going to act on the stage with those brainless idiots?
She (interrupting). Do not call my friends names: it is in bad taste.
He. What will people say when they see my wife pawed and clawed by those fellows?
She. Let them say what they please. Do you think I care for the tittle-tattle of the riffraff of society?
He. But, Jenny—(Brusquely.) Confound it! I have no patience with you!
She. So I have discovered. But you need not lose your temper here, and swear. Go outside and do it, and leave me alone, as I am every evening.
He. You talk as if I ill-treated you.
She (sarcastically). Do I? That is very wicked of me, isn’t it? You take the best possible care of me, you are ever thinking of me, and you never leave my side for a moment. Oh no, you do not ill-treat me—or abuse me—or neglect me (breaking down)—or make me miserable. There is nothing the matter with me, of course. But you never will believe I have a heart until you have broken it! (Sinking on chair, C.)
He (crossing to her). You are excited, I see; still, I must say this is a little too much.
She (starting up). Don’t come near me! (Sarcastically.) Don’t let me keep you from your work (going to door R. 2d E), and don’t fail to send me a cab. At last I revolt against your neglect.
He (indignantly protesting). My neglect? Do you mean to say I neglect you? My conscience does not reproach me.
She (at the door on the right). That’s because you haven’t any! (Exit, slamming door).
He (alone). I never saw her go on that way before. What can be the matter with her? She is not like herself at all: she is low-spirited and nervous. Now, I never could see why women had any nerves. I wonder if she really thinks that I neglect her? I should be sorry, very sorry, if she did. I’ll not go out to-night: I’ll stay at home and have a quiet evening at my own fireside. (Sits in chair in the centre.) I think that will bring her round. I’d like to know what has made her act like this. Has she been reading any sentimental trash, I wonder? (Sees book in work-basket.) Now, here’s some yellow-covered literature. (Takes it up.) Why, it’s that confounded play, Husbands and Wives. Let me see the silly stuff. (Reads:) “My darling, one more embrace, one last, long, loving kiss;” and then he hugs her and kisses her. (Rising.) And she thinks I’ll have her play a part like that? How should I look while that was going on? Can’t she find something else? (At work-table.) Here is another. (Takes up second pamphlet.) No, it is a Guide to the Passions. I fear I need no guide to get into a passion. I doubt if there’s as much hugging and kissing in this as in the other one. (Reads:) “It is impossible to describe all the effects of the various passions, but a few hints are here given as to how the more important may be delineated.” (Spoken.) This is interesting. If ever I have to delineate a passion I shall fall back on this guide. (Reads:) “Love is a—” (Reads hastily and unintelligibly:) “When successful, love authorizes the fervent embrace of the beloved!” The deuce it does! And I find my wife getting instruction from this Devil’s text-book! A little more and I should be jealous. (Looks at book.) Ah, here is jealousy: now let’s see how I ought to feel. (Reads:) “Jealousy is a mixture of passions and—” (Reads hastily and unintelligibly.) Not so bad! I believe I could act up to these instructions. (Jumping up.) And I will! My wife wants acting: she shall have it! She complains of monotony: she shall have variety! “Jealousy is a mixture of passions.” I’ll be jealous: I’ll give her a mixture of passions. I’ll take a leaf out of her book, and I’ll find a cure for these nerves of her’s. I’ll learn my part at once: we’ll have some private theatricals to order. (Walks up and down, studying book.)
She re-renters, with bonnet on and cloak over her arm, and stands in surprise, watching him.
She. You here still?
He. Yes.
She. Have you ordered a cab for me?
He. No.
She. And why not?
He (aside). Now’s my chance. Mixture of passions—I’ll try suspicion first.—(Aloud.) Because I do not approve of the people you are going to meet—these Thursbys and Careys and Wyldes.
She (calmly sitting on sofa). Perhaps you would like to revise my visiting-list, and tell the servant whom I am to receive.
He. You may see what ladies you please—
She (interrupting). Thank you; still, I do not please to see Mrs. Lightfoot.
He (annoyed). I say nothing of her.
She. Oh dear, no! I dare say you keep it as secret as you can.
He (aside). Simple suspicion is useless. What’s next? (Glances in pamphlet:) “Peevish personalities.” I will pass on to peevish personalities.—(Aloud.) Now, these men, these fellows who strut about the stage for an idle hour, who are they? This Tom Thursby, who wanted to make love to you—who is he?
She. Are you going to ask many questions? Is this catechism a long one? If it is, I may as well lay aside my shawl.
He. Who is he, I say, I insist upon knowing.
She. He’s a good enough fellow in his way.
He (sternly). He had best beware how he gets in my way.
She (aside). There’s a great change in his manner: I do not understand it.
He. And this Dick Carey—who is he? (Stalking toward her.)
She (starting up and crossing). Are you trying to frighten me by this violence?
He (aside). It is producing an effect.
She. But I am not afraid of you, if I am a weak woman and you are a strong man.
He (aside). It is going all right.—(Aloud, fiercely.) Answer me at once! Is this Carey married?
She. I believe he is.
He. You believe! Don’t you know? Does his wife act with these strollers? Have you not seen her?
She. I have never seen her. She and her husband are like the two buckets in a well: they never turn up together. They meet only to clash, and one is always throwing cold water on the other.
He. And Harry Wylde! Is he married?
She. Yes; and his wife is always keeping him in hot water.
He. And so he comes to you for consolation?
She (laughing). He needs no consoling: he has always such a flow of spirits.
He. I’ve heard the fellow drank.
She (surprised, aside). Can Jack be jealous? I wish I could think so, for then I might hope he still loved me.
He. And do you suppose I can allow you to associate with these fellows, who all want to make love to you?
She (aside, joyfully). He is jealous! The dear boy!
He (fiercely). Do you think I can permit this, madam?
She (aside). “Madam!” I could hug him for loving me enough to call me “madam” like that. But I must not give in too soon.
He. Have you nothing to say for yourself? Can you find no words to defend yourself, woman?
She (aside). “Woman!” He calls me “woman!” I can forgive him anything now.