XIIITOPIC NUMBER FOUR
WHERE are the landaus and barouches of yesteryear, overpowering symbols of upper caste? Gone with the calash, the chaise, the coach and the cabriolet. The formal vehicle of the Leverings was called “the carriage” to distinguish it from the informal surrey. The “carriage” was always driven by Mac, who donned for the purpose a special outfit—Mr. Levering’s minim of Quaker blood balked at anything suggesting livery—aimed to indicate that Mac was just a remove and a half from membership in the family. Mac’s name for them was “his blacks,” which the Leverings adopted as a private code.
“Oh, Mac!” Kate would haloo from the rear porch. “‘Blacks’ at three.”
“’Right, Mis’ Lev’ring.” Mac would quite comprehend that a call or a drive was on the program for the afternoon.
On the drive to Haverford, Mac was resplendent in new “blacks”; his white linen ascot shone beatifically from its dark setting, and his new square-blocked hat had a small cockade at the side—clearly contraband that had escaped the eye of Father Levering. The carriage was eloquent of labor.
Blynn remarked the added note of luxury.
“We just had to smart up a bit,” explained Gorgas. “We can’t look shabby and have those ‘main-liners’ elevating lorgnettes at usallthe afternoon.... Oh, I’ve been preparing for this for months, getting a little new harness here and there, and some fresh paint, and working Dad for new ‘blacks’ for Mac. This is the first time I put them all together. Ain’t we stylish?... Come, get in; we must make the most of every minute—”
“But aren’t we frightfully early? The games aren’t until four o’clock, I understand,” Blynn stood stupidly contemplating his watch.
“In,mon capitaine!” she commanded, “before mother changes her mind and sends Kate along.... Do exactly what you’re told. I’m Pippa today,” parodying, “This is myoneholiday in thewholeyear!... We’re off, Mac; Cresheim, you know.”
“I ought to have worn my store clothes,” Blynn remarked ruefully. “This is awful grand.... Ought to have been a band playing as we started off, flags waving, whistles blowing—”
“Hush!” she plucked his arm eagerly. “Don’t let’s waste time. I have so much to tell you.”
“Well,” he looked at her in his old rôle of father-confessor, “what has the naughty child been doing lately?”
“First, this is the longest skirt I ever owned.” She kicked out and showed just an inch or two above her high shoe-tops. “We had a big row over it. Katesays I’m rushing things too fast; want to be old before my time. Mother says the neighborhood wouldn’t hear of long skirts and hair completely up. I say, I’m as old as I dress. Nobody looks you up in the Bible as you walk along the street. I don’t wear ‘1874 September 10th’ on my forehead. And as for the neighbors—” she laughed. “Do you remember how Bardek bristled once when you spoke about something being all right, but dangerous because contrary to public opinion?”
“Oh, I want to know,” he interrupted; “you say you’ve seen Bardek.”
“We haven’t reached that topic yet, Mr. Professor;” she settled back comfortably. “That’s a subject we shall take up later in the course. At present, we are discussing clothes. You got me this long dress. Thank you.”
“I? Pray, how?”
“I put it to mother how you would feel taking care of a child all day. They had me all planned for a dotted Swiss, pink sash, and a floppy leghorn—ugh! and my hair down like Alice in Wonderland’s!... So, I stormed and used you for argument. Quoted you, too—things you would have said, if—if you had said ’em. I pictured the thing; made them see us walking hand-in-hand, before all that Main-line crowd, Father Rollo and daughter Rollo—me lost in that leghorn! Well, they compromised on this.”
“You did it mighty quick,” he remarked thoughtfully. His eye took in the satisfying effect of the close-fittingsilk “basque,” with its soft, flaring sleeves drooping in mysterious folds from the shoulders, and the oldish dark hat with its snug cluster of blood-red roses.
“One whole month,” she told him. “The dressmaker comes only on Mondays, you know.”
“A month?” He was puzzled. “You didn’t know I was coming with you a month ago?”
“Oh, yes, I did,mon capitaine,” she chuckled. “You were all planned, too.”
“Bless my soul!” he ejaculated.
“Topic number two,” she announced, “is Holden. Of course, you are going to take that professorship?”
“No!” he spoke sharply. “I can’t possibly do it—The fact is—well, I’ll tell you—Diccon got it for me. He’s a member of the trustees. I didn’t know that. He just pulled for me—awfully fine of him; but he used the bludgeon of newspaper power and every trick he could lay hold of. There was an immense competition—I didn’t know that, either—and he won out by a big majority, against the President’s candidate, too. I wormed it out of him. He says it’s all right—says that’s the way it’s done.... Says he’ll make me President next.... Gross!... And I thought they had read my little studies—Pooh! There’s something humiliating in that sort of thing—even if it is customary. I told Diccon I couldn’t take it.”
“What did he say to that?”
“He said, ‘Think it over.’ I have thought it over. It’s no use.”
“I agree with Diccon,” she spoke firmly. “You ought to go. You must take things the way they’re given. I got this dress by arguing the family out of their best judgment. I fibbed a little and put up an artificial storm—pure dramatics, every bit of it—all the time I was thinking how nice a chocolate soda water would taste—I just bulldozed them into giving in. I asked for more than I possibly could get and got what I really wanted. You’re too—too poetic. My advice is to go to Holden and be somebody. The other fellows were playing the same game—don’t forget that!—and they lost. Oh, it was not ideal, but it was perfectly fair. Your friends had the stronger pull, that’s all.”
“I abominate ‘pull,’” he muttered, “all I’ve ever—”
She put a hand squarely across his lips and held it there.
“Hush!” she warned. “That topic is overboard, for the present. Let’s be happy on this ‘oneholiday of thewholeyear.’” She rolled her eyes, like an ingenuous Pippa. “Topic number three is very near. I can hear it.” She raised her hand to make a funnel of it. “Hoo-eeee!” she called across the ravine.
“Hoo-eee!” came a familiar bass, followed by a crashing of bushes. Mac stopped as if on signal.
“Grüss Gott! Herr Professor!” he greeted Blynn; “H’lo, Mac!” he dropped into colloquial English for the driver; but nothing but French would do for the lady, “Jolie à croquer, la petite gosse!”
Bardek, round-faced and smiling, held out grippinghands to all three. As if it had been arranged he clambered into the carriage and drove on with them.
“How fine it is to see you!” he looked affectionately at Blynn. “This is not a good French day—only half and half,” he swept the sky critically, “or I would kiss you on both cheek. Ha! How you would jump! Oh, but you are so cold in America! You shake the hand, sometimes—good!—but you miss much warmth, much flow of blood. The love of man for woman, you have so! so!” a shrug that showed our lack even there, “but the love of man for man you have not at all—a great thing.”
“Bardek,” Gorgas broke in, “I will not have you making speeches all over the place. You—”
“In Bohemia,” he went joyfully on, waving an apologetic hand at the interrupter, “we embrace and kiss and have hot feelings. Here, you bow or say, ‘H’lo’ or ‘So long, ol’ man.’ Ach! We are flesh and blood. We were made to tingle when we touch. You don’t half love what you don’t touch. I keep my hands off this little missy—she would not let me smooth her and pat her; she jump so! And you, Miester Bleen—là! là!là!là!—if I hold you in my arms—or the good Mac there, who I love, too—and kiss you on the ears and on the head! Cr-r-azy! What you say? Nut-ty! To ze Blockley Assylumm, queek! Before he run about and bite somebody else. Eh? It is so, is it not?”
“I often feel like that,” Blynn confessed, “with men, I mean.”
“Ofcourse, you do,” Bardek arched his brows.“You are human being wit’ nerves,” he said “ner-r-ufs”—“and you have gr-reat power of affection bottled up, corked, inside of you. But, you are ashamed, eh? to show it?”
“Undoubtedly, quite ashamed. I often want to throw my arms over a good man friend—like Leopold, for instance—but—I’d die first.”
“There!” he turned to Gorgas. “He would die for that! For a little not’ing peoples die. In Turkey the lady would die if she show the lip; in America, the lady would die if she show the foot; in Paris, the lady would die if shenotshow the foot. In England, the lady and the man sneak away quiet and take the baths in boxes in the ocean; in America they dance together in the water and show the ladies how to float, so! And, oh! so little clothes. Poof! Bah! I would die but for only one thing—when I cannot longer get a good breath! All else is jus’ foolishness. I—”
“Bardek,” interrupted Gorgas, “if you talk any longer I’ll turn you over to the police as a public nuisance.”
“See!” he cried. “How queek I be still.Me voilà! Silencieux comme une carpe—still like fish!”
“This is strictly business, Mr. Blynn. Bardek has been helping me with my exhibition at the Applied Arts—”
“And it is won-derful, her work. I—ach! That is one thing I die for, if they pass law to make me to shut up.”
“They’re going to give me a special exhibition—‘One-manShow,’ they call it. Bardek came back in August, and we’ve been working together in my smithy—the old spring-house, you know. I couldn’t go down the Valley any longer; it wouldn’t look right—”
“Nom d’une pipe!” he blurted. “The land of liberty. Bah!... Excuse!—Toujours silencieux!”
“So, we worked him in as a friend of Mac’s. Dad actually hired him once to whitewash the palings!” she chuckled merrily at the thought, as did Bardek.
“Me! W’itewashes! Oop!” he clapped his hand across his ready mouth.
“Now I have a plan. Bardek is to take that little house back of us.”
“Take?” asked Bardek. “How do youtakehouse?”
She shook a warning finger.
“The little white cottage, with the garden. You own it; don’t you? It is never rented. Well, Bardek is to live there, and do copper work. You come to see Mother Levering and pump her full of Bardek and have him hired for a teacher—to get ready for the exposition, you know. Say anything; make up something. Mother believes anything you tell her.”
“Wait!” exploded Bardek. “Please give me to speak. I to live in a house? W’ite house wit’ garden? and plumbing? and window sashes? and tables and chairs? and doors?”
To each article of the inventory Gorgas nodded.
“For me,” she added. “All for me.”
He turned energetically to Blynn. “I make mistake.There is one other t’ing I die for—to live like chicken in a house....” He looked at her curiously. “Nom d’une pipe!” he speculated. “I see I am going to do that t’ing....Nom du nom d’une pipe!I am going to live in a house! Wah!” he laughed aloud, head thrown back. “You do not know w’at you ask. And I do not know w’at I do. I swear, ten, fifteen year ago, I take big oath that I nevair again live in house—some day I tell you zat story—and now,” he recovered and looked at Gorgas solemnly, “I do t’at t’ing.... All ri’—for you! Good! Bury me in your w’ite house....Nom du nom du nom d’une pipe!”
“That’s settled,” she turned now to Blynn. “We think twelve dollars a month is a good price for the cottage—especially since you haven’t rented it for ever so long. Mac will get it put in good shape for you. Is it a go?... For me!”
“Take it for nothing,” said Blynn.
“Well, we’ll call it eight dollars, then,” she resumed.
“Ho!” cried Bardek, highly amused. “She is good at the bargain. In my country the woman get everything cheap.”
“Here’s where you get out, Bardek.”
“Ach, so soon! Well, I get in, I go housekeeping, I get out—comme tu voudras, mon enfant. Some day, she say, ‘Bardek, go jump in Schuylkill river, please,’ and I say, ‘Yes, miss, jus’ please wait till I put on my coat.’... Goodby, Mr. Blynn; Goodby, ol’ Mac; adieu, Madam Pompadour, who make kings of the earth go live in little w’ite closets.Adieu!”
Farewells were waved until Bardek could be seen no longer.
“Topic number four,” she took up the next part of her program abruptly. “I’m not going to let you drop me, Allen Blynn.... I just won’t stand it.”
She spoke hurriedly and nervously. Allen Blynn was quite taken by surprise.
“It isn’t fair. You said you would take charge of me, my education, I mean; you told mother you would; everybody thought so, too; and then, you just—walked out.... For the last year I’ve seen you only once or twice on the streets, and you’re always rushing somewhere.... What have I done?... We’ve got to settle this thing right here and now. I’ve been thinking and thinking and I can’t make it out. You just avoid me as if I weren’t fit to—” the storm began to subside. “Of course, I don’t mean that. But why can’t we be good pals, like we were? Why not,mon capitaine?”
The abruptness of the thing almost overwhelmed him. The contrast between her gaiety in dealing with Bardek and the almost bitter seriousness of the present mood was a shock.
His excuses she listened to without a word of interruption. He began by showing that when he found schools for her his business as educational agent was at an end. Then his university teaching, his studying, his writings, and the care of his little charges, who could not always go to expensive schools, all that had absorbed him. Besides, the old group had broken up ofits own accord—one of those accidental, unplanned things that happen. His year in Germany, too, had made an unlooked for break. There he ended.
“When you were in Germany,” she spoke with great deliberation, “I wrote to you. Didn’t you get the letter?”
“Why, yes—to be sure, I did. Of course, I did—eh—Didn’t I answer it?”
“You know you did not.”
He knew, and showed it painfully.
“Why?” she kept to the point.
He couldn’t exactly say; he was always careless; wretched personal habits he had.
“I am asking you a question. Why did you not answer my letter?”
“Oh, how can I tell you, Gorgas,” he writhed, but she was merciless.
“That’s what I intend to find out. It’s got to be settled right now—this whole business.”
“Very well,” he concluded. “I’ll try to tell you. Your letter was all right—”
“No, it wasn’t. It was six, gushing, gloomy pages of homesickness for you. I had the blues awfully. Nobody around the house attempts to try to understand me or give me a fair show. You came along with a whole new world and called me ‘pal’ and let me in, and when you shipped off without ever giving me a hint that you were going, I was so flabbergasted I sat down and poured out. I posted it that night—in the rain—and cried the rest of the night because I had sent it.But I said, ‘Allen Blynn is the one man on earth who will understand a lonely child.’... But, it seems you didn’t.... Can’t you realize the—the—agony of every day that brought—nothing? If you had scolded me or something, I should have felt all right. But you just—shut up.”
She stared ahead of her in blurred indignation. The little, blood-red roses on her hat were trembling. He could see that she was striving to control her excited breathing.
“Little girl,” he spoke kindly, “that was a great blunder of mine. To think that I hurt you—is almost unbearable.... I thought I understood children, but, bless my soul!—I don’t know the beginnings. Let me tell you something. I am quite sure that every time I got hold of a pen or pencil, even to write so much as a postal card, I thought of your letter and wondered what I should do. I couldn’t decide. Several times I planned letters to you—”
“Honest! You really did?” she gasped.
“Yes, indeed. But, you see, I didn’t at all understand your letter. I’ve received loads of letters from children, but this one—why, child, it was—oh, now that I understand your ‘blues’ and all that sort of thing, it’s clear enough. But, you see, this was too—too—”
“Go on,” she spoke determinedly; “it was! I meant it to be!”
He made up his mind to speak plainly to her.
“You were a little child,” he began.
“I wish you wouldn’t forever harp on ‘child.’ I was no child. I was fifteen years old, and knew exactly what I was about. If I had been a fifteen-year-old puppy you’d have given me credit for something.”
“That’s just the point—the only point; you were not a puppy, but a girl-child of fifteen, writing a very sentimental letter to a man of twenty-five. The rules of the game are very clear, my dear. The man of twenty-five must not encourage sentiment, or he is a—a—foul thing. It’s the law of our civilization; and I was not free to break it.”
“‘America! Ze lant of Leeberty!’” she mimicked Bardek softly. “‘You couldn’t write what you thought.... No, I see that.... You’d have been ashamed, wouldn’t you?... It is one of t’ t’ings you would die for, eh?Wass?’”
“Absolutely!” he spoke with conviction. “Bless my soul!”
“All right,” she regarded him carefully. “You are forgiven—almost.... You made me so blamed mad, by just letting me slide that way, that I could have done things to you. Well, that’s all over and I feel better. I couldn’t quarrel with anybody very long today; this new dress fits too well; but I just had to have this thing out with you, Allen Blynn, or—or—” She could not think of an adequate figure of speech.
“Now,” she went on; “topic number—what number is it? Five, I think. Topic number five. Tell me all about Germany. That’s the last topic till we reach Haverford. Just go on, and on, and talk and talk, andI’ll snuggle up in this corner and listen.... Hurry!... Begin!”
She leaned back in the cushion with a rug tucked up and around her as warm and contented as a sleepy kitten.
He talked of Germany, and world politics, and literature and pedagogy. When he drooped, she stirred him on.
As they drew near Haverford he asked her a question about the games. She gave no answer. Propped in her corner, just beside the wrinkles made where the hood of the carriage is thrown back, she was having a contented, smiling slumber.
He watched her as she slept, mused on her calms and her storms, speculated as to what sort of character was emerging. As they drew into the Club gateway, he touched her gently.
“I have guarded thy couch, fair Titania,” he said; “I, Bottom, the weaver, have done that thing.”
“Where’s Peaseblossom?” he took her cue quickly.
Blynn jerked his thumb toward the diminutive Mac, who had now begun to stiffen up and look his smartest before the superior broughams in the lane about him.
“Peaseblossom in ‘blacks,’” she gurgled. “Oh! oh! That istoofunny!”
“Topic number six,” he announced quietly. “I intend to take your advice about Holden. I’m going.”
“When?”
“October; next month.”
She pondered for a second or two and then nodded a determined head.
“Good boy!” she patted him on the arm. “Bully! Now you’re talking like a grown-up man.”