David Malcolm Part 17

"He was seventy then. He is still seventy," I returned.

"Stage-driving, you know, is conducive----"

"I used to think I'd like to be a stage-driver when I grew up," she interrupted. "You would see so much of the world with so little trouble, just holding the reins as the horses ambled along. How our ideas change, David!"

It was on the old and unchanged ideas that I wanted to dwell. The new would bring me back all too quickly to ancestral portraits, to imposing fireplaces and costly bear-skin rugs. I a.s.sented readily to her self-evident proposition and brushed it aside for the most interesting matter of Joseph Hicks.

"You used to love to drive," I said. "I can see you now wheedling Joe into letting you have the reins. Don't you remember his telling you that no self-respecting woman was ever seen driving more than one horse?"

"How shocked he would be could he see how I handle four," she said.

Should we never get out of the shadow of costly things, out of the clutch of changed ideas? For a moment I had a picture of Penelope on the box of a coach, ribbons and whip in hand, with four smart cobs stepping to the music of jingling harness, with bandy-legged grooms on the boot, and beside her some perfectly tailored creature in a glistening top-hat. It was a gallant picture, and one in which there was no part for me. Metaphorically I hurled at it a missile of the common clay of which, after all, we were both made. Surely fis.h.i.+ng was a subject on which her ideas could not change.

"Do you remember the great expeditions we used to have along the creek?" I said.

"Remember them? Why, David, I never could forget such days as those."

She leaned forward, with her hands clasped in her lap, as though to bring herself into closer touch with the kindred spirit on the divan.

"I often laugh over the time I caught the big turtle on my hook. You remember--we were on the bridge at the end of the meadow, and I thought I had captured a whale, and when I saw it I was so astonished that I went head-first into the water."

"And I dived after you," I cried excitedly, "into two feet of water and three feet of mud."

"And we both ran home soaking wet and covered with green slime," she went on rapidly. "Will you ever forget her look when mother----"

"Mother?" There was in my exclamation a note of surprise in which was almost lost the delight I felt in her use of that word.

She caught the surprise alone, and spoke now as though offended at what she thought my protest. "Yes, mother. Why, David, don't you remember I always called her mother? And she was the only mother I ever knew--even if only for a brief summer."

"I was glad, Penelope," I said. "Yet you surprised me just a little, because I feared that so much had come into your life you might have forgotten----"

"Forgotten?" she returned with a gesture of impatience. "You do not grant me much heart if you think I could ever forget those who took me in when I was homeless, the mother who tucked me into bed every night, who taught me the first prayer I ever uttered." She paused for a moment, and sat with her eyes fixed on her clasped hands. I, too, was silent. Suddenly she looked up. "You are right, David; I had forgotten. I was ungrateful, too; but seeing you again and talking with you has brought those days very near to me. When I have thought of your father and mother it was as though they lived in another world, as though, if I would, I could never see them, they were so far away."

She leaned back in her chair and broke into a little laugh. "How foolish of me! Why, David, we shall go to see them--you and I and Uncle Rufus. We shall go very soon, David." Her slender figure was clear-cut in the firelight and a hand was held out to me in invitation.

Had the world been mine to give, how gladly would I have lost it for the right to answer her as she asked; to go with her and to walk by the creek to that deep sea of our childhood where she had caught the turtle; to ride with her again over the mountain road where we had careered so madly on the white mule; to sit with her on the humble back steps and watch the sun sink into the mountains, and listen to the sheep in the meadow, the night-hawk in the sky, the rustle of the wind in the trees--to the valley's lullaby. From this I was held by the vital fact still unrevealed. I folded my arms and looked at the floor, to shut from my eyes the idle vision of the days to which Penelope would lead me, to shut from them Penelope herself sitting very straight, with head high, so that I had fancied the blue bow tossing there.

"We'll go in May," she said with a sweep of a small hand, as though our great adventure were settled. "We will go when the orchards are in blossom, David. The valley is loveliest then."

To go in May! To go when the hills were clad in the pink and white!

To sit with her on the gra.s.sy barn-bridge in the evening as we had sat in the old days watching the mountains sink into the night, listening to the last faint echoes of the valley as she turned to restful sleep.

Had the universe been mine to give, I would have bartered it for the power to answer her as she asked. Such joys as these I dared not even dream of now, but still I had not the strength to cut myself forever from the last faint hope of them. I looked up into her face aglow with prospect of a return to those simple, kindly days; into her eyes, kindled with that same light that glowed in them in the old time when she would slip her hands so trustingly in mine as we trudged together over the fields. I could say nothing.

"Why, David!" she cried, and again a hand was held out to me in appeal.

"Don't you want to go with us?"

I laughed. And what a struggle I had to force into that laugh a note of happy gayety! I sat on the edge of the divan, very erect, pulling at my fingers, for I was no longer David Malcolm, a dreaming boy; I was a man with a vital fact to meet. Meeting it, I must become to her as any other man she knew--a formal creature, a lay figure for the barber's and tailor's art, with a gift of talking inanities.

"It's not because I don't want to go," I said. I was glad that I was in the shadow, for though my voice was steady I felt the blood leave my face. "But you see--there is something I have been wanting to tell you. I'm to be married."

"Oh!" she exclaimed.

If I had hoped to hear more of a cry of pain than that one exclamation of surprise, I must have been disappointed. But I cherished no such hope now. I was utterly miserable. I was awkward and ill at ease.

The Penelope Blight I had known lived in another world, and this Penelope Blight who was regarding me so quietly, meeting my covert glance with a friendly smile, could, after all, never be more than a casual acquaintance.

"How splendid!" she said. Mrs. Bannister, I think, would have spoken in that same way, as though the news were quite the most delightful that she had ever heard. "Who to? Quick--I must hear all about it."

"To a Miss Todd," I answered, and, though I struggled against it, I cleared my throat dryly. "A Miss Gladys Todd."

The name sounded harshly in my ears. I was conscious that I had used it in the manner of the select circles of Harlansburg, and I was angry that, though knowing better, I had let myself lapse into the ways of a manikin. When I had spoken of Joe Hicks it was from my heart; I had forgotten my hands, and Penelope and I had laughed together. When I spoke of Gladys Todd my voice was tainted with apology. Inwardly I was calling myself a cad, for it mattered little whether or not I loved her. I had won her trust, and my first duty was to speak her name with pride. But I had had that brief glimpse of Penelope Blight, the companion of my boyhood; I had walked with her, grown lovelier than my dreams, through visionary woods and fields. She was before me, a dainty woman of the world; behind her the firelight fanned the leaves carved for her long ago by the old Italian artist; from above Reynolds's majestic lady looked down at her kindly, at me with a haughty stare, as if she read presumption in my mind. Never could I imagine her photographed on a camel's back by the side of ex-Judge Bundy. For this alone, it seemed to me as though I were unfolding to her the love story of a Darby and Joan, adorned with a chaos of easels and camels, bird's-eye-maple mantels and gayly painted plaques; as though I had come to tell the great lady of it, because she had always taken a kindly interest in my affairs.

Against this absurd humiliation I was fighting when again I coughed dryly and said: "She is the daughter of Doctor Todd, the president of McGraw."

"Oh, I see," returned Penelope brightly. "She must be very learned, David. But of course I knew that you would marry a clever woman." To this gentle flattery I raised my hand and shook my head in protest.

"And I see, too, how it all came about--at college. How romantic!

Just like you, David. And yet I can hardly think of you as a married man. It was only yesterday that I pulled you out of the creek; to-morrow you are to marry a charming woman--an accomplished woman, I know. She must sing and play the piano and do all kinds of things like that. How proud you should be!"

"I am," said I in a sepulchral tone, much as I might have answered to my name at roll-call.

"When she comes to town you must let me know--I shall call on her."

There was no note but one of kindliness in Penelope's easily modulated voice, nothing but friendliness in the smile which parted her lips. As she leaned forward again, grasping the carved arms of her chair, she was speaking with queenly condescension, and it nettled me to find myself reduced to the level of the herd.

So there was in my voice a faint ring of pride when I said: "Gladys is abroad now." At least in this august presence a fiancee abroad sounded more impressive than a fiancee in Harlansburg, and I wanted it known that mine was a woman of the world and not simply the accomplished daughter of a small country town.

I think that the point struck home, for a hopeful "Oh!" escaped from Penelope's lips, as though she were giving vent to bottled-up doubts as to whether or not she could ever more than call on Gladys Todd. I think that she divined what I wanted her to understand--that though Gladys Todd had painted tulips on black plaques, she had acquired the dignity that comes with travel and the grace of a widened view.

"You must both come and dine with me when she gets home," Penelope said, with a manner of increased interest. "I suppose she is studying, David, music or painting."

"Travelling," I answered, encouraged to nonchalance by the impression I was making, for to travel merely sounded much more prosperous than to be working at the rudiments of an art. "She has been over since last May--just travelling around."

"And gathering together a trousseau--how delightful! You must be counting the days till she comes home, David?"

I nodded. I tried my best to look as though at that very moment I was busy with the fond calculation.

"And who is with her--some friend?" Penelope asked.

"Her father and mother," I answered. That sounded still more prosperous: the family of three--the learned doctor, his wife and accomplished daughter--wandering where they willed about the world. I should have stopped there, but I am one of those unfortunate persons who in telling anything must tell it all. My better judgment made me hesitate. My habit carried me on. "And Judge Bundy," I added.

"Judge who?" she exclaimed.

I fancied that I detected a strange note in her voice.

"Bundy--Judge Bundy," I replied, my own voice rising to a pitch of irritation.

Would she go on and make me spell the name that sounded so strangely when spoken in her presence? I was angry. It was at myself for my uncalled-for frankness. For one brief moment I had almost raised myself again to the level of the dainty creature in the old carved chair, to the approval even of the majestic lady above the great fireplace; speaking so nonchalantly of my friends who could wander where they willed over the face of the globe, I had almost made myself one with those for whom Italian sculptors drove the chisel and Reynolds plied his brush. But that name, so unwisely given, called to my mind the figure on the camel, and I was sure that by some strange freak of conjury Penelope must see it too; and worse, that other, the girl in the pugree, and behind them, discreetly placed, Doctor Todd, uncomfortably balancing on his giant beast, and Mrs. Todd taken inopportunely as she was mopping her brow. Well might Penelope look at me with quizzical eyes. I had tumbled again among the common herd. In my desperation I might have gone on to the whole truth recklessly; told her what an absurd man Judge Bundy really was, and how the Todds were being dragged over Europe on a glorified Cook's tour, captives at the wheels of his chariot; told her how I appreciated her sweet condescension in offering to call on the woman I loved. The woman I loved? For that moment I think I did love Gladys Todd, for I was standing to her defence against the crus.h.i.+ng weight of millions of money and the bluest of blood. Yes, I am sure that I should have gone on and told her all, but Fate, wiser than I, intervened, and the butler announced Mr. Talcott.

As usual, Mr. Talcott did not wish tea--he had just come from the club, but he could not see why we were sitting in utter darkness. With Penelope's a.s.sent, he turned a b.u.t.ton, showing thereby an exasperating familiarity with the room, and, seating himself comfortably before her, expressed his wonder that he had not seen her last night; he had hunted for her everywhere to join his party at supper. And now the lights were on and I a mere spectator at the play; I was having a glimpse of the stage on which I could never move. The lights burned high; they swept the dust and cobwebs from the diamond panes; they drove the flames to hiding in the ashes; their touch turned the leaves of the fireplace to dead stone. But Penelope they could not change. In the soft black webs, woven for her by a hundred toiling human spiders, she held still the heritage of the proud woman in frills and furbelows and the fine old man in wig and smallclothes. She was more radiant, as though her blood ran quicker in the joy of the part she played. Enter the butler. Enter Mr. Grant, a tall young man in business clothes, a good-natured fellow who laughed joyously at nothing. He had just dropped in on his way home after a beastly day downtown--a horrible day--a new attack on the trusts and a smash in the market. He fixed himself close to the curate's delight and beginning at the bottom worked upward, fortifying himself, as he explained, for a late dinner.

Talcott thought that he had heard Grant say that he was going to the opera. Grant had never said any such thing. Didn't Mr. Malcolm agree with him that more than one act of opera was a bore? Mr. Malcolm quite agreed. Mr. Talcott wondered if Miss Blight had heard that Jerry White was engaged. Miss Blight was at once dying to know to whom. Mr.

Talcott admonished her to think. Mr. Grant wanted to know if Mr.

Malcolm had heard. But Mr. Malcolm had a strange unappreciation of important news. He moved in another world than this and he wanted to flee from it. He was homesick for familiar scenes and faces, for Miss Minion's and the long table in the bas.e.m.e.nt to which the wizened old women would soon be crawling down for their evening nourishment, for Miss Tucker and his neighbor, Mr. Bunce, who by day made tooth-powder and by night talked Pater. He rose and held out his hand to the princess of the blood. Graciously she rose from her throne.

Graciously she said: "Good-by, David. It was good of you to drop in."