Penelope and I were standing before a great gray-stone house. I
carried my eyes from the doors of iron grill-work over the severe
breadth of wall, broken only by rank above rank of windows so heavily
curtained that one might have suspected those within to live in
darkness, fearing even to face the sunlight. I laughed. When I had
been searching for the girl with the blue feathers in her hat, I had
never given this house more than a passing glance, deeming it
altogether too palatial in its size and too severe in its aspect to
shield a man of so garish a mind as I attributed to Rufus Blight,
judging him from memory alone. I should have placed him rather next
door to it, behind the over-ornate Moorish front and had him look out
on the world through curtains of elaborately figured lace. But within,
I now said to myself, I shall find the expression of the man in a riot
of color in walls and hangings and in ill-assorted mobs of furniture.
Here again I was wrong. We passed the grilled doors into a place so
gray and cold that it might have led us to a cloister. We mounted
broad stairs, our footfalls muffled by a heavy carpeting of so
unobtrusive a color that I cannot name it. We crossed a white panelled
hall, so sparsely furnished that the untutored might have thought that
the family were just moving in or just moving out. Penelope pushed
through heavy portières and we stood at last in a room that seemed
designed for human habitation. But it was the design of an alien mind,
not of the owner. The owner had not been allowed to fit it to himself
as he would his clothes. The alien mind had said: You do not know; you
must allow me to arrange your habitat. Here I have placed the
wonderful old fireplace which I bought for you in France, and above it
the Reynolds for which you paid forty thousand dollars; here in the
centre is the carved table which I got for you in Florence, and
geometrically arranged about its corners are books of travel; with its
back to it, a great divan covered with most expensive leather, so that
you can lounge in its depths and watch the fire. Around it I have
arranged sundry other chairs done in deep-green velour to tone in with
the walls, and along the walls are bookcases, fronted with diamond
panes and filled with leather-bound volumes--for this, sir, is your
library.
The room was so perfect that Mrs. Bannister, seated before the fire,
brewing herself a lonely cup of tea, seemed a jarring note. She would
have been as much in place in a corner of the _Galerie-de-Glace_ at
Versailles, and but for her presence and her domestic occupation I
might have said to myself after a languid survey, "So, this is where
the king lounged"--then waited to be led on.
Mrs. Bannister was expecting us. She spoke as though in having tea
waiting she had acted in the forlorn hope that some time we might
return, and as though for hours she had been a prey to the gravest
apprehensions, for Penelope's safety. In bringing Penelope back at all
I had in some degree allayed the hostility with which she at first
regarded me, but though she was now outwardly quite cordial, I was
conscious that over the top of her cup she was studying me closely as I
sat on the divan stirring my tea and striving to be thoroughly at home.
Her subtle scrutiny made me very uncomfortable. She asked me questions
with an obvious purpose of putting me at my ease, and I answered in
embarrassed monosyllables. Whether I would or no, I seemed constantly
to slide to the perilous edge of my seat, and no matter what care I
used, I strewed crumbs over the rug until it seemed to me that my bit
of cake had a demoniacal power of multiplying itself.
I was angry--this hour, this formal passage of inane conversation, was
so different from what I had pictured my first meeting with Penelope to
be. I was angry at my weakness in letting this perfect room overpower
me, and this woman of the world, with no other weapon than the
knowledge of the people one should know, transfix me, silence me,
transform me into a dull, bucolic boor. Penelope was annoyed. I knew
that she was chagrined at my lack of _savoir faire_, for in one of the
long pauses following an abrupt response of mine I caught a glance of
mute despair. She seemed to accuse me of falling short of her
expectations by my lamentable lack of the social graces.
I was for flight then. I rose to go. I paused to dispute in my mind
whether I must say farewell first to the older or the younger woman,
and from the hopelessness of ever solving the question I might have
stood there for an hour pulling at my hands had not the portières
opened and Rufus Blight come in.
I should not have known him as Rufus Blight but for Penelope's joyous
hail. I had expected to see him as I saw him that day when he came to
the farm to take Penelope away--a short, fat, pompous man with a
bristling red mustache and a hand that moved interminably; a sleek man
in spotless, creaseless clothes who might have stood in his own
show-window to inspire his fellows to sartorial perfection. I saw,
instead, a small man, rather thin, and slightly bald. The bristling
red mustache had turned to gray and drooped. His whole figure drooped.
His black clothes hung in many careless creases, and as he came forward
it was not with his old quick, all-conquering step, but haltingly, as
though Mrs. Bannister owned the room and he doubted if he were welcome.
I lost my embarrassment in wonder. I recalled my old fond pictures of
Rufus Blight when he should have grown older and fatter, more pompous
and more all-commanding. I watched the little dusty man draw
Penelope's head down to him and kiss her. I looked around the room, at
the great fireplace, at the Reynolds, at the carved table and the
costly empty spaces, and I lost myself in the marvel that he should
have attained them.
"Uncle Rufus," Penelope said, drawing him toward me, "here is some one
you will be glad to see. It's David Malcolm, my old friend David
Malcolm."
"Why, David Malcolm--my old friend, too," cried Mr. Blight, his face
lighting genially as he took my hand. "The boy who wouldn't let me
have Penelope. Upon my word, David, I didn't blame you."
He laughed and shook my hand again and again. He asked after my father
and mother as though they were his dearest friends, and I contrasted
his cordial mention of them with his once cavalier treatment, but when
he made me sit beside him on the divan and meet and answer a rapid fire
of questions as to myself and my occupation, the old prejudices began
to disappear before his simple, unaffected kindness. Penelope was on
his other side, and her hand was in his. I forgave him. I forgot the
neglect of long ago. I forgot even the mystery of the letters. I
forgot the fat, pompous, all-commanding man. This was a meeting of
three rare old friends. Mrs. Bannister, too, had gone from my
thoughts. If she still regarded me over the top of her cup, I was
unconscious of it, for I was telling how I had come to meet Penelope
again, and he was recalling the day when, as a small boy, I had
resisted him so vigorously.
"It has all turned out well, eh, David?" Rufus Blight said, laying a
hand upon my knee. "Here we are--the three of us--just as if we had
never quarrelled--good friends; and it is good to find old friends. We
haven't many old friends, Penelope and I. Indeed, but for Mrs.
Bannister"--he bowed to the majestic woman--"we should have few new
ones. An old one recovered is too precious to lose; and we are not
going to lose you again--are we, Penelope?"
The color shot high on Penelope's cheeks as she laughingly assented,
and I flattered myself that she had forgotten the boor who a few
moments before had shown to such disadvantage under Mrs. Bannister's
critical eye.
"You must come to us often," Rufus Blight pursued. "I shall be glad to
see you any time. It is good to have an old friend about when time
hangs so heavily on one's hands as it does on mine. Never go out of
business, David. Take warning from me, and don't let yourself be
stranded, with nothing to do but to play golf. Golf is a poor
occupation. I was out to-day--couldn't find a soul around the
club--had to take on the professional--spoiled my score by getting into
the brook on the tenth hole, and came home utterly miserable and
dissatisfied with life. But when you get well wetted you appreciate
the kitchen stove, as old Bill Hansen, in our town, used to say--eh,
Mrs. Bannister?"
From this I surmised that Mr. Blight as well as the ball had gone into
the brook, and in the homely aphorism I divined a subtle purpose to
bait Mrs. Bannister, which showed an astonishing courage in so
mild-mannered a little man. Such was the awe in which I held Mrs.
Bannister that I could have loved any one who dared in her presence to
acknowledge an acquaintance with old Bill Hansen. If Mrs. Bannister
did disapprove, she was careful not to show it. Her lips parted in a
half smile and she observed to me that Mr. Blight had a jovial way of
quoting Mr. Hansen, as though Mr. Hansen were his dearest friend.
"He is," declared Mr. Blight. "To be sure, I haven't seen him for
years, but I always remember him as the wisest man I ever knew. Why,
if it wasn't for Penelope I should go back to the valley, just to be
near him. It would be better than golf--to sit with him on the store
porch on a sunny day listening to the mill rumbling by the creek and
the killdee whistling in the meadow, to watch the shadows crawl along
the mountains, and now and then to hear Bill Hansen say something.
That would be living--eh, David?"
Rufus Blight touched a train of thought which had been often in my
mind. Here was a man who had won in the great fight and he seemed to
be camping now on the field which he had taken. About him were the
spoils--the Reynolds, the fireplace, the perfectly bound books, and the
costly spaces of the great room. Yet he was voicing the same longing
that I, whose fight was just beginning, had often felt--the longing to
step aside from the struggle for vain things, the longing to turn from
the smoke and grime of the conflict to the quiet and peace of the
valley. Now I voiced that longing too, forgetting Mrs. Bannister and
her evident creed that man's chief end was to know the right people.
"It would be living, indeed," I said with enthusiasm. "More than once
I have been on the point of going back to stay. I don't suppose you
ever knew my old friend Stacy Shunk, did you? When it comes to real
wisdom I'd rather talk to Stacy Shunk than----"
Mrs. Bannister had half risen--I thought in horror. It was really the
butler who had brought my eulogy of Stacy Shunk to a sudden close, for,
appearing in half-drawn portières, he announced: "Mr. Talcott."
The mere entrance of Mr. Talcott carried us far from the valley and
such rude associates as old Bill Hansen and his kind. I think that
even Rufus Blight would have been too discreet to refer to them in his
presence--for Penelope's sake, if nothing else. He was a slender young
man of medium height, clean-shaven, perfectly groomed, and perfectly
mannered. He was as much at ease as I had been ill at ease, and I
envied him for it. He declined tea because he had just come from the
club, and I envied him this delightful way of avoiding cake and
embarrassing crumbs. Mrs. Bannister addressed him as Herbert, and I
knew at once that he was Edward Herbert Talcott, whose name I had often
seen in my paper-reading task. His claim to distinction was descent
from the man whose name he bore, a member of the cabinet of one of our
early presidents. A dead statesman in a family is always a valuable
asset, and the longer dead the better. Statesmen, like wines, must be
hidden away in vaults long years to be properly mellowed for social
uses. I think that Mr. Secretary Talcott would have been astonished,
indeed, could he have measured his influence after a century by the
numbers, collateral and direct, who were proud to use his name. There
were Talcott Joneses, and Talcott Robinsons, and Talcott Browns by the
score in town, but one and all they acknowledged the primacy of this
Edward Herbert Talcott, and never lost an opportunity of speaking of
him as their cousin. He had written, I learned afterward, a monograph
on his great-grandfather, which had given him a certain literary
distinction in his own set, and it was generally understood that, while
he might easily have earned a livelihood by his pen, he had been
relieved of the necessity of doing it by his ancestors' investments in
Harlem real estate.
Talcott looked perfectly inoffensive, and yet he had hardly been seated
before I conceived a profound aversion to him. Mrs. Bannister's
treatment of him did much to arouse it. Here, she seemed to say, is a
human being, a sentient creature with ideas in his head, a finished man
with an appreciation of the finer things of life. She asked him if he
was going to the Martin dance.
Mr. Talcott did not know--he might--he hadn't made up his mind.
"There will probably be a rather mixed crowd," he said, with his lips
twitching into a cynical smile.
Rufus Blight, who had moved to a chair by the fire, shook his head in
disapproval of mixed crowds, and Mrs. Bannister said that,
nevertheless, the Martins were getting along and certainly would get in.
"And sometimes, you know, mixed crowds are rather fun," said Talcott;
and turning to Penelope: "I suppose you are not going?"
"I certainly am," Penelope answered heartily. "I love dancing so."
"Well, I shall, then," said Talcott. "You see, I was up awfully late
at the Coles's last night--three o'clock when I left. Why did you go
so early? I looked for you everywhere. I rather thought I should lay
off to-night and rest up for a dinner, the opera, and the Grants
to-morrow evening. But I'll go to-night anyway. We'll get up a little
crowd of our own for supper. That's the thing about mixed crowds: at
least you can have your own little set for supper."
Having settled this problem and taken possession of Penelope for that
evening, Talcott went on to outline a jolly little plan of his to take
possession of her for an entire day in the near future--as soon as
there was skating at Tuxedo. Quite a large party were going up, Bobby
This and Willie That, to all of which Penelope assented, while Mrs.
Bannister laughed merrily. She understood that Bobby This was not
going anywhere this year. Between them they drove me quite mad. A
moment ago I had been so much at home; now I should have been more at
ease in a company of astronomers talking of the stars, though I knew
nothing of the heavens. I could only smile vaguely in a pretence of
entering into all that they were saying; and when Talcott looked at me,
when he pronounced his dictum that mixed crowds were a bore, I gave a
feeble assent. When, to make my presence felt, I boldly asserted that
I had never been to Tuxedo, Talcott replied that some time I must go
there--I should like it--he was sure that I should like it, though the
crowd was getting rather mixed. Having thus quieted me, he reverted to
Bar Harbor and the summer, to various persons and events concerning
which I was supremely ignorant. I left abruptly perhaps. I had
forgotten the problem as to whom I should say my farewell last.
Penelope said that I must come again and often. Mrs. Bannister gave me
a pleasant but, I thought, a condescending smile, and Rufus Blight
followed me down the stairs, talking platitudes about the weather while
he called a man to bring my coat and hat.
The grilled door closed behind me, and I walked down the darkening
street. I had found Penelope grown lovelier than the loveliest figure
of my boyish dreams. Yet it was as though I had found her in another
world than mine, and moving among another race. She might remember the
boy whom she had dragged from the mountain stream, the boy whom she had
carried to the desolation of her humble home; could she long remember
the awkward man who sat on the edge of his chair and scattered crumbs,
who when he talked could talk only of old Bill Hansen and Stacy Shunk?
The longing for the valley was gone. Had the world been mine I would
have given it for a card to the dance that night, however mixed the
crowd, for then I should be near her. If I would be near her, then her
friends must be my friends, and, whether they would or no, I swore that
day they should be.
The hall of Miss Minion's house smelled terribly of cooking that night
as I passed through it. Standing at last in my own narrow room, I
brought my clinched fist down on my table as I registered my vow that I
would attain to her world. Then I sank down and covered my face with
my hands, for out of the little frame Gladys Todd was looking at me.