It was a _coup-de-théâtre_, falling as pat as if prearranged, an
unthinkable accident; the melodrama was becoming entirely too
melodramatic, according to Doctor Vardaman's notion. "Good Heavens!" he
said to himself, irritated; "this sort of thing doesn't _happen_--it
has no business to happen!" He had what is perhaps the best tact in
the world, the tact of a kind heart; but a plain man's experience does
not prepare him for moments of such awkwardness, and the doctor's
self-possession for once left him in the lurch. He advanced to
meet Mrs. Pallinder, blunderingly putting on his eye-glasses, and
blunderingly dropping them again to the length of their black silk
ribbon, stuttering out a welcome, apprehensive of Steven's next move,
out of patience with the whole grotesque and intolerable situation,
and fearful that he showed it. Mrs. Pallinder could hardly have failed
to overhear something of what was going forward; Steven's loud voice
had been raised almost to its furthest pitch, and Gwynne's, if he was
more self-contained, was still forcible and distinct enough. Neither
one could at once adjust his threatening brows to a placid, scarcely
even a natural expression, and, for that matter, the silence betrayed
as much as their speech. She would have needed to be blind or deaf not
to know that her presence came amiss--and blind and deaf Mrs. Pallinder
promptly became! It was a feat; her assumption of unconsciousness
was too perfect, but, if Gwynne and the doctor were undeceived, they
were still profoundly grateful, and Steven was reduced to a kind of
pathetic diffidence. The old man felt, in his dim way, that he had no
arms against this dazzling feminine creature; her manners, her dress,
even her delicate and finished beauty frightened him; he might as well
plan to sue a fairy for rent as this detached and brilliant personage.
"Gwynne could have let the poor old boy go in peace," thought Doctor
Vardaman, observing Steven's altered bearing; "he never would have
faced Mrs. Pallinder--I doubt if he could have stood up to the colonel!"
"Don't get up, gentlemen, don't stand for just _me_!" said Mrs.
Pallinder, looking around on everybody and beginning to loosen her
furs. "Oh, Mr. Gwynne, what a nice surprise to find you here! Doctor
Vardaman, you didn't tell me you were expecting Mr. Gwynne. You see I'm
an old story to the doctor, Mr. Gwynne, I drop in almost every day--I
wonder he doesn't run at the sight of me--it must be a relief as well
as a pleasure to him to have you come in once in a while. Why don't you
come to see _me_, ever? We're so lonely out here--the colonel and I
depend on the doctor. Nobody ever comes to see two rusty old creatures
like us. Nobody but you, that is, Mr. Peters, you treat us with the
respect due our age." She gave him a laughing glance; Gwynne knelt
down, reddening and incoherent, to take off her overshoes. The doctor
had space to reflect that a pretty woman, be she never so well or so
long married, seldom wholly ceases to be a coquette. And all this while
Steven stood, spellbound into silence, waiting for someone else to sit
down. He would have liked to be gallant, cynical, daring, epigrammatic;
Steven's notions of society were founded on Bulwer-Lytton's novels,
with a dash of Reade, Disraeli, and Charles Lever. He had revolved
more than one graceful yet stinging speech for the humbling of the
Pallinders, figuring them brought down to a species of admiring
submission. Lo, the hour was arrived, but where was the man? All his
eloquence had stolen away; he was taken at unawares, tongue-tied in an
awkwardness that at once incensed and humiliated him. He almost envied
Gwynne his uncalculated ease.
"I had a letter from Mazie this morning, doctor," said Mrs. Pallinder,
resolutely keeping the conversation going, and including Steven, as it
were, by main force. "My daughter, you know, Mr. Gwynne. You've been
at your country-place all winter, haven't you?" It was thus that Mrs.
Pallinder picturesquely referred to Steven's ramshackle residence; and
on her lips the phrase had a richness that pleased him ineffably. "Then
you don't know that my daughter has been away nearly two months--she
went a little after the holidays--and, oh, Mr. Gwynne, did you hear
about the robbery?"
"_She_ don't have to make talk about the weather--trust a woman!" said
the doctor inwardly, both satirical and admiring. He had an instant of
suspense, wondering what use Steven would make of his opportunity--and
Steven was as mild as a lamb! He cleared his throat, and said yes, he
had heard about the robbery--they didn't get anything after all, did
they? He understood--that is, the paper said--he hadn't been in town
to talk to anybody--that they were after Mrs. Pallinder's diamonds.
There had been a picture in the paper of the necklace--he was glad they
hadn't got anything.
"Why, I didn't know you approved of diamonds, Mr. Gwynne, I wouldn't
have dared to wear mine before you," said Mrs. Pallinder, tempting
Providence. "Everybody says you're so severe and critical--and--and
like all the rest of you men--you laugh at us poor women shamefully,
yes, and tyrannise over us, too, you know you do!" she went on,
displaying a discernment for which nobody would have given her credit.
"Madame," said Steven, highly flattered; "you mistake me--beauty
unadorned----"
"Oh, but Mr. Gwynne, I'm not in that class! Now come up to dinner
to-night, and I'll put on every diamond I have, and you'll see I'll
look the better for it." She raised her hand. "But don't involve me
in an argument--I can't hold my ground with you, you know--you're
too clever for me--I remember the last time, when you demolished me
utterly--you told me we didn't need money to get along--think of that,
Doctor Vardaman, he actually told me we didn't need to use money at
all, 'the circulating medium,' wasn't that what you called it, Mr.
Gwynne? See how well I remember! And, Doctor, before he got through,
he persuaded me, sure enough, that we didn't need money--I believed
him--at least I had nothing to say!"
Now how, how, I ask the unprejudiced and fair-minded observer, how
could any gentleman--of the name of _Gwynne_--come at so winningly
simple a woman as Mrs. Pallinder with a low question of rent? "Pay or
quit" indeed! The thing was inconceivable, the moment inappropriate.
"You _will_ come to dinner, won't you, Mr. Gwynne? Mr. Peters, I've a
crow to pick with _you_, for never bringing him. Oh, I know you hate
society, Mr. Gwynne, but just for once----"
Steven faltered; he would have accepted the invitation in another
moment--and if he had, who knows how this story might have ended?--but
Doctor Vardaman intervened briskly.
"Steven's got to stay here, madame, I asked him first," he said, and
clapped the other on the shoulder. Perhaps the doctor was a shade more
cordial even than his nature prompted; he felt a great pity for Steven,
and a certain shame at the cheap and flimsy devices by which his poor
old friend could be overpowered. Mrs. Pallinder made a little mouth at
him.
"You always have your way, Doctor, you've gotten the better of me ever
so many times. _You've_ got Huddesley, for instance," she said, not
disdaining to bestow an _oeillade_ on the servant as he stood before
her, offering sherry in the doctor's little old trumpet-shaped glasses;
he acknowledged the compliment by a respectful grin. "And _I'm_ simply
having the most _awful_ time--you don't know of a good cook, do you,
Huddesley?"
"No, ma'am. Hi don't know hanybody 'ere, ma'am," said Huddesley, with a
faintly superior air; and passed on to Gwynne with his silver tray. It
was true; he held himself apart from, and rather above, other servants.
The doctor had often remarked it with an amused sympathy.
"_Don't_ you? Isn't that a pity--I want so much to get settled in the
kitchen before Mazie comes home--well, if you hear of anyone, you'll
remember me, Huddesley, won't you?" Mrs. Pallinder held her glass in
one hand, and shook a letter out of her muff with the other. "Mazie's
letter, Doctor Vardaman--she'll be back in a week--she's going to bring
a friend--the most _English_ name--one of those hyphenated names, you
know. Her father's one of the secretaries at the Legation. Where--oh,
here it is. 'Muriel' _isn't_ that _English_? But just listen to the
rest of it!--'Ponsonby-Baxter.' Her father is Sir Julian--no, it's
Lucien--no, Mr. Peters, I believe my eyes are failing--can you make out
what that word is?"
Gwynne, after a solemn inspection, pronounced it to be Llewellyn.
"I notice all these young men read my daughter's handwriting a great
deal better than I can, for some mysterious reason, Mr. Gwynne," said
Mrs. Pallinder pointedly, to Steven, with her pretty laugh. And Steven
actually laughed, too! Where was his animosity? Where his anathemas?
He was at ease, mild, pleased, interested. In fact, Mrs. Pallinder,
looking hardly a day over thirty-five, with her fresh voice, her softly
bright eyes, her trim and supple figure, was an impossible sort of
person for the rôle of mother. There was a charming absurdity in her
continual half-humorous, half-sentimental allusions to her years and
infirmities. "When they get here, I'm thinking of having a little
company in the house, Mr. Peters," she went on, with a confidential
glance that magically comprehended everybody in the room. "Some of
the girls, like Kitty Oldham, for instance, and your cousin Marian,
of course, if her mother will let her come--I always say, Mr. Gwynne,
that it's no wonder all the girls in your family are so well-bred and
have such lovely manners--_Gwynne_ manners, Colonel Pallinder calls
them--it's no wonder they're all that way, they've had such careful
mothers, and _such_ training! It's my despair--I'll never make Mazie
that way! I should like to go to school to Mrs. Horace Gwynne myself
for a while, only she wouldn't have an old thing like me around, trying
to copy those beautiful, finished ways she has--the most _elegant_
woman I know! I think a little party in the house like that will
make it pleasant for Miss--Miss Baxter, I suppose we'll call her--the
whole name's a little too much--_Ponsonby-Baxter_! And now the colonel
says he'll have to have some men in the house in self-defence. Such
a houseful of women! It bores a man, I really think--oh, now, you
needn't look that way, Mr. Gwynne, you _know_ it bores men sometimes
to have too many women around. So we want to have some of the young
men, too--of course you, Mr. Peters, and do you think Mr. Lewis would
come? And then there's Mr. Taylor--the one you all call J. B., I mean.
There're those three large rooms in the wing at the back, and the small
one over the hall--plenty of room, don't you think so, Mr. Gwynne? You
ought to know how many the house will hold."
Steven looked important and considered. He remembered when Governor
Gwynne had entertained the Whig Campaign Committee in--in--he forgot
the year, but it was when Van Buren was elected; every room in the
house had been occupied, and cots in the library--you could put ten
cots in the library--oh, easily ten, end to end, you know----
"Cots! Oh, I don't think we'll need cots, you know, with young ladies
in the party----"
Steven did not hear her. He was launched on an accurate description
of the festivities, to which Mrs. Pallinder listened with a caressing
attention. How much had she overheard? Or how much guessed? Possibly
she would have been as painstakingly gracious to Steven in any event;
to look her best, to act her best, was Mrs. Pallinder's trade, and you
may trust me it was not always an easy one. "_So_ interesting, isn't
it? Oh, it's all very well for you to smile, Doctor Vardaman, you
remember all this, and it seems very ordinary to you, no doubt. But
it's rarely one hears such reminiscences--you've met so many celebrated
people, Mr. Gwynne--the Governor knew everybody, of course, in his
position, and then he was a famous man himself. Oh, now I'm here, and
have a chance at last, I want you to tell me again about that time
the Governor gave away the crimson velvet waistcoat with gold bees
embroidered on it--don't you remember, you told it to me the first time
we met, and I tried to tell it to the colonel afterwards, but I got it
all mixed up. He gave it to Tom Corwin, didn't he? And then the darky
waiter got hold of it somehow, and wore it to the party? I laughed so
when I came to that part, I couldn't go on with the story----"
Doctor Vardaman listened between relief and a singularly unreasonable
resentment; the business of pacifying Steven seemed ludicrously easy,
now. His weaknesses and the adroitness with which they were approached,
were alike contemptible. Anything, of course, he admitted unwillingly,
anything was better than having a scene; they should be thankful they
were so well past that danger. Yet he wondered privately what Gwynne
thought of this dexterous jockeying; a woman's performances in what
she chooses to consider the art of diplomacy unveiled, seldom fail
of moving the masculine onlooker to mingled wonder, scorn, and pity.
The creature has the cunning of her feebleness; how she does juggle
with honour and decency! How lightly she trips it along the unstable
wire! What capital she makes of her toy emotions, her sham beliefs and
unbeliefs! There is even something admirable in her serene assurance
that the end always justifies the means.
Steven may not have talked himself, or been talked, into a complete
forgetfulness of his errand; but at least the evil hour was a while
postponed. He saw Mrs. Pallinder leave the house escorted by Gwynne
through the falling dusk, with genial unconcern; and reiterated to
the doctor as they sat at table that evening his conviction that Mrs.
Pallinder was a very polished lady! Thus did the afternoon finish;
never was there a tamer sequel to a more alarming prelude. If the
doctor had received some disquieting revelations, he could still put
them from his mind as no affair of his; and if a vexed anxiety about
Gwynne lurked within him, it needed no great effort to stifle or
banish that, too, momentarily, at any rate. The boy knew what he was
about--_laissez faire!_ he thought, and surrendered himself to a long
evening of Steven and the circulating medium with thankfulness and even
some amusement.
"You--you're ever so kind to poor old Cousin Steven, Mrs. Pallinder,"
Gwynne said to her, with a good deal of feeling, as they parted in
the shadow of the Parthenon front. His voice trembled a little; and
perhaps the lady let him hold her hand a trifle longer than etiquette
prescribes.
"My dear boy," she said with gentle emphasis, "my dear boy, don't _I
know_---- If there is any way I can think of to make a person like
that happier, wouldn't I gladly do it? That seems to me a very small
thing--a woman's duty--what else are we for? I would do it for _you_
anyhow, even if I didn't feel so sorry for him." She melted into the
house without waiting to gauge the effect of this touching speech, and
the young man went off down the avenue with his head in the stars.
All very wrong and very improper, no doubt! But, on the whole, Gwynne's
conduct, it seems to me, was most edifying--a pattern for any youth in
his position. If Mrs. Pallinder had been the angel he thought her, he
could not have borne himself toward her with more respect. A young
man's first love, or let us call it, his first amorous fancy, is free
from grossness. There was something spiritual and exalted in Gwynne's
devotion; I believe he figured himself, foolishly and egotistically
enough, her knight, faithful without hope of reward, and gloried in his
anguish. If he stood between her and the all-too-righteous exactions of
his relatives and co-heirs, if he shielded her from the vials of their
wrath, at the cost of some squirmings of conscience, still I am loath
to blame him.
There was, of course, no excuse for him, yet---- Mrs. Pallinder was
old enough to be his mother, and married to boot; but she was a very
beautiful woman, and he was softhearted and sentimental, and had had
a harsh and loveless life. How can I sit in judgment on him? Was I so
wise at twenty-four? For Mrs. Pallinder herself, I say and stick to it,
she was a perfectly good woman; having discovered that she could twist
Gwynne around her finger, she cannot be blamed, in the circumstances,
for twisting him. The men may well sneer at our tools, but we must even
use the tools you let us have, gentlemen, and sometimes you thrust the
haft into our hands. No woman can make a fool of a man, I think, unless
the man lends himself whole-heartedly to the job. And there are times
when she goes at it with little relish.
Was it pleasant for Mrs. Pallinder to blarney Gwynne into
forgetfulness? Did she enjoy listening to old Steven's dreary,
everlasting talk? I think that mean necessity galled her at times as
much as it would have the highest-minded reader of this page. We must
suppose she loved her swindling rascal of a husband, for I detect a
dingy loyalty in her method of supporting him. So he cleaves to her
and cherishes her, a woman cares not a jot whether her husband be
honest or not; she will uphold him by such sorry arts as he himself
will look upon with disfavour. So terrific is her moral obliquity
that she will lie, wheedle, cozen, cheat, with an unruffled mind to
protect or further him; displaying a distorted integrity of purpose
that compels our grudging admiration. Let anyone who doubts these
statements ask the wives and mothers who unsparingly condemn Mrs.
Pallinder's line of conduct, what they would have had her do? Give up
the game, and so betray her husband's interests, or engage in a little
harmless flirtation to put off the hour of his reckoning? You will
find that these virtuous ladies will dodge the question utterly. They
will indignantly and scornfully reject either course--yet they will
not be able to think of any other, and therein you have your answer.
I remember once hearing Doctor Vardaman solemnly declare and vow that
he believed nine-tenths of the shiftless, incompetent, scoundrelly men
in the world were kept going in their profitless or criminal careers
solely by the co-operation of some fool of a woman--"an honest woman,
at that!" he added, with a laugh.
Gwynne walked away in a state of exaltation that obliterated from his
mind all such sordid and petty considerations as twenty-four hundred
dollars of rent in arrears. At the end of the avenue he turned to
look back, and saw a light spring up in the bedroom window he knew
to be Mrs. Pallinder's; he walked on slowly, watching it with what
high-coloured and high-flown fancies! Miranda, I am afraid, is a name
that defeats the muse; but Gwynne continued in this Romeo attitude and
meditation until he crashed into a weary, homing labourer, a resident
of Bucktown, most probably, faring along through the twilight with a
whitewash bucket and brushes.
"Hy-yah! Keerful, cahn't yo'? Yo' 'd oughta look whar yo's g'wine,
boss!"
Gwynne started at the words; he ought to look where he was going! He
went on, slowly, frowning a little, with his head bent.