FURNITURE AND FAMILY
It was not without a painful self-consciousness that Leigh and Emmet
met again after their strange interview on the tower. In a city of
between fifty and one hundred thousand people, with comparatively few
large arteries of trade, a chance encounter sooner or later was
inevitable. It occurred one afternoon in a large crowd of Christmas
shoppers. Either would have been glad of a forewarning and a chance to
look casually in another direction, but neither was prepared, when they
came face to face, to give the cut direct. Their greeting was scarcely
more than a nod, and showed their mutual constraint. Leigh read in
Emmet's bold eyes a warning such as an injured husband might convey to
the man that had wronged him, and a defiant reassertion of himself
after his humiliating confession. He suspected also, what indeed was
the truth, that the discovery of his own feeling for the bishop's
daughter had opened Emmet's eyes anew to her value, and had cleared
them of the mists of passion for the unfortunate Lena Harpster. From
now on the mayor would do his best to win his wife back. He had the
bearing of one who had recovered his poise and meant to yield no inch
of ground.
Leigh, absorbed in the impression he had received, was unconscious of
the one he had given, of his somewhat repellent expression when he saw
the mayor's square figure bearing down upon him. Yet his emotion was
less personal and intense than the other's in proportion as he was less
primitive by nature and training. He distinguished between Emmet the
mayor and Emmet the lover; for he was familiar with the phenomenon of
official probity combined with a lack of that quality in some personal
relationship. Had Emmet's quandary been presented to him abstractly,
he would have been quite tolerant in his judgement, with the
understanding of a man of the world; but, in spite of resentment and
chagrin, he still continued to love Felicity Wycliffe, and this fact
made him scornful of the man who had trampled her gift under foot. But
would Felicity continue to give?
Leigh believed that she had awakened from her delusion; but what
direction would her pride now take? Would she continue in the course
she had chosen in sheer perversity, in sheer fidelity to herself?
There was also the attraction of extreme opposites to be reckoned with,
the fascination which a man of simple psychology, of strength and
wholesome good looks, might possess for a woman of great subtlety and
cultivation. Yet what could he do to prevent it? With what grace
could he attempt to open her eyes to her husband's ulterior motives in
seeking a reconciliation, now that she knew of his own love for her?
Could he advise her to get a divorce on some technical ground, that she
might marry the man who had opened her eyes to the truth? And how
could he assume that to her he was an element in the situation?
After his first emotion in learning that she had never lived with her
husband, and his consequent conviction that she regarded the marriage
as a mistake, the ceremony itself loomed up as a grim fact, one not to
be brushed aside by ingenious arguments. Behind it, as a prop to its
stability, was the strict tradition of Christianity, an inheritance of
peculiar influence with both the participants in the strange mistake.
There was no cause for divorce which either of their respective
churches recognised as valid; at least, so he believed, for he did not
doubt that Emmet had told him the whole truth in regard to Lena
Harpster, and he felt sure that he would now avoid the very appearance
of evil. He recognised also that he was the recipient of a confession
he must regard as sacred. Felicity must not know he shared her secret.
His part must be merely that of a spectator of a drama.
These were his thoughts as he wandered from place to place, trying to
convince himself that he had reached a point of renunciation; but as
often as her face rose up before him he wavered in his resolution, and
went back to the conviction that she really did not love the man who
was only technically her husband. Might not her treatment of himself
be capable of a more favourable interpretation than his first anger and
chagrin had put upon it? He felt that it would depend upon her, when
she returned, whether he could maintain a feigned indifference.
He purchased a pipe for Cardington, and ultimately found himself in a
large department store turning over the volumes on the book counter in
search of a gift for his father. Presently he heard a voice at his
elbow.
"Are you engaged in Christmas shopping too, Mr. Leigh?"
He turned and saw Mrs. Parr looking at him tentatively, her hands full
of bundles. A remembrance of his rudeness to her at Littleford's
caused him to welcome this opportunity to make amends. She was
Felicity's nearest friend, and perhaps she would mention her name.
Moreover, the fact that Emmet suspected her of having divined his
secret, and her meeting with him and Lena at the inn, gave her a new
interest in his eyes.
"Yes, Mrs. Parr," he returned. "I'm doing as well as a mere man can be
expected to do, which is n't very well. Perhaps you can come to my
assistance."
She placed her bundles on the counter with alacrity, and her thin,
gloved hand hovered over the rows of volumes.
"You must give me some hint as to the destination of the gift," she
declared, turning upon him with a sparrow-like motion of the head and a
significant smile.
"No," he said, laughing at her intimation, "it isn't what you suspect.
I want a book for an old-fashioned gentleman, past middle life. There
seems to be nothing here but the latest novels."
"As to that," she responded, "the bishop reads everything, from the
Talmud to a Nick Carter detective story."
"Neither of the classics you mention will fit the present case,
however."
"I know!" she cried. "'The Bible in Spain.' You need n't look
dubious; it is n't a Sunday-school book, as you might think from the
title. You may be sure that Felicity Wycliffe would n't like insipid
literature, and this is one of her favourite books."
Leigh's dubious look had not been due to ignorance of the book, but to
a doubt as to whether his father possessed it. On reflection, he
thought the choice a safe one, and his reply left his adviser
undisturbed in her conviction that she was admitting him into the
select circle of Borrovians.
"The recommendation goes," he said. "Not," he corrected himself, "that
I would not have purchased it upon yours alone, Mrs. Parr."
"Oh, I'm not vain of my knowledge of books," she assured him. "Miss
Wycliffe is my literary conscience. I do miss her so much! When she
's away, I 'm only half a person, I declare; and when she 's here, I 'm
just nobody at all, because I lose myself in her."
"You make the friendships of men pale into insignificance," he remarked
jestingly, yet not without a new respect, inspired by this glimpse of
her capacity for loyalty to one who overshadowed her.
"If you only knew her!" she said. "But you don't."
He could not help wondering which of them knew the more about one great
incident in her life, but he merely echoed her words with a rueful
conviction of his own: "No, I don't."
She regarded him with sympathetic understanding. Of course he was
infatuated with Felicity, like many others, and undoubtedly his chances
were as remote as theirs.
"Now tell me," she said, "what you are going to get for the rest of
your family."
"That's what I want you to tell me," he answered.
"Follow me, then," she said brightly, "and I 'll see that you don't get
imposed upon."
He took the book and her bundles, and they left the counter on the best
of terms. Though he was hopelessly in love with another, a knowledge
of Mrs. Parr's partiality for him lent a certain charm to his manner.
Without attaching any weight to the fancy Miss Wycliffe had told him
of, he was sufficiently human to enjoy being liked and to make some
response. At his first meeting with Mrs. Parr she had seemed merely
insignificant; at Littleford's he had found her irritating; now, to his
astonishment, he discovered in her worship of Felicity her attractive
side. When they finally left the shop with their accumulated
purchases, she insisted that he follow her into the sleigh and go to
her home for a cup of tea.
"People are so inconsiderate during the Christmas season," she
chattered. "Now I never have my things sent home at this time of year,
when the delivery men are so overworked; and I don't even bother the
boys to carry them out to the sleigh for me, unless I positively have
to. John and I do our shopping together, don't we, John?"
The coachman touched his hat with his whip in acknowledgement of the
copartnership in humanitarianism, and deftly steered his horses into
the open street. "I belong to a league of women," she went on, "who
have agreed not to go shopping in the late afternoons, and not to have
the things they can carry sent by the delivery waggons. I don't know
how many printed slips I have sent out requesting shoppers to use the
same consideration. We looked up nearly every name in the directory.
This is the third year we 've done it."
"That's why I did n't receive a copy of your communication," he
remarked. "My name 's not in the directory yet."
"You would n't believe what fun Felicity always makes of us," she said.
"She pretends that we are trying to excuse people from doing what they
are paid to do."
He was able to see how the virtue of the league could appeal to
Felicity's sense of humour, even though she might accept its suggestion.
"There 's that man!" she cried, suddenly stiffening. "It seems to me I
can never go down-town without meeting the horrid creature somewhere,
strutting along as if he owned the town, just because a lot of ruffians
have made him mayor. But I believe Felicity has won you over to her
strange point of view."
"Emmet is n't at all a bad mayor," he returned. "I happen to know that
he has refused to have anything to do with Bat Quayle, the political
boss of the worst element of his party. What do you say to that?"
"That you have been misinformed," she answered implacably, "or that he
has gone back on his word, and now refuses to pay his political debts."
"In either case you don't leave him a leg to stand on. Still, I can
only reiterate my conviction in regard to his political honesty, and
wait for developments."
"I notice you don't make any claims for his private character," she
retorted, giving him a severe glance. "But men have their own code of
morals, and always stand by each other. Now I happen to know that he
is running around with one of Felicity's servants. Out at the Old
Continental, the other evening, we found them in possession of a room
we had engaged for dinner. He practically ordered us out of the place
until he and Miss Harpster, as he called her, chose to take their
departure. Did you ever hear of such a thing in your life?"
"Never," he answered. "Emmet would be quite a catch for her, would n't
he?"
She threw up her hands with a gesture of infinite scorn. "He never in
this world intends to marry her. I 'm sure of that."
He wondered whether she guessed how truly she had spoken, but her face
was sphinx-like in its hard acerbity. She seemed to shrink and grow
pinched with the intensity of her emotion, and her next words, spoken
almost as a soliloquy, showed the trend of her thoughts.
"I had n't quite made up my mind to write to Felicity yet, but now I
will, this very night. She ought not to let such a girl stay in the
house. But I 'm afraid my writing will only make her determined--she
's so perverse."
The words only completed his mystification. It now occurred to him
that this might be merely the excessive virtue of a New Englander, that
Mrs. Parr merely wished to save her friend from the mortification of a
scandal belowstairs in her house. Her prejudice against Emmet was
sufficient to explain her belief in his bad intentions regarding Lena
Harpster.
"On second thoughts I sha'n't do it," she declared, with a curious
gleam in her eyes; then she closed her lips firmly, as if to dismiss
the subject.
Leigh could only guess why she had changed her mind, and had suddenly
decided to let matters take their course. Assuming that she knew
nothing of Emmet's true relationship with Felicity and thought merely
that her friend was infatuated with him, it was possible that she might
even welcome a moral breakdown on Emmet's part, provided it would open
Felicity's eyes to his true quality. He was tempted to believe that
Mrs. Parr would willingly let Lena be sacrificed to accomplish this
result. The various possibilities that lay concealed behind his
companion's enigmatical features were bewildering, and the subject was
too delicate for further probing. As the fine vista of Birdseye Avenue
opened up before them, he turned the subject by remarking that
Christmas never seemed so truly Christmas as in New England. The
dictum was a happy one.
"Yes," she assented with fervour, "and is n't Warwick beautiful? I
never go away, even to Europe, without realising when I come back that
Warwick is the most beautiful place in the world. Thank God, I was
born and brought up in New England!"
"And thank God, I was n't!" he retorted.
"What do you mean by that?" she demanded, turning upon him with shocked
asperity.
"I merely mean that my view would have been limited for life to the
vista that may be obtained from the steps of the First Church--not that
it is n't a fine one, in its way."
The genial banter of his tone softened her resentment to curiosity.
"Where in Heaven's name were you brought up?" she asked.
"Let me see. An account of my peregrinations would read like a list of
most of the States of the Union. One gets an idea of the country by
such a nomadic existence, and does n't make the mistake of supposing
that the tail wags the dog, instead of the dog wagging the tail."
"I suppose you mean to imply that New England is the tail," she said
with trembling intensity, "when every one knows it's the head and
brains of the country. I've never been west of Niagara Falls, and I 'm
proud of it."
"You have reason to be," he replied with gravity. "I was only testing
your loyalty. Where is our Mecca of patriotism and literature, if it
is n't New England? My remark about the New England Christmas was
suggested by a memory of 'Snow-Bound,' which was one of the classics of
my youth, when I used to look out discontentedly upon our inferior
Western brand of snow."
"I can't make you out," she said.
When they entered the house, she laid aside her wraps and gave him a
cup of tea, supplemented by the thinnest of thin wafers, after which
she conducted him from room to room on a tour of inspection.
"Are you interested in Colonial furniture?" she questioned.
"I 'm anxious to learn enough about it to get interested," he assured
her. "I see you have a great deal of it here."
"A great many people have," she answered. "It's easy enough to pick up
imitations in the second-hand shops, or to ransack country houses; but
these pieces are all genuine and have been in the family for
generations. There are three Chippendales that belonged to my
grandfather on my mother's side, Colonel Styles, and this is a
Sheraton. That mahogany table with the low-hanging leaves is a genuine
Pembroke. Do you see that newel-post? It's the only thing in the
house we did n't inherit. We got it from the old Putney mansion when
they were tearing it down to make room for the library. When I heard
they were destroying the house, I sent Mr. Parr there to see what he
could pick up, and he found this beautiful thing thrown in the corner,
as if it had no value at all. Think of it!"
Leigh owned that it was a prize of no small value.
"You may say so," she went on, warming to the subject, "and it cost us
twenty-five dollars. When they found out we wanted it, they put up the
price. Mrs. Bradford has never gotten over it that we stole a march on
her, for she meant to get it herself. Do you know Mrs. Bradford?"
"Miss Wycliffe made me acquainted with her at Littleford's. I remember
hearing that she was prominent in the First Church and very much
interested in historical relics."
"Her husband is one of the Bradfords," with an emphasis on the definite
article, "descended from Governor Bradford, and she is president of the
Society for the Preservation of Colonial Landmarks, and also of the
Daughters."
"The Daughters of the King?" he inquired maliciously.
"The Daughters of the American Revolution," she corrected.
"I did n't know," he explained; "I used to hear of the other
'daughters' from an aunt of mine; but her chief hobby was bishops."
"The Episcopalians are in a small minority here," she informed him.
"Most of the old families go to the First Church. I was brought up
there, but Miss Wycliffe has made me a kind of half Episcopalian, so
that I go to St. George's sometimes with her. But speaking of the
Bradfords, you have no idea how many obscure people claim to be
descended from Governor Bradford. Now, I am a genuine Bradford on my
father's side."
"The old governor must have been the Adam of these parts," he commented.
She picked up a volume from a near-by table. "This is the real
Bradford genealogy," she announced.
They continued their progress through the house, viewing hautboys, and
clocks, and tables, and tapestries, and chairs. Leigh had extracted
all the amusement for himself that the subject and the a narrator could
offer, and he began to grow inattentive. The long roll of names and of
styles of furniture, hitherto unfamiliar, confused him, and the
constant reiteration of the local point of view seemed an almost
incredible provincialism. When they returned at last to the
drawing-room, Mr. Parr, just returned from his office, rose to greet
him.
"And how do you like Warwick?" he demanded. "You show your good
taste," he approved, when Leigh had complimented the beauty of the
city, "and Warwick is a very cultivated place as well. Have n't you
found it so? There are a great many rich people here, but you see no
display of wealth, as in New York."
"I hate New York," his wife put in. "It's so frightfully commercial."
Mr. Parr, having delivered himself of the articles of his belief,
resumed his rôle as the silent partner of the house. He was a large,
slow man, whose history seemed to be the history of the dinners he had
eaten. In his eyes smouldered a dull glow, as of resentment at the
limits of the human stomach and the volubility of wives. He woke up as
his visitor prepared to depart, to inform him that the thermometer had
registered twenty degrees of frost that morning, and to express the
conviction that Warwick would spoil him for residence hereafter in any
other city. Leigh assured him that there was no doubt of it, and went
out into the winter twilight, homesick for the full, crude life of the
Middle West, for the picturesque civilisation of California, for the
smoke and splendour and roar of New York.
As he passed the bishop's darkened house, he felt that it was out of
the question for him to spend the Christmas recess in the deserted
college on the hill. He resolved to run away from himself, to seek
distraction from the riddle of his existence by a visit to the
metropolis, to change his sky in the hope of changing his mind. The
increasing cold, and the dun canopy of cloud that had overspread the
sky for days, convinced him of the futility of attempting to continue
his observations at present. Tomorrow he would join in the general
hegira from the Hall.
He walked back to the college, and seeing a light in Cardington's room,
he knocked at the door. His friend was seated in the chair he never
seemed to leave.
"Ah," he said, observing his visitor's bundles, "you come in like a
Santa Claus coadjutor, a youthful Santa Claus, not yet dignified by
that hirsute appendage to the chin without which no Santa Claus is
complete."
Leigh admitted that he was a feeble imitation, and produced the
briar-wood pipe from his pocket. Cardington was greatly pleased.
"Thank you," he said; "thank you. I shall break the amber stem,
sooner or later, but I shall have it replaced by one of vulcanised
rubber, and shall continue to cherish the gift though _mutatus ab
illo_. If you don't mind, I 'll initiate it now, without waiting
for Christmas day." He suited the action to the words and leaned
back in his chair, puffing. "A new pipe is like--a new pair of
shoes--necessary--inevitable--but it must be broken in. I see promise
already of sweetness--great sweetness--in this briar."
"Mrs. Parr picked me up and took me home for a cup of tea," Leigh said.
"And there I met Mr. Parr."
"Well, and how did you enjoy our excellent friends, the Parrs?"
Cardington queried, leaning back in his chair with an expectant twinkle
in his eyes.
"I felt that I was visiting a storage warehouse filled with old
furniture, in the midst of which stood Parr like a wax figure escaped
from the Eden Musée."
"I can well understand that," Cardington commented, with a chuckle.
"And you learned something, doubtless, about the old newel-post that
was taken from the Putney mansion, which I hope you admired adequately,
about the old clock, the tables, and the chairs. You heard the
respectable names also of the respectable Parrs' ancestors, and Mr.
Parr asked you how you liked Warwick, after which he told you how he
liked it himself."
"Your astral body must have accompanied me," Leigh suggested.
"I could report the conversation verbatim," Cardington declared. "She
told you, among other things, that she was a genuine Bradford on her
father's side, and uttered bulls of excommunication against pretenders
to the honour. It would n't do, you know, to admit that the Bradford
progeny is as numerous as the stars for multitude, and as the sands
upon the seashore. It is advisable to restrict the genuine Bradfords
to those of wealth and position. Now, this genealogical mania is a
kind of midsummer madness that lasts in Warwick the year through, a
lineal descendant, so to speak, of the witchcraft delusion; but it
offers a certain kind of mental pemmican to impoverished minds. Those
much vaunted ancestors were very worthy people, but, bless you! there
was n't a social swell in the whole lot."
"Out West one never hears of such things," said Leigh.
"Out West," Cardington returned, "they are still grappling with the
realities of life. Ancestor worship has not yet set in as a canker in
the fruit; that will come with the dead ripeness. Here you see the New
Englander as he is to-day, not as he was in a glorified past; not
landing at Plymouth Rock, not hanging witches, or beating Quakers, or
persecuting Episcopalians, not throwing tea into Boston Harbour, or
writing philosophy at Concord, but spending his days in watching the
gradual accretion of his already substantial fortune.
"A New Englander is the only jewel that appears to better advantage out
of its proper setting than in it. To illustrate. In the West, the New
Englander is thawed without being melted to such an extent as to lose
his backbone; he becomes genial without undue compromise; he carries
the torch of civilisation without a flourish. It was the chosen
spirits of New England, men and women, that went West in their great
waggons with the pots and pans hanging from the axle, and salted that
crude country with their quality.
"But the conversation has become very oracular," he continued. "What
are you going to do during the recess?"
"I 'm going home, and shall stop over in New York for a visit on my way
back. But where are you going?"
"Well, I may take a little run down to Bermuda and see the bishop and
Miss Felicity. Just think of leaving all this ice and snow, and about
the second day out beginning to shed your superfluous outer garments,
until you arrive at your destination in white duck trousers and a
Panama hat! Think of the odour of lilies, not to mention the onions!
And there I shall find Miss Felicity, looking like the goddess Flora,
wandering in those beautiful lily-fields that command a wide sweep of
the purple sea. It's enough to stir one to poetry, is n't it?"
"I wish I might go with you," Leigh remarked.
A film seemed to come over Cardington's blue eyes, just the suggestion
of a veil of secrecy.
"Yes--yes--if you hadn't made other plans, you know. But you must go
down there some winter, you must indeed. It's really a most charming
place."
"Well," Leigh said, rising and taking up his bundles, "give the bishop
and Miss Wycliffe my regards."
"I will," Cardington promised. "Perhaps they will return with me. I
'll take your excellent pipe along to smoke on the Gulf Stream and
among the lilies. Good-bye!"