By the following autumn Glendenning had completed the seventh year of
his engagement to Miss Bentley, and I reminded my wife that this seemed
to be the scriptural length of a betrothal, as typified in the service
which Jacob rendered for Rachel. "But _he_ had a prospective
father-in-law to deal with," I added, "and Glendenning a mother-in-law.
That may make a difference."
Mrs. March did not join me in the humorous view of the affair which I
took. She asked me if I had heard anything from Glendenning lately; if
that were the reason why I mentioned him.
"No," I said; "but I have some office business that will take me to
Gormanville to-morrow, and I did not know but you might like to go too,
and look the ground over, and see how much we have been suffering for
them unnecessarily." The fact was that we had now scarcely spoken of
Glendenning or the Bentleys for six months, and our minds were far too
full of our own affairs to be given more than very superficially to
theirs at any time. "We could both go as well as not," I suggested, "and
you could call upon the Bentleys while I looked after the company's
business."
"Thank you, Basil, I think I will let you go alone," said my wife. "But
try to find out how it is with them. Don't be so terribly
straightforward, and let it look as if that was what you came for. Don't
make the slightest advance towards their confidence. But do let them
open up if they will."
"My dear, you may depend upon my asking no leading questions whatever,
and I shall behave with far more discretion than if you were with me.
The danger is that I shall behave with too much, for I find that my
interest in their affair is very much faded. There is every probability
that unless Glendenning speaks of his engagement it won't be spoken of
at all."
This was putting it rather with the indifference of the past six months
than with the feeling of the present moment. Since I had known that I
was going to Gormanville, the interest I denied had renewed itself
pretty vividly for me, and I was intending not only to get everything
out of Glendenning that I decently could, but to give him as much good
advice as he would bear. I was going to urge him to move upon the
obstructive Mrs. Bentley with all his persuasive force, and I had
formulated some arguments for him which I thought he might use with
success. I did not tell my wife that this was my purpose, but all the
same I cherished it, and I gathered energy for the enforcement of my
views for Glendenning's happiness from the very dejection I was cast
into by the outward effect of the Gormanville streets. They were all in
a funeral blaze of their shade trees, which were mostly maples, but were
here and there a stretch of elms meeting in arches almost consciously
Gothic over the roadway; the maples were crimson and gold, and the elms
the pale yellow that they affect in the fall. A silence hung under their
sad splendors which I found deepen when I got into what the inhabitants
called the residential part. About the business centre there was some
stir, and here in the transaction of my affairs I was in the thick of it
for a while. Everybody remembered me in a pleasant way, and I had to
stop and pass the time of day, as they would have said, with a good many
whom I could not remember at once. It seemed to me that the maples in
front of St. Michael's rectory were rather more depressingly gaudy than
elsewhere in Gormanville; but I believe they were only thicker. I found
Glendenning in his study, and he was so far from being cast down by
their blazon that I thought him decidedly cheerfuller than when I saw
him last. He met me with what for him was ardor; and as he had asked me
most cordially about my family, I thought it fit to inquire how the
ladies at the Bentley place were.
"Why, very well, very well indeed," he answered, brightly. "It's very
odd, but Edith and I were talking about you all only last night, and
wishing we could see you again. Edith is most uncommonly well. During
the summer Mrs. Bentley had some rather severer attacks than usual, and
the care and anxiety told upon Edith, but since the cooler weather has
come she has picked up wonderfully." He did not say that Mrs. Bentley
had shared this gain, and I imagined that he had a reluctance to confess
she had not. He went on, "You're going to stay and spend the night with
me, aren't you?"
"No," I said; "I'm obliged to be off by the four-o'clock train. But if I
may be allowed to name the hospitality I could accept, I should say
luncheon."
"Good!" cried Glendenning, gayly. "Let us go and have it at the
Bentleys'."
"Far be it from me to say where you shall lunch me," I returned. "The
question isn't where, but when and how, with me."
He got his hat and stick, and as we started out of his door he began:
"You'll be a little surprised at the informality, perhaps, but I'm glad
you take it so easily. It makes it easier for me to explain that I'm
almost domesticated at the Bentley homestead; I come and go very much as
if it were my own house."
"My dear fellow," I said, "I'm not surprised at anything in your
relation to the Bentley homestead, and I won't vex you with any glad
inferences."
"Why," he returned, a little bashfully, "there's no explicit change. The
affair is just where it has been all along. But with the gradual decline
in Mrs. Bentley--I'm afraid you'll notice it--she seems rather to want
me about, and at times I'm able to be of use to Edith, and so--"