because he did not know, but wished to, if possible, out of courtesy. He
was trying to remember. The answer, however, came a moment after from
the girl, who had checked her walk upon hearing the name.
"I am going directly there," she said, and the two walked off together,
the young man lifting his broad-brimmed felt hat in acknowledgment of
her civility. He lifted it by seizing the crown in a bunch. It is
difficult to lift a soft hat gracefully. Buckingham followed the pair,
and when he had reached his own door-way he continued to follow them
with his eyes until they were lost at a bend in the street. Then he
entered the house where he lodged, and sat down in his study. He was
greatly pleased with this little turn in affairs.
"That is one step further in my story," he said to himself, for there
was no one else to say it to. "So she is Miss Martindale, and this young
man with a scar has come to see her father on business. He will stay to
tea. The father will--what will the father do or say? I must look out
the name in the directory, so as to get some solid basis of fact about
the father,--something to avoid, of course, when I arrange him in the
story. If he is a stone-cutter I must make him a house- and
sign-painter. I must disguise him so that his most intimate friend will
not detect him."
Austin Buckingham was in the most agreeable humor as he proceeded to
prepare his solitary tea, for he was a bachelor and yet he detested
restaurants and boarding-houses. His dinner he needed to buy, and eat
where he bought it, but his breakfast and tea he provided in the room
which served as study and dining-room. He did not wash his dishes, it
may be remarked, with the exception of a Kaga cup which was too precious
to be intrusted to his landlady.
He had set aside his tea-things, and, with a paper and pencil, was
proceeding to sketch a plot for his story, with Miss Martindale for the
heroine and the young man with a scar for a hero, when there was a knock
at the door, and the servant came in, bearing a card. It contained the
name of Henry Dale Wilding, a correspondent whom he had never met, but
who had begun with asking for his autograph, and had now ended, it
seems, with calling in person.
"Show him up," said the story-teller; and Mr. Wilding, who was two steps
behind the servant, instantly presented himself. His face was certainly
familiar. Ah! it was the scar upon the face which made the recognition
easy.
III.
MR. WILDING.
"This is very pleasant," said Buckingham cordially, as he bade the young
man lay aside his coat and take a seat by the fire. While his guest was
obeying him, the host said in an aside,--only the aside was inaudible,
contrary to the custom of asides,--"He does not recognize me. I will
draw him out."
"I was in town this evening,--in fact, in this very street," said Mr.
Wilding,--"and I could not resist the temptation to call on you."
"I am very glad you didn't," said Buckingham heartily. "It is evident
you were led into it. Have you many friends in town?"
"Not very many. I know one or two men in college. I thought at one time
of coming here to college myself. I gave that up, however, and now I am
thinking of taking a special course, perhaps in English. Indeed, that is
one reason why I came to town to-day."
"Well, the college is hospitable enough. It is a great hotel, with
accommodations for regular boarders, but with reduced tickets for the
_table-d'hôte_, and a restaurant for any one who happens in, where one
may dine _à la carte_."
"I have not had a classical education," said the young man.
"Very well: you can make a special point of that. Very few of our later
writers have had a classical education. Scholarship is no longer a part
of general culture. It is a profession by itself. It is scientific, not
literary."
"But you had a classical education, Mr. Buckingham?"
"Yes, I had once. I don't deny that I am glad I had; but I am forced to
conceal it nowadays."
"And you still read the classics," he went on, with a respectful glance
at a Greek book lying open on the table. Buckingham hastily closed the
book.
"Yes, when no one is looking. But tell me about your plans. Shall you
room in the college buildings?"
"I have come so late in the year that I cannot get any satisfactory
rooms."
"Why not try getting a room somewhere in this neighborhood? There are
students, I think, who live on this street. I am afraid there are no
vacant rooms in this house, or I would introduce you to my landlady."
"I am not sure but I shall. In fact, I have been looking at a room
farther up the street this evening."
"Indeed! What house did you find it in?"
"I found two or three houses that had rooms to let for students. They
were not boarding-houses. I don't care to board."
"Mr. Wilding, my opinion of you rises with each sentiment you express.
First you think of studying English in a scholarly fashion; then you
detest boarding. I am sure we shall be friends. I shall invite you to
take tea with me,--not to-night, for I have already had my tea, but when
you are settled in your room."
"Thank you; I accept with pleasure. I am glad you did not insist on my
taking tea with you to-night, for I have just come from tea."
"Oh! I remember you said you had friends in town."
"Yes; I have some cousins of an indefinite degree. They live on this
street, and they will make it pleasant for me. But they know very little
about the college, and I ventured to call to ask your advice about this
matter of a special course. Would you try for a degree?"
Mr. Buckingham had nothing to do with the college; he was not even a
graduate of this particular one; but he dearly loved to give advice. He
took down the college catalogue, and talked with great animation for
some time to his young friend, who confided to him that his ambition was
to be an author, and that he had already written several sketches of
character.
"Excellent," said Buckingham to himself. "You shall be my hero; only you
will write short poems. Then nobody will detect your likeness."
Wilding stayed an hour, and then made ready to leave.
"If you are going to take the car, you are just in time," said his host,
as they shook hands by the door of his room.
"I am going first to my cousin's," said the young man.
"Oh, are you? Wait a moment. I should like a little airing. I will walk
along with you." And Buckingham, with a sudden admiration for his prompt
seizure of the hour, put on his hat and coat.
IV.
THE PLAY MYSTERY.
Two young women were sitting over their worsted-work in the house
numbered 17 Grove Street.
"Twenty-five, twenty-six," said the elder. "Lillie, if I were you, I
would always carry one of his books with me in the horse-car, prepared
to open and read it whenever he chanced to hang by the straps over me.
He would be sure to try to read it upside down, and--"
"Nonsense, Julia! you speak exactly as if I were running after him."
"Not running, my dear, but waiting for him. Confess it; don't you make
up stories about this Mr. Buckingham? don't you call him Austin all by
yourself?"
"Julia, you are shameless! I have a great mind to roll up my work and go
up-stairs."
"Oh, no, Lillie. Stay here; for Henry will surely be back soon, and we
shall learn exactly how the lion looked in his den. What a singularly
good piece of fortune it was that Henry should have met you both!"
"Julia! you don't suppose that cousin of yours has been telling! You
don't suppose he has mentioned me to Mr. Buckingham!"
"It is impossible to say. You get two men talking together, and you may
be sure they forget all their promises of secrecy. Now, I shouldn't
wonder if Henry were at this very moment--"
"You are simply--"
"Hark! There's Henry now."
For the door opened, and Mr. Wilding entered, the remains of a smile
upon his face.
"I really should like to know, Julia," he said, "what you two ladies
have been talking about. We could almost hear. We certainly could see."
"We, Henry? Pray, who is we?"
"Why, Mr. Buckingham and I. You have certainly a most hospitable fashion
of leaving your shades up. He walked out with me after I had called on
him, and he seemed to have a good deal to say after we came to the door.
There is an excellent view of the interior from the door; and Miss Vila
and you were certainly animated."
"This is really dreadful! Lillie, do you suppose he saw us talk?"
"I don't know. I feel as if he heard every word.--Mr. Wilding, I hope
you didn't repeat any of the foolish speeches your cousin made at the
tea-table?"
"I was discreetness itself, Miss Vila."
"But why didn't you invite him in, Henry?" asked his cousin.
"Upon my word, this is reasonable! First I am made to promise solemnly
that I won't disclose Miss Vila's name, and then I am asked why I didn't
bring him in and introduce him. He wanted to come in, I know."
"He wanted to!"
"Yes; he tried to worm out of me who my cousin was, and he walked up
here on purpose to find out where you lived."
"How lucky there is no name on the door!" exclaimed the cousin.
"But he heard me ask for your husband's house,--did he not, Miss Vila?
And why on earth you should make such a mystery of it all I can't see."
"Do draw the shade, Julia. It makes me nervous. I feel as if he were
looking in now."
"Nonsense, Lillie! he's a gentleman."
"But why do you make such a mystery of it all?" persisted the young man.
"There is no mystery," said Miss Vila stiffly. And, gathering up her
work, she went up-stairs.
"It's only play mystery, Henry," said his cousin, when they were alone.
"You see, Lillie Vila has been coming out in the horse-car with him
every night for a long time; and she has seen him watching her. Of
course she has seen him, but he has not seen that she has seen him. Men
are so stupid. And she knows that he has tried in vain to find out who
she is. He saw her once go into the library. She was dreadfully afraid
he would come in and see her working behind the screen; but he evidently
fancied she went in to get a book. Then he is always managing to stand
or sit near her, and he peeks at her book when she is reading. He is
just dying, I know, to find out who she is."
V.
THE REAL MYSTERY.
Mr. Austin Buckingham found on his table, when he returned from his walk
with Henry Wilding, a scrap of paper. It had nothing on it but the words
"The Mystery." This was the heading which he had made for his story. He
had been interrupted by his caller just as he had written the words. He
had not the remotest notion when he set them down what the mystery was
which he meant to reveal. The title now seemed like a prophecy to him.
Instead, however, of jotting down an outline of his story, he took out
his note-book and wrote busily:
"I wish I knew just what I saw this evening. I had walked out with Henry
Wilding, who called, and who was going, he said, to his cousin's. Now, I
will not conceal from my faithful journal that I was moved by a desire
to know just who his cousin was and where he or she lived; for by a most
fortunate chance I have found out that my maiden without a name lives,
or probably lives, at a Mr. Martindale's, on this street. I tried to
draw Wilding out without betraying my own interest, but he was very
obtuse, and even seemed to be ashamed of his cousin. At any rate, he
parried my questions, and of course I could not push my curiosity.
However, I got the better of him, and walked out with him when he left.
As luck would have it again, the shades were drawn at the house where he
stopped, and the bright light within made the scene perfectly distinct.
I talked on the door-step about I know not what, half hoping that
Wilding would invite me in, but really absorbed in watching two ladies
who sat by a table. One was my fair unknown, the other a lady whom I
have occasionally seen, and whom I take to be Wilding's cousin,--though
this is all guess-work. Whether she is or not, she is evidently a very
unpleasant sort of body, for, whatever she said, the other was plainly
exceedingly vexed and mortified. She covered her face with her hands. At
one time she made a movement as if to leave. She looked earnest and
troubled. I could vow she was about to burst into tears. Her face was
very expressive. No one who shows such sudden changes can help being a
person of rare sensibility. I am almost out of conceit of making her the
heroine of my story, though, to be sure, I am not likely to interfere
with her personal rights, so long as I do not know either her name or
her history.
"To come back to the pantomime which I saw through the window. It was
probably by no means so mysterious in reality as it appeared to me. Yet
what could it have been? or, rather, how can I appropriate it for my
purposes? I have it! The very situation of looking through a window
shall serve as the critical point in my story, only it shall be the hero
of my story, and not an idle spectator like myself, who does the
looking. The young poet, Wilding in disguise, only walks out at night.
He is a shy fellow, who even in public holds his hat, as it were, before
his face. He keeps by himself in his garret, brooding over his poems,
and seeing no one, until he almost loses the power of ordinary
association with other people. When night comes, he walks, sometimes
through the night. But his loneliness has generated a desire for
companionship which he can satisfy only by ghostly intercourse. So,
instead of knowing people, he imagines them, and falls in love with his
imaginations. He observes that one house looking toward the sea always
keeps its curtains drawn. He falls into the way of stealing by every
night to catch a glimpse of a fireside. There he sees a fair girl,--and
I may as well draw her portrait like that of my unknown friend,--with
eyes that are downcast but when raised suddenly grow large and lustrous,
with hands that fold themselves when disengaged, with hair that peeps
shyly over the forehead, and with a figure that seems always to be
listening. She becomes the world to him. He has renounced all common
association with men and women, and he peoples the world which he has
thus brushed out with shapes caught from this one girl. The very silence
which separates them makes him more quick in his imagination to invest
her with the grace which her distant presence never denies."
"Bah! what superfine nonsense I am writing!" exclaimed Buckingham,
pushing his note-book aside, but continuing to sit before his fire in
revery.
VI.
THE REVERSE SIDE OF THE TAPESTRY.
Mr. Henry Wilding suited himself easily to a room in a house which stood
just beyond his cousin's. He wanted little to make him at home; for he
had only pitched his tent in this university town, and had no thought of
settling in it. His wish was to get what he came for and to go again as
little encumbered with baggage as he had come. Something of this sort he
had been saying, not long after his established routine had begun, in a
letter to the lady to whom he had the good fortune to be engaged. "I
never could feel settled so far from you," he went on gallantly; "and I
want only so much home at hand as will keep me from daily discontent. So
it is exceedingly convenient to have my cousin Julia next door. I feel
as one might who lived over a grocery-shop: there would be no fear of
starving, at all events. When my supply of family feeling runs low, I
drop in upon Julia and lay in enough to last a few days. Her friend, who
makes a home with her, of whom I wrote in my last, does not greatly
interest me. She says very little; but I am willing to grant that she is
uncommonly pretty. I don't know why I say this in such grudging fashion.
If some one else be fair to me, what care I how fair this 't other one
be? Julia admires her greatly; but I suspect she is one of the kind whom
one needs to marry ever to get at. Julia is as much married to her as
one woman can be to another; and that explains why she sees so much in
her. She sometimes reports scraps of conversations which she has held
with this Miss Lillie Vila. Unless Julia makes up both sides of the
conversation, her friend certainly is intelligent, and, I am afraid,
witty. I say this last because it piques me that I have never extracted
any witty remark from her.
"As for John, he is imperturbably good-natured. His profession keeps him
away a good deal; but when he is at home he seems to do nothing but read
a book by the fireside and chuckle to himself. Julia and Miss Vila both
admire him greatly; but I suspect it is necessary to reconstruct him out
of imaginary material before one can get to think very highly of him.
Women do this naturally. I can always make myself humble by thinking
that you do it with me.
"Buckingham is decidedly more interesting. I have not seen him since the
evening I called upon him; but as I recall him, his air, his
conversation, and the shell of a room which he has been forming about
him, I constantly find something new to enjoy. He has a good deal of
insight. I am not uncomfortable when I remember how steadily he looked
at me; for he is not cynical. Indeed, I should say that he had managed
to preserve an unusual amount of sentiment,--more than is generally
found in one at his time of life. I am convinced that he ought to marry;
and if he ever does, I am sure that he will give up writing stories. He
is just one of those men who will find such satisfaction in domestic
life as to become indifferent to imaginative experiences. I notice that
in his stories he always seems to be groping about for some agreeable
domestic conclusion. His room shows it. It looks as if a woman had been
in it, but had left before she had put the final touch to it. She ought
to come back."
VII.
MR. BUCKINGHAM MAKES A MOVE.
A week after Henry Wilding had called on Austin Buckingham, that
gentleman tried to return his call. It must be confessed that his motive
was not so much a commendable desire to get even socially with his new
acquaintance, nor to give him good advice, as it was to get a nearer
view of the heroine of his story. Candor compels me to say that every
evening for the week past Buckingham had taken an airing, and always in
the same direction. He had always found the shade drawn at No. 17, and
often he had caught a glimpse, as he sauntered past, of the figure which
he now knew so well. It is true that he had never again seen Miss Vila
in so dramatic a character as upon the first evening when he had
discovered her _en famille;_ but he had seen her, not as one sees a
portrait, which always looks in the same direction. In the horse-car she
had been such a portrait to him,--the "Portrait of a Lady Reading."
Behind the window of Mr. Martindale's house she had been a figure in a
_tableau vivant_, often animated, always disclosing some new grace of
attitude, some new charm of manner. He faintly told himself that these
views enabled him to form a more distinct impression of the character of
his heroine: whenever he should have his plot ready, his heroine would
in the various situations instantly appear to him with the vividness and
richness of reality.
He bethought himself that it was high time to see a little more of his
hero; and so he persuaded himself that in going to call upon him he was
engaged in a strictly professional occupation. If by any chance he
should hear the rustle of the heroine's dress, why, that could not
possibly injure any impressions which he might receive of his hero's
individuality. These two people had become important factors in his
story. He had not yet succeeded in sketching his plot. He felt it all
the more necessary that they should sketch it for him. He was sure that
he should readily catch at any hint which they might drop. He would
therefore go into the society of his hero--and heroine.
For, somehow or other, whenever he essayed to call up the image of his
hero and make it yield some distinct personality, the heroine would
gently come to the fore. It was like going to a party and finding the
eye glancing off from every black-coated figure to the richly-draped
presence which made the party different from a town-meeting.
He was so much under the influence of all this reflex sentiment that he
dressed himself with care before he went out, and so presented himself
at the door of Mr. Martindale's house. It did not occur to him that
Wilding lived anywhere else. He had taken it for granted that the young
man was still at his cousin's. So when the door was opened for him he
asked if Mr. Wilding were in, at the same time presenting his card. It
chanced that the maid-servant had that day entered Mr. Martindale's
service,--not a very rare chance in any household,--and, never having
heard Mr. Wilding's name, indeed, not now hearing it, but hearing
instead the name Miss Vila, cordially welcomed the distinguished-looking
visitor, and marched before him into the little parlor, where she
presented the card, on a salver which she had snatched on the way, to
Miss Vila, who was sitting with Mrs. Martindale. The two ladies were
playing backgammon.
VIII.
THE INTERRUPTED GAME.
"For me!" exclaimed Miss Vila, in a dismayed undertone. "Julia!"
Mrs. Martindale glanced at the card. She rose at once, just as Mr.
Buckingham entered the room with a little hesitation in his step. As the
two ladies held the backgammon-board in their laps, one effect of the
sudden movement was to send the men rolling in every direction about the
room. It was weeks before one of the men--a black one--was found.
Mr. Buckingham saw his card in Miss Vila's hands. He addressed himself
to her:
"Possibly your servant misunderstood me. I asked for Mr. Wilding."
"She is a new servant," said Mrs. Martindale, and then added, with
alacrity, as she seized the accident by its nearest horn, "her mistake
was probably one of the ear. She thought you asked for Miss Vila." Mrs.
Martindale had it in her to wave her hand toward the young lady, as if
showing off wax-works, and to explain, "This is Miss Vila," but Mr.
Buckingham was quick enough not to need the line upon line.
"I must beg Miss Vila's pardon. There certainly is a likeness in the
names, if you spell it with a _we_."
"I will speak to Mr. Wilding," said Mrs. Martindale, jerking an eyeful
of mysterious intelligence at Miss Vila and whisking out of the room.
"I hope you were just about to be beaten, Miss Vila," said Buckingham,
"for I see I have spoiled the game."
"It is nothing," said she.
She had said nothing, but she had said it with a singularly musical
voice, and, after all, it is not the significant words but the
significant tones which touch one.
"No. It is nothing," he repeated. "A game may always be interrupted,
because it is not the conclusion but the playing which gives it any
value. I suspect it is like the stories we read,--somebody comes in, and
we lay the book down before we come to the end. It is no great matter if
we never take it up again. We got our pleasure, not from knowing how
things turned out, but from knowing things." He blushed a little as he
said this. In fact, his own inchoate story came to his mind. Besides,
Miss Vila had his card. Since she read so constantly, it was odds but
she knew of him. He blushed a little more as this thought crossed his
mind.
"Do you think so?" she asked, and her downcast eyes were suddenly
up-turned in full, the look which he had often patiently watched for as
he had seen her in the horse-car. "I find the end necessary. If I stop
half-way I think I have done the story-teller an injustice. I have not
given him the chance to tell me all he intended to tell me. He lets out
the secret of his characters by degrees. He could justly say to me, 'You
do not know the heroine; you have not seen her in that scene which is
going to test her.'"
"You are quite right," said Buckingham, "if you really think you are
under any obligation to the story-teller."
"Why, of course I am," she exclaimed, with wide-open surprise. Then she
blushed in turn,--first a little color of half-indignant rebuke, then a
warm hue as she thought of her unnecessary earnestness, then a deep
crimson as there rushed over her the sudden recollection of the hours
she had spent in Buckingham's company, and the silent admiration which
she had bestowed from the shelter of ignorance upon this gentleman who
now sat composedly before her. It was by an effort of self-control that
she did not spring from her seat and leave the room. The effort blanched
her face. It was as she sat thus, her eyes cast down, her lips set, her
countenance pale, that Mrs. Martindale returned.
IX.
THE UNNECESSARY HERO.