HE HAD no wish to supplant his brother in Mrs. Savage’s will or in
anything;—last of all did he wish to supplant him in the heart of
Martha Shelby. Mrs. Savage had been far from understanding her
grandson’s deep pride, and, as he strode homeward in the slashing rain,
her acrid warnings that he must not hope for anything from Martha
repeated themselves over and over in his mind, as such things will, and
upon each repetition stung the more.
He thought ruefully of the ancient popular notion that such stingings
come from only the unpleasant truth. “It hurts him because it’s true,”
people say, sometimes, as if mere insult must ever fail to rankle, and
all accusation not well-founded fall but painlessly upon the righteous.
What Harlan recognized as possibly nearest the truth among his
grandmother’s unfavourable implications was what hurt him the least. He
did not wholly lack the power of self-criticism; and he was able to
perceive that the old lady had at least a foundation when she said,
“Don’t be so superior, young man. That’s always been your trouble.”
Harlan was ready to admit that superiority had always been his trouble.
Not definitely, or in so many words, but nevertheless in fact, he
believed himself superior to other people—even to all other people.
Thus, when he and his brother were children, and their father took them
to Mr. Forepaugh’s circus, Dan was enthusiastic about a giant seven and
a half feet high; but Harlan remained cold in the lofty presence. True
giants were never less than nine feet tall and this one was “a pretty
poor specimen,” he declared, becoming so superior in the matter that Dan
fell back upon personalities. “Well, anyhow, he’s taller than _you_ are,
Harlan.”
“I’m not in the business of being a giant, thank you,” Harlan said; and
Dan, helplessly baffled by the retort, because he was unable to analyze
it, missed the chance to understand a fundamental part of his brother’s
character.
Harlan did not go into the giant business, yet he grew up looking down
on all giants, since they all failed to reach the somewhat arbitrary
nine feet he had set for them. He could not give credit to a struggling
giant of seven feet and a half, and admire him for the difficulties
overcome in getting to be at least that tall; Harlan really looked down
upon such a giant from a height of nine feet.
Yet he was able, at times, to perceive his superiority as an unendearing
characteristic and even to look upon it with some philosophic
detachment; he did not resent his grandmother’s remarks upon that
subject. What he minded was her assumption that he was trying to take
Dan’s place in Martha Shelby’s heart; Harlan wanted his own place there,
or none.
He had wanted it ever since Martha was a handsome romping girl of
fourteen and he a fastidious observer a little older. She was a romp,
yet her boyish romping never lacked a laughing charm; for, although she
was one of those big young girls who seem to grow almost overwhelmingly,
she had the fortunate gift of gracefulness; she was somehow able to be
large without ever being heavy. And one evening at a “German” for young
people of the age that begins to be fretful about a correct definition
of the word “children,” she danced lightly to Harlan and unexpectedly
“favoured” him; whereupon something profound straightway happened to the
boy’s emotions.
No visible manifestations betrayed the change within so self-contained a
youth; for here his pride, deep-set even then, was touched;—the lively
Martha’s too obvious preference was always for the brother so much more
of her own sort. Dan was her fellow-romp, and she would come shouting
under the Oliphants’ windows for him as if she were a boy. They were an
effervescent pair, and often rough in their horseplay with each other;
while Harlan, aloof and cold of eye, would watch them with an inward
protest so sharp that it made him ache.
He wanted to make Martha over from a model of his own devising; he
wished her to be more dignified, and could not understand her childish
love of what to him seemed mere senseless caperings with the boisterous
Dan. Yet neither her caperings nor her devotion to Dan was able to
disperse Harlan’s feeling for her, which gradually became a kind of
customary faint pain. In a little time—a year or two—the caperings
ceased; Martha went eastward, as did the brothers, for the acquisition
of a polish believed to be richer in that direction; and when she
returned she had become dignified, as Harlan wished, but otherwise did
not appear to be greatly altered. Certainly her devotion to Dan was the
same; and her merely becoming dignified failed to alleviate that
customary faint pain of Harlan’s. He still had it, and with it his long
mystification;—he had never been able to understand why she cared for
Dan.
Harlan’s view of his brother as a rather foolish person might have meant
no more than superiority’s tolerant amusement, had that pain and
mystification of his not been involved; but, as matters were, Harlan
would have been superior indeed if all bitterness had passed him by. He
could have submitted, though with a sorrowing perplexity, to Martha’s
inability to be in love with him; but what sometimes drove him to utter
a burst of stung laughter was the thought that she had given her heart
to a man who did not even perceive the gift. To Harlan that seemed to be
the supreme foolishness of his foolish brother.
Through the rain, as he opened his own gate, he saw in the direction of
the house next door a line of faintly glowing oblongs, swept across by
wet black silhouettes of tossing foliage; and since these lighted
windows at Martha’s were all downstairs, he concluded that she must have
callers; for when she was alone she went up to her own room to read, and
just before nine o’clock Mr. Shelby put out all the lights of the lower
floor. The old gentleman was sensitive about uselessly high gas bills,
in spite of the fact that he was, himself, to an almost exclusive
extent, the company that produced the gas.
In the vestibule at his own door Harlan furled his umbrella, shook the
spray from his waterproof overcoat, and was groping in his waistcoat
pocket for the latchkey, when his mother unexpectedly opened the door
for him from the inside. “I was standing at a window looking out, and
saw you come up the walk,” she explained. “Your mackintosh looks soaking
wet; you must be drowned! The doctor was here again awhile ago and says
Lena’s doing splendidly, and the nurse just told me she and the baby are
both asleep. Come into the library and dry off. Your father’s gone to
bed, but he lit the fire for you before he went up. We were afraid you’d
be chilled. How did you find mother?”
“About the same, I should say.” Harlan hung his dripping overcoat upon
the ponderous walnut hatrack, the base of which was equipped for such
emergencies with a pair of iron soup plates in a high state of
ornamentation. Then he followed his mother into the library and went to
sit by the fire, extending his long legs to its warmth, so that
presently the drenched light shoes he wore began to emit a perceptible
vapour.
“You ought to have worn your rubbers,” Mrs. Oliphant said reproachfully;
and then as he only murmured “Oh, no,” in response, she said in a tone
of inquiry: “I suppose you didn’t happen to see anything of Dan?”
“Not very likely! Not much to be seen between here and grandma’s just
now except night and water.”
“I suppose so,” she assented. “I thought possibly you might have gone
somewhere else after you left mother’s.”
“No.” But there had been something a little perturbed in her voice and
he turned to look at her. “Were you at the window on Dan’s account,
mother? Are you anxious about him?”
“Not exactly anxious,” she answered. “But—well, I just thought——” She
paused.
Harlan laughed. “Don’t be worried about it. I’ll sit up for him, if you
like. I dare say your surmise is correct.”
“My surmise?” she repeated, a little embarrassed. “What surmise?”
“About how your wandering boy has spent his evening,” Harlan returned
lightly. “I haven’t a doubt you’re right, and he’s followed the good old
custom.”
Mrs. Oliphant coloured a little. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, yes, you do!”
“I don’t,” she protested, with a consciousness of manner that betrayed
how well she understood him in spite of her denial. “I don’t, indeed!”
“No?” the amused Harlan said mockingly. “You don’t know that upon the
birth of an heir—especially when it’s the first and a boy—it’s always
understood by every good citizen of these parts that it’s the proud
father’s business to go out and celebrate? Don’t worry, mother: Dan
won’t go so far with it that he’ll be unable to get home. Even in his
liveliest times at college he always kept his head.”
“I’m not exactly worried,” she explained, with a troubled air. “I know
young fathers usually _do_ cut up a little like that;—the only time in
his life when your father didn’t seem to be quite himself was the night
after Dan was born. I’m afraid he was really almost a little tight, and
I gave him such a talking to when I was well enough, that he didn’t
repeat it when you came along. But I haven’t been worrying so much about
Dan’s going downtown and celebrating a little, as you call it—he’s so
steady nowadays, and works so hard I don’t think it would be much
harm—but I thought—I was a little afraid—I——”
“Afraid of what, mother?”
“Well, he was so exhilarated, so excited about his having a son—he was
so much that way before he went out, I was a little afraid that when he
added stimulants to the tremendous spirits he was already in, he might
do something foolish.”
“Why, of course he will,” Harlan assured her cheerfully. “But it will
only amount to some uproariousness and singing at the club, probably.”
“I know,” she said. “But I’ve been afraid he’d do something that would
put him in a foolish position.”
“I shouldn’t have that on my mind if I were you, mother. There’s hardly
ever anybody at the club in the evening, and the one or two who’d be
there on a night like this certainly wouldn’t be critical! Besides,
they’d _expect_ a little boisterousness from him, under the
circumstances.”
“I know—I know,” she said, but neither her tone nor her expression
denoted that his reassurances completely soothed her. On the contrary,
her anxiety seemed to increase;—she had remained near the open door
leading into the hall, and her attitude was that of one who uneasily
awaits an event.
“Mother, why don’t you go to bed? I’ll see that he gets in all right and
I won’t let him go near Lena’s room, if that’s what’s bothering you.”
“It isn’t,” she returned; was silent a moment; then she said abruptly:
“Harlan, would you mind going over to Martha’s?”
“What?”
“Would you mind going over there? You could make up some excuse; you
could say you wanted to borrow a book or something.”
“Why, it’s after half-past ten,” Harlan said, astonished. “What on earth
do you want me to go over there for, as late as this?”
“Well, it’s why I am a little worried,” she explained. “I’d been
standing at the window a long while before you came, Harlan; and about
half an hour ago I thought I saw Dan and someone else come along the
sidewalk and stop at our gate. At any rate two men did stop at the
gate.”
“You recognized Dan?”
“No; it was too dark and raining too hard. I thought at first perhaps it
was you with someone you knew and had happened to walk along with. I
went to the front door and opened it, but I could only make out that
they seemed to be talking and gesturing a good deal, and I thought I
recognized your cousin Fred Oliphant’s voice. I waited, with the door
open, but they didn’t come in, and pretty soon they went on. I called,
‘Dan! Oh, Dan!’ but the wind was blowing so I don’t suppose they heard
me. Then I thought I saw the same two going up the Shelbys’ walk to the
front veranda. They must have gone in, because a minute or so afterwards
the downstairs windows over there were lighted up. Couldn’t you make
some excuse to go over and see if it’s Dan?”
Harlan jumped up from his chair by the fire. “It just _might_ be Dan,”
he said, frowning. “I don’t think so, but——”
“I’m _so_ afraid it is!” Mrs. Oliphant exclaimed. “I don’t like to
bother you, and it may be a little awkward for you, going in so late,
but you can surely think of some reasonable excuse, if it _isn’t_ Dan.
If it is, do get him away as quickly as you can; I’d be terribly upset
to have him make an exhibition of himself before Martha—she’s always
had such a high opinion of him.”
“Yes, she has!” Harlan interrupted dryly, as he strode out into the
hall; and he added: “I don’t suppose Lena’d be _too_ pleased!”
“She’d be furious,” his mother lamented in a whisper. She helped him to
put on his wet waterproof coat, and continued her whisper. “She’s never
been able to like poor Martha, and if she heard he went there to-night
when she’s still so sick, she—she——”
“Yes, she would!” Harlan said grimly, finishing the thought for her.
“You might as well go to bed now, mother.”
“No, no,” she said. “If it is Dan, I won’t let him see me when you get
back, but I just want to know he’s safely in. And try to—try to——”
“Try to what, mother?” he asked, pausing with the door open.
“Try to explain it a little to Martha. She’s always been such a good
friend of his, and he needs friends. Try to keep her from losing her
high opinion of him. She’s always——”
“She has indeed!” Harlan returned with a wry smile. “I’ll do what I
can.” And he closed the door behind him as gently as he could, against
the turbulent wind.