HIS humour was misplaced, and both of them would have been nothing less
than dismayed could they have foreseen in what manner he was destined to
misplace it again, and to what damage; for not gossip, nor scandal, nor
slander’s very self can leave a trail more ruinous than may a merry bit
of drollery misplaced. The occasion of the catastrophe was not
immediate, however; it befell a month later, when the Oliphants made a
celebration to mark the arrival of the baby and the completed recovery
of the baby’s mother. Mrs. Oliphant gave a “family dinner.”
She felt that something in the nature of a mild banquet was called for,
and her interpretation of “the family” was a liberal one. Except those
within her household, and except her mother, who was still somehow
“hanging on,” she had no relatives of her own; but the kinsfolk of her
husband were numerous, and she invited them all to meet their new little
kinsman.
They were presented to this personage; and then the jubilant father,
carrying him high in his arms and shouting, led a lively procession into
the dining-room. The baby behaved well, in spite of the noise his father
made, and showed no alarm to be held so far aloft in the air, even when
he was lifted as high as his bearer’s arms could reach.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Dan shouted, thus interpreting his offspring’s
thoughts in the matter, “grandparents, great-uncles, great-aunts, uncle
Harlan, second-cousins and third-cousins, kindly sit down and eat as
much as you can. And please remember I invite you to my christening, one
week from next Sunday; and if you want to know what’s goin’ to be my
name, why, it’s Henry for my grandpa, and Daniel for my papa, and
Oliphant for all of us. Take a good look at me, because I’m Henry Daniel
Oliphant, ladies and gentlemen, the son and heir to Ornaby Addition!”
There was cheering and applause; then the company sat down; the nurse
took the little lacy white bundle from the protesting father’s arms; and
Henry Daniel Oliphant was borne away amid the customary demonstrations,
and carried upstairs to his cradle.
Dan, at the head of the table, held forth in the immemorial manner of
young fathers: the baby had laughed his first laugh that very
morning;—Dan was sure it was neither an illusion of his own nor a
chance configuration of the baby’s features. It was absolutely an actual
human laugh, although at first the astounded parent hadn’t been able to
believe it, because he’d never heard of any baby’s laughing when it was
only a month old. But when Henry Daniel laughed not once, but twice, and
moreover went on laughing for certainly as long as thirty-five seconds,
the fact was proven and no longer to be doubted. “No, sir, I just had to
believe my own eyes when he kept right _on_ laughin’ up at me that way,
as if he thought I was a mighty funny lookin’ old thing to be his daddy.
My, but it does seem like a miracle to have your son look up at you that
way and laugh! I hope he’ll keep doin’ it his whole life long, too. I’m
certainly goin’ to do all _I_ can to keep him from ever havin’ anything
happen he can’t laugh at!”
He continued, becoming jovially oratorical upon his theme, while down at
the other end of the long table, sitting between the baby’s grandfather
and grandmother, Lena now and then gave him a half-veiled, quick glance
that a chance observer might have defined as inscrutable.
Her pretty black-and-white dress of fluffy chiffon was designed with a
more revealing coquetry than the times sanctioned; so that her amiable
father-in-law, though not himself conscious of any disapproval, withheld
from expression his thought that it was just as well that Mrs. Savage
could not be of the company. The ruthless old lady might have
supplemented her “lesson” to Lena, although it had produced somewhat
pointedly the reverse of its intended effect. The young mother was
“painted” more dashingly than the bride had been, and her lips as well
as her cheeks were made so vivid that probably her friends in New York
would have found her more than ever the French doll—a discontented
French doll, they might have said.
Yet, to her credit, if she was discontented, she made an effort not to
seem so; she chattered gayly to her mother-in-law and Mr. Oliphant,
laughed with them about Dan’s bragging of his offspring, and coquetted
demurely with one or two elderly cousins-in-law. A young one, Mr.
Frederic Oliphant, seemed genuinely to amuse her, which was what led to
misfortune. He found her laughter a sweet fluting in his ears, and,
wishing to hear more of it, elaborated the solemn-mannered waggeries
that produced it.
“It’s a great thing to be the only father in the world,” he said. “I
suppose it’s even greater than being an earl.”
“Why than an earl particularly?” she asked.
“Didn’t you know? At the club and downtown nowadays they speak of your
husband as the ‘Earl of Ornaby.’ You may not have noticed it, but he
sometimes mentions a place called Ornaby Addition. Now that he’s got
another subject though, I suspect his title ought to be changed to
‘Father of the Heir to Ornaby.’ Doesn’t that seem more intriguing, if I
may employ the expression?”
“Most intriguing!” she agreed. “But since my husband’s the ‘Earl,’ am I
called the ‘Countess of Ornaby’?”
“No; they leave you out of it, and I’m afraid you’ll be left out of it
again if the new title’s conferred on him. No one would get an idea from
his orations that the Heir to Ornaby has a mother. A father would seem
to be Henry Daniel’s sole and total ancestry.” Then, as she laughed
again, Fred added his unfortunate afterthought. “No; I forgot. I believe
he does include a godmother as a sort of secondary necessity.”
“Does he? We haven’t talked about who’s to be the godmother yet. We
haven’t selected one.”
“‘We?’” Fred repeated, affecting surprise. “You seem to think you have
something to do with it! Perhaps when the father of the Heir to Ornaby
gets around to it, he may condescend to inform you that the godmother
was selected the very night after the heir was born.”
“Was she?” Lena laughed. “Where? At the club?”
“Goodness, no! Don’t you know where Dan went that night?”
“Just to the club, didn’t he?” Lena said cheerfully, a little surprised.
“That’s all I heard mentioned about it afterwards, at least.”
“Ah, they cover up these things from you, I see. It’s time somebody
warned you of what’s going on.” And Fred was inspired to add: “Haven’t
you realized yet there’s an enchantress living right next door to you?”
From the young man’s own point of view, this was foolery altogether
harmless: Martha Shelby was almost “one of the family”—so near to being
one of them, in fact, that he would not have been at all surprised to
find her included in this family party—and the episode of his call upon
her, with his cousin, upon the night after the baby’s birth, seemed to
him of no other than a jocose significance. Like Dan’s “speech” to
Martha, it merely illustrated the hare-brained condition of a new-made
father, and in that light was handy material for a family dinner-table
humorist.
In this capacity, therefore, he blundered on. “Yes, indeed—right next
door! Old Dan may _look_ like the steady, plodding homebody sort of
husband, but when that type really breaks out it’s the wildest of all.”
Lena gave the _farceur_ a sidelong glance the sobriety of which he
failed to perceive; but at once she seemed to fall in with the spirit of
his burlesquing, and, assuming a mock solemnity herself, “This is
terrible news!” she said. “I suspected him of being rather wild, but I
didn’t suppose he’d go so far as to appoint an enchantress to be the
godmother.”
“And not only appointed her, but called on her in the middle of the
night to notify her of the appointment,” Fred added. “Not only that, but
dragged _me_ along to be a chaperon!”
“No! Did he? How funny!”
“The way he behaved when we got there, I think he needed one!” the youth
continued, expanding in the warmth of her eagerly responsive laughter.
“We _did_ get oratory! He explained to the enchantress that she was the
only person who could understand his son’s being a god and the meaning
of the universe; but that wasn’t all. Oh, not by any means!”
“But he _couldn’t_ have done worse than that!” she laughed. “Are you
sure?”
Fred was so overcome by mirthful recollection that he was unable to
retain his affectation of solemnity;—a sputtering chuckle escaped him.
“I wish you’d been there to hear him telling Martha he wanted Henry
Daniel to grow up to be like _her_!”
“No! Did he?”
The jovial Frederic failed to catch the overtone in her voice, but
happening to glance at Harlan, who sat opposite him, he was surprised,
too late, by a brief pantomime of warning. Harlan frowned and pointedly
shook his head; and at the same time Mrs. Oliphant, across whom the
merry colloquy had taken place, began hastily to talk to Fred about his
health. His mother had told her that he was ruining it at the club, she
said amiably, and, to his mystification, became voluble upon the
subject; but she also was too late. Lena continued to laugh, and,
turning to Mr. Oliphant, prattled cheerily about nothing;—but Harlan
saw her covert glance at the other end of the table where her husband
was still bragging of Henry Daniel; and, although her eyelids quickly
descended upon it, this glance was an evanescent spark glowing brightly
for an instant through the fringe of blackened lashes.
When the party left the table to prepare for the charades—the customary
entertainment offered to one another by the Oliphants on such
occasions—Frederic sought an opportunity to speak privately with
Harlan.
“What on earth were you shaking your head at me like that for? _I_
wasn’t saying anything.”
“Weren’t you?”
“Certainly not! And your mother kept talking to me as fast as she could
all the rest of the time we were at the table. Looked as if she was
afraid for me to open my mouth again! What was it all about?”
“Nothing.”
“Then what made you act as if it was something?” Fred inquired. “You
certainly don’t think your sister-in-law would ever be jealous of dear
old _Martha_, do you?”
“Oh, no,” Harlan said. “Not jealous. They don’t get on very well,
though, I believe.”
“What? Why, I passed by here only the other day and saw Martha coming
out of the front door. She was laughing and waving her hand back to some
one in the doorway and——”
“Oh, yes. She still comes to see mother sometimes, as she always did;
but I believe she doesn’t ask for Lena any more when she comes. I
understand Lena has never returned her call. You may have noticed that
ladies regard those things as important?”
“What of it? Lena would certainly understand. I’d never have mentioned
our going in there that night, if there’d been any reason for her to
mind it,” Fred protested. “What’s more, she _doesn’t_ mind it. Look at
her now.”
He nodded toward where, across the broad drawing-room, Lena was helping
to set the stage for the first of the charades. She moved with a dancing
step, laughing and chattering to the group about her; and as she dropped
a green velvet table cover over the back of an armchair, announcing that
this drapery made the chair into a throne, she flung out her graceful
little arms and whirled herself round and round in an airy pirouette.
Fred laughed aloud, finding himself well-warranted in thinking his
cousin’s uneasiness superfluous; for Lena seemed to be, indeed, the life
of the party. Moreover, she remained in these high spirits all evening;
and Harlan began to feel reassured, for this was what he and his mother
and father had learned to think of as “Lena’s other mood”; and sometimes
it lasted for several days.
The present example of it was not to cover so extensive a period,
however; although when the guests had gone she kissed her mother-in-law
good-night affectionately, patted Mr. Oliphant’s shoulder, and then
waved a sparkling little hand over the banisters to Harlan as she
skipped upstairs and he stood below, locking the front doors. Humming
“Tell me, pretty maiden,” from “Floradora,” she disappeared from his
sight in the direction of her own room, but it was not there she went.
Instead, she opened the door beyond hers, stepped within and closed
it;—and during this slight and simple series of commonplace movements
she underwent a sharp alteration. She had carried her liveliness all the
way to the very doorknob, and, until she touched it, was still the
pirouetting Lena who had been the life of the party; then suddenly she
stood in the room, haggard; so that what happened to her was like the
necromantic withering of a bright flower during the mere opening and
closing of a door.
It was Dan’s room, and he had just taken off his coat, preparing for
bed. “Got to be out at Ornaby by six to-morrow morning,” he explained.
“A contractor’s goin’ to meet me there to pick out a site for our
automobile works. I won’t get much sleep, I guess—up at five this
morning, too.” He yawned, and then, laughing, apologized. “I beg your
pardon, Lena; I don’t mean I’m sleepy, if you want to talk the party
over. You were just lovely this evening, and the whole family thought
so, too. You made it a great success, and you can be certain we all
appreciate it. _I_ certainly do.”
Facing him blankly, leaning back against the door with her hands behind
her, she said nothing; and he stepped toward her solicitously. “I’m
afraid you tired yourself out at it—only a week out of bed, poor child!
You look——”
“Never mind how I look,” she said in a low voice, and as his hand was
extended placatively, to pet her, she struck at it. “Just you keep away
from me!”
“Why, Lena!” he cried. “What in the world’s the matter?”
She continued to stare at him, not replying, and he saw that she was
trembling slightly from head to foot. “Lena! You’re lettin’ yourself get
all upset over something or other again. You’ve gone ever since Henry
was born without gettin’ this way. I was almost in hopes—in hopes——”
“Yes?” she said, as he faltered. “What were your hopes?”
“Why, I was almost in hopes it—it wouldn’ happen again.”
“What wouldn’t happen again?”
“Your gettin’ upset like this,” he answered apologetically. “I honestly
did pretty near hope it, Lena. It seemed to me we’d maybe kind of
reached a turning point and could get along all right together, now
Henry’s come to us.”
“Maybe we _have_ reached a turning point,” she said. “I suppose it’s
generally considered _quite_ a turning point when a wife leaves her
husband for just cause, isn’t it?”
“Oh, dear me!” Dan sighed, and sat down heavily on the side of his bed,
taking his head between his hands. “I guess we’ve got to go through
another of ’em.”
“Another of what?”
“Another of these troubles,” he sighed. “Well, what’s this one all
about, Lena?”
She came toward him angrily. “I’d like to know what you’d think of any
other man that treated his wife as you do me! What would you say of any
other man who went out the very night his child was born and did what
you did?”
“Why, I didn’t do anything,” he said, and looked up at her, surprised.
“You didn’t? Don’t you call it anything to go to see that woman at
midnight?”
“You mean our goin’ in to Martha’s?” Dan asked, his surprise increasing.
“It wasn’t midnight; it was about ten o’clock, and we only stayed a few
minutes—half an hour maybe. I just wanted to tell her about the baby.”
“Yes, so I hear,” Lena returned bitterly. “You took particularly good
care not to mention that little call to me afterwards!”
“No; I didn’t,” he protested. “I never thought of it; I’ve been too busy
thinkin’ about the baby and Ornaby. I don’t say though”—he paused, and
then went on with painful honesty: “I don’t say I _would_ have mentioned
it to you, if I _had_ thought of it. I know you’ve never liked Martha.
We could all see that, and it’s been sort of a trouble to us——”
“To ‘us’?” she interrupted sharply. “To whom?”
“Well, to me, of course; but I mean mother, too, though she’s never said
anything about it. We’ve all been as fond of Martha all her life as if
she was one of our own family, and, for instance, I think mother was
probably a little worried because she thought she’d better not invite
her to-night, on your account. What I mean, though, is that I probably
mightn’t have told you about our goin’ in to see her that night, even if
I had thought of it afterwards, because as I knew how you felt about her
I’d have been afraid of it’s gettin’ you into one of these upsetnesses.
I guess I’d have been right, too,” he added, with a rueful laugh.
“Somebody’s told you about it, and you _have_ got into one.”
“How kind of you! So you admit you went running to her the minute the
baby was born, and yet you knew perfectly well how I felt about her.”
“Well—I knew how unreasonably you felt about her.”
“‘Unreasonably?’” Lena cried shrilly. “What a wise little word! When you
told her she was the only woman in the world who understands you!”
“No, no! _I_ don’t care who understands me,” Dan protested unhappily. “I
meant she was the only one that would understand what I was sayin’ about
the baby. I just _had_ to talk about him, and she always understands
anything at a time like that—or any time, for that matter. She——”
“Go on!” Lena said. “Go on making it worse!”
“But I’m only tryin’ to explain how——”
“Explain _this_, then! You told her you wanted my child to grow up to be
like _her_.”
“Why, yes,” Dan said reasonably. “I didn’t mean to _look_ like her; I
only meant I hoped he’d have her qualities. Anybody that knows Martha
would feel that way, Lena. Why, except my own father and mother, she’s
the most even-tempered, understanding, helpful kind of person I ever
knew in my life. Why, everybody in town looks up to her just the same as
I do, and _any_body’d have said _that_ to her, Lena. You would yourself,
if you had only not let yourself get prejudiced against her about
nothin’ at all and just been sensible enough to really get acquainted
with her.”
Lena stood before him rigidly, except for the trembling, which had
increased a little. “Tell me another thing,” she said. “When a young
wife becomes a mother, does her husband ever consult her before inviting
a woman she doesn’t like to act as godmother for the child?”
Dan got up and began to pace the room, his face reddening with a
prophetic distress. “Oh, golly!” he groaned. “You’re goin’ to object to
it. I see that now!”
“You do see it, do you? How remarkable!”
He turned to her appealingly. “Look here, Lena; I _did_ speak about it
to her too soon. Of course I ought to’ve consulted you first;—I was
just so enthusiastic about bein’ the boy’s father, and she’s such a
dear, good, old friend—well, I guess I was excited. I know I ought
to’ve waited and asked you who you wanted—but I didn’t. I _did_ just
blurt out and ask her, so it’s done and can’t be helped. Well, I can’t
go back on it; I _can’t_ go over there and just plain tell her you don’t
want her!”
“Can’t you?” Lena said. “It doesn’t matter to me what you tell her.”
“You’re not goin’ to make me, are you?” he asked piteously.
“No. Tell her anything you like.”
Mistaking this icy permission, he uttered an almost vociferous sigh of
relief. “Well, I do truly thank you, Lena. If you’re noble enough to
overlook my selfishness in not thinkin’ about who you’d want to have for
Henry’s godmother—well, my goodness, I _am_ grateful to you, and I know
it’s more’n I deserve. It’s a noble action on your part, and I’m sure
it’s goin’ to lead to splendid results, because now you can’t help but
get better acquainted with Martha, and you’ll do what I’ve hoped for so
long: you’ll get to likin’ her and thinkin’ as much of her as everybody
else does. With her in that relation——”
“In what relation?”
“In the relation of the baby’s godmother. From the very day of the
christening you’ll——”
“There may not be any such day,” Lena interrupted. “You seem to have
mistaken me. There may not be any christening—at least not here. If
she’s to be the godmother, the baby and I will be with my own family in
New York.”
“Oh, golly!” Dan said, and sank down on the side of the bed again. “Oh,
golly!”
Lena became vehement. “I should think you _would_ say ‘golly’! If you
had a spark of remorse in you, I think you’d say more than that!”
“Remorse? I don’t see——”
“You don’t?” she cried. “You don’t see what you have to be remorseful
for? You bring me out here to the life you’ve given me, and you see
nothing to regret? You bring me to this flat town and its flat people,
where not once in months can I hear a note of real music and where
there’s no art and no beauty and no _life_—after you’d given me your
word I should have a full year in Europe!—and you watch me struggling
to bear it, to bear it with the best bravery I have in me, and the most
kindness to you—and to be cheerful—and I _dare_ you to say I haven’t
made the best of it! I _have_—and how _hard_ I’ve had to try most of
the time to accomplish it! And what have you been? Who was the man I
found I’d married? Even in this hole of a town he’s called a
failure—the town failure! That’s who you got me to marry! Even these
people out here—your own people—even they take you as a joke—the town
joke! And when I make the best of it I can and bear it the best I can,
and go on, month after month, not complaining, and suffer what I
suffered when the baby came, you go gayly over to the woman whose hand
you held the very first day I came here—yes, you did!—and the woman
you’ve compared me to unfavourably every time you’ve ever dared to speak
of me to her—yes, you have; every single _time_!—and you ask her to
come and be the godmother to my child! You can go over there and tell
her anything you like—tell her again you want my baby to be like
her—but there’s one thing you’d better tell her besides, and that is,
there won’t _be_ any christening if she comes to it!”
She ran out, the closing of the door reverberating eloquently through
the house; and Dan remained seated upon the side of the bed, his head
between his hands. It was by no means the first time he had remained in
that position when Lena slammed the door.