“_Books that you may carry
to the fire, and hold
readily in your hand, are
the most useful after all_”
—JOHNSON
[Illustration: [Books]]
STORIES OF
NEW YORK
[Illustration: [Couple]]
STORIES FROM SCRIBNER
❦
STORIES OF
NEW YORK
[Illustration: [Woman]]
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1894
_Copyright, 1893, by
Charles Scribner’s Sons_
_Trow Print_
STORIES OF NEW YORK
❦
FROM FOUR TO SIX
A COMEDIETTA BY ANNIE ELIOT
THE COMMONEST POSSIBLE STORY
BY BLISS PERRY
THE END OF THE BEGINNING
BY GEORGE A. HIBBARD
A PURITAN INGÉNUE
BY JOHN S. WOOD
MRS. MANSTEY’S VIEW
BY EDITH WHARTON
FROM FOUR TO SIX
BY ANNIE ELIOT
A COMEDIETTA IN ONE ACT
[Illustration: [Woman]]
ESTHER VAN DYKE. HAROLD WHITNEY. A MAID.
ESTHER _discovered seated in a New York drawing-room. She has been
reading and tearing old letters._
_E._ I am sure one might ask anyone to an afternoon tea, even if anyone
were one’s old lover; and I am sure one might come to anyone’s afternoon
tea, even if anyone were one’s quondam sweetheart. From both Harold’s
stand-point and mine, it seems to me perfectly safe. Certainly the
vainest man could not believe that a woman wished to rake up the leaves
of a dead past because she sent him an At-home from four to six card,
for a day when she is to be at home for two hundred people besides. If
it were an evening party, now—in summer with the lawn, or in winter with
a conservatory—or if there is not a conservatory there are always
stairs; and it’s daily more and more the fashion to build them curved.
Another generation may find discreet recesses at every landing. When
people are really thoughtful there will be a temporary addition where
people can go up and down. Oh, if it was an evening party I could not
blame Harold for staying away. Or if it was private theatricals—the
stage is itself one grand opportunity! Or a picnic—what innumerable
openings for raking up the dry leaves of a dead past on a picnic! But an
afternoon tea! Nothing stronger or dryer than tea-leaves to be had.
Harold need not be in the least afraid. Besides, it would have been
really unfriendly not to send him a card. Everybody knows he is at home
again, and from a four years’ trip. Even after all that has passed I
would not wish to be unfriendly. Four years, and they say that he is
engaged to Mattie Montgomery—and just before he went away he was engaged
to me. (_A little sadly._) Perhaps he was foolish. Perhaps—I was.
Undoubtedly we both were. I suppose I ought to feel flattered that he
waited four years—but somehow I don’t—altogether; “flattered” does not
seem to be the word. Well, it makes little difference now, and it will
make less when I tell him to-morrow that I am engaged to Dr. Tennant. I
thought I might as well look over his letters. I have burned all but the
last. (_Takes up letter from the table._) Here it is. (_Takes up a
second letter._) And here is Dr. Tennant’s first. Two models of
epistolary communication—but of different orders. (_Reads._)
“MY DEAR MISS VAN DYKE: I shall give myself the pleasure of calling upon
you this afternoon at five o’clock. It rests with you whether or not
this pleasure is to be intensified a hundredfold, or attended with
lasting pain. I remain always,
“Yours most cordially,
“EDWARD TENNANT.”
What could be better suited to the circumstances than that? Not too
impassioned, but sufficiently interested. I am always affected by
well-turned phrases—I think this is charming. And here is Harold’s.
(_Reads other letter._)
“You have made it plain enough. There is no necessity for more words.
Heaven forgive you—and good-by.”
(_Thoughtfully._) He was in a pretty passion when he wrote that—and I
have not seen him since. I hope he will come to-morrow. He used to think
Mattie Montgomery was a doll of a thing. Perhaps he will tell her that I
am a—no, he won’t. Whatever I am, I’m not a doll of a thing, and he
knows it. (_Looks at the two letters side by side._) How amusing one’s
old flirtations look in the light of a new and serious reality—for I
have made up my mind what to say to Dr. Tennant. It will be rather good
fun to tell Harold of it confidentially to-morrow. I will drop it in his
tea with a lump of sugar. (_Glances at clock._) After four o’clock.
Well, I must go and make myself fascinating and give orders that Dr.
Tennant and I are not to be disturbed. We may as well begin to get used
to _tête-à-têtes_. (_Exit after putting the letters under a book, out of
sight._)
_Enter_ HAROLD WHITNEY. _He seems disturbed._
_H._ This is certainly confoundedly odd. I expected to find fifty other
people here at least, and Esther in her best gown receiving them. I
can’t have mistaken the hour. It is some time after four. There is
certainly a mistake somewhere, however, and under the circumstances it
is likely to be a particularly awkward one. I would walk a good mile and
a half to avoid a _tête-à-tête_ with Esther Van Dyke. Because I have
been fool enough after four years to remember the color of her eyes, I
don’t care to have her know it and see it. I would leave now, like the
historic Arab, if I hadn’t been such an ass as to give my card to the
servant, and Esther has seen it by this time. I would rather face the
music than give her the pleasure of laughing at me for running away. But
what does it mean? I must—the blood curdles in my veins at the thought—I
must have mistaken the day! The Fate which I have felt dogging my
footsteps from the cradle has at last laid hold upon me! I have dreamed
of getting to a place the day before I was asked. I have loitered
irresolutely on door-mats. I have gone slowly by and watched until I saw
another carriage go in, but I have never _done_ it before. And to have
come to Esther Van Dyke’s after four years, and such a parting, a day
too soon! My bitterest foe would find it in his heart to pity me now.
What can I do? (_Walks around the room and fingers things restlessly._)
I might go off with the spoons to divert suspicion. I would rather be
arrested as a professional burglar, entering the house under false
pretences, than witness Esther’s smile when she comes to a realizing
sense of what I have done. Professional burglars probably retain their
self-respect. There is no reason why they shouldn’t. The date of _their_
visit is not fixed by invitation. But, confound it! there won’t be any
spoons until to-morrow. Perhaps she won’t know I have come a day too
soon—but she always did know things—that was the kind of person she was.
(_Takes up a book from the table._) I might read to compose my mind.
“Familiar Quotations,”—I wish I could find an elegant and appropriate
one for the occasion. I can think of several, entirely familiar to the
most unlearned, but too forcible for a lady’s drawing-room. “Too late I
stayed” would hardly do. I wonder what the fellow would have sung if
“Too soon he’d come.” (_Throws down book._) I thought I could accept an
invitation to an afternoon tea, because I need only say a word to her,
see if she had changed, and leave. That seemed safe enough. Besides,
Miss Montgomery chaffed me about coming, and wouldn’t have hesitated to
make the most of it if I had stayed away. (_Looks about._) The room has
not changed much. I wonder—here she is. Now, for all I have learned in
four years, I would like to conceal myself in the scrap-basket, but it
is out of the question.
_Enter_ ESTHER.
_E._ How do you do, Mr. Whitney? I am very glad to see you. (_They shake
hands._)
_H._ It is very good of you to say so, Esth—Miss Van Dyke. (_Aside._) I
never felt so fresh in my life.
_E._ It was nice of you to think of coming this afternoon instead of
waiting until the crush to-morrow, when I should have an opportunity for
no more than a word with you.
_H._ (_aside_). She does not _look_ satirical. Why didn’t I bring some
flowers or something? (_They sit. Aloud, with somewhat exaggerated ease
of manner._) When one’s hostess receives all the world, one’s own
reception cannot be a personal one. After four years I wished for
something more positive. Perhaps I have been too bold, but an afternoon
tea is so very impersonal, you know.
_E._ (_a little embarrassed by his manner, aside_). Can it be that he
does not wish our relations to be impersonal? Of course not! (_Aloud._)
Yes, I know. Very impersonal indeed. I was thinking the same thing
before you came.
_H._ (_aside_). Yes, and I was thinking the same thing before I came. We
haven’t either of us gotten on much. (_Aloud._) I was always an exacting
sort of fellow, you know, so you will not be surprised at my coming to
get a reception on my own account.
_E._ (_aside_). I should think I did know. (_Aloud._) No, I am not
surprised. (_A moment’s pause—with a slight effort._) So you are an
exacting sort of fellow still? I am looking for the changes of four
years, you see.
_H._ (_significantly_). You may not find many, after all (_Somewhat
gloomily._) The rose-color wears off one’s glasses somewhat in four
years, to be sure, but I don’t think the perspective changes much.
_E._ Don’t you? It strikes me that time reverses the glasses—that we
find ourselves suddenly looking through the other end, and things that
once were so large are a long way off, and have become extremely small.
_H._ (_aside_). Which means, I suppose, that I have taken a back seat,
and must keep at opera-glass distance. (_Aloud._) Things have no
importance of their own, then? I suppose it is a good deal a matter of
which way you look at it.
_E._ Yes, education does everything for us—which is something of a
platitude. But I am sorry about the rose-color. I’d much rather you
should look at me through tinted glasses. I said the other day to a
confidential friend that my complexion is no longer what it was.
_H._ (_refusing to be diverted_). No, I do not think one’s views of
persons change—or perhaps I should say one’s attitude toward
persons—as do those of abstractions. One does not expect to find
truth—trust—honor—_love_, growing so large.
_E._ (_soberly_). In other words, truth is a hot-house, and one’s ideas
are tropical. Well, it is perhaps as well to come out into the open air,
even if things do seem a little—stunted—at first.
_H._ Undoubtedly. Yet the comfort of the human frame demands something
in the way of a temperate zone between. A sudden plunge into the arctic
regions is apt to convey a chill—quite a serious one sometimes.
_E._ (_aside_). I wonder if that is meant for a veiled allusion.
(_Aloud._) But nature generally provides a way of softening matters, and
makes such changes not chilling, but bracing.
_H._ (_carelessly_). Yes—Nature has been much maligned in her time, but,
after all she is kinder than humanity in certain of even its most
attractive forms. She is impartial and she contrives to let one down
easily. I am sometimes astonished that Nature should be personified as a
woman.
_E._ (_looking away from him_). I see you have become a cynic.
_H._ (_with intention_). I have, perhaps, lived up to my opportunities.
They have not been unfavorable to cynicism. (_Laughing._) Do you know,
Esther, this is very much the way we used to talk? We were continually
dealing in the most artistic abstractions. How easily one drops into old
fashions!
_E._ (_aside_). How can he speak so lightly of “the way we used to
talk,” or is it only I that remember? (_Aloud, coldly._) Possibly, but
old fashions are very readily seen not to belong to the present day. And
yet—I may be mistaken—but it seems to me that we used to talk in a way
that bordered on—on the concrete.
_H._ (_a little nonplussed_). Yes—that is true—but we were not so
successful there. (_Aside._) Decidedly we did. On the very concrete,
indeed! And that was where she always had the better of me. She is quite
capable of doing it again—but she does not wish to.
_E._ (_calmly_). But where were we in our abstractions? Ah, with Nature.
I always get beyond my depth when Nature is introduced into the
conversation. Human nature I do not mind at all, you know, but Nature by
itself frightens me. I think it is the capital N. I feel that I ought to
go out-of-doors and appreciate her.
_H._ I remember you were always afraid of getting beyond your depth. I
was less prudent, however, which was sometimes unfortunate. (_Aside._) I
shall be floundering again if I go on with this remembering. (_Aloud._)
So you are still cautious? I have not had the four years to myself. Have
they not changed _you_ at all, Esth—Miss Van Dyke?
_E._ (_pensively_). Yes.
_H._ (_with attention_). You are not quite the same, then? I should not
have known it.
_E._ (_with emphasis_). Wouldn’t you, really?
_H._ Unfortunately for me—no.
_E._ No, I am not the same.
_H._ (_in a low tone_). Will you tell me how you have changed?
_E._ (_after a pause_). I have grown stout! Yes, I have. I have gained
twenty pounds in the four years you have been away.
_H._ (_laughing_). The inference pains me deeply. But twenty pounds can
be judiciously distributed without actual injury to the possessor. Is
there anything else?
_E._ (_sentimentally_). Ah, yes, when I am introduced to a new man I no
longer expect to find him a mine of entertainment. I used to. Now I am
surprised if I have not to be clever for both of us.
_H._ Is that so new? (_Thoughtfully._) I sometimes think I was stupid
for both of us—or—could it have been only that you were too wise?
(_Aside._) Oh, this fatal tendency to reminiscence—and I know better!
_E._ (_with a slight effort_). You are carrying me too far back. I am
marking my progress since I saw you. (_Aside._) Certainly this is too
much like burrowing in the leaves of a dead past. No wonder he did not
wait until to-morrow.
_H._ Forgive me, and go on with the disillusionments.
[Illustration: [Couple]]
_E._ Sadder yet, I no longer care when a younger and a fairer girl “cuts
me out,” to put it boldly. I think I shall, you know, but I don’t. I
sigh—but I forget them—_both_!
_H._ This shows a callousness really alarming. You might at least
reserve the guiltier party for future punishment. Perfidy merits at
least remembrance. It is sometimes a man’s last hold.
_E._ (_carelessly_). A man should risk little on so commonplace a
resource—if one wishes to be remembered, one should be unusual. Besides,
you would imply that the man is the guiltier party?
_H._ Only as far as his lights are taken into consideration, of course.
Man is a poor creature at his best—in comparison.
_E._ And sometimes a comparatively innocent one. To find another woman
more attractive is blamable, but to be a more attractive woman ought to
be unpardonable.
_H._ “To err is human—fiendish to outshine.” I understand. (_With marked
politeness._) Permit me to suggest that it is rarely——
_E._ (_laughing_). But I have said I have lost my capacity for feeling
thrusts of this kind. (_In a lower tone._) At least, I believed that I
had.
_H._ (_dryly_). I was always a little unfortunate in my attempts to make
amends—always too late, perhaps.
_E._ (_meeting his eyes_). Yes, making amends was never your forte.
_H._ Any more than cherishing illusions is yours. But, pray, go on with
your revelations. I must improve the unexpected pleasure of finding you
alone.
_E._ (_a little embarrassed_). Whom, then, did you expect to find here?
(_Aside._) He cannot have known that Dr. Tennant is coming. (_Aloud._)
Who would interfere, did you think, with the personal welcome you so
desired?
_H._ (_aside_). I was getting on so well. (_Lightly._) Oh, party calls,
you know, and——
_E._ (_dryly_). You will find that _customs_ have not changed so much in
four years. It is still unusual to pay party calls in advance.
_H._ (_aside_). That was a brilliant way to recoup my falling fortunes!
(_Boldly._) Is this an indirect way of blaming me for coming this
afternoon? (_Rising._) I suppose it was unwise. (_Aside._) I should
rather think it was. (_Aloud._) I will go now—Esther.
_E._ (_quickly_). You know, Harold, I did not mean anything so rude. Do
not go—unless you must.
_H._ (_aside_). I must—theoretically. But I sha’nt—not after that
“Harold.” If I hadn’t prided myself for years on its being inalienable
property, I should say I was losing my head. (_Aloud._) Will you tell me
more of your four years?
_E._ (_seriously_). Yes. I have grown wise. I have grown hard—a little.
_H._ (_softly_). You were hard before—a little.
_E._ Are they not the same—wisdom and hardness? I have learned to
believe that they are.
_H._ (_impulsively_). Not always.
_E._ And I, too, have acquired the sense of proportion. I have seen
that—that—Love is not all the world. I have learned that the comfortable
is more to be desired than gold—yea, than fine gold.
_H._ Yes; Gold and Love must both be tried in the furnace, which is
seldom a comfortable operation.
_E._ And you—do you not agree with me? Is it not better to look on?
_H._ So long as it is not at another’s happiness that one has desired
for one’s self—yes.
_E._ (_aside_). How if it be another’s unhappiness, I wonder. Poor Dr.
Tennant. (_Sighs._)
_H._ (_aside_). I shall make an ass of myself in a moment. She is not
changed an atom. (_Aloud._) But what leaves of wisdom have you steeped
for me? I expected a cup of tea, and you have given me a decoction that
should heal all disappointments.
_E._ (_half sadly_). If I had known I possessed such a secret I should
have brewed some for myself before this. But (_rising_) if you expected
a cup of tea you shall have it.
_H._ (_eagerly_). By Jove! Esther! I beg pardon—but Miss Van Dyke, I beg
of you—— (_Stops helplessly._)
_E._ I was just about to send for it for myself. (_She rings. Aside._) I
see it all. He has come a day too soon. And he would have had me believe
that he cared to see me alone. And I was actually growing sentimental.
He shall pay for it. (_Enter a maid._) Tea, Mary Ann.
_H._ (_who has been fidgeting about the room—aside_). If only I had gone
half an hour ago—in the flush of triumph, as it were! It was
unnecessary, in order to avoid making a sentimental spectacle of myself,
to fall back upon the larder!
_E._ (_going back to table and taking up a letter_). Do you know what I
was doing when you came this afternoon?
_H._ Learning a new Kensington stitch? Studying a receipt-book? Putting
a man out of his misery by letter? These are, I believe, some
departments of “woman’s work.”
_E._ No, I was reading an old letter—one by which a man put himself out
of misery. Your last letter, in fact.
_H._ My last letter?
_E._ Yes.
MARY ANN _brings in the tea, and as_ ESTHER _moves things on the
table, she hands him_ DR. TENNANT’S _letter by mistake_. HAROLD
_glances at it and looks up surprised, but_ ESTHER _does not see
him_.
_H._ Am I to read this?
_E._ Certainly.
MARY ANN _leaves the room_. ESTHER _busies herself with the
tea-things_.
_H._ (_having read the letter—stiffly_). Very elegant penmanship.
_E._ (_surprised but indifferently_). I had not thought of that. (_A
pause._)
_H._ (_glancing at the letter again_). I fancy the writer did.
_E._ (_coldly_). Possibly. (_Aside._) Oh, why did I show it to him? I
would not have believed he would be so hard. (_Aloud._) Rather a
forcible style, I think.
_H._ Stiff, rather than forcible, I would suggest.
_E._ (_with suppressed feeling_). Your criticisms are less pointed than
usual. If you had said unnatural it might express your meaning still
better.
_H._ (_a little irritated_). He is a fortunate man who is able to
express himself with such justness and freedom from exaggeration.
_E._ It seemed to me exaggerated at the time.
_H._ (_with mock admiration_). Oh, how can you say so! It is positively
Grandisonian—almost Chesterfieldian. (_Aside._) And utterly detestable.
_E._ (_almost with tears_). I was wrong to fancy you would be interested
in such a trifle. Please give it back.
_H._ (_politely, handing it to her_). Not at all. Certainly, the writer
deserves the lasting happiness he refers to. (_Aside._) And I wish it
were nothing to me—if he gets it or not.
_E._ What do you mean? Is this what I gave you? Oh, dear! (_Much
embarrassed._) It was the wrong one! Never mind. Here is your tea.
_H._ (_takes the cup, after a short pause_). I feel as if I had forced
myself into your confidence.
_E._ You need not. It was my own stupidity, of course.
_H._ (_tastes his tea_). Might I see the other one?
_E._ Yes. (_Gives it to him._)
_H._ (_reads it while_ ESTHER _watches him_). Yes; well, I might have
said more. But that was enough.
_E._ Yes, that was, as the children say, a great plenty. Oh, I neglected
your tea! One lump, or two?
_H._ (_thoughtfully_). One. I wonder if it has?
_E._ What has?
_H._ Heaven.
_E._ Heaven has what?
_H._ Forgiven you.
_E._ I think so, by this time. It doesn’t bear malice. Cream?
_H._ Yes—prussic acid—anything. Thank you. You do not ask whether I have
or not.
_E._ No. I understood you shifted the responsibility once for all.
(_Sipping her tea._)
_H._ Perhaps I did. It is generally once for all with me.
_E._ Is it? It is better to have all—for once. It is broader. It is more
liberal. It is my motto.
_H._ Yes. So it was then. I have heard there is safety in numbers.
(_Aside._) If I believed that, I should begin to repeat the
multiplication-table. I shall never be in greater need of it.
_E._ Not always.
_H._ (_with an effort_). Possibly Sir Charles Grand—I mean Mr. Edward
Tennant—may have a narrowing influence. (_Aside._) It is no use. I can’t
be discreet. Confound Mr. Edward Tennant!
_E._ (_innocently_). Perhaps. (_Drinks tea._) And so you are engaged to
Mattie Montgomery?
_H._ (_formally_). You do me too much honor.
_E._ Really! (_More coolly._) That is a pity. I hoped we might proffer
mutual congratulations. An exchange of compliments is such a promoter of
good feeling.
_H._ (_more stiffly_). I see I have been remiss. But I did not
understand.
_E._ No, it is not yet time—but I have betrayed his confidence
inadvertently. To-morrow you must congratulate me. To-morrow I shall
tell you that I am engaged. Let me give you another cup.
_H._ (_rising_). No, one is enough. Once ought always to be enough! But
it seems I am fated to have it twice! I know I am incoherent—but never
mind! It’s the tea!
_E._ (_playing with her teaspoon a little nervously_). And you have
forgiven me?
_H._ I do not know that I have. But (_coldly_) whether I have or not is
of course only a personal matter.
_E._ (_feebly_). Of course.
_H._ And so you are to tell me to-morrow that you are engaged? Might I
ask you if, in taking this step, you were actuated by a wish to obtain
my forgiveness?
_E._ (_laughing_). I expected you to ask mine—for being engaged to
Mattie Montgomery.
_H._ (_sits_). Suppose this afternoon you tell me about the—to be
colloquial—the happy man. And I will have some more tea.
_E._ (_looking into the sugar-bowl_). Well, to tell the truth this
afternoon—he doesn’t happen—to be—colloquially—the happy man.
_H._ (_aside; walking about_). So that note was written to-day. I did
not see the date. It is not yet five o’clock, and it is not yet too
late. I shall gain nothing by getting rattled and making a fool of
myself. (_Aloud, coming back and holding out his cup, into which_ ESTHER
_drops sugar as they speak_.) Have I then taken his place?
_E._ (_gravely_). No. He is (_lump_) conservative (_lump_) in his
(_lump_) tastes (_lump_). He takes (_lump_) no sugar (_lump_) at all
(_lump_) in his.
_H._ (_who has been watching_ ESTHER’S _face, and not her fingers, sets
down his cup hastily_). Seven lumps is a little radical. Then you have
forgotten all in four years? (_Pacing the floor._) Forgotten what I,
Esther, have been fool enough to remember as if it had happened
yesterday! Who is it talks about woman’s constancy?
_E._ (_aside_). Not I. But I am very much afraid I shall begin to. Has
the tea gone to my head too?
_H._ (_with much feeling_). The bitterest lesson the four years have
taught me, Esther, is that one’s earliest lessons are never unlearned.
They have been kinder to you.
_E._ (_in a low tone_). Have they? Perhaps. They have taught us both,
however, that it is not necessary to unlearn them; one can go on as if
one had never studied—old lessons.
_H._ Or old letters? (_Coming nearer and taking up the letter._) But you
did care for me enough to keep this letter—to read it over to-day—to
give one thought to old happiness in the presence of new?
_E._ (_recovering herself with an effort_). I thought enough of myself
to keep it. It is a mistaken theory that a woman keeps old love-letters
for the sake of the sender. She keeps them because they are
flattering—because they—they sound nice. I have lots more.
_H._ (_offended_). And you were only weeding them out to-day? Very well.
That is enough. No further words are necessary.
_E._ Yes—so you said before (_glancing at letter_), or something very
like it (_Looking into the teapot._) There is no more tea for us, and
the lamp has gone out. (_Looking about._) And no matches—unless you have
one in your pocket.
_H._ (_who has been thinking, moodily feels in all his pockets_). I am
very sorry—but I cannot supply you with even the necessaries of life.
_E._ Never mind, I can light it from the fire.
_H._ (_pushes the letters toward her_). Make a lamplighter of one of
these, and I will light it for you.
ESTHER _hesitates an instant, takes up one letter, and then the
other_.
_H._ Oh, use mine. It has failed to rekindle a passion, but it may do
for a teakettle. It may as well be reduced to ashes along with the rest
of the poor little love-story.
ESTHER _turns her head a little away and slowly twists both letters
into lamp-lighters_.
_H._ (_aside_). I shall let all my hopes burn in the flame with my
letter. If she uses that, I give her up. I shall know she is not mine to
give up. I have come to the pass where folly is my only reason. She is
twisting Dr. Tennant’s! But now she is twisting mine. (_She rises to go
to the fire and he rises to do it for her._)
_E._ I prefer to do it myself.
_She returns with one burning, with which she lights the lamp, and
lays the other down on the table. He takes it up eagerly._
_H._ So, Esther, you did not burn it, after all? (_Rising and coming
toward her._) You did not care that the last of it should go out in
ashes?
_E._ (_speaking lightly_). It was not that so much, but I was afraid it
was better suited for an—extinguisher. I think that was more what you
meant it for.
HAROLD _goes back to his seat gloomily and tastes his tea._ ESTHER
_plays with the teaspoon—a pause._
_E._ How do you like your tea?
_H._ It is a little—cloying.
_E._ (_rising and moving about the room_). A bad fault.
_H._ (_dryly_). But fortunately an uncommon one.
_E._ (_with feeling_). I have made a great many mistakes in my
life—suffered a great deal of unhappiness—because I have been afraid of
being cloying. (_Aside._) Am I mad, that I should tell him the foolish
truth!
_H._ (_rising_). I should say it was a fault to which you were not
constitutionally inclined. (_Aside._) That sounds much firmer than I
feel.
_E._ No, but on that very account people should have borne with me more
than they have! (_Still with feeling._) Things might have been
different.
_H._ (_going toward her_). Esther! (_A bell._)
_E._ (_hurriedly_). Never mind! There is the door-bell! Things are going
to be different! (_With a faint smile._) I told you he did not like any
sweet at all in his.
_H._ (_impetuously_). And have I not had my full allowance of bitter? It
is time you began dispensing sweets—so let him stay away.
_E._ (_laughing nervously_). But—but it wasn’t my idea to get rid of
him.
_H._ The plan is ready for your acceptance. You were going to tell me
you were engaged to-morrow—tell him so to-day, instead!
_E._ (_glancing at clock_). I cannot. His engagement was made with me a
week ago.
_H._ And mine five years ago. (_She hesitates._) Besides, he is
late—half an hour late. What is it about a lover who is late? He has
divided his time into more than “the thousandth part of a minute.”
_E._ (_laughing_). And are you not later—by four years?
_H._ (_firmly_). I am twenty-four hours ahead of time.
_A knock. Enter maid with a card._
_E._ Show him into the reception-room. I will come in a moment. (_Exit
maid._) It is he, Harold. I must go.
_H._ (_taking her hands_). Esther, think one moment. Forget the four
years. I have come a day too soon. I have swallowed two cups of tea and
eight lumps of sugar and made a general ass of myself—but—I love you.
_E._ But—but this is so shameless! I thought I should have to
say—something like that—to him.
_H._ (_coolly_). And I am in time to save you from so unfortunate a
mistake. You had much better tell it to me.
_E._ But I must give him an answer.
_H._ Give me one first! Adopt my plan, it is so simple. Send word—or
tell him, if you like—that you are engaged. But come back!
_E._ Indeed, he shall have his answer first. His right demands
precedence at least. But (_opening the door_) I will come back.
_H._ To five years ago?
_E._ Perhaps. (_Returns just as she is leaving the room._) But, Harold,
Harold, I thought an afternoon tea was so safe, or I should _never_ have
asked you.
_H._ And so did I—or I should never have come.
CURTAIN.
[Illustration: [Couple]]
THE COMMONEST POSSIBLE STORY
BY BLISS PERRY
[Illustration: [Flowers]]
Philander Atkinson, bachelor of law and writer of light verse, sat one
murky August evening in his hall-bedroom, with the gas turned low,
wondering whether the night would be too hot for sleep. At a quarter
before ten a loitering messenger-boy brought him a line from his friend
Darnel: _Come around at once. Just back. The very greatest news._
Thereupon Atkinson discarded his smoking-jacket, reluctantly exchanged
his slippers for shoes, and took the car down to Twelfth Street,
remembering meanwhile that Darnel’s brief vacation from the Broadway
Bank expired that day, and speculating as to the nature of the great
news which the clerk had brought back from Vermont. The lawyer was a
Vermonter too, and it was this fact, as well as a common literary
ambition, that had drawn the young fellows together at first, long
before Philander, on the strength of having two triolets paid for, had
moved up to Thirty-first Street. Philander Atkinson liked Darnel,
admired his feverish energy and his pluck, envied his acquaintance with
books. He had always persisted in thinking that Darnel’s stories would
sell, if only some magazine would print one for a starter; and he had
patiently listened to most of these stories, and to some of them several
times over. Yet Darnel had never had any luck; had never had even his
deserts; and the sincerity of his congratulations whenever Atkinson’s
verses saw the light always caused Philander to feel a trifle awkward.
He knew that the indefatigable clerk had two or three manuscripts
“out”—out in the mails—when the vacation began, and as he turned in at
Darnel’s boarding-house he had almost persuaded himself that _The Æon_
had accepted “Laki,” his friend’s Egyptian story. It was a long climb up
to Darnel’s room, and the writer of light verse mounted deliberately,
being fat with overmuch sitting in his office chair. On the third floor
the air was heavy with orange-flowers and Bonsilene roses, and a caterer
was carrying away ice-boxes. A whimsical rhyme came into Philander’s
head, and he made a mental note of it. Just then Darnel appeared,
leaning over the balustrade of the fourth-floor landing, his coat off,
his collar visibly the worse for the railway journey, and an eager smile
upon his thin, homely face.
“Hullo, D.,” said Philander. “Here I am. Been having a wedding here?” he
added in a low voice, as he grasped Darnel’s hand.
“I believe so. I’m just back. Come in, Phil. You got my message?”
“Why else should I be here, old fellow? Is it ‘Laki,’ sure?”
Without answering, Darnel led the way into his tiny room. His trunk lay
upon the floor, half-unpacked, the folding-bed was down, for the better
accommodation of some of the trunk’s contents, and the desk in the
corner, under the single jet of gas, was covered with piles of finely
torn paper. Darnel’s manner, usually nervous and somewhat conscious,
betrayed a certain exhilaration, but he was under perfect self-control.
“‘Laki?’” he said, seating himself in his revolving chair and whirling
around to the desk, while Atkinson threw himself upon the bed, “‘Laki?’
Oh, I had forgotten. It’s probably here.” He pulled over the mail
accumulated during his absence. “Yes.” He tore open the big envelope.
“‘The editor of _The Æon_ regrets to say,’ etc.;” and he tossed the
printed slip, with the manuscript, into his waste-basket, with a laugh.
Atkinson’s heart sank. Poor Darnel; it was not a cheerful welcome home.
But Darnel was busied with his letters.
“And here are the others,” he went on. “I thank the Lord none of them
were accepted.”
“What!” exclaimed Philander, turning upon his elbow.
Darnel looked at him with a puzzling smile.
“That’s why I sent for you,” said he. “Phil, all that I’ve been writing
here for three years is stuff, and I’ve only just found it out. I can do
something different now.”
Atkinson stared. Darnel had rarely talked about his own work, and then
in a scarcely suppressed fever of excitement and anxiety. Many a time
had Atkinson noticed his big hollow eyes turn darker, and his sallow
face grow ashy, even in reading over with a shaking voice some of that
same “stuff.”
“I have learned the great secret,” Darnel added, quietly.
“You have Aladdin’s ring?” said Atkinson. “Or are you in love?”
“Both,” replied Darnel. “It is the same thing.”
Philander flung himself back upon the pillow, with a little laugh. “Go
ahead, D.”
“I have found her, and myself. Let me turn down the gas a little; I see
it hurts your eyes. I belong in the world now; I am in the heart of it—I
said to myself coming down the river this afternoon—in the heart of the
world.” He lingered over the words. “Phil,” he exclaimed, suddenly, “all
the time I was trying to write I was really trying to lift myself by the
boot-straps. I was laboring to imagine things and people, and to get
them on paper. It was all wrong. Do you remember that French poem you
read me last winter, about the idol and the Eastern princess—how she lay
on her couch sleeping—the night was hot—with the bronze idol gazing at
her with its porphyry eyes, while her brown bosom rose and sank in her
sleep, and the porphyry eyes kept staring at her—staring—but they never
saw? Well, I believe my eyes have been like that. In ‘Laki,’ now, you
know I wanted to describe the exact color of the stone in the quarry,
and asked the Egyptologist up at the Museum to tell me what it was? He
laughed at me. Very well. It was a dull-red stone, with bright-red
streaks across it; I saw the same thing in Troy this afternoon, when a
hod-carrier fell five stories and they picked him up from a pile of
bricks.”
“You’re getting rather realistic,” muttered Philander. Darnel was not
looking at him, and went on unheeding.
“I have but to tell what I see. I have stopped imagining; my head has
ached—Phil, you don’t know how it has ached—trying to imagine things. I
am past that now; if you only shut your eyes and look, it is all easy.
Take that old Edda story that I tried to work up, about the fellow who
fought all day long against his bride’s father, and when night came the
bride stole out and raised all the dead men on both sides, by magic, so
that the next day, and every day, the battle raged on as before. I used
to plan about the magic she used, and tried to invent a charm. Why, all
she did was to pass over the battle-field at night, where the dead lay
twisted in the frost, and while the wolves snarled around her and the
spray from the fiord wet her cheek, she stooped to touch the dead men’s
wrists; and they loosed their grip upon broken sword and split linden
shield, their breath came again, soft and low like a baby’s, and so they
slept till the red dawn.”
“Look here,” said Atkinson, sitting up very straight, “you’ve been
reading ‘The Finest Story in the World,’ and it has turned your head.”
“Oh, the London clerk who was conscious of pre-existences, and forgot
them all when he fell in love? I could have told Rudyard Kipling better
than that myself.” Darnel gave an impatient whirl to the revolving
chair.
“You mean you think you can,” replied Atkinson, sharply.
“As you like.” He spoke dreamily, and Atkinson dropped back on the
pillow again, watching his friend as narrowly as the dim light would
allow. Hard work and unearthly hours had told on Darnel; he certainly
seemed light-headed.
“Sickening heat—black frost—” he was murmuring; “marching, stealing,
fighting, toiling—joy, pain—the life of the race—is a man to grow
unconscious of these things in the moment that he really enters the life
of the race, that he feels himself a part of it? What do you think,
Phil?”
“I think,” was the slow reply, “that whatever has happened to you in
Vermont has shaken you up pretty well, old fellow. They say that when
someone asked Rachel how she could play _Phèdre_ so devilishly well, she
just opened her black Jewish eyes and said, ‘I have seen her.’ And I
think, in the mood you’re in now, you can see as far back as Rachel or
anybody else. It’s like being opium-drunk; if you could keep so, and put
on paper what you see, you could beat Kipling and all the rest of them.
But you can’t keep drunk, and you can’t write prose or verse on
love-delirium. It’s been tried.”
“Suppose Rachel had said, ‘I _am Phèdre_?’”
Atkinson lifted his stout shoulders, laughing uneasily. “So much the
worse. I should say, the less pre-existence of that sort the better. You
might as well tell me the whole story, D. What is her name?”
“In a moment. She loves me, Phil. She is waiting for me in her little
house among the hills. I left her only this morning, and soon I shall go
back and leave New York forever. I can write the story up there—the
story I have dreamed of writing—for I shall always have the secret of
it. I have but to shut my eyes and tell what I see; and it is because
she loves me. All the life of all the past—I can call that ‘A Story of
the Road.’ Then there will be the future to write of—the men and women
that are to come; for we shall have children, Phil, and in them——”
“You’re making rapid progress,” ejaculated Philander.
“——I shall know the story of the future. Even now I know it; I do not
simply foresee it, I see it. Why not ‘A Story of the Goal!’ For I belong
to it—do you not understand? Yet, after all, what is that compared with
the present? It shall be ‘A Story of the March!’ Look there!”
He threw his eyes up to the ceiling, which was brightened for an instant
by the headlight of an elevated train as it rushed past.
“Do you know what that engineer was really thinking of as he went by?
That would be story enough. Or what was in the heart of the bride
to-night, down on the third landing—you smelled the orange-flowers as
you came up? To feel that your heart is in them, and theirs in you——”
But Philander Atkinson was not listening to the lover’s rhapsody. He was
thinking of a certain summer when he, too, had had strange fancies in
his head; when his thoughts played backward and forward with swift
certainty; when he had grown suddenly conscious of great desires and
deep affinities, and for a space of some three months he had dreamed of
being something more than a mere verse-maker, a master of the file.
Then—whether it was that she grew tired of him, or they both realized
that some dull mistake had been made—it was all over. There was still in
his drawer a package of manuscript he had written that summer; in blank
verse, none too noble a form for the high thoughts which then filled
him; in a queer new rhythm, too, the secret of whose beat he had caught
at and then lost, for the lines read harshly to him now. He looked these
things over occasionally, as a sort of awful example of himself to
himself; though he had gone so far as to borrow some of their imagery,
not without a certain shame, to adorn his light verse. His card-house
had fallen, but some of the colored pasteboard was pretty enough to be
used again. Curiously, he found that he could cut pasteboard into more
ingenious shapes than ever since his brief experience in piling it;
fancy served him better after imagination left him; his triolets were
admirably turned, and his luck with the magazines began. Altogether it
had been an odd experience; half those crazy ideas of Darnel had been
his two years before, but he was quite over them—yes, quite—and now it
was D.’s turn. He listened again to something that Darnel was murmuring.
“And she is an ordinary woman, one would say; a common woman. That is
the mystery and the glory of it. I do not know that she is even
beautiful. There must be thousands of women like her; I can see it
plainly enough, that there must be thousands of women in the world like
_her_.” There was a reverent hush in his voice.
[Illustration: [Woman]]
Atkinson choked back an exclamation. Was D.’s head really turned? “A
common woman”—“not know whether she is beautiful?” A face rose before
him, unlike any face in all the world: eyes with the blue of Ascutney,
when you look at it through ten miles of autumn haze; hair brown as the
chestnut leaf in late October; mouth——
Philander trembled slightly, and rising to his feet, stood looking down
at Darnel, haggardly. It was quite over, that experience of two summers
before, but while it lasted he had at least never dreamed that there
were thousands of women in the world like _her_.
“Sit down, Phil, I am almost through. A woman like other women, and the
story, when I write it, a common story. It will be the commonest
possible story; common as a rose, common as a child. I am going back to
Vermont, where I was born, and where I have been born anew. There will
be plenty of time for the story—years, and years, and years. I have only
to close my eyes some day, and she will write down all I tell her, and I
shall call the story hers and mine.”
But Atkinson still stood, his hands in his pockets, his heavy figure
stooping, the lines hardening in his face, while he watched the rapt
gaze of Darnel, and drearily reflected how strange it was that a woman
should open all the gates of the wonder-world to one man’s imagination,
and that some other woman should close those secret gates, quietly,
inexorably, upon that man’s friend.
“Wait,” said Darnel. “Must you go back to your triolets? Let me show you
her picture first.” He turned the gas up to its fullest height, and held
out a photograph.
It was the same woman.
[Illustration: [Landscape]]
THE END OF THE BEGINNING
BY GEORGE A. HIBBARD
[Illustration: [Man]]
CITY OF NEW YORK,
April 10, 1887.
DEAR SIR: It is with some hesitation that I venture to trespass upon
your valuable time, knowing as I do that the demands of clients, of
constituents, of friends, are so exacting. Still, as what I am about to
ask relates to a matter lying very near my heart, I hope you will
forgive me. A young man in whom, in spite of the usual extravagances and
follies of youth, I discern some promise, and whom I hope, for his own
sake and from my friendship for his excellent father, dead long ago, to
see occupying a respectable position in the community, has, with the
heedlessness peculiar to his age, involved himself in certain
difficulties which, although at present of a sufficiently distressing
nature, may, I hope, be satisfactorily overcome. Knowing so well your
distinguished abilities, ripe judgment, and great experience, I can
think of no one to whom I can, in this critical period of his life, more
confidently send him for counsel, instruction, and aid, and I
accordingly commend him to you, trusting to our old friendship to
account for and excuse my somewhat unusual act. Though what I ask of you
is something not usually required of a lawyer, I think you will
understand my reason for thus troubling you. No one can have a more
thorough knowledge of the world than an old practitioner like yourself,
and what you may say must fall upon the ears of youth with weighty
authority. Talk to him as you would to your son, if you had one, not as
to a client, and I will be inexpressibly indebted to you, for I know you
will lead him to appreciate the serious realities of life, which, at
present, he is so disposed to disregard.
I need only add that he is a young man of some fortune, and, certainly,
by birth worthy of much consideration. He will call upon you in person
and himself explain his present embarrassments.
I remain, now as always,
Your obedient servant,
RICHARD BEVINGTON.
THE HON. JACOB MASKELYNE,
Counsellor at law,
Number — William Street,
City of New York.
This was the letter that the Honorable Jacob Maskelyne read, reread, and
read yet again. Indeed, not content with its repeated perusal, he turned
it this way and that, looked at it upside and down, and finally, laying
it upon the table, he held up its envelope in curious study, as people
so often do when thus perplexed. It bore the common, dull-red two-cent
stamp and was post-marked the day before. Both it and the letter were
apparently as much matters of the every-day world as a jostle on the
sidewalk. Nevertheless, the old lawyer was more than puzzled—more than
puzzled, although he, of all men in the great, wideawake city, would in
popular opinion have been thought perhaps the very last to be thus at
fault. If millstones were to be worn as monocles—if there was any seeing
what the future might bring forth—the chances of a project, the risks of
rise or fall in a stock, the hazards of a corner in a staple, the
prospects of a party or of a partisan, Jacob Maskelyne would be regarded
as the man of men for the work. But, under the circumstances, even to
him this letter was more than perplexing. Here, on this spring morning,
with floods of well-authenticated sunshine pouring into every nook and
corner, dissipating every mystery of shadow and, it might seem, every
shadow of mystery—here, in his office, bricked in by the unimaginative
octavos of the law—those hide-bound volumes, heavy literature of all
things most amazingly matter of fact; here, in the eighteen hundred and
eighty-seventh year of the Christian era, in the one hundred and
eleventh year of the Republic, he had received a letter from his old
guardian, whom, when he himself was not more than twenty, he remembered
walking about a feeble old man with many an almost Revolutionary
peculiarity in speech and manner, and whose funeral he, with the heads
and scions of most of the first families of the town, had attended full
twenty-five years ago. It certainly was enough to bewilder anyone. He
again took up the letter. It was unquestionably in old Bevington’s best
style, courtly enough, but a trifle pompous. Had it not been for its
true tone he would undoubtedly have thought the thing a hoax and
immediately have dismissed it from his mind. He touched a hand-bell, and
in response a young man—a very prosaic young man—over whose black
clothes the gray of age had begun to gather, appeared.
[Illustration: [Man]]
“Bring me the letters received of the year eighteen sixty—letter B,”
said the lawyer, sharply.
That was the year in which his father’s estate had been finally settled,
and he knew that there would be many examples of his guardian’s
handwriting in the correspondence of that time.
The clerk soon returned with a tin case, and laid it on the table. Mr.
Maskelyne took one from among the many papers therein, and, striking it
sharply against the arm of his chair, to scatter the dust that invests
all things in the garment the outfitter Time warrants such a perfect
fit, he spread it out beside the letter he had just read with such blank
wonder.
“Identically the same,” he muttered. “No other man ever made an _e_ like
that.”
The clerk had vanished and the lawyer was again alone.
He glanced once more at the mysterious missive, and then, with the
purposelessness of abstraction, he rose and went to the window. Nothing
caught his eye but the sign-bedecked front of the opposite building and
one small patch of blue sky—near, gritty, limestone fact and a faraway
something without confine. Still, amazed as he was the contagious joy of
the time sensibly affected him.
[Illustration: [Bridge]]