Christmas a year ago had been a ghastly festival for Stacey, that he had
gone through with somehow, his face stiffened into a fixed smile, his
voice saying mechanical things, while within him only one emotion had
been alive—the fierce, dizzy, dangerous craving to get away, from this,
from everything and every one. And it could not have been much gayer for
the others. Mr. Carroll had watched his son apprehensively, Jimmy Prout,
too, had fallen below his customary debonair form, and even Julie, who,
though more intelligent than people gave her credit for being, was not
subtle, had a grave anxious air. Also the thought of Phil’s recent death
and of Catherine grieving in that lonely squalid house hung over all of
them. Only Junior had been quite himself. He had in truth been the life
of the party.
Christmas this year was very different—Christmas Eve, especially. There
was not quite the old exuberance; that could never return in this grayer
sadder world,—or perhaps it was merely that Julie and Stacey and Jimmie
were grown-up now. But there was a genial friendly warmth in the
atmosphere. And then there were three children this year. They chattered
and laughed and stamped impatiently in the long hall that led from the
library to the big drawing-room where the tree was being prepared, and
when at last the drawing-room doors were thrown open and the brilliant
tree was displayed all three gave a howl of joy that would have
satisfied even Dickens.
Mr. Carroll was extraordinarily good on such occasions. He delivered the
presents—not too slowly, not too rapidly—from the great pile about the
base of the tree, with a pleasant easy grace and sometimes a little
speech. His own gifts he laid aside in a corner, to open later. They
made an imposing heap, too; for many people outside of the family
delighted to remember Mr. Carroll. Women, especially. He had great
success with women and remained quite unspoiled by it, accepting it with
apparent unconsciousness, or as a matter of course, as an aristocrat
accepts his position. Old wives of old friends, young wives of friends’
sons, daughters of friends, spinsters to whom he had been kind,—he
stirred all of them to liking. Perhaps it was Mr. Carroll’s good looks
or his grace of manner or his goodness of heart or his youthful spirit
or all of them together—Stacey did not know; but he recognized his
father’s fascination and looked with affectionate amusement at the
growing pile of prettily wrapped gifts. But it did not occur to Stacey
that he himself had inherited that attractiveness to women; for he had
inherited the unconsciousness of it along with the trait.
The three boys were making a tremendous racket, Julie was flushed and
talkative, Jimmy Prout, a colored paper cap on his good-looking head,
was lolling easily in his chair and drawing discordant wails from a toy
accordion. Only Catherine seemed subdued. She sat near Julie, whom she
liked warmly, and smiled and spoke quietly at times, but there was a
faint tremulousness about her lips and a sensitiveness, as to pain, in
the look of her eyes, that Stacey, who caught quickly the slightest
change in Catherine, perceived clearly. Perhaps it was her shyness in
all this confusion. Stacey did not know. She had not seemed quite
herself of late.
The party broke up finally. Julie took her husband and her delirious son
home, and Mr. Carroll and Stacey were left with Catherine and her two
boys. Jackie, exhausted with happiness, sat on his mother’s lap and
played sleepily with a mechanical mouse; Carter leaned against Stacey’s
knee; Mr. Carroll sat, relaxed, in a chair near his gifts, which he
showed no eagerness to open. The tree was lifeless, all its little
colored candles extinguished, and the floor was strewn with ribbon and
tissue-paper. The room held the quiet sadness that broods over a
festival that is finished.
Catherine spoke first, setting Jackie on his feet and rising. “Thank
you, Mr. Carroll, for everything,” she murmured. “I cannot—express how
good you have been. And you, Stacey.”
The men had risen, too. “Why, my dear girl,” Mr. Carroll returned,
“you’ve given us far more happiness than we you.”
She shook her head. “I must take the boys up now,” she said. “I’ve
promised, as it’s Christmas Eve, to stay with them just for once while
they undress.”
“You’ll come back, Catherine?” Stacey asked.
“Yes,” she replied, without looking at him, “I’ll come back.”
“Well, sir,” said Stacey gaily, when he was left with his father,
“aren’t you going to open all those bundles?”
“Presently! Presently!” Mr. Carroll replied. “I’ll carry them up to my
study.”
“Oh, I say!” Stacey protested, “I want to see what you’ve got.”
His father shook his head. “There’s something better than that waiting
for us,” he remarked, with a smile. “In the dining-room. A bottle of Pol
Roger and some sandwiches and so forth. Come along!”
“Well, rather!” Stacey exclaimed. “What a happy thought! I’m starved,
too,—to say nothing of my thirst. You never eat anything at dinner in
the excitement of this sort of thing.”
He wondered a bit that his father had not suggested their waiting for
Catherine, then understood suddenly that this was a handsome tribute to
himself, an effort to express wordlessly that they two, father and son,
were close friends who needed no one else to help them achieve intimacy.
But the first thing Mr. Carroll did was to prepare carefully and set
aside a plate of good things to eat. “For Catherine,” he explained.
Then, with a boyish smile at Stacey, he took the bottle from the cooler,
uncorked it, and poured the hissing pale-gold wine into the delicate
flaring glasses.
“Aren’t you ashamed to violate the laws of your country in this way?”
asked Stacey.
“I’m not doing that,” Mr. Carroll returned. “When it comes to whiskey I
do some considerable violating, but this champagne has been in my cellar
for years. To your health, son!”
“To yours, sir!” Stacey replied cordially. They touched glasses and
drank.
They talked, like the good friends they were, in an easy desultory way
while they sipped the wine and ate a little. But all at once Mr. Carroll
became silent, then suddenly looked across at his son.
“Stacey,” he said, “don’t be a fool!”
It was an odd speech, but the oddest thing about it was the tone, which
was not rough like the words, but pleading, almost cajoling. Mr. Carroll
might have been saying: “Do me a favor, won’t you?”
Stacey grinned. “Try not to,” he said. “Explain.”
But his father was filling Stacey’s glass, and, when he had finished
doing this, took more time than seemed necessary to replace the bottle
in the cooler and adjust the napkin about its neck. And even then he did
not reply at once.
“Well,” he said at last, with an obvious effort, and not looking at his
son, “I mean to say—why the devil don’t you ask Catherine to marry
you?”
Stacey, who had lifted his glass, started so that some of the yellow
liquid spilled over upon the table-cloth. He leaned back in his chair,
amazed and shocked.
“Why, sir, I—” he stammered, then broke off helplessly.
“Where will you find any one who’s shown herself as good and sweet and
courageous?” Mr. Carroll went on, almost belligerently, as though
Catherine’s merits were in question.
“Nowhere,” Stacey replied soberly. It was abhorrent to him to see his
deepest emotion, which he hardly admitted even to himself, spilled over
the table, like the wine.
“Well, then?”
“There is—Phil,” Stacey muttered.
“Phil is dead,” Mr. Carroll answered gravely. “We have all felt his
loss. He was a noble character. And you were his closest friend—”
“Just for that—”
“Just for that he would trust Catherine to you gladly. It would not be
he to stand between you.”
“No,” Stacey said in a stifled voice, “I suppose not. It is not Phil,
but— Please, sir!” he begged.
His father nodded. “Pretty cheeky of me, I admit, son,” he said gruffly.
“Wouldn’t blame you if you’d grown angry, but you understand how I mean
it—er—”
“That’s all right, dad. I know,” Stacey replied quickly.
They finished their supper in an awkward silence.
“Well,” said Mr. Carroll, rising, “I suppose I’d better get those
presents of mine and open them. There’ll be a lot of notes to write in
reply.”
Stacey followed him back to the littered drawing-room, mechanically
almost, because he did not know what else to do. “Want any help, sir?”
he asked.
“No, thanks,” said his father, his arms full of bundles. “I’ll be down
again after a while.” And he went out.
Stacey, left alone, stared after him, then walked restlessly down the
hall to the library. It was painful to him that his father should have
divined his feelings. But this was not the worst. The worst was that, if
his father had understood him, so, assuredly, had Catherine. This
grieved Stacey deeply. He had been so careful, he thought; he had never
meant to let her see what he felt for her. But she did know. Of course
she knew! How stupid he had been! No wonder he found her changed! He
could see it all now. His father, it seemed, believed that Catherine
could care for Stacey as he for her; but Stacey knew better. She was
shocked and saddened by her discovery, uncertain what to do—whether to
go away or not, generously anxious not to give pain, all her peace of
mind gone. Poor Catherine! Stacey was furious with himself. But this did
no good—not the least bit. He shook off his anger impatiently. What was
to be done about it? That was the point. How without putting things into
words—which always made them worse—was he to let Catherine know that
she could count on him, that he would be merely the friend she wanted
him to be? He was puzzling over it when she entered the room.
She looked startled when she saw that he was there alone, and paused
just inside the door as though half inclined to retreat. It hurt Stacey
keenly that she should be afraid of him—and with reason. He had risen
and stood facing her, but across the room from her.
“Won’t you—come in?” he asked. “Or would you rather go somewhere
else—the dining-room? There’s luncheon ready for you in there.”
She shook her head. “No,” she answered, “and I’m not hungry.” But she
did not come farther into the room, and, though she smiled waveringly,
Stacey saw the expression of pain—or perhaps fear—in her eyes.
“Catherine,” he began in a low voice, after a moment, “why is it so
hard—and dangerous—to be frank?”
“Ought it to be either?” she replied gently. She looked at him steadily
as she spoke, but the expression on her face was odd and troubled. There
was compassion in it, though; he felt that strongly. Of course! A
generous emotion would always be dominant in Catherine.
He came a little nearer to her. “Catherine,” he said, “I have not meant
ever to—” then broke off. It was worse to say things than to leave them
unspoken, and she would understand them anyway. He tried desperately to
call the whole subject off. “Oh,” he remarked, with a positively
sepulchral gaiety, “Christmas is too emotional! We’re good friends,
aren’t we? and that’s all that matters.”
But she continued to gaze at him in that same odd manner. The very pose
of her body made her seem like a creature at bay.
And suddenly Stacey’s thoughts were swept away like so much rubbish by a
wave of sure emotion. He took a step toward Catherine, stretching out
his hands impulsively, and all at once she was in his arms, trembling
and weeping, her lips raised to his.
“Ah, Stacey, didn’t you know I loved you?” she murmured presently. “Your
father knew.”
“Wh-when?”
“Since the evening you quarreled.”
“Oh,” Stacey cried, “was it—for love that you defended me?”
“You—might call it that.”
She drew a little away from him now and made him sit down beside her on
the divan.
“I think,” she said gently, holding his hand against her cheek, “that
men can hardly ever think in facts; they must think in patterns; and
anything that will not fit into a pattern they find wrong. But I _want_
to tell you the truth. I have always loved you, Stacey, always! It was
not disloyalty. I am sure Phil knew. I loved you _and_ him. It was
different. I _can’t_ make you understand.”
Stacey, very shaken and confused, and not understanding anything save
(humbly) that this was giving on a scale beyond what was credible, drew
her to him and kissed her hot face.
“Oh, Stacey,” she murmured, “I feel so—immodest!”
“Aha!” he interrupted, laughing unsteadily, “now who’s thinking not like
an individual but like the whole female sex?” And at this she, too,
laughed a little.
They sat there, close together, scarcely speaking. But it came over
Stacey in a rush that in his love for Catherine there was a touch of
what he had felt for Marian and something more—far more! Truth, fact.
It was complete. This was reality. There was nothing left out.
“Catherine,” he cried, “you are not only a grown woman; you are a little
girl, too. And so I’m not afraid of you any longer—I always was, a
little, you know. Now I’m not.”
“That’s odd,” she said shyly, “because I—have also been afraid of you,
a little.”
“But really? On account of my temper, I suppose. You’re right. I’ve a
rotten temper,” he said remorsefully.
She smiled. “No, not on account of your temper. I think,” she explained,
grave now, “it was the—the serenity you have achieved, Stacey dear.”
He drew away to stare at her, but before he could speak the door of the
room opened and Mr. Carroll entered, then paused abruptly.
Catherine saw him first and hurried to his side, clasping his hand in
both of hers and laying her head against his shoulder.
Mr. Carroll reached out his other hand to grasp Stacey’s and gazed at
his son with shining eyes.
“Oh, Mr. Carroll, do you mind?” Catherine cried softly.
“Mind, my dear!” he replied. “Isn’t it exactly what I’ve hoped for?” And
he bent over and kissed her cheek, then made her sit down beside him on
the divan, while Stacey stood a little way off, looking at them.
“Er—where are you thinking of living?” Mr. Carroll asked presently in a
carefully matter-of-fact voice, while he slowly clipped off the end of a
cigar.
Stacey flashed a swift questioning glance at Catherine. “Why,” he
remarked then deliberately, “what with the scarcity of houses and all,
we were rather thinking of staying on here.”
“Well,” said Mr. Carroll, “if you will, you will, I suppose.” But he had
paused to light his cigar before speaking, and it had taken him rather
longer than usual.
THE END.
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Transcriber’s Notes:
Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. A few obvious
typesetting and punctuation errors have been corrected without note.
[End of _The Lonely Warrior_ by Claude C. Washburn]
End of Project Gutenberg's The Lonely Warrior, by Claude Carlos Washburn