XIV

WE were to go the next day to the races, and I woke with more anxiety

about the weather than about the lovers, or potential lovers. But after

realising that the day was beautiful, on that large scale of loveliness

which seems characteristic of the summer days at Saratoga, where they

have them almost the size of the summer days I knew when I was a boy, I

was sensible of a secondary worry in my mind, which presently related

itself to Kendricks and Miss Gage. It was a haze of trouble merely,

however, such as burns off, like a morning fog, when the sun gets higher,

and it was chiefly on my wife’s account.

I suppose that the great difference between her conscience and one

originating outside of New England (if any conscience can originate

outside of New England) is that it cannot leave the moral government of

the universe in the hands of divine Providence. I was willing to leave

so many things which I could not control to the Deity, who probably could

that she accused me of fatalism, and I was held to be little better than

one of the wicked because I would not forecast the effects of what I did

in the lives of others. I insisted that others were also probably in the

hands of the _somma sapienza e il primo amore_, and that I was so little

aware of the influence of other lives upon my own, even where there had

been a direct and strenuous effort to affect me, that I could not readily

believe others had swerved from the line of their destiny because of me.

Especially I protested that I could not hold myself guilty of misfortunes

I had not intended, even though my faulty conduct had caused them. As to

this business of Kendricks and Miss Gage, I denied in the dispute I now

began tacitly to hold with Mrs. March’s conscience that my conduct had

been faulty. I said that there was no earthly harm in my having been

interested by the girl’s forlornness when I first saw her; that I did not

do wrong to interest Mrs. March in her; that she did not sin in going

shopping with Miss Gage and Mrs. Deering; that we had not sinned, either

of us, in rejoicing that Kendricks had come to Saratoga, or in letting

Mrs. Deering go home to her sick husband and leave Miss Gage on our

hands; that we were not wicked in permitting the young fellow to help us

make her have a good time. In this colloquy I did all the reasoning, and

Mrs. March’s conscience was completely silenced; but it rose triumphant

in my miserable soul when I met Miss Gage at breakfast, looking radiantly

happy, and disposed to fellowship me in an unusual confidence because, as

I clearly perceived, of our last night’s adventure. I said to myself

bitterly that happiness did not become her style, and I hoped that she

would get away with her confounded rapture before Mrs. March came down.

I resolved not to tell Mrs. March if it fell out so, but at the same

time, as a sort of atonement, I decided to begin keeping the sharpest

kind of watch upon Miss Gage for the outward signs and tokens of love.

She said, “When you began to talk that way last night, Mr. March, it

almost took my breath, and if you hadn’t gone so far, and mentioned about

the sunset through the sleety trees, I never should have suspected you.”

“Ah, that’s the trouble with men, Miss Gage.” And when I said “men” I

fancied she flushed a little. “We never know when to stop; we always

overdo it; if it were not for that we should be as perfect as women.

Perhaps you’ll give me another chance, though.”

“No; we shall be on our guard after this.” She corrected herself and

said, “I shall always be looking out for you now,” and she certainly

showed herself conscious in the bridling glance that met my keen gaze.

“Good heavens!” I thought. “Has it really gone so far?” and more than

ever I resolved not to tell Mrs. March.

I went out to engage a carriage to take us to the races, and to agree

with the driver that he should wait for us at a certain corner some

blocks distant from our hotel, where we were to walk and find him. We

always did this, because there were a number of clergymen in our house,

and Mrs. March could not make it seem right to start for the races direct

from the door, though she held that it was perfectly right for us to go.

For the same reason she made the driver stop short of our destination on

our return, and walked home the rest of the way. Almost the first time

we practised this deception I was met at the door by the sweetest and

dearest of these old divines, who said, “Have you ever seen the races

here? I’m told the spectacle is something very fine,” and I was obliged

to own that I had once had a glimpse of them. But it was in vain that I

pleaded this fact with Mrs. March; she insisted that the appearance of

not going to the races was something that we owed the cloth, and no

connivance on their part could dispense us from it.

As I now went looking up and down the street for the driver who was

usually on the watch for me about eleven o’clock on a fair day of the

races, I turned over in my mind the several accidents which are employed

in novels to bring young people to a realising sense of their feelings

toward each other, and wondered which of them I might most safely invoke.

I was not anxious to have Kendricks and Miss Gage lovers; it would be

altogether simpler for us if they were not; but if they were, the sooner

they knew it and we knew it the better. I thought of a carriage

accident, in which he should seize her and leap with her from the flying

vehicle, while the horses plunged madly on, but I did not know what in

this case would become of Mrs. March and me. Besides, I could think of

nothing that would frighten our driver’s horses, and I dismissed the

fleeting notion of getting any others because Mrs. March liked their

being so safe, and she had, besides, interested herself particularly in

the driver, who had a family and counted upon our custom. The poor

fellow came in sight presently, and smilingly made the usual arrangement

with me, and an hour later he delivered us all sound in wind and limb at

the racecourse.

I watched in vain for signs of uncommon tenderness in the two young

people. If anything they were rather stiff and distant with each other,

and I asked myself whether this might not be from an access of

consciousness. Kendricks was particularly devoted to Mrs. March, who, in

the airy detachment with which she responded to his attentions, gave me

the impression that she had absolutely dismissed her suspicions of the

night before, or else had heartlessly abandoned the affair to me

altogether. If she had really done this, then I saw no way out of it for

me but by an accident which should reveal them to each other. Perhaps

some one might insult Miss Gage—some ruffian—and Kendricks might strike

the fellow; but this seemed too squalid. There might be a terrible jam,

and he interpose his person between her and the danger of her being

crushed to death; or the floor of the grand stand might give way, and

everybody be precipitated into the space beneath, and he fight his way,

with her senseless form on his arm, over the bodies of the mangled and

dying. Any of these things would have availed in a novel, and something

of the kind would have happened, too. But, to tell the truth, nothing

whatever happened, and if it had not been for that anxiety on my mind I

should have thought it much pleasanter so.

Even as it was I felt a measure of the hilarity which commonly fills me

at a running race, and I began to lose in the charm of the gay scene the

sense of my responsibility, and little by little to abate the vigilance

apparently left all to me. The day was beautiful; the long heat had

burned itself out, and there was a clear sparkle in the sunshine, which

seemed blown across the wide space within the loop of the track by the

delicate breeze. A vague, remote smell of horses haunted the air, with

now and then a breath of the pines from the grove shutting the

race-ground from the highway. We got excellent places, as one always

may, the grand stand is so vast, and the young people disposed themselves

on the bench in front of us, but so near that we were not tempted to talk

them over. The newsboys came round with papers, and the boys who sold

programmes of the races; from the bar below there appeared from time to

time shining negroes in white linen jackets, with trays bearing tall

glasses of lemonade, and straws tilted in the glasses. Bookmakers from

the pool-rooms took the bets of the ladies, who formed by far the greater

part of the spectators on the grand stand, and contributed, with their

summer hats and gowns, to the gaiety of the _ensemble_. They were of all

types, city and country both, and of the Southern dark as well as the

Northern fair complexion, with so thick a sprinkling of South Americans

that the Spanish gutturals made themselves almost as much heard as the

Yankee nasals. Among them moved two nuns of some mendicant order,

receiving charity from the fair gamblers, who gave for luck without

distinction of race or religion.

I leaned forward and called Kendricks’s attention to the nuns, and to the

admirable literary quality of the whole situation. He was talking to

Miss Gage, and he said as impatiently as he ever suffered himself to

speak, “Yes, yes; tremendously picturesque.”

“You ought to get something out of it, my dear fellow. Don’t you feel

copy in it?”

“Oh, splendid, of course; but it’s your ground, Mr. March. I shouldn’t

feel it right to do anything with Saratoga after you had discovered it,”

and he turned eagerly again to Miss Gage.

My wife put her hand on my sleeve and frowned, and I had so far lost

myself in my appreciation of the scene that I was going to ask her what

the matter was, when a general sensation about me made me look at the

track, where the horses for the first race had already appeared, with

their jockeys in vivid silk jackets of various dyes. They began to form

for the start with the usual tricks and feints, till I became very

indignant with them, though I had no bets pending, and did not care in

the least which horse won. What I wanted was to see the race, the

flight, and all this miserable manoeuvring was retarding it. Now and

then a jockey rode his horse far off on the track and came back between

the false starts; now and then one kept stubbornly behind the rest and

would not start with them. How their several schemes and ambitions were

finally reconciled I never could tell, but at last the starter’s flag

swept down and they were really off. Everybody could have seen perfectly

well as they sat, but everybody rose and watched the swift swoop of the

horses, bunched together in the distance, and scarcely distinguishable by

the colours of their riders. The supreme moment came for me when they

were exactly opposite the grand stand, full half a mile away—the moment

that I remembered from year to year as one of exquisite illusion—for then

the horses seemed to lift from the earth as with wings, and to skim over

the track like a covey of low-flying birds. The finish was tame to this.

Mrs. March and I had our wonted difference of opinion as to which horse

had won, and we were rather uncommonly controversial because we had both

decided upon the same horse, as we found, only she was talking of the

jockey’s colours, and I was talking of the horse’s. We appealed to

Kendricks, who said that another horse altogether had won the race, and

this compromise pacified us.

We were all on foot, and he suggested, “We could see better, couldn’t we,

if we went farther down in front?” And Mrs. March answered—

“No, we prefer to stay here; but you two can go.” And when they had

promptly availed themselves of her leave, she said to me, “This is

killing me dead, Basil, and if it keeps up much longer I don’t believe I

can live through it. I don’t care now, and I believe I shall throw them

together all I can from this out. The quicker they decide whether

they’re in love or not the better. _I_ have some rights too.”

Her whirling words expressed the feeling in my own mind. I had the same

sense of being trifled with by these young people, who would not behave

so conclusively toward each other as to justify our interference on the

ground that they were in love, nor yet treat each other so indifferently

as to relieve us of the strain of apprehension. I had lost all faith in

accident by this time, and I was quite willing to leave them to their own

devices; I was so desperate that I said I hoped they would get lost from

us, as they had from me the night before, and never come back, but just

keep on wandering round for ever. All sorts of vengeful thoughts went

through my mind as I saw them leaning toward each other to say something,

and then drawing apart to laugh in what seemed an indefinite comradery

instead of an irrepressible passion. Did they think we were going to let

this sort of thing go on? What did they suppose our nerves were made of?

Had they no mercy, no consideration? It was quite like the selfishness

of youth to wish to continue in that fool’s paradise, but they would find

out that middle age had its rights too. I felt capable of asking them

bluntly what they meant by it. But when they docilely rejoined us at the

end of the races, hurrying up with some joke about not letting me get

lost this time, and Miss Gage put herself at my wife’s side and Kendricks

dropped into step with me, all I had been thinking seemed absurd. They

were just two young people who were enjoying a holiday-time together, and

we were in no wise culpable concerning them.

I suggested this to Mrs. March when we got home, and, in the need of some

relief from the tension she had been in, she was fain to accept the

theory provisionally, though I knew that her later rejection of it would

be all the more violent for this respite.