Although the pressure had thus been relieved and Penrod found peace with
himself, nevertheless there were times during the rest of that week
when he felt a strong distaste for Margaret. His schoolmates frequently
reminded him of such phrases in her letter as they seemed least able to
forget, and for hours after each of these experiences he was unable to
comport himself with human courtesy when constrained (as at dinner) to
remain for any length of time in the same room with her. But by Sunday
these moods had seemed to pass; he attended church in her close
company, and had no thought of the troubles brought upon him by her
correspondence with a person who throughout remained unknown to him.
Penrod slumped far down in the pew with his knees against the back of
that in front, and he also languished to one side, so that the people
sitting behind were afforded a view of him consisting of a little hair
and one bored ear. The sermon--a noble one, searching and eloquent--was
but a persistent sound in that ear, though, now and then, Penrod's
attention would be caught by some detached portion of a sentence, when
his mind would dwell dully upon the phrases for a little while and lapse
into a torpor. At intervals his mother, without turning her head, would
whisper, “Sit up, Penrod,” causing him to sigh profoundly and move his
shoulders about an inch, this mere gesture of compliance exhausting all
the energy that remained to him.
The black backs and gray heads of the elderly men in the congregation
oppressed him; they made him lethargic with a sense of long lives of
repellent dullness. But he should have been grateful to the lady with
the artificial cherries upon her hat. His gaze lingered there, wandered
away, and hopelessly returned again and again, to be a little refreshed
by the glossy scarlet of the cluster of tiny globes. He was not so
fortunate as to be drowsy; that would have brought him some relief--and
yet, after a while, his eyes became slightly glazed; he saw dimly, and
what he saw was distorted.
The church had been built in the early 'Seventies, and it contained
some naive stained glass of that period. The arch at the top of a window
facing Penrod was filled with a gigantic Eye. Of oyster-white and raw
blues and reds, inflamed by the pouring sun, it had held an awful place
in the infantile life of Penrod Schofield, for in his tenderer years he
accepted it without question as the literal Eye of Deity. He had been
informed that the church was the divine dwelling--and there was the Eye!
Nowadays, being no longer a little child, he had somehow come to know
better without being told, and, though the great flaming Eye was no
longer the terrifying thing it had been to him during his childhood, it
nevertheless retained something of its ominous character. It made him
feel spied upon, and its awful glare still pursued him, sometimes, as
he was falling asleep at night. When he faced the window his feeling was
one of dull resentment.
His own glazed eyes, becoming slightly crossed with an ennui that was
peculiarly intense this morning, rendered the Eye more monstrous than it
was. It expanded to horrible size, growing mountainous; it turned into
a volcano in the tropics, and yet it stared at him, indubitably an Eye
implacably hostile to all rights of privacy forever. Penrod blinked and
clinched his eyelids to be rid of this dual image, and he managed to
shake off the volcano. Then, lowering the angle of his glance, he saw
something most remarkable--and curiously out of place.
An inverted white soup-plate was lying miraculously balanced upon the
back of a pew a little distance in front of him, and upon the upturned
bottom of the soup-plate was a brown cocoanut. Mildly surprised,
Penrod yawned, and, in the effort to straighten his eyes, came to life
temporarily. The cocoanut was revealed as Georgie Bassett's head,
and the soup-plate as Georgie's white collar. Georgie was sitting up
straight, as he always did in church, and Penrod found this vertical
rectitude unpleasant. He knew that he had more to fear from the Eye
than Georgie had, and he was under the impression (a correct one) that
Georgie felt on intimate terms with it and was actually fond of it.
Penrod himself would have maintained that he was fond of it, if he had
been asked. He would have said so because he feared to say otherwise;
and the truth is that he never consciously looked at the Eye
disrespectfully. He would have been alarmed if he thought the Eye had
any way of finding out how he really felt about it. When not off his
guard, he always looked at it placatively.
By and by, he sagged so far to the left that he had symptoms of a
“stitch in the side”, and, rousing himself, sat partially straight for
several moments. Then he rubbed his shoulders slowly from side to side
against the back of the seat, until his mother whispered, “Don't do
that, Penrod.”
Upon this, he allowed himself to slump inwardly till the curve in the
back of his neck rested against the curved top of the back of the seat.
It was a congenial fit, and Penrod again began to move slowly from side
to side, finding the friction soothing. Even so slight a pleasure was
denied him by a husky, “Stop that!” from his father.
Penrod sighed, and slid farther down. He scratched his head, his left
knee, his right biceps and his left ankle, after which he scratched
his right knee, his right ankle and his left biceps. Then he said, “Oh,
hum!” unconsciously, but so loudly that there was a reproving stir in
the neighbourhood of the Schofield pew, and his father looked at him
angrily.
Finally, his nose began to trouble him. It itched, and after scratching
it, he rubbed it harshly. Another “Stop that!” from his father proved of
no avail, being greeted by a desperate-sounding whisper, “I GOT to!”
And, continuing to rub his nose with his right hand, Penrod began to
search his pockets with his left. The quest proving fruitless, he
rubbed his nose with his left hand and searched with his right. Then
he abandoned his nose and searched feverishly with both hands, going
through all of his pockets several times.
“What DO you want?” whispered his mother.
But Margaret had divined his need, and she passed him her own
handkerchief. This was both thoughtful and thoughtless--the latter
because Margaret was in the habit of thinking that she became faint in
crowds, especially at the theatre or in church, and she had just soaked
her handkerchief with spirits of ammonia from a small phial she carried
in her muff.
Penrod hastily applied the handkerchief to his nose and even more
hastily exploded. He sneezed stupendously; he choked, sneezed
again, wept, passed into a light convulsion of coughing and sneezing
together--a mergence of sound that attracted much attention--and, after
a few recurrent spasms, convalesced into a condition marked by silent
tears and only sporadic instances of sneezing.
By this time his family were unanimously scarlet--his father and mother
with mortification, and Margaret with the effort to control the almost
irresistible mirth that the struggles and vociferations of Penrod had
inspired within her. And yet her heart misgave her, for his bloodshot
and tearful eyes were fixed upon her from the first and remained upon
her, even when half-blinded with his agony; and their expression--as
terrible as that of the windowed Eye confronting her--was not for an
instant to be misunderstood. Absolutely, he believed that she had handed
him the ammonia-soaked handkerchief deliberately and with malice, and
well she knew that no power on earth could now or at any time henceforth
persuade him otherwise.
“Of course I didn't mean it, Penrod,” she said, at the first opportunity
upon their homeward way. “I didn't notice--that is, I didn't think--”
Unfortunately for the effect of sincerity she hoped to produce, her
voice became tremulous and her shoulders moved suspiciously.
“Just you wait! You'll see!” he prophesied, in a voice now choking, not
with ammonia, but with emotion. “Poison a person, and then laugh in his
face!”
He spake no more until they had reached their own house, though she made
some further futile efforts at explanation and apology.
And after brooding abysmally throughout the meal that followed, he
disappeared from the sight of his family, having answered with one
frightful look his mother's timid suggestion that it was almost time
for Sunday-school. He retired to his eyry--the sawdust box in the empty
stable--and there gave rein to his embittered imaginings, incidentally
forming many plans for Margaret.
Most of these were much too elaborate; but one was so alluring that he
dwelt upon it, working out the details with gloomy pleasure, even after
he had perceived its defects. It involved some postponement--in fact,
until Margaret should have become the mother of a boy about Penrod's
present age. This boy would be precisely like Georgie Bassett--Penrod
conceived that as inevitable--and, like Georgie, he would be his
mother's idol. Penrod meant to take him to church and force him to blow
his nose with an ammonia-soaked handkerchief in the presence of the Eye
and all the congregation.
Then Penrod intended to say to this boy, after church, “Well, that's
exackly what your mother did to me, and if you don't like it, you better
look out!”
And the real Penrod in the sawdust box clenched his fists. “Come ahead,
then!” he muttered. “You talk too much!” Whereupon, the Penrod of his
dream gave Margaret's puny son a contemptuous thrashing under the eyes
of his mother, who besought in vain for mercy. This plan was finally
dropped, not because of any lingering nepotism within Penrod, but
because his injury called for action less belated.
One after another, he thought of impossible things; one after another,
he thought of things merely inane and futile, for he was trying to
do something beyond his power. Penrod was never brilliant, or even
successful, save by inspiration.
At four o'clock he came into the house, still nebulous, and as he passed
the open door of the library he heard a man's voice, not his father's.
“To me,” said this voice, “the finest lines in all literature are those
in Tennyson's 'Maud'--
“'Had it lain for a century dead, My dust would hear her and beat, And
blossom in purple and red, There somewhere around near her feet.'
“I think I have quoted correctly,” continued the voice nervously, “but,
at any rate, what I wished to--ah--say was that I often think of those
ah--words; but I never think of them without thinking of--of--of YOU.
I--ah--”
The nervous voice paused, and Penrod took an oblique survey of the room,
himself unobserved. Margaret was seated in an easy chair and her face
was turned away from Penrod, so that her expression of the moment
remained unknown to him. Facing her, and leaning toward her with
perceptible emotion, was Mr. Claude Blakely--a young man with whom
Penrod had no acquaintance, though he had seen him, was aware of his
identity, and had heard speech between Mrs. Schofield and Margaret which
indicated that Mr. Blakely had formed the habit of calling frequently at
the house. This was a brilliantly handsome young man; indeed, his face
was so beautiful that even Penrod was able to perceive something about
it which might be explicably pleasing--at least to women. And Penrod
remembered that, on the last evening before Mr. Robert Williams's
departure for college, Margaret had been peevish because Penrod had
genially spent the greater portion of the evening with Robert and
herself upon the porch. Margaret made it clear, later, that she strongly
preferred to conduct her conversations with friends unassisted--and as
Penrod listened to the faltering words of Mr. Claude Blakely, he felt
instinctively that, in a certain contingency, Margaret's indignation
would be even more severe to-day than on the former occasion.
Mr. Blakely coughed faintly and was able to continue.
“I mean to say that when I say that what Tennyson says--ah--seems to--to
apply to--to a feeling about you--”
At this point, finding too little breath in himself to proceed, in spite
of the fact that he had spoken in an almost inaudible tone, Mr. Blakely
stopped again.
Something about this little scene was making a deep impression upon
Penrod. What that impression was, he could not possibly have stated;
but he had a sense of the imminence of a tender crisis, and he perceived
that the piquancy of affairs in the library had reached a point which
would brand an intentional interruption as the act of a cold-blooded
ruffian. Suddenly it was as though a strong light shone upon him: he
decided that it was Mr. Blakely who had told Margaret that her eyes
were like blue stars in heaven--THIS was the person who had caused the
hateful letter to be written! That decided Penrod; his inspiration, so
long waited for, had come.
“I--I feel that perhaps I am not plain,” said Mr. Blakely, and
immediately became red, whereas he had been pale. He was at least modest
enough about his looks to fear that Margaret might think he had referred
to them. “I mean, not plain in another sense--that is, I mean not that
_I_ am not plain in saying what I mean to you--I mean, what you mean to
ME! I feel--”
This was the moment selected by Penrod. He walked carelessly into the
library, inquiring in a loud, bluff voice:
“Has anybody seen my dog around here anywheres?”
Mr. Blakely had inclined himself so far toward Margaret, and he was
sitting so near the edge of the chair, that only a really wonderful bit
of instinctive gymnastics landed him upon his feet instead of upon his
back. As for Margaret, she said, “Good gracious!” and regarded Penrod
blankly.
“Well,” said Penrod breezily, “I guess it's no use lookin' for him--he
isn't anywheres around. I guess I'll sit down.” Herewith, he sank into
an easy chair, and remarked, as in comfortable explanation, “I'm kind of
tired standin' up, anyway.”
Even in this crisis, Margaret was a credit to her mother's training.
“Penrod, have you met Mr. Blakely?”
“What?”
Margaret primly performed the rite.
“Mr. Blakely, this is my little brother Penrod.”
Mr. Blakely was understood to murmur, “How d'ye do?”
“I'm well,” said Penrod.
Margaret bent a perplexed gaze upon him, and he saw that she had not
divined his intentions, though the expression of Mr. Blakely was already
beginning to be a little compensation for the ammonia outrage. Then,
as the protracted silence which followed the introduction began to be a
severe strain upon all parties, Penrod felt called upon to relieve it.
“I didn't have anything much to do this afternoon, anyway,” he said. And
at that there leaped a spark in Margaret's eye; her expression became
severe.
“You should have gone to Sunday-school,” she told him crisply.
“Well, I didn't!” said Penrod, with a bitterness so significant of
sufferings connected with religion, ammonia, and herself, that Margaret,
after giving him a thoughtful look, concluded not to urge the point.
Mr. Blakely smiled pleasantly. “I was looking out of the window a minute
ago,” he said, “and I saw a dog run across the street and turn the
corner.”
“What kind of a lookin' dog was it?” Penrod inquired, with languor.
“Well,” said Mr. Blakely, “it was a--it was a nice-looking dog.”
“What colour was he?”
“He was--ah--white. That is, I think--”
“It wasn't Duke,” said Penrod. “Duke's kind of brownish-gray-like.”
Mr. Blakely brightened.
“Yes, that was it,” he said. “This dog I saw first had another dog with
him--a brownish-gray dog.”
“Little or big?” Penrod asked, without interest.
“Why, Duke's a little dog!” Margaret intervened. “Of COURSE, if it was
little, it must have been Duke.”
“It WAS little,” said Mr. Blakely too enthusiastically. “It was a little
bit of a dog. I noticed it because it was so little.”
“Couldn't 'a' been Duke, then,” said Penrod. “Duke's a kind of a
middle-sized dog.” He yawned, and added: “I don't want him now. I want
to stay in the house this afternoon, anyway. And it's better for Duke to
be out in the fresh air.”
Mr. Blakely coughed again and sat down, finding little to say. It was
evident, also, that Margaret shared his perplexity; and another silence
became so embarrassing that Penrod broke it.
“I was out in the sawdust-box,” he said, “but it got kind of chilly.”
Neither of his auditors felt called upon to offer any comment, and
presently he added, “I thought I better come in here where it's warmer.”
“It's too warm,”' said Margaret, at once. “Mr. Blakely, would you mind
opening a window?”
“By all means!” the young man responded earnestly, as he rose. “Maybe
I'd better open two?”
“Yes,” said Margaret; “that would be much better.”
But Penrod watched Mr. Blakely open two windows to their widest, and
betrayed no anxiety. His remarks upon the relative temperatures of
the sawdust-box and the library had been made merely for the sake of
creating sound in a silent place. When the windows had been open for
several minutes, Penrod's placidity, though gloomy, denoted anything but
discomfort from the draft, which was powerful, the day being windy.
It was Mr. Blakely's turn to break a silence, and he did it so
unexpectedly that Margaret started. He sneezed.
“Perhaps--” Margaret began, but paused apprehensively.
“Perhaps-per-per--” Her apprehensions became more and more poignant; her
eyes seemed fixed upon some incredible disaster; she appeared to inflate
while the catastrophe she foresaw became more and more imminent. All at
once she collapsed, but the power decorum had over her was attested by
the mildness of her sneeze after so threatening a prelude.
“Perhaps I'd better put one of the windows down,” Mr. Blakely suggested.
“Both, I believe,” said Margaret. “The room has cooled off, now, I
think.”
Mr. Blakely closed the windows, and, returning to a chair near Margaret,
did his share in the production of another long period of quiet. Penrod
allowed this one to pass without any vocal disturbance on his part. It
may be, however, that his gaze was disturbing to Mr. Blakely, upon whose
person it was glassily fixed with a self-forgetfulness that was almost
morbid.
“Didn't you enjoy the last meeting of the Cotillion Club?” Margaret said
finally.
And upon Mr. Blakely's answering absently in the affirmative, she
suddenly began to be talkative. He seemed to catch a meaning in her
fluency, and followed her lead, a conversation ensuing which at first
had all the outward signs of eagerness. They talked with warm interest
of people and events unknown to Penrod; they laughed enthusiastically
about things beyond his ken; they appeared to have arranged a perfect
way to enjoy themselves, no matter whether he was with them or elsewhere
but presently their briskness began to slacken; the appearance of
interest became perfunctory. Within ten minutes the few last scattering
semblances of gayety had passed, and they lapsed into the longest and
most profound of all their silences indoors that day. Its effect upon
Penrod was to make him yawn and settle himself in his chair.
Then Mr. Blakely, coming to the surface out of deep inward communings,
snapped his finger against the palm of his hand impulsively.
“By George!” he exclaimed, under his breath.
“What is it?” Margaret asked. “Did you remember something?”
“No, it's nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all. But, by the way, it seems
a pity for you to be missing the fine weather. I wonder if I could
persuade you to take a little walk?”
Margaret, somewhat to the surprise of both the gentlemen present, looked
uncertain.
“I don't know,” she said.
Mr. Blakely saw that she missed his point.
“One can talk better in the open, don't you think?” he urged, with a
significant glance toward Penrod.
Margaret also glanced keenly at Penrod. “Well, perhaps.” And then, “I'll
get my hat,” she said.
Penrod was on his feet before she left the room. He stretched himself.
“I'll get mine, too,” he said.
But he carefully went to find it in a direction different from that
taken by his sister, and he joined her and her escort not till they were
at the front door, whither Mr. Blakely--with a last flickering of hope
had urged a flight in haste.
“I been thinkin' of takin' a walk, all afternoon,” said Penrod
pompously. “Don't matter to me which way we go.”
The exquisite oval of Mr. Claude Blakely's face merged into outlines
more rugged than usual; the conformation of his jaw became perceptible,
and it could be seen that he had conceived an idea which was
crystallizing into a determination.
“I believe it happens that this is our first walk together,” he said to
Margaret, as they reached the pavement, “but, from the kind of tennis
you play, I judge that you could go a pretty good gait. Do you like
walking fast?”
She nodded. “For exercise.”
“Shall we try it then?”
“You set the pace,” said Margaret. “I think I can keep up.”
He took her at her word, and the amazing briskness of their start seemed
a little sinister to Penrod, though he was convinced that he could
do anything that Margaret could do, and also that neither she nor her
comely friend could sustain such a speed for long. On the contrary, they
actually increased it with each fleeting block they covered.
“Here!” he panted, when they had thus put something more than a
half-mile behind them. “There isn't anybody has to have a doctor, I
guess! What's the use our walkin' so fast?”
In truth, Penrod was not walking, for his shorter legs permitted no
actual walking at such a speed; his gait was a half-trot.
“Oh, WE'RE out for a WALK!” Mr. Blakely returned, a note of gayety
beginning to sound in his voice. “Marg--ah--Miss Schofield, keep your
head up and breathe through your nose. That's it! You'll find I was
right in suggesting this. It's going to turn out gloriously! Now, let's
make it a little faster.”
Margaret murmured inarticulately, for she would not waste her breath in
a more coherent reply. Her cheeks were flushed; her eyes were brimming
with the wind, but when she looked at Penrod, they were brimming with
something more. Gurgling sounds came from her.
Penrod's expression had become grim. He offered no second protest,
mainly because he, likewise, would not waste his breath, and if he
would, he could not. Of breath in the ordinary sense breath, breathed
automatically--he had none. He had only gasps to feed his straining
lungs, and his half-trot, which had long since become a trot, was
changed for a lope when Mr. Blakely reached his own best burst of speed.
And now people stared at the flying three. The gait of Margaret and
Mr. Blakely could be called a walk only by courtesy, while Penrod's was
becoming a kind of blind scamper. At times he zigzagged; other times,
he fell behind, wabbling. Anon, with elbows flopping and his face
sculptured like an antique mask, he would actually forge ahead, and then
carom from one to the other of his companions as he fell back again.
Thus the trio sped through the coming of autumn dusk, outflying the
fallen leaves that tumbled upon the wind. And still Penrod held to the
task that he had set himself. The street lamps flickered into life, but
on and on Claude Blakely led the lady, and on and on reeled the
grim Penrod. Never once was he so far from them that they could have
exchanged a word unchaperoned by his throbbing ear.
“OH!” Margaret cried, and, halting suddenly, she draped herself about a
lamp-post like a strip of bunting. “Guh-uh-guh-GOODNESS!” she sobbed.
Penrod immediately drooped to the curb-stone, which he reached, by pure
fortune, in a sitting position. Mr. Blakely leaned against a fence, and
said nothing, though his breathing was eloquent. “We--we must go--go
home,” Margaret gasped. “We must, if--if we can drag ourselves!”
Then Penrod showed them what mettle they he'd tried to crack. A paroxysm
of coughing shook him; he spoke through it sobbingly:
“'Drag!' 'S jus' lul-like a girl! Ha-why I walk--OOF!--faster'n that
every day--on my--way to school.” He managed to subjugate a tendency to
nausea. “What you--want to go--home for?” he said. “Le's go on!”
In the darkness Mr. Claude Blakely's expression could not be seen,
nor was his voice heard. For these and other reasons, his opinions and
sentiments may not be stated.
... Mrs. Schofield was looking rather anxiously forth from her front
door when the two adult figures and the faithful smaller one came up the
walk.
“I was getting uneasy,” she said. “Papa and I came in and found the
house empty. It's after seven. Oh, Mr. Blakely, is that you?”
“Good-evening,” he said. “I fear I must be keeping an engagement.
Good-night. Good-night, Miss Schofield.”
“Good-night.”
“Well, good-night,” Penrod called, staring after him. But Mr. Blakely
was already too far away to hear him, and a moment later Penrod followed
his mother and sister into the house.
“I let Della go to church,” Mrs. Schofield said to Margaret. “You and I
might help Katie get supper.”
“Not for a few minutes,” Margaret returned gravely, looking at Penrod.
“Come upstairs, mamma; I want to tell you something.”
Penrod cackled hoarse triumph and defiance.
“Go on! Tell! What _'I_ care? You try to poison a person in church
again, and then laugh in his face, you'll see what you get!”
But after his mother had retired with Margaret to the latter's room, he
began to feel disturbed in spite of his firm belief that his cause
was wholly that of justice victorious. Margaret had insidious ways of
stating a case; and her point of view, no matter how absurd or unjust,
was almost always adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Schofield in cases of
controversy.
Penrod became uneasy. Perceiving himself to be in danger, he decided
that certain measures were warranted. Unquestionably, it would be well
to know beforehand in what terms Margaret would couch the charges
which he supposed he must face in open court--that is to say, at the
supper-table. He stole softly up the stairs, and, flattening himself
against the wall, approached Margaret's door, which was about an inch
ajar.
He heard his mother making sounds which appalled him--he took them for
sobs. And then Margaret's voice rang out in a peal of insane laughter.
Trembling, he crept nearer the door. Within the room Margaret was
clinging to her mother, and both were trying to control their hilarity.
“He did it all to get even!” Margaret exclaimed, wiping her eyes. “He
came in at just the right time. That GOOSE was beginning to talk his
silly, soft talk--the way he does with every girl in town--and he was
almost proposing, and I didn't know how to stop him. And then Penrod
came in and did it for me. I could have hugged Penrod, mamma, I actually
could! And I saw he meant to stay to get even for that ammonia--and, oh,
I worked so hard to make him think I wanted him to GO! Mamma, mamma, if
you could have SEEN that walk! That GOOSE kept thinking he could wear
Penrod out or drop him behind, but I knew he couldn't so long as Penrod
believed he was worrying us and getting even. And that GOOSE thought I
WANTED to get rid of Penrod, too; and the conceited thing said it would
turn out 'gloriously,' meaning we'd be alone together pretty soon--I'd
like to shake him! You see, I pretended so well, in order to make Penrod
stick to us, that GOOSE believed I meant it! And if he hadn't tried to
walk Penrod off his legs, he wouldn't have wilted his own collar and
worn himself out, and I think he'd have hung on until you'd have had to
invite him to stay to supper, and he'd have stayed on all evening, and
I wouldn't have had a chance to write to Robert Williams. Mamma, there
have been lots of times when I haven't been thankful for Penrod, but
to-day I could have got down on my knees to you and papa for giving me
such a brother!”
In the darkness of the hall, as a small but crushed and broken form
stole away from the crack in the door, a gigantic Eye seemed to
form--seemed to glare down upon Penrod--warning him that the way of
vengeance is the way of bafflement, and that genius may not prevail
against the trickeries of women.
“This has been a NICE day!” Penrod muttered hoarsely.