OUR PARSON PROVES CAPABLE
At last even we could eat no more, and Roger pulled out an old pipe
that I had never seen before, pushed a jar of fragrant tobacco toward
us, brought us pipes from the chimney-piece and crossed his legs
definitely.
"I suppose, Tip," he said, "you're wondering why you're here, eh?"
"A little," said Tip comfortably, "but not too much. To tell you the
truth, fellows, I haven't had such a thoroughly good time for--oh, for
ten years, I should say! Somehow I feel as if everything but just this
actual moment--this breakfast, this pipe, this queer old room--was a
sort of dream and these were the only things that mattered."
"I know," Roger answered quietly, "that's the way one feels here. The
place is bewitched, I think. Well, Tip, I want to get married, and I'd
rather you'd be the one to do the business than any man I know."
"I rather suspected it," Tip said, "and I'll be mighty glad to do it
for you, Roger. Who is she?"
There was quite a pause here, and Roger puffed slowly and thoughtfully
at the old pipe and looked out of the open door toward the little bay.
By and by he spoke, and the concise clearness of what he said was most
characteristic of him.
"Of course I needn't go into all this at all," he began, "unless I
wanted to. In fact, my original idea was to have a perfect stranger
(as I somehow thought Jerry would bring) marry us without his being
any the wiser. But the minute I saw you, Tip, I felt that I'd like you
to know. But I'd rather you kept it to yourself."
He paused a moment, and Tip nodded gravely.
"Of course you have my word for that," he said.
"The woman I'm going to marry," Roger went on, in his quiet, practical
voice, "was born and brought up on this little peninsula. She has
never left it but once in her life. Her mother died when she was a
baby, her father a few weeks ago, I should say. She does not know her
father's name, nor, consequently, her own. It is evident from this
house, the furnishings and the books, that he was a gentleman and an
educated one. For as long as she can remember they were served and
looked after in every way by a woman called Hester Prynne and this
half-witted fellow called Caliban. Of course I have no idea what their
real names were. The woman died very recently and the girl was left
alone. There was a big chest fairly well filled with money under her
father's bed, but not a line or word in it to give any clue. Either
her father or mother must have been Italian, I should think, both from
her name and her general type, but she knows no Italian whatever--only
a simple childish sort of French. She is the only woman I should ever
marry if I lived a hundred years, and I want you to do it to-day. Will
you?"
I drew the long breath I had been holding during this speech and felt
a great relief. It was all so simple, after all! I hoped Tip wouldn't
spoil it, but I was afraid he would. He wasn't at all what one would
call a man of the world: he had always felt a terrible responsibility
for other people's actions, and this particular action was, to put it
mildly, certainly rather unusual. But I had under-estimated both Tip's
keenness and the effect of Roger's big, quiet personality. For Tip
stared hard at his pipe a moment, then at Roger, then back at the
pipe, and said:
"Surely I will, Roger. And be glad to." And there's Tip Elder for you!
We smoked awhile longer in silence. Finally Tip began again in a
casual sort of way, as if, the main question having been settled,
this were a mere detail, but one that he might as well mention.
"How about the name, Roger?" he asked. "Won't that be a little
awkward? At home, you know. I suppose you couldn't wait till you found
it out?"
Roger threw his jaw forward a bit and pursed his mouth, a trick he had
when he was bothered but couldn't see any way out of it.
"No, I couldn't," he said thoughtfully. "In the first place, to tell
you the truth, I don't much believe there's any chance of finding it
out except by pure accident. There's not a scrap of evidence about the
place, and it is undoubtedly intentional. I've opened every book in
her father's room and there are no collections of old litter in any
closet--there's no attic--and not a letter or bill in the house. A
doctor came here once or twice, but he never mentioned her father's
name in her hearing, and this Hester told her he came from New York.
Caliban did the marketing and paid cash for everything. The telegraph
operator, who is the only one I've spoken with in the town, represents
the attitude of everybody there, probably, and he thinks, evidently,
that an eccentric recluse lives here, and that his housekeeper is
pretty close-mouthed and 'unsociable,' as he put it. It's rather
strange that they aren't more curious, but she must have known how to
deal with them, for whatever interest anybody may have felt died out
long ago. They know the man had a daughter and that she's grown now,
but this fellow told me that he'd heard she went barefoot most of the
time, and there was a half rumour that she was feeble-minded, and that
was why they kept so close. He thinks I'm boarding here, apparently. I
suppose that any curious boys or tramps that might have been tempted
over here were frightened off by the dogs--there used to be a pair of
them."
He paused to fill his pipe again and Tip nodded comprehendingly.
"I see," he said, "it's an extraordinary situation, isn't it?"
Another pause, and he added with his eyes carefully off Roger's face:
"This housekeeper, now--you don't think it's possible----"
"No, I don't," Roger interrupted shortly. "Both she and the father
have told Margarita that she resembled her mother, and that her mother
was very good and very beautiful, but that she was not named after
her. She died when the child was born, and Hester was with them then.
Besides, her father used to correct her for using expressions of
Hester's and forbade her to hold her knife and fork as Hester did, and
things of that sort. She never ate with them, either. Margarita says
that Hester loved her father but was always afraid of him."
Caliban had the table cleared now, and Tip and I stared into our
reflections in the beautiful, shining mahogany where our plates had
been. I suppose the same thing was in both our minds. What a strange
marriage for a Bradley! What an incongruous effect, in steady old
Roger's life! When one considered all the Jacksons and Searses and
Cabots he might have married--there was one particular red-cheeked,
big-waisted Cabot girl that old Madam Bradley had long and openly
favoured--one could but gasp at the present situation. A surnameless
Miranda, whose only possessions were a chest of money, a few pieces of
old mahogany and a brindled hound!
"I haven't seen the young lady yet, you know, Roger," Tip reminded him
gently at last, and Roger, coming out of his abstraction with a quick
smile, stepped to the foot of the stairs and called, "Margarita!
Margarita! _Viens, cherie!_"
She came, hesitating from stair to stair as a child does, and I caught
my breath when I saw her--as I have always done whenever she appeared
in a new and different dress. For she had taken off the faded jersey
and put on a longer, more womanly frock of some sort of clear blue
print. It was faded, too, and much washed, evidently, but its dull,
soft tone and simple, scant lines only threw out the more strongly her
rich colouring and strong, supple figure. The body of it crossed on
itself simply in front, like an old-time kerchief, leaving her throat
bare to the little hollow at the base of it; around her waist was a
belt of square silver plates heavily chased, linked together with
delicate silver links. Her long braids were bound around her beautiful
round head, and this fashion of hair-dressing, with its classic
parting, brought out the purity of her features and the coin-like
regularity of them. I saw at once that she was older than I had
thought her on the beach: I had not given her twenty then.
Roger took her hand and led her into the room.
"This is Margarita," he said simply, but his face told all he did not
say, and I thanked heaven that neither Elder nor I had been foolish
enough to attempt what we should probably have called reasoning with
him.
"Is this the man that will marry us?" she inquired gravely, taking his
offered hand with a lovely, free gesture.
"Roger is going to give me the pleasure of making him so happy, yes,"
said Tip, very cordially, I thought, and with more grace than I had
believed him capable of. But she did not even smile at him, and it was
rather startling, because she had smiled at me, and I hadn't known her
long enough to understand that she had absolutely none of the
perfunctory motions of lips and eyes that we learn so soon and so
unconsciously in this cynical old world. When Margarita didn't feel
moved to smile, she didn't, that was all, just as she didn't pretend
to look grave at the death of the only woman she had ever known in her
life. She had never learned the game, you see.
"I should like it better if you did it," she said to me, and an
idiotic joy filled every crease of my heart.
"He can't do it, dear," Roger said gently, "only Mr. Elder can," and
the look of appeal he turned on Tip would have touched a harder heart
than that dear fellow's.
"You see, old man," he murmured apologetically, "she says just exactly
what she thinks, with no frills--she doesn't understand yet...."
And good old Tip smiled back at him and said he understood, if
Margarita didn't, and perhaps she would be willing to make his
acquaintance a little and walk out on the beach with him?
"I want to be your friend, too, Miss Margarita, as well as Roger's,"
he ended.
"I will walk with you if Jerry comes too," she said placidly, and so
we all laughed--I somewhat unsteadily--and Tip and I took her for a
walk.
And right here I must stop and mention a very interesting thing.
Though she saw him often after that, for the intimacy renewed there
after so many years never has waned since, and he has woven himself
strangely and wholesomely into all our lives, Margarita never cared
for Tip. For a long time I did not see why, and always attributed his
extraordinary invulnerability to her charm to her lack of interest in
him, but suddenly one day it came to me (in my bath, I remember; I
squeezed a lot of soap into my eye till I thought I should go blind)
and I realised all at once what a fool I had been. She did not care
for him just _because_ he did not surrender to her. He was the only
man but one that ever had anything to do with her, so far as I know,
who was not, in one degree or another, in love with her. He admitted
her beauty and charm, he admired her talent, he respected her
frankness--but he never was the least little bit in love with her, and
except for J--n S----t, who failed to make a great picture of her, for
the same reason, I believe, he is the only man I know who ever had the
opportunity, of whom that can be said.
And from the moment their eyes met, Margarita saw this (or felt it,
rather, for she had not had sufficient practice in reading people at
that time to be able to see it) and--he simply did not exist for her.
For I must admit it: it was her own particular fault, that. And I must
hasten to add that I loved her the more for it. She _was_ heartless in
a situation of that sort. It would be folly to deny it. It was as much
a part of her enchanting personality, and as little a defect in my
indulgent eyes, as the three tiny moles under her chin (true _grains
de beaute_) or her utter refusal to affect an interest in people's
affairs or to eat the insides of her rolls and bread-slices. All
faults, doubtless--but who would have or love a faultless woman? Not
I, at any rate, for I loved her and love her and shall love her till
my heart is a handful of dust, and she was far from faultless, my
Margarita.
And yet, characteristically enough, it was to Tip that she turned in
what was without any doubt the great decision of her life, and Tip
that influenced her to it. She knew whom to go to well enough, and she
knew that he was the one person qualified to give her absolutely
unprejudiced counsel. Oh, yes! she knew. Just as the beasts make for
the root or herb or flower that will cure them, she went to him, with
an instinct as true as theirs. And I, God forgive me, was a tiny bit
jealous of him for that! Men are made of curious clay, my masters, and
it's a mad world indeed.
After we came back from our walk, during which she and I talked, and
Tip listened quietly, he moved toward Roger and I left Margarita
fondling the dog and joined him.
"She is a lovely creature, Roger," he said thoughtfully. "I don't want
for a moment to meddle, but on the chance that you haven't thought of
it, may I suggest one thing?"
"Fire ahead," said Roger. He had changed his clothes, and appeared in
his accustomed business suit; its neat creases and quiet colour made
him again the responsible, unromantic lawyer I had known, and took
away the last vestige of dramatic oddity from the situation. It all
seemed natural and sober enough.
"Had you thought of taking her to your mother and marrying her there,
Roger?" Tip went on quietly. "Supposing she were to adopt her,
even--you could arrange all that easily--then there would be no
awkwardness. As it is, it might be made a little uncomfortable ... it
isn't as if you were a nobody, you know, old man, and you don't know
her name, you see, and ..."
I will own that this struck me as an extremely practical plan for a
moment, and I looked hopefully at Roger. But he shook his head.
"I see what you mean, Tip," said he, "but it's impossible. I wish it
weren't. I thought of it, of course. But there are reasons why it
won't do. I won't attempt to deny that this will be a blow to my
mother. I know her too well to consider for a moment the possibility
of her helping me in this way. She--she is very proud and--and she has
her own ideas.... My cousin, too--Oh, Lord!" he concluded suddenly,
"Jerry'll tell you it wouldn't work."
Of course it wouldn't. In one flash I saw that dark, determined house
on the Back Bay, Madam Bradley's cold, bloodless face and Sarah's
malicious eyes probing, probing Margarita's crystal unconsciousness.
It seemed to me suddenly that Roger's mother might not, and that Sarah
certainly would not, forgive this business. I saw his mother in a
series of retrospective flashes, as I had been seeing her for
twenty-five years: each time a little more impersonal, a little more
withdrawn, a little less tolerant. I remembered the quiet, bitter
quarrel with the president of the university to which he would
naturally have gone, and its result of sending him to Yale, the first
of his name to desert Harvard, to the amazement and horror of his
kinsfolk. I remembered the cold resentment that followed his decision
to go to work in New York, based very sensibly, I thought, on the
impossibility of submission to his uncle's great firm--the head of the
family--and the inadvisability of working in Boston under his
disfavour. I remembered the banishment of his younger sister on her
displeasing marriage (the old lady actually read her out of the family
with bell and book) and the poor woman's subsequent social death and
bitter decline of health and spirit. I remembered the sad death of his
second sister, and the stony philosophy of her impenetrable mother. I
remembered the eldest daughter, a brilliant beauty, whose career might
have brushed the skirts of actual royalty, and whose mysterious
renouncement of every triumph and joy possible to woman (one would
suppose) and sudden conversion and retirement to a Roman Catholic
order convulsed Boston for a long nine days and broke Madam Bradley's
heart so that she never smiled again--and never, it was whispered,
forgave the God who had allowed such a shipwreck. That she loved
Roger, I must believe; that she was proud of him and looked upon him
with a sort of stern, fanatical loyalty as the head of her family, I
knew. But I could not see her adopting, or even tolerating, Margarita
with the unknown name. No, it wouldn't do. And I told Tip so very
decidedly.
"But if you wanted to take her to my mother, Roger," I ventured,
seeing, in fancy, the dear woman cooing over Roger's mysterious,
romantic beauty (she adored him and would, moreover, have adopted a
chambermaid if I had begged her to), "it could be arranged, I
know...."
"Thank you, Jerry," he interrupted shortly, "but it must be now. I
can't have anything happen. Any slip----" I saw his hands clench, and
I knew why. Whether Tip knew, I couldn't tell; he never indicated it,
then or ever after, good fellow. But he wasn't a fool. "_Melez-vous de
c'qui vous regarde!_" as we used to say at Vevay, and Tip minded his
business well.
"That's all right," he said quickly, "I only thought I'd mention it.
How about the license in this state?"
They talked a little in low tones, and I looked at Margarita and
thought of the odd chances of life, and how we are hurried past this
and that and stranded on the other, and skim the rapids sometimes, to
be wrecked later in clear shallows, perhaps.
"If you are ready, then?" said Tip, and we all moved across the beach
and found ourselves standing on a great, smooth rock that would be cut
off in a full high tide, with Caliban, clean and quiet and
pathetically attentive, behind us, and with him a curiously familiar
stranger, very neatly dressed, with tired eyes. As we grouped
ourselves there and Tip pulled a tiny book from his pocket I
recollected this stranger's face--it was the telegraph operator!
Roger, who forgot nothing, had brought him over for the other witness.
"Dearly beloved," said Tip in a clear, deep voice, and I woke with a
start and realised that old Roger was being married. Margarita, in her
graceful, faded blue gown, gazed curiously at him, one hand in
Roger's; the noon sun streamed down on us from a cloudless, turquoise
sky; the little waves ran up the points of rocks, broke, and fell away
musically.
To appreciate those quaint sentences of the marriage service, you must
hear them out under the heavens, alone, with no bridesmaids, no voice
that breathed o'er Eden, no flowers but the great handful of flaming
nasturtiums Roger had put in her hands (no maiden lilies grew on that
rock!) and a quiet man dressed just as other men are dressed, with
only the consciousness of his calling to separate him from the rest of
us. They held their own, those quaint old phrases, I assure you! But
it was then I learned to respect them.
Nevertheless, Roger _had_ forgotten something.
"Where's the ring?" the telegraph operator motioned to me with his
lips. His tired eyes expressed a mild interest. I saw Roger's lips
purse; for a moment his eyes left Margarita's face and I knew that he
had just remembered it. I looked down vaguely, and my eyes fell upon
the worn, thin band on my little finger--my mother's mother's
wedding-ring. In one of those lightning flashes of memory I saw
myself, a lad again, starting for college, and my mother putting it on
my finger.
"She was the best woman, I believe, that ever lived, Jerry--I took it
when she died. I want you to wear it, and perhaps you will think--oh,
my darling! I know it is hard to be a good man, but will you try?"
My dear, dear mother! I think I tried--I hope so.
I slipped it from my finger--I had taken it off sometimes, but never
for so good a reason--and pressed it into Roger's hand. He accepted it
as unconsciously as if it had come from heaven--and it was my ring
that married Margarita.