The Romance of an Old Fool Part 4

Respecfuly

MALACHY.

Duty is one of the exactions of life which I have never s.h.i.+rked when there seemed no possible way of evading it, but in this instance the call of duty was compromised by matters of equal urgency, for nothing can be more important than the successful administration of the affairs of love. It was a happy thought that suggested to me a way out of the difficulty, which was neither more nor less than that we should all go to the city together. I sprang the proposition at a family conference.

Phyllis was delighted. "There is always so much to be seen in the city," she cried, "and I shall meet Mr. Bunsey. It has been one of the dreams of my life to know a real literary man."

This appeared to call for an explanation. Heaven knows I am not jealous of Bunsey, and would not deprive him of a single distinction that is honestly his. But a regard for the truth, coupled with much doubt as to Bunsey's ability to live up to such lively expectations, compelled me to resort to a little gentle correction.

"My dear Phyllis," I said, "you must disabuse your mind of that fallacy. Bunsey is a popular novelist, not a literary man."

"But isn't a novelist a literary man?" she asked in amazement.

"Not necessarily," I replied pityingly. "In fact I may say not usually. Of course we are speaking of popular novelists. The popularity of the novelist is in proportion to his lack of literary style. The distinctive popular charm of Bunsey is that he is not literary--at least, if he is, his critics have not succeeded in discovering it; he successfully conceals his crime.

If he is popular, it is because he is not literary; if he were literary he could not be popular."

"That does not seem right," said my little Puritan.

"It is not a question of ethics at all, but a matter of taste. However, don't be prejudiced against Bunsey because he is a product of the time and fairly representative of the civilization. You shall meet him and shall learn from him how a man may succeed in so-called literature without any hampering literary qualifications."

Mary did not receive my proposition in a thankful and conciliatory spirit. She shook her head doubtfully, and when we were alone together, she gave voice to her fears.

"Phyllis is country-bred," she said, "and knows nothing of the toils and snares that beset young girls in the city."

"Toils and snares," I echoed. "One might gather from your objections that we contemplate taking Phyllis to the city merely to expose her to temptation and corrupt the serenity of her mind.

You seem to forget the elevating influences of my modest home."

"No, John; I dare say that your home is not objectionable, taken by itself. But I am not blind to the seductions of the great city. You too forget," she added, with a touch of complacency, "that I am not inexperienced or without knowledge of the profligacy of the town."

"Granting all this," I said, highly diverted by her earnestness, "and what are some of these seductions you have in mind?"

"Theatres," she replied promptly, "theatres and late hours, midnight suppers--and c.o.c.ktails."

I laughed uproariously. "My dear Mary, if these deadly sins and perils alarm you, we'll cut them out. I care little for theatres, and less for midnight suppers. And as for c.o.c.ktails, I shall make it my peculiar charge to see that Phyllis never hears the abominable word. Allowing for the removal of these temptations, I still think that a trip to the city would do our country flower a world of good, though I have nothing but praise for the manner in which you have brought her up."

"John," she answered very gravely, "I have endeavored to do my duty as I saw it. I have tried to bring Phyllis up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."

The expression carried me back to my childhood, and I bit my lips. "Of course you have," I said. "Wasn't I brought up in this same village, in the same way? Did not my good mother and my blessed, grandmother inflict nurture and admonition upon me, that I might grow up as you see me, a true child of the pilgrim fathers? The nurture, I remember, was a particularly hard seat in our particularly gloomy old meetinghouse, and the admonition took up the greater part of the Sabbath day, with a disenchanting prospect of further admonition at home if I failed to keep awake.

I do not mean to say that I am not thankful for the experience.

In truth I am doubly thankful--thankful that I had it, and thankful that it is over."

To this Mary vouchsafed no further remonstrance than a distrustful shake of the head. Excellent woman! Is it not to such as you, earnest, faithful, self-sacrificing, G.o.d-fearing, that the best in young manhood, the purest in young womanhood, owe the strength of the qualities that are the vital force of the nation?

In the end the united opposition was too much for Mary's arguments, and to town we went. The pleasure of the journey, on my part, was somewhat clouded as to the welcome we should receive from Prudence, and truly it acquired my greatest powers of dissimulation to feign an easy indifference and air of authority before that worthy creature, as with the most studied politeness and formal hospitality she received us at the gate. Prudence and I had sparred so many years that we were like two expert athletes, and while neither apparently noticed the other, each was perfectly conscious of the adversary's slightest movement.

Hence I detected at once her strong aversion to Mary, whom she immediately selected as a probable mistress, and I saw her several times vainly try to repress a grimace of disdain and wrath. It was my first impulse to follow Prudence into the kitchen, after the ladies had gone to their rooms, and make a clean breast of the untoward tidings, but I lacked the moral courage and contented myself with an inward show of strength. Why should I pander to this woman's caprices? Was I not master in my own house? Should I not do as I pleased? I would punish her with the severity of my silence, and perhaps in a week or two, when she was more tractable, I would condescend to tell her exactly how matters stood. In this I would be firm.

But the next morning, before my guests were out of bed, I decided that I was not acting wisely. Was not Prudence an old, faithful, and trustworthy servant? Had she not been loyal to my interests, and was not her whole life wrapped up in my comfort? Surely I wronged her to withhold from her the confidence she had so fairly earned, and the flush of shame came to my face as I reflected that I was indulging my first deceit. I took a turn in the garden, in the heavenly cool of the early morning, to compose my nerves for a very probable ordeal, and then I walked boldly into the kitchen where Prudence sat, with a wooden bowl in her lap, paring apples.

It was one of the unwritten laws of the cuisine that Prudence was never to be disturbed when engaged in this delicate operation.

She maintained that it destroyed the symmetry of the peel, and I dare say she was right. Consequently she looked at me reproachfully as I entered, and bent again more a.s.siduously to her work. I was much fl.u.s.tered by the ill omen, but I knew that if I hesitated I was lost; so I advanced valorously, though with accelerated pulse, and said with all the calmness I could command:

"Prudence, I think it only right to tell you that I am going to be married."

One apple rolled from the bowl down along the floor and under the kitchen stove. I cannot conceive of any shock, however great, that would cause Prudence to lose more than one apple. Partly to conciliate, and partly to conceal my own trepidation, I made a gallant effort to rescue the wanderer, and as I poked the hiding-place with my stick, I heard her say: "Lord, I know'd it'd come!"

"The fact that it has come, Prudence," I answered with a sickly attempt at gayety, "does not seem to be a reason why you should call with such vehemence on your Maker. There does not appear to be any need of Providential interposition. Things are not so bad as all that."

I always used my most elegant English when conversing with Prudence. If she did not understand it, it flattered her to think that I paid this tribute to her intelligence.

"Mr. John," she said, and there was a suspicious break in her voice, "for twenty years I have tried to do my duty by you, and now that I must go--"

"Go?" I interrupted; "who said you must go? Who spoke about anybody's going? You certainly do not expect to turn that bowl of apples over to me and leave me to get breakfast?"

"No, Mr. John, I shall go on and do my duty, as I see it, until you have made all your plans and are comfortable."

"Now, look here, Prudence, I am very comfortable as things are, thank you. And you will pardon me if I say I cannot understand why you should go at all. I shall continue to eat, I hope, after I am married, and I think it altogether probable that I shall require a house-keeper and a cook. I believe they do have such things in well-regulated families."

"At my age, and with my experience, and considerin' how we have lived, Mr. John, I couldn't get along with a mistress, 'specially," she added with a touch of malice, "with a woman considerable older than me."

"Older than you? What are you talking about? Miss Kinglake is young enough to be your daughter."

Another apple rolled on the floor. "Miss Kinglake!" she exclaimed in astonishment, "that lamb? Good Lord, I thought you were goin'

to marry the other one!"

"Prudence," I said rather hotly, for I did not relish her amazement, "you will oblige me by not speaking of these ladies as the 'lamb' and 'the other one.' I might gather from your remarks that I am a sort of ravening wolf, instead of a well-meaning gentleman who is merely exercising the privilege of selecting a wife. But," I said, checking myself, for I was ashamed of my explosion, "I shall be magnanimous enough to believe that you are delighted with my choice, and that I have your congratulations.

You will be glad to know that Miss Kinglake and I are perfectly satisfied with each other, and that we are both entirely satisfied with you. And now that we understand the situation, I think I may presume that we shall have breakfast at the usual hour this morning, and to-morrow morning, and for many mornings to come. And, by the way, Prudence, while I have honored you with my confidence, permit me to impress it upon you that this revelation is not village gossip as yet, and you will put me under further obligations by not mentioning the circ.u.mstance.

Good-morning, Prudence. Kindly call the ladies at eight o'clock."

And thereupon I hastily departed, leaving the good woman in a state of stupefaction, since, for the first and only time in our long and controversial a.s.sociation, had I retired with the last word. Taking a second turn in the garden I encountered Malachy, and my conscience reproached me. "Am I doing right," I asked myself, "in withholding the glad news from this faithful servant who has shown himself so worthy of my confidence? Is it not my duty to tell him--not so much to interest him in his future mistress as to demonstrate the trust I repose in him?"

Malachy received my confidence with less excitement than I had expected. In fact I was slightly humiliated by his seeming lack of grat.i.tude. He touched his hat very respectfully, and observed irrelevantly that the roses below the arbor were looking uncommonly well. This was a poor reward for my attempt at consideration, and further convinced me of the uselessness of establis.h.i.+ng anything like intimate relations with the proletariat.

"By the way, Malachy," I said in parting, "you will keep this matter a profound secret. Miss Kinglake and I are desirous that we shall not be annoyed by village chatter and premature congratulations."

Having discharged my duty to my good servants, I felt that my obligations, so far as the relation with Phyllis was concerned, were at an end, and the morning wore away without further misgivings of disloyalty. In the afternoon Bunsey came over for his daily smoke, and as we sat together in the library, and I noticed the entire absence of suspicion in his manner, my heart smote me. "Truly," I reasoned silently, "I am behaving ill to an old friend who has never withheld from me the very secrets of his soul. Should I not be as generous, as outspoken, with him as he has always proved to me? Should I not confide to him this one precious secret, at the same time swearing him to preserve it as he would his life?"

I blew out a ring of smoke, and then I began with the utmost seriousness: "Bunsey, how do you like the ladies?"

He s.h.i.+fted his position, tipped the ashes from his cigar, and replied tranquilly: "Oh, I dare say I shall in time."

The answer vexed me. Bunsey was a bachelor, and should have been therefore the more impressionable. I forgot for the moment, in my annoyance, that he was a novelist, and had been so diligently creating lovely and impossible women to order that he was not easily moved by the realities of humanity.

"At all events," I replied with delicate irony, "I am glad that the future is hopeful for the ladies. My reason for asking the question was simply to lead the way to a confidence I intend to repose in you. To proceed expeditiously to the end of a long story, I intend to marry one of them."

Bunsey's tranquillity was unshaken. "Which one?"