V. V.'s Eyes Part 18

"Why, you know I never thought anything of the sort, Cally dear,"

answered Hen....

She seemed surprised by the signs of her cousin's displeasure (which really did seem excessive for a business controversy nearly two months old) and went on in what was evidently intended to be quite a soothing manner:

"You know, men are always hammering each other over things like this--it's really not nearly so awful as it sounds!... And honestly, Cally, that letter wasn't at all representative of V.V.--even though he probably thought it was! I mean ... he may talk in that fierce way about whole cla.s.ses, but when it comes down to people--individuals--he's about the kindest person. What he really thinks is--well, that _everybody's good_.... Here's what I mean, Cally," said Hen, laughing a little, but with a certain eagerness too, as if it were of some importance for Cally to see what she meant.... "You know him, you say--slightly, of course.

Well, instead of writing any more letters about the Works, do you know what it would be exactly like him to do now?"

"Throw a bomb in at papa's office-window?"

"No, speak to _you_ about it!" laughed Henrietta, unabashed--"some time when he sees you at Mr. Beirne's or somewhere--ask you in the nicest, most natural way to ask Uncle Thornton if he won't build a new Works!

And you'd see from the way he looked at you that he was perfectly _sure_ you were going to do it, too!"

Cally gazed at Hen silently for at least ten seconds.

"I'd enjoy immensely having him try it," said she slowly. "_Immensely!_ I--I've wanted for some time to say a few words to him...."

At that moment the broken c.o.o.ney doorbell rang feebly, and within one minute V. Vivian came walking into the little parlor.

Supping at the c.o.o.neys was not usually so interesting as this.

When the bell rang, Looloo, springing up from the Major's side in the dining-room, hurriedly pulled shut the folding-doors between. She apologized to her cousin through the diminis.h.i.+ng crack, saying that it was probably awful Bob Dunn, and Cally could come hide in there with them if she'd rather. But Cally said briefly that she was not afraid, and had to go home in a little while anyway.

In the same moment Carlisle heard the voice of the caller in the hall, for whom Hen had just opened the door. She recognized this voice at the first word. And she involuntarily rose in the c.o.o.ney parlor, feeling the oddest, suddenest, most unreasoning impulse to go at once into the dining-room, after all, and be with Looloo, and watch them play checkers for a little while....

It was the surprise of it; nothing more. And Carlisle overcame that impulse. She remained standing motionless, reconsidering as by lightning flashes the quite complicated point of etiquette that so suddenly confronted her. What was a lady's proper att.i.tude toward a n.o.body who has called her father a shameless homicide and herself a G.o.d-pitiful poor little thing? There was no experience to guide here. But clearer and clearer it seemed to become to Cally that to hold any converse with such an one could only be, after all, essentially debasing. Icy indifference was the stingingest rebuke....

Henrietta came through the door, with the lame medical man behind her.

Without looking at him, Cally gathered that the man found the sight of her properly disquieting.

"You know my cousin, Miss Heth, I believe--_Doctor_ Vivian, Cally."

"Oh!... How do you do!" said the doctor.

Carlisle, not advancing from the sofa-side, said:

"I remember Dr. Vivian."

"Well, sit down, both of you," said Hen.

And then Henrietta, with that audacious forwardness which the c.o.o.neys mistook for humor, smiled treacherously at her cousin over the caller's shoulder, and said:

"And entertain each other a moment, won't you? I have _got_ to speak to mother...."

On that Hen left them. Through some bias in its ancient hinges, the parlor door swung to behind her. It shut with a loud click. From behind the other closed doors, the merry voices of the checker-players and rooter grew very audible.

Despite the hostess's cordial injunction, the two young people in the shut c.o.o.ney parlor did not immediately sit down and begin to entertain each other. Both remained standing exactly where Hen had left them, and there ensued a hiatus of entertainment just long enough to be quite distinctly appreciable.

Then the absurdity of her--Miss Heth's--feeling constraint before this Mr.--no, Dr.--Vivian, this friend of the c.o.o.neys and malicious attacker of the c.o.o.neys' relatives' characters, rushed over the girl inspiritingly. Then it occurred to her simply to incline her head coldly, and leave the man without a word: dignified that, yet possibly open to misconstruction. So, taking one graceful step toward the door, Carlisle said, with a sufficiency of distant hauteur:

"You can entertain yourself, I hope? I am going."

The tall young man removed his gaze from the blank s.p.a.ce left by Hen's exit, with a kind of start, and said hurriedly:

"I hope you aren't letting _me_ drive you away? I--I merely stopped a moment in pa.s.sing, on a--a professional matter...."

"Why should you imagine that I am anxious to avoid you?"

He said, with gratifying embarra.s.sment: "I naturally couldn't hope that--you would wish to see me--"

And then suddenly all her just and fortifying resentment seemed to return to her, and she said with frosty calm:

"Yes, I've rather wanted to see you again. I didn't quite place you when--I had this opportunity before...."

The man regarded the floor. He looked as if he knew what was coming.

"I've recently read your letter in the 'Post' about my father. Tell me, what pleasure do you find in writing such wicked untruths about people who've never harmed you?"

In her mind it had seemed exactly the thing to say, the rebuke which would put him finally in his place on all scores, show him up completely to himself. But the moment it was out, it acquired somehow the wrong sound, jangling and a little shrewish and somewhat common, and she rather wished she hadn't said it. She had never seen anybody turn pale so suddenly....

The man wore the same clothes he had worn in the summer-house, she thought; indubitably the same large four-in-hand, floating the fat white painted shad, or perch. He was rather better-looking in the face than she had supposed; and in this light she observed more clearly the rather odd expression he wore about the eyes, a quality of youthful hopefulness, a sort of confidingness: not the look of a brick-thrower, unless you happened to know the facts in the case. All this, of course, was his own lookout. If he wanted to say and do outrageous things, he had no right to appear so pained when he got his merited punishment. He had no right to put on that appealing look. He had no right to be lame....

"It is perfectly natural for you to say and think that," he was saying with an odd air of introspection, quite as if he were rea.s.suring somebody inside of him. "I don't think there was anything untrue in that letter, but--no doubt it must have seemed so. And of course ... I _don't_ suppose you can go to the Heth Works much, or be very familiar--"

"It isn't necessary for me to go to the Works to learn that my father is not a homicide."

Her voice had lost something of its first ringing a.s.surance. It seemed to shake a little, like an indignant child's.

The young man said hurriedly:

"No, no! Of course not! I--indeed, I think you misunderstood what I meant to say in--in that letter. I must have expressed myself badly. I did not intend so much a--a criticism of individuals, as of society, for--"

"Oh, please don't apologize. That's always rather silly, I think. I like to see people with the courage of their convictions, no matter how wrong they are. Good-evening."

"Don't go," said the slum physician, instantly, much as Mr. Canning had said at a similar yet totally different moment--"that is--_must_ you--go at once? I--there is something I've wanted very much to tell you."

She stopped still; stood in silence gazing at Dalhousie's friend, the shabby author of the two Severe Arraignments. Undoubtedly there was a sinking feeling within her, unsteadying in its way. But she was spirited, and into her eyes had come a hostile challenge. Pa.s.sionately she dared this man to ask G.o.d to pity her again....

Her eyes were oval and lifted the least bit at the outer corners. The bow of her upper lip drew up a little most engagingly at the middle (like Teresa Durbeyfield's), an irregularity more endearing to the eye than any flawlessness. There was the possibility of tenderness in this mouth; more than the promise of strength in the finely cut chin. Her thick lashes began pure gold, but changed their minds abruptly in the middle, and finished jet black....

She was the loveliest thing this man's eyes had ever rested upon. And as at the Beach, he seemed to begin with a plunge:

"Jack Dalhousie's gone away, Miss Heth--gone to Weymouth, Texas, to live. I had a letter from him, day before yesterday. He's got work there, on a stock-farm--among strangers. He hasn't taken a drink since--October. He's making a new start, with nothing to remind him of what's past. I ... hope he will be happy yet."

Carlisle's breast rose and fell. "Why do you tell this to me?"

"Because," said Vivian, "I've felt I--did you such a wrong--that night...."

Under the flickering c.o.o.ney gas, the two stood staring at each other.