Kitabı oku: «Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905», sayfa 16
THE UNATTAINED
A gem apart
In the unreached heart
Of a shy and secret place;
Swift-winged in flight
As a meteor’s light
In the far-off field of space.
More sweet and clear
To the spirit’s ear
Than a wave-song on the beach;
Like the baffling blue
Of a mountain view,
Or a dream just out of reach.
Like light withdrawn
By a rain-swept dawn,
When the clouds are wild and gray;
Like a wind that blows
Through the orchard close
Ever and ever away.
William Hamilton Hayne.
THE FLATTERER
By George Hibbard
Miss Miriam Whiting languidly descended the broad terrace steps. If her slow progress suggested bodily weariness, her whole bearing was not less indicative of spiritual lassitude. She allowed her hand to stray indolently along the balustrade, as with the other she held the lace-covered sunshade at a careless angle over her shoulder.
On the lawn the guests from outside were gathered. Collected in groups or wandering in pairs, they dotted the grounds. As one of those staying in the house, she appeared as a semi-official hostess with a modified duty of seeing that all went as well as possible. Her head ached slightly, as she began to discover. Even the light of the late afternoon was trying. The dress which she expected to wear had proved too dilapidated, and she had been obliged to put on one she wished to save for more important occasions. The invitation which she needed for the satisfactory conduct of her modish itineracy from country house to country house had not come in the early mail as she expected.
The band, hidden in a small, thick boscage of the wide gardens, broke into a mockingly cheerful air. At intervals some distant laugh taunted her. She was late, she knew. The shadows had begun to lengthen across the open spaces by the fountain, and she could almost see Mrs. Gunnison’s tart and ominous frown of displeasure. Why was she there, except to be seen; so that the world should know that one who had just come from the Kingsmills’ place on the Hudson had paused beneath the broad roofs of “Highlands” before, presumably, going to the Van Velsors, in Newport?
As with pinched lips she reflected, she quickened her pace carefully.
“Ah, senator!” she cried, as she held out her hand with regulated effusion. “I am so charmed. I did not know that you were to be here. You great ones of the earth are so busy and so much in demand – ”
Senator Grayson bowed and beamed. He shifted in uneasy gratification from one foot to the other, and a rosier red showed in his round face.
“I did not think that you young ladies noticed us old politicians – ”
“Every one should be given the benefit of a doubt. Of course, in our silly lives there is not very much chance to know about anything really worth while, but when a thing is really great even we cannot help hearing about it. Your last speech – the broad, far-reaching views – ”
The senator stood in agreeable embarrassment.
“I read it,” Miriam continued. “I could not go to sleep, because I wanted to finish it. Of course, I could not understand all, but I was entranced. Even I could feel the force and eloquence. I have heard of nothing else.”
“Really?” cried the enchanted statesman. “Do you know I thought it had fallen flat? You are good to tell me. These side-lights are of the utmost value, and, indeed, I esteem your opinion. Would you let me get out a cup of tea? And – and – Mrs. Grayson was only saying the other day that she wanted to ask you to come to Washington for a visit this winter.”
As the senator stumbled away, Miss Whiting felt a light touch at her elbow.
“In your most popular and successful manner, Miriam,” said a slight, slim woman, whom she found standing beside her.
“He’s a dear, if he is an old goose,” said Miriam, defiantly. “And, of course, any shading would be lost on him.”
“I know,” continued the other, the sharp brown eyes in her lean brown face regarding the girl critically. “There are degrees of flattery even in your flattering. You have reduced it – or elevated it – to the proud position of an exact science.”
Before Miriam could reply, a young man who had discovered her from afar advanced with what was evidently an unusual degree of precipitancy.
“Miss Whiting, I am delighted,” he puffed. “I have been looking for you everywhere. I was in town, and I went to that bric-a-brac shop. The fan is undoubtedly a real Jacques Callot.”
“I was sure,” she murmured, “with your knowledge and taste, that you could decide at once. Of course, I did not know.”
“And – and – ” hesitated the youth, “I hope that you will not be offended. I told them to send it to you here. If you will accept it?”
“How terrible – and how kind of you!” Miriam cried, holding out both hands, as if led by an irresistible impulse. “But you are so generous. All your friends have discovered that. I always think of St. Francis sharing his cloak with the blind beggar.”
“So good of you,” he stuttered. “It’s nothing. You must be tired. Can’t I bring a chair for you? I am going to get one.”
As the young man turned hurriedly away, Miriam grasped her companion’s arm.
“I never thought that he would give it to me. Never, Janet – honestly,” she exclaimed, with earnestness.
“The way of the transgressor is likely to be strewn – with surprises.”
“I only thought of saying something pleasant at a dinner.”
“I’d taken Bengy Wade’s opinion without a moment’s hesitation on the length of a fox terrier’s tail, but a fan – ”
“He wants to be considered artistic,” pleaded Miriam.
“And the last touch about St. Francis, wasn’t that a trifle overdone? Somewhat too thickly laid on? What used to be called by painters in a pre-impressionistic age – too great impasto. I am afraid that you are a little deteriorating.”
“Miriam!”
Both turned, and found a tall lady calling with as great animation as a due regard for the requirements of a statuesque pose permitted.
“I want to speak to you,” she exclaimed, as soon as words were possible. “I want you to come to my house to-morrow morning. I am going to have a little music. Emmeline is going to sing.”
“Oh!” cried Miriam.
“Don’t you like her singing?” the other inquired, earnestly.
“Oh, very much,” assured Miriam. “Only – the truth is, I once heard her sing Brunnhilde’s ‘Awakening,’ and she murdered it so horribly.”
“Emmeline is often too ambitious,” the other commented, with visible content.
“Lighter things she can do charmingly, and she should hold to them,” Miriam announced, with decision.
“I arranged the program,” said the lady, “and, for her own sake, I shall not let her attempt anything to which she is unequal. Of course, I shall not sing myself.”
“Oh, Mrs. Ogden!”
“You know I never sing anything but Wagner, and then only when there are a few – when my hearers are in full sympathy. You will be sure to come,” she added, as she turned to give another invitation. “By the way, you will be at Westbrook this autumn. I want you to ride Persiflage in the hunt as often as you like.”
“Much better,” commented Miriam’s companion, as they strayed on. “Of course, nothing would please her – as a bitter rival – more than to hear her sister-in-law’s singing abused. That touch about lighter things was masterly when she herself only sings Wagner for a few. But how do you manage with Emmeline?”
“I tell her that no one can conduct, an automobile as she does.”
“My dear!”
“It’s an amusing game,” the girl answered.
“But is it a safe one?”
“Why not?” she exclaimed, challengingly.
The two advanced toward the spreading marquee which appeared to be the center of the mild social maelstrom. A greater ebullition perceptibly marked the spot. The conflict of voices arose more audibly. Many were constantly drawn inward, while by some counter-current others were, frequently cast outward to continue in drifting circles until again brought back to the gently agitated center. On the very edge of this vortex – the heart of which was the long table beneath the tent – sat a goodly sized lady. Her appearance might have been offered by a necromancer as the proof of a successfully accomplished trick, for the small camp stool on which she rested was so thoroughly concealed from sight that she might have been considered to rest upon air. Catching sight of Miriam, she beckoned to her with a vigor that threatened disruption of her gloves.
“Where have you been?” she cried, as Miriam and her friend approached. “I have been waiting for you. So many have been asking for you. I expected you to be here.”
“My dear Mrs. Gunnison,” cooed the girl, “you must forgive me. Absolutely, I could not help myself. I was all ready on time – but I have been admiring again your wonderful house. And I have been wondering at the perfect way in which it is kept up – the faultless manner in which everything is managed. I can only think of Lord Wantham’s place. Though, of course, there is not the brilliancy there – ”
“I like to have things nice about me,” said Mrs. Gunnison, complacently. “Sit down here, my dear. I want to have you near me. And you, too, Mrs. Brough.”
“I may be a little to blame for keeping Miriam,” said the elder woman. “I have been so much interested in what she was saying.”
“Every one is,” responded Mrs. Gunnison, warmly. “Miriam is so popular – quite celebrated, for it. Indeed, there are numbers of people here who want to meet her. One young man in particular – Mr. Leeds – ”
“Did he say he wished to know me?” the girl asked, quickly.
“Well, no,” admitted Mrs. Gunnison, “But then I want you to know each other. I’m quite bent on it. Nothing could be better. I’d like to see it come out the way I’d have it. You know how rich he is. And they say he is going to be somebody. Mr. Leeds! Mr. Leeds!”
A tall young man looked and advanced. While his gait did not indicate reluctance, there was nothing that seemed to reveal eagerness. He came forward deliberately and stopped before the party.
“I don’t think, Mr. Leeds, that you know Miss Whiting,” Mrs. Gunnison announced. “A dear friend of mine – and a dear. Mrs. Brough and you are old friends. You see her so often that I feel that I can take her away. Come, I want to show you something.”
With her customary smile of unconcerned intelligence, Mrs. Brough allowed herself to be drawn off. The young man slowly settled himself in the chair which Mrs. Gunnison had left.
“Oh, you shall not escape,” declared Miriam. “Mr. Leeds, I am so glad to be able to speak to you at last. I have so much to say to you. They told me that you would be here this afternoon. I wondered if I should see you.”
Leeds had not spoken, but looked at the girl with a steadiness which for a moment caused her to cast down her animated eyes.
“I missed you everywhere last winter,” she went on, more slowly. “And, of course, heard of you always.”
Leeds continued to inspect the girl with amusement in his glance.
“Oh, how splendid accomplishing something must be – standing for something!”
“Don’t you think that you are rather overvaluing my modest achievements?”
“Of course, you speak that way, but others do not,” she hurried on. “You are known from one end of the country to the other.”
“Really – ” he began.
“To be such an inspiring influence in local politics – ”
“Because,” he laughed, “having a minor public position – because, by a fluke, having found myself in the place of a common councilman, I have got some things done and kept others from being done.”
“Public life has always been so absorbing for me. I can think of nothing nobler for a man.”
“Than being a common councilman,” he interrupted.
“You laugh,” she said. “But I grew so interested, I followed in the newspapers, from day to day, what you were doing.”
“You were very good,” he answered, gravely. “Or you are very good to say so.”
“Don’t you believe me?” she asked, suddenly arrested by his tone.
“I have heard a good deal of you, Miss Whiting.”
Miriam flushed slightly, but she looked at him steadily.
“What have you heard?”
“I have heard that you have ways of making the worse appear the better reason – that you flatter.”
The glow deepened in her face and her eyes flashed.
“And,” he went on, lightly, “why should not one try to make the world pleasanter by making it more satisfied with itself? Isn’t that the part of a public benefactor?”
“You are laughing at me,” she cried. “You – are – despising me.”
“No, indeed,” he answered, with real earnestness. “You misunderstand me. Isn’t it only fair to give back in pleasant speeches the admiration and adulation that the world gives you? There would be a certain dishonesty in taking all and giving nothing.”
“You – you – are mocking me,” she gasped, rising, as if to fly, and then sinking back.
“No,” he answered, “only I object to being mocked myself. I’d rather not be included with all the others to be given pleasant words, as you can so easily give them out of a large supply. I’d prefer to have you think better of me than to believe that I am to be treated in that way.”
“Mr. Leeds, you are abominable and rude – and I cannot listen to you.”
“I am sorry. Honestly, when you began to make such – civil speeches to me I was disappointed. It was so exactly what I had been told to expect.”
Miriam bit her lips – and her hand trembled a little on the handle of the sunshade.
“I may have lost my temper a little,” he said, “which one should never do – but I can’t take anything back.”
That afternoon Miss Whiting was strangely silent. Held at the opening of the tent by her hostess, people passed before her unseen. What she said she hardly knew. What her words meant she could not have told. She was only aware that her voice sounded unnatural, and that her laugh – when laugh she must – struck discordantly and strangely on her ears. She felt that the time would never come when she could be alone – to think.
II
Mrs. Gunnison’s dinners, like all else of the establishment, were always large. The classic limits authoritatively imposed she would have scorned – if she had ever heard of them. If she could have timed it, the greater the number of minutes required by the procession to the dining room in passing a given point, the better she would have been satisfied. She only felt that she “entertained” when she beheld serried ranks of guests stretching away from her on either hand. Therefore, when Miriam turned and discovered Leeds at her right, they found themselves in such semi-isolation as only exists at a very large dinner table.
“I am sorry,” he said, pleadingly.
“So am I,” she answered. “Very – oh, you think I mean that to be pleasant in that way, too – ”
She hastily averted her face, and engaged vigorously in conversation with the man on the other side. Leeds stared moodily before him. During the passing of the many courses which Mrs. Gunnison’s idea of fitting ceremony demanded, the lady whom he had taken in found him neither communicative nor responsive. The dinner dragged on. Miss Whiting’s soft right shoulder remained constantly turned on him. Her discourses, which he could not help hearing, continued actively and unceasingly. At last Mrs. Gunnison darted restless glances about. She had already begun to stir uneasily in her chair.
Miriam suddenly veered round upon him.
“I want to tell you something,” she almost whispered. “What I said – what I tried to say this afternoon was true.”
He looked at her with fixed earnestness.
“Oh!” she cried, passionately. “I can’t bear to have you study me as if I were a specimen of something – of mendacity, you think. But no matter about that. You must believe me. Don’t you?”
“How can I,” he answered, slowly, “with – ”
“With my reputation,” she caught up, quickly, as he paused. “Do not try to spare me – now. Can’t you hear – can’t you see, now, that I am speaking the truth?”
He gazed at her without answering.
“Oh, I can read in your eyes that you do not. I want you to believe me. Can’t you believe – even that?”
He shook his head half smilingly.
“You do not know all that I have heard,” he answered.
“Who can have been so unfair – so cruel? I – I never wanted to be believed so before. Oh, you think that is only a part of it; that the habit is so strong with me – that I am only flattering.”
“If I have been – warned,” Leeds continued.
“As if I were a peril – an evil – ”
“Perhaps you might be,” he muttered.
“I will not bear it. You shall believe me. I am not flattering.”
“At least, that you should have been willing to take the trouble to try was in itself a distinction.”
“You are hard on me.”
“I must protect myself.”
Mrs. Gunnison had arisen, and a rustling stir was spreading down the table.
“I am not a harpy,” she cried.
“A siren was a bird more beautiful, but not less dangerous,” he said.
She rose straightly and swiftly.
“You feel that you can speak to me like that because you believe I am what you think. Very well. There may be satisfaction for you to know it. I am, then, everything that you have implied. More – more than you have said. I am false. I do flatter people – cajole them – deceive. I do it for my own interest. Now are you satisfied? Could anything be worse? I confess, even, that I have deserved the way you have treated me.”
“Believe me – ” he began, hastily.
But she had swept from him, and, amid the group of retreating women, he found no chance to finish the sentence.
III
Miriam Whiting said “good-night” very early. A greater accuracy might demand the statement that the time at which she had “gone upstairs” was relatively not late – for the hours of the house were expansive, and not only had morning a way of extending into afternoon, but midnight into morning. As a general thing, she had only disappeared with her hostess, but on this particular evening she pleaded weariness – sleepiness – had even hinted at a headache, which no one had ever known her to have. Thereupon she departed, followed by the reproaches of the rest. Once in her room, she hurried her maid, and, finally, abruptly dismissed her. When she was alone, she went to the window and threw wide both the shutters. She leaned with her elbows on the sill, gazing out at the moonlit country.
Perfectly round, with a burnished sky about it, such as may sometimes be seen when the circle is absolutely full, the white disk hung in the heavens. Below, about the quiet edges of the fountain, the light lay with silken sheen. Only, where the drops fell tremulously, the water was broken into glittering sparks. All was very still. Far off a dog barked fitfully. That was the one sound which broke the silence, with the exception of the occasional distant laughter of some men on the terrace at the end of the spreading wing. With her fingers buried in her thick hair, carefully gathered for the night, she looked straight before her, although she was wholly unconscious of the scene.
A light knock at the door was repeated twice before she heard it and spoke.
“It’s I,” the voice said, insistently. “May I come in?”
“Of course,” Miriam answered, without moving.
The door opened quickly, and a small figure darted into the room.
“There was some one coming,” said Mrs. Brough, as she glanced down at the voluminous silken folds in which her little body was lost. “I am not in a condition to be seen – generally.”
She came forward slowly.
“My room is near yours. I saw your light. I thought that you had not gone to sleep. I wanted to come to speak to you.” She put her hands on Miriam’s shoulder. “You have been crying.”
“Yes,” said Miriam, quietly.
“I saw at dinner that you were not yourself – and I am troubled, too. I have a confession to make.”
Miriam looked at her curiously.
“You know that I am your friend – now,” the other went on. “Since we have been here together, we have come to know each other as I never thought that we should. There was a time before, though, when I did not understand so well. I had watched you, and I did not like you. I distrusted you – or, rather, did not trust you – ”
“I understand. You were clever enough to see through me – ”
“I thought that with your – insincerities that you were all false. I should have been wise enough to know differently. But what will you? – to assume evil is easy, and always gives one a proud sense of superior perspicacity. I condemned you, Miriam, without a hearing, and I told Arthur Leeds.”
“You did it?” the girl murmured, dully.
“Yes, I warned him.”
“Why?”
“Because I like him and admire him, and I thought you – dangerous.”
“That is why he has said the things he has.”
“He has said something?”
“He has told me that I am not worthy of regard or consideration or respect.”
“Impossible!”
“Perhaps not directly – but he has implied that and more – by word and action. And – and – I love him.”
Mrs. Brough sat down quickly in the chair which she had drawn up, and took Miriam’s hands.
“I know you so well now,” she said, “that at dinner I saw something was wrong. I did not realize that it was as bad as that.”
“I think I loved him even last winter, when I only saw him – heard who he was – and did not know him. I admired and respected and reverenced him. But he seemed different to me. And to-day when I met him I wanted to tell him a little – as much as I could – of what I thought. I wanted him to know something of the feeling that I had. I wanted to please him. I wanted him to be nice to me – because I pleased him. What I said to him was true – true.”
She sprang to her feet, and spoke in deep, tragic tones.
“True!” she repeated. “And I have lost the power of being thought true. My words can only be considered so many counterfeits. I have so often debased the true metal of sincerity that anything I say must ring false – that anything I may give cannot be taken. What I said sounded fraudulently in my own ears. I could not forget the many, many times when I had spoken so nearly in the same way without meaning or belief, and each speech seemed to me a mockery. Though I longed with all of me to speak simply and sincerely – knowing that I spoke the truth – I hardly seemed to myself to be doing it. All appeared a part, but a repetition of the many times before when I had played a part – when what I did was a comedy – a farce – a tragedy!”
She broke off with a sob.
“You have cried wolf pretty often,” avowed Mrs. Brough.
“I am a Cassandra,” said the girl, instantly. “When I wish to be believed I cannot. When all that is most precious and dearest to me depends on it I cannot be trusted. I may speak, but I shall not be heard – when all my life is in being heard – I know it.”
“You see,” said Mrs. Brough, “when I told him I thought of you as you seemed – ”
“As I was. I don’t blame you,” Miriam cried, bitterly. “What I had become! Let me tell you.” She sat down again, and, with her elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands, gazed fixedly at the other. “I think I began innocently enough. I wanted to be liked – and I fell into the way of saying pleasant little things. I tried to make everybody contented and pleased with me. That was when I came out. Indeed, I may say for myself that I had a sympathetic nature. I could not bear to see anyone uncomfortable or doubtful about themselves or anything, without trying to help them. Surely that was not bad?”
“No,” said Mrs. Brough, slowly.
“I really wished to help every one,” she continued. “And the best way that I found to do it was to say pleasant things. It was easy – too fatally easy. When I discovered how popular this made me I kept on. I continued for myself what I had really begun for others. Insensibly I acquired skill. I was not stupid. I had rather a gift for character – and could say exactly the thing to each one to flatter them the most. I found that I took pleasure in the exercise of such cleverness. There was a feeling of power in it – playing with the foibles and weaknesses of men and women. I did not see that I was often trafficking in unworthiness and baseness.”
“I’ve no doubt you did harm,” concluded Mrs. Brough. “People are only too willing to be encouraged in their vanities. I don’t think, Miriam, that you were really very good for a person’s character.”
“I was not very good for my own,” Miriam went on, grimly. “I retrograded. I can see it now. In playing on the follies and faults of others, I grew less careful – less critical myself. Then the family lost its money. Oh, I haven’t the poor excuse that I was in want – that what I did was done from any lack of anything essential for myself or others. Ours was just a commonplace, undramatic loss – with only need for saving and retrenchment. Without the deprivation of a single necessity, or comfort, even. Merely the absence of the luxuries. The luxuries, though, in a way, had become necessities to me – and – I found, by exercising my power, I could get much that I wished. I flattered and cajoled to please people, so that they would do things for me, give me things. That is ended – ”
She pointed dramatically to a table.
“There is the fan from Bengy Wade in a package. To-morrow it goes back to him. There is a note to Mrs. Grayson, declining her invitation. If I go to Westbrook I shall not ride Persiflage. I have turned over a new leaf. But the degradation of thinking of the record on the old ones! If I could only tear them out instead of trying to fold them down. I see it all now. He has made me see it all. He has made me despise myself until I see the way I look in his eyes; until I seem the same in my own. Janet, what can I do?”
The girl’s head bent on the arm of the chair, as her body was shaken with sobs. The other put out her hand and gently stroked her heavy hair.
“Don’t you exaggerate?”
“Did you,” Miriam panted, “when you said what you did to Mr. Leeds? Did you make my blackness less black than it should be – did you concede to me any saving light?”
“I did not know. If I can do anything now – ”
“You must not speak to him,” Miriam cried, sitting up abruptly. “There would be no use. When the seeds of distrust have been sown they will grow, even if the weeds crowd out everything else.”
“But weeds can be dug up.”
“That must be my part,” Miriam answered, more calmly. “Only one course is left. It’s funny,” she smiled, swiftly, through her tears. “There is poetic justice in it. I can do only one thing. It is my retribution.”
