Delphi Complete Works of Booth Tarkington (Illustrated), page 31
“Want to discharge him again?” said a voice from the door, and turning, they saw that Mr. Martin stood there observing them.
“No,” said Harkless; “I want to give him the ‘Herald.’ Do you know where he is?”
Mr. Martin stroked his beard deliberately. “The person you speak of hadn’t ort to be very hard to find — in Carlow. The committee was reckless enough to hire that carriage of yours by the day, and Keating and Warren Smith are setting in it up at the corner, with their feet on the cushions to show they’re used to ridin’ around with four white horses every day in the week. It’s waitin’ till you’re ready to go out to Briscoe’s. It’s an hour before supper time, and you can talk to young Fisbee all you want. He’s out there.”
As they drove along the pike, Harkless’s three companions kept up a conversation sprightly beyond the mere exhilaration of the victorious; but John sat almost silent, and, in spite of their liveliness, the others eyed him a little anxiously now and then, knowing that he had been living on excitement through a physically exhausting day, and they were fearful lest his nerves react and bring him to a breakdown. But the healthy flush of his cheek was reassuring; he looked steady and strong, and they were pleased to believe that the stirring-up was what he needed.
It had been a strange and beautiful day to him, begun in anger, but the sun was not to go down upon his wrath; for his choleric intention had almost vanished on his homeward way, and the first words Smith had spoken had lifted the veil of young Fisbee’s duplicity, had shown him with what fine intelligence and supreme delicacy and sympathy young Fisbee had worked for him, had understood him, and had made him. If the open assault on McCune had been pressed, and the damnatory evidence published in Harkless’s own paper, while Harkless himself was a candidate and rival, John would have felt dishonored. The McCune papers could have been used for Halloway’s benefit, but not for his own; he would not ride to success on another man’s ruin; and young Fisbee had understood and had saved him. It was a point of honor that many would have held finicky and inconsistent, but one which young Fisbee had comprehended was vital to Harkless.
And this was the man he had discharged like a dishonest servant; the man who had thrown what was (in Carlow’s eyes) riches into his lap; the man who had made his paper, and who had made him, and saved him. Harkless wanted to see young Fisbee as he longed to see only one other person in the world. Two singular things had happened that day which made his craving to see Helen almost unbearable — just to rest his eyes upon her for a little while, he could ask no more. And as they passed along that well-remembered road, every tree, every leaf by the wayside, it seemed, spoke to him and called upon the dear memory of his two walks with her — into town and out of town, on show-day. He wondered if his heart was to project a wraith of her before him whenever he was deeply moved, for the rest of his life. For twice to-day he had seen her whom he knew to be so far away. She had gone back to her friends in the north, Tom had said. Twice that afternoon he had been momentarily, but vividly, conscious of her as a living presence. As he descended from the car at the station, his eyes, wandering out over the tumultuous crowd, had caught and held a picture for a second — a graceful arm upraised, and a gloved hand pressed against a blushing cheek under a hat such as is not worn in Carlow; a little figure poised apparently in air, full-length above the crowd about her; so, for the merest flick of time he had seen her, and then, to his straining eyes, it was as though she were not. She had vanished. And again, as his carriage reached the Square, a feeling had come to him that she was near him; that she was looking at him; that he should see her when the carriage turned; and in the same instant, above the singing of a multitude, he heard her voice as if there had been no other and once more his dazzled eyes beheld her for a second; she was singing, and as she sang she leaned toward him from on high with the most ineffable look of tenderness and pride and affection he had ever seen on a woman’s face; such a look, he thought, as she would wear if she came to love some archangel (her love should be no less) with all of her heart and soul and strength. And so he knew he had seen a vision. But it was a cruel one to visit a man who loved her. He had summoned his philosophy and his courage in his interview with himself on the way to Carlow, and they had answered; but nothing could answer if his eyes were to play him tricks and bring her visibly before him, and with such an expression as he had seen upon her face. It was too real. It made his eyes yearn for the sight of her with an ache that was physical. And even at that moment, he saw, far ahead of them on the road, two figures standing in front of the brick house. One was unmistakable at any distance. It was that of old Fisbee; and the other was a girl’s: a light, small figure without a hat, and the low, western sun dwelt on a head that shone with gold. Harkless put his hand over his eyes with a pain that was like the taste of hemlock in nectar.
“Sun in your eyes?” asked Keating, lifting his hat, so as to shield the other’s face.
“Yes.”
When he looked again, both figures were gone. He made up his mind that he would think of the only other person who could absorb his attention, at least for a time; very soon he would stand face to face with the six feet of brawn and intelligence and manhood that was young Fisbee.
“You are sure he is there?” he asked Tom Martin.
“Yes,” answered Martin, with no need to inquire whom the editor meant. “I reckon,” he continued, solemnly, peering at the other from under his rusty hat-brim, “I reckon when you see him, maybe you’ll want to put a kind of codicil to that deed to the ‘Herald.’”
“How’s that, Martin?”
“Why, I guess maybe you’ll — well, wait till you see him.”
“I don’t want to wait much longer, when I remember what I owe him and how I have used him, and that I have been here nearly three hours without seeing him.”
As they neared the brick house Harkless made out, through the trees, a retreative flutter of skirts on the porch, and the thought crossed his mind that Minnie had flown indoors to give some final directions toward the preparation of the banquet; but when the barouche halted at the gate, he was surprised to see her waving to him from the steps, while Tom Meredith and Mr. Bence and Mr. Boswell formed a little court around her. Lige Willetts rode up on horse back at the same moment, and the judge was waiting in front of the gate. Harkless stepped out of the barouche and took his hand.
“I was told young Fisbee was here.”
“Young Fisbee is here,” said the judge.
“Where, please, Briscoe?”
“Want to see him right off?”
“I do, very much.”
“You’ll withdraw his discharge, I expect, now?”
“Ah!” exclaimed the other. “I want to make him a present of the ‘Herald,’ if he’ll take it.” He fumed to Meredith, who had come to the gate. “Tom, where is he?”
Meredith put his hand on his friend’s shoulder, and answered: “I don’t know. God bless you, old fellow!”
“The truth is,” said the judge, as they entered the gate, “that when you drove up, young Fisbee ran into the house. Minnie—” He turned, but his daughter had disappeared; however, she came to the door, a moment later, and shook her head mysteriously at her father.
“Not in the house,” she said.
Mr. Fisbee came around the corner of the porch and went toward Harkless. “Fisbee,” cried the latter, “where is your nephew?”
The old man took his hand in both his own, and looked him between the eyes, and thus stood, while there was a long pause, the others watching them.
“You must not say that I told you,” he said at last. “Go into the garden.”
But when Harkless’s step crunched the garden path there was no one there. Asters were blooming in beds between the green rose-bushes, and their many-fingered hands were flung open in wide surprise that he should expect to find young Fisbee there. It was just before sunset. Birds were gossiping in the sycamores on the bank. At the foot of the garden, near the creek, there were some tall hydrangea bushes, flower-laden, and, beyond them, one broad shaft of the sun smote the creek bends for a mile in that flat land, and crossed the garden like a bright, taut-drawn veil. Harkless passed the bushes and stepped out into this gold brilliance. Then he uttered a cry and stopped.
Helen was standing beside the hydrangeas, with both hands against her cheeks and her eyes fixed on the ground. She had run away as far as she could run; there were high fences extending down to the creek on each side, and the water was beyond.
“You!” he said. “You — you!”
She did not lift her eyes, but began to move away from him with little backward steps. When she reached the bench on the bank, she spoke with a quick intake of breath and in a voice he scarcely heard. It was the merest whisper, and her words came so slowly that sometimes minutes separated them.
“Can you — will you keep me — on the ‘Herald’?”
“Keep you — —”
“Will you — let me — help?”
He came near her. “I don’t understand. Is it you — you — who are here again?”
“Have you — forgiven me? You know now why I wouldn’t — resign? You forgive my — that telegram?”
“What telegram?”
“That one that came to you — this morning.”
“Your telegram?”
“Yes.”
“Did you send me one?”
“Yes.”
“It did not come to me.”
“Yes — it did.”
“But there — What was it about?”
“It was signed,” she said, “it was signed—” She paused and turned half way, not lifting the downcast lashes; her hand, laid upon the arm of the bench, was shaking; she put it behind her. Then her eyes were lifted a little, and, though they did not meet his, he saw them, and a strange, frightened glory leaped in his heart. Her voice fell still lower and two heavy tears rolled down her cheeks. “It was signed,” she whispered, “it was signed— ‘H. Fisbee.’”
He began to tremble from head to foot. There was a long silence. She had turned quite away from him. When he spoke, his voice was as low as hers, and he spoke as slowly as she had.
“You mean — then — it was — you?”
“Yes.”
“You!”
“Yes.”
“And you have been here all the time?”
“All — all except the week you were — hurt, and that — that one evening.”
The bright veil which wrapped them was drawn away, and they stood in the silent, gathering dusk.
He tried to loosen his neck-band; it seemed to be choking him. “I — I can’t — I don’t comprehend it. I am trying to realize what it — —”
“It means nothing,” she answered.
“There was an editorial, yesterday,” he said, “an editorial that I thought was about Rodney McCune. Did you write it?”
“Yes.”
“It was about — me — wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“It said — it said — that I had won the love of every person in Carlow County.”
Suddenly she found her voice. “Do not misunderstand me,” she said rapidly. “I have done the little that I have done out of gratitude.” She faced him now, but without meeting his eyes. “I told you, remember, that you would understand some day what I meant by that, and the day has come. I owed you more gratitude than a woman ever owed a man before, I think, and I would have died to pay a part of it. I set every gossip’s tongue in Rouen clacking at the very start, in the merest amateurish preparation for the work Mr. Macauley gave me. That was nothing. And the rest has been the happiest time in my life. I have only pleased myself, after all!”
“What gratitude did you owe me?”
“What gratitude? For what you did for my father.”
“I have only seen your father once in my life — at your table at the dance supper, that night.”
“Listen. My father is a gentle old man with white hair and kind eyes. You saw my uncle, that night; he has been as good to me as a father, since I was seven years old, and he gave me his name by law and I lived with him. My father came to see me once a year; I never came to see him. He always told me everything was well with him; that his life was happy. Once he lost the little he had left to him in the world, his only way of making his living. He had no friends; he was hungry and desperate, and he wandered. I was dancing and going about wearing jewels — only — I did not know. All the time the brave heart wrote me happy letters. I should have known, for there was one who did, and who saved him. When at last I came to see my father, he told me. He had written of his idol before; but it was not till I came that he told it all to me. Do you know what I felt? While his daughter was dancing cotillions, a stranger had taken his hand — and—” A sob rose in her throat and checked her utterance for a moment; but she threw up her head and met his eyes proudly. “Gratitude, Mr. Harkless!” she cried. “I am James Fisbee’s daughter.”
He fell back from the bench with a sharp exclamation, and stared at her through the gray twilight. She went on hurriedly, again not looking at him:
“When you showed me that you cared for me — when you told me that you did — I — do you think I wanted to care for you? I wanted to do something to show you that I could be ashamed of my vile neglect of him — something to show you his daughter could be grateful. If I had loved you, what I did would have been for that — and I could not have done it. And how could I have shown my gratitude if I had done it for love? And it has been such dear, happy work, the little I have done, that it seems, after all, that I have done it for love of myself. But — but when you first told me—” She broke off with a strange, fluttering, half inarticulate little laugh that was half tears; and then resumed in another tone: “When you told me you cared that night — that night we were here — how could I be sure? It had been only two days, you see, and even if I could have been sure of myself, why, I couldn’t have told you. Oh! I had so brazenly thrown myself at your head, time and again, those two days, in my — my worship of your goodness to my father and my excitement in recognizing in his friend the hero of my girlhood, that you had every right to think I cared; but if — but if I had — if I had — loved you with my whole soul, I could not have — why, no woman could have — I mean the sort of girl I am couldn’t have admitted it — must have denied it. And what I was trying to do for you when we met in Rouen was — was courting you. You surely see I couldn’t have done it if I had cared. It would have been brazen! And do you think that then I could have answered— ‘Yes’ — even if I wanted to — even if I had been sure of myself? And now—” Her voice sank again to a whisper. “And now — —”
From the meadows across the creek, and over the fields, came a far tinkling of farm-bells. Three months ago, at this hour, John Harkless had listened to that sound, and its great lonesomeness had touched his heart like a cold hand; but now, as the mists were rising from the water and the small stars pierced the sky one by one, glinting down through the dim, immeasurable blue distances, he found no loneliness in heaven or earth. He leaned forward toward her; the bench was between them. The last light was gone; evening had fallen.
“And now—” he said.
She moved backward as he leaned nearer.
“You promised to remember on the day you understood,” she answered, a little huskily, “that it was all from the purest gratitude.”
“And — and there is nothing else?”
“If there were,” she said, and her voice grew more and more unsteady, “if there were, can’t you see that what I have done—” She stopped, and then, suddenly, “Ah, it would have been brazen!”
He looked up at the little stars and he heard the bells, and they struck into his heart like a dirge. He made a singular gesture of abnegation, and then dropped upon the bench with his head bowed between his hands.
She pressed her hand to her bosom, watching him in a startled fashion, her eyes wide and her lips parted. She took a few quick, short steps toward the garden, still watching him over her shoulder.
“You mustn’t worry,” he said, not lifting his bent head, “I know you’re sorry. I’ll be all right in a minute.”
She gave a hurried glance from right to left and from left to right, like one in terror seeking a way of escape; she gathered her skirts in her hand, as if to run into the garden; but suddenly she turned and ran to him — ran to him swiftly, with her great love shining from her eyes. She sank upon her knees beside him. She threw her arms about his neck and kissed him on the forehead.
“Oh, my dear, don’t you see?” she whispered, “don’t you see — don’t you see?”
When they heard the judge calling from the orchard, they went back through the garden toward the house. It was dark; the whitest asters were but gray splotches. There was no one in the orchard; Briscoe had gone indoors. “Did you know you are to drive me into town in the phaeton for the fireworks?” she asked.
“Fireworks?”
“Yes; the Great Harkless has come home.”
Even in the darkness he could see the look the vision had given him when the barouche turned into the Square. She smiled upon him and said, “All afternoon I was wishing I could have been your mother.”
He clasped her hand more tightly. “This wonderful world!” he cried. “Yesterday I had a doctor — a doctor to cure me of love-sickness!”
They went on a little way. “We must hurry,” she said. “I am sure they have been waiting for us.” This was true; they had.
From the dining-room came laughter and hearty voices, and the windows were bright with the light of many lamps. By and by, they stood just outside the patch of light that fell from one of the windows.
“Look,” said Helen. “Aren’t they good, dear people?”
“The beautiful people!” he answered.
Monsieur Beaucaire (1900)
