Part 8

When I had dictated this, I asked her to read it over to me; she did so in faltering tones. Then I bade her good morning, said there was no more work for the day, instructed her that when she was through with copying the work already assigned, the head-clerk would receive it and pay for it, and requested her to return at ten o'clock this morning.

This morning she did not come. I called up her address; she had left there. Nothing was known of her.

If you ever write to her again--! And since you, without visible means of support, are so fond of sending cheques to everybody, why not send one to me! Am I to go on defending you for nothing?

Your obedient counsel and turtle,

BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE.

BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE

_May 28, 1912._

DEAR BEN:

What have you done, what have you done, what have you done! That green child turned loose in New York, not knowing a soul and not having a cent! Suppose anything happens to her--how shall I feel then! Of course, you meant well, but my dear fellow, wasn't it a terrible, an inhuman thing to do! Just imagine--but then you _can't_ imagine, _can't_ imagine, _can't_ imagine!

BEVERLEY.

BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS

_May 29, 1912._

MY DEAR BEVERLEY:

I am sorry that my bungling efforts in your behalf should have proved such a miscalculation. But as you forgive everybody sooner or later perhaps you will in time pardon even me.

Your respectful erring servant, BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE.

TILLY SNOWDEN TO POLLY BOLES

_May 30, 1912._

POLLY BOLES:

The sight of a letter from me will cause a violent disturbance of your routine existence. Our "friendship" worked itself to an open and honourable end about the time I went away last summer and showed itself to be honest hatred. Since my return in the autumn I have been absorbed in many delightful ways and you, doubtless, have been loyally imbedded in the end of the same frayed sofa, with your furniture arranged as for years past, and with the same breastpin on your constant heart. Whenever we have met, you have let me know that the formidable back of Polly Boles was henceforth to be turned on me.

I write because I will not come to see you. My only motive is that you will forward my letter to Ben Doolittle, whom you have so prejudiced against me, that I cannot even write to him.

My letter concerns Beverley. You do not know that since our engagement was broken last summer he has regularly visited me: we have enjoyed one another in ways that are not fetters. Your friendship for Beverley of course has lasted with the constancy of a wooden pulpit curved behind the head and shoulders of a minister. Ben Doolittle's affection for him is as splendid a thing as one ever sees in life. I write for the sake of us all.

Have you been with Beverley of late? If so, have you noticed anything peculiar? Has Ben seen him? Has Ben spoken to you of a change? I shall describe as if to you both what occurred to-night during Beverley's visit: he has just gone.

As soon as I entered the parlours I discovered that he was not wholly himself and instantly recollected that he had not for some time seemed perfectly natural. Repeatedly within the last few months it has become increasingly plain that something preyed upon his mind. When I entered the rooms this evening, although he made a quick, clever effort to throw it off, he was in this same mood of peculiar brooding.

Someone--I shall not say who--had sent me some flowers during the day. I took them down with me, as I often do. I think that Beverley, on account of his preoccupation, did not at first notice that I had brought any flowers; he remained unaware, I feel sure, that I placed the vase on the table near which we sat. But a few minutes later he caught sight of them--a handful of roses of the colour of the wild-rose, with some white spray and a few ferns.

When his eyes fell upon the ferns our conversation snapped like a thread. Painful silence followed. The look with which one recognises some object that persistently annoys came into his eyes: it was the identical expression I had already remarked when he was gazing as on vacancy. He continued absorbed, disregardful of my presence, until his silence became discourteous. My inquiry for the reason of his strange action was evaded by a slight laugh.

This evasion irritated me still more. You know I never trust or respect people who gloss. His rejoinder was gloss. He was taking it for granted that having exposed to me something he preferred to conceal, he would receive my aid to cover this up: I was to join him in the ceremony of gloss.

As a sign of my displeasure I carried the flowers across the room to the mantelpiece.

But the gaiety and carelessness of the evening were gone. When two people have known each other long and intimately, nothing so quickly separates them as the discovery by one that just beneath the surface of their intercourse the other keeps something hidden. The carelessness of the evening was gone, a sense of restraint followed which each of us recognised by periods of silence. To escape from this I soon afterward for a moment went up to my room.

I now come to the incident which explains why I think my letter should be sent to Ben Doolittle.

As I re-entered the parlours Beverley was standing before the vase of flowers on the mantelpiece. His back was turned toward me. He did not see me or hear me. I was about to speak when I discovered that he was muttering to himself and making gestures at the ferns. Fragments of expression straggled from him and the names of strange people. I shall not undertake to write down his incoherent mutterings, yet such was the stimulation of my memory due to shock that I recall many of these.

You ought to know by this time that I am by nature fearless; yet something swifter and stranger than fear took possession of me and I slipped from the parlours and ran half-way up the stairs. Then, with a stronger dread of what otherwise might happen, I returned.

Beverley was sitting where I had left him when I quitted the parlours first. He had the air of merely expecting my re-entrance. I think this is what shocked me most: that he could play two parts with such ready concealment, successful cunning.

Now that he is gone and the whole evening becomes so vivid a memory, I am urged by a feeling of uneasiness to reach Ben Doolittle with this letter, since there is no one else to whom I can turn.

Beverley left abruptly; my manner may have forced that. Certainly for the first time in all these years we separated with a sudden feeling of positive anger. If he calls again, I shall be excused.

Act as you think best. And remember, please, under what stress of feeling I must be to write another letter to you. _To you!_

TILLY SNOWDEN.

TILLY SNOWDEN TO POLLY BOLES

[A second letter enclosed in the preceding one]

My letter of last night was written from impulse. This morning I was so ill that I asked Dr. Marigold to come to see me. I had to explain. He looked grave and finally asked whether he might speak to Dr. Mullen: he thought it advisable; Dr. Mullen could better counsel what should be done. Later he called me up to inquire whether Dr. Mullen and he could call together.

Dr. Mullen asked me to go over what had occurred the evening before. Dr. Marigold and he went across the room and consulted. Dr. Mullen then asked me who Beverley's physician was. I said I thought Beverley had never been ill in his life. He asked whether Ben Doolittle knew or had better not be told.

Again I leave the matter to Ben and you.

But I have thought it necessary to put down on a separate paper the questions which Dr. Mullen asked with my reply to each. For I do not wish Ben Doolittle to think I said anything about Beverley that I would be unwilling for him or for anyone else to know.

TILLY SNOWDEN.

POLLY BOLES TO TILLY SNOWDEN

_June 2, 1912._

TILLY SNOWDEN:

A telegram from Louisville has reached me this morning, announcing the dangerous illness of my mother, and I go to her by the earliest train. I have merely to say that I have sent your letters to Ben.

I shall add, however, that the formidable back of Polly Boles seems to absorb a good deal of your attention. At least my formidable back is a safe back. It is not an uncontrollable back. It may be spoken of, but at least it is never publicly talked about. It does not lead me into temptation; it is not a scandal. On the whole, I console myself with the knowledge that very few women have gotten into trouble on account of their _backs_. If history speaks truly, quite a few notorious ones have come to grief--but _you_ will understand.

POLLY BOLES.

POLLY BOLES TO BEN DOOLITTLE

_June 2, 1912._

DEAR BEN:

I find bad news does not come single. I have a telegram from Louisville with the news of my mother's illness and start by the first train. Just after receiving it I had a letter from Tilly, which I enclose.

I, too, have noticed for some time that Beverley has been troubled. Have you seen him of late? Have you noticed anything wrong? What do you think of Tilly's letter? Write me at once. I should go to see him myself but for the news from Louisville. I have always thought Beverley health itself. Would it be possible for him to have a breakdown? I shall be wretched about him until I hear from you. What do you make out of the questions Dr. Mullen asked Tilly and her replies?

Are you going to write to me every day while I am gone?

POLLY.

BEN DOOLITTLE TO PHILLIPS & FAULDS

_June 4, 1912._

DEAR SIRS:

I desire to recall myself to you as a former Louisville patron of your flourishing business and also as more recently the New York lawyer who brought unsuccessful suit against you on behalf of one of his clients.

You will find enclosed my cheque, and you are requested to send the value of it in long-stemmed red roses to Miss Boles--the same address as in former years.

If the stems of your roses do not happen to be long, make them long. (You know the wires.)

Very truly yours,

BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE.

BEN DOOLITTLE TO POLLY BOLES

_June 4, 1912._

DEAR POLLY:

You will have had my telegram of sympathy with you in your mother's illness, and of my unspeakable surprise that you could go away without letting me see you.

Have I seen Beverley of late? I have seen him early and late. And I have read Tilly's much mystified and much-mistaken letters. If Beverley is crazy, a Kentucky cornfield is crazy, all roast beef is a lunatic, every Irish potato has a screw loose and the Atlantic Ocean is badly balanced.

I happen to hold the key to Beverley's comic behaviour in Tilly's parlour.

As to the questions put to Tilly by that dilution of all fools, Claude Mullen--your favourite nerve specialist and former suitor--I have just this to say:

All these mutterings of Beverley--during one of the gambols in Tilly's parlours, which he naturally reserves for me--all these fragmentary expressions relate to real people and to actual things that you and Tilly have never known anything about.

Men must not bother their women by telling them everything. That, by the way, has been an old bone of contention between you and me, Polly, my chosen rib--a silent bone, but still sometimes, I fear, a slightly rheumatic bone. But when will a woman learn that her heavenly charm to a man lies in the thought that he can place her and keep her in a world, into which his troubles cannot come. Thus he escapes from them himself. Let him once tell his troubles to her and she becomes the mirror of them--and possibly the worst kind of mirror.

Beverley has told Tilly nothing of all this entanglement with ferns, I have not told you. All four of us have thereby been the happier.

But through Tilly's misunderstanding those two mischief-making charlatans, Marigold and Mullen, have now come into the case; and it is of the utmost importance that I deal with these two gentlemen at once; to that end I cut this letter short and start after them.

Oh, but why did you go away without good-bye?

BEN.

BEN DOOLITTLE TO POLLY BOLES

_June 5, 1912._

DEAR POLLY:

I go on where I left off yesterday.

I did what I thought I should never do during my long and memorable life: I called on your esteemed ex-acquaintance, Dr. Claude Mullen. I explained how I came to do so, and I desired of him an opinion as to Beverley. He suggested that more evidence would be required before an opinion could be given. What evidence, I suggested, and how to be gotten? He thought the case was one that could best be further studied if the person were put under secret observation--since he revealed himself apparently only when alone. I urged him to take control of the matter, took upon myself, as Beverley's friend, authority to empower him to go on. He advised that a dictograph be installed in Beverley's room. It would be a good idea to send him a good big bunch of ferns also: the ferns, the dictograph, Beverley alone with them--a clear field.

I explained to Beverley, and we went out and bought a dictograph, and he concealed it where, of course, he could not find it!

In the evening we had a glorious dinner, returned to his rooms, and while I smoked in silence, he, in great peace of mind and profound satisfaction with the world in general, poured into the dictograph his long pent-up opinion of our two dear old friends, Marigold and Mullen. He roared it into the machine, shouted it, raved it, soliloquised it. I had in advance requested him to add my opinion of your former suitor. Each of us had long been waiting for so good a chance and he took full advantage of the opportunity. The next morning I notified Dr. Mullen that Beverley had raved during the night, and that the machine was full of his queer things.

At the appointed hour this morning we assembled in Beverley's rooms. I had cleared away his big centre table, all the rubbish of papers amid which he lives, including some invaluable manuscripts of his worthless novels. I had taken the cylinders out of the dictograph and had put them in a dictophone, and there on the table lay that Pandora's box of information with a horn attached to it.

Dr. Mullen arrived, bringing with him the truly great New York nerve specialist and scientist whom he relies upon to pilot him in difficult cases. Dr. Marigold had brought the truly great physician and scientist who pilots him. At Beverley's request, I had invited the president of his Club, and he had brought along two Club affinities; three gossips.

I sent Beverley to Brooklyn for the day.

We seated ourselves, and on the still air of the room that unearthly asthmatic horn began to deliver Beverley's opinion. Instantly there was an uproar. There was a scuffle. It was almost a general fight. Drs. Marigold and Mullen had jumped to their feet and shouted their furious protests. One of them started to leave the room. He couldn't, I had locked the door. One slammed at the machine--he was restrained--everybody else wanted to hear Beverley out. And amid the riot Beverley kept on his peaceful way, grinding out his healthy vituperation.

That will do, Polly, my dear. You will never hear anything more of Beverley's being in bad health--not from those two rear-admirals of diagnosis--away in the rear. Another happy result; it saves him at last from Tilly. Her act was one that he will never forgive. His act she will never forgive. The last tie between them is severed now.

But all this is nothing, nothing, nothing! I am lost without you.

BEN.

P.S. Now that I have disposed of two of Beverley's detractors, in a day or two I am going to demolish the third one--an Englishman over on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. I have long waited for the chance to write him just one letter: he's the chief calumniator.

POLLY BOLES TO BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE

_Louisville, Kentucky, June 9, 1912._

DEAR BEN:

I cannot tell you what a relief it brought me to hear that Beverley is well. Of course it was all bound to be a mistake.

At the same time your letters have made me very unhappy. Was it quite fair? Was it open? Was it quite what anyone would have expected of Beverley and you?

Nothing leaves me so undone as what I am not used to in people. I do not like surprises and I do not like changes. I feel helpless unless I can foresee what my friends will do and can know what to expect of them. Frankly, your letters have been a painful shock to me.

I foresee one thing: this will bring Tilly and Dr. Marigold more closely together. She will feel sorry for him, and a woman's sense of fair play will carry her over to his side. You men do not know what fair play is or, if you do, you don't care. Only a woman knows and cares. Please don't keep after Dr. Mullen on my account. Why should you persecute him because he loved me?

Dr. Marigold will want revenge on Beverley, and he will have his revenge--in some way.

Your letters have left me wretched. If you surprise me in this way, how might you not surprise me still further? Oh, if we could only understand everybody perfectly, and if everything would only settle and stay settled!

My mother is much improved and she has urged me--the doctor says her recovery, though sure, will be gradual--to spend at least a month with her. To-day I have decided to do so. It will be of so much interest to her if I have my wedding clothes made here. You know how few they will be. My dresses last so long, and I dislike changes. I have found my same dear old mantua-maker and she is delighted and proud. But she insists that since I went to New York I have dropped behind and that I will not do even for Louisville.

On my way to her I so enjoy looking at old Louisville houses, left among the new ones. They seem so faithful! My dear old mantua-maker and the dear old houses--they are the real Louisville.

My mother joins me in love to you.

Sincerely yours, POLLY BOLES.

BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE TO EDWARD BLACKTHORNE

_150 Wall Street, New York, June 10, 1912._

Edward Blackthorne, Esq., King Alfred's Wood, Warwickshire, England.

MY DEAR SIR:

I am a stranger to you. I should have been content to remain a stranger. A grave matter which I have had no hand in shaping causes me to write you this one letter--there being no discoverable likelihood that I shall ever feel painfully obliged to write you a second.

You are a stranger to me. But you are, I have heard, a great man. That, of course, means that you are a famous man, otherwise I should never have heard that you are a great one. You hold a very distinguished place in your country, in the world; people go on pilgrimages to you. The thing that has made you famous and that attracts pilgrims are your novels.

I do not read novels. They contain, I understand, the lives of imaginary people. I am satisfied to read the lives of actual people and I do read much biography. One of the Lives I like to study is that of Samuel Johnson, and I recall just here some words of his to the effect that he did not feel bound to honour a man who clapped a hump on his shoulder and another hump on his leg and shouted he was Richard the Third. I take the liberty of saying that I share Dr. Johnson's opinion as to puppets, either on the stage or in fiction. The life of the actual Richard interests me, but the life of Shakespeare's Richard doesn't. I should have liked to read the actual life of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.

I have never been able to get a clear idea what a novelist is. The novelists that I superficially encounter seem to have no clear idea what they are themselves. No two of them agree. But each of them agrees that _his_ duty and business in life is to imagine things and then notify people that those things are true and that they--people--should buy those things and be grateful for them and look up to the superior person who concocted them and wrote them down.

I have observed that there is danger in many people causing any one person to think himself a superior person unless he _is_ a superior person. If he really is what is thought of him, no harm is done him. But if he is widely regarded a superior person and is not a superior person, harm may result to him. For whenever any person is praised beyond his deserts, he is not lifted up by such praise any more than the stature of a man is increased by thickening the heels of his shoes. On the contrary, he is apt to be lowered by over-praise. For, prodded by adulation, he may lay aside his ordinary image and assume, as far as he can, the guise of some inferior creature which more glaringly expresses what he is--as the peacock, the owl, the porcupine, the lamb, the bulldog, the ass. I have seen all these. I have seen the strutting peacock novelist, the solemn, speechless owl novelist, the fretful porcupine novelist, the spring-lamb novelist, the ferocious, jealous bulldog novelist, and the sacred ass novelist. And many others.

You may begin to wonder why I am led into these reflections in this letter. The reason is, I have been wondering into what kind of inferior creature your fame--your over-praise--has lowered _you_. Frankly, I perfectly know; I will not name the animal. But I feel sure that he is a highly offensive small beast.

If you feel disposed to read further, I shall explain.

I have in my legal possession three letters of yours. They were written to a young gentleman whom I have known now for a good many years, whose character I know about as well as any one man can know another's, and for whom increasing knowledge has always led me to feel increasing respect. The young man is Mr. Beverley Sands. You may now realise what I am coming to.

The first of these letters of yours reveals you as a stranger seeking the acquaintance of Mr. Sands--to a certain limit: you asked of him a courtesy and you offered courtesies in exchange. That is common enough and natural, and fair, and human. But what I have noticed is your doing this with the air of the superior person. Mr. Sands, being a novelist, is of course a superior person. Therefore, you felt called upon to introduce yourself to him as a _more_ superior person. That is, you condescended to be gracious. You made it a virtue in you to ask a favour of him. You expected him to be delighted that you allowed him to serve you.

In the second letter you go further. He wafted some incense toward you and you got on your knees to this incense. You get up and offer him more courtesies--all courtesies. Because he praised you, you even wish him to visit you.

Now the third letter. The favour you asked of Mr. Sands was that he send you some ferns. By no fault of his except too much confidence in the agents he employed (he over-trusts everyone and over-trusted you), by no other fault of his the ferns were not sent. You waited, time passed, you grew impatient, you grew suspicious of Mr. Sands, you felt slighted, you became piqued in your vanity, wounded in your self-love, you became resentful, you became furious, you became revengeful, you became abusive. You told him that he had never meant to keep his word, that you had kicked his books out of your library, that he might profitably study the moral sensitiveness of a head of cabbage.

During the summer American tourists visited you--pilgrims of your fame. You took advantage of their visit to promulgate mysteriously your hostility to Mr. Sands. Not by one explicit word, you understand. Your exalted imagination merely lied on him, and you entrusted to other imaginations the duty of scattering broadcast your noble lie. They did this--some of them happening not to be friends of Mr. Sands--and as a result of the false light you threw upon his character, he now in the minds of many persons rests under a cloud. And that cloud is never going to be dispelled.