Part 9

Enclosed you will please find copies of these three letters of yours; would you mind reading them over? And you will find also a packet of letters which will enable you to understand why the ferns never reached you and the whole entanglement of the case. And finally, you will find enclosed a brief with which, were I to appear in Court against you, as Mr. Sands's lawyer, I should hold you up to public view as what you are.

I shall merely add that I have often met you in the courtroom as the kind of criminal who believes without evidence and who distrusts without reason; who is, therefore, ready to blast a character upon suspicion. If he dislikes the person, in the absence of evidence against him, he draws upon the dark traits of his own nature to furnish the evidence.

I have written because I am a friend of Mr. Sands.

I am, as to you,

Merely, BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE.

EDWARD BLACKTHORNE TO BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE

_King Alfred's Wood, Warwickshire, England, June 21, 1912._

Benjamin Doolittle, 150 Wall Street, New York City.

MY DEAR SIR:

You state in your letter, which I have just laid down, that you are a stranger to me. There is no conceivable reason why I should wish to offer you the slightest rudeness--even that of crossing your word--yet may I say, that I know you perfectly? If you had unfortunately read some of my very despicable novels, you might have found, scattered here and there, everything that you have said in your letter, and almost in your very words. That is, I have two or three times drawn your portrait, or at least drawn at it; and thus while you are indeed a stranger to me in name, I feel bound to say that you are an old acquaintance in nature.

You cannot for a moment imagine--however, you despise imagination and I withdraw the offensive word--you cannot for a moment suppose that I can have any motive in being discourteous, and I shall, therefore, go on to say, but only with your permission, that the first time I attempted to sketch you, was in a very early piece of work; I was a youthful novelist, at the outset of my career. I projected a story entitled: "_The Married Cross-Purposes of Ned and Sal Blivvens._" I feel bound to say that you in your letter pleasantly remind me of the _Sal Blivvens_ of my story. In Sal's eyes poor Ned's failing was this: as twenty-one human shillings he never made an exact human guinea--his shillings ran a few pence over, or they fell a few pence short. That is, Ned never did just enough of anything, or said just enough, but either too much or too little to suit _Sal_. He never had just one idea about any one thing, but two or three ideas; he never felt in just one way about any one thing, but had mixed feelings, a variety of feelings. He was not a yard measure or a pint measure or a pound measure; he overflowed or he didn't fill, and any one thing in him always ran into other things in him.

Being a young novelist I was not satisfied to offer _Sal_ to the world on her own account, but I must try to make her more credible and formidable by following her into the next generation, and giving her a son who inherited her traits. Thus I had _Tommy Blivvens_. When Tommy was old enough to receive his first allowance of Christmas pudding, he proceeded to take the pudding to pieces. He picked out all the raisins and made a little pile of them. And made a little separate pile of the currants, and another pile of the almonds, and another of the citron, or of whatever else there was to separate. Then in profound satisfaction he ate them, pile by pile, as a philosopher of the sure.

Thus--and I insist I mean no disrespect--your letter does revive for me a little innocent laughter at my early literary vision of a human baggage--friend of my youthful days and artistic enthusiasm--_Sal Blivvens_. I arranged that when _Ned_ died, his neighbours all felt sorry and wished him a green turf for his grave. _Sal_, I felt sure, survived him as one who all her life walks past every human heart and enters none--being always dead-sure, always dead-right; for the human heart rejects perfection in any human being.

I recognise you as belonging to the large tough family of the human cocksures. _Sal Blivvens_ belonged to it--dead-sure, dead-right, every time. We have many of the cocksures in England, you must have many of them in the United States. The cocksures are people who have no dim borderland around their minds, no twilight between day and darkness. They see everything as they see a highly coloured rug on a well-lighted floor. There is either rug or no rug, either floor or no floor. No part of the floor could possibly be rug and no part of the rug could possibly be floor. A cocksure, as a lawyer, is the natural prosecuting attorney of human nature's natural misgivings and wiser doubts and nobler errors. How the American cocksures of their day despised the man Washington, who often prayed for guidance; with what contempt they blasted the character of your Abraham Lincoln, whose patient soul inhabited the border of a divine disquietude and whose public life was the patient study of hesitation.

I have taken notice of the peculiarly American character of your cocksureness: it magnifies and qualifies a man to step by the mile, to sit down by the acre, to utter things by the ton. Do you happen to know Michael Angelo's _Moses_? I always think of an American cocksure as looking like Michael Angelo's _Moses_--colossal law-giver, a hyper-stupendous fellow. And I have often thought that a regiment of American cocksures would be the most terrific spectacle on a battlefield that the rest of the human race could ever face. Just now it has occurred to me that it was your great Emerson who spoke best on the weakness of the superlative--the cocksure is the human superlative.

As to your letter: You declare you know nothing about novels, but your arraignment of the novelist is exact. You are dead-sure that you are perfectly right about me. Your arraignment of me is exact. You are conscious of no more moral perturbation as to justice than exists in a monkey wrench. But that is the nature of the cocksure--his conclusions have to him the validity of a hardware store.

This, however, is nothing. I clear it away in order to tell you that I am filled with admiration of your loyalty to your friend, and of the savage ferocity with which you attack me as his enemy. That makes you a friend worth having, and I wish you were to be numbered among mine; there are none too many such in this world. Next, I wish to assure you that I have studied your brief against me and confess that you have made out the case. I fell into a grave mistake, I wronged your friend deeply, I hope not irreparably, and it was a poor, sorry, shabby business. I am about to write to Mr. Sands. If he is what you say he is, then in an instant he will forgive me--though you never may. I shall ask him, as I could not have asked him before, whether he will not come to visit me. My house, my hospitality, all that I have and all that I am, shall be his. I shall take every step possible to undo what I thoughtlessly, impulsively did. I shall write to the President of his Club.

One exception is filed to a specification in your brief: no such things took place in my garden upon the visit of the American tourists, as you declare. I did not promulgate any mysterious hostility to Mr. Sands. You tell me that among those tourists were persons hostile to Mr. Sands. It was these hostile persons who misinterpreted and exaggerated whatever took place. You knew these persons to be enemies of Mr. Sands's and then you accepted their testimony as true--being a cocksure.

A final word to you. Your whole character and happiness rests upon the belief that you see life clearly and judge rightly the fellow-beings whom you know. Those _you_ doubt ought to be doubted and those _you_ trust ought to be trusted! Now I have travelled far enough on life's road to have passed its many human figures--perhaps all the human types that straggle along it in their many ways. No figures on that road have been more noticeable to me than here and there a man in whom I have discerned a broken cocksure.

You say you like biography: do you like to read the Life of Robert Burns? And I wonder whether these words of his have ever guided you in your outlook upon life:

"_Then gently scan your brother man_ * * * * * _To step aside is human._"

I thank you again. I wish you well. And I hope that no experience, striking at you out of life's uncertainties, may ever leave you one of those noticeable men--a broken cocksure.

Your deeply obliged and very grateful,

EDWARD BLACKTHORNE.

BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS

_June 30, 1912._

DEAR BEVERLEY:

About a month ago I took it upon myself to write the one letter that had long been raging in my mind to Edward Blackthorne. And I sent him all the fern letters. And then I drew up the whole case and prosecuted him as your lawyer.

Of course I meant my letter to be an infernal machine that would blow him to pieces. He merely inspected it, removed the fuse and inserted a crank, and turned it into a music-box to grind out his praises.

And then the kind of music he ground out for me.

All day I have been ashamed to stand up and I've been ashamed to sit down. He told me that my letter reminded him of a character in his first novel--a woman called _Sal Blivvens_. ME--_Sal Blivvens!_

But of what use is it for us poor, common-clay, rough, ordinary men who have no imagination--of what use is it for us to attack you superior fellows who have it, have imagination? You are the Russians of the human mind, and when attacked on your frontiers, you merely retreat into a vast, unknown, uninvadable country. The further you retire toward the interior of your mysterious kingdom, the nearer you seem to approach the fortresses of your strength.

I am wiser--if no better. If ever again I feel like attacking any stranger with a letter, I shall try to ascertain beforehand whether he is an ordinary man like me or a genius. If he is a genius, I am going to let him alone.

Yet, damn me if I, too, wouldn't like to see your man Blackthorne now. Ask him some time whether a short visit from Benjamin Doolittle could be arranged on any terms of international agreement.

Now for something on my level of ordinary life! A day or two ago I was waiting in front of the residence of one of my uptown clients, a few doors from the residence of your friend Dr. Marigold. While I waited, he came out on the front steps with Dr. Mullen. As I drove past, I leaned far out and made them a magnificent sweeping bow: one can afford to be forgiving and magnanimous after he settled things to his satisfaction. They did not return the bow but exchanged quiet smiles. I confess the smiles have rankled. They seemed like saying: he bows best who bows last.

You are the best thing in New York to me since Polly went away. Without you both it would come near to being one vast solitude.

BEN (alias _Sal Blivvens_).

BEVERLEY SANDS TO BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE

_July 1, 1912._

DEAR BEN:

I wrote you this morning upon receipt of your letter telling me of your own terrific letter to Mr. Blackthorne and of your merciless arraignment of him. Let me say again that I wish to pour out my gratitude to you for your motives and also, well, also my regret at your action. Somehow I have been reminded of Voltaire's saying: he had a brother who was such a fool that he started out to be perfect; as a consequence the world knows nothing of Voltaire's brother: it knows very well Voltaire with his faults.

The mail of yesterday which brought you Mr. Blackthorne's reply to your arraignment brought me also a letter: he must have written to us both instantly. His letter is the only one that I cannot send you; you would not desire to read it. You are too big and generous, too warmly human, too exuberantly vital, to care to lend ear to a great man's chagrin and regret for an impulsive mistake. You are not Cassius to carp at Caesar.

Now this afternoon a second letter comes from Mr. Blackthorne and that I enclose: it will do you good to read it--it is not a black passing cloud, it is steady human sunlight.

BEVERLEY.

[Enclosed letter from Edward Blackthorne]

MY DEAR MR. SANDS:

I follow up my letter of yesterday with the unexpected tidings of to-day. I am willing to believe that these will interest you as associated with your coming visit.

Hodge is dead. His last birthday, his final natal eclipse, has bowled him over and left him darkened for good. He can trouble us no more, but will now do his part as mould for the rose of York and the rose of Lancaster. He will help to make a mound for some other Englishman's ferns. When you come--and I know you will come--we shall drink a cup of tea in the garden to his peaceful memory--and to his troubled memory for Latin.

I am now waiting for you. Come, out of your younger world and with your youth to an older world and to an older man. And let each of us find in our meeting some presage of an alliance which ought to grow always closer in the literatures of the two nations. Their literatures hold their ideals; and if their ideals touch and mingle, then nothing practical can long keep them far apart. If two oak trees reach one another with their branches, they must meet in their roots; for the branches are aerial roots and the roots are underground branches.

Come. In the eagerness of my letter of yesterday to put myself not in the right but less, if possible, in the wrong, I forgot the very matter with which the right and the wrong originated.

_Will you, after all, send the ferns?_

The whole garden waits for them; a white light falls on the vacant spot; a white light falls on your books in my library; a white light falls on you,

I wait for you, both hands outstretched.

EDWARD BLACKTHORNE.

(Note penciled on the margin of the letter by Beverley Sands to Ben Doolittle: "You will see that I am back where the whole thing started; I have to begin all over again with the ferns. And now the florists will be after me again. I feel this in the trembling marrow of my bones, and my bones by this time are a wireless station on this subject.")

BEVERLEY.

JUDD & JUDD TO BEVERLEY SANDS

DEAR SIR:

We take pleasure in enclosing our new catalogue for the coming autumn, and should be pleased to receive any further commissions for the European trade.

We repeat that we have no connection whatever with any house doing business in the city under the name of Botany.

Respectfully yours, JUDD & JUDD, Per Q.

PHILLIPS & FAULDS TO BEVERLEY SANDS

_Louisville, Kentucky, July 4th, 1912._

DEAR SIR:

Venturing to recall ourselves to your memory for the approaching autumn season, in view of having been honoured upon a previous occasion with your flattering patronage, and reasoning that our past transactions have been mutually satisfactory, we avail ourselves of this opportunity of reviving the conjunction heretofore existing between us as most gratifying and thank you sincerely for past favours. We hope to continue our pleasant relations and desire to say that if you should contemplate arranging for the shipments of plants of any description, we could afford you surprised satisfaction.

Respectfully yours, PHILLIPS & FAULDS.

BURNS & BRUCE TO BEVERLEY SANDS

_Dunkirk, Tennessee, July 6, 1912._

DEAR SIR:

We are prepared to supply you with anything you need. Could ship ferns to any country in Europe, having done so for the late Noah Chamberlin, the well-known florist just across the State line, who was a customer of ours.

old debts of Phillips and Faulds not yet paid, had to drop them entirely.

Very truly yours, BURNS & BRUCE.

If you need any forest trees, we could supply you with all the forest trees you want, plenty of oaks, etc. plenty of elms, plenty of walnuts, etc.

ANDY PETERS TO BEVERLEY SANDS

_Seminole, North Carolina, July 7th, 1912._

DEAR SIR:

I have lately enlarged my business and will be able to handle any orders you may give me. The orders which Miss Clara Louise Chamberlain said you were to send have not yet turned up. I write to you, because I have heard about you a great deal through Miss Clara Louise, since her return from her visit to New York. She succeeded in getting two or three donations of books for our library, and they have now given her a place there. I was sorry to part with Miss Clara Louise, but I had just married, and after the first few weeks I expected my wife to become my assistant. I am not saying anything against Miss Clara Louise, but she was expensive on my sweet violets, especially on a Sunday, having the run of the flowers. She and Alice didn't get along very well together, and I did have a bad set-back with my violets while she was here.

Seedlins is one of my specialities. I make a speciality of seedlins. If you want any seedlins, will you call on me? I am young and just married and anxious to please, and I wish you would call on me when you want anything green. Nothing dried.

Yours respectfully, ANDY PETERS.

BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS

_July 7th, 1912._

DEAR BEVERLEY:

It makes me a little sad to write. I suppose you saw in this morning's paper the announcement of Tilly's marriage next week to Dr. Marigold. Nevertheless--congratulations! You have lost years of youth and happiness with some lovely woman on account of your dalliance with her.

Now at last, you will let her alone, and you will soon find--Nature will quickly drive you to find--the one you deserve to marry.

It looks selfish at such a moment to set my happiness over against your unhappiness, but I've just had news, that at last, after lingering so long and a little mysteriously in Louisville, Polly is coming. Polly is coming with her wedding clothes. We long ago decided to have no wedding. All that we have long wished is to marry one another. Mr. Blackthorne called me a cocksure. Well, Polly is another cocksure. We shall jog along as a perfectly satisfied couple of cocksures on the cocksure road. (I hope to God Polly will never find out that she married _Sal Blivvens_.)

Dear fellow, truest of comrades among men, it is inevitable that I reluctantly leave you somewhat behind, desert you a little, as the friend who marries.

One awful thought freezes me to my chair this hot July day. You have never said a word about Miss Clara Louise Chamberlain, since the day of my hypothetical charge to the jury. Can it be possible that you followed her up? Did you feed her any more cheques? I have often warned you against Tilly, as inconstant. But, my dear fellow, remember there is a worse extreme than in inconstancy--Clara Louise would be sealing wax. You would merely be marrying 115 pounds of sealing wax. Every time she sputtered in conversation, she'd seal you the tighter.

Polly is coming with her wedding clothes.

BEN.

BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE

_July 8._

DEAR BEN:

I saw the announcement in the morning paper about Tilly.

It wouldn't be worth while to write how I feel.

It is true that I traced Miss Chamberlain, homeless in New York. And I saw her. As to whether I have been feeding cheques to her, that is solely a question of my royalties. Royalties are human gratitude; why should not the dews of gratitude fall on one so parched? Besides, I don't owe you anything, gentleman.

Yes, I feel you're going--you're passing on to Polly. I append a trifle which explains itself, and am, making the best of everything, the same

BEVERLEY SANDS.

_A Meditation in Verse_ (_Dedicated to Benjamin Doolittle as showing his favourite weakness_)

_How can I mind the law's delay, Or what a jury thinks it knows, Or what some fool of a judge may say? Polly comes with the wedding clothes._

_Time, who cheated me so long, Kept me waiting mid life's snows, I forgive and forget your wrong: Polly comes with the wedding clothes._

_Winter's lonely sky is gone, July blazes with the rose, All the world looks smiling on At Polly in her wedding clothes._

BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE TO BEVERLEY SANDS

[A hurried letter by messenger]

_July 10, 1912._

Polly reached New York two days ago. I went up that night. She had gone out--alone. She did not return that night. I found this out when I went up yesterday morning and asked for her. She has not been there since she left. They know nothing about her. I have telegraphed Louisville. They have sent me no word. Come down at once.

BEN.

BEVERLEY SANDS TO BEN DOOLITTLE

[Hurried letter by messenger]

_July 10, 1912._

DEAR BEN:

Is anything wrong about Polly?

I met her on the street yesterday. She tried to pass without speaking. I called to her but she walked on. I called again and she turned, hesitatingly, then came back very slowly to meet me half-way. You know how composed her manner always is. But she could not control her emotion: she was deeply, visibly troubled. Strange as it may seem, while I thought of the mystery of her trouble, I could but notice a trifle, as at such moments one often does: she was beautifully dressed: a new charm, a youthful freshness, was all over her as for some impending ceremony. We have always thought of Polly as one of the women who are above dress. Such disregard was in a way a verification of her character, the adornment of her sincerity. Now she was beautifully dressed.

"But what is the meaning of all this?" I asked, frankly mystified.

Something in her manner checked the question, forced back my words.

"You will hear," she said, with quivering lips. She looked me searchingly all over the face as for the sake of dear old times now ended. Then she turned off abruptly. I watched her in sheer amazement till she disappeared.

I have been waiting to hear from you, but cannot wait any longer. What does it mean? Why don't you tell me?

BEVERLEY.

BEVERLEY SANDS TO BENJAMIN DOOLITTLE

_July 11._

I have with incredible eyes this instant read this cutting from the morning paper:

Miss Polly Boles married yesterday at the City Hall in Jersey City to Dr. Claude Mullen.

She must have been on her way when I saw her.

I have read the announcement without being able to believe it--with some kind of death in life at my heart.

Oh, Ben, Ben, Ben! So betrayed! I am coming at once.

BEVERLEY.

DIARY OF BEVERLEY SANDS

_July 18._

The ferns have had their ironic way with us and have wrought out their bitter comedy to its end. The little group of us who were the unsuspecting players are henceforth scattered, to come together in the human playhouse not again. The stage is empty, the curtain waits to descend, and I, who innocently brought the drama on, am left the solitary figure to speak the epilogue ere I, too, depart to go my separate road.

This is Tilly's wedding day. How beautiful the morning is for her! The whole sky is one exquisite blue--no sign of any storm-plan far or near. The July air blows as cool as early May. I sit at my window writing and it flows over me in soft waves, the fragrances of the green park below my window enter my room and encircle me like living human tendernesses. At this moment, I suppose, Tilly is dressing for her wedding, and I--God knows why--am thinking of old-time Kentucky gardens in one of which she played as a child. Tilly, a little girl romping in her mother's garden--Tilly before she was old enough to know anything of the world--anything of love--now, as she dresses for her wedding--I cannot shut out that vision of early purity.

Yesterday a note came from her. I had had no word since the day I openly ridiculed the man she is to marry. But yesterday she sent me this message:

"Come to-night and say good-bye."