Seventeen (Tarkington, 1916)/Chapter 29

P-STAIRS, Mrs. Baxter moved to the door of her son's room, pretending to be unconscious of the gaze he maintained upon her. Mustering courage to hum a little tune and affecting inconsequence, she had nearly crossed the threshold when he said, sternly:

"And this is all you intend to say to that child?"

"Why, yes, Willie."

"And yet I told you what she said!" he cried. "I told you I heard her stand there and tell that dirty-faced little girl how that idiot boy that's always walkin' past here four or five times a day, whistling and looking back, was in 'love of' her! Ye gods! What kind of a person will she grow up into if you don't punish her for havin' ideas like that at her age?"

Mrs. Baxter regarded him mildly, not replying, and he went on, with loud indignation:

"I never heard of such a thing! That Worm walkin' past here four or five times a day just to look at Jane! And her standing there, calmly tellin' that sooty-faced little girl, 'He's in love of me'! Why, it's enough to sicken a man! Honestly, if I had my way, I'd see that both she and that little Freddie Banks got a first-class whipping!"

"Don't you think, Willie," said Mrs. Baxter—"don't you think that, considering the rather noncommittal method of Freddie's courtship, you are suggesting extreme measures?"

"Well, she certainly ought to be punished!" he insisted, and then, with a reversal to agony, he shuddered. "That's the least of it!" he cried. "It's the insulting things you always allow her to say of one of the noblest girls in the United States—that's what counts! On the very last day—yes, almost the last hour—that Miss Pratt's in this town, you let your only daughter stand there and speak disrespectfully of her—and then all you do is tell her to 'go and play somewhere else'! I don't understand your way of bringing up a child," he declared, passionately. "I do not!"

"There, there, Willie," Mrs. Baxter said. "You're all wrought up—"

"I am wrought up!" shouted William. "Why should I be charged with—"

"Now, now!" she said. "You'll feel better to-morrow."

"What do you mean by that?" he demanded, breathing deeply.

For reply she only shook her head in an odd little way, and in her parting look at him there was something at once compassionate, amused, and reassuring.

"You'll be all right, Willie," she said, softly, and closed the door.

Alone, William lifted clenched hands in a series of tumultuous gestures at the ceiling; then he moaned and sank into a chair at his writing-table. Presently a comparative calm was restored to him, and with reverent fingers he took from a drawer a one-pound box of candy, covered with white tissue-paper, girdled with blue ribbon. He set the box gently beside him upon the table; then from beneath a large, green blotter drew forth some scribbled sheets. These he placed before him, and, taking infinite pains with his handwriting, slowly copied:

William opened the box of candy and placed the letter upon the top layer of chocolates. Upon the letter he placed a small photograph (wrapped in tissue-paper) of himself. Then, with a pair of scissors, he trimmed an oblong of white cardboard to fit into the box. Upon this piece of cardboard he laboriously wrote, copying from a tortured, inky sheet before him:

He placed his poem between the photograph and the letter, closed the box, and tied the tissue-paper about it again with the blue ribbon. Throughout these rites (they were rites both in spirit and in manner) he was subject to little catchings of the breath, half gulp, half sigh. But the dolorous tokens passed, and he sat with elbows upon the table, his chin upon his hands, reverie in his eyes. Tragedy had given way to gentler pathos;—beyond question, something had measurably soothed him. Possibly, even in this hour preceding the hour of parting, he knew a little of that proud amazement which any poet is entitled to feel over each new lyric miracle just wrought.

Perhaps he was helped, too, by wondering what Miss Pratt would think of him when she read "In Dream," on the train that afternoon. For reasons purely intuitive, and decidedly without foundation in fact, he was satisfied that no rival farewell poem would be offered her, and so it may be that he thought "In Dream" might show her at last, in one blaze of light, what her eyes had sometimes fleetingly intimated she did perceive in part—the difference between William and such every-day, rather well-meaning, fairly good-hearted people as Joe Bullitt, Wallace Banks, Johnnie Watson, and others. Yes, when she came to read "In Dream," and to "look back upon it all," she would surely know—at last!

And then, when the future four long years (while receiving his education) had passed, he would go to her. He would go to her, and she would take him by the hand, and lead him to her father, and say, "Father, this is William."

But William would turn to her, and, with the old, dancing light in his eyes, "No, Lola," he would say, "not William, but Ickle Boy Baxter! Always and always, just that for you; oh, my dear!"

And then, as in story and film and farce and the pleasanter kinds of drama, her father would say, with kindly raillery, "Well, when you two young people get through, you'll find me in the library, where I have a pretty good business proposition to lay before you, young man!"

And when the white-waistcoated, white-side-burned old man had, chuckling, left the room, William would slowly lift his arms; but Lola would move back from him a step—only a step—and after laying a finger archly upon her lips to check him, "Wait, sir!" she would say. "I have a question to ask you, sir!"

"What question, Lola?"

"This question, sir!" she would reply. "In all that summer, sir, so long ago, why did you never tell me what you were, until I had gone away and it was too late to show you what I felt? Ah, Ickle Boy Baxter, I never understood until I looked back upon it all, after I had read 'In Dream,' on the train that day! Then I knew!"

"And now, Lola?" William would say. "Do you understand me, now?"

Shyly she would advance the one short step she had put between them, while he, with lifted, yearning arms, this time destined to no disappointment——

At so vital a moment did Mrs. Baxter knock at his door and consoling reverie cease to minister unto William. Out of the rosy sky he dropped, falling miles in an instant, landing with a bump. He started, placed the sacred box out of sight, and spoke gruffly.

"What you want?"

"I'm not coming in, Willie," said his mother. "I just wanted to know—I thought maybe you were looking out of the window and noticed where those children went."

"What children?"

"Jane and that little girl from across the street—Kirsted, her name must be."

"No. I did not."

"I just wondered," Mrs. Baxter said, timidly. "Genesis thinks he heard the little Kirsted girl telling Jane she had plenty of money for carfare. He thinks they went somewhere on a street-car. I thought maybe you noticed wheth—"

"I told you I did not."

"All right," she said, placatively. "I didn't mean to bother you, dear."

Following this there was a silence; but no sound of receding footsteps indicated Mrs. Baxter's departure from the other side of the closed door.

"Well, what you want?" William shouted.

"Nothing—nothing at all," said the compassionate voice. "I just thought I'd have lunch a little later than usual; not till half past one. That is if—well, I thought probably you meant to go to the station to see Miss Pratt off on the one-o'clock train."

Even so friendly an interest as this must have appeared to the quivering William an intrusion in his affairs, for he demanded, sharply:

"How'd you find out she's going at one o'clock?"

"Why—why, Jane mentioned it," Mrs. Baxter replied, with obvious timidity. "Jane said—"

She was interrupted by the loud, desperate sound of William's fist smiting his writing-table, so sensitive was his condition. "This is just unbearable!" he cried. "Nobody's business is safe from that child!"

"Why, Willie, I don't see how it matters if—"

He uttered a cry. "No! Nothing matters! Nothing matters at all! Do you s'pose I want that child, with her insults, discussing when Miss Pratt is or is not going away? Don't you know there are some things that have no business to be talked about by every Tom, Dick, and Harry?"

"Yes, dear," she said. "I understand, of course. Jane only told me she met Mr. Parcher on the street, and he mentioned that Miss Pratt was going at one o'clock to-day. That's all I—"

"You say you understand," he wailed, shaking his head drearily at the closed door, "and yet, even on such a day as this, you keep talking! Can't you see sometimes there's times when a person can't stand to—"

"Yes, Willie," Mrs. Baxter interposed, hurriedly. "Of course! I'm going now. I have to go hunt up those children, anyway. You try to be back for lunch at half past one—and don't worry, dear; you really will be all right!"

She departed, a sigh from the abyss following her as she went down the hall. Her comforting words meant nothing pleasant to her son, who felt that her optimism was out of place and tactless. He had no intention to be "all right," and he desired nobody to interfere with his misery.

He went to his mirror, and, gazing long—long and piercingly—at the William there limned, enacted, almost unconsciously, a little scene of parting. The look of suffering upon the mirrored face slowly altered; in its place came one still sorrowful, but tempered with sweet indulgence. He stretched out his hand, as if he set it upon a head at about the height of his shoulder.

"Yes, it may mean—it may mean forever!" he said in a low, tremulous voice. "Little girl, we must be brave!"

And the while his eyes gazed into the mirror, they became expressive of a momentary pleased surprise, as if, even in the arts of sorrow, he found himself doing better than he knew. But his sorrow was none the less genuine because of that.

Then he noticed the ink upon his forehead, and went away to wash. When he returned he did an unusual thing—he brushed his coat thoroughly, removing it for this special purpose. After that, he earnestly combed and brushed his hair, and retied his tie. Next, he took from a drawer two clean handkerchiefs. He placed one in his breast pocket, part of the colored border of the handkerchief being left on exhibition, and with the other he carefully wiped his shoes. Finally, he sawed it back and forth across them, and, with a sigh, languidly dropped it upon the floor, where it remained.

Returning to the mirror, he again brushed his hair—he went so far, this time, as to brush his eyebrows, which seemed not much altered by the operation. Suddenly, he was deeply affected by something seen in the glass.

"By George!" he exclaimed aloud.

Seizing a small hand-mirror, he placed it in juxtaposition to his right eye, and closely studied his left profile as exhibited in the larger mirror. Then he examined his right profile, subjecting it to a like scrutiny emotional, yet attentive and prolonged.

"By George!" he exclaimed, again. "By George!"

He had made a discovery. There was a downy shadow upon his upper lip. What he had just found out was that this down could be seen projecting beyond the line of his lip, like a tiny nimbus. It could be seen in profile.

"By George!" William exclaimed.

He was still occupied with the two mirrors when his mother again tapped softly upon his door, rousing him as from a dream (brief but engaging) to the heavy realities of that day.

"What you want now?"

"I won't come in," said Mrs. Baxter. "I just came to see."

"See what?"

"I wondered—I thought perhaps you needed something. I knew your watch was out of order—"

"F'r 'evan's sake what if it is?"

She offered a murmur of placative laughter as her apology, and said: "Well, I just thought I'd tell you—because if you did intend going to the station, I thought you probably wouldn't want to miss it and get there too late. I've got your hat here all nicely brushed for you. It's nearly twenty minutes of one, Willie."

"What?"

"Yes, it is. It's—"

She had no further speech with him.

Breathless, William flung open his door, seized the hat, racketed down the stairs, and out through the front door, which he left open behind him. Eight seconds later he returned at a gallop, hurtled up the stairs and into his room, emerging instantly with something concealed under his coat. Replying incoherently to his mother's inquiries, he fell down the stairs as far as the landing, used the impetus thus given as a help to greater speed for the rest of the descent—and passed out of hearing.

Mrs. Baxter sighed, and went to a window in her own room, and looked out.

William was already more than half-way to the next corner, where there was a car-line that ran to the station; but the distance was not too great for Mrs. Baxter to comprehend the nature of the symmetrical white parcel now carried in his right hand. Her face became pensive as she gazed after the flying slender figure:—there came to her mind the recollection of a seventeen-year-old boy who had brought a box of candy (a small one, like William's) to the station, once, long ago, when she had been visiting in another town. For just a moment she thought of that boy she had known, so many years ago, and a smile came vaguely upon her lips. She wondered what kind of a woman he had married, and how many children he had—and whether he was a widower——

The fleeting recollection passed; she turned from the window and shook her head, puzzled.

"Now where on earth could Jane and that little Kirsted girl have gone?" she murmured.

... At the station, William, descending from the street-car, found that he had six minutes to spare. Reassured of so much by the great clock in the station tower, he entered the building, and, with calm and dignified steps, crossed the large waiting-room. Those calm and dignified steps were taken by feet which little betrayed the tremulousness of the knees above them. Moreover, though William's face was red, his expression—cold, and concentrated upon high matters—scorned the stranger, and warned the lower classes that the mission of this bit of gentry was not to them.

With but one sweeping and repellent glance over the canaille present, he made sure that the person he sought was not in the waiting-room. Therefore, he turned to the doors which gave admission to the tracks, but before he went out he paused for an instant of displeasure. Hard by the doors stood a telephone-booth, and from inside this booth a little girl of nine or ten was peering eagerly out at William, her eyes just above the lower level of the glass window in the door.

Even a prospect thus curtailed revealed her as a smudged and dusty little girl; and, evidently, her mother must have been preoccupied with some important affair that day; but to William she suggested nothing familiar. As his glance happened to encounter hers, the peering eyes grew instantly brighter with excitement;—she exposed her whole countenance at the window, and impulsively made a face at him.

William had not the slightest recollection of ever having seen her before.

He gave her one stern look and went on; though he felt that something ought to be done. The affair was not a personal one—patently, this was a child who played about the station and amused herself by making faces at everybody who passed the telephone-booth—still, the authorities ought not to allow it. People did not come to the station to be insulted.

Three seconds later the dusty-faced little girl and her moue were sped utterly from William's mind. For, as the doors swung together behind him, he saw Miss Pratt. There were no gates nor iron barriers to obscure the view; there was no train-shed to darken the air. She was at some distance, perhaps two hundred feet, along the tracks, where the sleeping-cars of the long train would stop. But there she stood, mistakable for no other on this wide earth!

There she stood—a glowing little figure in the hazy September sunlight, her hair an amber mist under the adorable little hat; a small bunch of violets at her waist; a larger bunch of fragrant but less expensive sweet peas in her right hand; half a dozen pink roses in her left; her little dog Flopit in the crook of one arm; and a one-pound box of candy in the crook of the other—ineffable, radiant, starry, there she stood!

Near her also stood her young hostess, and Wallace Banks, Johnnie Watson, and Joe Bullitt—three young gentlemen in a condition of solemn tensity. Miss Parcher saw William as he emerged from the station building, and she waved her parasol in greeting, attracting the attention of the others to him, so that they: all turned and stared.

Seventeen sometimes finds it embarrassing (even in a state of deep emotion) to walk two hundred feet, or thereabout, toward a group of people who steadfastly watch the long approach. And when the watching group contains the lady of all the world before whom one wishes to appear most debonair, and contains not only her, but several rivals, who, though fairly good-hearted, might hardly be trusted to neglect such an opportunity to murmur something jocular about one— No, it cannot be said that William appeared to be wholly without self-consciousness.

In fancy he had prophesied for this moment something utterly different. He had seen himself parting from her, the two alone as within a cloud. He had seen himself gently placing his box of candy in her hands, some of his fingers just touching some of hers and remaining thus lightly in contact to the very last. He had seen himself bending toward the sweet blonde head to murmur the few last words of simple eloquence, while her eyes lifted in mysterious appeal to his—and he had put no other figures, not even Miss Parcher's, into this picture.

Parting is the most dramatic moment in young love, and if there is one time when the lover wishes to present a lofty but graceful appearance it is at the last. To leave with the loved one, for recollection, a final picture of manly dignity in sorrow—that, above all things, is the lover's desire. And yet, even at the beginning of William's two-hundred-foot advance (later so much discussed) he felt the heat surging over his ears, and, as he took off his hat, thinking to wave it jauntily in reply to Miss Parcher, he made but an uncertain gesture of it, so that he wished he had not tried it. Moreover, he had covered less than a third of the distance, when he became aware that all of the group were staring at him with unaccountable eagerness, and had begun to laugh.

William felt certain that his attire was in no way disordered, nor in itself a cause for laughter;—all of these people had often seen him dressed as he was to-day, and had preserved their gravity. But, in spite of himself, he took off his hat again, and looked to see if anything about it might explain this mirth, which, at his action, increased. Nay, the laughter began to be shared by strangers; and some set down their hand-luggage for greater pleasure in what they saw.

William's inward state became chaotic.

He tried to smile carelessly, to prove his composure, but he found that he had lost almost all control over his features. He had no knowledge of his actual expression except that it hurt him. In desperation he fell back upon hauteur; he managed to frown, and walked proudly. At that they laughed the more, Wallace Banks rudely pointing again and again at William; and not till the oncoming sufferer reached a spot within twenty feet of these delighted people did he grasp the significance of Wallace's repeated gesture of pointing. Even then he understood only when the gesture was supplemented by half-articulate shouts:

"Behind you! Look behind you!"

The stung youth turned.

There, directly behind him, he beheld an exclusive little procession consisting of two damsels in single file, the first soiled with house-moving, the second with apple sauce.

For greater caution they had removed their shoes; and each damsel, as she paraded, dangled from each far-extended hand a shoe. And both damsels, whether beneath apple sauce or dust smudge, were suffused with the rapture of a great mockery.

They were walking with their stummicks out o' joint.

At sight of William's face they squealed. They turned and ran. They got themselves out of sight.

Simultaneously, the air filled with solid thunder and the pompous train shook the ground. Ah, woe's the word! This was the thing that meant to bear away the golden girl and honeysuckle of the world—meant to, and would, not abating one iron second!

Now a porter had her hand-bag.

Dear Heaven! to be a porter—yes, a colored one! What of that, now? Just to be a simple porter, and journey with her to the far, strange pearl among cities whence she had come!

The gentle porter bowed her toward the steps of his car; but first she gave Flopit into the hands of May Parcher, for a moment, and whispered a word to Wallace Banks; then to Joe Bullitt; then to Johnnie Watson;—then she ran to William.

She took his hand.

"Don't forget!" she whispered. "Don't forget Lola!"

He stood stock-still. His face was blank, his hand limp. He said nothing.

She enfolded May Parcher, kissed her devotedly; then, with Flopit once more under her arm, she ran and jumped upon the steps just as the train began to move. She stood there, on the lowest step, slowly gliding away from them, and in her eyes there was a sparkle of tears, left, it may be, from her laughter at poor William's pageant with Jane and Rannie Kirsted—or, it may be, not.

She could not wave to her friends, in answer to their gestures of farewell, for her arms were too full of Flopit and roses and candy and sweet peas; but she kept nodding to them in a way that showed them how much she thanked them for being sorry she was going—and made it clear that she was sorry, too, and loved them all.

"Good-by!" she meant.

Faster she glided; the engine passed from sight round a curve beyond a culvert, but for a moment longer they could see the little figure upon the steps—and, to the very last glimpse they had of her, the small, golden head was still nodding "Good-by!" Then those steps whereon she stood passed in their turn beneath the culvert, and they saw her no more.

Lola Pratt was gone!

Wet-eyed, her young hostess of the long summer turned away, and stumbled against William. "Why, Willie Baxter!" she cried, blinking at him.

The last car of the train had rounded the curve and disappeared, but William was still waving farewell—not with his handkerchief, but with a symmetrical, one-pound parcel, wrapped in white tissue-paper, girdled with blue ribbon.

"Never mind!" said May Parcher. "Let's all walk Up-town together, and talk about her on the way, and we'll go by the express-office, and you can send your candy to her by express, Willie."