They certainly are nice people, I assented to my wifes observation, using the colloquial phrase with a consciousness that it was anything but nice English, and Ill bet that their three children are better brought up than most of
Two children, corrected my wife.
Three, he told me.
My dear, she said there were two.
He said three.
Youve simple forgotten. Im sure she told me they had only twoa boy and a girl.
Well, I didnt enter into particulars.
No, dear, and you couldnt have understood him. Two children.
All right, I said; but I did not think it was all right. As a near-sighted man learns by enforced observation to recognise persons at a distance when the face is not visible to the normal eye, so the man with a bad memory learns, almost unconsciously, to listen carefully and report accurately. My memory is bad; but I had not had time to forget that Mr. Brewster Brede had told me that afternoon that he had three children, at present left in the care of his mother-in-law, while he and Mrs. Brede took their summer vacation.
Two children repeated my wife; and they are staying with his aunt Jenny.
He told me with his mother-in-law, I put in. My wife looked at me with a serious expression. Men may not remember much of what they are told about children; but any man knows the difference between an aunt and a mother-in-law.
But dont you think theyre nice people? asked my wife.
Oh, certainly, I replied; only they seem to be a little mixed up about their children.
That isnt a nice thing to say, returned my wife.
I could not deny it.
And yet the next morning, when the Bredes came down and seated themselves opposite us at table, beaming and smiling in their natural, pleasant, well-bred fashion, I knew, to a social certainty, that they were nice people. He was a fine-looking fellow in his neat tennis-flannels, slim, graceful, twenty-eight or thirty years old, with a Frenchy-pointed beard. She was nice in all her pretty clothes, and she herself was pretty with that type of prettiness which outwears most other typesthe prettiness that lies in a rounded figure, a dusky skin, plump, rosy cheeks, white teeth, and black eyes. She might have been twenty-five; you guessed that she was prettier than she was at twenty, and that she would be prettier still at forty.
And nice people were all we wanted to make us happy in Mr. Jacobuss summer boarding-house on the top of Orange Mountain. For a week we had come down to breakfast each morning, wondering why we wasted the precious days of idleness with the company gathered around the Jacobus board. What joy of human companionship was to be had out of Mrs. Tabb and Miss Hoogencamp, the two middle-aged gossips from Scranton, Pa.out of Mr. and Mrs. Biggle, an indurated head-bookkeeper and his prim and censorious wifeout of old Major Halkit, a retired business man, who, having once sold a few shares on commission, wrote for circulars of every stock company that was started, and tried to induce every one to invest who would listen to him? We looked around at those dull faces, the truthful indices of mean and barren minds, and decided that we would leave that morning. Then we ate Mrs. Jacobuss biscuits, light as Auroras cloudlets, drank her honest coffee, inhaled the perfume of the late azaleas with which she decked her table, and decided to postpone our departure one more day. And then we wandered out to take our morning glance at what we called our view; and it seemed to us as if Tabb and Hoogencamp, and Halkit and the Biggles could not drive us away in a year.
I was not surprised when, after breakfast, my wife invited the Bredes to walk with us to our view. The Hoogencamp-Biggle Tabb-Halkit contingent never stirred off Jacobuss verandah; but we both felt that the Bredes would not profane that sacred scene. We strolled slowly across the fields, passed through the little belt of wood, and as I heard Mrs. Bredes little cry of startled rapture, I motioned to Brede to look up.
By Jove! he cried; heavenly!
We looked off from the brow of the mountain over fifteen miles of billowing green, to where, far across a far stretch of pale blue, lay a dim purple line that we knew was Staten Island. Towns and villages lay before us and under us; there were ridges and hills, uplands and lowlands, woods and plains, all massed and mingled in that great silent sea of sunlit green. For silent it was to us, standing in the silence of a high placesilent with a Sunday stillness that made us listen, without taking thought, for the sound of bells coming up from the spires that rose above the tree-topsthe tree-tops that lay as far beneath us as the light clouds were above us that dropped great shadows upon our heads and faint specks of shade upon the broad sweep of land at the mountains foot.
And so that is your view? asked Mrs. Brede, after a moment; You are very generous to make it ours too.
Then we lay down on the grass; and Brede began to talk in a gentle voice, as if he felt the influence of the place. He had paddled a canoe, in his earlier days, he said, and he knew every river and creek in that vast stretch of landscape. He found his landmarks, and pointed out to us where the Passaic and the Hackensack flowed, invisible to us, hidden behind great ridges that in our sight were but combings of the green waves upon which we looked down, and yet on the further side of those broad ridges and rises were scores of villagesa little world of country life, lying unseen under our eyes.
A good deal like looking at humanity, he said; there is such a thing as getting so far above our fellow-men that we see only one side of them.
Ah, how much better was this sort of talk than the chatter and gossip of the Tabb and the Hoogencampthan the Majors dissertations upon his everlasting circulars! My wife and I exchanged glances.
Now, when I went up the Matterhorn Mr. Brede began.
Why, dear, interrupted his wife; I didnt know you ever went up the Matterhorn.
Itit was five years ago, said Mr. Brede hurriedly; II didnt tell youwhen I was on the other side, you knowit was rather dangerouswell, as I was sayingit lookedoh, it didnt look at all like this.
A cloud floated overhead, throwing its great shadow over the field where we lay. The shadow passed over the mountains brow, and reappeared far below, a rapidly decreasing blot; flying east-ward over the golden green. My wife and I exchanged glances once more. Somehow the shadow lingered over us all. As we went home, the Bredes went side by side along the narrow path, and my wife and I walked together.
Should you think, she asked me, that a man would climb the Matterhorn the very first year he was married?
I dont know, my dear, I answered evasively; this isnt the first year I have been married, not by a good many, and I wouldnt climb itfor a farm.
You know what I mean? she said. I did.
When we reached the boarding-house, Mr. Jacobus took me aside.
You know, he began his discourse, my wife, she used to live in N York!
I didnt know; but I said, Yes.
She says the numbers on the streets runs criss-cross like. Thirty-fours on one side o the street, an thirty-fives on tother. Hows that?
That is the invariable rule, I believe.
ThenI saythese here new folk that you n your wife seems so mighty taken up withdye know anything about em?
I know nothing about the character of your boarders, Mr. Jacobus, I replied, conscious of some irritability. If I choose to associate with any of them
Jess sojess so! broke in Jacobus. I haint nothin to say aginst yer sosherbilty. But do ye know them?
Why, certainly not, I replied.
Wellthat was all I wuz askinye. Ye see, when he come here to take the roomsyou wasnt here thenhe told my wife that he lived at number thirty-four in his street. An yistiddy she told her that they lived at number thirty-five. He said he lived in an apartment-house. Now, there cant be no apartment-house on two sides of the same street, kin they?
What street was it? I inquired wearily.
Hundred n twenty-first street.
Maybe, I replied, still more wearily. Thats Harlem. Nobody knows what people will do in Harlem.
I went up to my wifes room.
Dont you think it queer? she asked me.
I think Ill have a talk with that young man to-night, I said, and see if he can give some account of himself.
But, my dear, my wife said gravely, she doesnt know whether theyve had the measles or not.
Why, Great Scott! I exclaimed, they must have had them when they were children.
Please dont be stupid, said my wife. I meant their children.
After dinner that nightor rather after supper, for we had dinner in the middle of the day at JacobussI walked down the long verandah to ask Brede, who was placidly smoking at the other end, to accompany me on a twilight stroll. Half-way down I met Major Halkit.
That friend of yours, he said, indicating the unconscious figure at the further end of the house, seems to be a queer sort of a Dick. He told me that he was out of business, and just looking round for a chance to invest his capital. And Ive been telling him what an everlasting big show he had to take stock in the Capitoline Trust Companystarts next monthfour million capital; I told you all about it. Oh, well, he says, lets wait and think about it. Wait! says I; the Capitoline Trust Company wont wait for you, my boy. This is letting you in on the ground floor, says I; and its now or never. Oh, let it wait, says he. I dont know whats in-to the man.
I dont know how well he knows his own business, Major, I said as I started again for Bredes end of the verandah. But I was troubled none the less. The Major could not have influenced the sale of one share of stock in the Capitoline Company. But that stock was a great investment; a rare chance for a purchaser with a few thousand dollars. Perhaps it was no more remarkable that Brede should not invest than that I should not; and yet it seemed to add one circumstance more to the other suspicious circumstances.
When I went upstairs that evening, I found my wife putting her hair to bedI dont know how I can better describe an operation familiar to every married man. I waited until the last tress was coiled up, and then I spoke.
Ive talked with Brede, I said, and I didnt have to catechise him. He seemed to feel that some sort of explanation was looked for, and he was very outspoken. You were right about the childrenthat is, I must have misunderstood him. There are only two; but the Matterhorn episode was simple enough. He didnt realise how dangerous it was until he had got so far into it that he couldnt back out; and he didnt tell her, because hed left her here, you see; and under the circumstances
Left her here! cried my wife. Ive been sitting with her the whole afternoon, sewing, and she told me that he left her at Geneva, and came back and took her to Basle, and the baby was born there. Now Im sure, dear, because I asked her.
Perhaps I was mistaken when I thought he said she was on this side of the water, I suggested with bitter, biting irony.
You poor dear, did I abuse you? said my wife. But do you know Mrs. Tabb said that she didnt know how many lumps of sugar he took in his coffee. Now that seems queer, doesnt it?
It did. It was a small thing; but it looked queer, very queer.
The next morning it was clear that war was declared against the Bredes. They came down to breakfast somewhat late, and as soon as they arrived the Biggles swooped up the last fragments that remained on their plates, and made a stately march out of the dining-room. Then Miss Hoogencamp arose and departed, leaving a whole fish-ball on her plate. Even as Atalanta might have dropped an apple behind her to tempt her pursuer to check his speed, so Miss Hoogencamp left that fish-ball behind her, and between her maiden self and Contamination.
We had finished our breakfast, my wife and I, before the Bredes appeared. We talked it over, and agreed that we were glad that we had not been obliged to take sides upon such insufficient testimony.
After breakfast it was the custom of the male half of the Jacobus household to go around the corner of the building and smoke their pipes and cigars, where they would not annoy the ladies. We sat under a trellis covered with a grape vine that had borne no grapes in the memory of man. This vine, however, bore leaves, and these, on that pleasant summer morning, shielded from us two persons who were in earnest conversation in the straggling, half-dead flower-garden at the side of the house.
I dont want, we heard Mr. Jacobus say, to enter in no mans pry-vacy; but I do want to know who it may be, like, that I hev in my house. Now what I ask of youand I dont want you to take it as in no ways personalis, hev you your merridge-licence with you?
No, we heard the voice of Mr. Brede reply. Have you yours? I think it was a chance shot, but it told all the same. The Major (he was a widower), and Mr. Biggle and I looked at each other; and Mr. Jacobus, on the other side of the grape-trellis, looked atI dont know whatand was as silent as we were.
Where is your marriage-licence, married reader? Do you know? Four men, not including Mr. Brede, stood or sate on one side or the other of that grape-trellis, and not one of them knew where his marriage-licence was. Each of us had had onethe Major had had three. But where were they? Where is yours? Tucked in your best-mans pocket; deposited in his desk, or washed to a pulp in his white waistcoat (if white waistcoats be the fashion of the hour), washed out of existencecan you tell where it is? Can youunless you are one of those people who frame that interesting document and hang it upon their drawing-room walls?
Mr. Bredes voice arose, after an awful stillness of what seemed like five minutes, and was, probably, thirty seconds
Mr. Jacobus, will you make out your bill at once, and let me pay it? I shall leave by the six oclock train. And will you also send the waggon for my trunks?
I haint said I wanted to hev ye leave began Mr. Jacobus; but Brede cut him short.
Bring me your bill.
But, remonstrated Jacobus, ef ye aint
Bring me your bill! said Mr. Brede.
My wife and I went out for our mornings walk. But it seemed to us, when we looked at our view, as if we could only see those invisible villages of which Brede had told usthat other side of the ridges and rises of which we catch no glimpse from lofty hills or from the heights of human self-esteem. We meant to stay out until the Bredes had taken their departure; but we returned just in time to see Pete, the Jacobus darkey, the blacker of boots, the brusher of coats, the general handy-man of the house, loading the Bredes trunks on the Jacobus waggon.
And, as we stepped upon the verandah, down came Mrs. Brede, leaning on Mr. Bredes arm as though she were ill; and it was clear that she had been cryingthere were heavy rings about her pretty black eyes. My wife took a step towards her.
Look at that dress, dear, she whispered; she never thought anything like this was going to happen when she put that on.
It was a pretty, delicate, dainty dress, a graceful, narrow-striped affair. Her hat was trimmed with a narrow-striped silk of the same colourmaroon and white; and in her hand she held a parasol that matched her dress. Shes had a new dress on twice a day, said my wife; but thats the prettiest yet. Oh, somehowIm awfully sorry theyre going!
But going they were. They moved towards the steps. Mrs. Brede looked towards my wife, and my wife moved towards Mrs. Brede. But the ostracised woman, as though she felt the deep humiliation of her position, turned sharply away, and opened her parasol to shield her eyes from the sun. A shower of ricea half-pound shower of ricefell down over her pretty hat and her pretty dress, and fell in a splattering circle on the floor, outlining her skirts, and there it lay in a broad, uneven band, and bright in the morning sun.
Mrs. Brede was in my wifes arms, sobbing as if her young heart would break.
Oh, you poor, dear, silly children! my wife cried, as Mrs. Brede sobbed on her shoulder; why didnt you tell us?
W-w-we didnt want to be t-t-taken for a b-b-b-b-bridal couple, sobbed Mrs. Brede; and we d-d-didnt dream what awful lies wed have to tell, and all the aw-aw-ful mixed-up mess of it. Oh, dear, dear, dear!
Pete! commanded Mr. Jacobus, put back them trunks. These folk stays heres longs they wants ter. Mr. Bredehe held out a large, hard handId orterve known better, he said; and my last doubt of Mr. Brede vanished as he shook that grimy hand in manly fashion. The two women were walking off toward our view, each with an arm about the others waisttouched by a sudden sisterhood of sympathy.
Gentlemen, said Mr. Brede, addressing Jacobus, Biggle, the Major, and me, there is a hostelry down the street where they sell honest New Jersey beer. I recognise the obligations of the situation.
We five men filed down the street, and the two women went toward the pleasant slope where the sunlight gilded the forehead of the great hill. On Mr. Jacobuss verandah lay a spattered circle of shining grains of rice. Two of Mr. Jacobuss pigeons flew down and picked up the shining grains, making grateful noises far down in their throats.