XVII Consolation
Sure enough about a week after this Clarice came to me as I was smoking a surreptitious cigar on the rocks, away from the house, after sundown. She came and sat down close by me, but I pretended not to notice. “Robert,” said she. “Well,” said I. There is no use in meeting them half way when they are willing to come the whole distance: mostly you have to do it all yourself, and turn about is fair play.
“Robert, are you angry with me?”
I couldn’t help looking at her now, and she shot one of her great glances into my face. I melted right down, and so would you have done. “Clarice, you know I never could be angry with you five minutes together—nor five seconds, if you chose to stop it. What have I got to be angry about now?”
“Well, Bob, it wasn’t your fault this time.”
“No, I trust not. Whose fault was it?”
“Mine, mine. Bob, will you be my friend?” And she put her hand in mine.
“What have I ever been but your friend? Don’t you do as you like with me—and with all of us? Clarice, you know it hurts me to see you like this. And there’s poor Hartman.”
She pulled away from me. “What has Mr. Hartman to do with it? Who was talking of him?”
“Miss Elliston,” I said with dignity, “the First of April is past some time ago. What do you want to be playing these games on me for?”
“O, don’t ‘Miss Elliston’ me, Bob. Don’t you understand women yet?”
“No, I’ll be shot if I do; and I never expect to. That will do for young beginners, who think they know everything. I’ve seen too much of you to pretend to understand you. Why don’t you speak out and come straight to the point?”
“Why, you goose, that’s not our nature. Speaking out and going straight to the point will do for great clumsy things like you and Mr. Hartman.”
“Well, I am a great clumsy thing, as you justly observe. It’s very pleasant to have you come to me like this, Princess, and I wish you would do it oftener; it’s mighty little I’ve seen of you of late. But though it would meet my views to prolong this session indefinitely, I suppose you want something of me, or you wouldn’t be so sweet. It may seem an improbable statement, but I would rather help you out of this scrape than enjoy your society even—that’s saying a good deal, but it’s true. Yes, I’m fool enough for that.”
“I know you are, dear,” she said, very low and sweetly. Now what was it she knew? You can take that two ways. All the compliments I get are so ambiguous. But this did not occur to me till afterwards. So I went on with my usual manly simplicity.
“Then you know there’s no need of circumlocution and feminine wiles when you want anything of me, Princess. You have but to speak, and, as the Frenchman said, ‘If it is possible, it shall be done: if it is impossible, I can only regret that I can’t do it.’ What do you want me to do now?”
“Nothing, Bob; nothing but to listen to me and be good.”
“I am listening, Clarice: I’ve been listening all this time.” This was not quite true, for I had done most of the talking; but then what I said was not of much account. When I am with her I often talk just to fill the gaps.
“You can listen when I am ready to talk, and keep quiet till then. I only want your sympathy.”
“You have it, Clarice; you have it most fully. Come rest on this bosom, my own stricken dear—”
“I don’t want to rest on your bosom, Bob; your shoulder is big enough. Have you got your best coat on?”
“Well, no; this is not the one I wore at dinner. But I will go to the house and get my clawhammer if you wish.”
“No, no. I only want to cry a little.”
“You would be perfectly welcome to cry on my best coat every day of the week, Princess, and I would get a new one as often as it might be needed. I don’t wish to make capital out of your grief, my dear; I would rather never get a kind word from you than have you suffer. But often it seems as if you didn’t care for anybody, you are so high and mighty and offish; and O doth not an hour like this make amends—”
“Drop that, Bob. Don’t try to be sentimental: you always get the lines wrong. I’ve not been here an hour. O, were you joking? You are no more in the humor for jokes than I am, and you know it. Do keep quiet.”
I did: I ‘dropped it.’ Clarice will use slang at times, it is one of her few faults. Where she learns it, I cannot conceive. It is unfeminine, and out of keeping with her whole character; in any one else I should call it vulgar. But I saw she did not wish to be disturbed just then, so I said no more. Instead, I thought of my guilty secret—her secret. It weighs on me heavily; but I can’t tell her what I saw and heard. I don’t know how she would take it; and I don’t care to be exploding any dynamite bombs about my own premises. The situation is bad enough as it is; I’ll not make it worse. Poor Clarice! poor Hartman! And yet you can’t meddle with such high-strung folks. By and by she spoke.
“Bob, do you know why I come to you, instead of to Jane or Mabel?”
I was on the point of quoting Jane’s valuable idea about my being a man, but refrained.
“I could not ask any woman for what you give me. And you are half a woman, Bob; you are so patient and loyal. Nobody else would be that.”
“But Mabel and Jane love you too, dear. They would do anything for you.”
“Yes, but that is more on equal terms. I am so exacting; I want so much, and give so little. I suppose I was born so; and you have spoiled me—all of you. O, I know I have treated you badly, Robert, often; generally, in fact. I am proud and hateful, and you never resent it. Only a man can be like that—to a woman: and very few men would be so. You are not like other men, Bob: there is nobody like you. You are such a useful domestic animal.”
Perhaps I was getting unduly exalted when she let me down thus. I wish Clarice at least would be less mixed—more continuous and consistent, so to speak—when she sets forth my virtues. But one must take the Princess as he finds her, and be content with any crumbs of approval she may drop. Sometimes I think I am a fool about her; but when she talks as she does to-night, I know I am not. There may be more amiable women, and plenty more even-tempered; but there is only one Clarice. I may have made that remark before, but it will bear repeating. It is not of me she is thinking all this time: how should it be? O Hartman, Hartman, if you could know what I know, and see what is before you!
Presently she spoke again. “Robert, why don’t you ask me what I have done? I know you are dying of curiosity.”
“I can restrain my curiosity, rather than pry into your affairs, dear. When you see fit, you will tell me. But if you wish it, I will ask you.”
“No, it would be of no use. I can’t tell you now; perhaps never. Robert, where did you learn to respect a woman so?”
“Jane says I will never learn it. But I do respect you, Princess.”
“That must have been when you had vexed her with some of your blunders: you do make blunders, you know? But, Bob, do you know why I love you?”
This moved me so that I had to put myself on guard. She never said so much as that before: it is not her way to talk about feelings or profess much affection for anybody.
“I suppose because we were brought up together, and you are used to me. And, as you say, I am a useful domestic animal. If I can be useful to you, I am proud and thankful. I think more of you than I could easily say: it is very good of you to give me some small return.”
“It is because you have a heart, Robert. They may say what they please of your head, but you have a great big heart.”
Now was ever the superior male intellect thus disparaged? She must have got this notion from Jane; but I can’t quarrel with her now.
“Men are great clumsy things, as you said, dear: we have not your tact, nor your delicate roundabout methods. You are right, I do make blunders; I feel my deficiencies when I am with you. But if my head, such as it is, or my heart, or my hand, can ever serve you, they will be ready.”
“Suppose I were to leave you, and go out of your life?”
“You could not go out of my life, though you might go far away. I should be sorry, but I have no right to hold you. But if you ever wanted me, I should always be here.”
“Suppose I did something wrong and foolish?”
“I don’t want to suppose that, but if I must—it would not be for me to judge you, as you told me once. You might do something that did not accurately represent your mind and character: since I know them, the action would be merely a mistake, a transient incongruity. I don’t change easily: I have known you from your cradle. And if it was ever possible for me to fail you, it is not possible after to-night.”
“You are very fond of Mr. Hartman, Robert. What if I quarreled with him? Would you take my part against him?”
“I would take your part against the world, Clarice. But he is not of the world. A sad and lonely man, burdened with an inverted conscience and quixotic fancies that turn the waters into blood, who has come for once out of his hermitage to catch a glimpse of the light that never was on sea or land, and then to see it turn into darkness for him. I fear he is sadder and lonelier now than when I brought him from the woods: but I would stake my soul on his honor, as I would on yours. You cannot force me into such a dilemma.”
A heavenly glow was on her face now, as she looked long at the stars, and then at me. “Why are you eloquent only when you speak of him, brother?”
“You say I have a heart, Clarice: it is eloquent when I think of you. Shall a stranger be more sacred to me than my sister?—and I don’t mean Jane. You would be sacred to a better man than I, dear, if he knew you as I do: you may be so already, for what I can tell. He could not mean to sin against you, Princess. If he seemed to fail in respect, or courtesy, or anything that was your due, forgive him, and don’t banish him forever. I trusted that you would have enlightened and converted and consoled him: he is worth it.”
I longed to say more, but this was as far as I dared go. She sighed.
“Perhaps I need to be converted and consoled myself. But that is ungrateful; with such a comforter at hand I ought not to be miserable. We never knew each other like this before, Robert. Why is it?”
“I don’t know, Clarice—or rather I do, of course. It takes the moon, and stars, and a common trouble, to bring people together, even when they see each other every day; and then concurring moods must help. One stands in awe of you, Princess; I always shall. You only tolerated me when you were happy: I was rough, and careless, and stupid, and made bad jokes in the wrong places. I will try to do better after this, so that you need not be repelled when you want me. Hartman, now, is of finer mould than I: if you would let him come back—”
“No more of that now, dear. Let us go in. The moon is going down: it is getting cold and dark.” So it was; and damp too—on my shoulder at least. “I am glad you had your old coat on,” she said.
Mabel was alone in the parlor. “Well,” she began; then she saw our faces, and modified her tone. “The moonlight was very fine, I suppose?”
“You know you never will go out in the evening,” said Clarice. “It is later than I thought. Don’t scold Robert; he has been a dear good boy.” She kissed her, and went upstairs.
“Mabel,” said I, “Clarice is in trouble.” I had to say something, and this was perfectly safe. You see, she had told me nothing, and so I could say if asked. But I wasn’t.
“I know that, of course, Robert: I have seen it all along. She is a dear girl, for all her flightiness. She will say nothing to me. I hope it will come right. If you can help or comfort her, I shall be glad.” Then she too went to bed.
It is unusual for Mabel to be surprised into such candor. I got a cigar, and went out on the porch to meditate. Jane thought that Clarice would tell me things. Yes, I have got a lot of information. Let me see, I am a useful domestic animal, and I have a big heart: that’s about the size of it. At this rate, I can soon write a Cyclopædia. Well, cold facts are not all there is in life: there are some things the Cyclopædias fail to tell us about. I don’t regard the last few hours as altogether wasted.
After this the Princess and I did not talk much: there seemed to be no need of it. But she was a new and revised edition of the old Clarice, wonderfully sweet, and gracious, and equable; and her look when we met was like the benediction in answer to prayer, as Longfellow says. I went about with a solemn feeling, as if I had just joined the Church. What does a fellow want with slang, and pipes, and beer, and cheating other fellows on the street, when he has such entertainments at home? And yet it cuts me to the soul to look at her: I must do something to bring them together. Pretty soon we went back to New York.