Malbone Part 3

"Yes, dear," said Kate. "Did Ruth tell you?"

"When did that aimless infant ever tell anything?"

"Then how did you know it?"

"If I waited for knowledge till that sweet-tempered parrot chose to tell me," Aunt Jane went on, "I should be even more foolish than I am."

"Then how did you know?"

"Of course I heard the boat hauled down, and of course I knew that none but lovers would go out just before a thunder-storm. Then you and Harry came in, and I knew it was the others."

"Aunt Jane," said Kate, "you divine everything: what a brain you have!"

"Brain! it is nothing but a collection of shreds, like a little girl's work-basket,--a sc.r.a.p of blue silk and a bit of white muslin."

"Now she is fishing for compliments," said Kate, "and she shall have one. She was very sweet and good to Philip last night."

"I know it," said Aunt Jane, with a groan. "I waked in the night and thought about it. I was awake a great deal last night. I have heard c.o.c.ks crowing all my life, but I never knew what that creature could accomplish before. So I lay and thought how good and forgiving I was; it was quite distressing."

"Remorse?" said Kate.

"Yes, indeed. I hate to be a saint all the time. There ought to be vacations. Instead of suffering from a bad conscience, I suffer from a good one."

"It was no merit of yours, aunt," put in Harry. "Who was ever more agreeable and lovable than Malbone last night?"

"Lovable!" burst out Aunt Jane, who never could be managed or manipulated by anybody but Kate, and who often rebelled against Harry's blunt a.s.sertions. "Of course he is lovable, and that is why I dislike him. His father was so before him. That is the worst of it. I never in my life saw any harm done by a villain; I wish I could. All the mischief in this world is done by lovable people. Thank Heaven, n.o.body ever dared to call me lovable!"

"I should like to see any one dare call you anything else,--you dear, old, soft-hearted darling!" interposed Kate.

"But, aunt," persisted Harry, "if you only knew what the ma.s.s of young men are--"

"Don't I?" interrupted the impetuous lady. "What is there that is not known to any woman who has common sense, and eyes enough to look out of a window?"

"If you only knew," Harry went on, "how superior Phil Malbone is, in his whole tone, to any fellow of my acquaintance."

"Lord help the rest!" she answered. "Philip has a sort of refinement instead of principles, and a heart instead of a conscience,--just heart enough to keep himself happy and everybody else miserable."

"Do you mean to say," asked the obstinate Hal, "that there is no difference between refinement and coa.r.s.eness?"

"Yes, there is," she said.

"Well, which is best?"

"Coa.r.s.eness is safer by a great deal," said Aunt Jane, "in the hands of a man like Philip. What harm can that swearing coachman do, I should like to know, in the street yonder? To be sure it is very unpleasant, and I wonder they let people swear so, except, perhaps, in waste places outside the town; but that is his way of expressing himself, and he only frightens people, after all."

"Which Philip does not," said Hal.

"Exactly. That is the danger. He frightens n.o.body, not even himself, when he ought to wear a label round his neck marked 'Dangerous,' such as they have at other places where it is slippery and brittle. When he is here, I keep saying to myself, 'Too smooth, too smooth!'"

"Aunt Jane," said Harry, gravely, "I know Malbone very well, and I never knew any man whom it was more unjust to call a hypocrite."

"Did I say he was a hypocrite?" she cried. "He is worse than that; at least, more really dangerous. It is these high-strung sentimentalists who do all the mischief; who play on their own lovely emotions, forsooth, till they wear out those fine fiddlestrings, and then have nothing left but the flesh and the D. Don't tell me!"

"Do stop, auntie," interposed Kate, quite alarmed, "you are really worse than a coachman. You are growing very profane indeed."

"I have a much harder time than any coachman, Kate," retorted the injured lady. "n.o.body tries to stop him, and you are always hushing me up."

"Hushing you up, darling?" said Kate. "When we only spoil you by praising and quoting everything you say."

"Only when it amuses you," said Aunt Jane. "So long as I sit and cry my eyes out over a book, you all love me, and when I talk nonsense, you are ready to encourage it; but when I begin to utter a little sense, you all want to silence me, or else run out of the room! Yesterday I read about a newspaper somewhere, called the 'Daily Evening Voice'; I wish you would allow me a daily morning voice."

"Do not interfere, Kate," said Hal. "Aunt Jane and I only wish to understand each other."

"I am sure we don't," said Aunt Jane; "I have no desire to understand you, and you never will understand me till you comprehend Philip."

"Let us agree on one thing," Harry said. "Surely, aunt, you know how he loves Hope?"

Aunt Jane approached a degree nearer the equator, and said, gently, "I fear I do."

"Fear?"

"Yes, fear. That is just what troubles me. I know precisely how he loves her. Il se laisse aimer. Philip likes to be petted, as much as any cat, and, while he will purr, Hope is happy. Very few men accept idolatry with any degree of grace, but he unfortunately does."

"Unfortunately?" remonstrated Hal, as far as ever from being satisfied.

"This is really too bad. You never will do him any justice."

"Ah?" said Aunt Jane, chilling again, "I thought I did. I observe he is very much afraid of me, and there seems to be no other reason."

"The real trouble is," said Harry, after a pause, "that you doubt his constancy."

"What do you call constancy?" said she. "Kissing a woman's picture ten years after a man has broken her heart? Philip Malbone has that kind of constancy, and so had his father before him."

This was too much for Harry, who was making for the door in indignation, when little Ruth came in with Aunt Jane's luncheon, and that lady was soon absorbed in the hopeless task of keeping her handmaiden's pretty blue and white gingham sleeve out of the b.u.t.ter-plate.

V. A MULTIVALVE HEART.

PHILIP MALBONE had that perfectly sunny temperament which is peculiarly captivating among Americans, because it is so rare. He liked everybody and everybody liked him; he had a thousand ways of affording pleasure, and he received it in the giving. He had a personal beauty, which, strange to say, was recognized by both s.e.xes,--for handsome men must often consent to be mildly hated by their own. He had travelled much, and had mingled in very varied society; he had a moderate fortune, no vices, no ambition, and no capacity of ennui.

He was fastidious and over-critical, it might be, in his theories, but in practice he was easily suited and never vexed.

He liked travelling, and he liked staying at home; he was so continually occupied as to give an apparent activity to all his life, and yet he was never too busy to be interrupted, especially if the intruder were a woman or a child. He liked to be with people of his own age, whatever their condition; he also liked old people because they were old, and children because they were young. In travelling by rail, he would woo crying babies out of their mothers' arms, and still them; it was always his back that Irishwomen thumped, to ask if they must get out at the next station; and he might be seen handing out decrepit paupers, as if they were of royal blood and bore concealed sceptres in their old umbrellas. Exquisitely nice in his personal habits, he had the practical democracy of a good-natured young prince; he had never yet seen a human being who awed him, nor one whom he had the slightest wish to awe.

His courtesy, had, therefore, that comprehensiveness which we call republican, though it was really the least republican thing about him.

All felt its attraction; there was really no one who disliked him, except Aunt Jane; and even she admitted that he was the only person who knew how to cut her lead-pencil.

That cheerful English premier who thought that any man ought to find happiness enough in walking London streets and looking at the lobsters in the fish-markets, was not more easily satisfied than Malbone. He liked to observe the groups of boys fishing at the wharves, or to hear the chat of their fathers about coral-reefs and penguins' eggs; or to sketch the fisher's little daughter awaiting her father at night on some deserted and crumbling wharf, his blue pea-jacket over her fair ring-leted head, and a great cat standing by with tail uplifted, her sole protector. He liked the luxurious indolence of yachting, and he liked as well to float in his wherry among the fleet of fishing schooners getting under way after a three days' storm, each vessel slipping out in turn from the closely packed crowd, and spreading its white wings for flight. He liked to watch the groups of negro boys and girls strolling by the window at evening, and strumming on the banjo,--the only vestige of tropical life that haunts our busy Northern zone. But he liked just as well to note the ways of well-dressed girls and boys at croquet parties, or to sit at the club window and hear the gossip. He was a jewel of a listener, and was not easily bored even when Philadelphians talked about families, or New Yorkers about bargains, or Bostonians about books. A man who has not one absorbing aim can get a great many miscellaneous things into each twenty-four hours; and there was not a day in which Philip did not make himself agreeable and useful to many people, receive many confidences, and give much good-humored advice about matters of which he knew nothing. His friends' children ran after him in the street, and he knew the pet theories and wines of elderly gentlemen. He said that he won their hearts by remembering every occurrence in their lives except their birthdays.