Rope Part 1

Rope.

by Holworthy Hall.

CHAPTER I

As Henry came blithely into the house with a heavy suit-case in one hand and a c.u.mbersome kit-bag in the other, his Aunt Mirabelle marched out like a grenadier from the living-room, and posted herself in the hallway to watch him approach. There was this much to say for Aunt Mirabelle: she was at least consistent, and for twenty years she had worn the same expression whenever she looked at him. During that period the rest of the world and Henry had altered, developed, advanced--but not Aunt Mirabelle. She had changed neither the style of her clothes nor the nature of her convictions; she had disapproved of Henry when he was six, and therefore, she disapproved of him today. To let him know it, she regarded him precisely as though he were still six, and had forgotten to wash his face.

"I suppose," remarked Aunt Mirabelle, in her most abrasive voice, "I suppose you're waiting for me to say I hope you had a good time. Well, I'm not a-going to say it, because it wouldn't be true, and I wouldn't want to have it sitting on my conscience. Of course, _some_ people haven't got much of any conscience for anything to sit on, anyway. If they did, they'd be earnest, useful citizens. If they did, then once in a while they'd think about something else besides loud ties and silk socks and golf. And they wouldn't be gallivanting off on house-parties for a week at a time, either; they'd be tending to their business--if they had any. And if they hadn't, they ought to."

Henry put down the bag and the suit-case, removed his straw hat, and grinned, with a fair imitation of cheerfulness. He had never learned how to handle Aunt Mirabelle, and small wonder; for if he listened in silence, he was called sulky; if he disputed her, he was called flippant; if he agreed with her, she accused him of fraud; and if he obeyed his natural instincts, and treated her with tolerant good-humour, she usually went on a conversation strike, and never weakened until after the twelfth apology. Whatever he did was wrong, so that purely on speculation, he grinned, and said what came to his tongue.

"Maybe so," said Henry, "maybe so, but conscience is a plant of slow growth," and immediately after he had said this, he wished that he had chosen a different epigram--something which wasn't so liable to come back at him, later, like a boomerang.

"Humph!" said Aunt Mirabelle. "It is, is it? Well, if I was in your place, I'd be impatient for it to grow faster."

Henry shook his head. "No, I don't believe you would. I've read somewhere that impatience dries the blood more than age or sorrow." He a.s.sumed an air of critical satisfaction. "The bird that wrote that had pretty good technique, don't you think?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "All right, Henry. Be pert. But I know what made you so almighty anxious to sneak off on this house-party; and I know whose account it was you went on, too, and I don't see for the _life_ of me why your uncle hasn't put his foot down." She sighed, as though in deep mourning. "I did hope you'd grow up different from these other boys, Henry, but you're all of you just alike. When you get old enough, do you pick out some pure, innocent, sensible, young woman that's been trained the way girls were trained in _my_ day? No.

You go and make fools of yourselves over these short-skirted little hussies all powdered up like a box of marshmallows. And as long as they're spry enough _and_ immodest enough to do all these new bunny dances and what not, you think that's a sure sign they'll make good wives and mothers. Humph. Makes me sick."

In spite of himself, Henry lost his artificial grin, and began to turn dull red. "I wouldn't go quite so far as to say that."

"Well," retorted Aunt Mirabelle, "I didn't hardly expect you would.

But you'll go far enough to _see_ one of 'em, I notice.... Well, your uncle's home this afternoon; long's he's paying your bills, you might have the grace to go in and say howdy-you-do to him." She marched upstairs, and Henry, revolving his hat in his hand, gazed after her until she was out of sight. He stood, irresolute, until the echo of her common-sense shoes died into silence; and as he lingered, he was struck for the ten thousandth time by the amazing mystery of the human family.

First, there was his mother, a small and exquisite woman with music in her heart and in the tips of her fingers; his memory of her was dim, but he knew that she had been the maddest and the merriest of all possible mothers--a creature of joy and sunshine and the sheer happiness of existence. And then her sister Mirabelle, who found life such a serious condition to be in, and loved nothing about it, save the task of reforming it for other people whether the other people liked it or not. And finally, her brother John, bald, fat, and good-natured; a man whose personal interests were bounded by his own physical comfort, and by his desire to see everyone else equally comfortable. Whenever Henry thought of this trio, he reflected that his grandparents must have been very versatile.

He drew a long breath, and glanced up the stairway, as though the spirit of his Aunt Mirabelle were still haunting him; then, with a depressing recollection of what she had said about his conscience, and with hot resentment at what she said about his taste, he walked slowly into the library.

His uncle John Starkweather, who had been writing at a big desk between the windows, sprang up to shake hands with him. "h.e.l.lo, boy!

Thought Bob Standish must have kidnapped you. Have a good party?"

"Fine, thanks," said Henry, but his tone was so subdued and joyless that his uncle stared at him for a moment, and then went over to close the door. Standing with his back to it, Mr. Starkweather smiled reminiscently and a trifle ruefully, and began to peel the band from a cigar. "What's the matter? Mirabelle say anything to you?"

"Why--nothing special."

His uncle hesitated. "In a good many ways," he said, lowering his voice, "Mirabelle puts me in mind of my father. When he was a boy, out in the country, he'd had to smash the ice in the water-pitcher every mornin', and he was proud of it--thought a boy that hadn't earned some of his G.o.dliness with an ice-pick was a dude. Thought what was good enough for his father was good enough for _him_, and sometimes it was _too_ good. Didn't believe in modern improvements like telephones and easy chairs and three-tined forks; didn't believe in labour-savin' devices because labour wasn't _meant_ to be saved.

Bible says for us to work six days a week, and if he ever had any spare time before Sat'day night, he figured he must have forgot somethin'. Business--well, he called advertisin' a rich man's luxury, and said an audit was an insult to his partners. Said he'd welcome a sheriff sooner'n he would an expert accountant--and in the long run, that's exactly what he _did_. Involuntary bankruptcy--found his sanctimonious old cashier'd been sanctimoniously lootin' the till for eighteen years." He paused, and eyed his cigar. "Well, Mirabelle's cut more or less off the same piece. Lord, I wish _she_ could go through some kind of bankruptcy, if 't would shake her up like it did father."

"It--shook him up, did it?" inquired Henry, fidgeting.

"Well," said his uncle, "after the crash, I don't recollect he ever mentioned the good old times again except once; and that was to praise the good old habit of takin' defaulters and boilin' 'em in oil. No, sir, he wouldn't so much as add two and two together without an addin'

machine, and he used to make an inventory of his shirts and winter flannels pretty near every week. And Mirabelle's the same way; she's still tryin' to live under the 1874 rules." He came back to his desk, and sat down thoughtfully. "Well, she's been talkin' to me ever since you went off on this party and as far's most of it's concerned, I'm not on _her_ side, and I'm not on _your_ side; I'm sort of betwixt and between." He looked sidewise at Henry, and discovered that Henry was peering off into s.p.a.ce, and smiling as though he saw a vision in the clouds. "Just as man to man, just for the information; suppose you pa.s.sed up everything I've said to you, and went and got married one of these days--did you expect I'd go on supportin' you?"

Henry came down to earth, and his expression showed that he had landed heavily. "Why--what was that?"

His uncle repeated it, with a postscript. "Oh, I've always told you you could have anything you wanted within reason that I could pay for.

But from what I been told"--his eyes twinkled--"wives ain't always reasonable. And it does seem to me that when a young man gets to be twenty five or six, and never did a lick of work in his life, and loafs around clubs and plays polo just because he's got a rich uncle, why, it's a sort of a reflection on both of 'em. Seem so to you?"

Henry glanced up nervously and down again. "To tell the truth, I hadn't thought much about it."

"Say," said his uncle, confidentially. "Neither had I. Not 'till Mirabelle told me you went off on this party because Anna Barklay was goin' to be there.... Now I had pretty hard sleddin' when I was your age; I've kind of liked to see you enjoy yourself. But Mirabelle--Now I said before, I ain't on _her_ side, and I ain't on _your_ side; I had the thing out with you once or twice already, and I guess you know what my angles are. Only if Mirabelle's got any grounds, maybe I ought to say it over again.... You been out of college four years now, and you tried the automobile business for two months and the bond business for two weeks and the real-estate business for two minutes, and there you quit. You spent five, six thousand a year and _that_ was all right, but I admit I don't like the idea of your gettin' married on nothin' but prospects, specially when _I_'m all the prospects there is. Sound fair to you?"

Henry nodded, with much repression, "You couldn't be unfair if you tried, Uncle John."

"Well, you was always open to reason, even when you was in kindergarten.... Now, in some ways I don't approve of you any more'n Mirabelle does, but she wants me to go too blamed far. She wants me to turn you loose the way my father did me. She wants me to say if you should ever marry without my consent I'll cut you out of my will. But that's old stuff. That's cold turkey. Mirabelle don't know times have changed--she's so busy with that cussed Reform League of hers, she don't have time to reform any of her own slants about things." He rolled his cigar under his tongue.

"Well, I'm goin' to compromise. Before you get involved too deep, I want you to know what's in my mind. I don't believe it's the best thing for either of us for me to go on bein' a kind of an evergreen money-bush. And a man that's earnin' his own livin' don't have to ask odds of anybody. Don't you think you better bundle up your courage and get to work, Henry?"

Henry was twiddling his watch-chain. "It hasn't been a matter of _courage_, exactly--"

"Oh, I know _that_. I don't believe you're _scared_ of work; you're only sort of shy about it. I never saw you really afraid of more'n three things--bein' a spoil-sport, or out of style, or havin' a waiter think you're stingy. No, you ain't _afraid_ of work, but you never been properly introduced, so you're kind of standoffish about it. I've always kind of hoped you'd take a tip from Bob Standish--_there's_ one of your own breed that knows where the durable satisfactions of life are. Just as good family's yours; just as much money; just as fond of games;--and workin' like a prize pup in my office and makin'

good. _He_'ll tell you.... But if you go get married, boy, before you show you _could_ take care of yourself, and what money I might leave you--oh, I don't say you got to put over any miracle, but I _do_ say you got to learn the value of money first. You'd do that by earnin'

some. If you don't, then you and me'd have a quarrel. Sound logical to you?"

Henry was frowning a little, and sitting nearer to the edge of his chair. "Too _darned_ logical," he said.

His uncle surveyed him with great indulgence. "What's the idea?" he asked, humourously. "You ain't gone off and got yourself married already, have you?"

Henry stood up, and squared his shoulders, and looked straight into his uncle's eyes. His voice was strained, but at the same time it held a faint note of relief, as if he had contained his secret too long for his own nerves. "Yes, Uncle John...."

And waited, as before the Court of last appeal.

CHAPTER II

The older man sat limp in his chair, and stared until the ash of his cigar tumbled, untidily, over his waistcoat. He brushed at it with uncertain, ineffective motions, but his eyes never left his nephew. He put the cigar once more to his lips, shuddered, and flung it away.

"Boy--" he said, at length, "Boy--is that true?"

Henry cleared his throat. "Yes, Uncle John."

"Who is it? Anna Barklay?"

"Yes, Uncle John."

"_When?_"

"Yesterday afternoon."

"Does--Judge Barklay know it yet?"

"No, not yet. He's out of town."

His uncle drew a tremendous breath, and pulled himself upright. "Boy,"