The Whirligig of Time Part 19

"I'm going to give the Yankees a chance, at any rate! You see, there are reasons why life for me wouldn't be particularly pleasant at home next year.... I'm going back with Aunt Miriam after Commencement, as we had planned, to try to patch it up with Mama, and then, if all parties are agreeable, as I'm pretty sure they will be, I shall come back in the autumn. The idea is for me to keep house for Aunt Selina and be her companion generally. I shall receive a stipend for my valuable services, so that I shall have the comfortable feeling of earning something. Aunt Miriam thinks it's a fine plan. What do you think about it?"

"I think it's simply top-hole, to use the expression of your native land. But won't you find New Haven a trifle dull, after London, and all that?"

"I rather think I shall, but in a different way. I shall be quite busy, and I thought I'd go to some lectures and things in the university and learn something.--Why don't you say something, James?"

"I think it's a wonderful idea." James had been thinking so hard he had forgotten to speak. Did he perhaps regret his lately-made decision not to come back and coach the football team, but to take advantage of a business opening in the Middle West? At any rate, he was startled to observe what a leap his heart gave when Beatrice said she was coming back. Was it possible, he asked himself, that he was really going to care for this girl, with her dark brown eyes and her aloof, aristocratic, unchallenging ways?...

But he was undeniably glad she was coming back, and found occasion to tell her so more fully another time, when they were alone.

"I'm particularly glad," he added, "on Harry's account. He needs some one to keep an eye on him; do you think you can do it?"

"I've done that for some years," said Beatrice, smiling. "I've been more of a brother to him than you have, really. Why on earth did you never come over and see him all that time, James?"

"Heaven knows.... I was lazy; I got in a rut. I wish I had, now."

"Why, nothing's going wrong, I hope?"

"Oh, d.a.m.nably!--I beg your pardon. When he first came back he did certain things that used to get on my nerves, and I, like a fool, let it go on that way, thinking that he was all wrong and I was all right. It's only lately that I've come to see better ... and now, when he particularly needs some steadying influence, I can't give it to him. You see, he gets on other people's nerves, too; he and his ideas--"

"Ideas?"

"Yes; fool notions he got about the way things are done in England--"

"Isn't that a trifle hard?"

"Oh, the ideas may be all right, but not the way he applies them.... At any rate, they, or something else, are playing the deuce with his college course. He's getting in Dutch, all around--"

"In Dutch," murmured Beatrice. "Oh, I do like that!" But James did not notice the interruption.

"And while I see all this going on I have to stand aside and let it go on, because when I say anything it doesn't do any good, but only irritates him and makes him worse."

"I see. Well, I'm always willing to do what I can for Harry, but I'm afraid I haven't any real influence over him, either."

"Oh, yes, you have. He has the greatest respect for you."

"Not nearly as much as you think." Her usually calm expression was clouded; she seemed disturbed about something. Why did James feel a momentary sinking of the heart when he noticed the seriousness of her face and manner? It was nothing, though; gone again in a second.

Beatrice continued, in a more optimistic tone:

"But I honestly don't think, James, that there's much to worry about. I don't mean that he mayn't get into sc.r.a.pes, but I don't think that there's anything seriously wrong.... I have always had the greatest faith in him--not only in his intellect, but in his character. So has Uncle G.; he expects great things of him, says he has just that combination of intellect and balance that results in statues in public places."

"The genius in the family is all confined to him; I'm glad you realize that!" James could not help being a little rasped by her harping on the good qualities of his brother, nor could he help showing it a little. He immediately felt rather ashamed of himself, however, for Beatrice replied, in a gently startled tone:

"Why, James, how bitter! You don't expect me to fling bouquets at your very face, surely! I throw them at you when I'm talking to Harry!"

"You must throw a good lot of them, then, for you see him alone often enough," was the somewhat gruff reply. Beatrice must have considered it rather a foolish remark, for she paid no attention to it.

Harry's att.i.tude toward her decision, as expressed in his next _tete-a-tete_ with her, was rather different from that of his brother.

"Beatrice," said he, "of course I'm pleased as Punch about your coming here next year, both on my own account and on Aunt Selina's, and all that sort of thing; but I hope you won't think it rude of me if I ask why on earth you're doing it. Of course, I know there are family unpleasantnesses, and that you aren't particularly interested in London b.a.l.l.s, but that doesn't explain to me why, when you really do occupy an enviable position over there, get asked everywhere worth going, in season and out, and all that, you should choose to be the paid companion of an old woman in a small New England town. And I don't believe it's Aunt Selina's _beaux yeux_!"

"No!" said Beatrice, laughing; "I don't believe it's quite all that, either!"

"What will people think about it over there?" went on Harry. "What'll your mother say?"

"I'm afraid Mama will be perfectly delighted, even if she doesn't say so," replied Beatrice, serious again. "The truth is, Harry, poor Mama and I don't gee very well, somehow.... Jane is a great comfort to her--a perfect daughter--she came out this year, you know."

"Is she as much of a social success as you?" asked Harry with that frankness that was characteristic of their relation.

"Much more so--in a way. She uses her gifts to much more effect."

"She's not nearly as good-looking as you," persisted Harry.

It was a remark thoroughly in keeping with the spirit of their comradeship, the kind of remark, expressive of a plain truth, nothing more, that they prided themselves on making and taking between themselves without the least affectation or self-consciousness. Yet Beatrice simply could not keep pleasure from sounding in her voice as she replied:

"Well, no; I suppose not. It's the only thing in which I have the better of her, though. I'm very--"

She began her reply in the old spirit, but could not keep it up. She had started to say, "I'm very glad you think that," then stopped herself, then wished she had gone on. It would have been perfectly consistent with their old "man-to-man" att.i.tude, if she could have said it in the right way!

Harry noticed her halting, and looked up at her quickly. He saw that she was blushing. "Good Heavens!" he thought; "I hope Beatrice doesn't think I'm paying her compliments!" The incident was slight, but it brought a new and disturbing element into their relation. Indeed, in that one little moment they ceased to remain boy and girl in their att.i.tude toward one another, and became man and woman. They met often enough on the old terms of frankness and intimacy, but s.e.x interest and suspicion always lurked in the background, ready to burst out and break up things at any moment.

The spring wore on; Commencement arrived; James was graduated. Aunt Miriam, the James Wimbournes and numerous youthful James Wimbournes came to stay with Aunt Selina and see him graduate. Beatrice was also there and Harry was of course on hand. He took little part in the graduation festivities and amused himself chiefly by showing his two eldest male cousins, Oswald and Jack, the sights of the university and incidentally making them look forward with a healthy dread to the day when as freshmen first they would come to Yale.

"This is the swimming-pool," he would tell them; "it doesn't look very big now, does it? Perhaps not! But it _seems_ pretty big, I can tell you, when the soph.o.m.ores dump you in there, in the pitch dark, and tell you it's half a mile to sh.o.r.e and you've got to swim! And you have to scramble out as best you can. _They_ won't help you!"

"They don't do that to _every_ freshman, though, do they?" hopefully inquired Oswald, a nice, plump, yellow-haired, wide-eyed youth of fourteen or so, the image of his mother.

"Yes, m.u.f.fins, indeed they do, every one, whether they can swim or not,"

replied Harry seriously. (Oswald was called m.u.f.fins because he was considered by his playmates to look like one. This reason usually did not satisfy older people, but after all, they did not know him as well as those of his own age, and had no kick coming, at all.)

"I say, Harry, it's awfully decent of you to tell us all these things beforehand, so that we shall be warned when the time comes!" This from Jack, who was twelve and dark and looked like his father.

"Harold Wimbourne, what on earth have you been telling those children about Yale College?" was Aunt Cecilia's indignant comment on his powers of fiction. "Neither of them slept a wink last night, for thinking about what the soph.o.m.ores would do to them; and Jack asked me quite seriously if he thought his father would mind much if he went to Harvard instead, because he didn't think he could ever swim well enough to live through his freshman year! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

Harry laughed unfeelingly, and refused to abate one jot of the horrors of hazing. He even wished it were all true, that these innocent and happy boys might have to go through with it all, that some one would ever be miserable in college beside himself. He scarcely spoke to James during the last few days, though James remained cordial and cheery enough toward him. But he was unnaturally cordial and forbearing, and that drove Harry into despair, especially as there was copious reason why James, under normal conditions, should be neither cordial nor forbearing. Harry had, a fortnight or so before Commencement, just after training was broken up, taken part in one of those engagements with the forces of law and order with which undergraduates are wont to relieve the monotony of their humdrum existence. First there had been strong drink, and plenty of it, after which came a period of vague but delightful irresponsibility, culminating in much broken gla.s.s, a clash with policemen and two or three arrests.

Harry had escaped this latter ignominy, but as his name enjoyed equal publicity with those of the more unfortunate revelers, it did him little good. Nothing could possibly be less to the liking of such a person as James, as Harry realized perfectly at the time. He partic.i.p.ated in the affair neither because he liked strong drink nor because he disliked policemen, but chiefly with a sort of desperate desire to force James'

hand, to make his brother take him severely to task and end their mutual coolness in one rousing scene of recrimination and forgiveness.

But no such thing happened; James did not make the slightest reference to the business! Harry also remained silent on the subject, at first because of his amazement, then out of obstinacy, and finally because he was genuinely hurt. If James preferred that they should be strangers to each other, strangers they should be. Meanwhile James remained silent, of course, not because he did not take enough interest in his brother, but because he took too much. He refrained from mentioning the row because he was afraid that a discussion of it would merely bring on another quarrel, which he wished of all things to avoid.

So the two brothers bade good-by to each other for the summer in misunderstanding and mistrust, though their outward behavior was cordial and brotherly enough. James, who was starting almost immediately for the West, smiled as he shook the hand of his brother, who was going abroad for the holidays and said, "Well, so long; look out for yourself and don't take any wooden money." Harry, also smiling, replied in the same vein; but the smile died on his lips and the words turned to gall in his mouth as he thought what a bitter travesty this was of former partings, when their gaiety was either natural or intended to hide the sorrow of parting, and not, as now, wholly forced and affected to conceal the relief that each could not but feel in being far from the other.

CHAPTER XII

AN ACT OF G.o.d