Henry Is Twenty: A Further Episodic History of Henry Calverly, 3rd

1

It was mid-August and twenty minutes to eight in the evening. The double rows of maples threw spreading shadows over the pavement, sidewalk and lawns of Hazel Avenue. From dim houses, set far back amid trees and shrubs, giving a homy village quality to the darkness, came through screened doors and curtained ‘bay’ windows the yellow glow of oil lamps and the whiter shine of electric lights. Here and there a porch light softly illuminated a group of young people; their chatter and laughter, with perhaps a snatch of song, floating pleasantly out on the soft evening air. Around on a side street, sounding faintly, a youthful banjoist with soft fingers and inadequate technique was struggling with The March Past.

Moving in a curious, rather jerky manner along the street, now walking swiftly, nervously, now hesitating, even stopping, in some shadowy spot, came a youth of twenty (going on twenty-one). He wore – though all these details were hardly distinguishable even in the patches of light at the street corners, where arc lamps sputtered whitely – neatly pressed white trousers, a ‘sack’ coat of blue serge, a five-dollar straw hat, silk socks of a pattern and a silken ‘four-in-hand’ tie. He carried a cane of thin bamboo that he whipped and flicked at the grass and rattled lightly along the occasional picket fence except when he was fussing at the light growth on his upper lip. Under his left arm was a square package that any girl of Sunbury would have recognised instantly, even in the shadows, as a two-pound box of Devoe’s chocolates.

If you had chanced to be a resident of Sunbury at this period you would have known that the youth was Henry Calverly, 3rd. Though you might have had no means of knowing that he was about to ‘call’ on Cicely Hamlin. Or, except perhaps from his somewhat spasmodic locomotion, that he was in a state of considerable nervous excitement.

Not that Henry hadn’t called on many girls in his day. He had. But he had called only once before on Cicely (the other time had been that invitation to dinner for which her aunt was really responsible) and had then, in a burning glow of temperament, read her his stories!

How he had read! And read! And read! Until midnight and after. She had been enthusiastic, too.

But he wasn’t in a glow now. Certain small incidents had lately brought him to the belief that Cicely Hamlin lacked the pairing-off instinct so common among the young of Sunbury. She had been extra nice to him; true. But the fact stood that she was not ‘going with’ him. Not in the Sunbury sense of the phrase. A baffling, disturbing aura of impersonally pleasant feeling held him at a distance.

So he was just a young fellow setting forth, with chocolates, to call on a girl. A girl who could be extra nice to you and then go out of her way to maintain pleasant acquaintance with the others, your rivals, your enemies. Almost as if she felt she had been a little too nice and wished to strike a balance; at least he had thought of that. A girl who had been reared strangely in foreign convents; who didn’t know The Spanish Cavalier or Seeing Nellie Home or Solomon Levi, yet did know, strangely, that the principal theme in Dvorak’s extremely new ‘New World’ symphony was derived from Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (which illuminating fact had stirred Henry to buy, regardless, the complete piano score of that symphony and struggle to pick out the themes on Humphrey’s piano at the rooms). A girl who had never seen De Wolf Hopper in Wang, or the Bostonians in Robin Hood, or Sothem in The Prisoner of Zenda, or Maude Adams or Ethel Barrymore or anything. A girl who had none of the direct, free and easy ways of the village young; you couldn’t have started a rough-house with her – mussed her hair, or galloped her in the two-step. A girl who wasn’t stuck up, or anything like that, who seemed actually shy at times, yet subtly repressed you, made you wish you could talk like the fellow’s that had gone to Harvard.

In view of these rather remarkable facts I think it really was a tribute to Cicely Hamlin that the many discussions of her as a conspicuous addition to the youngest set had boiled down to the single descriptive adjective, ‘tactful.’ Though the characterisation seems not altogether happy; for the word, to me, connotes something of conscious skill and management – as my Crabb put it: ‘TACTFUL. See Diplomatic’ – and Cicely was not, certainly not in those days, a manager.

Henry, muttered softly, as he walked.

‘I’ll hand it to her when she comes in.

‘No, she’ll shake hands and it might get in the way.

‘Put it on the table – that’s the thing! – on a corner where she’ll see it.

‘Then some time when we can’t think of anything to talk about, I’ll say – “Thought you might like a few chocolates.” Sorta offhand. Prevent there being a lull in the conversation.

‘Better begin calling her Cicely.’

‘Why not? Shucks! Can’t go on with “You” and “Say!” Why can’t I just do it naturally? The way Herb would, or Elbow, or those fellows.

‘“How’d’ you do, Cicely! Come on, let’s take a walk.”

‘No. “Good-evening, Cicely. I thought maybe you’d like to take a walk. There’s a moonrise over the lake about half-past eight.” That’s better.

‘Wonder if Herb’ll be there. He’d hardly think to come so early, though. Be all right if I can get her away from the house by eight.’

He paused, held up his watch to the light from the corner, then rushed on.

‘Maybe she’d ask me to sit him out, anyway.’

But his lips clamped shut on this. It was just the sort of thing Cicely wouldn’t do. He knew it.

‘What if she won’t go out!’

This sudden thought brought bitterness. A snicker had run its course about town – in his eager self-absorption he had wholly forgotten – when Alfred Knight, confident in an engagement to call, had hired a horse and buggy at McAllister’s. The matter of an evening drive a deux had been referred to Cicely’s aunt. As a result the horse had stood hitched outside more than two hours only to be driven back to the livery, stable by the gloomy Al.

‘Shucks, though! Al’s a fish! Don’t blame her!’

He walked stiffly in among the trees and shrubs of the old Dexter Smith place and mounted the rather imposing front steps.

That purchase of the Dexter Smith place was typical of Madame Watt at the time. She was riding high. She had money. Two acres of lawn, fine old trees, a great square house of Milwaukee brick, high spacious rooms with elaborately moulded plaster ceilings and a built-on conservatory and a barn that you could keep half a dozen carriages in! It was one of only four or five houses in Sunbury that the Voice and the Gleaner rejoiced to call ‘mansions.’ And it was the only one that could have been bought. The William B. Snows, like the Jenkinses and the de Casselles (I don’t know if it has been explained before that the accepted local pronunciation was Dekasells,) lived in theirs. And even after the elder Dexter Smith died Mrs Smith would hardly have sold the place if the children hadn’t nagged her into it. Young Dex wanted to go to New York. And at that it was understood that Madame Watt paid two prices.

2

A uniformed butler showed Henry into the room that he would have called the front parlour. Though there was another much like it across the wide hall. There was a ‘back parlour,’ with portières between. Out there, he knew, between centre table and fireplace, the Senator and Madame might even now be sitting.

He listened, on the edge of a huge plush and walnut chair, for the rustle of the Senator’s paper, or Madame’s deep, always startling voice.

There was no sound. Save that somewhere upstairs, far off, a door opened; then footsteps very faint. And silence again.

Henry looked, fighting down misgivings, at the heavily framed oil paintings on the wall. One, of a life-boat going out through mountainous waves to a wreck, he had always heard was remarkably fine. Fastened over the bow of the boat was a bit of real rope that had provoked critical controversy when the picture was first exhibited in Chicago.

He glanced down, discovered the box of chocolates on his knees, and hurriedly placed it on the corner of the inevitable centre table. Then he fussed nervously with his moustache; adjusted his tie, wondering if the stick pin should be higher; pulled down his cuffs; and sat up stiffly again.

‘Maybe she ain’t home,’ he thought weakly. ‘That fella said he’d see.’

‘Maybe I oughta’ve asked if she’d be in.’

The silence deepened, spread, settled about him. He wished she would come down. There was danger, he knew, that his few painfully thought-out conversational openings would leave him. He would be an embarrassed, quite speechless young man. For he was as capable, even now, at twenty, almost at twenty-one, of speechlessness as of volubility. Either might happen to him, at any moment, from the smallest, least foreseeable of causes.

And there was something oppressive about the stillness of this cavernous old house with its sound-proof partitions and its distances. And that silent machine of a butler. It wasn’t like calling at Martha Caldwell’s, in the old days, where you could hear the Swedish cook crashing around in the kitchen and Martha moving around upstairs before she came down. Here you wouldn’t so much as know there was a kitchen.

Then, suddenly, sharp as a blow out of the stillness came a series of sounds that froze the marrow in his bones, made him rigid on the edge of that plush chair, his lips parted, his eyes staring, wrestling with an impulse to dash out of the house; with another impulse to cough, or shout, or play the piano, in some mad way to announce himself, yet continuing to sit like a carved idol, in the grip of a paralysis of the faculties.

There is nothing more painful to the young than the occasional discovery, through the mask of social reticence, that the old have their weak or violent moments.

Gossip, yes! But gossip rests lightly and briefly in young ears. Henry had heard the Watts slyly ridiculed. There were whispers, of course. Madame’s career as a French countess – well, naturally Sunbury wondered. And the long obscurity from which she had rescued Senator Watt raised questions about that very quiet little man. So often men in political life were tempted off the primly beaten track. And Henry, like the other young people, had grinned in awed delight over the tale that Madame swore at her servants. That was before he had so much as spoken to her niece. And it had little or no effect on his attitude toward Madame herself when he met her. She had at once taken her place in the compartment of his thoughts reserved from earliest memory for his elders, whose word was (at least in honest theory) law and to whom one looked up with diffidence and a genuine if somewhat automatic respect.

The first of the disturbing sounds was Madame’s voice, far-off but ringing strong. Then a door opened – it must have been the dining-room door; not the wide one that opened into the great front hall, but the other, at the farther end of the ‘back parlour.’

There was a brief lull. A voice could be heard, though – a man’s voice, low-pitched, deprecatory.

Then Madame’s again. And stranger noises. The man’s voice cried out in quick protest; there was a rustle and then a crash like breaking china.

The Senator, hurrying a little, yet with a sort of dignity, walked out into the hall. Henry could see him, first between the portières as he left the room, then as he passed the hall door.

There was a rush and a torrent of passionately angry words from the other room. An object – it appeared to be a paper weight or ornament – came hurtling out into the hall. The Senator, who had apparently gone to the closet by the door for his hat and stick – for he came back into the hall with them – stepped back just in time to avoid being struck. The object fell on the stair, landing with the sound of solid metal.

‘You come back here!’ Madame’s voice.

‘I will not come back until you have had time to return to your senses,’ replied the Senator. He looked very small. He was always stilted in speech; Humphrey had said that he talked like the Congressional Record. ‘This is a disgraceful scene. If you have the slightest regard for my good name or your own you will at least make an effort to compose yourself. Some one might be at the door at this moment. You are a violent, ungoverned woman, and I am ashamed of you.’

‘And you’ – she was almost screaming now – ‘are the man who was glad to marry me.’

He ignored this. ‘If any one asks for me, I shall be at the Sunbury Club.’

‘Going to drink again, are you?’

‘I think not.’

‘If you do, you needn’t come back. Do you hear? You needn’t come back!’

He turned, and with a sort of strut went out the front door.

She started to follow. She did come as far as the portières. Henry had a glimpse of her, her face red and distorted.

She turned back then, and seemed to be picking up the room. He could hear sniffing and actually snorting as she moved about. There was a brief silence. Then she crossed the hall, a big imposing person – even in her tantrums she had presence – and went up the stairs, pausing on the landing to pick up the object she had thrown. Her solid footfalls died out on the thick carpets of the upper hall. A door opened, and slammed faintly shut.

Silence again.

Henry found that he was clutching the arms of the chair.

‘I must relax,’ he thought vacantly; and drew a slow deep breath, as he had been taught in a gymnasium class at the Y.M.C.A.

He brushed a hand across his eyes. Now that it was over, his temples were pounding hotly, his nerves aquiver.

It was incredible. Yet it had happened. Before his eyes. A vulgar brawl; a woman with a red face throwing things. And he was here in the house with her. He might have to try to talk with her.

He considered again the possibility of slipping out. But that butler had taken his name up. Cicely would be coming down any moment. Unless she knew.

Did she know? Had she heard? Possibly not.

Henry got slowly, indecisively up and wandered to the piano; stood leaning on it.

His eyes filled. All at once, in his mind’s eye, he could see Cicely. Particularly the sensitive mouth. And the alert brown eyes. And the pretty way her eyebrows moved when she spoke or smiled or listened – always with a flattering attention – to what you were saying.

He brought a clenched fist down softly on the piano.

3

‘Oh,’ cried the voice of Cicely – ‘there you are! How nice of you to come!’

She was standing – for a moment – in the doorway.

White of face, eyes burning, his fist still poised on the piano, he stared at her.

She didn’t know! Surely she didn’t – not with that bright smile. __

She wore the informal, girlish costume of the moment – neatly fitting dark skirt; simple shirt-waist with the ballooning sleeves that were then necessary; stiff boyish linen collar propping the chin high, and little bow tie; darkish, crisply waving hair brought into the best order possible, parted in the middle and carried around and down over the ears to a knot low on the neck.

‘I brought some candy,’ he cried fiercely. ‘There! On the table!’

She knit her brows for a brief moment. Then opened the box.

‘How awfully nice of you… You’ll have some?’

‘No. I don’t eat candy. I was thinking of – I want to get you out – Come on, let’s take a walk!’

She smiled a little, around a chocolate. Surely she didn’t know!

She had seemed, during her first days in Sunbury, rather timid at times. But there was in this smile more than a touch of healthy self-confidence. No girl, indeed, could find herself making so definite a success as Cicely had made here from her first day without acquiring at least the beginnings of self-confidence. It was a success that had forced Elbow Jenkins and Herb de Casselles to ignore small rebuffs and persist in fighting over her. It permitted her, even in a village where social conformity was the breath of life, to do odd, unexpected things. Such as allowing herself to be interested, frankly, in Henry Calverly.

So she smiled as she nibbled a chocolate.

He said it again, breathlessly: —

‘I was thinking of asking you to take a walk.’

‘Well’ – still that smile – ‘why don’t you?’

But he was still in a daze, and pressed stupidly on.

‘It’s a fine evening. And the moon’ll be coming up.’

‘I’ll get my sweater,’ she said quietly, and went out to the hall.

She was just turning away from the hall closet with the sweater – he, hat and stick in hand, was fighting back the memory of how Senator Watt had marched stiffly to that same closet – when Madame Watt came down the stairs, scowling intently, still breathing hard.

She saw them; came toward them; stood, pursing her lips, finally forcing a sort of smile.

‘Oh, howdadoo!’ she remarked, toward Henry.

Her black eyes focused pointedly on him. And while he was mumbling a greeting, she broke in on him with this: – ‘I didn’t know you were here. Did you just come?’ Henry’s eyes lowered. Then, as utter silence fell, the colour surging to his face, he raised them. They met her black, alarmed stare. He felt that he ought to lie about this, lie like a good one. But he didn’t know how.

Slowly, all confusion, he shook his head.

During a long moment they held that gaze, the vigorous, strangely interesting woman of wealth and of what must have been a violent past, and the gifted, sensitive youth of twenty. When she turned away, they had a secret.

‘We thought of taking a little walk,’ said Cicely.

Madame moved briskly away into the back parlour, merely throwing back over her shoulder, in a rather explosive voice: ‘Have a good time!’

The remark evidently struck Cicely as somewhat out of character. She even turned, a little distrait, and looked after, her aunt.

Then, as they were passing out the door, Madame’s voice boomed after them. She was hurrying back through the hall.

‘By the way,’ she said, with a frowning, determined manner, ‘we are having a little theatre party Saturday night. A few of Cicely’s friends. Dinner here at six. Then we go in on the seven-twenty. I know Cicely’ll be glad to have you. Informal – don’t bother to dress.’

‘Oh, yes!’ cried Cicely, looking at her aunt.

‘I – Im sure I’d be delighted,’ said Henry heavily.

Then they went out, and strolled in rather oppressive quiet toward the lake.

There was a summer extravaganza going, at the Auditorium. That must be the theatre. They hadn’t meant to ask him, of course. Not at this late hour. It hurt, with a pain that, a day or so back, would have filled Henry’s thoughts. But Cicely’s smile, as she stood by the table, nibbling a chocolate, the poise of her pretty head – the picture stood out clearly against a background so ugly, so unthinkably vulgar, that it was like a deafening noise in his brain.

4

He glanced sidewise at Cicely. They were walking down Douglass Street. Just ahead lay the still, faintly shimmering lake, stretching out to the end of the night and beyond. Already the whispering sound reached their ears of ripples lapping at the shelving beach. And away out, beyond the dim horizon, a soft brightness gave promise of the approaching moonrise.

He stole another glance at Cicely. He could just distinguish her delicate profile.

He thought: ‘How could she ask me? They wouldn’t like it, her friends. Mary Ames mightn’t want to come. Martha Caldwell, even. She’s been nice to me. I mustn’t make it hard for her. And she mustn’t know about tonight. Not ever.’

Then a new thought brought pain. If there had been one such scene, there would be others. And she would have to live against that background, keeping up a brave face before the prying world of Sunbury. Perhaps she had already lived through something of the sort. That sad look about her mouth; when she didn’t know you were looking.

They had reached the boulevard now, and were standing at the railing over the beach. A little talk had been going on, of course, about this and that – he hardly knew what.

He clenched his fist again, and brought it down on the iron rail.

‘Oh,’ he broke out – ‘about Saturday. I forgot. I can’t come.’

‘Oh, but please – ’

‘No. Awfully busy. You’ve no idea. You see Humphrey Weaver and I bought the Gleaner. I told you, didn’t I? It’s a big responsibility – getting the pay-roll every week, and things like that. Things I never knew about before. I don’t believe I was made to be a business man. Lots of accounts and things. Hump’s at it all the time – nights and everything. You see we’ve got to make the paper pay. We’ve got to! It was losing, when Bob McGibbon had it. People hated him, and they wouldn’t advertise. And now we have to get the advertising back.’ If we fail in that, we’ll go under, just as he did…’