Fibble, D.D.

To-night, finding the seclusion of my study dispiriting, I went forth upon a long and purposeless walk beneath the stars. Through chance I found myself, at or about eleven o'clock, in the vicinity of Mr. Hector Hamm's place of residence. Aimlessly lingering here in the shadow of the trees, I soon espied Pomeroy issuing from the gate of the residence and making off, whistling gaily as he went. He disappeared in the darkness, still whistling in a loud and vulgar manner. I could almost wish he might be choked by his own whistling. As for myself, I never whistle.

In this mood I have returned here to pen these lines. I fear me I shall sleep but ill the night, for distracting and gloomy thoughts race through my brain. I feel myself not to be myself. I wonder why?

May the Twenty-Fifth. – The odious Pomeroy has betaken himself hence. Quite by accident I happened to drop into our local hostelry, the Briggs House, this morning and ascertained by a purely cursory glance at the register that he had paid his account and departed. I may only add that I trust he sees his way clear to remaining away indefinitely or, better still, permanently.

This is Sunday and I shall be engaged with our services. But upon to-morrow night, when it is my intention to resume my friendly visits to the Hamm home, I mean to take an important step. For long I have been cogitating it and my mind is now firmly made up. As yet I have not fully memorised the language in which I shall frame my request, but I have convinced myself that our acquaintanceship has now advanced to a point where the liberty I would take is amply justified. I shall formally ask Miss Hamm that in our hours of private communion together, if not in public, she call me Roscoe, while in return I mean, with her consent, to address her as Hildegarde.

None need know of this excepting ourselves. It will be, as I conceive, a secret between us, a bond, a tie, as it were.

Good night, small russet-clad confidante. Prithee be of good cheer! When next we meet perchance I may have happy news for you.

May the Twenty-Sixth. – No entry.

May the Twenty-Seventh. – No entry.

May the Twenty-Eighth. – A terrible, a hideous, an inconceivable catastrophe has descended upon the devoted head of Fibble!

With a fevered, tremulous hand, with one leg – to wit, the right one – enclosed in a plaster cast, with a soul racked by remorse, by vain regrets and by direst apprehensions, I pen the above words. My brain seethes with incoherent thoughts, my very frame quivers with suffering and with frightful forebodings. 'Tis with the utmost difficulty that I manage to inscribe these piteous lines. Yet inscribe them I must and shall. Should the worst befall, should the dread hand of violence strike me down ere I have succeeded in fleeing this perilous spot, this confession shall remain behind, a testimonial, to tell the world and her that I perished a martyr upon the altars of unrequited affection and to explain the innate purity of my motives, however far I may have fallen, in one rash moment of uncontrollable impulse, from the lofty pinnacles of honour. Though I lie weltering in my gore, my lips forever closed, my hand forever stilled, the record shall endure to show that I, the disgraced and the deceased Fibble, would, from the confines of the silent tomb, beg forgiveness for my criminal indiscretion. I shall write all! My tears descending as I write bedew the sheet, and beneath my swimming eyes the lines waver, but in haste I write on, lest the slayer find me before my final task be done.

We were alone together. We were side by side. Upon a couch we sat in close juxtaposition. The hour was approximately nine-thirty; the time two nights agone. I bent toward her, half whispering my words. With all the fervour of which I am capable I told her I had a request to make of her; told her that compliance with this request would have a bearing upon all our future communions, bringing us nearer to each other, forming a link between us. My executors will understand, after a perusal of the paragraphs immediately preceding, that I meant to ask her to call me Roscoe and in return to vouchsafe to me the boon and the privilege of calling her Hildegarde.

Bending her head, she said, with that simple directness so characteristic of her, "Go right ahead." Suddenly I found her hand intertwined in mine. I do not attempt to explain this phenomenon; indeed, I was not conscious of having sought to encompass her hand within my own; I merely state it a verity. Her fingers pressed against mine – or so to me it seemed.

"Go right ahead, doctor," she repeated. "I'm listening."

The touch of her hand laid a spell upon me. Instantaneously all my forces of self-reserve were swept away. With the startling abruptness of a bolt from the blue, realisation of a thing which I had never before suspected came full upon me, and for the first time I knew that for Hildegarde Hamm I entertained a sentiment deeper than that of mere friendship – yes, far, far deeper. I knew that I cared for her; in short, I knew that I loved her.

Madness was upon me – a delicious, an all-consuming fire burned within me. I forgot that I was a guest beneath her roof, enjoying the hospitality of her beloved and revered relative. I forgot the meed of respect I owed to her, forgot the responsibilities imposed upon me. I forgot all else except that I, Roscoe T. Fibble, loved Hildegarde Hamm.

I became as the caveman, who by brute force would win his mate. I obeyed a primeval impulse. Without a word of warning, without excuse, without prefatory remark of any nature whatsoever, I acted:

I kissed her. To be exact, I kissed at her.

For, in this moment fraught with such consequences to all concerned, she averted her head at yet a greater angle. The implant of the osculation was destined for her cheek. It reached her nose – the tip of her nose only.

I do not plead this circumstance in partial extenuation. The intent had been plain, the deed was consummated. I had practically kissed her.

She leaped to her feet, as I to mine. Her eyes, alight with an inscrutable expression, looked into mine; her cheeks became diffused with the crimsoned glow of righteous indignation; her form was convulsed; she quivered from head to feet. For a moment this scene endured. Then ere my lips, but lately contracted for the chaste but unbidden salute, could frame the first stammered syllable of an apology, she buried her ensanguined face in her hands, and hysteria assailed her – a hysteria so acute and so violent that not tears but an outburst resembling laughter – laughter wild, startling and most distressing to hear – came from her. She turned and dashed from the room.

My heart paused in its quick beating. In one mad moment of indiscretion I had destroyed her confidence in me, had brought down in crashing ruins my hopes, my dreams, my new-found joy.

I felt that I must go hence – that I must quit that domicile forever, and the sooner the better. With my brain in a whirl, I looked about me for my hat and my umbrella.

A loud and a compelling voice spoke behind me. I faced about. In the doorway through which she had just fled stood a fearsome apparition. It was her uncle, that man so given to carnage among the beasts and birds of the field, that unerring, that unfailing marksman. He was in his shirt sleeves, his arms bared to his elbows. Upon his face was a fixed grin of demoniac determination – the look of one who smiles even as he slays his prey. And in his hands – ah, dreadful final detail of this dreadful picture – he held outstretched, extended and presented in my general direction, a double-barrelled fowling piece, enormous in size and glittering with metal ornamentation.

"Young man," he cried out, "have one look at this!"

In times of the most extreme peril the thoughts clarify with inconceivable rapidity. In a flash I comprehended all. She had told him of the insult to her maidenly modesty, and for it he meant to have my heart's blood. I was about to become an extinct and bleeding corse. But before he could raise the hideous instrument of death to his shoulder an expedient occurred to me. I would save myself from slaughter and coincidentally save him from the crime of dyeing his hands with the gore of a fellow being. A low window at the west side of the room, immediately adjacent to the couch whereon I had been seated, providentially stood open. I would leap from it and flee. Without a moment's hesitation I did so.

In such emergencies one does not choose with care one's means of exit. One departs by the egress most convenient to one. As I plunged through the opening I remembered that a considerable distance intervened between the window I had chosen and the sward below. Even as I bounded forth into space I thought of this. But when one is in mid-air one does not turn back; a law of physics involving the relation of solid bodies to the attraction of gravitation prevents. Nor did I indeed desire to turn back. My one desire was to go. I dropped and dropped, as though for miles. I struck with terrific force upon a grass-covered but hard and unyielding surface. A pang of agony, poignant in its intensity, darted in an upward direction through my lower right limb and I dropped prostrate upon the earth.

But now in the window above stood my would-be destroyer, a wild gleam in his wide open eyes and that awful lethal object still in his grasp. His eyes roved this way and that into the darkness without, seeking to find the victim. The light from behind shone full upon him. Thwarted for the moment tho' he had been, his purpose was all too plainly revealed.

Heedless of the pain, I leaped to my feet and darted away into the sheltering night. Somehow, I know not how, I scaled the fence. There was a gate, but what time had I to seek out gates? I staggered adown the street. I reached the corner below and there I fell, unable to proceed another rod be the consequences what they might. Merciful unconsciousness succeeded. I knew no more.

When after a lapse I recovered my senses familiar objects surrounded me, and faces well known to me yet for the time wearing a strange aspect, bent over me. I remember my first words.

"Where am I?" I uttered feebly, and would have started up had not those close at hand restrained me with gentle force.

I was in my own room. While my swoon continued Samaritans had borne me hither. Gentle hands soothed my brow; a physician was preparing wrappings for the injured limb, my right ankle being in a severely sprained state. I learned that I had been discovered lying mute and insensible upon the public highway. My lineaments had been recognised; assistance had been summoned; I had been removed to my quarters; friends now ministered to me. One and all, they assumed that, walking in the darkness, I had encountered some obstacle and, being thus injured, had fallen unconscious. Weak as I was and incoherent though my thoughts, I did not undeceive them. Nor have I yet done so.

I sought to know more, but the physician bade me be silent. His task completed, he administered a sleeping draught and anon I sank into deep slumber.

That was the night of the day before yesterday. Upon yesterday and again this morning I made fervent inquiry of my nurse as to whether any person other than those connected with Fernbridge had called. Each time I was told that Mr. Hector Hamm had come to enquire regarding my condition and to express a desire to have private conversation with me at the very earliest moment when I might receive visitors. Therefore, it is plain that he has been here at least twice, but each time – oh, fortunate circumstance – has been turned away from the door. 'Tis I and I alone who know his implacable object. His lust for vengeance is not assuaged. He will accept no defence, will pause not to hearken to my prayers for mercy. Even now he may be lurking without seeking opportunity to destroy me utterly.

Infirmity chains me to my couch, but when the injured limb may bear my weight I shall flee, even as the hind before the huntsman. Should I escape I shall, in different surroundings far, far from here, take up anew the shattered threads of my existence, a broken-hearted wretch, seeking by good deeds done under an assumed name to atone for this, the one blot upon the fair escutcheon of my life. Should I fall before his fatal aim this confession, written during the temporary absence of my nurse from the chamber of invalidism, will be found among my belongings.

Even though as I pen this, perchance my last declaration, I am strangely torn between two all-consuming wishes. I desire above all things to be gone ere it is too late. And yet above all things, I desire to look again upon the face of my adored one. But alas, that may not be! 'Twould be folly multiplied upon folly to dare attempt it. I cannot think upon her. I must think upon her uncle.

Hildegarde, farewell, a long, a last, a fond farewell! I have sorely sinned, but 'twas for love of you! Adieu, adieu, all that I hold dear.

Three Hours Later. – Oh, Little Diary! O Great Joy!

In a transport of delight I add this postscript. She has been here – Hildegarde – my Hildegarde. All is explained, all is atoned for.

But an hour agone she came. She burst in upon me. Heedless of the presence of others, she threw herself upon my breast. I found her arms entwined about me, my arms entwined about her. With her head hidden upon my bosom, in sweet confusion, and with tears of thanksgiving coursing adown her cheek, she made it clear to my understanding – oh, so sweetly clear – that I, most woefully, had been misled. As yet my delighted intellect can scarce grasp the purport of her disclosures, but from the rest these salient, these soothing, these beautiful facts stand out:

I was deceived. The kiss I would have impressed upon her countenance was not to her displeasing. Rather it was the circumstance of its being misdirected which caused her to be overcome, not with the hysteria of indignation but with mirth. Why mirth at such a moment, I know not. But are not the ways of a maiden past finding out?

Hurrying from my presence to stifle her laughter, she entered the adjoining room, to come upon her uncle engaged in the, to him, congenial occupation of oiling a newly purchased firearm of augmented calibre. A waggish inspiration leaped into her mind. It would appear by her own admissions that she has oft been given to the practice of practical joking; but because of the glorious consequences I find it in my heart to forgive her.

"Uncle," she said, "Doctor Fibble wants to see your new gun!"

With no murderous desires in his heart and actuated only by gratification and friendliness, he entered. Yet under the circumstances, how natural, how inevitable, that I should misread his expression and his gesture, misinterpret his motives. I saw the window near by, offering a possible avenue of escape. I leaped. You, diary, and you alone, know what has ensued from that moment until now.

But there is more to tell. She believed my limb was shattered – in fact, broken. She blamed me not at all; it was herself she blamed. Until she could bear the separation no longer, she remained away. Then impetuously, remorsefully, lovingly she came. She loves me – she herself has told me so – Hildegarde loves me. And stranger still, she has known for weeks that I loved her, even though I myself remained in complete ignorance of being in that enraptured state. How wonderful is woman's intuition!

She has foresworn practical joking. We have exchanged vows. We have plighted our troth. She is mine and I am hers. She has gone from me to win her uncle's consent and to invoke his blessing upon our banns. Soon she will return to me.

In her absence I fondly dwell upon her words. "Dearest," she said, "you need some one to take care of you. And I am going to take the job."

Sweet child! In her confusion she twisted her meaning. She meant of course that she had need of me to care for her.

"And now," she said a moment later, "and now I'm going to teach you how to kiss a girl."

Under this head I shall say naught, except that she has taught me. There are things too sacred, too beautiful to be described in detail in the written word. Suffice it to say she has taught me!

And then she called me Fibbey. Oh, precious diminutive! Evermore I shall be her Fibbey!

With one final statement I close this recital of the crowning chapter of my life. Our union is to be consummated at an early date in this dear spot.

O well-named town of Lover's Leap, New Jersey.

For I, too, have taken the lover's leap, not to death upon the cruel rocks but to happiness everlasting.

Her Fibbey!

My Hildegarde!