A Counterfeit Presentment; and, The Parlour Car

General Wyatt.– "Sir, you are very considerate, very kind. My own judgment is in favour of your course, and yet" —

Cummings.– "I think my friend is right, and that when he is gone" —

General Wyatt.– "Well, sir! well, sir! It may be the best way. I think it is the best. We will venture upon it. Sir," – to Bartlett, – "may I have the honour of taking your hand?" Bartlett lays down his burden on the piano, and gives his hand. "Thank you, thank you! You will not regret this goodness. God bless you! May you always prosper!"

Bartlett.– "Good-bye; and say to Miss Wyatt" – At these words he pauses, arrested by an incomprehensible dismay in General Wyatt's face, and turning about he sees Cummings transfixed at the apparition of Miss Wyatt advancing directly toward himself, while her mother coming behind her exchanges signals of helplessness and despair with the General. The young girl's hair, thick and bronze, has been heaped in hasty but beautiful masses on her delicate head; as she stands with fallen eyes before Bartlett, the heavy lashes lie dark on her pale cheeks, and the blue of her eyes shows through their transparent lids. She has a fan with which she makes a weak pretence of playing, and which she puts to her lips as if to hide the low murmur that escapes from them as she raises her eyes to Bartlett's face.

VIIIConstance, Mrs. Wyatt, and the others

Constance, with a phantom-like effort at hauteur. – "I hope you have been able to forgive the annoyance we caused you, and that you won't let it drive you away." She lifts her eyes with a slow effort, and starts with a little gasp as they fall upon his face, and then remains trembling before him while he speaks.

Bartlett, reverently. – "I am to do whatever you wish. I have no annoyance – but the fear that – that" —

Constance, in a husky whisper. – "Thanks!" As she turns from him to go back to her mother, she moves so frailly that he involuntarily puts out his hand.

Mrs. Wyatt, starting forward. – "No!" But Constance clutches his extended arm with one of her pale hands, and staying herself for a moment lifts her eyes again to his, looks steadily at him with her face half turned upon him, and then, making a slight, sidelong inclination of the head, releases his arm and goes to her mother, who supports her to one of the easy-chairs and kneels beside her when she sinks into it. Bartlett, after an instant of hesitation, bows silently and withdraws, Cummings having already vanished. Constance watches him going, and then hides her face on her mother's neck.

II.

DISTINCTIONS AND DIFFERENCES

IConstance and Mrs. Wyatt

Constance.– "And he is still here? He is going to stay on, mother?" She reclines in a low folding chair, and languidly rests her head against one of the pillows with which her mother has propped her; on the bright coloured shawl which has been thrown over her lie her pale hands loosely holding her shut fan. Her mother stands half across the parlour from her, and wistfully surveys her work, to see if some touch may not yet be added for the girl's comfort.

Mrs. Wyatt.– "Yes, my child. He will stay. He told your father he would stay."

Constance.– "That's very kind of him. He's very good."

Mrs. Wyatt, seating herself before her daughter. – "Do you really wish him to stay? Remember how weak you are, Constance. If you are taking anything upon yourself out of a mistaken sense of duty, of compunction, you are not kind to your poor father or to me. Not that I mean to reproach you."

Constance.– "Oh, no. And I am not unkind to you in the way you think. I'm selfish enough in wishing him to stay. I can't help wanting to see him again and again, – it's so strange, so strange. All this past week, whenever I've caught a glimpse of him, it's been like an apparition; and whenever he has spoken, it has been like a ghost speaking. But I haven't been afraid since the first time. No, there's been a dreary comfort in it; you won't understand it; I can't understand it myself; but I know now why people are glad to see their dead in dreams. If the ghost went, there would be nothing."

Mrs. Wyatt.– "Constance, you break my heart!"

Constance.– "Yes, I know it; it's because I've none." She remains a little space without speaking, while she softly fingers the edges of the fan lying in her lap. "I suppose we shall become more acquainted, if he stays?"

Mrs. Wyatt.– "Why, not necessarily, dear. You need know nothing more of him than you do now. He seems very busy, and not in the least inclined to intrude upon us. Your father thinks him a little odd, but very gentlemanly."

Constance, dreamily. – "I wonder what he would think if he knew that the man whom I would have given my life did not find my love worth having? I suppose it was worthless; but it seemed so much in the giving; it was that deceived me. He was wiser. Oh, me!" After a silence: "Mother, why was I so different from other girls?"

Mrs. Wyatt.– "So different, Constance? You were only different in being lovelier and better than others."

Constance.– "Ah, that's the mistake! If that were true, it could never have happened. Other girls, the poorest and plainest, are kept faith with; but I was left. There must have been something about me that made him despise me. Was I silly, mother? Was I too bold, too glad to have him care for me? I was so happy that I couldn't help showing it. May be that displeased him. I must have been dull and tiresome. And I suppose I was somehow repulsive, and at last he couldn't bear it any longer and had to break with me. Did I dress queerly? I know I looked ridiculous at times; and people laughed at me before him."

Mrs. Wyatt.– "Oh, Constance, Constance! Can't you understand that it was his unworthiness alone, his wicked heartlessness?"

Constance, with gentle slowness. – "No, I can't understand that. It happened after we had learned to know each other so well. If he had been fickle, it would have happened long before that. It was something odious in me that he didn't see at first. I have thought it out. It seems strange now that people could ever have tolerated me." Desolately: "Well, they have their revenge."

Mrs. Wyatt.– "Their revenge on you, Constance? What harm did you ever do them, my poor child? Oh, you mustn't let these morbid fancies overcome you. Where is our Constance that used to be, – our brave, bright girl, that nothing could daunt, and nothing could sadden?"

Constance, sobbing. – "Dead, dead!"

Mrs. Wyatt.– "I can't understand! You are so young still, and with the world all before you. Why will you let one man's baseness blacken it all, and blight your young life so? Where is your pride, Constance?"

Constance.– "Pride? What have I to do with pride? A thing like me!"

Mrs. Wyatt.– "Oh, child, you're pitiless! It seems as if you took a dreadful pleasure in torturing those who love you."

Constance.– "You've said it, mother. I do. I know now that I am a vampire, and that it's my hideous fate to prey upon those who are dearest to me. He must have known, he must have felt the vampire in me."

Mrs. Wyatt.– "Constance!"

Constance.– "But at least I can be kind to those who care nothing for me. Who is this stranger? He must be an odd kind of man to forgive us. What is he, mother? – if he is anything in himself; he seems to me only a likeness, not a reality."

Mrs. Wyatt.– "He is a painter, your father says." Mrs. Wyatt gives a quick sigh of relief, and makes haste to confirm the direction of the talk away from Constance: "He is painting some landscapes here. That friend of his who went to-day is a cousin of your father's old friend, Major Cummings. He is a minister."

Constance.– "What is the painter's name? Not that it matters. But I must call him something if I meet him again."

Mrs. Wyatt.– "Mr. Bartlett."

Constance.– "Oh yes, I forgot." She falls into a brooding silence. "I wonder if he will despise me – if he will be like in that too?" Mrs. Wyatt sighs patiently. "Why do you mind what I say, mother? I'm not worth it. I must talk on, or else go mad with the mystery of what has been. We were so happy; he was so good to me, so kind; there was nothing but papa's not seeming to like him; and then suddenly, in an instant, he turns and strikes me down! Yes, it was like a deadly blow. If you don't let me believe that it was because he saw all at once that I was utterly unworthy, I can't believe in anything."

Mrs. Wyatt.– "Hush, Constance; you don't know what you're saying."

Constance.– "Oh, I know too well! And now this stranger, who is so like him – who has all his looks, who has his walk, who has his voice, – won't he have his insight too? I had better show myself for what I am, at once – weak, stupid, selfish, false; it'll save me the pain of being found out. Pain? Oh, I'm past hurting! Why do you cry, mother? I'm not worth your tears."

Mrs. Wyatt.– "You're all the world to us, Constance; you know it, child. Your poor father" —

Constance.– "Does papa really like me?"

Mrs. Wyatt.– "Constance!"

Constance.– "No; but why should he? He never liked him; and sometimes I've wondered, if it wasn't papa's not liking him that first set him against me. Of course, it was best he should find me out, but still I can't keep from thinking that if he had never begun to dislike me! I noticed from the first that after papa had been with us he was cold and constrained. Mother, I had better say it: I don't believe I love papa as I ought. There's something in my heart – some hardness – against him when he's kindest to me. If he had only been kinder to him" —

Mrs. Wyatt.– "Kinder to him? Constance, you drive me wild! Kind to a wolf, kind to a snake! Kind to the thief who has robbed us of all that made our lives dear; who stole your love, and then your hope, your health, your joy, your pride, your peace! And you think your father might have been kinder to him! Constance, you were our little girl when the war began, – the last of brothers and sisters that had died. You seemed given to our later years to console and comfort us for those that had been taken; and you were so bright and gay! All through those dreadful days and months and years you were our stay and hope, – mine at home, his in the field. Our letters were full of you, – like young people's with their first child; all that you did and said I had to tell him, and then he had to talk it over in his answers back. When he came home at last after the peace – can you remember it, Constance?"

Constance.– "I can remember a little girl that ran down the street, and met an officer on horseback. He was all tanned and weather-beaten; he sat his horse at the head of his troop like a statue of bronze. When he saw her come running, dancing down the street, he leaped from his horse and caught her in his arms, and hugged her close and kissed her, and set her all crying and laughing in his saddle, and walked on beside her; and the men burst out with a wild yell, and the ragged flags flapped over her, and the music flashed out" – She rises in her chair with the thrill of her recollection; her voice comes free and full, and her pale cheeks flush; suddenly she sinks back upon the pillows: "Was it really I, mother?"

Mrs. Wyatt.– "Yes, it was you, Constance. And do you remember all through your school-days, how proud and fond he was of you? what presents and feasts and pleasures he was always making you? I thought he would spoil you; he took you everywhere with him, and wanted to give you everything. When I saw you growing up with his pride and quick temper, I trembled, but I felt safe when I saw that you had his true and tender heart too. You can never know what a pang it cost him to part with you when we went abroad, but you can't forget how he met you in Paris?"

Constance.– "Oh, no, no! Poor papa!"

Mrs. Wyatt.– "Oh, child! And I could tell you something of his bitter despair when he saw the man" —

Constance, wearily. – "You needn't tell me. I knew it as soon as they met, without looking at either of them."

Mrs. Wyatt.– "And when the worst that he feared came true, he was almost glad, I believe. He thought, and I thought, that your self-respect would come to your aid against such treachery."

Constance.– "My self-respect? Now I know you've not been talking of me."

Mrs. Wyatt, desperately. – "Oh, what shall I do?"

Mary, the serving-woman, at the door. – "If you please, Mrs. Wyatt, I can't open Miss Constance's hat-box."

Mrs. Wyatt, rising. – "Oh, yes. There's something the matter with the lock. I'll come, Mary." She looks at Constance.

Constance.– "Yes, go, mother. I'm perfectly well here. I like being alone well enough." As Mrs. Wyatt, after a moment's reluctance, goes out, the girl's heavy eyelids fall, and she lies motionless against her pillows, while the fan, released from her careless hold, slides slowly over the shawl, and drops with a light clash upon the floor. She starts at the sound, and utters a little involuntary cry at sight of Bartlett, who stands irresolute in the doorway on her right. He makes as if to retreat, but at a glance from her he remains.

IIBartlett and Constance

Bartlett, with a sort of subdued gruffness. – "I'm afraid I disturbed you."

Constance, passively. – "No, I think it was my fan. It fell."

Bartlett.– "I'm glad I can lay the blame on the fan." He comes abruptly forward and picks it up for her. She makes no motion to receive it, and he lays it on her lap.

Constance, starting from the abstraction in which she has been gazing at him. – "Oh! thanks."

Bartlett, with constraint. – "I hope you're better this morning?"

Constance.– "Yes." She has again fallen into a dreamy study of him, as unconscious, apparently, as if he were a picture before her, the effect of which is to reduce him to a state of immovable awkwardness. At last he tears himself loose from the spot on which he has been petrifying, and takes refuge in the business which has brought him into the room.

Bartlett.– "I came to look for one of my brushes. It must have dropped out of my traps here the other day." He goes up to the piano and looks about the floor, while Constance's gaze follows him in every attitude and movement. "Ah, here it is! I knew it would escape the broom under the landlady's relaxed régime. If you happen to drop anything in this room, Miss Wyatt, you needn't be troubled; you can always find it just where it fell." Miss Wyatt's fan again slips to the floor, and Bartlett again picks it up and restores it to her: "A case in point."

Constance, blushing faintly. – "Don't do it for me. It isn't worth while."

Bartlett, gravely. – "It doesn't take a great deal of time, and the exercise does me good." Constance faintly smiles, but does not relax her vigilance. "Isn't that light rather strong for you?" He goes to the glass doors opening on the balcony, and offers to draw down one of their shades.

Constance.– "It doesn't make any difference."

Bartlett, bluffly. – "If it's disagreeable it makes some difference. Is it disagreeable?"

Constance.– "The light's strong" – Bartlett dashes the curtain down – "but I could see the mountain." He pulls the curtain up.

Bartlett.– "I beg your pardon." He again falls into statue-like discomposure under Miss Wyatt's gaze, which does not seek the distant slopes of Ponkwasset, in spite of the lifted curtain.

Constance.– "What is the name? Do you know?"

Bartlett.– "Whose? Oh! Ponkwasset. It's not a pretty name, but it's aboriginal. And it doesn't hurt the mountain." Recovering a partial volition, he shows signs of a purpose to escape, when Miss Wyatt's next question arrests him.

Constance.– "Are you painting it, Mr. – Bartlett?"

Bartlett, with a laugh. – "Oh no, I don't soar so high as mountains; I only lift my eyes to a tree here and there, and a bit of pasture and a few of the lowlier and friendlier sort of rocks." He now so far effects his purpose as to transfer his unwieldy presence to a lateral position as regards Miss Wyatt. The girl mechanically turns her head upon the pillow and again fixes her sad eyes upon him.

Constance.– "Have you ever been up it?"

Bartlett.– "Yes, half a dozen times."

Constance.– "Is it hard to climb – like the Swiss mountains?"

Bartlett.– "You must speak for the Swiss mountains after you've tried Ponkwasset, Miss Wyatt. I've never been abroad."

Constance, her large eyes dilating with surprise. – "Never been abroad?"

Bartlett.– "I enjoy that distinction."

Constance.– "Oh! I thought you had been abroad." She speaks with a slow, absent, earnest accent, regarding him, as always, with a look of wistful bewilderment.

Bartlett, struggling uneasily for his habitual lightness. – "I'm sorry to disappoint you, Miss Wyatt. I will go abroad as soon as possible. I'm going out in a boat this morning to work at a bit on the point of the island yonder, and I'll take lessons in sea-faring." Bartlett, managing at last to get fairly behind Miss Wyatt's chair, indulges himself in a long, low sigh of relief, and taking out his handkerchief rubs his face with it.

Constance, with sudden, meek compunction. – "I've been detaining you."

Bartlett, politely coming forward again. – "Oh no, not at all! I'm afraid I've tired you."

Constance.– "No, I'm glad to have you stay." In the unconscious movement necessary to follow Bartlett in his changes of position, the young girl has loosened one of the pillows that prop her head. It slowly disengages itself and drops to the floor. Bartlett, who has been crushing his brush against the ball of his thumb, gives a start of terror, and looks from Constance to the pillow, and back again to Constance in despair.

Constance.– "Never mind." She tries to adjust her head to the remaining pillows, and then desists in evident discomfort.

Bartlett, in great agony of spirit. – "I – I'm afraid you miss it."

Constance.– "Oh no."

Bartlett.– "Shall I call your mother, Miss Wyatt?"

Constance.– "No. Oh no. She will be here presently. Thank you so much."

Bartlett eyes the pillow in renewed desperation.

Bartlett.– "Do you think – do you suppose I could" – Recklessly: "Miss Wyatt, let me put back that pillow for you!"

Constance, promptly, with a little flush: – "Why, you're very good! I'm ashamed to trouble you." As she speaks, she raises her head, and lifts herself forward slightly by help of the chair-arms; two more pillows topple out, one on either side, unknown to her.

Bartlett, maddened by the fresh disaster: – "Good Lord!" He flings himself wildly upon the first pillow, and crams it into the chair behind Miss Wyatt; then without giving his courage time to flag, he seizes the others, and packs them in on top of it: "Will that do?" He stands hot and flushed, looking down upon her, as she makes a gentle attempt to adjust herself to the mass.

Constance.– "Oh, perfectly." She puts her hand behind her and feebly endeavours to modify Bartlett's arrangement.

Bartlett.– "What is it?"

Constance.– "Oh – nothing. Ah – would – would you draw this one a little – toward you? So! Thanks. And that one – out a little on the – other side? You're very kind; that's right. And this one under my neck – lift it up a little? Ah, thank you ever so much." Bartlett, in a fine frenzy, obeying these instructions, Miss Wyatt at last reposes herself against the pillows, looks up into his embarrassed face, and deeply blushes; then she turns suddenly white, and weakly catching up her fan she passes it once or twice before her face, and lets it fall: "I'm a little – faint." Bartlett seizes the fan, and after a moment of silent self-dedication kneels down beside her chair, and fans her.

Constance, after a moment: – "Thanks, thanks. You are very good. I'm better now. I'm ashamed to have troubled you. But I seem to live only to give trouble."

Bartlett, with sudden deep tenderness: – "Oh, Miss Wyatt, you mustn't say that. I'm sure I – we all – that is – shall I call your mother now, Miss Wyatt?"

Constance, after a deep breath, firmly: – "No. I'm quite well, now. She is busy. But I know I'm keeping you from your work," – with ever so slight a wan little smile. "I mustn't do that."

Bartlett.– "Oh, you're not keeping me! There's no hurry. I can work later just as well."

Constance.– "Then," – with a glance at his devout posture, of which Bartlett has himself become quite unconscious, – "won't you sit down, Mr. Bartlett?"

Bartlett, restored to consciousness and confusion: – "Thanks; I think it will be better." He rises, and in his embarrassment draws a chair to the spot on which he has been kneeling, and sits down very close to her. He keeps the fan in his hand, as he talks: "It's rather nice out there, Miss Wyatt, – there on the island. You must be rowed out as soon as you can stand it. The General would like it."

Constance.– "Is it a large place, the island?"

Bartlett.– "About two acres, devoted exclusively to golden-rod and granite. The fact is, I was going to make a little study of golden-rod and granite, there. You shall visit the Fortunate Isle in my sketch, this afternoon, and see whether you'd like to go, really. People camp out there in the summer. Who knows, but if you keep on – gaining – this way, you may yet feel like camping out there yourself before you go away? You do begin to feel better, don't you? Everybody cries up this air."

Constance.– "It's very pleasant; it seems fine and pure. Is the island a pretty place?"

Bartlett, glancing out at it over his shoulder: – "Well, you get the best of it from the parlour window, here. Not that it's so bad when you're on it; there's a surly, frugal, hard-headed kind of beauty about it, – like the local human nature – and it has its advantages. If you were camping out there, you could almost provision yourself from the fish and wild fowl of the surrounding waters, – supposing any of your party liked to fish or shoot. Does your father like shooting?"

Constance.– "No, I don't believe he cares for it."

Bartlett.– "I'm glad of that. I shall be spared the painful hospitality of pointing out the best places for ducks." At an inquiring look from Constance: "I'm glad for their sakes, not mine; I don't want to kill them."

Constance, with grave mistrust: – "Not like shooting?"

Bartlett.– "No, I think it's the sneakingest sort of assassination; it's the pleasure of murder without the guilt. If you must kill, you ought to be man enough to kill something that you'll suffer remorse for. Do you consider those atrocious sentiments, Miss Wyatt? I assure you that they're entirely my own."

Constance, blankly. – "I wasn't thinking – I was thinking – I supposed you liked shooting."

Bartlett, laughing uneasily. – "How did you get that impression?"

Constance, evasively. – "I thought all gentlemen did."

Bartlett.– "They do in this region. It's the only thing that can comfort them in affliction. The other day our ostler's brother lost his sweetheart – she died, poor girl – and the ostler and another friend had him over here to cheer him up. They took him to the stable, and whittled round among the stalls with him half the forenoon, and let him rub down some of the horses; they stood him out among the vegetables and let him gather some of the new kind of potato-bugs; they made him sit in the office with his feet on top of the stove; they played billiards with him; but he showed no signs of resignation till they borrowed three squirrel-guns and started with him to the oak woods yonder. That seemed to 'fetch' him. You should have seen them trudging off together with their guns all aslant, – this way, – the stricken lover in the middle!" Bartlett rises to illustrate, and then at the deepening solemnity of Constance's face he desists in sudden dismay: "Miss Wyatt, I've shocked you!"