A Counterfeit Presentment; and, The Parlour Car. Howells William Dean
service in which people enrich themselves. But I have my pay; and if your friend could sell me the pictures he's been painting here" —
Cummings.– "That's quite impossible. There is no form in which I could propose such a thing to a man of his generous pride."
General Wyatt.– "Well, then, sir, I must satisfy myself as I can to remain his debtor. Will you kindly undertake to tell him?"
An Elderly Serving-Woman, who appears timidly and anxiously at the right-hand door. – "General Wyatt."
General Wyatt, with a start. – "Yes, Mary! Well?"
Mary, in vanishing. – "Mrs. Wyatt wishes to speak with you."
General Wyatt, going up to Cummings. – "I must go, sir. I leave unsaid what I cannot even try to say." He offers his hand.
Cummings, grasping the proffered hand. – "Everything is understood." But as Mr. Cummings returns from following General Wyatt to the door, his face does not confirm the entire security of his words. He looks anxious and perturbed, and when he has taken up his hat and stick, he stands pondering absent-mindedly. At last he puts on his hat and starts briskly toward the door. Before he reaches it, he encounters Bartlett, who advances abruptly into the room. "Oh! I was going to look for you."
Bartlett, sulkily. – "Were you?" He walks, without looking at Cummings, to where his painter's paraphernalia are lying, and begins to pick them up.
Cummings.– "Yes." In great embarrassment: "Bartlett, General Wyatt has been here."
Bartlett, without looking round. – "Who is General Wyatt?"
Cummings.– "I mean the gentleman who – whom you wouldn't wait to see."
Bartlett.– "Um!" He has gathered the things into his arms, and is about to leave the room.
Cummings, in great distress. – "Bartlett, Bartlett! Don't go! I implore you, if you have any regard for me whatever, to hear what I have to say. It's boyish, it's cruel, it's cowardly to behave as you're doing!"
Bartlett.– "Anything more, Mr. Cummings? I give you benefit of clergy."
Cummings.– "I take it – to denounce your proceeding as something that you'll always be sorry for and ashamed of."
Bartlett.– "Oh! Then, if you have quite freed your mind, I think I may go."
Cummings.– "No, no! You mustn't go. Don't go, my dear fellow. Forgive me! I know how insulted you feel, but upon my soul it's all a mistake, – it is, indeed. General Wyatt" – Bartlett falters a moment and stands as if irresolute whether to stay and listen or push on out of the room – "the young lady – I don't know how to begin!"
Bartlett, relenting a little. – "Well? I'm sorry for you, Cummings. I left a very awkward business to you, and it wasn't yours either. As for General Wyatt, as he chooses to call himself" —
Cummings, in amaze. – "Call himself? It's his name!"
Bartlett.– "Oh, very likely! So is King David his name, when he happens to be in a Scriptural craze. What explanation have you been commissioned to make me? What apology?"
Cummings.– "The most definite, the most satisfactory. You resemble in a most extraordinary manner a man who has inflicted an abominable wrong upon these people, a treacherous and cowardly villain" —
Bartlett, in a burst of fury. – "Stop! Is that your idea of an apology, an explanation? Isn't it enough that I should be threatened, and vilified, and have people fainting at the sight of me, but I must be told by way of reparation that it all happens because I look like a rascal?"
Cummings.– "My dear friend! Do listen to me!"
Bartlett.– "No, sir, I won't listen to you! I've listened too much! What right, I should like to know, have they to find this resemblance in me? And do they suppose that I'm going to be placated by being told that they treat me like a rogue because I look like one? It is a little too much. A man calls 'Stop thief' after me and expects me to be delighted when he tells me I look like a thief! The reparation is an additional insult. I don't choose to know that they fancy this infamous resemblance in me. Their pretending it is an outrage; and your reporting it to me is an offence. Will you tell them what I say? Will you tell this General Wyatt and the rest of his Bedlam-broke-loose, that they may all go to the" —
Cummings.– "For shame, for shame! You outrage a terrible sorrow! You insult a trouble sore to death! You trample upon, an anguish that should be sacred to your tears!"
Bartlett, resting his elbow on the corner of the piano. – "What – what do you mean, Cummings?"
Cummings.– "What do I mean? What you are not worthy to know! I mean that these people, against whom you vent your stupid rage, are worthy of angelic pity. I mean that by some disastrous mischance you resemble to the life, in tone, manner, and feature, the wretch who won that poor girl's heart, and then crushed it; who – Bartlett, look here! These are the people – this is the young lady – of whom my friend wrote me from Paris: do you understand?"
Bartlett, in a dull bewilderment. – "No, I don't understand."
Cummings.– "Why, you know what we were talking of just before they came in: you know what I told you of that cruel business."
Bartlett.– "Well?"
Cummings.– "Well, this is the young lady" —
Bartlett, dauntedly. – "Oh, come now! You don't expect me to believe that! It isn't a stage-play."
Cummings.– "Indeed, indeed, I tell you the miserable truth."
Bartlett.– "Do you mean to say that this is the young girl who was jilted in that way? Who – Do you mean – Do you intend to tell me – Do you suppose – Cummings" —
Cummings.– "Yes, yes, yes!"
Bartlett.– "Why, man, she's in Paris, according to your own showing!"
Cummings.– "She was in Paris three weeks ago. They have just brought her home, to help her hide her suffering, as if it were her shame, from all who know it. They are in this house by chance, but they are here. I mean what I say. You must believe it, shocking and wild as it is."
Bartlett, after a prolonged silence in which he seems trying to realise the fact. – "If you were a man capable of such a ghastly joke – but that's impossible." He is silent again, as before. "And I – What did you say about me? That I look like a man who" – He stops and stares into Cummings's face without speaking, as if he were trying to puzzle the mystery out; then, with fallen head, he muses in a voice of devout and reverent tenderness: "That – that – broken – lily! Oh!" With a sudden start he flings his burden upon the closed piano, whose hidden strings hum with the blow, and advances upon Cummings: "And you can tell it? Shame on you! It ought to be known to no one upon earth! And you – you show that gentle creature's death-wound to teach something like human reason to a surly dog like me? Oh, it's monstrous! I wasn't worth it. Better have let me go, where I would, how I would. What did it matter what I thought or said? And I – I look like that devil, do I? I have his voice, his face, his movement? Cummings, you've over-avenged yourself."
Cummings.– "Don't take it that way, Bartlett. It is hideous. But I didn't make it so, nor you. It's a fatality, it's a hateful chance. But you see now, don't you, Bartlett, how the sight of you must affect them, and how anxious her father must be to avoid you? He most humbly asked your forgiveness, and he hardly knew how to ask that you would not let her see you again. But I told him there could be no question with you; that of course you would prevent it, and at once. I know it's a great sacrifice to expect you to go" —
Bartlett.– "Go? What are you talking about?" He breaks again from the daze into which he had relapsed. "If