At Fault (24 page)
"Oh, that's absurd, David. Do you know you're getting to talk such
nonsense since we're married; you remind me sometimes of Melicent."
"Of Melicent? Heaven forbid! Why, I have a letter from her," he said,
feeling in his breast pocket. "The size and substance of it have
actually weighted my pocket the whole day."
"Melicent talking weighty things? That's something new," said Thérèse
interested.
"Is Melicent ever anything else than new?" he enquired.
They went and sat together on the bench at the corner of the veranda,
where the fading Western light came over their shoulders. A quizzical
smile came into his eyes as he unfolded his sister's letter—with
Thérèse still holding his arm and sitting very close to him.
"Well," he said, glancing over the first few pages—his wife
following—"she's given up her charming little flat and her quaint
little English woman: concludes I was right about the expense, etc.,
etc. But here comes the gist of the matter," he said, reading from the
letter—" 'I know you won't object to the trip, David, I have my heart
so set on it. The expense will be trifling, seeing there are four of
us to divide carriage hire, restaurant and all that: and it counts.
" 'If you only knew Mrs. Griesmann I'd feel confident of your consent.
You'd be perfectly fascinated with her. She's one of those highly
gifted women who knows everything. She's very much interested in me.
Thinks to have found that I have a quick comprehensive intellectualism
(she calls it) that has been misdirected. I think there is something
in that, David; you know yourself I never did care really for society.
She says it's impossible to ever come to a true knowledge of life as
it is—which should be every one's aim—without studying certain
fundamental truths and things.' "
"Oh," breathed Thérèse, overawed.
"But wait—but listen," said Hosmer, " 'Natural History and all
that—and we're going to take that magnificent trip through the
West—the Yosemite and so forth. It appears the flora of California is
especially interesting and we're to carry those delicious little tin
boxes strapped over our shoulders to hold specimens. Her son and
daughter are both, in their way, striking. He isn't handsome; rather
the contrary; but so serene and collected—so intensely bitter—his
mother tells me he's a pessimist. And the daughter really puts me to
shame, child as she is, with the amount of her knowledge. She labels
all her mother's specimens in Latin. Oh, I feel there's so much to be
learned. Mrs. Griesmann thinks I ought to wear glasses during the
trip. Says we often require them without knowing it ourselves—that
they are so restful. She has some theory about it. I'm trying a pair,
and see a great deal better through them than I expected to. Only they
don't hold on very well, especially when I laugh.
" 'Who do you suppose seized on to me in Vandervoort's the other day,
but that impertinent Mrs. Belle Worthington! Positively took me by the
coat and commenced to gush about dear sister Thérèse. She said: "I
tell you what, my dear—" called me my dear at the highest pitch, and
that odious Mrs. Van Wycke behind us listening and pretending to
examine a lace handkerchief. "That Mrs. Lafirme's a trump," she
said—"too good for most any man. Hope you won't take offense, but I
must say, your brother David's a perfect stick—it's what I always
said." Can you conceive of such shocking impertinence?'
"Well; Belle Worthington does possess the virtue of candor," said
Hosmer amused and folding the letter. "That's about all there is,
except a piece of scandal concerning people you don't know; that
wouldn't interest you."
"But it would interest me," Thérèse insisted, with a little wifely
resentment that her husband should have a knowledge of people that
excluded her.
"Then you shall hear it," he said, turning to the letter again. "Let's
see—'conceive—shocking impertinence—' oh, here it is.
" 'Don't know if you have learned the horrible scandal; too dreadful
to talk about. I shall send you the paper. I always knew that Lou
Dawson was a perfidious creature—and Bert Rodney! You never did like
him, David; but he was always so much the gentleman in his
manners—you must admit that. Who could have dreamed it of him. Poor
Mrs. Rodney is after all the one to be pitied. She is utterly
prostrated. Refuses to see even her most intimate friends. It all came
of those two vile wretches thinking Jack Dawson out of town when he
wasn't; for he was right there following them around in their
perambulations. And the outcome is that Mr. Rodney has his beauty
spoiled they say forever; the shot came very near being fatal. But
poor, poor Mrs. Rodney!
" 'Well, good-bye, you dearest David mine. How I wish you both knew
Mrs. Griesmann. Give that sweet sister Thérèse as many kisses as she
will stand for me.
Melicent.' "
This time Hosmer put the letter into his pocket, and Thérèse asked
with a little puzzled air: "What do you suppose is going to become of
Melicent, anyway, David?"
"I don't know, love, unless she marries my friend Homeyer."
"Now, David, you are trying to mystify me. I believe there's a streak
of perversity in you after all."
"Of course there is; and here comes Mandy to say that 'suppa's gittin'
cole.' "
"Aunt B'lindy 'low suppa on de table gittin' cole," said Mandy,
retreating at once from the fire of their merriment.
Thérèse arose and held her two hands out to her husband.
He took them but did not rise; only leaned further back on the scat
and looked up at her.
"Oh, supper's a bore; don't you think so?" he asked.
"No, I don't," she replied. "I'm hungry, and so are you. Come, David."
"But look, Thérèse, just when the moon has climbed over the top of
that live-oak? We can't go now. And then Melicent's request; we must
think about that."
"Oh, surely not, David," she said, drawing back.
"Then let me tell you something," and he drew her head down and
whispered something in her pink ear that he just brushed with his
lips. It made Thérèse laugh and turn very rosy in the moonlight.
Can that be Hosmer? Is this Thérèse? Fie, fie. It is time we were
leaving them.
