Edith Wharton - Novel 15 (28 page)

 
          
Delane,
as I still remained silent, began to explain. “You see, somebody’s got to look
after him—who else is there?

 
          
“But—”
I stammered.

 
          
“You’ll
say he’s always needed looking after? Well, I’ve done my best; short of having
him here. For a long time that seemed impossible; I quite agreed with Leila—”
(So it was Leila who had banished her father!) “But now,” Delane continued,
“it’s different. The poor old chap’s getting on: he’s been breaking up very
fast this last year. And some blood-sucker of a woman has got hold of him, and
threatened to rake up old race-course rows, and I don’t know what. If we don’t
take him in he’s bound to go under. It’s his last chance—he feels it is. He’s
scared; he wants to come.”

 
          
I
was still silent, and Delane went on: “You think, I suppose, what’s the use?
Why not let him stew in his own juice?
With a decent
allowance, of course.
Well, I can’t say…I can’t tell you…only I feel it
mustn’t be…”

 
          
“And
Mrs. Delane?”

 
          
“Oh,
I see her point. The children are growing up; they’ve hardly known their
grandfather. And having him in the house isn’t going to be like having a nice
old lady in
a cap
knitting by the fire. He takes up
room, Gracy does; it’s not going to be pleasant. She thinks we ought to
consider the children first. But I don’t agree. The world’s too ugly a place;
why should anyone grow up thinking it’s a flower-garden? Let ’em take their
chance….And then”—he hesitated, as if embarrassed—“well, you know her; she’s
fond of society. Why shouldn’t she be? She’s made for it. And of course it’ll
cut us off, prevent our inviting people. She won’t like that, though she
doesn’t admit that it has anything to do with her objecting.”

 
          
So,
after all, he judged the wife he still worshipped! I was beginning to see why
he had that great structural head, those large quiet movements. There
was
something—

 
          
“What
alternative does Mrs. Delane propose?”

 
          
He
coloured.
“Oh, more money.
I sometimes fancy,” he brought
out, hardly above a whisper, “that she thinks I’ve suggested having him here
because I don’t want to give more money. She won’t understand
,
you see, that more money would just precipitate things.”

 
          
I
coloured too, ashamed of my own thought. Had she not, perhaps, understood; was
it not her perspicacity which made her
hold
out? If
her father was doomed to go under, why prolong the process? I could not be
sure, now, that Delane did not suspect this also, and allow for it. There was
apparently no limit to what he allowed for.

 
          
“
You’ll
never be frozen into a rut,” I
ventured, smiling.

 
          
“Perhaps
not frozen; but sunk down deep. I’m that already. Give me a hand up, do!” He
answered my smile.

 
          
I
was still in the season of cocksureness, and at a distance could no doubt have
dealt glibly with the problem. But at such short range, and under those
melancholy eyes, I had a chastening sense of inexperience.

 
          
“You
don’t care to tell me what you think?” He spoke almost reproachfully.

 
          
“Oh,
it’s not that…I’m trying to. But it’s so—so awfully evangelical,” I brought
out—for some of us were already beginning to read the Russians.

 
          
“Is
it?
Funny, that, too.
For I have an idea I got it,
with other things, from an old heathen; that chap I told you about, who used to
come and talk to me by the hour in
Washington
.”

 
          
My
interest revived. “
That chap
in
Washington
—was he a heathen?”

 
          
“Well,
he didn’t go to church.” Delane did, regularly taking the children, while Leila
slept off the previous night’s poker, and joining in the hymns in a robust
barytone, always half a tone flat.

 
          
He
seemed to guess that I found his reply inadequate, and added helplessly: “You
know I’m no scholar: I don’t know what you’d call him.” He lowered his voice to
add: “I don’t think he believed in our Lord. Yet he taught me Christian
charity.”

 
          
“He
must have been an unusual sort of man, to have made such an impression on you.
What was his name?”

 
          
“There’s
the pity! I must have heard it, but I was all foggy with fever most of the
time, and can’t remember. Nor what became of him either. One day he didn’t turn
up—that’s all I recall. And soon afterward I was off again, and didn’t think of
him for years. Then, one day, I had to settle something with myself, and, by
George, there he was telling me the right and wrong of it! Queer—he comes like
that, at long intervals; turning-points, I suppose.” He frowned his heavy head
sunk forward, his eyes distant, pursuing the vision.

 
          
“Well—hasn’t
he come this time?”

 
          
“Rather!
That’s my trouble—I can’t see things in any way but his. And I want another eye
to help me!”

 
          
My
heart was beating rather excitedly. I felt small, trivial and inadequate, like
an intruder on some grave exchange of confidences.

 
          
I
tried to postpone my reply, and at the same time to satisfy another curiosity.
“Have you ever told Mrs. Delane about—about him?”

 
          
Delane
roused himself and turned to look at me. He lifted his shaggy eyebrows
slightly, protruded his lower lip, and sank once more into abstraction.

 
          
“Well,
sir,” I said, answering the look, “
I
believe in him.”

 
          
The
blood rose in his dark cheek. He turned to me again and for a second the dimple
twinkled through his gloom. “That’s your answer?”

 
          
I
nodded breathlessly.

 
          
He
got up, walked the length of the room, and came back, pausing in front of me.
“He just vanished. I never even knew his name…”

 
          
  

 
          
Delane
was right; having Bill Gracy under one’s roof was not like harbouring a nice
old lady. I looked on at the sequence of our talk and marvelled.

 
          
New York
—the Delanes’
New York
—sided unhesitatingly with Leila. Society’s
attitude toward drink and dishonesty was still inflexible: a man who had had to
resign from his clubs went down into a pit presumably bottomless. The two or
three people who thought Delane’s action “rather fine” made haste to add: “But
he ought to have taken a house for the old man in some quiet place in the
country.” Bill Gracy cabined in a quiet place in the country! Within a week he
would have set the neighbourhood on fire. He was simply not to be managed by
proxy: Delane had understood that, and faced it.

 
          
Nothing
in the whole unprecedented situation was more odd, more unexpected and
interesting, than Mr. Gracy’s own perception of it. He too had become aware
that his case was without alternative.

 
          
“They
had
to have me here, by gad; I see
that myself. Old firebrand like me…couldn’t be trusted! Hayley saw it from the
first—fine fellow, my son-in-law. He made no bones about telling me so. Said:
‘I can’t trust you, father’…said it right out to me. By gad, if he’d talked to
me like that a few years sooner I don’t answer for the consequences! But I
ain’t my own man any longer…I’ve got to put up with being treated like a baby…I
forgave him on the spot, sir—on the spot.” His fine eye filled, and he
stretched a soft old hand, netted with veins and freckles, across the table to
me.

 
          
In
the virtual seclusion imposed by his presence I was one of the few friends the
Delanes still saw. I knew Leila was grateful to me for coming; but I did not
need that incentive. It was enough that I could give even a negative support to
Delane. The first months were horrible; but he was evidently saying to himself:
“Things will settle down gradually,” and just squaring his great shoulders to
the storm.

 
          
Things
didn’t settle down; as embodied in Bill Gracy they continued in a state of
effervescence. Filial care, good food and early hours restored the culprit to
comparative health; he became exuberant, arrogant and sly. Happily his first
imprudence caused a relapse alarming even to himself. He saw that his powers of
resistance were gone, and, tremulously tender over his own plight, he relapsed
into a plaintive burden. But he was never a passive one. Some part or other he
had to play, usually to somebody’s detriment.

 
          
One
day a strikingly dressed lady forced her way in to see him, and the house
echoed with her recriminations. Leila objected to the children’s assisting at
such scenes, and when Christmas brought the boys home she sent them to
Canada
with a tutor, and herself went with the
little girl to
Florida
. Delane, Gracy and I sat down alone to our Christmas turkey, and I
wondered what Delane’s queer friend of the
Washington
hospital would have thought of that
festivity. Mr. Gracy was in a melting mood, and reviewed his past with an
edifying prolixity. “After all, women and children have always loved me,” he
summed up, a tear on his lashes. “But I’ve been a curse to you and Leila, and I
know it, Hayley. That’s my only merit, I suppose—that I
do
know it! Well, here’s to turning over a new leaf…” and so forth.

 
          
One
day, a few months later, Mr. Broad, the head of the firm, sent for me. I was
surprised, and somewhat agitated, at the summons, for I was not often called
into his august presence.

 
          
“Mr.
Delane has a high regard for your ability,” he began affably.

 
          
I
bowed,
thrilled at what I supposed to be a hint of
promotion; but Mr. Broad went on: “I know you are at his house a great deal. In
spite of the difference in age he always speaks of you as an old friend.” Hopes
of promotion faded, yet left me unregretful. Somehow, this was even better. I
bowed again.

 
          
Mr.
Broad was becoming embarrassed. “You see Mr. William Gracy rather frequently at
his son-in-law’s?”

 
          
“He’s
living there,” I answered bluntly.

 
          
Mr.
Broad heaved a sigh. “Yes. It’s a fine thing of Mr. Delane… but does he quite
realize the consequences?
His own family side with his wife.
You’ll wonder at my speaking with such frankness… but I’ve been asked…it has
been suggested…”

 
          
“If
he weren’t there he’d be in the gutter.”

 
          
Mr.
Broad sighed more deeply. “Ah, it’s a problem…You may ask why I don’t speak
directly to Mr. Delane…but it’s so delicate, and he’s so uncommunicative.
Still, there are Institutions… You don’t feel there’s anything to be done?”

 
          
I
was silent, and he shook hands, murmured: “This is confidential,” and made a
motion of dismissal. I withdrew to my desk, feeling that the situation must
indeed be grave if Mr. Broad could so emphasize it by consulting me.

 
          
New York
, to ease its mind of the matter, had
finally decided that Hayley Delane was “queer.” There were the two of them,
madmen both, hobnobbing together under his roof; no wonder poor Leila found the
place untenable! That view, bruited about, as such things are, with a
mysterious underground rapidity, prepared me for what was to follow.