The Last Drive (20 page)

“I wonder what kind of fellow this Gowanton is,” he said to his pillow, and turned over and went to sleep.

The next day, Sunday, he and his old friend Andrew sat on the porch and talked over old times while the mother and daughter went to church. In the afternoon they motored into the country. Sackerville sat in front beside the grocer, who drove, while the tonneau was occupied by Mrs. Beach, Melissa and Melissa's fiancé.

Mr. Gowanton was a fat, red-faced young man without any neck, very jolly and talkative. He laughed continually, with or without reason, in a high thin falsetto, and his conversation consisted entirely of personal recollections of the most irrelevant nature.

“Regular fool. Sorry he got Melly,” said Andrew Beach in a hoarse aside to his friend.

Sackerville nodded, smiling.

When they got back from the ride Gowanton stayed to dine with the family, as a matter of course. At the table his jollity was more in evidence than ever, until, by a chance remark of his host's, he discovered that Sackerville was the man who built the Tsing-Tso Railroad. Then he began talking construction and equipment, and displayed an insight and knowledge of the subject really surprising in a country capitalist. Sackerville warmed and by degrees allowed himself to be drawn into a recital of his varied adventures.

“Great stuff,” said Gowanton, chewing, “but it won't pay dividends.”

“Military road,” observed the grocer sententiously.

“No doubt it's exciting,” put in Mrs. Beach, “but it is so unsettling. One must have a home and a position in society. Going all over the world like that—no permanence—”

“Sort of superior vagabondange?” smiled Sackerville, who had been trying for an hour to meet Melissa's eyes. “Yes, of course, such a life has its disadvantages. A man gets so he lives mostly in his dreams, as far as sentiment is concerned. Like a friend of mine, an army officer in India. He had a dream one night, sort of an apparition. It was the face of a girl, very beautiful, as he described her to me once, and he kept seeing that face for years. It took him entirely and he got superstitious about it. He fancied himself in love with her; he could not believe it was only a vision, and he would have nothing to do with any woman. For ten years he remained faithful to that shadow of a dream. Then he went home to England on leave, and he met her at a dinner in London—the eyes, the hair, the face, the voice, everything the same. She was married to another man.”

“Oh, how awful!” cried Melissa.

“Of course, being an officer and a gentleman, he could say nothing,” commented Mrs. Beach.

“What did he do?” demanded the grocer.

“He killed the husband and took her out to India,” said Sackerville calmly.

And he looked into Melissa's eyes, to find them startled and a little skeptical but filled with a strange friendliness.

That night he lay awake again, thinking, and slept with a smile.

The next morning he was up early, but he appeared to have nothing in particular to do, for he accepted the grocer's invitation to go downtown with him and look over the store and warehouse.

“We'll come home for lunch,” said Andrew Beach. “This afternoon I have to go to the church and practice giving my daughter to that Gowanton. Rehearse a wedding! Tomfoolery! Well, it'll all be over tomorrow noon. She'll be married then. Crazy to leave your old daddy, are you, Melly? Come on, Harry, the car's waiting.”

But when he had spent three hours gazing at rows of boxes of tomatoes, sardines, soup, cheese, and a thousand other things, and the time came to go to lunch, Sackerville said he would prefer to remain downtown. Nor would he meet his host later at the church, where the wedding was to be rehearsed.

“Don't blame you,” said Andrew Beach. “Damn nonsense. Wish you'd let me leave the car for you.”

Sackerville declined this offer again and set off afoot. All afternoon he roamed over the city alone, searching landmarks of his youth; and now and then he would meet a face that lookd familiar and yet strange, awakening a memory that had lain dormant for many years. He found nothing that attracted or moved him, and his thoughts were really of Melissa, who was to be married to John Gowanton at noon of the following day. He still felt the strangeness of having seen her and spoken to her in her youth and fresh beauty, just as she had so often appeared to his fancy; there seemed to be something fantastic about it. How beautiful she was! What unbelievable luck!

“If I had been four days later—” he thought, and grew pale.

It was an aimless afternoon, except for one errand which he performed at the city hall about four o'clock, in a dingy little room with a sign: “Marriage Licenses,” over the door. Sackerville walked to the desk and asked for a license for the marriage of Henry Sackerville and Melissa Beach.

“What!” said the astonished clerk, a sharp-nosed young man who knew things. ‘Why, Miss Beach is to be married—”

“Listen,” Sackerville interrupted. “This is a joke. I'm going to play a joke on Gowanton. I ask for the license. It's your business to make it out.”

With a meaning look at the sharp-nosed young man he pushed a ten-dollar bill across the counter, and five minutes later departed with the license in his pocket.

That evening at the dinner table the talk was all of the wedding. They discussed the rehearsal, which Mrs. Beach declared had gone off beautifully. Even Dan Harrison, the best man—by the way, Sackerville would remember Dan Harrison as an old classmate—even he had seemed for once to lose some of his awkwardness. If only it went as well tomorrow!

“I hope John behaves himself tonight and retires early,” said Mrs. Beach. “He is so—so
popular
. Melissa, you must go to bed right after dinner and get some rest. I'm sure I don't know how we've stood it all. Did you see Mrs. Carroll's gift, Mr. Sackerville? So tasteful and rich! You should be a very happy woman, Melissa, so many friends—”

The end of dinner stopped her. The men went out on the porch to smoke their cigars, and for once Andrew Beach was silent, as befitted a man who was to lose his only daughter on the morrow. It was barely nine o'clock when Sackerville arose to go to his room, saying that his long walk had made him sleepy.

“I'm going to turn in, too,” said Andrew Beach, following him. “I hope I can sleep.”

“If only she's happy—” said the grocer, parting from his guest at the head of the stairs.

But Sackerville did not go to bed when he entered his room. Instead, he sat down on a chair near the window and lit another cigar. It was a long black cigar and took some time to smoke, but when it was finished he lit another. Though the window was open, few sounds entered in that quiet residential district. Now and then an automobile passed, and occasionally the jangle of a streetcar could be heard at a distance. Sackerville kept looking at his watch, and when it said eleven o'clock he arose, threw away his third cigar, went to the door of his room and opened it.

The hall was quite dark, but he knew his position. At the further end, some distance away, was the room of the grocer and his wife, who, he hoped, were both sound asleep. In the other direction, across the hall, was another door; he stepped forward, groping along the wall—it ought to be about here—ah! He raised his hand and tapped softly on the panel. After a pause he tapped again, a little louder.

A slight movement, a barely audible rustle, sounded within the room, then footsteps. A voice came:

“Is it you, Mother?”

“No. It is I—Sackerville.”

There was a startled exclamation quickly suppressed, and the door opened a little.

“What—what is it?” came a voice through the crack.

“I want to talk to you. I knew you would be awake. Will you come downstairs?”

“Oh—why—I—I can't!”

“You must. Only a minute. I will be in the library.”

Without waiting for a reply, Sackerville turned and groped his way back through the hall to the stairs. He tiptoed silently down to the library, where he switched on the electric pedestal lamp, then went to the windows and drew the shades. He sat down on a chair, then got up again and began pacing silently up and down; he could hear his watch ticking in his pocket. He had a curious feeling, not exactly impatience; the minutes seemed to hang in the silent air. Then, hearing a noise at the door, he turned quickly.

“Ah,” he said, “I knew you would come.”

Melissa looked at him from the door. She wore a house-dress of pale green, caught at the throat with a silk cord and a girdle at the waist; and the soft dull glow of her hair seemed to melt into the dim light so that her face was a spot of intense whiteness in a somber frame. She was more beautiful than any vision could have been.

“And how—how did you know that?” she asked, between a whisper and a murmur.

Sackerville smiled. “Curiosity will do anything,” he said. “Won't you come in so I can close the door? We mustn't wake anyone.”

“But I am not sure I want to come in.”

“Yes, you do. Come.”

And as she took a step forward he went to the door and closed it noiselessly, then took her hand and led her to the divan in the windows.

“This is—I was never so imprudent in my life,” said Melissa. “What is it? What's the matter with me? What do you want?”

“Just to talk with you.” Sackerville sat down beside her. “You are to be married tomorrow, so I won't have another chance. I suppose this strikes you as—well—a little unconventional?”

“A little,” said Melissa with a smile. She looked at him. “Yes, it was curiosity. And you—you just wanted to see if I would come. Wasn't that it? Well, I did, and now—”

She started to rise.

“No. Wait. I want to ask you a question first. Are you in love with Gowanton?”

Melissa sat down again, with a little startled exclamation, and turned eyes of amazement on him. It was an absurd, incredible question from a man she had barely met, a stranger; she must protest, she must assert her dignity. … But his eyes were on hers, and they were certainly not impertinent. . . .

“I am going to marry him,” was what she said.

“I know. That would be enough for most men, but not for me. Of course, you don't love him. You are being married off, that's all. That's why I think I have a right— Do you remember the story I told last night of my friend the army officer? Well, that was me. It is your face that has haunted me for ten years. Only I didn't know you were quite so beautiful. I'm not making love to you, I'm just telling you the facts. And since it will be too late tomorrow, won't you do this for me? Won't you talk with me frankly and honestly, like old friends, just for five minutes?”

“But this—no—I can't believe—” said Melissa breathlessly.

“You must. You're only a girl; you haven't realized some things, their seriousness. I know you don't love Gowanton. Of course, you don't love me either; but I love you and I want you. As far as your promise is concerned, I don't give a hang for it; that's up to your mother. She's arranged it; let her get out of it. It amounts to this, do you care for Gowanton more than you do for me? Of course, I'm a stranger; you don't know me; but do you know him any better, really? Do you care for him even a little bit? Tell me.”

There was no reply. Melissa sat looking straight ahead, with her fingers playing nervously with the silken cord at her throat. Suddenly her head fell forward and she covered her face with her hands. There was a long silence. Sackerville could see her white neck curving under the pale green of her dress, and her great mass of hair like a cushion on her lap. The ticking of the clock could be heard from the hall, through the closed door. He sat without moving, waiting, for a long time; then he put out his hand and touched her shoulder. She shivered all over and sprang to her feet.

“That was exactly what was the matter with me,” she said slowly, in a trembling voice. “That was why—but I didn't know it till tonight. And now it is too late.”

She glided to the door and opened it.

“No,” she said without turning her head, “no, I don't love him.”

She disappeared in the darkness

Here is a scene of activity; seven or eight servants running around, preparing everything from a hot iron to a wedding breakfast; six bridesmaids dodging in and out of every conceivable sort of errands, or none at all; Mrs. Beach holding on to her daughter by a long something and yelling frantically for pins; Andrew Beach roaming around the halls in a cloud of cigar smoke swearing under his breath and looking at his watch every two minutes. And it still lacked an hour and a quarter till noon, which was the time set for the wedding at the church twelve blocks away.

Andrew Beach was just seating himself on the porch in the vain hope of escaping from the turmoil for a few minutes when his friend Sackerville appeared from somewhere and said calmly:

“I've just telephoned Gowanton that you want to speak to him. He's coming right over. It would be best to take him up to my room, out of the way.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded the grocer, leaping to his feet. “Are you crazy, too?
I
don't want to see Gowanton. What's he coming here for?”

“No, but I do,” replied Sackerville. “Take it easy, Andy. I'll explain to you shortly. There's something I want to say to you and Gowanton together. He'll probably come in his car; he ought to be here— There he comes now!”

A big gray limousine had appeared down the street, and soon it drew up at the front curb to deposit Mr. John Gowanton, redder than ever, on the brick walk. He looked stiffer than usual, too, but that was merely the effect of his very new clothes.

“What is it, what is it?” he puffed, ascending the porch. “Good morning, Mr. Beach, Mr. Sackerville. Is there anything the matter— Melissa—”

Andrew Beach was flustered himself, but he managed to follow Sackerville's instructions and lead the way upstairs to the guest-room. They met three or four servants and a bridesmaid or two in the halls, but no one noticed the bridegroom's presence. Sackerville placed chairs for Mr. Beach and Mr. Gowanton, then seated himself on the edge of the bed.