Kitobni o'qish: «A Likely Story»

I
MR. AND MRS. WILLIS CAMPBELL

Mrs. Campbell: "Now this, I think, is the most exciting part of the whole affair, and the pleasantest." She is seated at breakfast in her cottage at Summering-by-the-Sea. A heap of letters of various stylish shapes, colors, and superscriptions lies beside her plate, and irregularly straggles about among the coffee-service. Vis-à-vis with her sits Mr. Campbell behind a newspaper. "How prompt they are! Why, I didn't expect to get half so many answers yet. But that shows that where people have nothing to do but attend to their social duties they are always prompt – even the men; women, of course, reply early anyway, and you don't really care for them; but in town the men seem to put it off till the very last moment, and then some of them call when it's over to excuse themselves for not having come after accepting. It really makes you wish for a leisure class. It's only the drive and hurry of American life that make our men seem wanting in the convenances; and if they had the time, with their instinctive delicacy, they would be perfect: it would come from the heart: they're more truly polite now. Willis, just look at this!"

Campbell, behind his paper: "Look at what?"

Mrs. Campbell: "These replies. Why, I do believe that more than half the people have answered already, and the invitations only went out yesterday. That comes from putting on R.S.V.P. I knew I was right, and I shall always do it, I don't care what you say."

Campbell: "You didn't put on R.S.V.P. after all I said?" He looks round the edge of his paper at her.

Mrs. Campbell: "Yes, I did. The idea of your setting up for an authority in such a thing as that!"

Campbell: "Then I'm sorry I didn't ask you to do it. It's a shame to make people say whether they'll come to a garden-party from four till seven or not."

Mrs. Campbell: "A shame? How can you provide if you don't know how many are coming? I should like to know that. But of course I couldn't expect you to give in gracefully."

Campbell: "I should give in gracefully if I gave in at all, but I don't." He throws his paper down beside his chair. "Here, hand over the letters, and I'll be opening them for you while you pour out the coffee."

Mrs. Campbell, covering the letters with her hands: "Indeed you won't!"

Campbell: "Well, pour out the coffee, then, anyway."

Mrs. Campbell, after a moment's reflection: "No, I shall not do it. I'm going to open them every one before you get a drop of coffee – just to punish you."

Campbell: "To punish me? For what?" Mrs. Campbell hesitates, as if at a loss what to say. "There! you don't know."

Mrs. Campbell: "Yes, I do: for saying I oughtn't to have put on R.S.V.P. Do you take it back?"

Campbell: "How can I till I've had some coffee? My mind won't work on an empty stomach. Well – " He rises and goes round the table towards her.

Mrs. Campbell, spreading both arms over the letters: "Willis, if you dare to touch them, I'll ring for Jane, and then she'll see you cutting up."

Campbell: "Touch what? I'm coming to get some coffee."

Mrs. Campbell: "Well, I'll give you some coffee; but don't you touch a single one of those letters – after what you've said."

Campbell: "All right!" He extends one hand for the coffee, and with the other sweeps all the letters together, and starts back to his place. As she flies upon him, "Look out, Amy; you'll make me spill this coffee all over the table-cloth."

Mrs. Campbell, sinking into her seat: "Oh, Willis, how can you be so base? Give me my letters. Do!"

Campbell, sorting them over: "You may have half."

Mrs. Campbell: "No; I shall have all. I insist upon it."

Campbell: "Well, then, you may have all the ladies' letters. There are twice as many of them."

Mrs. Campbell: "No; I shall have the men's, too. Give me the men's first."

Campbell: "How can I tell which are the men's without opening them?"

Mrs. Campbell: "How could you tell which were the ladies'? Come, now, Willis, don't tease me any longer. You know I hate it."

Campbell, studying the superscriptions, one after another: "I want to see if I can guess who wrote them. Don't you like to guess who wrote your letters before you open them?"

Mrs. Campbell, with dignity: "I don't like to guess who wrote other people's letters." She looks down at the table-cloth with a menace of tears, and Campbell instantly returns all the notes.

Campbell: "There, Amy; you may have them. I don't care who wrote them, nor what's in them. And I don't want you to interrupt me with any exclamations over them, if you please." He reaches to the floor for his newspaper, and while he sips his coffee, Mrs. Campbell loses no time in opening her letters.

Mrs. Campbell: "I shall do nothing but exclaim. The Curwens accept, of course – the very first letter. That means Mrs. Curwen; that is one, at any rate. The New York Addingses do, and the Philadelphia Addingses don't; I hardly expected they would, so soon after their aunt's death, but I thought I ought to ask them. Mr. and Mrs. Roberts, naturally; it was more a joke than anything, sending their invitation. Mrs. and the Misses Carver regret very much; well, I don't. Professor and Mrs. Traine are very happy, and so am I; he doesn't go everywhere, and he's awfully nice. Mr. and Mrs. Lou Bemis are very happy, too, and Dr. Lawton is very happy. Mrs. Bridges Dear Mrs. Campbells me, and is very sorry in the first person; she's always nice. Mr. Phillips, Mr. Rangeley, Mr. Small, Mr. Peters, Mr. Staples, Mr. Thornton, all accept, and they're all charming young fellows."

Campbell, around his paper: "Well, what of that?"

Mrs. Campbell, with an air of busy preoccupation: "Don't eavesdrop, please; I wasn't talking to you. The Merrills have the pleasure, and the Morgans are sorrow-stricken; the – "

Campbell: "Yes, but why should you care whether those fellows are charming or not? Who's going to marry them?"

Mrs. Campbell: "I am. Mrs. Stevenson is bowed to the earth; Colonel Murphree is overjoyed; the Misses Ja – "

Campbell, putting his paper down: "Look here, Amy. Do you know that you have one little infinitesimal ewe-lamb of a foible? You think too much of young men."

Mrs. Campbell: "Younger men, you mean. And you have a multitude of perfectly mammoth peccadilloes. You interrupt." She goes on opening and reading her letters. "Well, I didn't expect the Macklines could; but everybody seems to be coming."

Campbell: "You pay them too much attention altogether. It spoils them; and one of these days you'll be getting some of them in love with you, and then what will you do?"

Mrs. Campbell, with affected distraction: "What are you talking about? I'd refer them to you, and you could kill them. I suppose you killed lots of people in California. That's what you always gave me to understand." She goes on with her letters.

Campbell: "I never killed a single human being that I can remember; but there's no telling what I might do if I were provoked. Now, there's that young Welling. He's about here under my feet all the time; and he's got a way lately of coming in through the window from the piazza that's very intimate. He's a nice fellow enough, and sweet, as you say. I suppose he has talent, too, but I never heard that he had set any of the adjacent watercourses on fire; and I don't know that he could give the Apollo Belvedere many points in beauty and beat him."

Mrs. Campbell: "I do. Mrs. and Miss Rice accept, and her friend Miss Greenway, who's staying with her, and – yes! here's one from Mr. Welling! Oh, how glad I am! Willis, dearest, if I could be the means of bringing those two lovely young creatures together, I should be so happy! Don't you think, now, he is the most delicate-minded, truly refined, exquisitely modest young fellow that ever was?" She presses the unopened note to her corsage, and leans eagerly forward entreating a sympathetic acquiescence.

II
MR. WELLING; MR. CAMPBELL

Campbell: "Why, Welling, what the devil are you doing there?"

Welling: "Trying to get away."

Campbell: "To get away? But you sha'n't, man! I won't let you. I was just going to see you. How long have you been there?"

Welling: "I've just come."

Campbell: "What have you heard?"

Welling: "Nothing – nothing. I was knocking on the window-casing to make you hear, but you seemed preoccupied."

Campbell: "Preoccupied! convulsed! cataclysmed! Look here: we're in a box, Welling. And you've got us into it." He pulls Welling's note out of his pocket, where he has been keeping his hand on it, and pokes it at him. "Is that yours?"

Welling, examining it with bewilderment mounting into anger: "It's mine; yes. May I ask, Mr. Campbell, how you came to have this letter?"

Campbell: "May I ask, Mr. Welling, how you came to write such a letter to my wife?"

Welling: "To your wife? To Mrs. Campbell? I never wrote any such letter to her."

Campbell: "Then you addressed it to her."

Welling: "Impossible!"

Campbell: "Impossible? I think I can convince you, much as I regret to do so." He makes search about Mrs. Campbell's letters on the table first, and then on the writing-desk. "We have the envelope. It came amongst a lot of letters, and there's no mistake about it." He continues to toss the letters about, and then desists. "But no matter; I can't find it; Amy's probably carried it off with her. There's no mistake about it. I was going to have some fun with you about it, but now you can have some fun with me. Whom did you send Mrs. Campbell's letter to?"

Welling: "Mrs. Campbell's letter?"

Campbell: "Oh, pshaw! your acceptance or refusal, or whatever it was, of her garden fandango. You got an invitation?"

Welling: "Of course."

Campbell: "And you wrote to accept it or decline it at the same time that you wrote this letter here to some one else. And you addressed two envelopes before you put the notes in either. And then you put them into the wrong envelopes. And you sent this note to my wife, and the other note to the other person – "

Welling: "No, I didn't do anything of the kind!" He regards Campbell with amazement, and some apparent doubt of his sanity.

Campbell: "Well, then, Mr. Welling, will you allow me to ask what the deuce you did do?"

Welling: "I never wrote to Mrs. Campbell at all. I thought I would just drop in and tell her why I couldn't come. It seemed so formal to write."

Campbell: "Then will you be kind enough to tell me whom you did write to?"

Welling: "No, Mr. Campbell, I can't do that."

Campbell: "You write such a letter as that to my wife, and then won't tell me whom it's to?"

Welling: "No! And you've no right to ask me."

Campbell: "I've no right to ask you?"

Welling: "No. When I tell you that the note wasn't meant for Mrs. Campbell, that's enough."

Campbell: "I'll be judge of that, Mr. Welling. You say that you were not writing two notes at the time, and that you didn't get the envelopes mixed. Then, if the note wasn't meant for my wife, why did you address it to her?"

Welling: "That's what I can't tell; that's what I don't know. It's as great a mystery to me as it is to you. I can only conjecture that when I was writing that address I was thinking of coming to explain to Mrs. Campbell that I was going away to-day, and shouldn't be back till after her party. It was too complicated to put in a note without seeming to give my regrets too much importance. And I suppose that when I was addressing the note that I did write I put Mrs. Campbell's name on because I had her so much in mind."

Campbell, with irony: "Oh!"

III
MRS. CAMPBELL; MR. WELLING; MR. CAMPBELL

Mrs. Campbell, appearing through the portière that separates the breakfast-room from the parlor beyond: "Yes!" She goes up and gives her hand to Mr. Welling with friendly frankness. "And it was very nice of you to think of me at such a time, when you ought to have been thinking of some one else."

Welling, with great relief and effusion: "Oh, thank you, Mrs. Campbell! I was sure you would understand. You couldn't have imagined me capable of addressing such language to you; of presuming – of – "

Mrs. Campbell: "Of course not! And Willis has quite lost his head. I saw in an instant just how it was. I'm so sorry you can't come to my party – "

Campbell: "Amy, have you been eavesdropping?"

Mrs. Campbell: "There was no need of eavesdropping. I could have heard you out at Loon Rock Light, you shouted so. But as soon as I recognized Mr. Welling's voice I came to the top of the stairs and listened. I was sure you would do something foolish. But now I think we had better make a clean breast of it, and tell Mr. Welling just what we've done. We knew, of course, the letter wasn't for me, and we thought we wouldn't vex you about it, but just send it to the one it was meant for. We've surprised your secret, Mr. Welling, though we didn't intend to; but if you'll accept our congratulations – under the rose, of course – we won't let it go any further. It does seem so perfectly ideal, and I feel like saying, Bless you, my children! You've been in and out here so much this summer, and I feel just like an elder sister to Margaret."

Welling: "Margaret?"

Mrs. Campbell: "Well, Miss Rice, then – "

Welling: "Miss Rice?"

Mrs. Campbell, with dignity: "Oh, I'm sorry if we seem to presume upon our acquaintance with the matter. We couldn't very well help knowing it under the circumstances."

Welling: "Certainly, certainly – of course: I don't mind that at all: I was going to tell you, anyway: that was partly the reason why I came instead of writing – "

Campbell, in an audible soliloquy: "I supposed he had written."

Mrs. Campbell, intensely: "Don't interrupt, Willis! Well?"

Welling: "But I don't see what Miss Rice has to do with it."

Mrs. Campbell: "You don't see! Why, isn't Margaret Rice the one – "

Welling: "What one?"

Mrs. Campbell: "The one that you're engaged – the one that the note was really for?"

Welling: "No! What an idea! Miss Rice? Not for an instant! It's – it's her friend – Miss Greenway – who's staying with her – "

Mrs. Campbell, in a very awful voice: "Willis! Get me some water – some wine! Help me! Ah! Don't touch me! It was you, you who did it all! Oh, now what shall I do?" She drops her head upon Campbell's shoulder, while Welling watches them in stupefaction.

Campbell: "It's about a million times nicer than we could have expected. That's the way with a nice thing when you get it started. Well, young man, you're done for; and so are we, for that matter. We supposed that note which you addressed to Mrs. Campbell was intended for Miss Rice – "

Welling: "Ho, ho, ho! Ah, ha, ha! Miss Rice? Ha – "

Campbell: "I'm glad you like it. You'll enjoy the rest of it still better. We thought it was for Miss Rice, and my wife neatly imitated your hand on an envelope and sent it over to her just before you came in. Funny, isn't it? Laugh on! Don't mind us!"

Welling, aghast: "Thought my note was for Miss Rice? Sent it to her? Gracious powers!" They all stand for a moment in silence, and then Welling glances at the paper in his hand. "But there's some mistake. You haven't sent my note to Miss Rice: here it is now!"

Campbell: "Oh, that's the best of the joke. Mrs. Campbell took a copy" – Mrs. Campbell moans – "she meant to have some fun with you about it, and it's ten times as much fun as I expected; and in her hurry she sent off her copy and kept the original. Perhaps that makes it better."

Mrs. Campbell, detaching herself from him and confronting Mr. Welling: "No; worse! She'll think we've been trying to hoax her, and she'll be in a towering rage; and she'll show the note to Miss Greenway, and you'll be ruined. Oh poor Mr. Welling! Oh, what a fatal, fatal – mix!" She abandons herself in an attitude of extreme desperation upon a chair, while the men stare at her, till Campbell breaks the spell by starting forward and ringing the bell on the table.

Mrs. Campbell: "What are you doing, Willis?"

Campbell: "Ringing for Jane." As Jane appears: "Did you give Miss Rice the note?"

IV
JANE; MRS. CAMPBELL; WELLING; CAMPBELL

Jane: "No, sir; I gave it to the man. He said he would give it to Miss Rice."

Campbell: "Then it's all up. If by any chance she hadn't got it, Amy, you might have sent over for it, and said there was a mistake."

Jane: "He said Miss Rice was out driving with Miss Greenway in her phaeton, but they expected her back every minute."

Mrs. Campbell: "Oh, my goodness! And you didn't come to tell me? Oh, if we had only known! We've lost our only chance, Willis."

Jane: "I did come and knock on your door, ma'am, but I couldn't make you hear."

Campbell: "There's still a chance. Perhaps she hasn't got back yet."

Jane: "I know she ain't, sir. I've been watching for her ever since. I can always see them come, from the pantry window."

Mrs. Campbell: "Well, then, don't stand there talking, but run at once! Oh, Willis! Never tell me again that there's no such thing as an overruling providence. Oh, what an interposition! Oh, I can never be grateful and humble enough – Goodness me, Jane! why don't you go?"

Jane: "Go where, ma'am? I don't know what you want me to do. I'm willing enough to do anything if I know what it is, but it's pretty hard to do things if you don't."

Campbell: "You're perfectly right, Jane. Mrs. Campbell wants you to telegraph yourself over to Mrs. Rice's, and say to her that the letter you left for Miss Rice is not for her, but another lady, and Mrs. Campbell sent it by mistake. Get it and bring it back here, dead or alive, even if Mrs. Rice has to pass over your mangled body in the attempt."

Jane, tasting the joke, while Mrs. Campbell gasps in ineffective efforts to reinforce her husband's instructions: "I will that, sir."

V
MRS. CAMPBELL; WELLING; CAMPBELL

Campbell: "And now, while we're waiting, let's all join hands and dance round the table. You're saved, Welling. So are you, Amy. And so am I – which is more to the point."

Mrs. Campbell, gayly: "Dansons!" She extends her hands to the gentlemen, and as they circle round the breakfast-table she sings,

 
"Sur le pont d'Avignon,
Tout le monde y danse en rond."
 

She frees her hands and courtesies to one gentleman and the other.

 
"Les belles dames font comme ça;
Les beaux messieurs font comme ça."
 

Then she catches hands with them again, and they circle round the table as before, singing,

 
"Sur le pont d'Avignon,
Tout le monde y danse en rond.
 

Oh, dear! Stop! I'm dizzy – I shall fall." She spins into a chair, while the men continue solemnly circling by themselves.

Campbell: "It is a sacred dance:

 
"Sur le pont d'Avignon – "
 

Welling: "It's an expiation:

 
"Tout le monde y danse en rond."
 

Mrs. Campbell, springing from her chair and running to the window: "Stop, you crazy things! Here comes Jane! Come right in here, Jane! Did you get it? Give it to me, Jane!"

Welling: "I think it belongs to me, Mrs. Campbell."

Campbell: "Jane, I am master of the house – nominally. Give me the letter."

VI
JANE; MRS. CAMPBELL; WELLING; CAMPBELL

Jane, entering, blown and panting, through the open window: "Oh, how I did run – "

Mrs. Campbell: "Yes, yes! But the letter – "

Welling: "Did you get it?"

Campbell: "Where is it?"

Jane, fanning herself with her apron: "I can't hardly get my breath – "

Mrs. Campbell: "Had she got back?"

Jane: "No, ma'am."

Campbell: "Did Mrs. Rice object to giving it up?"

Jane: "No, sir."

Welling: "Then it's all right?"

Jane: "No, sir. All wrong."

Welling: "All wrong?"

Campbell: "How all wrong?"

Mrs. Campbell: "What's all wrong, Jane?"

Jane: "Please, ma'am, may I have a drink of water? I'm so dry I can't speak."

Mrs. Campbell: "Yes, certainly."

Campbell: "Of course."

Welling: "Here." They all pour glasses of water and press them to her lips.

Jane, pushing the glasses away, and escaping from the room: "They thought Mrs. Campbell was in a great hurry for Miss Rice to have the letter, and they sent off the man with it to meet her."

VII
MRS. CAMPBELL; WELLING; CAMPBELL

Mrs. Campbell: "Oh, merciful goodness!"

Welling: "Gracious powers!"

Campbell: "Another overruling providence. Now you are in for it, my boy! So is Amy. And so am I – which is still more to the point."

Mrs. Campbell: "Well, now, what shall we do?"

Campbell: "All that we can do now is to await developments: they'll come fast enough. Miss Rice will open her letter as soon as she gets it, and she won't understand it in the least; how could she understand a letter in your handwriting, with Welling's name signed to it? She'll show it to Miss Greenway – "

Welling: "Oh, don't say that!"

Campbell: " – Greenway; and Miss Greenway won't know what to make of it either. But she's the kind of girl who'll form some lively conjectures when she reads that letter. In the first place, she'll wonder how Mr. Welling happens to be writing to Miss Rice in that affectionate strain – "

Mrs. Campbell, in an appealing shriek: "Willis!"

Campbell: " – And she naturally won't believe he's done it. But then, when Miss Rice tells her it's your handwriting, Amy, she'll think that you and Miss Rice have been having your jokes about Mr. Welling; and she'll wonder what kind of person you are, anyway, to make free with a young man's name that way."

Welling: "Oh, I assure you that she admires Mrs. Campbell more than anybody."

Mrs. Campbell: "Don't try to stop him; he's fiendish when he begins teasing."

Campbell: "Oh, well! If she admires Mrs. Campbell and confides in you, then the whole affair is very simple. All you've got to do is to tell her that after you'd written her the original of that note, your mind was so full of Mrs. Campbell and her garden-party that you naturally addressed it to her. And then Mrs. Campbell can cut in and say that when she got the note she knew it wasn't for her, but she never dreamed of your caring for Miss Greenway, and was so sure it was for Miss Rice that she sent her a copy of it. That will make it all right and perfectly agreeable to every one concerned."

Mrs. Campbell: "And I can say that I sent it at your suggestion, and then, instead of trying to help me out of the awful, awful – box, you took a cruel pleasure in teasing me about it! But I shall not say anything, for I shall not see them. I will leave you to receive them and make the best of it. Don't try to stop me, Willis." She threatens him with her fan as he steps forward to intercept her escape.

Campbell: "No, no! Listen, Amy! You must stay and see those ladies. It's all well enough to leave it to me, but what about poor Welling? He hasn't done anything – except cause the whole trouble."

Mrs. Campbell: "I am very sorry, but I can't help it. I must go." Campbell continues to prevent her flight, and she suddenly whirls about and makes a dash at the open window. "Oh, very well, then! I can get out this way." At the same moment Miss Rice and Miss Greenway appear before the window on the piazza. "Ugh! E – e – e! How you frightened me! But – but come in. So gl – glad to see you! And you – you too, Miss Greenway. Here's Mr. Welling. He's been desolating us with a story about having to be away over my party, and just getting back for Mrs. Curwen's. Isn't it too bad? Can't some of you young ladies – or all of you – make him stay?" As Mrs. Campbell talks on, she readjusts her spirit more and more to the exigency, and subdues her agitation to a surface of the sweetest politeness.