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A Modern Instance

W >> William Dean Howells >> A Modern Instance




"Well, sir," said the manager, "that's my way of looking at it. I say, if
the public don't want Shakespeare, give 'em burlesque till they're sick of
it. I believe in what Grant said: 'The quickest way to get rid of a bad law
is to enforce it.'"

"That's so," said the little man, "every time." He added, to the
bar-keeper, that he guessed he would have some brandy and soda, and
Bartley found himself at the bottom of his second tumbler. He ordered it
replenished.

The little man seemed to be getting further away. He said, from the
distance to which he had withdrawn, "You want to go to bed with three
nightcaps on, like an old-clothes man."

Bartley felt like resenting the freedom, but he was anxious to pour his
ideas of journalism into the manager's sympathetic ear, and he began to
talk, with an impression that it behooved him to talk fast. His brain was
still very clear, but his tongue was getting stiffer. The manager now had
his Welsh rabbit before him; but Bartley could not make out how it had got
there, nor when. He was talking fast, and he knew, by the way everybody was
listening, that he was talking well. Sometimes he left his table, glass in
hand, and went and laid down the law to the manager, who smilingly assented
to all he said. Once he heard a low growling at his feet, and, looking
down, he saw the dog with his plate of cold chicken, that had also been
conjured into the room somehow.

"Look out," said the manager, "he'll nip you in the leg."

"Curse the dog! he seems to be on all sides of you," said Bartley. "I can't
stand anywhere."

"Better sit down, then," suggested the manager.

"Good idea," said the little man, who was still walking up and down. It
appeared as if he had not spoken for several hours; his hat was further
over his eyes. Bartley had thought he was gone.

"What business is it of yours?" he demanded, fiercely, moving towards the
little man.

"Come, none of that," said the bar-keeper, steadily.

Bartley looked at him in amazement. "Where's your hat?" he asked.

The others laughed; the bar-keeper smiled.

"Are you a married man?"

"Never mind!" said the bar-keeper, severely.

Bartley turned to the little man: "You married?"

"Not _much_," replied the other. He was now topping off with a
whiskey-straight.

Bartley referred himself to the manager: "You?"

"_Pas si bête_," said the manager, who did his own adapting from the
French.

"Well, you're scholar, and you're gentleman," said Bartley. The indefinite
articles would drop out, in spite of all his efforts to keep them in. "'N I
want ask you what you do--to--ask--you--what--would--you--do," he repeated,
with painful exactness, but he failed to make the rest of the sentence
perfect, and he pronounced it all in a word, "'fyour-wifelockyouout?"

"I'd take a walk," said the manager.

"I'd bu'st the door in," said the little man.

Bartley turned and gazed at him as if the little man were a much more
estimable person than he had supposed. He passed his arm through the little
man's, which the other had just crooked to lift his whiskey to his mouth.
"Look here," said Bartley, "tha's jus' what _I_ told her. I want you to go
home 'th me; I want t' introduce you to my wife."

"All right," answered the little man. "Don't care if I do." He dropped his
tumbler to the floor. "Hang it up, Charley, glass and all. Hang up this
gentleman's nightcaps--my account. Gentleman asks me home to his house,
I'll hang him--I'll get him hung,--well, fix it to suit yourself,--every
time!"

They got themselves out of the door, and the manager said to the
bar-keeper, who came round to gather up the fragments of the broken
tumbler, "Think his wife will be glad to see 'em, Charley?"

"Oh, they'll be taken care of before they reach his house."




XXV.


When they were once out under the stars, Bartley, who still, felt his brain
clear, said that he would not take his friend home at once, but would show
him where he visited when he first came to Boston. The other agreed to
the indulgence of this sentiment, and they set out to find Rumford Street
together.

"You've heard of old man Halleck,--Lestor Neather Interest? Tha's
place,--there's where I stayed. His son's my frien',--damn stuck-up,
supercilious beast he is, too! _I_ do' care f'r him! I'll show you place,
so's't you'll know it when you come to it,--'f I can ever find it."

They walked up and down the street, looking, while Bartley poured his
sorrows into the ear of his friend, who grew less and less responsive, and
at last ceased from his side altogether. Bartley then dimly perceived that
he was himself sitting on a door-step, and that his head was hanging far
down between his knees, as if he had been sleeping in that posture.

"Locked out,--locked out of my own door, and by my own wife!" He shed
tears, and fell asleep again. From time to time he woke, and bewailed
himself to Ricker as a poor boy who had fought his own way; he owned that
he had made mistakes, as who had not? Again he was trying to convince
Squire Gaylord that they ought to issue a daily edition of the Equity Free
Press, and at the same time persuading Mr. Halleck to buy the Events for
him, and let him put it on a paying basis. He shivered, sighed, hiccupped,
and was dozing off again, when Henry Bird knocked him down, and he fell
with a cry, which at last brought to the door the uneasy sleeper, who had
been listening to him within, and trying to realize his presence, catching
his voice in waking intervals, doubting it, drowsing when it ceased, and
then catching it and losing it again.

"Hello, here! What do you want? Hubbard! Is it you? What in the world are
you doing here?"

"Halleck," said Bartley, who was unsteadily straightening himself upon his
feet, "glad to find you at home. Been looking for your house all night.
Want to introduce you to partic-ic-ular friend of mine. Mr. Halleck, Mr.
----. Curse me if I know your name--"

"Hold on a minute," said Halleck.

He ran into the house for his hat and coat, and came out again, closing the
door softly after him. He found Bartley in the grip of a policeman, whom he
was asking his name, that he might introduce him to his friend Halleck.

"Do you know this man, Mr. Halleck?" asked the policeman.

"Yes,--yes, I know him," said Ben, in a low voice. "Let's get him away
quietly, please. He's all right. It's the first time I ever saw him so.
Will you help me with him up to Johnson's stable? I'll get a carriage there
and take him home."

They had begun walking Bartley along between them; he dozed, and paid no
attention to their talk.

The policeman laughed. "I was just going to run him in, when you came out.
You didn't come a minute too soon."

They got Bartley to the stable, and he slept heavily in one of the chairs
in the office, while the ostlers were putting the horses to the carriage.
The policeman remained at the office-door, looking in at Bartley, and
philosophizing the situation to Halleck. "Your speakin' about its bein' the
first time you ever saw him so made me think 't I rather help take home a
regular habitual drunk to his family, any day, than a case like this. They
always seem to take it so much harder the first time. Boards with his
mother, I presume?"

"He's married," said Halleck? sadly. "He has a house of his own."

"Well!" said the policeman.

Bartley slept all the way to Clover Street, and when the carriage stopped
at his door, they had difficulty in waking him sufficiently to get him out.

"Don't come in, please," said Halleck to the policeman, when this was done.
"The man will carry you back to your beat. Thank you, ever so much!"

"All right, Mr. Halleck. Don't mention it," said the policeman, and leaned
back in the hack with an air of luxury, as it rumbled softly away.

Halleck remained on the pavement with Bartley falling limply against him
in the dim light of the dawn. "What you want? What you doing with me?" he
demanded with sullen stupidity.

"I've got you home, Hubbard. Here we are at your house." He pulled him
across the pavement to the threshold, and put his hand on the bell, but the
door was thrown open before he could ring, and Marcia stood there, with her
face white, and her eyes red with watching and crying.

"Oh, Bartley! oh, Bartley!" she sobbed. "Oh, Mr. Halleck! what is it? Is
he hurt? I did it,--yes, I did it! It's my fault! Oh! will he die? Is he
sick?"

"He isn't very well. He'd better go to bed," said Halleck.

"Yes, yes! I will help you upstairs with him."

"Do' need any help," said Bartley, sulkily. "Go upstairs myself."

He actually did so, with the help of the hand-rail, Marcia running before,
to open the door, and smooth the pillows which her head had not touched,
and Halleck following him to catch him if he should fall. She unlaced his
shoes and got them off, while Halleck removed his coat.

"Oh, Bartley! where do you feel badly, dear? Oh I what shall I do?" she
moaned, as he tumbled himself on the bed, and lapsed into a drunken stupor.

"Better--better come out, Mrs. Hubbard," said Halleck. "Better let him
alone, now. You only make him worse, talking to him."

Quelled by the mystery of his manner, she followed him out and down the
stairs. "Oh, _do_ tell me what it is," she implored, in a low voice, "or
I shall go wild! But tell me, and I can bear it! I can bear anything if I
know what it is!" She came close to him in her entreaty, and fixed her eyes
beseechingly on his, while she caught his hand in both of hers. "Is he--is
he insane?"

"He isn't quite in his right mind, Mrs. Hubbard," Halleck began, softly
releasing himself, and retreating a little from her; but she pursued him,
and put her hand on his arm.

"Oh, then go for the doctor,--go instantly! Don't lose a minute! I shall
not be afraid to stay alone. Or if you think I'd better not, I will go for
the doctor myself."

"No, no," said Halleck, smiling sadly: the case certainly had its ludicrous
side. "He doesn't need a doctor. You mustn't think of calling a doctor.
Indeed you mustn't. He'll come out all right of himself. If you sent for a
doctor, it would make him very angry."

She burst into tears. "Well, I will do what you say," she cried. "It would
never have happened, if it hadn't been for me. I want to tell you what I
did," she went on wildly. "I want to tell--"

"Please don't tell me anything, Mrs. Hubbard! It will all come right--and
very soon. It isn't anything to be alarmed about. He'll be well in a few
hours. I--ah--Good by." He had found his cane, and he made a limp toward
the door, but she swiftly interposed herself.

"Why," she panted, in mixed reproach and terror, "you're not going away?
You're not going to leave me before Bartley is well? He may get worse,--he
may die! You mustn't go, Mr. Halleck!"

"Yes, I must,--I can't stay,--I oughtn't to stay,--it won't do! He won't
get worse, he won't die." The perspiration broke out on Halleck's face,
which he lifted to hers with a distress as great as her own.

She only answered, "I can't let you go; it would kill me. I wonder at your
wanting to go."

There was something ghastly comical in it all, and Halleck stood in fear of
its absurdity hardly less than of its tragedy. He rapidly revolved in his
mind the possibilities of the case. He thought at first that it might be
well to call a doctor, and, having explained the situation to him, pay him
to remain in charge; but he reflected that it would be insulting to ask a
doctor to see a man in Hubbard's condition. He took out his watch, and saw
that it was six o'clock; and he said, desperately, "You can send for me, if
you get anxious--"

"I can't let you go!"

"I must really get my breakfast--"

"The girl will get something for you here! Oh, _don't_ go away!" Her lip
began to quiver again, and her bosom to rise.

He could not bear it. "Mrs. Hubbard, will you believe what I say?"

"Yes," she faltered, reluctantly.

"Well, I tell you that Mr. Hubbard is in no sort of danger; and I know that
it would be extremely offensive to him if I stayed."

"Then you must go," she answered promptly, and opened the door, which she
had closed for fear he might escape. "I will send for a doctor."

"No; _don't_ send for a doctor, don't send for anybody don't speak of
the matter to any one: it would be very mortifying to him. It's merely
a--a--kind of--seizure, that a great many people--men--are subject to; but
he wouldn't like to have it known." He saw that his words were making an
impression upon her; perhaps her innocence was beginning to divine the
truth. "Will you do what I say?"

"Yes," she murmured.

Her head began to droop, and her face to turn away in a dawning shame too
cruel for him to see.

"I--I will come back as soon as I get my breakfast, to make sure that
everything is right."

She let him find his own way out, and Halleck issued upon the street, as
miserable as if the disgrace were his own. It was easy enough for him
to get back into his own room without alarming the family. He ate his
breakfast absently, and then went out while the others were still at table.

"I don't think Ben seems very well," said his mother, anxiously, and she
looked to her husband for the denial he always gave.

"Oh, I guess he's all right. What's the matter with him?"

"It's nothing but his ridiculous, romantic way of taking the world to
heart," Olive interposed. "You may be sure he's troubled about something
that doesn't concern him in the least. It's what comes of the life-long
conscientiousness of his parents. If Ben doesn't turn out a philanthropist
of the deepest dye yet, you'll have me to thank for it. I see more and
more every day that I was providentially born wicked, so as to keep this
besottedly righteous family's head above water."

She feigned an angry impatience with the condition of things; but when her
father went out, she joined her mother in earnest conjectures as to what
Ben had on his mind.

Halleck wandered about till nearly ten o'clock, and then he went to the
little house on Clover Street. The servant-girl answered his ring, and when
he asked for Mrs. Hubbard, she said that Mr. Hubbard wished to see him, and
please would he step upstairs.

He found Bartley seated at the window, with a wet towel round his head, and
his face pale with headache.

"Well, old man," he said, with an assumption of comradery that was nauseous
to Halleck, "you've done the handsome thing by me. I know all about it.
I knew something about it all the time." He held out his hand, without
rising, and Halleck forced himself to touch it. "I appreciate your delicacy
in not telling my wife. Of course you _couldn't_ tell," he said, with
depraved enjoyment of what he conceived of Halleck's embarrassment. "But I
guess she must have smelt a rat. As the fellow says," he added, seeing the
disgust that Halleck could not keep out of his face, "I shall make a clean
breast of it, as soon as she can bear it. She's pretty high-strung. Lying
down, now," he explained. "You see, I went out to get something to make me
sleep, and the first thing I knew I had got too much. Good thing I turned
up on your doorstep; might have been waltzing into the police court about
now. How did you happen to hear me?"

Halleck briefly explained, with an air of abhorrence for the facts.

"Yes, I remember most of it," said Bartley. "Well, I want to thank you,
Halleck. You've saved me from disgrace,--from ruin, for all I know. Whew!
how my head aches!" he said, making an appeal to Halleck's pity, with
closed eyes. "Halleck," he murmured, feebly, "I wish you would do me a
favor."

"Yes? What is it?" asked Halleck, dryly.

"Go round to the Events office and tell old Witherby that I sha'n't be able
to put in an appearance to-day. I'm not up to writing a note, even; and
he'd feel flattered at your coming personally. It would make it all right
for me."

"Of course I will go," said Halleck.

"Thanks," returned Bartley, plaintively, with his eyes closed.




XXVI.


Bartley would willingly have passed this affair over with Marcia, like some
of their quarrels, and allowed a reconciliation to effect itself through
mere lapse of time and daily custom. But there were difficulties in the way
to such an end; his shameful escapade had given the quarrel a character of
its own, which could not be ignored. He must keep his word about making a
clean breast of it to Marcia, whether he liked or not; but she facilitated
his confession by the meek and dependent fashion in which she hovered
about, anxious to do something or anything for him. If, as he suggested to
Halleck, she had divined the truth, she evidently did not hold him wholly
to blame for what had happened, and he was not without a self-righteous
sense of having given her a useful and necessary lesson. He was inclined to
a severity to which his rasped and shaken nerves contributed, when he spoke
to her that night, as they sat together after tea; she had some sewing in
her lap, little mysteries of soft muslin for the baby, which she was edging
with lace, and her head drooped over her work, as if she could not confront
him with her swollen eyes.

"Look here, Marcia," he said, "do you know what was the matter with me this
morning?"

She did not answer in words; her hands quivered a moment; then she caught
up the things out of her lap, and sobbed into them. The sight unmanned
Bartley; he hated to see any one cry,--even his wife, to whose tears he was
accustomed. He dropped down beside her on the sofa, and pulled her head
over on his shoulder.

"It was my fault! it was my fault, Bartley!" she sobbed. "Oh, how can I
ever get over it?"

"Well, don't cry, don't cry! It wasn't altogether your fault," returned
Bartley. "We were both to blame."

"No! I began it. If I hadn't broken my promise about speaking of Hannah
Morrison, it never would have happened." This was so true that Bartley
could not gainsay it. "But I couldn't seem to help it; and you were--you
were--so quick with me; you didn't give me time to think; you--But I was
the one to blame, I was to blame!"

"Oh, well, never mind about it; don't take on so," coaxed Bartley. "It's
all over now, and it can't be helped. And I can promise you," he added,
"that it shall never happen again, no matter what you do," and in making
this promise he felt the glow of virtuous performance. "I think we've both
had a lesson. I suppose," he continued sadly, as one might from impersonal
reflection upon the temptations and depravity of large cities, "that it's
_common_ enough. I dare say it isn't the first time Ben Halleck has taken a
fellow home in a hack." Bartley got so much comfort from the conjecture he
had thrown out for Marcia's advantage, that he felt a sort of self-approval
in the fact with which he followed it up. "And there's this consolation
about it, if there isn't any other: that it wouldn't have happened now, if
it had ever happened before."

Marcia lifted her head and looked into his face: "What--what do you mean,
Bartley?"

"I mean that I never was overcome before in my life by--wine." He
delicately avoided saying whiskey.

"Well?" she demanded.

"Why, don't you see? If I'd had the habit of drinking, I shouldn't have
been affected by it."

"I don't understand," she said, anxiously.

"Why, I knew I shouldn't be able to sleep, I was so mad at you--"

"Oh!"

"And I dropped into the hotel bar-room for a nightcap,--for something to
make me sleep."

"Yes, yes!" she urged eagerly.

"I took what wouldn't have touched a man that was in the habit of it."

"Poor Bartley!"

"And the first thing I knew I had got too much. I was drunk,--wild drunk,"
he said with magnanimous frankness.

She had been listening intensely, exculpating him at every point, and now
his innocence all flashed upon her. "I see! I see!" she cried. "And it was
because you had never tasted it before--"

"Well, I had tasted it once or twice," interrupted Bartley, with heroic
veracity.

"No matter! It was because you had never more than hardly tasted it that a
very little overcame you in an instant. I see!" she repeated, contemplating
him in her ecstasy, as the one habitually sober man in a Boston full of
inebriates. "And now I shall never regret it; I shall never care for it;
I never shall think about it again! Or, yes! I shall always remember
it, because it shows--because it _proves_ that you are always strictly
temperance. It was worth happening for that. I am _glad_ it happened!"

She rose from his side, and took her sewing nearer the lamp, and resumed
her work upon it with shining eyes.

Bartley remained in his place on the sofa, feeling, and perhaps looking,
rather sheepish. He had made a clean breast of it, and the confession
had redounded only too much to his credit. To do him justice, he had not
intended to bring the affair to quite such a triumphant conclusion; and
perhaps something better than his sense of humor was also touched when he
found himself not only exonerated, but transformed into an exemplar of
abstinence.

"Well," he said, "it isn't exactly a thing to be glad of, but it certainly
isn't a thing to worry yourself about. You know the worst of it, and you
know the best of it. It never happened before, and it never shall happen
again; that's all. Don't lament over it, don't accuse yourself; just let
it go, and we'll both see what we can do after this in the way of behaving
better."

He rose from the sofa, and began to walk about the room.

"Does your head still ache?" she asked, fondly. "I _wish_ I could do
something for it!"

"Oh, I shall sleep it off," returned Bartley.

She followed him with her eyes. "Bartley!"

"Well?"

"Do you suppose--do you believe--that Mr. Halleck--that he was ever--"

"No, Marcia, I don't," said Bartley, stopping. "I _know_ he never was. Ben
Halleck is slow; but he's good. I couldn't imagine his being drunk any more
than I could imagine your being so. I'd willingly sacrifice his reputation
to console you," added Bartley, with a comical sense of his own regret that
Halleck was not, for the occasion, an habitual drunkard, "but I cannot tell
a lie." He looked at her with a smile, and broke into a sudden laugh. "No,
my dear, the only person I think of just now as having suffered similarly
with myself is the great and good Andrew Johnson. Did you ever hear of
him?"

"Was he the one they impeached?" she faltered, not knowing what Bartley
would be at, but smiling faintly in sympathy with his mirth.

"He was the one they impeached. He was the one who was overcome by wine on
his inauguration day, because he had never been overcome before. It's a
parallel case!" Bartley got a great deal more enjoyment out of the parallel
case than Marcia. The smile faded from her face.

"Come, come," he coaxed, "be satisfied with Andrew Johnson, and let Halleck
go. Ah, Marcia!" he added, seriously, "Ben Halleck is the kind of man you
ought to have married! Don't you suppose that I know I'm not good enough
for you? I'm pretty good by fits and starts; but he would have been good
right straight along. I should never have had to bring _him_ home in a hack
to you!"

His generous admission had the just effect. "Hush, Bartley! Don't talk so!
You know that you're better for me than the best man in the world, dear,
and even if you were not, I should love you the best. Don't talk, please,
that way, of any one else, or it will make me hate you!"

He liked that; and after all he was not without an obscure pride in his
last night's adventure as a somewhat hazardous but decided assertion of
manly supremacy. It was not a thing to be repeated; but for once in a way
it was not wholly to be regretted, especially as he was so well out of it.

He pulled up a chair in front of her, and began to joke about the things
she had in her lap; and the shameful and sorrowful day ended in the bliss
of a more perfect peace between them than they had known since the troubles
of their married life began. "I tell you," said Bartley to Marcia, "I shall
stick to tivoli after this, religiously."

It was several weeks later that Halleck limped into Atherton's lodgings,
and dropped into one of his friend's easy-chairs. The room had a bachelor
comfort of aspect, and the shaded lamp on the table shed a mellow light on
the green leather-covered furniture, wrinkled and creased, and worn full of
such hospitable hollows as that which welcomed Halleck. Some packages of
law papers were scattered about on the table; but the hour of the night had
come when a lawyer permits himself a novel. Atherton looked up from his as
Halleck entered, and stretched out a hand, which the latter took on his way
to the easy-chair across the table.

"How do you do?" said Atherton, after allowing him to sit for a certain
time in the silence, which expressed better than words the familiarity
that existed between them in spite of the lawyer's six or seven years of
seniority.

Halleck leaned forward and tapped the floor with his stick; then he fell
back again, and laid his cane across the arms of his chair, and drew a
long breath. "Atherton," he said, "if you had found a blackguard of your
acquaintance drunk on your doorstep early one morning, and had taken him
home to his wife, how would you have expected her to treat you the next
time you saw her?"

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