Tales of Men and Ghosts. Edith Wharton

saving up his income for just such a contingency. His own wants were few: he had transferred the Wingfield furniture to Brooklyn, and his sitting-room was a replica of that in which the long years of his married life had been spent. Even the florid carpet on which Ronald’s tottering footsteps had been taken was carefully matched when it became too threadbare. And on the marble centre-table, with its chenille-fringed cover and bunch of dyed pampas grass, lay the illustrated Longfellow and the copy of Ingersoll’s lectures which represented literature to Mr. Grew when he had led home his bride. In the light of Ronald’s romance, Mr. Grew found himself re-living, with a strange tremor of mingled pain and tenderness, all the poor prosaic incidents of his own personal history. Curiously enough, with this new splendor on them they began to emit a small faint ray of their own. His wife’s armchair, in its usual place by the fire, recalled her placid unperceiving presence, seated opposite to him during the long drowsy years; and he felt her kindness, her equanimity, where formerly he had only ached at her obtuseness. And from the chair he glanced up at the large discolored photograph on the wall above, with a brittle brown wreath suspended on a corner of the frame. The photograph represented a young man with a poetic necktie and untrammelled hair, leaning negligently against a Gothic chair-back, a roll of music in his hand; and beneath was scrawled a bar of Chopin, with the words: “ Adieu, Adele.”

      The portrait was that of the great pianist, Fortune Dolbrowski; and its presence on the wall of Mr. Grew’s sitting-room commemorated the only exquisite hour of his life save that of Ronald’s birth. It was some time before the latter memorable event, a few months only after Mr. Grew’s marriage, that he had taken his wife to New York to hear the great Dolbrowski. Their evening had been magically beautiful, and even Addie, roused from her habitual inexpressiveness, had quivered into a momentary semblance of life. “I never—I never—” she gasped out helplessly when they had regained their hotel bedroom, and sat staring back entranced at the evening’s evocations. Her large immovable face was pink and tremulous, and she sat with her hands on her knees, forgetting to roll up her bonnet-strings and prepare her curl-papers.

      “I’d like to write him just how I felt—I wisht I knew how!” she burst out suddenly in a final effervescence of emotion.

      Her husband lifted his head and looked at her.

      “Would you? I feel that way too,” he said with a sheepish laugh. And they continued to stare at each other shyly through a transfiguring mist of sound.

      Mr. Grew recalled the scene as he gazed up at the pianist’s faded photograph. “Well, I owe her that anyhow—poor Addie!” he said, with a smile at the inconsequences of fate. With Ronald’s telegram in his hand he was in a mood to count his mercies.

III

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      “A CLEAR twenty-five thousand a year: that’s what you can tell ’em with my compliments,” said Mr. Grew, glancing complacently across the centre-table at his boy’s charming face.

      It struck him that Ronald’s gift for looking his part in life had never so romantically expressed itself. Other young men, at such a moment, would have been red, damp, tight about the collar; but Ronald’s cheek was only a shade paler, and the contrast made his dark eyes more expressive.

      “A clear twenty-five thousand; yes, sir—that’s what I always meant you to have.”

      Mr. Grew leaned back, his hands thrust carelessly in his pockets, as though to divert attention from the agitation of his features. He had often pictured himself rolling out that phrase to Ronald, and now that it was actually on his lips he could not control their tremor.

      Ronald listened in silence, lifting a nervous hand to his slight dark moustache, as though he, too, wished to hide some involuntary betrayal of emotion. At first Mr. Grew took his silence for an expression of gratified surprise; but as it prolonged itself it became less easy to interpret.

      “I—see here, my boy; did you expect more? Isn’t it enough?” Mr. Grew cleared his throat. “Do they expect more?” he asked nervously. He was hardly able to face the pain of inflicting a disappointment on Ronald at the very moment when he had counted on putting the final touch to his felicity.

      Ronald moved uneasily in his chair and his eyes wandered upward to the laurel-wreathed photograph of the pianist above his father’s head.

      “ Is it that, Ronald? Speak out, my boy. We’ll see, we’ll look round—I’ll manage somehow.”

      “No, no,” the young man interrupted, abruptly raising his hand as though to silence his father.

      Mr. Grew recovered his cheerfulness. “Well, what’s the matter than, if she’s willing?”

      Ronald shifted his position again, and finally rose from his seat.

      “Father—I—there’s something I’ve got to tell you. I can’t take your money.”

      Mr. Grew sat speechless a moment, staring blankly at his son; then he emitted a puzzled laugh. “My money? What are you talking about? What’s this about my money? Why, it ain’t mine, Ronny; it’s all yours—every cent of it!” he cried.

      The young man met his tender look with a gaze of tragic rejection.

      “No, no, it’s not mine—not even in the sense you mean. Not in any sense. Can’t you understand my feeling so?”

      “Feeling so? I don’t know how you’re feeling. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you too proud to touch any money you haven’t earned? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

      “No. It’s not that. You must know—”

      Mr. Grew flushed to the rim of his bristling whiskers. “Know? Know what? Can’t you speak?”

      Ronald hesitated, and the two men faced each other for a long strained moment, during which Mr. Grew’s congested countenance grew gradually pale again.

      “What’s the meaning of this? Is it because you’ve done something … something you’re ashamed of … ashamed to tell me?” he suddenly gasped out; and walking around the table he laid his hand on his son’s shoulder. “There’s nothing you can’t tell me, my boy.”

      “It’s not that. Why do you make it so hard for me?” Ronald broke out with passion. “You must have known this was sure to happen sooner or later.”

      “Happen? What was sure to hap—?” Mr. Grew’s question wavered on his lip and passed into a tremulous laugh. “Is it something I’ve done that you don’t approve of? Is it—is it the Buckle you’re ashamed of, Ronald Grew?”

      Ronald laughed too, impatiently. “The Buckle? No, I’m not ashamed of the Buckle; not any more than you are,” he returned with a sudden bright flush. “But I’m ashamed of all I owe to it—all I owe to you—when—when—” He broke off and took a few distracted steps across the room. “You might make this easier for me,” he protested, turning back to his father.

      “Make what easier? I know less and less what you’re driving at,” Mr. Grew groaned.

      Ronald’s walk had once more brought him beneath the photograph on the wall. He lifted his head for a moment and looked at it; then he looked again at Mr. Grew.

      “Do you suppose I haven’t always known?”

      “Known—?”

      “Even before you gave me those letters—after my mother’s death—even before that, I suspected. I don’t know how it began … perhaps from little things you let drop … you and she … and resemblances that I couldn’t help seeing … in myself … How on earth could you suppose I shouldn’t guess? I always thought you gave me the letters as a way of telling me—”

      Mr. Grew