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Title: A Likely Story
Author: William Dean Howells
Release Date: March 11, 2009 [EBook #28305]
Language: English
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A
LIKELY STORY
BY
W. D. HOWELLS.
HARPER'S
BLACK & WHITE
SERIES
A LIKELY STORY
[Illustration: "THE MOST EXCITING PART."]
A LIKELY STORY
Farce
BY
W. D. HOWELLS
ILLUSTRATED
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
HARPER AND BROTHERS
1894
Harper's "Black and White" Series.
Illustrated. 32mo, Cloth, 50 cents each.
_LATEST ISSUES:_
FIVE O'CLOCK TEA. Farce. By W. D. Howells.
THE MOUSE-TRAP. Farce. By W. D. Howells.
A LIKELY STORY. Farce. By W. D. Howells.
THIS PICTURE AND THAT. A Comedy. By Brander Matthews.
TRAVELS IN AMERICA 100 YEARS AGO. By Thomas Twining.
MY YEAR IN A LOG CABIN. By William Dean Howells.
EVENING DRESS. A Farce. By William Dean Howells.
THE WORK OF WASHINGTON IRVING. By Charles Dudley Warner.
EDWIN BOOTH. By Laurence Hutton.
PHILLIPS BROOKS. By Rev. Arthur Brooks, D.D.
THE DECISION OF THE COURT. A Comedy. By Brander Matthews.
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. By John White Chadwick.
THE UNEXPECTED GUESTS. A Farce. By William Dean Howells.
SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE IN AFRICA. By Henry M. Stanley.
THE RIVALS. By François Coppée.
WHITTIER: NOTES OF HIS LIFE AND OF HIS FRIENDSHIPS. By Annie
Fields.
THE JAPANESE BRIDE. By Naomi Tamura.
GILES COREY, YEOMAN. By Mary E. Wilkins.
COFFEE AND REPARTEE. By John Kendrick Bangs.
PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
_For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers,
postage prepaid, on receipt of price._
Copyright, 1894, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
Copyright, 1885, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
Copyright, 1885, by W. D. HOWELLS.
_All rights reserved._
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I MR. AND MRS. WILLIS CAMPBELL 7
II MR. WELLING; MR. CAMPBELL 29
III MRS. CAMPBELL; MR. WELLING; MR. CAMPBELL 34
IV JANE; MRS. CAMPBELL; WELLING; CAMPBELL 39
V MRS. CAMPBELL; WELLING; CAMPBELL 41
VI JANE; MRS. CAMPBELL; WELLING; CAMPBELL 43
VII MRS. CAMPBELL; WELLING; CAMPBELL 44
VIII MISS RICE, MISS GREENWAY, and the OTHERS 48
IX MISS GREENWAY; MR. WELLING 50
X MISS RICE; then MR. and MRS. CAMPBELL, and the OTHERS 53
ILLUSTRATIONS
"THE MOST EXCITING PART OF IT" _Frontispiece_
MR. WELLING EXPLAINS _Facing page 52_
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.
Campbell: "Well, as far as I can remember my own youth, no. But what
does he say?"
Mrs. Campbell, regarding the letter: "I haven't looked yet. He writes
the _most_ characteristic hand, for a man, that I ever saw. And he has
the divinest taste in perfumes! Oh, I wonder what _that_ is? Like a
memory--a regret." She presses it repeatedly to her pretty nose, in the
endeavor to ascertain.
Campbell: "Oh, hello!"
Mrs. Campbell, laughing: "Willis, you _are_ delightful. I should like to
see you really jealous once."
Campbell: "You won't, as long as I know my own incomparable charm. But
give me that letter, Amy, if you're not going to open it. I want to see
whether Welling is going to come."
Mrs. Campbell, fondly: "Would you _really_ like to open it? I've half a
mind to let you, just for a reward."
Campbell: "Reward! What for?"
Mrs. Campbell: "Oh, I don't know. Being so nice."
Campbell: "That's something I can't help. It's no merit. Well, hand over
the letter."
Mrs. Campbell: "I should have thought you'd insist on _my_ opening it,
after that."
Campbell: "Why?"
Mrs. Campbell: "To show your confidence."
Campbell: "When I haven't got any?"
Mrs. Campbell, tearing the note open: "Well, it's no use trying any
sentiment with you, or any generosity either. You're always just the
same; a teasing joke is your ideal. You can't imagine a woman's wanting
to keep up a little romance all through; and a character like Mr.
Welling's, who's all chivalry and delicacy and deference, is quite
beyond you. That's the reason you're always sneering at him."
Campbell: "I'm not sneering at him, my dear. I'm only afraid Miss Rice
isn't good enough for him."
Mrs. Campbell, instantly placated: "Well, she's the only girl who's
anywhere _near_ it. I don't say she's faultless, but she has a great
deal of character, and she's very practical; just the counterpart of his
dreaminess; and she _is_ very, _very_ good-looking, don't you think?"
Campbell: "Her bang isn't so nice as his."
Mrs. Campbell: "No; and aren't his eyes beautiful? And that high,
serious look! And his nose and chin are perfectly divine. He looks like
a young god!"
Campbell: "I dare say; though I never saw an old one. Well, is he
coming? I'm not jealous, but I'm impatient. Read it out loud."
Mrs. Campbell, sinking back in her chair for the more luxurious perusal
of the note: "Indeed I shall not." She opens it and runs it hastily
through, with various little starts, stares, frowns, smiles of arrested
development, laughs, and cries: "Why--why! What does it mean? Is he
crazy? Why, there's some mistake. No! It's his hand--and here's his
name. I can't make it out." She reads it again and again. "Why, it's
perfectly bewildering! Why, there must be some mistake. He couldn't have
meant it. Could he have imagined? Could he have dared? There never has
been the slightest thing that could be tortured into--But of course not.
And Mr. Welling, of all men! Oh, I can't understand it! Oh, Willis,
Willis, Willis! What _does_ it mean?" She flings the note wildly across
the table, and catching her handkerchief to her face, falls back into
her chair, tumultuously sobbing.
Campbell, with the calm of a man accustomed to emotional superabundance,
lifting the note from the toast-rack before him: "Well, let's see." He
reads aloud: "'Oh, my darling! How can I live till I see you? I will be
there long _before_ the hour! To think of your _asking_ me! You should
have said, "I permit you to come," and I would have flown from the ends
of the earth. The presence of others will be nothing. It will be sweet
to ignore them in my heart, and while I see you moving among them, and
looking after their pleasure with that beautiful thoughtfulness of
yours, to think, "She is mine, mine, mine!"
"Oh, young lord lover, what sighs are those
For one that can never be thine?"
I thank you, and thank you a thousand times over, for this proof of your
trust in me, and of your love--_our_ love. You shall be the sole keeper
of our secret--it is so sweet to think that no one even suspects
it!--and it shall live with you, and if you will, it shall die with me.
Forever yours, Arthur Welling.'" Campbell turns the note over, and
picking up the envelope, examines the address. "Well, _upon_ my word!
It's to you, Amy--on the outside, anyway. What do you suppose he
means?"
Mrs. Campbell, in her handkerchief: "Oh, I don't know; I _don't_ know
why he should address such language to me!"
Campbell, recurring to the letter: "_I_ never did. '_Oh, my
darling--live till I see you--ends of the earth--others will be
nothing--beautiful thoughtfulness--mine, mine, mine--our love--sweet to
think no one suspects it--forever yours._' Amy, these are pretty strong
expressions to use towards the wife of another, and she a married lady!
I think I had better go and solve that little problem of how he can live
till he sees you by relieving him of the necessity. It would be
disagreeable to him, but perhaps there's a social duty involved."
Mrs. Campbell: "Oh, Willis, _don't_ torment me! What do you suppose it
means? Is it some--mistake? It's for somebody else!"
Campbell: "I don't see why he should have addressed it to you, then."
Mrs. Campbell: "But don't you see? He's been writing to some other
person at the same time, and he's got the answers mixed--put them in
the wrong envelopes. Oh dear! I wonder who she is!"
Campbell, studying her with an air of affected abstraction: "Her
curiosity gets the better of her anguish. Look here, Amy! _I_ believe
you're _afraid_ it's to some one else."
Mrs. Campbell: "Willis!"
Campbell: "Yes. And before we proceed any further I must know just what
you wrote to this--this Mr. Welling of yours. Did you put on R.S.V.P.?"
Mrs. Campbell: "Yes; and just a printed card like all the rest. I did
want to write him a note in the first person, and urge him to come,
because I expected Miss Rice and Miss Greenway to help me receive; but
when I found Margaret had promised Mrs. Curwen for the next day, I knew
she wouldn't like to take the bloom off that by helping me first; so I
didn't."
Campbell: "Didn't what?"
Mrs. Campbell: "Write to him. I just sent a card."
Campbell: "Then these passionate expressions _are_ unprovoked, and my
duty is clear. I must lose no time in destroying Mr. Welling. Do you
happen to know where I laid my revolver?"
Mrs. Campbell: "Oh, Willis, what are you going to do? You see it's a
mistake."
Campbell: "Mr. Welling has got to prove that. I'm not going to have
young men addressing my wife as Oh their darling, without knowing the
reason why. It's a liberty."
Mrs. Campbell, inclined to laugh: "Ah, Willis, how funny you are!"
Campbell: "Funny? I'm furious."
Mrs. Campbell: "You know you're not. Give me the letter, dearest. I know
it's for Margaret Rice, and I shall see her, and just feel round and
find out if it isn't so, and--"
Campbell: "What an idea! You haven't the slightest evidence that it's
for Miss Rice, or that it isn't intended for you, and it's my duty to
find out. And nobody is authority but Mr. Welling. And I'm going to him
with the _corpus delicti_."
Mrs. Campbell: "But how can you? Remember how sensitive, how shrinking
he is. Don't, Willis; you mustn't. It will kill him!"
Campbell: "Well, that may save me considerable bother. If he will simply
die of himself, I can't ask anything better." He goes on eating his
breakfast.
Mrs. Campbell, admiring him across the table: "Oh, Willis, how perfectly
delightful you are!"
Campbell: "I know; but why?"
Mrs. Campbell: "Why, taking it in the nice, sensible way you do. Now,
some husbands would be so stupid! Of course you _couldn't_ think--you
couldn't _dream_--that the letter was really for me; and yet you might
behave very disagreeably, and make me very unhappy, if you were not just
the lovely, kind-hearted, magnanimous--"
Campbell, looking up from his coffee: "Oh, hello!"
Mrs. Campbell: "Yes; that is what took my fancy in you, Willis: that
generosity, that real gentleness, in spite of the brusque way you have.
Refinement of the heart, _I_ call it."
Campbell: "Amy, what are you after?"
Mrs. Campbell: "We've been married a whole year now--"
Campbell: "Longer, isn't it?"
Mrs. Campbell: "--And I haven't known you do an unkind thing, a brutal
thing."
Campbell: "Well, I understand the banging around hardly ever begins much
under two years."
Mrs. Campbell: "How _sweet_ you are! And you're _so_ funny always!"
Campbell: "Come, come, Amy; get down to business. What is it you do
want?"
Mrs. Campbell: "You won't go and tease that poor boy about his letter,
will you? Just hand it to him, and say you suppose here is something
that has come into your possession by mistake, and that you wish to
restore it to him, and then--just run off."
Campbell: "With my parasol in one hand, and my skirts caught up in the
other?"
Mrs. Campbell: "Oh, how good! Of course I was imagining how _I_ should
do it."
Campbell: "Well, a man can't do it that way. He would look silly." He
rises from the table, and comes and puts his arm round her shoulders.
"But you needn't be afraid of my being rough with him. Of course it's a
mistake; but he's a fellow who will enter into the joke too; he'll enjoy
it; he'll--" He merges his sentence in a kiss on her upturned lips, and
she clings to his hand with her right, pressing it fondly to her cheek.
"I shall do it in a man's way; but I guess you'll approve of it quite as
much."
Mrs. Campbell: "I know I shall. That's what I like about you, Willis:
your being so helplessly a man always."
Campbell: "Well, that's what attracted me to you, Amy; your manliness."
Mrs. Campbell: "And I liked your _finesse_. You are awfully inventive,
Willis. Why, Willis, I've just thought of something. Oh, it would be
_so_ good if you only would!"
Campbell: "Would what?"
Mrs. Campbell: "Invent something now to get us out of the scrape."
Campbell: "What a brilliant idea! _I'm_ not in any scrape. And as for
Mr. Welling, I don't see how you could help him out unless you sent this
letter to Miss Rice, and asked her to send yours back--"
Mrs. Campbell, springing to her feet: "Willis, you are inspired! Oh, how
perfectly delightful! And it's so delicate of you to think of that! I
will just enclose his note--give it here, Willis--and he need never know
that it ever went to the wrong address. Oh, I always felt that you were
_truly_ refined, anyway." He passively yields the letter, and she whirls
away to a writing-desk in the corner of the room. "Now, I'll just keep a
copy of the letter--for a joke; I think I've a perfect right
to"--scribbling furiously away--"and then I'll match the paper with an
envelope--I can do that perfectly--and then I'll just imitate his
hand--such fun!--and send it flying over to Margaret Rice. Oh, _how_
good! Touch the bell, Willis;" and then--as the serving-maid
appears--"Yes, Jane! Run right across the lawn to Mrs. Rice's, and give
this letter for Miss Margaret, and say it was left here by mistake.
Well, it _was_, Willis. Fly, Jane! Oh, Willis, love! Isn't it perfect!
Of course she'll have got his formal reply to my invitation, and be all
mixed up by it, and now when this note comes, she'll see through it all
in an instant, and it will be such a relief to her; and oh, she'll think
that he's directed _both_ the letters to her because he couldn't think
of any one else! Isn't it lovely? Just like anything that's nice, it's
ten times as nice as you expected it to be; and--"
Campbell: "But hold on, Amy!" He lifts a note from the desk. "You've
sent your copy. Here's the original now. She'll think you've been
playing some joke on her."
Mrs. Campbell, clutching the letter from him, and scanning it in a daze:
"_What!_ Oh, my goodness! It is! I have! Oh, I shall die! Run! Call her
back! Shriek, Willis!" They rush to the window together. "No, no! It's
too late! She's given it to their man, and now nothing can save me! Oh,
Willis! Willis! Willis! This is all your fault, with that fatal
suggestion of yours. Oh, if you had only left it to me I never should
have got into such a scrape! She will think now that I've been trying to
hoax her, and she's perfectly implacable at the least hint of a liberty,
and she'll be ready to kill me. I don't know _what_ she won't do. Oh,
Willis, how _could_ you get me into this!"
Campbell, irately: "Get you into this! Now, Amy, this is a little too
much. You got yourself into it. You urged me to think of something--"
Mrs. Campbell: "Well, do, Willis, _do_ think of something, or I shall go
mad! Help me, Willis! Don't be so heartless--so unfeeling."
Campbell: "There's only one thing now, and that is to make a clean
breast of it to Welling, and get him to help us out. A word from him can
make everything right, and we can't take a step without him; we can't
move!"
Mrs. Campbell: "I can't let you. Oh, isn't it horrible!"
Campbell: "Yes; a nice thing is always ten times nicer than you
expected it to be!"
Mrs. Campbell: "Oh, how can you stand there mocking me? Why don't you go
to him at once, and tell him the whole thing, and beg him, implore him,
to help us?"
Campbell: "Why, you just told me I mustn't!"
Mrs. Campbell: "You didn't expect me to say you might, did you? Oh, how
cruel!" She whirls out of the room, and Campbell stands in a daze, in
which he is finally aware of Mr. Arthur Welling, seen through the open
window, on the veranda without. Mr. Welling, with a terrified and
furtive air, seems to be fixed to the spot where he stands.
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.
VIII
_MISS RICE, MISS GREENWAY, and the OTHERS_
Miss Rice, entering with an unopened letter in her hand, which she
extends to Mrs. Campbell: "What in the world does it all mean, Mrs.
Campbell, your sending your letters flying after _me_ at this rate?"
Mrs. Campbell, with a gasp: "My letters?" She mechanically receives the
extended note, and glances at the superscription: "_Mrs. Willis
Campbell_. Ah!" She hands it quickly to her husband, who reads the
address with a similar cry.
Campbell: "Well, well, Amy! This is a pretty good joke on you. You've
sealed up one of your own notes, and sent it to Miss Rice. Capital! Ah,
ha, ha!"
Mrs. Campbell, with hysterical rapture: "Oh, how delicious! What a
ridiculous blunder! I don't wonder you were puzzled, Margaret."
Welling: "What! Sent her your own letter, addressed to yourself?"
Mrs. Campbell: "Yes. Isn't it amusing?"
Welling: "The best thing I ever heard of."
Miss Rice: "Yes. And if you only knew what agonies of curiosity Miss
Greenway and I had suffered, wanting to open it and read it anyway, in
spite of all the decencies, I think you would read it to us."
Campbell: "Or at least give Miss Rice her own letter. What in the world
did you do with that?"
Mrs. Campbell: "Put it in my desk, where I thought I put mine. But never
mind it now. I can tell you what was in it just as well. Come in here a
moment, Margaret." She leads the way to the parlor, whither Miss Rice
follows.
Miss Greenway, poutingly: "Oh, mayn't I know, too? I think that's hardly
fair, Mrs. Campbell."
Mrs. Campbell: "No; or--Margaret may tell you afterwards; or Mr.
Welling may, _now_!"
Miss Greenway: "How very formidable!"
Mrs. Campbell, over her shoulder, on going out: "Willis, bring me the
refusals and acceptances, won't you? They're up-stairs."
Campbell: "Delighted to be of any service." Behind Miss Greenway's back
he dramatizes over her head to Welling his sense of his own escape, and
his compassion for the fellow-man whom he leaves in the toils of fate.
IX
_MISS GREENWAY; MR. WELLING_
Welling: "Nelly!" He approaches, and timidly takes her hand.
Miss Greenway: "Arthur! That letter was addressed in your handwriting.
Will you please explain?"
Welling: "Why, it's very simple--that is, it's the most difficult thing
in the world. Nelly, can you believe _any_thing I say to you?"
Miss Greenway: "What nonsense! Of course I can--if you're not too long
about it."
Welling: "Well, then, the letter in that envelope was one I wrote to
Mrs. Campbell--or the copy of one."
Miss Greenway: "The copy?"
Welling: "But let me explain. You see, when I got your note asking me to
be sure and come to Mrs. Curwen's--"
Miss Greenway: "Yes?"
Welling: "--I had just received an invitation from Mrs. Campbell for her
garden-party, and I sat down and wrote to you, and concluded I'd step
over and tell her why I couldn't come, and with that in mind I addressed
your letter--the one I'd written you--to her."
Miss Greenway: "With my name inside?"
Welling: "No; I merely called you 'darling'; and when Mrs. Campbell
opened it she saw it couldn't be for her, and she took it into her head
it must be for Miss Rice."
Miss Greenway: "For Margaret? What an idea! But why did she put your
envelope on it?"
Welling: "She made a copy, for the joke of it; and then, in her hurry,
she enclosed that in my envelope, and kept the original and the envelope
she'd addressed to Miss Rice, and--and that's all."
Miss Greenway: "What a perfectly delightful muddle! And how shall we get
out of it with Margaret?"
Welling: "With Margaret? I don't care for her. It's you that I want to
get out of it with. And you do believe me--you do forgive me, Nelly?"
Miss Greenway: "For what?"
Welling: "For--for--I don't know what for. But I thought you'd be so
vexed."
Miss Greenway: "I shouldn't have liked you to send a letter addressed
darling to Mrs. Curwen; but Mrs. Campbell is different."
Welling: "Oh, how archangelically sensible! How divine of you to take it
in just the right way!"
[Illustration: MR. WELLING EXPLAINS.]
Miss Greenway: "Why, of course! How stupid I should be to take such a
thing in the wrong way!"
Welling: "And I'm so glad now I didn't try to lie to you about it."
Miss Greenway: "It wouldn't have been of any use. You couldn't have
carried off anything of that sort. The truth is bad enough for _you_ to
carry off. Promise me that you will always leave the other thing to
_me_."
Welling: "I will, darling; I will, indeed."
Miss Greenway: "And now we must tell Margaret, of course."
X
_MISS RICE; then MR. and MRS. CAMPBELL, and the OTHERS_
Miss Rice, rushing in upon them, and clasping Miss Greenway in a fond
embrace: "You needn't. Mrs. Campbell has told me; and oh, Nelly, I'm so
happy for you! And isn't it all the greatest mix?"
Campbell, rushing in, and wringing Welling's hand: "You needn't tell
me, either; I've been listening, and I've heard every word. I
congratulate you, my dear boy! I'd no idea she'd let you up so easily.
You'll allow yourself it isn't a very likely story."
Welling: "I know it. But--"
Miss Rice: "That's the very reason no one could have made it up."
Miss Greenway: "_He_ couldn't have made up even a likely story."
Campbell: "Congratulate you again, Welling. Do you suppose she can keep
so always?"
Mrs. Campbell, rushing in with extended hands: "Don't answer the wretch,
Mr. Welling. Of course she can with _you_. Dansons!" She gives a hand to
Miss Greenway and Welling each; the others join them, and as they circle
round the table she sings,
_"Sur le pont d'Avignon,_
_Tout le monde y danse en rond."_
THE END
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[Illustration]
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