The Essential Booth Tarkington Collection. Booth Tarkington
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who went to the door," Mrs. Madison answered. "I do not ask Cora because Cora hasn't seen him. Do I satisfy you, Hedrick?"
"`Cora hasn't seen him!'" the boy hooted mockingly. "She hasn't? She was peeking out of the library shutters when he came up the front walk, and she wouldn't let me go to the door; she told Laura to go, but first she took the library waste-basket and laid one o' them roses----"
"_Those_ roses," said Cora sharply. "He _will_ hang around the neighbours' stables. I think you ought to do something about it, mother."
"_Them_ roses!" repeated Hedrick fiercely. "One o' them roses Dick Lindley sent her this morning. Laid it in the waste-basket and sneaked it into the reception room for an excuse to go galloping in and----"
"`Galloping'?" said Mrs. Madison gravely.
"It was a pretty bum excuse," continued the unaffected youth, "but you bet your life you'll never beat our Cora-_lee_ when there's a person in pants on the premises! It's sickening." He rose, and performed something like a toe-dance, a supposed imitation of his sister's mincing approach to the visitor. "Oh, dear, I am such a little sweety! Here I am all alone just reeking with Browning-and-Tennyson and thinking to myself about such lovely things, and walking around looking for my nice, pretty rose. Where can it be? Oh heavens, Mister, are _you_ here? Oh my, I never, never thought that there was a _man_ here! How you frighten me! See what a shy little thing I am? You _do see, don't_ you, old sweeticums? Ta, ta, here's papa. Remember me by that rose, 'cause it's just like me. Me and it's twins, you see, cutie-sugar!" The diabolical boy then concluded with a reversion to the severity of his own manner: "If she was _my_ daughter I'd whip her!"
His indignation was left in the air, for the three ladies had instinctively united against him, treacherously including his private feud in the sex-war of the ages: Cora jumped lightly upon the table and sat whistling and polishing the nails of one hand upon the palm of another; Laura continued to sew without looking up, and Mrs. Madison, conquering a tendency to laugh, preserved a serene countenance and said ruminatively:
"They were all rather queer, the Corlisses."
Hedrick stared incredulously, baffled; but men must expect these things, and this was no doubt a helpful item in his education.
"I wonder if he wants to sell the house," said Mrs. Madison.
"I wish he would. Anything that would make father get out of it!" Cora exclaimed. "I hope Mr. Corliss will burn it if he doesn't sell it."
"He might want to live here himself."
"He!" Cora emitted a derisive outcry.
Her mother gave her a quick, odd look, in which there was a real alarm. "What is he like, Cora?"
"Awfully foreign and distinguished!"
This brought Hedrick to confront her with a leap as of some wild animal under a lash. He landed close to her; his face awful.
"Princely, I should call him," said Cora, her enthusiasm undaunted. "Distinctly princely!"
"Princely," moaned Hedrick. "Pe-rin-sley!"
"Hedrick!" Mrs. Madison reproved him automatically. "In what way is he `foreign,' Cora?"
"Oh, every way." Cora let her glance rest dreamily upon the goaded boy. "He has a splendid head set upon a magnificent torso----"
"_Torso_!" Hedrick whispered hoarsely.
"Tall, a glorious figure--like a young guardsman's." Madness was gathering in her brother's eyes; and observing it with quiet pleasure, she added: "One sees immediately he has the grand manner, the bel air."
Hedrick exploded. "`_Bel air_'!" he screamed, and began to jump up and down, tossing his arms frantically, and gasping with emotion. "Oh, bel air! Oh, blah! `Henry Esmond!' Been readin' `Henry Esmond!' Oh, you be-yoo-tiful Cora-Beatrix-a-_lee_! Magganifisent torso! Gull_o_-rious figgi-your! Bel air! Oh, slush! Oh, luv-a-ly slush!" He cast himself convulsively upon the floor, full length. "Luv-a-ly, _luv_-a-ly slush!"
"He is thirty, I should say," continued Cora, thoughtfully. "Yes--about thirty. A strong, keen face, rather tanned. He's between fair and dark----"
Hedrick raised himself to the attitude of the "Dying Gaul." "And with `hair slightly silvered at the temples!' _Ain_'t his hair slightly silvered at the temples?" he cried imploringly. "Oh, sister, in pity's name let his hair be slightly silvered at the temples? Only three grains of corn, your Grace; my children are starving!"
He collapsed again, laid his face upon his extended arms, and writhed.
"He has rather wonderful eyes," said Cora. "They seem to look right through you."
"Slush, slush, luv-a-ly slush," came in muffled tones from the floor.
"And he wears his clothes so well--so differently! You feel at once that he's not a person, but a personage."
Hedrick sat up, his eyes closed, his features contorted as with agony, and chanted, impromptu:
"Slush, slush, luv-a-ly, slush! Le'ss all go a-swimmin' in a dollar's worth o' mush. Slush in the morning, slush at night, If I don't get my slush I'm bound to get tight!"
"Hedrick!" said his mother.
"Altogether I should say that Mr. Valentine Corliss looks as if he lived up to his name," Cora went on tranquilly. "Valentine Corliss of Corliss Street--I think I rather like the sound of that name." She let her beautiful voice linger upon it, caressingly. "Valentine Corliss."
Hedrick opened his eyes, allowed his countenance to resume its ordinary proportions, and spoke another name slowly and with honeyed thoughtfulness:
"Ray Vilas."
This was the shot that told. Cora sprang down from the table with an exclamation.
Hedrick, subduing elation, added gently, in a mournful whisper:
"_Poor_ old Dick Lindley!"
His efforts to sting his sister were completely successful at last: Cora was visibly agitated, and appealed hotly to her mother. "Am I to bear this kind of thing all my life? Aren't you _ever_ going to punish his insolence?"
"Hedrick, Hedrick!" said Mrs. Madison sadly.
Cora turned to the girl by the window with a pathetic gesture. "Laura----" she said, and hesitated.
Laura Madison looked up into her sister's troubled eyes.
"I feel so morbid," said Cora, flushing a little and glancing away. "I wish----" She stopped.
The silent Laura set aside her work, rose and went out of the room. Her cheeks, too, had reddened faintly, a circumstance sharply noted by the terrible boy. He sat where he was, asprawl, propped by his arms behind him, watching with acute concentration the injured departure of Cora, following her sister. At the door, Cora, without pausing, threw him a look over her shoulder: a full-eyed shot of frankest hatred.
A few moments later, magnificent chords sounded through the house. The piano was old, but tuned to the middle of the note, and the keys were swept by a master hand. The wires were not hammered; they were touched knowingly as by the player's own fingers, and so they sang--and from out among the chords there stole an errant melody. This was not "piano-playing" and not a pianist's triumphant nimbleness--it was music. Art is the language of a heart that knows how to speak, and a heart that knew how was speaking here. What it told was something immeasurably wistful, something that might have welled up in the breast of a young girl standing at twilight in an April orchard. It was the inexpressible made into sound, an improvisation by a master player.
"You hear what she's up to?" said Hedrick, turning his head at last. But his mother had departed.
He again extended