Part 5 (1/2)
Young Mr. Sheridan might perhaps have grudgingly admitted that the morning was beautiful. It would have been hard even for a young man who had definitely made up his mind to be no longer pleased with anything, to deny that there was something almost pleasant in a day as soft and quiet as that June itself could bring, in a garden all enmeshed in net of stirring shadows, and in a free outlook toward hills that glowed with autumn colors.
The old ”home place” wasn't so bad; rather overgrown with weeds and vines and somewhat dilapidated; the roof leaked on the third floor front, and the wooden steps at the back had broken down completely; but this crumbling and tumbling state harmonized with the state of young Mr.
Sheridan's mind. He accepted it with a sort of gloomy satisfaction. This general poetic decay seemed to him quite touchingly suitable to the mood which he fully believed was to color the declining years of his short and blasted life. Mr. Sheridan had convinced himself that he had received a crus.h.i.+ng blow; a blow that no self-respecting gentleman _ought_ to survive for very long. He had convinced himself that he neither could nor should be happy again. He had quite made up his mind that the world was a dreary waste, and all human beings, rascals and base deceivers, whose society a wise man would shun. This unfriendly humor was directed to mankind in general and to the feminine element in particular.
He had awakened that morning-his first in the old mansion-in a gigantic mahogany bed. Peterson, his servant, was kindling a fire to drive the lingering dampness out of the long unused room.
”Good morning, Mr. Tim, sir,” said Peterson with objectionable cheerfulness, ”I hope sir, ye had a good night?”
Mr. Sheridan eyed the old man with melancholy suspicion. He was loath to cla.s.s Peterson in with the rest of the miserable human race; nevertheless, it was wiser to trust no one absolutely-not even Peterson.
”Oh, well, I suppose I slept as well as I could expect, Peterson. An owl or something woke me up at about one o'clock, and I couldn't get to sleep for hours. But still-”
As a matter of fact, Mr. Sheridan had slept as soundly as a baby, but having been entirely unconscious while he did so, he certainly could not have _known_ whether he was asleep or awake. But his latest fancy was that he suffered from insomnia. Insomnia was the traditional affliction of all broken-hearted lovers, and there was no ailment common to the broken hearted that Mr. Sheridan would allow himself to forego.
”Any letters, Peterson?”
Of course there were no letters. In the first place, who knew or cared that he had buried himself away in this forsaken corner of the earth, and in the second place, what did letters mean to him, who with all the contempt that they deserved had severed his relations with his fellow beings-especially the feminine ones-forever. He must remember not to ask Peterson again if there were any letters. Peterson might imagine that he was so weak as to hope that Miss Abbot had repented of her cruel and barbarous treatment, and under no circ.u.mstances was Peterson to imagine anything of the sort. Why, on the contrary, if Mary, that is to say, Miss Abbot-were to come to him and beg his pardon on her knees, and tell him that she knew she was a wicked coquette, and unworthy of his slightest notice, he would say to her,
”No, Mary-or, No, Madam, what you ask now is no longer in my power to give. My forgiveness is yours-gladly, but neither you nor I can revive-or, but never again, I fear, can that sweet emotion-” or anyhow, something to the effect that while he forgave her gladly-he wouldn't forgive her at all. But magnanimously. He would be very magnanimous.
Nothing could be more crus.h.i.+ng than a lofty and unapproachable kindness.
He would let her know the extent of the damage she had wrought, but she should also be made to feel that he was capable of supporting it without bitterness-to the end.
So engrossed was he in the composition of that final speech of forgiveness and farewell-which he had composed at least a dozen times already-that he absent-mindedly tucked away every morsel of Peterson's generously provided breakfast, comprising fruit and coffee, poached eggs, bacon, marmalade, and half a dozen of the most exquisite rolls he had ever eaten.
”Those rolls, Peterson-they are rather nice,” he remarked, with a touch of enthusiasm that he quickly suppressed.
”Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Tim. I'm glad to have found something as pleases you, sir,” said Peterson, with a perfectly grave face.
”Yes. My appet.i.te hasn't been very good lately.”
”No, Mr. Tim,” agreed Peterson, tactfully.
After a short silence, Mr. Sheridan asked indifferently,
”Where did you get them?”
”Up in the town, sir. There's a Bakery there sir as I never see the like of, Mr. Tim. Why, what with the cakes and rolls and puddin's and what-not, I fairly lost me eyes, sir! You should stroll up to the town, like, Mr. Tim. It's a neat little place, sure enough-”
His young master checked him gently, reminding him with a little wave of his hand, that he could not be expected to be interested in all that.
”But the rolls, Peterson. You might see that I have them for breakfast every morning.” So saying, he lit a cigarette, and walked out through the open window into his garden to meditate; leaving Peterson to meditate in his turn on this absolutely novel way of acting that Mr. Tim had adopted. Why, he could hardly believe that this formal and taciturn gentleman was Mr. Tim at all, and the old man who remembered the days, not long since, when he had connived in all sorts of pranks and waggery; when he had, many's the time, been called in as judge and counsel as to how his young master should get himself out of this and that ”sc.r.a.pe,”
when in fact, Mr. Tim never dreamed of doing anything without Peterson's opinion-remembering those jolly days when he had been honored with Mr.
Tim's perfect confidence, Peterson felt wounded. Then he glanced through the window. Mr. Tim, who had been promenading back and forth, leaning on a stick, in keeping with his extraordinary notion that blighted love always left one a semi-invalid, had now allowed himself to sink wearily onto a stone bench. On second thought, Peterson did not feel wounded; he felt rather like shaking dear Mr. Tim.
”Say what you like, that's no way to go on, now. Life's too easy for him, and that's the truth, though I don't say I wouldn't hate to see it hard for him. But to take on so, just because a young lady was pleased to make up her mind not to have him! 'Tisn't every young feller has the leisure to sit and mope himself into the vapors over a chip in his heart, that'll be whole again in three months.” Then Peterson grinned.
After all, such absurdities had not been entirely absent from his own youth; and he could not find it in his heart to censure Mr. Tim severely for any of his eccentricities. In his opinion this young man whom he had systematically spoiled since his childhood was not to be judged by common standards. Things that one might call faults in other young gentlemen, became merely ”peculiarities” in the case of Mr. Tim. And it was not Peterson alone who inclined to shameless leniency with young Mr.
Sheridan. His friends always managed to explain why it was perfectly all right for Tim to do things he oughtn't to do, and leave undone all the things he ought to do; at college his teachers were forever giving him one more chance, and at home his grumpy uncle scolded him and pampered him, and feebly allowed his usually sharp old wits to be completely fuddled by Tim's airy arguments.
”Somehow or other you'll manage to persuade all your devoted friends and wellwishers to help you to the dogs,” Major Sheridan had once remarked acidly; and as proof of the truth of this, as the Major himself pointed out, the old man, notwithstanding many threats of disinheritance, had left every sou of his fortune to his nephew, simply because, while his common sense told him that the best thing in the world for the young man would be to leave him nothing at all, like Peterson he couldn't quite bear the thought of Tim's lacking anything.