A Woman's Reason. William Dean HowellsЧитать онлайн книгу.
and he spoke low; and he could not be got to repeat what he said; he always said. something different the second time, and if he only looked as if he were going to speak, his prospective sisters-in-law fell helplessly silent. He was not quite so tall as Marian, and he was much slighter; she generously prided herself upon being unable to wear his gloves, which Jessie Butler could just get on. He was a very scrupulously perfect man as to his gloves, and every part of his dress, which the young ladies now criticized in detail, after he had paid his duty to Helen and their mother. They all used him with a freedom that amused Helen, and that was not much short of the frankness with which Marian came out and planted a large kiss upon his lips, and then, without speaking to him, turned to her mother with an air of housekeeperly pre-occupation to ask something about the lunch, and disappeared again.
Mr. Ray took everything with grave composure, a little point of light in either of his brown eyes, and the slightest curve of the small brown moustache that curled tightly in over his upper lip, showing his sense from time to time of what he must have found droll if someone else had been in his place. He had an affectionate deference for Mrs. Butler that charmed Helen. He carved at lunch with a mastery of the difficult art, and he was quite at ease in his character of head of the family. It gave Helen a sort of shock to detect him in pressing Marian's hand under the table; but upon reflection, she was not sure that she disapproved of it.
She perceived that she must revise her opinion of Mr. Ray. Without being witty, his talk was bright and to the last degree sensible, with an edge of satire for the young girls, to whom at the same time he was alertly attentive. Helen thought his manner exquisite, especially towards herself in her quality of Marian's old and valued friend; it was just what the manner of a man in his place should be. He talked a good deal to her, and told her he had spent most of the summer on the water, "Which accounts," she mused, "for his brown little hands, not much bigger than a Jap law-student's, and for that perfect mass of freckles." He said he was expecting his boat round from Manchester; and he hoped that she would come with the other young ladies and take a look at her after lunch. He said "boat" so low that Helen could just catch the word, and she smiled in consenting to go and look at it, for she imagined from his deprecatory tone that it was something like a dory which might have been bestowed upon Mr. Ray's humility by some kindly fisherman. Walking to the shore by Helen's side he said something further about running down to Mt. Dessert in his boat, and about one of his men knowing how to broil a mackerel pretty well, which puzzled her, and shook her in her error, just before they came upon a vision of snowy duck and paint, and shining brasses, straight and slim and exquisite as Helen herself in line, and light as a bird dipped for a moment upon the water. A small boat put out for them, and they were received on board the yacht with grave welcome by Mr. Ray, whose simple dress—so far hitherto from proclaiming itself nautical in cut or color—now appeared perfectly adapted to yachting. He did not seem to do the host here anymore than at Captain Butler's table, but he distinguished Helen as his chief guest, with a subtle accent in his politeness that gave her quick nerves something of the pleasure of a fine touch in music. She was now aware that she admired Mr. Ray, and she wondered if he did not look shorter than he really was.
She found it quite in character that he should have a friend on board, whom he had not mentioned to any of them, and whom he now introduced in his most suppressed tones. The friend was a tall young Englishman, in blue Scotch stuff; and Helen decided at once that his shoulders sloped too much; he talked very far down in his throat, and he had a nervous laugh; Helen discovered that he had also a shy, askance effect of having just looked at you.
Ray asked the ladies if they would fish, and when they would not, he frankly tried to entertain them in other ways. It came out that he could both play and sing; and he picked on a banjo the air of a Canadian boat-song he had learned at Gaspé the summer before. That made the girls ask him to show his sketches of the habitans, and Helen thought them very good, and very droll, done with vigor and chic. He made the afternoon pass charmingly, but what amused Helen most was Marian's having already got his tone about his possessions and accomplishments; her instinct would not suffer her to afflict him by any show of pride in them, proud as she was of them; and on the yacht there was no approach to endearments between them. "Really," thought Helen, "Marian will be equal to it, after all," and began to respect her sex. After supper, which Ray offered them on board, and which that one of the men who could broil a mackerel pretty well served with touches of exquisite marine cookery, Helen felt that it would be mean to refrain any longer. "Marian," she whispered to her friend apart, "he is perfect!" and Marian looked gratefully at her and breathed "Yes!"
Helen was generous, but the proximity of this prosperous love made her feel very desolate and left behind. The aching tenderness for Robert, which was at the bottom of all her moods, throbbed sorer; she must still it somehow, and she began to talk with the Englishman. As she went on, she could not help seeing that the young Butler girls, innocently wondering at her under their bangs, were suffering some loss of an ideal, and that Marian's averted eyes were reflecting Mr. Ray's disapproval, otherwise hidden deeper than the sea over which they sailed.
The Englishman, after a moment of awkward hesitation and apparent self-question, seemed to fall an easy prey. He presently hung about her quite helplessly; but his helplessness did not make her pity him. "So nice," he said, as they sat a little apart, after Ray had attempted a diversion with another Canadian barcarole, "to be able to do something of that kind. But it isn't very common in the States, is it, Miss—Harkness?"
"I don't understand. Do you mean that we don't commonly know Canadian boat-songs? I don't suppose we do."
"No, no; I don't mean that!" replied Mr. Rainford; if that was the name which Helen had caught. "I meant being able to do something, you know, to keep the ball rolling, as you say."
"Do we say 'keep the ball rolling'?" Helen affected to muse.
"I heard it was an Americanism," said Mr. Rainford, laughing at the pretense she made, with her downward look, of giving his words anxious thought. "I was thinking of the Canadians when I spoke. They seem to be up to all sorts of things. I was at a place last month—Old Beach or Old Orchard— something like that—where the Montreal people come; and some of those fellows knew no end of things. Songs, like Mr. Ray's; and tricks; and— and—well, I don't know."
Helen shook her head. "No, we don't have those accomplishments in the States, as you say. We're a serious people."
"I don't know," laughed Mr. Rainford. "You have your own fun, I suppose."
"In our poor way, yes. We go to lectures, and attend the public-school exhibitions, and—yes, we have our amusements."
Mr. Rainford seemed carried quite beyond himself by these ironical impertinences. "Really, I can't admit that they're all of that kind. I saw a good deal of an amusement at the sea-side that I was told was not very serious."
"Indeed! What could it have been?" asked Helen, with the affectation of deep interest.
"Oh, surely now, Miss Harkness, you don't expect me to explain it. All the young people seemed to understand it; the Canadian ladies said it was an American institution." She did not help him on, and he had to get out of the affair as he could. He reddened with the effort. "I must say it seemed very pleasant, at least for the two people concerned."
"Oh, only two !" cried Helen.
The poor young man laughed gratefully, and took up the burden of silliness which she now left wholly to him. "Yes; a young lady—always very charming—and—"
"A gentleman always very brilliant and interesting. Oh, yes!" She turned about on her campstool with an unconscious air, and began to talk to the young Butler girls. She had provoked his recognition of the situation, if he had meant his allusion to sea-side flirtations for that, but her fretted nerves did not resent it the less because she was in the wrong. She could have said that there was nothing in her words, and afterwards she did say so to herself; but, as if he found a personal edge in them, Mr. Rainford sat quite blank for a moment; then after some attempts at self-recovery in talk with the others, he rose and went below.
"Ned," said Marian, " where did you pick up that particularly odious Englishman?" In her vexation with Helen, it was necessary to assail someone.
"He's