Ragged Lady. William Dean Howells

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ of that heat-tonic of mine, Albe't, that the docta left for me in Boston. You'll find it in the upper right bureau box, the'a; and I know it'll be the very thing for you. It'll relieve you of that suffocatin' feeling that I always have, comin' up stars. Dea'! I don't see why they don't have an elevata; they make you pay enough; and I wish you'd get me a little more silva, so's't I can give to the chambamaid and the bell-boy; I do hate to be out of it. I guess you been up and out long ago. They did make that polonaise of mine too tight after all I said, and I've been thinkin' how I could get it alt'ed; but I presume there ain't a seamstress to be had around he'e for love or money. Well, now, that's right, Albe't; I'm glad to see you doin' it.”

      Lander had opened the lid of the bureau box, and uncorked a bottle from it, and tilted this to his lips.

      “Don't take too much,” she cautioned him, “or you'll lose the effects. When I take too much of a medicine, it's wo'se than nothing, as fah's I can make out. When I had that spell in Thomasville spring before last, I believe I should have been over it twice as quick if I had taken just half the medicine I did. You don't really feel anyways bad about the heat, do you, Albe't?”

      “I'm all right,” said Lander. He put back the bottle in its place and sat down.

      Mrs. Lander lifted herself on her elbow and looked over at him. “Show me on the bottle how much you took.”

      He got the bottle out again and showed her with his thumb nail a point which he chose at random.

      “Well, that was just about the dose for you,” she said; and she sank down in bed again with the air of having used a final precaution. “You don't want to slow your heat up too quick.”

      Lander did not put the bottle back this time. He kept it in his hand, with his thumb on the cork, and rocked it back and forth on his knees as he spoke. “Why don't you get that woman to alter it for you?”

      “What woman alta what?”

      “Your polonaise. The one whe'e we stopped yestaday.”

      “Oh! Well, I've been thinkin' about that child, Albe't; I did before I went to sleep; and I don't believe I want to risk anything with her. It would be a ca'e,” said Mrs. Lander with a sigh, “and I guess I don't want to take any moa ca'e than what I've got now. What makes you think she could alta my polonaise?”

      “Said she done dress-makin',” said Lander, doggedly.

      “You ha'n't been the'a?”

      He nodded.

      “You didn't say anything to her about her daughta?”

      “Yes, I did,” said Lander.

      “Well, you ce'tainly do equal anything,” said his wife. She lay still awhile, and then she roused herself with indignant energy. “Well, then, I can tell you what, Albe't Landa: you can go right straight and take back everything you said. I don't want the child, and I won't have her. I've got care enough to worry me now, I should think; and we should have her whole family on our hands, with that shiftless father of hers, and the whole pack of her brothas and sistas. What made you think I wanted you to do such a thing?”

      “You wanted me to do it last night. Wouldn't ha'dly let me go to bed.”

      “Yes! And how many times have I told you nova to go off and do a thing that I wanted you to, unless you asked me if I did? Must I die befo'e you can find out that there is such a thing as talkin', and such anotha thing as doin'? You wouldn't get yourself into half as many scrapes if you talked more and done less, in this wo'ld.” Lander rose.

      “Wait! Hold on! What are you going to say to the pooa thing? She'll be so disappointed!”

      “I don't know as I shall need to say anything myself,” answered the little man, at his dryest. “Leave that to you.”

      “Well, I can tell you,” returned his wife, “I'm not goin' nea' them again; and if you think—What did you ask the woman, anyway?”

      “I asked her,” he said, “if she wanted to let the gul come and see you about some sewing you had to have done, and she said she did.”

      “And you didn't speak about havin' her come to live with us?”

      “No.”

      “Well, why in the land didn't you say so before, Albe't?”

      “You didn't ask me. What do you want I should say to her now?”

      “Say to who?”

      “The gul. She's down in the pahlor, waitin'.”

      “Well, of all the men!” cried Mrs. Lander. But she seemed to find herself, upon reflection, less able to cope with Lander personally than with the situation generally. “Will you send her up, Albe't?” she asked, very patiently, as if he might be driven to further excesses, if not delicately handled. As soon as he had gone out of the room she wished that she had told him to give her time to dress and have her room put in order, before he sent the child up; but she could only make the best of herself in bed with a cap and a breakfast jacket, arranged with the help of a handglass. She had to get out of bed to put her other clothes away in the closet and she seized the chance to push the breakfast tray out of the door, and smooth up the bed, while she composed her features and her ideas to receive her visitor. Both, from long habit rather than from any cause or reason, were of a querulous cast, and her ordinary tone was a snuffle expressive of deep-seated affliction. She was at once plaintive and voluable, and in moments of excitement her need of freeing her mind was so great that she took herself into her own confidence, and found a more sympathetic listener than when she talked to her husband. As she now whisked about her room in her bed-gown with an activity not predicable of her age and shape, and finally plunged under the covering and drew it up to her chin with one hand while she pressed it out decorously over her person with the other, she kept up a rapid flow of lamentation and conjecture. “I do suppose he'll be right back with her before I'm half ready; and what the man was thinkin' of to do such a thing anyway, I don't know. I don't know as she'll notice much, comin' out of such a lookin' place as that, and I don't know as I need to care if she did. But if the'e's care anywhe's around, I presume I'm the one to have it. I presume I did take a fancy to her, and I guess I shall be glad to see how I like her now; and if he's only told her I want some sewin' done, I can scrape up something to let her carry home with her. It's well I keep my things where I can put my hand on 'em at a time like this, and I don't believe I shall sca'e the child, as it is. I do hope Albe't won't hang round half the day before he brings her; I like to have a thing ova.”

      Lander wandered about looking for the girl through the parlors and the piazzas, and then went to the office to ask what had become of her.

      The landlord came out of his room at his question to the clerk. “Oh, I guess she's round in my wife's room, Mr. Landa. She always likes to see Clementina, and I guess they all do. She's a so't o' pet amongst 'em.”

      “No hurry,” said Lander, “I guess my wife ain't quite ready for her yet.”

      “Well, she'll be right out, in a minute or so,” said the landlord.

      The old man tilted his hat forward over his eyes, and went to sit on the veranda and look at the landscape while he waited. It was one of the loveliest landscapes in the mountains; the river flowed at the foot of an abrupt slope from the road before the hotel, stealing into and out of the СКАЧАТЬ