Tales of Men and Ghosts. Edith Wharton

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СКАЧАТЬ laughed too, impatiently. “The Buckle? No, I’m not ashamed of the Buckle; not any more than you are,” he returned with a sudden bright flush. “But I’m ashamed of all I owe to it—all I owe to you—when—when—” He broke off and took a few distracted steps across the room. “You might make this easier for me,” he protested, turning back to his father.

      “Make what easier? I know less and less what you’re driving at,” Mr. Grew groaned.

      Ronald’s walk had once more brought him beneath the photograph on the wall. He lifted his head for a moment and looked at it; then he looked again at Mr. Grew.

      “Do you suppose I haven’t always known?”

      “Known—?”

      “Even before you gave me those letters—after my mother’s death—even before that, I suspected. I don’t know how it began … perhaps from little things you let drop … you and she … and resemblances that I couldn’t help seeing … in myself … How on earth could you suppose I shouldn’t guess? I always thought you gave me the letters as a way of telling me—”

      Mr. Grew rose slowly from his chair. “The letters? Dolbrowski’s letters?”

      Ronald nodded with white lips. “You must remember giving them to me the day after the funeral.”

      Mr. Grew nodded back. “Of course. I wanted you to have everything your mother valued.”

      “Well—how could I help knowing after that?”

      “Knowing what?” Mr. Grew stood staring helplessly at his son. Suddenly his look caught at a clue that seemed to confront it with a deeper bewilderment. “You thought—you thought those letters … Dolbrowski’s letters … you thought they meant …”

      “Oh, it wasn’t only the letters. There were so many other signs. My love of music—my—all my feelings about life … and art … And when you gave me the letters I thought you must mean me to know.”

      Mr. Grew had grown quiet. His lips were firm, and his small eyes looked out steadily from their creased lids.

      “To know that you were Fortune Dolbrowski’s son?”

      Ronald made a mute sign of assent.

      “I see. And what did you mean to do?”

      “I meant to wait till I could earn my living, and then repay you … as far as I can ever repay you … But now that there’s a chance of my marrying … and your generosity overwhelms me … I’m obliged to speak.”

      “I see,” said Mr. Grew again. He let himself down into his chair, looking steadily and not unkindly at the young man. “Sit down, Ronald. Let’s talk.”

      Ronald made a protesting movement. “Is anything to be gained by it? You can’t change me—change what I feel. The reading of those letters transformed my whole life—I was a boy till then: they made a man of me. From that moment I understood myself.” He paused, and then looked up at Mr. Grew’s face. “Don’t imagine I don’t appreciate your kindness—your extraordinary generosity. But I can’t go through life in disguise. And I want you to know that I have not won Daisy under false pretences—”

      Mr. Grew started up with the first expletive Ronald had ever heard on his lips.

      “You damned young fool, you, you haven’t told her—?”

      Ronald raised his head quickly. “Oh, you don’t know her, sir! She thinks no worse of me for knowing my secret. She is above and beyond all such conventional prejudices. She’s proud of my parentage—” he straightened his slim young shoulders—“as I’m proud of it … yes, sir, proud of it …”

      Mr. Grew sank back into his seat with a dry laugh. “Well, you ought to be. You come of good stock. And you’re father’s son, every inch of you!” He laughed again, as though the humor of the situation grew on him with its closer contemplation.

      “Yes, I’ve always felt that,” Ronald murmured, flushing.

      “Your father’s son, and no mistake.” Mr. Grew leaned forward. “You’re the son of as big a fool as yourself. And here he sits, Ronald Grew.”

      The young man’s flush deepened to crimson; but Mr. Grew checked his reply with a decisive gesture. “Here he sits, with all your young nonsense still alive in him. Don’t you see the likeness? If you don’t, I’ll tell you the story of those letters.”

      Ronald stared. “What do you mean? Don’t they tell their own story?”

      “I supposed they did when I gave them to you; but you’ve given it a twist that needs straightening out.” Mr. Grew squared his elbows on the table, and looked at the young man across the gift-books and the dyed pampas grass. “I wrote all the letters that Dolbrowski answered.”

      Ronald gave back his look in frowning perplexity. “You wrote them? I don’t understand. His letters are all addressed to my mother.”

      “Yes. And he thought he was corresponding with her.”

      “But my mother—what did she think?”

      Mr. Grew hesitated, puckering his thick lids. “Well, I guess she kinder thought it was a joke. Your mother didn’t think about things much.”

      Ronald continued to bend a puzzled frown on the question. “I don’t understand,” he reiterated.

      Mr. Grew cleared his throat with a nervous laugh. “Well, I don’t know as you ever will—quite. But this is the way it came about. I had a toughish time of it when I was young. Oh, I don’t mean so much the fight I had to put up to make my way—there was always plenty of fight in me. But inside of myself it was kinder lonesome. And the outside didn’t attract callers.” He laughed again, with an apologetic gesture toward his broad blinking face. “When I went round with the other young fellows I was always the forlorn hope—the one that had to eat the drumsticks and dance with the left-overs. As sure as there was a blighter at a picnic I had to swing her, and feed her, and drive her home. And all the time I was mad after all the things you’ve got—poetry and music and all the joy-forever business. So there were the pair of us—my face and my imagination—chained together, and fighting, and hating each other like poison.

      “Then your mother came along and took pity on me. It sets up a gawky fellow to find a girl who ain’t ashamed to be seen walking with him Sundays. And I was grateful to your mother, and we got along first-rate. Only I couldn’t say things to her—and she couldn’t answer. Well—one day, a few months after we were married, Dolbrowski came to New York, and the whole place went wild about him. I’d never heard any good music, but I’d always had an inkling of what it must be like, though I couldn’t tell you to this day how I knew. Well, your mother read about him in the papers too, and she thought it’d be the swagger thing to go to New York and hear him play—so we went … I’ll never forget that evening. Your mother wasn’t easily stirred up—she never seemed to need to let off steam. But that night she seemed to understand the way I felt. And when we got back to the hotel she said suddenly: ‘I’d like to tell him how I feel. I’d like to sit right down and write to him.’

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