"Do you mean the recollections of Brook Farm, taken down from the lips of the old poet as he had it from a member of the fraternity there--"
"Faked, dear boy, faked, every one of them." She was gathering cheerfulness by the way.
"The story of Hawthorne and the first edition--"
"Hypothetical. Grouse in the gun-room."
"Do you mean that the story of the old slave who came to your mother"s door in Waltham, and the three abolitionists on their way to the meeting--"
"Now what"s the use, Billy Stark?" cried the old lady. "I told you it was a fake from beginning to end. So it is. So is every page of it. If I"d written my recollections as they were, the book would have been a pamphlet of twenty odd pages. It would have said I married a learned professor because I thought if I got into Cambridge society I should see life, and life was what I wanted. It would have gone on to say I found it death and nothing else, and when my husband died I spent all the money I could get trying to see life and I never saw it then. Who"d have printed that? Pretty recollections, I should say!"
Mr. Stark was still musing, his eyes interrogating her.
"It"s really incredible, Florrie," he said at last. "Poor dear! you needed the money."
"That wasn"t it."
"Then what was?"
"I don"t know." But immediately her face folded up into its smiling creases and she said, "I wanted some fun."
William Stark fell back in his chair and began to laugh, round upon wheezy round. When his gla.s.ses had fallen off and his cheeks were wet and his face flamed painfully, Madam Fulton spoke, without a gleam.
"You"re a nice man, Billy Stark."
"You wanted your little joke!" he repeated, subsiding and trumpeting into his handkerchief. "Well, you"ve had it, Florrie; you"ve had it."
"I don"t know that I have," she returned. "I had to enjoy it alone, and that kind of palled on me. When the first notices came, I used to lie awake from three o"clock on, to laugh. I used to go to the window when Electra was in the room, and make up faces, to let off steam and keep her from knowing. Then the letters kept coming, and clubs and things kept hounding me, and Electra was always at me. There she is now, with my grog. See me take it and pour it into the syringa."
II
Electra was crossing the veranda with her springing step, bearing a gla.s.s of beaten egg and milk on a little tray. Madam Fulton signed to her to place the tray on a table, evidently ready for such ministrations, and then presented her friend. Electra greeted him with a smile of bright acceptance. She knew his standing, and his air of worldly ease quite satisfied her.
"May I bring you--?" she began, with a pretty grace.
"I should like a gla.s.s of water," said Billy, "if you will be so good."
When she had gone, Madam Fulton spoke in impressive haste:--
"How long can you stay, Billy? All day? All night?"
"I"ve got to run back to New York for a bit, but I shall be in America all summer, one place or another. I"ll stay to luncheon, if you"ll let me."
"We must avoid Electra! If she comes back and settles on us, I shall simply take you to walk. We can go over to Bessie Grant"s. You remember her. She married the doctor."
"I remember."
Electra had returned with a gla.s.s and pitcher, and ice clinking pleasantly. She took occasion to explain to Madam Fulton, with some civil hesitation,--
"I have a committee meeting, grandmother. I had planned to go in town."
The old lady responded briskly.
"Go, my dear, go. Mr. Stark will stay to luncheon. We"ll look out for each other."
When Electra had rustled away, after the pleasantest of farewell recognitions between her and the guest, Madam Fulton heaved a sigh.
"Billy," said she, "that"s a dreadful girl."
"She"s a very handsome girl. What"s the matter with her?"
"She"s so equipped. First, she"s well born. Her grandmother was a Grace and her mother was a Vanderdecken. See her teeth. See her hair, and her profile. Dreadful!"
"They"re very beautiful, in a correct way. She"s as well made as a grand piano."
"That"s it, Billy. And she has done nothing but polish herself, and now you can see your face in her. Fancy, Billy, what these modern creatures do. They go to gymnasium. They can take a five-barred gate, I believe, in their knickerbockers and what they call sneakers. They understand all about foods and what"s good for them and what"s good for the aged, and if you"re over seventy they buy condensed foods in cans and make you take it twice a day."
"You haven"t tasted your grog."
"I shan"t. Want it?"
He accepted the gla.s.s, and sniffed at it critically.
"That"s good," he commented. "That"s very good. There"s a familiar creature in that." He tasted, and then drank with gusto.
"Well," said the old lady disparagingly, "you wouldn"t have said so if it had been one of the foods. I have them before I go to bed."
He spoke persuasively: "Florrie, let"s talk a little more about the book."
"There"s nothing more to say. I"ve told you the whole story, and I know you won"t tell anybody else."
"Don"t you think you"d better make a clean breast of it to Gilbert and Wall?"
"What for?"
"Well, I don"t know exactly: only it seems to me publishers and authors are in a more or less confidential relation. Being a publisher myself, I naturally feel rather strongly about it."
"I don"t see it in the least," said the old lady decisively. "All this talk about the paternal relation is mere poppyc.o.c.k. They print me a book. If it takes a start, they back it. They"re as glad as I am. But as to telling them my glorious little joke, why, I can"t and I won"t."
"But, dear woman, they"re printing away with full confidence in having got a valuable book out of you."
"So they have. It"s selling, isn"t it?"
"Madly. Specialists want it for honest data. The general reader has got an idea from the reviews that there"s personal gossip in it, more or less racy. So it goes."