Author: Stephen Leacock
Category: Humorous
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V. The Sorrows of a Summer Guest
Let me admit, as I start to write, that the whole thing is my own fault.I should never have come. I knew better. I have known better for years.I have known that it is sheer madness to go and pay visits in otherpeople's houses.
Yet in a moment of insanity I have let myself in for it and here I am.There is no hope, no outlet now till the first of September when myvisit is to terminate. Either that or death. I do not greatly carewhich.
I write this, where no human eye can see me, down by the pond--they callit the lake--at the foot of Beverly-Jones's estate. It is six o'clockin the morning. No one is up. For a brief hour or so there is peace.But presently Miss Larkspur--the jolly English girl who arrived lastweek--will throw open her casement window and call across the lawn,"Hullo everybody! What a ripping morning!" And young Poppleson will callback in a Swiss yodel from somewhere in the shrubbery, and Beverly-Joneswill appear on the piazza with big towels round his neck andshout, "Who's coming for an early dip?" And so the day's fun andjollity--heaven help me--will begin again.
Presently they will all come trooping in to breakfast, in colouredblazers and fancy blouses, laughing and grabbing at the food with mimicrudeness and bursts of hilarity. And to think that I might have beenbreakfasting at my club with the morning paper propped against thecoffee-pot, in a silent room in the quiet of the city.
I repeat that it is my own fault that I am here.
For many years it had been a principle of my life to visit nobody. I hadlong since learned that visiting only brings misery. If I got a card ortelegram that said, "Won't you run up to the Adirondacks and spend theweek-end with us?" I sent back word: "No, not unless the Adirondackscan run faster than I can," or words to that effect. If the owner ofa country house wrote to me: "Our man will meet you with a trap anyafternoon that you care to name," I answered, in spirit at least: "No,he won't, not unless he has a bear-trap or one of those traps in whichthey catch wild antelope." If any fashionable lady friend wrote to mein the peculiar jargon that they use: "Can you give us from July thetwelfth at half-after-three till the fourteenth at four?" I replied:"Madam, take the whole month, take a year, but leave me in peace."
Such at least was the spirit of my answers to invitations. In practiceI used to find it sufficient to send a telegram that read: "Crushed withwork impossible to get away," and then stroll back into the reading-roomof the club and fall asleep again.
But my coming here was my own fault. It resulted from one of thoseunhappy moments of expansiveness such as occur, I imagine, toeverybody--moments when one appears to be something quite differentfrom what one really is, when one feels oneself a thorough good fellow,sociable, merry, appreciative, and finds the people around one thesame. Such moods are known to all of us. Some people say that it is thesuper-self asserting itself. Others say it is from drinking. But letit pass. That at any rate was the kind of mood that I was in when I metBeverly-Jones and when he asked me here.
It was in the afternoon, at the club. As I recall it, we were drinkingcocktails and I was thinking what a bright, genial fellow Beverly-Joneswas, and how completely I had mistaken him. For myself--I admit it--Iam a brighter, better man after drinking two cocktails than at any othertime--quicker, kindlier, more genial. And higher, morally. I had beentelling stories in that inimitable way that one has after two cocktails.In reality, I only know four stories, and a fifth that I don't quiteremember, but in moments of expansiveness they feel like a fund or flow.
It was under such circumstances that I sat with Beverly-Jones. And itwas in shaking hands at leaving that he said: "I _do_ wish, old chap,that you could run up to our summer place and give us the whole ofAugust!" and I answered, as I shook him warmly by the hand: "My _dear_fellow, I'd simply _love_ to!" "By gad, then it's a go!" he said. "Youmust come up for August, and wake us all up!"
Wake them up! Ye gods! Me wake them up!
One hour later I was repenting of my folly, and wishing, when I thoughtof the two cocktails, that the prohibition wave could be hurried up soas to leave us all high and dry--bone-dry, silent and unsociable.
Then I clung to the hope that Beverly-Jones would forget. But no. In duetime his wife wrote to me. They were looking forward so much, she said,to my visit; they felt--she repeated her husband's ominous phrase--thatI should wake them all up!
What sort of alarm-clock did they take me for, anyway!
Ah, well! They know better now. It was only yesterday afternoon thatBeverly-Jones found me standing here in the gloom of some cedar-treesbeside the edge of the pond and took me back so quietly to the housethat I realized he thought I meant to drown myself. So I did.
I could have stood it better--my coming here, I mean--if they hadn'tcome down to the station in a body to meet me in one of those longvehicles with seats down the sides: silly-looking men in colouredblazers and girls with no hats, all making a hullabaloo of welcome. "Weare quite a small party," Mrs. Beverly-Jones had written. Small! Greatheavens, what would they call a large one? And even those at the stationturned out to be only half of them. There were just as many more alllined up on the piazza of the house as we drove up, all waving a foolwelcome with tennis rackets and golf clubs.
Small party, indeed! Why, after six days there are still some of theidiots whose names I haven't got straight! That fool with the fluffymoustache, which is he? And that jackass that made the salad at thepicnic yesterday, is he the brother of the woman with the guitar, orwho?
But what I mean is, there is something in that sort of noisy welcomethat puts me to the bad at the start. It always does. A group ofstrangers all laughing together, and with a set of catchwords and jokesall their own, always throws me into a fit of sadness, deeper thanwords. I had thought, when Mrs. Beverly-Jones said a _small_ party,she really meant small. I had had a mental picture of a few sad people,greeting me very quietly and gently, and of myself, quiet, too, butcheerful--somehow lifting them up, with no great effort, by my merepresence.
Somehow from the very first I could feel that Beverly-Jones wasdisappointed in me. He said nothing. But I knew it. On that firstafternoon, between my arrival and dinner, he took me about his place, toshow it to me. I wish that at some proper time I had learned just whatit is that you say when a man shows you about his place. I neverknew before how deficient I am in it. I am all right to be shown aniron-and-steel plant, or a soda-water factory, or anything reallywonderful, but being shown a house and grounds and trees, things that Ihave seen all my life, leaves me absolutely silent.
"These big gates," said Beverly-Jones, "we only put up this year."
"Oh," I said. That was all. Why shouldn't they put them up this year? Ididn't care if they'd put them up this year or a thousand years ago.
"We had quite a struggle," he continued, "before we finally decided onsandstone.
"You did, eh?" I said. There seemed nothing more to say; I didn'tknow what sort of struggle he meant, or who fought who; and personallysandstone or soapstone or any other stone is all the same to me.
"This lawn," said Beverly-Jones, "we laid down the first year we werehere." I answered nothing. He looked me right in the face as he said itand I looked straight back at him, but I saw no reason to challenge hisstatement. "The geraniums along the border," he went on, "are rather anexperiment. They're Dutch."
I looked fixedly at the geraniums but never said a word. They wereDutch; all right, why not? They were an experiment. Very good; let thembe so. I know nothing in particular to say about a Dutch experiment.
I could feel that Beverly-Jones grew depressed as he showed me round.I was sorry for him, but unable to help. I realized that there werecertain sections of my education that had been neglected. How to beshown things and make appropriate comments seems to be an art in itself.I don't possess it. It is not likely now, as I look at this pond, that Iever shall.
Yet how simple a thing it seems when done by others. I saw thedifference at once the very next day, the second day of my visit, whenBeverly-Jones took round young Poppleton
, the man that I mentioned abovewho will presently give a Swiss yodel from a clump of laurel bushes toindicate that the day's fun has begun.
Poppleton I had known before slightly. I used to see him at the club.In club surroundings he always struck me as an ineffable young ass, loudand talkative and perpetually breaking the silence rules. Yet I haveto admit that in his summer flannels and with a straw hat on he can dothings that I can't.
"These big gates," began Beverly-Jones as he showed Poppleton round theplace with me trailing beside them, "we only put up this year."
Poppleton, who has a summer place of his own, looked at the gates verycritically.
"Now, do you know what _I'd_ have done with those gates, if they weremine?" he said.
"No," said Beverly-Jones.
"I'd have set them two feet wider apart; they're too narrow, old chap,too narrow." Poppleton shook his head sadly at the gates.
"We had quite a struggle," said Beverly-Jones, "before we finallydecided on sandstone."
I realized that he had one and the same line of talk that he alwaysused. I resented it. No wonder it was easy for him. "Great mistake,"said Poppleton. "Too soft. Look at this"--here he picked up a big stoneand began pounding at the gate-post--"see how easily it chips! Smashesright off. Look at that, the whole corner knocks right off, see!"
Beverly-Jones entered no protest. I began to see that there is a sort ofunderstanding, a kind of freemasonry, among men who have summer places.One shows his things; the other runs them down, and smashes them. Thismakes the whole thing easy at once. Beverly-Jones showed his lawn.
"Your turf is all wrong, old boy," said Poppleton. "Look! it has no bodyto it. See, I can kick holes in it with my heel. Look at that, and that!If I had on stronger boots I could kick this lawn all to pieces."
"These geraniums along the border," said Beverly-Jones, "are rather anexperiment. They're Dutch."
"But my dear fellow," said Poppleton, "you've got them set in wrongly.They ought to slope _from_ the sun you know, never _to_ it. Wait abit"--here he picked up a spade that was lying where a gardener had beenworking--"I'll throw a few out. Notice how easily they come up. Ah, thatfellow broke! They're apt to. There, I won't bother to reset them, buttell your man to slope them over from the sun. That's the idea."
Beverly-Jones showed his new boat-house next and Poppleton knocked ahole in the side with a hammer to show that the lumber was too thin.
"If that were _my_ boat-house," he said, "I'd rip the outside clean offit and use shingle and stucco."
It was, I noticed, Poppleton's plan first to imagine Beverly-Jones'sthings his own, and then to smash them, and then give them back smashedto Beverly-Jones. This seemed to please them both. Apparently it is awell-understood method of entertaining a guest and being entertained.Beverly-Jones and Poppleton, after an hour or so of it, were delightedwith one another.
Yet somehow, when I tried it myself, it failed to work.
"Do you know what I would do with that cedar summer-house if it wasmine?" I asked my host the next day.
"No," he said.
"I'd knock the thing down and burn it," I answered.
But I think I must have said it too fiercely. Beverly-Jones looked hurtand said nothing.
Not that these people are not doing all they can for me. I know that.I admit it. If I _should_ meet my end here and if--to put the thingstraight out--_my_ lifeless body is found floating on the surface ofthis pond, I should like there to be documentary evidence of _that_much. They are trying their best. "This is Liberty Hall," Mrs.Beverly-Jones said to me on the first day of my visit. "We want you tofeel that you are to do absolutely as you like!"
Absolutely as I like! How little they know me. I should like to haveanswered: "Madam, I have now reached a time of life when human societyat breakfast is impossible to me; when any conversation prior to elevena.m. must be considered out of the question; when I prefer to eat mymeals in quiet, or with such mild hilarity as can be got from a comicpaper; when I can no longer wear nankeen pants and a coloured blazerwithout a sense of personal indignity; when I can no longer leap andplay in the water like a young fish; when I do not yodel, cannot singand, to my regret; dance even worse than I did when young; and when themood of mirth and hilarity comes to me only as a rare visitant--shallwe say at a burlesque performance--and never as a daily part of myexistence. Madam, I am unfit to be a summer guest. If this is LibertyHall indeed, let me, oh, let me go!"
Such is the speech that I would make if it were possible. As it is, Ican only rehearse it to myself.
Indeed, the more I analyse it the more impossible it seems, for a man ofmy temperament at any rate, to be a summer guest. These people, and,I imagine, all other summer people, seem to be trying to live in aperpetual joke. Everything, all day, has to be taken in a mood ofuproarious fun.
However, I can speak of it all now in quiet retrospect and withoutbitterness. It will soon be over now. Indeed, the reason why I have comedown at this early hour to this quiet water is that things have reacheda crisis. The situation has become extreme and I must end it.
It happened last night. Beverly-Jones took me aside while the otherswere dancing the fox-trot to the victrola on the piazza.
"We're planning to have some rather good fun to-morrow night," he said,"something that will be a good deal more in your line than a lot of it,I'm afraid, has been up here. In fact, my wife says that this will bethe very thing for you."
"Oh," I said.
"We're going to get all the people from the other houses over andthe girls"--this term Beverly-Jones uses to mean his wife and herfriends--"are going to get up a sort of entertainment with charades andthings, all impromptu, more or less, of course--"
"Oh," I said. I saw already what was coming.
"And they want you to act as a sort of master-of-ceremonies, to make upthe gags and introduce the different stunts and all that. I was tellingthe girls about that afternoon at the club, when you were simply killingus all with those funny stories of yours, and they're all wild over it."
"Wild?" I repeated.
"Yes, quite wild over it. They say it will be the hit of the summer."
Beverly-Jones shook hands with great warmth as we parted for thenight. I knew that he was thinking that my character was about to betriumphantly vindicated, and that he was glad for my sake.
Last night I did not sleep. I remained awake all night thinking of the"entertainment." In my whole life I have done nothing in public exceptonce when I presented a walking-stick to the vice-president of our clubon the occasion of his taking a trip to Europe. Even for that I usedto rehearse to myself far into the night sentences that began: "Thiswalking-stick, gentleman, means far more than a mere walking-stick."
And now they expect me to come out as a merry master-of-ceremoniesbefore an assembled crowd of summer guests.
But never mind. It is nearly over now. I have come down to this quietwater in the early morning to throw myself in. They will find mefloating here among the lilies. Some few will understand. I can see itwritten, as it will be, in the newspapers.
"What makes the sad fatality doubly poignant is that the unhappy victimhad just entered upon a holiday visit that was to have been prolongedthroughout the whole month. Needless to say, he was regarded as the lifeand soul of the pleasant party of holiday makers that had gathered atthe delightful country home of Mr. and Mrs. Beverly-Jones. Indeed, onthe very day of the tragedy, he was to have taken a leading part instaging a merry performance of charades and parlour entertainments--athing for which his genial talents and overflowing high spirits renderedhim specially fit."
When they read that, those who know me best will understand how and whyI died. "He had still over three weeks to stay there," they will say."He was to act as the stage manager of charades." They will shake theirheads. They will understand.
But what is this? I raise my eyes from the paper and I see Beverly-Joneshurriedly approaching from the house. He is hastily dressed, withflannel trousers and a dressing-gown. His face lo
oks grave. Somethinghas happened. Thank God, something has happened. Some accident! Sometragedy! Something to prevent the charades!
I write these few lines on a fast train that is carrying me back to NewYork, a cool, comfortable train, with a deserted club-car where I cansit in a leather arm-chair, with my feet up on another, smoking, silent,and at peace.
Villages, farms and summer places are flying by. Let them fly. I, too,am flying--back to the rest and quiet of the city.
"Old man," Beverly-Jones said, as he laid his hand on mine verykindly--he is a decent fellow, after all, is Jones--"they're calling youby long-distance from New York."
"What is it?" I asked, or tried to gasp.
"It's bad news, old chap; fire in your office last evening. I'm afraida lot of your private papers were burned. Robinson--that's your seniorclerk, isn't it?--seems to have been on the spot trying to save things.He's badly singed about the face and hands. I'm afraid you must go atonce."
"Yes, yes," I said, "at once."
"I know. I've told the man to get the trap ready right away. You've justtime to catch the seven-ten. Come along."
"Right," I said. I kept my face as well as I could, trying to hidemy exultation. The office burnt! Fine! Robinson's singed! Glorious!I hurriedly packed my things and whispered to Beverly-Jones farewellmessages for the sleeping household. I never felt so jolly and facetiousin my life. I could feel that Beverly-Jones was admiring the spirit andpluck with which I took my misfortune. Later on he would tell them allabout it.
The trap ready! Hurrah! Good-bye, old man! Hurrah! All right. I'lltelegraph. Right you are, good-bye. Hip, hip, hurrah! Here we are! Trainright on time. Just these two bags, porter, and there's a dollar foryou. What merry, merry fellows these darky porters are, anyway!
And so here I am in the train, safe bound for home and the summer quietof my club.
Well done for Robinson! I was afraid that it had missed fire, or that mymessage to him had gone wrong. It was on the second day of my visit thatI sent word to him to invent an accident--something, anything--to callme back. I thought the message had failed. I had lost hope. But it isall right now, though he certainly pitched the note pretty high.
Of course I can't let the Beverly-Joneses know that it was a put-up job.I must set fire to the office as soon as I get back. But it's worth it.And I'll have to singe Robinson about the face and hands. But it's worththat too!