The Speculative Fiction of Mark Twain Read online

“Busy?”

  “No,—except sewing. Why?”

  “Got any company?”

  “No, but I expect some at half past nine.”

  “I wish I did. I’m lonesome. I want to talk to somebody.”

  “Very well, talk to me.”

  “But this is very private.”

  “Don’t be afraid,—talk right along; there’s nobody here but me.”

  “I hardly know whether to venture or not, but”—

  “But what? Oh, don’t stop there! You know you can trust me, Alonzo,—you know you can.”

  “I feel it, aunt, but this is very serious. It affects me deeply,—me, and all the family,—even the whole community.”

  “Oh, Alonzo, tell me! I will never breathe a word of it. What is it?”

  “Aunt, if I might dare”—

  “Oh, please go on! I love you, and can feel for you. Tell me all. Confide in me. What is it?”

  ‘’The weather!”

  “Plague take the weather! I don’t see how you can have the heart to serve me so, Lon.”

  “There, there, aunty dear, I’m sorry; I am, on my honor. I won’t do it again. Do you forgive me?”

  “Yes, since you seem so sincere about it, though I know I ought n’t to. You will fool me again as soon as I have forgotten this time.”

  “No, I won’t, honor bright. But such weather, oh, such weather! You’ve got to keep your spirits up artificially. It is snowy, and blowy, and gusty, and bitter cold! How is the weather with you?”

  “Warm and rainy and melancholy. The mourners go about the streets with their umbrellas running streams from the end of every whalebone. There’s an elevated double pavement of umbrellas stretching down the sides of the streets as far as I can see. I’ve got a fire for cheerfulness, and the windows open to keep cool. But it is vain, it is useless: nothing comes in but the balmy breath of December, with its burden of mocking odors from the flowers that possess the realm outside, and rejoice in their lawless profusion whilst the spirit of man is low, and flaunt their gaudy splendors in his face whilst his soul is clothed in sackcloth and ashes and his heart breaketh.”

  Alonzo opened his lips to say, “You ought to print that, and get it framed,” but checked himself, for he heard his aunt speaking to some one else. He went and stood at the window and looked out upon the wintry prospect. The storm was driving the snow before it more furiously than ever; window shutters were slamming and banging; a forlorn dog, with bowed head and tail withdrawn from service, was pressing his quaking body against a windward wall for shelter and protection; a young girl was plowing knee-deep through the drifts, with her face turned from the blast, and the cape of her water-proof blowing straight rearward over her head. Alonzo shuddered, and said with a sigh, “Better the slop, and the sultry rain, and even the insolent flowers, than this!”

  He turned from the window, moved a step, and stopped in a listening attitude. The faint, sweet notes of a familiar song caught his ear. He remained there, with his head unconsciously bent forward, drinking in the melody, stirring neither hand nor foot, hardly breathing. There was a blemish in the execution of the song, but to Alonzo it seemed an added charm instead of a defect. This blemish consisted of a marked flatting of the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh notes of the refrain or chorus of the piece. When the music ended, Alonzo drew a deep breath, and said, “Ah, I never have heard In the Sweet By and By sung like that before!”

  He stepped quickly to the desk, listened a moment, and said in a guarded, confidential voice, “Aunty, who is this divine singer?”

  “She is the company I was expecting. Stays with me a month or two. I will introduce you. Miss”—

  “For goodness’ sake, wait a moment, aunt Susan! You never stop to think what you are about!”

  He flew to his bed-chamber, and returned in a moment perceptibly changed in his outward appearance, and remarking, snappishly,—

  “Hang it, she would have introduced me to this angel in that sky-blue dressing-gown with red-hot lappels! Women never think, when they get agoing.”

  He hastened and stood by the desk, and said eagerly, “Now, aunty, I am ready,” and fell to smiling and bowing with all the persuasiveness and elegance that were in him.

  “Very well. Miss Rosannah Ethelton, let me introduce to you my favorite nephew, Mr. Alonzo Fitz Clarence. There! You are both good people, and I like you; so I am going to trust you together while I attend to a few household affairs. Sit down, Rosannah; sit down, Alonzo. Good-by; I shan’t be gone long.”

  Alonzo had been bowing and smiling all the while, and motioning imaginary young ladies to sit down in imaginary chairs, but now he took a seat himself, mentally saying, “Oh, this is luck! Let the winds blow now, and the snow drive, and the heavens frown! Little I care!”

  While these young people chat themselves into an acquaintanceship, let us take the liberty of inspecting the sweeter and fairer of the two. She sat alone, at her graceful ease, in a richly furnished apartment which was manifestly the private parlor of a refined and sensible lady, if signs and symbols may go for anything. For instance, by a low, comfortable chair stood a dainty, top-heavy work-stand, whose summit was a fancifully embroidered shallow basket, with vari-colored crewels, and other strings and odds and ends, protruding from under the gaping lid and hanging down in negligent profusion. On the floor lay bright shreds of Turkey red, Prussian blue, and kindred fabrics, bits of ribbon, a spool or two, a pair of scissors, and a roll or so of tinted silken stuffs. On a luxurious sofa, upholstered with some sort of soft Indian goods wrought in black and gold threads interwebbed with other threads not so pronounced in color, lay a great square of coarse white stuff, upon whose surface a rich bouquet of flowers was growing, under the deft cultivation of the crochet needle. The household cat was asleep on this work of art. In a bay window stood an easel with an unfinished picture on it, and a palette and brushes on a chair beside it. There were books everywhere; Robertson’s Sermons, Tennyson, Moody and Sankey, Hawthorne, Rab and his Friends, cook-books, prayerbooks, pattern-books,—and books about all kinds of odious and exasperating pottery, of course. There was a piano, with a deck-load of music, and more in a tender. There was a great plenty of pictures on the walls, on the shelves of the mantel-piece, and around generally; where coignes of vantage offered were statuettes, and quaint and pretty grimcracks, and rare and costly specimens of peculiarly devilish china. The bay window gave upon a garden that was ablaze with foreign and domestic flowers and flowering shrubs.

  But the sweet young girl was the daintiest thing those premises, within or without, could offer for contemplation: delicately chiseled features, of Grecian cast; her complexion the pure snow of a japonica that is receiving a faint reflected enrichment from some scarlet neighbor of the garden; great, soft blue eyes fringed with long, curving lashes; an expression made up of the trustfulness of a child and the gentleness of a fawn; a beautiful head crowned with its own prodigal gold; a lithe and rounded figure, whose every attitude and movement were instinct with native grace.

  Her dress and adornment were marked by that exquisite harmony that can come only of a fine natural taste perfected by culture. Her gown was of a simple magenta tulle, cut bias, traversed by three rows of light blue flounces, with the selvage edges turned up with ashes-of-roses chenille; overdress of dark bay tarleton, with scarlet satin lambrequins; corn-colored polonaise, en panier, looped with mother-of-pearl buttons and silver cord, and hauled aft and made fast by buff-velvet lashings; basque of lavender reps, picked out with valenciennes; low neck, short sleeves; maroon-velvet necktie edged with delicate pink silk; inside handkerchief of some simple three-ply ingrain fabric of a soft-saffron tint; coral bracelets and locket-chain; coiffure of forget-me-nots and lilies of the valley massed around a noble calla.

  This was all; yet even in this subdued attire she was divinely beautiful. Then what must she have been when adorned for the festival or the ball?

  All this time she has been busily chatting with Alonzo, u
nconscious of our inspection. The minutes still sped, and still she talked. But by and by she happened to look up, and saw the clock. A crimson blush sent its rich flood through her cheeks, and she exclaimed,—

  “There, good-by, Mr. Fitz Clarence; I must go now!”

  She sprang from her chair with such haste that she hardly heard the young man’s answering good-by. She stood radiant, graceful, beautiful, and gazed, wondering, upon the accusing clock. Presently her pouting lips parted, and she said,—

  “Five minutes after eleven! Nearly two hours, and it did not seem twenty minutes! Oh, dear, what will he think of me!”

  At the self-same moment Alonzo was staring at his clock. And presently he said,—

  “Twenty-five minutes to three! Nearly two hours, and I didn’t believe it was two minutes! Is it possible that this clock is humbugging again? Miss Ethelton! Just one moment, please. Are you there yet?”

  “Yes, but be quick; I’m going right away.”

  “Would you be so kind as to tell me what time it is?”

  The girl blushed again, murmured to herself, “It’s right down cruel of him to ask me!” and then spoke up and answered with admirably counterfeited unconcern. “Five minutes after nine.”

  “Oh, thank you! You have to go now, have you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  No reply.

  “Miss Ethelton!”

  “Well?”

  “You—you’re there yet, ain’t you?”

  “Yes; but please hurry. What did you want to say?”

  “Well, I—well, nothing in particular. It’s very lonesome here. It’s asking a great deal, I know, but would you mind talking with me again by and by,—that is, if it will not trouble you too much?”

  “I don’t know—but I’ll think about it. I’ll try.”

  “Oh, thanks! Miss Ethelton? . . . Ah me, she’s gone, and here are the black clouds and the whirling snow and the raging winds come again! But she said good-by! She didn’t say good morning, she said good-by! . . . The clock was right, after all. What a lightning-winged two hours it was!”

  He sat down, and gazed dreamily into his fire for a while, then heaved a sigh and said,—

  “How wonderful it is! Two little hours ago I was a free man, and now my heart’s in San Francisco!”

  About that time Rosannah Ethelton, propped in the window-seat of her bedchamber, book in hand, was gazing vacantly out over the rainy seas that washed the Golden Gate, and whispering to herself, “How different he is from poor Burley, with his empty head and his single little antic talent of mimicry!”

  II

  Four weeks later Mr. Sidney Algernon Burley was entertaining a gay luncheon company, in a sumptuous drawingroom on Telegraph Hill, with some capital imitations of the voices and gestures of certain popular actors and San Franciscan literary people and Bonanza grandees. He was elegantly upholstered, and was a handsome fellow, barring a trifling cast in his eye. He seemed very jovial, but nevertheless he kept his eye on the door with an expectant and uneasy watchfulness. By and by a nobby lackey appeared, and delivered a message to the mistress, who nodded her head understandably. That seemed to settle the thing for Mr. Burley; his vivacity decreased little by little, and a dejected look began to creep into one of his eyes and a sinister one into the other.

  The rest of the company departed in due time, leaving him with the mistress, to whom he said,—

  “There is no longer any question about it. She avoids me. She continually excuses herself. If I could see her, if I could speak to her only a moment,—but this suspense”—

  “Perhaps her seeming avoidance is mere accident, Mr. Burley. Go to the small drawing-room up-stairs and amuse yourself a moment. I will dispatch a household order that is on my mind, and then I will go to her room. Without doubt she will be persuaded to see you.”

  Mr. Burley went up-stairs, intending to go to the small drawing-room, but as he was passing “aunt Susan’s” private parlor, the door of which stood slightly ajar, he heard a joyous laugh which he recognized; so without knock or announcement he stepped confidently in. But before he could make his presence known he heard words that harrowed up his soul and chilled his young blood. He heard a voice say,—

  “Darling, it has come!”

  Then he heard Rosannah Ethelton, whose back was toward him, say,—

  “So has yours, dearest!”

  He saw her bowed form bend lower; he heard her kiss something,—not merely once, but again and again! His soul raged within him. The heartbreaking conversation went on:—

  “Rosannah, I knew you must be beautiful, but this is dazzling, this is blinding, this is intoxicating!”

  “Alonzo, it is such happiness to hear you say it. I know it is not true, but I am so grateful to have you think it is, nevertheless! I knew you must have a noble face, but the grace and majesty of the reality beggar the poor creation of my fancy.”

  Burley heard that rattling shower of kisses again.

  “Thank you, my Rosannah! The photograph flatters me, but you must not allow yourself to think of that. Sweetheart?”

  “Yes, Alonzo.”

  “I am so happy, Rosannah.”

  “Oh, Alonzo, none that have gone before me knew what love was, none that came after me will ever know what happiness is. I float in a gorgeous cloudland, a boundless firmament of enchanted and bewildering ecstasy!”

  “Oh, my Rosannah!—for you are mine, are you not?”

  “Wholly, oh, wholly yours, Alonzo, now and forever! All the day long, and all through my nightly dreams, one song sings itself and its sweet burden is, ‘Alonzo Fitz Clarence, Alonzo Fitz Clarence, Eastport, State of Maine!’”

  “Curse him, I’ve got his address, any way!” roared Burley, inwardly, and rushed from the place.

  Just behind the unconscious Alonzo stood his mother, a picture of astonishment. She was so muffled from head to heel in furs that nothing of herself was visible but her eyes and nose. She was a good allegory of winter, for she was powdered all over with snow.

  Behind the unconscious Rosannah stood “aunt Susan,” another picture of astonishment. She was a good allegory of summer, for she was lightly clad, and was vigorously cooling the perspiration on her face with a fan.

  Both of these women had tears of joy in their eyes.

  “So ho!” exclaimed Mrs. Fitz Clarence, “this explains why nobody has been able to drag you out of your room for six weeks, Alonzo!”

  “So ho!” exclaimed aunt Susan, “this explains why you have been a hermit for the past six weeks, Rosannah!”

  The young couple were on their feet in an instant, abashed, and standing like detected dealers in stolen goods awaiting Judge Lynch’s doom.

  “Bless you, my son! I am happy in your happiness. Come to your mother’s arms, Alonzo!”

  “Bless you, Rosannah, for my dear nephew’s sake! Come to my arms!”

  Then was there a mingling of hearts and of tears of rejoicing on Telegraph Hill and in Eastport Square.

  Servants were called by the elders, in both places. Unto one was given the order, “Pile this fire high with hickory wood, and bring me a roasting-hot lemonade.”

  Unto the other was given the order, “Put out this fire, and bring me two palm-leaf fans and a pitcher of ice-water.”

  Then the young people were dismissed, and the elders sat down to talk the sweet surprise over and make the wedding plans.

  *

  Some minutes before this Mr. Burley rushed from the mansion on Telegraph Hill without meeting or taking formal leave of anybody. He hissed through his teeth, in unconscious imitation of a popular favorite in melodrama, “Him shall she never wed! I have sworn it! Ere great Nature shall have doffed her winter’s ermine to don the emerald gauds of spring, she shall be mine!”

  III

  Two weeks later. Every few hours, during some three or four days, a very prim and devout-looking Episcopal clergyman, with a cast in his eye, had visited Alonzo. According to his
card, he was the Rev. Melton Hargrave, of Cincinnati. He said he had retired from the ministry on account of his health. If he had said on account of ill health, he would probably have erred, to judge by his wholesome looks and firm build. He was the inventor of an improvement in telephones, and hoped to make his bread by selling the privilege of using it. “At present,” he continued, “a man may go and tap a telegraph wire which is conveying a song or a concert from one State to another, and he can attach his private telephone and steal a hearing of that music as it passes along. My invention will stop all that.”

  “Well,” answered Alonzo, “if the owner of the music could not miss what was stolen, why should he care?”

  “He shouldn’t care,” said the Reverend.

  “Well?” said Alonzo, inquiringly.

  “Suppose,” replied the Reverend, “suppose that, instead of music that was passing along and being stolen, the burden of the wire was loving endearments of the most private and sacred nature?”

  Alonzo shuddered from head to heel. “Sir, it is a priceless invention,” said he; “I must have it at any cost.”

  But the invention was delayed somewhere on the road from Cincinnati, most unaccountably. The impatient Alonzo could hardly wait. The thought of Rosannah’s sweet words being shared with him by some ribald thief was galling to him. The Reverend came frequently and lamented the delay, and told of measures he had taken to hurry things up. This was some little comfort to Alonzo.

  One forenoon the Reverend ascended the stairs and knocked at Alonzo’s door. There was no response. He entered, glanced eagerly around, closed the door softly, then ran to the telephone. The exquisitely soft, remote strains of the Sweet By and By came floating through the instrument. The singer was flatting, as usual, the five notes that follow the first two in the chorus, when the Reverend interrupted her with this word, in a voice which was an exact imitation of Alonzo’s, with just the faintest flavor of impatience added,—

  “Sweetheart?”

  “Yes, Alonzo?”

  “Please don’t sing that any more this week,—try something modern.”

  The agile step that goes with a happy heart was heard on the stairs, and the Reverend, smiling diabolically, sought sudden refuge behind the heavy folds of the velvet window curtains. Alonzo entered and flew to the telephone. Said he,—