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Alonzo Fitz and Other Stories
ALONZO FITZ AND OTHER STORIES
by Mark Twain
Contents: The Loves Of Alonzo Fitz Clarence And Rosannah Ethelton On
The Decay Of The Art Of Lying About Magnanimous-Incident Literature
The Grateful Poodle The Benevolent Author The Grateful Husband Punch,
Brothers, Punch The Great Revolution In Pitcairn The Canvasser's Tale
An Encounter With An Interviewer Paris Notes Legend Of Sagenfeld, In
Germany Speech On The Babies Speech On The Weather Concerning The
American Language Rogers
THE LOVES OF ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON
It was well along in the forenoon of a bitter winter's day. The town
of Eastport, in the state of Maine, lay buried under a deep snow that
was newly fallen. The customary bustle in the streets was wanting.
One could look long distances down them and see nothing but a
dead-white emptiness, with silence to match. Of course I do not mean
that you could see the silence--no, you could only hear it. The
sidewalks were merely long, deep ditches, with steep snow walls on
either side. Here and there you might hear the faint, far scrape of a
wooden shovel, and if you were quick enough you might catch a glimpse
of a distant black figure stooping and disappearing in one of those
ditches, and reappearing the next moment with a motion which you would
know meant the heaving out of a shovelful of snow. But you needed to
be quick, for that black figure would not linger, but would soon drop
that shovel and scud for the house, thrashing itself with its arms to
warm them. Yes, it was too venomously cold for snow-shovelers or
anybody else to stay out long.
Presently the sky darkened; then the wind rose and began to blow in
fitful, vigorous gusts, which sent clouds of powdery snow aloft, and
straight ahead, and everywhere. Under the impulse of one of these
gusts, great white drifts banked themselves like graves across the
streets; a moment later another gust shifted them around the other
way, driving a fine spray of snow from their sharp crests, as the gale
drives the spume flakes from wave-crests at sea; a third gust swept
that place as clean as your hand, if it saw fit. This was fooling,
this was play; but each and all of the gusts dumped some snow into the
sidewalk ditches, for that was business.
Alonzo Fitz Clarence was sitting in his snug and elegant little
parlor, in a lovely blue silk dressing-gown, with cuffs and facings of
crimson satin, elaborately quilted. The remains of his breakfast were
before him, and the dainty and costly little table service added a
harmonious charm to the grace, beauty, and richness of the fixed
appointments of the room. A cheery fire was blazing on the hearth.
A furious gust of wind shook the windows, and a great wave of snow
washed against them with a drenching sound, so to speak. The handsome
young bachelor murmured:
"That means, no going out to-day. Well, I am content. But what to do
for company? Mother is well enough, Aunt Susan is well enough; but
these, like the poor, I have with me always. On so grim a day as
this, one needs a new interest, a fresh element, to whet the dull edge
of captivity. That was very neatly said, but it doesn't mean
anything. One doesn't want the edge of captivity sharpened up, you
know, but just the reverse."
He glanced at his pretty French mantel-clock.
"That clock's wrong again. That clock hardly ever knows what time it
is; and when it does know, it lies about it--which amounts to the same
thing. Alfred!"
There was no answer.
"Alfred! . . . Good servant, but as uncertain as the clock."
Alonzo touched an electric bell button in the wall. He waited a
moment, then touched it again; waited a few moments more, and said:
"Battery out of order, no doubt. But now that I have started, I will
find out what time it is." He stepped to a speaking-tube in the wall,
blew its whistle, and called, "Mother!" and repeated it twice.
"Well, that's no use. Mother's battery is out of order, too. Can't
raise anybody down-stairs--that is plain."
He sat down at a rosewood desk, leaned his chin on the left-hand edge
of it and spoke, as if to the floor: "Aunt Susan!"
A low, pleasant voice answered, "Is that you, Alonzo?'
"Yes. I'm too lazy and comfortable to go downstairs; I am in
extremity, and I can't seem to scare up any help."
"Dear me, what is the matter?"
"Matter enough, I can tell you!"
"Oh, don't keep me in suspense, dear! What is it?"
"I want to know what time it is."
"You abominable boy, what a turn you did give me! Is that all?"
"All--on my honor. Calm yourself. Tell me the time, and receive my
blessing."
"Just five minutes after nine. No charge--keep your blessing."
"Thanks. It wouldn't have impoverished me, aunty, nor so enriched you
that you could live without other means."
He got up, murmuring, "Just five minutes after nine," and faced his
clock. "Ah," said he, "you are doing better than usual. You are only
thirty-four minutes wrong. Let me see . . . let me see. . . .
Thirty-three and twenty-one are fifty-four; four times fifty-four are
two hundred and thirty-six. One off, leaves two hundred and
thirty-five. That's right."
He turned the hands of his clock forward till they marked twenty-five
minutes to one, and said, "Now see if you can't keep right for a while
--else I'll raffle you!"
He sat down at the desk again, and said, "Aunt Susan!"
"Yes, dear."
"Had breakfast?"
"Yes, indeed, an hour ago."
"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 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 oughtn'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 while 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 waterproof
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 bedchamber, 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 lapels! Women never think, when they get
a-going."
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 sha'n'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 workstand, whose
summit was a fancifully embroidered shallow basket, with varicolored
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, prayer-books, 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 mantelpiece, and around
generally; where coigns of vantage offered were statuettes, and quaint
and pretty gimcracks, 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 these 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 was 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 tarlatan with scarlet
satin lambrequins; corn-colored polonaise, en zanier, 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 had been busily chatting with Alonzo, unconscious 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 eleven."
"Oh, thank you! You have to go, now, have you?"
"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 drawing-room 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 understandingly. 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
despatch 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 come after me will ever know what happiness is. I float in a
gorgeous cloud land, 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, anyway!" 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.
"Soho!" 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 same 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 and 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:
"Rosannah, dear, shall we sing something together?"
"Something modern?" asked she, with sarcastic bitterness.
"Yes, if you prefer."
"Sing it yourself, if you like!"
This snappishness amazed and wounded the young man. He said:
"Rosannah, that was not like you."
"I suppose it becomes me as much as your very polite speech became
you, Mr. Fitz Clarence."
"Mister Fitz Clarence! Rosannah, there was nothing impolite about my
speech."
"Oh, indeed! Of course, then, I misunderstood you, and I most humbly
beg your pardon, ha-ha-ha! No doubt you said, 'Don't sing it any more
to-day.'"
"Sing what any more to-day?"
"The song you mentioned, of course, How very obtuse we are, all of a
sudden!"
"I never mentioned any song."
"Oh, you didn't?"
"No, I didn't!"
"I am compelled to remark that you did."
"And I am obliged to reiterate that I didn't."
"A second rudeness! That is sufficient, sir. I will never forgive
you. All is over between us."
Then came a muffled sound of crying. Alonzo hastened to say:
"Oh, Rosannah, unsay those words! There is some dreadful mystery
here, some hideous mistake. I am utterly earnest and sincere when I
say I never said anything about any song. I would not hurt you for
the whole world . . . . Rosannah, dear speak to me, won't you?"
There was a pause; then Alonzo heard the girl's sobbings retreating,
and knew she had gone from the telephone. He rose with a heavy sigh,
and hastened from the room, saying to himself, "I will ransack the
charity missions and the haunts of the poor for my mother. She will
persuade her that I never meant to wound her."
A minute later the Reverend was crouching over the telephone like a
cat that knoweth the ways of the prey. He had not very many minutes
to wait. A soft, repentant voice, tremulous with tears, said:
"Alonzo, dear, I have been wrong. You could not have said so cruel a
thing. It must have been some one who imitated your voice in malice
or in jest."
The Reverend coldly answered, in Alonzo's tones:
"You have said all was over between us. So let it be. I spurn your
proffered repentance, and despise it!"
Then he departed, radiant with fiendish triumph, to return no more
with his imaginary telephonic invention forever.
Four hours afterward Alonzo arrived with his mother from her favorite
haunts of poverty and vice. They summoned the San Francisco
household; but there was no reply. They waited, and continued to
wait, upon the voiceless telephone.
At length, when it was sunset in San Francisco, and three hours and a
half after dark in Eastport, an answer to the oft-repeated cry of
"Rosannah!"
But, alas, it was Aunt Susan's voice that spake. She said:
"I have been out all day; just got in. I will go and find her."
The watchers waited two minutes--five minutes--ten minutes. Then came
these fatal words, in a frightened tone:
"She is gone, and her baggage with her. To visit another friend, she
told the servants. But I found this note on the table in her room.
Listen: 'I am gone; seek not to trace me out; my heart is broken; you
will never see me more. Tell him I shall always think of him when I
sing my poor "Sweet By-and-by," but never of the unkind words he said
about it.' That is her note. Alonzo, Alonzo, what does it mean? What
has happened?"
But Alonzo sat white and cold as the dead. His mother threw back the
velvet curtains and opened a window. The cold air refreshed the
sufferer, and he told his aunt his dismal story. Meantime his mother
was inspecting a card which had disclosed itself upon the floor when
she cast the curtains back. It read, "Mr. Sidney Algernon Burley, San
Francisco."
"The miscreant!" shouted Alonzo, and rushed forth to seek the false
Reverend and destroy him; for the card explained everything, since in
the course of the lovers' mutual confessions they had told each other
all about all the sweethearts they had ever had, and thrown no end of
mud at their failings and foibles for lovers always do that. It has a
fascination that ranks next after billing and cooing.
IV
During the next two months many things happened. It had early
transpired that Rosannah, poor suffering orphan, had neither returned
to her grandmother in Portland, Oregon, nor sent any word to her save
a duplicate of the woeful note she had left in the mansion on
Telegraph Hill. Whosoever was sheltering her--if she was still
alive--had been persuaded not to betray her whereabouts, without
doubt; for all efforts to find trace of her had failed.
Did Alonzo give her up? Not he. He said to himself, "She will sing
that sweet song when she is sad; I shall find her." So he took his
carpet-sack and a portable telephone, and shook the snow of his native
city from his arctics, and went forth into the world. He wandered far
and wide and in many states. Time and again, strangers were astounded
to see a wasted, pale, and woe-worn man laboriously climb a
telegraph-pole in wintry and lonely places, perch sadly there an hour,
with his ear at a little box, then come sighing down, and wander
wearily away. Sometimes they shot at him, as peasants do at
aeronauts, thinking him mad and dangerous. Thus his clothes were much
shredded by bullets and his person grievously lacerated. But he bore
it all patiently.
In the beginning of his pilgrimage he used often to say, "Ah, if I
could but hear the 'Sweet By-and-by'!" But toward the end of it he
used to shed tears of anguish and say, "Ah, if I could but hear
something else!"
Thus a month and three weeks drifted by, and at last some humane
people seized him and confined him in a private mad-house in New York.
He made no moan, for his strength was all gone, and with it all heart
and all hope. The superintendent, in pity, gave up his own
comfortable parlor and bedchamber to him and nursed him with
affectionate devotion.
At the end of a week the patient was able to leave his bed for the
first time. He was lying, comfortably pillowed, on a sofa, listening
to the plaintive Miserere of the bleak March winds and the muffled
sound of tramping feet in the street below for it was about six in the
evening, and New York was going home from work. He had a bright fire
and the added cheer of a couple of student-lamps. So it was warm and
snug within, though bleak and raw without; it was light and bright
within, though outside it was as dark and dreary as if the world had
been lit with Hartford gas. Alonzo smiled feebly to think how his
loving vagaries had made him a maniac in the eyes of the world, and
was proceeding to pursue his line of thought further, when a faint,
sweet strain, the very ghost of sound, so remote and attenuated it
seemed, struck upon his ear. His pulses stood still; he listened with
parted lips and bated breath. The song flowed on--he waiting,
listening, rising slowly and unconsciously from his recumbent
position. At last he exclaimed:
"It is! it is she! Oh, the divine hated notes!"
He dragged himself eagerly to the corner whence the sounds proceeded,
tore aside a curtain, and discovered a telephone. He bent over, and
as the last note died away he burst forthwith the exclamation:
"Oh, thank Heaven, found at last! Speak tome, Rosannah, dearest! The
cruel mystery has been unraveled; it was the villain Burley who
mimicked my voice and wounded you with insolent speech!"
There was a breathless pause, a waiting age to Alonzo; then a faint
sound came, framing itself into language:
"Oh, say those precious words again, Alonzo!"
"They are the truth, the veritable truth, my Rosannah, and you shall
have the proof, ample and abundant proof!"
"Oh; Alonzo, stay by me! Leave me not for a moment! Let me feel that
you are near me! Tell me we shall never be parted more! Oh, this
happy hour, this blessed hour, this memorable hour!"
"We will make record of it, my Rosannah; every year, as this dear hour
chimes from the clock, we will celebrate it with thanksgivings, all
the years of our life."
"We will, we will, Alonzo!"
"Four minutes after six, in the evening, my Rosannah, shall
henceforth--"
"Twenty-three minutes after twelve, afternoon shall--"
"Why; Rosannah, darling, where are you?"
"In Honolulu, Sandwich Islands. And where are you? Stay by me; do
not leave me for a moment. I cannot bear it. Are you at home?"
"No, dear, I am in New York--a patient in the doctor's hands."
An agonizing shriek came buzzing to Alonzo's ear, like the sharp
buzzing of a hurt gnat; it lost power in traveling five thousand
miles. Alonzo hastened to say:
"Calm yourself, my child. It is nothing. Already I am getting well
under the sweet healing of your presence. Rosannah?"
"Yes, Alonzo? Oh, how you terrified me! Say on."
"Name the happy day, Rosannah!"
There was a little pause. Then a diffident small voice replied, "I
blush--but it is with pleasure, it is with happiness. Would--would
you like to have it soon?"
"This very night, Rosannah! Oh, let us risk no more delays. Let it
be now!--this very night, this very moment!"
"Oh, you impatient creature! I have nobody here but my good old
uncle, a missionary for a generation, and now retired from
service--nobody but him and his wife. I would so dearly like it if
your mother and your Aunt Susan--"
"Our mother and our Aunt Susan, my Rosannah."
"Yes, our mother and our Aunt Susan--I am content to word it so if it
pleases you; I would so like to have them present."
"So would I. Suppose you telegraph Aunt Susan. How long would it
take her to come?"
"The steamer leaves San Francisco day after tomorrow. The passage is
eight days. She would be here the 31st of March."
"Then name the 1st of April; do, Rosannah, dear."
"Mercy, it would make us April fools, Alonzo!"
"So we be the happiest ones that that day's suit looks down upon in
the whole broad expanse of the globe, why need we care? Call it the
1st of April, dear."
"Then the 1st of April at shall be, with all my heart!"
"Oh, happiness! Name the hour, too, Rosannah."
"I like the morning, it is so blithe. Will eight in the morning do,
Alonzo?"
"The loveliest hour in the day--since it will make you mine."
There was a feeble but frantic sound for some little time, as if
wool-upped, disembodied spirits were exchanging kisses; then Rosannah
said, "Excuse me just a moment, dear; I have an appointment, and am
called to meet it."
The young girl sought a large parlor and took her place at a window
which looked out upon a beautiful scene. To the left one could view
the charming Nuuana Valley, fringed with its ruddy flush of tropical
flowers and its plumed and graceful cocoa palms; its rising foothills
clothed in the shining green of lemon, citron, and orange groves; its
storied precipice beyond, where the first Kamehameha drove his
defeated foes over to their destruction, a spot that had forgotten its
grim history, no doubt, for now it was smiling, as almost always at
noonday, under the glowing arches of a succession of rainbows. In
front of the window one could see the quaint town, and here and there
a picturesque group of dusky natives, enjoying the blistering weather;
and far to the right lay the restless ocean, tossing its white mane in
the sunshine.
Rosannah stood there, in her filmy white raiment, fanning her flushed
and heated face, waiting. A Kanaka boy, clothed in a damaged blue
necktie and part of a silk hat, thrust his head in at the door, and
announced, "'Frisco haole!"
"Show him in," said the girl, straightening herself up and assuming a
meaning dignity. Mr. Sidney Algernon Burley entered, clad from head
to heel in dazzling snow--that is to say, in the lightest and whitest
of Irish linen. He moved eagerly forward, but the girl made a gesture
and gave him a look which checked him suddenly. She said, coldly, "I
am here, as I promised. I believed your assertions, I yielded to your
importune lies, and said I would name the day. I name the 1st of
April --eight in the morning. NOW GO!"
"Oh, my dearest, if the gratitude of a lifetime--"
"Not a word. Spare me all sight of you, all communication with you,
until that hour. No--no supplications; I will have it so."
When he was gone, she sank exhausted in a chair, for the long siege of
troubles she had undergone had wasted her strength. Presently she
said, "What a narrow escape! If the hour appointed had been an hour
earlier --Oh, horror, what an escape I have made! And to think I had
come to imagine I was loving this beguiling, this truthless, this
treacherous monster! Oh, he shall repent his villainy!"
Let us now draw this history to a close, for little more needs to be
told. On the 2d of the ensuing April, the Honolulu Advertiser
contained this notice:
MARRIED.--In this city, by telephone, yesterday morning,--at eight
o'clock, by Rev. Nathan Hays, assisted by Rev. Nathaniel Davis, of New
York, Mr. Alonzo Fitz Clarence, of Eastport, Maine, U. S., and Miss
Rosannah Ethelton, of Portland, Oregon, U. S. Mrs. Susan Howland, of
San Francisco, a friend of the bride, was present, she being the guest
of the Rev. Mr. Hays and wife, uncle and aunt of the bride. Mr.
Sidney Algernon Burley, of San Francisco, was also present but did not
remain till the conclusion of the marriage service. Captain
Hawthorne's beautiful yacht, tastefully decorated, was in waiting, and
the happy bride and her friends immediately departed on a bridal trip
to Lahaina and Haleakala.
The New York papers of the same date contained this notice:
MARRIED.--In this city, yesterday, by telephone, at half-past two in
the morning, by Rev. Nathaniel Davis, assisted by Rev. Nathan Hays,
of Honolulu, Mr. Alonzo Fitz Clarence, of Eastport, Maine, and Miss
Rosannah Ethelton, of Portland, Oregon. The parents and several
friends of the bridegroom were present, and enjoyed a sumptuous
breakfast and much festivity until nearly sunrise, and then departed
on a bridal trip to the Aquarium, the bridegroom's state of health not
admitting of a more extended journey.
Toward the close of that memorable day Mr. and Mrs. Alonzo Fitz
Clarence were buried in sweet converse concerning the pleasures of
their several bridal tours, when suddenly the young wife exclaimed:
"Oh, Lonny, I forgot! I did what I said I would."
"Did you, dear?"
"Indeed, I did. I made him the April fool! And I told him so, too!
Ah, it was a charming surprise! There he stood, sweltering in a black
dress-suit, with the mercury leaking out of the top of the
thermometer, waiting to be married. You should have seen the look he
gave when I whispered it in his ear. Ah, his wickedness cost me many
a heartache and many a tear, but the score was all squared up, then.
So the vengeful feeling went right out of my heart, and I begged him
to stay, and said I forgave him everything. But he wouldn't. He said
he would live to be avenged; said he would make our lives a curse to
us. But he can't, can he, dear?"
"Never in this world, my Rosannah!"
Aunt Susan, the Oregonian grandmother, and the young couple and their
Eastport parents, are all happy at this writing, and likely to remain
so. Aunt Susan brought the bride from the islands, accompanied her
across our continent, and had the happiness of witnessing the
rapturous meeting between an adoring husband and wife who had never
seen each other until that moment.
A word about the wretched Burley, whose wicked machinations came so
near wrecking the hearts and lives of our poor young friends, will be
sufficient. In a murderous attempt to seize a crippled and helpless
artisan who he fancied had done him some small offense, he fell into a
caldron of boiling oil and expired before he could be extinguished.