Луис Бромфилд - Early Autumn - A Story of a Lady

“Yes,” said Olivia. “That’s true.”

“Well,” he continued with a visible effort, “Michael’s a good friend of mine. I’m sort of a bodyguard to him. Of course, I never come out here. I don’t belong in this world. … I’d feel sort of funny out here.”

(Olivia found herself feeling respect for the little man. He was so simple and so honest and he so obviously worshiped Michael.)

“You see … I know all about Michael. I’ve been through a great deal with him … and he’s not himself just now. There’s something wrong. He ain’t interested in his work. He acts as if he’d be willing to chuck his whole career overboard … and I can’t let him do that. None of his friends … can’t let him do it. We can’t get him to take a proper interest in his affairs. Usually, he manages everything … better than anyone else could.” He became suddenly confidential, closing one eye. “D’you know what I think is the matter? I’ve been watching him and I’ve got an idea.”

He waited until Olivia said, “No … I haven’t the least idea.”

Cocking his head on one side and speaking with the air of having made a great discovery, he said, “Well, I think there’s a woman mixed up in it.”

She felt the blood mounting to her head, in spite of anything she could do. When she was able to speak, she asked, “Yes, and what am I to do?”

He moved a little nearer, still with the same air of confiding in her. “Well, this is my idea. Now, you’re a friend of his … you’ll understand. You see, the trouble is that it’s some woman here in Durham … some swell, you see, like yourself. That’s what makes it hard. He’s had women before, but they were women out of the ward and it didn’t make much difference. But this is different. He’s all upset, and …” He hesitated for a moment. “Well, I don’t like to say a thing like this about Michael, but I think his head is turned a little. That’s a mean thing to say, but then we’re all human, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” said Olivia softly. “Yes … in the end, we’re all human … even swells like me.” There was a twinkle of humor in her eye which for a moment disconcerted the little man.

“Well,” he went on, “he’s all upset about her and he’s no good for anything. Now, what I thought was this … that you could find out who this woman is and go to her and persuade her to lay off him for a time … to go away someplace … at least until the campaign is over. It’d make a difference. D’you see?”

He looked at her boldly, as if what he had been saying was absolutely honest and direct, as if he really had not the faintest idea who this woman was, and beneath a sense of anger, Olivia was amused at the crude tact which had evolved this trick.

“There’s not much that I can do,” she said. “It’s a preposterous idea … but I’ll do what I can. I’ll try. I can’t promise anything. It lies with Mr. O’Hara, after all.”

“You see, Mrs. Pentland, if it ever got to be a scandal, it’d be the end of him. A woman out of the ward doesn’t matter so much, but a woman out here would be different. She’d get a lot of publicity from the sassiety editors and all. … That’s what’s dangerous. He’d have the whole church against him on the grounds of immorality.”

While he was speaking, a strange idea occurred to Olivia—that much of what he said sounded like a strange echo of Aunt Cassie’s methods of argument.

The horse had grown impatient and was pawing the road and tossing his head; and Olivia was angry now, genuinely angry, so that she waited for a time before speaking, lest she should betray herself and spoil all this little game of pretense which Mr. Gavin had built up to keep himself in countenance. At last she said, “I’ll do what I can, but it’s a ridiculous thing you’re asking of me.”

The little man grinned. “I’ve been a long time in politics, Ma’am, and I’ve seen funnier things than this. …” He put on his hat, as if to signal that he had said all he wanted to say. “But there’s one thing I’d like to ask … and that’s that you never let Michael know that I spoke to you about this.”

“Why should I promise … anything?”

He moved nearer and said in a low voice, “You know Michael very well, Mrs. Pentland. … You know Michael very well, and you know that he’s got a bad, quick temper. If he found out that we were meddling in his affairs, he might do anything. He might chuck the whole business and clear out altogether. He’s never been like this about a woman before. He’d do it just now. … That’s the way he’s feeling. You don’t want to see him ruin himself any more than I do … a clever man like Michael. Why, he might be president one of these days. He can do anything he sets his will to, Ma’am, but he is, as they say, temperamental just now.”

“I’ll not tell him,” said Olivia quietly. “And I’ll do what I can to help you. And now I must go.” She felt suddenly friendly toward Mr. Gavin, perhaps because what he had been telling her was exactly what she wanted most at that moment to hear. She leaned down from her horse and held out her hand, saying, “Good-morning, Mr. Gavin.”

Mr. Gavin removed his hat once more, revealing his round, bald, shiny head. “Good-morning, Mrs. Pentland.”

As she rode off, the little man remained standing in the middle of the road looking after her until she had disappeared. His eye glowed with the light of admiration, but as Olivia turned from the road into the meadows, he frowned and swore aloud. Until now he hadn’t understood how a good politician like Michael could lose his head over any woman. But he had an idea that he could trust this woman to do what she had promised. There was a look about her … a look which made her seem different from most women; perhaps it was this look which had made a fool of Michael, who usually kept women in their proper places.

Grinning and shaking his head, he got into the Ford, started it with a great uproar, and set off in the direction of Boston. After he had gone a little way he halted again and got out, for in his agitation he had forgotten to close the hood.

From the moment she turned and rode away from Mr. Gavin, Olivia gave herself over to action. She saw that there was need of more than mere static truth to bring order out of the hazy chaos at Pentlands; there must be action as well. And she was angry now, really angry, even at Mr. Gavin for his impertinence, and at the unknown person who had been his informant. The strange idea that Aunt Cassie or Anson was somehow responsible still remained; tactics such as these were completely sympathetic to them—to go thus in Machiavellian fashion to a man like Gavin instead of coming to her. By using Mr. Gavin there would be no scene, no definite unpleasantness to disturb the enchantment of Pentlands. They could go on pretending that nothing was wrong, that nothing had happened.

But stronger than her anger was the fear that in some way they might use the same tactics to spoil the happiness of Sybil. They would, she was certain, sacrifice everything to their belief in their own rightness.

She found Jean at the house when she returned, and, closing the door of the drawing room, she said to him, “Jean, I want to talk to you for a moment … alone.”

He said at once, “I know, Mrs. Pentland. It’s about Sybil.”

There was a little echo of humor in his voice that touched and disarmed her as it always did. It struck her that he was still young enough to be confident that everything in life would go exactly as he wished it. …

“Yes,” she said, “that was it.” They sat on two of Horace Pentland’s chairs and she continued. “I don’t believe in meddling, Jean, only now there are circumstances … reasons. She made a little gesture. “I thought that if really … really …”