The Minor Dramas - William Dean Howells

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Galbraith, springing from her seat, and confronting him. “So are you! You pretended to be asleep!”

      Mr. Richards: “I—I—I was taken by surprise. I had to take time to think.”

      Miss Galbraith: “So did I.”

      Mr. Richards: “And you thought it would be a good plan to get your polonaise caught in the window?”

      Miss Galbraith, hiding her face on his shoulder: “No, no, Allen! That I never will admit. No woman would!”

      Mr. Richards: “Oh, I dare say!” After a pause: “Well, I am a poor, weak, helpless man, with no one to advise me or counsel me, and I have been cruelly deceived. How could you, Lucy, how could you? I can never get over this.” He drops his head upon her shoulder.

      Miss Galbraith, starting away again, and looking about the car: “Allen, I have an idea! Do you suppose Mr. Pullman could be induced to sell this car?”

      Mr. Richards: “Why?”

      Miss Galbraith: “Why, because I think it’s perfectly lovely, and I should like to live in it always. It could be fitted up for a sort of summer-house, don’t you know, and we could have it in the garden, and you could smoke in it.”

      Mr. Richards: “Admirable! It would look just like a travelling photographic saloon. No, Lucy, we won’t buy it; we will simply keep it as a precious souvenir, a sacred memory, a beautiful dream,—and let it go on fulfilling its destiny all the same.”

      Porter, entering, and gathering up Miss Galbraith’s things: “Be at Schenectady in half a minute, miss. Won’t have much time.”

      Miss Galbraith, rising, and adjusting her dress, and then looking about the car, while she passes her hand through her lover’s arm: “Oh, I do hate to leave it. Farewell, you dear, kind, good, lovely car! May you never have another accident!” She kisses her hand to the car, upon which they both look back as they slowly leave it.

      Mr. Richards, kissing his hand in the like manner: “Good-by, sweet chariot! May you never carry any but bridal couples!”

      Miss Galbraith: “Or engaged ones!”

      Mr. Richards: “Or husbands going home to their wives!”

      Miss Galbraith: “Or wives hastening to their husbands.”

      Mr. Richards: “Or young ladies who have waited one train over, so as to be with the young men they hate.”

      Miss Galbraith: “Or young men who are so indifferent that they pretend to be asleep when the young ladies come in!” They pause at the door and look back again. “‘And must I leave thee, Paradise?’” They both kiss their hands to the car again, and, their faces being very close together, they impulsively kiss each other. Then Miss Galbraith throws back her head, and solemnly confronts him. “Only think, Allen! If this car hadn’t broken its engagement, we might never have mended ours.”

      THE SLEEPING CAR

      I.

      SCENE: One side of a sleeping-car on the Boston and Albany Road. The curtains are drawn before most of the berths; from the hooks and rods hang hats, bonnets, bags, bandboxes, umbrellas, and other travelling gear; on the floor are boots of both sexes, set out for THE PORTER to black. THE PORTER is making up the beds in the upper and lower berths adjoining the seats on which a young mother, slender and pretty, with a baby asleep on the seat beside her, and a stout old lady, sit confronting each other—MRS. AGNES ROBERTS and her aunt MARY.

      MRS. ROBERTS. Do you always take down your back hair, aunty?

      AUNT MARY. No, never, child; at least not since I had such a fright about it once, coming on from New York. It’s all well enough to take down your back hair if it is yours; but if it isn’t, your head’s the best place for it. Now, as I buy mine of Madame Pierrot—

      MRS. ROBERTS. Don’t you wish she wouldn’t advertise it as human hair? It sounds so pokerish—like human flesh, you know.

      AUNT MARY. Why, she couldn’t call it inhuman hair, my dear.

      MRS. ROBERTS (thoughtfully). No—just hair.

      AUNT MARY. Then people might think it was for mattresses. But, as I was saying, I took it off that night, and tucked it safely away, as I supposed, in my pocket, and I slept sweetly till about midnight, when I happened to open my eyes, and saw something long and black crawl off my bed and slip under the berth. Such a shriek as I gave, my dear! “A snake! a snake! oh, a snake!” And everybody began talking at once, and some of the gentlemen swearing, and the porter came running with the poker to kill it; and all the while it was that ridiculous switch of mine, that had worked out of my pocket. And glad enough I was to grab it up before anybody saw it, and say I must have been dreaming.

      MRS. ROBERTS. Why, aunty, how funny! How could you suppose a serpent could get on board a sleeping-car, of all places in the world!

      AUNT MARY. That was the perfect absurdity of it.

      THE PORTER. Berths ready now, ladies.

      MRS. ROBERTS (to THE PORTER, who walks away to the end of the car, and sits down near the door). Oh, thank you. Aunty, do you feel nervous the least bit?

      AUNT MARY. Nervous? No. Why?

      MRS. ROBERTS. Well, I don’t know. I suppose I’ve been worked up a little about meeting Willis, and wondering how he’ll look, and all. We can’t know each other, of course. It doesn’t stand to reason that if he’s been out there for twelve years, ever since I was a child, though we’ve corresponded regularly—at least I have—that he could recognize me; not at the first glance, you know. He’ll have a full beard; and then I’ve got married, and here’s the baby. Oh, no! he’ll never guess who it is in the world. Photographs really amount to nothing in such a case. I wish we were at home, and it was all over. I wish he had written some particulars, instead of telegraphing from Ogden, “Be with you on the 7 A.M., Wednesday.”

      AUNT MARY. Californians always telegraph, my dear; they never think of writing. It isn’t expensive enough, and it doesn’t make your blood run cold enough to get a letter, and so they send you one of those miserable yellow despatches whenever they can—those printed in a long string, if possible, so that you’ll be sure to die before you get to the end of it. I suppose your brother has fallen into all those ways, and says “reckon” and “ornary” and “which the same,” just like one of Mr. Bret Harte’s characters.

      MRS. ROBERTS. But it isn’t exactly our not knowing each other, aunty, that’s worrying me; that’s something that could be got over in time. What is simply driving me distracted is Willis and Edward meeting there when I’m away from home. Oh, how could I be away! and why couldn’t Willis have given us fair warning? I would have hurried from the ends of the earth to meet him. I don’t believe poor Edward ever saw a Californian; and he’s so quiet and preoccupied, I’m sure he’d never get on with Willis. And if Willis is the least loud, he wouldn’t like Edward. Not that I suppose he is loud; but I don’t believe he knows anything about literary men. But you can see, aunty, can’t you, how very anxious I must be? Don’t you see that I ought to have been there when Willis and Edward met, so as to—to—well, to break them to each other, don’t you know?

      AUNT MARY. Oh, you needn’t be troubled about that, Agnes. I dare say they’ve got on perfectly well together. Very likely they’re sitting down to the unwholesomest hot supper this instant that the ingenuity of man could invent.

      MRS. ROBERTS. Oh, do you think they are, aunty? Oh, if I could only believe they were sitting down to a hot supper together now, I should be so happy! They’d be sure to get on if they were. There’s nothing like eating to make men friendly with each other. Don’t you know, at receptions, how they never have anything to say to each other till the escalloped oysters and the chicken salad appear; and then how sweet they are as soon as they’ve helped the ladies to ice? Oh,

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