ROPE

ROPE BY HOLWORTHY HALL Author of “The Man Nobody Knew,” etc.

NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1922

ROPE

As Henry came blithely into the house with a heavy suit-case in one hand and a cumbersome kit-bag in the other, his Aunt Mirabelle marched out like a grenadier from the living-room, and posted herself in the hallway to watch him approach. There was this much to say for Aunt Mirabelle: she was at least consistent, and for twenty years she had worn the same expression whenever she looked at him. During that period the rest of the world and Henry had altered, developed, advanced––but not Aunt Mirabelle. She had changed neither the style of her clothes nor the nature of her convictions; she had disapproved of Henry when he was six, and therefore, she disapproved of him today. To let him know it, she regarded him precisely as though he 2 were still six, and had forgotten to wash his face.

“I suppose,” remarked Aunt Mirabelle, in her most abrasive voice, “I suppose you’re waiting for me to say I hope you had a good time. Well, I’m not a-going to say it, because it wouldn’t be true, and I wouldn’t want to have it sitting on my conscience. Of course, some people haven’t got much of any conscience for anything to sit on, anyway. If they did, they’d be earnest, useful citizens. If they did, then once in a while they’d think about something else besides loud ties and silk socks and golf. And they wouldn’t be gallivanting off on house-parties for a week at a time, either; they’d be tending to their business––if they had any. And if they hadn’t, they ought to.”

Henry put down the bag and the suit-case, removed his straw hat, and grinned, with a fair imitation of cheerfulness. He had never learned how to handle Aunt Mirabelle, and small wonder; for if he listened in silence, he was called sulky; if he disputed her, he was called flippant; if he agreed with her, she accused him of fraud; and if he obeyed his natural 3 instincts, and treated her with tolerant good-humour, she usually went on a conversation strike, and never weakened until after the twelfth apology. Whatever he did was wrong, so that purely on speculation, he grinned, and said what came to his tongue.

“Maybe so,” said Henry, “maybe so, but conscience is a plant of slow growth,” and immediately after he had said this, he wished that he had chosen a different epigram––something which wasn’t so liable to come back at him, later, like a boomerang.

“Humph!” said Aunt Mirabelle. “It is, is it? Well, if I was in your place, I’d be impatient for it to grow faster.”

Henry shook his head. “No, I don’t believe you would. I’ve read somewhere that impatience dries the blood more than age or sorrow.” He assumed an air of critical satisfaction. “The bird that wrote that had pretty good technique, don’t you think?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “All right, Henry. Be pert. But I know what made you so almighty anxious to sneak off on this house-party; and I know whose account it was you 4 went on, too, and I don’t see for the life of me why your uncle hasn’t put his foot down.” She sighed, as though in deep mourning. “I did hope you’d grow up different from these other boys, Henry, but you’re all of you just alike. When you get old enough, do you pick out some pure, innocent, sensible, young woman that’s been trained the way girls were trained in my day? No. You go and make fools of yourselves over these short-skirted little hussies all powdered up like a box of marshmallows. And as long as they’re spry enough and immodest enough to do all these new bunny dances and what not, you think that’s a sure sign they’ll make good wives and mothers. Humph. Makes me sick.”

In spite of himself, Henry lost his artificial grin, and began to turn dull red. “I wouldn’t go quite so far as to say that.”

“Well,” retorted Aunt Mirabelle, “I didn’t hardly expect you would. But you’ll go far enough to see one of ’em, I notice.... Well, your uncle’s home this afternoon; long’s he’s paying your bills, you might have the grace to go in and say howdy-you-do to him.” She 5 marched upstairs, and Henry, revolving his hat in his hand, gazed after her until she was out of sight. He stood, irresolute, until the echo of her common-sense shoes died into silence; and as he lingered, he was struck for the ten thousandth time by the amazing mystery of the human family.

First, there was his mother, a small and exquisite woman with music in her heart and in the tips of her fingers; his memory of her was dim, but he knew that she had been the maddest and the merriest of all possible mothers––a creature of joy and sunshine and the sheer happiness of existence. And then her sister Mirabelle, who found life such a serious condition to be in, and loved nothing about it, save the task of reforming it for other people whether the other people liked it or not. And finally, her brother John, bald, fat, and good-natured; a man whose personal interests were bounded by his own physical comfort, and by his desire to see everyone else equally comfortable. Whenever Henry thought of this trio, he reflected that his grandparents must have been very versatile.

He drew a long breath, and glanced up the stairway, as though the spirit of his Aunt Mirabelle were still haunting him; then, with a depressing recollection of what she had said about his conscience, and with hot resentment at what she said about his taste, he walked slowly into the library.

His uncle John Starkweather, who had been writing at a big desk between the windows, sprang up to shake hands with him. “Hello, boy! Thought Bob Standish must have kidnapped you. Have a good party?”

“Fine, thanks,” said Henry, but his tone was so subdued and joyless that his uncle stared at him for a moment, and then went over to close the door. Standing with his back to it, Mr. Starkweather smiled reminiscently and a trifle ruefully, and began to peel the band from a cigar. “What’s the matter? Mirabelle say anything to you?”

“Why––nothing special.”

His uncle hesitated. “In a good many ways,” he said, lowering his voice, “Mirabelle puts me in mind of my father. When he was a boy, out in the country, he’d had to smash the 7 ice in the water-pitcher every mornin’, and he was proud of it––thought a boy that hadn’t earned some of his godliness with an ice-pick was a dude. Thought what was good enough for his father was good enough for him, and sometimes it was too good. Didn’t believe in modern improvements like telephones and easy chairs and three-tined forks; didn’t believe in labour-savin’ devices because labour wasn’t meant to be saved. Bible says for us to work six days a week, and if he ever had any spare time before Sat’day night, he figured he must have forgot somethin’. Business––well, he called advertisin’ a rich man’s luxury, and said an audit was an insult to his partners. Said he’d