Bertram Cope's Year

by Henry Blake Fuller

He went away presently, and as he walked his thoughts returned to Indian Rock. The excursion seemed a valid undertaking at an advantageous time; and he could easily spare a couple of days from the formation of his new establishment. He called on Cope that evening. Cope felt sure he could clear things for Saturday, and expressed pleasure at the general prospect. He happened to be writing to Lemoyne that evening and passed along his pleasure at the prospect to his friend. A few jaunts, outings or interludes of that kind, together with his week at his home in Freeford, over Christmas, would agreeably help fill in the time before Arthur's own arrival in January.

Randolph received Cope's response with gratification; it was pleasant to feel oneself acceptable to a younger man. In the intervals between his early looking at rugs and napery he collected timetables and folders, made inquiries, and had some correspondence with the manager of the admirable hotel. He had a fondness for well-kept hostelries just before or just after the active season. It was a pleasure to breakfast or dine in some far corner of a large and almost empty dining-room. It would be a pleasure to stroll through those gorges, which would be reasonably certain to be free from litter, and to perch on the crags, which would be reasonably certain to be free from picnic parties. It would be agreeable also to sleep in a chamber far from town noises and grimes, with few honks from late excursionists and but little early morning clatter from a diminished staff. And the river boats were still running on Sunday.

"It will brace him for the rest of his fall term," thought Randolph, "and me for my confounded shopping. And during some one of our boat-rides or rambles, I shall tell him of my plans for the winter."

The departure, it was agreed upon, should take place late on Friday afternoon. On Friday, at half past eleven, Randolph at his office in the city, received a long-distance call from Churchton. Cope announced, with a breathless particularity not altogether disassociated from self-conscious gaucherie, that he should be unable to go. Some unexpected work had been suddenly thrown upon him…. He rather thought that one or two of his family might be coming to town for over Sunday….

The telephone, as a conveyor of unwelcome message, strikes a medium between the letter by mail and the face-to-face interview. If it does not quite give chance for the studied guardedness and calculated plausibility of the one, it at least obviates some of the risk involved in personal presence and in the introduction of contradictory evidence often contributed by manner and by facial expression. And a long distance interview must be brief,—at least there can be no surprise, no indignation, if it is made so.

"Very well," said Randolph, in reply to Cope's hurried and indistinct words. "I'm sorry," he added, and the brief talk was over. "You are feeling all right, I hope," he would have added, as the result of an afterthought; but the connection was broken.

Randolph left the instrument. He felt dashed, a good deal disappointed, and a little hurt. He took two or three folders from a pigeon-hole and dropped them into a waste-basket. Well, the boy doubtless had his reasons. But a single good one, frankly put forth, would have been better than duplicate or multiple reasons. He hoped that, on Sunday, a cold drizzle rather than a flood of sunlight might fall upon the autumn foliage of Indian Rock. And he would turn to-morrow to good account by looking, for an hour or two, at china.

Sunday afternoon was gorgeously bright and autumnal in Churchton, whatever it may have been along the middle reaches of the Illinois river; and at about four o'clock Randolph found himself in front of Medora Phillips' house. Medora and her young ladies were out strolling, as was inevitable on such a day; but in her library he found Foster lying on a couch—the same piece of furniture which, at a critical juncture, had comforted Cope.

"Peter brought me down," said the cripple. "I thought I'd rather look at the backs of books than at the fronts of all those tedious pictures. Besides, I'm beginning to practice for my call at your new quarters." Then, with a sudden afterthought: "Why, I understood you were going somewhere out of town. What prevented?"

"Well, I changed my plans. I needed a little more time for my house-furnishing. I was looking yesterday at some table-ware for your use; am wondering, in fact, if Mrs. Phillips couldn't arrange to give me the benefit of her taste to-morrow or Tuesday…."