The Splendid Lie

“This is Mr. Tatum.”

In the hall of the Athenaeum Club an introduction was being effected. A young man was actively engaged in making his uncle acquainted with his future father-in-law. The latter was Mr. Tatum. The uncle was Mr. Farquhar, and the young man Harry.

There, barring the lady, you have what I think I have seen described as the dramatis personae. The lady will appear in a moment. Though not, of course, in the hall where these three men were standing.

Two weeks previous Harry had crossed the ocean. On the way, chance, or the chief steward, had at table placed him side by side with the daughter of Mr. Tatum. The girl was pretty, she was endowed with superior health and manner, and, though reticent, could listen to anything worth listening to with glimpses of teeth as perfect as Harry remembered to have seen before. To provoke those glimpses Harry said whatever entered his head, which, I admit, was not much.

In spite of this, or, perhaps, precisely on that account, it so fell about that in the wide leisures of the voyage, companionship became pleasant to them both, so pleasant, indeed, that neither felt it could properly terminate with the journey, both concurring that it would be agreeable to take a longer trip, one in which not chance, or the chief steward, but matrimony should place them side by side.

Yet that perhaps was in the order of things. The girl was very fetching, and Harry was a nice-looking boy who came of what is known as the best people⁠—those people who are still the best, in spite of plutocratic invasion. Such things count with a girl, particularly if she have money and social aspirations.

Miss Tatum had both, but not what is perhaps pretentiously described as position. Metropolitan hostesses never thought of asking her to their entertainments, for the excellent reason that, in a city like New York, where the few are obvious and the many obscure, she was an entirely unknown quantity.

Mr. Farquhar, Harry’s uncle, was just the reverse. An old New Yorker, he had been everywhere, seen everything, known everybody. He had been interested in a number of ladies since dead and departed, and at balls and dinners related the fact to their daughters with tender calm. He was not only an old New Yorker, he was an old beau. As such he had two manners, one very gracious, the other equally remote. In the hall of the Athenaeum Club it was the latter that he was displaying.

“Uncle Reginald, this is Mr. Tatum.”

At the introduction, Mr. Tatum raised his hat, extended a hand, and smiled. Mr. Farquhar smiled also. But he did not seem to think it necessary to acknowledge the introduction in any other way. He kept his hat on his head, and his hands in his pockets.

Mr. Tatum was a large man, very stout, with a face like a brandied cherry. It was dull red all over, except on his forehead, where there was a white scar. He mumbled something about the pleasure which he was experiencing. Mr. Farquhar made no reply. Harry said something to the effect that he was glad to bring his uncle and his future father-in-law together. Mr. Farquhar did not appear to have heard. But still he smiled.

Yet in that smile of his was a gleam as chill as the point of a sword. Before it suddenly the scar on Mr. Tatum’s forehead flamed. He dropped his hand, replaced his hat, stalked to the door. Harry followed, saw him out, and returned to where his uncle stood.

“Have you lunched, Harry?” that uncle asked. “No? Very good! Then lunch with me. Your fat friend has given me an appetite.”

“In that case,” Harry angrily retorted, “I can’t say that you seemed very grateful.”

At this, Mr. Farquhar smiled as he had smiled before. Taking the nephew by the arm, he led him into what is perhaps the most elaborate breakfast room in New York.

“Suppose we sit here,” Mr. Farquhar continued, indicating, as he spoke, a table at a window. “What would you say to a ragout à la Sardanapale and a glass of Moselle? Archibald,” he added, turning to the head waiter, “will you see, please, that the ragout has saffron in it, and that the Moselle is not iced? Now,” he resumed, when the waiter had gone, “this Mr.⁠—er⁠—Tatum is quite well off, I think you told me.”

“Ten million,” snapped Harry.

“His daughter, I presume, will come in for it all. Well, ten million is just enough to entertain on. Nowadays, a penny less and you are pinched. So-and-so used to say that no one could live like a gentleman on less than a thousand dollars a day. At four percent, ten million will yield a trifle more. I can remember when twelve thousand a year was regarded as wealth. Times have changed, but not customs. Always it has been considered as easy to marry a rich girl as a poor one, besides being, as Major Pendennis remarked, much more comfortable. By the way, you know of Hank Jones, don’t you? The papers have been rather busy with him lately.”

Harry, who had been looking out of the window, turned.

“The policy man? What of him?”

“Nothing. He occurred to me in connection with days⁠—and nights⁠—when living was less expensive. At the time, there were a number of gambling dens about here. The dealers represented a type which, like the epoch, has gone. They wore diamonds, dressed in black, and affected to be supremely apathetic. In those days Hank Jones was one of that sort.”

“Here is the ragout,” Harry, vaguely bored, interrupted.

“But there was,” Mr. Farquhar continued, helping his nephew to some truffles and game, “there was nothing apathetic about Hank Jones, except, of course, in appearance, and in appearance only for appearance sake. He was a great hand at making a stranger feel at home, and then in taking that stranger’s home away. A gift such as that is apt to lead to curious experiences. More than once it led him to jail.

“But he had other adventures. On one of those sumptuous April days of ours, which are not of the spring nor yet of the summer, but a mingling of both, a girl came sauntering before the Fifth Avenue Hotel where he stood. Whether or not she gave him so much of an invitation as may be conveyed in the quiver of an eyelid, I, for one, do not know. What I do know is that he followed her, spoke to her, joined her, and accompanied her to her parents’ home. In a week she was⁠—”

“I think I will take some of the Moselle,” Harry, with a yawn, again interrupted.

“Help yourself, dear boy. Where was I? Oh, yes! In addition to the girl⁠—whose name, if I have it correctly, was Arabella, and who, in becoming his wife, became also his cook⁠—in addition to her he had an assortment of equally agreeable acquaintances. There was Johnny Slope, for instance, a plumber by trade, by practice a thief. There was Banjo Pete, a lively young fellow, who, after vacating the minstrel world, had passed initiate into the high art of illuminating with dark lanterns. There was also George Percival, a poet, born without scruples, and who had neglected to acquire any. These friends of Jones’ were all interested in policy. Through their aid, and through the aid of others similarly accomplished, he was multiplying joints all over town. If I am correctly informed, these amusements made him quite wealthy.

“Meanwhile, in the quarters over which Arabella presided, occasionally there were festivities. That brisk young Pete would bring his banjo, play he was Mr. Bones again, sing wonderful songs, and tell a rattling story. Johnny Slope⁠—Mr. Slopely in private life⁠—would sometimes come with his lady, sometimes with his father, as nice a looking old gentleman as ever cracked a crib. There also Percival, with his poetic ways, would lounge by the hour.”

“I’d like a bit of bread, please,” Harry once more interrupted.

“Now, it so happened,” Mr. Farquhar, reaching a plate to his nephew, continued, “that in the course of one of these festivities, Hank Jones was called away, and did not return until all the guests, save Percival, had gone. He was then just in time to hear Arabella call ‘Help!’ and to see Percival, with an arm about her. At once he was at him. Percival dropped the girl, caught up a bottle, and struck him. Later, when Jones came to, Arabella had washed the blood away, but not the wound. Time itself has not obliterated it. The scar was quite visible when he was in the hall here a few minutes ago. Have another truffle?”

“What!” Harry cried. His anger had gone, his boredom with it. “Do you mean⁠—”

“That Mr. Tatum and Hank Jones are one and the same? Why, of course I do. But I have not finished. There is an epilogue to the story. A fortnight after the bottle incident, Percival was assisted out of the world. Your fat friend was arrested for it, he was tried, and⁠—never say you don’t believe in miracles⁠—was acquitted. It was then that he changed his name. Professionally he remained Hank Jones, but for the private purposes of private life he developed into Mr. Tatum. After all, there is no law against it. Though, if there were, I hardly fancy it would trouble him. A little more of the ragout?”

“A-a-and you say,” Harry stuttered. “Y-y-you say⁠—” He did not seem to get any farther.

“Did you not hear me?” Mr. Farquhar asked. “Or would you wish me to tell it all over again? Yesterday, on receipt of the note in which you acquainted me with your engagement, I called on my old friend, the district attorney. It is the summary of his conversation that I have related to you.

“Interesting, isn’t it?” Mr. Farquhar, after a momentary interlude with knife and fork, resumed. “In any event, your future father-in-law is certainly a fine old party. Though I admit, in the hall here, he looked so wretchedly ill, so manifestly apoplectic, that I felt really sorry for him. Now I feel sorry for his daughter.”

“I’ll chuck it,” Harry morosely muttered. “And deuced hard luck it is. A nicer girl never lived.”

To this, Mr. Farquhar, fully occupied now with the ragout, said nothing. But the description of the girl seemed to him highly impressionistic. She was, he was convinced, both inane and vulgar. Inane, because she had accepted Harry, and vulgar because she could not help herself. The daughter of a cook, and also of a crook, how, he asked himself, could she be otherwise? None the less, ten million, and the father en route for the cemetery, after all, it did seem a pity.

“Yes,” Harry repeated. “I’ll chuck it.”

He threw a glance out of the window, and wished he could follow it. He was profoundly unhappy, overwhelmed by one of those enormous griefs which, in the youth of life, the morrow disperses utterly.

Meditatively, Mr. Farquhar patted his mouth with a napkin, moved his plate aside, and considered his nephew.

“You will have to tell her,” he at last remarked. “That will be a bit awkward.”

Manfully, Harry exclaimed: “I’ll write her.”

Mr. Farquhar flicked a crumb from his sleeve.

“Suppose I take a hand. Suppose I go and break it gently. That would be better than writing⁠—unless you used a pencil. Writing with a pencil is like talking in a whisper. Ink, don’t you think, is so emphatic?”

“But,” objected Harry, “I’d have to give you a line to her.”

“There, there!” Mr. Farquhar soothingly replied. “Don’t run into excesses. Besides, while I have received any number of letters of introduction, never yet have I presented one.” With an uplift of the chin he resumed: “My name is sufficient.”

As he spoke, he arose.

“You will go to her now?” Harry, rising also, heroically inquired.

“Yes.”

Mr. Farquhar was as good as his word. Presently, in a hansom, he was sailing along toward the residence of this girl, who, on alighting, he learned was at home.

Telling the servant the sesame of that name of his, he looked about the room into which the servant then showed him. It was furnished with plenty of taste, and, to his surprise, none of it bad. But his surprise heightened when the girl herself appeared. Instead of the vulgar young person whom he had imagined, here, a hand extended to this uncle of her betrothed, was a superselect beauty speaking in a voice that was silken:

“I am so glad to see you. Harry has so often⁠—But won’t you be seated?” Mr. Farquhar heard, but did not heed. He was thinking how could he tell this loveliness that his nephew would not marry her, and would not, moreover, because of distasteful things of which she was innocent, and doubtless unaware. He simply could not. All the innate gentility in him rebelled. It was impossible. He would lie first. And at once, in an unhallowed inspiration, the lie hopped out:

“Harry is no more!”

The girl started.

“Dead?”

“Worse!”

At this questions and exclamation marks shot from the beauty’s eyes.

“Yes,” Mr. Farquhar resumed. “Not an hour ago the young scoundrel eloped with an old harridan, hang him!”

Bewilderment lifted the girl visibly, like a lash.

“What?”

“And hanging is too good for him; he ought to have his ghost kicked.”

“But⁠—”

“An old harridan! A hunchback dwarf! With a harelip at that!”

“But⁠—”

“I know. When he could have had you! How, you wonder, can such a thing be. Believe me, in your wonderment I collaborate.”

“But⁠—”

“I know. I appreciate. Yet now, as you may see, it is but a case of good riddance to bad rubbish. I came to condole, I remain to congratulate.”

The girl turned, crossed the room, recrossed it, sat down.

Mr. Farquhar eyed her, and, eying, divined the effort she was making to readjust herself. In looking at her he saw she was looking at the floor, and saw, too, that she looked infernally pretty. Beauty in distress is very appealing. Yet was she, Mr. Farquhar asked himself, really distressed? Concerning Harry, he had no illusions. He was a nice boy, but, otherwise, from the avuncular standpoint, an imbecile, whereas this girl was charming⁠—so charming that he realized, as never before, what a confounded fool Harry was.

Through what miracle charm of any kind had been evolved in this young woman, whose antecedents were so clearly precarious, Harry’s uncle, accustomed as he was to the multiple surprises of metropolitan life, no more thought of attempting to determine than he would have thought of dissecting a rose. Instead of anything so futile he moved to where she sat.

There, impelled by sudden sympathy, by a sympathy which was new to him, he spoke:

“My dear child, you think you have lost something. Believe me, you have gained.”

The girl, who had been looking down, looked up. Her eyes⁠—diamonds on purple velvet⁠—were tearless. In their deep depths grief had either sunk away or else been throttled.

“You are undoubtedly right,” she answered, in that silken voice of hers. “Besides, it is at least consoling to know that⁠—”

“That love returns to the heart as the leaf returns to the tree,” Mr. Farquhar swiftly and sagaciously interjected.

But the feminine in her was not to be denied.

“It is at least consoling to know that the lady is⁠—er⁠—well⁠—what you tell me.”

Subtly, with tender calm, Mr. Farquhar retouched the picture: “A monster!”

The girl smiled.

“I wish them both joy.” As she spoke she stood up. “Will you have some tea?”

Mr. Farquhar would, and did. He had tea with her that day, and on the next, and on the day after, and the day succeeding. He had tea with her so often that he found time to tell her certain things, and to learn certain others.

He told her that he was not as young as he might be⁠—which perhaps was evident. He told her that in point of worldly goods, he classed himself among the newly poor⁠—which, it may be, she suspected.

Then novelties were produced. He told her that he had loved her at first sight⁠—which, he told her also is often second sight⁠—and that phenomenon sufficiently explained, he told her that he was lonely, and learned that so was she; learned, too, and rather to his surprise, that this loneliness she attributed to her father.

“I did not know you knew,” said Mr. Farquhar, who, at the moment, found but that.

The girl nodded. “I have for years.” She brushed a tear. “But how shall it matter? The doctors say he cannot live.”

Nor did he. Afterward, after a decent interval, that is, Mr. Farquhar told her something else. He told the rhyme and reason of his lie.

“But!” the girl exclaimed.

Her hand had been in his, her head on his shoulder. At once she moved a little away. A perspective had suddenly unfolded. In it she saw a nephew’s cowardice, an uncle’s bravery. The one amused, the other appealed. But of these inward emotions she gave no outward sign. Instead, she murmured demurely:

“I thought that gentlemen never told⁠—”

“Sometimes,” Mr. Farquhar interrupted. “Sometimes they do.”

Those eyes of hers she lowered, and it was as though addressing the carpet that she asked:

“To whom, then, do they?”

Mr. Farquhar caught up, and repeated, the question.

“To whom do gentlemen ever lie?” Drawing her to him, he continued: “To whom, indeed, except to those they love? Won’t you forgive me?”

The question was needless. Already in the girl’s now-lifted eyes laughter floated.

Harry was less indulgent. When he learned the truth he reviled his uncle and his aunt-to-be.

“Nephews are so intolerant,” Mr. Farquhar, with his usual calm, commented. “You see, my dearest, truth is not suited to everybody, nor, for that matter, are lies.”

At which his dearest smiled, and said:

“No, of course not; unless, like your own, they happen to be splendid.”