Beasleys Christmas Party | Page 4

unravelled the skein of their relationships, alliances, feuds, and private
wars--a precept not unlike the classic injunction:
"Yes, my darling daughter. Hang your clothes on a hickory limb, But
don't go near the water."
However, in my confusion I warmly regretted my failure to follow it,
and resolved not to blunder again.
Mr. Dowden thanked me for the information for which he had no real
desire, and, the elderly ladies again taking up (with all too evident relief)
their various mild debates, he inquired if I played bridge. "But I forget,"
he added. "Of course you'll be at the 'Despatch' office in the evenings,
and can't be here." After which he immediately began to question me
about my work, making his determination to give me no opportunity
again to mention the Honorable David Beasley unnecessarily
conspicuous, as I thought.
I could only conclude that some unpleasantness had arisen between
himself and Beasley, probably of political origin, since they were both
in politics, and of personal (and consequently bitter) development; and
that Mr. Dowden found the mention of Beasley not only unpleasant to
himself but a possible embarrassment to the ladies (who, I supposed,
were aware of the quarrel) on his account.
After lunch, not having to report at the office immediately, I took unto
myself the solace of a cigar, which kept me company during a stroll
about Mrs. Apperthwaite's capacious yard. In the rear I found an
old-fashioned rose-garden--the bushes long since bloomless and now
brown with autumn--and I paced its gravelled paths up and down, at the
same time favoring Mr. Beasley's house with a covert study that would
have done credit to a porch-climber, for the sting of my blunder at the
table was quiescent, or at least neutralized, under the itch of a curiosity
far from satisfied concerning the interesting premises next door. The
gentleman in the dressing-gown, I was sure, could have been no other
than the Honorable David Beasley himself. He came not in eyeshot
now, neither he nor any other; there was no sign of life about the place.
That portion of his yard which lay behind the house was not within my
vision, it is true, his property being here separated from Mrs.
Apperthwaite's by a board fence higher than a tall man could reach; but

there was no sound from the other side of this partition, save that
caused by the quiet movement of rusty leaves in the breeze.
My cigar was at half-length when the green lattice door of Mrs.
Apperthwaite's back porch was opened and Miss Apperthwaite, bearing
a saucer of milk, issued therefrom, followed, hastily, by a very white,
fat cat, with a pink ribbon round its neck, a vibrant nose, and fixed,
voracious eyes uplifted to the saucer. The lady and her cat offered to
view a group as pretty as a popular painting; it was even improved
when, stooping, Miss Apperthwaite set the saucer upon the ground, and,
continuing in that posture, stroked the cat. To bend so far is a test of a
woman's grace, I have observed.
She turned her face toward me and smiled. "I'm almost at the age, you
see."
"What age?" I asked, stupidly enough.
"When we take to cats," she said, rising. "Spinsterhood" we like to call
it. 'Single-blessedness!'"
"That is your kind heart. You decline to make one of us happy to the
despair of all the rest."
She laughed at this, though with no very genuine mirth, I marked, and
let my 1830 attempt at gallantry pass without other retort.
"You seemed interested in the old place yonder." She indicated Mr.
Beasley's house with a nod.
"Oh, I understood my blunder," I said, quickly. "I wish I had known the
subject was embarrassing or unpleasant to Mr. Dowden."
"What made you think that?"
"Surely," I said, "you saw how pointedly he cut me off."
"Yes," she returned, thoughtfully. "He rather did; it's true. At least, I
see how you got that impression." She seemed to muse upon this,
letting her eyes fall; then, raising them, allowed her far-away gaze to
rest upon the house beyond the fence, and said, "It IS an interesting old
place."
"And Mr. Beasley himself--" I began.
"Oh," she said, "HE isn't interesting. That's his trouble!"
"You mean his trouble not to--"
She interrupted me, speaking with sudden, surprising energy, "I mean
he's a man of no imagination."
"No imagination!" I exclaimed.

"None in the world! Not one ounce of imagination! Not one grain!"
"Then who," I cried--"or what--is Simpledoria?"
"Simple--what?" she said, plainly mystified.
"Simpledoria."
"Simpledoria?" she repeated, and laughed. "What in the world is that?"
"You never heard of it before?"
"Never in my life."
"You've lived next door to Mr. Beasley a long time, haven't you?"
"All my life."
"And I suppose you