The Madness of May by Meredith Nicholson - HTML preview

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A year has passed and it is May again and the last day of that month of enchantment. There has been a house-party at the Deering place at Radford Hills. Constance came from Wyoming to spend May with her father, bringing with her, of course, her husband, sometime known as Cassowary, who has been elected to the legislature of his State and, may, it is reported, be governor one of these days. The Tyringhams are there, and this includes Robert Tyringham, alias R. Hood, and his wife (whose authorship of “The Madness of May,” has not yet been acknowledged) and also her father, Augustus Davis, who continues to find  recreation in frequent attacks upon any inoffensive piano that gets in his way. Mr. and Mrs. Edward Ranscomb, too, have shared Mr. Deering’s hospitality. Marriage has not interrupted Mrs. Ranscomb’s career as an artist, though she has dropped illustrating, and is specializing in children’s portraits with distinguished success.

The senior Deering, wholly at peace with his conscience, does not work as hard as he used to before his taste of adventurous life gained in the pursuit of Hood. He is very proud of his daughter-in-law, whose brown eyes bring constant cheer and happiness to his table. If she does not hang moons in trees any more, she is still quite capable of doing so, and has no idea of permitting her husband to wear himself out in the  banking-house. They are going to keep some time every year for play, she declares, to the very end of their lives.

Hood had been devoting himself assiduously to mastering the details of his business affairs, living as other men do, keeping regular office hours in a tall building with an outlook toward the sea, and taking his recreation on the golf-links every other afternoon.

“Mamma has been nervous all this month about papa,” Roberta (known otherwise as Pierrette or Bobby) was saying as she and Billy slowly paced the veranda. “But now May is over and he hasn’t shown any disposition to run away. I suppose he’s really cured.” There was a tinge of regret in her last words.

“Yes,” Billy replied carelessly. “He  hasn’t mentioned his old roving days lately. I think he’s even sensitive about having them referred to.”

“But even if he should want to go, mamma wouldn’t break her heart about it. She feels that it’s really something fine in him: his love of the out-of-doors, and adventures, and knowing all sorts and conditions of men. And he has really helped lots of people, just as he helped you. And he always had so much fun when we all played gypsy, or he went off alone and came back with no end of good stories. I’m just a little sorry——”

They paused, clasping hands and looking off at the starry canopy. Suddenly from the side of the house a man walked slowly, hesitatingly. He stopped, turned, glanced at the veranda, and  then, sniffing the air, walked rapidly toward the gate, swinging a stick, his face lifted to the stars.

Bobby’s hand clasped Billy’s more tightly as they watched in silence.

“It’s papa; he’s taking to the road again!” she murmured.

“But he’ll come back; it won’t be for long this time. I haven’t the heart to stop him!”

“No,” she said softly, “it would be cruel to do that.”

The lamps at the gate shone upon Robert Tyringham as he paused and then, with a characteristic flourish of his stick, turned westward and strode away into the night.