CHAPTER X
Mordaunt Ballinger's luncheons at the Lawyers' Club, and his introductions to various magnates of the money-market, had led to his mind being tossed and buffeted on a sea of railroads, and mines, and joint-stock companies, until it had settled—as much from exhaustion, perhaps, as anything—on "real estate" in one of the rapidly rising cities of the Far West. This seemed as safe an investment, to bring in a large return for his money, as he could find. He felt sure Mrs. Frampton would think so. Still, as his aunt, whose acuteness in money matters he regarded with an almost superstitious trust, not wholly unmixed with dread, was to join them in the course of a few weeks, the young man resolved to defer the purchase of the shares offered him until he could visit Pueblo, and investigate on the spot the condition and prospects of the estate in question.
He came into his sister's room, a morning or two after the Van Winkle dinner, holding an open letter in his hand.
"I've heard from Aunt Su. She has got my letter, and seems in an awful stew about my investing money here. Well, I wrote yesterday to tell her I should do nothing till she came. She thinks she can sail the middle of February, and join us in Boston. By the bye, have you written to Mrs. Courtly?"
"No. I was waiting for you to tell me what time to propose to go to her. I suppose we shall only be there a few days before we go to Boston?"
"Well, that depends. I believe the Planters are going to her next week. We may as well offer ourselves at the same time."
Grace smiled.
"Certainly." Then, with a malicious glance into her brother's face, "Perhaps Mrs. Courtly would invite Miss Hurlstone, too, if I mentioned her. They are friends, I know."
"Well, don't mention her, then. She is a very nice girl, and all that, but—I'd rather she didn't come."
He stood near the table where his sister was writing as he said this. Then he took up a pen, and flung it down, fidgeted first on one leg, then on the other, finally walked to the window, still with Mrs. Frampton's letter in his hand, and remained there silent, with his back to Grace, for several minutes. She knew him too well not to see there was something on his mind—something which he desired to say to her, and yet found it difficult to express. She thought, not without a twinge of apprehension, of the various ladies to whom he had paid attention here. Could it be that he had entangled himself, more or less, with one of these? Her mind so little anticipated what was coming that she started and flushed when he said,
"There's something else in Aunt Su's letter which I think you ought to know, Grace. In fact, she says I'm to tell you. Because you're sure to hear of it sooner or later. People are full of it. There's fresh evidence against Lawrence."
Her face hardened. She closed her lips tight for a moment, and in her clear blue eyes there was a momentary flash, as she said, quickly,
"What is it?"
"They've found the draft of another will, dated some years back, by which his uncle left the bulk of his fortune to his other nephew, Giles Tracy, and only ten thousand pounds to Ivor Lawrence."
"You call that evidence against him? What does that prove?" she asked, hotly.
"It only proves that before Ivor got the influence over his uncle which he exercised latterly, the old chap meant to leave his estates not to his sister's son, but to his brother's son, as was natural, and as it was understood he would do."
"Understood by whom? By Mr. Giles Tracy, I suppose, who took to gambling on the strength of this prospective fortune! And why was it 'natural,' pray, that a man who had made—not inherited—his large fortune, like old Mr. Tracy, should leave it to a spendthrift, avautrien, instead of to a clever rising barrister like his other nephew, whose character was universally respected?"
"Well, it isn't universally respected now, Grace."
"The more shame for those who are ready to believe any foul accusation on such evidence!" Her cheeks were aflame, and her voice shook as she spoke. "Evidence? It is too childish to call this evidence. According to your own showing, all it proves is that the old man once—before he knew how young Tracy would turn out—meant to make him his heir. He discovered in time the comparative worth of both his nephews."
"You forget there is a lot of cumulative evidence against Ivor before: his bringing a lawyer, who happens to have died since, to his uncle's bedside when he was dying—young Tracy's being refused admittance to his uncle—"
"Because the old man could not endure the sight of him latterly. Every one knows that he refused repeatedly to see him; and those who had heard him speak of his nephew during the last year or two were amazed to find that he had left him even so much as twenty thousand pounds."
Mordaunt shrugged his shoulders.
"The signature of the will is disputed, as you know."
An ejaculation indicative of intense scorn burst from his sister's lips.
"So he is to be accused of forgery. I wonder they don't add murder to the charge! Has the trial begun?"
"No, it has been again deferred."
She was silent for a moment, leaning her head upon her left hand, while with a pen in the right she traced some scrolls upon the note-paper before her.
"Poor Mr. Lawrence!" she said, at last. "I have a great mind to write to him."
"Good God! You wouldn't dream of doing anything so undignified, so outrageous, after his behavior to you, Grace? A fellow who runs after you for months so that half the world believes you are engaged to him, and that he is only waiting till he is rich enough to marry, and who, when he inherits this big fortune, turns his back and never comes near you again—and you would actually demean yourself to write to him?"
Strange to say, now that the discussion had entered upon personal grounds, the young lady had comparatively regained her composure. Still, it was not without an effort that she said,
"Mr. Lawrence and I are very good friends, and I hope we shall always remain so. We never have been, and, of course, never shall be, anything more. I see no reason why I should not write and assure him that there is one person who believes in him if all the verdicts in the world went against him; if the whole of London cut him dead, it would make no difference to me. I know him to be a perfectly honorable, truthful, noble character. He is peculiar; there are some very rugged knots in him which you and Aunt Su, particularly Aunt Su, could never understand. And you don't understand him now. You think, supposing that he cared for me, which of course he never did, that he should have proposed when he found himself with ten thousand pounds a year. That is the last thing he would do with this accusation, this cloud over his head. He might have done so as a poor barrister, but never as one whose good name was tainted. I don't say he is right in avoiding us as he has done; I think, on the contrary, he is quite wrong. But I should not be afraid of his misunderstanding me if I wrote to him. I think he would do justice to my motives, and thank me."
"All the same, Grace, I do hope to goodness you won't. Men of the world are not used to such high-flown sentiments. And it's so very like throwing yourself at the head of a cad, who—"
"None of that, Mordy, please, or I must ask you to leave the room." She spoke now with more excitement. "We have gone through all the string of opprobrious epithets at your command before, you know. They produce no effect on me—yes, they do. They make me feel very irritable with you. So, like a dear, drop it, please, and if you mention Mr. Lawrence—I have no objection whatever to your mentioning him—do so respectfully, as my friend."
He felt there was nothing more to be said. He had expended all his ammunition—retreat alone remained for him. But when the door was closed behind her brother, the girl's fortitude and pride broke down. She laid her head between her hands, and the hot tears of wounded love and disappointment coursed down her cheeks and fell on the note-paper upon which her pen had traced a confusion of curves and circles. Why had he not spoken to her when he was a struggling barrister? Was it because of her aunt, her brother? Was it by reason of false pride? That he had pride, of an unreasoning, indomitable kind, allied to the obstinacy which was so marked a feature of his character, she knew well. But this should not have been enough to have kept him silent if he cared for her. And unless she was utterly blinded by vanity, by a fatuous misapprehension of looks she had now and again found fastened upon her, of casual words and actions escaping from a reticent man, he had cared for her at that time. She would sooner have died than admit to her brother that she believed this. To him, as to her aunt, while hotly defending Ivor Lawrence, whenever a discussion concerning him arose, she always declared that, as "there had been nothing between them," her only feeling as to his now holding aloof from them was grief at the alienation of the most trusted friend she had ever had. Of course, Mrs. Frampton was much too acute to be deceived by these protestations. When the accusations against Lawrence were made public, Grace's health and spirits were so visibly affected for a time that those who loved her most could not but see how strong a hold this man had taken on her heart. Nearly eight months had passed since then, and to all outward seeming she had recovered her buoyant tone, her healthy interest and capacity of deriving pleasure from things around her. Only at rare moments, and when alone, as now, did the flood-gates of a grief, the well-springs of which lay so far below the surface, rise up and overflow.
Nevertheless, after a while her brave spirit rose. She must not succumb to her trouble. For the sake of others she must put it away from her. She rose and bathed her eyes. She had an engagement to a "ladies' luncheon" party, convened at the house of an agreeable woman, almost a stranger to Grace, who, after securing her, had invited seventeen others "to meet Miss Ballinger." The luncheon was exquisite and well-served; the conversation general and very pleasant.
"I had no idea it could have been so pleasant," she said, afterwards. "I really think eighteen Englishwomen would have been very dull, all the waves floundering together without a male rock to dash themselves against. But these waves had so much salt in them! I felt myself quite invigorated by plunging among them."
The truth was these waves were rather stronger than those which played, as a rule, upon the fine shores of fashionable New York life. The women here met were almost all interested and active in better things than gossip, parties, dress. Their fields and their aims were diverse; some of them were young and active, some past middle age, but with keen intelligence undimmed, sympathies warm as in girlhood, and a playful humor—a humor altogether national, conveyed sometimes in a word, the turn of a phrase, lighting with the illusive flame of a will-o'-the-wisp swamps into which an interchange of talk so often flounders. They were not pretentious, though many of them did adventure upon subjects that demand more time, thought, and preparation than most Englishwomen conceive it fitting to give to any study. One girl had been through a course of anatomy; not, as it appeared, with any ulterior object, but in order to master the wonderful mechanism of the human frame, "which," as she said, with a hard directness which sounded odd in one so young, "being a fact always present, should interest us more than it does. We can learn, and we ought to know all about it; for this is a thing which affects our whole being here, our present and our future; whereas the soul, which people trouble themselves so much about, is only a matter of speculation. It seems a pity to waste time on a subject we know so little of."
Grace was too wise to enter into a discussion with the youthful philosopher. This was a phase which would probably pass away in a few years, when, if the girl fell under right influence, she might learn that there were higher truths than those which can be tangibly felt. In the meantime, the uncompromising antagonism to all conventional acceptances and polite euphemisms, the resolve to seize the truth to her hand and probe it thoroughly, interested Grace. This was a type of American character she had not yet met.
But among the middle-aged women was one whose studies and experience were far more curious. She had large means, which she had partly expended among the fast-diminishing tribe of Zuni Indians in Arizona, whose language she had rescued from oblivion by means of the phonograph. The music of their hymns and chants and invocations for rain had also thus been noted down, and several unique objects—notably a jewelled toad, supposed to be a god—secured by her excavations. The ruined city, made of adobe, in which this tribe dwelt, had been saved from total destruction through this lady's exertions, who induced the government to aid her in protecting them from the attacks of other and more powerful tribes. So interested had she become in this people, that she had bidden some of their high-priests to journey to the East, and visit her—which they did. She described most graphically their dignity, their admirable breeding, the eloquence of their gestures, expressing their meaning so clearly as scarcely to need the interpreter's verbal translation of their speech. They went thrice a day down to the sea-shore—the house stood on a cliff—to make their prayers and libations. "You are not as religious as we are," they said, "but we suppose you are as religious as you have time to be."
Some day a learned monograph will be published of this people, their language, their faith, their customs; and the philologists will fight over their origin, and the plough of civilization will pass over their poor, mud-built city; but Grace was interested in meeting the enthusiast through whose courage, energy, and devotion so much had been rescued as a text-book for historical research. It was a fine, sonorous note in the diapason of American character, and the young Englishwoman heard it with pleasure.
That evening she and her brother dined with Mrs. Caldwell. It was not a large party; and the guests, with the exception of Mrs. Flynn and her cousin, were all men—mostly men distinguished in some way other than that of having amassed large fortunes.
It is true that Alan Brown, the young Anglomaniac—"and stupid at that," as May Clayton said—was present, but as he sat next Doreen, to whom he talked in a low tone, his insignificance was not offensive. Brilliant Chudleigh, the advocate, whose scathing eloquence was a proverb, jovial Dr. Parr, simmering with fun, ready to boil over at any moment, wise and witty General Stout, famous in the war, and now in peace time as great a favorite with women as with men, the poet Sloper, so gently humorous, so blandly pungent, Mordaunt's shrewd friend Reid, and two others, whom the Ballingers had not met before, threw their separate contributions into the common pool, and produced that best of round games—general conversation. No one monopolized the talk, but the men had the best of it. May Clayton held her own, it is true; the provocation of her nimble tongue stimulated the clever elders around; her sallies elicited peals of laughter; and from time to time, when there was a lull, she set the humming-top—as with a neat flick of the whip—once more frantically spinning. But as dinner progressed, and the conversation, leaving generalities, entered into the arena of personal chaff, the spur of the girl's tongue was not needed. The combatants were on their mettle, with a gallery to applaud their brilliant attacks and retorts, their assaults, and reprises, and carrying of the war into the enemy's country; each man had his bout, and the fooling, conducted with perfect good humor, was delightful. Such a contest would not be possible in England. In chaff, we hold that all is permissible but the truth. But here to wound one of these dexterous knights, armed cap-à-pie, seemed impossible. Chudleigh had tried for the Presidency of the United States, and had failed. The mock commiseration he met with at the hands of Parr, who deplored the waste of fine oratory spilled upon that occasion, was countervailed by the satirical sympathy Chudleigh affected in rounded periods at the charges of bribery and corruption brought in the public prints against a well-known body, of which the M.D. was a leading member. This spear-thrust might have been expected to pierce his armor. Not at all; he rode on laughing, and apparently untouched. Then it was proposed that government should be memorialized to create the post of Laureate to the United States, in order that the poet Sloper should be elected thereto. His verses had failed to soften the hearts of his native town so far as to induce them to send him as their representative to Congress, but this want of appreciation, this deadness of heart—said General Stout, warming to his subject—would, no doubt, disappear when Sloper's Sonnets received the stamp of official recognition. As to the general himself, he received thrusts on all sides, as to his campaigns in stage-land, his conquests in the green-room, his capitulations under (scenic) canvas, his ready response to the cry from oppressed damsels of "Stout to the rescue!"
The Ballingers were both much amused. Mordaunt, between Mrs. Caldwell and Mrs. Flynn, had two foot-notes, as it were, to the text of all this personal raillery. Mrs. Flynn was the more ample and unrestrained expositor of the two, Mrs. Caldwell not going beyond a hint, sometimes, where the younger and livelier lady became exhaustive. Grace had Pierce Caldwell beside her. He fully entered into the fun, and told her enough to make her understand the point of each attack, the dexterity of each defence, the imperturbable good temper with which all who mingled in the fray bore the several blows.
"People say you Americans are thin-skinned," she said. "Perhaps there is one side of you—that side which you turn tous—which has a sensitive skin; but the other side, that which is presented to yourselves, must be covered with a perfect hide! Englishmen could not stand these blows below the belt, they would turn very nasty. I saw a clever young man once in a country-house retire to bed because—we were playing at 'Twenty-one Questions'—he was so offended at an impudent bit of chaff. We had thought of the Duke of Wellington's monument in St. Paul's, and when he could not guess it, and had to be told, he declared indignantly he had never heard of it. 'Perhaps you never heard of the Duke of Wellington,' said a pert prig, whereupon the discomfited guesser went straight off to bed. Now, I see that no American could possibly be so silly. You have your tempers so admirably in hand."
"Well, I don't know about that," said Pierce, dubiously. "It all depends on whether we think a man means mischief or not. These fellows here, you see, are all good friends. They enjoy sharpening their wits on each other."
"So it seems," said Grace, laughing.
Dr. Parr, on her other side, had been watching his opportunity to fire sly shots obliquely across the table at Chudleigh, and had not heard the foregoing. He now turned round and addressed the young Englishwoman with the unmistakable air that says, "Enough of fooling. Let us be serious," though there was still a sub-cutaneous twitch about his mouth.
"What do you think of us, Miss Ballinger? I am afraid you will go back and say we are anunlicensed set of victuallers, making a terrible row, without any manners, any polish, eh?"
"I am so glad you put it that way, instead of asking me what I think of America, which is so difficult to answer, and which I am asked, upon an average, twelve times every day. It isn't at all difficult to answeryou. I should like to dine with such unlicensed victuallers every day of my life."
"Great Scot! This is, indeed, an incentive to continue in our evil ways," cried the doctor. "You cannot be English, Miss Ballinger, quite,quiteEnglish? A drop of Irish or foreign must be infused into your blue blood, surely?"
"Why so? Are we not the most appreciative nation upon earth?"
"Critical—say critical—and I am with you. You measure everything by one standard—your own. I don't say you are wrong, but it makes English approval sometimes appear to be tinged with—what shall I say? condescension? Do you know the story of the American who drew the attention of a patriotic Briton to a gorgeous sunset here? The Britisher replied,'Sunset? Ah! you should see one of Her Majesty's sunsets!'"
Grace laughed heartily.
"That is very cruel of you, Dr. Parr. I wanted to say such a number of nice things to you, and now I can't. I shall have to pour them all out to Mr. Chudleigh, who won't call my appreciation 'condescension.'"
Here a name, bandied across the table, struck Grace's ear.
"Planter has cornered the market, they say."
"He has high Scriptural authority for doing so," said Chudleigh. "Joseph cornered the market, and made a very good thing out of it."
"I suspect that is more than Planter will do," struck in the general. "He will come to grief some day with his gigantic speculations."
"What!" cried May Clayton, with her chirruping little voice, "has he bitten off more than he can chew?"
Ballinger laughed immoderately. Probably this turned Miss Clayton's attention more directly to him.
"By the bye, Sir Mordaunt, is it true that you are going to give up your baronetcy, and become an American citizen?"
"You have given me too littleencouragement," he replied, promptly, with a stage sigh.
"Well!" she said, "I don't know about encouragement. I should say you have neglected your opportunities. But I believe you followed my advice. Only take care you don't bark up the wrong tree."
"There's such a forest," he said. "It's awfully confusing."
Grace had some conversation with her hostess after dinner.
The Caldwells were to leave New York for their home in the Rocky Mountains in the course of a week. It was arranged that Grace should write to Mrs. Caldwell when she and her brother went westward, and Mrs. Frampton was included in the cordial invitation to "Falcon's Nest" offered to the English travellers.
"I like Mrs. Caldwell," said Mordaunt as they drove home. "She is a good sort. The girl's dull."
"Not at all; she is young, and has not lost the sweet privileges of youth for remaining in the background, as Miss Clayton has."
"Give me a girl who has lost the privilege, then. I can't stand a bread-and-butter miss. I wish Mrs. Caldwell would ask Mrs. Flynn and her cousin to Falcon's Nest when we are there; not that I shall be there for more than a day or two, I fancy. I shall leave you and Aunt Su, while I go off to Pueblo, and stay with Charington at his ranch."
"I should not much like to be shut up with Aunt Su and Miss Clayton," returned his sister, laughing. "It would be what you call 'rather warm quarters.' I like the girl myself. I am sure there is no harm in her—not half so much as there is in many very demure girls—but I fancy I see Aunt Su's face at her way of going on. I shouldn't mind her meeting Miss Planter, now," she added, glancing with a smile at him as the lamp-light flashed upon his face. "Miss Planter would not offend her taste."
He did not reply, and the rest of the drive home was performed in silence.