Pierrepont tells the governor "what's what"about Helen Heath and cites an example ofmatrimonial felicity secured by peculiarmethods pursued by the husband.
Chicago, Nov. 7, 189—
Dear Father:
You want to know who's Helen Heath and what's what about her. Well, sir, I can tell you right off the reel that she's the dearest girl on earth, and that she has promised to be my life antidote against the hog trade. She's the daughter of old General Heath, who hasn't a red cent to his name, and she hasn't a prospect in the world other than that of being your daughter-in-law, which is about as near to a settled fact as anything this side of heaven. That's who she is and that's what's what.
Butwhatshe is, I can't begin to tell you, and I don't believe you'd care to read it if I did. I find that a year and a half in Graham & Co. has sadly dulled my onceradiant and classic vocabulary, and that the things I want to say about Helen keep getting tainted with the aroma of the trying-out vats and the smell of gloomy, gray sausages. It's no use, father, love and pork packing never did go together and never will. And you probably know without my telling you one article of food that will never appear on my Helen's table.
But of course you do not need any rhapsody from me, for you know Helen already, and you admit that she's a peach, which is a pretty extreme thing for a man of your strength of mind to do. You say she treated you like a father on the voyage home. She had her cue, and I'm glad to find that our little game worked. Of course I wrote to London, where she has been staying for a month or two, giving her a tip on the steamer you were to take. I knew that if I broached the subject of Helen to you in the regular, orthodox way, you would fly into a tantrum and swear that no son of yours should ever marry the daughter of a penniless old lush like the general, no matter how sweet and worthy she herself might be. So I told Helen to get next you in a casual way, sparing no sugar in theprocess. From what you say, I should think she had used molasses instead, and if a man could reasonably be jealous of his own father, you'd certainly be the Cassio of our little play.
Your observation that love in a flat with fifty a week isn't very bad, is interesting and no doubt true, but it's open to correction. Suppose we amend it by substituting the words "seventy-five" for "fifty," and then pass it without a dissenting vote. And the house gives notice that the governor need not object, because we shall certainly pass the bill over his head if he does.
Of course, as you say, a wife doubles a man's expenses, but she doesn't begin to increase them as a "best girl" does. I think that's why a good many men marry young, especially those with a provident streak in them. They want to get to saving money as soon as possible; flowers and candy and books and theatres and carriages and suppers are pretty apt to average more than rent, frugal board and modest clothes. Of course, my wife is going to look decent, but there are a few things around which I am going to draw agood strong line. I shall lay down the proposition that a woman's hat ought not to cost more than four times what I pay for mine, which lasts a good deal longer. However, I believe Helen has a knack toward millinery which it will be well to encourage. If you tell your wife she's artistic, she'll work her fingers off to prove it to you.
I have some very decided ideas on the conduct of the matrimonial partnership, and I propose to see that they are carried into effect. I do not mean to be a martinet, but I've kept my eyes open at home and abroad—especially at home—and I think I can say without egotism that I know a thing or two about married life. There is always an easy way for a man to be master in his own house. Although Dame Nature has not given me the same physical handicap as Homer Aristotle Eaton, the stockbroker, I fancy there is a good tip in his methods of home rule. Eaton, as you know, is a very little man, and, by one of the freaks of Cupid, he is married to a particularly fine specimen of the genus Amazon. Indeed, when they go out driving together, their outfit looks likeone of those newspaper puzzle pictures: "find the missing man," you know.
But although Mrs. E. is a masterful sort of woman, whose look would seem enough to annihilate the remaining sixteenth of their domestic unit, it is common knowledge that Homer Aristotle Eaton is the boss of his family ward. I used to think that this might be awe of the portentous name with which his parents cursed him, but his junior partner, Giles Corey, let the Angora out of the suit case the other night at a heart party—one of those affairs where hearts are the souvenirs and the play is to get as few of them as possible.
"Yes," said Giles, in a pause for refreshments, "Eaton's high card inhisdeck. He's pretty fussy and wants things his own way. And he's had them so for his eleven years of married life."
"With that queenly woman!" cried one of the party.
"She could annihilate him with a look," said another.
"Ah, that's just it," was Giles' reply. "He don't give her a chance. You see, fellows, it's this way. The first time, years ago, that there was a difference betweenthem, Eaton dropped the subject and came down town. Two or three hours later he called Mrs. E. on the 'phone. He was in the booth fully three-quarters of an hour and when he came out his face was as red as a boiled lobster. But, as I happen to know, he won his point. It was about inviting a certain man and his wife to dinner. Mrs. Eaton objected because they were not in her set. Eaton wanted them because the man was nibbling at his bait in a big deal. They went to the dinner."
As there were several married men in the gathering, Corey was bombarded with questions as to his partner's secret. At last he said: "Well, I'll tell you, if you'll never quote me as your authority."
As you, father, can be depended upon for secrecy, I am not violating confidence.
"You see," said Corey, "Homer has a big bass voice and he could argue the Sphynx out of the sand or a New Yorker out of his conceit. The combination of voice and argument is irresistible—through the telephone—and Mrs. Eaton always wilts when he's held the line for a few minutes. Meek as Moses at home, he's a tyrant over his private wire. I honestly think that he hasMrs. E. hypnotized and that the sound of his ring puts her in a receptive mood. Homer confessed as much to me one day when he said, 'Giles, my boy, the puny little man with a bass voice finds his best friend in the telephone.'"
Although I am not in the light-weight class, and favor in voice Jean rather than Edouard de Reszke, I think I can see a valuable suggestion in the Homer-Aristotle-Eaton method. An argument conducted from a distance certainly cannot end in woman's last resource and most potent argument—tears. I trust you will not fancy that I anticipate any domestic infelicity. I am only following your rule of being well prepared for all emergencies. I certainly intend to be a kind, loving, and—within my rights—pliable husband. Helen is a sweet-natured girl, but I don't expect her to be all sugar-cane and molasses. She'll scarcely equal in complacence the wife of a few very unhappy years, who, when her friends advised her to leave the husband who neglected and abused her, stood up in his defence and insisted that he was far kinder than they thought.
"Why," she said, "it was only a fewmonths ago that he celebrated the anniversary of our marriage—our wooden wedding."
This was too much for her sister, who had spent several weeks with her at the time, to stand. "Wooden wedding, indeed!" she cried; "the only wooden wedding you had was when your brute of a husband came home and knocked you down with a chair!"
It is surprising what a different thing the world becomes when a fellow is in love. I don't want to be a silly ass just because the prettiest, dearest girl on the footstool said "yes" instead of the "no" I really deserved, but I must tell somebody how happy I am. If I had money enough and was a sort of czar at whom people couldn't laugh without arrest forlese majeste, I'd have all the church bells rung, fire salutes on the lake front and send up balloons with Helen's name on 'em in twenty-seven foot letters. Until I met Helen Heath I thought I should never marry; in fact, I considered myself immune. But I hadn't seen her three times before she had me under her thumb, and the minute a girl has a fellow there, he, strangely enough, wants her hand.And I'm to have it and her heart with it, and she—well, she's to have me and the fifty per that you dole out to me. Occasionally I have the blues, declare that I'm not fit for her and feel as I felt on the road when I finally buncoed some confiding grocer to order a bill of our goods.
I'm in a pretty tough dilemma, anyway, and unless you help me out I'll have difficulty in keeping my footing. When a fellow's head over heels in love and up to his ears in debt, it's certainly time for somebody to throw him a life-preserver. You, my dear father, can knock the cork jackets off all the coastguards in the service in this particular branch of the life-saving business, by just getting your fountain pen busy over a check-book. And how you would be repaid! We—and ours—would bless you far down the thundering ages. Think it over and cut your Boston visit short. I'm afraid for you in the Hub, anyway. You are very likely to get into trouble. Do you know, for instance, that it is believed by the best Boston families that capital punishment is a very light penalty for committing a solecism? Pray be careful. I do not wish to inherit through a tragedy.
You will find me more serious than I used to be. Perhaps this is due in part to my realization of the responsibility that I am about to assume in the way of a father-in-law. General Heath is very friendly—indeed, I may say that we are on a very intimate understanding. I have already grown to know him so well that I am usually able to anticipate his wishes—that is, when I have the price. I confess itishard work to affect an interest in the story of the only battle in which he appears to have participated, on hearing it for the fourteenth time. But every rose has its thorn, and Helen Heath has the General. I have a friend or two at Washington, and, as you have several more, perhaps between us we shall be able to prove to him that republics are not always ungrateful. I think a South American or Pacific Island consulate would express the nation's gratitude with agreeable significance.
When I put a plain gold ring under the diamond that I gave Helen—and which, I regret to say, is not yet paid for—I do not propose to marry her distinguished but slightly disheveled pater. The constant recital of that battle story might notdestroy domestic felicity, but it would certainly give it an unsettled feeling. You might send him on the road if the government proves unmindful of its debt to him. He is fond of travelling, and he could scarcely sell less goods than I did.
Of course, I'm glad you think Helen pretty and nice, but now that you know my intentions I shall rely upon your sense of good taste and the fitness of things to moderate your raptures. I agree with you that there is nothing in the theory that two can live cheaper than one. I wouldn't have one—that is,theone—live on what I have been receiving since I accepted a position with your house. I intend that my wife shall feel that she is the real thing. While there are many signs to prove that Helen is not extravagant—thanks to the General, she's had no practice—she must not be pointed out on the street as your daughter-in-law and comments made in this vein: "How can that rich John Graham let her dress like that or live so!"
You will not allow that, I know, for, with all your abstruse theories about economy and self-help, you'll appreciate that it is due to you to see to it that your onlydaughter is a credit to you. It would be a pretty bad advertisement for the business to have a dowdy daughter-in-law living in a dowdy neighborhood, now wouldn't it? And if we must be identified with the pork industry, there should be compensation. But we can discuss these things better when we are face to face.
Your enamoured son,Pierrepont.
P.S. I'm so happy and at peace with all the world that if I thought it would please him I'd invite Milligan to be my best man.
LETTER NO. XX.
Pierrepont's philosophy on matrimony is somewhatcolored by the fact that he is a Benedict andit is evident that henceforth he willbe too busy to write letters.
Chicago, Nov. 13, 189—
Dear Father:
The seventy-five dollars a week that you promised me in yours of the 11th inst., are already mine, for there isn't any Helen Heath now. Thereisa Mrs. Pierrepont Graham, whose first name is Helen, and I guess you'll find her pretty nearly the same young woman who took you into camp so neatly on the voyage to New York. She reached Chicago five days ago, and her glowing reports about your subjugation, backed up by your promise to raise me to seventy-five on the day I married Helen Heath, decided us to plunge into the sea of matrimony before we stopped to find whether the water was cold or not. It wasn't, as it happened; but that's another affair.
Our wedding was a quiet affair, and would have pleased you by its utter lack of ostentation. We took a carriage at Helen's house and drove to the home of old Dr. Ramage, the superannuated Methodist parson, who is glad to eke out his stipend by marrying and no questions asked. Somehow General Heath got wind of what was going forward, and he sent out a line of scouts to reconnoitre our movements. One of his men intersected our line at Clark street, and an orderly was immediately despatched on a street-car to the general with the news in cipher. The gallant old commander mounted a hansom and proceeded on the double-quick to our temporary camp—otherwise the parlor of Dr. Ramage. He moved on us in good order, and charged our intrenchments just as the doctor was asking Helen if she would love, cherish and obey. He was in high good spirits—in fact, I should say that good spirits were high in him by the change in the atmosphere after he arrived—and he insisted that the ceremony be begun all over again, so that he shouldn't lose a single syllable. I am glad to find that the old boy is highly pleasedby my alliance with his noble family. He cracked a joke to the effect that his side of the house had the blood and ours the pork, and that the combination would be irresistible; but I was too much absorbed in my own happiness just then to feel hurt. He wanted to know when you were coming home, as he had a very important business scheme to propose to you. If I were you I'd let him have ten or fifteen thousand for the sake of Helen, who is a dear girl, and takes after her mother.
The going home to Ma was something of a trial, and if Helen hadn't been a mighty sensible girl, she'd have declined to stay in the house a single night. Ma cut up badly because there had been no bridesmaids nor wedding-cake, and when I quoted your endorsement of a speedy marriage, she said you were an old fool, who, if you had stopped to think, would probably never have got married yourself. I couldn't just see where she complimented herself very much by that, but I didn't try to show her the errors of her logic just then. I just bucked up and gave her a tremendous steer about the romance that must be in her nature, although perhaps longdormant from the force of circumstances. This veiled allusion to you mollified Ma a good deal, and pretty soon she calmed down completely and asked us to come in and stay as long as we liked.
We made a very merry little party after all. Ma sent out to a caterer's for a good spread and produced some champagne in some mysterious manner—I'd no idea there was any in the house. Pretty soon the General turned up and Ma was wonderfully cordial. She even brought him a bottle of your 1830 Private Stock, and the way stock went down would have tickled the bears on 'Change half to death. The General was good enough to say, before we escorted him to his chamber, that your taste in such things was impeccable—that was his very word, "impeccable, sir." I can't refrain from telling you that he made a deep impression on Ma, and I think if I were you I wouldn't linger in Boston too long.
Do you know that your last letter, so full of philosophy as applied to matrimony, has set me to wondering what has made you such an expert on wives. You talk of nagging women, and sulky women, andviolent women, quite as if by the book. Where your vast experience in such matters has come from I can't quite make out. At any rate I want it distinctly understood that it mustn't be taken as reflecting on Ma. Ma is now ace high with Mr. and Mrs. Pierrepont Graham, having proven herself a true thoroughbred. She has cleaned the house entirely of Graham food products, sending them all to the Home for Half Orphans, has hired a decent cook in place of your Scandinavian horror, and allows that she likes the smell of cigars in the drawing-room. From this on, my vote is for Ma, no matter what office she may run for.
I may mention in passing that Ma said a rather curious thing the other day, which you may be able to explain. I had made some foolish remark about getting a divorce because of something Helen had said, and Ma reproved me for it. I laughed and said to Helen, "Mother never could take a joke."
This evidently displeased Ma, for she replied, "You seem to have forgotten, Pierrepont, that I married your father."
Women are queer creatures, anyhow.You are everlastingly right, father, in what you say about the undesirability of having them in places of business. I took Helen to the packing house to-day, intending to show her through the establishment. But one glance at the luckless hogs "travelling into dry salt at the rate of one a minute," as you once so poetically expressed it, drove all idea of further investigation out of her pretty head. She said she'd take for granted all the wonderful facts of sausage and lard, and proposed lunch at the Palmer House instead. So you see, my little experiment took some valuable time out of the house. Helen goes further than either of us in this distaste for women in business and says she doesn't think we ought to have girl typewriters. That was after she caught sight of mine, who isn't the worst ever, as you know.
But, so far, I am pleased to state, the honeymoon has not waned an atom. We are keeping pretty close to the house, for what a shock it would be to society if they knew we had been married without hustling off on a wedding tour. The bridal trip business has always struck me as nonsensical. The way people act after theminister gives the word, you would think that they hated the place where they determined upon the irrevocable step. After you get home and certain matters are adjusted, I think I would like to go to Europe. You see, Helen has been there and no man likes to be at a disadvantage with his wife.
You may feel more friendly towards this foreign tour when I tell you that since Helen forsook her native Heath she has become very confidential with me and has told me some of the particulars of her first meeting with you. I just naturally am pleased with the details, for it is extremely gratifying to a man to feel that his father corroborates his good taste in the selection of the girl of his choice. It is certainly most creditable to the largeness of your paternal heart that you should have paid her so much attention in the first few days out of Liverpool. It was a great courtesy for you to arrange her tray for her on deck and to relieve her of the necessity of feeing the stewards.
Equally kind was your aid in adjusting her wrap on the windy afternoon that you sat alone with her in the lee of the smokestack. But it was unfortunate, was it not,that your forgetfulness in not withdrawing your arm from the back of her steamer chair was called to your attention by Helen's chance remark that she was acquainted with me? Mother has never been abroad, so I have not told her of your gallantry to your fellow-passenger. She might not understand steamer conventions. Helen, perhaps, might mention the matter to her casually. If we go abroad, as I suggest to you, I will take special pains to destroy her entire recollection of the trip with you.
Oh, by the way, it occurs to me to tell you that Cy Willoughby—the widower, not his brother Seth—has disinherited his son Arthur, because he married a typewriter. It was not because of themésalliance, but it was because it was thefather'stypewriter that Arthur married. Possibly, when I think of Helen, I should have more than the dictates of filial affection as a reason for gratitude that Ma did not succumb a year ago last winter to pneumonia and the six doctors you insisted on having. As you so succinctly express it, Helen is not getting any the best of it in marrying me. Her pater may not be very much of afinancial proposition, and more of a bottle than a battle-scarred warrior, but he can talk about his great-grandfather, and that's more than you care to do, I fancy. Blood may not amount to much, except in racehorses, but when you balance things up, by and large, neither of the two families need to take off their hats to the other. I'm glad Helen has a family whose pictures she's not afraid to show, for it sort of evens things up for our money. (I note that I have omitted the "y" before "our," but you will understand that it belongs there.)
I gather from your last letter that your curiosity is aroused as to how I proposed. I did it in person. It happened at a dance. I told Helen the other day that she really paved the way for my proposal, but I saw by the look on her face that it would not be safe to pursue the subject, so I turned it off with a jest. You will judge. When it came time to dance the cotillion she said she was tired, and that, anyway, she knew a better step than any that would be danced. So we went out into the hallway and she showed me the step, which was on the stairs, and we sat there till the cotillion was over.When we returned to the ballroom she had me guessing as to where I would get the engagement ring, for though love is blind, it's not stone-blind—not if the stone is a diamond.
As for what I said, well, I wouldn't repeat it, even if I remembered it. I guess I must have talked a lot of rot. I referred to it once in a casual way and Helen burst out laughing. I recall that she didn't laugh at the time. She probably realized that laughter is apt to scare away fish.
I am very happy, for I have discovered that your daughter-in-law is not perfect, and that makes the inequality between us seem a trifle less. She cried yesterday, and said I was unkind, and all because when we were planning the house that I have decided you shall build for us, I suggested that she lay out the clothes-closets and have the architect draw his plans around them. It is evident that repartee is not always appreciated in the family circle.
I was interrupted yesterday by a call to settle a dispute between Helen and Ma, as to whether it is good form for a youngmarried woman to invite lady friends who are strangers to her husband to call informally before they have been introduced to him. What could I do? I looked wise and said it was a grave point. I said I would consult the society editor of theLadies' Home Journaland went out, ostensibly to send a wire to Bok.
When I returned I found my wife in tears—second crop. She had read the concluding pages of this letter—justified her conduct by the observation that there should be no secrets between husband and wife. She takes exceptions to what I have written you about my proposal. I am finishing this letter down town. I am now going to 'phone Helen to see if I can come home to dinner.
Your Benedict son,Pierrepont.
P.S. You need not consider it necessary to continue your advisory letters to me. I can see that I will receive all the advice I need from Mrs. Pierrepont.