"And baby woke up," the elder continued—for she was a second mother to Constance, and pieced out all her deficiencies and did penance for her sins—"and she said to mother, 'throw water on Marguerite to put her out.'"
"What sad dreams," Arthur said. "Tell Father O'Donnell about them."
"She has other things to tell him," Louis said with a grin. "I have no doubt you could help her, Artie. She must go to confession sometime, and she has no sins to tell. The other day when I was setting out for confession she asked me not to tell all my sins to the priest, but to hold back a few and give them to her for her confession. Now you have enough to spare for that honest use, I think."
"Oh, please, dear cousin Artie," said the child, thrilling his heart with the touch of her tender lips on his cheek.
"There's no doubt I have enough," he cried with a secret groan. "When you are ready to go, Marguerite, I will give you all you want."
The history of Arthur's stay in California was drawn entirely from his travels on the Pacific slope, tedious to the narrator, but interesting because of the lad's interest, and because of the picture which the rapt listener made. His study-desk near by, strewn with papers and books, the white bed and bookcase farther off, pictures and mottoes of his own selection on the white walls, a little altar in the depths of the dormer-window; and the lord of the little domain in the foreground, hands on knees, lips parted, cheeks flushed, eyes fixed and dreamy, seeingthe rich colors and varied action as soon as words conveyed the story to the ear; a perfect picture of the listening boy, to whom experience like a wandering minstrel sings the glory of the future in the happenings of the past.
Arthur invariably closed his story with a fit of sighing. That happy past made his present fate heavy indeed. Horace Endicott rose strong in him then and protested bitterly against Arthur Dillon as a usurper; but sure there never was a gentler usurper, for he surrendered so willingly and promptly that Endicott fled again into his voluntary obscurity. Louis comforted those heavy moments with soft word and gentle touch, pulling his beard lovingly, smoothing his hair, lighting for him a fresh cigar, asking no questions, and, when the dark humor deepened, exorcising the evil spirit with a sprinkling of holy water. Prayers were said together—an overpowering moment for the man who rarely prayed to see this faith and its devotion in the boy—and then to bed, where Louis invariably woke to the incidents of the day and retailed them for an hour to his amused ear; and with the last word fell into instant and balmy sleep. Oh, this wonder of unconscious boyhood! Had this sad-hearted man ever known that blissful state? He lay there listening to the soft and regular breathing of the child, who knew so little of life and evil. At last he fell asleep moaning. It was Louis who woke with a sense of fright, felt that his bedfellow was gone, and heard his voice at the other side of the room, an agonized voice that chilled him.
"To go back would be to kill her ... but I must go back ... and then the trail of blood over all...."
Louis leaped out of bed, and lit the night-candle. Arthur stood beside the altar in the dormer-window, motionless, with pallid face and open eyes that saw nothing.
"Why should such a wretch live and I be suffering?—she suffers too ... but not enough ... the child ... oh, that was the worst ... the child ... my child...."
The low voice gave out the words distinctly and without passion, as of one repeating what was told to him. Rid of fear Louis slapped him on the shoulder and shook him, laughing into his astonished face when sense came back to him.
"It's like a scene, or a skene from Macbeth," he said."Say, Artie, you had better make open confession of your sins. Why should you want to kill her, and put the trail of blood over it all?"
"I said that, did I?" He thought a moment, then put his arms about Louis. They were sitting on the side of the bed.
"You must know it sometime, Louis. It is only for your ear now. I had a wife ... she was worthless ... she lives ... that is all."
"And your child? you spoke of a child?"
Arthur shook with a chill and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"No," he groaned, "no ... thank God for that ... I had no child."
After a little they went back to bed, and Louis made light of everything with stories of his own sleep-walking until he fell asleep again. The candle was left burning. Misfortune rose and sat looking at the boy curiously. With the luck of the average man, he might have been father to a boy like this, a girl like Mona with beautiful hair and a golden heart, soft sweet babies like the Trumps. He leaned over and studied the sleeping face, so sweetly mournful, so like death, yet more spiritual, for the soul was there still. In this face the senses had lost their daylight influence, had withdrawn into the shadows; and now the light of innocence, the light of a beautiful soul, the light that never was on land or sea, shone out of the still features. A feeling which had never touched his nature before took fierce possession of him, and shook him as a tiger shakes his prey. He had to writhe in silence, to beat his head with his hands, to stifle words of rage and hate and despair. At last exhausted he resigned himself, he took the boy's hand in his, remembering that this innocent heart loved him, and fell into a dreamless sleep.
The charm and the pain of mystery hung about the new life, attracting him, yet baffling him at every step. He could not fathom or grasp the people with whom he lived intimately, they seemed beyond him, and yet he dared ask no questions, dared not go even to Monsignor for explanations. With the prelate his relations had to take that character which suited their individual standing. When etiquette allowed him to visit the rector, Monsignor provided him with the philosophy of the environment, explained the difficulties, and soothed him with the sympathy of a generous heart acquainted with his calamities.
"It would have been better to have launched you elsewhere," he said, "but I knew no other place well enough to get the right people. And then I have the hope that the necessity for this episode will not continue."
"Death only will end it, Monsignor. Death for one or the other. It should come soon, for the charm of this life is overpowering me. I shall never wish to go back if the charm holds me. My uncle, the Senator, is about to place me in politics."
"I knew he would launch you on that stormy sea," Monsignor answered reflectively, "but you are not bound to accept the enterprise."
"It will give me distraction, and I need distraction from this intolerable pain," tapping his breast with a gesture of anguish.
"It will surely counter-irritate. It has entranced men like the Senator, and your chief; even men like Birmingham. They have the ambition which runs with great ability. It's a pity that the great prizes are beyond them."
"Why beyond them?"
"High office is closed to Catholics in this country."
"Here I run up against the mysterious again," he complained.
"Go down into your memory," Monsignor said after a little reflection, "and recall the first feeling which obscurely stirred your heart when the ideas ofIrishandCatholicwere presented to you. See if it was not distrust, dislike, irritation, or even hate; something different from the feeling aroused by such ideas asTurkandatheist."
"Dislike, irritation, perhaps contempt, with a hint of amusement," Arthur replied thoughtfully.
"How came that feeling there touching people of whom you knew next to nothing?"
"Another mystery."
"Let me tell you. Hatred and contempt of the Irish Catholic has been the mark of English history for four centuries, and the same feelings have become a part of English character. It is in the English blood, and therefore it is in yours. It keeps such men as Sullivan andBirmingham out of high office, and now it will act against you, strangely enough."
"I understand. Queer things, rum things in this world. I am such a mystery to myself, however, that I ought not be surprised at outside mysteries."
"I often regret that I helped you to your present enterprise," said the priest, "on that very account. Life is harsh enough without adding to its harshness."
"Never regret that you saved a poor fellow's life, reason, fortune, family name from shame and blood," Arthur answered hotly. "I told you the consequences that were coming—you averted them—there's no use to talk of gratitude—and through you I came to believe in God again, as my mother taught me. No regret, for God's sake."
His voice broke for a moment, and he walked to the window. Outside he saw the gray-white walls which would some day be the grand cathedral. The space about it looked like the studio of a giant artist; piles of marble scattered here and there gave the half-formed temple the air of a frowsy, ill-dressed child; and the mass rising to the sky resembled a cloud that might suddenly melt into the ether. He had seen the great temples of the world, yet found in this humbler, but still magnificent structure an element of wonder. From the old world, ancient, rich in tradition, one expected all things; centaurs might spring from its soil unnoticed. That the prosaic rocks of Manhattan should heave for this sublimity stirred the sense of admiring wonder.
"This is your child?" said Arthur abruptly.
"I saw the foundation laid when I was a youth, great boulders of half-hewn rock, imbedded in cement, to endure with the ages, able to support whatever man may pile upon them. This building is part of my life—you may call it my child—for it seems to have sprung from me, although a greater planned it."
"What a people to attempt this miracle," said Arthur.
"Now you have said it," cried the priest proudly. "The poor people to whom you now belong, moved by the spirit which raised the great shrines of Europe, are building out of their poverty and their faith the first really great temple on this continent. The country waited for them. This temple will express more than a desire tohave protection from bad weather, and to cover the preacher's pulpit. Here you will have in stone faith, hope, love, sacrifice. What blessings it will pour out upon the city, and upon the people who built it. For them it will be a great glory many centuries perhaps."
"I shall have my share in the work," Arthur said with feeling. "I feel that I am here to stay, and I shall be a stranger to no work in which my friends are engaged. I'll not let the mysteries trouble me. I begin to see what you are, and a little of what you mean. Command me, for no other in this world to-day has any right to command me—none with a right like yours, father and friend."
"Thanks and amen, Arthur. Having no claim upon you we shall be all the more grateful. But in good time. For the present look to yourself, closely, mind; and draw upon me, upon Louis, upon your mother, they have the warmest hearts, for sympathy and consolation."
Not long before and Arthur Dillon would have received with the polite indifference of proud and prosperous youth this generous offer of sympathy and love; but now it shook him to the center, for he had learned, at what a fearful price! how precious, how necessary, how rare is the jewel of human love.
By degrees the effervescence of little Ireland, in whichstrange land his fortune had been cast, began to steal into his blood. Mirth ruled the East side, working in each soul according to his limitations. It was a wink, a smile, a drink, a passing gossoon, a sly girl, a light trick, among the unspoken things; or a biting epigram, the phrase felicitous, a story gilt with humor, a witticism swift and fatal as lightning; in addition varied activity, a dance informal, a ceremonious ball, a party, a wake, a political meeting, the visit of the district leader; and with all, as Judy expressed it, "lashins an' lavins, an' divil a thought of to-morrow." Indeed this gay clan kept Yesterday so deeply and tenderly in mind that To-day's house had no room for the uncertain morrow. He abandoned himself to the spirit of the place. The demon of reckless fun caught him by the heels and sharpened his tongue, so that his wit and his dancing became tonics for eyes and ears dusty with commonplace. His mother and his chum had to admonish him, and it was very sweet to get this sign of their love for him. Reproof from our beloved is sweeter than praise from an enemy.
They all watched over him as if he were heir to a throne. The Senator, busy with his approaching entrance into local politics, had already introduced him to the leaders, who formed a rather mixed circle of intelligence and power. He had met its kind before on the frontier, where the common denominator in politics was manhood, not blue blood, previous good character, wealth, nor the stamp of Harvard. A member held his place by virtue of courage, popularity, and ability. Arthur made no inquiries, but took everything as it came. All was novelty, all surprise, and to his decorous and orderly disposition, all ferment. The clan seemed to him to be rushing onward like a torrent night and day, from the dance to the ward-meeting, from business to church, interested and yet careless. The Senator informed him with pride that his début would take place at the banquet on St. Patrick's Day, when he should make a speech.
"Do you think you can do it, me boy?" said the Senator. "If you think you can, why you can."
"I know I can," said the reckless Dillon, who had never made a speech in his life.
"An' lemme give you a subject," said Judy. They were all together in the sitting-room, where the Senator had surprised them in a game of cards.
"Give a bastin' to Mare Livingstone," said Judy seriously. "I read in theSunhow he won't inspect the parade on St. Patrick's Day, nor let the green flag fly on the city hall. There must be an Orange dhrop in his blood, for no dacint Yankee 'ud have anny hathred for the blessed green. Sure two years ago Mare Jones dressed himself up in a lovely green uniform, like an Irish prince, an' lukked at the parade from a platform. It brought the tears to me eyes, he lukked so lovely. They ought to have kep' him Mare for the rest of his life. An' for Mare Livingstone, may never a blade o' grass or a green leaf grow on his grave."
The Senator beamed with secret pleasure, while the others began to talk together with a bitterness beyond Arthur's comprehension.
"He ought to have kept his feelings to himself," said quiet Anne. "If he didn't like the green, there was no need of insultin' us."
"And that wasn't the worst," Louis hotly added. "He gave a talk to the papers the next day, and told how many Irish paupers were in the poorhouse, and said how there must be an end to favoring the Irish."
"I saw that too," said Judy, "an' I sez to meself, sez I, he's wan o' the snakes St. Pathrick dhruv out of Ireland."
"No need for surprise," Mona remarked, studying her cards, "for the man has only one thought: to keep the Irish in the gutter. Do you suppose I would have been a teacher to-day if he could have kept me out of it, with all his pretended friendship for papa."
"If you baste the Mayor like this now, there won't bemuch left for me to do at the banquet," said Arthur with a laugh for their fierceness.
"Ay, there it is," said Judy. "Yez young Americans have no love for the green, except for the fun yez get out of it; barrin' dacint Louis here, who read the history of Ireland whin he was tin years old, an' niver got over it. Oh, yez may laugh away! Ye are all for the red, white, an' blue, till the Mare belts yez wid the red, white, an' blue, for he says he does everythin' in honor o' thim colors, though I don't see how it honors thim to insult the green. He may be a Livingshtone in name, but he's a dead wan for me."
The Senator grew more cheerful as this talk grew warmer, and then, seeing Arthur's wonderment, he made an explanation.
"Livingstone is a good fellow, but he's not a politician, Artie. He thinks he can ru—manage the affairs of this vil—metropolis without the Irish and especially without the Catholics. Oh, he's death on them, except as boot-blacks, cooks, and ditch-diggers. He'd let them ru—manage all the saloons. He's as mad—as indignant as a hornet that he could not boo—get rid of them entirely during his term of office, and he had to speak out his feelings or bu—die. And he has put his foot in it artistically. He has challenged the Irish and their friends, and he goes out of office forever next fall. No party wants a man that lets go of his mouth at critical moments. It might be a neat thing for you to touch him up in your speech at the banquet."
The Senator spoke with unctuousness and delight, and Arthur saw that the politicians rejoiced at the loquacity and bad temper of the Honorable Quincy Livingstone, whom the Endicotts included among their distant relatives.
"I'll take your subject, Judy," said he.
"Then rade up the histhory of Ireland," replied the old lady flattered.
Close observation of the present proved more interesting and amusing than the study of the past. Quincy Livingstone's strictures on the exiles of Erin stirred them to the depths, and his refusal to float the green flag from the city hall brought a blossoming of green ribbon on St. Patrick's Day which only Spring could surpass in her decorations of the hills. The merchants blessed the sourspirit which had provoked this display to the benefit of their treasuries. The hard streets seemed to be sprouting as the crowds moved about, and even the steps and corridors of the mayor's office glistened with the proscribed color. The cathedral on Mott Street was the center of attraction, and a regiment which had done duty in the late war the center of interest. Arthur wondered at the enthusiasm of the crowd as the veterans carrying their torn battle-flags marched down the street and under the arched entrance of the church to take their places for the solemn Mass. All eyes grew moist, and sobs burst forth at sight of them.
"If they were only marching for Ireland!" one man cried hoarsely.
"They'll do it yet," said another more hopeful.
Within the cathedral a multitude sat in order, reverently quiet, but charged with emotion. With burning eyes they watched the soldiers in front and the priests in the sanctuary, and some beat their breasts in pain, or writhed with sudden stress of feeling. Arthur felt thrilled by the power of an emotion but vaguely understood. These exiles were living over in this moment the scenes which had attended their expulsion from home and country, as he often repeated the horrid scenes of his own tragedy. Under the reverence and decorum due to the temple hearts were bursting with passion and grief. In a little while resignation would bring them relief and peace.
It was like enchantment for Arthur Dillon. He knew the vested priest for his faithful friend; but on the altar, in his mystic robes, uplifted, holding the reverent gaze of these thousands, in an atmosphere clouded by incense and vocal with pathetic harmonies, the priest seemed as far away as heaven; he knew in his strength and his weakness the boy beside him, but this enwrapped attitude, this eloquent, still, unconscious face, which spoke of thoughts and feelings familiar only to the eye of God, seemed to lift Louis into another sphere; he knew the people kneeling about, the headlong, improvident, roystering crowd, but knew them not in this outpouring of deeper emotions than spring from the daily chase for bread and pleasure.
A single incident fixed this scene in his mind and heart forever. Just in front of him sat a young woman with her father, whom she covertly watched with some anxiety.He was a man of big frame and wasted body, too nervous to remain quiet a moment, and deeply moved by the pageant, for he twisted his hands and beat his breast as if in anguish. Once she touched his arm caressingly. And the face which he turned towards her was stained with the unwiped tears; but when he stood up at the close of the Mass to see the regiment march down the grand aisle, his pale face showed so bitter an agony that Arthur recalled with horror his own sufferings. The young woman clung to her father until the last soldier had passed, and the man had sunk into his seat with a half-uttered groan. No one noticed them, and Arthur as he left with the ladies saw her patting the father's hand and whispering to him softly.
Outside the cathedral a joyous uproar attended the beginning of that parade which the Mayor had declined to review. As his party was to enjoy it at some point of Fifth Avenue he did not tarry to witness the surprising scenes about the church, but with Louis took a car uptown. Everywhere they heard hearty denunciations of the Mayor. At one street, their car being detained by the passing of a single division of the parade, the passengers crowded about the front door and the driver, and an anxious traveler asked the cause of the delay, and the probable length of it. The driver looked at him curiously.
"About five minutes," he said. "Don't you know who's paradin' to-day?"
"No."
"See the green plumes an' ribbons?"
"I do," vacantly.
"Know what day o' the month it is?"
"March seventeenth, of course."
"Live near New York?"
"About twenty miles out."
"Gee whiz!" exclaimed the driver with a gasp. "I've bin a-drivin' o' this car for twenty years, an' I never met anythin' quite so innercent. Well, it's St. Patrick's Day, an' them's the wild Irish."
The traveler seemed but little enlightened. An emphatic man in black, with a mouth so wide that its opening suggested the wonderful, seized the hand of the innocent and shook it cordially.
"I'm glad to meet one uncontaminated Americancitizen in this city," he said. "I hope there are millions like you in the land."
The uncontaminated looked puzzled, and might have spoken but for a violent interruption. A man had entered the car with an orange ribbon in his buttonhole.
"You'll have to take that off," said the conductor in alarm, pointing to the ribbon, "or leave the car."
"I won't do either," said the man.
"And I stand by you in that refusal," said the emphatic gentleman. "It's an outrage that we must submit to the domination of foreigners."
"It's the order of the company," said the conductor. "First thing we know a wild Irishman comes along, he goes for that orange ribbon, there's a fight, the women are frightened, and perhaps the car is smashed."
"An' besides," said the deliberate driver as he tied up his reins and took off his gloves, "it's a darn sight easier an' cheaper for us to put you off than to keep an Irishman from tryin' to murder you."
The uncontaminated citizen and two ladies fled to the street, while the driver and the conductor stood over the offending passenger.
"Goin' to take off the ribbon?" asked the conductor.
"You will be guilty of a cowardly surrender of principle if you do," said the emphatic gentleman.
"May I suggest," said Arthur blandly, "that you wear it in his stead?"
"I am not interested either way," returned the emphatic one, with a snap of the terrible jaws, "but maintain that for the sake of principle——"
A long speech was cut off at that moment by a war-cry from a simple lad who had just entered the car, spied the ribbon, and launched himself like a catapult upon the Orange champion. A lively scramble followed, but the scene speedily resolved itself into its proper elements. The procession had passed, the car moved on its way, and the passengers through the rear door saw the simple lad grinding the ribbon in the dust with triumphant heel, while its late wearer flew toward the horizon pursued by an imaginary mob. Louis sat down and glared at the emphatic man.
"Who is he?" said Arthur with interest, drawing his breath with joy over the delights of this day.
"He's a child-stealer," said Louis with distinctness. "He kidnaps Catholic children and finds them Protestant homes where their faith is stolen from them. He's the most hated man in the city."
The man accepted this scornful description of himself in silence. Except for the emphasis which nature had given to his features, he was a presentable person. Flying side-whiskers made his mouth appear grotesquely wide, and the play of strong feelings had produced vicious wrinkles on his spare face. He appeared to be a man of energy, vivacity and vulgarity, reminding one of a dinner of pork and cabbage. He was soon forgotten in the excitement of a delightful day, whose glories came to a brilliant end in that banquet which introduced the nephew of Senator Dillon into political life.
Standing before the guests, he found himself no longer that silent and disdainful Horace Endicott, who on such an occasion would have cooly stuttered and stammered through fifty sentences of dull congratulation and platitude. Feeling aroused him, illumined him, on the instant, almost without wish of his own, at the contrast between two pictures which traced themselves on his imagination as he rose in his place: the wrecked man who had fled from Sonia Westfield, what would he have been to-night but for the friendly hands outstretched to save him? Behold him in honor, in health, in hope, sure of love and some kind of happiness, standing before the people who had rescued him. The thousand impressions of the past six months sparkled into life; the sublime, pathetic, and amusing scenes of that day rose up like stars in his fancy; and against his lips, like water against a dam, rushed vigorous sentences from the great deeps opened in his soul by grief and change, and then leaped over in a beautiful, glittering flood. He wondered vaguely at his vehemence and fluency, at the silence in the hall, that these great people should listen to him at all. They heard him with astonishment, the leaders with interest, the Senator with tears; and Monsignor looked once towards the gallery where Anne Dillon sat literally frozen with terror and pride.
The long and sincere applause which followed the speech warned him that he had impressed a rather callous crowd of notables, and an exaltation seized him. Theguests lost no time in congratulating him, and every tongue wagged in his favor.
"You have the gift of eloquence," said Sullivan.
"It will be a pleasure to hear you again," said Vandervelt, the literary and social light of the Tammany circle.
"You have cleared your own road," Birmingham the financier remarked, and he stayed long to praise the young orator.
"There's nothin' too good for you after to-night," cried the Senator brokenly. "I simply can't—cannot talk about it."
"Your uncle," said Doyle Grahame, the young journalist who was bent on marrying Mona Everard, "as usual closes the delicate sparring of his peers with a knockdown blow; there's nothing too good for you."
"It's embarrassing."
"I wish I had your embarrassment. Shall I translate the praises of these great men for you? Sullivan meant, I must have the use of your eloquence; the lion Vandervelt, when you speak in my favor; Birmingham, please stump for me when I run for office; and the Senator, I will make you governor. You may use your uncle; the others hope to use you."
"I am willing to be of service," said Arthur severely.
"A good-nature thrown away, unless you are asked to serve. They have all congratulated you on your speech. Let me congratulate you on your uncle. They marvel at your eloquence; I, at your luck. Give me such an uncle rather than the gift of poesy. Do not neglect oratory, but cultivate thy uncle, boy."
Arthur laughed, Monsignor came up then, and heaped him with praise.
"Were you blessed with fluency in—your earlier years?" he said.
"Therein lies the surprise, and the joke. I never had an accomplishment except for making an uproar in a crowd. It seems ridiculous to show signs of the orator now, without desire, ambition, study, or preparation."
"Your California experiences," said the priest casually, "may have something to do with it. But let me warn you," and he looked about to make sure no one heard, "that early distinction in your case may attract the attention you wish to escape."
"I feel that it will help me," Arthur answered. "Who that knew Horace Endicott would look for him in a popular Tammany orator? The mantle of an Irish Cicero would disguise even a Livingstone."
The surprise and pleasure of the leaders were cold beside the wild delight of the Dillon clan when the news went around that Arthur had overshadowed the great speakers of the banquet. His speech was read in every gathering, its sarcastic description of the offensive Livingstone filled the Celts with joy, and threw Anne and Judy into an ecstasy.
"Faith, Mare Livingstone'll see green on St. Patrick's Day for the rest of his life," said Judy. "It' ud be a proper punishment if the bread he ate, an' everythin' he touched on that day, shud turn greener than ould Ireland, the land he insulted."
"There's curse enough on him," Anne replied sharply, ever careful to take Arthur's side, as she thought, "and I won't have you spoiling Arthur's luck be cursing any wan. I'm too glad to have an orator in the family. I can now put my orator against Mary Everard's priest, and be as proud as she is."
"The pride was born in ye," said Judy. "You won't have to earn it. Indade, ye'll have a new flirt to yer tail, an' a new toss to yer head, every day from now to his next speech."
"Why shouldn't I? I'm his mother," with emphasis.
The awkwardness of his relations with Anne Dillon woreaway speedily, until he began to think as well as speak of her as his mother; for she proved with time to be a humorous and delightful mother. Her love for rich colors and gay scenes, her ability to play gracefully the awkward part which he had chosen for her, her affectionate and discreet reserve, her delicate tact and fine wit, and her half-humorous determination to invade society, showed her as a woman of parts. He indulged her fancies, in particular her dream of entering the charmed circle of New York society. How this success should be won, and what was the circle, he did not know, nor care. The pleasure for him lay in her bliss as she exhausted one pleasure after another, and ever sought for higher things: Micksheen at the cat show attended by the liveried mulatto; the opera and the dog show, with bonnets and costumes to match the occasion; then her own carriage, used so discreetly as not to lose the respect of the parish; and finally the renting of the third pew from the front in the middle aisle of the cathedral, a step forward in the social world. How he had enjoyed these events in her upward progress! As a closing event for the first year of his new life, he suggested a villa by the sea for the summer, with Mona and Louis as guests for the season, with as many others as pleased her convenience. The light which broke over her face at this suggestion came not from within, but direct from heaven!
She sent him modestly to a country of the Philistines known as Coney Island, where he found the common herd enjoying a dish called chowder amid much spontaneity and dirt, and mingling their uproarious bathing with foaming beer; a picture framed in white sand and sounding sea, more than pleasant to the jaded taste of an Endicott.The roar of the surf drowned the mean uproar of discordant man. The details of life there were too cheap to be looked at closely; but at a distance the surface had sufficient color and movement. He found an exception to this judgment. La Belle Colette danced with artistic power, though in surroundings unsuited to her skill. He called it genius. In an open pavilion, whose roughness the white sand and the white-green surf helped to condone, on a tawdry stage, she appeared, a slight, pale, winsome beauty, clad in green and white gauze, looking like a sprite of the near-by sea. The witchery of her dancing showed rare art, which was lost altogether on the simple crowd. She danced carelessly, as if mocking the rustics, and made her exit without applause.
"Where did you get your artiste, August?" he said to a waiter.
"You saw how well she dances, hey? Poor Colette! The best creature in the world ... opens more wine than five, and gives too much away. But for the drink she might dance at the opera."
Arthur went often to see her dance, with pity for the talent thrown away, and brought his mother under protest from that cautious lady, who would have nothing to do with so common a place. The villa stood in respectable, even aristocratic, quiet at the far end of the island, and Anne regarded it almost with reverence, moving about as if in a temple. He found, however, that she had made it a stage for a continuous drama, in which she played the leading part, and the Dillon clan with all its ramifications played minor characters and the audience. Her motives and her methods he could not fathom and did not try; the house filled rapidly, that was enough; the round of dinners, suppers, receptions, dances, and whatnots had the regularity of the tides. Everybody came down from Judy's remotest cousin up to His Grace the archbishop. Even Edith Conyngham, apparently too timid to leave the shadow of Sister Magdalen, stole into a back room with Judy, and haunted the beach for a few days. For Judy's sake he turned aside to entertain her, and with the perversity which seems to follow certain actions he told her the pathetic incident of the dancer. Why he should have chosen this poor nun to hear this tale, embellished as if to torture her, he could never make out. Often in afteryears, when events had given the story significance, he sought for his own motives in vain. It might have been the gray hair, the rusty dress, the depressed manner, so painful a contrast to the sea-green sprite, all youth, and grace, and beauty, which provoked him.
"I shall pray for the poor thing," said rusty Edith, fingering her beads, and then she made to grasp his hand, which he thrust into his pockets.
"Not a second time," he told Louis. "I'd rather get the claw of a boiled lobster."
The young men did not like Miss Conyngham, but Louis pitied her sad state.
The leading characters on Anne's stage, at least the persons whom she permitted occasionally to fill its center, were the anxious lovers Mona and Doyle Grahame. He was a poet to his finger-tips, dark-haired, ruddy, manly, with clear wit, and the tenderest and bravest of dark eyes; and she, red-tressed, lovely, candid, simple, loved him with her whole heart while submitting to the decree of a sour father who forbade the banns. Friends like Anne gave them the opportunity to woo, and the Dillon clan stood as one to blind the father as to what was going on. The sight of this beauty and faith and love feeding on mutual confidence beside the sunlit surf and the moonlight waters gave Arthur profound sadness, steeped his heart in bitterness. Such scenes had been the prelude to his tragedy. Despair looked out of his eyes and frightened Louis.
"Why should you mind it so, after a year?" the lad pleaded.
"Time was when I minded nothing. I thought love and friendship, goodness and happiness, grew on every bush, and that
When we were far from the lips that we loved,We had but to make love to the lips that were near.
When we were far from the lips that we loved,We had but to make love to the lips that were near.
I am wiser now."
"Away with that look," Louis protested. "You have love in plenty with us, and you must not let yourself go like that. It's frightful."
"It's gone," Arthur answered rousing himself. "The feeling will never go farther than a look. She was not worth it—but the sight of these two—I suppose Adam must have grieved looking back at paradise."
"They have their troubles also," Louis said to distract his mind. "Father is unkind and harsh with Irish patriots, and because Grahame went through the mill, conspiracy, arrest, jail, prison, escape, and all the rest of it, he won't hear of marriage for Mona with him. Of course he'll have to come down in time. Grahame is the best fellow, and clever too."
One day seemed much the same as another to Arthur, but his mother's calendar had the dates marked in various colors, according to the rank of her visitors. The visit of the archbishop shone in figures of gold, but the day and hour which saw Lord Constantine cross her threshold and sit at her table stood out on the calendar in letters of flame. The Ledwiths who brought him were of little account, except as the friends of His Lordship. Anne informed the household the day before of the honor which heaven was sending them, and gave minute instructions as to the etiquette to be observed; and if Arthur wished to laugh the blissful light in her face forbade. The rules of etiquette did not include the Ledwiths, who could put up with ordinary politeness and be grateful.
"I can see from the expression of Mona," Arthur observed to the other gentlemen, "that the etiquette of to-morrow puts us out of her sight. And who is Lord Constantine? I ought to know, so I did not dare ask."
"A young English noble, son and heir of a Marquis," said Grahame with mock solemnity, "who is devoted to the cause of bringing London and Washington closer together in brotherly love and financial, that is rogues' sympathy—no, roguish sympathy—that's better. He would like an alliance between England and us. Therefore he cultivates the Irish. And he'd marry Honora Ledwith to-morrow if she'd have him. That's part of the scheme."
"And who are the Ledwiths?" said Arthur incautiously, but no one noticed the slip at the moment.
"People with ideas, strange weird ideas," Louis made answer. "Oh, perfectly sane, of course, but so devoted to each other, and the cause of Ireland, that they can get along with none, and few can get along with them. That's why Pop thinks so much of 'em. They are forever running about the world, deep in conspiracies for freedom, and so on, but they never get anywhere to stay. Outsideof that they're the loveliest souls the sun ever shone on, and I adore Honora."
"And if Mona takes to His Lordship," said Grahame, "I'll worship Miss Ledwith."
"Very confusing," Arthur muttered. "English noble,—alliance between two countries—cultivates Irish—wants to marry Irish girl—conspirators and all that—why, there's no head or tail to the thing."
"Well, you keep your eye on Honora Ledwith and me, and you'll get the key. She's the sun of the system. And, by the way, don't you remember old Ledwith, the red-hot lecturer on the woes of Ireland? Didn't you play on her doorstep in Madison street, and treat her to Washington pie?"
When the party arrived next day Arthur saw a handsome, vigorous, blond young man, hearty in his manner, and hesitating in his speech, whom he forgot directly in his surprise over the Ledwiths; for he recognized in them the father and daughter whom he had observed in so passionate a scene in the cathedral on St. Patrick's Day. He had their history by heart, the father being a journalist and the daughter a singer; they had traveled half the world; and while every one loved them none favored their roseate schemes for the freedom of Ireland. Perhaps this had made them peculiar. At the first glance one would have detected oddity as well as distinction in them. Tall, lean, vivacious, Owen Ledwith moved about restlessly, talked much, and with considerable temper. The daughter sat placid and watchful, quite used to playing audience to his entertainments; though her eyes never seemed to look at him, Arthur saw that she missed none of his movements, never failed to catch his words and to smile her approval. The whiteness of her face was like cream, and her dark blue eyes were pencilled by lashes so black that at the first glance they seemed of a lighter shade. Impressed to a degree by what at that instant could not be put into words, he named her in his own mind the White Lady. No trace of disdain spoiled her lofty manner, yet he thought she looked at people as if they were minor instruments in her own scheme. She made herself at home like one accustomed to quick changes of scene. A woman of that sort travels round the globe with a satchel, and dresses for the play with a ribbon and a comb, never finding the horizon too large for personal comfort. Clearly she was beloved in the Dillon circle, for they made much of her; but of course that day not even the master of the house was a good second to Lord Constantine. Anne moved about like herself in a dream. She was heavenly, and Arthur enjoyed it, offering incense to His Lordship, and provoking him into very English utterances. The young man's fault was that he rode his hobby too hard.
"It's a shame, doncheknow," he cried as soon as he could decently get at his favorite theme, "that the English-speaking peoples should be so hopelessly divided just now——"
"Hold on, Lord Conny," interrupted Grahame, "you're talking Greek to Dillon. Arthur, m'lud has a theory that the English-speaking peoples should do something together, doncheknow, and the devil of it is to get 'em together, doncheknow."
They all laughed save Anne, who looked awful at this scandalous mimicry of a personage, until His Lordship laughed too.
"You are only a journalist," said he gayly, "and talk like your journal. As I was saying, we are divided at home, and here it is much worse. The Irish here hate us worse than their brethren at home hate us, doncheknow—thank you, Miss Ledwith, I really will not use that word again—and all the races settled with you seem to dislike one another extremely. In Canada it's no better, and sometimes I would despair altogether, only a beginning must be made sometime; and I am really doing very well among the Irish."
He looked towards Honora who smiled and turned again to Arthur with those gracious eyes.
"I knew you would not forget it," she said. "The Washington pie in itself would keep it in your mind. How I loved that pie, and every one who gave me some. Your coming home must have been very wonderful to your dear mother."
"More wonderful than I could make you understand," murmured Arthur. "Do you know the old house is still in Madison street, where we played and ate the pie?"
Louis put his head between them slyly and whispered:
"I can run over to the baker's if you wish and get achunk of that identical pie, if you're so in love with it, and we'll have the whole scene over again."
No persuasion could induce the party to remain over night at the villa, because of important engagements in the city touching the alliance and the freedom of Erin; and the same tremendous interests would take them far away the next morning to be absent for months; but the winter would find them in the city and, when they would be fairly settled, Arthur was bid to come and dine with them often. On the last boat the White Lady sailed away with her lord and father, and Anne watched the boat out of sight, sighing like one who has been ravished to the third heaven, and finds it a distressing job to get a grip on earth again.
Arthur noticed that his mother dressed particularly well for the visits of the politicians, and entertained them sumptuously. Was she planning for his career? Delicious thought! But no, the web was weaving for the Senator. When the last knot was tied, she threw it over his head in perfect style. He complimented her on her latest costume. She swung about the room with mock airs and graces to display it more perfectly, and the men applauded. Good fortune had brought her back a likeness of her former beauty, angles and wrinkles had vanished, there was luster in her hair, and her melting eyes shone clear blue, a trifle faded. In her old age the coquette of twenty years back was returning with a charm which caught brother and son.
"I shall wear one like it at your inauguration, Senator," said she brightly.
"For President? Thank you. But the dress reminds me, Anne," the Senator added with feeling, "of what you were twenty years ago: the sweetest and prettiest girl in the city."
"Oh, you always have the golden word," said she, "and thank you. But you'll not be elected president, only mayor of our own city."
"It might come—in time," the Senator thought.
"And now is the time," cried she so emphatically that he jumped. "Vandervelt told me that no man could be elected unless you said the word. Why shouldn't you say it for yourself? He told me in the same breath he'd like to see you in the place afore any friend he had, because you were a man o' your word, and no wan could lose be your election."
"Did he say all that?"
"Every word, and twice as much," she declared with eagerness. "Now think it over with all your clever brains, Senator dear, and lift up the Dillon name to the first place in the city. Oh, I'd give me life to see that glory."
"And to win it," Arthur added under his breath.
The Senator was impressed, and Arthur had a feeling akin to awe. Who can follow the way of the world? The thread of destiny for the great city up the bay lay between the fingers of this sweet, ambitious house-mother, and of the popular gladiator. Even though she should lead the Senator by the nose to humiliation, the scene was wonderfully picturesque, and her thought daring. He did not know enough history to be aware that this same scene had happened several hundred times in past centuries; but he went out to take another look at the house which sheltered a woman of pluck and genius. The secret of the villa was known. Anne had used it to help in the selection of the next Mayor. He laughed from the depths of his being as he walked along the shore.
The Everard children returned home early in September to enjoy the preparations for the entrance of Louis into the seminary. The time had arrived for him to take up the special studies of the priesthood, and this meant his separation from the home circle forever. He would come and go for years perhaps, but alas! only as a visitor. The soul of Arthur was knit with the lad's as Jonathan with David. He had never known a youth so gracious and so strange, whose heart was like a sanctuary where