Father Damon slept the sleep of exhaustion. In this for a time the mind joined in the lethargy of the body. But presently, as the vital currents were aroused, the mind began to play its fantastic tricks. He was a seminary student, he was ordained, he was taking his vows before the bishop, he was a robust and consecrated priest performing his first service, shining, it seemed to him, before the congregation in the purity of his separation from the world. How strong he felt. And then came perplexities, difficulties, interests, and conflicting passions in life that he had not suspected, good that looked like evil, and evil that had an alloy of virtue, and the way was confused. And then there was a vision of a sort of sister of charity working with him in the evil and the good, drawing near to him, and yet repelling him with a cold, scientific skepticism that chilled him like blasphemy; but so patient was she, so unconscious of self, that gradually he lost this feeling of repulsion and saw only the woman, that wonderful creation, tender, pitiful comrade, the other self. And then there was darkness and blindness, and he stood once more before his congregation, speaking words that sounded hollow, hearing responses that mocked him, stared at by accusing eyes that knew him for a hypocrite. And he rushed away and left them, hearing their laughter as he went, and so into the street—plainly it was Rivington Street—and faces that he knew had a smile and a sneer, and he heard comments as he passed “Hulloa, Father Damon, come in and have a drink.” “I say, Father Damon, I seen her going round into Grand Street.”
When Father Monies looked in, just before daylight, Father Damon was still sleeping, but tossing restlessly and muttering incoherently; and he did not arouse him for the early devotions.
It was very late when he awoke, and opened his eyes to a confused sense of some great calamity. Father Monies was standing by the bedside with a cup of coffee.
“You have had a good sleep. Now take this, and then you may get up. The breakfast will wait for you.”
Father Damon started up. “Why didn't you call me? I am late for the mission.”
“Oh, Bendes has gone down long ago. You must take it easy; rest today. You'll be all right. You haven't a bit of fever.”
“But,” still declining the coffee, “before I break my fast, I have something to say to you. I—”
“Get some strength first. Besides, I have an engagement. I cannot wait. Pull yourself together; I may not be back before evening.”
So it was fated that he should be left still with himself. After his coffee he dressed slowly, as if it were not he, but some one else going through this familiar duty, as if it were scarcely worth while to do anything any more. And then, before attempting his breakfast, he went into the little oratory, and remained long in the attitude of prayer, trying to realize what he was and what he had done. He prayed for himself, for help, for humility, and he prayed for her; he had been used of late to pray for her guidance, now he prayed that she might be sustained.
When he came forth it was in a calmer frame of mind. It was all clear now. When Father Monies returned he would confess, and take his penance, and resolutely resume his life. He understood life better now. Perhaps this blow was needed for his spiritual pride.
It was a mild winter day, bright, and with a touch of summer, such as sometimes gets shuffled into our winter calendar. The book that he took up did not interest him; he was in no mood for the quiet meditation that it usually suggested to him, and he put it down and strolled out, directing his steps farther up the height, and away from the suburban stir. As he went on there was something consonant with his feelings in the bare wintry landscape, and when he passed the ridge and walked along the top of the river slope, he saw, as it seemed to him he had not seen it before, that lovely reach of river, the opposite wooded heights, the noble pass above, the peacefulness and invitation of nature. Had he a new sense to see all this? There was a softness in the distant outline, villas peeped out here and there, carriages were passing in the road below, there was a cheerful life in the stream—there was a harmony in the aspect of nature and humanity from this height. Was not the world beautiful? and human emotion, affection, love, were they alien to the Divine intention?
She loved beauty; she was fond of flowers; often she had spoken to him of her childish delight in her little excursions, rarely made, into the country. He could see her now standing just there and feasting her eyes on this noble panorama, and he could see her face all aglow, as she might turn to him and say, “Isn't it beautiful, Father Damon?” And she was down in those reeking streets, climbing about in the foul tenement-houses, taking a sick child in her arms, speaking a word of cheer—a good physician going about doing good!
And it might have been! Why was it that this peace of nature should bring up her image, and that they should seem in harmony? Was not the love of beauty and of goodness the same thing? Did God require in His service the atrophy of the affections? As long as he was in the world was it right that he should isolate himself from any of its sympathies and trials? Why was it not a higher life to enter into the common lot, and suffer, if need be, in the struggle to purify and ennoble all? He remembered the days he had once passed in the Trappist monastery of Gethsemane. The perfect peace of mind of the monks was purchased at the expense of the extirpation of every want, all will, every human interest. Were these men anything but specimens in a Museum of Failures? And yet, for the time being, it had seemed attractive to him, this simple vegetable existence, whose only object was preparation for death by the extinction of all passion and desire. No, these were not soldiers of the Lord, but the fainthearted, who had slunk into the hospital.
All this afternoon he was drifting in thought, arraigning his past life, excusing it, condemning it, and trying to forecast its future. Was this a trial of his constancy and faith, or had he made a mistake, entered upon a slavish career, from which he ought to extricate himself at any cost of the world's opinion? But presently he was aware that in all these debates with himself her image appeared. He was trying to fit his life to the thought of her. And when this became clearer in his tortured mind, the woman appeared as a temptation. It was not, then, the love of beauty, not even the love of humanity, and very far from being the service of his Master, that he was discussing, but only his desire for one person. It was that, then, that made him, for that fatal instant, forget his vow, and yield to the impulse of human passion. The thought of that moment stung him with confusion and shame. There had been moments in this afternoon wandering—when it had seemed possible for him to ask for release, and to take up a human, sympathetic life with her, in mutual consecration in the service of the Lord's poor. Yes, and by love to lead her into a higher conception of the Divine love. But this breaking a solemn vow at the dictates of passion was a mortal sin—there was no other name for it—a sin demanding repentance and expiation.
As he at last turned homeward, facing the great city and his life there, this became more clear to him. He walked rapidly. The lines of his face became set in a hard judgment of himself. He thought no more of escaping from himself, but of subduing himself, stamping out the appeals of his lower nature. It was in this mood that he returned.
Father Monies was awaiting him, and welcomed him with that look of affection, of more than brotherly love, which the good man had for the younger priest.
“I hope your walk has done you good.”
“Perhaps,” Father Damon replied, without any leniency in his face; “but that does not matter. I must tell you what I could not last night. Can you hear me?”
They went together into the oratory. Father Damon did not spare himself. He kept nothing back that could heighten the enormity of his offense.
And Father Monies did not attempt to lessen the impression upon himself of the seriousness of the scandal. He was shocked. He was exceedingly grave, but he was even more pitiful. His experience of life had been longer than that of the penitent. He better knew its temptations. His own peace had only been won by long crucifixion of the natural desires.
“I have nothing to say as to your own discipline. That you know. But there is one thing. You must face this temptation, and subdue it.”
“You mean that I must go back to my labor in the city?”
“Yes. You can rest here a few days if you feel too weak physically.”
“No; I am well enough.” He hesitated. “I thought perhaps some other field, for a time?”
“There is no other field for you. It is not for the moment the question of where you can do most good. You are to reinstate yourself. You are a soldier of the Lord Jesus, and you are to go where the battle is most dangerous.”
That was the substance of it all. There was much affectionate counsel and loving sympathy mingled with all the inflexible orders of obedience, but the sin must be faced and extirpated in presence of the enemy.
On the morrow Father Damon went back to his solitary rooms, to his chapel, to the round of visitations, to his work with the poor, the sinful, the hopeless. He did not seek her; he tried not to seem to avoid her, or to seem to shun the streets where he was most likely to meet her, and the neighborhoods she frequented. Perhaps he did avoid them a little, and he despised himself for doing it. Almost involuntarily he looked to the bench by the chapel door which she occasionally occupied at vespers. She was never there, and he condemned himself for thinking that she might be; but yet wherever he walked there was always the expectation that he might encounter her. As the days went by and she did not appear, his expectation became a kind of torture. Was she ill, perhaps? It could not be that she had deserted her work.
And then he began to examine himself with a morbid introspection. Had the hope that he should see her occasionally influenced him at all in his obedience to Father Monies? Had he, in fact, a longing to be in the streets where she had walked, among the scenes that had witnessed her beautiful devotion? Had his willingness to take up this work again been because it brought him nearer to her in spirit?
No, she could not be ill. He heard her spoken of, here and there, in his calls and ministrations to the sick and dying. Evidently she was going about her work as usual. Perhaps she was avoiding him. Or perhaps she did not care, after all, and had lost her respect for him when he discovered to her his weakness. And he had put himself on a plane so high above her.
There was no conscious wavering in his purpose. But from much dwelling upon the thought, from much effort rather to put it away, his desire only to see her grew stronger day by day. He had no fear. He longed to test himself. He was sure that he would be impassive, and be all the stronger for the test. He was more devoted than ever in his Work. He was more severe with himself, more charitable to others, and he could not doubt that he was gaining a hold-yes, a real hold-upon the lives of many about him. The attendance was better at the chapel; more of the penitent and forlorn came to him for help. And how alone he was! My God, never even to see her!
In fact, Ruth Leigh was avoiding him. It was partly from a womanly reserve—called into expression in this form for the first time—and partly from a wish to spare him pain. She had been under no illusion from the first about the hopelessness of the attachment. She comprehended his character so thoroughly that she knew that for him any fall from his ideal would mean his ruin. He was one of the rare spirits of faith astray in a skeptical age. For a time she had studied curiously his efforts to adapt himself to his surroundings. One of these was joining a Knights of Labor lodge. Another was his approach to the ethical-culture movement of some of the leaders in the Neighborhood Guild. Another was his interest in the philanthropic work of agnostics like herself. She could see that he, burning with zeal to save the souls of men, and believing that there was no hope for the world except in the renunciation of the world, instinctively shrank from these contacts, which, nevertheless, he sought in the spirit of a Jesuit missionary to a barbarous tribe.
It was possible for such a man to be for a time overmastered by human passion; it was possible even that he might reason himself temporarily into conduct that this natural passion seemed to justify; yet she never doubted that there would follow an awakening from that state of mind as from a horrible delusion. It was simply because Ruth Leigh was guided by the exercise of reason, and had built up her scheme of life upon facts that she believed she could demonstrate, that she saw so clearly their relations, and felt that the faith, which was to her only a vagary of the material brain, was to him an integral part of his life.
Love, to be sure, was as unexpected in her scheme of life as it was in his; but there was on her part no reason why she should not yield to it. There was every reason in her nature and in her theory why she should, for, bounded as her vision of life was by this existence, love was the highest conceivable good in life. It had been with a great shout of joy that the consciousness had come to her that she loved and was loved. Though she might never see him again, this supreme experience for man or woman, this unsealing of the sacred fountain of life, would be for her an enduring sweetness in her lonely and laborious pilgrimage. How strong love is they best know to whom it is offered and denied.
And why, so far as she was concerned, should she deny it? An ordinary woman probably would not. Love is reason enough. Why should artificial conventions defeat it? Why should she sacrifice herself, if he were willing to brave the opinion of the world for her sake? Was it any new thing for good men to do this? But Ruth Leigh was not an ordinary woman. Perhaps if her intellect had not been so long dominant over her heart it would have been different. But the habit of being guided by reason was second nature. She knew that not only his vow, but the habit of life engendered by the vow, was an insuperable barrier. And besides, and this was the touchstone of her conception of life and duty, she felt that if he were to break his vow, though she might love him, her respect for him would be impaired.
It was a singular phenomenon—very much remarked at the time—that the women who did not in the least share Father Damon's spiritual faith, and would have called themselves in contradistinction materialists, were those who admired him most, were in a way his followers, loved to attend his services, were inspired by his personality, and drawn to him in a loving loyalty. The attraction to these very women was his unworldliness, his separateness, his devotion to an ideal which in their reason seemed a delusion. And no women would have been more sensitive than they to his fall from his spiritual pinnacle.
It was easy with a little contrivance to avoid meeting him. She did not go to the chapel or in its neighborhood when he was likely to be going to or from service. She let others send for him when in her calls his ministration was required, and she was careful not to linger where he was likely to come. A little change in the time of her rounds was made without neglecting her work, for that she would not do, and she trusted that if accident threw him in her way, circumstances would make it natural and not embarrassing. And yet his image was never long absent from her thoughts; she wondered if he were dejected, if he were ill, if he were lonely, and mostly there was for him a great pity in her heart, a pity born, alas! of her own sense of loneliness.
How much she was repressing her own emotions she knew one evening when she returned from her visits and found a letter in his handwriting. The sight of it was a momentary rapture, and then the expectation of what it might contain gave her a feeling of faintness. The letter was long. Its coming needs a word of explanation.
Father Damon had begun to use the Margaret Fund. He found that its judicious use was more perplexing than he had supposed. He needed advice, the advice of those who had more knowledge than he had of the merits of relief cases. And then there might be many sufferers whom he in his limited field neglected. It occurred to him that Dr. Leigh would be a most helpful co-almoner. No sooner did this idea come to him than he was spurred to put it into effect. This common labor would be a sort of bond between them, a bond of charity purified from all personal alloy. He went at once to Mr. Henderson's office and told him his difficulties, and about Dr. Leigh's work, and the opportunities she would have. Would it not be possible for Dr. Leigh to draw from the fund on her own checks independent of him? Mr. Henderson thought not. Dr. Leigh was no doubt a good woman, but he didn't know much about woman visitors and that sort; their sympathies were apt to run away with them, and he should prefer at present to have the fund wholly under Father Damon's control. Some time, he intimated, he might make more lasting provisions with trustees. It would be better for Father Damon to give Dr. Leigh money as he saw she needed it.
The letter recited this at length; it had a check endorsed, and the writer asked the doctor to be his almoner. He dwelt very much upon the relief this would be to him, and the opportunity it would give her in many emergencies, and the absolute confidence he had in her discretion, as well as in her quick sympathy with the suffering about them. And also it would be a great satisfaction to him to feel that he was associated with her in such a work.
In its length, in its tone of kindliness, of personal confidence, especially in its length, it was evident that the writing of it had been a pleasure, if not a relief, to the sender. Ruth read it and reread it. It was as if Father Damon were there speaking to her. She could hear the tones of his voice. And the glance of love—that last overmastering appeal and cry thrilled through her soul.
But in the letter there was no love; to any third person it would have read like an ordinary friendly philanthropic request. And her reply, accepting gratefully his trust, was almost formal, only the writer felt that she was writing out of her heart.
The Roman poet Martial reckons among the elements of a happy life “an income left, not earned by toil,” and also “a wife discreet, yet blythe and bright.” Felicity in the possession of these, the epigrammatist might have added, depends upon content in the one and full appreciation of the other.
Jack Delancy returned from Washington more discontented than when he went. His speculation hung fire in a most tantalizing way; more than that, it had absorbed nearly all the “income not earned by toil,” which was at the hazard of operations he could neither control nor comprehend. And besides, this little fortune had come to seem contemptibly inadequate. In his associations of the past year his spendthrift habits had increased, and he had been humiliated by his inability to keep pace with the prodigality of those with whom he was most intimate. Miss Tavish was an heiress in her own right, who never seemed to give a thought to the cost of anything she desired; the Hendersons, for any whim, drew upon a reservoir of unknown capacity; and even Mavick began to talk as if he owned a flock of geese that laid golden eggs.
To be sure, it was pleasant coming home into an atmosphere of sincerity, of worship—was it not? It was very flattering to his self-esteem. The master had come! The house was in commotion. Edith flew to meet him, hugged him, shook him, criticised his appearance, rallied him for a recreant father. How well she looked-buoyant, full of vivacity, running over with joy, asking a dozen questions before he could answer one, testifying her delight, her affection, in a hundred ways. And the boy! He was so eager to see his papa. He could converse now—that is, in his way. And that prodigy, when Jack was dragged into his presence, and also fell down with Edith and worshiped him in his crib, did actually smile, and appear to know that this man belonged to him, was a part of his worldly possessions.
“Do you know,” said Edith, looking at the boy critically, “I think of making Fletcher a present, if you approve.”
“What's that?”
“He'll want some place to go to in the summer. I want to buy that old place where he was born and give it to him. Don't you think it would be a good investment?”
“Yes, permanent,” replied Jack, laughing at such a mite of a real-estate owner.
“I know he would like it. And you don't object?”
“Not in the least. It's next to an ancestral feeling to be the father of a land-owner.”
They were standing close to the crib, his arm resting lightly across her shoulders. He drew her closer to him, and kissed her tenderly. “The little chap has a golden-hearted mother. I don't know why he should not have a Golden House.”
Her eyes filled with sudden tears. She could not speak. But both arms were clasped round his neck now. She was too happy for words. And the baby, looking on with large eyes, seemed to find nothing unusual in the proceeding. He was used to a great deal of this sort of nonsense himself.
It was a happy evening. In truth, after the first surprise, Jack was pleased with this contemplated purchase. It was something removed beyond temptation. Edith's property was secure to her, and it was his honorable purpose never to draw it into his risks. But he knew her generosity, and he could not answer for himself if she should offer it, as he was sure she would do, to save him from ruin.
There was all the news to tell, the harmless gossip of daily life, which Edith had a rare faculty of making dramatically entertaining, with her insight and her feeling for comedy. There had been a musicale at the Blunts'—oh, strictly amateur—and Edith ran to the piano and imitated the singers and took off the players, until Jack declared that it beat the Conventional Club out of sight. And she had been to a parlor mind-cure lecture, and to a Theosophic conversation, and to a Reading Club for the Cultivation of a Feeling for Nature through Poetry. It was all immensely solemn and earnest. And Jack wondered that the managers did not get hold of these things and put them on the stage. Nothing could draw like them. Not burlesques, though, said Edith; not in the least. If only these circles would perform in public as they did in private, how they would draw!
And then Father Damon had been to consult her about his fund. He had been ill, and would not stay, and seemed more severe and ascetic than ever. She was sure something was wrong. For Dr. Leigh, whom she had sought out several times, was reserved, and did not voluntarily speak of Father Damon; she had heard that he was throwing himself with more than his usual fervor into his work. There was plenty to talk about. The purchase of the farm by the sea had better not be delayed; Jack might have to go down and see the owner. Yes, he would make it his first business in the morning. Perhaps it would be best to get some Long-Islander to buy it for them.
By the time it was ten o'clock, Jack said he thought he would step down to the Union a moment. Edith's countenance fell. There might be letters, he explained, and he had a little matter of business; he wouldn't be late.
It was very agreeable, home was, and Edith was charming. He could distinctly feel that she was charming. But Jack was restless. He felt the need of talking with somebody about what was on his mind. If only with Major Fairfax. He would not consult the Major, but the latter was in the way of picking up all sorts of gossip, both social and Street gossip.
And the Major was willing to unpack his budget. It was not very reassuring, what he had to tell; in fact, it was somewhat depressing, the general tightness and the panicky uncertainty, until, after a couple of glasses of Scotch, the financial world began to open a little and seem more hopeful.
“The Hendersons are going to build,” Jack said at length, after a remark of the Major's about that famous operator.
“Build? What for? They've got a palace.”
“Carmen says it's for an object-lesson. To show New York millionaires how to adorn their city.”
“It's like that little schemer. What does Henderson say?”
“He appears to be willing. I can't get the hang of Henderson. He doesn't seem to care what his wife does. He's a cynical cuss. The other night, at dinner, in Washington, when the thing was talked over, he said: 'My dear, I don't know why you shouldn't do that as well as anything. Let's build a house of gold, as Nero did; we are in the Roman age.' Carmen looked dubious for a moment, but she said, 'You know, Rodney, that you always used to say that some time you would show New York what a house ought to be in this climate.' 'Well, go on,' and he laughed. 'I suppose lightning will not strike that sooner than anything else.'” “Seems to me,” said the Major, reflectively, reaching out his hand for the brown mug, “the way he gives that woman her head, and doesn't care what she does, he must have a contempt for her.”
“I wish somebody had that sort of contempt for me,” said Jack, filling up his glass also.
“But, I tell you,” he continued, “Mrs. Henderson has caught on to the new notions. Her idea is the union of all the arts. She has already got the refusal of a square 'way up-town, on the rise opposite the Park, and has been consulting architects about it. It is to be surrounded with the building, with a garden in the interior, a tropical garden, under glass in the winter. The facades are to be gorgeous and monumental. Artists and sculptors are to decorate it, inside and out. Why shouldn't there be color on the exterior, gold and painting, like the Fugger palaces in Augsburg, only on a great scale? The artists don't see any reason why there should not. It will make the city brilliant, that sort of thing, in place of our monotonous stone lanes. And it's using her wealth for the public benefit-the architects and artists all say that. Gad, I don't know but the little woman is beginning to regard herself as a public benefactor.”
“She is that or nothing,” echoed the Major, warmly.
“And do you know,” continued Jack, confidentially, “I think she's got the right idea. If I have any luck—of course I sha'n't do that—but if I have any luck, I mean to build a house that's got some life in it—color, old boy—something unique and stunning.”
“So you will,” cried the Major, enthusiastically, and, raising his glass, “Here's to the house that Jack built!”
It was later than he thought it would be when he went home, but Jack was attended all the way by a vision of a Golden House—all gold wouldn't be too good, and he will build it, damme, for Edith and the boy. The next morning not even the foundations of this structure were visible. The master of the house came down to a late breakfast, out of sorts with life, almost surly. Not even Edith's bright face and fresh toilet and radiant welcome appealed to him. No one would have thought from her appearance that she had waited for him last night hour after hour, and had at last gone to bed with a heavy heart, and not to sleep-to toss, and listen, and suffer a thousand tortures of suspense. How many tragedies of this sort are there nightly in the metropolis, none the less tragic because they are subjects of jest in the comic papers and on the stage! What would be the condition of social life if women ceased to be anxious in this regard, and let loose the reins in an easy-going indifference? What, in fact, is the condition in those households where the wives do not care? One can even perceive a tender sort of loyalty to women in the ejaculation of that battered old veteran, the Major, “Thank God, there's nobody sitting up for me!”
Jack was not consciously rude. He even asked about the baby. And he sipped his coffee and glanced over the morning journal, and he referred to the conversation of the night before, and said that he would look after the purchase at once. If Edith had put on an aspect of injury, and had intimated that she had hoped that his first evening at home might have been devoted to her and the boy, there might have been a scene, for Jack needed only an occasion to vent his discontent. And for the chronicler of social life a scene is so much easier to deal with, an outburst of temper and sharp language, of accusation and recrimination, than the well-bred commonplace of an undefined estrangement.
And yet estrangement is almost too strong a word to use in Jack's case. He would have been the first to resent it. But the truth was that Edith, in the life he was leading, was a rebuke to him; her very purity and unworldliness were out of accord with his associations, with his ventures, with his dissipations in that smart and glittering circle where he was more welcome the more he lowered his moral standards. Could he help it if after the first hours of his return he felt the restraint of his home, and that the life seemed a little flat? Almost unconsciously to himself, his interests and his inclinations were elsewhere.
{0313}
Edith, with the divination of a woman, felt this. Last night her love alone seemed strong enough to hold him, to bring him back to the purposes and the aspirations that only last summer had appeared to transform him. Now he was slipping away again. How pitiful it is, this contest of a woman who has only her own love, her own virtue, with the world and its allurements and seductions, for the possession of her husband's heart! How powerless she is against these subtle invitations, these unknown and all-encompassing temptations! At times the whole drift of life, of the easy morality of the time, is against her. The current is so strong that no wonder she is often swept away in it. And what could an impartial observer of things as they are say otherwise than that John Delancy was leading the common life of his kind and his time, and that Edith was only bringing trouble on herself by being out of sympathy with it?
He might not be in at luncheon, he said, when he was prepared to go down-town. He seldom was. He called at his broker's. Still suspense. He wrote to the Long Island farmer. At the Union he found a scented note from Carmen. They had all returned from the capital. How rejoiced she was to be at home! And she was dying to see him; no, not dying, but very much living; and it was very important. She should expect him at the usual hour. And could he guess what gown she would wear?
And Jack went. What hold had this woman on him? Undoubtedly she had fascinations, but he knew—knew well enough by this time—that her friendship was based wholly on calculation. And yet what a sympathetic comrade she could be! How freely he could talk with her; there was no subject she did not adapt herself to. No doubt it was this adaptability that made her such a favorite. She did not demand too much virtue or require too much conventionality. The hours he was with her he was wholly at his ease. She made him satisfied with himself, and she didn't disturb his conscience.
“I think,” said Jack—he was holding both her hands with a swinging motion—when she came forward to greet him, and looking at her critically—“I think I like you better in New York than in Washington.”
“That is because you see more of me here.”
“Oh, I saw you enough in Washington.”
“But that was my public manner. I have to live up to Mr. Henderson's reputation.”
“And here you only have to live up to mine?”
“I can live for my friends,” she replied, with an air of candor, giving a very perceptible pressure with her little hands. “Isn't that enough?”
Jack kissed each little hand before he let it drop, and looked as if he believed.
“And how does the house get on?”
“Famously. The lot is bought. Mr. Van Brunt was here all the morning. It's going to be something Oriental, mediaeval, nineteenth-century, gorgeous, and domestic. Van Brunt says he wants it to represent me.”
“How?” inquired Jack; “all the four facades different?”
“With an interior unity—all the styles brought to express an individual taste, don't you know. A different house from the four sides of approach, and inside, home—that's the idea.”
“It appears to me,” said Jack, still bantering, “that it will look like an apartment-house.”
“That is just what it will not—that is, outside unity, and inside a menagerie. This won't look gregarious. It is to have not more than three stories, perhaps only two. And then exterior color, decoration, statuary.”
“And gold?”
“Not too much—not to give it a cheap gilded look. Oh, I asked him about Nero's house. As I remember it, that was mostly caverns. Mr. Van Brunt laughed, and said they were not going to excavate this house. The Roman notion was barbarous grandeur. But in point of beauty and luxury, this would be as much superior to Nero's house as the electric light is to a Roman lamp.”
“Not classic, then?”
“Why, all that's good in classic form, with the modern spirit. You ought to hear Mr. Van Brunt talk. This country has never yet expressed itself in domestic inhabitation.”
“It's going to cost! What does Mr. Henderson say?”
“I think he rather likes it. He told Mr. Van Brunt to consult me and go ahead with his plans. But he talks queerly. He said he thought he would have money enough at least for the foundation. Do you think, Jack,” asked Carmen, with a sudden change of manner, “that Mr. Henderson is really the richest man in the United States?”
“Some people say so. Really, I don't know how any one can tell. If he let go his hand from his affairs, I don't know what a panic would do.”
Carmen looked thoughtful. “He said to me once that he wasn't afraid of the Street any more. I told him this morning that I didn't want to begin this if it was going to incommode him.”
“What did he say?”
“He was just going out. He looked at me a moment with that speculative sort of look-no, it isn't cynical, as you say; I know it so well—and then said: 'Oh, go ahead. I guess it will be all right. If anything happens, you can turn it into a boardinghouse. It will be an excellent sanitarium.' That was all. Anyway, it's something to do. Come, let's go and see the place.” And she started up and touched the bell for the carriage. It was more than something to do. In those days before her marriage, when her mother was living, and when they wandered about Europe, dangerously near to the reputation of adventuresses, the girl had her dream of chateaux and castles and splendor. Her chance did not come in Europe, but, as she would have said, Providence is good to those who wait.
The next day Jack went to Long Island, and the farm was bought, and the deed brought to Edith, who, with much formality, presented it to the boy, and that young gentleman showed his appreciation of it by trying to eat it. It would have seemed a pretty incident to Jack, if he had not been absorbed in more important things.
But he was very much absorbed, and apparently more idle than ever. As the days went on, and the weeks, he was less and less at home, and in a worse humor—that is, at home. Carmen did not find him ill-humored, nor was there any change towards the fellows at the Union, except that it was noticed that he had his cross days. There was nothing specially to distinguish him from a dozen others, who led the same life of vacuity, of mild dissipation, of enforced pleasure. A wager now and then on an “event”; a fictitious interest in elections; lively partisanship in society scandals: Not much else. The theatres were stale, and only endurable on account of the little suppers afterwards; and really there wasn't much in life except the women who made it agreeable.
Major Fairfax was not a model; there had not much survived out of his checkered chances and experiences, except a certain instinct of being a gentleman, sir; the close of his life was not exactly a desirable goal; but even the Major shook his head over Jack.
The one fact in which men universally agree is that we come into the world alone and we go out of the world alone; and although we travel in company, make our pilgrimage to Canterbury or to Vanity Fair in a great show of fellowship, and of bearing one another's burdens, we carry our deepest troubles alone. When we think of it, it is an awful lonesomeness in this animated and moving crowd. Each one either must or will carry his own burden, which he commonly cannot, or by pride or shame will not, ask help in carrying.
Henderson drew more and more apart from confidences, and was alone in building up the colossal structure of his wealth. Father Damon was carrying his renewed temptation alone, after all his brave confession and attempt at renunciation. Ruth Leigh plodded along alone, with her secret which was the joy and the despair of her life—the opening of a gate into the paradise which she could never enter. Jack Delancy, the confiding, open-hearted good fellow, had come to a stage in his journey where he also was alone. Not even to Carmen could he confess the extent of his embarrassments, nor even in her company, nor in the distraction of his increasingly dissipated life, could he forget them. Not only had his investments been all transferred to his speculations, but his home had been mortgaged, and he did not dare tell Edith of the lowering cloud that hung over it; and that his sole dependence was the confidence of the Street, which any rumor might shatter, in that one of Henderson's schemes to which he had committed himself. Edith, the one person who could have comforted him, was the last person to whom he could have told this, for he had the most elementary, and the common conception of what marriage is.
But Edith's lot was the most pitiful of all. She was not only alone, but compelled to inaction. She saw the fair fabric of her life dissolving, and neither by cries nor tears, by appeals nor protest, by show of anger nor by show of suffering, could she hinder the dissolution. Strong in herself and full of courage, day by day and week by week she felt her powerlessness. Heaven knows what it cost her—what it costs all women in like circumstances—to be always cheerful, never to show distrust. If her love were not enough, if her attractions were not enough, there was no human help to which she could appeal.
And what, pray, was there to appeal? There was no visible neglect, no sufficient alienation for gossip to take hold of. If there was a little talk about Jack's intimacy elsewhere, was there anything uncommon in that? Affairs went on as usual. Was it reasonable to suppose that society should notice that one woman's heart was full of foreboding, heavy with a sense of loss and defeat, and with the ruin of two lives? Could simple misery like this rise to the dignity of tragedy in a world that has its share of tragedies, shocking and violent, but is on the whole going on decorously and prosperously?
{0323}
The season wore on. It was the latter part of May. Jack had taken Edith and the boy down to the Long Island house, and had returned to the city and was living at his club, feverishly waiting for some change in his affairs. It was a sufficient explanation of his anxiety that money was “tight,” that failures were daily announced, and that there was a general fear of worse times. It was fortunate for Jack and other speculators that they could attribute their ill-luck to the general financial condition. There were reasons enough for this condition. Some attributed it to want of confidence, others to the tariff, others to the action of this or that political party, others to over-production, others to silver, others to the action of English capitalists in withdrawing their investments. It could all be accounted for without referring to the fact that most of the individual sufferers, like Jack, owed more than they could pay.
Henderson was much of the time absent—at the West and at the South. His every move was watched, his least sayings were reported as significant, and the Street was hopeful or depressed as he seemed to be cheerful or unusually taciturn. Uncle Jerry was the calmest man in town, and his observation that Henderson knew what he was about was reassuring. His serenity was well founded. The fact was that he had been pulling in and lowering canvas for months. Or, as he put it, he hadn't much hay out... “It's never a good plan,” said Uncle Jerry, “to put off raking up till the shower begins.”
It seems absurd to speak of the East Side in connection with the financial situation. But that was where the pinch was felt, and felt first. Work was slack, and that meant actual hunger for many families. The monetary solidarity of the town is remarkable. No one flies a kite in Wall Street that somebody in Rivington Street does not in consequence have to go without his dinner. As Dr. Leigh went her daily rounds she encountered painful evidence of the financial disturbance. Increased number of cases for the doctor followed want of sufficient food and the eating of cheap, unwholesome food. She was often obliged to draw upon the Margaret Fund, and to invoke the aid of Father Damon when the responsibility was too great for her. And Father Damon found that his ministry was daily diverted from the cure of souls to the care of bodies. Among all those who came to the mission as a place of refuge and rest, and to whom the priest sought to offer the consolations of religion and of his personal sympathy, there were few who did not have a tale of suffering to tell that wrung his heart. Some of them were actually ill, or had at home a sick husband or a sick daughter. And such cases had to be reported to Dr. Leigh.
It became necessary, therefore, that these two, who had shunned each other for months, should meet as often as they had done formerly. This was very hard for both, for it meant only the renewal of heart-break, regret, and despair. And yet it had been almost worse when they did not see each other. They met; they talked of nothing but their work; they tried to forget themselves in their devotion to humanity. But the human heart will not be thus disposed of. It was impossible that some show of personal interest, some tenderness, should not appear. They were walking towards Fourth Avenue one evening—the priest could not resist the impulse to accompany her a little way towards her home—after a day of unusual labor and anxiety.
“You are working too hard,” he said, gently; “you look fatigued.”
“Oh no,” she replied, looking up cheerfully; “I'm a regular machine. I get run down, and then I wind up. I get tired, and then I get rested. It isn't the work,” she added, after a moment, “if only I could see any good of it. It seems so hopeless.”
“From your point of view, my dear doctor,” he answered, but without any shade of reproof in his tone. “But no good deed is lost. There is nothing else in the world—nothing for me.” The close of the sentence seemed wholly accidental, and he stopped speaking as if he could not trust himself to go on.
Ruth Leigh looked up quickly. “But, Father Damon, it is you who ought to be rebuked for overwork. You are undertaking too much. You ought to go off for a vacation, and go at once.”
The father looked paler and thinner than usual, but his mouth was set in firm lines, and he said: “It cannot be. My duty is here. And”—he turned, and looked her full in the face—“I cannot go.”
No need to explain that simple word. No need to interpret the swift glance that their eyes exchanged—the eager, the pitiful glance. They both knew. It was not the work. It was not the suffering of the world. It was the pain in their own hearts, and the awful chasm that his holy vows had put between them. They stood so only an instant. He was trembling in the extort to master himself, and in a second she felt the hot blood rising to her face. Her woman's wit was the first to break the hopeless situation. She turned, and hailed a passing car. “I cannot walk any farther. Good-night.” And she was gone.
The priest stood as if a sudden blow had struck him, following the retreating car till it was out of sight, and then turned homeward, dazed, and with feeble steps. What was this that had come to him to so shake his life? What devil was tempting him to break his vows and forsake his faith? Should he fly from the city and from his work, or should he face what seemed to him, in the light of his consecration, a monstrous temptation, and try to conquer himself? He began to doubt his power to do this. He had always believed that it was easy to conquer nature. And now a little brown woman had taught him that he reckons ill who leaves out the strongest human passion. And yet suppose he should break his solemn vows and throw away his ideal, and marry Ruth Leigh, would he ever be happy? Here was a mediaeval survival confronted by a nineteenth-century skepticism. The situation was plainly insoluble. It was as plainly so to the clear mind of the unselfish little woman without faith as it was to him. Perhaps she could not have respected him if he had yielded. Strangely enough, the attraction of the priest for her and for other women who called themselves servants of humanity was in his consecration, in his attitude of separation from the vanities and passions of this world. They believed in him, though they did not share his faith. To Ruth Leigh this experience of love was as unexpected as it was to the priest. Perhaps because her life was lived on a less exalted plane she could bear it with more equanimity. But who knows? The habit of her life was endurance, the sturdy meeting of the duty of every day, with at least only a calm regard of the future. And she would go on. But who can measure the inner change in her life? She must certainly be changed by this deep experience, and, terrible as it was, perhaps ennobled by it. Is there not something supernatural in such a love itself? It has a wonderful transforming power. It is certain that a new light, a tender light, was cast upon her world. And who can say that some time, in the waiting and working future, this new light might not change life altogether for this faithful soul?
There was one person upon whom the tragedy of life thus far sat lightly. Even her enemies, if she had any, would not deny that Carmen had an admirable temperament. If she had been a Moslem, it might be predicted that she would walk the wire 'El Serat' without a tremor. In these days she was busy with the plans of her new house. The project suited her ambition and her taste. The structure grew in her mind into barbaric splendor, but a barbaric splendor refined, which reveled in the exquisite adornment of the Alhambra itself. She was in daily conferences with her architect and her artists, she constantly consulted Jack about it, and Mavick whenever he was in town, and occasionally she awakened the interest of Henderson himself, who put no check upon her proceedings, although his mind was concerned with a vaster structure of his own. She talked of little else, until in her small world there grew up a vast expectation of magnificence, of which hints appeared from time to time in the newspapers, mysterious allusions to Roman luxury, to Nero and his Golden House. Henderson read these paragraphs, as he read the paragraphs about his own fortune, with a grim smile.
“Your house is getting a lot of free advertising,” he said to Carmen one evening after dinner in the library, throwing the newspaper on the table as he spoke.
“They all seem to like the idea,” replied Carmen. “Did you see what one of the papers said about the use of wealth in adorning the city? That's my notion.”
“I suppose,” said Henderson, with a smile, “that you put that notion into the reporter's head.”
“But he thought he suggested it to me.”
“Let's look over the last drawing.” Henderson half rose from his chair to pull the sheet towards him, but instantly sank back, and put his hand to his heart. Carmen saw that he was very pale, and ran round to his chair.
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” he said, taking a long breath. “Just a stitch. Indigestion. It must have been the coffee.”
Carmen ran to the dining-room, and returned with a wineglass of brandy.
“There, take that.”
He drank it. “Yes, that's better. I'm all right now.” And he sat still, slowly recovering color and control of himself.
“I'm going to send for the doctor.”
“No, no; nonsense. It has all passed,” and he stretched out his arms and threw them back vigorously. “It was only a moment's faintness. It's quite gone.”
He rose from his chair and took a turn or two about the room. Yes, he was quite himself, and he patted Carmen's head as he passed and took his seat again. For a moment or two there was silence. Then he said, still as if reflecting:
“Isn't it queer? In that moment of faintness all my life flashed through my mind.”
“It has been a very successful life,” Carmen said, by way of saying something.
“Yes, yes; but I wonder if it was worth while?”
“If I were a man, I should enjoy the power you have, the ability to do what you will.”
“I suppose I do. That is all there is. I like to conquer obstacles, and I like to command. And money; I never did care for money in itself. But there is a fascination in building up a great fortune. It is like conducting a political or a military campaign. Now, I haven't much interest in anything else.”
As he spoke he looked round upon the crowded shelves of his library, and, getting up, went to the corner where there was a shelf of rare editions and took down a volume.
“Do you remember when I got this, Carmen? It was when I was a bachelor. It was rare then. I saw it quoted the other day as worth twice the price I gave for it.”
He replaced it carefully, and walked along the shelves looking at the familiar titles.
“I used to read then. And you read still; you have time.”
“Not those books,” she replied, with a laugh. “Those belong to the last generation.”
“That is where I belong,” he said, smiling also. “I don't think I have read a book, not really read it, in ten years. This modern stuff that pretends to give life is so much less exciting than my own daily experience that I cannot get interested in it. Perhaps I could read these calm old books.”
“It is the newspapers that take your time,” Carmen suggested.
“Yes, they pass the time when I am thinking. And they are full of suggestions. I suppose they are as accurate about other things as about me. I used to think I would make this library the choicest in the city. It is good as far as it goes. Perhaps I will take it up some day—if I live.” And he turned away from the shelves and sat down. Carmen had never seen him exactly in this humor and was almost subdued by it.
He began to talk again, philosophizing about life generally and his own life. He seemed to like to recall his career, and finally said: “Uncle Jerry is successful too, and he never did care for anything else—except his family. There is a clerk in my office on five thousand a year who is never without a book when he comes to the office and when I see him on the train. He has a wife and a nice little family in Jersey. I ask him sometimes about his reading. He is collecting a library, but not of rare books; says he cannot afford that. I think he is successful too, or will be if he never gets more than five thousand a year, and is content with his books and his little daily life, coming and going to his family. Ah, well! Everybody must live his life. I suppose there is some explanation of it all.”
“Has anything gone wrong?” asked Carmen, anxiously.
“No, not at all. Nothing to interfere with the house of gold.” He spoke quite gently and sincerely. “I don't know what set me into this moralizing. Let's look at the plans.”
The next day—it was the first of June—in consultation with the architect, a project was broached that involved such an addition of cost that Carmen hesitated. She declared that it was a question of ways and means, and that she must consult the chairman. Accordingly she called her carriage and drove down to Henderson's office.
It was a beautiful day, a little warm in the narrow streets of the lower city, but when she had ascended by the elevator to the high story that Henderson occupied in one of the big buildings that rise high enough to give a view of New York Harbor, and looked from the broad windows upon one of the most sparkling and animated scenes in the world, it seemed to her appreciative eyes a day let down out of Paradise.
The clerks all knew Mrs. Henderson, and they rose and bowed as she tripped along smiling towards her husband's rooms. It did not seem to be a very busy day, and she found no one waiting in the anteroom, and passed into the room of his private secretary.
“Is Mr. Henderson in?”
“Yes, madam.”
“And busy?”
“Probably busy,” replied the secretary, with a smile, “but he is alone. No one has disturbed him for over half an hour.”
“Then I will go in.”
She tapped lightly at the door. There was no response. She turned the knob softly and looked in, and then, glancing back at the secretary, with a finger uplifted, “I think he is asleep,” opened the door, stepped in, and closed it carefully.
The large room was full of light, and through the half-dozen windows burst upon her the enchanting scene of the Bay, Henderson sat at his table, which was covered with neatly arranged legal documents, but bowed over it, his head resting upon his arms.
“So, Rodney, this is the way, old boy, that you wear yourself out in business!”
She spoke laughingly, but he did not stir, and she tiptoed along to awaken him.
She touched his hand. It moved heavily away from her hand. The left arm, released, dropped at his side.
She started back, her eyes round with terror, and screamed.
Instantly the secretary was at her side, and supported her, fainting, to a seat. Other clerks rushed in at the alarm. Henderson was lifted from his chair and laid upon a lounge. When the doctor who had been called arrived, Carmen was in a heap by the low couch, one arm thrown across the body, and her head buried in the cushion close to his.
The doctor instantly applied restoratives; he sent for an electric battery; everything was done that science could suggest. But all was of no avail. There was no sign of life. He must have been dead half an hour, said the doctor. It was evidently heart-failure.
Before the doctor had pronounced his verdict there was a whisper in the Stock Exchange.
“Henderson is dead!”
“It is not possible,” said one.
“I saw him only yesterday,” said another.
“I was in his office this morning,” said a third. “I never saw him looking in better health.”