“I wasn't seen with him, so don't distress your conscience with the idea that I was.”
“No thanks to you that you weren't,” said Katherine.
“Your penetration does you credit, Kate. I don't happen to possess your inordinate respect for appearances.” He was waiting to make a telling retort. This always stimulated him.
“I suppose you can't select men of good character for your friends,” Katherine snapped.
“Freedom from vice is more a question of ignorance than anything else.” Unconsciously he glanced at Anson as he spoke.
“I should be ashamed to think it,” said Katherine.
“Perhaps my spiritual insight has become blunted by my unfavorable surroundings.”
“I suppose that's a covert slur at me and my religion,” with heat. “The things you say are disgraceful!”
“I don't see how mother can permit it,” Florence said, bent on being in the row.
“For pity's sake, girls, can't you let Philip finish his supper in peace, without going out of your way to complain of what is no affair of yours?” It was Mrs. Southard who spoke.
Philip pushed back his plate. “I am through and will take myself off,” he said. He kissed his mother, and with an indifferent good night to the rest, left the room. A moment later the street door closed with a bang.
“I wish to gracious he was already married to Barbara. I'll bet he'd know pretty quick he wasn't any better off,” said Florence.
“There—there,” Mrs. Southard objected wearily. “Can't you find something else to talk about?”
The Southard's belonged to that great division of the human family—the eminently respectable. As far as they went they were above reproach—nor were they without a certain prestige. As Katherine was wont to remark: “They knew the best.”
Furthermore, it was tradition that once upon a time they had been very rich, or rather their remote ancestors had been so blessed, and vouching for this former grandeur, there remained to them a considerable and distinguished connection.
These distinguished relatives, whom Philip hated cordially, were much addicted to the habit—while on their periodic gyrations about the country—of stopping with his mother, when by so doing they could break long and possibly fatiguing trips.
On these occasions the relatives spent most of their time in curl-papers or smoking jackets. Whenever Mrs. Southard ventured to suggest some mild festivity in their honor they refused to be entertained, with: “We beg you won't, Cousin Jane. We are here simply for a nice quiet visit with you and the children. Later on we shall be forced to be so very gay, you know....” On these occasions when the guests divided their time about equally between eating and sleeping, their entertainers' mode of living was ordered on such a scale of magnificence and reckless extravagance that they were almost invariably brought to the verge of ruin, and they generally atoned for the temporary burst of luxury by months of close economy. Then when the rich and distinguished relatives had taken their leave, the Southards would cut down expenses and try to convince themselves that the departed guests were the most charming people imaginable. Some little fiction of the kind was positively indispensable when the grocery bill came in.
One member of this contingent happening to die—the only disinterested action of a singularly selfish career—had bethought him of the Southards in his last moments and had strangely enough remembered them in his will with a legacy for each of the children. It was a matter of some hundreds apiece and the two girls and Anson had straightway spent their portions.
Philip, at the time of this windfall, was in business: it gave him the opportunity he had long coveted. He planned three years of liberty in which to follow up his inclination to write.
No one appreciated the courage this involved and Philip went his course without help from any one. He told himself that if he came to grief there would be but scant loss—a little money and the waste of days.
He had been by no means a success in commercial pursuits, and if he failed with his pen, why, it was no more than he was apt to do in other things. For a year his labors in the field of literature went unrewarded, and many times he was tempted to give up the struggle in disgust. Then at last, when his small legacy was all but gone, the first meager returns filled him with renewed hope and energy.
Slowly, very slowly, he saw his tiny bank balance swell until it reached the grand total of a thousand dollars. Upon that day there came to him the satisfying though distant vision of success.
It was not to be a selfish success he told himself: he would shirk no obligation when it came—all should profit by it. But he could do so much with a different environment. The appreciation his brother and sisters gave him was so tainted by an indiscriminate disapproval of his aims, and their recognition of his poor triumphs so niggardly, as though any reference to them was an acknowledgment of superiority on his part. In spite of this he would do what he could for them—when he could. Most of all would he do for his mother. She should have the thousand things, big and little, women loved and wanted. She had done so much for him—for all of them. She had brought them up unaided, through a struggle against poverty, the hardness of which he could only dimly divine. He would have counted it the blackest treachery not to have thought of her.
Then when the girls were married—and marry they must—he intended to get husbands for them, even if they had to be bought—she would come and live with him.
They had talked it over a hundred times—he and Barbara—and knew just how it was to be arranged.
He never questioned his ability to do all this, for his faith had become perfect and abiding.
In the kindly benevolence of his castle-building he even wished well to Anson. After all, they were brothers. Anson had a fondness for travel; he would give him the means to indulge that taste, heshouldtravel—more than this, he should travel always—the farther away the better.
When he left home, Philip betook himself into the presence of his betrothed. As he entered the parlor where Barbara sat—idly turning the leaves of a book, she looked up at him and smiled.
“I am glad you came,” she said. “I was just beginning to think I shouldn't see you to-night.” Philip drew a chair near to hers as he answered. “So am I, but I should be at work.”
“Guess who has called this afternoon?”
“Why do you make me exert myself—why don't you tell me at once if I am to know?”
“Mr. Shelden.”
“Well, and what had he to say? Do you know, Barbara, I object, for it just occurs to me that he is without a wife... having already disposed of one. Truly I object to his calling on you.”
“But he is papa's friend——”
“Oh, is he? Well, he is a precious old fool—that's my opinion of him.”
Philip, conscious of the slightness of the claim he had upon her, dreaded a possible rival. He knew the sanction to his suit was only passive—the least thing might bring about the most pronounced opposition.
“He is not so very old: he is only forty-five. He regards himself as still youthful, for he assured me this was the age of the young man,” said Barbara.
“It's the age of the damn fool,” Philip grunted savagely, and then penitently: “That was a case of justifiable damn: it was wrung from me, Barbara. It's so exasperating to hear such twaddle.”
“I believe you're jealous, Philip. I really believe you are!”
“Of course I am! I am no better than a pauper—and he——”
“How inconsistent of you. The other evening you said you should never care whom I saw. Do be consistent.”
“Consistency is the last refuge of an idiot. Because I say or do a thing once, am I to be tied to it for the rest of my days?”
“But it is quite impossible to keep track of your beliefs.”
“Pardon me, I have opinions, but no beliefs. What else did he say?”
“You mean Mr. Shelden?”
“Yes. What other shoddy nineteenth century-ism did he repeat?”
“He said any number of things. He spoke about you.”
“Old gossip! What did he find to say about me?”
“He asked what you were doing.”
“I hope you had the courage to tell him it was none of his business.”
“I didn't do anything so rude. I told him you were writing. He seemed deeply impressed and said he had always liked you.”
“Humph! He's a startling novelty.”
“I thought it very lovely of him to be so sympathetic, for of course he knows. I have an idea papa tells him everything.”
“What else, Barbara? Can't you tell me all?”
“I told him about your book—and then we discussed books in general. He reads a great deal, so he told me.”
“Probably—Thoughts for a Christian on Losing his Hair—for I have observed he is getting bald.”
“How mean of you!”
“Oh, Barbara, what in heaven's name is going to happen if some one comes between us—some one who has money and all that's worth while?”
“You know there is something that no one can have but you.”
She leaned forward, holding out her hand for him to take. “I have given you so much love that you must have it all, or I shall keep it for you untouched forever.”
And Philip, looking into the face so close to his, saw that she meant the words she spoke. But beyond the words he seemed to see that a cloud could not rest long upon her. She was created for love and brightness, and in his heart he knew that they must be together soon or he would lose her.
“What is it, Philip?” she asked after a short silence. “What are you thinking?”
“That I am happy,” he answered, smiling. “Only that?”
“Could it be more? How glad I am that you are as you are. I would not have you changed.”
“It's not because I am so good, is it? For you know I am not.”
Before he could answer a door opened and closed in the adjoining room. The sound had an instantaneous effect on Philip.
“Here is your father, Barbara; we'll speak of the weather. It is a matter upon which I am disposed to agree with any one—always excepting the pious Anson.”
“Why do you pretend to dislike your brother? I think him very nice,—very fine-looking.”
“Hate is as essential to certain natures as love—and much more satisfying.”
“But you can'thatehim. You are far from honest.”
“People form such queer notions of me. They are eternally thinking I am not sincere, and yet, Barbara, I mean all I say—while I am saying it. Could integrity carry me to greater lengths?” She looked at him with knitted brows. He was unlike any one she had ever known.
“Are you really afraid of him?—of papa?” she asked.
“The relations existing between us are strained; he may at any moment send me from the house for good and all.”
Barbara laughed. “I am quite sure he is guiltless of any such intention.”
“I regret to say that I am not.”
Philip regarded Mr. Gerard as a person of one idea, and that invariably a wrong one. It was neither safe nor agreeable to be so at his mercy, for he held Philip's happiness in the hollow of his hand, and that young gentleman was much oppressed by the suspicion that he was not popular with Barbara's parent. When he questioned her she always assured him that her father respected him most thoroughly, but Philip doubted this.
It must be admitted that now and then he detected a pugnacious quality in Mr. Gerard's manner toward him, which he stubbornly declined to notice or take exception to, as every other consideration was minor to the great one of gaining time in which to place himself beyond the reach of interference, so he put his pride in his pocket and strove to prevent a clash.
Mr. Gerard appeared suddenly in the doorway.
“I wish you would come with me into the library, Philip,” he said. “There is a little matter I should like to discuss with you. Barbara will, I am sure, excuse you for a few moments.”
Philip came to his feet on the instant. The parable of the spider and the fly presented itself to him.
“How do you do,” he said. He was not at his best when Mr. Gerard was about.
“Just follow me into the library, if you please.” For Philip was gazing stupidly at him.
“Oh, certainly.” From the door he glanced back at Barbara, and she saw that his face was clouded with apprehension.
While she was wondering what it all meant, and what her father could have to say to Philip, there drifted in to her the murmur of their lowered voices, coming from the room that had conferred upon it the name of library in recognition of the fact that its furniture consisted in the main of a desk, some leather-covered chairs given over to decay, and a bookcase, containing an encyclopedia, a dictionary, and by actual count ninety-six novels. The room was also adorned—as the complete triumph of intellectuality—by a bust of Shakespeare.
Here Mr. Gerard was supposed to do his thinking.
Barbara's mother was an invalid and seldom left her room. This was another tangle in the snarled arrangement of Philip's hopes, for Barbara's father had severe Spartan ideas on the duties of children to their parents. And Mrs. Gerard was so busy with her symptoms, real or imaginary, that she never concerned herself in domestic matters. She left all that to her husband, who ran things with a high and often heavy hand.
Barbara controlled her curiosity as best she could. Finally the conference was at an end. She heard her father remark in his ordinary strident tones:
“You appreciate the justice of my course, Philip.”
A few minutes later, Philip reentered the parlor.
“What is it?” she asked quickly.
He crossed the room and stood leaning against the mantel, looking down at her in silence.
“What is it, Philip?” she repeated.
“Your father says that I must be ready to marry you within a year or else——” he paused.
“Or else what?” she asked anxiously.
“The worst. I shall have to give you up.”
Philip saw her face pale. She arose and stood at his side, her hand upon his shoulder, her head tilted so that she could look into his face.
“It shall be only you, Philip. If it is not you it shall be no other.”
He gazed at her in silence, trying to read the depth of her faith in her eyes. The thought that she was beautiful and that he loved her came strongly to him.
“You believe in me, Philip; you trust me?”
“As I do no one else—as I never shall another. It is you and only you. Everything is centered or ends forever in you.” And then he laughed lightly. “After all, it is not so bad. Perhaps this will force our happiness upon us sooner than we have dared anticipate.”
“How long did he say?”
“Within a year, and it is so short a time,” he said, with a deep breath.
“Within a year,” she repeated slowly. “But I can't be forced away from you. He can't make me give you up.” And she shook her head in defiance.
“Can't he, Barbara? Can't he, dear?” And Philip bent toward her, speaking softly.
“I belong to you.”
Philip straightened up, saying somewhat grimly: “I must work. I shall be forced to see you less often.”
“Must you?”
“Yes. This admits of no delay. And no matter how hard I work... even then it's all doubt and uncertainty.”
“Why do we have to wait?”—with a sigh. “I could help you so much if I were with you. I know I could.”
Philip ground out between his set teeth the one word, “Money,” and Barbara was silent.
“We are most unfortunate,” he continued. “We both belong to what are called prosperous and well-to-do families and yet beyond a well defined point there is not an extra penny, every cent being swallowed up in the wretched sham of appearances. I own frankly I am poor, and as if this were not misfortune enough in itself, my poverty is allied to a worthless sneaking respectability that is maintained at the cost of constant sacrifice. I have the added ignominy of knowing that the very appearances on which is squandered everything, deceive no one. How destructive to self-respect to live a lie unbelieved even by the most credulous! If it accomplished its beneficent mission, there would be a worthy excuse for it, but to run the risk of damnation for the sake of a lot of unsuccessful deceits makes my soul sick.”
“What do we care for people? If we are happy what does it matter?” She pressed close to his side. “What do we care?”
“Do you mean you would marry me now, if you could, and disregard the doubtfulness of the future?”
“But you haven't asked me yet... how can I tell?”
“Would you, dear?”... tenderly.
“Try me. It would be such fun to live just as we could, and not have to make believe. I imagine the worst of poverty is in the thought that some one else knows. Tell me what father said.”
“I have already told you, Barbara.”
“But tell me how it came about. How he led up to it and what you said.”
Philip thought for a moment. When he spoke his manner suggested weariness, as if the recent ordeal had been too much for him.
“Really I am quite collapsed, quite annihilated. What a stunning advantage a young woman's father has over his daughter's 'young man.'.rdquo;
“Won't you answer me?—what was it papa said?”
“Well, we kept clear of sentiment from the start—we canvassed the situation from a purely business basis.”
“But you know nothing about business.”
“I talk intelligently enough on a good many subjects of which I know nothing.”
“What else did he say?”
“Oh, that I was a very proper young man, and all that sort of thing.”
“And then what?”
“After an exchange of compliments he gave me to understand that business was business. Then, Barbara, with startling brevity and great solemnity, tempered with severity, he informed me that this waiting was unjust to you, that it unduly compromised you, to all of which I agreed. He again alluded to my virtues; during their enumeration, my feelings were of the ghastly jolly order, for I thought that this formed the prelude to a blessing and dismissal—but it didn't. He wound up by asking me what my resources were. Of course I shuffled about and tried to daze him by a complicated explanation, filled with glittering generalities, though I own they did not glitter, for he held me to the subject in hand and I marshaled up my prospects for his inspection. I confess I was governed by no intention to be honest. I lied outright wherever I could and where I couldn't I maimed or strangled the facts. If I had only had warning—a little time for preparation, and the memorizing of imaginary statistics—I should have made a better showing. I simply could not stick to the truth; but it stuck to me in fragments. I felt as though I were pasted all over with it.”
“But what did you say to papa?”
“I told him what my income was—I had to name a sum so small I am sure he believed me at once. Lastly I told him of my expectations,—and there was where I lied. With the result that, providing I shall increase my earnings sufficiently to warrant such a course, I am to marry you within a year,—otherwise I don't.”
And Philip dropped into a chair dejected in body and mind.
“Now, what the dickens does he expect? I can't become famous on twelve months' notice. However, I must work morning, noon and night with no let-up whatever.”
“And what's going to become of me then?” asked Barbara.
“You know, dear, we can't sacrifice the future for the present. It's a beastly short time in which I am to make a substantial addition to my earn ings, and your father most expressly stipulates that I bring them up to some appropriate figure. In the event of my being able to do this he will entrust your happiness to my care, feeling assured I am and will continue to be worthy of the trust he reposes in me—and so on and so forth through the easy let-down that he gave me. On the whole he was fair... most fair.”
Philip was silent for a moment, then he said:
“That I have a thousand dollars and better in the bank was a point in my favor—if it had not been for that the chances for a respectful hearing would have been slim.”
“It is quite a sum,” Barbara said. “Lots of people here, nice people, too, live on small salaries and never get anything ahead. Of course there are others, like the Perkinses, who are rich.”
“It's pitifully small!” said Philip, and looked his disgust.
“I don't know—one can do lots with a thousand dollars. You can buy a very pretty little home here for that,” said Barbara practically.
“Of course your father knows the money was left me and that I didn't make it. He hinted that it was about time that I got into something certain. He even said that as soon as I did we might marry. It's awfully lucky about that money. I hope to goodness nothing will happen to the bank, for if there should, I might just as well quit.”
Both laughed at the idea.
“Isn't it absurd!” said Barbara dolefully.
“No, it's very serious, dear. Let's think what I can do to get a salary out of the town. I wish I could go away, but I simply can't do that. I must stay and help out at home. I suppose I'd better try and bone the papers for more work. That's the only sure thing in sight. I can always get that in small doses, because it helps the sale. My friends are willing to pay something for the opportunity to criticize the drivel—it's about the only opportunity they have had yet. It's a great thing to be a literary man in a small town, Barbara!”
“I hate to think I am to be bought,” Barbara said angrily. “That it all rests on money, as though love were valueless.”
“It's a commercial age.”
“You seem to believe in nothing.” There was marked disfavor in her glance.
Philip raised his eyes to hers. “I believe in your happiness and mine if I succeed. I have every confidence in myself.”
“But not in me—you never speak of that!”
“Yes, dear, in you, too!”
“You don't say it as if you meant it!”
“I am not accustomed to saying things I mean seriously.”
“I wish you would pay me the compliment of being serious.”
“I do.”
And truly beneath all the flippancy his heart-was heavy—and as lead.
It was Sunday morning. Philip pushed into the church as the congregation streamed out through the wide doors. He made his way up to the choir loft where a man had just risen from his seat before the organ. This was Franz Becker.
“You are late, Franz,” he observed.
“It is Communion Sunday,” Becker said in a deep beautiful voice. “That makes it late.”
“See here,” said Philip, “I wish you would ask me to dinner with you. Anson's home and I want to avoid him if possible.”
“Certainly,” answered Becker,—“by all means come with me.”
They went down and out of the church: Philip, light and active in all his movements; Becker, ponderous and slow—but masterful always, a man for the big things of his art. A warm friendship existed between the two. Philip had an intense admiration for the musician, who seemed to dwell in a state pretty evenly divided between abject despondency and settled rage. He respected this temperamental constancy. They were both friendless in a marked degree, neither of them being calculated to invite an extensive or varied acquaintance. Few people enjoyed Philip's conversation. Indeed, it was a special point with him that they should not. Nor did Becker rejoice in any great popularity. He was wholly repellent in his attitude toward the small world in which he moved—with a savage pride that was ever on the alert. He might have been in a primitive sort of way something of a social lion, but his taming was too imperfect to admit of it. His rudeness and barbarities comprised the most interesting anecdotes the town could furnish. Becker came of a class where poverty was the unvarying rule—meanness and commonness had been his earliest companions and in a moderated form these two kept their place at his side, chaining and crippling him, running him to the earth where he would have soared—a clog upon his steps forever.
Just how he had acquired his mastery of music none could tell. It was part instinct—part study—that in its feverish intensity was all but incomprehensible. His father had been a musician of more than passing note in the little German capital where he had lived, hoped and died, leaving the promise of his genius unfulfilled. There, his mother, after a brief widowhood, had married again, a man much beneath her in every respect. The marriage was followed by a speedy emigration to America, where a brother of her second husband had settled. Franz's stepfather was a shoemaker and had wished Franz to follow his trade; but as the boy grew and as inclination became purpose, and purpose in turn work, that which was locked up within him found expression. He could think and feel and dream. Best of all, perhaps, he discovered that his rare talent had a moneyed value that he was quick to profit by—then came the rush of ambition that was to carry him on and place him with the masters. It spent itself and he was left where it had found him—exhausted and wearied by the fruitless effort he had made. He could only go so far and no farther—circumstances drew in like a narrow circle about him. He was a giant set to do a dwarf's labor. From the start his mother and stepfather had strenuously opposed him on every hand.
However, when he had proved that music possessed a money value that he turned readily to account, they ceased to object—for money, like religion, is sacred, and not to be made light of.
But his determination to rise above the dependent and precarious position of an instructor they persistently combated. Enough to live on comfortably to them represented enough for soul and body alike. That his art meant to him expression and development, they never guessed and he never sought to explain. He was very patient with them and forgiving.
So, silently and without complaint, he drudged away as teacher and organist, his burden made heavy by innumerable younger brothers and sisters whom he was pushing with him into humble respectability.
Going back into the past he could recall the hard bitter season that came in his childhood and youth: there were things done then, want endured and privation, that even in the comparative luxury of his success made his heart sick with a deadly sense of shame and humiliation.
He could remember the death of a little baby sister that happened shortly after the family's arrival in the town. The memory of that event stood forth distinct and minute down to the least particular. It was one of those hopelessly miserable experiences he would have liked to forget, but could not.
There were many little ones then and they were very poor, indeed. His stepfather had not been able to pay for the assistance which is customary at such times, but had shaped a coffin with his own hands for the little body, and when all was ready, borrowing a horse and wagon from a neighbor, had driven to the graveyard, holding the pine box across his knees. As his mother was ill, and could not go, Franz had ridden alone with the shoemaker, who, even then, to all appearances was an old man bent and gray from much confinement to his bench. The small boy rode crouching in the bottom of the wagon, for there was not room for him upon the seat. He was long haunted by the vision, ineffaceable and clear, of his father, as he drove along, bending sadly over the burden in his lap, gray and somber, with the poor dignity of grief.
Their way took them past his uncle's store, for in a squalid fashion the brother was well-to-do. As they passed his place the child who huddled drearily in the bed of the cart, oppressed by an indefinite sense of sorrow, saw his uncle standing beside his open door in his shirt-sleeves—the center of a lounging group of idlers—and when the man became conscious of the nearness of the two, the wide-eyed child and the father, driving the horse, the coffin in his lap, he laughed aloud.
It was years afterward, when his uncle had quitted the town for a larger field somewhere in the West that the brooding solitary boy comprehended the full meaning of that day's ride, and it gave him an insight into the quality of human sympathy that one can safely rely upon receiving in the hour of need, far beyond his age. It served to augment a peculiar harshness of belief—a wish to keep to himself and from contact with others.
The family's poverty, which was beyond denial or subterfuge, only intensified this characteristic. His pride was like a raw sore;—the kindest touch was positive pain for him. Anything that savored of patronage or of condescension met with an instant and rude rebuff.
The Beckers—for the family was known by this name—a tacit recognition of Franz's importance and the family's unimportance that offended no one more than it did Franz—were extremely imposing as to numbers, with a majority in favor of the sterner sex, and the old shoemaker's patriotism had been evinced in the naming of his numerous offspring.
On the particular Sunday in question the midday meal was rendered more cheerful than otherwise by Bismarck and Von Molke, the two most youthful of Franz's half-brothers, who upset divers mugs of milk as well as pretty thoroughly smearing their small features with chicken gravy. Bismarck was finally ordered from the table by his father in very broken English because of some flagrant breach of good manners.
His exodus was shortly followed by that of his brothers and sisters who were in transit through that state of physical incompleteness, the sign of which is seen in the combining of long legs with diffidence.
These had eaten as though on a wager and one by one as they finished their meal slipped from their seats and took themselves off, the last mouthful in process of mastication.
Soon there remained only the old shoemaker, his wife, Franz, Philip and Von Molke—who still toiled manfully, albeit wearily, with a spoon tight-clutched in his chubby fist at whatever came within reach.
Bismarck had reappeared upon the scene. Into his small soul neither modesty nor diffidence had ever seeped even in microscopic quantities and he skirmished noiselessly about the room, always heedful of his father's guttural command to “go away”—promptly exiting at one door to appear as promptly at another with recriminations hoarse upon his lips against Von Molke, whose appetite, generaled with a nice knowledge of its capacity, bade fair to outlast the pudding.
With cold malignancy the latter's periodic cry of, “More, please,” would sound, and up would go his plate in spite of his brother's muffled entreaties that he should desist. In this manner Bismarck saw the last fragment of the pudding disposed of, which sight so maddened him that he forgot all caution and darted at Von Molke intent upon wresting the coveted prize from his possession.
In the moment of victory the strong arm of paternal law was interposed between the combatants and the assailant, hotly pursued by the assailed, was borne from the room in his father's arms to meet his punishment in the back yard.
“Come,” Franz said, rising. “Come, let us go to my room.”
And Philip followed him, hearing him mutter as he went: “Can he not wait when my friend is here?”
It was a large bare apartment they entered, carpetless and curtainless, with an iron bedstead at one side and a hideously ornate stove at the other.
Philip lounged down into a chair, searching in his pocket for pipe and tobacco.
Without—for the room overlooked the back yard—they could hear Bismarck and his father. The former was crying, while his parent was expostulating with him in mixed German and English, but the sounds of grief continued with no show of abatement.
“He has a vile temper,” Franz said, “when he is angry. The little boys are not bad as such little beasts go.”
“I think them amusing,” Philip responded. “The way in which a child profits by the presence of guests to gorge himself on dainties is a fair example of uncontrolled human nature.”
Just then they heard the patter of small feet beyond the door and a faint voice saying: “I want in!”
It was Bismarck, and he waited for no answer, but inserted himself ingratiatingly into the room, presenting a countenance whereon grief and gravy had combined with disastrous results.
He was still sobbing but managed to gasp:
“I ain't hurt. It ain't that—but I do hate to have a darned old foreigner bang me about—it hurts my feelings!”
And he made a dive into Franz's lap, burying his head against his breast where for exactly three minutes he remained with wriggling legs a victim of keen despair.
“There is Americanism for you with a vengeance, Franz,” said Philip.
The three minutes having expired and native depravity having usurped the place of anguish, Bismarck was forcibly expelled from the room and withdrew to more congenial fellowship with his brothers.
Philip broke the silence that succeeded Bismarck's expulsion in which they had both been actively engaged.
“Well,” he said, “I haven't seen you for a whole week, Franz. However, I don't suppose you have anything good to tell me.” Franz made a savage gesture that fully expressed a large disgust.
“Do you know, Franz,” Philip continued, “we haven't originated much over here except the Declaration of Independence and a beastly bargain-counter spirit in relation to the arts.” He paused a moment, then added laughingly: “One knows so much at twenty-four. I am frequently astonished at the scope of my critical capacity. It must be hereditary with me,—you know my father was a minister. They are the only class of men who enjoy the delightful privilege of unrestricted judgment. In that profession simple ignorance is not a hindrance, but rather a help.”
Franz was in no mood for frivolity. “You are more than apt to offend people by what you say. Of course with me it makes no difference. You should be more thoughtful.”
“I offend people, my dear fellow; that's what I am living for.”
Becker voiced the thought that was uppermost in his mind: “My father and mother think I am as successful as any man need be. They do not comprehend that what I am doing now is drudgery, a present makeshift only—that my career is all before me. The only opportunity I have had, and I should scarcely call it that, was five years ago when I went to New York, thinking, for I knew no better, that I might accomplish something there. I tramped the streets for days in my effort to get a hearing. I offered my manuscripts to any one who would print them, as a gift. Bah! it was the same always—native work had no value. If I could only get to Europe—there they know what is music and what is rubbish. My father and mother do not wish to be unkind but they are not informed in these matters, and when I came back beaten and more humiliated than I can say, I saw they were glad of my failure. Their thought was that I should have been satisfied, and their one regret was for the money I had expended in so vain an undertaking.”
His strong face showed plainly the pain that was his—the hunger and the longing.
Philip thought of those innumerable younger brothers. It would be years before any of them could come to the front and ease the load that kept Franz's shoulder to the wheel; meanwhile he was chained to a spot that could only give him suffering. There was danger, too, in the waiting. He might lose the very power to utilize his liberty when it did come. Men sometimes survive their inspiration and their genius.
Becker threw himself back in his chair: “We spend years in toiling for a little money that we may purchase opportunity and then—then, we die. Bah! what a fool one is to hope when the chances are all against him.”
“Did you ever speculate on the final adjustment? God's apology to man?”
Franz shook his head: “What presumption, to suppose God keeps any record of us—such atoms as we are!”
“Not at all. My religion holds the splendid comfort of conceit and is based on the thought that man—and by man I mean primarily myself—is all, that my work, my good resolutions—which are a source of constant annoyance and distress to me—entitle me to certain favors in this world and the world to come. To be sure, opposition to the divine will is rather useless—at best we can but squirm like very small fish over a hot fire. Still, I shall make reparation for the absurdity of my beliefs by the dignity and persistency of my revolt, on much the same principle that prompts me to swear when I hurt myself by a foolish attempt to walk through an obstructed doorway in the dark, not that it does any good, but just to express my contempt for the inexorable.”
Franz smoked his pipe thoughtfully. Philip occasionally shocked even his liberal ideas of propriety. They sat looking at the hideous little stove for a space and neither spoke. At last Philip said:
“Why, I say, haven't you a sort of a half-uncle in the West who could help you if he would? Can't you bone him for a start?”
Franz's brow darkened instantly: “You mean my step-father's brother? Don't speak of him.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” Philip made haste to say. “The fact is, I can stand almost anything in the shape of misfortune myself, except my relatives, but I thought it might be different with you.”
“You do not comprehend. This person I loathe. It is nothing to him, of course. He is a rich man. I wonder what good money can do a brute like that?”
He looked out of the window, watching the dead leaves the wind was blowing into drifts against the fence in the yard below, and added almost sadly: “I think hate has been a more potent factor in my growth than love—at least it has stirred my heart the deepest.”
“So your uncle is out of the question even though he should be willing to aid you?”
Becker struck the ashes from his pipe, remarking as he did so: “What can I do that will give me the longed-for opportunity? You are usually prolific in good advice.”
“You might marry money.”
“Never!” Franz interposed quickly. His friend's love-affair met with his strongest disapproval.
Philip ignored the interruption: “Now there is Mrs. Monroe. I have young Perkins' word for it that she admires you immensely. I am creditably informed she enjoys a fair income and she is still handsome and shapely—thanks to God and her tailor! Even the tooth of time has been dulled on her hardy anatomy. Franz, there is your chance.”
“Don't be a fool! Do you think I——”
Franz was interrupted by the sound of an exceedingly pleasant voice that arose from the hall below. The voice was assuring some one that its owner was perfectly familiar with the way to Franz's room and was declining all proffers of assistance in finding it, with profuse thanks.
Becker and Philip had paused to listen, and now the latter said: “I rather fancy it's Perkins.” A moment after a gentle tap sounded on the door, accompanied by, “May I come in?”
In response to Becker's bidding the door opened and Perkins stood before them.
Now there are awful depths of oblivion that may be sounded in a small town, and not to know the Perkinses was one of these depths, for that was to argue yourself unknown. Yet, to his credit be it said that Perkins was a modest youth, despite his temptation to gloat in the fact that his family represented two generations of riches; which was by far the most splendid incident in their history.
Young Perkins was not adapted to gloating. He was a youth with a supersensitive conscience and sandy side-whiskers, which grew out stubbily from an equally sandy complexion, and he would be polite to everybody, which was a sheer weakness on his part and not to be excused on any plea whatever.
What Perkins did not do his mother in nowise remedied, for she quarreled with her kind on a footing of perfect equality charming to behold, setting herself up for no better than the rest.
Perkins stood before his friends, breathless from his run up the stairs, his whole appearance indicating unusual excitement. He dropped down into the chair Franz pushed toward him, saying:
“Wait a minute till I get my wind. I am quite floored because of several things that have taken place to-day.”
He wiped his florid face vigorously with his handkerchief.
“I—you see—that is, my mother received word yesterday from Madame Dennie, of Paris—Paris, France, you know—that she is in America. In New York, I think. Madame Dennie is the widow of Gabrielle Honore Dennie, who was a very distinguished man in France, prior to his death. I am sure I don't know what he did and my mother has never told me, but whatever it was I am certain he did it and it was uncommon. There was a stack of money in it. He was a banker, you know.”
“Look here, Perkins,” Philip remonstrated. “What is this all about?”
“But, you don't catch what I am driving at,” Perkins cried eagerly; “he married my mother's cousin.”
“Who did?” Philip asked.
“Monsieur Dennie.”
“Oh,—well, go ahead.”
“That's exactly what I am trying to do. He married Miss Ballard, my mother's cousin. That was before he died, of course. My mother was a Ballard and as you are both aware, that's my first name, and they were very celebrated people.”
Perkins was still polishing his freckled features till they fairly glistened. He finally tucked his handkerchief resolutely into his pocket and folded his hands.
“I must get this straight, I am quite excited. Permit me to get my breath.”
And he gazed benignantly at his friends from under his white lashes, a beaming smile playing over his countenance and dying away in the stubby growth of his side-whiskers.
“You fellows must have mercy upon me a moment longer. What I wish to tell you is this: On Saturday Madame Dennie is supposed to have left New York for this place. I assure you we were completely overwhelmed by the news, for while we—my mother that is—is her only living relative in America, the family connection has been allowed to languish. Heretofore my mother has made it a point to fight industriously with every Ballard with whom she came in contact. That's a distinctly Ballard trait, and in addition to the inherited and warlike instincts of her race, my mother's element is hot water. Very hot, you know, and I must admit it is seldom you find a person who spends less time out of her element than my mother. However, she has told me it will be the proudest moment of her life when Madame Dennie enters her house, so I am hopeful the hatchet will be buried blade down.” With a stifled gasp, Perkins came to a pause.
“See here, Perkins,” Philip said, “what is it you are trying to tell us? Come, don't keep it all to yourself. Let us into the secret. That's a good fellow.”
“My dear Philip, I pledge you my sacred word of honor my one wish is to enlighten you, but I appear little better than a candle whose light is placed under a bushel.” He looked pathetically from one to the other of his auditors. “Allow me to get started right. I trust I have made it clear to you that I have a cousin, Madame Dennie and she is a widow lady.”
“Widow alone is sufficient. It establishes her sex beyond dispute. Don't use the word lady when you can possibly avoid doing so. It's a hard worked word these days,” Philip advised.
“Oh, pardon me. Well, Madame Dennie, who is a widow, has announced her intention of coming to us and we are overwhelmed by the honor, for of course my cousin is a woman of the greatest elegance and culture. Must be, you know. But what”—and his voice rose in a quaver of nervous objection—“but what have we to offer her either in our mode of living or in a social way that will please her? It will all seem so stupid here after what she has been accustomed to.”
“Don't abuse the town,” Franz said. “It will be a liberal education to her.”
“Along a very illiberal line,” Philip added.
“Oh, hang the town! It's how we are going to entertain her that gets me.”
“You are a host in yourself, Perkins, and very funny,” Becker remarked laughingly.
“When is she coming?” Philip asked.
“Oh, yes, I didn't tell you that, did I?” Perkins shook off his dejection. “The letter was received yesterday. In it she simply said she would like to visit us if convenient and be our guest for a little while. We were to wire our answer and our answer was, 'Come.' What the dickens else could we have said even if we had wanted to? All this that I have told you took place yesterday and since then consternation has reigned supreme. My mother's hair has been done up in curl-papers for the last thirty-six hours, tight twisted, and has given her a raging headache. The house is no better than a howling wilderness. I pledge you my sacred word of honor that I ate my supper last night on the back-stairs off a sewing-board held in my lap and I was mighty thankful to get it then. This morning I went without breakfast. Dinner I ate from a shelf in the back pantry with a soup ladle and all because Madame Dennie is somewhere between here and New York contemplating a descent upon us. I have taken curlpapers out of the water pitcher, and as I hope for mercy hereafter there was one in the cold soup forming the bulk of my dinner to-day.”
Perkins became pensive for just the briefest space possible and a rather melancholy smile overspread his face.
“I say, did you fellows ever eat soup—cold soup—with curl-papers? Because if you never did—don't. It's about the most thoroughly revolutionary thing a man can do.”
“You haven't told us yet when she is coming,” Philip remarked. “When will it be, to-morrow?”
“That's what we are looking forward to.”
“How old is she, anyhow?” And Philip propounded one of the inquiries a young man is almost sure to make sooner or later concerning a woman.
“Oh, dear me, I can't tell. Forty or fifty though, I should say at a guess.”
Philip yawned. Madame's age made the whole affair seem very tame and unattractive to him. Perkins rambled on:
“That's the deuce of it. She will be old enough to take an interest in me. Women are forever taking an interest in me—a controlling interest you know—forever thinking I should be at work at something or other, just to keep me out of scrapes. And that's all bosh! I don't think there's any use for me to work, except perhaps to kill time, and I really couldn't do that, for in the end time will kill me and I shall be laid out stiff you know, quite dead, with tuberoses—”
“Limp you mean,” growled Franz correctively. “Where the devil did you ever get the notion that you could be stiff?”
“I hope I didn't seem vain when I said women were interested in me, you know I mean those who are old enough to know better,” Perkins ventured with much meekness, folding his hands over a stomach of which Philip was wont to remark, much to its owner's agony, that it was coming rapidly to the front.
“Of course you will invite us up to the house when your cousin comes,” the latter said. “Franz and I shall be immensely happy to call.”
Perkins brightened visibly. “I thought you rather slumped when I told you her age. To be sure you are to call. Did I ever speak of her brother to you—Geoffrey Ballard? I know a good deal more about him than I do about her. He has been in America frequently. In fact, as far as France goes, he is an exile: got into some difficulty and was forced to leave the country.”
This was said with studied carelessness; nevertheless it was plainly discernible that Perkins was accessible to the mild glow of pride which a perfectly respectable and well conducted youth usually feels in those of his family who have won their laurels in the shaded realms of the disreputable.
“I guess he is a very bad lot. Once my father chanced to meet him in New York. My father was fascinated by him and on the strength of the good impression he had made, Ballard borrowed several hundred dollars. He told a very plausible tale about a remittance from home that he was expecting. No sooner had he obtained an advance on what was coming than he got out of the way and it was the last father ever saw of him. He must have been very clever though, because you know my father was never a very great hand to lend money.”
His friends were too courteous to inform him of their perfect acquaintance with his father's posthumous reputation for close-fistedness, but Philip could not resist saying casually:
“I can readily believe that Ballard must be a very remarkable fellow.”
“Oh, no,” Perkins responded innocently, delighted that he was commanding Philip's attention; “we heard afterward he was a wild one—that he gambled and did all sorts of dishonorable things. Of course I wouldn't like to have either of you mention it, but once he pretty nearly killed a man in a duel. It was over a woman, you know.”
And he looked highly scandalized—proud and happy, too, for it's not every day one can tell of a cousin who fights duels.
It was getting dark; the afternoon was drawing to an end and while Perkins was still giving the details of which he was master, that related to Geoffrey Ballard's career, Philip had arisen from his chair.
“I shall say good night,” he remarked. “It is time I was on my way home.”
That afternoon while Perkins was busy discussing with his two friends the expected arrival of his mother's cousin, the Perkins' home, some six blocks distant, was the scene of violent Sabbath-breaking. It is but fair to state that the house-cleaning was done with a careful regard for the moral sentiment of the community, being of a secretive nature. In the house, in the midst of the disorder she had created, moved Mrs. Perkins, appareled in a gown decidedly the worse for wear and whose frayed train was momentarily collecting deposits of dust on its under edge.
Mrs. Perkins had been a beauty of the magnificent order. Perkins' sandy hair, complexion and freckles, were the gift of his father. The curlpapers to which her son had made honorable reference were conspicuous objects in her disordered costume, while her face was embellished with sundry dabs of dirt.
The Perkins' home was the finest in the town, but now it was in a state of wild confusion. The furnishings from the numerous rooms had been dragged into the halls where they accumulated in defiant heaps. Mrs. Perkins surveyed the ruin. “Where, where did it all come from?” she asked tragically.
At that moment had Mrs. Perkins lent a listening ear she might have heard, disturbing the Sunday quiet that filled the broad street outside with its peaceful repose, the distant rumble of wheels, foretelling the approach of some heavy vehicle.
“I think, Anna,” and she addressed herself to her principal assistant, “I think, Anna, this will be a lesson to me!—a lesson I shall not soon forget. What are you looking at?” For Anna was staring fixedly out of the window paying no heed to her mistress' remarks.
Even as she spoke Mrs. Perkins caught the sound of wheels as they rolled over the hard gravel of the carriageway below the window.
“I believe they have come,” Anna said, her nose against the glass. “I declare it looks like them. There are two of them and both are in black.”
At the news Mrs. Perkins sank down upon a chair completely overcome. “No, you can't mean it, Anna! For heaven's sake, look again!”
“There's two of them,” Anna answered triumphantly. “They're both getting out. It's them.”
Whereat Mrs. Perkins let fall two tears which plowed their way through the dust upon her cheek and fell with a muddy splash to the folded hands in her lap.
“That I should have lived to see this day!” she moaned.
“Shan't I go down and let them in?” asked Anna.
“No. I shall go myself.”
Mrs. Perkins arose, summoning up all the majesty of bearing at her command, and surveyed the faded silk wrapper that hung limply and dustily to her figure with profound disgust.
“I suppose I must—but, what an impression I shall give her. Run to her room and make sure all is right there. Thank heaven! I had the wisdom to see to that, and there is a quiet spot to which she can retire.”
So speaking Mrs. Perkins hurried down-stairs in response to the bell that was sounding for the second time. With a final desperate clutch at the curl-papers, a hasty adjusting of her skirts together with a last shake to free them from dust and lint, she opened the door. Mrs. Perkins afterward described her sensations as startling.
In common with her son she had anticipated welcoming a woman of mature years: instead she saw two women. Both were in black, but one wore the especial garments custom has made the sign of widowhood. The heavy veil was thrown back, revealing a face at once youthful and beautiful but of an extremely pallid coloring though it was touched with just the faintest glow, born perhaps of expectancy and excitement.
This was all Mrs. Perkins' bewildered faculties had time to grasp for the stranger said with a sweet little dignity that became her well, advancing a step as she did so: “I am Margaret Dennie.”
Her voice was beautifully soft, and in its enunciation suggestive of her foreign birth and education.
“I was expecting some one twice your age,” Mrs. Perkins said, laughing in sheer surprise. Her astonishment had so much the better of any reserve she had decided to show in the company of her distinguished kinswoman, that she simply used the words that came most readily to her tongue.
“Why, you are nothing but a child, a mere child, and you are Madame Dennie?” As she spoke she held out her hand. “But do come in; the man wants to get by with your baggage.” And she drew her into the hall, the maid following, leaving the steps to the driver and the trunks.
That evening was destined to remain forever more or less of a blank in Madame Dennie's memory. She was conscious only of the warmth of her welcome and an overpowering sense of fatigue.
Her real comprehension of events commenced on Monday morning when she was aroused from her sleep by the pelting of rain against the west windows of her room, accompanied by the steady and persistent drip, drip, of the water-spout's overflow beneath the eaves to the sodden ground below.
She had been in America ten days and in all that time had seen but one streak of murky sunshine stealing from behind the masses of vapor that drifted above the wet earth. Wind and rain had seemed to pursue her with absolute ill will as though the weather itself was determined to drive her out of the country and compel her to seek her usual winter's asylum in the south of France.
Raising her head from the pillows, she surveyed the room. A fire was burning brightly upon the hearth, the curtains at the windows were drawn, shutting out all evidences of the season's inclemency, save the steady and unceasing sound made by the storm.
Staying in bed offered superior advantages to getting up. With a sigh of contentment she nestled down drawing the covering about her, then closing her eyes and soothed by the contrast between the storm from without and the cheerful crackling of the fire upon the hearth, she gave herself up to thought.
The look upon the small face resting pallid and white against the whiteness of the pillows was far from happy, for madame dwelt much upon the unprofitableness of her past.
There were many reasons that might have induced the young girl to marry a man fifty years her senior—many reasons—and yet all of them were far removed from the realm of the affections. This Margaret Dennie knew well, and to her sorrow.
She would have liked to forget it all—indeed, the wish had extended over the last three years and resulted only in the positive knowledge that one can forget anything provided one wishes to remember it, or it is useful. Bitterness alone is defiant in the presence of forgetfulness.
She had at nineteen married Monsieur Dennie and had endured two years as his wife, then, mercifully for her, he had died.
A woman differently constituted would have thanked God for the release and set about enjoying herself, making merry with her late lord's wealth. In her case, however, three years had been spent in a vain effort to rid herself of some portion of the horror begotten in her soul by the sacrifice she had made. There had been but one governing motive in the ill-omened marriage—to get money for her brother.
Monsieur Dennie had promised to pay well for her charms and had kept his word with the result that Goeffrey Ballard had been freed from his pressing debts and given a new start and another chance to wreck himself—a chance of which he had availed himself most speedily, so that six months after the marriage no mortal could have said wherein lay the profits or where his condition was any better than before the crime had been consummated.
Margaret wondered often how she had survived those years of misery,—not that Monsieur Dennie was unkind; he had simply never succeeded in inspiring his young wife with one single spark of love. It had resolved itself from the first into dumb and uncomplaining sufferance on her part.
Nearness to him had caused her but one feeling—a dreadful repulsion—a horrible desire almost exceeding her control to cry out as if in pain, whenever he had touched her.
Under this strain she had lived for two long years, then came freedom; but the iron had entered her soul. Her whole nature was saddened and embittered beyond forgetfulness.
A morbid dread that she had confided to no one had taken possession of her; she was completely at the mercy of her own distressing fancies and had come to regard her marriage as a sin unpardonable, as something unforgivable in the eyes of God.
At best, marriage is an ordeal for any woman, and a loveless marriage is an abominable institution of torture. Not content with what could not be banished, try as she might to live away from it, she had some vague idea of a recompense to be made, an indefinite conception of earthly punishment which she was to inflict upon herself.
It was this conviction that prompted her to wear the deepest mourning as a matter of penance, for it reminded her of the awfulness of those years, accenting and keeping the recollection always before her as a sin she must not condone.
This was what drifted through her mind while she was in the drowsy state that is neither sleeping nor waking. With something like a sob she came to herself at last.
“Russell!” she called.
Her maid came from the adjoining apartment where for the last hour she had been busy unpacking trunks and arranging her mistress' wardrobe. She was a plain featured English woman who had served Margaret faithfully in the two capacities of nurse and maid.
“Will Madame dress?” she asked.
“Is it late?”
“The family has breakfasted.”
“I hope you told them I did not care for anything before luncheon?”
“Yes, Madame.”
“And it is raining again. It has done nothing but rain since we landed.”
While they were speaking Margaret had got into a long loose gown and moved to the fire, where Russell had already placed an easy chair for her. Wrapped in the voluminous folds of the garment she had donned she seemed quite small and very slight. Her face was wholly lacking in color except for a faint flush that at times burned on either cheek. Her hair, in two massive braids that fell below her waist, was a rich warm brown in the shadow, and golden where the light touched it. Her hands were small and beautifully shaped.
Most apparent was a fragile quality of face and form as if a breath might wither her.