ain’t any more folks coming. Make Peer bring a table here, Anne, and
we’ll have it comfortable together.”
“Yes,” Baskerville added, drawing up a chair. “Mrs. Clavering is far
more amiable and hospitable than you. I am sure you would never have
thought of so kind a solution.”
Anne, with a happy smile, gave Pierre the order, and in a minute
they were sitting about a little table, with an opportunity for a
few minutes’ talk at a moderate pitch of voice, differing from those
hurried, merry meetings in a crowd of laughing, talking, moving people
which usually constitute a Washington call.
While they were sitting there, all three enjoying themselves and Mrs.
Clavering not the least of the three, a belated caller was announced,
General Brandon. The General was in his Sunday frock coat, which had
seen good service, and his silk hat, which belonged by rights on the
retired list; but each was carefully brushed and clearly belonged to
a gentleman. General Brandon himself, handsome, soldierly, his white
mustache and hair neatly clipped, was grace, elegance, and amiability
personified. His head was none of the best, but for beauty, courage,
and gentleness he was unmatched. Anne received him with more than her
usual cordiality, and Mrs. Clavering was so pleased at seeing him that
she actually invited him to sit down at her tea–table and have tea.
This he did, explaining why his daughter had sent her cards instead of
coming.
“Another year, I hope, my dear madam, my daughter may be persuaded to
reënter society, which, if you will pardon a father’s pride, I think
she adorns. But at present she is overwhelmed with grief at her loss.
It is scarcely eighteen months since she became a widow and lost the
best of husbands.”
General Brandon prattled on, and presently said: “I had hoped to meet
Senator Clavering here this afternoon, and made my visit late on
purpose. His exacting senatorial duties, however, must leave him little
time for social relaxation.”
“I think I hear his step in the hall now,” said Anne. “He will, I know,
be very much pleased to meet you again.”
As she spoke Clavering’s firm tread was heard, and he entered, smiling,
debonair, and distinguished–looking. Nobody would have dreamed from
anything in his air or looks that this man was nearing a crisis in
his fate, and that even then his conduct was being revealed in the
newspapers and examined by his fellow–senators in a way which opened a
wide, straight vista to state’s prison.
Clavering was surprised, but undeniably pleased, and even amused at
seeing Baskerville; and Baskerville felt like a hound, and inwardly
swore at himself for letting the wish to see a woman’s eyes bring
him to Clavering’s house. He put a bold face upon it, however, shook
Clavering’s outstretched hand, and called himself a fool and a rogue
for so doing.
The warmth of Clavering’s greeting to General Brandon delighted the
simple old warrior. Clavering, who had too much sound sense to avoid
allusions to his early life or to tell lies about it, recalled the
time when he was a sutler and General Brandon was an officer. Then
he carried the latter off to an alcove in the library, which was now
deserted except by Élise and Lydia. These two young women, reclining
like odalisks among the cushions of a luxurious sofa, discussed Rosalka
and the rest of their swains in low voices and in terms which luckily
their father did not overhear.
Into the alcove Clavering caused his choicest brands of whiskey to be
brought, and at once plunged into talk; and into that talk he infused
all his powers of pleasing, which soon produced upon the simple old
General a species of intoxication. If any one had told him that
Clavering’s attention was due to the sight, more than once obtained
since Sunday, of Elizabeth Darrell’s graceful figure and interesting,
melancholy face, General Brandon would have called that person a liar.
“You know,” said Clavering, as soon as the two were comfortably
established with the whiskey and the cigars, “that I am being badgered
and bothered by a set of sharks, calling themselves lawyers, who want
to rob me of every dollar of my fortune. You have perhaps read in the
newspapers something about this K. F. R. land–grant business.”
“I am aware the public prints have given considerable space to it,”
replied General Brandon, “but I have no knowledge of the merits of the
case.”
“Neither have the newspapers. The long and short of it is that the
sharks, after fighting me through every court in the country, where
I may say I have managed to hold my own pretty well, have contrived
by political wire–pulling to get a Senate committee to investigate
the matter. Now I don’t want to be lacking in courtesy to my brother
senators, but of all the collection of asses, dunderheads, and old
women, sneaks, hypocrites, and snivelling dogs, that ever were huddled
together, that select committee of my esteemed contemporaries—Good
Lord! let’s take a drink.”
General Brandon drank solemnly. Whiskey of that brand was not to be
treated lightly.
“I know well all the country embraced in and contiguous to that K. F.
R. land grant,” said the General, putting down his glass reverently.
“I scouted and fought and hunted over all that region more than forty
years ago, when I was a young lieutenant just turned loose from West
Point.”
“Why, then,” cried Clavering, his handsome eyes lighting up with a glow
like fire, “you might be of real service to me.” He did not specify
what manner of service he meant, and General Brandon innocently thought
Clavering meant about the K. F. R. land grants. But no man who ever
lived could tell Clavering anything he did not know about any piece
of property he had ever owned; least of all could simple, guileless
General Brandon tell him anything.
“I should be most happy,” replied the General. “I have a considerable
quantity of memoranda, maps and surveys of the region, which are quite
at your service.”
“Capital,” said Clavering, his deep eyes shining with a keen delight.
“Now as the investigation is going on, which you have seen in the
newspapers, I shall have to make immediate use of any information you
might be able to give me. Suppose you were to let me come over to your
house to–night and take our first view of what you have? And of course
you’ll stay and dine with me.”
“I thank you very much, Senator, but I cannot leave my daughter to dine
alone—she is too much alone, poor child. And immediately after dinner I
am engaged to spend an hour with an old friend, General Mayse, a former
classmate of mine who is now inflicted with paralysis and to whom I pay
a weekly visit. Besides, I should have to rummage among my papers to
find those that we require. To–morrow night I shall be at your service.”
But it was not Clavering’s nature to delay the accomplishment of
any wish. He wanted to see and know Elizabeth Darrell, so he said
cordially: “At all events I should like to talk the matter over with
you. Would you allow me to come in this evening then, after you have
returned from your visit?”
“Certainly, Senator. I shall be at home by half after nine.”
Then Clavering, seeing that General Brandon was his, began to talk
about other things, even to hint at chances of making money. To this
General Brandon only sighed and said: “Those enterprises are for men
with capital. I have only the equity in my house and my salary, and I
cannot, for my daughter’s sake, jeopardize what little I have. She was
left with but a small provision from her husband’s estate, which was
strictly entailed.” Clavering could not refrain from smiling at General
Brandon’s simplicity in refusing such an offer, if even but a hint, for
such a reason; but he said no more on the subject.
As the General passed into the drawing–room to say good–by to Mrs.
Clavering, he was surprised to find Baskerville still sitting at the
tea–table. Baskerville had not been asked to stay to dinner, but when
Mrs. Luttrell was ready to leave a very mild invitation from Mrs.
Clavering, who had no notion of the duration of fashionable visits, had
made him ask permission to remain—a permission which Mrs. Luttrell gave
with a wink. Anne was not displeased with him for staying—her eyes and
smile conveyed as much; and man–like, Baskerville had succumbed to the
temptation. But when General Brandon came in and found him the very
last visitor in the drawing–room he felt himself distinctly caught, and
made his farewells with more haste than grace. Mrs. Clavering urged
him to come again, and Anne’s tones conveyed _auf wiedersehen_ to him
as eloquently as a tone can without specific words; nevertheless, when
Baskerville found himself out in the cool, crisp night, he began to
doubt, as he had ever doubted, the propriety of his going to Senator
Clavering’s house at all. But General Brandon was saying to him most
earnestly, as they stood under the lamp–post before going their
different ways:—
“Senator Clavering is a very cruelly maligned man; of that I am
certain. And I think, Mr. Baskerville, that most of the testimony you
and the Civil Service League and the K. F. R. attorneys have collected
will break down when it is introduced before the committee. Why,
Senator Clavering tells me that he has been accused, on evidence that
wouldn’t hang a dog, of wholesale bribery, of having bought his seat in
the Senate, of having bought up courts and legislatures. But he will be
triumphantly vindicated—I make no doubt at all of that.”
“I wish he might be,” replied Baskerville, with a degree of sincerity
that would scarcely have been credited; “but I don’t think he can be.”
When General Brandon let himself into his own house, dinner was ready
to be served. He was full of enthusiasm about the Claverings. At the
table he assured Elizabeth of his entire belief in Clavering and of his
respect for him. Mrs. Clavering he pronounced to be a most excellent
and unpretending woman, Anne altogether admirable, Reginald Clavering
a worthy fellow and a sound churchman, and Élise Denman and Lydia
Clavering two much–abused young women, in whom mere high spirits and
unconventionality had been mistaken for a degree of imprudence of which
he felt sure they could never be guilty. Then he mentioned Clavering’s
proposed visit, and asked Elizabeth if she would, the next day, find
the trunk in which he kept certain papers, open it, and get out of it
everything dated between ’56 and ’61.
When dinner was over and General Brandon had gone out to pay his weekly
visit to his paralyzed comrade, Elizabeth went upstairs to a small back
room, called by courtesy the study. Here were General Brandon’s few
books; he was not, and never had been, a man of books, but he liked
to be considered bookish. There was in the room an open grate fire,
a student’s lamp, and some old–fashioned tables and easy–chairs. To
this room Elizabeth had succeeded in imparting an air of comfort. She
sat down before the fire to spend the evening alone, as she had spent
so many evenings alone in the last eighteen months, and would, she
feared, continue to spend her evenings for the rest of her life. She
had expected to find her life in Washington dull, but the weeks she
had been at home had been duller than she had thought possible. Her
father’s old friends had called upon her, but they were all staid and
elderly persons, and the circle had grown pitifully small in her ten
years of absence. Those ten years had practically obliterated her own
acquaintances in the ever changing population of Washington, and the
few persons left in the gay world whom she knew, like Mrs. Luttrell, it
was plain that her father did not expect her to cultivate.
One resource—reading—occurred to her on this particular evening. She
had a mind well fitted for books, but she had never been thrown with
bookish people, except Pelham, and reading had formed no essential part
of her life. Pelham was a man of great intelligence, and a reader; but
both his intelligence and his reading were confined to his profession.
No matter where Elizabeth’s thinking began, Pelham was sure to come
into it somewhere. She started up from her chair as the recollection
of him, which always hovered near her, took shape in thought and
almost in speech, and going to the book–case took out the first
volume her hand fell upon. It was an old translation of Herodotus,
and Elizabeth, determined upon a mental opiate, opened it at random
and read on resolutely. She fell upon that wonderful story of Cyrus,
the reputed son of Mithradates the herdsman; and in following the
grandly simple old narrative, told with so much of art, of grace, of
convincing perspicacity, that not even a translation can wholly destroy
its majestic beauty, Elizabeth lost herself in the shadowy, ancient
past. She was roused by Serena’s voice and Serena’s hand, as black as
the Ethiopians in Herodotus’s time, who worshipped no other gods save
Jupiter and Bacchus. Serena produced a card. It was simple and correct,
and read: “Mr. James Clavering,” with the address.
“It is Senator Clavering,” said Elizabeth, in a moment. “Tell him that
General Brandon is not at home.”
“De gent’mun seh he got er ’p’intment wid de Gin’l, an’ he gwine ter
wait for him. I t’ink, Miss ’Liz’beth, you better lemme ax him up heah.
De parlor is jes’ freezin’ col’,” answered Serena, who never forgot
that people should be made comfortable.
“Ask him up, then,” replied Elizabeth. She was somewhat flurried at
the thought of receiving Clavering alone, but there was no help for
it. She was not, however, disappointed; on the contrary she felt a
deep and curious interest in seeing this man and tracing if possible
that singular recollection of him, so sharp yet so impalpable and still
actually inexplicable to herself.
In a few minutes Serena ushered Clavering into the room. At close range
he was even more attractive than at a distance. It was difficult to
associate any idea of advancing age with him. Maturity was all that was
indicated by his handsome, smooth–shaven face, his compact and elegant
figure, his iron–gray hair. Manual labor had left but one mark upon
him—his hands were rough and marred by the miner’s tools he had used.
He was perfectly well dressed and entirely at his ease. He introduced
himself with the natural and unaffected grace which had been his along
with his sutler’s license and miner’s tools.
“This, I presume, is Mrs. Darrell. I thank you very much for allowing
me to wait for General Brandon’s return.” He said no word about his
appointment with General Brandon being at half–past nine while then it
was only a little past eight.
Elizabeth invited him to sit down, and herself took a seat opposite
him. The color which came into her pale face very much enhanced her
looks, and Clavering thought he had never seen so interesting a woman.
Her slender black figure unconsciously assumed a pose of singular grace
and ease, the delicate color mounted slowly into her pale cheeks, and
she was indeed worthy of any man’s notice. And as her personality had
struck Clavering with great force at the very first glimpse he had had
of her ten years before, so, seeing her close at hand and her attention
fixed on himself, she overpowered him quickly, as the warm, sweet scent
of the jessamine flower is overpowering. It was what he would have
called, had he been thirty years younger, love at first sight.
Clavering’s coming into the room was, like some new, strong force,
making itself felt over everything. The small room seemed full of him
and nothing else. He was by nature a dominant personality, and he
dominated Elizabeth Darrell as strangely and suddenly as she had cast a
spell over him.
“My father will regret very much not being here when you came. Perhaps
he misunderstood the hour of your appointment,” she said.
Clavering’s white teeth shone in a smile. “Don’t trouble about that.
Besides, it has given me the pleasure of seeing you.”
Elizabeth was not unmindful of the fact that Clavering was a married
man, with a wife across the street; and his words, which would have
been merely those of courtesy in most men, could not be so interpreted,
for Clavering was not a man of pretty speeches.
He picked up the volume of Herodotus which lay on the table. “So you’ve
been reading old Herodotus! That’s pretty heavy reading for a young
woman, isn’t it?”
“I took it up at random just now, and became interested in it,”
answered Elizabeth.
“You are a great reader, I suppose?”
“N–no. Hardly, that is. But I am very much alone, and I have read a
good deal since I have returned to America.”
“Why should a woman like you be alone? Why shouldn’t you go about and
see people and live like other women of your age?”
Elizabeth made no reply to this; she could scarcely admit that her
seclusion was more of her father’s doing than her own. She was struck
by the beauty of Clavering’s voice and by the correctness of his
speech, which was better than that of many college–bred men.
“How long have you been a widow?” he asked.
“A year and a half.”
“And have you any children?”
“No, I lost my only child when he was a baby.”
“That’s hard on a woman. You women never forget those dead babies. But
all your life is before you yet.”
“It seems to me it is all behind me.”
“Why? Did you love your husband very much?”
Elizabeth had suffered Clavering’s questions partly through surprise
and partly because Clavering could say and do what he chose without
giving offence—a quality which had been one of the great factors in
raising him from the shaft of a mine to a seat in the United States
Senate. But the question put to Elizabeth was so unexpected,—it had
never been asked of her before,—it was so searching, that it completely
disconcerted her. She remained silent, while her eyes, turned upon
Clavering, wore a look of trouble and uncertainty.
“A great many women don’t love their husbands,” said Clavering, “and if
they are left widows, their feelings are very complex. They think they
ought to grieve for their husbands, but they don’t.”
The color fled suddenly out of Elizabeth’s cheeks. Clavering’s words
fitted her case so exactly and so suddenly that she was startled and
frightened. It was as if he had looked into her soul and read at a
glance her inmost secrets. She half expected him to say next that she
had loved another man than her husband. And as for applying the common
rules of behavior to a man like Clavering, it was absurd on the face of
it. He was leaning toward Elizabeth, his elbow on the arm of his chair,
his eyes fixed upon her with a kind of admiring scrutiny. He found her
quite as interesting as he had expected, and he ardently desired to
know more about her and, what is as great a mark of interest, to tell
her more about himself.
Elizabeth remained silent for a while, and then forced herself to say:
“My husband was one of the best of men. He was as good as my father.”
“That settles it,” replied Clavering, with grim humor. “I never knew
a woman in my life who spoke of her husband’s goodness first who was
really in love with him. When a woman is in love with a man, it isn’t
his goodness she thinks of first; it is his love. Now don’t fly off
at that; I’m not a conventional man, and you must know it if you ever
heard of me before. And I don’t mean to be disrespectful. On the
contrary, I want your good opinion—I have wanted it ever since the
first time I ever saw you. I was very much struck with you then. I have
wanted to know you and I have planned to know you. Have I committed any
crime?”
“But—but—you are a married man,” said Elizabeth, faltering, and
conscious that she was talking like an ingénue.
Clavering laughed as he replied: “That’s downright school–girlish. Any
boarding–school miss would say the same. Well, I can’t help it now that
I married a woman totally unsuited to me before I was twenty–one years
old. Come, Mrs. Darrell, we are not children. I wanted to know you,
I say, and I always try to do what I want to do. Don’t you? Doesn’t
everybody? Well, let us then know each other. I swear to you I know
less of women than I do of any subject I have ever tried to master.
True, I never had time until lately; and, besides, I was a middle–aged
man before I ever met any educated and intelligent women. In the class
of life from which I spring women are household drudges and bearers of
children, and I never knew them in any other aspect until I was over
forty years of age. Then you can’t imagine what a stunning revelation
to me a woman was who had never done anything but amuse herself and
improve herself. Suppose you had never met any educated men till
now—wouldn’t you find them captivating?”
When a man talks to a woman as she has never been talked to before
he is certain of finding an interested listener, and, it follows, a
tolerant listener. So Elizabeth could not disguise her interest in
Clavering, nor was it worth while to pretend to be offended with him.
The superficial knowledge she had of the vicissitudes of his life was
calculated to arouse and fix her attention; and there was so little
to do in her present life that she would have been more or less than
mortal if she had turned from the first object of interest she had yet
met with in her new and changed and dreary life.
She paused awhile before answering Clavering’s last question. “I dare
say I should feel so,” she answered. “I remember how it was when I was
first married and went to India. Everything interested me. I could not
look at a native without wanting to ask all manner of questions of
him and about him, which of course I could not be allowed to do; and
the life there is so strange—their race problem is so different from
ours, and all my modes of thought had to be changed. I was in India
over eight years, and it was as strange to me when I left it as when I
arrived.”
Elizabeth had got the talk away from the personal note upon which
Clavering had pitched it, and he, seeing he had said enough for a
beginning, followed Elizabeth’s conversational lead. He asked her many
questions about her life in India, all singularly intelligent and well
put, because drinking at the fountain of other people’s talk had been
his chief source of education during his whole life. And Clavering,
without being widely read, was far from being an ignorant man. Although
he knew not a word of any language except his own, nor the history of
any country except his own, he was well acquainted with the history
of his own times, and he knew who every living man of importance in
his own country and Europe was, and what he was doing. Seeing that
Elizabeth was susceptible to the charms of conversation and had a
distinct intellectual side, Clavering appealed to her on that side. He
told her with an inimitable raciness and humor some of the incidents of
his early life in the West, his later adventures, even of his career in
the Senate.