Not long since I had a visit from Gwynne Peters' oldest boy. The
little fellow is twelve, and, as I abstained from any embarrassing and
inconvenient demonstrations of affection or even friendship, we became
quite intimate, and I believe he enjoyed himself after a fashion. He
is not like his father, neither so delicate in body, nor so gentle
and winning as I remember the elder Gwynne--but, in truth, I do not
know if I ever found the way to his heart, with all my diplomacy;
the unconquerable barrier of age divided us; childhood looks with so
solidly-rooted a suspicion on our efforts to approach it; it guards
its quaint jungles, its enchanted gardens with so jealous a care
that we may well despair of ever touching hands. And for that matter
I sometimes think we are all strangers more or less to the end, and
our nearest intimacy only a painful interchange of signals in a
fog. Little Gwynne tolerated me, and I soon ceased to ask anything
else. He approved of cookies and the works of Mr. Alger; as these
latter immortal productions do not form a part of my library, we were
obliged to call upon the Carnegie one a few squares distant, whence
he requisitioned them at the rate of a new Alger volume about every
twenty-four hours until the supply was exhausted, when we began on
Mr. Henty. This fell out very luckily, as I had discovered him asleep
in a corner over "Ivanhoe," and I should not have wished him to carry
away so unfavourable an impression of my resources in the way of
entertainment. But what I most observed in him was an indifference to,
or ignorance of, his family history and traditions that seemed abnormal
in a Gwynne, however remotely descended. I asked him if he had ever
been to see his great-grandfather's portrait in the State-House? The
moment was ill-chosen, as he was profoundly occupied with a new variety
of top, but he absently answered: "Yep."
"What did you think of it?"
"Nothin'," said this renegade, with astounding callousness, bending
himself to the top; it was warranted to spin five minutes at a stretch,
and when he had got it started, and was timing it by my watch, he
felt his mind released from cares enough to volunteer indulgently:
"Father's got a big photograph of it in his office. It's all yellow and
fly-specky, because it's so old, you know. I guess it's 'most as old as
father--or maybe _you_."
"Doesn't your father ever tell you about him--what a great man he was,
and all?"
"Nope."
"What!" said I, then, unable to believe my ears. "Doesn't he ever talk
to you about Governor Gwynne? Doesn't anybody ever tell you to remember
that you're a Gwynne?" The top was reeling to its fall, and he was very
busy, and, as I could see, justifiably annoyed at my persistence, but
this question caused him to look up sharply with the quick suspicion of
his twelve years.
"Aw, you're in fun!" he said, eying me shrewdly. "Father wouldn't talk
guff like that! And anyway my name's Peters--Gwynne's just my given
name--so it wouldn't be true, see?" Guff like that! These were his
sacrilegious words. Nothing could have more stingingly brought home
to me the lapse of years, or better illustrated the changes in men's
minds. And I might here insert some valuable reflections on the vanity
of human achievement, and the hollow and transitory character of fame,
if I were not uneasily conscious that Governor Gwynne's renown, even in
his heyday, was not of a kind to fill the four corners of the universe;
it was only in the opinion of his family that it reached those
magnificent proportions. Now he and his deeds are forgotten, even by
them; the fires are all dead on that fantastic altar which the Gwynnes
tended for so many years with so much misplaced zeal. It is not likely,
I think, that little Gwynne will ever be troubled by the problems
confronting his father in March of the year of Grace, 1883.
In fact, during this time, Gwynne might have been seen any day
pondering gloomily before his empty desk, under his grandfather's
grimly searching scrutiny, by the hour. The Pallinder business had
reached a stage when he could no longer ignore it; yet he could not
bring himself to any active measures. Gwynne knew as much as anybody
about the colonel's affairs; he had heard certain subdued but very
disagreeable rumours. Templeton himself had brought them to him months
earlier with a countenance of fright and perplexity. It had not cleared
much when he left the office; the little agent could not understand
what ailed his patron. He had never known Gwynne to be so indifferent,
so careless of the rights and feelings of the other heirs; it was
clean out of his character, and Templeton felt with dismay that his
surest prop had been removed. If Mr. Peters was becoming as queer
as the rest of them, Templeton was almost ready to resign from the
management of the Gwynne estate; single-handed, he could not "hold up
his end," as he phrased it. In the years of their association he had
conceived something like a real affection for the young man, and this
change obscurely alarmed and distressed him. Gwynne, about everything
else so open, so resourceful, so patient in the control of his
difficult kindred, so genially shrewd, would not allow any discussion
of the Pallinder delinquency; he shifted the subject, or turned upon
Templeton with a manner of such forbidding reticence that the agent
shrank discomfited. "Oh, well, Mr. Peters, I--I guess I'd better leave
you alone to run your tenants and the family," he would say humbly,
reaching for his hat in an apologetic confusion. "I--I ain't ever made
such a success of it that I've any call to argue, or advise _you_ how
to do," and so would shuffle meekly from the room, leaving the young
man, had he known it, in a miserable humiliation. Time and again,
Gwynne had made the resolve to have it out with the colonel; and time
and again had turned aside from the act, like a hunter refusing the
leap. He bargained with himself, loathing his own weakness; he would
go and see Colonel Pallinder on such a day at such an hour; he would
say to him thus and so. The day came and the hour--why was it that
something invariably prevented him? Once he even got so far as the
door of Colonel Pallinder's office--and it was locked. The office
was closed for the day: it was late Saturday afternoon, and in his
heart Gwynne knew the office would be closed--knew it before he left
his own. He turned away in a flash of angry contempt of himself--of
Pallinder--of the whole shabby business. Yet the colonel was safe
for that day; you cannot scour the town for a man, like a bailiff;
and Gwynne certainly was not going to follow him to the house, and
dun him under the very roof where he himself had received so many
hospitalities, such unfailing courtesy and kindness, within hearing of
the fellow's innocent wife and daughter! What had Mrs.--ahem!--what had
those two poor women done? Very likely they knew nothing whatever about
Pallinder's indebtedness; they were both of them touchingly ignorant
of money matters. This was strictly an affair for men--he would see
Pallinder Monday. And so Gwynne strode away home, to dinner and a
change of dress, and thence, by the most natural sequence in the world,
to the Lexington and Amherst cars, and out to the Pallinders'! In one
of his spasms of conscience he had refused their urgent invitation
to the house party--the irony of his position was apparent, even to
him; but he balanced the scales by going out night after night to the
rehearsals of "William Tell," wherein he bore his part with a feverish
enthusiasm that surprised his friends.
It might have been noticed, but, as a matter of fact, I am sure hardly
anybody did notice, that Gwynne was the only one of the family who
figured in the theatricals, or, in the pungent everyday phrase, had
anything to do with the Pallinders. Marian Lawrence had been asked to
the house party, and had eagerly promised to come, but in a day or so
Mrs. Pallinder received a charming, apologetic, and graceful little
note from Mrs. Lawrence, declining on Marian's behalf, for some vague
reason. The truth is, Mrs. Horace Gwynne, on hearing of the plan, had
once again ordered out her barouche and driven over to the Lawrences',
upright and stern, with the stark face of Doom. And after a heated
conference with the mother, the note had been despatched; Mrs. Lawrence
sat down and cried heartily with the disappointed girl when that dire
act had been performed--but neither of them thought of disobeying
Cousin Jennie. When they met Mrs. Pallinder face to face coming out
of church next Sunday morning they were both a good deal flustered;
they flinched before Mrs. Pallinder's steadily radiant smile, and were
devoutly glad, I think, to escape from her neighbourhood into the
crowd. Archie Lewis walked home with Marian, and raised his hat as a
carriage spun by--"That was the Pallinders with Miss Baxter," said
Archie, observing with a passing surprise that his companion made no
sign of recognition. "Was it? I didn't see them," said Marian stoutly,
looking straight in front of her with very red cheeks. Not so long
before, Mazie had been one of her most intimate friends. Look on that
picture, and now on this! What was the matter with all the Gwynnes?
Little old Eleanor and little old Mollie, on seeing the colonel less
than half a square off, advancing upon them, already uncovered,
courtly, bland, with outstretched hand--the two old sisters, I say,
fairly took to their heels up a side street, with scared and shrinking
faces. They gathered up their virgin skirts and fled shudderingly as
from contamination. Mrs. Horace Gwynne, alone of them all, possessed
the courage of her convictions. Erect in her barouche, she encountered
and returned Mrs. Pallinder's smile with a salute so casual, so
perfunctory that it suggested the recognition she would have bestowed
upon her cook in event of a public meeting with that functionary.
Mrs. Pallinder bit her lips; she reddened through her rouge--and the
next moment was gaily bowing to another acquaintance as if life meant
nothing to her but this pleasant exchange of civilities. "Of course I
never would deliberately _cut_ anybody," Mrs. Horace explained later;
"that sort of behaviour is childish and ill-tempered. But I flatter
myself I know as well as anyone how to put people in their proper
place, and intimate my opinion of them, without talking or acting like
a washerwoman. I wanted Mrs. Pallinder to understand that while I was
absolutely indifferent to such a matter as the back-rent she owed me
and every one of us, I did not approve of the _principle_ of the thing.
She knew perfectly well what I meant. And at receptions or wherever
she happened to be in the same company with me afterwards, I simply
didn't see her at all! I was always talking to someone else, or had my
back turned. She understood--a _person_ like that!" I dare say Mrs.
Pallinder did understand; she was not without some previous experience,
and it is likely deserved every snub and stab which Mrs. Horace, with
the just severity of a good and upright woman, inflicted on her. So
must we all lie upon the beds we make.
This was the secret of the Gwynnes' altered demeanour; it was, of
course, not the failure to pay them their rent to which they objected,
but the appalling _principle_, or lack of principle, it indicated. At
least, that is what they all and severally declared afterwards. At the
time, with characteristic Gwynne reticence, they kept their troubles to
themselves; no set of conspiring revolutionists could have been more
close-mouthed. Their behaviour in this instance was of a piece with
the futile pride that prompted their efforts to distract the public
mind from Caroline--from Steven--from Sam Peters. What! Drag their
noble name through the mud and riot of a Common Pleas suit? Associate
their house and the memory of Governor Gwynne with a debasing scandal
about Money! I should not care to reveal the arts by which Gwynne put
off the hour of retribution for the Pallinders, playing upon these
familiar strings with a skill he himself despised. Even he, in the
end, sounded the note once too often, as we have seen in the case
of old Steven, to whom the sum, small as it was, meant more than
to the other members of the family. For Steven, once away from the
blandishments of Mrs. Pallinder, naturally reverted in the shortest
possible space of time to his previous mood of brooding indignation. He
had parted from Doctor Vardaman with a confused notion that everything
was going smoothly--that Gwynne would settle with the Pallinders in
a few days--a week, perhaps, at furthest. It had not been stated in
so many words; none the less Steven carried away these ideas planted
within him either by Mrs. Pallinder's soothing flatteries, or by the
doctor's well-meant efforts at comforting and diverting him. He waited
a day or two, eagerly inspecting every mail; he spoke grandly of his
expected remittances to his tolerant country neighbours, and alluded to
Gwynne with a large air as his man of business. But as the days passed
and his man of business made no sign, Steven's slender allowance of
patience gave out once more. He wrote to Gwynne, and waited a fevered
while for an answer. Wrote again, and with the letter, addressed and
stamped, in his pocket, abandoned his design, and took the first train
for town. It was with a fierce and resolute face that he stalked into
the office that afternoon--and Gwynne had gone out! This delay, to
speak in high metaphorical terms which would have delighted Steven's
own taste, did not arrest the falling of the levin-brand; it only
increased its momentum. In proportion as the moments lapsed, his
wrath gathered head. As it happened, he found himself in appropriate
company, with his grievance; when he entered the room there sat his
cousins, the two Misses Gwynne, with their pale, furtive, startled
faces framed in curls and satin rosettes, in their rigid bombazine
skirts, Miss Gwynne tremblingly clasping an umbrella, Miss Mollie
fingering a foolscap document whereon, if Steven had cared to look,
he might have seen some arithmetical calculations similar to his own.
They started up, fluttering and ejaculating at his appearance; then
sank down disappointed, yet, probably, a little relieved. The two not
only dressed, but thought and acted in couples; either one was helpless
without the other; and both now wore an air of terrified resolution
such as a pair of mice, a pair of pullets might have presented in
some desperate crisis of the trap or butcher's knife. Even in their
day, a day which recognised but one career for respectable women,
which knew not women's colleges or bachelor-maids, or what we call the
professional equality of the sexes, Eleanor and Mollie were caricatures
of spinsterhood; we looked upon them with as much pity as amusement, I
believe. This was a tremendous step for them to take; and horror laid a
throttling hold on both at the idea (occurring to them simultaneously)
that Cousin Steven might think them indiscreet or unladylike. But
Steven was much too preoccupied to spare a thought to their confusion.
"Huh, girls!" said he, sat down in Gwynne's revolving-chair, and
glowered absently out of the window, beating a tattoo on the desk, and
framing the sentences in which he would open his arraignment. "Waiting
to see Gwynne?" he inquired, rousing himself with a momentary curiosity
after a while.
The twins murmured inarticulately, looking at each other.
"So'm I," said Steven, scowling, and they might all three have
proceeded to some explanations, but at that moment, upon this amiable
family-group, strolled in Archie Lewis, on some errand from his
father's office, debonair, whistling his song from "William Tell,"
and very much taken aback at sight of the company into which he had
stumbled. "It was a perfect nest of Gwynnes," he said, graphically
describing the episode. "I felt like Daniel in the lions' den."
"Oh--ah--Mr. Gwynne--er--Miss Gwynne----" said he, stopping short in
embarrassment. "Ah--um--Gwynne's gone out, I see."
"He'll be back in a few minutes," stammered Miss Eleanor, after a
moment of fearful indecision.
"The office-boy said so," added Miss Mollie faintly. "It's almost
half-an-hour now."
"Well, I guess I won't wait--if you'll be so kind as to tell him I was
here? And I'll just put this on his desk under the paperweight--he'll
understand when he sees it," said Archie, depositing his bundle of
papers on the desk as he spoke, and very ready to beat a retreat. But
Steven, eying him, suddenly growled out, "You're Judge Lewis' son,
ain't you?"
"Why, yes--you know my father, of course--I've often heard him speak of
you," said Archie, conventionally, edging off.
"Sit down," said Steven, imperiously motioning. "Gwynne'll be along in
a little. You ought to be a lawyer, young man--your father's a lawyer.
I haven't seen him for years--I guess he's a good deal changed. Law
kind of changes people; it's seldom a man takes it up and stays honest.
Sit down; Gwynne'll be here presently."
("And so," said Archie, "I sat down. The fact is, the old fellow looked
sort of queer, and though I never heard of his _doing_ anything, I
didn't much like to leave him alone with those two old ladies--you
never can tell, you know.")
"I'd like to see the judge," said Steven.
"Why, I'm sure father'd be very pleased----"
Steven waved an impatient gesture. "I'm not particular about seeing
_him_," said he--and Archie used to repeat this part of the story in
his father's presence with infinite relish--"But I'd like to have his
_opinion_, in a matter of--a matter of _debt_!"
The two sisters exchanged a horrified glance; they knew what Steven's
errand was, now, and thought he was about to reveal the awful secret,
and tarnish the name of Gwynne forever. But that was by no means
Steven's intention; he was as tender of the family honour as they, but
much more confident of his own knowledge of the world and diplomatic
abilities. Archie, upon whose youthfully sharp wits none of this
by-play was lost, sat wondering what was to come next.
"This debt--or--er--this indebtedness," said Steven elaborately,
"is--er--it should be, in short, collected--that is--er--measures
should be taken by which it--could be, in short, collected." He fixed
a profound look on the young man, pausing while he considered in what
other roundabout terms he could present the situation.
"Is the fellow that owes you responsible--solid, I mean, you know?"
asked Archie, beginning to be interested. "If he's on a salary, or got
a good business you might attach----"
"I--I--I'm not prepared to state," said Steven, appalled at the
briskness of Archie's deductions. "I'm just supposing a case, you
understand."
"Oh!" said Archie, suppressing a grin. "Well--ah--are you supposing it
to be a large sum, Mr. Gwynne?"
"A debt's a debt," said Steven, with magnificent brevity; he could
not resist a sidelong glance at Eleanor and Mollie, commanding their
admiration.
"Yes, of course, Mr. Gwynne, but there's a difference between a debt of
five dollars and one of five hundred," said Archie peaceably. "If you
can come to some kind of compromise, it's generally a great deal better
than going to law; you may get a little less than you're entitled to,
but you save time and trouble and worry. I suppose I've heard my father
say that to a hundred clients."
This view appeared to strike Eleanor and Mollie favourably; something
in the half-a-loaf policy appeals with a subtle power to the feminine
mind. But Steven's old face reddened; he darted a vengeful glance at
this Laodicean councillor.
"Compromise--_nothing_!" he snarled. "I'll see him da--I'll see him
farther before I'll compromise!"
"All right--all right, I was just saying that's one way of settling
these things," said Archie hastily. "Of course you know what you
want, Mr. Gwynne. Trouble is, you go into court with a case, and you
never know how long it will take to wind it up--maybe two or three
years--that's perfectly irrespective of the rights of the case.
Whereas, if you accept some kind of settlement, you--well, in general,
you come out ahead of the game," said Archie, falling back on the
vernacular.
Oh, wise young judge! The two Misses Gwynne listened to Archie's
exposition with respectful awe. I have heard him say with a laugh that
at no time in his subsequent career--which has been one of considerable
distinction--has he ever felt himself to be exerting so much influence,
no, not in his most sustained and vigorous flights of oratory. "I might
have been the Almighty, instead of a smart-Alecky boy, by the way those
two poor old women were impressed--it was funny--funny and pitiful,"
he says, and shakes his grizzling head.
"It's--it's very awful to have someone in debt to you, Mr. Lewis," Miss
Mollie took courage to say falteringly.
"Not so bad as being in debt to somebody yourself, though," said
Archie genially. This well-intended levity was a serious mistake; they
shrank--they withered before the dreadful suggestion.
"We--we aren't _that_, Mr. Lewis," cried both old maids in scared
chorus. "It's not we that are in debt--it's somebody that owes us----"
"That owes the GWYNNE ESTATE," said Steven ponderously. He had forgot
all about his supposititious case, and Archie, who, as he himself might
have said, was not born yesterday, had already made a shrewd guess as
to the identity of the debtor.
"A debt's a bad business, anyway you fix it," he said easily. "Reminds
me of that story father tells of himself when he was a boy borrowing
money of their old coloured man to go to the circus with. 'Chile,' says
old Mose, 'you's got to 'member this; er debt that ain't paid stahts er
_roorback_! You owe me, an' I owe Pete, an' Pete he owes that wall-eyed
niggah oveh at the liv'ry-stable, an' lakly Mistah Walleye, _he_ owes
somebody else, an' 'twell one of us stahts the payin', nobuddy cyahn't
pay--an' thar's your _roorback_!'" Archie laughed. He laughed alone,
for this sprightly tale, although he had recited it in a careful
imitation of Judge Lewis' best manner, apparently failed to amuse
anybody but himself. Perhaps it went too near the truth to be wholly
agreeable. "I never realised until that moment," he used to say with a
certain naïveté, "what an awful job poor Gwynne Peters had for years
with those people. I'll bet nobody knows or ever will know what he put
up with!"
His new sympathy put a greater warmth into his greeting when Gwynne
at last came in, a few minutes later. Archie, as he explained his
errand, noted inwardly that his friend's face was drawn and tired; nor
did he wonder much at the grim look Gwynne cast around the waiting
family-circle.
"You're late, Gwynne," said old Steven, fierce-eyed under his shaggy
brows.
"I know it," said Gwynne, in a harsh voice. "I had to go out to the
country this morning, and that put me back with everything."
"You mean to the house? You've been out to the house?" Steven asked
eagerly. "You've talked to Pall----?"
Gwynne looked at him steadily. "No, I haven't. I've been out to see
Sam. Will you please let me have my chair, Cousin Steven? I want to
make a note of this for Judge Lewis."
"It's no matter," said Archie hurriedly, anxious to escape as much on
the Gwynnes' account as on his own. ("I was afraid they were in for a
regular family-row and I wanted to get out," he said. "Why, you might
have known something was wrong with Gwynne, by his coming out about Sam
that way. That was the first time I ever knew him to do anything like
that!") "Never mind, Gwynne--father said you could keep them as long as
you wanted. I'll stop in some other time. You're--you're busy now."
"I wish you'd stay, Arch," said Gwynne desperately. The others sat in
a ghastly silence, even the old man. He got up and surrendered the
chair to Gwynne without a word. The sisters hardly dared look at each
other, in the trepidation produced by the mere mention of Sam's name.
Thus carelessly or rashly to flaunt Sam in the public view, and invite
attention to him seemed to them nothing less than a profane assault on
the temple of the Gwynne reputation--that edifice propped and shored
through so many years by what profitless sacrifices, what wrong-headed
devotion, what pitiful and heroic subterfuge! At this rate Gwynne might
say something about his Aunt Caroline, they thought in quaking panic.
The veil of the sanctum was rent in twain--what would he do or say next?
He did nothing; and after Archie had taken his leave, it was Eleanor
who quavered, frightened, yet with a real sympathy for him stirring at
her elderly maiden heart: "Is anything the matter, Gwynne? With--with
Sam, I mean?"
"Yes, Dr. Sheckard sent for me. They think he'll have to be taken
away--sent to some other place. He's--well, restless, you know."
"That'll take money, Gwynne," said Steven abruptly. Now that Archie's
restraining presence had been removed, he was eager to get to the
business in hand, and designed by one or two tactful remarks of this
nature to lead up to it. Eleanor and Mollie shrank a little; they were
genuinely and self-forgetfully interested in their unfortunate kinsman.
"I'll manage it, somehow," said Gwynne briefly. He put aside his
domestic tragedy without much effort; to the observant mind the
facility with which we get used to our lives is the one great everyday
miracle. Let them visit us with what trials they will, we defeat the
gods by our submission. Gwynne addressed himself to the task of the
moment with no further thought of Sam. "You wanted to see me about
something, Cousin Eleanor?" he asked, foreseeing drearily what the
answer would be. But in spite of all their preparation, the direct
question startled them; the neat and perfectly ladylike speeches in
which Eleanor and Mollie had coached each other for days vanished from
their minds--from their one mind, I might almost say. They looked at
him with stricken faces. "There is something you wanted to see me
about, Cousin Mollie?" repeated Gwynne--and could have cried "For
shame!" at the forbidding coldness of his own voice.
"Oh, Gwynne," said Miss Mollie, trembling a good deal, and thrusting
her paper at him. "I--we--Eleanor and I don't want you to think that
we are unappreciative, or--or that we've any fault to find with the
way you've managed our property--you've done everything you could,
we _know_ that, Gwynne, and you're always so good to us." Her voice
broke, but she went on resolutely. "But I--we don't know whether
you've noticed anything lately, or whether any of the others have told
you--you're so busy--and we know a woman oughtn't to interfere, or ask
questions about her money, Gwynne--and--and we oughtn't to come to your
office, we _know_ that--it's no place for a lady--but we're--we're so
worried, we couldn't help it. You don't mind our being here, do you?
We thought at first we'd write, only it takes so much longer----" here
poor Miss Mollie broke down completely and began to cry in a noiseless
and unimpeachably ladylike manner into her black-bordered handkerchief.
Miss Eleanor took up the thread, having conquered her own tears:
"We thought perhaps you didn't know, Gwynne, if Mr. Templeton hadn't
told you, but the Pallinders--that is, Colonel Pallinder, you know,
they haven't paid us any rent for our house for over a year--it's on
the paper, we added it up--I know it's right, because we did it by long
division, and then multiplied to make sure--and it's a hundred and
twenty dollars they're owing us, Gwynne, and--and we thought you'd do
something, if you knew----"
"Well, you needn't worry--he _won't_!" said Steven, savagely satirical.
Both handkerchiefs were going now; but the two old maids scarcely heard
Steven; they regarded Gwynne with a heart-breaking confidence.
"Why--yes--I knew about this, Cousin Eleanor," the young man began,
with a wretched feeling of humbug. "The only thing about commencing
proceedings to recover--bringing suit, you know--is the--the
publicity--you might have to appear in court and testify--and it would
all be in the papers, like a--a scandal----"
"Oh, scandal--bosh!" cried Steven wrathfully. Eleanor and Mollie were
looking at Gwynne with affrighted eyes over their handkerchiefs; but
Steven's masculine mind, even if none of the strongest, could not in
nature be always wrought upon so easily. These arguments were old to
him and their effect was dulled. "Scandal! There's no scandal about
going to law to get your money!" he said impatiently, and with justice.
"And as for publicity, you could fix all that, if you wanted to,
Gwynne, you know it. They could--they could make oath before a notary,
couldn't they?"
"We--we wouldn't have to do anything, if he could just get us a
_little_ of it--the--the way Mr. Lewis said, you know, Mollie," Eleanor
faltered.
"Arch? Did you tell him about this?" Gwynne asked, disturbed.
"No harm if we had," said Steven, contentiously. But Mollie looked
at Gwynne in dread. "No, no--we didn't say a thing--we didn't say a
word, Gwynne--but he just happened to say that debts were sometimes
compromised--you took some, not all, you know, but you didn't have any
lawsuit----"
"If we could get a little----" said Eleanor anxiously.
"A _little_! That's like a woman!" said Steven in strong disgust. "A
_little_! Don't you pay any attention to 'em, Gwynne!"
"Do you need money, Cousin Eleanor?" asked Gwynne gently.
Mollie began to cry hysterically again.
"We don't want you to advance any, Gwynne," said old Eleanor, trembling
and turning very pale. "You've done that before, and--and now you will
need all your money for poor Sam. And--and besides, Gwynne, I--I--we're
not fit to be trusted with money--I--I was going to tell you, only it's
so hard--but we're--we're--we've been very wicked women!" She burst
out sobbing. Gwynne might have smiled at this lurid statement from two
such timid, plaintive and abjectly respectable old maiden ladies if the
circumstances had left him any heart for smiling.
"Why, what's the matter, Cousin Eleanor?--don't cry that way!" he said,
distressed. "It's not your fault, you know. Now I promise you I'll see
about it--I'll get your money for you--these things are bound to take a
little time, you know----"
"Huh! You said that before--you've said it a dozen times!" said Steven.
He looked at Gwynne with open suspicion. "Will you come with me over to
Pallinder's office now?"
"No, no, don't do that; wait till I've told him everything,
Steven--wait a minute Gwynne!" cried Eleanor, laying her damp hands and
handkerchief on the young man's arm. "Gwynne!" she said tragically,
"it's quite true--we're wicked, wicked women! We took--Mollie and I
took all our money--it was that thousand dollars that we got when
Cousin Lucien died, you know, that we'd always put away to use if we
were sick--or, or got married--or anything, and some besides that we'd
saved up--it was last year--and we thought the rent would be coming
in all the time, and we counted on that--you know we were quite sure,
Gwynne, or we wouldn't have done it--and--and--we'd heard about so many
people making money in stocks--Caleb Spicer--that's the vegetable-man
we've taken from for ever so long, and I _know_ Caleb's honest--he
told us about his brother-in-law--only Caleb didn't tell us about
_this_ stock, Gwynne, it wasn't Caleb's fault at all, I wouldn't have
you think that--his brother-in-law's stock was some other kind, I
don't remember what now. And we--we bought some stock, Gwynne--it was
'Phosphate'--a mine, or was it a well, Sister Mollie? We--we've never
had any money, Gwynne, I mean much, you know--and we--we've had to save
so, and go without a girl and all--and make our own clothes--and we
did so want to have a little more--and we thought it would get to be
worth double or treble in the least little while, the way those things
do--the way Caleb's brother-in-law's did--and besides Colonel Pallinder
said it would----"
"_What!_" said Gwynne. He got up. His face blanched; the likeness to
old Samuel Gwynne leaped out upon his features so strong, so lowering,
that Eleanor and Mollie involuntarily drew back, appalled. They
supposed the confession had angered him. "We didn't know anything about
it, Gwynne," they both began. "We didn't know--we didn't mean to do
anything wrong!"
"You didn't do anything wrong," said Gwynne, with an effort. "Go on.
What has happened?"
"It was all my fault, Gwynne," said Eleanor, generously. "I put it into
Mollie's head--it was my fault, all of it."
"It doesn't make any difference about that, Nellie," said Mollie.
"I was just as much to blame--you couldn't have done it without
me. We--we've found out a terrible thing about 'Phosphate,'
Gwynne--it's--it's not going to double at all. We thought we'd get some
money right away, and we didn't--and then we waited--and we didn't get
any--and we were afraid to ask Colonel Pallinder, for fear it would
look as if--as if--we didn't believe in him--don't, Gwynne, don't
look that way! And then at last we went down to the Third National
where our money used to be; we got Mary to go with us, because we were
afraid to go by ourselves, and besides it's not ladylike; she knows
your friend, Mr. Taylor, that great big tall young man that's in there
back in the brass-wired-off place, you know, Gwynne. And Mary wasn't
a bit afraid; she just asked for him, and he came out and took the
paper--it's a certificate, isn't it?--and looked at it, and then went
back into the president's room, and we heard some men laughing, Gwynne.
And then Mr. McAlpine himself came out after a while, and he came up
and said he knew we'd believe him, because of his being president, and
he was sorry to have to tell us, but that stock wasn't worth the paper
it was printed on, and he wanted to know whose advice we had acted
on in buying it. So he and Mary and Mr. Taylor and you are the only
people that know anything about it, Gwynne, and--and--if it don't go
any farther than that, it won't--it won't be a disgrace to you or the
family," said poor old Mollie with tears.
Gwynne looked at them helplessly. That these two shy, fearsome, frugal,
penny-wise old gentlewomen could have ventured their all upon one
reckless stake like the worst and wildest gambler that ever tossed his
last dollar on the cloth, was well-nigh inconceivable--but the thing
had happened! It was not merely unexpected, it was impossible--and
it had happened! If he had been asked to name the members of his
family who might most safely be trusted to hoard and watch over their
lean inheritance, he would have pitched upon Eleanor and Mollie; he
would have supposed them impregnable behind their barrier of timorous
ignorance, entrenched forever in the habit of grinding economy--and lo,
that very childish inexperience, that thriftless parsimony, had been
their undoing!
"Well, but whose advice _did_ you take?" he asked. "You surely asked
_somebody_ besides Caleb What's-his-name? Why didn't you come to me--or
Cousin Jennie?"
"But Jennie wouldn't have let us do it, you know," said Eleanor, with
entire simplicity. "There wouldn't have been any use asking _her_. And
we were so _sure_--we thought Colonel Pallinder's advice was enough--we
knew you wouldn't go to the house so much if you didn't think he
was to be trusted--you wouldn't go where anybody was dishonourable.
But I don't believe he _is_ honourable, Gwynne; of course, he's had
misfortunes with 'Phosphate' like ourselves, but if he were really
honourable, he'd pay our rent."
The young man was silenced; anger and shame surged together within him.
The most expert of fencers could not have pricked him closer home than
Eleanor with her simple earnestness of belief. Their faith blackened
him in his own eyes; their affection stung; their tremulous apologies
scourged.
"Never mind, Cousin Mollie--don't cry--I'll take care of you," he said,
huskily, at last. "Now let me get a carriage and send you home--and
don't worry about your money, nor the rent--I'll get it back for you
some way or another----"
Mollie and Eleanor cried harder than ever; mingled with their ghastly
visions of ultimate destitution, and much more concretely awful, had
been the fear of what Gwynne would say, of what he would think when he
heard the shameful news. Their tears comforted them; and I dare say
that many a real sinner has touched thus the utter depth, and found
there a like unexpected peace.
"Oh, Gwynne, you're so good to us--and with poor Sam on your mind all
the time, too--but you never think about yourself at all!"
Gwynne almost smiled. Sam? What care had he given to Sam or Sam's
interests of late? And of whom had he been thinking, if not solely of
himself?
"Now promise me you won't worry," he said, urgently kind. "I'll fix it
all right----"
"You've been saying that a good while to _me_, and nothing's come of
it so far," said Steven distrustfully. "Hope you ain't forgetting that
it's Sam's money, too, you've been letting go all this year and a half?"
"I'm not forgetting it, Cousin Steven," said Gwynne, turning his
haggard eyes on the other. "I won't forget Sam."
After they had gone, Gwynne went back to the office and sat a long
while with his set face staring at that other face on the wall, under
whose shadow he had lived his whole life, without, as it would seem,
profiting much by the association. There he sat--and I think we may
very well refrain from spying on him. Doubtless he did full justice
upon Gwynne Peters that spring afternoon, alone with his condemning
thoughts; doubtless every selfish lie, every mean evasion rose up and
confronted him; doubtless he took himself to task more sternly than
he deserved, and fancied he sat, a broken man, amongst the ruins of a
dishonoured life. Hardly, I am sure, at his present age, can Gwynne
look back upon that hour with an equal mind; when it recurs to him, the
taste of his folly must yet be bitter on his tongue. He is to-day a
successful man, greatly liked, greatly respected. Mrs. Gwynne Peters,
I believe, is a very happy wife and mother, not at all jealous, and
having no cause to be. But has Gwynne ever mentioned Mrs. Pallinder
to her? He might do so without a blush, but he probably feels that it
would be an unprofitable business; let the old ashes lie, and let the
lost corners grow up with weeds and be forgot. Wives and husbands,
if they be wise, will not go prospecting in the remote places of
each other's hearts, lest they chance upon some of these disquieting
ruins--ugly little cairns, decrepit old tombstones. The days were
lengthening, yet it was twilight as Gwynne walked home; street-lamps
burned dimly through the foggy spring air, and the newsboys were crying
the last edition.