Simon Darche stood at the window of his study, as Dolly and Vanbrugh
entered the house. He was, at that time, about seventy-five years of
age, and the life he had led had told upon him, as an existence of over
excitement ultimately tells upon all but the very strong. Physically,
he was a fine specimen of the American old gentleman. He was short,
well knit, and still fairly erect; his thick creamy-white hair was
smoothly brushed and parted behind, as his well-trimmed white beard was
carefully combed and parted before. He had bushy eyebrows in which
there were still some black threads. His face was ruddy and polished,
like fine old pink silk that has been much worn. But his blue eyes had
a vacant look in them, and the redness of the lids made them look weak;
the neck was shrunken at the back and just behind the ears, and though
the head was well poised on the shoulders, it occasionally shook a
little, or dropped suddenly out of the perpendicular, forwards or to
one side, not as though nodding, but as though the sinews were gone, so
that it depended altogether upon equilibrium and not at all upon
muscular tension for its stability. This, however, was almost the only
outward sign of physical weakness. Simon Darche still walked with a
firm step, and signed his name in a firm round hand at the foot of the
documents brought to him by his son for signature.
He had perfect confidence in John's judgment, discretion and capacity,
for he and his son had worked together for nearly twenty years, and
John had never during that time contradicted him. Since the business
had continued to prosper through fair and foul financial weather, this
was, in Simon Darche's mind, a sufficient proof of John's great
superiority of intelligence. The Company's bonds and stock had a steady
value on the market, the interest on the bonds was paid regularly and
the Company's dividends were uniformly large. Simon Darche continued to
be President, and John Darche had now been Treasurer during more than
five years. Altogether, the Company had proved itself to be a solid
concern, capable of surviving stormy days and of navigating serenely in
the erratic flood and ebb of the down-town tide. It was, indeed,
apparent that before long a new President must be chosen, and the
choice was likely to fall upon John. In the ordinary course of things a
man of Simon Darche's age could not be expected to bear the weight of
such responsibility much longer; but so far as any one knew, his
faculties were still unimpaired and his strength was still quite equal
to any demands which should be made upon it, in the ordinary course of
events. Of the business done by the Company, it is sufficient to say
that it was an important branch of manufacture, that the controlling
interest was generally in the hands of the Darches themselves and that
its value largely depended upon the possession of certain patents
which, of course, would ultimately expire.
Simon Darche stood at the window of his study and looked out, smoking a
large, mild cigar which he occasionally withdrew from his lips and
contemplated thoughtfully before knocking off the ash, and returning
it to his mouth. It was a very fine cigar indeed, equal in quality to
everything which Simon Darche had consumed during the greater part of
his life, and he intended to enjoy it to the end, as he had enjoyed
most things ever since he had been young. John, he often said, did not
know how to enjoy anything; not that John was in a hurry, or exhibited
flagrantly bad taste, or professed not to care--on the contrary, the
younger man was deliberate, thoughtful and fastidious in his
requirements--but there was an odd strain of asceticism in him, which
his father had never understood. It certainly was not of a religious
nature, but it would have gone well together with a saintly disposition
such as John did not possess. Perhaps indeed, John had the saintly
temperament without the sanctity, and that, after all, may be better
than nothing. He was thinner than his father and of a paler complexion;
his hair was almost red, if not quite, and his eyes were blue--a
well-built man, not ungraceful but a little angular, careful of his
appearance and possessed of perfect taste in regard to dress, if in
nothing else. He bestowed great attention upon his hands, which were
small with slender fingers pointed at the tips, and did not seem to
belong to the same epoch as the rest of him; they were almost
unnaturally white, but to his constant annoyance they had an unlucky
propensity to catch the dust, as one says of some sorts of cloth. If it
be written down that a man has characteristically clean hands, some
critic will be sure to remark that gentlemen are always supposed to
have clean hands, especially gentlemen of the Anglo-Saxon race. It is a
fact, nevertheless, that however purely Anglo-Saxon the possessor may
be, there are hands which are naturally not clean and which neither
ordinary scrubbing nor the care of the manicure can ever keep clean for
more than an hour. People who are in the habit of noticing hands are
well aware of the fact, which depends upon the quality of the skin, as
the reputation for cleanliness itself generally does. John Darche's
hands did not satisfy him as the rest of himself did.
So far as people knew, he had no vices, nor even the small tastes and
preferences which most men have. He did not drink wine, he did not
smoke, and he rarely played cards. He was a fairly good rider and rode
for exercise, but did not know a pastern from a fetlock and trusted to
others to buy his horses for him. He cared nothing for sport of any
kind; he had once owned a yacht for a short time, but he had never been
any further than Newport in her and had sold her before the year was
out. He read a good deal in a desultory way and criticised everything
he read, when he talked, but on the whole he despised literature as a
trifle unworthy of a serious man's attention. His religious convictions
were problematic, to say the least of it, and his outward practice took
the somewhat negative form of never swearing, even when he was alone.
He did not raise his voice in argument, if he ever argued, nor in
anger, though he had a very bad temper. John Darche could probably say
as disagreeable things as any man living, without exhibiting the
slightest apparent emotion. He was not a popular man. His acquaintances
disliked him; his friends feared him; his intimates and the members of
his household felt that he held them at a distance and that they never
really understood him. His father bestowed an almost childish
admiration upon him, for which he received a partial compensation in
John's uniformly respectful manner and unvarying outward deference. In
the last appeal, all matters of real importance were left to the
decision of Simon Darche, who always found it easy to decide, because
the question, as it reached him, was never capable of more than one
solution.
It is clear from what has been said that John Darche was not an amiable
character. But he had one small virtue, or good trait, or good point,
be it called as it may. He loved his wife, if not as a woman and a
companion, at least as a possession. The fact was not apparent to the
majority of people, least of all, perhaps, to Mrs. Darche herself, who
was much younger than her husband and whose whole and loyal soul was
filled with his cast-off beliefs, so to say, or, at least, with beliefs
which he would have cast off if he had ever possessed them.
Nevertheless, he was accustomed to consider her as one of his most
valuable belongings, and he might have been very dangerous, had his
enormous dormant jealousy been roused by the slightest show on her part
of preference for any one of the half-dozen men who were intimate in
the house. He, on his side, gave her no cause for doubting his
fidelity. He was not loving, his manner was not affectionate, he often
lost his temper and said cruel things to her in his cruel way; but so
far as she knew he did not exchange ten words daily with any other
woman, excepting Mrs. Willoughby, her aunt, and Dolly Maylands, her
intimate friend. He was systematic in his daily comings and goings, and
he regularly finished his evenings at one of the clubs. He slept
little, but soundly, ate sparingly and without noticing what was
offered him, drank four cups of tea and a pint of Apollinaris every day
and had never been ill in his life, which promised to be long, active,
uneventful and not overflowing with blessings for any one else.
At first it might seem that there was not much ground for the few words
exchanged by Russell Vanbrugh and Dolly Maylands about the Darches'
trouble before they entered the house. To all appearances, Simon Darche
was in his normal frame of mind and had changed little during the last
five years. So far as any one could judge, the Company was as solid as
ever. In her outward manner and conversation Marion Darche seemed as
well satisfied with her lot as she had been on the day of her marriage,
when John had represented to her all that a man should be,--much that
another man, whom she had loved, or liked almost to loving, in her
early girlhood, had not been. The surface of her life was calm and
unemotional, reflecting only the sunshine and storm of the social
weather under which she had lived in the more or less close
companionship of half a hundred other individuals in more or less
similar circumstances.
There is just enough truth in most proverbs to make them thoroughly
disagreeable. Take, for instance, the saying that wealth is not
happiness. Of course it is not, any more than food and lodging, shoes
and clothing, which are the ultimate forms of wealth, can be called
happiness. But surely, wealth and all that wealth gives constitute a
barrier against annoyance, mental and physical, which has almost as
much to do with the maintenance of happiness in the end, as "climate
and the affections." The demonstration is a simple one. Poverty can of
itself under certain circumstances be a source of unhappiness. The
possession of riches therefore is a barrier against the possibility of
at least one sort of misery and relatively increases the chances of
being happy on the whole. It is tolerably certain, that, without money,
John Darche would have been little short of insufferable, and that his
wife would have been chief among the sufferers. The presence of a great
fortune preserved the equilibrium and produced upon outsiders the
impression of real felicity.
Nevertheless, both Vanbrugh and Dolly Maylands, as has been seen,
considered the fortune unsafe and apparent peace problematic. They were
among the most intimate friends of the Darche household and were
certainly better able to judge of the state of affairs than the
majority. They had doubtless perceived in the domestic atmosphere
something of that sultriness which foreruns a storm and sometimes
precedes an earthquake, and being very much in sympathy with each
other, in spite of the continual chaffing which formed the basis of
their conversation, they had both begun to notice the signs of bad
weather very nearly at the same time.
It must not be supposed that Mrs. Darche confided her woes to her
friend, to use the current expression by which reticent people
characterise the follies of others. It was not even certain at this
time that she had any woes at all, but Dolly undoubtedly noticed
something in her conduct which betrayed anxiety if not actual
unhappiness, and Russell Vanbrugh, who, as has been observed, was
intimately acquainted with many aspects of New York life, had some
doubts as to the state of the Company's affairs. No one is really
reticent. It would perhaps be more just to the human race as a whole to
say that no two persons are capable of keeping the same secret at the
same time. That is probably the reason why there is always some rumour
of an approaching financial crisis, even while it is very much to the
interest of all concerned to preserve a calm exterior. When a great
house is about to have trouble, and even in some cases as much as two
or three years before the disaster, there is a dull far-off rumble from
underground, as though the foundations were trembling. There is a
creaking of the timbers, an occasional and as yet unaccountable
rattling of the panes, and sometimes a very slight distortion of the
lines of the edifice, all proving clearly enough that a crash is at
hand. As no one believes in presentiments, divinations or the gift of
prophecy in these days, it is safe to assume that some one who knows
the history of the thing has betrayed the secret, or has told his wife
that there is a secret to be kept. In the matter of secrets there is
but one general rule. If you do not wish a fact to be known, tell no
one of its existence.
Concerning the particular reasons which led Dolly Maylands and Russell
Vanbrugh to exchange opinions on the subject of the Darches, it is
hardly necessary to speak here. The two were very intimate and had
known each other for a long time, and, possibly, there was a tendency
in their acquaintance to something more like affection than friendship.
The fact that Dolly did not flirt with Vanbrugh in the ordinary
acceptation of that word, showed that she might possibly be in love
with him. As for Vanbrugh himself, no one knew what he thought and he
did not intend that any one should. He had never shown any inclination
to be married, though it was said that he, like many others, had been
deeply attached to Mrs. Darche in former days; and Dolly, at least,
believed that he still loved her friend in his heart, though she had
neither the courage nor the bad taste to ask a question to which he
might reasonably have refused an answer.
The only person in the household who seemed to have neither doubts nor
uneasiness was old Simon Darche, and as it was more than likely that
his intelligence had begun to fail, his own sense of security was not
especially reassuring to others.
While Simon Darche was smoking his large mild cigar at the window, and
while Dolly and Russell Vanbrugh were strolling by the railings of
Gramercy Park, Mrs. Darche was seated before the fire in the library,
and another friend of hers, who has a part to play in this little story
and who, like Vanbrugh, was a lawyer, was trying to interest her in the
details of a celebrated case concerning a will, and was somewhat
surprised to find that he could not succeed. Harry Brett stood towards
Marion Darche in very much the same friendly relation held by Vanbrugh
in Dolly's existence. There was this difference, however, that Brett
was well known to have offered himself to Mrs. Darche, who had refused
him upon grounds which were not clear to the social public. Brett was
certainly not so rich as John, but in all other respects he seemed
vastly more desirable as a husband. He was young, fresh, good-looking,
good-tempered. He belonged to a good New York family, whereas the
Darches were of Canadian origin. He had been quite evidently and
apparently very much in love with Marion, whereas John never seemed to
have looked upon her as anything but a valuable possession, to be
guarded for its intrinsic worth, and to be kept in good order and
condition rather than loved and cherished. Every one had said that she
should have married Brett, and when she chose John every one said that
she had married his money. But then it is impossible to please every
one. Brett was certainly not pleased. He had gone abroad and had been
absent a long time, just when he should have been working at his
profession. It was supposed, not without reason, that he was profoundly
disappointed, but nevertheless, when he returned he looked as fresh and
cheerful as ever, was kindly received by Mrs. Darche, civilly treated
by her husband and forthwith fell into the position of especial friend
to the whole family. He had made up his mind to forget all about the
past, to see as much of Mrs. Darche as he could without falling in love
with her a second time, as he would have called it, and he was doing
his best to be happy in his own way. Within the bounds of possibility
he had hitherto succeeded, and no one who wished well to him or Mrs.
Darche would have desired to doubt the durability of his success. He
had created an artificial happiness and spent his life in fostering the
idea that it was real. Many a better man has done the same before him
and many a worse may try hereafter. But the result always has been the
same and in all likelihood always will be. The most refined and perfect
artificiality is not nature even to him who most earnestly wishes to
believe it is, and the time must inevitably come in all such lives when
nature, being confronted with her image, finds it but a caricature and
dashes it to pieces in wrath.
Brett's existence was indeed much more artificial than that of his old
love. He had attempted to create the semblance of a new relation on
the dangerous ground whereon an older and a truer one had subsisted.
She, on her part, had accepted circumstances as they had formed
themselves, and did her best to get what she could out of them without
any attempt to deceive herself or others. Fortunately for both she was
eminently a good woman, and Brett was a gentleman in heart, as well as
in deed.
And now before this tale is told, there only remains the thankless task
of introducing these last two principal figures in their pen-and-ink
effigies.
Of Harry Brett almost enough has been said already. His happy vitality
would have lent him something of beauty even if he had possessed none
at all. But he had a considerable share of good looks, in addition to
his height and well-proportioned frame, his bright blue eyes, his fresh
complexion, and short, curly brown hair. He too, like Vanbrugh,
belonged to the American type, which has regular features, arched
eyebrows, and rather deep-set eyes. The lower part of his face was
strong, though the whole outline was oval rather than round or square.
Rather a conventional hero, perhaps, if he is to be a hero at all, but
then, many heroes have been thought to be quite average, ordinary
persons, until the knot which heroism cuts was presented to them by
fate. Then people discover in them all sorts of outward signs of the
inward grace that can hit so very hard. Then the phrenologists descend
upon their devoted skulls and discover there the cranial localities of
the vast energy, the dauntless courage, the boundless devotion to a
cause, the profound logic, by which great events are brought about and
directed to the end. Julius Caesar at the age of thirty was a frivolous
dandy, an amateur lawyer, and a dilettante politician, in the eyes of
good society in Rome.
Harry Brett, however, is not a great hero, even in this fiction--a
manly fellow with no faults of any importance and no virtues of any
great magnitude, young, healthy, good-looking, courageous, troubled a
little with the canker of the untrue ideal which is apt to eat the
common sense out of the core of life's tree, mistaken in his attempt to
create in himself an artificial satisfaction in the friendship of the
woman he had loved and was in danger of loving still, gifted with the
clear sight which must sooner or later see through his self-made
illusion, and possessed of more than the average share of readiness in
speech and action--a contrast, in this respect, to Vanbrugh. The
latter, from having too comprehensive a view of things, was often slow
in reaching a decision. Brett was more like Mrs. Darche herself in
respect of quick judgment and self-reliance at first sight, if such a
novel expression is permissible.
As Marion sat before the fire apparently studying its condition and
meditating a descent upon it, after the manner of her kind, she was not
paying much attention to Brett's interesting story about the great
lawyer who had drawn up his own will so that hardly a clause of it had
turned out to be legal, and Brett himself was more absorbed in watching
her than in telling the complicated tale. She was generally admitted to
be handsome. Her enemies said that she had green eyes and yellow hair,
which was apparently true, but they also said that she dyed the one
and improved the other with painting, which was false. Her hair was
naturally as fair as yellow gold, of an even colour throughout, and the
shadows beneath her eyes and the dark eyebrows, which were sources of
so much envy and malice, were natural and not done with little coloured
sticks of greasy crayon kept in tubes made to look like silver
pencil-cases, and generally concealed beneath the lace of the toilet
table or in the toe of a satin slipper.
Marion Darche was handsome and looked strong, though there was rarely
much colour in her face. She did not flush easily. Women who do, often
have an irritable heart, as the doctors call the thing, and though
their affections may be stable their circulation is erratic. They
suffer agonies of shyness in youth and considerable annoyance in
maturer years from the consciousness that the blood is forever surging
in their cheeks at the most inopportune moment; and the more they think
of it, the more they blush, which does not mend matters and often
betrays secrets. Three-fourths of the shyness one sees in the world is
the result of an irritable heart. Marion Darche's circulation was
normal, and she was not shy.
Like many strong persons, she was gentle, naturally cheerful and
generally ready to help any one who needed assistance. She had an
admirably even temper--a matter, like physical courage, which depends
largely upon the action of the heart and the natural quality of the
nerves--and under all ordinary circumstances she ate and slept like
other people. She did not look at all like Helen or Clytemnestra, and
her disposition was not in the least revengeful--a quiet, tall, fair
young woman, whose clear eyes looked every one calmly in the face and
whose strong white hands touched things delicately but could hold
firmly when she chose; carrying herself straight through a crowd, as
she bore herself upright through life. Those who knew her face best
admired especially her mouth and the small, well-cut, advancing chin,
which seemed made to meet difficulties as a swimmer's divides the
water. In figure, as in face, too, she was strong, the undulating
curves were those of elasticity and energy, rather than of indolence
and repose.
As Harry Brett talked and watched her he honestly tried not to wish
that she might have been his wife, and when his resolution broke down
he conscientiously talked on and did his best to interest himself in
his own conversation. The effort was familiar to him of old, and had so
often ended in failure that he was glad when the distant tinkle of the
door bell announced the coming of a third person. John rarely lunched
at home and old Mr. Darche was never summoned until the meal was
served. Brett broke off in the middle of his story and laughed a
little.
"I believe you have not understood a word of what I have been telling
you," he said.
Mrs. Darche looked up suddenly, abandoned the study of the burning logs
and leaned back in her chair before she answered. Then she looked at
him quietly and smiled, not even attempting to deny the imputation.
"It is very rude of me, is it not? You must forgive me, to-day. I am
very much preoccupied."
"You often are, nowadays," answered Brett, with a short, manlike sigh,
which might have passed for a sniff of dissatisfaction.
"I know I am. I am sorry."
The door opened and Dolly Maylands entered the room, followed closely
by Russell Vanbrugh.