Well, that was another success. The world is round, and like a ball
seems swinging in the air, and swinging very pleasantly, thought
Henderson, as he stepped on board the train that evening. The world
is truly what you make it, and Henderson was determined to make it
agreeable. His philosophy was concise, and might be hung up, as a motto:
Get all you can, and don't fret about what you cannot get.
He went into the smoking compartment, and sat musing by the window for
some time before he lit his cigar, feeling a glow of happiness that was
new in his experience. The country was charming at twilight, but he was
little conscious of that. What he saw distinctly was Margaret's face,
trustful and wistful, looking up into his as she bade him goodby. What
he was vividly conscious of was being followed, enveloped, by a woman's
love.
“You will write, dear, the moment you get there, will you not? I am so
afraid of accidents,” she had said.
“Why, I will telegraph, sweet,” he had replied, quite gayly.
“Will you? Telegraph? I never had that sort of a message.” It seemed
a very wonderful thing that he should use the public wire for this
purpose, and she looked at him with new admiration.
“Are you timid about the train?” he asked.
“No. I never think of it. I never thought of it for myself; but this is
different.”
“Oh, I see.” He put his arm round her and looked down into her eyes.
This was a humorous suggestion to him, who spent half his time on the
trains. “I think I'll take out an accident policy.”
“Don't say that. But you men are so reckless. Promise you won't stand
on the platform, and won't get off while the train is in motion, and all
the rest of the directions,” she said, laughing a little with him; “and
you will be careful?”
“I'll take such care of myself as I never did before, I promise. I never
felt of so much consequence in my life.”
“You'll think me silly. But you know, don't you, dear?” She put a hand
on each shoulder, and pushing him back, studied his face. “You are all
the world. And only to think, day before yesterday, I didn't think of
the trains at all.”
To have one look like that from a woman! To carry it with him! Henderson
still forgot to light his cigar.
“Hello, Rodney!”
“Ah, Hollowell! I thought you were in Kansas City.”
The new-comer was a man of middle age, thick set, with rounded
shoulders, deep chest, heavy neck, iron-gray hair close cut, gray
whiskers cropped so as to show his strong jaw, blue eyes that expressed
at once resolution and good-nature.
“Well, how's things? Been up to fix the Legislature?”
“No; Perkins is attending to that,” said Henderson, rather
indifferently, like a man awakened out of a pleasant dream. “Don't seem
to need much fixing. The public are fond of parallels.”
Hollowell laughed. “I guess that's so--till they get 'em.”
“Or don't get them,” Henderson added. And then both laughed.
“It looks as if it would go through this time. Bemis says the C. D.'s
badly scared. They'll have to come down lively.”
“I shouldn't wonder. By-the-way, look in tomorrow. I've got something to
show you.”
Henderson lit his cigar, and they both puffed in silence for some
moments.
“By-the-way, did I ever show you this?” Hollowell took from his
breast-pocket a handsome morocco case, and handed it to his companion.
“I never travel without that. It's better than an accident policy.”
Henderson unfolded the case, and saw seven photographs--a showy-looking
handsome woman in lace and jewels, and six children, handsome like their
mother, the whole group with the photographic look of prosperity.
Henderson looked at it as if it had been a mirror of his own destiny,
and expressed his admiration.
“Yes, it's hard to beat,” Hollowell confessed, with a soft look in his
face. “It's not for sale. Seven figures wouldn't touch it.” He looked at
it lovingly before he put it up, and then added: “Well, there's a figure
for each, Rodney, and a big nest-egg for the old woman besides. There's
nothing like it, old man. You'd better come in.” And he put his hand
affectionately on Henderson's knee.
Jeremiah Hollowell--commonly known as Jerry--was a remarkable man.
Thirty years ago he had come to the city from Maine as a “hand” on
a coast schooner, obtained employment in a railroad yard, then as a
freight conductor, gone West, become a contractor, in which position
a lucky hit set him on the road of the unscrupulous accumulation of
property. He was now a railway magnate, the president of a system, a
manipulator of dexterity and courage. All this would not have come about
if his big head had not been packed with common-sense brains, and he had
not had uncommon will and force of character. Success had developed the
best side of him, the family side; and the worst side of him--a brutal
determination to increase his big fortune. He was not hampered by any
scruples in business, but he had the good-sense to deal squarely with
his friends when he had distinctly agreed to do so.
Henderson did not respond to the matrimonial suggestion; it was not
possible for him to vulgarize his own affair by hinting it to such a
man as Hollowell; but they soon fell into serious talk about schemes in
which they were both interested. This talk so absorbed Henderson that
after they had reached the city he had walked some blocks towards his
lodging before he recalled his promise about the message. On his
table he found a note from Carmen bidding him to dinner informally--an
invitation which he had no difficulty in declining on account of a
previous engagement. And then he went to his club, and passed a cheerful
evening. Why not? There was nothing melancholy about the young fellows
in the smoking-room, who liked a good story and the latest gossip, and
were attracted to the society of Henderson, who was open-handed and full
of animal spirits, and above all had a reputation for success, and for
being on the inside of affairs. There is nowhere else so much wisdom and
such understanding of life as in a city club of young fellows, who have
their experience still, for the most part, before them. Henderson was
that night in great “force”--as the phrase is. His companions thought he
had made a lucky turn, and he did not tell them that he had won the love
of the finest girl in the world, who was at that moment thinking of him
as fondly as he was thinking of her--but this was the subconsciousness
of his gayety. Late at night he wrote her a long letter--an honest
letter of love and admiration, which warmed into the tenderness of
devotion as it went on; a letter that she never parted with all her life
long; but he left a description of the loneliness of his evening without
her to her imagination.
It was for Margaret also a happy evening, but not a calm one, and not
gay. She was swept away by a flood of emotions. She wanted to be alone,
to think it over, every item of the short visit, every look, every tone.
Was it all true? The great change made her tremble: of the future she
dared scarcely think. She was restless, but not restless as before; she
could not be calm in such a great happiness. And then the wonder of it,
that he should choose her of all others--he who knew the world so well,
and must have known so many women. She followed him on his journey,
thinking what he was doing now, and now, and now. She would have given
the world to see him just for a moment, to look in his eyes and be sure
again, to have him say that little word once more: there was a kind of
pain in her heart, the separation was so cruel; it had been over
two hours now. More than once in the evening she ran down to the
sitting-room, where her aunt was pretending to be absorbed in a book, to
kiss her, to pet her, to smooth her grayish hair and pat her cheek, and
get her to talk about her girlhood days. She was so happy that tears
were in her eyes half the time. At nine o'clock there was a pull at the
bell that threatened to drag the wire out, and an insignificant little
urchin appeared with a telegram, which frightened Miss Forsythe, and
seemed to Margaret to drop out of heaven. Such an absurd thing to do
at night, said the aunt, and then she kissed Margaret, and laughed a
little, and declared that things had come to a queer pass when people
made love by telegraph. There wasn't any love in the telegram, Margaret
said; but she knew better--the sending word of his arrival was a
marvelous exhibition of thoughtfulness and constancy.
And then she led her aunt on to talk of Mr. Henderson, to give her
impression, how he looked, what she really thought of him, and so on,
and so on.
There was not much to say, but it could be said over and over again in
various ways. It was the one night of the world, and her overwrought
feeling sought relief. It would not be so again. She would be more
reticent and more coquettish about her lover, but now it was all so new
and strange.
That night when the girl went to sleep the telegram was under her
pillow, and it seemed to throb with a thousand messages, as if it felt
the pulsation of the current that sent it.
The prospective marriage of the budding millionaire Rodney Henderson
was a society paper item in less than a week--the modern method of
publishing the banns. This was accompanied by a patronizing reference to
the pretty school-ma'am, who was complimented upon her good-fortune in
phrases so neatly turned as to give Henderson the greatest offense, and
leave him no remedy, since nothing could have better suited the journal
than further notoriety. He could not remember that he had spoken of
it to any one except the Eschelles, to whom his relations made the
communication a necessity, and he suspected Carmen, without, however,
guessing that she was a habitual purveyor of the town gossiper.
“It is a shameful impertinence,” she burst out, introducing the subject
herself, when he called to see her. “I would horsewhip the editor.” Her
indignation was so genuine, and she took his side with such warm good
comradeship, that his suspicions vanished for a moment.
“What good?” he answered, cooling down at the sight of her rage. “It is
true, we are to be married, and she has taught school. I can't drag her
name into a row about it. Perhaps she never will see it.”
“Oh dear! dear me! what have I done?” the girl cried, with an accent of
contrition. “I never thought of that. I was so angry that I cut it
out and put it in the letter that was to contain nothing but
congratulations, and told her how perfectly outrageous I thought it. How
stupid!” and there was a world of trouble in her big dark eyes, while
she looked up penitently, as if to ask his forgiveness for a great
crime.
“Well, it cannot be helped,” Henderson said, with a little touch of
sympathy for Carmen's grief. “Those who know her will think it simply
malicious, and the others will not think of it a second time.”
“But I cannot forgive myself for my stupidity. I'm not sure but I'd
rather you'd think me wicked than stupid,” she continued, with the smile
in her eyes that most men found attractive. “I confess--is that very
bad?--that I feel it more for you than for her. But” ( she thought she
saw a shade in his face) “I warn you, if you are not very nice, I shall
transfer my affections to her.”
The girl was in her best mood, with the manner of a confiding, intimate
friend. She talked about Margaret, but not too much, and a good deal
more about Henderson and his future, not laying too great stress upon
the marriage, as if it were, in fact, only an incident in his career,
contriving always to make herself appear as a friend, who hadn't many
illusions or much romance, to be sure, but who could always be relied on
in any mood or any perplexity, and wouldn't be frightened or very severe
at any confidences. She posed as a woman who could make allowances, and
whose friendship would be no check or hinderance. This was conveyed in
manner as much as in words, and put Henderson quite at his ease. He was
not above the weakness of liking the comradeship of a woman of whom he
was not afraid, a woman to whom he could say anything, a woman who could
make allowances. Perhaps he was hardly conscious of this. He knew Carmen
better than she thought he knew her, and he couldn't approve of her as a
wife; and yet the fact was that she never gave him any moral worries.
“Yes,” she said, when the talk drifted that way, “the chrysalis earl
has gone. I think that mamma is quite inconsolable. She says she doesn't
understand girls, or men, or anything, these days.”
“Do you?” asked Henderson, lightly.
“I? No. I'm an agnostic--except in religion. Have you got it into your
head, my friend, that I ever fancied Mr. Lyon?”
“Not for himself--” began Henderson, mischievously.
“That will do.” She stopped him. “Or that he ever had any intention--”
“I don't see how he could resist such--”
“Stuff! See here, Mr. Rodney!” The girl sprang up, seized a plaque from
the table, held it aloft in one hand, took half a dozen fascinating,
languid steps, advancing and retreating with the grace of a Nautch girl,
holding her dress with the other hand so as to allow a free movement.
“Do you think I'd ever do that for John the Lyon's head on a charger?”
Then her mood changed to the domestic, as she threw herself into an
easy-chair and said: “After all, I'm rather sorry he has gone. He was a
man you could trust; that is, if you wanted to trust anybody--I wish I
had been made good.”
When Henderson bade her good-night it was with the renewed impression
that she was a very diverting comrade.
“I'm sort of sorry for you,” she said, and her eyes were not so serious
as to offend, as she gave him her hand, “for when you are married, you
know, as the saying is, you'll want some place to spend your evenings.”
The audacity of the remark was quite obscured in the innocent frankness
and sweetness of her manner.
What Henderson had to show Hollowell in his office had been of a nature
greatly to interest that able financier. It was a project that would
have excited the sympathy of Carmen, but Henderson did not speak of
it to her--though he had found that she was a safe deposit of daring
schemes in general--on account of a feeling of loyalty to Margaret, to
whom he had never mentioned it in any of his daily letters. The scheme
made a great deal of noise, later on, when it came to the light of
consummation in legislatures and in courts, both civil and criminal; but
its magnitude and success added greatly to Henderson's reputation as
a bold and fortunate operator, and gave him that consideration which
always attaches to those who command millions of money, and have the
nerve to go undaunted through the most trying crises. I am anticipating
by saying that it absolutely ruined thousands of innocent people, caused
widespread strikes and practical business paralysis over a large region;
but those things were regarded as only incidental to a certain sort of
development, and did not impair the business standing, and rather helped
the social position, of the two or three men who counted their gains by
millions in the operation. It furnished occupation and gave good fees to
a multitude of lawyers, and was dignified by the anxious consultation of
many learned judges. A moralist, if he were poor and pessimistic,
might have put the case in a line, and taken that line from the Mosaic
decalogue (which was not intended for this new dispensation); but it was
involved in such a cloud of legal technicalities, and took on such an
aspect of enterprise and development of resources, and what not,
that the general public mind was completely befogged about it. I am
charitable enough to suppose that if the scheme had failed, the public
conscience is so tender that there would have been a question of
Henderson's honesty. But it did not fail.
Of this scheme, however, we knew nothing at the time in Brandon.
Henderson was never in better spirits, never more agreeable, and it did
not need inquiry to convince one that he was never so prosperous. He was
often with us, in flying visits, and I can well remember that his coming
and the expectation of it gave a kind of elation to the summer--that and
Margaret's supreme and sunny happiness. Even my wife admitted that it
was on both sides a love-match, and could urge nothing against it
except the woman's instinct that made her shrink from the point of ever
thinking of him as a husband for herself, which seemed to me a perfectly
reasonable feeling under all the circumstances.
The summer--or what we call summer in the North, which is usually
a preparation for warm weather, ending in a preparation for cold
weather--seemed to me very short--but I have noticed that each summer is
a little shorter than the preceding one. If Henderson had wanted to gain
the confidence of my wife he could not have done so more effectually
than he did in making us the confidants of a little plan he had in the
city, which was a profound secret to the party most concerned. This was
the purchase and furnishing of a house, and we made many clandestine
visits with him to town in the early autumn in furtherance of his plan.
He was intent on a little surprise, and when I once hinted to him that
women liked to have a hand in making the home they were to occupy, he
said he thought that my wife knew Margaret's taste--and besides, he
added, with a smile, “it will be only temporary; I should like her, if
she chooses, to build and furnish a house to suit herself.” In any one
else this would have seemed like assumption, but with Henderson it was
only the simple belief in his career.
We were still more surprised when we came to see the temporary home that
Henderson had selected, the place where the bride was to alight,
and look about her for such a home as would suit her growing idea of
expanding fortune and position. It was one of the old-fashioned
mansions on Washington Square, built at a time when people attached more
importance to room and comfort than to outside display--a house that
seemed to have traditions of hospitality and of serene family life. It
was being thoroughly renovated and furnished, with as little help from
the decorative artist and the splendid upholsterer as consisted with
some regard to public opinion; in fact the expenditure showed in solid
dignity and luxurious ease, and not in the construction of a museum in
which one could only move about with the constant fear of destroying
something. My wife was given almost carte blanche in the indulgence of
her taste, and she confessed her delight in being able for once to deal
with a house without the feeling that she was ruining me. Only in the
suite designed for Margaret did Henderson seriously interfere, and
insist upon a luxury that almost took my wife's breath away. She opposed
it on moral grounds. She said that no true woman could stand such
pampering of her senses without destruction of her moral fibre. But
Henderson had his way, as he always had it. What pleased her most in
the house was the conservatory, opening out from the drawing-room--a
spacious place with a fountain and cool vines and flowering plants, not
a tropical hothouse in a stifling atmosphere, in which nothing could
live except orchids and flowers born near the equator, but a garden with
a temperature adapted to human lungs, where one could sit and enjoy the
sunshine, and the odor of flowers, and the clear and not too incessant
notes of Mexican birds. But when it was all done, undoubtedly the most
agreeable room in the house was that to which least thought had been
given, the room to which any odds and ends could be sent, the room
to which everybody gravitated when rest and simple enjoyment without
restraint were the object Henderson's own library, with its big open
fire, and the books and belongings of his bachelor days. Man is usually
not credited with much taste or ability to take care of himself in the
matter of comfortable living, but it is frequently noticed that when
woman has made a dainty paradise of every other portion of the house,
the room she most enjoys, that from which it is difficult to keep out
the family, is the one that the man is permitted to call his own, in
which he retains some of the comforts and can indulge some of the habits
of his bachelor days. There is an important truth in this fact with
regard to the sexes, but I do not know what it is.
They were married in October, and went at once to their own house. I
suppose all other days were but a preparation for this golden autumn day
on which we went to church and returned to the wedding-breakfast. I am
sure everybody was happy. Miss Forsythe was so happy that tears were
in her eyes half the time, and she bustled about with an affectation of
cheerfulness that was almost contagious. Poor, dear, gentle lady! I can
imagine the sensations of a peach-tree, in an orchard of trees which
bud and bloom and by-and-by are weighty with yellow fruit, year after
year--a peach-tree that blooms, also, but never comes to fruition, only
wastes its delicate sweetness on the air, and finally blooms less and
less, but feels nevertheless in each returning spring the stir of the
sap and the longing for that fuller life, while all the orchard bursts
into flower, and the bees swarm about the pink promises, and the fruit
sets and slowly matures to lusciousness in the sun of July. I fancy the
wedding, which robbed us all, was hardest for her, for it was in one
sense a finality of her life. Whereas if Margaret had regrets--and deep
sorrow she had in wrenching herself from the little neighborhood, though
she never could have guessed the vacancy she caused by the withdrawal
of her loved presence--her own life was only just beginning, and she was
sustained by the longing which every human soul has for a new career, by
the curiosity and imagination which the traveler feels when he departs
for a land which he desires, and yet dreads to see lest his illusions
should vanish. Margaret was about to take that journey in the world
which Miss Forsythe had dreamed of in her youth, but had never set out
on. There are some who say that those are happiest who keep at home and
content themselves with reading about the lands of the imagination.
But happily the world does not believe this, and indeed would be very
unhappy if it could not try and prove all the possibilities of human
nature, to suffer as well as to enjoy.
I do not know how we fell into the feeling that this marriage was
somehow exceptional and important, since marriages take place every day,
and are so common and ordinarily so commonplace, when the first flutter
is over. Even Morgan said, in his wife's presence, that he thought there
had been weddings enough; at least he would interdict those that upset
things like this one. For one thing, it brought about the house-keeping
union of Mrs. Fletcher and Miss Forsythe in the tatter's cottage--a
sort of closing up of the ranks that happens on the field during a fatal
engagement. As we go on, it becomes more and more difficult to fill up
the gaps.
We were very unwilling to feel that Margaret had gone out of our life.
“But you cannot,” Morgan used to say, “be friends with the rich, and
that is what makes the position of the very rich so pitiful, for the
rich get so tired of each other.”
“But Margaret,” my wife urged, “will never be of that sort: money will
not change either her habits or her affections.”
“Perhaps. You can never trust to inherited poverty. I have no doubt that
she will resist the world, if anybody can, but my advice is that if you
want to keep along with Margaret, you'd better urge your husband to make
money. Experience seems to teach that while they cannot come to us, we
may sometimes go to them.”
My wife and Mrs. Fletcher were both indignant at this banter, and
accused Morgan of want of faith, and even lack of affection for
Margaret; in short, of worldly-mindedness himself.
“Perhaps I am rather shop-worn,” he confessed. “It's not distrust of
Margaret's intentions, but knowledge of the strength of the current on
which she has embarked. Henderson will not stop in his career short of
some overwhelming disaster or of death.”
“I thought you liked him? At any rate, Margaret will make a good use of
his money.”
“It isn't a question, my dear Mrs. Fairchild, of the use of money, but
of the use money makes of you. Yes, I do like Henderson, but I can't
give up my philosophy of life for the sake of one good fellow.”
“Philosophy of fudge!” exclaimed my wife. And there really was no answer
to this.
After six weeks had passed, my wife paid a visit to Margaret. Nothing
could exceed the affectionate cordiality of her welcome. Margaret was
overjoyed to see her, to show the house, to have her know her husband
better, to take her into her new life. She was hardly yet over the naive
surprises of her lovely surroundings. Or if it is too mach to say that
her surprise had lasted six weeks--for it is marvelous how soon women
adapt themselves to new conditions if they are agreeable--she was in
a glow of wonder at her husband's goodness, at his love, which had
procured all this happiness for her.
“You have no idea,” she said, “how thoughtful he is about
everything--and he makes so little of it all. I am to thank you, he
tells me always, for whatever pleases my taste in the house, and indeed
I think I should have known you had been here if he had not told me.
There are so many little touches that remind me of home. I am glad of
that, for it is the more likely to make you feel that it is your home
also.”
She clung to this idea in the whirl of the new life. In the first days
she dwelt much on this theme; indeed it was hardly second in her talk
to her worship--I can call it nothing less--of her husband. She liked
to talk of Brandon and the dear life there and the dearer friends--this
much talk about it showed that it was another life, already of the past,
and beginning to be distant in the mind. My wife had a feeling that
Margaret, thus early, was conscious of a drift, of a widening space, and
was making an effort to pull the two parts of her life together, that
there should be no break, as one carried away to sea by a resistless
tide grasps the straining rope that still maintains his slender
connection with the shore.
But it was all so different: the luxurious house, the carriage at
call, the box at the opera, the social duties inevitable with her own
acquaintances and the friends of her husband. She spoke of this in
moments of confidence, and when she was tired, with a consciousness that
it was a different life, but in no tone of regret, and I fancy that the
French blood in her veins, which had so long run decorously in Puritan
channels, leaped at its return into new gayety. Years ago Margaret had
thought that she might some time be a missionary, at least that she
should like to devote her life to useful labors among the poor and the
unfortunate. If conscience ever reminded her of this, conscience was
quieted by the suggestion that now she was in a position to be more
liberal than she ever expected to be; that is, to give everything except
the essential thing--herself. Henderson liked a gay house, brightness,
dinners, entertainment, and that his wife should be seen and admired.
Proof of his love she found in all this, and she entered into it
with spirit, and an enjoyment increased by the thought that she was
lightening the burden of his business, which she could see pressed
more and more. Not that Henderson made any account of his growing
occupations, or that any preoccupation was visible except to the eye
of love, which is quick to see all moods. These were indeed happy
days, full of the brightness of an expanding prosperity and unlimited
possibilities of the enjoyment of life. It was in obedience to
her natural instinct, and not yet a feeling of compensation and
propitiation, that enlisted Margaret in the city charities, connection
with which was a fashionable self-entertainment with some, and a means
of social promotion with others. My wife came home a little weary with
so much of the world, but, on the whole, impressed with Margaret's
good-fortune. Henderson in his own house was the soul of consideration
and hospitality, and Margaret was blooming in the beauty that shines in
satisfied desire.