Shall we never have done with this carping at people who succeed? Are
those who start and don't arrive any better than those who do arrive?
Did not men always make all the money they had an opportunity to make?
Must we always have the old slow-coach merchants and planters thrown up
to us? Talk of George Washington and the men of this day! Were things
any better because they were on a small scale? Wasn't the thrifty George
Washington always adding to his plantations, and squeezing all he could
out of his land and his slaves? What are the negro traditions about
it? Were they all patriots in the Revolutionary War? Were there no
contractors who amassed fortunes then? And how was it in the late war?
The public has a great spasm of virtue all of a sudden. But we have got
past the day of stage-coaches.
Something like this Henderson was flinging out to Carmen as he paced
back and forth in her parlor. It was very unlike him, this outburst,
and Carmen knew that he would indulge in it to no one else, not even
to Uncle Jerry. She was coiled up in a corner of the sofa, her eyes
sparkling with admiration of his indignation and force. I confess that
he had been irritated by the comments of the newspapers, and by the
prodding of the lawyers in the suit then on trial over the Southwestern
consolidation.
“Why, there was old Mansfield saying in his argument that he had had
some little experience in life, but he never had known a man to get rich
rapidly, barring some piece of luck, except by means that it would make
him writhe to have made public. I don't know but that Uncle Jerry was
right, that we made a mistake in not retaining him for the corporation.”
“Not if you win,” said Carmen, softly. “The public won't care for the
remark unless you fail.”
“And he tried to prejudice the Court by quoting the remark attributed to
Uncle Jerry, 'The public be d----d' as if, said Mansfield, the public has
no rights as--against the railroad wreckers. Uncle Jerry laughed, and
interrupted: 'That's nonsense, reporters' nonsense. What I said was that
if the public thought I was fool enough to make it our enemy, the public
might be d---d (begging your honor's pardon).' Then everybody laughed.
'It's the bond holders, who want big dividends, that stand in the way of
the development of the country, that's what it is,' said he, as he sat
down, to those around him, but loud enough to be heard all over
the room. Mansfield asked the protection of the Court against these
clap-trap interruptions. The judge said it was altogether irregular,
and Uncle Jerry begged pardon. The reporters made this incident the one
prominent thing in the case that day.”
“What a delightful Uncle Jerry it is!” said Carmen. “You'd better keep
an eye on him, Rodney; he'll be giving your money to that theological
seminary in Alabama.”
“That reminds me,” Henderson said, cooling down, “of a paragraph in
The Planet, the other day, about the amount of my gifts unknown to the
public. I showed it to Uncle Jerry, and he said, 'Yes, I mentioned it to
the editor; such things don't do any harm.'”
“I saw it, and wondered who started it,” Carmen replied, wrinkling her
brows as if she had been a good deal perplexed about it.
“I thought,” said Henderson, with a smile, “that it ought to be
explained to you.”
“No,” she said, reflectively; “you are liberal enough, goodness
knows--too liberal--but you are not a flat.”
Henderson was in the habit of dropping in at the Eschelles'
occasionally, when he wanted to talk freely. He had no need to wear a
mask with Carmen. Her moral sense was tolerant and elastic, and feminine
sympathy of this sort is a grateful cushion. She admired Henderson,
without thinking any too well of the world in general, and she admired
him for the qualities that were most conformable to his inclination. It
was no case of hero-worship, to be sure, nor for tragedy; but then what
a satisfaction it must be to sweet Lady Macbeth, coiled up on her sofa,
to feel that the thane of Cawdor has some nerve!
The Hendersons had come back to Washington Square late in the autumn. It
is a merciful provision that one has an orderly and well-appointed home
to return to from the fatigues of the country. Margaret, at any rate,
was a little tired with the multiform excitements of her summer, and
experienced a feeling of relief when she crossed her own threshold and
entered into the freedom and quiet of her home. She was able to shut
the door there even against the solicitations of nature and against
the weariness of it also. How quiet it was in the square in those late
autumn days, and yet not lifeless by any means! Indeed, it seemed all
the more a haven because the roar of the great city environed it, and
one could feel, without being disturbed by, the active pulsation of
human life. And then, if one has sentiment, is there anywhere that it is
more ministered to than in the city at the close of the year? The trees
in the little park grow red and yellow and brown, the leaves fall and
swirl and drift in windrows by the paths, the flower-beds flame forth in
the last dying splendor of their color; the children, chasing each
other with hoop and ball about the walks, are more subdued than in the
spring-time; the old men, seeking now the benches where the sunshine
falls, sit in dreamy reminiscence of the days that are gone; the
wandering minstrel of Italy turns the crank of his wailing machine, O!
bella, bella, as in the spring, but the notes seem to come from far off
and to be full of memory rather than of promise; and at early morning,
or when the shadows lengthen at evening, the south wind that stirs the
trees has a salt smell, and sends a premonitory shiver of change to the
fading foliage. But how bright are the squares and the streets, for all
this note of melancholy! Life is to begin again.
But the social season opened languidly. It takes some time to recover
from the invigoration of the summer gayety--to pick up again the threads
and weave them into that brilliant pattern, which scarcely shows all its
loveliness of combination and color before the weavers begin to work in
the subdued tints of Lent. How delightful it is to see this knitting and
unraveling of the social fabric year after year! and how untiring are
the senders of the shuttles, the dyers, the hatchelers, the spinners,
the ever-busy makers and destroyers of the intricate web we call
society! After one campaign, must there not be time given to organize
for another? Who has fallen out, who are the new recruits, who are
engaged, who will marry, who have separated, who has lost his money?
Before we can safely reorganize we must not only examine the hearts
but the stock-list. No matter how many brilliant alliances have been
arranged, no matter how many husbands and wives have drifted apart in
the local whirlpools of the summer's current, the season will be dull
if Wall Street is torpid and discouraged. We cannot any of us, you see,
live to ourselves alone. Does not the preacher say that? And do we not
all look about us in the pews, when he thus moralizes, to see who has
prospered? The B's have taken a back seat, the C's have moved up nearer
the pulpit. There is a reason for these things, my friends.
I am sorry to say that Margaret was usually obliged to go alone to the
little church where she said her prayers; for however restful her life
might have been while that season was getting under way, Henderson was
involved in the most serious struggle of his life--a shameful kind of
conspiracy, Margaret told Carmen, against him. I have hinted at his
annoyance in the courts. Ever since September he had been pestered with
injunctions, threatened with attachments. And now December had come and
Congress was in session; in the very first days an investigation
had been ordered into the land grants involved in the Southwestern
operations. Uncle Jerry was in Washington to explain matters there,
and Henderson, with the ablest counsel in the city, was fighting in the
courts. The affair made a tremendous stir. Some of the bondholders of
the A. and B. happened to be men of prominence, and able to make a noise
about their injury. As several millions were involved in this one branch
of the case--the suit of the bondholders--the newspapers treated it
with the consideration and dignity it deserved. It was a vast financial
operation, some said, scathingly, a “deal,” but the magnitude of it
prevented it from falling into the reports of petty swindling that
appear in the police-court column. It was a public affair, and not to
be judged by one's private standard. I know that there were remarks made
about Henderson that would have pained Margaret if she had heard them,
but I never heard that he lost standing in the street. Still, in justice
to the street it must be said that it charitably waits for things to be
proven, and that if Henderson had failed, he might have had little more
lenient judgment in the street than elsewhere.
In fact, those were very trying days for him-days when he needed all the
private sympathy he could get, and to be shielded, in his great fight
with the conspiracy, from petty private annoyances. It needed all his
courage and good-temper and bonhomie to carry him through. That he went
through was evidence not only of his adroitness and ability, but it was
proof also that he was a good fellow. If there were people who thought
otherwise, I never heard that they turned their backs on him, or failed
in that civility which he never laid aside in his intercourse with
others.
If a man present a smiling front to the world under extreme trial, is
not that all that can be expected of him? Shall he not be excused for
showing a little irritation at home when things go badly? Henderson
was as good-humored a man as I ever knew, and he loved Margaret, he was
proud of her, he trusted her. Since when did the truest love prevent a
man from being petulant, even to the extent of wounding those he best
loves, especially if the loved one shows scruples when sympathy is
needed? The reader knows that the present writer has no great confidence
in the principle of Carmen; but if she had been married, and her husband
had wrecked an insurance company and appropriated all the surplus
belonging to the policy-holders, I don't believe she would have nagged
him about it.
And yet Margaret loved Henderson with her whole soul. And in this stage
of her progress in the world she showed that she did, though not in the
way Carmen would have showed her love, if she had loved, and if she had
a soul capable of love.
It may have been inferred from Henderson's exhibition of temper that his
case had gone against him. It is true; an injunction had been granted in
the lower court, and public opinion went with the decree, and was in
a great measure satisfied by it. But this fight had really only just
begun; it would go on in the higher courts, with new resources and
infinite devices, which the public would be unable to fathom or follow,
until by-and-by it would come out that a compromise had been made,
and the easy public would not understand that this compromise gave the
looters of the railway substantially all they ever expected to get. The
morning after the granting of the injunction Henderson had been silent
and very much absorbed at breakfast, hardly polite, Margaret thought,
and so inattentive to her remarks that she asked him twice whether they
should accept the Brandon invitation to Christmas. “Christmas! I don't
know. I've got other things to think of than Christmas,” he said,
scarcely looking at her, and rising abruptly and going away to his
library.
When the postman brought Margaret's mail there was a letter in it from
her aunt, which she opened leisurely after the other notes had been
glanced through, on the principle that a family letter can wait, or
from the fancy that some have of keeping the letter likely to be most
interesting till the last. But almost the first line enchained her
attention, and as she read, her heart beat faster, and her face became
scarlet. It was very short, and I am able to print it, because all
Margaret's correspondence ultimately came into possession of her aunt:
“BRANDON, December 17th.
“DEAREST MARGARET,--You do not say whether you will come for
Christmas, but we infer from your silence that you will. You know
how pained we shall all be if you do not. Yet I fear the day will
not be as pleasant as we could wish. In fact, we are in a good deal
of trouble. You know, dear, that poor Mrs. Fletcher had nearly
every dollar of her little fortune invested in the A. and B. bonds,
and for ten months she has not had a cent of income, and no prospect
of any. Indeed, Morgan says that she will be lucky if she
ultimately saves half her principal. We try to cheer her up, but
she is so cast down and mortified to have to live, as she says, on
charity. And it does make rather close house-keeping, though I'm
sure I couldn't live alone without her. It does not make so much
difference with Mr. Fairchild and Mr. Morgan, for they have plenty
of other resources. Mr. Fairchild tells her that she is in very
good company, for lots of the bonds are held in Brandon, and she is
not the only widow who suffers; but this is poor consolation. We
had great hopes, the other day, of the trial, but Morgan says it may
be years before any final settlement. I don't believe Mr. Henderson
knows. But there, dearest, I won't find fault. We are all well,
and eager to see you. Do come.
“Your affectionate aunt,
“GEORGIAN A.”
Margaret's hand that held the letter trembled, and the eyes that read
these words were hot with indignation; but she controlled herself into
an appearance of calmness as she marched away with it straight to the
library.
As she entered, Henderson was seated at his desk, with bowed head and
perplexed brows, sorting a pile of papers before him, and making notes.
He did not look up until she came close to him and stood at the end of
his desk. Then, turning his eyes for a moment, and putting out his left
hand to her, he said, “Well, what is it, dear?”
“Will you read that?” said Margaret, in a voice that sounded strange in
her own ears.
“What?”
“A letter from Aunt Forsythe.”
“Family matter. Can't it wait?” said Henderson, going on with his
figuring.
“If it can, I cannot,” Margaret answered, in a tone that caused him to
turn abruptly and look at her. He was so impatient and occupied that
even yet he did not comprehend the new expression in her face.
“Don't you see I am busy, child? I have an engagement in twenty minutes
in my office.”
“You can read it in a moment,” said Margaret, still calm.
Henderson took the letter with a gesture of extreme annoyance, ran his
eye through it, flung it from him on the table, and turned squarely
round in his chair.
“Well, what of it?”
“To ruin poor Mrs. Fletcher and a hundred like her!” cried Margaret,
with rising indignation.
“What have I to do with it? Did I make their investments? Do you think I
have time to attend to every poor duck? Why don't people look where they
put their money?”
“It's a shame, a burning shame!” she cried, regarding him steadily.
“Oh, yes; no doubt. I lost a hundred thousand yesterday; did I whine
about it? If I want to buy anything in the market, have I got to look
into every tuppenny interest concerned in it? If Mrs. Fletcher or
anybody else has any complaint against me, the courts are open. I defy
the whole pack!” Henderson thundered out, rising and buttoning his
coat--“the whole pack!”
“And you have nothing else to say, Rodney?” Margaret persisted, not
quailing in the least before his indignation. He had never seen her so
before, and he was now too much in a passion to fully heed her.
“Oh, women, women!” he said, taking up his hat, “you have sympathy
enough for anybody but your husbands.” He pushed past her, and was gone
without another word or look.
Margaret turned to follow him. She would have cried “Stop!” but the word
stuck in her throat. She was half beside herself with rage for a
moment. But he had gone. She heard the outer door close. Shame and grief
overcame her. She sat down in the chair he had just occupied. It was
infamous the way Mrs. Fletcher was treated. And her husband--her husband
was so regardless of it. If he was not to blame for it, why didn't he
tell her--why didn't he explain? And he had gone away without looking at
her. He had left her for the first time since they were married without
kissing her! She put her head down on the desk and sobbed; it seemed as
if her heart would break. Perhaps he was angry, and wouldn't come back,
not for ever so long.
How cruel to say that she did not sympathize with her husband! How could
he be angry with her for her natural anxiety about her old friend! He
was unjust. There must be something wrong in these schemes, these great
operations that made so many confiding people suffer. Was everybody
grasping and selfish? She got up and walked about the dear room, which
recalled to her only the sweetest memories; she wandered aimlessly about
the lower part of the house. She was wretchedly unhappy. Was her husband
capable of such conduct? Would he cease to love her for what she had
done--for what she must do? How lovely this home was! Everything spoke
of his care, his tenderness, his quickness to anticipate her slightest
wish or whim. It had been all created for her. She looked listlessly
at the pictures, the painted ceiling, where the loves garlanded with
flowers chased each other; she lifted and let drop wearily the rich
hangings. He had said that it was all hers. How pretty was this vista
through the luxurious rooms down to the green and sunny conservatory.
And she shrank instinctively from it all. Was it hers? No; it was his.
And was she only a part of it? Was she his? How cold his look as he went
away!
What is this love, this divine passion, of which we hear so much? Is it,
then, such a discerner of right and wrong? Is it better than anything
else? Does it take the place of duty, of conscience? And yet what an
unbearable desert, what a den of wild beasts it would be, this world,
without love, the passionate, all-surrendering love of the man and the
woman!
In the chambers, in her own apartments, into which she dragged her
steps, it was worse than below. Everything here was personal. Mrs.
Fairchild had said that it was too rich, too luxurious; but her husband
would have it so. Nothing was too costly, too good, for the woman he
loved. How happy she had been in this boudoir, this room, her very own,
with her books, the souvenirs of all her happy life!
It seemed alien now, external, unsympathetic. Here, least of all places,
could she escape from herself, from her hateful thoughts. It was a
chilly day, and a bright fire crackled on the hearth. The square was
almost deserted, though the sun illuminated it, and showed all the
delicate tracery of the branches and twigs. It was a December sun. Her
easy-chair was drawn to the fire and her book-stand by it, with the
novel turned down that she had been reading the night before. She sat
down and took up the book. She had lost her interest in the characters.
Fiction! What stuff it was compared to the reality of her own life! No,
it was impossible. She must do something. She went to her dressing-room
and selected a street dress. She took pleasure in putting on the
plainest costume she could find, rejecting every ornament, everything
but the necessary and the simple. She wanted to get back to herself. Her
maid appeared in response to the bell.
“I am going out, Marie.”
“Will madame have the carriage?”
“No, I will walk; I need exercise. Tell Jackson not to serve lunch.”
Yes, she would walk; for it was his carriage, after all.
It was after mid-day. In the keen air and the bright sunshine the
streets were brilliant. Margaret walked on up the avenue. How gay
was the city, what a zest of life in the animated scene! The throng
increased as she approached Twenty-third Street. In the place where
three or four currents meet there was the usual jam of carriages,
furniture wagons, carts, cars, and hurried, timid, half-bewildered
passengers trying to make their way through it. It was all such a
whirl and confusion. A policeman aided Margaret to gain the side of the
square. Children were playing there; white-capped maids were pushing
about baby-carriages; the sparrows chattered and fought with as much
vivacity as if they were natives of the city instead of foreigners in
possession. It seemed all so empty and unreal. What was she, one woman
with an aching heart, in the midst of it all? What had she done? How
could she have acted otherwise? Was he still angry with her? The city
was so vast and cruel. On the avenue again there was the same unceasing
roar of carts and carriages; business, pleasure, fashion, idleness, the
stream always went by. From one and another carriage Margaret received a
bow, a cool nod, or a smile of greeting. Perhaps the occupants wondered
to see her on foot and alone. What did it matter? How heartless it all
was! what an empty pageant! If he was alienated, there was nothing. And
yet she was right. For a moment she thought of the Arbusers. She thought
of Carmen. She must see somebody. No, she couldn't talk. She couldn't
trust herself. She must bear it alone.
And how weary it was, walking, walking, with such a burden! House after
house, street after street, closed doors, repellant fronts, staring at
her. Suppose she were poor and hungry, a woman wandering forlorn, how
stony and pitiless these insolent mansions! And was she not burdened and
friendless and forlorn! Tired, she reached at last, and with no purpose,
the great white cathedral. The door was open. In all this street of
churches and palaces there was no other door open. Perhaps here for a
moment she could find shelter from the world, a quiet corner where she
could rest and think and pray.
She entered. It was almost empty, but down the vista of the great
columns hospitable lights gleamed, and here and there a man or a
woman--more women than men--was kneeling in the great aisle, before a
picture, at the side of a confessional, at the steps of the altar. How
hushed and calm and sweet it was! She crept into a pew in a side aisle
in the shelter of a pillar; and sat down. Presently, in the far apse,
an organ began to play, its notes stealing softly out through the great
spaces like a benediction. She fancied that the saints, the glorified
martyrs in the painted windows illumined by the sunlight, could feel,
could hear, were touched by human sympathy in their beatitude. There was
peace here at any rate, and perhaps strength. What a dizzy whirl it
all was in which she had been borne along! The tones of the organ
rose fuller and fuller, and now at the side entrances came pouring in
children, the boys on one side, the girls on another-school children
with their books and satchels, the poor children of the parish, long
lines of girls and of boys, marshaled by priests and nuns, streaming
in--in frolicsome mood, and filling all the pews of the nave at the
front. They had their books out, their singing-books; at a signal they
all stood up; a young priest with his baton stepped into the centre
aisle; he waved his stick, Margaret heard his sweet tenor voice, and
then the whole chorus of children's voices rising and filling all the
house with the innocent concord, but always above all the penetrating,
soaring notes of the priest-strong, clear, persuading. Was it not almost
angelic there at the moment? And how inspired the beautiful face of the
singer leading the children!
Ah, me! it is not all of the world worldly, then. I don't know that the
singing was very good: it was not classical, I fear; not a voice, maybe,
that priest's, not a chorus, probably, that, for the Metropolitan. I
hear the organ is played better elsewhere. Song after song, chorus after
chorus, repeated, stopped, begun again: it was only drilling the little
urchins of the parochial schools--little ragamuffins, I dare say, many
of them. What was there in this to touch a woman of fashion, sitting
there crying in her corner? Was it because they were children's voices,
and innocent? Margaret did not care to check her tears. She was thinking
of her old home, of her own childhood, nay, of her girlhood--it was not
so long ago--of her ideals then, of her notion of the world and what it
would bring her, of the dear, affectionate life, the simple life, the
school, the little church, her room in the cottage--the chamber where
first the realization of love came to her with the odors of May. Was
it gone, that life?--gone or going out of her heart? And--great
heavens!--if her husband should be cold to her! Was she very worldly?
Would he love her if she were as unworldly as she once was? Why should
this childish singing raise these contrasts, and put her at odds so with
her own life? For a moment I doubt not this dear girl saw herself as we
were beginning to see her. Who says that the rich and the prosperous and
the successful do not need pity?
Was this a comforting hour, do you think, for Margaret in the cathedral?
Did she get any strength, I wonder? When the singing was over and the
organ ceased, and the children had filed out, she stole away also,
wearily and humbly enough, and took the stage down the avenue. It was
near the dinner-hour, and Henderson, if he came, would be at home any
moment. It seemed as if she could not wait--only to see him!