GEORGE’S NEW DEPARTURE.
“George is growing very restless. I don’t know what ails him,” Bessie
said to me.
“I can guess,” I said, looking wise.
“What is it?”
“Do you remember what an uneasy, good-for-nothing chap one Charlie
Travers was, when he first began to call on a certain young woman with
conspicuous regularity?”
“O Charlie, you don’t think he—”
“No, no! Now don’t explode too suddenly. I wouldn’t have him know that I
suspect anything for the world. We won’t name any names, but I keep my
eyes about me, and I flatter myself I know the symptoms.”
And with these mysterious words, I started for the bank, leaving to
Bessie a new and delightful subject for speculation and air-castle
building.
George did not come home to supper that day, but that was nothing
extraordinary. I was sitting out on the porch, smoking after the meal,
and saw him coming up the street.
“Where have you been?” I asked, as he joined me and took a seat.
“None of your business. In town.”
“Is Miss Van well?” I asked mischievously.
“How should I know?”
“Come, George, you don’t play the part of Innocence over well. Suppose
you try Candor, and tell me where you have been.”
“You mistake my identity. I’m not your baby. You will find the youthful
Charlie entertaining his mother up stairs.”
A long-drawn-out, agonized wail, proceeding from the regions above,
showed how Bessie was being entertained.
“No opening yet?” I ventured to ask, changing the subject.
“Not the slightest prospect. If some of these doctors could only be
inveigled into taking some of their own prescriptions! But no; they are
too wise.”
“The bitterness of your tone would seem to indicate that you have not
enjoyed your visit to the town.”
“The town be hanged, and the country too! Let’s take a walk down the
street. Give me a cigar, confound you! How hot it is!”
We strolled down the street.
“This is a terrible vale of tears, this world,” said I. “The world is
hollow, and my doll is stuffed with sawdust, which accounts for his
howling.”
George was silent. He pulled at his cigar ferociously, smoked it half
up, threw it away, and replaced it by a cigarette.
“When a man throws away the best part of a Reina Victoria he is either
flush or badly in love,” said I to myself. I waited patiently for him to
speak, as I was perfectly willing to receive his confidence, but I
didn’t have the chance. He maintained a loud silence all the way, and we
walked back home as we had gone out.
“Something’s up—something serious,” I informed Bessie that night, “but
George does not confide in me worth a cent, which I think is a little
unbrotherly.”
The following day George was absent from an early hour in the afternoon
till long after all the household were fast asleep at night. I was
awakened at about midnight by a light tapping at the door of our room,
and slipped out of bed without disturbing Bessie or the baby.
“Come up to my den!” whispered George, as I opened the door. “Don’t wake
the others.”
I quietly got into my clothes and crawled noiselessly up to George’s
“den,” devoured by curiosity. The moment I caught sight of his handsome
face I saw that it was all right with him, and that he had nothing but
good news to tell me. We sat down, hoisted our heels to a comfortable
altitude, and George told his story. I let him tell it himself here:—
“I was feeling terribly blue yesterday, when you saw me,” he began, “as
you could see. In the afternoon I went into town, and, according to a
previous arrangement, hired a horse and buggy and called to take her out
riding.”
(Of course “her” was Miss Van.)
“We had agreed to take the old Linwood road, and follow it to the
village, returning through the Maplewood Park and so getting back to the
city at about six. We left the town and passed through the suburbs
rapidly, until we struck into the country, and there I let the horse go
his own pace, which was slow. So much the better. Miss Van Duzen was
never more charming. We had the most agreeable bit of talk, and she drew
me out till I amazed myself. She always does. It’s no use my telling
you, Charlie, but I have been a fool in my love for her ever since the
night she came into this cottage like a stray beam of sunshine on a
cloudy day. My heart went out of my keeping the night she called here
with the old gentleman. I believe it was her freshness, her moral
purity, that acted on my morbid, half _blasé_ spirit, like a tonic, and
brought me on my feet. I’m talking random nonsense, you say, but why
shouldn’t I? I’m drunk with love. Don’t laugh at me. I’ll be all right
by daylight, except a headache. We got to talking about ourselves.
Lovers always do, don’t they? You ought to know. There doesn’t seem to
be much else in the world worth talking about. I told her all about
myself,—my past, with its good and bad points, and my present hopes and
purposes. It all popped out as naturally as possible. I suppose it would
sound like drivel if I were to repeat it. Finally she began to laugh.
“‘It is dangerous to make a woman your confidant,’ she said. ‘How do you
know that I can keep a secret better than any other of my sex?’
“‘I am not afraid on that score,’ said I. ‘This is my confessional. It
is as sacred as any. Am I to receive absolution?’
“She could not fully promise that. She read me a neat little lecture. It
was fascinating to thus receive correction at her hands. I pledged
myself, when it was done, to follow the course laid out for me. Then I
made bold to exchange _rôles_. With some maidenly hesitation, which soon
vanished, she in turn laid before me the inner history of her life. Ah,
my boy, how little there was in it to gloss over! how much to humiliate
the best and noblest of us men! It was a revelation that made me
prostrate myself before her. I was not worthy to hear it.”
George paused, and drummed on the table with his fingers nervously.
“I may as well tell you all,” he resumed. “I had resolved to ask that
girl to marry me when we started on our ride, but after what she said to
me so simply and modestly, I positively could not do it. She expected me
to speak, I know that, for she would not have told me what she did tell
me, otherwise.”
“So you didn’t speak? Oh, stupid, stupid boy!”
“I know it. But my tongue was tied. Perhaps it was all cowardice; I
can’t say. I never was afraid of any one before. I came home utterly
shattered and down-hearted. To-day I gravitated back to her, after a
sleepless night. She received me with the same friendly smile as usual,
but there seemed to be a slight shadow over her spirits. That little,
almost imperceptible change filled me with joy. I jumped to a conclusion
that intoxicated me, and made the plunge at once.
“‘It is another case of the moth and the candle,’ I said to her.
“‘Thank you. So I am a candle? That is a fine figure of speech.’
“‘Seriously speaking, I think we had not finished what we were talking
of yesterday.’
“‘What were we talking of yesterday?’ she had the effrontery to ask.
‘Oh, yes, now I recollect. It was yourself. That subject, I fear, you
will never finish talking of.’
“‘Now that’s a very mean speech, all things considered,’ I whined. ‘Do
you want to strike a man, when he’s way down?’
“‘Don’t play Uriah Heep. I hate ’umble people. But if I have perchance
pierced the thick epidermis of Parisian pride you have so long worn, I’m
glad of it.’
“She likes to abuse me, and I enjoy it quite as well as she. She
continued to scold me and mock me for some time, to disguise her actual
mood. I saw through it, and let her have her way for a while. The meeker
my replies, the greater the exaggerated harshness of her criticisms. At
last I no longer attempted to reply at all. Leaning back in a corner of
the sofa, I watched the play of her animated features and the light of
her dark brown eyes, and felt that she was the one woman in the
universe that suited me, the one woman I could respect and love
passionately at the same time.
“‘You say truly I am a coward. I am aware of that. I admit that I am all
that is detestable. If such a wretch as you describe were to love a
woman, what unhappiness for him! There could be no hope for him. He
would know his own irredeemable unworthiness, and so could only slink
away in shame.’
“‘You are quite right,’ she cried, laughing merrily. ‘That would be the
only course for him to pursue.’
“‘By the way,’ I said, ‘that reminds me that my train goes out in twenty
minutes.’
“I rose, and she also stood up to accompany me to the door. I held out
my hand. It was an unusual demonstration, and perhaps she thought it
meant good-by in earnest. At least, as she put her hand in mine, I
detected a look I had never before seen in the depths of those fine
eyes. With a sudden, unpremeditated, and irresistible movement, I drew
her close to me, folded my arms about her, and kissed her passionately.
“‘Clara!’ I whispered, ‘I love you! I love you! Don’t tell me to go.’
“She gently drew herself out of my reluctant arms, and though her eyes
were misty now, I saw in them that I was to stay.
“That’s all the story I have to tell you, Charlie. I am too happy
to-night to sleep, so I couldn’t let you sleep. I stayed and spent the
evening. Mr. Desmond, bless his dear old heart! cried over Clara, and
gave her an old-fashioned blessing. I walked home on air. Do I look very
badly corned?”
I gave him a rousing hand-shake, and wiped away a stray bit of moisture
from my cheek.
“May I tell Bessie?” were my first words when I found my tongue.
“Why not? There will be no long engagement in this case. The knot shall
be tied as soon as possible.”
The announcement I made to my little wife the following morning was not
entirely unexpected, yet it filled her with delight. Miss Van was the
woman of all others that Bessie wished to have George marry. The
arrangement was, therefore, completely to her satisfaction, and she
beamed upon the happy George with true sisterly affection.
What effect would the news have upon Mrs. Pinkerton? I asked myself. I
had not long to wait for an answer, for it was at the breakfast-table
that George fired the shot.
“Mother,” said the bold youth, “I’m going to be married.”
His mother abruptly stopped stirring her coffee, and her spine visibly
stiffened, but she said nothing.
“The event will occur without delay. Of course it is useless to inform
you who is the—”
“Quite useless,” Mrs. Pinkerton broke in; “my wishes in the matter are
not of the slightest consequence to you.”
“On the contrary. Now, look here; don’t be so infernally quick to
anticipate my wilfulness. I want to conform to your wishes if I can.
_Que faire?_”
“We will talk about it after breakfast.”
Accordingly, there was a serious passage-at-arms in the library after
breakfast. George left the house a conqueror, but the conquered had no
sort of intention of abandoning the campaign after a Bull Run defeat. In
fact, war had only just been declared. It must not be supposed that it
was a war the movements of which could be followed by the acutest
military observer; the batteries were all masked, but the gunpowder was
there. I felt confident that George would carry everything before him,
and he did. He brought Miss Van over to spend the evening, and we had
the pleasantest time imaginable. He would not allow his mother to say a
word against Miss Van, and made a fair show of proving that the latter
had, not only better blood, but also better breeding and a truer sense
of propriety than my mother-in-law, that is, “when it came to the
scratch,” as George said. “But who would give a snap for a young woman
who can’t throw aside the shackles of conventionality once in a while,
and be herself?”
Miss Van was her own jolliest, sweetest self at this time. Her beauty
had never been so noticeable: joy is an excellent cosmetic, and love
paints far better than rouge or powder.
As soon as Mrs. Pinkerton had recovered from her defeat, and when the
engagement had become an acknowledged fact which all the world might
know, the wedding began to loom up before us, and I could not help
wondering if St. Thomas’s Church was to be the scene of as fashionable
and grand a display as on the occasion when Bessie and myself were made
one.
I felt reasonably certain that Mrs. Pinkerton would make an effort to
that end, and I was curious to see how George would look on it.
Bessie, I think, would have been glad to see the marriage take place
with as much pomp and show as possible. She was intensely interested in
what Clara should wear, and every visit from that young woman was the
occasion for a vast deal of confidential and no doubt highly important
_tête-à-tête_ consultation.
Mother-in-law sailed into the library one evening with unusual celerity
of movement.
“George, dear,” she said, “this cannot be true! You would not permit
such an eccentric, uncivilized proceeding. Surely you will not offend
our friends by—”
“Avast there! Our friends be hanged!” cried George wickedly. “Yes, it’s
true, too true. The ceremony will be private, and no cards. You can
come, though! Next Wednesday, at two o’clock, sharp!”
This was cruel. I could see his mother almost stagger under the blow.
She attempted to remonstrate, but it was too late. George assured her
that “it was all fixed,” and that Clara had agreed with him regarding
the details.
“Honest old John Stephens will tie the knot,” said he, “and it will be
just as tight as if Dr. McCanon manipulated the holy bonds. I trust we
shall have the pleasure of your company, mother. Consider yourself
invited. A few of the choicest spirits will be on hand. Clara will wear
the most exquisite gray travelling suit you ever laid eyes on.”
The widow was flanked, outgeneralled, routed along the whole line. She
brought forward all her reserve forces of good-breeding, and thus
escaped a disastrous panic by retiring in good order.
The ceremony occurred, as George had announced, the following
Wednesday. The near relatives and best friends of the young couple were
present, and it was a quiet and thoroughly enjoyable affair for all who
participated. An hour after they had been pronounced man and wife,
George and his bride rode away to take the train for the mountains.
“And on her lover’s arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold,
And far across the hills they went
In that new world which is the old.”