_A VISIT_.
Pitt sailed for America in the early days of Autumn; and September had
not yet run out when he arrived in New York. His first researches, as
on former occasions, amounted to nothing, and several days passed with
no fruit of his trouble. The intelligence received at the post office
gave him no more than he had been assured of already. They believed a
letter did come occasionally to a certain Colonel Gainsborough, but the
occasions were not often; the letters were not called for regularly;
and the address, further than that it was 'New York,' was not known.
Pitt was thrown upon his own resources, which narrowed down pretty much
to observation and conjecture. To exercise the former, he perambulated
the streets of the city; his brain was busy with the latter constantly,
whenever its energies were not devoted to seeing and hearing.
He roved the streets in fair weather and foul, and at all hours. He
watched keenly all the figures he passed, at least until assured they
had no interest for him; he peered into shops; he reviewed equipages.
In those days it was possible to do this to some purpose, if a man were
looking for somebody; the streets were not as now filled with a
confused and confusing crowd going all ways at once; and no policeman
was needed, even for the most timid, to cross Broadway where it was
busiest. What a chance there was then for the gay part of the world to
show itself! A lady would heave in sight, like a ship in the distance,
and come bearing down with colours flying; one all alone, or two
together, having the whole sidewalk for themselves. Slowly they would
come and pass, in the full leisure of display, and disappear, giving
place to a new sail just rising to view. No such freedom of display and
monopoly of admiration is anywhere possible any longer in the city of
Gotham.
Pitt had been walking the streets for days, and was weary of watching
the various feminine craft which sailed up and down in them. None of
them were like the one he was looking for, neither could he see
anything that looked like the colonel's straight slim figure and
soldierly bearing. He was weary, but he persevered. A man in his
position was not open to the charge of looking for a needle in a
haystack, such as would now be justly brought to him. New York was not
quite so large then as it is now. It is astonishing to think what a
little place it was in those days; when Walker Street was not yet built
on its north side, and there was a pond at the corner of Canal Street,
and Chelsea was in the country; when the 'West End' was at State
Street, and St. George's Church was in Beekman Street, and Beekman
Street was a place of fashion. The city was neither so dingy nor so
splendid as it is now, and the bright sun of our climate was pouring
all the gold it could upon its roofs and pavements, those September
days when Pitt was trying to be everywhere and to see everything.
One of those sunny, golden days he was sauntering as usual down
Broadway, enjoying the clear aether which was troubled by neither smoke
nor cloud. Sauntering along carelessly, yet never for a moment
forgetting his aim, when his eye was caught by a figure which came up
out of a side street and turned into Broadway just before him. Pitt had
but a cursory glance at the face, but it was enough to make him follow
the owner of it. He walked behind her at a little distance,
scrutinizing the figure. It was not like what he remembered Esther. He
had said to himself, of course, that Esther must be grown up before
now; nevertheless, the image in his mind was of Esther as he had known
her, a well-grown girl of thirteen or fourteen. This was no such
figure. It was of fair medium height, or rather more. The dress was as
plain as possible, yet evidently that of a lady, and as unmistakeable
was the carriage. Perhaps it was that more than anything which fixed
Pitt's attention; the erect, supple figure, the easy, gliding motion,
and the set of the head. For among all the multitude that walk, a truly
beautiful walk is a very rare thing, and so is a truly fine carriage.
Pitt could not take his eye from this figure. A few swift strides
brought him near her, and he followed, watching; balancing hopes and
doubts. That was not Esther as he remembered her; but then years had
gone by; and was not that set of the head on the shoulders precisely
Esther's? He was meditating how he could get another sight of her face,
when she suddenly turned and ran up a flight of steps and went in at a
door, without ever giving him the chance he wanted. She had a little
portfolio under her arm, like a teacher, and she paused to speak to the
servant who opened the door to her; Pitt judged that it was not her own
house. The lady was probably a teacher. Esther could not be a teacher.
But at any rate he would wait and get another sight of her. If she went
in, she would probably come out again.
But Pitt had a tiresome waiting of an hour. He strolled up and down or
stood still leaning against a railing, never losing that door out of
his range of vision. The hour seemed three; however, at the end of it
the lady did come out again, but just when he was at his farthest, and
she turned and went up the street again the way she had come, walking
with a quick step. Pitt followed. Where she had turned into Broadway
she turned out of it, and went down an unattractive side street;
passing from that into another and another, less and less promising
with every corner she turned, till she entered the one which we know
was not at all eligible where Colonel Gainsborough lived. Pitt's hopes
had been gradually falling, and now when the quarry disappeared from
his sight in one of the little humble houses which filled the street,
he for a moment stood still. Could she be living here? He would have
thought she had come merely to visit some poor protégé, but that she
had certainly seemed to take a latch-key from her pocket and let
herself in with it. Pitt reviewed the place, waited a few minutes, and
then went up himself the few steps which led to that door, and knocked.
Bell there was none. People who had bells to their doors did not live
in that street.
But as soon as the door was opened Pitt knew where he was; for he
recognised Barker. She was not the one, however, with whom he wished
first to exchange recognitions; so he contented himself with asking in
an assured manner for Colonel Gainsborough.
'Yes, sir, he's in,' said Barker doubtfully; as he stood in the doorway
she could not see the visitor well. 'Who will I say wants to see him,
sir?'
'A gentleman on business.'
Another minute or two, and Pitt stood in the small room which was the
colonel's particular room, and was face to face with his old friend.
Esther was not there; and without looking at anything Pitt felt in a
moment the change that must have come over the fortunes of the family.
The place was so small! There did not seem to be room in it for the
colonel and him. But the colonel was like himself. They stood and faced
each other.
'Have I changed so much, colonel?' he said at last. 'Do you not know
me?'
'William Dallas?' said the colonel. 'I know the voice! But yes, you
have changed,--you have changed, certainly. It is the difference
between the boy and the man. What else it is, I cannot see in this
light,--or this darkness. It grows dark early in this room. Sit down.
So you have got back at last!'
The greeting was not very cordial, Pitt felt.
'I have come back, for a time; but I have been home repeatedly before
this.'
'So I suppose,' said the colonel drily. 'Of course, hearing nothing of
you, I could not be sure how it was.'
'I have looked for you, sir, every time, and almost everywhere.'
'Looked for us? Ha! It is not very difficult to find anybody, when you
know where to look.'
'Pardon me, Colonel Gainsborough, that was precisely not my case. I did
not know where to look. I have been here for days now, looking, till I
was almost in despair; only I knew you must be somewhere, and I would
not despair. I have looked for you in America and in England. I went
down to Gainsborough Manor, to see if I could hear tidings of you
there. Every time that I came home to Seaforth for a visit I took a
week of my vacation and came here and hunted New York for you; always
in vain.'
'The shortest way would have been to ask your father,' said the
colonel, still drily.
'My father? I asked him, and he could tell me nothing. Why did you not
leave us some clue by which to find you?'
'Clue?' said the colonel. 'What do you mean by clue? I have not hid
myself.'
'But if your friends do not know where you are?'
'Your father could have told you.'
'He did not know your address, sir. I asked him for it repeatedly.'
'Why did he not give it to you?' said the colonel, throwing up his head
like a war-horse.
'He said you had not given it to him.'
'That is true since we came to this place. I have had no intercourse
with Mr. Dallas for a long time; not since we moved into our present
quarters; and our address _here_ he does not know, I suppose. He ceased
writing to me, and of course I ceased writing to him. From you we have
never heard at all, since we came to New York.'
'But I wrote, sir,' said Pitt, in growing embarrassment and
bewilderment. 'I wrote repeatedly.'
'What do you suppose became of your letters?'
'I cannot say. I wrote letter after letter, till, getting no answer, I
was obliged to think it was in vain; and I too stopped writing.'
'Where did you direct your letters?'
'Not to your address here, which I did not know. I enclosed them to my
father, supposing he did know it, and begged him to forward them.'
'I never got them,' said the colonel, with that same dry accentuation.
It implied doubt of somebody; and could Pitt blame him? He kept a
mortified silence for a few minutes. He felt terribly put in the wrong,
and undeservedly; and--but he tried not to think.
'I am afraid to ask, what you thought of me, sir?'
'Well, I confess, I thought it was not just like the old William Dallas
that I used to know; or rather, not like the _young_ William. I
supposed you had grown old; and with age comes wisdom. That is the
natural course of things.'
'You did me injustice, Colonel Gainsborough.'
'I am willing to think it. But it is somewhat difficult.'
'Take my word at least for this. I have never forgotten. I have never
neglected. I sought for you as long as possible, and in every way that
was possible, whenever I was in this country. I left off writing, but
it was because writing seemed useless. I have come now in pursuance of
my old promise; come on the mere chance of finding you; which, however,
I was determined to do.'
'Your promise?'
'You surely remember? The promise I made you, that I would come to look
for you when I was free, and if I was not so happy as to find _you_,
would take care of Esther.'
'Well, I am here yet,' said the colonel meditatively. 'I did not expect
it, but here I am. You are quit of your promise.'
'I have not desired that, sir.'
'Well, that count is disposed of, and I am glad to see you.' (But Pitt
did not feel the truth of the declaration.) 'Now tell me about
yourself.'
In response to which followed a long account of Pitt's past, present,
and future, so far as his worldly affairs and condition were concerned,
and so far as his own plans and purposes dealt with both. The colonel
listened, growing more and more interested; thawed out a good deal in
his manner; yet maintained on the whole an indifferent apartness which
was not in accordance with the old times and the liking he then
certainly cherished for his young friend. Pitt could not help the
feeling that Colonel Gainsborough wished him away. It began to grow
dark, and he must bring this visit to an end.
'May I see Esther?' he asked, after a slight pause in the consideration
of this fact, and with a change of tone which a mother's ear would have
noted, and which perhaps Colonel Gainsborough's was jealous enough to
note. The answer had to be waited for a second or two.
'Not to-night,' he said a little hurriedly. 'Not to-night. You may see
her to-morrow.'
Pitt could not understand his manner, and went away with half a frown
and half a smile upon his face, after saying that he would call in the
morning.
It had happened all this while that Esther was busy up-stairs, and so
had not heard the voices, nor even knew that her father had a visitor.
She came down soon after his departure to prepare the tea. The lamp was
lit, the little fire kindled for the kettle, the table brought up to
the colonel's couch, which, as in old time, he liked to have so; and
Esther made his toast and served him with his cups of tea, in just the
old fashion. But the way her father looked at her was _not_ just in the
old fashion. He noticed how tall she had grown,--it was no longer the
little Esther of Seaforth times. He noticed the lovely lines of her
supple figure, as she knelt before the fire with the toasting-fork, and
raised her other hand to shield her face from the blaze. His eye
lingered on her rich hair in its abundant coils; on the delicate hands;
but though it went often to the face it as often glanced away and did
not dwell there. Yet it could not but come back again; and the
colonel's own face took a grim set as he looked. Oddly enough, he said
never a word of the event of the afternoon.
'You had somebody here, papa, a little while ago, Barker says?'
'Yes.'
'Who was it?'
'Called himself a gentleman on business.'
'What business, papa? It is not often that business comes here. It
wasn't anything about taxes?'
'No.'
'I've got all _that_ ready,' said Esther contentedly, 'so he may come
when he likes,--the tax man, I mean. What business was this then, papa?'
'It was something about an old account, my dear, that he wanted to set
right. There had been a mistake, it seems.'
'Anything to pay?' inquired Esther with a little anxiety.
'No. It's all right; or so he says.'
Esther thought it was somewhat odd, but, however, was willing to let
the subject of a settled account go; and she had almost forgotten it,
when her father broached a very different subject.
'Would you like to go to live in Seaforth again, Esther?'
'Seaforth, papa?' she repeated, much wondering at the question. 'No, I
think not. I loved Seaforth once--dearly!--but we had friends there
then; or we thought we had. I do not think it would be pleasant to be
there now.'
'Then what do you think of our going back to England? You do not like
_this_ way of life, I suppose, in this pitiful place? I have kept you
here too long!'
What had stirred the colonel up to so much speculation? Esther
hesitated.
'Papa, I know our friends there seem very eager to have us; and so far
it would be good; but--if we went back, have we enough to live upon and
be independent?'
'No.'
'Then I would rather be here. We are doing very nicely, papa; you are
comfortable, are you not? I am very well placed, and earning
money--enough money. Really we are not poor any longer. And it is so
nice to be independent!'
'Not poor!' said the colonel, between a groan and a growl. 'What do you
call poor? For you and for me to be in this doleful street is to be all
that, I should say.'
'Papa,' said Esther, her lips wreathing into a smile, 'I think nobody
is poor who can live and pay his debts. And we have no debts at all.'
'By dint of hard work on your part, and deprivation on mine!'
'Papa,' said Esther, the smile fading away,--what did he mean by
deprivation?--'I thought--I hoped you were comfortable?'
'Comfortable!' groaned and growled the colonel again. 'I believe,
Esther, you have forgotten what comfort means. Or rather, you never
knew. For _us_ to be in a prison like this, and shut out from the
world!'
'Papa, I never thought you cared for the world. And this does not feel
like a prison to me. I have been very happy here, and free, and oh, so
thankful! If you remember how we were before, papa.'
'All the same,' said the colonel, 'it is not fitting that those who are
meant for the world should live out of it. I wish I had taken you home
years ago. You see nobody. You have seen nobody all your life but one
family; and I wish you had never seen them!'
'The Dallases? Oh, why, papa?'
'You do not care for them, I suppose, _now?_'
'I do not care for them at all, papa. I did care for one of them very
much, once; but I have given him up long ago. When I found he had
forgotten us, it was not worth while for me to remember. That is all
dead. His father and mother,--I doubt if ever they were real friends,
to you or to me, papa.'
'I am inclined to think William was not so much to blame. It was his
father's fault, perhaps.'
'It does not make much difference,' said Esther easily. 'If anything
could make him forsake us--after the old times--he is not worth
thinking about; and I do not think of him. That is an ended thing.'
There was a little something in the tone of the last words which
allowed the hearer to divine that the closing of that chapter had not
been without pain, and that the pain had perhaps scarcely died out. But
he did not pursue the subject, nor say any more about anything. He only
watched his daughter, uninterruptedly, though stealthily. Watched every
line of her figure; glanced at the sweet, fair face; followed every
quiet graceful movement. Esther was studying, and part of the time she
was drawing, absorbed in her work; yet throughout, what most struck her
father was the high happiness that sat on her whole person. It was in
the supreme calm of her brow; it was in a half-appearing smile, which
hardly broke, and yet informed the soft lips with a constant sweetness;
it seemed to the colonel to appear in her very positions and movements,
and probably it was true, for the lines of peace are not seen in an
uneasy figure, nor do the movements of grace come from a restless
spirit. The colonel's own brow should have unbent at the sweet sight,
but it did not. He drew his brows lower and lower over his watching
eyes, and now and then set his teeth, in a grim kind of way for which
there seemed no sort of provocation. 'The heart knoweth his own
bitterness;' no doubt Colonel Gainsborough's tasted its own particular
draught that night, which he shared with nobody.