IN WHICH MR. BELCHER VISITS NEW YORK, AND BECOMES THE PROPRIETOR OF
"PALGRAVE'S FOLLY."
The shadow of a mystery hung over Sevenoaks for many months. Handbills
advertising the fugitives were posted in all directions throughout the
country, but nothing came of them but rumors. The newspapers, far and
near, told the story, but it resulted in nothing save such an airing of
the Sevenoaks poor-house, and the county establishment connected with
the same, that Tom Buffum, who had lived for several years on the
border-land of apoplexy, passed suddenly over, and went so far that he
never returned to meet the official inquiry into his administration. The
Augean stables were cleansed by the Hercules of public opinion; and with
the satisfied conscience and restored self-complacency procured by this
act, the people at last settled down upon the conviction that Benedict
and his boy had shared the fate of old Tilden--that they had lost
themselves in the distant forest, and met their death alike beyond help
and discovery.
Mr. Belcher found himself without influence in the adjustment of the new
administration. Sevenoaks turned the cold shoulder to him. Nobody went
to him with the reports that connected him with the flight and fate of
the crazed inventor, yet he knew, through instincts which men of his
nature often possess in a remarkable degree, that he was deeply blamed
for the causes of Benedict's misfortunes. It has already been hinted
that at first he was suspected of knowing guiltily more about the
disappearance of the fugitives than he would be willing to tell, but
there were only a few minds in which the suspicion was long permitted to
linger. When the first excitement passed away and men began to think,
it was impossible for them to imagine motives sufficiently powerful to
induce the rich proprietor to pursue a lunatic pauper to his death.
Mr. Belcher never had encouraged the neighborly approaches which, in an
emergency like this, might have given him comfort and companionship.
Recognizing no equals in Sevenoaks--measuring his own social position by
the depth of his purse and the reach of his power--he had been in the
habit of dispensing his society as largess to the humble villagers. To
recognize a man upon the street, and speak to him in a familiar way, was
to him like the opening of his purse and throwing the surprise of a
dollar into a beggar's hat. His courtesies were charities; his
politeness was a boon; he tossed his jokes into a crowd of dirty
employes as he would toss a handful of silver coin. Up to this time he
had been sufficient unto himself. By money, by petty revenges, by
personal assumption, he had managed to retain his throne for a long
decade; and when he found his power partly ignored and partly defied,
and learned that his personal courtesies were not accepted at their old
value, he not only began to feel lonesome, but he grew angry. He held
hot discussions with his image in the mirror night after night, in his
lonely library, where a certain measure which had once seemed a distant
possibility took shape more and more as a purpose. In some way he would
revenge himself upon the people of the town. Even at a personal
sacrifice, he would pay them off for their slight upon him; and he knew
there was no way in which he could so effectually do this as by leaving
them. He had dreamed many times, as he rapidly accumulated his wealth,
of arriving at a point where he could treat his splendid home as a
summer resort, and take up his residence in the great city among those
of his own kind. He had an uneasy desire for the splendors of city life,
yet his interests had always held him to Sevenoaks, and he had contented
himself there simply because he had his own way, and was accounted "the
principal citizen." His village splendors were without competition. His
will was law. His self-complacency, fed and flourishing in his country
home, had taken the place of society; but this had ceased to be
all-sufficient, even before the change occurred in the atmosphere around
him.
It was six months after the reader's first introduction to him that,
showily dressed as he always was, he took his place before his mirror
for a conversation with the striking-looking person whom he saw
reflected there.
"Robert Belcher, Esquire," said he, "are you played out? Who says played
out? Did you address that question to me, sir? Am I the subject of that
insulting remark? Do you dare to beard the lion in his den? Withdraw the
dagger that you have aimed at my breast, or I will not hold myself
responsible for the consequences. Played out, with a million dollars in
your pocket? Played out, with wealth pouring in in mighty waves? Whose
name is Norval still? Whose are these Grampian Hills? In yonder silent
heavens the stars still shine, printing on boundless space the words of
golden promise. Will you leave Sevenoaks? Will you go to yonder
metropolis, and there reap, in honor and pleasure, the rewards of your
enterprise? Will you leave Sevenoaks howling in pain? Will you leave
these scurvy ministers to whine for their salaries and whine to empty
air? Ye fresh fields and pastures new, I yield, I go, I reside! I spurn
the dust of Sevenoaks from my feet. I hail the glories of the distant
mart. I make my bow to you, sir. You ask my pardon? It is well! Go!"
The next morning, after a long examination of his affairs, in conference
with his confidential agent, and the announcement to Mrs. Belcher that
he was about to start for New York on business, Phipps took him and his
trunk on a drive of twenty miles, to the northern terminus of a railroad
line which, with his connections, would bear him to the city of his
hopes.
It is astonishing how much room a richly dressed snob can occupy in a
railway car without receiving a request to occupy less, or endangering
the welfare of his arrogant eyes. Mr. Belcher occupied always two seats,
and usually four. It was pitiful to see feeble women look at his
abounding supply, then look at him, and then pass on. It was pitiful to
see humbly dressed men do the same. It was pitiful to see gentlemen put
themselves to inconvenience rather than dispute with him his right to
all the space he could cover with his luggage and his feet. Mr. Belcher
watched all these exhibitions with supreme satisfaction. They were a
tribute to his commanding personal appearance. Even the conductors
recognized the manner of man with whom they had to deal, and shunned
him. He not only got the worth of his money in his ride, but the worth
of the money of several other people.
Arriving at New York, he went directly to the Astor, then the leading
hotel of the city. The clerk not only knew the kind of man who stood
before him recording his name, but he knew him; and while he assigned to
his betters, men and women, rooms at the top of the house, Mr. Belcher
secured, without difficulty, a parlor and bedroom on the second floor.
The arrogant snob was not only at a premium on the railway train, but at
the hotel. When he swaggered into the dining-room, the head waiter took
his measure instinctively, and placed him as a figure-head at the top of
the hall, where he easily won to himself the most careful and obsequious
service, the choicest viands, and a large degree of quiet observation
from the curious guests. In the office, waiters ran for him, hackmen
took off their hats to him, his cards were delivered with great
promptitude, and even the courtly principal deigned to inquire whether
he found everything to his mind. In short, Mr. Belcher seemed to find
that his name was as distinctly "Norval" in New York as in Sevenoaks,
and that his "Grampian Hills" were movable eminences that stood around
and smiled upon him wherever he went.
Retiring to his room to enjoy in quiet his morning cigar and to look
over the papers, his eye was attracted, among the "personals," to an
item which read as follows:
"Col. Robert Belcher, the rich and well-known manufacturer of Sevenoaks,
and the maker of the celebrated Belcher rifle, has arrived in town, and
occupies a suite of apartments at the Astor."
His title, he was aware, had been manufactured, in order to give the
highest significance to the item, by the enterprising reporter, but it
pleased him. The reporter, associating his name with fire-arms, had
chosen a military title, in accordance with the custom which makes
"commodores" of enterprising landsmen who build and manage lines of
marine transportation and travel, and "bosses" of men who control
election gangs, employed to dig the dirty channels to political success.
He read it again and again, and smoked, and walked to his glass, and
coddled himself with complacent fancies. He felt that all doors opened
themselves widely to the man who had money, and the skill to carry it in
his own magnificent way. In the midst of pleasant thoughts, there came a
rap at the door, and he received from the waiter's little salver the
card of his factor, "Mr. Benjamin Talbot." Mr. Talbot had read the
"personal" which had so attracted and delighted himself, and had made
haste to pay his respects to the principal from whose productions he was
coining a fortune.
Mr. Talbot was the man of all others whom Mr. Belcher desired to see;
so, with a glance at the card, he told the waiter promptly to show the
gentleman up.
No man in the world understood Mr. Belcher better than the quick-witted
and obsequious factor. He had been in the habit, during the ten years in
which he had handled Mr. Belcher's goods, of devoting his whole time to
the proprietor while that person was on his stated visits to the city.
He took him to his club to dine; he introduced him to congenial spirits;
he went to the theater with him; he went with him to grosser resorts,
which do not need to be named in these pages; he drove with him to the
races; he took him to lunch at suburban hotels, frequented by fast men
who drove fast horses; he ministered to every coarse taste and vulgar
desire possessed by the man whose nature and graceless caprices he so
carefully studied. He did all this at his own expense, and at the same
time he kept his principal out of the clutches of gamblers and sharpers.
It was for his interest to be of actual use to the man whose desires he
aimed to gratify, and so to guard and shadow him that no deep harm would
come to him. It was for his interest to keep Mr. Belcher to himself,
while he gave him the gratifications that a coarse man living in the
country so naturally seeks among the opportunities and excitements of
the city.
There was one thing, however, that Mr. Talbot had never done. He had
never taken Mr. Belcher to his home. Mrs. Talbot did not wish to see
him, and Mr. Talbot did not wish to have her see him. He knew that Mr.
Belcher, after his business was completed, wanted something besides a
quiet dinner with women and children. His leanings were not toward
virtue, but toward safe and half-reputable vice; and exactly what he
wanted consistent with his safety as a business man, Mr. Talbot wished
to give him. To nurse his good-will, to make himself useful, and, as far
as possible, essential to the proprietor, and to keep him sound and make
him last, was Mr. Talbot's study and his most determined ambition.
Mr. Belcher was seated in a huge arm chair, with his back to the door
and his feet in another chair, when the second rap came, and Mr. Talbot,
with a radiant smile, entered.
"Well, Toll, my boy," said the proprietor, keeping his seat without
turning, and extending his left hand. "How are you? Glad to see you.
Come round to pay your respects to the Colonel, eh? How's business, and
how's your folks?"
Mr. Talbot was accustomed to this style of greeting from his principal,
and, responding heartily to it and the inquiries accompanying it, he
took a seat. With hat and cane in hand he sat on his little chair,
showing his handsome teeth, twirling his light mustache, and looking at
the proprietor with his keen gray eyes, his whole attitude and
physiognomy expressing the words as plainly as if he had spoken them:
"I'm your man; now, what are you up to?"
"Toll," said Mr. Belcher deliberately, "I'm going to surprise you."
"You usually do," responded the factor, laughing.
"I vow, I guess that's true! You fellows, without any blood, are apt to
get waked up when the old boys come in from the country. Toll, lock the
door."
Mr. Talbot locked the door and resumed his seat.
"Sevenoaks be hanged!" said Mr. Belcher.
"Certainly."
"It's a one-horse town."
"Certainly. Still, I have been under the impression that you owned the
horse."
"Yes, I know, but the horse is played out."
"Hasn't he been a pretty good horse, and earned you all he cost you?"
"Well, I'm tired with living where there is so much infernal babble, and
meddling with other people's business. If I sneeze, the people think
there's been an earthquake; and when I whistle, they call it a
hurricane."
"But you're the king of the roost," said Talbot.
"Yes; but a man gets tired being king of the roost, and longs for some
rooster to fight."
Mr. Talbot saw the point toward which Mr. Belcher was drifting, and
prepared himself for it. He had measured his chances for losing his
business, and when, at last, his principal came out with the frank
statement, that he had made up his mind to come to New York to live, he
was all ready with his overjoyed "No!" and with his smooth little hand
to bestow upon Mr. Belcher's heavy fist the expression of his gladness
and his congratulations.
"Good thing, isn't it, Toll?"
"Excellent!"
"And you'll stand by me, Toll?"
"Of course I will; but we can't do just the old things, you know. We
must be highly respectable citizens, and keep ourselves straight."
"Don't you undertake to teach your grandmother how to suck eggs,"
responded the proprietor with a huge laugh, in which the factor joined.
Then he added, thoughtfully: "I haven't said a word to the woman about
it, and she may make a fuss, but she knows me pretty well; and there'll
be the biggest kind of a row in the town; but the fact is, Toll, I'm at
the end of my rope there. I'm making money hand over hand, and I've
nothing to show for it. I've spent about everything I can up there, and
nobody sees it. I might just as well be buried; and if a fellow can't
show what he gets, what's the use of having it? I haven't but one life
to live, and I'm going to spread, and I'm going to do it right here in
New York; and if I don't make some of your nabobs open their eyes, my
name isn't Robert Belcher."
Mr. Belcher had exposed motives in this little speech that he had not
even alluded to in his addresses to his image in the mirror. Talbot saw
that something had gone wrong in the town, that he was playing off a bit
of revenge, and, above all, that the vulgar desire for display was more
prominent among Mr. Belcher's motives for removal than that person
suspected.
"I have a few affairs to attend to," said Mr. Talbot, rising, "but after
twelve o'clock I will be at your service while you remain in the city.
We shall have no difficulty in finding a house to suit you, I am sure,
and you can get everything done in the matter of furniture at the
shortest notice. I will hunt houses with you for a week, if you wish."
"Well, by-by, Toll," said Mr. Belcher, giving him his left hand again.
"I'll be 'round at twelve."
Mr. Talbot went out, but instead of going to his office, went straight
home, and surprised Mrs. Talbot by his sudden reappearance.
"What on earth!"--said she, looking up from a bit of embroidery on
which she was dawdling away her morning.
"Kate, who do you suppose is coming to New York to live?"
"The Great Mogul."
"Yes, the Great Mogul--otherwise, Colonel Robert Belcher."
"Heaven help us!" exclaimed the lady.
"Well, and what's to be done?"
"Oh, my! my! my! my!" exclaimed Mrs. Talbot, her possessive pronoun
stumbling and fainting away without reaching its object. "_Must_ we have
that bear in the house? Does it pay?"
"Yes, Kate, it pays," said Mr. Talbot.
"Well, I suppose that settles it."
The factor and his wife were very quick to comprehend the truth that a
principal out of town, and away from his wife and family, was a very
different person to deal with from one in the town and in the occupation
of a grand establishment, with his dependents. They saw that they must
make themselves essential to him in the establishment of his social
position, and that they must introduce him and his wife to their
friends. Moreover, they had heard good reports of Mrs. Belcher, and had
the impression that she would be either an inoffensive or a valuable
acquisition to their circle of friends.
There was nothing to do, therefore, but to make a dinner-party in Mr.
Belcher's honor. The guests were carefully selected, and Mrs. Talbot
laid aside her embroidery and wrote her invitations, while Mr. Talbot
made his next errand at the office of the leading real estate broker,
with whom he concluded a private arrangement to share in the commission
of any sale that might be made to the customer whom he proposed to bring
to him in the course of the day. Half an-hour before twelve, he was in
his own office, and in the thirty minutes that lay between his arrival
and the visit of the proprietor, he had arranged his affairs for any
absence that would be necessary.
When Mr. Belcher came in, looking from side to side, with the air of a
man who owned all he saw, even the clerks, who respectfully bowed to him
as he passed, he found Mr. Talbot waiting; also, a bunch of the
costliest cigars.
"I remembered your weakness, you see," said Talbot.
"Toll, you're a jewel," said Mr. Belcher, drawing out one of the
fragrant rolls and lighting it.
"Now, before we go a step," said Talbot, "you must agree to come to my
house to-morrow night to dinner, and meet some of my friends. When you
come to New York, you'll want to know somebody."
"Toll, I tell you you're a jewel."
"And you'll come?"
"Well, you know I'm not rigged exactly for that sort of thing, and,
faith, I'm not up to it, but I suppose all a man has to do is to put on
a stiff upper lip, and take it as it comes."
"I'll risk you anywhere."
"All right! I'll be there."
"Six o'clock, sharp;--and now let's go and find a broker. I know the
best one in the city, and I'll show you the inside of more fine houses
before night than you have ever seen."
Talbot took the proprietor's arm and led him to a carriage in waiting.
Then he took him to Pine street, and introduced him, in the most
deferential manner, to the broker who held half of New York at his
disposal, and knew the city as he knew his alphabet.
The broker took the pair of house-hunters to a private room, and
unfolded a map of the city before them. On this he traced, with a
well-kept finger-nail, a series of lines,--like those fanciful
isothermal definitions that embrace the regions of perennial summer on
the range of the Northern Pacific Railroad,--within which social
respectability made its home. Within certain avenues and certain
streets, he explained that it was a respectable thing to live. Outside
of these arbitrary boundaries, nobody who made any pretense to
respectability should buy a house. The remainder of the city, was for
the vulgar--craftsmen, petty shopkeepers, salaried men, and the
shabby-genteel. He insisted that a wealthy man, making an entrance upon
New York life, should be careful to locate himself somewhere upon the
charmed territory which he defined. He felt in duty bound to say this to
Mr. Belcher, as he was a stranger; and Mr. Belcher was, of course,
grateful for the information.
Then he armed Mr. Talbot, as Mr. Belcher's city friend and helper, with
a bundle of permits, with which they set off upon their quest.
They visited a dozen houses in the course of the afternoon, carefully
chosen in their succession by Mr. Talbot, who was as sure of Mr.
Belcher's tastes as he was of his own. One street was too quiet, one was
too dark; one house was too small, and one was too tame; one house had
no stable, another had too small a stable. At last, they came out upon
Fifth avenue, and drove up to a double front, with a stable almost as
ample and as richly appointed as the house itself. It had been built,
and occupied for a year or two, by an exploded millionaire, and was an
elephant upon the hands of his creditors. Robert Belcher was happy at
once. The marvelous mirrors, the plate glass, the gilded cornices, the
grand staircase, the glittering chandeliers, the evidences of lavish
expenditure in every fixture, and in all the finish, excited him like
wine.
"Now you talk!" said he to the smiling factor; and as he went to the
window, and saw the life of the street, rolling by in costly carriages,
or sweeping the sidewalks with shining silks and mellow velvets, he felt
that he was at home. Here he could see and be seen. Here his splendors
could be advertised. Here he could find an expression for his wealth, by
the side of which his establishment at Sevenoaks seemed too mean to be
thought of without humiliation and disgust. Here was a house that
gratified his sensuous nature through and through, and appealed
irresistibly to his egregious vanity. He did not know that the grand and
gaudy establishment bore the name of "Palgrave's Folly," and, probably,
it would have made no difference with him if he had. It suited him, and
would, in his hands, become Belcher's Glory.
The sum demanded for the place, though very large, did not cover its
original cost, and in this fact Mr. Belcher took great comfort. To enjoy
fifty thousand dollars, which somebody else had made, was a charming
consideration with him, and one that did much to reconcile him to an
expenditure far beyond his original purpose.
When he had finished his examination of the house, he returned to his
hotel, as business hours were past, and he could make no further headway
that day in his negotiations. The more he thought of the house, the more
uneasy he became. Somebody might have seen him looking at it, and so
reached the broker first, and snatched it from his grasp. He did not
know that it had been in the market for two years, waiting for just such
a man as himself.
Talbot was fully aware of the state of Mr. Belcher's mind, and knew that
if he did not reach him early the next morning, the proprietor would
arrive at the broker's before him. Accordingly, when Mr. Belcher
finished his breakfast that morning, he found his factor waiting for
him, with the information that the broker would not be in his office for
an hour and a-half, and that there was time to look further, if further
search were desirable. He hoped that Mr. Belcher would not be in a
hurry, or take any step that he would ultimately regret. Mr. Belcher
assured him that he knew what he wanted when he saw it, and had no fears
about the matter, except that somebody might anticipate him.
"You have determined, then, to buy the house at the price?" said Talbot.
"Yes; I shall just shut my eyes and swallow the whole thing."
"Would you like to get it cheaper?"
"Of course!"
"Then, perhaps you had better leave the talking to me," said Talbot.
"These fellows all have a price that they ask, and a smaller one that
they will take."
"That's one of the tricks, eh?"
"Yes."
"Then go ahead."
They had a long talk about business, and then Talbot went out, and,
after an extended interview with the broker, sent a messenger for Mr.
Belcher. When that gentleman came in, he found that Talbot had bought
the house for ten thousand dollars less than the price originally
demanded. Mr. Belcher deposited a handsome sum as a guaranty of his good
faith, and ordered the papers to be made out at once.
After their return to the hotel, Mr. Talbot sat down to a table, and
went through a long calculation.
"It will cost you, Mr. Belcher," said the factor, deliberately, "at
least twenty-five thousand dollars to furnish that house
satisfactorily."
Mr. Belcher gave a long whistle.
"At least twenty-five thousand dollars, and I doubt whether you get off
for less than thirty thousand."
"Well, I'm in for it, and I'm going through," said Mr. Belcher.
"Very well," responded Talbot, "now let's go to the best furnisher we
can find. I happen to know the man who is at the top of the style, and I
suppose the best thing--as you and I don't know much about the
matter--is to let him have his own way, and hold him responsible for the
results."
"All right," said Belcher; "show me the man."
They found the arbiter of style in his counting-room. Mr. Talbot
approached him first, and held a long private conversation with him. Mr.
Belcher, in his self-complacency, waited, fancying that Talbot was
representing his own importance and the desirableness of so rare a
customer, and endeavoring to secure reasonable prices on a large bill.
In reality, he was arranging to get a commission out of the job for
himself.
If it be objected to Mr. Talbot's mode of giving assistance to his
country friends, that it savored of mercenariness, amounting to
villainy, it is to be said, on his behalf, that he was simply practicing
the morals that Mr. Belcher had taught him. Mr. Belcher had not failed
to debauch or debase the moral standard of every man over whom he had
any direct influence. If Talbot had practiced his little game upon any
other man, Mr. Belcher would have patted his shoulder and told him he
was a "jewel." So much of Mr. Belcher's wealth had been won by sharp and
more than doubtful practices, that that wealth itself stood before the
world as a premium on rascality, and thus became, far and wide, a
demoralizing influence upon the feverishly ambitious and the young.
Besides, Mr. Talbot quieted what little conscience he had in the matter
by the consideration that his commissions were drawn, not from Mr.
Belcher, but from the profits which others would make out of him, and
the further consideration that it was no more than right for him to get
the money back that he had spent, and was spending, for his principal's
benefit.
Mr. Belcher was introduced, and the arbiter of style conversed learnedly
of Tuscan, Pompeiian, Elizabethan, Louis Quatorze, buhl, _marqueterie_,
&.c., &c., till the head of the proprietor, to whom all these words were
strangers, and all his talk Greek, was thrown into a hopeless muddle.
Mr. Belcher listened to him as long as he could do so with patience, and
then brought him to a conclusion by a slap upon his knee.
"Come, now!" said he, "you understand your business, and I understand
mine. If you were to take up guns and gutta-percha, I could probably
talk your head off, but I don't know anything about these things. What I
want is something right. Do the whole thing up brown. Do you understand
that?"
The arbiter of style smiled pityingly, and admitted that he comprehended
his customer.
It was at last arranged that the latter should make a study of the
house, and furnish it according to his best ability, within a specified
sum of expenditure and a specified period of time; and then the
proprietor took his leave.
Mr. Belcher had accomplished a large amount of business within two days,
but he had worked according to his habit. The dinner party remained, and
this was the most difficult business that he had ever undertaken, yet he
had a strong desire to see how it was done. He learned quickly what he
undertook, and he had already "discounted," to use his own word, a
certain amount of mortification connected with the affair.