They set off at a walk, now watching the smoking brow of the eminence,
now picking their way among dead and wounded. Suddenly there was a
shout above them and a sudden diminution of the firing; and looking
upward they saw the men of the Fourteenth running confusedly toward the
summit. Without a word the brigade commander struck spurs into his
horse and dashed up the long slope at a run, closely followed by his
enemy and aid. What they saw when they overtook the straggling,
running, panting, screaming pell-mell of the Fourteenth was victory!
The entire right wing of the Confederates, attacked on three sides at
once, placed at enormous disadvantage, completely outgeneraled, had
given way in confusion, was retreating, breaking, and flying. There
were lines yet of dirty gray or butternut; but they were few, meagre,
fluctuating, and recoiling, and there were scattered and scurrying men
in hundreds. Three veteran and gallant regiments had gone all to wreck
under the shock of three similar regiments far more intelligently
directed. A strong position had been lost because the heroes who held
it could not perform the impossible feat of forming successively two
fresh fronts under a concentric fire of musketry. The inferior brain
power had confessed the superiority of the stronger one.
On the victorious side there was wild, clamorous, fierce exultation.
The hurrying, shouting, firing soldiers, who noted their commander
riding among them, swung their rifles or their tattered hats at him,
and screamed "Hurrah!" No one thought of the Confederate dead
underfoot, nor of the Union dead who dotted the slope behind. "What are
you here for, Colonel?" shouted rough old Gildersleeve, one leg of his
trousers dripping blood. "We can do it alone."
"It is a battle won," laughed Fitz Hugh, almost worshiping the man whom
he had come to slay.
"It is a battle won, but not used," answered Waldron. "We haven't a gun
yet, nor a flag. Where is the cavalry? Why isn't Stilton here? He must
have got afoul of the enemy's horse, and been obliged to beat it off.
Can anybody hear anything of Stilton?"
"Let him go," roared Old Crumps. "The infantry don't want any help."
"Your regiment has suffered, Colonel," answered Waldron, glancing at
the scattered files of the Fourteenth. "Halt it and reorganize it, and
let it fall in with the right of the First when Peck comes up. I shall
replace you with the Fifth. Send your Adjutant back to Colburn and tell
him to hurry along. Those fellows are making a new front over there,"
he added, pointing to the centre of the hill. "I want the Fifth,
Seventh and Tenth in _echelon_ as quickly as possible. And I want that
cavalry. Lieutenant," turning to one of his staff, "ride off to the
left and find Colonel Stilton. Tell him that I need a charge in ten
minutes."
Presently cannon opened from that part of the ridge still held by the
Confederates, the shell tearing through or over the dissolving groups
of their right wing, and cracking viciously above the heads of the
victorious Unionists. The explosions followed each other with stunning
rapidity, and the shrill whirring of the splinters was ominous. Men
began to fall again in the ranks or to drop out of them wounded. Of all
this Waldron took no further note than to ride hastily to the brow of
the ridge and look for his own artillery.
"See how he attinds to iverything himself," said Major Gahogan, who had
cantered up to the side of Fitz Hugh. "It's just a matther of plain
business, an' he looks after it loike a business man. Did ye see us,
though, Captin, whin we come in on their right flank? By George, we
murthered um. There's more'n a hundred lyin' in hapes back there. As
for old Stilton, I just caught sight of um behind that wood to our
left, an' he's makin' for the enemy's right rair. He'll have lots o'
prisoners in half an hour."
When Waldron returned to the group he was told of his cavalry's
whereabouts, and responded to the information with a smile of
satisfaction.
"Bradley is hurrying up," he said, "and Taylor is pushing their left
smartly. They will make one more tussle to recover their line of
retreat; but we shall smash them from end to end and take every gun."
He galloped now to his infantry, and gave the word "Forward!" The three
regiments which composed the _echelon_ were the Fifth on the right, the
Seventh fifty yards to the rear and left of the Fifth, the Tenth to the
rear and left of the Seventh. It was behind the Fifth, that is the
foremost battalion, that the brigade commander posted himself.
"Do _you_ mean to stay here, Colonel?" asked Fitz Hugh, in surprise and
anxiety.
"It is a certain victory now," answered Waldron, with a singular glance
upward. "My life is no longer important. I prefer to do my duty to the
utmost in the sight of all men."
"I shall follow you and do mine, sir," said the Captain, much moved, he
could scarcely say by what emotions, they were so many and conflicting.
"I want you otherwheres. Ride to Colonel Taylor at once, and hurry him
up the hill. Tell him the enemy have greatly weakened their left. Tell
him to push up everything, infantry, and cavalry, and artillery, and to
do it in haste."
"Colonel, this is saving my life against my will," remonstrated Fitz
Hugh.
"Go!" ordered Waldron, imperiously. "Time is precious."
Fitz Hugh dashed down the slope to the right at a gallop. The brigade
commander turned tranquilly, and followed the march of his _echelon_.
The second and decisive crisis of the little battle was approaching,
and to understand it we must glance at the ground on which it was to be
fought. Two hostile lines were marching toward each other along the
broad, gently rounded crest of the hill and at right angles to its
general course. Between these lines, but much the nearest to the Union
troops, a spacious road came up out of the forest in front, crossed the
ridge, swept down the smooth decline in rear, and led to a single
wooden bridge over a narrow but deep rivulet. On either hand the road
was hedged in by a close board fence, four feet or so in height. It was
for the possession of this highway that the approaching lines were
about to shed their blood. If the Confederates failed to win it all
their artillery would be lost, and their army captured or dispersed.
The two parties came on without firing. The soldiers on both sides were
veterans, cool, obedient to orders, intelligent through long service,
and able to reserve all their resources for a short-range and final
struggle. Moreover, the fences as yet partially hid them from each
other, and would have rendered all aim for the present vague and
uncertain.
"Forward, Fifth!" shouted Waldron. "Steady. Reserve your fire." Then,
as the regiment came up to the fence, he added, "Halt; right dress.
Steady, men."
Meantime he watched the advancing array with an eager gaze. It was a
noble sight, full of moral sublimity, and worthy of all admiration. The
long, lean, sunburned, weather-beaten soldiers in ragged gray stepped
forward, superbly, their ranks loose, but swift and firm, the men
leaning forward in their haste, their tattered slouch hats pushed
backward, their whole aspect business-like and virile. Their line was
three battalions strong, far outflanking the Fifth, and at least equal
to the entire _echelon_. When within thirty or forty yards of the
further fence they increased their pace to nearly a double-quick, many
of them stooping low in hunter fashion, and a few firing. Then Waldron
rose in his stirrups and yelled, "Battalion! ready--aim--aim low.
Fire!"
There was a stunning roar of three hundred and fifty rifles, and a
deadly screech of bullets. But the smoke rolled out, the haste to
reload was intense, and none could mark what execution was done.
Whatever the Confederates may have suffered, they bore up under the
volley, and they came on. In another minute each of those fences, not
more than twenty-five yards apart, was lined by the shattered fragment
of a regiment, each firing as fast as possible into the face of the
other. The Fifth bled fearfully: it had five of its ten company
commanders shot dead in three minutes; and its loss in other officers
and in men fell scarcely short of this terrible ratio. On its left the
Seventh and the Tenth were up, pouring in musketry, and receiving it in
a fashion hardly less sanguinary. No one present had ever seen, or ever
afterward saw, such another close and deadly contest.
But the strangest thing in this whole wonderful fight was the conduct
of the brigade commander. Up and down the rear of the lacerated Fifth
Waldron rode thrice, spurring his plunging and wounded horse close to
the yelling and fighting file-closers, and shouting in a piercing voice
encouragement to his men. Stranger still, considering the character
which he had borne in the army, and considering the evil deed for which
he was to account on the morrow, were the words which he was distinctly
and repeatedly heard to utter. "Stand steady, men--God is with us!" was
the extraordinary battle-cry of this backslidden clergyman, this sinner
above many.
And it was a prophecy of victory. Bradley ran up his Napoleons on the
right in the nick of time, and, although only one of them could be
brought to bear, it was enough; the grape raked the Confederate left,
broke it, and the battle was over. In five minutes more their whole
array was scattered, and the entire position open to galloping cavalry,
seizing guns, standards, and prisoners.
It was in the very moment of triumph, just as the stubborn Southern
line reeled back from the fence in isolated clusters, that the
miraculous immunity of Waldron terminated, and he received his death
wound. A quarter of an hour later Fitz Hugh found a sorrowful group of
officers gazing from a little distance upon their dying commander.
"Is the Colonel hit?" he asked, shocked and grieved, incredible as the
emotion may seem.
"Don't go near him," called Gildersleeve, who, it will be remembered,
knew or guessed his errand in camp. "The chaplain and surgeon are
there. Let him alone."
"He's going to render his account," added Gahogan. "An' whativer he's
done wrong, he's made it square to-day. Let um lave it to his brigade."
Adjutant Wallis, who had been blubbering aloud, who had cursed the
rebels and the luck energetically, and who had also been trying to pray
inwardly, groaned out, "This is our last victory. You see if it ain't.
Bet you, two to one."
"Hush, man!" replied Gahogan. "We'll win our share of urn, though we'll
have to work harder for it. We'll have to do more ourselves, an' get
less done for us in the way of tactics."
"That's so, Major," whimpered a drummer, looking up from his duty of
attending to a wounded comrade. "He knowed how to put his men in the
right place, and his men knowed when they was in the right place. But
it's goin' to be uphill through the steepest part of hell the rest of
the way."
Soldiers, some of them weeping, some of them bleeding, arrived
constantly to inquire after their commander, only to be sent quietly
back to their ranks or to the rear. Around lay other men--dead men, and
senseless, groaning men--all for the present unnoticed. Everything,
except the distant pursuit of the cavalry, waited for Waldron to die.
Fitz Hugh looked on silently with the tears of mingled emotions in his
eyes, and with hopes and hatreds expiring in his heart. The surgeon
supported the expiring victor's head, while Chaplain Colquhoun knelt
beside him, holding his hand and praying audibly. Of a sudden the
petition ceased, both bent hastily toward the wounded man, and after
what seemed a long time exchanged whispers. Then the Chaplain rose,
came slowly toward the now advancing group of officers, his hands
outspread toward heaven in an attitude of benediction, and tears
running down his haggard white face.
"I trust, dear friends," he said, in a tremulous voice, "that all is
well with our brother and commander. His last words were, 'God is with
us.'"
"Oh! but, man, _that_ isn't well," broke out Gahogan, in a groan. "What
did ye pray for his soul for? Why didn't ye pray for his loife?"
Fitz Hugh turned his horse and rode silently away. The next day he was
seen journeying rearward by the side of an ambulance, within which lay
what seemed a strangely delicate boy, insensible, and, one would say,
mortally ill.
WHO WAS SHE?
-------------
BY BAYARD TAYLOR
_James Bayard Taylor (born at Kennett Square, Pa., in 1825; died in
1878) was probably in his day the best American example of the
all-round literary craftsman. He was poet, novelist, journalist, writer
of books of travel, translator, and, in general, magazine writer. Says
Albert H. Smith in the volume on Taylor in the "American Men of
Letters" series: "He was a man of talent, and master of the mechanics
of his craft. On all sides he touched the life of his time." Henry A.
Beers, in his "Initial Studies in American Letters," says that in his
short stories, as in his novels, "Taylor's pictorial skill is greater,
on the whole, than his power of creating characters or inventing
plots." In the present selection, however, he has both conceived an
original type of character in the mysterious heroine, and invented an
ingenious situation, if not plot, and so, in one instance at least, has
achieved a short story classic._
WHO WAS SHE?
BY BAYARD TAYLOR
[Footnote: Reprinted by permission. From "The Atlantic Monthly" for
September, 1874.]
Come, now, there may as well be an end of this! Every time I meet your
eyes squarely, I detect the question just slipping out of them. If you
had spoken it, or even boldly looked it; if you had shown in your
motions the least sign of a fussy or fidgety concern on my account; if
this were not the evening of my birthday, and you the only friend who
remembered it; if confession were not good for the soul, though harder
than sin to some people, of whom I am one--well, if all reasons were
not at this instant converged into a focus, and burning me rather
violently, in that region where the seat of emotion is supposed to lie,
I should keep my trouble to myself. Yes, I have fifty times had it on
my mind to tell you the whole story. But who can be certain that his
best friend will not smile--or, what is worse, cherish a kind of
charitable pity ever afterward--when the external forms of a very
serious kind of passion seem trivial, fantastic, foolish? And the worst
of all is that the heroic part which I imagined I was playing proves to
have been almost the reverse. The only comfort which I can find in my
humiliation is that I am capable of feeling it. There isn't a bit of a
paradox in this, as you will see; but I only mention it, now, to
prepare you for, maybe, a little morbid sensitiveness of my moral
nerves.
The documents are all in this portfolio under my elbow. I had just read
them again completely through when you were announced. You may examine
them as you like afterward: for the present, fill your glass, take
another Cabana, and keep silent until my "ghastly tale" has reached its
most lamentable conclusion.
The beginning of it was at Wampsocket Springs, three years ago last
summer. I suppose most unmarried men who have reached, or passed, the
age of thirty--and I was then thirty-three--experience a milder return
of their adolescent warmth, a kind of fainter second spring, since the
first has not fulfilled its promise. Of course, I wasn't clearly
conscious of this at the time: who is? But I had had my youthful
passion and my tragic disappointment, as you know: I had looked far
enough into what Thackeray used to call the cryptic mysteries to save
me from the Scylla of dissipation, and yet preserved enough of natural
nature to keep me out of the Pharisaic Charyb-dis. My devotion to my
legal studies had already brought me a mild distinction; the paternal
legacy was a good nest-egg for the incubation of wealth--in short, I
was a fair, respectable "party," desirable to the humbler mammas, and
not to be despised by the haughty exclusives.
The fashionable hotel at the Springs holds three hundred, and it was
packed. I had meant to lounge there for a fortnight and then finish my
holidays at Long Branch; but eighty, at least, out of the three hundred
were young and moved lightly in muslin. With my years and experience I
felt so safe that to walk, talk, or dance with them became simply a
luxury, such as I had never--at least so freely--possessed before. My
name and standing, known to some families, were agreeably exaggerated
to the others, and I enjoyed that supreme satisfaction which a man
always feels when he discovers, or imagines, that he is popular in
society. There is a kind of premonitory apology implied in my saying
this, I am aware. You must remember that I am culprit, and culprit's
counsel, at the same time.
You have never been at Wampsocket? Well, the hills sweep around in a
crescent, on the northern side, and four or five radiating glens,
descending from them, unite just above the village. The central one,
leading to a waterfall (called "Minne-hehe" by the irreverent young
people, because there is so little of it), is the fashionable drive and
promenade; but the second ravine on the left, steep, crooked, and
cumbered with bowlders which have tumbled from somewhere and lodged in
the most extraordinary groupings, became my favorite walk of a morning.
There was a footpath in it, well-trodden at first, but gradually fading
out as it became more like a ladder than a path, and I soon discovered
that no other city feet than mine were likely to scale a certain rough
slope which seemed the end of the ravine. With the aid of the tough
laurel-stems I climbed to the top, passed through a cleft as narrow as
a doorway, and presently found myself in a little upper dell, as wild
and sweet and strange as one of the pictures that haunts us on the
brink of sleep.
There was a pond--no, rather a bowl--of water in the centre; hardly
twenty yards across, yet the sky in it was so pure and far down that
the circle of rocks and summer foliage inclosing it seemed like a
little planetary ring, floating off alone through space. I can't
explain the charm of the spot, nor the selfishness which instantly
suggested that I should keep the discovery to myself. Ten years earlier
I should have looked around for some fair spirit to be my "minister,"
but now--
One forenoon--I think it was the third or fourth time I had visited the
place--I was startled to find the dent of a heel in the earth, half-way
up the slope. There had been rain during the night and the earth was
still moist and soft. It was the mark of a woman's boot, only to be
distinguished from that of a walking-stick by its semicircular form. A
little higher, I found the outline of a foot, not so small as to awake
an ecstasy, but with a suggestion of lightness, elasticity, and grace.
If hands were thrust through holes in a board-fence, and nothing of the
attached bodies seen, I can easily imagine that some would attract and
others repel us: with footprints the impression is weaker, of course,
but we can not escape it. I am not sure whether I wanted to find the
unknown wearer of the boot within my precious personal solitude: I was
afraid I should see her, while passing through the rocky crevice, and
yet was disappointed when I found no one.
But on the flat, warm rock overhanging the tarn--my special throne--lay
some withering wild-flowers and a book! I looked up and down, right and
left: there was not the slightest sign of another human life than mine.
Then I lay down for a quarter of an hour, and listened: there were only
the noises of bird and squirrel, as before. At last, I took up the
book, the flat breadth of which suggested only sketches. There were,
indeed, some tolerable studies of rocks and trees on the first pages; a
few not very striking caricatures, which seemed to have been commenced
as portraits, but recalled no faces I knew; then a number of
fragmentary notes, written in pencil. I found no name, from first to
last; only, under the sketches, a monogram so complicated and laborious
that the initials could hardly be discovered unless one already knew
them.
The writing was a woman's, but it had surely taken its character from
certain features of her own: it was clear, firm, individual. It had
nothing of that air of general debility which usually marks the
manuscript of young ladies, yet its firmness was far removed from the
stiff, conventional slope which all Englishwomen seem to acquire in
youth and retain through life. I don't see how any man in my situation
could have helped reading a few lines--if only for the sake of
restoring lost property. But I was drawn on, and on, and finished by
reading all: thence, since no further harm could be done, I reread,
pondering over certain passages until they stayed with me. Here they
are, as I set them down, that evening, on the back of a legal blank:
"It makes a great deal of difference whether we wear social forms as
bracelets or handcuffs."
"Can we not still be wholly our independent selves, even while doing,
in the main, as others do? I know two who are so; but they are
married."
"The men who admire these bold, dashing young girls treat them like
weaker copies of themselves. And yet they boast of what they call
'experience'!"
"I wonder if any one felt the exquisite beauty of the noon as I did
to-day? A faint appreciation of sunsets and storms is taught us in
youth, and kept alive by novels and flirtations; but the broad,
imperial splendor of this summer noon!--and myself standing alone in
it---yes, utterly alone!"
"The men I seek must exist: where are they? How make an acquaintance,
when one obsequiously bows himself away, as I advance? The fault is
surely not all on my side."
There was much more, intimate enough to inspire me with a keen interest
in the writer, yet not sufficiently so to make my perusal a painful
indiscretion. I yielded to the impulse of the moment, took out my
pencil, and wrote a dozen lines on one of the blank pages. They ran
something in this wise:
"IGNOTUS IGNOTAE!--You have bestowed without intending it, and I have
taken without your knowledge. Do not regret the accident which has
enriched another. This concealed idyl of the hills was mine, as I
supposed, but I acknowledge your equal right to it. Shall we share the
possession, or will you banish me?"
There was a frank advance, tempered by a proper caution, I fancied, in
the words I wrote. It was evident that she was unmarried, but outside
of that certainty there lay a vast range of possibilities, some of them
alarming enough. However, if any nearer acquaintance should arise out
of the incident, the next step must be taken by her. Was I one of the
men she sought? I almost imagined so--certainly hoped so.
I laid the book on the rock, as I had found it, bestowed another keen
scrutiny on the lonely landscape, and then descended the ravine. That
evening, I went early to the ladies' parlor, chatted more than usual
with the various damsels whom I knew, and watched with a new interest
those whom I knew not. My mind, involuntarily, had already created a
picture of the unknown. She might be twenty-five, I thought; a
reflective habit of mind would hardly be developed before that age.
Tall and stately, of course; distinctly proud in her bearing, and
somewhat reserved in her manners. Why she should have large dark eyes,
with long dark lashes, I could not tell; but so I seemed to see her.
Quite forgetting that I was (or had meant to be) _Ignotus_, I found
myself staring rather significantly at one or the other of the young
ladies, in whom I discovered some slight general resemblance to the
imaginary character. My fancies, I must confess, played strange pranks
with me. They had been kept in a coop so many years that now, when I
suddenly turned them loose, their rickety attempts at flight quite
bewildered me.
No! there was no use in expecting a sudden discovery. I went to the
glen betimes, next morning: the book was gone and so were the faded
flowers, but some of the latter were scattered over the top of another
rock, a few yards from mine. Ha! this means that I am not to withdraw,
I said to myself: she makes room for me! But how to surprise her?--for
by this time I was fully resolved to make her acquaintance, even though
she might turn out to be forty, scraggy, and sandy-haired.
I knew no other way so likely as that of visiting the glen at all times
of the day. I even went so far as to write a line of greeting, with a
regret that our visits had not yet coincided, and laid it under a stone
on the top of _her_ rock. The note disappeared, but there was no answer
in its place. Then I suddenly remembered her fondness for the noon
hours, at which time she was "utterly alone." The hotel _table d'hote_
Avas at one o'clock: her family, doubtless, dined later, in their own
rooms. Why, this gave me, at least, her place in society! The question
of age, to be sure, remained unsettled; but all else was safe.
The next day I took a late and large breakfast, and sacrificed my
dinner. Before noon the guests had all straggled back to the hotel from
glen and grove and lane, so bright and hot was the sunshine. Indeed, I
could hardly have supported the reverberation of heat from the sides of
the ravine, but for a fixed belief that I should be successful. While
crossing the narrow meadow upon which it opened, I caught a glimpse of
something white among the thickets higher up. A moment later it had
vanished, and I quickened my pace, feeling the beginning of an absurd
nervous excitement in my limbs. At the next turn, there it was again!
but only for another moment. I paused, exulting, and wiped my drenched
forehead. "She can not escape me!" I murmured between the deep draughts
of cooler air I inhaled in the shadow of a rock.
A few hundred steps more brought me to the foot of the steep ascent,
where I had counted on overtaking her. I was too late for that, but the
dry, baked soil had surely been crumbled and dislodged, here and there,
by a rapid foot. I followed, in reckless haste, snatching at the laurel
branches right and left, and paying little heed to my footing. About
one-third of the way up I slipped, fell, caught a bush which snapped at
the root, slid, whirled over, and before I fairly knew what had
happened, I was lying doubled up at the bottom of the slope.
I rose, made two steps forward, and then sat down with a groan of pain;
my left ankle was badly sprained, in addition to various minor
scratches and bruises. There was a revulsion of feeling, of course--
instant, complete, and hideous. I fairly hated the Unknown. "Fool that
I was!" I exclaimed, in the theatrical manner, dashing the palm of my
hand softly against my brow: "lured to this by the fair traitress! But,
no!--not fair: she shows the artfulness of faded, desperate
spinsterhood; she is all compact of enamel, 'liquid bloom of youth' and
hair dye!"
There was a fierce comfort in this thought, but it couldn't help me out
of the scrape. I dared not sit still, lest a sunstroke should be added,
and there was no resource but to hop or crawl down the rugged path, in
the hope of finding a forked sapling from which I could extemporize a
crutch. With endless pain and trouble I reached a thicket, and was
feebly working on a branch with my pen-knife, when the sound of a heavy
footstep surprised me.
A brown harvest-hand, in straw hat and shirtsleeves, presently
appeared. He grinned when he saw me, and the thick snub of his nose
would have seemed like a sneer at any other time.
"Are you the gentleman that got hurt?" he asked. "Is it pretty
tolerable bad?"
"Who said I was hurt?" I cried, in astonishment.
"One of your town-women from the hotel--I reckon she was. I was binding
oats, in the field over the ridge; but I haven't lost no time in comin'
here."
While I was stupidly staring at this announcement, he whipped out a big
clasp-knife, and in a few minutes fashioned me a practicable crutch.
Then, taking me by the other arm, he set me in motion toward the
village.
Grateful as I was for the man's help, he aggravated me by his
ignorance. When I asked if he knew the lady, he answered: "It's more'n
likely _you_ know her better." But where did she come from? Down from
the hill, he guessed, but it might ha' been up the road. How did she
look? was she old or young? what was the color of her eyes? of her
hair? There, now, I was too much for him. When a woman kept one o' them
speckled veils over her face, turned her head away, and held her
parasol between, how were you to know her from Adam? I declare to you,
I couldn't arrive at one positive particular. Even when he affirmed
that she was tall, he added, the next instant: "Now I come to think on
it, she stepped mighty quick; so I guess she must ha' been short."
By the time we reached the hotel, I was in a state of fever; opiates
and lotions had their will of me for the rest of the day. I was glad to
escape the worry of questions, and the conventional sympathy expressed
in inflections of the voice which are meant to soothe, and only
exasperate. The next morning, as I lay upon my sofa, restful, patient,
and properly cheerful, the waiter entered with a bouquet of wild
flowers.
"Who sent them?" I asked.
"I found them outside your door, sir. Maybe there's a card; yes, here's
a bit o' paper."
I opened the twisted slip he handed me, and read: "From your dell--and
mine." I took the flowers; among them were two or three rare and
beautiful varieties which I had only found in that one spot. Fool,
again! I noiselessly kissed, while pretending to smell them, had them
placed on a stand within reach, and fell into a state of quiet and
agreeable contemplation.
Tell me, yourself, whether any male human being is ever too old for
sentiment, provided that it strikes him at the right time and in the
right way! What did that bunch of wild flowers betoken? Knowledge,
first; then, sympathy; and finally, encouragement, at least. Of course
she had seen my accident, from above; of course she had sent the
harvest laborer to aid me home. It was quite natural she should imagine
some special, romantic interest in the lonely dell, on my part, and the
gift took additional value from her conjecture.
Four days afterward, there was a hop in the large dining-room of the
hotel. Early in the morning, a fresh bouquet had been left at my door.
I was tired of my enforced idleness, eager to discover the fair unknown
(she was again fair, to my fancy!), and I determined to go down,
believing that a cane and a crimson velvet slipper on the left foot
would provoke a glance of sympathy from certain eyes, and thus enable
me to detect them.
The fact was, the sympathy was much too general and effusive.
Everybody, it seemed, came to me with kindly greetings; seats were
vacated at my approach, even fat Mrs. Huxter insisting on my taking her
warm place, at the head of the room. But Bob Leroy--you know him--as
gallant a gentleman as ever lived, put me down at the right point, and
kept me there. He only meant to divert me, yet gave me the only place
where I could quietly inspect all the younger ladies, as dance or
supper brought them near.
One of the dances was an old-fashioned cotillon, and one of the
figures, the "coquette," brought every one, in turn, before me. I
received a pleasant word or two from those whom I knew, and a long,
kind, silent glance from Miss May Danvers. Where had been my eyes? She
was tall, stately, twenty-five, had large dark eyes, and long dark
lashes! Again the changes of the dance brought her near me; I threw (or
strove to throw) unutterable meanings into my eyes, and cast them upon
hers. She seemed startled, looked suddenly away, looked back to me,
and--blushed. I knew her for what is called "a nice girl"--that is,
tolerably frank, gently feminine, and not dangerously intelligent. Was
it possible that I had overlooked so much character and intellect?
As the cotillon closed, she was again in my neighborhood, and her
partner led her in my direction. I was rising painfully from my chair,
when Bob Leroy pushed me down again, whisked another seat from
somewhere, planted it at my side, and there she was!
She knew who was her neighbor, I plainly saw; but instead of turning
toward me, she began to fan herself in a nervous way and to fidget with
the buttons of her gloves. I grew impatient.
"Miss Danvers!" I said, at last.
"Oh!" was all her answer, as she looked at me for a moment.
"Where are your thoughts?" I asked.
Then she turned, with wide, astonished eyes, coloring softly up to the
roots of her hair. My heart gave a sudden leap.
"How can you tell, if I can not?" she asked.
"May I guess?"
She made a slight inclination of the head, saying nothing. I was then
quite sure.
"The second ravine to the left of the main drive?"
This time she actually started; her color became deeper, and a leaf of
the ivory fan snapped between her fingers.
"Let there be no more a secret!" I exclaimed. "Your flowers have
brought me your messages; I knew I should find you--"
Full of certainty, I was speaking in a low, impassioned voice. She cut
me short by rising from her seat; I felt that she was both angry and
alarmed. Fisher, of Philadelphia, jostling right and left in his haste,
made his way toward her. She fairly snatched his arm, clung to it with
a warmth I had never seen expressed in a ballroom, and began to whisper
in his ear. It was not five minutes before he came to me, alone, with a
very stern face, bent down, and said:
"If you have discovered our secret, you will keep silent. You are
certainly a gentleman."
I bowed, coldly and savagely. There was a draught from the open window;
my ankle became suddenly weary and painful, and I went to bed. Can you
believe that I didn't guess, immediately, what it all meant? In a vague
way, I fancied that I had been premature in my attempt to drop our
mutual incognito, and that Fisher, a rival lover, was jealous of me.
This was rather flattering than otherwise; but when I limped down to
the ladies' parlor, the next day, no Miss Danvers was to be seen. I did
not venture to ask for her; it might seem importunate, and a woman of
so much hidden capacity was evidently not to be wooed in the ordinary
way.
So another night passed by; and then, with the morning, came a letter
which made me feel, at the same instant, like a fool and a hero. It had
been dropped in the Wampsocket post-office, was legibly addressed to me
and delivered with some other letters which had arrived by the night
mail. Here it is; listen!
"NOTO IGNOTA!--Haste is not a gift of the gods, and you have been
impatient, with the usual result. I was almost prepared for this, and
thus am not wholly disappointed. In a day or two more you will discover
your mistake, which, so far as I can learn, has done no particular
harm. If you wish to find me, there is only one way to seek me; should
I tell you what it is, I should run the risk of losing you--that is, I
should preclude the manifestation of a certain quality which I hope to
find in the man who may--or, rather, must--be my friend. This sounds
enigmatical, yet you have read enough of my nature, as written in those
random notes in my sketch-book, to guess, at least, how much I require.
Only this let me add: mere guessing is useless.
"Being unknown, I can write freely. If you find me, I shall be
justified; if not, I shall hardly need to blush, even to myself, over a
futile experiment.
"It is possible for me to learn enough of your life, henceforth, to
direct my relation toward you. This may be the end; if so, I shall know
it soon. I shall also know whether you continue to seek me. Trusting in
your honor as a man, I must ask you to trust in mine, as a woman."
I _did_ discover my mistake, as the Unknown promised. There had been a
secret betrothal between Fisher and Miss Danvers, and, singularly
enough, the momentous question and answer had been given in the very
ravine leading to my upper dell! The two meant to keep the matter to
themselves; but therein, it seems, I thwarted them; there was a little
opposition on the part of their respective families, but all was
amicably settled before I left Wampsocket.
The letter made a very deep impression upon me. What was the one way to
find her? What could it be but the triumph that follows ambitious
toil--the manifestation of all my best qualities as a man? Be she old
or young, plain or beautiful, I reflected, hers is surely a nature
worth knowing, and its candid intelligence conceals no hazards for me.
I have sought her rashly, blundered, betrayed that I set her lower, in
my thoughts, than her actual self: let me now adopt the opposite
course, seek her openly no longer, go back to my tasks, and, following
my own aims vigorously and cheerfully, restore that respect which she
seemed to be on the point of losing. For, consciously or not, she had
communicated to me a doubt, implied in the very expression of her own
strength and pride. She had meant to address me as an equal, yet,
despite herself, took a stand a little above that which she accorded to
me.
I came back to New York earlier than usual, worked steadily at my
profession and with increasing success, and began to accept
opportunities (which I had previously declined) of making myself
personally known to the great, impressible, fickle, tyrannical public.
One or two of my speeches in the hall of the Cooper Institute, on
various occasions--as you may perhaps remember--gave me a good headway
with the party, and were the chief cause of my nomination for the State
office which I still hold. (There, on the table, lies a resignation,
written to-day, but not yet signed. We'll talk of it afterward.)
Several months passed by, and no further letter reached me. I gave up
much of my time to society, moved familiarly in more than one province
of the kingdom here, and vastly extended my acquaintance, especially
among the women; but not one of them betrayed the mysterious something
or other--really I can't explain precisely what it was!--which I was
looking for. In fact, the more I endeavored quietly to study the sex,
the more confused I became.
At last, I was subjected to the usual onslaught from the strong-minded.
A small but formidable committee entered my office one morning and
demanded a categorical declaration of my principles. What my views on
the subject were, I knew very well; they were clear and decided; and
yet, I hesitated to declare them! It wasn't a temptation of Saint
Anthony--that is, turned the other way--and the belligerent attitude of
the dames did not alarm me in the least; but _she_! What was _her_
position? How could I best please her? It flashed upon my mind, while
Mrs. ------ was making her formal speech, that I had taken no step for
months without a vague, secret reference to _her_. So I strove to be
courteous, friendly, and agreeably noncommittal; begged for further
documents, and promised to reply by letter in a few days.
I was hardly surprised to find the well-known hand on the envelope of a
letter shortly afterward. I held it for a minute in my palm, with an
absurd hope that I might sympathetically feel its character before
breaking the seal. Then I read it with a great sense of relief.
"I have never assumed to guide a man, except toward the full exercise
of his powers. It is not opinion in action, but opinion in a state of
idleness or indifference, which repels me. I am deeply glad that you
have gained so much since you left the country. If, in shaping your
course, you have thought of me, I will frankly say that, _to that
extent,_ you have drawn nearer. Am I mistaken in conjecturing that you
wish to know my relation to the movement concerning which you were
recently interrogated? In this, as in other instances which may come, I
must beg you to consider me only as a spectator. The more my own views
may seem likely to sway your action, the less I shall be inclined to
declare them. If you find this cold or unwomanly, remember that it is
not easy!"
Yes! I felt that I had certainly drawn much nearer to her. And from
this time on, her imaginary face and form became other than they were.
She was twenty-eight--three years older; a very little above the middle
height, but not tall; serene, rather than stately, in her movements;
with a calm, almost grave face, relieved by the sweetness of the full,
firm lips; and finally eyes of pure, limpid gray, such as we fancy
belonged to the Venus of Milo. I found her thus much more attractive
than with the dark eyes and lashes--but she did not make her appearance
in the circles which I frequented.
Another year slipped away. As an official personage, my importance
increased, but I was careful not to exaggerate it to myself. Many have
wondered (perhaps you among the rest) at my success, seeing that I
possess no remarkable abilities. If I have any secret, it is simply
this--doing faithfully, with all my might, whatever I undertake.
Nine-tenths of our politicians become inflated and careless, after the
first few years, and are easily forgotten when they once lose place.
I am a little surprised now that I had so much patience with the
Unknown. I was too important, at least, to be played with; too mature
to be subjected to a longer test; too earnest, as I had proved, to be
doubted, or thrown aside without a further explanation.
Growing tired, at last, of silent waiting, I bethought me of
advertising. A carefully written "Personal," in which _Ignotus_
informed _Ignota_ of the necessity of his communicating with her,
appeared simultaneously in the "Tribune," "Herald," "World," and
"Times." I renewed the advertisement as the time expired without an
answer, and I think it was about the end of the third week before one
came, through the post, as before.
Ah, yes! I had forgotten. See! my advertisement is pasted on the note,
as a heading or motto for the manuscript lines. I don't know why the
printed slip should give me a particular feeling of humiliation as I
look at it, but such is the fact. What she wrote is all I need read to
you:
"I could not, at first, be certain that this was meant for me. If I
were to explain to you why I have not written for so long a time, I
might give you one of the few clews which I insist on keeping in my own
hands. In your public capacity, you have been (so far as a woman may
judge) upright, independent, wholly manly: in your relations with other
men I learn nothing of you that is not honorable: toward women you are
kind, chivalrous, no doubt, overflowing with the _usual_ social
refinements, but--Here, again, I run hard upon the absolute necessity
of silence. The way to me, if you care to traverse it, is so simple, so
very simple! Yet, after what I have written, I can not even wave my
hand in the direction of it, without certain self-contempt. When I feel
free to tell you, we shall draw apart and remain unknown forever.
"You desire to write? I do not prohibit it. I have heretofore made no
arrangement for hearing from you, in turn, because I could not discover
that any advantage would accrue from it. But it seems only fair, I
confess, and you dare not think me capricious. So, three days hence, at
six o'clock in the evening, a trusty messenger of mine will call at
your door. If you have anything to give her for me, the act of giving
it must be the sign of a compact on your part that you will allow her
to leave immediately, unquestioned and unfollowed."
You look puzzled, I see: you don't catch the real drift of her words?
Well, that's a melancholy encouragement. Neither did I, at the time: it
was plain that I had disappointed her in some way, and my intercourse
with or manner toward women had something to do with it. In vain I ran
over as much of my later social life as I could recall. There had been
no special attention, nothing to mislead a susceptible heart; on the
other side, certainly no rudeness, no want of "chivalrous" (she used
the word!) respect and attention. What, in the name of all the gods,
was the matter?
In spite of all my efforts to grow clearer, I was obliged to write my
letter in a rather muddled state of mind. I had _so_ much to say!
sixteen folio pages, I was sure, would only suffice for an introduction
to the case; yet, when the creamy vellum lay before me and the moist
pen drew my fingers toward it, I sat stock dumb for half an hour. I
wrote, finally, in a half-desperate mood, without regard to coherency
or logic. Here's a rough draft of a part of the letter, and a single
passage from it will be enough:
"I can conceive of no simpler way to you than the knowledge of your
name and address. I have drawn airy images of you, but they do not
become incarnate, and I am not sure that I should recognize you in the
brief moment of passing. Your nature is not of those which are
instantly legible. As an abstract power, it has wrought in my life and
it continually moves my heart with desires which are unsatisfactory
because so vague and ignorant. Let me offer you personally, my
gratitude, my earnest friendship, _you_ would laugh if I were to _now_
offer more."
Stay! here is another fragment, more reckless in tone:
"I want to find the woman whom I can love--who can love me. But this is
a masquerade where the features are hidden, the voice disguised, even
the hands grotesquely gloved. Come! I will venture more than I ever
thought was possible to me. You shall know my deepest nature as I
myself seem to know it. Then, give me the commonest chance of learning
yours, through an intercourse which shall leave both free, should we
not feel the closing of the inevitable bond!"
After I had written that, the pages filled rapidly. When the appointed
hour arrived, a bulky epistle, in a strong linen envelope, sealed with
five wax seals, was waiting on my table. Precisely at six there was an
announcement: the door opened, and a little outside, in the shadow, I
saw an old woman, in a threadbare dress of rusty black.
"Come in!" I said.
"The letter!" answered a husky voice. She stretched out a bony hand,
without moving a step.
"It is for a lady--very important business," said I, taking up the
letter; "are you sure that there is no mistake?"
She drew her hand under the shawl, turned without a word, and moved
toward the hall door.
"Stop!" I cried: "I beg a thousand pardons! Take it--take it! You are
the right messenger!"
She clutched it, and was instantly gone.
Several days passed, and I gradually became so nervous and uneasy that
I was on the point of inserting another "Personal" in the daily papers,
when the answer arrived. It was brief and mysterious; you shall hear
the whole of it:
"I thank you. Your letter is a sacred confidence which I pray you never
to regret. Your nature is sound and good. You ask no more than is
reasonable, and I have no real right to refuse. In the one respect
which I have hinted, _I_ may have been unskilful or too narrowly
cautious: I must have the certainty of this. Therefore, as a generous
favor, give me six months more! At the end of that time I will write to
you again. Have patience with these brief lines: another word might be
a word too much."
You notice the change in her tone? The letter gave me the strongest
impression of a new, warm, almost anxious interest on her part. My
fancies, as first at Wampsocket, began to play all sorts of singular
pranks: sometimes she was rich and of an old family, sometimes
moderately poor and obscure, but always the same calm, reposeful face
and clear gray eyes. I ceased looking for her in society, quite sure
that I should not find her, and nursed a wild expectation of suddenly
meeting her, face to face, in the most unlikely places and under
startling circumstances. However, the end of it all was patience--
patience for six months.
There's not much more to tell; but this last letter is hard for me to
read. It came punctually, to a day. I knew it would, and at the last I
began to dread the time, as if a heavy note were falling due, and I had
no funds to meet it. My head was in a whirl when I broke the seal. The
fact in it stared at me blankly, at once, but it was a long time before
the words and sentences became intelligible.
"The stipulated time has come, and our hidden romance is at an end. Had
I taken this resolution a year ago, it would have saved me many vain
hopes, and you, perhaps, a little uncertainty. Forgive me, first, if
you can, and then hear the explanation:
"You wished for a personal interview: _you have had, not one, but
many._ We have met, in society, talked face to face, discussed the
weather, the opera, toilettes, Queechy, Aurora Floyd, Long Branch and
Newport, and exchanged a weary amount of fashionable gossip; and you
never guessed that I was governed by any deeper interest! I have
purposely uttered ridiculous platitudes, and you were as smilingly
courteous as if you enjoyed them: I have let fall remarks whose
hollowness and selfishness could not have escaped you, and have waited
in vain for a word of sharp, honest, manly reproof. Your manner to me
was unexceptionable, as it was to all other women: but there lies the
source of my disappointment, of--yes--of my sorrow!
"You appreciate, I can not doubt, the qualities in woman which men
value in one another--culture, independence of thought, a high and
earnest apprehension of life; but you know not how to seek them. It is
not true that a mature and unperverted woman is flattered by receiving
only the general obsequiousness which most men give to the whole sex.
In the man who contradicts and strives with her, she discovers a truer
interest, a nobler respect. The empty-headed, spindle-shanked youths
who dance admirably, understand something of billiards, much less of
horses, and still less of navigation, soon grow inexpressibly wearisome
to us; but the men who adopt their social courtesy, never seeking to
arouse, uplift, instruct us, are a bitter disappointment.
"What would have been the end, had you really found me? Certainly a
sincere, satisfying friendship. No mysterious magnetic force has drawn
you to me or held you near me, nor has my experiment inspired me with
an interest which can not be given up without a personal pang. I am
grieved, for the sake of all men and all women. Yet, understand me! I
mean no slightest reproach. I esteem and honor you for what you are.
Farewell!"
There! Nothing could be kinder in tone, nothing more humiliating in
substance. I was sore and offended for a few days; but I soon began to
see, and ever more and more clearly, that she was wholly right. I was
sure, also, that any further attempt to correspond with her would be
vain. It all comes of taking society just as we find it, and supposing
that conventional courtesy is the only safe ground on which men and
women can meet.
The fact is--there's no use in hiding it from myself (and I see, by
your face, that the letter cuts deep into you own conscience)--she is a
free, courageous, independent character, and--I am not.
But who _was_ she?
MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI
----------------------------
BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
_Thomas Bailey Aldrich (born at Portsmouth, N. H., Nov. n, 1836) is an
artist to his finger tips, whether working in verse or prose. His short
story of a non-existent heroine, "Marjorie Daw" has been repeatedly
mentioned by the critics as a masterpiece of dainty workmanship.
Consequently most readers are familiar with it. It gave title to a
volume of short stories, one of which, the present selection, hardly
deserved to be thrust in this manner into the background. Its
denouement is fully as ingenious and unexpected as that of "Marjorie
Daw," and it is led up to with an art that is just as illusory. The
reader, too, is relieved at the final shattering of the romance, where,
in the same case with "Marjorie Daw," he can hardly bring himself to
forgive the author._
MADEMOISELLE OLYMPE ZABRISKI
BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
[Footnote: Copyright, 1873 and 1901, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich.
Published by special arrangement with Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
publishers of Mr. Aldrich's works.]
I
We are accustomed to speak with a certain light irony of the tendency
which women have to gossip, as if the sin itself, if it is a sin, were
of the gentler sex, and could by no chance be a masculine peccadillo.
So far as my observation goes, men are as much given to small talk as
women, and it is undeniable that we have produced the highest type of
gossiper extant. Where will you find, in or out of literature, such
another droll, delightful, chatty busybody as Samuel Pepys, Esq.,
Secretary to the Admiralty in the reigns of those fortunate gentlemen
Charles II and James II of England? He is the king of tattlers, as
Shakespeare is the king of poets.
If it came to a matter of pure gossip, I would back Our Club against
the Sorosis or any women's club in existence. Whenever you see in your
drawing-room four or five young fellows lounging in easy chairs, cigar
in hand, and now and then bringing their heads together over the small
round Japanese table which is always the pivot of these social circles,
you may be sure that they are discussing Tom's engagement, or Dick's
extravagance, or Harry's hopeless passion for the younger Miss
Fleurdelys. It is here old Tippleton gets execrated for that
everlasting _bon mot_ of his which was quite a success at
dinner-parties forty years ago; it is here the belle of the season
passes under the scalpels of merciless young surgeons; it is here B's
financial condition is handled in a way that would make B's hair stand
on end; it is here, in short, that everything is canvassed--everything
that happens in our set, I mean--much that never happens, and a great
deal that could not possibly happen. It was at Our Club that I learned
the particulars of the Van Twiller affair.
It was great entertainment to Our Club, the Van Twiller affair, though
it was rather a joyless thing, I fancy, for Van Twiller. To understand
the case fully, it should be understood that Ralph Van Twiller is one
of the proudest and most sensitive men living. He is a lineal
descendant of Wouter Van Twiller, the famous old Dutch governor of New
York--Nieuw Amsterdam, as it was then; his ancestors have always been
burgomasters or admirals or generals, and his mother is the Mrs.
Vanrensselaer Vanzandt Van Twiller whose magnificent place will be
pointed out to you on the right bank of the Hudson as you pass up the
historic river toward Idlewild. Ralph is about twenty-five years old.
Birth made him a gentleman, and the rise of real estate--some of it in
the family since the old governor's time--made him a millionaire. It
was a kindly fairy that stepped in and made him a good fellow also.
Fortune, I take it, was in her most jocund mood when she heaped her
gifts in this fashion on Van Twiller, who was, and will be again, when
this cloud blows over, the flower of Our Club.
About a year ago there came a whisper--if the word "whisper" is not too
harsh a term to apply to what seemed a mere breath floating gently
through the atmosphere of the billiard-room--imparting the intelligence
that Van Twiller was in some kind of trouble. Just as everybody
suddenly takes to wearing square-toed boots, or to drawing his
neckscarf through a ring, so it became all at once the fashion, without
any preconcerted agreement, for everybody to speak of Van Twiller as a
man in some way under a cloud. But what the cloud was, and how he got
under it, and why he did not get away from it, were points that lifted
themselves into the realm of pure conjecture. There was no man in the
club with strong enough wing to his imagination to soar to the
supposition that Van Twiller was embarrassed in money matters. Was he
in love? That appeared nearly as improbable; for if he had been in love
all the world--that is, perhaps a hundred first families--would have
known all about it instantly.
"He has the symptoms," said Delaney, laughing. "I remember once when
Jack Fleming--"
"Ned!" cried Flemming, "I protest against any allusion to that
business."
This was one night when Van Twiller had wandered into the club, turned
over the magazines absently in the reading-room, and wandered out again
without speaking ten words. The most careless eye would have remarked
the great change that had come over Van Twiller. Now and then he would
play a game of billiards with De Peyster or Haseltine, or stop to chat
a moment in the vestibule with old Duane; but he was an altered man.
When at the club, he was usually to be found in the small smoking-room
upstairs, seated on a fauteuil fast asleep, with the last number of
"The Nation" in his hand. Once, if you went to two or three places of
an evening, you were certain to meet Van Twiller at them all. You
seldom met him in society now.
By and by came whisper number two--a whisper more emphatic than number
one, but still untraceable to any tangible mouthpiece. This time the
whisper said that Van Twiller _was_ in love. But with whom? The list of
possible Mrs. Van Twillers was carefully examined by experienced hands,
and a check placed against a fine old Knickerbocker name here and
there, but nothing satisfactory arrived at. Then that same still small
voice of rumor but now with an easily detected staccato sharpness to
it, said that Van Twiller was in love--with an actress! Van Twiller,
whom it had taken all these years and all this waste of raw material in
the way of ancestors to bring to perfection--Ralph Van Twiller, the net
result and flower of his race, the descendant of Wouter, the son of
Mrs. Vanrensselaer Vanzandt Van Twiller--in love with an actress! That
was too ridiculous to be believed--and so everybody believed it.
Six or seven members of the club abruptly discovered in themselves an
unsuspected latent passion for the histrionic art. In squads of two or
three they stormed successively all the theatres in town--Booth's,
Wallack's, Daly's Fifth Avenue (not burned down then), and the Grand
Opera House. Even the shabby homes of the drama over in the Bowery,
where the Germanic Thespis has not taken out his naturalization papers,
underwent rigid exploration. But no clew was found to Van Twiller's
mysterious attachment. The _opera bouffe_, which promised the widest
field for investigation, produced absolutely nothing, not even a crop
of suspicions. One night, after several weeks of this, Delaney and I
fancied that we caught sight of Van Twiller in the private box of an
uptown theatre, where some thrilling trapeze performance was going on,
which we did not care to sit through; but we concluded afterward that
it was only somebody who looked like him. Delaney, by the way, was
unusually active in this search. I dare say he never quite forgave Van
Twiller for calling him Muslin Delaney. Ned is fond of ladies' society,
and that's a fact.
The Cimmerian darkness which surrounded Van Twiller's inamorata left us
free to indulge in the wildest conjectures. Whether she was
black-tressed Melpomene, with bowl and dagger, or Thalia, with the fair
hair and the laughing face, was only to be guessed at. It was popularly
conceded, however, that Van Twiller was on the point of forming a
dreadful _mesalliance_.
Up to this period he had visited the club regularly. Suddenly he ceased
to appear. He was not to be seen on Fifth Avenue, or in the Central
Park, or at the houses he generally frequented. His chambers--and
mighty comfortable chambers they were--on Thirty-fourth Street were
deserted. He had dropped out of the world, shot like a bright
particular star from his orbit in the heaven of the best society.
The following conversation took place one night in the smoking-room:
"Where's Van Twiller?"
"Who's seen Van Twiller?
"What has become of Van Twiller?"
Delaney picked up the "Evening Post," and read--with a solemnity that
betrayed young Firkins into exclaiming, "By Jove, now!--"
"Married, on the 10th instant, by the Rev. Friar Laurence, at the
residence of the bride's uncle, Montague Capulet, Esq., Miss Adrienne
Le Couvreur to Mr. Ralph Van Twiller, both of this city. No cards."
"Free List suspended," murmured De Peyster.
"It strikes me," said Frank Livingstone, who had been ruffling the
leaves of a magazine at the other end of the table, "that you fellows
are in a great fever about Van Twiller."
"So we are."
"Well, he has simply gone out of town."
"Where?"
"Up to the old homestead on the Hudson."
"It's an odd time of year for a fellow to go into the country."
"He has gone to visit his mother," said Livingstone.
"In February?"
"I didn't know, Delaney, that there was any statute in force
prohibiting a man from visiting his mother in February if he wants to."
Delaney made some light remark about the pleasure of communing with
Nature with a cold in her head, and the topic was dropped.
Livingstone was hand in glove with Van Twiller, and if any man shared
his confidence it was Living-stone. He was aware of the gossip and
speculation that had been rife in the club, but he either was not at
liberty or did not think it worth while to relieve our curiosity. In
the course of a week or two it was reported that Van Twiller was going
to Europe; and go he did. A dozen of us went down to the "Scythia" to
see him off. It was refreshing to have something as positive as the
fact that Van Twiller had sailed.