WILD HORSES AND CHAMPAGNE
James Wimbourne always had the reputation of being an exceptionally
strong-willed person. None of his friends would have been in the least
surprised to see him come so triumphantly through the first real test
that life offered him, if they had known anything about it. Not one of
them did know anything about it; no human being ever vaguely surmised
that he renounced--the word is a big one but the act was worthy of
it--Beatrice in favor of his brother. Beatrice may have suspected it at
first, but her suspicion, if it existed at all, died an easy and natural
death. Harry suspected it least of all, which was just what James
wanted. The one reason why the renunciation did not turn out entirely as
James intended was one over which he had no control, namely, the simple
fact that Harry was never in love with Beatrice.
But as a matter of fact one must look deeper into James' character to
discover how it was that, long before the completion of the four years
that the story has recently skipped, James was able to think of Beatrice
without even a flutter of the heart. Deeply imbedded in his nature there
lay a motive force to which his will power, as other people knew it, was
merely the servant. This may perhaps be most safely described as James'
attitude toward Harry. It is not easy to describe it. It does not do to
lay stress upon the elements of brotherly affection, desire to protect,
unselfishness and so forth, which made it up; those things all appear to
smack of priggishness and cant and are at variance with the spontaneity
of the thing we are talking about. One might perhaps refer to it as an
ineradicable conviction in the soul of James that Harry was always to be
thought of first.
Very few people are capable of entertaining such a feeling. Very few are
worthy of it. James had just the sort of nature in which it is most
likely to occur. The Germans have an apt phrase for this type of
nature--_schoene Seele_. James had a _schoene Seele_. He had his tastes
and feelings, of course, like any one else, but the good always came
naturally to him; the bad was abnormal. And this was why he found it
possible and even--after a certain time--easy to erase from his brain
the image of Beatrice, and set up in its place a vision of Harry and
Beatrice coming into a mutual realization of each other.
Well, it couldn't have been much of a love in the first place if it
wasn't stronger than brotherly affection, does some one suggest? some
one, we fancy, who is thoroughly familiar with the poems of the late
Robert Browning and entertains a _penchant_ for the Paolo and Francesca
brand of love. Well, possibly. We confess to our own moments of
Paolomania; every healthy person has them. But we would call the
attention of the aforesaid some one to the stern fact that love in the
United States of America in the twentieth century is of necessity a
different thing from love in--Rimini, we were going to say, but Rimini
is a real place, with a railroad station and hotel omnibusses, so let us
change it to Paolo-and-Francescadom. Also that he may have fostered his
cult of Paoloism rather at the expense of his study of the _schoene
Seele_. And we would also suggest, meeting him on his own ground, that
there is no evidence of Paolo ever having got along very well with
Giovanni. For if he had, of course, that whole beautiful story might
have been spoilt.
Then, of course, James' remoteness from Beatrice made it easier for him.
Love is primarily a matter of geography, anyway. With the result that
finally, when the month of June arrived and with it the offer of the New
York position, the danger implied in New York's proximity to New Haven
and Beatrice was not enough to deter James from closing with it. He
accepted the offer, as we know, and took up his duties in New York in
September.
He took Stodger McClintock with him. Stodger by this time simply
belonged to James, as far as the Emancipation Proclamation and other
legal technicalities permit of one person belonging to another. He had
already obtained for him a job as office boy in McClellan's and now
proposed to take him east and educate him, with the eventual idea of
turning him into a chauffeur. Stodger seemed delighted with the
prospect.
"Only," he objected, "please, I'll have to ask me grand-mudder!"
"Oh, of course," said James gravely. "You couldn't go without her
consent. I'll have a talk with her myself, if you like."
Stodger seemed to think that would not be necessary. It ended by James
taking a small apartment and installing Stodger as chore boy under the
command of an eagle-eyed Swedish woman, where he could divide his time
between cleaning shoes and attending high school.
October arrived; it was ten months since James had seen Beatrice and he
decided it was now time to see her again, to make the sight of her and
Harry together chase the last shreds of regret from his mind. So he
wrote to Aunt Selina announcing that he would spend his next free
Saturday night in New Haven.
It happened that Aunt Selina had fixed upon that night to have some
people to dinner. When she learned that James would be one of the number
that idea vanished in smoke and from its ashes, phoenix-like, arose the
conception of making it a real occasion; not dinner, nor
people-to-dinner, but frankly, out-and-out, A Dinner, like that. She
arranged to have eighteen, and sent out invitations accordingly.
James did not see Beatrice until nearly dinner-time on the Saturday
night. He came downstairs at five minutes or so before the hour and
discovered Harry standing before the drawing-room fireplace with Aunt
Selina placidly sitting on a sofa and Beatrice flying about giving a
finishing touch here and there. There was no strain or uneasiness about
the meeting; his "Hello, Beatrice," received by her almost on the wing
as she passed on some slight preprandial mission, was a model of cordial
familiarity. And if she had not been too preoccupied to let the meeting
be in the least awkward, Harry, gaily chattering from the chimney-piece,
would have been enough to prevent it anyway.
"Well, here we all are," Harry was saying, "and nobody here to
entertain. Of course if we had all happened to be a minute or two late
there would have been a crowd of people waiting for us. We won't
complain, though; being too early is the one great social sin. Yes, Aunt
Selina dear, I know people didn't think so in the Hayes administration
... Beatrice, do stop pecking at those roses; they look very well
indeed. You make me feel as if my hair wasn't properly brushed, or my
shirt-front spotted. This suspense is telling on me; why doesn't
somebody come?"
Somebody did come almost immediately. Aunt Selina arose and stood in
state in front of the fireplace to receive, and she made James stand
with her, as though as a reward for returning to the eastern half of the
country. He looked extremely well standing there. There was not one of
the guests that came up and shook his hand that did not mentally
congratulate the house of Wimbourne upon its present head.
In some ways, indeed, one might say that those few minutes formed the
very apex of James' life, the point toward which his whole past appeared
to rise and his future to descend from. There are such moments in men's
careers; moments to which one can point and say, Would that chance and
my own nature had permitted me to stay there for the rest of my natural
days! Surely there can be no harm in a soul remaining static if the
level at which it remains is sufficiently high. Here was James, for
example, not merely rich, good-looking, clever rather than otherwise,
beloved of his fellow men, but with a very palpable balance on the side
of good in his character. Why could not fate leave him stranded on that
high point for the rest of his life, radiating goodness and happiness to
every one who came near him? _Schoene Seelen_ are rare enough in this
world anyway; what a pity it is that they should not always be allowed
to shine to the greatest possible advantage! What a pity it is that so
many of them are overwhelmed with shadows too deep for their struggling
rays to pierce; shadows so thick that the poor little flames are
accounted lucky if they can manage to burn on invisibly in the darkness,
illuminating nothing but their own frail substance, content merely to
live! The thought, indeed, would be intolerable were it not for certain
other considerations; as for example, that the purest flames burn
clearest in the darkness, or that a candle at midnight is worth more
than an arc-light at noonday.
Having successfully survived the first meeting, James found himself
performing the duties of the evening with astonishing ease. He devoted
himself chiefly to his right-hand neighbor, who for some reason was
always referred to as "little" Mrs. Farnsworth. He was not conscious of
the slightest feeling of strain in his conversation; he got on so well
and so easily that he perhaps failed to realize that his was a real
effort, made with the undoubted though unconscious purpose of keeping
his mind off other things. If he had not succeeded so well, it might
have been better. Certainly he would have been spared the let-down that
he subsequently realized was inevitable. It came about halfway through
dinner, in a general conversation which started with an account by James
of Stodger's grandmother.
He had made rather a good thing of this. "Of course I never force his
hand," he was explaining; "I never ask him out and out what her name is
and where she lives; I try to give the impression of believing in her as
profoundly as himself. But it's most amusing to see how cleverly he
dodges the questions I do ask. When we were about to come east, for
instance, I asked him how his grandmother dared to trust him so far away
without seeing me or knowing anything about me. He replied that she was
satisfied with the description he gave her of me. 'But Stodger,' I said,
'doesn't she want to see with her own eyes?' 'She's my _grand_mother,
not my mother,' he answered, which really covered the matter pretty
well."
"But he's never shown you either her or a letter from her?" asked Mrs.
Farnsworth.
"Of course not--how could he? Oh, I must say I admire him for it! You
see, I found him living practically in the gutter, sleeping Heaven knows
where and eating Heaven knows what; but through it all he hung onto this
grandmother business as his one last tie with the world of
respectability and good clothes and enough to eat. I think I never saw a
person get so much out of a mere idea."
"It shows imagination, certainly," murmured Mrs. Farnsworth
appreciatively, but her remark was drowned in the question of her
right-hand neighbor, who had been listening to James' narrative and
joined in with:
"Have you ever succeeded in getting any idea of what the old lady is
like? I should think the boy's mental picture of a grandmother might
form a key to his whole character."
"No," replied James; "I've never asked him anything very definite. I
must find out something more about her some time."
"What would the ideal grandmother be like, I wonder?" queried Mrs.
Farnsworth. "Yours or mine, for example? Mine would be a dear old soul
with a white cap and curls, whom I should always go to visit over
Thanksgiving and eat too much pumpkin pie."
"Yes, I think that comes pretty near my ideal, too," said James;
"provided she didn't want to kiss me too often and had no other bad
habits."
"How idyllic!" said Mrs. Farnsworth's other neighbor. "Arcadians, both
of you. I confess to something much more sophisticated; something living
in town, say, with a box at the opera. Mrs. Harriman, it's your turn."
"Oh, leave me out!" answered Mrs. Harriman, a woman who still, at forty,
gave the impression of being too young for her husband. "You see, I have
a grandmother still living."
"So have I," irrepressibly retorted her neighbor, whose name was
Nesmith; "two of them, in fact, and neither is anything like my ideal!
You can feel quite at your ease."
"Well, if I had to choose, I think I would have one more like yours, Mr.
Nesmith; only very old and dignified, something of the dowager type, who
would tell delightful stories of Paris under Louis Philippe and Rome
under the Popes, and possibly write some rather indiscreet memoirs.
Something definitely connecting my own time with hers, you know."
"Oh, I say, no fair!" interrupted James in unthoughtful high spirits.
"No fair stealing somebody else's grandmother! You've described Miss
Carson's grandmother, Mrs. Harriman, unless I'm greatly mistaken.
Beatrice, isn't Mrs. Harriman's ideal grandmother suspiciously like old
Lady Moville?"
Beatrice, who was sitting two places down the table from Mrs. Harriman,
had heard the description; the grandmother conversation had, in fact,
absorbed the attention of very nearly half the table.
"Very like, I admit; but Mrs. Harriman is quite welcome to her.... She
is not exactly my ideal of a grandmother...!" She turned directly toward
James and made the last remark straight at him with a sort of
deprecating smile of comprehension. It was as though she said: "I say
that to _you_ because I know you'll understand!" It did not amount to
much; it was one of the fleeting signs of mutual comprehension that
friends will frequently exchange in the presence of acquaintances. But
unfortunately the remark and the way it was given were extremely
ill-timed as far as James was concerned. The effect they caused in him
may perhaps be best likened to one of those sudden fits of faintness
that overcome people convalescing from a long illness; the sort of thing
where you are all right one minute and gasping and calling for brandy
the next, and the stronger you feel beforehand the harder the faintness
seizes you when it comes. If James had been on the watch for such
occurrences, the incident would not have had half the effect on him that
it did. As it was, however, Beatrice's little speech and glance stirred
into momentary activity much of the feeling that he had been striving
all these months to keep down.
It was not really much; it did not actually undo the work of those ten
months. James was really convalescent. But the suddenness of the thing
overcame him for the moment and gave him a feeling approaching that of
actual physical faintness. He saw a glass of champagne standing at his
side and involuntarily reached toward it.
No one noticed him much. Mrs. Farnsworth was chattering easily with Mr.
Nesmith; conversation had resumed its normal course. Possibly the
knowledge that James had touched on a rather doubtful topic, Beatrice's
father's family, gave conversation a slight added impetus; certainly if
anybody noticed James' embarrassment they assumed that his slight
indiscretion amply accounted for it. At any rate, when his embarrassment
led him so far as not only to reach for his left-hand neighbor's glass
of champagne instead of his own but to tip it over in the process, the
said left-hand neighbor, who happened to be Madge Elliston, attributed
his action to that reason and acted accordingly.
With a tact that would have seemed overdone if it had not been so prompt
and sufficient, she immediately assumed that it had been she who had
knocked the glass over.
"Oh, I am so sorry!" she exclaimed. "I _am_ such an awkward idiot; I
hope it didn't go all over you, James?... No, my dress is all right;
apparently nothing but the tablecloth has suffered," and so forth, and
so forth, to an accompaniment of gentle swabbings and shifting of table
utensils.
"Oh, Madge?" said James vaguely. "That's all right--I mean, it's my
fault, entirely...." He joined in the rescue work with grateful fervor,
and in a moment a servant came up and did something efficient with a
napkin. Madge chattered on.
"I never do get through a party without doing something silly! I'm glad
it's nothing worse than this; I generally count that dinner as lost when
I don't drop a hairpin into my food. I used to be quite embarrassed
about it, but I've got so now that I eat shamelessly on, right down to
the hairpin. I wonder if your aunt saw? No--or rather, she did, and is
far too polite to show it. She just won't ask me again, that's all!"
"She will if I have any influence with her," said James; "and I don't
mind saying, between you and me and the gatepost, that I have a good
deal! Only you must sing to us after dinner. You will, won't you?"
"My dear James, I don't suppose wild horses--"
"Oh, come now, you must!"
"I was going to say, wild horses couldn't stop me from singing, if I'm
asked! Did you ever know me to refrain from singing, loudly and clearly,
whenever I received the slightest encouragement?"
"I can't say--I haven't been here enough. I'm pretty sure, though, that
there are no wild horses here to-night."
"I'm not so sure...." She took a rapid glance around the table. "Yes,
there are at least two wild horses right here in this room. See if you
can guess who they are."
"Oh, this is getting beyond me!"
"Guess!" said Madge, inexorably.
"Well ... Professor Dodd?"
"Right. Now the other."
"Oh--old George Harriman."
"No. You're on the wrong track; it isn't the unmusical people that keep
me from singing; it's those who make me feel silly and _de trop_,
somehow, when I'm doing it."
"I can't guess," said James after a pause.
"Well, it's Beatrice Carson!"
"No, not Beatrice! Why, she's very fond of music!"
"It's not that, as I tried to explain. She is such a wonderful, Olympian
sort of person, so beautiful, so well-bred, so good, and tremendously
wise and capable--you've heard about the work she's doing here in the
Working Girls' League?"
"Something, yes."
"Well, it's perfectly extraordinary; they say she's been able to reach
people no one else has ever been able to do anything with. Altogether,
the thought of her listening to me makes me feel like a first-class fool
when I stand up and warble, and even more so when I think of the time
and money I waste on learning to do a little bit better something that
isn't worth doing at all!"
"But you teach school," objected James. "That's sound constructive
work."
"That," replied Miss Elliston, "is not for eleemosynary reasons."
"But you do it very well."
"No, you're mistaken there, and beside, I hate teaching school; I simply
_loathe_ it! Whereas ... let me tell you a secret. This singing
business, this getting up in a drawing-room and opening my mouth and
compelling people's attention, even for a moment--seeing people
gradually stop talking and thinking about something else and wishing I'd
stop, and at last just listening, listening with all their ears and
minds to me, plain, stupid, vapid little ME--well, I just love it! It's
meat and drink to me. Whenever I receive an invitation to dinner I want
to write back, Yes, if you'll let me sing afterward!"
"Really," said James thoughtfully, "that's the way it is with you, is
it?"
"I'm afraid so! You won't give me away though, will you, James?"
"Oh, no danger! And I'll promise you another thing--wild horses shan't
have a chance when I'm around! Not one chance! Ever!"
He was flattered by her confidence, of course, as well as grateful for
her tact. She had not only dragged him out of the water where he was
floundering on to the dry land, but had gone so far as to haul him up an
agreeable eminence before leaving him.
Conversation shifted again at that point and James turned again to Mrs.
Farnsworth. He got on very well with her from his eminence; so well that
they remained conversationally united for the rest of dinner. In the
course of their talk he thought of another thing that made him even
happier; something he had not had a chance to realize before. Madge
thought his momentary embarrassment had been due to having broached the
doubtful topic of the Carson family. She had no inkling of his feeling
for Beatrice; the freedom of her references to Beatrice was proof
positive of that. And if she did not suspect, probably no one else did!
His secret was as safe as it had ever been.
The full joy of this realization began to spread itself through him
about the time when fingerbowls came into use and Aunt Selina was
gathering eyes preparatory to starting an exodus. Just as they all rose
he chanced to catch Madge's eye and, unable to withhold some expression
of his relief, smiled and said softly: "Thank you, Madge!"
"What?" she asked, not understanding.
"Champagne," said James.
"Oh, nonsense!" As she started to walk doorward she turned her face
directly toward his and gave him a deprecatory little smile of
understanding, exactly like the one Beatrice had thrown him a short time
ago.
The coincidence at first rather took him aback. He was conscious, as the
men rearranged themselves for coffee and cigars, of a feeling of loss,
almost of desecration; the sort of feeling one might experience on
seeing somebody else wear one's mother's wedding gown. Nobody but
Beatrice had any real business to smile like that--to him, at least.
Then it occurred to him that that was all nonsense; either it was all on
or all off between him and Beatrice. After all, Madge's smile was just
about as good to look at as Beatrice's, if one made allowance against
the latter's unusual beauty. Madge was not unattractive in her way,
either....
Madge sang, of course. James enjoyed her singing very much, the more so
for what she had told him at dinner. During her performance an
inspiration came to him which he presently made an opportunity to impart
to her.
"Look here," he asked; "have you ever sung for Beatrice's working
girls?"
"No," answered she in some surprise. "Why?"
"Why not?"
"I've never been asked, for one thing!"
"Would you, if you were? I'd like to suggest it to Beatrice, at any
rate."
"That's all very well for me, but what about the poor working girls?"
"I should say that any working girl that didn't want to hear you sing
didn't deserve to be helped. I may suggest it to her, then?"
"Certainly, if you like. I don't really imagine that she'll have any use
for it, though."
"We'll see." He dismissed the subject with a smile. It pleased him to be
quite brief and businesslike. As the party broke up and the guests
dispersed he was busy, in a half-conscious sort of way, constructing a
vision of him and his whole future life on this scheme; irretrievably
blighted in his own career he would devote himself to doing helpful
little services for people he liked, without thought of other reward
than the satisfaction of performing them.
Sustained by this vision he embarked quite fearlessly and efficiently on
a _tete-a-tete_ with Beatrice before going to bed that night. He made
the suggestion to her that he had told Madge he would make, and was
pleased to find that Beatrice welcomed it warmly.
Once in bed, with the light turned out and absolute quiet reigning
throughout the house, of course disturbing things did force their way
into his brain. It was bound to be that way, of course; had it not been
that way for the past ten months? Fears, pains, doubts, memories,
regrets--all passed in their accustomed procession before his mind's
eye, gradually growing dimmer and fewer as drowsiness came on and at
last dwindling to occasional mental pictures, as of a characteristic
gesture, a look, a smile. A humorous little smile, for instance,
suggestive of mutual understanding....
Jove, that was a funny thing! He sat up in bed, shaking off his
sleepiness and subjecting his mental vision to the test of conscious
reason. That was Madge's smile that he had just seen, not Beatrice's; it
was all there, the different position, the eyes, the hair and
everything; all complete and unmistakable. Well, it was strange what a
heavy dinner could do to a man--that, and a glass of champagne!