A time ago, no matter how long precisely, I, an old man, removed from
the country to the city, having become unexpected heir to a great old
house in a narrow street of one of the lower wards, once the haunt of
style and fashion, full of gay parlors and bridal chambers, but now,
for the most part, transformed into counting-rooms and warehouses.
There bales and boxes usurp the place of sofas; daybooks and ledgers
are spread where once the delicious breakfast toast was buttered. In
those old wards the glorious old soft-warfle days are over.
Nevertheless, in this old house of mine, so strangely spared, some
monument of departed days survived. Nor was this the only one. Amidst
the warehouse ranges some few other dwellings likewise stood. The
street's transmutation was not yet complete. Like those old English
friars and nuns, long haunting the ruins of their retreats after
they had been despoiled, so some few strange old gentlemen and ladies
still lingered in the neighborhood, and would not, could not, might
not quit it. And I thought that when, one spring, emerging from my
white-blossoming orchard, my own white hairs and white ivory-headed
cane were added to their loitering census, that those poor old souls
insanely fancied the ward was looking up--the tide of fashion setting
back again.
For many years the old house had been occupied by an owner; those
into whose hands it from time to time had passed having let it out to
various shifting tenants; decayed old townspeople, mysterious recluses,
or transient, ambiguous-looking foreigners.
While from certain cheap furbishings to which the exterior had been
subjected, such as removing a fine old pulpit-like porch crowning
the summit of six lofty steps, and set off with a broad-brimmed
sounding-board overshadowing the whole, as well as replacing the
original heavy window shutters (each pierced with a crescent in the
upper panel to admit an Oriental and moony light into the otherwise
shut-up rooms of a sultry morning in July) with frippery Venetian
blinds; while, I repeat, the front of the house hereby presented an
incongruous aspect, as if the graft of modernness had not taken in its
ancient stock; still, however it might fare without, within little or
nothing had been altered. The cellars were full of great grim, arched
bins of blackened brick, looking like the ancient tombs of Templars,
while overhead were shown the first-floor timbers, huge, square, and
massive, all red oak, and through long eld, of a rich and Indian color.
So large were those timbers, and so thickly ranked, that to walk in
those capacious cellars was much like walking along a line-of-battle
ship's gun-deck.
All the rooms in each story remained just as they stood ninety years
ago with all their heavy-moulded, wooden cornices, paneled wainscots,
and carved and inaccessible mantels of queer horticultural and
zoological devices. Dim with longevity, the very covering of the walls
still preserved the patterns of the times of Louis XVI. In the largest
parlor (the drawing-room, my daughters called it, in distinction
from two smaller parlors, though I did not think the distinction
indispensable) the paper hangings were in the most gaudy style.
Instantly we knew such paper could only have come from Paris--genuine
Versailles paper--the sort of paper that might have hung in Marie
Antoinette's boudoir. It was of great diamond lozenges, divided by
massive festoons of roses (onions, Biddy the girl said they were,
but my wife soon changed Biddy's mind on that head); and in those
lozenges, one and all, as in an over-arbored garden-cage, sat a grand
series of gorgeous illustrations of the natural history of the most
imposing Parisian-looking birds; parrots, macaws, and peacocks, but
mostly peacocks. Real Prince Esterhazies of birds; all rubies, diamonds
and Orders of the Golden Fleece. But, alas! the north side of this
old apartment presented a strange look; half mossy and half mildew;
something as ancient forest trees on their north sides, to which
particular side the moss most clings, and where, they say, internal
decay first strikes. In short, the original resplendence of the
peacocks had been sadly dimmed on that north side of the room, owing
to a small leak in the eaves, from which the rain had slowly trickled
its way down the wall, clean down to the first floor. This leak the
irreverent tenants, at that period occupying the premises, did not see
fit to stop, or rather, did not think it worth their while, seeing that
they only kept their fuel and dried their clothes in the parlor of the
peacocks. Hence many of the glowing birds seemed as if they had their
princely plumage bedraggled in a dusty shower. Most mournfully their
starry trains were blurred. Yet so patiently and so pleasantly, nay,
here and there so ruddily did they seem to hide their bitter doom, so
much of real elegance still lingered in their shapes, and so full, too,
seemed they of a sweet engaging pensiveness, meditating all day long,
for years and years, among their faded bowers, that though my family
repeatedly adjured me (especially my wife, who, I fear, was too young
for me) to destroy the whole hen-roost, as Biddy called it, and cover
the walls with a beautiful, nice, genteel, cream-colored paper, despite
all entreaties, I could not be prevailed upon, however submissive in
other things.
But chiefly would I permit no violation of the old parlor of the
peacocks or room of roses (I call it by both names) on account of its
long association in my mind with one of the original proprietors of
the mansion--the gentle Jimmy Rose.
Poor Jimmy Rose!
He was among my earliest acquaintances. It is not many years since he
died; and I and two other tottering old fellows took hack, and in sole
procession followed him to his grave.
Jimmy was born a man of moderate fortune. In his prime he had an
uncommonly handsome person; large and manly, with bright eyes of blue,
brown curling hair, and cheeks that seemed painted with carmine; but
it was health's genuine bloom, deepened by the joy of life. He was by
nature a great ladies' man, and like most deep adorers of the sex,
never tied up his freedom of general worship by making one willful
sacrifice of himself at the altar.
Adding to his fortune by a large and princely business, something like
that of the great Florentine trader, Cosmo the Magnificent, he was
enabled to entertain on a grand scale. For a long time his dinners,
suppers and balls, were not to be surpassed by any given in the
party-giving city of New York. His uncommon cheeriness; the splendor
of his dress; his sparkling wit; radiant chandeliers; infinite fund
of small-talk; French furniture; glowing welcomes to his guests; his
bounteous heart and board; his noble graces and his glorious wine; what
wonder if all these drew crowds to Jimmy's hospitable abode? In the
winter assemblies he figured first on the manager's list. James Rose,
Esq., too, was the man to be found foremost in all presentations of
plate to highly successful actors at the Park, or of swords and guns
to highly successful generals in the field. Often, also, was he chosen
to present the gift on account of his fine gift of finely saying fine
things.
"Sir," said he, in a great drawing-room in Broadway, as he extended
toward General G-- a brace of pistols set with turquoise, "Sir," said
Jimmy with a Castilian flourish and a rosy smile, "there would have
been more turquoise here set, had the names of your glorious victories
left room."
Ah, Jimmy, Jimmy! Thou didst excel in compliments. But it was inwrought
with thy inmost texture to be affluent in all things which give
pleasure. And who shall reproach thee with borrowed wit on this
occasion, though borrowed indeed it was? Plagiarize otherwise as they
may, not often are the men of this world plagiarists in praise.
But times changed. Time, true plagiarist of the seasons.
Sudden and terrible reverses in business were made mortal by mad
prodigality on all hands. When his affairs came to be scrutinized,
it was found that Jimmy could not pay more than fifteen shillings in
the pound. And yet in time the deficiency might have been made up--of
course, leaving Jimmy penniless--had it not been that in one winter
gale two vessels of his from China perished off Sandy Hook; perished at
the threshold of their port.
Jimmy was a ruined man.
It was years ago. At that period I resided in the country, but happened
to be in the city on one of my annual visits. It was but four or five
days since seeing Jimmy at his house the centre of all eyes, and
hearing him at the close of the entertainment toasted by a brocaded
lady, in these well-remembered words: "Our noble host; the bloom on
his cheek, may it last long as the bloom in his heart!" And they, the
sweet ladies and gentlemen there, they drank that toast so gayly and
frankly off; and Jimmy, such a kind, proud, grateful tear stood in his
honest eye, angelically glancing round at the sparkling faces, and
equally sparkling, and equally feeling, decanters.
Ah! poor, poor Jimmy--God guard us all--poor Jimmy Rose!
Well, it was but four or five days after this that I heard a clap of
thunder--no, a clap of bad news. I was crossing the Bowling Green in
a snow-storm not far from Jimmy's house on the Battery, when I saw a
gentleman come sauntering along, whom I remembered at Jimmy's table as
having been the first to spring to his feet in eager response to the
lady's toast. Not more brimming the wine in his lifted glass than the
moisture in his eye on that happy occasion.
Well, this good gentleman came sailing across the Bowling Green,
swinging a silver-headed rattan; seeing me, he paused: "Ah, lad, that
was rare wine Jimmy gave us the other night. Sha'n't get any more,
though. Heard the news? Jimmy's burst. Clean smash, I assure you. Come
along down to the Coffeehouse and I'll tell you more. And if you say
so, we'll arrange over a bottle of claret for a sleighing party to
Cato's to-night. Come along."
"Thank you," said I, "I--I--I am engaged."
Straight as an arrow I went to Jimmy's. Upon inquiring for him, the man
at the door told me that his master was not in; nor did he know where
he was; nor had his master been in the house for forty-eight hours.
Walking up Broadway again, I questioned passing acquaintances; but
though each man verified the report, no man could tell where Jimmy was,
and no one seemed to care, until I encountered a merchant, who hinted
that probably Jimmy, having scraped up from the wreck a snug lump of
coin, had prudently betaken himself off to parts unknown. The next man
I saw, a great nabob he was too, foamed at the mouth when I mentioned
Jimmy's name. "Rascal; regular scamp, Sir, is Jimmy Rose! But there
are keen fellows after him." I afterward heard that this indignant
gentleman had lost the sum of seventy-five dollars and seventy-five
cents indirectly through Jimmy's failure. And yet I dare say the share
of the dinners he had eaten at Jimmy's might more than have balanced
that sum, considering that he was something of a wine-bibber, and such
wines as Jimmy imported cost a plum or two. Indeed, now that I bethink
me, I recall how I had more than once observed this same middle-aged
gentleman, and how that toward the close of one of Jimmy's dinners
he would sit at the table pretending to be earnestly talking with
beaming Jimmy, but all the while, with a half furtive sort of tremulous
eagerness and hastiness, pour down glass after glass of noble wine, as
if now, while Jimmy's bounteous sun was at meridian, was the time to
make his selfish hay.
At last I met a person famed for his peculiar knowledge of whatever
was secret or withdrawn in the histories and habits of noted people.
When I inquired of this person where Jimmy could possibly be, he took
me close to Trinity Church rail, out of the jostling of the crowd, and
whispered me, that Jimmy had the evening before entered an old house
of his (Jimmy's), in C-- Street, which old house had been for a time
untenanted. The inference seemed to be that perhaps Jimmy might be
lurking there now. So getting the precise locality, I bent my steps
in that direction, and at last halted before the house containing
the room of roses. The shutters were closed, and cobwebs were spun
in their crescents. The whole place had a dreary, deserted air. The
snow lay unswept, drifted in one billowed heap against the porch, no
footprint tracking it. Whoever was within, surely that lonely man was
an abandoned one. Few or no people were in the street; for even at that
period one fashion of the street had departed from it, while trade had
not as yet occupied what its rival had renounced.
Looking up and down the sidewalk a moment, I softly knocked at the
door. No response. I knocked again, and louder. No one came. I knocked
and rung both; still without effect. In despair I was going to quit the
spot, when, as a last resource, I gave a prolonged summons, with my
utmost strength, upon the heavy knocker, and then again stood still;
while from various strange old windows up and down the street, various
strange old heads were thrust out in wonder at so clamorous a stranger.
As if now frightened from its silence, a hollow, husky voice addressed
me through the keyhole.
"Who are you?" it said.
"A friend."
"Then shall you not come in," replied the voice, more hollowly than
before.
Great heavens! this is not Jimmy Rose, thought I, starting. This is the
wrong house. I have been misdirected. But still, to make all sure, I
spoke again.
"Is James Rose within there?"
No reply.
Once more I spoke:
"I am William Ford; let me in."
"Oh, I can not, I can not! I am afraid of every one."
It _was_ Jimmy Rose!
"Let me in, Rose; let me in, man. I am your friend."
"I will not. I can trust no man now."
"Let me in, Rose; trust at least one, in me."
"Quit the spot, or--"
With that I heard a rattling against the huge lock, not made by
any key, as if some small tube were being thrust into the keyhole.
Horrified, I fled fast as feet could carry me.
I was a young man then, and Jimmy was not more than forty. It was
five-and-twenty years ere I saw him again. And what a change. He
whom I expected to behold--if behold at all--dry, shrunken, meagre,
cadaverously fierce with misery and misanthropy--amazement! the old
Persian roses bloomed in his cheeks. And yet poor as any rat; poor
in the last dregs of poverty; a pauper beyond almshouse pauperism; a
promenading pauper in a thin, threadbare, careful coat; a pauper with
wealth of polished words; a courteous, smiling, shivering gentleman.
Ah, poor, poor Jimmy--God guard us all--poor Jimmy Rose!
Though at the first onset of his calamity, when creditors, once fast
friends, pursued him as carrion for jails; though then, to avoid their
hunt, as well as the human eye, he had gone and denned in the old
abandoned house; and there, in his loneliness, had been driven half
mad, yet time and tide had soothed him down to sanity. Perhaps at
bottom Jimmy was too thoroughly good and kind to be made from any cause
a man-hater. And doubtless it at last seemed irreligious to Jimmy even
to shun mankind.
Sometimes sweet sense of duty will entice one to bitter doom. For what
could be more bitter now, in abject need, to be seen of those--nay,
crawl and visit them in an humble sort, and be tolerated as an old
eccentric, wandering in their parlors--who once had known him richest
of the rich, and gayest of the gay? Yet this Jimmy did. Without rudely
breaking him right down to it, fate slowly bent him more and more to
the lowest deep. From an unknown quarter he received an income of some
seventy dollars, more or less. The principal he would never touch, but,
by various modes of eking it out, managed to live on the interest. He
lived in an attic, where he supplied himself with food. He took but one
regular repast a day--meal and milk--and nothing more, unless procured
at others' tables. Often about the tea-hour he would drop in upon some
old acquaintance, clad in his neat, forlorn frock coat, with worn
velvet sewed upon the edges of the cuffs, and a similar device upon the
hems of his pantaloons, to hide that dire look of having been grated
off by rats. On Sunday he made a point of always dining at some fine
house or other.
It is evident that no man could with impunity be allowed to lead this
life unless regarded as one who, free from vice, was by fortune brought
so low that the plummet of pity alone could reach him. Not much merit
redounded to his entertainers because they did not thrust the starving
gentleman forth when he came for his alms of tea and toast. Some
merit had been theirs had they clubbed together and provided him, at
small cost enough, with a sufficient income to make him, in point of
necessaries, independent of the daily dole of charity; charity not sent
to him either, but charity for which he had to trudge round to their
doors.
But the most touching thing of all were those roses in his cheeks;
those ruddy roses in his nipping winter. How they bloomed; whether
meal or milk, and tea and toast could keep them flourishing; whether
now he painted them; by what strange magic they were made to blossom
so; no son of man might tell. But there they bloomed. And besides the
roses, Jimmy was rich in smiles. He smiled ever. The lordly door which
received him to his eleemosynary teas, know no such smiling guest as
Jimmy. In his prosperous days the smile of Jimmy was famous far and
wide. It should have been trebly famous now.
Wherever he went to tea, he had all of the news of the town to tell. By
frequenting the reading-rooms, as one privileged through harmlessness,
he kept himself informed of European affairs and the last literature,
foreign and domestic. And of this, when encouragement was given, he
would largely talk. But encouragement was not always given. At certain
houses, and not a few, Jimmy would drop in about ten minutes before the
tea-hour, and drop out again about ten minutes after it; well knowing
that his further presence was not indispensable to the contentment or
felicity of his host.
How forlorn it was to see him so heartily drinking the generous tea,
cup after cup, and eating the flavorous bread and butter, piece after
piece, when, owing to the lateness of the dinner hour with the rest,
and the abundance of that one grand meal with them, no one besides
Jimmy touched the bread and butter, or exceeded a single cup of
Souchong. And knowing all this very well, poor Jimmy would try to hide
his hunger, and yet gratify it too, by striving hard to carry on a
sprightly conversation with his hostess, and throwing in the eagerest
mouthfuls with a sort of absent-minded air, as if he ate merely for
custom's sake, and not starvation's.
Poor, poor Jimmy--God guard us all--poor Jimmy Rose!
Neither did Jimmy give up his courtly ways. Whenever there were ladies
at the table, sure were they of some fine word; though, indeed,
toward the close of Jimmy's life, the young ladies rather thought
his compliments somewhat musty, smacking of cocked hats and small
clothes--nay, of old pawnbrokers' shoulder-lace and sword belts. For
there still lingered in Jimmy's address a subdued sort of martial air;
he having in his palmy days been, among other things, a general of the
State militia. There seems a fatality in these militia generalships.
Alas! I can recall more than two or three gentlemen who from militia
generals became paupers. I am afraid to think why this is so. Is it
that this military learning in a man of an unmilitary heart--that is,
a gentle, peaceable heart--is an indication of some weak love of vain
display? But ten to one it is not so. At any rate, it is unhandsome, if
not unchristian, in the happy, too much to moralize on those who are
not so.
So numerous were the houses that Jimmy visited, or so cautious was he
in timing his less welcome calls, that at certain mansions he only
dropped in about once a year or so. And annually upon seeing at that
house the blooming Miss Frances or Miss Arabella, he would profoundly
bow in his forlorn old coat, and with his soft, white hand take hers in
gallant-wise, saying, "Ah, Miss Arabella, these jewels here are bright
upon these fingers; but brighter would they look were it not for those
still brighter diamonds of your eyes!"
Though in thy own need thou hadst no pence to give the poor, thou,
Jimmy, still hadst alms to give the rich. For not the beggar chattering
at the corner pines more after bread than the vain heart after
compliment. The rich in their craving glut, as the poor in their
craving want, we have with us always. So, I suppose, thought Jimmy Rose.
But all women are not vain, or if a little grain that way inclined,
more than redeem it all with goodness. Such was the sweet girl that
closed poor Jimmy's eyes. The only daughter of an opulent alderman, she
knew Jimmy well, and saw to him in his declining days. During his last
sickness, with her own hands she carried him jellies and blanc-mange;
made tea for him in his attic, and turned the poor old gentleman in his
bed. And well hadst thou deserved it, Jimmy, at that fair creature's
hands; well merited to have the old eyes closed by woman's fairy
fingers, who through life, in riches and in poverty, was still woman's
sworn champion and devotee.
I hardly know that I should mention here one little incident connected
with this young lady's ministrations, and poor Jimmy's reception of
them. But it is harm to neither; I will tell it.
Chancing to be in town, and hearing of Jimmy's illness, I went to
see him. And there in his lone attic I found the lovely ministrant.
Withdrawing upon seeing another visitor, she left me alone with him.
She had brought some little delicacies, and also several books, of such
a sort as are sent by serious-minded well-wishers to invalids in a
serious crisis. Now whether it was repugnance at being considered next
door to death, or whether it was but the natural peevishment brought on
by the general misery of his state; however it was, as the gentle girl
withdrew, Jimmy, with what small remains of strength were his, pitched
the books into the furthest corner, murmuring, "Why will she bring me
this sad old stuff? Does she take me for a pauper? Thinks she to salve
a gentleman's heart with Poor Man's Plaster?"
Poor, poor Jimmy--God guard us all--poor Jimmy Rose!
Well, well, I am an old man, and I suppose these tears I drop are
dribblets from my dotage. But Heaven be praised, Jimmy needs no man's
pity now.
Jimmy Rose is dead!
Meantime, as I sit within the parlor of the peacocks--that chamber from
which his husky voice had come ere threatening me with the pistol--I
still must meditate upon his strange example, whereof the marvel is,
how after that gay, dashing, nobleman's career, he could be content
to crawl through life, and peep about the marbles and mahoganies for
contumelious tea and toast, where once like a very Warwick he had
feasted the huzzaing world with Burgundy and venison.
And every time I look at the wilted resplendence of those proud
peacocks on the wall, I bethink me of the withering change in Jimmy's
once resplendent pride of state. But still again, every time I gaze
upon those festoons of perpetual roses, mid which the faded peacocks
hang, I bethink me of those undying roses which bloomed in ruined
Jimmy's cheek.
Transplanted to another soil, all the unkind past forgot, God grant
that Jimmy's roses may immortally survive!