September passed before I was a convalescent, and it was the first of
October when the Port of Sydney passed Sandy Hook, and I stood at the
bow, trembling with cold and happiness, and saw the autumn leaves on the
hills of Staten Island and the thousands of columns of circling, white
smoke rising over the three cities. I had not let Beatrice and Aunt Mary
know that I was in a hospital, but had told them that I was making my
way home slowly, which was true enough, and that they need not expect to
hear from me until I had arrived in New York City. So, there was no one
at the dock to meet me.
But, as we came up the harbor, I waved at the people on the passing
ferry-boats, and they, shivering, no doubt, at the sight of our canvas
awnings and the stewards’ white jackets, waved back, and gave me my
first welcome home.
It was worth all the disappointments, and the weeks in hospital, to
stick my head in the ticket-window of the Grand Central Station, and
hear myself say, “Dobbs Ferry, please.” I remember the fascination with
which I watched the man (he was talking over his shoulder to another man
at the time) punch the precious ticket, and toss it to me. I suppose
in his life he has many times sold tickets to Dobbs Ferry, but he never
sold them as often as I had rehearsed asking him for that one.
I had wired them not to meet me at the station, but to be waiting at the
house, and when I came up the old walk, with the box-hedges on either
side, they were at the door, and Aunt Mary ran to meet me, and hugged
and scolded me, and cried on my shoulder, and Beatrice smiled at me,
just as though she were very proud of me, and I kissed her once. After
ten minutes, it did not seem as though I had ever been away from home.
And, when I looked at Beatrice, and I could not keep my eyes from her, I
was filled with wonder that I had ever had the courage to go from where
she was. We were very happy.
I am afraid that for the next two weeks I traded upon their affection
scandalously. But it was their own fault. It was their wish that I
should constantly pose in the dual roles of the returned prodigal and
Othello, and, as I told them, if I were an obnoxious prig ever after,
they alone were responsible.
I had the ravenous hunger of the fever-convalescent, and I had an
audience that would have turned General Grant into a braggart. So, every
day wonderful dishes of Aunt Mary’s contriving were set before me, and
Beatrice would not open a book so long as there was one adventure I had
left untold.
And this, as I soon learned, was the more flattering, as she had already
heard most of them at second-hand.
I can remember my bewilderment that first evening as I was relating the
story of the duel, and she corrected me.
“Weren’t you much nearer?” she asked. “You fired at twenty paces.”
“So we did,” I cried, “but how could you know that?”
“Mr. Lowell told us,” she said.
“Lowell!” I shouted. “Has Lowell been here?”
“Yes, he brought us your sword,” Beatrice answered. “Didn’t you see
where we placed it?” and she rose rather quickly, and stood with her
face toward the fireplace, where, sure enough, my sword was hanging
above the mantel.
“Oh yes,” said Aunt Mary, “Mr. Lowell has been very kind. He has come
out often to ask for news of you. He is at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. We
like him so much,” she added.
“Like him!” I echoed. “I should think you would! Isn’t that bully,”
I cried, “to think of his being so near me, and that he’s a friend of
yours already. We must have him out to-morrow. Isn’t he fine, Beatrice?”
She had taken down the sword, and was standing holding it out to me.
“Yes, he is,” she said, “and he is very fond of you, too, Royal. I don’t
believe you’ve got a better friend.”
Attractive as the prodigal son may seem at first, he soon becomes a
nuisance. Even Othello when he began to tell over his stories for the
second time must have been something of a bore. And when Aunt Mary gave
me roast beef for dinner two nights in succession, and after dinner
Beatrice picked up “Lorna Doone” and retired to a corner, I knew that I
had had my day.
The next morning at breakfast, in a tone of gentle reproach, I announced
that I was going out into the cold world, as represented by New York
City, to look for a job. I had no idea of doing anything of the sort.
I only threw out the suggestion tentatively, and I was exceedingly
disgusted when they caught up my plan with such enthusiasm and alacrity,
that I was forced to go on with it. I could not see why it was necessary
for me to work. I had two thousand dollars a year my grandfather had
left me, and my idea of seeking for a job, was to look for it leisurely,
and with caution. But the family seemed to think that, before the winter
set in, I should take any chance that offered, and, as they expressed
it, settle down.
None of us had any very definite ideas as to what I ought to do, or even
that there was anything I could do. Lowell, who is so much with us now,
that I treat him like one of the family, argued that to business men my
strongest recommendation would be my knowledge of languages. He said
I ought to try for a clerkship in some firm where I could handle
the foreign correspondence. His even suggesting such work annoyed me
extremely. I told him that, on the contrary, my strongest card was
my experience in active campaigning, backed by my thorough military
education, and my ability to command men. He said unfeelingly, that
you must first catch your men, and that in down-town business circles
a military education counted for no more than a college-course in
football.
“You good people don’t seem to understand,” I explained (we were holding
a family council on my case at the time); “I have no desire to move in
down-town business circles. I hate business circles.”
“Well, you must live, Royal,” Aunt Mary said. “You have not enough money
to be a gentleman of leisure.”
“Royal wouldn’t be content without some kind of work,” said Beatrice.
“No, he can’t persuade us he’s not ambitious!” Lowell added. “You mean
to make something of yourself, you know you do, and you can’t begin too
early.”
Since Lowell has been promoted to the ward-room, he talks just like a
grandfather.
“Young man,” I said, “I’ve seen the day when you were an ensign, and
I was a Minister of War, and you had to click your heels if you came
within thirty feet of my distinguished person. Of course, I’m ambitious,
and the best proof of it is, that I don’t want to sit in a bird-cage all
my life, counting other people’s money.”
Aunt Mary looked troubled, and shook her head at me.
“Well, Royal,” she remonstrated, “you’ve got very little of your own to
count, and some day you’ll want to marry, and then you’ll be sorry.”
I don’t know why Aunt Mary’s remark should have affected anyone except
myself, but it seemed to take all the life out of the discussion, and
Beatrice remembered she had some letters to write, and Lowell said he
must go back to the Navy Yard, although when he arrived he told us
he had fixed it with another man to stand his watch. The reason I was
disturbed was because, when Aunt Mary spoke, it made me wonder if she
were not thinking of Beatrice. One day just after I arrived from Panama,
when we were alone, she said that while I was gone she had been in fear
she might die before I came back, and that Beatrice would be left alone.
I laughed at her and told her she would live a hundred years, and added,
not meaning anything in particular, “And she’ll not be alone. I’ll be
here.”
Then Aunt Mary looked at me very sadly, and said: “Royal, I could die so
contentedly if I thought you two were happy.” She waited, as though she
expected me to make some reply, but I couldn’t think of anything to
say, and so just looked solemn, then she changed the subject by asking:
“Royal, have you noticed that Lieutenant Lowell admires Beatrice very
much?” And I said, “Of course he does. If he didn’t, I’d punch his
head.” At which she again looked at me in such a wistful, pained way,
smiling so sadly, as though for some reason she were sorry for me.
They all seemed to agree that I had had my fling, and should, as they
persisted in calling it, “settle down.” A most odious phrase. They were
two to one against me, and when one finished another took it up. So that
at last I ceased arguing and allowed myself to be bullied into looking
for a position.
But before surrendering myself to the downtown business circles I made
one last effort to remain free.
In Honduras, Laguerre had told me that a letter to the Credit Lyonnais
in Paris would always find him. I knew that since his arrival at San
Francisco he had had plenty of time to reach Paris, and that if he
were there now he must know whether there is anything in this talk of a
French expedition against the Chinese in Tonkin. Also whether the Mahdi
really means to make trouble for the Khedive in the Soudan. Laguerre was
in the Egyptian army for three years, and knows Baker Pasha well. I was
sure that if there was going to be trouble, either in China or Egypt, he
could not keep out of it.
So I cabled him to the Credit Lyonnais, “Are you well? If going any more
campaigns, please take me.” I waited three restless weeks for an answer,
and then, as no answer came, I put it all behind me, and hung my old,
torn uniform where I would not see it, and hid the presentation-sword
behind the eight-day clock in the library.
Beatrice raised her eyes from her book and watched me.
“Why?” she asked.
“It hurts me,” I said.
She put down her book, and for a long time looked at me without
speaking.
“I did not know you disliked it as much as that,” she said. “I wonder
if we are wrong. And yet,” she added, smiling, “it does not seem a great
sacrifice; to have work to do, to live at home, and in such a dear,
old home as this, near a big city, and with the river in front and the
country all about you. It seems better than dying of wounds in a swamp,
or of fever in a hospital.”
“I haven’t complained. I’m taking my medicine,” I answered. “I know you
all wouldn’t ask it of me, if you didn’t think it was for my good.”
I had seated myself in front of the wood fire opposite her, and was
turning the chain she gave me round and round my wrist. I slipped it
off, and showed it to her as it hung from my fingers, shining in the
firelight.
“And yet,” I said, “it was fine being your Knight-Errant, and taking
risks for your sake, and having only this to keep me straight.” I cannot
see why saying just that should have disturbed her, but certainly my
words, or the sight of the chain, had a most curious effect. It is
absurd, but I could almost swear that she looked frightened. She
flushed, and her eyes were suddenly filled with tears. I was greatly
embarrassed. Why should she be afraid of me? I was too much upset to ask
her what was wrong, so I went on hastily: “But now I’ll have you always
with me, to keep me straight,” I said.
She laughed at that, a tremulous little laugh, and said: “And so you
won’t want it any more, will you?”
“Won’t want it,” I protested gallantly. “I’d like to see anyone make me
give it up.”
“You’d give it up to me, wouldn’t you?” she asked gently. “It looks--”
she added, and stopped.
“I see,” I exclaimed. “Looks like a pose, sort of effeminate, a man’s
wearing a bracelet. Is that what you think?”
She laughed again, but this time quite differently. She seemed greatly
relieved.
“Perhaps that’s it,” she said. “Give it me, Royal. You’ll never need any
woman’s trinkets to keep you straight.”