FORWARDS VARIOUS AFFAIRS
As time passed on, Colonel Blanchard watched with interest, mixed with
solicitude, the love-matters of his daughters. Judith's affairs were
going to his satisfaction, for though Mather came occasionally to the
house, Ellis came oftener. Ellis's land had been bought, his house was
going up, and at times he came to discuss his plans with Judith. So far
so good, but in another quarter the Colonel was not quite so well
pleased, since the visits of Jim Wayne to Beth were becoming very
frequent.
Beth was twenty, Jim was twenty-one. He found the way to Chebasset easy
to follow, even though he left his mother at home alone--for the Wayne
estate was low in the world, and summer-resorts were not for the widow.
She, desolate soul, counted her dollars carefully, and encouraged her
son's belief that by selling the house and land to Ellis she had made
herself comfortable for life. "It was only for that," he explained to
Beth, "I allowed her to sell. And now she doesn't need my earnings, so I
use them for myself. She likes me to dress well; she says I'm so like my
father that she can't bear to have me look shabby. And it's a mark of a
gentleman, don't you think, Beth, to look well?"
It was so sweet of Jim to admire his father, that Beth could not bear to
say how the elder Wayne was popularly regarded.
"Why," snorted Mr. Fenno, "what he spent on clothes, cigars, and wines,
would have provided enough insurance to keep his family handsomely."
Fenno, when on the subject, had intended to make it clear to Beth that
Jim was too much like his father. Innuendo, however, had failed with
Beth--not that she was unable to perceive that Jim had his weaknesses,
but she had the habit of championing her favourites against her own
judgment. Thus she was sorry for the Judge who had chosen his wife
unwisely and could not make her love him, and pitied old Fenno himself,
who realised the hollowness of the world only after he had drummed on it
for a good many years. She was fond of such men because they were weak,
weak though they knew it not themselves, though the world called them
strong. And so it was not unnatural that Beth should take into her
innermost heart something still weaker to cherish, because she was so
strong herself; something with faults, she had so few herself; something
which would get into trouble, for she was so used to getting people out.
She did not realise that the young fall far deeper into trouble than the
old, and that she could not give backbone to a man who had none.
All this is but saying that Beth, wise in the affairs of others, with
her own was not so gifted, and was so mistaken as to take Wayne at very
nearly his own valuation. For Jim had a dashing air, and dressing in the
fashion was the mark of many a girlish eye. He went smooth-shaven; his
face had a slightly petulant expression, as if complaining of the world,
yet at times he lighted with the fire of optimism, when he told Beth of
the things he meant to do. And thus he approached her on two undefended
sides, for never had she turned a deaf ear to a call for sympathy, and
nothing in a man did she admire so much as aspiration.
Thus their affinity declared itself to them, for Jim liked to be purred
over and strengthened. He enjoyed telling, to an attentive ear, the
misfortunes of his family. "That we should have to sell our house to
that fellow Ellis!" he said to Beth. "It seems too hard, doesn't it? And
to think that in a few years I shall be earning enough to support the
old house, if I had it still! But when a fellow's just starting, you've
no idea how little they pay. The business world! Ah, Beth, you're lucky
to be a girl, so that you don't have to rub up against life!"
He spoke as if life in its hardest form were to be met with only on
exchange, and shook his handsome head so convincingly that Beth believed
him. She enjoyed believing him; it gave her pleasure to think Jim a man
of the world. In fact, he carried himself very well, with none of those
mannerisms which so often betray inexperience. Little allusions to
dissipation are very common, but Jim was not given to these, and in
consequence seemed more manly than those of his set whom she met. Of
course Jim took wine when her father offered it; believing in her father
as she did, she thought it no sign of dissipation when he or others
drank at his table. It was a pleasure to Beth that Jim and the Colonel
were congenial, with more than one topic in common. For example, Wayne
had a nice taste in wines, fostered by his lamented parent, and could
discuss with Blanchard the merits of his '68 and '72. Jim liked the
Colonel's tobacco, also, and never failed to commend it. But most of all
the two enjoyed speaking of the stock-market and all which to it
pertained. The Colonel always asked Jim for the "news of the street,"
which the two discussed with as much seriousness as if Jim were not
young and the Colonel flighty. To these talks Judith and Beth always
listened silently--Judith because she knew there would be no use to say
anything, Beth because she did not suppose that anything was to be said.
Thus when the Colonel led the talk to Consolidated one evening, Judith
remembered, but Beth forgot, that Mather had advised against all silver
stocks until they should become settled. To Beth stocks were mere names,
unembodied nothings without power either to wreck lives or to make
people happy.
"Great possibilities," said Jim, wagging his head.
"Must go up soon, I think," commented her father, with deliberation.
"Sure!" Jim assented heartily.
Such incomplete sentences and bits of slang meant wisdom to Beth, and
when Judith rose from the table, the younger sister still remained
sitting to hear what further Delphic utterances might be made.
"Always said Argent would slump," stated the Colonel.
"I got out of that some time ago," declared Jim.
"Wise!" Blanchard said approvingly, not knowing that Jim's single share
had been sold under pressure of necessity, when his mother, in one of
the few decisive moments of her life, declared that Jim himself must buy
the new carpet for his room, since she thought the old one still good
enough for a couple of years' wear. Jim had at first meant to have a
good carpet, then he decided on a rug, and a large part of his Argent
went into something Turkish, while a little of what was left was devoted
to adorning his person. One small share of Consolidated remained as an
investment, and Jim was now looking for that to rise again to the point
at which he had bought it.
Jim was an optimist with the instinct of self-approval, and being "in"
Consolidated he had picked up the expressions which had fallen in his
hearing, justifying him in his wisdom in buying and his hopefulness in
waiting. He told the Colonel what Baxter said, and what Winster said,
and especially what Bullfinch had declared in regard to the stock. Now,
Bullfinch was that broker with whom the Colonel had his dealings.
"He said 'Hang on'?" asked Blanchard with pleasure.
"Yes," said Jim. "And I heard him giving Baxter a tip, sir, which I will
pass on to you, if you're interested. He said: 'Watch Poulton Mining and
Milling.'"
"Indeed?" murmured the Colonel.
"Now, you wouldn't think that, would you, sir?" asked Jim. "It's down,
way down; why, it's been down for a couple of years! I had forgotten
about it, almost. But now I'm watching it myself. It has moved a little
lately, up a point and down again. Looks as if some one were interesting
himself in it, don't you think?"
"May be," assented the Colonel judicially.
"If Consolidated rises, I'm thinking of taking my money out and putting
it into Poulton. What should you say to that, Colonel?"
"Where is Poulton now?" asked Blanchard.
"Twelve and a half," answered Jim.
"Well," explained the Colonel, "the way I have always looked at these
things is this. If your money is in a low-priced stock, and it rises a
dozen points, then perhaps you double. But if your money is in something
high-priced, then on the rise you only make twelve per cent."
"If only," said Jim, "one could be sure which stock will rise!"
"You can make sure by watching," asserted the Colonel.
Once Ellis came in as one of these conversations was in progress; he
stood listening while the two amateurs finished their duologue.
"Don't you think so?" they had appealed to him at the end.
"Ah, well," replied the master of finance, "you seem to have got hold of
something there." Then he went out on the piazza with Judith, leaving
the enthusiasts still more cheerful.
"Your father doesn't act on those ideas of his?" he asked of Judith.
"I hope not--I think not," she answered. "He just likes to talk with
Jim."
"Dabbler!" was Ellis's characterization of the young man. Meanwhile the
dabblers still babbled within the house, in high good humour with
themselves.
It will be noticed that the summer had brought progress to Ellis, in
fact almost intimacy with Judith. Their closer acquaintance, begun over
his house-plans, had been materially forwarded by Mrs. Harmon, when she
invited Judith to her house on the evening of Mather's strike.
Previously, she had been very curious to know how he had got on with
Judith. That the girl had supplanted her as chief adviser she became
aware, and was in the beginning a little piqued thereat. When she first
saw a sketch of the new house, her face fell.
"Oh, _that_ kind of a house!" she exclaimed. "Why, that's all very well
for a man with an income like my husband's, but for you it seems too
simple."
"I like it," he replied without explanation.
"But no carvings," she persisted. "No turrets, or anything of that
sort."
"No, no," he said; "this is the only thing."
"But really, change it!" she urged. "Why, it doesn't represent you. It
might be anybody's house!"
"The object isn't to attract attention," Ellis replied. "Quiet and
dignity are more genteel." He quoted Judith so exactly (all but for the
one word) that Mrs. Harmon perceived it.
"Oh," she exclaimed with some chagrin. "I see, it's Judith makes you do
this. Of course, if you want to!"
"Now," he said with a rough tolerance, "think it over. She's right,
you'll find. A city house down here won't fit. The girl has lived
abroad, remember; she ought to know."
Mrs. Harmon had reflected and acquiesced. Common sense was fundamental
to both her and Ellis, and combined with more frankness than was usual
in the Judge's circle kept them on good terms. Ellis had laid his hand
on her shoulder while he urged her to consider; she had not resented the
sign of their understanding.
"Well," she said, "Judith knows a good deal, and perhaps I am wrong."
Right or wrong, she did not intend that she and Ellis should fall out.
Life was dull for her sometimes; she liked to have him dropping in. And
then those trinkets. She turned the bracelet on her wrist.
"This is very attractive," she said.
He grunted indifferently.
"It's odd," she said further, "and bracelets aren't worn very much. It
attracts attention."
"That's what Price expected," he responded. She never thanked him for
his gifts more than by such commendations; he did not expect more.
But she was on each occasion interested to know how he got on with
Judith. He knew she kept account of his visits there. "Go oftener," she
urged him once. He was wiser, and refused. "You don't follow it up very
quickly," she repeatedly said, but "all in good time" was the most she
could get out of him.
"What do you talk about with her?" she asked.
"The doings in the city," he answered. "The big things going on
anywhere."
"Does that get you very far with her?" she asked in surprise.
"As far as I can get," he replied.
She thought to advise him. "You don't understand girls, Stephen. The
talk you give her isn't what she wants. A girl of her age
needs--flattery, you know, and nice little things said."
"You'd make me into a Jim Wayne," he retorted. "A monkey in a Panama,
saying foolish things." Mrs. Harmon drew herself up, but he did not
perceive. "Pretty fool I'd be, saying the things he does. I heard a talk
of his and Beth's, and this is the sort of thing he said--." But Ellis
misrepresented Jim entirely, having looked at him from a strictly
personal point of view. The conversation, harmless as it was, is best
taken at first hand.
"How swell you look to-night!" Jim had begun. "Gad, that rose in your
hair--trust a girl to know what's nifty!"
"Don't be silly," Beth replied.
"Straight!" Jim protested. "Never saw you look so stunning. This
moonlight brings it all out, you know. Poetic, Beth, on my word! I say,
let's go down on the beach, and you can recite me that thing of
Tennyson's."
"Shelley's," Beth corrected him.
"Just as good," said Jim cheerfully. "Come on, do!"
Such is the literal report of a conversation which Beth thought highly
delightful, but which Ellis delivered with some distortion of manner and
word, calculated to throw discredit on Wayne's attractions. "Flat and
silly," he characterised it. "Now if you suppose that a man of my age
can say that sort of thing to a girl like Judith Blanchard, you're
wrong, Lyddy--Lydia, I mean."
She seized her chance to show a little of her true feeling; long ago she
had asked him not to use the old nickname. She answered coldly: "Of
course, you know your affairs best. And equally of course, you can't do
things which Mr. Wayne can."
"Don't be hard on me," he said. "Wayne's all right in his way, but I'm
no boy, nor is Judith like her sister. If Wayne's a friend of yours, I'm
sorry." For he divined that something more than his use of her name had
caused her coldness.
"I scarcely know him," she responded. "But let me tell you that a woman
had sometimes rather a man would make a fool of himself by calling her
handsome, than be too wise in his talk."
Ellis had no answer ready, and the subject dropped, but before he left
he made an attempt at conciliation. "You see, really sometimes I don't
understand myself, even, or the girl. I'll try to remember what you say.
Keep me in her mind, you know, Lydia."
It was a truth that he spoke: he did not understand the girl, nor
himself. He still prized her fire and dreaded her theories, with each
meeting he admired her more than ever, but he was finding in her a
baffling reserve which taught him that he must go slow. He could not win
her out of hand; some spring of action in her there was yet to find,
some ideal which he must satisfy. Might it not be too high!--and there
lay the new uncertainty in himself, that he was not sure of conquering
her, while conquer her he must! For she was growing indispensable to
him, all thought of her as a commodity had fled, and he was now familiar
with that longing for her while still he found no name for it. The
emotions which he understood were his own ambition and others' greed, he
had no knowledge of the finer desires which can be roused in man. So,
somewhat puzzled, he laboured to please Judith by the only means he
knew, with far more success than might have been expected.
Then came that evening when Mrs. Harmon invited Judith to her house,
where Ellis had arrived at almost the same time. It irritated the girl
at first to be so evidently brought in his way, and with Mather's
achievement in her mind she was for some time cool and quiet, until Mrs.
Harmon, with great self-control, took herself out of the room. Then
Ellis brought the conversation at once to familiar ground. He told
Judith that he had for some time been working to bring about a
combination of the cotton manufacturers. "We can control the whole
section, and can do much toward setting prices, if this can only be
managed."
"You mean to make it a trust?" asked Judith, interested.
"Yes," he said. "But some of the operators are shy, the contracts and
the sharing are so intricate. They--I--they don't know what I'm really
at."
Judith failed to understand that his reputation stood in the way of
complete confidence. "Can't they see that the combination will benefit
them?"
"Yes," he answered, "but the scheme scares them. It's big."
"I have heard of a lawyer," she said, "a New Yorker, who gives his whole
time to nothing but framing agreements for trusts, and meeting the
corporation laws. If you could call him in, couldn't he perhaps make it
clear to the others? The advantages, I mean, and the safety?"
"Where did you hear of him?" asked Ellis.
"I read of him," she answered, "in a magazine."
"I never read magazines," he said thoughtfully. "It mightn't be a bad
idea. By Gad," he went on, warming, "I think it might be just the thing.
A stranger to us all, he'd be able to give confidence, I do believe. And
there's so much in it!" He turned to Judith with energy. "Could you find
me that magazine?"
"Yes," she answered, all her coldness gone in the rush of interest, as
she saw herself influencing affairs. "It is at home."
"Let me walk back with you, then, when you go."
Mrs. Harmon entered, having heard the last part of their talk, having
listened, in fact. "Is that the sort of thing she really cares about?"
she asked herself in surprise.
It was, indeed, the sort of thing which attracted Judith; no wonder that
there was a new light in her eyes when she came home with Ellis. No
wonder that Beth tore up her letter to Mather. Judith had gained an
interest in the future which put quite out of her mind the memory of the
trifling strike at the mill. Ellis promised to tell her if he used her
idea; she was eager to know if it bore results. He let her know, before
long, that he was working on it; he would tell her if anything happened.
Judith scanned daily the reports of industrial affairs, to see if the
combination took shape.
Thus that invitation of Mrs. Harmon's was of great value to Ellis, but
when the other tried to draw nearer to the girl it proved a different
undertaking. Mrs. Harmon was lonely; she wanted companionship; it
irritated her that Judith and Beth had cavaliers, while she had none.
One day she asked Judith out to drive, and for a while the two sat in
the victoria glum and stupid. They were too widely different in their
natures ever to be intimate.
But Mrs. Harmon made the attempt. "Mr. Ellis," she said, choosing the
most promising topic, "is a most interesting man, Judith--you will let
me call you Judith, won't you?"
"Certainly," was the answer.
"Thank you. And don't forget that my name is Lydia; Mr. Ellis calls me
by it at times. Doesn't he fascinate you with what he does?"
That was something which Judith was not prepared to admit. "He is
certainly very active in many matters," she replied, wary of what she
said, for fear of her companion's tongue.
"He controls so much; he plans and carries out such great things!" went
on Mrs. Harmon. "Ah, he is a keen man, my dear. Don't you think so?"
Judith thought so.
"He has a great future before him," prophesied Mrs. Harmon, but she
perceived that she roused no answering spasm in Judith's breast.
Therefore Mrs. Harmon's artificial palpitation presently subsided, with
some suddenness, and she had the feeling that perhaps the young lady was
overmuch for her. Before the end of the drive Mrs. Harmon found herself
obliged to say, in self-defence:
"Driving makes one so contemplative, don't you think? Sometimes I could
drive for hours, just so, perfectly content but saying nothing."
Judith confessed to the same sensation. When Mrs. Harmon was alone, she
concluded that the experiment had been fully tried. Later, Judith asked
her over to tea, but the situation was so much relieved when other
people dropped in that Mrs. Harmon lost hope of a real friendship in
that quarter.