If it be true that love is the great incentive to the useless arts, the
number of gentlemen who became poets for the sake of Miss Betty Carewe
need not be considered extraordinary. Of all that was written of her
dancing, Tom Vanrevel's lines, “I Danced with Her beneath the Lights”
(which he certainly had not done when he wrote them) were, perhaps, next
to Crailey Gray's in merit, though Tom burned his rhymes after reading
them to Crailey. Other troubadours were not so modest, and the Rouen
Journal found no lack of tuneful offering, that spring, generously
print-ing all of it, even at the period when it became epidemic. The
public had little difficulty in recognizing the work of Mr. Francis
Chenoweth in an anonymous “Sonnet” (of twenty-three lines) which
appeared in the issue following Miss Carewe's debut. Mr. Chenoweth
wrote that while dancing the mazourka with a Lovely Being, the sweetest
feelings of his soul, in a celestial stream, bore him away beyond
control, in a seraphic dream; and he untruthfully stated that at the
same time he saw her wipe the silent tear, omitting, however, to venture
any explanation of the cause of her emotion. Old General Trumble
boldly signed his poem in full. It was called “An Ode upon Miss C--'s
Waltzing,” and it began:
“When Bettina found fair Rouen's shore, And her aged father to us bore
Her from the cloister neat, She waltzed upon the ball-room floor, And
lightly twirled upon her feet.”
Mr. Carewe was rightfully indignant, and refused to acknowledge the
General's salutation at their next meeting: Trumble was fifteen years
older than he.
As Crailey Gray never danced with Miss Carewe, it is somewhat singular
that she should have been the inspiration of his swinging verses in
waltz measure, “Heart-strings on a Violin,” the sense of which was
that when a violin had played for her dancing, the instrument should
be shattered as wine-glasses are after a great toast. However, no one,
except the author himself, knew that Betty was the subject; for Crailey
certainly did not mention it to Miss Bareaud, nor to his best friend,
Vanrevel.
It was to some degree a strange comradeship between these two young men;
their tastes led them so often in opposite directions. They had rooms
to-gether over their offices in the “Madrillon Block” on Main Street,
and the lights shone late from their windows every night in the year.
Sometimes that would mean only that the two friends were talking, for
they never reached a silent intimacy, but, even after several years of
companionship, were rarely seen together when not in interested, often
eager, conversation, so that people wondered what in the world they
still found to say to each other. But many a night the late-shining
lamp meant that Tom sat alone, with a brief or a book, or wooed the long
hours with his magical guitar. For he never went to bed until the other
came home.
And if daylight came without Crailey, Vanrevel would go out, yawning
mightily, to look for him; and when there was no finding him, Tom would
come back, sleepless, to the day's work. Crailey was called “peculiar”
and he explained, with a kind of jovial helplessness, that he was always
prepared for the unexpected in himself, nor did such a view detract from
his picturesqueness to his own perusal of himself; though it was not
only to himself that he was interesting. To the vision of the lookers-on
in Rouen, quiet souls who hovered along the walls at merry-makings and
cheerfully counted themselves spectators at the play, Crailey Gray held
the centre of the stage and was the chief comedian of the place. Wit,
poet, and scapegrace, the small society sometimes seemed the mere
background set for his performances, spectacles which he, also, enjoyed,
and from the best seat in the house; for he was not content as the
actor, but must be the Prince in the box as well.
His friendship for Tom Vanrevel was, in a measure, that of the vine for
the oak. He was full of levities at Tom's expense, which the other
bore with a grin of sympathetic comprehension, or, at long intervals,
returned upon Crailey with devastating effect. Vanrevel was the one
steadying thing in his life, and, at the same time, the only one of the
young men upon whom he did not have an almost mesmeric influence. In
good truth, Crailey was the ringleader in all the devilries of the town.
Many a youth swore to avoid the roisterer's company for all time, and,
within two hours of the vow, found himself, flagon in hand, engaged in
a bout that would last the night, with Mr. Gray out-bumpering the
hardiest, at the head of the table. And, the next morning, the fevered,
scarlet-eyed perjurer might creep shaking to his wretched tasks, only
to behold the cause of his folly and headache tripping merrily along the
street, smiling, clean-shaven, and fresh as a dew-born primrose, with,
perchance, two or three of the prettiest girls in town at his elbow to
greet his sallies with approving laughter.
Crailey had been so long in the habit of following every impulse,
no matter how mad, that he enjoyed an almost perfect immunity from
condemnation, and, whatever his deeds, Rouen had learned to say, with
a chuckle, that it was “only Crailey Gray again.” But his followers were
not so privileged. Thus, when Mr. Gray, who in his libations sometimes
developed the humor of an urchin, went to the Pound at three in the
morning of New Year's Day, hung sleigh-bells about the necks of the
cattle and drove them up and down the streets, himself hideously blowing
a bass horn from the back of a big brown steer, those roused from
slumber ceased to rage, and accepted the exploit as a rare joke, on
learning that it was “only Crailey Gray;” but the unfortunate young
Chenoweth was heavily frowned upon and properly upbraided because he had
followed in the wake of the bovine procession, mildly attempting to play
upon a flageolet.
Crailey never denied a folly nor defended an escapade. The latter was
always done for him, because he talked of his “graceless misdoings” (so
he was wont, smilingly, to call them) over cups of tea in the afternoons
with old ladies, lamenting, in his musical voice, the lack of female
relatives to guide him. He was charmingly attentive to the elderly
women, not from policy, but because his manner was uncontrollably
chivalrous; and, ever a gallant listener, were the speaker young, old,
great or humble, he never forgot to catch the last words of a sentence,
and seldom suffered for a reply, even when he had drowsed through a
question. Moreover, no one ever heard him speak a sullen word, nor saw
him wear a brow of depression. The single creed to which he was constant
was that of good cheer; he was the very apostle of gayety, preaching
it in parlor and bar; and made merry friends with battered tramps and
homeless dogs in the streets at night.
Now and then he would spend several days in the offices of Gray
& Vanrevel, Attorneys and Counsellors-at-Law, wearing an air of
unassailable virtue; though he did not far overstate the case when he
said, “Tom does all the work and gives me all the money not to bother
him when he's getting up a case.”
The working member of the firm got up cases to notable effect, and few
lawyers in the State enjoyed having Tom Vanrevel on the other side.
There was nothing about him of the floridity prevalent at that time; he
withered “oratory” before the court; he was the foe of jury pathos; and,
despising noise and the habitual voice-dip at the end of a sentence,
was, nevertheless, at times an almost fearfully effective orator. So,
by degrees the firm of Gray & Vanrevel, young as it was, and in spite
of the idle apprentice, had grown to be the most prosperous in the
district. For this eminence Crailey was never accused of assuming the
credit. Nor did he ever miss an opportunity of making known how much he
owed to his partner. What he owed, in brief, was everything. How well
Vanrevel worked was demonstrated every day, but how hard he worked,
only Crailey knew. The latter had grown to depend upon him for even his
political beliefs, and lightly followed his partner into Abolitionism;
though that was to risk unpopularity, bitter hatred, and worse.
Fortunately, on certain occasions, Vanrevel had made himself (if not
his creed) respected, at least so far that there was no longer danger
of mob-violence for an Abolitionist in Rouen. He was a cool-headed
young man ordinarily, and possessed of an elusive forcefulness not to
be trifled with, though he was a quiet man, and had what they called a
“fine manner.” And, not in the latter, but in his dress, there was an
echo of the Beau, which afforded Mr. Gray a point of attack for sallies
of wit; there was a touch of the dandy about Vanrevel; he had a large
and versatile wardrobe, and his clothes always fit him not only in line
but in color; even women saw how nobly they were fashioned.
These two young men were members of a cheerful band, who feasted,
laughed, wrangled over politics, danced, made love, and sang terrible
chords on summer evenings, together, as young men will. Will Cummings,
editor of the Rouen Journal, was one of these; a tall, sallow man, very
thin, very awkward and very gentle. Mr. Cummings proved himself always
ready with a loud and friendly laugh for the poorest joke in the world,
his countenance shining with such kindness that no one ever had the
heart to reproach him with the evils of his journalistic performances,
or for the things he broke when he danced. Another was Tappingham Marsh,
an exceedingly handsome person, somewhat languid in appearance, dainty
in manner with women, offhand with men; almost as reckless as Crailey,
and often the latter's companion and assistant in dissipation. Young
Francis Chenoweth never failed to follow both into whatever they
planned; he was short and pink, and the uptilt of his nose was coherent
with the appealing earnest-ness which was habitual with him. Eugene
Madrillon was the sixth of these intimates; a dark man, whose Latin eyes
and color advertised his French ancestry as plainly as his emotionless
mouth and lack of gesture betrayed the mingling of another strain.
All these, and others of the town, were wont to “talk politics” a great
deal at the little club on Main Street and all were apt to fall foul of
Tom Vanrevel or Crailey Gray before the end of any discussion. For those
were the days when they twisted the Lion's tail in vehement and bitter
earnest; when the eagle screamed in mixed figures; when few men knew how
to talk, and many orated; when party strife was savagely personal; when
intolerance was called the “pure fire of patriotism;” when criticism of
the existing order of things surely incurred fiery anathema and black
invective; and brave was he, indeed, who dared to hint that his country,
as a whole and politically, did lack some two or three particular
virtues, and that the first step toward obtaining them would be to help
it to realize their absence.
This latter point-of-view was that of the firm of Gray & Vanrevel,
which was a unit in such matters. Crailey did most of the talking--quite
beautifully, too--and both had to stand against odds in many a sour
argument, for they were not only Abolitionists, but opposed the attitude
of their country in its difficulty with Mexico; and, in common with
other men of the time who took their stand, they had to grow accustomed
to being called Disloyal Traitors, Foreign Toadies, Malignants, and
Traducers of the Flag. Tom had long been used to epithets of this sort,
suffering their sting in quiet, and was glad when he could keep Crailey
out of worse employment than standing firm for an unpopular belief.
There was one place to which Vanrevel, seeking his friend and partner,
when the latter did not come home at night, could not go; this was the
Tower Chamber, and it was in that mysterious apartment of the Carewe
cupola that Crailey was apt to be deeply occupied when he remained away
until daylight. Strange as it appears, Mr. Gray maintained peculiar
relations of intimacy with Robert Carewe, in spite of the feud between
Carewe and his own best friend. This intimacy, which did not necessarily
imply any mutual fondness (though Crailey seemed to dislike nobody), was
betokened by a furtive understanding, of a sort, between them. They held
brief, earnest conversations on the street, or in corners when they
met at other people's houses, always speaking in voices too low to be
overheard; and they exercised a mysterious symbolism, somewhat in the
manner of fellow members of a secret society: they had been observed to
communicate across crowded rooms, by lifted eyebrow, nod of head, or a
surreptitious turn of the wrist: so that those who observed them knew
that a question had been asked and answered.
It was noticed, also, that there were five other initiates to this
masonry: Eugene Madrillon, the elder Chenoweth, General Trumble,
Tappingham Marsh, and Jefferson Bareaud. Thus, on the afternoon
following Miss Betty's introduction to Rouen's favorite sons and
daughters, Mr. Carewe, driving down Main Street, held up one forefinger
to Madrillon as he saw the young man turning in at the club. Eugene
nodded gravely, and, as he went in, discovering Marsh, the General, and
others, listening to Mr. Gray's explanation of his return from the river
with no fish, stealthily held up one finger in his turn. Trumble replied
with a wink, Tappingham nodded, but Crailey slightly shook his head.
Marsh and the General started with surprise, and stared incredulously.
That Crailey should shake his head! If the signal had been for a
church-meeting they might have understood.
Mr. Gray's conduct was surprising two other people at about the same
time: Tom Vanrevel and Fanchon Bareaud; the former by his sudden
devotion to the law; the latter by her sudden devotion to herself. In a
breath, he became almost a domestic character. No more did he spend his
afternoons between the club and the Rouen House bar, nor was his bay
mare so often seen stamping down the ground about Mrs. McDougal's
hitching-post while McDougal was out on the prairie with his engineering
squad. The idle apprentice was at his desk, and in the daytime he
displayed an aversion for the streets, which was more than his partner
did, for the industrious Tom, undergoing quite as remarkable an
alteration of habit, became, all at once, little better than a
corner-loafer. His favorite lounging-place was a small drug-store
where Carewe Street debouched upon Main; nevertheless, so adhesive is a
reputation once fastened, his air of being there upon business deceived
everyone except Mr. Gray.
Miss Bareaud was even happier than she was astonished (and she was
mightily astonished) to find her betrothed developing a taste for her
society alone. Formerly, she had counted upon the gayeties of her home
to keep Crailey near her; now, however, he told her tenderly he wished
to have her all to himself. This was not like him, but Fanchon did not
question; and it was very sweet to her that he began to make it his
custom to come in by a side gate and meet her under an apple-tree in
the dusk, where they would sit quietly together through the evening,
listening to the noise and laughter from the lighted house.
That house was the most hospitable in Rouen. Always cheerfully “full of
company,” as they said, it was the sort of house where a carpet-dance
could be arranged in half an hour; a house with a sideboard like
the widow's cruse; the young men always found more. Mrs. Bareaud, a
Southerner, loving to persuade the visitor that her home was his, not
hers, lived only for her art, which was that of the table. Evil
cooks, taking service with her, became virtuous, dealt with nectar and
ambrosia, and grew fit to pander to Olympus, learning of their mistress
secrets to make the ill-disposed as genial gods ere they departed. Mr.
Bareaud at fifty had lived so well that he gave up walking, which did
not trouble him; but at sixty he gave up dancing, which did trouble him.
His only hope, he declared, was in Crailey Gray's promise to invent for
him: a concave partner.
There was a thin, quizzing shank of a son, Jefferson, who lived upon
quinine, ague and deviltry; and there were the two daughters, Fanchon
and Virginia. The latter was three years older than Fanchon, as dark as
Fanchon was fair, though not nearly so pretty: a small, good-natured,
romping sprite of a girl, who had handed down the heart and hand of
Crailey Gray to her sister with the best grace in the world. For she
had been the heroine of one of Mr. Gray's half-dozen or so most serious
affairs, and, after a furious rivalry with Mr. Carewe, the victory
was generally conceded to Crailey. His triumph had been of about a
fort-night's duration when Fanchon returned from St. Mary's; and,
with the advent of the younger sister, the elder, who had decided that
Crailey was the incomparable she had dreamed of since infancy, was
generously allowed to discover that he was not that vision--that she had
fallen in love with her own idea of him; whereas Fanchon cared only
that he be Crailey Gray, whatever kind of vision that was. And Fanchon
discovered that it was a great many kinds.
The transfer was made comfortably, with nice judgment of a respectable
interregnum, and to the greater happiness of each of the three young
people; no objection ensuing from the easy-going parents, who were
devotedly fond of Crailey, while the town laughed and said it was
only that absurd Crailey Gray again. He and Virginia were the best of
friends, and accepted their new relation with a preposterous lack of
embarrassment.
To be in love with Crailey became Fanchon's vocation; she spent all her
time at it, and produced a blurred effect upon strangers. The only man
with whom she seemed quite alive was Vanrevel: a little because Tom
talked of Crailey, and a great deal because she could talk of Crailey to
Tom; could tell him freely, as she could tell no one else, how wonderful
Crailey was, and explain to him her lover's vagaries on the ground that
it was a necessity of geniuses to be unlike the less gifted. Nor was she
alone in suspecting Mr. Gray of genius: in the first place, he was so
odd; in the second, his poems were “already attracting more than local
attention,” as the Journal remarked, generously, for Crailey had ceased
to present his rhymes to that valuable paper. Ay! Boston, no less, was
his mart.
He was rather radical in his literary preferences, and hurt the elder
Chenoweth's feelings by laughing heartily at some poems of the late Lord
Byron; offended many people by disliking the style of Sir Edward Bulwer,
and even refused to admit that James Fenimore Cooper was the greatest
novelist that ever lived. But these things were as nothing compared with
his unpatriotic defence of Charles Dickens. Many Americans had fallen
into a great rage over the vivacious assault upon the United States in
“Martin Chuzzlewit;” nevertheless, Crailey still boldly hailed him (as
everyone had heretofore agreed) the most dexterous writer of his day and
the most notable humorist of any day. Of course the Englishman had not
visited and thoroughly studied such a city as Rouen, Crailey confessed,
twinklingly; but, after all, wasn't there some truth in “Martin
Chuzzlewit?” Mr. Dickens might have been far from a clear understanding
of our people; but didn't it argue a pretty ticklish vanity in ourselves
that we were so fiercely resentful of satire; and was not this very heat
over “Martin Chuzzlewit” a confirmation of one of the points the book
had presented against us? General Trumble replied to this suggestion
with a personal one to the effect that a man capable of saying a good
word for so monstrous a slander, that a man, sir, capable of declaring
his native country to be vain or sensitive ought to be horsewhipped, and
at this Crailey laughed consumedly.
Trumble retorted with the names of Benedict Arnold and Aaron Burr. “And
if it comes to a war with these Greasers,” he spluttered apoplectically,
“and it is coming, mighty soon, we'll find Mr. Gray down in Mexico,
throwing mud on the Stars and Stripes and cheering for that one-legged
horse-thief, Santa Anna! Anything to seek out something foolish amongst
your own people!”
“Don't have to seek far, sometimes, General,” murmured Crailey, from the
depths of the best chair in the club, whereupon Trumble, not trusting
himself to answer, went out to the street.
And yet, before that same evening was over, the General had shed honest
tears of admiration and pity for Crailey Gray; and Miss Betty saw her
Incroyable again, for that night (the second after the Carewe dance)
Rouen beheld the great warehouse tire.