I
You might enter this story by the stage door. You remember beautiful
Valentine Germain--the actress? She married Robert Oglebay, the painter,
brother of Sir Peter Oglebay, the great engineer. Their baby Phyllis--
But, after all, the main entrance is more dignified.
Sir Peter Oglebay's passion is for Construction: to watch massive
machinery slowly hoisting materials more massive into positions of
incredible height with calculated accuracy. Wherever construction is in
progress you are likely to see him, standing at a little distance,
holding his silk hat on his white head with one hand as he looks
upward, and leaning, a little heavily, on his stick with the other. And
whenever or wherever you see him, you will see an English gentleman.
His portrait, in the lobby of the Engineering Society, is by Sargent.
His erect bearing, white mustache, and something about the cut of his
clothes suggest the soldier. But he is one of the great engineers; his
father and grandfather were engineers. You observe the red ribbon in his
lapel; France honors him.
Sir Peter's big house is in Armytage Street, near the park. You may
remember the house by its walled garden and the imposing wrought-iron
grille through which one has access to the flagged walk, the wide steps,
and the great doorway.
In his house, the library defines his chief interest in life. The
shelves are filled with somber sets of the "Transactions" and
"Proceedings" of several learned societies. Sir Peter is himself a
Fellow of these societies Mr. Rowlandson, his bookseller, has a standing
advertisement in "The Athenaeum" for certain missing volumes. One in
particular, the "Proceedings of the British Engineering Society for the
year 1848," he would tell you, was the very devil to find; it seems
there was a fire at the printer's. Sir Peter's monograph on the
"Egyptian Pyramids Considered in their Relation to Modern Engineering"
was dedicated to this society. He presided over its grave deliberations
for several years. "With dignity and impartiality," said his successor,
when Sir Peter surrendered the gavel.
He serves on boards of directors. His name is seen on subscription lists
headed by the Right People. Late afternoon should find him at the
Carlton Club.
Many years ago, Sir Peter brought together a number of fine pictures.
They hang in the drawing-room, but the collection is not a notable one
in these days. Each year, however, the Oglebay Prize speeds some
talented English lad to Paris. But that endowment was his brother
Robert's suggestion. Sir Peter's calls at the Christie Galleries ceased
when Robert married beautiful Valentine Germain, the actress. Perhaps
half of the cruel things Sir Peter said of her were true. But the
quarrel was irreparable; the brothers never met afterward.
Robert Oglebay was a painter of distinction, if not of genius. His few
finished pictures enriched the world. His impulses were noble, but they
were impulses only; the will to complete the undertaken task was
lacking. For patient work he substituted high talk of Art in the studios
of his friends. The gay little suppers in their own rooms were famous;
nine at table, mostly men, entranced by Valentine's beauty and her wit.
Charming were their afternoons among the curio shops, and their return,
laden with loot too precious to wait over night for delivery. Glorious
were their holidays in Paris and Vienna; wonderful nights in Venice!
Always together! To their sudden migration to Egypt, whence he returned
with a portfolio of exciting promise. Alas, the slender fulfilment! for
then was the time for work,--the sobering thought of Baby Phyllis.
But to Valentine and Robert Oglebay, Baby Phyllis soon meant a new
frolic. Nurse Farquharson's were the competent hands. Their life went on
unchanged.
At five, Baby Phyllis, in her white nightie, her blue eyes shining, and
her curls crowned with roses, danced among the wine-glasses at her
mother's birthday party, and enraptured the guests by singing, in
various keys, the song with which beautiful Valentine herself had
captivated London,--"If I could wear trousers, I know what I should do."
If you knew your way about town in the early eighties, you may remember
the song. The encore was uproarious: three times Baby Phyllis had to
lift her little leg and strike the match on her nightie. They drank her
health standing, as she disappeared, smiling at them over Nurse
Farquharson's shoulder.
Upstairs, having cuddled Phyllis in bed, Valentine caught the expression
on the nurse's face. She put her arms around Farquharson appealingly.
"Don't be cross with me on my birthday," she pleaded.
Farquharson patted the pretty upraised hands, glittering with diamonds.
"You mustn't look cross at my mamma, Farkson," cooed Baby Phyllis.
Careless, happy days and sparkling nights! Robert and Valentine were
always together, their honeymoon endless; in Paris, in Buda-Pesth, in
Rome, in Constantinople, in Holland. You should have seen Valentine in
the Dutch costume she brought home. Each of the inseparable trio of
artists, Mr. Singleton, Mr. Leonard, and Mr. Knowles, painted her
portrait, and made love to her, and was laughed at and scolded. It is
little enough to say of her that she idolized Robert.
When they returned from their first trip to Norway, in 1897, Robert
Oglebay, now forty and growing stout, told his friends he had found what
he was looking for at last. The strong, deep sentiment of the North had
clutched at him and held him fast. And indeed those shimmering, moonlit
studies of the little fishing village, where they spent that summer and
autumn, are his best.
Early in the following summer they flitted northward again, with joyful
eagerness. They took nine-year-old Phyllis with them.
While her father painted, and her mother read, Phyllis explored crannies
in which the receding tide had left tiny, helpless creatures which she
examined curiously, and then carried tenderly to the water, lest they
perish before the friendly waves came again to cover them.
Their boatman sang songs to her,--strange songs that thrilled her,
though she did not understand the words.
At night, in the best room of the little inn, by a bright fire, her
father told tales of the vikings; of their high-prowed ships, and the
long-haired sailors, with fierce eyes; of their adventurous voyages over
unknown seas. The stories ended when the golden head drooped, drowsily.
The portfolio of sketches grew steadily during the weeks that followed.
"Your best work, Robert," said Valentine
"I have found what I have been seeking," was his answer.
They were happy days. Robert painted, early and late, in all weathers.
Valentine's joy was in him. Phyllis found hers in a closer companionship
with them than she had ever known.
Remembering their eager joy, how tragic the end! Drowned, under the sail
of an overturned boat,--together.
Their little Phyllis, saved by the boatman recovered from the shock of
icy water and horrible fright before her clothing was dry. She was
spared immediate knowledge of her loss. The rough, weatherworn faces she
saw in the firelight of the fisherman's cottage, to which she had been
carried, were kindly and compassionate. The gloom of early evening, the
glow of the firelight, the smell of the sea, the full-rigged ship on a
rude wall-bracket, and the moaning wind outside were memories of after
years. At the moment, wrapped in a blanket, Phyllis was conscious only
of security and warmth. She smiled up at the big fisherman who had
rescued her, and made friendly advances to the cluster of ragged little
ones who gathered around her, with scared faces and brown, bare legs and
feet. When the fisherman's wife tucked her into a warm bed, she inquired
sleepily for her mamma. A reassuring caress was the response: the
language of motherhood is universal, and requires no words.
The patrol of the rocky inlet ended at dawn. When the burdened groups of
booted men tramped past the cottage on their way to the inn, the
fisherman's wife, peering through the window in the gray morning light,
muttered to herself that both had been found.
Some hours afterward came the innkeeper and the postmaster, the one
proud of his English, the other of his responsibilities as first citizen
of the village. A large-eyed, terror-stricken Phyllis learned of her
loneliness and sobbed on the good woman's broad bosom. The innkeeper and
the postmaster smoked their pipes outside until the first outburst of
childish grief had spent itself.
It appeared then that the little Miss must tell them to whom they should
send a telegram. How painful and new to be obliged to think; how choking
were the vague thoughts. But at last a ray of comfort; they should
telegraph Farquharson, her dear, dear nurse. The name was slowly
spelled. And the address? Perfectly, Phyllis knew the street and number
of that fascinating home of hers, but she now remembered that
Farquharson would not be there; that Farquharson had gone to visit her
brother in a little town in the south of England; a little town of which
Phyllis had heard the most wonderful, true stories; but she did not know
its name. "Couldn't the telegraph find out?" she asked; and then,
overcome with rushing thoughts, abandoned herself again to grief.
"There are Mr. Knowles, Mr. Leonard, and Mr. Singleton," she bethought
her. "But they are painting in Algiers."
There was a lady her mamma called Molly, too, whom Phyllis liked very
much, who came often to tea, accompanied by a tiny brown dog; but the
patient innkeeper could learn no more of her than that mamma always
called her Molly; the tiny brown dog's name, Phyllis remembered, was
Tip.
How might this poor innkeeper's meager vocabulary convey the idea of
relatives to Phyllis's mind? But somehow, at last, it was done.
"Yes," said Phyllis, struck suddenly with the thought. "There is Uncle
Peter. But my papa and mamma never went to see him, and he never came to
see them." A half-forgotten word occurred to her,--"They were
es-tranged."
The innkeeper eyed her doubtfully; but Uncle Peter's last name she knew,
of course; was it not her own? And his title, too. The innkeeper,
impressed, communicated his intelligence to the postmaster; they made
their good-byes awkwardly and left the room.
Two days must elapse before the steamer arrived; ample time for
composition. It grieved the innkeeper that another name than the
author's must be signed to his telegram; but intellect yielded to rank;
the postmaster signed alone.
And so, on a day when the dreary churchyard on a bleak hillside, near
the little fishing village, received the poor remains of Robert Oglebay
and Valentine, his wife, Sir Peter, in the paneled library of his great
London house, read these words:--
VALFJELDET, NORWAY, August 18th, 1898.
Your niece, Phyllis Oglebay, robbed of her parents by the
remorseless sea, awaits the directions of her uncle.
OLAF ULVESAKKER, _Postmaster_.
Ten days later, Sir Peter Oglebay, with a drawn face, rode homeward
through fog-enveloped streets, with a small girl in his arms. One of
Phyllis's hands held Sir Peter's tightly, and her tired, little head
rested upon his shoulder.
There was a sale, of course, of the thousand luxurious trifles with
which improvident Robert Oglebay and his beautiful, spirited,
improvident wife had surrounded themselves; trifles which had helped to
create the artistic atmosphere that was the breath of life to them. Half
a hundred creditors divided the proceeds.
When Sir Peter asked Phyllis what he should save from the wreck for her
(not in those words, however) she asked him to send for all the
valentines her papa had given her mamma.
"Her name was Valentine, you know, Uncle Peter," explained Phyllis. "I
think it is the beautifullest name there is. Long before I was born, and
long before they were married, my papa gave my mamma valentines, new
ones and old ones too but mostly old ones. They were the prettiest. Some
of them are a hundred years old. They are ever so pretty, Uncle Peter,
and she let me play with them, whole boxes full of them. I loved them
best of all my playthings. Sometimes my papa called me his little
Valentine, but they named me Phyllis, after my grandmamma, my papa's
mamma. Why, Uncle Peter, she was your mamma, too, wasn't she?" Phyllis,
sitting on Sir Peter's lap, regarded him gravely, with new interest. In
the end, however, she returned to the subject. All the valentines--boxes
and boxes of them--were to be brought to her, if Uncle Peter pleased.
[Illustration: SHE WAS YOUR MAMMA, TOO, WASN'T SHE?]
His bookseller bought in the valentines for Sir Peter.
"God bless my soul!" exclaimed Mr. Rowlandson, when he read the order.
The sale catalogue described it as one of the most remarkable
collections ever brought together, and intimated that the Museum should
take advantage of a rare opportunity.
Another dealer was commissioned to buy one of Robert's pictures.
"Any one,--the best. Use your own judgment," said Sir Peter.
It was a charming study, unfinished, of course, that came the next
afternoon: a boat, rolling heavily in gray water; and seen through mist,
the great brown sail, looming, shadowy; one sailor, in a red jersey, at
the tiller. In the corner Robert had scrawled his careless signature and
the words,--"Valfjeldet, Norway, 1897." Sir Peter gently laid the
picture upon the glowing coals of the grate.
"There are six boxes come from Mr. Rowlandson's shop, sir," said his
housekeeper standing quietly behind him.
"Have the screws removed and send them up to Miss Phyllis's room," he
replied. "They are old valentines, Burbage, old valentines that belonged
to her m----for which she has a childish fondness."