Pauline now began in excellent earnest the preparations for embarking
upon her somewhat quaint enterprise. During the next three or four days
she saw a good deal of Kindelon. They visited together the little
editorial sanctum in Spruce Street, where Mrs. Dares sat dictating some
of her inexhaustible "copy" to a pale and rather jaded-looking female
amanuensis. The lady received her visitors with a most courteous
hospitality. Pauline had a sense of shocking idleness as she looked at
the great cumbrous writing-desk covered with ink-stains, files or
clippings of newspapers, and long ribbon-like rolls of "proof." Her own
fine garments seemed to crackle ostentatiously beside the noiseless
folds of Mrs. Dares's work-day cashmere.
"We shall not take up much of your valuable time," she said to the
large-eyed, serious little lady. "We have called principally to ask a
favor of you, and I hope you will not think it a presumptuous request."
"I hope it is presumptuous," said Mrs. Dares, "for that, provided I can
grant it at all, will make it so much pleasanter to grant."
"You may be sure," cried Kindelon gayly to Pauline, "that you have made
a complete conquest of Mrs. Dares. She is usually quite miserly with her
compliments. She puts me on the wretched allowance of one a year."
"Perhaps you don't deserve a more liberal income," said Pauline. Then
she re-addressed Mrs. Dares. "I want to ask you," she proceeded, with a
shy kind of venture in her tone, "if you will kindly loan me your
visiting-book for a little while."
"My visiting-book?" murmured Mrs. Dares. Then she slowly shook her head,
while the pale girl at the desk knitted her brows perplexedly, as though
she had encountered some tantalizing foreign word. "I would gladly lend
it if I had one," Mrs. Dares went on; "but I possess no such article."
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Pauline, with an involuntary surprise that
instantly afterward she regretted as uncivil. "You _have_ none!"
But Mrs. Dares did not seem to detect the least incivility in Pauline's
amazement.
"No, my dear Mrs. Varick, I have no need of a visiting-book, for I have
no time to visit."
"But you surely have some sort of list, have you not?" now inquired
Kindelon.
Mrs. Dares lightly touched her forehead. "Only here in my memory," she
said, "and that is decidedly an imperfect list. My guests understand
that to be invited to one of my evenings is to be invited to all. I
suppose that in the fashionable world," she proceeded, fixing her great
dark eyes on Pauline, "it is wholly different. There, matters of this
sort are managed with much ceremony, no doubt."
"With much trivial ceremony," said Pauline. "A little scrap of
pasteboard there represents an individuality--and in just as efficient
manner as if it were truly the person represented. To be in society, as
it is called, is to receive a perpetual shower of cards. I strongly
doubt if many people ever care to meet in a truly social way those whose
company they pretend to solicit. There are few more perfect mockeries in
that most false and mocking life, than the ordinary visit of etiquette."
Pauline here gave a little meaning smile as she briefly paused. "But I
suppose you will understand, Mrs. Dares," she continued, "that I regret
your having no regular list. I wanted to borrow it--and with what
purpose I am sure you can readily imagine."
"Yes," was the reply. "My daughter Cora shall prepare you one, however.
She has an admirable memory. If she fails in the matter of addresses,
there is the directory as a help, you know. And so your idea about the
_salon_ is unchanged?"
"It is unalterable," said Pauline, with a laugh. "But I hate so to
trouble your daughter."
"She will not think it any trouble," said Kindelon quickly.
Pauline looked at him with a slight elevation of the brows. "You speak
confidently for Miss Cora," she said.
Kindelon lifted one hand, and waved it a trifle embarrassedly. "Oh, I
have always found her so accommodating," he answered.
"Yes, Cora is always glad to please those whom she likes," said Mrs.
Dares....
A little later Pauline and Kindelon took leave of their hostess. They
had been driven to Spruce Street in the carriage of the former, and as
they quitted the huge building in which Mrs. Dares's tiny sanctum was
situated, Kindelon said to his companion: "You shall return home at
once?"
Pauline gave a careless laugh. She looked about her at all the
commercial hurry and bustle of the placarded, vehicle-thronged street.
"I have nowhere else to go just at present," she said. "Not that I
should not like to stay down town, as you call it, a little longer. The
noise and activity please me.... Oh, by the way," she added, "did you
not say that you must repair to your office?"
"The 'Asteroid' imperatively claims me," said Kindelon, taking out his
watch. "Only twelve o'clock," he proceeded; "I thought it later. Well, I
have at least an hour at your service still. Have you any commands?"
"Where on earth could we pass your hour of leisure?" said Pauline. "It
would probably not be proper if I accompanied you into the office of the
'Asteroid.'"
"It would be sadly dull."
"Then I will drive up town after I have left you there."
"Why not remain _down_ town, since the change pleases you?"
"Driving aimlessly about for a whole hour?"
"By no means. I have an idea of what we might do. I think you might not
find the idea at all disagreeable. If you will permit, I will give your
footman an order, and plan for you a little surprise."
"Do so, by all means," said Pauline lightsomely, entering the carriage.
"I throw myself upon your mercy and your protection."
Kindelon soon afterward seated himself at her side, and the carriage was
immediately borne into the clamorous region of what we term lower
Broadway.
"I hope I shall like your surprise," said Pauline, as she leaned back
against the cushions, not knowing how pretty she looked in her patrician
elegance of garb and person. "But we will not talk of it; I might guess
what it is if we did, and that would spoil all. My faith in you shall be
blind and unquestioning, and I shall expect a proportionately rich
reward.... What gulfs of difference lie between that interesting little
Mrs. Dares and most of the women whom I have met! People tell us that we
must travel to see life. I begin to think that one great city like New
York can give us the most majestic experience, if only we know how to
receive it. Take my Aunt Cynthia Poughkeepsie, for example, and compare
her with Mrs. Dares! A whole continent seems to lie between them, and
yet they are continually living at scarcely a stone's-throw apart."
Kindelon gave a brisk, acquiescent nod.
"True enough," he said. "Travel shows us only the outsides of men and
women. We go abroad to discover better what profits of observation lie
at home...."
The carriage at length stopped.
"Is my surprise all ready to burst upon me?" asked Pauline, at this
point.
"Yes. Its explosion is now imminent," said Kindelon, with dry solemnity
of accent.
Pauline, after she had alighted, surveyed her surroundings for a moment,
and then said,--
"I knew we were approaching the Battery, but I did not suppose you meant
to stop there. And why _have_ you stopped, pray?"
Kindelon pointed toward a distant flash of water glimpsed between the
nude black boughs of many high trees. "You can't think what a delightful
stroll we could take over yonder," he said, "along the esplanade. The
carriage could wait here for us, you know."
"Certainly," acceded Pauline.
They soon entered the noble park lying on their right. It was a day of
unusual warmth for that wintry season, but the air freshened and
sharpened as they drew further seaward. There are many New Yorkers to
whom our beautiful Battery is but a name, and Pauline was one of them.
As she neared the rotund wooden building of Castle Garden, a wholly
novel and unexpected sight awaited her. Not long ago one of the great
ocean-steamers had discharged here many German immigrants, and some of
these had come forth from the big sea-fronting structure beyond, to meet
the stares of that dingy, unkempt rabble which always collects, on such
occasions, about its doorways. Pauline and Kindelon paused to watch the
poor dazed-looking creatures, with their pinched, vacuous faces, their
timid miens, their coarse, dirty bundles. The women mostly had blond
braids of hair matted in close coils against the backs of their heads;
they wore no bonnets, and one or two of them led a bewildered, dull-eyed
child by the hand, while one or two more clasped infants to their
breasts, wrapped in soiled shawls. The men had a spare, haggard, slavish
demeanor; the liberal air and sun, the very amplitude and brilliancy of
sky and water, seemed to cow and depress them; they slunk instead of
walking; there was something in their visages of an animal suggestion;
they did not appear entirely human, and made you recall the mythic
combinations of man and beast.
"They are Germans, I suppose," said Kindelon to Pauline; "or perhaps
they hail from some of the Austrian provinces. Many of my own country
people, the Irish, are not much less shocking to behold when they first
land here."
"These do not shock me," said Pauline; "they sadden me. They look as if
they had not wit enough to understand whither they had come, but quite
enough to feel alarmed and distrustful of their present environment."
"This drama of immigration is constantly unfolding itself here, day
after day," answered Kindelon. "It surely has its mournful side, but
you, as an American, ought by all means to discern its bright one. These
poor souls are the social refuse of Europe; they are the pathetic
fugitives from vile and time-honored abuses; they are the dreary
consequences of kingdoms and empires. Their state is almost brutish, as
you see; they don't think themselves half as far above the brute as you
think them, depend upon it. They have had manhood and womanhood crushed
into the dust for generations. It is as much their hereditary instinct
to fawn and crawl as it is for a dog to bark or a cat to lap milk. They
represent the enlightened and thrifty peasantry over-sea. Bah! how it
sickens a man to consider that because a few insolent kings must have
their hands kissed and their pride of rule glutted, millions of their
people are degraded into such doltish satires upon humanity! But I
mentioned the bright side of this question, from the American
standpoint."
"Yes," said Pauline quickly, lifting her face to his. "I hope it is
really a bright side."
"It is--very. America receives these pitiful wretches, and after a few
short months they are regenerated, transformed. There has never, in the
history of the world, been a nation of the same magnificent hospitality
as this. Before such droves of deplorable beings any other nation would
shut her ports or arm her barriers, in strong affright. But America
(which I have always thought a much more terse and expressive name than
the United States) does nothing of the sort. With a superb kindness,
which has behind it a sense of unexampled power, she bids them all
welcome. And in a little while they breathe her vitalizing air with a
new and splendid result. They forget the soldiers who kicked them, the
tyrants who made them shoulder muskets in defence of thrones, the taxes
wrung from their scant wages that princes might dance and feast. They
forget all this gross despotism; they begin to live; their very frames
and features change; their miserable past is like a broken fetter flung
gladly away. And America does all this for them--this, which no other
country has done or can do!"
He spoke with a fine heat, an impressive enthusiasm. Pauline, standing
beside him, had earnestly fixed her look upon his handsome, virile face,
noting the spark that pierced his light-blue eyes, between the black
gloss of their lashes, and the little sensitive tremor that disturbed
his nostril. She had never felt more swayed by his force of personality
than now. She had never felt more keenly than now that his manful
countenance and shape were both fit accompaniments of an important and
robust nature.
"And what does America really do with these poor, maltreated creatures,
after having greeted and domesticated them?" came her next words, filled
with an appealing sincerity of utterance.
Something appeared suddenly to have changed Kindelon's mood. He laughed
shortly and half turned away.
"Oh," he said, in wholly altered voice, "if they are Irish she sometimes
makes Tammany politicians of them, and if they are Germans she sometimes
turns them into howling socialists."
"Do you mean what you say?" exclaimed Pauline almost indignantly.
He bent his head and looked at her intently, for a moment, with a covert
play of mirth under the crisp, dark flow of his mustache.
"I am afraid that I do," he replied, with another laugh.
"Then you think this grand American hospitality of which you have just
spoken to be a failure--a sham?"
"No, no--far from that," he said rapidly, and with recurring
seriousness. "I was only going back to the dark side of the
question--that is all. You know, I told you it had both its dark and its
bright side.... Come, let us leave this rabble. You have not really seen
the Battery yet. Its true splendors lie just beyond...."
They were presently strolling along the stone-paved esplanade, with its
granite posts connected by loops of one continuous iron chainwork. To
the south they had a partial view of Brooklyn, that city which is a sort
of reflective and imitative New York, with masts bristling from her
distant wharves and more than a single remote church-spire telling of
the large religious impulse which has given her a quaint ecclesiastical
fame. But westward your eye could traverse the spacious bay until it met
the dull-red semicircle of Fort Columbus, planted low and stout upon the
shore of Governor's Island, and the soft, swelling, purplish hills of
Staten Island, where they loomed still further beyond. Boats of all
shapes and kinds were passing over the luminous waters, from the squat,
ugly tug, with its hoarse whistle, to the huge black bulk of an Atlantic
steamer, bound for transpontine shores and soon to move majestically
oceanward through the fair sea-gate of the Narrows. A few loiterers
leaned against the stone posts, and a few more lounged upon the seats
ranged further inland along this salubrious marine promenade. Back among
the turfy levels that stretched broadly between the flagged pathways,
you saw the timorous green of hardy grass, where an occasional pale
wreath of unmelted snow yet lingered. People were passing to and fro,
with steps that rang hollow on the hard pavement. If you listened
intently you could catch a kind of dreamy hum from the vast city, which
might almost be said to begin its busy, tumultuous life here in this
very spot, thence pushing through many a life-crowded street and avenue,
sheer on to the rocky fields and goat-haunted gutters of dreary Harlem.
"What a glorious bay it is!" exclaimed Kindelon, while he and Pauline
stood on the breezy esplanade. "There never was a city with more royal
approaches than New York."
"That fort yonder," said Pauline, "will perhaps thunder broadsides, one
day, at the fleet of an invading enemy. This is still such a young city
compared with those of other lands.... I suppose these waters, centuries
later, will see grand sights, as civilization augments."
"Perhaps they may see very mournful ones," objected Kindelon.
"But you are an evolutionist," declared Pauline, with a priggish little
pursing of the lips that he found secretly very amusing. "You believe
that everything is working toward nobler conditions, though you laughed
at Leander Prawle, the optimistic poet, the other evening, for his
roseate prophecies about the human race."
"Oh, I'm an evolutionist," answered Kindelon. "I believe it will all
come right by-and-by, like the gigantic unravelling of a gigantic
skein.... But such views don't prevent me from feeling the probability of
New York being reduced to ashes more than once in the coming centuries."
"Oh, yes, I remember," said Pauline. "There are often the apparent
retrogressions--rhythmic variations of movement which temporarily retard
all progress in societies."
Kindelon burst into one of his mellowest and heartiest laughs. "You are
delicious," he said, "when you try to recollect your Herbert Spencer.
You make me think of a flower that has been dropped among the leaves of
an Algebra."
"I am not at all sure that I like your simile," said Pauline, tossing
her head somewhat. "It is pleasant to be likened to a flower, but in
this case it is rather belittling. And if it comes to recollecting my
Herbert Spencer, perhaps the process is not one of very violent
_effort_, either."
"Oh," said Kindelon ruefully, "I have offended you."
A sunny smile broke from her lips the next moment. "I can't be
offended," she replied, "when I think how you rebuked my absurd outburst
of pedantry. Ah! truly a little knowledge _is_ a dangerous thing, and I
am afraid I have very little.... How lovely it all is, here," she
proceeded, changing the subject, as they now began to move onward, while
they still kept close to the edge of the smooth-paven terrace. "And what
a pity that our dwelling-houses should all be away from the water! My
grandparents--or my great-grandparents, I forget which--once lived close
to the Battery. I recollect poor mamma telling me that I had an
ancestress whom they used to call the belle of Bowling Green."
"That was certainly in the days before commerce had seized every yard of
these unrivalled water-fronts," laughed Kindelon. "Babylon on its
Euphrates, or Nineveh on its Tigris, could not eclipse New York in
stately beauty if mansions were built along its North and East rivers.
But trade is a tyrant, as you see. She concedes to you Fifth Avenue, but
she denies you anything more poetic."
"I wonder who is the belle of Bowling Green now?" said Pauline, looking
up at her companion with a serio-comic smile.
He shook his head. "I am afraid your favored progenitress was the last
of the dynasty."
"Oh, no," dissented Pauline, appearing to muse a trifle. "I fancy there
is still a belle. Perhaps she has a German or an Irish name."
"It may be Kindelon," he suggested.
"No--it is something more usual than that. If she is not a Schmitt I
suspect that she is an O'Brien. I picture her as pretty, but somewhat
delicate; she works in some dreadful factory, you know, not far away,
all through the week. But on Sunday she emerges from her narrow little
room in a tenement-house, brave and smart as you please. The beaux fight
for her smiles as they join her, and she knows just how to distribute
them; she is a most astute little coquette, in her way."
"And the beaux? Are they worthy of her coquetries?"
"Oh, well, she thinks them so. I fear that most of them have soiled
finger-nails, and that their Sunday coats fit them very ill.... But now
let me pursue my little romance. The poor creature is terribly fond of
one of them. There is always one, you know, dearer than the rest."
"Is there?" said Kindelon oddly. "You're quite elucidating. I didn't
know that."
"Don't be sarcastic," reproved Pauline with mock grimness. "Sarcasm is
always the death of romance. I have an idea that the secretly-adored one
is more of a convert than all his fellows to the beautifying influences
of soap. His Sunday face is bright and fresh; it looks conscientiously
washed."
"And his finger-nails? Does your imagination also include those, or do
they transcend its limits?"
"I have a vague perception of their relative superiority.... Pray let me
continue without your prosaic interruptions. Poor little Mary.... Did I
not say that her first name was Mary, by-the-by?"
"I have been under the impression for several seconds that you called
her Bridget."
"Very well. I will call her so, if you insist. Poor little Bridget, who
steals forth, _endimanchee_ and expectant, fails for an hour or two to
catch a glimpse of her beloved. She is beginning to be sadly bored by
the society of her present three, four, or five admirers, when suddenly
she sees the Beloved approaching. Then she brightens and becomes quite
sparklingly animated. And when her Ideal draws near, twirling a licorice
cane--I insist upon having her Ideal twirl a licorice cane--she receives
him with an air of the most unconcerned indifference. It is exquisite to
observe the calm, careless way in which she asks him...."
"Pardon me," interrupted Kindelon, with a short and almost brusque tone,
"but is not this gentleman coming toward us your cousin?"
"My cousin?" faltered Pauline.
"Yes--Mr. Courtlandt Beekman."
Pauline did not answer, for she had already caught sight of Courtlandt,
advancing in her own direction from that of the South Ferry, which she
and Kindelon were now rather near. She stopped abruptly in her walk, and
perceptibly colored.
A moment afterward Courtlandt saw both herself and her escort. He showed
great surprise, and then quickly conquered it. As he came forward,
Pauline gave a shrill, nervous laugh. "I suppose you feel like asking me
what on earth I am doing here," she said, in by no means her natural
voice, and with a good deal of fluttered insecurity about her demeanor.
"I shouldn't think that necessary," replied Courtlandt. His sallow face
had not quite its usual hue, but nothing could be steadier than the cool
light of his eye. "It's very evident that you are taking a stroll with
Mr. Kindelon." He then extended his hand, cased in a yellow dogskin
glove, to Kindelon. "How are you?" he said to the man whom he entirely
disliked, in a tone of neutral civility.
"Very well, this pleasant day," returned Kindelon, jovially
imperturbable. "And you, Mr. Beekman?"
"Quite well, thanks." He spoke as if he were stating a series of brief
commercial facts. "I had some business with a man over in Brooklyn, and
took this way back to my office, which is only a street or two beyond."
He turned toward the brilliant expanse of the bay, lifting a big
silver-knobbed stick which he carried, waving it right and left. "Very
nice down here, isn't it?" he went on. His look now dwelt in the most
casual way upon Pauline. "Well, I must be off," he continued. "I've a
lot of business to-day."
He had passed them, when Pauline, turning, said composedly but sharply:
"Can't I take you to your office, Court?"
"Thanks, no. I won't trouble you. It's just a step from here." He lifted
his hat--an act which he had already performed a second or so
previously--and walked onward. He had not betrayed the least sign of
annoyance all through this transient and peculiarly awkward interview.
He had been precisely the same serene, quiescent, demure Courtlandt as
of old.
Pauline stood for some little time watching him as he gradually
disappeared. When the curve near Castle Garden hid him, she gave an
impatient, irritated sigh.
"You seem vexed," said Kindelon, who had been intently though furtively
regarding her.
"I am vexed," she murmured. Her increased color was still a deep rose.
"Is there anything very horrible in walking for a little while on the
Battery?" he questioned.