When he reached New York, RoBards had to take his frozen hands to a
physician, who managed to save them for him, though there were times
when the anguishes that clawed them made him almost regret their
possession.
He was tempted to resign his judgeship, feeling that he was unworthy
of the high bench, since he had committed crimes, and had been ready
to commit others, and had on his soul crimes that he regretted not
committing.
But he lacked the courage or the folly to publish his true reasons for
resigning and he could think of no pretexts. He solaced himself with
the partially submerged scandals of other jurists, and wondered where
a perfect soul could be found to act as judge if perfection were to
be demanded. Even Christ had put to flight all of the accusers of the
taken woman and had let her go free with a word of good advice.
At times the memory of his own black revolt against the laws softened
RoBards’ heart when he had before him men or women accused of sins,
and he punished them with nothing more than a warning. At other times
his own guilt made him merciless to the prisoners of discovery, and
he struck out with the frenzy of a man in torment, or with the spirit
of the college boys who hazed their juniors cruelly because they had
themselves been hazed by their seniors.
Deep perplexities wrung his heart when poor souls stood beneath his
eyes charged with the smuggling of unlicensed children into the world,
children without a passport, outlaw children stamped with the strange
label “illegitimate.”
They and their importers wore a new cloak in RoBards’ eyes. They had
been hitherto ridiculous, or contemptible, or odious. Now he understood
what malice there was in the joke that passion had played on them. They
were the scorched victims of a fire against which they had taken out
no insurance. Like Immy they must have suffered bitter ecstasies of
terrified rapture, long vigils of bewilderment, heartbreaks of racking
pain, with ludicrous disgrace for their recompense.
The Albesons returned from Georgia with such a report as a Northern
farmer might have made on Southern soil without the trouble of the
journey. RoBards pretended to be satisfied. They found that Immy was
not so much improved as they expected—“Kind of peaked and poorly,” Abby
complained.
Immy came back to town and though she never quite lost that prayer
in the eyes known as the “hunted look,” she began to find escape and
finally delight in her old gayeties.
Then Captain Harry Chalender returned from California on one of the
Yankee clippers that were astounding the world by their greyhound
speed. It took him barely seventy-six days to sail from San Francisco
around the Horn to Sandy Hook, the whole trip needing only seven
months. It was indeed the age of restless velocity. Chalender came in
as usual with the prestige of broken records.
He was rich and full of traveler’s tales of wild justice, Vigilante
executions, deluges of gold, fantastic splendors amid grueling
hardships.
His anecdotes bored RoBards, who listened to them with the poor
appetite of a stay-at-home for a wanderer’s brag. But Patty listened
hungrily, and Immy was as entranced as Desdemona hearkening to the
Moor. Chalender brought Patty a handsome gift and dared to bring a
handsomer to Immy.
Even his cynical intuitions failed to suspect the education she had
undergone, but he noted how much older she was, how wise yet reckless.
And she found him perilously interesting beyond any of the young bucks
whose farthest voyages were bus rides down Broadway from their boarding
houses to their high desks in the counting houses.
There was nothing in Chalender’s manner toward Immy that Patty or David
could resent when they had their eyes upon him, but he took Immy far
from their eyes often. And RoBards was sure that Patty was harrowed not
only with a mother’s anxiety for a daughter, but with an elder beauty’s
resentment at a younger’s triumph.
On the next New Year’s Day Chalender came to the RoBards home late of
a snow-clouded afternoon. He explained that he had begun up north and
worked his way downtown; and St. John’s Park was the last word to the
south. This led Patty to remind RoBards with a sharp look that she had
been begging him to move up where the people were.
The year had begun with an exhausting day. The first guest had come
before nine and it was getting toward six when Chalender rang at the
closed door. The RoBards family was jaded with the procession of more
or less befuddled visitors, for everybody still called on everybody and
drank too much too often.
Harry Chalender had tried to see if he could not establish a record
in calls. He reached the RoBards house in a pitiable condition. He
was dressed like the fop he always was, his hair curled, oiled, and
perfumed; his handkerchief scented; his waistcoat of a flowery pattern,
his feet in patent leathers glossy as of yore. His breath was even more
confusedly aromatic with cloves than usual. He apologized thickly:
“Patty, I think I’ve done something to give me immortalily at lash.
I’ve called at shixy-sheven house between nine ’s morn’ and five ’s
even’n. And I’ve had ’s much cherry bounce I’m full of elasticicy.
I har’ly touch ground. And wines—oh, Patty! I’m a human cellar. And
food—stewed oyssers, turkey, min’ spies! But I always come back to you,
Patty, and to Immy. Seem’ you and your livin’ image, Immy, I can’t tell
whish is whish; I half suspect I’m seem’ double. Am I or—am I?”
Giggling fatuously over his wit, he fell asleep. Patty regarded him
with anger, and RoBards with disgust; but both were dazed to see that
Immy smiled and placed a cushion under his rolling head.
Drunkenness was beginning to lose its charm. In 1846 New York had
voted against the licensing of liquor dealers by a large majority.
Maine had followed with a law prohibiting the sale or manufacture of
all strong drinks under penalty of fine or imprisonment.
Three years later New York passed a copy of the Maine law and the
Temperance party’s candidate won the governorship. But nobody was
punished; clubs were formed with no other bond than thirst. The edict
was found to be a source of infinite political corruption, general
contempt for law, and tolerance for lawbreakers. It collapsed at last
and was repealed as a failure. All the old people agreed that the good
old times were gone.
Much as RoBards had despised the immemorial tendency of old people
to forget the truth of their own youth and prate of it as a time of
romantic beauty, he found himself despairing of these new times. The
new dances were appalling. The new drinks were poison. The new modes in
love were unheard of.
Once more he was wondering if it were not his duty to horsewhip
Chalender or to kill him. The horror of involving his wife in scandal
restrained him before; now his daughter was concerned.
He pleaded with Immy, wasted commands upon her, and was frozen by her
cynical smile. She laughed most at his solemnest moods just as her
mother had done. She would mock him, hug and kiss him, and make him
hold her cloak for her glistening bare shoulders, then skip downstairs
to take Harry Chalender’s arm and go with him in his carriage to
wherever he cared to go. One night it was to see the new play _Uncle
Tom’s Cabin_, based on a novel written by a clergyman’s wife, with
pirated editions selling about the world by the hundred thousand—six
different theatres were playing the play at the same time in London.
Another night Chalender set Immy forth in a box at the Castle Garden
where Mario and Grisi were singing against the gossip of the whisperers
and starers at Chalender’s new beauty. On other nights Chalender danced
with Immy at fashionable homes where she could not have gone without
him. On other nights they did not explain where they went, and RoBards
was held at bay by Immy’s derisive, “Don’t you wish you knew?” or worse
yet her riant insolence, “You’re too young to know.”
Patty was frantic with defeat. She and Immy wrangled more like sisters
or uncongenial neighbors than like mother and daughter. RoBards was
constantly forced to intervene to keep the peace. By paternal instinct
he defended Immy against her mother and expressed amazement at Patty’s
suspicions, though they were swarming in his own heart. He tried to win
Immy by his own trust in her:
“My darling,” he said once, “you are too young to realize how it looks
to go about with a man of an earlier generation. Chalender is old
enough to be your father. And think of his past!”
“Think of mine!” she said with a tone less of bravado than of abjection.
This stabbed RoBards deep. But he went on as if to a stubborn jury:
“If Chalender were honest, he would want to marry you.”
“He does!”
“Oh, God help us all!” Patty whispered with a look as if ashes had been
flung into her face and as if she tasted them.
RoBards snarled:
“I’ll kill him if he ever crosses my doorstep again!”
To which Immy responded demurely:
“Then I’ll have to meet him outside.”
This defiance was smothering. She went on:
“Why shouldn’t I marry him? I don’t have to tell him anything. He
doesn’t ask me any questions. Doesn’t dare start the question game,
perhaps. He’s lots of fun. He keeps me laughing and interested,
and—guessing.”
This was such a pasquinade on the usual romantic reasons, that her
father could contrive no better rejoinder than:
“But my little sweetheart, such a marriage would be bound to fail.”
This soft answer drove Immy to a grosser procacity:
“Then I can divorce him easily enough. I can join the crowd and go to
Michigan. After two years of residence, I could get a divorce on any
one of seven grounds!”
“Immy!”
“Or Indiana is still better. I was reading that you can establish a
residence there after a night’s lodging. Men and women leave home
saying they’re going away for a little visit or on business and they
never come back, or come back single. If Harry Chalender didn’t behave,
I could surprise him. Besides, Harry would give me anything I want,
even a divorce, if I asked him. But don’t you worry, I’ll get along
somehow.”
And she was gone, leaving her parents marooned on a barren arctic
island.