ARTHUR SEES MORE OF THE WORLD.
The firm of Townley & Tamms were of the oldest and best-known bankers
and brokers in the Street. Mr. Townley had been known in New York
over fifty years; he had a taste for art, and was a director in the
Allegheny Central Railroad. Tamms was a newer man; a younger man
with a square head, stiff red beard, broad stubby fingers, and great
business ability. Arthur was expected to be there a little after nine
in the morning, which made it necessary for him to breakfast at the
boarding-house on Fifth Avenue at sharp eight. Most of the other men
did the same, except Townley, who had his coffee in his room.
These men were not interesting; in fact, they seemed to Arthur
singularly unattractive. Their faces were all chopped or rough-hewn
into one prevailing expression, as rows of trees by the sea-shore are
bent the same way by the wind. It would be best described as a look of
eagerness; their eyes were sharp and piercing, and they even ate their
breakfast eagerly. They all seemed common to Arthur; and he one of
them, reduced to his lowest terms of expression, a unit of population,
nothing more. They were all hurrying through breakfast, folding their
napkins, putting on their great-coats, and going down-town for money,
and for nothing else; so was he. To be sure, he had a woman he loved at
the end of it; but so, perhaps, had they.
Arthur rose impatiently, leaving his second egg, and passed out,
receiving a clipped or half-audible “good-morning” from most of his
fellow-boarders; the sort of salutation that hurried men may give who
must still dimly remember or recognize, while they may regret, the
necessity for small social courtesies. He put on his overcoat, and
started walking down the Avenue.
There was no reasoning himself out of it, his spirits drooped; not
with the sentimental and romantic melancholy of a young man (which
is a sort of pleasant sadness, and results in nothing worse than
pessimistic poems, nocturnal rambles, and a slightly increased
consumption of narcotics and stimulants), but with that more practical,
less tolerable, discontent which the grown man has in moments when the
conviction is irresistibly borne in upon him that his position in the
world is not a brilliant one, and his worth, to make the best of it, is
unappreciated. For those who choose to be sad over these things there
is no remedy. And in New York, he felt himself--number one million
three hundred and fifty-six thousand two hundred and two.
Arthur had, too, a strong desire to go and see Gracie, much as a
child wants to go to its mother’s lap and cry. But how much farther
off she seemed than if they had stayed at Great Barrington! It was
impossible, of course, for him to see her; she had insisted that there
should be no announced engagement between them. He doubted even if Mrs.
Livingstone knew of it. But how long it would be before they could be
married, before they could live in a house--in a house like that one
there, for instance! And Arthur waved his cane unconsciously at a house
on the corner of Thirty-second Street, in which, though ugly enough
outside, it seemed to him it might be reasonably possible for him to
maintain his own identity and their dignity of life. Then he remembered
that Townley had pointed it out to him the day before as Mrs. Levison
Gower’s house, and that he had been introduced to her at Lenox.
Probably she would not remember him now.
Going to the office, he sought that corner of a desk which was in the
future to be his station in the world. Townley arrived late, and gave
him a hasty nod; it was a busy day, and he had been up late in the
night at the first ball of the season. Arthur’s work that day consisted
in writing letters for the firm, following Mr. Tamms’s hastily
pencilled instructions; but the first letter he wrote of all was not
signed by the firm signature, and it bore the address “Miss Holyoke,
care of Mrs. Richard Livingstone, 6 W. ----th Street, City.” Such
letters as these it is that make the world go on; and truly they are
more important than even the foreign mail of Messrs. Townley & Tamms.
This relieved his mind, and the daily labor for his daily bread coming
happily in to sweeten his meditations, he got fairly through to four
o’clock, when Townley proposed that they should go to drive.
Arthur protested his duty to his employers.
“Nonsense,” said Charlie; “the governor knows you’ve got to get into
harness by degrees. Besides, he doesn’t pay you anything for your
services--and they arn’t worth anything, yet,” he added. The last
argument was unanswerable.
Charlie’s cart (it is quite impossible for us, who have known him
nearly two days, to call him Townley any more) was very high, very
thick, and very heavy, and was purchased in Long Acre; the horses,
which answered the same description, were also imported; and the
harness, which corresponded to the cart in thickness and heaviness,
came from Cheapside. Townley’s coat, clothes, top-hat, whip, and
gloves were all native of Bond Street or Piccadilly; and in fact,
the only thing about him which was produced fairly beyond the London
bills of mortality was the very undoubted case of green Havana cigars
that he offered to Arthur the moment they had left the Park. They
drove up Fifth Avenue, past the same procession of pedestrians they
had seen the day before, and Arthur could not but note how much more
interesting they seemed to their fellow-creatures from the summit of
their dog-cart, and how the interest had become mutual as they entered
the Park and joined the procession of T-carts, phaetons, and victorias.
He admired the dexterity with which Charlie kept the tandem-reins
and the whip properly assorted in his left hand, while the right was
continually occupied in raising his hat to pretty women who had bowed.
The Hill-and-Dale Club, the newly established country institution, a
sort of shrine or sacred grove whither city folk betook themselves
to commune with nature, was in Westchester County, not far from the
historic banks of the Bronx. An old country mansion, former quarters
of Continental generals, rendezvous of Skinners and Cowboys, had been
bought, adorned, developed, provided with numerous easy chairs and
sporting prints; and lo! it was a club. The wide lawn in front was
turned into a half-mile track for running races; a shooting range
and tennis-grounds were made behind; and you had a small Arcadia for
mundane pleasures. Here could tired mortals loaf, chat, eat, drink,
smoke, bet, gamble, race, take exercise, and see their fellow-creatures
and their wives and cattle. Expatriated Britons found here a blessed
spot of rest, a simulacrum of home, where trotting races were tabooed,
where you were waited on by stunted grooms, and could ride after your
hounds, and always turned to the left in passing. Before this Elysium
did Charlie pull up, and throwing the reins to a stable-boy, led Arthur
to the inner Penetralia. After inscribing his name in the club-book
(making the fourth, thought Arthur) they went to the smoke-room, where
they met a dozen of the fellows (some of whose faces seemed already
familiar to him) and executed the customary libation. Here Charlie
stood boldly up to a composite ambrosia of which the base was brandy,
saying that he thought a fellow deserved it after that drive. Some
conversation followed; but I sadly fear ’twould not be worth the
trouble of reporting in cold print. Then Charlie proposed they should
go look at the stables; and they did.
“That is the beast for you,” he said, pointing to a gaunt, fiery-eyed
creature with a close-cropped tail. “Vincent Duval is going abroad, and
you can have him for four hundred.”
“But, my dear fellow, I can’t----”
“Nonsense, Holy,” said Charlie familiarly falling into the nickname
that then and there sprang full-grown like Minerva from his inventive
brain. “Look here, young fellow, I want to give you some advice. Let’s
go in and smoke on the piazza.” They found easy seats above the broad
green lawn, half across which reached already the shadows of a belt
of huge bare forest trees that rimmed in the western end; and there,
inspired by tobacco and the beauty of the scene, did Charles Townley
deliver himself as follows:
“My dear boy, we live in a great country; and in a free country a man
can make himself just what he likes. You can pick out just the class
in life that suits you best. This is the critical moment; and you
must decide whether to be a two-thousand-dollar clerk all your life,
a ten-thousand bachelor, or a millionaire. If you rate yourself at
the two-thousand gauge, the world will treat you accordingly; if you
spend twenty thousand, the world, sooner or later, will give it to you.
There’s Jimmy De Witt, for instance; after the old man busted, he
hadn’t a sous markee--what was the result? He had an excellent taste
in cigars and wine, knew everybody, told a good story--you know what
a handsome fellow he is?--no end of style, and the best judge of a
canvas-back duck I ever saw. Everybody said such a fellow couldn’t be
left to starve. So old Duval found him a place as treasurer of one of
his leased railroads down in Pennsylvania, where all he has to do is to
sign the lessee’s accounts; he did this submissively, and it gave him
ten thousand a year. Then we made him manager of the Manhattan Jockey
Club--that gave him six thousand more; then he makes a little at whist,
and never pays his bills, and somehow or other manages to make both
ends meet. And now they say he’s going to marry Pussie Duval. Do you
suppose he’d ever have been more than a poor devil of a clerk, like me,
if he’d tried economy?” And Charlie leaned back and puffed his cigar
triumphantly.
“But I mean to pay my bills,” said Arthur.
“Well, he will, too, in time,” said Charlie.
Arthur smiled to himself, and reflected that the corruptions of New
York were rather clumsy, after all, and its snares and temptations a
trifle worn-out and crude; but he said nothing, and by this time their
tandem was brought around and they whirled off to the city. When they
got home, he found a note:
“Mr. and Mrs. William H. Farnum request the pleasure--Mr. Holyoke’s
company--small party, Thursday the twenty-eighth,” etc, etc.
He tossed it over to Charlie. “Since you’re such a social mentor, what
must I do to that?” said he.
“Decline it, of course,” said the other; “I’ve got one myself; you
see they saw us together. You mustn’t show up, the first time, at the
Farnums.”
Arthur was nettled. “I shall do nothing of the kind,” said he. “I shall
accept it.”
“As you like,” laughed the other, good-naturedly. “I shall accept,
too, as far as that goes; but you needn’t go. They can put it in the
newspaper that I was there, if they like.” Arthur opened his eyes; what
sort of young nobleman, then, was his friend, disguised as a clerk upon
a salary?
“Perhaps you object to my calling on the Livingstones?” said he, with
biting sarcasm.
“Not at all--the Livingstones are all right,” said unconscious Charlie.
“But don’t go to-night; come to the opera with me. In fact, you can’t
make calls in the evening any more, you know.”
“What opera is it?”
“I don’t know,” said Charlie, serenely. “What does it matter?”
Arthur had nothing to reply to this; and the opera turned out to be
“Linda.” But Charlie was right; the audience proved more interesting.
Here was a dress parade of all that was most fashionable in New York;
for it was a great night, the first of the season, and everyone was
anxious to put herself _en évidence_. Townley was out of his seat
three quarters of the time; and Arthur paid little attention to
what was going on on the stage. The wicked marquis came, saw, and
sought to conquer; the sentimental young heroine sighed and suffered,
repelled both the marquis and his diamonds, and fled from the wilds
of Chamounix to the seclusion and safety of Paris; and the jewelled
ladies in the boxes (familiar with this tale) gave it now and then
their perfunctory attention, recognizing that all this drama was being
well and properly done, the correct thing, according to the conventions
of the stage. Directly opposite him, in one of the grand-tier boxes,
were three women who attracted his eyes unwittingly. Two of them were
young, and both were beautiful; one, with heavy black hair and fair
young shoulders sitting quietly; the other not quite so pretty, but
with an indescribable air of complete fashion, a blonde with the bust
of a Hebe, talking with animation to quite a little group of male
figures, dimly visible in the back of the box; and the third a woman
of almost middle age, with the figure of a Titian Venus and hair of an
indescribable ashen yellow. Surely he knew that face?
“Who is that in the box opposite--the middle one, I mean, with the two
beauties?”
Charlie lifted his opera-glass, and then as quickly dropped it. “She
would thank you,” he said, “for your two beauties. She is the only
married woman of her set who isn’t afraid to have pretty young girls
about her. That’s Mrs. Gower, and she’s looking at you, too.”
Arthur looked up and met her eye; she made a very slight but
unmistakable inclination of her head, and Arthur bowed.
“You’re in luck, young’un,” said Townley. “Now you’ve got to go and
speak to her.”
“Have I?” said Arthur. “I know her very slightly.”
“She doesn’t seem to think so, and you needn’t remind her of it,” said
Charlie, the worldling; and Arthur, having noted the number of the box
from the end of the row, started on his quest. He came to the door that
seemed to be the seventh in number from the stage, and paused a minute
with his hand upon the knob. What young man’s heart, however much its
pulsations may be dedicated to another, does not beat awkwardly when
he is on the point of addressing three lovely women, two of them quite
unknown, the other nearly so? Then again, suppose he had counted wrong,
and not got into the right box?
His hesitation was cut short by the sudden opening of the door and the
exit of a gentleman from within. Before it closed, Arthur had plunged
boldly into the dark anteroom, and was blinking earnestly out from it,
somewhat dazzled by the blaze of light and the gleam of the three pairs
of white shoulders in front.
“Ah, Mr. Holyoke, I hoped you would come--Mr. Wemyss, Mr. Holyoke--Miss
Duval, Mrs. Malgam, Mr. Holyoke, of----”
“Of New York, I believe,” said Arthur, bowing, and accepting the chair
which the gentleman addressed as Wemyss had given up, at a look from
Mrs. Gower. Certainly, Mrs. Gower had charming manners, he thought;
and it was very pleasant of her to be pleasant to him.
“Of New York? I am so glad--I knew that Great Barrington was only your
summer home, but I had feared that you were wedded to Boston. Where is
Miss Holyoke?” Mrs. Gower added, without apparent malice; and Arthur
cursed himself inwardly as he felt that he was blushing.
“She is living with her aunt, Mrs. Livingstone,” said he. And then,
with a wild attempt at changing the subject, “Do you like ‘Linda,’ Miss
Duval?”
(Crash! went the big drums; whizz, whizz, in cadence came the fiddles.
The wicked marquis, who had also turned up in Paris, was at his old
tricks again.)
“I think it is perfectly sweet,” said Miss Duval. “Patti does it so
well!”
“It must be very pleasant for her to have you here,” said Mrs. Gower,
innocently. “I was so sorry to hear of poor Judge Holyoke’s death. And
so you have come to settle in New York? How delightful! Let me see--I
have not seen you since last summer, at Lenox, have I?”
“It is very kind of you to remember me,” said Arthur.
“Or was it Lenox?” Mrs. Gower went on. “I remember seeing Miss Holyoke
one day as I drove by, in Great Barrington,” she added naïvely.
Arthur felt that she was watching him, and was seeking for a reply,
when fortunately Linda came forward, almost under the box, and told
in a long aria, with many trills and quavers, with what scorn she
repelled the marquis’s advances; the marquis, in the meantime, waiting
discreetly at the back of the stage until she had had her _encore_ and
had flung madly out of his ancestral mansion. This being the musical
moment of the evening, all paid rapt attention; and when the last
_roulade_ was over Mrs. Gower rose and they all proceeded to help with
opera cloaks and shawls. “Mr. Holyoke, you must come and dine with
me--are you engaged--let me see--a week from Friday?”
“You are very kind,” said Arthur. “No, I think not.”
“Then I shall expect you--at half-past seven, mind,”--and our hero had
the felicity of walking with Mrs. Gower to her carriage, the others
coming after them, with the two young ladies. The carriage-door closed
with a snap, leaving Arthur with Wemyss and the other man, whom he did
not know. Wemyss seemed to feel that their acquaintance had come to
an end; so there was nothing left for Arthur but to return to Charlie
Townley.
“What the deuce is Mrs. Lucie up to now?” thought he, when Arthur
had recounted to him his adventures; but he said nothing; and Arthur
was left for the last act to give his entire attention to the stage.
Virtue triumphed, and Vice (who, as represented in the person of the
lively marquis, seemed to be a pretty good sort of fellow after all--an
amiable rascal, the kind of chap of whom you would feel inclined to
ask, What would he like to drink?) was duly forgiven; and he showered
his diamonds as wedding-gifts upon the bride. So that Linda, thrice
fortunate Linda, not only followed the paths of virtue, but got her
lover and the diamonds into the bargain; and with this moral and a
Welsh rarebit Arthur and his friend sought home and pleasant dreams.