IN WHICH ARTHUR MEETS A WEARIED SOUL.
Now Mrs. Levison Gower, like Napoleon after Marengo and Austerlitz, was
suffering from ennui. This malady of modern times executes its most
dangerous ravages, like the gout, only among those who can afford it.
It is a sort of king’s evil, privileged to the nobility and gentry;
and that Flossie Starbuck’s healthy constitution ever succumbed to it
is testimony--is it not?--to her extraordinary natural refinement:
for born to it she certainly was not. She was a woman of some
five-and-thirty summers--let us rather say, of some fifteen seasons,
as being both politer and more closely descriptive--but with her thick
blonde hair and her youthful figure, round and lithe as any girl’s,
she was divine still in a riding-habit or a ball-dress, and could face
the daylight of a north window without flinching. But the fact was,
this Marguerite in appearance had been out fifteen seasons; if not so
erudite as Faust, she was even more _blasée_ with the world; kermesses
had become stupid, interesting young men with rapiers and mysterious
attendants in red had lost their interest, even jewels had ceased to
make her heart beat as of yore: Mephistopheles alone remained eternal.
All the joys of her girl’s ambition she had tasted to the full. Every
social eminence that she had seen, she had in turn attained. Each
one of the diversions of a woman of fashion, she had pushed to its
ultimate--gayety pure and simple, haughty and costly exclusiveness,
travel and adventure, the patronage of literature and art, even
religion and charity. But Mrs. Gower had been so unfortunate as to take
her greatest pleasure at the beginning of her young life. Compared
with that triumphal moment when first, surrounded by ladies with names
she had hitherto known only in the newspapers, she had taken her place
among the patronesses of the F. F. V. Ball as “Mrs. Levison Gower,
Jr.”--what were all the second-hand joys of the imagination, of looking
at books and pictures, even the more solid satisfactions of houses,
opera-boxes, horses and liveries, or of social power? The life of the
world was Mrs. Gower’s book; she made her own drama; any starveling
in a garret could have the other kind. But that earliest pleasure was
indeed divine. She had met the enemy, and made them hers. And how the
dowagers had scowled at her, at first! The haughty Vans, the poor and
lofty matrons of the old manorial families of New York, exemplary,
unapproachable, Presbyterian. She had routed them with a flirt of her
fan; she had dared their feudal armor with her bared fair breast.
Their dowdy daughters had been snuffed out of fashion like candles in
electric light; a spark of wit had made them laughable, a glance of
her soft eyes had brought their brothers to her feet. Her _chic_ had
won the day, and soon they all began to copy her. Her phaeton and her
ponies replaced the antiquated family rockaways; her style made up for
breeding, and largely it was Flossie’s work that money in New York
became the all-in-all, and blood an antiquated prejudice to jest at.
And all the Einsteins and the Malgams and Duvals made haste to cluster
under Flossie’s standard, wanting such a leader; and we Americans throw
up our hats and cry how nice and democratic is the change--do we not?
How proud was simple Lucie Gower to find him husband to a goddess! How
natural for Caryl Wemyss to worship her, the spirit of his favorite
decadence!
But still, that early and delightful triumph had been the climax of
her life, as it now seemed; all other pleasures had proved silly or
insipid. What gratification was it to her to move in the best society?
The whole pleasure lay in getting there. She cared nothing for the best
society, except in so far as she could humble it, and make it hers.
Secretly, Flossie found more sympathy in her new friends of the Duval
set than in the old-fashioned Van Kulls and Breviers of her husband’s
family. The best people bored her. But the Duvals were nothing if not
amusing, and had a truly French horror of the _ennuyeux_.
But she was a leader of it; there was still some satisfaction
left in that. Her leadership was unquestioned; through whatever
will-of-the-wisp of folly she chose to lead the dance, the many (and
these the richest, newest, and most prominent) would follow. Mrs.
Malgam alone could for a moment contest her prominence--“Baby” Malgam,
whose fashionable inanity and lazy beauty had proved almost as good
cards as Flossie’s cleverness. And the further she went, the faster
would her people follow; for the Duvals and Einsteins were wild to
_écraser_, by ostentation of their wealth, all those whose position
rested on the slightest shadow of superiority that money could not buy.
All these people, Flossie knew, would hail her as a leader and grovel
at her feet; she, who represented, for her husband’s family, an older
style than theirs, if she would be with them and of them. And the old
style of things, which had satisfied her for fifteen years, was just
now, certainly, beginning to bore her. The drama of her life lacked
action.
Well: whither should she lead? What next? Charity, intellect, art,
and dancing had been worn to the last thread; hounds and horses were
in, just now; and society, in pink coats and silk jockey-caps, was
making nature’s acquaintance on Long Island and in Westchester County.
But what on earth or in the waters under the earth was to come after
this, Mrs. Gower did not yet know. Still, it was comforting to feel
that when she _did_ know, it would be done; this was certainly a
pleasure; perhaps the only real one left to poor Flossie in her years
of disillusion. As a _parvenue_, she was never tired of having her will
over those who had been born her superiors; and it is a delightful
novelty that in these days of no prejudices a _parvenue_ need no longer
climb to the level of society, but will find it both less troublesome
and more tickling to the vanity to pull society down to her.
The free fancy of Mrs. Gower’s matron meditation was interrupted by the
entrance of a _deus_ with a _machina_--in other words, by a footman
with Mr. Caryl Wemyss’s visiting-card.
“Is Mrs. Gower at home?” said the footman; and he commanded larger
wages for the subtile infusion of “her ladyship” he was able to give
a plain American patronymic if used in the third person. He also had
calves; and made no other than a financial objection to silk stockings,
if required.
“Let him come in,” said Flossie; and she drew a footstool to her and
disposed herself more at ease, before the wide wood-fire.
Wemyss entered perfectly. There were two manners of meeting ladies
most in vogue at this time, which may perhaps be described as the
_horsey_ and the _cavalier_. Of the former, which was perhaps the more
fashionable, Jimmy De Witt was an excellent example; he would have
come in with boisterous _bonhomie_, a stable-boy’s story, or a blunt
approval of Flossie’s pretty ankle, which was being warmed before the
fire; but Wemyss affected the old-fashioned, and was pleased to be
conscious that his manners were, as he would have said, _de vieille
roche_. He took her hand and bowed deeply over it, as if he wanted to
kiss it, but did not dare; then, drawing a low ottoman in front of the
fire, he sat down, as it were, at her feet.
“Well, Mr. Wemyss, how did you find Boston?” said Mrs. Gower, by way of
beginning.
“Boston, my dear Mrs. Gower, is impossible. There used to be some
originals, but now there are only left their country acquaintances,
or their self-imposed biographers, who feebly seek to shine by their
reflected light. Emerson might do, for the provinces; but Emerson’s
country neighbors! Their society is one of _ganaches_ and _femmes
précieuses_--oh, such precious women!--of circles, coteries, and clubs,
with every knowledge but the _savoir faire_ and every science but the
_savoir vivre_!”
“But,” said Mrs. Gower, “surely I have seen some very civilized
Bostonians, at Newport, in the summer?”
“You have--like a stage procession,” said Wemyss with a smile. “And
so, if you stand long enough in the window of the club there, and are
fortunate, you may, of an afternoon, see Mrs. Weston’s carriage and
footmen go down the hill; and perhaps, if you smoke another cigar and
wait, you may be so happy as to see Mrs. Weston’s carriage and footmen
going up the hill again. The rest of Boston drive in carry-alls.”
Mrs. Gower laughed. “Now I always thought it would be such a charming
place to live in--so many celebrated people have been there--so many
associations----”
“My dear lady, it is consecrated ground if you like,” said Wemyss,
interrupting. “And a very proper place to be buried in. But I tried
living there for three months.”
“And so, now, you are going back to Paris?”
“I came on with that intention.”
“Why don’t you go then?”
“I am afraid it’s too late,” said Wemyss, looking at his watch. “My
steamer sails at four.”
Mrs. Gower made a little ejaculation of surprise; and then laughed a
trill or two. “Mr. Wemyss, you are a great humbug,” said she, throwing
her head back upon the pink satin cushion, and looking at him from the
corners of her half-closed eyes.
“We have to be,” said Wemyss, with a sigh. “Now there’s the trouble of
Boston; they can’t understand that. And the six or eight of us who do,
grow rusty for want of practice.”
“But you have one another?”
“We know one another down to the ground. There is no excitement in
that; it is playing double-dummy without stakes.”
“And so you are going to Paris?”
“And so I was going to Paris?”
“But your steamer leaves at four, you say? What are you tarrying here
for?”
“_Mais, pour vos beaux yeux_----”
“Mr. ’Olyoke,” said the footman from behind the heavy curtains. Wemyss
struck his two hands together in mock desperation; but as a matter of
fact, the interruption was opportune, for he did not in the least know
what to do next. There is a certain point in talk beyond which anything
not final is an anti-climax.
“Say you are not at home,” said he, eagerly.
But Mrs. Gower chose to be very gracious to Arthur. She gave him her
hand with the simple cordiality of a school-girl. “I am so glad you
have not forgotten our drive,” said she.
Arthur had quite forgotten it; so he filled up the time by bowing to
Mr. Wemyss; a salute which that gentleman received with some stiffness.
Mrs. Gower made a very suggestion of a tinkle in a bell that stood at
her elbow.
“Horridge, are the ponies ready?”
“Mrs. Gower’s carriage his hin waiting,” said Horridge, with a
respectful gasp or two before the vowels.
“You see, Mr. Wemyss,” said Flossie. “I hope you have not missed your
steamer. I must not keep you for one moment longer.”
“I see I shall have to postpone my trip,” said Wemyss. “_Madame!_”
(this with much formality.)
“_Monsieur!_” (Mrs. Gower quite outdid Mr. Wemyss in her exaggeration
of a long curtesy.)
“Now, Mr. Holyoke,” said Flossie, when the cosmopolitan had departed,
“I am sure you will give me your company for a drive in the park?”
If there is no Englishman who would not enjoy walking down Pall Mall on
the arm of two dukes, there is surely no American who would not like
to be whirled through the world at the side of Mrs. Levison Gower.
They drove for an hour in the park; and Arthur had the pleasure of
raising his hat to Jimmy De Witt, Miss Pussie Duval, Mrs. Jack Malgam
and Antoine Duval, Jr., Killian Van Kull, Charlie Townley, and many
others unknown to him who bowed to her. She talked to him of books and
poetry; of Heine, Rossetti and of Shelley; and the tender tones of
her voice would have moved an older man than Arthur to sympathy with
her. “I had thought that she was worldly,” said Arthur to himself.
“There must be some secret in her life I have not yet discovered,”
(this was very possible, seeing he had only been with her three
hours)--“some great suffering or repression which makes her wear this
fashionable garb as an armor to veil her wounded heart. It is despair
that makes her plunge so wildly into this whirl of company and show;
the loss forever of something she once longed for, that drives her to
distraction and diversion. Love of pleasure it is surely not.”
Ah, poor Arthur, no doctor ever yet of soul or body but gave a biassed
diagnosis of a pretty woman’s soul. How easy it is to weave romances
over soft gold hair! How natural to read poetry and lost loves in the
light of lovely eyes that look so sweetly now in yours! So good Bishop
Berkeley showed us that we mortals see but an image of external things,
an inference from the sensation of our own retina; and we silly men,
like idolaters, worship but the image we ourselves create. The lily of
the field still draws us, not the potato-flower, worthy vegetable. And
we fondly assume that the lily cares nothing for its vestment; that it
toils not, nor spins, and has its eye upon the stars alone.
Arthur now really felt that he was a friend of Flossie Gower’s. His
favorite poems were all hers, and she quoted from many of them, with
sighs. She had shown to him what the cynic world had never seen, the
regrets and longings that lay beneath the pearls and laces that clothed
her heart’s casement; the true woman, not the fashionable figure known
to others. How pleasant it was, to have a friend like her; one whose
own life was over, and had all the more sympathy, for that, with lives
of others. She asked him to come and see her whenever he liked; and
Arthur thought how comforting it would be, to go to this woman for
sympathy and advice, so much older than he, and yet so young at heart!
So seriously did Arthur think all this, that it quite jarred upon
him when Charlie met him on his return and boisterously complimented
him. “Well, old man, you are going it, and no mistake!” (Mrs. Gower’s
name was pronounced _Go-er_, which gave opportunity for endless
puns.) “I say, old fellow, you come down fresh from the pastures like
what-d’ye-callem--Endymion--Adonis, or the other masher--and sail to
windward of the whole squadron!”
Arthur shook Townley off a little impatiently, and refused to dine at
the club, as he requested. But, taking dinner alone, with the other
boarders, he could not but say to himself that they were not pleasing
to him; their minds seemed narrow and their ways uncouth. They were
more affable than on the first day, perhaps because it was the evening,
not the morning; there was even a certain clumsy attention in the
manner of one or two of the younger men, as if they would laugh at his
stories, were he to tell any. After dinner, he read a novel in his
study with a cigar, feeling comparatively comfortable in the rooms,
which already seemed less strange to him; and at eleven o’clock he
went to Miss Farnum’s party. (One always spoke of Miss Farnum, Miss
Farnum’s house, Miss Farnum’s dinners--not her mother’s.) Townley, true
to his intention previously expressed, was not there; the dressing-room
was full of very young men, pulling on gloves and chattering; one
older gentleman with a fine pair of shoulders and an honest face was
in the corner next Arthur, and attracted the latter by his looks. “I
wonder where they keep their brushes,” was all he said; but he said it
pleasantly; and Arthur and he walked down together.
Miss Farnum, who was a marvellously beautiful young woman, met them
almost at the door. “Ah, I see you know one another already,” said she.
“But we don’t,” said the stranger, smiling; and Arthur was introduced
to him as Mr. Haviland. Then Miss Farnum turned to present Arthur to
her mother; which formality over, our hero found himself very much
alone; and he naturally drifted away into a corner, where he found Mr.
Haviland awaiting him. It was pleasant enough to stand there and watch
the influx of young beauties; girl after girl came in, in clouds of
pink or white, bowed and courtesied at the door, and drifted into the
comparative quiet of the main dancing-room, where they eddied around by
twos and threes, waiting to be accosted by simpering youth. Haviland
was very civil to him, and introduced him to many of them; so that
Arthur found himself walking and dancing first with a blonde in blue or
white, next with a _brune_ in pink or yellow; they were all lovely,
but it was difficult to permanently differentiate their natures in
one’s mind.
The ball was a very brilliant one, and the rooms were full; many of the
ladies were pretty, and all seemed rich and well educated. But there
was an indefinable spirit of unrest, of effort at shining, of social
anxiety, which struck Arthur as a new note in his New York social
experiences; and Charlie Townley’s patronising remarks recurred again
to him. When he went back to Miss Farnum, her reception duties were
over; they had a waltz together, and then wandered into a conservatory
for cool and rest.
“How different it all seems from New Haven,” was Arthur’s first remark;
and she said yes, it did; and asked him if he were really living in New
York, and if it was not Mr. Townley with whom she had seen him walking
the other day.
“Mr. Townley is a great friend of mine, you must know; and I think it
is too bad of him not to come to-night. And, by the way--whom were you
with in the park this afternoon?”
“With Mrs. Gower,” said Arthur.
“Mrs. Gower? Mrs. Levison Gower? Was it? I didn’t see--” and no one
would have guessed that the acquaintance of the lady mentioned was yet
an unrealised dream to Miss Farnum. She led Arthur off soon after,
and presented him to some of her most particular friends; Arthur
was so fortunate as to secure one of these young ladies--Miss Marie
Vanderpool--for the german; and they had seats very near the head.
Altogether, Arthur was in the high tide of social favor; and nearly
everyone whom he met talked to him of Mrs. Gower, and he marvelled a
little that that lady--who had spoken almost tragically to him of her
loneliness--should have so many dear and admiring friends. When he went
home, it was with three or four tinsel orders at his button-hole; and
Haviland, whose coat-collar was yet undecorated, met him in the hall.
“Are you going the same way?” said he to Arthur; and when it turned
out that they were, he asked him to drop in and have a cigar. Haviland
knew that Arthur was a stranger in the city; and it soon turned out
that they had one or two acquaintances in common. Then, as is the way
of men, their conversation drifted to the last pretty face they had
seen--Kitty Farnum. “She is a great friend of mine, and I stayed until
the end on her account,” said Haviland; “though I don’t dance.” They
stopped at Haviland’s house; and entering, Arthur was inducted into
the most delightful bachelor rooms, down-stairs, filled with books,
weapons, and implements for smoking.
“Yes,” said Haviland, speaking of Miss Farnum; “and it’s a great pity
to see her going as she is now. Why” (he went on, in answer to an
inquiring look from Arthur) “she is wild upon getting into society,
as she calls it, or her mother is for her. There is a girl, rich,
beautiful, refined, well educated, and she positively looks up to a set
of people the whole of whom aren’t worth her little finger, as if they
were divinities.”
“It certainly seems very funny, if it’s true,” said Arthur.
“Funny?” fumed Haviland, “I assure you they are as much her inferiors
as they would have her theirs. Fashion is a vulgar word, and
fashionable people are a fast, vulgar set; fast, because they are
too empty-headed and uncultivated to enjoy any pleasure of taste or
intellect, and vulgar because they are too stupid to understand any
other superiority than that of mere display.”
Haviland spoke almost savagely, intemperately, as it seemed to Arthur,
about such a trivial thing. “Can he be in love with her?” thought he;
and he wondered why he told him all this.
“It’s her mother,” Haviland went on, “she has brought her up to marry
some fine Englishman, and wants to get New York at her feet first.”
And Arthur, who had noticed how intimate Haviland had seemed with Kitty
Farnum that evening thought that he had discovered his secret. Their
conversation then took a serious turn, to their mutual profit and
pleasure; and when Arthur finally went home, the night was going away,
and the business of the day beginning. He liked Haviland better than
any man he had met, thus far, in New York. But still, his ideas were
changing.