MAMIE GOES TO THE SHOW.
Gracie had looked forward with a yearning she would not even to herself
allow to the summer and her coming to her father’s home once more.
There are times when rocks and woods and fields and streams speak to us
with sympathy no human being seems to have; why is it, I wonder? When
nature was an enemy and men were savages, they seemed unconscious of
her and thought only of each other; now that men have all learned human
sympathy, and altruism is the cry, some, and those perhaps the gentlest
and the noblest of us all, must fly to nature for a refuge yet. But
perhaps we have not yet learned human sympathy; or perhaps it is the
divine that we should have instead. Perhaps our sympathy is too often
one of common objects or of common lusts. Perhaps each one seeks his
glory, rather that he may dazzle others with it than lend his light to
them.
But Gracie was not complex, nor analytic; it is only the diseased who
so apply the scalpel. If she ever was unhappy, she thought it willed
from Heaven; or sought the cause in herself and not in other things.
And at all events, she was not unhappy now, save as some lily may be
sad for loneliness. Yet who would wish no lilies grew but such as serve
in balls or churches? Some will tell you that all lilies are forced;
not natural even there. But others of us may believe in lilies still.
And Mamie too had some of Gracie’s happiness; some sense of things she
had not felt before. They walked, and rode, and read together; and if
Gracie dreamed, Mamie would think, more practically. But Mamie, too,
had learned to love her cousin; still, perhaps, with some slight shade
of patronage. Thus they had been together, until that day when Townley
called and brought with him to Mamie the envied savor of the world
again. She returned from her drive, full of triumph, to Gracie; and
then Gracie had been forced into the thankless attitude of a duenna.
Gracie could not have told why she did not quite like Charlie Townley;
and Mamie had begun to pout once more. And Mamie had looked for Charlie
the next day; but he did not come, nor yet the next day; and Mamie had
blamed Gracie with being rude to him.
For Charlie, after reading the paper that night, had almost had his
confidence in Tamms restored. He meant to marry some time, and to make
his fortune by it; but he had a dread of wedlock, even gilded; as every
sensible man must, he thought.
Then he had seen old Mr. Townley one day at Lenox. “I fear I did
Mr. Tamms a great wrong that morning, Charlie,” he had said. “He
was too proud to defend himself; but I suspect he had all the
arrangements made, even at that time, and felt deeply the injustice of
my strictures.” Charlie had thrust his tongue in his cheek at this,
but had held his peace. He did not tell that Tamms had sold 12,000
Allegheny Central first. For Charlie had made a flying visit to the
office; and there he saw enough to convince him that Tamms was already
buying back his Allegheny Central stock again. And indeed it was
obvious enough that he would have to do this in order to retain the
control of the great property against the next election. One paper had
called the guaranty a fraud.
“The Governor is certainly devilish smart,” said Charlie to himself;
“but I fear he’s almost too smart to last out my time.” And Charlie
drove over to Great Barrington again. So his drive with Mamie was many
times repeated; and what could Gracie do? for, as Mamie told her,
laughing, she would yield to her in anything but this. For, of what her
course in the world should be, Mamie considered herself much the better
judge. And Gracie could not bring herself to write and bear tales to
her aunt, who was growing old, while Mr. Livingstone was still less to
be thought of. For men and women, for youths and children, for mobs
and voters, there is a something absurd now about all the constituted
authorities; and so we laugh, and the dance goes on.
Since the affair with Deacon Remington, Tamms had taken Charlie quite
into his confidence; and on the first of September surprised him
with conferring the firm’s signature. But, though Charlie was now a
partner, he had no capital; and his added dignity gave him little
more than a closer knowledge of the firm’s business--and a liability
for the firm’s debts. But this last responsibility did not disturb
his slumbers; and he continued to be as attentive as ever to Miss
Livingstone.
One day, late in the month, Charlie ran up to Great Barrington for
a Sunday, and, to his surprise, found Mr. Derwent there. Now, what
the deuce might this fellow be doing? thought he, and looked at him
askance. Derwent filled up the entire parlor, as Charlie afterward put
it to Mamie, and it was impossible for him to get a word with her. “I
thought you had gone to British Columbia,” said Charlie to him, at
last, suggestively.
“Did you?” replied the other, simply.
“My afternoon was quite spoilt, and I had come up from New York on
purpose,” complained Charlie, the next day, to Mamie; and by this time
the speech was really true. Courting is a pleasant sport while it
lasts, and Miss Livingstone was a very pretty, bright young girl; and
had it been merely flirting--but, as time went on, Townley began to
take some interest in the chase for the game’s sake, and not for sport
only. And Charlie had come up for a special purpose, which was to get
Miss Mamie to go with him to the first meet of the Bronx hounds, to be
held at their kennels in the Sands country the following Tuesday.
The day before, they had a great scene in the office. Mr. Tamms had for
several weeks been off in regions unknown to Wall Street, upon his own
vacation, and had just returned. Hardly had he torn open and roughly
disposed of his morning mail, when in came Deacon Remington. “I am
informed that Mr. Tamms is returned,” he announced. “I desire to see
him.”
“How do you do, Deacon Remington?” said Charlie, stepping forward. “I
haven’t seen you since Ocean Grove, I think,” he added, politely.
“I desire to have an interview with Mr. Tamms.” The Deacon continued to
speak with precision, ignoring Charlie’s courtesies as uncalled for and
unbusinesslike.
“Mr. Tamms is in his private office, I think,” said Charlie, blandly.
And he inducted the earnest Deacon into that apartment, and closed
the door upon him, with much the feeling that one has who shuts up a
monkey in a parrot-cage. This done, Charlie resumed his desk and his
occupation, which latter was nothing more arduous than the writing of a
note to Mamie Livingstone. “Everybody will be there,” he wrote; “and I
hope----”
In a few minutes the door was opened, and Mr. Tamms came out. “Mr.
Townley,” he said in flute-like tones; “will you kindly step in for a
moment?”
“Certainly, sir,” said Charlie. He went in, and the door was closed
behind them. The pious Deacon was sitting upon the lounge on one
corner, with folded wings, like a large blue-bottle.
“I wish you to tell Deacon Remington under what circumstances the house
of Townley & Tamms were compelled to meet the deficit in the Starbuck
Terminal bonds and avert foreclosure. Do you remember anything about
it?”
“Certainly, sir,” said Charlie. He hesitated a moment, but was much too
clever to seem to look to Tamms for the cue. “It was by order of Mr.
Townley himself.”
“Do you remember the day?”
“It was the day after my return from Long Branch--three days after our
drive to Ocean Grove.”
“You see, Deacon?” said Tamms, in the meek tones of a Christian
unjustly wronged.
“Oh, yes, I see,” said the Deacon.
“And am I right in stating that Mr. Townley’s attitude was most
peremptory?” Charlie nodded. “That he went so far as to threaten a
dissolution of partnership unless his orders were instantly complied
with?”
“He made me mail the circulars and send one out over the tape the same
afternoon,” said Charlie.
Again Tamms looked to Remington. There was a silence of some minutes,
rather embarrassing to two of the company, at least.
“Well, well,” said Remington, at last, “I may have done you wrong,
Tamms. But now you’ve got my stock.” And without the formalities of
leave-taking, he rose and shuffled out of the shop.
Tamms watched him almost regretfully, and when he disappeared down the
street, turned to Charlie.
“There, I fear, goes a man who will be a chronic bear upon the
Allegheny Central,” said he. Tamms had fallen into a way of making
these semi-confidences to Charlie; and the latter was struck with the
justice of this remark.
This scene was fresh in Charlie’s mind to-day when driving with Mamie
through the calm, deep woods that clothe the Berkshire hills. Charlie
was afraid of the Deacon; and sought Mamie’s money’s aid against him.
Ah! Shakespeare’s heroines had a simple time enough; what would they do
in these days, when Shylock masks as Romeo, and Othello, turned soldier
of fortune, seeks distinction at his mistress’s mouth? I fear me even
Portia would have found her match.
But Mamie would go to the meet--yes, she would. Where love,
inclination, and social ambition coincide, what prudent counsels of a
country girl like Gracie could resist them? She wrote that evening,
thanking Mrs. Gower for her invitation, and only on the next day told
Gracie what she had done. Gracie knew Mrs. Gower only slightly; though,
had she known her a thousand years, she would not have known her well.
The kennels were at the “Bogardus Farm,” and after the meet there was
to be a hunt dinner and a hunt ball. Mrs. Gower had many mansions,
many places in which to lay her pretty head--and the heads of her
guests--and now, it seems, she had a cottage near by, in which Mamie
was to go. And the other guests, as Flossie wrote, were to be only Lord
Birmingham, Kitty Farnum--and Mr. Wemyss.
For this meeting was indeed “select;” only of the very gayest, smartest
few, those of whose prominence there could be no question in the race
after pleasure, only those whose purses and whose persons kept the pace
that fashion, for the time, demanded. And both the horses and the dogs
were also of the choicest breed and blood, and were worth, each and
all, his hundreds or his thousands; and the human beings, too, if of
their blood we dare not say so much, were of breeding _à la mode_, and
worth, I dare say, any sums you like. John Haviland was not here, nor
Lionel Derwent, nor even poor Arthur yet--but only those who made, or
seemed to make, the very lightest little game of life.
When newspapers describe all this, they speak a little of the ladies’
dresses--but chiefly of the horses. For this fashionable life of ours,
the life of so many of those with whom our lines have, thus far, been
cast, seems founded, in its last analysis, upon the horse alone.
That noble animal, in all his varied uses, under the saddle, in a
four-in-hand, at Mrs. Gower’s carriage traces--take him all-in-all,
he stands for everything; he is almost the protagonist of Flossie
Gower’s little play. Sculptors, historians, students of social science,
would, in ages yet to come, I am sure, term this the age of the Horse;
they would, I say, if Mrs. Gower and her set shall even leave a wrack
behind. But the wracks they leave behind are, alas! too often not their
own. And to others, perhaps, to Jem Starbuck and the workers in the
Allegheny country, as well as to the future historian, this age may
rather seem the age of Coal.
So Mamie Livingstone went to the show, and the show was very fine
indeed. First there was a pack of fox-hounds--real fox-hounds--and then
there was a pack of beagles, sixteen or more, with little curly tails;
and the gentlemen and ladies rode some miles behind them, on a scented
track, and jumped several fences. And Charlie looked very smart in his
pink coat, and took the leaps most daringly; and thereupon Mamie did
admire him very much, and therefore begin to think seriously of him for
a husband.
And the dinner was exquisitely cooked, and quite bright and gay; and
the men had all red coats and the women all white throats; and when the
ladies left the table the fun was even faster. For when the stories
were all told, and they could not talk of the ladies, both because
many of the husbands were there and because the subject was a bore at
best--and the best of it is surely tête-à-tête--and when even horses
had been talked about enough, they went into the ball-room, did these
merry dogs, and danced with these fine ladies; only some of them chose
to walk in the lawns and over the turf steeple-chase course, where
there was shrubbery, and hurdles, and much helping over of carefully
preserved stone wails.
Have you had a good time, reader? Here we have been a hundred miles on
the outside of a coach, and quite three weeks in the open air, and, I
am sure, have had dinners and balls galore. Take your last deep breath
of all these joys, for all even of our lines, may not fall in such
pleasant places. What--we shall not say we are tired of it--we who have
been with the fortunate few? Why, who can make more, who could make
more, of life than they? Is it not a pleasant play?
Well, a secret, then: Van Kull and Wemyss too, are bored, and even Tony
Duval finds it slow. For Flossie Gower I speak not; she has a great,
still fed, self-pride, and when that, too, grows stale--she is too
clever to let it bore her--she will leave it first; and Birmingham is
saved by his British atmosphere and healthy, dormant brain.
All this is why Charlie Townley--no, Charlie fears rather that he
may not always be rich enough to keep it up, and is making up to
poor Mamie, in consequence. But that is why, or all these things are
why--for those who make of earnest life a play needs must make it
stronger as the play goes on--Van Kull walked still with Mrs. Hay, that
night; and even Birmingham made overtures to Kitty Farnum; and Charlie
did propose to Mamie Livingstone; and Caryl Wemyss propo--told Mrs.
Gower that he loved her.