VANE had six hundred francs left; and, taking the Holyhead mail, the
next evening he was on board the City of Richmond at Queenstown as
a steerage passenger. He had been troubled with no further thoughts
of adventure in the Soudan; and was quite indifferent as to his
own _dénouement_. He spent a great deal of the time at sea walking
on the deck; as a steerage passenger he was allowed to walk aft as
far as the foremast. The other steerage passengers looked upon him
as an intellectual young gentleman; probably a scholar in reduced
circumstances.
Eighteen thousand francs a year, Vane was thinking; this, at least, he
must have, for his mother could not be sent elsewhere. Gold was then
at a premium, and this sum meant four thousand a year in America. Just
the insignificant fortune he had lost; but could his labor be worth
so much? This problem had filled his mind, and kept his temper sane.
One who has to earn his bread has little time to sigh for things less
possible of attainment. The natural animal motive atones for any want
of others; no one is a pessimist who has to work for his living. The
young man smiled a little at the thought that he, too, was going to
America to seek his fortune--not to improve his future, but to amend
what remained of the past. This one obvious, clear duty was before him
then. Afterwards, he might see what the world had left for him.
One day about sunset he was sitting on the deck, reading a favorite
book of his--an old Florentine edition of Petrarca. As he turned the
leaves, a broken rose fell from them. It was a book which they--the
English girl and he--had often read together; and, having no Bible
(for, like all Frenchmen and many young men, he was rather a skeptic
in matters of religion), he had thrown her rose hastily between the
leaves. He was surprised a little, now, at his own want of sentiment.
But those times already seemed so far off! He looked at the flower
a moment; then picked it up, and dropped it in the sea. The leaves
scattered as it fell, and were soon lost in the broad wake of the
steamer.
Vane landed in New York among five hundred other steerage passengers.
Of course the papers did not take the trouble to report the coming
of so insignificant a person; nor did he call upon any of his social
acquaintances. His first visit was to his father's grave; then he went
to see, at their down-town offices, such of his father's business
friends and correspondents as he knew by name. He had written Mr.
Peyton--the one from whom the news had come--to suspend all decisive
steps until he came. Mr. Peyton--as indeed were all who had known his
father--was very kind; and told him the first thing to do was to get
appointed administrator of his father's estate. This being done, he
called a meeting of his father's creditors. Mr. Peyton had advised him
to offer a settlement of sixty cents on the dollar; but he did not
accept this suggestion. He told the creditors of Mr. Peyton's advice,
and added that he could probably pay at least seventy cents. But, he
continued, his desire was to pay in full. His only hope of so doing was
to be allowed to hold his father's investments for a time, manage them
judiciously, and avoid forced sales. Would they give him three years?
They were few in number, all capitalists, and co-operators with his
father; and they were pleased with something in the young man's manner.
All except one could easily spare the money; and to him Vane, with
the consent of the other creditors, gave his dividend of seventy per
cent., and received his acquittances in full. And that night the other
creditors, at a directors' dinner, agreed that, while they had done a
very foolish thing, they were anxious to see what young Vane would make
of it.
Young Vane took two small rooms in the oldest house of a down-town
street, for which he paid two dollars a week. And that autumn, Vane,
who a few months before had barely admitted that the name Bellefontaine
had a civilized sound, might have been seen riding on the cow-catcher
of a locomotive in Northern Wisconsin, and estimating the probable
earnings from freight when the forests about him were cut. When he
got his father's affairs into such shape that they could be managed
from New York, he procured a clerkship in a banking-house in that
city at six hundred dollars salary. And then for a year, his life was
monotonous routine without a day's rest. He rose at seven, prepared his
own breakfast of bread and fruit, and was at the bank before nine. He
lunched on a sandwich; left the bank at five, and walked to the Park
and back. At seven he dined on a steak and a pint of ale. And such
of his evenings as were not occupied with the care of his father's
estate, this practical young man of business gave, not to newspapers
and stock reports, but to mediæval history and Italian poetry. It
was his safety valve. He sometimes thought of writing a book on the
social and political history of the Florentine republic. He steadily
refused all invitations of his capitalist friends to dinner or other
entertainments. He could now live with two suits of clothes, and, to
accept their invitations, he would need three; moreover, he secretly
feared that he could not bear his present mode of life if he had even
a glimpse of any other. Only while alone could he forget that he was
alone in the world. John, who was in the same banking-house, was the
only man he knew; and many an evening John left a dinner, or was late
at a party, that he might sit for an hour in the little back room in
Washington Place.
At the end of the first year Vane took a week's vacation, walking in
the Catskills. Every week he had a letter from Rennes; and frequently
one from Dr. Kérouec, telling him of no change in his mother's
condition. When he returned from his vacation, he was called into the
counting-room of the senior partner, and given a check for four hundred
dollars in addition to his first year's salary of six hundred; and,
moreover, was promoted to a position of three thousand a year salary.
That first year, Vane had spent three hundred and eighty dollars in
board and lodging, and eighty more in pocket money. He had bought no
clothing, having brought all he needed from France. His travelling
expenses had been large, but these he had charged to the account of his
father's estate. This left him five hundred and forty dollars to the
good.
Vane then went to Mr. Peyton and borrowed three thousand dollars on
his own security. This three thousand he sent to Dr. Kérouec; and five
hundred dollars of his earnings he invested in a life-assurance policy
payable to Dr. Kérouec as trustee for his mother. He thus had forty
dollars in his pocket at the beginning of his second year.
By this time some of his father's railways were beginning to get out of
shallow water. Vane watched them carefully; and by judicious management
and successful sales, he was able, on the first of August, eighteen
hundred and seventy-six, the end of the three years allowed him, to
pay his father's creditors their claims in full--four hundred and
forty-seven thousand dollars, with interest for three years at six per
cent. And over and above this, after paying Mr. Peyton, he had sixteen
thousand dollars, which he might call his own. Early in August he
sailed for Brittany, and spent a week with Dr. Kérouec at Rennes.
His mother's hair was now white; she was quiet, but still hopelessly
insane, nor did she even recognize him.
Vane was back again on the first of September. When he presented
himself at the bank, he was offered a responsible position, and a
salary of six thousand dollars a year, with a hint of partnership in
the near future. He now removed to lodgings in Eighteenth Street; and
on going home that night, for the first time in two years he burst into
a fit of crying. This turn of hysterics was the prelude to a low fever,
of which he lay five weeks ill.