AN UNPROFITABLE CHILD
The lower part of Fifth Avenue, the part between Madison and Washington
Squares, the part which alone was “the Fifth Avenue” whereof Thackeray
wrote in the far-off days when it was the abode of fashion,--the far-off
days when fashion itself had not become old-fashioned and got improved
into Smart Society,--this haunted half-mile or more still retains many
fine old residences of brown stone and of red brick, which are spruce
and well-kept. One such, on the west side of the street, of red brick,
with a high stoop of brown stone, is a boarding-house, and in it is an
apartment to which, on a certain clear, cold afternoon in October, the
reader's presence in the spirit is respectfully invited.
The hallway of the house is prolonged far beyond the ordinary limits of
hallways, in order to lead to a secluded parlor at the rear, apparently
used by its occupants as a private sitting and dining room. At the left
side of this room, after one enters, are folding doors opening from what
is evidently somebody's bed-chamber. At the same side, further on, is a
large window, the only window in the room. As the ceiling is so high, and
the wall-paper so dark, the place is rather dim of light at all times,
even on this sunny autumn afternoon when the world outside is so full of
wintry brightness.
The view of the world outside afforded by the window--which looks
southward--is of part of a Gothic church in profile, and the backs of
houses, all framing an expanse of gardens. It is a peaceful view, and
this back parlor itself, being such a very back parlor, receives the
city's noises dulled and softened. One seems very far, here, from the
clatter and bang, the rush and strenuousness, really so near at hand.
The dimness is restful; it is relieved, near the window, by a splash of
sunlight; and, at the rear of the room, by a coal fire in the grate. The
furniture is old and heavy, consisting largely of chairs of black wood
in red velvet. Half lying back in one of these is a fretful-looking,
fine-featured man of late middle age, with flowing gray hair and flowing
gray mustache. His eyes are closed, but perhaps he is not asleep. There
is a piano near a corner, opposite the window, and out of the splash of
sunshine, but its rosewood surface reflects here and there the firelight.
And at the piano, playing a soft accompaniment, sits a tall, slender
young woman, with a beautiful but troubled face, who sings in a low voice
one of Tosti's love-songs.
Her figure is still girlish, but her face is womanly; a classic face, not
like the man's in expression, but faintly resembling it in form, though
her features, clearly outlined, have not the smallness of his. Her eyes
are large and deep blue. There is enough rich color of lip, and fainter
color of cheek, to relieve the whiteness of her complexion. The trouble
on her face is of some permanence; it is not petty like that of the
man's, but is at one with the nobility of her countenance. It seems to
find rest in the tender sadness of the song, which, having finished, she
softly begins again:
“'I think of what thou art to me,
I think of what thou canst not be'”--
As the man gives signs of animation, such as yawning, and moving in his
chair, the girl breaks off gently and looks to see if he is annoyed by
the song. He opens his eyes, and says, in a slow, complaining voice:
“Yes, you can sing, there's no doubt of that. And such
expression!--unconscious expression, too. What a pity--what a
shame--that your gift should be utterly wasted!”
“It isn't wasted if my singing pleases you, father,” says the girl,
patiently.
“I don't want to keep the pleasure all to myself,” replies the man,
peevishly. “I'm not selfish enough for that. We have no right to hide
our light under a bushel. The world has a claim on our talents. And the
world pays for them, too. Think of the money--think of how we might live!
Ah, Florence, what a disappointment you've been to me!”
She listens as one who has many times heard the same plaint; and answers
as one who has as often made the same answer:
“I have tried, but my voice is not strong enough for the concert stage,
and the choirs are all full.”
“You know well enough where your chance is. With your looks, in comic
opera--”
The girl frowns, and speaks for the first time with some impatience: “And
you know well enough my determination about that. The one week's
experience I had--”
“Oh, nonsense!” interrupted the man. “All managers are not like that
fellow. There are plenty of good, gentle young women on the comic opera
stage.”
“No doubt there are. But the atmosphere was not to my taste. If I
absolutely had to endure it, of course I could. But we are not put to
that necessity.”
“Necessity! Good Heaven, don't we live poorly enough?”
“We live comfortably enough. As long as Dick insists on making us our
present allowance--”
“Insists? I should think he would insist! As if my own son, whom I
brought up and started in life, shouldn't provide for his old father to
the full extent of his ability!”
“All the same, it's a far greater allowance than most sons or brothers
make.”
“Because other sons are ungrateful, and blind to their duty, it doesn't
follow that Dick ought to be. Thank Heaven, I brought him up better than
that. I'm only sorry that his sister can't see things in the same light
as he does. After all the trouble of raising my children, and the hopes
I've built on them--”
“But you know perfectly well,” she protests, softly, “that Dick makes us
such a liberal allowance in order that I needn't go out and earn money.
He has often said that. Even when you praise him for his dutifulness to
you, he says it's not that, but his love for me. And because it is the
free gift of his love, I'm willing to accept it.”
“I suppose so, I suppose so,” says the man, in a tone of resignation to
injury. “It's very little that I'm considered, after all. You were always
a pair, always insensible of the pains I've taken over you. You always
seemed to regard it as a matter of course that I should feed you, and
clothe you, and educate you.”
The girl sighs, and begins faintly to touch the keys of the piano again.
The man sighs, too, and continues, with a heightened note of personal
grievance:
“If any man's hopes ever came to shipwreck, mine have. Just look back
over my life. Look at the professional career I gave up when I married
your mother, in order to be with her more than I otherwise could have
been. Look how poorly we lived, she and I, on the little income she
brought me. And then the burden of you children! And what some men would
have felt a burden, as you grew up, I made a source of hopes. I had
endowed you both with good looks and talent; Dick with business ability,
and you with a gift for music. In order to cultivate these advantages,
which you had inherited from me, I refrained from going into any business
when your mother died. I was satisfied to share the small allowance her
father made you two children. I never complained. I said to myself, 'I
will invest my time in bringing up my children.' I thought it would turn
out the most profitable investment in the world,--I gave you children
that much credit then. How I looked forward to the time when I should
begin to realize on the investment!”
“I'm sure you can't say Dick hasn't repaid you,” says the girl. “He
began to earn money as soon as he was nineteen, and he has never--”
“Time enough, too,” the man breaks in. “It was a very fortunate thing I
had fitted him for it by then. Where would he have been, and you, when
your grandfather died in debt, and the allowance stopped short, if I
hadn't prepared Dick to step in and make his living?”
“_Our_ living,” says the girl.
“Our living, of course. It would be very strange if I weren't to reap a
bare living, at least, from my labor and care. Who should get a living
out of Dick's work if not his father, who equipped him with the qualities
for success?” The gentleman speaks as if, in passing on those valuable
qualities to his son by heredity, he had deprived himself. “Dick hasn't
done any more than he ought to; he never could. And yet what _he_ has
done, is so much more than nothing at all, that--” He stops as if it were
useless to finish, and looks at his daughter, who, despite the fact that
this conversation is an almost daily repetition, colors with displeasure.
After a moment, she gathers some spirit, and says: “Well, if I haven't
earned any money for you, I've at least made some sacrifices to please
you.”
“You mean about the young fellow that hung on to us so close on our trip
to Europe?”
“The young man who did us so many kindnesses, and was of so much use to
you, on our trip to Europe,” she corrects.
“He thought I was rich, my dear, and that you were an heiress. He was a
nobody, an adventurer, probably. If things had gone any further between
you and him, your future might have been ruined. It was only another
example of my solicitude for you; another instance that deserves your
thanks, but elicits your ingratitude. If you are fastidious about a
musical career, at least you have still a possibility of a good marriage.
It was my duty to prevent that possibility from being cut off.”
She turns upon him a look of high reproach.
“And that was the only motive, then,” she cries, “for your tears and your
illness, and the scenes that wrung from me the promise to break with
him?”
“It was motive enough, wasn't it?” he replies, defensively, a little
frightened at her sudden manner of revolt. “My thoughtfulness for your
future--my duty as a father--my love for my child--”
“You pretended it was your jealous love for me, your feeling of
desertion, your loneliness. I might have known better! You played on my
pity, on my love for you, on my sense of duty as a daughter left to fill
my mother's place. When you cried over being abandoned, when you looked
so forlorn, my heart melted. And that night when you said you were dying,
when you kept calling for me--'Flo, where is little Flo'--although I was
there leaning over you, I couldn't endure to grieve you, and I gave my
promise. And it was only that mercenary motive, after all!--to save me
for a profitable marriage!” She gazes at her father with an expression so
new to him on her face, that he moves about in his chair, and coughs
before answering:
“You will appreciate my action some day. And besides, your promise to
drop the man wasn't so much to give. You admitted, yourself, he hadn't
written to you. He had afforded you good cause, by his neglect.”
“He was very busy at that time. I always thought there was something
strange about his sudden failure to write--something that could have
been explained, if my promise to you hadn't kept me from inquiring.”
The father coughs again, at this, and turns his gaze upon the fire, which
he contemplates deeply, to the exclusion of all other objects. The girl,
after regarding him for a moment, sighs profoundly; placing her elbows on
the keyboard, she leans forward and buries her face in her hands.
This picture, not disturbed by further speech, abides for several ticks
of the French clock on the mantelpiece. Suddenly it is broken by a knock
at the door. Florence sits upright, and dries her eyes. A negro man
servant with a discreet manner enters and announces two visitors. “Show
them in at once,” says Florence, quickly, as if to forestall any possible
objection from her father. The negro withdraws, and presently, with a
rapid swish of skirts, in marches a very spick and span young lady,
her diminutive but exceedingly trim figure dressed like an animated
fashion-plate. She is Miss Edna Hill, and she comes brisk and dashing,
with cheeks afire from the cold, bringing into the dull, dreamy room the
life and freshness of the wintry day without. Behind her appears a
stranger, whose name Florence scarcely heeded when it was announced, and
who enters with the solemn, hesitant air of one hitherto unknown to the
people of the house. He is a young man clothed to be the fit companion of
Miss Hill, and he waits self-effacingly while that young lady vivaciously
greets Florence as her dearest, and while she bestows a touch of her
gloved fingers and a “How d'ye do, Mr. Kenby,” on the father. She then
introduces the young man as Mr. Larcher, on whose face, as he bows, there
appears a surprised admiration of Florence Kenby's beauty.
Miss Hill monopolizes Florence, however, and Larcher is left to wander to
the fire, and take a pose there, and discuss the weather with Mr. Kenby,
who does not seem to find the subject, or Larcher himself, at all
interesting, a fact which the young man is not slow in divining. Strained
relations immediately ensue between the two gentlemen.
As soon as the young ladies are over the preliminary burst of compliments
and news, Edna says:
“I'm lucky to find you at home, but really you oughtn't to be moping in
a dark place like this, such a fine afternoon.”
“Father can't go out because of his rheumatism, and I stay to keep him
company,” replies Florence.
“Oh, dear me, Mr. Kenby,” says Edna, looking at the gentleman rather
skeptically, as if she knew him of old and suspected a habit of
exaggerating his ailments, “can't you pass the time reading or
something? Florence _must_ go out every day; she'll ruin her looks if
she doesn't,--her health, too. I should think you could manage to
entertain yourself alone an hour or two.”
“It isn't that,” explains Florence; “he often wants little things done,
and it's painful for him to move about. In a house like this, the
servants aren't always available, except for routine duties.”
“Well, I'll tell you what,” proposes Edna, blithely; “you get on your
things, dear, and we'll run around and have tea with Aunt Clara at
Purcell's. Mr. Larcher and I were to meet her there, but you come with
me, and Mr. Larcher will stay and look after your father. He'll be very
glad to, I know.”
Mr. Larcher is too much taken by surprise to be able to say how very
glad he will be. Mr. Kenby, with Miss Hill's sharp glance upon him,
seems to feel that he would cut a poor figure by opposing. So Florence
is rushed by her friend's impetuosity into coat and hat, and carried
off, Miss Hill promising to return with her for Mr. Larcher “in an hour
or two.” Before Mr. Larcher has had time to collect his scattered
faculties, he is alone with the pettish-looking old man to whom he has
felt himself an object of perfect indifference. He glares, with a defiant
sense of his own worth, at the old man, until the old man takes notice of
his existence.
“Oh, it's kind of you to stay, Mr.--ahem. But they really needn't have
troubled you. I can get along well enough myself, when it's absolutely
necessary. Of course, my daughter will be easier in mind to have some
one here.”
“I am very glad to be of service--to so charming a young woman,” says
Larcher, very distinctly.
“A charming girl, yes. I'm very proud of my daughter. She's my constant
thought. Children are a great care, a great responsibility.”
“Yes, they are,” asserts Larcher, jumping at the chance to show this
uninterested old person that wise young men may sometimes be entertained
unawares. “It's a sign of progress that parents are learning on which
side the responsibility lies. It used to be universally accepted that
the obligation was on the part of the children. Now every writer on the
subject starts on the basis that the obligation is on the side of the
parent. It's hard to see how the world could have been so idiotic
formerly. As if the child, summoned here in ignorance by the parents for
their own happiness, owed them anything!”
Mr. Kenby stares at the young man for a time, and then says, icily:
“I don't quite follow you.”
“Why, it's very clear,” says Larcher, interested now for his argument.
“You spoke of your sense of responsibility toward your child.”
(“The deuce I did!” thinks Mr. Kenby.)
“Well, that sense is most natural in you, and shows an enlightened mind.
For how can parents feel other than deeply responsible toward the being
they have called into existence? How can they help seeing their
obligation to make existence for that being as good and happy as it's in
their power to make it? Who dare say that there is a limit to their
obligation toward that being?”
“And how about that being's obligations in return?” Mr. Kenby demands,
rather loftily.
“That being's obligations go forward to the beings it in turn summons to
life. The child, becoming in time a parent, assumes a parent's debt. The
obligation passes on from generation to generation, moving always to the
future, never back to the past.”
“Somewhat original theories!” sniffs the old man. “I suppose, then, a
parent in his old age has no right to look for support to his children?”
“It is the duty of people, before they presume to become parents, to
provide against the likelihood of ever being a burden to their children.
In accepting from their children, they rob their children's children.
But the world isn't sufficiently advanced yet to make people so
far-seeing and provident, and many parents do have to look to their
children for support. In such cases, the child ought to provide for the
parent, but out of love or humanity, not because of any purely logical
claim. You see the difference, of course.”
Mr. Kenby gives a shrug, and grunts ironically.
“The old-fashioned idea still persists among the multitude,” Larcher
goes on, “and many parents abuse it in practice. There are people who
look upon their children mainly as instruments sent from Heaven for them
to live by. From the time their children begin to show signs of
intelligence, they lay plans and build hopes of future gain upon them.
It makes my blood boil, sometimes, to see mothers trying to get their
pretty daughters on the stage, or at a typewriter, in order to live at
ease themselves. And fathers, too, by George! Well, I don't think there's
a more despicable type of humanity in this world than the able-bodied
father who brings his children up with the idea of making use of them!”
Mr. Larcher has worked himself into a genuine and very hearty
indignation. Before he can entirely calm down, he is put to some wonder
by seeing his auditor rise, in spite of rheumatism, and walk to the door
at the side of the room. “I think I'll lie down awhile,” says Mr. Kenby,
curtly, and disappears, closing the door behind him. Mr. Larcher, after
standing like a statue for some time by the fire, ensconces himself in a
great armchair before it, and gazes into it until, gradually stolen upon
by a sense of restful comfort in the darkening room, he falls asleep.
He is awakened by the gay laugh of Edna Hill, as she and Florence enter
the room. He is on his feet in time to keep his slumbers a secret, and
explains that Mr. Kenby has gone for a nap. When the gas is lit, he sees
that Florence, too, is bright-faced from the outer air, that her eye has
a fresher sparkle, and that she is more beautiful than before. As it is
getting late, and Edna's Aunt Clara is to be picked up in a shop in
Twenty-third Street where the girls have left her, Larcher is borne off
before he can sufficiently contemplate Miss Kenby's beauty. Florence is
no sooner alone than Mr. Kenby comes out of the little chamber.
“I hope you feel better for your nap, father.”
“I didn't sleep any, thank you,” says Mr. Kenby. “What an odious young
man that was! He has the most horrible principles. I think he must be an
anarchist, or something of that sort. Did you enjoy your tea?”
The odious young man, walking briskly up the lighted avenue, past piano
shops and publishing houses, praises Miss Kenby's beauty to Edna Hill,
who echoes the praise without jealousy.
“She's perfectly lovely,” Edna asserts, “and then, think of it, she has
had a romance, too; but I mustn't tell that.”
“It's strange you never mentioned her to me before, being such good
friends with her.”
“Oh, they've only just got settled back in town,” answers Edna,
evasively. “What do you think of the old gentleman?”
“He seems a rather queer sort. Do you know him very well?”
“Well enough. He's one of those people whose dream in life is to make
money out of their children.”
“What! Then I _did_ put my foot in it!” Larcher tells of the brief
conversation he had with Mr. Kenby. It makes Edna laugh heartily.
“Good for him!” she cries. “It's a shame, his treatment of Florence. Her
brother out West supports them, and is very glad to do so on her account.
Yet the covetous old man thinks she ought to be earning money, too. She's
quite too fond of him--she even gave up a nice young man she was in love
with, for her father's sake. But listen. I don't want you to mention
these people's names to anybody--not to _anybody_, mind! Promise.”
“Very well. But why?”
“I won't tell you,” she says, decidedly; and, when he looks at her in
mute protest, she laughs merrily at his helplessness. So they go on up
the avenue.