"Or don't get them," Henderson added. And then both laughed.
"It looks as if it would go through this time. Bemis says the C. D.'s
badly scared. They'll have to come down lively."
"I shouldn't wonder. By-the-way, look in tomorrow. I've got something to
show you."
Henderson lit his cigar, and they both puffed in silence for some
moments.
"By-the-way, did I ever show you this?" Hollowell took from his
breast-pocket a handsome morocco case, and handed it to his companion. "I
never travel without that. It's better than an accident policy."
Henderson unfolded the case, and saw seven photographs--a showy-looking
handsome woman in lace and jewels, and six children, handsome like their
mother, the whole group with the photographic look of prosperity.
Henderson looked at it as if it had been a mirror of his own destiny, and
expressed his admiration.
"Yes, it's hard to beat," Hollowell confessed, with a soft look in his
face. "It's not for sale. Seven figures wouldn't touch it." He looked at
it lovingly before he put it up, and then added: "Well, there's a figure
for each, Rodney, and a big nest-egg for the old woman besides. There's
nothing like it, old man. You'd better come in." And he put his hand
affectionately on Henderson's knee.
Jeremiah Hollowell--commonly known as Jerry--was a remarkable man. Thirty
years ago he had come to the city from Maine as a "hand" on a coast
schooner, obtained employment in a railroad yard, then as a freight
conductor, gone West, become a contractor, in which position a lucky hit
set him on the road of the unscrupulous accumulation of property. He was
now a railway magnate, the president of a system, a manipulator of
dexterity and courage. All this would not have come about if his big head
had not been packed with common-sense brains, and he had not had uncommon
will and force of character. Success had developed the best side of him,
the family side; and the worst side of him--a brutal determination to
increase his big fortune. He was not hampered by any scruples in
business, but he had the good-sense to deal squarely with his friends
when he had distinctly agreed to do so.
Henderson did not respond to the matrimonial suggestion; it was not
possible for him to vulgarize his own affair by hinting it to such a man
as Hollowell; but they soon fell into serious talk about schemes in which
they were both interested. This talk so absorbed Henderson that after
they had reached the city he had walked some blocks towards his lodging
before he recalled his promise about the message. On his table he found a
note from Carmen bidding him to dinner informally--an invitation which he
had no difficulty in declining on account of a previous engagement. And
then he went to his club, and passed a cheerful evening. Why not? There
was nothing melancholy about the young fellows in the smoking-room, who
liked a good story and the latest gossip, and were attracted to the
society of Henderson, who was open-handed and full of animal spirits, and
above all had a reputation for success, and for being on the inside of
affairs. There is nowhere else so much wisdom and such understanding of
life as in a city club of young fellows, who have their experience still,
for the most part, before them. Henderson was that night in great
"force"--as the phrase is. His companions thought he had made a lucky
turn, and he did not tell them that he had won the love of the finest
girl in the world, who was at that moment thinking of him as fondly as he
was thinking of her--but this was the subconsciousness of his gayety.
Late at night he wrote her a long letter--an honest letter of love and
admiration, which warmed into the tenderness of devotion as it went on; a
letter that she never parted with all her life long; but he left a
description of the loneliness of his evening without her to her
imagination.
It was for Margaret also a happy evening, but not a calm one, and not
gay. She was swept away by a flood of emotions. She wanted to be alone,
to think it over, every item of the short visit, every look, every tone.
Was it all true? The great change made her tremble: of the future she
dared scarcely think. She was restless, but not restless as before; she
could not be calm in such a great happiness. And then the wonder of it,
that he should choose her of all others--he who knew the world so well,
and must have known so many women. She followed him on his journey,
thinking what he was doing now, and now, and now. She would have given
the world to see him just for a moment, to look in his eyes and be sure
again, to have him say that little word once more: there was a kind of
pain in her heart, the separation was so cruel; it had been over two
hours now. More than once in the evening she ran down to the
sitting-room, where her aunt was pretending to be absorbed in a book, to
kiss her, to pet her, to smooth her grayish hair and pat her cheek, and
get her to talk about her girlhood days. She was so happy that tears were
in her eyes half the time. At nine o'clock there was a pull at the bell
that threatened to drag the wire out, and an insignificant little urchin
appeared with a telegram, which frightened Miss Forsythe, and seemed to
Margaret to drop out of heaven. Such an absurd thing to do at night, said
the aunt, and then she kissed Margaret, and laughed a little, and
declared that things had come to a queer pass when people made love by
telegraph. There wasn't any love in the telegram, Margaret said; but she
knew better--the sending word of his arrival was a marvelous exhibition
of thoughtfulness and constancy.
And then she led her aunt on to talk of Mr. Henderson, to give her
impression, how he looked, what she really thought of him, and so on, and
so on.
There was not much to say, but it could be said over and over again in
various ways. It was the one night of the world, and her overwrought
feeling sought relief. It would not be so again. She would be more
reticent and more coquettish about her lover, but now it was all so new
and strange.
That night when the girl went to sleep the telegram was under her pillow,
and it seemed to throb with a thousand messages, as if it felt the
pulsation of the current that sent it.
The prospective marriage of the budding millionaire Rodney Henderson was
a society paper item in less than a week--the modern method of publishing
the banns. This was accompanied by a patronizing reference to the pretty
school-ma'am, who was complimented upon her good-fortune in phrases so
neatly turned as to give Henderson the greatest offense, and leave him no
remedy, since nothing could have better suited the journal than further
notoriety. He could not remember that he had spoken of it to any one
except the Eschelles, to whom his relations made the communication a
necessity, and he suspected Carmen, without, however, guessing that she
was a habitual purveyor of the town gossiper.
"It is a shameful impertinence," she burst out, introducing the subject
herself, when he called to see her. "I would horsewhip the editor." Her
indignation was so genuine, and she took his side with such warm good
comradeship, that his suspicions vanished for a moment.
"What good?" he answered, cooling down at the sight of her rage. "It is
true, we are to be married, and she has taught school. I can't drag her
name into a row about it. Perhaps she never will see it."
"Oh dear! dear me! what have I done?" the girl cried, with an accent of
contrition. "I never thought of that. I was so angry that I cut it out
and put it in the letter that was to contain nothing but congratulations,
and told her how perfectly outrageous I thought it. How stupid!" and
there was a world of trouble in her big dark eyes, while she looked up
penitently, as if to ask his forgiveness for a great crime.
"Well, it cannot be helped," Henderson said, with a little touch of
sympathy for Carmen's grief. "Those who know her will think it simply
malicious, and the others will not think of it a second time."
"But I cannot forgive myself for my stupidity. I'm not sure but I'd
rather you'd think me wicked than stupid," she continued, with the smile
in her eyes that most men found attractive. "I confess--is that very
bad?--that I feel it more for you than for her. But" ( she thought she
saw a shade in his face) "I warn you, if you are not very nice, I shall
transfer my affections to her."
The girl was in her best mood, with the manner of a confiding, intimate
friend. She talked about Margaret, but not too much, and a good deal more
about Henderson and his future, not laying too great stress upon the
marriage, as if it were, in fact, only an incident in his career,
contriving always to make herself appear as a friend, who hadn't many
illusions or much romance, to be sure, but who could always be relied on
in any mood or any perplexity, and wouldn't be frightened or very severe
at any confidences. She posed as a woman who could make allowances, and
whose friendship would be no check or hinderance. This was conveyed in
manner as much as in words, and put Henderson quite at his ease. He was
not above the weakness of liking the comradeship of a woman of whom he
was not afraid, a woman to whom he could say anything, a woman who could
make allowances. Perhaps he was hardly conscious of this. He knew Carmen
better than she thought he knew her, and he couldn't approve of her as a
wife; and yet the fact was that she never gave him any moral worries.
"Yes," she said, when the talk drifted that way, "the chrysalis earl has
gone. I think that mamma is quite inconsolable. She says she doesn't
understand girls, or men, or anything, these days."
"Do you?" asked Henderson, lightly.
"I? No. I'm an agnostic--except in religion. Have you got it into your
head, my friend, that I ever fancied Mr. Lyon?"
"Not for himself--" began Henderson, mischievously.
"That will do." She stopped him. "Or that he ever had any intention--"
"I don't see how he could resist such--"
"Stuff! See here, Mr. Rodney!" The girl sprang up, seized a plaque from
the table, held it aloft in one hand, took half a dozen fascinating,
languid steps, advancing and retreating with the grace of a Nautch girl,
holding her dress with the other hand so as to allow a free movement. "Do
you think I'd ever do that for John the Lyon's head on a charger?"
Then her mood changed to the domestic, as she threw herself into an
easy-chair and said: "After all, I'm rather sorry he has gone. He was a
man you could trust; that is, if you wanted to trust anybody--I wish I
had been made good."
When Henderson bade her good-night it was with the renewed impression
that she was a very diverting comrade.
"I'm sort of sorry for you," she said, and her eyes were not so serious
as to offend, as she gave him her hand, "for when you are married, you
know, as the saying is, you'll want some place to spend your evenings."
The audacity of the remark was quite obscured in the innocent frankness
and sweetness of her manner.
What Henderson had to show Hollowell in his office had been of a nature
greatly to interest that able financier. It was a project that would have
excited the sympathy of Carmen, but Henderson did not speak of it to
her--though he had found that she was a safe deposit of daring schemes in
general--on account of a feeling of loyalty to Margaret, to whom he had
never mentioned it in any of his daily letters. The scheme made a great
deal of noise, later on, when it came to the light of consummation in
legislatures and in courts, both civil and criminal; but its magnitude
and success added greatly to Henderson's reputation as a bold and
fortunate operator, and gave him that consideration which always attaches
to those who command millions of money, and have the nerve to go
undaunted through the most trying crises. I am anticipating by saying
that it absolutely ruined thousands of innocent people, caused widespread
strikes and practical business paralysis over a large region; but those
things were regarded as only incidental to a certain sort of development,
and did not impair the business standing, and rather helped the social
position, of the two or three men who counted their gains by millions in
the operation. It furnished occupation and gave good fees to a multitude
of lawyers, and was dignified by the anxious consultation of many learned
judges. A moralist, if he were poor and pessimistic, might have put the
case in a line, and taken that line from the Mosaic decalogue (which was
not intended for this new dispensation); but it was involved in such a
cloud of legal technicalities, and took on such an aspect of enterprise
and development of resources, and what not, that the general public mind
was completely befogged about it. I am charitable enough to suppose that
if the scheme had failed, the public conscience is so tender that there
would have been a question of Henderson's honesty. But it did not fail.
Of this scheme, however, we knew nothing at the time in Brandon.
Henderson was never in better spirits, never more agreeable, and it did
not need inquiry to convince one that he was never so prosperous. He was
often with us, in flying visits, and I can well remember that his coming
and the expectation of it gave a kind of elation to the summer--that and
Margaret's supreme and sunny happiness. Even my wife admitted that it was
on both sides a love-match, and could urge nothing against it except the
woman's instinct that made her shrink from the point of ever thinking of
him as a husband for herself, which seemed to me a perfectly reasonable
feeling under all the circumstances.
The summer--or what we call summer in the North, which is usually a
preparation for warm weather, ending in a preparation for cold weather
--seemed to me very short--but I have noticed that each summer is a
little shorter than the preceding one. If Henderson had wanted to gain
the confidence of my wife he could not have done so more effectually than
he did in making us the confidants of a little plan he had in the city,
which was a profound secret to the party most concerned. This was the
purchase and furnishing of a house, and we made many clandestine visits
with him to town in the early autumn in furtherance of his plan. He was
intent on a little surprise, and when I once hinted to him that women
liked to have a hand in making the home they were to occupy, he said he
thought that my wife knew Margaret's taste--and besides, he added, with a
smile, "it will be only temporary; I should like her, if she chooses, to
build and furnish a house to suit herself." In any one else this would
have seemed like assumption, but with Henderson it was only the simple
belief in his career.
We were still more surprised when we came to see the temporary home that
Henderson had selected, the place where the bride was to alight, and look
about her for such a home as would suit her growing idea of expanding
fortune and position. It was one of the old-fashioned mansions on
Washington Square, built at a time when people attached more importance
to room and comfort than to outside display--a house that seemed to have
traditions of hospitality and of serene family life. It was being
thoroughly renovated and furnished, with as little help from the
decorative artist and the splendid upholsterer as consisted with some
regard to public opinion; in fact the expenditure showed in solid dignity
and luxurious ease, and not in the construction of a museum in which one
could only move about with the constant fear of destroying something. My
wife was given almost carte blanche in the indulgence of her taste, and
she confessed her delight in being able for once to deal with a house
without the feeling that she was ruining me. Only in the suite designed
for Margaret did Henderson seriously interfere, and insist upon a luxury
that almost took my wife's breath away. She opposed it on moral grounds.
She said that no true woman could stand such pampering of her senses
without destruction of her moral fibre. But Henderson had his way, as he
always had it. What pleased her most in the house was the conservatory,
opening out from the drawing-room--a spacious place with a fountain and
cool vines and flowering plants, not a tropical hothouse in a stifling
atmosphere, in which nothing could live except orchids and flowers born
near the equator, but a garden with a temperature adapted to human lungs,
where one could sit and enjoy the sunshine, and the odor of flowers, and
the clear and not too incessant notes of Mexican birds. But when it was
all done, undoubtedly the most agreeable room in the house was that to
which least thought had been given, the room to which any odds and ends
could be sent, the room to which everybody gravitated when rest and
simple enjoyment without restraint were the object Henderson's own
library, with its big open fire, and the books and belongings of his
bachelor days. Man is usually not credited with much taste or ability to
take care of himself in the matter of comfortable living, but it is
frequently noticed that when woman has made a dainty paradise of every
other portion of the house, the room she most enjoys, that from which it
is difficult to keep out the family, is the one that the man is permitted
to call his own, in which he retains some of the comforts and can indulge
some of the habits of his bachelor days. There is an important truth in
this fact with regard to the sexes, but I do not know what it is.
They were married in October, and went at once to their own house. I
suppose all other days were but a preparation for this golden autumn day
on which we went to church and returned to the wedding-breakfast. I am
sure everybody was happy. Miss Forsythe was so happy that tears were in
her eyes half the time, and she bustled about with an affectation of
cheerfulness that was almost contagious. Poor, dear, gentle lady! I can
imagine the sensations of a peach-tree, in an orchard of trees which bud
and bloom and by-and-by are weighty with yellow fruit, year after year--a
peach-tree that blooms, also, but never comes to fruition, only wastes
its delicate sweetness on the air, and finally blooms less and less, but
feels nevertheless in each returning spring the stir of the sap and the
longing for that fuller life, while all the orchard bursts into flower,
and the bees swarm about the pink promises, and the fruit sets and slowly
matures to lusciousness in the sun of July. I fancy the wedding, which
robbed us all, was hardest for her, for it was in one sense a finality of
her life. Whereas if Margaret had regrets--and deep sorrow she had in
wrenching herself from the little neighborhood, though she never could
have guessed the vacancy she caused by the withdrawal of her loved
presence--her own life was only just beginning, and she was sustained by
the longing which every human soul has for a new career, by the curiosity
and imagination which the traveler feels when he departs for a land which
he desires, and yet dreads to see lest his illusions should vanish.
Margaret was about to take that journey in the world which Miss Forsythe
had dreamed of in her youth, but had never set out on. There are some who
say that those are happiest who keep at home and content themselves with
reading about the lands of the imagination. But happily the world does
not believe this, and indeed would be very unhappy if it could not try
and prove all the possibilities of human nature, to suffer as well as to
enjoy.
I do not know how we fell into the feeling that this marriage was somehow
exceptional and important, since marriages take place every day, and are
so common and ordinarily so commonplace, when the first flutter is over.
Even Morgan said, in his wife's presence, that he thought there had been
weddings enough; at least he would interdict those that upset things like
this one. For one thing, it brought about the house-keeping union of Mrs.
Fletcher and Miss Forsythe in the tatter's cottage--a sort of closing up
of the ranks that happens on the field during a fatal engagement. As we
go on, it becomes more and more difficult to fill up the gaps.
We were very unwilling to feel that Margaret had gone out of our life.
"But you cannot," Morgan used to say, "be friends with the rich, and that
is what makes the position of the very rich so pitiful, for the rich get
so tired of each other."
"But Margaret," my wife urged, "will never be of that sort: money will
not change either her habits or her affections."
"Perhaps. You can never trust to inherited poverty. I have no doubt that
she will resist the world, if anybody can, but my advice is that if you
want to keep along with Margaret, you'd better urge your husband to make
money. Experience seems to teach that while they cannot come to us, we
may sometimes go to them."
My wife and Mrs. Fletcher were both indignant at this banter, and accused
Morgan of want of faith, and even lack of affection for Margaret; in
short, of worldly-mindedness himself.
"Perhaps I am rather shop-worn," he confessed. "It's not distrust of
Margaret's intentions, but knowledge of the strength of the current on
which she has embarked. Henderson will not stop in his career short of
some overwhelming disaster or of death."
"I thought you liked him? At any rate, Margaret will make a good use of
his money."
"It isn't a question, my dear Mrs. Fairchild, of the use of money, but of
the use money makes of you. Yes, I do like Henderson, but I can't give up
my philosophy of life for the sake of one good fellow."
"Philosophy of fudge!" exclaimed my wife. And there really was no answer
to this.
After six weeks had passed, my wife paid a visit to Margaret. Nothing
could exceed the affectionate cordiality of her welcome. Margaret was
overjoyed to see her, to show the house, to have her know her husband
better, to take her into her new life. She was hardly yet over the naive
surprises of her lovely surroundings. Or if it is too mach to say that
her surprise had lasted six weeks--for it is marvelous how soon women
adapt themselves to new conditions if they are agreeable--she was in a
glow of wonder at her husband's goodness, at his love, which had procured
all this happiness for her.
"You have no idea," she said, "how thoughtful he is about everything--and
he makes so little of it all. I am to thank you, he tells me always, for
whatever pleases my taste in the house, and indeed I think I should have
known you had been here if he had not told me. There are so many little
touches that remind me of home. I am glad of that, for it is the more
likely to make you feel that it is your home also."
She clung to this idea in the whirl of the new life. In the first days
she dwelt much on this theme; indeed it was hardly second in her talk to
her worship--I can call it nothing less--of her husband. She liked to
talk of Brandon and the dear life there and the dearer friends--this much
talk about it showed that it was another life, already of the past, and
beginning to be distant in the mind. My wife had a feeling that Margaret,
thus early, was conscious of a drift, of a widening space, and was making
an effort to pull the two parts of her life together, that there should
be no break, as one carried away to sea by a resistless tide grasps the
straining rope that still maintains his slender connection with the
shore.
But it was all so different: the luxurious house, the carriage at call,
the box at the opera, the social duties inevitable with her own
acquaintances and the friends of her husband. She spoke of this in
moments of confidence, and when she was tired, with a consciousness that
it was a different life, but in no tone of regret, and I fancy that the
French blood in her veins, which had so long run decorously in Puritan
channels, leaped at its return into new gayety. Years ago Margaret had
thought that she might some time be a missionary, at least that she
should like to devote her life to useful labors among the poor and the
unfortunate. If conscience ever reminded her of this, conscience was
quieted by the suggestion that now she was in a position to be more
liberal than she ever expected to be; that is, to give everything except
the essential thing--herself. Henderson liked a gay house, brightness,
dinners, entertainment, and that his wife should be seen and admired.
Proof of his love she found in all this, and she entered into it with
spirit, and an enjoyment increased by the thought that she was lightening
the burden of his business, which she could see pressed more and more.
Not that Henderson made any account of his growing occupations, or that
any preoccupation was visible except to the eye of love, which is quick
to see all moods. These were indeed happy days, full of the brightness of
an expanding prosperity and unlimited possibilities of the enjoyment of
life. It was in obedience to her natural instinct, and not yet a feeling
of compensation and propitiation, that enlisted Margaret in the city
charities, connection with which was a fashionable self-entertainment
with some, and a means of social promotion with others. My wife came home
a little weary with so much of the world, but, on the whole, impressed
with Margaret's good-fortune. Henderson in his own house was the soul of
consideration and hospitality, and Margaret was blooming in the beauty
that shines in satisfied desire.