KEITH VISITS NEW YORK, AND MRS. LANCASTER SEES A GHOST
For the next year or two the tide set in very strong toward the
mountains, and New Leeds advanced with giant strides. What had been a
straggling village a year or two before was now a town, and was
beginning to put on the airs of a city. Brick buildings quite as
pretentious as the town were springing up where a year before there were
unsightly frame boxes; the roads where hogs had wallowed in mire not
wholly of their own kneading were becoming well-paved streets. Out on
the heights, where had been a forest, were sprinkled sightly dwellings
in pretty yards. The smoke of panting engines rose where but a few years
back old Tim Gilsey drew rein over his steaming horses. Pretty girls and
well-dressed women began to parade the sidewalks where formerly
Terpsichore's skirts were the only feminine attire seen. And "Gordon
Keith, civil and mining engineer," with his straight figure and tanned,
manly face, was not ignored by them. But locked in his heart was the
memory of the girl he had found in the Spring woods. She was forever
beyond him; but he still clung to the picture he had enshrined there.
When he saw Dr. Balsam, no reference was made to the verification of the
latter's prophecy; but the young man knew from the kind tone in the
older man's voice that he had heard of it. Meantime Keith had not been
idle. Surveys and plats had been made, and everything done to facilitate
placing the Rawson properties on the market.
When old man Rawson came to New Leeds now, he made Keith's little office
his headquarters, and much quaint philosophy Keith learned from him.
"I reckon it's about time to try our cattle in the New York market," he
said at length to Keith. It was a joke he never gave up. "You go up
there and look around, and if you have any trouble send for me."
So, taking his surveys and reports and a few letters of introduction
Keith went to New York.
Only one thought marred Keith's joy: the dearest aim he had so long had
in view had disappeared. The triumph of standing before Alice Yorke and
offering her the reward of his endeavor was gone. All he could do was to
show her what she had lost. This he would do; he would win life's
highest honors. He grew grim with resolve.
Something of this triumphant feeling showed in his mien and in his face
as he plunged into the crowded life of the city. From the time he passed
into the throng that streamed up the long platforms of the station and
poured into the wide ferry-boats, like grain pouring through a mill, he
felt the thrill of the life. This was what he had striven for. He would
take his place here and show what was in him.
He had forgotten how gay the city life was. Every place of public resort
pleased him: theatres, hotels, beer-gardens; but best of all the
streets. He took them all in with absolute freedom and delight.
Business was the watchword, the trade-mark. It buzzed everywhere, from
the Battery to the Park. It thronged the streets, pulsating through the
outlets and inlets at ferries and railway-stations and crossings, and
through the great buildings that were already beginning to tower in the
business sections. It hummed in the chief centres. And through it all
and beyond it all shone opulence, opulence gilded and gleaming and
dazzling in its glitter: in the big hotels; in the rich shops; in the
gaudy theatres; along the fine avenues: a display of wealth to make the
eyes ache; an exhibition of riches never seen before. It did Keith good
at first just to stand in the street and watch the pageant as it passed
like a gilded panorama. Of the inner New York he did not yet know: the
New York of luxurious homes; of culture and of art; of refinement and
elegance. The New York that has grown up since, with its vast wealth,
its brazen glitter, its tides that roll up riches as the sea rolls up
the sand, was not yet. It was still in its infancy, a chrysalis as yet
sleeping within its golden cocoon.
Keith had no idea there were so many handsome and stylish young women in
the world as he now saw. He had forgotten how handsome the American girl
is in her best appointment. They sailed down the avenue looking as fine
as young fillies at a show, or streamed through the best shopping
streets as though not only the shops, but the world belonged to them,
and it were no longer the meek, but the proud, that inherit the earth.
If in the throngs on the streets there were often marked contrasts,
Keith was too exhilarated to remark it--at least, at first. If women
with worn faces and garments unduly thin in the frosty air, carrying
large bundles in their pinched hands, hurried by as though hungry, not
only for food, but for time in which to earn food; if sad-eyed men with
hollow cheeks, sunken chests, and threadbare clothes shambled eagerly
along, he failed to note them in his first keen enjoyment of the
pageant. Old clothes meant nothing where he came from; they might be the
badge of perilous enterprise and well-paid industry, and food and fire
were at least common to all.
Keith, indeed, moved about almost in a trance, absorbing and enjoying
the sights. It was Humanity in flood; Life at full tide.
Many a woman and not a few men turned to take a second look at the
tanned, eager face and straight, supple figure, as, with smiling, yet
keen eyes, he stalked along with the free, swinging gait caught on the
mountains, so different from the quick, short steps of the city man.
Beggars, and some who from their look and apparel might not have been
beggars, applied to him so often that he said to one of them, a fairly
well-dressed man with a nose of a slightly red tinge:
"Well, I must have a very benevolent face or a very credulous one!"
"You have," said the man, with brazen frankness, pocketing the
half-dollar given him on his tale of a picked pocket and a remittance
that had gone wrong.
Keith laughed and passed on.
Meantime, Keith was making some discoveries. He did not at first call on
Norman Wentworth. He had a feeling that it might appear as if he were
using his friendship for a commercial purpose. He presented his business
letters. His letters, however, failed to have the weight he had
expected. The persons whom he had met down in New Leeds, during their
brief visits there, were, somehow, very different when met in New York.
Some whom he called on were civil enough to him; but as soon as he
broached his business they froze up. The suggestion that he had
coal-property to sell sent them down to zero. Their eyes would glint
with a shrewd light and their faces harden into ice. One or two told him
plainly that they had no money to embark in "wild-cat schemes."
Mr. Creamer of Creamer, Crustback & Company, Capitalists, a tall,
broad-shouldered man, with a strongly cut nose and chin and keen, gray
eyes, that, through long habitude, weighed chances with an infallible
appraisement, to whom Keith had a letter from an acquaintance, one of
those casual letters that mean anything or nothing, informed him frankly
that he had "neither time nor inclination to discuss enterprises,
ninety-nine out of every hundred of which were frauds, and the hundredth
generally a failure."
"This is not a fraud," said Keith, hotly, rising. "I do not indorse
frauds, sir." He began to draw on his gloves. "If I cannot satisfy any
reasonable man of the fact I state, I am willing to fail. I ought to
fail." With a bow, he turned to the door.
Something in Keith's assurance went further with the shrewd-eyed
capitalist than his politeness had done. He shot a swift glance as he
was retiring toward the door.
"Why didn't Wickersham make money down there?" he demanded, half in
query, half in denial, gazing keenly over his gold-rimmed glasses. "He
usually makes money, even if others lose it."
Mr. Creamer had his own reasons for not liking Wickersham.
Keith was standing at the door.
"For two or three reasons. One was that he underestimated the people who
live down there, and thought he could force them into selling him their
lands, and so lost the best properties there."
"The lands you have, I suppose?" said the banker, looking again at Keith
quickly.
"Yes, the lands I have, though you don't believe it," said Keith,
looking him calmly in the eyes.
The banker was gazing at the young man ironically; but, as he observed
him, his credulity began to give way.
That stamp of truth which men recognize was written on him unmistakably.
Mr. Creamer's mind worked quickly.
"By the way, you came from down there. Did you know a young man named
Rhodes? He was an engineer. Went over the line."
Keith's eyes brightened. "He is one of my best friends. He is in Russia
now."
Mr. Creamer nodded. "What do you think of him?"
"He is one of the best."
Mr. Creamer nodded. He did not think it necessary to tell Keith that
Rhodes was paying his addresses to his daughter.
"You write to him," said Keith. "He will tell you just what I have. Tell
him they are the Rawson lands."
Keith opened the door. "Good morning, sir."
"One moment!" Mr. Creamer leaned back in his chair. "Whom else do you
know here?" he asked after a second.
Keith reflected a moment.
"I know Mr. Wentworth."
"Norman Wentworth?"
"Yes; I know him very well. He is an old friend of mine."
"Have you been to him?"
"No, sir."
"Why not?"
"Because my relations with him are entirely personal. We used to be warm
friends, and I did not wish to use his friendship for me as a ground on
which to approach him in a commercial enterprise."
Mr. Creamer's countenance expressed more incredulity than he intended to
show.
"He might feel under obligations to do for me what he would not be
inclined to do otherwise," Keith explained.
"Oh, I don't think you need have any apprehension on that score," Mr.
Creamer said, with a glint of amusement in his eyes. "It is a matter of
business, and I don't think you will find business men here overstepping
the bounds of prudence from motives of sentiment."
"There is no man whom I would rather have go into it with me; but I
shall not ask him to do it, for the reason I have given. Good morning."
The banker did not take his eyes from the door until the sound of
Keith's steps had died away through his outer office. Then he reflected
for a moment. Presently he touched a bell, and a clerk appeared in
the door.
"Write a note to Mr. Norman Wentworth and ask him to drop in to see
me--any time this afternoon."
"Yes, sir."
When Norman Wentworth called at Mr. Creamer's office he found the
financier in a good humor. The market had gone well of late, and Mr.
Creamer's moods were not altogether unlike the mercury. His greeting was
more cordial than usual. After a brief discussion of recent events, he
pushed a card across to his visitor and asked casually:
"What do you know about that man?"
"Gordon Keith!" exclaimed the younger man, in surprise. "Is he in New
York, and I have not seen him! Why, I know all about him. He used to be
an old friend of mine. We were boys together ever so long ago."
He went on to speak warmly of him.
"Well, that was long ago," said Mr. Creamer, doubtfully. "Many things
have happened in that time. He has had time to change."
"He must have changed a good deal if he is not straight," declared
Norman. "I wonder why he has not been to see me?"
"Well, I'll tell you what he said," began Mr. Creamer.
He gave Keith's explanation.
"Did he say that? Then it's true. You ought to know his father. He is a
regular old Don Quixote."
"The Don was not particularly practical. He would not have done much
with coal and iron lands," observed the banker. "What do you know about
this man's knowledge of such things?"
Norman admitted that on this point he had no information.
"He says he knows Wickersham--your friend," said Mr. Creamer, with a sly
look at Norman.
"Yes, I expect he does--if any one knows him. He used to know him. What
does he say of him?"
"Oh, I think he knows him. Well, I am much obliged to you for coming
around," he said in a tone of dismissal. "You are coming to dine with us
soon, I believe? The Lancasters are coming, too. And we expect Rhodes
home. He's due next week."
"One member of your family will be glad to see him," said Norman,
smiling. "The wedding is to take place in a few weeks, I believe?"
"I hear so," said the father. "Fine young man, Rhodes? Your cousin,
isn't he? Been very successful?"
"Yes."
Once, as Keith passed along down Broadway, just where some of the great
shops were at that time, before the tide had rolled so far up-town, a
handsome carriage and pair drew up in front of one of the big shops, and
a lady stepped from it just behind him. She was a very pretty young
woman, and richly dressed. A straight back and a well-set head, with a
perfect toilet, gave her distinction even among the handsomely appointed
women who thronged the street that sunny morning, and many a woman
turned and looked at her with approval or envy.
The years, that had wrought Keith from a plain country lad into a man of
affairs of such standing in New Leeds that a shrewd operator like Rawson
had selected him for his representative, had also wrought a great change
in Alice Lancaster. Alice had missed what she had once begun to expect,
romance and all that it meant; but she had filled with dignity the place
she had chosen. If Mr. Lancaster's absorption in serious concerns left
her life more sombre than she had expected, at least she let no one know
it. Association with a man like Mr. Lancaster had steadied and elevated
her. His high-mindedness had lifted her above the level of her worldly
mother and of many of those who constituted the set in which she lived.
He admired her immeasurably. He was constantly impressed by the
difference between her and her shallow-minded and silly mother, or even
between her and such a young woman as Mrs. Wentworth, who lived only for
show and extravagance, and appeared in danger of ruining her husband and
wrecking his happiness.
It was Mrs. Lancaster who descended from her carriage as Keith passed
by. Just as she was about to enter the shop, a well-knit figure with
square shoulders and springy step, swinging down the street, caught her
eye. She glanced that way and gave an exclamation. The door was being
held open for her by a blank-faced automaton in a many-buttoned uniform;
so she passed in, but pausing just inside, she glanced back through the
window. The next instant she left the shop and gazed down the street
again. But Keith had turned a corner, and so Alice Lancaster did not
see him, though she stood on tiptoe to try and distinguish him again in
the crowd.
"Well, I would have sworn that that was Gordon Keith," she said to
herself, as she turned away, "if he had not been so broad-shouldered and
good-looking." And wherever she moved the rest of the day her eyes
wandered up and down the street.
Once, as she was thus engaged, Ferdy Wickersham came up. He was dressed
in the tip of the fashion and looked very handsome.
"Who is the happy man?"
The question was so in keeping with her thought that she blushed
unexpectedly.
"No one."
"Ah, not me, then? But I know it was some one. No woman looks so
expectant and eager for 'no one.'"
"Do you think I am like you, perambulating streets trying to make
conquests?" she said, with a smile.
"You do not have to try," he answered lazily. "You do it simply by being
on the street. I am playing in great luck to-day."
"Have you seen Louise this morning?" she asked.
He looked her full in the face. "I see no one but you when you are
around."
She laughed lightly.
"Ferdy, you will begin to believe that after a while, if you do not stop
saying it so often."
"I shall never stop saying it, because it is true," he replied
imperturbably, turning his dark eyes on her, the lids a little closed.
"You have got so in the habit of saying it that you repeat it like my
parrot that I taught once, when I was younger and vainer, to say,
'Pretty Alice.' He says it all the time."
"Sensible bird," said Mr. Wickersham, calmly. "Come and drive me up to
the Park and let's have a stroll. I know such a beautiful walk. There
are so many people out to-day. I saw the lady of the 'cat-eyes and
cat-claws' go by just now, seeking some one whom she can turn again and
rend." It was the name she had given Mrs. Nailor.
"I do not care who is out. Are you going to the Wentworths' this
evening?" she asked irrelevantly.
"No; I rarely go there. Will you mention that to Mrs. Nailor? She
apparently has not that confidence in my word that I could have expected
in one so truthful as herself."
Mrs. Lancaster laughed.
"Ferdy--" she began, and then paused irresolute. "However--"
"Well, what is it? Say it."
"You ought not to go there so often as you do."
"Why?" His eyes were full of insolence.
"Good-by. Drive home," she said to the coachman, in a tone intentionally
loud enough for her friend to hear.
Ferdy Wickersham strolled on down the street, and a few minutes later
was leaning in at the door of Mrs. Wentworth's carriage, talking very
earnestly to the lady inside.
Mr. Wickersham's attentions to Louise Wentworth had begun to be the talk
of the town. Young Mrs. Wentworth was not a person to allow herself to
be shelved. She did not propose that the older lady who bore that name
should be known by it. She declared she would play second fiddle to no
one. But she discovered that the old lady who lived in the old mansion
on Washington Square was "Mrs. Wentworth," and that Mrs. Wentworth
occupied a position from which she was not to be moved. After a little
she herself was known as "Mrs. Norman." It was the first time Mrs.
Norman had ever had command of much money. Her mother had made a good
appearance and dressed her daughter handsomely, but to carry out her
plans she had had to stint and scrape to make both ends meet. Mrs.
Caldwell told one of her friends that her rings knew the way to the
pawnbroker's so well that if she threw them in the street they would
roll into his shop.
This struggle Louise had witnessed with that easy indifference which was
part her nature and part her youth. She had been brought up to believe
she was a beauty, and she did believe it. Now that she had the chance,
she determined to make the most of her triumph. She would show people
that she knew how to spend money; embellishment was the aim of her life,
and she did show them. Her toilets were the richest; her equipage was
the handsomest and best appointed. Her entertainments soon were among
the most splendid in the city.
Those who were accustomed to wealth and to parade wondered both at Mrs.
Norman's tastes and at her gratification of them.
All the town applauded. They had had no idea that the Wentworths, as
rich as they knew them to be, had so much money.
"She must have Aladdin's lamp," they said. Only old Mrs. Wentworth
looked grave and disapproving at the extravagance of her
daughter-in-law. Still she never said a word of it, and when the
grandson came she was too overjoyed to complain of anything.
It was only of late that people had begun to whisper of the frequency
with which Ferdy Wickersham was seen with Mrs. Norman. Certain it was
that he was with her a great deal.
That evening Alice Lancaster was dining with the Norman Wentworths. She
was equally good friends with them and with their children, who on their
part idolized her and considered her to be their especial property. Her
appearance was always the signal for a romp. Whenever she went to the
Wentworths' she always paid a visit to the nursery, from which she would
return breathless and dishevelled, with an expression of mingled
happiness and pain in her blue eyes. Louise Wentworth knew well why the
longing look was there, and though usually cold and statuesque, she
always softened to Alice Lancaster then more than she was wont to do.
"Alice pines for children," she said to Norman, who pinched her cheek
and, like a man, told her she thought every one as romantic and as
affectionate as herself. Had Mrs. Nailor heard this speech she would
have blinked her innocent eyes and have purred with silent thoughts on
the blindness of men.
This evening Mrs. Lancaster had come down from the nursery, where shouts
of childish merriment had told of her romps with the ringletted young
brigand who ruled there, and was sitting quite silent in the deep
arm-chair in an attitude of profound reflection, her head thrown back,
her white arms resting languidly on the arms of the chair, her face
unusually thoughtful, her eyes on the gilded ceiling.
Mrs. Wentworth watched her for a moment silently, and then said:
"You must not let the boy tyrannize over you so."
Mrs. Lancaster's reply was complete:
"I love it; I just love it!"
Presently Mrs. Wentworth spoke again.
"What is the matter with you this evening? You seem quite distraite."
"I saw a ghost to-day." She spoke without moving.
Mrs. Wentworth's face took on more interest.
"What do you mean? Who was it?"
"I mean I saw a ghost; I might say two ghosts, for I saw in imagination
also the ghost of myself as I was when a girl. I saw the man I was in
love with when I was seventeen."
"I thought you were in love with Ferdy then?"
"No; never." She spoke with sudden emphasis.
"How interesting! And you congratulated yourself on your escape? We
always do. I was violently in love with a little hotel clerk, with oily
hair, a snub-nose, and a waxed black moustache, in the Adirondacks when
I was that age."
Mrs. Lancaster made no reply to this, and her hostess looked at her
keenly.
"Where was it? How long before--?" She started to ask, how long before
she was married, but caught herself. "What did he look like? He must
have been good-looking, or you would not be so pensive."
"He looked like--a man."
"How old was he--I mean, when he fell in love with you?" said Mrs.
Wentworth, with a sort of gasp, as she recalled Mr. Lancaster's gray
hair and elderly appearance.
"Rather young. He was only a few years older than I was; a young--what's
his name?--Hercules, that brought me down a mountain in his arms the
second time I ever saw him."
"Alice Lancaster!"
"I had broken my leg--almost I had got a bad fall from a horse and could
not walk, and he happened to come along."
"Of course. How romantic! Was he a doctor? Did you do it on purpose?"
Mrs. Lancaster smiled.
"No; a young schoolmaster up in the mountains. He was not handsome--not
then. But he was fine-looking, eyes that looked straight at you and
straight through you; the whitest teeth you ever saw; and shoulders! He
could carry a sack of salt!" At the recollection a faint smile flickered
about her lips.
"Why didn't you marry him?"
"He had not a cent in the world. He was a poor young school-teacher, but
of a very distinguished family. However, mamma took fright, and whisked
me away as if he had been a pestilence."
"Oh, naturally!"
"And he was too much in love with me. But for that I think I should not
have given him up. I was dreadfully cut up for a little while. And he--"
She did not finish the sentence.
On this Mrs. Wentworth made no observation, though the expression about
her mouth changed.
"He made a reputation afterwards. I knew he would. He was bound to
succeed. I believed in him even then. He had ideals. Why don't men have
ideals now?"
"Some of them do," asserted Mrs. Wentworth.
"Yes; Norman has. I mean unmarried men. I heard he made a fortune, or
was making one--or something."
"Oh!"
"He knew more than any one I ever saw--and made you want to know. All I
ever read he set me to. And he is awfully good-looking. I had no idea he
would be so good-looking. But I tell you this: no woman that ever saw
him ever forgot him."
"Is he married?"
"I don't think so--no. If he had been I should have heard it. He really
believed in me."
Mrs. Wentworth glanced at her with interest.
"Where is he staying?"
"I do not know. I saw him through a shop-window."
"What! Did you not speak to him?"
"I did not get a chance. When I came out of the shop he was gone."
"That was sad. It would have been quite romantic, would it not? But,
perhaps, after all, he did not make his fortune?" Mrs. Wentworth looked
complacent.
"He did if he set his mind to it," declared Mrs. Lancaster.
"How about Ferdy Wickersham?" The least little light of malevolence
crept into Mrs. Wentworth's eyes.
Mrs. Lancaster gave a shrug of impatience, and pushed a photograph on a
small table farther away, as if it incommoded her.
"Oh, Ferdy Wickersham! Ferdy Wickersham to that man is a heated room to
the breath of hills and forests." She spoke with real warmth, and Mrs.
Wentworth gazed at her curiously for a few seconds.
"Still, I rather fancy for a constancy you'd prefer the heated rooms to
the coldness of the hills. Your gowns would not look so well in
the forest."
It was a moment before Mrs. Lancaster's face relaxed.
"I suppose I should," she said slowly, with something very like a sigh.
"He was the only man I ever knew who made me do what I did not want to
do and made me wish to be something better than I was," she
added absently.
Mrs. Wentworth glanced at her somewhat impatiently, but she went on:
"I was very romantic then; and you should have heard him read the
'Idylls of the King.' He had the most beautiful voice. He made you live
in Arthur's court, because he lived there himself."
Mrs. Wentworth burst into laughter, but it was not very merry.
"My dear Alice, you must have been romantic. How old were you, did you
say?"
"It was three years before I was married," said Mrs. Lancaster, firmly.
Her friend gazed at her with a puzzled expression on her face.
"Oh! Now, my dear Alice, don't let's have any more of this
sentimentalizing. I never indulge in it; it always gives me a headache.
One might think you were a school-girl."
At the word a wood in all the bravery of Spring sprang into Alice's
mind. A young girl was seated on the mossy ground, and outstretched at
her feet was a young man, fresh-faced and clear-eyed, quoting a poem of
youth and of love.
"Heaven knows I wish I were," said Mrs. Lancaster, soberly. "I might
then be something different from what I am!"
"Oh, nonsense! You do nothing of the kind. Here are you, a rich woman,
young, handsome, with a great establishment; perfectly free, with no one
to interfere with you in any way. Now, I--"
"That's just it," broke in Mrs. Lancaster, bitterly. "Free! Free from
what my heart aches for. Free to dress in sables and diamonds and die of
loneliness." She had sat up, and her eyes were glowing and her color
flashing in her cheeks in her energy.
Mrs. Wentworth looked at her with a curious expression in her eyes.
"I want what you have, Louise Caldwell. In that big house with only
ourselves and servants--sometimes I could wish I were dead. I envy every
woman I see on the street with her children. Yes, I am free--too free! I
married for respect, and I have it. But--I want devotion, sympathy. You
have it. You have a husband who adores you, and children to fill your
heart, cherish it." The light in her eyes was almost fierce as she
leaned forward, her hands clasped so tightly that the knuckles showed
white, and a strange look passed for a moment over Mrs.
Wentworth's face.
"You are enough to give one the blue-devils!" she exclaimed, with
impatience. "Let's have a liqueur." She touched a bell, but Mrs.
Lancaster rose.
"No; I will go."
"Oh, yes; just a glass." A servant appeared like an automaton at the
door.
"What will you have, Alice?" But Mrs. Lancaster was obdurate. She
declined the invitation, and declared that she must go, as she was going
to the opera; and the next moment the two ladies were taking leave of
each other with gracious words and the formal manner that obtains in
fashionable society, quite as if they had known each other just
fifteen minutes.
Mrs. Lancaster drove home, leaning very far back in her brougham.
Mrs. Wentworth, too, appeared rather fatigued after her guest departed,
and sat for fifteen minutes with the social column of a newspaper lying
in her lap unscanned.
"I thought she and Ferdy liked each other," she said to herself; "but he
must have told the truth. They cannot have cared for each other. I think
she must have been in love with that man."