lend you a prayer-book, anyway. But I was not meaning to discourage you:
they will make allowances. My wife is an exemplary woman; if you want to
get on with her, you'll have to take an interest in Herbert's bruises
when he falls over the banisters. He is the only one of the children who
will trouble you much; the others are small yet, happily. My sister is a
pattern of propriety, but of rather an inquiring mind, and sympathetic
if you take her the right way: she can talk with you about philosophy
and science and your dried-up old doxies. Not that she knows anything
about Schopenhauer, and Darwin, and Diogenes, of course; but she's heard
their names, and she'll pretend to be posted--you know how women are.
And when you need a mental tonic--the companionship of a robust
intellect, the stimulus of wide acquaintance with the great world of men
and things, a manly comprehension of any difficulties that you may meet,
or sound and wise advice how to steer your way through the pitfalls and
intricacies of the female character--in such cases, which will no doubt
often arise, you have only to come to me. I know all about these
matters, of which you have had no experience. I'll be at home as much as
possible while you are there, and I'll stand by you, Jim."
"Thanks, awfully--as I believe they say where we are going. Yes, you
will be an invaluable mentor, Bob. Well, I'll try not to disgrace you.
It is late: let us turn in."
This important conversation took place on the boat. You see, when I was
with Hartman in May, he took the lead; but in my own house, or on the
way to it, I like to be cock of the walk. Besides, as I had prepared the
women for his coming, so now it was necessary to prepare his mind to
meet them. In my picture of our domestic felicity, I may have laid on
some tints too heavily, as about our mutual confidence. But he will soon
see how that is. You may notice that I said nothing about the Princess.
There was a deep design in that omission. When the orb of day in all his
glory bursts from his liquid bed upon the astonished gaze of some lonely
wanderer on the Andes, or the Alps,--or our own Rockies, say,--the
spectacle is all the more effective if the wanderer was not expecting
anything of the kind; didn't suppose it was time yet, or, still better,
didn't know there was any sun. That is the way Jim will feel when he
sees Clarice. If he has forgotten about her wanting to go up there in
the woods in May, O. K.; that will meet her views, and he'll be reminded
of her existence soon enough.
This is one of those delicate ideas which might not occur to the male
mind unassisted: in fact, left to my native nothingness, I should
probably have enlarged on her charms most of the evening. But she laid
special stress on this point, that I was to say as little as possible
about her beforehand, and fortunately I remembered it. Hartman thinks he
is going to have a safe and easy time with me and two highly respectable
ladies of sedate minds and settled habits. Sleep on, deluded James,
while I finish my cigar here on deck: dream of the forest and the trout
brooks, and your neighbor Hodge and your old tomcat. By to-morrow night
your mental horizon will be enlarged, and when you return to your castle
in the wilderness there will be some new sensations tugging at your
vitals. It will be a change for you, old man, and you needed one. Well,
I've given you enough to think of for now, and you'll get more before
you are a week older. I hope he will come through it right: it is like
taking one's friend to the surgeon to undergo an operation, when he
doesn't know that anything ails him or is going to be done. Poor old
Jim, I wouldn't have put up such a job on you if I didn't believe it was
for your good. I am not a pessimist like you: I believe in God and the
Princess.
VIII.
INTRODUCTION.
The drive from the wharf is too long: I often think that the older part
of the town ought to be submerged, or removed to one of the adjacent
islands. We met the family at breakfast, and I said, "Ladies, you see
before you a wild man of the woods, brought hither to be subdued and
civilized by your gentle ministrations. By the way, Mabel, there was a
corner in oil yesterday. I made fourteen thousand, and Simpkins went
under; so you can have that new gown now." They paid no attention
whatever to these pleasantries. Clarice was not there, or the sparkling
fount of humor would have flowed less freely.
Hartman has very good manners when he chooses, and in my house he would
naturally choose; so he got on well enough. The children took to him at
once, and he seemed to take to them. After breakfast I led him out for a
walk, to show him the points of interest. Several very creditable
cottages have been put up since he was here last: in fact, this is quite
a growing place, for the country. As we went back he suddenly said,
"Bob, who is this Clarice that your sister mentioned at the table? Fancy
name, isn't it?"
"O no," I said as indifferently as I could. He ought not to go springing
her on me in that way: it makes a man nervous. "She's an orphan; a sort
of cousin of Mrs. T. Got no brothers or sisters, and all that sort of
thing; so we look after her a good deal. Sometimes she's with us,
sometimes she's not. Was south all winter: got back while I was up there
with you."
Now what the deuce did I say that for? It'll brush up his rusty mental
machinery, and help him to recall what she wants forgotten. Just so; of
course.
"Yes, I remember. She thought of joining you with Miss Jane. I wish you
had let them come."
"Well, you see, you don't know what these girls are used to; I do. There
were no fit quarters for them at Hodge's. I had gone and written my wife
a lot of rot, pretending his place was much better than it is."
"With your usual unassuming virtue and cheerful candor; yes. We have no
secrets from one another: the limpid stream of confidence flows
unchecked and unpolluted. Just so. But see here, you old hypocrite, if
there is another young woman in the family, you ought to have told me
about her last night, when you were preparing my mind, you know, and
pretending to explain the whole domestic situation.--Great heavens,
who's that?"
We had turned a corner, and come plump on the house; and there on the
piazza, two rods away, sat a rare and radiant maiden, playing cat's
cradle with my eldest son and heir. I can't tell you how she was
dressed; but she was a phantom of delight when thus she broke upon our
sight; a lovely apparition, sent to be Jim Hartman's blandishment. At
least so it seemed, for he stood there and stared like a noble savage.
As when the lightning descends on the giant oak in its primeval
solitude--but I must stop this; she is too near, though she pretends not
to see us yet. So I whispered in low and warning tones:
"Brace up, Jim. She's not the one you met here twelve years ago, who
jilted you at Naples: this one wasn't out of her Fourth Reader then.
Don't get them mixed, or be deceived by a chance resemblance." I thought
it was better to lay his embarrassment on that old affair, you see. But
that was all nonsense: he never saw anybody like Clarice before--how
should he?
"Confound you, Bob," he muttered between his teeth, "so you've been
practising your openhearted innocence on me. Get on with it now, and
finish it up."
He pulled himself together, and I went through the introduction with due
decorum; then I got away as soon as I could. You see, I was unmanned by
the spectacle of so much young emotion, and somewhat exhausted by my own
recent exertions. I found a cool corner in the library; and presently
Jane had to come in. "What is the matter with you, Robert? Why do you
sit there grinning like an idiot?" Perhaps a smile of benevolence had
overspread my striking countenance; and that's the way she distorts it.
I could not tell her what pleased me, so I said I had been reading a
comic paper. "You write your own comic papers, I suspect; and bad enough
they are. If you go on at this rate, you will end by editing the _Texas
Siftings_. Do try to be decent, brother, while you have a guest in the
house." I suppose she thinks that is a crushing rebuke, now. I said I
would try, and told her she had better join Clarice and Hartman, who
would probably be tired of each other by this time. Here again I have
played into the Princess' hands. She doesn't want Jim to see too much of
her at first, but to get used to the blinding glare by degrees, and take
his physic in small doses, until he can bear it in larger. At least I
hope so: if I've made a mistake and spoiled the procession, I'll learn
it soon enough. But Jane wouldn't go unless it was right: that's the
good of being a woman. You don't catch me interrupting them, or going
near the Princess when she has any of her procedures on foot, unless I
am called.
IX.
AT NEWPORT.
I could not tell you all that occurred that week; but it went exactly as
Clarice intended and had foretold. She was gracious and equable and
gentle, a model young lady of the social-domestic type; but Hartman did
not see much of her. I on my part was kept steadily occupied, what with
boats, and horses, and parasols, and fans, and wools, and wide hats, and
more things than you could think of. It was, "Robert, come out on the
cliffs," or "Robert, get my garden gloves, please; they are in the
sitting-room, or somewhere else;" or "Robert, take me to town; I must
telegraph to Constance;" or "Bob dear, would you mind running over to
Miss Bliffson's, and telling her that I can't go to the Society this
afternoon; and on your way back, stop at the milliner's and see if my
hat is done." I usually attended to these commissions promptly; when you
have women about, your generous heart will rejoice to protect and
indulge their helplessness. They are the clinging vine, you are the
sturdy oak; and then, as I said, Clarice is an orphan. Hartman at first
showed an inclination to relieve me of the lighter part of these useful
avocations, such as taking her about over the rocks and in the bay; but
she very quietly, and without the least discourtesy, made him understand
that no foreigners need apply for that situation. Other men were coming
after her every day, but she avoided them or sent them to the right
about: she can do that in a way to make you feel that you have received
a favor. She kept reminding me that it was my business to wait on her:
if these things were paid for in cash, I should want high wages, for
the duties are far from light. But I can stand it: within the bosom of
Robert T. glows a spark of warm and pure philanthropy. When I see my
fellow-creatures in need, and this good right arm refuses to extend its
friendly aid, may my hand cleave to the roof of my mouth--O well, you
know what I mean. I used to retire to my meagre and philosophic
cot-bedstead with aching limbs and an approving conscience: I never was
worked so hard before. Some of these errands were perfectly needless, I
knew. She can't want to get me out of the way for an hour or two, for I
am never _in_ the way; nor simply to show what she can do, for that is
an old story, familiar to all concerned. Doubtless she has some high
moral end in view; perhaps to teach Hartman what are the true relations
of man and woman, and how the nobler animal can be trained to be a
helpmeet and boy-of-all-work to the weaker. Whether this will suit his
views I doubt; but she knows what she is about. It is mine not to
question why, mine not to make reply, mine simply to go on doing what my
hand finds to do--of which there is quite enough at present. Meanwhile,
everybody else is having a nice easy time, while I am laboring like six
dray-horses for the general good. Hartman sits about with Jane, and they
seem to be getting on finely. Mabel also appears to enjoy his society.
Sometimes she looks at me and at Clarice, and then at Jim, in a way
which might indicate a notion that things are too much mixed, and that
the Princess ought to be giving her attention to Hartman's case. I think
so too, but it is not for me to suggest it. I feel like asking Mrs. T.
what all these complications mean, and why she does not straighten them
out: she is Clarice's relative and hostess, and head of the house when I
am away. But it will straighten itself pretty soon now, and a new tangle
will begin for the predestined victim. Wild man of the woods, your hour
will soon strike, and the grim executioner in the black mask will
prepare to take your head off. You will see a hand not clearly visible
to the outside world--a very beautiful hand it is too, as I ought to
know--that will beckon you to your doom: you will hear a voice whose
silvery music will drown all fears, all scruples, all world-sick
longings for your woman-hating moods, all memories of your lost Lenore
of long ago, and tell you that resistance and delay are vain. What the
details of the process may be, and whether joy or woe will tip the
scales for one who takes things as seriously as you do, I cannot tell;
but it is coming, and it is coming presently. You may not like it: you
are not used to it as I am; but you cannot help yourself. Farewell to
the old life, the old delusions, the old fancied knowledge: you will
find yourself a small boy in primary school, beginning the world anew.
You think you are locked up in steel, defended by your indifference,
your disgust, your unbelief in Life. These glittering generalities will
fall into dust before the wand of a magician who has some eminently
particular business with you. You have sounded the depths, and found
them shallow; you have tested values, and they are less than nothing,
and vanity; you have emptied the pincushion, and only bran is there. My
skeptical friend, a sharp needle is there yet, and it will prick your
finger: there are depths that you know nothing about, and heights too,
it may be: there are thrills of life that will go through all your
veins, and show you that you are not as near dead as you supposed. You
were but a boy when that girl gave you your quietus, as you imagined;
you are a man now, with more in you than you fancy, and another girl may
bring you to life. Still in your ashes live their ancient fires, and I'm
mistaken if they don't start a superior blaze before long. Well, well,
I hope it will make a man of you.
X.
ON THE CLIFFS.
I was betrayed into the above apostrophe by the violence of my
sympathies; but the lucid and graphic sentences which precede this
moralizing ably sum up the situation during the first week of Hartman's
visit. A good deal of wisdom was in circulation: I said some things
myself which deserve to be remembered, and the others occasionally dropt
a remark which showed how the ball was moving. You will want the chief
of these outpourings in order of time, as landmarks in this history.
Clarice took me apart the first day and began to cross-examine me: that
is, she told me to go outside and wait for her, and by the time she came
it was dusk. Why is it that the garish day seems to freeze our finer
emotions, and reduce us to the monotonous level of a dull cold
practicality? It is under the calm light of moon and stars that soul
speaks to soul, and we gain those subtler experiences, those deeper
views of our own nature and that of our nearest and dearest, which so
far transcend the plodding sciences of the laboratory, the useless
learning of the pedant, and the empty wisdom of the children of this
world.
"Come, Robert, wake up; don't sit mooning there like a calf. Make your
report."
"Report?" said I, thus rudely startled from a train of thought which
might have borne rich fruit for coming generations. "What about?"
"What about? You forget yourself. Whose employ are you in?"
"Well, on Water Street I am supposed to be carrying on business for
myself, and at home I am the envied husband and father of a happy and
admiring family. Clarice, I was meditating on subjects of much moment;
and the duties of hospitality claim my valuable time. Did you wish to
speak to me particularly?"
"None of your nonsense, now. What did you talk about last night on the
boat?"
"All sorts of things. My conversation is always improving. I explained
to Jim that his reentrance on society could not be made under fairer
auspices; that models of deportment and of all the virtues would be
about him on every hand; that a pure atmosphere of love and peace
pervaded this modest mansion; that joy was unconfined; that we could lay
our weary heads on each other's bosoms in the repose of perfect trust,
knowing that not a thought entered any one of them which the angels
above might not look into with satisfaction, and--"
"You talk too much about bosoms, Robert: it is not in good taste. What
did you say about me?"
"Divil a word, bedad. Wasn't that right? Didn't you tell me to keep
dark, and not mention you?"
"Not unnecessarily. But didn't he ask?"
"He'd forgotten all about you. Now, Princess, don't be offended; there
was next to nothing to forget, you know. It's not as if he had ever seen
you, or really heard anything about you. O, I'll talk you up to him
whenever you say so; to-night, if you like. But I thought his forgetting
was what you wanted. Didn't I manage it well? Do own that now, please.
Let those cerulean orbs shed one ray of gentle light upon the path of a
weary wayfarer--yes, that's better. Have I merited your approval, Serene
Highness?"
"You've done very well--for you. But was it necessary to tell so many
lies, Bob?"
"Now _that_ is not in good taste, if I am a judge--to put such ugly
names upon the graceful fancies with which I decorate the plain, rude
facts of everyday life. What are we without Imagination, that glorious
gift which causes the desert to rejoice and blossom like your little
flower-bed in the back yard at home? You know, Clarice, that my mind is
a deep clear well of Truth, and my lips merely the bucket that draws it
up. Where will you get candor and veracity, those priceless pearls, if
not from me?"
"Robert, you have fallen into this way of practising your little tricks
and deceptions on everybody. O, I know you mean no harm; it is merely
for your own amusement. But Mabel and Jane don't quite understand it."
"Couldn't you explain it to them, Clarice? Some people have no sense of
humor. I can't well go around saying, This is a joke; please take it in
the spirit in which it is offered."
"O, it does no great harm: they are very seldom deceived, and perhaps
they will learn to make allowances for you by and by. But you may be
tempted to try your games on me: if I ever catch you at that--Remember,
I am not to be trifled with."
"Perish the thought, and perish the caitiff base who would harbor it.
Princess, you are sharper than I. Do you think I would be fool enough to
try any tricks on you, when I should be found out at once?"
"People generally find you out at once, but that doesn't seem to stop
you. How can I tell whether I can trust you? I don't believe you know
yourself when you are serious--if you ever are."
"There is one subject on which I am serious--deeply so, and always.
Clarice, when I die, if you will see that the autopsy is properly
performed, you will find your initials, as the poet says, neatly
engraven on my blighted heart."
"Robert, sometimes I fear you have incipient softening of the brain."
"And if I have, is not that a reason why I should be watched and guarded
tenderly--why loving arms should enfold my tottering frame, and sweet
smiles cheer my declining path, and a strong firm brain like yours
support my failing intellect? Clarice, be gentle with me. I am an orphan
like yourself; soon, if you read the future aright, to be laid beneath
the cold clods of the valley. When I am sleeping under the daisies in
the lonely churchyard, you will say to yourself, He was my friend, my
more than brother: he loved me with a loyal and self-oblivious devotion.
And then, in those sad hours of vain remembrance, every unkind word that
you have spoken, all the coldness and cruelty which have pierced my
patient breast, will return to torture yours. Be warned in time,
Clarice, and make it easy for me while you have the chance."
"Robert, if you have a talent, it is for shirking a subject you are
afraid of. When you go off like this, I know you are hiding something
from me. What is it this time?"
I saw things were getting serious. She was bound to get it out of me,
and I might as well give in. "Princess, I will confess, and throw myself
on your mercy. Strike, but hear me. It won't pay you to be cross now,
for you've got to be with me till you conclude to take Hartman up; we
can't be quarrelling all the time, you know. He asked me about you this
morning; Jane had spoken of you at breakfast. I put him off with general
remarks about your being down south last winter, and the like of that;
then suddenly my brain slipped--it _is_ softening, you see--and I said
you had come back when I was in the woods with him. That started him,
and he recalled your notion of going up there."
"You are sure you didn't mention it yourself? What did he say?"
"Merely that he wished I had let you and Jane come. He likes Jane. Upon
my honor now, he had no suspicion of anything."
"You goose, how often have I told you there was nothing to suspect? But
men are so coarse. Well, is that all? What else are you trying to
conceal?"
"On my soul, Princess, that's all. I explained it all right, and he was
commencing to berate me for not preparing him to meet you as well as the
others, when we suddenly came on you, and you struck him deaf and dumb
and blind. He swore at me under his breath just before I introduced
him." Here my feelings overcame me again.
"Well, there's no harm done. But you really must be more careful, Bob.
Try and make your poor mind work better while it lasts; don't forget my
instructions again, and when you have made a blunder, tell me at once.
You are so light, so devoted to your frivolous amusements; you seem to
be drifting into second childhood, thirty years too soon. If you had an
object, now, a serious purpose in life: if you really cared for
anything--even for me!"
She cuts me when she talks like that. "Clarice, my regard for you is so
undemonstrative that you fail to appreciate its depth. If I were to make
a fuss over it, now, and use a lot of endearing epithets and big
professions, perhaps you would believe me. Some time you will know
whether I care for you or not; whether I've got anything in me, and am
capable of acting like a man. You wait and see. But I wish I knew what
you are going to do with poor Jim."
"Some time you will know: you wait and see. You can go and comfort him
now. Good night, poor Bob."
XI.
EXPLANATIONS.
I went and comforted him. "Well, old man," I said with a cheerful air,
"how do you get on?"
"Robert," said he, "do you suppose I would have come here if I had known
what an atrocious humbug you are? Do you imagine for a moment that my
relatives, if I had any, would have subjected my innocence to such
insidious guardianship? Have you brought me here to destroy my faith,
and pollute my morals, and poison my young life with the spectacle of
your turpitude?"
"You're improving already, Jim. When I saw you last you hadn't any
faith, nor much morals; your youth was away back in the past, and your
strength was dried up like railroad doughnuts; you were ready to fall
with the first leaves of autumn. Well, since you are here, you can stay
till you see how you like us. What do you think of Clarice?"
"She has given me no basis on which to think of her, beyond her looks;
they rather take one's breath away. You beast, what do you mean by
springing a face like that on me without warning, after all your
humbugging talk last night, pretending to post me on every one I was to
meet? And I say, do you always stand guard over her when anybody comes
near?"
"Well, you see, you were so overcome by the first sight of her this
morning, that it seemed no more than fair to let you recover your
breath, as you say, and get used to her by degrees. But, James, this is
unseemly levity on your part. What have we to do with girls? Let us
leave them to the baser spirits who have use for them. The world's a
bubble, and the life of man of no account at all. We have tried it, and
it is empty; hark, it sounds. Vain pomp and glory of it all, we hate ye.
Ye tinsel gauds, ye base embroideries, ye female fripperies, have but
our scorn. What are flashing eyes, and tossing ringlets, and rosy lips,
and jewelled fingers, to minds like ours? Let us go off to the Nitrian
desert, Jim, away from this eternal simper, this harrowing routine."