Sevenoaks Part 28

"When you get ahead of Robert Belcher, drop us a line. Let it be brief and to the point. Any information thankfully received. Are you, sir, to be bothered by this pettifogger? Are you to sit tamely down and be undermined? Is that your custom? Then, sir, you are a base coward. Who said coward? Did you, sir? Let this right hand, which I now raise in air, and clench in awful menace, warn you not to repeat the d.a.m.ning accusation. Sevenoaks howls, and it is well. Let every man who stands in my path take warning. I b.u.t.ton my coat; I raise my arms; I straighten my form, and they flee away--flee like the mists of the morning, and over yonder mountain-top, fade in the far blue sky. And now, my dear sir, don't make an a.s.s of yourself, but sit down. Thank you, sir. I make you my obeisance. I retire."

Mr. Belcher's addresses to himself were growing less frequent among the excitements of new society. He had enough to occupy his mind without them, and found sufficient compet.i.tion in the matter of dress to modify in some degree his vanity of person; but the present occasion was a stimulating one, and one whose excitements he could not share with another.

His missive went to its destination, and performed a thoroughly healthful work, because it destroyed all hope of any relief from his hands, and betrayed the cruel contempt with which he regarded his old townsmen and friends.

He slept as soundly that night as if he had been an innocent infant; but on the following morning, sipping leisurely and luxuriously at his coffee, and glancing over the pages of his favorite newspaper, he discovered a letter with startling headings, which displayed his own name and bore the date of Sevenoaks. The "R" at its foot revealed Dr.

Radcliffe as the writer, and the peppery doctor had not miscalculated in deciding that "The New York Tattler" would be the paper most affected by Mr. Belcher--a paper with more enterprise than brains, more brains than candor, and with no conscience at all; a paper which manufactured hoaxes and vended them for news, bought and sold scandals by the sheet as if they were country gingerbread, and damaged reputations one day for the privilege and profit of mending them the next.

He read anew, and with marvelous amplification, the story with which the letter of his agent had already made him familiar. This time he had received a genuine wound, with poison upon the barb of the arrow that had pierced him. He crushed the paper in his hand and ascended to his room. All Wall street would see it, comment upon it, and laugh over it.

Balfour would read it and smile. New York and all the country would gossip about it. Mrs. Dillingham would peruse it. Would it change her att.i.tude toward him? This was a serious matter, and it touched him to the quick.

The good angel who had favored him all his life, and brought him safe and sound out of every dirty difficulty of his career, was already on his way with a.s.sistance, although he did not know it. Sometimes this angel had a.s.sumed the form of a lie, sometimes that of a charity, sometimes that of a palliating or deceptive circ.u.mstance; but it had always appeared at the right moment; and this time it came in the form of an interviewing reporter. His bell rang, and a servant appeared with the card of "Mr. Alphonse Tibbets of 'The New York Tattler.'"

A moment before, he was cursing "The Tattler" for publis.h.i.+ng the record of his shame, but he knew instinctively that the way out of his sc.r.a.pe had been opened to him.

"Show him up," said the proprietor at once. He had hardly time to look into his mirror, and make sure that his hair and his toilet were all right, before a dapper little fellow, with a professional manner, and a portfolio under his arm, was ushered into the room. The air of easy good-nature and good fellows.h.i.+p was one which Mr. Belcher could a.s.sume at will, and this was the air that he had determined upon as a matter of policy in dealing with a representative of "The Tattler" office. He expected to meet a man with a guilty look, and a deprecating, fawning smile. He was, therefore, very much surprised to find in Mr. Tibbets a young gentleman without the slightest embarra.s.sment in his bearing, or the remotest consciousness that he was in the presence of a man who might possibly have cause of serious complaint against "The Tattler." In brief, Mr. Tibbets seemed to be a man who was in the habit of dealing with rascals, and liked them. Would Mr. Tibbets have a cup of coffee sent up to him? Mr. Tibbets had breakfasted, and, therefore, declined the courtesy. Would Mr. Tibbets have a cigar? Mr. Tibbets would, and, on the a.s.surance that they were nicer than he would be apt to find elsewhere, Mr. Tibbets consented to put a handful of cigars into his pocket. Mr. Tibbets then drew up to the table, whittled his pencil, straightened out his paper, and proceeded to business, looking much, as he faced the proprietor, like a Sunday-school teacher on a rainy day, with the one pupil before him who had braved the storm because he had his lesson at his tongue's end.

As the substance of the questions and answers appeared in the next morning's "Tattler," hereafter to be quoted, it is not necessary to recite them here. At the close of the interview, which was very friendly and familiar, Mr. Belcher rose, and with the remark: "You fellows must have a pretty rough time of it," handed the reporter a twenty-dollar bank-note, which that gentleman pocketed without a scruple, and without any remarkable effusiveness of grat.i.tude. Then Mr. Belcher wanted him to see the house, and so walked over it with him. Mr. Tibbets was delighted. Mr. Tibbets congratulated him. Mr. Tibbets went so far as to say that he did not believe there was another such mansion in New York.

Mr. Tibbets did not remark that he had been kicked out of several of them, only less magnificent, because circ.u.mstances did not call for the statement. Then Mr. Tibbets went away, and walked off hurriedly down the street to write out his report.

The next morning Mr. Belcher was up early in order to get his "Tattler"

as soon as it was dropped at his door. He soon found, on opening the reeking sheet, the column which held the precious doc.u.ment of Mr.

Tibbets, and read:

"The Riot at Sevenoaks!!!

"An interesting Interview with Col. Belcher!

"The original account grossly Exaggerated!

"The whole matter an outburst of Personal Envy!

"The Palgrave Mansion in a fume!

"Tar, feathers and f.a.gots!

"A Tempest in a Tea-pot!

"Petroleum in a blaze, and a thousand fingers burnt!!!

"Stand out from under!!!"

The headings came near taking Mr. Belcher's breath away. He gasped, shuddered, and wondered what was coming. Then he went on and read the report of the interview:

"A 'Tattler' reporter visited yesterday the great proprietor of Sevenoaks, Colonel Robert Belcher, at his splendid mansion on Fifth Avenue. That gentleman had evidently just swallowed his breakfast, and was comforting himself over the report he had read in the 'Tattler' of that morning, by inhaling the fragrance of one of his choice Havanas. He is evidently a devotee of the seductive weed, and knows a good article when he sees it. A copy of the 'Tattler' lay on the table, which bore unmistakable evidences of having been spitefully crushed in the hand.

The iron had evidently entered the Colonel's righteous soul, and the reporter, having first declined the cup of coffee hospitably tendered to him and accepted (as he always does when he gets a chance) a cigar, proceeded at once to business.

"_Reporter_: Col. Belcher, have you seen the report in this morning's 'Tattler' of the riot at Sevenoaks, which nominally had your dealings with the people for its occasion?

"_Answer_: I have, and a pretty mess was made of it.

"_Reporter:_ Do you declare the report to be incorrect?

"_Answer:_ I know nothing about the correctness or the incorrectness of the report, for I was not there.

"_Reporter:_ Were the accusations made against yourself correct, presuming that they were fairly and truthfully reported?

"_Answer:_ They were so far from being correct that nothing could be more untruthful or more malicious.

"_Reporter:_ Have you any objection to telling me the true state of the case in detail?

"_Answer:_ None at all. Indeed, I have been so foully misrepresented, that I am glad of an opportunity to place myself right before a people with whom I have taken up my residence. In the first place, I made Sevenoaks. I have fed the people of Sevenoaks for more than ten years. I have carried the burden of their charities; kept their dirty ministers from starving; furnished employment for their women and children, and run the town. I had no society there, and of course, got tired of my hum-drum life. I had worked hard, been successful, and felt that I owed it to myself and my family to go somewhere and enjoy the privileges, social and educational, which I had the means to command. I came to New York without consulting anybody, and bought this house. The people protested, but ended by holding a public meeting, and pa.s.sing a series of resolutions complimentary to me, of which I very naturally felt proud; and when I came away, they a.s.sembled at the roadside and gave me the friendliest cheers.

"_Reporter:_ How about the petroleum?

"_Answer:_ Well, that is an unaccountable thing. I went into the Continental Company, and nothing would do for the people but to go in with me. I warned them--every man of them--but they would go in; so I acted as their agent in procuring stock for them. There was not a share of stock sold on any persuasion of mine. They were mad, they were wild, for oil. You wouldn't have supposed there was half so much money in the town as they dug out of their old stockings to invest in oil. I was surprised, I a.s.sure you. Well, the Continental went up, and they had to be angry with somebody; and although I held more stock than any of them, they took a fancy that I had defrauded them, and so they came together to wreak their impotent spite on me. That's the sum and substance of the whole matter.

"_Reporter:_ And that is all you have to say?

"_Answer:_ Well, it covers the ground. Whether I shall proceed in law against these scoundrels for maligning me, I have not determined. I shall probably do nothing about it. The men are poor, and even if they were rich, what good would it do me to get their money? I've got money enough, and money with me can never offset a damage to character. When they get cool and learn the facts, if they ever do learn them, they will be sorry. They are not a bad people at heart, though I am ashamed, as their old fellow-townsman, to say that they have acted like children in this matter. There's a half-crazy, half-silly old doctor there by the name of Radcliffe, and an old parson by the name of Snow, whom I have helped to feed for years, who lead them into difficulty. But they're not a bad people, now, and I am sorry for their sake that this thing has got into the papers. It'll hurt the town. They have keen badly led, inflamed over false information, and they have disgraced themselves.

"This closed the interview, and then Col. Belcher politely showed the 'Tattler' reporter over his palatial abode. 'Taken for all in all,' he does not expect 'to look upon its like again.'

"None see it but to love it, None name it but to praise.

"It was 'linked sweetness long drawn out,' and must have cost the gallant Colonel a pile of stamps. Declining an invitation to visit the stables,--for our new millionaire is a lover of horse-flesh, as well as the narcotic weed--and leaving that gentleman to 'witch the world with wondrous horsemans.h.i.+p,' the 'Tattler' reporter withdrew, 'pierced through with Envy's venomed darts,' and satisfied that his courtly entertainer had been 'more sinned against than sinning.'"

Col. Belcher read the report with genuine pleasure, and then, turning over the leaf, read upon the editorial page the following:

"COL. BELCHER ALL RIGHT.--We are satisfied that the letter from Sevenoaks, published in yesterday's 'Tattler,' in regard to our highly respected fellow-citizen, Colonel Robert Belcher, was a gross libel upon that gentleman, and intended, by the malicious writer, to injure an honorable and innocent man. It is only another instance of the ingrat.i.tude of rural communities toward their benefactors. We congratulate the redoubtable Colonel on his removal from so pestilent a neighborhood to a city where his sterling qualities will find 'ample scope and verge enough,' and where those who suffer 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' will not lay them to the charge of one who can, with truthfulness, declare 'Thou canst not say I did it.'"

When Mr. Belcher concluded, he muttered to himself, "Twenty dollars!--cheap enough." He had remained at home the day before; now he could go upon 'Change with a face cleared of all suspicion. A cloud of truth had overshadowed him, but it had been dissipated by the genial sunlight of falsehood. His self-complacency was fully restored when he received a note, in the daintiest text on the daintiest paper, congratulating him on the triumphant establishment of his innocence before the New York public, and bearing as its signature a name so precious to him that he took it to his own room before destroying it and kissed it.

CHAPTER XV.

WHICH TELLS ABOUT MRS. DILLINGHAM'S CHRISTMAS AND THE NEW YEAR'S RECEPTION AT THE PALGRAVE MANSION.

A brilliant Christmas morning shone in at Mrs. Dillingham's window, where she sat quietly sunning the better side of her nature. Her parlor was a little paradise, and all things around her were in tasteful keeping with her beautiful self. The Christmas chimes were deluging the air with music; throngs were pa.s.sing by on their way to and from church, and exchanging the greetings of the day; wreaths of holly were in her own windows and in those of her neighbors; and the influences of the hour--half poetical, half religious--held the unlovely and the evil within her in benign though temporary thrall. The good angel was dominant within her, while the bad angel slept.

Far down the vista of the ages, she was looking into a stable where a baby lay, warm in its swaddling-clothes, the mother bending over it. She saw above the stable a single star, which, palpitating with prophecy, shook its long rays out into the form of a cross, then drew them in until they circled into a blazing crown. Far above the star the air was populous with lambent forms and resonant with shouting voices, and she heard the words: "Peace on earth, good-will to men!" The chimes melted into her reverie; the kindly sun encouraged it; the voices of happy children fed it, and she was moved to tears.

What could she do now but think over her past life--a life that had given her no children--a life that had been filled neither by peace nor good-will? She had married an old man for his money; had worried him out of his life, and he had gone and left her childless. She would not charge herself with the crime of hastening to the grave her father and mother, but she knew she had not been a comfort to them. Her willfulness; her love of money and of power; her pride of person and accomplishments; her desire for admiration; her violent pa.s.sions, had made her a torment to others and to herself. She knew that no one loved her for anything good that she possessed, and knew that her own heart was barren of love for others. She felt that a little child who would call her "mother," clinging to her hand, or nestling in her bosom, could redeem her to her better self; and how could she help thinking of the true men who, with their hearts in their fresh, manly hands, had prayed for her love in the dawn of her young beauty, and been spurned from her presence--men now in the honorable walks of life with their little ones around them? Her relatives had forsaken her. There was absolutely no one to whom she could turn for the sympathy which in that hour she craved.

In these reflections, there was one person of her own blood recalled to whom she had been a curse, and of whom, for a single moment, she could not bear to think. She had driven him from her presence--the one who, through all her childhood, had been her companion, her admirer, her loyal follower. He had dared to love and marry one whom she did not approve, and she had angrily banished him from her side. If she only had him to love, she felt that she should be better and happier, but she had no hope that he would ever return to her.

She felt now, with inexpressible loathing, the unworthiness of the charms with which she fascinated the base men around her. The only sympathy she had was from these, and the only power she possessed was over them, and through them. The aim of her life was to fascinate them; the art of her life was to keep them fascinated without the conscious degradation of herself, and, so, to lead them whithersoever she would.

Her business was the manufacture of slaves--slaves to her personal charms and her imperious will. Each slave carried around his own secret, treated her with distant deference in society, spoke of her with respect, and congratulated himself on possessing her supreme favor. Not one of them had her heart, or her confidence. With a true woman's instinct, she knew that no man who would be untrue to his wife would be true to her. So she played with them as with puppies that might gambol around her, and fawn before her, but might not s.m.u.tch her robes with their dirty feet, or get the opportunity to bite her hand.

She had a house, but she had no home. Again and again the thought came to her that in a million homes that morning the air was full of music--hearty greetings between parents and children, sweet prattle from lips unstained, merry laughter from bosoms without a care. With a heart full of tender regrets for the mistakes and errors of the past, with unspeakable contempt for the life she was living, and with vain yearnings for something better, she rose and determined to join the throngs that were pressing into the churches. Hastily prepared for the street, she went out, and soon, her heart responding to the Christmas music, and her voice to the Christmas utterances from the altar, she strove to lift her heart in devotion. She felt the better for it. It was an old habit, and the spasm was over. Having done a good thing, she turned her ear away from the suggestions of her good angel, and, in turning away, encountered the suggestions of worldliness from the other side, which came back to her with their old music. She came out of the church as one comes out of a theater, where for hours he has sat absorbed in the fict.i.tious pa.s.sion of a play, to the grateful rush and roar of Broadway, the flas.h.i.+ng of the lights, and the shouting of the voices of the real world.

Mr. Belcher called that evening, and she was glad to see him. Arrayed in all her loveliness, sparkling with vivacity and radiant with health, she sat and wove her toils about him. She had never seemed lovelier in his eyes, and, as he thought of the unresponsive and quiet woman he had left behind him, he felt that his home was not on Fifth Avenue, but in the house where he then sat. Somehow--he could not tell how--she had always kept him at a distance. He had not dared to be familiar with her. Up to a certain point he could carry his gallantries, but no further. Then the drift of conversation would change. Then something called her away. He grew mad with the desire to hold her hand, to touch her, to unburden his heart of its pa.s.sion for her, to breathe his hope of future possession; but always, when the convenient moment came, he was gently repelled, tenderly hushed, adroitly diverted. He knew the devil was in her; he believed that she was fond of him, and thus knowing and believing, he was at his wit's end to guess why she should be so persistently perverse. He had drank that day, and was not so easily managed as usual, and she had a hard task to hold him to his proprieties. There was only one way to do this, and that was to a.s.sume the pathetic.

Then she told him of her lonely day, her lack of employment, her wish that she could be of some use in the world, and, finally, she wondered whether Mrs. Belcher would like to have her, Mrs. Dillingham, receive with her on New Year's Day. If that lady would not consider it an intrusion, she should be happy to shut her own house, and thus be able to present all the gentlemen of the city worth knowing, not only to Mrs.