The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Part 135

"Don't say that. But you men are so reckless. Promise you won't stand on the platform, and won't get off while the train is in motion, and all the rest of the directions," she said, laughing a little with him; "and you will be careful?"

"I'll take such care of myself as I never did before, I promise. I never felt of so much consequence in my life."

"You'll think me silly. But you know, don't you, dear?" She put a hand on each shoulder, and pus.h.i.+ng him back, studied his face. "You are all the world. And only to think, day before yesterday, I didn't think of the trains at all."

To have one look like that from a woman! To carry it with him! Henderson still forgot to light his cigar.

"h.e.l.lo, Rodney!"

"Ah, Hollowell! I thought you were in Kansas City."

The new-comer was a man of middle age, thick set, with rounded shoulders, deep chest, heavy neck, iron-gray hair close cut, gray whiskers cropped so as to show his strong jaw, blue eyes that expressed at once resolution and good-nature.

"Well, how's things? Been up to fix the Legislature?"

"No; Perkins is attending to that," said Henderson, rather indifferently, like a man awakened out of a pleasant dream. "Don't seem to need much fixing. The public are fond of parallels."

Hollowell laughed. "I guess that's so--till they get 'em."

"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 acc.u.mulation 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s 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 publis.h.i.+ng 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 Esch.e.l.les, 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 comrades.h.i.+p, 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 comrades.h.i.+p 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 antic.i.p.ating 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 mult.i.tude 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 circ.u.mstances.

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 furnis.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sumption, 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-fas.h.i.+oned mansions on Was.h.i.+ngton 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 s.p.a.cious 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 suns.h.i.+ne, 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 s.e.xes, 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.