The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Part 189

"My!"

The interior was as fully representative of wealth and of the ambition to put under one roof all the notable effects of all the palaces in the world. But it had, what most palaces have not, all the requisites for luxurious living. The variety of styles in the rooms was bewildering.

Artists of distinction, both foreign and native, had vied with each other in the decoration of the rooms given over to the display of their genius.

All paganism and all Christianity, history, myth, and the beauties of nature were spread upon the walls and ceilings. Rare woods, rare marbles, splendid textures, the product of ancient handiwork and modern looms, added a certain dignity to the more airy creations of the artists.

Many of the rooms were named from the nations whose styles of decoration and furnis.h.i.+ng were imitated in them, but others had the simple designation of the gold room, the silver room, the lapis-lazuli room, and so on. It was not only the show-rooms, the halls, pa.s.sages, stairways, and galleries (both of pictures and of curios) that were thus enriched, but the boudoirs, retiring-rooms, and more private apartments as well.

It was not simply a house of luxury, but of all the comfort that modern invention can furnish. It was said that the money lavished upon one or two of the n.o.ble apartments would have built a State-house (though not at Albany), and that the fireplace in the great hall cost as much as an imitation mediaeval church. These were the things talked about, and yet the portions of this n.o.ble edifice, rich as they were, habitually occupied by the family had another character--the attractions and conveniences of what we call a home. Mrs. Mavick used to say that in her apartments she found refuge in a sublimated domesticity. Mavick's own quarters--not the study off the library where he received visitors whom it was necessary to impress--had an executive appearance, and were, in the necessary appliances, more like the interior bureau of a board of trade. In fact, the witty brokers who were admitted to its mysteries called it the bucket-shop.

Mr. Brad's article on "A Prisoned Millionaire" more than equaled Philip's expectations. No such "story" had appeared in the city press in a long time. It was what was called, in the language of the period, a work of art--that is, a sensation, heightened by all the words of color in the language, applied not only to material things, but to states and qualities of mind, such as "purple emotions" and "scarlet intrepidity."

It was also exceedingly complimentary. Mavick himself was one of the powers and pillars of American society, and the girl was an exquisite exhibition of woodland bloom in the first flush of spring-time. As he read it over, Philip thought what a fine advertis.e.m.e.nt it is to every impecunious n.o.ble in Europe.

That morning, before going to his office, Philip strolled up Fifth Avenue to look at that now doubly, famous mansion. Many others, it appeared, were moved by the same curiosity. There was already a crowd a.s.sembled.

A couple of policemen, on special duty, patrolled the sidewalk in front in order to keep a pa.s.sage open, and perhaps to prevent a too impudent inspection. Opposite the house, on the sidewalk and on door-steps, was a motley throng, largely made up of toughs and roughs from the East Side, good-natured spectators who merely wanted to see this splendid prison, and a moving line of gentlemen and ladies who simply happened to be pa.s.sing that way at this time. The curbstone was lined with a score of reporters of the city journals, each with his note-book. Every window and entrance was eagerly watched. It was hoped that one of the family might be seen, or that some servant might appear who could be interviewed. Upon the windows supposed by the reporters to be those from which the heiress looked, a strict watch was kept. The number, form, and location of these windows were accurately noted, the stuff of the curtains described in the phrase of the upholsterer, and much good language was devoted to the view from these windows. The shrewdest of the reporters had already sought information as to the interior from the flower dealers, from upholsterers, from artists who had been employed in the decorations, and had even a.s.sailed, in the name of the rights of the public whom they represented, the architects of the building; but their chief reliance was upon the waiters furnished by the leading caterers on occasions of special receptions and great dinners, and milliners and dress-makers, who had penetrated the more domestic apartments. By reason of this extraordinary article in the newspaper, the public had acquired the right to know all about the private life of the Mavick family.

This right was not acknowledged by Mr. Mavick and his family. Of course the object of the excitement was wholly ignorant of the cause of it, as no daily newspaper was ever seen by her that had not been carefully inspected by the trusted and intelligent governess. The crowd in front of the mansion was accounted for by the statement that a picture of it had appeared in one of the low journals, and there was naturally a curiosity to see it. And Evelyn was told that this was one of the penalties a man paid for being popular.

Mrs. Mavick, who seldom lost her head, was thoroughly frightened and upset, and it was a rare occasion that could upset the equanimity of the late widow, Mrs. Carmen Henderson. She gave way to her pa.s.sion and demanded that the offending editor should be pursued with the utmost rigor of the law. Mr. Mavick was not less annoyed and angry, but he smiled when his wife talked of pursuing the press with the utmost rigor of the law, and said that he would give the matter prompt attention.

That day he had an interview with the editor of the Daily Spectrum; which was satisfactory to both parties. The editor would have said that Mavick behaved like a gentleman. The result of the interview appeared in the newspaper of the following morning.

Mr. Mavick had requested that the offending reporter should be cautioned; he was too wise to have further attention called to the matter by demanding his dismissal. Accordingly the reporter was severely reprimanded, and then promoted.

The editorial, which was written by Mr. Olin Brad, and was in his best Macaulay style, began somewhat humorously by alluding to the curious interest of the public in ancient history, citing Mr. Froude and Mr.

Carlyle, and the legend of Casper Hauser. It was true, gradually approaching the case in point, that uncommon precautions had been taken in the early years of the American heiress, and it was the romance of the situation that had been laid before the readers of the Spectrum. But there had been really no danger in our chivalrous, free American society, and all these precautions were long a thing of the past (which was not true). In short, with elaboration and great skill, and some humor, the exaggerations of the former article were minimized, and put in an airy and unsubstantial light. And then this friend of the people, this exposer of abuses and champion of virtue, turned and justly scored the sensational press for prying into the present life of one of the first families in the country.

Incidentally, it was mentioned that the ladies of the family had before this incident bespoken their pa.s.sage for their annual visit to Europe, and that this affair had not disturbed their arrangements (which also was not true). This casual announcement was intended to draw away attention from the Fifth Avenue house, and to notify the roughs that it would be useless to lay any plans.

The country press, which had far and wide printed the interesting story, softened it in accordance with the later development. Possibly no intelligent person was deceived, but in the estimation of the ma.s.s of the people the Spectrum increased its reputation for enterprise and smartness and gave also an impression of its fairness. The manager, told Mr. Brad that the increased sales of the two days permitted the establishment to give him a vacation of two weeks on full pay, and during these weeks the manager himself set up a neat and modest brougham.

All of which events, only partially understood, Mr. Philip Burnett revolved in his mind, and wondered if what was called success was worth the price paid for it.

VII

The name of Thomas Mavick has lost the prominence and significance it had at the time the events recorded in this history were taking place. It seems incredible that the public should so soon have lost interest in him. His position in the country was most conspicuous. No name was more frequently in the newspapers. No other person not in official life was so often interviewed. The reporters instinctively turned to him for information in matters financial, concerning deals, and commercial, which were so commonly connected with political, enterprises. No loan was negotiated without consulting him, no operation was considered safe without knowing how he was affected towards it, and to ascertain what Mavick was doing or thinking was a constant anxiety in the Street. Of course the opinion of a man so powerful was very important in politics, and any church or sect would be glad to have his support. The fact that he and his family wors.h.i.+ped regularly at St. Agnes's was a guarantee of the stability of that church, and incidentally marked the success of the Christian religion in the metropolis.

But the condition of the presence in the public mind of the name of a great operator and acc.u.mulator of money who is merely that is either that he go on acc.u.mulating, so that the magnitude of his wealth has few if any rivals, or that his name become synonymous with some gigantic cleverness, if not rascality, so that it is used as an adjective after he and his wealth have disappeared from the public view. It is different with the reputation of an equally great financier who has used his ability for the service of his country. There is no Valhalla for the mere acc.u.mulators of money. They are fortunate if their names are forgotten, and not remembered as ill.u.s.trations of colossal selfishness.

Mavick may have been the ideal of many a self-made man, but he did not make his fortune--he married it. And it was suspected that the circ.u.mstances attending that marriage put him in complete control of it.

He came into possession, however, with cultivated shrewdness and tact and large knowledge of the world, the world of diplomacy as well as of business. And under his manipulation the vast fortune so acquired was reported to have been doubled. It was at any rate almost fabulous in the public estimation.

When the charming widow of the late Rodney Henderson, then sojourning in Rome, placed her attractive self and her still more attractive fortune in the hands of Mr. Thomas Mavick, United States Minister to the Court of Italy, she attained a position in the social world which was in accord with her ambition, and Mavick acquired the means of making the mission, in point of comparison with the missions of the other powers at the Italian capital, a credit to the Great Republic. The match was therefore a brilliant one, and had a sort of national importance.

Those who knew Mrs. Mavick in the remote past, when she was the fascinating and not definitely placed Carmen Esch.e.l.le, and who also knew Mr. Mavick when he was the confidential agent of Rodney Henderson, knew that their union was a convenient and material alliance, in which the desire of each party to enjoy in freedom all the pleasures of the world could be gratified while retaining the social consideration of the world.

Both had always been circ.u.mspect. And it may be added, for the information of strangers, that they thoroughly knew each other, and were partic.i.p.ants in a knowledge that put each at disadvantage, so that their wedded life was a permanent truce. This bond of union was not ideal, and not the best for the creation of individual character, but it avoided an exhibition of those public antagonisms which so grieve and disturb the even flow of the current of society, and give occasion to so much witty comment on the inst.i.tution of marriage itself.

When, some two years after Mr. Mavick relinquished the mission to Italy to another statesman who had done some service to the opposite party, an heiress was born to the house of Mavick, her appearance in the world occasioned some disappointment to those who had caused it. Mavick naturally wished a son to inherit his name and enlarge the gold foundation upon which its perpetuity must rest; and Mrs. Mavick as naturally shrank from a responsibility that promised to curtail freedom of action in the life she loved. Carmen--it was an old saying of the danglers in the time of Henderson--was a domestic woman except in her own home.

However, it is one of the privileges of wealth to lighten the cares and duties of maternity, and the enlarged household was arranged upon a basis that did not interfere with the life of fas.h.i.+on and the charitable engagements of the mother. Indeed, this adaptable woman soon found that she had become an object of more than usual interest, by her latest exploit, in the circles in which she moved, and her softened manner and edifying conversation showed that she appreciated her position. Even the McTavishes, who were inclined to be skeptical, said that Carmen was delightful in her new role. This showed that the information Mrs. Mavick got from the women who took care of her baby was of a kind to touch the hearts of mothers and spinsters.

Moreover, the child was very pretty, and early had winning ways.

The nurse, before the baby was a year old, discovered in her the cleverness of the father and the grace and fascination of the mother.

And it must be said that, if she did not excite pa.s.sionate affection at first, she enlisted paternal and maternal pride in her career.

It dawned upon both parents that a daughter might give less cause for anxiety than a son, and that in an heiress there were possibilities of an alliance that would give great social distinction. Considering, therefore, all that she represented, and the settled conviction of Mrs.

Mavick that she would be the sole inheritor of the fortune, her safety and education became objects of the greatest anxiety and precaution.

It happened that about the time Evelyn was christened there was a sort of epidemic of stealing children, and of attempts to rob tombs of occupants who had died rich or distinguished, in the expectation of a ransom. The newspapers often chronicled mysterious disappearances; parents whose names were conspicuous suffered great anxiety, and extraordinary precautions were taken in regard to the tombs of public men. And this was the reason that the heiress of the house of Mavick became the object of a watchful vigilance that was probably never before exercised in a republic, and that could only be paralleled in the case of a sole heir-apparent of royalty.

These circ.u.mstances resulted in an interference with the laws of nature which it must be confessed destroyed one of the most interesting studies in heredity that was ever offered to an historian of social life. What sort of a child had we a right to expect from Thomas Mavick, diplomatist and operator, successor to the rights and wrongs of Rodney Henderson, and Carmen Mavick, with the past of Carmen Esch.e.l.le and Mrs. Henderson?

Those who adhered to the strictest application of heredity, in considering the natural development of Evelyn Mavick, sought refuge in the physiological problem of the influence of Rodney Henderson, and declared that something of his New England st.u.r.diness and fundamental veracity had been imparted to the inheritor of his great fortune.

But the visible interference took the form of Ann McDonald, a Scotch spinster, to whom was intrusted the care of Evelyn as soon as she was christened. It was merely a piece of good fortune that brought a person of the qualifications of Ann McDonald into the family, for it is not to be supposed that Mrs. Mavick had given any thought to the truth that the important education of a child begins in its cradle, or that in selecting a care-taker and companion who should later on be a governess she was consulting her own desire of freedom from the duties of a mother. It was enough for her that the applicant for the position had the highest recommendations, that she was prepossessing in appearance, and it was soon perceived that the guardian was truthful, faithful, vigilant, and of an affectionate disposition and an innate refinement.

Ann McDonald was the only daughter of a clergyman of the Scotch Church, and brought up in the literary atmosphere common in the most cultivated Edinburgh homes. She had been accurately educated, and always with the knowledge that her education might be her capital in life. After the death of her mother, when she was nineteen, she had been her father's housekeeper, and when in her twenty-fourth year her father relinquished his life and his salary, she decided, under the advice of influential friends, to try her fortune in America. And she never doubted that it was a providential guidance that brought her into intimate relations with the infant heiress. It seemed probable that a woman so attractive and so solidly accomplished would not very long remain a governess, but in fact her career was chosen from the moment she became interested in the development of the mind and character of the child intrusted to her care.

It is difficult to see how our modern life would go on as well as it does if there were not in our homes a good many such faithful souls. It sometimes seems, in this s.h.i.+fting world, that about the best any of us can do is to prepare some one else for doing something well.

Miss McDonald had a pretty comprehensive knowledge of English literature and history, and, better perhaps than mere knowledge, a discriminating and cultivated taste. If her religious education had twisted her view of the fine arts, she had nevertheless a natural sympathy for the beautiful, and she would not have been a Scotchwoman if she had not had a love for the romances of her native land and at heart a "ballad"

sentiment for the cavaliers. If Evelyn had been educated by her in Edinburgh, she might have been in sentiment a young Jacobite. She had through translations a sufficient knowledge of the cla.s.sics to give her the necessary literary background, and her study of Latin had led her into the more useful acquisition of French.

If she had been free to indulge her own taste, she would have gone far in natural history, as was evident from her mastery of botany and her interest in birds.

She inspired so much confidence by her good sense, clear-headedness, and discretion, that almost from the first Evelyn was confided to her sole care, with only the direction that the baby was never for an instant, night or day, to be left out of the sight of a trusty attendant. The nurse was absolutely under her orders, she selected the two maids, and no person except the parents and the governess could admit visitors to the nursery. This perfect organization was maintained for many years, and though it came to be relaxed in details, it was literally true that the heiress was never alone, and never out of the sight of some trusted person responsible for her safety. But whatever the changes or relaxation, in holidays, amus.e.m.e.nts, travel, or education, the person who formed her mind was the one who had taught her to obey, to put words together into language, and to speak the truth, from infancy.

It is not necessary to consider Ann McDonald as a paragon. She was simply an intelligent, disciplined woman, with a strong sense of duty.

If she had married and gone about the ordinary duties of life at the age of twenty-four, she would probably have been in no marked way distinguished among women. Her own development was largely due to the responsibility that was put upon her in the training of another person.

In this sense it was true that she had learned as much as she had imparted. And in nothing was this more evident than in the range of her literary taste and judgment. Whatever risks, whatever lat.i.tude she might have been disposed to take with regard to her own mind, she would not take as to the mind of another, and as a consequence her own standards rose to meet the situation. That is to say, in a conscientious selection of only the best for Evelyn, she became more fastidious as to the food for her own mind. Or, to put it in still another way, in regard to character and culture generally, the growth of Miss McDonald could be measured by that of Evelyn.

When, from the time Evelyn was seven years old, it became necessary in her education to call in special tutors in the languages and in mathematics, and in certain arts that are generally called accomplishments, Miss McDonald was always present when the lessons were given, so that she maintained her ascendency and her influence in the girl's mind. It was this inseparable companions.h.i.+p, at least in all affairs of the mind, that gave to this educational experiment an exceptional interest to students of psychology.

Nothing could be more interesting than to come into contact with a mind that from infancy onward had dwelt only upon what is n.o.blest in literature, and from which had been excluded all that is enervating and degrading. A remarkable ill.u.s.tration of this is the familiar case of Helen Keller, whose acquisitions, by reason of her blindness and deafness, were limited to what was selected for her, and that mainly by one person, and she was therefore for a long time s.h.i.+elded from a knowledge of the evil side of life. Yet all vital literature is so close to life, and so full of its pa.s.sion and peril, that it supplies all the necessary aliment for the growth of a sound, discriminating mind; and that knowledge of the world, as knowledge of evil is euphemistically called, can be safely left out of a good education. This may be admitted without going into the discussion whether good principles and standards in literature and morals are a sufficient equipment for the perils of life.

This experiment, of course, was limited in Evelyn's case. She came in contact with a great deal of life. Her little world was fairly representative, for it contained her father, her mother, her governess, the maids and the servants, and occasional visitors, whom she saw freely as she grew older. The interesting fact was that she was obliged to judge this world according to the standards of literature, morals, and manners that had been implanted in her mainly by the influence of one person. The important part of this experiment of partial exclusion, in which she was never alone' an experiment undertaken solely for her safety and not for her training-was seen in her when she became conscious of its abnormal character, and perceived that she was always under surveillance.

It might have made her exceedingly morbid, aside from its effect of paralyzing her self-confidence and power of initiation, had it not been for the exceptionally strong and cheerful nature of her companion. A position more hateful, even to a person not specially socially inclined, cannot be imagined than that of always being watched, and never having any a.s.sured privacy. And under such a tutelage and dependence, how in any event could she be able to take care of herself? What weapons had this heiress of a great fortune with which to defend herself? What sort of a girl had this treatment during seventeen years produced?

VIII

To the private apartment of Mr. Mavick, in the evening of the second eventful day, where, over his after-dinner cigar, he was amusing himself with a French novel, enters, after a little warning tap, the mistress of the house, for, what was a rare occurrence, a little family chat.

"So you didn't horsewhip and you didn't prosecute. You preferred to wriggle out!"

"Yes," said Mavick, too much pleased with the result to be belligerent, "I let the newspaper do the wriggling."

"Oh, my dear, I can trust you for that. Have you any idea how it got hold of the details?"

"No; you don't think McDonald--"