“Father’s all right, Sue. He’s always right,” Oliver answered. “He believes in Mr. Crocker, just as he believes in a lot of things that a good many people around here don’t understand. He believes the time will come when they will value his pictures, and be proud to own them. But I don’t care who owns mine; I just want the fun of painting them. Just think of what a man can do with a few tubes of color, a brush, and a bit of canvas. So I don’t care if they never buy what I paint. I can get along somehow, just as Mr. Crocker does. He’s poor, but just see how happy he is. Why, when he does a good thing he’s nothing but a boy, he’s so glad about it. I always know how his work has gone when I see his face.”
“But, Ollie, he’s so shabby, and his daughter gives music-lessons. Nobody THINKS of inviting her anywhere.” Sue’s eyes were shut tight, with an expression of assumed contempt, and her little nose was straight up.
“Yes–but that doesn’t hurt his pictures, Sue.” There was a slight trace of impatience in Oliver’s tone.
“Well, perhaps it doesn’t–but you don’t want to be like him. I wouldn’t like to see you, Ollie, going about with a picture under your arm that everybody knew you had painted yourself. And suppose that they would want to buy your pictures? How would you feel now to be taking other people’s money for things you had painted?”
The boy caught his breath. It seemed useless to pursue the talk with Sue. She evidently had no sympathy with his aspirations.
“No–but I wish I could paint as he does,” he answered, mechanically.
Sue saw the change in his manner. She realized, too, that she had hurt him in some way. She drew nearer and put her hand on his arm.
“Why, you can, Ollie. You can do anything you want to; Miss Lavinia told me so.” The little witch was mistress of one art–that of holding her lover– but that was an art of which all the girls about Kennedy Square approved.
“No, I can’t,” he replied, forgetting in the caressing touch of her hand the tribute to his ability, and delighted that she was once more in sympathy with him. “Mother wouldn’t think of my being an artist. She doesn’t understand how I feel about it, and Miss Lavinia, somehow, doesn’t seem to be favorable to it either. I’ve talked to her lots of times– she was more encouraging at first, but she doesn’t seem to like the idea now. I’ve been hoping she’d fix it so I could speak to mother about it. Now she tells me I had better wait. I can’t see why Miss Lavinia knows what an artist’s life can be, for she knew plenty of painters when she was in London with her father, and she loves pictures, too, and is a good judge–nobody here any better. She told me only a week ago how much one of these Englishmen was paid for a little thing as big as your hand, but I’ve forgotten the amount. I don’t see why I can’t paint as well as those fellows. Do you know, Sue, I’m beginning to think that about half the people in Kennedy Square are asleep? They really don’t seem to think there is anything respectable but the law. If they are right, how about all the men who painted the great pictures and built all the cathedrals, or the men who wrote all the poems and histories? Mother, of course, wants me to be a lawyer. Because I’m fitted for it?–not a bit of it! Simply because father was one before me and his father before him, and Uncle John Tilghman another, and so on back to the deluge.”
Sue drew away a little and turned her head toward the Square as if in search of someone. Oliver noticed the movement and his heart sank again. He saw but too clearly how little impression the story of his ambitions had made upon her. Then the thought flashed into his mind that he might have offended her in some way, clashing against her traditions and her prejudices as he had done. He bent toward her and laid his hand in hers.
“Little girl,” he said, in a softened tone, “I can’t make you unhappy, too. Mother is enough for me to worry about–I haven’t talked it all out to you before, but don’t you get a wrong idea of what I’m going to do–” and he looked up into her face and tightened his hold upon her fingers, his eyes never wavering from her own.
The girl allowed his hand to remain an instant, then quickly withdrew her own and started up. Coyness is sometimes fear in the timid heart that is stepping into the charmed circle for the first time.
“There goes Ella Dorsey and Jack–” she cried, springing down the steps. “Ella! El–la!” and an answering halloo came back, and the two started from Malachi’s steps and raced up the street to join their young friends.
CHAPTER IV
AN OLD-FASHIONED MORTGAGE
Pretty Sue Clayton with her ringlets and rosy cheeks had not been Oliver’s only listener.
His mother had been sitting inside the drawing- room, just beside the open window. She had spoken to Sue and Oliver when they first mounted the steps, and had begged them both to come in, but they had forgotten her presence. Unintentionally, therefore, she had heard every word of the conversation. Her old fears rushed over her again with renewed force. She had never for a moment supposed that Oliver wanted to be a painter–like Mr. Crocker! Now at last she understood his real object in talking to Lavinia the night of the musical.
“Richard,” she called softly to her husband sitting in the adjoining room, in the chair that Malachi, in accordance with the old custom, had with his sweeping bow made ready for him. The inventor had been there since tea was over, lying back in his seat, his head resting on his hand. He had had one of his thoughtful days, worrying over some detail of his machine, still incomplete. The new device of which he had told her with such glee had failed, as had the others. The motor was still incomplete.
“Richard,” she repeated.
“Yes, my dear,” he answered, in his gentle voice. He had not heard her at first.
“Bring your chair over here.”
The inventor rose instantly and, crossing the room, took a seat beside her, his hand finding hers in the dark.
“What is this you have been saying to Oliver about artists being great men?” she asked. “He’s got a new idea in his head now–he wants to be a painter. I’ve thought for some time that Mr. Crocker was not a proper person for him to be so much with. He has evidently worked on the boy’s imagination until he has determined to give up the law and study art.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve just heard him tell Sue Clayton so. All he wants now is my consent–he says he has yours.”
The inventor paused, and gently smoothed his wife’s fingers with his own.
“And you would not give it?” he inquired.
“How could I? It would ruin him–don’t you know it?” There was a slight tinge of annoyance in her voice–not one of fault-finding, but rather of anxiety.
“That depends, my dear, on how well he could succeed,” he answered, gently.
“Why, Richard!” She withdrew her hand quickly from his caressing touch, and looked at him in undisguised astonishment. “What has his SUCCEEDING
to do with it? Surely you cannot be in earnest? I am willing he should do anything to make his living, but not that. No one we know has ever been a painter. It is neither respectable nor profitable. You see what a dreadful existence Mr. Crocker leads –hardly an associate in town, and no acquaintances for his daughter, and he’s been painting ever since he was a boy. Oliver could not earn a penny at such work.”
“Money is not everything, my dear, nor social recognition. There are many things I would value more.”
“What are they?” She was facing him now, her brows knit, a marked antagonism in her voice.
“Good manners and good taste, Sallie, and kindly consideration for another’s feelings,” he answered. He spoke calmly and kindly, as was his custom. He had lived almost all his life with this high-strung Sallie Horn, whose eyes flashed now and then as they had done in the old days when he won her hand. He knew every side of her temperament. “Good manners, and good taste”–he repeated, as if wishing to emphasize his thoughts–“Oliver has all of these, and he has, besides, loyalty to his friends. He never speaks of Mr. Crocker but with affection, and I love to hear him. That man is an artist of great talent, and yet it seems to be the fashion in this town to ridicule him. If Ollie has any gifts which would fit him to be a painter, I should be delighted to see him a painter. It is a profession despised now, as are many others, but it is the profession of a gentleman, for all they say, and a noble one!” Then he stopped and said, thoughtfully, as if communing with himself–“I wish he could be a painter. Since Gilbert Stuart’s time we have had so few men of whom we can boast. This country will one day be proud to honor her artists.”
Mrs. Horn sank back in her chair. She felt the hopelessness of all further discussion with her husband. “He would not have talked this way ten
years ago,” she said to herself. “Everything has gone wrong since he left the law.” But to her husband she said:
“You always measure everything by your hopes, Richard, and you never look at the practical side of anything. Ollie is old enough to begin to think how he will earn his bread. I see now how hopeless it is for us to try and make a lawyer of him–his heart is not in it. I have come little by little to the conclusion that what he wants most is hard work, and he wants it right away, just as soon as we can find something for him to do–something with his hands, if necessary, not something full of dreams and imaginings,” and her voice rose in its earnestness. “I am getting more and more anxious about him every day,” she added, suddenly controlling herself, “and when you encourage him in foolish vagaries you only make it harder for me, dear,” and her voice softened and broke with emotion.
“He ought to have gone into the laboratory, Sallie,” Richard added quickly, in a reflective tone–laying his hand on her shoulder as he noticed the change of voice–” just as I wanted him to do when he left school. There is a future for scientific men in this country which you do not see–a future which few around me seem to see. Great changes are coming, not only in science, but in the arts and in all useful knowledge. If Ollie can add to the brilliancy of this future by becoming a brilliant painter, able to help educate those about him, there could be no higher calling for him. Three things are coming, my dear –perhaps four.” The inventor had risen from his seat and stood beside her, his eyes turned away into the dark as if he were addressing some unseen person. “The superseding of steam, aerial locomotion, and the education of the common people, black and white. One other may come–the freeing of the slaves–but the others are sure. Science, not money, nor family traditions, nor questions of birth, will shape the destinies of the country. We may not live to see it, but Oliver will, and I want him to be where he can help on the movement. You were opposed to his becoming a scientist, and I feel assured made a mistake. Don’t stand in his way again, dear.”
“Yes, Richard, I was opposed to it, because I did not want him to waste his time over all sorts of foolish experiments, which would certainly–” She did not finish the sentence. Her anxiety had not yet gone as far as that. With a quick gesture she rose from her chair and drawing her white gossamer shawl about her shoulders–left the room and walked out onto the front steps, followed by Richard.
If the inventor heard the thrust he did not reply. He would not argue with his wife over it, nor did it check the flow of his courtesy. She had never seen the value of what he was striving for, but she would in time he knew.
“Yes, I think it is cooler out here,” was all he said, as he placed a cushion to soften her seat on the threshold. When he had arranged another pillow behind her back and hunted round the dark parlor for a stool for her feet, he found a chair for himself and sat down beside her. She thanked him, but her thoughts were evidently far away. She was weighing in her mind what must be her next move if Oliver persisted in this new departure. Richard broke the silence.
“I haven’t told you of the good offer I’ve had for the farm, Sallie.”
“No, but we’re not going to sell it, of course.” She was leaning back against the jamb of the door as she spoke, the shawl hanging loose, her delicate white hands in her lap. It was an idle answer to an idle question, for her mind was still with Oliver.
“Well, I hadn’t thought of doing so until to-day,” he answered, slowly, “but I had a notice from the bank that they must call in the mortgage, and so I thought I might as well sell the whole place, pay off the debt, and use the balance for–“
“Sell the farm, Richard?” It was her hand now that sought his, and with a firm grasp as if she would restrain him then and there in his purpose.
“Yes, I can get several thousand dollars over and above the mortgage, and I need the money, Sallie. It will only be a temporary matter–” and he smoothed her arm tenderly, speaking as a lover of long standing might do who is less absorbed with the caress than with the subject under discussion. “The motor will be ready in a few weeks–as soon as the new batteries are finished. Then, my dear, you won’t have to curtail your expenses as you have done.” His voice was full of hope now, a smile lighting his face as he thought of all the pleasure and comfort his success would bring her.
“But you said that same thing when you were working on the steam-valve, for which you put that very mortgage on the farm, and now that’s all gone and–“
“The failure of the steam-valve, as I have always told you, was due to my own carelessness, Sallie. I should have patented it sooner. They are making enormous sums on it, I hear, and are using my cut- off, and I think dishonestly. But the motor has been protected at every new step that I have taken. My first patent of August 13, 1856, supersedes all others, and cannot be shaken. Now, my dear, don’t worry about it–you have never known me to fail, and I won’t now. Besides, you forget my successes, Sallie–the turbine water-wheel and the others. It will all come, right.”
“It will never come right.” She had risen from her seat, and was standing over, him, both hands on his shoulders, her eyes looking down into his, her voice trembling. “Oh, Richard, Richard! Give up this life of dreams you are living, and go back to your law-office. You always succeeded in the law. This new career of yours is ruining us. I can economize, dear, just as I have always done,” she added, with another sudden change of tone, bending over him and slipping her hand caressingly into his. “I will do everything to help you. I did not mean to be cross a moment ago. I was worried about Oliver’s talk. I have been silent so long–I must speak. Don’t be angry, dear, but you must keep the farm. I will go myself and see about the mortgage at the bank–we cannot–we must not; go on this way– we will have nothing left.”
He patted her arm again in his gentle way–not to calm her fears, he knew so well that she was wrong, but to quiet the nerves that he thought unstrung.
“But I need this extra money for some improvements which I–“
“Yes, I know you THINK so, but you don’t, Richard, you don’t?” For Heaven’s sake, throw the motor out into the street, and be done with it. It will ruin us all if things go on as they have done.”
The inventor raised his eyes quickly. He had never seen her so disturbed in all their married life. She had never spoken in this way before.
“Don’t excite yourself, Sallie,” he said, gravely, and with a certain air of authority in his manner. “You’ll bring on one of your headaches–it will all come right. Come, my dear, let us go into the house. People are passing, and will wonder.”
She followed him back into the drawing-room, his hand still held fast in hers.
“Promise me one thing,” she said, stopping at the door and looking up into his eyes, “and I won’t say another word. Please do nothing more about the farm unless you let me know. Let me think first how I can help. It will all come out right, as you say, but it will be because we will make it come right, dear.” She drew his face down toward her with one hand and kissed him tenderly on his cheek. Then she bade him good-night and resumed her seat by the window, to watch for Oliver’s return.
Try as she would, she could not banish her fears. The news of Richard’s intention to pay off the loan by selling the farm had sent a shudder through her heart such as she had never before experienced, for that which she had dreaded had come to pass. Loyal as she had always been to her husband, and proud as she was of his genius and accomplishments, and sympathetic as they were in all else that their lives touched upon, her keen, penetrating mind had long since divined the principal fault that lay at the bottom of her husband’s genius. She saw that the weak point in his make-up was not his inventive quality, but his inability to realize any practical results from his inventions when perfected. She saw, too, with equal certainty how rapidly their already slender means were being daily depleted in costly experiments– many of which were abandoned as soon as tried, and she knew full well that the end was but a question of time. Even when he had abandoned the law, and had exchanged his office near the Court-house for his shop in the back yard, and had given his library to his young students, she had not despaired; she still had faith in his genius.
She had first become uneasy when the new steam cut-off had failed to reimburse him. When this catastrophe was followed by his losing every dollar of his interest in the improved cotton-gin, because of his generosity to a brother inventor, her uneasiness had become the keenest anxiety. And now here was this new motor, in which he seemed more absorbed than in any other of his inventions. This was to plunge them into still greater difficulties and jeopardize even the farm.
Richard had not been disturbed by it all. Serene and hopeful always, the money question had counted for nothing with him. His compensation lay in the fact that his theories had been proved true. More- over, there were, he knew, other inventions ahead, and more important discoveries to be made. If money were necessary, these new inventions would supply it. Such indifference to practical questions was an agony to one of her temperament, burdened as she was by the thought of their increasing daily expenses, the magnitude of which Richard never seemed to appreciate.
And yet until to-night, when Richard had made his announcement about the mortgage, she had made no protest, uttered no word of censure. Neither had any jar or discord ever disturbed the sweet harmony of their home-life. And she had only behaved as any other wife in Kennedy Square would have done in like circumstances. Remonstrances against a husband’s business methods were never made in the best families. In his own house Richard was master. So she had suffered on and held her peace, while Richard walked with his head in the clouds, unconscious of her doubts. The situation must now be met, and she determined to face it with all her might. “The farm shall not be sacrificed, if I can help it,” she kept repeating to herself; “any economy is better than that disaster.”
When at last the shock of the news of the threatened disaster had passed, and she had regained her customary composure, she decided to act at once and at head-quarters, outside of Richard’s help or knowledge. She would send for Colonel Clayton, one of the directors of the bank, in the morning, and see what could be done to postpone for a time the bank’s action. This would give her time to think what next could best be done to save the property. This settled in her mind, she gave herself up to the more important and pressing need of the moment–the dissuading of Oliver from this new act of folly.
At the end of an hour she was still sitting by the drawing-room window, straining her eyes across the Square, noting every figure that passed into the radiance of the moonlight, her mind becoming clearer as her indomitable will, which had never failed her in domestic crises, began to assert itself.
When her eye fell at last upon her son, he was walking with swinging gait up the long path across the Square, whistling as he came, his straw hat tilted on one side, his short coat flying free. He had taken Sue home, and the two had sat on her father’s steps in the moonlight long after the other boys and girls had scattered to their homes. The Colonel had come in while they were talking, and had bade them good- night and gone up to bed.
Girl as she was, Sue already possessed that subtle power of unconscious coquetry which has distinguished all the other Sue Claytons of all the other Kennedy Squares the South over since the days of Pocahontas. She had kept Oliver’s mind away from the subject that engrossed him, and on herself; and when, at last, standing between the big columns of the portico she had waved her hand, good-night, and had gained his promise to stop in the morning on his way to the office, for just another word, she felt sure that his every thought was of her. Then she had closed the big front door–she was the last person in the house awake–and tripped upstairs, not lighting her candle until she had peeped through her shutters, and had found him standing on the other side of the street looking toward the house. He made a handsome picture of a lover, as he stood in the moonlight, and Sue smiled complacently to herself at the delicate attention paid her, but Oliver’s eyes, the scribe is ashamed to say, were not fixed on the particular pair of green blinds that concealed this adorable young lady, certainly not with any desire to break through their privacy. One of the unforgivable sins–nay, one of the impossible sins–about Kennedy Square would have been to have recognized a lady who looked, even during the daytime, out from a bedroom window: much less at night. That was why Sue did not open her blinds.
Nor, indeed, was Oliver occupied with the question of Sue’s blinds at all. He had for the moment in fact completely forgotten the existence of his lady- love. He was, if the truth must be told, studying the wonderful effect of the white light of the moon flooding with its radiance the columns and roof of the Clayton house, the dark magnolias silhouetted against the flight of steps and the indigo-blue of the sky. He had already formulated in his mind the palette with which he would paint it, and had decided that the magnolias were blue-black and not green, and the steps greenish-white. He had, furthermore, determined to make an outline of it in the daylight, and talk to Mr. Crocker about it. Sue’s eyes, which but a moment before had so charmed him, no longer lingered in his memory–nor even in any one of the far corners of his head and heart. It was only when her light flashed up that he awoke to the realization of what he was doing, and even this breach of good manners was forgotten by him in his delight over the effect which the red glow of the candle gave to the whole composition.
With the picture clearly stamped upon his brain, he turned and stepped quickly across the Square, and in another moment he had thrown his mother a kiss through the window, and rushing inside had caught her in his arms.
“Poor motherkins–and you all alone,” he cried. “Why, I thought you and father had gone to bed long ago.”
“No, son–I was waiting for you.” He laid his fresh young face against hers, insisting that she must go to bed at once; helping her upstairs awkwardly, laughing as he went–telling her she was the sweetest girl he ever knew and his best sweetheart–kissing her pale cheeks as they climbed the steps together to his room.
She had determined, as she sat by the window, to talk to him of what she had overheard him say to Sue, and of her anxiety over Richard’s revelations, but his joyous kiss had robbed her of the power. She would wait for another time–she said to herself– not to-night, when he was so happy.
“Anybody at Sue’s, Ollie?” she asked, lighting his candle.
“Only the boys and girls–Tom Pitts, Charley Bowman, Nellie Talbot, and one or two others. The Colonel came in just before I left.”
“But the Colonel will be home to-morrow, will he not?” she asked, quickly, as if something forgotten had been suddenly remembered.
“Yes–think so–” answered Oliver, taking off his coat and hanging it over the chair–“because he was just up from Pongateague. He and Major Pitts got thirty-seven woodcock in two days. Tom wants me to go down with him some day next week. “
A shade of anxiety crossed the mother’s face.
“What did you tell him, son?” She moved a chair nearer the bureau and sat down to watch him undress, as she had always done since the day she first tucked him into his crib.
“Oh, I said I would ask you.” He was loosening his cravat, his chin thrown up, the light of the candle falling over his well-knit shoulders and chest outlined through his white shirt.
“Better not go, Ollie–you’ve been away so much lately.”
“Oh, dearie,” he protested, in a tone as a child would have done, “what does a day or two matter? Be a darling old mother and let me go. Tom has a gun for me, and Mr. Talbot is going to lend us his red setter. Tom’s sister is going, too, and so are her cousins. Just think, now, I haven’t had a day in the country for a coon’s age.” His arms were round her neck now. He seemed happier over the excuse to caress her than anxious about her possible refusal.
She loosened one of his hands and laid it on her cheek.
“No holidays, son? Why you had two last week, when you all went out to Stemmer’s Run,” she said, looking up into his face, his hand still in hers.
“Yes, but that was fishing!” he laughed as he waved an imaginary rod in his hands.
“And the week before, when you spent the day at Uncle Tilghman’s?” she continued, smiling sadly at him, but with the light of an ill-concealed admiration on her face.
“Ah, but mother, I went to see the Lely! That’s an education. Oh, that portrait in pink!” He was serious now, looking straight down into her eyes– talking with his hands, one thumb in air as if it were a bit of charcoal and he was outlining the Lely on an equally real canvas. “Such color, mother– such an exquisite poise of the head and sweep to the shoulder–” and the thumb described a curve in the air as if following every turn of Lely’s brush.
Her eyes followed his gestures–she loved his enthusiasm, although she wished it had been about
something else.
“And you don’t get any education out of the Judge’s law-books?”
“No, I wish I did.” The joyous look on his face was gone now–his hand had fallen to his side. “It gets to be more of a muddle every day–” and then he added, with the illogical reasoning of youth–“all the lawyers that ever lived couldn’t paint a picture like the Lely.”
Mrs. Horn closed her eyes. It was on her tongue to tell him she knew what was in his heart, but she stopped; no, not to-night, she said firmly to herself, and shut her lips tight–a way she had of bracing her nerves in such emergencies.
Oliver in turn saw the expression of anxiety that crossed his mother’s face and the thin drawn line of the lips. One word from her and he would have poured out his heart. Then some shadow that crossed her face silenced him. “No, not to-night–” he said to himself. “She has been sitting up for me and is tired–I’ll tell her to-morrow.”
“Don’t go with Tom Pitts, my son,” she said, calmly. “I’d rather you’d stay; I don’t want you to go this time. Perhaps a little later–” and a slight shiver went through her as she rose from her chair and moved toward him.
He made no protest. Her final word was always law to him–not because she dominated him, but because his nature was always to be in harmony with the thing he loved. Because, too, underneath it all was that quality of tenderness to all women old and young, which forbade him to cause one of them pain. Almost unconsciously to himself he had gone through a process by which from having yielded her the obedience of a child, he now surrendered to her the pleasures of his youth when the old feeling of maternal dominance still controlled her in her attitude to him. She did not recognize the difference, and he had but half-perceived it, but the difference had already transformed him from a boy into a man, though with unrecognized powers of stability as yet. In obeying his mother, then at twenty-two, or even in meeting the whims and conceits of his sweethearts, this quality of tenderness to the woman was always uppermost in his heart. The surrender of a moment’s pleasure seemed so little to him compared to the expression of pain he could see cross their faces. He had so much to make him happy–what mattered it if out of a life so full he should give up any one thing to please his mother.
Patting him on the cheek and kissing him on the neck, as she had so often done when some sudden wave of affection overwhelmed her, she bade him good-night at last.
Once outside in the old-fashioned hall, she stopped for a moment, her eyes fixed on the floor, the light from the hall-lamp shining on her silver hair and the shawl about her shoulders, and said slowly to herself, as if counting each word:
“What–can I do–to save this boy–from–himself?”
CHAPTER V
A MESSAGE OF IMPORTANCE
Richard, when he waked, made no allusion to the mortgage nor to his promise the night before, to take no steps in the matter without her consent, nor could Mrs. Horn see that the inventor had given the subject further thought. He came in to breakfast with his usual serenity of mien, kissed her gallantly on the cheek–in all their married life this dear old gentleman had never forgotten this breakfast kiss– and taking his seat opposite her, he picked up the new Scientific Review, just in by the morning mail, and began cutting the leaves. She tried to draw him into conversation by asking him when the note on the mortgage was due, but his mind was doubtless absorbed by some problem suggested by the Review before him, for without answering–he, of course, had not heard her–he rose from his chair, excused himself for a moment, opened a book in his library, studied it leisurely, and only resumed his seat when Malachi gently touched his elbow and said:
“Coffee purty nigh done sp’ilt, Marse Richard.”
Breakfast over, Richard picked up his letters, and with that far-away look in his eyes which his wife knew so well, walked to the closet, took down his long red calico gown, slipped it over his coat, and with a loving pat on his wife’s shoulder as he passed, and with the request that no one but Nathan should see him that morning, made his way through the damp brick-paved back yard to the green door of his “li’l” room.
Mrs. Horn watched his retreating figure from the window–his head bent, his soft hair stirred by the morning air, falling about his shoulders. His serenity; his air of abstraction; of being wrapped in the clouds as it were–borne aloft by the power of a thought altogether beyond her, baffled her as it always did. She could not follow his flights when he was in one of these uplifted moods. She could only watch and wait until he returned again to the common ground of their daily love and companionship.
Brushing a quick tear from her eyes with an impatient sigh, she directed Malachi to go to Oliver’s room and tell him he must get up at once, as she wanted him to carry a message of importance. She had herself rapped at her son’s door as she passed on her way downstairs, and Malachi had already paid two visits to the same portal–one with Oliver’s shoes and one on his own account. He had seen his mistress’s anxiety, and knowing that his young master had come in late the night before, had mistaken the cause, charging Mrs. Horn’s perturbation to Oliver’s account. The only response Oliver had made to either of his warnings had been a smothered yawn and a protest at being called at daylight. On his third visit Malachi was more insistent, the hall-clock by that time having struck nine.
“Ain’t you out’en dat bed yit, Marse Oliver? Dis yere’s de third time I been yere. Better git up; yo’ ma’s gittin’ onres’less.”
“Coming, Mally. Tell mother I’ll be down right away,” called Oliver, springing out of bed. Malachi stepped softly downstairs again, bowed low to his mistress, and with a perfectly straight face said:
“He’s mos’ ready, mistis. Jes’ a-breshin’ ob his ha’r when I opened de do’. Spec’ Marse Oliver overslep’ hisse’f, or maybe nobody ain’t call him–“
He could not bear to hear the boy scolded. He had begun to shield his young master in the days when he carried him on his shoulder, and he would still shade the truth for him whenever he considered necessity required it.
When Oliver at last came downstairs it was by means of the hand-rail as a slide, a dash through the hall and a bound into the breakfast-room, followed by a joyous good-morning, meeting his mother’s “How could you be so late, my boy,” without any defence of his conduct, putting one hand under her chin and the other around her neck, and kissing her where her white hair parted over her forehead.
Malachi waited an instant, breathing freer when he found that his statement regarding Oliver’s toilet had passed muster, and then shuffled off to the kitchen for hot waffles and certain other comforting viands that Aunt Hannah, the cook, had kept hot for her young master, Malachi’s several reports having confirmed her suspicions that Oliver, as usual, would be half an hour late.
“What a morning, motherkins,” Oliver cried. “Such a sky, all china-blue and white. Oh, you just ought to see how fine the old church looms up behind the trees. I’m going to paint that some day, from my window. Dad had his breakfast?” and he glanced at the empty seat and plate. “Sausage, eh? Mally, got any for me?” and he dragged up his chair beside her, talking all the time as he spread his napkin and drew the dishes toward him.
He never once noticed her anxious face, he was so full of his own buoyant happiness. She did not check his enthusiasm. This breakfast-hour alone with her boy–he was almost always later than Richard –was the happiest of the day. But her heart was too heavy this morning to enjoy it. Instead of listening with her smile of quiet satisfaction, answering him now and then with a gayety of humor which matched his own, she was conscious only of the waiting for an opportunity to break into his talk with out jarring upon his mood. At last, with a hesitating emphasis that would have alarmed anyone less wrapped in his own content than her son, she said:
“Ollie, when you finish your breakfast I want you, on your way to Judge Ellicott’s office, to stop at Colonel Clayton’s and ask him to be good enough to come and see me as soon as he can on a little matter of business. Tell him I will keep him but a minute. If you hurry, my son, you’ll catch him before he leaves the house.”
The die was cast now. She had taken her first step without Richard’s hand to guide her–the first in all her life. It was pain to do it–the more exquisite because she loved to turn to him for guidance or relief, to feel the sense of his protection. Heretofore he had helped her in every domestic emergency, his soft, gentle hand soothing and quieting her, when troubles arose. She had wavered during the night between her duty to her family in saving the farm, and her duty to her husband in preserving unbroken the tie of loyal dependence that had always bound them together. Many emotions had shaken her as she lay awake, her eyes fixed on the flutings in the canopy of the high-post bedstead which the night-lamp faintly illumined, Richard asleep beside her, dreaming doubtless of cogs and pulleys and for the hundredth time of his finding the one connecting link needed to complete the chain of his success.
But before the day had broken, her keen, penetrating mind had cut through the fog of her doubts. Come what may, the farm should never be given up. Richard, for all his urgent need of money to perfect his new motor, should not be allowed to sacrifice this the only piece of landed property which they possessed, except the roof that sheltered them all. The farm saved, she would give her attention to Oliver’s future career. On one point her mind was firmly made up–he should never, in spite of what his father said, become a painter.
Oliver hurried through his breakfast, cut short Malachi’s second relay of waffles to the great disappointment of that excellent servitor, and with his mother’s message for the moment firmly fixed in his mind, tilted his hat on one side of his head and started across Kennedy Square, whistling as he went.
Mrs. Horn moved her seat to the window and looked out upon the brick-paved yard. The door of the shop was shut. Richard was already at work, for a thin curl of blue smoke was rising from the chimney. As she sat looking out upon the tulip-tree and the ivy-covered wall beyond, a strange, unaccountable sense of loneliness new in her experience came over her. The lines about her mouth settled more firmly, and the anxious look that had filled her eyes changed to one of determination.
“Nobody can help,” she said to herself with a sigh. “I must do it all myself;” and picking up her basket of keys she mounted slowly to her room.
Once outside the front door, with the fresh, clear air stirring to a silver-white the leaves of the maples, the birds singing in the branches and the sky glistening overhead, one of those sudden changes of mood to which our young hero was subject swept over him. The picture of the dear mother whom he loved and whose anxious face had at last filled his thoughts, by some shifting of the gray matter of this volatile young gentleman’s brain had suddenly become replaced by another.
Pretty Sue Clayton, her black eyes snapping with fun, her hand so soon to be outstretched in welcome, was now the dominating figure in his mental horizon. Even Sir Peter Lely’s girl in pink and the woodcock shooting with Tom Pitts, and all the other delights that had filled his brain had become things of the past as he thought of Sue’s greeting. For the time being this black-eyed little witch with the ringlets about her face had complete possession of him.
He had not thought of her, it is true, for five consecutive minutes since he had bidden her good-night ten hours ago; and he would, I am quite sure, have forgotten even his promise to see her this morning had not his mother’s message made his going to her house imperative. And yet, now that the prospect of having a glimpse of her face was assured, he could hardly wait until he reached her side.
Not that he had some new thing to tell her– something that had bubbled up fresh from the depths of his heart over-night. Indeed, had that portion of this young gentleman’s anatomy been searched with a dark lantern, it can safely be said that not the slightest suggestion of this fair inamorata’s form or lineaments would have been found lurking in any one of its recesses. Furthermore, I can state positively –and I knew this young gentleman quite well at the time–that it was not Sue at all that he longed for at this precise moment, even though he hurried to meet her. It was more the WOMAN IN HER–the something that satisfied his inner nature when he was with her–her coy touches of confidence, her artless outbursts of admiration, looking up in his face as she spoke, the dimples playing about the corners of her mouth. He revelled in all those subtle flatteries and cajoleries, and in all the arts to please of which she was past mistress. He loved to believe her–she intended that he should–when she told him how different he was from anybody about Kennedy Square, and how nobody swam or rode or danced as he did; nor wore their hair so becomingly, nor their clothes–especially the gray jacket buttoned up close under the chin, not carried themselves as they walked; nor–
Why go on? We all know exactly how she said it, and how sincere she seemed, and how we believed it all (and do now, some of us), and how blissful it was to sit beside her and hear her voice and know that this most adorable of women really believed that the very sun itself rose and set in our own adorable persons.
Because of all this and of many other things with which we have nothing to do, our young hero saw only Sue’s eyes when that maiden, who had been watching for him at the library window, laid her hand on the lapel of his coat in her coaxing way. No wonder he had forgotten everything which his mother had asked him to do. I can forgive him under the circumstances–and so can you. Soft hands are very beguiling, sometimes–and half-closed lids–Well! It is a good many years ago, but there are some things that none of us ever forget.
Blinded by such fascinations it is not at all astonishing that long before Oliver regained his senses the Colonel had left the house for the day. That distinguished gentleman would, no doubt, have waited
the young prince’s pleasure in his library had he known of his errand. But since the Colonel had unfortunately taken himself off, there was nothing, of course, for our Oliver to do but to remain where he was until noon–this was Sue’s way out of the difficulty –and then to catch the Colonel at the bank where he could always be found between twelve and one o’clock, or where Mr. Stiger, the cashier, could lay his hands on him if he was anywhere in the neighborhood, a suggestion of Sue’s which at once relieved Oliver from further anxiety, Mr. Stiger being one of his oldest and dearest friends.
By the time, however, that Oliver had reached the bank the Colonel had left for the club, where he would have been too happy, no doubt–being the most courteous of colonels, etc., etc.–“if his dear young friend had only sent him word,” etc.
All this our breathless young Mercury–Oliver never walked when he could run–learned some hours later from old Mr. Stiger, the cashier, who punched him in the ribs at the end of every sentence in which he conveyed the disappointing information, calling him “Creeps,” at short intervals, and roaring with laughter at the boy’s account of the causes leading up to his missing the Colonel.
“Gone to the club, Creeps, don’t I tell you (–punch in the ribs–); gone to get a little sip of Madeira and a little bit of woodcock (–punch over the heart–), and a little–oh, I tell you, you young dog–” (this punch straight on the breast-bone)– “you ought to be a bank director–you hear!–a big fat bank director, and own a big house up in the Square, if you want to enjoy yourself–and have a pretty daughter–Oh, you young rascal!” This last punch bent Oliver double, and was followed by an outburst of uncontrollable laughter from Stiger.
These same punchings and outbursts had gone on since the days that Oliver was in short trousers and Stiger was superintendent of the Sunday-school which the boy had attended in his early years–Stiger was still superintendent and of the same school: cashiers had to have certificates of character in those days. A smooth-shaven, round-headed old fellow was Stiger, with two little dabs of side-whiskers, a pair of eyes that twinkled behind a pair of gold spectacles, and a bald head kept polished by the constant mopping of a red silk handkerchief. His costume in the bank was a black alpaca coat and high black satin stock, which grabbed him tight around the neck, and held in place the two points of his white collar struggling to be free. Across his waist-line was a square of cloth. This, in summer, replaced his waistcoat, and, in winter, protected it from being rubbed into holes by constant contact with the edge of the counter.
His intimacy with Oliver dated from one hot Sunday morning years before, when Oliver had broken in upon the old gentleman’s long prayers by sundry scrapings of his finger-nails down the whitewashed wall of the school-room, producing a blood-cooling and most irreverent sound, much to the discomfort of the worshippers.
“Who made that noise?” asked Mr. Stiger, when the amen was reached.
“Me, sir.”
“What for?”
“To get cool. It makes creeps go down my back.” From that day the old cashier had never called Oliver anything but “Creeps.”
Oliver, in a spirit of playful revenge, made caricatures of his prosecutor in these later years, enlarging his nose, puffing out his cheeks, and dressing him up in impossible clothes. These sketches he would mail to the cashier as anonymous communications, always stopping at the bank the next day to see how Stiger enjoyed them. He generally found them tacked up over the cashier’s desk. Some of them were still there when Stiger died.
Carried away by the warm greetings of the old cashier, and the hearty, whole-souled spirit of companionship inherent in the man–a spirit always dear to Oliver–he not only stayed to make another caricature of the old fellow, over which the original laughed until the tears ran down his fat cheeks, but until all the old sketches were once more taken from the drawer or examined on the wall and laughed at over again, Stiger praising him for his cleverness and predicting all kinds of honors and distinctions for him when his talents become recognized. It was just the atmosphere of general approval in which our young hero loved to bask, and again the hours slipped away and three o’clock came and went and his mother’s message was still undelivered. Nor had he been at Judge Ellicott’s office. This fact was not impressed upon him by the moon-faced clock that hung over the cashier’s desk–time made no difference to Oliver–but by the cashier himself, who began stuffing the big books into a great safe built into the wall, preparatory to locking it with a key that could have opened the gate of a walled town, and which the old gentleman took home with him every night and hung on a nail by his bed.
Thus it came to pass that another half hour had struck before Oliver mounted the steps of the Chesapeake Club in search of the elusive Colonel.
The fat, mahogany-colored porter, who sat all day in the doorway of the club, dozing in his lobster- shell bath-chair, answered his next inquiry. This ancient relic; who always boasted that no gentleman member of the club, dead or alive, could pass him without being recognized, listened to Oliver’s request with a certain lifeless air–a manner always shown to strangers–and shuffled away to the reading-room to find the Colonel.
The occupant of this bath-chair was not only one of the characters of the club but one of the characters of the town. He was a squat, broken-kneed old darky, with white eyebrows arching over big brass spectacles, a flat nose, and two keen, restless monkey eyes. His hands, like those of many negroes of his age, were long and shrivelled, the palms wrinkled as the inside, of a turkey’s foot and of the same color and texture. His two feet, always in evidence, rested on their heels, and were generally encased in carpet slippers–shoes being out of the question owing to his life-long habit of storing inside his own person the drainings of the decanters, an idiosyncrasy which produced a form of gout that only carpet slippers could alleviate. In his earlier life he had carried General Washington around in his arms, had waited on Henry Clay, and had been body-servant to Lafayette, besides holding the horses of half the generals of the War of 1812–at, least, he said so, and no man of his color dared contradict him.
The years of service of this guardian of the front door dated back to the time when the Chippendale furniture of Colonel Ralph Coston, together with many of the portraits covering the walls, and the silver chafing-dishes lining the sideboard, had come into the possession of the club through that gentleman’s last will and testament. Coston was the most beloved of all the epicures of his time, and his famous terrapin- stew–one of the marvellous, delicacies of the period –had been cooked in these same chafing-dishes. The mahogany-colored Cerberus had been Coston’s slave as well as butler, and still belonged to the estate. It was eminently proper, therefore, that he should still maintain his position at the club as long as his feet held out.
While he was gone in search of the Colonel, Oliver occupied himself for a moment in examining one of the old English sporting prints that ornamented the side-walls of the bare, uncarpeted, dismal hall. It was the second time that he had entered these sacred doors –few men of his own age had ever done as much. He had stopped there once before in search of his father, when his mother had been taken suddenly ill. He recalled again the curious spiral staircase at the end of the hall where his father had met him and which had impressed him so at the time. He could see, too, the open closet out of which Mr. Horn had taken his overcoat, and which was now half-filled with hats and coats.
From the desolate, uninviting hall, Oliver passed into the large meeting-room of the club fronting the street, now filled with members, many of whom had dropped in for half an hour on their way back to their offices. Of these some of the older and more sedate men, like Judge Bowman and Mr. Pancoast, were playing chess; others were seated about the small tables, reading, sipping toddies, or chatting together. A few of the younger bloods, men of forty or thereabouts, were standing by the uncurtained windows watching the belles of the town in their flounced dresses and wide leghorn hats, out for an afternoon visit or promenade. Among these men Oliver recognized Howard Thom, son of the Chief- Justice, poor as a church mouse and fifty years of age if a day. Oliver was not surprised to find Thom craning his neck at the window. He remembered the story they told of this perennial beau–of how he had been in love with every woman in and around Kennedy Square, from Miss Clendenning down to the latest debutante, and of how he would tell you over his first toddy that he had sown his wild oats and was about to settle down for life, and over his last–the sixth, or seventh, or eighth–that the most adorable woman in town, after a life devoted to her service, had thrown him over, and that henceforth all that was left to him was a load of buckshot and six feet of earth.
Oliver bowed to those of the members he knew, and wheeling one of the clumsy mahogany chairs into position, sat down to await the arrival of Colonel Clayton.
Meanwhile his eyes wandered over the desolate room with its leather-covered chairs and sofas and big marble mantel bare of every ornament but another moon-faced clock–a duplicate of the one at the bank–and two bronze candelabra flanking each end, and then on the portraits of the dead and gone members which relieved the sombre walls–one in a plum-colored coat with hair tied in a queue being no other than his own ancestor. He wondered to himself where lay the charm and power to attract in a place so colorless, and he thought, as was his habit with all interiors, how different he would want it to be if he ever became a member. His fresh young nature revolted at the dinginess and bareness of the surroundings. He couldn’t understand why the men came here and what could be the fascination of sitting round these cold tables talking by the hour when there was so much happiness outside–so much of light and air and sunshine free to everybody.
He was, moreover, a little constrained and uncomfortable. There was none of the welcome of Mr.
Crocker’s studio about this place, nor any of the comforting companionship of the jolly old cashier, who made the minutes fly as if they had wings; and that, too, in a musty bank far more uninviting even than the club. He remembered his mother’s message now–and he remembered her face and the anxious expression–as we always remember duties when we are uncomfortable. He meant to hurry home to her as soon as the Colonel dismissed him, and tell her how it had all happened, and how sorry he was, and what a stupid he had been, and she would forgive him as she had a hundred times before.
As he sat absorbed in these thoughts his attention was attracted by a conversation at the adjoining table between that dare-devil cross-country rider, Tom Gunning of Calvert County, old General McTavish of the Mexican War, and Billy Talbot the exquisite. Gunning was in his corduroys and hunting-boots. He always wore them when he came to town, even when dining with his friends. He had them on now, the boots being specially in evidence, one being hooked over the chair on which he sat and within a foot of Oliver’s elbow. None of these peculiarities, however, made the slightest difference in Kennedy Square, so far as Gunning’s social position was concerned–Tom’s mother having been a Carroll and his grandfather once Governor of the State.
The distinguished cross-country rider was telling General McTavish, immaculate in black wig, blue coat, pepper-and-salt trousers and patent-leather shoes, and red-faced Billy Talbot, of an adventure that he, Gunning, had had the night before while driving home to his plantation. The exquisite’s costume was in marked contrast to those of the other two–it was his second change that day. At this precise moment he was upholstered in peg-top, checker-board trousers, bob-tail Piccadilly coat, and a one-inch brim straw hat, all of the latest English pattern. Everything, in fact, that Billy possessed was English, from a rimless monocle decorating his left eye, down to the animated door-mat of a skye-terrier that followed at his heels.
Oliver saw from the way in which McTavish leaned over the table, protecting the tray with his two arms, that he was in command of the decanter, and that the duty of alleviating the thirst of his companions had devolved upon the General. Billy Talbot sat with his hat tipped back on his head, his chin resting on his abbreviated cane, his eyes fixed on Gunning. Both McTavish and Talbot were listening intently to the cross-country rider’s story.
“And you say you were sober, Gunning?” Oliver heard the General ask, with a scrutinizing look at Tom. Not with any humorous intent–more with the manner of a presiding officer at a court-martial, determined to establish certain essential facts.
“As a clock, General. The first thing I knew the mare shied and I came pretty near landin’ in the dirt.” (The lower county men always dropped their g’s.) “He was lyin’, I tell you, right across the road. If it hadn’t been for Kitty, I would have run him down. I got out and held onto the reins, and there he was, sir, stretched out as drunk as a lord, flat on his back and sound asleep. I saw right away that he was a gentleman, and I tied the mare to a tree, picked him up with the greatest care, laid him on the side of the road, put his hat under his head, and made him as comfortable as I could, when, by George, sir! I hadn’t any more than got back to my buggy, when bang! went a ball within a foot of my head!”
The General, who, as he listened, had been repointing the waxed ends of his dyed mustache with his lemon-colored kid gloves, now leaned back in his chair.
“Fired at you, sir?” The General had served both at Chapultepec and Buena Vista, and was an authority where gunpowder was concerned.
“That’s just what he did. Came near takin’ the top of my head off! Hadn’t been so dark he would have done it.”
“Good God! you don’t tell me so!” exclaimed the General, mopping his lips with his perfumed handkerchief. “Were you armed, Gunning?”
“No, sir, I was entirely at his mercy and absolutely defenceless. Well, I grabbed the reins to quiet the mare and then I hollered out–‘What the devil do you mean, sir, by tryin’ to blow the top of my head off?’ I could see now that he had raised himself up on his elbow and was lookin’ at me in a way I did not like.
“‘What do you mean by disturbin’ my rest, sir,’ he called back.
“‘Well, but my dear sir, you were lyin’ in the middle of the road and might have been run over.’
“‘It’s none of your business where I lie,’ he hollered back. ‘I go to sleep where I damn please, sir. I consider it a very great liberty.’
“‘I, beg your pardon, sir,’ I said. ‘I did not intend any trespass–‘ I was walkin’ toward him now. I did not want him to shoot again.
“‘That’s sufficient, sir,’ he said. ‘No gentleman can do more. There’s my hand, sir. Allow me, sir, to offer you a drink. If you will roll me over, you will find my flask in my coat-tail pocket.’
“Well, I rolled him over, took a drink, and then I brought the mare alongside, helped him in and drove him home to my house. He was a most delightful gentleman. Didn’t leave my place until four o’clock in the mornin’. He lives about fifteen miles below me. He told me his name was Toffington. Do you happen to know him, Talbot?” said Gunning, turning to Billy.
“Toffington, Toffington,” said Billy, dropping his eye-glasses with a movement of his eyebrows. He had listened to the story without the slightest comment. “No, Tom, unless he is one of those upper county men. There was a fellow I met in London last year–” (Billy pronounced it “larst yarh,” to Oliver’s infinite amusement) “with some such name as that. He and I went over to Kew Gardens with the Duke of–.”
Gunning instantly turned around with an impatient gesture–nobody ever listened to one of Billy’s London stories, they being the never-ending jokes around Kennedy Square–faced the General again, much to Oliver’s regret, who would have loved above all things to hear Billy descant on his English experiences.
“Do you, General, know anybody named Toffington?” asked Tom.
“No, Gunning–but here comes Clayton, he knows everybody in the State that is worth knowing. What you have told me is most extraordinary–most extraordinary, Gunning. It only goes to show how necessary it is for every man to be prepared for emergencies of this kind. You should never go unarmed, sir. You had a very narrow escape–a very narrow escape, Gunning. Here, Clayton–come over here.”
Oliver pulled his face into long lines. The picture of Gunning taking a drink with a man who a moment before had tried to blow the top of his head off, and the serious way in which the coterie about the table regarded the incident, so excited the boy’s risibles that he would have laughed outright had not his eye rested on the Colonel walking toward him.
The Colonel, evidently, did not hear McTavish’s call. His mind was occupied with something much more important. He had been finishing a game of whist upstairs, and the mahogany-colored Cerberus had not dared to disturb him until the hand was played out. The fact that young Oliver Horn had called to see him at such an hour and in such a place had greatly disturbed him. He felt sure that something out of the ordinary had happened.
“My dear boy,” he cried, as Oliver rose to meet him, “I have this instant heard you were here, or I never should have kept you waiting a moment. Nothing serious–nothing at home?”
“Oh, no, Colonel. Only a word from mother, sir. I missed you at the bank and Mr. Stiger thought that I might better come here,” and he delivered his mother’s message in a low voice and resumed his seat again.
The Colonel, now that his mind was at rest, dropped into a chair, stroked his goatee with his thumb and forefinger, and ran over in his mind the sum of his engagements.
“Tell your dear mother,” he said, “that I will do myself the honor of calling upon her on my way home late this afternoon. Nothing will give me greater pleasure. Now stay awhile with me and let me order something for you, my boy,” and he beckoned to one of the brown-coated servants who had entered the room with a fresh tray for the Gunning table.
“No, thank you, Colonel; I ought not to stop,” Oliver replied, in an apologetic way, as he rose from his seat. “I really ought to go back and tell mother,” and with a grasp of Clayton’s hand and a bow to one or two men in the room who were watching his movements –the Colonel following him to the outer door –Oliver took himself off, as was the duty of one so young and so entirely out of place among a collection of men all so knowing and distinguished.
CHAPTER VI
AMOS COBB’S ADVICE
In full justice to the Chesapeake Club the scribe must admit that such light-weights as Billy Talbot, Torn Gunning, and Carter Thorn did not fairly represent the standing of the organization. Many of the most cultivated and enlightened men about Kennedy Square and the neighboring country enjoyed its privileges; among them not only such men as Richard Horn, Nathan Gill, the Chief-Justice of the State, and those members of the State Legislature whose birth was above reproach, but most of the sporting gentry of the county, as well as many of the more wealthy planters who lived on the Bay and whose houses were opened to their fellow-members when the ducks were flying.
Each man’s lineage, occupation, and opinions on the leading topics of the time were as well known to the club as to the man himself. Any new-corner presenting himself for membership was always subjected to the severest scrutiny, and had to be favorably passed upon by a large majority of the committee before a sufficient number of votes could be secured for his election.
The only outsider elected for years had been Amos Cobb, of Vermont, the abolitionist, as he was generally called, who invariably wore black broad- cloth and whose clean-shaven face–a marked contrast to the others–with its restless black eyes, strong nose, and firm mouth, was as sharp and hard as the rocks of his native State. His election to full membership of the Chesapeake Club was not due to his wealth and commercial standing–neither of these would have availed him–but to the fact that he had married a daughter of Judge Wharton of Wharton Hall, and had thus, by reason of his alliance with one of the first families of the State, been admitted to all the social privileges of Kennedy Square. This exception in his favor, however, had never crippled Cobb’s independence nor stifled his fearlessness in expressing his views on any one of the leading topics of the day. The Vermonter had worked with his hands when a boy on his father’s farm, and believed in the dignity of labor and the blessings of self-support. He believed, too, in the freedom of all men, black and white, and looked upon slavery as a crime. He expressed these sentiments openly and unreservedly, and declared that no matter how long he might live South he would never cease to raise his voice against a system which allowed a man–as he put it–“to sit down in the shade and fan himself to sleep while a lot of niggers whose bodies he owned were sweating in a corn-field to help feed and clothe him.”
These sentiments, it must be said, did not add to his popularity, although the time had not yet arrived when he would have been thrown into the street for uttering them.
Nathan Gill was a daily visitor. He was just mounting the club steps, his long pen-wiper cloak about his shoulders, as Oliver, after his interview with Colonel Clayton, passed down the street on his way back to his mother. Nathan shook hands with the Colonel, and the two entered the main room, and seated themselves at one of the tables.
Billy Talbot, who had moved to the window, and who had been watching Oliver until he disappeared around the corner, dropped his eye-glass with that peculiar twitch of the upper lip which no one could have imitated, and crossed the room to where Nathan and Colonel Clayton had taken their seats. Waggles, the scrap of a Skye terrier, who was never three feet from Billy’s heels, instantly crossed with him. After Billy had anchored himself and had assumed his customary position, with his feet slightly apart, Waggles, as was his habit, slid in and sat down on his haunches between his master’s gaiters. There he lifted his fluffy head and gazed about him. The skill with which Mr. Talbot managed his dog was only equalled by the dexterity with which he managed his eye-glass; he never inadvertently stepped on the one nor unconsciously let slip the other. This caused Mr. Talbot considerable mental strain, but as it was all to which he ever subjected himself he stood the test bravely.
“Who is that young man, Colonel” Billy began, as he bent his head to be sure that Waggles was in position. He had been abroad while Oliver was growing up, and so did not recognize him.
“That’s Richard Horn’s son,” the Colonel said, without raising his eyes from the paper. The Colonel never took Billy seriously.
“And a fine young fellow he is,” broke in Nathan, straightening himself proudly.
“Hope he don’t take after his father, Gill. By the way, what’s that old wisionary doing now?” drawled Billy, throwing back the lapels of his coat, and slapping his checked trousers with his cane. “Larst time you talked to me about him he had some machine with w’eels and horse-shoe magnets, didn’t he? He hasn’t been in here for some time, so I know he’s at work on some tomfoolery or other. Amazing, isn’t it, that a man of his blood, with a cellar of the best Madeiwa in the State, should waste his time on such things. Egad! I cawn’t understand it.” Some of Billy’s expressions, as well as his accent, came in with his clothes. “Now, if I had that Madeiwa, do you know what I’d do with it? I’d–“
“Perfectly, Billy,” cried a man at the next table, who was bending over a game of chess. “You’d drink it up in a week.” Talbot had never been known by any other name than Billy, and never would be as long as he lived.
When the laugh had subsided, Nathan, whose cheeks were still burning at the slighting way in which Billy Talbot had spoken of Richard, and who had sat hunched up in his chair combing the white hair farther over his ears with his long, spare fingers, a habit with him when he was in deep thought, lifted his head and remarked, quietly, addressing the room rather than Talbot:
“Richard’s mind is not on his cellar; he’s got something to think of besides Madeira and cards and dogs.” And he looked toward Waggles. “You will all, one day, be proud to say that he lived in our town. Richard is a genius, one of the most remarkable men of the day, and everybody outside of this place knows it; you will be compelled to admit it yet. I left him only half an hour ago, and he is just perfecting a motor, gentlemen, which will–“
“Does it go yet, Nathan?” interrupted Cobb, who was filling a glass from a decanter which a brown- coated darky had brought him. Cobb’s wife was Nathan’s cousin, and, therefore, he had a right to be familiar. “I went to see his machine the other day, but I couldn’t make anything out of it. Horn is a little touched here, isn’t he?” and he tapped his forehead and smiled knowingly.
“No, Amos, the motor was not running when I left the shop,” answered Nathan, dryly and with some dignity, “but it will be, he assured me, perhaps by to-morrow.” He could fight Billy Talbot, but he never crossed swords with Cobb, never in late years. Cobb was the one man in all the world, he once told Richard, with whom he had nothing in common.
“Oh, to-morrow?” And Cobb whistled as he put down the decanter and picked up the day’s paper. It was one of Cobb’s jokes–this “to-morrow” of his neighbors. “What was a Northern man’s to- day was always a Southern man’s to-morrow,” he would say. “I hope this young man of whom you speak so highly is not walking in the footsteps of this genius of a father? He looks to me like a young fellow that had some stuff in him if anybody would bring it out.”
The half-concealed sneer in Cobb’s voice grated also on old Judge Bowman, who threw down his book and looked up over his bowed spectacles. He was a testy old fellow, with a Burgundy face and shaggy white hair, a chin and nose that met together like a parrot’s, and an eye like a hawk. It was one of his principles to permit none of his intimates to speak ill of his friends in his hearing. Criticisms, therefore, by an outsider like Cobb were especially obnoxious to him.
“Richard Horn’s head is all right, Mr. Cobb, and so is his heart,” he exclaimed in an indignant tone. “As for his genius, sir–Gill is within the mark. He IS one of the remarkable men of our day. You are quite right, too, about his young son, who has just left here. He has all the qualities that go to make a gentleman, and many of those which will make a jurist. He is now studying law with my associate, Judge Ellicott–a profession ennobled by his ancestors, sir, and one, for which what you call his ‘stuff,’ but which we, sir, call his ‘blood,’ especially fits him. You Northern men, I know, don’t believe in blood. We do down here. This young man comes of a line of ancestors that have reflected great credit on our State for more than a hundred years, and he is bound to make his mark. His grandfather on his mother’s side was our Chief Justice in 1810, and his great-grandfather was–“
“That’s just what’s the matter with most of you Southerners, Judge,” interrupted Cobb, his black eyes snapping. “You think more of blood than you do of brains. We rate a man on Northern soil by what he does himself, not what a bundle of bones in some family burying-ground did for him before he was born. Don’t you agree with me, Clayton?”
“I can’t say I do, Cobb,” replied the Colonel, slowly, stirring his toddy. “I never set foot on your soil but once, and so am unfamiliar with your ways.” He never liked Cobb. “He’s so cursedly practical, and so proud of it, too,” he would often say; “and if you will pardon me, sir–a trifle underbred.”
“When was that?” asked Cobb, looking over the top of his paper.
“That was some years ago, when I chased a wounded canvas-back across the Susquehanna River, and had to go ashore to get him; and I want to tell you, sir, that what you call ‘your soil’ was damned disagreeable muck. I had to change my boots when I got back to my home, and I’ve never worn them since.” And the Colonel crushed the sugar in his glass with his spoon as savagely as if each lump were the head of an enemy, and raised the mixture to his mouth.
Amos’s thin lips curled. The high and lofty airs of these patricians always exasperated him. The shout of laughter that followed the Colonel’s reply brought the color to his cheeks.
“Chased him like a runaway nigger, I suppose, Clayton, didn’t you? and wrung his neck when you got him–” retorted Amos, biting his lips.
“Of course, like I would any other piece of my property that tried to get away, or as I would wring the neck of any man who would help him–” And the Colonel looked meaningly at the Vermonter and drained his glass with a gulp. Then smothering his anger, he moved away to the window, where he watched Mr. Talbot, who had just left the club and who at the moment was standing on the corner making his daily afternoon inspection of the two connecting streets; an occupation which Billy varied by saluting each new-corner with a slap of his cane on his checker-board trousers and a stentorian “Bah Jove!” Waggles meanwhile squatting pensively between his gaiters.
When an hour later the Colonel presented himself at the Horn mansion, no trace of this encounter with Cobb was in his face nor in his manner. Men did not air their grievances in their own nor anyone’s else home around Kennedy Square.
Mrs. Horn met him with her hand extended. She had been watching for Oliver’s return with a degree of impatience rarely seen in her. She had hoped that the Colonel would have called upon her before he went to his office, and could not understand his delay until Oliver had given his account of the morning mishaps. She was too anxious now to chide him. It was but another indication of his temperament, she thought–a fault to be corrected with the others that threatened his success in life.
Holding fast to the Colonel’s hand she drew him to one of the old haircloth sofas and told him the whole story.
“Do not give the mortgage a thought, my dear Sallie,” the Colonel said, In his kindest manner, when she had finished speaking, laying his hand on her wrist. “My only regret is that it should have caused you a moment’s uneasiness. I know that our bank has lately been in need of a large sum of money, and this loan, no doubt, was called in by the board. But it will be all right–if not I will provide for it myself.”
“No–I do not want that, and Richard, if he knew, would not be willing either. Tell me, please, how this money is loaned,” and she turned and looked earnestly into his face. “What papers are passed, and who signs them? I have never had anything to do with such matters, and you must explain it all clearly.”
“A note signed by Richard and made payable on a certain date was given to the bank, and the mortgage was deposited as security.”
“And if the note is not paid?”
“Then the property covered by the mortgage is sold, and the bank deducts its loan–any balance, of course, is paid over to Richard.”
“And when the sale is put off–what is done then?”
“A new note is given,” and here the Colonel stopped as if in doubt, “and sometimes a second name is placed on the note increasing the security. But, Sallie, dear, do not let this part of it ever again cross your mind. I will attend to it should it become necessary. It is not often,” and the Colonel waved his hand gallantly, “that a Clayton can do a Horn a service.”
“Thank you, dear friend, and it is just like you to wish to do it, but this I cannot agree to. I have thought of another way since you have been talking to me. Would it–” and she stopped and looked down on the floor, “would it be of any use if I signed a note myself? This house we live in is my own, as you know, and would be an additional security to the bank if anything should happen.”
The offer was so unusual that the Colonel caught his breath. He looked at her in astonishment, but her eyes never wavered. He felt instantly that, however lightly he might view the subject, the matter was intensely serious with her. The Colonel half rose to his feet, and with a bow that in Kennedy Square had earned for him the title of “the Chesterfield of his time, sir,” placed his hand on his heart.
“My dear Sallie,” he said, “not a member of the board could refuse. It would at once remove any obstacle the directors might have.”
“Thank you, then we will leave it so, and I will have the papers prepared at once.”
“And is this Richard’s advice?” the Colonel ventured to ask, slowly regaining his seat. There were some misgivings still lingering in his Chesterfieldian mind as to whether the proudest man he knew, gentle as he was, would not forbid the whole transaction.
“No. He does not know of my purpose, and you will please not tell him. He only knows that I am opposed to allowing the property to be sold, and he has promised me that he will take no steps in the matter without my consent. All I want you to do now is to tell him that the bank has decided to let the matter stand. This obligation hereafter will be between me and the board, and I will pledge myself to carry it out. And now, one thing more before you go, and I ask this because you have seen him grow up and I know you love him. What shall I do with Oliver?”
The Colonel again caught his breath. Gallant gentleman of the old school, as he was, with a profound respect for the other sex, the question startled him. According to his experience and traditions, the fathers generally looked after the welfare of the sons and found them places in life–not the mothers.
“What do you want to do with him?” he asked, quietly.
“I want him to go to work. I am afraid this life here will ruin him.”
“Why, I thought he was studying law with Ellicott.” The announcement could not have been very surprising to the Colonel. He doubtless knew how much time Oliver spent at Judge Ellicott’s office.
“He no doubt THINKS he’s studying, dear friend, but he really spends half his time in old Mr. Crocker’s studio, who puts the worst possible notions into his head, and the balance of his time he is with your Sue,” and she smiled faintly.
“For which you can hardly blame him, dear lady,” and the Colonel bent his head graciously.
“No, for she is as sweet as she can be, and you know I love her dearly, but they are both children, and will be for some years. You don’t want to support them, do you? and you know Richard can’t,” and there flashed out from her eyes one of those quizzical glances which the Colonel remembered so well in her girlhood.
The Colonel nodded his head, but he did not commit himself. He had never for a moment imagined that Oliver’s love-affair would go as far as that, and, then again, he knew Sue.
“What do you suggest doing with him? I will help, of course, in any way I can,” he said, after a pause, during which Mrs. Horn sat watching every expression that crossed his face.
“I don’t know. I have not fully made up my mind. I have been greatly disturbed over Oliver. He seems to be passing through one of those dangerous crises which often come to a boy. What do you think of my sending him to New York?”
“THE NORTH, Sallie! Why, you wouldn’t send Oliver up North, would you?”
The announcement this time gave the Colonel so genuine a shock that it sent the blood tingling to his cheeks. Really, the idiosyncrasies of the Horn family were beyond his comprehension! Evidently Richard’s vagaries had permeated his household.
“I do not like the influence of the North on our young men, my dear Madam.” The Colonel spoke now with great seriousness and with some formality, and without any of the Chesterfieldian accompaniments of tone or gesture. “If he were my boy,
I should keep him here. He is young and light- hearted, I know, and loves pleasure, but that will all come out of him. Let him stay with Ellicott; he will bring him out all right. There is a brusqueness and a want of refinement among most Northern men that have always grated on me. You can see it any day in Amos Cobb.”
As he spoke a slight flush overspread his listener’s face. The positiveness of his tone, she thought, carried with it a certain uncomplimentary criticism of her suggestion. The Colonel saw it, and, as if in apology and to prove his case, added, in a gentler tone: “Only this afternoon at the club I heard Cobb speaking in the most outrageous manner about our most treasured institutions. It is not his fault perhaps. It is the fault of his breeding, but it is unbearable all the same. Keep Oliver here. He has a most engaging and lovable nature, is as clean and sweet as a girl, and I haven’t a doubt but what he will honor both you and his blood. Take my word for it, and keep him at home. He is young yet, barely twenty-two–there is plenty of time for him.” And the Colonel rose from the sofa, lifted Mrs. Horn’s fingers to his lips and bowed himself out.
The Colonel only told the truth, as he saw it. In his day and generation men of twenty-two were but boys, and only gray-beards ruled the State and counting-house. The Senators were indeed grave and reverend seigniors, and the merchants, in their old-fashioned dress-coats, looked more like distinguished diplomats than buyers and sellers of produce. In those days, too, the young man with a mustache was thought presuming and dangerous, and the bank who would have selected a cashier under forty would have caused a run on its funds in a week after the youth had been appointed to his position.
After the Colonel’s departure Mrs. Horn sat in deep thought. The critical tones of his voice still lingered in her memory. But her judgment had not been shaken nor was her mind satisfied. Oliver still troubled her. The Colonel’s advice might be right, but she dared not rely upon it.
The next day she sent for Amos Cobb: Malachi took the message this time, not Oliver. Cobb came on the minute. He was greatly surprised at Mrs. Horn’s note, for although his wife was an intimate friend of Mrs. Horn’s, and he himself would have been welcome, he was seldom present at any of the functions of the house and could not be considered one of its intimate guests. He did not like music, he said to his wife, when urged to go, and, as he did not play chess or drink Madeira, he preferred to stay at home.
Malachi relieved Amos of his hat, and conducted him into Mrs. Horn’s presence with rather a formal bow–quite different from the low salaam with which he had greeted Colonel Clayton. “Dat bobobalish’- nest, Mister Cobb, jes’ gone in de parlor,” he said to Aunt Hannah when he regained the kitchen. “Looks like he lived on parsimmons, he dat sour.”
Mrs. Horn received her visitor cordially, but with a reserve which she had not maintained toward the Colonel, for Cobb had never represented to her anything but a money standard pure and simple. It was only when the Colonel had mentioned his name, and then only because of her urgent need of just such sound practical advice as she knew he could give that she had determined to seek his services–quite as she would have consulted an architect or an attorney.
The Vermonter took his seat on the extreme edge of the sofa, squared his shoulders, pulled up the points of his high collar, touched together the tips of all his fingers, and looked straight at his hostess.
“I am greatly obliged to you for coming,” she began, “for I know how busy you are, but I have a question to ask of you which I feel sure you can answer better than anyone I know. It is about my son Oliver. I am going to be perfectly frank with you, and I want you to be equally frank with me.” And she summed up Oliver’s aims, temptations, and failings with a skill that gained the Vermonter’s closest attention. “With all this,” she continued, “he is affectionate, loves me dearly, and has never disobeyed me in his life. It is his love of change that worries me–his instability–one thing one moment, and another the next. It seems to me the only way to break this up is to throw him completely on his own resources so that he may realize for once what life really means. Now tell me–” and she looked searchingly into Cobb’s face, as if eager to note the effect of her question–“if he were your only son, would you, in view of all I have told you, send him to New York to make his start in life, or would you keep him here?”
The Vermonter’s face had begun to lighten as she progressed, and had entirely cleared when he learned why he had been sent for. He had been afraid, when he received her note, that it had been about the mortgage. Cobb was chairman of the Loan Committee at the bank, had personally called attention to Richard’s note being overdue, and had himself ordered its payment.
“My two boys are at school in Vermont, Madam,” he answered, slowly.
“But Oliver must earn his own living,” she said, earnestly. “His father will have nothing to give him.”
Cobb made no reply. He was not surprised. Most all of these aristocratic Southerners were on their last legs. He was right about the note, he said to himself –it was just as well to have it paid–and he made a mental memorandum to inquire about it as soon as he reached his office, and have it pressed for