Kitabı oku: «Geoffrey Hampstead: A Novel», sayfa 10
When this story was concluded, Mrs. Dusenall, and many of her kind; and the unimpressionable girls looked acquiescence, because the words were backed by the Church, but their hearts went out to the poor sinners in Chicago. Only with those who took their mental bias from the priest did his words find solid resting-place. Geoffrey sat with an inmovable face, impossible to read. His subsequent remark to Margaret, when she had delivered her opinions about the matter, was, however, characteristic. He said simply, as if deprecating her vehemence:
"The man must live, you know, and how is he to live if people go out of town on Sunday." To Geoffrey a short time was sufficient to satisfy him that the preacher ought to have lived in the days when mankind were saturated with belief in miracle and looked for explanation of events by miracle without dreaming of other explanation.
During the next five minutes the sermon rather wandered from the subject, but fastened upon it again in an anecdote of an occurrence said to have taken place at an American seaport town, during the preacher's visit there.
Several young mechanics, instead of going to church one Sunday morning, had engaged a yawl, and also the fishermen who owned it, to take them to a village on the coast and back again. It appeared from the account that for a day and a night the yawl had been blown away from the coast, and then that the wind had changed, so as to drive it back again; and the story of the voyage naturally found attentive listeners among our yachting friends.
"All through that first terrible day, and all through the long, black night they were tossed about among the giant billows of a most tempestuous ocean. And what, dear friends, must have been the agony and remorse of those misguided young men when they thus realized the results of their deliberate breaking of the holy day. As they clung to the frail vessel, which reeled to and fro beneath them like a drunken man, and which now alone remained to possibly save them from a watery grave – as they perceived the billows breaking in upon that devoted ship, insomuch that it was covered with waves, what must have been their sensations? And when the wind suddenly changed its direction and blew them with terrible force back again toward the rocky coast, we can imagine how earnestly they made their resolutions never again to transgress in this way. Once more, after a while, they saw the land again, and as they came closer they could discern the spires of those holy edifices which they had abandoned for the sake of forbidden pleasures and in which they were doomed never to hear the teachings of the Church again. There lay the harbor before them, as if in mockery of all their attempts to reach it; and while raised on high in the air, on the summit of some white, mountainous billow, they could obtain a Pisgah-like view of those homes they were destined never again to enter."
Jack was broad awake now and wondering why, with the wind dead after them, the fishermen in charge of the boat could not make the harbor.
"Suddenly there came a great noise, which no doubt sounded like a death knell in the hearts of the terrified and exhausted young men. It was soon discovered that the mainsail of the ship had been blown away by the fury of the tempest."
"Now what was their unhappy condition? How could they any longer strive to reach the longed-for haven when the mainsail of the yawl was blown away?"
Jack shifted in his seat uncomfortably at this point. He was saying to himself: "Why not sneak in under a jib? Or even under bare poles? Or, if the harbor was intricate, why not heave to under the mizzen and signal for a tug?" Half a score of possibilities followed each other through his brain, which in sailing matters worked quickly. He always inclined from his early training to accept without question all that issued from the pulpit; but this story bothered him. The instructor went on:
"Clearly there was now no hope for the devoted vessel. Even the anchor was gone; the anchor of Hope, dear friends, was gone. The strong trustworthy anchor (in which mariners place so great confidence that it has become the type or symbol of Hope) was gone – washed overboard by the temptuous waves."
Charley here received a kick under the seat from Jack whose face was now filled with a blank incredulity, which showed that the influence of his early training had departed from him.
In one way or another, the preacher succeeded in irritating some of the Ideal's crew. He went on to say that the yawl was dashed to pieces on the rocks, and that only one man – a fisherman – survived; from which he drew the usual moral.
With three or four exceptions, our friends went out of church not as good-humored as when they came in. Geoffrey alone seemed to have enjoyed himself. His heart-felt cynicism pulled him through. He said aloud to Mrs. Dusenall, when they were all together again, that he thought the preacher's description of the perils of the deep was very beautiful. (Dead silence from Jack and Charley). Mrs. Dusenall concurred with him, and said it was wonderful how clergymen acquired so much general knowledge.
Presently Charley, thoughtfully: "Say, Jack, what was the matter with that boat, any way?"
"Blessed if I could find out," said Jack.
"Why! did you not hear? Her mainsail was gone," said Geoffrey gravely, to draw Jack out.
"Well, who the deuce cares for a mains'l?" answered Jack, rising testily to the bait. "The man does not know what he is – well, of course, he is a clergyman, but then, you know – my stars! not make a port in broad daylight with the wind dead aft! Perfectly impossible to miss it! And, then the anchor – a fisherman's anchor! – washed overboard!"
Geoffrey persisted, more gravely, in a reproachful tone; "You don't mean to say, Jack, that you doubt that what a clergyman says is true?"
The Misses Dusenall also looked at him very seriously.
Jack was a candid young man, and had his religious views fixed, as it were, hereditarily. He looked at his boots, as if he would like to evade the question; but, seeing no escape, he came out with his answer like parting with his teeth.
"When the parson," he said with stolid determination, "goes in for mediæval saints, I don't interfere. He can forge ahead and I won't try to split his wind. But when he talks sailing he must talk sense. No, sir! I do not believe that story – and no Angel Gabriel would make me."
There was a force behind his tones of conviction which amused some of his hearers.
"Jack Cresswell! You surprise me," said Geoffrey loftily.
After lunch the ladies went up into the city to visit some friends, and the men were lying about under the awning, chatting, smoking, and sipping claret.
"Well, there was one thing about that boat that caused the entire disturbance," said Charley, sagaciously. "I've thought the whole thing out; and I put down the trouble to the usual cause – and that is – whisky. When the fishermen found there was liquor on board they 'steered for the open sea,' and when they were all stark, staring, blind drunk they went ashore."
"I fancy you have solved the difficulty," said Mr. Lemons. "The preacher did not, somehow, seem to get hold of me. My notion is that he should come down to your level and help you up – like those Arab chaps that lug and butt you up the Pyramids – not stand at the top and order you to climb."
"Just so," said Geoffrey. "A speaker must in some way make his listeners feel at home with him, just as a novel, to sell well, must contain some one touch of nature that makes the whole world kin. The sympathies must be excited. In books accepted by gentle folk the "one touch" of attractive and primitive nature is refined, and in this shape it is called poetry – in this shape it creates vague and pleasant wonderings, especially in the minds of those whose fancies are capable of no higher intellectual flight. When we see that people so universally seek productions in which nature is only more or less disguised, we seem to understand man better."
"What are you trying to get at now?" asked Jack, with a smiling show of impatience.
"Why," said Hampstead, "take the work of the sprightliest modern novel writers – say, for instance, Besant and Rice. Deduct the fun from their books and the shadowy plot, and what remains? A girl – a fresh, young, innocent girl – who, with her beautiful face and figure, charms the heart. She does not do much, and (with William Black) she says even less; but the people in the book are all in love with her, and the reader becomes, in a second-hand and imaginative way, in love with her also. She is quiet, lady-like, and delicious; her surroundings assist in creating an interest in her; but in the dawn and development of love within her lies the chief interest of most readers. The mind concentrates itself without effort when lured by any of our earlier instincts. What we want is a definition as to what degree of careful mental exertion is worthy of being dignified by the name of "thought," as distinguished from that sequence of ideas, without exertion, which is sufficient in all animals for daily routine and the carrying out of instinct."
"There are some of your ideas, Hampstead, which do not seem to promise improvement to anybody," said Jack.
"And, for you, the worst thing about them is that they have a semblance of truth," replied Hampstead.
"Sometimes – yes," admitted Jack. "But I would not excuse you because they happened to be true. The only way I excuse you is because, after your scientific mud-groveling, you sometimes point higher than others. Are we to understand, then, that you object to novel reading on moral grounds?"
"Don't be absurd. A novel may be all that it should be. I am stating what I take to be facts, and I think it interesting to consider why we enjoy what ladies call 'a good love-story.' You will notice that people who adopt an over-ascetic and unnatural life and do not seek nature, give up reading 'good love-stories.' Perhaps they vaguely realize that the difference in the interest created by Black's insipid Yolande and Byron's Don Juan is merely one of degree."
"Now, will you be so good as to say candidly what gain you or any one else ever received from thinking in such channels as these?" inquired Jack, with impatience.
"Certainly. It keeps me from transcendentalism – from being led off into vanity – thoughts about my immortality – "
"Surely," interrupted Jack, "the aspirations of one's soul are sufficient to convince us that we will live again."
"Jack, a man's soul is simply his power of imagining and desiring what he hasn't got. Once a day, more or less, his soul imagines immortality. The rest of the time it imagines his sweetheart. If a poet, his soul combines the two. Or else it is the mighty dollar, or hunting, or something else. Shall all his aspirations toward nature go for nothing? His soul will conjure up his sweetheart nine thousand times for one thought of his future state. Because he has acquired neither. If he had acquired either, he would soon be quite as certain that there was something still better in store for him. With our minds as active and refined as they are, it would be quite impossible for men to do otherwise than have their imaginings about souls and immortality. These make no proof; the savage has none of them; and if they were proof, whither do man's aspirations chiefly point? To earth or to heaven?"
"Well, I suppose your answer," said Jack, "is sufficient for yourself. You study science, then, to persuade yourself that when you die you will remain teetotally dead?"
"Rather to make myself content with a truth which is different from and not so pleasant as that which we are taught in early life."
"For goodness' sake," cried Mr. Lemons, yawning, "pass the claret."
CHAPTER XIII
Visam Britannos hospitibus feros.
Horace, Lib. 3, Carm. 4.
Mrs. Dusenall liked the visit to Kingston. She was proud of the appearance her guests and family made at the church, and she thought of going home and writing a book as prodigal of pretty woodcuts and fascinating price-lists as those published by other gilded ladies. True, she had with her no young children wherewith to awake interest in foreign places by detailing what occurred in the ship's nursery; and thus she might have been driven to say something about the foreign places themselves, which, in a book of travels, are perhaps of secondary importance when a whole gilded family may be studied in their interesting retirement.
They kept a log on the Ideal, and each one had to take his or her turn at keeping the account of the cruise posted up to date.
Some events on board or near the Ideal did not come under Mrs. Dusenall's notice and did not appear in the log-book. Nobody flirted with Mrs. Dusenall to make her experience exciting, and her book, if written, would have been one long panorama of landscape interlarded with the mildest of items. But compress your world even to the size of a yacht, and there will be still more going on, in the same eternal way, than any one person can observe, especially if that person happens to be a chaperon.
The first evening among the islands was spent in different ways. Some paddled about to explore or bathe. Flirtation of a mild type was prevalent – interesting possibly to the parties concerned, and, as usual, to themselves only. Toward dusk the gig was manned by the crew for the transportation of Mrs. Dusenall and part of her suite across the river through the islands to the hotels at Alexandria Bay on the American shore. The hotel guests on the balconies and verandas were continuing to enjoy or endure that eternal siesta which at these places seems to be quite unbroken save at meal times, and the arrival of a number of very presentable people in a handsome gig, rowed in the man-of-war style by uniformed sailors and steered by a person with a gold-lace badge on his cap, created a ripple of interest. Among those on the verandas engaged, perhaps overtaxed, in the digestion of their dinners, not a few were slightly interested by what they saw. In a group of a dozen or more a gentleman behind a solitaire shirt-stud, worth a good year's salary for a Victoria Bank clerk seemed to be speaking the thoughts of the party, though his words came out chiefly as a form of soliloquy. He seemed to be taking a sort of admiring inventory of the gig and its occupants as it approached the landing wharf:
"Small sailor boy – standing in the bow – with a spear in his hand."
It was a boat-hook in the boy's hand, but it might have been a trident.
"He's real cunnin' – that boy – in his masquerade suit. Four sailors – also in masquerade costume. And they can make her hump up the river, sure's-yer-born. Now I wonder who those fellows are – in buttons – with gold badges on their hats. Wonder what those badges might imply! Part of the masquerade, I guess. But stylish – very."
Then, turning to a friend, he said:
"Cha'ley, those people are yachting round here."
At this discovery the exhausted-looking refugee from overwork in some city addressed as "Cha'ley," whose face was lit up solely by a cigar, answered slowly but decisively:
"Looks like it – very."
Then followed a quick mental calculation in the head of the gentleman behind the solitaire, and, as the boat came alongside the landing, the oars being handled with trained accuracy, he said:
"I wonder how many of those paid men they have on board. I like it. I like the whole thing. I shall do it myself next summer. And right up to the handle. Cha'ley, bet you half a dollar that those are first-class gentlemen and ladies down there, and we ought to go down and receive them."
"Why, certainly," said the other in grave, staccato tones, which seemed to deny the exhaustion of his appearance by indicating some internal strength. "James," he added in solemn self-reproach, "we should have been down – on the landing – to assist the ladies from their canoe."
As they left the veranda several ladies called after them:
"Mr. Cowper, we would be pleased to have you bring the ladies up."
Mr. Cowper bowed with gravity, but did not say anything, as he was preparing within him his form of self-introduction.
In a few moments Mr. Cowper and Mr. Withers met our party as they slowly meandered up the ascent toward the hotel. Mr. Cowper, hat in hand, gave them collectively a bow, which, if somewhat foreign in its nature, was not without dignity, and he addressed them with unmistakable hospitality, while Mr. Withers, by a flank movement, attacked the left wing of the party, where he conducted a little reception of his own.
Mr. Cowper said, "How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?"
Mrs. Dusenall bowed and smiled, and the others, wondering what was coming, bowed also as they caught Mr. Cowper's encompassing eye. "We regret," he said, looking toward Geoffrey, to whom he was more especially attracted on account of his cap-badge and greater stature. "We regret, captain, that we did not notice your arrival in time to be on the landing to assist the ladies from your canoe."
Geoffrey's smile only indicated his gratification and had no reference to Mr. Cowper's new name for the yacht's gig.
"We are only guests in the hotel ourselves, but if we had known of your coming some of us certainly would have been down to receive you in the proper manner."
What "proper manner" of reception Mr. Cowper had in his head it is difficult to say. His words showed Mrs. Dusenall, however, that he was not the custom-house officer or the hotel-keeper, which relieved her of some anxiety lest she should make a mistake. At a slight pause in his flow of language she thanked him in her most reassuring accents, and continued in those suave tones and with that perfect self-possession, with which the English duchess, her head a little on one side and chin upraised, has been supposed carelessly to assert her person, crown, and dignity.
"I assure you," she said, "that we are only knocking about, as it were, quite informally, from place to place in the yacht."
"Quite informally," echoed Geoffrey, who was enjoying Mrs. Dusenall.
She added: "So, of course, we could not think of allowing you to give yourselves any trouble on our account."
In what pageantry Mrs. Dusenall proceeded when not traveling quite informally Mr. Cowper did not give himself the trouble to consider. The thought came to him that he might be entertaining an English duchess unawares, but the succeeding consciousness that he could probably buy up this duchess "and her whole masquerade" fortified him as with triple brass.
"Madam," he said, with that distinctness and intensity with which Americans convey the impression that they mean what they say, "if we have neglected you and your friends at first, we will be pleased if you will allow us now to try to make your visit attractive."
Mrs. Dusenall thought this was assuming a heavy responsibility.
"If you will come up on the pe-az-a, there are a number of real nice ladies who would be most pleased to meet you."
Several of the party began to think that the cares of "knocking about quite informally" were about to commence. But as there was no escape, and all smiled pleasantly, and Mr. Cowper conversed as he and Mr. Withers led them up to the "pe-az-a." He was gratified at the way they responded to his endeavors; and perhaps he was not without a latent wish to show his hotel friends how perfectly at home he was in "first-class British society."
"There is always something going on here," he said; "and if there is nothing on just now we will get up something real pleasant – or my name's not Cowper."
This hint as to his identity was not thrown away, and as it seemed more than likely that they were about to be entertained immediately by this gentleman behind the solitaire headlight, it occurred to Geoffrey that it would be as well for the party to know what his name was.
"Mr. Cowper, let me introduce you to Mrs. Dusenall."
This quickness on Geoffrey's part relieved Mr. Cowper from any difficulty in mentioning his own name. Mrs. Dusenall then introduced him in a general way to the remainder of the party. To Miss Dusenall it was impossible for him to do more than bow, as she was chilling in her demeanor. She had received, as has been hinted, that final distracting finishing polish which an English school is expected to give, and she sought to be so entirely English as not to know what cosmopolitan courtesy was.
Margaret's face, however, gave Mr. Cowper encouragement and pleasure, and, as he shook hands warmly with her, something in her appearance gave a new spur to his hospitable intentions. The energy of a new nation seemed bottled up within him, as he said to Margaret:
"If I can't get up something here to make you enjoy yourself, why – why don't believe in me any more."
His evident but respectful admiration could only elicit a laugh and a blush. It was impossible to resist Mr. Cowper in his energetic intention to be host, and, in spite of his dazzling headlight, the national generosity and forgetfulness of self were so apparent in him that Margaret "took to him" in a way that mystified the other girls, who regarded the headlight only as a warning beacon placed there by Providence to preserve young ladies with an English boarding-school finish from undesirable associations.
Mr. Cowper was what is called "self-made" – a word that in the States conveys with it no implied slur – for the simple reason that there is not the same necessity for it as in England. Speaking generally, an American has a generous consideration for women and a largeness of character, or rather an absence of smallness, not yet sufficiently recognized as national characteristics. He is generally the same man after "making his pile" as before – not always fully acquainted, perhaps, with social veneer, but kind, keen, and generous to a fault. It would be an insult to such a one to compare him with the "self-made" Englishman, whose rude pretension of superiority to those poorer than himself, truckling servility to rank and position, and ignorance of everything outside his own business render him very unlovely.
"Now," said Mr. Cowper, when he had been introduced to them all. "Now," he said, "we're all solid. We will just step up-stairs, if you please." He looked at them all pleasantly as he offered his arm to assist Mrs. Dusenall's ascent. When they arrived on the veranda above, his idea was that, in order to bring about the perfect concord he desired to see, individual introductions were necessary. To Mrs. Dusenall he introduced a large number of lean girls and stout women, ninety per cent of whom said "pleased to meet you," and Mrs. Dusenall, appearing, with surprising activity of countenance, to be freshly gratified at each introduction, quite won their hearts.
But when Mr. Cowper commenced to introduce them all over again to Margaret, that young person, not being afraid of women, rebelled, and, touching his arm to stay his impetuous career, said: "Oh, no, it will take too long. Let me do it." Then she turned to the company. "As Mr. Cowper says, my name is Mackintosh," and she ducked them a sort of old-fashioned courtesy. The company bowed – some smiling and some solemn at her audacity. "And very much at your service," she added, as she dipped again to the solemn ones – capturing them also. Then she turned to the others. "And this is Miss Dusenall," and so-and-so, and so-and-so, until they were all made known.
"And this is Morry," she said lastly, taking the little man by the coat-sleeve. "Make your bow, Morry."
Rankin remained gazing on the ground until she shook him by the sleeve. Then he took a swift, scared glance at the assembly, and said, "I'm shy," and hid his head behind tall Margaret's shoulder. This absurdity amused the American girls, and five or six of them, forgetting their stiffness, crowded around to encourage him. A beaming matron came up to Margaret and took her kindly by the elbows.
"I must kiss you, my dear. You did that so charmingly."
"Indeed, it's very kind of you to say so," replied Margaret, as she received an affectionate salute. "Long introductions are so tiresome, are they not?"
"They do take time, my dear," said the motherly person, as they sat down together.
"Yes, time and introductions should be taken by the forelock," smiled Margaret.
"Just what you did, my dear. I do wish I had a daughter like you. Oh my!" And the little woman's face grew long for a moment at some sad recollection. An interesting episode of family sorrow would have been confided to Margaret if they had not been interrupted by the arrival of four tall young men, in company with Mr. Withers. The grave, worn-out face of Mr. Withers had just a flicker in it as his strong ratchet-spring voice addressed itself to our party:
"Mrs. Dusenall and friends, permit me to introduce to you the 'Little Frauds.'"
The four tall young men bowed with the usual gravity, and then mixed with the company. They wore untanned leather and canvas shoes, dark-blue stockings, light-colored knickerbocker trousers, and leather belts. Navy-blue flannel shirts, with white silk anchors on the broad collars, completed their costume, with the exception of black neck-ties and stiff white linen caps with horizontal leather peaks. Taken as a whole, their costume was such a happy combination of a baseball player's and a Pullman-car conductor's that the brain refused to believe in the maritime occupation suggested by the white anchors.
Mr. Withers explained who they were.
"The Little Frauds," he said, "are a party of young men who live together in a kind of small shanty on one of the neighboring islands. Although the locality is picturesque, they do not live here during the winter, but only migrate to these parts when – well, when I suppose no other place will have them. They come here every year to enjoy the solitude of a hermit-life. Here they withdraw themselves from their fellow-man, and more especially their fellow-woman."
The gentlemen referred to were taking no manner of notice of Mr. Withers, and in their chatter with the girls were not living up to their character.
"The reason why they are called 'Little Frauds' has now almost ceased to be handed down by the voice of tradition," continued Mr. Withers. "It is not because they are intrinsically more deceptive than other men. No man who had any deception in his nature would go round with a leg like this without resorting to artifice to improve its shape."
Mr. Withers here picked up a blue-covered pipe-stem which served one of the Frauds with the means of locomotion.
"That, ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Withers, slowly, in the tone of a lecturer, and poising the limb in his hand, "is essentially the leg of a hermit. If for no other reason than to hide that leg from the public, its owner, ladies, should become a hermit."
The leg here became instinct with life, and Mr. Withers suddenly stepped back and gasped for breath. Then he explained further:
"Seeing that the origin of the name is now almost lost in obscurity, the Little Frauds themselves have lately taken advantage of this fact, ladies, to palm off upon the public a spurious version of the story. They say, in fact, that because they systematically withdrew themselves into a life of celibacy and retirement, and being, as they claim, very desirable as husbands, this name was given to them as being frauds upon the matrimonial market."
Somebody here called out: "Oh, dry up, Withers!"
Mr. Withers took a glass of champagne from one of the waiters passing with a tray and did quite the reverse. He took two gulps, threw the rest over the railing, and continued:
"One glance, ladies, at these people, who are really outcasts from society, will satisfy you that their explanation of the term is as palpably manufactured as the manuscripts of Mr. Shapira – "
"Mister who?" inquired a profane voice.
"Unaccustomed as they are to the usages of polite society, ladies, you will excuse any utterances on their part that might seem intended to interrupt my discourse. The real reason of this ridiculous name is as follows – "
Here, a remarkably good-looking Fraud stood up before Mr. Withers and obliterated him. He spoke in a voice something like a corn-craik:
"We commissioned Mr. Withers to speak to you, Mrs. Dusenall, and to your party, on a topic of great interest to ourselves, but as the night is likely to pass before Mr. Withers gets to the point, we will have to dispense with his services."
Mr. Withers had already retired behind his cigar again, with the air of a man who had acquitted himself pretty well.
The Frauds then begged leave to invite by word of mouth all our party to a dance next evening on their island.
Mrs. Dusenall accepted for all, as she rose to go, suggesting, at the same time, that perhaps some of her new friends, if they did not think it too late, would accompany them across the water in the moonlight to examine their yacht.
After some conversation, a number went with Mrs. Dusenall in the gig, while Margaret and the rest of our party were ferried over by Frauds and others in their long and comfortable row-boats.
Some more champagne was broached on the yacht, but Mr. Withers said he remembered once, early in life, drinking some of the old rye whisky of Canada, and that since then he had always sought for annexation with that delightful country.
To the surprise of Mrs. Dusenall, both he and all the "Melican men" took rye whisky, and ignored her champagne.
The dismay of Mr. Cowper on hearing that the yacht would depart on the morning after the Frauds' dance was unfeigned. He said it "broke him all up."
"Just when we were getting everything down solid for a little time together," he said.
Mrs. Dusenall explained that the yacht was to take part in a race at Toronto in a few days, and must be on hand to defend her previously won laurels.
"Well, Mrs. Dusenall," said Mr. Cowper thoughtfully, "I have myself, over there in the bay, a small smoke-grinder that – "
"A – what?" inquired Mrs. Dusenall.
