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"A steamboat, madame – a small steam-yacht. Nothing like this, of course." He waved his hand airily as if he considered himself in a floating palace. "But very comfortable, I do assure you. Now, if you are going away so soon, the only thing I can do is to get you all to visit the different islands round here in my steam-barge. I call her the old roadster, madame, because she can't do her mile in better than three minutes."
As this represented a speed of twenty miles an hour, Mrs. Dusenall said it was fast enough for her. If he could have got a steamboat fast enough to beat the best trotting record Mr. Cowper would have been content.
It was settled that at eleven o'clock next day the steamer should call and take the whole party off to visit the islands; and he suggested that, as there would be "a sandwich or something" on the boat, Mrs. Dusenall need not think about a return to the Ideal for luncheon.
He then gravely addressed himself to the four Frauds and to Mr. Withers:
"Gentlemen, before we leave this elegant vessel, I wish to remind you that no real old Canadian rye whisky will pass our lips again until such a chance as this once more presents itself. Gentlemen, as this is the last drink we will have to-night, we will, with Mrs. Dusenall's permission, make ready our glasses, and we will dedicate and consecrate this toast to the success of the Ideal and her delightful crew. Mrs. Dusenall – ladies and gentlemen of the Ideal – this toast is not only to celebrate our new acquaintance, which we hope may have in the future more chances to ripen into intimacy (and which on our part will never be forgotten), but we drink it also for another reason – for another less worthy reason – and I can not disguise from you the fact that, to speak plainly, we like the liquor. Madame, the gentlemen of the Ideal have consented to come back with me now, to smoke just one cigar on the hotel before we all retire for the night. Citizens of the United States, Frauds, and others, as this is the last drink we are to have to-night, we will drink the toast in silence."
The gravity of the Americans is a huge national sham, throwing into relief their humor and sunshiny good-will, as in a picture a somber gray background throws up the high lights.
In half an hour more all the men were back at the hotel with Mr. Cowper; but, instead of pursuing the tranquil occupation of smoking a cigar, as he proposed, they were led in and confronted with a banquet in which the extensive resources of the hotel had been taxed to the utmost Mr. Cowper called it the "little something to eat," as he pressed them to come from the verandas into the hotel. But really it was a magnificent affair, and, as Mr. Lemons, who was eloquent on the subject, said, it was calculated to appeal to a man's most delicate sensibilities.
We will not follow them any further on this evening. Mr. Cowper's idea was to all have a good time together – banish stiffness, promote intimacy, and to drive to the winds all cares. He certainly succeeded, for at twelve o'clock there was not a "Mister" in the room for anybody. At one o'clock it was "Jack, old man," and "Cowper, old chappie," all round. At two o'clock the friendship on all sides was not only hermetically sealed, but it promised to be eternal, and after that, it was thought the night was a little dark for Charley Dusenall to return with the others to the yacht, so he remained at the hotel till morning.
CHAPTER XIV
Ferdinand:
… Full many a lady
I have eyed with best regard; and many a time
The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage
Brought my too diligent ear; for several virtues
Have I liked several women; never any
With so full a soul but some defect in her
Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed,
And put it to the foil; but you, O you
So perfect and so peerless, are created
Of every creature's best.
The Tempest.
The "old roadster" had a busy time of it the next morning preparing for the visit to the islands. She was steaming up and down the river for a long while before our friends knew it was time to get up. At eleven o'clock she took on board the Canadians, and away they went – not at "better" than twenty miles an hour, but pretty fast. Mr. Cowper's hint that the Ideal was magnificent in its fittings had pleased the Dusenalls. They thought he had been somewhat impressed by a swinging chandelier over the cabin table. Mr. Cowper had examined this, found it did not contain the last improvements, said it was splendid, and the Dusenalls were pleased. But their pleasure was damped when they were led into the main cabin of the "old roadster." The crimson silk-plush cushions covering the divan around the apartment, into which they sank somewhat heavily, did not at first afford them complete repose. The window curtains and portières throughout the vessel were all of thick corded silk or silk plush. The walls and ceilings in the cabins were simply a museum of the rarest woods, and in the main cabin was a little tiled fireplace with brass dogs and andirons, its graceful curtains reined in with chains. The cabins alone had cost a fortune, and the Dusenalls were for once completely taken aback. Mrs. Dusenall did not get her head over on one side a la duchesse any more that day, and it ended in her coming to the conclusion that Americans in their hospitalities may frequently have no other motive than to give pleasure. This could only be realized by Britons able to denationalize themselves so far as to understand that there may be a life on earth which is not alternate patronage and sponging. It is to be feared though that most of them receive attentions from Americans only as that which should, in the ordinary course of things, be forthcoming from a people blessed with a proper power to appreciate those excellent qualities of head and heart with which the visitor represents his incomparable nation.
Mr. Cowper did not do things by halves. As they sped about among the many islands the strains of harps and violins came pleasantly from some place about the boat where the musicians could not be seen. A number of people from the hotels and islands were also among Mr. Cowper's guests, and Mr. Withers, as a sort of aid-de-camp, assisted the host in bringing everybody together and in seeing that the colored waiters with trays of iced liquids did their duty. One room down below was reserved for the inspection of "the boys," a room which had received a good deal of personal attention and in which any drink known to the civilized world could be procured. Mr. Withers confidentially invited our friends to name anything liquid under the sun they fancied – from nectar to nitric acid. For himself, he said that "that champagne and stuff" going round on deck was not to his taste, and he had the deft-handed "barkeep" mix one of his own cocktails. His own invention in this direction was composed of eight or ten ingredients, and the Canadians were polite enough to praise the mixture; but, afterward, when among themselves, Jack's confession met with acquiescence when he said it seemed nothing but hell-fire and bitters.
The long, narrow craft threaded its tortuous way like a smooth-gliding fish through the little channels between the islands, passing up small natural harbors or coming alongside a precipitous rock. They several times disembarked to see how much art had assisted nature on the different islands, and viewed the fishponds, summer houses, awnings, and hammocks, and the taste displayed in the picturesque dwellings. Mr. Cowper's assurances that the owners of the islands would not object to be caught in any kind of occupation or garment were corroborated by the warm welcomes extended to them. Such is the freedom of the American citizen, that a good many of the islanders who heard Mr. Cowper was having a picnic "guessed they'd go along, too." It was evidently expected that they would do just as they liked, without being invited; in fact, Mr. Cowper loudly objected in several cases, declaring he had no provisions for them. "Never mind, old man, we're not proud. We'll whack up with your last crust, and bring a pocket-flask for ourselves."
This seemed friendly.
Of course the lunch, which was found to be spread under a large marquee on a distant island, was really another banquet. The hotel retinue had been up all night preparing for it. The waiters, glass, table-linen, flowers, and everything else showed what money could do in the way of transformation scenes. The only fault about it was that it was too magnificent for a picnic. It can not be a picnic when there is no chance of eating sand with your game-pie, no chance of carrying pails of water half a mile, no difficulty in keeping stray cows, dogs, and your own feet out of the table-cloth spread upon the ground. And when the trip in the steamer had ended and most of our crew were having a little doze on the Ideal during the latter part of the afternoon, the curiosity which Mr. Cowper had awakened was still at its height.
After dinner that evening, about eight o'clock, a pretty picture might have been made of the Ideal, as she lay in the shadows, moored to a well-wooded island where the rock banks seemed to dive perpendicularly into blue fathomless depths. The party were taking their coffee in the open air for greater coolness, and all had arrayed themselves for the dance in the evening. The delicately shaded muslins and such thin fabrics as the ladies wore blended pleasantly with the soft evening after-glow that fell upon the rustling trees and running water. Seated on the overhanging rocks beside the yacht, or perched up on the stowed mainsail, they not only supplied soft color to the darkling evening hues, but seemed to have a glow of their own, and reminded one of Chinese lanterns lit before it is dark. This may have been only a fancy, helped out by radiant faces and the slanting evening lights, but, even if the simile fails, they were certainly prepared to shine as brightly as they knew how at the ball later on.
The little basswood canoe, with its comfortable rugs and cushions, lay beside the yacht, bobbing about in the evening breeze, and Margaret sat dreamily watching its wayward movements.
"A penny for your thoughts?" asked somebody.
"I was thinking," answered Margaret, "that the canoe is the only craft that ought to be allowed in these waters, and that the builders of houses on these islands ought to realize that the only dwelling artistically correct should be one that either copies or suggests the wigwam. No one can come among these islands without wondering how long the Indians lived here. All the Queen Anne architecture we have seen to-day has seemed to me to be altogether misplaced."
"What you suggest could hardly be expected here," said Geoffrey, "because, putting aside the difficulty of building a commodious house which would still resemble a wigwam, there remains the old difficulty of getting people to see in imagination what is not before them – the old difficulty that gave us the madonnas, saints, and heroes as Dutch, Italian, or English, according to the nationality of the painter. Of all the pictures of Christ scattered over Europe, none that I have seen could have been like a person living much in the open air of the Holy Land. They will paint Joseph as brown as the air there will make anybody, because it does not matter about Joseph, but the Christs are always ideal."
"Still, I am sure something might be done to carry out my idea," said Margaret, keeping to the subject. "Surely localities have the same right to be illustrated according to their traditions that nations have to expect that their heroes shall be painted so as to show their nationality. No one would paint the Arab desert and leave out the squat black tent, the horse, and all the other adjuncts of the Bedouin. Why, then, build Queen Anne houses in a place where the mind refuses to think of anything but the Indian?"
"Perhaps," said Hampstead, "the case here is unique. It is difficult to find a parallel. But the same idea would present itself if one attempted to build an English Church in the Moorish style instead of the Gothic or something similar. I fancy that the subscribers would feel that the traditions of their race and native land were not being properly represented, as you say, in their architecture – that they would resent an Oriental luxury of outline suggesting only Mohammed's luxurious religion, and that nothing would suit them but the high, severe, and moral aspect of their own race, religion, and churches. By the way, did you ever consider how the moral altitude of each religion throughout the world is indelibly stamped in the very shape of each one's houses of worship. Begin at the whimsical absurdities of the Chinese, and come westward to the monstrosities of India, then to the voluptuous domes of the Moor and the less voluptuous domes of Constantinople, then to the still less Oriental domes of Rome, then to the fortress-like rectangular Norman, then to the lofty, refined, severe, upward-pointing Gothic of Germany and England. Each church along the whole line, by its mere external shape, will tell of the people and religion that built it better than a host of words."
"If that be so, it would seem like retrograding in architecture to suggest the Indian wigwam here," said Jack. "What do you say, Margaret?"
"I think that this is not a place where national aspirations in monuments need be looked for. Its claims must always be on the side of simple nature and the picturesque – a place for hard workers to recuperate in, and, therefore, the poetry of all its early traditions should in every way be protected and suggested."
"Of course, I suppose, Miss Margaret, the Indian you wish to immortalize is John Fenimore Cooper's Indian, and that you have no reference to Batoche half-breeds. Perhaps after a while we may see the genius of this place suggested further, but I think the Americans have had too much trouble in exterminating 'Lo, the poor Indian' to wish to be reminded of his former existence, and that the savagery of Queen Anne is sufficient for them. 'Lo' has, for them, no more poetry than a professional tramp. Out West, you know, they read it 'Loathe the poor Indian.'"
"They don't loathe the poor Indian everywhere," said Rankin, as he remembered an item about the dusky race. "You know our act forbidding people to work on Sunday makes a provision for the unconverted heathen, and says 'this act shall not apply to Indians.' Some time ago a man at the Falls of Niagara was accustomed to run an elevator on Sunday to carry tourists up and down the cliff to the Whirlpool Rapids. His employés were prosecuted for carrying on their business on the Sabbath day. When the following Sunday arrived, a quite civilized remnant of the Tuscarora tribe were running the entire business at splendid profits, and claimed, apparently with success, that the law could not touch them."
While this desultory talk was going on, Margaret was still watching the little canoe bobbing about on the water. Geoffrey said to her: "Those rugs and cushions in the canoe look very inviting, do they not?"
Margaret nodded.
"I know what you are thinking about," he whispered. "You want to go away in the canoe, and dream over the waters and glide about from island to island and imagine yourself an Indian princess."
She nodded again brightly.
"Well, if my dress-coat will not interfere with your imagining me a 'great brave,' you might get your gloves, fan, and shawl, and we can go for a sail, and come in later on at the dance. If the coat spoils me you can think of me as John Smith, and of yourself as Pocahontas."
As Margaret nestled down into the cushions of the canoe, Geoffrey stepped a little mast that carried a handkerchief of a sail, and, getting in himself, gave a few vigorous strokes with the paddle, which sent the craft flying from under the lee of the island. As the sail filled and they skimmed away, he called out to Mrs. Dusenall that they would go and see the people at the hotels, and would meet them at the dance about nine o'clock. From the course taken by the butterfly of a boat, which was in any direction except toward the hotels, this explanatory statement appeared to be a mere transparency.
Nina's spirits sank to low ebb when she saw these two going off together.
They sailed on for some distance in open water, and then, as the sail proved unsatisfactory, Margaret took it down, and they commenced a sinuous course among small islands. The dusk of the evening had still some of the light of day in it, but the moon was already up and endeavoring to assert her power. Everybody had given up wearing hats, which had become unnecessary in such weather. As they glided about, Geoffrey sometimes faced the current with long, silent strokes that gave no idea of exertion foreign to the quiet charm of the scene, and at other times the paddle dragged lazily through the water as he sat back and allowed the canoe to drift along on the current close to the rocky islands. They floated past breezy nooks where the ferns and mosses filled the interstices between rocks and tree roots, where trees had grown up misshapenly between the rocks, under wild creeping vines that drooped from the overhanging boughs and swept the flowing water. Hardly a word had been spoken since they left the yacht. For Margaret, there was enough in the surroundings to keep her silent. She had yielded herself to the full enjoyment of the balmy air and faint evening glows, changing landscape, and sound of gurgling water. Her own appearance as seen from the other end of the canoe did not tend to spoil the view. Her happy face and graceful lines, and the full neck that tapered out of the open-throated evening dress did not seem out of harmony with anything. Reclining on one elbow against a cushioned thwart, she leaned forward and altered the course of the light bark by giving a passing rock a little push with her fan.
They were now passing a sort of natural harbor on the shore of one of the islands. It had been formed by the displacement of a huge block of granite from the side of the rock wall, and the roots and trunks of trees had roofed it in.
Geoffrey pointed it out for inspection, and they landed lower down so that they could walk back to a spot like that to which Shelley's Rosalind and Helen came.
To a stone seat beside a stream,
O'er which the columned wood did frame
A rootless temple, like a fane
Where, ere new creeds could faith obtain,
Man's early race once knelt beneath
The overhanging Deity.
Here they rested, while Margaret, lost in the charm of the surroundings, exclaimed:
"Could anything be more delightful than this?"
Geoffrey had always been conscious of something in Margaret's presence which, seemingly without demand, exacted finer thought and led him to some unknown region which other women did not suggest. When with her he divined that it was by some such influence that men are separately civilized, and that, with her, his own civilization was possible. Every short-lived, ill-considered hope for the future seemed now so entangled with her identity that her existence had become in some way necessary to him. He had come to know this by discovering how unfeigned was the earnestness with which he angled for her good opinion, and he was rather puzzled to note his care lest "a word too much or a look too long" might spoil his chances of arriving at some higher, happier life that her presence assisted him vaguely to imagine. Nevertheless, so great was his doubt as to his own character that all this seemed to him as if he must be merely masquerading in sheep's clothing to gain her consideration, and that it must in some way soon come to an end from his own sheer inability to live up to it. All he knew was that this living up to an ideal self was a civilizing process, and if he did not count upon its permanency it certainly, he thought, did him no harm while it lasted. "After all, was it not possible to continue in the upper air?"
While his thoughts were running in this channel, such a long pause elapsed, that Margaret had forgotten what he was answering to when he said decisively: "Yes. It is pleasant."
She looked around at him because his voice sounded as if he had been weighing other things than the scenery in his head.
"Oh, it is more than pleasant," she said. "It is something never to forget." Margaret looked away over earth, water, and sky, as if to point them out to interpret her enthusiasm. Her range of view apparently did not include Geoffrey. Perhaps he was to understand from this that he, personally, had little or nothing to do with her pleasure. But a glimpse of one idea suggested more serious thought, and the next moment she was wondering how much he had to do with her present thorough content.
Geoffrey, who was watching her thoughts by noticing the half smile and half blush that came to her face, felt his heart give a little bound. He imagined he divined the presence of the thought that puzzled her, but he answered in the off-hand way in which one deals with generalities.
"I believe, Miss Margaret, this whole trip provides you with great happiness."
"I believe it does," said Margaret. To conceal a sense of consciousness she uprooted a rush growing at the edge of the rock seat.
"Well, that is a great thing, to know when you are happy. Happiness is a difficult thing to get at."
"Do you find it so hard to be happy?"
"I think I do," said Geoffrey. "That is, to be as much so as I would like."
"You must be rather difficult to please."
"No doubt it is a mistake not to be happy all the time," replied Geoffrey. "There is such a thing, however, as chasing happiness about the world too long. She shakes her wings and does not return, and leaves us nothing but not very exalting memories of times when we seem, as far as we can recollect, to have been only momentarily happy."
"For me, I think that I could never forget a great happiness, that it would light up my life and make it bearable no matter what the after conditions might be," said Margaret thoughtfully.
"Just so," answered Geoffrey lightly. "There's the rub. How's a fellow to cultivate a great happiness when he never can catch up to it. I don't know of any path in which I have not sought for the jade, but I can look back upon a life largely devoted to this chase and honestly say that beyond a few gleams of poor triumph I never think of my existence except as a period during which I have been forced to kill time."
"That is because you are not spiritually minded," said Margaret, smiling.
"I suppose you mean consistently spiritually minded," said Geoffrey. "No doubt some who live for an exalted hereafter may sometimes know what actual joy is, but this can only approach continuity where one has great imaginative ambition and weak primitive leanings. For most people the chances of happiness in spirituality are not good. Happily, the savage mind can not grasp the intended meaning of either the promised rewards or punishments continually, if at all; and this inability saves them from going mad. Of course the more men improve themselves the more they may rejoice, both for themselves and their posterity, but mere varnished savages like myself have a poor chance to gain happiness in consistent spirituality. It is foolish to suppose that we are free agents. A high morality and its own happiness are an heirloom – a desirable thing – which our forefathers have constructed for us."
"I have sometimes thought," said Margaret, "that if happiness depends upon one's goodness it is not necessarily that goodness which we are taught to recognize as such. Goodness seems to be relative and quite changeable among different people. Some of the best people under the Old Testament would not shine as saints under the New Testament, yet the older people were doubtless happy enough in their beliefs. Desirable observances necessary to a Mohammedan's goodness are not made requisite in any European faith, and yet our people are not unhappy on this account. Nobody can doubt that pagan priests were, and are, completely happy when weltering in the blood of their fellow-creatures, and, if it be true that conscience is divinely implanted in all men, that under divine guidance it is an infallible judge between good and evil, that one may be happy when his conscience approves his actions, and that therefore happiness comes from God, how is it that the pagan priest while at such work is able to think himself holy and to rejoice in it with clearest conscience? It would seem, from this, that there must be different goodnesses diametrically opposed to each other which are equally-pleasing to Him and equally productive of happiness to individuals."
Geoffrey smiled at her, as they talked on in their usual random way, for it seemed that she was capable of piecing her knowledge together in the same sequence (or disorder) that he did himself. One is well-disposed toward a mind whose processes are similar to one's own. He smiled, too, at her attempts to reconcile facts with the idea of beneficence toward individuals on the part Of the powers behind nature. For his part, he had abandoned that attempt.
"I have a rule," he said, "which seems to me to explain a good deal, namely, if a person can become persuaded that he is rendered better or more spiritual by following out his natural desires, he is one of the happiest of men. The pagan priest you mentioned was gratifying his natural desires, his love of power and love of cruelty – which in conjunction with his beliefs made him feel more godly. Mohammed built his vast religion on the very corner-stone of this rule. Priests are taught from the beginning to guard and increase the power of the Church. This is their first great trust, and it becomes a passion. Their natural love of power is utilized for this purpose. For this object, history tells us that no human tie is too sacred to be torn asunder and trampled on. Natural love of dominion in a man can be trained into such perfect accord with the desired dominion of a priesthood that he may feel not only happy but spiritually improved in carrying out anything his Church requires him to do – no matter what that may be."
Geoffrey-stopped, as he noticed that Margaret shuddered. "You are feeling cold," he said.
"No, I was only thinking of some of the priests' faces. They terrify me so. I don't want to interrupt you, but what do you think makes them look like that?"
Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't know," he answered. "Perhaps interpreting the supernatural has with some of them a bad effect upon the countenance. All one can say is that many of them bear in their faces what in other classes of men I consider to be unmistakable signs that their greatest happiness consists in something which must be concealed from the public." Hampstead spoke with the tired smile of one who on an unpleasant subject thinks more than he will say.
"Let us not speak of them. They make me think of Violet Keith, and all that sort of thing. Go back to what you were saying. It seems to me that the most refined and educated followers of different faiths do not gain happiness in spirituality in the way you suggest. Your rule does not seem to apply to them."
"I think it does," answered Geoffrey, with some of that abruptness which in a man's argument with a woman seems to accept her as a worthy antagonist from the fact that politeness is a trifle forgotten. "You refer to men whose mental temperament is stronger in controlling their daily life than any other influence – men with high heads, who seem made of moral powers – ideality, conscientiousness, and all the rest of them. They have got the heirloom I spoke of. They are gentle from their family modification. These few, indeed, can, I imagine, be happy in religion, for this reason. There has been in their families for many generations a production of mental activity, which exists more easily in company with a high morality than with satisfactions which would only detract from it. With such men it may be said that their earlier nature has partly changed into what the rule applies to equally well. With ordinary social pressure and their own temperaments they would still, even without religion, be what they are; because any other mode of life does not sufficiently attract them. Their ancestors went through what we are enduring now."
"But," said Margaret – and she continued to offer some objections, chiefly to lead Geoffrey to talk on. However incomplete his reasoning might be, his strong voice was becoming music to her. She did not wish it to stop. Both her heart and her mind seemed impelled toward both him and his way of thinking by the echo of the resonant tones which she heard within herself. Being a woman, she found this pleasant. "But," she said, "people who are most imperfect surely may have great happiness in their faith?"
"At times. Yes," replied he. "But their happiness is temporary, and necessarily alternates with an equal amount of misery. The loss of a hope capable of giving joy must certainly bring despair in the same proportion, inversely, as the hope was precious. All ordinary men with any education alternate more or less between the enjoyment of the energetic mental life and the duller following of earlier instincts, and when, in the mental life, they allow themselves to delight in immaterial hopes and visions, there is unhappiness when the brain refuses to conjure up the vision, and most complete misery after there has occurred that transition to their older natures which must at times supervene, unless they possess the great moral heirloom, or perhaps a refining bodily infirmity to assist them. Ah! this struggle after happiness has been a long one. Solomon, and all who seek it in the way he did, find their mistake. Pleasure without ideality is a paltry thing and leads to disgust. Religion-makers have hovered about the idea contained in my rule to make their creeds acceptable. In this idea Mohammed pleased many. Happiness in spirituality can only be continuous for men when they come to have faces like some passionless but tender-hearted women, and still retain the wish to imagine themselves as something like gods."
