Kitabı oku: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 19, May, 1859», sayfa 9

CHAPTER XXV

Greenleaf pursued his search for Alice with all the ardor of his nature. One glimpse only he had of her;—at a clothing-store, where he inquired, the clerk seemed to recognize the description given, and was quite sure that such a girl had taken out work, but he knew nothing of her whereabouts, and he believed she was now employed by another establishment. It was something to know that she was in the city, and, probably, not destitute; still better to know what path of life she had chosen, so that his time need not be wasted in fruitless inquiries. On his return, after the second day's search, he sought his friend Easelmann, whose counsel and sympathy he particularly desired.

"Any tidings of the fugitive?" was the first question.

"No," replied Greenleaf,—"nothing satisfactory. I have heard of her once; but it was like a trail in the woods, which the hunter comes upon, then loses utterly."

"But the hunter who measures a track once will be likely to find it again."

"Yes, I have that consolation. But, Easelmann, though this mishap of losing Alice has cost me many sleepless nights, and will continue to engross my time until I find her, I cannot rid myself of other troubles and apprehensions. I have done nothing for a long time. I have no orders; and, as I have no fortune to fall back upon, I see nothing but starvation before me."

"Then, my dear fellow, look the other way. It isn't wise to distress yourself by looking ahead, so long as you have the chance of turning round."

"I feel lonely, too,—isolated. People that I meet are civil enough; but I don't know a man, except in my profession, that I can consider a friend."

"Very likely. Caste isn't confined to India."

"I had supposed that intellect and culture were enough to secure for a man a recognition in good society; but I am made to feel, a hundred times a day, that I have no more status than a clever colored man, an itinerant actor, or any other anomaly. To-day I met Travis; you know he comes here and makes himself free and easy with us, and has always put himself on a footing of equality."

"Wherein you made a mistake. He has no right, but by courtesy, to any equality. A little taste, perhaps, and money enough to gratify it,—that's all. He never had an idea in his life."

"That is the reason I felt the slight. He was walking with a lady whose manner and dress were unmistakable,—a lady of undoubted position. I bowed, and received in return one of those hardly-perceptible nods, with a forced smile that covered only the side of his face from the lady. It was a recognition that one might throw to his boot-black. I am a mild-mannered man, as you know; but I could have murdered him on the spot."

Greenleaf walked the floor with flashing eyes and his teeth set.

"Now, I like the spirit," said Easelmann; "but, pray, be sensible. 'Where Macdonald sits, there is the head of the table.' Stand firm in your own shoes, and graduate your bows by those you get."

"I suppose I am thin-skinned."

"As long as you are, you will chafe. Cultivate a hide like a rhinoceros's, and Society will let fly its pin-pointed arrows in vain. You have a great deal to learn, my dear boy."

"But other special classes are not so treated,—literary men, for instance."

"Don't be too sure of that. An author who has attained position is fêted, because the fashionable circles must have their lions. But to stand permanently like other men, he must have money or family, or else obey the world's ten commandments, of which the first is, 'Thou shalt not wear a slouched hat,'—and the rest are like unto it. No,—the literary men have their heart-burnings, I suspect. They forget, as you do, that their very profession, the direction of their thoughts, their mode of life, cut them off from sympathy and fellowship. What has a writer who dreams of rivalling Emerson or the 'Autocrat' to do with costly and absorbing private theatricals, with dances at Papanti's, with any of the thousand modes of killing time agreeably? And how shall you become the new Claude, if you give your thoughts to the style of your clothes, and to the inanities that make up the staple of conversation?"

"But because I am precluded from devoting my time to society, that is no reason why I should bear the patronizing airs"–

"Don't be patronized,—that's all. If a man gives you such a look as you have described, cut him dead the next time you meet him. If anybody gives you two fingers to shake, give him only one of yours. I tried that plan on a doctor of divinity once, and it worked admirably. His intended condescension somehow vanished in a mist, and the foolish confusion that overspread his blank features would have done you good to behold."

"I have no doubt. I don't think it would be easy to be impertinent to you. Not that there are not presuming people enough; but you have a way with you. Your blade that cuts off a bayonet at a blow will glide through a feather as well."

"A delicate stroke of yours! Now to return. You are out of money, you say. Perhaps you will allow me to become your creditor for a while. I may presume upon the relation and take on some airs;—that's inevitable; one can't forego such a privilege;—but I promise to bow very civilly whenever I meet you; and I won't remind you of the debt—above twice a day."

Taking out his pocket-book, he handed his friend fifty dollars, and pshawed and poohed at every expression of gratitude.

"By the way, Greenleaf," he continued, "I have been in search of an absconding female also. You remember Mrs. Sandford, the charming widow?"

"Yes,—what has become of her?"

"You see how philosophical I am. I have not seen her yet; and yet I am not crazy about it. Some chickens think the sky is falling, whenever a rose-leaf drops on their heads."

"But you have no such reason to be anxious."

"Haven't I? Do you think old fellows like me have lost recollection as well as feeling? One of the most deadly cases of romance I ever knew was between people of forty and upwards."

"How dull I was! I saw some rather odd glances between you at the musical party, but thought nothing more about it. But why haven't you been looking for her?"

"I have been cogitating," said Easelmann, twisting his moustaches.

"I should think so. If you had asked me, now! I went with her to the house where I suppose she is still boarding."

"Did you?" [very indifferently, and with the falling inflection.]

"Why, don't you want to know?"

"Yes,—to-morrow. And I think, that, when we find her, we may find a clue to your Alice."

Greenleaf started up as if he had been galvanized.

"You have seen her, then! You old fox! Where is she? To-morrow, indeed! Tell me, and I will fly."

"You can't; for, as Brother Chadband observed, you haven't any wings."

"Don't trifle with me. I know your fondness for surprises; but if you love me, don't put me off with your nonsense."

Greenleaf was thoroughly in earnest, and Easelmann took a more soothing tone. At another time the temptation to tease would have been irresistible.

"Be calm, you man of gunpowder, steel, whalebone, and gutta-percha! I positively have nothing but guesses to give you. Besides, do you think you have nothing to do but rush into Alice's arms when you find her? Take some valerian to quiet your nerves, and go to bed. In the morning, try to smooth over those sharp features of yours. Use rouge, if you can't get up your natural color. When you are presentable, come over here again, and we'll stroll out in search of adventure. But mind, I promise nothing,—I only guess."

While he spoke, Greenleaf looked into the mirror, and was surprised to see how anxiety had worn upon him. His face was thin and bloodless, and his eyes sunken, but glowing. The quiet influence of his friend calmed him, and his impatience subsided. He took his leave silently, wringing Easelmann's hand, and walked home with a lighter heart.

"He is a good fellow," mused Easelmann, "and has suffered enough for his folly. The lesson will do him good."

CHAPTER XXVI

Mr. Bullion was not without good natural impulses, but his education and experience had been such as to develop only the sharp and selfish traits of his character. An orphan at the age of eleven years, he was placed in a shop under the charge of a grasping, unscrupulous man, where he learned the rules of business which he followed afterwards with so much success. The old-fashioned notions about the Golden Rule he was speedily well rid of; for when his indiscreet frankness to customers was observed, the rod taught him the folly of untimely truth-telling, if not the propriety of smoothing the way to a bargain by a glib falsehood. With such training, he grew up an expert salesman; and before he was of age, after various changes in business, he became the confidential clerk in a large wholesale house. Owing to unexpected reverses, the house became embarrassed, and at length failed. The head of the firm went back to his native town a broken-hearted man, and not long afterwards died, leaving his family destitute. But Bullion, with a junior partner, settled with the creditors, kept on with the business, and prospered. Perhaps, if the widow had received what was rightfully hers, the juniors would have had a smaller capital to begin upon,—Bullion knew; but the account, if there was one, was past settlement by human tribunals, and had gone upon the docket in the great Court of Review.

Wealth grows like the banian, sending down branches that take root on all sides in the thrifty soil, and then become trunks themselves, and the parents of ever-increasing boughs,—a sturdy forest in breadth, a tree in unity. So Bullion grew and flourished. At the time of our story he was rich enough to satisfy any moderate ambition; but he wished to rear a colossal fortune, and the operations he was now concerned in were fortunate beyond his expectations. But he was not satisfied. He conceived the idea of carrying on the same stock-speculation in New York on a larger scale, and made an arrangement with one of the leading "bears" of that city; but he was careful to keep this a secret, most of all from Fletcher and others of his associates at home. Fortune favored him, as usual, and he promised himself a success that would make him a monarch in the financial world. Under the excitement of the moment, he had filled the baby hands of Fletcher's child with gold pieces. It was as Fletcher said; his head was fairly turned by the glittering prospect before him.

The associate in New York proposed to Bullion the purchase of a controlling interest in a railroad; and Bullion, believing that the depression had nearly reached its limit, and that affairs would soon take a turn, agreed that it was best now to change their policy, and to buy all the shares in this stock that should be offered while the price was low, and keep them as an investment. He felt sure that he with the New York capitalist had now money enough to "swing" all the shares in market, and they each agreed to purchase all that should be brought to the hammer in their respective cities. Following up his promise faithfully, Bullion bought all the stock of the railroad that came into State Street, and in this way rapidly exhausted his ready money. Then he raised loans upon his other property, and still kept the market clear. But he wondered that so many shares came to Boston for sale; for the railroad was in a Western State, and few of the original holders were New England men.

Bullion now met the first check in his career. Kerbstone, whose appeals for help he had disregarded, and whose property had been wofully depreciated by the course of the "bears," of whom Bullion was chief, failed for a large sum. As he was treasurer of the Neversink Mills, the stockholders and creditors of that corporation made an immediate investigation of its accounts. Kerbstone was found to be a defaulter to the amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars; the property was gone,—undermined like a snow-bank in spring. The largest owner was Bullion. He was overreached by his own shrewdness; and the hitherto unlucky "bulls," who had had small cause to laugh, thought that it was

 
"sport to see the engineer Hoist with his own petard,"—
 

better even than to have tossed him on their own horns.

Bullion made some wry faces; but the loss, though great, was not ruinous. He was obliged, however, to take back the shares of the factory-stock on which he had obtained loans for his New York operations, and to substitute an equal amount of other securities,—thus cramping his resources at a time when he needed every dollar to carry out his vast plans.

In the multiplicity of his affairs, Bullion had almost forgotten Fletcher, and left him to pursue his own course. But there was a man who had not forgotten him, and who followed all his movements with vigilant eyes. Sandford was convinced that Fletcher had in some way become prosperous, and he now advanced to use the peculiar note as a draft on the miserable debtor's funds. There was the same wily approach, the same covert allusion to Fletcher's supposed resources, the same peremptory demand, and the same ugly threat which had so desperately maddened him when the subject was broached before. Fletcher felt the tightening of the lasso, but could not free himself from the fatal noose. He must pay whatever the cold-eyed creditor demanded. Two thousand dollars was the sum asked for the acknowledgment of having appropriated five hundred. Twopence for halfpenny has been accounted fair usury among the Jews; but in Christian communities it is only crime that accumulates interest like that.

As a measure of precaution, Sandford had made a copy of the paper and prepared an explanatory statement; these he now inclosed in an envelope, in Fletcher's presence, and directed it to Messrs. Foggarty, Danforth, and Dot. Then drawing out his watch, as if to make a careful computation of time, he said,—

"Nine, ten, eleven,—yes,—at eleven, to-morrow, I shall expect to receive the sum; otherwise I shall feel it my duty to send this letter by a trusty hand. In fact, I suppose I have hardly done right in not putting the gentlemen on their guard before."

A cold sweat covered Fletcher's shivering limbs, and for a moment he stood irresolute; but recollecting Bullion, he rallied himself, and, assenting to the proposition, bade Sandford good-bye; then, as the only revenge practicable, he cursed him with the heartiest emphasis, when his back was turned. Presently Tonsor came with the news of Kerbstone's failure.

"The street is full of rumors," he said;—"Bullion is a large owner in the Neversink."

"Bosh!" said Fletcher,—"Bullion is in there for fifty thousand, to be sure; but what is that? He has other property enough,—half a million, at least."

"Still, a pebble brought down Goliath. A house in New York, worth a million, failed yesterday for want of twenty-five thousand."

"Don't you be alarmed. Bullion knows. He isn't going to fail."

"I want to get ten thousand from him to take some shares I bought for him."

"How soon?"

"Now; and he is not at his office."

"I'll get you the money from our house. I haven't deposited the funds for to-day yet, and I'll put in a memorandum which Bullion will make good."

"Hadn't you better wait?"

"No; it doesn't matter. He's all right; and it isn't best to break his orders for any ten thousand dollars."

Fletcher handed the money to the broker, and, as bank-hours were then about over, he put his papers in order and went home.

"Lovey!" he exclaimed, upon meeting his wife, "I have been thinking over what you said about getting my notes cashed. I believe I'll take Bullion's offer and salt the money down. Probably, now, he will give me a better trade, for there is considerable more due."

"Oh, John! how glad I am! You will do it to-morrow,—won't you, now?"

"Yes, I'll settle with him to-morrow."

He was thinking of the fact that Tonsor had bought shares for Bullion, and he wondered what the move meant. A house divided against itself could not stand; and he said to himself, that a man must be uncommonly deep to be a "bull" and a "bear" at the same time. There was no doubt that Bullion had embarked in some speculation which he had not seen fit to make known to his agent.

"There you go,—off into one of your fogs again!" said the wife, noticing his suddenly abstracted air. "That's the way you have done for the last three months,—ever since you began with that hateful man."

"I get to thinking about affairs, my little woman, and I don't want to bother your simple head with them; so I go cruising off in the fog, as you call it, by myself."

"Oh, if you once get through with that man's affairs, we'll have no more fogs!"

"No, deary, we'll have summer weather and a smooth sea, I hope, for the rest of our voyage."

"You see, John, I have been dreadfully anxious, more than I could tell you. If anything goes wrong, I've always noticed that it isn't the big people that have to suffer; it's the smaller ones that get caught."

"Yes, it's an old story; the big flies break out of the spider's net; the little chaps hang there. But I'll settle up the business to-morrow. I shall have enough to buy us a little house in the country,—a snug box, with a garden; then I'll get a horse to drive about with, and we'll take some comfort. Come, little woman, sit on my knee! Come, baby, here is a knee for you, too!"

Holding them in his arms, he still mused upon the morrow, and once and again charged his mind to remember "two thousand for Sandford, ten thousand for Danforth and Dot!"

CHAPTER XXVII

Alice did not feel the utter loneliness of her situation, until, as she walked along, square after square, she encountered so many hundreds of abstracted or curious or impudent faces, and reflected that it was upon such people that her future support and comfort would depend. She tried to discover in some countenance the impress of kindly benevolence;—not that she proposed to risk so much as a question; but it was her first experience with the busy world, and she wished to observe its ways, when neither relationship nor personal interest was involved. Small encouragement she would have felt to approach any that she met. Men of middle-age walked by as in dreams, cold, unobservant, listless; the younger ones, fuller of life, strode on with high heads, and flinging glances that were harder to bear than stony indifference, even. Ladies clothed in costly furs scanned the pretty face under the mourning bonnet with prying eyes, or tossed her a hasty, scornful look. Shop-girls giggled and stared. Boys rushed by, rudely jostling every passenger. Old women in scanty petticoats that were fringed by no dressmaker, with pinched faces and watery eyes, looked imploringly and hobbled along, wrapping parcels of broken victual under their faded shawls.—A sorry world Alice thought it. In the country, she had been used to receive a kindly bow or a civil "Good-morning!" from every person she met; and the isolation of the individual in the city was to her something unnatural, even appalling.

She had cut out some boarding-house advertisements from the daily papers, and her first care was to find a home suited to her slender means. Reaching the door of the first on her list, she rang and was shown into a small drawing-room, shabby-genteel in its furniture and ornaments. Two seamstresses sat chattering around the centre-table; while a ruddy young man, with greenish brown moustaches and sandy hair, rested his clumsy boots on the fender, holding an open music-book in his lap and a flute in his ill-kept and gaudily-ringed hands. The kitchen, apparently, was not ventilated; and a mingled odor, beyond the analysis of chemistry, came up into the entry and pervaded the hot and confined atmosphere of the room. The landlady, a stout and resolute woman, entered with a studied smile, which changed gradually to a cold civility. Her eyes, unlike Banquo's, had a deal of speculation in them. One might read the price-current in the busy wrinkles. Around her pursed-up mouth lurked the knowledge of the number of available slices in a sirloin,—the judgment of the lump of butter that should leave no margin for prodigality. Warfare with market-men, shrewish watchfulness over servants, economy scarcely removed from meanness at the table, all were clearly indicated in her flushed and hard-featured face.

Alice was not familiar with such people; but she shrank from her by instinct, as the first chicken fled from the first hawk. The landlady, on her part, was equally suspicious, and, finding that Alice had no relatives to depend upon, and that she expected to earn her own living, was not at all solicitous to increase the number of her boarders.

"It's pootty hard to tell who's who, now-a-days," she said. "I have to pay cash for all I set on the table, and I can't trust to fair promises. Perhaps, though, you've got some cousin that looks arter your bills?"

The flute-player exchanged knowing glances with the seamstresses.

All-unconscious of the taunt, Alice simply replied,—

"No, I have told you that I have no one to depend upon."

The landlady's mouth was primly set, and she merely exclaimed,—

"Oh! indeed!"

"I think I'll look further," said Alice. "Good-morning."

"Good-morning."

Half-suppressed chuckles followed her, as she left the room. Sorely grieved and indignant, she took her way to another house. Fortune this time favored her. The landlady, a kind-hearted woman, was in mourning for her only daughter, and with the first words she heard she felt her heart drawn to the lovely and soft-voiced stranger. Without any offensive inquiries, Alice was at once received, and an upper room assigned to her. After sending for her trunk, she dressed for dinner.

The table presented specimens of all the familiar characters of boarding-house life. There was the lawyer, sharp, observant, talkative, ready for a joke or an argument. There was the solemn man of business, who ate from a sense of duty, and scowled at the lawyer's bad puns. Near him, with an absurdly youthful wig and opaque goggles, sat the Unknown; his name, occupation, resources, and tastes alike a profound mystery. Several dapper clerks, whose right ears drooped from having been used as pen-racks, wearing stunning cravats, outré brooches and shirt-studs, learned in the lore of "two-forty" driving, were ranged opposite. Then there was the jolly widow, who was the admiration of men of her own age, but who cruelly gave all her smiles to the boys with newly-sprouting chins. Near her sat the fastidious man, whose nostrils curled ominously when any stain appeared on his napkin, or when anything sullied the virgin purity of his own exclusive fork. His spectacles seemed to serve as microscopes, made for the sole purpose of detecting some fatal speck invisible to other eyes. There was the singer, with a neck like a swan's, bowing with the gracious air that is acquired in the acknowledgment of bouquets and bravas. The artist was her vis-à-vis, powerful like Samson in his bushy locks, negligent with fore-thought, wearing a massive seal-ring, and fragrant with the perfume of countless pipes. The nice old maid near him turns away in disgust when she sees his moustaches draggle in the soup.

Down the long row of faces Alice looked timidly, and at length fastened her eyes upon a lady in mourning like herself. There is no physiognomist like the frank, affectionate young man or woman who looks to find appreciation and sympathy. It is not necessary, for such a purpose, to speculate upon Grecian or Roman noses, thin or protruding lips, blue, gray, or brown eyes; each soul knows its own sphere and the people that belong in it; and a sure instinct or prescience guides us in our choice of friends. Alice at a glance became conscious of an affinity, and quietly waited till circumstances should bring her into associations with the woman whom she hoped to make a friend.

It was not long before the occasion came. Not to make any mystery, it was our old acquaintance, Mrs. Sandford, who attracted the gaze of Alice, and who soon became her kindly adviser. Never was there a more motherly woman; and, as she was now almost a stranger in the house, she attached herself to Alice with a warmth and an unobtrusive solicitude that quite won the girl's heart. Alice lost no time in procuring such work from a tailor as she felt competent to do, and applied herself diligently to her task; but a very short trial convinced her, that, at the "starvation prices" then paid for needlework, she should not be able to earn even her board. Then came in the thoughtful friend, who, after gently drawing out the facts of the case, furnished her with sewing on which she could display her taste and skill. Day after day new employment came through the same kind hands, until Alice wondered how one wearer could want such a quantity of the various nameless, tasteful articles in which all women feel so much pride. It was not until long after, that she learned how the work had been procured by her friend's active, but noiseless agency.

Not many days after their intimacy commenced, as Mrs. Sandford sat watching Alice at her work, it occurred to her that there was a look of tender sorrow, an unexplained melancholy, which her recent bereavement did not wholly account for. Not that the girl was given to romantic sighs or tragic starts, or that she carried a miniature for lachrymose exercises; but it was evident that she had what we term "a history." She was frank and cheerful, although there was palpably something kept back, and her cheerfulness was like the mournful beauty of flowers that blossom over graves. No sympathetic nature could refuse confidence to Mrs. Sandford, and it was not long before she discovered that Alice had passed through the golden gate to which all footsteps tend, and from which no one comes back except with a change that colors all the after life.

"And so you are in love, poor child!" said Mrs. Sandford, compassionately.

"I have been" (with a gentle emphasis).

"Ah, you think you are past it now, I suppose?"

"I sha'n't forget soon,—I could not, if I would; but love is over,—gone like yesterday's sunshine."

"But the sun shines again to-day."

"Well, if you prefer another comparison," said Alice, smiling faintly,—"gone out like yesterday's fire."

"Fire lurks a long time in the ashes unseen, my dear."

Alice dropped her needle and looked steadily at her companion.

"I am young," she said; "yet I have outgrown the school-girl period. The current of my life has flowed in a deep channel: the shallow little brook may fancy its first spring-freshet to be a Niagara; but my feelings have swelled with no transient overflow. I gave my utmost love and devotion to a man I thought worthy. He treated me with neglect, and at last falsified his word in offering his hand to another, I do not hate him. I have none of that alchemy which changes despised love to gall. But I could never forgive him, nor trust him again. And if he, who seemed always so frank, so earnest, so tender, so single in his aims,—if he could not be trusted, I do not know where I could rest my heart and say,—'Here I am safe, whatever betide!'"

It was a strange thing for Alice to speak in such an exalted strain, and she trembled as she tried to resume her sewing. The thread slipped and knotted; the needle broke and pricked her finger; and then, feeling her cheeks begin to glow, she laid down her work and turned to the window.

"Don't lose all faith, Alice; there are true hearts in the world. Perhaps this lover of yours, now, has repented and is striving to find you. Or you may have been misinformed as to the extent of his treachery. To take your own simile, you don't accuse the brook of fickleness merely because it eddies around under some flowery bank; after it has made the circle, it keeps on its steady course."

Alice only shook her head, still keeping her face averted to conceal the tremor of her lips.

"But you haven't told me who this man is. How odd it would be, if I knew him!"

"I would rather not have you know. The secret isn't a fatal one, to be sure; but I prefer to keep it."

Suddenly she stepped back from the window, ashy pale, and gasping hysterically. Mrs. Sandford rose hastily to assist her, and, as she did so, noticed her old acquaintance, Mr. Greenleaf, on the opposite sidewalk. She helped Alice to her seat and brought her a glass of water, and, as she did so, in an instant the long track of the past was illumined as by a flash of lightning. She saw the reason for Greenleaf's conduct towards her sister-in-law, Marcia. She remembered his early fascination, his long, vacillating resistance, his brief engagement, and the stormy scene when it was broken. She had seen the thread of Fate spun for each, without knowing that invisible strands connected them. She had begun to read a tale of sorrow, but the page was torn, and now she had finished it upon the chance-found fragment; the irregular and jagged edges fitted together like mosaic-work.

What a mystery is Truth! A Lie may simulate its form or hue, and, taken by itself, may deceive the most acute observer. But in the affairs of the world, every fact is related; it meets and is joined by other facts on every side,—the whole forming an harmonious figure in all its angles and curves as well as in its gradations of color. Each truth slips easily into its predestined place; a lie, however trivial, has no place; its angles are belligerent, its colors false; it makes confusion, and is thrown out as soon as the eye of the Master falls upon it.

Alice revived.

"Did I speak?" she asked.

"No,—you said nothing."

"I am glad. I feared I had been foolish. It was a mere passing faintness."

Mrs. Sandford thought it was the cause of the faintness that was passing, but she prudently kept her discovery to herself.