Kitabı oku: «The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863», sayfa 6

His operations had grown to such magnitude that Preston then ranked among the largest producers of the North Carolina staple, and his 'account' had become one of the most valuable on our books. Though we sent 'account currents' and duplicates of each 'account sales' to his master, our regular 'returns' were made to Joe, and no one of our correspondents held us to so strict an accountability, or so often expressed dissatisfaction with the result of his shipments, as he.

'I thinks a heap of you, Mr. Kirke,' he said at the close of one of his letters about this time; 'but the fact am, thar's no friendship in trade, and you did sell that lass pile of truck jess one day too sudden.'

CHAPTER XIV

Two more years rolled away. Frank was nearly sixteen. He had grown up a fine, manly lad, and never for one moment had Kate or I regretted the care we had bestowed on his education and training. He was all we could have wished for in our own son, and in his warm love and cheerful obedience we both found the blessing invoked on us by his dying mother.

His affection for Kate was something more than the common feeling of a child for a parent. With that was blended a sort of half worship, which made him listen to her every word, and hang on her every look, as if she were a being of some higher order than he. They were inseparable. He preferred her society to that of his young companions, and often, when he was a child, seated by her knee, and listening, when she told of his 'other mother' in the 'beautiful heaven,' have I seen his eye wander to her face with an expression, which plainly said: 'My heart knows no 'other mother' than you.' Kate was proud of him, and well she might be, for he was a comely youth; and his straight, closely knit, sinewy frame; dark, deepset eyes; and broad, open forehead, overhung with thick, brown hair; only outshadowed a beautiful mind, an open, upright, manly nature, whose firm and steady integrity nothing could shake.

About this time I received a letter from his father, which, as it had an important bearing on the lad's future career, I give to the reader:

Boston, September 20th, 185-.

Dear Sir:—A recent illness has brought my past life in its true light before me. I see its sin, and I would make all the atonement in my power. I cannot undo the wrong I have done to one who is gone, but I can do my duty to her child. You, I am told, have been a father to him. I would now assume that relation, and make you such recompense for what you have done, as you may require. I am too weak to travel, or indeed, to leave my house, but I am impatient to see my son. May I not ask you to bring him to me at once? Then I will arrange all things to your satisfaction.

I need not tell you, after saying what I have, that I should feel greatly gratified to once more possess your confidence, and regard.

I am, sincerely yours,

John Hallet.

In another hand was the following postscript:

My dear Boy:—John is sincere. Thee can trust him. He has told me all. He will do the right thing. Come on with the lad as soon as thee can.

Love to Kate.

Thy old friend,

David.

After conferring with my wife, I sent the following reply to these communications:

New York, September 22d, 185-.

David of Old;—Thou man after the Lord's own heart. I have Hallet's letter, seasoned with your P.S. He is shrewd; he knew that nothing but your old-fashioned hand would draw a reply from me, to anything written by him.

I've no faith in sick-bed repentances; and none in John Hallet, sick or well:

 
'When the devil was sick,
The devil a monk would be;
When the devil got well,
The devil a monk was he.'
 

However, as Hallet is capable of cheating his best friend, even the devil, I will take his letter into consideration; but it having taken him sixteen years to make up his mind to do a right action, it may take me as many days to come to a decision on this subject.

Frank is everything to us, and nothing but the clearest conviction that his ultimate good will be promoted by going to his father, will induce us to consent to it.

I do not write Hallet. You may give him as much or as little of this letter as you think will be good for him.

Kate sends love to you and to Alice; and dear David, with all the love I felt for you when I wore a short jacket, and sat on the old stool,

I am your devoted friend.

It was a dingy old sign. It had hung there in sun and rain till its letters were faint and its face was furrowed. It had looked down on a generation that had passed away, and seen those who placed it there go out of that doorway never to return; still it clung to that dingy old warehouse, and still Russell, Rollins & Co. was signed in the dingy old counting room at the head of the stairway. It was known the world over. It was heard of on the cotton fields of Texas, in the canebrakes of Cuba, and amid the rice swamps of Carolina. The Chinaman spoke of it as he sipped his tea and plied his chopsticks in the streets of Canton, and the half-naked negro rattled its gold as he gathered palm oil and the copal gum on the western coast of Africa. Its plain initials, painted in black on a white ground, waved from tall masts over many seas, and its simple 'promise to pay,' scrawled in a bad hand on a narrow strip of paper, unlocked the vaults of the best bankers in Europe. And yet it was a dingy old sign! Men looked up to it as they passed by, and wondered that a cracked, weather-beaten board, that would not sell for a dollar, should be counted 'good for a million.'

It was a dingy old warehouse, with narrow, dark, cobwebbed windows, and wide, rusty iron shutters, which, as the bleak October wind swept up old Long Wharf, swung slowly on their hinges with a sharp, grating creak. I heard them in my boyhood. Perched on a tall stool at that old desk, I used to listen, in the long winter nights, to those strange, wild cries, till I fancied they were voices of the uneasy dead, come back to take the vacant seats beside me, and to pace again, with ghostly tread, the floor of that dark old counting room. They were a mystery and a terror to me; but they never creaked so harshly, or cried so wildly, as on that October night, when for the first time in nine years I turned my steps up the trembling old stairway.

It was just after nightfall. A single gas burner threw a dim, uncertain light over the old desk, and lit up the figure of a tall, gray-haired man, who was bending over it. He had round, stooping shoulders, and long, spindling limbs. One of his large feet, encased in a thick, square-toed shoe, rested on the round of the desk; the other, planted squarely on the floor, upheld his spare, gaunt frame. His face was thin and long, and two deep, black lines under his eyes contrasted strangely with the pallid whiteness of his features. His clothes were of the fashion of those good people called 'Friends,' and had served long as his 'Sunday best' before being degraded to daily duty. They were of plain brown, and, though not shabby, were worn and threadbare, and of decidedly economical appearance. Everything about him, indeed, wore an economical look. His scant coat tails, narrow pants, and short waistcoat showed that the cost of each inch of material had been counted, while his thin hair, brushed carefully over his bald head, had not a lock to spare; and even his large, sharp bones were covered with only just enough flesh to hold them comfortably together. He had stood there till his eye was dim and his step feeble, and though he had, for twenty years—when handing in each semiannual trial balance to the head of the house—declared that was his last, everybody said he would continue to stand there till his own trial balance was struck, and his earthly accounts were closed forever.

As I entered, he turned his mild blue eye upon me, and, taking my hand warmly in his, exclaimed:

'My dear boy, I am glad to see thee!'

'I am glad to see you, David. Is Alice well?'

'Very well. And Kate, and thy babies?'

'All well,' I replied.

'Thee has come to see John?'

'Yes. How is he?'

'Oh, better; he got out several days ago. He's inside now,' and opening the door of an inner office, separated from the outer one by a glass partition, he said, 'John, Edmund is here.'

A tall, dark man came to the door, and, with a slightly flurried and embarrassed manner, said:

'Ah, Mr. Kirke! I'm glad to see you. Please step in.'

As he tendered me a chair, a shorter and younger gentleman, who was writing at another desk, sprang from his seat, and slapping me familiarly on the back, exclaimed:

'My dear fellow, how are you?'

'Very well, Cragin; how are you?' I replied, returning his cordial greeting.

'Good as new—never better in my life. It's good for one's health to see you here.'

'I have come at Mr. Hallet's invitation.'

'Yes, I know, Hallet has told me you've a smart boy you want us to take. Send him along. Boston's the place to train a youngster to business.'

The last speaker was not more than thirty, but a bald spot on the top of his head, and a slight falling-in of his mouth, caused by premature decay of the front teeth, made him seem several years older. He had marked but not regular features, and a restless, dark eye, that opened and shut with a peculiar wink, which kept time with the motion of his lips in speaking. His clothes were cut in a loose, jaunty style, and his manner, though brusque and abrupt, betokened, like his face, a free, frank, whole-souled character. He was several years the junior of the other, and as unlike him as one man can be unlike another.

The older gentleman, as I have said, was tall and dark. He had a high, bold forehead, a pale, sallow complexion, and wore heavy gray whiskers, trimmed with the utmost nicety, and meeting under a sharp, narrow chin. His face was large, his jaws wide, and his nose pointed and prominent, but his mouth was small and gathered in at the corners like a rat's; and, as if to add to the rat resemblance, its puny, white teeth seemed borrowed from that animal. There was a stately precision in his manner and a stealthy softness in his tread not often seen in combination, which might have impressed a close observer as indicative of a bold, pompous, and yet cunning character.

These two gentlemen—Mr. Hallet and Mr. Cragin—were the only surviving partners of the great house of Russell, Rollins & Co.

'Have you brought him with you?' asked Hallet, his voice trembling a little, and his pale face flushing slightly as he spoke.

'No, sir,' I replied; 'I thought I would confer with you first. I have not yet broached the subject to the lad.'

Some unimportant conversation followed, when Hallet, turning to Cragin, asked:

'Are all the letters written for tomorrow's steamers?'

'Yes,' said Cragin, rising; 'and I believe I'll leave you two together. As you've not spoken for ten years, you must have a good deal to say. Come, David,' he called out, as he drew on his outside coat, 'let's go.'

'No, don't take David,' I exclaimed; 'I want to talk with the old gentleman.'

'But you can see him to-morrow.'

'No, I return in the morning.'

'Well, David, I'll tell Alice you'll be home by nine.'

'Oh, that's it,' I said, laughing. 'It's Alice who makes you leave so early on steamer night.'

'Yes, sir; Alice that is, and Mrs. Augustus Cragin that is to be—when I get a new set of teeth. Good night,' and saying this, he took up his cane, and left the office.

When he was gone, Hallet said to me:

'Do you desire to have David a witness to our conversation?'

'I want him to be a party to it. We can come to no arrangement without his coöperation.'

Hallet asked the bookkeeper in. When he was seated, I said:

'Well, Mr. Hallet, what do you propose to do for your son?'

'To treat him as I do my other children. Do all but acknowledge him. That would injure him.'

'That is not important. But please be explicit as to what you will do.'

'David tells me that his inclinations tend to business, and that you have meant to take him into your office. I will take him into mine, and when he is twenty-one, if he has conducted himself properly, I will give him an interest.'

'I shall be satisfied with no contingent arrangement, sir. I know Frank will prove worthy of the position.'

'Very well; then I will agree definitely to make him a partner when he is of age.'

'Well, Mr. Hallet, if Frank will consent to come, I will agree to that with certain conditions. I told his mother, when she was dying, that I would consider him my own child; therefore I cannot give up the control of him. He must regard me and depend on me as he does now. Again, I cannot let him come here, and have no home whose influence shall protect him from the temptations which beset young men in a large city. David must take him into his family, and treat him as he treated me when I was a boy, and—this must be reduced to writing.'

Hallet showed some emotion when I spoke of Frank's mother, but his face soon assumed its usual expression, and he promptly replied:

'I will agree to all that, but I would suggest that the fact of his being my son should not be communicated to him; that it be confined to us three. I ask this, believe me, only for the sake of my family.

'I see no objection to that, sir, and I think, Frank, for his own sake, should not know what his prospects are.'

Hallet signified assent, and turning to David, I asked:

'David, what do you say? Will you take him?'

'I will,' said the old bookkeeper, showing in his expenditure of breath the close economy which was the rule of his life.

'Nothing remains but to arrange his salary and the share he shall have when he becomes a partner,' I remarked to Hallet.

'Will an average of seven hundred a year, and an eighth interest when he's twenty-one, be satisfactory?'

'Entirely so. An eighth in your house will be better than a quarter in ours. As it is now all understood, let David draw up the papers. We will sign them, and leave them with him till I see Frank.'

'Very well. David, please to draw them up,' said Hallet; and then, his voice again trembling a little, he added, 'All is understood, Mr. Kirke, but the compensation I shall make you for your fatherly care of my much neglected son. Money cannot pay for such service, but it will relieve me to reimburse you for your expenditures.'

'I have had my pay, sir, in the love of the boy. I ask no more.'

Hallet was sensibly affected, but without speaking, he turned to the desk, and took down his bankbook. In a few moments he handed me a check. It was for five thousand dollars. I took it, and, hesitating an instant, said:

'I will keep this, sir; not for myself, but for Frank. It may be of service to him at some future time.'

'Keep it for yourself, sir, not for him. He will not need it. He shall share equally with my other children.'

'I am glad to see this spirit in you, sir. Frank will be worthy of all you may do for him.'

'It is not for his sake that I will do it,' replied Hallet, his voice tremulous with emotion; 'it is that I may have the forgiveness of the one I—I—' He said no more, but leaning his head on his hand, he wept!

If there is joy among the angels over one that repents, was there not, then, forgiveness in her heart for him?

No one spoke for some minutes; then David rose, and handing me one of the papers, laid the other before Hallet.

'This appears right,' I said, after reading it over carefully.

'Yes,' replied Hallet, taking up a pen and signing the other. Passing it to me, he added: 'Keep them both—take them now.'

'But Frank may not wish to come.'

'Then I will find some other way of helping him. He is my son! Take the papers.'

'Well, as you say,' I replied. 'David, please to witness this.'

Hallet pressed me to pass the night at his house, but I declined, and rode out to Cambridge with the old bookkeeper. With many injunctions to watch carefully over Frank, I left him about twelve o'clock, rode into town with Cragin, and the next morning started for New York.

That night, as I recounted the interview to Kate, I said:

'I never did believe in these double-quick conversions; but Hallet is an altered man.'

'Then, indeed, can the leopard change his spots.'

As usual, her womanly intuitions were right; my worldly wisdom was wrong!

CHAPTER XV.

Not long after the events I have just related, the mail brought me the following letter from Preston:

My very dear Friend:—Circumstances, which I cannot explain by letter, render it imperatively necessary that I should provide another home for my daughter. Her education has been sadly neglected, and she should be where she can have experienced tutors, and good social surroundings. With her delicate organization, and sensitive and susceptible nature, she needs motherly care and affection, and I shrink from committing her to the hands of strangers. I should feel at rest about her only with you. You have been my steadfast friend through many years; you have stood by me in, sore trials—may I not then ask you to do me now a greater service than you have ever done, by receiving my little daughter into your family? I know this is an unusual, almost presumptuous request; but if you knew her as she is—gentle, loving, obedient—the light and joy of all about her, I am sure you, and your excellent lady, would love her, and be willing to make her the companion of your children. She is my only earthly comfort, and it will rend my heart to part with her, but—I must.

Write me at once. You are yourself a father—do not refuse me.

To this, on the next day, I sent the following reply:

My dear Friend:—I would most cheerfully take your daughter into my family, did my wife's health, which has been failing all the summer, allow of her assuming any additional care.

I think, however, I can provide Selma with a home equally as good as my own; one where good influences will be about her, and she will have the best educational advantages. I refer to the family of Mr. David Gray, of Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was my father's friend. The years I was a boy with Russell, Rollins & Co., I was an inmate of his house, and my adopted son, Frank, is now in his care. His daughter Alice is a most suitable person to have charge of a young girl. She is like a sister to me, and to oblige me, would no doubt take Selma.

Please advise me of your wishes; and believe, my dear friend, I will do all in my power to serve you.

I was sitting down at supper, one evening, about a fortnight after sending this letter, when a gentleman was announced as wishing to see me. I rose and went into the parlor. It was Preston, and with him was Selma, then a beautiful little girl of about eleven years.

Asking Preston to lay aside his outside coat, I was struck by his altered appearance. It was four years since we had met, but looking at him, I imagined it might be ten. His eyes were sunken, deep furrows were about his mouth, and his brown hair was thickly streaked with gray.

'My dear friend,' I exclaimed, as I grasped his hand a second time, 'you are not well!'

'I am as well as usual, Kirke. Time has not done this!'

Fatigued with the long journey, Selma had retired, and our own little ones were in bed, when Kate joined us in the parlor.

'You do look ill, Mr. Preston,' she said, seating herself beside him. 'You must stay a while with us, and rest.'

'I would be glad to stay here, madam—anywhere away from home.'

'The care of two plantations, such as yours, must be a burden!'

'It is not that, madam; Joe relieves me entirely from oversight of one of them. My difficulty is at home—mine is not what yours is.'

Kate's sympathizing words soon drew him out (she has a way of winning the confidence of people, and is the depositary of more family secrets than any other woman in the State); and he told us what his home had become since his union with the governess.

Within two months after the marriage her real character began to display itself, and she soon developed into a genuine Xantippe. Getting control of Mulock, who had been made overseer, she had the negroes dreadfully whipped and overworked; she treated young master Joe so badly that the lad rebelled, and in his father's absence ran away to his uncle at Mobile; and locking Selma up in a dark room without food, or beating her till her back was actually discolored, she made the child's home intolerable to her.

After master Joe went away, no one dared complain; and shut up in his library, brooding over his still fresh grief for the death of his wife, Preston knew nothing of the real state of affairs till more than a year had elapsed. Then one day he found Selma in tears. He questioned her, and learned the whole. A scene followed, in which Mrs. Preston asserted her rights as mistress of the plantation, and defied him. She had run into all sorts of extravagance, the yearly bills which had come in a short time previous were appallingly large, but to secure peace, Preston consented to buy and furnish a winter residence at Newbern. To that she had removed, but with the coming spring she would return to the plantation, and in the mean time Selma must be provided with another home.

'Feel no anxiety about her, sir,' said Kate, as he concluded; 'if Alice Gray will not take her, we will.'

'I thank you, madam; I cannot thank you enough for saying that,' replied Preston, his eyes filling with tears.

I wrote at once to David, and soon received a letter from Alice consenting to take charge of the little girl. Thanksgiving, at which time Kate made annual visits to her early home, was approaching, and it was decided that Selma should accompany her to Boston.

This being arranged, Preston, at the end of a fortnight, took leave of us, and returned to the South. The parting between the father and the child gave evidence of what they were to each other. Preston wept like a woman; but as Kate brushed back the brown curls from the broad forehead of little Selly, she raised her eyes to my wife's face, and while her thin nostrils dilated, and her sensitive chin slightly quivered, said;

'I must not cry for poor papa's sake—it is so very hard for him to go home alone; and he will miss his little girl so much.'

'You are right, dear child,' said Kate, and, as if looking into the far future of the woman, and feeling that such a nature must suffer as well as enjoy keenly, she inwardly thanked God that with her delicate organization He had given her the unselfish and brave heart which those words expressed.

Four years had wrought great changes in David's quiet home. Alice had become Mrs. Augustus Cragin, and a little Alice tottled about the floor; but after supper, David still found his evening cigar on the oak stand, his needle-work slippers—wrought by Alice's own hand—in their place before the fender, and his big armchair rolled up close to the gas burner in the little back parlor at Cambridge.

Frank was twenty, and had fulfilled all the promises of his boyhood. His father, after the honeymoon of his repentance was over, showed no great interest in him, but Cragin, who knew nothing of my arrangement with Hallet, had given him all the advantages in his power.

Selma was only fifteen, but, like the flowers of her own South, she had blossomed early, and was already a woman. Preston had visited her every summer, but she never returned with him, having preferred passing her vacations at my house.

In David's loving household nothing had occurred to disturb her peaceful life. Beloved by her teachers and schoolmates, she everywhere received the homage due to her beauty and her goodness; and in the gay world into which her joyous nature often led her, she was the acknowledged and unenvied queen! Her father had spared no pains in her education; the best tutors had trained her fine ear and sweet voice, and taught her to give form and coloring to the pictures her glowing imagination created; and, whether her fingers ran over the keys of a musical instrument, or wielded the brush, there was a delicacy and yet spirit in her touch which were the wonder and admiration of all.

I was not surprised, when visiting Boston about this time, to have Frank tell me that he loved her, and ask my consent to his regarding her as his future wife.

Kate and I were to leave for home the following day, and, calling at the office in the afternoon, I said to Frank:

'I have tickets for the opera, including Selma; of course you'd like to have her go.'

'Yes, father; she has never been, and I have promised to take her this winter. She'll be able now to appreciate it.'

The box I had selected was at a happy distance from the stage, and we gave Selma a front seat, that she might see to the best advantage. She was in high spirits; indeed, she was radiant in her beauty. She wore a dark blue dress of silk, fitting closely to her neck, and its short sleeves allowed the plump, fair arms to half disclose themselves from beneath the scarlet mantle Which fell around her shoulders. Her hair fell over her neck in the same simple fashion as in her childhood, except that the thick curls, which had lost their golden tint, and were darker and longer, were looped back from her broad brow, with a few simple flowers. There was the same contour of face and feature, but ennobled by thought and culture; the same sensitive mouth, only that the lips were fuller and of a deeper color; and as she talked or listened, the same rose tint deepened and faded beneath her rich, soft, dark skin, as sunlight shifts and fades across the evening sky. Her eyes, in whose dark depths the soul was reflected, met a stranger's calmly, but took a soft look of loving trust when meeting Frank's. They were shaded by long lashes, as black as the night; and when the lids fell suddenly, as they often did, and her face became quiet, and almost sad, you felt that she was communing with the angels.

The overture burst forth, and with glowing face, and eyes fixed upon the stage, Selma seemed lost to all but the enrapturing sounds; even Frank's whispered words were unheeded. As the opera—'Lucia di Lammermoor'—proceeded, I saw that every eye was attracted to our box, and, bending forward to catch Selma's expression, I called Kate's attention to her. With her head thrown slightly back, a bright spot burning on either cheek, her breath suspended, the large tears coursing from her eyes, and motionless as a statue, she sat with her small hands clasped on the front of the box, as if entranced, and all unconscious of the hundred eyes that were fixed upon her. I thought of the pictures I had seen in the old galleries of Europe, but I said, 'Surely, art cannot equal nature!'

When it was over, she took Frank's arm; I turned to question her, but Kate said:

'Let her alone; she cannot talk now.'

The transactions of Russell, Rollins & Co. extended the world over; but, since the death of Mr. Rollins, which occurred prior to Frank's going with them, they had cultivated particularly the Southern trade, and their operations in cotton had grown to be enormous. They bought largely of that staple on their own account, and for some extensive manufacturing establishments in England. Their purchases were mainly made in New Orleans, and, to attend to this business, Hallet had passed the winters in that city for several years.

His wealth had grown rapidly, and at the date of which I am writing, he ranked among the 'solid men' of Boston. Cragin was not nearly so wealthy. Being on intimate terms with the latter, I remarked, as we were enjoying a cigar together one evening at David's, on the occasion of the visit to which I have referred in the last chapter:

'How is it, Cragin, that you pass for only a hundred thousand, when Hallet is rated at a million?'

'Because, Ned, I'm not worth any more.'

'But how is that, when you have two fifths of the concern?'

'Well, Hallet went into cotton like the devil some eight years ago; and I told him I wouldn't stand it; I like to feel the ground under me. Since then he has speculated on his own account—he and old Roye go it strong, and I guess they've made some pretty heavy lifts.'

'That's uncertain business.'

'Yes, devilish uncertain; but somehow they manage always to hold winning cards. Hallet has told me his New Orleans operations have netted him five hundred thousand.'

'And that, with what he got by his wife, has rolled him into a millionaire before he's forty-five! He's a lucky fellow.'

'Lucky! I wouldn't stand in his boots. What goes up may come down. He has no peace. His wife's a hyena. She makes home too hot for him; and somehow he's never easy. He walks about as if treading on torpedoes.

'If you dislike speculation, why don't you increase your legitimate business?'

'Hallet's away so much, I can't do it. I'm glued to the old office. I should have been in Europe half of the time the last three years, but I haven't been able to get away.'

'Why not send Frank? He's old enough now.'

'I mean to, in the spring, and I'm d—d if he shan't be a partner soon, and take some of this load off my shoulders. But do you know that Hallet has a decided dislike to him?'

'No! On what account?' I exclaimed. I had met Hallet only twice during four years, but on both occasions he had spoken favorably of his son. Frank himself had never alluded in other than respectful terms to his father.

'Well, I don't know, and it makes no difference. I'm captain at this end of the towline, and I swear he shall go in.

'As you feel so kindly toward Frank, I'll give him a chance to conciliate Hallet. I'll take him South this winter, and introduce him to our correspondents. With his address he ought to do something with them. Will you let him go?'

'Yes, and be right down glad to have him. When do you start?'

'About the middle of December.'

A fortnight afterward, with Selma and Frank, I again visited Preston's plantation.