by Owen Wister
XXII: Behind the Times
It was my lot to attend but one of the weddings which Hortenseprecipitated (or at least determined) by her plunge into the water; and,truth to say, the honor of my presence at the other was not requested;therefore I am unable to describe the nuptials of Hortense and Charley.But the papers were full of them; what the female guests wore, what themale guests were worth, and what both ate and drank, were set forth inmany columns of printed matter; and if you did not happen to see this,just read the account of the next wedding that occurs among the New Yorkyellow rich, and you will know how Charley and Hortense were married;for it's always the same thing. The point of mark in this particularceremony of union lay in Charley's speech; Charley found a happy thoughtat the breakfast. The bridal party (so the papers had it) sat on adais, and was composed exclusively of Oil, Sugar, Beef, Steel, and UnionPacific; merely at this one table five hundred million dollars weresitting (so the papers computed), and it helped the bridegroom to hisidea, when, by the importunate vociferations of the company, he wasforced to get on his unwilling legs.
"Poets and people of that sort say" (Charley concluded, after thankingthem) "that happiness cannot be bought with money. Well, I guess a poetnever does learn how to make a dollar do a dollar's work. But I am nopoet; and I have learned it is as well to have a few dollars around. AndI guess that my friends and I, right here at this table, could organizea corner in happiness any day we chose. And if we do, we will let youall in on it."
I am told that the bride looked superb, both in church and at thereception which took place in the house of Kitty; and that GeneralRieppe, in spite of his shattered health, maintained a noble appearancethrough the whole ordeal of parting with his daughter. I noticed thatBeverly Rodgers and Gazza figured prominently among the invited guests:Bohm did not have to be invited, for some time before the wedding he hadbecome the husband of the successfully divorced Kitty. So much for thenuptials of Hortense and Charley; they were, as one paper pronouncedthem, "up to date and distingue." The paper omitted the accent inthe French word, which makes it, I think, fit this wedding even morehappily.
"So Hortense," I said to myself as I read the paper, "has squaredherself with Charley after all." And I sat wondering if she wouldbe happy. But she was not constructed for happiness. You cannot beconstructed for all the different sorts of experiences which this worldoffers: each of our natures has its specialty. Hortense was constructedfor pleasure; and I have no doubt she got it, if not through Charley,then by other means.
The marriage of Eliza La Heu and John Mayrant was of a differentquality; no paper pronounced it "up to date," or bestowed any otheradjectival comments upon it; for, being solemnized in Kings Port, wheresuch purely personal happenings are still held (by the St. Michaelfamily, at any rate) to be no business of any one's save thoseimmediately concerned, the event escaped the famishment of publicity.Yes, this marriage was solemnized, a word that I used above withoutforethought, and now repeat with intention; for certainly no respecterof language would write it of the yellow rich and their blatant unions.If you're a Bohm or a Charley, you may trivialize or vulgarize orbestialize your wedding, but solemnize it you don't, for that is not "upto date."
And to the marriage of Eliza and John I went; for not only was the honorof my presence requested, but John wrote me, in both their names, apersonal note, which came to me far away in the mountains, whither I hadgone from Kings Port. This was the body of the note:--
"To the formal invitation which you will receive, Miss La Heu joins herwish with mine that you will not be absent on that day. We shouldboth really miss you. Miss La Heu begs me to add that if this is notsufficient inducement, you shall have a slice of Lady Baltimore."
Not a long note! But you will imagine how genuinely I was touched bytheir joint message. I was not an old acquaintance, and I had donelittle to help them in their troubles, but I came into the troubles;with their memory of those days I formed a part, and it was a part whichit warmed me to know they did not dislike to recall. I had actually beenpresent at their first meeting, that day when John visited the Exchangeto order his wedding-cake, and Eliza had rushed after him, because inhis embarrassment he had forgotten to tell her the date for which hewanted it. The cake had begun it, the cake had continued it, the cakehad brought them together; and in Eliza's retrospect now I doubted Ifshe could find the moment when her love for John had awakened; but ifwith women there ever is such a moment, then, as I have before said,it was when the girl behind the counter looked across at the handsome,blushing boy, and felt stirred to help him in his stumbling attempts tobe businesslike about that cake. If his youth unwittingly kindled hers,how could he or she help that? But, had he ever once known it and shownit to her during his period of bondage to Hortense, then, indeed, theflame would have turned to ice in Eliza's breast. What saved him forher was his blind steadfastness against her. That was the very thing sheprized most, once it became hers; whereas, any secret swerving towardher from Hortense during his heavy hours of probation would havedegraded John to nothing in Eliza's eyes. And so, making all this outby myself in the mountains after reading John's note, I ordered from theNorth the handsomest old china cake-dish that Aunt Carola could findto be sent to Miss Eliza La Heu with my card. I wanted to write onthe card, "Rira bien qui viva le dernier"; but alas! so many pleasantthoughts may never be said aloud in this world of ours. That I orderedchina, instead of silver, was due to my surmise that in Kings Port--orat any rate by Mrs. Weguelin and Miss Josephine St. Michael--silverfrom any one not of the family would be considered vulgar; it was only asurmise, and, of course, it was precisely the sort of thing that I couldnot verify by asking any of them.
But (you may be asking) how on earth did all this come about? Whathappened in Kings Port on the day following that important swim whichHortense and John took together in the waters of the harbor?
I wish that I could tell you all that happened, but I can only tell youof the outside of things; the inside was wholly invisible and inaudibleto me, although we may be sure, I think, that when the circles thatwidened from Hortense's plunge reached the shores of the town, theremust have been in certain quarters a considerable splashing. I presumethat John communicated to somebody the news of his broken engagement;for if he omitted to do so, with the wedding invitations to be out thenext day, he was remiss beyond excuse, and I think this very unlikely;and I also presume (with some evidence to go on) that Hortense did not,in the somewhat critical juncture of her fortunes, allow the grass togrow under her feet--if such an expression may be used of a person whois shut up in the stateroom of a steam yacht. To me John Mayrant made nosign of any sort by word or in writing, and this is the highest proofhe ever gave me of his own delicacy, and also of his reliance uponmine; for he must have been pretty sure that I had overheard those lastdestiny-deciding words spoken between himself and Hortense in the boat,as we reached the Hermana's gangway. In John's place almost any man,even Beverly Rodgers, would have either dropped a hint at the moment, orlater sent me some line to the effect that the incident was, ofcourse, "between ourselves." That would have been both permissible andpractical; but there it was, the difference between John of Kings Portand us others; he was not practical when it came to something "betweengentlemen," as he would have said. The finest flower of breedingblossoms above the level of the practical, and that is why you do notfind it growing in the huge truck-garden of our age, save in cornerswhere it has not yet been uprooted. John's silence to me was somethingthat I liked very much, and he must have found that it was notmisplaced.
The first external splash of the few that I have to narrate was anegative manifestation, and occurred at breakfast: Juno supposed if thewedding invitations would be out later in the day. The next splash wassomewhat louder on, was at dinner, when Juno inquired of Mrs. Treviseif she had received any wedding invitation. At tea time was very decidedsplashing. No invitation had come to anybody. Juno had called at five ofthe St. Michael houses and got in at none of them, and there was a rumorthat the Her
mana had disappeared from the harbor. So far, none of thesplashing had wet me but I now came in for a light sprinkle.
"Were you not on board that boat yesterday?" Juno inquired; and to seeher look at me you might have gathered that I was suspected of sinkingthe vessel.
"A most delightful occasion!" I exclaimed, filling my face with a brightblankness.
"Isn't he awful to speak that way about Sunday!" said the up-countrybride.
This was a chance for the poetess, and she took it. "To me," she mused,"every day seems fraught with an equal holiness."
"But I should think," observed the Briton, "that you could knock off ahymn better on Sundays."
All this while Juno was looking at me, and I knew it, and therefore Iate my food in a kindly sort of unconscious way, until she fired anothershot at me. "There is an absurd report that somebody fell overboard."
"Dear me!" I laughed. "So that is what it has grown to already! I did goout on the boat boom, and I did drop off--but into a boat."
At this confession of mine the up-country bride became extraordinarilyarch on the subject of the well-known hospitality of steam yachts, andfor this I was honestly grateful to her; but Juno brooded still. "I hopethere is nothing wrong," she said solemnly.
Feeling that silence at this point would not be golden, I went into itwith spirit I told them of our charming party, of General Rieppe'srich store of quotations, of the strict discipline on board thewell-appointed Hermana, of the great beauty of Hortense, and her evidenthappiness when her lover was by her side. This talk of mine turned offany curiosity or suspicion which the rest of the company may have begunto entertain; but upon Juno I think it made scant impression, savecausing her to set me down as an imbecile. For there was DoctorBeaugarcon when we came into the sitting-room, who told us before anyone could even say "How-do-you-do," that Miss Hortense Rieppe had brokenher engagement with John Mayrant, and that he had it from Mrs. Cornerly,whom he was visiting professionally. I caught the pitying look whichJuno threw at me at this news, and I was happy to have acquitted myselfso creditably in the manipulation of my secret: nobody asked me any morequestions!
There is almost nothing else to tell you of how the splashes brokeon Kings Port. Before the day when I was obliged to call in DoctorBeaugarcon's professional services (quite a sharp attack put me to bedfor half a week) I found merely the following things: the Hermana goneto New York, the automobiles and the Replacers had also disappeared,and people were divided on the not strikingly important question as towhether Hortense and the General had accompanied Charley on the yacht,or continued northward in an automobile, or taken the train. Gone, inany case, the whole party indubitably was, leaving, I must say, a senseof emptiness: the comedy was over, the players departed. I never heardany one, not even Juno, doubt that it was Hortense who had broken theengagement; this part of the affair was conducted by the principalswith great skill. Hortense had evidently written her version to theCornerlys, and not a word to any other effect ever came from John'smouth, of course. One result I had not looked for, though it was anatural one: if the old ladies had felt indignation at Hortense for herdetermination to marry John Mayrant, this indignation was doubled by herdetermination not to! I fear that few of us live by logic, even in KingsPort; and then, they had all called upon her in that garden for nothing!The sudden thought of this made me laugh alone in my bed of sickness;and when I came out of it, had such a thing been possible, I should haveliked to congratulate Miss Josephine St. Michael on her absence from thegarden occasion. I said, however, nothing to her, or to any of the otherladies, upon this or any subject, for I was so unlucky as to find themnot at home when I paid my round of farewell visits. Nor (to my realdistress) did I see John Mayrant again. The boy wrote me (I received itin bed) a short, warm note of regret, with nothing else in it save thefact that he was leaving town, having become free from the Custom Houseat last. I fancy that he ran away for a judicious interval. Who wouldnot?
Was there one person to whom he told the truth before he went? Did thegirl behind the counter hear the manner in which the engagement wasbroken? Ah, none of us will ever know that! But, although I could not,without the highest impropriety, have spoken to any of the old ladiesabout this business, unless they had chosen to speak to me--and somehowI feel that after the abrupt close of it not even Mrs. GregorySt. Michael would have been likely to touch on the subject with anoutsider--there was nothing whatever to forbid my indulging in askirmish with Eliza La Heu; therefore I lunched at the Exchange on mylast day.
"To the mountains?" she said, in reply to my information about my plansof travel.
"Doctor Beaugarcon says nothing else can so quickly restore me."
"Stay there for the rhododendrons, then," she bade me. "No sight morebeautiful in all the South."
"Town seems deserted," I pursued. "Everybody gone."
"Oh, not everybody!"
"All the interesting people."
"Thank you."
"I meant, interesting to you."
I saw her decide not to be angry; and her decision changed and saved ourconversation from the trashy, bantering tone which it was taking, andbrought it to a pass most unexpected to both of us.
She gave me a charming and friendly smile. "Well, you, at any rate, aregoing away. And I am really sorry for that."
Her eyes rested upon me with perfect frankness. I was not in love withEliza La Heu, but nearer to love than I had ever been then, and it wouldhave been easy, very easy, to let one's self go straight onward intolove. There are for a man more ways of falling into that state thanromancers would have us to believe, and one of them is by an assentof the will at a certain given moment, which the heart promptlyfollows--just as a man in a moment decides he will espouse a cause, andsoon finds himself hotly fighting for it body and soul. I could havegone out of that Exchange completely in love with Eliza La Heu; but mywill did not give its assent, and I saw John Mayrant not as a rival, butas one whose happiness I greatly desired.
"Thank you," I said, "for telling me you are sorry I am going. Andnow, may I treat you more than ever as a friend, and tell you of acircumstance which Kings Port does not know?"
It put her on her guard. "Don't be indiscreet," she laughed.
"Isn't timely indiscretion discretion?"
"And don't be clever," she said. "Tell me what you have to say--ifyou're quite sure you'll not be sorry."
"Quite sure. There's no reason--now that the untruth is properly andsatisfactorily established--that one person should not know that JohnMayrant broke that engagement." And I told her the whole of it. "If I'moutrageous to share this secret with you," I concluded, "I can only saythat I couldn't stand the unfairness any longer."
"He jumped straight in?" said Eliza.
"Oh, straight!"
"Of course," she murmured.
"And just after declaring that he wouldn't."
"Of course," she murmured again. "And the current took them right away?"
"Instantly."
"Was he very tired when you got to him?"
I answered this question and a number of others, backward and forward,until she had led me to cover the whole incident about twice-and-a-halftimes. Then she had a silence, and after this a reflection.
"How well they managed it!"
"Managed what?"
"The accepted version."
"Oh, yes, indeed!"
"And you and I will not spoil it for them," she declared.
As I took my final leave of her she put a flower in my buttonhole. Myreflection was then, and is now, that if she already knew the truth fromJohn himself, how well she managed it!
So that same night I took the lugubrious train which bore me with thegrossest deliberation to the mountains; and among the mountains andtheir waterfalls I stayed and saw the rhododendrons, and was preparingto journey home when the invitation came from John and Eliza.
I have already said that of this wedding no word was in the papers.Kings Port by the war lost all material things, but not the others
,among which precious privacy remains to her; and, O Kings Port, mayyou never lose your grasp of that treasure! May you never know the landwhere the reporter blooms, where if any joy or grief befall you, thepublic press rings your doorbell and demands the particulars, and if youdeny it the particulars, it makes them up and says something scurrilousabout you into the bargain. Therefore nothing was printed, morningor evening, about John and Eliza. Nor was the wedding service held inchurch to the accompaniment of nodding bonnets and gaping stragglers. Noeye not tender with regard and emotion looked on while John took Elizato his wedded wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holystate of matrimony.
In Royal Street, not many steps from South Place, there stands a quiethouse a little back, upon whose face sorrow has struck many blows, butmade no deep wounds yet; no scorch from the fires of war is visible,and the rending of the earthquake does not show too plainly; but therehangs about the house a gravity that comes from seeing and sufferingmuch, and a sweetness from having sheltered many generations of smilesand tears. The long linked chain of births and deaths here has not beenbroken and scattered, and the grandchildren look out of the same windowsfrom which the grandsires gazed, whose faces now in picture frames stillwatch serenely the sad present from their happy past. Therefore therooms lie in still depths of association, and from the walls, thestairs, the furniture, flows the benign influence of undispersedmemories; it sheds its tempered radiance upon the old miniatures, andupon every fresh flower that comes in from the garden; it seems to passthrough the open doors to and fro like a tranquil blessing; it is beyondjoy and pain, because time has distilled it from both of these; itis the assembled essence of kinship and blood unity, enriched by eachsucceeding brood that is born, is married, is fruitful in its turn, anddies remembered; only the balm of faith is stronger to sustain and heal;for that comes from heaven, while it is earth that gives us this; andthe sacred cup of it which our native land once held is almost empty.
Amid this influence John and Eliza were made one, and the faces ofthe older generations grew soft beneath it, and pensive eyes becamelustrous, and into pale cheeks the rosy tint came like an echo faintlyback for a short hour. They made so little sound in their quiethappiness of congratulation that it might have been a dream; and theywere so few that the house with the sense of its memories was not lostwith the movement and crowding, but seemed still to preside over thewhole, and send down its benediction.
When it was my turn to shake the hands of bride and groom, John asked:--
"What did your friend do with your advice?"
And I replied. "He has taken it."
"Perhaps not that," John returned, "but you must have helped him to seehis way."
When the bride came to cut the cake, she called me to her and fulfilledher promise.
"You have always liked my baking," she said.
"Then you made it after all," I answered.
"I would not have been married without doing so," she declared sweetly.
When the time came for them to go away, they were surrounded withaffectionate God-speeds; but Miss Josephine St. Michael waited to bethe last, standing a little apart, her severe and chiselled face turnedaside, and seeming to watch a mocking-bird that was perched in his cageat a window halfway up the stairs.
"He is usually not so silent," Miss Josephine said to me. "I suppose weare too many visitors for him."
Then I saw that the old lady, beneath her severity, was deeply moved;and almost at once John and Eliza came down the stairs. Miss Josephinetook each of them to her heart, but she did not trust herself to speak;and a single tear rolled down her face, as the boy and girl continued tothe hall-door. There Daddy Ben stood, and John's gay good-by to himwas the last word that I heard the bridegroom say. While we all stoodsilently watching them as they drove away from the tall iron gate, themocking-bird on the staircase broke into melodious ripples of song.