by Basil King
CHAPTER X
As we passed the Jack Brokenshire cottage, Larry Strangways and Broke,with Noble, the collie, bounding beside them, came racing down the lawnto overtake us. It was natural then that for the rest of the way Chipsand Noble should form one company, Broke and his sister another, whilewe two elders strolled along behind them.
It was the hour of the day for strolling. The mellow afternoon light wasof the kind that brings something new into life, something we should beglad to keep if we knew how to catch it. It was not merely that grassand leaf and sea had a shimmer of gold on them. There was a sweetenchantment in the atmosphere, a poignant wizardry, a suggestion ofemotions both higher and lower than those of our poor mortal scale. Theymade one reluctant to hurry one's footsteps, and slow in the return tothat sheerly human shelter we call home. All along the path, down amongthe rocks, out in the water, up on the lawns, there were people, gentleand simple alike, who lingered and idled and paused to steep themselvesin this magic.
I have to admit that we followed their example. Anything served as anexcuse for it, the dogs and the children doing the same from a similarinstinct. I got the impression, too, that my companion was less in thethroes of the discretion we had imposed upon ourselves, for the reasonthat his term as a mere educational lackey was drawing to a close. Ithad, in fact, only two more days to run. Then August would come and hewould desert us.
As it might be my last opportunity to surprise him into looking at me inthe way Mrs. Rossiter had observed, I kept my eye on him pretty closely.I cannot say that I detected any change that flattered me. Tall andstraight and splendidly poised, he was as smilingly impenetrable asever. Like Howard Brokenshire, he betrayed no wound, even if I hadinflicted one. It was a little exasperating. I was more than piqued.
I told him I hadn't heard of his return from New York and asked how hehad fared. His reply was enthusiastic. He had seen Stacy Grainger andwas eager to be his henchman.
"He's got that about him," he declared, "that would make anybody glad towork for him."
He described his personal appearance, brawny and spare with theattributes of race. It was an odd comment on the laws of heredity thathis grandfather was said to have begun life as a peddler, and yet therehe was a _grand seigneur_ to the finger-tips. I said that HowardBrokenshire was also a _grand seigneur_, to which he replied that HowardBrokenshire was a monument. American conditions had raised him, and onthose conditions he stood as a statue on its pedestal. His position wasso secure that all he had to do was stand. It was for this reason thathe could be so dictatorial. He was safely fastened to his base; nothingshort of seismic convulsion of the whole economic world was likely toknock him off. In the course of that conversation I learned more of theorigin of the Brokenshire fortunes than I had ever before heard.
It was the great-grandfather of J. Howard who apparently had laid thefoundation-stone on which later generations built so well. Thatpatriarch, so I understood, had been a farmer in the Connecticut Valley.His method of finance was no more esoteric than that of lending outsmall sums of money at a high rate of interest. Occasionally he tookmortgages on his neighbors' farms, with the result that he became intime something of a landed proprietor. When the suburbs of a city hadspread over one of the possessions thus acquired, the foundation-stoneto which I have referred might have been considered well and truly laid.
About the year 1830, his son migrated to New York. The firm of Meek &Brokenshire, of which the fame was to go through two continents, wasfounded when Van Buren was in the presidential seat and Victoria justcoming to the throne. It seems there was a Meek in those days, though atthe time of which I am writing nothing remained of him but a syllable.
It was after the Civil War, however, when the grandson of theConnecticut Valley veteran was in power, that the house of Meek &Brokenshire forged to the front rank among financial agencies. It formedEuropean affiliations. It became the financial representative of a greatEuropean power. John H. Brokenshire, whose name was distinguished fromthat of his more famous son only by a distribution of initials, had ahouse at Hyde Park Corner as well as one in New York. He was the firstAmerican banker to become something of an international magnate. Thedevelopment of his country made him so. With the vexed questions ofslavery and secession settled, with the phenomenal expansion of theWest, with the freer uses of steam and electricity, with the tighteningof bonds between the two hemispheres, that pedestal was being raised onwhich J. Howard was to pose with such decorative effectiveness.
His posing began on his father's death in the year 1898. Up to that timehe had represented the house in England, the post being occupied now byhis younger brother James. Polished manners, a splendid appearance, andan authoritative air imported to New York a touch of the Court of St.James's. Mrs. Billing had called him a dolt. Perhaps he was one. If sohe was a dolt raised up and sustained by all that was powerful in theUnited States. It was with these vast influences rather than with theman himself that, as Larry Strangways talked, I began to see I was inconflict.
In Stacy Grainger, I gathered, the contemporaneous development of thecountry had produced something different, just as the same piece ofground will grow an oak or a rose-bush, according to the seed. Peoplewith a taste for social antithesis called him the grandson of a peddler.Mr. Strangways considered this description below the level of theancestral Grainger's occupation. In the days of scattered farms anddifficult communications throughout Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesotahe might better have been termed an itinerant merchant. He was thetraveling salesman who delivered the goods. His journeys being made byriver boats and ox-teams, he began to see the necessity of steam. He wasof the group who projected the system of railways, some of which failedand some of which succeeded, through the regions west of Lake Superior.Later he forsook the highways for a more feverish life in the incipientChicago. His wandering years having given him an idea of the value ofthis focal point, he put his savings into land. The phoenix rise of thecity after the great fire made him a man of some wealth. Out of thefinancial crash of 1873 he became richer. His son grew richer still onthe panic of 1893, when he, too, descended on New York. It was he whobecame a power on the Stock Exchange and bought the big house with whichparts of my narrative will have to do.
All I want to say now is that as I strolled with Larry Strangways alongthat sunny walk, and as he ran on about Brokenshires and Graingers, Igot my first bit of insight into the immense American romance which thenineteenth century unfolded. I saw it was romance, gigantic, race-wide.For the first time in my life I realized that there were other tales tomake men proud besides the story of the British Empire.
I could see that Larry Strangways was proud--proud and anxious. I hadnever seen this side of him before. Pride was in the way in which heheld his fine young head; there was anxiety in his tone, and now andthen in the flash of his eye, in spite of his efforts not to be tooserious.
It was about the country that he talked--its growth, its vastness. Evenas recently as when he was a boy it was still a manageable thing, with apopulation reckoned at no more than seventy or eighty millions. It hadbeen homogeneous in spirit if not in blood, and those who had come fromother lands, and been welcomed and adopted, accepted their new situationwith some gratitude. Patriotism was still a word with a meaning, and ifit now and then became spread-eagleism it was only as the waves whenthrown too far inland become froth. The wave was the thing and it hadn'tebbed.
"And do you think it has ebbed now?" I asked.
He didn't answer this question directly.
"We're becoming colossal. We shall soon count our people by the hundredmillion and more. Of these relatively few will have got our ideals.Some will reject them. There are mutterings already of other standardsto which we must be taught to conform. Some of our own best people ofpure Anglo-Saxon descent are losing heart and renouncing and denouncingthe democratic tradition, though they've nothing to put in its place.And we're growing so huge--with a hugeness that threatens to make uslethargic."
I tried t
o be encouraging.
"You seem to me anything but that."
"National lethargy can easily exist side by side with individual energy.Take China, for instance. There are few peoples in the world moreindividually diligent than the Chinese; and yet when it comes tonational stirring it's a country as difficult to move as an unwieldyoverfed giant. It's flabby and nerveless and inert. It's spread halfover Asia, and it has the largest and most industrious population in theworld; and yet it's a congeries of inner weaknesses, and a prey to anyone who chooses to attack it."
"And you think this country is on the way to being the China of thewest?"
"I don't say on the way. There's danger of it. In proportion as we toobecome unwieldy and overfed, the circulation of that national impulsewhich is like blood grows slower. The elephant is a heavily moving beastin comparison with the lion."
"But it's the more intelligent," I argued, still with a disposition tobe encouraging.
"Intelligence won't save it when the lion leaps on its back."
"Then what will?"
"That's what we want to find out."
"And how are you going to do it?"
"By men. We've come to a time when the country is going to need strongermen than it ever had, and more of them."
I suppose it is because I am a woman that I have to bring all questionsto the personal.
"And is your Stacy Grainger going to be one?"
He walked on a few paces without replying, his head in the air.
"No," he said, at last, "I don't think so. He's got a weakness."
"What kind of weakness?"
"I'm not going to tell you," he laughed. "It's enough to say that it'sone which I think will put him out of commission for the job." He gaveme some inkling, however, of what he meant when he added: "The country'scoming to a place where it will need disinterested men, andwhole-hearted men, and clean-hearted men, if it's going to pull through.It's extraordinary how deficient we've been in leaders who've had any ofthese characteristics, to say nothing of all three."
"Is the United States singular in that?"
He spoke in a half-jesting tone probably to hide the fact that he was somuch in earnest.
"No; perhaps not. But it's got to have them if it's going to be saved.Moreover," he went on, "it must find them among the young men. The oldermen are all steeped and branded and tarred and feathered with thematerialism of the nineteenth century. They're perfectly sodden. Theysee no patriotism except in loyalty to a political machine; and noloyalty to a political machine except for what they can get out of it.From our Presidents down most of them will sacrifice any law of rightto the good of a party. They don't realize that nine times out of tenthe good of a party is the evil of the common weal; and our older menwill never learn the fact. If we can't wake the younger men, we're donefor."
"And are you going to wake them?"
"I'm going to be awake myself. That's all I can be responsible for. If Ican find another fellow who's awake I'll follow him."
"Why not lead him? I should think you could."
He turned around on me. I shall never forget the gleam in his eye.
"No one is ever going to get away with this thing who thinks ofleadership. There are times in the history of countries when men arecalled on to give up everything and be true to an ideal. I believe thattime is approaching. It may come into Europe in one way and to Americain another; but it's coming to us all. There'll be a call for--for--" hehesitated at the word, uttering it only with an apologetic laugh--"forconsecration."
I was curious.
"And what do you mean by that--by consecration?"
He reflected before answering.
"I suppose I mean knowing what this country stands for, and being trueto it oneself through thick and thin. There'll be thin and there'll bethick--plenty of them both--but it will be a question of the value ofthe individual. If there had been ten righteous men in Sodom andGomorrah, they wouldn't have been destroyed. I take that as a kind offigure. A handful of disinterested, whole-hearted, clean-hearted, andperhaps I ought to add stout-hearted Americans, who know what theybelieve and live by it, will hold the fort against all efforts, withinand without, to pull it down." He paused in his walk, obliging me to dothe same. "I've been thinking a good deal," he smiled, "during the pastfew weeks of your law of Right--with a capital. I laughed at it when youfirst spoke of it--"
"Oh, hardly that," I interposed.
"But I've come to believe that it will work."
"I'm so glad."
"In fact, it's the only thing that will work."
"Exactly," I exclaimed, enthusiastically.
"We must stand by it, we younger men, just as the younger men of thelate fifties stood by the principles represented by Lincoln. I believein my heart that the need is going to be greater for us than it was forthem, and if we don't respond to it, then may the Lord have mercy on oursouls."
I give this scrap of conversation because it introduced a new note intomy knowledge of Americans. I had not supposed that any Americans feltlike that. In the Rossiter circle I never saw anything but an immenseself-satisfaction. Money and what money could do was, I am sure, theonly topic of their thought. Their ideas of position and privilege wereall spuriously European. Nothing was indigenous. Except for their senseof money, their aims were as foreign to the soil as their pictures,their tapestries, their furniture, and their clothes. Even stranger Ifound the imitation of Europe in tastes which Europe was daily givingup. But in Larry Strangways, it seemed to me, I found something native,something that really lived and cared. It caused me to look at him witha new interest.
His jesting tone allowed me to take my cue in the same vein.
"I'm tremendously flattered, Mr. Strangways, that you should have foundanything in my ideas that could be turned to good account."
He laughed shortly and rather hardly.
"Oh, if it was only that!"
It was another of the things I wished he hadn't said, but with the wordshe started on again, walking so fast for a few paces that I made noeffort to keep up with him. When he waited till I rejoined him we fellagain to talking of Stacy Grainger. At the first opportunity I asked thequestion that was chiefly on my mind.
"Wasn't there something at one time between him and Mrs. Brokenshire?"
He marched on with head erect.
"I believe so," he admitted, reluctantly, but not till some seconds hadpassed.
"There was a big fight, wasn't there," I persisted, "between him and Mr.Brokenshire--over Editha Billing--on the Stock Exchange--or somethinglike that?"
Again he allowed some seconds to go by.
"So I've heard."
I fished out of my memory such tag ends of gossip as had reached me, Icould hardly tell from where.
"Didn't Mr. Brokenshire attack his interests--railways and steel andthings--and nearly ruin him?"
"I believe there was some such talk."
I admired the way in which he refused to lend himself to the spread ofthe legend; but I insisted on going on, because the idea of thisconflict of modern giants, with a beautiful maiden as the prize,appealed to my imagination.
"And didn't old Mrs. Billing shift round all of a sudden from the manwho seemed to be going under to--?"
He cut the subject short by giving it another twist.
"Grainger's been unlucky. His whole family have been unlucky. It's aninstance of tragedy haunting a race such as one reads of in mythologyand now and then in modern history--the house of Atreus, for example,and the Stuarts, and the Hapsburgs, and so on."
I questioned him as to this, only to learn of a series of accidents,suicides, and sudden deaths, leaving Stacy as the last of his line,lonely and picturesque.
At the foot of the steps leading up to the Rossiter lawn LarryStrangways paused again. The children and dogs having preceded us andbeing safe on their own grounds, we could consider them off our minds.
"What do you know about old books?" he asked, suddenly.
The question too
k me so much by surprise that I could only say:
"What makes you think I know anything?"
"Didn't your father have a library full of them? And didn't youcatalogue them and sell them in London?"
I admitted this, but added that even that undertaking had left me veryignorant of the subject.
"Yes; but it's a beginning. If you know the Greek or Russian alphabetit's a very good point from which to go on and learn the language."
"But why should I learn that language?"
"Because I know a man who's going to have a vacancy soon for alibrarian. It's a private library, rather a famous one in New York, andthe young lady at present in command is leaving to be married."
I smiled pleasantly.
"Yes; but what has that got to do with me?"
"Didn't I tell you I was going to look you up another job?"
"Oh! And so you've looked me up this!"
"No, I didn't. It looked me up. The owner of the library mentioned thefact as a great bore. It was his father who made the collection in thedays of the first great American splurge. Stacy Grainger has added a rugor a Chinese jar from time to time, but he doesn't give a hang for thelot."
"Oh, so it's his."
"Yes; it's his. He says he feels inclined to shut the place up; but Itold him it was a pity to do that since I knew the very young lady forthe post."
I dropped the subject there, because of a new inspiration.
"If Mr. Grainger has places at his command, couldn't he do something forpoor Hugh?"
"Why poor Hugh? I thought he was--"
I gave him a brief account of the fiasco in Boston, venturing to betrayHugh's confidence for the sake of some possible advantage. Mr.Strangways only shrugged his shoulders.
"Of course," he said. "What could you expect?" I was sure he was lookingdown on me with the expression Mrs. Rossiter had detected, though Ididn't dare to lift an eye to catch him in the act. "You really mean tomarry him?"
"Mean to marry him is not the term," I answered, with the decision whichI felt the situation called for. "I mean to marry him only--onconditions."
"Oh, on conditions! What kind of conditions?"
I named them to him as I had named them to others. First that Hughshould become independent.
He repeated his short, hard laugh.
"I don't believe you had better bank on that."
"Perhaps not," I admitted. "But I've another string to my bow. Hisfamily may come and ask me."
He almost shouted.
"Never!"
It was the tone they all took, and which especially enraged me. I keptmy voice steady, however, as I said, "That remains to be seen."
"It doesn't remain to be seen, because I can tell you now that theywon't."
"And I can tell you now that they will," I said, with an assurance that,on the surface at least, was quite as strong as his own.
He laughed again, more shortly, more hardly.
"Oh, well!"
The laugh ended in a kind of sigh. I noted the sigh as I noted thelaugh, and their relation to each other. Both reached me, touchingsomething within me that had never yet been stirred. Physically it waslike the prick of the spur to a spirited animal, it sent me bounding upthe steps. I was off as from a danger; and though I would have givenmuch to see the expression with which he stood gazing after me, I wouldnot permit myself so much as to glance back.