“She must have thirty or forty thousand a year from her mother, at the least. You know Charlie never did anything in his life; he lived on his wife’s money, and Miss Brandon must have it all.”
Mrs. Wyndham did not appear surprised at the information; she hardly seemed to think it of any importance.
“I knew she had something,” she repeated; “but I am glad if you are right. But that does not make it any more feasible to marry her to Mr. Harrington.”
“I thought that starvation was your objection,” said Vancouver.
“Oh, no; not that only. Besides, he would not marry her.”
“He would be very foolish not to, if he had the chance,” remarked Vancouver.
“Perhaps he might not even have the chance–perhaps she would not marry him,” said Mrs. Wyndham, thoughtfully. “Besides, I do not think John Harrington ought to marry yet; he has other things to do.”
Mr. Vancouver seemed about to say something in answer, but he checked himself; possibly he did not speak because he saw some one enter the room at that moment, and was willing to leave the discussion of John Harrington to a future time.
In fact, the person who entered the room should have been the very last to hear the conversation that was taking place, for it was Miss Brandon herself, though Mr. Vancouver had not recognized her at once.
There were greetings and hand-shakings, and then Miss Brandon sat down by the fire and spread out her hands as though to warm them. She looked white and cold.
There are women in the world, both young and old, who seem to move among us like visions from another world, a world that is purer and fairer, and more heavenly than this one in which the rest of us move. It is hard to say what such women have that marks them so distinctly; sometimes it is beauty, sometimes only a manner, often it is both. It is very certain that we know and feel their influence, and that many men fear it as something strange and contrary to the common order of things, a living reproach and protest against all that is base and earthly and badly human.
Most people would have said first of Sybil Brandon that she was cold, and many would have added that she was beautiful. Ill-natured people sometimes said she was deathly. No one ever said she was pretty. Vancouver’s description–lily-white, all eyes and hair–certainly struck the principal facts of her appearance, for her skin was whiter than is commonly natural, her eyes were very deep and large and blue, and her soft brown hair seemed to be almost a burden to her from its great quantity. She was dressed entirely in black, and being rather tall and very slight of figure, the dress somewhat exaggerated the ethereal look that was natural to her. She seemed cold, and spread out her delicate hands to the bright flame of the blazing wood-fire. Mrs. Wyndham and Pocock Vancouver looked at her in silence for a moment. Then Mrs. Wyndham rose with a cup of tea in her hand, and crossed to the other side of the fireplace where Sybil was sitting and offered it to her.
“Poor Sybil, you are so cold. Drink some tea.” The elder woman sat down by the young girl, and lightly kissed her cheek. “You must not be sad, darling,” she whispered sympathetically.
“I am not sad at all, really,” answered Miss Brandon aloud, quite naturally, but pressing Mrs. Wyndham’s hand a little, as though in acknowledgment of her sympathy.
“No one can be sad in Boston,” said Vancouver, putting in a word. “Our city is altogether too wildly gay.” He laughed a little.
“You must not make fun of us to visitors, Mr. Vancouver,” answered Mrs. Wyndham, still holding Sybil’s hand.
“It is Mr. Vancouver’s ruling passion, though he never acknowledges it,” said Miss Brandon, calmly. “I remember it of old.”
“I am flattered at being remembered,” said Mr. Vancouver, whose delicate features betrayed neither pleasure nor interest, however. “But,” he continued, “I am not particularly flattered at being called a scoffer at my own people–”
“I did not say that,” interrupted Miss Brandon.
“Well, you said my ruling passion was making fun of Boston to visitors; at least, you and Mrs. Wyndham said it between you. I really never do that, unless I give the other side of the question as well.”
“What other side?” asked Mrs. Sam, who wanted to make conversation.
“Boston,” said Vancouver with some solemnity. “It is not more often ridiculous than other great institutions.”
“You simply take one’s breath away, Mr. Vancouver,” said Mrs. Wyndham, with a good deal of emphasis. “The idea of calling Boston ‘an institution!’”
“Why, certainly. The United States are only an institution after all. You could not soberly call us a nation. Even you could not reasonably be moved to fine patriotic phrases about your native country, if your ancestors had signed twenty Declarations of Independence. We live in a great institution, and we have every right to flatter ourselves on the success of its management; but in the long run this thing will not do for a nation.”
Miss Brandon looked at Vancouver with a sort of calm incredulity. Mrs. Wyndham always quarreled with him on points like the one now raised, and accordingly took up the cudgels.
“I do not see how you can congratulate yourself on the management of your institution, as you call it, when you know very well you would rather die than have anything to do with it.”
“Very true. But then, you always say that gentlemen should not touch anything so dirty as politics, Mrs. Wyndham,” retorted Vancouver.
“Well, that just shows that it is not an institution at all, and that you are quite wrong, and that we are a great nation supported and carried on by real patriotism.”
“And the Irish and German votes,” added Vancouver, with that scorn which only the true son of freedom can exhibit in speaking of his fellow-citizens.
“Oh, the Irish vote! That is always the last word in the argument,” answered Mrs. Sam.
“I do not see exactly what the Irish have to do with it,” remarked Miss Brandon, innocently. She did not understand politics.
Vancouver glanced at the clock and took his hat.
“It is very simple,” he said, rising to go. “It is the bull in the china shop–the Irish bull amongst the American china–dangerous, you know. Good evening, Mrs. Wyndham; good evening, Miss Brandon.” And he took his leave. Miss Brandon watched his slim figure disappear through the heavy curtains of the door.
“He has not changed much since I knew him,” she said, turning again to the fire. “I used to think he was clever.”
“And have you changed your mind?” asked Mrs. Wyndham, laughing.
“Not quite, but I begin to doubt. He has very good manners, and looks altogether like a gentleman.”
“Of course,” said Mrs. “Wyndham.” His mother was a Shaw, although his father came from South Carolina. But he is really very bright; Sam always says he is one of the ablest men in Boston.”
“In what way?” inquired Sybil.
“Oh, he is a lawyer, don’t you know?–great railroad man.”
“Oh,” ejaculated Miss Brandon, and relapsed into silence.
Mrs. Wyndham rose and stood before the fire, and pushed a log back with her small foot. Miss Brandon watched her, half wondering whether the flames would not catch her dress.
“I have been to see that Miss Thorn,” said Sybil presently.
“Oh,” exclaimed Mrs. Sam, with sudden interest, “tell me all about her this minute, dear. Is not she the most extraordinary creature?”
“I rather like her,” answered Miss Brandon. “She is very pretty.”
“What style? Dark?”
“No; not exactly. Brown hair, and lots of eyebrows. She is a little thing, but very much alive, you know.”
“Awfully English, of course,” suggested Mrs. Sam.
“Well–yes, I suppose so. She is wild about horses, and says she shoots. But I like her–I am sure I shall like her very much. She does not seem very pleased with her aunt.”
“I do not wonder,” said Mrs. Sam. “Poor little thing–she has nobody else belo
nging to her, has she?”
“Oh, yes,” answered Sybil, with a little tremor in her voice; “she has a mother in England.”
“I want to see her ever so much,” said Mrs. Sam. “Bring her to luncheon.”
“You will see her to-night, I think; she said she was going to that party.”
“I hate to leave you alone,” said Mrs. Wyndham. “I really think I had better not go.”
“Dear Mrs. Wyndham,” said Sybil, rising, and laying her hands on her hostess’s shoulders, half affectionately, half in protest, “this idea must be stopped from the first, and I mean to stop it. You are not to give up any party, or any society, or anything at all for me. If you do I will go away again. Promise me, will you not?”
“Very well, dear. But you know you are the dearest girl in the world.” And so they kissed, and agreed that Mrs. Wyndham should go out, and that Sybil should stay at home.
Mrs. Wyndham was really a very kind-hearted woman and a loving friend. That might be the reason why she was never popular. Popularity is a curious combination of friendliness and indifference, but very popular people rarely have devoted friends, and still more rarely suffer great passions. Everybody’s friend is far too apt to be nobody’s, for it is impossible to rely on the support of a person whose devotion is liable to be called upon a hundred times a day, from a hundred different quarters. The friendships that mean anything mean sacrifice for friendship’s sake; and a man or a woman really ready to make sacrifices for a considerable number of people is likely to be asked to do it very often, and to be soon spent in the effort to be true to every one.
But popularity makes no great demands. The popular man is known to be so busy in being popular that his offenses of omission are readily pardoned. His engagements are legion, his obligations are innumerable, and far more than he can fulfill. But, meet him when you will, his smile is as bright, his greeting as cordial, and his sayings as universally good-natured and satisfactory as ever. He has acquired the habit of pleasing, and it is almost impossible for him to displease. He enjoys it all, is agreeable to every one, and is never expected to catch cold in attending a friend’s funeral, or otherwise to sacrifice his comfort, because he is quite certain to have important engagements elsewhere, in which the world always believes. There is probably no individual more absolutely free and untrammeled than the thoroughly popular man.
Chapter II.
FATE, THE ARTIST, mixes her own colors. She grinds them with a pestle in the fashion of the old masters, and out of the most strange pigments she produces often only soft neutral tints for background and shadow, kneading a vast deal of bright colors away among the grays and browns; but now and then she takes a palette loaded with strong paint, and a great brush, and splashes a startling full length portrait upon the canvas, without much regard for drawing or general composition, but with very startling effect. To paint well needs life-long study; to paint so as merely to attract attention needs courage and a heart hardened against artistic sensitiveness.
John Harrington was a high light against the mezzotint of his surroundings. He was a constant source of interest, and not infrequently of terror, to the good town of Boston. True, he was a Bostonian himself, a chip of the old block, whose progenitors had lived in Salem, and whose very name breathed Pilgrim memories. He even had a teapot that had come over in the Mayflower. This was greatly venerated, and whenever John Harrington said anything more than usually modern, his friends brandished the teapot, morally speaking, in his defense, and put it in the clouds as a kind of rainbow–a promise that Puritan blood could not go wrong. Nevertheless, John Harrington continued to startle his fellow-townsmen by his writings and sayings, so that many of the grave sort shook their heads and swore that he sympathized with the Irish and believed in Chinese labor.
As a matter-of-fact, he did not mince matters. Endowed with unbounded courage and an extraordinary command of language, when he got upon his feet he spoke his mind in a way that was good to hear. Moreover, he had the strong oratorical temperament that forces attention and commands men in a body. He said that things were wrong and should be put right; and when he had said so for half an hour to a couple of thousand people, most of them were ready to follow him out of the hall and go and put things right on the spot, with their own hands. As yet the opportunity had not offered for proceeding in so simple a manner, but the aforesaid Bostonians of the graver sort said that John Harrington would some day be seen heading a desperate mob of socialists in an assault upon the State House. What he had to do with socialism, or to what end he should thus fiercely invade the headquarters of all earthly respectability, was not exactly apparent, but the picture thus evoked in the minds of the solemn burghers satisfactorily defined for them the personality of the man, and they said it and said it again.
It was somewhat remarkable that he had never been called clever. At first he was regarded as a fool by most of his own class, though he always had friends who believed in him. By and by, as it came to be seen that he had a purpose and would be listened to while he stated it, Boston said there was something in him; but he was never said to be clever or “bright”–he was John Harrington, neither more nor less. He was never even called “Jack.”
He was a friend of Mrs. Wyndham’s; her keen instincts had long ago recognized the true metal in the man, and of all who came and went in her house there was none more welcome than he. Sam Wyndham utterly disagreed with him in politics, but always defended him in private, saying that he would “calm down a lot when he got older,” and that meanwhile he was “a very good fellow if you did not stir him up.”
He was therefore very intimate at the Sam Wyndham establishment; in fact, at the very hour when Pocock Vancouver was drinking Mrs. Sam’s tea, John had intended to be enjoying the same privilege. Unfortunately for his intention he was caught elsewhere and could not get away. He was drinking tea, it is true, but the position in which he found himself was not entirely to his taste.
Old Miss Schenectady, whose niece, Miss Josephine Thorn, had lately come over from England to pass the winter, had asked John Harrington to call that afternoon. The old lady believed in John on account of the Mayflower teapot, and consequently thought him a desirable acquaintance for her niece. Accordingly, John went to the house, and met Miss Sybil Brandon just as she was leaving it; which he regretted, suspecting that her society would have been more interesting than that of Miss Thorn. As it turned out, he was right, for his first impression of the young English girl was not altogether agreeable; and he found himself obliged to stay and talk to her until an ancient lady, who had come to gossip with Miss Schenectady, and was fully carrying out her intentions, should go away and make it possible for him to take his leave without absolutely abandoning Miss Thorn in the corner of the room she had selected for the tête-à-tête.
“All that, of course, you know,” said Miss Thorn, in answer to some remark of John’s, “but what sort of things do you really care for?”
“People,” answered John without hesitation.
“Of course,” returned his companion, “everybody likes people. It is not very original. One could not live without lots of society, could one?”
“That depends on the meaning of society.”
“Oh, I am not in the least learned about meanings,” answered Miss Thorn. “I mean what one means by society, you know. Heaps of men and women, and tea-parties, and staying in the country, and that.”
“That is a sketch indeed,” said John, laughing. “But then it is rather different here. We do not relapse into the country as you do in England, and then come back to town like lions refreshed with sleep.”
“Why not?”
“Because once in society here one is always in it. At least, most people are. As soon as heat begins Boston goes to New York; and by-and-by New York goes to Saratoga, and takes Boston with it; and then all three go to Newport, and the thing begins again, until there is a general rush to Lenox, to see the glories of the autumn; and by the time the glories are getting a
little thin it is time to be in Beacon Street again.”
“But when do people shoot and ride?–do they ever hunt?” asked Miss Thorn, opening her wide brown eyes in some astonishment at John Harrington’s description of society life in America.
“Oh yes, they hunt at Newport with a drag and a bagged fox. They do it in July and August, when it is as hot as it can be, and the farmers turn out with pitchforks and stones to warn them off the growing crops.”
“How ridiculous!” exclaimed Miss Josephine.
“It is absurd, of course,” said Harrington, “and cruel. But I must say they ride as though there were no hereafter, and it is a stiff country.”
“They must, I should think; no one who believed in a hereafter would hunt in summer.”
“I will wager that if you go to Newport this summer you will hunt, just like everybody else,” said John boldly.
Josephine Thorn knew in her heart that it was true, but she did not like the tone in which John said it. There was an air of certainty about his way of talking that roused her opposition.
“I would do nothing so foolish,” said she. “You do not know me. And do you mean to tell me that you like these people who rush madly about the country and hunt in summer, and those sort of things?”
“No,” said John, “not always.”
“But you said you liked people. How awfully inconsistent you are!”
“Excuse me, I think not. I meant that I liked people and having to do with them–with men and women–better than I like things.”
“What are ‘things’?” inquired Josephine, sarcastically. “You are not very clear in your way of expressing yourself.”
“I will be as clear as you please,” answered John, looking across the room at Miss Schenectady and her ancient friend, and devoutly wishing he could get away. “I mean by ‘things’ the study of the inanimate part of creation, of such sciences as are not directly connected with man’s thoughts and actions, and such pursuits as hunting, shooting, and sporting of all kinds, which lead only to the amusement of the individual. I mean also the production of literature for literature’s sake, and of works of art for the mere sake of themselves. When I say I like ‘people,’ I mean men and women, their opinions and their relations to each other.”
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 112