“Of course, I know all about the old story, George,” said Sherry. “But if I were you I would at least try and be civil. The fact is, I have reason to know that he is haunted by a sort of half-stagey, half-honest remorse for what he did, and he is very much pleased with the marriage, besides being a great admirer of your books.”
“All right,” said George, “I will be civil enough.”
Sherry Trimm had conveyed exactly the impression which he had desired to convey. He had made George believe by his manner that he was himself anxious to keep his relations with Mr. Craik on a pleasant footing, doubtless on account of the money, and he had effectually deterred George from quarrelling with his unknown benefactor, while he had kept the question of the will as closely secret as ever.
CHAPTER XXV.
GEORGE HAD NEVER been inside Mr. Craik’s house, and the first impression made upon him by the sight of the old gentleman’s collected spoil was a singular one. The sight of beautiful objects had always given him pleasure, but, on the other hand, his mind resented and abhorred alike disorder and senseless profusion. He had no touch in his composition of that modern taste which delights in producing a certain tone of colour in a room, by filling it with all sorts of heterogeneous and useless articles, of all periods and collected out of all countries. It was not sufficient in his eyes that an object should be of great value, or of great beauty, or that it should possess both at once; it was necessary also that it should be so placed as to acquire a right to its position and to its surroundings. A Turkish tile, a Spanish-Moorish dish, an Italian embroidery and an old picture might harmonise very well with each other in colour and in general effect, but George Wood’s uncultivated taste failed to see why they should all be placed together, side by side upon the same wall, any more than why a periwig should be set upon a soup-tureen, as Johnson had remarked. He felt from the moment he entered the house as if he were in a bazaar of bric-à-brac, where everything was put up for sale, and in which each object must have somewhere a label tied or pasted to it, upon which letters and figures mysteriously shadowed forth its variable price to the purchaser while accurately defining its value to the vendor.
It must not be supposed, however, that because George Wood did not like the look of the room in which he found himself, it would not have been admired and appreciated by many persons of unquestioned good taste. The value there accumulated was very great, there was much that was exceedingly rare and of exquisite design and workmanship, and the vulgarity of the effect, if there were any, was of the more subtle and tolerable kind.
George stood in the midst of the chamber, hat in hand, waiting for the owner of the collection to appear. A door made of panels of thin alabaster set in rich old gilt carvings, was opposite to him, and he was wondering whether the light actually penetrated the delicate marble as it seemed to do, when the chiselled handle turned and the door itself moved noiselessly on its hinges. Thomas Craik entered the room.
The old gentleman’s head seemed to have fallen forward upon his shoulders, so that he was obliged to look sideways and upwards in order to see anything above the level of his eyes. Otherwise he did not present so decrepit an appearance as George had expected. His step was sufficiently brisk, and though his voice was little better than a growl, it was not by any means weak. He was clothed in light-coloured tweed garments of the newest cut, and he wore a red tie, and shoes of varnished leather. The corner of a pink silk handkerchief was just visible above the outer pocket of his coat, and he emanated a perfume which seemed to be combined out of Cologne water and Russian leather.
“Official visit, eh?” he said with an attempt at a pleasant smile. “Glad to see you. Sorry you have waited so long before coming. Take a seat.”
“Thanks,” answered George, sitting down. “I am glad to see that you are quite yourself again, Mr. Craik.”
“Quite myself, eh? Never was anybody else long enough to know what it felt like. But I have not forgotten that you came to ask — no, no, I remember that. Going to marry Mamie, eh? Glad to hear it. Well, well.”
Thomas Craik rubbed his emaciated hands slowly together and looked sideways at his visitor.
“Yes,” said George, “I am going to marry Miss Trimm — —”
“Call her Mamie, call her Mamie — own niece of mine, you know. No use standing on ceremony.”
“I think it is as well to call her Miss Trimm until we are married,” George observed, rather coldly.
“Oh, you think so, do you? Well, well. Not to her face, I hope?”
George thought that Mr. Craik was one of the most particularly odious old gentlemen he had ever met. He changed the subject as quickly as he could.
“What a wonderful collection of beautiful things you have, Mr. Craik,” he said, glancing at a set of Urbino dishes that were fastened against the wall nearest to him.
“Something, something,” replied Mr. Craik, modestly. “Fond of pretty things? Understand majolica?”
“I am very fond of pretty things, but I know nothing about majolica. I believe the subject needs immense study. They say you are a great authority on all these things.”
“Oh, they say so, do they? Well, well. Books are more in your line, eh? Some in the other room if you like to see them. Come?”
“Yes indeed!” George answered with alacrity. He thought that if he must sustain the conversation for five minutes longer, it would be a relief to be among things he understood. Tom Craik rose and led the way through the alabaster door by which he had entered. George found himself in a spacious apartment, consisting of two rooms which had been thrown into one by building an arch in the place of the former wall of division. There were no windows, but each division was lighted by a large skylight of stained glass, supported on old Bohemian iron-work. To the height of six feet from the floor, the walls were lined with bookcases, the books being protected by glass. Above these the walls were completely covered with tapestries, stuffs, weapons, old plates and similar objects.
“Favourite room of mine,” remarked Mr. Craik, backing up to the great wood fire, and looking about him with side glances, first to the right and then to the left. “Look about you, look about you. A lot of books in those shelves, eh? Well, well. About three thousand. Not many but good and good, as books should be, inside and out. Eh? Like that?”
“Yes,” said George, moving slowly round the room, stooping and then standing erect, as he glanced rapidly at the titles of the long rows of volumes. The born man of letters warmed at the sight of the familiar names and felt less inimically inclined towards the master of the house.
“I envy you such books to read and such a place in which to read them,” he said at last.
“I believe you do,” answered Mr. Craik, looking pleased. “You look as if you did. Well, well. May be all yours some day.”
“How so?” George inquired, growing suddenly cold and looking sharply at the old man.
“May leave everything to Totty. Totty may leave everything to Mamie. Fact is, any station may be the last. May have to hand in my checks at any time. Funny world, isn’t it? Eh?”
“A very humorous and comic world, as you say,” George answered, looking at the old man with a rather scornful twist of his naturally scornful mouth.
“Humorous and comic? I say, funny. It’s shorter. What would you do if you owned this house?”
“I would sell it,” George answered with a dry laugh, “sell it, except the books, and live on the interest of the proceeds.”
“And you would do a very sensible thing, Mr. George Winton Wood,” returned Tom Craik approvingly. All at once he dropped his detached manner of speaking and grew eloquent. “You would be doing a very sensible thing. A man of your age can have no manner of use for all this rubbish. If you ever mean to be a collector, reserve that expensive taste for the time when you have plenty of money, but can neither eat, drink, sleep, make love nor be merry in any way — no, nor write novels either. The pleasure does not consist in possessing things, it lies in finding th
em, bargaining for them, fighting for them and ultimately getting them. It is the same with money, but there is more variety in collecting, to my mind, at least. It is the same with everything, money, love, politics, collecting, it is only the fighting for what you want that is agreeably exciting. It has kept me alive, with my wretched constitution, when the doctors have been thinking of sending for the person in black who carries a tape measure. I never had any ambition. I never cared for anything but the fighting. I never cared to be first, second or third. I do not believe that your ambitious man ever succeeds in life. He thinks so much about himself that he forgets what he is fighting for. You can easily make a fool of an ambitious man by offering him a bait, and you may take the thing you want while he is chasing the phantom of glory on the other side of the house. I hope you are not ambitious. You have begun as if you were not, and you have knocked all the stuffing out of the rag dolls the critics put up to frighten young authors. I have read a good deal in my day, and I have seen a good deal, and I have taken a great many things I have wanted. I know men, and I know something about books. You ought to succeed, for you go about your work as though you liked it for the sake of overcoming difficulties, for the sake of fighting your subject and getting the better of it. Stick to that principle. It prolongs life. Pick out the hardest thing there is to be done, and go at it, hammer and tongs, by hook or by crook, by fair means or foul. If you cannot do it, after all, nobody need be the wiser; if you succeed every one will cry out in admiration of your industry and genius, when you have really only been amusing yourself all the time — because nothing can be more amusing than fighting. You are quite right. Ambition is nonsense and the satisfaction of possession is bosh. The only pleasure is in doing and getting. If, in the inscrutable ways of destiny, you ever own this house, sell it, and when you are old, and crooked, and cannot write any more, and people think you are a drivelling idiot and are sitting in rows outside your door, waiting for dead men’s shoes — why then, you can prolong your life by collecting something, as I have done. The desire to get the better of a Jew dealer in a bargain for a Maestro Georgio, or the determination to find the edition which has been heard of but never seen, will make your blood circulate and your heart beat, and your brain work. I have half a mind to sell the whole thing myself for the sake of doing it all over again, and keeping somebody waiting ten years longer for the money. I might last ten years more if I could hit upon something new to collect.”
The old man ceased speaking and looked up sideways at George, with a keen smile, very unlike the expression he assumed when he meant to be agreeable. Then he relapsed into his usual way of talking, jerking out short sentences and generally omitting the subject or the verb, when he did not omit both. It is possible that he had delivered his oration for the sake of showing George that he could speak English as well as any one when he chose to do so.
“Like my little speech? Eh?” he inquired.
“I shall not forget it,” George answered. “Your ideas cannot be accused of being stale or old fashioned, whatever else may be said of them.”
“Put them into a book, will you? Well, well. Daresay printer’s ink has been wasted on worse — sometimes.”
George did not care to prolong his visit beyond the bounds of strict civility, though he had been somewhat diverted by his relation’s talk. He asked a few questions about the books and discovered that Tom Craik was by no means the unreading edition-hunter he had supposed him to be. If he had not read all the three thousand choice volumes he possessed, he had at least a very clear idea of the contents of most of them.
“Buying an author and not reading him,” he said, “is like buying a pig in a poke and then not even looking at the pig afterwards. Eh?”
“Very like,” George answered with a short laugh. Then he took his leave. The old man went with him as far as the door that led out of the room in which they had first met.
“Come again,” he said. “Rather afraid of draughts, so I leave you here. Good day to you.”
George took the thin hand that was thrust out at him and shook it with somewhat less repulsion that he had felt a quarter of an hour earlier. The sight of the books had softened his heart a little, as it often softens the enmities of literary men when they least expect it. He turned away and left the house, wondering whether, after all, old Tom Craik had not been judged more harshly than he deserved. The man of letters is slow to anger against those who show any genuine fondness for his profession.
He walked down the avenue, thinking over what he had seen and heard. It chanced that after walking some time he stepped aside to allow certain ladies to pass him and on looking round saw that he was in the door of Mr. Popples’s establishment. A thought struck him and he went in.
“Mr. Popples — —”
“Good morning, Mr. Winton Wood — —” Mr. Popples thought that the two names sounded better together.
“Good morning, Mr. Popples. I want to ask you a confidential question.” George laughed a little.
“Anything, Mr. Winton Wood. Something in regard to the sales, no doubt. Well, in point of fact, sir, it is just as well to ask now and then how a book is going, just for the sake of checking the statement as we say, though I will say that Rob Roy and Company — —”
“No, no,” George interrupted with a second laugh. “They treat me very well. You know Mr. Craik, do you not?”
“Mr. Craik!” exclaimed the bookseller, with a beaming smile. “Why, dear me! Mr. Craik is your first cousin once removed, Mr. Winton Wood! Of course I know him.” He prided himself on knowing the exact degree of relationship existing between his different customers, which was equivalent to knowing by heart the genealogy of all New York society.
“You are a subtle flatterer,” George answered. “You pretend to know him only because he is my cousin.”
“A great collector,” returned the other, drawing down the corners of his mouth and turning up his eyes as though he were contemplating an object of solemn beauty. “A great collector! He knows what a book is, old or new. He knows, he knows — oh yes, he knows very well.”
“What I want to know is this,” said George. “Does Mr. Craik buy my books or not? Do you happen to remember?”
“Well, Mr. Winton Wood,” answered Mr. Popples, “the fact is, I do happen to remember, by the merest chance. The fact is, to be honest, quite honest, Mr. Craik does not buy your books. But he reads them.”
“Borrows them, I suppose,” observed George.
“Well, not that, exactly, either. The fact is,” said the bookseller, lowering his voice to a confidential whisper, “Mrs. Sherrington Trimm buys them and sends them to him. He buys mostly valuable books,” he added, as though apologising for Mr. Craik’s stinginess.
“Thank you, Mr. Popples,” said George, laughing for the third time, and turning away.
“Oh, not at all, Mr. Winton Wood. Anything, anything. Walking this mor — —”
But George was already out of the shop and the bookseller did not take the trouble to pronounce the last syllable, as he readjusted his large spectacles and took up three or four volumes that lay on the edge of the table.
“It cannot be said,” George thought, as he walked on, “that I am very much indebted to Mr. Thomas Craik — not even for ten per cent on one dollar and twenty-five.”
George would have been very much surprised to learn that the man who would not spend a dollar and a quarter in purchasing one of his novels had left him everything he possessed, and that the document which was to prove his right was reposing in that Indian cabinet of Mrs. Trimm’s, which he had so often admired. It seemed as though Totty had planned everything to earn his gratitude, and he was especially pleased that she should have made her miserly brother read his books. It showed at once her own admiration for them and her desire that every one belonging to her should share in it.
Having nothing especial to do until a later hour, George thought of going to see Constance and Grace. They had only been in town two days, but he was curi
ous to know whether Mrs. Bond had begun to look like herself again, or was becoming more and more absorbed in her sorrow as time went on. He had not been to the house in Washington Square since the first of May, and so many events had occurred in his life since that date that he felt as though he were separated from it by an interval of years instead of months. The time had passed very quickly. It would soon be three years since he had first gone up those steps with his cousin one afternoon in the late winter. As he approached the familiar door, he thought of all that had happened in the time, and he was amazed to find how he had changed. Six months earlier he had descended those steps with the certainty that the better and sweeter part of his life was behind him, and that his happiness had been destroyed by a woman’s caprice. It had been a rough lesson but he had survived the ordeal and was now a far happier man than he had been then. In the flush of success, he was engaged to marry a young girl who loved him with all her heart, and whom he loved as well as he could. The world was before him now, as it had not been then, when he had felt himself dependent for his inspiration upon Constance’s attachment, and for the help he needed upon his daily converse with her. If his heart was not satisfied as he had once dreamed that it might be, his hopes were raised by the experience of self-reliance. It had once seemed bitter to work alone; he had now ceased to desire any companionship in his labours. Mamie was to be his wife, not his adviser. She was to look up to him, and he must make himself worthy of her trust as well as of her admiration. He would work for her, labour to make her happy, to the extreme extent of his strength, and he would be proud of the part he would play. She would be the mother of children, graceful and charming as herself, or angular, tough and hardworking as he was, and he and she would love them. But there the relation was to cease, and he was glad of it. He owed much to Constance, and was ready to acknowledge the whole debt, but neither Constance herself, nor any other woman could take the same place in his life again. Least of all, she herself, he thought, as he rang the bell of her house and waited for admittance. In the old days his heart used to beat faster than its wont before he was fairly within the precincts of the Square. Now he was as unconscious of any emotion as though he were standing before his own door.
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