Читать книгу Golden Fleece: The American Adventures of a Fortune Hunting Earl - David Graham Phillips - Страница 4

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ON the second day out, in the morning, Frothingham was at the rail, his back to the sea, his glassed gaze roaming aimlessly up and down the row of passengers stretched at full length in steamer chairs. He became conscious of the manœuvrings of a little man in a little grey cap and little grey suit, with little grey side-whiskers that stood out like fins on either side of his little grey face. Each time this little person passed it was with a nervous smile at Frothingham, and a nervous wiping of the lips with the tip of his tongue. When he saw that Frothingham, or, rather, Frothingham’s monocle, was noting him, he halted in front of him. He was too painfully self-conscious to see that the Englishman’s look was about as cordial as that of a bald-headed man watching the circlings of a bluebottle fly.

“The Earl of Frothingham, is it not?” said he in a thin, small voice, his American overlaid with the most un-English of English accents.

“My name is Longview”

Frothingham moved his head without relaxing from his stolid, vacant look.

“My name is Longview. I had the honour of meeting you at the hunt at Market Harboro two years ago—my daughter and I.”

Frothingham stared vaguely into space, little Longview looking up at him with an expression of ludicrously alarmed anxiety. “Oh, yes,” he drawled finally. And he extended his hand with condescending graciousness. “I remember.”

Longview expelled a big breath of relief. He was used to being forgotten, was not unused to remaining forgotten. “You may recall,” he hastened on, eager to clinch himself in an earl’s memory, “we had your cousin, Lord Ramsay’s place, Cedric Hall, that year.”

Frothingham remembered perfectly—the rich, Anglicised American who fed his neighbours well, was generous in lending mounts and traps, and was, altogether, a useful and not unamusing nuisance. Rich, but—how rich?

“And your daughter?” said Frothingham—he recalled her indistinctly as young, hoydenish, and a daring jumper.

“She is with me,” said Longview, delighted to be convinced that he was remembered, and remembered distinctly—and by a Gordon-Beauvais! “It would give me great pleasure to present you.”

As they went down the deck the little man peered at everyone with a nervous little smile—“as if he were saying, ‘Don’t kick me, please. I mean well,’” thought Frothingham. In fact, back of the peering and the smile was the desire that all should see that he had captured the Earl. They entered the library and advanced toward a young woman swathed in a huge blue cape, her eyes idly upon a book.

“Honoria, my dear,” said Longview, as uneasy as if he were speaking to the young woman without having been introduced to her, “you remember Lord Frothingham?”

Honoria slowly raised her eyelids from a pair of melancholy, indifferent grey eyes, and slightly inclined her head. The men seated themselves on either side of her; Longview rattled on in his almost hysterical way for a few minutes, then fluttered away. Honoria and Frothingham sat silent, she looking at her book, he looking at her.

“You are going home?” he said when he saw that she would not “lead,” no matter how long the silence might continue.

“No,” she replied. “We are English—at least, my father is.”

“And you?”

She just moved her shoulders, and there was the faintest sneer at the corner of her decidedly pretty mouth. “I don’t know—what does it matter about a woman? I’ve lived in England and France since I was five, except a year and a half in America. Father detests the country and the people. He was naturalised in England last year. I believe he decided that his social position, won through his being an American, was sufficiently established to make it safe for him to change.”

Frothingham smiled. As he was used to the freest and frankest criticisms of parents and other near relatives by fellow-countrymen of his own class, it did not impress him as unfilial that a daughter should thus deride a father. Honoria became silent, and apparently oblivious of his presence.

“I’ve never been to America,” he said, hoping to resurrect the dead conversation. “I’m looking forward to it with much pleasure. We have many Americans in our neighbourhood—such jolly people.”

“I know few Americans.” Honoria looked disdainful. “And they are like us, the most of them—expatriated. They say their country is a good place to make money in, but a horrible place to live—crude and ill-mannered, full of vulgar people that push in everywhere, and the servants fancying they’re ladies and gentlemen.”

“I hope it’s no worse to live in than England,” said Frothingham. “You know we’re always flying to the Continent to escape the climate and the dulness. And our middle-classes are very uppish nowadays, don’t you think?”

“I detest England.” Honoria put the first emphasis into her voice, but it was slight.

“Beastly hole, except for a few weeks in the spring, ain’t it? If it wasn’t for the hunting it would be deserted.”

He saw her cold, regular features light up. “I love hunting,” she said. “It’s the one thing that can make me forget myself, and everything except just being alive and well.” Then her face shadowed and chilled, and she looked at her book so significantly that Frothingham was forced to rise and leave.

At luncheon the man in the chair next him—Barney, who had told him in the first half-hour of their acquaintance all about his big dry-goods shop in Chicago—said: “I saw you talking to Longview on deck. Is he a friend of yours?”

“An acquaintance,” replied Frothingham. He rather liked Barney because he was shrewd and humourous, and treated him in an offhand fashion that was amusing in a “tradesman”—from America.

“He’s a low-down snob,” said Barney, encouraged by Frothingham’s disclaimer. “One of those fellows that think their own country ain’t good enough for them. I was glad when he got himself naturalised over in your country. You’re welcome to him. What kind of people does he herd with in England?”

“We like him very well, I believe. He seems to be an agreeable chap.”

“I suppose he kowtows and blows himself, and so they let him hang onto the tailboard—he ain’t heavy and don’t take up much room. His grandfather stole with both hands, and put it in real estate. Then his father made quite a bunch in the early railroad days. And now this fellow’s posing as an aristocrat. If he wasn’t rich who’d notice him?”

“Then he’s rich?” inquired Frothingham.

“Yes and no,” replied Barney, his rich man’s jealousy visibly roused. “There was a big family of them. He’s got maybe a couple of millions or three. That ain’t much in these days. You heard about his knockout?”

“Has he lost part of his money?”

“I thought everybody knew that story—it was in all the papers. No, it wasn’t money—worse than that, from his point of view. His daughter—she’s with him on the ship—fell in love with the second son of some marquis or other. But he didn’t have anything, and I believe you titled people ain’t allowed to work. Longview was red-headed—wouldn’t give his daughter a cent unless she married a big title. And then the young man’s older brother died.”

“Was it the Marquis of Dullingford?”

“Yes, that was it. And right on top of it his elder brother’s two sons were drowned, and he came into the title and estates. And what does he do but up and marry an English girl that he’d been struck on all the time, but couldn’t marry because he was so poor. Longview nearly went crazy at missing the chance. And his daughter—it must have made her mighty sour to find out that the fellow had been only pretending to be in love with her, and was really out for her cash, and didn’t care a rap about her. A low pup, wasn’t he?”

Frothingham began to detest Barney—“an impudent, malicious beggar,” he thought. He gave him his monocle’s coldest stare.

“No,” went on Barney, unchilled, “Longview’s not so rich. I could buy him twice over, and not take a cent of it out of my business. But I want to see any scamp, foreign or domestic, hanging round my daughter for her money. She’ll get nary a red till I shuffle off. And she’ll get mighty little then if she don’t marry to suit me. That’s our way.”

Frothingham changed his mind about dropping Barney. He had begun to modify the low view of him as soon as he heard that he had a daughter, and “could buy Longview twice over,” and leave the big business—“seventy stores under one roof”—intact. “Miss Barney may be worth looking at,” he reflected. “And her papa might relent about settlements. I suspect he isn’t above loving a lord—he’s too good an American for that.”

What Barney had told gave him the key to Honoria. He felt genuine sympathy for her—their sorrows were similar. “Poor creature,” he thought. “No wonder she’s so down in the mouth.” After luncheon he met her father on deck, and did not repel his advances. “But,” he said to himself, “it don’t do to be too friendly with these beggars. It’s like shaking hands with your tailor. He don’t think you’ve pulled him up, but that you’ve let yourself down.”

To the “beggar” he said:

“I looked all round the dining room, but I didn’t see you and your daughter.”

Longview smiled proudly. “We have our meals in our sitting room,” he replied. “We dislike being stared at, and mixed in with a crowd of eating people. We like privacy. We’d be glad to have you join us.”

Frothingham’s first impulse was to accept. It would cost him nothing—probably he’d get his wine and mineral water and cigars free. And he’d have a rare chance at Honoria. But her face came before his mind. He decided that he would do well to wait until he could learn whether she was really part of the inviting “we.”

Although he was not welcomed, but merely tolerated, he seated himself on the extension of a vacant chair beside her and talked—hunting, which, as she had shown him, was her weakness. She was soon interested, and she unbent toward him so far that, when her father came and renewed his invitation, she joined in it. Just as Frothingham accepted he saw Barney half a dozen chairs away glowering at Longview. “I’ll offend Barney, no doubt,” he said to himself. “But I’ll risk it. I must play the cards I have in my hand.”

Barney came into the smoke-room late in the evening as he was sitting there, having a final whiskey and water before going to bed. “Won’t you have a high ball or something?” he asked, making room for Barney’s broad form.

“No, I never touch liquor. Don’t allow it in my house. It’s no good—no business man ought to touch it.”

“I suppose not,” replied Frothingham, feeling that here was new evidence of the essentially degrading nature of business.

“I missed you at dinner,” Barney went on.

“The Longviews invited me to feed with them,” replied Frothingham carelessly. “They eat in their sitting room. Sorry to leave you, but the service is much better.”

Barney’s maxillary muscles expanded and contracted with anger. He half snorted, half laughed. “You might know,” he said, “that that shark-faced snob would invent a new way of making himself ridiculous. So, the general dining room ain’t good enough for him, eh? He is a swell, ain’t he? I should think he and his—no, leave the young lady out of it—I should think he’d be ashamed to fish for you so openly.” Barney’s tone softened apologetically, greatly to Frothingham’s surprise, as he added: “I don’t blame you, Mr. Frothingham. I understand how it is with you titled people in your country. I don’t blame anybody for walking round on human necks if their owners’ll allow it. But we feel differently about all those kind of things.”

Frothingham smiled conciliatingly. “Oh, I say, now! I don’t see anything to make a row over. The beggar’s a right to eat where he pleases, hasn’t he?”

Barney half a dozen chairs away glowering at Longview

“Of course he has, and to stick his tongue out at all the rest of us, as he does it. You don’t understand. It ain’t what he does. It’s why he does it. We Americans can’t stand those kind of airs.”

“It seems very mysterious to me,” confessed Frothingham. “I admit I don’t understand your country.”

“Oh, you’re all right,” reassured Barney, slapping Frothingham’s leg cordially. “I never thought I’d like one of you titled fellows. I despised you all for a useless set of nobodies and nincompoops. And whenever my womenfolks got to talking about that kind of thing I always sat on ’em, and sat hard—I’m a hard sitter when I want to be. But I like you, young man. You’re more an American than an Englishman, just as Longview’s more English than American—he ain’t American at all. You talk like an American. You behave like an American. And when you’ve been in America long enough to wear your clothes out, and get some that fit you, you’ll look like an American.”

“Thanks,” said Frothingham drily.

“You don’t like it?” Barney laughed good-humouredly. “Well, I don’t blame you. You’re judging America by Longview and me. That ain’t fair. I’m a rough one—never had a chance—first thing I remember is carrying the swill buckets out to feed the hogs before sun-up when I still wore slips. But I mean right. And I’ve got a son and a daughter that are a real gentleman and a real lady, and don’t you forget it.”

“Oh, you’re all right,” said Frothingham, slapping Barney on the leg—Frothingham was a sentimental dog where his pocket and his pleasure were not concerned, and he liked Barney’s look as he spoke of himself and the hogs, and his children.

“You don’t want to go back to that little old island of yours,” continued Barney, “without seeing Chicago. There’s a town! And I’ll give you the time of your life. I want you to meet my family.”

“I hope I shall,” said Frothingham. He was smiling to himself—evidently Barney wasn’t above a weakness for a lord. “It was a good stroke any way you look at it, my going with the Longviews,” he reflected. “It’s made Barney jealous, and he thinks more of me than ever.”

He divided his time unevenly between the Longviews and Barney. He wished to introduce Barney to them, but Longview hysterically refused. “It’s all right for you, Frothingham,” he explained. “But we can’t afford to do it. How’d you like to be introduced to middle-class English?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t mind. I’d just forget ’em the next time we met. The beggars ’d expect it and wouldn’t think of annoying me.”

“Precisely—precisely,” said Longview. “But our—that is—the American middle-classes are different. They don’t understand differences of social position, or pretend not to. If this Barney person were presented to us, he probably wouldn’t take the cut when we met again, but would come straight up to us. You’ve no idea how impudent they are.”

“But why do you call him middle-class? Ain’t he rich?” asked Frothingham.

Longview looked at him tragically. “Birth and breeding count with us just as—I mean count in America just as in England.”

“Gad, they don’t count in England any more, except against one. But we can’t get it out of our heads that you Americans go in for equality and all that sort of thing.”

“Not at all. Not at all,” Longview protested. “The lines are the more closely drawn because there are no official lines.”

“But what’s the matter with Barney? He seems right enough. I’ve got uncles that are worse. Gad, there’s one of ’em I could get rich on if I could cage him and show him at a shilling a look.”

“My dear Frothingham, this Barney keeps a retail shop. Even in New York they draw the line at retail shops.”

“It’s very mysterious.” Frothingham shook his head. “I fear I shall never learn. Why don’t they put it all in a book, as we do? Then we could take it at the university instead of Greek.”

He looked at Honoria. She was giving her plate a scornful smile. Her father looked at her also, and reddened as he noted her expression, and shifted the conversation abruptly to the day’s run. Frothingham was becoming interested in Honoria, now that he had assured himself of her eligibility. She was not beautiful, not especially distinguished-looking. But she had as little interest in him as in the rest of her surroundings, and that piqued him. Then, too, her figure was graceful and strong; and when her face did light up it showed strength of character, and either what she said or the way she said it created a vivid impression of personality. He soon felt that she liked him. Her manner toward him was friendlier far than her manner toward her father, her lack of respect for whom was scantily concealed.

The night before they landed she and Frothingham sat on deck late, her father dozing in a chair at a discreet distance. Both were depressed—the sense that they were once more about to plunge into the whirlpool of life made each sad. Honoria was remembering the past; Frothingham was brooding over the future. If he had dared he would have proposed to her. “She’d make a satisfactory wife,” he said to himself. “She’s just enough English to understand me and to make my people like her. She wouldn’t get on their nerves. And she doesn’t talk through her nose except when she’s excited. She’s a little too clever—but a steady goer, once the harness is on. If I could get her it would be good business, good swift business.”

“You’re a queer sort,” he said to her suddenly. “Most girls are full of getting married. But I don’t believe you give it a thought.”

“I sha’n’t ever marry,” she replied.

He laughed. “Oh, I say, that’s nonsense. Every girl must marry. You may as well make up your mind to it, close your eyes, shut your teeth, and dash in.”

“You might not think it,” she said after a pause, “but I am like you English—I’m horribly, incurably sentimental. I know it’s foreign to my bringing up, but——” Her jaw set, and her eyes fixed upon something visible only to her in the blackness beyond the rail. “My bringing up was all wrong and rotten,” she went on presently. “I don’t know just how or where, but I know it’s so. I began to feel it dimly when I visited my aunt in America four years ago. My mother died when I was a baby, and I was trained by my father and governesses—governesses that suited him. My father—— But I needn’t tell you, and you probably don’t sympathise with me. His one idea in life is social position. It seems to me a contemptible ambition for a man. With women—there’s some excuse for it. We’re naturally petty. And, so far as I can see it, as the world is made up, if we haven’t got that we haven’t got anything. We can’t have any other ambition—it’s the only one open to us. Well, I haven’t got even ambition. I want—that is, I wanted——”

She paused again, resisting the mood that was urging her on to confidence. “By Jove,” thought Frothingham, “it wouldn’t be hard for a man to like her.”

“No matter what it was I wanted,” she went on, “I didn’t get it—and sha’n’t, ever.” She turned her face toward him. “You may misunderstand me—may think I am in love and hopelessly disappointed—there’s a story of that kind going round. But I’m not in love. I was—but I’m not now.”

“Do you think one ever gets over it?” he asked absently.

She did not answer.

“I’m afraid not—at least, not thoroughly,” he answered himself. There were two faces out there in the blackness into which they were staring, but each was seeing only one.

“One ought to get over it—one must,” she said slowly, “when one finds that the person one cared for is a bad lot. But”—she sighed under her breath—“I might marry, yes, would, if I needed a home or money. But I don’t. So I shall be much better contented alone. I’ll never believe deeply in any human being again.”

“You mustn’t take life so seriously,” he said gently. “You’ll change before——”

“So my father thinks.” She looked at Frothingham with a mischievous, audacious smile. “He thinks I shall change immediately—and marry—you!”

Frothingham gasped.

“How funny and fishlike you look,” she said, laughing at him. “You are in no danger. Do you suppose I’d have said that if I’d had you on my list? No, I like you, but—but!”

“You may change your mind,” he recovered himself sufficiently to say.

“No—you’re safe. I spoke out because I wish to be friends with you. I don’t especially admire your purpose in going to America. But at least you’re frank about it.”

“I? Why, Miss Longview—I——” Frothingham began to protest, pushing at his dislodging eyeglass.

“Don’t prevaricate. You wouldn’t do it well. As I was about to say, I wish to be friends with you. And it’s impossible for a woman and a man to be friends when either is harbouring matrimonial designs against the other, or fancies the other is harbouring them.”

“I certainly have to marry somebody,” said Frothingham mournfully.

“Yes—I know. Father explained about you. He’s up on every titled family in England above the baronets. And he’s determined that I shall be a countess at the very least. He says he has the money to buy it—and possibly he has. But”—she was intent upon the blackness again—“I shall never go back to England. I shall stay in America—with a visit to Paris and the Riviera now and then.”

“That’ll cheer your father when he hears it,” drawled Frothingham. He coughed and stammered, and added in an embarrassed, apologetic tone, “And I don’t like to hear a girl as young and attractive as you are talk in that ghastly way.”

She looked at him with a teasing smile.

“You’ll make some woman a good husband,” she said. “Selfish and flighty, perhaps, but on the whole good. I’ll be glad to help you—with some other girl. In fact, I’ve one in mind—an acquaintance in New York—we call each the other friend, and I’m fond of her, as that sort of thing goes with women.”

He began to stammer again, and she saw that he was still hanging hopefully over her father’s plan. “If I were a marrying woman and ambitious,” she went on, “I’d think seriously of having a cast at you. But I’m neither, so I can appreciate your assets quite impartially.”

“I’ve got nothing,” he said, “nothing but debts.”

“Debts are an asset—if contracted in a way that would seem romantic to a girl. Then, there’s your title. That’s a big asset either in England or America. And you’ve got a fairly good disposition and nice manners, and you pretend indifference charmingly, assisted by your eyeglass. And your character is not too bad. Not too good, either. I’ve heard one or two rather thick stories of you. If I were your wife I’d keep an eye on the money—you will gamble. But your character is well up to the average for our kind of people.”

“I’ve been rather bad, I’m afraid,” he said, in the shallowly penitent tone in which human beings glory in the sins they are proud of. “I’ve been as bad as I knew how to be.”

“All of us are that, I fancy,” replied Honoria, rising. “I sha’n’t trouble you to confess to me. Save it for—her. Good-night.” She put out her hand friendlily. “I think we shall be friends.”

Frothingham looked after her as she went with her father down the deck toward the main companion-way. “She is a queer lot,” he muttered. “I suppose that’s American. Well, if it’s a fair specimen, I certainly sha’n’t be bored in America.”