Читать книгу The Barrier: A Novel - French Allen - Страница 8

Introducing an Eccentric

Mr. Peveril Pease had finished his week's work, and feeling no obligation to attend the golf club tea, went home and settled himself in his snuggery among his books. When his feet were once in slippers, his velvet jacket was on, and he held a well-marked volume in his hand, he felt he had more true comfort than all the golf clubs in the world could give. So thorough was his satisfaction that rather than read he gave himself up to the enjoyment of his well-being. Gazing about the room, Mr. Pease permitted himself a brief retrospection of his career.

Few men in the town could with so much right compliment themselves. He had begun life with nothing but ancestral debts and encumbered property, and now he was nearly as rich as Ellis, who had started with the traditional dollar in his pocket. Pease's credit was firm as a rock; the stock of his bank was quoted – no, it was hoarded. The widow, the orphan, the struggling clerks who had their money in Pease's hands could sleep at ease, and the respect in which he was held by the business men of the city – but he wasn't thinking of that.

No, this little house was his thought, and this room, and that array of books. He had been thirteen years of age when his grandfather died, and within the month he had refused the trustees his permission to sell a foot of the real estate. Judge Harmon never tired of telling of the visit of the boy, swelling with rage and resolution. "Cynthia may be willing, but grandfather never would sell, and I won't have it!" he had declared, and so strong was the lad's feeling that the trustees, divided in opinion, had yielded to him, backing the debts of the estate with their own credit. At eighteen he was practically their adviser and his own trustee; at twenty he had redeemed the homestead with his earnings; at twenty-five he had sold a single lot of the down-town property for what the entire estate would not have brought twelve years before. So much for determination and a long head.

Fifteen years more had passed, and still his life had not made him hard nor calculating. When he left his office he left his business; he went "home," to the house in which he was born. The little shingled building, so quaint, had been in the family for six generations; a Percival Pease founded it, a Pembroke Pease finished it, a Peveril Pease owned it now. It had never been rebuilt; the wainscot was still the same, the floors sagged, the stairs were queer, the ceilings low. It corresponded the least in the world with his riches and his great interests. But Pease had the heart of a boy and the affections of a woman. The house was his paradise, the room his bower, the books his especial delight. All his spare time he spent among them, giving himself to "mental improvement."

Many people thought him odd; some called him "poor Mr. Pease," with such pity as is given to the struggling artist or the ambitious novelist, for Pease had never been even to the high-school, and it seemed foolish for him to try to cultivate his mind. They did not consider that the grace of humility was not denied him, with just a touch of that saving quality, humour. He knew himself fairly well, he guarded himself successfully, only one person really knew his heart, and for the opinion of the rest he had a smile. Let them laugh or pity, they had nothing so fine as he, they were not so happy as he, and his kind of a fool was not the worst.

And so we must acknowledge that he was thoroughly complacent. None of Judith Blanchard's discontent stirred him, none of Mather's anger at the world, and none of Ellis's desire to advance. This little room gave him all that he wanted: intellectual improvement, the feeling of progress, mental satisfaction. Pease went beyond cherishing an ideal of happiness; he believed that he was happy, and that no one could take his happiness from him.

And thinking so at this minute, his eye rested fondly on a motto on the wall.

It was from Goethe; it was lettered in old German characters, framed in passe-partout, and hung above the mantel. Pease had dug it out of "Faust"; it embodied so completely his notion of existence that he resolved to keep it before him always. No mere translation could do it justice; "Gray, dear friend, is all theory, and green the golden tree of life" – that was too tame. No; the sonorous German could best express it:

Pease whispered the words to himself. Gray indeed were the lives of all others; he alone dwelt beneath life's green tree and ate its golden fruit. This house, this room, these books – ah, Paradise!

There came a knock at the door. "Peveril?"

"Yes, Cynthia."

"Don't forget, little Miss Blanchard is coming to dinner."

"No, Cynthia."

She was not requesting him to "dress." He always did. She was not asking him to be on time; he always was. Being on the safe side of the door, however, his cousin meant to remind him of her hardihood in inviting to his table some one young and pretty.

Not, Miss Cynthia sighed, that it would make any difference to him. When her visitor arrived a little early, and sat chatting in the parlour, Miss Pease reflected that Peveril, upstairs, was dressing no more carefully for this charming girl than he would have done for old Mrs. Brown. Charming – but he knew nothing of the real, the true, the living best!

Thus we may briefly record that Miss Cynthia Pease, who was the one person that understood her cousin, was not wholly in sympathy with his pursuits. Not that she would have acknowledged it to him, nor to anyone else, not even to "little Miss Blanchard," Judith's sister Beth, who was questioning her in a spirit of fun.

"I'm so afraid of dining with your cousin!" Beth exclaimed.

"No, you're not!" contradicted Miss Cynthia grimly.

"If I should make some slip in statement, or spot the table-cloth! He is so accurate, they all say."

"You may depend on him to be polite under all circumstances," responded Miss Cynthia, glaring.

"But I should know what he would think," persisted the young lady.

Miss Cynthia advanced to fury, scarcely repressed. "No, you wouldn't!" she denied emphatically. "I won't have you laugh at him."

"Why, you laugh at him yourself," said Beth. "You know you do."

"And if I do?" retorted Miss Pease. "Let me tell you he's the dearest, kindest man that ever – "

"Why, Miss Cynthia," cried the other, "don't I know?"

"Nobody knows," was the response.

Now all grades of opposition, from caustic irony to smothered denunciation, were habitual in Miss Pease's manner, but as she said "Nobody knows," lo! there were tears in her voice, if not in her eyes.

"Miss Cynthia!" cried Beth.

Miss Pease was gaunt and grewsome, so that her manner fitted her perfectly, but now as she sat winking her eyes and twisting her face she became pathetic. The girl rose quickly and came to her side.

"Have I hurt you?" she inquired anxiously.

"No, child, no," answered Miss Pease, recovering herself. "You didn't know what a sentimental old fool I am, did you? There, sit down again. You see," (she hesitated before committing herself further) "I was thinking, just before you came, of what Peveril has been to me. Your talk roused me again."

"He has done a great deal for you?" asked Beth with sympathy.

"Everything in the world!" answered Miss Cynthia warmly, not having resumed her manner. "Since our grandfather died Peveril has been my protector, though he is two years younger. You know we were very poor at first."

"Very poor?"

"We had nothing but debts," stated Miss Cynthia. "We lived in boarding-houses for seven years before Peveril could buy the homestead and get the strangers out of it. It was a proud day when he brought me here, and told me this was mine to live in until the end of my life. And yet for two years more I went daily to my work – I was in Benjamin's great dry-goods store, my dear – until when they asked me to be the head of the linen department Peveril said I should work no more, and insisted on my staying at home."

"I never heard of that," cried Beth. "That you were ever in Benjamin's!"

"And a very good saleswoman I was," said Miss Cynthia. "But after that the money began to come in to us, and Peveril sold the land where the Security Building now is. I have not done a piece of work since then, except for Peveril or for charity. I am a rich woman, my dear."

"But you do so much for charity!" exclaimed Beth with enthusiasm.

When it came to praise, Miss Pease became grim at once. "I've got to keep busy with something," she snapped.

"But tell me more," begged Beth.

"There is nothing more," declared Miss Cynthia. "And now I hear him coming, five minutes before the hour, just as he always does. Don't be afraid of him; he has the softest heart in the world, as you ought to discover, since you had the skill to find mine."

Beth had only the time to squeeze her friend's hand as the two stood up together. She had discovered Miss Pease's heart; it was an unconscious specialty of Beth's to find the weak points in the armour of forbidding persons, and she had on her list of friends more of the lonely and unknown than had many a worker in organised charity. She was, in fact, a worker in her own special field, the well-to-do, bringing them the sympathy and affection which they needed as much as do the poor. She had neither shrewdness nor experience; what she did was quite unconscious, but her value was unique. Mr. William Fenno, who had no love for his wife's pleasures and whose daughters took after their mother, loved to have the girl with him. Judge Harmon, not quite at home by his own gas-log, felt more comfortable if Beth were spending the evening with him – for she made no pretense of coming to see his wife. Quite unconsciously, a similar bond had been growing up between Beth and Miss Pease, and took open recognition on that day when Miss Cynthia, allowing her eyes to be pleased by the girl's freshness, blurted her feeling and said: "I like you. You are so unlike your sister."

But now Mr. Pease entered the room, and stood bowing while his cousin repeated the formula: "Peveril, here is Miss Elizabeth Blanchard. Beth, you remember my cousin, Mr. Peveril Pease?"

Beth thought he was "funny," meaning he was peculiar. He was short and rotund, he was immaculate and formal. His eyes met hers soberly, as if he had little of his cousin's wit, however much less savage. Talk opened with the golf club tea, and before the subject was exhausted he led the conversation dexterously to the weather. Dinner was announced while the beauty of the spring was yet under discussion, and at table, for a while, Beth was still repeating to herself that he was a "funny" little man.

Curiously, Pease was in an entirely new situation. Never had he been so placed that he must give an hour's undivided attention to a girl. He had never learned that girls have individuality; he avoided them as a rule, and at dinners there was always one at his left hand to relieve the other at his right, so that he never spoke to either of them long. Besides, not being regarded as a marrying man, Pease was invariably given the "sticks" to entertain. Girls had been to him, therefore, undeveloped creatures, displaying similar characteristics, being usually unacquainted with serious topics, and (quite as usually) devoid of personal attractions. Beth Blanchard, however, was something different. Without dwelling on her charms, it is enough to say that she was pretty; and without entering upon her mental acquirements, let us believe that she knew what was going on. She was quite used, moreover, to the society of older persons, and could meet Pease on many grounds, although it happened that the subject chosen was Europe.

"You have been there?" asked Pease quickly when Germany was mentioned.

"We spent some time there," Beth replied.

"Of course you have seen Weimar, then," Pease assumed. He happened to be right.

"Oh, yes," she answered, quite as if Weimar were still a focus of travel. "We spent a month there; mamma was quite ill. You know" – and here she addressed Miss Cynthia – "that she died over there, and then we came home."

Mr. Pease, in conjunction with his cousin, murmured his condolences, and Miss Blanchard, not to make the evening doleful, turned again to speak of Weimar.

"We lived quite near to Goethe's house," she said.

Then she beheld Mr. Pease glow with admiration. "You are very fortunate," he cried. "The inspiration must have been great."

"I am no writer, Mr. Pease," returned Beth.

"But," he explained, "it must have permanently bettered and improved you."

"Do you think I needed it?" she flashed.

Miss Cynthia, at her end of the table, was biting her lip. Pease, not perceiving that he was being rallied, fell to apologising. "Oh, no," he gasped. "I meant – "

She spared him. "I was not serious," she laughed. "You must pardon me." It was no new matter with her to relieve the embarrassed. Then she led him once more to the topic.

"You like Weimar, Mr. Pease?"

"Oh, I only like Goethe, you know, and Schiller. I've never been from America."

"And yet you read German?"

"Not very well. You see, I – "

And then he spoke of himself. Miss Cynthia sat amazed. Here was Peveril, who was always silent regarding his hobby, speaking from his heart. Beth coaxed a little; he hung back a bit, but he yielded. It was as if a miser were giving up his gold, yet the gold came. For all that she had invited Beth there, wishing to stir her cousin from his rut, Miss Cynthia presently became enraged. Peveril was telling more than he had ever told her. This chit of a girl, what charm had she?

But Pease himself, as he told the unaccustomed tale in halting sentences, felt comfort. It had been a long time repressed within him; he had seldom touched on it with Cynthia, and though he had not known it, the loneliness of it had been wearing on him all these years. It was sympathy that now brought it out, that quality in Beth which could pierce the armour of such a cynic as Miss Cynthia, or warm so cold a heart as William Fenno's. Pease yielded to it as frost to the sun. So he told of himself and his studies, and the impulse of all these years he confessed at the last.

"You see," he said, flushing painfully, "it's poetry that I love."

And he sat, the man of business, with his fair skin pink as a girl's. Then, lest she should mistake, he explained.

"You mustn't think," he said eagerly, "that I really suppose I understand. I know I lose much – I – I'm not very deep, you know. There are so many subtle things and such beautiful ones that pass me by. Only, you see [more hesitation], I got such pleasure from the English poets that I – tried the German. With a dictionary, you know, and a grammar. And all this is so much to me that I – I don't care for anything else. Can you understand?"

Then he was swept by doubt and fear. Would she laugh? Not she! Beth made him understand she appreciated his feelings, and presently Miss Cynthia found herself listening to a discussion of Shakespeare. Her lip curled – how foolish of Peveril! What real interest could Beth take in his ideas?

He asked himself the same question, with a sudden start, for Beth laughed merrily. What had he said that was laughable? She held up a finger. "Mr. Pease, I am going to accuse you of something. Will you promise to tell me the truth?"

This, he dimly felt, was a species of banter. "I promise," he said uncomfortably.

"Then, sir, do you memorise?"

"Why, yes," he confessed.

"I knew it!" she exclaimed. "Miss Cynthia, are you not ashamed of him? I know nobody that memorises now, Mr. Pease, except you and – me!"

He was relieved, and they fell to speaking eagerly. For the next few minutes Miss Cynthia felt the outrage of hearing poetry quoted at her table. Wordsworth, Scott, Burns, and then – for Pease was truly patriotic – Lanier and Longfellow. And so they came to discuss the meaning of a passage, and took up the subject of "Life." Next, "Happiness." At all this sentiment Miss Cynthia ground her teeth.

Beth was of the opinion that environment makes happiness. Pease maintained that we make our own environment. "Impossible!" said Beth, thinking of Mr. Fenno and the Judge.

"Easily done!" declared Pease, thinking of himself.

Then they spoke of "Ideals of Conduct" – Which of them make most for Happiness? By little and little they came to the point where Pease felt impelled to open his breast again. He spoke of his motto, quoting it clumsily with his self-taught accent, so that a smile almost came to her lips. She drew from him that he believed he knew the gray of life, and the green.

"But, Mr. Pease," Beth objected, "how can you say you know so much of life when you live so much alone?"

"We are late – we are late!" cried Miss Cynthia suddenly. "We shall miss our engagement if we sit so long here."

And so the two ladies presently went away, refusing all escort. Standing at the open door, Pease watched them with a strange regret. The thought of returning to his books was astonishingly unwelcome; they seemed to be but leather, ink, and paper. He looked up at the heavens. Something was stinging in his veins: what a lovely world! For the first time he recognised the beauty of the moon.

His thoughts were interrupted by a footstep, and there stood Mather. "Mr. Pease," said he, "this is an unusual hour for business. But the kind offer which you made me to-day – " He hesitated.

"The position had only possibilities," answered Pease. "You would be your own master, because I should leave everything to you, but it would be like beginning at the bottom again. I knew you would refuse me."

"You mistake," returned Mather with energy. "I like the chance, and will build up your venture for you. I am ready to take your instructions to-night, and go to work Monday morning."

"Come inside," said Mr. Pease.