Читать книгу The Marryers - Irving Bacheller - Страница 4

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I HAVE just returned from Italy—the land of love and song. To any who may be looking forward to a career in love or song I recommend Italy. Its art, scenery, and wine have been a great help to the song business, while its pictures, statues, and soft air are well calculated to keep the sexes from drifting apart and becoming hopelessly estranged. The sexes will have their differences, of course, as they are having them in England. I sometimes fear that they may decide to have nothing more to do with each other, in which case Italy, with its alert and well-trained corps of love-makers, might save the situation.

Since Ovid and Horace, times have changed in the old peninsula. Love has ceased to be an art and has become an industry to which the male members of the titolati are assiduously devoted. With hereditary talent for the business, they have made it pay. The coy processes in the immortal tale of Masuccio of Salerno are no longer fashionable. The Juliets have descended from the balcony; the Romeos climb the trellis no more. All that machinery is now too antiquated and unbusinesslike. The Juliets are mostly English and American girls who have come down the line from Saint Moritz. The Romeos are still Italians, but the bobsled, the toboggan, and the tango dance have supplanted the balcony and the trellis as being swifter, less wordy, and more direct.

There are other forms of love which thrive in Italy—the noblest which the human breast may know—the love of art, for instance, and the love of America. I came back with a deeper affection for Uncle Sam than I ever had before.

But this is only the cold vestibule—the “piaz” of my story. Come in, dear reader. There's a cheerful blaze and a comfortable chair in the chimney-corner. Make yourself at home, and now my story's begun exactly where I began to live in it—inside the big country house of a client of mine, an hour's ride from New York. His name wasn't Whitfield Norris, and so we will call him that. His age was about fifty-five, his name well known. If ever a man was born for friendship he was the man—a kindly but strong face, genial blue eyes, and the love of good fellowship. But he had few friends and no intimates beyond his family circle. True, he had a gruff voice and a broken nose, and was not much of a talker. Of Norris, the financier, many knew more or less; of Norris, the man, he and his family seemed to enjoy a monopoly of information. It was not quite a monopoly, however, as I discovered when I began to observe the deep undercurrents of his life. Right away he asked me to look at them.

Norris had written that he wished to consult me, and was forbidden by his doctor to go far from his country house, where he was trying to rest. Years before he had put a detail of business in my hands, and I had had some luck with it.

His glowing wife and daughter met me at the railroad-station with a glowing footman and a great, glowing limousine. The wife was a restored masterpiece of the time of Andrew Johnson—by which I mean that she was a very handsome woman, whose age varied from thirty to fifty-five, according to the day and the condition of your eyesight. She trained more or less in fashionable society, and even coughed with an English accent. The daughter was a lovely blonde, blue-eyed girl of twenty. She was tall and substantial—built for all weather and especially well-roofed—a real human being, with sense enough to laugh at my jokes and other serious details in her environment.

We arrived at the big, plain, comfortable house just in time for luncheon. Norris met me at the door. He looked pale and careworn, but greeted me playfully, and I remarked that he seemed to be feeling his oats.

“Feeling my oats! Well, I should say so,” he answered. “No man's oats ever filled him with deeper feeling.”

Like so many American business men, his brain had all feet in the trough, so to speak, and was getting more than its share of blood, while the other vital organs in his system were probably only half fed.

At the table I met Richard Forbes, a handsome, husky young man who seemed to take a special interest in Miss Gwendolyn, the daughter. There were also the aged mother of Norris, two maiden cousins of his—jolly women between forty-five and fifty years of age—a college president, and Mrs. Mushtop, a proud and talkative lady who explained to me that she was one of the Mushtops of Maryland. Of course you have met those interesting people. Ever since 1627 the Mushtops have been coming over from England with the first Lord Baltimore, and now they are quite numerous. While we ate, Norris said little, but seemed to enjoy the jests and stories better than the food.

He had a great liking for good tobacco, and after luncheon showed me the room where he kept his cigars. There were thousands of them made from the best crops of Cuba, in sizes to suit the taste.

“Here are some from the crop of '93,” he said, as he opened a box. “I have green cigars, if you prefer them, but I never smoke a cigar unless it crackles.”

I took a crackler, and with its delicious aroma under my nose we went for a walk in the villa gardens. Some one had released a dozen Airedales, of whom my host was extremely fond, and they followed at his heels. I walked with the maiden cousins, one of whom said of Norris: “We're very fond of him. Often we sing, 'What a friend we have in Whitfield!' and it amuses him very much.”

And it suggested to me that they had good reason to sing it.

Norris was extremely fond of beautiful things, and his knowledge of both art and flowers was unusual. He showed us the conservatories and his art-gallery filled with masterpieces, but very calmly and with no flourish.

“I've only a few landscapes here,” he said, “things that do not seem to quarrel with the hills and valleys.”

“Or the hay and whiskers and the restful spirit beneath them,” I suggested.

I knew that he had bought in every market of the world, and had given some of his best treasures to sundry museums of art in America, but they were always credited to “a friend,” and never to Whitfield Norris.

On our return to the house he asked me to ride with him, and we got into the big car and went out for a leisurely trip on the country roads. The farmer-folk in field and dooryard waved their hands and stirred their whiskers as we passed.

“They're all my friends,” he said.

“Tenants and vassals!” I remarked.

“You see, I've helped some of them in a small way, but always impersonally,” he answered, as if he had not heard me. “I have sought to avoid drawing their attention to me in any way whatever.”

We drew up at a little house on a lonely road to ask our way. An Irish woman came to the car door as we stopped, and said:

“God bless ye, sor! It does me eyes good to look an' see ye better—thanks to the good God! I haven't forgot yer kindness.”

“But I have,” said Norris.

The woman was on her mental knees before him as she stood looking into his face.

No doubt he had lifted her mortgage or favored her in some like manner. Her greeting seemed to please him, and he gave her a kindly word, and told his driver to go on.

We passed the Mary Perkins's school and the Mary Perkins's hospital, both named for his wife. I had heard much of these model charities, but not from him. So many rich men talk of their good deeds, like the lecturer in a side-show, but he held his peace. Everywhere I could not help seeing that he was regarded as a kind of savior, and he seemed to regret it. Was he a great actor or—?

“It's a pity that I cannot enjoy my life like other men,” he interrupted, as this thought came to me. “None of my neighbors are quite themselves when they talk to me; they think I must be praised and flattered. They don't talk to me in a reliable fashion, as you do. You have noticed that even my own family is given to songs of praise in my presence.”

“Norris, I'm sorry for you,” I said. “They say that you inherited a fair amount of poverty—honest, hard-earned poverty. Why didn't you take care of it? Why did you get reckless and squander it in commercial dissipation? You should have kept enough to give your daughter a proper start in life. I have taken care of mine.”

“It began in the thoughtless imprudence of youth,” he went on, playfully. “I used to think that money was an asset.”

“And you have discovered that money is only a jackasset.”

“That it is, in fact, a liability, and that every man you meet is dunning you for a part of it.”

“Including the lawyers you meet,” I said. “Oh, they're the worst of all!” he laughed. “As distributors of the world's poverty they are unrivaled.”

He smiled and shook his head with a look of amusement and injury as he went on.

“Almost every one who comes near me has a hatchet if not an ax to grind. I am sick of being a little tin god. I seem to be standing in a high place where I can see all the selfishness of the world about me. No, it hasn't made me a cynic. I have some sympathy for the most transparent of them; but generally I am rather gruff and ill-natured; often I lose my temper. I have had enough of praise and flattery to understand how weary of it the Almighty must be. He must see how cheap it is, and if He has humor, as of course He has, having given so much of it to His children, how He must laugh at some of the gross adulation that is offered Him! But let us get to business.

“I invited you here to engage your services in a most important matter; it's so important that for many years I have given it my own attention. But my health is failing, and I must get rid of this problem, which is, in a way, like the riddle of the Sphinx. Some other fellow must tackle it, and I've chosen you for the job. Mr. Potter, you are to be, if you will, my trustiest friend as well as my attorney. For many years I have been the victim of blackmailers, and have paid them a lot of money.”

“Poverty is a good thing, but not if it's achieved through the aid of a blackmailer,” I remarked. “Try some other scheme.”

“But you must know the facts,” he went on. “At twenty-one I went into business with my father out in Illinois. He got into financial difficulties and committed a crime—forged a man's name to a note, intending to pay it when it came due. Suddenly, in a panic, he went on the rocks, and all his plans failed. He was up against it, as we say. There were many extenuating circumstances—a generous man, an extravagant family, of which I had been the most extravagant member; a mind that lost its balance under a great strain. He had risked all on a throw of the dice and lost. I'll never forget the hour in which he confessed the truth to me. It's hard for a father to put on the crown of shame in the presence of a child who honors him. There's no pang in this world like that. He had braced himself for the trial, and what a trial it must have been! I have suffered some since that day; but all of it put together is nothing compared to that hour of his. In ten minutes I saw him wither into old age as he burned in the fire of his own hell. When he was done with his story I saw that he was virtually dead, although he could still breathe and see and speak and walk. As I listened a sense of personal responsibility and of great calmness and strength came on me.

“I took my father's arm and went home with him and begged him not to worry. Then forthwith I went to police headquarters and took the crime on myself. My father went to paradise the next day, and I to prison. I was young and could stand it. They gave me a light sentence, on account of my age—only two years, reduced to a year and a half for good behavior. My Lord! It has been hard to tell you this. I've never told any one but you; not even my own mother knows the truth, and I wouldn't have her know it for all the world. I cleared out and went to work in California, in the mines. Suffered poverty and hardship; won success by and by; prospered, and slowly my little hell cooled down. But no man can escape from his past. By and by it overtakes him, and in time it caught me. A record is a record, and you can't wipe it out even with righteous living. It may be forgiven—yes, but there it is and there it will remain.

“I didn't marry, as you may know, until I was thirty-four. My wife was the daughter of a small merchant in an Oregon village. I had been married about a year when the first pirate fired across my bows—a man who had worked beside me at Joliet. I found him in my office one morning. He didn't know how much money I had, and struck me gently, softly, for a thousand dollars. It was to be a loan. I gave him the money; I had to. Why? Well, you see, my wife didn't know that I was an ex-convict, and I couldn't bear to have her know of it. I did not fear her so much as her friends, some of whom were jealous of our success. Why hadn't I told her before my marriage? you are thinking. Well, partly because I honored my father and my mother, and partly because I had no sense of guilt in me. Secretly I was rather proud of the thing I had done. If I had been really guilty of a crime I should have had to tell her; but, you see, my heart was clean—just as clean as she thought it. I hadn't fooled her about that. There had been nothing coming to me. Oh yes, I know that I ought to have told her. I'm only giving you the arguments with which I convinced myself—with which even now I try to convince myself—that it wasn't necessary. Anyhow, when I married it never entered my head that there could be a human being so low that he would try to fan back to life the dying embers of my trouble and use it for a source of profit. It never occurred to me that any man would come along and say: 'Here, give me money or I'll make it burn ye.'

“I foolishly thought that my sacrifice was my own property, and was beginning to forget it. Well, first to last, this man got forty thousand dollars out of me. He was dying of consumption when he made his last call, having spent the money in fast living. He wanted five thousand dollars, and promised never to ask me for another cent. He kept his word, and died within three months, but not until he had sold his pull to another scoundrel. The new pirate was an advertising agent of the Far West. He came to me with the whole story in manuscript, ready to print. He said that he had bought it from two men who had brought the manuscript to his office, and had paid five thousand dollars for it. He was such a nice man!—willing to sell at cost and a small allowance for time expended. I gave him all he asked, and since then I have been buying that story every six months or so. When anything happens, like the coming out of my daughter, this sleek-looking, plausible pirate shows up again, and, you see, I can't kick him out of my presence, as I should like to do. He always tells me that the mysterious two are demanding more money, so, like a bull with a ring in his nose, I have been pulled about for years by this little knave of a man. I couldn't help it. Now my nerves cannot endure any more of this kind of thing. My doctor tells me that I must be free from all worry; I propose to turn it over to you.”

“Then I shall wipe him off the slate,” I said. “They'll publish the facts.”

“Poor man!” I exclaimed. “You've got one big asset, and you're afraid to claim it. Nothing that you have ever done compares with that term in prison. Your charities have been large, but, after all, their value is doubtful except to you. The old law of evolution isn't greatly in need of your money. But when you went to prison you really did something, old man. The light of a deed like that shines around the world. Let it shine—if it must. Don't hide it under a bushel.”

“But not for all I am worth would I have my father's name dishonored, with my mother still alive,” he declared. “Now, as to myself, I am not so much worried. I could bear some disgrace, for it wouldn't alter the facts. I should keep my self-respect, anyhow. But when I think of my wife and children I admit that I am a coward. They're pretty proud, as you know, and the worst of it is they are proud of me. Their pride is my best asset. I couldn't bear to see it broken down. No, what I want is to have you manage this blackmail fund and keep all comers contented. What money you need for that purpose will be supplied to you.”

“In my opinion you're unjust to the ladies of your home,” I remarked.

“How?”

“You should treat them like human beings and not like angels,” I said. “It's their right to share your troubles. They'd be all the better for it.”

“Please do as I say,” he answered. “You must remember that they're all I've got.”

“Cheer up! I 'll do my best,” was my assurance. “But I shall ask you to let me manage the matter in my own way and with no interference.”

“I commit my happiness to your keeping,” he answered.

“I wonder that you have got off so cheaply,” I said. “I should think there might have been a dozen pirates in the chase instead of two.”

“Circumstances have favored me,” he explained. “I spent my youth in Germany, where I was educated. I had been in America only six months when my father failed. In those days I was known as Jackson W. Norris. In California I got into a row and had my nose broken. I was a good-looking man before that. Then, you see, it has been a rule of my life to keep my face from being photographed. Of course, the papers have had snap-shots of me; but no one who knew me as a boy would recognize this bent nose and wrinkled face of mine. I have discouraged all manner of publicity relating to me and kept my history under cover as a thing that concerned no one but myself.”

I had requested that our ride should end at the railroad-station, and we arrived there in good time for my train.

“I will ask Wilton, my pirate friend, to call on you,” he said.

“Let him call Friday at twelve with a note from you,” I requested.

Gwendolyn Norris and Richard Forbes were waiting at the station, the latter being on his way to town.

“Going back? You ought to know better,” I said.

“So I do, but business is business,” he answered.

“And there's no better business for any one than playing with a fair maid.”

“He knows that there's a tennis match this afternoon and a dance this evening, and he leaves me,” the girl complained.

“I shall have to take a week off and come up here and convince you that no man is fonder of fun and a fair maid,” said Forbes.

“I could do it in ten minutes,” I declared.

“But you have had practice and experience,” said Forbes.

“And you are more supple,” was my answer.

“I should hope so,” the girl laughed. “If all men were like Mr. Potter the world would be full of old maids. It took him thirty years to make up his mind to get married.”

“No, it took her that long—not me,” I answered, and the arrival of the train saved me from further humiliation.

On the way to town I got acquainted with young Forbes, and liked him. He was a big, broad-shouldered athlete, two years out of college. The glow of health and good nature was in his face. His blue eyes twinkled merrily as we sparred for points. He had a full line of convictions, but he didn't pretend to have gathered all the fruit on the tree of knowledge. He was the typical best product of the modern wholesale man factory—strong, modest, self-restrained, well educated, and thinking largely in terms of profit and loss. That is to say, he was sawed and planed and matched and seasoned like ten thousand other young men of his age. His great need had been poverty and struggle and individual experience. If he had had to climb and reach and fall and get up and climb again to secure the persimmon which was now in his hands, he would have had the persimmon and a very rare thing besides, and it's the rare thing that counts. But here I am finding fault with a thoroughly good fellow. It's only to clear his background for the reader, to whose good graces I heartily recommend the young man. His father had left him well off, but he had gone to work on a great business plan, and with rare talent for his task, as it seemed to me.