An Original Belle Page 4
Gross matter can change form and character in a moment, when merelytouched by the effective agent. It is easy to imagine, therefore,how readily a woman's quick mind might be influenced by a truthor a thought of practical and direct application. All the homiliesever written, all the counsel of matrons and sages, could nothave produced on Marian so deep an impression as was made by thesefew chance words. They came as a commentary, not only on her pastlife, but on the past few hours. Was it true, then, that she was nobetter than the coquettish maid, the Irish servant in the family'semploy? Was she, with her education and accomplishments, her socialposition and natural gifts, acting on no higher plane, influencedby no worthier motives and no loftier ambition? Was the ignorantgirl justified in quoting her example in extenuation of a coursethat to a plain and equally ignorant man seemed unwomanly to thelast degree?
Wherein was she better? Wherein lay the difference between her andthe maid?
She covered her hot face with her hands as the question took theform: "Wherein am I worse? Is not our principle of action the same,while I have greater power and have been crippling higher typesof men, and giving them, for sport, an impulse towards the devil?Fenton Lane has just gone from my side with trouble in his eyes.He will not be himself to-morrow, not half the man he might be.He left me in doubt and fear. Could I do anything oppressed withdoubt and fear? He has set his heart on what can never be. Could Ihave prevented him from doing this? One thing at least is certain,--Ihave not tried to prevent it, and I fear there have been many littlenameless things which he would regard as encouragement. And heis only one. With others I have gone farther and they have faredworse. It is said that Mr. Folger, whom I refused last winter, isbecoming dissipated. Mr. Arton shuns society and sneers at women.Oh, don't let me think of any more. What have I been doing thatthis coarse kitchen-maid can run so close a parallel between herlife and mine? How unwomanly and repulsive it all seems, as thatman put it! My delight and pride have been my gentleman friends,and what one of them is the better, or has a better prospect forlife, because of having known me? Could there be a worse satire onall the fine things written about woman and her influence than myhitherto vain and complacent self?"
Sooner or later conscience tells the truth to all; and the soonerthe better, unless the soul arraigned is utterly weak, or elsebelongs essentially to the criminal classes, which require almosta miracle to reverse their evil gravitation. Marian Vosburghwas neither weak nor criminal at heart. Thus far she had yieldedthoughtlessly, inconsiderately, rather than deliberately, to thecircumstances and traditions of her life. Her mother had been abelle and something of a coquette, and, having had her career, wasin the main a good and sensible wife. She had given her husbandlittle trouble if not much help. She had slight interest in that whichmade his life, and slight comprehension of it, but in affectionateindifference she let him go his way, and was content with her domesticaffairs, her daughter, and her novel. Marian had unthinkingly lookedforward to much the same experience as her natural lot. To-nightshe found herself querying: "Are there men to-day who are not halfwhat they might have been because of mamma's delusive smiles? Haveany gone down into shadows darker than those cast by misfortune anddeath, because she permitted herself to become the light of theirlives and then turned away?"
Then came the rather painful reflection: "Mamma is not one to betroubled by such thoughts. It does not even worry her that she isso little to papa, and that he virtually carries on his life-workalone. I don't see how I can continue my old life after to-night.I had better shut myself up in a convent; yet just how I can changeeverything I scarcely know."
The night proved a perturbed and almost sleepless one from the chaosand bitterness of her thoughts. The old was breaking up; the new,beginning.
The morning found her listless, discontented, and unhappy. Theglamour had faded out of her former life. She could not continuethe tactics practised in coarse imitation by the Irish servant, whotook her cue as far as possible from her mistress. The repugnancewas due as much to the innate delicacy and natural superiority ofMarian's nature as to her conscience. Her clear, practical senseperceived that her course differed from the other only in beingveneered by the refinements of her social position,--that the evilresults were much greater. The young lady's friends were capable ofreceiving more harm than the maid could inflict upon her acquaintances.
There would be callers again during the day and evening, and shedid not wish to see them. Their society now would be like a glassof champagne from which the life had effervesced.
At last in her restlessness and perplexity she decided to spend aday or two with her father in their city home, where he was campingout, as he termed it. She took a train to town, and sent a messengerboy to his office with a note asking him to dine with her.
Mr. Vosburgh looked at her a little inquiringly as he entered hishome, which had the comfortless aspect of a city house closed forthe summer.
"Am I de trop, papa? I have come to town for a little quiet, andto do some shopping."
"Come to New York for quiet?"
"Yes. The country is the gayest place now, and you know a goodmany are coming and going. I am tired, and thought an evening ortwo with you would be a pleasant change. You are not too busy?"
"It certainly will be a change for you, Marian."
"Now there's a world of satire in that remark, and deserved, too,I fear. Mayn't I stay?"
"Yes, indeed, till you are tired of me; and that won't be long inthis dull place, for we are scarcely in a condition now to receivecallers, you know."
"What makes you think I shall be tired of you soon, papa?"
"Oh--well--I'm not very entertaining. You appear to like variety.I suppose it is the way with girls."
"You are not consumed with admiration for girls' ways, are you,papa?"
"I confess, my dear, that I have not given the subject much research.As a naturalist would say, I have no doubt that you and your classhave curious habits and interesting peculiarities. There is agreat deal of life, you know, which a busy man has to accept in ageneral way, especially when charged with duties which are a severeand constant strain upon his mind. I try to leave you and yourmother as free from care as possible. You left her well, I trust?"
"Very well, and all going on as usual. I'm dissatisfied with myself,papa, and you unconsciously make me far more so. Is a woman to beonly a man's plaything, and a dangerous one at that?"
"Why, Marian, you ARE in a mood! I suppose a woman, like a man, canbe very much what she pleases. You certainly have had a chance tofind out what pleases most women in your circle of acquaintances,and have made it quite clear what pleases you."
"Satire again," she said, despondently. "I thought perhaps youcould advise and help me."
He came and took her face between his hands, looking earnestly intoher troubled blue eyes.
"Are you not content to be a conventional woman?" he asked, aftera moment.
"No!" was her emphatic answer.
"Well, there are many ways of being a little outre in this ageand land, especially at this stormy period. Perhaps you want acareer,--something that will give you a larger place in the publiceye?"
She turned away to hide the tears that would come. "O papa, youdon't understand me at all, and I scarcely understand myself," shefaltered. "In some respects you are as conventional as mamma, andare almost a Turk in your ideas of the seclusion of women. The ideaof my wanting public notoriety! As I feel now, I'd rather go to aconvent."
"We'll go to dinner first; then a short drive in the park, for youlook pale, and I long for a little fresh air myself. I have beenat my desk since seven this morning, and have had only a sandwich."
"Why do you have to work so hard, papa?"
"I can give you two reasons in a breath,--you mentioned 'shopping,'and my country is at war. They don't seem very near of kin, dothey? Documents relating to both converge in my desk, however."
"Have I sent you more bills than usual?"
"Not more than usual."
"I know you are a very pretty little girl, who will feel betterafter dinner and a drive," was the laughing reply.
They were soon seated in a quiet family restaurant, but the younggirl was too perturbed in mind to enjoy the few courses ordered.With self-reproach she recognized the truth that she was engagedin the rather unusual occupation of becoming acquainted withher father. He sat before her, with his face, generally stern andinscrutable, softened by a desire to be companionable and sympathetic.According to his belief she now had "a mood," and after a day ortwo of quiet retirement from the world she would relapse into herold enjoyment of social attention, which would be all the deeperfor its brief interruption.
Mr. Vosburgh was of German descent. In his daily life he had becomeAmericanized, and was as practical in his methods as the shrewdpeople with whom he dealt, and whom he often outwitted. Apartfrom this habit of coping with life just as he found it, he had aninner nature of which few ever caught a glimpse,--a spirit and animagination deeply tinged with German ideality and speculation.Often, when others slept, this man, who appeared so resolute,hard, and uncompromising in the performance of duties, and who wasunderstood by but few, would read deeply in metaphysics and romanticpoetry. Therefore, the men and women who dwelt in his imaginationwere not such as he had much to do with in real life. Indeed, he hadcome to regard the world of reality and that of fancy as entirelydistinct, and to believe that only here and there, as a man or womanpossessed something like genius, would there be a marked deviationfrom ordinary types. The slight differences, the little characteristicmeannesses or felicities that distinguished one from another, didnot count for very much in his estimation. When a knowledge ofsuch individual traits was essential to his plans, he mastered themwith singular keenness and quickness of comprehension. When suchknowledge was unnecessary, or as soon as it ceased to be of service,he dismissed the extraneous personalities from his mind almostas completely as if they had had no existence. Few men were lessembarrassed with acquaintances than he; yet he had an observanteye and a retentive memory. When he wanted a man he rarely failedto find the right one. In the selection and use of men he appearedto act like an intelligent and silent force, rather than as a manfull of human interests and sympathies. He rarely spoke of himself,even in the most casual way. Most of those with whom he mingledknew merely that he was an agent of the government, and that hekept his own counsel. His wife was to him a type of the averageAmerican woman,--pretty, self-complacent, so nervous as to requirekind, even treatment, content with feminalities, and sufficientlyintelligent to talk well upon every-day affairs. In her society hesmiled at her, said "Yes," good-humoredly, to almost everything,and found slight incentive to depart from his usual reticence. Shehad learned the limits of her range, and knew that within it therewas entire liberty, beyond it a will like adamant. They got on admirablytogether, for she craved nothing further in the way of liberty andcompanionship than was accorded her, while he soon recognized thatthe prize carried off from other competitors could no more followhim into his realm of thought and action than she could accompanyhim on a campaign. At last he had concluded philosophically thatit was just as well. He was engaged in matters that should not beinterfered with or babbled about, and he could come and go withoutquestioning. He had occasionally thought: "If she were such a womanas I have read of and imagined,--if she could supplement my reasonwith the subtilty of intuition and the reticence which some of hersex have manifested,--she would double my power and share my innerlife, for there are few whom I can trust. The thing is impossible,however, and so I am glad she is content."
As for Marian, she had promised, in his view, to be but a charmingrepetition of her mother, with perhaps a mind of larger calibre.She had learned more and had acquired more accomplishments, but allthis resulted, possibly, from her better advantages. Her drawing-roomconversation seemed little more than the ordinary small talk of theday, fluent and piquant, while the girl herself was as undisturbedby the vital questions of the hour and of life, upon which he dwelt,as if she had been a child. He knew that she received much attention,but it excited little thought on his part, and no surprise.He believed that her mother was perfectly competent to look afterthe proprieties, and that young fellows, as had been the case withhimself, would always seek pretty, well-bred girls, and take theirchances as to what the women who might become their wives shouldprove to be.
Marian looked with awakening curiosity and interest at the facebefore her, yet it was the familiar visage of her father. She hadseen it all her life, but now felt that she had never before seenit in its true significance--its strong lines, square jaw, andquiet gray eyes, with their direct, steady gaze. He had come andgone before her daily, petted her now and then a little, met herrequests in the main good-humoredly, paid her bills, and wouldprotect her with his life; yet a sort of dull wonder came over heras she admitted to herself that he was a stranger to her. She knewlittle of his work and duty, less of his thoughts, the mental realmin which the man himself dwelt. What were its landmarks, what itscharacteristic features, she could not tell. One may be familiarwith the outlines of a country on a map, yet be ignorant of thescenery, productions, inhabitants, governing forces, and principles.Her very father was to her but a man in outline. She knew little ofthe thoughts that peopled his brain, of the motives and principlesthat controlled his existence, giving it individuality, and evenless of the resulting action with which his busy life abounded.Although she had crossed the threshold of womanhood, she was stillto him the self-pleasing child that he had provided for sinceinfancy; and he was, in her view, the man to whom, according to thelaw of nature and the family, she was to look for the maintenanceof her young life, with its almost entire separation in thoughts,pleasures, and interests. She loved him, of course. She had alwaysloved him, from the time when she had stretched forth her baby handsto be taken and fondled for a few moments and then relinquished toothers. Practically she had dwelt with others ever since. Now, asa result, she did not understand him, nor he her. She would misshim as she would oxygen from the air. Now she began to perceivethat, although he was the unobtrusive source of her life, home,education, and the advantages of her lot, he was not impersonal,but a human being as truly as herself. Did he want more from herthan the common and instinctive affection of a child for its parent?If to this she added intelligent love, appreciation, and sympathy,would he care? If she should be able to say, "Papa, I am kin to you,not merely in flesh and blood, but in mind, hope, and aspiration;I share with you that which makes your life, with its success andfailure, not as the child who may find luxurious externals curtailedor increased, but as a sympathetic woman who understands the morevital changes in spiritual vicissitude,"--if she could truthfullysay all this, would he be pleased and reveal himself to her?
Thoughts like these passed through her mind as they dined togetherand drove in the park. When at last they returned and sat in thedimly-lighted parlor, Mr. Vosburgh recognized that her "mood" hadnot passed away.
CHAPTER III.
A NEW FRIEND.