Chapter 33

THE VALUE OF MONEY.

There was a little more bustle in the house than usual during the next two days; and the spare room was no doubt put in very particular order, with the best of all the house could furnish on the bed and toilet-table. Pantry and larder also were well stocked; and Lois was just watching the preparation of her chickens, Saturday evening, and therefore in the kitchen, when Mr. Dillwyn came to the door. Mrs. Barclay herself let him in, and brought him into her own warm, comfortable, luxurious-looking sitting-room. The evening was falling dusk, so that the little wood lire in Mrs. Barclay's chimney had opportunity to display itself, and I might say, the room too; which never could have showed to better advantage. The flickering light danced back again from gilded books, from the polished case of the piano, from picture frames, and pictures, and piles of music, and comfortable easy-chairs standing invitingly, and trinkets of art or curiosity; an unrolled engraving in one place, a stereoscope in another, a work-basket, and the bright brass stand of a microscope.

The greeting was warm between the two friends; and then Mrs. Barclay sat down and surveyed her visitor, whom she had not seen for so long. He was not a beauty of Tom Caruthers' sort, but he was what I think better; manly and intelligent, and with an air and bearing of frank nobleness which became him exceedingly. That he was a man with a serious purpose in life, or any object of earnest pursuit, you would not have supposed; and that character had never belonged to him. Mrs. Barclay, looking at him, could not see any sign that it was his now. Look and manner were easy and careless as of old.

"You are not changed," she remarked.

"What should change me?" said he, while his eye ran rapidly over the apartment. "And you?--you do not look as if life was stagnating here."

"It does not stagnate. I never was further from stagnation in all my life."

"And yet Shampuashuh is in a corner!"

"Is not most of the work of the world done in corners? It is not the butterfly, but the coral insect, that lays foundations and lifts up islands out of the sea."

"You are not a coral insect any more than I am a butterfly," said Dillwyn, laughing.

"Rather more."

"I acknowledge it, thankfully. And I am rejoiced to know from your letters that the seclusion has been without any evil consequences to yourself. It has been pleasant?"

"Royally pleasant. I have delighted in my building; even although I could not tell whether my island would not prove a dangerous one to mariners."

"I have just been having a discourse on that subject with my sister. I think one's sisters are--I beg your pardon!--the mischief. Tom's sister has done for him; and mine is very eager to take care of me."

"Did you consult her?" asked Mrs. Barclay, with surprise.

"Nothing of the kind! I merely told her I was coming up here to see you. A few questions followed, as to what you were doing here,--which I did not tell her, by the way,--and she hit the bull's eye with the instinctive accuracy of a woman; poured out upon me in consequence a lecture upon imprudence. Of course I confessed to nothing, but that mattered not. All that Tom's sister urged upon him, my good sister pressed upon me."

"So did I once, did I not?"

"You are not going to repeat it?"

"No; that is over, for me. I know better. But, Philip, I do not see the way very clear before you."

He left the matter there, and went off into a talk with her upon widely-different subjects, touching or growing out of his travels and experiences during the last year and a half. The twilight darkened, and the fire brightened, and in the light of the fire the two sat and talked; till a door opened, and in the same flickering shine a figure presented itself which Mr. Dillwyn remembered. Though now it was clothed in nothing finer than a dark calico, and round her shoulders a little white worsted shawl was twisted. Mrs. Barclay began a sentence of introduction, but Mr. Dillwyn cut her short.

"Do not do me such dishonour," he said. "Must I suppose that Miss Lothrop has forgotten me?"

"Not at all, Mr. Dillwyn," said Lois frankly; "I remember you very well. Tea will be ready in a minute--would you like to see your room first?"

"You are too kind, to receive me!"

"It is a pleasure. You are Mrs. Barclay's friend, and she is at home here; I will get a light."

Which she did, and Mr. Dillwyn, seeing he could not find his own way, was obliged to accept her services and see her trip up the stairs before him. At the door she handed him the light and ran down again. There was a fire here too--a wood fire; blazing hospitably, and throwing its cheery light upon a wide, pleasant, country room, not like what Mr. Dillwyn was accustomed to, but it seemed the more hospitable. Nothing handsome there; no articles of luxury (beside the fire); the reflection of the blaze came back from dark old-fashioned chairs and chests of drawers, dark chintz hangings to windows and bed, white counterpane and napery, with a sonsy, sober, quiet air of comfort; and the air was fresh and sweet as air should be, and as air can only be at a distance from the smoke of many chimneys and the congregated habitations of many human beings. I do not think Mr. Dillwyn spent much attention upon these details; yet he felt himself in a sound, clear, healthy atmosphere, socially as well as physically; also had a perception that it was very far removed from that in which he had lived and breathed hitherto. How simply that girl had lighted him up the stairs, and given him his brass candlestick at the door of his room! What _a plomb_ could have been more perfect! I do not mean to imply that Mr. Dillwyn knew the candlestick was brass; I am afraid there was a glamour over his eyes which made it seem golden.

He found Mrs. Barclay seated in a very thoughtful attitude before her fire, when he came down again; but just then the door of the other room was opened, and they were called in to tea.

The family were in rather gala trim. Lois, as I said, wore indeed only a dark print dress, with her white fichu over it; but Charity had put on her best silk, and Madge had stuck two golden chrysanthemums in her dark hair (with excellent effect), and Mrs. Armadale was stately in her best cap. Alas! Philip Dillwyn did not know what any of them had on. He was placed next to Mrs. Armadale, and all supper time his special attention, so far as appeared, was given to the old lady. He talked to her, and he served her, with an easy, pleasant grace, and without at all putting himself forward or taking the part of the distinguished stranger. It was simply good will and good breeding; however, it produced a great effect.

"The air up here is delicious!" he remarked, after he had attended to all the old lady's immediate wants, and applied himself to his own supper. "It gives one a tremendous appetite."

"I allays like to see folks eat," said Mrs. Armadale. "After one's done the gettin' things ready, I hate to have it all for nothin'."

"It shall not be for nothing this time, as far as I am concerned."

"Ain't the air good in New York?" Mrs. Armadale next asked.

"I do not think it ever was so sweet as this. But when you crowd a million or so of people into room that is only enough for a thousand, you can guess what the consequences must be."

"What do they crowd up so for, then?"

"It must be the case in a great city."

"I don't see the sense o' that," said Mrs. Armadale. "Ain't the world big enough?"

"Far too big," said Mr. Dillwyn. "You see, when people's time is very valuable, they cannot afford to spend too much of it in running about after each other."

"What makes their time worth any more'n our'n?"

"They are making money so fast with it."

"And is _that_ what makes folks' time valeyable?"

"In their opinion, madam."

"I never could see no use in havin' much money," said the old lady.

"But there comes a question," said Dillwyn. "What is 'much'?"

"More'n enough, I should say."

"Enough for what? That also must be settled."

"I'm an old-fashioned woman," said the old lady, "and I go by the old-fashionedst book in the world. That says, 'we brought nothing into this world, and we can carry nothing out; therefore, having food and raiment, let us be therewith content.'"

"But, again, what sort of food, and what sort of raiment?" urged the gentleman pleasantly. "For instance; would you be content to exchange this delicious manufacture,--which seems to me rather like ambrosia than common food,--for some of the black bread of Norway? with no qualification of golden butter? or for Scotch oatmeal bannocks? or for sour corn cake?"

"I would be quite content, if it was the Lord's will," said the old lady. "There's no obligation upon anybody to have it _sour_."

Mr. Dillwyn laughed gently. "I can fancy," he said, "that you never would allow such a dereliction in duty. But, beside having the bread sweet, is it not allowed us to have the best we can get?"

"The best we can _make_," answered Mrs. Armadale; "I believe in everybody doin' the best he kin with what he has got to work with; but food ain't worth so much that we should pay a large price for it."

The gentleman's eye glanced with a scarcely perceptible movement over the table at which he was sitting. Bread, indeed, in piles of white flakiness; and butter; but besides, there was the cold ham in delicate slices, and excellent-looking cheese, and apples in a sort of beautiful golden confection, and cake of superb colour and texture; a pitcher of milk that was rosy sweet, and coffee rich with cream. The glance that took all this in was slight and swift, and yet the old lady was quick enough to see and understand it.

"Yes," she said, "it's all our'n, all there is on the table. Our cow eats our own grass, and Madge, my daughter, makes the butter and the cheese. We've raised and cured our own pork; and the wheat that makes the bread is grown on our ground too; we farm it out on shares; and it is ground at a mill about four miles off. Our hens lay our eggs; it's all from home."

"But suppose the case of people who have no ground, nor hens, nor pork, nor cow? they must buy."

"Of course," said the old lady; "everybody ain't farmers."

"I am ready to wish I was one," said Dillwyn. "But even then, I confess, I should want coffee and tea and sugar--as I see you. do."

"Well, those things don't grow in America," said Mrs. Armadale.

"And spice don't, neither, mother," observed Charity.

"So it appears that even you send abroad for luxuries," Mr. Dillwyn went on. "And why not? And the question is, where shall we stop? If I want coffee, I must have money to buy it, and the better the coffee the more money; and the same with tea. In cities we must buy all we use or consume, unless one is a butcher or a baker. May I not try to get more money, in order that I may have better things? We have got round to our starting-point."

"'They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare,'" Mrs. Armadale said quietly.

"Then where is the line?--Miss Lois, you are smiling. Is it at my stupidity?"

"No," said Lois. "I was thinking of a lunch--such as I have seen it--in one of the great New York hotels."

"Well?" said he, without betraying on his own part any recollection; "how does that come in? By way of illustrating Mrs. Armadale, or me?"

"I seem to remember a number of things that illustrate both," said Lois; "but as I profited by them at the time, it would be ungrateful in me to instance them now."

"You profited by them with pleasure, or otherwise?"

"Not otherwise. I was very hungry."

"You evade my question, however."

"I will not. I profited by them with much pleasure."

"Then you are on my side, as far as I can be said to have a side?"

"I think not. The pleasure is undoubted; but I do not know that that touches the question of expediency."

"I think it does. I think it settles the question. Mrs. Armadale, your granddaughter confesses the pleasure; and what else do we live for, but to get the most good out of life?"

"What pleasure does she confess?" asked the old lady, with more eagerness than her words hitherto had manifested.

"Pleasure in nice things, grandmother; in particularly nice things; that had cost a great deal to fetch them from nobody knows where; and pleasure in pretty things too. That hotel seemed almost like the halls of Aladdin to my inexperienced eyes. There is certainly pleasure in a wonderfully dainty meal, served in wonderful vessels of glass and china and silver, and marble and gold and flowers to help the effect. I could have dreamed myself into a fairy tale, often, if it had not been for the people."

"Life is not a fairy tale," said Mrs. Armadale somewhat severely.

"No, grandmother; and so the humanity present generally reminded me. But the illusion for a minute was delightful."

"Is there any harm in making it as much like a fairy tale as we can?"

Some of the little courtesies and hospitalities of the table came in here, and Mr. Dillwyn's question received no answer. His eye went round the table. No, clearly these people did not live in fairyland, and as little in the search after it. Good, strong, sensible, practical faces; women that evidently had their work to do, and did it; habitual energy and purpose spoke in every one of them, and purpose _attained_. Here was no aimless dreaming or fruitless wishing. The old lady's face was sorely weather-beaten, but calm as a ship in harbour. Charity was homely, but comfortable. Madge and Lois were blooming in strength and activity, and as innocent apparently of any vague, unfulfilled longings as a new-blown rose. Only when Mr. Dillwyn's eye met Mrs. Barclay's he was sensible of a different record. He half sighed. The calm and the rest were not there.

The talk rambled on. Mr. Dillwyn made him self exceedingly pleasant; told of things he had seen in his travels, things and people, and ways of life; interesting even Mrs. Armadale with a sort of fascinated interest, and gaining, he knew, no little share of her good-will. So, just as the meal was ending, he ventured to bring forward the old subject again.

"You will pardon me, Mrs. Armadale," he began,--"but you are the first person I ever met who did not value money."

"Perhaps I am the first person you ever met who had something better."

"You mean--?" said Philip, with a look of inquiry. "I do not understand."

"I have treasure in heaven."

"But the coin of that realm is not current here?--and we are _here_."

"That coin makes me rich now; and I take it with me when I go," said the old lady, as she rose from the table.