Chapter 9

"Hold your tongue, Sam! I hate you and all men"; and with this general denunciation, she passed out of the place, flaming with rage and shame.

Mrs. Belding stood for a moment speechless, and then resorted to the use of that hard-worked and useful monosyllable,

"Well!" with a sharp, falling inflection.

"Well!" returned Farnham, with an easy, rising accent; and then both of them relieved the strained situation with a laugh.

"Come, now," said the good-natured woman, "I am a sort of guardian of yours. Give an account of yourself."

"That is easily given," said Farnham. "A young woman, whose name I hardly know, came to me in the garden this morning to ask for help to get some lady-like work to do. After discussing that subject threadbare, she came in here for a rose, and, apropos of nothing, made me a declaration and a proposal of honorable wedlock, _dans toutes les formes_."

"The forms were evident as I entered," said Mrs. Belding, dryly.

"I could not let her drop on the damp floor," said Farnham, who was astonished to find himself positively blushing under the amused scrutiny of his mother-confessor. "Consider, if you please, my dear madam, that this is the first offer I have ever received, and I was naturally somewhat awkward about declining it. We shall learn better manners as we go along."

"You did decline, then?" said Mrs. Belding, easily persuaded of the substantial truth of the story, and naturally inclined, as is the way of woman, to the man's side. Then, laughing at Arthur's discomfiture, she added, "I was about to congratulate you."

"I deserve only your commiseration."

"I must look about and dispose of you in some way. You are evidently too rich and too fascinating. But I came over to-day to ask you what I ought to do about my Lake View farm. I have two offers for it; if I had but one, I would take either--well, you know what I mean;" and the conversation became practical. After that matter was disposed of, she said, with a keen side-glance at Farnham, "That was a very pretty girl. I hope you will not be exposed to such another attack; I might not be so near the next time."

"That danger, thanks to you, is over; Mademoiselle will never return," he answered, with an air of conviction.

Mrs. Belding went home with no impression left of the scene she had witnessed but one of amusement. She thought of it only as "a good joke on Arthur Farnham." She kept chuckling to herself over it all day, and if she had had any especial gossip in the town, she would have put on her hat and hurried off to tell it. But she was a woman who lived very much at home, and, in fact, cared little for tattling. She was several times on the point of sharing the fun of it with her daughter, but was prevented by an instinctive feeling that it was hardly the sort of story to tell a young girl about a personal acquaintance. So she restrained herself, though the solitary enjoyment of it irritated her.

They were sitting on the wide porch which ran around two sides of the house just as twilight was falling. The air was full of drowsy calls and twitters from the grass and the trees. The two ladies had been sitting ever since dinner, enjoying the warm air of the early summer, talking very little, and dropping often into long and contented silences. Mrs. Belding had condescended to grenadine in consideration of the weather, and so looked less funereal than usual. Alice was dressed in a soft and vapory fabric of creamy bunting, in the midst of which her long figure lay reclined in an easy chair of Japanese bamboo; she might have posed for a statue of graceful and luxurious repose. There was light enough from the rising moon and the risen stars to show the clear beauty of her face and the yellow lustre of her hair; and her mother cast upon her from time to time a glance of pride and fondness, as if she were a recovered treasure to which the attraction of novelty had just been added anew.

"They say she looks as I did at her age," thought the candid lady; "but they must flatter me. My nose was never so straight as that: her nose is Belding all over. I wonder whom she will care about here? Mr. Furrey is a nice young man, but she is hardly polite to him. There he is now."

The young man came briskly up the walk, and ran up the steps so quickly that he tripped on the last one and dropped his hat. He cleverly recovered it, however, and made very elaborate bows to both the ladies, hoping that he found them quite well. Mrs. Belding bustled about to give him a chair, at which Alice knitted her pretty brows a little. She had scarcely moved her eyelashes to greet her visitor; but when Mrs. Belding placed a light chair near her daughter and invited Mr. Furrey to take it, the young lady rose from her reclining attitude and sat bolt upright with a look of freezing dignity. The youth was not at all abashed, but took his seat, with his hat held lightly by the brim in both hands. He was elegantly dressed, in as faithful and reverent an imitation as home talent could produce of the costume of the gentlemen who that year were driving coaches in New York. His collar was as stiff as tin; he had a white scarf, with an elaborate pin constructed of whips and spurs and horseshoes. He wore dog-skin gloves, very tight and red. His hair was parted in the middle with rigorous impartiality and shed rather rank fragrance on the night. He began conversation with an easy air, in which there was something of pleasurable excitement mixed.

"I come to receive your congratulations, ladies!"

"What, you are engaged?" said Mrs. Belding, and even the placid face of Miss Alice brightened with a look of pleased inquiry.

"Oh, dear, no; how could you think so?" he protested, with an arch look at Alice which turned her to marble again. "I mean I have this day been appointed assistant cashier of our bank!" Napoleon, informing Madame de Beauharnais [* - Perhaps Josephine told Napoleon herself, but I think she was clever enough to let him imagine he owed the appointment to his merits.] that he was to command the army of Italy, probably made less ado about it.

Mrs. Belding made haste to murmur her congratulations. "Very gratifying, I am sure,--at your age;" to which Alice responded like a chorus, but without any initiative warmth, "Very gratifying, I am sure."

Furrey went on at some length to detail all the circumstances of the event: how Mr. Lathers, the president of the bank, had sent for him, and how he complimented him; how he had asked him where he learned to write such a good hand; and how he had replied that it came sort of natural to him to write well, that he could make the American eagle with pen and ink before he was fifteen, all but the tail-feathers, and how he discovered a year later that the tail-feathers had to be made by holding the pen between the first and second fingers; with much more to the like innocent purpose, to which Mrs. Belding listened with nods and murmurs of approval. This was all the amiable young man needed to encourage him to indefinite prattle. He told them all about the men in the bank, their habits and their loves and their personal relations to him, and how he seemed somehow to be a general favorite among them all. Miss Alice sat very still and straight in her chair, with an occasional smile when the laughter of Mr. Furrey seemed to require it, but with her eyes turned to the moonlit night in vagrant reverie, and her mind in those distant and sacred regions where we cannot follow the minds of pure and happy girls.

"Now, you would hardly understand, if I did not tell you," said Mr. Furrey, "how it is that I have gained the confidence----"

At this moment Alice, who had been glancing over Mr. Furrey's shoulder for a moment with a look of interest in her eyes, which he thought was the legitimate result of his entertaining story, cried:

"Why, there comes Mr. Farnham, mamma."

"So it is," said her mother. "I suppose he wants to see me. Don't move, Mr. Furrey. Mr. Farnham and I will go into the house."

"By no means," said that gentleman, who by this time had mounted the steps. "I was sitting all alone on my porch and saw by the moon that yours was inhabited; and so I came over to improve my mind and manners in your society."

"I will get a chair for you," said Mrs. Belding.

"No, thank you; this balustrade will bear my weight, and my ashes will drop harmless on the flower-bed, if you will let me finish my cigar." And he seated himself between the chair of Furrey and the willow fabric in which Alice had resumed her place. This addition to the company was not at all to the taste of the assistant cashier, who soon took his leave, shaking hands with the ladies, with his best bow.

"After all, I do prefer a chair," said Farnham, getting down from his balustrade, and throwing away his cigar.

He sat with his back to the moonlight. On his left was Alice, who, as soon as Furrey took his departure, settled back in her willow chair in her former attitude of graceful ease. On the right was Mrs. Belding, in her thin, cool dress of gauzy black. Farnham looked from one to the other as they talked, and that curious exercise, so common to young men in such circumstances, went through his mind. He tried to fancy how Mrs. Belding looked at nineteen, and how Miss Belding would look at fifty, and the thought gave him singular pleasure. His eyes rested with satisfaction on the kindly and handsome face of the widow, her fine shoulders and arms, and comfortable form, and then, turning to the pure and exquisite features of the tall girl, who was smiling so freshly and honestly on him, his mind leaped forward through corning years, and he said to himself: "What a wealth of the woman there is there--for somebody." An aggressive feeling of disapproval of young Furrey took possession of him, and he said, sharply:

"What a very agreeable young man Mr. Furrey is?"

Mrs. Belding assented, and Miss Alice laughed heartily, and his mind was set at rest for the moment.

They passed a long time together. At first Mrs. Belding and Arthur "made the expenses" of the conversation; but she soon dropped away, and Alice, under the influence of the night and the moonlight and Farnham's frank and gentle provocation, soon found herself talking with as much freedom and energy as if it were a girls' breakfast. With far more, indeed,--for nature takes care of such matters, and no girl can talk to another as she can to a man, under favoring stars. The conversation finally took a personal turn, and Alice, to her own amazement, began to talk of her life at school, and with sweet and loving earnestness sang the praises of Madame de Veaudrey.

"I wish you could know her," she said to Farnham, with a sudden impulse of sympathy. He was listening to her intently, and enjoying her eager, ingenuous speech as much as her superb beauty, as the moon shone full on her young face, so vital and so pure at once, and played, as if glad of the privilege, about the curved lips, the flashing teeth, the soft eyes under their long lashes, and the hair over the white forehead, gleaming as crisply brilliant as fine-spun wire of gold.

"By her fruits I know her, and I admire her very much," he said, and was sorry for it the moment afterward, for it checked the course of the young girl's enthusiasm and brought a slight blush to her cheek.

"I ought to have known better," he said to himself with real penitence, "than to utter a stupid commonplace to such a girl when she was talking so earnestly." And he tried to make amends, and succeeded in winning back her attention and her slow unconscious smiles by talking to her of things a thousand miles away. The moon was silvering the tops of the linden-trees at the gates before they thought of the flight of time, and they had quite forgotten the presence of Mrs. Belding when her audible repose broke in upon their talk. They looked at each other, and burst into a frank laugh, full of confidence and comradeship, which the good lady heard in her dreams and waked, saying, "What are you laughing at? I did not catch that last witticism."

The young people rose from their chairs. "I can't repeat my own mots," said Arthur: "Miss Belding will tell you."

"Indeed I shall not," replied Alice. "It was not one of his best, mamma."

She gave him her hand as he said "Good-night," and it lay in his firm grasp a moment without reserve or tremor.

"You are a queer girl, Alice," said Mrs. Belding, as they walked into the drawing-room through the open window. "You put on your stiffest company manners for Mr. Furrey, and you seem entirely at ease with Mr. Farnham, who is much older and cleverer, and is noted for his sarcastic criticisms."

"I do not know why it is, mamma, but I do feel very much at home with Mr. Farnham, and I do not want Mr. Furrey to feel at home with me."

Upon this, Mrs. Belding laughed aloud. Alice turned in surprise, and her mother said, "It is too good to keep. I must tell you. It is such a joke on Arthur;" and, sitting in a low arm-chair, while Alice stood before her leaning upon the back of another, she told the whole story of the scene of the morning in the rose-house. She gave it in the fullest detail, interrupting herself here and there for soft cachinnations, unmindful of the stern, unsmiling silence with which her daughter listened.

She finished, with a loud nourish of merriment, and then asked: "Did you ever hear anything so funny in your life?"

The young lady was turning white and red in an ominous manner, and was biting her nether lip. Her answer to her mother's question was swift and brief:

"I never heard anything so horrid," and she moved majestically away without another word.

Mrs. Belding sat for a moment abashed. "There!" she said to herself, "I knew very well I ought not to tell her. But it was too good to keep, and I had nobody else to tell." She went to bed, feeling rather ill-used. As she passed her daughter's door, she said, "Good-night, Alice!" and a voice riot quite so sweet as usual replied, "Good-night, mamma," but the door was not opened.

Alice turned down her light and sat upon a cushioned seat in the embrasure of her open window. She looked up at the stars, which swam and glittered in her angry eyes. With trembling lips and clinched hands she communed with herself. "Why, why, why did mamma tell me that horrid story? To think there should be such women in the world! To take such a liberty with him, of all men! She could not have done it without some encouragement--and he could not have encouraged her. He is not that kind of a vulgar flirt at all. But what do I know about men? They may all be--but I did not think--what business have I thinking about it? I had better go to bed. I have spent all the evening talking to a man who--Oh! I wish mamma had not told me that wretched story. I shall never speak to him again. It is a pity, too, for we are such near neighbors, and he is so nice, if he were not--But I don't care how nice he is, she has spoiled him. I wonder who she was. Pretty, was she? I don't believe a word of it--some bold-faced, brazen creature. Oh! I shall hate myself if I cry;" but that was past praying for, and she closed her lattice and went to bed for fear the stars should witness her unwelcome tears.

X.

A WORD OUT OF SEASON.

Arthur Farnham awoke the next day with a flight of sweet hopes and fancies singing in his heart and brain. He felt cheerfully and kindly toward the whole human race. As he walked down into the city to transact some business he had there with his lawyer, he went out of his way to speak to little children. He gave all his acquaintances a heartier "Good-morning" than usual. He even whistled at passing dogs. The twitter of the sparrows in the trees, their fierce contentions on the grass, amused him. He leaned over the railing of the fountain in the square with the idlers, and took a deep interest in the turtles, who were baking their frescoed backs in the warm sun, as they floated about on pine boards, amid the bubbles of the clear water.

As he passed by the library building, Dr. Buchlieber was standing in the door. "Good luck," he said; "I was just wishing to see you. One of our young women resigned this morning, and I think there may be a chance for our handsome friend. The meeting, you remember, is this afternoon."

Farnham hardly recalled the name of the young lady in whose success he had been so interested, although recent intimate occurrences might have been expected to fix it somewhat permanently in his remembrance. But all female images except one had become rather vague in his memory. He assented, however, to what the doctor proposed, and going away congratulated himself on the possibility of doing Maud a service and ridding himself of the faintest tinge of remorse. He was not fatuous or conceited. He did not for a moment imagine that the girl was in love with him. He attributed her demonstration in the rose-house to her "congenital bad breeding," and thought it only one degree worse than other match-making manoeuvres of which he had been the object in the different worlds he had frequented. He gave himself no serious thought about it, and yet he was glad to find an apparent opportunity to be of use to her. She was poor and pretty. He had taken an interest in her welfare. It had not turned out very well. She had flung herself into his arms and been heartily kissed. He could not help feeling there was a balance against him.

As he turned the corner of the street which led to the attorney's office where he was going, he saw a man standing by the wall with his hat off, bowing to him. He returned the unusual salutation and passed on; it was some moments before he remembered that it was one of his colleagues on the Library Board. He regretted not having stopped and made the effort to engage his vote for Maud; but, on second thought, he reflected that it would be as well to rely upon the surprise of the three to prevent a combination at the meeting. When he reached the entrance of the building where his lawyer's offices were, he turned, with a sense of being pursued by a shuffling footstep which had hastened its speed the last few paces, and saw his colleague coming up the steps after him with a perspiring but resolute face.

"Hold on, Cap," he said, coming into the shade of the passage. "I was thinkin' o' comin' to see you, when I sighted you comin' round the corner."

"I am glad to see you, Mr. Pennybaker," said Arthur, taking the clumsy hand which was held out to him.

"Gettin' pretty hot, ain't it?" said Pennybaker, wiping his brow with his forefinger and dexterously sprinkling the floor with the proceeds of the action.

"No danger of frost, I think," Arthur assented, admiring the dexterity of Pennybaker, but congratulating himself that the shake-hands was disposed of.

"You bet your life. We're going to have it just sizzling from now on."

"Were you wishing to see me about anything in particular?" asked Farnham, who saw no other way of putting an end to a meteorological discussion which did not interest him.

"Well, yes," answered Pennybaker, getting around beside Farnham, and gazing at the wall opposite. "I heerd this mornin' that Minnie Bell was goin' to get married. My daughter is doing some sewing for her, and it slipped out that way. She was trying to keep it secret. Some girls is mighty funny that way. They will do anything to get engaged, and then they will lie like Sam Hill to make believe they ain't. Well, that makes a vacancy." He did not turn his head, but he cast a quick glance sideways at Farnham, who made no answer, and Pennybaker resumed: "So I thought I would come to you, honor bright, and see if we couldn't agree what to do. That's me. I'm open and square like a bottle of bitters."

Farnham gave no indication of his surprise at this burst of candor, but asked:

"What do you propose?"

"That's it," said Pennybaker, promptly. "I don't propose nothing--I _ex_pose. You hear me--I _ex_pose." He said this with great mystery, one eye being shut fast and the other only half open. He perceived that he had puzzled Farnham, and enjoyed it for a moment by repeating his mot with a chuckle that did not move a muscle of his face. "I'll tell you the whole thing. There's no use, between gentlemen, of playing the thing too fine." He took his knife from one pocket and from another a twist of tobacco, and, cutting off a mouthful, began his story:

"You see, me and Bud Merritt and Joe Dorman have most generally agreed on paternage, and that was all right. You are well fixed. You don't want the bother of them little giblets of paternage. We've 'tended to 'em for what there was in 'em and for the good of the party. Now Bud he wants to be auditor, and he's got Joe to go in with him, because, if he gits there, Joe's brother-in-law, Tim Dolan, will be his debbity. Bud is weak in the Third Ward, and he knows it, and he knows that Jake Runckel can swing that ward like a dead cat; and so they have fixed it all up to give the next vacancy to Jake for his sister. She's been turned out of the school for some skylarking, and weighs pretty heavy on Jake's hands. Very well. That's the game, and I'm a-kickin'! Do you hear me? I'm a-kickin'!"

Pennybaker pushed up his hat and looked Farnham fairly in the face. The assertion of his independence seemed to give him great gratification. He said once more, slowly closing one eye and settling back in his former attitude against the wall, while he aimed a deluge of tobacco-juice at the base of the wall before him: "I'm a-kickin' like a Texas steer."

He waited a moment to allow these impressive words to have their full effect, while Farnham preserved a serious and attentive face.

"Well, this bein' the case," continued Pennybaker, "I comes to you, as one gentleman to another, and I asks whether we can't agree against this selfish and corrupt game of Merritt and Dorman. For, you see, I don't get a smell out of what they're doin'. I'm out in the cold if their slate goes through."

"I don't see that I can be of any service to you, Mr. Pennybaker. If I have any influence in the matter, it shall be given to Miss Matchin, whom I proposed once before."

"Exactly! Now you're talkin'. Miss Matchin shall have it, on one little proviso that won't hurt you nor me nor nobody. Say the word, and it's a whack."

And he lifted up his hand to strike the bargain.

"What is it?" asked Farnham, in a tone which was severe and contemptuous, in spite of him.

"Namely, just this," answered Pennybaker, "You ain't on the make; you're fixed. You don't care about these d---- little things except to help a friend once 'n awhile," he said, in a large and generous way. "But I ain't that kind yet. I've got to look out for myself--pretty lively, too. Now, I'll tell you what's my racket. You let me perpose Miss Matchin's name and then go and tell her father that I put it through, and it'll be done slick as a whistle. That's all solid, ain't it?"

Farnham's brow clouded. He did not answer at once. Pennybaker repeated his question a little anxiously:

"That's all solid, ain't it?"

"You will excuse me, Mr. Pennybaker, if I do not quite understand your racket, as you call it. I do not see how you make anything out of this. Matchin is a poor man. You surely do not intend----"

"To strike Saul for a divvy? Nothing of the sort," said Pennybaker, without the least offence. "The whole thing lies just here. Among gentlemen there's no use being shy about it. My brother wants to be assessor in Saul Matchin's ward. Saul's got a lot of influence among the boys in the planing-mills, and I want his help. You see?"

Farnham thought he saw, and, after assenting to Pennybaker's eager demand, "That's all solid?" he walked away, too much relieved by the thought that Maud was provided for to question too closely the morality of the proceeding which the sordid rascal had exposed to him.