Chapter 201

To McDonald, indeed, she had often shown her irritation, and it was only the strong good sense of the governess that kept her from revolt. It was not until very recently that it could be explained to her, without putting her in terror hourly, why she must always be watched and guarded.

It had required all the tact and sophistry of her governess to make her acquiesce in a system of education--so it was called-that had been devised in order to give her the highest and purest development. That the education was mainly left to McDonald, and that her parents were simply anxious about her safety, she did not learn till long afterwards. In the first years Mrs. Mavick had been greatly relieved to be spared all the care of the baby, and as the years went on, the arrangement seemed more and more convenient, and she gave little thought to the character that was being formed. To Mr. Mavick, indeed, as to his wife, it was enough to see that she was uncommonly intelligent, and that she had a certain charm that made her attractive. Mrs. Mavick took it for granted that when it came time to introduce her into the world she would be like other girls, eager for its pleasures and susceptible to all its allurements. Of the direction of the undercurrents of the girl's life she had no conception, until she began to unfold to her the views of the world that prevailed in her circle, and what (in the Carmen scheme of life) ought to be a woman's ambition.

That she was to be an heiress Evelyn had long known, that she would one day have a great fortune at her disposal had indeed come into her serious thought, but the brilliant use of it in relation to herself, at which her mother was always lately hinting, came to her as a disagreeable shock. For the moment the fortune seemed to her rather a fetter than an opportunity, if she was to fulfill her mother's expectations. These hints were conveyed with all the tact of which her mother was master, but the girl was nevertheless somewhat alarmed, and she began to regard the "coming out" as an entrance into servitude rather than an enlargement of liberty. One day she surprised Miss McDonald by asking her if she didn't think that rich people were the only ones not free to do as they pleased?

"Why, my dear, it is not generally so considered. Most people fancy that if they had money enough they could do anything."

"Yes, of course," said the girl, putting down her stitching and looking up; "that is not exactly what I mean. They can go in the current, they can do what they like with their money, but I mean with themselves. Aren't they in a condition that binds them half the time to do what they don't wish to do?"

"It's a condition that all the world is trying to get into."

"I know. I've been talking with mamma about the world and about society, and what is expected and what you must live up to."

"But you have always known that you must one day go into the world and take your share in life."

"That, yes. But I would rather live up to myself. Mamma seems to think that society will do a great deal for me, that I will get a wider view of life, that I can do so much for society, and, with my position, mamma says, have such a career. McDonald, what is society for?"

That was such a poser that the governess threw up her hands, and then laughed aloud, and then shook her head. "Wiser people than you have asked that question."

"I asked mamma that, for she is in it all the time. She didn't like it much, and asked, 'What is anything for?' You see, McDonald, I've been with mamma many a time when her friends came to see her, and they never have anything to say, never--what I call anything. I wonder if in society they go about saying that? What do they do it for?"

Miss McDonald had her own opinion about what is called society and its occupations and functions, but she did not propose to encourage this girl, who would soon take her place in it, in such odd notions.

"Don't you know, child, that there is society and society? That it is all sorts of a world, that it gets into groups and circles about, and that is the way the world is stirred up and kept from stagnation. And, my dear, you have just to do your duty where you are placed, and that is all there is about it."

"Don't be cross, McDonald. I suppose I can think my thoughts?"

"Yes, you can think, and you can learn to keep a good deal that you think to yourself. Now, Evelyn, haven't you any curiosity to see what this world we are talking about is like?"

"Indeed I have," said Evelyn, coming out of her reflective mood into a girlish enthusiasm. "And I want to see what I shall be like in it. Only--well, how is that?" And she held out the handkerchief she had been plying her needle on.

Miss McDonald looked at the stitches critically, at the letters T.M. enclosed in an oval.

"That is very good, not too mechanical. It will please your father. The oval makes a pretty effect; but what are those signs between the letters?"

"Don't you see? It is a cartouche, and those are hieroglyphics--his name in Egyptian. I got it out of Petrie's book."

"It certainly is odd."

"And every one of the twelve is going to be different. It is so interesting to hunt up the signs for qualities. If papa can read it he will find out a good deal that I think about him."

The governess only smiled for reply. It was so like Evelyn, so different from others even in the commonplace task of marking handkerchiefs, to work a little archaeology into her expression of family affection.

Mrs. Mavick's talks with her daughter in which she attempted to give Evelyn some conception of her importance as the heiress of a great fortune, of her position in society, what would be expected of her, and of the brilliant social career her mother imagined for her, had an effect opposite to that intended. There had been nothing in her shielded life, provided for at every step without effort, that had given her any idea of the value and importance of money.

To a girl in her position, educated in the ordinary way and mingling with school companions, one of the earliest lessons would be a comprehension of the power that wealth gave her; and by the time that she was of Evelyn's age her opinion of men would begin to be colored by the notion that they were polite or attentive to her on account of her fortune and not for any charm of hers, and so a cruel suspicion of selfishness would have entered her mind to poison the very thought of love.

No such idea had entered Evelyn's mind. She would not readily have understood that love could have any sort of relation to riches or poverty. And if, deep down in her heart, not acknowledged, scarcely recognized, by herself, there had begun to grow an image about which she had sweet and tender thoughts, it certainly did not occur to her that her father's wealth could make any difference in the relations of friendship or even of affection. And as for the fortune, if she was, as her mother said, some day to be mistress of it, she began to turn over in her mind objects quite different from the display and the career suggested by her mother, and to think how she could use it.

In her ignorance of practical life and of what the world generally values, of course the scheme that was rather hazy in her mind was simply Quixotic, as appeared in a conversation with her father one evening while he smoked his cigar. He had called Evelyn to the library, on the suggestion of Carmen that he should "have a little talk with the girl."

Mr. Mavick began, when Evelyn was seated beside him, and he had drawn her close to him and she had taken possession of his big hand with both her little hands, about the reception and about balls to come, and the opera, and what was going on in New York generally in the season, and suddenly asked:

"My dear, if you had a lot of money, what would you do with it?"

"What would you?" said the girl, looking up into his face. "What do people generally do?"

"Why," and Mavick hesitated, "they use it to add more to it."

"And then?" pursued the girl.

"I suppose they leave it to somebody. Suppose it was left to you?"

"Don't think me silly, papa; I've thought a lot about it, and I shall do something quite different."

"Different from what?"

"You know mamma is in the Orthopedic Hospital, and in the Ragged Schools, and in the Infirmary, and I don't know what all."

"And wouldn't you help them?"

"Of course, I would help. But everybody does those things, the practical things, the charities; I mean to do things for the higher life."

Mr. Mavick took his cigar from his mouth and looked puzzled. "You want to build a cathedral?"

"No, I don't mean that sort of higher life, I mean civilization, the things at the top. I read an essay the other day that said it was easy to raise money for anything mechanical and practical in a school, but nobody wanted to give for anything ideal."

"Quite right," said her father; "the world is full of cranks. You seem as vague as your essayist."

"Don't you remember, papa, when we were in Oxford how amused you were with the master, or professor, who grumbled because the college was full of students, and there wasn't a single college for research?

"I asked McDonald afterwards what he meant; that is how I first got my idea, but I didn't see exactly what it was until recently. You've got to cultivate the high things--that essay says--the abstract, that which does not seem practically useful, or society will become low and material."

"By George!" cried Mavick, with a burst of laughter, "you've got the lingo. Go on, I want to see where you are going to light."

"Well, I'll tell you some more. You know my tutor is English. McDonald says she believes he is the most learned man in eighteenth-century literature living, and his dream is to write a history of it. He is poor, and engaged all the time teaching, and McDonald says he will die, no doubt, and leave nothing of his investigations to the world."

"And you want to endow him?"

"He is only one. There is the tutor of history. Teach, teach, teach, and no time or strength left for investigation. You ought to hear him tell of the things just to be found out in American history. You see what I mean? It is plainer in the sciences. The scholars who could really make investigations, and do something for the world, have to earn their living and have no time or means for experiments. It seems foolish as I say it, but I do think, papa, there is something in it."

"And what would you do?"

Evelyn saw that she was making no headway, and her ideas, exposed to so practical a man as her father, did seem rather ridiculous. But she struck out boldly with the scheme that she had been evolving.

"I'd found Institutions of Research, where there should be no teaching, and students who had demonstrated that they had anything promising in them, in science, literature, languages, history, anything, should have the means and the opportunity to make investigations and do work. See what a hard time inventors and men of genius have; it is pitiful."

"And how much money do you want for this modest scheme of yours?"

"I hadn't thought," said Evelyn, patting her father's hand. And then, at a venture, "I guess about ten millions."

"Whew! Have you any idea how much ten millions are, or how much one million is?"

"Why, ten millions, if you have a hundred, is no more than one million if you have only ten. Doesn't it depend?"

"If it depends upon you, child, I don't think money has any value for you whatever. You are a born financier for getting rid of a surplus. You ought to be Secretary of the Treasury."

Mavick rose, lifted up his daughter, and, kissing her with more than usual tenderness, said, "You'll learn about the world in time," and bade her goodnight.

XVI

Law and love go very well together as occupations, but, when literature is added, the trio is not harmonious. Either of the two might pull together, but the combination of the three is certainly disastrous.

It would be difficult to conceive of a person more obviously up in the air than Philip at this moment. He went through his office duties intelligently and perfunctorily, but his heart was not in the work, and reason as he would his career did not seem to be that way. He was lured too strongly by that siren, the ever-alluring woman who sits upon the rocks and sings so deliciously to youth of the sweets of authorship. He who listens once to that song hears it always in his ears, through disappointment and success--and the success is often the greatest disappointment--through poverty and hope deferred and heart-sickness for recognition, through the hot time of youth and the creeping incapacity of old age. The song never ceases. Were the longing and the hunger it arouses ever satisfied with anything, money for instance, any more than with fame?

And if the law had a feeble hold on him, how much more uncertain was his grasp on literature. He had thrown his line, he had been encouraged by nibbles, but publishers were too wary to take hold. It seemed to him that he had literally cast his bread upon the waters, and apparently at an ebb tide, and his venture had gone to the fathomless sea. He had put his heart into the story, and, more than that, his hope of something dearer than any public favor. As he went over the story in his mind, scene after scene, and dwelt upon the theme that held the whole in unity, he felt that Evelyn would be touched by the recognition of her part in the inspiration, and that the great public must give some heed to it. Perhaps not the great public--for its liking now ran in quite another direction, but a considerable number of people like Celia, who were struggling with problems of life, and the Alices in country homes who still preserved in their souls a belief in the power of a noble life, and perhaps some critics who had not rid themselves of the old traditions. If the publishers would only give him a chance!

But if law and literature were to him little more than unsubstantial dreams, the love he cherished was, in the cool examination of reason, preposterous. What! the heiress of so many millions, brought up doubtless in the expectation of the most brilliant worldly alliance, the heiress with the world presently at her feet, would she look at a lawyer's clerk and an unsuccessful scribbler? Oh, the vanity of youth and the conceit of intellect!

Down in his heart Philip thought that she might. And he went on nursing this vain passion, knowing as well as any one can know the social code, that Mr. Mavick and Mrs. Mavick would simply laugh in his face at such a preposterous idea. And yet he knew that he had her sympathy in his ambition, that to a certain extent she was interested in him. The girl was too guileless to conceal that. And then suppose he should become famous--well, not exactly famous, but an author who was talked about, and becoming known, and said to be promising? And then he could fancy Mavick weighing this sort of reputation in his office scales against money, and Mrs. Mavick weighing it in her boudoir against social position. He was a fool to think of it. And yet, suppose, suppose the girl should come to love him. It would not be lightly. He knew that, by looking into her deep, clear, beautiful eyes. There were in them determination and tenacity of purpose as well as the capability of passion. Heavens and earth, if that girl once loved, there was a force that no opposition could subdue! That was true. But what had he to offer to evoke such a love?

In those days Philip saw much of Celia, who at length had given up teaching, and had come to the city to try her experiment, into which she was willing to embark her small income. She had taken a room in the midst of poverty and misery on the East Side, and was studying the situation.

"I am not certain," she said, "whether I or any one else can do anything, or whether any organization down there can effect much. But I will find out."

"Aren't you lonesome--and disgusted?" asked Philip.

"Disgusted? You might as well be disgusted with one thing as another. I am generally disgusted with the way things go. But, lonely? No, there is too much to do and to learn. And do you know, Philip, that people are more interesting over there, more individual, have more queer sorts of character. I begin to believe, with a lovely philanthropist I know, who had charge of female criminals, that 'wicked women are more interesting than good women.'"

"You have struck a rich mine of interest in New York, then."

"Don't be cynical, Phil. There are different kinds of interest. Stuff! But I won't explain." And then, abruptly changing the subject, "Seems to me you have something on your mind lately. Is it the novel?"

"Perhaps."

"The publishers haven't decided?"

"I am afraid they have."

"Well, Philip, do you know that I think the best thing that could happen to you would be to have the story rejected."

"It has been rejected several times," said Philip. "That didn't seem to do me any good."

"But finally, so that you would stop thinking about it, stop expecting anything that way, and take up your profession in earnest."

"You are a nice comforter!" retorted Philip, with a sort of smirking grin and a look of keen inspection, as if he saw something new in the character of his adviser. "What has come over you? Suppose I should give you that sort of sympathy in the projects you set your heart on?"

"It does seem hard and mean, doesn't it? I knew you wouldn't like it. That is, not now. But it is for your lifetime. As for me, I've wanted so many things and I've tried so many things. And do you know, Phil, that I have about come to the conclusion that the best things for us in this world are the things we don't get."

"You are always coming to some new conclusion."

"Yes, I know. But just look at it rationally. Suppose your story is published, cast into the sea of new books, and has a very fair sale. What will you get out of it? You can reckon how many copies at ten cents a copy it will need to make as much as some writers get for a trivial magazine paper. Recognition? Yes, from a very few people. Notoriety? You would soon find what that is. Suppose you make what is called a 'hit.' If you did not better that with the next book, you would be called a failure. And you must keep at it, keep giving the public something new all the time, or you will drop out of sight. And then the anxiety and the strain of it, and the temptation, because you must live, to lower your ideal, and go down to what you conceive to be the buying public. And if your story does not take the popular fancy, where will you be then?"

"Celia, you have become a perfect materialist. You don't allow anything for the joy of creation, for the impulse of a man's mind, for the delight in fighting for a place in the world of letters."

"So it seems to you now. If you have anything that must be said, of course you ought to say it, no matter what comes after. If you are looking round for something you can say in order to get the position you covet, that is another thing. People so deceive themselves about this. I know literary workers who lead a dog's life and are slaves to their pursuit, simply because they have deceived themselves in this. I want you to be free and independent, to live your own life and do what work you can in the world. There, I've said it, and of course you will go right on. I know you. And maybe I am all wrong. When I see the story I may take the other side and urge you to go on, even if you are as poor as a church-mouse, and have to be under the harrow of poverty for years."

"Then you have some curiosity to see the story?"

"You know I have. And I know I shall like it. It isn't that, Phil; it is what is the happiest career for you."

"Well, I will send it to you when it comes back."

But the unexpected happened. It did not come back. One morning Philip received a letter from the publishers that set his head in a whirl. The story was accepted. The publisher wrote that the verdict of the readers was favorable, and he would venture on it, though he cautioned Mr. Burnett not to expect a great commercial success. And he added, as to terms, it being a new name, though he hoped one that would become famous, that the copyright of ten per cent. would not begin until after the sale of the first thousand copies.

The latter part of the letter made no impression on Philip. So long as the book was published, and by a respectable firm, he was indifferent as a lord to the ignoble details of royalty. The publisher had recognized the value of the book, and it was accepted on its merits. That was enough. The first thing he did was to enclose the letter to Celia, with the simple remark that he would try to sympathize with her in her disappointment.

Philip would have been a little less jubilant if he had known how the decision of the publishing house was arrived at. It was true that the readers had reported favorably, but had refused to express any opinion on the market value. The manuscript had therefore been put in the graveyard of manuscripts, from which there is commonly no resurrection except in the funeral progress of the manuscript back to the author. But the head of the house happened to dine at the house of Mr. Hunt, the senior of Philip's law firm. Some chance allusion was made by a lady to an article in a recent magazine which had pleased her more than anything she had seen lately. Mr. Hunt also had seen it, for his wife had insisted on reading it to him, and he was proud to say that the author was a clerk in his office--a fine fellow, who, he always fancied, had more taste for literature than for law, but he had the stuff in him to succeed in anything. The publisher pricked up his ears and asked some questions. He found that Mr. Burnett stood well in the most prominent law firm in the city, that ladies of social position recognized his talent, that he dined here and there in a good set, and that he belonged to one of the best clubs. When he went to his office the next morning he sent for the manuscript, looked it over critically, and then announced to his partners that he thought the thing was worth trying.

In a day or two it was announced in the advertising lists as forthcoming. There it stared Philip in the face and seemed to be the only conspicuous thing in the journal. He had not paid much attention before to the advertisements, but now this department seemed the most interesting part of the paper, and he read every announcement, and then came back and read his over and over. There it stood:--"On Saturday, The Puritan Nun. An Idyl. By Philip Burnett."

The naming of the book had been almost as difficult as the creation. His first choice had been "The Lily of the Valley," but Balzac had pre-empted that. And then he had thought of "The Enclosed Garden" (Hortus Clausus), the title of a lovely picture he had seen. That was Biblical, but in the present ignorance of the old scriptures it would be thought either agricultural or sentimental. It is not uncommon that a book owes its notoriety and sale to its title, and it is not easy to find a title that will attract attention without being too sensational. The title chosen was paradoxical, for while a nun might be a puritan, it was unthinkable that a Puritan should be a nun.

Mr. Brad said he liked it, because it looked well and did not mean anything; he liked all such titles, the "Pious Pirate," the "Lucid Lunatic," the "Sympathetic Siren," the "Guileless Girl," and so on.