Chapter 58

HAPPINESS

The evening on which Peter had left Grey-Court, Leonore had been moved “for sundry reasons” to go to her piano and sing an English ballad entitled “Happiness.” She had sung it several times, and with gusto.

The next morning she read the political part of the papers. “I don’t see anything to have taken him back,” she said “but I am really glad, for he was getting hard to manage. I couldn’t send him away, but now I hope he’ll stay there.” Then Leonore fluttered all day, in the true Newport style, with no apparent thought of her “friend.”

But something at a dinner that evening interested her.

“I’m ashamed,” said the hostess, “of my shortage of men. Marlow was summoned back to New York last night, by business, quite unexpectedly, and Mr. Dupont telegraphed me this afternoon that he was detained there.”

“It’s curious,” said Dorothy. “Mr. Rivington and my brother came on Tuesday expecting to stay for a week, but they had special delivery letters yesterday, and both started for New York. They would not tell me what it was.”

“Mr. Stirling received a special delivery, too,” said Leonore, “and started at once. And he wouldn’t tell.”

“How extraordinary!” said the hostess. “There must be something very good at the roof-gardens.”

“It has something to do with headwears,” said Leonore, not hiding her light under a bushel.

“Headwear?” said a man.

“Yes,” said Leonore. “I only had a glimpse of the heading, but I saw ‘Headwears N.G.S.N.Y.’”

A sudden silence fell, no one laughing at the mistake.

“What’s the matter?” asked Leonore.

“We are wondering what will happen,” said the host, “if men go in for headwear too.”

“They do that already,” said a man, “but unlike women, they do it on the inside, not the outside of the head.”

But nobody laughed, and the dinner seemed to drag from that moment.

Leonore and Dorothy had come together, and as soon as they were in their carriage, Leonore said, “What a dull dinner it was?”

“Oh, Leonore,” cried Dorothy, “don’t talk about dinners. I’ve kept up till now, bu—” and Dorothy’s sentence melted into a sob.

“Is it home, Mrs. Rivington?” asked the tiger, sublimely unconscious, as a good servant should be, of this dialogue, and of his mistress’s tears.

“No, Portman, the Club,” sobbed Dorothy.

“Dorothy,” begged Leonore, “what is it?”

“Don’t you understand?” sobbed Dorothy. “All this fearful anarchist talk and discontent? And my poor, poor darling! Oh, don’t talk to me.” Dorothy became inarticulate once more.

“How foolish married women are!” thought Leonore, even while putting her arm around Dorothy, and trying blindly to comfort her.

“Is it a message, Mrs. Rivington?” asked the man, opening the carriage-door.

“Ask for Mr. Melton, or Mr. Duer, and say Mrs. Rivington wishes to see one of them.” Dorothy dried her eyes, and braced up. Before Leonore had time to demand an explanation, Peter’s gentlemanly scoundrel was at the door.

“What is it, Mrs. Rivington?” he asked.

“Mr. Duer, is there any bad news from New York?”

“Yes. A great strike on the Central is on, and the troops have been called in to keep order.”

“Is that all the news?” asked Dorothy.

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” said Dorothy. “Home, Portman.”

The two women were absolutely silent during the drive. But they kissed each other in parting, not with the peck which women so often give each other, but with a true kiss. And when Leonore, in crossing the porch, encountered the mastiff which Peter had given her, she stopped and kissed him too, very tenderly. What is more, she brought him inside, which was against the rules, and put him down before the fire. Then she told the footman to bring her the evening-papers, and sitting down on the rug by Bêtise, proceeded to search them, not now for the political outlook, but for the labor troubles. Leonore suddenly awoke to the fact that there were such things as commercial depressions and unemployed. She read it all with the utmost care. She read the outpourings of the Anarchists, in a combination of indignation, amazement and fear, “I never dreamed there could be such fearful wretches!” she said. There was one man—a fellow named Podds—whom the paper reported as shrieking in Union Square to a select audience:

“Rise! Wipe from the face of the earth the money power! Kill! Kill! Only by blood atonement can we lead the way to better things. To a universal brotherhood of love. Down with rich men! Down with their paid hirelings, the troops! Blow them in pieces!”

“Oh!” cried Leonore shuddering. “It’s fearful. I wish some one would blow you in pieces!” Thereby was she proving herself not unlike Podds. All humanity have something of the Anarchist in them. Then Leonore turned to the mastiff and told him some things. Of how bad the strikers were, and how terrible were the Anarchists. “Yes, dear,” she said, “I wish we had them here, and then you could treat them as they deserve, wouldn’t you, Bêtise? I’m so glad he has my luck-piece!”

A moment later her father and another man came into the hall from the street, compelling Leonore to assume a more proper attitude.

“Hello, Dot!” said Watts. “Still up? Vaughan and I are going to have a game of billiards. Won’t you score for us?”

“Yes,” said Leonore.

“Bad news from New York, isn’t it?” said Vaughan, nonchalantly, as he stood back after his first play.

Leonore saw her father make a grimace at Vaughan, which Vaughan did not see. She said, “What?”

“I missed,” said Watts. “Your turn, Will.”

“Tell me the news before you shoot?” said Leonore.

“The collision of the strikers and the troops.”

“Was any one hurt?” asked Leonore, calmly scoring two to her father’s credit.

“Yes. Eleven soldiers and twenty-two strikers.”

“What regiment was it?” asked Leonore.

“Colonel Stirling’s,” said Vaughan, making a brilliant _massé_. “Fortunately it’s a Mick regiment, so we needn’t worry over who was killed.”

Leonore thought to herself: “You are as bad every bit as Podds!” Aloud she said, “Did it say who were killed?”

“No. The dispatch only said fourteen dead.”

“That was a beautiful shot,” said Leonore. “You ought to run the game out with that position. I think, papa, that I’ll go to bed. I find I’m a little tired. Good-night, Mr. Vaughan.” Leonore went upstairs, slowly, deep in thought. She did not ring for her maid. On the contrary she lay down on her bed in her dinner-gown, to its everlasting detriment. “I know he isn’t hurt,” she said, “because I should feel it. But I wish the telegram had said.” She hardly believed herself, apparently, for she buried her head in the pillow, and began to sob quietly. “If I only had said good-bye,” she moaned.

Early the next morning Watts found Leonore in the hall.

“How pale my Dot is!” he exclaimed.

“I didn’t sleep well,” said Leonore.

“Aren’t you going to ride with me?”

“No. I don’t feel like it this morning,” said Leonore.

As Watts left the hall, a servant entered it.

“I had to wait, Miss D’Alloi,” he said. “No papers are for sale till eight o’clock.”

Leonore took the newspaper silently and went to the library. Then she opened it and looked at the first column. She read it hurriedly.

“I knew he wasn’t hurt,” she said, “because I would have felt it, and because he had my luck piece.” Then she stepped out of one of the windows, called Bêtise to her, and putting her arms about his neck, kissed him.

When the New York papers came things were even better, for they recorded the end of the strike. Leonore even laughed over that big, big D. “I can’t imagine him getting so angry,” she said “He must have a temper, after all.” She sang a little, as she fixed the flowers in the vases, and one of the songs was “Happiness.” Nor did she snub a man who hinted at afternoon tea, as she had a poor unfortunate who suggested tennis earlier in the day.

While they were sipping their tea, however, Watts came in from the club.

“Helen,” he said, going to the bay window farthest from the tea-table, “come here I want to say something.”

They whispered for a moment, and then Mrs. D’Alloi came back to her tea.

“Won’t you have a cup, papa?” asked Leonore.

“‘Not to-day, dear,” said Watts, with an unusual tenderness in his voice.

Leonore was raising a spoon to her mouth, but suddenly her hand trembled a little. After a glance at her father and mother, she pushed her tea-cup into the centre of the table as if she had finished it, though it had just been poured. Then she turned and began to talk and laugh with the caller.

But the moment the visitor was out of the room, Leonore said:

“What is it, papa?”

Watts was standing by the fire. He hesitated. Then he groaned. Then he went to the door. “Ask your mother,” he said, and went out of the room.

“Mamma?” said Leonore.

“Don’t excite yourself, dear,” said her mother. “I’ll tell you to-morrow.”

Leonore was on her feet. “No,” she said huskily, “tell me now.”

“Wait till we’ve had dinner.”

“Mamma,” cried Leonore, appealingly, “don’t you see that—that—that I suffer more by not knowing it? Tell me.”

“Oh, Leonore,” cried her mother, “don’t look that way. I’ll tell you; but don’t look that way!”

“What?”

Mrs. D’Alloi put her arms about Leonore. “The Anarchists have exploded a bomb.”

“Yes?” said Leonore.

“And it killed a great many of the soldiers.”

“Not—?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, mamma,” said Leonore. She unclasped her mother’s arms, and went towards the door.

“Leonore,” cried her mother, “stay here with me, dear.”

“I’d rather be alone,” said Leonore, quietly. She went upstairs to her room and sank down by an ottoman which stood in the middle of the floor. She sat silent and motionless, for over an hour, looking straight before her at nothing, as Peter had so often done. Is it harder to lose out of life the man or woman whom one loves, or to see him or her happy in the love of another. Is the hopelessness of the impossible less or greater than the hopelessness of the unattainable?

Finally Leonore rose, and touched her bell. When her maid came she said, “Get me my travelling dress.” Ten minutes later she came into the library, saying to Watts.

“Papa, I want you to take me to New York, by the first train.”

“Are you crazy, my darling?” cried Watts. “With riots and Anarchists all over the city.”

“I must go to New York,” said Leonore. “If you won’t take me, I’ll go with madame.”

“Not for a moment—” began Watts.

“Papa,” cried Leonore, “don’t you see it’s killing me? I can’t bear it—” and Leonore stopped.

“Yes, Watts, we must,” said Mrs. D’Alloi.

Two hours later they were all three rolling towards New York. It was a five hours’ ride, but Leonore sat the whole distance without speaking, or showing any consciousness of her surroundings. For every turn of those wheels seemed to fall into a rhythmic repetition of: “If I had only said ‘good-bye.’”

The train was late in arriving, and Watts tried to induce Leonore to go to a hotel for the night. She only said “No. Take me to him,” but it was in a voice which Watts could not disregard. So after a few questions at the terminal, which produced no satisfactory information, Watts told the cabman to drive to the City Hall Park.

They did not reach it, however, for at the corner of Centre Street and Chambers, there came a cry of “halt,” and the cab had to stop.

“You can’t pass this line,” said the sentry. “You must go round by Broadway.”

“Why?” asked Watts.

“The street is impassable.”

Watts got out, and held a whispered dialogue with the sentry. This resulted in the summoning of the officer of the watch. In the mean time Leonore descended and joined them. Watts turned and said to her: “The sentry says he’s here.”

Presently an officer came up.

“An’ what do the likes av yez want at this time av night?” he inquired crossly. “Go away wid yez.”

“Oh, Captain Moriarty,” said Leonore, “won’t you let me see him? I’m Miss D’Alloi.”

“Shure,” said Dennis, “yez oughtn’t to be afther disturbin’ him. It’s two nights he’s had no sleep.”

Leonore suddenly put her hand on Dennis’s arm. “He’s not killed?” she whispered, as if she could not breathe, and the figure swayed a little.

“Divil a bit! They got it wrong entirely. It was that dirty spalpeen av a Podds.”

“Are you sure?” said Leonore, pleadingly. “You are not deceiving me?”

“Begobs,” said Dennis, “do yez think Oi could stand here wid a dry eye if he was dead?”

Leonore put her head on Dennis’s shoulder, and began to sob softly. For a moment Dennis looked aghast at the results of his speech, but suddenly his face changed. “Shure,” he whispered, “we all love him just like that, an that’s why the Blessed Virgin saved him for us.”

Then Leonore, with tears in her eyes, said, “I felt it,” in the most joyful of voices. A voice that had a whole _Te Deum_ in it.

“Won’t you let me see him?” she begged. “I won’t wake him, I promise you.”

“That yez shall,” said Dennis. “Will yez take my arm?” The four passed within the lines. “Step careful,” he continued. “There’s pavin’ stones, and rails, and plate-glass everywheres. It looks like there’d been a primary itself.”

All thought that was the best of jokes and laughed. They passed round a great chasm in the street and sidewalk. Then they came to long rows of bodies stretched on the grass, or rather what was left of the grass, in the Park. Leonore shuddered. “Are they all dead?” she whispered. “Dead! Shurely not. It’s the regiment sleepin’,” she was told. They passed between these rows for a little distance. “This is him,” said Dennis, “sleepin’ like a babby.” Dennis turned his back and began to describe the explosion to Mrs. D’Alloi and Watts.

There, half covered with a blanket, wrapped in a regulation great coat, his head pillowed on a roll of newspapers, lay Peter. Leonore knelt down on the ground beside him, regardless of the proprieties or the damp. She listened to hear if he was breathing, and when she found that he actually was, her face had on it a little thanksgiving proclamation of its own. Then with the prettiest of motherly manners, she softly pulled the blanket up and tucked it in about his arms. Then she looked to see if there was not something else to do. But there was nothing. So she made more. “The poor dear oughtn’t to sleep without something on his head. He’ll take cold.” She took her handkerchief and tried to fix it so that it should protect Peter’s head. She tried four different ways, any one of which would have served; but each time she thought of a better way, and had to try once more. She probably would have thought of a fifth, if Peter had not suddenly opened his eyes.

“Oh!” said Leonore, “what a shame? I’ve waked you up. And just as I had fixed it right.”

Peter studied the situation calmly, without moving a muscle. He looked at the kneeling figure for some time. Then he looked up at the arc light a little distance away. Then he looked at the City Hall clock. Then his eyes came back to Leonore. “Peter,” he said finally, “this is getting to be a monomania. You must stop it.”

“What?” said Leonore, laughing at his manner as if it was intended as a joke.

Peter put out his hand and touched Leonore’s dress. Then he rose quickly to his feet. “What is the matter?” he asked.

“Hello,” cried Watts. “Have you come to? Well. Here we are, you see. All the way from Newport to see you in fragments, only to be disappointed. Shake!”

Peter said nothing for a moment. But after he had shaken hands, he said, “It’s very good of you to have thought of me.”

“Oh,” explained Leonore promptly, “I’m always anxious about my friends. Mamma will tell you I am.”

Peter turned to Leonore, who had retired behind her mother. “Such friends are worth having,” he said, with a strong emphasis on “friends.”

Then Leonore came out from behind her mother. “‘How nice he’s stupid,” she thought. “He is Peter Simple, after all.”

“Well,” said Watts, “your friends are nearly dying with hunger and want of sleep, so the best thing we can do, since we needn’t hunt for you in scraps, is to go to the nearest hotel. Where is that?”

“You’ll have to go uptown,” said Peter. “Nothing down here is open at this time.”

“I’m not sleepy,” said Leonore, “but I am so hungry!”

“Serves you right for eating no din—” Watts started to say, but Leonore interjected, in an unusually loud voice. “Can’t you get us something?”

“Nothing; that will do for you, I’m afraid,” said Peter. “I had Dennett send up one of his coffee-boilers so that the men should have hot coffee through the night, and there’s a sausage-roll man close to him who’s doing a big business. But they’ll hardly serve your purpose.”

“The very thing,” cried Watts. “What a lark!”

“I can eat anything,” said Leonore.

So they went over to the stands. Peter’s blanket was spread on the sidewalk, and three Newport swells, and the Democratic nominee for governor sat upon it, with their feet in the gutter, and drank half-bean coffee and ate hot sausage rolls, made all the hotter by the undue amount of mustard which the cook would put in. What is worse, they enjoyed it as much as if it was the finest of dinners. Would not society have been scandalized had it known of their doings?

How true it is that happiness is in a mood rather than in a moment. How eagerly we prepare for and pursue the fickle sprite, only to find our preparations and chase giving nothing but dullness, fatigue, and ennui. But then how often without exertion or warning, the sprite is upon us, and tinges the whole atmosphere. So it was at this moment, with two of the four. The coffee might have been all beans, and yet it would have been better than the best served in Viennese cafés. The rolls might have had even a more weepy amount of mustard, and yet the burning and the tears would only have been the more of a joke. The sun came up, as they ate, talked and laughed, touching everything about them with gold, but it might have poured torrents, and the two would have been as happy.

For Leonore was singing to herself: “He isn’t dead. He isn’t dead.”

And Peter was thinking: “She loves me. She must love me.”