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“Thanks, Harry! It is likely we may voluntarily take them into consideration. This is an age of majorities. If we accomplish the suffrage, women will have a majority on all questions; and the reduction of man 24 becomes a mere matter of time. I was going to remark, that another of my clubs occupies itself with the criticism of the highest poets of the age.”
“Who are they?” asked Adriana.
“That is the point we have been arguing all last winter. We have had difficulties. Mrs. Johnstone Miller raised objections to the consideration of any but American poets; and it took two months’ sittings to settle that question. You would be astonished at the strength of some people’s prejudices!” ejaculated Rose, holding up her pretty hands to emphasize her own astonishment.
“Not at all,” answered Harry. “They call their prejudices ‘principles,’ and then, of course, they cannot be decently relinquished.”
“Mrs. Johnstone Miller is a very superior woman. It is a great thing to hear her criticise Longfellow, Whittier, Eugene Field, Will Carlton, and the rest. I am sure she believes that she could easily excel each in their own department, if she were not prevented by her high-bred exclusiveness.”
“Not unlikely, Rose; there is no impertinence like the impertinence of mediocrity.”
“Mediocrity! Why, Harry, Mrs. Johnstone Miller is worth all of three million dollars, and it is very good of her to interest herself about literature at all.” And with these words Mrs. Filmer rose, and Harry gave her his arm, and the little party strolled slowly round the piazzas, and so through the blue portières into the drawing-room. And as Adriana did so, she had a vivid memory of Harry Filmer as she first saw him, standing between the pale draperies. They had emphasized his black hair and eyes and garments very distinctly; for the young man was physically “dark,” 25 even the vivid coloring of his face being laid upon a skin more brown than white.
Mrs. Filmer made herself comfortable in the easiest of easy chairs, and began mechanically to turn and change the many rings upon her fingers; the act being evidently a habit, conducive to reflection or rest. She told Harry to “go away and smoke his cigar”; but the young man said he “was saving the pleasure until the moon rose; and in the meantime,” he added, “he should expect the ladies to amuse him. Rose was talking of the greatest poets of the age,” he said, “but I am wondering what possible use we can have for poetry. Our age is so distinctively material and epicurean.”
Then Adriana asserted that it was precisely in such conditions poetry became an absolute necessity. Poetry only could refine views that would become gross without it; and give a tinge of romance to manners ready to become heartless and artificial. The discussion was kept up with much spirit and cleverness, though diverging continually to all kinds of “asides,” and Mrs. Filmer, with half-closed eyes, watched and listened, and occupied her mind with far different speculations.
Then there was some music; Rose played in her faultlessly brilliant manner; and Harry sang The Standard Bearer, and Adriana sang a couple of ballads. And by this time the moon had risen, and Harry brought woolen wraps, and the two girls walked with him, while he smoked more than one cigar. At first, the promenade was to a quickstep of chatter and laughter; but as the glorious moonshine turned earth into heaven, their steps became slower, their laughter died away, feeling grew apace, speech did not seem 26 necessary, and a divine silence that felt even motion to be a wrong was just beginning to enthrall each young, impressible heart.
At that moment Mrs. Filmer broke the dangerous charm by an imperative assertion that “it was high time the house was locked up for the night. She had been asleep and forgotten herself,” she said, and there was a tone of hurry and worry in her voice. So emotion, and romance, and young love’s dreaming were locked out in the moonshine; and there was a commonplace saying of “good-nights.” At their bedroom doors, Rose and Adriana kissed each other, and Rose said:
“I have been thinking of poor Dick Duval. Poor Dick! He loves me so much!”
“Then love him in return, Rose.”
“Impossible! He is poor.”
With a sad smile, and a deep sigh, Rose shut her door. It was characteristic of her, that she had not thought of Adriana and Harry. But Harry could not sleep for thought – for a sweet, pervading, drifting thought, that had no definite character, and would indeed have been less sweet if it had been more definite. He could only tell himself that he had found a new kind of woman; that her beauty filled his heart; and that her voice – whether she spoke or sang – set him vibrating from head to feet.
As for Adriana she was serious, almost sorrowful, and she wondered at the mood, finding it nevertheless quite beyond her control. Had she been wiser in love lore she would have feared it; for there is a gloom in the beginnings of a great love, as there is gloom in deep water; a silence which suspends expression; an attitude shy and almost reverent, it being the nature of true love to purify the temple in which it burns.
CHAPTER II
The next morning Harry went to New York. Mrs. Filmer, Rose, and Adriana stood on the piazza and watched him leap into the dog-cart, gather up the reins, and drive away at a rate supposed to be necessary in order to “catch the train.” He looked very handsome and resolute, and the house felt empty without his predominating presence.
“Harry promises to be home again at five o’clock; then, if we are ready, he will drive with us,” said Rose; and towards this hour all the day’s hopes and happiness verged. For already Harry stole sweetly into Adriana’s imaginations, and to Rose his return was interesting, because he was to bring back with him his friend Neil Gordon. Neil was not Rose’s ideal lover; but he was unconquered, and therefore provoking and supposable; and as environment has much to do with love, Rose hoped that the heart, hard as flint to her charms in the city, might become submissive and tender among the roses and syringas.
Harry was on time, but he was alone. “Neil did not keep his engagement,” he explained, “and as I wished to keep mine, I did not wait for him. I think we can do without Neil Gordon.” Rose said he was not at all necessary; but she suddenly lost her spirits and grumbled at the sunshine and the dust, and did not appear to enjoy her drive in the least. They went twice through the village, and passed Adriana’s home 28 each time. Peter was in his garden, and he saw them, and straightened himself that he might lift his hat to Harry’s salute, and to the kiss his handsome daughter sent him from her finger tips. The event pleased him, but he was not unnaturally or unadvisedly proud of it. He considered the circumstance as a result of giving his girl a fine education, and he hoped some of the rich, miserly men of the village would see and understand the object lesson. In the evening he walked down to the post-office. He expected his neighbors to notice the affair, and he had a few wise, modest words ready on the duty of parents to educate their daughters for refined society. He intended to say “it was natural for girls to look for the best, and that they ought to be fitted for the best;” and so on, as far as he was led or supported.
But no one spoke of Adriana, and people generally seemed inclined to avoid Peter; even his intimates only gave him a passing “good-night” as they went rapidly onward. At length, Peter began to understand. “I believe they are dumb with envy,” he thought, and his thoughts had a touch of anger. “Of course, it is better to be envied than pitied; but I wish they did not feel in that way. It is disappointing. Bless my little Yanna! There are many who would not mind her being behindhand with God; who cannot bear her to be beforehand with the world. It is queer, and it is mean; but I’ll say nothing about it; a man can’t wrangle with his neighbors, and be at peace with his God at the same time – and it is only a little cloud – it will soon blow over.”
He had scarcely come to this conclusion when he was accosted by an impertinent busybody, who said some sharp things about Mr. Harry Filmer’s reputation, 29 and the imprudence of Adriana Van Hoosen being seen driving with the young man.
“Go up to the Filmers’ house, and say to them what you have said to me,” answered Peter, and his face was black with anger.
“I was not thinking of the Filmers, Peter. I was thinking of your daughter.”
“You have daughters of your own, William Bogart. Look after them. I will take care of my Adriana. She was driving with Miss Filmer, and not with Mr. Filmer; but that does not make a mite of difference. Miss or Mister, I can trust Adriana Van Hoosen. She is a good girl, thank God!”
Then still sharper words passed; for the accuser was a peevish, ill-natured man; and his shrugs, and sneering mouth, as well as his suspicious words, roused the Old Adam in Peter, and he felt him firing his tongue and twitching his fingers. Bogart was a younger man than himself; but Peter knew that he could throttle him like a cur; or fling him, with one movement of his arm, into the dust of the highway. Fortunately, however, Bogart’s prolixity of evil words gave Peter pause enough for reflection; and when he spoke again, he had himself well in hand, though his eyes were flashing and his voice was stern.
“Bogart,” he said, “you are a member of the Dutch Reformed Church; and you have doubtless a Bible somewhere in your house. Go home and read, ‘With the froward, Thou wilt show Thyself forward.’ That is a dreadful Scripture for an ill-tongued man, Bogart. As for me, I will not answer you. He shall speak for me, and mine.” And with this sense of an omnipotent advocate on his side, Peter walked majestically away.
At first he thought he would go to Filmer Hall in the morning, and bring home his child. But a little reflection showed him how unnecessary and unwise such a movement would be. “I will leave God to order events, which are his work, not mine,” he thought, “and if Yanna pleases God, and pleases herself, she will not displease me.”
Adriana, knowing nothing of this petty tumult of envy, was very happy. Harry did not go to New York the following day. He only talked of the city, and wondered why he wanted to stay away from it. “It is my native air,” he said, as he struck a match swiftly and lit his cigar, “and usually I am homesick, the moment I leave it. I wonder what there is in Filmer Hall to make me forget Broadway; I do not understand!” – but he understood before he began to speak.
“The place itself is enchanting,” said Adriana.
“We are living in Paradise,” added Rose.
“Paradise!” cried Mrs. Filmer. “And we have to keep ten servants! Paradise! Impossible! This morning the laundress was also homesick for New York; and she has gone back there. I could have better spared any two other servants; for she was clever enough to deserve the laundress’s vision of St. Joseph – ‘with a lovely shining hat, and a shirt buzzom that was never starched in this world.’ Harry, why do people like to go to New York, even in the summer time?”
“Well, mother, if people have to work for their living, New York gives them a money-making impression. I always catch an itching palm as soon as I touch its pavements.”
“I did not think you were so mercenary, Harry.”
“We are nothing, if we are not mercenary. What a 31 gulf of yawns there is between us and the age that listened to the ‘large utterance of the early gods’!”
“I do not complain of the ‘gulf,’ Harry; au contraire; – here comes the mail! and the commonplaces of our acquaintances may be quite as agreeable as the ‘what?’ of the early gods!” Mrs. Filmer was unlocking the bag as she spoke, and distributing the letters. Rose had several, and she went to her room to read and answer them, leaving Adriana and Harry to amuse themselves. They went first to the piano, and, when tired of singing, strolled into the woods to talk; and as the day grew warm, they came back with hands full of mountain laurel and wild-flowers. Then Harry began to teach Adriana to play chess; and she learned something more than the ways of kings and queens, knights and bishops. Unconsciously, also, she taught as well as learned; for a young lovable woman, be she coquette or ingénue, can teach a man all the romances; this is indeed her nature, her genius, the song flowing from her and returning never again.
After lunch Rose took Adriana away, with an air of mystery. “I have had a most important letter,” she said, with a sigh, “from poor Dick – Dick Duval! He is simply broken-hearted. And Dick has quite a temper, he does not like suffering so much. I feel that I really ought to see him.”
“When is he coming, Rose?”
“He can never come here. All my family are against Dick. Harry quarrelled openly with him at the club; and papa – who hardly ever interferes in anything – met him in the hall one night, and opened the front door for him.”
“What does Mrs. Filmer say?”
“Mamma says Dick is a physical gentleman and a 32 moral scamp; and she forbids me to speak or write to him. That is the whole situation, Yanna.”
“It is a very plain one, Rose. There is nothing to discuss in it. You ought not to answer his letter at all.”
“Dick says he will blow his brains out, if I do not see him.”
“How absurd!”
“You do not know what love is, Yanna.”
“Do you, Rose?”
“Not unless I am in love with Dick.”
“I am sure you are not in love with Dick. You are far too conscientious, far too morally beautiful yourself, to be in love with a moral scamp. I know that you would not do anything deliberately wrong, Rose.”
“Do not swear by me, Yanna. I cannot swear by myself. I have actually told Dick that I will meet him next Monday – at your house.”
“Indeed, Rose, you must destroy that letter.”
“It is a beautiful letter. I spent two hours over it.”
“Tear it into fifty pieces.”
“But Dick can call at your house, and I will just ‘happen in.’ There is no harm in that. You can be present all the time, if you wish.”
“I will ask father. Of course, I must tell him the circumstances.”
“And of course, he will go into a passion about his honor, and his honor to Mr. Filmer, and all the other moralities. You are real mean, Yanna.”
“I am real kind, Rose. Please give me the letter. You know that you are going to do a wicked and foolish thing. Rose, I have always thought you a very angel of purity and propriety. I cannot imagine a man like this touching the hem of your garment. 33 Give me the letter, Rose. Positively, it must not go to him.”
“I want to do right, Yanna.”
“I know you do.”
“But Dick is suffering; and I am sorry for him.”
“We have no right to be sorry for the wicked. The wicked ought to suffer; sympathy for them, or with them, is not blessed. I am so glad to see you crying, Rose. If you sent that letter, it would trouble your soul, as a mote in your eye would torture your sight. In both cases, the trouble would be to wash out with tears. Give me the letter, and I will destroy it.”
Then Rose laid it upon the table, and buried her face in her pillow, sobbing bitterly, “I do like Dick! Right or wrong, I want to see him.”
“I may tear up the letter, Rose? It must be done. Shall I do it?”
“Could you not let Dick call at your house once? Only once?”
“It is not my house. I should have to ask father.”
“Only once, Yanna!”
“Things that are permissible ‘only once’ ought never to be done at all. Do you remember how often Miss Mitchell told us that?”
“Miss Mitchell never had a lover in her life. People always do see lovers ‘once more.’”
“Then ask Mrs. Filmer if you cannot do so.”
“Certainly, she could not be more cruel than you are. Oh, Yanna! I am so disappointed in you!”
Then Yanna began to cry, and the girls mingled their tears; and when they had swept away their disappointment in each other, the letter was torn into little shreds as a peace offering; and they bathed their faces, and lay down for an hour. Yanna was sure she 34 had conquered; but it was but a temporary victory; for as soon as she was alone, Rose began to blame herself.
“I always was under that girl,” she thought, “and I quite forgot about her father being only a stone mason. Poor Dick! I must send him half-a-dozen lines; and suppose I tell him that I walk in the mornings, by the little lake in the woods called ‘Laurel Water’? If he finds me out there, he will deserve to see me; and if not – there is no harm done.”
Yet this second letter, though written and sent, was not conceived with any satisfaction. Rose was conscience-hurt all the time she penned it; and very restless and unhappy after it had passed beyond her control. For she was in general obedient to the voice within her; expediency and propriety had both told her at the first, “You had better not write,” and she had not heeded them in the least; but she did find it very difficult to silence the imperative, “Thou shalt not!” of conscience. Still, it was done. Then she reflected that Dick would get her letter on Saturday morning, and might possibly come to Woodsome on Sunday. It would, therefore, be expedient to let Yanna return to her own home the next day; and also to find some excuse for remaining from church on Sabbath morning.
“One little fault breeds another little fault,” she thought, “but it is only for once.” And she did not perceive that she had called disobedience to parents, and premeditated absence from the service of God, “a little fault”; far less did she calculate what great faults might obtain tolerance if measured from such a false standard.
However, the hours went by, as apparently happy and innocent as if there were no contemplated sin 35 beneath them; conversation and music made interchanging melodies; and again the beautiful moonshine brought silence, and beaming eyes, and all the sweet and indefinable interpreters of love. And this night Harry, also, felt some of that strange sadness which is far more enthralling than laughter, song and dance, to those who can understand its speech. Rose did not. “How stupid we all are!” she exclaimed; and Harry glanced down into Yanna’s eyes, and pressed her arm closer to his side, and knew that words were unnecessary.
In the morning, Mr. Filmer came from town. He was a small, slender man, with an imperturbable manner, and that mystical type of face often seen in old portraits: a man whom Adriana rightly judged to be made up of opposite qualities, his most obvious side being that of suave, indifferent complaisance. He was exceedingly kind to Adriana, and spoke with real warmth of feeling about her father. “I count it a good thing to have come in contact with him,” he said, “for I think better of all men for his sake. It is his religion,” he added. “What a Calvinist he is! We had some talks I never shall forget.”
He appeared to take no interest in the household affairs, and Mrs. Filmer did not trouble him about its details. He was, in fact, bookishly selfish; his only enquiry being one concerning the library and some boxes of books which he had sent. If the garden, the stables, the horses or servants were alluded to, he was miles away; for he had long ago explained to Mrs. Filmer that these things were not necessary to his happiness; and that, therefore, if she insisted upon being troubled with them, she must bear the worries and annoyances they were sure to bring.
He really lost little by this arrangement; for Mr. Filmer’s cleverness and deep learning was the family superstition. Rose said she “felt as if a clergyman were present all the time papa was at home,” and Mrs. Filmer and Harry spoke with mysterious respect of the great work which occupied Mr. Filmer’s thoughts and time. Harry told Adriana that “it was a ‘History of Civilization’ rather on Mr. Buckle’s lines, but much more philosophical.” And it was evident Harry firmly believed in his father; which might not have been the case if the two men had been busy together, looking after other people’s money, or telling smart, scandalous stories in the club windows.
In fact, if Mr. Filmer had deliberately selected a rôle which would bring him the least trouble and the most honor, he could not have done better unto himself. As it was, whenever he came out of his retirement, and condescendingly put himself on a level with the family dinner-table, he was the guest of honor; for usually his little delicacies were carried with elaborate nicety into the small private room adjoining the library. Every one tried to make him understand how great was the favor of his presence; and Adriana, though she knew nothing of his peculiarities, was able to perceive even in the passing conversation of the hour, a different influence. Harry generally set the key at that light tone which touches society in those moods when it chases gaiety till out of breath. There was always a deeper meaning in his father’s opinions and reflections; and the family were apt to look admiringly at one another when their profundity was greater than usual.
In the middle of the meal, there fell upon the company one of those infectious silences which the “folk” 37 explain by saying “an angel passes”; but which Harry broke by a question:
“Why this silence?” he asked.
“Why this recollection?” Mr. Filmer immediately substituted. “What are you all remembering? Speak, my dear,” he said to Mrs. Filmer.
“I was recalling the fact that I had not written a line in my diary for a month.”
“I congratulate you, Emma! People who are happy do not write down their happiness. And you, Miss Van Hoosen?”
“I was remembering some boys that Mr. Filmer and I met in the wood this morning. They were rifling a thrush’s nest. I begged them not to do it; but then, boys will be boys.”
“That is the trouble. If they could only be dogs, or any other reasonable, useful, or inoffensive creature! But alas! a good boy is an unnatural boy. Now, Rose, where did your memory stray?”
“To Letitia Landon’s wedding. She married Mr. Landon because he was rich, and I was remembering her old lover, Horace Key, standing in the aisle, watching the wedding. There were three at that wedding, I think.”
“And in such cases, two is matrimony, and three divorce. As to your memories, Harry? Are they repeatable?”
“I was thinking of the insane pace and frivolities of the past season; and if I had not spoken, I should have got as far as a reflection on the bliss of a quiet country life, like the present.”
“You must remember, Harry, that the ‘frivolity’ of the multitude is never frivolous – it portends too much.”
“And pray, sir, in what direction went your memory?”
“No further than the ferry boat. It gave me, this morning, an opportunity of studying human nature, in its betting aspect.”
“What did you think of it, sir?”
“I thought instantly of Disraeli’s definition of the Turf: – ‘this institution for national demoralization.’”
“Is it worse than politics?”
“Yes. Loyalty to one’s country is fed upon sentiment, or self-interest. Americans are a sentimental race – whether they know it or not – and Americans do not, as a general rule, want their country to pay them for loving her. Do you, Harry?”
“No, indeed, sir!”
“There are tens of thousands just as loyal as you are.”
“When women get the suffrage,” said Rose, “politics will be better and purer.”
“Oh, Rosie! are there not politicians enough in America, without women increasing the awful sum?”
“We feel compelled to increase it, papa. Noblesse oblige, if you will read sex for rank. I intend to be a Socialist.”
