That Fortune

XVIII

Upon the recollection of this dinner Philip maintained his hope and courage for a long time. The day after it, New York seemed more brilliant to him than it had ever been. In the afternoon he rode down to the Battery. It was a mild winter day, with a haze in the atmosphere that softened all outlines and gave an enchanting appearance to the harbor shores. The water was silvery, and he watched a long time the craft plying on it—the businesslike ferry-boats, the spiteful tugs, the great ocean steamers, boldly pushing out upon the Atlantic through the Narrows or cautiously drawing in as if weary with the buffeting of the waves. The scene kindled in him a vigorous sense of life, of prosperity, of longing for the activity of the great world.

Clearly he must do something and not be moping in indecision. Uncertainty is harder to bear than disaster itself. When he thought of Evelyn, and he always thought of her, it seemed cowardly to hesitate. Celia, after her first outburst of enthusiasm, had returned to her cautious advice. The law was much surer. Literature was a mere chance. Why not be content with his little success and buckle down to his profession? Perhaps by-and-by he would have leisure to indulge his inclination. The advice seemed sound.

But there was Evelyn, with her innocent question.

“Would the law pay you?” Evelyn? Would he be more likely to win her by obeying the advice of Celia, or by trusting to Evelyn's inexperienced discernment? Indeed, what chance was there to win her at all? What had he to offer her?

His spirits invariably fell when he thought of submitting his pretensions to the great man of Wall Street or to his worldly wife. Already it was the gossip of the clubs that Lord Montague was a frequent visitor at the Mavicks', that he was often seen in their box at the opera, and that Mrs. Mavick had said to Bob Shafter that it was a scandal to talk of Lord Montague as a fortune-hunter. He was a most kind-hearted, domestic man. She should not join in the newspaper talk about him. He belonged to an old English family, and she should be civil to him. Generally she did not fancy Englishmen, and this one she liked neither better nor worse because he had a title. And when you came to that, why shouldn't any American girl marry her equal?

As to Montague, he was her friend, and she knew that he had not the least intention at present of marrying anybody. And then the uncharitable gossip went on, that there was the Count de l'Auney, and that Mrs. Mavick was playing the one off against the other.

As the days went on and spring began to appear in the light, fleeting clouds in the blue sky and in the greening foliage in the city squares, Philip became more and more restless. The situation was intolerable. Evelyn he could never see. Perhaps she wondered that he made no effort to see her. Perhaps she never thought of him at all, and simply, like an obedient child, accepted her mother's leading, and was getting to like that society life which was recorded in the daily journals. What did it matter to him whether he stuck to the law or launched himself into the Bohemia of literature, so long as doubt about Evelyn haunted him day and night? If she was indifferent to him, he would know the worst, and go about his business like a man. Who were the Mavicks, anyway?

Alice had written him once that Evelyn was a dear girl, no one could help loving her; but she did not like the blood of father and mother. “And remember, Phil—you must let me say this—there is not a drop of mean blood in your ancestors.”

Philip smiled at this. He was not in love with Mrs. Mavick nor with her husband. They were for him simply guardians of a treasure he very much coveted, and yet they were to a certain extent ennobled in his mind as the authors of the being he worshiped. If it should be true that his love for her was returned, it would not be possible even for them to insist upon a course that would make their daughter unhappy for life. They might reject him—no doubt he was a wholly unequal match for the heiress—but could they, to the very end, be cruel to her?

Thus the ingenuous young man argued with himself, until it seemed plain to him that if Evelyn loved him, and the conviction grew that she did, all obstacles must give way to this overmastering passion of his life. If he were living in a fool's paradise he would know it, and he ventured to put his fortune to the test of experiment. The only manly course was to gain the consent of the parents to ask their daughter to marry him; if not that, then to be permitted to see her. He was nobly resolved to pledge himself to make no proposals to her without their approval.

This seemed a very easy thing to do until he attempted it. He would simply happen into Mr. Mavick's office, and, as Mr. Mavick frequently talked familiarly with him, he would contrive to lead the conversation to Evelyn, and make his confession. He mapped out the whole conversation, and even to the manner in which he would represent his own prospects and ambitions and his hopes of happiness. Of course Mr. Mavick would evade, and say that it would be a long time before they should think of disposing of their daughter's hand, and that—well, he must see himself that he was in no position to support a wife accustomed to luxury; in short, that one could not create situations in real life as he could in novels, that personally he could give him no encouragement, but that he would consult his wife.

This dream got no further than a private rehearsal. When he called at Mr. Mavick's office he learned that Mr. Mavick had gone to the Pacific coast, and that he would probably be absent several weeks. But Philip could not wait. He resolved to end his torture by a bold stroke. He wrote to Mrs. Mavick, saying that he had called at Mr. Mavick's office, and, not finding him at home, he begged that she would give him an interview concerning a matter of the deepest personal interest to himself.

Mrs. Mavick understood in an instant what this meant. She had feared it. Her first impulse was to write him a curt note of a character that would end at once all intercourse. On second thought she determined to see him, to discover how far the affair had gone, and to have it out with him once for all. She accordingly wrote that she would have a few minutes at half past five the next day.

As Philip went up the steps of the Mavick house at the appointed hour, he met coming out of the door—and it seemed a bad omen—Lord Montague, who seemed in high spirits, stared at Philip without recognition, whistled for his cab, and drove away.

Mrs. Mavick received him politely, and, without offering her hand, asked him to be seated. Philip was horribly embarrassed. The woman was so cool, so civil, so perfectly indifferent. He stammered out something about the weather and the coming spring, and made an allusion to the dinner at Mrs. Van Cortlandt's. Mrs. Mavick was not in the mood to help him with any general conversation, and presently said, looking at her watch:

“You wrote me that you wanted to consult me. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“It was a personal matter,” said Philip, getting control of himself.

“So you wrote. Mr. Mavick is away, and if it is in regard to anything in your office, any promotion, you know, I don't understand anything about business.” And Mrs. Mavick smiled graciously.

“No, it is not about the office. I should not think of troubling my friends in that way. It is just that—”

“Oh, I see,” Mrs. Mavick interrupted, with good-humor, “it's about the novel. I hear that it has sold very well. And you are not certain whether its success will warrant your giving up your clerkship. Now as for me,” and she leaned back in her chair, with the air of weighing the chances in her mind, “it doesn't seem to me that a writer—”

“No, it is not that,” said Philip, leaning forward and looking her full in the face with all the courage he could summon, “it is your daughter.”

“What!” cried Mrs. Mavick, in a tone of incredulous surprise.

“I was afraid you would think me very presumptuous.”

“Presumptuous! Why, she is a child. Do you know what you are talking about?”

“My mother married at eighteen,” said Philip, gently.

“That is an interesting piece of information, but I don't see its bearing. Will you tell me, Mr. Burnett, what nonsense you have got into your head?”

“I want,” and Philip spoke very gently—“I want, Mrs. Mavick, permission to see your daughter.”

“Ah! I thought in Rivervale, Mr. Burnett, that you were a gentleman. You presume upon my invitation to this house, in an underhand way, to—What right have you?”

Mrs. Mavick was so beside herself that she could hardly speak. The lines in her face deepened into wrinkles and scowls. There was something malevolent and mean in it. Philip was astonished at the transformation. And she looked old and ugly in her passion.

“You!” she repeated.

“It is only this, Mrs. Mavick,” and Philip spoke calmly, though his blood was boiling at her insulting manner—“it is only this—I love your daughter.”

“And you have told her this?”

“No, never, never a word.”

“Does she know anything of this absurd, this silly attempt?”

“I am afraid not.”

“Ah! Then you have spared yourself one humiliation. My daughter's affections are not likely to be placed where her parents do not approve. Her mother is her only confidante. I can tell you, Mr. Burnett, and when you are over this delusion you will thank me for being so plain with you, my daughter would laugh at the idea of such a proposal. But I will not have her annoyed by impecunious aspirants.”

“Madam!” cried Philip, rising, with a flushed face, and then he remembered that he was talking to Evelyn's mother, and uttered no other word.

“This is ended.” And then, with a slight change of manner, she went on: “You must see how impossible it is. You are a man of honor.

“I should like to think well of you. I shall trust to your honor that you will never try, by letter or otherwise, to hold any communication with her.”

“I shall obey you,” said Philip, quite stiffly, “because you are her mother. But I love her, and I shall always love her.”

Mrs. Mavick did not condescend to any reply to this, but she made a cold bow of dismissal and turned away from him. He left the house and walked away, scarcely knowing in which direction he went, anger for a time being uppermost in his mind, chagrin and defeat following, and with it the confused feeling of a man who has passed through a cyclone and been landed somewhere amid the scattered remnants of his possessions.

As he strode away he was intensely humiliated. He had been treated like an inferior. He had voluntarily put himself in a position to be insulted. Contempt had been poured upon him, his feelings had been outraged, and there was no way in which he could show his resentment. Presently, as his anger subsided, he began to look at the matter more sanely. What had happened? He had made an honorable proposal. But what right had he to expect that it would be favorably considered? He knew all along that it was most unlikely that Mrs. Mavick would entertain for a moment idea of such a match. He knew what would be the unanimous opinion of society about it. In the case of any other young man aspiring to the hand of a rich girl, he knew very well what he should have thought.

Well, he had done nothing dishonorable. And as he reviewed the bitter interview he began to console himself with the thought that he had not lost his temper, that he had said nothing to be regretted, nothing that he should not have said to the mother of the girl he loved. There was an inner comfort in this, even if his life were ruined.

Mrs. Mavick, on the contrary, had not so good reason to be satisfied with herself. It was a principle of her well-ordered life never to get into a passion, never to let herself go, never to reveal herself by intemperate speech, never to any one, except occasionally to her husband when his cold sarcasm became intolerable. She felt, as soon as the door closed on Philip, that she had made a blunder, and yet in her irritation she committed a worse one. She went at once to Evelyn's room, resolved to make it perfectly sure that the Philip episode was ended. She had had suspicions about her daughter ever since the Van Cortlandt dinner. She would find out if they were justified, and she would act decidedly before any further mischief was done. Evelyn was alone, and her mother kissed her fondly several times and then threw herself into an easy-chair and declared she was tired.

“My dear, I have had such an unpleasant interview.”

“I am sorry,” said Evelyn, seating herself on the arm of the chair and putting her arm round her mother's neck. “With whom, mamma?”

“Oh, with that Mr. Burnett.” Mrs. Mavick felt a nervous start in the arm that caressed her.

“Here?”

“Yes, he came to see your father, I fancy, about some business. I think he is not getting on very well.”

“Why, his book—”

“I know, but that amounts to nothing. There is not much chance for a lawyer's clerk who gets bitten with the idea that he can write.”

“If he was in trouble, mamma,” said Evelyn, softly, “then you were good to him.”

“I tried to be,” Mrs. Mavick half sighed, “but you can't do anything with such people” (by 'such people' Mrs. Mavick meant those who have no money) “when they don't get on. They are never reasonable. And he was in such an awful bad temper. You cannot show any kindness to such people without exposing yourself. I think he presumes upon his acquaintance with your father. It was most disagreeable, and he was so rude” (a little thrill in the arm again)—“well, not exactly rude, but he was not a bit nice to me, and I am afraid I showed by my looks that I was irritated. He was just as disagreeable as he could be.

“He met Lord Montague on the steps, and he had something spiteful to say about him. I had to tell him he was presuming a good deal on his acquaintance, and that I considered his manner insulting. He flung out of the house very high and mighty.”

“That was not a bit like him, mamma.”

“We didn't know him. That is all. Now we do, and I am thankful we do. He will never come here again.”

Evelyn was very still for a moment, and then she said: “I'm very sorry for it all. It must be some misunderstanding.”

“Of course, it is dreadful to be so disappointed in people. But we have to learn. I don't know anything about his misunderstanding, but I did not misunderstand what he said. At any rate, after such an exposition we can have no further intercourse with him. You will not care to see any one who treated your mother in this way? If you love me, you cannot be friendly with him. I know you would not like to be.”

Evelyn did not reply for a moment. Her silence revealed the fact to the shrewd woman that she had not intervened a day too soon.

“You promise me, dear, that you will put the whole thing out of your mind?” and she drew her daughter closer to her and kissed her.

And then Evelyn said slowly: “I shall not have any friends whom you do not approve, but, mamma, I cannot be unjust in my mind.”

And Mrs. Mavick had the good sense not to press the question further. She still regarded Evelyn as a child. Her naivete, her simplicity, her ignorance of social conventions and of the worldly wisdom which to Mrs. Mavick was the sum of all knowledge misled her mother as to her power of discernment and her strength of character. Indeed, Mrs. Mavick had only the slightest conception of that range of thought and feeling in which the girl habitually lived, and of the training which at the age of eighteen had given her discipline, and great maturity of judgment as well. She would be obedient, but she was incapable of duplicity, and therefore she had said as plainly as possible that whatever the trouble might be she would not be unjust to Philip.

The interview with her mother left her in a very distressed state of mind. It is a horrible disillusion when a girl begins to suspect that her mother is not sincere, and that her ideals of life are mean. This knowledge may exist with the deepest affection—indeed, in a noble mind, with an inward tenderness and an almost divine pity. How many times have we seen a daughter loyal to a frivolous, worldly-minded, insincere mother, shielding her and exhibiting to the censorious world the utmost love and trust!

Evelyn was far from suspecting the extent of her mother's duplicity, but her heart told her that an attempt had been made to mislead her, and that there must be some explanation of Philip's conduct that would be consistent with her knowledge of his character. And, as she endeavored to pierce this mystery, it dawned upon her that there had been a method in throwing her so much into the society of Lord Montague, and that it was unnatural that such a friend as Philip should be seen so seldom—only twice since the days in Rivervale. Naturally the very reverse of suspicious, she had been dreaming on things to come in the seclusion of her awakening womanhood, without the least notion that the freedom of her own soul was to be interfered with by any merely worldly demands. But now things that had occurred, and that her mother had said, came back to her with a new meaning, and her trustful spirit was overwhelmed. And there, in the silence of her chamber, began the fierce struggle between desire and what she called her duty—a duty imposed from without.

She began to perceive that she was not free, that she was a part of a social machine, the power of which she had not at all apprehended, and that she was powerless in its clutch. She might resist, but peace was gone. She had heretofore found peace in obedience, but when she consulted her own heart she knew that she could not find peace in obedience now. To a girl differently reared, perhaps, subterfuge, or some manoeuvring justified by the situation, might have been resorted to. But such a thing never occurred to Evelyn. Everything looked dark before her, as she more clearly understood her mother's attitude, and for the first time in years she could do nothing but give way to emotions.

“Why, Evelyn, you have been crying!” exclaimed the governess, who came to seek her. “What is the matter?”

Evelyn arose and threw herself on her friend's neck for a moment, and then, brushing away the tears, said, with an attempt to smile, “Oh, nothing; I got thinking, thinking, thinking, and Don't you ever get blue, McDonald?”

“Not often,” said the Scotchwoman, gravely. “But, dear, you have nothing in the world to make you so.”

“No, no, nothing;” and then she broke down again, and threw herself upon McDonald's bosom in a passion of sobbing. “I can't help it. Mamma says Phil—Mr. Burnett—is never to come to this house again. What have I done? And he will think—he will think that I hate him.”

McDonald drew the girl into her lap, and with uncommon gentleness comforted her with caresses.

“Dear child,” she said, “crosses must come into our lives; we cannot help that. Your mother is no doubt doing what she thinks best for your own happiness. Nothing can really hurt us for long, you know that well, except what we do to ourselves. I never told you why I came to this country—I didn't want to sadden you with my troubles—but now I want you to understand me better. It is a long story.”

But it was not very long in the telling, for the narrator found that what seemed to her so long in the suffering could be conveyed to another in only a few words. And the story was not in any of its features new, except to the auditor. There had been a long attachment, passionate love and perfect trust, long engagement, marriage postponed because both were poor, and the lover struggling into his profession, and then, it seemed sudden and unaccountable, his marriage with some one else. “It was not like him,” said the governess in conclusion; “it was his ambition to get on that blinded him.”

“And he, was he happy?” asked Evelyn.

“I heard that he was not” (and she spoke reluctantly); “I fear not. How could he be?” And the governess seemed overwhelmed in a flood of tender and painful memories. “That was over twenty years ago. And I have been happy, my darling, I have had such a happy life with you.

“I never dreamed I could have such a blessing. And you, child, will be happy too; I know it.”

And the two women, locked in each other's arms, found that consolation in sympathy which steals away half the grief of the world. Ah! who knows a woman's heart?

For Philip there was in these days no such consolation. It was a man's way not to seek any, to roll himself up in his trouble like a hibernating bear. And yet there were times when he had an intolerable longing for a confidant, for some one to whom he could relieve himself of part of his burden by talking. To Celia he could say nothing. Instinct told him that he should not go to her. Of the sympathy of Alice he was sure, but why inflict his selfish grief on her tender heart? But he was writing to her often, he was talking to her freely about his perplexities, about leaving the office and trusting himself to the pursuit of literature in some way. And, in answer to direct questions, he told her that he had seen Evelyn only a few times, and, the fact was, that Mrs. Mavick had cut him dead. He could not give to his correspondent a very humorous turn to this situation, for Alice knew—had she not seen them often together, and did she not know the depths of Philip's passion? And she read between the lines the real state of the case. Alice was indignant, but she did not think it wise to make too much of the incident. Of Evelyn she wrote affectionately—she knew she was a noble and high-minded girl. As to her mother, she dismissed her with a country estimate. “You know, Phil, that I never thought she was a lady.”

But the lover was not to be wholly without comfort. He met by chance one day on the Avenue Miss McDonald, and her greeting was so cordial that he knew that he had at least one friend in the house of Mavick.

It was a warm spring day, a stray day sent in advance, as it were, to warn the nomads of the city that it was time to move on. The tramps in Washington Square felt the genial impulse, and, seeking the shaded benches, began to dream of the open country, the hospitable farmhouses, the nooning by wayside springs, and the charm of wandering at will among a tolerant and not too watchful people. Having the same abundant leisure, the dwellers up-town—also nomads—were casting in their minds how best to employ it, and the fortunate ones were already gathering together their flocks and herds and preparing to move on to their camps at Newport or among the feeding-hills of the New-England coast.

The foliage of Central Park, already heavy, still preserved the freshness of its new birth, and invited the stroller on the Avenue to its protecting shade. At Miss McDonald's suggestion they turned in and found a secluded seat.

“I often come here,” she said to Philip; “it is almost as peaceful as the wilderness itself.”

To Philip also it seemed peaceful, but the soothing influence he found in it was that he was sitting with the woman who saw Evelyn hourly, who had been with her only an hour ago.

“Yes,” she said, in reply to a question, “everybody is well. We are going to leave town earlier than usual this summer, as soon as Mr. Mavick returns. Mrs. Mavick is going to open her Newport house; she says she has had enough of the country. It is still very amusing to me to see how you Americans move about with the seasons, just like the barbarians of Turkestan, half the year in summer camps and half the year in winter camps.”

“Perhaps,” said Philip, “it is because the social pasturage gets poor.”

“Maybe,” replied the governess, continuing the conceit, “only the horde keeps pretty well together, wherever it is. I know we are to have a very gay season. Lots of distinguished foreigners and all that.”

“But,” said Philip, “don't England and the Continent long for the presence of Americans in the season in the same way?”

“Not exactly. It is the shop-keepers and hotels that sigh for the Americans. I don't think that American shop-keepers expect much of foreigners.”

“And you are going soon? I suppose Miss Mavick is eager to go also,” said Philip, trying to speak indifferently.

Miss McDonald turned towards him with a look of perfect understanding, and then replied, “No, not eager; she hasn't been in her usual spirits lately—no, not ill—and probably the change will be good for her. It is her first season, you know, and that is always exciting to a girl. Perhaps it is only the spring weather.”

It was some moments before either of them spoke again, and then Miss McDonald looked up—“Oh, Mr. Burnett, I have wanted to see you and have a talk with you about your novel. I could say so little in my note. We read it first together and then I read it alone, rather to sit in judgment on it, you know. I liked it better the second time, but I could see the faults of construction, and I could see, too, why it will be more popular with a few people than with the general public. You don't mind my saying—”

“Go on, the words of a friend.”

“Yes, I know, are sometimes hardest to bear. Well, it is lovely, ideal, but it seems to me you are still a little too afraid of human nature. You are afraid to say things that are common. And the deep things of life are pretty much all common. No, don't interrupt me. I love the story just as it is. I am glad you wrote it as you did. It was natural, in your state of experience, that you should do it. But in your next, having got rid of what was on top of your mind, so to speak, you will take a firmer, more confident hold of life. You are not offended?”

“No, indeed,” cried Philip. “I am very grateful. No doubt you are right. It seems to me, now that I am detached from it, as if it were only a sort of prelude to something else.”

“Well, you must not let my single opinion influence you too much, for I must in honesty tell you another thing. Evelyn will not have a word of criticism of it. She says it is like a piece of music, and the impudent thing declares that she does not expect a Scotchwoman to understand anything but ballad music.”

Philip laughed at this, such a laugh as he had not indulged in for many days. “I hope you don't quarrel about such a little thing.”

“Not seriously. She says I may pick away at the story—and I like to see her bristle up—but that she looks at the spirit.”

“God bless her,” said Philip under his breath.

Miss McDonald rose, and they walked out into the Avenue again. How delightful was the genial air, the light, the blue sky of spring! How the brilliant Avenue, now filling up with afternoon equipages, sparkled in the sunshine!

When they parted, Miss McDonald gave him her hand and held his a moment, looking into his eyes. “Mr. Burnett, authors need some encouragement. When I left Evelyn she was going to her room with your book in her hand.”