The Celebrity, Complete

CHAPTER VI

As an endeavor to unite Mohair and Asquith the cotillon had proved a dismal failure. They were as the clay and the brass. The next morning Asquith was split into factions and rent by civil strife, and the porch of the inn was covered by little knots of women, all trying to talk at once; their faces told an ominous tale. Not a man was to be seen. The Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Chicago papers, all of which had previously contained elaborate illustrated accounts of Mr. Cooke's palatial park and residence, came out that morning bristling with headlines about the ball, incidentally holding up the residents of a quiet and retiring little community in a light that scandalized them beyond measure. And Mr. Charles Wrexell Allen, treasurer of the widely known Miles Standish Bicycle Company, was said to have led the cotillon in a manner that left nothing to be desired.

So it was this gentleman whom the Celebrity was personating! A queer whim indeed.

After that, I doubt if the court of Charles the Second was regarded by the Puritans with a greater abhorrence than was Mohair by the good ladies of Asquith. Mr. Cooke and his ten friends were branded as profligates whose very scarlet coats bore witness that they were of the devil. Mr. Cooke himself, who particularly savored of brimstone, would much better have remained behind the arras, for he was denounced with such energy and bitterness that those who might have attempted his defence were silent, and their very silence told against them. Mr. Cooke had indeed outdone himself in hospitality. He had posted punch-bowls in every available corner, and so industriously did he devote himself to the duties of host, as he conceived them, that as many as four of the patriarchs of Asquith and pillars of the church had returned home more or less insensible, while others were quite incoherent. The odds being overwhelming, the master of Mohair had at length fallen a victim to his own good cheer. He took post with Judge Short at the foot of the stair, where, in spite of the protests of the Celebrity and of other well-disposed persons, the two favored the parting guests with an occasional impromptu song and waved genial good-byes to the ladies. And, when Mrs. Short attempted to walk by with her head in the air, as though the judge were in an adjoining county, he so far forgot his judicial dignity as to chuck her under the chin, an act which was applauded with much boyish delight by Mr. Cooke, and a remark which it is just as well not to repeat. The judge desired to spend the night at Mohair, but was afterwards taken home by main force, and the next day his meals were brought up to him. It is small wonder that Mrs. Short was looked upon as the head of the outraged party. The Ten were only spoken of in whispers. Three of them had been unable to come to time when the last figure was called, whereupon their partners were whisked off the scene without so much as being allowed to pay their respects to the hostess. Besides these offences, there were other minor barbarisms too numerous to mention.

Although Mrs. Short's party was all-powerful at Asquith, there were some who, for various reasons, refused to agree in the condemnation of Mr. Cooke. Judge Short and the other gentlemen in his position were, of course, restricted, but Mr. Trevor came out boldly in the face of severe criticism and declared that his daughter should accept any invitation from Mrs. Cooke that she chose, and paid but little attention to the coolness resulting therefrom. He was fast getting a reputation for oddity. And the Celebrity tried to conciliate both parties, and succeeded, though none but he could have done it. At first he was eyed with suspicion and disgust as he drove off to Mohair in his Hempstead cart, and was called many hard names. But he had a way about him which won them in the end.

A few days later I ran over to Mohair and found my client with the colored Sunday supplement of a Chicago newspaper spread out before him, eyeing the page with something akin to childish delight. I discovered that it was a picture of his own hunt ball, and as a bit of color it was marvellous, the scarlet coats being very much in evidence.

“There, old man!” he exclaimed. “What do you think of that? Something of a sendoff, eh?” And he pointed to a rather stout and important gentleman in the foreground. “That's me!” he said proudly, “and they wouldn't do that for Farquhar Fenelon Cooke in Philadelphia.”

“A prophet is without honor in his own country,” I remarked.

“I don't set up for a prophet,” said Mr. Cooke, “but I did predict that I would start a ripple here, didn't I?”

I did not deny this.

“How do I stand over there?” he inquired, designating Asquith by a twist of the head. “I hear they're acting all over the road; that they think I'm the very devil.”

“Well, your stock has dropped some, I admit,” I answered. “They didn't take kindly to your getting the judge drunk, you know.”

“They oughtn't to complain about that,” said my client; “and besides, he wasn't drunk enough to amount to anything.”

“However that may be,” said I, “you have the credit for leading him astray. But there is a split in your favor.”

“I'm glad to know that,” he said, brightening; “then I won't have to import any more.”

“Any more what?” I asked.

“People from the East to keep things moving, of course. What I have here and those left me at the inn ought to be enough to run through the summer with. Don't you think so?”

I thought so, and was moving off when he called me back.

“Is the judge locked up, old man?” he demanded.

“He's under rather close surveillance,” I replied, smiling.

“Crocker;” he said confidentially, “see if you can't smuggle him over here some day soon. The judge always holds good cards, and plays a number one hand.”

I promised, and escaped. On the veranda I came upon Miss Thorn surrounded by some of her uncle's guests. I imagine that she was bored, for she looked it.

“Mr. Crocker,” she called out, “you're just the man I have been wishing to see.”

The others naturally took this for a dismissal, and she was not long in coming to her point when we were alone.

“What is it you know about this queer but gifted genius who is here so mysteriously?” she asked.

“Nothing whatever,” I confessed. “I knew him before he thought of becoming a genius.”

“Retrogression is always painful,” she said; “but tell me something about him then.”

I told her all I knew, being that narrated in these pages. “Now,” said I, “if you will pardon a curiosity on my part, from what you said the other evening I inferred that he closely resembles the man whose name it pleased him to assume. And that man, I learn from the newspapers, is Mr. Charles Wrexell Allen of the 'Miles Standish Bicycle Company.'”

Miss Thorn made a comic gesture of despair.

“Why he chose Mr. Allen's name,” she said, “is absolutely beyond my guessing. Unless there is some purpose behind the choice, which I do not for an instant believe, it was a foolish thing to do, and one very apt to lead to difficulties. I can understand the rest. He has a reputation for eccentricity which he feels he must keep up, and this notion of assuming a name evidently appealed to him as an inspiration.”

“But why did he come out here?” I asked. “Can you tell me that?”

Miss Thorn flushed slightly, and ignored the question.

“I met the 'Celebrity,' as you call him,” she said, “for the first time last winter, and I saw him frequently during the season. Of course I had heard not a little about him and his peculiarities. His name seems to have gone the length and breadth of the land. And, like most girls, I had read his books and confess I enjoyed them. It is not too much to say,” she added archly, “that I made a sort of archangel out of the author.”

“I can understand that,” said I.

“But that did not last,” she continued hastily. “I see I have got beside my story. I saw a great deal of him in New York. He came to call, and I believe I danced with him once or twice. And then my aunt, Mrs. Rivers, bought a place near Epsom, in Massachusetts, and had a house party there in May. And the Celebrity was invited.”

I smiled.

“Oh, I assure you it was a mere chance,” said Miss Thorn. “I mention this that I may tell you the astonishing part of it all. Epsom is one of those smoky manufacturing towns one sees in New England, and the 'Miles Standish' bicycle is made there. The day after we all arrived at my aunt's a man came up the drive on a wheel whom I greeted in a friendly way and got a decidedly uncertain bow in return.

“I thought it rather a strange shift from a marked cordiality, and spoke of the circumstance to my aunt, who was highly amused. 'Why, my dear,' said she, 'that was Mr. Allen, of the bicycle company. I was nearly deceived myself.'”

“And is the resemblance so close as that?” I exclaimed.

“So close! Believe me, they are as like as two ices from a mould. Of course, when they are together one can distinguish the Celebrity from the bicycle man. The Celebrity's chin is a little more square, and his nose straighter, and there are other little differences. I believe Mr. Allen has a slight scar on his forehead. But the likeness was remarkable, nevertheless, and it grew to be a standing joke with us. They actually dressed ludicrously alike. The Celebrity became so sensitive about it that he went back to New York before the party broke up. We grew to be quite fond of the bicycle man.”

She paused and shifted her chair, which had rocked close to mine.

“And can you account for his coming to Asquith?” I asked innocently.

She was plainly embarrassed.

“I suppose I might account for it, Mr. Crocker,” she replied. Then she added, with something of an impulse, “After all, it is foolish of me not to tell you. You probably know the Celebrity well enough to have learned that he takes idiotic fancies to young women.”

“Not always idiotic,” I protested.

“You mean that the young women are not always idiotic, I suppose. No, not always, but nearly always. I imagine he got the idea of coming to Asquith,” she went on with a change of manner, “because I chanced to mention that I was coming out here on a visit.”

“Oh,” I remarked, and there words failed me.

Her mouth was twitching with merriment.

“I am afraid you will have to solve the rest of it for yourself, Mr. Crocker,” said she; “that is all of my contribution. My uncle tells me you are the best lawyer in the country, and I am surprised that you are so slow in getting at motives.”

And I did attempt to solve it on my way back to Asquith. The conclusion I settled to, everything weighed, was this: that the Celebrity had become infatuated with Miss Thorn (I was far from blaming him for that) and had followed her first to Epsom and now to Asquith. And he had chosen to come West incognito partly through the conceit which he admitted and gloried in, and partly because he believed his prominence sufficient to obtain for him an unpleasant notoriety if he continued long enough to track the same young lady about the country. Hence he had taken the trouble to advertise a trip abroad to account for his absence. Undoubtedly his previous conquests had been made more easily, for my second talk with Miss Thorn had put my mind at rest as to her having fallen a victim to his fascinations. Her arrival at Mohair being delayed, the Celebrity had come nearly a month too soon, and in the interval that tendency of which he was the dupe still led him by the nose; he must needs make violent love to the most attractive girl on the ground,—Miss Trevor. Now that one still more attractive had arrived I was curious to see how he would steer between the two, for I made no doubt that matters had progressed rather far with Miss Trevor. And in this I was not mistaken.

But his choice of the name of Charles Wrexell Allen bothered me considerably. I finally decided that he had taken it because convenient, and because he believed Asquith to be more remote from the East than the Sandwich Islands.

Reaching the inn grounds, I climbed the hillside to a favorite haunt of mine, a huge boulder having a sloping back covered with soft turf. Hence I could watch indifferently both lake and sky. Presently, however, I was aroused by voices at the foot of the rock, and peering over the edge I discovered a kind of sewing-circle gathered there. The foliage hid me completely. I perceived the Celebrity perched upon the low branch of an apple-tree, and Miss Trevor below him, with two other girls, doing fancy-work. I shall not attempt to defend the morality of my action, but I could not get away without discovery, and the knowledge that I had heard a part of their conversation might prove disquieting to them.

The Celebrity had just published a book, under the title of 'The Sybarites', which was being everywhere discussed; and Asquith, where summer reading was general, came in for its share of the debate. Why it was called The Sybarites I have never discovered. I did not read the book because I was sick and tired of the author and his nonsense, but I imbibed, in spite of myself, something of the story and its moral from hearing it talked about. The Celebrity himself had listened to arguments on the subject with great serenity, and was nothing loth to give his opinion when appealed to. I realized at once that 'The Sybarites' was the present topic.

“Yes, it is rather an uncommon book,” he was saying languidly, “but there is no use writing a story unless it is uncommon.”

“Dear, how I should like to meet the author!” exclaimed a voice. “He must be a charming man, and so young, too! I believe you said you knew him, Mr. Allen.”

“An old acquaintance,” he answered, “and I am always reminding him that his work is overestimated.”

“How can you say he is overestimated!” said a voice.

“You men are all jealous of him,” said another.

“Is he handsome? I have heard he is.”

“He would scarcely be called so,” said the Celebrity, doubtfully.

“He is, girls,” Miss Trevor interposed; “I have seen his photograph.”

“What does he look like, Irene?” they chorused. “Men are no judges.”

“He is tall, and dark, and broad-shouldered,” Miss Trevor enumerated, as though counting her stitches, “and he has a very firm chin, and a straight nose, and—”

“Perfect!” they cried. “I had an idea he was just like that. I should go wild about him. Does he talk as well as he writes, Mr. Allen?”

“That is admitting that he writes well.”

“Admitting?” they shouted scornfully, “and don't you admit it?”

“Some people like his writing, I have to confess,” said the Celebrity, with becoming calmness; “certainly his personality could not sell an edition of thirty thousand in a month. I think 'The Sybarites' the best of his works.”

“Upon my word, Mr. Allen, I am disgusted with you,” said the second voice; “I have not found a man yet who would speak a good word for him. But I did not think it of you.”

A woman's tongue, like a firearm, is a dangerous weapon, and often strikes where it is least expected. I saw with a wicked delight that the shot had told, for the Celebrity blushed to the roots of his hair, while Miss Trevor dropped three or four stitches.

“I do not see how you can expect men to like 'The Sybarites',” she said, with some heat; “very few men realize or care to realize what a small chance the average woman has. I know marriage isn't a necessary goal, but most women, as well as most men, look forward to it at some time of life, and, as a rule, a woman is forced to take her choice of the two or three men that offer themselves, no matter what they are. I admire a man who takes up the cudgels for women, as he has done.”

“Of course we admire him,” they cried, as soon as Miss Trevor had stopped for breath.

“And can you expect a man to like a book which admits that women are the more constant?” she went on.

“Why, Irene, you are quite rabid on the subject,” said the second voice; “I did not say I expected it. I only said I had hoped to find Mr. Allen, at least, broad enough to agree with the book.”

“Doesn't Mr. Allen remind you a little of Desmond?” asked the first voice, evidently anxious to avoid trouble.

“Do you know whom he took for Desmond, Mr. Allen? I have an idea it was himself.”

Mr. Allen, had now recovered some of his composure.

“If so, it was done unconsciously,” he said. “I suppose an author must put his best thoughts in the mouth of his hero.”

“But it is like him?” she insisted.

“Yes, he holds the same views.”

“Which you do not agree with.”

“I have not said I did not agree with them,” he replied, taking up his own defence; “the point is not that men are more inconstant than women, but that women have more excuse for inconstancy. If I remember correctly, Desmond, in a letter to Rosamond, says: 'Inconstancy in a woman, because of the present social conditions, is often pardonable. In a man, nothing is more despicable.' I think that is so. I believe that a man should stick by the woman to whom he has given his word as closely as he sticks by his friends.”

“Ah!” exclaimed the aggressive second voice, “that is all very well. But how about the woman to whom he has not given his word? Unfortunately, the present social conditions allow a man to go pretty far without a definite statement.”

At this I could not refrain from looking at Miss Trevor. She was bending over her knitting and had broken her thread.

“It is presumption for a man to speak without some foundation,” said the Celebrity, “and wrong unless he is sure of himself.”

“But you must admit,” the second voice continued, “that a man has no right to amuse himself with a woman, and give her every reason to believe he is going to marry her save the only manly and substantial one. And yet that is something which happens every day. What do you think of a man who deserts a woman under those conditions?”

“He is a detestable dog, of course,” declared the Celebrity.

And the cock in the inn yard was silent.

“I should love to be able to quote from a book at will,” said the quieting voice, for the sake of putting an end to an argument which bid fair to become disagreeable. “How do you manage to do it?”

“It was simply a passage that stuck in my mind,” he answered modestly; “when I read a book I pick them up just as a roller picks up a sod here and there as it moves over the lawn.”

“I should think you might write, Mr. Allen, you have such an original way of putting things!”

“I have thought of it,” returned the Celebrity, “and I may, some fine day.”

Wherewith he thrust his hands into his pockets and sauntered off with equanimity undisturbed, apparently unaware of the impression he had left behind him. And the Fifth Reader story popped into my head of good King William (or King Frederick, I forgot which), who had a royal fancy for laying aside the gayeties of the court and straying incognito among his plainer subjects, but whose princely origin was invariably detected in spite of any disguise his Majesty could invent.