CHAPTER XIV.
No one knows what change means, what frightful possibilities of sadness it covers, until one has such an experience as mine that night. In former times the Holt house had been a sort of fairyland to me: our own ménage was simple and inexpensive, and, in contrast, the profusion and splendor of Jack's home had impressed me powerfully. Their expenditure was not moderated by what we call good taste, and they did not possess that fine grace of compassing elegance without ostentation which is one of the last results of culture; but as a boy I had missed nothing that money could buy in their house, and I had often thought how my mother would shine there. Mr. Holt had been a man to look up to with respect, although somewhat arrogant and dictatorial, and Mrs. Holt—good, easy soul!—had enjoyed her prosperity with an equal pride and joy in her husband, her children, her silver plate, her heavy silks and her jewels, which, displayed in their satin cases, were the chief show in Belfield for the women, who used to tiptoe up the grand staircase to Mrs. Holt's dressing-room, and come down with awe in their faces.
Mrs. Holt at this later time I write of was a sad, soft-eyed little woman, with a patient smile: she was so much of a lady that her dress was neat and pleasing, although of the plainest. She kissed me when I went in with Jack, and I felt like going on my knees before her. She treated Jack as if he were older than herself, although with the utmost tenderness qualifying the respect she gave him; but I was a boy to her still, and she looked lovingly in my face and told me that she knew I was a comfort to my mother. I had been a good deal of a man in my own eyes in Europe, but in these familiar places I did not feel much older than I had done six years before, full-grown although I was, and so tall that I had to stoop very low to meet the little woman's kiss.
"Here is father," said Mrs. Holt in a tender, cooing voice; and she went up to a feeble old man in an arm-chair and began telling him that this was Floyd come back—Floyd Randolph, whom he used to like so well years ago. Mr. Holt looked at me with hopeless, bleared eyes, and shook his head and complained in mumbling tones that dinner was not ready, that nobody took care of him, that he was neglected by wife and son.
Jack himself led his father to the table, and it was a hard task to guide the tottering footsteps, but not so hard perhaps as for the poor wife to tend him while he ate as if he were a baby. There are sad things upon which one may dwell, for some sorrows bring sweetness with them, and give meaning and perfume to a life, just as the night is almost lovelier in its shadows than the garish day; but I cannot write about Jack's troubles, for it was so pitiful to me to see this strong man so fretted, so bound, by the fine chains which duty sometimes forges for men. The meal we ate was of the poorest, but I think there is no bitterness in bearing personal deprivation, and I did not pity Jack that neither the taste of the palate nor the taste of the eye could be gratified at his board; but when I saw him playing backgammon with his father afterward I did pity him. The old man's hand shook so that his wife had to guide his wrist as he threw the dice, and he burst into senile tears if the throw did not suit him. But Jack was hopeful and cordial through it all, and would patiently tell his father little trifles of news about his business, and engage his attention so kindly that once or twice the heavy fallen features would almost gather expression again. At such times happy tears would start to Mrs. Holt's eyes. "I do believe father's getting better," she would say, looking at her son.
It was still early, however, when Jack and I were left alone. He had carried the poor old man to bed, and now for a few hours the burden had fallen from the son.
"Let us go out and walk about the old places," said he. "The house is dreary, is it not?"
"I have only thought of you all, Jack," was my answer. "My dreariness has not been induced by the look of the house. Still, when I do look around and see the rich carpets gone, the pictures, statues, all the thousand beautiful things we used to take pleasure in, I say to myself, 'This just man will have his reward.' Don't despond, Jack: I tell you, things will come right again."
"Thank you, Floyd," said he in his cool way. "I am better for having seen you. But let us talk of something besides my troubles to-night. It is a sweet evening."
He took my arm, and we walked out along the avenue into the street. It was a beautiful night, calm and warm, with a full moon shining down upon the deserted squares. We went up the hill and stood on the steps of the academy, then sat down upon a bench on the playground beneath the poplars, and found our initials there where we had cut them years before. Missing Dart in these old familiar places, it was natural for us to talk of him, for, well as Jack loved me, Harry was his dearest friend. A peculiar tenderness had always knit their hearts together, and it had been another sorrow to Holt that in all his trouble his cousin was too far away to give him a glance of his eyes, a grip of his strong hand.
I told him all I knew of Harry. We had not been mistaken in our estimate of his genius: he had not been in Rome three months before the famous Z——had become interested in him and allowed him to study in his atelier. Every one predicted success for the young artist, and dealers were already beginning to buy up his pictures, paying a mere song for studies to-day which years hence they expected to sell for a big sum on the strength of the reputation he would have gained. Harry's strong points were his unequalled distinctness of vision and his intensity of feeling for art. He put a passionate throb into every movement of his brush. When once an idea occurred to him as desirable to work out, it defined itself to his imagination with a reality, a power, an amplitude of detail, which blinded him for the time being to everything else, and he worked so faithfully that he stamped his conception and his meaning upon not only every figure, but every accessory of his picture; so that the most commonplace observer gazed at his canvas with some of the same feeling with which he gazed at an experience of life. But Z—— was not yet satisfied to have him attempt compositions, and he was spending much time over the curious processes by which the perfection of skill in art is attained—productive analyses of coloring, light, shadow and the mellowed harmonies of time-worn pictures.
"We shall be proud of Harry by and by," said Holt as I paused. "I hope he won't stay too long abroad. I have missed you so, Floyd!" And we fell to telling stories of our boyhood, and again and again Jack's laugh broke the silence of the night, for there were droll tales to tell. We heard the chimes of midnight before we stirred from our seat, and then we moved with some reluctance, for the moonlight was rare, and the light upon the water where the sea-line showed through the interstices of the trees was a silvery radiance too blessed to lose. But at last we rose and moved carelessly homeward. We did not take the nearest way, but turned as with one intention through another street than that by which we came. Our feet knew the way to a little Gothic cottage on the hill, and we stood outside silently for a time. No sight or sound of any creature stirring in the world but ourselves met eyes or ears. No light was in the windows, and the blinds of a casement beneath the gable were close drawn. I wondered if a white hand had closed them a few hours before, and if a fair sleep-flushed face and bright disordered hair lay on the pillow inside. Just then some bird, brooding over her three eggs in her nest, stirred drowsily and cooed softly at some delicious dream of love or maternity. It broke the spell, and we turned to go away.
"Don't fancy," said Jack, "that this is a habit of mine. I have not been here before since December."
"Is she here?"
"I have no idea. I never hear her name, and when I am in church I never turn to look."
I left Belfield early the next morning, and pursued my way to The Headlands. I had many thoughts of Jack as I went on, wondering if this cruel and irremediable wrong which Fate had inflicted was to shadow all his life. Indeed, I felt disheartened, for I had warm sympathies; and besides, the cruel prose of his experience broke upon the easy, pleasure-loving harmony of my life like the sudden crash of kettledrums in the midst of moribund flute melody. I had always possessed too much leisure not to have become saddened and perplexed at times with doubts before the eternal problem of life; and they all returned now, and not until I reached The Headlands in the late afternoon did I rouse myself into an anticipation of the pleasant life I was to meet.