III
It was Sunday morning. Philip pushed into the church as the congregation streamed out through the wide doors. He made his way up to the choir loft where a man had just risen from his seat before the organ. This was Franz Becker.
“You are late, Franz,” he observed.
“It is Communion Sunday,” Becker said in a deep beautiful voice. “That makes it late.”
“See here,” said Philip, “I wish you would ask me to dinner with you. Anson's home and I want to avoid him if possible.”
“Certainly,” answered Becker,—“by all means come with me.”
They went down and out of the church: Philip, light and active in all his movements; Becker, ponderous and slow—but masterful always, a man for the big things of his art. A warm friendship existed between the two. Philip had an intense admiration for the musician, who seemed to dwell in a state pretty evenly divided between abject despondency and settled rage. He respected this temperamental constancy. They were both friendless in a marked degree, neither of them being calculated to invite an extensive or varied acquaintance. Few people enjoyed Philip's conversation. Indeed, it was a special point with him that they should not. Nor did Becker rejoice in any great popularity. He was wholly repellent in his attitude toward the small world in which he moved—with a savage pride that was ever on the alert. He might have been in a primitive sort of way something of a social lion, but his taming was too imperfect to admit of it. His rudeness and barbarities comprised the most interesting anecdotes the town could furnish. Becker came of a class where poverty was the unvarying rule—meanness and commonness had been his earliest companions and in a moderated form these two kept their place at his side, chaining and crippling him, running him to the earth where he would have soared—a clog upon his steps forever.
Just how he had acquired his mastery of music none could tell. It was part instinct—part study—that in its feverish intensity was all but incomprehensible. His father had been a musician of more than passing note in the little German capital where he had lived, hoped and died, leaving the promise of his genius unfulfilled. There, his mother, after a brief widowhood, had married again, a man much beneath her in every respect. The marriage was followed by a speedy emigration to America, where a brother of her second husband had settled. Franz's stepfather was a shoemaker and had wished Franz to follow his trade; but as the boy grew and as inclination became purpose, and purpose in turn work, that which was locked up within him found expression. He could think and feel and dream. Best of all, perhaps, he discovered that his rare talent had a moneyed value that he was quick to profit by—then came the rush of ambition that was to carry him on and place him with the masters. It spent itself and he was left where it had found him—exhausted and wearied by the fruitless effort he had made. He could only go so far and no farther—circumstances drew in like a narrow circle about him. He was a giant set to do a dwarf's labor. From the start his mother and stepfather had strenuously opposed him on every hand.
However, when he had proved that music possessed a money value that he turned readily to account, they ceased to object—for money, like religion, is sacred, and not to be made light of.
But his determination to rise above the dependent and precarious position of an instructor they persistently combated. Enough to live on comfortably to them represented enough for soul and body alike. That his art meant to him expression and development, they never guessed and he never sought to explain. He was very patient with them and forgiving.
So, silently and without complaint, he drudged away as teacher and organist, his burden made heavy by innumerable younger brothers and sisters whom he was pushing with him into humble respectability.
Going back into the past he could recall the hard bitter season that came in his childhood and youth: there were things done then, want endured and privation, that even in the comparative luxury of his success made his heart sick with a deadly sense of shame and humiliation.
He could remember the death of a little baby sister that happened shortly after the family's arrival in the town. The memory of that event stood forth distinct and minute down to the least particular. It was one of those hopelessly miserable experiences he would have liked to forget, but could not.
There were many little ones then and they were very poor, indeed. His stepfather had not been able to pay for the assistance which is customary at such times, but had shaped a coffin with his own hands for the little body, and when all was ready, borrowing a horse and wagon from a neighbor, had driven to the graveyard, holding the pine box across his knees. As his mother was ill, and could not go, Franz had ridden alone with the shoemaker, who, even then, to all appearances was an old man bent and gray from much confinement to his bench. The small boy rode crouching in the bottom of the wagon, for there was not room for him upon the seat. He was long haunted by the vision, ineffaceable and clear, of his father, as he drove along, bending sadly over the burden in his lap, gray and somber, with the poor dignity of grief.
Their way took them past his uncle's store, for in a squalid fashion the brother was well-to-do. As they passed his place the child who huddled drearily in the bed of the cart, oppressed by an indefinite sense of sorrow, saw his uncle standing beside his open door in his shirt-sleeves—the center of a lounging group of idlers—and when the man became conscious of the nearness of the two, the wide-eyed child and the father, driving the horse, the coffin in his lap, he laughed aloud.
It was years afterward, when his uncle had quitted the town for a larger field somewhere in the West that the brooding solitary boy comprehended the full meaning of that day's ride, and it gave him an insight into the quality of human sympathy that one can safely rely upon receiving in the hour of need, far beyond his age. It served to augment a peculiar harshness of belief—a wish to keep to himself and from contact with others.
The family's poverty, which was beyond denial or subterfuge, only intensified this characteristic. His pride was like a raw sore;—the kindest touch was positive pain for him. Anything that savored of patronage or of condescension met with an instant and rude rebuff.
The Beckers—for the family was known by this name—a tacit recognition of Franz's importance and the family's unimportance that offended no one more than it did Franz—were extremely imposing as to numbers, with a majority in favor of the sterner sex, and the old shoemaker's patriotism had been evinced in the naming of his numerous offspring.
On the particular Sunday in question the midday meal was rendered more cheerful than otherwise by Bismarck and Von Molke, the two most youthful of Franz's half-brothers, who upset divers mugs of milk as well as pretty thoroughly smearing their small features with chicken gravy. Bismarck was finally ordered from the table by his father in very broken English because of some flagrant breach of good manners.
His exodus was shortly followed by that of his brothers and sisters who were in transit through that state of physical incompleteness, the sign of which is seen in the combining of long legs with diffidence.
These had eaten as though on a wager and one by one as they finished their meal slipped from their seats and took themselves off, the last mouthful in process of mastication.
Soon there remained only the old shoemaker, his wife, Franz, Philip and Von Molke—who still toiled manfully, albeit wearily, with a spoon tight-clutched in his chubby fist at whatever came within reach.
Bismarck had reappeared upon the scene. Into his small soul neither modesty nor diffidence had ever seeped even in microscopic quantities and he skirmished noiselessly about the room, always heedful of his father's guttural command to “go away”—promptly exiting at one door to appear as promptly at another with recriminations hoarse upon his lips against Von Molke, whose appetite, generaled with a nice knowledge of its capacity, bade fair to outlast the pudding.
With cold malignancy the latter's periodic cry of, “More, please,” would sound, and up would go his plate in spite of his brother's muffled entreaties that he should desist. In this manner Bismarck saw the last fragment of the pudding disposed of, which sight so maddened him that he forgot all caution and darted at Von Molke intent upon wresting the coveted prize from his possession.
In the moment of victory the strong arm of paternal law was interposed between the combatants and the assailant, hotly pursued by the assailed, was borne from the room in his father's arms to meet his punishment in the back yard.
“Come,” Franz said, rising. “Come, let us go to my room.”
And Philip followed him, hearing him mutter as he went: “Can he not wait when my friend is here?”
It was a large bare apartment they entered, carpetless and curtainless, with an iron bedstead at one side and a hideously ornate stove at the other.
Philip lounged down into a chair, searching in his pocket for pipe and tobacco.
Without—for the room overlooked the back yard—they could hear Bismarck and his father. The former was crying, while his parent was expostulating with him in mixed German and English, but the sounds of grief continued with no show of abatement.
“He has a vile temper,” Franz said, “when he is angry. The little boys are not bad as such little beasts go.”
“I think them amusing,” Philip responded. “The way in which a child profits by the presence of guests to gorge himself on dainties is a fair example of uncontrolled human nature.”
Just then they heard the patter of small feet beyond the door and a faint voice saying: “I want in!”
It was Bismarck, and he waited for no answer, but inserted himself ingratiatingly into the room, presenting a countenance whereon grief and gravy had combined with disastrous results.
He was still sobbing but managed to gasp:
“I ain't hurt. It ain't that—but I do hate to have a darned old foreigner bang me about—it hurts my feelings!”
And he made a dive into Franz's lap, burying his head against his breast where for exactly three minutes he remained with wriggling legs a victim of keen despair.
“There is Americanism for you with a vengeance, Franz,” said Philip.
The three minutes having expired and native depravity having usurped the place of anguish, Bismarck was forcibly expelled from the room and withdrew to more congenial fellowship with his brothers.
Philip broke the silence that succeeded Bismarck's expulsion in which they had both been actively engaged.
“Well,” he said, “I haven't seen you for a whole week, Franz. However, I don't suppose you have anything good to tell me.” Franz made a savage gesture that fully expressed a large disgust.
“Do you know, Franz,” Philip continued, “we haven't originated much over here except the Declaration of Independence and a beastly bargain-counter spirit in relation to the arts.” He paused a moment, then added laughingly: “One knows so much at twenty-four. I am frequently astonished at the scope of my critical capacity. It must be hereditary with me,—you know my father was a minister. They are the only class of men who enjoy the delightful privilege of unrestricted judgment. In that profession simple ignorance is not a hindrance, but rather a help.”
Franz was in no mood for frivolity. “You are more than apt to offend people by what you say. Of course with me it makes no difference. You should be more thoughtful.”
“I offend people, my dear fellow; that's what I am living for.”
Becker voiced the thought that was uppermost in his mind: “My father and mother think I am as successful as any man need be. They do not comprehend that what I am doing now is drudgery, a present makeshift only—that my career is all before me. The only opportunity I have had, and I should scarcely call it that, was five years ago when I went to New York, thinking, for I knew no better, that I might accomplish something there. I tramped the streets for days in my effort to get a hearing. I offered my manuscripts to any one who would print them, as a gift. Bah! it was the same always—native work had no value. If I could only get to Europe—there they know what is music and what is rubbish. My father and mother do not wish to be unkind but they are not informed in these matters, and when I came back beaten and more humiliated than I can say, I saw they were glad of my failure. Their thought was that I should have been satisfied, and their one regret was for the money I had expended in so vain an undertaking.”
His strong face showed plainly the pain that was his—the hunger and the longing.
Philip thought of those innumerable younger brothers. It would be years before any of them could come to the front and ease the load that kept Franz's shoulder to the wheel; meanwhile he was chained to a spot that could only give him suffering. There was danger, too, in the waiting. He might lose the very power to utilize his liberty when it did come. Men sometimes survive their inspiration and their genius.
Becker threw himself back in his chair: “We spend years in toiling for a little money that we may purchase opportunity and then—then, we die. Bah! what a fool one is to hope when the chances are all against him.”
“Did you ever speculate on the final adjustment? God's apology to man?”
Franz shook his head: “What presumption, to suppose God keeps any record of us—such atoms as we are!”
“Not at all. My religion holds the splendid comfort of conceit and is based on the thought that man—and by man I mean primarily myself—is all, that my work, my good resolutions—which are a source of constant annoyance and distress to me—entitle me to certain favors in this world and the world to come. To be sure, opposition to the divine will is rather useless—at best we can but squirm like very small fish over a hot fire. Still, I shall make reparation for the absurdity of my beliefs by the dignity and persistency of my revolt, on much the same principle that prompts me to swear when I hurt myself by a foolish attempt to walk through an obstructed doorway in the dark, not that it does any good, but just to express my contempt for the inexorable.”
Franz smoked his pipe thoughtfully. Philip occasionally shocked even his liberal ideas of propriety. They sat looking at the hideous little stove for a space and neither spoke. At last Philip said:
“Why, I say, haven't you a sort of a half-uncle in the West who could help you if he would? Can't you bone him for a start?”
Franz's brow darkened instantly: “You mean my step-father's brother? Don't speak of him.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” Philip made haste to say. “The fact is, I can stand almost anything in the shape of misfortune myself, except my relatives, but I thought it might be different with you.”
“You do not comprehend. This person I loathe. It is nothing to him, of course. He is a rich man. I wonder what good money can do a brute like that?”
He looked out of the window, watching the dead leaves the wind was blowing into drifts against the fence in the yard below, and added almost sadly: “I think hate has been a more potent factor in my growth than love—at least it has stirred my heart the deepest.”
“So your uncle is out of the question even though he should be willing to aid you?”
Becker struck the ashes from his pipe, remarking as he did so: “What can I do that will give me the longed-for opportunity? You are usually prolific in good advice.”
“You might marry money.”
“Never!” Franz interposed quickly. His friend's love-affair met with his strongest disapproval.
Philip ignored the interruption: “Now there is Mrs. Monroe. I have young Perkins' word for it that she admires you immensely. I am creditably informed she enjoys a fair income and she is still handsome and shapely—thanks to God and her tailor! Even the tooth of time has been dulled on her hardy anatomy. Franz, there is your chance.”
“Don't be a fool! Do you think I——”
Franz was interrupted by the sound of an exceedingly pleasant voice that arose from the hall below. The voice was assuring some one that its owner was perfectly familiar with the way to Franz's room and was declining all proffers of assistance in finding it, with profuse thanks.
Becker and Philip had paused to listen, and now the latter said: “I rather fancy it's Perkins.” A moment after a gentle tap sounded on the door, accompanied by, “May I come in?”
In response to Becker's bidding the door opened and Perkins stood before them.
Now there are awful depths of oblivion that may be sounded in a small town, and not to know the Perkinses was one of these depths, for that was to argue yourself unknown. Yet, to his credit be it said that Perkins was a modest youth, despite his temptation to gloat in the fact that his family represented two generations of riches; which was by far the most splendid incident in their history.
Young Perkins was not adapted to gloating. He was a youth with a supersensitive conscience and sandy side-whiskers, which grew out stubbily from an equally sandy complexion, and he would be polite to everybody, which was a sheer weakness on his part and not to be excused on any plea whatever.
What Perkins did not do his mother in nowise remedied, for she quarreled with her kind on a footing of perfect equality charming to behold, setting herself up for no better than the rest.
Perkins stood before his friends, breathless from his run up the stairs, his whole appearance indicating unusual excitement. He dropped down into the chair Franz pushed toward him, saying:
“Wait a minute till I get my wind. I am quite floored because of several things that have taken place to-day.”
He wiped his florid face vigorously with his handkerchief.
“I—you see—that is, my mother received word yesterday from Madame Dennie, of Paris—Paris, France, you know—that she is in America. In New York, I think. Madame Dennie is the widow of Gabrielle Honore Dennie, who was a very distinguished man in France, prior to his death. I am sure I don't know what he did and my mother has never told me, but whatever it was I am certain he did it and it was uncommon. There was a stack of money in it. He was a banker, you know.”
“Look here, Perkins,” Philip remonstrated. “What is this all about?”
“But, you don't catch what I am driving at,” Perkins cried eagerly; “he married my mother's cousin.”
“Who did?” Philip asked.
“Monsieur Dennie.”
“Oh,—well, go ahead.”
“That's exactly what I am trying to do. He married Miss Ballard, my mother's cousin. That was before he died, of course. My mother was a Ballard and as you are both aware, that's my first name, and they were very celebrated people.”
Perkins was still polishing his freckled features till they fairly glistened. He finally tucked his handkerchief resolutely into his pocket and folded his hands.
“I must get this straight, I am quite excited. Permit me to get my breath.”
And he gazed benignantly at his friends from under his white lashes, a beaming smile playing over his countenance and dying away in the stubby growth of his side-whiskers.
“You fellows must have mercy upon me a moment longer. What I wish to tell you is this: On Saturday Madame Dennie is supposed to have left New York for this place. I assure you we were completely overwhelmed by the news, for while we—my mother that is—is her only living relative in America, the family connection has been allowed to languish. Heretofore my mother has made it a point to fight industriously with every Ballard with whom she came in contact. That's a distinctly Ballard trait, and in addition to the inherited and warlike instincts of her race, my mother's element is hot water. Very hot, you know, and I must admit it is seldom you find a person who spends less time out of her element than my mother. However, she has told me it will be the proudest moment of her life when Madame Dennie enters her house, so I am hopeful the hatchet will be buried blade down.” With a stifled gasp, Perkins came to a pause.
“See here, Perkins,” Philip said, “what is it you are trying to tell us? Come, don't keep it all to yourself. Let us into the secret. That's a good fellow.”
“My dear Philip, I pledge you my sacred word of honor my one wish is to enlighten you, but I appear little better than a candle whose light is placed under a bushel.” He looked pathetically from one to the other of his auditors. “Allow me to get started right. I trust I have made it clear to you that I have a cousin, Madame Dennie and she is a widow lady.”
“Widow alone is sufficient. It establishes her sex beyond dispute. Don't use the word lady when you can possibly avoid doing so. It's a hard worked word these days,” Philip advised.
“Oh, pardon me. Well, Madame Dennie, who is a widow, has announced her intention of coming to us and we are overwhelmed by the honor, for of course my cousin is a woman of the greatest elegance and culture. Must be, you know. But what”—and his voice rose in a quaver of nervous objection—“but what have we to offer her either in our mode of living or in a social way that will please her? It will all seem so stupid here after what she has been accustomed to.”
“Don't abuse the town,” Franz said. “It will be a liberal education to her.”
“Along a very illiberal line,” Philip added.
“Oh, hang the town! It's how we are going to entertain her that gets me.”
“You are a host in yourself, Perkins, and very funny,” Becker remarked laughingly.
“When is she coming?” Philip asked.
“Oh, yes, I didn't tell you that, did I?” Perkins shook off his dejection. “The letter was received yesterday. In it she simply said she would like to visit us if convenient and be our guest for a little while. We were to wire our answer and our answer was, 'Come.' What the dickens else could we have said even if we had wanted to? All this that I have told you took place yesterday and since then consternation has reigned supreme. My mother's hair has been done up in curl-papers for the last thirty-six hours, tight twisted, and has given her a raging headache. The house is no better than a howling wilderness. I pledge you my sacred word of honor that I ate my supper last night on the back-stairs off a sewing-board held in my lap and I was mighty thankful to get it then. This morning I went without breakfast. Dinner I ate from a shelf in the back pantry with a soup ladle and all because Madame Dennie is somewhere between here and New York contemplating a descent upon us. I have taken curlpapers out of the water pitcher, and as I hope for mercy hereafter there was one in the cold soup forming the bulk of my dinner to-day.”
Perkins became pensive for just the briefest space possible and a rather melancholy smile overspread his face.
“I say, did you fellows ever eat soup—cold soup—with curl-papers? Because if you never did—don't. It's about the most thoroughly revolutionary thing a man can do.”
“You haven't told us yet when she is coming,” Philip remarked. “When will it be, to-morrow?”
“That's what we are looking forward to.”
“How old is she, anyhow?” And Philip propounded one of the inquiries a young man is almost sure to make sooner or later concerning a woman.
“Oh, dear me, I can't tell. Forty or fifty though, I should say at a guess.”
Philip yawned. Madame's age made the whole affair seem very tame and unattractive to him. Perkins rambled on:
“That's the deuce of it. She will be old enough to take an interest in me. Women are forever taking an interest in me—a controlling interest you know—forever thinking I should be at work at something or other, just to keep me out of scrapes. And that's all bosh! I don't think there's any use for me to work, except perhaps to kill time, and I really couldn't do that, for in the end time will kill me and I shall be laid out stiff you know, quite dead, with tuberoses—”
“Limp you mean,” growled Franz correctively. “Where the devil did you ever get the notion that you could be stiff?”
“I hope I didn't seem vain when I said women were interested in me, you know I mean those who are old enough to know better,” Perkins ventured with much meekness, folding his hands over a stomach of which Philip was wont to remark, much to its owner's agony, that it was coming rapidly to the front.
“Of course you will invite us up to the house when your cousin comes,” the latter said. “Franz and I shall be immensely happy to call.”
Perkins brightened visibly. “I thought you rather slumped when I told you her age. To be sure you are to call. Did I ever speak of her brother to you—Geoffrey Ballard? I know a good deal more about him than I do about her. He has been in America frequently. In fact, as far as France goes, he is an exile: got into some difficulty and was forced to leave the country.”
This was said with studied carelessness; nevertheless it was plainly discernible that Perkins was accessible to the mild glow of pride which a perfectly respectable and well conducted youth usually feels in those of his family who have won their laurels in the shaded realms of the disreputable.
“I guess he is a very bad lot. Once my father chanced to meet him in New York. My father was fascinated by him and on the strength of the good impression he had made, Ballard borrowed several hundred dollars. He told a very plausible tale about a remittance from home that he was expecting. No sooner had he obtained an advance on what was coming than he got out of the way and it was the last father ever saw of him. He must have been very clever though, because you know my father was never a very great hand to lend money.”
His friends were too courteous to inform him of their perfect acquaintance with his father's posthumous reputation for close-fistedness, but Philip could not resist saying casually:
“I can readily believe that Ballard must be a very remarkable fellow.”
“Oh, no,” Perkins responded innocently, delighted that he was commanding Philip's attention; “we heard afterward he was a wild one—that he gambled and did all sorts of dishonorable things. Of course I wouldn't like to have either of you mention it, but once he pretty nearly killed a man in a duel. It was over a woman, you know.”
And he looked highly scandalized—proud and happy, too, for it's not every day one can tell of a cousin who fights duels.
It was getting dark; the afternoon was drawing to an end and while Perkins was still giving the details of which he was master, that related to Geoffrey Ballard's career, Philip had arisen from his chair.
“I shall say good night,” he remarked. “It is time I was on my way home.”