The Golden House

by Charles Dudley Warner

He did not tell her about Henderson, but he almost resolved that when his present venture was over he would let stocks alone as speculations, and go into something that he could talk about to his wife as he talked about stocks to Carmen.

From the stranded mariners at Bar Harbor Captain Jack had many and facetious letters. They wanted to know if his idea was that they should stick by the yacht until he got leisure to resume the voyage, or if he expected them to walk home. He had already given orders to the skipper to patch it up and bring it to New York if possible, and he advised his correspondents to stay by the yacht as long as there was anything in the larder, but if they were impatient, he offered them transportation on any vessel that would take able-bodied seamen. He must be excused from commanding, because he had been assigned to shore duty. Carmen and Miss Tavish wrote that it was unfair to leave them to sustain all the popularity and notoriety of the shipwreck, and that he owed it to the public to publish a statement, in reply to the insinuations of the newspapers, in regard to the sea-worthiness of the yacht and the object of this voyage. Jack replied that the only object of the voyage was to relieve the tedium of Bar Harbor, and, having accomplished this, he would present the vessel to Miss Tavish if she would navigate it back to the city.

The golden autumn days by the sea were little disturbed by these echoes of another life, which seemed at the moment to be a very shallow one. Yet the time was not without its undertone of anxieties, of grave perils that seemed to sanctify it and heighten its pleasures of hope. Jack saw and comprehended for the first time in his life the real nature of a pure woman, the depths of tenderness and self-abnegation, the heroism and calm trust and the nobility of an unworldly life. No wonder that he stood a little in awe of it, and days when he wandered down on the beach, with only the waves for company, or sat smoking in the arbor, with an unread book in his hand, his own career seemed petty and empty. Such moods, however, are not uncommon in any life, and are not of necessity fruitful. It need not be supposed that Jack took it too seriously, on the one hand, or, on the other, that a vision of such a woman's soul is ever without influence.

By the end of October they returned to town, Jack, and Edith with a new and delicate attractiveness, and young Fletcher Delancy the most wonderful and important personage probably who came to town that season. It seemed to Edith that his advent would be universally remarked, and Jack felt relieved when the boy was safely housed out of the public gaze. Yes, to Edith's inexpressible joy it was a boy, and while Jack gallantly said that a girl would have suited him just as well, he was conscious of an increased pride when he announced the sex to his friends. This undervaluation of women at the start is one of the mysteries of life. And until women themselves change their point of view, it is to be feared that legislation will not accomplish all that many of them wish.

“So it is a boy. I congratulate you,” was the exclamation of Major Fairfax the first time Jack went down to the Union.

“I'm glad, Major, to have your approval.”

“Oh, it's what is expected, that's all. For my part, I prefer girls. The announcement of boys is more expensive.”

Jack understood, and it turned out in all the clubs that he had hit upon the most expensive sex in the view of responding to congratulations.

“It used to seem to me,” said the Major, “that I must have a male heir to my estates. But, somehow, as the years go on, I feel more like being an heir myself. If I had married and had a boy, he would have crowded me out by this time; whereas, if it had been a girl, I should no doubt have been staying at her place in Lenox this summer instead of being shipwrecked on that desert island. There is nothing, my dear boy, like a girl well invested.”

“You speak with the feelings of a father.”