Papa's own girl: A novel

by Marie Stevens Howland

“He hasn’t much pride, if he is a count,” she remarked, “or he wouldn’t take up with anybody’s cast-off wife.”

Dr. Delano was disgusted. He replied savagely, and a stormy scene ensued, in which both descended to the bitterest recriminations. They mutually confessed that their love was a farce, and then they separated coolly, the doctor going to his office and Ella to discuss a love of a ball-dress with her modiste.

The marriage of the count was a nine-days’ wonder in Oakdale, and there was terrible commotion in the breasts of scheming mammas, some of whom found a large grain of comfort in the fact that “Louise Kendrick must be terribly cut up.” And she was indeed, poor girl! and her chagrin was all the more bitter from the consciousness that her hopes had been built on a foundation of the most flimsy nature. There is very little true sympathy in the world for hopeless love; many people, indeed, who pass as educated or cultivated are capable of reproaching the unhappy lover, or even laughing at him, thus showing themselves, in refinement of sentiment, on a plane with the barbarian. Sympathy of a common and lower type is everywhere freely given to heroic suffering; but if any one would know which of his friends not only loves him most sincerely, but has the highest and finest nature, let him make an unqualified fool of himself.

Despite the portentous rumors touching the unsoundness of the great banking-house of Oakdale, it weathered through the storm, and the Kendricks and Burnhams held their heads as high as ever. As long as Oakdalers might have seen any future possibility of a marriage between the count and Kendrick’s daughter, the recovery of the bank’s credit might be comprehended; but as things happened, it remained a mystery, rather augmented than lessened by the fact that there had been a “run” on the bank very soon after the marriage. And the wonderment of Oakdale had an extraordinary vitality. Why, among all the wealth and beauty of the town, had the count chosen the radical daughter of the arch-radical Dr. Forest; and a woman, too, with a history, a thing so deplorable in a lady? In a less advanced age it would have been set down to witchcraft, or Satanic interposition; but the thing was done, and there was no way of escaping the inevitable. Those who had exchanged courtesies with Clara after her separation from Dr. Delano, took consolation in the fact that they ought to be on the cards of the count thereafter; those who had not, said spitefully, that no doubt the count would take up his residence “among those working-people over the river,” where the cream of the town would scarcely care to visit.

It did not become known who the “officiating clergyman” was, in the marriage that excited such commotion, for the notice in the paper had barely announced the fact and the place of occurrence, and no one would have dared to ask such a question of any of the interested parties. Indeed, minor circumstances sank into insignificance beside the one marvelous fact that Clara Delano, whom society had dared to snub, had suddenly risen to such an enviable position in the social scale. Poor Susie Dykes, as the bosom friend of Clara, rose mightily in importance also; but the Priest and the Levite were deterred from approaching her now, from consciousness of their past attitude toward her, or rather, from the fear of inconsistency—that bugbear of little minds. The most conservative, however, were pretty ready to admit that the kick-her-down policy was not the wisest after all, and that love and sympathy might be due even to a “fallen” sister.

But even the excitement caused by the marriage of the count and Clara, and the influence it promised upon the fate of Susie, could not long hold the attention of Oakdale from the mighty enterprise “over the river.” Architects and builders came hundreds of miles to see the great work, whose renown was daily widening and extending. Oakdale palatial residences sank into insignificance beside the vast pile. Capitalists looked on with wonder, and great manufacturers grumbled at the growing discontent of their workmen over the high rents they had to pay for their poor accommodations. The Social Palace workmen talked with outside laborers, and the natural result was dissatisfaction. Ely & Gerrish took the wisest course—they, who less than the other manufacturers felt the need of conciliating their employés, having years before built improved homes for them. This firm called their workmen together, and urged them to wait patiently, and see how the Social Palace worked. No one could say yet that it would not be a failure. To be sure, that in France had worked well, but French people were very different from free Americans! If this enterprise worked, of course it would become universal in this country; and from what they, Ely & Gerrish, had already done, their workmen might expect them to try to keep up with the demands of the time.

Other manufacturers were not so fortunate. They were insolent to their workmen when the latter grew discontented, and the result, in some cases, was disastrous to their industries, and provocative of hatred to the millionaire, whose wealth enabled him to ride over smaller capitalists rough-shod.

“You see,” said the doctor, to one of these, “our financial and industrial system is a regular cut-throat affair. Anybody who can see an inch before his nose must admit that in order to carry on that system successfully, you must have but two classes—masters and slaves. The moment you give the people schools and newspapers, you teach them revolution against a state of things which keeps them poor while their labor makes others rich.” In fact, it was very little consolation to talk to the doctor, though in the end he never failed to show that if he had sympathy for the laborer, he had also for the small capitalist, and could see exactly his difficulties and vexations. Burnham seemed wonderfully interested in the great subterranean galleries for ventilating the Social Palace, and these were his theme whenever he talked of the great enterprise. “This question of ventilation is an important one,” he said. “It’s safe to say that, up to this time, no architect has ever successfully ventilated even a schoolroom; but I believe this Frauenstein, or Godin before him, has hit it.”

“Is it true,” asked a listener, “that he is going to put hot-air furnaces in these galleries under the palace, and so heat up the whole thing at the same time he carries in the fresh air?”

“Yes, that’s so. He went yesterday to New York to make arrangements for the furnaces.”