Thus thinking and foreshadowing, Susie reached home.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE FIRST CLOUD.
Dr. Delano, on taking his bride home, was somewhat surprised that Ella had left—accepted suddenly an invitation to spend the winter in Maryland, among some old friends of the family. Clara was hurt by this evident desire to avoid Albert’s wife, but his vanity was secretly well satisfied by the act. Ella could not stay and witness a happiness that should have been hers. He excused her going, therefore, with a good grace, and made Clara do so also, though the effort revealed a flaw in the diamond, a touch of vanity she had not dreamed could exist in her idol.
Mr. Delano received his daughter-in-law with a quiet, courteous pleasure, that was evidently felt. Miss Charlotte’s manner was stately, and just what it should be according to etiquette, though a good deal out of harmony with Clara’s exalted happiness, which made her a little impatient to see people so calm and self-possessed.
Mr. Delano, after his illness, yielded to the advice of friends and retired from business. It had proved a very unwise step. He had given all the best years of his life to acquiring wealth—in fact, to preparing for the enjoyment of life; and lo! when the wealth was gained, the enjoyment he had promised himself fled before him like the horizon “whose margin fades forever and forever” as we move. He had been rich enough all his life had he only known it, and the increase of luxurious surroundings in his stately residence on Beacon street were no more than Dead Sea apples in his mouth. During his active business life he had constantly purchased books and extended his library. These also he was to enjoy by-and-by, when he got leisure to read anything beyond the daily papers. He had not counted the fact that there are many things wealth cannot purchase, and among them is the capacity for ease.
On the wide and elegant balcony upon which his library opened, commanding a view of a beautiful garden at the rear of the mansion, there had been swung an elegant Mexican grass hammock for Mr. Delano’s special ease when reading. The house was on a corner lot, and the balcony was protected from the gaze of passers on the side street by screens of fawn-colored gauze. The old gentleman often took a book and lay down in his luxurious hammock, to see if he could not accustom himself to enjoyment, but he never succeeded. His brain was a vast cotton mart and exchange in full blast, and he longed every day to go back to that business which he had spent his life preparing to escape.
The old adage that “habit is second nature” is a very true one, and was illustrated perfectly in the case of Mr. Delano. His nature had come to relish nothing in the world so much as the cares, schemes, responsibilities, and the general excitement incident to money-making by speculation. It had all the charm of gambling, without the moral obloquy attached to it; though, to be sure, certain “crazy radicals” call it all gambling, and to them, one appears as immoral as the other. It is certain that any old gambler at rouge et noir, in Mr. Delano’s situation, would have found the days drag on just in the same weary way. The evenings, which Mr. Delano used to enjoy as a relaxation from business, were now more wearisome than the days, and the coming of his son and daughter-in-law was the signal for throwing the house open for the reception of people that he dreaded. During these receptions he moved uneasily through the drawing-rooms, principally occupied in avoiding stepping on the trains of the ladies, and never knowing what to say to their stereotyped, “How exceedingly well you are looking, Mr. Delano.” The only compensation was to get some old broker or stock gambler, who was bored to death like himself, into a corner, and talk of “the trifling of adults,” which, according to St. Augustine, “is called business.”
During the winter after Clara’s marriage, she saw a great deal of Boston’s choice society, and to please Albert, who was very proud of her, she accepted many an invitation when she would have enjoyed herself much more alone with him, or, in his absence, a quiet hour with the old gentleman, reading to him or talking, as his mood directed. As time passed, Albert was less and less at home evenings, and seemed to find attractions at his club, which secretly troubled Clara, but she uttered no word of complaint, and only sought to make up for those attractions, as best she could, when he spent his evenings at home.
In March, Ella came home. She was full of her pretty ways, and delighted Albert by her multiform flattering attentions to Clara. “I was afraid—you can’t tell how afraid I was—that you would never forgive me for running off like a sauvage; but you have, have you not? I have heard so much of your goodness from Albert. When he came home last November he could talk of nothing but you—your grace, your beauty, generosity, accomplishments. I declare I was quite bewildered. Will you forgive me if I say I did not believe quite all he said? But I do now. I believe every word since I have seen you.” Clara had her doubts about the sincerity of Ella, but she would give no expression to them for fear of being unjust; and as Miss Delano had never attracted her especially—indeed, had never shown any tendency to real intimacy, though she was polite and graciously kind—it was rather pleasant, therefore, to Clara, who had been nearly frozen by a winter of Boston society, to be thawed into spontaneous gayety, even by a gushing, superficial creature like Ella. It was the first time since Clara’s school days that she had given herself up to pure nonsense—to volumes of talk without meaning—and it pleased at first simply by its novelty; and besides this, nothing delighted Albert so much as the good understanding between his wife and Ella. He encouraged every sign of intimacy between them, and this of itself was motive strong enough to induce Clara to be exceedingly gracious to his old friend. To please Albert in all ways constituted the joy of her life, though the halo investing him was dimmed slightly, from time to time, as she discovered little traces of ill-temper and impatience at the smallest and most insignificant disappointments. Once, for example, not long after Ella’s return, he complained of the coffee at breakfast, saying pettishly, “I don’t see how any cook, with good coffee and boiling water, can manage to make such a flavorless mess as this!”
“It is one of your articles of faith, you know,” said Miss Charlotte, “that a perfect cup of coffee is not possible on the Western Continent.”