That Fortune

C >> Charles Dudley Warner >> That Fortune


"Botany, in the hands of Miss McDonald, cannot be called very feminine;
it is a good deal more difficult to understand and master than law."

"Maybe that's the reason," said Mrs. Mavick, "why so many more girls are
eager to study law now than botany."

"Law?" cried Evelyn; "and to practice?"

"Certainly. Don't you think that a bright, clever woman, especially if
she were pretty, would have an advantage with judge and jury?"

"Not if judge and jury were women," Miss McDonald interposed.

"And you remember Portia?" Mrs. Mavick continued.

"Portia," said Evelyn; "yes, but that is poetry; and, McDonald, wasn't it
a kind of catch? How beautifully she talked about mercy, but she turned
the sharp edge of it towards the Jew. I didn't like that."

"Yes," Miss McDonald replied, "it was a kind of trick, a poet's law.
What do you say, Mr. Burnett?"

"Why," said Philip, hesitating, "usually it is understood when a man buys
or wins anything that the appurtenances necessary to give him full
possession go with it. Only in this case another law against the Jew was
understood. It was very clever, nothing short of woman's wit."

"Are there any women in your firm, Mr. Burnett?" asked Mrs. Mavick.

"Not yet, but I think there are plenty of lawyers who would be willing to
take Portia for a partner."

"Make her what you call a consulting partner. That is just the way with
you men--as soon as you see women succeeding in doing anything
independently, you head them off by matrimony."

"Not against their wills," said the governess, with some decision.

"Oh, the poor things are easily hypnotized. And I'm glad they are. The
funniest thing is to hear the Woman's Rights women talk of it as a state
of subjection," and Mrs. Mavick laughed out of her deep experience.

"Rights, what's that?" asked Evelyn.

"Well, child, your education has been neglected. Thank McDonald for
that."

"Don't you know, Evelyn," the governess explained, "that we have always
said that women had a right to have any employment, or do anything they
were fitted to do?"

"Oh, that, of course; I thought everybody said that. That is natural.
But I mean all this fuss. I guess I don't understand what you all are
talking about." And her bright face broke out of its look of perplexity
into a smile.

"Why, poor thing," said her mother, "you belong to the down-trodden sex.
Only you haven't found it out."

"But, mamma," and the girl seemed to be turning the thing over in her
mind, as was her wont with any new proposition, "there seem to be in
history a good many women who never found it out either."

"It is not so now. I tell you we are all in a wretched condition."

"You look it, mamma," replied Evelyn, who perfectly understood when her
mother was chaffing.

"But I think I don't care so much for the lawyers," Mrs. Mavick
continued, with more air of conviction; "what I can't stand are the
doctors, the female doctors. I'd rather have a female priest about me
than a female doctor."

This was not altogether banter, for there had been times in Carmen's
career when the externals of the Roman Church attracted her, and she
wished she had an impersonal confidant, to whom she could confess--well,
not everything-and get absolution. And she could make a kind of
confidant of a sympathetic doctor. But she went on:

"To have a sharp woman prying into all my conditions and affairs! No,
I thank you. Don't you think so, McDonald?"

"They do say," the governess admitted, "that women doctors haven't as
much consideration for women's whims as men." And, after a moment, she
continued:

"But, for all that, women ought to understand about women better than men
can, and be the best doctors for them."

"So it seems to me," said Evelyn, appealing to her mother. "Don't you
remember that day you took me down to the infirmary in which you are
interested, and how nice it was, nobody but women for doctors and nurses
and all that? Would you put that in charge of men?"

"Oh, you child!" cried Mrs. Mavick, turning to her daughter and patting
her on the head. "Of course there are exceptions. But I'm not going to
be one of the exceptions. Ah, well, I suppose I am quite behind the age;
but the conduct of my own sex does get on my nerves sometimes."

Evelyn was silent. She was often so when discussions arose. They were
apt to plunge her into deep thought. To those who knew her history,
guarded from close contact with anything but the world of ideas, it was
very interesting to watch her mental attitude as she was day by day
emerging into a knowledge of the actual world and encountering its
crosscurrents. To Philip, who was getting a good idea of what her
education had been, an understanding promoted by his knowledge of the
character and attainments of her governess, her mental processes, it may
be safely said, opened a new world of thought. Not that mental processes
made much difference to a man in his condition, still, they had the
effect of setting her personality still further apart from that of other
women. One day when they happened to be tete-a-tete in one of their
frequent excursions--a rare occasion--Evelyn had said:

"How strange it is that so many things that are self-evident nobody seems
to see, and that there are so many things that are right that can't be
done."

"That is the way the world is made," Philip had replied. She was
frequently coming out with the sort of ideas and questions that are often
proposed by bright children, whose thinking processes are not only fresh
but undisturbed by the sophistries or concessions that experience has
woven into the thinking of our race. "Perhaps it hasn't your faith in
the abstract."

"Faith? I wonder. Do you mean that people do not dare go ahead and do
things?"

"Well, partly. You see, everybody is hedged in by circumstances."

"Yes. I do begin to see circumstances. I suppose I'm a sort of a goose
--in the abstract, as you say." And Evelyn laughed. It was the
spontaneous, contagious laugh of a child. "You know that Miss McDonald
says I'm nothing but a little idealist."

"Did you deny it?"

"Oh, no. I said, so were the Apostles, all save one--he was a realist."

It was Philip's turn to laugh at this new definition, and upon this the
talk had drifted into the commonplaces of the summer situation and about
Rivervale and its people. Philip regretted that his vacation would so
soon be over, and that he must say good-by to all this repose and beauty,
and to the intercourse that had been so delightful to him.

"But you will write," Evelyn exclaimed.

Philip was startled.

"Write?"

"Yes, your novel."

"Oh, I suppose so," without any enthusiasm.

"You must. I keep thinking of it. What a pleasure it must be to create
a real drama of life."

So this day on the veranda of the inn when Philip spoke of his hateful
departure next day, and there was a little chorus of protest, Evelyn was
silent; but her silence was of more significance to him than the
protests, for he knew her thoughts were on the work he had promised to go
on with.

"It is too bad," Mrs. Mavick exclaimed; "we shall be like a lot of sheep
without a shepherd."

"That we shall," the governess joined in. "At any rate, you must make us
out a memorandum of what is to be seen and done and how to do it."

"Yes," said Philip, gayly, "I'll write tonight a complete guide to
Rivervale."

"We are awfully obliged to you for what you have done." Mrs. Mavick was
no doubt sincere in this. And she added, "Well, we shall all be back in
the city before long."

It was a natural thing to say, and Philip understood that there was no
invitation in it, more than that of the most conventional acquaintance.
For Mrs. Mavick the chapter was closed.

There were the most cordial hand-shakings and good-bys, and Philip said
good-by as lightly as anybody. But as he walked along the road he knew,
or thought he was sure, that the thoughts of one of the party were going
along with him into his future, and the peaceful scene, the murmuring
river, the cat-birds and the blackbirds calling in the meadow, and the
spirit of self-confident youth in him said not good-by, but au revoir.




XIV

Of course Philip wrote to Celia about his vacation intimacy with the
Mavicks. It was no news to her that the Mavicks were spending the summer
there; all the world knew that, and society wondered what whim of
Carmen's had taken her out of the regular summer occupations and immured
her in the country. Not that it gave much thought to her, but, when her
name was mentioned, society resented the closing of the Newport house and
the loss of her vivacity in the autumn at Lenox. She is such a hand to
set things going, don't you know? Mr. Mavick never made a flying visit
to his family--and he was in Rivervale twice during the season--that the
newspapers did not chronicle his every movement, and attribute other
motives than family affection to these excursions into New England. Was
the Central system or the Pennsylvania system contemplating another raid?
It could not be denied that the big operator's connection with any great
interest raised suspicion and often caused anxiety.

Naturally, thought Celia, in such a little village, Philip would fall in
with the only strangers there, so that he was giving her no news in
saying so. But there was a new tone in his letters; she detected an
unusual reserve that was in itself suspicious. Why did he say so much
about Mrs. Mavick and the governess, and so little about the girl?

"You don't tell me," she wrote, "anything about the Infant Phenomenon.
And you know I am dying to know."

This Philip resented. Phenomenon! The little brown girl, with eyes that
saw so much and were so impenetrably deep, and the mobile face, so alert
and responsive. If ever there was a natural person, it was Evelyn. So
he wrote:

"There is nothing to tell; she is not an infant and she is not a
phenomenon. Only this: she has less rubbish in her mind than any person
you ever saw. And I guess the things she does not know about life are
not worth knowing."

"I see," replied Celia; "poor boy! it's the moth and the star. [That's
just like her, muttered Philip, she always assumed to be the older.] But
don't mind. I've come to the conclusion that I am a moth myself, and
some of the lights I used to think stars have fallen. And, seriously,
dear friend, I am glad there is a person who does not know the things not
worth knowing. It is a step in the right direction. I have been this
summer up in the hills, meditating. And I am not so sure of things as I
was. I used to think that all women needed was what is called education
--science, history, literature--and you could safely turn them loose on
the world. It certainly is not safe to turn them loose without
education--but I begin to wonder what we are all coming to. I don't mind
telling you that I have got into a pretty psychological muddle, and I
don't see much to hold on to.

"I suppose that Scotch governess is pious; I mean she has a backbone of
what they call dogma; things are right or wrong in her mind--no haziness.
Now, I am going to make a confession. I've been thinking of religion.
Don't mock. You know I was brought up religious, and I am religious. I
go to church--well, you know how I feel and especially the things I don't
believe. I go to church to be entertained. I read the other day that
Cardinal Manning said: 'The three greatest evils in the world today are
French devotional books, theatrical music, and the pulpit orator. And
the last is the worst.' I wonder. I often feel as if I had been to a
performance. No. It is not about sin that I am especially thinking, but
the sinner. One ought to do something. Sometimes I think I ought to go
to the city. You know I was in a College Settlement for a while. Now I
mean something permanent, devoted to the poor as a life occupation, like
a nun or something of that sort. You think this is a mood? Perhaps.
There have always been so many things before me to do, and I wanted to do
them all. And I do not stick to anything? You must not presume to say
that, because I confide to you all my errant thoughts. You have not
confided in me--I don't insinuate that you have anything to confide but I
cannot help saying that if you have found a pure and clear-minded girl
--Heaven knows what she will be when she is a woman I--I am sorry she is
not poor."

But if Philip did not pour out his heart to his old friend, he did open a
lively and frequent correspondence with Alice. Not about the person who
was always in his thoughts--oh, no--but about himself, and all he was
doing, in the not unreasonable expectation that the news would go where
he could not send it directly--so many ingenious ways has love of
attaining its object. And if Alice, no doubt, understood all this, she
was nevertheless delighted, and took great pleasure in chronicling the
news of the village and giving all the details that came in her way about
the millionaire family. This connection with the world, if only by
correspondence, was an outlet to her reserved and secluded life. And her
letters recorded more of her character, of her feeling, than he had known
in all his boyhood. When Alice mentioned, as it were by chance, that
Evelyn had asked, more than once, when she had spoken of receiving
letters, if her cousin was going on with his story, Philip felt that
the connection was not broken.

Going on with his story he was, and with good heart. The thought that
"she" might some day read it was inspiration enough. Any real creation,
by pen or brush or chisel, must express the artist and be made in
independence of the demands of a vague public. Art is vitiated when the
commercial demand, which may be a needed stimulus, presides at the
creation. But it is doubtful if any artist in letters, or in form or
color, ever did anything well without having in mind some special person,
whose approval was desired or whose criticism was feared. Such is the
universal need of human sympathy. It is, at any rate, true that Philip's
story, recast and reinspired, was thenceforth written under the spell of
the pure divining eyes of Evelyn Mavick. Unconsciously this was so. For
at this time Philip had not come to know that the reason why so many
degraded and degrading stories and sketches are written is because the
writers' standard is the approval of one or two or a group of persons of
vitiated tastes and low ideals.

The Mavicks did not return to town till late in the autumn. By this time
Philip's novel had been submitted to a publisher, or, rather, to state
the exact truth, it had begun to go the rounds of the publishers. Mr.
Brad, to whose nineteenth-century and newspaper eye Philip had shrunk
from confiding his modest creation, but who was consulted in the
business, consoled him with the suggestion that this was a sure way of
getting his production read. There was already in the city a
considerable body of professional "readers," mostly young men and women,
to whom manuscripts were submitted by the publishers, so that the author
could be sure, if he kept at it long enough, to get a pretty fair
circulation for his story. They were selected because they were good
judges of literature and because they had a keen appreciation of what the
public wanted at the moment. Many of them are overworked, naturally so,
in the mass of manuscripts turned over to their inspection day after day,
and are compelled often to adopt the method of tea-tasters, who sip but
do not swallow, for to drink a cup or two of the decoction would spoil
their taste and impair their judgment, especially on new brands. Philip
liked to imagine, as the weeks passed away--the story is old and need not
be retold here--that at any given hour somebody was reading him. He did
not, however, dwell with much delight upon this process, for the idea
that some unknown Rhadamanthus was sitting in judgment upon him much more
wounded his 'amour propre', and seemed much more like an invading of his
inner, secret life and feeling, than would be an instant appeal to the
general public. Why, he thought, it is just as if I had shown it to Brad
himself--apiece of confidence that he could not bring himself to. He did
not know that Brad himself was a reader for a well-known house--which had
employed him on the strength of his newspaper notoriety--and that very
likely he had already praised the quality of the work and damned it as
lacking "snap."

It was, however, weary waiting, and would have been intolerable if his
duties in the law office had not excluded other thoughts from his mind a
good part of the time. There were days when he almost resolved to
confine himself to the solid and remunerative business of law, and give
up the vague aspirations of authorship. But those vague aspirations were
in the end more enticing than the courts. Common-sense is not an
antidote to the virus of the literary infection when once a young soul
has taken it. In his long walks it was not on the law that Philip was
ruminating, nor was the fame of success in it occupying his mind.
Suppose he could write one book that should touch the heart of the world.
Would he exchange the sweetness of that for the fleeting reputation of
the most brilliant lawyer? In short, he magnified beyond all reason the
career and reputation of the author, and mistook the consideration he
occupies in the great world. And what a world it would be if there had
not been a continuous line of such mistaken fools as he!

That it was not literature alone that inflated his dreams was evidenced
by the direction his walks took. Whatever their original destination or
purpose, he was sure to pass through upper Fifth Avenue, and walk by the
Mavick mansion. And never without a lift in his spirits. What comfort
there is to a lover in gazing at the blank and empty house once occupied
by his mistress has never been explained; but Philip would have counted
the day lost in which he did not see it.

After he heard from Alice that the Mavicks had returned, the house had
still stronger attractions for him, for there was added the chance of a
glimpse of Evelyn or one of the family. Many a day passed, however,
before he mustered up courage to mount the steps and touch the button.

"Yes, sir," said the servant, "the family is returned, but they is
h'out."

Philip left his card. But nothing came of it, and he did not try again.
In fact, he was a little depressed as the days went by. How much doubt
and anxiety, even suffering, might have been spared him if the historian
at that moment could have informed him of a little shopping incident at
Tiffany's a few days after the Mavicks' return.

A middle-aged lady and a young girl were inspecting some antiques. The
girl, indeed, had been asking for ancient coins, and they were shown two
superb gold staters with the heads of Alexander and Philip.

"Aren't they beautiful?" said the younger. "How lovely one would be for
a brooch!"

"Yes, indeed," replied the elder, "and quite in the line of our Greek
reading."

The girl held them in her hand and looked at one and the other with a
student's discrimination.

"Which would you choose?"

"Oh, both are fine. Philip of Macedon has a certain youthful freshness,
in the curling hair and uncovered head. But, of course, Alexander the
Great is more important, and then there is the classic casque. I should
take the Alexander." The girl still hesitated, weighing the choice in
her mind from the classic point of view.

"Doubtless you are right. But"--and she held up the lovely head--"this
is not quite so common, and--and--I think I'll take the Macedon one.
Yes, you may set that for me," turning to the salesman.

"Diamonds or pearls?" asked the jeweler.

"Oh, dear, no!" exclaimed the girl; "just the head."

Evelyn's education was advancing. For the first time in her life she had
something to conceal. The privilege of this sort of secret is, however,
an inheritance of Eve. The first morning she wore it at breakfast Mrs.
Mavick asked her what it was.

"It's a coin, antique Greek," Evelyn replied, passing it across the
table.

"How pretty it is; it is very pretty. Ought to have pearls around it.
Seems to be an inscription on it."

"Yes, it is real old. McDonald says it is a stater, about the same as a
Persian daric-something like the value of a sovereign."

"Oh, indeed; very interesting."

To give Evelyn her due, it must be confessed that she blushed at this
equivocation about the inscription, and she got quite hot with shame
thinking what would become of her if Philip should ever know that she was
regarding him as a stater and wearing his name on her breast.

One can fancy what philosophical deductions as to the education of women
Celia Howard would have drawn out of this coin incident; one of them
doubtless being that a classical education is no protection against love.

But for Philip's connection with the thriving firm of Hunt, Sharp &
Tweedle, it is safe to say that he would have known little of the world
of affairs in Wall Street, and might never have gained entrance into that
other world, for which Wall Street exists, that society where its wealth
and ambitious vulgarity are displayed. Thomas Mavick was a client of the
firm. At first they had been only associated with his lawyer, and
consulted occasionally. But as time went on Mr. Mavick opened to them
his affairs more and more, as he found the advantage of being represented
to the public by a firm that combined the highest social and
professional standing with all the acumen and adroitness that his
complicated affairs required.

It was a time of great financial feverishness and uncertainty, and of
opportunity for the most reckless adventurers. Houses the most solid
were shaken and crippled, and those which were much extended in a variety
of adventures were put to their wits' ends to escape shipwreck.
Financial operations are perpetual war. It is easy to calculate about
the regular forces, but the danger is from the unexpected "raids" and the
bushwhackers and guerrillas. And since politics has become inextricably
involved in financial speculations (as it has in real war), the
excitement and danger of business on a large scale increase.

Philip as a trusted clerk, without being admitted into interior secrets,
came to know a good deal about Mavick's affairs, and to be more than ever
impressed with his enormous wealth and the magnitude of his operations.
From time to time he was sent on errands to Mavick's office, and
gradually, as Mavick became accustomed to him as a representative of the
firm, they came on a somewhat familiar footing, and talked of other
things than business. And Mavick, who was not a bad judge of the
capacities of men, conceived a high idea of Philip's single-mindedness,
of his integrity and general culture, and, as well, of his agreeableness
(for Philip had a certain charm where he felt at ease), while at the same
time he discovered that his mind was more upon something else than law,
and that, if his success in his profession depended upon his adoption of
the business methods of the Street, he could not go very far.
Consequently he did not venture upon the same confidences with him that
he habitually did with Mr. Sharp. Yet, business aside, he had an
intellectual pleasure in exchanging views with Philip which Mr. Sharp's
conversation did not offer him.

When, therefore, Mrs. Mavick came to consult her husband about the list
for the coming-out reception of Evelyn, Philip found a friend at court.

"It is all plain enough," said Carmen, as she sat down with book and
pencil in hand, "till you come to the young men, the unattached young
men. Here is my visiting-list, that of course. But for the young ladies
we must have more young men. Can't you suggest any?"

"Perhaps. I know a lot of young fellows."

"But I mean available young men, those that count socially. I don't want
a broker's board or a Chamber of Commerce here."

Mr. Mavick named half a dozen, and Carmen looked for their names in the
social register. "Any more?"

"Why, you forgot young Burnett, who was with you last summer at
Rivervale. I thought you liked him."

"So I did in Rivervale. Plain farmer people. Yes, he was very nice to
us. I've been thinking if I couldn't send him something Christmas and
pay off the debt."

"He'd think a great deal more of an invitation to your reception."

"But you don't understand. You never think of Evelyn's future. We are
asking people that we think she ought to know."

"Well, Burnett is a very agreeable fellow."

"Fiddlesticks! He is nothing but a law clerk. Worse than that, he is a
magazine writer."

"I thought you liked his essays and stories."

"So I do. But you don't want to associate with everybody you like that
way. I am talking about society. You must draw the line somewhere. Oh,
I forgot Fogg--Dr. LeRoy Fogg, from Pittsburg." And down went the name
of Fogg.

"You mean that young swell whose business it is to drive a four-in-hand
to Yonkers and back, and toot on a horn?"

"Well, what of that? Everybody who is anybody, I mean all the girls,
want to go on his coach."