A Romantic Young Lady Part 20

"Do you mean to say that your friend wishes to advance me two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to found a banking-house?"

"Precisely."

"But I have no security to offer."

"I have already told you that no security will be required."

"Excuse me--eh--but is your friend of sound mind?"

"I don't wonder you ask, ha! ha! But I am compelled to answer yes. My friend is a philanthropist. That may make matters clearer."

"It is like a fairy story, isn't it Ike? Let me rehea.r.s.e the conditions again, so as to be sure I am not dreaming. With this loan, which I shall never be called on to pay back unless I choose, I am to establish in New York the house of Francis Prime and Company. I am to devote my energies, first, to becoming abnormally rich; and after that simple result is accomplished, to carry out the theories I have as to how one in that position should live. Meanwhile, I am to pledge my word never to divulge the circ.u.mstances of this interview, and on no pretence whatever to seek to discover the name of the person to whom I owe my good fortune. Have I omitted anything?"

"You have stated the case exactly."

"Humph! I should like to ask a single question. Is my benefactor a man or a woman?"

"Another question like that would justify me in withdrawing the offer,"

answered Mr. Chelm with gravity. "My client wishes to have no ident.i.ty whatever. Come, sir, my time is precious. I await your decision."

"The proposal is so sudden and unexpected. To ascend in a twinkling from the depths of despair to the summit of hope, leaves one a trifle bewildered. But you are right. I have no claim on your time. You want an answer."

He laughed again in a nervous manner, and stroked Ike.

"I do not wish to hurry you unduly. I have a letter to write, which will take me a few minutes. Think the matter over until I have finished."

"Thank you. I will. But since I have imposed upon your good nature so far, do me one more kindness, Mr. Chelm. What is your own opinion in this matter? Do you advise me to accept?"

I listened eagerly for his reply. It was in his power to spoil all.

"Really, I feel embarra.s.sed how to answer. As I have already implied to you, the proposition strikes me, as a lawyer, as being the most preposterous piece of extravagance I ever heard suggested. I will tell you frankly that I tried my utmost to dissuade my client from making it.

It is thoroughly unbusiness-like and absurd. That is my view of the matter from a professional standpoint."

"I see," said Mr. Prime.

"But," continued Mr. Chelm,--and here he stopped and gave an amused chuckle,--"it is a rare chance for a young man, a rare chance. My client will never mind the loss of the money, and would feel genuine disappointment, I know, if you were to decline. This being the case, and feeling as I do that you are in earnest in your desire to succeed despite your aristocratic tendencies, I am tempted on the whole to urge you to accept the good fortune which is thrust upon you. It is for my client's sake as much as for your own that I advise this, for I can see that she has set her heart--"

He stopped short. There was a dead pause, and I felt the blood rush to my cheeks.

"Well!" he exclaimed, "I have let the cat out of the bag with a vengeance this time. A lawyer, too. Pshaw! It is too bad!"

"That settles it," said Mr. Prime, quietly; "I cannot accept now at any rate. It would not be fair to your client."

"Not accept? Of course you will accept. Nonsense, nonsense! It is all my fault, and you shall have the money now if I have to pay it out of my own pocket. Besides," said Mr. Chelm with voluble eagerness, "there is very little harm done after all; and to prevent misunderstanding, I may as well make a clean breast of it. My client is an eccentric maiden-lady of sixty-five, with a lot of distant relatives who bother her life out while waiting for her to die. I am her only intimate friend, but even I cannot prevent her from doing all sorts of queer things in her taste for sentimentality. You see, poor woman, when she was very young she had a lover of just about your age (she wears his portrait perpetually in a locket about her neck), who died. He was in business, and doing very well. Several times already, on this account, she has helped young men who were in straits; and when I told her your story, and what you were ambitious to do, she clapped her withered old hands together and said, 'I will give him a chance, Mr. Chelm, I will give him a chance! He reminds me of my Tom.' And that is how it came to pa.s.s. There is the long-and-short of the matter. Accept? To be sure you will accept. It is all my fault. I will make it right with her. It would break her heart if you did not. So, no more words about it. I have all the necessary papers ready."

Mr. Prime was patting Ike more abstractedly than ever. As for me, I sat aghast and overwhelmed. The next few seconds seemed an eternity.

"Well, young man?"

"Please to write your letter, Mr. Chelm, and give me time to think."

"Not a bit of it! The letter can wait. Say you accept, and be done with it!"

"Very well then, I accept. We are gentlemen of fortune, Ike, and you shall have a new silver collar to-morrow."

It is not necessary to describe the details of the interview further. An hour elapsed before the final arrangements were made and Mr. Prime left the office. He was to start in business as soon as possible, and make frequent reports of his progress to Mr. Chelm. Meanwhile I sat within hearing distance, and occasionally took a peep at them from my coign of vantage. I could perceive from Mr. Chelm's manner that he was pleased with the tone and alertness of the other in putting matters into shape.

He had shown me beforehand certain letters which he had received in answer to inquiries made regarding Mr. Prime. In these he was spoken of as a young man of irreproachable character but strong social tastes, which, while consistent with his own statement of what the world thought of him, did not serve to re-a.s.sure Mr. Chelm as to the success of my experiment. So it was consoling to me to see his expression continue benignant as he listened to the young banker's notions.

When at last Mr. Prime was gone, I indulged my hilarity freely at my friend's expense. "A lawyer, too!" I cried, when I could speak. "Your reputation in my eyes is ruined forever."

"I have no excuse to offer. It was a dreadful slip, Miss Harlan."

"The slip was unpardonable of course; but it was an accident. No, what I refer to, Mr. Chelm, is the marvellous invention by which you sought to conceal it. I fully expected to see the floor open, and some demon carry you off amid smoke and sulphur."

"I never stick at a trifle like that," laughed he. "But didn't I do the thing well? He believed every word of it. And what is more, Miss Harlan," he added seriously, "it would have been a great pity to have let him decline. He is a likely young fellow. I smell wedding-cake in the air already."

"You forget, Mr. Chelm," I answered, "that I am an eccentric maiden-lady of sixty-five. You have ruined any material there may have been out of which to manufacture a romance."

This turn of affairs took place a few days before the unpleasant scene with Aunt Agnes occurred, to which I have alluded, and I found that it absorbed my thoughts and tended to counteract the despondency produced by her displeasure and the injustice of her friends. All through the remainder of the season I awaited with eagerness the monthly reports sent by Mr. Prime. He was established, and cautiously feeling his way.

But necessarily there was little to tell; a fortune cannot be made in a minute. However, I cherished every word of encouragement as so much vindication of my faith; and I came by degrees to feel as though Mr.

Prime's new enterprise were my own business, and that my reputation for sagacity were dependent upon his success.

And yet, as I have already implied, Mr. Prime was nothing to me except so far as he represented an instrument of my will. It was not in him that I was interested half so much as in myself. In order to satisfy my curiosity, I even planned in the spring a trip to New York with Aunt Helen, and delighted my eyes with a glimpse of the sign-board over the s.p.a.cious offices of Francis Prime and Company. But on that day it was veritably a glimpse that I got, for I was too timid to take a deliberate scrutiny of what I had come to see, owing to the fact that every one I met stared at me; and then too I was momentarily upset by perceiving over the way just opposite, in great gilt letters, the rival sign, as it seemed to me, of "Roger Dale, Banker and Broker." Mr. Dale I had not seen for several years, but I knew that he was living in New York, where he had not long before married an heiress of obscure antecedents, according to rumor. That it was he I had little doubt; and though the fact of his having an office in the same street could not of course affect, either for evil or otherwise, the interests of my protege, I had an indefinable feeling of dread at perceiving they were so near to one another. It was therefore doubly necessary for me to be careful in my subsequent expeditions down-town, not only to dress in such a quiet unfashionable manner as not to attract the attention of pa.s.sers, but so as to escape recognition from my former admirer.

After the first impression of unpleasantness I felt a little added zest on account of this element of risk, especially when on inquiry I learned that Roger Dale was rated as one of the most successful and enterprising of the younger banking firms in the city. I saw his advertis.e.m.e.nts in the newspapers, and gathered from current talk that he was doing a large and lucrative business. I was glad to know that he was happy and prosperous at last, for he had failed once before leaving home, though I never heard of it until a long while after; and under the influence of this mood any vestige of ill-will that may have been lurking in my mind died away, and I came to regard the rival sign with perfect equanimity from behind the thick veil by which I concealed my features. Instigated by a spirit of caution to make my disguise as complete as possible, I purchased at a cheap clothing-store some garments that did much towards rendering my personal appearance the very opposite of stylish. I even tried to give them a soiled and worn aspect, by means of experiments at home, so that I might pa.s.s for a female clerk or needy bushel-woman, and be free to pursue my investigations un.o.bserved. In this guise I spent a number of days in wandering about the business streets of the city, attentive not only to what went on in the offices of Francis Prime and Company and Roger Dale, but to the countless sights and sounds of bustling trade, which I experienced now for the first time. At first I did not dare to appear too frequently in the street which was the centre of my interest, but a dangerous fascination led me to become bolder and more adventurous as I became familiar with the surroundings. From under the obscurity of arches and from behind pillars I noted daily who entered the doors of the new firm, and endeavored to get an idea of the amount of business that it transacted. In this respect I was somewhat disappointed, for although customers were by no means lacking, there was a dearth of patronage as compared with that enjoyed by the banking-house across the street. During the morning hours there was an incessant stream of people coming and going up and down the marble steps of the great building on the first floor of which were the offices of Roger Dale; and by far the larger proportion of this number went no farther, for I could see them through the broad plate-gla.s.s windows, chatting and grouped about a coil of tape that ran out with a snake-like movement into a basket on the floor. There were ladies too who drove up to the door in their carriages and were shown into the back office, and who when they came out again were attended by Mr. Dale himself, bowing obsequiously. He was stouter than when I saw him last, and quite bald; and he had a different suit of a prominent check-pattern for every day in the week. He seemed immensely popular with his customers, and was slapped by them on the back incessantly, and most of them he slapped back in return. But toward certain individuals he adopted a quite different style of behavior; for he listened to what they said with deference, gave them the most comfortable seat in the office, and opened the door for them when they went away. These I judged to be capitalists and men of influence, whose business he wished to secure. Some of them never came again, but others would return in the afternoon and be closeted with him for hours.

To all this I could not help giving attention, for it was forced on me, as I have indicated, by way of contrast to the style of business that was done by the firm to which my faith was pinned. Indeed I felt badly sometimes, and wondered if it could be that my hero were lacking in enterprise and what the world calls "push." But as I observed more closely, I dismissed this suspicion as unjust; for I began to note that one or two of the grave, important-looking men whom Roger Dale treated with so much suavity, were much more frequent visitors over the way.

Besides, the plate-gla.s.s windows were very small, and it was next to impossible to see what went on inside. Mr. Prime always stayed at his office until nearly six o'clock, and once or twice he was still at work at his desk when the darkness drove me home. In these afternoon hours the street was nearly deserted, and sometimes I ventured close up to the window and peered through. I could see him in a little inner office, writing and poring over papers and accounts. Once while I was thus occupied, a policeman greatly alarmed me by tapping me on the shoulder and observing roughly, "Now then, young woman, move on."

After this I felt the necessity of using more discretion; and lest this narration may prejudice the judicious too strongly against me, let it be said that I pa.s.sed in all only some eight or ten days in this manner during the six weeks Aunt Helen and I were in New York together.

Perhaps, however, this was due somewhat to the difficulty I found in evading her eagle eye, for owing to the necessary changes in my dress I had to invent some excuse commensurate with such a dilapidated appearance. As excursions among the poor twice a week could not seem improbable, I let them account for the plain stuff-gown and unfashionable hat that I wore on the occasion of my down-town visits, and limited myself accordingly. Aunt Helen really shed tears at first because I looked so like a guy; but when I represented to her that it would be cruel to flaunt silks and satins in the faces of those to whom such luxuries were forbidden, to say nothing of the risk one ran of being insulted if gaudily attired, she withdrew her objections. "But only think," said she, "if any of your acquaintances should see you rigged out like that! It could not fail to strike the Honorable Ernest Ferroll as exceedingly peculiar at the best."

IV.

Although I had striven to keep our visit to New York a secret, it was hardly to be expected, in view of my quasi celebrity at home as a society character, coupled with my Aunt's eagerness for amus.e.m.e.nt, that our presence would long escape detection. As a fact, before the end of the first week we were inundated with invitations, many of which it was impossible to decline; and I finally gave up the struggle, and suffered myself to become a facile tool in the hands of my friends after night-fall, reserving merely the day-time for my financial investigations. I was the more willing to submit to this social demand, because I had a hope that I might meet with Mr. Prime at some of the houses to which we were asked. But though I constantly recognized, with a sense of danger that was yet delicious, faces that I had become familiar with down-town, his was never among them. I made no inquiries, but the mystery of his absence was finally explained.

"Miss Harlan," said my hostess to me at a brilliant dinner-party, "I had hoped to be able to present to you this evening my friend Mr. Francis Prime, who is altogether charming; but he writes me that he is not going anywhere this winter: he has in fact given himself up for the time being to business, and cannot break his rule even for me. Everybody is laughing over the idea of his doing anything except make himself agreeable. As he isn't here, let me tell you he is the worst flirt in town; and we all rather hope he won't succeed, for he fills his niche to perfection,--which is paying him a high compliment, I think. But there are other attractive men in the world besides Mr. Prime, and I am going to ask you, by and by, to tell me your opinion of our new Englishman, who is to take you in to dinner. He is only the Honorable Ernest Ferroll at present, but when his uncle dies he will be Duke of Clyde, my dear, and _on dit_ he is looking for a wife."

I found the Honorable Ernest decidedly agreeable. He had a fine figure, was six feet high, with blue eyes and a luxuriant chestnut beard. In his thirty years he had lived and travelled everywhere, reserving the States, as he called them, for a final jaunt preparatory to settling down. He was making merely a flying trip through the seaboard cities after a preliminary canter at Newport, previous to doing California and some big hunting in the "Rockies;" but later he intended to return and spend a season in New York and Boston society. His name was, for the moment, on every one's lips, and there was much quiet maternal inquiry as to how long the old peer was likely to last; for the Honorable Ernest was said to be rather short of money.

"He has a fine forehead, and if one likes beards, his is certainly a handsome specimen," said Aunt Helen ruminantly, as we were driving home.

"I have no fancy for them myself, but it is always possible to shave them off; that's one comfort."

I divined of whom she was speaking, but made no response.

"How did you like him, Virginia?"