Edgar Saltus: The Man Part 8

If there was a being on earth whom Mr. Saltus truly loved it was his mother. His deference to her and his solicitude for her were beautiful. It would have been tragic otherwise, considering how her entire life had been devoted to him. He was her little boy even then,--naughty, perhaps, but her idol. As a matter of fact his mother understood him as little as others did. Love, however, is somewhat psychic. She never took his atheism seriously. Many a time she would interrupt some of his remarks to say:--

"This is not the real Edgar. It may take time, but he will come out of it all at the last."

Mr. Saltus often referred to this when, as she predicted, he did "come out of it."

So frequently was I a guest in his mother's drawing-room that it was difficult for my family to debar Mr. Saltus from our home. His interest in my father's library being accepted as evidence of his fitness, he was permitted to call. Better, they thought, for me to receive him under their roof than meet in secret, where unpleasant construction might be put upon it.

Like the proverbial camel, his nose once safely in the tent of the enemy, the rest followed. He was accepted as a friend of the family.

No one could enjoy a joke more readily than Mr. Saltus' mother.

Quick-witted, clever at repartee, she was delighted when any one had the temerity to brave her son and give him back t.i.t for tat. While I was having tea with them one afternoon Mr. Saltus outlined what he thought should be my study for the next few months, ending with the remark that a slip of a girl did not know what was good for her.

Unhesitatingly came the reply--"A slip will not be instructed by a snip."

Mr. Saltus was slightly undersized for a man. The remark rather hurt him, but his mother burst into a laugh. From that day until his death he was Snipps or Snippsy to me always. So fond did he become of the name that he used it almost entirely when writing or speaking of himself. Upon occasions, when annoyed at something he did I used the name of Edgar, he was hurt and indignant and could not be himself again until the other name was restored. Adopting from me a child language I always used with my pets he would say:--

"I be a good Snipps! (imitating a dog begging); I'm old dog Tray--ever faithful."

"a.s.sociating with a child has put you back where you belong," his mother once said to him. "You are nothing but a bad little boy, grown up."

Strangely enough, it was not so much a romantic attachment as fundamental qualities in common, that made possible the bond between a young girl and a middle-aged man. In meeting a temperament like his own, but in exaggerated form, it meant not only a common language, but an uncommon thing on his part,--that of revealing to himself his high-strung nervous excitability and absent-mindedness in the mirror of those qualities in another. In attempting to soothe the nerves of another, he forgot his own. In remembering to pick up handkerchiefs, gloves and purses, dropped under chairs and tables and forgotten, he gradually began to look after and take care of another even more helpless in that respect than himself.

With a girl, never popular at school, because of her desire for silence and solitude, having more interest in reading than in games, he felt himself to be absolutely at home. As I was looked upon as abnormal and unnatural even by my family, the understanding and sympathy of such a brilliant man, with a wealth of information on every subject under heaven at his finger-tips, turned him into my Alma Mater.

About this time an incident occurred which was not only characteristic of Mr. Saltus' weakest side, but so far-reaching in its effects that no biography would be complete without it.

Admiring letters from women were his daily diet. As a rule he ignored them.

At one time I started to make a sc.r.a.p-book of them for him, calling it The Dollymops Daily. When a week or so would go by without bringing in a fresh batch of them, Mr. Saltus was told that his stock was going down and that he should have a care to his moustache.

Among these letters was one from England, from a Dorothy S----. With it was the photograph of a high-bred and pretty girl. Her letter was different from the average one. Mr. Saltus answered it, and a correspondence began between them. Knowing of him only through his stories and articles in the newspapers, in ignorance that he was not only a married man but a father as well, she a.s.sumed that he was neither, and she wrote him to the effect that she was sure he was her affinity, and all the rest of it.

That was the time to have eased off, but Mr. Saltus did not. Her letters interested him. She was too far away to cause him inconvenience, for the moment at least, and material for stories might result.

Answering again he brushed aside the possibility of future unpleasantness, and sent her an inexpensive ring. The girl took this very seriously.

Replying to his vague compliments, she formally accepted him and sent him a ring in return, which he brought up to me as a joke.

Vainly was he blackjacked and scarified by me in her behalf. The affair amused him. Having let her a.s.sume that he was an unmarried man, he would not face the momentary unpleasantness of writing her the truth and putting the matter straight, at the price of a little humiliation.

Horrified, however, at the way she had taken it, and fearing possible results, he wrote to her saying that he was en route to South America on an a.s.signment for a newspaper, and hoped it would end there. Far from it.

After several unanswered letters, the girl's mother, having ascertained in some way that he was still in New York, sent him a note by registered mail telling him that her daughter, always delicate, had gone utterly to pieces over his silence, and asking the reason of it.

The more involved it became the less inclined was Mr. Saltus to face it, confess the truth and admit that he had replied for amus.e.m.e.nt only. No amount of hammering at him could make him realize that he was playing with the affections of a human being who might suffer in consequence. It had been only a diversion to him. He could not see why it should not be the same to her. Weeks pa.s.sed. Another letter from the mother saying that the girl had gone into rapid tuberculosis and was in the south of France, again urged him to write her. This last appeal sent Mr. Saltus almost into a fit.

"For G.o.d's sake tell the truth and have it over with," he was urged again and again. It seemed to be beyond him. What he had begun only as an amus.e.m.e.nt, without a thought of harm, had developed into a monster waiting to devour him.

When he finally answered the letter it was to say that he was in the bankruptcy court, utterly penniless, and, in the circ.u.mstances, thought it best to drop out of her life.

"Now," he said, "they will not think me worth following up."

After that the letters ceased and he heard nothing more, and it was several years before the denouement occurred.

On the heels of this episode came a crushing grief. Mrs. Francis Henry Saltus, Mr. Saltus' mother, died, very suddenly. The shock stunned him. It took him into a realm hitherto unknown--even unthought of, and it was long before he could readjust himself to life.

Even in his grief his strong strain of indifference to values, custom or common-sense kept to the fore. From the pot-pourri of his deep love for his mother, lack of attachment to material things, united with oriental atavism--he insisted that the body of his mother be buried with all her large and valuable jewels upon it, as the Egyptians surrounded the Ka with all the trappings and trifles of life.

There is no danger in giving out this fact. The exact spot where Mrs.

Saltus is buried (unmarked by a stone, for Mr. Saltus did not believe in such things) is known only to myself and to the cemetery authorities. It is some little distance from the cemetery in which the ashes of her son now rest. Unfortunate it is, that one he loved so deeply could not have been buried in the same plot.

From the shock of this death Mr. Saltus' health went to pieces, and the following spring saw him off to Europe. I was abroad also that year, but in another part of the continent, and it was months before we met again.

On this trip, however, Mr. Saltus made one of the few acquaintances destined to last until the end of his life. Among those at the Captain's table, and seated next to him, was a Miss G----. Young, beautiful, and belonging to one of the best families from whom Amba.s.sadors had been chosen, nimble of tongue and optimistic of spirit, she did much to drag him from the extreme depression into which he had been submerged by his mother's pa.s.sing.

Spiritual, unselfish, always thinking and doing for others, she represented a type of woman never encountered by him before. She saw the best in him and ignored the worst. To penetrate the depths of his depression, finding an agnostic hard soil to saturate, she finally persuaded him to go and consult a medium. With the open mind which Mr. Saltus always had, he agreed to do so, and, upon his return to New York in the autumn, he sought out and went to a Margaret Stewart, a woman celebrated in her day as a remarkable psychic.

What she told him was rather upsetting to the firm philosophy of his life.

It suggested possibilities. Not only did he receive a curiously characteristic message, purporting to come from his mother, but certain things concerning his home life and his future were predicted. These predictions included myself, and were to the effect that Mr. Saltus would ultimately be enabled to marry me and have his happiest years late in life.

He lost no time in rushing up to my home with this news.

a.s.suming at first to "pooh-pooh" spiritualism as moonshine, his interest nevertheless increased. On the lookout for frauds, yet hoping as well to get something concrete to tie to, he went from medium to medium and from seance to seance. Critical, curious and cautious, unwilling to accept the phenomena presented, he was yet more unwilling to give up the quest.

After months of experimenting along these lines, his decision, based on what he had both seen and heard, was that though the major part of it was fraudulent,--and the ident.i.ty of the ent.i.ty giving the message open to question,--there was proof, to his mind at least, of the persistence of personality after death. That granted, a larger question presented itself.

Accepting life to be continuous, the bee did not cease to hum as he had so long affirmed. On the contrary,--the belief in reincarnation became almost a necessity. The pros and cons of this subject with all its ramifications were thrashed out. Mr. Saltus hated arguments. He would agree with any one on any subject rather than expend the energy to controvert them. On this subject, however, he reversed himself.

Reminding him of what he had told me about Rome, we talked it over from every angle. It intrigued his imagination more than any subject on earth.

It was at this time that Mrs. Saltus and himself, having lived separate lives under one roof to little purpose, disagreed further. Mr. Saltus wanted her to divorce him. Thinking perhaps that she had suffered sufficiently at his hands and having had enough of matrimony, she had no desire for the divorce or for further experiments. Besides, there was the little girl--Elsie.

Loving her devotedly, although children in general bored and annoyed him beyond expression, Mr. Saltus used to quote her childish prattle with pride. A p.u.s.s.ie cat became a 'puff-tat' because of her, and it was her tiny hands which until then had held them together.

An incident aggravating the estrangement caused Mrs. Saltus to take the little girl, and leave the apartment. Incidentally, she left his life forever. Nothing can be said to put Mr. Saltus in the right in this affair.

That wrong was not deliberate, however. He would not have harmed a hair of her head on purpose. It was the result of the one weak link in his character. As a matter of fact Mrs. Saltus had been too indulgent and forgiving. These qualities, charming in themselves, gave a temperament such as his, an exaggerated lat.i.tude to develop the domineering and irritable nature inherent in him.

The wonder is not that Mrs. Saltus left him. It is that she remained so long. They never lived under the same roof again. Deciding that the moment had come to press his desire for divorce, Mr. Saltus followed,--found her and asked for it. His wife saw in it nothing desirable for her, and refused. Possibly she did not need a new hat, or had not heard of the Denver woman's method of getting it. She had agreed to his many wishes for the last time.

Moving from the Florence, Mr. Saltus took what remained of the old Italian olive-wood furniture, belonging to his early home in Seventeenth Street, and his books, and took an apartment in the Park Madison, around the corner from the Manhattan Club. This club had been a semi-home to him for years,--a general headquarters both to write in and to receive letters, and it offered quiet and good food as well.

Moving on short notice, his belongings were tossed into the apartment any which way, to be put into order later,--a later which never arrived. With a few books in book-cases and more piled in various corners of the living-room, the latter semi-covered by draperies which were never put to use again, and various pieces of clothing he did not need on top of this, he started in to create a new atmosphere in which to work.

The apartment was small and his furniture was ma.s.sive. The vital essential was there however, for it faced the south and he had the sun all day.

Permitting the maids only to make up his bed,--forbidding them under the most direful threats to attempt any cleaning or dusting of the place, lest some valuable paper or ma.n.u.script be lost or mislaid, he managed 'By the grace of G.o.d,' as he himself expressed it, to get on somehow.

Though only a step away from the Manhattan Club, few knew where he lived.

In later years, with the same desire to conceal his residence, lest some one invade his privacy, he gave the Park Madison, 25 Madison Avenue, as his address. The building had been torn down then, so he was safe in giving it, and no one but those he chose to tell had the faintest idea where he lived.

Door-men and bell boys of the Park Madison were bribed and threatened as before, never to let any one into his apartment or even to admit that he lived there. No hermit could have enjoyed better seclusion.