Mr. Claghorn's Daughter Part 23

CHAPTER XXII.

MAN WALKETH IN A VAIN SHADOW.

Soon after the departure for France of the newly married pair Mark returned from San Francisco. During his absence Mrs. Joe had not failed to call Mr. Hacket in consultation, and the adviser had reiterated the old counsel that the first step in a political career was "to get around and get acquainted." In order to induce her son to continue this preliminary course it became necessary to disclose her "policy."

Mark, though somewhat languid in the matter, displayed no violent reluctance to becoming a statesman. "As to the Presidency," he observed, laughing at his mother's lofty ambition, frankly disclosed, "that is the heaven of the politician, to be attained only by the elect."

"Nothing's impossible, Mark."

"There's a const.i.tutional provision which will prevent my going in for it for some years. Meanwhile, we can investigate and learn how Presidents start. One ended as Justice of the Peace; I might try that as a beginning."

"A Justice of the Peace!"

"Why so scornful? It's aiming high. The usual course is to begin by carrying a banner and shouting."

"Mark, I've set my heart on this."

"My dear mother, blessed is the man or woman that has the wisdom to avoid that error."

"My son," said the lady reproachfully, "you seem without interest in anything."

"I am older, hence less enthusiastic, than you," he answered, smiling, and really believing, perhaps rightly, that, notwithstanding their relation, he felt older than she; "but advise me what to do, and I will do it. I am not unwilling to be a statesman, only----"

"I have told you----"

"To get about and get acquainted. Good! I'll start at once and collar the first voter I meet and demand his friendship." So, laughing, he left her, and within an hour Mrs. Joe saw him ride forth from the gates of Stormpoint.

During his long ride he admitted the reasonableness of his mother's ambition. Aside from the obstacle of great wealth, he was as eligible as another for usefulness and such laurels as come to those who honorably pursue a political career. He might smile at his mother's lofty dreams, yet they were not impossible of attainment; whereas, his own, in so far as they offered any allurement, were both unworthy and impossible. "A man should do something better than bewail his fate," he muttered; "since I cannot love elsewhere I'll be a lover of my country."

Greatly to Mrs. Joe's satisfaction, he thenceforward diligently pursued the preliminary requisite of getting around, in so far as that could be accomplished by long, solitary rides throughout the region. He seldom appeared at dinner without a gratifying account of the acquisition of a new rustic acquaintance, while meantime, the lady of Stormpoint saw to it that he did not remain unknown to such Hampton magnates as she could induce to grace her dinner table, displaying, in the matter of hospitality, a catholicity which surprised Paula and amused Mark, who, however, was quite willing to be amused.

Philosophers who have made the pa.s.sion of love a subject of investigation (and most philosophers have given some attention to this branch of learning) have noticed that the violent death of an old love is often quickly followed by the birth of a new one. A jilted man or woman is Cupid's easiest prey.

Mrs. Joe may, or may not, have been aware of the truth of the above axiom, or its fitness in the case before her; but, having been fairly successful in interesting Mark in one object of her "policy," she resolved at this time to venture further and urge upon his attention the claims of Paula to his love; and, to her great delight, she found him not inattentive to the suggestion. He told his mother, truly enough, that he had a sincere affection for Paula, and admitted that she was, as far as was compatible with humanity, faultless; for it could hardly be a fault in Paula that he could feel no throb in his pulse, or glow in his bosom, when he recalled her to memory.

"You forget," he said, "that while I might find it easy to love her"

(which he did not believe), "she might not find it easy to love me."

"You need have no fear." She was about to add that Paula would love anybody that loved her, but remembered in time that this might not be regarded as a recommendation. "She is the best creature I ever knew--almost perfect."

"I believe she is," he a.s.sented with a sigh, which was a tribute to Paula's perfection. "I fear she is too good for me."

"That's a strange objection."

"I am not so sure," he replied, as he lit a cigar, preparatory to leaving the room. But when he was gone, Mrs. Joe felt that he would consider the matter, and was content.

Unconsciously to herself, and, perhaps, without the knowledge of those by whom she was surrounded, Paula was somewhat harshly treated by nature; and that, notwithstanding her beauty. She was the embodiment of purity, of affection, of all the sweeter virtues, hence, regarded as wanting in those weaknesses which are essential to the symmetry of strength; one who lacks the everyday vices of temper, of selfishness, of jealousy, is, in some degree, abhorrent to our sense of the fitness of things. It is not that we envy the possessor of all the virtues--on the contrary, total absence of vice awakens something akin to contempt--but we are impatient of a non-combative disposition. The ideal Christian, offering the unsmitten cheek, presents a spectacle which, on Sundays, we characterize as sublime; the actual Christian, making such a tender, is, on any day, an object of scorn. Even of Paula, they who knew her would have admitted that it was possible to rouse her to resentment, possibly to a deed of vengeance, just as the worm may be made to turn; but, then, humanity refuses to admire worms in any att.i.tude.

As Mark prosecuted the study of Paula, it gradually dawned upon him that it was interesting. From wondering whether there could be "much in her," he attained the conviction that, whether much or little, what there was was beyond his ken. "Paula," he asked one day, "are you as good as you look?"

"I don't know how good I look, Mark."

"Saintlike."

"Then I am not as good as I look; only I don't think I look as you say."

"Paula, you are a mystery. That's a great thing to be, is it not?"

(Somehow, he could not help talking to Paula as if she were a child.) "Explain the mystery."

"Everybody is a mystery. Explain the mystery."

"Here is an unexpected depth," he exclaimed, with some surprise. "You have dared to raise a great question. Let us seek the solution at Grandfather Eliphalet's tomb."

The tomb, renovated and neatly railed by that which Miss Claghorn secretly regarded as the sacrilegious hand of Mrs. Joe, was near the extremity of the Point. When the weary Eliphalet had been laid there to rest it had been further inland, but the ever-pounding ocean was gradually having its way, day by day encroaching upon the domain of the seemingly indestructible rocks.

"The time will come," said Mark, as the two leaned upon the railing, "when the sea will claim old Eliphalet's bones."

"And the time will come when the sea will give up its dead," said Paula.

"Perhaps," he answered gloomily; "and to what end? You will answer, in order that the dead may be judged. I still ask, to what end?"

"That is the mystery, Mark."

"Not to be answered at Eliphalet's tomb, or elsewhere. Paula, did you ever hear of Deacon Bedott?"

"You know, Mark, there are so many deacons in Hampton----"

"This one lived in Slabtown, if I remember right. He was a character of fiction, neither very wise nor very entertaining; yet when Deacon Bedott lifted up his voice and spake, he formulated one of the Great Truths that man can know."

"What did he say?" she asked after a pause.

"We are all poor critters," was the answer, with a grim laugh. "Paula, I believe it is the only truth that really does come home to a man."

"It is from the Bible," she said simply.

He looked up. "Do you mean to a.s.sert that the Deacon was merely quoting?

Are you going to destroy my faith in a pet philosopher; he who said all that Plato said, or Socrates, or Seneca--or anybody?"

"For man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain," she answered in a low tone.

There was silence for a moment; at length Mark said: "It seems that the Deacon was, after all, a plagiarist."

"I think that perhaps philosophers have discovered few truths concerning man that they might not have found in the Bible, and with less labor."

"Paula, do you believe the Bible?"

"Why, Mark! It is G.o.d's word."