Nobody Part 70

"Don't shout at a fellow! What could I do? They wouldn't let me have what I wanted; and now they're quite pleased, and Julia has gone home.

She has done her work. O, I am making an excellent match. 'An old family, and three hundred thousand dollars,' as my mother says. That's all one wants, you know."

"Who is the lady?"

"It don't matter, you know, when you have heard her qualifications.

It's Miss Dulcimer--one of the Philadelphia Dulcimers. Of course one couldn't make a better bargain for oneself. And I'm as fond of her as I can be; in fact, I was afraid I was getting _too_ fond. So I ran away, as I told you, to think over my happiness at leisure, and moderate my feelings."

"Tom, Tom, I never heard you bitter before," said his friend, regarding him with real concern.

"Because I never _was_ bitter before. O, I shall be all right now. I haven't had a soul on whom I could pour out my mind, till this hour. I know you're as safe as a mine. It does me good to talk to you. I tell you, I shall be all right. I'm a very happy bridegroom expectant. You know, if the Caruthers have plenty of money, the Dulcimers have twice as much. Money's really everything."

"Have you any idea how this news will touch Miss--the other lady you were talking about?"

"I suppose it won't touch her at all. She's different; that's one reason why I liked her. She would not care a farthing for me because I'm a Caruthers, or because I have money; not a bra.s.s farthing! She is the _real_est person I ever saw. She would go about Appledore from morning to night in the greatest state of delight you ever saw anybody; where my sister, for instance, would see nothing but rocks and weeds, Lois would have her hands full of what Julia would call trash, and what to her was better than if the fairies had done it. Things pulled out of the shingle and mud,--I can just see her,--and flowers, and stones, and sh.e.l.ls. What she would make of _this_ now!--But you couldn't set that girl down anywhere, I believe, that she wouldn't find something to make her feel rich. She's a richer woman this minute, than my Dulcimer with her thousands. And she's got good blood in her too, Philip. I learned that from Mrs. Wishart. She has the blood of ever so many of the old Pilgrims in her veins; and that is good descent, Philip?"

"They think so in New England."

"Well, they are right, I am ready to believe. Anyhow, I don't care--"

He broke off, and there was a silence of some minutes' length. The gondola swam along over the quiet water, under the magnificent sky; the reflected colours glanced upon two faces, grave and self-absorbed.

"Old boy," said Philip at length, "I hardly think you are right."

"Right in what? I am right in all I have told you."

"I meant, right in your proposed plan of action. You may say it is none of my business."

"I shall not say it, though. What's the wrong you mean?"

"It seems to me Miss Dulcimer would not feel obliged to you, if she knew all."

"She doesn't feel obliged to me at all," said Tom. "She gives a good as she gets."

"No better?"

"What do you mean?"

"Pardon me, Tom; but you have been frank with me. By your own account, she will get very little."

"All she wants. I'll give her a local habitation and a name."

"I am sure you are unjust."

"Not at all. That is all half the girls want; all they try for. She's very content. O, I'm very good to her when we are together; and I mean to be. You needn't look at me," said Tom, trying to laugh.

"Three-quarters of all the marriages that are made are on the same pattern. Why, Phil, what do the men and women of this world live for?

What's the purpose in all I've been doing since I left college? What's the good of floating round in the world as I have been doing all summer and winter here this year? and at home it is different only in the manner of it. People live for nothing, and don't enjoy life. I don't know at this minute a single man or woman, of our sort, you know, that enjoys life; except that one. And _she_ isn't our sort. She has no money, and no society, and no Europe to wander round in! O, they would _say_ they enjoy life; but their way shows they don't."

"Enjoyment is not the first thing," Philip said thoughtfully.

"O, isn't it! It's what we're all after, anyhow; you'll allow that."

"Perhaps that is the way we miss it."

"So Dulcimer and I are all right, you see," pursued Tom, without heeding this remark. "We shall be a very happy couple. All the world will have us at their houses, and we shall have all the world at ours.

There won't be room left for any thing but happiness; and that'll squeeze in anywhere, you know. It's like chips floating round on the surface of a whirlpool--they fly round and round splendidly--till they get sucked in."

"Tom!" cried his companion. "What has come to you? Your life is not so different now from what it has always been;--and I have always known you for a light-hearted fellow. I can't have you take this tone."

Tom was silent, biting the ends of his moustache in a nervous way, which bespoke a good deal of mental excitement; Philip feared, of mental trouble.

"If a friend may ask, how came you to do what is so unsatisfactory to you?" he said at length.

"My mother and sister! They were so preciously afraid I should ruin myself. Philip, I _could not_ make head against them. They were too much for me, and too many for me; they were all round me; they were ahead of me; I had no chance at all. So I gave up in despair. Women are the overpowering when they take a thing in their head! A man's nowhere.

I gave in, and gave up, and came away, and now--they're satisfied."

"Then the affair is definitely concluded?"

"As definitely as if my head was off."

Philip did not laugh, and there was a pause again. The colours were fading from sky and water, and a yellow, soft moonlight began to a.s.sert her turn. It was a change of beauty for beauty; but neither of the two young men seemed to take notice of it.

"Tom," began the other after a time, "what you say about the way most of us live, is more or less true; and it ought not to be true."

"Of course it is true!" said Tom.

"But it ought not to be true."

"What are you going to do about it? One must do as everybody else does; I suppose."

"_Must_ one? That is the very question."

"What can you do else, as long as you haven't your bread to get?"

"I believe the people who _have_ their bread to get have the best of it. But there must be some use in the world, I suppose, for those who are under no such necessity. Did you ever hear that Miss--Lothrop's family were strictly religious?"

"No--yes, I have," said Tom. "I know _she_ is."

"That would not have suited you."

"Yes, it would. Anything she did would have suited me. I have a great respect for religion, Philip."

"What do you mean by religion?"

"I don't know--what everybody means by it. It is the care of the spiritual part of our nature, I suppose."

"And how does that care work?"

"I don't know," said Tom. "It works altar-cloths; and it seems to mean church-going, and choral music, and teaching ragged schools; and that sort of thing. I don't understand it; but I should never interfere with it. It seems to suit the women particularly."