Peter Part 4

The room itself, its light shut out by the adjoining extensions, prevented it; so did the glimpse of hard asphalt covering the sc.r.a.p of a yard, its four melancholy posts hung about with wire clothes-lines; and so did the clean-shaven, smug-faced butler, who invariably conducted his master's guests to their chairs with the movement of an undertaker, and who had never been known to crack a smile of any kind, long or short, during his five years' sojourn with the family of Breen.

Not that anybody wanted Parkins to crack one, that is, not his master, and certainly not his mistress, and most a.s.suredly not his other mistress, Miss Corinne, the daughter of the lady whom the successful Wall Street broker had made his first and only wife.

All this gloomy atmosphere might have been changed for the better had there been a big, cheery open wood fire snapping and blazing away, sputtering out its good morning as you entered--and there would have been if any one of the real inmates had insisted upon it--fought for it, if necessary; or if in summer one could have seen through the curtained windows a stretch of green gra.s.s with here and there a tree, or one or two twisted vines craning their necks to find out what was going on inside; or if in any or all seasons, a wholesome, happy-hearted, sunny wife looking like a bunch of roses just out of a bath, had sat behind the smoking coffee-urn, inquiring whether one or two lumps of sugar would be enough; or a gladsome daughter who, in a sudden burst of affection, had thrown her arms around her father's neck and kissed him because she loved him, and because she wanted his day and her day to begin that way:--if, I say, there had been all, or one-half, or one-quarter of these things, the atmosphere of this sepulchral interior might have been improved--but there wasn't.

There was a wife, of course, a woman two years older than Arthur Breen--the relict of a Captain Barker, an army officer--who had spent her early life in moving from one army post to another until she had settled down in Washington, where Breen had married her, and where the Scribe first met her. But this sharer of the fortunes of Breen preferred her breakfast in bed, New York life having proved even more wearing than military upheavals. And there was also a daughter, Miss Corinne Barker, Captain and Mrs. Barker's only offspring, who had known nothing of army posts, except as a child, but who had known everything of Washington life from the time she was twelve until she was fifteen, and she was now twenty; but that young woman, I regret to say, also breakfasted in bed, where her maid had special instructions not to disturb her until my lady's jewelled fingers touched a b.u.t.ton within reach of her dainty hand; whereupon another instalment of b.u.t.tered rolls and coffee would be served with such accessories of linen, porcelain and silver as befitted the appet.i.te and station of one so beautiful and so accomplished.

These conditions never ceased to depress Jack. Fresh from a life out of doors, accustomed to an old-fashioned dining-room--the living room, really, of the family who had cared for him since his father's death, where not only the sun made free with the open doors and windows, but the dogs and neighbors as well--the sober formality of this early meal--all of his uncle's meals, for that matter--sent shivers down his back that chilled him to the bone.

He had looked about him the first morning of his arrival, had noted the heavy carved sideboard laden with the garish silver; had examined the pictures lining the walls, separated from the dark background of leather by heavy gold frames; had touched with his fingers the dial of the solemn bronze clock, flanked by its equally solemn candelabra; had peered between the steel andirons, bright as carving knives, and into the freshly varnished, s.p.a.cious chimney up which no dancing blaze had ever whirled in madcap glee since the mason's trowel had left it and never would to the end of time,--not as long as the steam heat held out; had watched the crane-like step of Parkins as he moved about the room--cold, immaculate, impa.s.sive; had listened to his "Yes, sir--thank you, sir, very good, sir," until he wanted to take him by the throat and shake something spontaneous and human out of him, and as each cheerless feature pa.s.sed in review his spirits had sunk lower and lower.

This, then, was what he could expect as long as he lived under his uncle's roof--a period of time which seemed to him must stretch out into dim futurity. No laughing halloos from pa.s.sing neighbors through wide-open windows; no Aunt Hannahs running in with a plate of cakes fresh from the griddle which would cool too quickly if she waited for that slow-coach of a Tom to bring them to her young master. No sweep of leaf-covered hills seen through bending branches laden with blossoms; no stretch of sky or slant of sunshine; only a grim, funereal, artificial formality, as ungenial and flattening to a boy of his tastes, education and earlier environment as a State asylum's would have been to a red Indian fresh from the prairie.

On the morning after Morris's dinner (within eight hours really of the time when he had been so thrilled by the singing of the Doxology), Jack was in his accustomed seat at the small, adjustable accordion-built table--it could be stretched out to accommodate twenty-four covers--when his uncle entered this room. Parkins was genuflecting at the time with his--"Cream, sir,--yes, sir. Devilled kidney, sir? Thank you, sir."

(Parkins had been second man with Lord Colchester, so he told Breen when he hired him.) Jack had about made up his mind to order him out when a peculiar tone in his uncle's "Good morning" made the boy scan that gentleman's face and figure the closer.

His uncle was as well dressed as usual, looking as neat and as smart in his dark cut-away coat with the invariable red carnation in his b.u.t.tonhole, but the boy's quick eye caught the marks of a certain wear and tear in the face which neither his bath nor his valet had been able to obliterate. The thin lips--thin for a man so fat, and which showed, more than any other feature, something of the desultory firmness of his character--drooped at the corners. The eyes were half their size, the snap all out of them, the whites lost under the swollen lids. His greeting, moreover, had lost its customary heartiness.

"You were out late, I hear," he grumbled, dropping into his chair. "I didn't get in myself until two o'clock and feel like a boiled owl.

May have caught a little cold, but I think it was that champagne of Duckworth's; always gives me a headache. Don't put any sugar and cream in that coffee, Parkins--want it straight."

"Yes, sir," replied the flunky, moving toward the sideboard.

"And now, Jack, what did you do?" he continued, picking up his napkin.

"You and Garry made a night of it, didn't you? Some kind of an artist's bat, wasn't it?"

"No, sir; Mr. Morris gave a dinner to his clerks, and--"

"Who's Morris?"

"Why, the great architect."

"Oh, that fellow! Yes, I know him, that is, I know who he is. Say the rest. Parkins! didn't I tell you I didn't want any sugar or cream."

Parkins hadn't offered any. He had only forgotten to remove them from the tray.

Jack kept straight on; these differences between the master and Parkins were of daily occurrence.

"And, Uncle Arthur, I met the most wonderful gentleman I ever saw; he looked just as if he had stepped out of an old frame, and yet he is down in the Street every day and--"

"What firm?"

"No firm, he is--"

"Curbstone man, then?" Here Breen lifted the cup to his lips and as quickly put it down. "Parkins!"

"Yes, sir," came the monotone.

"Why the devil can't I get my coffee hot?"

"Is it cold, sir?"--slight modulation, but still lifeless.

"IS IT COLD? Of course it's cold! Might have been standing in a morgue.

Take that down and have some fresh coffee sent up. Servants running o'er each other and yet I can't get a--Go on, Jack! I didn't mean to interrupt, but I'll clean the whole lot of 'em out of here if I don't get better service."

"No, Uncle Arthur, he isn't a banker--isn't even a broker; he's only a paying teller in a bank," continued Jack.

The older man turned his head and a look of surprise swept over his round, fat face.

"Teller in a BANK?" he asked in an altered tone.

"Yes, the most charming, the most courteous old gentleman I have ever met; I haven't seen anybody like him since I left home, and, just think, he has promised to come and see me to-night."

The drooping lips straightened and a shrewd, searching glance shot from Arthur Breen's eyes. There was a brain behind this sleepy face--as many of his compet.i.tors knew. It was not always in working order, but when it was the man became another personality.

"Jack--" The voice was now as thin as the drawn lips permitted, with caution in every tone, "you stop short off. You mustn't cotton to everybody you pick up in New York--it won't do. Get you into trouble.

Don't bring him here; your aunt won't like it. When you get into a hole with a fellow and can't help yourself, take him to the club. That's one of the things I got you into the Magnolia for; but don't ever bring 'em here."

"But he's a personal friend of Mr. Morris, and a friend of another friend of Mr. Morris's they called 'Major.'" It was not the first time he had heard such inhospitable suggestions from his uncle.

"Oh, yes, I know; they've all got some old retainers hanging on that they give a square meal to once a year, but don't you get mixed up with 'em."

Parkins had returned by this time and was pouring a fresh cup of coffee.

"Now, Parkins, that's something like--No, I don't want any kidneys--I don't want any toast--I don't want anything, Parkins--haven't I told you so?"

"Yes, sir; thank you sir."

"Black coffee is the only thing that'll settle this head. What you want to do, Jack, is to send that old fossil word that you've got another engagement, and... Parkins, is there anything going on here to-night?"

"Yes, sir; Miss Cocinne is giving a small dance."

"There, Jack--that's it. That'll let you out with a whole skin."

"No, I can't, and I won't, Uncle Arthur," he answered in an indignant tone. "If you knew him as I do, and had seen him last night, you would--"

"No, I don't want to know him and I don't want to see him. You are all balled up, I see, and can't work loose, but take him upstairs; don't let your aunt come across him or she'll have a fit." Here he glanced at the bronze clock. "What!--ten minutes past nine! Parkins, see if my cab is at the door.... Jack, you ride down with me. I walked when I was your age, and got up at daylight. Some difference, Jack, isn't there, whether you've got a rich uncle to look after you or not." This last came with a wink.

It was only one of his pleasantries. He knew he was not rich; not in the accepted sense. He might be a small star in the myriads forming the Milky-Way of Finance, but there were planets millions of miles beyond him, whose brilliancy he was sure he could never equal. The fact was that the money which he had acc.u.mulated had been so much greater sum than he had ever hoped for when he was a boy in a Western State--his father went to Iowa in '49--and the changes in his finances had come with such lightning rapidity (half a million made on a tip given him by a friend, followed by other tips more or less profitable) that he loved to pat his pride, so to speak, in speeches like this.

That he had been swept off his feet by the social and financial rush about him was quite natural. His wife, whose early life had been one long economy, had ambitions to which there was no limit and her escape from her former thraldom had been as sudden and as swift as the upward spring of a loosened balloon. Then again all the money needed to make the ascension successful was at her disposal. Hence jewels, laces, and clothes; hence elaborate dinners, the talk of the town: hence teas, receptions, opera parties, week-end parties at their hired country seat on Long Island; dances for Corinne; dinners for Corinne; birthday parties for Corinne; everything, in fact, for Corinne, from manicures to pug dogs and hunters.

His two redeeming qualities were his affection for his wife and his respect for his word. He had no child of his own, and Corinne, though respectful never showed him any affection. He had sent Jack to a Southern school and college, managing meanwhile the little property his father had left him, which, with some wild lands in the c.u.mberland Mountains, practically worthless, was the boy's whole inheritance, and of late had treated him as if he had been his own son.

As to his own affairs, close as he sailed to the wind in his money transactions--so close sometimes that the Exchange had more than once overhauled his dealings--it was generally admitted that when Arthur Breen gave his WORD--a difficult thing often to get--he never broke it.

This was offset by another peculiarity with less beneficial results: When he had once done a man a service only to find him ungrateful, no amount of apologies or atonement thereafter ever moved him to forgiveness. Narrow-gauge men are sometimes built that way.

It was to be expected, therefore, considering the quality of Duckworth's champagne and the impression made on Jack by his uncle's outburst, that the ride down town in the cab was marked by anything but cheerful conversation between Breen and his nephew, each of whom sat absorbed in his own reflections. "I didn't mean to be hard on the boy," ruminated Breen, "but if I had picked up everybody who wanted to know me, as Jack has done, where would I be now?" Then, his mind still clouded by the night at the club (he had not confined himself entirely to champagne), he began, as was his custom, to concentrate his attention upon the work of the day--on the way the market would open; on the remittance a belated customer had promised and about which he had some doubt; the meeting of the board of directors in the new mining company--"The Great Mukton Lode," in which he had an interest, and a large one--etc.