Stories of a Western Town Part 8

Tommy told Harry that Miss Van Harlem was a very handsome lady, but haughty-looking. Then he talked for half an hour about the cleverness of Mrs. Carriswood.

"I am inclined to think Tommy will rise." (Mrs. Carriswood was describing the interview to her cousin, the next day.) "What do you think he said to me last of all? 'How,' said he, 'does a man, a gentleman'--it had a touch of the pathetic, don't you know, the little hesitation he made on the word--'how does he show his grat.i.tude to a lady who has done him a great service?' 'Young or old?' I said. 'Oh, a married lady,' he said, 'very much admired, who has been everywhere.'

Wasn't that clever of him? I told him that a man usually sent a few flowers. You saw the basket to-day--evidently regardless of expense. And fancy, there was a card, a card with a gilt edge and his name written on it."

"The card was his mother's. She has visiting cards, now, and pays visits once a year in a livery carriage. Poor Mrs. Fitzmaurice, she is always so scared; and she is such a good soul! Tommy is very good to her."

"How about the father? Does he still keep that 'nice' saloon?"

"Yes; but he talks of retiring. They are not poor at all, and Tommy is their only child; the others died. It is hard on the old man to retire, for he isn't so very old in fact, but if he once is convinced that his calling stands in the way of Tommy's career, he won't hesitate a second."

"Poor people," said Mrs. Carriswood; "do you know, Grace, I can see Tommy's future; he will grow to be a boss, a political boss. He will become rich by keeping your streets always being cleaned--which means never clean--and giving you the worst fire department and police to be obtained for money; and, by and by, a grateful machine will make him mayor, or send him to the Legislature, very likely to Congress, where he will misrepresent the honest State of Iowa. Then he will bloom out in a social way, and marry a gentlewoman, and they will snub the old people who are so proud of him."

"Well, we shall see," said Mrs. Lossing; "I think better things of Tommy. So does Harry."

Part of the prophecy was to be speedily fulfilled. Two years later, the Honorable Thomas Fitzmaurice was elected mayor of his city, elected by the reform party, on account of his eminent services--and because he was the only man in sight who had the ghost of a chance of winning. Harry's version was: "Tommy jests at his new principles, but that is simply because he doesn't comprehend what they are. He laughs at reform in the abstract; but every concrete, practical reform he is as anxious as I or anybody to bring about. And he will get them here, too."

He was as good as his word; he gave the city an admirable administration, with neither fear nor favor. Some of the "boys" still clung to him; these, according to Harry, were the better "boys," who had the seeds of good in them and only needed opportunity and a leader.

Tommy did not flag in zeal; rather, as the time went on and he soared out of the criminal courts into big civil cases involving property, he grew up to the level of his admirers' praises. "Tommy," wrote Mr.

Lossing, presently, "is beginning to take himself seriously. He has been told so often that he is a young lion of reform, that he begins to study the role in dead earnest. I don't talk this way to Harry, who believes in him and is training him for the representative for our district. What harm? Verily, his is the faith that will move mountains. Besides, Tommy is now rich; he must be worth a hundred thousand dollars, which makes a man of wealth in these parts. It is time for him to be respectable."

Notwithstanding this preparation, Mrs. Carriswood (then giving Washington the benefit of her doubts of climate) was surprised one day to receive a perfectly correct visiting card whereon was engraved, "Mr.

Thomas Sackville Fitzmaurice, M.C."

The young lady who was with her lifted her brilliant hazel eyes and half smiled. "Is it the droll young man we met once at Mrs. Lossing's? Pray see him, Aunt Margaret," said Miss Van Harlem.

Mrs. Carriswood shrugged her shoulders and ordered the man to show him up.

There entered, in the wake of the butler, a distinguished-looking personage who held out his hand with a perfect copy of the bow that she saw forty times a day. "He is taking himself very seriously," she sighed; "he is precisely like anybody else!" And she felt her interest snuffed out by Tommy's correctness. But, directly, she changed her mind; the unfailing charm of his race a.s.serted itself in Tommy; she decided that he was a delightful, original young man, and in ten minutes they were talking in the same odd confidence that had always marked their relation.

"How perfectly you are gotten up! Are you INSIDE, now?"

"Ah, do you remember that?" said he; "that's awfully good of you. Which is so fortunate as to please you, my clothes or my deportment?"

"Both. They are very good. Where did you get them, Tommy? I shall take the privilege of my age and call you Tommy."

"Thank you. The clothes? Oh, I asked Harry for the proper thing, and he recommended a tailor. I think Harry gave me the manners, too."

"And your new principles?" She could not resist this little fling.

"I owe a great deal in that way to Harry, also," answered he, with gravity.

Gone were the days of sarcastic ridicule, of visionary politics.

Tommy talked of the civil service in the tone of Harry himself. He was actually eloquent.

"Why, Aunt Margaret, he is a remarkable young man," exclaimed Miss Van Harlem; "his honesty and enthusiasm are refreshing in this pessimist place. I hope he will come again. Did you notice what lovely eyes he has?"

Before long it was not pure good-nature that caused Mrs. Carriswood to ask Fitzmaurice to her house. He was known as a rising young man, One met him at the best houses; yet he was a prodigious worker, and had made his mark in committees, before the celebrated speech that sent him into all the newspaper columns, or that stubborn and infinitely versatile fight against odds which inspired the artist of PUCK.

Tommy bore the cartoon to Mrs. Carriswood, beaming. She had not seen that light in his face since the memorable June afternoon in the Opera-house. He sent the paper to his mother, who vowed the picture "did not favor Tommy at all, at all. Sure Tommy never had such a red nose!"

The old man, however, went to his ex-saloon, and sat in state all the morning, showing Tommy's funny picture.

It was about this time that Mrs. Carriswood observed something that took her breath away: Tommy Fitzmaurice had the presumption to be attentive to my lady's G.o.ddaughter, Miss Van Harlem. Nor was this the worst; there were indications that Miss Van Harlem, who had refused the n.o.ble names and t.i.tles of two or three continental n.o.bles, and the n.o.ble name unaccompanied by a t.i.tle of the younger son of an English earl, without mentioning the half-dozen "nice" American claimants--Miss Van Harlem was not angry.

The day this staggering blow fell on her, Mrs. Carriswood was in her dressing-room, peacefully watching Derry unpack a box from Paris, in antic.i.p.ation of a state dinner. And Miss Van Harlem, in a bewitching wrapper, sat on the lounge and admired. Upon this scene of feminine peace and happiness enter the Destroyer, in the shape of a note from Tommy Fitzmaurice! Were they going on Beatoun's little excursion to Alexandria? If they were, he would move heaven and earth to put off a committee meeting, in order to join them. By the way, he was to get the floor for his speech that afternoon. Wouldn't Mrs. Carriswood come to inspire him? Perhaps Miss Van Harlem would not be bored by a little of it.

It was a well-worded note; as Mrs. Carriswood read it she realized for the first time how completely Tommy was acclimated in society. She remembered his plaint years ago, and his awe of "oil paintings" and "people of culture;" and she laughed half-sadly as she pa.s.sed the note over to Miss Van Harlem.

"I presume it is the Alexandria excursion that the Beatouns were talking about yesterday," she said, languidly. "He wants to show that young Irishman that we have a mild flavor of antiquity, ourselves. We are to see Alexandria and have a real old Virginian dinner, including one of the famous Beatoun hams and some of the '69 Chateau Yquem and the sacred '47 port. I suppose he will have the four-in-hand buckboard.

'A small party '--that will mean the Honorable Basil Sackville, Mrs.

Beatoun, Lilly Denning, probably one of the Cabinet girls, Colonel Turner, and that young Russian Beatoun is so fond of, Tommy Fitzmaurice------"

"Why do you always call Mr. Fitzmaurice Tommy?"--this interruption comes with a slight rise of color from young Margaret.

"Everybody calls him Tommy in his own town; a politician as popular as he with the boys is naturally Tommy or Jerry or Billy. They slap him on the back or sit with an arm around his neck and concoct the ways to rule us."

"I don't think anyone slaps Mr. Fitzmaurice on the back and calls him Tommy, NOW," says Margaret, with a little access of dignity.

"I dare say his poor old father and mother don't venture on that liberty; I wish you had seen them----"

"He has told me about them," says Margaret.

And Mrs. Carriswood's dismay was such that for a second she simply gasped. Were things so far along that such confessions were made?

Tommy must be very confident to venture; it was shrewd, very shrewd, to forestall Mrs. Carriswood's sure revelations--oh, Tommy was not a politician for nothing!

"Besides," Margaret went on, with the same note of repressed feeling in her voice, "his is a good family, if they have decayed; his ancestor was Lord Fitzmaurice in King James's time."

"She takes HIM seriously too!" thought Mrs. Carriswood, with inexpressible consternation; "what SHALL I say to her mother?"

Strange to say, perhaps, considering that she was so frankly a woman of the world, her stub-bornest objection to Tommy was not an objection of expediency. She had insensibly grown to take his success for granted, like the rest of the Washington world; he would be a governor, a senator, he might be--anything! And he was perfectly presentable, now; no, it would be on the whole an investment in the future that would pay well enough; his parents would be awkward, but they were old people, not likely to be too much _en evidence_.

Mrs. Carriswood, while not overjoyed, would not feel crushed by such a match, but she did view what she regarded as Tommy's moral instability, with a dubious and fearful eye. He was earnest enough for his new principles now; but what warrant was there of his sincerity? Margaret and her mother were high-minded women. It was the gallant knight of her party and her political faith that the girl admired, the valiant fight, not the triumph! No mere soldier of fortune, no matter how successful or how brilliant, could win her; if Tommy were the mercenary, not the knight, no worldly glory could compensate his wife.

Wherefore, after a bad quarter of an hour reflecting on these things, Mrs. Carriswood went to the Capitol, resolved to take her G.o.ddaughter away. She would not withdraw her acceptance of the Beatouns' invitation, no; let the Iowa congressman have every opportunity to display his social shortcomings in contrast with the accomplished Russian, and Jack Turner, the most elegant man in the army; the next day would be time enough for a telegram and a sudden flitting. Yet in the midst of her plans for Tommy's discomfiture she was a.s.sailed by a queer regret and reluctance. Tommy's fascination had affected even a professional critic of life; he had been so amusing, so willing, so trusting, so useful, that her chill interest had warmed into liking. She felt a moving of the heart as the handsome black head arose, and the first notes of that resonant, thrilling voice swelled above the din on the floor.

It was the day of his great speech, the speech that made him, it was said.

As Mrs. Carriswood sank back, turning a little in an instinctive effort to repulse her own sympathy, she was aware of the presence near her of an elderly man and woman. The old man wore a shining silk hat and shining new black clothes. His expansive shirt-bosom was very white, but not glossy, and rumpled in places; and his collar was of the spiked and antique pattern known as a "d.i.c.key." His wrinkled, red face was edged by a white fringe of whisker. He wore large gold-bowed spectacles, and his jaws worked incessantly.

The woman was a little, mild, wrinkled creature, with an anxious blue eye and snowy hair, smoothed down over her ears, under her fine bonnet.

She was richly dressed, but her silks and velvets ill suited the season. Had she seen them anywhere else, Mrs. Carriswood might not have recognized them; but there, with Tommy before them, both of them feverishly absorbed in Tommy, she recognized them at a glance. She had a twinge of pity, watching the old faces pale and kindle. With the first rustle of applause, she saw the old father slip his hand into the old mother's. They sat well behind a pillar; and however excited they became, they never so lost themselves as to lean in front of their shield. This, also, she noticed. The speech over, the woman wiped her eyes. The old man joined in the tumult of applause that swept over the galleries, but the old woman pulled his arm, evidently feeling that it was not decent for them to applaud. She sat rigid, with red cheeks and her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g; he was swaying and clapping and laughing in a roar of delight. But it was he that drew her away, finally, while she fain would have lingered to look at Tommy receiving congratulations below.

"Poor things," said Mrs. Carriswood, "I do believe they haven't let him know that they are here." And she remembered how she had pitied them for this very possibility of humiliation years before. But she did not pursue the adventure, and some obscure motive prevented her speaking of it to Miss Van Harlem.

Did Tommy's parents tell Tommy? If they did, Tommy made no sign. The morning found him with the others, in a beautiful white flannel suit, with a silk shirt and a red silk sash, looking handsomer than any man of the party. He took the congratulations of the company modestly. Either he was not much puffed up, or he had the art of concealment.

They saw Alexandria in a conscientious fashion, for the benefit of the guest of the day. He was a modest young fellow with a nose rather too large for his face, a long upper lip, and frank blue eyes. He made himself agreeable to one of the Cabinet girls, on the front seat, while Tommy, just behind him, had Miss Van Harlem and bliss for his portion.

The old streets, the toppling roofs, the musty warehouses, the uneven pavement, all pleased the young creatures out in the sunshine. They made merry over the ancient ball-room, where Washington had asked a far-away ancestress of Beatoun to dance; and they decorously walked through the old church.