The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Part 148

"I should think so. But what do you do with the ebony?"

"Oh, the ebony and gold? That is the adjoining sitting-room--such a pretty contrast."

"And the teak?"

"It has such a beautiful polish. That is another room. Carmen says that will be our sober room, where we go when we want to repent of things."

"Well, if you have any sandal-wood left over, you can work it into your Boys' Lodging-house, you know."

"Don't be foolish! And then the ballroom, ninety feet long--it looks small on the paper. And do you think we'd better have those life-size figures all round, mediaeval statues, with the incandescents? Carmen says she would prefer a row of monks--something piquant about that in a ballroom. I don't know that I like the figures, after all; they are too crushing and heavy."

"It would make a good room for the Common Council," Henderson suggested.

"Wouldn't it be prettier hung with silken arras figured with a chain of dancing-girls? Dear me, I don't know what to do. Rodney, you must put your mind on it."

"Might line it with gold plate. I'll make arrangements so that you can draw on the Bank of England."

Margaret looked hurt. "But you told me, dear, not to spare anything --that we would have the finest house in the city. I'm sure I sha'n't enjoy it unless you want it."

"Oh, I want it," resumed Henderson, good-humoredly. "Go ahead, little wife. We shall pull through."

"Women beat me," Henderson confessed to Uncle Jerry next day. "They are the most economical of beings and the most extravagant. I've got to look round for an extra million somewhere today."

"Yes, there is this good thing about women," Uncle Jerry responded, with a twinkle in his eyes, "they share your riches just as cheerfully as they do your poverty. I tell Maria that if I had the capacity for making money that she has for spending it I could a.s.sume the national debt."

To have the finest house in the city, or rather, in the American newspaper phrase, in the Western world, was a comprehensible ambition for Henderson, for it was a visible expression of his wealth and his cultivated taste. But why Margaret should wish to exchange her dainty and luxurious home in Washington Square for the care of a vast establishment big enough for a royal court, my wife could not comprehend. But why not?

To be the visible leader in her world, to be able to dispense a hospitality which should surpa.s.s anything heretofore seen, to be the mistress and autocrat of an army of servants, with ample room for their evolution, in a palace whose dimensions and splendor should awaken envy and astonishment--would this not be an attraction to a woman of imagination and spirit?

Besides, they had outgrown the old house. There was no longer room for the display, scarcely for the storage, of the works of art, the pictures, the curiosities, the books, that unlimited money and the opportunity of foreign travel had collected in all these years. "We must either build or send our things to a warehouse," Henderson had long ago said. Among the obligations of wealth is the obligation of display. People of small means do not allow for the expansion of mind that goes along with the acc.u.mulation of property. It was only natural that Margaret, who might have been contented with two rooms and a lean-to as the wife of a country clergyman, should have felt cramped in her old house, which once seemed a world too large for the country girl.

"I don't see how you could do with less room," Carmen said, with an air of profound conviction. They were looking about the house on its last uninhabited day, directing the final disposition of its contents. For Carmen, as well as for Margaret, the decoration and the furnishing of the house had been an occupation. The girl had the whim of playing the part of restrainer and economizer in everything; but Henderson used to say, when Margaret told him of Carmen's suggestions, that a little more of her economy would ruin him.

"Yes," Margaret admitted, "there does not seem to be anything that is not necessary."

"Not a thing. When you think of it, two people require as much s.p.a.ce as a dozen; when you go beyond one room, you must go on. Of course you couldn't get on without a reception-room, drawing-rooms, a conservatory, a music-room, a library, a morning-room, a breakfast-room, a small dining-room and a state dining-room, Mr. Henderson's snuggery, with his own library, a billiard-room, a picture-gallery--it is full already; you'll have to extend it or sell some pictures--your own suite and Mr.

Henderson's suite, and the guest-rooms, and I forgot the theatre in the attic. I don't see but you have scrimped to the last degree."

"And yet there is room to move about," Margaret acknowledged, with a gratified smile, as they wandered around. "Dear me, I used to think the Stotts' house was a palace."

It was the height of the season before Lent. There had been one delay and another, but at last all the workmen had been expelled, and Margaret was mistress of her house. Cards for the house-warming had been out for two weeks, and the event was near. She was in her own apartments this pale, wintry afternoon, putting the finishing touches to her toilet. Nothing seemed to suit. The maid found her in a very bad humor. "Remember," she had said to her husband, when he ordered his brougham after breakfast, "sharp seven, we are to dine alone the first time." It lacked two hours yet of dinner-time, but she was dressing for want of other occupation.

Was this then the summit of her ambition? She had indeed looked forward to some such moment as this as one of exultation in the satisfaction of all her wishes. She took up a book of apothegms that lay on the table, and opened by chance to this, "Unhappy are they whose desires are all ratified." It was like a sting. Why should she think at this moment of her girlhood; of the ideals indulged in during that quiet time; of her aunt's cheerful, tender, lonely life; of her rejection of Mr. Lyon? She did not love Mr. Lyon; she was not satisfied then. How narrow that little life in Brandon had been! She threw the book from her. She hated all that restraint and censoriousness. If her aunt could see her in all this splendor, she would probably be sadder than ever. What right had she to sit there and mourn--as she knew her aunt did--and sigh over her career?

What right had they to sit in judgment on her?

She went out from her room, down the great stairway, into the s.p.a.cious house, pausing in the great hall to see opening vista after vista in the magnificent apartments. It was the first time that she had alone really taken the full meaning of it--had possessed it with the eye. It was hers.

Wherever she went, all hers. No, she had desires yet. It should be filled with life--it should be the most brilliant house in the world. Society should see, should acknowledge the leadership. Yes--as she glanced at herself in a drawing-room mirror--they should see that Henderson's wife was capable of a success equal to his own, and she would stop the hateful gossip about him. She set her foot firmly as she thought about it; she would crush those people who had sneered at them as parvenu. She strayed into the n.o.ble gallery. Some face there touched her, some landscape soothed her. No, she said to herself, I will win them, I do not want hateful strife.

Who knows what is in a woman? how many moods in a quarter of an hour, and which is the characteristic one? Was this the Margaret who had walked with Lyon that Sunday afternoon of the baptism, and had a heart full of pain for the pitiful suffering of the world?

As she sat there she grew calmer. Her thoughts went away in a vision of all the social possibilities of this wonderful house. From vaguely admiring what she looked at, she began to be critical; this and that could be changed to advantage; this shade of hanging was not harmonious; this light did not fall right. She smiled to think that her husband thought it all done. How he would laugh to find that she was already planning to rearrange it! Hadn't she been satisfied for almost twenty-four hours? That was a long time for a woman. Then she thought of the reception; of the guests; of what some of them would wear; how they would look about; what they would say. She was already in that world which was so shining and shifting and attractive. She did not hear Henderson come in until his arm was around her.

"Well, sweet, keeping house alone? I've had a jolly day; lucky as old Mr.

Luck."

"Have you?" she cried, springing up. "I'm so glad. Come, see the house."

"You look a little pale," he said, as they strolled out to the conservatory together.

"Just a little tired," she admitted. "Do you know, Rodney, I hated this house at five o'clock--positively hated it?"

"Why?"

"Oh, I don't know; I was thinking. But I liked it at half-past six. I love it now. I've got used to it, as if I had always lived here. Isn't it beautiful everywhere? But I'm going to make some changes."

"A hanging garden on the roof?" Henderson asked, with meekness.

"That would be nice. No, not now. But to make over and take off the new look. Everything looks so new."

"Well, we will try to live that down."

And so they wandered on, admiring, bantering, planning. Could Etienne Debree have seen his descendant at this moment he would have been more than ever proud of his share in establishing the great republic, and of his appreciation of the promise of its beauty. What satisfies a woman's heart is luxury, thought Henderson, in an admiring cynical moment.

They had come into his own den and library, and he stood looking at the rows of his favorite collection shining in their new home. For all its newness it had a familiar look. He thought for a moment that he might be in his old bachelor quarters. Suddenly Margaret made a rush at him. She shook the great fellow. She feasted her eyes on him.

"What's got into you to look so splendid? Do you hear, go this instant and dress, and make yourself ten times as fascinating."

XXI

Live not unto yourselves! Can any one deny that this blessed sentiment is extending in modern life? Do we build houses for ourselves or for others?

Do we make great entertainments for our own comfort? I do not know that anybody regarded the erection of the Henderson palace as an altruistic performance. The socialistic newspapers said that it was pure ostentation. But had it not been all along in the minds of the builders to ask all the world to see it, to share the delight of it? Is this a selfish spirit? When I stroll in the Park am I not pleased with the equipages, with the display of elegance upon which so much money has been lavished for my enjoyment?

All the world was asked to the Henderson reception. The coming event was the talk of the town. I have now cuttings from the great journals, articles describing the house, more beautifully written than Gibbon's stately periods about the luxury of later Rome. It makes one smile to hear that the day of fine writing is over. Everybody was eager to go; there was some plotting to obtain invitations by those who felt that they could not afford to be omitted from the list that would be printed; by those who did not know the Hendersons, and did not care to know them, but who shared the general curiosity; and everybody vowed that he supposed he must go, but he hated such a crush and jam as it was sure to be. Yet no one would have cared to go if it had not promised to be a crush. I said that all the world was asked, which is our way of saying that a thousand or two had been carefully selected from the million within reach.

Invitations came to Brandon, of course, for old times' sake. The Morgans said that they preferred a private view; Miss Forsythe declared that she hadn't the heart to go; in short, Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild alone went to represent the worldly element.

I am sorry to say that the reader must go to the files of the city press for an account of the night's festivity. The pen that has been used in portraying Margaret's career is entirely inadequate to it. There is a general impression that an American can do anything that he sets his hand to, but it is not true; it is true only that he tries everything. The reporter is born, as the poet is; it cannot be acquired--that astonishing, irresponsible command of the English language; that warm, lyrical tone; that color, and bewildering metaphorical brilliancy; that picturesqueness; that use of words as the painter uses pigments, in splashes and blotches which are so effective; that touch of raillery and sarcasm and condescension; that gay enjoyment of reveling in the illimitable; that air of superior knowledge and style; that dash of sentiment; that calm and somewhat haughty judgment.

I am always impressed at such an entertainment with the good-humor of the American people, no matter what may be the annoyance and discomfort.

In all the push and thrust and confusion, amid the rending of trains, the tearing of lace, the general crushing of costumes, there was the merriest persiflage, laughter, and chatter, and men and women entered into and drew out of the fashionable wreck in the highest spirits. For even in such a s.p.a.cious mansion there were spots where currents met, and rooms where there was a fight for mere breath. It would have been a tame affair without this struggle. And what an epitome of life it all was! There were those who gave themselves up to admiration, who gushed with enthusiasm; there were those who had the weary air of surfeit with splendor of this sort; there were the bustling and volatile, who made facetious remarks, and treated the affair like a Fourth of July; and there were also groups dark and haughty, like the Stotts, who held a little aloof, and coldly admitted that it was most successful; it lacked je ne sais quoi, but it was in much better taste than they had expected. Is there something in the very nature of a crowd to bring out the inherent vulgarity of the best-bred people, so that some have doubted whether the highest civilization will tolerate these crushing and hilarious a.s.semblies?

At any rate, one could enjoy the general effect. There might be vulgar units, and one caught notes of talk that disenchanted, but there were so many women of rare and stately beauty, of exquisite loveliness, of charm in manner and figure--so many men of fine presence, with such an air of power and manly prosperity and self-reliance--I doubt if any other a.s.sembly in the world, undecorated by orders and uniforms, with no blazon of rank, would have a greater air of distinction. Looking over it from a landing in the great stairway that commanded vistas and ranges of the lofty, brilliant apartments, vivified by the throng, which seemed enn.o.bled by the s.p.a.cious splendor in which it moved, one would be pardoned a feeling of national pride in the spectacle. I drew aside to let a stately train of beauty and of fashion descend, and saw it sweep through the hall, and enter the drawing-rooms, until it was lost in a sea of shifting color. It was like a dream.

And the centre of all this charming plutocratic graciousness and beauty was Margaret--Margaret and her handsome husband. Where did the New Hampshire boy learn this simple dignity of bearing, this good-humored cordiality without condescension, this easy air of the man of the world?

Was this the railway wrecker, the insurance manipulator, the familiar of Uncle Jerry, the king of the lobby, the pride and the bugaboo of Wall Street? Margaret was regnant. And how charmingly she received her guests!

How well I knew that half-imperious toss of the head, and the glance of those level, large gray eyes, softened instantly, on recognition, into the sweetest smile of welcome playing about the dimple and the expressive mouth! What woman would not feel a little thrill of triumph? The world was at her feet. Why was it, I wonder, as I stood there watching the throng which saluted this queenly woman of the world, in an hour of supreme social triumph, while the notes of the distant orchestra came softly on the air, and the overpowering perfume of banks of flowers and tropical plants--why was it that I thought of a fair, simple girl, stirred with n.o.ble ideals, eager for the intellectual life, tender, sympathetic, courageous? It was Margaret Debree--how often I had seen her thus!--sitting on her little veranda, swinging her chip hat by the string, glowing from some errand in which her heart had played a much more important part than her purse. I caught the odor of the honeysuckle that climbed on the porch, and I heard the note of the robin that nested there.