A Hazard of New Fortunes

by William Dean Howells

  “Not all. Miss Dryfoos was ill, her sister said. It’s hard to tell how much people suffer. His mother seemed bewildered. The younger sister is a simple creature; she looks like him; I think she must have something of his spirit.”

  “Not much spirit of any kind, I imagine,” said Beaton. “But she’s amiably material. Did they say Miss Dryfoos was seriously ill?”

  “No. I supposed she might be prostrated by her brother’s death.”

  “Does she seem that kind of person to you, Miss Vance?” asked Beaton.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t tried to see so much of them as I might the past winter. I was not sure about her when I met her; I’ve never seen much of people, except in my own set, and the-very poor. I have been afraid I didn’t understand her. She may have a kind of pride that would not let her do herself justice.”

  Beaton felt the unconscious dislike in the endeavor of praise. “Then she seems to you like a person whose life—its trials, its chances-would make more of than she is now?”

  “I didn’t say that. I can’t judge of her at all, but where we don’t know, don’t you think we ought to imagine the best?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Beaton. “I didn’t know but what I once said of them might have prejudiced you against them. I have accused myself of it.” He always took a tone of conscientiousness, of self-censure, in talking with Miss Vance; he could not help it.

  “Oh, no. And I never allowed myself to form any judgment of her. She is very pretty, don’t you think, in a kind of way?”

  “Very.”

  “She has a beautiful brunette coloring-that floury white and the delicate pink in it. Her eyes are beautiful.”

  “She’s graceful too,” said Beaton. “I’ve tried her in color, but I didn’t make it out.”

  “I’ve wondered sometimes,” said Miss Vance, “whether that elusive quality you find in some people you try to paint doesn’t characterize them all through. Miss Dryfoos might be ever so much finer and better than we would find out in the society way that seems the only way.”

  “Perhaps,” said Beaton gloomily, and he went away profoundly discouraged by this last analysis of Christine’s character. The angelic imperviousness of Miss Vance to properties of which his own wickedness was so keenly aware in Christine might have made him laugh, if it had not been such a serious affair with him. As it was, he smiled to think how very differently Alma Leighton would have judged her from Miss Vance’s premises. He liked that clear vision of Alma’s even when it pierced his own disguises. Yes, that was the light he had let die out, and it might have shone upon his path through life. Beaton never felt so poignantly the disadvantage of having on any given occasion been wanting to his own interests through his self-love as in this. He had no one to blame but himself for what had happened, but he blamed Alma for what might happen in the future because she shut out the way of retrieval and return. When he thought of the attitude she had taken toward him, it seemed incredible, and he was always longing to give her a final chance to reverse her final judgment. It appeared to him that the time had come for this now, if ever.

  XV

  WHILE WE ARE STILL YOUNG we feel a kind of pride, a sort of fierce pleasure, in any important experience such as we have read of or heard of in the lives of others, no matter how painful. It was this pride, this pleasure, which Beaton now felt in realizing that the toils of fate were about him, that between him and a future of which Christine Dryfoos must be the genius, there was nothing but the will, the mood, the fancy of a girl who had not given him the hope that either could ever again be in his favor. He had nothing to trust to, in fact, but his knowledge that he had once had them all; she did not deny that, but neither did she conceal that he had flung away his power over them, and she had told him that they never could be his again. A man knows that he can love and wholly cease to love not once merely, but several times; he recognizes the fact in regard to himself both theoretically and practically, but in regard to women he cherishes the superstition of the romances that love is once for all and forever. It was because Beaton would not believe that Alma Leighton, being a woman, could put him out of her heart after suffering him to steal into it, that he now hoped anything from her, and she had been so explicit when they last spoke of that affair that he did not hope much. He said to himself that he was going to cast himself on her mercy, to take whatever chance of life, love, and work there was in her having the smallest pity on him. If she would have none, then there was but one thing he could do: marry Christine and go abroad. He did not see how he could bring this alternative to bear upon Alma; even if she knew what he would do in case of a final rejection, he had grounds for fearing she would not care; but he brought it to bear upon himself, and it nerved him to a desperate courage. He could hardly wait for evening to come, before he went to see her; when it came, it seemed to have come too soon. He had wrought himself thoroughly into the conviction that he was in earnest and that everything depended upon her answer to him, but it was not till he found himself in her presence and alone with her that he realized the truth of his conviction. Then the influences of her grace, her gaiety, her arch beauty, above all her good sense, penetrated his soul like a subtle intoxication, and he said to himself that he was right; he could not live without her; these attributes of hers were what he needed to win him, to cheer him, to charm him, to guide him. He longed so to please her, to ingratiate himself with her, that he attempted to be light like her in his talk, but lapsed into abysmal absences and gloomy recesses of introspection.

  “What are you laughing at?” he asked, suddenly starting from one of these.

  “What you are thinking of.”

  “It’s nothing to laugh at. Do you know what it is I’m thinking of?”

  “Don’t tell, if it’s dreadful.”

  “Oh, I daresay you wouldn’t think it’s dreadful,” he said, with bitterness. “It’s simply the case of a man who has made a fool of himself and sees no help of retrieval in himself.”

  “Can anyone else help a man unmake a fool of himself?” she asked, with a smile.

  “Yes. In a case like this.”

  “Dear me! This is very interesting.”

  She did not ask him what the case was, but he was launched now, and he pressed on. “I am the man who has made a fool of himself—”

  “Oh!”

  “And you can help me out if you will. Alma, I wish you could see me as I really am.”

  “Do you, Mr. Beaton? Perhaps I do.”

  “No; you don’t. You’ve formulated me in a certain way, and you won’t allow for the change that takes place in everyone. You have changed; why shouldn’t I?”

  “Has this to do with your having made a fool of yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh! Then I don’t see how you have changed.”

  She laughed, and he too ruefully. “You’re cruel. Not but what I deserve your mockery. But the change was not from the capacity of making a fool of myself. I suppose I shall always do that more or less-unless you help me. Alma! Why can’t you have a little compassion? You know that I must always love you.”

  “Nothing makes me doubt that like your saying it, Mr. Beaton. But now you’ve broken your word—”

  “You are to blame for that. You knew I couldn’t keep it!”

  “Yes, I’m to blame. I was wrong to let you come-after that. And so I forgive you for speaking to me in that way again. But it’s perfectly impossible and perfectly useless for me to hear you anymore on that subject; and so—good-bye!”

  She rose, and he perforce with her. “And do you mean it?” he asked. “Forever?”

  “Forever. This is truly the last time I will ever see you if I can help it. Oh, I feel sorry enough for you!” she said, with a glance at his face. “I do believe you are in earnest. But it’s too late now. Don’t let us talk about it anymore! But we shall, if we meet, and so ”

  “And so, good-bye! Well, I’ve nothing more to say, and I might as well say that. I think you’ve been very
good to me. It seems to me as if you had been—shall I say it—trying to give me a chance. Is that so?”

  She dropped her eyes and did not answer.

  “You found it was no use! Well, I thank you for trying. It’s curious to think that I once had your trust, your regard, and now I haven’t it. You don’t mind my remembering that I had? It’ll be some little consolation, and I believe it will be some help. I know I can’t retrieve the past now. It is too late. It seems too preposterous-perfectly lurid—that I could have been going to tell you what a tangle I’d got myself in and to ask you to help untangle me. I must choke in the infernal coil, but I’d like to have the sweetness of your pity in it—whatever it is.”

  She put out her hand. “Whatever it is, I do pity you; I said that.”

  “Thank you.” He kissed the hand she gave him and went.

  He had gone on some such terms before; was it now for the last time? She believed it was. She felt in herself a satiety, a fatigue, in which his good looks, his invented airs and poses, his real trouble, were all alike repulsive. She did not acquit herself of the wrong of having let him think she might yet have liked him as she once did, but she had been honestly willing to see whether she could. It had mystified her to find that when they first met in New York, after their summer in St. Barnaby, she cared nothing for him; she had expected to punish him for his neglect, and then fancy him as before, but she did not. More and more she saw him selfish and mean, weak-willed, narrow-minded, and hardhearted, and aimless, with all his talent. She admired his talent in proportion as she learned more of artists and perceived how uncommon it was, but she said to herself that if she were going to devote herself to art, she would do it at first hand. She was perfectly serene and happy in her final rejection of Beaton; he had worn out not only her fancy, but her sympathy too.

  This was what her mother would not believe when Alma reported the interview to her; she would not believe it was the last time they should meet; death itself can hardly convince us that it is the last time of anything, of everything, between ourselves and the dead. “Well, Alma,” she said, “I hope you’ll never regret what you’ve done.”

  “You may be sure I shall not regret it. If ever I’m low-spirited about anything, I’ll think of giving Mr. Beaton his freedom, and that will cheer me up.”

  “And don’t you expect to get married? Do you intend to be an old maid?” demanded her mother, in the bonds of the superstition women have so long been under to the effect that every woman must wish to get married if for no other purpose than to avoid being an old maid.

  “Well, Mamma,” said Alma, “I intend being a young one for a few years yet, and then I’ll see. If I meet the right person, all well and good; if not, not. But I shall pick and choose as a man does; I won’t merely be picked and chosen.”

  “You can’t help yourself; you may be very glad if you are picked and chosen.”

  “What nonsense, Mamma! A girl can get any man she wants if she goes about it the right way. And when my ‘fated fairy prince’ comes along, I shall just simply make furious love to him and grab him. Of course, I shall make a decent pretense of talking in my sleep. I believe it’s done that way more than half the time. The fated fairy prince wouldn’t see the princess in nine cases out of ten if she didn’t say something; he would go mooning along after the maids of honor.”

  Mrs. Leighton tried to look unspeakable horror, but she broke down and laughed. “Well, you are a strange girl, Alma.”

  “I don’t know about that. But one thing I do know, Mamma, and that is that Prince Beaton isn’t the F.F.P. for me. How strange you are, Mamma! Don’t you think it would be perfectly disgusting to accept a person you didn’t care for, and let him go on and love you and marry you? It’s sickening.”

  “Why certainly, Alma. It’s only because I know you did care for him once—”

  “And now I don’t. And he didn’t care for me once, and now he does. And so we’re quits.”

  “If I could betieve—”

  “You had better brace up and try, Mamma, for as Mr. Fulkerson says, it’s as sure as guns. From the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, he’s loathsome to me, and he keeps getting loathsomer. Ugh! Good night!”

  XVI

  “WELL, I GUESS she’s given him the grand bounce at last,” said Fulkerson to March in one of their moments of confidence at the office. “That’s Mad’s inference from appearances-and disappearances ; and some little hints from Ma Leighton.”

  “Well, I don’t know that I have any criticisms to offer,” said March. “It may be bad for Beaton, but it’s a very good thing for Miss Leighton. Upon the whole I believe I congratulate her.”

  “Well, I don’t know. I always kind of hoped it would turn out the other way. You know I always had a sneaking fondness for the fellow.”

  “Miss Leighton seems not to have had.”

  “It’s a pity she hadn’t. I tell you, March, it ain’t so easy for a girl to get married, here in the East, that she can afford to despise any chance.”

  “Isn’t that rather a low view of it?”

  “It’s a common-sense view. Beaton has the making of a first-rate fellow in him. He’s the raw material of a great artist and a good citizen. All he wants is somebody to take him in hand and keep him from makin’ an ass of himself, and kickin’ over the traces generally, and ridin’ two or three horses bareback at once.”

  “It seems a simple problem, though the metaphor is rather complicated,” said March. “But talk to Miss Leighton about it. I haven’t given Beaton the grand bounce.”

  He began to turn over the manuscripts on his table, and Fulkerson went away. But March found himself thinking of the matter from time to time during the day, and he spoke to his wife about it when he went home. She surprised him by taking Fulkerson’s view of it.

  “Yes, it’s a pity she couldn’t have made up her mind to have him. It’s better for a woman to be married.”

  “I thought Paul only went so far as to say it was well. But what would become of Miss Leighton’s artistic career if she married?”

  “Oh, her artistic career!” said Mrs. March, with matronly contempt of it.

  “But look here!” cried her husband. “Suppose she doesn’t like him?”

  “How can a girl of that age tell whether she likes anyone or not?”

  “It seems to me you were able to tell at that age, Isabel. But let’s examine this thing. (This thing! I believe Fulkerson is characterizing my whole parlance, as well as your morals.) Why shouldn’t we rejoice as much at a nonmarriage as a marriage? When we consider the enormous risks people take in linking their lives together after not half so much thought as goes to an ordinary horse trade, I think we ought to be glad whenever they don’t do it. I believe that this popular demand for the matrimony of others comes from our novel-reading. We get to thinking that there is no other happiness or good fortune in life except marriage, and it’s offered in fiction as the highest premium for virtue, courage, beauty, learning, and saving human life. We all know it isn’t. We know that in reality, marriage is dog-cheap, and anybody can have it for the asking—if he keeps asking enough people. By and by some fellow will wake up and see that a first-class story can be written from the antimarriage point of view; and he’ll begin with an engaged couple, and devote his novel to disengaging them and rendering them separately happy ever after in the denouement. It will make his everlasting fortune.”

  “Why don’t you write it, Basil?” she asked. “It’s a delightful idea. You could do it splendidly.”

  He became fascinated with the notion. He developed it in detail, but at the end he sighed and said, “With this Every Other Week work on my hands, of course I can’t attempt a novel. But perhaps I shan’t have it long.”

  She was instantly anxious to know what he meant, and the novel and Miss Leighton’s affair were both dropped out of their thoughts. “What do you mean? Has Mr. Fulkerson said anything yet?”

  “Not a word. He knows no more about it t
han I do. Dryfoos hasn’t spoken, and we’re both afraid to ask him. Of course, I couldn’t ask him.”

  “No.”

  “But it’s pretty uncomfortable to be kept hanging by the gills so, as Fulkerson says.”

  “Yes, we don’t know what to do.”

  March and Fulkerson said the same to each other, and Fulkerson said that if the old man pulled out, he did not know what would happen. He had no capital to carry the thing on, and the very fact that the old man had pulled out would damage it so that it would be hard to get anybody else to put it. In the meantime Fulkerson was running Conrad’s office work, when he ought to be looking after the outside interests of the thing; and he could not see the day when he could get married.

  “I don’t know which it’s worse for, March: you or me. I don’t know, under the circumstances, whether it’s worse to have a family or to want to have one. Of course—of course! We can’t hurry the old man up. It wouldn’t be decent, and it would be dangerous. We got to wait.”

  He almost decided to draw upon Dryfoos for some money; he did not need any, but he said maybe the demand would act as a hint upon him. One day, about a week after Alma’s final rejection of Beaton, Dryfoos came into March’s office. Fulkerson was out, but the old man seemed not to have tried to see him.

  He put his hat on the floor by his chair, after he sat down, and looked at March awhile with his old eyes, which had the vitreous glitter of old eyes stimulated to sleeplessness. Then he said abruptly, “Mr. March, how would you like to take this thing off my hands?”

  “I don’t understand exactly,” March began, but of course he understood that Dryfoos was offering to let him have Every Other Week on some terms or other, and his heart leaped with hope.

  The old man knew he understood, and so he did not explain. He said, “I am going to Europe to take my family there. The doctor thinks it might do my wife some good; and I ain’t very well myself, and my girls both want to go; and so we’re goin’. If you want to take this thing off my hands, I reckon I can let you have it in ’most any shape you say. You’re all settled here in New York, and I don’t suppose you want to break up much at your time of life, and I’ve been thinkin’ whether you wouldn’t like to take the thing.”