Peace blamed no one by word or look. He doubted if she saw it, till he ventured one day to speak of her father’s fondness for her sister, and then she answered that he would always rather have Jenny with him than any one else. Ray returned some commonplaces, not too sincere, about the compensation the care of her father must be to Mrs. Denton in her bereavement, and Peace answered as frankly as before that they had got each other back again. “Father didn’t want her to marry Ansel, and he didn’t care for the children. He couldn’t help that; he was too old; and after we were all shut up here together they fretted him.”
She sighed gently, in the way she had, and Ray said, with the fatuity of comforters, “I suppose they are better off out of this world.”
“They were born into this world,” she answered.
“Yes,” he had to own.
He saw how truly and deeply she grieved for the little ones, and he realized without umbrage that she mourned their wretched father too, with an affection as simple and pure. There were times when he thought how tragical it would be for her to have cared for Denton, in the way his wife cared so little; and then his fancy created a situation in whose unreality it ran riot. But all the time he knew that he was feigning these things, and that there was no more truth in them than in the supposition which he indulged at other times that he was himself in love with Mrs. Denton, and always had been, and this was the reason why he could not care for Peace. It was the effect in both cases of the aesthetic temperament, which is as often the slave as the master of its reveries.
It was in Mrs. Denton’s favor that she did not let the drift of their father’s affections away from Peace carry her with them. The earthward bodily decline of the invalid implied a lapse from the higher sympathies to the lower, and she seemed to have some vague perception of this, which she formulated in her own way, once, when she wished to account for the sick man’s refusal of some service from Peace which he accepted from herself.
“He has more use for me here, Peace, because I’m of the earth, earthy, but he’ll want you somewhere else.”
The old man clung to the world with a hope that admitted at least no open question of his living. He said that as soon as the spring fairly opened, and the weather would allow him to go out without taking more cold, he should carry his manuscript about to the different publishers, and offer it personally. He thought his plan carefully out, and talked it over with Ray, whom he showed that his own failure with his novel was from a want of address in these interviews. He proposed to do something for Ray’s novel as soon as he secured a publisher for himself, and again he bade him bring it and read it to him. Ray afterwards realized with shame that he would have consented to this if Hughes had persisted. But the invitation was probably a mere grace of civility with him, an effect of the exuberant faith he had in his own success.
As the season advanced, and the heat within-doors increased, they had to open the windows, and then the infernal uproar of the avenue filled the room, so that they could not hear one another speak till the windows were closed again. But the rush and clank of the elevated trains, the perpetual passage of the surface cars, with the clatter of their horses’ hoofs, and the clash of the air-slitting bells, the grind and jolt of the heavy trucks, the wild clatter of express carts across the rails or up and down the tracks, the sound of feet and voices, the cries of the fruit-venders, and the whiffs of laughter and blasphemy that floated up from the turmoil below like filthy odors, seemed not so keenly to afflict the sick man, or to rend his nerves with the anguish that forced the others to shut it all out, and rather stifle in the heat. Yet, in some sort he felt it too, for once when Ray spoke of it, he said yes, it was atrocious. “But,” he added, “I am glad I came and placed myself where I could fully realize the hideousness of a competitive metropolis. All these abominations of sight and sound, these horrible discords, that offend every sense, physically express the spiritual principle underlying the whole social framework. It has been immensely instructive to me, and I have got some color of it into my book: not enough, of course, but infinitely more than I could possibly have imagined. No one can imagine the horror, the squalor, the cruel and senseless turpitude which these things typify, except in their presence. I have merely represented the facts in regard to them, and have left the imagination free to deal with the ideal city as a contrast, with its peaceful streets, cleanly and quiet, its stately ranks of beautiful dwellings, its noble piles of civic and religious architecture, its shaded and colonnaded avenues, its parks and gardens, and all planned and built, not from the greed and the fraud of competition, but from the generous and unselfish spirit of emulation, wherein men join to achieve the best instead of separating to get the most. Think of a city operated by science, as every city might be now, without one of the wretched animals tamed by the savage man, and still perpetuated by the savage man for the awkward and imperfect uses of a barbarous society! A city without a horse, where electricity brought every man and everything silently to the door. Jenny! Get me that manuscript, will you? The part I was writing on to-day — in the desk —— the middle drawer — I should like to read” —
Mrs. Denton dropped her cat from her lap and ran to get the manuscript But when she brought it to her father, and he arranged the leaves with fluttering fingers, he could not read. He gasped out a few syllables, and in the paroxysm of coughing which began, he thrust the manuscript toward Ray.
“He wants you to take it,” said Peace. “You can take it home with you. You can give it to me in the morning.”
Ray took it, and stood by, looking on, not knowing how to come to their help for the sick man’s relief, and anxious not to cumber them. When they had got him quiet again, and Ray had once more thrown up the window, and let in the mild night air which came laden with that delirium of the frenzied city, Peace followed him into the little back room, where they stood a moment “For Heaven’s sake,” he said, “why don’t you get him away from here, where he could be a little more out of the noise? It’s enough to drive a well man mad.”
“He doesn’t feel it as if he were well,” she answered. “We have tried to get him to let us bring his bed out here. But he won’t. I think,” she added, “that he believes it would be a bad omen to change.”
“Surely,” said Ray, “a man like your father couldn’t care for that ridiculous superstition. What possible connection could his changing to a quieter place have with his living or” —
“It isn’t a matter of reason with him. I can see how he’s gone back to his early life in a great many things in these few days. He hasn’t been so much like himself for a long time as he has to-night.”
“What does the doctor say?”
“He says to let him have his own way about it. He says that — the noise can’t make any difference — now.”
They were in the dark; but he knew from her voice that tears were in her eyes. He felt for her hand to say good-night. When he had found it, he held it a moment, and then he kissed it But no thrill or glow of the heart justified him in what he had done. At the best he could excuse it as an impulse of pity.
XXXVI.
THE editor of Every Evening gave Ray his manuscript back. He had evidently no expectation that Ray could have any personal feeling about it, or could view it apart from the interests of the paper. He himself betrayed no personal feeling where the paper was concerned, and he probably could have conceived of none in Ray.
“I don’t think it will do for us,” he said. “It is a good story, and I read it all through, but I don’t believe it would succeed as a serial. What do you think, yourself?”
“I?” said Ray. “How could I have an unprejudiced opinion?”
“I don’t see why you shouldn’t. You know what we want; we’ve talked it over enough; and you ought to know whether this is the kind of thing. Anyhow, it’s within your province to decide. I don’t think it will do, but if you think it will, I’m satisfied. You must take the responsibility. I leave it to you, and I mean business.”
Ray thought how old Kane would be amused if he could know of the situation, how he would inspect and comment it from every side, and try to get novel phrases for it. He believed himself that no author had ever been quite in his place before; it was like something in Gilbert’s operas; it was as if a prisoner were invited to try himself and pronounce his own penalty. His chief seemed to see no joke in the affair; he remained soberly and somewhat severely waiting for Ray’s decision.
“I’m afraid you’re right,” said Ray. “I don’t think it would do for Every Evening. Even if it would, I should doubt the taste of working in something of my own on the reader at the beginning.”
“I shouldn’t care for that,” said the chief, “if it were the thing.”
Ray winced, but the chief did not see it. Now, as always, it was merely and simply a question of the paper. He added carelessly:
“I should think such a story as that would succeed as a book.”
“I wish you would get some publisher to think so.” The chief had nothing to say to that. He opened his desk and began to write.
In spite of the rejected manuscript lying on the table before him, Ray made out a very fair day’s work himself, and then he took it up town with him. He did not go at once to his hotel, but pushed on as far as Chapley’s, where he hoped to see Peace before she went home, and ask how her father was getting on; he had not visited Hughes for several weeks; he made himself this excuse. What he really wished was to confront the girl and divine her thoughts concerning himself. He must do that, now; but if it were not for the cruelty of forsaking the old man, it might be the kindest and best thing never to go near any of them again.
He had the temporary relief of finding her gone home when he reached Chapley’s. Mr. Brandreth was there, and he welcomed Ray with something more than his usual cordiality.
“Look here,” he said, shutting the door of his little room. “Have you got that story of yours where you could put your hand on it easily?”
“I can put my hand on it instantly,” said Ray, and he touched it “Oh!” Mr. Brandreth returned, a little daunted. I didn’t know you carried it around with you.”
“I don’t usually — or only when I’ve got it from some publisher who doesn’t want it.”
“I thought it had been the rounds,” said Mr. Brandreth, still uneasily.
“Oh, it’s an editor, this time. It’s just been offered to me for serial use in Every Evening, and I’ve declined it.”
“What do you mean?” Mr. Brandreth smiled in mystification.
“Exactly what I say.” Ray explained the affair as it had occurred. “It makes me feel like Brutus and the son of Brutus rolled into one. I’m going round to old Kane, to give the facts away to him. I think he’ll enjoy them.”
“Well! Hold on! What did the chief say about it?”
“Oh, he liked it Everybody likes it, but nobody wants it. He said he thought it would succeed as a book. The editors all think that. The publishers think it would succeed as a serial.”
Ray carried it off buoyantly, and enjoyed the sort of daze Mr. Brandreth was in.
“See here,” said the publisher, “I want you to leave that manuscript with me.”
“Again?”
“Yes. I’ve never read it myself yet, you know.”
“Take it and be happy!” Ray bestowed it upon him with dramatic effusion.
“No, seriously!” said Mr. Brandreth. “I want to talk with you. Sit down, won’t you? You know the first time you were in here, I told you I was anxious to get Chapley & Co in line as a publishing house again; I didn’t like the way we were dropping out and turning into mere jobbers. You remember.”
Ray nodded.
“Well, sir, I’ve never lost sight of that idea, and I’ve been keeping one eye out for a good novel, to start with, ever since. I haven’t found it, I don’t mind telling you. You see, all the established reputations are in the hands of other publishers, and you can’t get them away without paying ridiculous money, and violating the comity of the trade at the same time. If we are to start new, we must start with a new man.”
“I don’t know whether I’m a new man or not,” said Ray, “if you’re working up to me. Sometimes I feel like a pretty old one. I think I came to New York about the beginning of the Christian era. But A Modem Romeo is as fresh as ever. It has the dew of the morning on it still — rubbed off in spots by the nose of the professional smeller.”
“Well,” said Mr. Brandreth, “it’s new enough for all practical purposes. I want you to let me take it home with me.”
“Which of the leading orchestras would you like to have accompany you to your door?” asked Ray.
“No, no! Don’t expect too much!” Mr. Brandreth entreated.
“I don’t expect anything,” Ray protested.
“Well, that’s right — that’s the only business basis. But if it should happen to be the thing, I don’t believe you’d be personally any happier about it than I should.”
“Oh, thank you!”
“I’m not a fatalist” —
“But it would look a good deal like fatalism.”
“Yes, it would. It would look as if it were really intended to be, if it came back to us now, after it had been round to everybody else.”
“Yes; but if it was fated from the beginning, I don’t see why you didn’t take it in the beginning. I should rather wonder what all the bother had been for.”
“You might say that,” Mr. Brandreth admitted. Ray went off on the wave of potential prosperity, and got Kane to come out and dine with him They decided upon Martin’s, where the dinner cost twice as much as at Ray’s hotel, and had more the air of being a fine dinner; and they got a table in the corner, and Ray ordered a bottle of champagne.
“Yes,” said Kane, “that is the right drink for a man who wishes to spend his money before he has got it. It’s the true gambler’s beverage.”
“You needn’t drink it,” said Ray. “You shall have the vin ordinaire that’s included in the price of the dinner.”
“Oh, I don’t mind a glass of champagne now and then, after I’ve brought my host under condemnation for ordering it,” said Kane.
“And I want to let my heart out to-night,” Ray pursued. “I may not have the chance to-morrow. Besides, as to the gambling, it isn’t I betting on my book; it’s Brandreth. I don’t understand yet why he wants to do it. To be sure, it isn’t a great risk he’s taking.”
“I rather think he has to take some risks just now,” said Kane, significantly. He lowered his soft voice an octave as he went on. “I’m afraid that poor Henry, in his pursuit of personal perfectability, has let things get rather behindhand in his business. I don’t blame him — you know I never blame people — for there is always a question as to which is the cause and which is the effect in such matters. My dear old friend may have begun to let his business go to the bad because he had got interested in his soul, or he may have turned to his soul for refuge because he knew his business had begun to go to the bad. At any rate, he seems to have found the usual difficulty in serving God and Mammon; only, in this case Mammon has got the worst of it, for once: I suppose one ought to be glad of that. But the fact is that Henry has lost heart in business; he doesn’t respect business; he has a bad conscience; he wants to be out of it. I had a long talk with him before he went into the country, and I couldn’t help pitying him. I don’t think his wife and daughter even will ever get him back to New York. He knows it’s rather selfish to condemn them to the dulness of a country life, and that it’s rather selfish to leave young Brandreth to take the brunt of affairs here alone. But what are you to do in a world like this, where a man can’t get rid of one bad conscience without laying in another?” In his pleasure with his paradox Kane suffered Ray to fill up his glass a second time. Then he looked dissatisfied, and Ray divined the cause. “Did you word that quite to your mind?”
“No, I didn’t. It’s too diffuse. Suppose we say that in our conditions no man can do right with
out doing harm?”
“That’s more succinct,” said Ray. “Is it known at all that they’re in difficulties?”
Kane smoothly ignored the question. “I fancy that the wrong is in Henry’s desire to cut himself loose from the ties that bind us all together here. Poor David has the right of that. We must stand or fall together in the pass we’ve come to; and we cannot helpfully eschew the world except by remaining in it.” He took up Ray’s question after a moment’s pause. “No, it isn’t known that they’re in difficulties, and I don’t say that it’s so. Their affairs have simply been allowed to run down, and Henry has left Brandreth to gather them up single-handed. I don’t know that Brandreth will complain. It leaves him unhampered, even if he can do nothing with his hands but clutch at straws.”
Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells Page 531
