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The Debtor: A Novel, a novel by Mary E Wilkins Freeman |
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Chapter 12 |
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_ Chapter XII Anderson was in the state of mind of a man who dreams and is quite aware all the time that he is dreaming. He deliberately indulged himself in this habit of mind. "When I am ready, I shall put all this away," he continually assured his inner consciousness. Then into the delicious charm of his air-castle he leaped again, mind and body. In those days he grew perceptibly younger. The fire of youth lit his eyes. He fed on the stimulants of sweet dreams, and for the time they nourished as well as exhilarated. Everybody whom he met told him how well he looked and that he was growing younger every day. He was shrewd enough to understand fully the fact that they considered him far from youth, or they would not have thus expressed themselves, but the triumph which he felt when he saw himself in his looking-glass, and in his own realization of himself, caused him to laugh at the innuendo. He felt that he _was_ young, as young as man could wish to be. He, as before said, had never been vain, but mortal man could not have helped exultation at the sight of that victorious visage of himself looking back at him. He did not admit it to himself, but he took more pains with his dress, although he had always been rather punctilious in that direction. All unknown to himself, and, had he known it, the knowledge would have aroused in him rebellion and shame, he was carrying out the instinct of the love-smitten male of all species. In lieu of the gorgeous feathers he put on a new coat and tie, he trimmed his mustache carefully. He smoothed and lighted his face with the beauty of joy and hope and of pleasant dreams. But there was, since he was a man at the head of creation, something more subtle and noble in his preening. In those days he became curiously careful--although, being naturally clean-hearted, he had little need for care--of his very thoughts. Naturally fastidious in his soul habits, he became even more so. The very books he read were, although he was unconscious of it, such as contributed to his spiritual adornment, to fit himself for his constant dwelling in his country of dreams. Certain people he avoided, certain he courted. One woman, who was innately coarse, although her life had hedged her in safely from impropriety, was calling upon his mother one afternoon about this time. She was the wife of the old Presbyterian clergyman, Dr. Gregg. She was a small, solidly built woman, in late middle life, tightly hooked up in black silk as to her body, and as to her soul by the prescribed boundaries of her position in life. Anderson, returning rather earlier than usual, found her with his mother, and retreated with actual rudeness, the woman became all at once so repellent to him. "My son gets very tired," Mrs. Anderson said, softly, as she passed the pound-cake again to her caller. "Quite often, when he comes in, he goes by himself and has a quiet smoke before he says much even to me." Mrs. Gregg was eating the pound-cake with such extreme relish that Mrs. Anderson, who was herself fastidious, looked away, and as she did so heard distinctly a smack of the other woman's lips. "He grows handsomer and younger every time I see him," remarked Mrs. Gregg when she had swallowed her mouthful of cake and before she took another. Mrs. Anderson repeated the caller's compliment to her son later on when the two were at the supper-table. "Yes, she paid you a great compliment," said she; "but, dear, why did you run out in that way? It was almost rude, and she the minister's wife, too." "I don't see how Dr. Gregg keeps up his necessary quota of saving grace, living with her," said Anderson. "Why, my dear, I think she is a good woman." "She is a bottled-up vessel of wrath," said Anderson. "My son, I never heard you speak so before, and about a lady, too." Anderson fairly blushed before his mother's mild eyes of surprise. "Mother, you are right," he said, penitently. "I ought to be ashamed of myself, and I am. I know I was rude, but I did not feel like seeing her to-day. Of course she is a good woman." Mrs. Anderson looked a little reflective. Now that her son had taken a proper attitude with regard to her sister-woman, she began to feel a little critical license herself. "I will admit that she has little mannerisms which are not exactly agreeable and must grate on Dr. Gregg," said she. As she spoke she seemed to hear again the smacking of the lips over the pound-cake. Then she looked scrutinizingly at her son. "But," she said, "I do believe she was right, Randolph, about your looks." "Nonsense," said Randolph, laughing. It was a warm night. After supper they both went out on the front porch. Mrs. Anderson sat gazing at her son from between the folds of a little, white lace kerchief which she wore over her head, to guard against possible dampness. "Randolph," said she, after a while. "What is it, mother, dear?" "Do you feel well?" "Of course I feel well. Why?" "You look too well to be natural," said she, slowly. "Mother, what an absurdity!" "It is so," said she. "I had not noticed it until Mrs. Gregg spoke, but I see it now. I don't know where my eyes have been. You look too well." Randolph laughed. "Now, mother, don't you think that sounds foolish?" Mrs. Anderson continued to regard him with an expression of maternal love and severity, which pierced externals more keenly than an X-ray. "No," said she, "I do not think it is foolish. You look too well to be natural. You look this minute as young in your face as you did when I had you in petticoats." Randolph laughed loudly at that, but his mother was quite earnest. She was not satisfied, and continued arguing the matter until she became afraid of the increasing dampness and went into the house, and the son drew a breath of relief. The mother little dreamed, with all her astuteness, of what was really transpiring. She did not know that when she had seated herself beside her son on the porch she had displaced with her gentle, elderly materiality the sweetest phantom of a beloved young girl. She did not know that when she entered the house the delicate, evanescent thing returned swifter than thought itself, and filled with the sweet presence that vacuum in her son's heart which she herself had never filled, and nestled there through a delicious hour of the summer night. She did not dream, as she sat by the window, staring out drowsily into the soft shadows and heard no murmur from her son on the porch, that in reality the silence of his soul was broken by words and tones which she had never heard from his lips, although she had brought him into the world. Anderson never admitted to himself the possibility of his dreams coming true. While his self-respect never wavered, while he viewed himself with no unworthy disparagement, he still saw himself as he was: verging towards middle age, unsuccessful according to the standard of the world. He was one of those inglorious failures, a man who has failed to follow out his chosen course of life. He was one who had turned back, overcome confessedly by odds. He told himself proudly and simply that his earning of money was, to one simple and honest end--the prolonging of existence on the earth for the good of one's fellow-beings, and one's own growth; that he was attaining that end more completely in his little grocery store than he had ever done in his law-office. Yet always he saw himself, in a measure, as others saw him, and the humility of his position in the eyes of the world asserted itself. While he felt not the slightest bend in the erectness of his own soul because of it, while it even amused him, he never forgot the supercilious courtesy of the girls' father towards him. He recognized, even while feeling himself on superior heights, the downward vision of the man who robbed him. It was true that he paid scorn for scorn, but he was forced to take as well as give. He also was not in the slightest doubt as to Charlotte's own attitude towards him. He understood to the full the signification of the word grocer for her. He was, to her mind, hardly a man at all, rather a mechanical dispenser of butter and eggs for the needs of a superior race. But he understood also the childish innocence and involuntariness of this view of hers. He recognized even the ludicrousness of the situation which perverted tragedy to comedy, almost Cyrano fashion. He compared himself to Cyrano. "As well consider the possibility of marriage with a girl of her training, even although it is on a false basis, with a monstrosity of nose on my face, as with the legend of retail grocery across my scutcheon," he told himself. He even laughed over it. Therefore, being of a turn of mind which can rear for itself airy towers of delight over the values of insufficiency of life, and having an access of spirituality which enabled him to get a certain reality from them, he dreamed on, and let his new love irradiate his own life, like a man carrying a lantern on a dark path. There are those that are born to sunlit paths, and there are those whom a beneficient Providence has supplied with lanterns of compensation, and the latter are not always the unhappier nor the less progressive. Never admitting to himself the possibility of the actual presence of the girl in the house as his wife, he yet peopled the rooms with her. He rose up in spirit before her entering a door. There were especial nooks wherein his fancy could project her with such illusion that his heart would leap as if at the actual sight of her. In particular was there one window in the sitting-room which, being in a little projection of the house, overlooked a special little view of its own. From this window between the folds of the muslin curtains could be seen a file of blooming hollyhocks. Behind them a grassy expanse arose with a long ascent, and the rosette--like blossoms of pink and pale-gold, with gray-green bosses of leaves, lay against the green field like the design on a shield. In this window was an old-fashioned rocking-chair cushioned softly with faded, rose-patterned chintz, and before it stood always a small footstool covered with dim-brown canvas on which was a wreath of roses done in cross-stitch by his mother in her girlhood. Anderson loved to see Charlotte sitting in this chair with her feet on the footstool, her pretty head leaning back against the faded roses of the chintz, the delicate curve of her cheek towards him, as she swayed gently back and forth and seemed to gaze peacefully out of the window at the hollyhocks blooming against the green hill. It was characteristic of the man's dreams that the girl's face in them was turned a little from him. She never saw him when he entered, she never broke the sweet silence of her own dreams within dreams, for him, and he never, even in dreams, touched the soft curve of that averted cheek, or even one of the little hands lying as lightly as flowers in her muslin lap. Anderson, the commonplace man in the grocery business, in the commonplace present, dreamed as reverently and spiritually of the lady of his love as Dante of his Beatrice, or Petrarch of his Laura. He would go down to the grave with his songs all unsung; but the man was a poet, as are all who worship the god, and not the likeness of themselves in him. As Anderson sat on the porch that summer night, to his fancy Charlotte Carroll sat on the step above him. Without fairly looking he could see the sweep of her white draperies and the mild fairness, producing the effect of luminosity, of her face in the dusk. Then suddenly Charlotte herself dispelled the illusion. She passed by with her sister Ina and a young man. Anderson heard the low, sweet babble of girls' tongues and a hearty, boyish laugh before they came opposite the porch. He knew at once that Charlotte was one of the girls. He could not see them very plainly when they passed, for the moon had not yet risen and the shadows of the trees were dense. He had glimpses of pale contours and ruffling white draperies floating around the young man, who walked on the outside. He towered above them both with stately tenderness. He was smoking, and Anderson noted that with a throb of anger. He had an old-fashioned conviction that a man should not smoke when walking with ladies. He was sitting perfectly motionless when they came alongside, and all at once one of the girls, Ina, the eldest, perceived him, and started violently with an exclamation. All three laughed, and the young man said, raising his hat, "Good-evening, Mr. Anderson." Anderson returned the salutation. He thought, but was not quite sure, that Charlotte nodded. He heard, quite distinctly, Ina remark, when they were scarcely past, in a voice of girlish scorn and merry ridicule: "Is the grocer a friend of yours, Mr. Eastman?" Anderson was sure that he heard a "Hush! he will hear you!" from Charlotte, before young Frank Eastman replied, like a man: "Yes, every time, Miss Carroll, if he will do me the honor to let me call him one. Mr. Anderson is a mighty fine gentleman." The girl's voice said something in response with a slightly abashed but still jibing inflection, but Anderson could not catch it. They passed out of sight, the cigar-smoke lingering in their wake. Anderson inhaled it with no longer any feeling of disapprobation. He slowly lit a cigar himself, and smoked and meditated. The presence on the step above him was for the time dispelled by her own materiality. The dream eluded the substance. Anderson thought of the young man who had walked past with a curious feeling of something akin to gratitude. "Frank Eastman is a fine young fellow," he thought. He had known him ever since he had been a child. He had been one of the boys whom everybody knew and liked. He had grown up a village favorite. The thought flashed through Anderson's mind that here was a possible husband for Charlotte, and probably a good husband. "He is an only son," he told himself; "he will have a little money. He is as good as and better than young men average, and he is charming, a man to attract any girl." Anderson, when he had finished his cigar and one more, and had gone into the house to read a little before going to bed, quite decided that Charlotte Carroll was to marry young Frank Eastman. He walked remorselessly over the step where his fancy had placed her, and when he glanced at her pretty little nook in the sitting-room, as he passed through with his lamp and his book, it was vacant. Anderson felt a rigid acquiescence, and read his book with interest until after midnight. In the mean time Charlotte, her sister Ina, and young Eastman sauntered slowly along through the shadowy streets of Banbridge. The girls held up their white gowns over their lace petticoats. They wore no hats, and their pretty, soft, dark locks floated like mist around their faces. The young man pressed Ina's arm as closely and lovingly as he dared. He was yet young enough and innocent enough to be in his heart of hearts as afraid of a girl as, when a child, he had been afraid of his mother. He thought Ina Carroll something wonderful; Charlotte he scarcely thought of at all except with vague approbation because she was Ina's sister. He took the girls into Andrew Drew's drug store for ice-cream soda. He watched, with happy proprietorship, the girls dally daintily with the long spoons in the sweet, cold mixture. Seen in the electric light of the store, they had a bewildering and fairly dazzling splendor of youth and bloom. Their faces, freshened to exquisite tints by the damp night air, shone forth from the floating film of dark hair with the unquestioning delight of the passing moment. There was in these young faces at the moment no shadow of the past or future. They were pure light. Young Eastman, eating his ice-cream, looked over his glass at Ina Carroll and realized the dazzle of her in his soul. She felt his look and smiled at him pleasantly, yet with a certain gay defiance. Charlotte caught both looks. She stirred her ice-cream briskly into the liquid and drank it. "Come, honey," she said to Ina. "It is time to go home." A man stood near the door as they passed and raised his hat eagerly. "Who is that man?" Ina said to young Eastman when they were on the sidewalk. "His name is Lee." When the party had gone out, Lee turned with his self-conscious, consequential air. Ray, the postmaster, was standing at the counter. Little Willy Eddy also was there. He lingered about the soda-fountain. Nobody knew how badly he wanted a drink of soda. He was like a child about it, but he was afraid lest his Minna should call him to account for the five cents. "Pretty fine-looking girls," observed Lee to Ray and Drew. "Yes," assented Ray. "You know them?" "Well, no, not directly, but Captain Carroll and I are quite intimate in a business way." The druggist looked up eagerly. "You think he is good?" he asked. "I have heard some queer things lately," said the postmaster. Lee faced them both. "Good?" he cried. "Good? Arthur Carroll good? Why, I'd be willing to risk every dollar I have in the world, or ever hope to have. He's the smartest business man I ever saw in my life. I tell you he's A No. 1. He's got a business head equal to any on the Street, I don't care who it is. Well, all I have to say, _I_ am not afraid of him! No, sir!" "I heard he had some pretty promising stock to sell," said the postmaster. "Promising? No, it is not promising! Promising is not the word for it. It is sure, dead sure." Little Willy Eddy drew very near. "What is it selling at?" asked Ray. "One dollar and sixty cents," replied Lee, with an intonation of pride and triumph. "Cheap enough," said Ray. "Yes, sir, one dollar and sixty cents, and it will be up to five in six months and paying dividends, and up to fifty, with ten-per-cent. dividends, in a year and a half." Little Willy Eddy had in the savings-bank a little money. Before he left he had arranged with Henry Lee to invest it through his influence with the great man, Carroll, and say nothing about it to any one outside. Willy hoped fondly that his Minna might know nothing about it until he should surprise her with the proceeds of his great venture. Then Willy Eddy marched boldly upon the soda-fountain. "Give me a chocolate ice-cream soda," he said, like a man. _ |
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