East Angels

The poor young mother, when death so soon came to her, begged that the little son she was leaving behind might be called Evert, after her only and dearly loved brother, Evert Beekman, who had died not long before.

Andrew Winthrop had consented. But he was resolved, at the same time, that no Beekman, but only Winthrop, methods should be used in the education of the child. The Winthrop methods were used; and with good effect. But the boy learned something of the Beekman ways, after all, in the delightful indulgence and petting he received from his aunt Katrina when he went to visit her at vacation times, either at her city home or at her old country-house on the Sound; he learned it in her affectionate words, in the smiling freedom from rules and punishments which prevailed at both places, in the wonderful toys, and, later, the dogs and gun, saddle-horse and skiff, possessed by his fortunate cousin Lanse.

Andrew Winthrop was not that almost universal thing in his day for a man in his position in New England, a lawyer; he owned and carried on an iron-foundery, as his father had done before him. He had begun with some money, and he had made more; he knew that he was rich (rich for his day and neighborhood); but save for his good horses and his observatory, he lived as though he were poor. He gave his son Evert, however, the best education (according to his idea of what the best education consisted in), which money and careful attention could procure; but he did not send him to college, and at sixteen the boy was put regularly to work for a part of the day in the iron-foundery, being required to begin at the beginning and learn the whole business practically, from the keeping of books to the proper mixture of ores for the furnaces--those furnaces which had seemed to the child almost as much a part of nature as the suns.h.i.+ne itself, since he had seen their red light against the sky at night ever since he was born. In the mean time his education in books went steadily forward also, under his father's eye--a severe one.

Fortunately the lad had st.u.r.dy health and nerves which were seldom shaken, so that these double tasks did not break him down. For one thing, Andrew Winthrop never required, or even desired, rapid progress; Evert might be as slow as he pleased, if he would but be thorough. And thorough he was. Even if he had not been naturally inclined towards it, he would have acquired it from the system which his father had pursued with him from babyhood; but he was naturally inclined towards it; his knowledge, therefore, as far as it went, was very complete.

In four years he had made some progress in the secrets of several sorts of iron and several ancient languages. In six, he could manage the foundery and the observatory tolerably well. In the ninth year his part of the foundery went of itself, or seemed to, under his clear-headed superintendence, while he ardently gave all his free hours to the studies in science, in which his father now joined, instead of directing, as heretofore. And then, in the tenth year of this busy, studious life, Andrew Winthrop had died, and the son of twenty-six had found himself suddenly free, and alone.

He had never longed for his freedom, he had never thought about it; he had never realized that his life was austere. He had been fond of his father, though his father had been more intellectually interested in him as a boy who would see in all probability the fulness of the new revelation of Science, than fond of him in return. Andrew Winthrop's greatest ambition had been to equip his son so thoroughly that he would be able to take advantage of this new light immediately, without any time lost in bewilderment or hesitation; the 'prentice-work would all have been done. And Evert, interested and busy, leading an active life as well as a studious one, had never felt discontent.

The evening after the funeral he was alone in the old house. Everything had been set in order again, that painful order which strikes first upon the hearts of the mourners when they return to their desolate home, an order which seems to say: "All is over; he is gone and will return to you no more. You must now take up the burdens of life again, and go forward." The silent room was lonely, Evert read a while, but could not fix his attention; he rose, walked about aimlessly, then went to the window and looked out. It was bitterly cold, there was deep snow outside; an icy wind swayed the boughs of a naked elm which stood near the window. Against the dark sky to-night the familiar light was not visible; the furnaces had been shut down out of respect for the dead.

For the first time there stirred in Evert Winthrop's mind the feeling that the cold was cruel, inhuman; that there was a conscious element in it; that it hated man, and was savage to him; would kill him, and did kill him when it could. The house seemed in league with this enemy; in spite of the bright fire the chill kept creeping in, and for the life of him he could not rid himself of the idea that he ought to go out and cover his poor old father, lying there helpless under the snow, with something thick and warm. He roused himself with an effort, he knew that these were unhealthy fancies; he made up his mind that he would go away for a while, the under-superintendent could see to the foundery during his absence, which would not, of course, be long. But the next day he learned that he could remain away for as long a time as he pleased--he had inherited nearly a million.

It was a great surprise. Andrew Winthrop had so successfully concealed the amount of his fortune that Evert had supposed that the foundery, and the income that came from it, a moderate one, together with the old house to live in, would be all. Andrew Winthrop's intention in this concealment had been to bestow upon his son, so far as he could, during his youth, a personal knowledge of life as seen from the side of earning one's own living--a knowledge which can never be acquired at second-hand, and which he considered inestimable, giving to a man juster views of himself and his fellow-men than anything else can.

In the nine years that had pa.s.sed since his father's death Evert had, as has been stated, quadrupled the fortune he had inherited.

It was said--by the less successful--that Chance, Luck, and Opportunity had all favored him. It was perhaps Chance that had led the elder Winthrop in the beginning to invest some hundreds of dollars in wild lands on the sh.o.r.e of Lake Superior--though even that was probably foresight. But as for Luck, she is generally nothing but clear-headedness. And Opportunity offers herself, sooner or later, to almost all; it is only that so few of us recognize her, and seize the advantages she brings. Winthrop had been aided by two things; one was capital to begin with; the other a perfectly untrammelled position. He had no one to think of but himself.

Early in the spring after his father's death he journeyed westward, looking after some property, and decided to go to Lake Superior and see that land also. He always remembered his arrival; the steamer left him on a rough pier jutting out into the dark gray lake; on the sh.o.r.e, stretching east and west, was pine forest, unbroken save where in the raw clearing, dotted with stumps, rose a few unpainted wooden houses, and the rough buildings of the stamping-mills, their great wooden legs stamping ponderously on iron ore. His land was in the so-called town; after looking at it, he went out to the mine from which the ore came; he knew something of ores, and had a fancy to see the place. He went on horseback, following a wagon track through the wild forest. The snow still lay in the hollows, there was scarcely a sign of spring; the mine was at some distance, and the road very bad; but at last he reached it.

The buildings and machinery of the struggling little company were poor and insufficient; but few men were employed, the superintendent had a discouraged expression. But far above this puny little scratching at its base rose "the mountain," as it was called; and it was a cliff-like hill of iron ore. One could touch it, feel it; it was veritable, real.

To Winthrop it seemed a striking picture--the great hill of metal, thinly veiled with a few trees, rising towards the sky, the primitive forest at its feet, the snow, the silence, and beyond, the sullen lake without a sail. The cliff was waiting--it had waited for ages; the lake was waiting too.

Winthrop took a large portion of his fortune and put it into this mine.

A new company was formed, but he himself remained the princ.i.p.al owner, and took the direction into his own hands. It was the right moment; in addition, his direction was brilliant. For a time he worked excessively hard, but all his expectations were fulfilled; by means of this, and one or two other enterprises in which he embarked with the same mixture of bold foresight and the most careful attention to details, his fortune was largely increased.

When the war broke out he was abroad--his first complete vacation; he was indulging that love for pictures which he was rather astonished to find that he possessed. He came home, took a captain's place in a company of volunteers, went to the front, and served throughout the war.

Immediately after the restoration of peace, he had gone abroad again.

And he had come back this second time princ.i.p.ally to disentangle from a web of embarra.s.sments the affairs of a cousin of his father's, David Winthrop by name, whom he had left in charge of

Evert, as a boy, had always felt an interest in this whimsical cousin, who came every now and then to see his father, with some new enterprise (David was strong in enterprises) to consult him about--an enterprise which was infallibly to bring in this time a large amount of money. But this time was never David's time. And in the mean while his daughters continued to appear and grow. Evert, left master, had had more faith in David than his father had had; or perhaps it was more charity; for his cousin had always been a source of refreshment to him--this humorous, sweet-tempered man, who, with his gray-sprinkled hair and thin temples, his well-known incompetency, and his helpless family behind him, had yet no more care on his face than a child has, not half so much as Evert himself, with his youth and health, his success and his fortune, to aid him. But, curiously enough, David was quite well aware of his own faults; his appreciation of them, indeed, had given him a manner of walking slightly sidewise, his right shoulder and right leg a little behind, as though conscious of their master's inefficiency and ashamed of it. For the same reason he chronically hung his head a little as he walked, and, if addressed, looked off at a distance mildly instead of at the person who was speaking to him. But though thus conscious generally of his failings, David was never beyond a sly joke about them and himself. It was the way in which he laughed over these jokes (they were always good ones) which had endeared him to his younger cousin: there was such a delightful want of worldly wisdom about the man.

Having disentangled David, refunded his losses, and set him going again in a small way, Evert had come southward. He would have preferred to go back to Europe for a tour in Spain; but he felt sure that David would entangle himself afresh before long (David had the most inscrutable ways of entangling himself), and that, unless he were willing to continually refund, he should do better to remain within call, at least for the present. In the early spring another relative on his father's side, a third cousin, was to add himself to the partners.h.i.+p, and this young man, Evert hoped, would not only manage the foundery, but manage David as well; when once this arrangement had been effected, the owner of the foundery would be free.

All this was very characteristic of Evert Winthrop. He could easily have given up all business enterprises; he could have invested his money safely and washed his hands of that sort of care. To a certain extent he had done this; but he wished to help David, and so he kept the foundery, he wished to help two or three other persons, and so he retained other interests. This, at least, was what he said to himself, and it was true; yet the foundations lay deeper--lay in the fact that he had been born into the world with a heavy endowment of energy; quiet as he appeared, he had more than he knew what to do with, and was obliged to find occupation for it. During boyhood this energy had gone into the double tasks of education in books and in iron which his father had imposed upon him; in young manhood it had gone into the scientific studies in which his father had shared. Later had come the brilliant crowded years of the far-seeing conception and vigorous execution which had given him his largely increased wealth. Then the war occupied him; it occupied fifty millions of people as well. After it was over, and he had gone abroad a second time, he had not been an idle traveller, though always a tranquil one.

The truth was, he could not lead a purely contemplative life. It was not that he desired to lead such a life, or that he admired it; it was simply that he knew he should never be able to do it, even if he should try, and the impossibility, as usual, tempted him. There must be something very charming in it (that is, if one had no duties which forbade it), this full, pa.s.sive, receptive enjoyment of anything delightful, a fine picture, for instance, or a beautiful view, the suns.h.i.+ne, the sea; even the angler's contented quiescence on a green bank was part of it. These pleasures he knew he could never have in their full sweetness, though he could imagine them perfectly, even acutely. It was not that he was restless; he was the reverse. It was not that he liked violent exercise, violent action; he liked nothing violent. But, instead of sitting in the suns.h.i.+ne, his instinct was to get a good horse and ride in it; instead of lounging beside a blue sea, he liked better to be sailing a yacht over it; instead of sitting contemplatively on a green bank, holding a fis.h.i.+ng-rod, he would be more apt to shoulder a gun and walk, contemplatively too, perhaps, for long miles, in pursuit of game. In all this he was thoroughly American.

He had a great love for art, and a strong love for beauty, which his studies in mathematics and science had never in the least deadened. As regarded determination, he was a very strong man; but he was so quiet and calm that it was only when one came in conflict with him that his strength was perceived; and there were not many occasions for coming in conflict with him now, he was no longer directing large enterprises. In private life, he was not in the habit of advancing opinions for the rest of the world to accept; he left that to the people of one idea.

On the present occasion he rode over the pine barrens for miles, every now and then enjoying a brisk gallop. After a while he saw a phaeton at a distance, moving apparently at random over the green waste; but he had learned enough of the barrens by this time to know that it was following a road--a road which he could not see. There was only one phaeton in Gracias, the one he himself had sent for; he rode across, therefore, to speak to his aunt.

CHAPTER VIII.

She was returning with Margaret from her drive, and looked very comfortable; with a cus.h.i.+on behind her and a light rug over her lap, she sat leaning back under her lace-trimmed parasol.

"I enjoy these drives _so_ much," she said to her nephew in her agreeable voice. "The barrens themselves, to be sure, cannot be called beautiful, though I believe Margaret maintains that they have a fascination; but the air is delicious."

"Do you really find them fascinating?" said Winthrop to Margaret.

"Extremely so; I drive over them for miles every day, yet never want to come in; I always long to go farther."

"Oh, well, there's an end to them somewhere, I suppose," remarked Mrs.

Rutherford; "the whole State isn't so very broad, you know; you would come out at the Gulf of Mexico."

"I don't want to come out," said Margaret, "I want to stay in; I want to drive here forever."

"We shall wake some fine morning, and find you gone," said Mrs.

Rutherford, "like the girl in the 'Dismal Swamp,' you know:

"'Away to the Dismal Swamp she speeds--'

I've forgotten the rest."

"'Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds, And many a fen where the serpent feeds, And man never trod before,'"

said Winthrop, finis.h.i.+ng the quotation. "The last isn't true of the barrens, however, for man has trod here pretty extensively."

"You mean Indians?" said Mrs. Rutherford, rather as though they were not men, as indeed she did not think they were. She yawned, tapping her lips two or three times during the process with her delicately gloved hand, as people will, under the impression, apparently, that they are concealing the sign of fatigue. Mrs. Rutherford's yawn, however, was not a sign of fatigue, it was an indication of sheer bodily content; the soft air and the lazy motion of the phaeton were so agreeable to her that, if she had been imaginative, she would have declared that the Lotus-eaters must have yawned perpetually, and that Florida was evidently the land of their abode.

"You look too comfortable to talk, Aunt Katrina," said Winthrop, amused by the drowsy tones of her voice; "I think you would rather be rid of me. I will go off and have one more gallop, and be home before you."

Mrs. Rutherford smiled an indolent good-by; Margaret Harold looked straight before her. Winthrop turned off to the right, and was soon lost to view.

He pulled up after a while, and let his horse walk slowly along the trail; he was thinking of Margaret Harold. He was always seeing her now, it could not be otherwise so long as she continued to live with his aunt. But he said to himself that he should never really like her, and what he was thinking of at present was whether or not she had perceived this.

She was not easy to read. Just now, for instance, when she had begun to speak of the pine barrens, and to speak with (for her) a good deal of warmth, had he not perhaps had something to do with her falling into complete silence immediately afterwards? He had answered, of course; he had done what was necessary to keep up the conversation; still, perhaps she had seen--perhaps---- Well, he could not help it if she had, or rather he did not care to help it. Whatever she might be besides, quiet, well-bred, devoted to the welfare of his aunt, she was still in his opinion so completely, so essentially wrong in some of her ideas, and these in a woman the most important, that his feeling towards her at heart was one of sternest disapproval; it could not be otherwise. And she held so obstinately to her mistakes! That was the worst of her--her obstinacy; it was so tranquil. It was founded, of course, upon her immovable self-esteem--a very usual foundation for tranquillity! No doubt Lanse had required forgiveness, and even a great deal of forgiveness; there had, indeed, been no period of Lanse's life when he had not made large demands on this quality from those who were nearest him. But was it not a wife's part to forgive? Lanse could have been led by his affections, probably, his better side; it had always been so with Lanse. But instead of trying to influence him in that way, this wife had set herself up in opposition to him--the very last thing he would stand.

She had probably been narrow from the beginning, narrow and punctilious.

Later she had been shocked; then had hardened in it. She was evidently a cold woman; in addition, she was self-righteous, self-complacent; such women were always perfectly satisfied with themselves, they had excellent reasons for everything. Of course she had never loved her husband; if she had loved him she could not have left him so easily, within a few months--less than a year--after their marriage. And though seven years had now pa.s.sed since that separation, she had never once, so far as Winthrop knew, sought to return to him, or asked him to return to her.

The marriage of Lansing Harold and Margaret Cruger had taken place while Winthrop was abroad. When he came home soon afterwards, at the breaking out of the war, he found that the young wife of nineteen had left her husband, had returned to live with Mrs. Rutherford, with whom she had lived for a short time before her marriage. She had come to Mrs.

Rutherford upon the death of her grandmother, Mrs. Cruger; this aunt by marriage was now her nearest relative, and this aunt's house was to be her home. To this home she had now returned, and here it was that Evert first made her acquaintance. Lanse, meanwhile, had gone to Italy.

There had been no legal separation, Mrs. Rutherford told him; probably there never would be one, for Margaret did not approve of them. Lanse, too, would probably disapprove; they were well matched in their disapprovals! It was not known by society at large, Mrs. Rutherford continued, that there had been any irrevocable disagreement between the two; society at large probably supposed it to be one of those cases, so common nowadays, where husband and wife, being both fond of travelling, have discovered that they enjoy their travels more when separated than when together, as (unless there happens to be a really princely fortune) individual tastes are so apt to be sacrificed in travelling, on one side or the other. Take the one item of trains, Mrs. Rutherford went on; some persons liked to get over the ground by night, and were bored to death by a long journey by day; others became so exhausted by one night of travel that the whole of the next day was spent recovering from it. Then there were people who preferred to reach the station at the last minute, people who liked to run and rush; and others whose day was completely spoiled by any such frantic haste at the beginning. The most amiable of men sometimes developed a curious obstinacy, when travelling, concerning the small matter of which seat in a railway-carriage the wife should take. Yes, on the whole, Mrs. Rutherford thought it natural that husbands and wives, if possessed of strong wills, should travel separately; the small differences, which made the trouble, did not come up in the regular life at home. It was very common for American wives to be in Europe without their husbands; in the case of the Harolds, it was simply that the husband had gone; this at least was probably what society supposed.

Mrs. Rutherford further added that her listener, Winthrop, was not to suppose that Margaret herself had ever discussed these subjects with her, or had ever discussed Lanse; his name was never mentioned by his wife, and when she, the aunt, mentioned it, her words were received in silence; there was no reply.

"I consider," continued Mrs. Rutherford, warming with her subject--"I consider Margaret's complete silence the most extraordinary thing I have ever known in my life. Living with me as she has done all these years, shouldn't you suppose, wouldn't any one suppose, that at some time or other she would have talked it over with me, given me some explanation, no matter how one-sided--would have tried to justify herself? Very well, then, she _never_ has. From first to last, in answer to my inquiries (for of course I have made them), she has only said that she would rather not talk about it, that the subject was painful to her. Painful!

I wonder what she thinks it is to me! She makes me perfectly miserable, Evert--perfectly miserable."

"Yet you keep her with you," answered Winthrop, not taking Mrs. Harold's side exactly, but the side of justice, perhaps; for he had seen how much his aunt's comfort depended upon Margaret's attention, though he was not prepared to admit that it depended upon that entirely, as Garda Thorne had declared.

"Yes," responded Mrs. Rutherford, "I keep her with me, as you say. But my house was really her home, you know, before her marriage, and of course it is quite the best place for her now, as things are; if she will not remain with her husband, at least her continuing to live always with her husband's aunt, his almost mother, is the next best thing that could be arranged for her. Appearances are preserved, you know; and Margaret has a great regard for appearances."

"Possibly too great," Winthrop answered. But his sarcasm was not intended to apply to the wife's regard for appearances--he also had a regard for appearances--it was intended to apply to the wife herself.