CHAPTER III. THE UNATTAINABLE SIMPLICITY
To Mr. Hopper the being caught was the unpardonable crime. And indeed,with many of us, it is humiliation and not conscience which makes thesting. He walked out to the end of the city's growth westward, where thenew houses were going up. He had reflected coolly on consequences, andfound there were none to speak of. Many a moralist, Mr. Davitt included,would have shaken his head at this. Miss Crane's whole Puritan householdwould have raised their hands in horror at such a doctrine.
Some novelists I know of, who are in reality celebrated surgeons indisguise, would have shown a good part of Mr. Eliphalet Hopper's mentalinsides in as many words as I have taken to chronicle his arrival in St.Louis. They invite us to attend a clinic, and the horrible skill withwhich they wield the scalpel holds us spellbound. For God has made allof us, rogue and saint, burglar and burgomaster, marvellously alike.We read a patent medicine circular and shudder with seven diseases. Weperuse one of Mr. So and So's intellectual tonics and are sure we arecomplicated scandals, fearfully and wonderfully made.
Alas, I have neither the skill nor the scalpel to show the diseases ofMr. Hopper's mind; if, indeed, he had any. Conscience, when contracted,is just as troublesome as croup. Mr. Hopper was thoroughly healthy. Hehad ambition, as I have said. But he was not morbidly sensitive. He wascalm enough when he got back to the boarding-house, which he found in ashigh a pitch of excitement as New Englanders ever reach.
And over what?
Over the prospective arrival that evening of the Brices, mother andson, from Boston. Miss Crane had received the message in the morning.Palpitating with the news; she had hurried rustling to Mrs. Abner Reed,with the paper in her hand.
"I guess you don't mean Mrs. Appleton Brice," said Mrs. Reed.
"That's just who I mean," answered Miss Crane, triumphantly,--nay,aggressively.
Mrs. Abner shook her curls in a way that made people overwhelm her withproofs.
"Mirandy, you're cracked," said she. "Ain't you never been to Boston?"
Miss Crane bridled. This was an uncalled-for insult.
"I guess I visited down Boston-way oftener than you, Eliza Reed. Younever had any clothes."
Mrs. Reed's strength was her imperturbability.
"And you never set eyes on the Brice house, opposite the Common, withthe swelled front? I'd like to find out where you were a-visitin'. Andyou've never heard tell of the Brice homestead, at Westbury, that wasColonel Wilton Brice's, who fought in the Revolution? I'm astonished atyou, Mirandy. When I used to be at the Dales', in Mount Vernon Street,in thirty-seven, Mrs. Charles Atterbury Brice used to come there inher carriage, a-callin'. She was Appleton's mother. Severe! Save us,"exclaimed Mrs. Reed, "but she was stiff as starched crepe. His fatherwas minister to France. The Brices were in the India trade, and they hadmoney enough to buy the whole of St. Louis."
Miss Crane rattled the letter in her hand. She brought forth herreserves.
"Yes, and Appleton Brice lost it all, in the panic. And then he died,and left the widow and son without a cent."
Mrs. Reed took off her spectacles.
"I want to know!" she exclaimed. "The durned fool! Well, Appleton Bricedidn't have the family brains, ands he was kind of soft-hearted. I'veheard Mehitabel Dale say that." She paused to reflect. "So they'recoming here?" she added. "I wonder why."
Miss Crane's triumph was not over.
"Because Silas Whipple was some kin to Appleton Brice, and he hasoffered the boy a place in his law office."
Miss Reed laid down her knitting.
"Save us!" she said. "This is a day of wonders, Mirandy. Now Lord helpthe boy if he's gain' to work for the Judge."
"The Judge has a soft heart, if he is crabbed," declared the spinster."I've heard say of a good bit of charity he's done. He's a soft heart."
"Soft as a green quince!" said Mrs. Abner, scornfully. "How many friendshas he?"
"Those he has are warm enough," Miss Crane retorted. "Look at ColonelCarvel, who has him to dinner every Sunday."
"That's plain as your nose, Mirandy Crane. They both like quarrellin'better than anything in this world."
"Well," said Miss Crane, "I must go make ready for the Brices."
Such was the importance of the occasion, however, that she couldnot resist calling at Mrs. Merrill's room, and she knocked at Mrs.Chandler's door to tell that lady and her daughter.
No Burke has as yet arisen in this country of ours to write a Peerage.Fame awaits him. Indeed, it was even then awaiting him, at the timeof the panic of 1857. With what infinite pains were the pedigreeand possessions of the Brice family pieced together that day by thescattered residents from Puritan-land in the City of St. Louis. And fewbuildings would have borne the wear and tear of many house-cleanings ofthe kind Miss Crane indulged in throughout the morning and afternoon.
Mr. Eliphalet Hopper, on his return from business, was met on the stepsand requested to wear his Sunday clothes. Like the good republican thathe was, Mr. Hopper refused. He had ascertained that the golden charmwhich made the Brices worthy of tribute had been lost. Commercialsupremacy,--that was Mr. Hopper's creed. Family is a good thing, butof what use is a crest without the panels on which to paint it? Cana diamond brooch shine on a calico gown? Mr. Hopper deemed church theplace for worship. He likewise had his own idol in his closet.
Eliphalet at Willesden had heard a great deal of Boston airs and gracesand intellectuality, of the favored few of that city who lived inmysterious houses, and who crossed the sea in ships. He pictured Mrs.Brice asking for a spoon, and young Stephen sniffing at Mrs. Crane'sboarding-house. And he resolved with democratic spirit that he wouldteach Stephen a lesson, if opportunity offered. His own discrepancybetween the real and the imagined was no greater than that of the restof his fellow-boarders.
Barring Eliphalet, there was a dress parade that evening,--silks andbombazines and broadcloths, and Miss Crane's special preserves on thetea-table. Alas, that most of the deserved honors of this world shouldfall upon barren ground!
The quality which baffled Mr. Hopper, and some other boarders, wassimplicity. None save the truly great possess it (but this is notgenerally known). Mrs. Brice was so natural, that first evening at tea,that all were disappointed. The hero upon the reviewing stand with thehalo of the Unknown behind his head is one thing; the lady of Family whosits beside you at a boarding-house and discusses the weather and thejourney is quite another. They were prepared to hear Mrs. Brice railat the dirt of St. Louis and the crudity of the West. They picturedher referring with sighs to her Connections, and bewailing that Stephencould not have finished his course at Harvard.
She did nothing of the sort.
The first shock was so great that Mrs. Abner Reed cried in the privacyof her chamber, and the Widow Crane confessed her disappointment to theconfiding ear of her bosom friend, Mrs. Merrill. Not many years later aman named Grant was to be in Springfield, with a carpet bag, despised asa vagabond. A very homely man named Lincoln went to Cincinnati to try acase before the Supreme Court, and was snubbed by a man named Stanton.
When we meet the truly great, several things may happen. In the firstplace, we begin to believe in their luck, or fate, or whatever we chooseto call it, and to curse our own. We begin to respect ourselves themore, and to realize that they are merely clay like us, that we aregreat men without Opportunity. Sometimes, if we live long enough nearthe Great, we begin to have misgivings. Then there is hope for us.
Mrs. Brice, with her simple black gowns, quiet manner, and serene face,with her interest in others and none in herself, had a wonderful effectupon the boarders. They were nearly all prepared to be humble. They grewarrogant and pretentious. They asked Mrs. Brice if she knew thisand that person of consequence in Boston, with whom they claimedrelationship or intimacy. Her answers were amiable and self-contained.
But what shall we say of Stephen Brice? Let us confess at once that itis he who is the hero of this story, and not Eliphalet Hopper. Itwould be so easy to paint Stephen in
shining colors, and to make him afirst-class prig (the horror of all novelists), that we must begin withthe drawbacks. First and worst, it must be confessed that Stephen hadat that time what has been called "the Boston manner." This was notStephen's fault, but Boston's. Young Mr. Brice possessed thatwonderful power of expressing distance in other terms besides ells andfurlongs,--and yet he was simple enough with it all.
Many a furtive stare he drew from the table that evening. There were oneor two of discernment present, and they noted that his were the generousfeatures of a marked man,--if he chose to become marked. He inheritedhis mother's look; hers was the face of a strong woman, wide ofsympathy, broad of experience, showing peace of mind amid troubles--thetouch of femininity was there to soften it.
Her son had the air of the college-bred. In these surroundings heescaped arrogance by the wonderful kindliness of his eye, which lightedwhen his mother spoke to him. But he was not at home at Miss Crane'stable, and he made no attempt to appear at his ease.
This was an unexpected pleasure for Mr. Eliphalet Hopper. Let it not bethought that he was the only one at that table to indulge in a littlesecret rejoicing. But it was a peculiar satisfaction to him to reflectthat these people, who had held up their heads for so many generations,were humbled at last. To be humbled meant, in Mr. Hopper's philosophy,to lose one's money. It was thus he gauged the importance of hisacquaintances; it was thus he hoped some day to be gauged. And hetrusted and believed that the time would come when he could givehis fillip to the upper rim of fortune's wheel, and send it spinningdownward.
Mr. Hopper was drinking his tea and silently forming an estimate. Heconcluded that young Brice was not the type to acquire the money whichhis father had lost. And he reflected that Stephen must feel as strangein St. Louis as a cod might amongst the cat-fish in the Mississippi.So the assistant manager of Carvel & Company resolved to indulge in thepleasure of patronizing the Bostonian.
"Callatin' to go to work?" he asked him, as the boarders walked into thebest room.
"Yes," replied Stephen, taken aback. And it may be said here that, ifMr. Hopper underestimated him, certainly he underestimated Mr. Hopper.
"It ain't easy to get a job this Fall," said Eliphalet, "St. Louishouses have felt the panic."
"I am sorry to hear that."
"What business was you callatin' to grapple with?"
"Law," said Stephen.
"Gosh!" exclaimed Mr. Hopper, "I want to know." In reality he was abit chagrined, having pictured with some pleasure the Boston aristocratgoing from store to store for a situation. "You didn't come herefigurin' on makin' a pile, I guess."
"A what?"
"A pile."
Stephen looked down and over Mr. Hopper attentively. He took in theblocky shoulders and the square head, and he pictured the little eyes ata vanishing-point in lines of a bargain. Then humor blessed humor--cameto his rescue. He had entered the race in the West, where all startequal. He had come here, like this man who was succeeding, to make hisliving. Would he succeed?
Mr. Hopper drew something out of his pocket, eyed Miss Crane, and bitoff a corner.
"What office was you going into?" he asked genially. Mr. Brice decidedto answer that.
"Judge Whipple's--unless he has changed his mind." Eliphalet gave him alook more eloquent than words.
"Know the Judge?"
Silent laughter.
"If all the Fourth of Julys we've had was piled into one," said Mr.Hopper, slowly and with conviction, "they wouldn't be a circumstance toSilas Whipple when he gets mad. My boss, Colonel Carvel, is the onlyman in town who'll stand up to him. I've seen 'em begin a quarrel in thestore and carry it all the way up the street. I callate you won't staywith him a great while."