CHAPTER IV.
How can I tell the feelings in a young lady's mind; the thoughts in a young gentleman's bosom? As Professor Owen takes a fragment of bone and builds a forgotten monster out of it, so the novelist puts this and that together: from the foot-prints finds the foot; from the foot, the brute who trod on it; ... traces this slimy reptile through the mud; ... prods down this butterfly with a pin. --THACKERAY (_The Newcomes_).
Hampstead did not get to sleep, after Rankin had retired, as early as heexpected. Jack Cresswell followed him into his bedroom and sat down, litanother pipe, and then walked about, and seemed preoccupied, as he hadall the evening. Geoffrey did not speak to him at first, as this was anunusual proceeding between the two, but, having got into bed and madehimself comfortable by bullying the pillows into the proper shape andposition, addressed his friend:
"Now, old man, unburden your mind. I know you want to tell me something,but do not be surprised if you find me asleep before you get your secondwind. If you care for me, cut it short."
"Got a letter to-day," said Jack, "from her."
"Well, Jack, as you seem, with some eccentricity, to have only one"her," of course I am interested. Your feelings in that quarter neverfail in their attraction. Pour into my devoted ear for the next fiveminutes (not longer) a synopsis of your woes or joys. What is it youwant to-night? Congratulation or balm for wounds?"
"Oh, I don't wish to keep you awake," said Jack testily, rising, as ifto depart.
"Go on, sir. Go on, sir. Your story interests me."
Geoffrey assumed an attitude of attention. Jack smiled and sat downagain. He had no intention of going away. He had thought over his letterall day, till at last a confidential friend seemed almost necessary.
"My letter comes from London. They've' returned from the Continent, and,as they are now most likely on the sea, she'll be at home in about aweek." And Jack seemed in a high state of satisfaction.
"Well, well! I never saw a real goddess in my life," said Geoffrey. "Andthere is no doubt about Miss Lindon being one, because I have listenedto you for two years, and now I know that she is what I have long wishedto see."
"It will give me the greatest pleasure to have you know her. I havelooked forward tremendously to that. Next to meeting her myself comesthe idea of we three being jolly good friends, and going around togetheron little jamborees to concerts and that sort of thing. I haven't adoubt but what we three will 'get on' amazingly."
"Playing gooseberry with success requires a clever person," saidGeoffrey. "I don't think I'm quite equal to the call for the tact andloss of individuality which the position demands. However, dear boy, Iam quite aware that to introduce me to the lady of your heart as yourparticular friend is the greatest compliment one fellow can payanother--all things considered. Don't you think so? Oh, yes, I dare saywe will be a trio quite out of the common. But, if she is as pretty asyou say she is, I'll have to look at her, you know. Can't help lookingat a handsome woman, even if she were hedged in with as manyprohibitions as the royal family. You'll have to get accustomed to_that_, of course."
"But that's the very reason why I want you to know her," said Jack, inhis whole-souled way. "I really often feel as if her beauty andbrightness and her power of pleasing many should not be altogethermonopolized by any one man. It would redouble my satisfaction if Ithought you admired her also." Jack stopped for a moment as heconsidered that her power of "pleasing many" had been rather larger attimes than he had cared about. "It seems to me that she has enough ofthese attractions for me, and some to spare for others."
Geoffrey smiled as he wondered if the girl herself thought she hadenough to spare for others besides Jack.
"Young man, your sentiments do you credit! It must make things much moresatisfactory to an engaged girl to understand that she is expected notto neglect the outside world whenever she is able 'to tear herselfaway,' as it were."
"I see you grinning to yourself under the bed-clothes," said Jack, whorather winced at this. "I don't know that I ever asked her to distributeherself more than she did. On the contrary, if you must have theunvarnished truth, quite the reverse." Jack reddened as he ventilatedsome of the truths which are generally suppressed. "The fact is, it wasrather the other way. I frequently have acted like a donkey when Ididn't get her undivided attention. You know girls often get accused offlirting, and when one hears their own explanation, nothing seemsclearer, you know, than that there was no occasion for the row at all."
Geoffrey thought he did know, but said nothing.
"Two years, though, make changes, and having seen nothing of her forsuch a long time, I feel as if one glimpse of her would repay me for allthe waiting. I should never have thought of our differences again if youhad not raked them up."
"Which I am sorry to have done," said Geoffrey. "No doubt, two years dosometimes make a difference. I am sure you treat the _affaire_sublimely, and, if she is equally generous in her thoughts of you, itwill be a unique thing to gaze upon both of you at once."
Jack took Geoffrey's remarks in good part, for he had got accustomed tothe cynical way the latter treated most things. It was _his way_, hethought, and Geoffrey was "such an all-round good fellow, and all thatsort of thing, you know," that it was to be expected that he should have"ways." Besides this, Jack had seen from time to time that, though veryready to recognize sterling merit, Geoffrey had ability in detectinghumbug, and that he considered the optimist had too many chances againsthim to make him valuable as a prophet. Thus, when he spoke in this wayof Nina Lindon, Jack supposed that his friend had his doubts, and, muchas he loved her, he stopped, like many another, and asked himselfwhether she had such a generosity and nobility in her character as hehad supposed. This, he felt, was rather beneath him in one way, andrather beyond him in another. When he looked for admirable traits, heremembered several instances of good-natured impulse, and while thegraceful manner in which she had done these things rose before him, hegrew enthusiastic. Then he sought to call up for inspection thequalities he took exception to. That she had seemed inconsiderate of hisfeelings at times seemed true. There was, he thought, a frivolity abouther. He thought life had for him some few well-defined realities, andthat she had never seemed to quite grasp the true inwardness of his bestmoments. But all was explained by her youth and the adulation paid toher. And then the memory of her soft dark eyes and flute-like voice, thevarious allurements of her vivacious manner and graceful figure,produced an enthusiasm quite overwhelming. So he laughed at the defeatof his impartiality, looked over at Geoffrey, who was peacefully snoringby this time, and went away to his own room. But deep down in his heartlay the shadow of a doubt which, with his instinctive courtesy, he neverapproached even in an examination supposed to be a searching one. Theinspection of it seemed a sacrilege, and he put it from him.Nevertheless, there had been times when Jack felt doubtful as to whetherNina could be relied upon for absolute truth.
Joseph Lindon, the father of Nina, came from--no person seemed to knowwhere. He, or his family, might have come from the north of Ireland orsouth of Scotland, or middle of England, or anywhere else, as far as anyone could judge by his face; and, as likely as not, his lineage was amixture of Scotch, Irish, English, or Dutch, which implanted in hisphysiognomy that conglomeration of nationalities which now defiesclassification, but seems to be evolving a type to be known asdistinctively Canadian. His accent was not Irish, Scotch, English, norYankee. It was a collection of all four, which appeared separately atodd times, and it was, in this way, Canadian.
His family records had not been kept, or Joseph would certainly haveproduced them, if creditable. He had the appearance of a self-made man.If want of a good education somewhat interfered with the completeness ofhis social success, it certainly had not retarded him in businesscircles. If he had swept out the store of his first employers, thoseemployers were now in their graves, and of those who knew his beginningsin Toronto there were none with the temerity to remind him of them. Mr.Lindon was not a man t
o be "sat upon." He had a bold front, a hard,incisive voice, and a temper that, since he began to feel his monetaryoats, brooked no opposition. He might have been taken for a farmer,except for the keenness of his eye and the fact that his clothes werecity made. These two differences, however, are of a comprehensive kind.
Mr. Lindon, early in life, had opened a small shop, and then enlargedit. Having been successful, he sold out, and took to a kind of broker,money-lending, and land business, and being one who devoted his wholeexistence to the development of the main chance, with a deal of nativeability to assist him, the result was inevitable.
His entertainments gave satisfaction to those who thought they knew whata good glass of wine was. Mr. Lindon himself did _not_. Few do. Whenexhausted he took a little whisky. When he entertained, he sipped thewine that an impecunious gentleman was paid to purchase for him,regardless of cost. So, although there were those who turned up theirnoses at Joseph Lindon while they swallowed him, there did not seem tobe any reluctance in going through the same motions with his wine.
The fact that he was able to, and did entertain to a large extent was ofitself sufficient in certain quarters to provoke a smile suggesting that_the_ society in that city did not entertain. Some members had beenamong the exclusives for a comparatively short time, and the earlyoccupation of their parents was still painfully within the memory of theoldest inhabitant. A good many based their right on the fact that theycame "straight from England"--without further recommendation; whileothers pawed the air like the heraldic lion because they had, or used tohave, a second cousin with a title in England.
But these good people were partly correct when they hinted that some oldfamilies did not entertain much. Either there had been some scalawag inthe family who had wasted its substance, or else the respected familyhad had a faculty for mortgaging and indorsing notes for friends inthose good old times which happily are not likely to return.
The consequence was that there was a good deal of satisfaction on bothsides. Joseph Lindon could pat his breeches pocket, figuratively, and,not without reason, consider he had the best of it. Many a huge mortgageat ruinous interest made by the first families, who never lived withintheir means, had found its way to Lindon's office, and many an acre,subsequently worth thousands of dollars, had been acquired by him insatisfaction of the note he held against the family scalawag. During allthe times that these people had been "keeping up the name," as theycalled it, Lindon had been salting down the hard cash, and if some ofhis transactions were of the "shady" sort, he had, in dealing with someof the patrician families, some pretty shady customers to look after.
But these transactions were in the old times, when Lindon was rolling uphis scores of thousands. All he had to do now was to attend the boardmeetings of companies of which he was president, and to arrange hislarge financial ventures in cold blood over his chop at the club withthose who waited for his consent with eager ears. If there were fewtransactions in business circles that he was not conversant with, therewere still fewer affairs in his own domestic circle that he knewanything about. It was his wife that had brought him into his socialposition, such as it was; that is, his wife's wishes and his money.
Mrs. Lindon had been a pretty woman in her day, which, of course, hadlost its first freshness, and she was approaching that period when theretrospect of a well-spent life is expected to be gratifying. Hermarried life with Mr. Lindon had not been the gradual conquest of thatcomplete union which makes later years a climax and old age the harvestof sweet memories in common, as marriage has been defined for us. On thecontrary, their married life had been a gradual acquisition of thatdisunion which law and public opinion prevent from becoming complete.The two had now established the semblance of a union--the system inwhich the various pretenses of deep regard become so well defined bylong years of mutual make-believe, as to often encourage the married tohope that it will be publicly supposed to be the glad culmination oftheir courtship dreams.
Mrs. Lindon said of herself that she had been of a Lower Canadianfamily, with some French name, prior to her marriage, and her storyseemed to suggest, in the absence of further particulars, that Mr.Lindon had married her more for her family than her good looks. The"looks" were pretty nearly gone, but the "family" was still within thereach of a sufficiently fertile imagination, and so often had thesuggestion been made that of late years the idea had assumed adefiniteness in her mind which materially assisted her in holding herown in the society in which she now floated. A natural untidiness in theway she put on her expensive garments, which in a poorer woman wouldhave been called slatternly, and the dark, French prettiness which shestill showed traces of (and which was rather of the nurse-girl type)combined to suggest that in reality she was the offspring of Irish andFrench emigrants, "and steerage at that"--some of the first familiessaid--"decidedly steerage."
Mrs. Lindon was supremely her own mistress. This was not, perhaps, anultimate benefit to her, but, as she had nothing on earth to troubleabout, long years of idleness and indulgence in every whim had led herto conjure up a grievance, which she nursed in her bosom, and on accountof it she excused herself for all shortcomings. This was that she wasleft so much without the society of Mr. Lindon. Often, in the pausesbetween the excitements she created for herself, tears of self-pitywould arise at the thought of her abandoned condition. The truth wasthat she did not care anymore for Lindon than he did for her; but fromthe fact that she really did desire to have a husband who would seebetter the advantages of shining in society, the poor lady contrived toconvince herself that he had been greatly wanting in his duties to heras a husband, that the affection was all on her side, and that thataffection was from year to year quietly repulsed. Their domestic bearingtoward each other was now that of a quiet neutrality. They alwaysaddressed each other in public as "my dear," and, if either of them haddied, no doubt the bereaved one would have mourned in the usual way, onthe principle of "Nil de mortuis nisi _bunkum_."
It had not occurred to Mrs. Lindon that, if more time had been spentwith her daughter in fulfilling a mother's duties toward a young girl,there would have been less need for extraneous assistance to aid her inher passage through the world. Nina was fond of her mother, and it wasstrange that the two did not see more of each other. Nina could be acredit to her in any social gathering, and this made it all the morestrange. But Mrs. Lindon was forever gadding about to differentinstitutions, Bible-readings, and other little excitements of her own(for which Nina had no marked liking), and she seemed rather more easyin her mind when Nina was not with her. Perhaps Mr. Lindon was notsolely at fault concerning the coolness pervading the domesticatmosphere.
The charitable institutions had been the salvation of Mrs. Lindon--thatis, in a mundane sense. When Joseph Lindon, with characteristic method,came home one day and said, "My dear, I have bought the Ramsay mansion,and now I am going to spend my money," Mrs. Lindon enjoyed a pleasureexceeding anything she had known. That was a happy day for her! Thedream of her life was to be consummated! She immediately left the smallchurch which she had attended for years and changed her creed slightlyto take a good pew in a certain fashionable church. After this it wasmerely a question of time and money, both of which were available to anyextent. She showed great interest in charities. She contributed humblybut lavishly. The ladies of good position who go around withsubscription-books smiled in their hearts at seeing the old game goingon. They smiled and bled her profusely. They discussed Mrs. Lindon amongthemselves--with care, of course, because they did not wish to appear tohave known her before. But as time wore on they thought she could bebled to a much greater extent if she were induced to become "a worker inthe flock," which the good lady was quite willing to do. On beingapproached by some of the leading spirits, she went first to a weeklyBible-class, which she had previously been afraid to attend because theaudience was so select, and after this she showed such an interest invarious charities that she was soon placed upon committees. By ladieswith heads for real management on their shoulders she was led tobelie
ve that they really could not do without her mental assistance, sothat at first when she was gravely consulted on a financial question andasked for her advice she generally eased the tension on her mind bywriting a substantial check. This led her to believe that she hadsomething of the financier about her, and she even told her husband thatshe was beginning to quite understand all about money matters, at whichJoseph smiled an ineffable smile.
She could have been used more advantageously if she had been kept out ofthe desired circle for a couple of years longer, because she was readyto pay any price for her admission. The good ladies made a slightmistake in being too hasty to control the bottomless purse, because,after she had got fairly installed, the purse was worked in severalother ways, and the ecclesiastical drain on it became reduced to anordinary amount. She gave a fair sum to each of the charities andaccepted the attentions of those whom the odor of money attracted,without troubling herself in the slightest degree about the periodicalfinancial difficulties of the institutions.
Yet she never altogether relaxed her efforts in "working for the Lord,"as she called it, in such good company. She acquired a taste for it thatnever left her. She would take a couple of the "poor but honest" ladiesof good family with her, in her sumptuous barouche, to the "Incurables"and other places. After a capital luncheon at her house they would visitthe "Home," and sometimes kiss the poor women there; and if thestrengthening sympathy and religious value of Mrs. Lindon's kiss did notbind them to a life of virtue ever afterward they must indeed have beenlost--in every sense of the word.
Nina was not born for some time after Mr. and Mrs. Lindon had beenmarried. Her mother had kept her, when a child, very much in the dark asto their antecedents, and, as the social position of the family hadbeen well established by Mrs. Lindon when Nina was very young, the girlalways had grown up with the idea that she was a lady; and in spite of afew wants in her father and some doubts as to her mother's origin, shecame out into society with a fixed idea that she was "quite good enoughfor the colonies," as she laughingly told her friends.
No pains or expense had been spared in her education. She had first goneto the best Toronto school, and had "finished" at a boarding-school inEngland. Jack Cresswell knew her when she was at school, where sheshared his heart with several others. When she emerged from theeducational chrysalis and floated for the first time down a societyball-room Jack was after the butterfly hat-in-hand, as it were, andnever as yet had he given up the chase. Mr. Lindon knew nothing ofdomestic affairs, but he had found Jack so frequently at his house thathe had begun to see that his ambitious plans for his daughter wereperhaps in danger of being frustrated, and so, having at that time tosend a man to England to float the shares of some company on the Londonmarket, he decided to go himself, and one day, when Jack was diningthere, he rather paralyzed all, especially Jack, by instructing his wifeand daughter to be ready in a week for the journey.
The parting on Jack's part would have been tender if Nina had not beenin such exasperatingly high spirits--hilarity he found it quiteimpossible to participate in or appreciate. He made her excuses tohimself, like the decent soul he was, although he really suffered a gooddeal. He was an ardent youth, and for the week prior to departure hereceived very little of the sympathy he hungered for, but he tried tospeak cheerfully as he held her hand in saying good-by.
"Well, now, you won't forget your promise, old lady, will you?" he said,while he tried to photograph her in his mind as she stood bewitchinglybefore him.
"What! and throw over the French count that proposed to me in London?"she said archly. Jack muttered something under his breath that soundedlike hostility toward the French count.
She heard him, however, and said: "Certainly. So we will. It will killhim, but you will rejoice. And I will come back and marry Jack. There!isn't it nice of me to say that? Now, kiss me and say good-by!"
She withdrew, and held the porch door so that only her face appeared,which Jack lightly touched with his lips, and then he went awayspeechless. As he went he heard her singing:
"And I'll come back to my own true love, Ten thousand miles away."
This sentiment, from one of his yachting songs, smoothed the ragged edgeof his feelings. He loved in an old-fashioned way, and in his ideas asto carrying out the due formalities of a lover's leave-taking he wasconservative even to red-tapeism, and disappointment, tenderness, anger,and hopelessness surged through his brain as they only can in that of ayoung man.
There was further tragedy in that Jack, unable to sleep at night anddespondent in the morning, must needs go down to the boat to see her"just once more" before she left. The gangways had been hauled in andthe paddle-wheels were beginning to move. Nina was standing inside thelower-deck bulwarks and leaned across the water to shake hands, but thedistance was too great She was in aggressively high spirits, and said tohim, as he moved along the end of the wharf, keeping pace with the boat:
"Don't you remember what your pet authoress says?"
"No," said Jack, hoping that she would say something nice to him.
"She says that a first farewell may have pathos in it, but to come backfor a second lends an opening to comedy."
Her rippling laugh smote Jack cruelly. Then she tried to soften this bysmiling and waving her hand to him as the boat swept away. Jack raisedhis hat stiffly in return, and wandered back to the bank with a headthat felt as if it would split.
And this was their parting two years ago.