First harvests

THE firm of Townley & Tamms were of the oldest and best-known bankers and brokers in the Street. Mr. Townley had been known in New York over fifty years; he had a taste for art, and was a director in the Allegheny Central Railroad. Tamms was a newer man; a younger man with a square head, stiff red beard, broad stubby fingers, and great business ability. Arthur was expected to be there a little after nine in the morning, which made it necessary for him to breakfast at the boarding-house on Fifth Avenue at sharp eight. Most of the other men did the same, except Townley, who had his coffee in his room.

These men were not interesting; in fact, they seemed to Arthur singularly unattractive. Their faces were all chopped or rough-hewn into one prevailing expression, as rows of trees by the sea-shore are bent the same way by the wind. It would be best described as a look of eagerness; their eyes were sharp and piercing, and they even ate their breakfast eagerly. They all seemed common to Arthur; and he one of them, reduced to his lowest terms of expression, a unit of population, nothing more. They were all hurrying through breakfast, folding their napkins, putting on their great-coats, and going down-town for money, and for nothing else; so was he. To be sure, he had a woman he loved at the end of it; but so, perhaps, had they.

Arthur rose impatiently, leaving his second egg, and passed out, receiving a clipped or half-audible “good-morning” from most of his fellow-boarders; the sort of salutation that hurried men may give who must still dimly remember or recognize, while they may regret, the necessity for small social courtesies. He put on his overcoat, and started walking down the Avenue.

There was no reasoning himself out of it, his spirits drooped; not with the sentimental and romantic melancholy of a young man (which is a sort of pleasant sadness, and results in nothing worse than pessimistic poems, nocturnal rambles, and a slightly increased consumption of narcotics and stimulants), but with that more practical, less tolerable, discontent which the grown man has in moments when the conviction is irresistibly borne in upon him that his position in the world is not a brilliant one, and his worth, to make the best of it, is unappreciated. For those who choose to be sad over these things there is no remedy. And in New York, he felt himself—number one million three hundred and fifty-six thousand two hundred and two.

Arthur had, too, a strong desire to go and see Gracie, much as a child wants to go to its mother’s lap and cry. But how much farther off she seemed than if they had stayed at Great Barrington! It was impossible, of course, for him to see her; she had insisted that there should be no announced engagement between them. He doubted even if Mrs. Livingstone knew of it. But how long it would be before they could be married, before they could live in a house—in a house like that one there, for instance! And Arthur waved his cane unconsciously at a house on the corner of Thirty-second Street, in which, though ugly enough outside, it seemed to him it might be reasonably possible for him to maintain his own identity and their dignity of life. Then he remembered that Townley had pointed it out to him the day before as Mrs. Levison Gower’s house, and that he had been introduced to her at Lenox. Probably she would not remember him now.

Going to the office, he sought that corner of a desk which was in the future to be his station in the world. Townley arrived late, and gave him a hasty nod; it was a busy day, and he had been up late in the night at the first ball of the season. Arthur’s work that day consisted in writing letters for the firm, following Mr. Tamms’s hastily pencilled instructions; but the first letter he wrote of all was not signed by the firm signature, and it bore the address “Miss Holyoke, care of Mrs. Richard Livingstone, 6 W. ——th Street, City.” Such letters as these it is that make the world go on; and truly they are more important than even the foreign mail of Messrs. Townley & Tamms. This relieved his mind, and the daily labor for his daily bread coming happily in to sweeten his meditations, he got fairly through to four o’clock, when Townley proposed that they should go to drive.

Arthur protested his duty to his employers.

“Nonsense,” said Charlie; “the governor knows you’ve got to get into harness by degrees. Besides, he doesn’t pay you anything for your services—and they arn’t worth anything, yet,” he added. The last argument was unanswerable.

Charlie’s cart (it is quite impossible for us, who have known him nearly two days, to call him Townley any more) was very high, very thick, and very heavy, and was purchased in Long Acre; the horses, which answered the same description, were also imported; and the harness, which corresponded to the cart in thickness and heaviness, came from Cheapside. Townley’s coat, clothes, top-hat, whip, and gloves were all native of Bond Street or Piccadilly; and in fact, the only thing about him which was produced fairly beyond the London bills of mortality was the very undoubted case of green Havana cigars that he offered to Arthur the moment they had left the Park. They drove up Fifth Avenue, past the same procession of pedestrians they had seen the day before, and Arthur could not but note how much more interesting they seemed to their fellow-creatures from the summit of their dog-cart, and how the interest had become mutual as they entered the Park and joined the procession of T-carts, phaetons, and victorias. He admired the dexterity with which Charlie kept the tandem-reins and the whip properly assorted in his left hand, while the right was continually occupied in raising his hat to pretty women who had bowed.

The Hill-and-Dale Club, the newly established country institution, a sort of shrine or sacred grove whither city folk betook themselves to commune with nature, was in Westchester County, not far from the historic banks of the Bronx. An old country mansion, former quarters of Continental generals, rendezvous of Skinners and Cowboys, had been bought, adorned, developed, provided with numerous easy chairs and sporting prints; and lo! it was a club. The wide lawn in front was turned into a half-mile track for running races; a shooting range and tennis-grounds were made behind; and you had a small Arcadia for mundane pleasures. Here could tired mortals loaf, chat, eat, drink, smoke, bet, gamble, race, take exercise, and see their fellow-creatures and their wives and cattle. Expatriated Britons found here a blessed spot of rest, a simulacrum of home, where trotting races were tabooed, where you were waited on by stunted grooms, and could ride after your hounds, and always turned to the left in passing. Before this Elysium did Charlie pull up, and throwing the reins to a stable-boy, led Arthur to the inner Penetralia. After inscribing his name in the club-book (making the fourth, thought Arthur) they went to the smoke-room, where they met a dozen of the fellows (some of whose faces seemed already familiar to him) and executed the customary libation. Here Charlie stood boldly up to a composite ambrosia of which the base was brandy, saying that he thought a fellow deserved it after that drive. Some conversation followed; but I sadly fear ’twould not be worth the trouble of reporting in cold print. Then Charlie proposed they should go look at the stables; and they did.

“That is the beast for you,” he said, pointing to a gaunt, fiery-eyed creature with a close-cropped tail. “Vincent Duval is going abroad, and you can have him for four hundred.”

“But, my dear fellow, I can’t——”

“Nonsense, Holy,” said Charlie familiarly falling into the nickname that then and there sprang full-grown like Minerva from his inventive brain. “Look here, young fellow, I want to give you some advice. Let’s go in and smoke on the piazza.” They found easy seats above the broad green lawn, half across which reached already the shadows of a belt of huge bare forest trees that rimmed in the western end; and there, inspired by tobacco and the beauty of the scene, did Charles Townley deliver himself as follows:

“My dear boy, we live in a great country; and in a free country a man can make himself just what he likes. You can pick out just the class in life that suits you best. This is the critical moment; and you must decide whether to be a two-thousand-dollar clerk all your life, a ten-thousand bachelor, or a millionaire. If you rate yourself at the two-thousand gauge, the world will treat you accordingly; if you spend twenty thousand, the world, sooner or later, will give it to you. There’s Jimmy De Witt, for instance; after the old man busted, he hadn’t a sous markee—what was the result? He had an excellent taste in cigars and wine, knew everybody, told a good story—you know what a handsome fellow he is?—no end of style, and the best judge of a canvas-back duck I ever saw. Everybody said such a fellow couldn’t be left to starve. So old Duval found him a place as treasurer of one of his leased railroads down in Pennsylvania, where all he has to do is to sign the lessee’s accounts; he did this submissively, and it gave him ten thousand a year. Then we made him manager of the Manhattan Jockey Club—that gave him six thousand more; then he makes a little at whist, and never pays his bills, and somehow or other manages to make both ends meet. And now they say he’s going to marry Pussie Duval. Do you suppose he’d ever have been more than a poor devil of a clerk, like me, if he’d tried economy?” And Charlie leaned back and puffed his cigar triumphantly.

“But I mean to pay my bills,” said Arthur.

“Well, he will, too, in time,” said Charlie.

Arthur smiled to himself, and reflected that the corruptions of New York were rather clumsy, after all, and its snares and temptations a trifle worn-out and crude; but he said nothing, and by this time their tandem was brought around and they whirled off to the city. When they got home, he found a note:

“Mr. and Mrs. William H. Farnum request the pleasure—Mr. Holyoke’s company—small party, Thursday the twenty-eighth,” etc, etc.

He tossed it over to Charlie. “Since you’re such a social mentor, what must I do to that?” said he.

“Decline it, of course,” said the other; “I’ve got one myself; you see they saw us together. You mustn’t show up, the first time, at the Farnums.”

Arthur was nettled. “I shall do nothing of the kind,” said he. “I shall accept it.”

“As you like,” laughed the other, good-naturedly. “I shall accept, too, as far as that goes; but you needn’t go. They can put it in the newspaper that I was there, if they like.” Arthur opened his eyes; what sort of young nobleman, then, was his friend, disguised as a clerk upon a salary?

“Perhaps you object to my calling on the Livingstones?” said he, with biting sarcasm.

“Not at all—the Livingstones are all right,” said unconscious Charlie. “But don’t go to-night; come to the opera with me. In fact, you can’t make calls in the evening any more, you know.”

“What opera is it?”

“I don’t know,” said Charlie, serenely. “What does it matter?”

Arthur had nothing to reply to this; and the opera turned out to be “Linda.” But Charlie was right; the audience proved more interesting. Here was a dress parade of all that was most fashionable in New York; for it was a great night, the first of the season, and everyone was anxious to put herself en évidence. Townley was out of his seat three quarters of the time; and Arthur paid little attention to what was going on on the stage. The wicked marquis came, saw, and sought to conquer; the sentimental young heroine sighed and suffered, repelled both the marquis and his diamonds, and fled from the wilds of Chamounix to the seclusion and safety of Paris; and the jewelled ladies in the boxes (familiar with this tale) gave it now and then their perfunctory attention, recognizing that all this drama was being well and properly done, the correct thing, according to the conventions of the stage. Directly opposite him, in one of the grand-tier boxes, were three women who attracted his eyes unwittingly. Two of them were young, and both were beautiful; one, with heavy black hair and fair young shoulders sitting quietly; the other not quite so pretty, but with an indescribable air of complete fashion, a blonde with the bust of a Hebe, talking with animation to quite a little group of male figures, dimly visible in the back of the box; and the third a woman of almost middle age, with the figure of a Titian Venus and hair of an indescribable ashen yellow. Surely he knew that face?

“Who is that in the box opposite—the middle one, I mean, with the two beauties?”

Charlie lifted his opera-glass, and then as quickly dropped it. “She would thank you,” he said, “for your two beauties. She is the only married woman of her set who isn’t afraid to have pretty young girls about her. That’s Mrs. Gower, and she’s looking at you, too.”

Arthur looked up and met her eye; she made a very slight but unmistakable inclination of her head, and Arthur bowed.

“You’re in luck, young’un,” said Townley. “Now you’ve got to go and speak to her.”

“Have I?” said Arthur. “I know her very slightly.”

“She doesn’t seem to think so, and you needn’t remind her of it,” said Charlie, the worldling; and Arthur, having noted the number of the box from the end of the row, started on his quest. He came to the door that seemed to be the seventh in number from the stage, and paused a minute with his hand upon the knob. What young man’s heart, however much its pulsations may be dedicated to another, does not beat awkwardly when he is on the point of addressing three lovely women, two of them quite unknown, the other nearly so? Then again, suppose he had counted wrong, and not got into the right box?

His hesitation was cut short by the sudden opening of the door and the exit of a gentleman from within. Before it closed, Arthur had plunged boldly into the dark anteroom, and was blinking earnestly out from it, somewhat dazzled by the blaze of light and the gleam of the three pairs of white shoulders in front.

“Ah, Mr. Holyoke, I hoped you would come—Mr. Wemyss, Mr. Holyoke—Miss Duval, Mrs. Malgam, Mr. Holyoke, of——”

“Of New York, I believe,” said Arthur, bowing, and accepting the chair which the gentleman addressed as Wemyss had given up, at a look from Mrs. Gower. Certainly, Mrs. Gower had charming manners, he thought; and it was very pleasant of her to be pleasant to him.

“Of New York? I am so glad—I knew that Great Barrington was only your summer home, but I had feared that you were wedded to Boston. Where is Miss Holyoke?” Mrs. Gower added, without apparent malice; and Arthur cursed himself inwardly as he felt that he was blushing.

“She is living with her aunt, Mrs. Livingstone,” said he. And then, with a wild attempt at changing the subject, “Do you like ‘Linda,’ Miss Duval?”

(Crash! went the big drums; whizz, whizz, in cadence came the fiddles. The wicked marquis, who had also turned up in Paris, was at his old tricks again.)

“I think it is perfectly sweet,” said Miss Duval. “Patti does it so well!”

“It must be very pleasant for her to have you here,” said Mrs. Gower, innocently. “I was so sorry to hear of poor Judge Holyoke’s death. And so you have come to settle in New York? How delightful! Let me see—I have not seen you since last summer, at Lenox, have I?”

“It is very kind of you to remember me,” said Arthur.

“Or was it Lenox?” Mrs. Gower went on. “I remember seeing Miss Holyoke one day as I drove by, in Great Barrington,” she added naïvely.

Arthur felt that she was watching him, and was seeking for a reply, when fortunately Linda came forward, almost under the box, and told in a long aria, with many trills and quavers, with what scorn she repelled the marquis’s advances; the marquis, in the meantime, waiting discreetly at the back of the stage until she had had her encore and had flung madly out of his ancestral mansion. This being the musical moment of the evening, all paid rapt attention; and when the last roulade was over Mrs. Gower rose and they all proceeded to help with opera cloaks and shawls. “Mr. Holyoke, you must come and dine with me—are you engaged—let me see—a week from Friday?”

“You are very kind,” said Arthur. “No, I think not.”

“Then I shall expect you—at half-past seven, mind,”—and our hero had the felicity of walking with Mrs. Gower to her carriage, the others coming after them, with the two young ladies. The carriage-door closed with a snap, leaving Arthur with Wemyss and the other man, whom he did not know. Wemyss seemed to feel that their acquaintance had come to an end; so there was nothing left for Arthur but to return to Charlie Townley.

“What the deuce is Mrs. Lucie up to now?” thought he, when Arthur had recounted to him his adventures; but he said nothing; and Arthur was left for the last act to give his entire attention to the stage. Virtue triumphed, and Vice (who, as represented in the person of the lively marquis, seemed to be a pretty good sort of fellow after all—an amiable rascal, the kind of chap of whom you would feel inclined to ask, What would he like to drink?) was duly forgiven; and he showered his diamonds as wedding-gifts upon the bride. So that Linda, thrice fortunate Linda, not only followed the paths of virtue, but got her lover and the diamonds into the bargain; and with this moral and a Welsh rarebit Arthur and his friend sought home and pleasant dreams.