First harvests

NOW Mrs. Levison Gower, like Napoleon after Marengo and Austerlitz, was suffering from ennui. This malady of modern times executes its most dangerous ravages, like the gout, only among those who can afford it. It is a sort of king’s evil, privileged to the nobility and gentry; and that Flossie Starbuck’s healthy constitution ever succumbed to it is testimony—is it not?—to her extraordinary natural refinement: for born to it she certainly was not. She was a woman of some five-and-thirty summers—let us rather say, of some fifteen seasons, as being both politer and more closely descriptive—but with her thick blonde hair and her youthful figure, round and lithe as any girl’s, she was divine still in a riding-habit or a ball-dress, and could face the daylight of a north window without flinching. But the fact was, this Marguerite in appearance had been out fifteen seasons; if not so erudite as Faust, she was even more blasée with the world; kermesses had become stupid, interesting young men with rapiers and mysterious attendants in red had lost their interest, even jewels had ceased to make her heart beat as of yore: Mephistopheles alone remained eternal.

All the joys of her girl’s ambition she had tasted to the full. Every social eminence that she had seen, she had in turn attained. Each one of the diversions of a woman of fashion, she had pushed to its ultimate—gayety pure and simple, haughty and costly exclusiveness, travel and adventure, the patronage of literature and art, even religion and charity. But Mrs. Gower had been so unfortunate as to take her greatest pleasure at the beginning of her young life. Compared with that triumphal moment when first, surrounded by ladies with names she had hitherto known only in the newspapers, she had taken her place among the patronesses of the F. F. V. Ball as “Mrs. Levison Gower, Jr.”—what were all the second-hand joys of the imagination, of looking at books and pictures, even the more solid satisfactions of houses, opera-boxes, horses and liveries, or of social power? The life of the world was Mrs. Gower’s book; she made her own drama; any starveling in a garret could have the other kind. But that earliest pleasure was indeed divine. She had met the enemy, and made them hers. And how the dowagers had scowled at her, at first! The haughty Vans, the poor and lofty matrons of the old manorial families of New York, exemplary, unapproachable, Presbyterian. She had routed them with a flirt of her fan; she had dared their feudal armor with her bared fair breast. Their dowdy daughters had been snuffed out of fashion like candles in electric light; a spark of wit had made them laughable, a glance of her soft eyes had brought their brothers to her feet. Her chic had won the day, and soon they all began to copy her. Her phaeton and her ponies replaced the antiquated family rockaways; her style made up for breeding, and largely it was Flossie’s work that money in New York became the all-in-all, and blood an antiquated prejudice to jest at. And all the Einsteins and the Malgams and Duvals made haste to cluster under Flossie’s standard, wanting such a leader; and we Americans throw up our hats and cry how nice and democratic is the change—do we not? How proud was simple Lucie Gower to find him husband to a goddess! How natural for Caryl Wemyss to worship her, the spirit of his favorite decadence!

But still, that early and delightful triumph had been the climax of her life, as it now seemed; all other pleasures had proved silly or insipid. What gratification was it to her to move in the best society? The whole pleasure lay in getting there. She cared nothing for the best society, except in so far as she could humble it, and make it hers. Secretly, Flossie found more sympathy in her new friends of the Duval set than in the old-fashioned Van Kulls and Breviers of her husband’s family. The best people bored her. But the Duvals were nothing if not amusing, and had a truly French horror of the ennuyeux.

But she was a leader of it; there was still some satisfaction left in that. Her leadership was unquestioned; through whatever will-of-the-wisp of folly she chose to lead the dance, the many (and these the richest, newest, and most prominent) would follow. Mrs. Malgam alone could for a moment contest her prominence—“Baby” Malgam, whose fashionable inanity and lazy beauty had proved almost as good cards as Flossie’s cleverness. And the further she went, the faster would her people follow; for the Duvals and Einsteins were wild to écraser, by ostentation of their wealth, all those whose position rested on the slightest shadow of superiority that money could not buy. All these people, Flossie knew, would hail her as a leader and grovel at her feet; she, who represented, for her husband’s family, an older style than theirs, if she would be with them and of them. And the old style of things, which had satisfied her for fifteen years, was just now, certainly, beginning to bore her. The drama of her life lacked action.

Well: whither should she lead? What next? Charity, intellect, art, and dancing had been worn to the last thread; hounds and horses were in, just now; and society, in pink coats and silk jockey-caps, was making nature’s acquaintance on Long Island and in Westchester County. But what on earth or in the waters under the earth was to come after this, Mrs. Gower did not yet know. Still, it was comforting to feel that when she did know, it would be done; this was certainly a pleasure; perhaps the only real one left to poor Flossie in her years of disillusion. As a parvenue, she was never tired of having her will over those who had been born her superiors; and it is a delightful novelty that in these days of no prejudices a parvenue need no longer climb to the level of society, but will find it both less troublesome and more tickling to the vanity to pull society down to her.

The free fancy of Mrs. Gower’s matron meditation was interrupted by the entrance of a deus with a machina—in other words, by a footman with Mr. Caryl Wemyss’s visiting-card.

“Is Mrs. Gower at home?” said the footman; and he commanded larger wages for the subtile infusion of “her ladyship” he was able to give a plain American patronymic if used in the third person. He also had calves; and made no other than a financial objection to silk stockings, if required.

“Let him come in,” said Flossie; and she drew a footstool to her and disposed herself more at ease, before the wide wood-fire.

Wemyss entered perfectly. There were two manners of meeting ladies most in vogue at this time, which may perhaps be described as the horsey and the cavalier. Of the former, which was perhaps the more fashionable, Jimmy De Witt was an excellent example; he would have come in with boisterous bonhomie, a stable-boy’s story, or a blunt approval of Flossie’s pretty ankle, which was being warmed before the fire; but Wemyss affected the old-fashioned, and was pleased to be conscious that his manners were, as he would have said, de vieille roche. He took her hand and bowed deeply over it, as if he wanted to kiss it, but did not dare; then, drawing a low ottoman in front of the fire, he sat down, as it were, at her feet.

“Well, Mr. Wemyss, how did you find Boston?” said Mrs. Gower, by way of beginning.

“Boston, my dear Mrs. Gower, is impossible. There used to be some originals, but now there are only left their country acquaintances, or their self-imposed biographers, who feebly seek to shine by their reflected light. Emerson might do, for the provinces; but Emerson’s country neighbors! Their society is one of ganaches and femmes précieuses—oh, such precious women!—of circles, coteries, and clubs, with every knowledge but the savoir faire and every science but the savoir vivre!”

“But,” said Mrs. Gower, “surely I have seen some very civilized Bostonians, at Newport, in the summer?”

“You have—like a stage procession,” said Wemyss with a smile. “And so, if you stand long enough in the window of the club there, and are fortunate, you may, of an afternoon, see Mrs. Weston’s carriage and footmen go down the hill; and perhaps, if you smoke another cigar and wait, you may be so happy as to see Mrs. Weston’s carriage and footmen going up the hill again. The rest of Boston drive in carry-alls.”

Mrs. Gower laughed. “Now I always thought it would be such a charming place to live in—so many celebrated people have been there—so many associations——”

“My dear lady, it is consecrated ground if you like,” said Wemyss, interrupting. “And a very proper place to be buried in. But I tried living there for three months.”

“And so, now, you are going back to Paris?”

“I came on with that intention.”

“Why don’t you go then?”

“I am afraid it’s too late,” said Wemyss, looking at his watch. “My steamer sails at four.”

Mrs. Gower made a little ejaculation of surprise; and then laughed a trill or two. “Mr. Wemyss, you are a great humbug,” said she, throwing her head back upon the pink satin cushion, and looking at him from the corners of her half-closed eyes.

“We have to be,” said Wemyss, with a sigh. “Now there’s the trouble of Boston; they can’t understand that. And the six or eight of us who do, grow rusty for want of practice.”

“But you have one another?”

“We know one another down to the ground. There is no excitement in that; it is playing double-dummy without stakes.”

“And so you are going to Paris?”

“And so I was going to Paris?”

“But your steamer leaves at four, you say? What are you tarrying here for?”

“Mais, pour vos beaux yeux——”

“Mr. ’Olyoke,” said the footman from behind the heavy curtains. Wemyss struck his two hands together in mock desperation; but as a matter of fact, the interruption was opportune, for he did not in the least know what to do next. There is a certain point in talk beyond which anything not final is an anti-climax.

“Say you are not at home,” said he, eagerly.

But Mrs. Gower chose to be very gracious to Arthur. She gave him her hand with the simple cordiality of a school-girl. “I am so glad you have not forgotten our drive,” said she.

Arthur had quite forgotten it; so he filled up the time by bowing to Mr. Wemyss; a salute which that gentleman received with some stiffness. Mrs. Gower made a very suggestion of a tinkle in a bell that stood at her elbow.

“Horridge, are the ponies ready?”

“Mrs. Gower’s carriage his hin waiting,” said Horridge, with a respectful gasp or two before the vowels.

“You see, Mr. Wemyss,” said Flossie. “I hope you have not missed your steamer. I must not keep you for one moment longer.”

“I see I shall have to postpone my trip,” said Wemyss. “Madame!” (this with much formality.)

“Monsieur!” (Mrs. Gower quite outdid Mr. Wemyss in her exaggeration of a long curtesy.)

“Now, Mr. Holyoke,” said Flossie, when the cosmopolitan had departed, “I am sure you will give me your company for a drive in the park?”

If there is no Englishman who would not enjoy walking down Pall Mall on the arm of two dukes, there is surely no American who would not like to be whirled through the world at the side of Mrs. Levison Gower. They drove for an hour in the park; and Arthur had the pleasure of raising his hat to Jimmy De Witt, Miss Pussie Duval, Mrs. Jack Malgam and Antoine Duval, Jr., Killian Van Kull, Charlie Townley, and many others unknown to him who bowed to her. She talked to him of books and poetry; of Heine, Rossetti and of Shelley; and the tender tones of her voice would have moved an older man than Arthur to sympathy with her. “I had thought that she was worldly,” said Arthur to himself. “There must be some secret in her life I have not yet discovered,” (this was very possible, seeing he had only been with her three hours)—“some great suffering or repression which makes her wear this fashionable garb as an armor to veil her wounded heart. It is despair that makes her plunge so wildly into this whirl of company and show; the loss forever of something she once longed for, that drives her to distraction and diversion. Love of pleasure it is surely not.”

Ah, poor Arthur, no doctor ever yet of soul or body but gave a biassed diagnosis of a pretty woman’s soul. How easy it is to weave romances over soft gold hair! How natural to read poetry and lost loves in the light of lovely eyes that look so sweetly now in yours! So good Bishop Berkeley showed us that we mortals see but an image of external things, an inference from the sensation of our own retina; and we silly men, like idolaters, worship but the image we ourselves create. The lily of the field still draws us, not the potato-flower, worthy vegetable. And we fondly assume that the lily cares nothing for its vestment; that it toils not, nor spins, and has its eye upon the stars alone.

Arthur now really felt that he was a friend of Flossie Gower’s. His favorite poems were all hers, and she quoted from many of them, with sighs. She had shown to him what the cynic world had never seen, the regrets and longings that lay beneath the pearls and laces that clothed her heart’s casement; the true woman, not the fashionable figure known to others. How pleasant it was, to have a friend like her; one whose own life was over, and had all the more sympathy, for that, with lives of others. She asked him to come and see her whenever he liked; and Arthur thought how comforting it would be, to go to this woman for sympathy and advice, so much older than he, and yet so young at heart!

So seriously did Arthur think all this, that it quite jarred upon him when Charlie met him on his return and boisterously complimented him. “Well, old man, you are going it, and no mistake!” (Mrs. Gower’s name was pronounced Go-er, which gave opportunity for endless puns.) “I say, old fellow, you come down fresh from the pastures like what-d’ye-callem—Endymion—Adonis, or the other masher—and sail to windward of the whole squadron!”

Arthur shook Townley off a little impatiently, and refused to dine at the club, as he requested. But, taking dinner alone, with the other boarders, he could not but say to himself that they were not pleasing to him; their minds seemed narrow and their ways uncouth. They were more affable than on the first day, perhaps because it was the evening, not the morning; there was even a certain clumsy attention in the manner of one or two of the younger men, as if they would laugh at his stories, were he to tell any. After dinner, he read a novel in his study with a cigar, feeling comparatively comfortable in the rooms, which already seemed less strange to him; and at eleven o’clock he went to Miss Farnum’s party. (One always spoke of Miss Farnum, Miss Farnum’s house, Miss Farnum’s dinners—not her mother’s.) Townley, true to his intention previously expressed, was not there; the dressing-room was full of very young men, pulling on gloves and chattering; one older gentleman with a fine pair of shoulders and an honest face was in the corner next Arthur, and attracted the latter by his looks. “I wonder where they keep their brushes,” was all he said; but he said it pleasantly; and Arthur and he walked down together.

Miss Farnum, who was a marvellously beautiful young woman, met them almost at the door. “Ah, I see you know one another already,” said she.

“But we don’t,” said the stranger, smiling; and Arthur was introduced to him as Mr. Haviland. Then Miss Farnum turned to present Arthur to her mother; which formality over, our hero found himself very much alone; and he naturally drifted away into a corner, where he found Mr. Haviland awaiting him. It was pleasant enough to stand there and watch the influx of young beauties; girl after girl came in, in clouds of pink or white, bowed and courtesied at the door, and drifted into the comparative quiet of the main dancing-room, where they eddied around by twos and threes, waiting to be accosted by simpering youth. Haviland was very civil to him, and introduced him to many of them; so that Arthur found himself walking and dancing first with a blonde in blue or white, next with a brune in pink or yellow; they were all lovely, but it was difficult to permanently differentiate their natures in one’s mind.

The ball was a very brilliant one, and the rooms were full; many of the ladies were pretty, and all seemed rich and well educated. But there was an indefinable spirit of unrest, of effort at shining, of social anxiety, which struck Arthur as a new note in his New York social experiences; and Charlie Townley’s patronising remarks recurred again to him. When he went back to Miss Farnum, her reception duties were over; they had a waltz together, and then wandered into a conservatory for cool and rest.

“How different it all seems from New Haven,” was Arthur’s first remark; and she said yes, it did; and asked him if he were really living in New York, and if it was not Mr. Townley with whom she had seen him walking the other day.

“Mr. Townley is a great friend of mine, you must know; and I think it is too bad of him not to come to-night. And, by the way—whom were you with in the park this afternoon?”

“With Mrs. Gower,” said Arthur.

“Mrs. Gower? Mrs. Levison Gower? Was it? I didn’t see—” and no one would have guessed that the acquaintance of the lady mentioned was yet an unrealised dream to Miss Farnum. She led Arthur off soon after, and presented him to some of her most particular friends; Arthur was so fortunate as to secure one of these young ladies—Miss Marie Vanderpool—for the german; and they had seats very near the head. Altogether, Arthur was in the high tide of social favor; and nearly everyone whom he met talked to him of Mrs. Gower, and he marvelled a little that that lady—who had spoken almost tragically to him of her loneliness—should have so many dear and admiring friends. When he went home, it was with three or four tinsel orders at his button-hole; and Haviland, whose coat-collar was yet undecorated, met him in the hall.

“Are you going the same way?” said he to Arthur; and when it turned out that they were, he asked him to drop in and have a cigar. Haviland knew that Arthur was a stranger in the city; and it soon turned out that they had one or two acquaintances in common. Then, as is the way of men, their conversation drifted to the last pretty face they had seen—Kitty Farnum. “She is a great friend of mine, and I stayed until the end on her account,” said Haviland; “though I don’t dance.” They stopped at Haviland’s house; and entering, Arthur was inducted into the most delightful bachelor rooms, down-stairs, filled with books, weapons, and implements for smoking.

“Yes,” said Haviland, speaking of Miss Farnum; “and it’s a great pity to see her going as she is now. Why” (he went on, in answer to an inquiring look from Arthur) “she is wild upon getting into society, as she calls it, or her mother is for her. There is a girl, rich, beautiful, refined, well educated, and she positively looks up to a set of people the whole of whom aren’t worth her little finger, as if they were divinities.”

“It certainly seems very funny, if it’s true,” said Arthur.

“Funny?” fumed Haviland, “I assure you they are as much her inferiors as they would have her theirs. Fashion is a vulgar word, and fashionable people are a fast, vulgar set; fast, because they are too empty-headed and uncultivated to enjoy any pleasure of taste or intellect, and vulgar because they are too stupid to understand any other superiority than that of mere display.”

Haviland spoke almost savagely, intemperately, as it seemed to Arthur, about such a trivial thing. “Can he be in love with her?” thought he; and he wondered why he told him all this.

“It’s her mother,” Haviland went on, “she has brought her up to marry some fine Englishman, and wants to get New York at her feet first.”

And Arthur, who had noticed how intimate Haviland had seemed with Kitty Farnum that evening thought that he had discovered his secret. Their conversation then took a serious turn, to their mutual profit and pleasure; and when Arthur finally went home, the night was going away, and the business of the day beginning. He liked Haviland better than any man he had met, thus far, in New York. But still, his ideas were changing.