At The Sign Of The Eagle - Gilbert Parker
He determined to make a clean breast of it. One day he was obliged to
remain at the house in expectation of receiving important telegrams, and
the only people who appeared at lunch were Lady Lawless, Mrs. Gregory
Thorne (who was expecting her husband), Miss Raglan; Pride, and himself.
While at luncheon he made up his mind to have a talk with Miss Raglan. In
the library after luncheon the opportunity was given. It was a warm,
pleasant day, and delightful in the grounds.
After one or two vain efforts to escape, Mrs. Gregory Thorne and Lady
Lawless resigned themselves to the attentions of Mr. Pride; and for once
Lady Lawless did not check Mrs. Thorne's irony. It was almost a
satisfaction to see Mr. Pride's bewildered looks, and his inability to
know whether or not he should resent (whether it would be proper to
resent) this softly-showered satire.
Mr. Vandewaters and Gracia Raglan talked more freely than they had ever
done before.
"Do you really like England?" she said to him; then, waving her hand
lightly to the beeches and the clean-cropped grass through the window, "I
mean do you like our 'trim parterres,' our devotion to mere living,
pleasure, sport, squiring, and that sort of thing?"
He raised his head, glanced out, drew in a deep breath, thrust his hands
down in the pockets of his coat, and looking at her with respectful good
humour, said: "Like it? Yes, right down to the ground. Why shouldn't I!
It's the kind of place I should like to come to in my old days. You
needn't die in a hurry here. See?"
"Are you sure you would not be like the old sailors who must live where
they can scent the brine? You have been used to an active, adventurous,
hurried life. Do you think you could endure this humdrum of enjoyment?"
It would be hard to tell quite what was running in Gracia Raglan's mind,
and, for the moment, she herself hardly knew; but she had a sudden,
overmastering wish to make the man talk: to explore and, maybe, find
surprising--even trying--things. She was astonished that she enjoyed his
society so keenly. Even now, as she spoke, she remembered a day and a
night since his coming, when he was absent in London; also how the party
seemed to have lost its character and life, and how, when Mr. Pride
condescended, for a few moments, to decline from Lady Lawless upon
herself, she was even pleasant to him, making him talk about Mr.
Vandewaters, and relishing the enthusiastic loyalty of the supine young
man. She, like Lady Lawless, had learned to see behind the firm bold
exterior, not merely a notable energy, force, self-reliance, and
masterfulness, but a native courtesy, simplicity, and refinement which
surprised her. Of all the men she knew not a half-dozen had an
appreciation of nature or of art. They affected art, and some of them
went to the Academy or the private views in Bond Street; but they had
little feeling for the business. They did it in a well-bred way, with
taste, but not with warmth.
Mr. Vandewaters now startled her by quoting suddenly lines from an
English poet unknown to her. By chance she was turning over the Academy
pictures of the year, and came at last to one called "A Japanese Beauty
of Old Days"--an exquisite thing.
"Is it not fascinating?" she said. "So piquant and fresh."
He gave a silent laugh, as was his custom when he enjoyed anything, and
then replied:
"I came across a little book of verses one day in the States. A friend of
mine, the president of a big railway, gave it to me. He does some
painting himself when he travels in his Pullman in the Rockies. Well, it
had some verses on just such a picture as that. Hits it off right, Miss
Raglan."
"Verses?" she remarked, lifting her eyebrows. She expected something out
of the "poet's corner" of a country newspaper. "What are they?"
"Well, one's enough to show the style. This is it:
"'Was I a Samurai renowned,
Two-sworded, fierce, immense of bow?
A histrion angular and profound?
A priest? or porter? Child, although
I have forgotten clean, I know
That in the shade of Fujisan,
What time the cherry-orchards blow,
I loved you once in old Japan.'"
The verse on the lips of Mr. Vandewaters struck her strangely. He was not
like any man she had known. Most self-made Englishmen, with such a burly
exterior and energy, and engaged in such pursuits, could not, to save
themselves from hanging, have impressed her as Mr. Vandewaters did. There
was a big round sympathy in the tone, a timbre in the voice, which made
the words entirely fitting. Besides, he said them without any kind of
affectation, and with a certain turn of dry humour, as if he were
inwardly laughing at the idea of the poem.
"The verses are charming," she said, musingly; "and the idea put that way
is charming also. But do you think there would be much amusement in
living half-a-dozen times, or even twice, unless you were quite sure that
you remembered everything? This gentleman was peculiarly fortunate to
recall Fujisan, and the orange orchards--and the girl."
"I believe you are right. One life is about enough for most of us. Memory
is all very fine; but you'd want a life set apart for remembering the
others after awhile."
"Why do you not add, 'And that would bore one?' Most of the men I know
would say so."
"Well, I never used the word that way in my life. When I don't like a
thing, that ends it--it has got to go."
"You cannot do that with everything."
"Pretty much, if I set my mind to it. It is astonishing how things'll
come round your way if you keep on thinking and willing them so."
"Have you always got everything you wanted?" He had been looking off into
the grounds through the open window. Now he turned slowly upon her.
"So far I have got everything I set my mind to get. Little things don't
count. You lose them sometimes because you want to work at something
else; sometimes because, as in cards, you are throwing a few away to save
the whole game."
He looked at her, as she thought, curiously. In his mind he was wondering
if she knew that he had made up his mind to marry her. She was suddenly
made aware of the masterfulness of his spirit, which might, she knew, be
applied to herself.
"Let us go into the grounds," he added, all at once. Soon after, in the
shade of the trees, she broke in upon the thread of their casual
conversation. "A few moments ago," she murmured, "you said: 'One life is
about enough for most of us.' Then you added a disparaging remark about
memory. Well, that doesn't seem like your usual point of view--more like
that of Mr. Pride; but not so plaintive, of course. Pray do smoke," she
added, as, throwing back his coat, he exposed some cigars in his
waistcoat pocket. "I am sure you always smoke after lunch."
He took out a cigar, cut off the end, and put it in his mouth. But he did
not light it. Then he glanced up at her with a grave quizzical look as
though wondering what would be the effect of his next words, and a smile
played at his lips.
"What I meant was this. I think we get enough out of our life to last us
for centuries. It's all worth doing from the start, no matter what it is:
working, fighting, marching and countermarching, plotting and
counterplotting, backing your friends and hating your foes, playing big
games and giving others a chance to, standing with your hand on the
lynch-pin, or pulling your head safe out of the hot-pot. But I don't
think it is worth doing twice. The interest wouldn't be fresh. For men
and women and life, with a little different dress, are the same as they
always were; and there's only the same number of passions working now, as
at the beginning. I want to live life up to the hilt; because it is all
new as I go on; but never twice."
"Indeed?" She looked at him earnestly for a moment, and then added: "I
should think you would have seen lost chances; and doing things a second
time might do them better."
"I never missed chances," he replied, simply: "never except twice, and
then--"
"And then?"
"Then it was to give the other fellow a chance."
"Oh!" There was a kind of dubiousness in her tone. He noticed it. "You
can hardly understand, Miss Raglan. Fact is, it was one of those deals
when you can make a million, in a straight enough game; but it comes out
of another man--one, maybe, that you don't know; who is playing just the
same as you are. I have had a lot of sport; but I've never crippled any
one man, when my engine has been dead on him. I have played more against
organisations than single men."
"What was the most remarkable chance you ever had to make a million, and
did not?"
He threw back his head, smiling shrewdly. "When by accident my enemy got
hold of a telegram meant for me. I was standing behind a frosted glass
door, and through the narrow bevel of clear glass I watched him read it.
I never saw a struggle like that. At last he got up, snatched an
envelope, put the telegram inside, wrote my name, and called a messenger.
I knew what was in the message. I let the messenger go, and watched that
man for ten minutes. It was a splendid sight. The telegram had given him
a big chance to make a million or two, as he thought. But he backed
himself against the temptation, and won. That day I could have put the
ball into his wicket; but I didn't. That's a funny case of the kind."
"Did he ever know?"
"He didn't. We are fighting yet. He is richer than I am now, and at this
moment he's playing a hard game straight at several interests of mine.
But I reckon I can stop him."
"You must get a great deal out of life," she said. "Have you always
enjoyed it so?" She was thinking it would be strange to live in contact
with such events very closely. It was so like adventure.
"Always--from the start."
"Tell me something of it all, won't you?" He did not hesitate.
"I was born in a little place in Maine. My mother was a good woman, they
said--straight as a die all her life. I can only remember her in a kind
of dream, when she used to gather us children about the big
rocking-chair, and pray for us, and for my father, who was away most of
the time, working in the timber-shanties in the winter, and at odd things
in the summer. My father wasn't much of a man. He was kind-hearted, but
shiftless, but pretty handsome for a man from Maine.
"My mother died when I was six years old. Things got bad. I was the
youngest. The oldest was only ten years old. She was the head of the
house. She had the pluck of a woman. We got along somehow, until one day,
when she and I were scrubbing the floor, she caught cold. She died in
three days."
Here he paused; and, without glancing at Miss Raglan, who sat very still,
but looking at him, he lighted his cigar.
"Then things got worse. My father took to drinking hard, and we had
mighty little to eat. I chored around, doing odd things in the village. I
have often wondered that people didn't see the stuff that was in me, and
give me a chance. They didn't, though. As for my relatives: one was a
harness-maker. He sent me out in the dead of winter to post bills for
miles about, and gave me ten cents for it. Didn't even give me a meal.
Twenty years after he came to me and wanted to borrow a hundred dollars.
I gave him five hundred on condition that he'd not come near me for the
rest of his natural life.
"The next thing I did was to leave home--'run away,' I suppose, is the
way to put it. I got to Boston, and went for a cabin-boy on a steamer;
travelled down to Panama, and from there to Brazil. At Brazil I got on
another ship, and came round to San Francisco. I got into trouble in San
Francisco with the chief mate of the Flying Polly, because I tried to
teach him his business. One of the first things I learned in life was not
to interfere with people who had a trade and didn't understand it. In San
Francisco I got out of the situation. I took to selling newspapers in the
streets.
"There wasn't enough money in it. I went for a cabin-boy again, and
travelled to Australia. There, once more, I resigned my position, chiefly
because I wouldn't cheerfully let the Mate bang me about the
quarter-deck. I expect I was a precocious youth, and wasn't exactly the
kind for Sunday-school prizes. In Melbourne I began to speculate. I found
a ticket for the theatre where an American actor--our biggest actor
today--was playing, and I tried to sell it outside the door of the
theatre where they were crowding to see him. The man who bought it was
the actor himself. He gave me two dollars more than the regular price. I
expect he knew from my voice I was an American. Is there anything
peculiar about my voice, Miss Raglan?"
She looked at him quickly, smiled, and said in a low tone: "Yes,
something peculiar. Please go on."
"Well, anyway, he said to me: 'Look here, where did you come from, my
boy?' I told him the State of Maine. 'What are you doing here?' he asked.
'Speculating, said I, and seeing things.' He looked me up and down. 'How
are you getting on?' 'Well. I've made four dollars to-day,' I answered.
'Out of this ticket?' I expect I grinned. He suddenly caught me by the
arm and whisked me inside the theatre--the first time I'd ever been in a
theatre in my life. I shall never forget it. He took me around to his
dressing-room, stuck me in a corner, and prodded me with his forefinger.
'Look here,' he said, 'I guess I'll hire you to speculate for me.' And
that's how I came to get twenty-five dollars a month and my living from a
great American actor. When I got back to America--with him--I had two
hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and good clothes. I started a
peanut-stand, and sold papers and books, and became a speculator. I heard
two men talking one day at my stall about a railway that was going to run
through a certain village, and how they intended to buy up the whole
place. I had four hundred and fifty dollars then. I went down to that
village, and bought some lots myself. I made four thousand dollars. Then
I sold more books, and went on speculating."
He paused, blew his cigar-smoke slowly from him a moment; then turned
with a quick look to Miss Raglan, and smiled as at some incongruous
thing. He was wondering what would be the effect of his next words.
"When I was about twenty-two, and had ten thousand dollars, I fell in
love. She was a bright-faced, smart girl. Her mother kept a
boarding-house in New York; not an up-town boarding-house. She waited on
table. I suppose a man can be clever in making money, and knowing how to
handle men, and not know much about women. I thought she was worth a good
deal more to me than the ten thousand dollars. She didn't know I had that
money. A drummer--that's a commercial traveller--came along, who had a
salary of, maybe, a thousand dollars a year. She jilted me. She made a
mistake. That year I made twenty-five thousand dollars. I saw her a
couple of years ago. She was keeping a boarding-house too, and her
daughter was waiting on table. I'm sorry for that girl: it isn't any fun
being poor. I didn't take much interest in women after that. I put my
surplus affections into stocks and shares, and bulling and bearing. . .
Well, that is the way the thing has gone till now."
"What became of your father and your brother?" she asked in a neutral
tone.
"I don't know anything about my father. He disappeared after I left, and
never turned up again. And Jim--poor Jim!--he was shiftless. Jim was a
tanner. It was no good setting him up in business. Steady income was the
cheapest way. But Jim died of too much time on his hands. His son is in
Mexico somewhere. I sent him there, and I hope he'll stay. If he doesn't,
his salary stops: he is shiftless too. That is not the kind of thing, and
they are not the kind of people you know best, Miss Raglan."
He looked at her, eyes full-front, bravely, honestly, ready to face the
worst. Her head was turned away.
He nodded to himself. It was as he feared.
At that moment a boy came running along the walk towards them, and handed
Mr. Vandewaters a telegram. He gave the lad a few pence, then, with an
apology, opened the telegram. Presently he whistled softly, in a quick
surprised way. Then he stuffed the paper into his waistcoat pocket, threw
away his cigar, and turned to Gracia Raglan, whose face as yet was only
half towards him. "I hope your news is good," she said very quietly.
"Pretty bad, in a way," he answered. "I have lost a couple of
millions--maybe a little more."
She gasped, and turned an astonished face on him. He saw her startled
look, and laughed.
"Does it not worry you?" she asked.
"I have got more important things on hand just now," he answered. "Very
much more important," he added, and there was that in his voice which
made her turn away her head again.
"I suppose," he went on, "that the story you have just heard is not the
kind of an autobiography you would care to have told in your
drawing-room?"
Still she did not reply; but her hands were clasped tightly in front of
her. "No: I suppose not," he went on--"I--I suppose not. And yet, do you
know, Miss Raglan, I don't feel a bit ashamed of it, after all: which may
be evidence of my lost condition."
Now she turned to him with a wonderful light in her eyes, her sweet,
strong face rich with feeling. She put out her hand to his arm, and
touched it quickly, nervously.
"Your story has touched me inexpressibly," she said. "I did not know that
men could be so strong and frank and courageous as you. I did not know
that men could be so great; that any man could think more of what a woman
thought of--of his life's story--than of"--she paused, and then gave a
trembling little laugh--"of two millions or more."
He got to his feet, and faced her. "You--you are a woman, by heaven!" he
said. "You are finer even than I thought you. I am not worthy to ask you
what I had in my mind to ask you; but there is no man in God's universe
who would prize you as I do. I may be a poor man before sundown. If that
happens, though, I shall remember the place where I had the biggest
moment of my life, and the woman who made that moment possible."
Now she also rose. There was a brave high look in her face; but her voice
shook a little as she said: "You have never been a coward, why be a
coward now?"
Smiling, he slowly answered: "I wouldn't if I were sure about my
dollars."
She did not reply, but glanced down, not with coquetry, but because she
could not stand the furnace of his eyes.
"You said a moment ago," she ventured, "that you have had one big moment
in your life. Oughtn't it to bring you good fortune?"
"It will--it will," he said, reaching his hand towards hers.
"No, no," she rejoined archly. "I am going. Please do not follow me."
Then, over her shoulder, as she left him: "If you have luck, I shall want
a subscription for my hospital."
"As many thousands as you like," he answered: then, as she sped away: "I
will have her, and the millions too!" adding reminiscently: "Yes, Lady
Lawless, this is my biggest deal."
He tramped to the stables, asked for and got a horse, and rode away to
the railway station. It was dinner time when he got back. He came down to
dinner late, apologising to Lady Lawless as he did so. Glancing across
the table at Mr. Pride, he saw a peculiar excited look in the young man's
face.
"The baby fool!" he said to himself. "He's getting into mischief. I'll
startle him. If he knows that an army of his dollars is playing at
fox-and-geese, he'll not make eyes at Lady Lawless this way--little ass."
Lady Lawless appeared oblivious of the young man's devotional exercises.
She was engaged on a more congenial theme. In spite of Miss Raglan's
excellent acting, she saw that something had occurred. Mr. Vandewaters
was much the same as usual, save that his voice had an added ring. She
was not sure that all was right; but she was determined to know. Sir Duke
was amused generally. He led a pretty by-play with Mrs. Gregory Thorne,
of whom he asked the details of the day, much to the confusion, not
admirably hid, of Mr. Pride; lamenting now and then Mr. Vandewaters's
absence from the shooting.
Mr. Vandewaters was cool enough. He said that he had been playing at
nine-pins with railways, which was good enough sport for him. Soon after
dinner, he was handed two telegrams. He glanced slowly up at Pride, as if
debating whether to tell him something. He evidently decided against it,
and, excusing himself by saying he was off to take a little walk in Wall
Street, went away to the telegraph office, where he stayed three hours.
The magnitude of the concerns, the admirable stoicism with which he
received alarming news, his dry humour while they waited between
messages--all were so unlike anything the telegraph-clerk had ever seen,
or imagined, that the thing was like a preposterous dream. Even when, at
last, a telegram came which the clerk vaguely felt was, somehow, like the
fall of an empire, Mr. Vandewaters remained unmoved. Then he sent one
more telegram, gave the clerk a pound, asked that the reply be sent to
him as soon as it came, and went away, calmly smoking his cigar.
It was a mild night. When he got to the house he found some of the guests
walking on the veranda. He joined them; but Miss Raglan was not with
them; nor were Lady Lawless and Mr. Pride. He wanted to see all three,
and so he went into the house. There was no one in the drawing-room. He
reached the library in time to hear Lady Lawless say to Mr. Pride, who
was disappearing through another door: "You had better ask advice of Mr.
Vandewaters."
The door closed. Mr. Vandewaters stepped forward.
He understood the situation. "I guess I know how to advise him, Lady
Lawless," he said.
She turned on him quietly, traces of hauteur in her manner. Her
self-pride had been hurt. "You have heard?" she asked.
"Only your last words, Lady Lawless. They were enough. I feel guilty in
having brought him here."
"You need not. I was glad to have your friend. He is young and effusive.
Let us say no more about it.
"He is tragically repentant; which is a pity. There is no reason why he
should not stay, and be sensible. Why should young men lose their heads,
and be so absurdly earnest?"
"Another poser, Lady Lawless."
"In all your life you never misunderstood things so, I am sure."
"Well, there is no virtue in keeping your head steady. I have spent most
of my life wooing Madame Fortune; I find that makes a man canny."
"She has been very kind to you."
"Perhaps it would surprise you if I told you that at this moment I am not
worth ten thousand dollars." She looked greatly astonished. "I do not
understand," she said. She was thinking of what this might mean to Gracia
Raglan.
"You see I've been playing games at a disadvantage with some ruffians at
New York. They have combined and got me into a corner. I have made my
last move. If it comes out right I shall be richer than ever; if not I
must begin all over again."
Lady Lawless looked at him curiously. She had never met a man like him
before. His power seemed almost Napoleonic; his imperturbability was
absolute. Yet she noticed something new in him. On one side a kind of
grim forcefulness; on the other, a quiet sort of human sympathy. The one,
no doubt, had to do with the momentous circumstances amid which he was
placed; the other, with an event which she had, perhaps prematurely,
anticipated.
"I wonder--I wonder at you," she said. "How do you keep so cool while
such tremendous things are happening?"
"Because I believe in myself, Lady Lawless. I have had to take my measure
a good many times in this world. I never was defeated through my own
stupidity. It has been the sheer luck of the game."
"You do not look like a gamester," she said.
"I guess it's all pretty much a game in life, if you look at it right. It
is only a case of playing fair or foul."
"I never heard any Englishmen talk as you do."
"Very likely not," he responded. "I don't want to be unpleasant; but most
Englishmen work things out by the rule their fathers taught them, and not
by native ingenuity. It is native wit that tells in the end, I'm
thinking."
"Perhaps you are right," she rejoined. "There must be a kind of genius in
it." Here her voice dropped a little lower. "I do not believe there are
many Englishmen, even if they had your dollars--"
"The dollars I had this morning," he interposed.
"--who could have so strongly impressed Gracia Raglan."
He looked thoughtfully on the ground; then raised his eyes to Lady
Lawless, and said in a low, ringing tone:
"Yes, I am going to do more than 'impress': I am going to convince her."
"When?" she asked.
"To-morrow morning, I hope," was the reply. "I believe I shall have my
millions again."
"If you do," she said slowly, "do you not think that you ought to run no
more risks--for her sake?"
"That is just what I mean to do, Lady Lawless. I'll settle millions where
they ought to be settled, drop Wall Street, and--go into training."
"Into training?" she asked.
"Yes, for a house on the Hudson, a villa at Cannes, a residence in
Grosvenor Square, and a place in Devonshire--or somewhere else. Then," he
added, with a twinkle in his eye, "I shall need a good deal of time to
cultivate accent."