Peter Abelard (1079-1142) was one of the great intellectuals of the 12th century, with especial importance in the field of logic. His tendency to disputation is perhaps best demonstrated by his book Sic et Non, a list of 158 philosophical and theological questions about which there were divided opinions. This dialectical method of intellectual reflection -- also seen in Gratian's approach to canon law -- was to become an important feature of western education and distinguishes it sharply from other world cultures such as Islam and the Confucian world. Abelard's mistake was to leave the questions open for discussion and so he was repeatedly charged with heresy. For a long period all his works were included in the later Iindex of Forbidden Books. The text here gives a good account of Abelard's pugnaciousness.
He is perhaps as famous today for his love affair with Heloise (1100/01-1163/4) and its disastrous consequences, which resulted in her giving birth to son (called Astrolabe), to Abelard's castration by Heloise's angry relatives, and to both their retreats to monastic life. Heloise was one of the most literate women of her time, and an able administrator: as a result her monastic career was notably successful. Abelard, a intellectual jouster throughout his life was notably less happy as a monk. He incurred the displeasure and enmity of abbots, bishops, his own monks, a number of Church councils and St. Bernard of Clairvaux . The last months of his life were spent under the protection of Peter the Venerable of Cluny, where he died. The tomb of Abelard and Heloise can now be visited in the Pére Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
The Historia Calamitatum, although in the literary form of a letter, is a sort of autobiography, with distinct echoes of Augustine's Confessions. It is one of the most readable documents to survive from the period, and as well as presenting a remarkably frank self-portrait, is a valuable account of intellectual life in Paris before the formalization of the University, of the intellectual excitement of the period, of monastic life and of a love story that in some respects deserves its long reputation.
Historia Calamitatum
FOREWORD
OFTEN the hearts of men and women are stirred, as likewise they are soothed in their sorrows more by example than by words. And therefore, because I too I have known some consolation from speech had with one who was a witness thereof, am I now minded to write of the sufferings which have sprung out of my misfortunes, for the eyes of one who, though absent, is of himself ever a consoler. This I do so that, in comparing your sorrows with mine, you may discover that yours are in truth nought, or at the most but of small account, and so shall you come to bear them more easily.
CHAPTER I
OF THE BIRTHPLACE OF PIERRE ABELARD AND OF HIS PARENTS
KNOW, then, that I am come from a certain town which was built on the way into lesser Brittany, distant some eight miles, as I think, eastward from the city of Nantes, and in its own tongue called Palets. Such is the nature of that country, or, it may be, of them who dwell there -- for in truth they are quick in fancy -- that my mind bent itself easily to the study of letters. Yet more, I had a father who had won some smattering of letters before he had girded on the soldier's belt. And so it came about that long afterwards his love thereof was so strong that he saw to it that each son of his should be taught in letters even earlier than in the management of arms. Thus indeed did it come to pass. And because I was his first born, and for that reason the more dear to him, he sought with double diligence to have me wisely taught. For my part, the more I went forward in the study of letters, and ever more easily, the greater became the ardour of my devotion to them, until in truth I was so enthralled by my passion for learning that, gladly leaving to my brothers the pomp of glory in arms, the right of heritage and all the honours that should have been mine as the eldest born, I fled utterly from the court of Mars that I might win learning in the bosom of Minerva. And -- since I found the armory of logical reasoning more to my liking than the other forms of philosophy, I exchanged all other weapons for these, and to the prizes of victory in war I preferred the battle of minds in disputation. Thenceforth, journeying through many provinces, and debating as I went, going whithersoever I heard that the study of my chosen art most flourished, I became such an one as the Peripatetics.
CHAPTER II
OF THE PERSECUTION HE HAD FROM HIS MASTER WILLIAM OF CHAMPEAUX
OF HIS ADVENTURES AT MELUN, AT CORBEIL AND AT PARIS
HIS WITHDRAWAL FROM THE CITY OF THE PARISIANS TO MELUN, AND HIS RETURN TO MONT STE GENEVIEVE
OF HIS JOURNEY TO HIS OLD HOME
I CAME at length to Paris, where above all in those days the art of dialectics was most flourishing, and there did I meet William of Champeaux, my teacher, a man most distinguished in his science both by his renown and by his true merit. With him I remained for some time, at first indeed well liked of him; but later I brought him great grief, because I undertook to refute certain of his opinions, not infrequently attacking him in disputation, and now and then in these debates I was adjudged victor. Now this, to those among my fellow students who were ranked foremost, seemed all the more insufferable because of my youth and the brief duration of my studies.
Out of this sprang the beginning of my misfortunes, which have followed me even to the present day; the more widely my fame was spread abroad, the more bitter was the envy that was kindled against me. It was given out that I, presuming on my gifts far beyond the warranty of my youth, was aspiring despite my tender years to the leadership of a school; nay, more, that I was making ready the very place in which I would undertake this task, the place being none other than the castle of Melun, at that time a royal seat. My teacher himself had some foreknowledge of this, and tried to remove my school as far as possible from his own. Working in secret, he sought in every way he could before I left his following to bring to nought the school I had planned and the place I had chosen for It. Since, however, in that very place he had many rivals, and some of them men of influence among the great ones of the land, relying on their aid I won to the fulfillment of my wish; the support of many was secured for me by reason of his own unconcealed envy. From this small inception of my school, my fame in the art of dialectics began to spread abroad, so that little by little the renown, not alone of those who had been my fellow students, but of our very teacher himself, grew dim and was like to die out altogether. Thus it came about that, still more confident in myself, I moved my school as soon as I well might to the castle of Corbeil, which is hard by the city of Paris, for there I knew there would be given more frequent chance for my assaults in our battle of disputation.
No long time thereafter I was smitten with a grievous illness, brought upon me by my immoderate zeal for study. This illness forced me to turn homeward to my native province, and thus for some years I was as if cut off from France. And yet, for that very reason, I was sought out all the more eagerly by those whose hearts were troubled by the lore of dialectics. But after a few years had passed, and I was whole again from my sickness, I learned that my teacher, that same William Archdeacon of Paris, had changed his former garb and joined an order of the regular clergy. This he had done, or so men said, in order that he might be deemed more deeply religious, and so might be elevated to a loftier rank in the prelacy, a thing which, in truth, very soon came to pass, for he was made bishop of Chalons. Nevertheless, the garb he had donned by reason of his conversion did nought to keep him away either from the city of Paris or from his wonted study of philosophy; and in the very monastery wherein he had shut himself up for the sake of religion he straightway set to teaching again after the same fashion as before.
To him did I return for I was eager to learn more of rhetoric from his lips; and in the course of our many arguments on various matters, I compelled him by most potent reasoning first to alter his former opinion on the subject of the universals, and finally to abandon it altogether. Now, the basis of this old concept of his regarding the reality of universal ideas was that the same quality formed the essence alike of the abstract whole and of the individuals which were its parts: in other words, that there could be no essential differences among these individuals, all being alike save for such variety as might grow out of the many accidents of existence. Thereafter, however, he corrected this opinion, no longer maintaining that the same quality was the essence of all things, but that, rather, it manifested itself in them through diverse ways. This problem of universals is ever the most vexed one among logicians, to such a degree, indeed, that even Porphyry, writing in his "Isagoge" regarding universals, dared not attempt a final pronouncement thereon, saying rather: "This is the deepest of all problems of its kind." Wherefore it followed that when William had first revised and then finally abandoned altogether his views on this one subject, his lecturing sank into such a state of negligent reasoning that it could scarce be called lecturing on the science of dialectics at all; it was as if all his science had been bound up in this one question of the nature of universals.
Thus it came about that my teaching won such strength and authority that even those who before had clung most vehemently to my former master, and most bitterly attacked my doctrines, now flocked to my school. The very man who had succeeded to my master's chair in the Paris school offered me his post, in order that he might put himself under my tutelage along with all the rest, and this in the very place where of old his master and mine had reigned. And when, in so short a time, my master saw me directing the study of dialectics there, it is not easy to find words to tell with what envy he was consumed or with what pain he was tormented. He could not long, in truth, bear the anguish of what he felt to be his wrongs, and shrewdly he attacked me that he might drive me forth. And because there was nought in my conduct whereby he could come at me openly, he tried to steal away the school by launching the vilest calumnies against him who had yielded his post to me, and by putting in his place a certain rival of mine. So then I returned to Melun, and set up my school there as before; and the more openly his envy pursued me, the greater was the authority it conferred upon me. Even so held the poet: "Jealousy aims at the peaks; the winds storm the loftiest summits." (Ovid:"Remedy for Love," I,369.)
Not long thereafter, when William became aware of the fact that almost all his students were holding grave doubts as to his religion, and were whispering earnestly among themselves about his conversion, deeming that he had by no means abandoned this world, he withdrew himself and his brotherhood, together with his students, to a certain estate far distant from the city. Forthwith I returned from Melun to Paris, hoping for peace from him in the future. But since, as I have said, he had caused my place to be occupied by a rival of mine, I pitched the camp, as it were, of my school outside the city on Mont Ste. Genevieve. Thus I was as one laying siege to him who had taken possession of my post. No sooner had my master heard of this than he brazenly returned post haste to the city, bringing back with him such students as he could, and reinstating his brotherhood in their former monastery, much as if he would free his soldiery, whom he had deserted, from my blockade. In truth, though, if it was his purpose to bring them succour, he did nought but hurt them. Before that time my rival had indeed had a certain number of students, of one sort and another, chiefly by reason of his lectures on Priscian, in which he was considered of great authority. After our master had returned, however, he lost nearly all of these followers, and thus was compelled to give up the direction of the school. Not long thereafter, apparently despairing further of worldly fame, he was converted to the monastic life.
Following the return of our master to the city, the combats in disputation which my scholars waged both with him himself and with his pupils, and the successes which fortune gave to us, and above all to me, in these wars, you have long since learned of through your own experience. The boast of Ajax, though I speak it more temperately, I still am bold enough to make:
"if fain you would learn now
How victory crowned the battle, by him was
I never vanquished."
(Ovid , "Metamorphoses," XIII, 89.)
But even were I to be silent, the fact proclaims itself, and its outcome reveals the truth regarding it.
While these things were happening, it became needful for me again to repair to my old home, by reason of my dear mother, Lucia, for after the conversion of my father, Berengarius, to the monastic life, she so ordered her affairs as to do likewise. When all this had been completed, I returned to France, above all in order that I might study theology, since now my oft-mentioned teacher, William, was active in the episcopate of Chalons. In this field of learning Anselm of Laon, who was his teacher therein, had for long years enjoyed the greatest renown.
CHAPTER III
OF HOW HE CAME TO LAON TO SEEK ANSELM AS TEACHER
I SOUGHT out, therefore, this same venerable man, whose fame, in truth, was more the result of long established custom than of the potency of his own talent or intellect. If any one came to him impelled by doubt on any subject, he went away more doubtful still. He was wonderful, indeed, in the eyes of these who only listened to him, but those who asked him questions perforce held him as nought. He had a miraculous flow of words, but they were contemptible in meaning and quite void of reason. When he kindled a fire, he filled his house with smoke and illumined it not at all. He was a tree which seemed noble to those who gazed upon its leaves from afar, but to those who came nearer and examined it more closely was revealed its barrenness. When, therefore, I had come to this tree that I might pluck the fruit thereof, I discovered that it was indeed the fig tree which Our Lord cursed (Matthew xxi. 19; Mark xi. 13), or that ancient oak to which Lucan likened Pompey, saying:
"he stands, the shade of a name once mighty,
Like to the towering oak in the midst of the fruitful field."
(Lucan, "Pharsalia," IV, 135-)
It was not long before I made this discovery, and stretched myself lazily in the shade of that same tree. I went to his lectures less and less often, a thing which some among his eminent followers took sorely to heart, because they interpreted it as a mark of contempt for so illustrious a teacher. Thenceforth they secretly sought !to influence him against me, and by their vile insinuations made me hated of him. It chanced, moreover, that one day, after the exposition of certain texts, we scholars were jesting among ourselves, and one of them, seeking to draw me out, asked me what I thought of the lectures on the Books of Scripture. I, who had as yet studied only the sciences, replied that following such lectures seemed to me most useful in so far as the salvation of the soul was concerned, but that it appeared quite extraordinary to me that educated persons should not be able to understand the sacred books simply by studying them themselves, together with the glosses thereon, and without the aid of any teacher. Most of those who were present mocked at me, and asked whether I myself could do as I had said, or whether I would dare to undertake it. I answered that if they wished, I was ready to try it. Forthwith they cried out and jeered all the more. "Well and good," said they; "we agree to the test. Pick out and give us an exposition of some doubtful passage in the Scriptures, I so that we can put this boast of yours to the proof." And they all chose that most obscure prophecy of Ezekiel.
I accepted the challenge, and invited them to attend a lecture on the very next day. Whereupon they undertook to give me good advice, saying that I should by no means make undue haste in so important a matter, but that I ought to devote a much longer space to working out my exposition and offsetting my inexperience by diligent toil. To this I replied indignantly that it was my wont to win success, not by routine, but by ability. I added that I would abandon the test altogether unless they would agree not to put off their attendance at my lecture. In truth at this first lecture of mine only a few were present, for it seemed quite absurd to all of them that I. hitherto so inexperienced in discussing the Scriptures, should attempt the thing so hastily. However, this lecture gave such satisfaction to all those who heard it that they spread its praises abroad with notable enthusiasm, and thus compelled me to continue my interpretation of the sacred text. When word of this was bruited about, those who had stayed away from the first lecture came eagerly, some to the second and more to the third, and all of them were eager to write down the glosses which I had begun on the first day, so as to have them from the very beginning.
CHAPTER IV
OF THE PERSECUTION HE HAD FROM HIS TEACHER ANSELM
NOW this venerable man of whom I have spoken was acutely smitten with envy, and straightway incited, as I have already mentioned, by the insinuations of sundry persons, began to persecute me for my lecturing on the Scriptures no less bitterly than my former master, William, had done for my work in philosophy. At that time there were in this old man's school two who were considered far to excel all the others: Alberic of Rheims and Lotulphe the Lombard. The better opinion these two held of themselves, the more they were incensed against me. Chiefly at their suggestion, as it afterwards transpired, yonder venerable coward had the impudence to forbid me to carry on any further in his school the work of preparing glosses which I had thus begun. The pretext he alleged was that if by chance in the course of this work I should write anything containing blunders--as was likely enough in view of my lack of training--the thing might be imputed to him. When this came to the ears of his scholars, they were filled with indignation at so undisguised a manifestation of spite, the like of which had never been directed against any one before. The more obvious this rancour became, the more it redounded to my honour, and his persecution did nought save to make me more famous.
CHAPTER V
OF HOW HE RETURNED TO PARIS AND FINISHED THE GLOSSES WHICH HE HAD BEGUN AT LAON
AND so, after a few days, I returned to Paris, and there for several years I peacefully directed the school which formerly had been destined for me, nay, even offered to me, but from which I had been driven out. At the very outset of my work there, I set about completing the glosses on Ezekiel which I had begun at Laon. These proved so satisfactory to all who read them that they came to believe me no less adept in lecturing on theology than I had proved myself to be in the field of philosophy. Thus my school was notably increased in size by reason of my lectures on subjects of both these kinds, and the amount of financial profit as well as glory which it brought me cannot be concealed from you, for the matter talked of. But prosperity always puffs up the foolish and worldly comfort enervates the soul, rendering it an easy prey to carnal temptations. Thus I who by this time had come to regard myself as the only philosopher remaining in the whole world, and had ceased to fear any further disturbance of my peace, began to loosen the rein on my desires, although hitherto I had always lived in the utmost continence. And the greater progress I made in my lecturing on philosophy or theology, the more I departed alike from the practice of the philosophers and the spirit of the divines in the uncleanness of my life. For it is well known, methinks, that philosophers, and still more those who have devoted their lives to arousing the love of sacred study, have been strong above all else in the beauty of chastity.
Thus did it come to pass that while I was utterly absorbed in pride and sensuality, divine grace, the cure for both diseases, was forced upon me, even though I, forsooth would fain have shunned it. First was I punished for my sensuality, and then for my pride. For my sensuality I lost those things whereby I practiced it; for my pride, engendered in me by my knowledge of letters and it is even as the Apostle said: "Knowledge puffeth itself up" (I Cor. viii. 1) -- I knew the humiliation of seeing burned the very book in which I most gloried. And now it is my desire that you should know the stories of these two happenings, understanding them more truly from learning the very facts than from hearing what is spoken of them, and in the order in which they came about. Because I had ever held in abhorrence the foulness of prostitutes, because I had diligently kept myself from all excesses and from association with the women of noble birth who attended the school, because I knew so little of the common talk of ordinary people, perverse and subtly flattering chance gave birth to an occasion for casting me lightly down from the heights of my own exaltation. Nay, in such case not even divine goodness could redeem one who, having been so proud, was brought to such shame, were it not for the blessed gift of grace.
CHAPTER VI
OF HOW, BROUGHT LOW BY HIS LOVE FOR HELOISE, HE WAS WOUNDED IN BODY AND SOUL
NOW there dwelt in that same city of Paris a certain young girl named Heloise, the neice of a canon who was called Fulbert. Her uncle's love for her was equalled only by his desire that she should have the best education which he could possibly procure for her. Of no mean beauty, she stood out above all by reason of her abundant knowledge of letters. Now this virtue is rare among women, and for that very reason it doubly graced the maiden, and made her the most worthy of renown in the entire kingdom. It was this young girl whom I, after carefully considering all those qualities which are wont to attract lovers, determined to unite with myself in the bonds of love, and indeed the thing seemed to me very easy to be done. So distinguished was my name, and I possessed such advantages of youth and comeliness, that no matter what woman I might favour with my love, I dreaded rejection of none. Then, too, I believed that I could win the maiden's consent all the more easily by reason of her knowledge of letters and her zeal therefor; so, even if we were parted, we might yet be together in thought with the aid of written messages. Perchance, too, we might be able to write more boldly than we could speak, and thus at all times could we live in joyous intimacy.
Thus, utterly aflame with my passion for this maiden, I sought to discover means whereby I might have daily and familiar speech with her, thereby the more easily to win her consent. For this purpose I persuaded the girl's uncle, with the aid of some of his friends to take me into his household--for he dwelt hard by my school--in return for the payment of a small sum. My pretext for this was that the care of my own household was a serious handicap to my studies, and likewise burdened me with an expense far greater than I could afford. Now he was a man keen in avarice and likewise he was most desirous for his niece that her study of letters should ever go forward, so, for these two reasons I easily won his consent to the fulfillment of my wish, for he was fairly agape for my money, and at the same time believed that his niece would vastly benefit by my teaching. More even than this, by his own earnest entreaties he fell in with my desires beyond anything I had dared to hope, opening the way for my love; for he entrusted her wholly to my guidance, begging me to give her instruction whensoever I might be free from the duties of my school, no matter whether by day or by night, and to punish her sternly if ever I should find her negligent of her tasks. In all this the man's simplicity was nothing short of astounding to me; I should not have been more smitten with wonder if he had entrusted a tender lamb to the care of a ravenous wolf. When he had thus given her into my charge, not alone to be taught but even to be disciplined, what had he done save to give free scope to my desires, and to offer me every opportunity, even if I had not sought it, to bend her to my will with threats and blows if I failed to do so with caresses? There were, however, two things which particularly served to allay any foul suspicion: his own love for his niece, and my former reputation for continence.
Why should I say more? We were united first in the dwelling that sheltered our love, and then in the hearts that burned with it. Under the pretext of study we spent our hours in the happiness of love, and learning held out to us the secret opportunities that our passion craved. Our speech was more of love than of the books which lay open before us; our kisses far outnumbered our reasoned words. Our hands sought less the book than each other's bosoms -- love drew our eyes together far more than the lesson drew them to the pages of our text. In order that there might be no suspicion, there were, indeed, sometimes blows, but love gave them, not anger; they were the marks, not of wrath, but of a tenderness surpassing the most fragrant balm in sweetness. What followed? No degree in love's progress was left untried by our passion, and if love itself could imagine any wonder as yet unknown, we discovered it. And our inexperience of such delights made us all the more ardent in our pursuit of them, so that our thirst for one another was still unquenched.
In measure as this passionate rapture absorbed me more and more, I devoted ever less time to philosophy and to the work of the school. Indeed it became loathsome to me to go to the school or to linger there; the labour, moreover, was very burdensome, since my nights were vigils of love and my days of study. My lecturing became utterly careless and lukewarm; I did nothing because of inspiration, but everything merely as a matter of habit. I had become nothing more than a reciter of my former discoveries, and though I still wrote poems, they dealt with love, not with the secrets of philosophy. Of these songs you yourself well know how some have become widely known and have been sung in many lands, chiefly, methinks, by those who delighted in the things of this world. As for the sorrow, the groans, the lamentations of my students when they perceived the preoccupation, nay, rather the chaos, of my mind, it is hard even to imagine them.
A thing so manifest could deceive only a few, no one, methinks, save him whose shame it chiefly bespoke, the girl's uncle, Fulbert. The truth was often enough hinted to him, and by many persons, but he could not believe it, partly, as I have said, by reason of his boundless love for his niece, and partly because of the well-known continence of my previous life. Indeed we do not easily suspect shame in those whom we most cherish, nor can there be the blot of foul suspicion on devoted love. Of this St. Jerome in his epistle to Sabinianus (Epist. 48) says: "We are wont to be the last to know the evils of our own households, and to be ignorant of the sins of our children and our wives, though our neighbours sing them aloud." But no matter how slow a matter may be in disclosing itself, it is sure to come forth at last, nor is it easy to hide from one what is known to all. So, after the lapse of several months, did it happen with us. Oh, how great was the uncle's grief when he learned the truth, and how bitter was the sorrow of the lovers when we were forced to part! With what shame was I overwhelmed, with what contrition smitten because of the blow which had fallen on her I loved, and what a tempest of misery burst over her by reason of my disgrace! Each grieved most, not for himself, but for the other. Each sought to allay, not his own sufferings, but those of the one he loved. The very sundering of our bodies served but to link our souls closer together; the plentitude of the love which was denied to us inflamed us more than ever. Once the first wildness of shame had passed, it left us more shameless than before, and as shame died within us the cause of it seemed to us ever more desirable. And so it chanced with us as, in the stories that the poets tell, it once happened with Mars and Venus when they were caught together.
It was not long after this that Heloise found that she was pregnant, and of this she wrote to me in the utmost exultation, at the same time asking me to consider what had best be done. Accordingly, on a night when her uncle was absent, we carried out the plan we had determined on, and I stole her secretly away from her uncle's house, sending her without delay to my own country. She remained there with my sister until she gave birth to a son, whom she named Astrolabe. Meanwhile her uncle after his return, was almost mad with grief; only one who had then seen him could rightly guess the burning agony of his sorrow and the bitterness of his shame. What steps to take against me, or what snares to set for me, he did not know. If he should kill me or do me some bodily hurt, he feared greatly lest his dear-loved niece should be made to suffer for it among my kinsfolk. He had no power to seize me and imprison me somewhere against my will, though I make no doubt he would have done so quickly enough had he been able or dared, for I had taken measures to guard against any such attempt.
At length, however, in pity for his boundless grief, and bitterly blaming myself for the suffering which my love had brought upon him through the baseness of the deception I had practiced, I went to him to entreat his forgiveness, promising to make any amends that he himself might decree. I pointed out that what had happened could not seem incredible to any one who had ever felt the power of love, or who remembered how, from the very beginning of the human race, women had cast down even the noblest men to utter ruin. And in order to make amends even beyond his extremest hope, I offered to marry her whom I had seduced, provided only the thing could be kept secret, so that I might suffer no loss of reputation thereby. To this he gladly assented, pledging his own faith and that of his kindred, and sealing with kisses the pact which I had sought of him--and all this that he might the more easily betray me.
CHAPTER VII
OF THE ARGUMENTS OF HELOISE AGAINST WEDLOCK
OF HOW NONE THE LESS HE MADE HER HIS WIFE
FORTHWITH I repaired to my own country, and brought back thence my mistress, that I might make her my wife. She, however, most violently disapproved of this, and for two chief reasons: the danger thereof, and the disgrace which it would bring upon me. She swore that her uncle would never be appeased by such satisfaction as this, as, indeed, afterwards proved only too true. She asked how she could ever glory in me if she should make me thus inglorious, and should shame herself along with me. What penalties, she said, would the world rightly demand of her if she should rob it of so shining a light! What curses would follow such a loss to the Church, what tears among the philosophers would result from such a marriage! How unfitting, how lamentable it would be for me, whom nature had made for the whole world, to devote myself to one woman solely, and to subject myself to such humiliation! She vehemently rejected this marriage, which she felt would be in every way ignominious and burdensome to me.
Besides dwelling thus on the disgrace to me, she reminded me of the hardships of married life, to the avoidance of which the Apostle exhorts us, saying: "Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife. But and marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you" (I Cor. vii. 27). And again: "But I would have you to be free from cares" (I Cor. vii. 32). But if I would heed neither the counsel of the Apostle nor the exhortations of the saints regarding this heavy yoke of matrimony, she bade me at least consider the advice of the philosophers, and weigh carefully what had been written on this subject either by them or concerning their lives. Even the saints themselves have often and earnestly spoken on this subject for the purpose of warning us. Thus St. Jerome, in his first book against Jovinianus, makes Theophrastus set forth in great detail the intolerable annoyances and the endless disturbances of married life, demonstrating with the most convincing arguments that no wise man should ever have a wife, and concluding his reasons for this philosophic exhortation with these words: "Who among Christians would not be overwhelmed by such arguments as these advanced by Theophrastus?"
Again, in the same work, St. Jerome tells how Cicero, asked by Hircius after his divorce of Terentia whether he would marry the sister of Hircius, replied that he would do no such thing, saying that he could not devote himself to a wife and to philosophy at the same time. Cicero does not, indeed, precisely speak of "devoting himself," but he does add that he did not wish to undertake anything which might rival his study of philosophy in its demands upon him.
Then, turning from the consideration of such hindrances to the study of philosophy, Heloise bade me observe what were the conditions of honourable wedlock. What possible concord could there be between scholars and domestics, between authors and cradles, between books or tablets and distaffs, between the stylus or the pen and the spindle? What man, intent on his religious or philosophical meditations, can possibly endure the whining of children, the lullabies of the nurse seeking to quiet them, or the noisy confusion of family life? Who can endure the continual untidiness of children? The rich, you may reply, can do this, because they have palaces or houses containing many rooms, and because their wealth takes no thought of expense and protects them from daily worries. But to this the answer is that the condition of philosophers is by no means that of the wealthy, nor can those whose minds are occupied with riches and worldly cares find time for religious or philosophical study. For this reason the renowned philosophers of old utterly despised the world, fleeing from its perils rather than reluctantly giving them up, and denied themselves all its delights in order that they might repose in the embraces of philosophy alone. One of them, and the greatest of all, Seneca, in his advice to Lucilius, says philosophy is not a thing to be studied only in hours of leisure; we must give up everything else to devote ourselves to it, for no amount of time is really sufficient hereto" (Epist. 73)
It matters little, she pointed out, whether one abandons the study of philosophy completely or merely interrupts it, for it can never remain at the point where it was thus interrupted. All other occupations must be resisted; it is vain to seek to adjust life to include them, and they must simply be eliminated. This view is maintained, for example, in the love of God by those among us who are truly called monastics, and in the love of wisdom by all those who have stood out among men as sincere philosophers. For in every race, gentiles or Jews or Christians, there have always been a few who excelled their fellows in faith or in the purity of their lives, and who were set apart from the multitude by their continence or by their abstinence from worldly pleasures.
Among the Jews of old there were the Nazarites, who consecrated themselves to the Lord, some of them the sons of the prophet Elias and others the followers of Eliseus, the monks of whom, on the authority of St. Jerome (Epist. 4 and 13), we read in the Old Testament. More recently there were the three philosophical sects which Josephus defines in his Book of Antiquities (xviii. 2), calling them the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes. In our times, furthermore, there are the monks who imitate either the communal life of the Apostles or the earlier and solitary life of John. Among the gentiles there are, as has been said, the philosophers. Did they not apply the name of wisdom or philosophy as much to the religion of life as to the pursuit of learning, as we find from the origin of the word itself, and likewise from the testimony of the saints?
There is a passage on this subject in the eighth book of St. Augustine's "City of God," wherein he distinguishes between the various schools of philosophy. "The Italian school," he says, "had as its founder Pythagoras of Samos, who, it is said, originated the very word 'philosophy'. Before his time those who were regarded as conspicuous for the praiseworthiness of their lives were called wise men, but he, on being asked of his profession, replied that he was a philosopher, that is to say a student or a lover of wisdom because it seemed to him unduly boastful to call himself a wise man." In this passage, therefore, when the phrase "conspicuous for the praiseworthiness of their lives" is used, it is evident that the wise, in other words the philosophers, were so called less because of their erudition than by reason of their virtuous lives. In what sobriety and continence these men lived it is not for me to prove by illustration, lest I should seem to instruct Minerva herself.
Now, she added, if laymen and gentiles, bound by no profession of religion, lived after this fashion, what ought you, a cleric and a canon, to do in order not to prefer base voluptuousness to your sacred duties, to prevent this Charybdis from sucking you down headlong, and to save yourself from being plunged shamelessly and irrevocably into such filth as this? If you care nothing for your privileges as a cleric, at least uphold your dignity as a philosopher. If you scorn the reverence due to God, let regard for your reputation temper your shamelessness. Remember that Socrates was chained to a wife, and by what a filthy accident he himself paid for this blot on philosophy, in order that others thereafter might be made more cautious by his example. Jerome thus mentions this affair, writing about Socrates in his first book against Jovinianus: "Once when he was withstanding a storm of reproaches which Xantippe was hurling at him from an upper story, he was suddenly drenched with foul slops; wiping his head, he said only, 'I knew there would be a shower after all that thunder.'"
Her final argument was that it would be dangerous for me to take her back to Paris, and that it would be far sweeter for her to be called my mistress than to be known as my wife; nay, too, that this would be more honourable for me as well. In such case, she said, love alone would hold me to her, and the strength of the marriage chain would not constrain us. Even if we should by chance be parted from time to time, the joy of our meetings would be all the sweeter by reason of its rarity. But when she found that she could not convince me or dissuade me from my folly by these and like arguments, and because she could not bear to offend me, with grievous sighs and tears she made an end of her resistance, saying: "Then there is no more left but this, that in our doom the sorrow yet to come shall be no less than the love we two have already known." Nor in this, as now the whole world knows, did she lack the spirit of prophecy.
So, after our little son was born, we left him in my sister's care, and secretly returned to Paris. A few days later, in the early morning, having kept our nocturnal vigil of prayer unknown to all in a certain church, we were united there in the benediction of wedlock her uncle and a few friends of his and mine being present. We departed forthwith stealthily and by separate ways, nor thereafter did we see each other save rarely and in private, thus striving our utmost to conceal what we had done. But her uncle and those of his household, seeking solace for their disgrace, began to divulge the story of our marriage, and thereby to violate the pledge they had given me on this point. Heloise, on the contrary, denounced her own kin and swore that they were speaking the most absolute lies. Her uncle, aroused to fury thereby, visited her repeatedly with punishments. No sooner had I learned this than I sent her to a convent of nuns at Argenteuil, not far from Paris, where she herself had been brought up and educated as a young girl. I had them make ready for her all the garments of a nun, suitable for the life of a convent, excepting only the veil, and these I bade her put on.
When her uncle and his kinsmen heard of this, they were convinced that now I had completely played them false and had rid myself forever of Heloise by forcing her to become a nun. Violently incensed, they laid a plot against me, and one night while I all unsuspecting was asleep in a secret room in my lodgings, they broke in with the help of one of my servants whom they had bribed. There they had vengeance on me with a most cruel and most shameful punishment, such as astounded the whole world; for they cut off those parts of my body with which I had done that which was the cause of their sorrow. This done, straightway they fled, but two of them were captured and suffered the loss of their eyes and their genital organs. One of these two was the aforesaid servant, who even while he was still in my service, had been led by his avarice to betray me.
CHAPTER VIII
OF THE SUFFERING OF HIS BODY
OF HOW HE BECAME A MONK IN THE MONASTERY OF ST. DENIS AND HELOISE A NUN AT ARGENTEUIL
WHEN morning came the whole city was assembled before my dwelling. It is difficult, nay, impossible, for words of mine to describe the amazement which bewildered them, the lamentations they uttered, the uproar with which they harassed me, or the grief with which they increased my own suffering. Chiefly the clerics, and above all my scholars, tortured me with their intolerable lamentations and outcries, so that I suffered more intensely from their compassion than from the pain of my wound. In truth I felt the disgrace more than the hurt to my body, and was more afflicted with shame than with pain. My incessant thought was of the renown in which I had so much delighted, now brought low, nay, utterly blotted out, so swiftly by an evil chance. I saw, too, how justly God had punished me in that very part of my body whereby I had sinned. I perceived that there was indeed justice in my betrayal by him whom I had myself already betrayed; and then I thought how eagerly my rivals would seize upon this manifestation of justice, how this disgrace would bring bitter and enduring grief to my kindred and my friends, and how the tale of this amazing outrage would spread to the very ends of the earth.
What path lay open to me thereafter? How could I ever again hold up my head among men, when every finger should be pointed at me in scorn, every tongue speak my blistering shame, and when I should be a monstrous spectacle to all eyes? I was overwhelmed by the remembrance that, according to the dread letter of the law, God holds eunuchs in such abomination that men thus maimed are forbidden to enter a church, even as the unclean and filthy; nay, even beasts in such plight were not acceptable as sacrifices. Thus in Leviticus (xxii. 24) is it said: "Ye shall not offer unto the Lord that which hath its stones bruised, or crushed, or broken, or cut." And in Deuteronomy (xxiii. 1), "He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord."
I must confess that in my misery it was the overwhelming sense of my disgrace rather than any ardour for conversion to the religious life that drove me to seek the seclusion of the monastic cloister. Heloise had already, at my bidding, taken the veil and entered a convent. Thus it was that we both put on the sacred garb, I in the abbey of St. Denis, and she in the convent of Argenteuil, of which I have already spoken. She, I remember well, when her fond friends sought vainly to deter her from submitting her fresh youth to the heavy and almost intolerable yoke of monastic life, sobbing and weeping replied in the words of Cornelia:
"O husband most noble
Who ne'er shouldst have shared my couch! Has fortune such power
To smite so lofty a head? Why then was I wedded
Only to bring thee to woe? Receive now my sorrow,
The price I so gladly pay."
(Lucan, "Pharsalia," viii. 94.)
With these words on her lips did she go forthwith to the altar, and lifted therefrom the veil, which had been blessed by the bishop, and before them all she took the vows of the religious life. For my part, scarcely had I recovered from my wound when clerics sought me in great numbers, endlessly beseeching both my abbot and me myself that now, since I was done with learning for the sake of pain or renown, I should turn to it for the sole love of God. They bade me care diligently for the talent which God had committed to my keeping (Matthew, xxv. 15), since surely He would demand it back from me with interest. It was their plea that, inasmuch as of old I had laboured chiefly in behalf of the rich, I should now devote myself to the teaching of the poor. Therein above all should I perceive how it was the hand of God that had touched me, when I should devote my life to the study of letters in freedom from the snares of the flesh and withdrawn from the tumultuous life of this world. Thus, in truth, should I become a philosopher less of this world than of God.
The abbey, however, to which I had betaken myself was utterly worldly and in its life quite scandalous. The abbot himself was as far below his fellows in his way of living and in the foulness of his reputation as he was above them in priestly rank. This intolerable state of things I often and vehemently denounced, sometimes in private talk and sometimes publicly, but the only result was that I made myself detested of them all. They gladly laid hold of the daily eagerness of my students to hear me as an excuse whereby they might be rid of me; and finally, at the insistent urging of the students themselves, and with the hearty consent of the abbot and the rest of the brotherhood, I departed thence to a certain hut, there to teach in my wonted way. To this place such a throng of students flocked that the neighbourhood could not afford shelter for them, nor the earth sufficient sustenance.
Here, as befitted my profession, I devoted myself chiefly to lectures on theology, but I did not wholly abandon the teaching of the secular arts, to which I was more accustomed, and which was particularly demanded of me. I used the latter, however, as a hook, luring my students by the bait of learning to the study of the true philosophy, even as the Ecclesiastical History tells of Origen, the greatest of all Christian philosophers. Since apparently the Lord had gifted me with no less persuasiveness in expounding the Scriptures than in lecturing on secular subjects, the number of my students in these two courses began to increase greatly, and the attendance at all the other schools was correspondingly diminished. Thus I aroused the envy and hatred of the other teachers. Those way took who sought to belittle me in every possible advantage of my absence to bring two principal charges against me: first, that it was contrary to the monastic profession to be concerned with the study of secular books; and, second, that I had presumed to teach theology without ever having been taught therein myself. This they did in order that my teaching of every kind might be prohibited, and to this end they continually stirred up bishops, archbishops, abbots and whatever other dignitaries of the Church they could reach.
CHAPTER IX
OF HIS BOOK ON THEOLOGY AND HIS PERSECUTION AT THE HANDS OF HIS FELLOW STUDENTS OF THE COUNCIL AGAINST HIM
IT SO happened that at the outset I devoted myself to analysing the basis of our faith through illustrations based on human understanding, and I wrote for my students a certain tract on the unity and trinity of God. This I did because they were always seeking for rational and philosophical explanations, asking rather for reasons they could understand than for mere words, saying that it was futile to utter words which the intellect could not possibly follow, that nothing could be believed unless it could first be understood, and that it was absurd for any one to preach to others a thing which neither he himself nor those whom he sought to teach could comprehend. Our Lord Himself maintained this same thing when He said: "They are blind leaders of the blind" (Matthew, xv. 14).
Now, a great many people saw and read this tract, and it became exceedingly popular, its clearness appealing particularly to all who sought information on this subject. And since the questions involved are generally considered the most difficult of all, their complexity is taken as the measure of the subtlety of him who succeeds in answering them. As a result, my rivals became furiously angry, and summoned a council to take action against me, the chief instigators therein being my two intriguing enemies of former days, Alberic and Lotulphe. These two, now that both William and Anselm, our erstwhile teachers, we're dead, were greedy to reign in their stead, and, so to speak, to succeed them as heirs. While they were directing the school at Rheims, they managed by repeated hints to stir up their archbishop, Rodolphe, against me, for the purpose of holding a meeting, or rather an ecclesiastical council, at Soissons, provided they could secure the approval of Conon, Bishop of Praeneste, at that time papal legate in France. Their plan was to summon me to be present at this council, bringing with me the famous book I had written regarding the Trinity. In all this, indeed, they were successful, and the thing happened according to their wishes.
Before I reached Soissons, however, these two rivals of mine so foully slandered me with both the clergy and the public that on the day of my arrival the people came near to stoning me and the few students of mine who had accompanied me thither. The cause of their anger was that they had been led to believe that I had preached and written to prove the existence of three gods. No sooner had I reached the city, therefore, than I went forthwith to the legate; to him I submitted my book for examination and judgment, declaring that if I had written anything repugnant to the Catholic faith, I was quite ready to correct it or otherwise to make satisfactory amends. The legate directed me to refer my book to the archbishop and to those same two rivals of mine, to the end that my accusers might also be my judges. So in my case was fulfilled the saying: "Even our enemies are our judges" (Deut. xxxii. 31).
These three, then, took my book and pawed it over and examined it minutely, but could find nothing therein which they dared to use as the basis for a public accusation against me. Accordingly they put off the condemnation of the book until the close of the council, despite their eagerness to bring it about. For my part, every day before the council convened I publicly discussed the Catholic faith in the light of what I had written, and all who heard me were enthusiastic in their approval alike of the frankness and the logic of my words. When the public and the clergy had thus learned something of the real character of my teaching, they began to say to one another: "Behold, now he speaks openly, and no one brings any charge against him. And this council, summoned, as we have heard, chiefly to take action upon his case is drawing toward its end. Did the judges realize that the error might be theirs rather than his?"
As a result of all this, my rivals grew more angry day by day. On one occasion Alberic, accompanied by some of his students, came to me for the purpose of intimidating me, and, after a few bland words, said that he was amazed at something he had found in my book, to the effect that, although God had begotten God, I denied that God had begotten Himself, since there was only one God. I answered unhesitatingly: "I can give you an explanation of this if you wish it." "Nay," he replied, "I care nothing for human explanation or reasoning in such matters, but only for the words of authority." "Very well, I said; "turn the pages of my book and you will find the authority likewise." The book was at hand, for he had brought it with him. I turned to the passage I had in mind, which he had either not discovered or else passed over as containing nothing injurious to me. And it was God's will that I quickly found what I sought. This was the following sentence, under the heading "Augustine, On the Trinity, Book I": "Whosoever believes that it is within the power of God to beget Himself is sorely in error; this power is not in God, neither is it in any created thing, spiritual or corporeal. For there is nothing that can give birth to itself."
When those of his followers who were present heard this, they were amazed and much embarrassed. He himself, in order to keep his countenance, said: "Certainly, I understand all that." Then I added: "What I have to say further on this subject is by no means new, but apparently it has nothing to do with the case at issue, since you have asked for the word of authority only, and not for explanations. If, however, you care to consider logical explanations, I am prepared to demonstrate that, according to Augustine's statement, you have yourself fallen into a heresy in believing that a father can possibly be his own son." When Alberic heard this he was almost beside himself with rage, and straightway resorted to threats, asserting that neither my explanations nor my citations of authority would avail me aught in this case. With this he left me.
On the last day of the council, before the session convened, the legate and the archbishop deliberated with my rivals and sundry others as to what should be. done about me and my book, this being the chief reason for their having come together. And since they had discovered nothing either in my speech or in what I had hitherto written which would give them a case against me, they were all reduced to silence, or at the most to maligning me in whispers. Then Geoffroi, Bishop of Chartres, who excelled the other bishops alike in the sincerity of his religion and in the importance of his see, spoke thus:
"You know, my lords, all who are gathered here, the doctrine of this man, what it is, and his ability, which has brought him many followers in every field to which he has devoted himself. You know how greatly he has lessened the renown of other teachers, both his masters and our own, and how he has spread as it were the offshoots of his vine from sea to sea. Now, if you impose a lightly considered judgment on him, as I cannot believe you will, you well know that even if mayhap you are in the right there are many who will be angered thereby and that he will have no lack of defenders. Remember above all that we have found nothing in this book of his that lies before us whereon any open accusation can be based. Indeed it is true, as Jerome says: `Fortitude openly displayed always creates rivals, and the lightning strikes the highest peaks.' Have a care, then, lest by violent action you only increase his fame, and lest we do more hurt to ourselves through envy than to him through justice. A false report, as that same wise man reminds us, is easily crushed, and a man's later life gives testimony as to his earlier deeds. If, then, you are disposed to take canonical action against him, his doctrine or his writings must be brought forward as evidence, and he must have free opportunity to answer his questioners. In that case if he is found guilty or if he confesses his error, his lips can be wholly sealed. Consider the words of the blessed Nicodemus, who, desiring to free Our Lord Himself, said: 'Doth our law judge any man before it hear him and know what he doeth? (John, vii. 51).
When my rivals heard this they cried out in protest, saying: "This is wise counsel, forsooth, that we should strive against the wordiness of this man, whose arguments, or rather, sophistries, the whole world cannot resist!" And yet, methinks, it was far more difficult to strive against Christ Himself, for Whom, nevertheless, Nicodemus demanded a hearing in accordance with the dictates of the law. When the bishop could not win their assent to his proposals, he tried in another way to curb their hatred, saying that for the discussion of such an important case the few who were present were not enough, and that this matter required a more thorough examination. His further suggestion was that my abbot, who was there present, should take me back with him to our abbey, in other words to the monastery of St. Denis, and that there a large convocation of learned men should determine, on the basis of a careful investigation, what ought to be done. To this last proposal the legate consented, as did all the others.
Then the legate arose to celebrate mass before entering the council, and through the bishop sent me the permission which had been determined on, authorizing me to return to my monastery and there await such action as might be finally taken. But my rivals, perceiving that they would accomplish nothing if the trial were to be held outside of their own diocese, and in a place where they could have little influence on the verdict, and in truth having small wish that justice should be done, persuaded the archbishop that it would be a grave insult to him to transfer this case to another court, and that it would be dangerous for him if by chance I should thus be acquitted. They likewise went to the legate, and succeeded in so changing his opinion that finally they induced him to frame a new sentence, whereby he agreed to condemn my book without any further inquiry, to burn it forthwith in the sight of all, and to confine me for a year in another monastery. The argument they used was that it sufficed for the condemnation of my book that I had presumed to read it in public without the approval either of the Roman pontiff or of the church, and that, furthermore, I had given it to many to be transcribed. Methinks it would be a notable blessing to the Christian faith if there were more who displayed a like presumption. The legate, however, being less skilled in law than he should have been, relied chiefly on the advice of the archbishop, and he, in turn, on that of my rivals. When the Bishop of Chartres got wind of this, he reported the whole conspiracy to me, and strongly urged me to endure meekly the manifest violence of their enmity. He bade me not to doubt that this violence would in the end react upon them and prove a blessing to me, and counseled me to have no fear of the confinement in a monastery, knowing that within a few days the legate himself, who was now acting under compulsion, would after his departure set me free. And thus he consoled me as best he might, mingling his tears with mine.
CHAPTER X
OF THE BURNING OF HIS BOOK IF THE PERSECUTION HE HAD AT THE HANDS OF HIS ABBOT AND THE BRETHREN
STRAIGHTWAY upon my summons I went to the council, and there, without further examination or debate, did they compel me with my own hand to cast that memorable book of mine into the flames. Although my enemies appeared to have nothing to say while the book was burning, one of them muttered something about having seen it written therein that God the Father was alone omnipotent. This reached the ears of the legate, who replied in astonishment that he could not believe that even a child would make so absurd a blunder. "Our common faith," he said, holds and sets forth that the Three are alike omnipotent." A certain Tirric, a schoolmaster, hearing this, sarcastically added the Athanasian phrase, "And yet there are not three omnipotent Persons, but only One."
This man's bishop forthwith began to censure him, bidding him desist from such treasonable talk, but he boldly stood his ground, and said, as if quoting the words of Daniel: " 'Are ye such fools, ye sons of Israel, that without examination or knowledge of the truth ye have condemned a daughter of Israel? Return again to the place of judgment,' (Daniel, xiii. 48 The History of Susanna) and there give judgment on the judge himself. You have set up this judge, forsooth, for the instruction of faith and the correction of error, and yet, when he ought to give judgment, he condemns himself out of his own mouth. Set free today, with the help of God's mercy, one who is manifestly innocent, even as Susanna was freed of old from her false accusers."
Thereupon the archbishop arose and confirmed the legate's statement, but changed the wording thereof, as indeed was most fitting. "It is God's truth," he said, "that the Father is omnipotent, the Son is omnipotent, the Holy Spirit is omnipotent. And whosoever dissents from this is openly in error, and must not be listened to. Nevertheless, if it be your pleasure, it would be well that this our brother should publicly state before us all the faith that is in him, to the end that, according to its deserts, it may either be approved or else condemned and corrected."
When, however, I fain would have arisen to profess and set forth my faith, in order that I might express in my own words that which was in my heart, my enemies declared that it was not needful for me to do more than recite the Athanasian Symbol, a thing which any boy might do as well as I. And lest I should allege ignorance, pretending that I did not know the words by heart, they had a copy of it set before me to read. And read it I did as best I could for my groans and sighs and tears. Thereupon, as if I had been a convicted criminal, I was handed over to the Abbot of St. Médard, who was there present, and led to his monastery as to a prison. And with this the council was immediately dissolved.
The abbot and the monks of the aforesaid monastery, thinking that I would remain long with them, received me with great exultation, and diligently sought to console me, but all in vain. O God, who dost judge justice itself, in what venom of the spirit, in what bitterness of mind, did I blame even Thee for my shame, accusing Thee in my madness! Full often did I repeat the lament of St. Anthony: "Kindly Jesus, where wert Thou?" The sorrow that tortured me, the shame that overwhelmed me, the desperation that wracked my mind, all these I could then feel, but even now I can find no words to express them. Comparing these new sufferings of my soul with those I had formerly endured in my body, it seemed that I was in very truth the most miserable among men. Indeed that earlier betrayal had become a little thing in comparison with this later evil, and I lamented the hurt to my fair name far more than the one to my body. The latter, indeed, I had brought upon myself through my own wrongdoing, but this other violence had come upon me solely by reason of the honesty of my purpose and my love of our faith, which had compelled me to write that which I believed.
The very cruelty and heartlessness of my punishment, however, made every one who heard the story vehement in censuring it, so that those who had a hand therein were soon eager to disclaim all responsibility, shouldering the blame on others. Nay, matters came to such a pass that even my rivals denied that they had had anything to do with the matter, and as for the legate, he publicly denounced the malice with which the French had acted. Swayed by repentance for his injustice, and feeling that he had yielded enough to satisfy their rancour he shortly freed me from the monastery whither I had been taken, and sent me back to my own. Here, however, I found almost as many enemies as I had in the former days of which I have already spoken, for the vileness and shamelessness of their way of living made them realize that they would again have to endure my censure.
After a few months had passed, chance gave them an opportunity by which they sought to destroy me. It happened that one day, in the course of my reading, I came upon a certain passage of Bede, in his commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, wherein he asserts that Dionysius the Areopagite was the bishop, not of Athens, but of Corinth. Now, this was directly counter to the belief of the monks, who were wont to boast that their Dionysius, or Denis, was not only the Areopagite but was likewise proved by his acts to have been the Bishop of Athens. Having thus found this testimony of Bede's in contradiction of our own tradition, I showed it somewhat jestingly to sundry of the monks who chanced to be near. Wrathfully they declared that Bede was no better than a liar, and that they had a far more trustworthy authority in the person of Hilduin, a former abbot of theirs, who had travelled for a long time throughout Greece for the purpose of investigating this very question. He, they insisted, had by his writings removed all possible doubt on the subject, and had securely established the truth of the traditional belief.
One of the monks went so far as to ask me brazenly which of the two, Bede or Hilduin, I considered the better authority on this point. I replied that the authority of Bede, whose writings are held in high esteem by the whole Latin Church, appeared to me the better. Thereupon in a great rage they began to cry out that at last I had openly proved the hatred I had always felt for our monastery, and that I was seeking to disgrace it in the eyes of the whole kingdom, robbing it of the honour in which it had particularly gloried, by thus denying that the Areopagite was their patron saint. To this I answered that I had never denied the fact, and that I did not much care whether their patron was the Areopagite or some one else, provided only he had received his crown from God. Thereupon they ran to the abbot and told him of the misdemeanour with which they charged me.
The abbot listened to their story with delight, rejoicing at having found a chance to crush me, for the greater vileness of his life made him fear me more even than the rest did. Accordingly he summoned his council, and when the brethren had assembled he violently threatened me, declaring that he would straightway send me to the king, by him to be punished for having thus sullied his crown and the glory of his royalty. And until he should hand me over to the king, he ordered that I should be closely guarded. In vain did I offer to submit to the customary discipline if I had in any way been guilty. Then, horrified at their wickedness, which seemed to crown the ill fortune I had so long endured, and in utter despair at the apparent conspiracy of the whole world against me, I fled secretly from the monastery by night, helped thereto by some of the monks who took pity on me, and likewise aided by some of my scholars.
I made my way to a region where I had formerly dwelt, hard by the lands of Count Theobald (of Champagne). He himself had some slight acquaintance with me, and had compassion on me by reason of my persecutions, of which the story had reached him. I found a home there within the walls of Provins, in a priory of the monks of Troyes, the prior of which had in former days known me well and shown me much love. In his joy at my coming he cared for me with all diligence. It chanced, however, that one day my abbot came to Provins to see the count on certain matters of business. As soon as I had learned of this, I went to the count, the prior accompanying me, and besought him to intercede in my behalf with the abbot. I asked no more than that the abbot should absolve me of the charge against me, and give me permission to live the monastic life wheresoever I could find a suitable place. The abbot, however, and those who were with him took the matter under advisement, saying that they would give the count an answer the day before they departed. It appeared from their words that they thought I wished to go to some other abbey, a thing which they regarded as an immense disgrace to their own. They had, indeed, taken particular pride in the fact that, upon my conversion, I had come to them, as if scorning all other abbeys, and accordingly they considered that it would bring great shame upon them if I should now desert their abbey and seek another. For this reason they refused to listen either to my own plea or to that of the count. Furthermore, they threatened me with excommunication unless I should instantly return; likewise they forbade the prior with whom I had taken refuge to keep me longer, under pain of sharing my excommunication. When we heard this both the prior and I were stricken with fear. The abbot went away still obdurate, but a few days thereafter he died.
As soon as his successor had been named, I went to him, accompanied by the Bishop of Meaux, to try if I might win from him the permission I had vainly sought of his predecessor. At first he would not give his assent, but finally, through the intervention of certain friends of mine, I secured the right to appeal to the king and his council, and in this way I at last obtained what I sought. The royal seneschal, Stephen, having summoned the abbot and his subordinates that they might state their case, asked them why they wanted to keep me against my will. He pointed out that this might easily bring them into evil repute, and certainly could do them no good, seeing that their way of living was utterly incompatible with mine. I knew it to be the opinion of the royal council that the irregularities in the conduct of this abbey would tend to bring it more and more under the control of the king, making it increasingly useful and likewise profitable to him, and for this reason I had good hope of easily winning the support of the king and those about him.
Thus, indeed, did it come to pass. But in order that the monastery might not be shorn of any of the glory which it had enjoyed by reason of my sojourn there, they granted me permission to betake myself to any solitary place I might choose, provided only I did not put myself under the rule of any other abbey. This was agreed upon and confirmed on both sides in the presence of the king and his councellors. Forthwith I sought out a lonely spot known to me of old in the region of Troyes, and there, on a bit of land which had been given to me, and with the approval of the bishop of the district, I built with reeds and stalks my first oratory in the name of the Holy Trinity. And there concealed, with but one comrade, a certain cleric, I was able to sing over and over again to the Lord: "Lo, then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness" (Ps. iv. 7).
CHAPTER XI
OF HIS TEACHING IN THE WILDERNESS
NO SOONER had scholars learned of my retreat than they began to flock thither from all sides, leaving their towns and castles to dwell in the wilderness. In place of their spacious houses they built themselves huts; instead of dainty fare they lived on the herbs of the field and coarse bread; their soft beds they exchanged for heaps of straw and rushes, and their tables were piles of turf. in very truth you may well believe that they were like those philosophers of old of whom Jerome tells us in his second book against Jovinianus.
"Through the senses," says Jerome, "as through so many windows, do vices win entrance to the soul. The metropolis and citadel of the mind cannot be taken unless the army of the foe has first rushed in through the gates. If any one delights in the games of the circus, in the contests of athletes, in the versatility of actors, in the beauty of women, in the glitter of gems and raiment, or in aught else like to these, then the freedom of his soul is made captive through the windows of his eyes, and thus is fulfilled the prophecy: 'For death is come up into our windows' (Jer. ix. 21). And then, when the wedges of doubt have, as it were, been driven into the citadels of our minds through these gateways, where will be its liberty? where its fortitude? where its thought of God? Most of all does the sense of touch paint for itself the pictures of past raptures, compelling the soul to dwell fondly upon remembered iniquities, and so to practice in imagination those things which reality denies to it.
"Heeding such counsel, therefore, many among the philosophers forsook the thronging ways of the cities and the pleasant gardens of the countryside, with their well watered fields, their shady trees, the song of birds, the mirror of the fountain, the murmur of the stream, the many charms for eye and ear, fearing lest their souls should grow soft amid luxury and abundance of riches, and lest their virtue should thereby be defiled. For it is perilous to turn your eyes often to those things whereby you may some day be made captive, or to attempt the possession of that which it would go hard with you to do without. Thus the Pythagoreans shunned all companionship of this kind, and were wont to dwell in solitary and desert places. Nay, Plato himself, although he was a rich man let Diogenes trample on his couch with muddy feet, and in order that he might devote himself to philosophy established his academy in a place remote from the city, and not only uninhabited but unhealthy as well. This he did in order that the onslaughts of lust might be broken by the fear and constant presence of disease, and that his followers might find no pleasure save in the things they learned."
----------- Such a life, likewise, the sons of the prophets who were the followers of Eliseus are reported to have led. Of these Jerome also tells us, writing thus to the monk Rusticus as if describing the monks of those ancient days: "The sons of the prophets, the monks of whom we read in the Old Testament built for themselves huts by the waters of the Jordan, and forsaking the throngs and the cities, lived on pottage and the herbs of the field" (Epist. iv).
Even so did my followers build their huts above the waters of the Arduzon, so that they seemed hermits rather than scholars. And as their number grew ever greater, the hardships which they gladly endured for the sake of my teaching seemed to my rivals to reflect new glory on me, and to cast new shame on themselves. Nor was it strange that they, who had done their utmost to hurt me, should grieve to see how all things worked together for my good, even though I was now, in the words of Jerome, afar from cities and the market place, from controversies and the crowded ways of men. And so, as Quintilian says, did envy seek me out even in my hiding place. Secretly my rivals complained and lamented one to another, saying: "Behold now, the whole world runs after him, and our persecution of him has done nought save to increase his glory. We strove to extinguish his fame, and we have but given it new brightness. Lo, in the cities scholars have at hand everything they may need, and yet, spurning the pleasures of the town, they seek out the barrenness of the desert, and of their own free will they accept wretchedness."
The thing which at that time chiefly led me to undertake the direction of a school was my intolerable poverty, for I had not strength enough to dig, and shame kept me from begging. And so, resorting once more to the art with which I was so familiar, I was compelled to substitute the service of the tongue for the labour of my hands. The students willingly provided me with whatsoever I needed in the way of food and clothing, and likewise took charge of the cultivation of the fields and paid for the erection of buildings, in order that material cares might not keep me from my studies. Since my oratory was no longer large enough to hold even a small part of their number, they found it necessary to increase its size, and in so doing they greatly improved it, building it of stone and wood. Although this oratory had been founded in honour of the Holy Trinity, and afterwards dedicated thereto, I now named it the Paraclete, mindful of how I had come there a fugitive and in despair, and had breathed into my soul something of the miracle of divine consolation.
Many of those who heard of this were greatly astonished, and some violently assailed my action, declaring that it was not permissible to dedicate a church exclusively to the Holy Spirit rather than to God the Father. They held, according to an ancient tradition, that 'it must be dedicated either to the Son alone or else to the entire Trinity. The error which led them into this false accusation resulted from their failure to perceive the identity of the Paraclete with the Spirit Paraclete. Even as the whole Trinity, or any Person in the Trinity, may rightly be called God or Helper, so likewise may It be termed the Paraclete, that is to say the Consoler. These are the words of the Apostle: "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation" (II Cor. i. 3) And likewise the word of truth says: "And he shall give you another comforter" (Greek "another Paraclete," John, xiv. 16).
Nay, since every church is consecrated equally in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, without any difference in their possession thereof, why should not the house of God be dedicated to the Father or to the Holy Spirit, even as it is to the Son? Who would presume to erase from above the door the name of him who is the master of the house? And since the Son offered Himself as a sacrifice to the Father, and accordingly in the ceremonies of the mass the prayers are offered particularly to the Father, and the immolation of the Host is made to Him, why should the altar not be held to be chiefly His to whom above all the supplication and sacrifice are made? Is it not called more rightly the altar of Him who receives than of Him who makes the sacrifice? Who would admit that an altar is that of the Holy Cross, or of the Sepulchre, or of St. Michael, or John, or Peter, or of any other saint, unless either he himself was sacrificed there or else special sacrifices and prayers are made there to him? Methinks the altars and temples of certain ones among these saints are not held to be idolatrous even though they are used for special sacrifices and prayers to their patrons.
Some, however, may perchance argue that churches are not built or altars dedicated to the Father because there is no feast which is solemnized especially for Him. But while this reasoning holds good as regards the Trinity itself, it does not apply in the case of the Holy Spirit. For this Spirit, from the day of Its advent, has had its special feast of the Pentecost, even as the Son has had since His coming upon earth His feast of the Nativity. Even as the Son was sent into this world, so did the Holy Spirit descend upon the disciples, and thus does It claim Its special religious rites. Nay, it seems more fitting to dedicate a temple to It than to either of the other Persons of the Trinity, if we but carefully study the apostolic authority, and consider the workings of this Spirit Itself. To none of the three Persons did the apostle dedicate a special temple save to the Holy Spirit alone. He does not speak of a temple of the Father, or a temple of the Son, as he does of a temple of the Holy Spirit, writing thus in his first epistle to the Corinthians: "But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit." (I Cor. vi. 17). And again: "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" (ib. 19).
Who is there who does not know that the sacraments of God's blessings pertaining to the Church are particularly ascribed to the operation of divine grace, by which is meant the Holy Spirit? Forsooth we are born again of water and of the Holy Spirit in baptism, and thus from the very beginning is the body made, as it were, a special temple of God. In the successive sacraments, moreover, the seven-fold grace of the Spirit is added, whereby this same temple of God is made beautiful and is consecrated. What wonder is it, then, if to that Person to Whom the apostle assigned a spiritual temple we should dedicate a material one? Or to what Person can a church be more rightly said to belong than to Him to Whom all the blessings which the church administers are particularly ascribed? It was not, however, with the thought of dedicating my oratory to one Person that I first called it the Paraclete, but for the reason I have already told, that in this spot I found consolation. None the less, even if I had done it for the reason attributed to me, the departure from the usual custom would have been in no way illogical.
CHAPTER XII
OF THE PERSECUTION DIRECTED AGAINST HIM BY SUNDRY NEW ENEMIES OR, AS IT WERE APOSTLES
AND so I dwelt in this place, my body indeed hidden away, but my fame spreading throughout the whole world, till its echo reverberated mightily -- echo, that fancy of the poet's, which has so great a voice, and nought beside. My former rivals, seeing that they themselves were now powerless to do me hurt, stirred up against me certain new apostles in whom the world put great faith. One of these (Norbert of Prémontré) took pride in his position as canon of a regular order; the other (Bernard of Clairvaux) made it his boast that he bad revived the true monastic life. These two ran hither and yon preaching and shamelessly slandering me in every way they could, so that in time they succeeded in drawing down on my head the scorn of many among those having authority, among both the clergy and the laity. They spread abroad such sinister reports of my faith as well as of my life that they turned even my best friends against me, and those who still retained something of their former regard for me were fain to disguise it in every possible way by reason of their fear of these two men.
God is my witness that whensoever I learned of the convening of a new assemblage of the clergy, I believed that it was done for the express purpose of my condemnation. Stunned by this fear like one smitten with a thunderbolt, I daily expected to be dragged before their councils or assemblies as a heretic or one guilty of impiety. Though I seem to compare a flea with a lion, or an ant with an elephant, in very truth my rivals persecuted me no less bitterly than the heretics of old hounded St. Athanasius. Often, God knows, I sank so deep in despair that I was ready to leave the world of Christendom and go forth among the heathen, paying them a stipulated tribute in order that I might live quietly a Christian life among the enemies of Christ. It seemed to me that such people might indeed be kindly disposed toward me, particularly as they would doubtless suspect me of being no good Christian, imputing my flight to some crime I had committed, and would therefore believe that I might perhaps be won over to their form of worship.
CHAPTER XIII
OF THE ABBEY TO WHICH HE WAS CALLED AND OF THE PERSECUTION HE HAD FROM HIS SONS THAT IS TO SAY THE MONKS AND FROM THE LORD OF THE LAND
WHILE I was thus afflicted with so great perturbation to of the spirit, and when the only way of escape seemed to be for me to seek refuge with Christ among the enemies of Christ, there came a chance whereby I thought I could for a while avoid the plottings of my enemies. But thereby I fell among Christians and monks who were far more savage than heathens and more evil of life. The thing came about in this wise. There was in lesser Brittany, in the bishopric of Vannes, a certain abbey of St. Gildas at Ruits, then mourning the death of its shepherd. To this abbey the elective choice of the brethren called me, with the approval of the prince of that land, and I easily secured permission to accept the post from my own abbot and brethren. Thus did the hatred of the French drive me westward, even as that of the Romans drove Jerome toward the East. Never, God knows, would I have agreed to this thing had it not been for my longing for any possible means of escape from the sufferings which I had borne so constantly.
The land was barbarous and its speech was unknown to me; as for the monks, their vile and untameable way of life was notorious almost everywhere. The people of the region, too, were uncivilized and lawless. Thus, like one who in terror of the sword that threatens him dashes headlong over a precipice, and to shun one death for a moment rushes to another, I knowingly sought this new danger in order to escape from the former one. And there, amid the dreadful roar of the waves of the sea, where the land's end left me no further refuge in flight, often in my prayers did I repeat over and over again: "From the end of the earth will I cry unto Thee, when my heart is overwhelmed" (Ps. lxi. 2).
No one, methinks, could fail to understand how persistently that undisciplined body of monks, the direction of which I had thus undertaken, tortured my heart day and night, or how constantly I was compelled to think of the danger alike to my body and to my soul. I held it for certain that if I should try to force them to live according to the principles they had themselves professed, I should not survive. And yet, if I did not do this to the utmost of my ability, I saw that my damnation was assured. Moreover, a certain lord who was exceedingly powerful in that region had some time previously brought the abbey under his control, taking advantage of the state of disorder within the monastery to seize all the lands adjacent thereto for his own use, and he ground down the monks with taxes heavier than those which were extorted from the Jews themselves.
The monks pressed me to supply them with their daily necessities, but they held no property in common which I might administer in their behalf, and each one, with such resources as he possessed, supported himself and his concubines, as well as his sons and daughters. They took delight in harassing me on this matter, and they stole and carried off whatsoever they could lay their hands on, to the end that my failure to maintain order might make me either give up trying to enforce discipline or else abandon my post altogether. Since the entire region was equally savage, lawless and disorganized, there was not a single man to whom I could turn for aid, for the habits of all alike were foreign to me. Outside the monastery the lord and his henchmen ceaselessly hounded me, and within its walls the brethren were forever plotting against me, so that it seemed as if the Apostle had had me and none other in mind when he I said: "Without were fightings, within were fears" (II Cor. vii. 5).
I considered and lamented the uselessness and the wretchedness of my existence, how fruitless my life now was, both to myself and to others; how of old I had been of some service to the clerics whom I had now abandoned for the sake of these monks, so that I was no longer able to be of use to either; how incapable I had proved myself in everything I had undertaken or attempted, so that above all others I deserved the reproach, "This man began to build, and was not able to finish" (Luke xiv. 30). My despair grew still deeper when I compared the evils I had left behind with those to which I had come, for my former sufferings now seemed to me as nought. Full often did I groan: "Justly has this sorrow come upon me because I deserted the Paraclete, which is to say the Consoler, and thrust myself into sure desolation; seeking to shun threats I fled to certain peril."
The thing which tormented me most was the fact that, having abandoned my oratory, I could make no suitable provision for the celebration there of the divine office, for indeed the extreme poverty of the place would scarcely provide the necessities of one man. But the true Paraclete Himself brought me real consolation in the midst of this sorrow of mine, and made all due provision for His own oratory. For it chanced that in some manner or other, laying claim to it as having legally belonged in earlier days to his monastery, my abbot of St. Denis got possession of the abbey of Argenteuil, of which I have previously spoken, wherein she who was now my sister in Christ rather than my wife, Heloise, had taken the veil. From this abbey he expelled by force all the nuns who had dwelt there, and of whom my former companion had become the prioress. The exiles being thus dispersed in various places, I perceived that this was an opportunity presented by God himself to me whereby I could make provision anew for my oratory. And so, returning thither, I bade her come to the oratory, together with some others from the same convent who had clung to her.
On their arrival there I made over to them the oratory, together with everything pertaining thereto, and subsequently, through the approval and assistance of the bishop of the district, Pope Innocent II promulgated a decree confirming my gift in perpetuity to them and their successors. And this refuge of divine mercy, which they served so devotedly, soon brought them consolation, even though at first their life there was one of want, and for a time of utter destitution. But the place proved itself a true Paraclete to them, making all those who dwelt round about feel pity and kindliness for the sisterhood. So that, methinks, they prospered more through gifts in a single year than I should have done if I had stayed there a hundred. True it is that the weakness of womankind makes their needs and sufferings appeal strongly to people's feelings, as likewise it makes their virtue all the more pleasing to God and man. And God granted such favour in the eyes of all to her who was now my sister, and who was in authority over the rest, that the bishops loved her as a daughter, the abbots as a sister, and the laity as a mother. All alike marvelled at her religious zeal, her good judgment and the sweetness of her incomparable patience in all things. The less often she allowed herself to be seen, shutting herself up in her cell to devote herself to sacred meditations and prayers, the more eagerly did those who dwelt without demand her presence and the spiritual guidance of her words.
CHAPTER XIV
OF THE VILE REPORT OF HIS INIQUITY
BEFORE long all those who dwelt thereabouts began to censure me roundly, complaining that I paid far less attention to their needs than I might and should have done, and that at least I could do something for them through my preaching. As a result, I returned thither frequently, to be of service to them in whatsoever way I could. Regarding this there was no lack of hateful murmuring, and the thing which sincere charity induced me to do was seized upon by the wickedness of my detractors as the subject of shameless outcry. They declared that I, who of old could scarcely endure to be parted from her I loved, was still swayed by the delights of fleshly lust. Many times I thought of the complaint of St. Jerome in his letter to Asella regarding those women whom he was falsely accused of loving when he said (Epist. xcix): "I am charged with nothing save the fact of my sex, and this charge is made only because Paula is setting forth to Jerusalem." And again: "Before I became intimate in the household of the saintly Paula, the whole city was loud in my praise, and nearly every one deemed me deserving of the highest honours of priesthood. But I know that my way to the kingdom of Heaven lies through good and evil report alike."
When I pondered over the injury which slander had done to so great a man as this, I was not a little consoled thereby. If my rivals, I told myself, could but find an equal cause for suspicion against me, with what accusations would they persecute me! But how is it possible for such suspicion to continue in my case, seeing that divine mercy has freed me therefrom by depriving me of all power to enact such baseness? How shameless is this latest accusation! In truth that which had happened to me so completely removes all suspicion of this iniquity among all men that those who wish to have their women kept under close guard employ eunuchs for that purpose, even as sacred history tells regarding Esther and the other damsels of King Ahasuerus (Esther ii. 5). We read, too, of that eunuch of great authority under Queen Candace who had charge of all her treasure, him to whose conversion and baptism the apostle Philip was directed by an angel (Acts viii. 27). Such men, in truth, are enabled to have far more importance and intimacy among modest and upright women by the fact that they are free from any suspicion of lust. The sixth book of the Ecclesiastical History tells us that the greatest of all Christian philosophers, Origen, inflicted a like injury on himself with his own hand, in order that all suspicion of this nature might be completely done away with in his instruction of women in sacred doctrine. In this respect, I thought, God's mercy had been kinder to me than to him, for it was judged that he had acted most rashly and had exposed himself to no slight censure, whereas the thing had been done to me through the crime of another, thus preparing me for a task similar to his own. Moreover, it had been accomplished with much less pain, being so quick and sudden, for I was heavy with sleep when they laid hands on me, and felt scarcely any pain at all.
But alas, I thought, the less I then suffered from the wound, the greater is my punishment now through slander, and I am tormented far more by the loss of my reputation than I was by that of part of my body. For thus is it written: "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches" (Prov. xxii. 1). And as St. Augustine tells us in a sermon of his on the life and conduct of the clergy, "He is cruel who, trusting in his conscience, neglects his reputation." Again he says: "Let us provide those things that are good, as the apostle bids us (Rom. xii. 17), not alone in the eyes of God, but likewise in the eyes of men. Within himself each one's conscience suffices, but for our own sakes our reputations ought not to be tarnished, but to flourish. Conscience and reputation are different matters: conscience is for yourself, reputation for your neighbour." Methinks the spite of such men as these my enemies would have accused the very Christ Himself, or those belonging to Him, prophets and apostles, or the other holy fathers, if such spite had existed in their time, seeing that they associated in such familiar intercourse with women, and this though they were whole of body. On this point St. Augustine, in his book on the duty of monks, proves that women followed our Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles as inseparable companions, even accompanying them when they preached (Chap. 4). "Faithful women," he says, "who were possessed of worldly wealth went with them, and ministered to them out of their wealth, so that they might lack none of those things which belong to the substance of life." And if any one does not believe that the apostles thus permitted saintly women to go about with them wheresoever they preached the Gospel, let him listen to the Gospel itself, and learn therefrom that in so doing they followed the example of the Lord. For in the Gospel it is written thus: "And it came to pass afterward, that He went throughout every city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with Him and certain women which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto Him of their substance" (Luke viii. 1-3)
Leo the Ninth, furthermore, in his reply to the letter of Parmenianus concerning monastic zeal says: "We unequivocally declare that it is not permissible for a bishop, priest, deacon or subdeacon to cast off all responsibility for his own wife on the grounds of religious duty, so that he no longer provides her with food and clothing; albeit he may not have carnal intercourse with her. We read that thus did the holy apostles act, for St. Paul says: 'Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?' (I Cor. ix. 5). Observe, foolish man, that he does not say: 'have we not power to embrace a sister, a wife,' but he says 'to lead about,' meaning thereby that such women may lawfully be supported by them out of the wages of their preaching, but that there must be no carnal bond between them."
Certainly that Pharisee who spoke within himself of the Lord, saying: "This man, if He were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth Him: for she is a sinner" (Luke vii. 39), might much more reasonably have suspected baseness of the Lord, considering the matter from a purely human standpoint, than my enemies could suspect it of me. One who had seen the mother of Our Lord entrusted to the care of the young man (John xix. 27), or who had beheld the prophets dwelling and sojourning with widows (I Kings xvii. 10), would likewise have had a far more logical ground for suspicion. And what would my calumniators have said if they had but seen Malchus, that captive monk of whom St. Jerome writes, living in the same hut with his wife? Doubtless they would have regarded it as criminal in the famous scholar to have highly commended what he thus saw, saying thereof: "There was a certain old man named Malchus, a native of this region, and his wife with him in his hut. Both of them were earnestly religious, and they so often passed the threshold of the church that you might have thought them the Zacharias and Elisabeth of the Gospel, saving only that John was not with them."
Why, finally, do such men refrain from slandering the holy fathers, of whom we frequently read, nay, and have even seen with our own eyes, founding convents for women and making provision for their maintenance, thereby following the example of the seven deacons whom the apostles sent before them to secure food and take care of the women? (Acts vi. 5). For the weaker sex needs the help of the stronger one to such an extent that the apostle proclaimed that the head of the woman is ever the man (I Cor. i. 3), and in sign thereof he bade her ever wear her head covered (ib. 5). For this reason I marvel greatly at the customs which have crept into monasteries whereby, even as abbots are placed in charge of the men, abbesses now are given authority over the women, and the women bind themselves in their vows to accept the same rules as the men. Yet in these rules there are many things which cannot possibly be carried out by women, either as superiors or in the lower orders. In many places we may even behold an inversion of the natural order of things, whereby the abbesses and nuns have authority over the clergy and even over those who are themselves in charge of the people. The more power such women exercise over men, the more easily can they lead them into iniquitous desires, and in this way can lay a very heavy yoke upon their shoulders. It was with such things in mind that the satirist said:
"There is nothing more intolerable than a rich woman."
(Juvenal, Sat. VI, v 459)
CHAPTER XV
OF THE PERILS OF HIS ABBEY AND OF THE REASONS FOR THE WRITING OF THIS HIS LETTER
REFLECTING often upon all these things, I determined to make provision for those sisters and to undertake their care in every way I could. Furthermore, in order that they might have the greater reverence for me, I arranged to watch over them in person. And since now the persecution carried on by my sons was greater and more incessant than that which I formerly suffered at the hands of my brethren, I returned frequently to the nuns, fleeing the rage of the tempest as to a haven of peace. There, indeed, could I draw breath for a little in quiet, and among them my labours were fruitful, as they never were among the monks. All this was of the utmost benefit to me in body and soul, and it was equally essential for them by reason of their weakness.
But now has Satan beset me to such an extent that I no longer know where I may find rest, or even so much as live. I am driven hither and yon, a fugitive and a vagabond, even as the accursed Cain (Gen. iv. 14). I have already said that "without were fightings, within were fears" (II Cor. vii. 5), and these torture me ceaselessly, the fears being indeed without as well as within, and the fightings wheresoever there are fears. Nay, the persecution carried on by my sons rages against me more perilously and continuously than that of my open enemies, for my sons I have always with me, and I am ever exposed to their treacheries. The violence of my enemies I see in the danger to my body if I leave the cloister; but within it I am compelled incessantly to endure the crafty machinations as well as the open violence of those monks who are called my sons, and who are entrusted to me as their abbot, which is to say their father.
Oh. how often have they tried to kill me with poison, even as the monks sought to slay St. Benedict! Methinks the same reason which led the saint to abandon his wicked sons might encourage me to follow the example of so great a father, lest, in thus exposing myself to certain peril, I might be deemed a rash tempter of God rather than a lover of Him, nay, lest it might even be judged that I had thereby taken my own life. When I had safeguarded myself to the best of my ability, so far as my food and drink were concerned, against their daily plottings, they sought to destroy me in the very ceremony of the altar by putting poison in the chalice. One day, when I had gone to Nantes to visit the count, who was then sick, and while I was sojourning awhile in the house of one of my brothers in the flesh, they arranged to poison me with the connivance of one of my attendants believing that I would take no precautions to escape such a plot. But divine providence so ordered matters that I had no desire for the food which was set before me; one of the monks whom I had brought with me ate thereof, not knowing that which had been done, and straightway fell dead. As for the attendant who had dared to undertake this crime, he fled in terror alike of his own conscience and of the clear evidence of his guilt.
After this, as their wickedness was manifest to every one, I began openly in every way I could to avoid the danger with which their plots threatened me, even to the extent of leaving the abbey and dwelling with a few others apart in little cells. If the monks knew beforehand that I was going anywhere on a journey, they bribed bandits to waylay me on the road and kill me. And while I was struggling in the midst of these dangers, it chanced one day that the hand of the Lord smote me a heavy blow, for I fell from my horse, breaking a bone in my neck, the injury causing me greater pain and weakness than my former wound.
Using excommunication as my weapon to coerce the untamed rebelliousness of the monks, I forced certain ones among them whom I particularly feared to promise me publicly, pledging their faith or swearing upon the sacrament, that they would thereafter depart from the abbey and no longer trouble me in any way. Shamelessly and openly did they violate the pledges they had given and their sacramental oaths, but finally they were compelled to give this and many other promises under oath, in the presence of the count and the bishops, by the authority of the Pontiff of Rome, Innocent, who sent his own legate for this special purpose. And yet even this did not bring me peace. For when I returned to the abbey after the expulsion of those whom I have just mentioned, and entrusted myself to the remaining brethren, of whom I felt less suspicion, I found them even worse than the others. I barely succeeded in escaping them, with the aid of a certain nobleman of the district, for they were planning, not to poison me indeed, but to cut my throat with a sword. Even to the present time I stand face to face with this danger, fearing the sword which threatens my neck so that I can scarcely draw a free breath between one meal and the next. Even so do we read of him who, reckoning the power and heaped-up wealth of the tyrant Dionysius as a great blessing, beheld the sword secretly hanging by a hair above his head, and so learned what kind of happiness comes as the result of worldly power (Cicer. 5, Tusc.) Thus did I too learn by constant experience, I who had been exalted from the condition of a poor monk to the dignity of an abbot, that my wretchedness increased with my wealth; and I would that the ambition of those who voluntarily seek such power might be curbed by my example.
And now, most dear brother in Christ and comrade closest to me in the intimacy of speech, it should suffice for your sorrows and the hardships you have endured that I have written this story of my own misfortunes, amid which I have toiled almost from the cradle. For so, as I said in the beginning of this letter, shall you come to regard your tribulation as nought, or at any rate as little, in comparison with mine, and so shall you bear it more lightly in measure as you regard it as less. Take comfort ever in the saying of Our Lord, what he foretold for his followers at the hands of the followers of the devil: "If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you (John xv. 20). If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated vou. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own" (ib. 18-19). And the apostle says: "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution" (II Tim. iii. 12). And elsewhere he says: "I do not seek to please men. For if I yet pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ" (Galat. i. 10). And the Psalmist says: "They who have been pleasing to men have been confounded, for that God hath despised them."
Commenting on this, St. Jerome, whose heir methinks I am in the endurance of foul slander, says in his letter to Nepotanius: "The apostle says: 'If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.' He no longer seeks to please men, and so is made Christ's servant" (Epist. 2). And again, in his letter to Asella regarding those whom he was falsely accused of loving: "I give thanks to my God that I am worthy to be one whom the world hates" (Epist. 99). And to the monk Heliodorus he writes: "You are wrong, brother. You are wrong if you think there is ever a time when the Christian does not suffer persecution. For our adversary goes about as a roaring lion seeking what he may devour, and do you still think of peace? Nay, he lieth in ambush among the rich."
Inspired by those records and examples, we should endure our persecutions all the more steadfastly the more bitterly they harm us. We should not doubt that even if they are not according to our deserts, at least they serve for the purifying of our souls. And since all things are done in accordance with the divine ordering, let every one of true faith console himself amid all his afflictions with the thought that the great goodness of God permits nothing to be done without reason, and brings to a good end whatsoever may seem to happen wrongfully. Wherefore rightly do all men say: "Thy will be done." And great is the consolation to all lovers of God in the word of the Apostle when he says: "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God" (Rom. viii. 28). The wise man of old had this in mind when he said in his Proverbs: "There shall no evil happen to the just" (Prov. xii. 21). By this he clearly shows that whosoever grows wrathful for any reason against his sufferings has therein departed from the way of the just, because he may not doubt that these things have happened to him by divine dispensation. Even such are those who yield to their own rather than to the divine purpose, and with hidden desires resist the spirit which echoes in the words, "Thy will be done," thus placing their own will ahead of the will of God. Farewell.
The End
First published anonymously, March 1880, and soon in various
unauthorized editions. It wasn't until the 1925 edition that Adams
was listed as author. Henry Adams remarked (ironically as usual),
"The wholesale piracy of Democracy was the single real triumph
of my life."--it was very popular, as readers tried to guess who the
author was and who the characters really were.
Chapter I
FOR reasons which many persons thought ridiculous, Mrs.
Lightfoot Lee decided to pass the winter in Washington. She was
in excellent health, but she said that the climate would do her
good. In New York she had troops of friends, but she suddenly
became eager to see again the very small number of those who
lived on the Potomac. It was only to her closest intimates that she
honestly acknowledged herself to be tortured by ennui. Since her
husband's death, five years before, she had lost her taste for New
York society; she had felt no interest in the price of stocks, and
very little in the men who dealt in them; she had become serious.
What was it all worth, this wilderness of men and women as
monotonous as the brown stone houses they lived in? In her
despair she had resorted to desperate measures. She had read
philosophy in the original German, and the more she read, the
more she was disheartened that so much culture should lead to
nothing--nothing.
After talking of Herbert Spencer for an entire evening with a very
literary transcendental commission-merchant, she could not see
that her time had been better employed than when in former days
she had passed it in flirting with a very agreeable young
stock-broker; indeed, there was an evident proof to the contrary,
for the flirtation might lead to something--had, in fact, led to
marriage; while the philosophy could lead to nothing, unless it
were perhaps to another evening of the same kind, because
transcendental philosophers are mostly elderly men, usually
married, and, when engaged in business, somewhat apt to be
sleepy towards evening. Nevertheless Mrs. Lee did her best to turn
her study to practical use. She plunged into philanthropy, visited
prisons, inspected hospitals, read the literature of pauperism and
crime, saturated herself with the statistics of vice, until her mind
had nearly lost sight of virtue. At last it rose in rebellion against
her, and she came to the limit of her strength. This path, too,
seemed to lead nowhere. She declared that she had lost the sense
of duty, and that, so far as concerned her, all the paupers and
criminals in New York might henceforward rise in their majesty
and manage every railway on the continent. Why should she care?
What was the city to her? She could find nothing in it that seemed
to demand salvation. What gave peculiar sanctity to numbers?
Why were a million people, who all resembled each other, any way
more interesting than one person? What aspiration could she help
to put into the mind of this great million-armed monster that
would make it worth her love or respect? Religion? A thousand
powerful churches were doing their best, and she could see no
chance for a new faith of which she was to be the inspired prophet.
Ambition? High popular ideals? Passion for whatever is lofty and
pure? The very words irritated her. Was she not herself devoured
by ambition, and was she not now eating her heart out because she
could find no one object worth a sacrifice?
Was it ambition--real ambition--or was it mere restlessness that
made Mrs. Lightfoot Lee so bitter against New York and
Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston, American life in general and
all life in particular? What did she want? Not social position, for
she herself was an eminently respectable Philadelphian by birth;
her father a famous clergyman; and her husband had been equally
irreproachable, a descendant of one branch of the Virginia Lees,
which had drifted to New York in search of fortune, and had found
it, or enough of it to keep the young man there. His widow had her
own place in society which no one disputed. Though not brighter
than her neighbours, the world persisted in classing her among
clever women; she had wealth, or at least enough of itto give her
all that money can give by way of pleasure to a sensible woman in
an American city; she had her house and her carriage; she dressed
well; her table was good, and her furniture was never allowed to
fall behind the latest standard of decorative art. She had travelled
in Europe, and after several visits, covering some years of time,
had retumed home, carrying in one hand, as it were, a green-grey
landscape, a remarkably pleasing specimen of Corot, and in the
other some bales of Persian and Syrian rugs and embroideries,
Japanese bronzes and porcelain. With this she declared Europe to
be exhausted, and she frankly avowed that she was American to
the tips of her fingers; she neither knew nor greatly cared whether
America or Europe were best to live in; she had no violent love for
either, and she had no objection to abusing both; but she meant to
get all that American life had to offer, good or bad, and to drink it
down to the dregs, fully determined that whatever there was in it
she would have, and that whatever could be made out of it she
would manufacture. "I know," said she, "that America produces
petroleum and pigs; I have seen both on the steamers; and I am
told it produces silver and gold. There is choice enough for any
woman."
Yet, as has been already said, Mrs. Lee's first experience was not a
success. She soon declared that New York might represent the
petroleum or the pigs, but the gold of life was not to be discovered
there by her eyes.
Not but that there was variety enough; a variety of people,
occupations, aims, and thoughts; but that all these, after growing to
a certain height, stopped short. They found nothing to hold them
up. She knew, more or less intimately, a dozen men whose
fortunes ranged between one million and forty millions. What did
they do with their money? What could they do with it that was
different from what other men did? After all, it is absurd to spend
more money than is enough to satisfy all one's wants; it is vulgar to
live in two houses in the same street, and to drive six horses
abreast. Yet, after setting aside a certain income sufficient for all
one's wants, what was to be done with the rest? To let it
accumulate was to own one's failure; Mrs. Lee's great grievance
was that it did accumulate, without changing or improving the
quality of its owners. To spend it in charity and public works was
doubtless praiseworthy, but was it wise? Mrs. Lee had read enough
political economy and pauper reports to be nearly convinced that
public work should be public duty, and that great benefactions do
harm as well as good.
And even supposing it spent on these objects, how could it do
more than increase and perpetuate that same kind of human nature
which was her great grievance? Her New York friends could not
meet this question except by falling back upon their native
commonplaces, which she recklessly trampled upon, averring that,
much as she admired the genius of the famous traveller, Mr.
Gulliver, she never had been able, since she became a widow, to
accept the Brobdingnagian doctrine that he who made two blades
of grass grow where only one grew before deserved better of
mankind than the whole race of politicians. She would not find
fault with the philosopher had he required that the grass should be
of an improved quality; "but," said she, "I cannot honestly pretend
that I should be pleased to see two New York men where I now see
one; the idea is too ridiculous; more than one and a half would be
fatal to me."
Then came her Boston friends, who suggested that higher
education was precisely what she wanted; she should throw herself
into a crusade for universities and art-schools. Mrs. Lee turned
upon them with a sweet smile; "Do you know," said she, "that we
have in New York already the richest university in America, and
that its only trouble has always been that it can get no scholars
even by paying for them? Do you want me to go out into the streets
and waylay boys? If the heathen refuse to be converted, can you
give me power over the stake and the sword to compel them to
come in? And suppose you can? Suppose I march all the boys in
Fifth Avenue down to the university and have them all properly
taught Greek and Latin, English literature, ethics, and German
philosophy. What then? You do it in Boston. Now tell me honestly
what comes of it. I suppose you have there a brilliant society;
numbers of poets, scholars, philosophers, statesmen, all up and
down Beacon Street. Your evenings must be sparkling. Your press
must scintillate. How is it that we New Yorkers never hear of it?
We don't go much into your society; but when we do, it doesn't
seem so very much better than our own. You are just like the rest
of us. You grow six inches high, and then you stop. Why will not
somebody grow to be a tree and cast a shadow?"
The average member of New York society, although not unused to
this contemptuous kind of treatment from his leaders, retaliated in
his blind, common-sense way. "What does the woman want?" he
said. "Is her head turned with the Tulieries and Marlborough
House? Does she think herself made for a throne? Why does she
not lecture for women's rights? Why not go on the stage? If she
cannot be contented like other people, what need is there for
abusing us just because she feels herself no taller than we are?
What does she expect to get from her sharp tongue? What does she
know, any way?"
Mrs. Lee certainly knew very little. She had read voraciously and
promiscuously one subject after another. Ruskin and Taine had
danced merrily through her mind, hand in hand with Darwin and
Stuart Mill, Gustave Droz and Algernon Swinburne. She had even
laboured over the literature of her own country. She was perhaps,
the only woman in New York who knew something of American
history. Certainly she could not have repeated the list of Presidents
in their order, but she knew that the Constitution divided the
goverument into Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary; she was
aware that the President, the Speaker, and the Chief Justice were
important personages, and instinctively she wondered whether they
might not solve her problem; whether they were the shade trees
which she saw in her dreams.
Here, then, was the explanation of her restlessness, discontent,
ambition,--call it what you will. It was the feeling of a passenger
on an ocean steamer whose mind will not give him rest until he
has been in the engine-room and talked with the engineer. She
wanted to see with her own eyes the action of primary forces; to
touch with her own hand the massive machinery of society; to
measure with her own mind the capacity of the motive power. She
was bent upon getting to the heart of the great American mystery
of democracy and government. She cared little where her pursuit
might lead her, for she put no extravagant value upon life, having
already, as she said, exhausted at least two lives, and being fairly
hardened to insensibility in the process. "To lose a husband and a
baby," said she, "and keep one's courage and reason, one must
become very hard or very soft. I am now pure steel. You may beat
my heart with a trip-hammer and it will beat the trip-hammer back
again."
Perhaps after exhausting the political world she might try again
elsewhere; she did not pretend to say where she might then go, or
what she should do; but at present she meant to see what
amusement there might be in politics.
Her friends asked what kind of amusement she expected to find
among the illiterate swarm of ordinary people who in Washington
represented constituencies so dreary that in comparison New York
was a New Jerusalem, and Broad Street a grove of Academe. She
replied that if Washington society were so bad as this, she should
have gained all she wanted, for it would be a pleasure to
return,--precisely the feeling she longed for. In her own mind,
however, she frowned on the idea of seeking for men. What she
wished to see, she thought, was the clash of interests, the interests
of forty millions of people and a whole continent, centering at
Washington; guided, restrained, controlled, or unrestrained and
uncontrollable, by men of ordinary mould; the tremendous forces
of government, and the machinery of society, at work. What she
wanted, was POWER.
Perhaps the force of the engine was a little confused in her mind
with that of the engineer, the power with the men who wielded it.
Perhaps the human interest of politics was after all what really
attracted her, and, however strongly she might deny it, the passion
for exercising power, for its own sake, might dazzle and mislead a
woman who had exhausted all the ordinary feminine resources.
But why speculate about her motives? The stage was before her,
the curtain was rising, the actors were ready to enter; she had only
to go quietly on among the supernumeraries and see how the play
was acted and the stage effects were produced; how the great
tragedians mouthed, and the stage-manager swore.
Chapter II
ON the first of December, Mrs. Lee took the train for Washington,
and before five o'clock that evening she was entering her newly
hired house on Lafayette Square. She shrugged her shoulders with
a mingled expression of contempt and grief at the curious
barbarism of the curtains and the wall-papers, and her next two
days were occupied with a life-and-death struggle to get the
mastery over her surroundings. In this awful contest the interior of
the doomed house suffered as though a demon were in it; not a
chair, not a mirror, not a carpet, was left untouched, and in the
midst of the worst confusion the new mistress sat, calm as the
statue of Andrew Jackson in the square under her eyes, and issued
her orders with as much decision as that hero had ever shown.
Towards the close of the second day, victory crowned her
forehead. A new era, a nobler conception of duty and existence,
had dawned upon that benighted and heathen residence. The
wealth of Syria and Persia was poured out upon the melancholy
Wilton carpets; embroidered comets and woven gold from Japan
and Teheran depended from and covered over every sad
stuff-curtain; a strange medley of sketches, paintings, fans,
embroideries, and porcelain was hung, nailed, pinned, or stuck
against the wall; finally the domestic altarpiece, the mystical Corot
landscape, was hoisted to its place over the parlour fire, and then
all was over. The setting sun streamed softly in at the windows,
and peace reigned in that redeemed house and in the heart of its
mistress.
"I think it will do now, Sybil," said she, surveying the scene.
"It must," replied Sybil. "You haven't a plate or a fan or coloured
scarf left. You must send out and buy some of these old
negro-women's bandannas if you are going to cover anything else.
What is the use? Do you suppose any human being in Washington
will like it? They will think you demented."
"There is such a thing as self-respect," replied her sister, calmly.
Sybil--Miss Sybil Ross--was Madeleine Lee's sister. The keenest
psychologist could not have detected a single feature quality which
they had in common, and for that reason they were devoted
friends. Madeleine was thirty, Sybil twenty-four. Madeleine was
indescribable; Sybil was transparent. Madeleine was of medium
height with a graceful figure, a well-set head, and enough
golden-brown hair to frame a face full of varying expression. Her
eyes were never for two consecutive hours of the same shade, but
were more often blue than grey. People who envied her smile said
that she cultivated a sense of humour in order to show her teeth.
Perhaps they were right; but there was no doubt that her habit of
talking with gesticulation would never have grown upon her unless
she had known that her hands were not only beautiful but
expressive. She dressed as skilfully as New York women do, but in
growing older she began to show symptoms of dangerous
unconventionality. She had been heard to express a low opinion of
her countrywomen who blindly fell down before the golden calf of
Mr. Worth, and she had even fought a battle of great severity,
while it lasted, with one of her best-dressed friends who had been
invited--and had gone--to Mr. Worth's afternoon tea-parties. The
secret was that Mrs. Lee had artistic tendencies, and unless they
were checked in time, there was no knowing what might be the
consequence. But as yet they had done no harm; indeed, they
rather helped to give her that sort of atmosphere which belongs
only to certain women; as indescribable as the afterglow; as
impalpable as an Indian summer mist; and non-existent except to
people who feel rather than reason. Sybil had none of it. The
imagination gave up all attempts to soar where she came. A more
straightforward, downright, gay, sympathetic, shallow,
warm-hearted, sternly practical young woman has rarely touched
this planet. Her mind had room for neither grave-stones nor
guide-books; she could not have lived in the past or the future if
she had spent her days in churches and her nights in tombs. "She
was not clever, like Madeleine, thank Heaven." Madeleine was not
an orthodox member of the church; sermons bored her, and
clergymen never failed to irritate every nerve in her excitable
system. Sybil was a simple and devout worshipper at the ritualistic
altar; she bent humbly before the Paulist fathers. When she went to
a ball she always had the best partner in the room, and took it as a
matter of course; but then, she always prayed for one; somehow it
strengthened her faith. Her sister took care never to laugh at her on
this score, or to shock her religious opinions. "Time enough," said
she, "for her to forget religion when religion fails her." As for
regular attendance at church, Madeleine was able to reconcile their
habits without trouble. She herself had not entered a church for
years; she said it gave her unchristian feelings; but Sybil had a
voice of excellent quality, well trained and cultivated: Madeleine
insisted that she should sing in the choir, and by this little
manoeuvre, the divergence of their paths was made less evident.
Madeleine did not sing, and therefore could not go to church with
Sybil. This outrageous fallacy seemed perfectly to answer its
purpose, and Sybil accepted it, in good faith, as a fair working
principle which explained itself.
Madeleine was sober in her tastes. She wasted no money. She
made no display.
She walked rather than drove, and wore neither diamonds nor
brocades. But the general impression she made was nevertheless
one of luxury. On the other hand, her sister had her dresses from
Paris, and wore them and her ornaments according to all the
formulas; she was good-naturedly correct, and bent her round
white shoulders to whatever burden the Parisian autocrat chose to
put upon them. Madeleine never interfered, and always paid the
bills.
Before they had been ten days in Washington, they fell gently into
their place and were carried along without an effort on the stream
of social life.
Society was kind; there was no reason for its being otherwise. Mrs.
Lee and her sister had no enemies, held no offices, and did their
best to make themselves popular. Sybil had not passed summers at
Newport and winters in New York in vain; and neither her face nor
her figure, her voice nor her dancing, needed apology. Politics
were not her strong point. She was induced to go once to the
Capitol and to sit ten minutes in the gallery of the Senate. No one
ever knew what her impressions were; with feminine tact she
managed not to betray herself But, in truth, her notion of
legislative bodies was vague, floating between her experience at
church and at the opera, so that the idea of a performance of some
kind was never out of her head. To her mind the Senate was a
place where people went to recite speeches, and she naively
assumed that the speeches were useful and had a purpose, but as
they did not interest her she never went again. This is a very
common conception of Congress; many Congressmen share it.
Her sister was more patient and bolder. She went to the Capitol
nearly every day for at least two weeks. At the end of that time her
interest began to flag, and she thought it better to read the debates
every morning in the Congressional Record. Finding this a
laborious and not always an instructive task, she began to skip the
dull parts; and in the absence of any exciting question, she at last
resigned herself to skipping the whole. Nevertheless she still had
energy to visit the Senate gallery occasionally when she was told
that a splendid orator was about to speak on a question of deep
interest to his country. She listened with a little disposition to
admire, if she could; and, whenever she could, she did admire. She
said nothing, but she listened sharply. She wanted to learn how the
machinery of government worked, and what was the quality of the
men who controlled it. One by one, she passed them through her
crucibles, and tested them by acids and by fire.
A few survived her tests and came out alive, though more or less
disfigured, where she had found impurities. Of the whole number,
only one retained under this process enough character to interest
her.
In these early visits to Congress, Mrs. Lee sometimes had the
company of John Carrington, a Washington lawyer about forty
years old, who, by virtue of being a Virginian and a distant
connection of her husband, called himself a cousin, and took a
tone of semi-intimacy, which Mrs. Lee accepted because
Carrington was a man whom she liked, and because he was one
whom life had treated hardly. He was of that unfortunate
generation in the south which began existence with civil war, and
he was perhaps the more unfortunate because, like most educated
Virginians of the old Washington school, he had seen from the
first that, whatever issue the war took, Virginia and he must be
ruined. At twenty-two he had gone into the rebel army as a private
and carried his musket modestly through a campaign or two, after
which he slowly rose to the rank of senior captain in his regiment,
and closed his services on the staff of a major-general, always
doing scrupulously enough what he conceived to be his duty, and
never doing it with enthusiasm. When the rebel armies
surrendered, he rode away to his family plantation--not a difficult
thing to do, for it was only a few miles from Appomatox--and at
once began to study law; then, leaving his mother and sisters to do
what they could with the worn-out plantation, he began the
practice of law in Washington, hoping thus to support himself and
them. He had succeeded after a fashion, and for the first time the
future seemed not absolutely dark. Mrs. Lee's house was an oasis
to him, and he found himself, to his surprise, aimost gay in her
company. The gaiety was of a very qulet kind, and Sybil, while
friendly with him, averred that he was certainly dull; but this
dulness had a fascination for Madeleine, who, having tasted many
more kinds of the wine of life than Sybil, had learned to value
certain delicacies of age and flavour that were lost upon younger
and coarser palates. He talked rather slowly and almost with effort,
but he had something of the dignity--others call it stiffness--of the
old Virginia school, and twenty years of constant responsibility
and deferred hope had added a touch of care that bordered closely
on sadness. His great attraction was that he never talked or seemed
to think of himself. Mrs. Lee trusted in him by instinct. "He is a
type!" said she; "he is my idea of George Washington at thirty."
One morning in December, Carrington entered Mrs. Lee's parlour
towards noon, and asked if she cared to visit the Capitol.
"You will have a chance of hearing to-day what may be the last
great speech of our greatest statesman," said he; "you should
come."
"A splendid sample of our na-tive raw material, sir?" asked she,
fresh from a reading of Dickens, and his famous picture of
American statesmanship.
"Precisely so," said Carrington; "the Prairie Giant of Peonia, the
Favourite Son of Illinois; the man who came within three votes of
getting the party nomination for the Presidency last spring, and
was only defeated because ten small intriguers are sharper than
one big one. The Honourable Silas P.
Ratcliffe, Senator from Illinois; he will be run for the Presidency
yet."
"What does the P. stand for?" asked Sybil.
"I don't remember ever to have heard his middle name," said
Carrington.
"Perhaps it is Peonia or Prairie; I can't say."
"He is the man whose appearance struck me so much when we
were in the Senate last week, is he not? A great, ponderous man,
over six feet high, very senatorial and dignified, with a large head
and rather good features?" inquired Mrs. Lee.
"The same," replied Carrington. "By all means hear him speak. He
is the stumbling-block of the new President, who is to be allowed
no peace unless he makes terms with Ratcliffe; and so every one
thinks that the Prairie Giant of Peonia will have the choice of the
State or Treasury Department. If he takes either it will be the
Treasury, for he is a desperate political manager, and will want the
patronage for the next national convention."
Mrs. Lee was delighted to hear the debate, and Carrington was
delighted to sit through it by her side, and to exchange running
comments with her on the speeches and the speakers.
"Have you ever met the Senator?" asked she.
"I have acted several times as counsel before his committees. He is
an excellent chairman, always attentive and generally civil."
"Where was he born?"
"The family is a New England one, and I believe respectable. He
came, I think, from some place in the Connecticut Valley, but
whether Vermont, New Hampshire, or Massachusetts, I don't
know."
"Is he an educated man?"
"He got a kind of classical education at one of the country colleges
there.
I suspect he has as much education as is good for him. But he went
West very soon after leaving college, and being then young and
fresh from that hot-bed of abolition, he threw himself into the
anti-slavery movement m Illinois, and after a long struggle he rose
with the wave. He would not do the same thing now."
"Why not?"
"He is older, more experienced, and not so wise. Besides, he has
no longer the time to wait. Can you see his eyes from here? I call
them Yankee eyes."
"Don't abuse the Yankees," said Mrs. Lee; "I am half Yankee
myself."
"Is that abuse? Do you mean to deny that they have eyes?"
"I concede that there may be eyes among them; but Virginians are
not fair judges of their expression."
"Cold eyes," he continued; "steel grey, rather small, not unpleasant
in good-humour, diabolic in a passion, but worst when a little
suspicious; then they watch you as though you were a young
rattle-snake, to be killed when convenient."
"Does he not look you in the face?"
"Yes; but not as though he liked you. His eyes only seem to ask the
possible uses you might be put to. Ah, the vice-president has given
him the floor; now we shall have it. Hard voice, is it not? like his
eyes. Hard manner, like his voice. Hard all through."
"What a pity he is so dreadfully senatorial!" said Mrs. Lee;
"otherwise I rather admire him."
"Now he is settling down to his work," continued Carrington. "See
how he dodges all the sharp issues. What a thing it is to be a
Yankee! What a genius the fellow has for leading a party! Do you
see how well it is all done? The new President flattered and
conciliated, the party united and given a strong lead. And now we
shall see how the President will deal with him. Ten to one on
Ratcliffe. Come, there is that stupid ass from Missouri getting up.
Let us go."
As they passed down the steps and out into the Avenue, Mrs. Lee
turned to Carrington as though she had been reflecting deeply and
had at length reached a decision.
"Mr. Carrington," said she, "I want to know Senator Ratcliffe."
"You will meet him to-morrow evening," replied Carrington, "at
your senatorial dinner."
The Senator from New York, the Honourable Schuyler Clinton,
was an old admirer of Mrs. Lee, and his wife was a cousin of hers,
more or less distant. They had lost no time in honouring the letter
of credit she thus had upon them, and invited her and her sister to a
solemn dinner, as imposing as political dignity could make it. Mr.
Carrington, as a connection of hers, was one of the party, and
almost the only one among the twenty persons at table who had
neither an office, nor a title, nor a constituency.
Senator Clinton received Mrs. Lee and her sister with tender
enthusiasm, for they were attractive specimens of his constituents.
He pressed their hands and evidently restrained himself only by an
effort from embracing them, for the Senator had a marked regard
for pretty women, and had made love to every girl with any
pretensions to beauty that had appeared in the State of New York
for fully half a century. At the same time he whispered an apology
in her ear; he regretted so much that he was obliged to forego the
pleasure of taking her to dinner; Washington was the only city in
America where this could have happened, but it was a fact that
ladies here were very great stickiers for etiquette; on the other
hand he had the sad consolation that she would be the gainer, for
he had allotted to her Lord Skye, the British Minister, "a most
agreeable man and not married, as I have the misfortune to be;"
and on the other side "I have ventured to place Senator Ratcliffe,
of Illinois, whose admirable speech I saw you listening to with
such rapt attention yesterday. I thought you might like to know
him. Did I do right?"
Madeleine assured him that he had divined her inmost wishes, and
he turned with even more warmth of affection to her sister: "As for
you, my dear--dear Sybil, what can I do to make your dinner
agreeable? If I give your sister a coronet, I am only sorry not to
have a diadem for you. But I have done everything in my power.
The first Secretary of the Russian Legation, Count Popoff, will
take you in; a charming young man, my dear Sybil; and on your
other side I have placed the Assistant Secretary of State, whom
you know."
And so, after the due delay, the party settled themselves at the
dinner-table, and Mrs. Lee found Senator Ratcliffe's grey eyes
resting on her face for a moment as they sat down.
Lord Skye was very agreeable, and, at almost any other moment of
her life, Mrs. Lee would have liked nothing better than to talk with
him from the beginning to the end of her dinner. Tall, slender,
bald-headed, awkward, and stammering with his elaborate British
stammer whenever it suited his convenience to do so; a sharp
observer who had wit which he commonly concealed; a humourist
who was satisfied to laugh silently at his own humour; a
diplomatist who used the mask of frankness with great effect; Lord
Skye was one of the most popular men in Washington. Every one
knew that he was a ruthless critic of American manners, but he had
the art to combine ridicule with good-humour, and he was all the
more popular accordingly. He was an outspoken admirer of
American women in everything except their voices, and he did not
even shrink from occasionally quizzing a little the national
peculiarities of his own countrywomen; a sure piece of flattery to
their American cousins. He would gladly have devoted himself to
Mrs. Lee, but decent civility required that he should pay some
attention to his hostess, and he was too good a diplomatist not to
be attentive to a hostess who was the wife of a Senator, and that
Senator the chairman of the committee of foreign relations.
The moment his head was turned, Mrs. Lee dashed at her Peonia
Giant, who was then consuming his fish, and wishing he
understood why the British Minister had worn no gloves, while he
himself had sacrificed his convictions by wearing the largest and
whitest pair of French kids that could be bought for money on
Pennsylvania Avenue. There was a little touch of mortification in
the idea that he was not quite at home among fashionable people,
and at this instant he felt that true happiness was only to be found
among the simple and honest sons and daughters of toil. A certain
secret jealousy of the British Minister is always lurking in the
breast of every American Senator, if he is truly democratic; for
democracy, rightly understood, is the government of the people, by
the people, for the benefit of Senators, and there is always a danger
that the British Minister may not understand this political principle
as he should. Lord Skye had run the risk of making two blunders;
of offending the Senator from New York by neglecting his wife,
and the Senator from Illinois by engrossing the attention of Mrs.
Lee. A young Englishman would have done both, but Lord Skye
had studied the American constitution. The wife of the Senator
from New York now thought him most agreeable, and at the same
moment the Senator from Illinois awoke to the conviction that
after all, even in frivolous and fashionable circles, true dignity is in
no danger of neglect; an American Senator represents a sovereign
state; the great state of Illinois is as big as England--with the
convenient omission of Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, India,
Australia, and a few other continents and islands; and in short, it
was perfectly clear that Lord Skye was not formidable to him, even
in light society; had not Mrs. Lee herself as good as said that no
position equaHed that of an American Senator?
In ten minutes Mrs. Lee had this devoted statesman at her feet. She
had not studied the Senate without a purpose. She had read with
unerring instinct one general characteristic of all Senators, a
boundless and guileless thirst for flattery, engendered by daily
draughts from political friends or dependents, then becoming a
necessity like a dram, and swallowed with a heavy smile of
ineffable content. A single glance at Mr. Ratcliffe's face showed
Madeleine that she need not be afraid of flattering too grossly; her
own self-respect, not his, was the only restraint upon her use of
this feminine bait.
She opened upon him with an apparent simplicity and gravity, a
quiet repose of manner, and an evident consciousness of her own
strength, which meant that she was most dangerous.
"I heard your speech yesterday, Mr. Ratcliffe. I am glad to have a
chance of telling you how much I was impressed by it. It seemed
to me masterly. Do you not find that it has had a great effect?"
"I thank you, madam. I hope it will help to unite the party, but as
yet we have had no time to measure its results. That will require
several days more." The Senator spoke in his senatorial manner,
elaborate, condescending, and a little on his guard.
"Do you know," said Mrs. Lee, turning towards him as though he
were a valued friend, and looking deep into his eyes, "Do you
know that every one told me I should be shocked by the falling off
in political ability at Washington? I did not believe them, and since
hearing your speech I am sure they are mistaken. Do you yourself
think there is less ability in Congress than there used to be?"
"Well, madam, it is difficult to answer that question. Government
is not so easy now as it was formerly. There are different customs.
There are many men of fair abilities in public life; many more than
there used to be; and there is sharper criticism and more of it."
"Was I right in thinking that you have a strong resemblance to
Daniel Webster in your way of speaking? You come from the same
neighbourhood, do you not?"
Mrs. Lee here hit on Ratcliffe's weak point; the outline of his head
had, in fact, a certain resemblance to that of Webster, and he
prided himself upon it, and on a distant relationship to the
Expounder of the Constitution; he began to think that Mrs. Lee
was a very intelligent person. His modest admission of the
resemblance gave her the opportunity to talk of Webster 's oratory,
and the conversation soon spread to a discussion of the merits of
Clay and Calhoun. The Senator found that his neighbour--a
fashionable New York woman, exquisitely dressed, and with a
voice and manner seductively soft and gentle--had read the
speeches of Webster and Calhoun. She did not think it necessary to
tell him that she had persuaded the honest Carrington to bring her
the volumes and to mark such passages as were worth her reading;
but she took care to lead the conversation, and she criticised with
some skill and more humour the weak points in Websterian
oratory, saying with a little laugh and a glance into his delighted
eyes:
"My judgment may not be worth much, Mr. Senator, but it does
seem to me that our fathers thought too much of themselves, and
till you teach me better I shall continue to think that the passage in
your speech of yesterday which began with, 'Our strength lies in
this twisted and tangled mass of isolated principles, the hair of the
half-sleeping giant of Party,' is both for language and imagery
quite equal to anything of Webster's."
The Senator from Illinois rose to this gaudy fly like a huge,
two-hundred-pound salmon; his white waistcoat gave out a mild
silver reflection as he slowly came to the surface and gorged the
hook. He made not even a plunge, not one perceptible effort to tear
out the barbed weapon, but, floating gently to her feet, allowed
himself to be landed as though it were a pleasure. Only miserable
casuists will ask whether this was fair play on Madeleine's part;
whether flattery so gross cost her conscience no twinge, and
whether any woman can without self-abasement be guilty of such
shameless falsehood. She, however, scorned the idea of falsehood.
She would have defended herself by saying that she had not so
much praised Ratcliffe as depreciated Webster, and that she was
honest in her opinion of the old-fashioned American oratory. But
she could not deny that she had wilfully allowed the Senator to
draw conclusions very different from any she actually held. She
could not deny that she had intended to flatter him to the extent
necessary for her purpose, and that she was pleased at her success.
Before they rose from table the Senator had quite unbent himself;
he was talking naturally, shrewdly, and with some humour; he had
told her Illinois stories; spoken with extraordinary freedom about
his political situation; and expressed the wish to call upon Mrs.
Lee, if he could ever hope to find her at home.
"I am always at home on Sunday evenings," said she.
To her eyes he was the high-priest of American politics; he was
charged with the meaning of the mysteries, the clue to political
hieroglyphics. Through him she hoped to sound the depths of
statesmanship and to bring up from its oozy bed that pearl of
which she was in search; the mysterious gem which must lie
hidden somewhere in politics. She wanted to understand this man;
to turn him inside out; to experiment on him and use him as young
physiologists use frogs and kittens. If there was good or bad in
him, she meant to find its meaning.
And he was a western widower of fifty; his quarters in Washington
were in gaunt boarding-house rooms, furnished only with public
documents and enlivened by western politicians and
office-seekers. In the summer he retired to a solitary, white
framehouse with green blinds, surrounded by a few feet of
uncared-for grass and a white fence; its interior more dreary still,
with iron stoves, oil-cloth carpets, cold white walls, and one large
engraving of Abraham Lincoln in the parlour; all in Peonia,
Illinois! What equality was there between these two combatants?
what hope for him? what risk for her? And yet Madeleine Lee had
fully her match in Mr. Silas P. Ratcliffe.
Chapter III
MRS. Lee soon became popular. Her parlour was a favourite haunt
of certain men and women who had the art of finding its mistress
at home; an art which seemed not to be within the powers of
everybody. Carrington was apt to be there more often than any one
else, so that he was looked on as almost a part of the family, and if
Madeleine wanted a book from the library, or an extra man at her
dinner-table, Carrington was pretty certain to help her to the one or
the other. Old Baron Jacobi, the Bulgarian minister, fell madly in
love with both sisters, as he commonly did with every pretty face
and neat figure. He was a witty, cynical, broken-down Parisian
roué, kept in Washington for years past by his debts and his
salary; always grumbling because there was no opera, and
mysteriously disappearing on visits to New York; a voracious
devourer of French and German literature, especially of novels; a
man who seemed to have met every noted or notorious personage
of the century, and whose mmd was a magazine of amusing
information; an excellent musical critic, who was not afraid to
criticise Sybil's singing; a connoisseur in bric-à-brac, who laughed
at Madeleine's display of odds and ends, and occasionally brought
her a Persian plate or a bit of embroidery, which he said was good
and would do her credit. This old sinner believed in everything
that was perverse and wicked, but he accepted the prejudices of
Anglo-Saxon society, and was too clever to obtrude his opinions
upon others.
He would have married both sisters at once more willingly than
either alone, but as he feelingly said, "If I were forty years
younger, mademoiselle, you should not sing to me so calmly." His
friend Popoff, an intelligent, vivacious Russian, with very
Calmuck features, susceptible as a girl, and passionately fond of
music, hung over Sybil's piano by the hour; he brought Russian
airs which he taught her to sing, and, if the truth were known, he
bored Madeleine desperately, for she undertook to act the part of
duenna to her younger sister.
A very different visitor was Mr. C. C. French, a young member of
Congress from Connecticut, who aspired to act the part of the
educated gentleman in politics, and to purify the public tone. He
had reform principles and an unfortunately conceited maimer; he
was rather wealthy, rather clever, rather well-educated, rather
honest, and rather vulgar. His allegiance was divided between Mrs.
Lee and her sister, whom he infuriated by addressing as "Miss
Sybil" with patronising familiarity. He was particularly strong in
what he called "badinaige," and his playful but ungainly attempts
at wit drove Mrs.
Lee beyond the bounds of patience. When in a solemn mood, he
talked as though he were practising for the ear of a college
debating society, and with a still worse effect on the patience; but
with all this he was useful, always bubbling with the latest
political gossip, and deeply interested in the fate of party stakes.
Quite another sort of person was Mr. Hartbeest Schneidekoupon, a
citizen of Philadelphia, though commonly resident in New York,
where he had fallen a victim to Sybil's charms, and made efforts to
win her young affections by instructing her in the mysteries of
currency and protection, to both which subjects he was devoted.
To forward these two interests and to watch over Miss Ross's
welfare, he made periodical visits to Washington, where he
closeted himself with committee-men and gave expensive dinners
to members of Congress. Mr. Schneidekoupon was rich, and about
thirty years old, tall and thin, with bright eyes and smooth face,
elaborate manners and much loquacity. He had the reputation of
turning rapid intellectual somersaults, partly to amuse himself and
partly to startle society. At one moment he was artistic, and
discoursed scientifically about his own paintings; at another he
was literary, and wrote a book on "Noble Living," with a
humanitarian purpose; at another he was devoted to sport, rode a
steeplechase, played polo, and set up a four-in-hand; his last
occupation was to establish in Philadelphia the Protective Review,
a periodical in the interests of American industry, which he edited
himself, as a stepping-stone to Congress, the Cabinet, and the
Presidency. At about the same time he bought a yacht, and heavy
bets were pending among his sporting friends whether he would
manage to sink first his Review or his yacht. But he was an
amiable and excellent fellow through all his eccentricities, and he
brought to Mrs. Lee the simple outpourings of the amateur
politician.
A much higher type of character was Mr. Nathan Gore, of
Massachusetts, a handsome man with a grey beard, a straight,
sharply cut nose, and a fine, penetrating eye; in his youth a
successful poet whose satires made a noise in their day, and are
still remembered for the pungency and wit of a few verses; then a
deep student in Europe for many years, until his famous "History
of Spain in America" placed him instantly at the head of American
historians, and made him minister at Madrid, where he remained
four years to his entire satisfaction, this being the nearest approach
to a patent of nobility and a government pension which the
American citizen can attain. A change of administration had
reduced him to private life again, and after some years of
retirement he was now in Washington, willing to be restored to his
old mission. Every President thinks it respectable to have at least
one literary man in his pay, and Mr. Gore's prospects were fair for
obtaining his object, as he had the active support of a majority of
the Massachusetts delegation. He was abominably selfish,
colossally egoistic, and not a little vain; but he was shrewd; he
knew how to hold his tongue; he could flatter dexterously, and he
had learned to eschew satire. Only in confidence and among
friends he would still talk freely, but Mrs. Lee was not yet on those
terms with him. These were all men, and there was no want of
women in Mrs.
Lee's parlour; but, after all, they are able to describe themselves
better than any poor novelist can describe them. Generally two
currents of conversation ran on together--one round Sybil, the
other about Madeleine.
"Mees Ross," said Count Popoff, leading in a handsome young
foreigner, "I have your permission to present to you my friend
Count Orsini, Secretary of the Italian Legation. Are you at home
this afternoon? Count Orsini sings also."
"We are charmed to see Count Orsini. It is well you came so late,
for I have this moment come in from making Cabinet calls. They
were so queer! I have been crying with laughter for an hour past."
"Do you find these calls amusing?" asked Popoff, gravely and
diplomatically. "Indeed I do! I went with Julia Schneidekoupon,
you know, Madeleine; the Schneidekoupons are descended from
all the Kings of Israel, and are prouder than Solomon in his glory.
And when we got into the house of some dreadful woman from
Heaven knows where, imagine my feelings at overhearing this
conversation: 'What may be your family name, ma'am?'
'Schneidekoupon is my name,' replies Julia, very tall and straight.
'Have you any friends whom I should likely know?' 'I think not,'
says Julia, severely. 'Wal! I don't seem to remember of ever having
heerd the name. But I s'pose it's all right. I like to know who calls.'
I almost had hysterics when we got into the street, but Julia could
not see the joke at all."
Count Orsini was not quite sure that he himself saw the joke, so he
only smiled becomingly and showed his teeth. For simple,
childlike vanity and self-consciousness nothing equals an Italian
Secretary of Legation at twenty-five. Yet conscious that the effect
of his personal beauty would perhaps be diminished by permanent
silence, he ventured to murmur presently:
"Do you not find it very strange, this society in America?"
"Society!" laughed Sybil with gay contempt. "There are no snakes
in America, any more than in Norway."
"Snakes, mademoiselle!" repeated Orsini, with the doubtful
expression of one who is not quite certain whether he shall risk
walking on thin ice, and decides to go softly: "Snakes! Indeed they
would rather be doves I would call them."
A kind laugh from Sybil strengthened into conviction his hope that
he had made a joke in this unknown tongue. His face brightened,
his confidence returned; once or twice he softly repeated to
himself: "Not snakes; they would be doves!" But Mrs. Lee's
sensitive ear had caught Sybil's remark, and detected in it a certain
tone of condescension which was not to her taste.
The impassive countenances of these bland young Secretaries of
Legation seemed to acquiesce far too much as a matter of course in
the idea that there was no society except in the old world. She
broke into the conversation with an emphasis that fluttered the
dove-cote:
"Society in America? Indeed there is society in America, and very
good society too; but it has a code of its own, and new-comers
seldom understand it. I will tell you what it is, Mr. Orsini, and you
will never be in danger of making any mistake. 'Society' in
America means all the honest, kindly-mannered, pleasant-voiced
women, and all the good, brave, unassuming men, between the
Atlantic and the Pacific. Each of these has a free pass in every city
and village, 'good for this generation only,' and it depends on each
to make use of this pass or not as it may happen to suit his or her
fancy. To this rule there are no exceptions, and those who say
'Abraham is our father' will surely furnish food for that humour
which is the staple product of our country."
The alarmed youths, who did not in the least understand the
meaning of this demonstration, looked on with a feeble attempt at
acquiescence, while Mrs.
Lee brandished her sugar-tongs in the act of transferring a lump of
sugar to her cup, quite unconscious of the slight absurdity of the
gesture, while Sybil stared in amazement, for it was not often that
her sister waved the stars and stripes so energetically. Whatever
their silent criticisms might be, however, Mrs. Lee was too much
in earnest to be conscious of them, or, indeed, to care for anything
but what she was saying. There was a moment's pause when she
came to the end of her speech, and then the thread of talk was
quietly taken up again where Sybil's incipient sneer had broken it.
Carrington came in. "What have you been doing at the Capitol?"
asked Madeleine.
"Lobbying!" was the reply, given in the semi-serious tone of
Carrington's humour.
"So soon, and Congress only two days old?" exclaimed Mrs. Lee.
"Madam," rejoined Carrington, with his quietest malice,
"Congressmen are like birds of the air, which are caught only by
the early worm." "Good afternoon, Mrs. Lee. Miss Sybil, how do
you do again? Which of these gentlemen's hearts are you feeding
upon now?" This was the refined style of Mr. French, indulging in
what he was pleased to term "badinaige." He, too, was on his way
from the Capitol, and had come in for a cup of tea and a little
human society. Sybil made a face which plainly expressed a
longing to inflict on Mr. French some grievous personal wrong, but
she pretended not to hear. He sat down by Madeleine, and asked,
"Did you see Ratcliffe yesterday?"
"Yes," said Madeleine; "he was here last evening with Mr.
Carrington and one or two others."
"Did he say anything about politics?"
"Not a word. We talked mostly about books."
"Books! What does he know about books?"
"You must ask him."
"Well, this is the most ridiculous situation we are all in. No one
knows anything about the new President. You could take your oath
that everybody is in the dark. Ratcliffe says he knows as little as
the rest of us, but it can't be true; he is too old a politician not to
have wires in his hand; and only to-day one of the pages of the
Senate told my colleague Cutter that a letter sent off by him
yesterday was directed to Sam Grimes, of North Bend, who, as
every one knows, belongs to the President's particular crowd.
--Why, Mr. Schneidekoupon! How do you do? When did you come
on?"
"Thank you; this morning," replied Mr. Schneidekoupon, just
entering the room. "So glad to see you again, Mrs. Lee. How do
you and your sister like Washington? Do you know I have brought
Julia on for a visit? I thought I should find her here.
"She has just gone. She has been all the afternoon with Sybil,
making calls.
She says you want her here to lobby for you, Mr. Schneidekoupon.
Is it true?"
"So I did," replied he, with a laugh, "but she is precious little use.
So I've come to draft you into the service."
"Me!"
"Yes; you know we all expect Senator Ratcliffe to be Secretary of
the Treasury, and it is very important for us to keep him straight on
the currency and the tariff. So I have come on to establish more
intimate relations with him, as they say in diplomacy. I want to get
him to dine with me at Welckley's, but as I know he keeps very shy
of politics I thought my only chance was to make it a ladies'
dinner, so I brought on Julia. I shall try and get Mrs. Schuyler
Clinton, and I depend upon you and your sister to help Julia out."
"Me! at a lobby dinner! Is that proper?"
"Why not? You shall choose the guests."
"I never heard of such a thing; but it would certainly be amusing.
Sybil must not go, but I might." "Excuse me; Julia depends upon
Miss Ross, and will not go to table without her."
"Well," assented Mrs. Lee, hesitatingly, "perhaps if you get Mrs.
Clinton, and if your sister is there And who else?"
"Choose your own company."
"I know no one."
"Oh yes; here is French, not quite sound on the tariff, but good for
what we want just now. Then we can get Mr. Gore; he has his little
hatchet to grind too, and will be glad to help grind ours. We only
want two or three more, and I will have an extra man or so to fill
up."
"Do ask the Speaker. I want to know him."
"I will, and Carrington, and my Pennsylvania Senator. That will do
nobly.
Remember, Welckley's, Saturday at seven."
Meanwhile Sybil had been at the piano, and when she had sung for
a time, Orsini was induced to take her place, and show that it was
possible to sing without injury to one's beauty. Baron Jacobi came
in and found fault with them both. Little Miss Dare--commonly
known among her male friends as little Daredevil--who was
always absorbed in some flirtation with a Secretary of Legation,
came in, quite unaware that Popoff was present, and retired with
him into a corner, while Orsini and Jacobi bullied poor Sybil, and
fought with each other at the piano; everybody was talking with
very little reference to any reply, when at last Mrs. Lee drove them
all out of the room: "We are quiet people," said she, "and we dine
at half-past six."
Senator Ratcliffe had not failed to make his Sunday evening call
upon Mrs.
Lee. Perhaps it was not strictly correct to say that they had talked
books all the evening, but whatever the conversation was, it had
only confirmed Mr. Ratcliffe's admiration for Mrs. Lee, who,
without intending to do so, had acted a more dangerous part than if
she had been the most accomplished of coquettes. Nothing could
be more fascinating to the weary politician in his solitude than the
repose of Mrs. Lee's parlour, and when Sybil sang for him one or
two simple airs--she said they were foreign hymns, the Senator
being, or being considered, orthodox--Mr. Ratcliffe's heart yearned
toward the charming girl quite with the sensations of a father, or
even of an elder brother.
His brother senators very soon began to remark that the Prairie
Giant had acquired a trick of looking up to the ladies' gallery. One
day Mr. Jonathan Andrews, the special correspondent of the New
York Sidereal System, a very friendly organ, approached Senator
Schuyler Clinton with a puzzled look on his face.
"Can you tell me," said he, "what has happened to Silas P.
Ratcliffe? Only a moment ago I was talking with him at his seat on
a very important subject, about which I must send his opinions off
to New York to-night, when, in the middle of a sentence, he
stopped short, got up without looking at me, and left the Senate
Chamber, and now I see him in the gallery talking with a lady
whose face I don't know."
Senator Clinton slowly adjusted his gold eye-glasses and looked up
at the place indicated: "Ah! Mrs. Lightfoot Lee! I think I will say a
word to her myself;" and turning his back on the special
correspondent, he skipped away with youthful agility after the
Senator from Illinois.
"Devil!" muttered Mr. Andrews; "what has got into the old fools?"
and in a still less audible murmur as he looked up to Mrs. Lee,
then in close conversation with Ratcliffe: "Had I better make an
item of that?"
When young Mr. Schneidekoupon called upon Senator Ratcliffe to
invite him to the dinner at Welckley's, he found that gentleman
overwhelmed with work, as he averred, and very little disposed to
converse. No! he did not now go out to dinner. In the present
condition of the public business he found it impossible to spare the
time for such amusements. He regretted to decline Mr.
Schneidekoupon's civility, but there were imperative reasons why
he should abstain for the present from social entertainments; he
had made but one exception to his rule, and only at the pressing
request of his old friend Senator Clinton, and on a very special
occasion.
Mr. Schneidekoupon was deeply vexed--the more, he said, because
he had meant to beg Mr. and Mrs. Clinton to be of the party, as
well as a very charming lady who rarely went into society, but who
had almost consented to come.
"Who is that?" inquired the Senator.
"A Mrs. Lightfoot Lee, of New York. Probably you do not know
her well enough to admire her as I do; but I think her quite the
most intelligent woman I ever met."
The Senator's cold eyes rested for a moment on the young man's
open face with a peculiar expression of distrust. Then he solemnly
said, in his deepest senatorial tones:
"My young friend, at my time of life men have other things to
occupy them than women, however intelligent they may be. Who
else is to be of your party?"
Mr. Schneidekoupon named his list.
"And for Saturday evening at seven, did you say?"
"Saturday at seven."
"I fear there is little chance of my attending, but I will not
absolutely decline. Perhaps when the moment arrives, I may find
myself able to be there. But do not count upon me--do not count
upon me. Good day, Mr.
Schneidekoupon."
Schneidekoupon was rather a simple-minded young man, who saw
no deeper than his neighbours into the secrets of the universe, and
he went off swearing roundly at "the infernal airs these senators
give themselves." He told Mrs.
Lee all the conversation, as indeed he was compelled to do under
penalty of bringing her to his party under false pretences.
"Just my luck," said he; "here I am forced to ask no end of people
to meet a man, who at the same time says he shall probably not
come. Why, under the stars, couldn't he say, like other people,
whether he was coming or not?
I've known dozens of senators, Mrs. Lee, and they're all like that.
They never think of any one but themselves."
Mrs. Lee smiled rather a forced smile, and soothed his wounded
feelings; she had no doubt the dinner would be very agreeable
whether the Senator were there or not; at any rate she would do all
she could to carry it off well, and Sybil should wear her newest
dress. Still she was a little grave, and Mr. Schneidekoupon could
only declare that she was a trump; that he had told Ratcliffe she
was the cleverest woman he ever met, and he might have added
the most obliging, and Ratcliffe had only looked at him as though
he were a green ape. At all which Mrs. Lee laughed
good-naturedly, and sent him away as soon as she could.
When he was gone, she walked up and down the room and
thought. She saw the meaning of Ratcliffe's sudden change in tone.
She had no more doubt of his coming to the dinner than she had of
the reason why he came. And was it possible that she was being
drawn into something very near a flirtation with a man twenty
years her senior; a politician from Illinois; a huge, ponderous,
grey-eyed, bald senator, with a Websterian head, who lived in
Peonia? The idea was almost too absurd to be credited; but on the
whole the thing itself was rather amusing. "I suppose senators can
look out for themselves like other men," was her final conclusion.
She thought only of his danger, and she felt a sort of compassion
for him as she reflected on the possible consequences of a great,
absorbing love at his time of life.
Her conscience was a little uneasy; but of herself she never
thought. Yet it is a historical fact that elderly senators have had a
curious fascination for young and handsome women. Had they
looked out for themselves too? And which parties most needed to
be looked after?
When Madeleine and her sister arrived at Welckley's 's the next
Saturday evening, they found poor Schneidekoupon in a temper
very unbecoming a host.
"He won't come! I told you he wouldn't come!" said he to
Madeleine, as he handed her into the house. "If I ever turn
communist, it will be for the fun of murdering a senator."
Madeleine consoled him gently, but he continued to use, behind
Mr. Clinton's back, language the most offensive and improper
towards the Senate, and at last, ringing the bell, he sharply ordered
the head waiter to serve dinner.
At that very moment the door opened, and Senator Ratcliffe's
stately figure appeared on the threshold. His eye instantly caught
Madeleine's, and she almost laughed aloud, for she saw that the
Senator was dressed with very unsenatorial neatness; that he had
actually a flower in his burton-hole and no gloves!
After the enthusiastic description which Schneidekoupon had
given of Mrs.
Lee's charms, he could do no less than ask Senator Ratcliffe to take
her in to dinner, which he did without delay. Either this, or the
champagne, or some occult influence, had an extraordinary effect
upon him. He appeared ten years younger than usual; his face was
illuminated; his eyes glowed; he seemed bent on proving his
kinship to the immortal Webster by rivalling his convivial powers.
He dashed into the conversation; laughed, jested, and ridiculed;
told stories in Yankee and Western dialect; gave sharp little
sketches of amusing political experiences.
"Never was more surprised in my life," whispered Senator Krebs,
of Pennsylvania, across the table to Schneidekoupon. "Hadn't an
idea that Ratcliffe was so entertaining."
And Mr. Clinton, who sat by Madeleine on the other side,
whispered low into her ear: "I am afraid, my dear Mrs. Lee, that
you are responsible for this.
He never talks so to the Senate."
Nay, he even rose to a higher flight, and told the story of President
Lincoln's death-bed with a degree of feeling that brought tears into
their eyes. The other guests made no figure at all. The Speaker
consumed his solitary duck and his lonely champagne in a corner
without giving a sign.
Even Mr. Gore, who was not wont to hide his light under any kind
of extinguisher, made no attempt to claim the floor, and applauded
with enthusiasm the conversation of his opposite neighbour.
Ill-natured people might say that Mr. Gore saw in Senator Ratcliffe
a possible Secretary of State; be this as it may, he certainly said to
Mrs. Clinton, in an aside that was perfectly audible to every one at
the table: "How brilliant! what an original mind! what a sensation
he would make abroad!" And it was quite true, apart from the mere
momentary effect of dinner-table talk, that there was a certain
bigness about the man; a keen practical sagacity; a bold freedom
of self-assertion; a broad way of dealing with what he knew.
Carrington was the only person at table who looked on with a
perfectly cool head, and who criticised in a hostile spirit.
Carrington's impression of Ratcliffe was perhaps beginning to be
warped by a shade of jealousy, for he was in a peculiarly bad
temper this evening, and his irritation was not wholly concealed.
"If one only had any confidence in the man!" he muttered to
French, who sat by him.
This unlucky remark set French to thinking how he could draw
Ratcliffe out, and accordingly, with his usual happy manner,
combining self-conceit and high principles, he began to attack the
Senator with some "badinaige" on the delicate subject of Civil
Service Reform, a subject almost as dangerous in political
conversation at Washington as slavery itself in old days before the
war. French was a reformer, and lost no occasion of impressing his
views; but unluckily he was a very light weight, and his manner
was a little ridiculous, so that even Mrs. Lee, who was herself a
warm reformer, sometimes went over to the other side when he
talked. No sooner had he now shot his little arrow at the Senator,
than that astute man saw his opportunity, and promised himself the
pleasure of administering to Mr.
French punishment such as he knew would delight the company.
Reformer as Mrs. Lee was, and a little alarmed at the roughness of
Ratcliffe's treatment, she could not blame the Prairie Giant, as she
ought, who, after knocking poor French down, rolled him over and
over in the mud.
"Are you financier enough, Mr. French, to know what are the most
famous products of Connecticut?"
Mr. French modestly suggested that he thought its statesmen best
answered that description.
"No, sir! even there you're wrong. The showmen beat you on your
own ground.
But every child in the union knows that the most famous products
of Connecticut are Yankee notions, nutmegs made of wood and
clocks that won't go. Now, your Civil Service Reform is just such
another Yankee notion; it's a wooden nutmeg; it's a clock with a
show case and sham works. And you know it! You are precisely
the old-school Connecticut peddler. You have gone about peddling
your wooden nutmegs until you have got yourself into Congress,
and now you pull them out of your pockets and not only want us to
take them at your own price, but you lecture us on our sins if we
don't.
Well! we don't mind your doing that at home. Abuse us as much as
you like to your constituents. Get as many votes as you can. But
don't electioneer here, because we know you intimately, and we've
all been a little in the wooden nutmeg business ourselves."
Senator Clinton and Senator Krebs chuckied high approval over
this punishment of poor French, which was on the level of their
idea of wit. They were all in the nutmeg business, as Ratcliffe said.
The victim tried to make head against them; he protested that his
nutmegs were genuine; he sold no goods that he did not guarantee;
and that this particular article was actually guaranteed by the
national conventions of both political parties.
"Then what you want, Mr. French, is a common school education.
You need a little study of the alphabet. Or if you won't believe me,
ask my brother senators here what chance there is for your
Reforms so long as the American citizen is what he "You'll not get
much comfort in my State, Mr. French," growled the senator from
Pennsylvania, with a sneer; "suppose you come and try."
"Well, well!" said the benevolent Mr. Schuyler Clinton, gleaming
benignantly through his gold spectacles; "don't be too hard on
French. He means well.
Perhaps he's not very wise, but he does good. I know more about it
than any of you, and I don't deny that the thing is all bad. Only, as
Mr. Ratcliffe says, the difficulty is in the people, not in us. Go to
work on them, French, and let us alone."
French repented of his attack, and contented himself by muttering
to Carrington: "What a set of damned old reprobates they are!"
"They are right, though, in one thing," was Carrington's reply:
"their advice is good. Never ask one of them to reform anything; if
you do, you will be reformed yourself."
The dinner ended as brilliantly as it began, and Schneidekoupon
was delighted with his success. He had made himself particularly
agreeable to Sybil by confiding in her all his hopes and fears about
the tariff and the finances. When the ladies left the table, Ratcliffe
could not stay for a cigar; he must get back to his rooms, where he
knew several men were waiting for him; he would take his leave of
the ladies and hurry away. But when the gentlemen came up nearly
an hour afterwards they found Ratcliffe still taking his leave of the
ladies, who were delighted at his entertaining conversation; and
when at last he really departed, he said to Mrs. Lee, as though it
were quite a matter of course: "You are at home as usual
to-morrow evening?" Madeleine smiled, bowed, and he went his
way.
As the two sisters drove home that night, Madeleine was unusually
silent.
Sybil yawned convulsively and then apologized:
"Mr. Schneidekoupon is very nice and good-natured, but a whole
evening of him goes a long way; and that horrid Senator Krebs
would not say a word, and drank a great deal too much wine,
though it couldn't make him any more stupid than he is. I don't
think I care for senators." Then, wearily, after a pause: "Well,
Maude, I do hope you've got what you wanted. I'm sure you must
have had politics enough. Haven't you got to the heart of your great
American mystery yet?"
"Pretty near it, I think," said Madeleine, half to herself.
Chapter IV
SUNDAY evening was stormy, and some enthusiasm was required
to make one face its perils for the sake of society. Nevertheless, a
few intimates made their appearance as usual at Mrs. Lee's. The
faithful Popoff was there, and Miss Dare also ran in to pass an
hour with her dear Sybil; but as she passed the whole evening in a
corner with Popoff. she must have been disappointed in her object.
Carrington came, and Baron Jacobi. Schneidekoupon and his sister
dined with Mrs. Lee, and remained after dinner, while Sybil and
Julia Schneidekoupon compared conclusions about Washington
society. The happy idea also occurred to Mr. Gore that, inasmuch
as Mrs. Lee's house was but a step from his hotel, he might as well
take the chance of amusement there as the certainty of solitude in
his rooms. Finally, Senator Ratcliffe duly made his appearance,
and, having established himself with a cup of tea by Madeleine's
side, was soon left to enjoy a quiet talk with her, the rest of the
party by common consent occupying themselves with each other.
Under cover of the murmur of conversation in the room, Mr.
Ratcliffe quickiy became confidential.
"I came to suggest that, if you want to hear an interesting debate,
you should come up to the Senate to-morrow. I am told that
Garrard, of Louisiana, means to attack my last speech, and I shall
probably in that case have to answer him. With you for a critic I
shall speak better."
"Am I such an amiable critic?" asked Madeleine.
"I never heard that amiable critics were the best," said he; "justice
is the soul of good criticism, and it is only justice that I ask and
expect from you."
"What good does this speaking do?" inquired she. "Are you any
nearer the end of your difficulties by means of your speeches?"
"I hardly know yet. Just now we are in dead water; but this can't
last long.
In fact, I am not afraid to tell you, though of course you will not
repeat it to any human being, that we have taken measures to force
an issue.
Certain gentlemen, myself among the rest, have written letters
meant for the President's eye, though not addressed directly to him,
and intended to draw out an expression of some sort that will show
us what to expect."
"Oh!" laughed Madeleine, "I knew about that a week ago."
"About what?"
"About your letter to Sam Grimes, of North Bend."
"What have you heard about my letter to Sam Grimes, of North
Bend?"
ejaculated Ratcliffe, a little abruptly.
"Oh, you do not know how admirably I have organised my secret
service bureau," said she. "Representative Cutter cross-questioned
one of the Senate pages, and obliged him to confess that he had
received from you a letter to be posted, which letter was addressed
to Mr. Grimes, of North Bend."
"And, of course, he told this to French, and French told you," said
Ratcliffe; "I see. If I had known this I would not have let French
off so gently last night, for I prefer to tell you my own story
without his embellishments. But it was my fault. I should not have
trusted a page.
Nothing is a secret here long. But one thing that Mr. Cutter did not
find out was that several other gentlemen wrote letters at the same
time, for the same purpose. Your friend, Mr. Clinton, wrote; Krebs
wrote; and one or two members."
"I suppose I must not ask what you said?"
"You may. We agreed that it was best to be very mild and
conciliatory, and to urge the President only to give us some
indication of his intentions, in order that we might not run counter
to them. I drew a strong picture of the effect of the present
situation on the party, and hinted that I had no personal wishes to
gratify."
"And what do you think will be the result?"
"I think we shall somehow manage to straighten things out," said
Ratcliffe.
"The difficulty is only that the new President has little experience,
and is suspicious. He thinks we shall intrigue to tie his hands, and
he means to tie ours in advance. I don't know him personally, but
those who do, and who are fair judges, say that, though rather
narrow and obstinate, he is honest enough, and will come round. I
have no doubt I could settle it all with him in an hour's talk, but it
is out of the question for me to go to him unless I am asked, and to
ask me to come would be itself a settlement."
"What, then, is the danger you fear?"
"That he will offend all the important party leaders in order to
conciliate unimportant ones, perhaps sentimental ones, like your
friend French; that he will make foolish appointments without
taking advice. By the way, have you seen French to-day?"
"No," replied Madeleine; "I think he must be sore at your treatment
of him last evening. You were very rude to him."
"Not a bit," said Ratcliffe; "these reformers need it. His attack on
me was meant for a challenge. I saw it in his manner.
"But is reform really so impossible as you describe it? Is it quite
hopeless?"
"Reform such as he wants is utterly hopeless, and not even
desirable."
Mrs. Lee, with much earnestness of manner, still pressed her
question:
"Surely something can be done to check corruption. Are we for
ever to be at the mercy of thieves and ruffians? Is a respectable
government impossible in a democracy?"
Her warmth attracted Jacobi's attention, and he spoke across the
room. "What is that you say, Mrs. Lee? What is it about
corruption?"
All the gentlemen began to listen and gather about them.
"I am asking Senator Ratcliffe," said she, "what is to become of us
if corruption is allowed to go unchecked."
"And may I venture to ask permission to hear Mr. Ratcliffe's
reply?" asked the baron.
"My reply," said Ratcliffe, "is that no representative government
can long be much better or much worse than the society it
represents. Purify society and you purify the government. But try
to purify the government artificially and you only aggravate
failure."
"A very statesmanlike reply," said Baron Jacobi, with a formal
bow, but his tone had a shade of mockery. Carrington, who had
listened with a darkening face, suddenly turned to the baron and
asked him what conclusion he drew from the reply.
"Ah!" exclaimed the baron, with his wickedest leer, "what for is
my conclusion good? You Americans believe yourselves to be
excepted from the operation of general laws. You care not for
experience. I have lived seventy-five years, and all that time in the
midst of corruption. I am corrupt myself, only I do have courage to
proclaim it, and you others have it not. Rome, Paris, Vienna,
Petersburg, London, all are corrupt; only Washington is pure!
Well, I declare to you that in all my experience I have found no
society which has had elements of corruption like the United
States. The children in the street are corrupt, and know how to
cheat me.
The cities are all corrupt, and also the towns and the counties and
the States' legislatures and the judges. Everywhere men betray
trusts both public and private, steal money, run away with public
funds. Only in the Senate men take no money. And you gentlemen
in the Senate very well declare that your great United States,
which is the head of the civilized world, can never learn anything
from the example of corrupt Europe. You are right--quite right!
The great United States needs not an example. I do much regret
that I have not yet one hundred years to live. If I could then come
back to this city, I should find myself very content--much more
than now. I am always content where there is much corruption, and
ma parole d'honneur!"
broke out the old man with fire and gesture, "the United States will
then be more corrupt than Rome under Caligula; more corrupt than
the Church under Leo X.; more corrupt than France under the
Regent!"
As the baron closed his little harangue, which he delivered directly
at the senator sitting underneath him, he had the satisfaction to see
that every one was silent and listening with deep attention. He
seemed to enjoy annoying the senator, and he had the satisfaction
of seeing that the senator was visibly annoyed. Ratcliffe looked
sternly at the baron and said, with some curtness, that he saw no
reason to accept such conclusions.
Conversation flagged, and all except the baron were relieved when
Sybil, at Schneidekoupon's request, sat down at the piano to sing
what she called a hymn. So soon as the song was over, Ratcliffe,
who seemed to have been curiously thrown off his balance by
Jacobi's harangue, pleaded urgent duties at his rooms, and retired.
The others soon afterwards went off in a body, leaving only
Carrington and Gore, who had seated himself by Madeleine, and
was at once dragged by her into a discussion of the subject which
perplexed her, and for the moment threw over her mind a net of
irresistible fascination.
"The baron discomfited the senator," said Gore, with a certain
hesitation.
"Why did Ratcliffe let himself be trampled upon in that manner?"
"I wish you would explain why," replied Mrs. Lee; "tell me, Mr.
Gore--you who represent cultivation and literary taste
hereabouts--please tell me what to think about Baron Jacobi's
speech. Who and what is to be believed? Mr.
Ratcliffe seems honest and wise. Is he a corruptionist? He believes
in the people, or says he does. Is he telling the truth or not?"
Gore was too experienced in politics to be caught in such a trap as
this. He evaded the question. "Mr. Ratcliffe has a practical piece of
work to do; his business is to make laws and advise the President;
he does it extremely well. We have no other equally good practical
politician; it is unfair to require him to be a crusader besides."
"No!" interposed Carrington, curtly; "but he need not obstruct
crusades. He need not talk virtue and oppose the punishment of
vice."
"He is a shrewd practical politician," replied Gore, "and he feels
first the weak side of any proposed political tactics."
With a sigh of despair Madeleine went on: "Who, then, is right?
How can we all be right? Half of our wise men declare that the
world is going straight to perdition; the other half that it is fast
becoming perfect. Both cannot be right. There is only one thing in
life," she went on, laughing, "that I must and will have before I die.
I must know whether America is right or wrong. Just now this
question is a very practical one, for I really want to know whether
to believe in Mr. Ratcliffe. If I throw him overboard, everything
must go, for he is only a specimen."
"Why not believe in Mr. Ratcliffe?" said Gore; "I believe in him
myself, and am not afraid to say so."
Carrington, to whom Ratcliffe now began to represent the spirit of
evil, interposed here, and observed that he imagined Mr. Gore had
other guides besides, and steadier ones than Ratcliffe, to believe
in; while Madeleine, with a certain feminine perspicacity, struck at
a much weaker point in Mr.
Gore's armour, and asked point-blank whether he believed also in
what Ratcliffe represented: "Do you yourself think democracy the
best government, and universal suffrage a success?"
Mr. Gore saw himself pinned to the wall, and he turned at bay with
almost the energy of despair:
"These are matters about which I rarely talk in society; they are
like the doctrine of a personal God; of a future life; of revealed
religion; subjects which one naturally reserves for private
reflection. But since you ask for my political creed, you shall have
it. I only condition that it shall be for you alone, never to be
repeated or quoted as mine. I believe in democracy. I accept it. I
will faithfully serve and defend it. I believe in it because it appears
to me the inevitable consequence of what has gone before it.
Democracy asserts the fact that the masses are now raised to a
higher intelligence than formerly. All our civilisation aims at this
mark. We want to do what we can to help it. I myself want to see
the result. I grant it is an experiment, but it is the only direction
society can take that is worth its taking; the only conception of its
duty large enough to satisfy its instincts; the only result that is
worth an effort or a risk. Every other possible step is backward,
and I do not care to repeat the past. I am glad to see society
grapple with issues in which no one can afford to be neutral."
"And supposing your experiment fails," said Mrs. Lee; "suppose
society destroys itself with universal suffrage, corruption, and
communism."
"I wish, Mrs. Lee, you would visit the Observatory with me some
evening, and look at Sirius. Did you ever make the acquaintance of
a fixed star? I believe astronomers reckon about twenty millions of
them in sight, and an infinite possibility of invisible millions, each
one of which is a sun, like ours, and may have satellites like our
planet. Suppose you see one of these fixed stars suddenly increase
in brightness, and are told that a satellite has fallen into it and is
burning up, its career finished, its capacities exhausted? Curious,
is it not; but what does it matter? Just as much as the burning up of
a moth at your candle."
Madeleine shuddered a little. "I cannot get to the height of your
philosophy," said she. "You are wandering among the infinites,
and I am finite."
"Not at all! But I have faith; not perhaps in the old dogmas, but in
the new ones; faith in human nature; faith in science; faith in the
survival of the fittest. Let us be true to our time, Mrs. Lee! If our
age is to be beaten, let us die in the ranks. If it is to be victorious,
let us be first to lead the column. Anyway, let us not be skulkers or
grumblers. There! have I repeated my catechism correctly? You
would have it! Now oblige me by forgetting it. I should lose my
character at home if it got out. Good night!"
Mrs. Lee duly appeared at the Capitol the next day, as she could
not but do after Senator Ratcliffe's pointed request. She went
alone, for Sybil had positively refused to go near the Capitol again,
and Madeleine thought that on the whole this was not an occasion
for enrolling Carrington in her service. But Ratcliffe did not speak.
The debate was unexpectedly postponed.
He joined Mrs. Lee in the gallery, however, sat with her as long as
she would allow, and became still more confidential, telling her
that he had received the expected reply from Grimes, of North
Bend, and that it had enclosed a letter written by the
President-elect to Mr. Grimes in regard to the advances made by
Mr. Ratcliffe and his friends.
"It is not a handsome letter," said he; "indeed, a part of it is
positively insulting. I would like to read you one extract from it,
and hear your opinion as to how it should be treated." Taking the
letter from his pocket, he sought out the passage, and read as
follows: "'I cannot lose sight, too, of the consideration that these
three Senators' (he means Clinton, Krebs, and me) are popularly
considered to be the most influential members of that so-called
senatorial ring, which has acquired such general notoriety. While I
shall always receive their communications with all due respect, I
must continue to exercise complete freedom of action in
consulting other political advisers as well as these, and I must in
all cases make it my first object to follow the wishes of the people,
not always most truly represented by their nominal
representatives.' What say you to that precious piece of
presidential manners?"
"At least I like his courage," said Mrs. Lee.
"Courage is one thing; common sense is another. This letter is a
studied insult. He has knocked me off the track once. He means to
do it again. It is a declaration of war. What ought I to do?"
"Whatever is most for the public good." said Madeleine, gravely.
Ratcliffe looked into her face with such undisguised delight--there
was so little possibility of mistaking or ignoring the expression of
his eyes, that she shrank back with a certain shock. She was not
prepared for so open a demonstration. He hardened his features at
once, and went on:
"But what is most for the public good?"
"That you know better than I," said Madeleine; "only one thing is
clear to me. If you let yourself be ruled by your private feelings,
you will make a greater mistake than he. Now I must go, for I have
visits to make. The next time I come, Mr. Ratcliffe, you must keep
your word better."
When they next met, Ratcliffe read to her a part of his reply to Mr.
Grimes, which ran thus: "It is the lot of every party leader to suffer
from attacks and to commit errors. It is true, as the President says,
that I have been no exception to this law. Believing as I do that
great results can only be accomplished by great parties, I have
uniformly yielded my own personal opinions where they have
failed to obtain general assent. I shall continue to follow this
course, and the President may with perfect confidence count upon
my disinterested support of all party measures, even though I may
not be consulted in originating them."
Mrs. Lee listened attentively, and then said: "Have you never
refused to go with your party?"
"Never!" was Ratcliffe's firm reply.
Madeleine still more thoughtfully inquired again: "Is nothing more
powerful than party allegiance?"
"Nothing, except national allegiance," replied Ratcliffe, still more
firmly.
Chapter V
TO tie a prominent statesman to her train and to lead him about
like a tame bear, is for a young and vivacious woman a more
certain amusement than to tie herself to him and to be dragged
about like an Indian squaw. This fact was Madeleine Lee's first
great political discovery in Washington, and it was worth to her all
the German philosophy she had ever read, with even a complete
edition of Herbert Spencer's works into the bargain. There could be
no doubt that the honours and dignities of a public career were no
fair consideration for its pains. She made a little daily task for
herself of reading in succession the lives and letters of the
American Presidents, and of their wives, when she could find that
there was a trace of the latter's existence. What a melancholy
spectacle it was, from George Washington down to the last
incumbent; what vexations, what disappointments, what grievous
mistakes, what very objectionable manners! Not one of them, who
had aimed at high purpose, but had been thwarted, beaten, and
habitually insulted! What a gloom lay on the features of those
famous chieftains, Calhoun, Clay, and Webster; what varied
expression of defeat and unsatisfied desire; what a sense of
self-importance and senatorial magniloquence; what a craving for
flattery; what despair at the sentence of fate! And what did they
amount to, after all?
They were practical men, these! they had no great problems of
thought to settle, no questions that rose above the ordinary rules of
common morals and homely duty. How they had managed to befog
the subject! What elaborate show-structures they had built up, with
no result but to obscure the horizon! Would not the country have
done better without them? Could it have done worse? What deeper
abyss could have opened under the nation's feet, than that to whose
verge they brought it?
Madeleine's mind wearied with the monotony of the story. She
discussed the subject with Ratcliffe, who told her frankly that the
pleasure of politics lay in the possession of power. He agreed that
the country would do very well without him. "But here I am," said
he, "and here I mean to stay." He had very little sympathy for thin
moralising, and a statesmanlike contempt for philosophical
politics. He loved power, and he meant to be President.
That was enough.
Sometimes the tragic and sometimes the comic side was
uppermost in her mind, and sometimes she did not herself know
whether to cry or to laugh.
Washington more than any other city in the world swarms with
simple-minded exhibitions of human nature; men and women
curiously out of place, whom it would be cruel to ridicule and
ridiculous to weep over. The sadder exhibitions are fortunately
seldom seen by respectable people; only the little social accidents
come under their eyes. One evening Mrs. Lee went to the
President's first evening reception. As Sybil flatly refused to face
the crowd, and Carrington mildly said that he feared he was not
sufficiently reconstructed to appear at home in that august
presence, Mrs. Lee accepted Mr. French for an escort, and walked
across the Square with him to join the throng that was pouring into
the doors of the White House. They took their places in the line of
citizens and were at last able to enter the reception-room. There
Madeleine found herself before two seemingly mechanical figures,
which mlght be wood or wax, for any sign they showed of life.
These two figures were the President and his wife; they stood stiff
and awkward by the door, both their faces stripped of every sign of
intelligence, while the right hands of both extended themselves to
the column of visitors with the mechanical action of toy dolls.
Mrs. Lee for a moment began to laugh, but the laugh died on her
lips. To the President and his wife this was clearly no laughing
matter. There they stood, automata, representatives of the society
which streamed past them. Madeleine seized Mr. French by the
arm.
"Take me somewhere at once," said she, "where I can look at it.
Here! in the corner. I had no conception how shocking it was!"
Mr. French supposed she was thinking of the queer-looking men
and women who were swarming through the rooms, and he made,
after his own delicate notion of humour, some uncouth jests on
those who passed by. Mrs. Lee, however, was in no humour to
explain or even to listen. She stopped him short:--
"There, Mr. French! Now go away and leave me. I want to be
alone for half an hour. Please come for me then." And there she
stood, with her eyes fixed on the President and his wife, while the
endless stream of humanity passed them, shaking hands.
What a strange and solemn spectacle it was, and how the deadly
fascination of it burned the image in upon her mind! What a horrid
warning to ambition!
And in all that crowd there was no one besides herself who felt the
mockery of this exhibition. To all the others this task was a regular
part of the President's duty, and there was nothing ridiculous about
it. They thought it a democratic institution, this droll a ping of
monarchical forms. To them the deadly dulness of the show was as
natural and proper as ever to the courtiers of the Philips and
Charleses seemed the ceremonies of the Escurial. To her it had the
effect of a nightmare, or of an opium-eater's vision, She felt a
sudden conviction that this was to be the end of American society;
its realisation and dream at once. She groaned in spirit.
"Yes! at last I have reached the end! We shall grow to be wax
images, and our talk will be like the squeaking of toy dolls. We
shall all wander round and round the earth and shake hands. No
one will have any object in this world, and there will be no other.
It is worse than anything in the 'Inferno.' What an awful vision of
eternity!"
Suddenly, as through a mist, she saw the melancholy face of Lord
Skye approaching. He came to her side, and his voice recalled her
to reality.
"Does it amuse you, this sort of thing?" he asked in a vague way.
"We take our amusement sadly, after the manner of our people,"
she replied; "but it certainly interests me."
They stood for a time in silence, watching the slowly eddying
dance of Democracy, until he resumed:
"Whom do you take that man to be--the long, lean one, with a long
woman on each arm?"
"That man," she replied, "I take to be a Washington
department-clerk, or perhaps a member of Congress from Iowa,
with a wife and wife's sister. Do they shock your nobility?"
He looked at her with comical resignation. "You mean to tell me
that they are quite as good as dowager-countesses. I grant it. My
aristocratic spirit is broken, Mrs. Lee. I will even ask them to
dinner if you bid me, and if you will come to meet them. But the
last time I asked a member of Congress to dine, he sent me back a
note in pencil on my own envelope that he would bring two of his
friends with him, very respectable constituents from Yahoo city, or
some such place; nature's noblemen, he said."
"You should have welcomed them."
"I did. I wanted to see two of nature's noblemen, and I knew they
would probably be pleasanter company than their representative.
They came; very respectable persons, one with a blue necktie, the
other with a red one: both had diamond pins in their shirts, and
were carefully brushed in respect to their hair. They said nothing,
ate little, drank less, and were much better behaved than I am.
When they went away, they unanimously asked me to stay with
them when I visited Yahoo city."
"You will not want guests if you always do that."
"I don't know. I think it was pure ignorance on their part. They
knew no better, and they seemed modest enough. My only
complaint was that I could get nothing out of them. I wonder
whether their wives would have been more amusing."
"Would they be so in England, Lord Skye?"
He looked down at her with half-shut eyes, and drawled: "You
know my countrywomen?"
"Hardly at all."
"Then let us discuss some less serious subject."
"Willingly. I have waited for you to explain to me why you have
to-night an expression of such melancholy."
"Is that quite friendly, Mrs. Lee? Do I really look melancholy?"
"Unutterably, as I feel. I am consumed with curiosity to know the
reason."
The British minister coolly took a complete survey of the whole
room, ending with a prolonged stare at the President and his wife,
who were still mechanically shaking hands; then he looked back
into her face, and said never a word.
She insisted: "I must have this riddle answered. It suffocates me. I
should not be sad at seeing these same people at work or at play, if
they ever do play; or in a church or a lecture-room. Why do they
weigh on me like a horrid phantom here?"
"I see no riddle, Mrs. Lee. You have answered your own question;
they are neither at work nor at play."
"Then please take me home at once. I shall have hysterics. The
sight of those two suffering images at the door is too mournful to
be borne. I am dizzy with looking at these stalking figures. I don't
believe they're real.
I wish the house would take fire. I want an earthquake. I wish
some one would pinch the President, or pull his wife's hair."
Mrs. Lee did not repeat the experiment of visiting the White
House, and indeed for some time afterwards she spoke with little
enthusiasm of the presidential office. To Senator Ratcliffe she
expressed her opinions strongly. The Senator tried in vain to argue
that the people had a right to call upon their chief magistrate, and
that he was bound to receive them; this being so, there was no less
objectionable way of proceeding than the one which had been
chosen. "Who gave the people any such right?" asked Mrs.
Lee. "Where does it come from? What do they want it for? You
know better, Mr. Ratcliffe! Our chief magistrate is a citizen like
any one else. What puts it into his foolish head to cease being a
citizen and to ape royalty?
Our governors never make themselves ridiculous. Why cannot the
wretched being content himself with living like the rest of us, and
minding his own business? Does he know what a figure of fun he
is?" And Mrs. Lee went so far as to declare that she would like to
be the President's wife only to put an end to this folly; nothing
should ever induce her to go through such a performance; and if
the public did not approve of this, Congress might impeach her,
and remove her from office; all she demanded was the right to be
heard before the Senate in her own defence.
Nevertheless, there was a very general impression in Washington
that Mrs.
Lee would like nothing better than to be in the White House.
Known to comparatively few people, and rarely discussing even
with them the subjects which deeply interested her, Madeleine
passed for a clever, intriguing woman who had her own objects to
gain. True it is, beyond peradventure, that all residents of
Washington may be assumed to be in office or candidates for
office; unless they avow their object, they are guilty of an
attempt--and a stupid one--to deceive; yet there is a small class of
apparent exceptions destined at last to fall within the rule. Mrs.
Lee was properly assumed to be a candidate for office. To the
Washingtonians it was a matter of course that Mrs. Lee should
marry Silas P. Ratcliffe. That he should be glad to get a
fashionable and intelligent wife, with twenty or thirty thousand
dollars a year, was not surprising. That she should accept the first
public man of the day, with a flattering chance for the
Presidency--a man still comparatively young and not without good
looks--was perfectly natural, and in her undertaking she had the
sympathy of all well-regulated Washington women who were not
possible rivals; for to them the President's wife is of more
consequence than the President; and, indeed, if America only
knew it, they are not very far from the truth.
Some there were, however, who did not assent to this good-natured
though worldly view of the proposed match. These ladies were
severe in their comments upon Mrs. Lee's conduct, and did not
hesitate to declare their opinion that she was the calmest and most
ambitious minx who had ever come within their observation.
Unfortunately it happened that the respectable and proper Mrs.
Schuyler Clinton took this view of the case, and made little
attempt to conceal her opinion. She was justly indignant at her
cousin's gross worldliness, and possible promotion in rank.
"If Madeleine Ross marries that coarse, horrid old Illinois
politician,"
said she to her husband, "I never will forgive her so long as I live."
Mr. Clinton tried to excuse Madeleine, and even went so far as to
suggest that the difference of age was no greater than in their own
case; but his wife trampled ruthlessly on his argument.
"At any rate," said she, "I never came to Washington as a widow
on purpose to set my cap for the first candidate for the Presidency,
and I never made a public spectacle of my indecent eagerness in
the very galleries of the Senate; and Mrs. Lee ought to be ashamed
of herself. She is a cold-blooded, heartless, unfeminine cat."
Little Victoria Dare, who babbled like the winds and streams, with
utter indifference as to what she said or whom she addressed, used
to bring choice bits of this gossip to Mrs. Lee. She always affected
a little stammer when she said anything uncommonly impudent,
and put on a manner of languid simplicity. She felt keenly the
satisfaction of seeing Madeleine charged with her own besetting
sins. For years all Washington had agreed that Victoria was little
better than one of the wicked; she had done nothing but violate
every rule of propriety and scandalise every well-regulated family
in the city, and there was no good in her. Yet it could not be
denied that Victoria was amusing, and had a sort of irregular
fascination; consequently she was universally tolerated. To see
Mrs. Lee thrust down to her own level was an unmixed pleasure to
her, and she carefully repeated to Madeleine the choice bits of
dialogue which she picked up in her wanderings.
"Your cousin, Mrs. Clinton, says you are a ca-ca-cat, Mrs. Lee."
"I don't believe it, Victoria. Mrs. Clinton never said anything of the
sort."
"Mrs. Marston says it is because you have caught a ra-ra-rat, and
Senator Clinton was only a m-m-mouse!"
Naturally all this unexpected publicity irritated Mrs. Lee not a
little, especially when short and vague paragraphs, soon followed
by longer and more positive ones, in regard to Senator Ratcliffe's
matrimonial prospects, began to appear in newspapers, along with
descriptions of herself from the pens of enterprising female
correspondents for the press, who had never so much as seen her.
At the first sight of one of these newspaper articles, Madeleine
fairly cried with mortification and anger. She wanted to leave
Washington the next day, and she hated the very thought of
Ratcliffe. There was something in the newspaper style so
inscrutably vulgar, something so inexplicably revolting to the
sense of feminine decency, that she shrank under it as though it
were a poisonous spider. But after the first acute shame had
passed, her temper was roused, and she vowed that she would
pursue her own path just as she had begun, without regard to all
the malignity and vulgarity in the wide United States. She did not
care to marry Senator Ratcliffe; she liked his society and was
flattered by his confidence; she rather hoped to prevent him from
ever making a formal offer, and if not, she would at least push it
off to the last possible moment; but she was not to be frightened
from marrying him by any amount of spitefulness or gossip, and
she did not mean to refuse him except for stronger reasons than
these. She even went so far in her desperate courage as to laugh at
her cousin, Mrs.
Clinton, whose venerable husband she allowed and even
encouraged to pay her such public attention and to express
sentiments of such youthful ardour as she well knew would
inflame and exasperate the excellent lady his wife.
Carrington was the person most unpleasantly affected by the
course which this affair had taken. He could no longer conceal
from himself the fact that he was as much m love as a dignified
Virginian could be. With him, at all events, she had shown no
coquetry, nor had she ever either flattered or encouraged him. But
Carrington, m his solitary struggle against fate, had found her a
warm friend; always ready to assist where assistance was needed,
generous with her money in any cause which he was willing to
vouch for, full of sympathy where sympathy was more than
money, and full of resource and suggestion where money and
sympathy failed. Carrington knew her better than she knew herself.
He selected her books; he brought the last speech or the last report
from the Capitol or the departments; he knew her doubts and her
vagaries, and as far as he understood them at all, helped her to
solve them.
Carrington was too modest, and perhaps too shy, to act the part of
a declared lover, and he was too proud to let it be thought that he
wanted to exchange his poverty for her wealth. But he was all the
more anxious when he saw the evident attraction which Ratcliffe's
strong will and unscrupulous energy exercised over her. He saw
that Ratcliffe was steadily pushing his advances; that he flattered
all Mrs. Lee's weaknesses by the confidence and deference with
which he treated her; and that in a very short time, Madeleine must
either marry him or find herself looked upon as a heartless
coquette. He had his own reasons for thinking ill of Senator
Ratcliffe, and he meant to prevent a marriage; but he had an
enemy to deal with not easily driven from the path, and quite
capable of routing any number of rivals.
Ratcliffe was afraid of no one. He had not fought his own way in
life for nothing, and he knew all the value of a cold head and
dogged self-assurance.
Nothing but this robust Americanism and his strong will carried
him safely through the snares and pitfalls of Mrs. Lee's society,
where rivals and enemies beset him on every hand. He was little
better than a schoolboy, when he ventured on their ground, but
when he could draw them over upon his own territory of practical
life he rarely failed to trample on his assailants.
It was this practical sense and cool will that won over Mrs. Lee,
who was woman enough to assume that all the graces were well
enough employed in decorating her, and it was enough if the other
sex felt her superiority. Men were valuable only in proportion to
their strength and their appreciation of women. If the senator had
only been strong enough always to control his temper, he would
have done very well, but his temper was under a great strain in
these times, and his incessant effort to control it in politics made
him less watchful in private life. Mrs. Lee's tacit assumption of
superior refinement irritated him, and sometimes made him show
his teeth like a bull-dog, at the cost of receiving from Mrs. Lee a
quick stroke in return such as a well-bred tortoise-shell cat
administers to check over-familiarity; innocent to the eye, but
drawing blood. One evening when he was more than commonly
out of sorts, after sitting some time in moody silence, he roused
himself, and, taking up a book that lay on her table, he glanced at
its title and turned over the leaves. It happened by ill luck to be a
volume of Darwin that Mrs. Lee had just borrowed from the
library of Congress.
"Do you understand this sort of thing?" asked the Senator abruptly,
in a tone that suggested a sneer.
"Not very well," replied Mrs. Lee, rather curtly.
"Why do you want to understand it?" persisted the Senator. "What
good will it do you?"
"Perhaps it will teach us to be modest," answered Madeleine, quite
equal to the occasion.
"Because it says we descend from monkeys?" rejoined the Senator,
roughly.
"Do you think you are descended from monkeys?"
"Why not?" said Madeleine.
"Why not?" repeated Ratcliffe, laughing harshly. "I don't like the
connection. Do you mean to introduce your distant relations into
society?"
"They would bring more amusement into it than most of its present
members,"
rejoined Mrs. Lee, with a gentle smile that threatened mischief.
But Ratcliffe would not be warned; on the contrary, the only effect
of Mrs.
Lee's defiance was to exasperate his ill-temper, and whenever he
lost his temper he became senatorial and Websterian. "Such
books," he began, "disgrace our civilization; they degrade and
stultify our divine nature; they are only suited for Asiatic
despotisms where men are reduced to the level of brutes; that they
should be accepted by a man like Baron Jacobi, I can understand;
he and his masters have nothing to do in the world but to trample
on human rights. Mr. Carrington, of course, would approve those
ideas; he believes in the divine doctrine of flogging negroes; but
that you, who profess philanthropy and free principles, should go
with them, is astonishing; it is incredible; it is unworthy of you."
"You are very hard on the monkeys," replied Madeleine, rather
sternly, when the Senator's oration was ended. "The monkeys
never did you any harm; they are not in public life; they are not
even voters; if they were, you would be enthusiastic about their
intelligence and virtue. After all, we ought to be grateful to them,
for what would men do in this melancholy world if they had not
inherited gaiety from the monkeys--as well as oratory."
Ratcliffe, to do him justice, took punishment well, at least when it
came from Mrs. Lee's hands, and his occasional outbursts of
insubordination were sure to be followed by improved discipline;
but if he allowed Mrs. Lee to correct his faults, he had no notion of
letting himself be instructed by her friends, and he lost no chance
of telling them so. But to do this was not always enough. Whether
it were that he had few ideas outside of his own experience, or that
he would not trust himself on doubtful ground, he seemed
compelled to bring every discussion down to his own level.
Madeleine puzzled herself in vain to find out whether he did this
because he knew no better, or because he meant to cover his own
ignorance.
"The Baron has amused me very much with his account of
Bucharest society,"
Mrs. Lee would say: "I had no idea it was so gay."
"I would like to show him our society in Peonia," was Ratcliffe's
reply; "he would find a very brilliant circle there of nature's true
noblemen."
"The Baron says their politicians are precious sharp chaps," added
Mr.
French.
"Oh, there are politicians in Bulgaria, are there?" asked the
Senator, whose ideas of the Roumanian and Bulgarian
neighbourhood were vague, and who had a general notion that all
such people lived in tents, wore sheepskins with the wool inside,
and ate curds: "Oh, they have politicians there! I would like to see
them try their sharpness in the west."
"Really!" said Mrs. Lee. "Think of Attila and his hordes running an
Indiana caucus?"
"Anyhow," cried French with a loud laugh, "the Baron said that a
set of bigger political scoundrels than his friends couldn't be found
in all Illinois."
"Did he say that?" exclaimed Ratcliffe angrily.
"Didn't he, Mrs. Lee? but I don't believe it; do you? What's your
candid opinion, Ratcliffe? What you don't know about Illinois
politics isn't worth knowing; do you really think those Bulgrascals
couldn't run an Illinois state convention?"
Ratcliffe did not like to be chaffed, especially on this subject, but
he could not resent French's liberty which was only a moderate
return for the wooden nutmeg. To get the conversation away from
Europe, from literature, from art, was his great object, and chaff
was a way of escape.
Carrington was very well aware that the weak side of the Senator
lay in his blind ignorance of morals. He flattered himself that Mrs.
Lee must see this and be shocked by it sooner or later, so that
nothing more was necessary than to let Ratcliffe expose himself.
Without talking very much, Carrington always aimed at drawing
him out. He soon found, however, that Ratcliffe understood such
tactics perfectly, and instead of injuring, he rather improved his
position. At times the man's audacity was startling, and even when
Carrington thought him hopelessly entangled, he would sweep
away all the hunter's nets with a sheer effort of strength, and walk
off bolder and more dangerous than ever.
When Mrs. Lee pressed him too closely, he frankly admitted her
charges.
"What you say is in great part true. There is much in politics that
disgusts and disheartens; much that is coarse and bad. I grant you
there is dishonesty and corruption. We must try to make the
amount as small as possible."
"You should be able to tell Mrs. Lee how she must go to work,"
said Carrington; "you have had experience. I have heard, it seems
to me, that you were once driven to very hard measures against
corruption."
Ratcliffe looked ill-pleased at this compliment, and gave
Carrington one of his cold glances that meant mischief. But he
took up the challenge on the spot:--
"Yes, I was, and am very sorry for it. The story is this, Mrs. Lee;
and it is well-known to every man, woman, and child in the State
of Illinois, so that I have no reason for softening it. In the worst
days of the war there was almost a certainty that my State would
be carried by the peace party, by fraud, as we thought, although,
fraud or not, we were bound to save it. Had Illinois been lost then,
we should certainly have lost the Presidential election, and with it
probably the Union. At any rate, I believed the fate of the war to
depend on the result. I was then Governor, and upon me the
responsibility rested. We had entire control of the northern
counties and of their returns. We ordered the returning officers in a
certain number of counties to make no returns until they heard
from us, and when we had received the votes of all the southern
counties and learned the precise number of votes we needed to
give us a majority, we telegraphed to our northern returning
officers to make the vote of their districts such and such, thereby
overbalancing the adverse returns and giving the State to us.
This was done, and as I am now senator I have a right to suppose
that what I did was approved. I am not proud of the transaction,
but I would do it again, and worse than that, if I thought it would
save this country from disunion. But of course I did not expect Mr.
Carrington to approve it. I believe he was then carrying out his
reform principles by bearing arms against the government."
"Yes!" said Carrington drily; "you got the better of me, too. Like
the old Scotchman, you didn't care who made the people's wars
provided you made its ballots.
Carrington had missed his point. The man who has committed a
murder for his country, is a patriot and not an assassin, even when
he receives a seat in the Senate as his share of the plunder. Women
cannot be expected to go behind the motives of that patriot who
saves his country and his election in times of revolution.
Carrington's hostility to Ratcliffe was, however, mild, when
compared with that felt by old Baron Jacobi. Why the baron should
have taken so violent a prejudice it is not easy to explain, but a
diplomatist and a senator are natural enemies, and Jacobi, as an
avowed admirer of Mrs. Lee, found Ratcliffe in his way. This
prejudiced and immoral old diplomatist despised and loathed an
American senator as the type which, to his bleared European eyes,
combined the utmost pragmatical self-assurance and overbearing
temper with the narrowest education and the meanest personal
experience that ever existed in any considerable government. As
Baron Jacobi's country had no special relations with that of the
United States, and its Legation at Washington was a mere job to
create a place for Jacobi to fill, he had no occasion to disguise his
personal antipathies, and he considered himself in some degree as
having a mission to express that diplomatic contempt for the
Senate which his colleagues, if they felt it, were obliged to
conceal. He performed his duties with conscientious precision. He
never missed an opportunity to thrust the sharp point of his
dialectic rapier through the joints of the clumsy and hide-bound
senatorial self-esteem. He delighted in skilfully exposing to
Madeleine's eyes some new side of Ratcliffe's ignorance. His
conversation at such times sparkled with historical allusions,
quotations in half a dozen different languages, references to
well-known facts which an old man's memory could not recall
with precision in all their details, but with which the Honourable
Senator was familiarly acquainted, and which he could readily
supply. And his Voltairian face leered politely as he listened to
Ratcliffe's reply, which showed invariable ignorance of common
literature, art, and history. The climax of his triumph came one
evening when Ratcliffe unluckily, tempted by some allusion to
Molière which he thought he understood, made reference to the
unfortunate influence of that great man on the religious opinions
of his time. Jacobi, by a flash of inspiration, divined that he had
confused Molière with Voltaire, and assuming a manner of
extreme suavity, he put his victim on the rack, and tortured him
with affected explanations and interrogations, until Madeleine was
in a manner forced to interrupt and end the scene. But even when
the senator was not to be lured into a trap, he could not escape
assault. The baron in such a case would cross the lines and attack
him on his own ground, as on one occasion, when Ratcliffe was
defending his doctrine of party allegiance, Jacobi silenced him by
sneering somewhat thus:
"Your principle is quite correct, Mr. Senator. I, too, like yourself,
was once a good party man: my party was that of the Church; I was
ultramontane.
Your party system is one of your thefts from our Church; your
National Convention is our OEcumenic Council; you abdicate
reason, as we do, before its decisions; and you yourself, Mr.
Ratcliffe, you are a Cardinal. They are able men, those cardinals; I
have known many; they were our best friends, but they were not
reformers. Are you a reformer, Mr. Senator?"
Ratcliffe grew to dread and hate the old man, but all his ordinary
tactics were powerless against this impenetrable eighteenth
century cynic. If he resorted to his Congressional practise of
browbeating and dogmatism, the Baron only smiled and turned his
back, or made some remark in French which galled his enemy all
the more, because, while he did not understand it, he knew well
that Madeleine did, and that she tried to repress her smile.
Ratcliffe's grey eyes grew colder and stonier than ever as he
gradually perceived that Baron Jacobi was carrying on a set
scheme with malignant ingenuity, to drive him out of Madeleine's
house, and he swore a terrible oath that he would not be beaten by
that monkey-faced foreigner. On the other hand Jacobi had little
hope of success: "What can an old man do?" said he with perfect
sincerity to Carrington; "If I were forty years younger, that great
oaf should not have his own way. Ah! I wish I were young again
and we were in Vienna!" From which it was rightly inferred by
Carrington that the venerable diplomatist would, if such acts were
still in fashion, have coolly insulted the Senator, and put a bullet
through his heart.
Chapter VI
IN February the weather became warmer and summer-like. In
Virginia there comes often at this season a deceptive gleam of
summer, slipping in between heavy storm-clouds of sleet and
snow; days and sometimes weeks when the temperature is like
June; when the earliest plants begin to show their hardy flowers,
and when the bare branches of the forest trees alone protest against
the conduct of the seasons. Then men and women are languid; life
seems, as in Italy, sensuous and glowing with colour; one is
conscious of walking in an atmosphere that is warm, palpable,
radiant with possibilities; a delicate haze hangs over Arlington,
and softens even the harsh white glare of the Capitol; the struggle
of existence seems to abate; Lent throws its calm shadow over
society; and youthful diplomatists, unconscious of their danger, are
lured into asking foolish girls to marry them; the blood thaws in
the heart and flows out into the veins, like the rills of sparkling
water that trickle from every lump of ice or snow, as though all the
ice and snow on earth, and all the hardness of heart, all the heresy
and schism, all the works of the devil, had yielded to the force of
love and to the fresh warmth of innocent, lamb-like, confiding
virtue. In such a world there should be no guile--but there is a great
deal of it notwithstanding. Indeed, at no other season is there so
much. This is the moment when the two whited sepulchres at
either end of the Avenue reek with the thick atmosphere of bargain
and sale. The old is going; the new is coming. Wealth, office,
power are at auction. Who bids highest? who hates with most
venom? who intrigues with most skill? who has done the dirtiest,
the meanest, the darkest, and the most, political work? He shall
have his reward.
Senator Ratcliffe was absorbed and ill at ease. A swarm of
applicants for office dogged his steps and beleaguered his rooms in
quest of his endorsement of their paper characters. The new
President was to arrive on Monday. Intrigues and combinations, of
which the Senator was the soul, were all alive, awaiting this
arrival. Newspaper correspondents pestered him with questions.
Brother senators called him to conferences. His mind was
pre-occupied with his own interests. One might have supposed
that, at this instant, nothing could have drawn him away from the
political gaming-table, and yet when Mrs. Lee remarked that she
was going to Mount Vernon on Saturday with a little party,
including the British Minister and an Irish gentleman staying as a
guest at the British Legation, the Senator surprised her by
expressing a strong wish to join them. He explained that, as the
political lead was no longer in his hands, the chances were nine in
ten that if he stirred at all he should make a blunder; that his
friends expected him to do something when, in fact, nothing could
be done; that every preparation had already been made, and that
for him to go on an excursion to Mount Vernon, at this moment,
with the British Minister, was, on the whole, about the best use he
could make of his time, since it would hide him for one day at
least.
Lord Skye had fallen into the habit of consulting Mrs. Lee when
his own social resources were low, and it was she who had
suggested this party to Mount Vernon, with Carrington for a guide
and Mr. Gore for variety, to occupy the time of the Irish friend
whom Lord Skye was bravely entertaining.
This gentleman, who bore the title of Dunbeg, was a dilapidated
peer, neither wealthy nor famous. Lord Skye brought him to call
on Mrs. Lee, and in some sort put him under her care. He was
young, not ill-looking, quite intelligent, rather too fond of facts,
and not quick at humour. He was given to smiling in a deprecatory
way, and when he talked, he was either absent or excited; he made
vague blunders, and then smiled in deprecation of offence, or his
words blocked their own path in their rush. Perhaps his manner
was a little ridiculous, but he had a good heart, a good head, and a
title. He found favour in the eyes of Sybil and Victoria Dare, who
declined to admit other women to the party, although they offered
no objection to Mr.
Ratcliffe's admission. As for Lord Dunbeg, he was an enthusiastic
admirer of General Washington, and, as he privately intimated,
eager to study phases of American society. He was delighted to go
with a small party, and Miss Dare secretly promised herself that
she would show him a phase.
The morning was warm, the sky soft, the little steamer lay at the
quiet wharf with a few negroes lazily watching her preparations for
departure.
Carrington, with Mrs. Lee and the young ladies, arrived first, and
stood leaning against the rail, waiting the arrival of their
companions. Then came Mr. Gore, neatly attired and gloved, with
a light spring overcoat; for Mr.
Gore was very careful of his personal appearance, and not a little
vain of his good looks. Then a pretty woman, with blue eyes and
blonde hair, dressed in black, and leading a little girl by the hand,
came on board, and Carrington went to shake hands with her. On
his return to Mrs. Lee's side, she asked about his new
acquaintance, and he replied with a half-laugh, as though he were
not proud of her, that she was a client, a pretty widow, well known
in Washington. "Any one at the Capitol would tell you all about
her.
She was the wife of a noted lobbyist, who died about two years
ago.
Congressmen can refuse nothing to a pretty face, and she was their
idea of feminine perfection. Yet she is a silly little woman, too.
Her husband died after a very short illness, and, to my great
surprise, made me executor under his will. I think he had an idea
that he could trust me with his papers, which were important and
compromising, for he seems to have had no time to go over them
and destroy what were best out of the way. So, you see, I am left
with his widow and child to look after. Luckily, they are well
provided for."
"Still you have not told me her name." "Her name is Baker--Mrs.
Sam Baker. But they are casting off, and Mr.
Ratcliffe will be left behind. I'll ask the captain to wait." About a
dozen passengers had arrived, among them the two Earls, with a
footman carrying a promising lunch-basket, and the planks were
actually hauled in when a carriage dashed up to the whatf, and Mr.
Ratcliffe leaped out and hurried on board. "Off with you as quick
as you can!" said he to the negro-hands, and in another moment the
little steamer had begun her journey, pounding the muddy waters
of the Potomac and sending up its small column of smoke as
though it were a newly invented incense-burner approaching the
temple of the national deity. Ratcliffe explained in great glee how
he had barely managed to escape his visitors by telling them that
the British Minister was waiting for him, and that he would be
back again presently. "If they had known where I was going," said
he, "you would have seen the boat swamped with office-seekers.
Illinois alone would have brought you to a watery grave." He was
in high spirits, bent upon enjoying his holiday, and as they passed
the arsenal with its solitary sentry, and the navy-yard, with its one
unseaworthy wooden war-steamer, he pointed out these evidences
of national grandeur to Lord Skye, threatening, as the last terror of
diplomacy, to send him home in an American frigate. They were
thus indulging in senatorial humour on one side of the boat, while
Sybil and Victoria, with the aid of Mr. Gore and Carrington, were
improving Lord Dunbeg's mind on the other.
Miss Dare, finding for herself at last a convenient seat where she
could repose and be mistress of the situation, put on a more than
usually demure expression and waited with gravity until her noble
neighbour should give her an opportunity to show those powers
which, as she believed, would supply a phase in his existence.
Miss Dare was one of those young persons, sometimes to be found
in America, who seem to have no object in life, and while
apparently devoted to men, care nothing about them, but find
happiness only in violating rules; she made no parade of whatever
virtues she had, and her chief pleasure was to make fun of all the
world and herself.
"What a noble river!" remarked Lord Dunbeg, as the boat passed
out upon the wide stream; "I suppose you often sail on it?"
"I never was here in my life till now," replied the untruthful Miss
Dare; "we don't think much of it; it s too small; we're used to so
much larger rivers."
"I am afraid you would not like our English rivers then; they are
mere brooks compared with this."
"Are they indeed?" said Victoria, with an appearance of vague
surprise; "how curious! I don't think I care to be an Englishwoman
then. I could not live without big rivers."
Lord Dunbeg stared, and hinted that this was almost unreasonable.
"Unless I were a Countess!" continued Victoria, meditatively,
looking at Alexandria, and paying no attention to his lordship; "I
think I could manage if I were a C-c-countess. It is such a pretty
title!"
"Duchess is commonly thought a prettier one," stammered
Dunbeg, much embarrassed. The young man was not used to chaff
from women.
"I should be satisfied with Countess. It sounds well. I am surprised
that you don't like it." Dunbeg looked about him uneasily for some
means of escape but he was barred in. "I should think you would
feel an awful responsibility in selecting a Countess. How do you
do it?"
Lord Dunbeg nervously joined in the general laughter as Sybil
ejaculated:
"Oh, Victoria!" but Miss Dare continued without a smile or any
elevation of her monotonous voice:
"Now, Sybil, don't interrupt me, please. I am deeply interested in
Lord Dunbeg's conversation. He understands that my interest is
purely scientific, but my happiness requires that I should know
how Countesses are selected.
Lord Dunbeg, how would you recommend a friend to choose a
Countess?"
Lord Dunbeg began to be amused by her impudence, and he even
tried to lay down for her satisfaction one or two rules for selecting
Countesses, but long before he had invented his first rule, Victoria
had darted off to a new subject.
"Which would you rather be, Lord Dunbeg? an Earl or George
Washington?"
"George Washington, certainly," was the Earl's courteous though
rather bewildered reply.
"Really?" she asked with a languid affectation of surprise; "it is
awfully kind of you to say so, but of course you can't mean it.
"Indeed I do mean it."
"Is it possible? I never should have thought it."
"Why not, Miss Dare?"
"You have not the air of wishing to be George Washington."
"May I again ask, why not?"
"Certainly. Did you ever see George Washington?"
"Of course not. He died fifty years before I was born."
"I thought so. You see you don't know him. Now, will you give us
an idea of what you imagine General Washington to have looked
like?"
Dunbeg gave accordingly a flattering description of General
Washington, compounded of Stuart's portrait and Greenough's
statue of Olympian Jove with Washington's features, in the Capitol
Square. Miss Dare listened with an expression of superiority not
unmlxed with patience, and then she enlightened him as follows:
"All you have been saying is perfect stuff--excuse the vulgarity of
the expression. When I am a Countess I will correct my language.
The truth is that General Washington was a raw-boned country
farmer, very hard-featured, very awkward, very illiterate and very
dull; very bad tempered, very profane, and generally tipsy after
dinner."
"You shock me, Miss Dare!" exclaimed Dunbeg.
"Oh! I know all about General Washington. My grandfather knew
him intimately, and often stayed at Mount Vernon for weeks
together. You must not believe what you read, and not a word of
what Mr. Carrington will say.
He is a Virginian and will tell you no end of fine stories and not a
syllable of truth in one of them. We are all patriotic about
Washington and like to hide his faults. If I weren't quite sure you
would never repeat it, I would not tell you this. The truth is that
even when George Washington was a small boy, his temper was so
violent that no one could do anything with him. He once cut down
all his father's fruit-trees in a fit of passion, and then, just because
they wanted to flog him, he threatened to brain his father with the
hatchet. His aged wife suffered agonies from him. My grandfather
often told me how he had seen the General pinch and swear at her
till the poor creature left the room in tears; and how once at Mount
Vernon he saw Washington, when quite an old man, suddenly rush
at an unoffending visitor, and chase him off the place, beating him
all the time over the head with a great stick with knots in it, and all
just because he heard the poor man stammer; he never could abide
s-s-stammering."
Carrington and Gore burst into shouts of laughter over this
description of the Father of his country, but Victoria continued in
her gentle drawl to enlighten Lord Dunbeg in regard to other
subjects with information equally mendacious, until he decided
that she was quite the most eccentric person he had ever met. The
boat arrived at Mount Vernon while she was still engaged in a
description of the society and manners of America, and especially
of the rules which made an offer of marriage necessary. According
to her, Lord Dunbeg was in imminent peril; gentlemen, and
especially foreigners, were expected, in all the States south of the
Potomac, to offer themselves to at least one young lady in every
city: "and I had only yesterday," said Victoria, "a letter from a
lovely girl in North Carolina, a dear friend of mine, who wrote me
that she was right put out because her brothers had called on a
young English visitor with shot guns, and she was afraid he
wouldn't recover, and, after all, she says she should have refused
him."
Meanwhile Madeleine, on the other side of the boat, undisturbed
by the laughter that surrounded Miss Dare, chatted soberly and
seriously with Lord Skye and Senator Ratcliffe. Lord Skye, too, a
little intoxicated by the brilliancy of the morning, broke out into
admiration of the noble river, and accused Americans of not
appreciating the beauties of their own country.
"Your national mind," said he, "has no eyelids. It requires a broad
glare and a beaten road. It prefers shadows which you can cut out
with a knife. It doesn't know the beauty of this Virginia winter
softness."
Mrs. Lee resented the charge. America, she maintained, had not
worn her feelings threadbare like Europe. She had still her story to
tell; she was waiting for her Burns and Scott, her Wordsworth and
Byron, her Hogarth and Turner. "You want peaches in spring," said
she. "Give us our thousand years of summer, and then complain, if
you please, that our peach is not as mellow as yours. Even our
voices may be soft then," she added, with a significant look at Lord
Skye.
"We are at a disadvantage in arguing with Mrs. Lee," said he to
Ratcliffe; "when she ends as counsel, she begins as witness. The
famous Duchess of Devonshire's lips were not half as convincing
as Mrs. Lee's voice."
Ratcliffe listened carefully, assenting whenever he saw that Mrs.
Lee wished it. He wished he understood precisely what tones and
half-tones, colours and harmonies, were.
They arrived and strolled up the sunny path. At the tomb they
halted, as all good Americans do, and Mr. Gore, in a tone of
subdued sorrow, delivered a short address--
"It might be much worse if they improved it," he said, surveying its
proportions with the ?sthetic eye of a cultured Bostonian. "As it
stands, this tomb is a simple misfortune which might befall any of
us; we should not grieve over it too much. What would our
feelings be if a Congressional committee reconstructed it of white
marble with Gothic pepper-pots, and gilded it inside on
machine-moulded stucco!"
Madeleine, however, insisted that the tomb, as it stood, was the
only restless spot about the quiet landscape, and that it
contradicted all her ideas about repose in the grave. Ratcliffe
wondered what she meant.
They passed on, wandering across the lawn, and through the house.
Their eyes, weary of the harsh colours and forms of the city, took
pleasure in the worn wainscots and the stained walls. Some of the
rooms were still occupied; fires were burning in the wide
fire-places. All were tolerably furnished, and there was no
uncomfortable sense of repair or newness. They mounted the
stairs, and Mrs. Lee fairly laughed when she was shown the room
in which General Washington slept, and where he died.
Carrington smiled too. "Our old Virginia houses were mostly like
this," said he; "suites of great halls below, and these gaunt barracks
above. The Virginia house was a sort of hotel. When there was a
race or a wedding, or a dance, and the house was full, they thought
nothing of packing half a dozen people in one room, and if the
room was large, they stretched a sheet a cross to separate the men
from the women. As for toilet, those were not the mornings of cold
baths. With our ancestors a little washing went a long way."
"Do you still live so in Virginia?" asked Madeleine.
"Oh no, it is quite gone. We live now like other country people,
and try to pay our debts, which that generation never did. They
lived from hand to mouth. They kept a stable-full of horses. The
young men were always riding about the country, betting on
horse-races, gambling, drinking, fighting, and making love. No one
knew exactly what he was worth until the crash came about fifty
years ago, and the whole thing ran out."
"Just what happened in Ireland!" said Lord Dunbeg, much
interested and full of his article in the Quarterly; "the resemblance
is perfect, even down to the houses."
Mrs. Lee asked Carrington bluntly whether he regretted the
destruction of this old social arrangement.
"One can't help regretting," said he, "whatever it was that produced
George Washington, and a crowd of other men like him. But I
think we might produce the men still if we had the same field for
them."
"And would you bring the old society back again if you could?"
asked she.
"What for? It could not hold itself up. General Washington himself
could not save it. Before he died he had lost his hold on Virginia,
and his power was gone."
The party for a while separated, and Mrs. Lee found herself alone
in the great drawing-room. Presently the blonde Mrs. Baker
entered, with her child, who ran about making more noise than
Mrs. Washington would have permitted.
Madeleine, who had the usual feminine love of children, called the
girl to her and pointed out the shepherds and shepherdesses carved
on the white Italian marble of the fireplace; she invented a little
story about them to amuse the child, while the mother stood by and
at the end thanked the story-teller with more enthusiasm than
seemed called for. Mrs. Lee did not fancy her effusive manner, or
her complexion, and was glad when Dunbeg appeared at the
doorway.
"How do you like General Washington at home?" asked she.
"Really, I assure you I feel quite at home myself," replied Dunbeg,
with a more beaming smile than ever. "I am sure General
Washington was an Irishman.
I know it from the look of the place. I mean to look it up and write
an article about it."
"Then if you have disposed of him," said Madeleine, "I think we
will have luncheon, and I have taken the liberty to order it to be
served outside."
There a table had been improvised, and Miss Dare was inspecting
the lunch, and making comments upon Lord Skye's cuisine and
cellar.
"I hope it is very dry champagne," said she, "the taste for sweet
champagne is quite awfully shocking."
The young woman knew no more about dry and sweet champagne
than of the wine of Ulysses, except that she drank both with equal
satisfaction, but she was mimicking a Secretary of the British
Legation who had provided her with supper at her last evening
party. Lord Skye begged her to try it, which she did, and with great
gravity remarked that it was about five per cent. she presumed.
This, too, was caught from her Secretary, though she knew no
more what it meant than if she had been a parrot.
The luncheon was very lively and very good. When it was over, the
gentlemen were allowed to smoke, and conversation fell into a
sober strain, which at last threatened to become serious.
"You want half-tones!" said Madeleine to Lord Skye: "are there not
half-tones enough to suit you on the walls of this house?"
Lord Skye suggested that this was probably owing to the fact that
Washington, belonging, as he did, to the universe, was in his taste
an exception to local rules.
"Is not the sense of rest here captivating?" she continued. "Look at
that quaint garden, and this ragged lawn, and the great river in
front, and the superannuated fort beyond the river! Everything is
peaceful, even down to the poor old General's little bed-room. One
would like to lie down in it and sleep a century or two. And yet
that dreadful Capitol and its office-seekers are only ten miles off."
"No! that is more than I can bear!" broke in Miss Victoria in a
stage whisper, "that dreadful Capitol! Why, not one of us would be
here without that dreadful Capitol! except, perhaps, myself."
"You would appear very well as Mrs. Washington, Victoria."
"Miss Dare has been so very obliging as to give us her views of
General Washington's character this morning," said Dunbeg, "but I
have not yet had time to ask Mr. Carrington for his."
"Whatever Miss Dare says is valuable," replied Carrington, "but
her strong point is facts."
"Never flatter! Mr. Carrington," drawled Miss Dare; "I do not need
it, and it does not become your style. Tell me, Lord Dunbeg, is not
Mr. Carrington a little your idea of General Washington restored to
us in his prime?"
"After your account of General Washington, Miss Dare, how can I
agree with you?"
"After all," said Lord Skye, "I think we must agree that Miss Dare
is in the main right about the charms of Mount Vernon. Even Mrs.
Lee, on the way up, agreed that the General, who is the only
permanent resident here, has the air of being confoundedly bored
in his tomb. I don't myself love your dreadful Capitol yonder, but I
prefer it to a bucolic life here. And I account in this way for my
want of enthusiasm for your great General. He liked no kind of life
but this. He seems to have been greater in the character of a
home-sick Virginia planter than as General or President. I forgive
him his inordinate dulness, for he was not a diplomatist and it was
not his business to lie, but he might once in a way have forgotten
Mount Vernon."
Dunbeg here burst in with an excited protest; all his words seemed
to shove each other aside in their haste to escape first. "All our
greatest Englishmen have been home-sick country squires. I am a
home-sick country squire myself."
"How interesting!" said Miss Dare under her breath.
Mr. Gore here joined in: "It is all very well for you gentlemen to
measure General Washington according to your own private
twelve-inch carpenter's rule. But what will you say to us New
Englanders who never were country gentlemen at all, and never
had any liking for Virginia? What did Washington ever do for us?
He never even pretended to like us. He never was more than barely
civil to us. I'm not finding fault with him; everybody knows that he
never cared for anything but Mount Vernon. For all that, we
idolize him. To us he is Morality, Justice, Duty, Truth; half a
dozen Roman gods with capital letters. He is austere, solitary,
grand; he ought to be deified. I hardly feel easy, eating, drinking,
smoking here on his portico without his permission, taking
liberties with his house, criticising his bedrooms in his absence.
Suppose I heard his horse now trotting up on the other side, and he
suddenly appeared at this door and looked at us. I should abandon
you to his indignation. I should run away and hide myself on the
steamer. The mere thought unmans me."
Ratcliffe seemed amused at Gore's half-serious notions. "You
recall to me,"
said he, "my own feelings when I was a boy and was made by my
father to learn the Farewell Address by heart. In those days
General Washington was a sort of American Jehovah. But the
West is a poor school for Reverence. Since coming to Congress I
have learned more about General Washington, and have been
surprised to find what a narrow base his reputation rests on. A fair
military officer, who made many blunders, and who never had
more men than would make a full army-corps under his command,
he got an enormous reputation in Europe because he did not make
himself king, as though he ever had a chance of doing it. A
respectable, painstaking President, he was treated by the
Opposition with an amount of deference that would have made
government easy to a baby, but it worried him to death. His official
papers are fairly done, and contain good average sense such as a
hundred thousand men in the United States would now write. I
suspect that half of his attachment to this spot rose from his
consciousness of inferior powers and his dread of responsibility.
This government can show to-day a dozen men of equal abilities,
but we don't deify them. What I most wonder at in him is not his
military or political genius at all, for I doubt whether he had much,
but a curious Yankee shrewdness in money matters. He thought
himself a very rich man, yet he never spent a dollar foolishly. He
was almost the only Virginian I ever heard of, in public life, who
did not die insolvent."
During this long speech, Carrington glanced across at Madeleine,
and caught her eye. Ratcliffe's criticism was not to her taste.
Carrington could see that she thought it unworthy of him, and he
knew that it would irritate her.
"I will lay a little trap for Mr. Ratcliffe," thought he to himself;
"we will see whether he gets out of it." So Carrington began, and
all listened closely, for, as a Virginian, he was supposed to know
much about the subject, and his family had been deep in the
confidence of Washington himself.
"The neighbours hereabout had for many years, and may have still,
some curious stories about General Washington's closeness in
money matters. They said he never bought anything by weight but
he had it weighed over again, nor by tale but he had it counted, and
if the weight or number were not exact, he sent it back. Once,
during his absence, his steward had a room plastered, and paid the
plasterer's bill. On the General's return, he measured the room, and
found that the plasterer had charged fifteen shillings too much.
Meanwhile the man had died, and the General made a claim of
fifteen shillings on his estate, which was paid. Again, one of his
tenants brought him the rent. The exact change of fourpence was
required.
The man tendered a dollar, and asked the General to credit him
with the balance against the next year's rent. The General refused
and made him ride nine miles to Alexandria and back for the
fourpence. On the other hand, he sent to a shoemaker in
Alexandria to come and measure him for shoes. The man returned
word that he did not go to any one's house to take measures, and
the General mounted his horse and rode the nine miles to him. One
of his rules was to pay at taverns the same sum for his servants'
meals as for his own. An inn-keeper brought him a bill of
three-and-ninepence for his own breakfast, and three shillings for
his servant. He insisted upon adding the extra ninepence, as he did
not doubt that the servant had eaten as much as he. What do you
say to these anecdotes? Was this meanness or not?"
Ratcliffe was amused. "The stories are new to me," he said. "It is
just as I thought. These are signs of a man who thinks much of
trifles; one who fusses over small matters. We don't do things in
that way now that we no longer have to get crops from granite, as
they used to do in New Hampshire when I was a boy."
Carrington replied that it was unlucky for Virginians that they had
not done things in that way then: if they had, they would not have
gone to the dogs.
Gore shook his head seriously; "Did I not tell you so?" said he.
"Was not this man an abstract virtue? I give you my word I stand in
awe before him, and I feel ashamed to pry into these details of his
life. What is it to us how he thought proper to apply his principles
to nightcaps and feather dusters? We are not his body servants, and
we care nothing about his infirmities. It is enough for us to know
that he carried his rules of virtue down to a pin's point, and that we
ought, one and all, to be on our knees before his tomb."
Dunbeg, pondering deeply, at length asked Carrington whether all
this did not make rather a clumsy politician of the father of his
country.
"Mr. Ratcliffe knows more about politics than I. Ask him," said
Carrington.
"Washington was no politician at all, as we understand the word,"
replied Ratcliffe abruptly. "He stood outside of politics. The thing
couldn't be done to-day. The people don't like that sort of royal
airs."
"I don't understand!" said Mrs. Lee. "Why could you not do it
now?"
"Because I should make a fool of myself;" replied Ratcliffe,
pleased to think that Mrs. Lee should put him on a level with
Washington. She had only meant to ask why the thing could not be
done, and this little touch of Ratcliffe's vanity was inimitable.
"Mr. Ratcliffe means that Washington was too respectable for our
time,"
interposed Carrington.
This was deliberately meant to irritate Ratcliffe, and it did so all
the more because Mrs. Lee turned to Carrington, and said, with
some bitterness:
"Was he then the only honest public man we ever had?"
"Oh no!" replied Carrington cheerfully; "there have been one or
two others."
"If the rest of our Presidents had been like him," said Gore, "we
should have had fewer ugly blots on our short history."
Ratcliffe was exasperated at Carrington's habit of drawing
discussion to this point. He felt the remark as a personal insult, and
he knew it to be intended. "Public men," he broke out, "cannot be
dressing themselves to-day in Washington's old clothes. If
Washington were President now, he would have to learn our ways
or lose his next election. Only fools and theorists imagine that our
society can be handled with gloves or long poles. One must make
one's self a part of it. If virtue won't answer our purpose, we must
use vice, or our opponents will put us out of office, and this was as
true in Washington's day as it is now, and always will be."
"Come," said Lord Skye, who was beginning to fear an open
quarrel; "the conversation verges on treason, and I am accredited
to this government. Why not examine the grounds?"
A kind of natural sympathy led Lord Dunbeg to wander by the side
of Miss Dare through the quaint old garden. His mind being much
occupied by the effort of stowing away the impressions he had just
received, he was more than usually absent in his manner, and this
want of attention irritated the young lady. She made some
comments on flowers; she invented some new species with
startling names; she asked whether these were known in Ireland;
but Lord Dunbeg was for the moment so vague in his answers that
she saw her case was perilous.
"Here is an old sun-dial. Do you have sun-dials in Ireland, Lord
Dunbeg?"
"Yes; oh, certainly! What! sun-dials? Oh, yes! I assure you there
are a great many sun-dials in Ireland, Miss Dare."
"I am so glad. But I suppose they are only for ornament. Here it is
just the other way. Look at this one! they all behave like that. The
wear and tear of our sun is too much for them; they don't last. My
uncle, who has a place at Long Branch, had five sun-dials in ten
years."
"How very odd! But really now, Miss Dare, I don't see how a
sun--dial could wear out."
"Don't you? How strange! Don't you see, they get soaked with
sunshine so that they can't hold shadow. It's like me, you know. I
have such a good time all the time that I can't be unhappy. Do you
ever read the Burlington Hawkeye, Lord Dunbeg?"
"I don't remember; I think not. Is it an American serial?" gasped
Dunbeg, trying hard to keep pace with Miss Dare in her reckless
dashes across country.
"No, not serial at all!" replied Virginia; "but I am afraid you would
find it very hard reading. I shouldn't try."
"Do you read it much, Miss Dare?"
"Oh, always! I am not really as light as I seem. But then I have an
advantage over you because I know the language."
By this time Dunbeg was awake again, and Miss Dare, satisfied
with her success, allowed herself to become more reasonable, until
a slight shade of sentiment began to flicker about their path.
The scattered party, however, soon had to unite again. The boat
rang its bell for return, they filed down the paths and settled
themselves in their old places. As they steamed away, Mrs. Lee
watched the sunny hill-side and the peaceful house above, until she
could see them no more, and the longer she looked, the less she
was pleased with herself. Was it true, as Victoria Dare said, that
she could not live in so pure an air? Did she really need the denser
fumes of the city? Was she, unknown to herself; gradually
becoming tainted with the life about her? or was Ratcliffe right in
accepting the good and the bad together, and in being of his time
since he was in it? Why was it, she said bitterly to herself; that
everything Washington touched, he purified, even down to the
associations of his house?
and why is it that everything we touch seems soiled? Why do I feel
unclean when I look at Mount Vernon? In spite of Mr. Ratcliffe, is
it not better to be a child and to cry for the moon and stars?
The little Baker girl came up to her where she stood, and began
playing with her parasol.
"Who is your little friend?" asked Ratcliffe.
Mrs. Lee rather vaguely replied that she was the daughter of that
pretty woman in black; she believed her name was Baker.
"Baker, did you say?" repeated Ratcliffe.
"Baker--Mrs. Sam Baker; at least so Mr. Carrington told me; he
said she was a client of his."
In fact Ratcliffe soon saw Carrington go up to her and remain by
her side during the rest of the trip. Ratcliffe watched them sharply
and grew more and more absorbed in his own thoughts as the boat
drew nearer and nearer the shore.
Carrington was in high spirits. He thought he had played his cards
with unusual success. Even Miss Dare deigned to acknowledge his
charms that day.
She declared herself to be the moral image of Martha Washington,
and she started a discussion whether Carrington or Lord Dunbeg
would best suit her in the r?le of the General.
"Mr. Carrington is exemplary," she said, "but oh, what joy to be
Martha Washington and a Countess too!"
Chapter VII
WHEN he reached his rooms that afternoon, Senator Ratcliffe
found there, as he expected, a choice company of friends and
admirers, who had beguiled their leisure hours since noon by
cursing him in every variety of profane language that experience
could suggest and impatience stimulate. On his part, had he
consulted his own feelings only, he would then and there have
turned them out, and locked the doors behind them. So far as silent
maledictions were concerned, no profanity of theirs could hold its
own against the intensity and deliberation with which, as he found
himself approaching his own door, he expressed between his teeth
his views in respect to their eternal interests. Nothing could be less
suited to his present humour than the society which awaited him in
his rooms. He groaned in spirit as he sat down at his writing-table
and looked about him. Dozens of office-seekers were besieging the
house; men whose patriotic services in the last election called
loudly for recognition from a grateful country.
They brought their applications to the Senator with an entreaty that
he would endorse and take charge of them. Several members and
senators who felt that Ratcliffe had no reason for existence except
to fight their battle for patronage, were lounging about his room,
reading newspapers, or beguiling their time with tobacco in
various forms; at long intervals making dull remarks, as though
they were more weary than their constituents of the atmosphere
that surrounds the grandest government the sun ever shone upon.
Several newspaper correspondents, eager to barter their news for
Ratcliffe's hints or suggestions, appeared from time to time on the
scene, and, dropping into a chair by Ratcliffe's desk, whispered
with him in mysterious tones.
Thus the Senator worked on, hour after hour, mechanically doing
what was required of him, signing papers without reading them,
answering remarks without hearing them, hardly looking up from
his desk, and appearing immersed in labour. This was his
protection against curiosity and garrulity.
The pretence of work was the curtain he drew between himself and
the world.
Behind this curtain his mental operations went on, undisturbed by
what was about him, while he heard all that was said, and said
little or nothing himself. His followers respected this privacy, and
left him alone. He was their prophet, and had a right to seclusion.
He was their chieftain, and while he sat in his monosyllabic
solitude, his ragged tail reclined in various attitudes about him,
and occasionally one man spoke, or another swore. Newspapers
and tobacco were their resource in periods of absolute silence.
A shade of depression rested on the faces and the voices of Clan
Ratcliffe that evening, as is not unusual with forces on the eve of
battle. Their remarks came at longer intervals, and were more
pointless and random than usual. There was a want of elasticity in
their bearing and tone, partly coming from sympathy with the
evident depression of their chief; partly from the portents of the
time. The President was to arrive within forty-eight hours, and as
yet there was no sign that he properly appreciated their services;
there were signs only too unmistakeable that he was painfully
misled and deluded, that his countenance was turned wholly in
another direction, and that all their sacrifices were counted as
worthless. There was reason to believe that he came with a
deliberate purpose of making war upon Ratcliffe and breaking him
down; of refusing to bestow patronage on them, and of bestowing
it wherever it would injure them most deeply. At the thought that
their honestly earned harvest of foreign missions and consulates,
department-bureaus, custom-house and revenue offices,
postmasterships, Indian agencies, and army and navy contracts,
might now be wrung from their grasp by the selfish greed of a
mere accidental intruder--a man whom nobody wanted and every
one ridiculed--their natures rebelled, and they felt that such things
must not be; that there could be no more hope for democratic
government if such things were possible. At this point they
invariably became excited, lost their equanimity, and swore. Then
they fell back on their faith in Ratcliffe: if any man could pull
them through, he could; after all, the President must first reckon
with him, and he was an uncommon tough customer to tackle.
Perhaps, however, even their faith in Ratcliffe might have been
shaken, could they at that moment have looked into his mind and
understood what was passing there. Ratcliffe was a man vastly
their superior, and he knew it. He lived in a world of his own and
had instincts of refinement. Whenever his affairs went
unfavourably, these instincts revived, and for the time swept all his
nature with them. He was now filled with disgust and cynical
contempt for every form of politics. During long years he had done
his best for his party; he had sold himself to the devil, coined his
heart's blood, toiled with a dogged persistence that no day-labourer
ever conceived; and all for what? To be rejected as its candidate;
to be put under the harrow of a small Indiana farmer who made no
secret of the intention to "corral" him, and, as he elegantly
expressed it, to "take his hide and tallow." Ratcliffe had no great
fear of losing his hide, but he felt aggrieved that he should be
called upon to defend it, and that this should be the result of
twenty years' devotion. Like most men in the same place, he did
not stop to cast up both columns of his account with the party, nor
to ask himself the question that lay at the heart of his grievance:
How far had he served his party and how far himself? He was in no
humour for self-analysis: this requires more repose of mind than he
could then command. As for the President, from whom he had not
heard a whisper since the insolent letter to Grimes, which he had
taken care not to show, the Senator felt only a strong impulse to
teach him better sense and better manners. But as for political life,
the events of the last six months were calculated to make any man
doubt its value. He was quite out of sympathy with it. He hated the
sight of his tobacco-chewing, newspaper-reading satellites, with
their hats tipped at every angle except the right one, and their feet
everywhere except on the floor. Their conversation bored him and
their presence was a nuisance. He would not submit to this slavery
longer. He would have given his Senatorship for a civilized house
like Mrs. Lee's, with a woman like Mrs. Lee at its head, and twenty
thousand a year for life. He smiled his only smile that evening
when he thought how rapidly she would rout every man Jack of his
political following out of her parlours, and how meekly they would
submit to banishment into a back-office with an oil-cloth carpet
and two cane chairs.
He felt that Mrs. Lee was more necessary to him than the
Presidency itself; he could not go on without her; he needed
human companionship; some Christian comfort for his old age;
some avenue of communication with that social world, which
made his present surroundings look cold and foul; some touch of
that refinement of mind and morals beside which his own seemed
coarse. He felt unutterably lonely. He wished Mrs. Lee had asked
him home to dinner; but Mrs. Lee had gone to bed with a
headache. He should not see her again for a week. Then his mind
turned back upon their morning at Mount Vernon, and bethinking
himself of Mrs. Sam Baker, he took a sheet of note-paper, and
wrote a line to Wilson Keen, Esq., at Georgetown, requesting him
to call, if possible, the next morning towards one o'clock at the
Senator's rooms on a matter of business. Wilson Keen was chief of
the Secret Service Bureau in the Treasury Department, and, as the
depositary of all secrets, was often called upon for assistance
which he was very good-natured in furnishing to senators,
especially if they were likely to be Secretaries of the Treasury.
This note despatched, Mr. Ratcliffe fell back into his reflective
mood, which led him apparently into still lower depths of
discontent until, with a muttered oath, he swore he could "stand no
more of this," and, suddenly rising, he informed his visitors that he
was sorry to leave them, but he felt rather poorly and was going to
bed; and to bed he went, while his guests departed, each as his
business or desires might point him, some to drink whiskey and
some to repose.
On Sunday morning Mr. Ratcliffe, as usual, went to church. He
always attended morning service--at the Methodist Episcopal
Church--not wholly on the ground of religious conviction, but
because a large number of his constituents were church-going
people and he would not willingly shock their principles so long as
he needed their votes. In church, he kept his eyes closely fixed
upon the clergyman, and at the end of the sermon he could say
with truth that he had not heard a word of it, although the
respectable minister was gratified by the attention his discourse
had received from the Senator from Illinois, an attention all the
more praiseworthy because of the engrossing public cares which
must at that moment have distracted the Senator's mind. In this last
idea, the minister was right. Mr. Ratcliffe's mind was greatly
distracted by public cares, and one of his strongest reasons for
going to church at all was that he might get an hour or two of
undisturbed reflection. During the entire service he was absorbed
in carrying on a series of imaginary conversations with the new
President. He brought up in succession every form of proposition
which the President might make to him; every trap which could be
laid for him; every sort of treatment he might expect, so that he
could not be taken by surprise, and his frank, simple nature could
never be at a loss. One object, however, long escaped him.
Supposing, what was more than probable, that the President's
opposition to Ratcliffe's declared friends made it impossible to
force any of them into office; it would then be necessary to try
some new man, not obnoxious to the President, as a candidate for
the Cabinet. Who should this be? Ratcliffe pondered long and
deeply, searching out a man who combined the most powerful
interests, with the fewest enmities. This subject was still
uppermost at the moment when service ended. Ratcliffe pondered
over it as he walked back to his rooms. Not until he reached his
own door did he come to a conclusion:
Carson would do; Carson of Pennsylvania; the President had
probably never heard of him.
Mr. Wilson Keen was waiting the Senator's return, a heavy man
with a square face, and good-natured, active blue eyes; a man of
few words and those well-considered. The interview was brief.
After apologising for breaking in upon Sunday with business, Mr.
Ratcliffe excused himself on the ground that so little time was left
before the close of the session. A bill now before one of his
Committees, on which a report must soon be made, involved
matters to which it was believed that the late Samuel Baker,
formerly a well-known lobby-agent in Washington, held the only
clue. He being dead, Mr. Ratcliffe wished to know whether he had
left any papers behind him, and in whose hands these papers were,
or whether any partner or associate of his was acquainted with his
affairs.
Mr. Keen made a note of the request, merely remarking that he had
been very well acquainted with Baker, and also a little with his
wife, who was supposed to know his affairs as well as he knew
them himself; and who was still in Washington. He thought he
could bring the information in a day or two. As he then rose to go,
Mr. Ratcliffe added that entire secrecy was necessary, as the
interests involved in obstructing the search were considerable, and
it was not well to wake them up. Mr. Keen assented and went his
way.
All this was natural enough and entirely proper, at least so far as
appeared on the surface. Had Mr. Keen been so curious in other
people's affairs as to look for the particular legislative measure
which lay at the bottom of Mr.
Ratcliffe's inquiries, he might have searched among the papers of
Congress a very long time and found himself greatly puzzled at
last. In fact there was no measure of the kind. The whole story was
a fiction. Mr. Ratcliffe had scarcely thought of Baker since his
death, until the day before, when he had seen his widow on the
Mount Vernon steamer and had found her in relations with
Carrington. Something in Carrington's habitual attitude and
manner towards himself had long struck him as peculiar, and this
connection with Mrs. Baker had suggested to the Senator the idea
that it might be well to have an eye on both. Mrs. Baker was a silly
woman, as he knew, and there were old transactions between
Ratcliffe and Baker of which she might be informed, but which
Ratcliffe had no wish to see brought within Mrs. Lee's ken. As for
the fiction invented to set Keen in motion, it was an innocent one.
It harmed nobody. Ratcliffe selected this particular method of
inquiry because it was the easiest, safest, and most effectual. If he
were always to wait until he could afford to tell the precise truth,
business would very soon be at a standstill, and his career at an
end.
This little matter disposed of; the Senator from Illinois passed his
afternoon in calling upon some of his brother senators, and the
first of those whom he honoured with a visit was Mr. Krebs, of
Pennsylvania. There were many reasons which now made the
co-operation of that high-minded statesman essential to Mr.
Ratcliffe. The strongest of them was that the Pennsylvania
delegation in Congress was well disciplined and could be used
with peculiar advantage for purposes of "pressure." Ratcliffe's
success in his contest with the new President depended on the
amount of "pressure" he could employ. To keep himself in the
background, and to fling over the head of the raw Chief Magistrate
a web of intertwined influences, any one of which alone would be
useless, but which taken together were not to be broken through; to
revive the lost art of the Roman retiarius, who from a safe distance
threw his net over his adversary, before attacking with the dagger;
this was Ratcliffe's intention and towards this he had been
directing all his manipulation for weeks past. How much
bargaining and how many promises he found it necessary to make,
was known to himself alone. About this time Mrs. Lee was a little
surprised to find Mr. Gore speaking with entire confidence of
having Ratcliffe's support in his application for the Spanish
mission, for she had rather imagined that Gore was not a favourite
with Ratcliffe. She noticed too that Schneidekoupon had come
back again and spoke mysteriously of interviews with Ratcliffe; of
attempts to unite the interests of New York and Pennsylvania; and
his countenance took on a dark and dramatic expression as he
proclaimed that no sacrifice of the principle of protection should
be tolerated. Schneidekoupon disappeared as suddenly as he came,
and from Sybil's innocent complaints of his spirits and temper,
Mrs. Lee jumped to the conclusion that Mr. Ratcliffe, Mr. Clinton,
and Mr.
Krebs had for the moment combined to sit heavily upon poor
Schneidekoupon, and to remove his disturbing influence from the
scene, at least until other men should get what they wanted. These
were merely the trifling incidents that fell within Mrs. Lee's
observation. She felt an atmosphere of bargain and intrigue, but
she could only imagine how far it extended. Even Carrington,
when she spoke to him about it, only laughed and shook his head:
"Those matters are private, my dear Mrs. Lee; you and I are not
meant to know such things."
This Sunday afternoon Mr. Ratcliffe's object was to arrange the
little manoeuvre about Carson of Pennsylvania, which had
disturbed him in church.
His efforts were crowned with success. Krebs accepted Carson and
promised to bring him forward at ten minutes' notice, should the
emergency arise.
Ratcliffe was a great statesman. The smoothness of his
manipulation was marvellous. No other man in politics, indeed no
other man who had ever been in politics in this country, could--his
admirers said--have brought together so many hostile interests and
made so fantastic a combination. Some men went so far as to
maintain that he would "rope in the President himself before the
old man had time to swap knives with him." The beauty of his
work consisted in the skill with which he evaded questions of
principle. As he wisely said, the issue now involved was not one of
principle but of power.
The fate of that noble party to which they all belonged, and which
had a record that could never be forgotten, depended on their
letting principle alone. Their principle must be the want of
principles. There were indeed individuals who said in reply that
Ratcliffe had made promises which never could be carried out, and
there were almost superhuman elements of discord in the
combination, but as Ratcliffe shrewdly rejoined, he only wanted it
to last a week, and he guessed his promises would hold it up for
that time.
Such was the situation when on Monday afternoon the
President-elect arrived in Washington, and the comedy began. The
new President was, almost as much as Abraham Lincoln or
Franklin Pierce, an unknown quantity in political mathematics. In
the national convention of the party, nine months before, after
some dozens of fruitless ballots in which Ratcliffe wanted but
three votes of a majority, his opponents had done what he was now
doing; they had laid aside their principles and set up for their
candidate a plain Indiana farmer, whose political experience was
limited to stump-speaking in his native State, and to one term as
Governor. They had pitched upon him, not because they thought
him competent, but because they hoped by doing so to detach
Indiana from Ratcliffe's following, and they were so successful
that within fifteen minutes Ratcliffe's friends were routed, and the
Presidency had fallen upon this new political Buddha.
He had begun his career as a stone-cutter in a quarry, and was, not
unreasonably, proud of the fact. During the campaign this incident
had, of course, filled a large space in the public mind, or, more
exactly, in the public eye. "The Stone-cutter of the Wabash," he
was sometimes called; at others "the Hoosier Quarryman," but his
favourite appellation was "Old Granite," although this last
endearing name, owing to an unfortunate similarity of sound, was
seized upon by his opponents, and distorted into "Old Granny." He
had been painted on many thousand yards of cotton sheeting,
either with a terrific sledge-hammer, smashing the skulls (which
figured as paving-stones) of his political opponents, or splitting by
gigantic blows a huge rock typical of the opposing party. His
opponents in their turn had paraded illuminations representing the
Quarryman in the garb of a State's-prison convict breaking the
heads of Ratcliffe and other well-known political leaders with a
very feeble hammer, or as "Old Granny" in pauper's rags,
hopelessly repairing with the same heads the impossible roads
which typified the ill-conditioned and miry ways of his party. But
these violations of decency and good sense were universally
reproved by the virtuous; and it was remarked with satisfaction
that the purest and most highly cultivated newspaper editors on his
side, without excepting those of Boston itself; agreed with one
voice that the Stone-cutter was a noble type of man, perhaps the
very noblest that had appeared to adorn this country since the
incomparable Washington.
That he was honest, all admitted; that is to say, all who voted for
him.
This is a general characteristic of all new presidents. He himself
took great pride in his home-spun honesty, which is a quality
peculiar to nature's noblemen. Owing nothing, as he conceived, to
politicians, but sympathising through every fibre of his unselfish
nature with the impulses and aspirations of the people, he affirmed
it to be his first duty to protect the people from those vultures, as
he called them, those wolves in sheep's clothing, those harpies,
those hyenas, the politicians; epithets which, as generally
interpreted, meant Ratcliffe and Ratcliffe's friends.
His cardinal principle in politics was hostility to Ratcliffe, yet he
was not vindictive. He came to Washington determined to be the
Father of his country; to gain a proud immortality and a
re-election.
Upon this gentleman Ratcliffe had let loose all the forms of
"pressure"
which could be set in motion either in or out of Washington. From
the moment when he had left his humble cottage in Southern
Indiana, he had been captured by Ratcliffe's friends, and smothered
in demonstrations of affection. They had never allowed him to
suggest the possibility of ill-feeling. They had assumed as a matter
of course that the most cordial attachment existed between him
and his party. On his arrival in Washington they systematically cut
him off from contact with any influences but their own. This was
not a very difficult thing to do, for great as he was, he liked to be
told of his greatness, and they made him feel himself a colossus.
Even the few personal friends in his company were manipulated
with the utmost care, and their weaknesses put to use before they
had been in Washington a single day.
Not that Ratcliffe had anything to do with all this underhand and
grovelling intrigue. Mr. Ratcliffe was a man of dignity and
self-respect, who left details to his subordinates. He waited calmly
until the President, recovered from the fatigues of his journey,
should begin to feel the effect of a Washington atmosphere. Then
on Wednesday morning, Mr. Ratcliffe left his rooms an hour
earlier than usual on his way to the Senate, and called at the
President's Hotel: he was ushered into a large apartment in which
the new Chief Magistrate was holding court, although at sight of
Ratcliffe, the other visitors edged away or took their hats and left
the room. The President proved to be a hard-featured man of sixty,
with a hooked nose and thin, straight, iron-gray hair. His voice was
rougher than his features and he received Ratcliffe awkwardly. He
had suffered since his departure from Indiana. Out there it had
seemed a mere flea-bite, as he expressed it, to brush Ratcliffe
aside, but in Washington the thing was somehow different.
Even his own Indiana friends looked grave when he talked of it,
and shook their heads. They advised him to be cautious and gain
time; to lead Ratcliffe on, and if possible to throw on him the
responsibility of a quarrel. He was, therefore, like a brown bear
undergoing the process of taming; very ill-tempered, very rough,
and at the same time very much bewildered and a little frightened.
Ratcliffe sat ten minutes with him, and obtained information in
regard to pains which the President had suffered during the
previous night, in consequence, as he believed, of an
over-indulgence in fresh lobster, a luxury in which he had found a
diversion from the cares of state. So soon as this matter was
explained and condoled upon, Ratcliffe rose and took leave.
Every device known to politicians was now in full play against the
Hoosier Quarryman. State delegations with contradictory requests
were poured in upon him, among which that of Massachusetts
presented as its only prayer the appointment of Mr. Gore to the
Spanish mission. Difficulties were invented to embarrass and
worry him. False leads were suggested, and false information
carefully mingled with true. A wild dance was kept up under his
eyes from daylight to midnight, until his brain reeled with the
effort to follow it. Means were also found to convert one of his
personal, confidential friends, who had come with him from
Indiana and who had more brains or less principle than the others;
from him every word of the President was brought directly to
Ratcliffe's ear.
Early on Friday morning, Mr. Thomas Lord, a rival of the late
Samuel Baker, and heir to his triumphs, appeared in Ratcliffe's
rooms while the Senator was consuming his lonely egg and chop.
Mr. Lord had been chosen to take general charge of the
presidential party and to direct all matters connected with
Ratcliffe's interests. Some people might consider this the work of a
spy; he looked on it as a public duty. He reported that "Old
Granny" had at last shown signs of weakness. Late the previous
evening when, according to his custom, he was smoking his pipe
in company with his kitchen-cabinet of followers, he had again
fallen upon the subject of Ratcliffe, and with a volley of oaths had
sworn that he would show him his place yet, and that he meant to
offer him a seat in the Cabinet that would make him "sicker than a
stuck hog." From this remark and some explanatory hints that
followed, it seemed that the Quarryman had abandoned his scheme
of putting Ratcliffe to immediate political death, and had now
undertaken to invite him into a Cabinet which was to be specially
constructed to thwart and humiliate him.
The President, it appeared, warmly applauded the remark of one
counsellor, that Ratcliffe was safer in the Cabinet than in the
Senate, and that it would be easy to kick him out when the time
came.
Ratcliffe smiled grimly as Mr. Lord, with much clever mimicry,
described the President's peculiarities of language and manner, but
he said nothing and waited for the event. The same evening came a
note from the President's private secretary requesting his
attendance, if possible, to-morrow, Saturday morning, at ten
o'clock. The note was curt and cool. Ratcliffe merely sent back
word that he would come, and felt a little regret that the President
should not know enough etiquette to understand that this verbal
answer was intended as a hint to improve his manners. He did
come accordingly, and found the President looking blacker than
before. This time there was no avoiding of tender subjects. The
President meant to show Ratcliffe by the decision of his course,
that he was master of the situation. He broke at once into the
middle of the matter: "I sent for you,"
said he, "to consult with you about my Cabinet. Here is a list of the
gentlemen I intend to invite into it. You will see that I have got
you down for the Treasury. Will you look at the list and say what
you think of it?"
Ratcliffe took the paper, but laid it at once on the table without
looking at it. "I can have no objection," said he, "to any Cabinet
you may appoint, provided I am not included in it. My wish is to
remain where I am. There I can serve your administration better
than in the Cabinet."
"Then you refuse?" growled the President.
"By no means. I only decline to offer any advice or even to hear
the names of my proposed colleagues until it is decided that my
services are necessary. If they are, I shall accept without caring
with whom I serve."
The President glared at him with an uneasy look. What was to be
done next?
He wanted time to think, but Ratcliffe was there and must be
disposed of. He involuntarily became more civil: "Mr. Ratcliffe,
your refusal would knock everything on the head. I thought that
matter was all fixed. What more can I do?"
But Ratcliffe had no mind to let the President out of his clutches
so easily, and a long conversation followed, during which he
forced his antagonist into the position of urging him to take the
Treasury in order to prevent some undefined but portentous
mischief in the Senate. All that could be agreed upon was that
Ratcliffe should give a positive answer within two days, and on
that agreement he took his leave.
As he passed through the corridor, a number of gentlemen were
waiting for interviews with the President, and among them was the
whole Pennsylvania delegation, "ready for biz," as Mr. Tom Lord
remarked, with a wink.
Ratcliffe drew Krebs aside and they exchanged a few words as he
passed out.
Ten minutes afterwards the delegation was admitted, and some of
its members were a little surprised to hear their spokesman,
Senator Krebs, press with extreme earnestness and in their names,
the appointment of Josiah B. Carson to a place in the Cabinet,
when they had been given to understand that they came to
recommend Jared Caldwell as postmaster of Philadelphia. But
Pennsylvania is a great and virtuous State, whose representatives
have entire confidence in their chief. Not one of them so much as
winked.
The dance of democracy round the President now began again with
wilder energy. Ratcliffe launched his last bolts. His two-days' delay
was a mere cover for bringing new influences to bear. He needed
no delay. He wanted no time for reflection. The President had
undertaken to put him on the horns of a dilemma; either to force
him into a hostile and treacherous Cabinet, or to throw on him the
blame of a refusal and a quarrel. He meant to embrace one of the
horns and to impale the President on it, and he felt perfect
confidence in his own success. He meant to accept the Treasury
and he was ready to back himself with a heavy wager to get the
government entirely into his own hands within six weeks. His
contempt for the Hoosier Stone-cutter was unbounded, and his
confidence in himself more absolute than ever.
Busy as he was, the Senator made his appearance the next evening
at Mrs.
Lee's, and finding her alone with Sybil, who was occupied with her
own little devices, Ratcliffe told Madeleine the story of his week's
experience.
He did not dwell on his exploits. On the contrary he quite ignored
those elaborate arrangements which had taken from the President
his power of volition. His picture presented himself; solitary and
unprotected, in the character of that honest beast who was invited
to dine with the lion and saw that all the footmarks of his
predecessors led into the lion's cave, and none away from it. He
described in humorous detail his interviews with the Indiana lion,
and the particulars of the surfeit of lobster as given in the
President's dialect; he even repeated to her the story told him by
Mr. Tom Lord, without omitting oaths or gestures; he told her how
matters stood at the moment, and how the President had laid a trap
for him which he could not escape; he must either enter a Cabinet
constructed on purpose to thwart him and with the certainty of
ignominious dismissal at the first opportunity, or he must refuse an
offer of friendship which would throw on him the blame of a
quarrel, and enable the President to charge all future difficulties to
the account of Ratcliffe's "insatiable ambition." "And now, Mrs.
Lee," he continued, with increasing seriousness of tone; "I want
your advice; what shall I do?"
Even this half revelation of the meanness which distorted politics;
this one-sided view of human nature in its naked deformity playing
pranks with the interests of forty million people, disgusted and
depressed Madeleine's mind. Ratclife spared her nothing except
the exposure of his own moral sores. He carefully called her
attention to every leprous taint upon his neighbours' persons, to
every rag in their foul clothing, to every slimy and fetid pool that
lay beside their path. It was his way of bringing his own qualities
into relief. He meant that she should go hand in hand with him
through the brimstone lake, and the more repulsive it seemed to
her, the more overwhelming would his superiority become. He
meant to destroy those doubts of his character which Carrington
was so carefully fostering, to rouse her sympathy, to stimulate her
feminine sense of self-sacrifice.
When he asked this question she looked up at him with an
expression of indignant pride, as she spoke:
"I say again, Mr. Ratcliffe, what I said once before. Do whatever is
most for the public good."
"And what is most for the public good?"
Madeleine half opened her mouth to reply, then hesitated, and
stared silently into the fire before her. What was indeed most for
the public good?
Where did the public good enter at all into this maze of personal
intrigue, this wilderness of stunted natures where no straight road
was to be found, but only the tortuous and aimless tracks of beasts
and things that crawl?
Where was she to look for a principle to guide, an ideal to set up
and to point at?
Ratcliffe resumed his appeal, and his manner was more serious
than ever.
"I am hard pressed, Mrs. Lee. My enemies encompass me about.
They mean to ruin me. I honestly wish to do my duty. You once
said that personal considerations should have no weight. Very
well! throw them away! And now tell me what I should do."
For the first time, Mrs. Lee began to feel his power. He was
simple, straightforward, earnest. His words moved her. How
should she imagine that he was playing upon her sensitive nature
precisely as he played upon the President's coarse one, and that this
heavy western politician had the instincts of a wild Indian in their
sharpness and quickness of perception; that he divined her
character and read it as he read the faces and tones of thousands
from day to day? She was uneasy under his eye. She began a
sentence, hesitated in the middle, and broke down. She lost her
command of thought, and sat dumb-founded. He had to draw her
out of the confusion he had himself made.
"I see your meaning in your face. You say that I should accept the
duty and disregard the consequences."
"I don't know," said Madeleine, hesitatingly; "Yes, I think that
would be my feeling."
"And when I fall a sacrifice to that man's envy and intrigue, what
will you think then, Mrs. Lee? Will you not join the rest of the
world and say that I overreached myself; and walked into this trap
with my eyes open, and for my own objects? Do you think I shall
ever be thought better of; for getting caught here? I don't parade
high moral views like our friend French. I won't cant about virtue.
But I do claim that in my public life I have tried to do right. Will
you do me the justice to think so?"
Madeleine still struggled to prevent herself from being drawn into
indefinite promises of sympathy with this man. She would keep
him at arm's length whatever her sympathies might be. She would
not pledge herself to espouse his cause. She turned upon him with
an effort, and said that her thoughts, now or at any time, were folly
and nonsense, and that the consciousness of right-doing was the
only reward any public man had a right to expect.
"And yet you are a hard critic, Mrs. Lee. If your thoughts are what
you say, your words are not. You judge with the judgment of
abstract principles, and you wield the bolts of divine justice. You
look on and condemn, but you refuse to acquit. When I come to
you on the verge of what is likely to be the fatal plunge of my life,
and ask you only for some clue to the moral principle that ought to
guide me, you look on and say that virtue is its own reward. And
you do not even say where virtue lies."
"I confess my sins," said Madeleine, meekly and despondently;
"life is more complicated than I thought."
"I shall be guided by your advice," said Ratcliffe; "I shall walk into
that den of wild beasts, since you think I ought. But I shall hold
you to your responsibility. You cannot refuse to see me through
dangers you have helped to bring me into."
"No, no!" cried Madeleine, earnestly; "no responsibility. You ask
more than I can give."
Ratcliffe looked at her a moment with a troubled and careworn
face. His eyes seemed deep sunk in their dark circles, and his voice
was pathetic in its intensity. "Duty is duty, for you as well as for
me. I have a right to the help of all pure minds. You have no right
to refuse it. How can you reject your own responsibility and hold
me to mine?"
Almost as he spoke, he rose and took his departure, leaving her no
time to do more than murmur again her ineffectual protest. After
he was gone, Mrs.
Lee sat long, with her eyes fixed on the fire, reflecting upon what
he had said. Her mind was bewildered by the new suggestions
which Ratcliffe had thrown out. What woman of thirty, with
aspirations for the infinite, could resist an attack like this? What
woman with a soul could see before her the most powerful public
man of her time, appealing--with a face furrowed by anxieties, and
a voice vibrating with only half-suppressed affection--to her for
counsel and sympathy, without yielding some response? and what
woman could have helped bowing her head to that rebuke of her
over-confident judgment, coming as it did from one who in the
same breath appealed to that judgment as final? Ratcliffe, too, had
a curious instinct for human weaknesses. No magnetic needle was
ever truer than his finger when he touched the vulnerable spot in
an opponent's mind. Mrs. Lee was not to be reached by an appeal
to religious sentiment, to ambition, or to affection.
Any such appeal would have fallen flat on her ears and destroyed
its own hopes. But she was a woman to the very last drop of her
blood. She could not be induced to love Ratcliffe, but she might be
deluded into sacrificing herself for him. She atoned for want of
devotion to God, by devotion to man.
She had a woman's natural tendency towards asceticism,
self-extinction, self-abnegation. All through life she had made
painful efforts to understand and follow out her duty. Ratcliffe
knew her weak point when he attacked her from this side. Like all
great orators and advocates, he was an actor; the more effective
because of a certain dignified air that forbade familiarity.
He had appealed to her sympathy, her sense of right and of duty, to
her courage, her loyalty, her whole higher nature; and while he
made this appeal he felt more than half convinced that he was all
he pretended to be, and that he really had a right to her devotion.
What wonder that she in her turn was more than half inclined to
admit that right. She knew him now better than Carrington or
Jacobi knew him. Surely a man who spoke as he spoke, had noble
instincts and lofty aims? Was not his career a thousand times more
important than hers? If he, in his isolation and his cares, needed
her assistance, had she an excuse for refusing it? What was there
in her aimless and useless life which made it so precious that she
could not afford to fling it into the gutter, if need be, on the bare
chance of enriching some fuller existence?
Chapter VIII
OF all titles ever assumed by prince or potentate, the proudest is
that of the Roman pontiffs: "Servus servorum Dei"--"Servant of the
servants of God."
In former days it was not admitted that the devil's servants could
by right have any share in government. They were to be shut out,
punished, exiled, maimed, and burned. The devil has no servants
now; only the people have servants. There may be some mistake
about a doctrine which makes the wicked, when a majority, the
mouthpiece of God against the virtuous, but the hopes of mankind
are staked on it; and if the weak in faith sometimes quail when
they see humanity floating in a shoreless ocean, on this plank,
which experience and religion long since condemned as rotten,
mistake or not, men have thus far floated better by its aid, than the
popes ever did with their prettier principle; so that it will be a long
time yet before society repents.
Whether the new President and his chief rival, Mr. Silas P.
Ratcliffe, were or were not servants of the servants of God, is not
material here. Servants they were to some one. No doubt many of
those who call themselves servants of the people are no better than
wolves in sheep's clothing, or asses in lions' skins. One may see
scores of them any day in the Capitol when Congress is in session,
making noisy demonstrations, or more usefully doing nothing. A
wiser generation will employ them in manual labour; as it is, they
serve only themselves. But there are two officers, at least, whose
service is real--the President and his Secretary of the Treasury. The
Hoosier Quarryman had not been a week in Washington before he
was heartily home-sick for Indiana. No maid-of-all-work in a
cheap boarding-house was ever more harassed. Everyone
conspired against him. His enemies gave him no peace. All
Washington was laughing at his blunders, and ribald sheets,
published on a Sunday, took delight in printing the new Chief
Magistrate's sayings and doings, chronicled with outrageous
humour, and placed by malicious hands where the President could
not but see them. He was sensitive to ridicule, and it mortified him
to the heart to find that remarks and acts, which to him seemed
sensible enough, should be capable of such perversion. Then he
was overwhelmed with public business. It came upon him in a
deluge, and he now, in his despair, no longer tried to control it. He
let it pass over him like a wave. His mind was muddied by the
innumerable visitors to whom he had to listen. But his greatest
anxiety was the Inaugural Address which, distracted as he was, he
could not finish, although in another week it must be delivered. He
was nervous about his Cabinet; it seemed to him that he could do
nothing until he had disposed of Ratcliffe.
Already, thanks to the President's friends, Ratcliffe had become
indispensable; still an enemy, of course, but one whose hands must
be tied; a sort of Sampson, to be kept in bonds until the time came
for putting him out of the way, but in the meanwhile, to be
utilized. This point being settled, the President had in imagination
begun to lean upon him; for the last few days he had postponed
everything till next week, "when I get my Cabinet arranged;"
which meant, when he got Ratcliffe's assistance; and he fell into a
panic whenever he thought of the chance that Ratcliffe might
refuse.
He was pacing his room impatiently on Monday mormng, an hour
before the time fixed for Ratcliffe's visit. His feelings still
fluctuated violently, and if he recognized the necessity of using
Ratcliffe, he was not the less determined to tie Ratcliffe's hands.
He must be made to come into a Cabinet where every other voice
would be against him. He must be prevented from having any
patronage to dispose of. He must be induced to accept these
conditions at the start. How present this to him in such a way as
not to repel him at once? All this was needless, if the President had
only known it, but he thought himself a profound statesman, and
that his hand was guiding the destinies of America to his own
re-election. When at length, on the stroke of ten o'clock, Ratcliffe
entered the room, the President turned to him with nervous
eagerness, and almost before offering his hand, said that he hoped
Mr. Ratcliffe had come prepared to begin work at once. The
Senator replied that, if such was the President's decided wish, he
would offer no further opposition. Then the President drew himself
up in the attitude of an American Cato, and delivered a prepared
address, in which he said that he had chosen the members ot his
Cabinet with a careful regard to the public interests; that Mr.
Ratcliffe was essential to the combination; that he expected no
disagreement on principles, for there was but one principle which
he should consider fundamental, namely, that there should be no
removals from office except for cause; and that under these
circumstances he counted upon Mr. Ratcliffe's assistance as a
matter of patriotic duty.
To all this Ratcliffe assented without a word of objection, and the
President, more convinced than ever of his own masterly
statesmanship, breathed more freely than for a week past. Within
ten minutes they were actively at work together, clearing away the
mass of accumulated business.
The relief of the Quarryman surprised himself. Ratcliffe lifted the
weight of affairs from his shoulders with hardly an effort. He knew
everybody and everything. He took most of the President's visitors
at once into his own hands and dismissed them with great rapidity.
He knew what they wanted; he knew what recommendations were
strong and what were weak; who was to be treated with deference
and who was to be sent away abruptly; where a blunt refusal was
safe, and where a pledge was allowable. The President even
trusted him with the unfinished manuscript of the Inaugural
Address, which Ratcliffe returned to him the next day with such
notes and suggestions as left nothing to be done beyond copying
them out in a fair hand. With all this, he proved himself a very
agreeable companion. He talked well and enlivened the work; he
was not a hard taskmaster, and when he saw that the President was
tired, he boldly asserted that there was no more business that could
not as well wait a day, and so took the weary Stone-cutter out to
drive for a couple of hours, and let him go peacefully to sleep in
the carriage. They dined together and Ratcliffe took care to send
for Tom Lord to amuse them, for Tom was a wit and a humourist,
and kept the President in a laugh. Mr. Lord ordered the dinner and
chose the wines. He could be coarse enough to suit even the
President's palate, and Ratcliffe was not behindhand. When the
new Secretary went away at ten o'clock that night, his chief; who
was in high good humour with his dinner, his champagne, and his
conversation, swore with some unnecessary granite oaths, that
Ratcliffe was "a clever fellow anyhow," and he was glad "that job
was fixed."
The truth was that Ratcliffe had now precisely ten days before the
new Cabinet could be set in motion, and in these ten days he must
establish his authority over the President so firmly that nothing
could shake it. He was diligent in good works. Very soon the court
began to feel his hand. If a business letter or a written memorial
came in, the President found it easy to endorse: "Referred to the
Secretary of the Treasury." If a visitor wanted anything for himself
or another, the invariable reply came to be: "Just mention it to Mr.
Ratcliffe;" or, "I guess Ratcliffe will see to that."
Before long he even made jokes in a Catonian manner; jokes that
were not peculiarly witty, but somewhat gruff and boorish, yet
significant of a resigned and self-contented mind. One morning he
ordered Ratcliffe to take an iron-clad ship of war and attack the
Sioux in Montana, seeing that he was in charge of the army and
navy and Indians at once, and Jack of all trades; and again he told
a naval officer who wanted a court-martial that he had better get
Ratcliffe to sit on him for he was a whole court-martial by himself.
That Ratcliffe held his chief in no less contempt than before, was
probable but not certain, for he kept silence on the subject before
the world, and looked solemn whenever the President was
mentioned.
Before three days were over, the President, with a little more than
his usual abruptness, suddenly asked him what he knew about this
fellow Carson, whom the Pennsylvanians were bothering him to
put in his Cabinet. Ratcliffe was guarded: he scarcely knew the
man; Mr. Carson was not in politics, he believed, but was pretty
respectable--for a Pennsylvanian. The President returned to the
subject several times; got out his list of Cabinet officers and
figured industriously upon it with a rather perplexed face; called
Ratcliffe to help him; and at last the "slate" was fairly broken, and
Ratcliffe's eyes gleamed when the President caused his list of
nominations to be sent to the Senate on the 5th March, and Josiah
B. Carson, of Pennsylvania, was promptly confirmed as Secretary
of the Interior.
But his eyes gleamed still more humorously when, a few days
afterwards, the President gave him a long list of some two score
names, and asked him to find places for them. He assented
good-naturedly, with a remark that it might be necessary to make a
few removals to provide for these cases.
"Oh, well," said the President, "I guess there's just about as many
as that had ought to go out anyway. These are friends of mine; got
to be looked after. Just stuff 'em in somewhere."
Even he felt a little awkward about it, and, to do him justice, this
was the last that was heard about the fundamental rule of his
administration.
Removals were fast and furious, until all Indiana became easy in
circumstances. And it was not to be denied that, by one means or
another, Ratcliffe's friends did come into their fair share of the
public money.
Perhaps the President thought it best to wink at such use of the
Treasury patronage for the present, or was already a little
overawed by his Secretary.
Ratcliffe's work was done. The public had, with the help of some
clever intrigue, driven its servants into the traces. Even an Indiana
stone-cutter could be taught that his personal prejudices must yield
to the public service. What mischief the selfishness, the ambition,
or the ignorance of these men might do, was another matter. As the
affair stood, the President was the victim of his own schemes. It
remained to be seen whether, at some future day, Mr. Ratcliffe
would think it worth his while to strangle his chief by some quiet
Eastern intrigue, but the time had gone by when the President
could make use of either the bow-string or the axe upon him.
All this passed while Mrs. Lee was quietly puzzling her poor little
brain about her duty and her responsibility to Ratcliffe, who,
meanwhile, rarely failed to find himself on Sunday evenings by her
side in her parlour, where his rights were now so well established
that no one presumed to contest his seat, unless it were old Jacobi,
who from time to time reminded him that he was fallible and
mortal. Occasionally, though not often, Mr. Ratcliffe came at other
times, as when he persuaded Mrs. Lee to be present at the
Inauguration, and to call on the President's wife. Madeleine and
Sybil went to the Capitol and had the best places to see and hear
the Inauguration, as well as a cold March wind would allow. Mrs.
Lee found fault with the ceremony; it was of the earth, earthy, she
said. An elderly western farmer, with silver spectacles, new and
glossy evening clothes, bony features, and stiff; thin, gray hair,
trying to address a large crowd of people, under the drawbacks of a
piercing wind and a cold in his head, was not a hero. Sybil's mind
was lost in wondering whether the President would not soon die of
pneumonia. Even this experience, however, was happy when
compared with that of the call upon the President's wife, after
which Madeleine decided to leave the new dynasty alone in future.
The lady, who was somewhat stout and coarse-featured, and whom
Mrs. Lee declared she wouldn't engage as a cook, showed qualities
which, seen under that fierce light which beats upon a throne,
seemed ungracious. Her antipathy to Ratcliffe was more violent
than her husband's, and was even more openly expressed, until the
President was quite put out of countenance by it. She extended her
hostility to every one who could be supposed to be Ratcliffe's
friend, and the newspapers, as well as private gossip, had marked
out Mrs. Lee as one who, by an alliance with Ratcliffe, was aiming
at supplanting her own rule over the White House.
Hence, when Mrs. Lightfoot Lee was announced, and the two
sisters were ushered into the presidential parlour, she put on a
coldly patronizing air, and in reply to Madeleine's hope that she
found Washington agreeable, she intimated that there was much in
Washington which struck her as awful wicked, especially the
women; and, looking at Sybil, she spoke of the style of dress in
this city which she said she meant to do what she could to put a
stop to. She'd heard tell that people sent to Paris for their gowns,
just as though America wasn't good enough to make one's clothes!
Jacob (all Presidents' wives speak of their husbands by their first
names) had promised her to get a law passed against it. In her town
in Indiana, a young woman who was seen on the street in such
clothes wouldn't be spoken to. At these remarks, made with an air
and in a temper quite unmistakable, Madeleine became
exasperated beyond measure, and said that "Washington would be
pleased to see the President do something in regard to
dress-reform--or any other reform;" and with this allusion to the
President's ante-election reform speeches, Mrs. Lee turned her
back and left the room, followed by Sybil in convulsions of
suppressed laughter, which would not have been suppressed had
she seen the face of their hostess as the door shut behind them, and
the energy with which she shook her head and said: "See if I don't
reform you yet, you--jade!"
Mrs. Lee gave Ratcliffe a lively account of this interview, and he
laughed nearly as convulsively as Sybil over it, though he tried to
pacify her by saying that the President's most intimate friends
openly declared his wife to be insane, and that he himself was the
person most afraid of her. But Mrs. Lee declared that the President
was as bad as his wife; that an equally good President and
President's wife could be picked up in any corner-grocery between
the Lakes and the Ohio; and that no inducement should ever make
her go near that coarse washerwoman again.
Ratcliffe did not attempt to change Mrs. Lee's opinion. Indeed he
knew better than any man how Presidents were made, and he had
his own opinions in regard to the process as well as the fabric
produced. Nothing Mrs. Lee could say now affected him. He threw
off his responsibility and she found it suddenly resting on her own
shoulders. When she spoke with indignation of the wholesale
removals from office with which the new administration marked
its advent to power, he told her the story of the President's
fundamental principle, and asked her what she would have him do.
"He meant to tie my hands," said Ratcliffe, "and to leave his own
free, and I accepted the condition. Can I resign now on such a
ground as this?" And Madeleine was obliged to agree that he could
not. She had no means of knowing how many removals he made in
his own interest, or how far he had outwitted the President at his
own game. He stood before her a victim and a patriot. Every step
he had taken had been taken with her approval. He was now in
office to prevent what evil he could, not to be responsible for the
evil that was done; and he honestly assured her that much worse
men would come in when he went out, as the President would
certainly take good care that he did go out when the moment
arrived.
Mrs. Lee had the chance now to carry out her scheme in coming to
Washington, for she was already deep in the mire of politics and
could see with every advantage how the great machine floundered
about, bespattering with mud even her own pure garments.
Ratcliffe himself, since entering the Treasury, had begun to talk
with a sneer of the way in which laws were made, and openly said
that he wondered how government got on at all. Yet he declared
still that this particular government was the highest expression of
political thought. Mrs. Lee stared at him and wondered whether he
knew what thought was. To her the government seemed to have
less thought in it than one of Sybil's gowns, for if they, like the
government, were monstrously costly, they were at least adapted to
their purpose, the parts fitted together, and they were neither
awkward nor unwieldy.
There was nothing very encouraging in all this, but it was better
than New York. At least it gave her something to look at, and to
think about. Even Lord Dunbeg preached practical philanthropy to
her by the hour. Ratcliffe, too, was compelled to drag himself out
of the rut of machine politics, and to justify his right of admission
to her house. There Mr. French discoursed at great length, until the
fourth of March sent him home to Connecticut; and he brought
more than one intelligent member of Congress to Mrs. Lee's
parlour. Underneath the scum floating on the surface of politics,
Madeleine felt that there was a sort of healthy ocean current of
honest purpose, which swept the scum before it, and kept the mass
pure.
This was enough to draw her on. She reconciled herself to
accepting the Ratcliffian morals, for she could see no choice. She
herself had approved every step she had seen him take. She could
not deny that there must be something wrong in a double standard
of morality, but where was it? Mr.
Ratcliffe seemed to her to be doing good work with as pure means
as he had at hand. He ought to be encouraged, not reviled. What
was she that she should stand in judgment?
Others watched her progress with less satisfaction. Mr. Nathan
Gore was one of these, for he came in one evening, looking much
out of temper, and, sitting down by her side he said he had come to
bid good-bye and to thank her for the kindness she had shown him;
he was to leave Washington the next morning. She too expressed
her warm regret, but added that she hoped he was only going in
order to take his passage to Madrid.
He shook his head. "I am going to take my passage," said he, "but
not to Madrid. The fates have cut that thread. The President does
not want my services, and I can't blame him, for if our situations
were reversed, I should certainly not want his. He has an Indiana
friend, who, I am told, wanted to be postmaster at Indianapolis, but
as this did not suit the politicians, he was bought off at the
exorbitant price of the Spanish mission. But I should have no
chance even if he were out of the way. The President does not
approve of me. He objects to the cut of my overcoat which is
unfortunately an English one. He also objects to the cut of my hair.
I am afraid that his wife objects to me because I am so happy as to
be thought a friend of yours."
Madeleine could only acknowledge that Mr. Gore's case was a bad
one. "But after all," said she, "why should politicians be expected
to love you literary gentlemen who write history. Other criminal
classes are not expected to love their judges."
"No, but they have sense enough to fear them," replied Gore
vindictively; "not one politician living has the brains or the art to
defend his own cause. The ocean of history is foul with the
carcases of such statesmen, dead and forgotten except when some
historian fishes one of them up to gibbet it."
Mr. Gore was so much out of temper that after this piece of
extravagance he was forced to pause a moment to recover himself.
Then he went on:-- "You are perfectly right, and so is the
President. I have no business to be meddling in politics. It is not
my place. The next time you hear of me, I promise it shall not be
as an office-seeker."
Then he rapidly changed the subject, saying that he hoped Mrs.
Lee was soon going northward again, and that they might meet at
Newport.
"I don't know," replied Madeleine; "the spring is pleasant here, and
we shall stay till the warm weather, I think."
Mr. Gore looked grave. "And your politics!" said he; "are you
satisfied with what you have seen?"
"I have got so far as to lose the distinction between right and
wrong. Isn't that the first step in politics?"
Mr. Gore had no mind even for serious jesting. He broke out into a
long lecture which sounded like a chapter of some future history:
"But Mrs. Lee, is it possible that you don't see what a wrong path
you are on. If you want to know what the world is really doing to
any good purpose, pass a winter at Samarcand, at Timbuctoo, but
not at Washington. Be a bank-clerk, or a journeyman printer, but
not a Congressman. Here you will find nothing but wasted effort
and clumsy intrigue."
"Do you think it a pity for me to learn that?" asked Madeleine
when his long essay was ended.
"No!" replied Gore, hesitating; "not if you do learn it. But many
people never get so far, or only when too late. I shall be glad to
hear that you are mistress of it and have given up reforming
politics. The Spaniards have a proverb that smells of the stable, but
applies to people like you and me:
The man who washes his donkey's head, loses time and soap."
Gore took his leave before Madeleine had time to grasp all the
impudence of this last speech. Not until she was fairly in bed that
night did it suddenly flash on her mind that Mr. Gore had dared to
caricature her as wasting time and soap on Mr. Ratcliffe. At first
she was violently angry and then she laughed in spite of herself;
there was truth in the portrait. In secret, too, she was the less
offended because she half thought that it had depended only on
herself to make of Mr. Gore something more than a friend. If she
had overheard his parting words to Carrington, she would have had
still more reason to think that a little jealousy of Ratcliffe's success
sharpened the barb of Gore's enmity.
"Take care of Ratcliffe!" was his farewell; "he is a clever dog. He
has set his mark on Mrs. Lee. Look out that he doesn't walk off
with her!"
A little startled by this sudden confidence, Carrington could only
ask what he could do to prevent it.
"Cats that go ratting, don't wear gloves," replied Gore, who always
carried a Spanish proverb in his pocket. Carrington, after painful
reflection, could only guess that he wanted Ratcliffe's enemies to
show their claws. But how?
Mrs. Lee not long afterwards spoke to Ratcliffe of her regret at
Gore's disappointment and hinted at his disgust. Ratcliffe replied
that he had done what he could for Gore, and had introduced him
to the President, who, after seeing him, had sworn his usual
granitic oath that he would sooner send his nigger farm-hand Jake
to Spain than that man-milliner. "You know how I stand;" added
Ratcliffe; "what more could I do?" And Mrs. Lee's implied
reproach was silenced.
If Gore was little pleased with Ratcliffe's conduct, poor
Schneidekoupon was still less so. He turned up again at
Washington not long after the Inauguration and had a private
interview with the Secretary of the Treasury.
What passed at it was known only to themselves, but, whatever it
was, Schneidekoupon's temper was none the better for it. From his
conversations with Sybil, it seemed that there was some question
about appointments in which his protectionist friends were
interested, and he talked very openly about Ratcliffe's want of
good faith, and how he had promised everything to everybody and
had failed to keep a single pledge; if Schneidekoupon's advice had
been taken, this wouldn't have happened. Mrs. Lee told Ratcliffe
that Schneidekoupon seemed out of temper, and asked the reason.
He only laughed and evaded the question, remarking that cattle of
this kind were always complaining unless they were allowed to run
the whole government; Schneidekoupon had nothing to grumble
about; no one had ever made any promises to him. But
nevertheless Schneidekoupon confided to Sybil his antipathy to
Ratcliffe and solemnly begged her not to let Mrs. Lee fall into his
hands, to which Sybil answered tartly that she only wished Mr.
Schneidekoupon would tell her how to help it.
The reformer French had also been one of Ratcliffe's backers in
the fight over the Treasury. He remained in Washington a few days
after the Inauguration, and then disappeared, leaving cards with
P.P.C. in the corner, at Mrs. Lee's door. Rumour said that he too
was disappointed, but he kept his own counsel, and, if he really
wanted the mission to Belgium, he contented himself with waiting
for it. A respectable stage-coach proprietor from Oregon got the
place.
As for Jacobi, who was not disappointed, and who had nothing to
ask for, he was bitterest of all. He formally offered his
congratulations to Ratcliffe on his appointment. This little scene
occurred in Mrs. Lee's parlour. The old Baron, with his most suave
manner, and his most Voltairean leer, said that in all his
experience, and he had seen a great many court intrigues, he had
never seen anything better managed than that about the Treasury.
Ratcliffe was furiously angry, and told the Baron outright that
foreign ministers who insulted the governments to which they
were accredited ran a risk of being sent home.
"Ce serait toujours un pis aller," said Jacobi, seating himself with
calmness in Ratcliffe's favourite chair by Mrs. Lee's side.
Madeleine, alarmed as she was, could not help interposing, and
hastily asked whether that remark was translatable.
"Ah!" said the Baron; "I can do nothing with your language. You
would only say that it was a choice of evils, to go, or to stay."
"We might translate it by saying: 'One may go farther and fare
worse,'"
rejoined Madeleine; and so the storm blew over for the time, and
Ratcliffe sulkily let the subject drop. Nevertheless the two men
never met in Mrs.
Lee's parlour without her dreading a personal altercation. Little by
little, what with Jacobi's sarcasms and Ratcliffe's roughness, they
nearly ceased to speak, and glared at each other like quarrelsome
dogs. Madeleine was driven to all kinds of expedients to keep the
peace, yet at the same time she could not but be greatly amused by
their behaviour, and as their hatred of each other only stimulated
their devotion to her, she was content to hold an even balance
between them.
Nor were these all the awkward consequences of Ratcliffe's
attentions. Now that he was distinctly recognized as an intimate
friend of Mrs. Lee's, and possibly her future husband, no one
ventured any longer to attack him in her presence, but nevertheless
she was conscious in a thousand ways that the atmosphere became
more and more dense under the shadow of the Secretary of the
Treasury. In spite of herself she sometimes felt uneasy, as though
there were conspiracy in the air. One March afternoon she was
sitting by her fire, with an English Review in her hand, trying to
read the last Symposium on the sympathies of Eternal Punishment,
when her servant brought in a card, and Mrs. Lee had barely time
to read the name of Mrs. Samuel Baker when that lady followed
the servant into the room, forcing the countersign in so effective
style that for once Madeleine was fairly disconcerted. Her manner
when thus intruded upon, was cool, but in this case, on
Carrington's account, she tried to smile courteously and asked her
visitor to sit down, which Mrs. Baker was doing without an
invitation, very soon putting her hostess entirely at her ease. She
was, when seen without her veil, a showy woman verging on forty,
decidedly large, tall, over-dressed even in mourning, and with a
complexion rather fresher than nature had made it.
There was a geniality in her address, savouring of easy Washington
ways, a fruitiness of smile, and a rich southern accent, that
explained on the spot her success in the lobby. She looked about
her with fine self-possession, and approved Mrs. Lee's
surroundings with a cordiality so different from the northern
stinginess of praise, that Madeleine was rather pleased than
offended. Yet when her eye rested on the Corot, Madeleine's only
pride, she was evidently perplexed, and resorted to eye-glasses, in
order, as it seemed, to gain time for reflection. But she was not to
be disconcerted even by Corot's masterpiece:
"How pretty! Japanese, isn't it? Sea-weeds seen through a fog. I
went to an auction yesterday, and do you know I bought a tea-pot
with a picture just like that."
Madeleine inquired with extreme interest about the auction, but
after learning all that Mrs. Baker had to tell, she was on the point
of being reduced to silence, when she bethought herself to mention
Carrington. Mrs.
Baker brightened up at once, if she could be said to brighten where
there was no sign of dimness:
"Dear Mr. Carrington! Isn't he sweet? I think he's a delicious man.
I don't know what I should do without him. Since poor Mr. Baker
left me, we have been together all the time. You know my poor
husband left directions that all his papers should be burned, and
though I would not say so unless you were such a friend of Mr.
Carrington's, I reckon it's just as well for some people that he did. I
never could tell you what quantities of papers Mr.
Carrington and I have put in the fire; and we read them all too."
Madeleine asked whether this was not dull work.
"Oh, dear, no! You see I know all about it, and told Mr. Carrington
the story of every paper as we went on. It was quite amusing, I
assure you."
Mrs. Lee then boldly said she had got from Mr. Carrington an idea
that Mrs.
Baker was a very skilful diplomatist.
"Diplomatist!" echoed the widow with her genial laugh; "Well! it
was as much that as anything, but there's not many diplomatists'
wives in this city ever did as much work as I used to do. Why, I
knew half the members of Congress intimately, and all of them by
sight. I knew where they came from and what they liked best. I
could get round the greater part of them, sooner or later."
Mrs. Lee asked what she did with all this knowledge. Mrs. Baker
shook her pink-and-white countenance, and almost paralysed her
opposite neighbour by a sort of Grande Duchesse wink:
"Oh, my dear! you are new here. If you had seen Washington in
war-times and for a few years afterwards, you wouldn't ask that.
We had more congressional business than all the other agents put
together. Every one came to us then, to get his bill through, or his
appropriation watched. We were hard at work all the time. You
see, one can't keep the run of three hundred men without some
trouble. My husband used to make lists of them in books with a
history of each man and all he could learn about him, but I carried
it all in my head."
"Do you mean that you could get them all to vote as you pleased?"
asked Madeleine.
"Well! we got our bills through," replied Mrs. Baker.
"But how did you do it? did they take bribes?"
"Some of them did. Some of them liked suppers and cards and
theatres and all sorts of things. Some of them could be led, and
some had to be driven like Paddy's pig who thought he was going
the other way. Some of them had wives who could talk to them,
and some--hadn't," said Mrs. Baker, with a queer intonation in her
abrupt ending.
"But surely," said Mrs. Lee, "many of them must have been
above--I mean, they must have had nothing to get hold of; so that
you could manage them."
Mrs. Baker laughed cheerfully and remarked that they were very
much of a muchness.
"But I can't understand how you did it," urged Madeleine; "now,
how would you have gone to work to get a respectable senator's
vote--a man like Mr.
Ratcliffe, for instance?"
"Ratcliffe!" repeated Mrs. Baker with a slight elevation of voice
that gave way to a patronising laugh. "Oh, my dear! don't mention
names. I should get into trouble. Senator Ratcliffe was a good
friend of my husband's. I guess Mr. Carrington could have told you
that. But you see, what we generally wanted was all right enough.
We had to know where our bills were, and jog people's elbows to
get them reported in time. Sometimes we had to convince them
that our bill was a proper one, and they ought to vote for it. Only
now and then, when there was a great deal of money and the vote
was close, we had to find out what votes were worth. It was mostly
dining and talking, calling them out into the lobby or asking them
to supper. I wish I could tell you things I have seen, but I don't
dare. It wouldn't be safe. I've told you already more than I ever said
to any one else; but then you are so intimate with Mr. Carrington,
that I always think of you as an old friend."
Thus Mrs. Baker rippled on, while Mrs. Lee listened with more
and more doubt and disgust. The woman was showy, handsome in
a coarse style, and perfectly presentable. Mrs. Lee had seen
Duchesses as vulgar. She knew more about the practical working
of government than Mrs. Lee could ever expect or hope to know.
Why then draw back from this interesting lobbyist with such
babyish repulsion?
When, after a long, and, as she declared, a most charming call,
Mrs. Baker wended her way elsewhere and Madeleine had given
the strictest order that she should never be admitted again,
Carrington entered, and Madeleine showed him Mrs. Baker's card
and gave a lively account of the interview.
"What shall I do with the woman?" she asked; "must I return her
card?" But Carrington declined to offer advice on this interesting
point. "And she says that Mr. Ratcliffe was a friend of her
husband's and that you could tell me about that."
"Did she say so?" remarked Carrington vaguely.
"Yes! and that she knew every one's weak points and could get all
their votes."
Carrington expressed no surprise, and so evidently preferred to
change the subject, that Mrs. Lee desisted and said no more.
But she determined to try the same experiment on Mr. Ratcliffe,
and chose the very next chance that offered. In her most indifferent
manner she remarked that Mrs. Sam Baker had called upon her
and had initiated her into the mysteries of the lobby till she had
become quite ambitious to start on that career.
"She said you were a friend of her husband's," added Madeleine
softly.
Ratcliffe's face betrayed no sign.
"If you believe what those people tell you," said he drily, "you will
be wiser than the Queen of Sheba."
Chapter IX
WHENEVER a man reaches the top of the political ladder, his
enemies unite to pull him down. His friends become critical and
exacting. Among the many dangers of this sort which now
threatened Ratcliffe, there was one that, had he known it, might
have made him more uneasy than any of those which were the
work of senators and congressmen. Carrington entered into an
alliance, offensive and defensive, with Sybil. It came about in this
wise. Sybil was fond of riding. and occasionally, when Carrington
could spare the time, he went as her guide and protector in these
country excursions; for every Virginian, however out at elbows,
has a horse, as he has shoes or a shirt.
In a thoughtless moment Carrington had been drawn into a
promise that he would take Sybil to Arlington. The promise was
one that he did not hurry to keep, for there were reasons which
made a visit to Arlington anything but a pleasure to him; but Sybil
would listen to no excuses, and so it came about that, one lovely
March morning, when the shrubs and the trees in the square before
the house were just beginning, under the warmer sun, to show
signs of their coming wantonness, Sybil stood at the open window
waiting for him, while her new Kentucky horse before the door
showed what he thought of the delay by curving his neck, tossing
his head, and pawing the pavement.
Carrington was late and kept her waiting so long, that the
mignonette and geraniums, which adorned the window, suffered
for his slowness, and the curtain tassels showed signs of wilful
damage. Nevertheless he arrived at length, and they set out
together, choosing the streets least enlivened by horse-cars and
provision-carts, until they had crept through the great metropolis
of Georgetown and come upon the bridge which crosses the noble
river just where its bold banks open out to clasp the city of
Washington in their easy embrace. Then reaching the Virginia side
they cantered gaily up the laurel-margined road, with glimpses of
woody defiles, each carrying its trickling stream and rich in
promise of summer flowers, while from point to point they caught
glorious glimpses of the distant city and river. They passed the
small military station on the heights, still dignified by the name of
fort, though Sybil silently wondered how a fort was possible
without fortifications, and complained that there was nothing more
warlike than a "nursery of telegraph poles." The day was blue and
gold; everything smiled and sparkled in the crisp freshness of the
morning. Sybil was in bounding spirits. and not at all pleased to
find that her companion became moody and abstracted as they
went on. "Poor Mr. Carrington!" thought she to herself, "he is so
nice; but when he puts on that solemn air, one might as well go to
sleep. I am quite certain no nice woman will ever marry him if he
looks like that;" and her practical mind ran off among all the girls
of her acquaintance, in search of one who would put up with
Carrington's melancholy face. She knew his devotion to her sister,
but had long ago rejected this as a hopeless chance. There was a
simplicity about Sybil's way of dealing with life, which had its own
charm. She never troubled herself about the impossible or the
unthinkable. She had feelings, and was rather quick in her
sympathies and sorrows, but she was equally quick in getting over
them, and she expected other people to do likewise. Madeleine
dissected her own feelings and was always wondering whether
they were real or not; she had a habit of taking off her mental
clothing, as she might take off a dress, and looking at it as though
it belonged to some one else, and as though sensations were
manufactured like clothes. This seems to be one of the easier ways
of deadening sorrow, as though the mind could teach itself to lop
off its feelers. Sybil particularly disliked this self-inspection. In the
first place she did not understand it, and in the second her mind
was all feelers, and amputation was death. She could no more
analyse a feeling than doubt its existence, both which were habits
of her sister.
How was Sybil to know what was passing in Carrington's mind?
He was thinking of nothing in which she supposed herself
interested. He was troubled with memories of civil war and of
associations still earlier, belonging to an age already vanishing or
vanished; but what could she know about civil war who had been
almost an infant at the time? At this moment, she happened to be
interested in the baffle of Waterloo, for she was reading "Vanity
Fair," and had cried as she ought for poor little Emmy, when her
husband, George Osborne, lay dead on the field there, with a bullet
through his heart. But how was she to know that here, only a few
rods before her, lay scores and hundreds of George Osbornes, or
his betters, and in their graves the love and hope of many Emmys,
not creatures of the imagination, but flesh and blood, like herself?
To her, there was no more in those associations which made
Carrington groan in the silence of his thoughts, than if he had been
old Kaspar, and she the little Wilhelmine. What was a skull more
or less to her? What concern had she in the famous victory?
Yet even Sybil was startled as she rode through the gate and found
herself suddenly met by the long white ranks of head-stones,
stretching up and down the hill-sides by thousands, in order of
baffle; as though Cadmus had reversed his myth, and had sown
living men, to come up dragons' teeth. She drew in her horse with
a shiver and a sudden impulse to cry. Here was something new to
her. This was war--wounds, disease, death. She dropped her voice
and with a look almost as serious as Carrington's, asked what all
these graves meant. When Carrington told her, she began for the
first time to catch some dim notion why his face was not quite as
gay as her own. Even now this idea was not very precise, for he
said little about himself, but at least she grappled with the fact that
he had actually, year after year, carried arms against these men
who lay at her feet and who had given their lives for her cause. It
suddenly occurred to her as a new thought that perhaps he himself
might have killed one of them with his own hand. There was a
strange shock in this idea. She felt that Carrington was further
from her. He gained dignity in his rebel isolation. She wanted to
ask him how he could have been a traitor, and she did not dare.
Carrington a traitor!
Carrington killing her friends! The idea was too large to grasp. She
fell back on the simpler task of wondering how he had looked in
his rebel uniform.
They rode slowly round to the door of the house and dismounted,
after he had with some difficulty found a man to hold their horses.
From the heavy brick porch they looked across the superb river to
the raw and incoherent ugliness of the city, idealised into dreamy
beauty by the atmosphere, and the soft background of purple hills
behind. Opposite them, with its crude "thus saith the law" stamped
on white dome and fortress-like walls, rose the Capitol.
Carrington stood with her a short time while they looked at the
view; then said he would rather not go into the house himself, and
sat down on the steps while she strolled alone through the rooms.
These were bare and gaunt, so that she, with her feminine sense of
fitness, of course considered what she would do to make them
habitable. She had a neat fancy for furniture, and distributed her
tones and half tones and bits of colour freely about the walls and
ceilings, with a high-backed chair here, a spindle-legged sofa
there, and a claw-footed table in the centre, until her eye was
caught by a very dirty deal desk, on which stood an open book,
with an inkstand and some pens. On the leaf she read the last
entry: "Eli M. Grow and lady, Thermopyle Centre." Not even the
graves outside had brought the horrors of war so near.
What a scourge it was! This respectable family turned out of such
a lovely house, and all the pretty old furniture swept away before a
horde of coarse invaders "with ladies." Did the hosts of Attila write
their names on visiting books in the temple of Vesta and the house
of Sallust? What a new terror they would have added to the name
of the scourge of God! Sybil returned to the portico and sat down
by Carrington on the steps.
"How awfully sad it is!" said she; "I suppose the house was prettily
furnished when the Lees lived here? Did you ever see it then?"
Sybil was not very profound, but she had sympathy, and at this
moment Carrington felt sorely in need of comfort. He wanted
some one to share his feelings, and he turned towards her hungry
for companionship.
"The Lees were old family friends of mine," said he. "I used to stay
here when I was a boy, even as late as the spring of 1861. The last
time I sat here, it was with them. We were wild about disunion and
talked of nothing else. I have been trying to recall what was said
then. We never thought there would be war, and as for coercion, it
was nonsense. Coercion, indeed!
The idea was ridiculous. I thought so, too, though I was a Union
man and did not want the State to go out. But though I felt sure
that Virginia must suffer, I never thought we could be beaten. Yet
now I am sitting here a pardoned rebel, and the poor Lees are
driven away and their place is a grave-yard."
Sybil became at once absorbed in the Lees and asked many
questions, all which Carrington gladly answered. He told her how
he had admired and followed General Lee through the war. "We
thought he was to be our Washington, you know; and perhaps he
had some such idea himself;" and then, when Sybil wanted to hear
about the baffles and the fighting, he drew a rough map on the
gravel path to show her how the two lines had run, only a few
miles away; then he told her how he had carried his musket day
after day over all this country, and where he had seen his battles.
Sybil had everything to learn; the story came to her with all the
animation of real life, for here under her eyes were the graves of
her own champions, and by her side was a rebel who had stood
under our fire at Malvern Hill and at South Mountain, and who
was telling her how men looked and what they thought in face of
death. She listened with breathless interest, and at last summoned
courage to ask in an awestruck tone whether Carrington had ever
killed any one himself. She was relieved, although a little
disappointed, when he said that he believed not; he hoped not;
though no private who has discharged a musket in baffle can be
quite sure where the bullet went. "I never tried to kill any one,"
said he, "though they tried to kill me incessantly." Then Sybil
begged to know how they had tried to kill him, and he told her one
or two of those experiences, such as most soldiers have had, when
he had been fired upon and the balls had torn his clothes or drawn
blood. Poor Sybil was quite overcome, and found a deadly
fascination in the horror. As they sat together on the steps with the
glorious view spread before them, her attention was so closely
fixed on his story that she saw neither the view nor even the
carriages of tourists who drove up, looked about, and departed,
envying Carrington his occupation with the lovely girl.
She was in imagination rushing with him down the valley of
Virginia on the heels of our flying army, or gloomily toiling back
to the Potomac after the bloody days at Gettysburg, or watching
the last grand debacle on the road from Richmond to Appomattox.
They would have sat there till sunset if Carrington had not at
length insisted that they must go, and then she rose slowly with a
deep sigh and undisguised regret.
As they rode away, Carrington, whose thoughts were not devoted
to his companion so entirely as they should have been, ventured to
say that he wished her sister had come with them, but he found
that his hint was not well received.
Sybil emphatically rejected the idea: "I'm very glad she didn't
come. If she had, you would have talked with her all the time, and
I should have been left to amuse myself. You would have been
discussing things, and I hate discussions. She would have been
hunting for first principles, and you would have been running
about, trying to catch some for her. Besides, she is coming herself
some Sunday with that tiresome Mr. Ratcliffe. I don't see what she
finds in that man to amuse her. Her taste is getting to be
demoralised in Washington. Do you know, Mr. Carrington, I'm not
clever or serious, like Madeleine, and I can't read laws, and hate
politics, but I've more common sense than she has, and she makes
me cross with her. I understand now why young widows are
dangerous, and why they're bumed at their husband's funerals in
India. Not that I want to have Madeleine burned, for she's a dear,
good creature, and I love her better than anything in the world; but
she will certainly do herself some dreadful mischief one of these
days; she has the most extravagant notions about self-sacrifice and
duty; if she hadn't luckily thought of taking charge of me, she
would have done some awful thing long ago, and if I could only be
a little wicked, she would be quite happy all the rest of her life in
reforming me; but now she has got hold of that Mr. Ratcliffe, and
he is trying to make her think she can reform him, and if he does,
it's all up with us. Madeleine will just go and break her heart over
that odious, great, coarse brute, who only wants her money."
Sybil delivered this little oration with a degree of energy that went
to Carrington's heart. She did not often make such sustained
efforts, and it was clear that on this subject she had exhausted her
whole mind. Carrington was delighted, and urged her on. "I dislike
Mr. Ratcliffe as much as you do;--more perhaps. So does every
one who knows much about him. But we shall only make the
matter worse if we interfere. What can we do?"
"That is just what I tell everybody," resumed Sybil. "There is
Victoria Dare always telling me I ought to do something; and Mr.
Schneidekoupon too; just as though I could do anything.
Madeleine has done nothing but get into mischief here. Half the
people think her worldly and ambitious. Only last night that
spiteful old woman, Mrs. Clinton, said to me: 'Your sister is quite
spoiled by Washington. She is more wild for power than any
human being I ever saw.' I was dreadfully angry and told her she
was quite mistaken--Madeleine was not the least spoiled. But I
couldn't say that she was not fond of power, for she is; but not in
the way Mrs. Clinton meant.
You should have seen her the other evening when Mr. Ratcliffe
said about some matter of public business that he would do
whatever she thought right; she spoke up quite sharply for her,
with a scornful little laugh, and said that he had better do what he
thought right. He looked for a moment almost angry, and muttered
something about women's being incomprehensible. He is always
trying to tempt her with power. She might have had long ago all
the power he could give her, but I can see, and he sees too, that she
always keeps him at arm's length. He doesn't like it, but he expects
one of these days to find a bribe that will answer. I wish we had
never come to Washington. New York is so much nicer and the
people there are much more amusing; they dance ever so much
better and send one flowers all the time, and then they never talk
about first principles. Maude had her hospitals and paupers and
training school, and got along very well. It was so safe. But when I
say so to her, she only smiles in a patronising kind of way, and
tells me that I shall have as much of Newport as I want; just as
though I were a child, and not a woman of twenty-five. Poor
Maude! I can't stay with her if she marries Mr. Ratcliffe, and it
would break my heart to leave her with that man. Do you think he
would beat her? Does he drink? I would almost rather be beaten a
little, if I cared for a man, than be taken out to Peonia. Oh, Mr.
Carrington! you are our only hope. She will listen to you.
Don't let her marry that dreadful politician."
To all this pathetic appeal, some parts of which were as liffle
calculated to please Carrington as Ratcliffe himself, Carrington
answered that he was ready to do all in his power but that Sybil
must tell him when and how to act.
"Then, it's a bargain," said she; "whenever I want you, I shall call
on you for help, and you shall prevent the marriage."
"Alliance offensive and defensive," said he, laughing; "war to the
knife on Ratcliffe. We will have his scalp if necessary, but I rather
think he will soon commit hari-kari himself if we leave him
alone."
"Madeleine will like him all the better if he does anything
Japanese,"
replied Sybil, with great seriousness; "I wish there was more
Japanese bric-à-brac here, or any kind of old pots and pans to talk
about. A little art would be good for her. What a strange place this
is, and how people do stand on their heads in it! Nobody thinks
like anyone else. Victoria Dare says she is trying on principle not
to be good, because she wants to keep some new excitements for
the next world. I'm sure she practices as she preaches. Did you see
her at Mrs. Clinton's last night. She behaved more outrageously
than ever. She sat on the stairs all through supper, looking like a
demure yellow cat with two bouquets in her paws--and I know
Lord Dunbeg sent one of them;--and she actually let Mr. French
feed her with ice-cream from a spoon. She says she was showing
Lord Dunbeg a phase, and that he is going to put it into his article
on American Manners and Customs in the Quarterly, but I don't
think it's nice, do you, Mr. Carrington? I wish Madeleine had her
to take care of. She would have enough to do then, I can tell her."
And so, gently prattling, Miss Sybil returned to the city, her
alliance with Carrington completed; and it was a singular fact that
she never again called him dull. There was henceforward a look of
more positive pleasure and cordiality on her face when he made
his appearance wherever she might be; and the next time he
suggested a horseback excursion she instantly agreed to go,
although aware that she had promised a younger gentleman of the
diplomatic body to be at home that same afternoon, and the good
fellow swore polyglot oaths on being turned away from her door.
Mr. Ratcliffe knew nothing of this conspiracy against his peace
and prospects. Even if he had known it, he might only have
laughed, and pursued his own path without a second thought. Yet
it was certain that he did not think Carrington's enmity a thing to
be overlooked, and from the moment of his obtaining a clue to its
cause, he had begun to take precautions against it. Even in the
middle of the contest for the Treasury, he had found time to listen
to Mr. Wilson Keens report on the affairs of the late Samuel
Baker.
Mr. Keen came to him with a copy of Baker's will and with
memoranda of remarks made by the unsuspecting Mrs. Baker;
"from which it appears," said he, "that Baker, having no time to
put his affairs in order, left special directions that his executors
should carefully destroy all papers that might be likely to
compromise individuals."
"What is the executor's name?" interrupted Ratcliffe.
"The executor's name is--John Carrington," said Keen,
methodically referring to his copy of the will.
Ratcliffe's face was impassive, but the inevitable, "I knew it,"
almost sprang to his lips. He was rather pleased at the instinct
which had led him so directly to the right trail.
Keen went on to say that from Mrs. Baker's conversation it was
certain that the testator's directions had been carried out, and that
the great bulk of these papers had been burned.
"Then it will be useless to press the inquiry further," said Ratcliffe;
"I am much obliged to you for your assistance," and he turned the
conversation to the condition of Mr. Keen's bureau in the Treasury
department.
The next time Ratcliffe saw Mrs. Lee, after his appointment to the
Treasury was confirmed, he asked her whether she did not think
Carrington very well suited for public service, and when she
warmly assented, he said it had occurred to him to offer the place
of Solicitor of the Treasury to Mr.
Carrington, for although the actual salary might not be very much
more than he earned by his private practice, the incidental
advantages to a Washington lawyer were considerable; and to the
Secretary it was especially necessary to have a solicitor in whom
he could place entire confidence. Mrs. Lee was pleased by this
motion of Ratcliffe's, the more because she had supposed that
Ratcliffe had no liking for Carrington. She doubted whether
Carrington would accept the place, but she hoped that it might
modify his dislike for Ratcliffe, and she agreed to sound him on
the subject. There was something a little compromising in thus
allowing herself to appear as the dispenser of Mr. Ratcliffe's
patronage, but she dismissed this objection on the ground that
Carrington's interests were involved, and that it was for him to
judge whether he should take the place or not. Perhaps the world
would not be so charitable if the appointment were made. What
then? Mrs. Lee asked herself the question and did not feel quite at
ease.
So far as Carrington was concerned, she might have dismissed her
doubts.
There was not a chance of his taking the place, as very soon
appeared. When she spoke to him on the subject, and repeated
what Ratcliffe had said, his face flushed, and he sat for some
moments in silence. He never thought very rapidly, but now the
ideas seemed to come so fast as to bewilder his mind.
The situation flashed before his eyes like electric sparks. His first
impression was that Ratcliffe wanted to buy him; to tie his tongue;
to make him run, like a fastened dog, under the waggon of the
Secretary of the Treasury. His second notion was that Ratcliffe
wanted to put Mrs. Lee under obligations, in order to win her
regard; and, again, that he wanted to raise himself in her esteem by
posing as a friend of honest administration and unassisted virtue.
Then suddenly it occurred to him that the scheme was to make him
appear jealous and vindictive; to put him in an attitude where any
reason he might give for declining would bear a look of meanness,
and tend to separate him from Mrs. Lee. Carrington was so
absorbed by these thoughts, and his mind worked so slowly, that
he failed to hear one or two remarks addressed to him by Mrs. Lee,
who became a little alarmed, under the impression that he was
unexpectedly paralyzed.
When at length he heard her and attempted to frame an answer, his
embarrassment increased. He could only stammer that he was
sorry to be obliged to decline, but this office was one he could not
undertake.
If Madeleine felt a little relieved by this decision, she did not show
it.
From her manner one might have supposed it to be her fondest
wish that Carrington should be Solicitor of the Treasury. She
cross-questioned him with obstinacy. Was not the offer a good
one? --and he was obliged to confess that it was. Were the duties
such as he could not perform? Not at all! there was nothing in the
duties which alarmed him. Did he object to it because of his
southern prejudices against the administration? Oh, no! he had no
political feeling to stand in his way. What, then, could be his
reason for refusing?
Carrington resorted again to silence, until Mrs. Lee, a little
impatiently, asked whether it was possible that his personal dislike
to Racliffe could blind him so far as to make him reject so fair a
proposal. Carrington, finding himself more and more
uncomfortable, rose restlessly from his chair and paced the room.
He felt that Ratclife had fairly out-generaled him, and he was at
his wits' end to know what card he could play that would not lead
directly into Ratcliffe's trump suit. To refuse such an offer was
hard enough at best, for a man who wanted money and
professional advancement as he did, but to injure himself and help
Ratcliffe by this refusal, was abominably hard. Nevertheless, he
was obliged to admit that he would rather not take a position so
directly under Ratcliffe's control. Madeleine said no more, but he
thought she looked annoyed, and he felt himself in an intolerably
painful situation. He was not certain that she herself might not
have had some share in proposing the plan, and that his refusal
might not have some mortifying consequences for her. What must
she think of him, then?
At this very moment he would have given his right arm for a word
of real affection from Mrs. Lee. He adored her. He would willingly
enough have damned himself for her. There was no sacrifice he
would not have made to bring her nearer to him. In his upright,
quiet, simple kind of way, he immolated himself before her. For
months his heart had ached with this hopeless passion. He
recognized that it was hopeless. He knew that she would never
love him, and, to do her justice, she never had given him reason to
suppose that it was in her power to love him, r any man. And here
he stood, obliged to appear ungrateful and prejudiced, mean and
vindictive, in her eyes. He took his seat again, looking so
unutterably dejected, his patient face so tragically mournful, that
Madeleine, after a while, began to see the absurd side of the
matter, and presently burst into a laugh "Please do not look so
frightfully miserable!" said she; "I did not mean to make you
unhappy. After all, what does it matter? You have a perfect right to
refuse, and, for my part, I have not the least wish to see you
accept."
On this, Carrington brightened, and declared that if she thought
him right in declining, he cared for nothing else. It was only the
idea of hurting her feelings that weighed on his mind. But in
saying this, he spoke in a tone that implied a deeper feeling, and
made Mrs. Lee again look grave and sigh.
"Ah, Mr. Carrington," she said, "this world will not run as we
want. Do you suppose the time will ever come when every one will
be good and happy and do just what they ought? I thought this
offer might possibly take one anxiety off your shoulders. I am
sorry now that I let myself be led into making it."
Carrington could not answer her. He dared not trust his voice. He
rose to go, and as she held out her hand, he suddenly raised it to
his lips, and so left her. She sat for a moment with tears in her eyes
after he was gone. She thought she knew all that was in his mind,
and with a woman's readiness to explain every act of men by their
consuming passions for her own sex, she took it as a matter of
course that jealousy was the whole cause of Carrington's hostility
to Ratcliffe, and she pardoned it with charming alacrity. "Ten
years ago, I could have loved him," she thought to herself, and
then, while she was half smiling at the idea, suddenly another
thought flashed upon her, and she threw her hand up before her
face as though some one had struck her a blow. Carrington had
reopened the old wound.
When Ratcliffe came to see her again, which he did very shortly
afterwards, glad of so good an excuse, she told him of Carrington's
refusal, adding only that he seemed unwilling to accept any
position that had a political character. Ratcliffe showed no sign of
displeasure; he only said, in a benignant tone, that he was sorry to
be unable to do something for so good a friend of hers; thus
establishing, at all events, his claim on her gratitude. As for
Carrington, the offer which Ratcliffe had made was not intended to
be accepted, and Carrington could not have more embarrassed the
secretary than by closing with it. Ratcliffe's object had been to
settle for his own satisfaction the question of Carrington's hostility,
for he knew the man well enough to feel sure that in any event he
would act a perfectly straightforward part. If he accepted, he
would at least be true to his chief. If he refused, as Ratcliffe
expected, it would be a proof that some means must be found of
getting him out of the way. In any case the offer was a new thread
in the net that Mr. Ratcliffe flattered himself he was rapidly
winding about the affections and ambitions of Mrs. Lee. Yet he
had reasons of his own for thinking that Carrington, more easily
than any other man, could cut the meshes of this net if he chose to
do so, and therefore that it would be wiser to postpone action until
Carrington were disposed of.
Without a moment's delay he made inquiries as to all the vacant or
eligible offices in the gift of the government outside his own
department. Very few of these would answer his purpose. He
wanted some temporary law business that would for a time take its
holder away to a distance, say to Australia or Central Asia, the
further the better; it must be highly paid, and it must be given in
such a way as not to excite suspicion that Ratcliffe was concerned
in the matter. Such an office was not easily found. There is little
law business in Central Asia, and at this moment there was not
enough to require a special agent in Australia. Carrington could
hardly be induced to lead an expedition to the sources of the Nile
in search of business merely to please Mr. Ratcliffe, nor could the
State Department offer encouragement to a hope that government
would pay the expenses of such an expedition. The best that
Ratcliffe could do was to select the place of counsel to the
Mexican claims-commission which was soon to meet in the city of
Mexico, and which would require about six months' absence. By a
little management he could contrive to get the counsel sent away
in advance of the commission, in order to work up a part of the
case on the spot. Ratcliffe acknowledged that Mexico was too
near, but he drily remarked to himself that if Carrington could get
back in time to dislodge him after he had once got a firm hold on
Mrs. Lee, he would never try to run another caucus.
The point once settled in his own mind, Ratcliffe, with his usual
rapidity of action, carried his scheme into effect. In this there was
little difficulty. He dropped in at the office of the Secretary of
State within eight-and-forty hours after his last conversation with
Mrs. Lee. During these early days of every new administration, the
absorbing business of government relates principally to
appointments. The Secretary of the Treasury was always ready to
oblige his colleagues in the Cabinet by taking care of their friends
to any reasonable extent. The Secretary of State was not less
courteous. The moment he understood that Mr. Ratcliffe had a
strong wish to secure the appointment of a certain person as
counsel to the Mexican claims-commission, the Secretary of State
professed readiness to gratify him, and when he heard who the
proposed person was, the suggestion was hailed with pleasure, for
Carrington was well known and much liked at the Department, and
was indeed an excellent man for the place. Ratcliffe hardly needed
to promise an equivalent. The business was arranged in ten
minutes.
"I only need say," added Ratcliffe, "that if my agency in the affair
is known, Mr. Carrington will certainly refuse the place, for he is
one of your old-fashioned Virginia planters, proud as Lucifer, and
willing to accept nothing by way of favour. I will speak to your
Assistant Secretary about it, and the recommendation shall appear
to come from him."
The very next day Carrington received a private note from his old
friend, the Assistant Secretary of State, who was overjoyed to do
him a kindness.
The note asked him to call at the Department at his earliest
convenience. He went, and the Assistant Secretary announced that
he had recommended Carrington's appointment as counsel to the
Mexican claims-commission, and that the Secretary had approved
the recommendation. "We want a Southern man, a lawyer with a
little knowledge of international law, one who can go at once, and,
above all, an honest man. You fit the description to a hair; so pack
your trunk as soon as you like."
Carrington was startled. Coming as it did, this offer was not only
unobjectionable, but tempting. It was hard for him even to imagine
a reason for hesitation. From the first he felt that he must go, and
yet to go was the very last thing he wanted to do. That he should
suspect Ratcliffe to be at the bottom of this scheme of banishment
was a matter of course, and he instantly asked whether any
influence had been used in his favour; but the Assistant Secretary
so stoutly averred that the appointment was made on his
recommendation alone, as to block all further inquiry. Technically
this assertion was exact, and it made Carrington feel that it would
be base ingratitude on his part not to accept a favour so
handsomely offered.
Yet he could not make up his mind to acceptance. He begged four
and twenty hours' delay, in order, as he said, to see whether he
could arrange his affairs for a six months' absence, although he
knew there would be no difficulty in his doing so. He went away
and sat in his office alone, gloomily wondering what he could do,
although from the first he saw that the situation was only too clear,
and there could not be the least dark corner of a doubt to crawl
into. Six months ago he would have jumped at this offer.
What had happened within six months to make it seem a disaster?
Mrs. Lee! There was the whole story. To go away now was to give
up Mrs. Lee, and probably to give her up to Ratcliffe. Carrington
gnashed his teeth when he thought how skilfully Ratcliffe was
playing his cards. The longer he reflected, the more certain he felt
that Ratcliffe was at the bottom of this scheme to get rid of him;
and yet, as he studied the situation, it occurred to him that after all
it was possible for Ratcliffe to make a blunder. This Illinois
politician was clever, and understood men; but a knowledge of
men is a very different thing from a knowledge of women.
Carrington himself had no great experience in the article of
women, but he thought he knew more than Ratcliffe, who was
evidently relying most on his usual theory of political corruption as
applied to feminine weaknesses, and who was only puzzled at
finding how high a price Mrs. Lee set on herself. If Ratcliffe were
really at the bottom of the scheme for separating Carrington from
her, it could only be because he thought that six months, or even
six weeks, would be enough to answer his purpose. And on
reaching this point in his reflections, Carrington suddenly rose, lit
a cigar, and walked up and down his room steadily for the next
hour, with the air of a general arranging a plan of campaign, or a
lawyer anticipating his opponent's line of argument.
On one point his mind was made up. He would accept. If Ratcliffe
really had a hand in this move, he should be gratified. If he had
laid a trap, he should be caught in it. And when the evening came,
Carrington took his hat and walked off to call upon Mrs. Lee.
He found the sisters alone and quietly engaged in their
occupations.
Madeleine was dramatically mending an open-work silk stocking,
a delicate and difficult task which required her whole mind. Sybil
was at the piano as usual, and for the first time since he had known
her, she rose when he came in, and, taking her work-basket, sat
down to share in the conversation. She meant to take her place as a
woman, henceforward. She was tired of playing girl. Mr.
Carrington should see that she was not a fool.
Carrington plunged at once into his subject, and announced the
offer made to him, at which Madeleine expressed delight, and
asked many questions. What was the pay? How soon must he go?
How long should he be away? Was there danger from the climate?
and finally she added, with a smile, "What am I to say to Mr.
Ratcliffe if you accept this offer after refusing his?" As for Sybil,
she made one reproachful exclamation: "Oh, Mr. Carrington!" and
sank back into silence and consternation. Her first experiment at
taking a stand of her own in the world was not encouraging. She
felt betrayed.
Nor was Carrington gay. However modest a man may be, only an
idiot can forget himself entirely in pursuing the moon and the
stars. In the bottom of his soul, he had a lingering hope that when
he told his story, Madeleine might look up with a change of
expression, a glance of unpremeditated regard, a little suffusion of
the eyes, a little trembling of the voice. To see himself relegated to
Mexico with such cheerful alacrity by the woman he loved was not
the experience he would have chosen. He could not help feeling
that his hopes were disposed of, and he watched her with a painful
sinking of the heart, which did not lead to lightness of
conversation. Madeleine herself felt that her expressions needed to
be qualified, and she tried to correct her mistake. What should she
do without a tutor? she said. He must let her have a list of books to
read while he was away: they were themselves going north in the
middle of May, and Carrington would be back by the time they
returned in December. After all, they should see as little of him
during the summer if he were in Virginia as if he were in Mexico.
Carrington gloomily confessed that he was very unwilling to go;
that he wished the idea had never been suggested; that he should
be perfectly happy if for any reason the scheme broke down; but
he gave no explanation of his feeling, and Madeleine had too much
tact to press for one. She contented herself by arguing against it,
and talking as vivaciously as she could. Her heart really bled for
him as she saw his face grow more and more pathetic in its quiet
expression of disappointment. But what could she say or do? He
sat till after ten o'clock; he could not tear himself away. He felt
that this was the end of his pleasure in life; he dreaded the solitude
of his thoughts. Mrs. Lee's resources began to show signs of
exhaustion. Long pauses intervened between her remarks; and at
length Carrington, with a superhuman effort, apologized for
inflicting himself upon her so unmercifully. If she knew, he said,
how he dreaded being alone, she would forgive him. Then he rose
to go, and, in taking leave, asked Sybil if she was inclined to ride
the next day; if so, he was at her service. Sybil's face brightened as
she accepted the invitation.
Mrs. Lee, a day or two afterwards, did mention Carrington's
appointment to Mr. Ratcliffe, and she told Carrington that the
Secretary certainly looked hurt and mortified, but showed it only
by almost instantly changing the subject.
Chapter X
THE next morning Carrington called at the Department and
announced his acceptance of the post. He was told that his
instructions would be ready in about a fortnight, and that he would
be expected to start as soon as he received them; in the meanwhile,
he must devote himself to the study of a mass of papers in the
Department. There was no trifling allowable here.
Carrington had to set himself vigorously to work. This did not,
however, prevent him from keeping his appointment with Sybil,
and at four o'clock they started together, passing out into the quiet
shadows of Rock Creek, and seeking still lanes through the woods
where their horses walked side by side, and they themselves could
talk without the risk of criticism from curious eyes. It was the
afternoon of one of those sultry and lowering spring days when life
germinates rapidly, but as yet gives no sign, except perhaps some
new leaf or flower pushing its soft head up against the dead leaves
that have sheltered it. The two riders had something of the same
sensation, as though the leafless woods and the laurel thickets, the
warm, moist air and the low clouds, were a protection and a soft
shelter. Somewhat to Carrington's surprise, he found that it was
pleasant to have Sybil's company. He felt towards her as to a
sister--a favourite sister.
She at once attacked him for abandoning her and breaking his
treaty so lately made, and he tried to gain her sympathy by saying
that if she knew how much he was troubled, she would forgive
him. Then when Sybil asked whether he really must go and leave
her without any friend whom she could speak to, his feelings got
the better of him: he could not resist the temptation to confide all
his troubles in her, since there was no one else in whom he could
confide. He told her plainly that he was in love with her sister.
"You say that love is nonsense, Miss Ross. I tell you it is no such
thing.
For weeks and months it is a steady physical pain, an ache about
the heart, never leaving one, by night or by day; a long strain on
one's nerves like toothache or rheumatism, not intolerable at any
one instant, but exhausting by its steady drain on the strength. It is
a disease to be borne with patience, like any other nervous
complaint, and to be treated with counter-irritants. My trip to
Mexico will be good for it, but that is not the reason why I must
go."
Then he told her all his private circumstances; the ruin which the
war had brought on him and his family; how, of his two brothers,
one had survived the war only to die at home, a mere wreck of
disease, privation, and wounds; the other had been shot by his side,
and bled slowly to death in his arms during the awful carnage in
the Wilderness; how his mother and two sisters were struggling for
a bare subsistence on a wretched Virginian farm, and how all his
exertions barely kept them from beggary.
"You have no conception of the poverty to which our southern
women are reduced since the war," said he; "they are many of
them literally without clothes or bread." The fee he should earn by
going to Mexico would double his income this year. Could he
refuse? Had he a right to refuse? And poor Carrington added, with
a groan, that if he alone were in question, he would sooner be shot
than go.
Sybil listened with tears in her eyes. She never before had seen a
man show suffering. The misery she had known in life had been
more or less veiled to her and softened by falling on older and
friendly shoulders. She now got for the first time a clear view of
Carrington, apart from the quiet exterior in which the man was
hidden. She felt quite sure, by a sudden flash of feminine
inspiration, that the curious look of patient endurance on his face
was the work of a single night when he had held his brother in his
arms, and knew that the blood was draining drop by drop from his
side, in the dense, tangled woods, beyond the reach of help, hour
after hour, till the voice failed and the limbs grew stiff and cold.
When he had finished his story, she was afraid to speak. She did
not know how to show her sympathy, and she could not bear to
seem unsympathetic. In her embarrassment she fairly broke down
and could only dry her eyes in silence.
Having once got this weight of confidence off his mind,
Carrington felt comparatively gay and was ready to make the best
of things. He laughed at himself to drive away the tears of his
pretty companion, and obliged her to take a solemn pledge never
to betray him. "Of course your sister knows it all," he said; "but
she must never know that I told you, and I never would tell any one
but you."
Sybil promised faithfully to keep his confidence to herself, and she
went on to defend her sister.
"You must not blame Madeleine," said she; "if you knew as well as
I do what she has been through, you would not think her cold. You
do know how suddenly her husband died, after only one day's
illness, and what a nice fellow he was. She was very fond of him,
and his death seemed to stun her. We hardly knew what to make of
it, she was so quiet and natural. Then just a week later her little
child died of diphtheria, suffering horribly, and she wild with
despair because she could not relieve it. After that, she was almost
insane; indeed, I have always thought she was quite insane for a
time. I know she was excessively violent and wanted to kill
herself, and I never heard any one rave as she did about religion
and resignation and God. After a few weeks she became quiet and
stupid and went about like a machine; and at last she got over it,
but has never been what she was before. You know she was a
rather fast New York girl before she married, and cared no more
about politics and philanthropy than I do. It was a very late thing,
all this stuff. But she is not really hard, though she may seem so. It
is all on the surface. I always know when she is thinking about her
husband or child, because her face gets rigid; she looks then as she
used to look after her child died, as though she didn't care what
became of her and she would just as lieve kill herself as not. I don't
think she will ever let herself love any one again. She has a horror
of it. She is much more likely to go in for ambition, or duty, or
self-sacrifice."
They rode on for a while in silence, Carrington perplexed by the
problem how two harmless people such as Madeleine and he could
have been made by a beneficent Providence the sport of such cruel
tortures; and Sybil equally interested in thinking what sort of a
brother-in-law Carrington would make; on the whole, she thought
she liked him better as he was. The silence was only broken by
Carrington's bringing the conversation back to its starting-point:
"Something must be done to keep your sister out of Ratcliffe's
power. I have thought about it till I am tired. Can you make no
suggestion?"
No! Sybil was helpless and dreadfully alarmed. Mr. Ratcliffe came
to the house as often as he could, and seemed to tell Madeleine
everything that was going on in politics, and ask her advice, and
Madeleine did not discourage him. "I do believe she likes it, and
thinks she can do some good by it. I don't dare speak to her about
it. She thinks me a child still, and treats me as though I were
fifteen. What can I do?"
Carrington said he had thought of speaking to Mrs. Lee himself,
but he did not know what to say, and if he offended her, he might
drive her directly into Ratcliffe's arms. But Sybil thought she
would not be offended if he went to work in the right way. "She
will stand more from you than from any one else. Tell her openly
that you--that you love her," said Sybil with a burst of desperate
courage; "she can't take offence at that; and then you can say
almost anything."
Carrington looked at Sybil with more admiration than he had ever
expected to feel for her, and began to think that he might do worse
than to put himself under her orders. After all, she had some
practical sense, and what was more to the point, she was
handsomer than ever, as she sat erect on her horse, the rich colour
rushing up under the warm skin, at the impropriety of her speech.
"You are certainly right," said he; "after all, I have nothing to lose.
Whether she marries Ratcliffe or not, she will never marry me, I
suppose."
This speech was a cowardly attempt to beg encouragement from
Sybil, and met with the fate it deserved, for Sybil, highly flattered
at Carrington's implied praise, and bold as a lioness now that it
was Carrington's fingers, and not her own, that were to go into the
fire, gave him on the spot a feminine view of the situation that did
not encourage his hopes. She plainly said that men seemed to take
leave of their senses as soon as women were concerned; for her
part, she could not understand what there was in any woman to
make such a fuss about; she thought most women were horrid;
men were ever so much nicer; "and as for Madeleine, whom all of
you are ready to cut each other's throats about, she's a dear, good
sister, as good as gold, and I love her with all my heart, but you
wouldn't like her, any of you, if you married her; she has always
had her own way, and she could not help taking it; she never could
learn to take yours; both of you would be unhappy in a week; and
as for that old Mr. Ratcliffe, she would make his life a burden--and
I hope she will," concluded Sybil with a spiteful little explosion of
hatred.
Carrington could not help being amused by Sybil's way of dealing
with affairs of the heart. Emboldened by encouragement, she went
on to attack him pitilessly for going down on his knees before her
sister, "just as though you were not as good as she is," and openly
avowed that, if she were a man, she would at least have some
pride. Men like this kind of punishment.
Carrington did not attempt to defend himself; he even courted
Sybil's attack. They both enjoyed their ride through the bare
woods, by the rippling spring streams, under the languid breath of
the moist south wind. It was a small idyll, all the more pleasant
because there was gloom before and behind it. Sybil's irrepressible
gaiety made Carrington doubt whether, after all, life need be so
serious a matter. She had animal spirits in plenty, and it needed an
effort for her to keep them down, while Carrington's spirits were
nearly exhausted after twenty years of strain, and he required a
greater effort to hold himself up. There was every reason why he
should be grateful to Sybil for lending to him from her superfluity.
He enjoyed being laughed at by her. Suppose Madeleine Lee did
refuse to marry him! What of it?
"Pooh!" said Sybil; "you men are all just alike. How can you be so
silly?
Madeleine and you would be intolerable together. Do find some
one who won't be solemn!"
They laid out their little plot against Madeleine and elaborated it
carefully, both as to what Carrington should say and how he
should say it, for Sybil asserted that men were too stupid to be
trusted even in making a declaration of love, and must be taught,
like little children to say their prayers. Carrington enjoyed being
taught how to make a declaration of love.
He did not ask where Sybil had learned so much about men's
stupidity. He thought perhaps Schneidekoupon could have thrown
light on the subject. At all events, they were so busily occupied
with their schemes and lessons, that they did not-reach home till
Madeleine had become anxious lest they had met with some
accident. The long dusk had become darkness before she heard the
clatter of hoofs on the asphalt pavement, and she went down to the
door to scold them for their delay. Sybil only laughed at her, and
said it was all Mr. Carrington's fault: he had lost his way, and she
had been forced to find it for him.
Ten days more passed before their plan was carried into effect.
April had come. Carrington's work was completed and he was
ready to start on his journey. Then at last he appeared one evening
at Mrs. Lee's at the very moment when Sybil, as chance would
have it, was going out to pass an hour or two with her friend
Victoria Dare a few doors away. Carrington felt a little ashamed as
she went. This kind of conspiracy behind Mrs. Lee's back was not
to his taste.
He resolutely sat down, and plunged at once into his subject. He
was almost ready to go, he said; he had nearly completed his work
in the Department, and he was assured that his instructions and
papers would be ready in two days more; he might not have
another chance to see Mrs. Lee so quietly again, and he wanted to
take his leave now, for this was what lay most heavily on his mind;
he should have gone willingly and gladly if it had not been for
uneasiness about her; and yet he had till now been afraid to speak
openly on the subject. Here he paused for a moment as though to
invite some reply.
Madeleine laid down her work with a look of regret though not of
annoyance, and said frankly and instantly that he had been too
good a friend to allow of her taking offence at anything he could
say; she would not pretend to misunderstand him. "My affairs," she
added with a shade of bitterness, "seem to have become public
property, and I would rather have some voice in discussing them
myself than to know they are discussed behind my back."
This was a sharp thrust at the very outset, but Carrington turned it
aside and went quietly on:
"You are frank and loyal, as you always are. I will be so too. I can't
help being so. For months I have had no other pleasure than in
being near you.
For the first time in my life I have known what it is to forget my
own affairs in loving a woman who seems to me without a fault,
and for one solitary word from whom I would give all I have in
life, and perhaps itself."
Madeleine flushed and bent towards him with an earnestness of
manner that repeated itself in her tone.
"Mr. Carrington, I am the best friend you have on earth. One of
these days you will thank me with your whole soul for refusing to
listen to you now.
You do not know how much misery I am saving you. I have no
heart to give.
You want a young, fresh life to help yours; a gay, lively
temperament to enliven your despondency; some one still young
enough to absorb herself in you and make all her existence yours. I
could not do it. I can give you nothing. I have done my best to
persuade myself that some day I might begin life again with the
old hopes and feelings, but it is no use. The fire is burned out. If
you married me, you would destroy yourself You would wake up
some day, and find the universe dust and ashes."
Carrington listened in silence. He made no attempt to interrupt or
to contradict her. Only at the end he said with a little bitterness:
"My own life is worth so much to the world and to me, that I
suppose it would be wrong to risk it on such a venture; but I would
risk it, nevertheless, if you gave me the chance. Do you think me
wicked for tempting Providence? I do not mean to annoy you with
entreaties. I have a little pride left, and a great deal of respect for
you. Yet I think, in spite of all you have said or can say, that one
disappointed life may be as able to find happiness and repose in
another, as to get them by sucking the young life-blood of a fresh
soul."
To this speech, which was unusually figurative for Carrington,
Mrs. Lee could find no ready answer. She could only reply that
Carrington's life was worth quite as much as his neighbour's, and
that it was worth so much to her, if not to himself, that she would
not let him wreck it.
Carrington went on: "Forgive my talking in this way. I do not mean
to complain. I shall always love you just as much, whether you
care for me or not, because you are the only woman I have ever
met, or am ever likely to meet, who seems to me perfect."
If this was Sybil's teaching, she had made the best of her time.
Carrington's tone and words pierced through all Mrs. Lee's armour
as though they were pointed with the most ingenious cruelty, and
designed to torture her. She felt hard and small before him. Life
for life, his had been, and was now, far less bright than hers, yet he
was her superior. He sat there, a true man, carrying his burden
calmly, quietly, without complaint, ready to face the next shock of
life with the same endurance he had shown against the rest. And
he thought her perfect! She felt humiliated that any brave man
should say to her face that he thought her perfect! She! perfect! In
her contrition she was half ready to go down at his feet and confess
her sins; her hysterical dread of sorrow and suffering, her narrow
sympathies, her feeble faith, her miserable selfishness, her abject
cowardice. Every nerve in her body tingled with shame when she
thought what a miserable fraud she was; what a mass of
pretensions unfounded, of deceit ingrained. She was ready to hide
her face in her hands. She was disgusted, outraged with her own
image as she saw it, contrasted with Carrington's single word:
Perfect!
Nor was this the worst. Carrington was not the first man who had
thought her perfect. To hear this word suddenly used again, which
had never been uttered to her before except by lips now dead and
gone, made her brain reel. She seemed to hear her husband once
more telling her that she was perfect. Yet against this torture, she
had a better defence. She had long since hardened herself to bear
these recollections, and they steadied and strengthened her.
She had been called perfect before now, and what had come of it?
Two graves, and a broken life! She drew herself up with a face
now grown quite pale and rigid. In reply to Carrington, she said
not a word, but only shook her head slightly without looking at
him.
He went on: "After all, it is not my own happiness I am thinking of
but yours. I never was vain enough to think that I was worth your
love, or that I could ever win it. Your happiness is another thing. I
care so much for that as to make me dread going away, for fear
that you may yet find yourself entangled in this wretched political
life here, when, perhaps if I stayed, I might be of some use."
"Do you really think, then, that I am going to fall a victim to Mr.
Ratcliffe?" asked Madeleine, with a cold smile.
"Why not?" replied Carrington, in a similar tone. "He can put
forward a strong claim to your sympathy and help, if not to your
love. He can offer you a great field of usefulness which you want.
He has been very faithful to you. Are you quite sure that even now
you can refuse him without his complaining that you have trifled
with him?"
"And are you quite sure," added Mrs. Lee, evasively, "that you
have not been judging him much too harshly? I think I know him
better than you. He has many good qualities, and some high ones.
What harm can he do me? Supposing even that he did succeed in
persuading me that my life could be best used in helping his, why
should I be afraid of it?"
"You and I," said Carrington, "are wide apart in our estimates of
Mr.
Ratcliffe. To you, of course, he shows his best side. He is on his
good behaviour, and knows that any false step will ruin him. I see
in him only a coarse, selfish, unprincipled politician, who would
either drag you down to his own level, or, what is more likely,
would very soon disgust you and make your life a wretched
self-immolation before his vulgar ambition, or compel you to leave
him. In either case you would be the victim. You cannot afford to
make another false start in life. Reject me! I have not a word to say
against it. But be on your guard against giving your existence up to
him."
"Why do you think so ill of Mr. Ratcliffe?" asked Madeleine; "he
always speaks highly of you. Do you know anything against him
that the world does not?"
"His public acts are enough to satisfy me," replied Carrington,
evading a part of the question. "You know that I have never had
but one opinion about him."
There was a pause in the conversation. Both parties felt that as yet
no good had come of it. At length Madeleine asked, "What would
you have me do? Is it a pledge you want that I will under no
circumstances marry Mr. Ratcliffe?"
"Certainly not," was the answer; "you know me better than to think
I would ask that. I only want you to take time and keep out of his
influence until your mind is fairly made up. A year hence I feel
certain that you will think of him as I do."
"Then you will allow me to marry him if I find that you are
mistaken," said Mrs. Lee, with a marked tone of sarcasm.
Carrington looked annoyed, but he answered quietly, "What I fear
is his influence here and now. What I would like to see you do is
this: go north a month earlier than you intended, and without
giving him time to act. If I were sure you were safely in Newport, I
should feel no anxiety."
"You seem to have as bad an opinion of Washington as Mr. Gore,"
said Madeleine, with a contemptuous smile. "He gave me the same
advice, though he was afraid to tell me why. I am not a child. I am
thirty years old, and have seen something of the world. I am not
afraid, like Mr. Gore, of Washington malaria, or, like you, of Mr.
Ratcliffe's influence. If I fall a victim I shall deserve my fate, and
certainly I shall have no cause to complain of my friends. They
have given me advice enough for a lifetime."
Carrington's face darkened with a deeper shade of regret. The turn
which the conversation had taken was precisely what he had
expected, and both Sybil and he had agreed that Madeleine would
probably answer just in this way.
Nevertheless, he could not but feel acutely the harm he was doing
to his own interests, and it was only by a sheer effort of the will
that he forced himself to a last and more earnest attack.
"I know it is an impertinence," he said; "I wish it were in my
power to show how much it costs me to offend you. This is the
first time you ever had occasion to be offended. If I were to yield
to the fear of your anger and were to hold my tongue now, and by
any chance you were to wreck your life on this rock, I should never
forgive myself the cowardice. I should always think I might have
done something to prevent it. This is probably the last time I shall
have the chance to talk openly with you, and I implore you to
listen to me. I want nothing for myself If I knew I should never see
you again, I would still say the same thing. Leave Washington!
Leave it now!
--at once! --without giving more than twenty-four hours' notice!
Leave it without letting Mr. Ratcliffe see you again in private!
Come back next winter if you please, and then accept him if you
think proper. I only pray you to think long about it and decide
when you are not here."
Madeleine's eyes flashed, and she threw aside her embroidery with
an impatient gesture: "No! Mr. Carrington! I will not be dictated
to! I will carry out my own plans! I do not mean to marry Mr.
Ratcliffe. If I had meant it, I should have done it before now. But I
will not run away from him or from myself. It would be
unladylike, undignified, cowardly."
Carrington could say no more. He had come to the end of his
lesson. A long silence ensued and then he rose to go. "Are you
angry with me?" said she in a softer tone.
"I ought to ask that question," said he. "Can you forgive me? I am
afraid not. No man can say to a woman what I have said to you,
and be quite forgiven. You will never think of me again as you
would have done if I had not spoken. I knew that before I did it. As
for me, I can only go on with my old life. It is not gay, and will not
be the gayer for our talk to-night."
Madeleine relented a little: "Friendships like ours are not so easily
broken," she said. "Do not do me another injustice. You will see
me again before you go?"
He assented and bade good-night. Mrs. Lee, weary and disturbed in
mind, hastened to her room. "When Miss Sybil comes in, tell her
that I am not very well, and have gone to bed," were her
instructions to her maid, and Sybil thought she knew the cause of
this headache.
But before Carrington's departure he had one more ride with Sybil,
and reported to her the result of the interview, at which both of
them confessed themselves much depressed. Carrington expressed
some hope that Madeleine meant, after a sort, to give a kind of
pledge by saying that she had no intention of marrying Mr.
Ratcliffe, but Sybil shook her head emphatically:
"How can a woman tell whether she is going to accept a man until
she is asked?" said she with entire confidence, as though she were
stating the simplest fact in the world. Carrington looked puzzled,
and ventured to ask whether women did not generally make up
their minds beforehand on such an interesting point; but Sybil
overwhelmed him with contempt: "What good will they do by
making up their minds, I should like to know? of course they
would go and do the opposite. Sensible women don't pretend to
make up their minds, Mr. Carrington. But you men are so stupid,
and you can't understand in the least."
Carrington gave it up, and went back to his stale question: Could
Sybil suggest any other resource? and Sybil sadly confessed that
she could not. So far as she could see, they must trust to luck, and
she thought it was cruel tor Mr. Carrington to go away and leave
her alone without help. He had promised to prevent the marriage.
"One thing more I mean to do," said Carrington: "and here
everything will depend on your courage and nerve. You may
depend upon it that Mr. Ratcliffe will offer himself before you go
north. He does not suspect you of making trouble, and he will not
think about you in any way if you let him alone and keep quiet.
When he does offer himself you will know it; at least your sister
will tell you if she has accepted him. If she refuses him point
blank, you will have nothing to do but to keep her steady. If you
see her hesitating, you must break in at any cost, and use all your
influence to stop her. Be bold, then, and do your best. If everything
fails and she still clings to him, I must play my last card, or rather
you must play it for me.
I shall leave with you a sealed letter which you are to give her if
everything else fails. Do it before she sees Ratcliffe a second time.
See that she reads it and, if necessary, make her read it, no matter
when or where. No one else must know that it exists, and you must
take as much care of it as though it were a diamond. You are not to
know what is in it; it must be a complete secret. Do you
understand?"
Sybil thought she did, but her heart sank. "When shall you give me
this letter?" she asked.
"The evening before I start, when I come to bid good-bye; probably
next Sunday. This letter is our last hope. If, after reading that, she
does not give him up, you will have to pack your trunk, my dear
Sybil, and find a new home, for you can never live with them."
He had never before called her by her first name, and it pleased her
to hear it now, though she generally had a strong objection to such
familiarities.
"Oh, I wish you were not going!" she exclaimed tearfully. "What
shall I do when you are gone?"
At this pitiful appeal, Carrington felt a sudden pang. He found that
he was not so old as he had thought. Certainly he had grown to like
her frank honesty and sound common sense, and he had at length
discovered that she was handsome, with a very pretty figure. Was
it not something like a flirtation he had been carrying on with this
young person for the last month? A glimmering of suspicion
crossed his mind, though he got rid of it as quickly as possible. For
a man of his age and sobriety to be in love with two sisters at once
was impossible; still more impossible that Sybil should care for
him.
As for her, however, there was no doubt about the matter. She had
grown to depend upon him, and she did it with all the blind
confidence of youth. To lose him was a serious disaster. She had
never before felt the sensation, and she thought it most
disagreeable. Her youthful diplomatists and admirers could not at
all fill Carrington's place. They danced and chirruped cheerfully on
the hollow crust of society, but they were wholly useless when one
suddenly fell through and found oneself struggling in the darkness
and dangers beneath. Young women, too, are apt to be flattered by
the confidences of older men; they have a keen palate for whatever
savours of experience and adventure. For the first time in her life,
Sybil had found a man who gave some play to her imagination;
one who had been a rebel, and had grown used to the shocks of
fate, so as to walk with calmness into the face of death, and to
command or obey with equal indifference. She felt that he would
tell her what to do when the earthquake came, and would be at
hand to consult, which is in a woman's eyes the great object of
men's existence, when trouble comes. She suddenly conceived that
Washington would be intolerable without him, and that she should
never get the courage to fight Mr. Ratcliffe alone, or, if she did,
she should make some fatal mistake.
They finished their ride very soberly. She began to show a new
interest in all that concerned him, and asked many questions about
his sisters and their plantation. She wanted to ask him whether she
could not do something to help them, but this seemed too
awkward. On his part he made her promise to write him faithfully
all that took place, and this request pleased her, though she knew
his interest was all on her sister's account.
The following Sunday evening when he came to bid good-bye, it
was still worse. There was no chance for private talk. Ratcliffe was
there, and several diplomatists, including old Jacobi, who had eyes
like a cat and saw every motion of one's face. Victoria Dare was
on the sofa, chattering with Lord Dunbeg; Sybil would rather have
had any ordinary illness, even to the extent of a light case of
scarlet fever or small-pox than let her know what was the matter.
Carrington found means to get Sybil into another room for a
moment and to give her the letter he had promised. Then he bade
her good-bye, and in doing so he reminded her of her promise to
write, pressing her hand and looking into her eyes with an
earnestness that made her heart beat faster, although she said to
herself that his interest was all about her sister; as it was--mostly.
The thought did not raise her spirits, but she went through with her
performance like a heroine. Perhaps she was a little pleased to see
that he parted from Madeleine with much less apparent feeling.
One would have said that they were two good friends who had no
troublesome sentiment to worry them. But then every eye in the
room was watching this farewell, and speculating about it.
Ratcliffe looked on with particular interest and was a little
perplexed to account for this too fraternal cordiality. Could he
have made a miscalculation? or was there something behind? He
himself insisted upon shaking hands genially with Carrington and
wished him a pleasant journey and a successful one.
That night, for the first time since she was a child, Sybil actually
cried a little after she went to bed, although it is true that her
sentiment did not keep her awake. She felt lonely and weighed
down by a great responsibility.
For a day or two afterwards she was nervous and restless. She
would not ride, or make calls, or see guests. She tried to sing a
little, and found it tiresome. She went out and sat for hours in the
Square, where the spring sun was shining warm and bright on the
prancing horse of the great Andrew Jackson. She was a little cross,
too, and absent, and spoke so often about Carrington that at last
Madeleine was struck by sudden suspicion, and began to watch her
with anxious care.
Tuesday night, after this had gone on for two days, Sybil was in
Madeleine's room, where she often stayed to talk while her sister
was at her toilet.
This evening she threw herself listlessly on the couch, and within
five minutes again quoted Carrington. Madeleine turned from the
glass before which she was sitting, and looked her steadily in the
face.
"Sybil," said she, "this is the twenty-fourth time you have
mentioned Mr.
Carrington since we sat down to dinner. I have waited for the
round number to decide whether I should take any notice of it or
not? what does it mean, my child? Do you care for Mr.
Carrington?"
"Oh, Maude!" exclaimed Sybil reproachfully, flushing so violently
that, even by that dim light, her sister could not but see it.
Mrs. Lee rose and, crossing the room, sat down by Sybil who was
lying on the couch and turned her face away. Madeleine put her
arms round her neck and kissed her.
"My poor--poor child!" said she pityingly. "I never dreamed of
this! What a fool I have been! How could I have been so
thoughtless! Tell me!" she added, with a little hesitation; "has
he--does he care for you?"
"No! no!" cried Sybil, fairly breaking down into a burst of tears;
"no! he loves you! nobody but you! he never gave a thought to me.
I don't care for him so very much," she continued, drying her tears;
"only it seems so lonely now he is gone."
Mrs. Lee remained on the couch, with her arm round her sister's
neck, silent, gazing into vacancy, the picture of perplexity and
consternation.
The situation was getting beyond her control.
Chapter XI
IN the middle of April a sudden social excitement started the
indolent city of Washington to its feet. The Grand-Duke and
Duchess of Saxe-Baden-Hombourg arrived in America on a tour of
pleasure, and in due course came on to pay their respects to the
Chief Magistrate of the Union. The newspapers hastened to inform
their readers that the Grand-Duchess was a royal princess of
England, and, in the want of any other social event, every one who
had any sense of what was due to his or her own dignity, hastened
to show this august couple the respect which all republicans who
have a large income derived from business, feel for English
royalty. New York gave a dinner, at which the most insignificant
person present was worth at least a million dollars, and where the
gentlemen who sat by the Princess entertained her for an hour or
two by a calculation of the aggregate capital represented. New
York also gave a ball at which the Princess appeared in an
ill-fitting black silk dress with mock lace and jet ornaments,
among several hundred toilets that proclaimed the refined
republican simplicity of their owners at a cost of various hundred
thousand dollars. After these hospitalities the Grand-ducal pair
came on to Washington, where they became guests of Lord Skye,
or, more properly, Lord Skye became their guest, for he seemed to
consider that he handed the Legation over to them, and he told
Mrs. Lee, with true British bluntness of speech, that they were a
great bore and he wished they had stayed in
Saxe-Baden-Hombourg, or wherever they belonged, but as they
were here, he must be their lackey. Mrs. Lee was amused and a
little astonished at the candour with which he talked about them,
and she was instructed and improved by his dry account of the
Princess, who, it seemed, made herself disagreeable by her airs of
royalty; who had suffered dreadfully from the voyage; and who
detested America and everything American; but who was, not
without some show of reason, jealous of her husband, and endured
endless sufferings, though with a very bad grace, rather than lose
sight of him.
Not only was Lord Skye obliged to turn the Legation into an hotel,
but in the full enthusiasm of his loyalty he felt himself called upon
to give a ball. It was, he said, the easiest way of paying off all his
debts at once, and if the Princess was good for nothing else, she
could be utilized as a show by way of "promoting the harmony of
the two great nations." In other words, Lord Skye meant to exhibit
the Princess for his own diplomatic benefit, and he did so. One
would have thought that at this season, when Congress had
adjourned, Washington would hardly have afforded society enough
to fill a ball-room, but this, instead of being a drawback, was an
advantage. It permitted the British Minister to issue invitations
without limit. He asked not only the President and his Cabinet, and
the judges, and the army, and the navy, and all the residents of
Washington who had any claim to consideration, but also all the
senators, all the representatives in Congress, all the governors of
States with their staffs, if they had any, all eminent citizens and
their families throughout the Union and Canada, and finally every
private individual, from the North Pole to the Isthmus of Panama,
who had ever shown him a civility or was able to control interest
enough to ask for a card. The result was that Baltimore promised
to come in a body, and Philadelphia was equally well-disposed;
New York provided several scores of guests, and Boston sent the
governor and a delegation; even the well-known millionaire who
represented California in the United States Senate was irritated
because, his invitation having been timed to arrive just one day too
late, he was prevented from bringing his family across the
continent with a choice party in a director's car, to enjoy the smiles
of royalty in the halls of the British lion. It is astonishing what
efforts freemen will make in a just cause.
Lord Skye himself treated the whole affair with easy contempt.
One afternoon he strolled into Mrs. Lee's parlour and begged her to
give him a cup of tea.
He said he had got rid of his menagerie for a few hours by shunting
it off upon the German Legation, and he was by way of wanting a
little human society. Sybil, who was a great favourite with him,
entreated to be told all about the ball, but he insisted that he knew
no more than she did. A man from New York had taken possession
of the Legation, but what he would do with it was not within the
foresight of the wisest; trom the talk of the young members of his
Legation, Lord Skye gathered that the entire city was to be roofed
in and forty millions of people expected, but his own concern in
the affair was limited to the flowers he hoped to receive.
"All young and beautiful women," said he to Sybil, "are to send me
flowers.
I prefer Jacqueminot roses, but will accept any handsome variety,
provided they are not wired. It is diplomatic etiquette that each
lady who sends me flowers shall reserve at least one dance for me.
You will please inscribe this at once upon your tablets, Miss
Ross."
To Madeleine this ball was a godsend, for it came just in time to
divert Sybil's mind from its troubles. A week had now passed since
that revelation of Sybil's heart which had come like an earthquake
upon Mrs. Lee. Since then Sybil had been nervous and irritable, all
the more because she was conscious of being watched. She was in
secret ashamed of her own conduct, and inclined to be angry with
Carrington, as though he were responsible for her foolishness; but
she could not talk with Madeleine on the subject without
discussing Mr. Ratcliffe, and Carrington had expressly forbidden
her to attack Mr. Ratcliffe until it was clear that Ratcliffe had laid
himself open to attack. This reticence deceived poor Mrs. Lee,
who saw in her sister's moods only that unrequited attachment for
which she held herself solely to blame. Her gross negligence in
allowing Sybil to be improperly exposed to such a risk weighed
heavily on her mind. With a saint's capacity for self-torment,
Madeleine wielded the scourge over her own back until the blood
came. She saw the roses rapidly fading from Sybil's cheeks, and by
the help of an active imagination she discovered a hectic look and
symptoms of a cough. She became fairly morbid on the subject,
and fretted herself into a fever, upon which Sybil sent, on her own
responsibility, for the medical man, and Madeleine was obliged to
dose herself with quinine. In fact, there was much more reason for
anxiety about her than for her anxiety about Sybil, who, barring a
little youthful nervousness in the face of responsibility, was as
healthy and comfortable a young woman as could be shown in
America, and whose sentiment never cost her five minutes' sleep,
although her appetite may have become a shade more exacting
than before. Madeleine was quick to notice this, and surprised her
cook by making daily and almost hourly demands for new and
impossible dishes, which she exhausted a library of cookery-books
to discover.
Lord Skye's ball and Sybil's interest in it were a great relief to
Madeleine's mind, and she now turned her whole soul to frivolity.
Never, since she was seventeen, had she thought or talked so much
about a ball, as now about this ball to the Grand-Duchess. She
wore out her own brain in the effort to amuse Sybil. She took her
to call on the Princess; she would have taken her to call on the
Grand Lama had he come to Washington. She instigated her to
order and send to Lord Skye a mass of the handsomest roses New
York could afford. She set her at work on her dress several days
before there was any occasion for it, and this famous costume had
to be taken out, examined, criticised, and discussed with unending
interest. She talked about the dress, and the Princess, and the ball,
till her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, and her brain refused
to act. From morning till night, for one entire week, she ate, drank,
breathed, and dreamt of the ball. Everything that love could
suggest or labour carry out, she did, to amuse and occupy her
sister.
She knew that all this was only temporary and palliative, and that
more radical measures must be taken to secure Sybil's happiness.
On this subject she thought in secret until both head and heart
ached. One thing and one thing only was clear: if Sybil loved
Carrington, she should have him. How Madeleine expected to
bring about this change of heart in Carrington, was known only to
herself. She regarded men as creatures made for women to dispose
of, and capable of being transferred like checks, or baggage-labels,
from one woman to another, as desired. The only condition was
that he should first be completely disabused of the notion that he
could dispose of himself. Mrs. Lee never doubted that she could
make Carrington fall in love with Sybil provided she could place
herself beyond his reach. At all events, come what might, even
though she had to accept the desperate alternative offered by Mr.
Ratcliffe, nothing should be allowed to interfere with Sybil's
happiness. And thus it was, that, for the first time, Mrs. Lee began
to ask herself whether it was not better to find the solution of her
perplexities in marriage.
Would she ever have been brought to this point without the violent
pressure of her sister's supposed interests? This is one of those
questions which wise men will not ask, because it is one which the
wisest man or woman cannot answer. Upon this theme, an army of
ingenious authors have exhausted their ingenuity in entertaining
the public, and their works are to be found at every book-stall.
They have decided that any woman will, under the right
conditions, marry any man at any time, provided her "higher
nature" is properly appealed to. Only with regret can a writer
forbear to moralize on this subject. "Beauty and the Beast,"
"Bluebeard," "Auld Robin Gray," have the double charm to authors
of being very pleasant to read, and still easier to dilute with
sentiment. But at least ten thousand modern writers, with Lord
Macaulay at their head, have so ravaged and despoiled the region
of fairy-stories and fables, that an allusion even to the "Arabian
Nights" is no longer decent. The capacity of women to make
unsuitable marriages must be considered as the corner-stone of
society.
Meanwhile the ball had, in truth, very nearly driven all thought of
Carrington out of Sybil's mind. The city filled again. The streets
swarmed with fashionable young men and women from the
provinces of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, who gave Sybil
abundance of occupation. She received bulletins of the progress of
affairs. The President and his wife had consented to be present, out
of their high respect for Her Majesty the Queen and their desire to
see and to be seen. All the Cabinet would accompany the Chief
Magistrate. The diplomatic corps would appear in uniform; so,
too, the officers of the army and navy; the Governor-General of
Canada was coming, with a staff. Lord Skye remarked that the
Governor-General was a flat.
The day of the ball was a day of anxiety to Sybil, although not on
account of Mr. Ratcliffe or of Mr. Carrington, who were of trifling
consequence compared with the serious problem now before her.
The responsibility of dressing both her sister and herself fell upon
Sybil, who was the real author of all Mrs. Lee's millinery triumphs
when they now occurred, except that Madeleine managed to put
character into whatever she wore, which Sybil repudiated on her
own account. On this day Sybil had reasons for special excitement.
All winter two new dresses, one especially a triumph of Mr.
Worth's art, had lain in state upstairs, and Sybil had waited in vain
for an occasion that should warrant the splendour of these
garments.
One afternoon in early June of the preceding summer, Mr. Worth
had received a letter on the part of the reigning favourite of the
King of Dahomey, directing him to create for her a ball-dress that
should annihilate and utterly destroy with jealousy and despair the
hearts of her seventy-five rivals; she was young and beautiful;
expense was not a consideration. Such were the words of her
chamberlain. All that night, the great genius of the nineteenth
century tossed wakefully on his bed revolving the problem in his
mind. Visions of flesh-coloured tints shot with blood-red perturbed
his brain, but he fought against and dismissed them; that
combination would be commonplace in Dahomey. When the first
rays of sunlight showed him the reflection of his careworn face in
the plate-glass mirrored ceiling, he rose and, with an impulse of
despair, flung open the casements. There before his blood-shot
eyes lay the pure, still, new-born, radiant June morning. With a cry
of inspiration the great man leaned out of the casement and rapidly
caught the details of his new conception. Before ten o'clock he was
again at his bureau in Paris. An imperious order brought to his
private room every silk, satin, and gauze within the range of pale
pink, pale crocus, pale green, silver and azure. Then came
chromatic scales of colour; combinations meant to vulgarise the
rainbow; sinfonies and fugues; the twittering of birds and the great
peace of dewy nature; maidenhood in her awakening innocence;
"The Dawn in June." The Master rested content.
A week later came an order from Sybil, including "an entirely
original ball-dress,--unlike any other sent to America." Mr. Worth
pondered, hesitated; recalled Sybil's figure; the original pose of her
head; glanced anxiously at the map, and speculated whether the
New York Herald had a special correspondent at Dahomey; and at
last, with a generosity peculiar to great souls, he duplicated for
"Miss S. Ross, New York, U.S. America," the order for "L'Aube,
Mois de Juin."
The Schneidekoupons and Mr. French, who had reappeared in
Washington, came to dine with Mrs. Lee on the evening of the
ball, and Julia Schneidekoupon sought in vain to discover what
Sybil was going to wear. "Be happy, my dear, in your ignorance!"
said Sybil; "the pangs of envy will rankle soon enough."
An hour later her room, except the fireplace, where a wood fire
was gently smouldering, became an altar of sacrifice to the Deity
of Dawn in June. Her bed, her low couch, her little tables, her
chintz arm-chairs, were covered with portions of the divinity,
down to slippers and handkerchief, gloves and bunches of fresh
roses. When at length, after a long effort, the work was complete,
Mrs. Lee took a last critical look at the result, and enjoyed a glow
of satisfaction. Young, happy, sparkling with consciousness of
youth and beauty, Sybil stood, Hebe Anadyomene, rising from the
foam of soft creplisse which swept back beneath the long train of
pale, tender, pink silk, fainting into breadths of delicate primrose,
relieved here and there by facings of June green--or was it the blue
of early morning? --or both?
suggesting unutterable freshness. A modest hint from her maid that
"the girls," as women-servants call each other in American
households, would like to offer their share of incense at the shrine,
was amiably met, and they were allowed a glimpse of the divinity
before she was enveloped in wraps. An admiring group, huddled in
the doorway, murmured approval, from the leading "girl," who was
the cook, a coloured widow of some sixty winters, whose
admiration was irrepressible, down to a New England spinster
whose Anabaptist conscience wrestled with her instincts, and who,
although disapproving of "French folks," paid in her heart that
secret homage to their gowns and bonnets which her sterner lips
refused. The applause of this audience has, from generation to
generation, cheered the hearts of myriads of young women starting
out on their little adventures, while the domestic laurels flourish
green and fresh for one half hour, until they wither at the threshold
of the ball-room.
Mrs. Lee toiled long and earnestly over her sister's toilet, for had
not she herself in her own day been the best-dressed girl in New
York?--at least, she held that opinion, and her old instincts came to
life again whenever Sybil was to be prepared for any great
occasion. Madeleine kissed her sister affectionately, and gave her
unusual praise when the "Dawn in June" was complete. Sybil was
at this moment the ideal of blooming youth, and Mrs. Lee almost
dared to hope that her heart was not permanently broken, and that
she might yet survive until Carrington could be brought back. Her
own toilet was a much shorter affair, but Sybil was impatient long
before it was concluded; the carriage was waiting, and she was
obliged to disappoint her household by coming down enveloped in
her long opera-cloak, and hurrying away.
When at length the sisters entered the reception-room at the British
Legation, Lord Skye rebuked them for not having come early to
receive with him. His Lordship, with a huge riband across his
breast, and a star on his coat, condescended to express himself
vigorously on the subject of the "Dawn in June." Schneidekoupon,
who was proud of his easy use of the latest artistic jargon, looked
with respect at Mrs. Lee's silver-gray satin and its Venetian lace,
the arrangement of which had been conscientiously stolen from a
picture in the Louvre, and he murmured audibly, "Nocturne in
silver-gray!"--then, turning to Sybil--"and you? Of course! I see! A
song without words!" Mr. French came up and, in his most
fascinating tones, exclaimed, "Why, Mrs. Lee, you look real
handsome to-night!" Jacobi, after a close scrutiny, said that he took
the liberty of an old man in telling them that they were both
dressed absolutely without fault. Even the Grand-Duke was struck
by Sybil, and made Lord Skye introduce him, after which
ceremony he terrified her by asking the pleasure of a waltz. She
disappeared from Madeleine's view, not to be brought back again
until Dawn met dawn.
The ball was, as the newspapers declared, a brilliant success.
Every one who knows the city of Washington will recollect that,
among some scores of magnificent residences which our own and
foreign governments have built for the comfort of cabinet officers,
judges, diplomatists, vice-presidents, speakers, and senators, the
British Legation is by far the most impressive.
Combining in one harmonious whole the proportions of the Pitti
Palace with the decoration of the Casa d'Oro and the dome of an
Eastern Mosque, this architectural triumph offers extraordinary
resources for society. Further description is unnecessary, since
anyone may easily refer back to the New York newspapers of the
following morning, where accurate plans of the house on the
ground floor, will be found; while the illustrated newspapers of the
same week contain excellent sketches of the most pleasing scenic
effects, as well as of the ball-room and of the Princess smiling
graciously from her throne. The lady just behind the Princess on
her left, is Mrs. Lee, a poor likeness, but easily distinguishable
from the fact that the artist, for his own objects, has made her
rather shorter, and the Princess rather taller, than was strictly
correct, just as he has given the Princess a gracious smile, which
was quite different from her actual expression. In short, the artist is
compelled to exhibit the world rather as we would wish it to be,
than as it was or is, or, indeed, is like shortly to become. The
strangest part of his picture is, however, the fact that he actually
did see Mrs. Lee where he has put her, at the Princess's elbow,
which was almost the last place in the room where any one who
knew Mrs. Lee would have looked for her.
The explanation of this curious accident shall be given
immediately, since the facts are not mentioned in the public
reports of the ball, which only said that, "close behind her Royal
Highness the Grand-Duchess, stood our charming and aristocratic
countrywoman, Mrs. Lightfoot Lee, who has made so great a
sensation in Washington this winter, and whose name public
rumour has connected with that of the Secretary of the Treasury.
To her the Princess appeared to address most of her conversation."
The show was a very pretty one, and on a pleasant April evening
there were many places less agreeable to be in than this. Much
ground outside had been roofed over, to make a ball-room, large as
an opera-house, with a da?s and a sofa in the centre of one long
side, and another da?s with a second sofa immediately opposite to
it in the centre of the other long side. Each da?s had a canopy of
red velvet, one bearing the Lion and the Unicorn, the other the
American Eagle. The Royal Standard was displayed above the
Unicorn; the Stars-and-Stripes, not quite so effectively, waved
above the Eagle. The Princess, being no longer quite a child, found
gas trying to her complexion, and compelled Lord Skye to
illuminate her beauty by one hundred thousand wax candies, more
or less, which were arranged to be becoming about the
Grand-ducal throne, and to be showy and unbecoming about the
opposite institution across the way.
The exact facts were these. It had happened that the
Grand-Duchess, having been necessarily brought into contact with
the President, and particularly with his wife, during the past week,
had conceived for the latter an antipathy hardly to be expressed in
words. Her fixed determination was at any cost to keep the
Presidential party at a distance, and it was only after a stormy
scene that the Grand-Duke and Lord Skye succeeded in extorting
her consent that the President should take her to supper. Further
than this she would not go. She would not speak to "that woman,"
as she called the President's wife, nor be in her neighbourhood.
She would rather stay in her own room all the evening, and she did
not care in the least what the Queen would think of it, for she was
no subject of the Queen's. The case was a hard one for Lord Skye,
who was perplexed to know, from this point of view, why he was
entertaining the Princess at all; but, with the help of the
Grand-Duke and Lord Dunbeg, who was very active and smiled
deprecation with some success, he found a way out of it; and this
was the reason why there were two thrones in the ball-room, and
why the British throne was lighted with such careful reference to
the Princess's complexion. Lord Skye immolated himself in the
usual effort of British and American Ministers, to keep the two
great powers apart. He and the Grand-Duke and Lord Dunbeg
acted as buffers with watchful diligence, dexterity, and success. As
one resource, Lord Skye had bethought himself of Mrs. Lee, and
he told the Princess the story of Mrs. Lee's relations with the
President's wife, a story which was no secret in Washington, for,
apart from Madeleine's own account, society was left in no doubt
of the light in which Mrs. Lee was regarded by the mistress of the
White House, whom Washington ladles were now in the habit of
drawing out on the subject of Mrs. Lee, and who always rose to the
bait with fresh vivacity, to the amusement and delight of Victoria
Dare and other mischief-makers.
"She will not trouble you so long as you can keep Mrs. Lee in your
neighbourhood," said Lord Skye, and the Princess accordingly
seized upon Mrs. Lee and brandished her, as though she were a
charm against the evil eye, in the face of the President's party. She
made Mrs. Lee take a place just behind her as though she were a
lady-in-waiting. She even graciously permitted her to sit down, so
near that their chairs touched. Whenever "that woman" was within
sight, which was most of the time, the Princess directed her
conversation entirely to Mrs. Lee and took care to make it evident.
Even before the Presidential party had arrived, Madeleine had
fallen into the Princess's grasp, and when the Princess went
forward to receive the President and his wife, which she did with a
bow of stately and distant dignity, she dragged Madeleine closely
by her side. Mrs. Lee bowed too; she could not well help it; but
was cut dead for her pains, with a glare of contempt and hatred.
Lord Skye, who was acting as cavalier to the President's wife, was
panic-stricken, and hastened to march his democratic potentate
away, under pretence of showing her the decorations. He placed
her at last on her own throne, where he and the Grand-Duke
relieved each other in standing guard at intervals throughout the
evening. When the Princess followed with the President, she
compelled her husband to take Mrs. Lee on his arm and conduct
her to the British throne, with no other object than to exasperate
the President's wife, who, from her elevated platform, looked
down upon the cortège with a scowl.
In all this affair Mrs. Lee was the principal sufferer. No one could
relieve her, and she was literally penned in as she sat. The Princess
kept up an incessant fire of small conversation, principally
complaint and fault-finding, which no one dared to interrupt. Mrs.
Lee was painfully bored, and after a time even the absurdity of the
thing ceased to amuse her.
She had, too, the ill-luck to make one or two remarks which
appealed to some hidden sense of humour in the Princess, who
laughed and, in the style of royal personages, gave her to
understand that she would like more amusement of the same sort.
Of all things in life, Mrs. Lee held this kind of court-service in
contempt, for she was something more than republican--a little
communistic at heart, and her only serious complaint of the
President and his wife was that they undertook to have a court and
to ape monarchy.
She had no notion of admitting social superiority in any one,
President or Prince, and to be suddenly converted into a
lady-in-waiting to a small German Grand-Duchess, was a terrible
blow. But what was to be done? Lord Skye had drafted her into the
service and she could not decently refuse to help him when he
came to her side and told her, with his usual calm directness, what
his difficulties were, and how he counted upon her to help him out.
The same play went on at supper, where there was a
royal-presidential table, which held about two dozen guests, and
the two great ladies presiding, as far apart as they could be placed.
The Grand-Duke and Lord Skye, on either side of the President's
wife, did their duty like men, and were rewarded by receiving from
her much information about the domestic arrangements of the
White House. The President, however, who sat next the Princess at
the opposite end, was evidently depressed, owing partly to the fact
that the Princess, in defiance of all etiquette, had compelled Lord
Dunbeg to take Mrs. Lee to supper and to place her directly next
the President. Madeleine tried to escape, but was stopped by the
Princess, who addressed her across the President and in a decided
tone asked her to sit precisely there. Mrs.
Lee looked timidly at her neighbour, who made no sign, but ate his
supper in silence only broken by an occasional reply to a rare
remark. Mrs. Lee pitied him, and wondered what his wife would
say when they reached home. She caught Ratcliffe's eye down the
table, watching her with a smile; she tried to talk fluently with
Dunbeg; but not until supper was long over and two o'clock was at
hand; not until the Presidential party, under all the proper
formalities, had taken their leave of the Grand-ducal party; not
until Lord Skye had escorted them to their carriage and returned to
say that they were gone, did the Princess loose her hold upon Mrs.
Lee and allow her to slip away into obscurity.
Meanwhile the ball had gone on after the manner of balls. As
Madeleine sat in her enforced grandeur she could watch all that
passed. She had seen Sybil whirling about with one man after
another, amid a swarm of dancers, enjoying herself to the utmost
and occasionally giving a nod and a smile to her sister as their eyes
met. There, too, was Victoria Dare, who never appeared flurried
even when waltzing with Lord Dunbeg, whose education as a
dancer had been neglected. The fact was now fully recognized that
Victoria was carrying on a systematic flirtation with Dunbeg, and
had undertaken as her latest duty the task of teaching him to waltz.
His struggles and her calmness in assisting them commanded
respect. On the opposite side of the room, by the republican
throne, Mrs. Lee had watched Mr. Ratcliffe standing by the
President, who appeared unwilling to let him out of arm's length
and who seemed to make to him most of his few remarks.
Schneidekoupon and his sister were mixed in the throng, dancing
as though England had never countenanced the heresy of
free-trade. On the whole, Mrs. Lee was satisfied.
If her own sufferings were great, they were not without reward.
She studied all the women in the ball-room, and if there was one
prettier than Sybil, Madeleine's eyes could not discover her. If
there was a more perfect dress, Madeleine knew nothing of
dressing. On these points she felt the confidence of conviction. Her
calm would have been complete, had she felt quite sure that none
of Sybil's gaiety was superficial and that it would not be followed
by reaction. She watched nervously to see whether her face
changed its gay expression, and once she thought it became
depressed, but this was when the Grand-Duke came up to claim his
waltz, and the look rapidly passed away when they got upon the
floor and his Highness began to wheel round the room with a
precision and momentum that would have done honour to a
regiment of Life Guards. He seemed pleased with his experiment,
for he was seen again and again careering over the floor with Sybil
until Mrs. Lee herself became nervous, for the Princess frowned.
After her release Madeleine lingered awhile in the ball-room to
speak with her sister and to receive congratulations. For half an
hour she was a greater belle than Sybil. A crowd of men clustered
about her, amused at the part she had played in the evening's
entertainment and full of compliments upon her promotion at
Court. Lord Skye himself found time to offer her his thanks in a
more serious tone than he generally affected. "You have suffered
much," said he, "and I am grateful." Madeleine laughed as she
answered that her sufferings had seemed nothing to her while she
watched his. But at last she became weary of the noise and glare of
the ball-room, and, accepting the arm of her excellent friend Count
Popoff, she strolled with him back to the house. There at last she
sat down on a sofa in a quiet window-recess where the light was
less strong and where a convenient laurel spread its leaves in front
so as to make a bower through which she could see the passers-by
without being seen by them except with an effort. Had she been a
younger woman, this would have been the spot for a flirtation, but
Mrs. Lee never flirted, and the idea of her flirting with Popoff
would have seemed ludicrous to all mankind.
He did not sit down, but was leaning against the angle of the wall,
talking with her, when suddenly Mr. Ratcliffe appeared and took
the seat by her side with such deliberation and apparent sense of
property that Popoff incontinently turned and fled. No one knew
where the Secretary came from, or how he learned that she was
there. He made no explanation and she took care to ask for none.
She gave him a highly-coloured account of her evening's service as
lady-in-waiting, which he matched by that of his own trials as
gentleman-usher to the President, who, it seemed, had clung
desperately to his old enemy in the absence of any other rock to
clutch at.
Ratcliffe looked the character of Prime Minister sufficiently well
at this moment. He would have held his own, at a pinch, in any
Court, not merely in Europe but in India or China, where dignity is
still expected of gentlemen.
Excepting for a certain coarse and animal expression about the
mouth, and an indefinable coldness in the eye, he was a handsome
man and still in his prime. Every one remarked how much he was
improved since entering the Cabinet. He had dropped his
senatorial manner. His clothes were no longer congressional, but
those of a respectable man, neat and decent. His shirts no longer
protruded in the wrong places, nor were his shirt-collars frayed or
soiled. His hair did not stray over his eyes, ears, and coat, like that
of a Scotch terrier, but had got itself cut. Having overheard Mrs.
Lee express on one occasion her opinion of people who did not
take a cold bath every morning, he had thought it best to adopt this
reform, although he would not have had it generally known, tot it
savoured ot caste. He made an effort not to be dictatorial and to
forget that he had been the Prairie Giant, the bully of the Senate. In
short, what with Mrs. Lee's influence and what with his
emancipation from the Senate chamber with its code of bad
manners and worse morals, Mr. Ratcliffe was fast becoming a
respectable member of society whom a man who had never been
in prison or in politics might safely acknowledge as a friend.
Mr. Ratcliffe was now evidently bent upon being heard. After
charting for a time with some humour on the President's successes
as a man of fashion, he changed the subject to the merits of the
President as a statesman, and little by little as he spoke he became
serious and his voice sank into low and confidential tones. He
plainly said that the President's incapacity had now become
notorious among his followers; that it was only with difficulty his
Cabinet and friends could prevent him from making a fool of
himself fifty times a day; that all the party leaders who had
occasion to deal with him were so thoroughly disgusted that the
Cabinet had to pass its time in trying to pacify them; while this
state of things lasted, Ratcliffe's own influence must be
paramount; he had good reason to know that if the Presidential
election were to take place this year, nothing could prevent his
nomination and election; even at three years' distance the chances
in his favour were at least two to one; and after this exordium he
went on in a low tone with increasing earnestness, while Mrs. Lee
sat motionless as the statue of Agrippina, her eyes fixed on the
ground:
"I am not one of those who are happy in political life. I am a
politician because I cannot help myself; it is the trade I am fittest
for, and ambition is my resource to make it tolerable. In politics
we cannot keep our hands clean. I have done many things in my
political career that are not defensible. To act with entire honesty
and self-respect, one should always live in a pure atmosphere, and
the atmosphere of politics is impure.
Domestic life is the salvation of many public men, but I have for
many years been deprived of it. I have now come to that point
where increasing responsibilities and temptations make me require
help. I must have it. You alone can give it to me. You are kind,
thoughtful, conscientious, high-minded, cultivated, fitted better
than any woman I ever saw, for public duties. Your place is there.
You belong among those who exercise an influence beyond their
time. I only ask you to take the place which is yours."
This desperate appeal to Mrs. Lee's ambition was a calculated part
of Ratcliffe's scheme. He was well aware that he had marked high
game, and that in proportion to this height must be the power of
his lure. Nor was he embarrassed because Mrs. Lee sat still and
pale with her eyes fixed on the ground and her hands twisted
together in her lap. The eagle that soars highest must be longer in
descending to the ground than the sparrow or the partridge. Mrs.
Lee had a thousand things to think about in this brief time, and yet
she found that she could not think at all; a succession of mere
images and fragments of thought passed rapidly over her mind,
and her will exercised no control upon their order or their nature.
One of these fleeting reflections was that in all the offers of
marriage she had ever heard, this was the most unsentimental and
businesslike. As for his appeal to her ambition, it fell quite dead
upon her ear, but a woman must be more than a heroine who can
listen to flattery so evidently sincere, from a man who is
pre-eminent among men, without being affected by it. To her,
however, the great and overpowering fact was that she found
herself unable to retreat or escape; her tactics were disconcerted,
her temporary barriers beaten down.
The offer was made. What should she do with it?
She had thought for months on this subject without being able to
form a decision; what hope was there that she should be able to
decide now, in a ball-room, at a minute's notice? When, as
occasionally happens, the conflicting sentiments, prejudices, and
passions of a lifetime are compressed into a single instant, they
sometimes overcharge the mind and it refuses to work. Mrs. Lee
sat still and let things take their course; a dangerous expedient, as
thousands of women have learned, for it leaves them at the mercy
of the strong will, bent upon mastery.
The music from the ball-room did not stop. Crowds of persons
passed by their retreat. Some glanced in, and not one of these felt a
doubt what was going on there. An unmistakeable atmosphere of
mystery and intensity surrounded tfle pair. Ratcliffe's eyes were
fixed upon Mrs. Lee, and hers on the ground. Neither seemed to
speak or to stir. Old Baron Jacobi, who never failed to see
everything, saw this as he went by, and ejaculated a foreign oath of
frightful import. Victoria Dare saw it and was devoured by
curiosity to such a point as to be hardly capable of containing
herself.
After a silence which seemed interminable, Ratcliffe went on: "I
do not speak of my own feelings because I know that unless
compelled by a strong sense of duty, you will not be decided by
any devotion of mine. But I honestly say that I have learned to
depend on you to a degree I can hardly express; and when I think
of what I should be without you, life seems to me so intolerably
dark that I am ready to make any sacrifice, to accept any
conditions that will keep you by my side."
Meanwhile Victoria Dare, although deeply interested in what
Dunbeg was telling her, had met Sybil and had stopped a single
second to whisper in her ear: "You had better look after your sister,
in the window, behind the laurel with Mr. Ratcliffe!" Sybil was on
Lord Skye's arm, enjoying herself amazingly, though the night was
far gone, but when she caught Victoria's words, the expression of
her face wholly changed. All the anxieties and terrors of the last
fortnight, came back upon it. She dragged Lord Skye across the
hall and looked in upon her sister. One glance was enough.
Desperately frightened but afraid to hesitate, she went directly up
to Madeleine who was still sitting like a statue, listening to
Ratcliffe's last words. As she hurriedly entered, Mrs. Lee, looking
up, caught sight of her pale face, and started from her seat.
"Are you ill, Sybil?" she exclaimed; "is anything the matter?"
"A little--fatigued," gasped Sybil; "I thought you might be ready to
go home."
"I am," cried Madeleine; "I am quite ready. Good evening, Mr.
Ratcliffe. I will see you to-morrow. Lord Skye, shall I take leave of
the Princess?"
"The Princess retired half an hour ago," replied Lord Skye, who
saw the situation and was quite ready to help Sybil; "let me take
you to the dressing-room and order your carriage." Mr. Ratcliffe
found himself suddenly left alone, while Mrs. Lee hurried away,
torn by fresh anxieties. They had reached the dressing-room and
were nearly ready to go home, when Victora Dare suddenly dashed
in upon them, with an animation of manner very unusual in her,
and, seizing Sybil by the hand, drew her into an adjoining room
and shut the door. "Can you keep a secret?" said she abruptly.
"What!" said Sybil, looking at her with open-mouthed interest;
"you don't mean--are you really--tell me, quick!"
"Yes!" said Victoria relapsing into composure; "I am engaged!"
"To Lord Dunbeg?"
Victoria nodded, and Sybil, whose nerves were strung to the
highest pitch by excitement, flattery, fatigue, perplexity, and terror,
burst into a paroxysm of laughter, that startled even the calm Miss
Dare.
"Poor Lord Dunbeg! don't be hard on him, Victoria!" she gasped
when at last she found breath; "do you really mean to pass the rest
of your life in Ireland? Oh, how much you will teach them!"
"You forget, my dear," said Victoria, who had placidly enthroned
herself on the foot of a bed, "that I am not a pauper. I am told that
Dunbeg Castle is a romantic summer residence, and in the dull
season we shall of course go to London or somewhere. I shall be
civil to you when you come over. Don't you think a coronet will
look well on me?"
Sybil burst again into laughter so irrepressible and prolonged that
it puzzled even poor Dunbeg, who was impatiently pacing the
corridor outside.
It alarmed Madeleine, who suddenly opened the door. Sybil
recovered herself, and, her eyes streaming with tears, presented
Victoria to her sister:
"Madeleine, allow me to introduce you to the Countess Dunbeg!"
But Mrs. Lee was much too anxious to feel any interest in Lady
Dunbeg. A sudden fear struck her that Sybil was going into
hysterics because Victoria's engagement recalled her own
disappointment. She hurried her sister away to the carriage.
Chapter XII
THEY drove home in silence, Mrs. Lee disturbed with anxieties
and doubts, partly caused by her sister, partly by Mr. Ratcliffe;
Sybil divided between amusement at Victoria's conquest, and
alarm at her own boldness in meddling with her sister's affairs.
Desperation, however, was stronger than fear. She made up her
mind that further suspense was not to be endured; she would fight
her baffle now before another hour was lost; surely no time could
be better. A few moments brought them to their door. Mrs. Lee
had told her maid not to wait for them, and they were alone. The
fire was still alive on Madeleine's hearth, and she threw more
wood upon it. Then she insisted that Sybil must go to bed at once.
But Sybil refused; she felt quite well, she said, and not in the least
sleepy; she had a great deal to talk about, and wanted to get it off
her mind. Nevertheless, her feminine regard for the "Dawn in
June" led her to postpone what she had to say until with
Madeleine's help she had laid the triumph of the ball carefully
aside; then, putting on her dressing-gown, and hastily plunging
Carrington's letter into her breast, like a concealed weapon, she
hurried back to Madeleine's room and established herself in a chair
before the fire. There, after a moment's pause, the two women
began their long-deferred trial of strength, in which the match was
so nearly equal as to make the result doubtful; for, if Madeleine
were much the cleverer, Sybil in this case knew much better what
she wanted, and had a clear idea how she meant to gain it, while
Madeleine, unsuspicious of attack, had no plan of defence at all.
"Madeleine," began Sybil, solemnly, and with a violent palpitation
of the heart, "I want you to tell me something."
"What is it, my child?" said Mrs. Lee, puzzled, and yet half ready
to see that there must be some connection between her sister's
coming question and the sudden illness at the ball, which had
disappeared as suddenly as it came.
"Do you mean to marry Mr. Ratcliffe?"
Poor Mrs. Lee was quite disconcerted by the directness of the
attack. This fatal question met her at every turn. Hardly had she
succeeded in escaping trom it at the ball scarcely an hour ago, by a
stroke of good fortune for which she now began to see she was
indebted to Sybil, and here it was again presented to her face like a
pistol. The whole town, then, was asking it.
Ratcliffe's offer must have been seen by half Washington, and her
reply was awaited by an immense audience, as though she were a
political returning-board. Her disgust was intense, and her first
answer to Sybil was a quick inquiry:
"Why do you ask such a question? have you heard anything,--has
anyone talked about it to you?"
"No!" replied Sybil; "but I must know; I can see for myself without
being told, that Mr. Racliffe is trying to make you marry him. I
don't ask out of curiosity; this is something that concerns me
nearly as much as it does you yourself. Please tell me! don't treat
me like a child any longer! let me know what you are thinking
about! I am so tired of being left in the dark!
You have no idea how much this thing weighs on me. Oh, Maude,
I shall never be happy again until you trust me about this."
Mrs. Lee felt a little pang of conscience, and seemed suddenly to
become conscious of a new coil, tightening about her, in this
wretched complication. Unable to see her way, ignorant of her
sister's motives, urged on by the idea that Sybil's happiness was
involved, she was now charged with want of feeling, and called
upon for a direct answer to a plain question.
How could she aver that she did not mean to marry Mr. Ratcliffe?
to say this would be to shut the door on all the objects she had at
heart. If a direct answer must be given, it was better to say "Yes!"
and have it over; better to leap blindly and see what came of it.
Mrs. Lee, therefore, with an internal gasp, but with no visible sign
of excitement, said, as though she were in a dream:
"Well, Sybil, I will tell you. I would have told you long ago if I had
known myself. Yes! I have made up my mind to marry Mr.
Ratcliffe!"
Sybil sprang to her feet with a cry: "And have you told him so?"
she asked.
"No! you came and interrupted us just as we were speaking. I was
glad you did come, for it gives me a little time to think. But I am
decided now. I shall tell him to-morrow."
This was not said with the air or one wnose heart beat warmly at
the thought of confessing her love. Mrs. Lee spoke mechanically,
and almost with an effort. Sybil flung herself with all her energy
upon her sister; violently excited, and eager to make herself heard,
without waiting for arguments, she broke out into a torrent of
entreaties: "Oh, don't, don't, don't! Oh, please, please, don't, my
dearest, dearest Maude! unless you want to break my heart, don't
marry that man! You can't love him! You can never be happy with
him! he will take you away to Peonia, and you will die there! I
shall never see you again! He will make you unhappy; he will beat
you, I know he will! Oh, if you care for me at all, don't marry him!
Send him away! don't see him again! let us go ourselves, now, in
the morning train, before he comes back. I'm all ready; I'll pack
everything for you; we'll go to Newport; to Europe--anywhere, to
be out of his reach!"
With this passionate appeal, Sybil threw herself on her knees by
her sister's side, and, clasping her arms around Madeleine's waist,
sobbed as though her heart were already broken. Had Carrington
seen her then he must have admitted that she had carried out his
instructions to the letter. She was quite honest, too, in it all. She
meant what she said, and her tears were real tears that had been
pent up for weeks. Unluckily, her logic was feeble. Her idea of Mr.
Ratcliffe's character was vague, and biased by mere theories of
what a Prairie Giant of Peonia should be in his domestic relations.
Her idea of Peonia, too, was indistinct. She was haunted by a
vision of her sister, sitting on a horse-hair sofa before an air-tight
iron stove in a small room with high, bare white walls, a
chromolithograph on each, and at her side a marble-topped table
surmounted by a glass vase containing funereal dried grasses; the
only literature, Frank Leslie's periodical and the New York Ledger,
with a strong smell of cooking everywhere prevalent. Here she saw
Madeleine receiving visitors, the wives of neighbours and
constituents, who told her the Peonia news.
Notwithstanding her ignorant and unreasonable prejudice against
western men and women, western towns and prairies, and, in short,
everything western, down to western politics and western
politicians, whom she perversely asserted to be tue lowest ot all
western products, there was still some common sense in Sybil's
idea. When that inevitable hour struck for Mr.
Ratcliffe, which strikes sooner or later for all politicians, and an
ungrateful country permitted him to pine among his friends in
Illinois, what did he propose to do with his wife? Did he seriously
suppose that she, who was bored to death by New York, and had
been able to find no permanent pleasure in Europe, would live
quietly in the romantic village of Peonia? If not, did Mr. Ratcliffe
imagine that they could find happiness in the enjoyment of each
other's society, and of Mrs. Lee's income, in the excitements of
Washington? In the ardour of his pursuit, Mr. Ratcliffe had
accepted in advance any conditions which Mrs. Lee might impose,
but if he really imagined that happiness and content lay on the
purple rim of this sunset, he had more confidence in women and in
money than a wider experience was ever likely to justify.
Whatever might be Mr. Ratcliffe's schemes for dealing with these
obstacles they could hardly be such as would satisfy Sybil, who, if
inaccurate in her theories about Prairie Giants, yet understood
women, and especially her sister, much better than Mr. Ratcliffe
ever could do. Here she was safe, and it would have been better
had she said no more, for Mrs. Lee, though staggered for a moment
by her sister's vehemence, was reassured by what seemed the
absurdity of her fears. Madeleine rebelled against this hysterical
violence of opposition, and became more fixed in her decision.
She scolded her sister in good, set terms--
"Sybil, Sybil! you must not be so violent. Behave like a woman,
and not like a spoiled child!"
Mrs. Lee, like most persons who have to deal with spoiled or
unspoiled children, resorted to severity, not so much because it
was the proper way of dealing with them, as because she knew not
what else to do. She was thoroughly uncomfortable and weary. She
was not satisfied with herself or with her own motives. Doubt
encompassed her on all sides, and her worst opponent was that
sister whose happiness had turned the scale against her own
judgment.
Nevertheless her tactics answered their object of checking Sybil's
vehemence. Her sobs came to an end, and she presently rose with a
quieter air.
"Madeleine," said she, "do you really want to marry Mr.
Ratcliffe?"
"What else can I do, my dear Sybil? I want to do whatever is for
the best. I thought you might be pleased."
"You thought I might be pleased?" cried Sybil in astonishment.
"What a strange idea! If you had ever spoken to me about it I
should have told you that I hate him, and can't understand how you
can abide him. But I would rather marry him myself than see you
marry him. I know that you will kill yourself with unhappiness
when you have done it. Oh, Maude, please tell me that you won't!"
And Sybil began gently sobbing again, while she caressed her
sister.
Mrs. Lee was infinitely distressed. To act against the wishes of her
nearest friends was hard enough, but to appear harsh and unfeeling
to the one being whose happiness she had at heart, was intolerable.
Yet no sensible woman, after saying that she meant to marry a man
like Mr. Ratcliffe, could throw him over merely because another
woman chose to behave like a spoiled child.
Sybil was more childish than Madeleine herself had supposed. She
could not even see where her own interest lay. She knew no more
about Mr. Ratcliffe and the West than if he were the giant of a
fairy-story, and lived at the top of a bean-stalk. She must be treated
as a child; with gentleness, affection, forbearance, but with
firmness and decision. She must be refused what she asked, for her
own good.
Thus it came about that at last Mrs. Lee spoke, with an appearance
of decision far from representing her internal tremor.
"Sybil, dear, I have made up my mind to marry Mr. Ratcliffe
because there is no other way of making every one happy. You
need not be afraid of him. He is kind and generous. Besides, I can
take care of myself; and I will take care of you too. Now let us not
discuss it any more. It is broad daylight, and we are both tired out."
Sybil grew at once perfectly calm, and standing before her sister,
as though their r?les were henceforward to be reversed, said:
"You have really made up your mind, then? Nothing I can say will
change it?"
Mrs. Lee, looking at her with more surprise than ever, could not
force herself to speak; but she shook her head slowly and
decidedly.
"Then," said Sybil, "there is only one thing more I can do. You
must read this!" and she drew out Carrington's letter, which she
held before Madeleine's face.
"Not now, Sybil!" remonstrated Mrs. Lee, dreading another long
struggle. "I will read it after we have had some rest. Go to bed
now!"
"I do not leave this room, nor will I ever go to bed until you have
read that letter," answered Sybil, seating herself again before the
fire with the resolution of Queen Elizabeth; "not if I sit here till
you are married. I promised Mr. Carrington that you should read it
instantly; it's all I can do now." With a sigh, Mrs. Lee drew up the
window-curtain, and in the gray morning light sat down to break
the seal and read the following letter:--
"Washington, 2nd April.
"My dear Mrs. Lee, "This letter will only come into your hands in
case there should be a necessity for your knowing its contents.
Nothing short of necessity would excuse my writing it. I have to
ask your pardon for intruding again upon your private affairs. In
this case, if I did not intrude, you would have cause for serious
complaint against me.
"You asked me the other day whether I knew anything against Mr.
Ratcliffe which the world did not know, to account for my low
opinion of his character. I evaded your question then. I was bound
by professional rules not to disclose facts that came to me under a
pledge of confidence. I am going to violate these rules now, only
because I owe you a duty which seems to me to override all others.
"I do know facts in regard to Mr. Ratcliffe, which have seemed to
me to warrant a very low opinion of his character, and to mark him
as unfit to be, I will not say your husband, but even your
acquaintance.
"You know that I am executor to Samuel Baker's will. You know
who Samuel Baker was. You have seen his wife. She has told you
herself that I assisted her in the examination and destruction of all
her husband's private papers according to his special death-bed
request. One of the first facts I learned from these papers and her
explanations, was the following.
"Just eight years ago, the great 'Inter-Oceanic Mail Steamship
Company,' wished to extend its service round the world, and, in
order to do so, it applied to Congress for a heavy subsidy. The
management of this affair was put into the hands of Mr. Baker, and
all his private letters to the President of the Company, in press
copies, as well as the President's replies, came into my possession.
Baker's letters were, of course, written in a sort of cypher, several
kinds of which he was in the habit of using. He left among his
papers a key to this cypher, but Mrs. Baker could have explained it
without that help.
"It appeared from this correspondence that the bill was carried
successfully through the House, and, on reaching the Senate, was
referred to the appropriate Committee. Its ultimate passage was
very doubtful; the end of the session was close at hand; the Senate
was very evenly divided, and the Chairman of the Committee was
decidedly hostile.
"The Chairman of that Committee was Senator Ratcliffe, always
mentioned by Mr. Baker in cypher, and with every precaution. If
you care, however, to verify the fact, and to trace the history of the
Subsidy Bill through all its stages, together with Mr. Ratcliffe's
report, remarks, and votes upon it, you have only to look into the
journals and debates for that year.
"At last Mr. Baker wrote that Senator Ratcliffe had put the bill in
his pocket, and unless some means could be found of overcoming
his opposition, there would be no report, and the bill would never
come to a vote. All ordinary kinds of argument and influence had
been employed upon him, and were exhausted. In this exigency
Baker suggested that the Company should give him authority to
see what money would do, but he added that it would be worse
than useless to deal with small sums. Unless at least one hundred
thousand dollars could be employed, it was better to leave the
thing alone.
"The next mail authorized him to use any required amount of
money not exceeding one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Two
days later he wrote that the bill was reported, and would pass the
Senate within forty-eight hours; and he congratulated the Company
on the fact that he had used only one hundred thousand dollars out
of its last credit.
"The bill was actually reported, passed, and became law as he
foretold, and the Company has enjoyed its subsidy ever since. Mrs.
Baker also informed me that to her knowledge her husband gave
the sum mentioned, in United States Coupon Bonds, to Senator
Ratcliffe.
"This transaction, taken in connection with the tortuousness of his
public course, explains the distrust I have always expressed for
him. You will, however, understand that all these papers have been
destroyed. Mrs. Baker could never be induced to hazard her own
comfort by revealing the facts to the public. The officers of the
Company in their own interests would never betray the transaction,
and their books were undoubtedly so kept as to show no trace of it.
If I made this charge against Mr. Ratcliffe, I should be the only
sufferer. He would deny and laugh at it. I could prove nothing. I
am therefore more directly interested than he is in keeping silence.
"In trusting this secret to you, I rely firmly upon your mentioning it
to no one else--not even to your sister. You are at liberty, if you
wish, to show this letter to one person only-- to Mr. Ratcliffe
himself. That done, you will, I beg, burn it immediately.
"With the warmest good wishes, I am, "Ever most truly yours,
"John Carrington."
When Mrs. Lee had finished reading this letter, she remained for
some time quite silent, looking out into the square below. The
morning had come, and the sky was bright with the fresh April
sunlight. She threw open her window, and drew in the soft spring
air. She needed all the purity and quiet that nature could give, for
her whole soul was in revolt, wounded, mortified, exasperated.
Against the sentiment of all her friends she had insisted upon
believing in this man; she had wrought herself up to the point of
accepting him for her husband; a man who, if law were the same
thing as justice, ought to be in a felon's cell; a man who could take
money to betray his trust. Her anger at first swept away all bounds.
She was impatient for the moment when she should see him again,
and tear off his mask. For once she would express all the loathing
she felt for the whole pack of political hounds. She would see
whether the animal was made like other beings; whether he had a
sense of honour; a single clean spot in his mind.
Then it occurred to her that after all there might be a mistake;
perhaps Mr.
Ratcliffe could explain the charge away. But this thought only laid
bare another smarting wound in her pride. Not only did she believe
the charge, but she believed that Mr. Ratcliffe would defend his
act. She had been willing to marry a man whom she thought
capable of such a crime, and now she shuddered at the idea that
this charge might have been brought against her husband, and that
she could not dismiss it with instant incredulity, with indignant
contempt. How had this happened? how had she got into so foul a
complication? When she left New York, she had meant to be a
mere spectator in Washington. Had it entered her head that she
could be drawn into any project of a second marriage, she never
would have come at all, for she was proud of her loyalty to her
husband's memory, and second marriages were her abhorrence. In
her restlessness and solitude, she had forgotten this; she had only
asked whether any life was worth living for a woman who had
neither husband nor children. Was the family all that life had to
offer? could she find no interest outside the household? And so,
led by this will-of-the-wisp, she had, with her eyes open, walked
into the quagmire of politics, in spite of remonstrance, in spite of
conscience.
She rose and paced the room, while Sybil lay on the couch,
watching her with eyes half shut. She grew more and more angry
with herself, and as her self-reproach increased, her anger against
Ratcliffe faded away. She had no right to be angry with Ratcliffe.
He had never deceived her. He had always openly enough avowed
that he knew no code of morals in politics; that if virtue did not
answer his purpose he used vice. How could she blame him for
acts which he had repeatedly defended in her presence and with
her tacit assent, on principles that warranted this or any other
villainy?
The worst was that this discovery had come on her as a blow, not
as a reprieve from execution. At this thought she became furious
with herself.
She had not known the recesses of her own heart. She had honestly
supposed that Sybil's interests and Sybil's happiness were forcing
her to an act of self-sacrifice; and now she saw that in the depths
of her soul very different motives had been at work: ambition,
thirst for power, restless eagerness to meddle in what did not
concern her, blind longing to escape from the torture of watching
other women with full lives and satisfied instincts, while her own
life was hungry and sad. For a time she had actually, unconscious
as she was of the delusion, hugged a hope that a new field of
usefulness was open to her; that great opportunities for doing good
were to supply the aching emptiness of that good which had been
taken away; and that here at last was an object for which there
would be almost a pleasure in squandering the rest of existence
even if she knew in advance that the experiment would fail. Life
was emptier than ever now that this dream was over. Yet the worst
was not in that disappointment, but in the discovery of her own
weakness and self-deception.
Worn out by long-continued anxiety, excitement and sleeplessness,
she was unfit to struggle with the creatures of her own
imagination. Such a strain could only end in a nervous crisis, and
at length it came:
"Oh, what a vile thing life is!" she cried, throwing up her arms
with a gesture of helpless rage and despair. "Oh, how I wish I were
dead! how I wish the universe were annihilated!" and she flung
herself down by Sybil's side in a frenzy of tears.
Sybil, who had watched all this exhibition in silence, waited
quietly for the excitement to pass. There was little to say. She
could only soothe.
After the paroxysm had exhausted itself Madeleine lay quiet for a
time, until other thoughts began to disturb her. From reproaching
herself about Ratcliffe she went on to reproach herself about Sybil,
who really looked worn and pale, as though almost overcome by
fatigue.
"Sybil," said she, "you must go to bed at once. You are tired out. It
was very wrong in me to let you sit up so late. Go now, and get
some sleep."
"I am not going to bed till you do, Maude!" replied Sybil, with
quiet obstinacy.
"Go, dear! it is all settled. I shall not marry Mr. Ratcliffe. You
need not be anxious about it any more."
"Are you very unhappy?"
"Only very angry with myself. I ought to have taken Mr.
Carrington's advice sooner."
"Oh, Maude!" exclaimed Sybil, with a sudden explosion of energy;
"I wish you had taken him!"
This remark roused Mrs. Lee to new interest: "Why, Sybil," said
she, "surely you are not in earnest?"
"Indeed, I am," replied Sybil, very decidedly. "I know you think I
am in love with Mr. Carrington myself, but I'm not. I would a great
deal rather have him for a brother-in-law, and he is so much the
nicest man you know, and you could help his sisters."
Mrs. Lee hesitated a moment, for she was not quite certain
whether it was wise to probe a healing wound, but she was anxious
to clear this last weight from her mind, and she dashed recklessly
forward:
"Are you sure you are telling the truth, Sybil? Why, then, did you
say that you cared for him? and why have you been so miserable
ever since he went away?"
"Why? I should think it was plain enough why! Because I thought,
as every one else did, that you were going to marry Mr. Ratcliffe;
and because if you married Mr. Ratcliffe, I must go and live alone;
and because you treated me like a child, and never took me into
your confidence at all; and because Mr.
Carrington was the only person I had to advise me, and after he
went away, I was left all alone to fight Mr. Ratcliffe and you both
together, without a human soul to help me in case I made a
mistake. You would have been a great deal more miserable than I
if you had been in my place."
Madeleine looked at her for a moment in doubt. Would this last?
did Sybil herself know the depth of her own wound? But what
could Mrs. Lee do now?
Perhaps Sybil did deceive herself a little. When this excitement
had passed away, perhaps Carrington's image might recur to her
mind a little too often for her own comfort. The future must take
care of itself. Mrs. Lee drew her sister closer to her, and said:
"Sybil, I have made a horrible mistake, and you must forgive me."
Chapter XIII
NOT until afternoon did Mrs. Lee reappear. How much she had
slept she did not say, and she hardly looked like one whose
slumbers had been long or sweet; but if she had slept little, she had
made up for the loss by thinking much, and, while she thought, the
storm which had raged so fiercely in her breast, more and more
subsided into calm. If there was not sunshine yet, there was at least
stillness. As she lay, hour after hour, waiting for the sleep that did
not come, she had at first the keen mortification of reflecting how
easily she had been led by mere vanity into imagining that she
could be of use in the world. She even smiled in her solitude at the
picture she drew of herself, reforming Ratcliffe, and Krebs, and
Schuyler Clinton. The ease with which Ratcliffe alone had twisted
her about his finger, now that she saw it, made her writhe, and the
thought of what he might have done, had she married him, and of
the endless succession of moral somersaults she would have had to
turn, chilled her with mortal terror. She had barely escaped being
dragged under the wheels of the machine, and so coming to an
untimely end. When she thought of this, she felt a mad passion to
revenge herself on the whole race of politicians, with Ratcliffe at
their head; she passed hours in framing bitter speeches to be made
to his face.
Then as she grew calmer, Ratcliffe's sins took on a milder hue;
life, after all, had not been entirely blackened by his arts; there was
even some good in her experience, sharp though it were. Had she
not come to Washington in search of men who cast a shadow, and
was not Ratcliffe's shadow strong enough to satisfy her? Had she
not penetrated the deepest recesses of politics, and learned how
easily the mere possession of power could convert the shadow of a
hobby-horse existing only in the brain of a foolish country farmer,
into a lurid nightmare that convulsed the sleep of nations? The
antics of Presidents and Senators had been amusing--so amusing
that she had nearly been persuaded to take part in them. She had
saved herself in time.
She had got to the bottom of this business of democratic
government, and found out that it was nothing more than
government of any other kind. She might have known it by her
own common sense, but now that experience had proved it, she
was glad to quit the masquerade; to return to the true democracy of
life, her paupers and her prisons, her schools and her hospitals. As
for Mr. Ratcliffe, she felt no difficulty in dealing with him.
Let Mr. Ratcliffe, and his brother giants, wander on their own
political prairie, and hunt for offices, or other profitable game, as
they would.
Their objects were not her objects, and to join their company was
not her ambition. She was no longer very angry with Mr. Ratcliffe.
She had no wish to insult him, or to quarrel with him. What he had
done as a politician, he had done according to his own moral code,
and it was not her business to judge him; to protect herself was the
only right she claimed. She thought she could easily hold him at
arm's length, and although, if Carrington had written the truth, they
could never again be friends, there need be no difficulty in their
remaining acquaintances. If this view of her duty was narrow, it
was at least proof that she had learned something from Mr.
Ratcliffe; perhaps it was also proof that she had yet to learn Mr.
Ratcliffe himself.
Two o'clock had struck before Mrs. Lee came down from her
chamber, and Sybil had not yet made her appearance. Madeleine
rang her bell and gave orders that, if Mr. Ratcliffe called she
would see him, but she was at home to no one else. Then she sat
down to write letters and to prepare for her journey to New York,
for she must now hasten her departure in order to escape the gossip
and criticism which she saw hanging like an avalanche over her
head.
When Sybil at length came down, looking much fresher than her
sister, they passed an hour together arranging this and other small
matters, so that both of them were again in the best of spirits, and
Sybil's face was wreathed in smiles.
A number of visitors came to the door that day, some of them
prompted by friendliness and some by sheer curiosity, for Mrs.
Lee's abrupt disappearance from the ball had excited remark.
Against all these her door was firmly closed. On the other hand, as
the afternoon went on, she sent Sybil away, so that she might have
the field entirely to herself, and Sybil, relieved of all her alarms,
sallied out to interrupt Dunbeg's latest interview with his Countess,
and to amuse herself with Victoria's last "phase."
Towards four o'clock the tall form of Mr. Ratcliffe was seen to
issue from the Treasury Department and to descend the broad steps
of its western front.
Turning deliberately towards the Square, the Secretary of the
Treasury crossed the Avenue and stopping at Mrs. Lee's door, rang
the bell. He was immediately admitted. Mrs. Lee was alone in her
parlour and rose rather gravely as he entered, but welcomed him as
cordially as she could. She wanted to put an end to his hopes at
once and to do it decisively, but without hurting his feelings.
"Mr. Ratcliffe," said she, when he was seated- "I am sure you will
be better pleased by my speaking instantly and frankly. I could not
reply to you last night. I will do so now without delay. What you
wish is impossible. I would rather not even discuss it. Let us leave
it here and return to our old relations."
She could not force herself to express any sense of gratitude for his
affection, or of regret at being obliged to meet it with so little
return.
To treat him with tolerable civility was all she thought required of
her.
Ratcliffe felt the change of manner. He had been prepared for a
struggle, but not to be met with so blunt a rebuff at the start. His
look became serious and he hesitated a moment before speaking,
but when he spoke at last, it was with a manner as firm and
decided as that of Mrs. Lee herself.
"I cannot accept such an answer. I will not say that I have a right to
explanation,--I have no rights which you are bound to respect,--but
from you I conceive that I may at least ask the favour of one, and
that you will not refuse it. Are you willing to tell me your reasons
for this abrupt and harsh decision?"
"I do not dispute your right of explanation, Mr. Ratcliffe. You have
the right, if you choose to use it, and I am ready to give you every
explanation in my power; but I hope you will not insist on my
doing so. If I seemed to speak abruptly and harshly, it was merely
to spare you the greater annoyance of doubt. Since I am forced to
give you pain, was it not fairer and more respectful to you to speak
at once? We have been friends. I am very soon going away. I
sincerely want to avoid saying or doing anything that would
change our relations."
Ratcliffe, however, paid no attention to these words, and gave
them no answer. He was much too old a debater to be misled by
such trifles, when he needed all his faculties to pin his opponent to
the wall. He asked:--
"Is your decision a new one?"
"It is a very old one, Mr. Ratcliffe, which I had let myself lose
sight of, for a time. A night's reflection has brought me back to it."
"May I ask why you have returned to it? surely you would not have
hesitated without strong reasons."
"I will tell you frankly. If, by appearing to hesitate, I have misled
you, I am honestly sorry for it. I did not mean to do it. My
hesitation was owing to the doubt whether my life might not really
be best used in aiding you. My decision was owing to the certainty
that we are not fitted for each other.
Our lives run in separate grooves. We are both too old to change
them."
Ratcliffe shook his head with an air of relief. "Your reasons, Mrs.
Lee, are not sound. There is no such divergence in our lives. On
the contrary I can give to yours the field it needs, and that it can
get in no other way; while you can give to mine everything it now
wants. If these are your only reasons I am sure of being able to
remove them."
Madeleine looked as though she were not altogether pleased at this
idea, and became a little dogmatic. "It is no use our arguing on this
subject, Mr.
Ratcliffe. You and I take very different views of life. I cannot
accept yours, and you could not practise on mine."
"Show me," said Ratcliffe, "a single example of such a divergence,
and I will accept your decision without another word."
Mrs. Lee hesitated and looked at him for an instant as though to be
quite sure that he was in earnest. There was an effrontery about
this challenge which surprised her, and if she did not check it on
the spot, there was no saying how much trouble it might give her.
Then unlocking the drawer of the writing-desk at her elbow, she
took out Carrington's letter and handed it to Mr. Ratcliffe.
"Here is such an example which has come to my knowledge very
lately. I meant to show it to you in any case, but I would rather
have waited."
Ratcliffe took the letter which she handed to him, opened it
deliberately, looked at the signature, and read. He showed no sign
of surprise or disturbance. No one would have imagined that he
had, from the moment he saw Carrington's name, as precise a
knowledge of what was in this letter as though he had written it
himself. His first sensation was only one of anger that his projects
had miscarried. How this had happened he could not at once
understand, for the idea that Sybil could have a hand in it did not
occur to him. He had made up his mind that Sybil was a silly,
frivolous girl, who counted for nothing in her sister's actions. He
had fallen into the usual masculine blunder of mixing up smartness
of intelligence with strength of character. Sybil, without being a
metaphysician, willed anything which she willed at all with more
energy than her sister did, who was worn out with the effort of life.
Mr. Ratcliffe missed this point, and was left to wonder who it was
that had crossed his path, and how Carrington had managed to be
present and absent, to get a good office in Mexico and to baulk his
schemes in Washington, at the same time. He had not given
Carrington credit for so much cleverness.
He was violently irritated at the check. Another day, he thought,
would have made him safe on this side; and possibly he was right.
Had he once succeeded in getting ever so slight a hold on Mrs. Lee
he would have told her this story with his own colouring, and from
his own point of view, and he fully believed he could do this in
such a way as to rouse her sympathy. Now that her mind was
prejudiced, the task would be much more difficult; yet he did not
despair, for it was his theory that Mrs. Lee, in the depths of her
soul, wanted to be at the head of the White House as much as he
wanted to be there himself, and that her apparent coyness was
mere feminine indecision in the face of temptation. His thoughts
now turned upon the best means of giving again the upper hand to
her ambition. He wanted to drive Carrington a second time from
the field.
Thus it was that, having read the letter once in order to learn what
was in it, he turned back, and slowly read it again in order to gain
time. Then he replaced it in its envelope, and returned it to Mrs.
Lee, who, with equal calmness, as though her interest in it were at
an end, tossed it negligently into the fire, where it was reduced to
ashes under Ratcliffe's eyes.
He watched it burn for a moment, and then turning to her, said,
with his usual composure, "I meant to have told you of that affair
myself. I am sorry that Mr. Carrington has thought proper to
forestall me. No doubt he has his own motives for taking my
character in charge."
"Then it is true!" said Mrs. Lee, a little more quickly than she had
meant to speak.
"True in its leading facts; untrue in some of its details, and in the
impression it creates. During the Presidential election which took
place eight years ago last autumn, there was, as you may
remember, a violent contest and a very close vote. We believed
(though I was not so prominent in the party then as now), that the
result of that election would be almost as important to the nation
as the result of the war itself. Our defeat meant that the
government must pass into the blood-stained hands of rebels, men
whose designs were more than doubtful, and who could not, even
if their designs had been good, restrain the violence of their
followers. In consequence we strained every nerve. Money was
freely spent, even to an amount much in excess of our resources.
How it was employed, I will not say.
I do not even know, for I held myself aloof from these details,
which fell to the National Central Committee of which I was not a
member. The great point was that a very large sum had been
borrowed on pledged securities, and must be repaid. The members
of the National Committee and certain senators held discussions
on the subject, in which I shared. The end was that towards the
close of the session the head of the committee, accompanied by
two senators, came to me and told me that I must abandon my
opposition to the Steamship Subsidy. They made no open avowal
of their reasons, and I did not press for one. Their declaration, as
the responsible heads of the organization, that certain action on my
part was essential to the interests of the party, satisfied me. I did
not consider myself at liberty to persist in a mere private opinion
in regard to a measure about which I recognized the extreme
likelihood of my being in error. I accordingly reported the bill, and
voted for it, as did a large majority of the party. Mrs. Baker is
mistaken in saying that the money was paid to me. If it was paid at
all, of which I have no knowledge except from this letter, it was
paid to the representative of the National Committee. I received no
money. I had nothing to do with the money further than as I might
draw my own conclusions in regard to the subsequent payment of
the campaign debt."
Mrs. Lee listened to all this with intense interest. Not until this
moment had she really felt as though she had got to the heart of
politics, so that she could, like a physician with his stethoscope,
measure the organic disease. Now at last she knew why the pulse
beat with such unhealthy irregularity, and why men felt an anxiety
which they could not or would not explain. Her interest in the
disease overcame her disgust at the foulness of the revelation. To
say that the discovery gave her actual pleasure would be doing her
injustice; but the excitement of the moment swept away every
other sensation. She did not even think of herself. Not until
afterwards did she fairly grasp the absurdity of Ratcliffe's wish that
in the face of such a story as this, she should still have vanity
enough to undertake the reform of politics. And with his aid too!
The audacity of the man would have seemed sublime if she had
felt sure that he knew the difference between good and evil,
between a lie and the truth; but the more she saw of him, the surer
she was that his courage was mere moral paralysis, and that he
talked about virtue and vice as a man who is colour-blind talks
about red and green; he did not see them as she saw them; if left to
choose for himself he would have nothing to guide him. Was it
politics that had caused this atrophy of the moral senses by disuse?
Meanwhile, here she sat face to face with a moral lunatic, who had
not even enough sense of humour to see the absurdity of his own
request, that she should go out to the shore of this ocean of
corruption, and repeat the ancient r?le of King Canute, or Dame
Partington with her mop and her pail. What was to be done with
such an animal?
The bystander who looked on at this scene with a wider knowledge
of facts, might have found entertainment in another view of the
subject, that is to say, in the guilelessness ot Madeleine Lee. With
all her warnings she was yet a mere baby-in-arms in the face of the
great politician. She accepted his story as true, and she thought it
as bad as possible; but had Mr.
Ratcliffe's associates now been present to hear his version of it,
they would have looked at each other with a smile of professional
pride, and would have roundly sworn that he was, beyond a doubt,
the ablest man this country had ever produced, and next to certain
of being President. They would not, however, have told their own
side of the story if they could have helped it, but in talking it over
among themselves they might have assumed the facts to have been
nearly as follows: that Ratcliffe had dragged them into an
enormous expenditure to carry his own State, and with it his own
re-election to the Senate; that they had tried to hold him
responsible, and he had tried to shirk the responsibility; that there
had been warm discussions on the subject; that he himself had
privately suggested recourse to Baker, had shaped his conduct
accordingly, and had compelled them, in order to save their own
credit, to receive the money.
Even if Mrs. Lee had heard this part of the story, though it might
have sharpened her indignation against Mr. Ratcliffe, it would not
have altered her opinions. As it was, she had heard enough, and
with a great effort to control her expression of disgust, she sank
back in her chair as Ratcliffe concluded. Finding that she did not
speak, he went on:
"I do not undertake to defend this affair. It is the act of my public
life which I most regret--not the doing, but the necessity of doing. I
do not differ from you in opinion on that point. I cannot
acknowledge that there is here any real divergence between us."
"I am afraid," said Mrs. Lee, "that I cannot agree with you."
This brief remark, the very brevity of which carried a barb of
sarcasm, escaped from Madeleine's lips before she had fairly
intended it. Ratcliffe felt the sting, and it started him from his
studied calmness of manner.
Rising from his chair he stood on the hearthrug before Mrs. Lee,
and broke out upon her with an oration in that old senatorial voice
and style which was least calculated to enlist her sympathies:
"Mrs. Lee," said he, with harsh emphasis and dogmatic tone, "there
are conflicting duties in all the transactions of life, except the
simplest.
However we may act, do what we may, we must violate some
moral obligation.
All that can be asked of us is that we should guide ourselves by
what we think the highest. At the time this affair occurred, I was a
Senator of the United States. I was also a trusted member of a
great political party which I looked upon as identical with the
nation. In both capacities I owed duties to my constituents, to the
government, to the people. I might interpret these duties narrowly
or broadly. I might say: Perish the government, perish the Union,
perish this people, rather than that I should soil my hands! Or I
might say, as I did, and as I would say again: Be my fate what it
may, this glorious Union, the last hope of suffering humanity, shall
be preserved."
Here he paused, and seeing that Mrs. Lee, after looking for a time
at him, was now regarding the fire, lost in meditation over the
strange vagaries of the senatorial mind, he resumed, in another line
of argument. He rightly judged that there must be some moral
defect in his last remarks, although he could not see it, which
made persistence in that direction useless.
"You ought not to blame me--you cannot blame me justly. It is to
your sense of justice I appeal. Have I ever concealed from you my
opinions on this subject? Have I not on the contrary always
avowed them? Did I not here, on this very spot, when challenged
once before by this same Carrington, take credit for an act less
defensible than this? Did I not tell you then that I had even
violated the sanctity of a great popular election and reversed its
result? That was my sole act! In comparison with it, this is a trifle!
Who is injured by a steamship company subscribing one or ten
hundred thousand dollars to a campaign fund? Whose rights are
affected by it? Perhaps its stock holders receive one dollar a share
in dividends less than they otherwise would. If they do not
complain, who else can do so? But in that election I deprived a
million people of rights which belonged to them as absolutely as
their houses! You could not say that I had done wrong. Not a word
of blame or criticism have you ever uttered to me on that account.
If there was an offence, you condoned it! You certainly led me to
suppose that you saw none. Why are you now so severe upon the
smaller crime?"
This shot struck hard. Mrs. Lee visibly shrank under it, and lost her
composure. This was the same reproach she had made against
herself, and to which she had been able to find no reply. With
some agitation she exclaimed:
"Mr. Ratcliffe, pray do me justice! I have tried not to be severe. I
have said nothing in the way of attack or blame. I acknowledge
that it is not my place to stand in judgment over your acts. I have
more reason to blame myself than you, and God knows I have
blamed myself bitterly." The tears stood in her eyes as she said
these last words, and her voice trembled.
Ratcliffe saw that he had gained an advantage, and, sitting down
nearer to her, he dropped his voice and urged his suit still more
energetically:
"You did me justice then; why not do it now? You were convinced
then that I did the best I could. I have always done so. On the other
hand I have never pretended that all my acts could be justified by
abstract morality. Where, then, is the divergence between us?"
Mrs. Lee did not undertake to answer this last argument: she only
returned to her old ground. "Mr. Ratcliffe," she said, "I do not want
to argue this question. I have no doubt that you can overcome me
in argument. Perhaps on my side this is a matter of feeling rather
than of reason, but the truth is only too evident to me that I am not
fitted for politics. I should be a drag upon you. Let me be the judge
of my own weakness! Do not insist upon pressing me, further!"
She was ashamed of herself for this appeal to a man whom she
could not respect, as though she were a suppliant at his mercy, but
she feared the reproach of having deceived him, and she tried
pitiably to escape it.
Ratcliffe was only encouraged by her weakness.
"I must insist upon pressing it, Mrs. Lee," replied he, and he
became yet more earnest as he went on; "my future is too deeply
involved in your decision to allow of my accepting your answer as
final. I need your aid.
There is nothing I will not do to obtain it. Do you require
affection? mine for you is boundless. I am ready to prove it by a
life of devotion. Do you doubt my sincerity? test it in whatever
way you please. Do you fear being dragged down to the level of
ordinary politicians? so far as concerns myself, my great wish is to
have your help in purifying politics. What higher ambition can
there be than to serve one's country for such an end?
Your sense of duty is too keen not to feel that the noblest objects
which can inspire any woman, combine to point out your course."
Mrs. Lee was excessively uncomfortable, although not in the least
shaken.
She began to see that she must take a stronger tone if she meant to
bring this importunity to an end, and she answered:--
"I do not doubt your affection or your sincerity, Mr. Ratcliffe. It is
myself I doubt. You have been kind enough to give me much of
your confidence this winter, and if I do not yet know about politics
all that is to be known, I have learned enough to prove that I could
do nothing sillier than to suppose myself competent to reform
anything. If I pretended to think so, I should be a mere worldly,
ambitious woman, such as people think me. The idea of my
purifying politics is absurd. I am sorry to speak so strongly, but I
mean it. I do not cling very closely to life, and do not value my
own very highly, but I will not tangle it in such a way; I will not
share the profits of vice; I am not willing to be made a receiver of
stolen goods, or to be put in a position where I am perpetually
obliged to maintain that immorality is a virtue!"
As she went on she became more and more animated and her
words took a sharper edge than she had intended. Ratcliffe felt it,
and showed his annoyance. His face grew dark and his eyes looked
out at her with their ugliest expression. He even opened his mouth
for an angry retort, but controlled himself with an effort, and
presently resumed his argument.
"I had hoped," he began more solemnly than ever, "that I should
find in you a lofty courage which would disregard such risks. If all
tme men and women were to take the tone you have taken, our
government would soon perish. If you consent to share my career, I
do not deny that you may find less satisfaction than I hope, but you
will lead a mere death in life if you place yourself like a saint on a
solitary column. I plead what I believe to be your own cause in
pleading mine. Do not sacrifice your life!"
Mrs. Lee was in despair. She could not reply what was on her lips,
that to marry a murderer or a thief was not a sure way of
diminishing crime. She had already said something so much like
this that she shrank from speaking more plainly. So she fell back
on her old theme.
"We must at all events, Mr. Ratcliffe, use our judgments according
to our own consciences. I can only repeat now what I said at first. I
am sorry to seem insensible to your expressions towards me, but I
cannot do what you wish. Let us maintain our old relations if you
will, but do not press me further on this subject."
Ratcliffe grew more and more sombre as he became aware that
defeat was staring him in the face. He was tenacious of purpose,
and he had never in his life abandoned an object which he had so
much at heart as this. He would not abandon it. For the moment, so
completely had the fascination of Mrs.
Lee got the control of him, he would rather have abandoned the
Presidency itself than her. He really loved her as earnestly as it was
in his nature to love anything. To her obstinacy he would oppose
an obstinacy greater still; but in the meanwhile his attack was
disconcerted, and he was at a loss what next to do. Was it not
possible to change his ground; to offer inducements that would
appeal even more strongly to feminine ambition and love of
display than the Presidency itself? He began again:--
"Is there no form of pledge I can give you? no sacrifice I can
make? You dislike politics. Shall I leave political life? I will do
anything rather than lose you. I can probably control the
appointment of Minister to England. The President would rather
have me there than here. Suppose I were to abandon politics and
take the English mission. Would that sacrifice not affect you? You
might pass four years in London where there would be no politics,
and where your social position would be the best in the world; and
this would lead to the Presidency almost as surely as the other."
Then suddenly, seeing that he was making no headway, he threw
off his studied calmness and broke out in an appeal of almost
equally studied violence.
"Mrs. Lee! Madeleine! I cannot live without you. The sound of
your voice--the touch of your hand--even the rustle of your
dress--are like wine to me. For God's sake, do not throw me over!"
He meant to crush opposition by force. More and more vehement
as he spoke he actually bent over and tried to seize her hand. She
drew it back as though he were a reptile. She was exasperated by
this obstinate disregard of her forbearance, this gross attempt to
bribe her with office, this flagrant abandonment of even a pretence
of public virtue; the mere thought of his touch on her person was
more repulsive than a loathsome disease. Bent upon teaching him
a lesson he would never forget, she spoke out abruptly, and with
evident signs of contempt in her voice and manner:
"Mr. Ratcliffe, I am not to be bought. No rank, no dignity, no
consideration, no conceivable expedient would induce me to
change my mind.
Let us have no more of this!"
Ratcliffe had already been more than once, during this
conversation, on the verge of losing his temper. Naturally
dictatorial and violent, only long training and severe experience
had taught him self-control, and when he gave way to passion his
bursts of fury were still tremendous. Mrs. Lee's evident personal
disgust, even more than her last sharp rebuke, passed the bounds of
his patience. As he stood before her, even she, high-spirited as she
was, and not in a calm frame of mind, felt a momentary shock at
seeing how his face flushed, his eyes gleamed, and his hands
trembled with rage.
"Ah!" exclaimed he, turning upon her with a harshness, almost a
savageness, of manner that startled her still more; "I might have
known what to expect!
Mrs. Clinton warned me early. She said then that I should find you
a heartless coquette!"
"Mr. Ratcliffe!" exclaimed Madeleine, rising from her chair, and
speaking in a warning voice almost as passionate as his own.
"A heartless coquette!" he repeated, still more harshly than before;
"she said you would do just this! that you meant to deceive me!
that you lived on flattery! that you could never be anything but a
coquette, and that if you married me, I should repent it all my life.
I believe her now!"
Mrs. Lee's temper, too, was naturally a high one. At this moment
she, too, was flaming with anger, and wild with a passionate
impulse to annihilate this man. Conscious that the mastery was in
her own hands, she could the more easily control her voice, and
with an expression of unutterable contempt she spoke her last
words to him, words which had been ringing all day in her ears:
"Mr. Ratcliffe! I have listened to you with a great deal more
patience and respect than you deserve. For one long hour I have
degraded myself by discussing with you the question whether I
should marry a man who by his own confession has betrayed the
highest trusts that could be placed in him, who has taken money
for his votes as a Senator, and who is now in public office by
means of a successful fraud of his own, when in justice he should
be in a State's prison. I will have no more of this. Understand, once
for all, that there is an impassable gulf between your life and mine.
I do not doubt that you will make yourself President, but whatever
or wherever you are, never speak to me or recognize me again!"
He glared a moment into her face with a sort of blind rage, and
seemed about to say more, when she swept past him, and before he
realized it, he was alone.
Overmastered by passion, but conscious that he was powerless,
Ratcliffe, after a moment's hesitation, left the room and the house.
He let himself out, shutting the front door behind him, and as he
stood on the pavement old Baron Jacobi, who had special reasons
for wishing to know how Mrs. Lee had recovered from the fatigue
and excitements of the ball, came up to the spot.
A single glance at Ratcliffe showed him that something had gone
wrong in the career of that great man, whose fortunes he always
followed with so bitter a sneer of contempt. Impelled by the spirit
of evil always at his elbow, the Baron seized this moment to sound
the depth of his friend's wound. They met at the door so closely
that recognition was inevitable, and Jacobi, with his worst smile,
held out his hand, saying at the same moment with diabolic
malignity:
"I hope I may offer my felicitations to your Excellency!"
Ratcliffe was glad to find some victim on whom he could vent his
rage. He had a long score of humiliations to repay this man, whose
last insult was beyond all endurance. With an oath he dashed
Jacobi's hand aside, and, grasping his shoulder, thrust him out of
the path. The Baron, among whose weaknesses the want of high
temper and personal courage was not recorded, had no mind to
tolerate such an insult from such a man. Even while Ratcliffe's
hand was still on his shoulder he had raised his cane, and before
the Secretary saw what was coming, the old man had struck him
with all his force full in the face. For a moment Ratcliffe staggered
back and grew pale, but the shock sobered him. He hesitated a
single instant whether to crush his assailant with a blow, but he felt
that for one of his youth and strength, to attack an infirm
diplomatist in a public street would be a fatal blunder, and while
Jacobi stood, violently excited, with his cane raised ready to strike
another blow, Mr. Ratcliffe suddenly turned his back and without a
word, hastened away.
When Sybil returned, not long afterwards, she found no one in the
parlour.
On going to her sister's room she discovered Madeleine lying on
the couch, looking worn and pale, but with a slight smile and a
peaceful expression on her face, as though she had done some act
which her conscience approved. She called Sybil to her side, and,
taking her hand, said:
"Sybil, dearest, will you go abroad with me again?"
"Of course I will," said Sybil; "I will go to the end of the world
with you."
"I want to go to Egypt," said Madeleine, still smiling faintly;
"democracy has shaken my nerves to pieces. Oh, what rest it would
be to live in the Great Pyramid and look out for ever at the polar
star!"
Conclusion
SYBIL TO CARRINGTON "May 1st, New York.
"My dear Mr. Carrington, "I promised to write you, and so, to keep
my promise, and also because my sister wishes me to tell you
about our plans, I send this letter. We have left Washington--for
ever, I am afraid--and are going to Europe next month.
You must know that a fortnight ago, Lord Skye gave a great ball to
the Grand-Duchess of something-or-other quite unspellable. I
never can describe things, but it was all very fine. I wore a lovely
new dress, and was a great success, I assure you. So was
Madeleine, though she had to sit most of the evening by the
Princess--such a dowdy! The Duke danced with me several times;
he can't reverse, but that doesn't seem to matter in a Grand-Duke.
Well! things came to a crisis at the end of the evening. I followed
your directions, and after we got home gave your letter to
Madeleine. She says she has burned it. I don't know what happened
afterwards--a tremendous scene, I suspect, but Victoria Dare
writes me from Washington that every one is talking about M.'s
refusal of Mr. R., and a dreadful thing that took place on our very
doorstep between Mr. R. and Baron Jacobi, the day after the ball.
She says there was a regular pitched battle, and the Baron struck
him over the face with his cane. You know how afraid Madeleine
was that they would do something of the sort in our parlour. I'm
glad they waited till they were in the street. But isn't it shocking!
They say the Baron is to be sent away, or recalled, or something. I
like the old gentleman, and for his sake am glad duelling is gone
out of fashion, though I don't much believe Mr. Silas P. Ratcliffe
could hit anything. The Baron passed through here three days ago
on his summer trip to Europe. He left his card on us, but we were
out, and did not see him. We are going over in July with the
Schneidekoupons, and Mr. Schneidekoupon has promised to send
his yacht to the Mediterranean, so that we shall sail about there
after finishing the Nile, and see Jerusalem and Gibraltar and
Constantinople. I think it will be perfectly lovely. I hate ruins, but I
fancy you can buy delicious things in Constantinople. Of course,
after what has happened, we can never go back to Washington. I
shall miss our rides dreadfully. I read Mr. Browning's 'Last Ride
Together,' as you told me; I think it's beautiful and perfectly easy,
all but a little. I never could understand a word of him before--so I
never tried. Who do you think is engaged? Victoria Dare, to a
coronet and a peat-bog, with Lord Dunbeg attached. Victoria says
she is happier than she ever was before in any of her other
engagements, and she is sure this is the real one. She says she has
thirty thousand a year derived from the poor of America, which
may just as well go to relieve one of the poor in Ireland.
You know her father was a claim agent, or some such thing, and is
said to have made his money by cheating his clients out of their
claims. She is perfectly wild to be a countess, and means to make
Castle Dunbeg lovely by-and-by, and entertain us all there.
Madeleine says she is just the kind to be a great success in London.
Madeleine is very well, and sends her kind regards. I believe she is
going to add a postscript. I have promised to let her read this, but I
don't think a chaperoned letter is much fun to write or receive.
Hoping to hear from you soon, "Sincerely yours, "Sybil Ross."
Enclosed was a thin strip of paper containing another message
from Sybil, privately inserted at the last moment unknown to Mrs.
Lee--
"If I were in your place I would try again after she comes home."
Mrs. Lee's P.S. was very short--
"The bitterest part of all this horrid story is that nine out of ten of
our countrymen would say I had made a mistake."
End
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