The Romance of a Plain Man Read online

  CHAPTER XI

  IN WHICH I ENTER SOCIETY AND GET A FALL

  My first successful speculation was made in my twenty-first year withfive hundred dollars paid to me by Bob Brackett when the Nectar blendhad been six months on the market. By the General's advice I put themoney in the Old South Chemical Company, and selling out a little laterat high profits, I immediately reinvested. As the years went by, thatsmoking mixture, discovered almost by accident in an idle moment, beganto yield me considerably larger checks twice a year; and twice a year,with the General's enthusiastic assistance, I went in for a modestspeculation from which I hoped sometime to reap a fortune. When I wastwenty-five, a temporary depression in the market gave me theopportunity which, as Dr. Theophilus had informed me almost daily forten years, "waits always around the corner for the man who walksquickly." I put everything I owned into copper mining stock, thenselling very low, and a year later when the copper trade recoveredquickly and grew active, I rushed to the General and enquiredbreathlessly if I must sell out.

  "Hold on and await developments," he replied from his wicker chair overhis bandaged foot, "and remember that the successful speculator is theman who always runs in the other direction from the crowd. When you seepeople sitting still, you'd better get up, and when you see them beginto get up, you'd better sit still. Fortune's a woman, you know; don'ttry to flirt with her, but at the same time don't throw your boots ather head."

  Five years before I had left the tobacco factory to go into theGeneral's office, and my days were spent now, absorbed and alert, besidethe chair in which he sat, coolly playing his big game of chess, andcontrolling a railroad. He was in his day the strongest financier in theSouth, and he taught me my lesson. Tireless, sleepless, throbbing with afever that was like the fever of love, I studied at his side everymovement of the market, I weighed every word he uttered, I watched everystroke of his stout cork-handled pen. An infallible judge of men, myintimate knowledge soon taught me that it was by judging men, notthings, he had won his success. "Learn men, learn men, learn men," hewould repeat in one of his frequent losses of temper. "Everything restson a man, and the way to know the thing is to know the man."

  "That's why I'm learning you, General," I once replied, as he hobbledout of his office on my arm.

  "Oh, I know, I know," he retorted with his sly chuckle. "You are lettingme lean on you now because you think the time will come when you canthrow me aside and stand up by yourself. It's age and youth, my boy, ageand youth."

  He sighed wearily, and looking at him I saw for the first time that hewas growing old.

  "Well, you've stood straight enough in your day, sir," I answered.

  "Oh, I've had my youth, and I shan't begin to put on a long face becauseI've lost it. I didn't have your stature, Ben, but I had a pretty fairmiddling-size one of my own. They used to say of me that I had an eyefor the big chance, and that's a thing a man's got to be born with. Tosee big you've got to be big, and that's what I like about you--youain't busy looking for specks."

  "If I can only become as big a man as you, General, I shall be content."

  "No, you won't, no, you won't, don't stop at me. Already they arebeginning to call you my 'wonderful boy,' you know. 'I like thatwonderful boy of yours, George,' Jessoms said to me only last night atthe club. You know Jessoms--don't you? He's president of the UnionBank."

  "Yes, I talked to him for two solid hours yesterday."

  "He told me so, and I said to him: 'By Jove, you're right, Jessoms, andthat boy's got a future ahead of him if he doesn't swell.' Now that'sthe Gospel truth, Ben, and all the body you've got ain't going to saveyou if you don't keep your head. If you ever feel it beginning to swell,you step outside and put it under a pump, that's the best thing I knowof. How old are you?"

  "Twenty-six."

  "And you've got fifty thousand dollars already?"

  "Thanks to you, sir."

  "So you ain't swelled yet. Well, I've given you six years of hardtraining, and I made it all the blamed harder because I liked you.You've got the look of success about you, I've seen enough of it to knowit. They used to say of me in Washington that I could sit in my officechair and overlook a line of men and spot every last one of them thatwas going to get on. I never went wrong but once, and that was becausethe poor devil began to swell and thought he was as big as his ownshadow. But if the look's there, I see it--it's something in the eye andthe jaw, and the grip of the hands that nobody can give you except GodAlmighty--and by George, it turns me into a downright heathen and makesme believe in fate. When a man has that something in the eye and in thejaw and in the grip of the hand, there ain't enough devils in theuniverse to keep him from coming out on top at the last. He may gounder, but he won't stay under--no, sir, not if they pile all thebu'sted stocks in the market on top his shoulders."

  "Anyway, you've started me rolling, General, whether I spin on or cometo a dead stop."

  "Then remember," he retorted slyly, as we parted,' "that my earnestadvice to a young man starting in business is--don't begin to swell!"

  There was small danger of that, I thought, as I went on alone with myvision of the Great South Midland and Atlantic Railroad. From mychildhood I had seen the big road, as I saw it to-day, sweeping in abright track over the entire South, lengthening, branching, winding awaytoward the distant horizon, girdling the cotton fields, the rice fields,and the coal fields, like a protecting arm. One by one, I saw now, thesmall adjunct lines, absorbed by the main system, until in the wholeSouth only the Great South Midland and Atlantic would be left. Todominate that living organism, to control, in my turn, that splendidliberator of a people's resources, this was still the inaccessible hopeupon which I had fixed my heart.

  In my room I found young George Bolingbroke, who had been waiting, as heat once informed me, "a good half an hour."

  "I say, Ben," he broke out the next minute, "why don't you get thehousemaid to tie your cravats? She'd do it a long sight better. Are yourfingers all thumbs?"

  "They must be," I replied with a humility I had never assumed before theGeneral, "I can't do the thing properly to save my life."

  "I wonder it doesn't give you a common look," he remarkeddispassionately, while I winced at the word, "but somehow it only makesyou appear superior to such trifles, like a giant gazing over molehillsat a mountain. It's your size, I reckon, but you're the kind of chap whocan put on a turned-down collar with your evening clothes, or a tiethat's been twisted through a wringer, and not look ridiculous. It's therest of us that seem fops because we're properly dressed."

  "I'd prefer to wear the right thing, you know," I returned, crestfallen.

  "You never will. Anybody might as well expect a mountain to put forthrose-bushes instead of pine. It suits you, somehow, like your hair,which would make the rest of us look a regular guy. But I'm forgettingmy mission. I've brought you an invitation to a party."

  "What on earth should I do at a party?"

  "Look pleasant. Did I take you to Miss Lessie Bell's dancing class fornothing? and were you put through the steps of the Highland Fling invain?"

  "I wasn't put through, I never learned."

  "Well, you kicked at it anyway. I say, is all your pirouetting to bedone with stocks? Are you going to pass away in ignorance of politesociety and the manners of the ladies?"

  "When I make a fortune, perhaps--"

  "Perhaps is always too late. To-morrow is better."

  "Where is the party?"

  "The Blands are giving it. Uncle George was puffing and blowing aboutyou when we dined there last Sunday, and Sally Mickleborough told me tobring you to her party on Wednesday night."

  Rising hurriedly I walked away from young George to the fireplace. Amist was before my eyes, I smelt again the scent of wallflowers, and Isaw in a dream the old grey house, with its delicate lace curtainsparted from the small square window-panes as if a face looked out on thecrooked pavement.

  "I'll go, George," I said, wheeling about, "if you'll pledge yourselfthat I go properly dr
essed."

  "Done," he responded, with his unfailing amiability. "I'll tie yourcravat myself; and thank your stars, Ben, that whatever you are, youcan't be little, for that's the unforgivable sin in Sally's eyes."

  On Wednesday night he proved as good as his promise, and when nineo'clock struck, it found me, in irreproachable evening clothes,following him down Franklin Street, to the old house, where a softlycoloured light streamed through the windows and lay in a rosy pool underthe sycamores. All day I had been very nervous. At the moment when I wasreading telegrams for the General, I had suddenly remembered that Ipossessed no gloves suitable to be worn at my first party, and I hadcommitted so many blunders that the great man had roared the word"Swelled!" in a furious tone. Now, however, when the sound of a waltz,played softly on stringed instruments, fell on my ears, my nervousnessdeparted as quickly as it had come. The big mahogany doors swung openbefore us, and as I passed with George, into the brilliantly lightedhall, where the perfume of roses filled the air, I managed to move, ifnot with grace, at least with the necessary dignity of an invited guest.The lamps, placed here and there amid feathery palm branches, glowedunder pink shades like enormous roses in full bloom, and up and down thewide staircase, carpeted in white, a number of pretty girls trippedunder trailing garlands of Southern smilax. As we entered the door onthe right, I saw Miss Mitty and Miss Matoaca, standing very erect intheir black brocades and old lace, with outstretched hands andconstantly smiling lips.

  George presented me, with the slightly formal manner which seemedappropriate to the occasion. I had held the little hand of each lady fora minute in my own, and had looked once into each pair of brightlyshining eyes, when my glance, dropping from theirs, flew straight as abird to Sally Mickleborough, who stood talking animatedly to an elderlygentleman with grey side-whiskers and a pleasant laugh. She was dressedall in white, and her pale brown hair, which I had last seen flying likethe wing of a bird, was now braided and wound in a wreath about herhead. As the elderly gentleman bowed and passed on, she lifted her eyes,and her starry, expectant gaze rested full on my face.

  Between us there stretched an expanse of polished floor, in which thepink-shaded lamps and the nodding roses were mirrored as in a pool.Around us there was the music of stringed instruments, playing a waltzsoftly; the sound, too, of many voices, now laughing, now whispering; ofMiss Mitty's repeated "It was so good of you to come"; of Miss Matoaca'sgently murmured "We are _so_ glad to have you with us"; of Dr.Theophilus's "You grow younger every day, ladies. Will you danceto-night?"; of General Bolingbroke's "I never missed an opportunity ofcoming to you in my life, ma'am"; of a confused chorus of girlishmurmurs, of youthful merriment.

  For one delirious instant it seemed to me that if I stepped on theshining floor, I should go down as on a frozen pool. Then her looksummoned me, and as I drew nearer she held out her hand and stoodwaiting. There was a white rose in her wreath of plaits, and when I bentto speak to her the fragrance floated about me.

  "Do you still remember me because of the blue-eyed collie?" I asked, forit was all I could think of.

  Her firm square chin was tilted a little upward, and as she smiled atme, her thick black eyebrows were raised in the old childish expressionof charming archness. It was the face of an idea rather than the face ofa woman, and the power, the humour, the radiant energy in her look,appeared to divide her, as by an immeasurable distance, from the prettygirls of her own age among whom she stood. She seemed at once older andyounger than her companions--older by some deeper and sadder knowledgeof life, younger because of the peculiar buoyancy with which she movedand spoke. As I looked at her mouth, very full, of an almost violentred, and tremulous with expression, I remembered Miss Hatty's "delicatebow" with an odd feeling of anger.

  "It has been a long time, but I haven't forgotten you, Ben Starr," shesaid.

  "Do you remember the night of the storm and the cup of milk you wouldn'tdrink?"

  "How horrid I was! And the geranium you gave me?"

  "And the churchyard and the red shoes and Samuel?"

  "Poor Samuel. I can't have any dogs now. Aunt Mitty doesn't like them--"

  Some one came up to speak to her, and while I bowed awkwardly and turnedaway, I saw her gaze looking back at me from the roses and thepink-shaded lamps. A touch on my arm brought the face of young Georgebetween me and my ecstatic visions.

  "I say, Ben, there's an awfully pretty girl over there I want you towaltz with--Bessy Dandridge."

  In spite of my protest he led me the next instant to a slim figure inpink tarlatan, with a crown of azaleas, who sat in one corner betweentwo very stout ladies. As I approached, the stout ladies smiled at mebenignly, hiding suppressed yawns behind feather fans. Miss Dandridgewas, as George said, "awfully pretty," with large shallow eyes of paleblue, an insipid mouth, and a shy little smile that looked as if she hadput it on with her crown of azaleas and would take it off again and layit away in her bureau drawer when the party was over.

  "Get up and dance, dear," urged one of the stout ladies sleepily, "weought to have come earlier."

  "The girls look very well," remarked the other, suddenly alert andinterested, "but I don't like this new fashion of wearing the hair.Sally Mickleborough is handsome, though it's a pity she takes so muchafter her father."

  My arm was already around the pink tarlatan waist of my partner, thecrown of azaleas had brushed my shoulder like a gentle caress, and I hadwhirled halfway down the room in triumphant agony, when a floatingphrase uttered in a girlish voice entered my ears and carried confusioninto my brain.

  "Get out of the way. Doesn't Bessy look for all the world like arose-bush uprooted by a whirlwind?"

  I caught the words as I went, and they proved too much for the tremblingbalance of my self-confidence. My strained gaze, fixed on the glassysurface beneath my feet, plunged suddenly downward amid the reflectedroses and lamps. The music went wild and out of tune on the air. Myblood beat violently in my pulses, I made a single false step, trippedover a flounce of pink tarlatan, which seemed to shriek as I went down,and the next instant my partner and I were flat on the polished floor,clutching desperately for support at the mirrored roses beneath.

  The wreck lasted only a minute. A single suppressed titter fell on myears, and was instantly checked. I looked up in time to see a smilefreeze on Miss Mitty's face, and melt immediately into an expression ofsympathy. The pretty girl, with the crown of azalea hanging awry on herflaxen tresses, and her flounce of pink tarlatan held disconsolately inher hand, looked for one dreadful instant as if she were about to burstinto tears. A few dancers had stopped and gathered sympatheticallyaround us, but the rest were happily whirling on, while the music, aftera piercing crescendo, came breathlessly to a pause amid a silence that Ifelt to be far louder than sound. The perspiration, forced out by inwardagony, stood in drops on my forehead, and as I wiped it away, I saidalmost defiantly:--

  "It was the fault of George Bolingbroke. I told him I didn't know how todance."

  "I think I'd better go home," murmured the heroine of the disaster,catching her lower lip in her teeth to bite back a sob, "I wonder wheremamma can be?"

  "Here, dear," responded a commiserating voice, and I was about to turnaway in disgrace without a further apology, when the little circlearound us divided with a flutter, and Sally appeared, leaning on the armof a youth with bulging eyes and a lantern jaw.

  "Go home, Bessy? Why, how silly!" she exclaimed, and her energetic voiceseemed suddenly to dominate the situation. "It wasn't so many years ago,I'm sure, that you used to tumble for the pleasure of it. Here, let mepin on your crown, and then run straight upstairs to the red room andget mammy to mend your flounce. It won't take her a minute. There, now,you're all the prettier for a high colour."

  When she had pushed Bessy across the threshold with her small, stronghands, she turned to me, laughing a little, and slipped her arm intomine with the air of a young queen bestowing a favour.

  "It's just as well, Ben Starr," she said, "that you're engaged to m
e forthis dance, and not to a timid lady."

  It wasn't my dance, I knew; in fact, I had not had sufficient boldnessto ask her for one, and I discovered the next minute, when she sent awayrather impatiently a youth who approached, that she had taken suchglorious possession merely from some indomitable instinct to give peoplepleasure.

  "Shall we sit down and talk a little over there under the smilax?" sheasked, "or would you rather dance? If you'd like to dance," she addedwith a sparkle in her face, "I am not afraid."

  "Well, I am," I retorted, "I shall never dance again."

  "How serious that sounds--but since you've made the resolution I hopeyou'll keep it. I like things to be kept."

  "There's no chance of my breaking it. I never made but one other solemnvow in my life."

  "And you've kept that?"

  "I am keeping it now."

  She sat down, arranging her white draperies under the festoons ofsmilax, her left hand, from which a big feather fan drooped, resting onher knees, her small, white-slippered foot moving to the sound of thewaltz.

  "Was it a vow not to grow any more?" she asked with a soft laugh.

  "It was," I leaned toward her and the fragrance of the white rose,drooping a little in her wreath of plaits, filled my nostrils, "that Iwould not stay common."

  Her lashes, which had been lowered, were raised suddenly, and I met hereyes. "O Ben Starr, Ben Starr," she said, "how well you have kept it!"

  "Do you remember the stormy night when you would not let me take yourwet cap because I was a common boy?".

  "How hateful I must have been!"

  "On that night I determined that I would not grow up to be a common man.That was why I ran away, that was why I went into the tobacco factory,that was why I started to learn Johnson's Dictionary by heart--why Idrudged over my Latin, why I went into stocks, why--"

  Her eyes had not left my face, but unfurling the big feather fan, shewaved it slowly between us. I, who had, in the words of Dr. Theophilus,"no small wits in my head," who could stand, dumb and a clown, in aballroom, who could even trip up my partner, had found words that couldarrest the gaze of the woman before me. To talk at all I must talk ofbig things, and it was of big things that I now spoke--of poverty, ofstruggle, of failure, of aspiration. My mind, like my body, was notrounded to the lighter graces, the rippling surface, that societyrequires. In my everyday clothes, among men, I was at no loss for words,but the high collar and the correctly tied cravat I wore seemed tostrangle my throat, until those starry eyes, seeking big things also,had looked into mine. Then I forgot my fruitless efforts atconversation, I forgot the height of my collar, the stiffness of myshirt, the size of my hands and my feet. I forgot that I was a plainman, and remembered only that I was a man. The merely social, thetrivial, the commonplace, dropped from my thoughts. My dignity,--thedignity that George Bolingbroke had called that of size,--was restoredto me; and beyond the rosy lights and the disturbing music, we stood aman and a woman together. Our consciousness had left the surface oflife. We had become acutely aware of each other and aware, too, of thesilence in which our eyes wavered and met.

  "That was why I starved and sweated and drudged and longed," I added,while her fan waved with its large, slow movement between us, "that waswhy--"

  Her lips parted, she leaned slightly forward, and I saw in her face whatI had never seen in the face of a woman before--the bloom of a soul.

  "And you've done this all your life?"

  "Since that stormy evening."

  "You have won--already you have won--"

  "Not yet. I am beginning and I may win in the end if I keep steady, if Idon't lose my head. I shall win in the end--perhaps--"

  "You will win what?"

  "A fortune it may be, or it may be even the thing that has made thefortune seem worth the having."

  "And that is?" she asked simply.

  "It is too long a story. Some day, if you will listen, I may tell you,but not now--"

  The dance stopped, she rose to her feet, and George Bolingbroke, rushingexcitedly to where we stood, claimed the coming Virginia reel as hisown.

  "Some day you shall tell me the long story, Ben Starr," she said, as shegave me her hand.

  I watched her take her place in the Virginia reel, watched the dancebegin, watched her full, womanly figure, in its soft white draperies,glide between the lines, with her head held high, her hand in GeorgeBolingbroke's, her white slippers skimming the polished floor. Thenturning away, I walked slowly down the length of the two drawing-rooms,and said "Good-night" to Miss Mitty and Miss Matoaca near the door. As Ipassed into the hall, I heard a woman's voice murmur distinctly:--

  "Yes, he is a magnificent animal, but he has no social manner."