A Maid and Her Money/Chapter 5
V.
At this time in New York one of the most conspicuous figures among a certain group of people was a lady—then unmarried. She was only twenty-seven, but, inasmuch as she had been grown up for at least ten years, she felt justified in assuming the privileges of a more advanced age. She was an orphan and lived alone; and, by a judicious alternation of asking advice and imposing her own opinion, she had contrived that all who criticized her were looked upon as Philistine.
Her looks contributed a good deal to this result, for, though counted very pretty by those who had a taste for early Italian profiles and round throats, the purity of her prettiness verged toward austerity.
She was very apt to speak of her age. “At my age,” she would say, “a single woman ought to be accorded all the freedom of a widow.”
“I don’t know,” Orvice had once replied, “exactly how you resemble a widow, unless there was one, wasn’t there, who feared not God, neither regarded men?”
Miss Lee pointed out to him his ignorance of the Scriptures, and went on to say that he was not only inaccurate in quotation, but inappropriate—she was distinctly of the order who fear God,
She might have gone on to prove that she also regarded man, and, she might have added, a good many men regarded her. She was credited by her friends, and even by her enemies, with a great number of love-affairs, over which she threw the magnifying mist of mystery.
Either from natural modesty or an established policy, Miss Lee always spoke as if her life were peculiarly devoid of romantic interest, and if she were ever confronted with the proofs of some one man’s constant visits, she immediately averred that of all her friendships that was the most Platonic.
“Ah,” she had been known to say, “it is the mothers who are my friends. If only the sons had been half as appreciative, I should not be an old maid at this minute;” an utterance full of falsity, except for the first sentence. The mothers were her friends.
Among them was Mrs. Orvice. She was a girl after Mrs. Orvice’s heart, well-bred, intelligent, and most unlikely, as far as one can judge of these things, to be married by Jerry.
To her drawing-room Mrs. Orvice repaired in great distress of mind one afternoon not very long after the joint party to Marie Louise. Her confidence in Miss Lee was not misplaced, although she might not have extended it so freely if she had known the complete history of the friendship between her son and Miss Lee. Jerry was two years her junior, and, since before he went to college, he had looked on her with an admiration which, though it contained a fair measure of sentiment, was not love. Nevertheless, like most of the permanent friendships between men and women, this one had had its moment of passion. Some years before, while Jerry, in an unusually expansive mood, was lamenting the unravaged state of his affections, a real emotion had swept down upon them both. A kiss, I believe, was not resented, and sentences of some warmth exchanged.
Both felt differently the next day. If anything can unite two individuals more than a common passion, it is a simultaneous recovery. The incident, which each had feared would be a difficult one to explain, they could now, through their mutual emancipation, look back upon as a pleasing instance of their humanity. It was, indeed, the most perfect basis for such a friendship as theirs. He found her the most congenial of companions, and the value of his compliments on her qualities of mind were enormously enhanced by her recollection of his past tributes to her less abstract qualities.
To this lady did Mrs. Orvice come, without the least concealment of her anxiety.
“My dear Barbara,” she said, when they were alone, “I suppose I am very foolish, and Jerry would be furious if he knew I had discussed his affairs with any one, but, do you know, I begin to feel worried? You've heard all these stories about him”
“You mean the story about the Allens’ masked ball? Entirely May Emmons’ own fault. Of course, if you allow a man”
“I don’t mean that,” said Mrs. Orvice, with a short laugh; “for I haven’t heard it, and I don't want to. The absurd adventures of my son’s that I have already heard are quite enough. No, this is more serious than mere adventures. It seems to be a question of marriage.
Miss Lee’s expression changed. Her look of gentle but omniscient reserve gave way to a certain strained attention. A man’s marriage, as things are now arranged, threatens every other personal relation that he sustains, however innocent. Miss Lee would miss Jerry. Besides, it was almost a breach of faith. It had always been understood that he liked her better than any other woman, and he had only been allowed to stay out of love with her, on condition that he seemed tolerably sure not to fall in love with any one else. And now things had got as far as this, and she did not even know whom Mrs. Orvice had reference to. Where had her eyes been? Beyond certain conspicuous, but meaningless, attentions to Mrs. Emmons she had noted nothing.
She asked the name of the lady—heard Marie Louise's, and expressed her relief.
“The exuberant young lady that he and Mr. Peale gave a party to? I don’t think I should worry about her, dear Mrs. Orvice. Hardly a person to sweep Jerry off his feet.”
But Mrs. Orvice’s countenance did not brighten.
“I don’t know about sweeping him off his feet,” she answered, “but she is always sending him notes, and asking him to dine—you know how girls are about Jerry—and she is enormously rich.”
“Oh, you mothers!” said Miss Lee, with affectionate condemnation. “You are more slanderous than a man’s enemies. How can you suppose Jerry would do such a thing as marry her for her money?”
“I don't think it would be quite as bald as that. Suppose she shows that she cares a good deal, and—I certainly can imagine a man’s limiting his horizon so that—well, so that a poor girl would not attract him.”
Miss Lee shook her head. She had seen Jerry stirred. She felt she knew what she was talking about.
“Not that girl,” she murmured, with a reflective smile.
“Then why does he go there so much? Why has he backed out of this Amazon trip, which he was so set upon?”
“He has backed out?”
“He's not going. He has given me no reason.”
Miss Lee looked grave. “Well,” she said, at last, “I will admit that the idea may have occurred to him. He may even have made up his mind that some day he will ask her, but he never will. He has, at bottom, the simplest of ideals. His notions of what his wife and home should be are more than conventional—they are early Victorian. He will never ask a woman he does not love to marry him. On that I will stake my reputation for knowledge of human nature.”
There was a pause, and then she added irrelevantly:
“She blacks her eyebrows.”
“Really,” said Mrs. Orvice, with pleasure. “I'll tell Jerry.”
“I have already—at his dinner.”
“And what did he say?”
“I don’t remember. That it was a great thing to know just the thing you needed—or something like that. Has she any relations?”
“A mother—kept very much in the background.”
Miss Lee smiled. “He once told me that of all his relations, he did hope to be able to point with pride to his mother-in-law. You see, he has a high standard in parents.”
Mrs. Orvice took her departure much comforted, but, as often happens, she left some of her anxiety behind with her comforter.
After all, Miss Lee reflected, her belief in Jerry was based on an opinion formed when he was some years younger. He was good-looking and a gentleman, he had traveled and seen the world. When you had said this, you had said the best you could. He had had his romantic ideals at twenty-one, but who has not? Just because the people she knew spoiled him, and she herself was fond of him, there was no real reason for supposing that the idle life he led was not the full index to his character. Wasn’t such a marriage the logical outcome of such a life?
If it were, the first step of a friend should be to change the life.
She saw this so clearly that perhaps she had something to do with a conversation that took place a few days later over a tête-à-tête dinner at the club between Jerry and Peale. Miss Lee was seeing a good deal of Peale at this time, and was understood to have influence with him.
Peale had studied law in the office of Orvice, senior, and had been often at the house. Although little more than ten years older than Jerry, he had first known him when ten years is equal to a generation—that is to say, when Jerry was still at school and Peale had been out of college for several years. If he had met the younger man more recently, he would not have been particularly interested. His active life had no niche for idle, charming young men, But having known Jerry as a boy, he found plenty of reason for being attached to him.
As soon as it was evident that the critical moment of dinner had passed—the moment when it changed from a necessity to a luxury, from a meal to social occasion—Peale said simply:
“Do you want a job, Jerry? Old McManus told me yesterday that he wanted another secretary; one who, as he expressed it, would know his way about, who could speak French and German, and who had certain other qualities. It struck me you would be just his man.”
“They tell you,” said Jerry thoughtfully, “that everything is salable if you can find the right man, but I never supposed that any one existed who would have any use for my assortment of qualities. Upon my word, Prixley, this is very good of you.”
“It doesn’t sound like much, but you can never tell what things like that will lead to. A man’s private secretary is often his only possible successor in a business way. He offers you a salary of twenty-five hundred dollars a year, and he has the temper of a fiend. Shall I tell him I have found the right man for him?”
Orvice was watching his own hand as it arranged and rearranged the forks beside his plate. He did not look up now, but merely shook his head.
“Just as much obliged to you, Prixley, but I’m afraid I'm not his man.”
“This means you won’t do for the job, or the job won't do for you?”
“Both, perhaps.”
This time Jerry looked up and, smiling rather sheepishly, shook his head.
“Then,” said Peale, “there is nothing more to be said. But I’m rather curious to know your reasons.”
“I doubt if I have anything so creditable, but if you want the causes—why, I don’t want to work. My dear fellow, don’t look so puzzled—a perfectly ordinary phenomenon is before you.”
“Perhaps it is,” admitted Peale, with something of a struggle, “but it’s one I have never had explained to me before. Do you mind giving me a little information about your state of mind?”
Jerry laughed. “I don’t mind your having it,” he said,” “but I hate like poison having to become so conscious of my own weaknessess. I am, quite simply, idle, worthless, and slightly but comfortably in debt. Why the devil should I work? I am happy, and I don’t have to?”
“The future doesn’t trouble you?”
“Why should it? It is only people who work who trouble about the future. They may lose their jobs. I can’t lose mine. You see, the thing that confuses you is that I am content. Most of the idle men you know are not, but, then, are the men who do work so perfectly satisfied?”
“Well,” said Prixley, “I will admit that perhaps work as an end in itself cannot be defended, but you say yourself you are living beyond your income—that you are in debt.”
“I said comfortably in debt, Prixley. Just enough to save me the struggle of trying to make both ends meet—that is almost an economy, It releases your spare cash.”
“But it seems to me,” answered Peale seriously, “that you get so little in return for your idleness, if I may so express it. An occasional trip, which I own I envy you, but for the rest, what does it mean? To smoke a little better cigars than you ought, to drink a little better wine than the next man”
“To lead,” interrupted Jerry, smiling, “a life, which, ignominious as you think it, satisfies me perfectly. There are only two things that make people discontented—natural ability and poor health. I have escaped both. I enjoy life because I live as I please. And when I see the poor, overstrained breadwinners who drop in late in the afternoon at the club too tired to enjoy any-thing, I cannot think them so much better off than I am.”
“You judge such men very superficially,” said Peale rather hotly. “It is the object for which they work that repays them.”
“Oh, the ones who are working for a wife and child—perhaps one could contrive to envy them; but then, my dear Prixley, it would be the sheerest impertinence for me to work for a wife and child, because it would have to be some one else’s.”
“You mean it isn’t possible that you yourself should ever want to marry?”
“That I should want to? Possibly. Quite out of the question that I ever should, for we have just been showing that I cannot even support myself.”
If Peale had been a woman he would have made the obvious suggestion that even in Orvice’s circumstances matrimony is possible if the woman be prudently selected, but, being a man, he said nothing, finding an intimation, frankly intended by the speaker, quite as honest as any direct assertion was likely to be.
Later, that same evening at the opera, he had an opportunity of communicating the results of this interview to the lady who had inspired it.
Miss Lee allowed herself the luxury of two seats in the orchestra one night a week. She never went in a box; she said she could neither talk nor listen. Her seat, however, was on an aisle, and not infrequently it was observed by those who sat near her that gentlemen, filched from the boxes, came strolling down to talk with her.
“Well,” said Peale, bending over her chair, “he won’t have anything to say to the proposal.”
She looked sad. “Dear me,” she murmured, “I’m afraid he is not much good, after all.”
“Oh, your sex’s fatal desire to come to a conclusion! The longer you delay a conclusion, Miss Lee, the better it is. Anyhow, I elicited this much; it won’t be that,” and he nodded above them, where Marie Louise in bronze paillettes was drawing all eyes to her box.
“Oh, I could have told you that myself,” returned Miss Lee, with more confidence than she felt. “He has too much taste and love of”
“Of you,” Peale put in.
“Of breeding, I was going to say. He does not love me.”
“What, you sigh, madame?”
She looked up and smiled. “Did I sigh? Well, he is a very nice boy, Mr. Peale.”
“The deuce take him!” said Peale. “He may go to the devil his own way, if you talk like that. But I can tell you that he might do worse than marry the young lady up there. If ever a warm heart and a simple nature”
“What, you too! Is every one I am interested in going the same way?”
Peale laughed. “Oh,” he said, “you would not trouble to send Orvice to rescue me.”
“Perhaps I should come myself,” answered Miss Lee.