_ CHAPTER IX
Six months ago an astonishing piece of news was revealed to me. Astonishing at least to me, though Josephine says that I need not have been astonished had I kept my eyes open, inasmuch as the affair was going on under my very nose, and everybody in town except myself knew how it was likely to end. I refer to my daughter Josie's engagement.
Yesterday I gave her away--a euphemistic way of stating that she was torn from my arms--to a young man of whom I know next to nothing, though I hear on all sides that he is a very nice fellow, which might mean that he is utterly without principle and an easy-going, idle, selfish hound. In appearance he does not seem to me to differ from nine-tenths of the young men who in the course of the last five years have said, "How d'y do?" or "Good-by" to me (rarely more or less) when they have run across me in my own drawing-room. My wife declares that he has a spiritual face, and that he reminds her of me at the same age, which I regard as an ingenious attempt to prepossess me in his favor. She has informed me also that Josie is over head and ears in love with him and he with Josie, a predicament on his part which I am not surprised at; and I suppose that I am bound to admit that my daughter is justified in her infatuation for him, if he resembles me at thirty.
Plainly, I have become an old cynic by reason of the loss of my dear Josie. I realize that I have been like a bear with a sore head ever since the ceremony. As for Josephine, she has been mooning about the house all day in a state of chronic tearfulness. The responsibility of the bride's appearance and the wedding collation kept her nerved until everything was over. Last evening she collapsed and fell asleep in my arms, sobbing like a child.
His name is James Perkins. I have been doing my best for several months to call him "Jim," as everybody else does, instead of "James," or "Perkins," and yesterday I succeeded twice in doing so. I had had three glasses of champagne. He is an architect, and I understand from Josie that he has already made his mark in the erection of a church, two school-houses, and a town-hall in the suburbs, which I have promised her to go and see. It seems that a week before he had the impertinence to offer himself to her he received word that his plans for a vast railroad station in one of the large Western cities had been accepted. But for this untoward circumstance, my dear Josie would still be the light of my house, and I should not be gnawing at my mustache in the throes of misanthropy.
Jim is slight and not very tall, and he does not look especially strong. They tell me that he has worked very hard, and that he has won his way purely by his own energy and talent. He does not smoke, which rather prejudiced me against him, in spite of the fact that I believe we should all be the healthier if we did not use tobacco. This, as Josephine would say, only shows what an inconsistent creature I am. And I a philosopher, too! But I said at the outset that I was not a real philosopher. Josie met James--I beg his pardon, Jim--at her coming-out party, and it seems that he fell in love with her at first sight. If, now, somebody had fallen in love at first sight with my sister-in-law, Julia, how much more satisfactory it would have been all round. But that is the way of the world; Julia was overlooked and my girl taken, to my miserable discomfiture. Jim was one of the youths without fathers and mothers whom you see at every large entertainment. That is to say, my wife had never heard of his father and mother at the time she invited him, though they prove to have been very respectable people. Indeed, we were all of us struck by the dignified appearance which his family as a whole presented at the wedding. Alas! I realize already that when I have got used to the idea that anybody is to have her, I shall be thoroughly happy in the thought that I have given her away to such a decent fellow, a man with self-respect and principles, a man of industry and capacity, and one, too, who is ready to drink his glass of champagne like the rest of the world--although he does not smoke. I have let my grudge have free scope, and all I have been able to rake up against him is that he shakes his head when I offer him a pipe or a cigar. In my secret soul I am egregiously proud of him already, and but for my wounded sensibilities I could dance with joy over the reflection that he is likely to make her perfectly happy. And yet all this talk of marrying and giving in marriage has broken my spirit.
"Since it had to be someone," I said by way of consolation to Josephine when we awoke this morning, "it's extremely fortunate that she did not fall in love with a dashing soldier, who would carry her off to a barracks on the frontier of a Sioux reservation, or a swashing sailor, who would leave her at home while he went on long cruises, or a splendid-looking creature, with a sonorous voice, who would drink himself into his grave or else make her miserable by devoting himself to another woman. Some of the nicest fellows I ever knew have made their wives thoroughly wretched. When you think that there really isn't anything very wonderful to look at about--er--Jim, that is, anything to appeal especially to the romantic side of a girl, I think it's very greatly to Josie's credit that she should have chosen him. Many girls might have overlooked his solid attractions and gone in for a Jim dandy of a chap who wasn't worth his salt."
My wife looked a little blank over this philosophic statement, then she glanced up at me with a roguish smile and said: "You seem to forget, dear, that I accepted you."
"True enough," I answered, merrily. "I dare say I wasn't a trifle less commonplace-looking than son-in-law. Besides we both have spiritual faces."
"You should give me and Josie credit for being able to see below the surface," said my darling, fondly. "A soldier or a sailor, or a splendid-looking creature such as you describe, is delightful at a party; but gold buttons, or even a very handsome mustache, don't go far nowadays toward blinding a sensible girl to the fact that she will have to pass all her days with the man she chooses. You know, dear, that you and I have never believed that marriage is a lottery. We were sure of each other beforehand. So are Josie and Jim."
"Thank God that it is so; and may he, darling, grant them such happiness as he has given us."
"Amen! And, Fred, he--James" (Josephine prefers to call him James; she thinks Jim undignified) "is not really homely. He isn't an Adonis, of course, and doesn't impress one especially at first glance, but anyone who looks at him twice can see that he is very intelligent, and that he has the appearance of a gentleman."
"Right you are, my dear. Perhaps I was unconsciously comparing him with the young man whom I met strolling with your other daughter not many days ago."
"With Winona? When?" she asked with a start.
"About dusk."
"No, no, on what day?"
"Let me see. It must have been a week ago yesterday."
"Who was he? Why didn't you tell me before?"
"He was tall, handsome, and impressive-looking," I replied, with quiet deliberation.
"What _do_ you mean, Fred? How slow you are. Do go on."
"As to telling you before, I thought it best to wait until you had one of your girls off your mind. As to being slow, I have told you all there is to tell already. I met Winona about dusk a week ago yesterday in the company of a tall, handsome, impressive-looking young man whom I had never seen in my life. I don't know where they were going or where they came from or what it meant. I hope to see him again so as to say to him, 'Young man, beware; I have lost one daughter, and I am in no mood to be trifled with.' I dare say," I continued, nonchalantly, "that if you were to keep your eyes open you would be able to see what is evidently going on under your very nose, my dear."
Josephine did not heed this taunt; she was thinking hard.
"I wonder who it could have been," she murmured, presently. "I have noticed lately that Winona has acted as though she had something on her mind; but I had assumed it might be because her patients were falling off, owing to the death of that woman with consumption who could not be persuaded that she had nothing the matter with her. It would be a great relief to my mind to see the dear girl happily married. What did he look like, Fred? Are you certain you have never seen him before? just think: you're sure it wasn't Mr. Dyer or Mr. Benson? One might call either of them tall, handsome, and impressive-looking."
"I have told you everything I know, Josephine," I retorted, fiercely. "I don't know the man from Adam. I should think," I added, with a sepulchral outburst, "that after what happened yesterday, Josephine, you wouldn't be in so much haste to many the only girl we have left."
"Excuse me, Fred," she said, gently. "It was cruel of me to suggest such a thing so soon. And yet I suppose we must be prepared for something of the kind sooner or later. You know you have constantly expressed the hope that neither of them would hang fire like dear Julia."
"Oh, I know it. I'm a selfish brute, Josephine," I answered, beginning to hone my razor with the desperate air of one who would fain cut his own throat as the simplest solution of the problem of living.
And only six months ago the horizon of my domestic happiness looked so clear and comforting. Not even a cloud of the traditional smallness of a man's hand marred its serenity. Little Fred was pegging away at Leggatt & Paine's with commendable steadiness all day, and, though he was apt to dance all night by way of making up for it, I was comforted in my solicitude regarding his health by the recollection that I used to do the same when I was his age, my spiritual countenance to the contrary notwithstanding. Besides, Leggatt has always a good word to say for him, and evidently still keeps an eye on him, notwithstanding that Fred has ceased to kick foot-ball and limps no longer. To be sure, I have been beguiled once or twice by the dear boy's assurance that I would make my fortune, if I would follow his advice, into buying investment securities the market price of which at present is far less than I paid for them. However, the financial misinformation imparted by one's own flesh and blood is more easily forgiven than that which emanates from one's regular broker. Besides, there is the chance that the stocks will come up again some day or other. Fred says they are sure to. Everything considered he was, and indeed he still is, doing remarkably well, and he is such an honest-looking, manly fellow that Josephine says she wonders all the girls do not fall in love with him. His present safety seems to lie in the fact that he is in love with all the girls and not with any particular one, a condition of affairs which I trust will last until he is properly able to support a wife. I remember that before I fell in love with Josephine--well, no matter. I have almost forgotten their names and should have to ask my darling to tell me who they were, and all about it. I have never really loved anybody but her. God bless her.
Then there was David--again I must admit there still _is_ David--whose rapid success in his adopted profession and whose general steadiness of character have been a source of perpetual gladness to us. He still causes his mother some concern by his utter disinclination for the society of young women, but I know of no other fault with which to reproach him. His bacillic pets no longer have a domicile under the paternal roof. He has a laboratory of his own downtown where, doubtless, they thrive and multiply. But his special interest at present is electricity. This has already brought him reputation and money by virtue of an appliance in the storage battery line, the details of which I do not precisely understand. Although Little Fred shook his head gravely at the mention of the word "patent," I was imprudent enough to follow my scientific son's lead to the tune of several thousand dollars, the happy consequence of which seemed to be that Josephine and I would be able to have our jaunt to Japan whenever the spirit moved us. That was before I counted the cost of marrying a daughter.
Thirdly, there was that daughter, a dear, sweet girl, who seemed to me perfectly content in her enjoyment of the social pleasures in which she was so well adapted to shine. I regarded her as still a mere child, and though youths came and went, never for one moment did I suspect that she was meditating the blow which she has since inflicted upon me, until Josephine told me one evening, with a mysterious, agitated air, that Mr. James Perkins wished to see me in the library. He saw me, and all the consolation I derived from our interview was the impression that he considered that he was acting generously in asking my consent to the match, and that custom would have justified him in letting me hear the news of my daughter's engagement elsewhere and in seeing me further, as the phrase is, before he saw me at all. Remembering as I did that I regarded the views of Josephine's father concerning our little matter twenty-five years ago as a matter of mere detail, only think how far I fell short of the temper of a real philosopher in allowing myself to become violently angry, and to pace the library until one o'clock in the morning after my would-be son-in-law had left it! An especially futile proceeding, as Josephine subsequently remarked, inasmuch as, by my own admission, I had behaved like a veritable lamb in his presence and had told him blandly that if he and my daughter were agreed upon the subject I had not a word to say against it.
This was the first break in our peaceful, happy domestic circle. Do you know what the period of an idolized daughter's engagement seems to the disdained and discarded husband and father? He is too shy and dignified to peep at the billing and cooing through the crack of the drawing-room door like the younger members of the family; consequently, the six months which intervene between the making of the match and its consummation, impress him as a Sahara of tedious confabulation between the pair of turtle doves as to whether they have too many salt-cellars for their marital needs, and whether the exchange of a third set of oyster-forks without the knowledge of the donor would be a violation of the highest code of ethics. Presents, presents, nothing but presents, of every kind and degree, from the solid silver tea-set of exquisitely fluted pattern to the excruciatingly ugly bit of _bric-a-brac_ which has captivated the undiscerning eye of some dear friend. After every ring at the door-bell appears the maid with a fresh parcel wrapped in snow-white paper fastened with a dainty ribbon, and on each occasion my dear Josie's eyes sparkle more excitedly as she clutches it and frees it from its caparisons. And ever and anon I am struck by the fact that she is growing thin and pale. I mention it to Josephine, but she tells me that girls always get peaked before their weddings, and that she herself was thin as a rail at the time she married me. I get no sympathy anywhere. My sole connection with the matter is that I am to give the bride away.
I did so yesterday in the presence of our entire social acquaintance and their dressmakers, most of whom I subsequently entertained at a mid-day collation, where I shook hands with a vast array of young people whom I did not know, and tried to keep up my spirits by asking my old friends to take wine with me. It was after the third glass that the spirit moved me to address my new son-in-law as "Jim." An hour later I saw the young rascal carry off my Josie in a carriage with an air as though he owned her, and I could have strangled him. At the same moment I was unpleasantly conscious that a quantity of rice hurled by an enthusiastic miss of nineteen was going down my back. I made a mad rush forward like a bull; I don't know exactly what I had in mind to do, but I was bunted aside by a youth who, I am sure, could never have had a father and mother. He held an old shoe in his hand, which he proceeded to cast with such unerring aim that it landed on the top of the bridal coach, to the infinite delight of everybody except myself. I could see no especial humor in it, but Josephine tells me that we underwent precisely the same experience at our own wedding and thought it amusing. I perceive that it makes considerable difference in this world whose ox is gored, or, to put it more accurately, whether one is carrying off some other man's daughter or is being robbed of his own.
And now to crown all, I am haunted by the vision of Winona and that tall, handsome, impressive-looking young man in whose company I met her the other day about dusk. In saying to Josephine that I had told her all, I did not speak the truth in a certain sense. I did tell her all I knew, but I did not confide to her all that I suspected. I did not reveal to her that at the moment my eye fell upon them my only remaining daughter was gazing up into the face of her male companion with that peculiar look of absorbed attention which has so often wrought the ruin of Platonic friendship. It entered like iron into my parental soul, already quivering with its recent wound, and I murmured to myself, "Oh, my prophetic soul, my second son-in-law!"
Winona too! Two years have passed since I granted her permission to practise Christian Science, and from that time to this she has gone regularly every day to her office to minister to the patients who have applied to her for treatment. I am unable to state whether these have been many or few; to be frank, I have been amazed that she has had any at all. But I am sure that she has had some, and that she claims to have cured several sufferers from chronic disorders whom the regular practitioners had declared incurable. Or, more accurately, I should say that she has demonstrated that there was nothing the matter with them save a superabundance of error in their souls. I have learned, too, that she has experienced some dismal failures, notably in the case of the woman with consumption, referred to by Josephine, who, as Winona explained to us, would have got well had she only been able to realize that she was getting better. There was also a patient suffering from mental derangement who grew crazier and crazier, until she was finally carried off by her friends, whereas, as Winona sweetly explained to us, if they had only allowed her to remain a little longer she would have been completely cured, because in Christian Science, as in nature, darkness is apt to be most signal just before the dawn. This diagnosis of the case struck me as highly reasonable. Indeed, I have constantly said to myself that, provided the dear child managed to escape indictment, I had every reason to be contented that she was living up to her lights to the top of her bent. So altogether you can see that my home was a happy one, and that I desired no change.
My two sons-in-law! I see them in my mind's eye walking on either side of me, the one short and slim with a spiritual countenance; the other tall, handsome, and impressive-looking. Their main object in life seems to be to help me on with my overcoat, and to guide my senile steps over street-crossings, though Dr. Meredith tells me that I am good for twenty years yet, and that I haven't an unsound organ in my body. They disagree with me in politics so politely that I am fool enough to open my best wine when they come to dinner. They dog my footsteps; they silently pass judgment upon me, and I shall never be able to shake them off until I am dead. Why did they come to worry us? We were so happy before we knew of their existence. Out upon them both!
Alas, poor philosopher! Shall I begrudge to my darlings the happiness that I have known in the too swiftly fleeting years of our married life? Love has come to claim my flesh and blood even as it claimed me and Josephine a quarter of a century ago never to loose us from his silken chains. Love the immortal, the transfigurer of souls, the unsealer of eyes which in vain have sought the light which streams from eternity, thou hast come to work anew the old, old story, even though thy coming rends my heart-strings. Down, selfish, stubborn fumes of senile cynicism! I bow to the law of life. Come to my embrace, O sons-in-law; I love you, I bid you welcome to my hearth, even though you regard me as one for whom the grave is yawning! Listen how bravely I call Jim--Jim--Jim, a thousand times Jim. And you, the other one, whose name I do not know, but whose fell purpose I have detected, when your name is divulged to me I will call that too. _