University of Virginia Library

26. CHAPTER XXVI.
WESTERVELT, SENIOR.

I LEFT Miss Westervelt with a declaration, not a
little terrible to her, though she did not attempt to
discuss it, that I should see her father as soon as
possible and ask him what he thought of our new arrangement
of the family constellations.

That very afternoon I took the cars to New York, and put
up at the Astor House. I found Mr. Westervelt patrolling
the marble checkers of the hall, his hands clasped behind him,
his countenance fallen below zero, his whole air that of a
man who is meditating his dying speech and confession. The
Lake Superior mine had evidently hit him hard when it went
off; had knocked more coppers out of him, perhaps, than it
ever had in its own bowels. At first thought it seemed an
entirely unpropitious moment to make my communication,
and I dodged away before his wandering footsteps; but after
walking a few moments in a side passage the idea occurred
to me that this unlucky business man might now look upon
his daughter as a non-paying investment, to be disposed of
as soon as possible; and so, pulling my moustache, as bearded
men are apt to do when they have weighty affairs on hand,
I advanced to meet him. He halted at sight of me, smiled
languidly, shook hands and asked in a weak voice, how were
they all at Seacliff? I stated minutely the favorable plight
of the family health, but I doubt whether he heard me, and

am confident that if anybody near him had whispered
“Stocks!” he would have turned his back upon the most
vital core of my narrative. With a somewhat decayed voice
I finally asked if I could have the pleasure of seeing him
alone for a few minutes. After a brief alarmed stare, he
murmured, “Certainly, certainly,” and, turning on his heel
with spasmodic briskness, led the way to his room.

Never, I imagine, were two men brought together who
looked more mortally afraid of each other than did Mr.
Westervelt and I at that interesting moment when he dropped
into an arm-chair and I on a sofa. I did not comprehend
his expression then, and only noted it vaguely, as a man
notes the margin of a book when he is reading; but I am
confident now that he expected me to say something awful
about stocks or copper mines; to tell him, perhaps, that he
was hanging over the abyss of bankruptcy. The stairs,
somehow, had jolted all the breath out of me, and during the
moment that I waited for my powers of speech he seemed to
suffer agonies. When the reality came out, therefore, and he
found that I had nothing worse to say than to ask him for
his daughter, his face brightened up so much that I thought
I was about to get the paternal benediction instantaneously.
Then came the old drooping of the weary, irresolute head;
the old peevish look of uncertainty, trouble and timid discontent.

“I really don't know what to tell you, sir,” were his first
words. (So very characteristic!) “You have surprised me,
Mr. Fitz Hugh. I did not expect this,—especially after the
conversations that I had with you regarding my—my plans
for Miss Westervelt. Accordingly I am quite—hem—astonished!
I really had no idea of this state of things before,
sir!! Nobody has informed me of it, or even hinted that
such a thing was in progress, so that you must not consider it
singular if I am rather amazed, sir!!!”

His adjectives and emphasis grew stronger in proportion
as my face assumed an air of discomfiture. At first I was

unable to meet his look, but presently it became clear that
he was charging me indirectly with bad faith, and then a
thrill of resentment flushed me suddenly, besides, perhaps,
giving my eyes a pugnacious sparkle. As my color rose, his
expletives subsided and his voice died away until it became
fairly a smile.

“Mr. Westervelt,” I began, very earnestly indeed, “until
a few days ago there was nothing to inform you of. I had
no hopes of winning Miss Westervelt. I expected to see
her become the wife of another. I am sure, sir, that I was
not in any manner bound to tell you of feelings that I supposed
were doomed to utter disappointment.”

“No no,—of course not,—of course not,” he murmured.
“Excuse my emotion,—my warmth. I had set my heart on
the suit,—the success of Robert. But that is hopeless,—
that is hopeless,—I suppose.”

“So Miss Westervelt assures me, sir; and so, I believe,
she has assured others.”

“Yes, yes. Well, I can't decide to-day,” he responded,
fretting again as he heard this new contradiction to his favorite
project. “I must have time,—time to think about it.
Call on me again to-morrow; yes, have the—the goodness to
call and see me to-morrow; say at this hour about.”

“Thank you, sir,” I replied bowing. “Good afternoon
Mr. Westervelt. I regret it bitterly, I do assure you, that I
have been obliged to give you so much pain.”

“No apologies, I beg. Good-day, sir,” he replied in a
peevish tone, though still bowing courteously.

He had half closed the door behind me, when he suddenly
pulled it open again and called to me to wait a moment.
“At your pleasure, sir,” I replied, and stood expectant.

“Suppose, Mr. Fitz Hugh,—suppose you should see my
father about this,” he said, looking in my face with the air
almost of a man who asks a favor. “Westervelt, senior, you
know, in South Street. I have the greatest confidence in my
father's views of things. If he approves,—why, if he approves,

I shall endeavor to make no objection. I will go
with you. No no; of course you had best see him alone.
Stop an instant. I will give you a letter of introduction.”

It was some ten minutes before he could get a note written
to his satisfaction; and then he sealed it, so that I am to this
day ignorant of its contents. I took it, thanked him, bowed
again and left the room in a much wondering mood. It
seemed an odd thing to demand a young lady of her grandfather
while her father was yet living; but then in this case
the grandfather kept the money-chest, and we all know how
much may be locked up in a money-chest: how many laborious
lives, how many hearts both young and old, how
much sorrow and how much joy. Finally it occurred to me
that Mr. Westervelt might count on the stern stuff of his sire
to give me that positive rebuff which his own womanish
nature desired, but dreaded to administer.

I was a low-spirited man at eleven o'clock next morning,
when I set out for the office of Westervelt, senior. I was
almost overcomingly tempted to encourage myself for the expedition
with a glass of porter; but, fearful that the old gentleman
might smell it in my breath and take a prejudice to
me, I went off total abstinently. Once more I came to the
Quincy granite doorway, and saw the grimy tin placard
upon which was written the terrible name. In the doorway,
too, stood the same small, thin, alert old gentleman, with the
large Roman features and the short, stiff, white hair, glaring
just as savagely as ever at the Quincy granite stores opposite,
and beating the same sharp tattoo with his iron-shod cane on
the Quincy granite lintel. Quincy granite seemed to be his
favorite material, and he looked the impersonation of Quincy
granite from top to toe. His hat, coat, vest, pants, and gaiters,
were all of a Quincy granite color; his great eyes were
of a cold, stony gray, astonishingly like polished Quincy
granite; and his face, with its rugged lines and hard expression,
was as the countenance of a Quincy granite quarry. I
looked at him with dismay, thinking that the very rod of

Moses would run a poor chance of drawing waters of sympathy
from such a compact veteran boulder.

“Mr. Westervelt, I believe,” said I, bowing myself up the
steps.

“Yes, sir,” he returned, in such a dry, hard tone, that I
thought one of the granite door-posts might have given it
forth.

“Allow me to introduce myself as Mr. Fitz Hugh. I have
a letter from Mr. Westervelt, junior, presenting me, and explaining,
I believe, my object in calling on you.”

“Humph!” he responded, with an air of profound contempt,
which seemed to be directed at me, but which was
probably meant for his absent offspring. “Come into my office,
sir.”

Turning short on his heels, like a drill-sergeant performing
the about-face, he trotted up to a door with a window in it,
pushed me into the room before him with obdurate Quincy
granite politeness, and signed me to an office-chair, wooden-bottom,
uncushioned, and savagely whittled. I handed him
his son's letter, and there ensued a silence only broken by the
rustling of the paper. He crossed his legs comfortably, read
the note through with business-like despatch, folded it up, laid
it away in a pigeon-hole, and then remarked, “Well, sir?”

“I am not quite sure,” said I, “whether Mr. Westervelt
has explained my intentions.”

“He has, sir. He says you want to marry his daughter
Mary.”

“Yes, sir; it is precisely that; and he referred me to you.”

“What do you want to marry her for? She's no money.”

“I don't care about money,” returned I, quite insulted.
“I ask for nothing but Miss Westervelt herself.”

“How much are you worth?” he demanded, without taking
the least notice of my sentimental excitement.

“About thirty thousand dollars,” responded I, with a sudden
feeling of shrinkage, as I thought of his six millions.

“Thirty thousand,” said he. “Humph! It's not a great

sum, sir. I hope you know it. However, it's enough, with
pluck, sir. I hadn't thirty hundred when I married. A man
doesn't need much of an inheritance to make his way in the
world. He doesn't need any, sir!” (Loudly.) “Make me
young again, and set me down in my shirt, I don't care where,
and I wouldn't call the king my cousin. Well, can you live
on your money,—keep a wife on it?”

“Yes sir,” replied I cheerfully, for I thought I saw that
he was going to let me try the experiment.

“Be sure you can live, sir. Don't look to your father-in-law;
he has nothing. Don't look to me, either;—I'm sick
of my son and his family;—I think I shall disinherit them,
sir. Lord! what a simpleton that boy of mine is! He has
wasted capital enough, sir,” (a smack of the cane on the
floor,) “capital enough to make a dozen fortunes, that boy
has.”

As the thought of his fifty-year-old boy seemed to excite
him unpleasantly, I hastened to change the subject. “My
income is not large, sir; it is only about twenty-two hundred
a year; but that will be sufficient, I think, to support us in
the country.”

“But will the little baggage live in the country? Most
girls won't; must have a pavement; can't exist without
rows of shops.”

“There are a great many married women in the country,
sir, as you can see by the number of children in the district
schools.”

“That's true,” grinned the old gentleman. “There are
some sensible and economical women still. Well, what are
your investments?”

“Half bank stock, and half bond and mortgage, averaging
seven per cent., and a little over.”

“No business then?” he asked sternly, and all Quincy
granite again.

“No business except authorship. I have got out one
small work, and am writing another.”

“Humph! Do you publish your own books?”

“No sir,” returned I, remembering with some vanity that
the “Idler in Italy” had been accepted by the first house to
which it was offered.

“Very right, very right,” said he. “Don't publish them;
you'd be sure to lose, sir. By the way, you are the son of
Charles Fitz Hugh, the lawyer, who died some ten years
ago, eh?”

“I am, sir. I believe my family is a thoroughly respectable
one.”

“Don't care a straw for respectable families, sir. Every
man is respectable for himself, or contemptible for himself.
Your father was respectable. I knew him. Fine man.
Clever man. Was climbing the ladder fast. Pity he died
just when he did. If you are half the man that he was, I
am glad to know you.”

There was a silence of half a minute, during which the
old gentleman leaped up and paced the office in an eager,
nervous way, like a hyena pitching backward and forward in
his cage. He was thinking, perhaps, that sons in general,
nowadays, were not half the men that their fathers were,
witness Westervelt, junior.

“Well, sir,—about the marriage?” I ventured to inquire.

“Oh—ah—certainly. You are a man of business, sir.
What does my granddaughter say?”

“She says, Yes.”

“Settled then. Go along, and arrange the matter with
her. By the way, staying in town? Dine with us this
afternoon, at five, number 40, St. Joseph's Place. Good-morning,
sir.”

He shook my hand with a small, hard, nut-cracker grasp,
and then nodded three or four times very briskly as I backed
out of the doorway. I walked away with a swing, feeling
as if the paving-stones were set on springs, and danced
polkas of gladness under my feet; as if the Quincy granite
stores shone upon me with a sort of petrified beneficence, and

uttered a ponderous millionaire benediction on my nuptial
prospects. In securing the consent of Westervelt, senior, I
had secured the consent of the universe, so far at least as
concerned the family of Seacliff.

On reaching the Astor House I found a note from Westervelt,
junior, in which he apologized for his unexpected departure,
informed me that he had gone to Seacliff, hoped he
should have the pleasure of seeing me there at my convenience,
expressed his regards, &c. &c. His language was
elaborately civil, that was certain; but his conduct was, to
say the least, not remarkably affectionate. He is gone, I
thought, to make a last desperate intercession with Mary, in
favor of Bob and his two hundred thousand. I did not feel
much frightened, however; for in the first place I had perfect
confidence in the faith of my little girl; and in the second,
had not Quincy granite, senior, a man whose words were
rocks, told me that it was settled?

At a quarter to five I was ringing at the door of No. 40,
St. Joseph's Place. The house was an isolated one, lofty and
large-fronted enough, but with an exterior of plain brick,
which to my mind did not by any means adequately represent
six millions. An elderly, withered English waiter, whose
dry red cheeks threw his small white whiskers into shining
relief, inducted me into a monstrous parlor, chiefly remarkable
for being furnished with carved oak instead of the usual
rosewood and mahogany. In a small, low rocking-chair sat
one of those smooth, mild, white, placid old ladies who somehow
remind one of an untroubled dish of blanc-mange. She
rose at my entrance and advanced two or three steps to meet
me, smiling upon me the while with a bland, sedative, kindly
welcome. Her very silks were unruffled, and her spectacles
brimful of tranquil benevolence.

“Is this Mr. Fitz Hugh?” she said in a quavering, pleasant
voice. “I am very glad to see you. Mr. Westervelt
will be in presently. Do sit down by me, and tell me all
about our folks at Seacliff.”

I could have kissed her hand with gratitude for the simple,
friendly sympathy which seemed to exhale from her
venerable presence, like perfume from a bunch of dried
flowers. Drawing a chair beside hers, I discoursed with
cheerful copiousness of the affairs and people of Seacliff,
while she listened with a continual smile and a succession of
little satisfied nods, and once looked particularly knowing and
pleased, when I spoke of Miss Westervelt as Mary. Our
conversation was interrupted by the appearance of a suit of
black drap d'eté, stiff and bolt upright with the person of
Westervelt, senior.

“Ha! Mr. Fitz Hugh! there you are,” said he, with his
usual positiveness.

I admitted the charge by a bow, and, while he shook
hands with me, smiled in my torments, with the constancy
of a Pawnee at the stake.

“Glad to see you, sir,” he continued. “You'll always be
welcome, sir, in the house of Westervelt, senior. Dare say,
though, you'd much rather be with one of the Westervelt,
juniors, ha ha ha,—ha ha ha!”

He had a gigantic voice, disproportionately big for his
small body, and a laugh of corresponding power, brazen and
clamorous as a flourish of trombones. In short, he was a
very resonant, sonorous old gentleman, who made noises as
naturally as a bell or a cannon, and who perpetually reminded
me, by some absurd process of association, of that
war-horse described in Job, whose neck was clothed in thunder,
and who said Ha ha! among the trumpets. It was
curious to contrast this dry, wiry, abrupt, resounding, domineering
man, with the white, bland, benignant, peaceful,
purling dame with whose life his had been mingled for more
than half a century.

The wilted, froze-and-thawed English waiter, soon announced
that dinner was ready. Mrs. Westervelt took my
arm, and we descended to the basement dining-room, while
the senior drew his handkerchief and trumpeted behind us

like a mad elephant. Here was the same weighty oaken
furniture as above, a well-spread table, plenty of old silver,
a decanter of port, (as strong as poison,) a decanter of sherry,
and a second English waiter, who looked like the first one
padded. Mr. Westervelt said an emphatic grace, in which
he blessed things abundantly, pretty much on his own responsibility.
For some time the conversation lay chiefly
between his wife and myself. Her warm old heart evidently
went out on wings of love toward her offspring at Seacliff;
and, as I was, if possible, still more interested there, we
wheeled untiringly round the subject, like two birds round
their nest. In the mean time her husband ate heartily and
without much cumber of ceremony. He was clearly one of
your strenuous old-fashioned people, who fight all novelties
of custom and manner simply because they are novelties,
and who, for instance, will die of starvation sooner than eat
with a silver fork. His own three-tined one of steel was used
boldly and commented on with ostentation. His taciturnity
disappeared after he had moistened his Quincy granite with
half a pint of that corrosive sublimate, labelled Port, and he
struck into the dialogue with such a power and originality of
execution that he very soon played a solo.

“My wife makes a deal of fuss about this little affair of
yours, sir,” said he. “One would take you to be the first
man that ever fell in love. How women can interest themselves
so furiously in such an old story as love-making, I
can't imagine. But they do; they always do; they never
get over it. There's my wife, sir; she's so old that I'm
ashamed to name the figure; and yet she's as much tickled
with your engagement as she was with her own.”

Mr. Westervelt, like many other eccentric men, deficient
in early social culture, was in the habit of making jokes at
his wife's expense. She was neither offended at it nor embarrassed
by it, but sat placidly listening and smiling, an
obsequious worshipper of her spouse, and accustomed to
endure all his changeful moods without a thought of retaliation
or remonstrance.

“Now I, sir,” he continued, “I have interested myself in
the subject; but coolly, like a man of business. I have not
had hysterics over the affair, but I have seen to it as carefully
as I would to a cargo of tea. Sent down for your book
last evening at seven o'clock, and made Mrs. W. read it
through before she went to bed, to see what you could do
in the writing line.”

“No, my dear, I didn't read it through. But I read a
good deal of it,—enough to like it very much. I read it till
my eyes ached, and I had to stop.”

“Till your spectacles ached,” replied her husband; and
then he laughed with the power of a full orchestra: it was
evidently one of his best and oldest jokes. “Her eyes never
ache, Mr. Fitz Hugh; it's always her spectacles; they are
getting infirm, ha ha ha, ha ha ha!—Well, sir; that wasn't
all. I sent off two clerks and my man John to inquire about
you. Knew all about you before nine o'clock this morning.
Knew all your rogueries and bad resorts, sir. When you
came, I was all ready for you; could have tripped you up
and confounded you in a minute, sir.”

From all this, two conclusions appeared distinctly: first,
that Westervelt, junior, had been to see his father about me
and my suit, the evening previous; second, that the elder
gentleman had taken the matter entirely into his own hands,
and that his decision might be considered final. As that decision
had been favorable to me, I was of course in the happiest
frame, and listened to his boisterous humor with as
smiling a reverence as if I were his wife.

“I'm glad the girl had sense enough to sack that Bob Van
Leer,” he resumed. “I detest those Van Leers. My son
was a fool to marry one of the breed.”

“Why, Mr. Westervelt!” pleaded his dame very meekly.

“I say he is a fool,” affirmed Mr. Westervelt loudly. “I
can't forgive him for it either. He's to blame for it, because
he wasn't born a fool. He makes a fool of himself, Mrs. W.;
look at all his speculations; every bull tosses him and every

bear hugs him. Why, he hasn't even the ability to govern
his own household,” stormed the old man, swelling up with
the delightful consciousness that he governed his. “That
family is in a bad way, what with drinking Van Leers and
gambling Somervilles. It wants some one to rule it with a
rod of iron. You are the man, sir; it's your duty. I hope
you'll take firm hold and do what my son can't and won't,—
turn out the whole mob of lazy, rascally men-about-town, and
purify the family altar, sir,—shake up the old lares and what-de-ye-callems
to their duty, sir!”