 | CHAPTER I.
STILLFLEET AND HIS NEWS. Cecil Dreeme |  |
1. CHAPTER I.
STILLFLEET AND HIS NEWS.
Home!
The Arago landed me at midnight in midwinter.
It was a dreary night. I drove forlornly
to my hotel. The town looked mean and
foul. The first omens seemed unkindly. My
spirits sank full fathom five into Despond.
But bed on shore was welcome after my berth
on board the steamer. I was glad to be in a
room that did not lurch or wallow, and could
hold its tongue. I could sleep, undisturbed by
moaning and creaking woodwork, forever threatening
wreck in dismal refrain.
It was late next morning when a knock awoke
me. I did not say, “Entrez,” or “Herein.”
Some fellows adopt those idioms after a week
in Paris or a day in Heidelberg, and then apologize,
— “We travellers quite lose our mother
tongue, you know.”
“Come in,” said I, glad to use the vernacular.
A Patrick entered, brandishing a clothes-broom
as if it were a shillalah splintered in a shindy.
“A jontlemin wants to see yer honor,” said he.
A gentleman to see me! Who can it be? I
asked myself. Not Densdeth already! No, he
is probably also making a late morning of it after
our rough voyage. I fear I should think it a little
ominous if he appeared at the threshold of my
home life, as my first friend in America. Bah!
Why should I have superstitions about Densdeth?
Our intimacy on board will not continue
on shore. What 's Hecuba to me, or I to Hecuba?”
“A jontlemin to see yer honor,” repeated the
Pat, with a peremptory flourish of his weapon.
“What name, Patrick?”
“I misremember the name of him, yer honor.
He 's a wide-awake jontlemin, with three mustasshes,
— two on his lip, and one at the pint of
his chin.”
Can it be Harry Stillfleet? I thought. He
cannot help being wide-awake. He used to wear
his beard à la three-moustache mode. His appearance
as my first friend would be a capital
omen. “Show him up, Pat!” said I.
“He shows himself up,” said a frank, electric
voice. “Here he is, wide-awake, three moustaches,
beat the drums! Robert Byng, old boy,
how are you?”
“Harry Stillfleet, old boy, how are you?”
“I am an old boy, and hope you are so too.”
“I trust so. It is the best thing that can be
said of a full-grown man.”
“I saw your name on the hotel book,” Stillfleet
resumed. “Rushed in to say, `How d' ye
do?' and `Good-bye!' I 'm off to-day. Any
friends out in the Arago?”
“No friends. A few acquaintances, — and
Densdeth.”
“Name Densdeth friend, and I cut you bing-bang!”
“What! Densdeth, the cleverest man I have
ever met?”
“The same.”
“Densdeth, handsome as Alcibiades, or perhaps
I should say Absalom, as he is Hebrewish?”
“That very Alcibiades, — Absalom, — Densdeth.”
“Densdeth, the brilliant, the accomplished, —
who fascinates old and young, who has been
everywhere, who has seen everything, who knows
the world de profundis, — a very Midas with the
gold touch, but without the ass's ears? Densdeth,
the potent millionnaire?”
“Yes, Byng. And he can carry a great many
more adjectives. He has qualities enough to
make a regiment of average men. But my
friends must be built of other stuff.”
“So must mine, to tell the truth, Harry. But
he attracts me strangely. His sardonic humor
suits one side of my nature.”
“The cynical side?”
“If I have one. The voyage would have been
a bore without him. I had never met and hardly
heard of him before; but we became intimate at
once. He has shown me much attention.”
“No doubt. He knows men. You have a
good name. You are to be somebody on your
own account, we hope. Besides, Densdeth was
probably aware of your old friendship with the
Denmans.”
“He never spoke of them.”
“Naturally. He did not wish to talk tragedy.”
“Tragedy! What do you mean?”
“You have not heard the story of Densdeth
and Clara Denman!” cried Stillfleet, in surprise.
“No. Shut up in Leipsic, and crowding my
studies to come home, I have not heard a word
of New York gossip for six months.”
“This is graver than gossip, Byng. It happened
less than three months ago. Densdeth
was to have married Clara Denman.”
“The cynical Densdeth marry that strange
child!”
“You forget your ten years' absence. The
strange child grew up a noble woman.”
“Not a beauty, — that I cannot conceive.”
“No; but a genius. Once in a century Nature
sends such a brave, earnest, tender, indignant
soul on this low earth. All the men of
genius were in love with her, except myself.
But Densdeth, a bad genius, seemed to have won
her. The wedding-day was fixed, cards out,
great festivities; you know how a showy man
like Denman would seize the occasion for splendor.
One night she disappeared without sign.
Three days afterward she was floated upon the
beach down the bay, — drowned, poor thing!”
“What!” cried I, “Clara Denman, my weird
little playmate! Dead! Drowned! I did not
imagine how tenderly I had remembered her.”
“I was not her lover,” said Harry, “only a
friend; but the world has seemed a mean and
lonely place since she passed away so cruelly.”
The mercurial fellow was evidently greatly
affected.
“She had that fine exaltation of nature,”
continued he, “which frightens weak people.
They said her wild, passionate moods brought
her to the verge of madness.”
“A Sibylline soul.”
“Yes, a Sibyl who must see and know and
suffer. Her friends gave out that she had actually
nurse was asleep, she stole out, erred about the
city, fell into the river, and was drowned.”
“Not suicide!”
“Never! with such a healthy soul. Yet some
people do not hesitate to say that she drowned
herself rather than be forced to marry Densdeth.”
“These are not the days of forced marriages.”
“Moral pressure is more despotic than physical
force. I fancy our old friend Churm may
think there was tyranny in the business, though
he never speaks of it. You know he was a supplementary
father and guardian of those ladies.
He was absent when it all happened.”
“And the Denmans, — how do they seem to
bear it?”
“Mr. Denman was sadly broken at first. I
used to meet him, walking about, leaning feebly
on Densdeth's arm, looking like a dead man, or
one just off the rack. But he is proud as Lucifer.
He soon was himself again, prouder than
before.”
“And Emma Denman?”
“I have had but one glimpse of her since the
younger sister's death. Her beauty is signally
heightened by mourning.”
“Such a tragedy must terribly blight her
life. Will they see me, do you think? I
sake.”
“As an old friend, they will see you, of course.
In fact, conspicuous people, like the Denmans,
cannot long shelter themselves behind a sorrow.
But come, old fellow, I have been talking solemnly
long enough. Tell me about yourself.
Come home ripe? Wild oats sowed? Ready
to give us a lift with civilization?”
“Ripe, I hope. Not raw, as I went. Nor
rotten, as some fellows return. Wild oats? I
keep a few handfuls still in my bag, for home
sowing. As to civilization; let me get my pou
stô and my handspike set, and I will heave with
a will, lift or no.”
“Suppose you state your case in full, as if
you were a clown in the ring, or a hero on the
stage.”
I had been dressing while he talked. My
toilette was nearly done. I struck an attitude
and replied, “My name is Robert Byng, `as I
sailed.'”
“Name short, and with a good crack to it;
man long and not whipper-snapper. Name distinguished;
bearer capable. State your age,
Byng the aforesaid.”
“Twenty-six.”
“The prisoner confesses to twenty-six. The
judge in the name of the American people demands,
at the bar, or ten years at the desk? Why are
you not in command of a clipper ship, or in
Congress, or driving an omnibus, or clearing a
farm? Where is your door-plate? Where is
your wife? What school does your eldest son
go to? Where is your mark on the nineteenth
century?'”
“Bah, Harry! Don't bore me with your Young
Americanism! I know it is not sincere. Let
me mature, before you expect a man's work
of me!”
“The culprit desires to state,” says Stillfleet,
as if he were addressing an audience, “that
he was born to a fortune and a life of idleness
and imbecility, that he would gladly be
imbecile and idle now, like nous autres; but
that losing his parents and most of his money
at an unsophisticated age, while in Europe, he
consulted the Oracle how he should make his
living. `What is that burn on your thumb?'
asked the Oracle. `Phosphorus,' replied Master
Bob. `How came that hole in your sleeve?'
Oracle inquires. `Nitric acid,' Byng responds.
`It was the cat that scratched your face?' says
Oracle. `No,' answers the youth, `my retort
burst before it was half full of gas.' `Phosphorus
on your thumb,' Oracle sums up, `nitric
acid on your sleeve, and your face clawed with
to do. Be a chemist!' Which he became. Is
that a straight story, Byng?”
“Near enough!” said I, laughing at my
friend's rattling history of my life.
“And here he is, fellow-citizens,” Stillfleet
continued. “He has seen the world and had
his fling in Paris, where he picked up a little
chemistry and this half-cynical manner and
half-sceptical method, which you remark. He
has also got a small supply of science and an
abundance of dreaminess and fatalism in Germany.
But he is a fine fellow, with a good
complexion, not dishonest blue eyes, not spoilt
in any way, and if America punishes him properly,
and puts his nose severely to the grindstone,
he may turn out respectable. I 'll offer
you three to two, Byng, the Devil don't get
you. Speak quick, or I shall want to bet even.”
“You rascal!” said I. “I would go at you
with an analysis after the same fashion, if I were
not too hungry. Come down and breakfast.”
“Here is a gentleman from Sybaris!” cried
Stillfleet. “`Come and breakfast!' says he,
lifting himself out of his bed of rose-leaves at
mid-day. Why, man! I breakfasted three hours
ago. I 've been up to the Reservoir and down
to the Exchange and over to Brooklyn since.
That 's the style you have to learn, twenty thousand
`En avant, marrache!' `Marrrrche!' Yes; I
took breakfast three hours ago, — and a stout
one, — to fortify me for the toil of packing to go
to Washington. But I 'll sit by and check your
come-ashore appetite.”
| CHAPTER I.
STILLFLEET AND HIS NEWS. Cecil Dreeme | |