Hope Mills: or, Between Friend and Sweetheart

Alas! From every side he heard the cry, Literature had been overdone. No one would buy, no one would read, in this great turmoil. Everybody wrote now, schoolgirls, college-fledglings: even small farmers and mechanics, with the training of the present and a smattering of knowledge, set up for geniuses.

One advised him to try the realistic school: the old-time philosophies had lost the high place they once held, and to gain the attention of to-day writers must have snap and vim. Another recommended popular science made easy and attractive to general readers, something that caught at the first glance. Life was too short to be devoting years to any one branch of study. Still another was fain to persuade him to attack the pernicious systems and monstrous abuses of the present day. Then he stumbled over Crosby, one of his college-chums and a member of the L – Club, where he had been a frequent and welcome visitor the winter before.

"My dear fellow," said he, with patronizing good-nature, "take my advice, and let literature alone. It is one of the most uncertain things. To-day you may suit, to-morrow a chap comes along with some new fandango or summersault of high art, and the world leaves everybody to run after him, and you are thrown over. A man cannot earn his salt unless he has the entrée of the initiated ring. As for journalism, you may hammer at that for twenty years before you get a position."

Poor Fred went back to his room sorely depressed. It was a quiet, clean room in a second-rate hotel, for which he paid twelve dollars a week. There he sat and brooded, until taking up the paper one morning he saw the arrival of one of his old professors at the "Grand Union." Perhaps he might put him in the way of something. So he plucked up heart, and went to call.

Professor Dennison received him very cordially, and expressed the warmest sympathy for the loss of his father and his fortune. He listened attentively to the young man's desires, and answered in suavest of tones.

There were so many applications: every avenue seemed full. Young lawyers and doctors, finding no opening, had gone back to teaching, and the college-graduates of every year swelled this number. He would bear it in mind, and see what he could do; but he advised his young friend not to build too high hopes. "If I could make a place I should put you in it at once," he said kindly, just as he said it to a dozen others.

It was so everywhere. There were no copyists, translators, or writers needed. The clerkships were overcrowded. It was not that there were too many doing one thing, but everything, – too many people in the world. Could the Malthusian doctrine be right, after all?

He dropped into his brother-in-law's office one morning, and, though he hated to ask a favor of him, discussed in a rather fragmentary and abashed way the possibility of getting any thing to do; and a fortnight after, Mr. Minor sent him word of a broker who wanted a clerk, salary fifty dollars per month.

It was better than nothing. Then, too, it was a beginning, although he could imagine more congenial employments. It did not look much like hard times, to note the immense amount of stocks and bonds that passed through the hands of this great house.

Just at this period Irene returned. A fine, stately girl, with the indescribable air that foreign society gives. Yet she seemed haughty, bitter, and satirical; and it came out presently that she and Gertrude had quarrelled over a possible husband, and the amiable Gertrude had taunted her with dependence in the future. Irene had sold some diamonds, and travelled on the proceeds.

"I think you were very short-sighted, Irene," said Mrs. Minor when she had drawn this story out of her sister. "A handsome American girl does stand a better chance for matrimony abroad than here. So many fortunes have been lost in the panic, and certainly I cannot blame these men for choosing heiresses. You have been in society a great deal here, and you will find fresh young girls beginning to crowd you out. Fred has nothing, and from present indications will hardly be able to take care of himself. It was such a misfortune that papa had every thing mortgaged! So Gertrude was right," in a bitterly suave tone: "you must be dependent upon some one until you do marry."

"Oh, no! I might set up millinery, – with my taste and aptitude for arrangement. I think I have read of reduced young women who made fortunes in that line," retorted Irene the queenly, in her unmoved way. She was not one to cry out at a dagger-thrust.

"Don't be a fool!" advised Mrs. Minor, in a short, incisive tone.

She, like most other people, had meant to economize this summer; but now she made a sudden start for Newport. Irene certainly was peerless in her half-mourning, with her statuesque figure. But there was not an eligible at Newport, so they turned their steps Saratoga-ward. And here they found an old admirer of Mrs. Minor's, Gordon Barringer, a widower for the second time, the owner of a silver-mine and a railroad, and Heaven alone knew the length and breadth of his possessions.

Miss Agatha Lawrence had turned up her aristocratic nose at him, as a rather coarse and self-assured person, as proud of his want of education as other men were of its acquirement. Now he was about forty, stout, high-colored, loud of voice, and with an important swagger. But money had given "our enterprising citizen" power, and he both understood and wielded it skilfully.

His wife had been dead barely six months, but when he met Irene Lawrence he decided at once that the penniless beauty would be only too glad to marry him. He was proud to think he could afford to be so magnanimous. Mrs. Minor settled herself to the fact that there must be no foolish dallying. Of course Irene would see. She could not be so idiotically, so fatally blind!

I do not know that at this period of her life Irene Lawrence had any ideal. She had made conquests so easily, she had found men so much alike, and in her secret heart she despised them for being so ready to kneel and bow at beauty's shrine. It seemed to her as if youth and fortune were alike boundless; and she literally took no thought for the morrow, until the tidings of her father's death was followed by the subsequent news of loss of fortune.

If George Eastman had a self-conviction that he and his cousin had contributed to this downfall, he tried to make it up to Irene in brotherly kindness and generous expenditure where money was concerned. He solaced himself with the thought that, after all, he had no more than his own, or what should have been his own rightfully, though he fancied he could not have gone on to the end quite as Horace had.

When Sir Christopher Frodsham came across the two ladies in Paris, Gertrude exulted at the easy conquest. A man of fifty, whose young years and health had been spent in sowing a plentiful crop of wild oats, but to whom had come now, quite unexpectedly, a fortune and a title; and prosperity, after years of rather bitter economy, made him miserly, as it not unfrequently does such men. That he would have been glad to marry this young, beautiful girl, for himself alone, was most true. And Irene, in the bewilderment of the losses, inclined to his proposal, and begged time for consideration.

He was not a man she could admire, respect, or love. He was narrow, egotistical, selfish, and with the pitiful vanity of a worn-out roué. Frodsham Park was in a lonely, mountainous part of England, bordering on Wales; and this man would look upon his wife as a nurse and companion, and the mother of an heir.

There must have been a little strain of heroism in the girl. Suddenly, in one of those quick, vivid flashes, like mental lightning, she saw that she could not do this thing. She was not at all given to analysis; she had never dissected her own soul, or that of her neighbors; but she arrived at one of those swift, clear verdicts, – she could not marry Sir Christopher; and she told him so, with a frankness a trifle tenderer, perhaps, than she had used with her lovers heretofore, as if some way she had wronged him in thought.

Over this, as I said, she and Gertrude had bitter words and a parting. Now the same thing stared her in the face again. This lover was too obtuse to be stung by the fine arts of coquetry that lengthened practice had brought to perfection. In all the bravery of self-assertion, he did not know when he was beaten; and so he fought against the intangible spear-points with which Miss Lawrence could surround herself.

Mr. Barringer was called to New York on important business law-suits; and two days after, Mrs. Minor declared herself wearied out with Saratoga. Irene felt the walls of fate closing remorselessly about her. Why should she struggle? she asked herself. After all, what could she do but marry?

Meanwhile, Hope Mills had been sold. Fred made some inquiries about it.

"A woman – a rich old maid, I believe, by name McLeod, who knows enough to drive a sharp bargain – has taken it. Some one is to set up the business, I heard; an impecunious nephew, no doubt. No one but a fool would make a venture when the market is overstocked with goods. It is a shame that the estate had to lose such a valuable piece of property; but there was no income to pay taxes and interest, and, standing empty, it would soon have eaten itself up."

Fred sighed. For the first time, he wondered how it would have ended if he had been brought up to some useful business, and perhaps have taken Eastman's place with his father. As for stock and share jobbing, he was heartily sick of it. To him it appeared an immense system of swindling the ignorant and unsuspecting.

However, he was not destined to nurse his disgust very long in brooding silence. The last of September the great house of Bristol, Stokes, & Co., collapsed. The wreck was unexpected, the ruin wide-spread. The house of Minor & Morgan was hard hit, which did not improve Mr. Minor's temper, though, Spartan-like, he wore a cheerful face, and kept his losses to himself. Even if it should be his turn next, the world must not know it.

"There's a letter that concerns you, though it was sent to me as administrator," said Minor to Fred, as he sauntered in one morning, tossing the missive over to him.

Fred opened it with languid indifference, and his eye wandered over the following lines: —

Hamilton Minor, Esq.

Dear Sir, – On taking possession of Hope Mills, for business purposes, I find some personal property belonging to the late Mr. Lawrence. It may have a value for the family, and shall be at your disposal whenever you desire it. Respectfully yours,

John Darcy.

"As soon as Hope Terrace is disposed of, the accounts can be audited and settled," said Minor in a sharp, business-like way. "The debts have all come in, and been paid dollar for dollar; though, if your father had been a prudent man, he would have made sure of something for his family. No one expects estates to pay more than fifty per cent nowadays."

Fred rose, and crushed Jack Darcy's note in his pocket, holding himself proudly, while his cheek flushed.

"I am very thankful," in a clear, cold tone. "My father's life was pure and honorable, and no man can fling a stone at his grave. I would rather be penniless, as I am, than have it otherwise."

"Oh! very well, very well," sneeringly.

Fred walked out of the office, and turned into Broadway. The same curious, restless, hurrying throng. Where were they all going? Did they find room and work? How clearly the sun shone! The sky was so blue, with great drifts of white floating about, – strange barques on a mystical sea. In spite of the outside roar and rush, there was a solemn and awesome stillness within him. He began to feel how entirety alone he stood. A twelvemonth ago there were hosts of friends pulling him hither and yon, proposing this and that, laughing and chatting gayly. Where were they now? Not all weak and false, but the shadow of circumstances had drifted them apart. We do not always cease to love or like when separation ensues; and in this shifting, changing life, people drop out, yet are not quite forgotten. Some of the young fellows whom fortune had buffeted had found a place in active, stirring life: he, with his education, refinement, accomplishments, and talent, was merely a piece of driftwood. Sylvie Barry had been right, – he was a useless appendage to the world. Ah, no wonder she despised him! Sturdy, honest Jack Darcy could find a place. His self-complacency was more than touched, – it was shattered, completely broken up. The present was blank and colorless, the future like a thick mist in which there penetrated not one ray of light. What did all his elaborate philosophies for him now? – art, that was to regenerate the world; science, that explained and refined, and found a place and a reason for every thing in the universe; man, the most important of all. And here he was, tossed aside like a weed. Who cared whether his nature was foul or kinglike? He was, in truth, one of the atoms floating about in space, and finding no use or purpose. The world could go on just as well without him. Why, if he should drop himself over into the river, there would be only a ripple. He laughed, as if his personality was something that did not really belong to him, that could be put off at will, that was, in truth, answerable to no power. All of life, then, had been a lie!

He stumbled onward blindly. A sense of dreary mystery crept over him, – an utter hopelessness. He essayed to stretch out his hand to some passer-by, but the careless faces mocked him. There was no strength or stay. He could not even cry out with his anguish, – it was a dumb, inarticulate voice. All his idols had been destroyed, and there was no God to cry to!

His last three weeks' salary had gone down in Bristol & Co.'s ruin. There were some jewels to sell, a few more pictures, several sets of rare books, and – what then?

Starvation had appeared so utterly improbable in this great, thriving world, and here he was, almost face to face with it, – he who had never taken an anxious thought about any thing, who had felt as if he really honored money by the spending of it. A beggar! An object of charity to Hamilton Minor!

No, that should never be. He tried to rouse himself from his lethargy. He went around to stores and offices where he was not known, and asked for something to do, as if in a curious masquerade. The same answer everywhere. Nothing! The sun went slowly down, the street-lamps were lighted. Every inch of his body ached with the long tramp and nervous exhaustion. He had eaten nothing since breakfast, but he was not hungry. What if he did steal quietly over to the river, and end it all?

The desperation was hardly black enough for that. Somewhere near midnight he strolled home: how much longer would there be a home, he wondered?

He thrust his hand in his pocket, and the bit of folded paper struck sharp against his fingers, so he drew it out. Hardly the familiar school-boy scrawl: Jack used to hate writing, he remembered. This had a decisive force about it. How odd that business-like "John" looked! "Jack!" He uttered the name aloud, and a thrill seemed to warm his frozen heart, – to stir emotions most contradictory. A sense of shame predominated, tingling his very finger-ends, crimsoning his pale cheeks, and stinging his soul with a sense of utter humiliation. He had prided himself so much upon the immaculate honor of his life, and lo! here he stood, self-convicted of one of the basest of sins, – broken faith. Not from any sudden, hot dispute, not from a knowledge of deception or any small meanness, but deliberate, well-considered treachery. It would have been manlier had he said to Jack, "Our ways lie apart, and in the future we shall meet so seldom, it is hardly worth while to keep up a pretence of friendship." He had skulked away instead, kept out of sight, – basely shunned the strong, tender soul that had helped to make a peevish boyhood sunny and bright.

Black as this ingratitude looked to him now, he experienced a strange and intense desire to see his olden friend once more. What was he doing at Hope Mills? Had he found a place?

The next morning's mail brought him a check for sixty dollars, for an article he had thought little of himself, and sent merely because he had happened to finish it, and was despatching his ventures out on the sea of chance. Then he went over to Mrs. Minor's: he had not seen his mother for several days.

He was quite in the habit of going directly up to her room; but, as he neared it, he heard voices raised in no gentle discussion. Agatha stood in the middle of the room, flushed, angry, an open note in her hand; Mrs. Lawrence was weeping hysterically, while Irene sat pale and sullen, but her eyes gleaming with a dangerous fire.

"Very well: if you deliberately decide to take a beggar's portion, then, do not look to me for any further help," said Mrs. Minor. "This marriage would have afforded you every luxury; and you have thrown aside the chance, like a silly school-girl. Perhaps you have some secret, favored lover!" and the glittering eyes might have annihilated a weaker woman than Irene Lawrence.

"If I had, I should go to him. I would live on crusts and a cup of cold water with him, rather than luxury," with a bitter, stinging emphasis, "and my own humiliation. The man would drive me mad, Agatha! Some day, yielding to an irresistible impulse, I should murder him;" and she gave a shrill, unnatural laugh.

Fred went over to her, and took her hand. His business in life was to be her champion, her defender, her support, – not only against this monstrous marriage, at which her soul revolted, but Agatha's sneers and flings, and the dependence a proud soul must naturally feel when the very bread turns to ashes in one's mouth. How it was to be done, he could not tell at that moment; but he drew one long breath of honest, hopeful manliness, and resolved to leave no stone unturned.

His mother wept in his comforting arms. She was very much shattered, – quite an old woman long before her time, made so by the follies of an indolent, enervating life. Like a pang the thought pierced his brain, that for these paltry results his father had given the strength and labor of manhood.

CHAPTER XVI

There were a few faint hints of autumn in Yerbury. The air was warm, and freighted with the peculiar sweetness of over-ripe grapes and apples, of dried balsam and faded golden-rod by the wayside. The very air seemed to quiver with intense contrasts of color, the yellow beeches standing out in strong relief, the bronze-red of one great oak, the bluish-green of the spruce, and the tender tints of fading, long-armed larches, drooping in regretful sadness. Lights of silvery gray and russet-brown, pale gold and hazy purple, and a sapphire sky bending over all. The artistic side of Fred Lawrence's soul was touched as he had once fancied nothing this side of Europe could touch it.

For a moment a mighty rush of regret came over him. This magnificent place had been his home. Perhaps he would have been more than human not to have experienced a pang.

He wandered about for some time. It was too lovely to go in and explore those dusty, darkened rooms: this evening would answer for that. He paced the lawn, he lingered by the gate; he took a turn about the grapery, now used for profit by the thrifty farmer who had charge of the place. Then he turned, and went down the street. The bells were ringing for six. From his height above, he could see the laborers wending their way, the great chimney of Hope Mills. He would walk in that direction. They would all be gone by the time he reached it.

The streets were indeed nearly deserted. In the shade here the wind blew a little chilly. Yes, it was just the same; but then, it would not be likely to alter in a year. Why, it seemed a decade almost, since the night he had come home to his dying father!

Ah, if they had been more to each other! Did he go about with a lonely spirit, Fred wondered, feeling the uselessness and insufficiency of the life he was leading? Had he been glad to lay the burthen down?

A sudden firm, manful step ran down the stone stairway with a cheerful ring, and a voice hummed a tune softly, as one sometimes does for a seeming accompaniment, when the mind is occupied with other things; – a tall, robust figure, with long arms, and a springy step, as if he might still leap a post, or jump the creek. He was rushing off, when, curiously enough, with no other motive than an impulse, he turned, and saw an almost motionless figure.

Whether he would send for the articles belonging to his father, or visit Hope Mills in person, risking a sight of Jack Darcy, or whether he would summon courage enough to ask for his old friend, were matters that Fred had put off for to-morrow's decision. Why he had wandered here at all, amazed him now; and he stood quite breathless at the unexpected apparition, without power to move or speak.

If he had still been in the high tide of prosperity, Jack would have passed him by silently, but with no rudeness. Something in the bent head, the pale face, the general melancholy attitude, came home to his heart, – his fresh, generous, magnanimous heart. He ventured a step nearer, he put out his hand.

"Fred, old fellow!"

The rich, full voice might have melted any heart. The frank, honest eyes lighted with wonderful tenderness: there was a glow and earnestness that could come only from a large, forgiving soul, capable of putting by its own sense of pain or any past discomfiture.

Fred Lawrence crimsoned to the very edge of his hair, to the farthest depths of his soul. He would have taken the hand: then he drew back with a gesture of self-reproach, as if he could tread his past sinful pride in the dust.

"Let's forget the bygones," the hearty young fellow began, "that is, if you would like to have it so," drawing back a trifle to give him his choice as a delicate woman might have done.

"Thank you, Jack," grasping the warm, firm hand in his own pale, cold one, and raising his soft dark eyes, so near to tears. Just now no other words would come.

Jack drew the hand through his arm. "I've thought of you so many times," he began, as if they had parted the best of friends. "It has been a sad year for many, doubly so for you."

"Sad indeed. O Jack!"

It was all uttered in the long tremulous swell of voice that tells the whole story.

"Yes."

With that, their friendship was renewed. Women might have fallen into each other's arms with expressions of penitence and forgiveness; but they had said their say, as was characteristic of both.

"Were you coming in?" and Darcy turned back as he asked the question.

"No: I only reached Yerbury an hour or so ago on a little business. Some remembrance of old time brought me hither."

"I am glad it did. Shall we walk down Main Street? Are you staying at Hope Terrace?"

"I shall be for a few days."

A silence fell between them. There was no one else in the street; and their steps sounded with a steady tramp, as if they might walk on to some definite end.

"Jack, dear old friend, after requiting your tender love to my exacting and selfish boyhood with a pitiless treachery that will always shame my manhood, I wonder if I dare ask it back, if I dare come to you."

"There is nothing to give back. I do believe I have kept up a sort of girlish hankering for you. And now, if I can do any thing, if you are in any perplexity" —

"Come up to Hope Terrace, and take tea with me. I want to talk to you all the evening. You have just the same mesmeric strength that used to soothe me when a boy. What a milk-and-water cub I must have been! I wonder you did not throw me over."

Jack laughed.

"Let us turn back to Kit Connelly's, and I can send a message home, so that mother will not keep tea waiting."

That done, they strolled on together the same path by which Fred had come. The sun had dropped down behind the hill, and the glowing tints had faded to purple-black and indistinct grays. They wound around the hills, and came up to the very gate where their last good-by had been uttered. And Fred remembered then that this was the first time Jack had shared the hospitality of Hope Terrace, now when it was no longer his.

Mrs. Milroy gave them some supper in a pretty little apartment which had been the servants' parlor, and was now hers. Then they went up to Fred's room, which had been opened and aired. Some of its choicest belongings had been taken away, but another than Fred would not have remarked this. And here they renewed the remembrances of the years that had fallen between.