The Man Who Wins.
by Robert Herrick.
I
The Four Corners in Middleton made a pleasant drive from the university town of Camberton. Many a time in the history of the house a party of young fellows had driven over the old turnpike that started where the a.r.s.enal used to stand in the sacred quarter of Camberton, and as the evening sun gilded the low, fresh-water marshes beyond Spring Pond, would trot on toward the rolling hills of Middleton.
After dinner, or a dance, or, perhaps, mere chat over a late supper, they rode away at midnight singing as they whipped up their sleepy nags and otherwise disturbing the decorum of night in Middleton. Or, maybe, routed out early on a frosty October morning, after lighting pipes and a word with the stable-boy, they would snuggle into overcoats and spin away over the hard roads where the night frost still lay on the caked dust in the hollows like a crust of milk. In crossing the meadows the autumn sun swung into their faces, a comfortable solace on a morning drive, exciting them forward toward Camberton that they might report in the little stucco chapel while the tinny college bell was still harshly calling to prayer.
The Ellwells had kept the old Four Corners in Middleton long after the family had moved out into the wider world of Boston, and from farming and the ministry had entered the spheres of commerce and money-owning.
In the time of old Roper Ellwell the Four Corners had been the parsonage for Middleton, and there first the Rev. Roper Ellwell had stirred the placid waters of meeting-house faith until something like a primitive revival had spread into neighboring parishes. His wife, a learned woman, had managed half a dozen young men who were preparing their Greek and Latin for Camberton. Those were the homely and kindly days of the Four Corners.
Then Roper Ellwell was called by the Second Church, in Boston, to be their pastor. This was the beginning of the Ellwell family in the good society of New England. The pastor"s eloquence waxed into books that are found to-day on the shelves of the Harvard Library, with the University book-plate recording their gift by the author; also in black-cloth bindings, admirably printed, going to auction from some private library formed by a parishioner of the noted divine. When he became old in service, the congregation, now rich and fashionable, added to his ministrations the vigor of a younger man. Yet Roper Ellwell, on fine Sundays, still fired one of his former discourses from the lofty pulpit of his church. As these days grew rarer, the old pastor divided his time between his son"s house on Beacon Street and the Four Corners.
Mark Ellwell was, as he should be, his father"s son with the leaven of a newer world which led him into business instead of the ministry. But a fair product of Camberton, and a man well known and liked in Boston, where he was a merchant, when that term did not cover shop-keeping or gambling. He made a solid fortune in wool; built a house just beyond Charles Street on Beacon Street; was a member of two good clubs, and a deacon in his father"s church.
In these days the Four Corners was used chiefly in the autumn months, and as a playhouse for the feeble pastor. Mark Ellwell built a summer home in Nahant.
There was one son who grew up--John. This Ellwell was sent to Camberton in due time, where he broke the family tradition by living a licentious life. He was kept in the university for two years, from respect to his family, in spite of his drunkenness and idleness. When the war broke out--John was then in his third year at Camberton--the wilder blood at the university found its field. Young Ellwell shirked his chance; while his mates were enlisting and leaving college, he slunk away in little sprees, pleading weak health. Mark Ellwell, shamed and mortified, would have horsewhipped his son into the ranks, but the mother defended the weakling.
One day young Ellwell announced his marriage to a Salem girl whom he had met the week before. His father gave him a house; as he chose to be a broker, his father started him with his own credit. A few years later, when the war was over and John Ellwell was succeeding in the general tide of success, established with a family and three young children, all seemed well. Now the Four Corners was rarely visited.
The verandas broke down; gra.s.s and hardy roses grew into the cracks where the clap-boards had started. The Ellwells, father and son, were fashionable people; the family had developed.
Early in the seventies there came rumors of young Ellwell"s disgrace in the Tremont Club. He was detected cheating at play, and left the club, of which Mark Ellwell was vice-president. John Ellwell was a large, florid man, with the fine features of the good New England pastor, a slightly Roman nose, and a gouty tendency in his walk. He was the flourishing broker, of the kind who worked on nerve, who was never sober after three in the afternoon, and having begun to drink at ten was uncertain after twelve. He knew a side of business life that his father had never seen; he a.s.sociated with men whom the stiff Mark would have disdained to recognize. But his reputation for cleverness carried him on in spite of the club affair until....
One day, after a spree, he went on the Board wild and flurried. What he did he could never remember, but when the settlement for that day"s transactions was made he was ruined. The Board gave him a week to find the necessary funds and pay his debts. His father settled the affair, opened the Four Corners for his family, sold his own house on Beacon Street, and taking his two daughters, who had never married, sailed for Europe. That was the end of the Ellwells in old Boston. Mark Ellwell never came back.
"The old man is done with me." That had been John"s comment to his wife. And well might Mark Ellwell be done with him; there was not much left for another clearing up. There were the Four Corners, and his seat in the Board, and then--beggary. So in the third generation the Ellwells established themselves once more in Middleton at the Four Corners.
II
Good people, people of fortunes nicely won and carefully transmitted, well-known people, in short the members of society who make life an important affair to be honorably transacted in due reverence for their own reputation and the opinion of their neighbors, had nothing more to do with the family. They were blotted out of the blue book of Boston and never ventured beyond the shady walks of the Common on the Beacon Street side. In the other world, about the exchange, in the bar-rooms and restaurants of the downtown hotels, John Ellwell still led a comfortable life. The Board liked him. His transactions never again a.s.sumed large proportions, but in the way of little things he did a brisk business and went his old, corrupt, uncertain path.
The old house at Middleton was pulled to pieces and made fit for a gentleman"s family, with a comfortable dining-room and broad-bayed windows, fine mahogany from the Beacon Street house, and an opulent cellar. Wide verandas were run about the house again, giving delightful vine-covered nooks for talk and sewing in the hazy, heated summer days. The lawn was nicely shaved and watered; the drive that led through the orchard to the cross-roads which gave the name to the place was weeded and gravelled. A new stable was put up behind, and furnished with three horses, some smart little carts, besides a close carriage for rainy days. The exile was made tolerable--for the sake of the children.
Mrs. John Ellwell counted for little. She had married in romance the handsome, swell young man; reality had blasted her. She had sunk into a will-less invalid, and made admiration of her husband into pride and a religion. She had accepted; she never protested. The eldest son by the dint of much pushing had been put into Camberton just before the final smash and the exile. In the hall of the college there hung a portrait of his great grandfather in his black preacher"s robes; of this, Roper Ellwell, second, was a weak travesty. The thin features had been blurred in the process of transmitting; an inclination to flabby stoutness of person made the young man portly, where the old minister had been nervously fragile. But Roper Ellwell, second, rarely compared notes, for he dined, not in hall under this picture, but at a private club with his own set.
These young fellows drove over now and then to the Four Corners, a pleasant place for a man to spend an evening or a Sunday when the weather was fair and the fields green. The dinners were long and rich; the wines good; and if old Ellwell was a somewhat scandalous host, pleasing only to the coa.r.s.er lads, there were other members of the family--the two daughters, Leonora and Ruby.
The appearance of these two girls in this earthy family was anomalous.
Leonora, the older sister, was like a water-lily in a pool of ooze and slime, delicately floating on the stagnant waters without a visible stain at a single point of contact. She had the Ellwell features, regular, angular, prominent; with her father"s high forehead and finely tapering hands, and also her father"s thin unwholesome skin.
But instead of the livid tan complexion of the man who had beaten about the years of his life, the woman"s pinkish transparency likened her again to the water-lily of the Middleton ponds. Her sister Ruby was more striking, much in the florid style of her brother. While she was young, she would be delicate enough to carry this kind of beauty; ten years might bring about an unpleasant fulness of bloom. Both had been petty invalids over many small ills, until now the monotony of the Four Corners was bringing about a gentle activity and health.
If the mother was will-less in the general concerns of life, she had shown one power in forming her daughters upon her own ideal of refinement. It was the way of life for men to be brutes, in a curious coa.r.s.e fashion in speech, in appet.i.tes, in tastes; all that was an unaccountable arrangement of providence. So likewise it was befitting women to be chaste and refined, and to endure. Leonora comprehended her mother"s sad position, yet she never held her father responsible.
Men were made so, with a necessity for wickedness; some day she would be called upon to marry such a man, and suffer patiently, without scandal, a similar experience with vice. The woman"s task was to keep fresh and unspotted herself, her home, her rooms, like some cool temple hidden away from summer heats and noisy commonness.
This girl of eighteen knew the family story as thoroughly as her mother; knew the disgraceful episodes, the unstable condition of fortune which they must expect. Tranquilly, daintily she trod her way, avoiding "scenes," covering up brutality, ignoring beastly talk or unpleasant dinner companions; occupying herself with her fresh dresses, or household matters; now decorating a room in the old Four Corners, or watering the ivies that were replacing the gnarled woodbines. Mrs. Ellwell had never kept improper books from her daughters--it seemed so hopeless--and she read what her father read, accepting the lurid picture of life presented in the novels plentifully scattered about the house as probably correct, yet with an indifference and weariness. Some cool twilight at the Four Corners, when the little tasks of the day had been done, before the carriage arrived from the station with the unaccountable male element of life, she might sit for a reflective half hour wondering why it had all been made so; why pa.s.sion was recklessly rampant in life; why the world creaked in its action, groaning over the follies so thickly spread in its course. In the daring of dreams, provoked by the long shadows and the deep quiet, other forms, strange possibilities, might flicker in her mind; but she was a woman! And soon it was time to dress for the long dinner.
There were evenings when the carriage returned empty, merely a telegram at the most, to account for the broker"s absence; and these nights, sad for the neglected wife, were a relief to the daughter. The sweet monotonous day could go on (the country day she secretly loved when there were only women about the house) even down to night with rest, the shrieking world banished. There were other evenings when Ellwell drove up alone, morose, biting his iron-gray mustache in sullen disgust and ennui at some failure, perhaps in self-discontent and fear. Leonora met him at the veranda with a kiss, and a bubbling, clever greeting that dragged out a smile. Dinner was then a pleasant place for talk, the elder daughter taking the lead and holding it until she had roused the others. And there were other evenings when the broker brought with him friends, anyone he happened upon, when he was excited and loud, and the daughter had fears of the end. If the talk grew too boisterous, the women would hurry the courses and then withdraw to a side of the veranda, to sit sadly by themselves. If a quieter man, or some young fellow from Camberton, slipped away from the dining-room and joined them, they would talk gayly, simulating ease and naturalness.
For all this tolerance Mrs. Ellwell had the reputation with the broker and his companions, of being "a good woman" and a "good wife." And Ellwell considered that he had redeemed his note to propriety in marrying and having children, who become hampering things when a man is in a tight place. The servants gossiped, were insolent at times, but in such a household there were many pickings. The Middleton people, driving by at night within sound of the noise when the Four Corners was garishly lit, would repeat the family story and recall old Roper Ellwell, who lay in a green mound near his first church. But the broker, the "village magnate," as his daughters called him, was generous and free-handed in the parish. A "high liver" but "a good fellow" was his reputation; so it was considered a good thing for Middleton that the Ellwells had returned to the Four Corners.
From the serene frugal household of Roper Ellwell where the wife had fitted boys "in the cla.s.sical tongues" for Camberton, the family had come to this uncertain state, feverish, like the fickle fluctuations of the stock market; now prodigal and easy, again in a panicky distress with dire fear of unknown depths of poverty and humiliation.
Whatever happened--reckless, with a philosophy that did not embrace the morrow.
III
Roper second"s set dined at Tony Lamb"s in Camberton. For the most part they belonged to the same club, the A. o., and were congenial souls--young men, rich, from the great cities, who were taking the Camberton degree as a brevet in the social profession. In winter they could be found at the New York and the Boston hotels; in summer at the Bar Harbor hotels.
A few men of different stamp were left over from a previous college generation of A. o."s, such as Jarvis Thornton, who had begun when a boy out of school to dine with his old schoolfellows at Tony Lamb"s, and had kept it up from inertia and the loose liking of college fellowship, long after his way had parted from that of the present A. o."s. Thornton had entered Camberton with all the distinction that a well-connected Ma.s.sachusetts family, easy circ.u.mstances, and distinct scholarship would give. His course had been a gentle current of prosperity. He took first a high degree in the college, then a good degree in medicine. Now he was engaged in pushing forward some biological work on which he had already published a monograph and which had brought him membership in some learned societies.
One day at the beginning of the long vacation, Roper Ellwell and he found themselves alone at dinner. Young Ellwell was bored with the prospect of his own companionship for a lonely drive to the country.
"I say, Thornton," he threw out at random, "come down to our place over night. The cart will be round in a few minutes."
Thornton, flaccid from hot days in the laboratory, welcomed any proffered excuse for a loaf. So they jogged away in the soft evening, from the cropped green hedges and the red brick buildings of Camberton into the country turnpike, smoking and keeping a peaceful silence.
After athletics and carts had been talked out there was not much to start fresh conversation with. Camberton slipped away, with its endless problems, its ambitious prods. Jarvis Thornton entered another atmosphere when the cart crunched the gravel of the drive at the Four Corners. The Ellwells were on the veranda. "Who are the Ellwells?"
Thornton asked himself as he found a chair next the white dress of the daughter. "And why did I get myself into a family party for a day and two nights without knowing what to expect?"
He discovered an order of things he had never seen before in the rounds of his proper visiting list--the broker world. Ellwell had the possibilities of a gentleman, and in comparison with the three or four companions that he had with him this Sunday, his manners were distinguished. He was a Camberton man, he would have Jarvis Thornton understand, a cla.s.smate of Thornton"s father, and if their paths had separated, Ellwell, nevertheless, had a position equal to the Thorntons. As for the others, they were clerks, who in one way or another had managed to get their seats--men with no great permanent stake in the community, the modern subst.i.tute for the condottiere cla.s.s. The Four Corners gave them a place to eat and drink and play a long game of poker, which amus.e.m.e.nts satisfied their cravings for diversion. Jarvis Thornton was a mere young prig that had walked inadvertently their way; young Roper Ellwell joined the Sunday game, while Thornton was left with the women to pa.s.s the day. The Sunday went off quietly with a long drive in the afternoon. At dinner Thornton sat beside the elder daughter. There were stretches of silence, for the general talk and the table interested him more than his companion. The other men discussed business or scandal; old Ellwell told stories that were broad and fatuous, to which young Ellwell responded with heavy laughter. Ruby joked with an old-young man named Bradley, a broker, who had been winning in the day"s game.
As they came near the end of the long dinner Mrs. Ellwell excused herself. Thornton scrutinized his companion. The fumes of the place seemed to circulate about her unnoticed.
"Does she understand it?" Thornton asked himself. "Is this abstraction a mere bluff because I am a stranger? Or is she only bored?"
When she noticed that Thornton was not eating or drinking she questioned him mutely with her eyes.
"Shall we leave?"
He nodded. She rose and opened the long window--pa.s.sed out, as if accustomed to avoid the puddles of life. She led the way to the farther end of the veranda, where only an occasional high voice could be heard. When she had settled herself on a lounge, she sighed inconsequently.
"But perhaps you didn"t want to come? You can go back. We always walk about a good deal you know, and n.o.body will notice. You will want your coffee and cigar; and Colonel Sparks tells amusing wicked little stories. I will stay here, though."
"And I think I will," the young man added, simply. "It"s really hot."
She opened her eyelids, which usually hung a little down as if heavy.
"It tired you too, did it? Somehow I never felt so weary from it as I do to-night."
"Is it always just so?" he asked, bluntly.