Gibbs George
The Silent Battle
IX
THE LORINGS
The house of Henry K. Loring, Captain of Industry and patron saint of one or more great businesses, was situated on that part of Central Park East which Colonel Van Duyn called Mammon’s Mile. The land upon which it was built was more valuable even than the sands of Pactolus; and the architect, keenly conscious of his obligations to the earth which supported this last monument to his genius, had let no opportunity slip by which would make the building more expensive for its owner. Column, frieze, capital and entablature, all bore the tokens of his playful imagination, and the hipped roof which climbed high above its neighbors, ended in a riot of finial and coping, as though the architect nearing the end of his phantasy (and his commission) had crowded into the few short moments which remained to him all the ornament that had been forbidden him elsewhere. The edifice had reached the distinction of notice by the conductors of the “rubber-neck” busses on the Avenue and of the reproach of Percy Endicott, whose scurrilous comment that “it contained all of the fifty-seven varieties” had now become a by-word down town.
But the lofty hall and drawing-room of the house failed to fulfill the dire prediction of its ornate exterior, for here the architect, as though with a sudden awakening of the artistic conscience, had developed a simple scheme in an accepted design which somewhat atoned for his previous prodigality. A portrait of the master of the house, by an eminent Englishman, hung in the hall, and in the drawing-room were other paintings of wife and daughter, by Americans and Frenchmen, almost, if not equally, eminent. The continent of Europe had been explored in search of tapestries and ornaments for the house of this new prince of finance, and evidences of rare discrimination were apparent at every hand. And yet with all its splendor, the house lacked an identity and an ego. It was too sophisticated. Each object of art, beautiful in itself, spoke of a different taste—a taste which had been bought and paid for. It was like a museum which one enters with interest but without emotion. It was a house without a soul.
It was toward this splendid mausoleum that the daughter of the house made her way after her meeting with Mr. Gallatin in the Park. After one quick look over her shoulder in the direction from which she had come, she walked up the driveway hurriedly and rang the bell, entering the glass vestibule, from which, while she waited for the door to be opened, she peered furtively forth. A man in livery took the leashes of the poodles from her hand and closed the door behind her.
“Has Mother come in, Hastings?”
“Yes, Miss Loring. She has been asking for you.”
Miss Loring climbed the marble stairway that led to the second floor, but before she reached the landing, a voice sounded in her ears, a thin voice pitched in a high key of nervous tension.
“Jane! Where have you been? Don’t you know that we’re going to the theatre with the Dorsey-Martin’s to-night? Madame Thiebout has been waiting for you for at least an hour. What has kept you so long?”
“I was walking, Mother,” said the girl. “I have a headache. I—I’m not going to-night.”
Mrs. Loring’s hands flew up in horrified protest. “There!” she cried. “I knew it. If it hadn’t been a headache, it would have been something else. It’s absurd, child. Why, we must go. You know how important it is for us to keep in with the Dorsey-Martins. It’s the first time they’ve asked us to anything, and it means so much in every way.”
Miss Loring by this time had walked toward the door of her own room, for her mother’s voice when raised, was easily heard in every part of the big house.
“I’m not going out to-night, Mother,” she repeated quietly, shutting the door behind them.
“Jane,” Mrs. Loring cried petulantly. “Mrs. Dorsey-Martin is counting on you. She’s asked some people especially to meet you—the Perrines, the Endicotts, and Mr. Van Duyn, and you know how much he will be disappointed. Lie down on the couch for a moment, and take something for your nerves. You’ll feel better soon, that’s a dear girl.”
The unhappy lady put her arm around her daughter’s waist and led her toward the divan.
“I knew you would, Jane dear. There. You’ve got so much good sense–”
Miss Loring sank listlessly on the couch, her gaze fixed on the flowered hangings at her windows. Her body had yielded to her mother’s insistence, but her thoughts were elsewhere. But as Mrs. Loring moved toward the bell to call the maid, her daughter stopped her with a gesture.
“It isn’t any use, Mother. I’m not going,” she said wearily.
The older woman stopped and looked at her daughter aghast.
“You really mean it, Jane! You ungrateful girl! I’ve always said that you were eccentric, but you’re obstinate, too, and self-willed. A headache!” scornfully. “Why, last year I went to the opera in Mrs. Poultney’s box when I thought I should die at any moment! I don’t believe you have a headache. You’re lying to me—hiding inside yourself the way you always do when I want your help and sympathy most. I don’t understand you at all. You’re no daughter of mine. When I’m trying so hard to give you your proper place in the world, to have you meet the people who will do us the most good! It’s a shame, I tell you, to treat me so. Why did I bring you up with so much care? See that your associates out home should be what I thought proper for a girl with the future that your father was making for you? Why did I take you abroad and give you all the advantages of European training and culture? Have you taught music and French and art? For this? To find that your only pleasure is in books and walks in the Park—and in the occasional visits of the friends of your youth whom you should long since have outgrown? It’s an outrage to treat me so—an outrage!”
Unable longer to control the violence of her emotions, the poor woman sank into a chair and burst into tears. Miss Loring rose slowly and put her arms around her mother’s shoulders.
“Don’t, Mother!” she said softly. “You mustn’t cry about me. I’m not really as bad as you think I am. I’m not worth bothering about, though. But what does it matter—this time?”
“It—it’s always—this time,” she wept.
“No—I’ll go anywhere you like, but not to-night. I do feel badly. I really do. I—I’m not quite up to seeing a lot of people. Don’t cry, dear. You know it will make your eyes red.”
Mrs. Loring set up quickly and touched her eyes with her handkerchief.
“Yes, yes; I know it does. I don’t see how you can hurt me so. I suppose my complexion is ruined and I’ll look like an old hag. It’s a pity! Just after Thiebout had taken such pains with me, too.”
“Oh, no, Mother, you’re all right. You always did look younger than I do—and besides you light up so, at night.”
Mrs. Loring rose and examined her face in a mirror. “Oh, well! I suppose I’ll have to go without you. But I won’t forget it, Jane. It does really seem as though the older I get the less my wishes are considered. But I’ll do my duty as I see it, in spite of you. Do you suppose I had your father build this house just for me to sit in and look out of the windows at the passersby? Not I. Until we came to New York I spent all of my life looking at the gay world out of windows. I’m tired of playing second-fiddle.”
Jane Loring stood before her mother and touched her timidly on the arm. The physical resemblance between them was strong, and it was easily seen where the daughter got her beauty. Mrs. Loring had reached middle life very prettily, and at a single impression it was difficult to tell whether she was nearer thirty-three or fifty-three. Her skin was of that satiny quality which wrinkles depress but do not sear. Her nose was slightly aquiline like her daughter’s, but the years had thinned her lips and sharpened her chin, the lines at her mouth were querulous rather than severe, and when her face was placid, her forehead was as smooth as that of her daughter. She was not a woman who had ever suffered deeply, or who ever would, and the petty annoyances which add small wrinkles to the faces of women of her years had left no marks whatever. But since the family had been in New York Jane had noticed new lines between her brows as though her eyes, like those of a person traveling upon an unfamiliar road, were trying for a more concentrated and narrow vision; and as she turned from the mirror toward the light, it seemed to Jane that she had grown suddenly old.
“Mother, dear, you mustn’t let trifles disturb you so. It will age you frightfully! You know how people are always saying that you look younger than I do. I don’t want to worry you. I’ll do whatever you like, go wherever you like, but not to-night–”
“What is the matter, Jane? Has anything happened?”
“Oh, no, I—I don’t feel very well. It’s nothing at all. I’ll be all right to-morrow. But you must go without me. There’s to be supper afterward, isn’t there?”
“Oh, yes.” And then despairingly: “You always have your own way, in the end.”
She kissed the girl coldly on the brow and turned toward the door.
“You must hurry now,” said Jane. “Mr. Van Duyn will be coming soon, and dinner is early. Good night, dear. I won’t be down to-night. I think I’ll lie down for awhile.”
Mrs. Loring turned one more helpless look in Jane’s direction and then went out of the room.
When the door had closed, Jane Loring turned the key in the lock, then sank at full length on the couch, and seemed to be asleep; but her head, though supported by her arms, was rigid and her eyes, wide open, were staring at vacancy. In the hall outside she heard the fall of footsteps, the whisper of servants and the commotion of her mother’s descent to dinner. A hurdy-gurdy around the corner droned a popular air, a distant trolley-bell clanged and an automobile, exhaust open, dashed by the house. These sounds were all familiar here, and yet she heard them all; for they helped to silence the echoes of a voice that still persisted in her ears, a low sonorous voice, whose tones rose and fell like the sighing of Kee-way-din in the pine-trees of the frozen North. Her thoughts flew to that distant spot among the trees, and she saw the shimmer of the leaves in the morning sunlight, heard the call of the birds and the whispering of the stream. It was cold up there now, so bleak and cold. By this time a white brush had painted out the glowing canvas of summer and left no sign of what was beneath. And yet somewhere hidden there, as in her heart, beneath that chill mantle was the dust of a fire—the gray cinders, the ashes of a dead faith, and Kee-way-din moaned above them.
A tiny clock upon the mantle chimed the hour. Miss Loring moved stiffly, and sat suddenly upright. She got up at last and putting on a loose robe, went to her dressing table, her chin high, her eye gleaming coldly at the pale reflection there. The blood of the Gallatins! Did he think the magic of his name could make her forget the brute in him, the beast in him, that kissed and spoke of love while the thin blood of the Gallatins seethed in its poison? What had the blood of the Gallatins to do with her? Honor, virtue, truth? He had spoken of these. What right had he to use them to one who had an indelible record of his infamy? His kisses were hot on her mouth even now—kisses that desecrated, that profaned the words he uttered. Those kisses! The memory of them stifled her. She brushed her bare arm furiously across her lips as she had done a hundred times before. Lying kisses, traitorous kisses, scourging kisses, between which he had dared to speak of love! If he had not done that, she might even have forgiven him the physical contact that had defamed her womanhood. And yet to-night he had spoken those same words again, repeated them with a show of warmth, that his depravity might have some palliation and excuse. He could, it seemed, be as insolent as he was brutal.
Determined to think of him no more, she rang for her maid and ordered dinner. Then, book in hand, she went down stairs. Mr. Van Duyn, she was relieved to think, had departed with Mrs. Loring, and she smiled almost gaily at the thought that this evening at least was her own. As she passed into the library, she saw that a bright light was burning in her father’s study, and she peeped in at the door.
It was not a large room, the smallest one, in fact, upon the lower floor, but unlike most of the other rooms, it had a distinct personality. The furniture—chairs, desks, and bookcases—was massive, almost too heavy to make for architectural accordance, and this defect was made more conspicuous by the delicacy and minuteness of the ornaments. There were two glass cases on a heavy table filled with the most exquisite ivories, most of them Japanese, an Ormolu case with a glass top enclosing snuff-boxes and miniatures. Three Tanagra figures graced one bookcase and upon another were several microscopes of different sizes. The pictures on the walls, each of them furnished with a light-reflector, were small with elaborately carved gold frames—a few of them landscapes, but most of them “genre” paintings, with many small figures.
Before one discovered the owner of this room one would have decided at once that he must be smallish, slender, with stooping shoulders, gold-rimmed eye-glasses, a jeweled watch-fob and, perhaps, a squint; and the massive appearance of the present occupant would have occasioned more than a slight shock of surprise. When Jane looked in, Henry K. Loring sat on the very edge of a wide arm chair, with a magnifying glass in his hand carefully examining a small oil painting which was propped up under a reading light on another chair in front of him. People who knew him only in his business capacity might have been surprised at his quiet and critical delight in this studious occupation, for down town he was best known by a brisk and summary manner, a belligerent presence and a strident voice which smacked of the open air. His bull-like neck was set deep in his wide shoulders as his keen eyes peered under their bushy eyebrows at the object in front of him. He was so absorbed that he did not hear the light patter of his daughter’s footsteps, and did not move until he heard the sound of her voice.
“Well, Daddy!” she said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
His round head turned slowly as though on a pivot.
“Hello, Jane! Feeling better?” He raised his chin and winked one eye expressively.
“I thought you were going—with Mother,” said Miss Loring.
“Lord, no! You know I—” and he laughed. “I had a headache, too.”
The girl smiled guiltily, but she came over and sat upon the arm of the chair, and laid her hand along her father’s shoulder.
“Another picture! Oh, Daddy, such extravagance! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? So that’s why you stole away from the Dorsey-Martin’s–”
“It’s another Verbeckhoeven, Jane,” he chuckled delightedly. “A perfect wonder! The best he ever did, I’m sure! Come, sit down here and look at it.”
Jane sank to the floor in front of the painting and reached for the enlarging glass. But he held it away from her.
“No, no,” he insisted. “Wait, first tell me how many things you can see with the naked eye.”
“A horse, a cow, a man lying on the grass, trees, distant haystacks and a windmill,” she said slowly.
“And is that all?” he laughed.
“No, a saddle on the ground, a rooster on the fence—yes—and some sheep at the foot of the hill.”
“Nothing more?”
“No, I don’t think so—except the buckles on the harness and the birds flying near the pigeon-cote.”
“Yes—yes—is that all?”
“Yes, I’m sure it is.”
“You’re blind as a bat, girl,” he roared delightedly. “Look through this and see!” and he handed her the glass. “Buckles on the horses! Examine it! Don’t you see the pack thread it’s sewed with? And the saddle gall on the horse’s back? And the crack in the left fore-hoof? Did you ever see anything more wonderful? Now look into the distance and tell me what else.”
“Haymakers,” gasped Miss Loring. “Two women, a man and—and, yes, a child. I couldn’t see them at all. There’s a rake and pitch fork, too–”
“And beyond?”
“Dykes and the sails of ships—a town and a tower with a cupola!”
“Splendid! And that’s only half. I’ve been looking at it for an hour and haven’t found everything yet. I’ll show them to you—see–”
And one by one he proudly revealed his latest discoveries. His passion for the minute almost amounted to an obsession, and the appearance of his large bulk poring over some delicate object of art was no unfamiliar one to Jane, but she always humored him, because she knew that, although he was proud of his great house, here was the real interest that he found in it. His business enthralled him, but it made him merciless, too, and in this harmless hobby his daughter had discovered a humanizing influence which she welcomed and encouraged. It gave them points of contact from which Mrs. Loring was far removed, and Jane was always the first person in the household to share the delights of his latest acquisitions. But to-night she was sure that her duty demanded a mild reproof.
“It’s an astonishing picture, Daddy, but I’m sure we’ve both treated Mother very badly. You know you promised her–”
“So did you–”
“But I—I felt very badly.”
“So did I,” he chuckled, “very badly.” He put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders and drew her closer against his knees. “Oh, Jane, what’s the use? Life’s too short to do a lot of things you don’t want to do. Your mother likes to go around. Let her buzz, she likes it.”
“Perhaps she does,” Jane reproved him. “But then you and I have our duty.”
“Don’t let that worry you, child. I do my duty—but I do it in a different way. Your mother stalks her game in its native wild. I don’t. I wait by the water hole until it comes to drink, and then I kill it.”
“But people here must have some assurance that new families are acceptable–”
“Don’t worry about that, either. We’ll do, I guess. And when I want to go anywhere, or want my family to go anywhere, I ask, that’s all. The women don’t run New York society. They only think they do. If there’s any house you want to go to or any people you want to come to see us, you tell me about it. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, but my way is the quickest. I’m not going to have you hanging on the outer fringe. You can be the jewel and the ornament of the year. Even Mrs. Suydam will take you under her wing, if you want her to.”
“But I don’t want to be under any one’s wing. I might turn out to be the ugly duckling.”
He pressed her fondly in his great arms. “You are—a duckling—it’s a pity you’re so ugly.” He laughed at his joke and broke off and seized the glass from her fingers.
“Jane,” he cried, “you didn’t find the woman inside the farmhouse! And the jug on the bench beside–”
But Miss Loring’s thoughts were elsewhere.
“Daddy, I don’t want people to come to see me, unless I like them,” she went on slowly, “and I don’t want to go to peoples’ houses just because they’re fashionable houses. I want to choose my friends for myself.”
“You shall!” he muttered, laying down his glass with a sigh and putting his arm around her again. And then with a lowered voice, “You haven’t seen anybody you—you really like yet, daughter, have you?”
“No,” said Miss Loring, with a positiveness which startled him. “No one—not a soul.”
“Not Coleman Van Duyn–”
“Daddy!” she cried. “Of course not!”
“And no one else?”
“No one else.”
He grunted comfortably. “I’m glad of that. I haven’t seen anybody good enough for you yet. I’m glad it’s not Van Duyn—or young Sackett. I thought, perhaps, you had,” he finished.
“Why?”
“You’ve been so quiet lately.”
“Have I?” she smiled into the fire. “I didn’t know it.”
“Don’t you let people worry you, and don’t take this society game too seriously. It’s only a game, and a poor one at that. It’s only meant for old fools who want to be young and young fools who want to be old. Those people don’t play it just for the fun of the thing—to them it’s a business, and they work at it harder than a lot of galley-slaves. You’ve got to try it, of course, I believe in trying everything, but don’t you let it get you twisted—the ball-room, with its lights, its flowers and its pretty speeches. They’re all part of the machinery. The fellow you’re going to marry won’t be there, Jane. He’s too busy.”
“Who do you mean?”
“Oh, nobody in particular,” he snorted. “But I don’t believe you’ll ever marry a carpet-knight. You won’t if I can stop you, at any rate.” He had taken out a cigar and snipped the end of it carefully with a pocket-knife. “They’re a new kind of animal to me, these young fellows about town,” he said between puffs. “Beside a man, they’re what the toy pug is to the bulldog or the Pomeranian is to the ‘husky.’ Fine dogs they are,” he sniffed, “bred to the boudoir and the drawing-room!”
“But some of them are very nice, Daddy,” said Jane. “You know you liked Dirwell De Lancey and William Worthington.”
“Oh, they’re the harmless kind, playful and amusing!” he sneered. “But they’re only harmless because they haven’t sense enough to be anything else. You’ll meet the other kind, Jane, the loafers and the drunkards.”
Miss Loring leaned quickly forward away from him, her elbows on her knees, and looked into the fire.
“I suppose so,” she said quietly.
“It’s the work of the social system, Jane. Most of these old families are playing a losing game, their blood is diluted and impoverished, but they still cling to their ropes of sand. They marry their children to our children, but God knows that won’t help ’em. It isn’t money they need. Money can’t make new gristle and cartilage. Money can’t buy new fiber.”
The girl changed her position slightly. “I suppose it’s all true, but it seems a pity that the sons should suffer for the sins of the fathers.”
“It’s written so—unto the third and fourth generation, Jane.”
“But the sons—they have no chance—no chance at all?”
“Only what they can save out of the wreck. Take young Perrine or young Gallatin, for instance. There’s a case in point. His people have all been rich and talented. They’ve helped to make history, but they’ve all had the same taint. Year by year they’ve seen their fortunes diminish, but couldn’t stem the tide against them. But now the last of the line is content just to exist on the fag-end of what’s left him. He’s clever, too, they say—went into the law, as his father did, but–”
“Oh, Daddy, it’s unjust—cruel!” Jane Loring broke in suddenly.
“What is?”
“Heredity–”
“It’s the law! I feel sorry for that young fellow. I like him, but I’d rather see you dead at my feet than married to him.”
Miss Loring did not move, but the hands around her knee clasped each other more tightly.
“I don’t know—I’ve never been introduced to Mr. Gallatin,” she said quietly.
