The Sword of Damocles Part 3

The first thing I did was to ascertain the name of the gentleman occupying the house I have specified. It was that of one of our wealthiest and most respectable bankers, a name as well known in the city--as your own for instance. This was somewhat disconcerting, but with a dogged resolution somewhat foreign to my natural disposition, I persevered in my investigations, and learning in the next breath that the gentleman alluded to was a widower with an only child, a young daughter of about sixteen or so, recovered my a.s.surance, though not my equanimity. Seeking out my friend Farrar, who as you know is a walking gazette of New York society, I broached the subject of Mr.--excuse me if I do not mention his name; allow me to say, Preston's domestic affairs, and learned that Miss Preston, "A naive little piece for so great an heiress," I remember Farrar called her, had left town within a day or two for a visit to some friends in Baltimore. "I happen to know,"

said he with that careless sweep of his hand at which you have so often laughed, "because my friend Miss Forsyth met her at the depot. She was intending to be gone--two weeks, I think she said. Do you know her?"

That last question sprung upon me unawares, and I am afraid I blushed.

"No," I returned, "I have not that honor but an acquaintance of mine has--well--has met her and--"

"I see, I see," broke in Farrar with his most disagreeable smile. Then with a short laugh, meant to act as a warning, I suppose, added as he walked off, "I hope your friend is in fair circ.u.mstances and not connected with the fine arts. Music is Mr. Preston's detestation, while Miss Preston though too young to be much sought after yet, will in two years' time have the pick of the city at her command."

"So!" thought I to myself; "my little innocent charmer is an embryo aristocrat, eh? Well then, I was a greater fool than I imagined." And I walked out of the hotel where I had met Farrar, with the very sensible conclusion to drop a subject that promised nothing but disappointment.

But the fates were against me, or the good angels perhaps, and at the next comer I met an old acquaintance, the very opposite of Farrar in character, who with a long love story of his own fired, my imagination to such an extent that in spite of myself I turned down ---- Street, and was proceeding to pa.s.s her house, when suddenly the thought struck me, "How do I know that this unapproachable daughter of one of our most prominent citizens is one and the same person with my dainty little charmer? Widowers with young daughters are not so rare in this great city that I need consider the question as decided, because by a half superst.i.tious freak of my own I have settled upon this house as the one I was in the other night. My inamorata may be the offspring of a musician for all I know." And inflamed at the thought of this possibility--I remembered the piano, you see--I gave to the winds all my fine resolutions and only asked how I could determine for once and all, whether I had ever crossed the threshold of the house before me. Some men would have run up the stoop, rung the bell and asked to see Mr.

Preston on some pretended business he could easily conjure up to suit the occasion, but my face is too well known for me to risk any such attempt, besides I was too anxious to win the confidence of the young girl to shock her awakened sense of propriety by seeming to seek her where she did not wish to be found. And yet I must enter that house and see for myself if it was the one that held her on that memorable evening.

Pondering the question, I looked back at the door so obstinately closed against my curiosity, when to my satisfaction and delight it suddenly opened and a man stepped out, whom I instantly recognized as a business agent for one of the largest piano-forte manufactories in the city. "The heavens smile upon my enterprise," thought I, and waited for the man to come up with me. He was not only a friend of mine but largely indebted to me in various ways, so that I knew I had only to urge a request for it to be immediately granted, and that, too, without any questions or gossip.

You will not be interested in anything but the result, which was somewhat out of the usual course, and may therefore shock you. But you must remember that I am telling you of matters which young men usually keep to themselves, and that whatever I did, was accomplished in a spirit of respect only a shade less constraining in its power than the love that was at once my impelling force, and my constant embarra.s.sment.

To come, then, to the point, a piano was to be set up in that house on that very day, Mr. Preston having yielded to the solicitations of his daughter for a new instrument. My friend was to be engaged in the transfer, and at my solicitation for leave to a.s.sist in the operation, gave his consent in perfect confidence as to my possessing good and sufficient reasons for such a remarkable request, and appointed the hour at which I was to meet him at the ware-rooms.

Behold me, then, at half-past two that afternoon, a.s.sisting with my own hands in carrying a piano up the stoop of that house which, four hours before, I had regarded as unapproachable. Dressed in a workman's blouse and with my hair well roughened under a rude cap that effectually disguised me, I advanced with but little fear of detection. And yet no sooner had I entered the house and seen at a glance that the aspect of the hall coincided with my rather vague remembrance of that through which I had been ushered a week before, than I was struck by a sudden sense of my situation, and experiencing that uncomfortable consciousness of self-betrayal, which a blush always gives a man, stumbled forward under my heavy burden, feeling as if a thousand eyes were fixed upon me and my cherished secret, instead of the two sharp but totally unsuspicious...o...b.. of the elderly matron that surveyed us from the top of the banisters. "Be careful there, you'll knock a hole through that gla.s.s door!" though a natural cry under the circ.u.mstances, struck on my ears with the force and mysterious power of a secret warning, and when after a moment of blind advance I suddenly lifted my eyes and found myself in the little room, which like a silhouette on a white ground, stood out in my memory in distinct detail as the spot where I had first heard my own heart beat, I own that I felt my hands slipping from my burden, and in another moment had disgraced my character of a workman if I had not caught the sudden ring of a well known voice in the hall, as nurse answered from above some question propounded by the elderly lady with the piercing eyes. As it was, I recovered myself and went through my duties as promptly and deftly as if my heart did not throb with memories that each pa.s.sing hour and event only served to hallow to my imagination.

At length the piano was duly set up and we turned to leave. Will you think I am too trivial in my details if I tell you that I lingered behind the rest and for an instant let my hand with all its possibilities for calling out a soul from that dead instrument, lie a moment on the keys over which her dainty fingers were so soon to traverse?

V.

THE RUBICON.

"I'll stake my life upon her faith."--OTh.e.l.lO.

Once convinced of the ident.i.ty of my sweet young friend with the Miss Preston at whose feet a two year hence, the wealth and aristocracy of New York would be kneeling, I drew back from further effort as having received a damper to my presumptuous hopes that would soon effectually stifle them. Everything I heard about the family--and it seemed as if suddenly each chance acquaintance that I met had something to say about Mr. Preston either as a banker or a man, only served to confirm me in this view. "He is a money wors.h.i.+pper," said one. "The bluest of blue Presbyterians," declared another. "The enemy of presumption and anything that looks like an overweening confidence in one's own worth or capabilities," remarked a third. "A man who would beggar himself to save the honor of a corporation with which he was concerned," observed a fourth "but who would not invite to his table the most influential man connected with it if that man was unable to trace his family back to the old Dutch settlers to which Mr. Preston's own ancestors belonged."

This latter statement I have no doubt was exaggerated for I myself have seen him at dinners where half the gentlemen who lifted the wine gla.s.s were self-made in every sense of the term. But it showed the bent of his mind and it was a bent that left me entirely out of the sweep of his acquaintances.h.i.+p much less that of his exquisite daughter, the pride of his soul if not the jewel of his heart.

But when will a man who has seen or who flatters himself that he has seen in the eyes of the woman he admires, the least spark of that fire which is consuming his own soul, pause at an obstacle which after all has its basis simply in circ.u.mstances of position or will. By the time the two weeks of her expected absence had expired, I had settled it in my own mind that I would see her again and if I found the pa.s.sing caprice of a child was likely to blossom into the steady regard of a woman, risk all in the attempt to win by honorable endeavor and persistence this bud of loveliness for my future wife.

How I finally succeeded by means of my friend Farrar in being one evening invited to the same house as Miss Preston it is not necessary to state. You will believe me it was done with the utmost regard for her feelings and in a way that deceived Farrar himself, who if he is the most prying is certainly the most volatile of men. In a crowded parlor, then, in the midst of the flash of diamonds and the flutter of fans Miss Preston and I again met. When I first saw her she was engaged in conversation with some young companion, and I had the pleasure of watching for a few minutes, un.o.bserved, the play of her ingenuous countenance, as she talked with her friend, or sat silently watching the brilliant array before her. I found her like and yet unlike the vision of my dreams. More blithesome in her appearance, as was not strange considering her party attire and the l.u.s.tre of the chandelier under which she sat, there was still that indescribable something in her expression which more than the flash of her eye or the curve of her lip, though both were lovely to me, made her face the one woman's face in the world for me; a charm which circ.u.mstances might alter, or suffering impair, but of which nothing save death could ever completely divest her and not death either, for it was the seal of her individuality, and that she would take with her into the skies.

"If I might but advance and sit down by her side without a word of explanation or the interference of conventionalities how happy I should be," thought I. But I knew that would not do, so I contented myself with my secret watch over her movements, longing for and yet dreading the advance of my hostess, with its inevitable introduction. Suddenly the piano was touched in a distant room and not till I saw the quick change in her face, a change hard to explain, did I recognize the selection as one I was in the habit of playing. _She_ had not forgotten at least, and thrilled by the thought and the remembrance of that surge of color which had swept like a flood over her cheek, I turned away, feeling as if I were looking on what it was for no man's eyes to see, least of all mine.

My hostess' voice arrested me and next moment I was bowing to the ground before Miss Preston.

I am not a boy; nor have I been without my experiences: life with its vicissitudes has taught me many a lesson, subjected me to many a trial, yet in all my career have I never known a harder moment than when I raised my eyes to meet hers after that lowly obeisance. That she would be indignant I knew, that she might even misinterpret my motives and probably withdraw without giving me an opportunity to speak, I felt to be only too probable, but that she would betray an agitation so painful I had not antic.i.p.ated, and for an instant I felt that I had hazarded my life's happiness on a cast that was going against me. But the necessity of saving her from remark speedily restored me to myself, and following the line of conduct I had previously laid out, I addressed her with the reserve of a stranger, and neither by word, look or manner conveyed to her a suggestion that we had ever met or spoken to each other before.

She seemed to appreciate my consideration and though she was as yet too much unused to the ways of the world to completely hide her perturbation, she gradually regained a semblance of self-possession, and ere long was enabled to return short answers to my remarks, though her eyes remained studiously turned aside and never so much as ventured to raise themselves to the pa.s.sing throng much less to my face, half turned away also.

Presently however a change pa.s.sed over her. Pressing her two little hands together, she drew back a step or two, speaking my name with a certain tone of command. Struck with apprehension, I knew not why, I followed her. Instantly like one repeating a lesson she spoke.

"It is very good in you to talk to me as though we were the strangers that people believe us. I appreciate it and thank you very much. But it is not being just true; that is I feel as if I were not being just true, and as we can never be friends, would it not be better for us not to meet in this way any more?"

"And why," I gently asked, with a sense of struggling for my life, "can we never be friends?"

Her answer was a deep blush; not that timid conscious appeal of the blood that is beating too warmly for reply, but the quick flush of indignant generosity forced to do despite to its own instincts.

"That is a question I would rather not answer," she murmured at length.

"Only it is so; or I should not speak in this way."

"But," I ventured, resolved to know on just what foundations my happiness was tottering, "you will at least tell me if this harsh decree is owing to any offence I myself may have inadvertently given. The honor of your acquaintance," I went on, determined she should know just what a hope she was slaying, "is much too earnestly desired, for me to wilfully hazard its loss by saying or doing aught that could be in any way displeasing to you."

"You have done nothing but what was generous," said she with increasing womanliness of manner, "unless it was taking advantage of my being here, to learn my name and gain an introduction to me after I had desired you to forget my very existence."

I recoiled at that, the chord of my self-respect was touched. "It was not here I learned your name, Miss Preston. It has been known to me for two weeks. At the risk of losing by your displeasure what is already hazarded by your prudence, I am bound to acknowledge that from the hour I left your father's house that night, I have spared no effort compatible with my deep respect for your feelings, to ascertain who the young lady was that had done me such an honor, and won from me such a deep regard. I had not intended to tell you this," I added, "but your truth has awakened mine, and whatever the result may be, you must see me as I am."

"You are very kind," she replied governing with growing skill the trembling of her voice. "The acquaintance of a girl of sixteen is not worth so much trouble on the part of a man like yourself." And blus.h.i.+ng with the vague apprehension of her s.e.x in the presence of a devotion she rather feels than understands, she waved her trembling little hand and paused irresolute, seemingly anxious to terminate the interview but as yet too inexperienced to know how to manage a dismissal requiring so much tact and judgment.

I saw, comprehended her position and hesitated. She was so young, uncle, her prospects in life were so bright; if I left her then, in a couple of weeks she would forget me. What was I that I should throw the shadow of manhood's deepest emotion across the paradise of her young untrammelled being. But the old Adam of selfishness has his say in my soul as well as in that of my fellow-men, and forgetting myself enough to glance at her half averted face, I could not remember myself sufficiently afterwards to forego without a struggle, all hope of some day beholding that soft cheek turn in confidence at my approach.

"Miss Preston," said I, "the promise of the bud atones for its folded leaves." Then with a fervor I did not seek to disguise, "You say we cannot be friends; would your decision be the same if this were our first meeting?"

Again that flush of outraged feeling. "I don't know--yes I think--I fear it would."

I strove to help her. "There is too great a difference between Bertram Mandeville the pianist, and the daughter of Thaddeus Preston."

She turned and looked me gently in the eye, she did not need to speak.

Regret, shame, longing flashed in her steady glance.

"Do not answer," said I, "I understand; I am glad it is circ.u.mstances that stand in the way, and not any misconception on your part as to my motives and deep consideration for yourself. Circ.u.mstances can be changed." And satisfied with having thus dropped into the fruitful soil of that tender breast, the seed of a future hope, I bowed with all the deference at my command and softly withdrew.

But not to rest. With all the earnestness with which a man sets himself to decide upon the momentous question of life or death, I gave myself up to a night of reflection, and seated in my solitary bachelor apartment, debated with myself as to the resolution at which I had dimly hinted in my parting words to Miss Preston.

That I am a musician by nature, my success with the the public seems to indicate. That by following out the line upon which I had entered I would attain a certain eminence in my art, I do not doubt. But uncle, there are two kinds of artists in this world; those that work because the spirit is in them and they cannot be silent if they would, and those that speak from a conscientious desire to make apparent to others the beauty that has awakened their own admiration. The first could not give up his art for any cause, without the sacrifice of his soul's life; the latter--well the latter could and still be a man with his whole inner being intact. Or to speak plainer, the first has no choice, while the latter has, if he has a will to exert it. Now you will say, and the world at large, that I belong to the former cla.s.s. I have risen in ten years from a choir boy in Trinity Church to a position in the world of music that insures me a full audience wherever and whenever I have a mind to exert my skill as a pianist. Not a man of my years has a more promising outlook in my profession, if you will pardon the seeming egotism of the remark, and yet by the ease with which I felt I could give it up at the first touch of a master pa.s.sion, I know that I am not a prophet in my art but merely an interpreter, one who can speak well but who has never felt the descent of the burning tongue and hence not a sinner against my own soul if I turn aside from the way I am walking.

The question was, then, should I make a choice? Love, as you say, seems at first blush too insecure a joy, if not often too trivial a one, to unsettle a man in his career and change the bent of his whole after life; especially a love born of surprise and fed by the romance of distance and mystery. Had I met her in ordinary intercourse, surrounded by her friends and without the charm cast over her by unwonted circ.u.mstances, and then had felt as I did now that of all women I had seen, she alone would ever move the deep springs of my being, it would be different. But with this atmosphere of romance surrounding and hallowing her girl's form till it seemed almost as ethereal and unearthly as that of an angel's, was I safe in risking fame or fortune in an attempt to acquire what in the possession might prove as bare and common-place as a sweep of mountain heather stripped of its suns.h.i.+ne.

Curbing every erratic beat of my heart, I summoned up her image as it bloomed in my fancy, and surveying it with cruel eyes, asked what was real and what the fruit of my own imagination. The gentle eye, the trembling lip, the girlish form eloquent with the promise of coming womanhood,--were these so rare, that beside them no other woman should seem to glance or smile or move? And her words! what had she said, that any simple-minded, modest yet loving girl might not have uttered under the circ.u.mstances. Surely my belief in her being the one, the best and the dearest was a delusion, and to no delusion was I willing to sacrifice my art. But straight upon that conclusion came sweeping down a flood of counter-reasons. If not the wonder she seemed, she was at least a wonder to me. If I had seen her under romantic circ.u.mstances, and unconsciously been influenced by them, the influence had remained and nothing would ever rob her form of the halo thus acquired. Whether I ever won her to my fireside or not, she must always remain the fairy figure of my dreams, and being so, the gentle eye and tender lip acquired a value that made them what they seemed, the exponent of love and happiness. And lastly if love well or illy founded was an uncertain joy, and the pa.s.sion for a woman a poor subst.i.tute for the natural incentive of talent or ambition, _this_ love had within it the beginning of something deeper than joy, and in the pa.s.sion thus cheaply characterized, dwelt a force and living fire that notwithstanding all I have hitherto achieved, has ever been lacking from my dreams of endeavor.

As you will see, the most natural question of all did not disturb me in these cogitations: And that was, whether in making the sacrifice I proposed, I should meet with the reward I had promised myself. The fancies of a young girl of sixteen are not usually of a stable enough character to warrant a man in building upon them his whole future happiness, especially a young girl situated like Miss Preston in the midst of friends who would soon be admirers, and adulators who would soon be her humble slaves. But the doubt which a serious contemplation of this risk must have presented, was of so unnerving a character, I dared not admit it. _If_ I made the sacrifice, I must meet with my reward. I would listen to no other conclusion. Besides, something in the young girl herself, I cannot tell what, a.s.sured me then as it a.s.sures me now, that whatever virtues or graces she might lack, that of fidelity to a n.o.ble idea was not among them; that once convinced of the purity and value of the flame that had been lit in her innocent breast, nothing short of the unworthiness of the object that had awakened it, would ever serve to eliminate or extinguish it. That I was not worthy but would make it the business of my life to become so, was certain; that she would mark my endeavors and bestow upon me the sympathy they deserved, I was equally sure. No one would ever make such a sacrifice to her love as I was willing to do, and consequently in no one would I find a rival.

The morning light surprised me in the midst of the struggle, nor did I decide the question that day. Mr. Preston might not be as determined in his prejudices against musicians as my friends or even his daughter had imagined. I resolved to see him. Taking advantage of his connection with the ---- Club, I procured an introducer in the shape of a highly respected person of his own cla.s.s, and went one evening to the Club-rooms with the full intention of making his acquaintance if possible. He was already there and in conversation with some business a.s.sociates. Procuring a seat as near him as possible, I anxiously surveyed his countenance. It was not a rea.s.suring one, and studied in this way, had the effect of dampening any hopes I may have cherished in the outset. He soften to the sounds of sweet strains or the voice of youthful pa.s.sion! As soon as the granite rock to the surge of the useless billow. His very necktie spoke volumes. It was an old fas.h.i.+oned stock, full of the traditions of other days, while his coat, shabbier than any I would presume to wear, betrayed in every well-worn seam the pride of the aristocrat and millionaire who in his native city and before the eyes of his fellow magnates does not need to carry the evidences of his respectability upon his back.

"It would be worse than folly for me to approach him on such a subject,"

I mentally e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "If he did not stare the musician out of countenance he would the newly risen man." And I came very near giving up the whole thing.

But the genius that watches over the affairs of true love was with me notwithstanding the unpropitious state of my surroundings. In a few minutes I received my expected introduction to Mr. Preston, and I found that underneath the repelling austerity of his expression, was a kindly spark for youth, and a decided sympathy for all instances of manly endeavor if only it was in a direction he approved; further that my own personality was agreeable to him and that he was disposed to regard me with favor until by some chance and very natural allusion to my profession by the friend standing between us, he learned that I was a musician, when a decided change came over his countenance and he exclaimed in that blunt, decisive way of his that admits of no reply:

"A jingler on the piano, eh? Pretty poor use for a man to put his brains to, I say, or even his fingers. Sorry to hear we cannot be friends." And without waiting for a reply, took my introducer by the arm and drew him a step or so to one side. "Why didn't you say at once he was Mandeville the musician," I overheard him ask in somewhat querulous tones. "Don't you know I consider the whole race of them an abomination. I would have more respect for my bank clerk than I would for the greatest man of them all, were it Rubenstein himself." Then in a lower tone but distinctly and almost as if he meant me to hear, "My daughter has a leaning towards this same fol-de-rol and has lately requested my permission to make the acquaintance of some musical characters, but I soon convinced her that manhood under the disguise of a harlequin's jacket could have no interest for her; that when a human being, man or woman has sunk to be a mere rattler of sweet sounds, he has reached a stage of infantile development that has little in common with the nervous energy and business force of her Dutch ancestry. And my daughter stoops to make no acquaintances she cannot bid sit at her father's table."

"Your daughter is a child yet, I thought," was ventured by his companion.

"Miss Preston is sixteen, just the age at which my mother gave her hand to my respected father sixty-seven years ago." And with this drop of burning lead let fall into my already agitated bosom they pa.s.sed on.