Vignettes of Manhattan; Outlines in Local Color Part 36

"Mrs. Poole?" echoed Mrs. Suydam, indifferently. "I don't know her: I've met her, of course--one meets everybody--but I don't know her. She is good-looking, and she is in the thick of the social struggle. Upward and outward is her motto--Excelsior! They used to say that all last winter you could positively hear her climb. But then they have said that of so many people! She is clever, they say, and she entertains lavishly, so I shouldn't wonder if she succeeded sooner or later; and then she will be so disappointed."

Morton smiled. "From your account," he said, "the social struggle is rather a tragedy than a comedy; and I confess it has. .h.i.therto struck me as not without a suggestion of farce."

"It is absurd, isn't it?" she returned, smiling back. "And are we not a very sn.o.bbish lot? Jimmy declares that society in New York is almost as sn.o.bbish as it is in London even."

There was a moment of silence, and then Morton asked, a little stiffly, "How is Mr. Suydam? You know I have never had the pleasure of meeting him."

"Haven't you?" Mrs. Suydam responded. "You can see him soon. He's to drive George Western's coach. There they come now!"

A trumpet sounded; a gate in the railing at the Fourth Avenue end of the building was opened; and a coach was driven into the arena. A very stout man sat on the box alone.

Mrs. Suydam raised her long-handled eye-gla.s.s and looked at the approaching coachman.

"Oh, that's not Jimmy," she said, quickly; "of course not. That's the man they call The Adipose Deposit."

The trumpet sounded again, and a second coach was turned into the arena.

The four horses were beautifully matched bays. The driver was a tall, thin, youngish man, who sat impa.s.sible on the box, and gave no sign of annoyance when a wheel of the vehicle rasped the gate-post.

"That's Mr. Suydam," said the lady to whom Morton was talking, as the bays trotted briskly past them, the man on the box holding himself rigidly and handling the ribbons skilfully.

"He is quite a professional," Morton remarked.

"Isn't he?" Mrs. Suydam replied. "You know he drove the Brighton coach out of London for three years. He really does it very well, they all say. I've told him that if we ever lost our money he would make a very superior coachman."

"Those bays go together admirably," the college professor declared, "and Mr. Suydam handles them superbly. But how pitiful it is to see their tails docked!"

"Oh, they do that in England," she explained, "so it's fas.h.i.+onable. But it is ugly, isn't it? Do you remember what a lovely long tail that Kentucky mare had, the one I rode that day--"

Then Mrs. Suydam paused suddenly.

"Yes," answered Morton, not looking at her, "I remember it."

Mrs. Suydam conquered her slight embarra.s.sment and gave a light little laugh.

"How rude I have been!" she said. "Here I've been talking about myself and about my husband, and I haven't asked about you. Are you married yet?"

"No," he answered, and now he looked at her, and she blushed again; "and I am not likely ever to marry, I think. There was only one woman in the world for me, and I told her so, but she didn't care for me at all, and she told me so--and then she touched up that Kentucky mare and rode away with my heart hanging at her saddle-bow."

"You can find a better woman than she is," was her response; "a woman who will make you a better wife than she would ever have done."

Before Morton could reply to this, the girl and the two young men who had been in the box at first returned from their visit to the stables.

The trumpet sounded again, and the judges made the drivers of the four coaches--for two more had entered after Mr. Suydam's--repeat their evolutions around the arena. And then, after protracted consultation together, the awards were made, and grooms ran to attach rosettes to the leaders of the team driven by the stout gentleman, who took the first prize, and then to the leaders of the team driven by Suydam, who took the second prize. The numbers of the winning coaches were displayed on the wide sign-boards at each end of the hall. The coaches were driven around again, and then out. The trumpets were silent for a while; and the bra.s.s band crashed forth again.

"Jimmy won't like not getting the first prize, will he?" asked the girl who had just returned to the box.

"I don't think it will worry him," answered his wife, with a return of her haughty manner.

She had not introduced Morton to any of the others in the box.

In the presence of so many it was impossible to resume their conversation on the old friendly basis. It seemed to Morton that since the girl and the young men had come back there was a difference in Mrs.

Suydam's manner towards him; he could not define it to himself, but he felt it. Perhaps she was conscious of this herself.

When he made a movement preparatory to going, she said: "Must you go? I wanted you to meet my husband. Can't you drop in and lunch with us to-morrow?"

Morton thanked her and regretted that he might have to take a midnight train, and expressed his pleasure at having met her again. Then she held out her hand once more; and a minute later he was again in the thick of the throng circling along the promenade.

Before he reached the entrance the music was checked suddenly and the trumpet blared out, and then the voice of a man in the centre of the building was heard, intermittently, hopelessly endeavoring to inform the thousands packed in the splendid edifice that the fastest trotter in the world would now be shown. The crowd which was staring steadily at the men and women in the boxes paid little attention to this proclamation; to it the men and women in the boxes were far more interesting than any horses could be, even if any one of these could trot a mile in two minutes without a running mate.

(1895.)

IN THE WATCHES OF THE NIGHT

It was still snowing solidly as the carriage swung out of the side street and went heavily on its way up the avenue; the large flakes soon thickened again upon the huge fur collars of the two men who sat on the box bolt-upright; the flat crystals frosted the windows of the landau so that the trained nurse could see out only on one side. She sat back in the luxurious vehicle. She had on the seat beside her the bag containing her change of raiment; and she wondered, as she always did when she was called unexpectedly to take charge of an unknown case, what manner of house it might be that she was going to enter, and what kind of people she would be forced to a.s.sociate with in the swift intimacy of the sick-room and for an unknown period. That the patient was wealthy and willing to spend his wealth was obvious--the carriage, the horses, the liveried servants, were evidence enough of this. That his name was Sw.a.n.k she also knew; and she thought that perhaps she had heard about the marriage of a rich old man named Sw.a.n.k to a pretty young wife a year or two ago. That he had been taken sick suddenly, and that the case might be serious, she had gathered from the note which the doctor had sent to summon her, and which had been brought by the carriage that was now returning with her.

She had ample time for speculation as they drove up the avenue in the early darkness of the last day of the year. The Christmas wreaths still decked the windows of the hotels, although through the steady snow she could see little more than a blur of reddish-yellow light as she sped past. There were few people in the avenue, except as they crossed the broader side streets, now beginning to be filled with the throng of workers returning home after the day's labor. They pa.s.sed St. Patrick's Cathedral, already encrusted with snow whiter than its stone. They came to Central Park, and they kept on, with its broad meadows on their left gray in the descending darkness. At last the carriage drew up before a house on a corner--a very large house it seemed to the trained nurse; and its marble front struck her as cold, not to call it gloomy. Workmen were hastily erecting the frame of an awning down the marble steps, and a path had been made across the snowy sidewalk.

The footman carried her bag up the stoop and rang the bell for her.

The door was opened promptly by a very British butler.

"This is the nurse for Mr. Sw.a.n.k," said the footman. "Is he any better?"

"'E's about the same, I'm thinkin'," the butler responded. "This way, please," he said to the owner of the bag, which the footman deposited just inside the door. "I'll take you up to Mr. Sw.a.n.k's room, and I'll send your bag up to you afterwards."

The trained nurse followed the butler up the ma.s.sive wooden stairs, heavy with dark carving. She noticed that the house was now dimly lighted, and that there was a going and a coming of servants, as though in preparation for an entertainment of some sort.

"We 'ave a dinner on this evening," the butler explained; "only twenty-four; but it's 'ard Mr. Sw.a.n.k ain't goin' to be able to come down. We're keepin' the 'ouse dark now, so it won't get too 'ot at dinner-time."

Whatever the reason for the absence of adequate illumination, it made the upper hall even more dismal than the one below--so the trained nurse thought.

"That's Mr. Sw.a.n.k's room there; and 'ere's 'is dressin'-room, that you're to 'ave--so the doctor said," the butler declared, leading the stranger into a small room with a lofty ceiling, and with one window overlooking Central Park. The shades had not been drawn; the single gas-jet was burning dimly; there was no fireplace; and a sofa on one side had had sheets and blankets put on it to serve as her bed.

She almost s.h.i.+vered, the place seemed to her so cheerless. But her training taught her not to think of her own comfort.

"This will do very well," she a.s.serted.

"I'll tell them to fetch up your bag," the butler said, as he was about to withdraw. "Would you be wantin' any dinner later?"

"Yes," she answered, "I would like something to eat later--whenever it is convenient."

The butler left the room, only to reappear almost immediately.

"'Ere's the doctor now," he announced, holding the door open.

A tall, handsome man, with a masterful mouth, walked in with a soft, firm tread.