Read Ebook: The Crime of Henry Vane: A Study with a Moral by Stimson Frederic Jesup

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At the end of the first year Vane took a week's vacation, walking in the Catskills. Every week he had a letter from Rennes; and frequently one from Dr. K?rouec, telling him of no change in his mother's condition. When he returned from his vacation, he was called into the counting-room of the senior partner, and given a check for four hundred dollars in addition to his first year's salary of six hundred; and, moreover, was promoted to a position of three thousand a year salary. That first year, Vane had spent three hundred and eighty dollars in board and lodging, and eighty more in pocket money. He had bought no clothing, having brought all he needed from France. His travelling expenses had been large, but these he had charged to the account of his father's estate. This left him five hundred and forty dollars to the good.

Vane then went to Mr. Peyton and borrowed three thousand dollars on his own security. This three thousand he sent to Dr. K?rouec; and five hundred dollars of his earnings he invested in a life-assurance policy payable to Dr. K?rouec as trustee for his mother. He thus had forty dollars in his pocket at the beginning of his second year.

His mother's hair was now white; she was quiet, but still hopelessly insane, nor did she even recognize him.

Vane was back again on the first of September. When he presented himself at the bank, he was offered a responsible position, and a salary of six thousand dollars a year, with a hint of partnership in the near future. He now removed to lodgings in Eighteenth Street; and on going home that night, for the first time in two years he burst into a fit of crying. This turn of hysterics was the prelude to a low fever, of which he lay five weeks ill.

JOHN HAVILAND was with him a great deal of this time, and, on his recovery, took him severely to task for the life he had been leading. For three years he had been a mere machine--a blind, passionless, purposeful energy. A man, and a young man, could not live like that. What pleasure had he taken in all that time? And a young man, unless he has attained happiness, cannot live entirely without pleasure, even if it be true that he should not seek for it. And Haviland knew enough of Vane's life to feel assured that there had not hitherto been much happiness. Moreover, Vane was a man of the world, and had been out of it for three years. It was unnatural. He should see something of the people of his own country. His mother was well; and would probably be the same for years. And he had been nearly three years in mourning. "Now," John concluded, "I wish you to come to a dinner at our house on Friday."

Vane smiled, and looked at his threadbare black suit--one of the original black suits--which had seen much service since he brought it over from France. But he pleasantly accepted John's invitation, and forthwith visited his tailor. That afternoon, in the park, as he turned to come home from his walk, and saw the walls and spires of his own city harshly outlined before the sunset, he realized for the first time that he was a stranger in a strange land. For the first time, as he walked down Fifth Avenue, between the level, high wall of house fronts, with their regular squares of lighted windows, he caught himself wondering what was behind these windows. Now and then he saw a feminine silhouette on the white window-shades; in some houses, even, he could see into a lower room; there were usually pictures on the walls and often books, or bindings, on the shelves; there was frequently an old gentleman by the fireside, and always a young girl or two. It was piquant to catch these glimpses of the domestic hearth from the street; he remembered how impossible such visions were in the Faubourg, among the old hotels between court and garden.

As he thought of the newly discovered country he was soon to enter, so strange to him, he felt that he, also, was strange to himself. He tried to bring back his old nature of the boulevards, Longchamp and Trouville; but it seemed to him childish and obsolete; showy and senseless, like a pasteboard suit of stage armor. He did not regret it. He was a man and an American; men were earnest, life in America was earnest. He knew little of his own city; but he had read the current novels; and he thought that he had seen enough to know that the every-day life in America was tangible, material, and the life of society what it should be, a gay leisure, a surface of pleasure and rest. Now, in Paris it was the every-day life that was trivial; the theatres were filled with vaudevilles; but the tragedies were everywhere, off the stage. It was well, the young man felt, that he was an American; his life had begun too sternly for a more artificial state of society; he lacked more than other people, and he demanded more from the world.

Coming above into the reception room, his first impressions were decidedly favorable. John's mother was a comely woman of that comfortable domestic sort known as motherly; she raised one's opinion of human nature even by the way in which she sat down. The prevailing tone seemed refined, Vane thought. No more bad taste was visible than is unavoidable in a country where the head of a family dies in a finer house than the one he was born in. The women were charming in dress, and face and figure; but their voices were disagreeable, and they seemed to him a little brusque. In fact, the men, though rather awkward, seemed to have more social importance, if not better breeding.

So far had he progressed in his studies, when a voice over his shoulder said, "Miss Thomas--Mr. Vane." Inferring that he was being presented, he turned quickly about, bowing as he did so. The young lady did not wait for him to begin, but at once rattled off a number of questions about himself and his foreign life. As the most of these she answered herself with an "I suppose," or a "but of course," Vane had leisure to observe her while she talked. She was pretty; admirably, sweetly pretty; there was no doubt of that; as pretty as masses of dead-black hair and eyes of intense gentian blue could make her. She had a lovely neck and hands; and a smile which seemed placed there with a divine foreknowledge of kisses. It was at once infantine, arch and gentle; and then there was a pretty little toss of the head and a shrug of the white, young shoulders. Vane looked at her curiously, a little condescendingly perhaps, as the first specimen of the natives he had seen. She did not seem to mind his looking at her. If a French girl had so calmly borne his glance, there would have been a little of the coquette in hers. But, after all, thought Vane,--this was charming; more ideal, more intelligent, sweeter than Paris--but it was not unlike Paris. The dress was certainly Parisian. She was better dressed than young ladies are in Paris. Her people must be very rich. Yet, he was disappointed. She was not American enough. She would have been quite in his mood of five years gone by. She was not like English girls; and he had hoped American girls were like them.

Vane had just finished this process of mentally ticketing her off, when she grew silent. The first quick rush of her conversation was gone. She seemed to be getting her breath and waiting for him. He did not quite know how to begin. This young lady reminded him of a glass of champagne. When you first pour it out, there is a froth and sparkle; then a stillness comes; if you wish a fresh volume of sparkles, you must drop something into it. A piece of sugar is best. Vane's French breeding stood him in good stead: he began with a compliment.

After the dinner, the nine ladies disappeared from the room; and the nine men grouped themselves at one end of the table and smoked cigars over the sweetmeats. When the room was well filled with tobacco-smoke, they threw open the doors, and returned to the drawing-room. The ladies were grouped about, picturesquely, drinking tea; and the air was delicate with their presence. As the body of men moved in, it seemed a little like an incursion of the Huns into Italy.

The party kept together but a few moments more. Most of the men were sleepy; little was said by the women. It was as if there were nothing to talk about, or as if the men had eaten too much; but they had eaten very little. Vane was relieved when they got out of doors.

John walked back to his lodgings with him. The two young men found no lack of things to talk about. Haviland took still another cigar. "What did you think of the dinner?" said he finally. "I mean, the people?"

"I thought it was very pleasant," said Vane, eluding the second form of the question. But Haviland recurred to it.

"I mean the people. Miss Thomas, for instance."

"Miss Thomas, for instance," said the stranger. "I think," he continued, recalling to mind his mental label, "she is sweet-tempered, innocent, ambitious, and shallow." Vane had formerly prided himself on some acquaintance with women of the world.

John laughed. "Perhaps you are right," he said. "But she will amuse you, and wake you up." It seemed as if he were remembering something; then he laughed again. "You do not do her justice yet. She is one of the most entertaining and, in an innocent little way, exciting girls I know. I put her next you for that purpose."

"Who is her father?"

"Oh, a stockbroker down-town. No one in particular. The family would not interest you."

"None of the mammas were here to-night?"

"Dear me, no," answered John. "Why do you ask?"

"I should like to see some of them; that is all."

AT this time Vane was not in the habit of thinking about women. He had found life particularly serious, and girls were not serious. Somewhat fatuously, perhaps, he fancied no woman under thirty could either understand him, or arouse his own interest. And most of the women over thirty were married. He understood that in America any intimacy with married women was out of the question; married women were quite given up to domestic duties, and kept out of society.

But Vane had certain theories of his own as to social observances, and he thought it his duty, after taking Miss Thomas in to dinner, to call upon her. He performed this duty upon the following afternoon. He found her in a somewhat dingy house on East Fifteenth Street, but, though the setting was dull and commonplace, herself was even prettier than he remembered her, and simply and charmingly dressed. Vane was no amateur of bric-?-brac; he had no auctioneer's eye, and, if a room was in perfect taste, did not commonly notice it at all; but glaring faults would force themselves upon him, and he could not help observing that, with the exception of the daughter's dress, the household showed no evidence of knowledge of what is good in literature, art, or taste.

Was he going to Mrs. Roster's ball? she had asked.--No, he thought not. He did not know her.--He had better go. Every one would be there.

"Then I fear I am no one," said Vane. "I am not even invited." He was sorry to fancy that her interest in him flagged a little after this. She had met him at a good house, but, after all, he might be a mere prot?g? of John Haviland's. Mr. Haviland was always picking up queer people. A moment after this Vane took his leave.

Why should he not go to Mrs. Roster's? he said to himself. He could not always be brooding on the addled eggs of the past. After all, the world was all that was left him, and in the world the dance still went on merrily, and maidens' eyes were bright; leaves still were green, and the foam of the sea as white as ever, and wine still sparkled in the glass. He said this to himself with a somewhat sceptical grin, for, like most Frenchmen with whom he had lived, he took little pleasure in drinking. A Frenchman drinks to go to the devil: he rarely goes to the devil because he drinks. Yet he was, or at all events he had been, fond of society. He had liked light and gay faces, and bright conversation, and heartlessness--if there must be heartlessness--masked under suave manners and intellectual sympathy. Out of society the heartlessness was just as real, he had used to think, only ruder; there is at least as much snobbishness, and it is more offensively vulgar. He could not stay always out from all society. He must find something to pull him back into the world; he must get some grip of life. Hitherto his only foothold had been his clear necessity of making eighteen thousand francs a year to send to his mother.

He could probably have persuaded himself with much less reasoning if he had not had a secret inclination to go; but, as it was, he reasoned himself into it, and thought that he thought it was a bore. So he went to Mrs. Roster's ball. Of course he admired the beauty of American women; the beauty of American women is like the Hudson River; one is bound to prefer it to the Rhine. He thought the party was very pretty and the dancing beautifully done, and, moreover, he made the acquaintance of several young ladies of quite a different type than Miss Thomas's. They had plenty of breeding and intelligence, and talked the latest slang of culture to perfection, and were evidently of the great world, if they had not quite so much charm as she. Still none of these, as yet, were essentially American, or even very deeply English, though they dabbled in it.

Miss Thomas herself, for some reason unknown to Vane, did not receive quite so much attention as he had fancied that she would. It was not her fault, for she was charmingly dressed and never looked prettier.

As he was ready to leave he met her, for the first time, coming down the stairs in wraps and wanting her carriage.

"You have not spoken to me the whole evening," said she softly, as she took his arm.

"I was afraid to, mademoiselle," said Vane, half jocosely.

"Come to-morrow," she whispered seriously. "It is my day for receiving, and I shall be so glad to see you." Vane bowed his thanks, and the next moments were occupied in conveying herself and skirts safely into the coup?. As he was about to shut the door she extended her hand frankly: "You will come, won't you?" Vane was a little puzzled; he took her hand awkwardly, and muttered something about being only too delighted. He had no experience whatever of American women, much less American girls. Why should she so particularly wish to see him? He called the next day, expecting to learn, but in that he was doomed to disappointment. Apparently Miss Thomas, if she had any reason, had forgotten it; she had very little to say, and the call was quite conventional and commonplace. "Bah!" he thought, as he walked home. "Here I have wasted half an afternoon over this girl simply because she asked me. Doubtless she herself had nothing better to do than waste it over me." And perhaps he added secretly that his life was something more serious than hers, and, at all events, he had no mind for light flirtation.

NEVERTHELESS, some curious chance made him see a good deal of Miss Thomas. He was very apt to sit next her at dinner, even if he did not take her in. And whatever she might be, she certainly was not silly. She said very little, it is true; but it occurred to Vane one day that what she did say never placed her in a false or foolish position. Nor had he ever made a remark which she did not fully understand, in its full bearing and implication. Sometimes she affected--particularly if its nature was complimentary--to be wholly unconscious of its meaning; sometimes she would even ask an explanation. But a moment after, she was very apt to say or do some little thing which showed that she had understood it perfectly. Vane, who, in his flippant moods, was rather an adept at conversational fencing, and had flattered himself that very careful ground was quite unnecessary with Miss Thomas, gradually put more attention into his guard and more care in his attack. And when he saw, to continue his own metaphor, that his simple thrusts in quarte and tierce were easily parried and sometimes returned, he began to honor his adversary with a more elaborate attack. But, as he one day acknowledged to himself, though she had rarely touched him, yet he was not sure that he had ever got fairly under her own guard. Altogether, the more he saw of Miss Thomas, the more she interested him; and after the serious struggles of the day, he quite enjoyed his little playful evening encounters with so charming a feminine adversary. For he began to admit to himself that she was charming--there was no doubt of that. And meantime the intercourse with her happy, simple nature was having a beneficial influence on his own.

For the past three years his attitude had been one of stern courage, of self-renunciation. But, after all, why should even he be always shut out from the spring? Flowers still bloomed in the world, summer followed winter, and this pretty little butterfly that fluttered near him might, after all, bring him healthier thoughts from her own air than he found in his morbid life. What a sharp inquisitor is one's own self! What a cross-examiner of hidden motive! And what a still sharper witness is that self under inquisition! Vane never took his young friend seriously; and felt a need of excusing himself for trifling, as he thought.

John suddenly asked him, one day, what he thought of Miss Thomas now, and whether he had changed his views at all. "I was very much struck with your first diagnosis," he said. "At a moment's study, you gave the popular opinion of her; that she was gay, shallow, good-humored, and ambitious--and you might have added clever, rather than innocent."

Vane was a little displeased.

"I think that I and the world were wrong," said he. "She is not shallow, but she is humble rather than vain; as for ambition, she is perhaps too much without it; and I should not be surprised if somewhere about her pretty little self she had a true woman's heart, which she is not yet conscious of."

"And do you mean to say that she still cares for him after that?"

"So the world thinks; and the world is apt to be right in such matters."

"Bah!" said Vane. "No woman could care for a man who had once led her to believe he loved her, and left her."

"Humph!" answered John. "That may be true of woman in the abstract; but I am not sure of its truth in this longitude. It is easier to judge woman in general than a New York girl in particular."

"At all events," said Vane, "I give her full leave to try her skill on me, skilful as you say she is. Indeed, if you think she is fair game for what you call a flirtation, you have removed my only scruples."

"Very well, old boy--go in. But Miss Thomas once told another girl that she could understand any man in two days' acquaintance. Don't go in too deep."

"Nonsense!" thought Vane when John had left. "I flatter myself I am beyond her hurting. It is pleasant enough to have her as a friend. I wish I could wish to marry her." And he called to his mind Brittany and that last rose. "But I am sorry if she really can still care for that man. Ten Eyck was his name? I should be sorry to like her less. How strange these American women are! Now, in France--Bah!" he broke off, "it can't be true; and, after all, what do I care if it is?"

Thus, thanks to Miss Thomas and a little sight of the lighter rim of life, Vane passed a winter which, if not happy, was at least less bitter than he had known for years. In the natural course of events, society pronounced him attentive to Miss Thomas; but Vane cared little for that. His character was not of the mould which cares what the world says. He did not believe that her life was very happy, either; and he thought they were both the better for their friendship. The more he saw of her, the less he doubted that she had at one time cared for some one, Ten Eyck or another; though, of course, for him she would never care again. After all, she was his superior; she had kept her sweet self above her sorrow, he had not. How he had misinterpreted her that first evening! Now he saw she was a woman, in all the glory of her womanhood, strong, gentle, and true.

VANE stayed with old Dr. K?rouec in Rennes, and found the good physician kinder than ever. He always called Vane "my son" now, and he had to submit to numerous embraces, a proceeding he did not like, for in his manners Vane had that clumsiness in expressing anything emotional, that Gothic phlegm, about which Saxons grow vainglorious, and for which Celts detest them.

Every day Vane walked in the garden with his mother--a painful duty, for she never remembered him. Her dementia was quite harmless now, and she sometimes spoke to Vane of himself, not knowing him, but never mentioned his father. Curiously enough her talk was much of Mary, and of the English girl who had been the object of his boyish affections. Vane heard casually of her marriage that summer, and was more surprised than pleased to find how little the news affected him.

Once in a while, however, he caught himself wondering what Miss Thomas was doing; and a week after his arrival he received a note from her to thank him for the flowers he had sent. She also said that they were at some place in Pennsylvania for the summer, far from the madding crowd, but she found the place very stupid and the people inane. There was nothing to do there. The men were all young Philadelphians, she wrote, and generally uninteresting. Vane was glad to get the note, and of course never thought of replying.

At this time Vane was a handsome, erect fellow, with a large aquiline nose, and heavy eyebrows shading quiet eyes. Most of the people knew him well as the doctor's prot?g?. One day the good old doctor came to him with an air of much mysterious importance. He passed Vane's arm through his, and led him to his favorite walk up and down the garden. "My son," he began, tapping him on the shoulder, and beginning in a way he evidently thought to be diplomatic, "you are growing older, and it is not good for you to be alone. Listen! it is time you should marry."

Vane looked up quickly, and then struggled to repress a smile.

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