Short Fiction · A Transaction In Hearts (2/12) (1/2)

I

The quiet of the morning was punctuated by a housemaid who, aware that the master was astir, was singing, for his benefit, “Jesus loves me,” in a treble of irritating insistence. Already the carriage had arrived, and as Gonfallon drew on his gloves he wondered by what token he should recognize the sister of his wife. He had the vaguest memory of her, a slip of a girl who years before had sat opposite him at dinner, the eyes lowered, the hair in pendent plaits. And as his thoughts went back to earlier days, Ruth called to him from the floor above, “If you don’t see her at once, ask the captain: she is in his charge.”

Gonfallon was not a whit more unselfish than the best of us, yet that morning, his routine upset, his coffee undigested, the paper barely skimmed, and, paramount of all, Ruth’s neuralgia which forced him to the wharf alone, made him conscious that, momentarily, for all of him, in the captain’s charge the girl might remain.

But he assented smilingly, as was his wont; and when, after a long sweep down the Avenue and a brisk drive through hideous little streets, he caught a sniff of salt water, his equanimity returned, and as the carriage rolled into the domed and creaking peninsula the momentary annoyance was forgot.

Already the Bourgogne was in the offing, and Gonfallon had but a few moments in which to kick his heels before the great ship was moored and the gangplank let down. As the vessel swung round he had gazed up at the faces that lined the rail, trusting to his own intuition to recognize the girl unprompted; but as yet among the passengers he saw no one that in any way resembled the shy little maid whom he had come to meet.

“H’m,” he mused, “I dare say she has recognized me and is too timid to make a sign.” And, reflecting that after all, in view of his cloth, it would be more dignified to make inquiry of someone than to stand staring women out of countenance, he descended in the caverns of memory and recovered a sentence in French.

“Where is the purser to be found?” he asked of an official at his side.

“Le voilà,” the man answered, not over-suavely, and nodded towards an individual bebraided with gold who stood within hailing-distance.

Gonfallon turned to the person thus designated, and presently succeeded in catching his eye. “Would you be good enough⁠—” he began, and, as the purser leaned forward the better to catch his speech, Gonfallon added, “I am looking for Miss Bucholz.”

The purser lifted his arms and assumed an expression of the civilest and most amiable perplexity. “Really, sir, I regret, perhaps⁠—” And as he shrugged his shoulders and bowed, as who should say, “It is a grief that I cannot serve you,” a young man dressed Piccadilly-fashion touched him on the arm.

“I beg pardon: Dr. Gonfallon, I believe. My name is Mr. Yarde. Miss Bucholz is yonder.”

And as Gonfallon, in obedience to the summons, turned again, he heard the purser, presumably to a sympathetic ear, exclaim, “Ah, çà! Does he think I have his Miss Bucholz in my pocket?”

But Gonfallon had no opportunity of meditating on the variation of demeanor which is peculiar to the French: a moment or two later the guide which Providence or his sister-in-law had sent, had led him through coils of descending passengers to a corner of the deck, which, so nearly as his vision permitted him to discern, was occupied by but one person, a pouting, good-looking lad, such as one may see any day at Eton during term-time, who stood leaning against the back of a steamer-chair in such a manner that only the head and shoulders were visible.

“Here,” said the guide, greatly to Gonfallon’s astonishment, “here is your quest.⁠—Miss Bucholz, can I be of further assistance?”

Immediately the pout disappeared, and a hand gloved in suede was extended. “Is Ruth not with you?”

And then for the first time Gonfallon realized that he was in the presence of her whom he sought.

“Yes,” he answered⁠—“no, I mean. She is at the house⁠—” In amusement at his own surprise, he smiled a little. “I have a carriage, though⁠—”

The girl turned to the young man who had introduced himself as Mr. Yarde. “You may go,” she said, abruptly, and to her lips the pout returned.

The young man made as would he speak, but evidently he thought better of it, and, raising his hat, took himself off. As he moved away, Gonfallon glanced at him, and as he glanced there bubbled within him that unmotived, instinctive dislike of which antipathy is born.

“Detestable little cad!” the girl muttered, and issued from her barricade.

Gonfallon eyed her curiously. Whatever manner of gown she wore was covered by an ulster. On her head was a sailor-hat, about her neck was a high white collar, the ends bent, and beneath it was a scarf such as is worn by men. She was worse than pretty. In her skin was the hue of that white rose which has a sulphur heart. Her features had the surety of an intaglio, her head was small, the brow low; in her hair, which was short and curled, was the glisten of gold-leaf shown to the sun. Her eyes were of porcelain-blue, the under lids retreating and shorter than the upper. The effect of her mouth, now that the pout had gone, was that of lips untouched and unaware of love. In height she was a trifle taller than the average New York girl. She held herself with the erectness of one accustomed to the saddle. And when again she spoke, Gonfallon felt the charm of that undulant intonation which is the sweetest heritage of English speech.

“Father, I suppose, was too busy to meet me, was he not?” she asked.

Too busy, indeed! Gonfallon thought of the sodden mortal he had seen the week before ambling down a side-street, the estray of millions and of health, and then, remembering that Claire was as yet uninformed of the successive disasters in which he had foundered, he nodded cheerily and smiled.

“Yes, yes, of course. Ruth would have come too, but she is a martyr⁠—no, but really a martyr, you know.” For a second he paused, as though in some dumb fashion he might console the girl for the absence of those she loved. “You had a pleasant trip, I hope?” he added. “If you will come with me I will put you in the carriage and see to your traps. Have you the keys?”

An hour later, without further incident necessary of record, the house was reached, and Gonfallon, leaving the girl to her sister’s ministrations, went to his study to sandpaper an address for the morrow. But, whether because his routine had been disturbed, or because he was personally out of trim, certain it is that he felt in no mood for the chastening of homilies that noon. For a little while he still fingered the manuscript, striving to coerce his thoughts, until, conscious of the futility of the endeavor, he abandoned further effort and lounged back into the past.

At the time contemporaneous to the episodes with which these pages have to deal, Christopher Gonfallon was in his fortieth year. Across his forehead was a sabre-cut which thought had dealt, near the temples was a suspicion of gray, on either side of his nostrils were the beginnings of furrows, but otherwise the years had been gentle. In his face and bearing was the fragrance of the fields. He wore no beard, his lip was unmoustached. His eyes were of that green-black which is noticeable in dysodile coal. His profile suggested sensitiveness, the full-face strength. Lavater would not have praised his chin. At first sight you would have taken him for a maker of songs and of laws, but his coat betrayed him. By profession he was an ecclesiastic, a priest of the Episcopal Church.

On the conferment of orders he had accepted a call at Bronx, a somnolent New England hamlet, and there during an entire decade he had wasted his fervors on a collection of cattle, surreptitiously beloved the while by a procession of parochial maids.

Throughout the parish, however, there was at most but one person capable of appreciating the imageries of his speech, and that person, the Countess of Cinq-Cygne, was deaf. To this lady his subsequent and metropolitan success was indirectly due.

The countess, born a Chisolm-Jones, lived in a great stone house that overlooked the village and patches of the surrounding country as well. And this stone house each summer and autumn she was accustomed to populate with detachments and reinforcements of guests. The winter she passed in meditation, though not, presumably, of the count. For de Cinq-Cygne, who had enjoyed the formidable reputation of being the handsomest member of the Jockey, had, after marrying the heiress of Bronx, as the countess was known in her youth, and promenading her through the Tuileries, returned with her to the New England hamlet from which he one day disappeared companioned by his wife’s nearest friend. It was rumored that he had returned to the Tuileries and the Jockey Club. But from the countess no mention of him could be wrung. After Sedan she put on black, and it was taken for granted that the count had fallen with the eagle and the imperial bees. Of the fate of the companion of his flight her kinsfolk never asked.

During the last months of winter Gonfallon was a frequent guest at the house on the hill. The countess was too infirm to attend services with any satisfaction to herself, but she was devout, and the visits of the pastor were grateful to her. She was appreciative, and, despite her encroaching deafness, pleasant and intelligent of speech. She had a smile of singular indulgence, and, though her beauty was that of a city raised from the ground, still, you divined among the vestiges the seductions of earlier charm. By repute she had been indeed a belle; and as for her manner, time had coped with it in vain: she was still the high-bred woman who had shown the pinchbeck maréchales and marchionesses of the Tuileries how to walk, and who, when the Emperor on learning that her baptismal name was Helen had exclaimed, “Ah that I were Paris!” had answered, “Sire, you are France.”

Of connections she had many, yet of relations but one, a nephew, Mr. A. B. Fenwick Chisolm-Jones by name, familiarly known as Alphabet, a young gentleman of literary promise which thus far he had failed to fulfil. To the aunt in the sultriness of the summer months the nephew came, and with him anyone else who could be lured that way. But in the winter the great house was almost uninhabited; and so it came about that in the soundless dusks the one man in the village who could speak English correctly was made welcome there and at home.

The countess, as has been intimated, was devout. In the old cosmogony she had the amplest faith. To her, heaven was just beyond the stars, and hell beneath the ferrule of her crutch. To the truth of any miracle she would have testified on oath. Had anyone so much as hinted before her that the precepts of the synoptic gospels were due to Socrates and the Socratics, she would have routed the blasphemer with the sign of the cross. It was rumored that in youth she had been less orthodox. But with age religion held her like a vice; it was her ultimate refuge; and as Gonfallon penetrated its abysses he fell to wondering whether his own creed might not be as futile as was hers. Yet to argue with her would have been profitable as the chiding of a river. As a consequence, he held his peace, perplexed at times, but endeavoring in the saddle, in long stretches over bleak, unfrequented roads, to starve his thoughts into submission and sponge his mind of doubt.

Meanwhile, the tenor of his discourses remained unchanged. Long since he had discovered that to move his congregation he needed not spirituality of metaphor, but powder and shot; and yet, through that obstinacy which inhibits the poet from writing to the crowd, he continued to preach, not to his listeners, but to the lintels above. And to them his lessons bore no trace of the dogmatic. Now and then would come a warning, but the detached and terrible maledictions in which the provincial divine delights were never voiced by him. It was to souls he did not see he spoke, and in his speech were exhortations to virtue and pictures of the perfect peace of conscience at rest. His weapons were parables; the groundwork of his instruction was built on compassion. Did he plead, it was for patience, for abnegation of self; did he exhort, it was to charity, to forgiveness of sin.

Christopher Gonfallon did not preach to the lintels wholly in vain. One green afternoon in June, while he was engaged with the litany, a little man, rather stout, rather pompous, yet shrewd of eye, an individual unknown to the villagers, entered the church and dropped into the first convenient pew, the which, thereupon, apparently interested him no further. During the services he remained apathetic; during the sermon that followed he did not once take his eyes from the preacher. And when, to the accompaniment of the usual “Let your light so shine,” the warden handed him, tentative fashion, the plate, that gentleman was bewildered at the receipt, not of the fraction of a dollar which he had expected, but of the most majestic contribution which he had as yet borne to the rail.

In a village a bit of gossip seems rather to permeate the air than to circulate from mouth to mouth: it reaches the sojourner whether he will it or not. Before teatime that evening everyone in Bronx knew that the little man was Bucholz the monopolist, a visitor, with his daughters, at the house on the hill, piloted there, it was rumored, by the countess’s nephew, Alphabet Jones.

To the house on the hill that evening Christopher Gonfallon was bidden. In summer it was the custom of the countess not to sup, but to dine; and when the doors of the semi-baronial hall were thrown open and a servant announced that her ladyship was served, Gonfallon discovered that it was his privilege to lead to the repast one of the two daughters of the monopolist alluded to. She was, he presently observed, a very fetching young woman. Her skin was eburnean in its clarity, her eyes of iserine, and in her features something there was that suggested a pastel of a politer age, an Eve on a fan. Across the table her sister sat, an undeveloped slip of a girl, at whom Gonfallon glanced but once. It was to the elder that he gave his attention, and it took him but a moment to perceive that that attention was not thrown away. She was breezy of speech, though not of manner, and she was garmented in a mode and texture which her neighbor did not remember to have remarked before. When he addressed her, he detected her thought running just in advance of his own, completing it as it were with little embroideries of home manufacture; and when in turn she led the talk, she seemed, in comparison to his parochial dames and damsels, the visitant from a larger world. Beside her he felt himself the rustic: for a little space he fancied that he must seem awkward, a fancy which did not tend to an increase of confidence, and when, later on, he journeyed over the yellow road to the parsonage, he noted with a pang of mortification that unconsciously he had been envying the easy assurance of Alphabet Jones.