Democracy · Chapter 3 (2/2)

“Can you tell me,” said he, “what has happened to Silas P. Ratcliffe? Only a moment ago I was talking with him at his seat on a very important subject, about which I must send his opinions off to New York tonight, when, in the middle of a sentence, he stopped short, got up without looking at me, and left the Senate Chamber, and now I see him in the gallery talking with a lady whose face I don’t know.”

Senator Clinton slowly adjusted his gold eyeglasses and looked up at the place indicated: “Ah! Mrs. Lightfoot Lee! I think I will say a word to her myself;” and turning his back on the special correspondent, he skipped away with youthful agility after the Senator from Illinois.

“Devil!” muttered Mr. Andrews; “what has got into the old fools?” and in a still less audible murmur as he looked up to Mrs. Lee, then in close conversation with Ratcliffe: “Had I better make an item of that?”

When young Mr. Schneidekoupon called upon Senator Ratcliffe to invite him to the dinner at Welckley’s, he found that gentleman overwhelmed with work, as he averred, and very little disposed to converse. No! he did not now go out to dinner. In the present condition of the public business he found it impossible to spare the time for such amusements. He regretted to decline Mr. Schneidekoupon’s civility, but there were imperative reasons why he should abstain for the present from social entertainments; he had made but one exception to his rule, and only at the pressing request of his old friend Senator Clinton, and on a very special occasion.

Mr. Schneidekoupon was deeply vexed⁠—the more, he said, because he had meant to beg Mr. and Mrs. Clinton to be of the party, as well as a very charming lady who rarely went into society, but who had almost consented to come.

“Who is that?” inquired the Senator.

“A Mrs. Lightfoot Lee, of New York. Probably you do not know her well enough to admire her as I do; but I think her quite the most intelligent woman I ever met.”

The Senator’s cold eyes rested for a moment on the young man’s open face with a peculiar expression of distrust. Then he solemnly said, in his deepest senatorial tones:

“My young friend, at my time of life men have other things to occupy them than women, however intelligent they may be. Who else is to be of your party?”

Mr. Schneidekoupon named his list.

“And for Saturday evening at seven, did you say?”

“Saturday at seven.”

“I fear there is little chance of my attending, but I will not absolutely decline. Perhaps when the moment arrives, I may find myself able to be there. But do not count upon me⁠—do not count upon me. Good day, Mr. Schneidekoupon.”

Schneidekoupon was rather a simple-minded young man, who saw no deeper than his neighbours into the secrets of the universe, and he went off swearing roundly at “the infernal airs these senators give themselves.” He told Mrs. Lee all the conversation, as indeed he was compelled to do under penalty of bringing her to his party under false pretences.

“Just my luck,” said he; “here I am forced to ask no end of people to meet a man, who at the same time says he shall probably not come. Why, under the stars, couldn’t he say, like other people, whether he was coming or not? I’ve known dozens of senators, Mrs. Lee, and they’re all like that. They never think of anyone but themselves.”

Mrs. Lee smiled rather a forced smile, and soothed his wounded feelings; she had no doubt the dinner would be very agreeable whether the Senator were there or not; at any rate she would do all she could to carry it off well, and Sybil should wear her newest dress. Still she was a little grave, and Mr. Schneidekoupon could only declare that she was a trump; that he had told Ratcliffe she was the cleverest woman he ever met, and he might have added the most obliging, and Ratcliffe had only looked at him as though he were a green ape. At all which Mrs. Lee laughed good-naturedly, and sent him away as soon as she could.

When he was gone, she walked up and down the room and thought. She saw the meaning of Ratcliffe’s sudden change in tone. She had no more doubt of his coming to the dinner than she had of the reason why he came. And was it possible that she was being drawn into something very near a flirtation with a man twenty years her senior; a politician from Illinois; a huge, ponderous, grey-eyed, bald senator, with a Websterian head, who lived in Peonia? The idea was almost too absurd to be credited; but on the whole the thing itself was rather amusing. “I suppose senators can look out for themselves like other men,” was her final conclusion. She thought only of his danger, and she felt a sort of compassion for him as she reflected on the possible consequences of a great, absorbing love at his time of life. Her conscience was a little uneasy; but of herself she never thought. Yet it is a historical fact that elderly senators have had a curious fascination for young and handsome women. Had they looked out for themselves too? And which parties most needed to be looked after?

When Madeleine and her sister arrived at Welckley’s the next Saturday evening, they found poor Schneidekoupon in a temper very unbecoming a host.

“He won’t come! I told you he wouldn’t come!” said he to Madeleine, as he handed her into the house. “If I ever turn communist, it will be for the fun of murdering a senator.”

Madeleine consoled him gently, but he continued to use, behind Mr. Clinton’s back, language the most offensive and improper towards the Senate, and at last, ringing the bell, he sharply ordered the head waiter to serve dinner. At that very moment the door opened, and Senator Ratcliffe’s stately figure appeared on the threshold. His eye instantly caught Madeleine’s, and she almost laughed aloud, for she saw that the Senator was dressed with very unsenatorial neatness; that he had actually a flower in his buttonhole and no gloves!

After the enthusiastic description which Schneidekoupon had given of Mrs. Lee’s charms, he could do no less than ask Senator Ratcliffe to take her in to dinner, which he did without delay. Either this, or the champagne, or some occult influence, had an extraordinary effect upon him. He appeared ten years younger than usual; his face was illuminated; his eyes glowed; he seemed bent on proving his kinship to the immortal Webster by rivalling his convivial powers. He dashed into the conversation; laughed, jested, and ridiculed; told stories in Yankee and Western dialect; gave sharp little sketches of amusing political experiences.

“Never was more surprised in my life,” whispered Senator Krebs, of Pennsylvania, across the table to Schneidekoupon. “Hadn’t an idea that Ratcliffe was so entertaining.”

And Mr. Clinton, who sat by Madeleine on the other side, whispered low into her ear: “I am afraid, my dear Mrs. Lee, that you are responsible for this. He never talks so to the Senate.”

Nay, he even rose to a higher flight, and told the story of President Lincoln’s deathbed with a degree of feeling that brought tears into their eyes. The other guests made no figure at all. The Speaker consumed his solitary duck and his lonely champagne in a corner without giving a sign. Even Mr. Gore, who was not wont to hide his light under any kind of extinguisher, made no attempt to claim the floor, and applauded with enthusiasm the conversation of his opposite neighbour. Ill-natured people might say that Mr. Gore saw in Senator Ratcliffe a possible Secretary of State; be this as it may, he certainly said to Mrs. Clinton, in an aside that was perfectly audible to everyone at the table: “How brilliant! what an original mind! what a sensation he would make abroad!” And it was quite true, apart from the mere momentary effect of dinner-table talk, that there was a certain bigness about the man; a keen practical sagacity; a bold freedom of self-assertion; a broad way of dealing with what he knew. Carrington was the only person at table who looked on with a perfectly cool head, and who criticised in a hostile spirit. Carrington’s impression of Ratcliffe was perhaps beginning to be warped by a shade of jealousy, for he was in a peculiarly bad temper this evening, and his irritation was not wholly concealed.

“If one only had any confidence in the man!” he muttered to French, who sat by him.

This unlucky remark set French to thinking how he could draw Ratcliffe out, and accordingly, with his usual happy manner, combining self-conceit and high principles, he began to attack the Senator with some “badinaige” on the delicate subject of Civil Service Reform, a subject almost as dangerous in political conversation at Washington as slavery itself in old days before the war. French was a reformer, and lost no occasion of impressing his views; but unluckily he was a very light weight, and his manner was a little ridiculous, so that even Mrs. Lee, who was herself a warm reformer, sometimes went over to the other side when he talked. No sooner had he now shot his little arrow at the Senator, than that astute man saw his opportunity, and promised himself the pleasure of administering to Mr. French punishment such as he knew would delight the company. Reformer as Mrs. Lee was, and a little alarmed at the roughness of Ratcliffe’s treatment, she could not blame the Prairie Giant, as she ought, who, after knocking poor French down, rolled him over and over in the mud.

“Are you financier enough, Mr. French, to know what are the most famous products of Connecticut?”

Mr. French modestly suggested that he thought its statesmen best answered that description.

“No, sir! even there you’re wrong. The showmen beat you on your own ground. But every child in the union knows that the most famous products of Connecticut are Yankee notions, nutmegs made of wood and clocks that won’t go. Now, your Civil Service Reform is just such another Yankee notion; it’s a wooden nutmeg; it’s a clock with a show case and sham works. And you know it! You are precisely the old-school Connecticut peddler. You have gone about peddling your wooden nutmegs until you have got yourself into Congress, and now you pull them out of your pockets and not only want us to take them at your own price, but you lecture us on our sins if we don’t. Well! we don’t mind your doing that at home. Abuse us as much as you like to your constituents. Get as many votes as you can. But don’t electioneer here, because we know you intimately, and we’ve all been a little in the wooden nutmeg business ourselves.”

Senator Clinton and Senator Krebs chuckled high approval over this punishment of poor French, which was on the level of their idea of wit. They were all in the nutmeg business, as Ratcliffe said. The victim tried to make head against them; he protested that his nutmegs were genuine; he sold no goods that he did not guarantee; and that this particular article was actually guaranteed by the national conventions of both political parties.

“Then what you want, Mr. French, is a common school education. You need a little study of the alphabet. Or if you won’t believe me, ask my brother senators here what chance there is for your Reforms so long as the American citizen is what he is.”

“You’ll not get much comfort in my State, Mr. French,” growled the senator from Pennsylvania, with a sneer; “suppose you come and try.”

“Well, well!” said the benevolent Mr. Schuyler Clinton, gleaming benignantly through his gold spectacles; “don’t be too hard on French. He means well. Perhaps he’s not very wise, but he does good. I know more about it than any of you, and I don’t deny that the thing is all bad. Only, as Mr. Ratcliffe says, the difficulty is in the people, not in us. Go to work on them, French, and let us alone.”

French repented of his attack, and contented himself by muttering to Carrington: “What a set of damned old reprobates they are!”

“They are right, though, in one thing,” was Carrington’s reply: “their advice is good. Never ask one of them to reform anything; if you do, you will be reformed yourself.”

The dinner ended as brilliantly as it began, and Schneidekoupon was delighted with his success. He had made himself particularly agreeable to Sybil by confiding in her all his hopes and fears about the tariff and the finances. When the ladies left the table, Ratcliffe could not stay for a cigar; he must get back to his rooms, where he knew several men were waiting for him; he would take his leave of the ladies and hurry away. But when the gentlemen came up nearly an hour afterwards they found Ratcliffe still taking his leave of the ladies, who were delighted at his entertaining conversation; and when at last he really departed, he said to Mrs. Lee, as though it were quite a matter of course: “You are at home as usual tomorrow evening?” Madeleine smiled, bowed, and he went his way.

As the two sisters drove home that night, Madeleine was unusually silent. Sybil yawned convulsively and then apologized:

“Mr. Schneidekoupon is very nice and good-natured, but a whole evening of him goes a long way; and that horrid Senator Krebs would not say a word, and drank a great deal too much wine, though it couldn’t make him any more stupid than he is. I don’t think I care for senators.” Then, wearily, after a pause: “Well, Maude, I do hope you’ve got what you wanted. I’m sure you must have had politics enough. Haven’t you got to the heart of your great American mystery yet?”

“Pretty near it, I think,” said Madeleine, half to herself.