Poppæa

Front matter

Stories by Julien Gordon. A Diplomat's Diary. A Successful Man. Vampires, and Mademoiselle Reseda. Two stories in one book. i2mo. Clotb, $1 .00 per vol. A Diplomat's Diary. Paper, $0 cents. POPPÆA BY JULIEN GORDON AUTHOR OF " A DIPLOMAT'S DIARY," " A SUCCESSFUL MAN," " VAMPIRES," "A PURITAN PAGAN," "HIS LETTERS," ETC. PHILADELPHIA J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 1895 LONDON; 18, HENRIETTA ST., COVENT GABDT5N. Copyright, 1894, BY JULIB CrUGHR. Electrotyped and Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U. 3. A. POPPÆA

Chapter I

ft j\ Y Poppæa was not a heathen empress who shod * ' * her mules with gold. At least, if there were gold-shod mules among her followers, they were not there at her bidding. She was not preceded, in her journey ings, by a thousand slaves, or followed by five hundred she-asses, who provided her with her daily cosmetic in the luxury of her bath of milk. That hybrid multitude of the circus and of the street, which owed no fealty to the forum or the camp, did not rise to proclaim her beauty or mock at her in their fury when she passed in her gilded chariot. They did not acclaim her a goddess with one breath and crown her rival's statue in the next with blossoms. She was not the daughter of a moribund republic, albeit the child of a republican child. My Poppæa did not wed an Otho whose misguided spirit aspired to the purple of royalty, and who con ceded her to a Nero.

Inasmuch, however, as in her character there lay possibilities of sorrow, in that she was ambitious, superstitious, surrounded by parasites ; in that she had dreams of philanthropy which narrower and more selfish interests thwarted ; in that she had soft, voluptuous features, wherein lay a suggestion of i* POPPÆA weakness ; in that she suffered, wept, laughed, feasted, and loved, she resembled her Roman prototype. Of her, as of Gaspara Stampa, it might have been uttered, "She was given the perilous gift of love. In it she found the seeds of death." The weapons which conquer do not always rule. Poppæa found this out to her grief. In her feastings she liked dignity and such Hellenic spectacles as excluded low buffoonery. Her humor was delicate. But, as I have said, she was no Roman empress : she was a little American girl whose odd name was bestowed upon her by a romantic young mother.

She first saw the light in a tumble-down old manor house perched among the great trees that border the upper Hudson. There she grew up as wild as the young lambs and heifers that ran in the pasture lots across the meadow land, as careless and as happy. With few companions except her six unruly brothers, and none of the feminine advantages which turn out accomplished young women. A savage once saw the picture of an angel in the crowded hall of a great art gallery. He smiled. " That is one of my genus," he said, dreamily. I lately beheld the portrait of an Indian chief. He had the fiery, deep eye of a falcon, wind-swept locks, firm and noble mouth. Over his shoulder he wore a drapery that sat upon him as if he were a god. Adown his neck were strange and costly amulets. He looked to be swift-footed as a deer ; freshly fed upon the forces of nature, his breath must have been like that of cows and of young bulls that play in the fields.

I saw another portrait of the same child of earth, tamed, civilized, improved. His hair was cropped, he wore loose black trousers, a brown linen duster, a pot POPPÆA 7 hat, and was playing at tennis . . . with the smile of hypocrisy upon his lips. I could have wept ! So Poppæa, running wild at her old home, would ever be an enchanting picture, which her later and more dazzling prosperity could not eclipse. What was the secret ofthe poor child's material splendor and spiritual poverty ? What evil balance of her nature, what trick of fate, what impotence of destiny? And why is it that the unspoken words of this young girl haunt the memory more than the loquacity of others — seem more distinguished and more eloquent ? Above all things Poppæa had charm, — that charm to which the vision of a Ptolemais might well have prophe sied vicissitude.

An astrologer, who once told her for tune, called her a proud flame which should consume itself. But I go too quickly. Harry Dalton was forty-five when he married, and thus brought to an end a some what chequered career of the heart. It is an age when vanity awakens strongest in man. There may have been a drop of it in his determination to carry off a beauty and heiress from younger and more desirable suitors. He was a bold wooer. After a courtship of respectful, almost mute homage, of months passed in following about the girl he admired, with the eyes and the tenacity of a sheep-dog, he had one day suddenly seized her slender fingers in his own and kissed them, and after this she could never collect her scattered senses to remember what had happened. Her relatives thought them lost for all time when she ran away with the scapegrace two days later after a ball.

Like Desdemona's father, they wondered what spells he had used. To her his methods had seemed simple. An ingenuous woman is often impressed with the POPPÆA simplicity of a man of the world ; an honest woman, with his boyishness. This wife of twenty took on ma ternal airs with her new husband. It seemed absurd. But they fascinated each other. This time Dalton' s escapade had had serious consequences, but Veronica — this was young Mrs. Dalton' s name — proved herself fearless of consequences. Fear of consequence is frequently mistaken for virtue and discretion. Dalton carried his bride up to his eyry manor-home up the river. Her father raged and fumed, and cut her off from his will, and refused to give her even a pittance for her trousseau. But her mother sent her some gowns and furs and pocket-money, and a black lace scarf and a diamond pin, and some sweet smelling fine lingeries surreptitiously, at dead of night.

By and by, when came five little boys, and then Pop pæa, and finally another boy, Mrs. Dalton's mother was reconciled to her wilful one, and the good lady died in her daughter's arms. But the father never forgave what he called his daughter's deceit, and the money all went . . . elsewhere. He so tied and hampered and fastened it up that even the Dalton children should never, never, never see a ducat of it. In the mean while, Hany, himself, whose youth had principally been passed in sowing the whirlwind, seemed, by some curious haphazard of fortune, to have suddenly reaped a harvest of peace. He became more and more charmed by his beautiful wife as the years rolled on, and these two wayward characters suited each other so admirably that their life was one long delight. What did they care if the brambles grew across the road, so that the disgusted visitors stopped, stared, and turned away ; that the garden was full of weeds, the porch columns rickety, and the piazza roof POPPÆA 9 leaked in the last rain.

They looked into one another's blue eyes and laughed and kissed. Once a month, when the bills came in, they were a trifle gloomy, but when they had paid half of them and pigeon-holed the other half, Harry lit a cigarette and Veronica sang him a song, and the horizon was clear, for a while again at least. Veronica was very much pleased when her girl baby was born. She and Harry read aloud together in the long winter nights. She who would, no doubt, have graced so well banquet and ball and rout, nestled on her husband's shoulder while he recited or read. Strange to say, Harry Dalton, in his wild days, had had cultivated tastes, and would have done well in college had it not been for his mad pranks. It was character istic of him, that while rusticating for a misdemeanor, he had taken a prize for a Latin essay.

They read one snowy winter certain classic histories, and when Dalton came to the sad, short history of Poppæa, slain by the cruelty of the man who nevertheless loved her, — "That is a pretty name," quoth Veronica. " I shall give it to my girl." " It is a heathen name, my sweet," said Dalton, laughing ; " they'll say I named her." He was still very handsome and very distinguished, and so Veronica told him twenty times a day. ' ' Well, let people say we are queer and pagans ; it won't be the first time. Do you care what people think?" "Do you?" "Why, you know people never say or think what you want them to, ' ' said Mrs. Dalton, who was clever. "Naturally." POPPÆA 10 " Have I not proved to you I don't care?" Then he took her hands, and his touch seemed de licious to her as the first time, years before, when it had sealed her his.

She shivered with sudden terror. "Oh, God, Dalton, if I should die and have to leave you !" Then he held her close. But she did not die when Poppæa came. But, oh ! it was a pretty, pretty httle baby, and there was a welcome this time indeed. Less welcome seven years later was Rudolph, last of the Daltons, except indeed by his only sister, who was enraptured, and adopted him on the spot, with many hugs and dove like cooings and muffled cries of satisfaction. It was very soon after his advent that his father died. They had few visitors at the manor during Poppæa' s early childhood. The sound of wheels brought the children scampering from every part of the grounds. Poppæa would stand in her soiled gingham frock, suck ing her brown thumb, her big eyes open wide, between her father's knees. Sometimes it was a creditor.

He would be treated with peculiar courtesy, to ale and cake and cigars, and invariably went away pacified. Mr. Dalton had a grand air and a knack at the soft answer when it suited his purposes. Then he was so princely, civil, and elegant. The tradespeople had always felt honored that he should condescend to buy their wares at all. Politeness imposes. Once a year regularly Progress came rolling up in a high-wheeled buggy. The children knew it; they signalled to each other from branch to branch in the trees, where they were picking cherries. Mr. Humm generally came at cherry time. He amused them. Mr. Dalton would look up from his morning paper, where he sat on the piazza, POPPÆA 11 with a glass of whiskey and soda at his elbow, and a cigar between his teeth. "Ah, Mr. Humm, good-day, good-day." ' ' Well, sir, here I am ; I am glad to see, sir, the storms have spared the old house.

Only a question of time!" He was a genial person, with a bright skin and unctuous urbanity of tone, a full voice and dramatic gesture. He sat erect in his wagon, now and then flicking his horse's tail with a short stump of a whip. "Well, Mr. Humm, the poor old manor isn't burned up yet." " Now, sir, you have been here long enough to count costs. Perhaps you said, ' Here is that damned fool Humm come again.' "... Mr. Dalton waved a courtly denial. "No money to spare, Mr. Humm." "Why, bless me, sir, it is a gist, the Humm & Ginn lightning-rod. I look at it different. I look at it this way : lightning strikes your home. Isa man's rich, he hasn't no excuse ; if a man's poor, he's crippled ; terrible damage, no coin for repairs. Here we are sir, twenty four year, no casualties, demonstration proof, new style.

Iron and copper old rod no good, inefficient ; here we give you platina points. This rod of mine is a circuit, — a circuit. We reach moisture by artificial means. Charcoal is a sponge ; yes, sir-ee, a sponge. I guarantee it never will be dry. ' ' " Have a glass of whiskey and water, Mr. Humm ?" "Well, sir, I am sort of dry, if the rod ain't." And Mr. Humm gave out his large, sweet smile. A servant, summoned, brought out a tray. "No, sir, . . . scientists say three-foot joints get separated with age ; but this patent is A No. i ; no POPPÆA 3eparation — no separation possible. Mr. Pugh . . . know him? Rich insurance man; bought Livingston Hall. Don't know him, eh ? No ? Well, new people, sir ; they've got to come up ; the old families is all dying out ; they ain't progressive, bless you. Well, the storm struck them amidships, but my rod just whistled it over their heads, and Mrs. Pugh she just sot at the pianey and played a sympony of Beetofen's while the lightning frolicked on the lawn with the children Here, Miss Dalton, can you catch ?' ' Little Poppæa screamed delight ; a pretty brush with a scarlet handle was hurled into her fat little arms.

"There, little miss, there; Humm & Ginn's patent horse-polisher for you ; it will make your pony shine like butter and oil. Bless me, you could pass it over him yourself. Just shove it over his flank when he is in a sweat . . ." "Another time, Mr. Humm," said Veronica Dalton, coming to the window, smiling ; "we can't afford any thing new this year. ' ' "Well, madam, I hope Miss Dalton will accept the brush with the compliments of Humm & Ginn. I hope I see you well. If you'll try a patent shawl-pin my wife got out, which kind of unhooks with a spring, I'd be glad to have you see it." And with a whoop-la to his nag, Mr. Humm drove down the woody drive and out into the broad avenue. "Good-day, good-day." "Good-day, Mr. Humm." When Poppæa was six years old she went to a funeral with her mother.

It was the first time she had ever seen death or even heard much about it. Of birth she had already been told, in answer to her odd in quiries. Children were laid upon the window-sill among POPPÆA 13 the rose-vines by some unseen fairy hands, and there the nurse found them and brought them to nestle upon their mother's breast. Of death she had, no doubt, some vague conception, since at four years, watching a candle flicker to its socket and sputter into blackness, she had cried out, " The candle is dead," to the surprise of the listeners. But on the day of this funeral she saw Mrs. Winslow lying in her coffin. Her mother had often taken her across the fields to the white cottage close to the hill, where the invalid sat all day, propped up by pillows, wan and waiting. And so now that the summons had come at last, Veronica had driven over with her little girl, first to the house, and then to the church, a mile farther away.

When they reached the house, the brother in-law of the dead woman was doing the honors. He received the Daltons with a certain pomposity. "We had her embalmed," he said. "Don't she look natural?" Then Veronica had lifted her veil and murmured a word of assent, which, to her own ears, sounded like a word of protest. She was not a philanthropist, and rarely went to the houses of the poor ; these people were hardly poor : they were very comfortable. She disliked sickness and feared death, but she was easily moved by affection, and this woman had loved her and pined between her visits, wilting till she came again, bringing in her grace, her beauty, and that elegance of which cramped means and a life of seclusion had never robbed her. "They look like queen's children," Mrs. Winslow had said of Mrs. Dalton and her daughter.

To-day there were some men and women sitting about the empty room. Plain, common, simple folk, POPPÆA 14 in black dresses and coats, with serious faces. At the head of the coffin on a camp-stool sat a stout, showy person, expensively dressed. The brother-in-law, a short, awkward man with an anxious eye, explained these relatives to Mrs. Dalton, in a husky whisper. "My sister-in-law's brother and his wife, from New Vienna ; her niece, Miss Mamie Wemyss ; that lady near her is her mother ; she is Mrs. Annie Wemyss, a widow. Over there at the head of the coffin, the blonde stoutish lady — do you see her, with the ear rings, in the seal-skin cape — fine-looking woman — Mrs. Evelina Franks, of Valley Farms — divorced ..." It was evident that Mrs. Franks and Mrs. Dalton were the heroines of the occasion.

The former might have been considered by the other ladies present as a somewhat passee person, disagreeably inclined to vaga bond experiences, or as an ill-used romantic heroine. All these things depend upon the point of view. At any rate, she occupied much thought and attention, particularly among the younger members of the sorrow ing group. She divided the honors with the corpse and with Mrs. Dalton, whose movements and costume were eagerly analyzed. The clergyman came in and prayed and made an address. It seemed very long to Poppæa, wedged in on a hard bench with no back, between her mother and Mrs. Wemyss, and her feet not reaching the floor. She was trying to catch a glimpse of the dead face, with a certain frightened curiosity. She wondered if it were wicked to want to look. At the church every one did.

There was much loud weeping. One sister cried out so that the minister had to stop the service for a moment. When he had finished, people went up by twos and threes. Veronica did not desire this POPPÆA 15 painful and close inspection, and remained quietly in her seat, while they sang a mournful hymn, and the procession filed in front of the open coffin, beneath the poor pine pulpit where the minister stood. She had hoped to escape attention, but the sexton was disappointed. He hadn't had the body enbalmed for noth ing ; it had cost a lot of money and was unusual. "If any one wants to see the remains," he said, " now is their last chance ; would Mrs. Dalton and her little daughter like to step up ?' ' Veronica flushed and shook her head. Poppæa was rather sorry. The lid was lowered. The next dead face she gazed upon was eight years later, — her father's.

Chapter II. Of

high life the Daltons saw very little. Of a Sunday they drove nine miles to the Episcopal Church at Craven. Harry might have a short larder and owe money to his tailor, but there was always good wine on his table and one pair at least of fine horses in his stable. Behind these, in a high, light trap, with yellow wheels, he installed Mrs. Dalton, and off they dashed gayly, the dew of the woods splashing the lady's eyelashes. Behind came the elder boys and a maid or two, driven in an old-fashioned vehicle they called the sun down, with the strong farm horses, and William, the old coachman, in his shabby, rusty livery. At the church Mr. Dalton assisted his wife to the ground, lifted his hat to two or three of his fair neighbors, who were hurrying down the path to the church porch, in high heeled shoes, under bright parasols, and then him self drove on to the low, wide door of the village inn.

Here a bachelor friend of his spent his summers, occu pying with his valet the entire lower floor ; and here the gentlemen smoked cigarettes, read the Sunday news papers, sipped cocktails when it was very hot, or even engaged in a game of cribbage. Eventually, after the services, he lifted his wife again to her perch, and they bowled home over the gleaming iron-ore road which overhung the great river. She had had time to chat a moment under the trees with her friends, and possibly an invitation to breakfast or to afternoon tea had been exchanged. These enter- POPPÆA 17 tainments were usually at the Cravens', although some times Mrs. Dalton herself received company. The Cravens were second cousins of Harry Dalton' s, and their children played with Poppæa and her brothers. General Dalton, Harry's ancestor, had been granted the lands on which his manor-house, a French chateau in style and architecture, stood, by his government in reward for certain important services before the Revo lutionary War.

At the same time his friend, Mont gomery Craven, had bought property and had built up Craven village. The families had intermarried. The present Montgomery Craven was a boy about Poppæa' s age, but he was older than she in experience. When she was taking a last lingering look at her dolls he was preparing for college. His father was an invalid ; there were several sisters ; there was not much money ; all looked to the lad. He would have to go into business as soon as his collegiate course was over. He was wild to go to Oxford, but it was too expensive, and in fact, when his father died, a year later than Harry Dalton, he was forced to leave his university and go to work. He had to help his mother and sisters. They could not keep up their old home, to which they were attached, without his assistance.

He made the sacrifice. We will hear more of Montgomery anon. One night in the great city there was a dinner-party at Mrs. Langton's. The Frederick Daltons were bid den. They were always bidden to important banquets. Frederick, or Fred, as he was called, was Harry's younger brother ; but whereas Harry had been a scape grace, Fred had been virtuous, and he had, in a measure, reaped the rewards of his conservative behavior. He had married the daughter of the gentleman in whose great banking house he had in early youth filled b 2* POPPÆA an important position. She had brought him a large fortune. Mrs. Frederick was reputed to be a person of great social tact. She was now a juicy, well-preserved, showily-attired matron with white teeth, an agreeable smile, and a pleasant intonation. She had a teasing streak in her, which liked to torment and even perse cute persons who thought they could do without her.

But to those who confessed dependence, or acknowl edged defeat, she could be kindly. She loved the world and its pleasures, and disapproved of people who flouted it. She had disapproved of Harry Dalton. She thought him selfish to hide his pretty wife in the woods, and deplored the fact that Poppæa was " coming on" without proper training. She did not see very well, however, what she could do about it. Harry had been given the manor because no one else wanted it. Nevertheless she rather envied him its aristocratic prestige. She had a splendid house at Newport, but she would have liked her only son to inherit the entire Hudson, if such an event might have been arranged. She had once offered to buy out "the Harrys," — as she called them, — but, to her amazement, they had refused to part with their home, — refused a little haughtily.

She was good-natured, however, and bore them no grudge for this ; in fact, she secretly admired her sister-in-law's pluck. She rarely saw her. There was still another brother to Harry Dalton,— Craven Dalton. He was a lawyer, and also a married man. His wife was said by her friends to be an ex cellent woman, given to good works. She had once been handsome, but was so no longer. Her enemies in sisted that she terrorized her husband into a meek and cowardly submissiveness. Others, again, whispered POPPÆA 19 that Craven Dalton was not as meek and certainly not as harmless as he appeared. Outwardly, however, his conduct was very correct. He always went to church of a Sunday morning, and sat with his wife in her pew. Mrs. Craven Dalton had been a widow when she married into the Dalton family. She was one of those women to whom, through some coarseness of organization, through some defect of temperament, a love caress is odious ; nevertheless, she had twice married.

Such animalism as she possessed had crystallized into a fierce form of conjugal jealousy which never slept, and was untiring. Her first husband had drunk himself to death. There were those who said that the second deceived her. He was considered, however, the most solid and serious member of the Dalton family. He had attained some success in his profession. He had good manners and was a fluent conversationalist. It so happened that these two ladies were dining at Mrs. Langton's on this particular night, when a hurried message was brought to their hostess. She sat at the head of her long dinner-table, waving her plumes and her withered visage at her guests, across the gilded ipergnes filled with Jacqueminot roses. The missive proved to be a telegram. It was directed to Mr. Fred erick Dalton, and having been marked on the outside with some portentous and ominous sign, the old lady turned it about helplessly for a moment in her dark, thin, bejewelled fingers.

She was quick in an emergency, however, and, beck oning to her butler, whispered to him that he should allure Mr. Dalton into the picture-gallery as soon as they should rise from the table, and there deliver the yellow marplot. It was shortly after this that the Dalton ladies were POPPÆA 20 hurried into their opera-cloaks, and followed by their husbands into their respective broughams. At midnight the entire party was huddled together into the last com partment of the Montreal and Quebec sleeping-car, the superintendent of the company having consented to "slow up" at Craven. The message had conveyed the tidings that Harry Dalton was dying and had asked to see his brethren. It had been added that there was no time to lose. Mrs. Frederick Dalton had concluded to accompany her husband, partly from the love of excitement and partly from a vague sense of self-reproach ; Mrs. Craven Dalton, from a sentiment which might have been formu lated thus : "This man was a leper ; I am Christ-like, and go to leprosy."

Tacitus, who seems to have been possessed of a strong sense of justice, recognizes some good in the monstrous reign of Tiberius. Mrs. Craven Dalton, who had read history, wondered what good could have come out of Harry Dalton' s misspent, misguided career, and de cided that the ways of Providence were past finding out. And now this family ! with a mother foolish and im provident I no woman in her right wits would ever have given herself into Harry7 Dalton' s keeping. When they reached Craven, cold and tired, William was there with the sundown. The men sat in front, talking in low voices. The women behind, wrapped in their fur coats, shivering and silent. There was not much sympathy between the two, but there had been no quarrels. They were on what the world calls terms of politeness. Mrs. Frederick Dalton thought her sister-in-law a dowdy and something of a bore.

Mrs. Craven Dalton POPPÆA 21 considered Mrs. Frederick Dalton deplorably frivolous for a woman of her years. The charges were permis sible, and not entirely unjust. They found Veronica at her husband's side, little Poppæa leaning against her. She hardly noticed the others when they arrived ; but when her husband motioned to her to leave him alone with his brothers, she rose and came out with haggard cheeks, into the hall, with her sisters-in-law. "Yes," she replied to their inquiries, "it was very sudden ; something of the heart ; there has been a con gestive chill ; there is great danger." Her despairing face awed the others. Mrs. Frederick Dalton took the young Poppæa' s cold hands into hers and squeezed them kindly, but Poppæa went back to her mother. " Lean on me, darling," the child whispered.

" Have you thought about a clergyman ?" said Mrs. Craven Dalton. As Veronica did not seem to hear her, she stepped to the sick man's door and motioned to her husband. She whispered a word to him. Harry Dalton opened one eye and bowed to his sister-in-law, smiling. " How do you do," he said, courteously. Craven returned and spoke low to the sick man. ' ' How about salvation, eh ?' ' asked Harry, speaking with quick, short breaths. Craven nodded. He opened the other eye, that laughing orb that had charmed women and held them captive. "I don't object to a prayer," he said, "if it will please the ladies." Craven was deputed to find a prayer-book. It took a little while, but it was brought at last. POPPÆA " Craven was aiways the most religious of us," said Frederick, apologetically to Veronica, in the hall-way.

She went back and knelt and held those dear hands, and joined fervently in the Amen. A few hours later Veronica's dream of love was over. He had desired to see his brothers to commend his wife and children to their care. He knew his affairs to be in hopeless confusion. They were. The place was sold to Frederick ; so Frederick, Jr., would be its owner, after all, one of these days. When all the creditors were paid there was hardly anything lest. The two brothers made an allowance. The elder boys were put to school and college. Ve ronica was so heart-broken that they feared she would sink into a decline. She went abroad finally -with Pop pæa and little Rudolph for change of scene. She was glad to go, as she could be glad of anything now. ' ' I can live for less in France, ' ' she said. " When Poppæa comes out I will 'undertake' her," said Mrs. Frederick Dalton, impulsively.