The story of an untold love

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THE STORY OF AN UNTOLD LOVE

PAUL

LEICESTER

II

Febncary^ 21. To put all this on paper is weak and aimless, yet it seems to ease my sadness. I suppose a scribbler unconsciously comes to write out whatever he feels, as a nervous woman plays her emotions away on a piano. If this is so, why should not I salve my grief in any way that lessens' it f Those old days had such happiness in them that the mere memory brings some to me, and to sit here at my study table and write of the past is better than idle dwelling on the present.

You were jubilant when first told that we were all to go to Europe for a summer, and laughed at my fears and despondency. Could I have had an intuition of coming evil, or was my alarm 13 due to the engravings of those terrible sea-monsters with which Mercator populated the oceans in his " Atlas sive Cosmographicae," and to the pictures and tales in bloodthirsty old Exquemelin's *^ Bucaniers of America " ? Our notions of what the trip meant were evidently not very clear, for at once we set to storing up provisions, and weeks before the time of sailing we were the proud possessors of a cracker-box full of assorted edibles, a jar of olives we had pilfered, and a small pie you had cajoled the cook into making for us. How we loved and gloated over that pie ! Daily we sorted our sea-stores, added new supplies, and ate what clearly could be kept no longer. My mother found us one day deeply engrossed in the occupation, cuffed us both, and sent the olives back to the pantry and the tin box to the ash-barrel. As for the pie, such hot words passed about it between *^ Madame" and ''Monsieur Philippe " that our cook left us without 14 warning. We were again punished for being the cause of his desertion, and that evening father dined at his club.

The different effects my mother's gusts of anger had on you and on me were curiously distinctive. You met them fearlessly and stubbornly, while to me the moments of her fury were moments in which I could scarcely breathe, and of which I felt the terror for hours after. I sometimes wonder if the variance was because I had learned to fear the outbursts even as a baby, whereas your character had partly formed before you encountered them. Who knows but a change of circumstances might have made me the fearless one, and you the timorous ? At least I should be glad to think that I might have been like you in courage and spirit, even though it is impossible to imagine that you could ever be like me. It is a singular turn of life's whirligig that when my mother tried to pain you last autumn by her cruel re- 15 marks, you were helpless to retort, and owed your escape to my help.

What a delight the ocean voyage was to us ! Those were the times of ten-day trips, still dear to all true lovers of the sea ; and had our wishes been consulted, thrice ten would have been none too long for our passage. The officers, the crew, the stewards, and the passengers were no more proof against your indefinable spell than was I, and it seemed quite as if the boat were your private yacht, with all on board seeking only to serve you. Our pleasure was so intense that we planned an ideal future, in which I was to become the captain of a steamship, and you were to live on the vessel in some equally delightful if impossible capacity.

The last time I was in Paris, I walked several miles merely to look at the outside of our pension, and then went on and sat dreaming in the little park near it in which we passed so many hours of our i6 stay in that city. As of old, the place was full of children and nurses, and I understood what had puzzled me not a little in recollection, — how you and I, without mingling with them, had learned so quickly the language they chattered. Do you remember their friendly advances, met only by rebuffs ? My coldness flowed from shyness, and yours from a trait that people to this day call haughtiness, but which I know to be only a fastidious refinement that yields acquaintance to few and friendship to fewer. From the moment you came into my life I craved no other friend, and you seemed equally content. What was there in me that won for me what you gave so rarely ? Was there an instinct of natural sympathy, or was it merely pity for me in the loving heart you masked behind that subtle face ?

It is indicative of what children we still were that during the whole of our sojourn in Paris neither of us was con- 17 scious that our standard of living had changed. We lodged in a cheap pension ; instead of our own carriage we used the omnibus ; and a thousand other evidences told the story of real economy ; yet not one we observed except the disappearance of our bonne^ and this was noted, not as a loss, but as a joy to both. After the nurse was gone my father became more than ever our comrade, and a better one two children never had. Oh, those long excursions to Versailles, Montmartre, and Fontainebleau, our boat trips up and down the Seine, and our shorter jaunts within the city ! What happiness it was to us when he came in whistling and cried, " Donald, Maizie, you are horribly bad children, and I 'm going to take you on a lark to punish you ! " After time spent in filling our lunch-basket with big rolls bought at the boulangerie, a few sous' worth of cherries or other fruit lengthily bargained for with the /ruitievy and a half litre of cheap wine, plus whatever Other luxuries our imaginations or our appetites could suggest, away we would go for a long day of pure delight, whether passed under green trees or wandering through galleries and museums. My father was an encyclopaedia of information, and had the knack of making knowledge interesting to the child mind. He could re-create a bygone period from a battle-axe or a mart el de fer^ the personality of a queen from her lace ruff or stomacher, and the history of plant growth from a fern or flower. If his mind had been allowed to expand when he was young, instead of being stunted in a broker's office, I believe he might have been one of the world's great writers or critics.

Under such stimulating tutelage our progress in those two years was really wonderful. No subject my father touched upon could remain dull ; we were at a receptive age when the mind is fresh and elastic for all that interests it, and Paris 19 was a great picture-book to illustrate what he taught us. We did not know we were studying far deeper into subjects than many educated people ever go. I laugh still at your telling the old German on the train to Sevres the history of the Faust plot, and at his amazed ^^Ach, zo ! " to hear such erudition pour from your childish lips. I think you were the cleverer and the quicker, but there was no competition, only fellowship about our learning. I suppose you were above rivalry, as you are above all mean things.

And that is your chief glory to me. In those seven years of closest companionship, and in these last three years of lesser intercourse but far keener observation, I have never known you to do a mean thing or to speak a mean thought. I almost feel it treason to couple the word with you, or deny a trait so impossible for you to possess, and of which you have always shown such scorn and hatred. At this moment I know that I should only have to speak to part you forever from — Ah, what foolishness I am writing, tempting me to even greater meanness than his, and so to deserve the greater contempt from you ! Thinking me base, you closed your doors to me three years ago, and I love you the better that not even for auld lang syne could you pardon what is so alien to you. If the day ever comes when you again admit me to your friendship, I shall be happy in knowing that you think me above baseness or meanness ; for you would not compound with them, Mazie, be the circumstances what they might.

Our Paris life would not have been so happy and careless but for the slight part my mother had in it. So little did we see of her in those years that I think of her scarcely as one of us. I remember dimly a scene of hot anger between her and my father, — he standing passively by the high porcelain stove, while she raged about the room. So great was her fury that once, in passing, as I crouched scared and silent on the sofa, she struck me, — a blow which brought my father to my side, where he stood protectingly while the storm lasted, with his hand resting lovingly on my shoulder. My vague impression is that the outburst was only a protest against the poor lodgings, but it may have occurred when some explanation took place between my parents. I can see my mother now, sitting on the little balcony overlooking the garden of our pension, snarling an ill-natured word at us as you and I tried to play consultation games of chess against my father. He gave us odds at first of the rook and two pawns, but finally only of a knight. Oh, the triumph of those victories ! How we gloried in them, and how delighted our antagonist was when we conquered him ! Little we minded what my mother did except when we happened to be alone with her, and I think that the dear father played bad chess with us rather than good at the cafes, and made us his companions wherever he went, to save us from her severity.

I can recall very clearly her constant difficulties with our landlady and the servants, which finally culminated in a request that we should seek lodgings elsewhere. Do you recollect Madame Vanott's clasping us both in her arms and filling our hands with bonbons, when the time of parting came ? I do not know where we removed to, my sole remembrance of the next few weeks being of my mother's complaints of lodgings, food, servants, and French life generally. We moved three times within a month, fairly expelled by our landlords because they could not live at peace with '^la Madame." Our last exodus began in an angry scene between her and the housewife, in which a gendarme played a part, and from which you and I fled. The next morning we learned that my mother had determined to return to America, 23 and leave us to live our own life. Three days later we said emotionless good-bys, my father going as far as Havre with her.

Her departure set us asking questions, and my father's replies explained many things which, in our childish talks, we had gravely discussed. He told us how his own wealth had been lost in Wall Street, barely enough being left for a competence even in Europe. Of my mother's leaving us he spoke sadly. '^She never pretended to care for me," he said, " but I loved her and was willing to marry her. The wrong was mine, and we should not blame her if, when I can no longer give what was her price, she does not choose to continue the one-sided bargain." At the time her absence seemed to you and me only a relief, but now, as I look back, I know that my father never ceased to love her, — all the more, perhaps, because his love had never been requited, — and that separation must have 24 been the final wrecking of his Hfe. Yet from the day she left us I never heard him speak an angry word, and sorrow that would have crushed most men seemed to make him the gentler and sweeter. I wish — Ah! the clock is striking three, and if I am to bring working power to working hours I must stop writing. Good-night, dear one.

III

February 22. After my mother left us we did not stay in Paris, but went to Ischl, which we made merely the point of departure for walking tours which often lasted for weeks. Several times I have spoken of the region to you, hoping to draw from you some remark proving a recollection of those days, but you always avoid reply. Yet I am sure they are not forgotten, for miles of the Tyrol and Alps are as familiar to me as the garnishings of a breakfast-table. My father had the tact and kindly humor that make a man equally at home and welcome in Gasthatis and Scliloss. Though we traveled with only a knapsack, his breeding and education were so patent to whomsoever we met that we spent many a night inside of doors with armorial coats 26 of many quarterings carved above them, and many a day's shooting and fishing followed. Yet pleasant as was this impromptu and " gentle " hospitality, I think we were all quite as happy when our evenings were spent among the peasants, drinking beer, talking of farming and forestry, singing songs, or listening to the blare of the peripatetic military band.

My father was a fine German scholar, and you and I acquired the language as quickly and as easily as we learned French. We always had books in our pockets, and used to lie for hours under the trees, reading aloud. Long discussions followed over what we had conned, enriched by the thousand side-lights my father could throw on any subject. To most people reading is a resort to save themselves from thinking, but my father knew that pitfall, and made us use books as a basis for thought on our own part. After a volume w^as finished we would each write a criticism of it, and the com- 27 parison of my boyish attempts with his brilliant, comprehensive, and philosophic work taught me more of writing than all the tuition I ever had.

My craving for knowledge, always strong, became inordinate, probably because the acquisition of it was made so fascinating that I learned without real exertion. I began to find limits even to my father's erudition, and chafed under them. He reviewed his Greek that he might impart it to us, as he had long before taught us Latin, and together we all three studied Spanish and Italian. I was not satisfied, for my desire for the one thing my father was unable to teach was not appeased by the twenty which he could. I begged for regular tuition, and, indulgent as he always was, he took us to Heidelberg, where I was enrolled in the gymnasium. Yet the long hours of separation that this entailed made little difference in our relations, since except for these we were inseparable. Whenever my 28 school-work left us time to quit Heidelberg we made walking tours, and we availed ourselves of the summer holiday to see far-away lands. The great libraries were our chief goals, but everything interested us, from the archaic plough we saw in the field to the masterpiece of the gallery. I do not know whether I was dull for my years, but I do know that you were precocious and had no difficulty in keeping up with me in my studies. Indeed, thanks to your own brightness and to the long hours spent with my father while I was reciting, you went ahead of me in many respects. It makes me very happy now to think of what you two were to each other, and to know that you are so largely indebted to him for the depth and brilliance of mind that I hear so often commented upon. And I love you all the better because you made those years so happy to him by your love and companionship.

Last winter Mrs. Blodgett accused me of being a misogynist, and proved her 29 point by asking me to tell the color of Agnes's eyes. You and Agnes only laughed when I miscolored them, but Mrs. Blodgett was really nettled. " There ! " she said. ** Apparently, Agnes and I are the only women you ever go to see or pretend to care for, and yet you think so little of us that you don't know the color of our eyes." Had she only asked me to describe your eyes in place of Agnes's I should not have erred, but I suppose even then the world would be justified in thinking I do not care for woman's society. Certainly you, of all others, have the right to think so, after my twice refusing your friendship ; and yet it is my love of you far more than my studies or shyness that has made me indifferent to other women. And so far from being a misogynist, I care for as few men as women. You perhaps recall how much apart I kept myself from my fellow students, and how my father had to urge me to join them in the fencing and chess 30 contests ? Later, at the university, after you had left us, I entered more eagerly into the two pastimes, and succeeded in making myself a skilled swordsman. As for chess, I learned to play the game you tested last October on the veranda of My Fancy. You looked courteously grave when, after our initial battle, I had to ask from you the odds of a pawn, and never dreamed that I fathomed your secret triumph over your victory. You are so delightfully human and womanly, after all, Maizie, to any one who can read your thoughts. It is a pleasure to see your happiness in the consciousness of your own power, and I grudge you victory over me no more than over other men. Yet while you play better chess, I think you could not conquer me quite as easily if I were not much more interested in studying the player than the play. Perhaps biit for you I should have made friends, for later, at Leipzig, despite my shyness and studiousness, I seemed 31 fairly popular ; but so long as I had you I cared for no other friend, and after our separation I could form no new tie. Neither in love nor in friendship have you ever had a rival in my heart.

Our happiness ended the day when Johann, the poor factotum of our lodging-place, found us in the castle park and summoned us back to the house, where my father and Mr. Walton were awaiting you. The news that we were to be parted came so suddenly that we could not believe it. I stood in stunned silence, while you declared that you would not go with your uncle ; even in that terrible moment speaking more like a queen issuing orders than like a rebel resisting authority. We both appealed to my father, and the tears stood in his eyes as he told us we must be parted. Mr. Walton sat with the cool and slightly bored look that his worldly face wears so constantly, and I presume it was impossible for him to understand our emotion.

Your luggage had been packed while we were being summoned, and I carried your bag down to the carriage, in the endeavor to do you some last little service. We did not even go through the form of a farewell, but, tearless and speechless, held each other's hands till my father gently separated us. To this day the snap of a whip causes me to catch my breath, it brings back so vividly the crack with which Mr. Walton's cabman whipped up his horse. Fate was merciful, for she gave me no glimpse of the future, and so left me the hope that we should not be parted long. I question if the delicate lad of those days could have borne the thought that our separation, enforced by others, would in time be continued by you.

The life was too happy to last ; and yet I do not know why I write that, for I do not believe that God's children are born to be wretched, and I would sooner renounce my faith in him than believe 33 him so cruel to his own creations. The sadness and estrangement in my life are all of human origin, and mine, it seems to me, has been a fuller cup of bitterness than most men have to drink. Or am I only magnifying my own sufferings, and diminishing those of my fellow mortals ? To the world I am a fortunate man, with promise of even greater success. Do all the people about me, who seem to be equally prosperous, bury away from sight some grief like mine that beggars joy ?

Can you, Maizie, in the tide and triumph of your beauty and wealth, hide any such death-wound to all true happiness ? Pray God you do not. Good-night, my darling.

IV

February 23. After you were gone I fled to my room, crawling under the window-seat, much as a mortally wounded animal tries to hide itself. Here my father found me many hours later, speechless and shivering. He drew me from my retreat, and I still remember the sting of the brandy as he poured it down my throat. Afterwards the doctor came, to do nothing ; but all that night my father sat beside me, and towards morning he broke down my silence, and we talked together over the light which had gone out of our lives, till I fell asleep. He told me that the death of your two aunts had made you a great heiress, and rendered your continuance with us, in our poverty, impossible. " She 's gone away 35 out of our class, Donald/* my father said sadly, "and in the change of circumstances her mother would n't have made me her guardian. It was better for all of us to let her uncle take her back to New York." Even in my own grief I felt his sorrow, and though he did not dodge my questions, I could see how the subject pained him, and avoided it thenceforth. How strangely altered my life would have been if I had insisted on knowing more !

The doctor came several times afterwards, for I did not rally as I should have done, and at last he ordered a year's cessation of studies and plenty of exercise. It was a terrible blow to me at the time, for I was on the point of entering the University of Leipzig ; but now I can see it was all for the best, since the time given to our tours through Spain and Italy was well spent, and the delay made me better able to get the full value of the lectures. Moreover, that outdoor life 36 added three inches to the height and seventeen pounds to the weight of the hitherto puny boy. For a time my father made my health his care, and insisted on my walking and fencing daily ; but after that long holiday he need not have given it a thought, for I grew steadily to my present height, and while always of slender build, I can outwalk or outwork many a stockier man.

My university career was successful ; it could hardly have failed to be, with my training. I fear that I became overelated with my success, not appreciating how much it was due to my father's aid and to the kindness of two of my instructors. For my Ph. D. I made a study of the great race movements of the world, in which my predilection for philology, ethnology, and history gave me an especial interest. I so delighted my professor of philology by my enthusiasm and tirelessness that he stole long hours from the darling of his heart to aid me. (I need V hardly add that I do not allude to Frau Jastrow, but to his Verb-Roots of Fifty- Two Languages and Dialects of Indo- Germanic Origin, to be published some day in seventeen volumes, quarto.) He even brought me bundles of his manuscript to read and criticise. Our relations were as intimate as were possible between a professor and a student, and despite his reputation for ill temper the only evidence he ever gave me of it was a certain querulousness over the gaps in human knowledge.

My doctor's thesis on A Study of the Influence of Religion in the Alienation and Mixture of Races — which, with a vanity I now laugh over, I submitted not merely in Latin, but as an original work in four other languages — was not only the delight of both my dear professors, but was well considered outside the university. At Jastrow's urging, poor Buchholtz printed editions in all five languages ; and as only the German had any sale 38 worth mentioning, he ever after looked gloomy at a mere allusion to the title. But though it earned me no royalties, it won me the Kellermann prize, given every fifth year for the best original work on an historical subject.

On our first arrival in Leipzig my father sought literary employment from the great publishers of that city of books, and soon obtained all the *' review'' and " hack " writing that he wished. He encouraged me to help him in the work, and in my training probably lay his chief inducement, for he was paid at starvation rates in that land of hungry authors. The labor quickly taught me the technical part of authorship, the rock which has wrecked so many hopes. Our work brought us, too, the acquaintance of many literary men, and thus gave us our pleasantest society, and one peculiarly fitted to develop me. Furthermore, we secured command of the unlimited books stored on the publishers' shelves, which we used 39 as freely as if they were our own private library.

Very quickly I began to do more than help my father in his work ; I myself tried to write. He put many a manuscript in the fire, after going over the faults with me, but finally I wrote something that he let me send to an editor. His admirable judgment must have been warped by his fatherly love, for the article was rejected. A like fate befell many others, but at last one was accepted, and I do not know which of us was the more delighted when it was published in the *' Zeitschrift fur Deutsche Philologie.'' By my father's advice it was signed with a pseudonym ; for he pointed out that I was still too young for editors who knew me to give my manuscript a reading, and that a German name would command greater respect from them than an English one.

I received twenty marks for that first article, and spent it in secret the next 40 day. Had you known of my pleasure in the gift, and the hopes that went with it, I think you would have sent a line of acknowledgment to the hungry - hearted fellow who, after four years of separation, still longed for a token from you. Three times had I written, without response, but I thought the beauty of the photograph would so appeal to you that it must bring me back a word from you, and lived in the hope for six months. My father joked me genially about what I had done with that vast wealth, pretending at moments that he believed it had been avariciously hoarded, and at other times that it had been squandered in riotous living, till one* day, when all hope of acknowledgment had died, his chaff wrung from me an exclamation of pain, suppressed too late to be concealed from him. So closely attuned had we become that he understood in an instant what it meant, and, laying his hand on my shoulder, he appealed, " F'orgive me, 41 my boy ! I have been very cruel in my thoughtlessness ! "

Nothing more was said then, but later that evening, when we rose from our work, he asked, '* She never replied ? '* and when I shook my head, the saddest look I ever saw in him came upon his face. He seemed about to speak impulsively, faltered, checked himself, and finally entreated, ''Bear up, Donald, and try to forget her." I could only shake my head again, but he understood. "She's feminine quicksilver," he groaned, "and I can't get the dear girl out of my blood, either." We gripped each other's hands for a moment, and I said, " Good-night, father," and he replied, " God help you, my boy." How happy we should have been could we have bidden you, " Good-night, Maizie ! "

V

February 24. I cannot clearly fix the time when first I decided upon a life of letters, and presume it was my father's influence which determined me. After the publication of my first article, all the time I could spare from my studies was devoted to writing. Most of it was magazine work, but two text-books were more ambitious flights. Undertaken at my father s suggestion, the books were revised by him, till they should have been published with his name, and not my pseudonym, on the title-page. This I urged, but he would not hear of it, insisting that his work was trivial compared with mine. I understand his motive now, and see how wise and loving he was in all his plans. Thanks to his skill in clarifying knowledge and fitting it to the immature mind, both 43 books attained a large sale almost immediately on their publication.