Part 20 (2/2)
”Why, you make me curious. Never saw you in that vein before, Vail,”
and Charley twisted a piece of paper, lighted it in the gas jet, and held it gracefully in his fingers while he set his cigar going, hoping to hide his restlessness under the wistful gaze of his friend by this occupation of his attention.
But however nervous Henry Vail might be in the performance of little acts that were mere matters of convention, there was no lack of quiet self-possession in matters that called out his earnestness of spirit.
And now he sat gazing steadily at Charley until the cigar had been gracefully lighted, the bit of paper tossed on the grate, and until Charley had watched his cigar a moment. When the latter reluctantly brought his eyes back into range with the dead-earnest ones that had never ceased to look on him with that strange wistful expression, then Henry Vail proceeded:
”I want _you_, Charley.”
Charley laughed heartily now. ”Me? What a missionary _I_ would make!
Kid-glove gospeller I'd be called in the first three days. What a superb Sunday-school teacher I'd make! Why, Henry Vail, you know better. There's just one thing in this world I have a talent for, and that's society. I'm a man of the world in my very fiber. But as for following in your ill.u.s.trious footsteps--I wish I could be so good a man, but you see I'm not built in that way. I'm a man of the world.”
”That's just what I want,” said Henry Vail, looking with the same tender wistfulness into his friend's eyes. ”If I'd wanted a missionary I shouldn't have come to you. If I'd wanted a Sunday-school teacher I could have found twenty better; and as for tract distributing and Bible reading, you couldn't do either if you'd try. What I want for Huckleberry Street more than I want anything else is a man of the world. You are a man of the world--of the whole world. I have seen a restaurant waiter stop and gape and listen to your talk. I have seen a coal-heaver delighted with your manners when you paid him. Charley, you're the most magnificent man of the world I ever saw. Must a man of the world be useless? I tell you I want you for G.o.d and Huckleberry Street, and I mean to have you some day, old fellow.” And the perfect a.s.surance with which he said this, and the settled conviction of final success that was visible in his quiet gray eyes, fascinated Charley Vanderhuyn, and he felt spellbound, like the wedding guest held by the ”Ancient Mariner.”
”I tell you what, Henry,” he said presently, ”I've got no call. I'm an Epicurean. I say to you, in the words of an American poet:
'Take the current of your nature, make it stagnant if you will: Dam it up to drudge forever at the service of your will.
Mine the rapture and the freedom of the torrent on the hill!
I shall wander o'er the meadows where the fairest blossoms call: Though the ledges seize and fling me headlong from the rocky wall, I shall leave a rainbow hanging o'er the ruins of my fall.'”
”Charley, I don't want to preach,” said Vail; ”but you know that this doctrine of mere selfish floating on the current of impulse which your traveler poet teaches is devilish laziness, and devilish laziness always tends to something worse. You may live such a life, and quote such poetry, but you don't believe that a man should flow on like a purposeless river. The lines you quoted bear the mark of a restless desire to apologize to conscience for a fearful waste of power and possibility. No,” he said, rising, ”I don't want that check. This one will do; but you won't forget that G.o.d and Huckleberry Street want you, and they will have you, too, n.o.ble-hearted fellow! Good night! G.o.d bless you!” and he shook Charley's hand and went out into the night to seek his home in Huckleberry Street. And the genial Charley never saw his brave friend again. Yes, he did, too. Or did he?
II.
The month of December, four years ago, was a month of much festivity in the metropolis. Charley was wanted nearly every night to grace some gathering or other, and Charley was too obliging to refuse to go where he was wanted--that is, when he was wanted in Fifth Avenue or Thirty-fourth Street[3]. As for Huckleberry Street and Greenfield Court, they were fast fading out of Charley's mind. He knew that Henry Vail would introduce the subject when he came for his January check, and he expected some annoyance from the discussion of the question--annoyance, because there was something in his own breast that answered to Vail's appeal. Charley was more than an Epicurean. To eat and drink, to laugh and talk, and die, was not enough for such a soul.
He mentally compared himself to Felix, and said that Vail wouldn't let him forget his duty, anyhow. But for the present it was too delightful to him to honor the entertainment given by the Honorable Mr. So-and-so and Mrs. So-and-so; it was pleasant to be a.s.sured by Mrs.
Forty-Millions that her party would fail but for his presence. And then he had just achieved the end of his ambition. He was president of the Hasheesh Club. He took his seat at the head of the table on Christmas Eve.
[3] The reader will remember that this was written in 1872. I do not know how far the uptown centers of fas.h.i.+on will be in twenty years more.
Now, patient reader, we draw near to the time when Charley uttered the exclamation set down at the head of this story. Bear a little longer with my roundabout way of telling. It is Christmastide anyway; why should we hurry ourselves through this happy season?
Just as Charley went into the door of the clubhouse--you remember the Hasheesh clubhouse was in Madison Avenue then--just as Charley entered he met the burly form and genial face of the eminent Dr. Van Doser, who said, ”Well, Vanderhuyn, how's your cousin Vail?”
”Is he sick?” asked Charley, struck with a foreboding that made him tremble.
”Sick? Didn't you know? Well, that's just like Vail. He was taken with smallpox two weeks ago, and I wanted to take the risk of penalties and not report his case, but he said if I didn't he would do it himself; that sanitary regulations requiring smallpox patients to go to a hospital were necessary, and that it became one in his position to set a good example to Huckleberry Street. So I was compelled to report him and let him go to the island. And he hasn't let you know?--for fear you would try to communicate with him probably, and thus expose yourself to infection. Extraordinary man, that Vail. I never saw his like,” and with that the doctor turned to speak to some gentlemen who had just come in.
And so Charley's Christmas Eve dinner at the Hasheesh Club was spoiled.
There are two inconvenient things in this world, a conscience and a tender heart, and Charley Vanderhuyn was plagued with both. While going through with the toasts, his mind was busy with poor Henry Vail suffering in a smallpox hospital. In his graceful response to the sentiment, ”The President of the Hasheesh Club,” he alluded to the retiring president, and made some witty remark--I forget what--about his being a denizen of Lexington Avenue; but in saying Lexington Avenue he came near slipping into Huckleberry Street, and in fact he did get the first syllable out before he checked himself. He was horrified afterward to think how near he had come, later in the evening, to addressing the company as ”Gentlemen of the Smallpox Hospital.”
Charley drank more wine and punch than usual. Those who sat near him looked at one another significantly, in a way that implied their belief that Vanderhuyn was too much elated over his election. Little did they know that at that moment the presidency of the famous Hasheesh Club appeared to Charley the veriest bawble in the world. If he had not known how futile would be any attempt to gain an entrance to the smallpox hospital, he would have excused himself and started for the island on the instant.
But it was one o'clock before Charley got away. Out of the brilliantly lighted rooms he walked, stunned with grief, and a little heavy with the wine and punch he had drunk, for in his preoccupation of mind he had forgotten to be as cautious as usual. Following an impulse, he took a car and went directly downtown, and then made his way to Huckleberry Street. He stopped at a saloon door and asked if they could tell him where Mr. Vail's rooms were.
”The blissed man as wint about like a saint? Sh.o.r.e and I can,” said the boozy Irishman. ”It's right ferninst where yer afther stan'in, up the stairs on the corner of Granefield Coort--over there, bedad.”
<script>