it was while harry lossing was at the high school that mrs. carriswood first saw tommy fitzmaurice. he was not much to see, a long lad of sixteen who had outgrown his jackets and was not yet grown to his ears.
at this period mrs. fitzmaurice was his barber, and she, having been too rash with the shears in one place, had snipped off the rest of his curly black locks “to match;” until he showed a perfect convict's poll, giving his ears all the better chance, and bringing out the rather square contour of his jaws to advantage. he had the true irish-norman face; a skin of fine texture, fair and freckled, high cheekbones, straight nose, and wide blue eyes that looked to be drawn with ink, because of their sharply pencilled brows and long, thick, black lashes. but the feature that mrs. carriswood noticed was tommy's mouth, a flexible and delicately cut mouth, of which the lips moved lightly in speaking and seldom were quite in repose.
“the genuine irish orator's mouth,” thought mrs. carriswood.
tommy, however, was not a finished orator, and mrs. carriswood herself deigned to help him with his graduating oration; tommy delivering the aforesaid oration from memory, on the stage of the grand opera house, to a warm-hearted and perspiring audience of his towns-people, amid tremendous applause and not the slightest prod-dings of conscience.
really the speech deserved the applause; mrs. carriswood, who had heard half the eloquence of the world, spent three evenings on it; and she has a good memory.
her part in the affair always amused her; though, in fact, it came to pass easily. she had the great fortune of the family. being a widow with no children, and the time not being come when philanthropy beckons on the right hand and on the left to free-handed women, mrs. carriswood travelled. as she expressed it, she was searching the globe for a perfect climate. “not that i in the least expect to find it,” said she, cheerfully, “but i like to vary my disappointments; when i get worn out being frozen, winters, i go somewhere to be soaked.” she was on her way to california this time, with her english maid, who gave the lossing domestics many a jolly moment by her inextinguishable panic about red indians. mrs. derry supposed these savages to be lurking on the prairie outside every western town; and almost fainted when she did chance to turn the corner upon three kickapoo indians, splendid in paint and feathers, and peacefully vending the “famous kickapoo sagwa.” she had others of the artless notions of the travelling english, and i fear that they were encouraged not only by the cook, the “second girl,” and the man-of-all-work, but by harry and his chum, tommy; i know she used to tell how she saw tame buffalo “roosting” on the streets, “w'ich they do look that like common cows a body couldn't tell 'em hapart!”
she had a great opinion of tommy, a mystery to her mistress for a long time, until one day it leaked out that tommy “and master harry, too,” had told her that tommy's great-grandfather was a lord in the old country.
“the family seem to have sunk in the world since, derry,” was mrs. carriswood's single remark, as she smiled to herself. after derry was dismissed she picked up a letter, written that day to a friend of hers, and read some passages about harry and tommy, smiling again.
“harry”—one may look over her pretty shoulder without impertinence, in a story—“harry,” she wrote, “is a boy that i long to steal. just the kind of boy we have both wanted, sarah—frank, happy, affectionate. i must tell you something about him. it came out by accident. he has the western business instincts, and what do you suppose he did? he actually started a wee shop of his own in the corner of the yard (really it is a surprisingly pretty place, and they are quite civilized in the house, gas, hot water, steam heat, all most comfortable), and sold 'pop' and candy and cakes to the boys. he made so much money that he proposed a partnership to the cook and the setting up a little booth in the 'county fair,' which is like our rural cattle shows, you know. the cook (a superior person who borrows books from mrs. lossing, but seems very decent and respectful notwithstanding, and broils game to perfection. and such game as we have here, sarah!)—well, the cook made him cream-cakes, sandwiches, tarts, and candy, and harry honorably bought all the provisions with his profits from the first venture. you will open your eyes at his father permitting such a thing, but henry lossing is a thorough westerner in some ways, and he looks on it all as a joke. 'might show the boy how to do business,' he says.
“well, they had a ravishing display, so alma, the cook, and william, the man, assured me—per derry. all the sadder its fate; for alas! a gang of rowdy boys fell upon harry, and while he was busy fighting half of them—he is as plucky as his uncle, the general—the other half looted the beautiful stock in trade! they would have despoiled our poor little merchant entirely but for the opportune arrival of a schoolmate who is mightily respected by the rowdies. he knocked one of them down and shouted after the others that he would give every one of them a good thrashing if they did not bring the plunder back; and as he is known to be a lad of his word for good or evil, actually the scamps did return most of the booty, which the two boys brushed off and sold, as far as it went (!) the consequence of the fray has been that harry is unboundedly grateful to this tommy fitzmaurice, and is at present coaching him on his graduating oration. fitzmaurice has studied hard and won honors, and wants to make a show with his oration, to please his father. 'you see,' says harry, 'tommy's father has saved money and is spending it all on tommy, so's he can be educated. he needs tommy in the business real bad, but he won't let him come in; he keeps him at school, and he thinks everything of his getting the valedictory, and tommy, he worked nights studying to get it.' when i asked what was the father's business, harry grew a bit confused. 'well, he kept a saloon; but'—harry hastened to explain—'it was a very nice saloon, never any trouble with the police there; why, tommy knew every man on the force. and they keep good liquors, too,' said harry, earnestly; 'throw away all the beer left in the glasses.' 'what else would they do with it?' asked innocent i. 'why, keep it in a bucket,' said harry, solemnly, 'and then slip the glass under the counter and half fill out of the bucket, then hold it under the keg low, so's the foam will come; that's a trick of the trade, you know. tommy says his father would scorn that!' there is a vista opened, isn't there? i was rather shocked at such associates for harry, and told his mother. did she think it a good idea to have such a boy coming to the house? a saloon-keeper's son? she did not laugh, as i half expected, but answered quite seriously that she had been looking up tommy, that he was very much attached to harry, and that she did not think he would teach him anything bad. he has, i find myself, notions of honor, though they are rather the code of the street. and he picks up things quickly. once he came to tea. it was amusing to see how he glued his eyes on harry and kept time with his motions. he used his fork quite properly, only as harry is a left-handed little fellow, the right-handed thomas had the more difficulty.
“he is taking such vast pains with his 'oration' that i felt moved to help him. the subject is 'the triumph of democracy,' and tommy civilly explained that 'democracy' did not mean the democratic party, but 'just only a government where all the poor folks can get their rights and can vote.'
“the oration was the kind of spread-eagle thing you might expect; i can see that tommy has formed himself on the orators of his father's respectable saloon. what he said in comment interested me more. 'sure, i guess it is the best government, ma'am, though, of course, i got to make it out that way, anyhow. but we come from ireland, and there they got the other kind, and me granny, she starved in the famine time, she did that—with the fever. me father walked twenty mile to the sackville's place, where they gave him some meal, though he wasn't one of their tenants; yes, and the lady told him how he would be cooking it. i never will forget that lady!'
“i saw a dramatic opportunity: would tommy be willing to tell that story in his speech? he looked at me with an odd look—or so i imagined it! 'why not?' says he; 'i'd as soon as not tell it to anyone of them, and why not to them all together?' well, why not, when you come to think of it? so we have got it into the speech; and i, i myself, sarah, am drilling young demos-thenes, and he is so apt a scholar that i find myself rather pleasantly employed.” having read her letter, mrs. carriswood hesitated a second and then added derry's information at the bottom of the page. “i suppose the lordly ancestor was one of king james's creation—see macaulay, somewhere in the second volume. i dare say there is a drop or two of good blood in the boy. he has the manners of a gentleman—but i don't know that i ever saw an irishman, no matter how low in the social scale, who hadn't.”
thus it happened that tommy's valedictory scored a success that is a tradition of the high school, and came to be printed in both the city papers; copies of which journals tommy's mother has preserved sacredly to this day; and i have no doubt, could one find them, they would be found wrapped around a yellow photograph of the “a class” of 1870: eight pretty girls in white, smiling among five solemn boys in black, and tommy himself, as the valedictorian, occupying the centre of the picture in his new suit of broadcloth, with a rose in his buttonhole and his hair cut by a professional barber for the occasion.
it was the story of the famine that really captured the audience; and tommy told it well, with the true irish fire, in a beautiful voice.
in the front seat of the parquette a little old man in a wrinkled black broadcloth, with a bald head and a fringe of whisker under his long chin, and a meek little woman, in a red paisley shawl, wept and laughed by turns. they had taken the deepest interest in every essay and every speech. the old man clapped his large hands (which were encased in loose, black kid gloves) with unflagging vigor. he wore a pair of heavy boots, the soles of which made a noble thud on the floor.
“ain't it wonderful the like of them young craters can talk like that!” he cried; “shure, molly, that young lady who'd the essay—where is it?”—a huge black forefinger travelled down the page—“'music, the turkish patrol,' no—though that's grand, that piece; i'll be spakin' wid professor von keinmitz to bring it when we've the opening. here 'tis, molly: 'tin, essay. the darkest night brings out the stars, miss mamie odenheimer.' thrue for you, mavourneen! and the sintiments, wasn't they illigant? and the lan-gwidge was as foine as pat ronan's speeches or father—whist! will ye look at the flowers that shlip of a gyirl's gitting! count 'em, will ye?”
“fourteen bouquets and wan basket,” says the little woman, “and mamie odenheimer, she got seventeen bouquets and two baskets and a sign. well,” she looked anxious, but smiled, “i know of siven bouquets tommy will git for sure. and that's not countin' what harry lossing will do for him. hiven bless the good heart of him!”
“well, i kin count four for him on wan seat,” says the man, with a nod of his head toward the gay heap in the woman's lap, “barrin' i ain't on-vaygled into flinging some of thim to the young ladies!”
harry lossing, in the seat behind with his mother and mrs. carriswood, giggled at this and whispered in the latter lady's ear, “that's tommy's father and mother. my, aren't they excited, though! and tommy's white's a sheet—for fear he'll disappoint them, you know. he has said his piece over twice to me, to-day, he's so scared lest he'll forget. i've got it in my pocket, and i'm going behind when it's his turn, to prompt him. did you see me winking at him? it sort of cheers him up.”
he was almost as keen over the floral procession as the fitzmaurices themselves. the lossing garden had been stripped to the last bud, and levies made on the asparagus-bed, into the bargain, and mrs. lossing and alma and mrs. carriswood and derry and susy lossing had made bouquets and baskets and wreaths, and harry had distributed them among friends in different parts of the house. i say harry, but, complimented by mrs. carriswood, he admitted ingenuously that it was tommy's idea.
“tommy thought they would make more show that way,” says harry, “and they are all on the middle aisle, so his father and mother can see them; tim o'halloran has got one for him, too, and mrs. macillarney, and she's got some splendid pinies. picked every last one. they'll make a show!”
but harry knew nothing of the most magnificent of his friend's trophies until it undulated gloriously down the aisle, above the heads of two men, white satin ribbons flying, tinfoil shining—an enormous horseshoe of roses and mignonette!
the parents were both on their feet to crane their necks after it, as it passed them amid the plaudits.
“oh, it was you, cousin margaret; i know it was you,” cried harry.
he took the ladies over to the fitzmaurices the minute that the diplomas were given; and, directly, tommy joined them, attended by two admiring followers laden with the trophies. mrs. o'halloran and mrs. macillarney and divers of the friends, both male and female, joined the circle. tommy held quite a little court. he shook hands with all the ladies, beginning with mrs. carriswood (who certainly never had found herself before in such a company, jammed between alderman mcginnis's resplendent new tweeds and mrs. macillarney's calico); he affectionately embraced his mother, and he allowed himself to be embraced by mrs. macillarney and mrs. o'halloran, while patrick fitzmaurice shook hands with the alderman.
“here's the lady that helped me on me piece, father; she's the lady that sent me the horseshoe, mother. like to make you acquainted with me father and me mother. mr. and mrs. fitzmaurice, mrs. carriswood.”
in these words, tommy, blushing and happy, presented his happy parents.
“sure, i'm proud to meet you, ma'am,” said fitzmaurice, bowing, while his wife courtesied and wiped her eyes.
they were very grateful, but they were more grateful for the flowers than for the oratorical drilling. no doubt they thought that their tommy could have done as well in any case; but the splendid horseshoe was another matter!
ten years passed before mrs. carriswood saw her pupil again. during those years the town had increased and prospered; so had the lossing art furniture works. it was after harry lossing had disappointed his father. this is not saying that he had done anything out of the way; he had simply declined to be the fourth harry lossing on the rolls of harvard college. instead, he proposed to enter the business and to begin by learning his own trade. he was so industrious, he kept at it with such energy that his first convert was his father—no, i am wrong, mrs. carriswood was the first; mrs. lossing was not a convert, she had believed in harry from the beginning. but all this was years before mrs. carriswood's visit.
another of master harry's notions was his belief in the necessity of his “meddling”—so his father put it—in the affairs of the town, the state, and the nation, as well as those of the lossing furniture company. but, though he was pleased to make rather cynical fun of his son's political enthusiasm, esteeming it in a sense a diverting and therefore reprehensible pursuit for a business man, the elder lossing had a sneaking pride in it, all the same. he liked to bring out harry's political shrewdness.
“fancy, margaret,” says he, “whom do you think harry has brought over to our side now? the shrewdest ward politician in the town—why, you saw him when he was a boy—tommy fitzmaurice.”
then mrs. carriswood remembered; she asked, amused, how was tommy and where was he?
“tommy? oh, he went to the state university; the old man was bound to send him, and he was more dutiful than some sons. he was graduated with honors, and came back to a large, ready-made justice court's practice. of course he drifted into criminal practice; but he has made a fine income out of that, and is the shrewdest, some folks say the least scrupulous, political manager in the county. and so, harry, you have persuaded him to cast in his lot with the party of principle, have you? and he is packing the primaries?”
“i see nothing dishonest in our trying to get our friends out to vote at the primaries, sir.”
“of course not, but he may not stop there. however, i want bailey elected, and i am glad he will work for us; what's his price?”
harry blushed a little. “i believe he would like to be city attorney, sir,” said he; and mr. lossing laughed.
“would he make a bad one?” asked mrs. carriswood.
“he would make the best kind of a one,” replied harry, with youthful fervor; “he's a ward politician and all that, i know; but he has it in him to be an uncommon deal more! and i say, sir, do you know that he and the old man will take twenty-five thousand of the stock at par if we turn ourselves into a corporation?”
“how about this new license measure? won't that bear a little bit hard on the old man?” this from mr. lossing, who was biting his cigar in deep thought.
“that will not prevent his doing his duty; why, the old man for very pride will be the first to obey the law. you'll see!”
six months later they did see, since it was mostly due to fitzmaurice's efforts that the reform candidate was elected; as a consequence, tommy became prosecuting attorney; and, to the amazement of the critics, made the best prosecuting attorney that the city had ever known.
it was during the campaign that mrs. carriswood met him. her goddaughter, daughter of the friend to whom years ago she described tommy, was with her. this time mrs. carriswood had recently added florida to her disappointments in climates, and was back, as she told mrs. lossing, “with a real sense of relief in a climate that was too bad to make any pretensions.”
she had brought miss van harlem to see the shops. it may be that she would not have been averse to harry lossing's growing interested in young margaret. she had seen a great deal of harry while he was east at school, and he remained her first favorite, while margaret was as good as she was pretty, and had half a million of dollars in her own right. they had seen harry, and he was showing them through the different buildings or “shops,” when a man entered who greeted him cordially, and whom he presented to mrs. carriswood. it was tommy fitzmaurice, grown into a handsome young man. he brought his heels together and made the ladies a solemn bow. “pleased to meet you, ladies; how do you like the west?” said tommy.
his black locks curled about his ears, which seemed rather small now; he had a good nose and a mobile, clean-shaven face. his hands were very white and soft, and the rim of linen above them was dazzling. his black frock-coat was buttoned snugly about his slim waist. he brushed his face with a fine silk handkerchief, and thereby diffused the fragrance of the best imported cologne among the odors of wood and turpentine. a diamond pin sparkled from his neckscarf. the truth is, he knew that the visitors were coming and had made a state toilet. “he looks half like an actor and half like a clergyman, and he is all a politician,” thought mrs. carriswood; “i don't think i shall like him any more.” while she thought, she was inclining her slender neck toward him, and the gentlest interest and pleasure beamed out of her beautiful, dark eyes.
“we like the west, but i have liked it for ten years; this is not my first visit,” said mrs. carriswood.
“i have reason to be glad for that, madam. i never made another speech so good.”
he had remembered her; she laughed. “i had thought that you would forget.”
“how could i, when you have not changed at all?”
“but you have,” says mrs. carriswood, hardly knowing whether to show the young man his place or not.
“yes, ma'am, naturally. but i have not learned how to make a speech yet.”
“ah, but you make very good ones, harry tells me.”
“much obliged, harry. no, ma'am, harry is a nice boy; but he doesn't know. i know there is a lot to learn, and i guess a lot to unlearn; and i feel all outside; i don't even know how to get at it. i have wished a thousand times that i could talk with the lady who taught me to speak in the first place.” he walked on by her side, talking eagerly. “you don't know how many times i have felt i would give most anything for the opportunity of just seeing you and talking with you; those things you said to me i always remembered.” he had a hundred questions evidently stinging his tongue. and some of them seemed to mrs. carriswood very apposite.
“i'm on the outside of such a lot of things,” says he. “when i first began to suspect that i was on the outside was when i went to the high school, and sometimes i was invited to harry's; that was my first acquaintance with cultivated society. you can't learn manners from books, ma'am. i learned them at harry's. that is,”—he colored and laughed,—“i learned some. there's plenty left, i know. then, i went to the university. some of the boys came from homes like harry's, and some of the professors there used to ask us to their houses; and i saw engravings and oil paintings, and heard the conversation of persons of culture. all this only makes me know enough to know i am outside. i can see the same thing with the lawyers, too. there is a set of them that are after another kind of things; that think themselves above me and my sort of fellows. you know all the talk about this being a free and equal country. that's the tallest kind of humbug, madam! it is that. there are sets, one above another, everywhere; big bugs and little bugs, if you will excuse the expression. and you can't influence the big ones without knowing how they feel. a fellow can't be poking in the dark in a speech or anywhere else. now, these fellows here, they go into politics, sometimes; and there, i tell you, we come the nearest to a fair field and no favor! it is the best fellow gets the prize there—the sharpest-witted, the nerviest, and stanchest. oh, talk of machine politics! all the soft chaps who ain't willing to get up early in the morning, or to go out in the wet, they howl about the primaries and corruption; let them get up and clean the primaries instead of holding their noses! those fellows, i'm not nice enough for them, but i can beat them every time. they make a monstrous racket in the newspapers, but when election comes on they can't touch side, edge, or bottom!”
discoursing in this fashion, with digressions to harry in regard to the machines, the furniture, and the sales, that showed mrs. carriswood that he meant to keep an eye on his twenty odd thousand dollars, he strolled at her side. to miss van harlem he scarcely said three words. in fact, he said exactly three words, uttered as miss margaret's silken skirts swung too near a pot of varnish. they were “look out, miss!” and at the same second, tommy (who was in advance, with really no call to know of the danger), turned on his heel and whisked the skirts away, turning back to pick up the sentence he had dropped.
tommy told harry that miss van harlem was a very handsome lady, but haughty-looking. then he talked for half an hour about the cleverness of mrs. carriswood.
“i am inclined to think tommy will rise.” (mrs. carriswood was describing the interview to her cousin, the next day.) “what do you think he said to me last of all? 'how,' said he, 'does a man, a gentleman'—it had a touch of the pathetic, don't you know, the little hesitation he made on the word—'how does he show his gratitude to a lady who has done him a great service?' 'young or old?' i said. 'oh, a married lady,' he said, 'very much admired, who has been everywhere.' wasn't that clever of him? i told him that a man usually sent a few flowers. you saw the basket to-day—evidently regardless of expense. and fancy, there was a card, a card with a gilt edge and his name written on it.”
“the card was his mother's. she has visiting cards, now, and pays visits once a year in a livery carriage. poor mrs. fitzmaurice, she is always so scared; and she is such a good soul! tommy is very good to her.”
“how about the father? does he still keep that 'nice' saloon?”
“yes; but he talks of retiring. they are not poor at all, and tommy is their only child; the others died. it is hard on the old man to retire, for he isn't so very old in fact, but if he once is convinced that his calling stands in the way of tommy's career, he won't hesitate a second.”
“poor people,” said mrs. carriswood; “do you know, grace, i can see tommy's future; he will grow to be a boss, a political boss. he will become rich by keeping your streets always being cleaned—which means never clean—and giving you the worst fire department and police to be obtained for money; and, by and by, a grateful machine will make him mayor, or send him to the legislature, very likely to congress, where he will misrepresent the honest state of iowa. then he will bloom out in a social way, and marry a gentlewoman, and they will snub the old people who are so proud of him.”
“well, we shall see,” said mrs. lossing; “i think better things of tommy. so does harry.”
part of the prophecy was to be speedily fulfilled. two years later, the honorable thomas fitzmaurice was elected mayor of his city, elected by the reform party, on account of his eminent services—and because he was the only man in sight who had the ghost of a chance of winning. harry's version was: “tommy jests at his new principles, but that is simply because he doesn't comprehend what they are. he laughs at reform in the abstract; but every concrete, practical reform he is as anxious as i or anybody to bring about. and he will get them here, too.”
he was as good as his word; he gave the city an admirable administration, with neither fear nor favor. some of the “boys” still clung to him; these, according to harry, were the better “boys,” who had the seeds of good in them and only needed opportunity and a leader. tommy did not flag in zeal; rather, as the time went on and he soared out of the criminal courts into big civil cases involving property, he grew up to the level of his admirers' praises. “tommy,” wrote mr. lossing, presently, “is beginning to take himself seriously. he has been told so often that he is a young lion of reform, that he begins to study the role in dead earnest. i don't talk this way to harry, who believes in him and is training him for the representative for our district. what harm? verily, his is the faith that will move mountains. besides, tommy is now rich; he must be worth a hundred thousand dollars, which makes a man of wealth in these parts. it is time for him to be respectable.”
notwithstanding this preparation, mrs. carriswood (then giving washington the benefit of her doubts of climate) was surprised one day to receive a perfectly correct visiting card whereon was engraved, “mr. thomas sackville fitzmaurice, m.c.”
the young lady who was with her lifted her brilliant hazel eyes and half smiled. “is it the droll young man we met once at mrs. lossing's? pray see him, aunt margaret,” said miss van harlem.
mrs. carriswood shrugged her shoulders and ordered the man to show him up.
there entered, in the wake of the butler, a distinguished-looking personage who held out his hand with a perfect copy of the bow that she saw forty times a day. “he is taking himself very seriously,” she sighed; “he is precisely like anybody else!” and she felt her interest snuffed out by tommy's correctness. but, directly, she changed her mind; the unfailing charm of his race asserted itself in tommy; she decided that he was a delightful, original young man, and in ten minutes they were talking in the same odd confidence that had always marked their relation.
“how perfectly you are gotten up! are you inside, now?”
“ah, do you remember that?” said he; “that's awfully good of you. which is so fortunate as to please you, my clothes or my deportment?”
“both. they are very good. where did you get them, tommy? i shall take the privilege of my age and call you tommy.”
“thank you. the clothes? oh, i asked harry for the proper thing, and he recommended a tailor. i think harry gave me the manners, too.”
“and your new principles?” she could not resist this little fling.
“i owe a great deal in that way to harry, also,” answered he, with gravity.
gone were the days of sarcastic ridicule, of visionary politics. tommy talked of the civil service in the tone of harry himself. he was actually eloquent.
“why, aunt margaret, he is a remarkable young man,” exclaimed miss van harlem; “his honesty and enthusiasm are refreshing in this pessimist place. i hope he will come again. did you notice what lovely eyes he has?”
before long it was not pure good-nature that caused mrs. carriswood to ask fitzmaurice to her house. he was known as a rising young man, one met him at the best houses; yet he was a prodigious worker, and had made his mark in committees, before the celebrated speech that sent him into all the newspaper columns, or that stubborn and infinitely versatile fight against odds which inspired the artist of puck.
tommy bore the cartoon to mrs. carriswood, beaming. she had not seen that light in his face since the memorable june afternoon in the opera-house. he sent the paper to his mother, who vowed the picture “did not favor tommy at all, at all. sure tommy never had such a red nose!” the old man, however, went to his ex-saloon, and sat in state all the morning, showing tommy's funny picture.
it was about this time that mrs. carriswood observed something that took her breath away: tommy fitzmaurice had the presumption to be attentive to my lady's goddaughter, miss van harlem. nor was this the worst; there were indications that miss van harlem, who had refused the noble names and titles of two or three continental nobles, and the noble name unaccompanied by a title of the younger son of an english earl, without mentioning the half-dozen “nice” american claimants—miss van harlem was not angry.
the day this staggering blow fell on her, mrs. carriswood was in her dressing-room, peacefully watching derry unpack a box from paris, in anticipation of a state dinner. and miss van harlem, in a bewitching wrapper, sat on the lounge and admired. upon this scene of feminine peace and happiness enter the destroyer, in the shape of a note from tommy fitzmaurice! were they going on beatoun's little excursion to alexandria? if they were, he would move heaven and earth to put off a committee meeting, in order to join them. by the way, he was to get the floor for his speech that afternoon. wouldn't mrs. carriswood come to inspire him? perhaps miss van harlem would not be bored by a little of it.
it was a well-worded note; as mrs. carriswood read it she realized for the first time how completely tommy was acclimated in society. she remembered his plaint years ago, and his awe of “oil paintings” and “people of culture;” and she laughed half-sadly as she passed the note over to miss van harlem.
“i presume it is the alexandria excursion that the beatouns were talking about yesterday,” she said, languidly. “he wants to show that young irishman that we have a mild flavor of antiquity, ourselves. we are to see alexandria and have a real old virginian dinner, including one of the famous beatoun hams and some of the '69 chateau yquem and the sacred '47 port. i suppose he will have the four-in-hand buckboard. 'a small party '—that will mean the honorable basil sackville, mrs. beatoun, lilly denning, probably one of the cabinet girls, colonel turner, and that young russian beatoun is so fond of, tommy fitzmaurice———”
“why do you always call mr. fitzmaurice tommy?”—this interruption comes with a slight rise of color from young margaret.
“everybody calls him tommy in his own town; a politician as popular as he with the boys is naturally tommy or jerry or billy. they slap him on the back or sit with an arm around his neck and concoct the ways to rule us.”
“i don't think anyone slaps mr. fitzmaurice on the back and calls him tommy, now,” says margaret, with a little access of dignity.
“i dare say his poor old father and mother don't venture on that liberty; i wish you had seen them——”
“he has told me about them,” says margaret.
and mrs. carriswood's dismay was such that for a second she simply gasped. were things so far along that such confessions were made? tommy must be very confident to venture; it was shrewd, very shrewd, to forestall mrs. carriswood's sure revelations—oh, tommy was not a politician for nothing!
“besides,” margaret went on, with the same note of repressed feeling in her voice, “his is a good family, if they have decayed; his ancestor was lord fitzmaurice in king james's time.”
“she takes him seriously too!” thought mrs. carriswood, with inexpressible consternation; “what shall i say to her mother?”
strange to say, perhaps, considering that she was so frankly a woman of the world, her stub-bornest objection to tommy was not an objection of expediency. she had insensibly grown to take his success for granted, like the rest of the washington world; he would be a governor, a senator, he might be—anything! and he was perfectly presentable, now; no, it would be on the whole an investment in the future that would pay well enough; his parents would be awkward, but they were old people, not likely to be too much en evidence.
mrs. carriswood, while not overjoyed, would not feel crushed by such a match, but she did view what she regarded as tommy's moral instability, with a dubious and fearful eye. he was earnest enough for his new principles now; but what warrant was there of his sincerity? margaret and her mother were high-minded women. it was the gallant knight of her party and her political faith that the girl admired, the valiant fight, not the triumph! no mere soldier of fortune, no matter how successful or how brilliant, could win her; if tommy were the mercenary, not the knight, no worldly glory could compensate his wife.
wherefore, after a bad quarter of an hour reflecting on these things, mrs. carriswood went to the capitol, resolved to take her goddaughter away. she would not withdraw her acceptance of the beatouns' invitation, no; let the iowa congressman have every opportunity to display his social shortcomings in contrast with the accomplished russian, and jack turner, the most elegant man in the army; the next day would be time enough for a telegram and a sudden flitting. yet in the midst of her plans for tommy's discomfiture she was assailed by a queer regret and reluctance. tommy's fascination had affected even a professional critic of life; he had been so amusing, so willing, so trusting, so useful, that her chill interest had warmed into liking. she felt a moving of the heart as the handsome black head arose, and the first notes of that resonant, thrilling voice swelled above the din on the floor.
it was the day of his great speech, the speech that made him, it was said.
as mrs. carriswood sank back, turning a little in an instinctive effort to repulse her own sympathy, she was aware of the presence near her of an elderly man and woman. the old man wore a shining silk hat and shining new black clothes. his expansive shirt-bosom was very white, but not glossy, and rumpled in places; and his collar was of the spiked and antique pattern known as a “dickey.” his wrinkled, red face was edged by a white fringe of whisker. he wore large gold-bowed spectacles, and his jaws worked incessantly.
the woman was a little, mild, wrinkled creature, with an anxious blue eye and snowy hair, smoothed down over her ears, under her fine bonnet. she was richly dressed, but her silks and velvets ill suited the season. had she seen them anywhere else, mrs. carriswood might not have recognized them; but there, with tommy before them, both of them feverishly absorbed in tommy, she recognized them at a glance. she had a twinge of pity, watching the old faces pale and kindle. with the first rustle of applause, she saw the old father slip his hand into the old mother's. they sat well behind a pillar; and however excited they became, they never so lost themselves as to lean in front of their shield. this, also, she noticed. the speech over, the woman wiped her eyes. the old man joined in the tumult of applause that swept over the galleries, but the old woman pulled his arm, evidently feeling that it was not decent for them to applaud. she sat rigid, with red cheeks and her eyes brimming; he was swaying and clapping and laughing in a roar of delight. but it was he that drew her away, finally, while she fain would have lingered to look at tommy receiving congratulations below.
“poor things,” said mrs. carriswood, “i do believe they haven't let him know that they are here.” and she remembered how she had pitied them for this very possibility of humiliation years before. but she did not pursue the adventure, and some obscure motive prevented her speaking of it to miss van harlem.
did tommy's parents tell tommy? if they did, tommy made no sign. the morning found him with the others, in a beautiful white flannel suit, with a silk shirt and a red silk sash, looking handsomer than any man of the party. he took the congratulations of the company modestly. either he was not much puffed up, or he had the art of concealment.
they saw alexandria in a conscientious fashion, for the benefit of the guest of the day. he was a modest young fellow with a nose rather too large for his face, a long upper lip, and frank blue eyes. he made himself agreeable to one of the cabinet girls, on the front seat, while tommy, just behind him, had miss van harlem and bliss for his portion.
the old streets, the toppling roofs, the musty warehouses, the uneven pavement, all pleased the young creatures out in the sunshine. they made merry over the ancient ball-room, where washington had asked a far-away ancestress of beatoun to dance; and they decorously walked through the old church.
it happened in the church. mrs. carriswood was behind the others; so she saw them come in, the same little old couple of the capitol.
in the chancel, beatoun was explaining; beside beatoun shone a curly black head that they knew.
mrs. carriswood sat in one of the high old pews. through a crack she could look into the next pew; and there they stood. she heard the old man: “whist, molly, let's be getting out of this! he is here with all his grand friends. don't let us be interrupting him.”
the old woman's voice was so like tommy's that it made mrs. carriswood start. very softly she spoke: “i only want to look at him a minute, pat, jest a minute. i ain't seen him for so long.”
“and is it any longer for you than for me?” retorted the husband. “ye know what ye promised if i'd be taking you here, unbeknownst. don't look his way! look like ye was a stranger to him. don't let us be mortifying him wid our country ways. like as not 'tis the prisidint, himself, he is colloguein' wid, this blessed minute. shtep back and be a stranger to him, woman!”
a stranger to him, his own mother! but she stepped back; she turned her patient face. then—tommy saw her.
a wave of red flushed all over his face. he took two steps down the aisle, and caught the little figure in his arms.
“why, mother?” he cried, “why, mother, where did you drop from?”
and before mrs. carriswood could speak she saw him step back and push young sackville forward, crying, “this is my father, this is the boy that knew your grandmother.”
he did it so easily; he was so entirely unaffected, so perfectly unconscious, that there was nothing at all embarrassing for anyone. even the cabinet girl, with a grandmother in very humble life, who must be kept in the background, could not feel disconcerted.
for this happy result mrs. carriswood owns a share of the credit. she advanced on the first pause, and claimed acquaintanceship with the fitzmaurices. the story of their last meeting and tommy's first triumph in oratory came, of course; the famous horseshoe received due mention; and tommy described with much humor his terror of the stage. from the speech to its most effective passage was a natural transition; equally natural the transition to tommy's grandmother, the irish famine, and the benevolence of lady sackville.
everybody was interested, and it was sackville himself, who brought the fitzmaurices' noble ancestors, the apocryphal viscounts fitzmaurice of king james's creation, on to the carpet.
he was entirely serious. “my grandmother told me of your great-grandfather, lord fitzmaurice; she saw him ride to hounds once, when she was a little girl. they say he was the boldest rider in ireland, and a renowned duellist too. king james gave the title to his grandfather, didn't he? and the countryside kept it, if it was given rather too late in the day to be useful. i am glad you have restored the family fortunes, mr. fitzmaurice.”
the cabinet girl looked on tommy with respect, and miss van harlem blushed like an angel.
“all is lost,” said mrs. carriswood to herself; yet she smiled. going home, she found a word for tommy's ear. the old virginian dinner had been most successful. the fitzmaurices (who had been almost forced into the banquet by beatoun's imperious hospitality) were not a wet blanket in the least. patrick fitzmaurice, brogue and all, was an irish gentleman without a flaw. he blossomed out into a modest wag; and told two or three comic stories as acceptably as he was used to tell them to a very different circle—only, carrying a fresher flavor of wit to this circle, perhaps, it enjoyed them more. mrs. fitzmaurice looked scared and ate almost nothing, with the greatest propriety, and her fork in her left hand. yet even she thawed under miss van harlem's attentions and gentle mrs. beatoun's tact, and the winning ways of the last beatoun baby. she took this absent cherub to her heart with such undissembled warmth that its mother ever since has called her “a sweet, funny little old lady.”
they were both (patrick and his wife) quite unassuming and retiring, and no urging could dissuade them from parting with the company at the tavern door.
“my word, tommy, your mother and i can git home by ourselves,” whispered honest patrick; “we've not exceeded—if the wines were good. i never exceeded in my life, god take the glory!”
but he embraced tommy so affectionately in parting that i confess mrs. carriswood had suspicions. yet, surely, it is more likely that his brain was—let us not say turned, but just a wee bit tilted, by the joy and triumph of the occasion rather than by beatoun's port or champagne.
but mrs. carriswood's word had nothing to do with tommy's parents, ostensibly, though, in truth, it had everything to do. she said: “will you dine with us to-morrow, quite en famille, thomas?”
“i ought to tell you, i suppose, that i find your house a pretty dangerous paradise, mrs. carriswood,” says tommy.
“and i find you a most dangerous angel, thomas; but—you see i ask you!”
“thank you,” answers tommy, in a different tone; “you've always been an angel to me. what i owe to you and harry lossing—well, i can't talk about it. but see here, mrs. carriswood, you always have called me tommy; now you say thomas; why this state?”
“i think you have won your brevet, thomas.”
he looked puzzled, and she liked him the better that he should not make enough of his conduct to understand her; but, though she has called him tommy often since, he keeps the brevet in her thoughts. in fact, mrs. carriswood is beginning to take the honorable thomas fitzmaurice and his place in the world seriously, herself.
