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Trumps by George William Curtis

G >> George William Curtis >> Trumps




There was no clew to the murderers. The eager, thirsty-eyed crowd of men,
and women, and children, crushing and hanging about the shop, gradually
loosened their gaze. The jury returned that the deceased Abel Newt came
to his death by the hands of some person or persons unknown. The shop
was closed, officers were left in charge, and the body was borne away.

General Belch was in his office reading the morning paper when Mr.
William Condor entered. They shook hands. Upon the General's fat face
there was an expression of horror and perplexity, but Mr. Condor was
perfectly calm.

"What an awful thing!" said Belch, as the other sat down before the fire.

"Frightful," said Mr. Condor, placidly, as he lighted a cigar, "but not
surprising."

"Who do you suppose did it?" asked the General.

"Impossible to tell. A drunken brawl, with its natural consequences;
that's all."

"Yes, I know; but it's awful."

"Providential."

"What do you mean?"

"Abel Newt would have made mince-meat of you and me and the rest of us if
he had lived. That's what I mean," replied Mr. Condor, unruffled, and
lightly whiffing the smoke. "But it's necessary to draw some resolutions
to offer in the committee, and I've brought them with me. You know
there's a special meeting called to take notice of this deplorable event,
and you must present them. Shall I read them?"

Mr. Condor drew a piece of paper from his pocket, and, holding his cigar
in one hand and whiffing at intervals, read:

"Whereas our late associate and friend, Abel Newt, has been suddenly
removed from this world, in the prime of his life and the height of his
usefulness, by the hand of an inscrutable but all-wise Providence, to
whose behests we desire always to bow in humble resignation; and

"Whereas, it is eminently proper that those to whom great public trusts
have been confided by their fellow-citizens should not pass away without
some signal expression of the profound sense of bereavement which those
fellow-citizens entertain; and

"Whereas we represent that portion of the community with whom the
lamented deceased peculiarly sympathized; therefore be it resolved by
the General Committee,

"_First_, That this melancholy event impressively teaches the solemn
truth that in the midst of life we are in death;

"_Second_ That in the brilliant talents, the rare accomplishments, the
deep sagacity, the unswerving allegiance to principle which characterized
our dear departed brother and associate, we recognize the qualities which
would have rendered the progress of his career as triumphant as its
opening was auspicious;

"_Third,_ That while we humble ourselves before the mysterious will of
Heaven, which works not as man works, we tender our most respectful and
profound sympathy to the afflicted relatives and friends of the deceased,
to whom we fervently pray that his memory may be as a lamp to the feet;

"_Fourth,_ That we will attend his funeral in a body; that we will wear
crape upon the left arm for thirty days; and that a copy of these
resolutions, signed by the officers of the Committee, shall be presented
to his family."

"I think that'll do," said Mr. Condor, resuming his cigar, and laying the
paper upon the table.

"Just the thing," said General Belch. "Just the thing. You know the Grant
has passed and been approved?"

"Yes, so Ele wrote me," returned Mr. Condor.

"Condor," continued the General, "I've had enough of it. I'm going to
back out. I'd rather sweep the streets."

General Belch spoke emphatically, and his friend turned toward him with a
pleasant smile.

"Can you make so much in any other way?"

"Perhaps not. But I'd rather make less, and more comfortably."

"I find it perfectly comfortable," replied William Condor. "You take it
too hard. You ought to manage it with less friction. The point is, to
avoid friction. If you undertake to deal with men, you ought to
understand just what they are."

Mr. Condor smoked serenely, and General Belch looked at his slim, clean
figure, and his calm face, with curious admiration.

"By-the-by," said Condor, "when you introduce the resolutions, I shall
second them with a few remarks."

And he did so. At the meeting of the Committee he rose and enforced them
with a few impressive and pertinent words.

"Gratitude," he said, "is instinctive in the human breast. When a man
does well, or promises well, it is natural to regard him with interest
and affection. The fidelity of our departed brother is worthy of our most
affectionate admiration and imitation. If you ask me whether he had
faults, I answer that he was a man. Who so is without sin, let him cast
the first stone."

On the same day the Honorable B. Jawley Ele rose in his place in Congress
to announce the calamity in which the whole country shared, and to move
an adjournment in respect for the memory of his late colleague--"a man
endeared to us all by the urbanity of his deportment and his social
graces; but to me especially, by the kindness of his heart and the
readiness of his sympathy."

Abel Newt was buried from his father's house. There were not many
gathered at the service in the small, plain rooms. Fanny Dinks was there,
sobered and saddened--the friend now of Hope Wayne, and of Amy, her Uncle
Lawrence's wife. Alfred was there, solemnized and frightened. The office
of Lawrence Newt & Co. was closed, and the partners and the clerks all
stood together around the coffin. Abel's mother, shrouded in black, sat
in a dim corner of the room, nervously sobbing. Abel's father, sitting in
his chair, his white hair hanging upon his shoulders, looked curiously at
all the people, while his bony fingers played upon his knees, and he said
nothing.

During all the solemn course of the service, from the gracious words, "I
am the resurrection and the life," to the final Amen which was breathed
out of the depth of many a soul there, the old man's eyes did not turn
from the clergyman. But when, after a few moments of perfect silence, two
or three men entered quietly and rapidly, and, lifting the coffin, began
to bear it softly out of the room, he looked troubled and surprised, and
glanced vaguely and inquiringly from one person to another, until, as it
was passing out of the door, his face was covered with a piteous look of
appeal: he half-rose from his chair, and reached out toward the door,
with the long white fingers clutching in the air; but Hope Wayne took the
wasted hands in hers, placed her arm behind him gently, and tenderly
pressed him back into the chair. The old man raised his eyes to her as
she stood by him, and holding one of her hands in one of his, the
spectral calmness returned into his face; while, beating his thin knee
with the other hand, he said, in the old way, as the body of his son
was borne out of his house, "Riches have wings! Riches have wings!" But
still he held Hope Wayne's hand, and from time to time raised his eyes to
her face.




CHAPTER XC.

UNDER THE MISLETOE.


The hand which held that of old Boniface Newt was never placed in that of
any, younger man, except for a moment; but the heart that warmed the hand
henceforward held all the world.

We have come to the last leaf, patient and gentle reader, and the girl
we saw sitting, long ago, upon the lawn and walking in the garden of
Pinewood is not yet married! Yes, and we shall close the book, and still
she will be Hope Wayne.

How could we help it? How could a faithful chronicler but tell his story
as it is? It is not at his will that heroes marry, and heroines are given
in marriage. He merely watches events and records results; but the
inevitable laws of human life are hidden in God's grace beyond his
knowledge.

There is Arthur Merlin painting pictures to this day, and every year with
greater beauty and wider recognition. He wears the same velvet coat of
many buttons--or its successor in the third or fourth remove--and still
he whistles and sings at his work, still draws back from the easel and
turns his head on one side to look at his picture, and cons it carefully
through the tube of his closed hand; still lays down the pallet and,
lighting a cigar, throws himself into the huge easy-chair, hanging one
leg over the chair-arm and gazing, as he swings his foot, at something
which does not seem to be in the room. Cheerful and gay, he has always a
word of welcome for the loiterer who returns to Italy by visiting the
painters; even if the loiterer find him with the foot idly swinging and
the cigar musingly smoking itself away.

Nor is the painter conscious of any gaping, unhealed wound that
periodically bleeds. There are nights in mid-summer when, leaning from
his window, he thinks of many things, and among others, of a picture he
once painted of the legend of Latmos. He smiles to think that, at the
time, he half persuaded himself that he might be Endymion, yet the
feeling with which he smiles is of pity and wonder rather than of regret.

At Thanksgiving dinners, at Christmas parties, at New Year and Twelfth
Night festivals, no guest so gay and useful, so inventive and delightful,
as Arthur Merlin the painter. Just as Aunt Winnifred has abandoned her
theory it has become true, and all the girls do seem to love the man who
respects them as much as the younger men do with whom they nightly dance
in winter. He romps with the children, has a perfectly regulated and
triumphant sliding-scale of gifts and attentions; and only this
Christmas, although he is now--well, Aunt Winnifred has locked up the
Family Bible and begins to talk of Arthur as a young man--yet only
this Christmas, at Lawrence Newt's family party, at which, so nimbly
did they run round, it was almost impossible to compute the actual
number of Newt, and Wynne, and Bennet children--Arthur Merlin brought
in, during the evening, with an air of profound secrecy, something
covered with a large handkerchief. Of course there could be no peace,
and no blindman's-buff, no stage-coach, no twirling the platter, and no
snap-dragon, until the mystery was revealed; The whole crowd of short
frocks and trowsers, and bright ribbons, and eyes, and curls, swarmed
around the painter until he displayed a green branch.

A pair of tiny feet, carrying a pair of great blue eyes and a head of
golden curls, scampered across the floor to Lawrence Newt.

"Oh, papa, what is that green thing with little berries on it?"

"That's a misletoe bough, little Hope."

"But, papa, what's it for?"

The painter was already telling the children what it was for; and when he
had hung it up over the folding-doors such a bubbling chorus of laughter
and merry shrieks followed, there was such a dragging of little girls in
white muslin by little boys in blue velvet, and such smacking, and
kissing, and happy confusion, that the little Hope's curiosity was
immediately relieved. Of all the ingenious inventions of their friend
the painter, this of the misletoe was certainly the most transcendent.

But when Arthur Merlin himself joined the romp, and, chasing Hope
Wayne through the lovely crowd of shouting girls and boys, finally caught
her and led her to the middle of the room and dropped on one knee and
kissed her hand under the misletoe, then the delight burst all bounds;
and as Hope Wayne's bright, beautiful face glanced merrily around the
room--bright and beautiful, although she is young no longer--she saw that
the elders were shouting with the children, and that Lawrence Newt and
his wife, and his niece Fanny, and papa and mamma Wynne, and Bennet, were
all clapping their hands and laughing.

She laughed too; and Arthur Merlin laughed; and when Ellen Bennet's
oldest daughter (of whom there are certain sly reports, in which her name
is coupled with that of her cousin Edward, May Newt's oldest son) sat
down to the piano and played a Virginia reel, it was Arthur Merlin who
handed out Hope Wayne with mock gravity, and stepped about and bowed
around so solemnly, that little Hope Newt, sitting upon her papa's knee
and nestling her golden curls among his gray hair, laughed all the time,
and wished that Christmas came every day in the year, and that she might
always see Mr. Arthur Merlin dancing with dear Aunt Hope.

When the dance was over and the panting children were resting, Gabriel
Newt, Lawrence's youngest boy, said to Arthur,

"Mr. Merlin, what game shall we play now? What game do you like best?"

"The game of life, my boy," replied Arthur.

"Oh, pooh!" said Gabriel, doubtfully, with a vague feeling that Mr.
Merlin was quizzing him.

But the painter was in earnest; and if you are of his opinion, patient
and gentle reader, it is for you to say who, among all the players we
have been watching, held Trumps.

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