“Stop a moment! The tragedy of my old playmate gives the house a strange sanctity in my eyes.”
“It is cursed,” said Churm. “No happiness to its tenants, — only harm to its friends, until the wrong done my child there has been expiated.”
“Has not her father’s grief atoned for his error?”
“You cannot understand my feelings, Byng. You did not know Clara Denman.”
I paused to inspect the mansion, sanctified to me by death. Death sanctifies, birth consecrates a home.
Sanctified? But the death here was perhaps a suicide. So some alleged. Can a suicide sanctify? Does it not desecrate? Do not some churches deny the corpse, a self-slayer flung away, its hiding-place in holy ground? No suicide near the sleeping saints! A man may strangle himself with good dinners, or poison himself with fine old Madeira or coarse old Monongahela; a bad conscience, gnawing day and night, may eat away his heart; he may have murdered the woman that once loved him, by judicious slow torture; he may have murdered the friend that trusted him, by a peevish No, when it was help or death; no matter! He will be allowed as comfortable a grave as a sexton can dig, six feet by two in soft soil under green sod, and the priest will dust his dust with all the compliments in the burial service. But let him have put a knife to his throat, or a bullet in his brain, because he could not any longer face the woman he had wronged, or the friend he had betrayed, — what shudders then of sexton and priest! No place for him beside the glutton and the drunkard! The cruel husband or the false friend would shiver in his coffin at such propinquity. Out with him! Out with the accursed thing! To the dogs with the carrion!
Not sanctified, — saddened, I could, without any one’s protest, consider Mr. Denman’s house. Hundreds, no doubt, every day envied the happy owner. How grand to possess that stately edifice of contrasted freestones, purple and drab; those well-cut pilasters; that dignified roof, in the old chateau manner, fitly capping the whole; that majestic portal; those great windows, heavily draped, but allowing the inner magnificence to peer through, conscious, but not ostentatious; — how grand to stand and call this mine!
Hundreds, no doubt, envied Mr. Denman every day. First in the morning, journeymen, hurrying by with a poor dinner in a tin canister; next, Tittlebat Titmouse, on his way to the counter; then some clerk of higher degree, seller by the piece instead of the yard, by the cargo instead of the pound, bustling down town to his desk; next the poor book-keeper, with twelve hundred a year, and a mouth to every hundred; then the broken-down merchant, who must show himself on the Street, though the Street noted him no more; and so on in order, the financial dignitary, the club-man lounging to his late breakfast or his morning stroll, the country cousin seeing the lions, the woman of fashion driving up to drop a card; and then at sunset the pretty girl walking up town with her lover; and then at night the night-bird skulking by; — all these envied the tenants of the Denman mansion, or at least fancied them fortunate. And all houses announce as little as that the miseries that may dwell within!
“Come, Byng,” said my friend, “you cannot see into the heart of that house by staring at it.”
We passed in to our breakfast. Over our coffee we glided into cheerful talk. I consulted Churm, and he frankly advised me as to my future.
And so, speaking of my own prospects, we spoke of the hopes and duties of my generation to our country.
“We are the first,” said I, “who understand what an absolute Republic means, and what it can do.”
“The first as a generation. Individuals have always comprehended it,” said Churm.
“And now, acting together, on a larger scale, with a grander co-operation, we will inaugurate the new era for the noblest manhood and the purest womanhood the world has ever known.”
I had spoken ardently.
At once, as if in echo to my words, I heard Densdeth’s cynic laugh behind me.
My enthusiasm perished.
I turned uneasily. Was Densdeth laughing at my silly boyish fervors?
He was sitting two tables off, breakfasting with a well-known man about town. Densdeth’s companion was one of those who have beauty which they debase, talents which they bury, money which they squander. He was a man of fine genius, but genius under a murky cloud, flashing out rarely in a sad or a scornful way. A man sick of himself, sorry for himself. A wasted life, hating itself for its waste, wearing itself out with self-reproach that it was naught. Some evil influence had clutched him after his first success and his first sorrow. Thenceforth his soul was paralyzed. The success had nurtured a lazy pride, instead of an exalting ambition. The sorrow had made him tender to himself and hard to others. What was that evil influence? Could it be in the dark face beside him?
Densdeth nodded to me familiarly, as I turned.
“Don’t forget,” said he, “our appointment at one. You know Raleigh, I believe.”
Mr. Raleigh and I bowed cordially.
We had met in Europe. We had sympathized on art and nature. I had touched only his better side, though I saw the worse. I liked Raleigh, and fancied, as a boy fancies, that I had a certain power over him, and that for good.
We all rose together after our breakfast.
“Are you killing time, or nursing it, Byng?” said Densdeth.
“Killing it for a day or two, until I acclimate to the atmosphere of work.”
“Unless you have something better to do, drop over with us to the club. You must know the men. We will have a game of billiards until one.”
“Yes, come, Byng,” invited Raleigh’s sweet voice.
“Thank you,” I said. “Business, in the form of Mr. Churm, deserts me. Pleasure woos. I yield.”
“Take care!” said Churm to me, as we walked away. “I see you insist upon personal experience.”
“O yes! Nothing vicarious for me! I will nibble at our friend. I’ll try not to bite, for fear of the poison you threaten.”
Churm left us, and walked across Ailanthus Square, on his way down town.
“I must look in at my quarters for a moment,” said I to the others; “will you lounge on, and let me overtake you, or honor me with a visit?”
“Let us drop in, Raleigh,” said Densdeth. “I am curious to see how the old place looks, with Stillfleet’s breezes out and Byng’s calms in.”
I did the honors, and then, establishing my guests with cigars, I excused myself, and ran up-stairs to give good morning to Cecil Dreeme. Churm’s presence and a lively appetite together had delayed this duty. Besides, I had felt that he ought not to be disturbed too early.
I knocked, and spoke my name. The recluse might sport oak to the knock alone.
“Coming,” responded his gentle voice.
Presently the door opened enough to admit me, but not to display the interior of the chamber to any inquisitive passer.
I was struck, even more than last night, by the singular, refined beauty of the youth. And then his body was so worn and thin, that his soul seemed to get very close to me.
His personal magnetism — that is, the touch of his soul on mine — affected me more keenly than before. It was having cumulative influence. The mighty medicines for soul and body always do.
And so do the poisons.
“You are looking quite vigorous and cheerful this morning,” I said, exaggerating a little. “I congratulate you on your leap out of death into full life.”
“It is to you I owe it,” he said, with deep feeling.
He grasped my hand, and then dropped it suddenly again, as if he feared he was taking a liberty.
(How exactly