________________________________________________
_ The home atmosphere which they established when they returned
from their honeymoon was a great improvement in taste over that
which had characterized the earlier life of Mrs. Cowperwood as
Mrs. Semple. They had decided to occupy her house, on North Front
Street, for a while at least. Cowperwood, aggressive in his
current artistic mood, had objected at once after they were engaged
to the spirit of the furniture and decorations, or lack of them,
and had suggested that he be allowed to have it brought more in
keeping with his idea of what was appropriate. During the years
in which he had been growing into manhood he had come instinctively
into sound notions of what was artistic and refined. He had seen
so many homes that were more distinguished and harmonious than his
own. One could not walk or drive about Philadelphia without seeing
and being impressed with the general tendency toward a more
cultivated and selective social life. Many excellent and expensive
houses were being erected. The front lawn, with some attempt at
floral gardening, was achieving local popularity. In the homes of
the Tighes, the Leighs, Arthur Rivers, and others, he had noticed
art objects of some distinction--bronzes, marbles, hangings,
pictures, clocks, rugs.
It seemed to him now that his comparatively commonplace house could
be made into something charming and for comparatively little money.
The dining-room for instance which, through two plain windows set
in a hat side wall back of the veranda, looked south over a stretch
of grass and several trees and bushes to a dividing fence where
the Semple property ended and a neighbor's began, could be made
so much more attractive. That fence--sharp-pointed, gray palings--
could be torn away and a hedge put in its place. The wall which
divided the dining-room from the parlor could be knocked through
and a hanging of some pleasing character put in its place. A
bay-window could be built to replace the two present oblong
windows--a bay which would come down to the floor and open out on
the lawn via swiveled, diamond-shaped, lead-paned frames. All this
shabby, nondescript furniture, collected from heaven knows where--
partly inherited from the Semples and the Wiggins and partly
bought--could be thrown out or sold and something better and more
harmonious introduced. He knew a young man by the name of Ellsworth,
an architect newly graduated from a local school, with whom he had
struck up an interesting friendship--one of those inexplicable
inclinations of temperament. Wilton Ellsworth was an artist in
spirit, quiet, meditative, refined. From discussing the quality
of a certain building on Chestnut Street which was then being
erected, and which Ellsworth pronounced atrocious, they had fallen
to discussing art in general, or the lack of it, in America. And
it occurred to him that Ellsworth was the man to carry out his
decorative views to a nicety. When he suggested the young man to
Lillian, she placidly agreed with him and also with his own ideas
of how the house could be revised.
So while they were gone on their honeymoon Ellsworth began the
revision on an estimated cost of three thousand dollars, including
the furniture. It was not completed for nearly three weeks after
their return; but when finished made a comparatively new house.
The dining-room bay hung low over the grass, as Frank wished, and
the windows were diamond-paned and leaded, swiveled on brass rods.
The parlor and dining-room were separated by sliding doors; but
the intention was to hang in this opening a silk hanging depicting
a wedding scene in Normandy. Old English oak was used in the
dining-room, an American imitation of Chippendale and Sheraton for
the sitting-room and the bedrooms. There were a few simple
water-colors hung here and there, some bronzes of Hosmer and Powers,
a marble venus by Potter, a now forgotten sculptor, and other
objects of art--nothing of any distinction. Pleasing, appropriately
colored rugs covered the floor. Mrs. Cowperwood was shocked by
the nudity of the Venus which conveyed an atmosphere of European
freedom not common to America; but she said nothing. It was all
harmonious and soothing, and she did not feel herself capable to
judge. Frank knew about these things so much better than she did.
Then with a maid and a man of all work installed, a program of
entertaining was begun on a small scale.
Those who recall the early years of their married life can best
realize the subtle changes which this new condition brought to
Frank, for, like all who accept the hymeneal yoke, he was influenced
to a certain extent by the things with which he surrounded himself.
Primarily, from certain traits of his character, one would have
imagined him called to be a citizen of eminent respectability and
worth. He appeared to be an ideal home man. He delighted to return
to his wife in the evenings, leaving the crowded downtown section
where traffic clamored and men hurried. Here he could feel that he
was well-stationed and physically happy in life. The thought of
the dinner-table with candles upon it (his idea); the thought of
Lillian in a trailing gown of pale-blue or green silk--he liked her
in those colors; the thought of a large fireplace flaming with
solid lengths of cord-wood, and Lillian snuggling in his arms,
gripped his immature imagination. As has been said before, he
cared nothing for books, but life, pictures, trees, physical
contact--these, in spite of his shrewd and already gripping
financial calculations, held him. To live richly, joyously,
fully--his whole nature craved that.
And Mrs. Cowperwood, in spite of the difference in their years,
appeared to be a fit mate for him at this time. She was once
awakened, and for the time being, clinging, responsive, dreamy.
His mood and hers was for a baby, and in a little while that
happy expectation was whispered to him by her. She had half
fancied that her previous barrenness was due to herself, and was
rather surprised and delighted at the proof that it was not so.
It opened new possibilities--a seemingly glorious future of which
she was not afraid. He liked it, the idea of self-duplication.
It was almost acquisitive, this thought. For days and weeks and
months and years, at least the first four or five, he took a keen
satisfaction in coming home evenings, strolling about the yard,
driving with his wife, having friends in to dinner, talking over
with her in an explanatory way the things he intended to do. She
did not understand his financial abstrusities, and he did not
trouble to make them clear.
But love, her pretty body, her lips, her quiet manner--the lure
of all these combined, and his two children, when they came--two
in four years--held him. He would dandle Frank, Jr., who was the
first to arrive, on his knee, looking at his chubby feet, his
kindling eyes, his almost formless yet bud-like mouth, and wonder
at the process by which children came into the world. There was
so much to think of in this connection--the spermatozoic beginning,
the strange period of gestation in women, the danger of disease
and delivery. He had gone through a real period of strain when
Frank, Jr., was born, for Mrs. Cowperwood was frightened. He
feared for the beauty of her body--troubled over the danger of
losing her; and he actually endured his first worry when he stood
outside the door the day the child came. Not much--he was too
self-sufficient, too resourceful; and yet he worried, conjuring
up thoughts of death and the end of their present state. Then
word came, after certain piercing, harrowing cries, that all was
well, and he was permitted to look at the new arrival. The
experience broadened his conception of things, made him more solid
in his judgment of life. That old conviction of tragedy underlying
the surface of things, like wood under its veneer, was emphasized.
Little Frank, and later Lillian, blue-eyed and golden-haired,
touched his imagination for a while. There was a good deal to
this home idea, after all. That was the way life was organized,
and properly so--its cornerstone was the home.
It would be impossible to indicate fully how subtle were the
material changes which these years involved--changes so gradual
that they were, like the lap of soft waters, unnoticeable.
Considerable--a great deal, considering how little he had to
begin with--wealth was added in the next five years. He came, in
his financial world, to know fairly intimately, as commercial
relationships go, some of the subtlest characters of the steadily
enlarging financial world. In his days at Tighe's and on the
exchange, many curious figures had been pointed out to him--State
and city officials of one grade and another who were "making
something out of politics," and some national figures who came
from Washington to Philadelphia at times to see Drexel & Co.,
Clark & Co., and even Tighe & Co. These men, as he learned, had
tips or advance news of legislative or economic changes which were
sure to affect certain stocks or trade opportunities. A young
clerk had once pulled his sleeve at Tighe's.
"See that man going in to see Tighe?"
"Yes."
"That's Murtagh, the city treasurer. Say, he don't do anything
but play a fine game. All that money to invest, and he don't have
to account for anything except the principal. The interest goes
to him."
Cowperwood understood. All these city and State officials
speculated. They had a habit of depositing city and State funds
with certain bankers and brokers as authorized agents or designated
State depositories. The banks paid no interest--save to the
officials personally. They loaned it to certain brokers on the
officials' secret order, and the latter invested it in "sure winners."
The bankers got the free use of the money a part of the time, the
brokers another part: the officials made money, and the brokers
received a fat commission. There was a political ring in
Philadelphia in which the mayor, certain members of the council,
the treasurer, the chief of police, the commissioner of public
works, and others shared. It was a case generally of "You scratch
my back and I'll scratch yours." Cowperwood thought it rather
shabby work at first, but many men were rapidly getting rich and no
one seemed to care. The newspapers were always talking about
civic patriotism and pride but never a word about these things.
And the men who did them were powerful and respected.
There were many houses, a constantly widening circle, that found
him a very trustworthy agent in disposing of note issues or note
payment. He seemed to know so quickly where to go to get the
money. From the first he made it a principle to keep twenty
thousand dollars in cash on hand in order to be able to take up a
proposition instantly and without discussion. So, often he was
able to say, "Why, certainly, I can do that," when otherwise, on
the face of things, he would not have been able to do so. He was
asked if he would not handle certain stock transactions on 'change.
He had no seat, and he intended not to take any at first; but now
he changed his mind, and bought one, not only in Philadelphia, but
in New York also. A certain Joseph Zimmerman, a dry-goods man for
whom he had handled various note issues, suggested that he
undertake operating in street-railway shares for him, and this was
the beginning of his return to the floor.
In the meanwhile his family life was changing--growing, one might
have said, finer and more secure. Mrs. Cowperwood had, for
instance, been compelled from time to time to make a subtle
readjustment of her personal relationship with people, as he had
with his. When Mr. Semple was alive she had been socially connected
with tradesmen principally--retailers and small wholesalers--a
very few. Some of the women of her own church, the First
Presbyterian, were friendly with her. There had been church teas
and sociables which she and Mr. Semple attended, and dull visits
to his relatives and hers. The Cowperwoods, the Watermans, and a
few families of that caliber, had been the notable exceptions.
Now all this was changed. Young Cowperwood did not care very much
for her relatives, and the Semples had been alienated by her second,
and to them outrageous, marriage. His own family was closely
interested by ties of affection and mutual prosperity, but, better
than this, he was drawing to himself some really significant
personalities. He brought home with him, socially--not to talk
business, for he disliked that idea--bankers, investors, customers
and prospective customers. Out on the Schuylkill, the Wissahickon,
and elsewhere, were popular dining places where one could drive on
Sunday. He and Mrs. Cowperwood frequently drove out to Mrs. Seneca
Davis's, to Judge Kitchen's, to the home of Andrew Sharpless, a
lawyer whom he knew, to the home of Harper Steger, his own lawyer,
and others. Cowperwood had the gift of geniality. None of these
men or women suspected the depth of his nature--he was thinking,
thinking, thinking, but enjoyed life as he went.
One of his earliest and most genuine leanings was toward paintings.
He admired nature, but somehow, without knowing why, he fancied
one could best grasp it through the personality of some interpreter,
just as we gain our ideas of law and politics through individuals.
Mrs. Cowperwood cared not a whit one way or another, but she
accompanied him to exhibitions, thinking all the while that Frank
was a little peculiar. He tried, because he loved her, to interest
her in these things intelligently, but while she pretended slightly,
she could not really see or care, and it was very plain that she
could not.
The children took up a great deal of her time. However, Cowperwood
was not troubled about this. It struck him as delightful and
exceedingly worth while that she should be so devoted. At the same
time, her lethargic manner, vague smile and her sometimes seeming
indifference, which sprang largely from a sense of absolute
security, attracted him also. She was so different from him! She
took her second marriage quite as she had taken her first--a solemn
fact which contained no possibility of mental alteration. As for
himself, however, he was bustling about in a world which, financially
at least, seemed all alteration--there were so many sudden and
almost unheard-of changes. He began to look at her at times, with
a speculative eye--not very critically, for he liked her--but with
an attempt to weigh her personality. He had known her five years
and more now. What did he know about her? The vigor of youth--those
first years--had made up for so many things, but now that he had
her safely...
There came in this period the slow approach, and finally the
declaration, of war between the North and the South, attended
with so much excitement that almost all current minds were
notably colored by it. It was terrific. Then came meetings,
public and stirring, and riots; the incident of John Brown's body;
the arrival of Lincoln, the great commoner, on his way from
Springfield, Illinois, to Washington via Philadelphia, to take
the oath of office; the battle of Bull Run; the battle of Vicksburg;
the battle of Gettysburg, and so on. Cowperwood was only
twenty-five at the time, a cool, determined youth, who thought the
slave agitation might be well founded in human rights--no doubt was
--but exceedingly dangerous to trade. He hoped the North would win;
but it might go hard with him personally and other financiers. He
did not care to fight. That seemed silly for the individual man
to do. Others might--there were many poor, thin-minded, half-baked
creatures who would put themselves up to be shot; but they were
only fit to be commanded or shot down. As for him, his life was
sacred to himself and his family and his personal interests. He
recalled seeing, one day, in one of the quiet side streets, as
the working-men were coming home from their work, a small enlisting
squad of soldiers in blue marching enthusiastically along, the
Union flag flying, the drummers drumming, the fifes blowing, the
idea being, of course, to so impress the hitherto indifferent or
wavering citizen, to exalt him to such a pitch, that he would lose
his sense of proportion, of self-interest, and, forgetting all--
wife, parents, home, and children--and seeing only the great need
of the country, fall in behind and enlist. He saw one workingman
swinging his pail, and evidently not contemplating any such
denouement to his day's work, pause, listen as the squad approached,
hesitate as it drew close, and as it passed, with a peculiar look
of uncertainty or wonder in his eyes, fall in behind and march
solemnly away to the enlisting quarters. What was it that had
caught this man, Frank asked himself. How was he overcome so
easily? He had not intended to go. His face was streaked with
the grease and dirt of his work--he looked like a foundry man or
machinist, say twenty-five years of age. Frank watched the little
squad disappear at the end of the street round the corner under
the trees.
This current war-spirit was strange. The people seemed to him
to want to hear nothing but the sound of the drum and fife, to
see nothing but troops, of which there were thousands now passing
through on their way to the front, carrying cold steel in the
shape of guns at their shoulders, to hear of war and the rumors
of war. It was a thrilling sentiment, no doubt, great but
unprofitable. It meant self-sacrifice, and he could not see that.
If he went he might be shot, and what would his noble emotion
amount to then? He would rather make money, regulate current
political, social and financial affairs. The poor fool who fell
in behind the enlisting squad--no, not fool, he would not call
him that--the poor overwrought working-man--well, Heaven pity him!
Heaven pity all of them! They really did not know what they were
doing.
One day he saw Lincoln--a tall, shambling man, long, bony, gawky,
but tremendously impressive. It was a raw, slushy morning of a
late February day, and the great war President was just through
with his solemn pronunciamento in regard to the bonds that might
have been strained but must not be broken. As he issued from the
doorway of Independence Hall, that famous birthplace of liberty,
his face was set in a sad, meditative calm. Cowperwood looked
at him fixedly as he issued from the doorway surrounded by chiefs
of staff, local dignitaries, detectives, and the curious,
sympathetic faces of the public. As he studied the strangely
rough-hewn countenance a sense of the great worth and dignity of
the man came over him.
"A real man, that," he thought; "a wonderful temperament." His
every gesture came upon him with great force. He watched him enter
his carriage, thinking "So that is the railsplitter, the country
lawyer. Well, fate has picked a great man for this crisis."
For days the face of Lincoln haunted him, and very often during
the war his mind reverted to that singular figure. It seemed to
him unquestionable that fortuitously he had been permitted to
look upon one of the world's really great men. War and statesmanship
were not for him; but he knew how important those things were--at
times. _
Read next: CHAPTER 11
Read previous: CHAPTER 9
Table of content of Financier
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
