________________________________________________
_ During all the time that Cowperwood had been building himself up
thus steadily the great war of the rebellion had been fought
almost to its close. It was now October, 1864. The capture of
Mobile and the Battle of the Wilderness were fresh memories.
Grant was now before Petersburg, and the great general of the
South, Lee, was making that last brilliant and hopeless display
of his ability as a strategist and a soldier. There had been
times--as, for instance, during the long, dreary period in which
the country was waiting for Vicksburg to fall, for the Army of
the Potomac to prove victorious, when Pennsylvania was invaded
by Lee--when stocks fell and commercial conditions were very bad
generally. In times like these Cowperwood's own manipulative
ability was taxed to the utmost, and he had to watch every hour
to see that his fortune was not destroyed by some unexpected and
destructive piece of news.
His personal attitude toward the war, however, and aside from
his patriotic feeling that the Union ought to be maintained, was
that it was destructive and wasteful. He was by no means so
wanting in patriotic emotion and sentiment but that he could
feel that the Union, as it had now come to be, spreading its great
length from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the snows of
Canada to the Gulf, was worth while. Since his birth in 1837 he
had seen the nation reach that physical growth--barring Alaska--
which it now possesses. Not so much earlier than his youth Florida
had been added to the Union by purchase from Spain; Mexico, after
the unjust war of 1848, had ceded Texas and the territory to the
West. The boundary disputes between England and the United States
in the far Northwest had been finally adjusted. To a man with
great social and financial imagination, these facts could not help
but be significant; and if they did nothing more, they gave him
a sense of the boundless commercial possibilities which existed
potentially in so vast a realm. His was not the order of speculative
financial enthusiasm which, in the type known as the "promoter,"
sees endless possibilities for gain in every unexplored rivulet
and prairie reach; but the very vastness of the country suggested
possibilities which he hoped might remain undisturbed. A territory
covering the length of a whole zone and between two seas, seemed
to him to possess potentialities which it could not retain if the
States of the South were lost.
At the same time, the freedom of the negro was not a significant
point with him. He had observed that race from his boyhood with
considerable interest, and had been struck with virtues and
defects which seemed inherent and which plainly, to him, conditioned
their experiences.
He was not at all sure, for instance, that the negroes could be
made into anything much more significant than they were. At any
rate, it was a long uphill struggle for them, of which many future
generations would not witness the conclusion. He had no particular
quarrel with the theory that they should be free; he saw no
particular reason why the South should not protest vigorously
against the destruction of their property and their system. It
was too bad that the negroes as slaves should be abused in some
instances. He felt sure that that ought to be adjusted in some
way; but beyond that he could not see that there was any great
ethical basis for the contentions of their sponsors. The vast
majority of men and women, as he could see, were not essentially
above slavery, even when they had all the guarantees of a
constitution formulated to prevent it. There was mental slavery,
the slavery of the weak mind and the weak body. He followed the
contentions of such men as Sumner, Garrison, Phillips, and Beecher,
with considerable interest; but at no time could he see that the
problem was a vital one for him. He did not care to be a soldier
or an officer of soldiers; he had no gift for polemics; his mind
was not of the disputatious order--not even in the realm of finance.
He was concerned only to see what was of vast advantage to him,
and to devote all his attention to that. This fratricidal war in
the nation could not help him. It really delayed, he thought,
the true commercial and financial adjustment of the country, and
he hoped that it would soon end. He was not of those who complained
bitterly of the excessive war taxes, though he knew them to be
trying to many. Some of the stories of death and disaster moved
him greatly; but, alas, they were among the unaccountable fortunes
of life, and could not be remedied by him. So he had gone his way
day by day, watching the coming in and the departing of troops,
seeing the bands of dirty, disheveled, gaunt, sickly men returning
from the fields and hospitals; and all he could do was to feel
sorry. This war was not for him. He had taken no part in it,
and he felt sure that he could only rejoice in its conclusion--not
as a patriot, but as a financier. It was wasteful, pathetic,
unfortunate.
The months proceeded apace. A local election intervened and there
was a new city treasurer, a new assessor of taxes, and a new mayor;
but Edward Malia Butler continued to have apparently the same
influence as before. The Butlers and the Cowperwoods had become
quite friendly. Mrs. Butler rather liked Lillian, though they
were of different religious beliefs; and they went driving or
shopping together, the younger woman a little critical and ashamed
of the elder because of her poor grammar, her Irish accent, her
plebeian tastes--as though the Wiggins had not been as plebeian
as any. On the other hand the old lady, as she was compelled to
admit, was good-natured and good-hearted. She loved to give,
since she had plenty, and sent presents here and there to Lillian,
the children, and others. "Now youse must come over and take
dinner with us"--the Butlers had arrived at the evening-dinner
period--or "Youse must come drive with me to-morrow."
"Aileen, God bless her, is such a foine girl," or "Norah, the
darlin', is sick the day."
But Aileen, her airs, her aggressive disposition, her love of
attention, her vanity, irritated and at times disgusted Mrs.
Cowperwood. She was eighteen now, with a figure which was subtly
provocative. Her manner was boyish, hoydenish at times, and
although convent-trained, she was inclined to balk at restraint
in any form. But there was a softness lurking in her blue eyes
that was most sympathetic and human.
St. Timothy's and the convent school in Germantown had been the
choice of her parents for her education--what they called a good
Catholic education. She had learned a great deal about the theory
and forms of the Catholic ritual, but she could not understand
them. The church, with its tall, dimly radiant windows, its high,
white altar, its figure of St. Joseph on one side and the Virgin
Mary on the other, clothed in golden-starred robes of blue, wearing
haloes and carrying scepters, had impressed her greatly. The
church as a whole--any Catholic church--was beautiful to look at--
soothing. The altar, during high mass, lit with a half-hundred
or more candles, and dignified and made impressive by the rich,
lacy vestments of the priests and the acolytes, the impressive
needlework and gorgeous colorings of the amice, chasuble, cope,
stole, and maniple, took her fancy and held her eye. Let us say
there was always lurking in her a sense of grandeur coupled with
a love of color and a love of love. From the first she was
somewhat sex-conscious. She had no desire for accuracy, no desire
for precise information. Innate sensuousness rarely has. It
basks in sunshine, bathes in color, dwells in a sense of the
impressive and the gorgeous, and rests there. Accuracy is not
necessary except in the case of aggressive, acquisitive natures,
when it manifests itself in a desire to seize. True controlling
sensuousness cannot be manifested in the most active dispositions,
nor again in the most accurate.
There is need of defining these statements in so far as they apply
to Aileen. It would scarcely be fair to describe her nature as
being definitely sensual at this time. It was too rudimentary.
Any harvest is of long growth. The confessional, dim on Friday
and Saturday evenings, when the church was lighted by but a few
lamps, and the priest's warnings, penances, and ecclesiastical
forgiveness whispered through the narrow lattice, moved her as
something subtly pleasing. She was not afraid of her sins. Hell,
so definitely set forth, did not frighten her. Really, it had
not laid hold on her conscience. The old women and old men
hobbling into church, bowed in prayer, murmuring over their beads,
were objects of curious interest like the wood-carvings in the
peculiar array of wood-reliefs emphasizing the Stations of the
Cross. She herself had liked to confess, particularly when she
was fourteen and fifteen, and to listen to the priest's voice as
he admonished her with, "Now, my dear child." A particularly old
priest, a French father, who came to hear their confessions at
school, interested her as being kind and sweet. His forgiveness
and blessing seemed sincere--better than her prayers, which she
went through perfunctorily. And then there was a young priest
at St. Timothy's, Father David, hale and rosy, with a curl of
black hair over his forehead, and an almost jaunty way of wearing
his priestly hat, who came down the aisle Sundays sprinkling holy
water with a definite, distinguished sweep of the hand, who took
her fancy. He heard confessions and now and then she liked to
whisper her strange thoughts to him while she actually speculated
on what he might privately be thinking. She could not, if she
tried, associate him with any divine authority. He was too young,
too human. There was something a little malicious, teasing, in
the way she delighted to tell him about herself, and then walk
demurely, repentantly out. At St. Agatha's she had been rather a
difficult person to deal with. She was, as the good sisters of
the school had readily perceived, too full of life, too active,
to be easily controlled. "That Miss Butler," once observed Sister
Constantia, the Mother Superior, to Sister Sempronia, Aileen's
immediate mentor, "is a very spirited girl, you may have a great
deal of trouble with her unless you use a good deal of tact. You
may have to coax her with little gifts. You will get on better."
So Sister Sempronia had sought to find what Aileen was most
interested in, and bribe her therewith. Being intensely conscious
of her father's competence, and vain of her personal superiority,
it was not so easy to do. She had wanted to go home occasionally,
though; she had wanted to be allowed to wear the sister's rosary
of large beads with its pendent cross of ebony and its silver
Christ, and this was held up as a great privilege. For keeping
quiet in class, walking softly, and speaking softly--as much as
it was in her to do--for not stealing into other girl's rooms
after lights were out, and for abandoning crushes on this and
that sympathetic sister, these awards and others, such as walking
out in the grounds on Saturday afternoons, being allowed to have
all the flowers she wanted, some extra dresses, jewels, etc.,
were offered. She liked music and the idea of painting, though
she had no talent in that direction; and books, novels, interested
her, but she could not get them. The rest--grammar, spelling,
sewing, church and general history--she loathed. Deportment--well,
there was something in that. She had liked the rather exaggerated
curtsies they taught her, and she had often reflected on how she
would use them when she reached home.
When she came out into life the little social distinctions which
have been indicated began to impress themselves on her, and she
wished sincerely that her father would build a better home--a
mansion--such as those she saw elsewhere, and launch her properly
in society. Failing in that, she could think of nothing save
clothes, jewels, riding-horses, carriages, and the appropriate
changes of costume which were allowed her for these. Her family
could not entertain in any distinguished way where they were, and
so already, at eighteen, she was beginning to feel the sting of a
blighted ambition. She was eager for life. How was she to get it?
Her room was a study in the foibles of an eager and ambitious mind.
It was full of clothes, beautiful things for all occasions--
jewelry--which she had small opportunity to wear--shoes, stockings,
lingerie, laces. In a crude way she had made a study of perfumes
and cosmetics, though she needed the latter not at all, and these
were present in abundance. She was not very orderly, and she loved
lavishness of display; and her curtains, hangings, table ornaments,
and pictures inclined to gorgeousness, which did not go well with
the rest of the house.
Aileen always reminded Cowperwood of a high-stepping horse without
a check-rein. He met her at various times, shopping with her
mother, out driving with her father, and he was always interested
and amused at the affected, bored tone she assumed before him--the
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Life is so tiresome, don't you know," when,
as a matter of fact, every moment of it was of thrilling interest
to her. Cowperwood took her mental measurement exactly. A girl
with a high sense of life in her, romantic, full of the thought
of love and its possibilities. As he looked at her he had the
sense of seeing the best that nature can do when she attempts to
produce physical perfection. The thought came to him that some
lucky young dog would marry her pretty soon and carry her away;
but whoever secured her would have to hold her by affection and
subtle flattery and attention if he held her at all.
"The little snip"--she was not at all--"she thinks the sun rises
and sets in her father's pocket," Lillian observed one day to her
husband. "To hear her talk, you'd think they were descended from
Irish kings. Her pretended interest in art and music amuses me."
"Oh, don't be too hard on her," coaxed Cowperwood diplomatically.
He already liked Aileen very much. "She plays very well, and she
has a good voice."
"Yes, I know; but she has no real refinement. How could she have?
Look at her father and mother."
"I don't see anything so very much the matter with her," insisted
Cowperwood. "She's bright and good-looking. Of course, she's
only a girl, and a little vain, but she'll come out of that. She
isn't without sense and force, at that."
Aileen, as he knew, was most friendly to him. She liked him. She
made a point of playing the piano and singing for him in his home,
and she sang only when he was there. There was something about
his steady, even gait, his stocky body and handsome head, which
attracted her. In spite of her vanity and egotism, she felt a
little overawed before him at times--keyed up. She seemed to
grow gayer and more brilliant in his presence.
The most futile thing in this world is any attempt, perhaps, at
exact definition of character. All individuals are a bundle of
contradictions--none more so than the most capable.
In the case of Aileen Butler it would be quite impossible to give
an exact definition. Intelligence, of a raw, crude order she had
certainly--also a native force, tamed somewhat by the doctrines
and conventions of current society, still showed clear at times
in an elemental and not entirely unattractive way. At this time
she was only eighteen years of age--decidedly attractive from the
point of view of a man of Frank Cowperwood's temperament. She
supplied something he had not previously known or consciously
craved. Vitality and vivacity. No other woman or girl whom he
had ever known had possessed so much innate force as she. Her
red-gold hair--not so red as decidedly golden with a suggestion
of red in it--looped itself in heavy folds about her forehead
and sagged at the base of her neck. She had a beautiful nose,
not sensitive, but straight-cut with small nostril openings, and
eyes that were big and yet noticeably sensuous. They were, to
him, a pleasing shade of blue-gray-blue, and her toilet, due to
her temperament, of course, suggested almost undue luxury, the
bangles, anklets, ear-rings, and breast-plates of the odalisque,
and yet, of course, they were not there. She confessed to him
years afterward that she would have loved to have stained her
nails and painted the palms of her hands with madder-red. Healthy
and vigorous, she was chronically interested in men--what they
would think of her--and how she compared with other women.
The fact that she could ride in a carriage, live in a fine home
on Girard Avenue, visit such homes as those of the Cowperwoods
and others, was of great weight; and yet, even at this age, she
realized that life was more than these things. Many did not have
them and lived.
But these facts of wealth and advantage gripped her; and when she
sat at the piano and played or rode in her carriage or walked or
stood before her mirror, she was conscious of her figure, her
charms, what they meant to men, how women envied her. Sometimes
she looked at poor, hollow-chested or homely-faced girls and felt
sorry for them; at other times she flared into inexplicable
opposition to some handsome girl or woman who dared to brazen her
socially or physically. There were such girls of the better
families who, in Chestnut Street, in the expensive shops, or on
the drive, on horseback or in carriages, tossed their heads and
indicated as well as human motions can that they were better-bred
and knew it. When this happened each stared defiantly at the
other. She wanted ever so much to get up in the world, and yet
namby-pamby men of better social station than herself did not
attract her at all. She wanted a man. Now and then there was
one "something like," but not entirely, who appealed to her, but
most of them were politicians or legislators, acquaintances of her
father, and socially nothing at all--and so they wearied and
disappointed her. Her father did not know the truly elite. But
Mr. Cowperwood--he seemed so refined, so forceful, and so reserved.
She often looked at Mrs. Cowperwood and thought how fortunate she
was. _
Read next: CHAPTER 14
Read previous: CHAPTER 12
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
