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The Voice of the People, a novel by Ellen Glasgow |
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Book 2. A Rainy Season - Chapter 5 |
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_ BOOK II. A RAINY SEASON CHAPTER V So Nicholas's first fight for his manhood was fought and won. He went back to his books--went back because his intellect ordained it, and the ordinance of intellect is fate--but bitterness had gone out of him, and he had come into his own. From the stress of the last year he had found security in acceptance. His life might not be such as he had planned it--whose was?--his work might not be the thing he wanted--again, whose was?--but life and work were with him, and it remained for him to make the best of them. Fate might make him a shopkeeper; he would see to it that it made him a successful one. Success read backwards spelt work, and work was his inheritance--a heritage of sweat and labour. He went to Jerry Pollard's an hour earlier that he might rearrange to advantage the shelves. His employer had secured, below cost, a supply of dry goods, and preparations were in the making for the first summer sale in Kingsborough. Nicholas conducted the arrangements as conscientiously as he might have conducted a legal argument. It was the thing before him, and it must not fail. But at night he found his greater hour. When supper was over and he had helped his father with the odd jobs of the farm, he would take the smoky kerosene lamp to his room and plunge into the pages of "The Federalist." From his sharp, retentive memory nothing passed. He held his knowledge with the same vital grip with which he held his friends. He had the judge's library now and the judge's assistance. Evening after evening he sat in the dim, ghost-hallowed room, the shining calf-bound volumes girdling the walls, and absorbed the judge as the judge, in his own time, had absorbed the men who were gone. From that rich storehouse of high principles and simple deeds Nicholas's future was drawing nourishment. Judge Bassett had lived his life in a village, but he had lived it among statesmen. His book-shelves were green with their inspiration, his memory fresh from their impress. In his youth he himself had been one of the hopes of his State; in his age he was one of her consolations. He treated the younger man with that quaint courtliness which knew not affectation. When he talked to him, as he often did, of the great legal minds, it was always with the courtesy of their titles. He spoke of "Mr. Chancellor Kent," of "Mr. Justice Blackstone," as he spoke of "President Davis" or of "General Lee." To have alluded to them more familiarly he would have held to be a breach of etiquette of unpardonable grossness. One day he had started in Nicholas his old political dreams of Jeffersonian lustre. "Virginia is not dead but sleepeth," the judge had said, as a prelude to denunciation of the Readjuster party then in power. Nicholas was looking at a collection of autograph letters that lay on the judge's desk. He glanced up with an impulsive start. "Oh, but I should like to have lived then!" he exclaimed. The older man shook his head. "It is not the times, but the man," he answered. "The time makes the man, the great man makes his time." He leaned his massive old head against the carved back of his chair and looked at the other in his kindly, unambitious optimism. He had lost most that the world accounts of worth, but life had dealt gently by him, on the whole, since it had never infringed upon the sensitiveness of his self-esteem. "It's rough on the man," Nicholas returned brusquely, and a little later he went out into the night. He had his periods of depression, when desire seemed greater than duty, as he had his periods of exaltation, when duty seemed greater than desire. Neither affected, to outward seeming, the course of his life, but each left its mark upon his mental forces. The chief thing was that he did the work he hated as thoroughly as he did the work he loved. The spring ripened into summer and the summer chilled into autumn. He had kept rigidly to his way and to his resolutions. From neither had he swerved in one regard. His stepmother, fixing sharp, tired eyes upon him mentally drafted, "After all's said an' done, the Lord knows best." She believed him to be content, as she had reason to, for he gave no outward uneasy sign. When his small savings had paid off Amos Burr's little debt, and they started, unhandicapped, upon their shaky progress, it seemed to her that she was justified in commending, for the second time, the visible methods of Providence--a commendation which faltered only before a threatening twinge of neuralgia. Early in October the judge, whose practice was drawn largely from other sections of the State, left home for an absence of several weeks. Upon his return he sent for Nicholas in the early afternoon, an unusual happening. The young man, dropping in at two o'clock, found him at work in his library before the early dinner, a generous mint julep upon a silver tray on his desk. Caesar was an acknowledged artist in the mixing of the beverage, and Mrs. Burwell had once exclaimed that "the judge was prouder of Caesar's fame at the bar than of his own." "It is an art that is becoming extinct, madam," the judge had replied sadly. "I should wager there are more men in the State to-day who can make a speech than can mix a julep. Caesar's distinction is greater than mine." To-day, as Nicholas entered, the judge greeted him hospitably and called for another concoction. When Caesar brought it, frosted and clear and odorous, the judge raised his own goblet and bowed to his caller. "To your future, my boy," he said graciously; then, as Nicholas blushed and stammered, he asked kindly: "How are you getting on now?" "Very well." "So well that you wouldn't like a change?" Nicholas threw a startled look upon him. His pulse beat swiftly, and his skin burned. By these physical reactions he realised the fluttering of his hopes. "A change!" he said slowly, holding himself in hand. "Yes, I--should--like a change." The judge sipped his julep, breathing with enjoyment the strong fragrance of the mint. "I have just seen my friend, Professor Hartwell, of the University," he said, "and he mentioned to me that in the work of compiling his law-book he found great need of a secretary. It at once occurred to me that it was a suitable opening for you, and I ventured to suggest as much to him--" He paused an instant, gazing thoughtfully into his glass. "And he?" urged Nicholas hurriedly. "He would like some correspondence with you, I believe; but, if the prospect pleases you, and you would care to undertake the work--" "Care?" gasped the younger man passionately; "care! Why I--I'd sell my soul for the chance." The judge laughed softly. "Such extreme measures are unnecessary, I think. No doubt it can be arranged. I understand from your father that he has tided over his last failures." But Nicholas did not hear him; the words of release were ringing in his ears. * * * * * The year that Nicholas Burr "worked" his way to a degree at the University of the State Tom Bassett returned to Kingsborough and took up that portion of the judge's practice which he termed "local"; and his fellow citizens, whose daily existence was proof of their belief in hereditary virtues, brought their legal difficulties to his door. He was a stout, flaxen-haired young fellow, with broad shoulders and honest, light-blue eyes, holding an habitual shade of perplexity. People said of him that his heart outran his head, but they loved him not the less for this--perhaps the more. Upon his return to Kingsborough he applied himself conscientiously to his cases, paid a series of social calls, and fell over head and ears in love with Sally Burwell. "There are two things which every respectable young man in Kingsborough goes through with," remarked the rector's wife as she sat at breakfast with her husband. "He becomes confirmed and he goes mad about Sally Burwell. For my part it does not surprise me. She's not pretty, but no man has ever found it out, and no man ever will. Did you notice that muslin she had on in church last Sunday--all frills and tucks--" "My mind was upon my sermon, dear," murmured the rector apologetically. "But we've eyes as well as minds, and those of every man in the congregation were on that dress of Sally's." The rector meekly stirred his coffee. "I have no doubt of it," he answered. "But what do you think of Tom's chances, my dear?" "They aren't worth a candle," returned his wife with an emphasis which settled the question in the rector's mind. Within a month Tom's chances were the topic of Kingsborough. They were discussed at the post-office, at sewing societies, at church festivals. Not a soul in the congregation but knew the number of times he had accompanied her to evening services; not an inhabitant of the town but was aware of the hour and the afternoon upon which they had last walked through Lover's Lane. When the state of affairs had gone the rounds of the community until they were worn threadbare, they effected a final lodgment in the mind of Mr. Burwell. "I have made a little discovery," he announced one evening to his wife as she was brushing her hair for the night. Mrs. Burwell was all delighted attention. "Why, what can it be?" she murmured with gratifying feminine curiosity. "You may have noticed, my dear," began Mr. Burwell with a nervous glance at Sally's chamber door across the hall, "that our friend Tom Bassett has called frequently of late." His wife nodded smilingly. "Well, it has occurred to me from something I observed this evening that it is Sally who attracts him." Mrs. Burwell threw back her pretty head and laughed. "Why, Mr. Burwell!" she exclaimed, "did you think that it was you--or I--or your grandfather's portrait?" Her husband looked slightly abashed. "So you have observed it?" he asked in an injured tone. Mrs. Burwell laid her brush aside and crossed the room to where he stood. "Everybody knows you are a very clever man, Mr. Burwell," she said. "I have never pretended to have as much sense as a man, and I hope nobody has ever accused me of anything so unwomanly--but there are some things you can't teach your wife, with all your experience." Mr. Burwell stroked the plump hand on his arm and smiled in returning self-esteem. "And you are quite sure he fancies Sally?" he inquired. "I know it," replied his wife decisively. "Would it not be wise to prepare her, my dear?" "Prepare Sally?" gasped Mrs. Burwell, and she went back to her mirror with dancing eyes. _ |
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