Signing the Contract and What it Cost

“Yesterday, or rather last night; slept late; spent the rest of the day at the Exposition; just got back. Come with me to my room. I want to talk with you; have no end of things to say. Had your supper?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I too; got it out there. I’m dreadfully tired, but there’s an easy chair in the room; so can rest and talk at the same time. Here, let’s go up in the elevator. Capital thing, isn’t it?”

“Very,” Espy answered absently, taking a seat by his father’s side, and thinking of Floy waiting and watching for his coming.

“Well, where have you been all this time?” Mr. Alden asked as he took possession of the chair he had spoken of, and signed to Espy to be seated upon another close at hand.

The young man answered briefly that the greater part of the past two years had been spent by him in Italy perfecting himself in his art; that he was now doing well pecuniarily, and hoped soon to be doing much better.

“Very good! very good indeed!” commented his father, rubbing his hands and smiling broadly. “Glad you’re doing so well, my boy; have always had your welfare very much at heart. Now about Floy Kemper – ”

Espy flushed hotly, and half rose from his chair.

“Tut, tut! wait till you hear what I have to say!” exclaimed his father, breaking off in the middle of his sentence. “I withdrew my opposition to the match long ago, as you should have been informed if I’d known where to find you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Espy said, his countenance clearing. “Everything seems to be coming round right at last. I hope that in another year I shall be in circumstances to marry.”

“He evidently hasn’t seen Floy yet,” thought Mr. Alden to himself. “Wonder if he even knows where she is? You do, eh?” he said aloud, rubbing his hands again. “If it was my case – I shouldn’t wait half that time.”

Espy’s countenance expressed surprise and inquiry.

“I did not expect such counsel from you, sir,” he remarked, “and I cannot think it would be prudent in me, or kind to Floy, to rush into matrimony before I have proved my ability to support a wife.”

“Very wise and sensible if you were marrying a poor girl,” returned his father, with an unpleasant laugh; “but the income from a hundred thousand might suffice, I should think, to begin upon in a modest way.”

“What – what can you mean, sir?” exclaimed Espy, springing to his feet, his face flushing and paling by turns.

“That’s the exact sum, as I’ve been credibly informed, that Floy’s aunt has already settled upon her, and she’s altogether likely to prove the only heir to the half million the old lady still has in her possession.” And Mr. Alden laughed gleefully, rubbing his hands rapidly over each other; then stroking his beard and glancing at his son, he perceived with astonishment that his countenance was pale and distressed – that he looked stunned as if by a heavy blow.

“Why, Espy, what’s the matter?” he exclaimed in extreme surprise; “thought you’d be delighted with such good news. But perhaps you’ve lost sight of the girl? Well, never mind; I can give you her address and – ”

“Father, what do you take me for?” asked the young man hoarsely, rising to his feet as he spoke. “A fortune-hunter? I hope I may never deserve the name! I do not call this good news. It seems to put Floy farther away from a poor fellow like me, and it has been the sweetest dream of my life that my toil should supply her wants.”

“Crack-brained fool!” muttered his father angrily.

But Espy did not seem to hear.

“I see now,” he went on in a tone of bitter sarcasm, “just why you have ceased to oppose my wishes and become anxious to receive Floy into the family. She will understand it too, and I am bitterly ashamed. Thanks for your offer to furnish me with her address, but I do not care to avail myself of it.”

“Humph! I perceive that it is not without reason that poets and painters are popularly supposed to lack common-sense in regard to the affairs of every-day life,” sneered the older gentleman. “But come, come, I don’t want to renew the old quarrel. Sit down and let me tell you about your brothers and sisters. They’ll be glad to hear that you have turned up once more.”

Upon that the young man resumed his seat, and for the next hour the talk was all of relatives and friends in and about Cranley.

“Well, father,” Espy said at length, taking out his watch, “I have an engagement, and you look as though you needed rest; I’d better bid you good-night. Will see you again in the morning. You’ll be staying some time in the city, I suppose?”

“Yes – no; that is, I’m going for a trip into New York and Canada; leave by the early train to-morrow morning, expect to be gone two or three weeks, maybe more, and then return here to do the Exposition. It’s the first real vacation I’ve given myself since – well, before you were born, my boy, and I mean to do the thing up brown while I’m about it.”

“I hope you will, sir. I hope you won’t go back to work till thoroughly tired of play,” Espy said laughingly. “I may not wake in time to see you off in the morning, but you’ll find me here, I think, on your return to Philadelphia.”

“Yes, I trust so; but if I shouldn’t – ”

“You shall hear from me; probably see me in Cranley in the fall. Good-night, father.”

“Good-night, my son. Don’t fail to keep your promises.” And shaking hands cordially, they separated.

It was late for a call at Madame Le Conte’s. Espy said so to himself as he left the hotel, yet set off upon that very errand, and not at all as if in haste to accomplish it. Truth to tell, he was half reluctant to meet Ethel, yet at the same time irresistibly drawn toward her.

“And she’s rich!” he mused, sauntering slowly along; “rich, and a great heiress, while I – ah me! – am poor as a church-mouse. How can I urge her to marry me? Wouldn’t it be like saying, ‘Be my provider,’ instead of, ‘Let me provide for you’? I am too proud for that. But why has she left me in ignorance of her circumstances? Did she fear that I would want to marry her for her money? She might have known me better. Did I find fault with her for resigning Mr. Kemper’s property? Did I want to give her up when she was poor and friendless?”

He grew angry and indignant as he put these queries to himself.

“Yes; she might have known me better,” he repeated. “How could she suspect me of motives so base and sordid? But no, no, it could not be that! She does know me better, is too noble herself to think that I could be capable of such meanness. No, she saw that it was a delight to me to feel that my work was to provide a home for her some day, and would not deprive me sooner than necessary of that pleasure. And yet why not tell me all? She ought to have no secrets from me, her affianced husband. And why let our marriage be delayed when there is no need? If I had sufficient means, would I not tell her of it at once, and beg that there might not be another week of delay? But she, I suppose, likes to be her own mistress, and keep her newly-acquired property in her own hands. I, perhaps, am not deemed fit to be trusted with the care of it.”

And losing sight of the fact that womanly delicacy would forbid the course he was prescribing as proper for Ethel, he grew angry again.

And so alternating between admiration and disgust at her reticence, he arrived at Madame Le Conte’s door and rang the bell.

No one answered it. He stood waiting for several minutes, so busy with his own thoughts that this did not strike him as strange. Then, suddenly growing impatient, he was about to repeat his ring, when, glancing up, he perceived that the windows were all dark except those of the Madame’s bedroom, where a faint light seemed to be burning.

“Gone to bed without waiting to see if I were coming as usual,” he muttered, descending the steps.

Then he noticed that very few lights were visible in the neighboring houses, and consulting his watch by the light of a street-lamp, found to his surprise that it was near midnight.

He recollected, too, that Floy (she was still Floy to him) had looked very weary when they left the Centennial grounds together some hours before.

“Poor darling!” he said, “I’m a brute to blame her!” and went on his way, impatient for the morrow that he might seek the desired interview.

Ethel had sat up expecting him, till the lateness of the hour convinced her that he was not coming; then she had retired, weary in body and a little heavy at heart lest some evil had befallen him, yet ridiculing and scolding herself for the folly of such fears.

“Oh, love! how hard a fate is thine!
Obtained with trouble, and with pain preserv’d,
Never at rest.”

When they met the next day, something seemed to have come between them.

“What was it?” Ethel vainly asked herself. Something light as air; something so intangible that she could not give it a name.

A change had come upon Espy, but when questioned he insisted that nothing was wrong, sometimes asking, almost testily, why she should think there was; then, in sudden penitence for his ill-humor, he would be more devoted than ever for a time, but presently fall back into moody silence.

He was still dwelling upon the information his father had given him, still querying as to his affianced’s motives in concealing the facts from him, and alternating between anger and admiration as the one or the other seemed to him the more likely to have influenced her.

“Why will she not be open with me?” he asked himself a hundred times; “then there would be no trouble.”

And she was thinking the same in regard to him.

I am inclined to think that they were both in the right there and that perfect openness between married people and lovers would save a great deal of trouble, heartache, and estrangement.