The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 47, September, 1861. Various
for their indulgence.
He did not, however, do so. Persons of low-breeding never can comprehend their duties to the more refined.
The respective dusts of my father and grandfather were consigned to the tomb the same week, and it was found that my mother's property had all melted away, as—allow me a poetical figure—ice-cream melts between the lips of beauty heated after the German.
Yes,—all was gone, except a small pittance in the form of an annuity. I will not state the ridiculously trifling amount. I have seen more than our whole annual income lost by a single turn of a card at the establishment of the late Mr. P. Hearn, and also in private circles.
Something must be done. Otherwise, that deprivation of the luxuries of life which to the aristocratic is starvation.
I stated my plans to my mother. They were based in part upon my well-known pecuniary success at billiards—I need not say that I prefer the push game, as requiring no expenditure of muscular force. They were also based in part upon my intimacy with a distinguished operator in Wall Street. Our capital would infallibly have been quadrupled,—what do I say? decupled, centupled, in a short space of time.
My mother is a good, faithful creature. She looks up to me as a Bratley should to a Chylde. She appreciates the honor my father did her by his marriage, and I by my birth. I have frequently remarked a touching fidelity of these persons of the lower classes of society toward those of higher rank.
"I would make any sacrifice in the world," she said, "to help you, my dear A–"
"Hush!" I cried.
I have suppressed my first name as unmelodious and connecting me too much with a religious persuasion meritorious for its wealth alone. Need I say that I refer to the faith of the Rothschild?
"All that I have is yours, my dear Bratley," continued my mother.
Quite touching! was it not? I was so charmed, that I mentally promised her a new silk when she went into half-mourning, and asked her to go with me to the opera as soon as she got over that feeble tendency to tears which kept her eyes red and unpresentable.
"I would gladly aid you," the simple-hearted creature said, "in any attempt to make your fortune in an honorable and manly way."
"Brava! brava!" I cried, and I patted applause, as she deserved. "And you had better make over your stocks to me at once," I continued.
"I cannot without your Uncle Bratley's permission. He is my trustee. Go to him, my dear son."
I went to him very unwillingly. My father and I had always as much as possible ignored the Bratley connection. They live in a part of New York where self-respect does not allow me to be seen. They are engaged in avocations connected with the feeding of the lower classes. My father had always required that the females of their families should call on my mother on days when she was not at home to our own set, and at hours when they were not likely to be detected. None of them, I am happy to say, were ever seen at our balls or our dinners.
I nerved myself, and penetrated to that Ultima Thule where Mr. Bratley resides. His house already, at that early hour of two, smelt vigorously of dinner. Nothing but the urgency of my business could have induced me to brave these odors of plain roast and boiled.
A mob of red-faced children rushed to see me as I entered, and I heard one of them shouting up the stairs,—
"Oh, pa! there's a stiffy waiting to see you."
The phrase was new to me. I looked for a mirror, to see whether any inaccuracy in my toilet might have suggested it.
Positively there was no mirror in the salon.
Instead of it, there were nothing but distressingly bright pictures by artists who had had the bad taste to paint raw Nature just as they saw it.
My uncle entered, and quite overwhelmed me with a robust cordiality which seemed to ignore my grief.
"Just in time, my boy," said he, "to take a cut of rare roast beef and a hot potato and a mug of your Uncle Sam's beer with us."
I shuddered, and rebuked him with the intelligence that I had just lunched at the club, and should not dine till six.
Then I stated my business, curtly.
He looked at me with a stare, which I have frequently observed in persons of limited intelligence.
"So you want to gamble away your mother's last dollar," said he.
In vain I stated and restated to him my plans. The fellow, evidently jealous of my superior financial ability, constantly interrupted me with ejaculations of "Pish!" "Bosh!" "Pshaw!" "No go!" and finally, with a loud thump on a table, covered with such costly but valueless objects as books and plates, he cried,
"What a d—d fool!"
I was glad to perceive that he began to admit my wisdom and his stolidity. And so I told him.
"A–," said he, using my abhorred name in full, "I believe you are a greater ass than your father was."
"Sir," said I, much displeased, "these intemperate ebullitions will necessarily terminate our conference."
"Conference be hanged!" he rejoined. "You may as well give it up. You are not going to get the first red cent out of me."
"Have I referred, Sir," said I, "to the inelegant coin you name?"
The creature grinned. "I shall pay your mother's income quarterly, and do the best I can by her," he continued; "and if you want to make a man of yourself, I'll give you a chance in the bakery with me; or Sam Bratley will take you into his brewery; or Bob into his pork-packery."
I checked my indignation. The vulgarian wished to drag me, a Chylde, down to the Bratley level. But I suppressed my wrath, for fear he might find some pretext for suppressing the quarterly income, and alleged my delicate health as a reason for my refusing his insulting offer.
"Well," said he, "I don't see as there is anything else for you to do, except to find some woman fool enough to marry you, as Betsey did your father. There's a hundred dollars!"
I have seldom seen dirtier bills than those he produced and handed to me. Fortunately I was in deep mourning and my gloves were dark lead color.
"That's right," says he,—"grab 'em and fob 'em. Now go to Newport and try for an heiress, and don't let me see your tallow face inside of my door for a year."
He had bought the right to be despotic and abusive. I withdrew and departed, ruminating on his advice. Singularly, I had not before thought of marrying. I resolved to do so at once.
Newport is the mart where the marriageable meet. I took my departure for Newport next day.
II. THE HEROINE
I need hardly say, that, on arriving at Newport, one foggy August morning, I drove at once to the Millard.
The Millard attracted me for three reasons: First, it was new; second, it was fashionable; third, the name would be sure to be in favor with the class I had resolved to seek my spouse among. The term spouse I select as somewhat less familiar than wife, somewhat more permanent than bride, and somewhat less amatory than the partner of my bosom. I wish my style to be elevated, accurate, and decorous. It is my object, as the reader will have already observed, to convey heroic sentiments in the finest possible language.
It was upon some favored individual of the class Southern Heiress that I designed to let fall the embroidered handkerchief of affectionate selection. At the Millard I was sure to find her. That enormously wealthy and highly distinguished gentleman, her father, would naturally avoid the Ocean House. The adjective free, so intimately connected with the substantive ocean, would constantly occur to his mind and wound his sensibilities. The Atlantic House was still more out of the question. The name must perpetually remind the tenants of that hotel of a certain quite objectionable periodical devoted to propagandism. In short, not to pursue this process of elimination farther, and perhaps offend some friend of the class Hotel-Keeper, the Millard was not only about the cheese, per se,—I punningly allude here to the creaminess of its society,—but inevitably the place to seek my charmer.
The