The Two Vanrevels
CHAPTER IV
"But Spare Your Country's Flag"
If it be true that love is the great incentive to the useless arts, the
number of gentlemen who became poets for the sake of Miss Betty Carewe need not
be considered extraordinary. Of all that was written of her dancing, Tom
Vanrevel's lines, "I Danced with Her beneath the Lights" (which he certainly had
not done when he wrote them) were, perhaps, next to Crailey Gray's in merit,
though Tom burned his rhymes after reading them to Crailey. Other troubadours
were not so modest, and the Rouen Journal found no lack of tuneful offering,
that spring, generously print-ing all of it, even at the period when it became
epidemic. The public had little difficulty in recognizing the work of Mr.
Francis Chenoweth in an anonymous "Sonnet" (of twenty-three lines) which
appeared in the issue following Miss Carewe's debut. Mr. Chenoweth wrote that
while dancing the mazourka with a Lovely Being, the sweetest feelings of his
soul, in a celestial stream, bore him away beyond control, in a seraphic dream;
and he untruthfully stated that at the same time he saw her wipe the silent
tear, omitting, however, to venture any explanation of the cause of her emotion.
Old General Trumble boldly signed his poem in full. It was called "An Ode upon
Miss C—'s Waltzing," and it began:
"When Bettina found fair Rouen's shore, And her aged father to us bore Her
from the cloister neat, She waltzed upon the ball-room floor, And lightly
twirled upon her feet."
Mr. Carewe was rightfully indignant, and refused to acknowledge the General's
salutation at their next meeting: Trumble was fifteen years older than he.
As Crailey Gray never danced with Miss Carewe, it is somewhat singular that
she should have been the inspiration of his swinging verses in waltz measure,
"Heart-strings on a Violin," the sense of which was that when a violin had
played for her dancing, the instrument should be shattered as wine-glasses are
after a great toast. However, no one, except the author himself, knew that Betty
was the subject; for Crailey certainly did not mention it to Miss Bareaud, nor
to his best friend, Vanrevel.
It was to some degree a strange comradeship between these two young men;
their tastes led them so often in opposite directions. They had rooms to-gether
over their offices in the "Madrillon Block" on Main Street, and the lights shone
late from their windows every night in the year. Sometimes that would mean only
that the two friends were talking, for they never reached a silent intimacy,
but, even after several years of companionship, were rarely seen together when
not in interested, often eager, conversation, so that people wondered what in
the world they still found to say to each other. But many a night the
late-shining lamp meant that Tom sat alone, with a brief or a book, or wooed the
long hours with his magical guitar. For he never went to bed until the other
came home.
And if daylight came without Crailey, Vanrevel would go out, yawning
mightily, to look for him; and when there was no finding him, Tom would come
back, sleepless, to the day's work. Crailey was called "peculiar" and he
explained, with a kind of jovial helplessness, that he was always prepared for
the unexpected in himself, nor did such a view detract from his picturesqueness
to his own perusal of himself; though it was not only to himself that he was
interesting. To the vision of the lookers-on in Rouen, quiet souls who hovered
along the walls at merry-makings and cheerfully counted themselves spectators at
the play, Crailey Gray held the centre of the stage and was the chief comedian
of the place. Wit, poet, and scapegrace, the small society sometimes seemed the
mere background set for his performances, spectacles which he, also, enjoyed,
and from the best seat in the house; for he was not content as the actor, but
must be the Prince in the box as well.
His friendship for Tom Vanrevel was, in a measure, that of the vine for the
oak. He was full of levities at Tom's expense, which the other bore with a grin
of sympathetic comprehension, or, at long intervals, returned upon Crailey with
devastating effect. Vanrevel was the one steadying thing in his life, and, at
the same time, the only one of the young men upon whom he did not have an almost
mesmeric influence. In good truth, Crailey was the ringleader in all the
devilries of the town. Many a youth swore to avoid the roisterer's company for
all time, and, within two hours of the vow, found himself, flagon in hand,
engaged in a bout that would last the night, with Mr. Gray out-bumpering the
hardiest, at the head of the table. And, the next morning, the fevered,
scarlet-eyed perjurer might creep shaking to his wretched tasks, only to behold
the cause of his folly and headache tripping merrily along the street, smiling,
clean-shaven, and fresh as a dew-born primrose, with, perchance, two or three of
the prettiest girls in town at his elbow to greet his sallies with approving
laughter.
Crailey had been so long in the habit of following every impulse, no matter
how mad, that he enjoyed an almost perfect immunity from condemnation, and,
whatever his deeds, Rouen had learned to say, with a chuckle, that it was "only
Crailey Gray again." But his followers were not so privileged. Thus, when Mr.
Gray, who in his libations sometimes developed the humor of an urchin, went to
the Pound at three in the morning of New Year's Day, hung sleigh-bells about the
necks of the cattle and drove them up and down the streets, himself hideously
blowing a bass horn from the back of a big brown steer, those roused from
slumber ceased to rage, and accepted the exploit as a rare joke, on learning
that it was "only Crailey Gray;" but the unfortunate young Chenoweth was heavily
frowned upon and properly upbraided because he had followed in the wake of the
bovine procession, mildly attempting to play upon a flageolet.
Crailey never denied a folly nor defended an escapade. The latter was always
done for him, because he talked of his "graceless misdoings" (so he was wont,
smilingly, to call them) over cups of tea in the afternoons with old ladies,
lamenting, in his musical voice, the lack of female relatives to guide him. He
was charmingly attentive to the elderly women, not from policy, but because his
manner was uncontrollably chivalrous; and, ever a gallant listener, were the
speaker young, old, great or humble, he never forgot to catch the last words of
a sentence, and seldom suffered for a reply, even when he had drowsed through a
question. Moreover, no one ever heard him speak a sullen word, nor saw him wear
a brow of depression. The single creed to which he was constant was that of good
cheer; he was the very apostle of gayety, preaching it in parlor and bar; and
made merry friends with battered tramps and homeless dogs in the streets at
night.
Now and then he would spend several days in the offices of Gray &
Vanrevel, Attorneys and Counsellors-at-Law, wearing an air of unassailable
virtue; though he did not far overstate the case when he said, "Tom does all the
work and gives me all the money not to bother him when he's getting up a case."
The working member of the firm got up cases to notable effect, and few
lawyers in the State enjoyed having Tom Vanrevel on the other side. There was
nothing about him of the floridity prevalent at that time; he withered "oratory"
before the court; he was the foe of jury pathos; and, despising noise and the
habitual voice-dip at the end of a sentence, was, nevertheless, at times an
almost fearfully effective orator. So, by degrees the firm of Gray &
Vanrevel, young as it was, and in spite of the idle apprentice, had grown to be
the most prosperous in the district. For this eminence Crailey was never accused
of assuming the credit. Nor did he ever miss an opportunity of making known how
much he owed to his partner. What he owed, in brief, was everything. How well
Vanrevel worked was demonstrated every day, but how hard he worked, only Crailey
knew. The latter had grown to depend upon him for even his political beliefs,
and lightly followed his partner into Abolitionism; though that was to risk
unpopularity, bitter hatred, and worse. Fortunately, on certain occasions,
Vanrevel had made himself (if not his creed) respected, at least so far that
there was no longer danger of mob-violence for an Abolitionist in Rouen. He was
a cool-headed young man ordinarily, and possessed of an elusive forcefulness not
to be trifled with, though he was a quiet man, and had what they called a "fine
manner." And, not in the latter, but in his dress, there was an echo of the
Beau, which afforded Mr. Gray a point of attack for sallies of wit; there was a
touch of the dandy about Vanrevel; he had a large and versatile wardrobe, and
his clothes always fit him not only in line but in color; even women saw how
nobly they were fashioned.
These two young men were members of a cheerful band, who feasted, laughed,
wrangled over politics, danced, made love, and sang terrible chords on summer
evenings, together, as young men will. Will Cummings, editor of the Rouen
Journal, was one of these; a tall, sallow man, very thin, very awkward and very
gentle. Mr. Cummings proved himself always ready with a loud and friendly laugh
for the poorest joke in the world, his countenance shining with such kindness
that no one ever had the heart to reproach him with the evils of his
journalistic performances, or for the things he broke when he danced. Another
was Tappingham Marsh, an exceedingly handsome person, somewhat languid in
appearance, dainty in manner with women, offhand with men; almost as reckless as
Crailey, and often the latter's companion and assistant in dissipation. Young
Francis Chenoweth never failed to follow both into whatever they planned; he was
short and pink, and the uptilt of his nose was coherent with the appealing
earnest-ness which was habitual with him. Eugene Madrillon was the sixth of
these intimates; a dark man, whose Latin eyes and color advertised his French
ancestry as plainly as his emotionless mouth and lack of gesture betrayed the
mingling of another strain.
All these, and others of the town, were wont to "talk politics" a great deal
at the little club on Main Street and all were apt to fall foul of Tom Vanrevel
or Crailey Gray before the end of any discussion. For those were the days when
they twisted the Lion's tail in vehement and bitter earnest; when the eagle
screamed in mixed figures; when few men knew how to talk, and many orated; when
party strife was savagely personal; when intolerance was called the "pure fire
of patriotism;" when criticism of the existing order of things surely incurred
fiery anathema and black invective; and brave was he, indeed, who dared to hint
that his country, as a whole and politically, did lack some two or three
particular virtues, and that the first step toward obtaining them would be to
help it to realize their absence.
This latter point-of-view was that of the firm of Gray & Vanrevel, which
was a unit in such matters. Crailey did most of the talking—quite beautifully,
too—and both had to stand against odds in many a sour argument, for they were
not only Abolitionists, but opposed the attitude of their country in its
difficulty with Mexico; and, in common with other men of the time who took their
stand, they had to grow accustomed to being called Disloyal Traitors, Foreign
Toadies, Malignants, and Traducers of the Flag. Tom had long been used to
epithets of this sort, suffering their sting in quiet, and was glad when he
could keep Crailey out of worse employment than standing firm for an unpopular
belief.
There was one place to which Vanrevel, seeking his friend and partner, when
the latter did not come home at night, could not go; this was the Tower Chamber,
and it was in that mysterious apartment of the Carewe cupola that Crailey was
apt to be deeply occupied when he remained away until daylight. Strange as it
appears, Mr. Gray maintained peculiar relations of intimacy with Robert Carewe,
in spite of the feud between Carewe and his own best friend. This intimacy,
which did not necessarily imply any mutual fondness (though Crailey seemed to
dislike nobody), was betokened by a furtive understanding, of a sort, between
them. They held brief, earnest conversations on the street, or in corners when
they met at other people's houses, always speaking in voices too low to be
overheard; and they exercised a mysterious symbolism, somewhat in the manner of
fellow members of a secret society: they had been observed to communicate across
crowded rooms, by lifted eyebrow, nod of head, or a surreptitious turn of the
wrist: so that those who observed them knew that a question had been asked and
answered.
It was noticed, also, that there were five other initiates to this masonry:
Eugene Madrillon, the elder Chenoweth, General Trumble, Tappingham Marsh, and
Jefferson Bareaud. Thus, on the afternoon following Miss Betty's introduction to
Rouen's favorite sons and daughters, Mr. Carewe, driving down Main Street, held
up one forefinger to Madrillon as he saw the young man turning in at the club.
Eugene nodded gravely, and, as he went in, discovering Marsh, the General, and
others, listening to Mr. Gray's explanation of his return from the river with no
fish, stealthily held up one finger in his turn. Trumble replied with a wink,
Tappingham nodded, but Crailey slightly shook his head. Marsh and the General
started with surprise, and stared incredulously. That Crailey should shake his
head! If the signal had been for a church-meeting they might have understood.
Mr. Gray's conduct was surprising two other people at about the same time:
Tom Vanrevel and Fanchon Bareaud; the former by his sudden devotion to the law;
the latter by her sudden devotion to herself. In a breath, he became almost a
domestic character. No more did he spend his afternoons between the club and the
Rouen House bar, nor was his bay mare so often seen stamping down the ground
about Mrs. McDougal's hitching-post while McDougal was out on the prairie with
his engineering squad. The idle apprentice was at his desk, and in the daytime
he displayed an aversion for the streets, which was more than his partner did,
for the industrious Tom, undergoing quite as remarkable an alteration of habit,
became, all at once, little better than a corner-loafer. His favorite
lounging-place was a small drug-store where Carewe Street debouched upon Main;
nevertheless, so adhesive is a reputation once fastened, his air of being there
upon business deceived everyone except Mr. Gray.
Miss Bareaud was even happier than she was astonished (and she was mightily
astonished) to find her betrothed developing a taste for her society alone.
Formerly, she had counted upon the gayeties of her home to keep Crailey near
her; now, however, he told her tenderly he wished to have her all to himself.
This was not like him, but Fanchon did not question; and it was very sweet to
her that he began to make it his custom to come in by a side gate and meet her
under an apple-tree in the dusk, where they would sit quietly together through
the evening, listening to the noise and laughter from the lighted house.
That house was the most hospitable in Rouen. Always cheerfully "full of
company," as they said, it was the sort of house where a carpet-dance could be
arranged in half an hour; a house with a sideboard like the widow's cruse; the
young men always found more. Mrs. Bareaud, a Southerner, loving to persuade the
visitor that her home was his, not hers, lived only for her art, which was that
of the table. Evil cooks, taking service with her, became virtuous, dealt with
nectar and ambrosia, and grew fit to pander to Olympus, learning of their
mistress secrets to make the ill-disposed as genial gods ere they departed. Mr.
Bareaud at fifty had lived so well that he gave up walking, which did not
trouble him; but at sixty he gave up dancing, which did trouble him. His only
hope, he declared, was in Crailey Gray's promise to invent for him: a concave
partner.
There was a thin, quizzing shank of a son, Jefferson, who lived upon quinine,
ague and deviltry; and there were the two daughters, Fanchon and Virginia. The
latter was three years older than Fanchon, as dark as Fanchon was fair, though
not nearly so pretty: a small, good-natured, romping sprite of a girl, who had
handed down the heart and hand of Crailey Gray to her sister with the best grace
in the world. For she had been the heroine of one of Mr. Gray's half-dozen or so
most serious affairs, and, after a furious rivalry with Mr. Carewe, the victory
was generally conceded to Crailey. His triumph had been of about a fort-night's
duration when Fanchon returned from St. Mary's; and, with the advent of the
younger sister, the elder, who had decided that Crailey was the incomparable she
had dreamed of since infancy, was generously allowed to discover that he was not
that vision—that she had fallen in love with her own idea of him; whereas
Fanchon cared only that he be Crailey Gray, whatever kind of vision that was.
And Fanchon discovered that it was a great many kinds.
The transfer was made comfortably, with nice judgment of a respectable
interregnum, and to the greater happiness of each of the three young people; no
objection ensuing from the easy-going parents, who were devotedly fond of
Crailey, while the town laughed and said it was only that absurd Crailey Gray
again. He and Virginia were the best of friends, and accepted their new relation
with a preposterous lack of embarrassment.
To be in love with Crailey became Fanchon's vocation; she spent all her time
at it, and produced a blurred effect upon strangers. The only man with whom she
seemed quite alive was Vanrevel: a little because Tom talked of Crailey, and a
great deal because she could talk of Crailey to Tom; could tell him freely, as
she could tell no one else, how wonderful Crailey was, and explain to him her
lover's vagaries on the ground that it was a necessity of geniuses to be unlike
the less gifted. Nor was she alone in suspecting Mr. Gray of genius: in the
first place, he was so odd; in the second, his poems were "already attracting
more than local attention," as the Journal remarked, generously, for Crailey had
ceased to present his rhymes to that valuable paper. Ay! Boston, no less, was
his mart.
He was rather radical in his literary preferences, and hurt the elder
Chenoweth's feelings by laughing heartily at some poems of the late Lord Byron;
offended many people by disliking the style of Sir Edward Bulwer, and even
refused to admit that James Fenimore Cooper was the greatest novelist that ever
lived. But these things were as nothing compared with his unpatriotic defence of
Charles Dickens. Many Americans had fallen into a great rage over the vivacious
assault upon the United States in "Martin Chuzzlewit;" nevertheless, Crailey
still boldly hailed him (as everyone had heretofore agreed) the most dexterous
writer of his day and the most notable humorist of any day. Of course the
Englishman had not visited and thoroughly studied such a city as Rouen, Crailey
confessed, twinklingly; but, after all, wasn't there some truth in "Martin
Chuzzlewit?" Mr. Dickens might have been far from a clear understanding of our
people; but didn't it argue a pretty ticklish vanity in ourselves that we were
so fiercely resentful of satire; and was not this very heat over "Martin
Chuzzlewit" a confirmation of one of the points the book had presented against
us? General Trumble replied to this suggestion with a personal one to the effect
that a man capable of saying a good word for so monstrous a slander, that a man,
sir, capable of declaring his native country to be vain or sensitive ought to be
horsewhipped, and at this Crailey laughed consumedly.
Trumble retorted with the names of Benedict Arnold and Aaron Burr. "And if it
comes to a war with these Greasers," he spluttered apoplectically, "and it is
coming, mighty soon, we'll find Mr. Gray down in Mexico, throwing mud on the
Stars and Stripes and cheering for that one-legged horse-thief, Santa Anna!
Anything to seek out something foolish amongst your own people!"
"Don't have to seek far, sometimes, General," murmured Crailey, from the
depths of the best chair in the club, whereupon Trumble, not trusting himself to
answer, went out to the street.
And yet, before that same evening was over, the General had shed honest tears
of admiration and pity for Crailey Gray; and Miss Betty saw her Incroyable
again, for that night (the second after the Carewe dance) Rouen beheld the great
warehouse tire.