The Unlit Lamp. 1922

CHAPTER ONE


A DANCE ON STATEN ISLAND IN 1890

“G

OOD LORD!” said young Vincelle, turning up the the collar of his overcoat. “I didn’t know we were going to the ends of the earth.”

“It’s worth it,” said his friend.

They sat in total darkness while the hired hack dragged them up the hills of Staten Island; it was a bitter night, and Vincelle wasn’t prepared for it. He shivered and pulled the rug higher over his knees. He was taking a little more than his share of that rug, but Pendleton, feeling himself more or less responsible for the cold, made no complaint. It was he who had persuaded Vincelle to make the arduous trip from Brooklyn to Staten Island, to attend a dance, and to see the prettiest girl there was to see. And Vincelle was a fellow accustomed only to cities, to warm, well-lighted houses and theatres and swift transitions in street cars and hansom cabs; he was, moreover, not adaptable and not compliant.

He looked out of the window with a sort of dismay; nothing but bare trees against a sinister night sky; now and then a lighted house in a big garden. The horse went steadfastly forward, with a monotonous jerking

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 of his head; outside on the box loomed the swathed and shapeless figure of the coachman, who didn’t appear to be driving, but to be waiting to get somewhere.

“Is it much farther?” asked Vincelle, in an ominous voice.

“It’s not really far from the ferry,” said his friend. “Only being uphill all the way makes it seem longer.”

“I’m numb with cold.... Why the devil wasn’t I satisfied with the pretty girls in Brooklyn?”

“It’s worth it, I tell you!” Pendleton assured him, earnestly. “I’ve never had such good times in my life as I’ve had at the Masons’. Informal, but a good tone, you know. Charming people!”

Vincelle didn’t answer at all. He made up his mind to be very critical; he felt that the Masons needed to be almost superhumanly charming to compensate for so much discomfort.

They began the ascent of an outrageous hill, and the cheerful Pendleton, looking out of his window, announced that they were “practically there—the house is at the top of this hill.” He turned down the collar of his coat and gave his silk hat a careful rub with his sleeve; he began to stir about under the rug. But Vincelle made no preparations whatever; he intended to look cold and uncomfortable; it was not for him to please, but to be pleased. The carriage entered a gravel driveway with a sudden burst of speed, and drew up under a porte cochère. Lights were shining from the long windows curtained in white, and the sound of their wheels had brought a man-servant to the door.

For a moment Vincelle lingered while Pendleton made his arrangement with the driver, and then they entered

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 the house together. And it astonished Vincelle. It was so extraordinarily full of light and colour; on either side of the hall were open doors, showing big rooms brightly carpeted, with blazing fires and flowers everywhere. From some distant region he heard voices, laughter, footsteps. The man-servant ushered them into a smaller room, carpeted in red, and lined with book shelves, where on a little table before the hearth stood a huge punch bowl; he proffered and they accepted; then he led them up the fine stairway to a bedroom which was hospitably ready for them with a roaring fire. He returned with a jug of hot water.

“Dinner in half an hour, gentlemen,” he said, and went away.

No use denying that Vincelle was impressed. Certainly they didn’t do things in this way at home. Jugs of hot water, instead of a chilly and possibly very distant bathroom, wood fires instead of hot-air registers and gas logs, flowers in February, instead of potted palms and rubber plants. Moreover, this idea of leaving it to a servant to welcome guests impressed him by its casualness; his mother always received visitors with ceremony, as soon as they crossed the threshold. He recognized here something exotic and rather disturbing; he got up and went over to the bureau, where he could critically regard himself, for he had decided that, after all, he would try to please.

He was a handsome fellow, very dark; he had heavy features and a sullen and obstinate mouth; he was not very tall, but stalwart and powerful. He was twenty-five, and though he looked even younger, owing perhaps to that tragic sulkiness, he had a thoroughly adult

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 and responsible air. He was no fop, like Pendleton; there was sobriety and decorum in the cut of his coat; he was even then every inch the business man. Evening dress did not become his thick-set figure, but he was naturally not aware of that.

“Do they have a gong—or send after you when dinner’s ready?” he asked, still intent upon his image.

“They do not! You’re supposed to know, and if you’re late, they don’t wait for you. Come on! You’re lovely enough!” said Pendleton. He surveyed his friend good-humouredly; it didn’t disturb him that Vincelle was handsome and he was not, or that Vincelle had money and was almost sure to make more. The Masons wouldn’t care about that. He was consoled by certain advantages of his own; he was lively, cheerful, witty in a very mild way; everyone liked him; he was, in an innocuous sense, a “ladies’ man,” master of the utterly lost art of polite flirtation. He was tall, slender, elegant, with a long, sharp nose and a bulging forehead; his hair and eyebrows were so light as to look almost white; he had wrinkles about his little blue eyes; it is of no significance to say that he was twenty-seven, because he was ageless, and would be in no way different ten or twenty years later.

“Come on!” he said, again.

In great decorum, conscious of their immaculate appearance and their value as eligible and admirable young men, they descended the stairs and entered the drawing-room. The subtle air of excitement which Vincelle had felt upon entering the house was intensified here, the same abundance of light and flowers, and a big fire. But with the addition now of an agreeable babel of voices.

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Pendleton led him forward to a stout lady in black silk, with an august, kindly face and a very high colour.

“Mrs. Mason,” he said, “may I present——”

“This must be Mr. Vincelle,” she said, cheerfully, and held out her hand. “You’re just in time. We’re about to have dinner.”

And she took the arm of a young man in spectacles and led the way into the dining-room, followed by all the others, without order or ceremony. She was not the aristocratic person the young man had expected, but she was dignified, and that sufficed for a mother. No more introducing was done, and he sat down between two girls who talked to him immediately and agreeably. But he couldn’t respond; he was a little out of his element; he was accustomed to formality, ceremony, an air of sobriety, and it didn’t agree with him to be plunged suddenly into the midst of a dozen strange people, without, one might say, his passport. If people didn’t know who he was, then where was his prestige?

He looked about him. There were certainly a dozen people, all of them young, with the exception of the hostess, and a queer, bearded man who was unaccountably dressed in a rough grey suit and who likewise had the effrontery to wear run-down morocco slippers. That was bad; that was odd and eccentric, and everything he objected to most strongly. But the two girls beside him addressed him as “Professor,” and if he were a professor, that explained it, though without justifying it. His glance left this unpleasant object, and sought for his friend, and found him opposite, lost in conversation with a girl. That must be the girl, of course! He stared at her, entranced. Pendleton hadn’t exaggerated in the

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 least. She was charming, fascinating! Mentally he made use of the adjective which probably four out of every five of the young lady’s admirers used. He called her “fairylike.”

As a matter of fact, she wasn’t quite pretty, but no male person had discovered that. She destroyed judgment. She was a little, slight thing, rather pale, with reddish hair that stood out like an aureole of fine copper threads. She had warm brown eyes, the kindly eyes of her mother; small, pretty features. But her charm and her distinction lay in her wonderful animation. One could, he thought, look at her for hours, and never tire of her gestures, of the change of expression on her mobile face. She was witty, too; or it seemed wit to him, her dear little grimaces and her jolly, good-natured banter. No, he didn’t blame Pendleton in the least; she was worth the trip. Her dress satisfied his exacting requirements too; it was white, much beruffled, cut a little low in the neck, with short sleeves, and it had a train. It was the dress of a young lady, for in these days there really weren’t any girls.

She raised her eyes and met this new young man’s glance, and smiled at him—a hostess’s smile, friendly, but a little impersonal. He was gratified to see that she didn’t appear at all serious with Pendleton; she was, he thought, somewhat mocking. And from that hour, he decided to consider his friend’s well-known worship as a thing of no consequence, simply one of Pendleton’s innumerable little loves—a sort of joke....

It was an excellent dinner; he couldn’t remember a better, and it was surprisingly abundant. He was accustomed to frugality, and more or less austerity. His

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 mother had finer linen, more silver, more magnificence, but never had she had on her table a feast like this, such honest, unpretentious excellence in food. There was one wine served throughout the meal, which was not according to his standard of elegance, but it was a good wine, beyond denial.

When the meal was finished, the ladies rose and fluttered away.

“Not much time, you know!” said Mrs. Mason, warningly, as she left. “It’s after eight!”

The professor then produced a box of cigars and a decanter and they lingered for a time in the warm room, very content. But the sound of carriage wheels interrupted them; they threw their cigars into the fire and went into the big room across the hall, where Mrs. Mason was waiting. A succession of bundled-up forms went past and up the stairs, descending in due time as more young ladies; the room began to fill. Pendleton was busy taking his friend about and introducing him here and there, not leaving him until his card was quite filled and he had secured two dances with Miss Mason herself.

What was it about this particular dance which made it different from all the other dances he had attended? Why did he have such a surpassingly enjoyable evening that he looked back upon it with a smile all his life? There were pretty, lively girls, a floor like glass, good music, a matchless supper; but there was nothing unusual in that. No, there was some quite special quality about it; a charming festivity, a revel wholly youthful and innocent and happy. He held the adorable Claudine in his arms for two waltzes; he had very

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 little to say to her, but he was by nature taciturn; he listened instead. He was lost....

The carriages began coming back and the dance guests to take their leave. He watched one group after another of bright faces vanish, then at length the front door closed upon the last one, and Mrs. Mason, with a sigh that was half laughter, sank into a chair.

“Mercy!” she said. “I’m getting too old for this, children!”

There were only the house guests left now, and the family, standing about the big room. There were himself and Pendleton, the lovely Claudine and her mother, and five other persons, whom he was beginning to be able to place now; there were a daughter and her husband, there were two bosom friends of Claudine’s, and the incomprehensible young man in spectacles.

“It’s after two o’clock,” said Mrs. Mason. “There’s a little sort of breakfast laid out in the dining-room for you young people, if you’re hungry again. But don’t be long over it, and don’t disturb your father as you come upstairs. Good-night, all of you!”

She rose heavily.

“And, Lance, you’ll put out the lights and lock up?” she added.

The young man in spectacles nodded.

“Mother,” said Claudine, “it was lovely! It’s so dear of you!”

Her mother looked at her for a moment with a faint smile.

“You’re only young once!” she said.

Trite words, certainly, and none of her hearers felt their force. Her other daughter kissed her warmly,

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 her son-in-law escorted her to the foot of the stairs, and her stout, black-clad figure was seen ascending, wearily, a little bent.

She puzzled Vincelle; she had no elegance; he felt sure that his mother would call her “ordinary.” Yet there was about her a dignity, an authority, he had never seen surpassed. And her way of entertaining you had a sort of vigour and originality about it; he felt that she didn’t care much what other people did, or what was correct, but was concerned only with comfort, gaiety, and this unostentatious, invincible dignity of hers.

“Come on!” said Claudine, and they all followed her across the hall.

A new mood had settled upon them; they weren’t conscious of being tired, but they were, all of them, subdued, inclined to a pleasant seriousness. The room was shadowy, except for a hanging gas lamp above the table, and the glow of the fire. They sat about the table, hungry in spite of the hearty supper they had consumed a few hours ago, and the young man in spectacles began to talk in an unaccountable and eccentric fashion about Pre-historic Man, and drew a picture of him, cowering and shivering on such nights as this.

“A life of incessant fear,” he said. “Imagine that. Never to know security. Never to see any possibility of safety. No chance of old age.”

Vincelle listened, but he felt vaguely that Pre-historic Man was rather blasphemous and Darwinian and free-thinking. It was also displeasing to observe that Claudine was interested.

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“It’s safety that’s made us develop, isn’t it, Lance?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“It’s safety that’s making us decline,” he said. “It’s making us soft and weak and dull.”

“But if we weren’t secure, we couldn’t have any art,” said Claudine.

“Art!” said the young man, with a harsh laugh. “Art! The opium dreams of drugged, idle people!”

The married sister interposed, laughing.

“Don’t be so serious, Lance! Claudine, dear, you’re not attending to us!”

For Claudine was sitting at the head of the table, dispensing tea and coffee. The sparkling brightness had gone from her face, she looked pale and a little weary, but lovelier than ever. Vincelle was now disposed to admire her more seriously; she had poise and dignity, and she could talk in a way to startle him. She had something to say even on the topic of Pre-historic Man; she had ideas which he couldn’t have had.

“Life lost its meaning,” Lance went on, “when it ceased to be a struggle.”

“For Heaven’s sake, when did it cease to be a struggle?” said Pendleton. “They forgot to tell me. I thought it was still pretty hard to get a foothold.”

Lance ignored him.

“Man waged a magnificent and heroic struggle with Nature,” he said, “but was defeated.”

“But was it really so heroic, Lance? It was an involuntary struggle, it hadn’t any aim. It seems to me that now, when we’re conscious, and can really try to improve

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—”

“We don’t. We can’t. It’s too late. We’re in the final stage of evolution. We went the wrong way.”

“Lance is a paleontologist,” murmured the girl next to Vincelle. “He’s wonderful, isn’t he? But so gloomy!”

Vincelle had no idea what a paleontologist was, but he didn’t like them. He felt horribly out of it. He couldn’t be learned, and he wouldn’t be funny, like Pendleton. He was quite aware that he wasn’t making any sort of impression here. Claudine must have become conscious of his dissatisfaction—perhaps he showed it—for she suddenly addressed him.

“What do you think, Mr. Vincelle? Do you think we’re a miserable, doomed remnant?”

He flushed.

“I’ve never given it much thought,” he said. “I’ve been busy keeping up with business.”

His poor little remark sounded so sulky and infantile that even he was confused.

“And politics,” he added, in an attempt to sound broader-minded…………..