A FATAL SUCCESS
"What surprises me in her behaviour," said he, "is its thoroughness.
Woman seldom does things by halves, but often by doubles."--SOLOMON
SINGLEWITZ: The Life of Adam.
Beekman De Peyster was probably the most passionate and triumphant
fisherman in the Petrine Club. He angled with the same dash and
confidence that he threw into his operations in the stock-market.
He was sure to be the first man to get his flies on the water at the
opening of the season. And when we came together for our fall
meeting, to compare notes of our wanderings on various streams and
make up the fish-stories for the year, Beekman was almost always
"high hook." We expected, as a matter of course, to hear that he
had taken the most and the largest fish.
It was so with everything that he undertook. He was a masterful
man. If there was an unusually large trout in a river, Beekman knew
about it before any one else, and got there first, and came home
with the fish. It did not make him unduly proud, because there was
nothing uncommon about it. It was his habit to succeed, and all the
rest of us were hardened to it.
When he married Cornelia Cochrane, we were consoled for our partial
loss by the apparent fitness and brilliancy of the match. If
Beekman was a masterful man, Cornelia was certainly what you might
call a mistressful woman. She had been the head of her house since
she was eighteen years old. She carried her good looks like the
family plate; and when she came into the breakfast-room and said
good-morning, it was with an air as if she presented every one with
a check for a thousand dollars. Her tastes were accepted as
judgments, and her preferences had the force of laws. Wherever she
wanted to go in the summer-time, there the finger of household
destiny pointed. At Newport, at Bar Harbour, at Lenox, at
Southampton, she made a record. When she was joined in holy wedlock
to Beekman De Peyster, her father and mother heaved a sigh of
satisfaction, and settled down for a quiet vacation in Cherry
Valley.
It was in the second summer after the wedding that Beekman admitted
to a few of his ancient Petrine cronies, in moments of confidence
(unjustifiable, but natural), that his wife had one fault.
"It is not exactly a fault," he said, "not a positive fault, you
know. It is just a kind of a defect, due to her education, of
course. In everything else she's magnificent. But she does n't
care for fishing. She says it's stupid,--can't see why any one
should like the woods,--calls camping out the lunatic's diversion.
It's rather awkward for a man with my habits to have his wife take
such a view. But it can be changed by training. I intend to
educate her and convert her. I shall make an angler of her yet."
And so he did.
The new education was begun in the Adirondacks, and the first lesson
was given at Paul Smith's. It was a complete failure.
Beekman persuaded her to come out with him for a day on Meacham
River, and promised to convince her of the charm of angling. She
wore a new gown, fawn-colour and violet, with a picture-hat, very
taking. But the Meacham River trout was shy that day; not even
Beekman could induce him to rise to the fly. What the trout lacked
in confidence the mosquitoes more than made up. Mrs. De Peyster
came home much sunburned, and expressed a highly unfavourable
opinion of fishing as an amusement and of Meacham River as a resort.
"The nice people don't come to the Adirondacks to fish," said she;
"they come to talk about the fishing twenty years ago. Besides,
what do you want to catch that trout for? If you do, the other men
will say you bought it, and the hotel will have to put in a new one
for the rest of the season."
The following year Beekman tried Moosehead Lake. Here he found an
atmosphere more favourable to his plan of education. There were a
good many people who really fished, and short expeditions in the
woods were quite fashionable. Cornelia had a camping-costume of the
most approved style made by Dewlap on Fifth Avenue,--pearl-gray with
linings of rose-silk,--and consented to go with her husband on a
trip up Moose River. They pitched their tent the first evening at
the mouth of Misery Stream, and a storm came on. The rain sifted
through the canvas in a fine spray, and Mrs. De Peyster sat up all
night in a waterproof cloak, holding an umbrella. The next day they
were back at the hotel in time for lunch.
"It was horrid," she told her most intimate friend, "perfectly
horrid. The idea of sleeping in a shower-bath, and eating your
breakfast from a tin plate, just for sake of catching a few silly
fish! Why not send your guides out to get them for you?"